Shaun Newman Podcast - #942 - John Rich

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

John Rich is an American country music singer-songwriter, producer, and TV personality best known as one half of the duo Big & Rich. Rising to fame in the early 2000s with hits like "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)," he previously played bass and sang for Lonestar before forming Big & Rich with Big Kenny in 2003. A prolific songwriter, Rich has penned multiple No. 1 country hits for artists including Gretchen Wilson, Faith Hill, and Jason Aldean, earning three ASCAP Songwriter of the Year awards. Beyond music, he’s released solo albums, produced for various artists, and hosted The Pursuit! with John Rich on Fox Nation. A vocal conservative, entrepreneur, and family man.Tickets to Cornerstone Forum 26’: https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone26/Tickets to the Mashspiel:https://www.showpass.com/mashspiel/Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Use the code “SNP” on all ordersProphet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail] your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500

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Today's guest is American country music singer-songwriter, producer, and television personality. I'm talking about John Rich. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by John Rich. John, thanks for hopping on. You bet, man.

Good to be with you. We've been working on this for a little while. Glad it finally lined up. Well, I was telling you, I was telling you before we got going. You know, your music history, if I go through, like, you know, if you had your playlist, of when you started till now is a funny little correlation to, you know, me being a kid and listened to you with Lone Star. And then 2004 when I was graduating is when Save a Horse Ride of Cowboy came out.

And I was playing junior hockey and that was a fan favorite, to say the least. And then, you know, you fast forward to, I think it was last year when Revelation came out. Forgive me, I'd like it. You know, it's on the playlist. I get the kids listening to it in the car and they love it, you know. It's been fun listening to your journey and music, I guess, in the different iterations and different songs we get to hear. But before we get into all of that, it's your first time on the show. And I allow you to let people just tell the audience about themselves.

I'm sure everybody's listened to a song or two of yours over the course, but maybe they haven't. And maybe they have no idea who John Rich is. That's fine. Yeah. So I live in Nashville now, but I was raised in Amarillo, Texas up in the Panhandle. and my dad started preaching at about 19 years old. He's about to be 74, and a lot of prisons, a lot of street preaching. So I grew up around that kind of an atmosphere.

Moved in Nashville and went to high school here because my parents had kind of a Tennessee, Texas connection back and forth throughout their lives. And upon getting to Tennessee, I realized, wow, people make. music and they make money doing it. I never heard of such a concept. And Amarillo, I mean, come on, nobody's going to pay you to sing anything. But I was, you know, 15 years old in that range. And I'd been playing guitar since I was a little kid. My dad plays and sings and taught me when I was five years old how to play. So I started thinking about that. I wonder if I could make a living playing country music, which I loved. I was a huge fan of like John Anderson, Alabama, Ricky

Skaggs, Conway, you know, that whole era of country, all the 80s stuff I was a huge fan of, Bellamy Brothers. And I started auditioning for things, started doing talent contest and wound up landing a gig at Opryland USA, which was a big theme park here at the time, big music theme park. Got a deal there my senior year in high school and worked there right after I got out of high school, and that's where I met some guys who wanted to start a band and go on the road, which didn't go along with my plans because I plan on going to college. And I actually had a four-year ride paid to go to college. And so it was hard to say no to that.

But these guys were really, really good. They were all from Texas. They were older than me. They've been playing a lot longer. And I thought, man, these guys are so good. They may actually get a record deal at some point, which is what I wanted to do. So I decided not to go to college and instead went on the road with these guys playing holiday in lounges, county rodeos, off market casinos. I mean, you name it, any little hole in a wall that would book us, we'd play it.

And a couple of years after doing that, we got a record deal. And that was the band Lone Star. So that led to my introduction into the songwriting world, which really to date, if you ask me what adjective I'd like you. use first in front of my name. If you're going to describe me in my career, I'd say songwriter first. To me, that's the hardest thing to do is take blank paper and turn it into something that matters. But I learned how to write sitting in the room with some of the greatest writers, Hall of Fame writers in Nashville, because I had that record due with Lone Star, it allowed me in those doors. And I've written to date over 2,000 songs, continue to write songs today.

My partner, Big Kenny, a big and rich. He and I are now, 21 years. We've been touring together. We played a show last week. We have another show coming up. We do about 40 to 50 cities a year. And it's a pretty cool spot to be in, man. I can do big and rich music. I can do solo stuff. I don't have a record contract, publishing contract. I have no contracts with anybody in the world concerning my music at all, which allows me to be completely free and put out songs like Revelation, which you mentioned, that otherwise would never be heard. because record labels would never approve a song like that. So I'm a free agent as free as it gets,

and I'm doing the most I can with it while I can't. I want to go back. You're talking about, okay, so you could go to college, get a full ride. That seems like a pretty sweet deal. Okay, you're not going to pay anything? All right, that sounds good. Then you run into what would become Lone Star,

or well, they could have been Lone Star at the time, regardless, just what is Lone Star. And I think you said you toured for two years, hole in the walls, everywhere you could get a gig. And I was curious, you know, like, I was just having this chat with someone about improvement. Like when you put your mind to something and you're constantly doing it and like trying to get better, right? In music, I don't suppose you just show up on the stage, sing a song once. You're like, yep, that's the best it's ever going to be.

