New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce - Kelce Tahoe Tales, Zac Brown on Sphere Residency, His New Album and Why We’re Pro-Nagging | EP 148
Episode Date: July 16, 202592%ers welcome back another episode of New Heights, brought to you by our friends at General Mills’s Favorite Cereal Brands! On today’s episode, Jason and Travis recap the amazing we...ekend in Tahoe. We talk about everything from the “Bacon Bet,” losing the karaoke contest to Ray Romano, how Jason won an MVP trophy for something other than golf, and Travis thanks the spectators willing to take one for the team. We also take a call about relationship advice from the Heights Hotline. As it turns out, this show is pro-nagging and Kylie might need a whistle. And we’ve got an incredible conversation with Zac Brown! Zac fills us in on how he’s prepping for an amazing run of shows at the Las Vegas spheres, which music legends lent their talents to the new Zac Brown album, why Jason needs to get over his fear of sharks and go spearfishing, his approach to song writing, what life is really like on a tour bus, the benefits of giving kids knives, and so much more! For even more New Heights, check out our New Heights YouTube Membership! As a member, you'll get access to full episodes, bonus videos, badges, and other stuff that will make you stand out. You can also listen to new episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. ...Download the full podcast here:Wondery: https://wondery.app.link/s9hHTgtXpMbApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-heights/id1643745036Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1y3SUbFMUSESC1N43tBleK?si=LsuQ4a5MRN6wGMcfVcuynwFollow New Heights on Social Media for all the best moments from the show: https://lnk.to/newheightshowSupport the Show: GENERAL MILLS: Don’t miss the limited-edition boxes of Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Honey Nut Cheerios, and REESE’S PUFFS cereal dropping in August…and catch all the Cereal Training Camp action all season long across streaming, TV and social. AUDIBLE: Sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com/newheights LIQUID IV: Squeeze the most out of your Summer with Liquid I.V. Tear. Pour. Live More. Go to https://www.liquid-iv.com/ and get 20% off your first order with code NEWHEIGHTS at checkout.ZILLOW: Zillow. Home just got real. Zillow Home Loans, LLC is an Equal Housing Lender, NMLS 10287. For licensing information, go to http://nmlsconsumeraccess.org. 2600 Michelson Dr. Ste. 1201, Irvine, CA 92612, (888) 852-2212. Zillow Home Loans does not currently offer loans in New York. BuyAbility is a registered servicemark of Zillow Home Loans.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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What I respond to is nagging.
Please nag the fuck out of me.
Tell me to get my lazy ass up
and take the goddamn trash out. I like the nagging and I need it because I
get caught in my own thoughts and I forget to do things. I'm like, oh I'll get that later.
I'll go do this. Big procrastination. I'll do it in an hour. I'll do it in two
hours. It's the Kelsey way. And I'm constantly telling Kyla, please like
just tell me to do these things and she's like, Jason I don't want to tell you
to do these things. I'm like, I get that I don't want to tell you to do these things.
And I'm like, I get that.
I'm just like, you know, it's not going to get done unless you tell me to do it.
Like, okay, you're right.
I should go do this.
So I am pro nagging.
If you have a spouse that is against nagging, you got a shitty husband.
Welcome back to New Heights, ladies, gentlemen, boys and girls. A wonder show produced by wave sports and
entertainment and brought to you by General Mills favorite
cereal brands all of them wrapped into one. You know, you
know which ones they are. They're your favorite. We're
your host. I'm Travis Guns and my big brother Jason Kelsey out
of Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Shout out to those Cincinnati
Bear Cats. Yeah, one week closer to the cats taking on the Cornhusters at Arrowhead, baby.
Subscribe on YouTube, OneDream Plus.
That's what I'm talking about.
Or wherever you get your podcasts.
And follow the show on all social media, at New Heights Show with 1S.
Jason, tell the people what we got coming up.
We got another amazing episode for United Cups centers.
Not a lot of football to talk about right now, but we can talk about some golf because
Travis and I were out in Tahoe.
That's right.
Lake Tahoe, California, the American Century championship.
Well, we're on the Nevada side.
We were on the California side for a little bit, but we're on the Nevada side for the
most part. Is Edgewood in Nevada? Yes. That's on the Nevada side? I thought that was on the California side. We were on the California side for a little bit, but we're on the Nevada side for the most part. Is Edgewood in Nevada?
Yes.
That's on the Nevada side? I thought that was on the California side.
That's the west side. That'd be the side the sun sets on, Jason.
I didn't pay attention to which side the sun was setting on.
We're also going to get to another edition of relationship advice from the Heights Hotline.
You guys have submitted some requests to for some reason have Travis and I
talk about what we think a positive relationship looks
like, which we will try and do our best. Hey, and we've got
another incredible conversation coming with the one, the only
we've wanted to get them on for so long. We're so happy he's
here.
One of our favorites. We had a great conversation.
We already had a...
I don't know if you guys know that sometimes we...
You'll see, we'll change outfits.
It'll be fun.
But you're not going to want to miss it.
He's fucking amazing.
Looking very much forward to these shows he's about to put on, as well as the new album.
So stay tuned for that.
It is unbelievable.
But first, we're going to start with what we always start with.
New news! New News!
New News! New News is brought to you by General Mills. That's right, parents of some of our
favorite cereal brands. Yeah, let's dive right in. All right now, we've got some very important
breaking news from the cereal world. General Mills Cereal Training Camp is back. Oh, the
squad. Uh the squad this year is bringing some uh serious heat
to the breakfast table. As everyone knows, we had our
moment in the cereal spotlight last year. Little Kelsey mix.
Come on now. Yeah, let's see who's taking the snap this year.
A little Cinnamon Toast Crunch guys.
Justin Jefferson. Oh my god. Justin Jefferson. Oh. Oh my god, Justin Jefferson. Oh my god. This is the
some of the greatest receivers ever played the game. I was ready to see some tasty touchdowns.
Me. I want to see some tasty touchdowns. Justin Jefferson, Ra Ra. There we go. It's crunch
time. Okay, crunch time. They've pretty much taken the exact Kelsey mix but instead
of it being Reese's Puffs they've gone Honey Nut Cheerios. I mean it's not a
bad mix. It's not a bad mix. It's not a bad mix but I mean come on have some creativity guys.
It's not the Kelsey mix. Kelsey mix that's a creative mix. This isn't that creative.
We got to try it. We got to have this mix versus our mix. I want to have a side by side comparison. Should we do that on the pod? I think we should
do it on air.
I'm in. I'm down. The commercials fantastic.
You get three of the best receivers in the entire NFL. You're gonna have a good commercial.
Exactly.
Who's was who's? Do we have that information?
The word on the street is that Justin is going all in with his own custom combo this year called Jeddah's Mix. Jeddah's Mix actually has, I think, frosted lemon Cheerios and cinnamon toast crunch
strawberry. Well, now I'm very intrigued. Look at that. Oh, look at that. Look at that box.
Oh, yeah. That's a really cool box. With the chain and everything. You already know he's
chain swinging. He's icy. This is the coolest cereal box I've ever had, honestly. So there's two mixes. Correct. There's two mixes. And we should compare them to our mix. It's the
only logical thing to do on this show. Yes. You know, wait, time out. It's saying here that it's
the exact same as ours. No, no, no. The difference on this first mix is that it is Lucky Charms,
Sinatose Crunch and Honey Nut Cheerios. It's
Absinthe Reese's Puffs. So it's different.
They changed one cereal.
All right.
But then the Jeddas mix, which is, I mean, these are just new creations. He's gone into
a different realm where he's actually being way more creative than us in inventing his
own cereals. Frosted Lemon Cheerios, I don't think that's ever been a thing, right? Has
that ever been like a product that they've ever come out
with?
Never heard of it.
I don't remember it. If it is, I'm sorry. I missed that one. Cinnamon Toast Crunch Strawberry.
So you got lemon and strawberry along with cinnamon and frosted.
I like strawberry lemonade. So maybe this hits.
I mean, I guarantee it's going to be delicious. If they're, I mean, all right.
They did send you guys boxes there
somewhere in your homes.
Okay, well, we're gonna wait because we're gonna try all
three of them on the same show, one at a time. And have our
review on which one we like best. We know that Travis will
participate in this food challenge, which I'm always
excited for big fan of cereal. I can do cereal all day.
mayonnaise flavored cereal kind of sounds delicious.
That's disgusting.
We just invented another Kelsey cereal.
Mayonnaise in milk.
Mayonnaise in milk.
That's what it'd be called mayonnaise and milk.
Listen, all I know is that I've had it's like a mayonnaise sandwich.
What else would you put?
Well, like maybe have like some little dried tomatoes in there.
You have your basically just having a mayonnaise and tomato sandwich. Is that supposed to be good? I mean, to a lot of America, I think
it is good. All right. Let's let's get back to this new news. If you guys can't tell,
we're excited to try these mixes. I hope you guys are too. That does it for new news brought
to you by General Mills' favorite cereal brands.
All right now.
And we'll be back to try some of the new creations in the coming episode.
Yes, sir.
Let's get to out of the house.
We were out of the house this last weekend at the American Century Championship in Tahoe.
The lake up there in California and Nevada, splits right down the middle of
the lake, the old state line.
Is that technically Sierra Nevada? Is that what that is?
No, it's Tahoe, Nevada.
I think somebody said it was Sierra Nevada.
I have no idea.
Brandon, can we... Is that the Sierra Nevada area? What is Sierra Nevada?
You want me to look up the mountain range?
This is so funny. We were actually on the California side the majority of the time.
I thought we were.
The golf course is on the Nevada side.
You sure?
I'm positive. I'm staring at it right now.
So then how the hell were we on the California side?
It's literally the Harris and everything is on the California side.
No, you got this reversed.
No, that's other way around.
It cares.
Gotta be on the correct.
I'm telling you right now.
I don't need you to tell me.
I know for a fact the Harris is on the Nevada side.
