Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Tim McGraw

Episode Date: August 23, 2020

Tim McGraw has built up a big base of fans over the thirty years since he stepped off a Greyhound bus in Nashville and walked right into a honky tonk. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist talks to the country star about graduating from those downtown bars to sold out arenas around the world, performing alongside his wife Faith Hill and putting out his 16th studio album “Here on Earth.” Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. Got a good one for you this week. A virtual conversation with country music icon Tim McGraw. So Tim and I got together over Zoom, the way we've been doing these lately. He's at home in Nashville. I'm at home in New York. It's a funny thing. You go out into your garage, you flip open your laptop, and there's Tim McGraw sitting in his living room. So we had a great conversation. There's something interesting about, These guests being in their houses, being in their homes, I think they're extra comfortable, and there aren't lights and producers running around and cameras and everything else. So we had a great conversation. He, of course, arrived in Nashville about 30 years ago. I didn't know the whole story. It's almost too good to be true. You'll hear us talk about that.

He got off a Greyhound bus and walked into a bar and just started playing. It sounds like a country song on its own. His new album is called Here on Earth. We got together to talk about what it's like to put out music. right now. How do you put an album together? How do you get it out there? How do you promote it? Well, you do it on Zoom, apparently. Talk about the influence his wife and fellow country superstar. Faith Hill has had on him. Really interesting to hear him talk about how he does his best work after he comes off tour with her because Faith is so good and such an elite singer in a different

category that it pushes him and challenges him. And he likes to put out his albums or at least start creating music right after he's been on the road with her because she makes them better. He's also got three girls, the last of whom, the youngest of whom is about to go to college. So Tim and Faith are about to become empty nesters in Nashville. A lot to talk about with a legend, but also just a great guy and interesting to talk to my conversation with Tim McGraw right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Tim, thanks for doing this, man. I appreciate it.

My pleasure. We're going to talk about the album here on Earth, which is great and rolling out in a couple of weeks as we sit here right now. But I wanted to pick up on our conversation what we were just talking about, your early days in Nashville, because people see you right now as Tim McGraw sold out football stadium, Tim McGraw. When you got there in 89, it was a little different for you, wasn't it? In 89, yeah, I moved to town. I forget the exact date. May 6th or May 9th, in 1989, arrived at 4 in the morning or at Greyhound bus. And actually, I went straight to the Hall of Fame lounge,

which was, they were just closing up. And I walked, I had my guitar case and one suitcase. I walked from downtown from where the old Greyhound Buck Station was, walked up DeMondrian and got to the Hall of Fame lounge, and it might have not been four in the morning, but it was close. And they were just cleaning up the bar. Everybody was gone. I walked in because there was a hotel that I was going to stay at.

And Mac Vickery was sitting there and Tommy Barnes was sitting there. And who Tommy Barnes wrote, Mac Vickery wrote the fireman for George Strait and Tommy Barnes was sitting there who ended up writing Indian Outlaw, which I heard that night, later on that night in my hotel room when we're all sitting playing guitars when I met those guys after I met those guys. I heard Indian outlaw that night. That's wild. first night in Nashville. And I said, if I ever get a record, I'll record, I'll record

I'll record that song. That is an incredible story. I mean, that sounds like a country song. I got off a Greyhound bus at 4 in the morning with the guitar in my hand. You could write it better than I could, but that's too good. That's incredible. That's incredible. It was cool for me. However, on that day, it's a, it's a sort of a different kind of day for me as well. Arriving also was the same day that Keith Whitley, who was probably my favorite singer at the time passed away. And so I was a huge Keith Whitley fan. So that morning, I was sitting over those guys.

And then we ended up going back to Mac Vickery's place. And he was friends with Lori and Keith at the time. And he got a phone call like seven or eight in the morning with us sitting there. From Louvre, I believe, I may have the story wrong. But I remember sitting there and him getting the phone call and saying that Keith just, they just found out found Keith what they did. Wow. I mean, that was all within three or four hours.

