Bussin' With The Boys - Eric Church Got Fired By Taylor Swift & Rascal Flatts + Explains His Viral Stagecoach Set | Bussin'

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

Eric Church joins the boys on the bus for one of the most incredible interviews we've ever had. The Chief opens up about the label almost dropping him before Smoke A Little Smoke saved his career, the origin story behind the sunglasses and nickname, secretly pressing the Mr Misunderstood album in Germany without telling his label, getting fired from the Rascal Flatts tour and finding out from Taylor Swift, launching the Me And Myself Tour as the ultimate troll move, Bob Seger calling and changing everything, headlining Stagecoach with just a guitar and a choir, the commencement speech that broke the internet, and announcing The Six Strings Of Your Life book. Plus the boys break down Myles Garrett to the Rams, Aaron Donald coming out of retirement, UFC 250 on the White House lawn, bachelor party tier talks, and the Knicks taking over New York. Subscribe. Big hugs, tiny kisses.    Timestamp Chapters:   0:00 Open 0:43 Eric Church Is The GOAT 2:09 UFC 250 On The White House Lawn Predictions 5:46 Michael Chandler Will Never Retire 6:10 Alex Pereira Over Jon Jones? 8:16 Travis Pastrana Recap 11:03 Taylor Almost Cried Last Episode 14:16 Delanie Crushed Racin’ With The Boys 15:23 Fans LOVE Intern Chris 17:07 Bussin’ Bash 2026 20:14 Power Ranking The Boys Night Out  23:24 Will's Beach Vacation  27:01 Will Ran Into Brian Kelly On The Beach 32:59 Brendan Sorsby Is Back 39:57 Myles Garrett To The Rams 40:24 Aaron Donald Is Coming Out Of Retirement 45:01 Jared Verse Got Traded To Cleveland  51:31 AJ Brown To The Patriots 54:03 Ro Spicy Tier Talk 59:00 Tight End University & The Dad Combine 1:01:05 The New York Knicks  1:03:39 Stanley Cup Finals  1:05:00 Best Warm Up Songs  1:07:12 Did BWTB Get Florida Georgia Line Back Together 1:08:21 Peeing Yourself During A Football Game 1:14:22 Eric Church Interview Begins 1:16:04 Eric Church Has Never Used Social Media  1:18:11 The Label Almost Dropped Him  1:21:10 The Sunglasses And Chief Nickname Origin Story 1:24:04 Secret Album Drop With Zero Promo 1:28:08 Chris Stapleton And Justin Timberlake Stole The Moment 1:37:58 Eric Church Got Fired From The Rascal Flatts Tour 1:41:02 Taylor Swift Told Him He Was Fired 1:42:11 The Ultimate Troll Move 1:44:06 Bob Seger Called And Changed Everything 1:47:34 Headlining Stagecoach  1:50:00 Lightning Was Inspired By The Green Mile 1:51:18 The Record Label Meeting That Went Horribly Wrong 1:55:08 Getting Drunk At Tin Roof + Getting Signed 1:58:03 The Commencement Speech That Broke The Internet 2:04:35 The Six Strings Of Your Life  2:05:52 Bud Light Question  2:09:37 Eric Church Beefs  2:13:14 Staying True To Your Creative Compass  2:20:48 Eric Church Mentors Ella Langley  2:24:27 Fan Questions + Connor Smith Question 2:28:20 How Bussin’ With The Boys Started 2:34:52 Does Eric Church Recognize Fans In The Crowd 2:38:17 App State Or UNC Wilmington 2:39:13 Does Eric Church Sleep In His Sunglasses 2:41:03 The Outsiders Was The 2016 Titans O Line Walkout Song See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

All right, we're good. Bussing with the boys. Hanging. Betting on a... Bussing with the boys. Bro. You have the desire to help a real difference?

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Why do I watch the World Cup? That's like asking me, why do I breed? And it's beautiful. The guys are young and cute and fat. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force.

From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American Football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. Listen to American Football on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everyone sees me as a football player, but before anything else, I'm human. Every single day, I'm still learning how to live with problems,

mistakes, relationships, emotions, ever since I was born. This isn't a normal podcast. Everything here is spontaneous, real, and genuine. Just honest conversations about what it means to be alive. I'm Javier Chichariot-O-R-Nandez and listen to Learning to Be Human on IHard Radio, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. Ladies gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Bustin with the Boys. This is episode 384. A lot of stuff to talk about today.

A lot of stuff. One of the greatest country music artists of our generation was a guest on our podcast. We have a lot to get into. But nothing more important than. Subscribe. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

No, no, you're right. Subscribe, too. Comment. Yeah. All the things. Yeah. If I just say all the things, they know to do all the things. Correct.

Is that good? Yeah, it's great. Can I tell you this? Yes, sir. Did you know that Bustin with the boys is presented by the undefeated, undisputed, number one sportsbook in America. Fandle's sports. Oh, boys. There are fight nights and then there is this.

This Sunday, June 14th, Ilya, Teporee and Justin Gagee, headline a massive net of fights live from the White House lawn. A couple guys on this bus will be at that fight and Fandwell is making it even bigger with not one but two 50% profit boost. That's right. All customers can claim two 50% profit boost to use on any fight Sunday for a shot at boosting their winnings. Whether you're back into Porre or riding with Gaii or building some same game parlay around

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To Pallier. I know. Listen. I know we're celebrating 2050 years on the White House lawn. Go ahead. And I'm picking against the American. It's great. It's a crazy move.

It's a crazy move. I'll tell you where my heart's going to go. Go ahead. Mike Chandler. Hell yeah, brother. Hell yeah. So. Unfortunately, I'm with Will.

And that's all I have to say about that. You got to go with the American. No matter what the outcome is, the first fight at the White House, UFC 250 celebrating, got to at least just pull for the stars and stripes. Even if you're wrong, at least you know you stood with.

with the right country. No doubt, but on the Fandul. Yeah, on Fandul, my money will be. I thought we were just talking about pure... Who we want to win. Yeah, I mean, I want the American, every American to win, but yeah, unfortunately, I don't know if Gathe will win, but Stars and Stripes.

Sherman Young. Gathe, next question. All right, Jared Beaman. Gatie, next question. Mitch Carsley. Gatie. That's where you're putting your money. I'm putting my money.

We're talking about... I'm putting my money. Let's talk about what we're putting our money. Taylor said it right. Like my head's one place, my heart's another spot. Yeah, it's true. It's true because you do. We sit there.

I have the same thought process as Jack, right? 50 stars, 13 bars. These colors never run. Gachi, something about being on a white house lawn while fireworks are going off and he's just catching a spaniard in the jaw and he goes down around one. That juices me up. I get a little blood flow underneath when I think about that. But I watched Ilya to Poyer walk in to UFC in Las Vegas.

I watched him stare down Oliveira and then look over. and give a fist bump to one of the guys in a red suit who's truly just there to make sure that's those for a security standpoint, look over at Hunter Campbell and give him a wink, and in round one,

give him a piece to the jaw, and he just goes, he didn't even break a sweat. So with that being said, my two 50% profit boost tokens from Fandul will be going to I'll be going to Ilya to pouria. I want it.

I need it for America. But my God, that Spaniard, the way he walks out, that aura, it reminded me of Pereira that when, You walked out, you're like, that man's just operating a little bit differently. Could see something different?

Hope to see something different. Like his odds aren't longer than Rocky Balboa and four going up against Ivan Drago. There you go. I wish he was fighting a Russian. Yeah. That would be awesome. Yeah. That would be awesome.

That would be incredible. And we needed to be outmatched like Ivan Drago and Rocky. It would have been for sure. Yeah, we need the whole world. We need every podcast in the world. Be like, no shot. Gachy's going to win. Then Gachie gets it done.

Yeah. That's what you want. Michael Chandler, Wilcoffin already said it. He'll be fighting in this, fighting against a Frenchman. A Frenchman. We got to take down the French, man. Gotta take down the French.

I got them to win the World Cup, but not UFC. 250 birthday, baby. Wee, we. We, we indeed. Yeah, when it comes to physically imposing your will, this is where we need America to step up. We need it to happen. I need to see old school Michael Chandler.

Take the governor off kid. Fist just absolutely flying, and let's put him down around one. Yeah. Put him down. I need to see seven backflips out of the kid. Do you think he puts the gloves down? No, I don't

I don't I don't think he knows how to put the gloves down Yeah I think I think this is the squad in this bus That'll eventually have to go to his house And be like it's time It has to be over man

You're done look at your wife Bree She's such a sweet woman You need to be here now All right It's time to get after Mike have just turned 30 You have to stop

Exactly I had some fun callbacks Also Alex Pereira Alex Pereus He's fighting in the fight He's fighting another Frenchman Honorary American Honorary American

Chapa Chaba Chama Chama JP what do you What do you think about Dan is saying if he wins Gets a third title He'll be the goat

Over John Jones I'm with it I think 100% He's taken down All of the best fighters Ever minus John Jones In the toughest weight classes And he just

He did it like as a hitman Yeah like coming over From kickboxing Yeah and I think that Just kind of adds more To his storyline Because the storyline plays such a big role in like these guys legacy and Pereira has one of the best storylines.

I hope he gets it done. Now, forgive my ignorance. He'll hit in the air. Dude, do that walkout? And I'm so excited. We did say a few boys are going to be at this fight. Will Compton myself and J.P.

Hovi will be at this fight. It'll be incredible. The walkout we've been able to experience. Those drums going, him doing, yeah, this thing right here walking over. And that arrow buddy, it's a movie.

it's goosebumps every single time you get to see it. It's very cool. Where are y'all sitting? So I have confirmed that we will be on the White House long because I know there's like 5,000 seats in that area. I've confirmed with Sweet Nicole Dana's assistant about that because there is like a watch party. It's like 86,000.

And then my brain kind of goes to it's a cool event. But if we're in the watch party area, it might be better for all of us maybe have like a boys watch party taking place in Nashville, Tennessee. But once I heard that we will be on the, the South Lawn. I mean, dude, iconic.

Yeah, we'll move a couple things around. We'll make it out. We'll make it happen. Because it's going to be a banger. This entire week we have coming up with dad. We have a dad combine. We have a couple big things in the horizon that we're not going to talk about. Racing with the boys.

Racing with the boys. We got four of the dads. Obviously, we're ripping every single week. We got a lot of stuff going on. This fight's happening Sunday. We got to be back Monday for a big time interview. Yeah. For a big time intro.

So we got a lot of stuff to get done on that Monday as well. So yeah, sleep's going to be a little bit deprived. That's okay. All good. We got form energy. We got form energy and we do the work, dude. Come on. Yeah, for the country indeed.

For the country, man. Last week we had the goad on, Travis Pastrana, one of the greatest human beings to ever walk this earth, one of the most influential people to ever walk this earth. Most innovative athletes of all the time. There was a dollar bed that took place between me and him just to shake his hand. It was enough for me to just go to bed happy

every single night for the rest of my life. But Neil Porcelli, one, two, three, eight says, Travis will go down as one of the most influential, innovative athletes ever, just said that. The range of sports

in which he dominated, dominates is incredible, all tied into him being an awesome dude, definitely someone you have your kids watch and look up to. Couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more.

Maybe not do all the things that he does. Absolutely not. You know what I mean? And I thought you had an incredible question, would you want your kids to do what you did? Because you watch him walk around

and like, I think his gate when he's walking, it's like, okay, maybe he's okay. But then he goes, goes to like, you know, put his arm up or maybe stumbles a little bit. You're like, oh, you got, yeah, you got the x-ray that's not really the x-ray, but that's your x-ray type of eyes, you know?

He's just looking for some camaraderie. He's just looking for some camaraderie. And, hey, guy can get some jaw sets in, too. I love it. Yeah, sure. I did have one follow up that I wanted to say for today. He is a hero of yours. You got to meet one of your heroes.

You played it very, very cool when he was sitting in Will's chair right there, and he turned to you and he said, you got to come out to put. Estrana land and you very quickly kind of glazed over your answer and said, yeah, that sounds great. But how did that feel? Like inside your body, inside your brain. It felt incredible. Felt incredible that not only he did that, but he tried to make a couple plans of Cletus McFarland, November 13th. They have that big race.

He's like, you guys got to come out. It'll behoove him to have us come out as well. Yeah. He's already in his brain. His agenda has bustling with the boys, Wilcalfton and Tara Luan with him in the future. And that juices me up because there's been a- Travis Pastrana. Yeah.

That's amazing. Has you in his plans, bro. It has me and his plans. Now, how have those plans still in there? I hope so. I hope so. I hope so. He could have left the shop and it could have just been like severance.

Like his brain is back. What we got next? Yeah, dude. It's awesome to have. It was cool to sit there. And I'm no joke. I said this after and you'll see it on, under the hood.

But I did say when he was breaking down his double backflip. and explaining it and the details of which he was explaining it. I'm no joke sitting in this chair holding back tears. I was legit saying they're like, I can't believe he's talking about something that is such a huge core memory of my life

knowing where I was when it happened that I caught myself being like, hey, you're gonna cry right now? You should have. You're a little bitch. Would have been great. Are you going to cry right now? So anyway.

The fact that you're crying about the double back flip man. The girlfriend's house to watch it? Yes. Is that the double backflip? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shout out Laura Shockley, dude. and her dad Jimbo, Jimbo dude, he was a Marine.

And he would just sit there and have a chew in his lip. I swear to God, I'd never seen a lip go out that far in my entire life. Man, a few words, but really cool guy. And we sat there and watching.

He was like, pretty cool. I'm like, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life. You're like, are you crying too? Yeah, yeah. The Pastrano Land thing is interesting because obviously Will Consum being a great friend that he is,

him and my wife colluded together to get us to Pastrana Land for my birthday one year. Yeah, I forget how long it was. There's been a handful of times that we've kind of been navigating in the night. I know over and over.

We'll make it happen eventually. That being said, there's a fear that takes place if we're actually going there because we're going to have to do things and probably get hurt. They're going to make us do stuff. But you did it with Travis Bistrona.

Like I got hurt. I broke my collarbone with Travis Bistrarian. I did still, dude. I got heroes, but I also got this body that it's seen a lot of damage. You know? Nothing compared to him.

I got a function, you know? Yeah, but he's so, he's so calloused. Yeah, I don't think he feels pain, bro. I don't think he's got the idea of pain in his head. He said he doesn't get scared until shit hits the fan. Yeah. And that's when he's in his flow state.

That's his comfort zone. It's incredible. It's incredible. Yeah, you know, it might have to draw the line on a couple things. Like, if I know, okay, this is where everything goes. But what would you do? It, all of it? Probably, I just want to watch.

I mean, I do like, man, would I do the trampoline than what those videos? Hell no, bro. I said Blas Porta Taurus Potta Tatella attended at a trampoline park He started showing us The trampolines

All I thought about was Bloss I'm like I ain't doing this shit You would ride one into like the phone pit I was gonna say you gotta But just a simple ride into the phone pit Just like I'll fall into it You wouldn't like go off a ramp That's like right on the phone pit

So you can just kind of broop Like kind of dribble in there I might just drive it up On the ramp and then get off And then jump in the phone pit You're running down the ramp to jump in. If there was like a 50 foot kicker

and they're like jump this in the phone pit, I don't know if my brain would allow me to accelerate enough. And then as I'm accelerating enough, I'm like, street by Tommy. And I would let off the throttle. And then I'm landing somewhere between the foam pit and the ramp. Here's what here's my. But it's also, you're at Pastrana Land.

No doubt. And I love that you're saying it that way. Because this is my save, this is my saving grace here. I have you. And as impulsive as an individual as I am, I got the thinker to my side. And when you go,

No. I just got to say my head when Will says no. I say no. That's what I got to do. Will said it so I can't. I'm actually his head of security. I'll be your yeah I'll be your head of safety. Is that a safety? I'll do it. A hundred percent. I know you will Mitch. Yeah, we'll do it. I'll know you. We got to bring Delaney out for that too. I've got to bring Delany. You'll do some shit too. I do have one thing to say about Delaney but I'll wait because this is an incredible callback for Will Compton. Bamad Don Don. Yeah, go ahead. The 242 mark. Bamadon Don't Don had a nice laugh when I said wow this is nuts. who's the guy on the dirt bike.

That's our head of safety. Cry laughing emojis all over the check. Seven of them. Go ahead and leave a comment. Willie, the timing was genuinely perfect and hilarious as hell. I'm glad you enjoyed that Bama. Bama Donda.

Bama Donda. She's looking for some camaraderie. My one thing to say about Delaney. That guy crushed it on racing with the boys. He was incredible. I had no idea what to expect. We've seen him in the locker room. We know how Delaney is at all times.

He was prepared. He asked great questions. He had follow-up questions, good conversation with a guy William Byron, who everyone says is a dude that keeps to himself quite a bit. He came out out of the shell. He was awesome to be around. Because he's like, he's a gamer that transitions into racing, right?

Yes. He said after the show, he's like, that's the most I've ever talked. Oh, dude. Ever. And he was great the entire time. I truly enjoyed his company. But Delaney was awesome, dude. Yeah, I loved it.

Delaney's a stud, man. He was holding. If we want to transition, he was holding court. at Taylor's the barbecue we had he always holding court with all like the interns and everything you're talking about Delaney yeah oh man yeah you look around

you go around the corner Delaney's got a group of people staying around he's got he's got fresh blood that doesn't know all of the stories so he's just retelling all the stories and he says interns his eyes are this big and just soaking in Delaney Walker and all his glory we can get into this weekend absolutely just a second we have one more from Christian Nunes 1717

intern Chris fucking rules dude a lot of comments love Love and Chris. A lot of comments. Love and Chris. The only thing that fears me about all the comments, it'll be gasoline for him because he can talk now.

Listen, I've said this to a few people. I've said this to a few people on this bus. Chris is dangerously close to being too much. Dangerously close. He's got a fine line. He's got to rip because sometimes I'm doing something and I'm like in my brain. I'm like, I got to go do X, Y, and Z.