I mean, all right here.
Okay, I have a map.
Do we want to look at a map?
I've been looking at the map stating this.
So there's your state lines right there.
South Lake Tahoe. You are in California.
No good. It's keep going in there, bud.
Keep I'm going keep going.
What am I looking for?
Keep going right there on the state line.
You'll see Edgewood. Oh, you're in Nevada.
There you go. We got it.
We nailed it.
And then Harris is literally right across the state line.
I don't know if this is the most accurate line then,
because I'm pretty positive that all those casinos are.
Questioning Google Maps.
Well, I'm questioning that when we were there,
they told us that all of that was there on the Nevada side. Golden Nugget is on the Nevada side.
Bally's is on the Nevada side. Harris is on the Nevada side. Harris. No, I mean, not all of them. But yes, Harris is. Yes. Okay. Well, yeah, no, I guess you got to be right.
You got to be right. That's why they're on the Nevada side, Travis. That's what I imagined. That's why I was talking about Nevada the entire time.
in the Nevada side. That's what I imagine. That's why I was
talking about the entire time.
I can you get anywhere with
this? I think you can gamble.
Apparently we were just in
Nevada all week. We weren't in
California at all, except for
when we went on this lake. I
should have trusted my gut. Oh,
the blues, the water. All right.
Keep going. We're keeping all
of that in Lake Tahoe is in the Sierra. All right. Keep going. We're keeping all of that in. Lake Tahoe is in the
Sierra Nevada mountain range. All right. Yeah. Okay. Back to your original question. Yes. It's
part of the mountain range. Oh, the mountains, the Sierra. All right. Yeah. The high Sierra
Nevada region. Yes. Yes. All right. My bad. Yeah. We were up there at American Century. Shout out
to Edgewood. Shout out to everybody at American Century.
It's always one of my favorite events.
Dude, it's so well run.
It is very well run.
Shout out to NBC for hosting it and making it the production and how big it is.
And shout out to everybody that came out.
It's always fun to see all the fans and everyone go crazy over the people
that we grew up watching and then having fun
with them ourselves.
I got a little update with my caddy,
my good friend from my childhood, Patrick Bacon.
He was not blue on Friday because he made his weight.
The weigh-in was Thursday as soon as we landed, he looked at
me. He's like, can we get this over with? I'm starving. So my
guy had been, he had been cutting weight and making sure
he got his weight down so he didn't look like an absolute
idiot. Carrying my bag is the blue man group. Not to say that
the blue man groups looks like idiots. They put on a very
unbelievable performance. And they look great while they did group. Not to say that the Blue Man groups looks like idiots. They put on a very unbelievable
performance and they look great while they did that. But I don't think a caddy in the
state of Nevada would look good as a Blue Man group. Now, Bacon, he absolutely killed it as always.
And shout out to Bakes for making weight. Another bake, my guy Baker Mayfield.
Another bake my guy Baker Mayfield. Oh
Had a little clip being interviewed
Towards the end of the round by Keira Dixon our good friend at NBC and here's this clip just ask you about what club is in here. It should be paid TV to watch them back or back and forth.
Dude, it's so true. And I turned to Baker. I was like, dude, this is the best when Travis is kind of struggling a little bit. Him and Baker can just have this like confrontational relationship
where they're each shitting at each other. I think we should mic both of you up next year and put
that as like a part of new heights. We'd have to cut the vast majority of it. But the stuff that
would make it in would be gold. It is so funny.
Listen to you go back and forth. It's top tier caddy and
player work. We're just trying to figure out what club to hit.
And what the fuck the Greens are doing because even when
bacon has the green sheet, he has no idea what's going on on
the green. And the
biggest thing that he loves to tell me is that it's like, if I
was putting it, it'd go in. Like, why don't you help me
figure out how I should buy this? He loves to tell me how
how he would play the whole and how but he but my strengths are
completely different than his strengths on the course he
Throws, we know you do it. Here's what we need to do
next year
We go in practice round bacon actually golfs Tahoe. He's done this before
See, that's the thing if you put me in a practice round before I go out and have fun at Tahoe
I'm shooting in the 70s the challenge with Tahoe is
and have fun at Tahoe, I'm shooting in the 70s. The challenge with Tahoe is the amount of celebration
that you have with all your friends
and the people that you see up there.
And all of a sudden, you know what I mean?
There's drinking games at the casino that night,
and now you wake up a little hungover,
and the first thing you do is have to get back onto the train
because you just want to get back into a groove
of feeling good and getting, you know,
the dehydrated like shakes out.
Yeah.
For those of you that don't know, we're not just playing golf.
We it's a full fledged party pretty much every night.
We saw our guy, Matthew Kachuk and Kachuk just won the Stanley Cup.
He did second time in a row.
What am I not supposed to have a few beers with him?
I can celebrate with my guy.
Yeah.
Well, you weren't partner.
You weren't teammates with Matthew.
I was.
And I just want
to say he's also a reigning baseball champion. I think he won last year. Did you win last
year? I don't remember if you won last year. No, we didn't win last year. Well, he won
this year when I was on his team. And guess who was the MVP? 90% I'm gonna sucked ass
at golf. I was Kyle Schwab on that fucking baseball. I was lead off. Home run right away.
I don't think he's been lead off this year.
Maybe I can't remember. But I was fucking dialed in on that
baseball game. I was preventing people from stealing, getting
home runs, being very risky. And it paid off.
Schwarber are kind of built, built the same.
We have similar faces. I think we're both from Ohio.
I'm a big fan of the schwarber vibes. Schwarbs. Can I get my trophy? Should I bring my trophy in? No. I'm a big fan of the Schwab vibes.
Schwab's.
Can I get my trophy?
Should I bring my trophy in?
No.
I'm gonna get my trophy.
I had a feeling he was going to do that whether I said yes or no.
Ha!
I might not have taken home the trophy for the American Century Championship this week,
but I did get the Oshas table 2025 most valuable thrower trophy.
That's right.
Our guy TJ.
Oh, she took it up.
He took it up a level this year had trophies made for the back
table at the Harris Casino where we have some fun back there, dude.
I think this I think this is going to get it's going to get some
legs.
It's going to get some legs.
It's so much fun back there.
And honestly, TJ and his buddy made like a video
pumping up this year's like baseball game.
Dude, it is fucking hilarious.
Our guy, Miles Teller, was back there with you.
I had my guy, Colin Yost, the Miz.
We were over there fighting for our lives,
trying to make some damn cups, man.
Oh, yeah. And shout out to TJ.
It was a fun day.
Awesome time.
Not our best golf, but it was our best person out.
I mean, we were we were killing it from an energy standpoint.
I think everybody who golfed with us was like, man, that was a really fun day.
So we as far as I'm concerned, that's a win.
Nobody said they hated playing with us was like, man, that was a really fun day. So we as far as I'm concerned, that's a win. Nobody said they hated playing with us. Exactly. Yeah, tell me
I didn't win.
I think I was like, Jason, you remember when you almost stabbed
yourself in the eye with your tea? That was hilarious.
Yeah, we, we lost the the karaoke contest. And it was a
shame because we had a lot of fun up there.
I thought we did good. We kind of screwed up the ending. I thought that band was done. You stayed up there. Either way. Yeah, no, that was on me. Shout out to Jay DeMarcus, everybody that plays
live for us, as a bunch of Jim Oakes go up there and do
our favorite renditions of our favorite songs.
But it was fun.
Dad came up to us afterwards.
He just saw Bruce Springsteen.
Dad was very excited.
The crowd, it felt like was into it.
I don't know.
The crowd felt like it was into it.
Yeah, everybody seemed like they were enjoying it.
There's no chance we stood a chance when
Ray Marmano is doing lose yourself by Eminem. I mean, you can't compete with that. How do
you compete with that kind of offbeat, authentically bad Eminem rapping? I mean, you can't it but This way the clock's on the phone. Steps out of reality. Oh, no, no.
He knows that he chokes.
He shows that he won't.
He doesn't try to.
He knows he won't.
He knows that he knows.
He knows that he won't.
He knows that he won't.
He knows that he won't.
He knows that he won't.
He knows that he won't.
He knows that he won't.
All right, all right, all right, all right.
It's so fucking good.
I'd say it's just an epic send.
He's good.
You just have to, you got to give it to him. It's an epic send it's on a
Unpredictive like unexpected unexpected like a motherfucker sent it. So, you know, listen, I think old-time rock and roll was great
But that's an expected karaoke. So we got to come next year with a more unexpected song
Something that is just like I can't believe these guys are doing we're so we're so versatile Jason
I don't know if there's anything that's like
what what would be unexpected that we go up there and like do like an opera like what
like what do you what would be unexpected?
I don't know. I mean,
Cisco,
but thong song song song probably unexpected.
Probably be. But at the same time, expected.
You go my neck, my back by Kia.
I would just do, ooh, ooh, Laffy Taffy would be a killer too.
Laffy Taffy.
I mean, that's, that's expected for me from people that know me.
They know I like that song.
Oh my God.
All right.
We'll figure it out.
We'll figure it out next year.
Either way, great job Ray Romano for killing it.
Winning the karaoke.
Ray and his kids.
The Romano family killed it, man.
Big shout out to Pavelski.
Joe Pavelski.
Yeah, Joe.
Yeah, Joe ran away with it with a big eagle putt on 18.
Absolutely electric and shout out the big wood Baker Mayfield
of Miles Teller, man.
We love you guys.
Always a fun round when we get to play 18 with the boys man not my uh not my greatest performance yeah no I think I actually
am getting worse at uh at the Tahoe in terms of like my my actual number Jason finished minus
51 it's like Cam Juergens I was just I'm a big Cam Juergens fan where were you last year
I was minus 51 we were were just the first. Really?
I was two spots higher because the field got worse, but Jason Kelsey played exactly the
same.
Yeah, not good, not good, not good.
But I'm going to put in time.