I mean, welcome to Nashville, right? So what are those early years like? We've all heard the stories of people come to Nashville with a guitar and a dream and the struggle and trying to get a record deal and playing the little honky tonks. Was that kind of your story as well? For sure. I mean, I played around every honky talk in town. I quickly met, you know, after about a year there, Tracy Lawrence.

And then another year or so Kenny Chessney showed up. So Kenny and Tracy are all became really good friends. playing the circus, playing the hockey college. We hang out at each other's departments and sit around and write songs together. And then they always had these things going on at a place like the Roads Room and Skulls Rainbow Room, which was sort of my regular gig for a while.

Sort of these places you would go to the stage coach, they would have these sort of competitions where guys would get up and sing and guys will get up to sing and sort of by the applause of the audience, somebody would win 50 bucks. So we'd have this competition. So Tracy King and I were always going around trying to win this money so we could pay

rent or paper on people back. But Tracy, I had to say, Kenny will probably tell you this, too, if you ever thought to, that Tracy usually won those things because he was, he still is a spectacular leader. He had the voice, that's for sure. Do you ever have those moments

then, let's say 20 years later, you've sold out Bridgestone Arena, not far from that first bar you walked into with your guitar and say, my gosh, I'm walking it on the stage, the place is packed, and it wasn't that long ago, probably in your own mind. that you were in that room writing that song

hearing Indian Outlaw for the first time. You allow yourself those moments? You know, I'm not occasionally, but I'm not much of a, I don't look back that much. I'm always so anxious about what's gonna happen in the future and where I'm headed and what I'm doing and trying to improve and trying to, you know, write a better song, record a better record,

do a better show. And I get so caught up in that that I really, look back at that. I'm grateful, of course, but my competitive juices are still flowing pretty steadily, so I want to keep trucking forward. But, you know, I hope that, I mean, I appreciate it, but I hope that one day I can sit back and look at it and really, really appreciate it. More than I do now, I have to say. I'm not ready to sit in your arm chair yet. I'm not ready to. The good old days. Well, speaking of being a sold-out, Bridgestone Arena. You were supposed to be on tour right now in support of the new album. Instead,

you're doing Zoom calls with me. That must be very sad for you. It's a highlight of my day, Will. Well, it must be a slow day over there at your house then. So let's talk about the album though. And I love the way you talk about it. It's this kind of journey of life together. And I don't know if you intended it, but in this moment, it really hits, which is we're sort of all in this together. Our experience is a little bit different, but we're all living together. Sure. You know, I didn't intend it that way because I didn't, who knew this was going to happen.

I've been working on this album for quite a while. I started the process of this album at the end of the second leg of Faith and I's last Soul to Soul tour. So we had recorded an album together, had done a tour together, recorded an album together, and we were in the second phase of that tour. When I started, you know, collecting songs and going in and recording. And it was sort of on purpose that I did that because when I look back through my career, I found that the times that I've spent working with faith, especially touring with faith, that my records, or at least my performance on my records, got sort of exponentially better

because having to sing with her every night. I mean, I appreciate what I do. I know that I can sing a song decently, and I can tell you a story, and I can emote and all those sort of things. But when it comes to singing with faith, it's like a NASCAR trying to keep up with an indie car. I mean, he's truly, in my opinion, one of the greatest singers that's ever a song. So to sit there every night with her and try to sing and try to sing harmony with her at the same time, which I can barely sing melody, much less than harmony. So I'm trying to sing harmony with her. And then I get that look from her sometimes during the middle of the show with her, you know,

you're faltering a bit, son. You need to keep up. You know that look? Yeah. The point is, she makes me better. And so. it was sort of intentional that I started recording it toward the end of our tour together because I knew that I would be in better shape vocally than I would on my own. But we started finding these songs that I wanted to start putting together an album that sort of, not necessarily a concept album per se, but I wanted to put together sort of a 30,000 sort of foot view of life. Well, you can dive into these little vignettes that are really intimate. And these songs started coming together,

and it started making sense as we were going along and doing it. And what really happened is as we progressed and as we started building these songs and making these records and really dialing in on what we wanted it to sound like, the title song came along here on Earth showed up. And what it did is it solidified.