And on the way, I'll be like, Chris, baby, how are you? And he'll be like, oh, I'm doing great Taylor and he'll just start going. And I'm kind of caught. Like, I'm in my fourth step away from you. But you're still going to where I need. need to turn around now. Like every 60 seconds I'll just have to take another step to where my hand is on the door. My hand is on the handle and I'm like lifting

it up and I'm just looking up in the rafter still listen to him. Yeah. And then he stops and then I made the mistake by just ask him another question. And which for whatever reason happens every time because he's so inviting. And I was just making a joke too. I was like did you talk a lot as a kid as well? And he's like well yeah then he goes into a story. I'm a yapper. I like to get after. You do a pretty good Chris. Thanks dude. You do. Thank you. We interviewed all the interns on inside the bus and he was the last one

and it very quickly turned into him interviewing us. I mean, we had no control and 15 minutes later we're like, all right, we got to wrap up. And he didn't take a breath the whole time which is incredible. I don't think the guy ever takes an inhale. He's talking right now. He's talking right now. Dream

scenario was Delaney being in office the other day for racing with the boys meeting Chris and those two is literally like Kit. Like y'all just go. Skim the stream room. You guys going here. They were crushing it. Yeah. Crushing it.

Two completely different personalities. Oh, yeah. Just, but they would gel no matter what. Two individuals that can jail with literally anybody. Yes. Anybody. Yeah. But hey, shout out the callbacks. If you want to do a callback, you hit this one. Eric Church, this episode, you do a call back in there. If you like it, we love it.

The pre-pro boys, they grab it and we'll put it on the show. You're more than welcome to that. We also have tier talks as well. We'll hit at the end of this intro. Big week for Bustin with the boys. Big week took place. All right. Will Compton, he was in Italy. We had Bust and Bash 2026 on Friday. We went out with the boys. First time I've been on losers in about seven years.

I'll be honest. It'll be another seven, you know? It'll be another seven. It was fun. It was a great time. Great time. It was a great time. Mitch, you were there too?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Once I knew Mitch was going, I felt better about going because Mitch is in his 30s. Now I was like, all right. Okay. Damn. Well, no, no, I listen. No, I'll take it.

I remember being like 21, 22 years old at losers. These guys would be like 35 to 37, be like, what are you doing here? This is a little much for you. I turned 28 in two weeks. I was going to say he said 30. No, Mitch is 30. His soul is 30, bro. Oh, that's what I said.

I'm not taking that as a slight. No, no, no, no. Old soul, Mitchie. But, like, Brooke was, like, ready to go home. Like, hey, Taylor's coming. Taylor never, ever does this. We got to stay out. He's got a timer on his phone for one hour.

Once he leaves, we can leave. Yeah. That hour turned into two, three, a couple more hours. What? hours. We close it down. Did you go out to eat after you close it down? No, I went right home. I took chef, put him in my Uber. He slept in my cabin.

Friday night. I wake up Saturday morning. We go to the farmer's market with the kids and I have a call from chef at like 1030. I've been at the farmer's market for an hour and he's like, you still here. I was like, no buddy. I'm at the farmer. He's like, oh, well, hey, man, I appreciate you. He's been on a farm. I'm going to go fishing. I was like, yeah.

I was telling J.P. how Matt was acting when he showed up eventually I was like I was just excited to see the boy like we're out like Matt and I go out maybe once every two months he comes walks by oh AT

hey T just gave me a half-ass dab wanted to see Taylor like just literally not even looking at me just put his hands out no Ferda Ferda man Oh no He was so excited to see Taylor

but couldn't give less of a fuck about me damn Not like, but yeah, it was like, all right. To be fair, to be fair. I mean, it's the first time I've been out. 100% ever. I agree. Ever.

I agree. It was fun, man. We had a, I just spent a lot of money getting all the boys hammered and I was sipping on a couple of neutrals. Yeah. Guys, we're like, let's take a shot. I'm not taking a shot. I'm not, that's so. What are these things?

Roop beer shots. You got Brooks. That's the new. That's the new. Yeah. That's the new phase taking place. You got, you got Brooksie like five of them. Yeah, Brooks is out there.

We're five minutes. these are Taylor I'll fucking die for you tonight anyone fucking tries you I'm thinking if somebody tries me I'm gonna leave dude I got two kids I'm not fighting nobody intern Brooks oh yeah

you know that is so much I will fucking die for you tonight Taylor that's like day you're the man power rankings of the vibe you don't have to like rank them with numbers but like I got to get a little bit of inside ball and how everybody was acting Matt

I won't start with Matt I'll give you my tier one of the night. The tier one vibe of the night was Ryan Nolan. Oh, I mean, something about that kid, man. He's just got the juice, man. He's got eyes on him too. I'll just tell you that it's all as far as all go.

But this guy, he's got eyes circulating around Ryan Nolan. It's that middle quaff that takes place. And he's got a jovial little bounce to him, right? He's got a little bounce to him. Always smiling. He seems like a happy cat. He's very inviting personality. So it was fun to watch him quite a bit.

Interns were definitely like a like a flock of like of sheep almost. They were kind of like all together. They didn't want to break one away. I felt like they were stronger in numbers. So it's hard to kind of differentiate any of them. You had to go with, I'll give Brooke my tier two.

No, Brooke, your Brooke. And hey, phenomenal woman. Every time I've seen Brooke the last seven times, I reintroduced myself to Brooke. That's how bad I am. You talk about CTSPN.

That's me. I go up, hey, nice to meet you. She's like, yeah, we've met. And she was so cool about it. I was like, hey, I'm never fucking this up again, dude.

I can't do that. And tier three probably goes to Mitchie, baby. I would give that. I would give it to Mitch. He just, he just could tell. He was the foundational pillar piece of everybody. Was all the interns out?

It was Brooks, Henry, and Dirk. Ryan was out of town. Chris is only 20. Brooks, Henry and Dirk, power ranked those three. In Taylor's defense before he says anything, I feel like they were Maybe not Brooks, but Henry and Dirk were a little like

A little gun shy, a little shy A little gun shy. Especially like being out with their boss Kind of deal. Henry does have a girlfriend as well. Yeah. Yeah. I did, I liked Henry's vibe.

He's got, I think he's got like a Ryan Nolan vibe about that. He does. He seems very happy. I love how we just have Joe Burrow too. Yeah, we have Joe Burrow. I mean, that's essentially, if Ryan Nolan worked out,

that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, I could see that's why I know him with 15 pounds of muscle extra on it right there I'll go Brooks next because his enthusiasm was incredible and then uh and then yeah dirt yeah I mean that was those three yeah he's just I'll tell you this dude dirk that arm he's got yeah the dog bite because I think who uh was it I think it was coop and chef for the first one to show up at at bus and bash and they're like hey dirk was talking about your dogs are they friendly I'm like what's what's going on there

Have you seen his arm? I was like, no, I haven't. And he came in, he showed it to me. That told me a story about his cousin and a pit bull. I'm like, dude, first off, your cousin's an idiot. What a dumb guy he is. That's such a dumb move. He worked that story into his job interview here.

I don't know how, but he told me that during round one of interviews. No way. Yeah, I don't know how we got to that. He said when he gets drunk, he's like, I don't text like an ex-girlfriend. I text my cousin. And I'm like, F you. Like, but then it was a good time. I think the vibes.

The boys were awesome. It was great. But I'll tell you what, this sleep score, man, it's just so bad. I even sit here now on a Monday and I'm like, I don't know how you fellas do it.

I was telling Taylor, I'm like, one boss down, leave the second boss to come out. And Taylor was like, he's never fucking done. He ain't fucking doing it. He knows his boy.

He knows his boy. You know who I feel like has an incredible sleep score every night is Bill Compton. I tell you what Billy C. Billy C's all. off the seat pat machine. Is sleep bat he's gone?

Hey, shout out Bill. That's awesome. A rivalry as old as time came back to life. Him versus the smores over the weekend. I'll tell you what. More and more beach guy. Willie Beach, Willie Beach boy.

Willie Beach boy. Slowly. Great boogie board and weather. The rip ties were all time. Like you play saving Private Ryan on the beach where you're just getting taken. We're just getting caught up by the waves of Roos trying to save me.

Roo has zero concept of time. She never gets bored. She just wants to constantly jump over the waves. Scotty has absolutely zero fear. She could get taken by the waves, and I think she'd be smiling the entire time. She's an absolute liability on the beach. But great vibes on the beach,

building sandcastles, digging holes. I feel like I'm more of a dig-a-hole guy than I am Sandcastle guy. Keep Scotty busy in the hole, burying each other in the sand. Like, we just had a great time. We're about a thousand steps from walking to the beach every day.

So slow mornings, like late night staying up playing Uno. It was just an all-time good vibe. We had a bonfire one night where we got with some friends. They joined us. We had about 15 of us ripping around making s'mores. It was a boy got kissed by the sun a little bit. Both girls, their hair just gets blonde when they're out in the sun. All-time weekend.

All-time weekend in 30A in the Italy of America. Yeah. 30A is really growing on me over and over again. I used to be anti. I used to especially be anti-Alas. And you go there, the convenience fact that it takes place. Go there, you call them, hey, this many chairs set up, s'mores, tacos if you want them, whatever. You go in there and it's already ready for you.

And when you're ready to go, you just ninja smoke and get out of there. It is a vibe. Another secret spot. I mean, Shurham, you didn't live there, right? Your grandma lived there. But Greaton Beach. That's where Brian Kelly is located. Which, shout out to Brian Kelly.

Which Brian Kelly, LSU, Ball Co. Fired BK. Florida Georgia Line. The crew that we got, you know, that we basically got back together. You're welcome. That's where Kurt Binker is located as well.

Yes. He's in Great Beach. He's in Green Beach as well. Brian Kelly, former LSU head ball coach, he was like three houses down, like on the street that we were on to go to the beach.

He's there like full time. He was ripping around in a Bronco. I was like, walking, I have my glasses on with my big vacation at. And he was like, hey, how you doing? And I was like, Coach Kelly.

He was like, what's up? And so I took everything else so he could identify, Because I didn't want to seem like a weirdo talking to Coach Kelly. Yeah. I was like, yo, Willie C. Bus with the boys. How you do?

And he's like. He's like, oh, yeah, man. Oh, he knew. Yeah, like, once I took everything off, like, I had a big hat on, I had sunglasses on. And he was just saying, like, good morning. Basically, like, as we were walking by. Because the guy who was like one of the people at the spot, like hosting us, he was like, hey, Coach Kelly lives around here.

I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know Coach Kelly. And then when I saw him and he was basically saying good morning, I was like, dude, I'm trying to, how you been, man, how you doing? Right. How do you know Coach Kelly? Oh, he was in the bus. Yeah, he was on bus with the boys.

Oh, my God. He went to LSU. But he's not the most personable guy, so it's like, yeah, yeah. You know what my brain went? He was the head coach of Notre Dame when we were coming up. So I don't know if you. Yeah, Cincinnati, Notre Dame, then went to LSU. Yes.

Had a rough go this last year. Oh, he didn't do well at LSU? No, he's having a rough go. Oh, damn, really? Him and Nassmire. Who's the head coach of LSU now? Lake Kiff. Oh, okay. All right.

He's the guy now. It's all clicking in my brain. He's the guy now. Sleep score, bro. I'm telling you. That's bad. Sleep score's terrible. But caught up with him.

It was a great time. Nice. Did you guys grab a dinner? Grab a drink. Anything like that? Went to Georgia's, got in line early. We were first in line. Oh, really?

We were number one. Come on. Yeah, dude. What was, you were saying the spot earlier, was it raw and juicy? Yeah, I love raw and juicy. That's kind of... Hit the coffee spots. Great and Beach.

We went there for breakfast. They have a phenomenal breakfast tacos. Mm-hmm. God. But great weekend. Started dial it in. 38 started down. The food's starting to catch up a little bit.

I'm a certain thing. Because the real estate was going. People were going down there a lot. I checked it. I was like, real expensive for the food to be okay. And this last time I went, I was like, okay. Have you been, have you went to Georgia's yet? That's the one.

Is that the one across the street from, um, because there's raw and juicy. And then you walk down a block and there's that like horseshoe where I think no no coo's in there and not citizens. Citizens is what I'm thinking of. Yeah, citizen is in there. You can go down a little bit, either farther or right before, but Georgia's is the one where people are like standing in line because you can't get reservations.

You have to go and be in line. Really? Yeah. See, I wouldn't do well with that. The salt, what is it, the salt and spicy, or salt and pepper shrimp. Oh. Out of this world? Jesus Christ.

Yeah. And I'm talking Calamari. They're Calamari fries. Not the skinny, stringy calamory. We're talking Calamori. Fries. Yeah. Do you like the octopus calimori?

I'll eat it. I love it. That's my favorite one. Sketchy looking, but I'll eat it. Yeah, yeah, sketchy looking the first couple times you dive in and you don't know how you're supposed to feel, but that's my favorite now. Yeah, you feel like you're just eating an animal

that should still be out there riffing around. Looks like it. Yeah, out there doing his thing a little bit. Like, man, they kept his shape and everything. One thing, I know it was an incredible weekend for you, but last time I was in 30A, we went down to Panama City, Panama Beach, whatever, and we swim with dolphins. And I'm like, well, you've got to go do these dolphins.

These guys do the tours. They know exactly where they're at. It's like not if it's when you're going to see them. And you dive in there. I had like a little one goal right past me with a baby nestled up. Wild dolphins. Wild dolphins. We're talking out there freelancing.

Oh, wow. Freelancing dolphins. I'm like, you've got to go. So I hit Will, what was like third Friday, something like that? Yeah, Friday. And I'm like, hey, you can go see those dolphins? And his text was the schedule with the schedule we just weren't. Like all the optics, like having like it's getting my dad there, getting white there,

having the in-laws kind of first time having the house and getting the family there because we're trying to create like an annual family vacation because this was our fourth year there in a row around that time but trying to get everybody corralled and just you know you're feeling out the vibe first vibe with everyone knows what he says anything you hit like five more times in that day before I guess we're not

going to dolphins yeah the Duke of Bontair was swimming with some dolphins that's what I'm saying he he wouldn't go no he would he would you'd have to for no Billy C wouldn't be getting on a boat out in the water You're like in a cove And you're just like

There's a cool little Like you're legit in a cove And then there's a little opening And you just go out in the opening And take quick left Like you can see the beach You're not just out In the middle of the abyss

You're not getting what I'm saying He ain't leaving the house Like even if I explained how easy Would be he ain't He ain't getting out there He ain't doing Will Can you simulate the conversation

Of you trying to get Billy C To go out with the dolphins Like how would you even approach asking him I would tell him, I would just break down, hey, we're thinking about going to swim with dolphins. We'll go out on the boat, kind of giving the whole breakdown,

like Taylor said about going to swim with dolphins. Very easy, very seamless. You could stay on the boat, I'll swim out there with him. But I think we're going to get everybody, take the family and go out there. Let's say it's, let's call it Saturday. He would nod his head.

He'd probably grunt and not say a whole lot. And then Saturday would come, and then he would back out on Saturday. I think me and stuff we're going to stay back. We're going to hit a couple shops. And then we'd just be going back and forth. I would just know he wouldn't want to do it. Yeah, yeah.

Like white water rafting back in the day when we were in Colorado, trying to get him in a whitewater raft. He was pissed about having to go whitewater rafting because he didn't want to get injured whatsoever. And he's because he loves the leg press. Yeah. And don't take the leg press away from him. Because he's like, there's a couple of things I love in this life.

Him and my mom at the time were arguing back and forth. He's like, I love my family and I love weightlifting. And he's like, I don't want to risk weightlifting and get taken away from me. We talk him into doing whitewater rafting. he gets a stop and pulled over like just a quarter of the way through he gets out on the side and a bus has to come pick him up and he's going to wait down at the end i was impressed and happy just to see him standing out in the water letting waves hit him in the shins seeing him laid out on a chair he was sunbathing and then 45 minutes or an hour goes by then he puts on sunscreen

so then he's burnt the rest of the time this isn't a guy that gets out in the sun he's got like the Ratchie Reds. Same with White. They did put on sunscreen at the beginning, and it was a hot, you know, the wind, the wind's blowing to where you just don't feel how hot it really is. Yeah. And then they're just blistering sunburn the next day. Wyatt's got his shirt on on Saturday. My dad's got a shirt on being real careful out in the sun.

Oh, man. Yeah. Bill's got those Dale Earnhardt Jr. legs. Yeah. Just them pasty white thing they've seen the sun in years. Yeah. All the time. All the time.

But I was pumped. he came and he did the beach every day. Actually, except for Saturday. That's when he's like, I think we're going to stay back from the beach. Go hit a wall, go see some shops. Hit a couple shops. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Dad, do your thing, man.

You put in the work. Shout up Billy, man. Yeah, shout up Billy. See it later this week. Yeah, look at our hands and old Bill Compton later this week. That'll be nice. That'll be real nice. You know what's been on my mind.

Finally it's pulled up on the screen, but Brennan Soresby. Back in college football. Is it a clap? I believe so, yeah. I think for the kid, it's a clap. For college football, I don't think it's a clap. What? Bro, think about this.

Trinidad Chambliss, looking for his seventh year. NCAA says no, he's not going to get a seventh year. They find a judge that now says yes. So now he's getting a seventh year. Love it. We talk about a system is broken, everything else. Like, we need structure. We need some guardrail somewhere.

Brandon Sorsby, gambling on his team. I like, you know I'm a Sorsby guy. Like, I love Sorsby. But if there's going to be a precedent being said, it would be over something like this. The fact that the NCAA says no at first, and then they find a judge, similar to Trinidad, you find a judge that says yes in Lubbock, Texas,

probably somebody from Landman. It says, yes, and now you're reinstated. To the point where he's only getting a two-game suspension, like, what is this? Like, there are no rules in college football. So it's just another example to me of just the system at large is being broken. Yeah.