I've been putting time in on Reddit trying to fix my golf swing.
And we have a video of that, which I think my swing is better.
Reddit isn't where you go for a golf swing though. That's the thing.
But I think my swing got better. Either way, we're also going to be, Jason is also going
to be taking lessons. And I'm going to come back. I did, I really think I'm going to be
in the positive next year. How much you want to bet right now, next year I'm in the positive
at American Century?
I bet you, do you want to bet?
I just hit bacon with which was the bet I
if I don't do it, I have to do a show in a painted in blue.
Yeah. Okay, what happens and if I win it's how much money? I
don't like winning money that don't do money. What do I get?
If I win, then you have to do the show in blue.
I'm so in you're not
Not wait You're not getting it all safe. Just playing bogey golf and I'm gonna be in the positive
I'm gonna be sending you
blue bang group
Photos all summer all winter for an entire year. I am so fucking in on this.
I cannot wait to be in the positive next year.
I fucking can't wait.
A 50 point swing, a 52 point swing.
I'm not even worried about it
because I see the shots I hit.
I see the shots I hit
and then I see these other jamos in balls.
I fucking know that I am better than these guys
if I just try and I'm gonna fucking put the work in I have
Nothing else to do Travis
Okay, you're still playing football. There are other things for you to worry about. I have nothing else going on
I have unlimited time to get better at this sport. I'm going to be positive
I can't fucking wait. This will be the greatest swing of golf.
It's going to be like my swing of GPA when Brian Kelly, so one year at Cincinnati, I
realized this probably shouldn't say this, but I realized I was probably never going
to go into the corporate world.
And I had this thing in my head was like, I'm either going to go play in the NFL or
I'm going to become a coach.
So these classes are kind of useless. Like I don't know what I'm going to marketing classes where I'm either going to go play in the NFL or I'm going to become a coach. So these classes are kind of useless. Like I don't know what I'm going to marketing classes
where I'm not going to go work in the marketing field. So I got, I just stopped going to class
and I failed a bunch of classes. And for a quarter at Cincinnati, I had a point,
I think it was a 0.6 GPA. They told me, Jason, they said, Jason, it's really nice. You won't be able to play football
this year. If you don't get this thing back into the positive, you'll be ineligible to
play football. And that's when Brian Kelly at the next reporting of the end of the semester
or the end of that quarter, he said, and in the biggest improvement in GPA that I've ever
seen, Jason Kelsey went from a 0.6
to Dean's List.
I got a 3.8.
Nice.
Because then I started going to class again because I was like, oh yeah, I probably still
need to play football.
This would be the second biggest comeback of my life if we can get into the positive
next year.
And I think it's going to happen.
I say we just bring new heights to town and just get a houseboat.
Have some fun reporting, maybe grab some guests while we're out there.
Don't try and set up all this shit to distract me from being in the positive.
I already know what you're fucking trying to do.
I'm just saying.
I think it'd be fun.
I'm going to be in bed by 10pm.
Actually, I'm not because I'm still going to go to Osh's table because I got to repeat
as the MVP ultimate thrower. I'm going to win most valuable thrower again, and I'm going to be in the positive
You know how fucking hard that is this guy's fired up. We also found out
I mean I found out I've never tried to snap a football or basketball between my legs. I'm really proud of this dude
You were fucking pumped
That was third or fourth.
I think the first one electric.
I did the first one fucking around.
I was like, oh, wow, I could actually make this thing.
This is that is very makeable.
And this is right in the hot spot of my golf round.
Hammy look good right there.
Well, it was tight.
I'm just glad you know, I almost pulled my hamstring again,
looking between my legs. That thing is still not healthy.
It's like riding a bike, Jay. It's like riding a bike.
I actually got my hands on the side and gave it a little flick so it had that little backspin
going on like I was doing a potty shot. Potty shot, yeah. We're talking about that
will Chamberlain. That's right. All righty. Trab,
you also made some buckets. scripts. You shooting lefty
See these yeah, the right the right-handed jump shot isn't as smooth anymore. I got a labor. Yeah
I think it's the AC the AC has the one so you just converted to left-handed like that's something that everybody else can do
buckets
buckets. Oh my gosh. That was good. That was very good. That was fucking butter. That was so good. Selective. That's impressive. Shout out to Mr. Turnbull for getting me to use
my left hand as a kid and all the right shoulder surgeries I've had. I've just naturally been
using this left arm for all the fun shit. Yeah. So I know how to throw a baseball and right
left handed all that good shit. Either way, phenomenal time as always in Tahoe. Yes, sir. Championship. Very excited to come
back next year. We're invited. I don't know at what point they stop inviting you if you're
that bad at golf. But no, no, no, it's not about the golf. It's not about the golf. No,
it's not about the golf. Isn't the whole thing about golf? I think we know. Yeah, kind of.
How many fans can we hit with golf balls before this?
Just from a liability standpoint like else, we can't.
Did you catch one this year?
I hit. Yeah, I did.
I you've hit somebody with like.
Drives or like two irons before.
I haven't hit anybody with a drive.
OK, I went off a tree and I hit a guy in the neck this
year. Sorry. But blame the tree, not me. I caught one thin and hit a lady in her foot. I did. I mean,
she saw it coming right at her though. There was no reason she shouldn't have got out of the way,
which by the way, thank you for getting in the way because that was no way I was saving
bogey and she didn't stop that ball right there. So that was a big thank you. To anybody who's at the American Central Classic,
if you think you can take it, you know, if you're at bat and you, you know, think a walk like
getting guaranteed first base, especially you just kind of sit there and you just let the ball hit
you, right? You get a free pick. If you think it's coming in with a relatively low like speed,
you think you could take it someplace outside of the head and be okay?
Do the celebrities of solid. Just take it and let the ball be closer to the field.
Because otherwise hitting them trees are hard. So I'll take one for the team. If I'm there,
I'd stick my ass out and let one of those balls hit me.
I mean, you get a pick.
Well, that too. Yeah. I don't know if that's worth it, but maybe it is. Yeah. See you guys
next year. Hopefully.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you to everybody up there. And that does in fact add to the house.
Let's do some Heights Hotline.
Yeah. Very in on that.
Heights Hotline is brought to you by Audible.
Nice.
Right. If you're sick of reading, just listen.
All right. Let's pick our favorites from this list. We got, can girls propose dating apps,
first date ideas, getting a partner to do chores. I like that one. I like that one.
Let's do four. Four, four, four, four. I like that one. This is like the worst one for me
to do possible. All right, good. Do your fucking chores. Hi,
that's Jake and intern Brandon. Also, Thomas and Jason. Also,
okay. advice question I have for you guys. ultimate parenting
question I actually think is how do you gentle parent your
partner and or husband spouse spouse, whatever, into doing chores in a respectful
way.
Like what motivates you?
How has your wife and or significant other gotten you to do something without nagging?
My name is Audra.
I am 30 from Washington. Would love
to hear how you guys have handled that. All right, the
flag will fly. Let's go from Washington. Yeah, there we go.
I'll say this. I think that what I respond to really well is
nagging. Please nag the fuck out of me. Tell me to
get my lazy ass up and take the goddamn trash out. I don't like if you tell me to take the
trash out, I'm not gonna be like, Oh, I can't believe she's telling me to take the trash
out. I'm like, Yeah, you're right. I should be doing that. Okay, I'm sorry. I like the
nagging and I need it because I get caught in my own thoughts and I forget to do things.
I'm like, Oh, I'll get that later. I'll go do this.
I'll do it in an hour.
I'll do it in two hours.
It's the Kelsey way.
We think a lot about shit that kind of doesn't really matter,
but in our mind, we wander.
We wander into possibilities.
And I am constantly telling Kyla,
please just tell me to do these things.
And she's like, Jason,
I don't want to tell you to do these things.
And I'm like, I get that.
I'm just like, you know, it's not going to get done unless you tell me to do it.
Like if you're like, Jason, I got a bunch of trash bags.
Can you please take them out?
I'll take the trash out and I will have zero.
Like I can't believe she's making me do this.
I'll be like, thank you.
Okay.
Yep.
You're right.
I should go do this.
So I am pro nagging.
I think nagging is a great thing to do.
If you're have a like a spouse that is against nagging of things that he should be
doing, you probably should you got a shitty husband. I'm I
don't know what you want me to say. Like if he's already had
things that he's supposed to be doing, and he's not doing them.
He's not you telling him to do a fucking job. I like coaching.
I've been coached my whole life. I want people to tell me
otherwise. I need that. I need that coaching.
I need, I should be better.
We're coachable guys.
I acknowledge Jason should understand when there's full trash bags on the fucking kitchen
floor that I'm supposed to pick them up and take them outside.
But sometimes Jason says, I'll get to that later.
I'll get that in a couple of minutes.
If you have a spouse that is, that is, you know, grew up on sports, a big, you know, big believer in
being coached. Yeah, just get a whistle. Get a whistle. Snap
them out of his fucking is his thought process.
Not like I like this idea. Not in everybody knows a whistle in
like somewhere like a house is like an alarming thing. Like
what the fuck is this?
It's like yo trash. Yeah, I told you about for three times son. It's your ass over there. Get the trash.
Yeah. And a lot of times just the first time you just tell me it's there. That's the the cue to me
of like, okay, Jason, do your fucking job. Take this goddamn trash out. Yeah, that's not your job
as a spouse at all. Get a whistle. I wouldn't be worried about being nagging.
Now, if you're nagging about things that you shouldn't be nagging about, then yeah, that
should probably get a little annoying to the husband. But if it's this is things that he
her boyfriend or whoever you got going on or I don't know what your situation is lady. But I think
that I mean, I don't think it's nagging when you just remind somebody that they should be doing
something.
I say this though, I have never ever and I will never ever tell Callie to do something
around the house because it's like, I don't know, she does enough.
So it's like, yeah, if something doesn't get done, it's like, yeah, well, I should be helping
out on this.
Tell me where that can do because I am worthless unless you tell me that.
Oh, man.
That was great. Thank you. Thank you for the call. Get a whistle.
I like this whistle idea. I really do.
I'm getting a Kiley a whistle.
I'm gonna start getting it for my kids too. These little like...
The girls are just use it as a toy. They'll be like, oh nice. We are allowed to make obnoxious
noises in the house.
That's right. Well, no, I'll shut that down real quick too. But they they're so bad like ADHD,
right? Our whole like the way TV is set up, games, all this stuff is set up to like these kids are
on like crack nine times like all day. They're just like boom, boom, boom. They're sugar all day.
You know how many times I have to tell them when I'm talking to them, look at me and they'll
look at me for a second. I'll start talking to them. They'll start to avert their eyes. Right here.
Look right here. Do not look away. I am fucking talking to you. Stop it. Stop this right now.
If these little shits, I don't know. I don't know what kind of medication they're giving
these kids today. I'm giving them the Ed Kelsey medication. Look at my goddamn eyes when I'm talking to you.
Boom, lock in, bow, stop hitting your sister. You hear me? You do it again. You're going on the
stairs. All right. Where are we at? I don't know where we went with that one.
Thank you for that. That does it for a Heist Hotline brought to you by Audible. And let's get
That does it for a Heights Hotline brought to you by Audible. And let's get to our convo with the man, the myth, the legend,
Zach Brown, baby.
Yeah, baby.
Thank you to our presenting sponsor, General Mills' favorite cereal brands.
Remember when we crushed it with the cereal training camp last year?
Oh, yeah.
Well, this is wild.
We actually got to create our own cereal, the Kelsey Mix.
I don't know if you guys had it.
It was out there.
I've signed a bunch of those boxes, seen a bunch of people that had it.
And if we do say so ourselves, I think pretty successful.
I thought it was pretty damn good.
I still enjoy the mix myself, actually.
What's your current go-to cereal?
It's always Reese's Peanut Butter Puffs.
I mean, it was, it always will be. That's what I'm
going to. Are the girls in on Reese's Peanut Butter Cups? They like Reese's Puffs, for sure. Nice.
We were huge Ciro fans as kids. We had our own mix last year and we're passing on this mix making
to some new playmakers this year. Justice Jefferson, Amon Ra's St. Brown and Jamar Chase are bringing
the end zone energy straight to your breakfast
table. Yes, sir. Starting this August, you'll see the stars lighting up boxes of Cinnamon Toast
Crunch, Lucky Charms, Honey Nut Cheerios and Reese Puffs cereal. And not only that, Justin's
not messing around this year. He's got this insane Jedis mix that combines Frosted Lemon Cheerios
with Cinnamon Toast Crunch Strawberry available for a limited time only. Be sure to score them is a mix that combines frosted lemon Cheerios with cinnamon toast crunch strawberry available
for a limited time only.
Be sure to score them all at your local grocery store this August.
We got to talk about this elite romance collection audibles stacked with.
So we're doing romance.
Yeah, audibles got I mean, the past couple weeks, we've been doing some self awareness.
First of all, audibles got what you need in any category.
They got a bunch of books on there that you can listen to.
But yeah, we're talking a little romance.
What's your favorite romance novel, Jason?
I'm not gonna lie, I've never read a romance novel.
Harry Potter is very romantic.
I guess everything kind of has a little bit of romance in it, but...
I'll round that.
I'm not against it, I've just never done it.
There's a lot of unmatched romance novels out there on Audible. You want hysterical stuff with Dukes and Carriages? Boom, got it. Need a
billionaire CEO who's absolutely crushing it in a boardroom? They got that too. What about a hockey
goalie who scores your heart? That is something I could get behind. Once they said hockey, I'm in
now. And if you can't find any of these regular romance novels amusing to you.
There's so many others.
There's a whole world of romance on Audible where we're talking dragons and magic and
the whole nine yards.
I do like dragons.
The options are endless.
You'll be cracking up with these rom-coms from Lily Chu and Ali Hazelwood.
Need something with a little fantasy?
Sarah J. Maas.
Rebecca Yaros and bringing
their A-game. You already know about Bridgerton and Outlander. Straight up legendary status.
If you're into romance novels, I love you. I mean, Audible is the best. Let's be honest.
You get to listen to it. A lot of things you're doing, whether you're driving in the car,
working in the kitchen, working out. There's tons of times to get whatever genre you want. Audible is where romance fans are listening.
Sign up for free, 30 day trial,
and get your first romance audio book free.
That's right, you can listen to people
falling in love for free.
Visit audible.com slash new heights.
There's more to imagine when you listen.
Yo, it's your man Nick Cannon,
and we are back with a brand new season of We Playing Spades. And to the left of me is the best of me, when you listen. and better than ever. That's right. So make sure you hit the Subscribe button on YouTube. They gave us our own YouTube channel.
It's Lee playing Spade.
Bow bow bow bow bow.
Spade.
Our guest today is from Lumpkin County High School in Georgia.
He's a two time Academy of Country Music award winner.
Two time.
A four time CMT award winner and a three time Grammy award winner. Best new artist
country collaboration with vocals and best country album.
Yes, sir. You know him from his hits colder weather toes knee
deep a little bit of chicken fried. I just call it chicken
fried. I don't know why it's in there. Is that it? Please
welcome from the Zach Brown band, Zach Brown himself.
Yeah, baby. We got him. We got him.
Thank you, fellas.
My dog.
It's so excited to have you on.
Likewise.
Thank you, brother. Appreciate you giving us the time, man.
And a football guy.
Yes, sir.
I'm a football guy.
That's right.
Can you let the people know that don't know the story of your football journey and how
you got into music real quick?
Yeah, for sure, man.
I started playing football when I was five, like Pop Warner Leagues.
Damn, yeah.
Down there in Georgia.
I played 11 years till I moved up to Dahlonega. You know, I played in South Forsyth
and Mashburn growing up and then like one of my favorite movies
of all time is the waterboy.
Come on.
So when I moved when I moved from South Forsyth up to Lumpkin
County and started playing ball there like South Forsyth had
like great facilities great everything. When we moved up to
Dahlonega man, it was like the waterboy. It was like,
there's no grass, no grass on the field, like you're running
in dirt clay, you know, dirt devils like running laps.
Oh, gosh.
And so I only I only did that for for a couple years in that
kind of scenario. But you know, as far as music goes, man, music
was my first love. I was like two, three years old, like hearing jingles on TV, singing along with
everything. I was the kid that like my brothers were like, shut up, stop singing, you know.
And then I started playing guitar when I was about seven. And I carry my guitar every day
is school with me every day to football practice. But it was great because when I got into high school,
I'd sit around and play for the guys.
And that kept them from rubbing being gay on my balls
and stuff, too.
So everybody else that was freshman getting Hayes,
but I could play some King Floyd and sit around with him.
And so it kind of kept me out of trouble.
That's epic, man.
It's actually killer.
We got to hang out with this guy more.
That's awesome. We got to keep him happy. We got to keep him happy. You know what I'm saying? We got to hang out with this guy more. That's awesome.
We got to keep him happy. We got to keep him happy. You know what I'm saying? We got to
keep him happy. Keep him real comfortable. Dude, that's absolutely epic.
Yeah. Yeah.
Did you start on guitar? Is that the first instrument you took to?
That's the first one. Yeah. I mean, I was about seven and I was just found my love,
man. Anywhere I was, if I had my guitar in my hands, I was at home. I was comfortable.
Hell yeah.
The guitar's been a really good friend of me for a lot of years. My dad played a little guitar
around the campfire. I would go to hunting camp with him and his buddies on the weekends,
every other weekend during hunting season. And then my brother, he was 21 years older than me.
My dad was older when he had me. I was like the last hurrah. But my oldest brother was 21 years old.
Hell of a hurrah right there.
And he got me into like 70s music
and got me into bluegrass and like,
so all of that like big singer songwriter era
from the 70s, like James Taylor, Jim Croce.
Oh, hell yes.
So cool, man.
Shane Fogelberg, Gordon Lightfoot,
like to the Eagles, to Pink Floyd,
to the Allman Brothers, to Steve Miller Band.
Yeah, Pops has some taste.
I wanted to say this.
I mean, I'm a huge fan of your music.
I'm a huge fan of your albums and the music
that you've produced, went and done.
But one of the things I love about going to one
of your shows, to be honest with you,
is that love of music really comes across.
At each one of your shows that you do live,
you have like different musicians come out with you guys. You're doing songs that I've never heard.
It's the best man.
You could tell that you guys are actual like lovers of all these genres. It ain't just country.
It ain't just this specific spotlight. You're very, very talented, man.
I've always loved those shows.
Pulling in covers from left and right and everybody gets a chance to be the lead singer
and have the moment, man. It's so cool. It's one of my favorite shows to tell people to go and see man.
Actually I think that leads us into our next segment, a little new news.
Okay, alright. Good transition.
There's a good transition right into this because you got a new gig out in Vegas that we want to talk about.
We start off every new news segment by hitting everybody with the new news call.
It's not going to go well.
This is not going to happen.
This isn't going to go well,
but Jason usually starts it off, then I hit it,
and then our guest hits it.
All right.
We have tried to harmonize.
Travis and I, we cannot harmonize to save our asses.
We can't.
I watch the guys.
This is the only music, he's the only music talent in the family.
There is a bit of like a delay. So you're the musical expert. Normally we'll hit it with like a
new news is like the melody or the chime. Okay. What is the best way to try and harmonize this?
If we were going to try and do it. All right. So if you want to get a triad, which is a three
notes in a chord that harmonize, it's something like this. It's like
one so whatever you end on the last note. So one, three, five.
So if one it was is holding down the one one's holding the three
ones holding the five, we're gonna have some three part
harmony.
All right. I made that sound so you hit me the one what's the
one what am I hitting it?