It sort of became the tempo of what the rest of these songs said. And my concept or my idea started making sense with that song. So everything's who could start sort of circling around that. Where all of a sudden, L.A., which is the first song on the album, and probably one of my favorite records I've ever made, where L.A. made sense with something like,

thought about you, or not thought about you, but Hodge You Tonight, which is later on in the album, that are two distinctly different sounds, but here on earth sort of tied them both together. And where each song you look at has a unique, intimate look at a, particular part of someone's life or anyone's life where great art is you can superimpose yourself on it in somewhere or another where whether it's music whether it's books whether it's movies where you can find a character in the scene that you can relate to or character in the story that you can relate to

and sort of walk through or with them so that's what i was trying to do along the way where what you might not necessarily have been in that situation but you can relate to it in another way and you can walk through the scene with somebody yeah well here on Earth is a great example of that because you write and you sing in the song beautifully about sort of this moment we all have where you close your eyes and it hits you. This is why I'm here on Earth. Do you remember that moment for you or was it a series of moments in your own life? Well, I certainly remember that moment when I met my wife. That's for sure. But it always, I think for everyone, it's a collection of moments that those things happen when you realize

what you're doing and why you're doing it and what you're here for. But I think, all of us can appreciate certainly being fought who are the father's out there can appreciate the first time that you hold your child is is certainly the moment that you realize that there anything else that you do has meant nothing until this moment you know there are people out there who've said i've talked to said you know what nobody listens to the whole album so why am i telling the whole story all the way through they're just going to download the single on iTunes some people have sort of given up on that but it sounds to me like that's exactly what you did want to do in this album which tell a story from start finish absolutely and I don't think that I mean I never say never but I don't

think that I could ever give up only the idea of an album because I think what happens is I mean for me as a listener and a fan of music anyway I have to listen to the whole record just to get it because I think the rest of the music around whatever the single you hear on the radio informs what that single is in a lot of ways and sometimes hearing the rest of the music makes that single make more sense to you when you hear it and I I I don't think I can ever get past that, because I think as an artist,

you have to show a body of work in order for it to make sense. And for me, I don't know that I can go in without sort of an idea of what I want to make it, how I want to make it, and the story that I want to tell in a broader sense. I don't know that I can go in and just record one song and say, oh, this is the song that beats everything else when I haven't recorded anything else.

Now, I know there are plenty of people who can do that, and I don't have to do that. And I don't have any sort of animosity toward anybody who can do that. I mean, there's plenty of people who can do it. But I'm just not one of the guys that can do that. I think I have to have a story to tell. And part of that story is mama.

I called mama. So you're talking about your own mama, your wife, and moms everywhere. Wife, moms everywhere. But also, I think they have broader sense, because that was one of the last songs that we recorded. We recorded that song right before. the COVID pandemic started. So it was right before we really heard about any of that.

We recorded the song. However, in the process of mixing the song and getting everything finished, all of this happened. So that song took on a whole different meaning. At first, it was certainly it was a song about, because my mom was a big hero in my life. So it was certainly a song about that and about my daughters growing up and moving away

and their mom, you know, and their connection with their mom and how hard it is on mobs when the kids move out of the house. So it was all of those things, but it took on a bigger meaning in the world for me when all this happened. Because it wasn't just all of a sudden about mama. It was about reconnecting with people who ground you and people who put their arms around you and make you feel secure and safe in a world that seems like it's spinning out of control. So that song sort of you can carry along the midline with the vocal and the lyric of the song,

but it carries a lot of weight on either side of it as it moves along, just because of the times we live in. Yeah, we were doing one of these interviews with John Legend a couple of weeks ago, and he sort of said the same thing, which is we've been working on this for a year and a half long before COVID, and most of the songs were done. But when I started to listen to my own music, you know, in March and April and May, I thought, oh, my gosh, a lot of these songs actually do apply because they're universal themes. Did that happen to you in some way?