Like a failing system. I hear everything. So I'm fired up that he gets to play because I want Texas Tech to be a player. I love Coach McGuagel. We love Texas Tech. We love the Red Raiders. So I'm happy on that side, but just the college football landscape at large. I'm like, fuck, this is not.

Yeah. Because now what happens is like, say you're somebody right now, like gambling on your team this year. You get caught. It's like, well, there's evidence over here. He only got two games suspension. Right. And there are a couple of bangers you got suspended for. Yeah.

And it seems like all you have. have to do is find a judge locally. It's goodbye. Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm with you. And we'll handle business. Yeah. Love everything you said. Nothing you said was wrong. Here's my stance on the whole thing.

Brennan Sorsby, first of his name, breaker of chains. That's what we're looking at here. We have a system that is broken. In order to fully collapse a system, you have to completely break that system. The more of these things happen, the Trinidad Chambleases, the Sorsby's, when those things are rearing their ugly, naked head right now, now we truly have the ability to go, look at how. broken this is without the stores because without the the chamberlaces we could have years and years

and years of college football being in a weird limbo between heaven and hell and a purgatory it is now we're seeing this where we need to get congress the government all these things involved to put a legit umbrella under college football which is turned into like a minor leagues of the NFL where guys are making as much if not more money they would be on their rookie contract let's part to start to put some guardrails on there is there going to be a cap put in place how much money can a team actually put in? How much can third parties actually come in to start giving these people more money when they want two million? They can only give them one. So they give them another million because of a car dealership down the corner. These are the things that need to take place

in order to fully break what is the NCAA or what was the NCAA. Personally, where we grew up in with the NCAA and their rules and regulations, how strict they were, kind of being like a big brother from 1984 on us was you can't do anything. You can have a bagel, but you can't have cream cheese. You can be on the field, but your coaches can't be there. So the GAs have to. There's always going to be something where there's going to be a loophole. Now that these big things are happening, we're able to break it all down and start anew. That's kind of where I'm at to where this is not a positive because this kid gambled on his team and then now he's going over and still over the play. But the positive is the long term of we're seeing how broken

it is. Now we can go fix it. Yeah, I think everybody's understanding how broken it's been. Like, To me, it's like, when is the urgency going to be there to finally get something in place? I agree. I agree. Because if not, this stuff's going to continue to happen. Yeah, I think so. I love the fact that he gets to play. I love that he gets to play. Yeah, look, He's been featured.

I mean, he would have lost a lot of money. I don't know how much of money he's making with Texas Tech. I'm sure the numbers and the threes or fours or whatever it is, but he's making a bunch off the field as well. He would have gone to the supplemental draft. Teams aren't giving up a first round supplemental for him. It'll be a second at best. and so for him to do this do his thing hey right is wrong hit the therapy or the rehab thing for

about 15 20 days do the do the whole the whole deal put out a statement onward go play ball kid have fun do your thing want to do it responsibly let's never do that again let's keep moving forward that's wrong now yeah for the for the kid i am i am glad he's getting to play football yeah just think big picture in my fog man it's it ain't good it ain't good i say we just sit and enjoy it for a little bit. Now that I'm thinking about it too, Heism and Future, I don't think he's on. I think he could have an,

I think that, but even if he has an all-world year, like are the voters, would the voters actually vote for him to be a nice way to come? That's a heavy bite. That's a heady play by Compto right there. Because he's going to get it,

he's going to get a punishment somewhere. It's not in the first two games you're playing some slups. No disrespect to the first two games for Texas Tech. But you are right. This kid has an all-world campaign whoever's in that second and third tier they're going to get the nod before him.

Someone's going to get him. Someone's going to get them. Because the draft is too far away. You know? Jeff don't care about that. Oh yeah, yeah. You're talking the NFL drafts, right? Right.

Yeah, I'm not, I'm talking about my futures, bet. I'm talking about my futures on old fandle. I feel like he would rather play. Let's just say he's like, he's able to play except the two games, but like he's just exempt from the like the, like the postseason awards.

Like I feel like as a player, I feel like you'd be cool with that. Like, all right, yeah. Oh, yeah. The fact that you're getting to play football this year is a massive win. But like I'm just not, I'm not eligible for Heisman, Maxwell,

Dave O'Brien, like all of those like quarterback awards and shit. Like I'm not eligible for those, but I don't really care. Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to play football. Like, hey, I fucked up. I'm trying to play football.

Yeah, that's on me. They got what, Abilene Christian, Oregon State to start? Yep. They'll get those before they're going to Houston. Man, I wish we were getting that Texas, Texas Tech game. I know. But then Soresby's got to play. I ain't got to let him play.

Let him sit out for one of the other ones. Because you want to see Best on Best, right? Shoresby came there for a reason. You want to see it happen. I'm excited for the kid. The system is broken. And I think in 10 years we're watching a really cool documentary on Netflix about how the world of college football

and how it was in the 20s. Yeah, it's going to be produced by us. It'll be produced by Bustin with the boys. Produced by Bustin with the boys. There's two different, two different voices. Will and Taylor's will be like, this was awful. Hey, it wasn't that bad if you really think about it.

It's really fun. Back and forth. There was a lot of fun. A lot of chaos taking place, and that's kind of fun. Travis and John said that's fun. Yeah, yeah. So we get to have fun with that.

I just looking for some camaraderie. Yeah, looking for a little camaraderie, you know. I know we are a week late on it. Like, it came out the day we were recorded last week, but Miles Garrett going to the Rams. Yeah. And I'm kind of happy we didn't get to, initially react to it because I've thought about it.

I think this trade is going to be what people believe the Micah Parsons trade was going to be. Like the Rams have all the tools to be successful this year. They were probably top three in the league to win a Super Bowl. And the addition of Miles Garrett, I think this is, if there was a question mark, that's your future's bet right there with family. Not only that, but I think Aaron Donald's coming.

I did. I think so too. Is that a Kevin's Central Food Clean Take? Kevin Central Food, clean take. Aaron Donald will play for the Los Angeles Rams this year. Hey, that's a clean take. That's a clean take. I didn't like Miles Garrett in this pitch.

I didn't like it the way he was showing off like that. He kind of threw a heater in there. I know, it was nice. Because he put some oomfinite. Yeah, he did. He put some fucking umphill. He towed the rubber. That was nice.

If you're Aaron Donald, how do you not come out of retirement and play? How old is he? 35. 35 years old I mean he's out there saying whether it's Texas McAfee or Texas or whoever he's flirting with the idea

he's got to figure out if the fire can be lit under him it's if you're there there's no doubt in my mind that the fire is lit you're just preparing yeah you're just staying low the thing that worries me dude is like well how many years he's been on the league

two three he's been out for a couple of years now really all it takes is one dude you know what it's like when we go to games and you're watching these guys warm up to me, I'll just speak for myself. When I watch these kids in college or these dudes in the NFL play football, I am like, how do people even do that? And I've been out for three seasons where I'm like, this just seems like once you get

comfortable, you know, you've made your money, you've done your thing, you're a first about Hall of Famer to be, you've done all of it and buddy. That physicality that takes place week in and week out to get up and go get in. I have no doubt the guy can go do it. But you need that callous. You've got to have that where you're taking the hits, you're going to the OTAs, you're doing the training camp. He's not going to do that.

He's going to show up week one. And I bet you he's going to have a hell of a season because that's the kind of talent he is. But me and myself personally, I cannot think of stepping in and playing a football game right now. Yeah, but this Aaron Donald, this is, he stepped away just on his own. Yeah.

He just didn't care to play him. Like knowing that you actually could go on a Super Bowl run, two years off, if you're getting a little bored, he's clearly stayed in shape. Like, he's got that itch. That itch is there. And he's got a phenomenal relationship with Coach McVeigh. Like, you have every ideal situation going on, him just in his living situation,

to where it's like, hey, why not go out there and play? Yeah. Because he can do it. It's not like he has to be this Hall of Fame guy stepping out there. He could surprise everybody and still be that same guy. But if it's the whole saying, if anybody can do it, Aaron Donald can do it. I legitimately feel like he can step on the field and still be somewhere. Somewhere within 30% of what he was.

Dude. For a year, for a season. And you have the most ideal situation you could possibly ever have. You're going out there and just having fun, playing next to Miles Garrett and Fisk and Young. Yeah.

They're stacked. And you've got Stafford, bro. Puka Nakua. Devante Adams. You got them all. You got everything you need. And let's say Aaron Donald's not who he was a few years ago. The age is caught up with him a little bit.

He's not in football shape, whatever it is. He's still going to garner a lot of attention those first five games. To where you're like, we can't just double Miles. We have to go back to double a Aaron as well. It can't double that many guys. And he's still strong as fuck. You see him on Instagram, bro.

He puts in the goddamn work. Buddy, the 150s, he was thinking for a ride. Yeah. An absolute ride. It was insane to watch. I think he's not going to have to, like you said, he's not going to have to deal with those double teams because of Miles Garrett.

Right. Like he's going to be Maybe like the first game or two Right, let's see what he's like And then the tapes out there He's not what he was But he's still like He's not gonna be like that top three

De lineman but he could easily be like Still top 10 And still makes like I think from our vantage point But he's gonna want He'll still want to go in there And be like I'm the I'm the one they're still gonna have to circle

On the scouting report Whether or not it's true Like this dude I mean he's arguably the best of all time Arguably the best of all time Arguably the best of all time. Yes. It is terrifying to watch.

And you know what? Everyone's talking about Miles Garrett and Aaron Donald, but verse. Like if there's ever a time for an athlete to put a chip on their shoulder, they traded you away. You're an absolute stud. You're a Pro Bowl, all-pro caliber type of football player. And they traded you away and a first-round pick. That's how much better they think Miles Garrett is than you. So when you're playing the game in your head in the offseason of like these guys think I'm X, Y, Z,

you have a perfect barometer to show you exactly how the Rams felt about you if you're in that, you know, delusional competitive mind space of the NFL. And he's gonna, I think he's gonna go off. Yeah, be delusional, but if you get Miles Garrett,

you kind of have to. No doubt, I'm with you. People thought I was taking a shot at the city of Cleveland last week when I'm like, the one I felt bad for was Jared VERS, like having to leave L.A. Like, again, the setup,

we were just out there interviewing and Coach McVellel. Like, we know how this organization operates, playing for Coach McVeigh, the roster that they have, Stafford at quarterback, you're a legitimate Super Bowl contender. And they kind of get the call that you're getting traded to Cleveland. He gets to go back toward where he grew up, which I'm sure is nice, but just the stuff that comes of winning, bro.

The stuff that comes with winning. The way he talked in the office, like he jumped on all the podcasts. Like you can tell he loves all the rivalries the Rams have. He loves playing against the Seahawks. Yeah. And you're playing with your boy Fisk. Right. You guys played together at Florida State

Like You had such a great He had a great situation I know he's fine I know he's gonna get He's gonna get broke off Like he's one of the premier Ends like in the league

But I'm like damn Going to go and play for the Browns now man Yeah Going from L.A. to like the just strictly talking quality of life No you can't say that though We don't want to see here And take shots at the city of Cleveland

Like they were in my mentions Upset thinking that I'm taking a shot The city of Cleveland I'm saying the organization going from the Rams where they're at, who you have on the roster to the Browns. They thought I was taking shots of Cleveland.

Like there's Cleveland tough out there. It's Ohio tough. For sure, but Cleveland is not in LA. Hey, I'm with you. I'm just saying you got to be cautious with these Cleveland. But there's some tough motherfuckers out there.

But also, if you're talking about the totality of life, you're thinking about your bank account, you're thinking about cost of living. You're doing all those things. Fisk is going to be way better off in Cleveland. Yeah. Vers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, versus be way better off. Like, he's going to buy a, he's going to have a mansion, $500,000. He's going to get all the food he wants, cheap as hell. Yeah, single player game, you're getting massive margin. Yes, massive player game. Absolutely. Now, the wins, that's where it's going to hurt a little bit, buddy.

Because Cleveland, I don't think they're in a great position right now to be overly successful in the NFL this year. Yeah. I don't think they're in a huge position to be overly successful. The Rams, like if you're reversed and you watch them win a Super Bowl, you are going to be fucking successful. sick. If you love football and you love playing on a great team, it's tough reverse to go to Cleveland. Yes, yes.

But single player game, big win. Big win for first. Big win for first. Big win. That's a single player game? That's the win. Bigger win for verse. Yes.

But if you love football and you love playing on a great team. And you want to win games. And you want to win games with a coach that you already know in love with teammates you clearly know in love. Yes. Tough hell. Shider though. Shitter.

Yeah, but Matt Stafford. Nah DeShedar Sees Shadr Wardson I know Who starts for Cleveland I mean it has to be

Deshawn They're paying him a billion dollars For nothing The last three years So hopefully Yeah Shudur Shoulder will be

starter by week eight Deshawn Watson's played like 16 games In the last four years Combined And he's freaking like The fourth richest guy

Yeah I mean Single player game Single player game Sean Watson Yeah Big bump Who knows man

Who knows what's going to happen That new coaching staff in there? Yeah. All those things. DeShon Watson playing quarterback. That will be interesting to see if he's going to still be able to play at like a starter level.

Because me, Aaron Donald, being a detackle, like, as long as he's still got some Twitch, he's still strong as hell. Like, he's going to figure out because he's just genetically, he's got it, all of it. And the way show him's put the hand in the dirt. Right. Night fighting. Be strong. Night fight, be strong.

Joke somebody out. Get to the quarterback. Yes. All the things. There's a fight team place. Buckle your helmet. Get out to midfield. Go handle business.

Hey, don't care if you did training camp. Get out there and fucking tackle that quarterback. Right. And it's like, okay, I'll go do that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Deshaun, he has 16 games in four years. Tough.

Tough living out there. He's been out of the league arguably longer than Aaron Donald. There's debates out there. There's debates taking place. But we don't want to come in the city of Cleveland because I feel like they're somehow going to get woven back into that. Tough bastard down Cleveland. I'm just saying, you don't want to mess with the Youngstown.

Great city. Luckily, Deshawn, it's like you can't. Nobody's not going to be like publicly defending Dishon Watson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One player game is as far as we'll go. Yeah, yeah, we'll go player game. As far as there. I know we've said a lot of things about Cleveland.

Can I just say one thing? Fuck the state of Ohio. That post sucks, dude. That place fucking sucks. We interrupt this episode to bring you Rose Sparks. The older one gets, the more it becomes clear that sex is about quality, not quantity. The vibes have to be just right. That's why Rose Sparks stands out.

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What do you mean is that nasty? It's nasty. You can just say Ohio State. No. Ohio. Talk about Mommy, Toledo, Cleveland. Cincinnati? Dude, Cincinnati.

Youngstown? I don't know if I want to say Youngstown. I don't know if I want to say Youngstown. The boys go a little hard in Youngstown. And if you're real mad about this and you want to do something about it, remember, it's just words, dude. Hey, I'm chilling. I'm jealous

this is Taylor's address but for real fuck a lot dude fuck that bitch they know it too dude oh hey

should you some spicy to your talk right by a row let's do some rose that's the best transition

you'll ever see bachelor party ideas now from miles garrate trade oh AJ now on the Patriots

too just a so under he's now a no one's really talking about it yeah because it

came like right after the Miles Garrett trade I mean are the Patriots the ones in the AFC

this year You gotta think so You don't think so Buffalo too Bengals Yeah Yeah What's the thing about the Bengals man

And the Ravens In Ohio What's that? Ravens Yeah Ravens But Ravens were supposed to be the best team Since football was invented This past year

I like the Jaguars too No I'll tell you I like in the AFC And they're making the playoffs I like the Titans making the playoffs I like the Titans made the playoffs a little bit a little bit. I think by the playoffs,

I think Titans. Oops. Yeah, I kind of like that, yeah. You got the Titans winning the division? I could see them winning the division for sure. Because I think Jaguars, they're sneaky, but it's like hot and cold. Who knows, Liam C.D.

a head coach. C.J. Stroud had a weird year last year. That defense in Houston's absolutely incredible. We'll see if if CJ is, CJ who was two years ago, then yeah, we got problems. So right now, June 8th. I don't like looking at the schedule. June 8th, who is.

would you pick to win the AFC South? I'll pick the Titans right now at this moment. At this moment. Cardinal Tate, dude. Cardinal Tate came out of a terrible state, but I will say this. He's got the attitude, too. We saw him at EA. We started doing all that.

Like he has, he has it, man. Can't put your finger on it, can't touch it, can't taste it, but he's got it. He's got the IT. He's got something going on there, man. It fires me a big year for Cam Ward. Big year. Kay Adams called him a dual threat quarterback. I wouldn't go that far.

elusive quarterback. Give them the elusive quarterback category. But yeah, I like the Titans, dude. It really goes to the coaching staff for me. Like, they're going to put them in good situations to win. They're going to understand the game. They're going to get gritty wins. And I could see Jaguars, Jaguiring.

I could see the Colts like they, you see a hot day started. I don't know what Danny Dodgers is doing out there. I'm not in with the, I don't think I'm buying the Colts. I think there's too many question marks. I love some Liam Cohen. There's too many question marks on all four teams. Torr, it's like, okay, Homer engaged. I'll just go Titans, you know?

I'm not putting a responsible bag on it, but I'll sit here and I'll wave the flag. Yeah. I got to get the training camp. I got to see these boys. Got to see these boys in uniform. Roe spicy tier talk. Bachelor party ideas.

Bachelor party ideas. Now, Deke, pre-production, he had, is it his bachelor party? Yeah. His bachelor party. And they're calling it the last great beer Olympics. Him, 20 of his boys, they got a keg, they're going off,

somewhere in Pittsburgh, which is so deeked of him to do. Beautiful place. We love it there. And they're having a beer Olympics and his dad is going to be the ref. I think that's as good as it gets. Yeah. Location. Got a hot tub. Hot tub.

Got to have that. Yeah. Location. Like, you know. You know what the best location is. You've been there. We've been there together. What did y'all do for your bachelor parties?

I went to, uh, mine was Lake Travis. Got some. Boat life, fam, yeah. In Austin. I do like being on a boat. Tabo San Lucas. Got some Marlin. Got it all cooked up.

Got it all cooked up. Had a nice little spot for all the boys. That's the place. Cabo San Lucas is a spot. Little squid row action. Guys hanging out. A little pool overlooking. Those beautiful rocks in that ocean.

Just a vibe. Suns out every single day. Can't beat it. I feel like Lake Tahoe could be a good. I feel like that, but I've never really been to Lake Tahoe. Same. It's all lore. It's all lore.

Have a suit. Yeah, I don't know about Avisu. Jake, you went to Charleston, right? Yeah, Folly Beach. Give me, yeah, give me the small beach town with some nice local restaurants and kicking it on the beach all day, spike ball, can jam, throwing the football, getting those balls that skipping the water, losing it probably within two, three hours. Yeah.

That's the weekend. Yeah. What'd you do, Sheram? We did Sam Marcus, the Guadalupe in Texas, which is a river, and a lot of rock skipping and a shallow part of the river where you could set the chairs out. And it's just like the water's going over your feet. You got a cold one in your hand. And you're just skipping rocks, played some golf, had some barbecue.

Had a little beer pong tournament, not like a full-on beer Olympics, but. It's all the boys need, man. Yeah. Men don't need much. Don't need much. I'll tell you what is a great bachelor party game. Chandelier. Oh,

yes. Chandelier is a fucking game now. That's a game. So where we're going? Tier one. Tier one. Beach. Tier one just put beach.

Beach vibes. Tier one, boys at the beach. Tier two, personally I'm thinking lake. Boys at the lake. Boys at the lake. Boys at the lake. Tier three?

Derrick's boys at the house with a hot tub. Cabin. Cabin. Where cabin. Yeah, yeah, tier three cabin, tier three cabin. Bottom tier, Bachelor or Bachelor at parties put together. That's my clean take.

I've seen people doing that. That's my clean take. I've seen a lot of people doing that. Bottom tier. To me, that's like that put that in the, I'll put that the lowest of the low right there. We have evidence of that not working in the NFL.

Don't want to throw anything. Yeah, don't be nasty. We don't want to be nasty. But you know what I'm referring to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The dual like, bachelorette and bachelor party, bride and groomed. them they're doing they're doing it together oh yeah yeah no no no I'm not put it down yeah not about that

that kind of defeats the purpose in a necessity too like a need you you have to have on your bachelor party is you need that one friend who you're just kind of nervous about the entire week yeah yeah could just be a liability okay if he buddy if you continue to get black out the way you're we're going to ask you to leave and you don't want to ask you that kind of you need that kind of guy in your group yes dude hell yeah like man we're just trying to have fun this weekend why you're trying to fight everybody He's such a pain in the ass the entire time, but you need them. Yeah. Gotta have them.

Everybody's thinking of that one person, too. Yeah. I'm trying to figure out who my person was. Mike Dietrich. Damn. First and last. All right. I'll go too.

It's so questionable. You're staying up late at night and he's just talking about all the shit he's got going on back in his personal life. I get why you there. We've got to just. He's needed this. Yeah. Hey, man. You're not getting married.

My guy's not like that. He's just. You go, yeah. Fuck off. Jared, you go back in the house and then you're like, my brother, we got to get so. That was our guy. Like, man, he's been going through a lot. Oh, so you're on his side, though.

We split the trip for him. Yeah, dude hasn't paid shit on this trip. Yeah, he doesn't have a job. It's always the first person that you see in the hot tub or the pool. Like the second morning there, you just wake up, everybody's getting out of bed. They're already in the pool. Yeah. They're just already drinking, too.

And like, you're just still recovering. What are you all? guys are a bunch of pussies dudes you want whiskey or beers i want water please for the love of god something with electrolytes in it i'm dying right now all right now good tear talk man good tear talk good tear talk thank you row thank you row very nice what else we got in the docket boys you got tied-in university coming up we are hosting on the field on the field will be host i think we'll have a microphone we'll be ripping around a little bit yeah their field day we will be host we will also be hosting their concert tied in you and friends big guess I'm hearing there's some good friends

that are coming I think there's some great friends that are coming yeah a lot of great friends will be there there's some uh look I'm not yeah yeah yeah I'm curious to see what this on field hosting will be like I yeah I am too what does that mean like yeah yeah you're gonna go five yards yeah they're gonna run through ladders George you're gonna run through the ladder yeah hey man we just we just show up to give us microphone they tell us what to do and we go do it to the best of our guys it's always a good vibe with the tight ends too it is yeah and we got a nice little roster of tight ends that are coming on the bus yeah and for the fans that show up just know i will do my job every time they got they got the circle

going around and greg or travis or george is breaking down a drill i'll be getting that microphone up to him so you that way you guys can hear from the stands getting some good journalism in for tight-in you this is like a live show now i have no clue but i'm ready to do whatever they want us to do You're ready to do whatever we need to do. Bring vibes, have fun. That's all you can ask for, dude. Get everybody in on the conversations that take place. Yep, yep.

All the stuff. Tied and you, man. It's going to be great. Tadden you. We got, what, For the Dads every single week? We got Dad Combine coming up. We got racing with the boys coming out on Thursdays. Just a, we got, oh, and yep, Shrim's over there ripping.

A little ripping. Special guest. Going to be showing up on Four the Dads. Billy C. Oh, we let it out. Not going to let it out. No, this is going to be a surprise. Next to me, Spencer, Joe, don't listen to that.

So just forget what I just said. Don't, yeah. Bill Compton's not coming up with a debt. Yeah, yeah. It's too far of a drive. Yeah, he's going to look at shops. He's going to do that day. Dude, how about the New York Knicks?

That kind of paces me off, dude. Why? All right, before we get into talking New York Knicks, because we love the NBA, this is the kind of sports moment you stop and pay attention to because the NBA finals are here and whether you're riding with the Knicks, who have been on an unbelievable run

or watching the next generation and the spurs, try to take over the league. Every game feels massive. And if you're getting in on the action, there's no better place than to do it on Fanduil. With more ways to build and more value every time you play, you can stack your picks your way for every game, every matchup in every moment. From spreads to player points, threes, rebounds, assists, and more. You can build it all in one same game parlay and go for a bigger payout. So if you're betting the same game parlayes during the NBA finals, bet them on Fandle.

more options, better payouts. Head to fandle.com slash busing to get started. Back to this up for good news. I want the spurs to win. The Knicks putting up 105 both games. You know, like I'm not, everybody knows, I'm not an NBA guy. Yeah. But to see the fandom of the Knicks come alive,

just from afar on social media, I'm like fired up for him. I'm fired up for the fan base. Yeah. New York crime has been hitting an all-time low. with the next winning in the finals. Oh wow, so it's actually saving cities. How can you not just see how happy they all are and fired up?

It uses me up. And I've kind of gone on the Wimby train a little bit. I'm still not on it. I've kind of gotten on it a little bit. I like the way the kid operates. I like the way he throws baseballs as well. So I'm just kind of, I'm in on Wemby. But yeah, listen, I just hope it's on a sweep.

Because what, they played two at the next? They played two in New York. Yeah, they're going to. They're in New York now. Oh. So they already, yeah. the Knicks stole too. Oh.

They've also built a 10-foot perimeter wall around MSG as of this morning. And Trump is going to be at the game technically yesterday. But so definitely be on the lookout for some interesting content post-game, especially at the Knicks win. I mean, they might tear that wall down. People are saying Trump finally got to build his wall, too. Oh, people are having fun. Do you see like the ticket?

Oh, yeah. How much tickets are being sold for? Oh, my God. Yes. Like a nosebleeds is like over $3,000. Yeah, that's out of hand. Oh, Shalame. There was one guy, he was like screaming out. He was screaming out one of the cameras.

He's like, everything I do my whole life, every single day is for the New York Knicks in this exact moment. I was like, what are you doing every day? Dude, it is. Hey, hey, basketball, man. It's fun. The NBA finals is fun, man. Y'all got to get on. I know.

I know. I got to watch a game before it's all over. Play of hockey, though. Play of hockey's been pretty incredible. Stanley Cup finals are going nuts right now. Who's in? Vegas and Carolina. Oh, I did know that.

There was like three goals scored in 35. It's been a wild run. They were up, the nights were up four nothing. Somebody blew it the other night, right? The nights were up four nothing, and we were at the bar by the time I walked back to my apartment. It was four three, and they scored, the cane scored three goals in 39 seconds. Fastest time, three goals of everything scored. In the third period.

Dude, it is. What's it? It's two one nights. one yeah man play off hockey fucking rips dude and it's just like yeah like Carolina they scored what like in the first 24 seconds in the first game

it's been a hype it's been awesome two overtimes it's been a high scoring series which is sick which sucks with those goalies yeah as you know they're in absolute blenders right now but from a fan standpoint who doesn't you know no skin the game for either of these teams is like this is awesome to watch fucking light the lamp

dude yeah like the lamp what does that mean that's like the you know how like when They score a goal. Oh, hell yeah. I mess with that. I like that. Yeah, light the lamp. All right.

Hey, I'm taking that. I'm running with that, Mitchie. That's nice. I think that's a pretty common phrase. I just figured that out just now. I'm going to take that one, man. Yeah. This day in June, man.

Should we get into? What is you guys from? We should. We have some tear talks. Nice. Hashtag tear talk. This one comes from John O. Steel.

Best warm-ups. Songs, hashtag Tier Talk. I'm gonna throw in Till I Collapse by M&M. Yeah, it's a good one. That's a good one. Warm up songs, warm up songs. Low-hanging fruit. Cinderella Man by M&M.

Oh. White America by M&M. Dude, good warm-up songs. Scrilla. Yeah, Scrilla. It's a good, Scrilla. Masterpiece by the baby. Yeah.

That's another one. That's fun. Sharp dress man. New North. By Z's top. A little slower pace something. I like a little day to remember. I like a little day to remember, a little under oath.

Well, as they lay dying. Well, his blood runs black. Joker and the thief. Something that makes you just like, just hate the, like, I'm going to die today. First day out. First day out. T. Grizzly.

Okay. I didn't play sports, but can Michael Jackson fitness at all? Yeah. Probably not. We were talking for the show Michael Jackson Rips. Is it any, any Michael Jackson songs? Probably not. Hold me I'm made of a Jordan

You know an unsaidity And you're just like eyes You my friend What was the song you listened to before every game Free Willie You know it said she made you cry Oh Mix drinks about feelings in you by Eric Church

That was like a That was like after the hot tub Get in a hot tub Go get in the shower Put it on no headphones on Just let it play in the shower And just have the water Water running over my head

Just a good cry Right before. It was the last song I was to do before I put my uniform on. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. Have a good cry. I cry like three times before a game sometimes, man.

That's good. That's good. Yeah. Sometimes you be walking around a little bit, just talking because you're nervous, trying to chatter up the boys. Most of them to lock in, they get yourself a couple tears out. You release a lot of good chemicals when you cry. You got to let it go sometimes, man.

You have a good cry. It gets you going. This year talk comes from Trevor Bickford. Are you all getting any credit you deserve for getting Florida Georgia Line back? together. I haven't got a text. I do feel like this pod should be the first pod they do together. Yeah. You guys can do that. Oh, you know, elaborate on that. You guys can do that one. What do you mean about that? Doug. I mean, we were back to back with them that week. Yeah. And that stuff was going

down. Yeah. Yeah. The first domino to fall. Yeah, it seems like it. We had the uncomfortable conversation. Yeah, there were artists hitting us up being like, yo, fired up that you guys did these had these conversations yeah people were there's still obviously very much friction there and now seeing seeing them post photos like getting back together I'm like small part boys play a small small part yeah some people are saying white boy country's back yeah there you go I'm sure our guests this week would love that it'll be a fan of that genre of country music being back we should have them both on though.

That'll be a good one. Yeah, I mean, I'm down, yeah. We should definitely think about that. We should definitely have a brainstorm about that. What's this tier talk? Oh, shit. We got one here from Drew Garrison. Hashtag tear talk as an adult.

So college or pro have either the boys pissed themselves midgame. Like they're not coming off the field, so they just let it flow. I mean, I can be on the field. I can be on the field. I can be in the bedroom. I can be sitting right here on bussing with the boys. I can piss myself at any moment. Yeah.

I would, yes. The answer that is absolutely. Yeah, my first game ever dressed. It was week 17, got called up, last game of the season, recorded one tackle, 2013. And I was nervous, but I had to piss. And I didn't know if I should ask somebody like, hey, where do you go to the bathroom?

Because I just wanted to kind of keep my head down. Like, hey, I'm finally, I'm wearing, I think I was number 53. It was my first jersey I put on. I'm just on the sideline And so I was nervous to ask a coach Or anybody if I could go potty Or like hey where does somebody go piss at

So I just pissed myself on the sideline Nice Cold game Gold game Not a lot of sweat Just a stream Yeah not a lot of sweat Got out there for a few punt reps

A few kickoff reps Was it raining at least? Yeah it was raining a little bit But not a whole lot Not enough to London Fletcher's last game ever I feel like if it rained He should be in the Hall of Fame

Yeah May he just posed it up 35 y' yard Like, chilling. Talking to his boy, just... Hell yeah, that's the move, dude. Because, you know, you just have the fear of, like, I don't want to do anything that could...

I don't know, I'm just in my own head over thinking everything. Like, you'm finally out here. The visual is just so funny. Just picturing you standing there on the sideline. Yeah. Does anybody know what I'm being? You have a little bit of a focus gaze to get started.

Yeah. I'm really think about it for somebody. I'm going to go now. Yeah. And then somebody starts talking to you mid-pee, you're in trouble. You're doing it on the sideline or on the field? On the sideline. I mean, you can't really focus that.

No, it's so fast in between the place. Yeah, you can't be like a, pst, oh, a whole lot of us. You're in the dog pile. The junior on top of just feels something getting warm. Yeah, let's fucking go. Let's go. Like on the sideline, it feels like there's just so much chaos going on when it was my first game. Like everybody, hey, punt team's up.

Put team on deck. you're just trying to get in where you can I'm like I don't want to go up to anybody coach like dude can I Is there anywhere we can go to the bathroom I gotta go inside the locker room I can't really hold it right now So I just shut that down and I saw I just

Are there to pee myself? Yeah there's 10 There's blue you could use a blue tent to pee Okay You need to pay out of piss real quick Trader takes you in there Blue tent piss come back out But it's something about peeing yourself

There in a football game is That is what you want to do We would do it all the time We absolutely if you're playing in Jacksonville Some guys talking to you between the first second quarter, you just pee yourself and you point down and you look and you just sees the stream coming there. Like, that's what you're doing to me, dude. Give a little leg shake. That's how you're making a thing? Make sure he gets down. Hey, how chaotic is it when you're on punt team? And it's like

third and four for the office. So like, hey, pot team, punt team, get ready. And then we get the first down. Like, all right, never mind. You just chill. You're just like, you get the first down. It's like, all right, let's go. Chill for a second. Just go drink a cup of water or something. It's like your heart rate says this. Are we about to go out? Oh, we're just chill. All right. We're just going to hang out. That first game, you just, I didn't know what to do. do like as far as sideline etiquette because you're just the complete bottom of the top pole. So say it's third and four, they get a first down. I turn around and like I try maybe to sit on the bitch.

But the minute somebody's like walking toward me or around me, I like stand up. Hey, go ahead. Oh, really? You know what I mean? Because you're like standing around like the guys who are playing. Again, I'm fucking. It was like a, yo, I'm stoked to be here. Yo, it's so funny hearing Will Compton talking about 2013 as opposed to seeing him in 2018.

2018 you call it he'd just be sitting there like hey mind if we grab this is out of shit you are my bad what you're talking about when there's offensive and defensive side I'm talking about like just during the game

like when you're like we're on the squad together you're like hey I'm kind of round the last been here I'll bust one with the boys I don't know how much longer I'm gonna have like that 2020 season

when you got popped on yeah you're sitting you're hanging maybe hit the bike a little bit I'm playing with house money yeah you're playing exactly what I'm saying like so the different the different thought process

between scared 20, 2013 Wilcompton, versus Hayes in the barn, 2020, Wilcompton. It's totally different environment. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Yeah.

100%. I'm with you. There's definitely a fear that takes place coming off of the Peace Squad, and you're just like, this could be the only guy am I ever playing in my life.

Yeah, man. Interesting to know you at that point. And here you talk about the old point is what I'm getting at. All right, well, we're good to wrap, boys. We feel good about it. Can I give a quick shout out real quick?

Go ahead. I was in Mexico this weekend for a wedding. And before I even got through customs in Mexico, get a tap on the back, some random guy, he goes, dude, love the pod. And I was like, oh, love that. You know, we're in Mexico, still getting, you know, shouts from the boys.

Our resort was like an hour and a half from the airport. We get there. This guy's in the wedding. So I start talking to him. Shout to my boy, Ben. But he was by nature, a tier one. I mean, he was like my first episode was Jalen Ramsey in 2019. he's talking about inside the bus

for the dads he's talking about penny slips all this stuff and then drinks started flowing and he just kept coming to me and go yo tell you a boy Will I'd fuck him up in the A gap and he just kept telling me over and over

but shout out to the tier ones love seeing them especially outside the country Ben was the man and he just wanted me to tell you guys hi so yeah shut up Ben that's awesome

he's gonna be fired up when he sees it I know it Shout out Ben, man Well, I fuck him up in the egg game, man He said it multiple times Where at one point

I was like, all right, I'm gonna tell him, don't want you. You know what? I want you to watch I'll just text him right now. I was like,

you want to FaceTime? He goes, no, no, no, no, not right now, now right now right now. Dude, the FaceTime random face time's so awesome.

All right, Eric Church, man. Enjoy it. Please subscribe. Comment, all the things. All the things. Big hugs.