So if we went like new news, and then like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,
I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,
I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,
I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,
I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,
I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,
I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,
I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,
I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,
I'm like, I'm like,
I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm going to go there. I got a big okay. Let's see if we can do it. Come on. Okay. New
news. New news.
You did it. Hey, that was good.
That's what I'm talking about.
Travis is right on the third,
man. He's got an ear too, man.
That's good. Come on now. I
got a little bit. Let's go. I
just needed somebody to actually help me out with that.
That was fun, man.
Thank you for that, dude.
A musician to help me out.
Exactly.
Not your brother.
All right.
Well, let's get into the new news.
Jason, go ahead and hit him.
So the new news is, Zach,
you're starting your Love and Fear residency
at the Sphere in Las Vegas.
The first two weekends of December, 2025 2025 as well as you guys have a new
album coming out Love and Fear which is going to release night one of the Sphere residency.
Wow that's all this is announcing July 15th. Am I correct? That's perfect. Perfect. Dude
congratulations this is epic. How exciting first of all I'm assuming you have but have you been to
a show at the Sphere?
I've been to every one that I can make it to.
I've been to five shows so far.
Just seeing what's really working and what maybe could be done a little bit better or
you know, just the way that it's utilized in the building.
But so for the last like three years, I've been looking for something to do.
I've been looking like to create a spectacle.
To do something where the production's so big. Because if you think about a couple moments, like when Pink Floyd came
out with the wall, and they went on tour with it, and their production was just massive. It wasn't
just like a little video thing in the middle. It was like all the way stretched around. Or when the
Eagles came back with their Hell Freezes Over tour, it revived everything. So this is like,
this is my baby. This is what
I've been working on. And so like a year and a half of trying to figure out what the spectra
was going to be, my agent, Rob Light was like, you need to see this place in Vegas that they're
building. And so I went to see it while it was being constructed. And I was like, this is the
home for the spectacle. And so we've been working on it for 14 months already, making all the content making everything and it's like
it's literally like making a movie as well.
Hell yeah.
That's putting the story together writing this album,
threading it together, having a real story inside of it. We
filmed a 40 piece orchestra, we filmed a 20 piece choir. Lots of
stuff, man. I've been a stuntman. I've been jerked
around on stunt wires and drug across the ground and thrown
up in the air.
And it's, uh, it's going to be, it's going to be wild, man.
But this is like the greatest canvas for creativity that's ever been made.
The sphere.
Four, they have to measure the video in acres.
Yeah.
There's four acres of video.
I knew they had to create like a new bite.
Like there's I forget what the bite is, but they had for the amount of data.
Well, it's not a terabyte.
It's another one.
It's like something.
Yeah, the amount of data that's going through that thing just at one moment, right?
Well, it's exponential when you go from four to eight is exponential and then eight to
12 and to 16. So sixteen K video is all. So, it takes a month to render
thirty seconds of sixteen K video. A month. Whoa. For one computer. It's nuts. That's
crazy. But everything's gonna get faster, you know, the computers will get faster over
time and kind of catch up but this but right, this is like a Marvel. Like this is like a three billion dollar video audio system crazy thing.
It's insane, man. I love that you're a student of the game too, man. You're like, no, I want to go
see what's capable, how I can make this thing the best when I come in here. That is it. That's how
you know it's going to be an amazing show, not just because of your catalog and how amazing your
music already is. But I can tell right now how excited
you're getting that this is going to be a masterpiece, man.
I'm fucking.
My baby, man.
A lot of people that might know our songs on the radio, like
our band is a hard one to understand until you see it
live.
So y'all have seen it.
So we love the curveballs.
We love we love throwing things in that nobody would ever
expect.
And then over the years, we've done some some really cool
stuff with costuming and black lights and like huge like
inflatable things and things like that. But this is our first
masterpiece is our first time to really, really lay our our nuts
out there and just self funded. So we had to pay for making
everything completely ourselves rent the venue and be off of
touring because you have to the contract you can't tour so it's like
right missing the whole year of touring so I did a little spring tour which is like an off in smaller
markets you know like like in Maine and New Hampshire and and around everywhere but we're
staying out of major markets you know when this gets announced I pulled every favorite from every
human that I know that's a part of a company or part of everything like, hey, we need we need some help. So I'm hoping everything comes together like we got we got a new song
with Snoop. Oh, let's go. That's on this album and that's getting ready that'll that'll be
released to Oh, I can't wait to hear it. Yeah, it's called Let It Run. And that's that's
that's gonna be awesome. Like so July 20, we're filming the music
video for that one. And then I got a song with Dolly on this
album.
Hell yeah.
Are you kidding me? Yes.
She murdered it, man. I sent her the song. Let's go. And I was
like, I just want you to sing whatever you feel like. And I
sent her several songs. And she was like, this is the one. This
is the one that I want. She said, don't you give that song
to anybody else, honey. We got us a big hit here.
Yeah, good. But she got I got back, you know, the stem of her
vocals of her singing on it, man. And it was just like chill
bumps down in my toenails, man. She's just absolutely murdered
it. So there's some great surprises on this record. I'm
super proud of it. I produced this album it. So, there's some great surprises on this record. I'm super proud of it. I produced
this album myself. Hell yeah,
man. And it's we're doing all
independent. So, there's no
labels. There's no, it's just
all betting on ourselves this
year and just pulling every
favor. So, I appreciate you
guys letting me talk about it
on New Heights. Are you kidding
me? Are you kidding me, man?
It's a **** honor, dude. This
is awesome, man. I cannot wait to go check this out.
So I tell you, I'm keeping it in the holster.
I haven't gone to the sphere yet, dude.
I'm fine.
This is my first experience, dude.
Travis knows this because I saw YouTube
when Trav played in Vegas, the Super Bowl.
And this is what it had just started.
And I'm like, dude, the opportunities with this place
are wild.
Like the visuals and the way they kind of did it, like the first half of the show was
very, you know, it's crazy.
It's like a lot of patterning things and it's kind of very trippy.
And then the second half of the show, it's very scenic.
And then all this, it feels like you're outside.
So it's nuts.
Like at one point, I remember just looking around and like, dude,
it feels like we're at an outdoor venue and we're inside. That's how, that's how crazy
the technology is. And I can't wait to see what you guys do with that thing. That's going
to be awesome, man. Cooking it up. Congratulations. How many shows, how many shows is this residency?
Do you know? Well, we're, we're going up for sale with four and as those sell out, we'll
be adding more. So, you know, depending on how everything goes,
hopefully we'll be able to come back later next year
and do another batch up and do another round
because they got a big, some big releases and stuff
coming up that are coming in in February,
but it'll be December and January.
Man, I'm so excited.
It's a lot though, from like crazy wardrobe
to the choreography, to where we're moving,
to how we're interacting with the screens. There'll be parts where we're moving, how we're interacting
with the screens. There'll be parts where we're actually able to like, you know, if
I can like literally lift my hand up and take and move a giant wave up behind me on the
screen to the, you know, what it's, it's wild. Yeah. This is insane, man. Wait till you check
this place out. This, that venue, there's nothing like that thing in the world. I think
they're building another one like in London or something like that.
Yeah, that's London and Dubai.
A couple other spots, man.
But it's nuts, man.
And yeah, you want to talk about toes in the water, ass in the sand.
You're going to legitimately be
looking in that. I don't know.
I don't know what you got planned, but it's going to be epic.
Yeah, man. Yeah, it's going to be great.
Yeah. Stoked to have you guys. Congrats it, brother. I can't wait to fucking
get out there and see you do your thing and see the
masterpiece you put together. Yes, sir. So you started your
music career. You were playing bars or how'd your music career
jump off? Yeah. So I started playing at coffee houses when I
was like fourteen. So I was playing, I was playing because you couldn't really be
playing in bars and stuff when you're that young. I started playing in coffee houses,
but I was in choir since first grade. So music programs in schools is a big deal, man.
It's huge, man.
That's really where it was reinforced for me, learning harmony, learning vocal arrangements
and stuff started when I was in first grade. Then then as I got up in high school, you know, I was playing coffee shops and a couple of
different buddies of mine, Kurt Thomas, I was playing with him and my buddy Radford
Wyndham that I went to high school with. And then as soon as I graduated from high school,
I went straight to West Georgia. So that's where I went to college. And then I started
playing in bars. So I got a gig at like the Taco Mac,
like playing, you know,
backup for a dude for like a hundred bucks
playing guitar for him.
And then I started like singing.
They let me sing every once in a while
and they're like, oh wow, he can sing too.
So, so I was, I was hustling bar gigs.
And then, man, I, I never graduated from college.
I took off to go play.
I got a gig in Panama City.
Me and my drummer took off.
We had, I sold my life insurance policy.
My dad had bought for me.
I bought a like a old 78 Dodge Good Times band, like Bubble
Windows.
Oh my God.
Oh yeah.
Dude.
Yes.
Oh yeah.
And so, you're living the dream.
Yeah.
In my mind.
Hell yeah.
Me and my dog, I had a Jack Russell puppy at the time.
I think I was 19.
We took off for Panama City and me and a drummer,
we were playing as a two piece.
So we just set up drums and guitar, but we got a gig.
Oh yeah.
So we were down there playing at this place called Joey's,
and we were, we'd play out on this deck
and we auditioned for the guys, but our first auditions was six nights a week, six hours a night for 150 bucks a
night. Oh my gosh. So stoked.
We've been like setting up at some dudes,
daiquiri shack trailer that he's selling like, you know, stuff out of anybody that
would give us a power outlet to plug in. So then after that, when I,
when we left Panama city, we did that for a few summers.