It sure did. And a lot of the music started taking on. the different meaning after all of this happened. In fact, we even went back in and started remixing a few of the songs that we had already mixed just because we wanted to make sure that our emotional tone was right and how we were feeling and how we were mixing the song and how the song was coming across. Some didn't change, but some did. I mean, some just took on a different emotional meaning, so it led to sort of your fingers

going in different places when you're mixing the song. Did you have to do anything differently in terms of producing or making this song, beyond what you said? I mean, John was talking about, you know, he's leaving voice notes. for his buddies and they're trying to get on Zoom calls and somebody's Wi-Fi goes out and all that. Was it harder to finish the album? Well, the last session was the toughest.

We're going into the last stuff just because the very last song we did was Doggone, which is the last song in the album, which I think it was a kind of appropriate way to end the record. You know, you talk about all these things in life and these big stories and these small intimate stories and then the last song is about losing your dog. You sort of tied it all together for me and put it all in a perspective, I think,

in a lot of ways. But yeah, I mean, it was, luckily we'd finished most of it and got most of it out of the way and 99% of it done before any of this happened as far as the recording process goes. And I still record the old way. I mean, I still like going in the studio

with the entire band and spending, you know, three or four days like a bunch of guys in a submarine, you know, having fun and viving off each other and all those things. And we recorded this album, and I think it makes a big difference. To me, in my year, anyway, it gives it an earthiness and a groundedness. We recorded this the old way on two-inch tape. Oh, wow.

And we transferred it all to computer, of course, but it originally went down. And I think there's just something about hitting the tape hard and making music that way that gives it a different breath of life. And the rhythm of these, as you know, is you make your album, then you get out on tour with that band. And you get to play the songs for all your fans. You can't do that right now. Does that feel strange to you to just sort of put this out

in the universe and sort of cross your fingers and not be able to get out and sing to your fans? It does. For a couple of reasons, it feels strange for one reason because we have, we've usually, a couple of these songs we did do live for a while because we were touring last year and we'd already recorded these songs.

So a couple we did do live. But I'm so used to going out and trying out songs on stage during a concert, stuff that people haven't heard and seeing them with the reaction. And it's always fun for us to play new music. And to not have that opportunity is, it feels like we're sort of like throwing it to the wind a little bit. But also, this record to me was such a sort of a passion project.

And there was so much emotion that Byron and I, my producer, Byron and I have produced all of my records together from my entire career. But there was such an emotional investment that we put into this record making it. And not only me, but all the guys who played on it and sang on it, all the other musicians on it, I mean, we could really feel a synergy with this. So when you get to this point and you put the record out and you've worked on it so hard, and you have so much connection to it, and this happens with every artist with every record. But for me, this is my newest and it's particular to me.

You just want people to feel the same way and be impacted. the same way that you are buying and you were by it and what you put into it. And it's hard to get that instant gratification that you get when you play live and you go out and you play this new music for people and you get their reaction to, especially after it's come out. When it comes out and you can't go out and support it and play it and see people's faces with the new stuff, it's tough. And, you know, I've spent 30 years in this business.

And I've always, you know, you get to it where it's sometimes. it can be a grind and you're out playing shows every night. I mean, gosh, my first couple of years when I had hit records, I was doing 260 shows a year. But I was young and it was fun and we were grinding. But as you get older, sometimes you're like, man, I wish I just had six months off or a year off or I could sort of recharge my artistic batteries a little bit, you know, take a breath.

And then when that comes, when it's forced upon you, I hate it. I know. But now I've worked for 30. I've worked my whole life and I want to go back to work. There's a theme here. You're restless. You want to get out and play your music. So you mentioned the inspiration that Faith gave you coming off that tour to write this album.