Tiny kisses. All right, before we get into this interview, Summer is on at Base 31. The Drill Hall RBC stage is packed with big shows, live music and electric summer nights, featuring acts like Father John Misty, The beaches,

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Do us a favor. Stockup on Budlight. Now head to www.budlight.com forward slash locator to find a store near you. Please enjoy this Eric Church interview. Ladies gentlemen, we have an outstanding guest for you today. One, an individual that has just taken the country, music world by storm lives in extremely private life. When we started this podcast, one of the individuals that I would love to get on this podcast was Eric Church. And it always came to my mind that you've seen how he kind of does. You do your music.

You do your stuff. And then you go back to your life and you keep what's private special to you. And I thought there's no way, not a chance in hell. He would ever sit on this bus with a couple of dumb idiots. Yeah, here we are today at the end of May sitting here with the one and the only Eric Church. Give him a right of applause. Yeah, dude, honored. Yeah.

Straight up, Mr. Chief. Honored. Yeah, how do we do. And I don't get out much. So that's on purpose. That's fair. You know. You keep some mystique to you in your world.

world. It's like how guys are out there on the social media. I was doing like TikTok dances, not for you. It's not your game. I never did the social media thing. I was a little bit before the generation when all that happened for me. And I just never, it just didn't seem like something I wanted to do. So I've never done it. Still, still don't do it. If you were, go ahead. Does Mr. the chief, can you push the mic just a little bit closer to you now? Does the Mr. The chief? How would you like us? How would you like us? You're good. Whatever. Mr. the chief is what it will be. Maybe not that way.

Maybe not that way. I guess, senior, like, chief? We'll just, we'll work it all out. And then you just tell us when we've gone too far at some points. When you look at like the state of where music is in general, how people, there's so many platforms for people to get their name out there. And in some ways it's really good, but there's like a necessary evil that takes place. If you were to put yourself in a younger person's shoes who's trying to achieve the same

goals that you've achieved, do you think, your personality would have still gone down the same route you did, or would you have been more into the social media game? I mean, a lot of that, there's good and bad there. The good is there's more access now. So there's a gatekeeper part of the music industry that's your label, that the people that see you and they put you in that mechanism, that you can skip now. You can go on TikTok, you can do those things. Now, the problem with that is, I believe some of those gatekeepers are necessary for quality for, you know, what you're trying to do. So as a young, when I think about myself as a young artist, I would have probably

struggled a little bit at that because I don't know that I ever would have just, I'm a guy that I believe in albums. I grew up on albums. And I believe that when you get a book from somebody, you don't just read one chapter of that book and then put the book away. You read the whole book. And I treat songs that way. So when I conceptualize an album, it's like a book.

You're going to get this song, this song. They should all relate together. They should all be about a period of life. They should be about something you can put on a shelf. And that represents that time. A lot of the world we live in now is you write a song on Monday, you put it out Tuesday. Write a song Wednesday. You put it out Thursday.

And it's a little disposable. And I think that I would have struggled with that personally if I was coming up now. How was your relationship and friction with the label throughout your career? Horrible. But, I mean, it became, it got good because they, when I started, I was, Centers Like Me was our first album. And this was a time that females dominated the genre. And we were very non-that and with our music. And it didn't go great.

And they got to a point where they were, they were about to drop me. We put out the Carolina album and they were trying to steer. and I was at that time in a desperation way for a couple of songs letting them steer a little bit because I was about to lose my record deal. And I had a song on the Carolina album called Smoke Little Smoke that I was certain was going to work. I'd seen it. We were playing bars and clubs seven nights a week. And I remember a meeting.

I had to fly from where I was to meet with my record label president. And we sat down and we were talking about what to do. And I said, well, I know what we should do. We should put out smoke a little smoke. And that went like you think it would go at that time. Because at that time, there was no marijuana pro-drinking, none of that. And we discussed it aggressively for a while. And he had these little reader glasses, things on.

And I said, here's that. I said, here's that's going to go, Mike. I said, you're either going to do what I want to do or I'm never going to record music again for Capitol Records. I said, I'm done. We just end it right now. and he thought about it for a minute and he took his glasses

and whenever he threw them at me and they bounced on the table and if you threw them at me or at the table but they bounced twice and they landed in my lap and he goes, it's your funeral and I said, okay and then it worked

and then once it worked I never had the but the good news is to his credit they let me do from then on I make the record I make I turn the record in I don't have contact other than this is what I'm doing

because they They trusted me after that, after it worked. And then it worked bigger after. When you say it worked, does that mean the single went out and the single absolutely crushed or albums or just all of it? All of it. And then it led into the chief album, which is our follow-up album, which is the biggest album. And then it became album of the year and all this stuff. And I didn't even have communication with the label.

I mean, I just said, here's what I'm doing and here's how I'm doing it. And see you on the other side. Damn. Really. But that's, you know, it, it was tough to get to that point. but once you get there, it's a good place to be. What kind of nerves do you have as smoke, a little smoke was about to drop? And you're like, I just bet the house on this.

I mean, I kind of had nothing to lose. I mean, at that point in time, I was going to be dropped anyway. So I thought if I'm going out, I at least want to go out with something that I watch people tear the walls down every night when I played that. I saw it. And if it didn't work, it didn't work, you know, for me. I was okay. I could sleep at night at that point in time.

It's interesting, too, the transition that takes place between those two albums. You look at one album, got the long. hair taking place, no glasses. All of a sudden, Chief comes out, we've got a ball cap on dark sunglasses. You went into a little bit of a villain mode, huh? Right. What's crazy about that is the last thing the label wanted from a marketing standpoint, they didn't, hat, no, glasses, no.

They want you to have hair and see your eyes and all this stuff. But I did it because we were in bars and clubs and nobody really cared. And I have a eye thing where my eyes don't lubricate really well. and my contacts kept popping out on stage. Like I would be in these, I'm six, three. So I was up on these, these parkhand lights would bake my condo. I'd be blind for the show. So one night, one of my band members said, hey,

have you ever thought about wearing a sunglasses? Nobody cared. There were 12 people at this show. And I was like, yeah, cool. So I put them on and it worked. And then it became kind of a thing. What people were seeing in those bars and clubs every night, play and smoke a little smoke,

their live interaction is something that we weren't showing to the world with our album and what I was to the national media. And once we made that change, it was so strange how it just all, it all, it wasn't ever conceptualized. We never, we never spent time going, this is an idea. Right. We just did it because that's what we're doing every night, and then that worked. And then it became a thing.

Is that a similar way the nickname Chief Camp comes up? Same thing. Because it just kind of started that way. It was actually, it was actually my band. So my grandfather was chief police for 35 years. Granite Falls, North Carolina. And when I first put the hat and sunglasses on, they were the mirrored ray bands is the first one I wore.

And my band was making fun of me. I thought it looked like a state trooper. I looked like super troopers. Yeah. Great movie. Great movie. Fantastic movie. Snowsberries tastes like snowsberries.

But they, so as soon as I walked out, they were like, oh, chief, like that, they were making fun of me, you know. And then we decided for a nickname to come. Absolutely. And then we, when it came time for the next album, and it had been based around playing bars and clubs and that look and smoke little smoke led into Chief

that we called it Chief and then the rest of it became the thing. Collie. Never thought about though. Yeah. It's also like a top five most badass nickname you can have. Yeah, like honestly, like yo, you could have way worse nicknions and Chief. I mean, you, I go, they're making fun of me calling me Chief.

Do you want to tell me your nickname when you're in the locker room? Which one? Oh, Scrip. Scrim. These are all getting. They're just giving nickname. My nickname was Scrip in the locker room in Washington. And you can, you know, you can imagine.

Yeah, you can imagine. That's a nickname. That's a nickname you don't want. You don't want. Yeah, that's not an album cover nickname. I mean, you could work, but yeah. Going to Mr. Misunderstood, when you're, you did zero promo for that. And the idea was to send fans the album.

It was like 80,000 fans or something. You sent the album and then you win the album of the year at the C-Uromb. AMAs. What are the conversations that take place there to where it's like, hey, I'm going to do zero promo? Well, the interesting thing is we didn't tell the label we had done it. So we, in order to do that, we had to totally put the label in the dark. So we went and ended up buying a record pressing plan in Germany to be able to keep it out of the label's world. So we did all of this ourselves, never told the label. The label found out about 24 hours before the first fan got the album and they had no clue there was even a record. We had done it all in secret. And we actually

did the deals at that time it was physical products. So we did the deals with Walmart and all these places because you, there's CDs. And we actually went in and did the deal outside of the label individually with Walmart and these places that we were, and we had to keep it secret. And there's good and bad there. The good is we were able to keep it secret. The bad news is we didn't tell anybody what it was. So on the record release day and the whole theory of this was we're going to send it to our fans and then we're going to play on the cma awards we're going to play mr. misunderstood as soon as i finish the end of that song the record goes to the world you can go to walmart and get it you whatever right that's the idea but as we had

hit it we also hit it from walmart and they had put on their christmas CD Christmas release because it was in november no name so as it hits and then everybody starts going on what they didn't even know what to put out because we didn't involve the label and all this stuff. So we'd done ourselves. And so it was good and bad. The great thing is there for me is the fans, we do all these things with media. You do press, you do critics. You give them access first. And then they tell you what they think about it and then the fans buy it. And I thought that was backwards because the fans are the ones invested. And I thought, let's give it to the fans first and then let the industry and the media and critics and everybody chase the fans. So that was a whole idea. So we just shipped it.

I mean, people got it, you know, UPS showed up with the record before the world knew about it. How pissed was the label? They were not happy. Sounds like, well, also we did some things that, you know, as I remember the conversation I had with the same guy that threw the glasses at me. He said, so let me get, he said, you have a record coming out tomorrow? And I thought, you. I said, yeah, like that. He goes, what's it called? I said, Mr. McSenter said, it's great.

Spend, you're going to love it. He said, all right, he said, how did you, tell me, tell me about it. I said, well, I'm going to play it tonight on the CMAs. This was the day of the CMA awards. I said, I'm going to play it tonight on the CMAs. And as soon as the thing ends, it's going to go to the world, but the fans have had it for 48 hours. He said, I've heard. And he said, how did you, he said, where's it going to be?

I said, it's going to be everywhere. Walmart, Best Buy, go anywhere. He said, great. How'd you do that? I said, well, we just went directly to him. He said, what did you call it? I said, well, we kept it secret. And he went, okay.

He said, what did you call it? I said, Christmas album. He said, so tonight, when they're calling us, and all these people, what do we tell them to go look for in their warehouse to put out? And I said, good point. I see your point. I said, assuming there's only one Christmas album, put that out. So we had to chase it a little bit.

But it had to kind of catch up. The interesting part of the story there is I have this grand thing of how we're going to do it. And we play Misunderstood and it's great. And I feel so great about it. And the CMAs, anybody who's ever been to a awards show, there's two stages running. And you play your song. And then there's a host that comes out and they announce the next person on the next stage. So I finish playing.

I feel good. And as I'm walking back to go backstage, Chris Stapleton and Justin Timberlake start. Tennessee whiskey. That was the immediate performance after. And they got halfway through and I knew we were fucked. Because I thought everything we just did with a secret album, they just eliminated

because it's one of those performances, right? And it made Chris Stapleton. So we had to chase that a little bit too. How does it work? I mean, first off, the amount of highs you must have had walking off that stage only to be met by a massive low

in two minutes and 30 seconds has got to be absolutely insane when you're buying German factories to make an album to secretly keep away from your label

to send out to Walmart to best buy to all these places contractually how does this work between you and the label because essentially that's that's their job right get distribution yeah make sure they advertise for it

all the things that need to take place and it's like well you guys didn't do any that I actually did that and now we have a Christmas album You could argue it didn't work in a way. It's short term. Like we sacrificed a lot there from the first six weeks of what the record could have done.

But the music was good and the idea was good. And I guess my gut was right there where the fans were able at that point in time to steer where you went. Once they had it in their hands, they felt empowered. and that empowering, they went and told five people through. So we ended up catching up. Short term, it was rough. But long term, it was the right decision, you know. And I say that to a lot of young artists now.

You end up making a lot of decisions thinking about the next six months or nine months in this industry. Because everything moves so quick. And it's just not, you will be happier with your career. And you'll be happier with yourself if you, if you always think about 20 years down the line. That includes what kind of songs you sing. There's a lot of young artists that will put out a song and they don't think about what's it going to look like

if I get to play this song at 45 versus 25. And they just haven't thought that far ahead yet. And that's the industry. That's the condition. So for us, at least in that time, we made a long-term decision. And it worked out. How long did it take you to have that thought process?

being a guy that comes in Nashville, you want to do the thing, the honky talk. Like all of it, everyone walks into the music, the way, you know, you did. How did you get to the thought process of like, I need to look decades ahead, not just tomorrow? A lot of it was the, what I was consuming, what I was a fan of.

The people I'm a fan of are people that made albums. They were long-term artists. They were people that built careers. And then the others, you're how you go about, I mean, I was in bars and clubs. because it wasn't going great for us. I wasn't able to pop on and just start playing arenas and start being on these tours.

We were a little bit of the outcast. And a lot of that is the building blocks of that. The longer it takes to go up is that how long, your path to the top will probably mirror your path to the bottom. And you can do this or you can do this or you can work it, you know, long career. And I think just being in bars and clubs showed me that pretty early. That's kind of what it was.

It was blue collar. and but that's how the best bands are. I mean, that's rolling stones. They did that. You know, they gutted it out in bars and clubs. And I have a problem with a lot of the TV shows now, voice and stuff like that. And I've been vocal about it because you put them in this situation

where they're in front of 20 million people and they win or whatever. And they get a record deal, but they've never played for 25 people when they have a guitar feedbacking. They don't know how to do that. Yeah. And they skip steps. It would be like in football. It's like you're skipping the process to get to that place where you're a professional and you've done it.

You're skipping all those things getting up to it. And those steps that you skip, when you get the, when the spotlight shines on you and it will, you have to know that you've earned it. You have to know that you're ready for it. And I've seen so many artists that weren't. And they melt when that happens because they didn't earn it. They don't have that thing in here. It goes, I've done all those things that put me in this situation.

And too, like if you win those shows, like, aren't you pretty much like tied up contractually with a label or the brand? You know what I mean? Yeah. So say you are really successful. You're kind of just out leverage because you, you know, you won this show and the grand prize is getting a sign with the label. With a label, which really guarantees you nothing, right? Like, if you get signed by a label, it doesn't mean you've made it right now. the actual work has to be put in.

Well, I mean, you think that, I thought that too. You think that, you know, I mean, you're trying to get a record deal or you're trying to get whatever deal. And you think when you get that, you're like, I've made it. But honestly, the hardest part's next. Yeah. The next part's the hard part. At what point in your career, like, what was the most difficult part?

Because you've been doing it for decades, that you're like, maybe it's like a writer's block that's taking place or a transition of having a family. Like, what was like the most difficult thing for you in this? process of music. I mean, the early part was hard on like just getting any traction. But I look back on it now, you know, there were, there were 14 of us on a 12 bunk bus. You can do the math. A lot of big spoon, little spoons. Yeah. And it was a lot of smells. A lot of smells. Yeah. The bus was nicknamed the urinator. It had, it had carpet. Nice carpet. And so I look back at that.

At that time, all you're ever saying to yourself is if I could just get a hit or hit record and just get to the next thing, I'll be happy. And then that happens. And you get your own bus. And they get their bus. And you go, you know, what's interesting to me is the time I miss the most is 14 of us on that bus. I miss that. And at the time, I would have told you this is the worst thing. ever, right? Seven days a week. Amarillo, Texas on a Monday night, not a great crowd.

Not a great crowd. Not a great crowd. Not a great place. We outnumbered the people in the place, on stage. So you look at all those things, but now those are the things that I look back on and I hold deer and like, man, that was so much fun and so pure and no money was involved and no anything. So that part was hard just to do, but I revered. The next part that I'm going to, when you have a lot of success and you almost become your own competition, where when you put out a new album and you've made 10 albums, the first thing people say, they compare you to is chief, Mr. Misunderstood, whatever, Desperman, all these records. So you become your own competition. And that's interesting.

That's been, that's hard because you're competing with yourself versus just putting out music and music. competing with what's happened at the time. So that's been the last five, six years. And that's been more difficult for you is competing with yourself. It's not difficult for me. Right. I think it's difficult when you go, like this last album, we was strings and horns and flute. And for me, creatively, that's where I wanted to go. But then you have fans that go, why don't you make chief again? Yeah. And my thing's always, if you make the right record, you never have to make it again. Because you can go listen to that anytime you want to. It was made for that moment in time. That's where I stay on the album thing. You've got a chief.

You can have it anytime you want it. I'm not going to make another one, right? So it's just, it's a matter of, I don't know, I guess having that creative compass and being able to follow that compass is something that I think a lot of young artists. Well, I see it all the time. They struggle with that

because they want to be, well, I got to have another, I got to have another top 100 song, then I got to have another one. Then I got to have another one. And you can't sustain that. If you don't have a creative compass and you know who you are and what you're going to do, there's zero chance that you're ever going to be able to sustain that, and you're going to end up crashing and burning, and most do.

Because I'm assuming you have people, too, whether it's in your circle or counsel, whatever, that will see numbers of the newest album that drops. And back, oh, it didn't have the same pop as Chief. He's like, maybe we need to get back to doing this thing, so that way we can all. But that's, if you're in it for the career and the way I look at is it's an entire body of work, it's not just this album or this album

it's all of it and if you stay with that I think at least for young artists they'll be happy yeah instead of looking at like how much money you're making how can you get to that point the goal that eventually

the goalpost just moves it's like let's look at the totality because when you're talking to me and you're like oh fans are like why don't you make another chief I'm that's me I'm that for me it's like I listen I'm a big like early 2000s pop punk guy

like Blink 1-82 some 41 that those types of bands and they had that, you know, 99 to 05 run where it's like my brain kind of still stays there when hit the old Spotify list. And then like 2016, these bands had a lot of resurgence like Blakewood 82 came out,

good Charlotte came out, all these bands kind of came out, but it was a new sound. Yeah. And I'm the, I'm the mid-20-year-old guy now going, hey, hey, hey, hey, let's get back to,

you're messing on my thing. Let's get back to first date. All right, let's get back to 23-year-old stuff. It's like, yeah. It's the same here. We're 40 now. We can't do that. It's like Springsteen.

like just changed my like I can just I can still imagine myself in the car with the boys driving to Lake of the Ozarks like Springsteen comes on like oh guys this song right here and so anytime you go to like say an Eric church album you're trying to skip and find the one that's going to remind you of like that's the banger that you remember back in the day yeah what's um what's the story of you playing longer than your set I want to say you would open for rascal flats and you would play like 20 minutes longer and then I want to say that the lore goes like you were sat down to say, hey, do you need to go sooner so that we can play longer?

Because now you're chopping into production time or Rascal Flats coming on. So where then you got, did you get fired from that? And also did you talk to the lead singer of Rascal Flats haircut at any point? Because that was tough sometimes. All that was tough. Yeah, you had a couple of boozys out there. I'm thinking. That was probably never going to really work with what we were.

So we had the Cunders Let Me album, which was very not what, it just wasn't a great match. And then we got out there. And I had, I mean, keep in mind when I say I played long, I had like 15 minutes or 20 minutes.

And really 15. And the crowd was good and I would go a little longer. And then when I would go, so it was a lot to unpack here. But when I would do a little bit longer, there would end up being more rules. the next night and then when I would

I was the personality that when there were more of those things that weren't there initially I would break those and then there were more and it became where it was just an unsustainable kind of thing and there was some pettiness that when we were all younger but there was some pettiness that was involved so when it came to a head

we had played Thompson Bowling Arena in Knoxville and the next night was Madison Square Garden and some things were done at Thompson Bowling that were, I thought, unfair to a band that had been out there six days a week prior and we'd come in there not sleeping and we had to go through some things and not, you know, and I'll leave some of the details of this out. You don't have to. You don't have to. I don't understand. This is like, what, 20 years ago, yeah? A long time ago.

There was a statute of limitations. Yeah, right. Again, whatever you want. I'm just, I'm interested. We go to Massa Square Garden, which is a union controlled event. and there were some things that went on there that we were set up in a way that penalized us. So going into that night, I decided that we were going to follow none of the rules, and we were going to play our entire set knowing that it's a union-based arena.

So the longer I go, the shorter they have to go. Because I know there's an end time. I've done the math. Yeah. So as we went on that night, we play for like 45 minutes. And lights were turning off. And that's where it all came to the head. And then I was going to that.

I was supposed to play with them next week. And I got a call from a young, new artist that was doing really well at the time. And she was really sweet. And she had replaced me. Your name is Taylor Swift. And she had replaced me on the flatster. And she was great. She said, I hope there's, you were good.

There's no bad blood, which came later. I had nothing to do with that song, okay? But she was great. And she said, I want to make sure we're, I said, no, we're great. I didn't even know I had been fired at that time. She told me. Taylor told me, I had been fired. I was like, that's good to know.

I was going to be there next week and whatever, but, you know, I won't go. I won't be there now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that kind of ended. She did okay, too. So I said, I told her, I said, it's going to be great for you. It's going to be, I knew, I saw the crowd, so you're going to kill it. It's going to be great.

Yeah, some people would say that. So she's the one telling you you're no longer. Yeah. She probably heard and was like, I want to make sure me and Mr. Sir Chief is our good. So I'm going to call him and just make sure we're good. The best part about that is we didn't really have. So once you get replaced on a tour like that, it's not like you have tour like places lined up. And that was called the me and my gang tour.

So I decided, because I'm antagonistic, to go to every city that was left on the tour and play the club next to the arena and call it to me and myself tour. Yeah. I was next door every night with 12 people, you know. I was to be there, but I'm here. I got to do the whole tour. I just wasn't in the arena. That is hilarious.

That's twofold too, because one, you got yours, you got what you needed. And I think without you messing up so much, Taylor Swift doesn't have the career she does. Oh, yeah. I appreciate that. She'd have been fine. She would have been fine. Because of Mr. Sir Chief and it all worked out. Ultimate troll move.

I'll make a true follow. That was the ultimate. Actually, looking back, it was pretty petty, but as I get older, but that was fun, you know, to pull in. All right, we interrupt this episode to bring you neutral. Neutral tastes great. It tastes so much better than anything else I've ever tried out there. It's made with real vodka and real juice. Comes in a variety of flavors.

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did you realize you don't do well with authority? well then no that I mean yeah yeah I just never have I mean to me it was coming from it was a musical thing to me like we're all trying to you're trying to you know you get 15 minutes to

show who you are and the great part of that I'll say that where that led me to is as we're going around to me and myself tour which is literally that I get a call from Bob Seeger who was a guy I grew up idolizing and I'll never

forget to call Bob's got this like thick Michigan you know kind of accent which is unique and I get this call and I don't really know like if they called I didn't answer it and then they call right back and I answer it and on the other line he goes is this Eric and I said yeah like that he's Bob Seeger and I was like holy shit you know and he goes you really get fired from flats and I said you know yeah I won't keep the accent going but I said yeah and he um And which he kind of laughed and he goes, well, we're going out on a world tour and we love your album. And we would love for, we don't have open an axe. But we'd love for you to come open our world tour.

And we can only, we're, I'm sorry, but we can only give you 45 minutes. My album's 38 minutes. The whole center's album. So I'm sitting there thinking, shit, like I got a problem, you know. Yeah. And you're coming from where I came from where it was tough, the tough environment, to somebody who's like, take, have what you want, you know, this is what you, this is what I should do for you, right?

We like what you're doing, go play. It was just totally different world. And it actually was great for the career because all of a sudden I'm in front of these older classic rock fans. They don't really listen to country. They don't know what's going on. And you just get exposed to 20,000 people a night that I never would have been exposed to. So it ended up being from a God thing.

It was the right path for me. Yeah. Sometimes getting Patty's the best move, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's an incredible story. As your ascension takes place and now you have a lot of people opening for you and all that. How do you treat everyone that opens for that way? You give them all the time in the world.

Whatever they want. What if it's a union based? Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah, well, you guys pay it. Oh, you just pay it. Man, you into. I go late anyway. I mean, we just, we pay it.

But it just, that happens. You know, you're going to run into that. I play, we play long shows. So I did go through a period in my career where I didn't take any opening acts because I would play like three hours. We took intermissions. Like we did the old jam band kind of thing where we go out, you're with us all night.

You're with us from 8 to 11.30, 12. We're just going to stay and play. So I did that for a period. And then as I've gotten older, it's hard to do, you know, three nights in a row vocally. So I started bringing in people that I like and people that whatever, they don't have to have success.

It's just if I like what they're doing, they'll come out and play shows with us. And a lot of times they'll jump up on stage with us to play. You ever thought about doing a me and myself tour again. just one day down the road. And that'd be full circle. And just do Rascal Flats covers. Full circle.

That's not going to. Yeah. That would be good. Life is a high away. Maybe a couple T. Swift songs in there too. Exactly. Throw a little tip. Some of those.

Yeah. I'll tell, yeah, me and myself and petty eye. Just get crazy with it. Yeah. What was the thought process and going to headline like stagecoach? Because I'm thinking, you know, you think the infamous stagecoach. Yeah. You take Eric Church.

You just. Yeah. The thought on that was I had done stagecoach like six or seven times. And the way I approach shows from a fan standpoint is I'm going to try. If I'm going to do something like that, like Red Rocks, we did that kind of thing too. Yeah. Where I'm going to try to give you an experience that you're never going to have. There's two ways to handle stage coach. I could have went out there, played my normal show, got paid, flew back home, done. and I was trying to make it unique in something that the fan would go, hey, I was there that night when he did something different. And what I will say with that is the time that went into that, first of all, to walk out in front of 80,000 TikTokers basically

and play a acoustic, somewhat gospel set with a choir only with one guitar for 90 minutes as a headliner. is probably aggressive. But it was a thing for me. It was like this is going to be something they'll never see again. This is one of one. And if they get it, they get it and they don't. A lot of didn't.

It was kind of just, that's okay though. I mean, again, you react. Everybody reacts in the moment. And you look at social media, which I don't, but I saw it. And you kind of look at it and go, okay, wow. But long term, that becomes, I run into people all the time. It'll go like, man, I was there that night for that.

Yeah. And it becomes a thing. Maybe for 10 of them, but that's fine. It's all you need. Hey, all you need. Yeah. That's all you need. Do you talk about like every album is like a book where it all day.

I should stay chapter after chapter. You read the whole entire thing and you ingest that. So your career has an incredible library. Or is there one specific book that you will hold closest than any other? As far as albums. Yes. Probably the Mr. Misunderstood album. It just matched up with my life at that time.

I had a, there's a song on there called Three-year-old. I had a three-year-old. Oh, buddy. There's a song called Hold My Own, and I just, I just getting into family mode. So that's the one that probably has a snapshot was the most relatable to where I was at that time of my life. And so for me, to this day, is still probably my favorite album. How did you, what was a concept of lightning? Like, how did that come to you?

Came from the Green Mile, the actual movie. There's actually a thing I was watching the movie, and there's actually the line that I use in Lightning is the Roll On One, Roll On Two, kind of death kind of scene. And I just thought that was a unique way to build a song. That's actually the song, what everybody talks about now with what will be hits and all the moneymaker stuff. And the song that really got me in my record deal was that song.

And I'd played an interesting thing, but as you're a songwriter in town and you're trying to get, you know, a deal. And you go to all these different places. And I was making the rounds and they'd be like, hey, we like it. Yeah, come back. And I finally got to what I thought was my break.

And it was with BMG music, which is an arm of RCA. And they're bringing this big guy down from New York and they said, hey, this is the day, Wednesday, 10 o'clock, be here. You're going to play your songs. You're going to get it done. and at that time when I walked into that meeting

I had how about you Pledge of Lose to the Hague two pink lines sinners like me which is all on the first album and I sat down and I honestly from a cocky standpoint was thinking I bet

I don't get through one of these songs like I bet I never have to play two I think I'm going to start them with this we'll have a deal done I don't even have to work hard here yeah in and I come in and there's just little dude the whole place is like,

it's like a fight. They're like patting you on the back and you feel like Johnny Depp and blow like Black Betty's playing. I'm carrying my guitar case, leather jacket on. Hell yes. The dude.

And they're all, you know, like, yeah, go get them. And they're all high-fiving, you know, and then you go in this office,

and there's this little bald dude behind this huge office and he's at a desk and he's on his computer. And it's like, and he's typing. And I go where I said, I just,

I just go in. I said, yeah. So I go in, I stand there. I got my guitar case. And for a minute, he didn't talk. So I was like, hey, he goes, he holds this hand, he goes, hi, I'm Ron.

And I said, hi, Ron, I'm Eric. He goes, oh, my God, everybody here, that's all I've heard about. The reason I'm here. I came from New York City to hear you play. He said, please, please, relax, sit down and play me a song. So I sit down, I'll do my case. And I'm sitting there going through my head, like, I'm going to slay this guy. and I sit down

I play how about you first I get to like to get to the course and he throws his hand up like like that and I'm thinking this is it it didn't even take me a song he throws his hand up and he goes yeah I don't like that

and I went okay he's I don't like that at all he said that's weird can I beat and he was like you know what no big deal he said first song he said everybody says you're great play me something else I was like, okay. So I went to two pink lines.

I get to like the chorus. Same thing. Hand goes up. And he goes, is that? Is that about pregnancy? And I went, yeah. Like that. He goes, you're bringing in a song about pregnancy?

And I said, yeah, you know, it happens. And he goes, wow. He goes, yeah, this is not going the way I thought it was going to go. He said, yes, I didn't like your first one at all. And he goes, and then you're playing me a song about pregnancy. He says, you know what? Just play me another one. So I play him, plays loose of the hag.

And I get to like the chorus, the same thing. Hand goes up. And he goes, is that about Merle Hagger? And I said, yeah. And he goes, Jesus Christ, how old are you? And I said, 25. He was like, you're singing me a song about, Merle Haggard in 2003.

And I said, yeah, like that. And he goes, wow. He goes, this is just, this is not what I expected. You know, and if we finally got, he said, play me one more. And I played him centers like me. Title track of the album. And I got the same thing, got to the course, he stopped me. And then he said, is that a waltz?

I said, yeah, one, two, three. Yeah, it's a waltz. He goes, let me get this straight. You've played me a song I didn't like. I said, you were clear. He goes, you played me a song about pregnancy. You played me a song about Merle Haggard, and you've played me a fucking waltz.

And I went, yeah. And he goes, I don't know where you're from or what you did there before you came here. But I would go back and do that. No shit. I went, so I packed up my case. Thanks, Ron. What's funny is when I left the office,

like people knew what had happened. And like all the people that had been like slapping. It's tumbleweeds are blowing through that place. Like these people are like in the corner, like, I'm sorry I'm like all good luck to you you know holy shit

so anyway here's the thing with this great about music and about that so I was very depressed I was saying about going home I went to the tin roof yeah the cocky guy got humbled

I'll be yeah I got on that now I can you sell an insurance but so so at 10 so this meeting I went there at 10 so let's say this lasted

I never got to finish the song so let's say it's 1020 in the morning and I called my brother And I called my brother who was living with the time. He was excited. He thought we were about to get a deal. And I let him know it didn't go great.

And he said, where are you now? I said, I'm like on 17th Avenue. He said, where are you going? I was like, I think I'm going to go to the tin roof. And I didn't realize 10 roof didn't open at 10, 20. But you can't go there that early. Yeah. But so I went there and we got incredibly drunk.

We stayed there from like maybe 11 when they let us in the door to about 1 a.m. And he drove me. I don't know. I guess I guess he drove me home. But I got back to the condo. We had a condo we were sharing. And on the answer machine that night was a message from a guy at Sony. And the guy at Sony said, hey, we've heard your stuff.

We want you to be at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning, be at Sony. And my brother's waking me up in the morning. You got to go. I'm half on over. And I go in. And it's funny, it's the same deal. The guy's behind a desk. And I have a guitar.

And he goes, he's, well, play me something. And immediately I was like, okay, I'm not playing. How about you? Two Pink Lines. Plushions to the Hague or sinners like me. And I played, I said, you know what? I'm going to play what I want to play. And I played Lightning, which is a song about a guy getting killed, death penalty,

not exactly what you would lead with. I got halfway through. And the guy, he put his hand, same thing. He didn't make a noise of he put his hand up like that. And I thought, son, bitch. And he goes, I'll sign you right now. So I never even got, that's all it took. It just took that perspective and that song.

So I went from one day, I'm leaving. in town I got to go back and do what I was going to do and the next day I have a deal song man isn't that amazing two different perspectives yeah and just finally within 24 hours and you didn't get the key is that's it I finally played now maybe I shouldn't play with people where you thought people want you play what you wanted and that's what authenticity wins that's what did it yeah but knowing you don't get the answer you want to hear you go and just get blitzed with your brother yeah then next morning you got an op hey wake up you got to go And the result is the same.

You're back at Tin Roof anyway, but it's happy drunk this time. Yeah. You're doing the whole thing all over and over again. At 1020. At 1020, yeah. Same time, two days in a row. Right.

What time does Chiefs open on Broadway? At night? No, no, no. This is way before Chiefs. This is the- No, but I'm saying now. Oh, now? You should have an open time at 10-20.

I've never checked it out. I've never checked it out. I've never checked it out. See if that thing's cooking. I know you got to watch out. You know, you're to look ahead above you when you're around Chiefs though. You do. Yeah.

You do. How was that process? That was good. You're not just an artist anymore. You give speeches now. Summer is on at base 31. The drill hall, RBC stage is packed with big shows,

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extraordinary. Stay close. It is a carac. Wow. Listen to learning to be human on IHard Radio, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. Oh, God. Like, how much is your phone, people just been blown up

for everybody? wanting you to come speak now. That was a unique thing. That was a, it's interesting when you do stuff like that. You never know how it's going to go. And I was, I had some anxiety just about doing a commencement speech and struggle with it. I found out about it like eight or nine months before it happened. And they asked me to do it.

The chancellor asked me to do it. And I said yes without really thinking about what that would entail. And I worked on it a long time. I could never figure out what it was. And actually it was in a fit of frustration that, I just, I threw a speech across the room that I was working on. It was generic. And I grabbed a guitar just to get away from it for a little bit.

And then that's where the idea started to percolate. Why, what am I doing? Like I should, I do this all the time. I need to figure out a way to use this. And that's kind of where it started, you know, just with the concept. And then it did things that I didn't, you know, you never think about that. I was only thinking about the room and doing a good job. I have such respect and love for Carolina.

I was just trying to do the right job there. and then it became a thing. Impactful. I mean, genuinely, one of the best speeches I've ever heard. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, it was... Sometimes you're put in a situation, I believe.

That was put in a situation to deliver that message, and I was the mechanism to do that. And that's what I believe. And that's just, that's how it felt for me. It wasn't something that was any preconceived thing. It just happened the way it was supposed to happen. Yeah. I've obviously seen a handful of clips,

but before you even came on today, I watched the entire commencement speech. and part of your speech, you're talking about how like, be present in the moment, don't look for other people's validation, just focus on your own validation as you go through the process

and just essentially be present. Don't worry about what the rest of the world thinks because you're going to see a bunch of things that seem like a thousand times better. And as you started to play your song at the end, two teachers behind you pulled their phones out immediately and started filming. Did they?

I didn't even see that. But then it shows the crowd of these kids that are 21 years old. And I didn't see one phone in the crowd. Oh, wow. People put their arms around each other, they start swaying back and forth. I'm like,

the message actually was sent. Oh, actually, it actually went through. So, I mean, I got nothing on top of that. And that's awesome.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just want to sit there and be like, that's cool. You have a quote here. It's too many people in the world standing at the edge of their potential, waiting for a permission slip to arrive that will never come. And it's just,

I love to figure out where you came up with that quote exactly, because it's, it's right. Like so many people want to achieve greatness. but always look at all the obstacles or what the failures that could possibly happen and never just choose the jump. Well, some of that is, too, is in the world we live in now, sometimes it's a bad thing or is perceived as a bad thing to say that you want things.

And what I wanted them to, it's, I want them to want things. It's okay to want things, right? It's okay to want to be successful and want to do these things. A lot of that was just, and I've lived, I've said this, times when I talk about the pillars and the six strings I know about them so well because many, many times in my life, I have been guilty of all of those being out of tune. And I'm old enough now that I know the difference, even briefly, when they're all into and what those things, how those things relate to each other. So I think a lot of that message was I didn't talk about,

and I didn't want to talk about me. It was about them, right? And that was kind of what I tried to convey is here's what I've done badly and here's what you can do better and honestly it was just one of those messages that I still believe that I was meant to be in that moment to deliver it how long did it take you to one once you did come out of the frustration start figuring it out how long did it faster once the guitar going to ball because then I could go then it's like okay I got six strings to work with here and what's unique about the strings is there's different there's thinner to thickest to thin and you start thinking about what's the thickest to thing in my life. What's the thing that you're most bound to, the one that resonates the most.

And then you work your way to what the thinnest string is, which is the most bendable, the most maneuverable, and how the world affects those strings, right? And I was able to build it that way, where you know you'd put faith, then you go family, then you go spouse, and you build it with what the thickness is, with how it should resonate with you. And I think once that revealed itself, and my wife helped a ton on this. But once that revealed itself, it was easier. It kind of went fast at that point in time. It felt right.

It felt like it's something that wasn't, I felt, I guess, imposter syndrome in a way when you try to do a commencement speech, and I don't give speeches. And then all of a sudden, I'm supposed to walk up there as a musician and tell these kids what their life should be. And there's a lot, like I put myself in the situation,

I would have been going, what are we doing? And I think it took the guitar to give me a little bit of credibility to go, here's why this should work. And I think that's why it worked. I don't know why it worked, but I think that's why it worked. Yeah, I mean, you became a speaker that day. How many other companies people have reached out about you doing more speeches? There's been a lot.

There's been a lot of book publisher people. You damn near wrote the book because even pauses, like there's no ums. There's no, yeah, you murdered it. Yeah, and you talk about being nervous going. up there, it's like you're watching your body language and it seems like you've spoke a thousand times. Well, I mean, the thing about that that's interesting is when you put a guitar on me, there's a it's a comfort level, right?

I mean, I would have related to an athlete. Like, you know, you could basketball, football, you put that in their hand. You hide behind the mask almost. Yeah. You're very comfortable, you know, with that in your hand. So for me, once I got the guitar on, I play big crowds. I play big stuff. I've done the Super Bowl.

And you do these things. And once I had that on, I was comfortable. So I didn't have a hard time standing up there and trying to give a speech, which felt weird to me. I was struggling with that. I struggled with that for months. Months. I just couldn't figure out why it didn't fit.

Yeah. Because then you have the pause. You have the chance to play a little bit to get out of your own head about it. But you just get that speech transcribed. Like you just, you start signing away at airports. You know what I mean? You said there's a bunch of book publishers. don't want to come out?

Yeah, we're going to do a book, I think. About your life? No, it's going to be called the six strings of your life. Oh, I love that. It'll be that. It'll be the speech. It'll be a little more, maybe. Because there's some color.

Yeah, a couple more pages. Yeah. A little more in depth about each string. Yeah, right. That's what it kind of would be. I mean, it's really eight chapters. You have a beginning. You have six chapters.

And then you have an outro. I mean, it's not. It doesn't need to be this. It needs to, like, I kind of like it. I kind of like it's kind of this small, passable. Yeah. Kind of what it was. Something that I got in a three-piece suit

with keeping his vest pocket. You should read this if you want to get anything down. And the first person you sent it to Ron from New York. I said it to Ron. I just find Ron. I'm not going to look, Taylor, really hard to find him. We'll find him. I got a guy.

I got Sherim actually. He'll find his burners and take care of that. No problem. Then also he can go on a, he just say he's going to go on a book tour, hit up the 14 people that did the 12 bunks. Like, hey guys, you guys, you guys want to hit the road against?

Yeah. Sign some books, play some music. You talk, yeah. In the, and that's, yeah, you talk about people want things and it's good to want things. You've achieved so much,

like in your life now, like, what do you want? Like, what is something that you try to achieve at this point? I guess I kind of am, and it wasn't even intentional. But we do a bud light question

and it's essentially, anyone would do anything for an ice cold bud light. What is something that Mr. Sir Chief would do anything for? Can't say family. And we don't have to, you don't have to hit it

and then podcast ain't over. Yeah. And if you need time to, think we'll give you a guitar so you can start so give me give me the direct question more time so what would i what would you do anything for the basically the the thought my thought of this question right now is like you've achieved so much you told these kids you want to want something that's that's okay to have that because everyone's like don't take too much in life you've achieved so much you've gotten all the things i'm assuming you want it when you were their age what do you want now

like what is something that gives you fulfillment other than family in your career in a passion something like that. Is it fishing with Eli Manning and catching big bass and who caught that bass? Is he even a good fish? That was you. Okay. He held it. I know.

Well, Ben, yeah. He also held it like it had like I did say to him. I said, hey, it's not got a disease. Like if you look at the picture, like look at the picture. He's got it like out here. And I was like, he's just getting a little shoulder mobility. He's taking place. He won't get anything on his khaki shorts.

But no, for me, I had to think about that a minute, but immediately what comes to mind. is, and this is going to be probably not what you want, because the one thing would be like, you know, a hunt with somebody or something like that. It's not really that because I've done all those things. It would be being to a place, and I would be there now. I would say from the rest of my career, rest of my life,

that the decisions that I made I could look back at and be comfortable with and proud of, musically, some of the stuff we talked about, stage coach being one of them. I'm proud of that. That maybe didn't look good to the social media. I'm proud of that because I did it for a certain reason internally. I think getting to a place where you can look back and go, no, I'm happy that I did all of those things, even if it didn't work out. Like it's easy to look back at those things and go, well, that was a huge success.

I'm glad I did it. It's harder when it's not. But you did it for a reason. there was something there's a reason you did that and I think as long as I can look back and go I was true to those things in those moments that would be I would be pretty content with that that's probably more of what's going to go in the book than what you're looking for for a bud like right now yeah but I mean but fishing with Eli Manning was close that's that's essentially how he's a close second that is how this this podcast got put together so Ben came with he came he was with me that afternoon

He sent me a photo of y'all on the boat later that day. And I was like, that fish is awesome. Really cool flex. You have Eric Church on the boat. We'd love to have him on the pod. And essentially, that's how the domino starts going. That's right. And you got pulled into this.

Yeah. So I guess the next thing is we've got to go fishing. Yeah, I don't go fishing. It's not far from here. Really? All right. A little fishing. 20 minutes.

20 minutes. Do you have any things that you look back on that are you wish you would have done differently? I mean, here's the way I treat that. you're always going to have that in the moment. There's a lot of things in the moment. But I think over time, I don't, I'm not a regret guy. I think that, and I kind of go to, I've had so many things in my life that I reacted the way that I thought was right in the moment and then maybe it didn't look that way

to the world. But it ends up working out. So I'm not, it's not a guy that, I tell this to my kids too. We're all going to have regrets about a lot of things. but a lot of times those regrets, the farther you get away from them, just worked out the way they're supposed to work out. So I don't overly have regrets.

Yeah. Do you ever have any beefs? Yeah. With the, he's putting out a bunch of them. Yeah, we were. Yeah, there's a company. We went through.

We went to Rascal flats and the bald guy behind them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, Ron. It is, when you're, when you're young in your career and you're coming up, things are starting to get going for you.

Was there another artist that you looked at from a competition standpoint? Oh, there's been a bunch. Yeah. Yeah. Well, early on, the thing that aggravated me is we're out there grinding and working hard, and I believe in our music, and I think it's good. And then I'm seeing all these guys who have a hit that you've not, you don't even know them now.

But at that time, they were all flying past me, and they were the new thing. They'd win the award. They'd get nominated, you know, all that stuff. So I took that personal. I wore a chip on my shoulder. for a while with that stuff. And then there's been the competition. Yeah, there's been a bunch.

I mean, you know, in good and guys that are great, you know. So yeah, that's part of the end. That's just like sports, though. Like I always say this, a lion knows a lion. And I know the ones that I've encountered that are good and are real. And I know the ones that aren't. And it won't be long before the other people realize the same thing. But there are some that have been lions.

you know, that are alliance. And I know it. And those are the ones that are fun to, you know, get in there and mix it up with. Yeah, because there's nothing like bad behind it. You don't have ill intention against that. No, no. You're just like, oh, I respect this person's game. I want to elevate myself.

You actually look at them and go, yeah, man, that's a dude. Yeah. And it's a good thing. It's a good thing. When I go to make a record or I go to write a song, I know that dude's out there stalking around. Yeah. That's good.

It's a competition. It's a good thing, you know. How hard is it for you as you get older to like, I don't know if it's like kind of slow down a little bit you start to have kids, a family, like new priorities take place in your life to where it's like you used to be so focused on

being the number one line or competing against these other lines. Like was that a difficult transition for you at all? Yeah. Going to fatherhood and all those things. Yes. It's also a difficult transition when every artist will go through this.

You're going to go through that time when you have the number one album in the world, you have the number one song in the world, you have the number one tour in the world. and then 10 or 15 years later you're going to have a great album you're going to have a great song you're going to have a great tour

but it may not be the number one of all those things and the transition of that and keeping your shit together can be tough for people right so that's something that is I respect anybody that does something for a long time successful

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to do what you never dreamed you would be able to do for a long time and let the ebbs and flows happen. Some people struggle with that. They'll be on top and then it starts to fade on them. And it will. Guaranteed, right? They struggle. And they try to chase. it well I'm going to dye my hair I'm going to do this I'm going to get a new band I'm going to change my sound they start chasing just to try to get back to that perch and you'll never get back there that way I think you have to have that thing that compass that allows you to know that this is going to happen happen to Springsteen happened to stones that happened to everybody Seeger happens to everybody you have to be comfortable with that

that took a minute that took a minute because I that I went through a little that. It takes a minute. That's for anybody. That's if you're the number one athlete, you're the top tight in, you're the top whatever. You're going to go through the young kids that come up and now you're not. And you've got to balance that. That's with any career. As that learning point that ego check, all of those things are happening real time and you're struggling with it. What are things that you're latching onto? Is it a mentor? Is it a book? What's coming through your head that ends up getting you to the point of being comfortable? I think a lot of mine is what we were talking about. I just I don't do like social media.

I don't really. I'm pretty family focused with my life and I fish a lot. I don't just don't go out and do those things and, you know, want to see how many people recognize me when you walk in a place. Yeah. Some people do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just kind of naturally.

Yeah, just, you see me start walking down Broadway on a Thursday night. Yeah, we got to check in. You need to check in. Yeah, we need a wellness check, okay? Yeah, exactly. You need a wellness check on this guy. No doubt. Just a couple of.

lights on a fishing boat. Yeah, because I've talked to other country artists that have been like at the top and a piece of them when they're at the top, they've had this conversation of like, I need to know and figure out how to exit gracefully. Because I think it's like that their way of saying like, I know this doesn't last forever. Doesn't. And it's kind of like, I want to get, I want to get them before they get me kind of in the football world, it's like you want to, we all know father time comes for all of us.

Eventually someone says you can't play this game anymore. And in your brain, you're like, how do I get them? whoever them is. It could be the team. It could be other players, could be whatever, before they get me. So you have your,

you get to write your final chapter as opposed to somebody else writing it for you and saying you can't play anymore. But you talk to guys and they're like, I remember seeing one with one guy and he's like, I just want to know the right way to exit this path gracefully to where it can last forever. Yeah.

They're still going. And that's, that's hard. Yeah. That's a complicated thing. I mean, the great thing about country, at least as an industry,

is we all to do it a long time, at least for me, I have become way more. I was a punk when I started in a lot of ways. I wanted to blow everything up, right? That's just, that was my mentality.

I want to do everything my way. I don't care about what the old guys did. I was that guy. Sinatra. But when you get older and you do it a long time, you have a lot more respect for the guys that came before you. You're a lot more humble.

And I think you end up falling into understanding what your legacy, the time you were given, means to a younger generation, just as their legacy meant to me. And you play into that. I would say it's the same thing with sports. You understand that nobody's bigger than the game. And there's a lot of that humbleness that I think happened with me that I think it would be good for younger artists too.

But it's okay to also be the younger artist that thinks you need to have that. Like I had that at that time. You need that edge to get you to greatness. And then when you get there, it's a matter of kind of looking around and going, okay. It's almost like a level of delusion, right? Like you have to basically not see your blind spots and be like, I'm truly, I'm the greatest thing in the world. And you act on that. Or you just do things your own way and go, hey, no, I'm going to do it this way.

I know it's never been done this way. I'm going to do it this way. But then you get to a point when you have success and you look around that Waylon Jennings did that too. Right. And so you can look, Merle Haggard did that too. So you can look at the people before Johnny Cash. They did that. Willie's still doing it. Right. So you have the insane. So you have all these people. And then you start to see, okay, I'm really no different than where they were younger, right? They did the same thing. But then they saw that nobody was bigger than the game. And you understand your place in the industry. You understand your place in country music.

And that's great about country. Not every format has that. That's a unique thing about. about this industry, I think. Yeah. Well, you bring up those, those legends, like when you're coming up, is there somebody that you idolized? Like, this is your number one? Oh, a bunch. I mean, a lot of these guys.

I mean, for me, I had, mine was a songwriter guy. It's because he kind of changed my, but Chris Christofferson from a songwriter. First of all, his life story is incredible, you know, was army, flew helicopters, you know, all these, road scholar, all these things. You know about this guy? Yeah. Okay. Chef's not.

Chef's not on the way over there. That's him. Chef's an old soul. Chef's an old soul. Yeah, but you say Chris Christopherson, I think of... And what do you think of actually? You don't want me to tell you?

I mean, I want to hear this. I'll tell you exactly where my dumb brain went. It was the guy who plays the Nazi in glorious bastards. Christoph Waltz? Yeah, that's who I thought of. My brain didn't think in. I mean, I'm known in my head that that's not the guy, but in my brain it's like,

that's what the guy is really really, really not. Not the guy. Yeah. Jared. Hey, there's no thought my brain. I just nodded. The guy Ron,

he said was in the three-piece suit, Anthony Soprano. That's immediately where my head went. It was like, that's exactly what the guy looked like. It's closer. Okay. I'll take that.

Now, Christopherson was actually the original star is born, which was redone, right, with Bradley Cooper. So he was the original with Barbara Streisand. Okay. So he was a movie star.

Anyway, he, from a songwriting standpoint, but he's one of the greatest writers of all time. And I kind of gravitated as a songwriter. That was kind of one of my guys. I got to meet him and become friends with him later in life. But it was just, and then, of course, I love Haggard and Wayland and George Jones and Cash and all those guys because they did it a unique way.

George Strait, who's a friend, is also a guy that's kind of cool to say just now. Yeah. George Strait. I say that as much I can. I'll do that. I'll do it three or four times if you want to. Do you have a nickname for George Strait? Mr. King.

No. Mr. King, sir, Mr. Sir King, whatever. His Highness, whatever he wants, you know, whatever he wants. He really is one of the kind. One of a kind. So for me, getting to be around all these guys has been great. But then again, I've had some younger artists now that I mentor a bit. I do a terrible job sometimes.

But, you know, we talk about stuff like that. You know, we talk about the overall Mount Rushmore of country music and what being a part of the industry means to the future of the industry. Yeah. Is there, they're an up-and-comer that you want to shout out that's somebody to look out for? Oh, there's a bunch of, yeah, there's a bunch of guys like that, and girls, and girls. I had an interesting conversation on this tour. Ella Langley opened some shows for me on this past tour, and it was right before, it was directly before the choosing Texas or it was starting to happen, which became a massive song. And it was interesting. We were in the dressing room and we were talking.

And I said, I know something you don't know. I said, your life's about to get really strange. It's just going to get really weird. She said, what do you mean? I said, just trust me. Been there. And I said, as it gets weird and it will, I said, you need to make sure you're going to have all these people that want you to all these things, movies, commercials, all this. I said, and that's fine.

I said, but you need to make sure that you keep it about the music because you're going to lose that a little bit in the noise of this. Because it's going to be noisy. and it's gotten noisy, you know. And that was just from being there, I've done it. And you can lose yourself in it, right? You can chase things you shouldn't chase. And she's done great. But, I mean, that was just something that, stuff like that, you know,

with seeing some people that are coming up and about to hit a lick. And, you know, they're about to hit a lick. It's what you do in that lick. It's funny when you're in that. You never think you're in it. I remember when Chief was happening and all this stuff and we had all these things. You never think in the moment. you're actually in that moment.

Like this is the moment that you always tell yourself about. Then you're in it. And you think, well, no, there'll be, we're just, you know, there's more moments. Rocket ship. Right. There'll be 10 more. Whatever. You don't think of it at the time until you look back on it and go, damn, I didn't know that was the moment.

You know, it's just like, that's just part of getting older and going, you got to appreciate it when you're in it and quieting it down and enjoy it. Because that doesn't happen. And when you're in that, you've got to be able to. And I told her, I said, you've got to be able to know that this is a moment and enjoy the moment. Told Morgan the same thing, you know. And Morgan's had a few of them, but same thing. Yeah. It's just so interesting that like in a competitive space, it's so, it's almost like a faux pa to sit there.

And once you achieve something to be like, I did it. How great is this? Because I feel like the competitor's brain immediately goes to how do I recreate this or how do I take the next step or how do those things to where you lose. you know, the being present in the moment. Like I would enjoy the process. Right. Yeah. Like in 2016,

I made my first Pro Bowl with the Titans. And I remember like legit calling my wife hearing about it, like literally outside of the facility crying about it. Yeah. How happy I was. And as soon as the season ended, it was if I don't make another one, then that's just a fluke.

And there's no way that I'll be able to. And how many more do you think you would make? In my brain, 12. Yeah. I'm thinking like, yeah, there's no stopping. This freight train. Me too. Like it's going.

But it's like, but they're going to try to, whoever they are once again, they're going to try to get me. How do I stay ahead of that? And then you retire, all the things happen. You have peace with the career you had and you look back and you're like, dude, I really wish I took more of a moment. 100% to be like, this was fucking awesome to sit there and your boys are kind of giving you a hug.

Hey, congratulations. First one. It's amazing. I wish. I wish the same thing. It's just so interesting how, yeah, you're right. Like you never know. When you're in the moment, you just, you don't, you almost like push the moment away from you.

You don't want to fully engulf yourself in it because then you'll have to lose something. Yep. As a phrase, you're just driving out. And I'm not sure that that's even doable when you're in the moment to actually ever really appreciate it. Maybe that's part of the nature of it. But that's something I look back on and didn't realize it. This has been a phenomenal conversation. It has.

We have some fan questions. We do, but the TVs have been off the. Oh, you're kidding. Oh, yeah, this has been raw. We've been raw-dogging this whole thing. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know we had TV. Yeah, you see that?

Yeah. They don't work, but I don't know much, but I'm not, whatever many questions. I'm not buying those without. On doesn't turn on. Hey, while we're pulling it up, we have a question in the back from the next gen, Connorsmith. Chief, I feel like I'm getting a four-year degree right now. This is unbelievable. I'll do your commencement.

This is unbelievable. It's happening in 10 minutes, so I appreciate it. But, no, it's crazy. I feel like you talking about your goats. I'm 25 now. So I'm like where you were when you started. And so I'm in the room with all the freshmen, you know, songwriters and these guys. And every single one of them, you're the good artist.

Like, you're the guy we look to. And I tell you the story real quick. I was 16. I was at your show, Bridgetown, three hours, just you and a guitar. And I was sitting there the whole time with my arms crossed. I was like in the back middle, like kind of lower bowl. I was sitting there with my arms crossed and this drunk mama three looks at me about two hours in the show. She said, are you miserable right now?

You haven't smiled all night. And I was so, I look, I don't even remember what I said, but I remember that moment. I was like, I was so captivated by what you're doing, that that was like a marking moment for me. And then we played a show together in Wisconsin, right? I remember you walked out there and I was, this was probably 2024 summer.

And I watched your say, you're out there, you know, an hour and a half just getting after. The whole crowd was captivated, all the flags, everything. And it was a moment again because I was like, man, this guy did it the right way, you know. And so I like literally left. I was like, I got to get out my record deal. We got to get this thing back on track, like after that show. But I'm curious because we talk about all the moments, right?

And I can imagine all those phone calls between William Morris or, you know, Universal after you kicked off the tour or get the record out. Like, you're getting yelled at. I've been on those calls before. What was like the guiding principle for you in those phone calls or after you get off that you're like, no, this is what I'm supposed to be doing? That's a great question. I think, I mean, at that time, again, I go back to you have to have a little bit of that. I'm going to show you kind of thing.

I think every artist has to have a little bit of that. And that created an edge for me. Everybody needs an edge, whether you're an athlete or whatever. Like, you have to have that. And at that time, that was just another barrier for me. It was like, okay, I'm fired from flats because. they don't like me or whatever. And the industry is not really buying into the musical stuff.

So nobody thinks I'm going to do this. And you double down and go, oh, but I'm going to do this. And I'm going to show you. And I'm going to take names. I'm going to keep a list. And I'm going to make sure you all know I've got a list. And that's kind of what it was for me at the time. I did the whole the Michael Jordan thing where people talk about, you know,

he would even create stories. Yeah. It didn't happen, right? Or just to come in and go, this person said something about me. and you go to the person and they're like, I never talked about this, you know, but he would do that in his head. So I think a lot of that for me was that just created more barriers

and edge that I made sure that I took out on them when I had a chance. So that's the way I can say it. And that's an honest answer. Like I can give you a PC answer, but that's an honest answer. Yeah. I was putting that in and I was,

I had a time planned when I was going to go, oh, wait, I'm coming, you know, and you're going to deal with me. That's, dude. Hey, talk about smelling flowers and trying to realize moments. Like, this is a moment. Like, never in my life did I think I would have a platform or we'd have a platform where Eric Church is sitting on the bus,

giving some mentorship to Connor Smith. Yeah, by the way, music game. My turn. How did you guys get into this? Great question. Will came over. He was at Washington, and he was a free agent and came to the Titans. And then there was this tweet or this article that took place

that was like, Taylor Luwanda, Will Conflint. and are going to be best friends. I was like, I felt like my marriage was being arranged. So I see him at like the, in the Chow Hall, one of the first days of OTAs, which is organized team activities,

and he's with another free agent signing named Mike Campanero and they're laughing about something. That's a silly goose time. Yeah, have a silly goose time. So I walk over and like, hey, I see you guys laughing. I come on to laugh too, what's going on.

We end up like establishing this, like, accountability buddy system because we got into podcasts about like biohacking. Just our love for podcasts and listen to those. things is we're like driving to and from work or whatever just consuming as much podcast as possible and so at the end of the year we were in a winning getting game

against the Colts whoever won that game and go to the playoffs loser your season's done we get donkey stomped so we have a couple vitamins we go to a Chinese restaurant it was best walk best walk and that's where Will hits me yeah hits me with a hey I want to I want to do a podcast and I feel way more comfortable if you do it with me and I'm I'm in because I'm in a unique headspace. Yeah. And then three days later, I flew to California,

I started training and he's like, hey, I will do this with you. I'll wait for you. I'll wait for you. If you're actually going to do it. And so when I came back, that's when we found the bus and the whole thing. But this was on his mind years prior.

And I'll let you cut through here. And you had the whole busing with the boy. Did you have the whole concept? Not busing with the boys. Mine was just podcasting. Like I had journaled about wanting to start a podcast in like 2015 when I was in Washington. And obviously I never pulled the trigger on it.

Because when you're playing on a team, It's like you're always, you're never really doing anything for the name on the back. It's always about the name on your front. Don't be a distraction. But I love podcasting. Then when we got to know each other, kind of through podcasting, Ben Greenfield, a few podcasts that we were kind of bonding over. That year, I was on special teams. I was a backup.

So in my head, I'm thinking I could be on my back nine. Like this could be, I could be going back to being on a 90-man roster, making a 53. So the things that I am interested in, I need to start getting on them. Because when you're in the league, your jokes are funny or you're better looking. and you can shake more hands. So when I started spitballing with the idea of podcasting, I'd ask a couple of teammates because you want your peers to feel like it'd be something.

I remember there's a few teammates to be like, oh, Will, you should have your own podcast. And that would almost be like a confidence booster internally for me. And then when I went to Taylor to ask him to do it, I thought it'd be, I just thought it'd be fun because you're always wearing a helmet, you're performing on Sundays. People don't necessarily know the players behind or underneath the helmet

because usually it's in media. It's in a locker room after a game, but it's never the sauna conversations, the cafeteria stuff, the ball busting, the things that make like a locker room great with all different parts, all different walks of people. And yeah, when he said he'd do it,

I'm more starting to start interviewing or figuring out who we could get to build this podcast. I'm trying to look at, I'm trying to Google things on the internet. Rogan had like an equipment list. I'm reaching out to people, Sal Fricela, who was with First Form. They had a podcast with Andy Fricela.

He's putting me on game on the, the equipment to buy because I knew it was important to like own and control your IP. And then we started to interview producers. There was this one cardboard, right? Cardboard, yeah. Cardboard over in Wedgwood. And so when Taylor got back, we were working with cardboard at the time to kind of figure out, hey, what's this podcast going to look like?

And there was a bus. This bus was sitting behind the loading dock over in Wedgwood out over here. And it was just sitting back there. It was abandoned. It was a piece of shit. There's seats everywhere, was nest, and cardboard pitched to me, hey, what do you think about doing it on this bus? We think it'd be cool. I was great.

I thought it was a brutal idea because Taylor was in town. He was gone all January through April. He got back in April. And so if we were going to do this pod, we had the backlog episodes while Taylor's in town for a couple months doing OTAs. I was a free agent at the time. And so I knew we only had like eight to 10 weeks to get stuff in. So in my brain, I'm thinking, yeah, this could take a minute. we got to just figure out a studio

so we can start doing interviews. Taylor pulled me aside. He was like, look, I'll buy this bus for two grand. He's like, I'll throw 10 into it. And he's like, if we can't get it done and like, what was it, 10 days time? He's like, if it doesn't work, I'll just keep it in my backyard

because I think it's a badass bus. Yeah, I was late for the meeting and was like, Taylor's going to love it. I fall in love easy. Like, don't give me your phone number because I will just, I'll just be, hey, what we're doing tonight? You don't want to be face something

and breaking down the finale of Game of Thrones. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So this, I fell in love with this immediately. Yeah, this is incredible. And it were all the soundproof, like all the build out, the buildouts in the back. Yeah. It all got done within 10 days. And we just started ripping. That's great. We plug it into a generator that was part of this RV. Yeah.

Yeah, this RV business. And we would just steal electricity. We'd kind of ask permission at times. But we'd steal electricity, plug in the generator. We got a little AC unit that would sit up there that we'd have on before the pod started. But once we started, if this was the first year, summertime, Eric, we'd be sitting, we'd have, we'd have tarp over the bus, we'd have to turn the AC off, and we'd be sitting in here in about 90 degree, he'd just ripping a podcast. And then a train would go by every 25, 30 minutes.

Yeah, we'd pause. Like, this is normal. Yeah, this is all part of the process. Yeah, but we just started. Yeah, but it was like, we kind of was just, we just started. There was like, Will writes a lot of things down. I'm more of a shoot from the hip kind of guy. And so we had the idea.

A big prep guy. Yeah, big prep guy. Will was like, I want to do a day. and a bunch of things that I would always call it a working title and then we kind of landed on Bustling with the Boys yeah I remember telling my wife like hey bustling with the boys where you think she was like

it'll never work yeah yeah yeah yeah it's kind of yeah and then yeah it just kind of yeah yeah it took off had some six years later like that see it's the first time you get to see things yeah they're telling you they're telling you shut up yeah we got seven minutes left before you got to get out of here yeah Arles is a paying questions we got one here from Lee Viani 16. He has such a little fan base.

Many of them traveled to multiple shows in different cities and even states, myself included. Does he ever recognize people in the crowd or the fans seen or do the shows tend to blur together? I know he appreciates his fans, but just curious how he sees us. Yeah, I recognize a lot of them over the years. And a lot of them, there's some still that were with us, like when there were still 10 people in Amarillo. There weren't 10 people in Amarillo.

they're like four but along with shows you know like I recognize a lot of the yeah like people back in those little pockets where not even 10 people in there at all year the best thing now for me is the ones that were there that were younger at that time they now have kids and some of them are older kids and they'll bring them to the shows and I actually now have the generation where some of them the kids have had young kids so there's two generations so they're now grandkids that were with me I'm starting 20 some years ago. So it's interesting to see those people now, the generational stuff, which I love. That's awesome.

That is. That is awesome. When it comes to your, I went to one of your concerts in 2015, you sang these boots. And I think you took your boot off. I didn't, but they did. They did. And they throw them on the stage. They do.

They throw them at you. Yeah. Have you ever, have you ever taken one? Or have you ever seen a boot been like, kind of like that one. I have taken, but I've taken a couple of shots. I will tell you a great story because we were just talking about it. But a buddy of mine here in town, Zane has been Weper, and he's friends with Eli Manning. And he does all the graduate stuff and AJ.

So he came to see me in Chicago. And we had this big walk that went out in the middle. And in Chicago, there was somebody on the upper level. So I can only, when I see shadows, like I can't really see the boot, but I can feel them. I've played enough shows. And I was sitting out there and he was directly behind me in the pit right below me. and this boot, I feel this thing coming, like the Matrix. I feel this thing coming, and I just kind of, I lean back.

So microphones like this, I'm singing, and I lean back, and the boot goes right through, like that slow motion, hits him right here. No shit. Yeah, blood. The whole deal. And he was like, later, I kind of told him, he said, how'd you know that? And I was like, man, I just, I feel it. I said, I'm in the zone.

I said, I'm just feeling, you know, I'm feeling a thing. But we've had a bunch of those over there. over the years that I've taken a couple shots. It's funny to mention Ben because he sent me a text and he has a fan question as well. Yeah, I want to imagine. Oh, he's cutting the line. Yeah, how many points a game

did he average in high school? That's one of his questions. That's a good question. Senior year probably over 20. Oh, you were obese like that. But hold on now. How old are you?

I'm 49. Not a lot of video from back then. He could be. He could be. Why would he lie, though? Right, yeah. He doesn't seem like, 20's a lot.

20's a lot of points. Yeah. If I was going to lie, I would say 36. It was like 20. That was a bad. Onward. Oh, you were like that. That was a good basketball player.

Did you get the Allstate? I was all conference. I didn't get Allstate, but I was good. I know, that was the chip on the shoulder. Yeah, yeah. Because that worked out for me. That's what I was chasing. Did you play football at all?

Early on my crowd, once basketball took over, I got hurt my freshman year of football and couldn't play basketball. That was it. Ah, yeah. Once it knocked into basketball season, I was like, I'm done. We can't have this. We can't have this at all. This comes from Drew Jones, App State versus UNC in any sport. Who does he pick?

Summer is on at base 31. The Drill Hall, RBC stage is packed with big shows, live music, and electric summer nights. Featuring acts like Father John. John Misty, the beaches, and wild rivers. From Can't Miss concerts to food, drinks, art, history, and places to gather across the B-31 district. There's never been a better time to visit Base 31 in Prince Edward County. Plan your visit at base31.ca. I love the sounds, the buzzing from the stadium, the chanting from the fans, the announcers calling the place,

soccer, football, at home. Why do I watch the World Cup? That's like asking me, why do I breed? I inherited that fandom from my mom. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American Football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots.

We go beyond the game to the people and the stories that make it great. A soccer game is a festival. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I took an elbow to my head, which cracked my skull. It is an American game. The Brazilians don't like hearing that, though. Are they the only ones that don't like that?

Nobody likes that. As we get ready for the Men's World Cup this summer, listen to American Football as part of the My Coutura Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101, Hoda Kotby. Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges.

I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Star is Javier Tichorito Hernandez. Everyone sees me as a football player, but before anything else, I'm human. Every single day, I'm still learning how to live with problems, mistakes, relationships, emotions ever since I was born.

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Wow. Listen to learning to be human or IHara Apple Podcast or whatever you get your podcast. UNC. It's not close. I had that feeling. Tough time to be a football fan with Carolina. It's not a tough time.

I mean, Caroline is always, we're chasing football. We've been chasing football a while. But it's actually, it's also an intriguing time. Yeah. You have to be intrigued. That's a glass half full move right there. You have to be intrigued. You have to be intrigued.

Yes. There's no way you're not intrigued. Have you met? Bill? Oh yeah. Have you made a better half? I have not. Okay. I was down recently. I played, was it a golf event with Bill. We played golf. He just hit a couple shots. We were playing in a group

and he kind of popped him, but it was a good, it was a good event. Yeah, yeah. We got one here from the head coach of the Bengals, Zach Taylor 10. Does he sleep in his sunglasses or is he an eye rub in the morning than sunglasses are put on top of guy? Also, what is the go-to lens shape? these are hard-hitting questions you're only going to find a bus with the boys Barbara Walter's shit here

No I don't sleep in sunglasses And I don't wear them a ton You know, I'm outside But um And then shape now it's like the Wayfarer shape Used to be the aviators Which is kind of what started it for me But now it's kind of aging

The Wayfarer is more of an aging Yeah, yeah yeah Ray bands look. I was surprised when he came in with clear bands, you know. I was surprised when he came in with clear lenses. It's kind of hoping you'd be sitting in the darkness with us the whole time. I could have done it. Yeah, we're all of us just with a hat on and some 80 years.

Yeah, yeah. I brought glasses today actually. But all good. All good. This one comes from Allen. Make sure J.P. asked him about his days in Greenville. Blind horse.

Yeah. R.P. to the blind horse. JP, do you want to ask? One of the greatest small town of it. One of the greatest in Greenville. I've played there a lot. I've spent a week there. nights.

JP, did you ever hit one of the shows? No, not one of you, J.P. I am 30. You would have been, you'd have been a kid, but still. Yeah, I wouldn't have been able to get in. The blind horses. You had a warning.

Your team's running a tight ship over here. That's good. So there's one minute warning was getting typed in as you're, yeah. That's a perfect time. Is that it? That's all that is.

I think that's it. Let's give a right applause for Eric Church. Mr. Sir Chief coming on bussing with the boys. It has been an absolute honor. Seriously, thank you so much for taking the time

because we are massive fans. I'll tell you this before you go. 2016, Offensive line for the Tennessee Titans are like, hey, what should we come out to? Because we always get introduced at warm-ups and the outsiders was the song we chose.

I also used to, after my cold tub before games, take a cold shower and listen to mixed drinks about feelings within you and tear up right before you take a cold shower before or after you listened to it i was during during there i would have it sitting right there and so guys it's probably be his timer too like this long i need to be in the cold shower i would have it down to where i would hit my hot tub cold tub contrast i would go to the shower i put on mixed drinks about feelings in you

and i'd sit there and i'd think about how sad i was for whatever reason because we're we're trying to get chip chip's got to be somewhere things are going too good for me right now they're coming to get you yep so really appreciate you this has been awesome appreciate you Appreciate you guys. Thank you. Big hug, signing kisses. Must be 21 plus and present in select states. For Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18 plus and present in D.C.

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