Or you ever just play the guitar once and you're like, yeah, that's all it's ever going to be. I assume you're constantly fiddling with it, trying to make your show better, your music better, hitting different. notes trying to get the songs right working as a group trying to and I guess I'm kind of curious for two years if you said at the start were you guys amazing and it just took years for somebody to hear you or the two years of going through all the hole in the walls was there like a vast improvement well those two years they were already good because they had been out they had 10 years on me doing it and so I was not very good I had I had a lot of raw ability but I'd never been put in those situations we were pulling about 200 nights a year

year, maybe more than that, two and a quarter. And you're not playing, you're not playing one set a night. You're playing like four sets a night. So think about 200 nights a year, four sets a night. You're doing 800 sets. 800 sets. Yeah, 800 sets a year is what you're doing. And so it's, it's the process of doing it, but it's also being around people who are better than you are. and that shows you where you've got to get to. So you're an athlete. So does it do you any good to play against people who are not as good as you are? No.

You'll beat them. Yeah, you'll win the game. But you're not going to finish the game and be a better player than you were before you played. You would rather go up against really great talent and lose the game but become a better player yourself. Same thing works in music. If you want to really be a great songwriter, you better sit in the wrong. room with, you know, the most ingenious, creative people you can get in front of at the time. And those are hard doors to get in because those people are highly sought after to sit in a

room with them and work on a song together. But I was able to do that because Lone Star got that record deal. It put me in the room. I said Hall of Fame songwriters. That's not an exaggeration. Hall of Fame. I mean, the biggest, the best. and here I am at 19, 20, 21, 22 years old with a lot of raw talent, but no real skill set applied to it yet.

And that's where I really learned how to do it. I always tell anybody, no matter what you're doing for a living, if you want to be great at it, surround yourself with people who are much better than you and never be satisfied with being the best that there currently is. It's advice I give to people all the time. Don't compare yourself to who's currently competing with you. Because you might be better than all of them. And that may satisfy you. Well, I'm better than everybody I'm up against right now.

And that may be true. But are you the best that ever did it? Are you the best that ever did it? The answer to that question is always going to be, no. You're not the best that ever did it. So I'm at my house here in Nashville. if I walked you around, you would see lyrics hanging on the wall of some of the greatest country songs ever written, written down by the people who originally wrote them and signed

to me. And I have a lyric collection from George Jones all the way to, you know, Bon Jovi. I mean, just some of the biggest, greatest songs you can imagine. Lee Greenwood's, God bless USA, Charlie Daniels devil went down to Georgia. Like I've got all those songs hanging up. And the reason is, number one, it's pretty cool to have that. But the bigger reason is when I walked past one of those lyrics, and I just got through writing a song that I think's really good,

I walk past that and go, yeah, but it ain't that, which drives me to go right again and dig deeper and try to push harder and make it even better. That's a key to success, I think, for anybody. If you're a welder, if you're a doctor, if you're a construction worker, it doesn't matter what it is. You're a carpenter, farmer. You know, compare yourself to the best that.

ever did it and surround yourself with people who are better than you are. That's interesting. I have Joe Rogan on my wall and I did it as a reminder every day if I wanted to be the best, which I consider Joe to be, I mean, I think numbers speak volumes on how he's done successfully. I never really thought about it in the sense that you just put it in, right? It's a constant reminder of where you're trying to get to, the mountaintop that you may never achieve because it is the greatest, right? when you're talking some of the names you you listed off and i think you've heard i've heard you

talk about johnny cash as well and and and different men i'm sure there's a whole bunch of different guys in there he's the greatest in my opinion johnny cash is the greatest and and there's a reason i feel that way about him because johnny cash conveyed more information and more emotion with fewer words than anybody that ever wrote a song, in my opinion. He, you know, if you write down all the lyrics to, for instance, I walk the line. If you walk down, write down all the lyrics and even make the letters kind of big, you'll have less than half a page of lyrics. But in that song, because you're mine, I walk the line.

I mean, that's a movie. That's like, that's a life lesson inside this very simple lyric. in songwriting anyway, that's the trick. How simple can I make it with the absolute most impact possible? And a lot of songwriters, when they're new and they're just starting out, they overwrite. They overdescribe. They chase a rabbit or they don't stay on point. And the further you go down that path of becoming a songwriter and you hang out with the truly great ones, you realize efficiency of words is everything. Efficiency of language. Because people, people, People are busy.

There's a million things going on. You're trying to get their attention for three minutes. You better say something that counts, and you better say it in a way that they can't miss it. And that could go for a party song. That could go for a serious song. It doesn't really matter what the gist is behind the song. Same equation always applies. Yeah, I just agree.

I didn't understand why. I know why I like Johnny Cash, but when you, you have somebody who's into that realm of things, right? Writing songs. Right. That's what you want to write. You want to be the best. And then you stare at the best.

It's interesting to hear you break down Johnny Cash. Yeah. I mean, when Johnny Cash says, I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. I mean, did you learn a lot about the character in that song? Maybe it was Johnny Cash.