Does she get to have some input on the back end? Does she listen to it as you go? Oh, yeah. I mean, I always, I mean, we don't always agree because we have completely different musical taste than musical approaches. We don't always agree. We appreciate what's good. But we don't always agree with what's a good song or what's not a good

song, we have different tastes, but at the end of the day, we appreciate how it ends up. And she has a lot of favorites on this record. I mean, I, for instance, L.A., my favorite is what, but it's, it's her favorite record on the album. She said she's going to lead me as if it's not a single. I'm going to leave that up to my label. Well, that's a threat that you better listen to, my friend. I know. You've released that quickly. You know, the, the, the, the, the, the, There's one song on there I think people are going to love called Cheryl Crow, which would maybe be a surprise to a lot of people. How did that come up?

What inspired you to write that song about someone who's your friend, by the way? Right. Well, I didn't write it. But I got the demo in. And I got the demo of the song in, and I fell in love with it right away. I fell in love with just the breeziness of it in a lot of ways. I made it a little darker because I wanted it to have a little more thump to it. So I drug it, you know, put it down in the mud a little bit just to make it grind a bit.

But it's just one of those songs that it's just fun to sing. You know, every now that a melody comes along that just just sink right into and you just like singing it and you like where it goes and you like the lilts and the lips to it. And that song really had that. And I like the comparison of how you feel about someone compared it to music. To me, that was a pretty neat comparison and cool comparison. And I'm a big fan of Cheryl Crow. And she's heard it.

I understand it. She wrote me a note saying how much she loved it. So that was a big relief because you don't want to sing. a song about someone, someone's name in it and they hate it. Be bad if you didn't get that note, if she was just quiet on it. Did she know that song was floating around Nashville? Or was that first she'd heard of it? I don't think so.

I mean, I think I got lucky and got that before anybody heard it. That's a good song. Because if I hadn't, somebody would have cut it. Exactly. That's right. Somebody would have taken it from you. You've had the chance to play some of your music. You'd surprise some frontline workers a few days ago, which was so cool.

You dropped in on that Spotify, drop in. and you've also during this time been supporting frontline workers in Nashville and across the country. Why has that been so important to you? Well, you know, first off, I mean, who knows if they would have that kind of compassion and care and willpower and strength to go out every day, especially in hospitals? and to face what's coming at them and the big wave that is hitting them and the danger that it imposes and the risk that it imposes to themselves

and the fact, who knows, unless you're in that position, if you would have the wherewithal and the heart to be able to do that. I mean, I'm not sure that I would. I mean, I'm probably way too selfish to be that kind of person that these frontline workers do every day,

every single day, and most without choice. because not only did they have to do it, but they know they need to do it, and they know they are needed to do it. And I just feel like I have a heart for that. I just feel like that I'm, all the things that we're so fortunate in our lives

to the comforts that we have are so much there because of the people who support taking care of people. And I just think that they're just the pride of who we are and they're the best of who we are. I remember when this was in new you know flaring up in New York and March and April I have friends who are doctors and it was almost like I was more worried than they were I was texting them all the time and they'd say this is what we signed up for this is why we went to school and they would put on the whatever equipment they had and go in literally go in battle every day and still in awe of all of them I agree with you and that's the way I feel as well and any chance I get to support them I will so you've also um I understand had some some chores around the house Tim I think you You call it a honey-do list on Instagram?

Yeah. You staying busy out in the yard, are you? I try to stay a little busy. I mean, I have spurts of yard work energy. I don't know if I'm a consistent yard worker, but I did a lot of it growing up. Because I spent a lot of time working out of plant nursery as a kid. Oh, you did? Well, there you go.

That explains that the flowers look good. Well, thank you. I did a pretty good job. But, you know, we had our girls were coming in. We have two daughters in California and our youngest started just graduated high school. Our middle daughter graduated college and our oldest daughters is an actress in L.A. So the two in California were driving cross country to come home. So Faith wanted me to, and we were doing a little graduation sort of celebration for our youngest daughter from high school.