And then what I figured
out is I could go to a sports bar that didn't have live music. And I'll just tell them, I'm
going to come in and play for free. And let us and let us have the door once we start bringing people
in, then let us just take so it didn't cost them anything. So like, you're betting on yourself,
you're like, we're going to get people in here. Yeah, we created a we created our own business
model. Because if you go try to get a gig somewhere where people already do like in Nashville you can make I mean 100 bucks
a night is a decent gig in Nashville but we would go to these sports bars and we play there every
week so after a couple months we'd have like two or three hundred people coming in on a Wednesday
night like college towns and then we're making three to five bucks at the door so we were making
like 12-15 hundred bucks so I could pay a good drummer I could pay a sound man and then we were making three to five bucks at the door. So we were making like 12, 1500 bucks.
So I could pay a good drummer.
I could pay a sound man.
And then we did that.
We rocked that circuit for seven years.
Yeah.
Playing like three nights in Panama city,
two nights in Birmingham, two nights in around Atlanta.
And we did that for like 10 years, man.
So 10 years of grinding five, six nights a week.
And I was playing anything I could play.
Anybody that people pay me for, like a bar
mitzvah or a birthday party or whatever it was, man, I was, we were, we were
hustling man and that's really, that's really where we learned to appreciate
people, like every single person, the person cleaning the bar at the end of the night.
So now they'd be the only person listening.
And so I love that we cut our teeth doing it that way.
And it wasn't just like overnight.
We just became successful. We thought we were, we had our teeth doing it that way. And it wasn't just like overnight, we just became
successful. We thought we were we had our CDs and we went to
Panama City really like we're gonna be big next year. Like
it's, but 10 years later, we finally made the right album. We
got it chicken fry was on the radio that took off and then I
was able to travel on a bus after that and I could lay down
and sleep while we're traveling. And I was back in the days when
we were pretty rowdy, man.
We were sponsored by Jägermeister.
It was like, you know, it was, it was wild.
It was wild.
That was my hustle, man.
So we hustled like that for 10 years.
And then all while we're traveling,
writing together, being together.
And a lot of my crew, man, from like seven years in,
is still with me, you know?
It's like that album's like almost 20 years, 20 years ago, man,
which is crazy because I don't feel any different, man. And I
look in the mirror. I feel better now actually than I did
then because I'm I'm running clean now. I eat clean. I
exercise. I'm like on the program now but it's been a
blessing. Yeager isn't in the diet anymore. No, no, no, no.
I have my share, man. I had a great career. Yeah, I had a
great. There we go. I had a great career. You had a great.
Here we go. I had a good run at it.
Yeah, you're right. It does not feel like that long ago. The foundation came out. I
still remember when Chicken Fried first came out. We were at Cincinnati. Travis, were you
at Cincinnati? You were at Cincinnati. You were still in high school.
I think I was just at the tail end of high school. Yeah.
But I remember in I think Spotify had just like started to take off too.
And I remember showing all these guys like, bro, have you heard this fucking song?
Like this thing is like the dopest thing I've ever come up like.
And it was like the anthem for a number of years.
I mean, in that whole album, in everything since then, you've just continued to kill it.
But it feels like that was just yesterday, but it wasn't like that.
I just had a whole NFL career
and you're still releasing songs. It's looking at live shows. Well, at the same time, I'm a such a fan
of you guys too, man. I watched, I watched the journey of you guys as well. So it's, it's much
props. I know the amount of discipline it takes and, and, you know, I mean, you look lean now too,
Jason. I'm trying. I'm still on, I'm still doing the alcohol, but I've definitely cleaned up the diet a little bit.
It's less though.
It's less.
I knew that there would be a day, you know, I was like, there'll be a day when it's time
to, you know, put it down.
And my warranty ran out when I turned 40.
And I was like, you know, it was a couple of years before that when I decided, but I'm
like, man, if I don't invest in feeling good, then yeah, because I love to, you know, I
love to be out in the woods and on the water under the water. You know, spearfishing is my favorite activity in the world. Spearfishing?
Free diving. That's cool. So I do that all over the world. I want to be able to do that when I'm old.
Well, it sounds like I need to be talking to you. Exactly. Yeah. I need some of this stuff. Yeah,
this is great. But we can't just let spearfishing just slide by like this. Hold on. So how far down
is like the furthest you've ever like, spirit like you'd like
because you get down to like 50 feet, maybe even further. I
don't like how. Yeah, I've shot stuff down at 80. What? Yeah,
but I got homies, man. It's like my buddy Justin's my buddy
Justin Lee. He's like my buddy Justin's, my buddy Justin Lee,
he's like my hero.
Jason, imagine holding your breath and going down 80 feet.
Travis, you know I'm a terrified shark.
You know the number one thing to like get those sharks
over there spearfishing, blood in the water.
There ain't no fucking chance I'm doing spearfishing,
but this is, I'm very jealous.
They're there every time, man.
It's just part of it, man.
I'm cringing. It's part of it. I'm pringing.
It's part of it.
And when you're in an area, when you start seeing sharks, you
know, there's going to be other good fish around too.
And then, but you got to watch their body language.
It's like a dude in a bar.
That's like kind of antsy.
He's like, you can tell if somebody's like spun up, you watch their body
language, most times they're just chill, man.
They're trying to get some bait.
You know, I don't really, I don't spearfish where there's great whites very often where there's like things
that are used to eating things our size. So most of like the
Caribbean and the Gulf Mexico, like most places that we go and
even in Hawaii, you know, they're not they're not eating
sea lions and seals because that's what you look like in a
black wetsuit. So a great white would be a thing but you also
have a you also have a weapon. So if they keep coming around
and they and they have a body language that you don't like,
then you just kind of you go down you you poke them in the
nose. Yeah, well, I'm at them and poke them. And they're like,
well, I know that's yeah, well, that's if you see them coming.
They come up under you, you don't see them coming.
You can tell Jason has a lot of dreams. He has a lot of nightmares.
I'm terrified.
I'm very jealous though.
That's so bad ass though.
80 feet.
Yeah, I can make, I don't have a lot of bottom time
once I get down, but like my buddy Justin Lee,
who's my hero doing it, he can free dive 200 feet down
and hunt something.
Free dive.
Oh my gosh.
It takes him a full minute to swim back up 200 feet.
So he's got like his timer on his watch.
And so I go with guys that are, you know,
he can hold his breath like seven and a half minutes.
Seven and a half minutes?
So he goes down, chills for like five minutes
and then comes back up.
He can, he can go down.
Well, when you're exercising, it's a little bit different,
but I think he can easily get like four minutes of bottom time. No problem. No way. But he's
like, yeah, he's one of the greatest dudes ever, man. Great
family, man. I'm working on my lung capacity. Yeah and and
there's technique too, man. I've been doing it. I did it
wrong for my first 10 years of doing it but the last the last
10 years I've been doing it. I've been going with him. I've
been going with Cameron Kirkconnell. It was another
guy but these guys are legends, man. They they hold a bunch of world records so dope but going
with them has been a whole like life changing thing but dude it
is an avatar world under there and there's no telling every
time you go you see something that you never seen before
aliens dude.
Ali is you can't convince me is not do you have a fish that is
like I want to get one of these like what is your is your ultimate fish? You want to get spear fishing?
One that I haven't I haven't gotten a marlin yet. Oh my gosh.
And in Hawaii, I just have to be able to put in the time in Hawaii to be able to to do it to get a big blue marlin. That's on my list. I did get my big dogfish tuna, which was like my bucket list.
Yeah, there you go, baby.
Hang on. I'll show you a pic of this one.
I was going to say she tastes good or what?
Oh, yeah, they're delicious.
They're delicious, but.
There's one. Oh, my gosh.
Look at how monstrous that thing is.
Oh, no way.
Yeah, that's amazing.
I don't even know how you even get something like that back up to the top.
Shit.
Well, they float a little bit, you know, you're that's so fucking badass.
God damn.
I didn't I didn't mean to get off off topic, man, but that is so cool, man.
That was very interesting to me.
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Hello, I'm Dak Shepard.
And I'm Monica Padman.
And we love talking to people.
Every Monday and Wednesday, we sit down with actors,
authors, scientists, really anyone interesting,
and have real honest conversations about life, success,
failure, and everything in between.
We get vulnerable, we get nerdy,
and yes, I occasionally overshare.
Me too.
And I would say more than occasionally.
But some of our favorite stories
actually come from you, our our listeners that's why we created
armchair anonymous yes every Friday on armchair anonymous we get to hear your
funniest weirdest most jaw-dropping confessions and boy have you deliver
yeah from disastrous dates to family secrets to the time you accidentally
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yes we have.
And we love it.
So come pull up a chair, follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app or wherever you get your
podcasts and subscribe to Armchair Expert on YouTube.
So I've messed around with music.
I played saxophone growing up.
I'll mess around on guitar.
I do not consider myself a musician, but I like messing around with music. What
goes into writing a song for you? Is it, do you have like a process? Do you start with
the melody? Do you start with like some type of lyric or theme? What's Zach Brown's methodology?
Man, it happens all different kinds of ways. Sometimes it's a melody that you put words
to. Sometimes it's like a guitar riff that you're playing and you something kind of
a sound or a melody pops out.
Sometimes it's just like something that you hear.
You'll hear somebody say something or you'll hear something that's like,
that's a song. And so that can happen in the middle of the night. Like I can,
I can literally wake up from a dream and like,
and I got to write it down like right then, you might not work on it then,
but, but just capturing it. And then for gotta write it down like right then. Work on it then but but just capturing it and then for me it's like really don't
not settling for anything because I can hear on the radio there's a lots of
songs that you can tell it just they wrote that because it rhymed.
Sure.
You really don't want to mail it in.
So I have songs like goodbye in our eyes is one of my songs.
It took 11 years to find the right bridge for that song.
So I knew it was good, but I didn't want to just throw something in there to get
it done. Yeah, but some songs you write in an hour. Like it
just, it just like happens right. It happens fast. But the
deeper like philosophical songs and really trying to put the
poetry into it to make it poetic. There's lots of
different ways to say something. And I love the
collaboration of writing with people that are really
talented too. And where there's collaboration of writing with people that are really talented too.