Probably was at the time. He probably was that mean, actually, back in the day. But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. What does that tell you about that guy? I mean, that is one cold-hearted man. I shot him just so I could watch him die. I didn't shoot him because I was mad at him. I didn't shoot him because he did something to me. I didn't shoot him in self-defense. I shot him to watch him die. I mean, that is brutal. I mean, it's not, I'm not going, hey, good job. Yay, good for you. You shot a man just to watch him die. It's not the

point. The point is, in a very short amount of time, you learned a whole lot about that guy singing that song, didn't you? Did you get to meet Johnny? One time. I met him one time. A Lone Star, we opened for him. I think I was 20 years old in Ohio at a state fair. Johnny Cash, June Carter. They were all together headlining this set and Lone Star got to open for them. So as soon as we got off stage. I didn't even go to the bus. I went, sat on the edge of the stage, watched their entire show from the side, followed him when he walked off the stage and got a picture, shook his hand and had a few words with him, and that was it. I wish I could have gotten to know him better, but that was my only shot. Well, I mean, you took your shot. You got to go, you know,

say hello. Yeah, I've got the picture hanging on the wall. That's, that's more than most. That's pretty cool, you know. When you fast forward, I was thinking about this, you know, Like, on this side, I don't have any contract. You know, I'm an independent podcaster. So you get to have people come on. Nobody's got, well, they can be upset with me all they want. But it's like, I walk home and I got a young family and a wife. And I'm perfectly fine.

But, you know, I used to have a corporate job. I was in the oil field. And certainly during COVID, there was a lot of pressure put on me while I was there. And that was pressure I hope to. I don't mind pressure, but that type of pressure here in Canada was different. In the country music world, you've been a guy who I think, and I hope I'm not saying this wrong, been on both sides. You've been where you had major labels, record deals, and then you've been, as you pointed out,

you know, like nobody's got anything on me now. It's my record label. It's my things. And I can go out and make revelation and not have any backlash, at least from the powers it be above me? Most people don't get that. Was that something that you learned early on? Like early on, you had realized I got strings on me. This sucks. Or was it something else? So to accomplish the American dream for me back in the day was I want to write hit songs, be on country radio, play big concerts, be on the grandelopry. Like, that's it.

like that's that's the marks I wanted to hit well to accomplish that especially back then um you had to have a record deal I mean you had to have a company that had money because nobody has any money when they start out so they got to have budgets to record budgets to make the music video budgets to put you on the road budgets to go visit 250 radio stations all across America I mean And that is not cheap. And so to get access to those budgets, you've got to sign a record contract. And when you sign that contract, that company, they own your voice, your likeness, your name. I mean, they own you at that point.

But you don't really care because you're getting your shot. And so you go out and do it. So I did that for, oh, 20 years, at least 20. and we had a lot of success. I had a lot of success in Lone Star and then in Big and Rich and then as a songwriter as well. And at one point it got to where the industry, the country music industry started to shift from,

you know, people that think pretty much like me and you think, patriotic, conservative-minded, pretty good people, started to shift into the liberal mindset. And that happened when the, the companies began to become conglomerates. So Sony started buying up labels, Universal started buying up labels, Warner Brothers started buying up labels. And right now in Nashville, I'd say 90%, maybe more, of all record label imprints are owned by one of those three companies. And so that allowed them to consolidate power. They started taking out the old Nashville guys

and replacing them with New York guys and L.A. guys and even London. They were bringing people from overseas to run these Nashville record labels, and they changed the complete culture of the record label. You know, it was no longer can you, you know, like Merle Haggard singing, when you're talking down my country, son, you're walking on the fighting side of me. Like, I mean, they put out hardcore Patriot songs, Charlie Daniels, you know what's wrong with the world today? People done gone put their Bibles away. They're living by the laws of the jungle, the law of the land. A good book says, and I know it's a truth, an eye for an eye and the tooth for a tooth. You better watch where you go. Remember where you've been. That's the way I see it.

I'm a simple man. And then he went on, you know, about what to do with drug dealers. Hang him up high and let him swing till the sun goes down. I mean, like Charlie Daniels was not screwing around. And those were hit songs back in the day. You would never, in a million years, hear a lyric like that coming out on modern day country radio. It's not because the audience is any different. It's because the record labels won't allow it. And so when that started to happen with me, I started to realize my freedom of speech,

I don't have it. I cannot say what I want to say. I can't even go interview with who I want to go interview with or certain networks I can't even go on because the label would not allow it. And I realized at that point, okay, this is not going to last forever because I'm just not going to sacrifice

my person for this industry, for the rest of my life, it's not going to happen. And so over the course of about two or three years, I started looking ahead about, okay, how can I exist and still be successful making music? How can I still get my music to people without the music industry? And that's when you saw that shift start to take place, at least with my career. That was probably now seven years ago. And hadn't slowed me down. at all. You're not going to hear me on country radio with a new song and you're not going to,

you're not going to see me at an award show. But short of that, there's still millions of people that hear my music when I put it out and they can respond to it. Our shows now, the big and rich shows are bigger than they were back in the day. It's unbelievable. So God has an interesting way of cutting things off of you really against your intuition. Like it doesn't make sense to tell a guy like me, you know, you'd be better off without a record deal, without a publishing deal, and not being played on country radio. What are you talking about? I mean, that's my whole existence. I mean, how is that good for me in my line of work and what I do? How is that good for me? But we're a human being so we can't see like he sees. And so he was looking out of head going,

yeah, but there's things I want you to say that you won't be able to say. There's songs I want you to write that nobody's ever going to hear if you stay in this situation. And by the way these people are a bunch of lunatics and you don't want their approval you know if a lunatic if a radical loony bird crazy leftist approves of me or what i'm doing what does that say about me that's not a good thing you don't want their i don't want their approval a matter of fact i search for their disapproval because their disapproval proves to me that I said it correctly

because it really bothers them, really tears them up. Either what I sang or what I said, you know, what I push for or what I push against, really bothers them a great deal. And I like that. I don't mind it at all.

Short of that attitude, you are irrelevant, in my opinion. Irrelevant. You're an irrelevant human being if nobody has a bad word to say about you. In this culture, in this climate, that either means you are keeping your mouth shut all the time and having no impact,

which virtually makes you irrelevant, or you're playing both sides of the fence, which means you're non-committal, which also means you're irrelevant. You think country music, you know, you mentioned like nobody would put out revelations. Right. and yet

tens of millions of people listen to that song that song is a hit man and you go I think of Bud Light I mean or take other picks Victoria's Secret there's a whole bunch of them but Bud Light I mean

they put Dylan Mulvaney on the can and then like I just can't believe they couldn't see tensed paces in front of them two paces in front of them right and then Bud Light just goes in the toilet I like a country music and I go, are they playing out a narrative of their own,

meaning they will never play Revelation? Or is at some point down the road where they start looking around and going, man, we got, like, we just got to find a way to get John back in here, or whoever it is, because they're finding a way to slowly pick away at what we do. Because, you know, like, I don't know, I used to watch the country music awards. Can't tell you the last time I did that. I used to watch a whole bunch of different awards shows. And it doesn't just country music.

it's across the board now. You tune into it. You're like, what the heck is this? I want no part of this. And I wonder. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the award shows now you can't tune in to a network and watch it because so many

people stopped watching them because of all the woke nonsense they were putting in there that now you've got to watch it on Amazon Prime or you got to stream it through Roku or whatever. I mean, this used to be like NBC, CBS, ABC, Prime Time, 20 million viewers. Nobody watches that. stuff anymore. Nobody watches the Emmys. Nobody watches Golden Globes. Hardly, I mean, the Grammys are like half the audience they used to have. Nobody watches it because it's nonsense. CMT used to have the CMT Awards and it was huge. And then they marched out a bunch of guys wearing dresses on the stage for their finale and everybody's at home going, what in the world

is going on country music television and that was it. CMT doesn't even have a business anymore. I think they're showing reruns of Reba McIntyre's comedy and smoking and the bandit over and over and over. Like, I mean, literally, everybody that ran CMT, all of them got fired. There's nobody watching that network. I mean, it is gone. But here's the thing about people that serve the devil. Let's talk about them for a minute. Sure.

That actually serve him, that carry out his agenda. they imitate and have the characteristics of who they serve well one of the one of the main characteristics of the devil himself is he has an insatiable ravenous appetite for wickedness evil destruction it says in the bible he roams around as a ravenous beast seeking who he may devour. Like, that's all he cares about. So here's their Achilles heel. You just made a comment.

You would think they'd be able to see three or four steps ahead and know what's going to happen, right? You would think they would. You would think. They can't help themselves. They cannot help themselves. When they see an opportunity to push their thing on you again, they're going to take it. They're not going to think about what's going to happen two or three steps later

because they are totally blind. to that. It is the kidney seal. It's like I'm sure the devil had an absolute party down in hell when Jesus was crucified. We finally got him. Look at there. There's the son of God

hanging on a tree bleeding to death. Right on, guys, we took him out. Because he was too stupid and arrogant and this insatiable appetite for what he wanted

that Jesus is going, all right, crucify me. But I'm going to raise from the dead in three days, and you were done when that happens. I mean, finished. And that's exactly what happened. So people that serve that agenda on the other side, they have no choice but to run straight at it. They will take the bait every single time,

whether that's country music, whether that's Bud Light, whether that's whoever it is. Just remember that about those people. They cannot help themselves. Well, I just assumed the capitalist market, right? You just said before, like, I'm a guy who grew up listening to big and rich, right? You guys had such wonderful songs. They're huge.

But you just said now you're having bigger crowds than you've ever had before. And I can only assume that's because of, the stance you've taken on certain things, John, I have to assume that the two are correlated. Maybe I'm wrong. And I look at what the United States is, and somebody's got to be going, the bean counter has got to be looking at it, going,

hmm, how can we make this work? John, you come in here and talk to us, because we'd really like to make a deal. Like somewhere that is part of the American spirit. They look at things, they go, wait a second, something's going on here. Yet there is the agenda going on that's being pushed and all the woke things, and you're right, they can't help themselves.

But somebody else is standing beside them and going, what are we doing? Let's get more of that over there, right? Yeah, but they can't. They can't. No, God, no. They can't. They will not sacrifice their ideology to make money. They just won't do it.

I mean, it's really important when you're, we call it, we call it spiritual warfare. We call it culture war. word war quite a bit these days. Okay. And it really is that. They've definitely declared war on us, no doubt about it. So if you're going to respond, either if you're going to put up defense or you're going to go on offense in this situation, worldwide situation we find ourselves in, it is vitally important that you understand the characteristics and the instincts of your enemy.

you better understand how they think. It's really important. If you don't understand them, like you just said, I can't believe people aren't offering you record deals and this and that. Can you imagine if they would have played revelation on 250 country radio stations? What would have happened? Oh, there's no telling.

There's no telling what would have happened. But for them to do that, they'd have to sacrifice their ideology. They're not going to do it. I guess, hmm, that is an interesting point because in my brain, I'm not thinking of the spiritual side of this. I'm looking at the dollar side of this. And when you're talking, you know, if you can make a song that is about drugs, alcohol, sex, go down the list. Play it as much as you want.

Play it all the time. You want to talk about a gay bar, et cetera. Play it all the time. but if you want to talk about healthy things or in this case the Bible no we can't do that even if it's making a ton of money that's where the spiritual side our agenda trumps any money making anything like that that's what you're talking about that's what I'm talking about they won't do it I mean they they just will not and so that's fine I mean do you really can you imagine if I said yes to one of these to Sony Universal or Warner Brothers and signed a contract with them right now because my songs

are getting to millions and millions and millions of people. What did I in effect just do at that point? Let's say they offered me some just stupid, ridiculous deal. And I said yes to that. Who do you think I upset at that point? I mean, who cut the record deal off of me in the first place? My boss did. The actual boss. He whacked pieces off. of me that I thought this is the end and then bolted on new parts that were much more improved, much more horsepower, much faster, much stronger, much more, as we talked about Johnny Cash, efficient, much more targeted and cut off all the restraints and turned me loose to go do what it is he wants me to go do. So if I went and signed my freedom back over for any amount of money,

no matter what they said. You don't put, listen, when you know, when you know you're on the right path and doing the right thing, you do not under any circumstances sign over your future and your will to somebody else. You don't give them authority over you, ever for any, it doesn't matter what the deal is. You say no. I've said no to TV networks. I've said no to big, gigantic, conservative news networks that have offered me a lot of money. to come and be, you know, part of their network or whatever?

No, I'm not doing it. I'm not, you are not going to be able to tell me what to say and how to say it. It's not going to happen. You were once a guy that they could tell you had to, John, you got to kind of go do this way. Nope, you're not allowed to do that. Now you're like this, nobody can tell John what to do. And that. Yeah, that scares him.

Yeah. It freaks them out. because not only in the political side, will I call out some crazy leftists? Most of the time I'm calling out what I call them Judas Republicans. People call them rhinos. I go, that's a disservice to the majestic rhinoceros. Don't say that about the rhinoceros.

They're Judas Republicans. They are people who present as though they think like us and are going to do what we would do if we were in that position. and then they turn around and stab you in the back. The second they get in office, they cut you into fish bait. I call them out more than anybody. So, yeah, there's all kinds of people on the right that don't like me at all. Yeah, that's, I guess I just grew up all my life, you know, certainly being independent,

but, you know, you play for a hockey team. You got to be careful. You mine your peas and cues, and then, you know, you come back, you start working a corporate job. You got to mine your peas and cues and on and on. Then when I went full-time podcasting, right? No boss. I'm my own boss, which is a strange world. I'm up on stage, and I've told this story a couple of times,

but I'm up on stage with several hockey gentlemen who've had longstanding careers in the NHL, and I made a joke in small town, Alberta about the Bud Light Can because I was getting teased about I was drinking a Pilsner from Saskatchew. And I made a joke, and I am far from a comedian, John, and I had the entire crowd rolling on the ground laughing. I'm like, oh, man. I didn't because it was within like two weeks of Dillan Mulvaney. I turned around and none of the hockey guys were laughing.

You're talking one of the major agents of the NHL. You're talking coaches. Are you in Edmonton? No, small town, Irma, Alberta. Okay. And I came home and I couldn't figure it out. I was like, what the heck just happened? My brother had to tell me, he's like, well, you're not controlled anymore.

So you get to say whatever you want to say, whatever you want to say it. All these guys, if they're caught laughing at a Dylan Mulvaney joke, they may never work in the NHL again. And I'm like, oh. Yeah. What a tough choice that would be. You know, you can see the absurdity right in front of you. It is absurd.

But if you can't even laugh at it, I don't know. I never want that life. No, it's a catch-22, man. Same in the music industry. I mean, you're going to tell this guy or girl who have busted their ass their entire lives to get good enough where a record label would invest millions of dollars into them and put them on the radio and they get their shot. But with that comes all these restrictions on them.

And they're going, what am I supposed to do? I mean, I've had, there's one female artist right now who is the biggest female artist in country music. And you just decide who you think that is. But she's the biggest female artist in country music and has reached out to me a few times. I wish I could say what you say. I follow what you say on social media. keep it up, keep going. Someday I hope I can.

And the answer is to somebody like her is, well, you're already big enough. You can say whatever you want because you're too big to cancel. Like Jason Aldeen is the perfect example of a major artist. He called me on the phone. I wrote seven out of the ten songs on his first record. You know, Hicktown, Emeraldus Guy, all those big songs. I wrote those. So I knew him before he had a record deal.

And a few years ago, it was probably 20. 2020, 21, Al Dean calls me up. And he says, do you see what people are saying about my wife on social media? I said, yeah. So they're attacking my wife. I said, yeah, I see that. He said, what do you think I ought to do? I said, what would you do to anybody else that attacked your wife? And he said, well, if I say what I really think, you know what will happen. I go, yep, you'll take a lick from the music industry and you'll go from selling 20,000 tickets a night to 40 or 50,000. because the entire patriotic audience will come to your defense and come to your back, and they'll love you even more.

He goes, you really think that? I go, yeah, that's what will happen. And he probably talked to some other people, too, but then he came out swinging, and he didn't hold back. And what happened? Jason Aldeen is playing football stadiums at this point. So at some point, there's some other giant country artists that are really, real conservatives, real Christians, like for real.

And they have yet to say anything, which really bothers me because they're not in that phase of trying to build their career and they need to try to keep it all together until they get big enough where you can't cancel them. They're already too big to cancel, but they just don't speak. And I have to think at some point, that's either that they really love money that much or they just don't have the intestinal fortitude to take what they know is coming their way. but in either case they don't talk so they're even even with with other like-minded people like me in the entertainment industry there's still only a handful of us that'll actually go on record

and say things but curious you you mentioned so songwriting you go out you write songs jason al dine you write all these huge hits why didn't you just sing them uh back well because a big and rich record you only got 11 songs and I was writing 120 songs a year. I mean I can't sing 120 songs a year. So I mean I was sitting on just all just catalogs of music. And so you cut you cut the big and rich record what makes sense for me and Kenny. But then there's this whole other bunch of songs that are also really good. There's a couple that could have worked for big and rich. It's like Hicktown would have been a great big and rich song. But then I wrote I think seven or eight out of 11 on Gretchen Wilson's first record. So redneck woman here for the party all jacked up when I think about cheating.

I mean, I wrote all those songs with Gretchen. Those are girl songs. So obviously I'm not going to record those. I've written songs for all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons. In today's world, you could record a girl song, John. Sure, why not? Yeah. Songwriting is important, man.

Listen, songwriting. you could say that singer-songwriters had a lot to do with shutting down the Vietnam War back in the day. I mean, when you go look at what, they're all leftists, but whatever, that doesn't change the fact. Bob Dylan, Credence Clearwater Revival, you start going into those songs,

and those became populist messages with Americans who were totally against that insane situation we'd been thrust into. And I really believe that those populous messages in the form of songs created a movement in our country that helped shut that war down. I mean, songs are, music is such an interesting tool. You know, it can seep in between the crevices and cracks in people, whereas a speech doesn't, a speech doesn't, or a social media post.

or whatever. When you put music and rhythm to the words, it just, it's like water. It fills every crack. It goes right through whatever barriers people have up in front of them. That music can penetrate that and go right into them for the good and for the bad, both sides. And so to me, songwriting is, like I said, if you're going to call me one thing, call me that. Because it's the hardest thing to do, and I think it's the most important thing.

yeah and it you know there's very few things that that bring people together music is one of them and when you have a tyrant or a political hotbed issue or take your pick you know music is something that can still bring everybody again I think of all the bands

who doesn't like CCR I don't even care you know like I mean they're one of the greatest they're they're fantastic you know And as our whole bunch of people wrote music back then, it's just fantastic stuff. It ain't me. It ain't me. I ain't no senator's son. Woo, what a line. Yeah, I'm not going to get to skip the war. I don't get to skip it because I'm not a senator's son.

I'm not a rich man's son, so I got to go. I mean, again, very few words, maximum impact. I mean, just brilliant songwriting. So I take songwriting very seriously. When you look at the song Revelation, it's that kind of a song. I mean, it just goes right at it. You know, there's just, there's not a wasted syllable in that song. I've got one coming out next that'll be out the third week of November called The Righteous Hunter.

And I sang that song for the first time ever on Sean Ryan's podcast. And I asked him, before we did the podcast, I said, Sean, has anybody ever sang a song on your show? He said, no. Why do you want to sing one? I said, I want to test one. I want to test this specific song. And at that point, the song had been written eight or nine months prior. And it's a song about, from a dad's perspective, on what he would be willing to do to protect his kids from a predator. And Sean said, how'd you write a song like that? I go, well, because I'm a dad. and because there's predators everywhere and we're learning more and more about them and nobody's ever written a song about that. But I did. He goes, yeah, man, play it. And so I played, I played the righteous hunter just on an acoustic guitar. And I am not, this is no exaggeration.

Millions of people have now seen that little acoustic performance that I did. Either they watched the podcast or they saw a short or they saw a clip. They saw something. Sean's producer hit me up. He goes, he goes, bro, there are literally millions of people. that have now seen that performance. And so I called up Sean and I said, hey, I think I got my answer. We got to put it out. He goes, absolutely.

And I asked him, would you be the dad in the video? Like, I just want to be the guy singing it, but I need somebody to play the dad who would be, you know, quote, the righteous hunter. And he said, I've never been in a music video.

I said, would you be in this one? And he goes, yeah. I said, yeah. He said, yeah, and we shook hands on it. So it's already been shot. We're editing it right now. It's almost done. And it'll be launched.

I think it's November 14th is a day that's going to come out. So again, a song that would never be heard if I had a record deal. Sean Ryan would be one of those podcasts that I would have gotten in trouble for for doing if I still had a record deal today. Can you even imagine giving up opportunities like that over some stupid record label. No thanks. Yeah, it's, A, that's a cool story.

Two, it's cool to see like worlds collide, you know? I think it's like Sean Ryan's world. He's just a fascinating man, if you would. And then for you to bring him into like your world, I'm like, that'll be cool to watch. I know, right?

And then it's wild to me. If your goal is to sell records, you know, we had a politician here running for Prime Minister Pierre Polia turned down Joe Rogan because he thought the optics was bad or his team thought the optics was bad. I don't know what to

say John I'm not sitting in those rooms and I heard that and I'm like you're an idiot. Like you can't listen to your team you got to go on the largest platform in North America and be who you are. Yeah. And they didn't. Again their ideology is going to override

any type of sensical decision. You said something about my goal is to sell records. My goal is not to sell records. I don't give a shit if I never sell a record. I don't care about selling records. Selling records is success. I no longer care about it. I care about significance. I care about saying things that are significant, things that stick to people, things that make them, things are not going to hear anywhere else unless I say it. And success and significance are two very different things. Sometimes they intersect.

Sometimes. I mean, when I put out the righteous hunter, it might have a million downloads. I have no idea, nor do I care. I don't care. Because it's something that needs to be said. It's a subject nobody wants to talk about. And it's as real as a heart attack. And there's nothing worse going on in the world.

than what's happening to kids right now in America and around our planet. So it needed to be talked about and nobody's ever talked about it. There are scenes in this video. Now, these are, of course, reenactment scenes, but there are scenes in this video reenacted that have never been in a TV show. They've never been in a movie. They've never been anywhere. In a documentary, they've never been there.

And I know that because the people that were in the room doing the reenactments rescue kids for a living so they know exactly what the scenes look like when they walk in on one. They know exactly the transactional behavior between a buyer, a seller, and then the product, meaning the kids. They know what that scene looks like. We had them on site with the director of the video, with me, with everybody in the room. And if we tried to do something that we thought this is probably the way this goes or the way this looks, they would step in the middle of the scene and go, cut. We go, okay, what did we miss? And they'd go, that's not, that's not how the men would be acting. That's not how they would be acting. They would be acting like this. They would have

this look on their face. They would have this attitude. The room would, it would not feel that way. So we'd go, okay, shoot it again, and we would change it up. So what we're about to hit America with, with the righteous hunter is, I promise you, dude, you're going to be hitting me with an email going, What in the world did I just watch? I mean, it is so uncomfortable to watch the situation unfold. And at the same time, you're glad you saw it because now you get a real understanding about what's going on out there. That's not success. You don't do that so you can sell records.

You do that because it's significant. People, I promise you, you watch that video one time. You will never forget it. It is probably the most powerful visuals. It is, the most powerful visuals I have ever been a part of. And it's coming out in three weeks. I'm not even going to have to really promote it. I'm just going to put it out there, and it's just going to do its thing.

To go back on it, on the selling records, I was meaning record labels, right? When they look at Sean Ryan, you were saying that they wouldn't allow you on there. And I laugh because they're all about selling records. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. They're trying to make money. And so why wouldn't you let them go on, Sean Ryan, Joe Rogan, all these things. They go ideology or whatever the conversations they're having and they don't want to promote or whatever, but they want to sell records.

Well, because they don't want one of their pieces of property to be used to further someone that they're at war with. Right. So a piece of property meaning that artist. We don't want our property being used against us on the Sean Ryan show. And I always thought their greed would override that. Like their greed for selling records, for having so much money. And ask, okay. Ask the marketing girl at Bud Light if her greed overcame her lust for pressing her agenda.

She costs Bud Light billions and billions of dollars. They still haven't recovered from it. They'll never recover from it. They'll never recover from that. But they didn't keep Dylan Mulvaney on the can. They have since like, mothballed all that. They've tried going back to their tried, tested, true military angle, like bikers, et cetera, trying to get back in this rough tough, rough, tough American.

But the damage has been done. Won't work. What do you think? Okay, me and you, a couple of regular guys. If you walk in somewhere, if you walk into the Redneck Riviera downtown in Nashville, and you see a couple of guys sitting at the bar drinking bud lights. Right? Exactly. You're going to go okay okay i don't need to go there you just come up here to the north to the hockey dressing room and somebody brings in a case of bud light he's just like really like that's what we're drinking tonight of all the cases of beer you could of all the cases of bear you can grab yeah that's right right no they'll never get over it just like the dix dixie chicks never got over it just like maran morris the big country singer when she came out supporting um the mutilation of kids

Like she was all for it, transgender surgeries for minors. That's it. She no longer exists in country music. Yeah. She's gone. I mean, they don't forget. But they do it anyway, which is what I was telling you earlier. Understanding that trait of the enemy is very important.

They cannot help themselves. You know, with a few minutes left, you know, this success is. not significance. I forget how you put that. I think that's how you put it. Yeah. It's funny, I think the older I get, and I, John, I'm old to some, young to others. So I think significance is success. And maybe that's just defining, you know, define what success is to you, right? If it's a big stack of money, then, you know, at some point, you're going to realize, man, got all this money, but I have no significance. Because when you list off all the CCR and, and, and I, I'm, you know, others back of the day. What did they do? They stood up to power. That's very significant.

You know, they did something of significance. Man, I'm struggling with the word today. And that is success. That stands the test of time, doesn't it? Yeah, I would think that that's how you would define significance. Does it stand the test of time? How much impact did it have? You know, when an award for a song, winning a country music award or winning a, you know, a BMI award as a songwriter or whatever, that's success. It's hard to do. I mean, it is really hard to get to that level and actually take home something like that because you're competing with the best of the best and all that stuff. So it's, it seems significant to you at the time because it's really

hard to accomplish. It's significant to you personally. It's not significant to anybody else. So to me, true significance is it doesn't matter if it helped me personally at all. It matters how many millions of people were impacted by that message or that act or that fight that you waged or whatever, whatever it is that you did that impacted thousands, maybe millions of people. people and they'll never forget it and their life got changed over it. That is significant. Those are significant things. And when you have kids like I do and you do, my main concern with my two sons who are now 15 and 14 is when they move out of my house one of these years and they go out in the world, I want them, yeah, I want them to be successful because I want

them to go out and have a good life and enjoy their life and enjoy being an American. But I want them to be able to look back at me and go, yeah, he went out and worked. Yep, he made money. And every now and then, he might buy a hot rod or something, you know, buy a new rifle. But that's not what drove our dad. That was not what drove him. What drove him, what made him get up and go like this, one dollar bills. It was significant acts, things that would stand the test of time, putting out music that it wouldn't matter. what year, decade, or even century that you hear that song, it's going to have the same pop as it did the very first time it was sang. As a musician, as a songwriter, that is my goal. If you had one song to date that you'd be like, everybody should go listen to the lyrics of that.

Which song would you point to? Earth to God. Earth to God. Have you heard it? I don't know. I'm like, I'm going to assume not. You would know it. If you'd heard it, you would know it. There's a song called Earth to God. It's on YouTube. We just punch in John Rich Earth to God and you'll find it. That's a song I wrote in 2020.

And this is when the George Floyd riots were happening everywhere. Our towns are burning down. COVID is in full swing. Everybody's locked down. Remember that mindset. I mean, it was horrible. And I had this. picture in my head of myself, but also just humanity, like sending out an SOS to God.

Like, we're on fire. You know, we're on fire. We're locked down. Everything is backwards. Everything is upside down. Earth to God, come in, God. So like a guy on a CB radio or an airplane sending an SOS or out on a ship, you know, you give the basic information, right?

here's where I am and I need help. That's it. So the premise for the song, Earth to God, come in God, is the way that chorus starts. And what does Earth want to hear God say back? This is God. Come back, Earth.

And so the point of the song was for people to hear it and realize he's literally right there. Like he's literally right there. He is one quiet moment away and you being serious about it and reaching out to him and he's right there. And, you know, big religion has brainwashed centuries of people into thinking that they can't on their own connect with the Lord. You have to have a priest. You have to have a preacher. You have to have, there has to be somebody in between you and him.

You have to go confess. You have to do this. No, you don't. Nowhere does it say that. Anywhere in the Bible. Matter of fact, it says quite the opposite. If that was true, then most of the New Testament would have never been written because those men were in prison when they wrote most of that stuff.

John, who wrote the Book of Revelation, was exiled to the Isle of Patmos, which is off the coast of Greece. He was a prisoner, and not in a prison, exiled to an island where there was hardly anybody there. and he wrote the book of Revelation. He didn't go to his preacher. He didn't go to his priest and say, does God have anything he wants to say to me? No. He just talked to him one-on-one, boom, boom, boom, just like that.

It's just like another myth that big religion pushes on people. And these are control mechanisms, by the way, and what I call big religion. We've got big pharma, big government. We also got big religion. And another myth they push, is that you get to heaven by doing good things. You get to heaven by doing good things for other people.

Nowhere does it say that. And here's how you know that's a false statement. The thief on the cross. So Jesus is being crucified and to the left and right of him are two really bad people who are also being crucified. We don't know for what. I guess we know that one was a thief because they call him the thief on the cross. but one guy on one side of Jesus is cursing at Jesus and blaspheming him and mocking him.

Can you imagine this guy's hanging on a cross, bleeding out, he is going to die. He's in horrific pain. And his last few gasps of air he spends blaspheming the son of God. Cursing God. Okay, that's who he is. The guy on the other side of him, the thief on the cross, he's not saying anything. And when he does say something, he looks over at Jesus and he says, I believe you are the one true son of the living God.

And Jesus looks back at him and says, today I'll see you in paradise. I'll see you in heaven. Today, I will see you there. The thief on the cross never got to come off the cross and go do good works for people. He never got to go sit with his priest and confess his sins. He never got to go to church every Sunday on Wednesday night. He never got to do any of those things. He died on the cross, guilty as sin, but because he recognized Jesus and professed him as the son of God and truly believed it, boom.

He got to go where Jesus was going. Heaven. These are really simple things in the Bible that big religion just blows right past them. And it keeps people in a state of feeling controlled. You have to come through our doors to get to the boss. You have to give us money. You have to fill our pews. You have to sit in my room.

Not true. And if anybody watching this podcast gets anything out of it, and you're wondering how that really works, that's how it works. That's why you said, what one song do I want them to hear? Go listen to Earth the God. I would sit and talk to you about this for another hour.

I appreciate you giving me an hour and doing this, John. Yeah, it's been super cool. I'm a fan of your music. I got to go pick kids up. That's going to be the first thing I toss on the radio. I'm going to go listen to Earth to God. Appreciate everything you're doing and look forward to November, third week in November, I think you said, for the new video with Sean Ryan and the Righteous Hunter,

I believe you said the name of the song was. I think a bunch of us will be paying attention for that because that sounds, I don't know, right up the alley. Although I don't know if the video sounds right up the alley. I'm like, oh, this is going to be an attention. tense, but John, appreciate you hopping on and doing this. Once again,

it's great to finally have you on the show. And, Matt, just look forward to seeing what you guys and yourself do in the future. I appreciate your time, man. And we'll do it again. There'll be much more to talk about in the future.