So Faith wanted me to get the yard looking pretty decent before when the girls grow up. It looks good. If you really did that, good on you, Tim. I really did. I promise. Actually, my nephew was helping me. My nephew, Timothy, was helping. There you go.

It's well done. You mentioned it. You're coming up here, Tim, on empty nest. I mean, I don't need to remind you. Talk about I called Mama and all those things where you miss somebody who's your rock. How are you in faith feeling about having an empty house here in the fall? Well, it's tough. You know, as anybody knows whose kids leave home, it's, it's, there's a part of you that is excited.

did for them and you want you want you to go out and conquer the world and have fun and do all the things that that kids do and you know and learn and experience life and ups and downs and all those things but you you don't want to you don't want them to leave your protection and you don't want to leave you're having your arms around them and and you certainly don't want to feel like they don't need you anymore and I think that that's the hardest thing about it certainly from for faith you know we having three daughters and and there's such huge, you know, fans of their mom and their mom's been such a huge support to them and support to each other that it's going to be tough. However, in these times, it's a little different because

not knowing what's going to happen with college with our youngest daughter, you know, her being home with us. She's, bless her heart, she's been stuck with us since March when they let out at school. So we've sort of all been encapsulated together. So she's, she's been stuck with us for quite a while. For her, it's not been so good, but for us, it's been sort of a blessing because all the things that can go on your senior year of high school, all the, all the parties that you have to attend and all the lunches and, you know, all the stuff that goes on with school and senior friends for the last year before you all go away to college, so you never see them that much. So I think this, and we know that with our previous two daughters. So having this time with our

youngest daughter for us before, you know, she goes away and being the last one out, It's been sort of a blessing to us in a lot of ways. I mean, if there's a silver lining to be found, it's been able to spend that time with her during all this time. I agree. I feel the same. This has been great time with the kids. It's been hard for many reasons, but it's been great.

So have you in faith considered what life's going to be like on the other side of this when it's just the two of you in your house? You're going to rush out separately out on tour? What are you going to do? You know, I can't wait to go out on tour, that's for sure. But I don't know. I mean, we haven't put that much thought into it, except for hopefully working down the line when, you know, when the touring opens up. But I don't, probably traveling a lot to wherever the kids are.

You know, that's what we really want to do is just go hang out where they're at every now and then. As long as they'll let us. I don't say they may not want you. As long as they'll let us. But we, you know, we have pretty busy lives anyway, so we'll stay busy. But it's going to be tough. tough. The biggest thing that we've noticed is being able to sleep a little later since because, you know, our youngest daughter does, she's just getting getting around to driving.

Oh, is that right? So I think kids today don't care that much about driving like they used to. I've noticed that. I mean, I was waiting at the DMV on my birthday. Oh, it for us, right? Yeah, that was it. But, uh, yeah, so I think, I think that we're just, planning on just spending some time with them and traveling around with them and I'm going to go to work as soon as I can just because I just miss being out on tour and being on the road and playing music for fans. I'll let you go in a second. We're talking about our mutual buddy John Meacham and that's such a cool project the two of you did together. Do you enjoy doing sort of little side projects like that where first of all I think for a lot of people that showed up showed up how steeped in history you are and how much we were just talking about different biographies we're both reading you were you were you are you were you were you. You are you You were a history buff, and I think that came through in that experience when you go on a show or sit on a stage, and you and John were mixing it up, talking about everything from the Revolutionary War to the Civil Rights Movement. Do you enjoy that kind of thing? That's a little bit out of your main wheelhouse? I love it. I mean, the funny thing is when somebody had told me John had moved to town and moved in our neighborhood, I would drive by his house and just wait for an invitation to come by and see. And we got invited to a dinner party one day. I'm like, hey, we got invited to John Beecher's house for a dinner party. We were excited. and went down and got to meet him and hung out with him. We hit it off right away and became fast friends.