And where there's no ego involved,
where when the right idea pops up, whoever said it,
it doesn't really matter who said it.
You both can agree, like, that's the one.
That's the one we've been missing.
And I used to be able to test them out live.
I'd play at a bar full of people and I'd play a song
and you could tell by how they reacted.
But these days, because everybody's filming everything. yeah if you play a shitty version of the song that you just wrote
the first time you play it it's on youtube and then it's out there like that song is released you
know yeah so you have to sit on them so like right now sitting on all these babies that I made for
this new album for love and fear we released the first one a couple weeks ago I ain't worried
about it as the new one new jam and then the then the one with Snoop's coming out next is called Let It Run.
My kids are older. They're playing music now too. I'm sitting and playing guitar with my kids.
Nice. That's awesome.
It's fun. I got five kids too. So half the time I'm just there like I'm their house bitch and I love
it. I'm taking them everywhere, going to their games, going to their events, doing their things.
Like that's-
Sounds like a great dad, man.
That's half my life.
So that's priority one.
And then after that is like being creative,
obviously connecting with my band, writing songs.
And then the rest is adventuring, you know,
being in the mountains or under the water and exploring.
But I've been so blessed to do what I love to do, man.
I know you guys have to feel the same way. Dude, you know it, man. Absolutely. You know it do what I love to do, man. I know you guys have to feel the same way.
Like, you know, you know it's a wonderful country, man.
You've got to work with a lot of artists.
I mean, just to name a few, we got some here.
James Taylor, Blake Sheldon, the Vichy, Alan Jackson, Kenny Chesney,
Jimmy Buffett, RIP, the legend who is like the one of your favorite
artists that you've collabed with or one of your favorite collabs
that you would love to do again or all of those are so weird because I was such a like
people that I was a big fan of their music. Same thing with with like football. Like you
idolize somebody and then all of a sudden you're on the field with them. Yeah, it's
crazy. Like yeah. And you climb on a stage and I'm like I'm singing a song with one of
my musical heroes. So they're they're literally like Batman to me.
Yes.
Hell yeah.
And so those moments for me have been some of the most
surreal things, like playing on stage with James Taylor
was like, how did this happen?
Dude, one of my favorite songs by you, brother.
I don't mean to cut you off, man,
but Jason introduced this one to me.
I didn't even know it was it was a song overnight
with uh trombone shorty shorty dude I was thinking of the exact same song I love I don't know where
this R&B like super smooth song comes on it's smooth as shit yes yeah such a groove and you
got the trombone back here going crazy dude that was one of my favorite collabs ever and it's just
the range that you have you can tell you like to you like to show your creativity like to show just your your enjoyment
of music and everything like that man it's just so fun and i cannot wait to see i mean you said
snoop dog i'm just like man you just keep coming with surprises man it's badass well i love that
about snoop too man because he's always relevant. Yeah, always, always do that. He just keeps going, keeps stepping in
keeps going. So so much respect for people like him that hold up
their relationships and their vibe and like, everybody's stoked
to see Snoop, man.
Hell yeah. Yeah, you can't go wrong with Snoop.
It doesn't matter. So this this is this is definitely a, an herb
theme song. And I was like, I gotta get Snoop on it, man.
Do what's it like living on a tour bus?
We never got to experience like life on the road.
You talked a little bit about it with the van and like, what is that like?
The first five years, we were on a 12 bunk bus.
So there's 12 of us living on one bus with one bathroom
and like one little spot in the back to, you know, to change or whatever.
Okay.
Oh wow.
You gotta learn how to kind of internalize your BS,
you know, or whatever you're going through.
Cause I don't know if y'all are like me,
but some days I wake up and I'm like,
I can hold all this shit up.
You know, I'm like energizing.
And then some days you wake up
and just your chemistry's off and like everything,
you're just like a little bit,
but learning how to like really live
in such tight confined spaces. It's like being an Aztec or a Mayan where you're like living in one of those
places it's like dug into the bank like stacked up on top of each other but you gotta you gotta
learn how to like you know manage yourself and your own whatever you're going through
and then holding space for everybody because like your drummer and your percussionist is
normally just walking around tapping on everything so they're just like middle of the night. They're tapping banging
on things. So, for me, like having a noisemaker, a white
noise, I use the white noise app but I use I also got a
company called Deemer Box that makes these I was gonna send
y'all some it's a it's a dry box like a Pelican box but it's
got two silicone speakers in it. So, it's completely
waterproof but it holds all your stuff in there. There's a
battery charger for your phone inside. Oh, hell yeah. So, it's completely waterproof but it holds all your stuff in there. There's a battery charger for
your phone inside. Oh, hell
yeah. So, I plug that thing in
when I'm in a hotel or on the
on the bus, I plug that thing
in and I just that thing just
rips like brown noise super
loud. So, it drowns out.
Everybody's like, yeah, here's
one right here. Oh, hell yeah.
That's all you need right
there. Yeah. So, that's all you
need. Like when I'm traveling
or whatever,
all your gear goes in here.
I'm about to say that thing keeps some beers cold
or what dude?
So anyway, that's part of it, having the white noise
and being able to drown everybody out
is a big part of being able to sleep
or if you're in a hotel and there's Ferraris going by,
if you're in LA or construction or whatever it is.
But the culture, man, it's all led from the top, man.
You can't buy culture and momentum and you got to create it and you got to lead it
from the top. And the people that I travel with and the people in my band are unbelievable
human beings first, and then they're incredibly talented. So you have to really learn how
to like support each other and how to, you know, if you're having a rough day to kind
of, you know, squash it a little bit, you know, kind of, there's a lot of emotions and
12 people in one bus. And then there's 12 of those, you know, squash it a little bit, you know, kind of, there's a lot of emotions and 12, 12 people in one bus. And then, and then there's, and then there's 12 of those,
you know,
there's 12 buses. Yeah. Yeah.
You mentioned playing with like your heroes. My first guy I ever snapped the ball to was
Michael Vick. And that was like a moment when I got to the NFL, like, dude, I can't believe
I'm freaking playing with freaking Michael Vick. Like what the heck is going on right
now? I'm snapping them all to this dude.
So yeah, I know you've sung at all these venues.
You've got all these musics and all these genres.
But what's it like to sing a national anthem?
Is it, how different is that?
Well, normally as soon as you sing a word,
you're hearing that word back like two seconds later.
Oh no.
So it's before I did it with In-Ear,
so the first time I sang an anthem,
it was at a Braves game.
I was 14.
Oh no, oh man. 14.
I was 14.
That's crazy.
In high school and me and my buddy, Radford,
we used to sing together.
We did, we would sing, I would sing the bass harmony
and then he would sing the lead.
And as soon as you sing a word,
you're hearing the next word back to you that
you just sang. And so it's hard from that standpoint. There's a lot of echo. But once
you kind of get past that, so now I put my, I have my inner monitors in. So now that blocks
out a lot of the wash. So, but man, I like singing it just kind of OG, man. I like just
singing it, singing it up high enough where you can, you know, get up on the high notes,
but not really like changing it a whole lot.
And me and my band, we're doing some coming up here soon. Getting to sing four-part harmony with my band, kind of like barbershop style. I sang in barbershop full of tests all the way through.
Let's go to court. Let's go. That's so fucking badass.
Yeah. But I love this country, man. And there's a lot of people that I don't think really appreciate the amount of sacrifice that it's taken from
for us to be able to have what we have here.
And so we have a big mission supporting our veterans.
We got the camp that we built.
It's actually right over there.
You know, we do 34 weeks of veteran programs throughout the year and working with such incredible people, man, people that have real
servants hearts and do whatever they're told so that we can keep our freedom and be able
to pursue our dreams and live the American dream.
We owe a lot to them.
That's something every night we get a soldier to come up on stage when we do chicken fried
and come out and do a salute and just remind everybody what you know, what a blessing it is.
Got a pretty good.
All right.
We got our last segment.
We got to ask you don't have to answer these.
You can tell us to, you know, fuck off.
Yeah.
All right.
Here we go.
Is it true that you have 11 siblings?
Is this accurate?
You said you were the youngest.
Yeah.
Well, growing up, I had I had four stepsisters.
I had two step sisters from my
dad's side, two step sisters from my mom's side. I have two half brothers, two half sisters. And
then from the time I was three years old, I've had brother-in-laws and sister-in-laws that have been
like parents to me. Like my brother, my brother David, he's actually my brother-in-law. But
since I was three years old, he taught me how to ride a bike. He co-signed with me to get my first truck and trailer, like first loan I ever had.
He was like, he's been a dad to me.
I've been adopted and taken in by a lot of people over the years by a lot of different
people.
And yeah, so I don't have any that are full mom, full dad.
So I'm the only one for my mom and my dad, but I grew up in the middle of all of them.
So it's, you know, it's seven sisters and now I got four girls. I got four, four daughters.
Hey, I'm right there with you. Yeah, man. And a son. I got the son last. He's 11, but my
girls are 14, 15, 17, 18. We're in a similar spread right now, but we're way, we got five,
four, two, and we just got a newborn
I've been there man. I've been there
Table dude the change table is still sitting where right there
It's still out it's
Years later man
Later, that's great. I can relate man, but it's beautiful and every every phase
It kind of feels like it might be wearing you out or whatever, man, you'll miss that the
most. You got to just just like soak that in while while they're little man, because
they grow up so fast. Absolutely. I appreciate it. Yeah, man. We were just on the beach today.
It was a freaking trip, man. But yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to being out of
diapers. There's no question about that. I was brushing their teeth every night, like
wrestling them down and brushing their teeth.
Yeah. But that honestly, man, like that was hard. But I miss it. I miss all those things. I miss
every one of those things that's that is like feels like a struggle at times. Just the the
Groundhog Day of all of the bath time, you know, it's nuts to throw it up.
Every night is chaos. Like it I don't know how long it's nuts to throw it off. Throwing them all every night is chaos. Like it. I don't know how long it's
going to take. It could be 30 minutes. It could be two hours.
And they're like puppies too. You get you get them out of the
water and dry them off and they want to take off. Dude. There's
like little naked bodies running around the house like a
aquarium. Dude, it's wild. But I miss I miss all those phases,
man. It's such a blessing to get to be a parent
and get to be around for that.
Absolutely.
Back to a little bit of music. I want to know, who was your first concert that you went to
when you were younger where you were like, oh yeah, this is what I want to do this.
So I was 14. We had opened up for Sean Mullins and Matthew Kaler.
They were like two guys that were like troubadours
playing by themselves.
And when I was 14 and I saw them perform live, I was like,
and I love music.
I love to sing, but watching them play, and I was like,
this is what I want to do.
So same thing with the summer camp thing.
I would go to summer camp when I was 14 at camp I was like I want to build one of these one day
I want to build a camp and I want to play music and I knew that from the time I was 14 and that's a blessing because
A lot of people have like four degrees and they still don't know what they want to do
like I had a path like I knew what I wanted to do and I and so I was able to follow what I loved and
Then figured out how to you know hustle enough to make a living doing it
So you got a camp too? What is it? Is it an overnight camp?
Is there an age limit?
What can we get on this camp?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you could come, you could come counsel or drop in anytime. It's, yeah,
so it's called Camp Southern Ground.
Okay.
And nine weeks of summertime, we have about 115 kids that come in to sleep away for a week at a time.
Damn! Okay. And then the other 34 weeks out of
the year, we do veteran programs. And then we do vision
development for the corporations, stuff like that.
But we got a 16 acre organic farm, farm to table, the kids
learn how to pull stuff out of the ground and learn how to
plant things. We've got, you know, big aquatic center over
there. We've got zip lines. We've got
all the things that camp happens. I had transformational experiences at camp when it was like a molded
little cabin with no air conditioning. But we built a university to do this. The buildings
are wrapped in zinc. They're going to be there for a thousand years. But the difference that
it makes in a kid's life, a kid that doesn't have a mentor and
a kid that comes, we bring underserved kids in that are in the same group with kids that
are on the spectrum, with kids from military families that might have lost a parent or
had a parent dismembered in service.
And then you have mainstream kids, which might have a poverty of spirit where they don't
even know how to appreciate anything they have.
They have everything, they don't know how to appreciate it.
So you mash them all together in one group and you help them through a week
of like learning how to rely on each other and learning to be like an advocate
for each other. Oh, yeah.
And it changes lives.
And that's that that's what I experienced as a kid.
That's what we experienced, too, man.
We are. I hear everything you're saying.
I'm just like, man, you're doing it right, brother.
It's giving me flashbacks.
Hell, yeah. And we were members, though.
We remember those camps and all the different like social, economic and like
racial, like the melting pot that we grew up in and getting out,
getting the experience, everybody for who they are and their culture.
Man, it's the best.
We had a camp. Camp R was our overnight camp.
Growing up, I don't think you want to talk about no AC in the middle of the summer.
The S cabins.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fucking mice and roaches running across my chest.
The stories and the memories that you get them, but it was awesome.
It just throw you in the, in the woods with a bunch of high school and college kids.
Like, like looking as your chaperones, man, is the best.
I know, it's so fun.
Zach, we learned you make knives.
Yes, sir.
How did this come about?
How did this even start?
So I fell in love with knives as a kid.
My dad traveled with Coca-Cola for like,
I don't know, 15 years,
and he would go to Mongolia and China and all these places,
and he would bring me back a knife
from all the places that he went.
That's badass. And I started throwing knives when I was about four.
So, okay. I got an indoor throwing range here at the house if y'all are making the G.A.
I got a four-year-old. I could not imagine giving her a freaking knife to throw.
That's amazing. Jason was stabbing kids with forks. Don't give them a knife.
That's amazing. Jason was stabbing kids with forks.
That sounds like a true story.
It was a sport. Technically, it was a sport.
Doesn't count.
Kentucky Fried Chicken spoon for thing.
Yeah, that's right.
I love knives. I was drawn to them just like as a kid. And then when I was 18,
I love knives. I was drawn to them just like as a kid. And then when I was 18, I lived in a trailer in Carrollton when I was going to West Georgia. And my neighbor's granddad had a knife shop. And he was taking like old buck knives and taking apart and making them automatics, like making them switchblades. So that was my first experience when I was about 18, working on knives and being in his shop. And then after that, I just became friends with a bunch of other knife makers. And then so now I've got a shop here at my house where I make Damascus and I forge and
did you are dude that is so I want to hate you so bad.
I can't even describe it.
You and GA come on down.
Come on now.
I didn't know nothing about bladesmith and knife making sword making any of it.
And I got, I am such
a huge fan of the show Forged in Fire. And it's like, all I want to do now is go into
a forge and actually make something with some steel. Like I would, that is the coolest thing
ever.
We could do that. So Neil Kamamura is one of the Forged in Fire champions. Absolutely.
Yes. And so Neil lives on our farm on Big Island in Hawaii.
And his knife shop is there on the farm and forging with him has made me so much better,
dude. He is an absolute animal. That is so fucking awesome, man. He's like half Hawaiian,
half Japanese. I know exactly what you're talking about. I was I was trying to link
up with him if we were going to go out to Hawaii a couple years ago because I'm like,
dude, I would love you be staying in my place, man. Go, go do it.
Okay. All right. All right. Yeah. Neil manages the farm and his family lives there, man,
but just salt of the earth people, man, that the people we have in Hawaii are just so you
are just the lead. The guy that spearfishes, man. You know, that's, that's my Hawaii family.
There's nobody better to learn how to forge from. I mean, I can show you, I could, I could, we can make something here for sure. But Neil, Neil's on another level, man. So
that's, he's like my hero in knife making and forging. But I can show you, I did this basket
weave one, hang on, let me show you. Oh, hell yeah. What can't he do? It is amazing how many
things you're good at. This is three, three days of work to fold the steel into the pattern that kind of looks like a
like a basket weave like that.
Oh, that looks so dope though.
How freaking cool is that?
That is so cool.
That's fucking hard right there.
And when you smash it all out, it comes out good, man.
I learn a lot every time.
So this is the step before that.
Yeah.
And then you weld all that together and then you forge it
together and then you draw it out and then you slice it and
that's what makes those little tiles. And so making a mosaic
is like an art man. And there's a guy Marek of Mamasi that
I've learned a lot from that that guy is such a wizard at
making Damascus sounds like you're the wizard man. My
wintertime program man be able to go out and get in the shop and it's also cool because anytime I need to make something man, you know, you got some rebar
You can make about anything that you need. That's fucking dope. Yeah, just freaking melt it down
As long as it's heartenable steel you get it done. That's awesome. Yeah, for sure for sure
Quick question for you before we wrap with your brother. We got to ask we ask everybody what their welcome
before we wrap with your brother, we got to ask, we ask everybody what their welcome to the NFL,
to the music world, to the movies.
What was your welcome to the music industry moment?
Man, the first time that we played the CMAs,
they let us play, and I was good friends with Charlie Daniels.
He was such a sweet man, dear friend.
Yeah.
They let us do our version of Devil Went Down to Georgia
on the CMAs.
Dude, I watched it live? Yes, absolutely.
Yeah. And I remember looking out and seeing like getting a standing ovation
from like Chris Christopherson and all the other country artists that were there.
And I just remember thinking like.
Wow, because we just been humping bars, man, grinding, grinding, grinding
as everything took off, like I feel like some of those moments
like on those shows where there's so many artists that are there together and they know
who you are and you know, it's just a surreal, surreal moment. And then any night I still
never get used to going out. Like, I'm literally I'm a servant when I'm at my house and I love
it. I love it so much. And then when I step out on a stage, man,
and those people are there,
every single night that I step out there,
it's not, I don't take that for granted.
Cause I remember what it was like
playing to two people in a bar.
I remember the journey, I remember the whole thing.
But being out there where there's all these people
that are singing all the words back,
and I feel a big responsibility.
I wanna be like like Willie man. I
want to be as long as I can sing. I just saw Willie play in
Austin like a couple months ago. It was unbelievable. But just
to like you know, I think the music gives us like this life
force and if we can help somebody in one night to just
have something they could put in their pocket for for a rainy
day or to help to make music that helps people get through
things like it's such a such an honor to get to to do that, man.
That's my favorite part about it is just connecting and making people feel good.
Yeah, well, absolutely.
You've you've you've done that, brother.
I still remember the day I got to see you live, man.
So can't wait to see how this fear goes.
Can't wait to listen to the new album and appreciate you coming on, baby.
92% of Zach
All right, that does it for our interview with Zach Brown man, dude, I
Love this guy
Fishing I'm not well, I'm definitely not doing that
But I am gonna go forge a blade in Hawaii. I guarantee you that
Dude, I have always been a Zach Brown fan. And one of the reasons I've always loved him, we talked about it
just a few minutes ago, but I love, you could tell how great of a musician he is and how
much he loves music in every live show I've ever been to his. Like he embraces musicians
in that area. He brings people on stage. He's doing different, like he's just the pinnacle
of what I think.
He's a show like he's just the pinnacle of what I think a great artist is.
This is a guy that's always trying to get better, always trying to do new things.
I'm very excited to see what he's doing over here at the Sphere.
Neal Bajer-Moderator You cannot wait, man.
Jeff Sarris Dude, he's got all these other things going on too. Spear fishing, he's got a ranch,
he's forging knives. It's got a fucking box that you charge. I mean, what the fuck? I think it's incredible the amount of things that this guy's got going on.
And it was a joy talking to him.
I hope you guys all enjoyed getting to know Zach Brown a little bit more.
Yeah. And make sure you get to the sphere and check out his new album, baby.
All right. That wraps up another episode of New Heights.
Thank you to Zach Brown for joining us on the show.
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