And the idea for the book came along is I'd asked him, had he ever thought about how music had coincided with big events in history and how they'd all been a part of it. And I think in troubled times, arcs always risen, it raised its hand as being something that's inspirational and helpful and progressive and and informative at the same time. And he said he hadn't really thought about it. he hadn't really thought about that.

So we started putting it together. And the funny thing was I thought, all right, this is going to be great because I've got Meacham, we're going to write this book together, and we'll have dinners every night, and we'll sit and discuss this, and we'll talk it all out. And we talked about this in like December.

So second week of January, I get two chapters from Meacham. Here's the first two chapters. What are you thinking? I'm like, hold on. Like, what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to redline all of this stuff from John Meacham? about it. But it was a prolific. He's very prolific and so it was a lot of fun. It's like having your own history professor that you can hang out with and talk to. Yes. He's super smart about

everything and he and you know his voice is so incredible. He's got such a melodious voices. So yeah. He loved hearing and talk. But um, but one of the coolest things that we did is after the book came out, we put together this this tour where we went out to remote the book where we were doing some songs from the book. I mean, the first song we did was from like, gosh, 18, So we had to find some references and put the song together and build this sort of idea around it. But being on stage with him, and we had these cool flags that were a backdrop, and we sat and talked about the book and talked about, like you said, the experiences that we had writing a book from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement

and doing songs in between. And it was one of the coolest experiences as an artist that I'd ever had. And I think doing those sort of projects, for me, whether it be a movie or writing a book or hanging out with John Mietam or reading history, I think all that for me as an artist informs what I do and makes me better at what I do. And any chance that I'm going to get to grow at my craft, I'm going to take that chance

because I feel like that I'm just scratching a surface of trying to get somewhere with what I do as an artist. The only downside of that project, Tim, was it took us six months to deflate Meecham's ego because he was touring around with you. He thought it was a rock star for minutes. We had to knock him back down. Well, he was a rock.

rock star for a little while. You should have seen, it should have seen the meet great lines for Meacham. Oh, I know. He's big. People love Meacham. Now, would you, you had said some time ago, you might consider running for office. Is that something that's still out there for you? You know, I have, I think there are some really, really good people and great people who are out there trying to do the right things for the right reasons. But I think in this world today, I don't know that I'd want to stick my neck out there. I mean, I don't want, I don't want anybody digging into my closet. I think things have changed a little since you first said that. Yeah, exactly. And I think I was drinking heavily, yeah, at the time, too. Well, that explains a lot, doesn't it?

Yeah, it's right. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Tim McGraw right after the break. Welcome back to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Now more of my conversation with Tim McGraw. We're talking about not being able to get on the road and play this new album for your fans. What do you miss most about being out there? There's a couple of things. The camaraderie with the band, I really miss that.

I mean, those guys are my best friends, you know, and they hear their musicianship every night, how well they play and how they inspire me. every night on stage. And I have those guys in my ears, and I'm hearing them play. And I'm thinking, gosh, how lucky am I to be able to be on stage? But like being in my garage trying to learn music in college, but being with the best band in the world and being with the great sound and all these people watching. And that energy that you connect with the crowd.

But there's something magical about the collective experience of hanging out with a crowd at playing music that you can't get anywhere else. I mean, there's this sort of this contract that you have with each other. that for these next two hours, you're not going to be the same for people that you are all day long or all night long when you're working or if you're taking kids to school or doing all that stuff,

you're not going to be those same people. I guarantee you that that guy with a cowboy hat up there jumping around like a chicken on a hot plate is not a same guy that he is 24-7 as well. So we're going to suspend belief for just a little while to have a great time. That's what I love about playing music and playing live anyway.

That's a great mental image. Chicken jump around. Chicken on a hot plate. My big thanks to Tim for a great conversation. His new album Here on Earth is out now. And my thanks as always to all of you for tuning in. We will continue to add more of our virtual interviews for you to enjoy. But for now, be sure to check out our big library of conversations with all of my guests. And don't forget to tune in. Of course, do Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. Thanks again for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast.