The Bill Simmons Podcast - Masters Story Lines and Fun Food Arguments With Dave Chang, Joe House, and Nathan Hubbard. Plus, Jason Isbell’s First BS Interview!

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons sits down with Dave Chang, Joe House, and Nathan Hubbard in Augusta, Georgia, to discuss returning to Augusta National Golf Course, the biggest Masters Tournament story lines, food debates, favorite Masters bets, and more (2:07). Then Bill is joined by singer-songwriter Jason Isbell to discuss the new HBO Music Box documentary, ‘Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes Closed’—premiering April 7 (51:26). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Jason Isbell, Dave Chang, Joe House, and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, I got master's talk, I have food arguments, and I have one of the best singers in America. It's all next. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right.

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We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where you can find the new episodes of the Rewatchables. We did He Got Game, me and Van Lathan, and Logan Murdoch. It was really fun. It's the 25th anniversary of that movie. A movie that I have a complicated relationship with, but over the last 10 to 12 years, I just actually really like it. And I like it more and

more every year. Nobody's come close to replicating it. So we talked about that and a whole bunch of other stuff. You can check that out. Check out the new Prestige TV podcast as well, where they did Yellow Jackets, Mallory and Joanna. We have a precap with Waz and Chris heading toward episode three, which there are no screeners of as of yet. So we might be doing that episode raw on Sunday night right after it airs. Get ready for that. I don't know how I'm going to pull that off from myself. I'm going to clone myself for Sunday night. We'll be ready for that. Also, Fairway Rolling with Joe House and Nathan Hubbard.

They're both going to be on this podcast in a split second, but you can go there for all their Masters bets. We're going to be talking Masters with them and our friend Dave Chang. We're all in Augusta, and we're talking golf, Masters, storylines, food. And then after that, Jason Isbell is going to come on for a long time. We did an hour interview last week. We have a new Music Box documentary coming with him on Thursday night. It's fantastic.

You'll be able to watch it on HBO. You can be watching it on HBO Max as well. It is called Running With Our Eyes Closed. It's really good. Go check it out. So that's it. That's the pod. Let's bring in Pearl Jam. All right, we're at the Masters in Augusta, Georgia. It is a Tuesday late afternoon. The fairway rolling crew is here.

Joe House, Nathan Hubbard. We're running it back. We did it last year. We put on a combined, I would say, 20 pounds. We watched a lot of golf. We figured out some things about the course. More than 20 pounds, Nathan? Yes. You put on 20 pounds yourself? 14. Well, wait, before or after your venture into the woods during your morning run. Yeah, you had to poop during a morning jog.

A lot of stuff happened. This year, we were like, how do we add? Sometimes you think TV shows or movies, like the Fast and Furious franchise. They do four really successful. Like, you know what? Let's not sit still. Who do we add? They go out, they get The Rock. They get one of the biggest A-list movie stars. We went out and got David Chang, who has two herniated discs, who fought through an incredible amount of pain just to be here, who might be on more medication than he's letting on. And you're here now. You're back at the Masters. Welcome. I'm so honored to be here with you guys. And I am definitely loopy on medication. You should definitely not drink and take this medicine, but I did.

Okay. Well, we'll see how it plays out for him over the next couple of days. What are you most excited about? The last time you were at the Masters, a guy by the name of Eldrick Tiger Woods won the Masters. That was the single best Masters to go to since Jack Nicklaus in 86. Right, House? 97 when Tiger won came out of nowhere. His rookie Masters, that was pretty good. That was kind of an ass kicking though.

From a drama standpoint? He literally changed the face of an ass kicking though. From a drama standpoint? He literally changed the face of golf with that performance. I'm going 19 Tiger over 97 Tiger. 19 Tiger for me. So you were there Chang. Were you there on that Sunday?

I was not. I left Friday. But that was the best sporting event. One of the best experiences of my life that's why i'm so lucky to be here this is the best nothing beats the master you have a weird golf background i do um you played golf competitively got a little too competitive to the point that you stormed off out of the sport and quit this is true and then you came back and hurt your back playing golf maybe golf doesn't like you

we were at a top golf event together in january and cheng could not walk up the stairs to get to the bay but he is so fucking competitive about golf that he picked up a driver and slowly but surely that back loosened up and you stayed there for an hour and a half swinging as hard as you could well that was shingles and that's when I was also messed up again. A different ailment altogether. Are we sure that your wife's not listening to this? Because I told her when we went to Topgolf that I was not going to swing any clubs. But now she knows. Okay, good.

Because he was peering it. I mean, he got all the way through. It did take a half hour for your body to like, but then you're clearing the left hip beautifully. Your hands are in perfect positions. Like this motherfucker could could play the game he was hitting 290 yard drives yeah on the reg speaking of chang's wife we have to give a shout out to grace because it's her birthday today and she came to the augusta no way happy birthday she knew how much it meant this is a great marriage in my opinion to me that's, that's a sign of an awesome marriage. That's a baller move.

And if you ask me what I'm most excited about, why I'm here, less about the golf floor, about the eating. Yes. So House is going to lie here. But he's like, no, no. When we were talking about who we get for a fourth, and House is like, let's get Chang. Are you telling on me? You're telling. And Nathan's like, yeah, yeah, we'll get Chang.

Chang will be a great member of the foursome. And there's this pause in the text thread. And you could see how it's typing. And then finally it was like, plus at like one o'clock in the morning, you can make us something. I'm blushing right now. I do have Catholic guilt. Still, you know, it's programmed into us. BS.

I literally did because the one challenge from last year, the single biggest thing was like, it's we're back from the parties. We're starving. We ordered dominoes. We try to bribe dominoes even. Yeah, we did.

We had to wait. It was such a long wait. You don't have to wait. You feel two voids for us. Cause we, you know, this is old school male bonding. We were together for three straight days. we run out of things to talk about

for the most part we needed a fourth so you fill that void and we can talk now we can split off and i'll talk about each other and then on top of it who knows what might happen at one in the morning after a couple cocktails when we have to be in the golf course at like eight in the morning the next day i've already scoped out the pantry. We have emergency rations set. We're good. Do we? Yeah.

Because I'm looking at M&M's, Tostitos, and bananas. We got some pasta. Oh. Oh. 1 a.m. pasta. We can make that happen. And I think I'm going to break into the locked closet. Yes.

I'm sure it has other stuff. Are you ready to go to the whitest sporting event that God created tomorrow? This is all I'm ever good at is golf and fly fishing. I've been born for this moment. I was born for this. What are we looking forward to? I have to get a pimento cheese sandwich

because it's like $1.50. Can we just have Dave Chang? Let's talk about the food. The pimento part of it, a's talk about the master's food now. The pimento part of it, like a lot of people say it's too rich. You can't have a whole sandwich of it. Chef. It's like $1.50.

Yeah. Beers are like $2 tops. You can eat extremely well on $10. Really, all day. Chicken biscuits in the morning, unbelievable. I would skip on the ham and cheese sandwiches. And you're doing pimento and chicken biscuits basically all day. Not egg salad.

You know what's pretty good? It's pretty good. I'm definitely going to have all of it regardless. But I'm focusing on pimento. And what I did last time I was here, I stacked the sandwiches together. So you're making a triple decker. So this is the hack. This is what I wanted to get into. Yeah, let's talk food hacks. Because we did a little bit when we were here

back with your dad. Was that 2018? 2018. I think it was. My dad furious that we came back. He didn't even know. My wife told him last week there on the phone. He's like, yeah, and then Bill's going to Matt. He's like, what? Oh, he didn't get the invite to this year. Well, no, he thinks Chang got his invite. So now he's out on Chang. That's like, what? Oh, he didn't get the invite to this year. No, he thinks Chang got his invite.

So now he's out on Chang. It was like a whole feud with Chang and my dad that Chang didn't go with. But when we were here in 2018, we bought two of every sandwich as we left the golf course and we brought it back to the house and we were trying to do various hacks. The hack that I liked

the best was the chicken sandwich with tomato cheese. You know what? I didn't even have to let you. I know you're going to do that. You're a savant at eating. Clearly, you knew that. It makes perfect sense. The barbecue with the egg salad is pretty good. Wonderful.

This guy is a genius at eating. What I figured out today is the peach ice cream is back after not being your last information it's really yes yes so that's going to be a big i don't think you want to combo that with the egg salad but on its on its own the peach ice cream sandwich can i just add egg salads fucking disgusting no no come on that's bill simmons take it disregard it completely easiest way to go wrong in a variety of ways for diarrhea or whatever else you want to name.

So many ways egg's out can go wrong. Not at Augusta National, bud. Their quality control is impeccable. Did you guys know why everything's packaged green food-wise? Why? Because of the cameras. In case it's on the ground, it matches in with the scenery. That's how detailed everything is here.

Can you do your thing about the precision of Augusta and why you love it as a decent chef? So in 2019, we filmed something. I think you can see it online somewhere. But I spent basically like five days here behind the scene and I was observing. It's very similar to me when you go to one of the very best restaurants in the world.

It's almost less about the food, which is clearly why you're there. It's very similar to me when you go to one of the very best restaurants in the world. It's almost less about the food, which is clearly why you're there. It's about the precision, the organization, the teamwork, the execution. And I don't say this lightly.

I think Augusta National, especially this tournament, is the best organized company thing in the world. It's amazing. Everything is unbelievable here. It really is is can you guys disagree with that well one thing is they make everyone get rid of their phones which we we talked about last year but it's just ingenious yeah i mean they have your full attention that's

that's the whole point the point is to have your eyeballs on what's happening out in front of the golf course experience it right you don't need to document it for your for your own friends and family take it in and then if you want to talk to everybody about it you can do so i i do think uh you know that the scale of it to pick up on on chang's point uh the only thing i can think of speaking of the food world that might rival it is jose andres the world health kitchen you know where they drop in and make a hundred thousand meals for people in catastrophic situations. But otherwise, this masters. Nobody has

a bad experience here unless you get kicked out because you were too unruly. Nathan had like 700 sarcastic concert jokes he was going to make. I'm just thinking I'm going to wear green because much like the food trash, when I pass out and lay on the ground, I'm blend in well you need we have to figure out what color is in the special area

that we're going to be in i mean are we going to do flex should i flex right now i don't want to flex we're going to be in a special area we want to make sure yeah okay yeah we wanted for the listeners one of the wrinkles we want to add was the possibility of maybe going behind the scenes and seeing what the clubhouse is like. Which is maybe. I don't want to spoil it, but it's possible. And there's a pyramid hierarchy of the masters. And the last level is when you're an actual member, you got the jacket on, and you get to walk around in this clubhouse. You know what your role is as a member.

Yeah. No, but we don't know what it's like in there is the question. We don't. None of us do. Is it like what heaven is like? Is it going to be disappointing? Cracker heaven.

I mean... Cracker. But I just picture food and wood and drinks. That sounds right. And very few women. Wow. If we don't make it in, I think we... I mean, let's...

We keep it real on the Bill Simmons podcast. I was just like, what... I don't stand with Joe House's comments. You disavow. I want to get some ashes. I love it. This will be my only invite. I'm not even going to get the invite. Oh, everybody, come on. Oh, we can only let three in.

Yeah, how's she's out now? I'm out. Now, there's just some real mystery because I've never seen photos from inside there, really, other than when Jim Nantz is in there. Listen, if we get in, we get in. And if we don't, I think the percentage chance of us not getting in is higher than us getting in. Okay. What golf subplots are you looking forward to, Chang? Who do you want to see

the most in person? Other than the obvious. I just want to see... El Tigre himself. Oh, I thought you were going to say Paulina Gretzky. Definitely want to follow Tiger. And I'm hoping that...

How many Koreans are playing this year? Decent number. Yeah, there's a solid Korean crew. Sung Jae Im is one of my best bets. I love him. What would be the FanDuel odd that one of the field of Koreans would... I'm glad that you're talking about this

because we actually had this conversation about creating that prop. You can bet they can do that for us. They have a top Asian. You can bet top Asian, but they mix them. No, it's literally a group. That's amazing.

Yeah, I already bet Sung Jae Im is top Asian. You can bet top Asian, but they mix them. No, it's literally a group. That's amazing. Yeah, I already bet Sung Jae Im as top Asian. Do they put the Australians in there or not? Yeah, the Australians are in there. I watched Top Asian on Hulu and it wasn't very good. Season 2 is better than season 1. We are. Is this a free-flowing conversation that might occasionally touch on mature subjects? Because you can imagine.

Stop it. Do they have other nationality bets? They have the top European? All of them. Yes. Yes. Everyone you canity bets? They have the top European? Yes. Yes. Everyone you can think of. Top Canadian. Top European. Chang, you got to bet top Asian.

I mean, Vijay was considered Asian, right? He's a Pacific Islander. Yes. Yeah. He won a couple times, right? He did. Yeah. Now he's in the teeing off early at Augusta stage of his career.

They've buried all the live guys with the Vijays. Oh, is that true? Oh, they've completely all the live guys with the PJs. Oh, is that true? Oh, they've completely buried the live guys. Oh, I haven't either. Not a single live guy is playing with a big PJ tour star. Is that true? Yeah, they're sending them out with Sandy Lyle and fucking guys you haven't even heard of.

People with colostomy bags on their sides. It's unbelievable. I love the choice. Yeah, the live thing. So supposedly there were some protesters today. So I don't know around the area against the Liv tour. Down at Trump's arraignment? No, no.

Some people protesting that they were even allowed to play, I guess. That was the word in the street. There's a very nice harmony happening at the moment between Liv and the PGA Tour players. Although there's some lines drawn. Like it's clear that Brooks and DJ are still buddies with the Rory's of the world. And it's very clear that Phil is somewhere in between.

And on the far, far right is Patrick Reed, who nobody likes. You're just describing the last 15 years on tour anyway. What's the difference? Patrick Reed's the one thing everyone can agree on. I deliberately wore this hat. I'm terrified he's going to win this week.

I bet on him to win this week. He finished third last week in this tourney. His game has been good. He went mano-a-mano with Rory in the desert earlier in the year and just lost. He's a legit threat. So does he fit the he looks pretty good? This is why I want to go. Paying into the last couple weeks into the

tournament? This is why I want to go because I know that at least 50 of these live guys took the check and got super fat so i'm i'm on fat patrol tomorrow yeah so tomorrow that's what we want to show yes interesting yes it's on fat patrol i love it i am on that guy looks like he's been ruined by the idea of bringing either his family his wife his, his black sheep brother. I'm on that patrol tomorrow because last year, who was the guy we hit with? Russell Henley. You just couldn't believe how many times he was picking up his kids. Well, and his wife seemed

pissed off. Because she's pregnant. It was not a fun part three experience for the Henley family. We came back and we bet the under. So I'm on that. I'm body language doctor tomorrow. What are you going to be, House? Bloody Mary doctor. Golf bets? No, we're

on Xander. Last year, we saw Xander putting in the twilight, which told us he was struck. We just want to see. Oh, that's right. The twilight putter. So you're on twilight putter patrol. We will be in a combination of both the driving range and the putting green just to see where guys are, what level of comfort they're showing.

Speaking of body language, because we've already given the good friends at FanDuel a whole suite of potential plays. And God bless them. The Ringer specials page is beautiful. And they have a whole bunch of combinations. My favorite one already, Jason Day top 20 plus there plus there will be a hole-in-one. That's a great bet. That's very fun. Jump in on that. Let's take a break, and then we'll go through some of those bets and some other things we're going to predict for the week.

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In Kansas, 1-800-522-4700 or visit ksgamblinghelp.com. Louisiana, 877-770-STOP. In Maryland, visit mdgamblinghelp.org. In Wyoming, 800-522-4700. In West Virginia, visit 1800gambler.net. All right, coming back, let's talk about Masters storylines, 2023. Nate, what's your number one storyline heading into the Masters? Well, I think I'd have more cogent thoughts if I wasn't burping up P.F. Chang's right now. But for me, there's really two. The first and the one that you're going to hear a lot of the gossiping about is Liv versus PGA.

We got 18 guys from Liv who are here coming back, really have not played much golf. And one of the worries that we have about Tiger is when he doesn't play a lot of golf, the putter gets cold, he's not his best. Are these guys going to be able to compete at the highest level possible? That's the first. The second one I'm actually more interested in is that we had these elevated events this winter. The first time ever the PGA Tour spent a lot of money on high-end events where just the best players and all the best players played together. And so what we got for the first part of the season was this filtering mechanism to understand who's playing the best right now. And if we came into the first event in Kapaloo in January thinking there might be 15 to

20 guys who are the man, we come into the Masters thinking there are exactly three. And it's Scotty Scheffler, it's Rory McIlroy, and it's Jon Rahm. And this week, we're going to find out each of those guys has reason to win this tournament. Scotty's defending, Rory's trying to build Grand Slam. Jon Rahm has not won a major since the US Open in 2021. So this week for me, the most interesting storyline is which of those guys

is going to step up and finally get it done. House, that was going to be my number one storyline. In basketball, at least for the MVP race, we have the big three of Jokic and Embiid and Giannis.

Not to mention all the other great players we have, but it's been kind of the seasons belong to those three guys in some way. And in golf, we kind of have a big three all of a sudden. Is there anybody who's lingering on the outside?

Like if those guys are in the dining room table for three, but there's one more place setting. Is it Cam Smith? Who is it? Well, it would have been Cam Smith through calendar year 2022 because he won the British Open. He moved over to live. he competed in live events and then he went to australia and won an event in at the end of november early december now not as like enormously uh impressive strength of field in that event but you know he won the players

championship in march and the open championship you know the british Open in July, and then won another tournament in the latter part of the year. So Cam Smith would have been there, could be there now. So you rescinded Cam's invite? Well, I haven't watched him play any golf. He missed the cut. He's only played in two events that had a cut in calendar year 23. Recension? Rescinding?

Rescissions? Rescission? I used to be a writer. My fingers used to work. So who else? If not Cam Smith, then who? Max Homa is... The homie?

The homie Homa is really sitting right there in that four spot. Ever since he no-showed Nathan's house for dinner, he's been on a tear. The statistics say that Max has massively

underperformed in majors. But he comes into this playing unequivocally like a top five player in the world. He's got as many wins since the start of the 2021 season

as anybody on tour. He is an absolute killer. But he knows that he's got to perform in majors. And the thing that we fall in love with about Max Holm is the fragility of his mind and the way that he's battled through to actually turn it into a strength. He's got the LA US Open this year in his hometown, but in his mind, he knows this is the next hurdle for his career. So it's a big, big week for Max. Chang, what's your favorite storyline of the Masters other than you eating

17 pimento sandwiches tomorrow? With chicken somehow in it. With chicken hack. I don't follow golf nearly as much as these guys. Actually, not even a comparison. You guys know so much. But as a casual fan, from a perspective like that, for me, it's always about Tiger. It has always been about Tiger. Every year is about Tiger, even when he's not playing well. This is, even from his words, probably one of the last he said it. He doesn't know how many he has left. If by chance, the hope is he plays well, that's all you can ask for, right? For me me if he plays really well that makes the masters infinitely better so you want to root for that everything's better when he plays better if it

sucks if he was not playing well that's a bummer that was the most casual fan take take i think i've heard in a while i liked it though because i agreed with you because as another casual majors fan it always it's he still has it, how's Tiger doing is still the question. I should mention, his birthday is December 30th, 1975. He's almost senior tour Tiger. We're not that far away. No, you're right. This is like two more Masters for him after this one before he becomes senior tour Tiger Masters.

And this would also be by far the latest anyone. What was Jack? 46? 46. When he won in 86. When he won in 86. The response putter. Yeah.

When he won because he had a really good back nine, and Greg Norman and Seve Ballesteros played with both hands around their neck. Yeah. Greg Norman. From multiple holes. It was unbelievable. From the middle of the fairway on 18 threw his nine iron on the ground and just grabbed himself with both hands

and choked himself. That's the great thing about golf, though, is the energy of the gallery when they really want a certain event to happen and some other poor and witting soul is in the way. Like Greg Norman that year, like all the people. Who was the guy in 2019 who fell apart with Tiger?

Oh, our guy Francisco. Frankie Onions. Yeah. Frankie Molinari hit the ball in the water on 15. Has he been the same since then? Not really. He had an injury and he was away for a little while, but he really has never.

He tin cupped it, right? He just hit a ball in the water. Well, he didn't really. Like, you know, it was only one shot, but yeah, it hit a tree. He wasn't anticipating it. And the crowd did that thing where it's like there was silence, but also cheering and applauding for the worst moment of the guy's golf life. Yeah, here's what you need to know about Frankie Molinari.

He's paired with Bryson DeChambeau this week. So that's how they're treating him after that day. Oh, that leads us to another great master storyline. Nathan, you're obsessed with this. The fuck you pairings in round one. There's some great, great FUs from Augusta because of this whole live tour thing. So give us some of your favorites.

Not a single live guy other than Kim Smith is paired with a top 20 player. Kevin Na is first off with Mike fucking Weir at 8 a.m. That's brutal. We got Taylor Gooch and Jason Kokrak with Sandy Lyle. Not a single Liv player is in the featured groups. So you're not going to see a lot of them. And that is part of the story this week. I realized watching DJ's interview, I was like, man, I haven't seen DJ in like a year. Look at his beard. He's got a little more gray. Like a lot of these guys, we just have not seen.

So the lift guys almost look like all of us during the pandemic. It's like Chang's worn jogging pants for nine straight months. That's basically DJ? Exactly. I think, look, the big story on Tiger for me is this weather forecast. That's right. That's the storyline. We're going to get to Friday night okay, I think, without too much of a delay. Seems like it. But it looks like with a high of

53 and a low of 48 on moving day and a 90% chance of rain. That's Friday. That's Saturday. Oh, Saturday. I thought it was going to rain on Friday too. There's going to be probably some rain on Friday too. It just looks like it's going to come later in the day and we might get a bunch of golf in. Saturday, it's going to be really, really tough out there. And with a guy who is made of bolts and fragments of bone below the waist,

it's, you know, listen, we stood on the seventh green last year here and we watched Tiger lumber his way around. I watched him in LA at RIV this winter and watched him really struggle through Saturday and Sunday. It's just putting four rounds together and asking him to do that in that kind of weather is a big reach. I'm rooting for it. It is un-American to bet against Tiger Woods, but this is going to be a tough go for him.

How fucking awesome would it be if he was in the last group on Sunday? Oh my God. It'd be amazing. You can dream. I think you're going to live vicariously through him because he'll be in just as much pain as you, Chang, with your two herniated discs. Exactly.

Who's going to get around slower? How can Chang get up number seven? And Tiger. The two guys limping around the golf course, Tiger Woods and Dave Chang. What do we have for favorite bets, fellas, for the listeners, for the casuals. Well, you had for your three from Fairway Rowland for your winner's circle,

our guy Johnny Rom, plus 950. You had... He's going to win. Justin Thomas is in there. Justin Thomas is that little action on him now, 21 to 1. Oh, okay. And then the homie is at uh 34 to 1 yeah so when with the winner's circle we took one that that's right there out of the the pure chalk play that's rom

of the three guys we prefer rom the most and then we were looking for guys so it's like major favorite yeah kind of semi-favorite and then long shot yeah and the semi-favorite concept is like you know under other circumstances getting those guys in the 20 to 1 kind of range is is pretty good value yeah um and that's why especially justin thomas when we we offered him up at 22 some there has been some action on him and homa his price is is a reflection of his lack of success in in majors you have to tell yourself that he is a different dude now. And I think he's made a pretty compelling case that he's a different dude now.

There's a couple of ringer specials, including... I like those. You love those any two will finish in the top 20s. Oh, I do. Like you could have Spieth and Morikawa and Woods, basically even minus 125. There's a Tiger Woods to make the cut and Jordan Spieth to finish top 20.

That's almost two to one. I love that one. I love that bet. We both love it. You could have Tiger to make the cut and Jason Day to finish top 20. Absolutely adore that bet as well. It feels like you're sniffing around Jason Day a tiny bit.

Have been, have been. There's been some kind of holding your nose up anytime his name comes up. Well, we had our guy uh justin ray um who is a data analytics and expert guru in golf yeah he was on the fairway roll on broadcast yesterday and he reminded us that since the beginning of calendar year 2023 the number two gol golfer in by this one metric strokes gained total is Jason Day.

He's just been quietly collecting top tens in nearly every tournament that he's played in. And he's played the Masters 14 times or whatever the number is. And he's had a lot of success. So we like where he is currently and we like his history. Chang, you have a gambling problem.

Yes, I do. Tiger specials on Fandu include a bogey-free round in the tournament, plus 380. Not possible. Doesn't seem possible. Will make birdie or better on his first hole of the tournament is 5-1. Top 10 finish is 5-1. To lead after round two is 41-1. That seems low.

Come on. He's not doing that. Physically, he can't at this point. It doesn't feel like it. Is there a bet for any of the repeat, like, past winners that are on the senior tour, like Freddie Couples and Bernard Langer, who actually, like, makes the cut? Oh, like the old-timers? You can bet. Old-timers champs?

Yeah, absolutely. You can bet make-miss-the-cut for just about everybody. Oh, yeah. But I don't know if, like, who's going to do it at this point. Who of the old-timiss the cut for just about everybody. Oh, yeah. But I don't know if... Name somebody. Who's going to do... Who of the old-timers is going to play the best? How would you bet against Longer? They dicked Mito Pereira by putting him with Longer. So I bet head-to-head, I think I'd take Longer over Mito.

Sure, sure. Yeah, I mean... Well, can we talk about Beefy Bryson at minus 158 to make the cut? Oh, he's missing the cut. He's definitely missing the cut. That's one of my favorite bets make the cut oh he's missing the cut he's definitely missing the cut that's one of my favorite bets on the board so you like miss the cut for no chance he's making the cut that's it's absurd those why do you why are you so convinced on that one because he hasn't played legitimate competitive golf in a long time and he's been 24 to miss the cut

in mortgage payment. Book it. You like Billy Horschel too, right? A little bit. A little bit. Yeah. He's like minus 135 to make it. Yeah. I mean, that makes sense that he would be sort of right on the cut line.

Listen, we're going to tomorrow night on Fairway Roll. And after we walk the course, I'm inviting myself to come on with you guys. But we're going to do, I'll just nod and I'll have last year, who was the one who called out Henley? Yeah, you did. The body language guys here. Where was your role going to be, Chang? Just a eating person. Okay, great.

But we're going to go through what we learned on the course as we walked around for the part three. Let's audible to something in Chang's wheelhouse. Chang, very confident today that Bojangles is better than Chick-fil-A. It's different. It's not even really a fair competition,

I don't think. Well, would you rather eat more? Bojangles. It's not even close. I love fried chicken, though. I've been eating fried chicken my whole life. But Bojangles has everything that Chick-fil-A has as well. The breakfast at Bojangles is fantastic. Just sublime. I asked Chang to compare Bojangles is especially sublime. I asked Chang to compare Bojangles to an NBA

player. Do you know what player he picked? Shea Gilgis Alexander. Oh, a current NBA player. I like this. Oh, wow. Like underrated, but really good. The stats are way better than you think. First team all NBA for me. What do you have for Chick-fil-A as an NBA comparison, Chang?

Oh, man carl malone no i can't root for it's a role player so he's a role player it's like uh he's like a it's got to be a player that does load management because they never open sunday they've won a title now they're not available some days that's a good one how about an in-out burger i gotta say we talked about this in the car ride over now that i live in southern california i think i've eaten that in and out maybe less than three times in three years i never go to in and out you like five guys better don't i don't like that either okay i i'm gonna say something extremely controversial to food people. I know what this is and I can't wait.

And it's going to make people fucking mad. And I know chefs that go on their high horse and talk poorly about it. But we visited it because my son has been introduced to it and he loves it. And I've tried to eat it. Not tried. I've been enjoying eating it. Or McDonald's hamburgers. Yeah, sure.

They're so good. The cheeseburger is just so good. Yeah. That's delicious. That to me is my favorite burger right now. I have been a nut burger as Russell Westbrook.

Going to the Hall of Fame, won an MVP, has a lot of defenders and some detractors and I'm not sure your team's better if he's above. But you can't bring

in a nut home. And the fries are like his jump shot. It doesn't travel well. You gotta eat it. It doesn't travel well. But you can't bring in and out home. And the fries are like his jump shot. It doesn't travel well. You got to eat it. Or in the car right after you get to the drive-thru. Nathan, no thoughts on this? Are you an in and out guy? I'm a five guys guy

because Mark Mosley was the kicker of our team in D.C. Mark Mosley started five guys? He was involved, I think. And the very first one was at Bethany Beach. Yeah, exactly. And I like the fresh jalapenos on the burger. The cons are the Five Guys is it takes a while after you order it,

but that's also why it's really good because they actually make it. The hot dog is also a secret weapon. Mark Mosley, the only kicker that was an NFL MVP. MVP in the history of the league it will always be that way where do you stand on astro burger jang never had it i never had it in la never is it good it's it's fantastic you have a lot of controversial burger no astro burger is excellent um the one i've never really messed with is sonic yeah there's not really a ton of them around but i've had it a couple times i. Yeah. Because there's not really a ton of them around,

but I've had it a couple times, and I thought, oh, interesting. But it's not really a California thing as much. Yeah, I don't... What's your favorite right now, House? Shake Shack. Shake Shack? Yeah.

Interesting. That would have been my choice. What's your Shake Shack order? I get three sandwiches. Three different sandwiches? Yeah, because the Smoke Shack has some crushed cherry pepper. Just a bacon

cheeseburger is always spectacular. And then, out of respect, out of respect for the craft, I will get a hamburger. A Shake Shack hamburger that just has lettuce, tomato, and onion and nothing else on it. That's my respect. What's your favorite? And the chef comes out of the back and thanks you for the respect? No, it's just food karma. What's your favorite? What's

your number one, Nathan? I'm not really Shake Shack. I go out of my way to find five guys and get three little cheeseburgers with lettuce, tomato, fresh jalapenos every time. It's great. I was telling Shane, there's this place that opened in LA called Irv's Burgers that has to be from somewhere else. And they figured out what I think is the hardest plane to land for a burger place, especially like a volume burger place where the cheeseburger, where the cheese kind of melts into the bread and the burger, almost like they did intentionally, but it's like a natural act. And that's my favorite thing about a cheeseburger. When the cheese gets, it's like the right level of gooey and you pick the bread up off the cheese gets it's it's like the right level of gooey and you pick you pick the bread up off

the cheeseburger and there's like that almost like that saliva string that people get when they're that's not the visual after they throw up sports runner not a food runner yeah it gets that cheese string of of okay you know what i'm talking about so good sorry i made it gross i was trying to be vivid that that gooey strand but it was really good and it and nice soft soft bun and just kind of that melts in your mouth and then the pickles and all that like it made me think like oh this is why i love cheeseburgers i feel like i had too many b plus cheeseburgers cheeseburgers have become like prestige tv where there's just a lot of b pluses and when you have

the a are like whoa speaking of throwing up what's the over under on how many oysters we're going to eat as a group tomorrow oh my god i don't know if i do oysters i don't think for me i can't do more than a dozen you i'm gonna find out dozen is like plenty yeah Yeah. All right. Well, that's fine. It seems like you're going to go 24, 36. What happens is Bill really loves this Oyster's Place. And so he's going to over-rotate on us going to this Oyster's Place. And there's a shrimp po' boy there. What else do we have, House? There, you can get shrimp.

I love the shrimp. Like regular shrimp. But I think there is going to be an Oyster's Place contest. I got a hot take that's going to get me in a lot of trouble in new orleans and i've been trying to keep it in the closet are you gonna unveil this one here we go oh this is great i can't believe you're doing this yes i think po boys are one of the most overrated sandwiches out there and i'm gonna get so much fucking heat but i love new orleans i just they'll say you haven't been to the right one but i think that the ratio of filling to bread is always off. It needs more fried shrimp and fried clams or oysters and all that stuff.

It's just never enough. But gumbo underrated. Jambalaya is underrated. And jambalaya, but gumbo. Turkey necks underrated. If you go to a lot of the crawfish places, they have turkey necks. Oh, delicious. I haven't done that.

Nobody's taken me to an authentic. What's your number one 2023 food trend right now just out of curiosity what's what are people making that has you super excited i don't know it's a good question i mean there's no new innovations no nothing new we're going back towards we talk about this we talk about this a lot of my podcast, that everything's going back to sort of the mid-1990s, experiential, food's good, not amazing, good service, people are having a good time. I think after the past three years, that's what people want. It's more of a, let's have a fun time out. And it's a real shift away from where it was only about the food. I've noticed I appreciate going to dinner

with friends or family a lot more than I used to. I always have a really good time. Even when it's just like, like the other day, my wife and my son and I went to, went to dinner at this steakhouse place and we just had a really good time. It was just nice to,

you know, it feels like the pandemic is finally like legitimately behind us now. Do you think Scotty Scheffler feels tonight hosting the champions dinner with Patrick Reed in the room and the other, the same way? Do you think he feels who has to sit next to Patrick Reed at that? This could be the one thing that gets our guy tiger going. If he comes out of there pissed off because he's not going to be pissed.

I think he could. We had this debate yesterday. I mean, look, first of all, it gets our guy Tiger going. If he comes out of there pissed off because... He's not going to be pissed off. I think he could be. We had this debate yesterday. I mean, look. First of all, Scotty's serving slider, cheeseburger sliders to start. It's a good choice. Which is good. He's got a very Texas sort of middle of the road.

Yeah. Can we hear that? Is the whole menu available? What else is he serving? It was published weeks ago. He's got firecracker shrimp. Texas ribeye. He's serving a Texas ribeye and those cheeseburger sliders.

Yeah. There's a fish option because there's always got to be a fish option. It's like sea bass something. You know, I don't know. I see it right here. That's so not a good stuff. Yeah, yeah. See?

Yeah. The chef has it. Chang, why didn't you? This is sort of, honestly, a shuffler. Very boring. It is. We've been calling it that for a person that has an interesting swing. This is a very boring menu.

It's chilly straight down. I mean, yeah, you're at ruby tuesdays yeah that's right it is i mean for sake yeah cheeseburger sliders firecracker shrimp tortilla soup that's a first it's got to be a first tortillas and tiger was wrestling with patrick reed ribeye stager black and red fish Patrick Reed. Revised Dagger, Black and Redfish. Black and Redfish. And Warm Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookie. Ruby Tuesdays. All right. This is a good ender for us, Chang. So Tiger wins 2023 Masters.

I'll cry. He calls you and he says, I heard you on the podcast with Bill. That really pushed me over the top. That's why I won. I want you to plan the master's dinner for me next year. So let's do it. What are we doing?

So we got to go to Vegas first. What's it? What's the dinner? A pizookie for dessert. Yeah. What's the appetizer? What are you doing? Oh, man.

Oh, I love, I mean. Come on, Chang. You should be able to do this. I should. One of the best in your field. You should be able to rattle this off. I should. One of the best in your field. You should be able to rattle this off. I'm going to do caviar and fried chicken skins. Yeah.

Not the chicken. Just I'm going to make sure that we get like maybe we just get Bojangles fried chicken. Yes. Just rip off the skin and make little boats that will hold the caviar. That'll be the canopy. So that's your appetizer. That's one of them. You're allowed to have multiples.

What else are we doing? Fried mozzarella sticks? You could do that too. Just for Bowie's orders. They're always really good. It's like, oh, the worst thing to put in your body. Because I love them, and they're probably honestly the best American invention for a canapé

ever is pigs in a blanket. Everybody loves it. Dustin Johnson has already done a version so you would just have to put your own spin on it. Dustin Johnson served a version of a pig. I'm not worried about a spin but it would be some version of that. Wait, can I interject really quick? Because I'll tell a story

I've already told. That was David Stern's favorite party appetizer. And it was at every NBA event. And one time they didn't have pigs in a blanket and he chewed the guy out who organized the event that there was no pigs in the blanket because it was like, this is my thing, the fucking pigs in the blanket.

I heard that story, I believe it, and I love David Stern for it. You know what I might do? By the way, what's your mustard with the pigs in a blanket? Yeah, what's the dipping sauce? It's a spicy mustard. And I think... Do you have to do it with the little grains in it?

A little bit controversial. Maybe even a ranch in there too. A ranch. I love it. Ranch is basically a vehicle for MSG. That's why everyone fucking loves it. It's delicious. So what do you got for the entree? Ah, man. You see, you got for the entree? Oh, man. You see, you got to make everyone happy. I think what I might do is bring a lot of my friends in there, too.

So because everyone was all fucking so incestuous. You guys can't do anything without each other. We're like the modern athlete. We're friends with fucking everybody. Let's get you some rougla ham pizza. I'd ask. I'd ask. I'd get some brisket from Texas. Of course. From one of the top barbecue shops.

Everyone's going to love that. Notice how politically he was there. He didn't say which place. Which one. I'm not one of the awesome places there. I was ready to name names. But here's what I'm talking about. There's no vegetarian, no fish option.

No fish. They have to have a fish option. They're the old guys, here's what I'm not going to do. There's no vegetarian, no fish option. No fish option. They have to have a fish option. They're old guys, I think. No, your fish option was the caviar with the chicken. You're like, there's your fucking fish, motherfucker. You can do a sushi. It's my dinner. I'm going to say that.

You can eat somewhere else. I'm going to, you know what? Those that can't eat the brisket get a pimento cheese sandwich. Well, wait a second. Why wouldn't you do, take the brisket and do brisket and pimentos sandwiches? Yeah, we might do a large format where people are making it.

That's good. It'll make Nathan happy because he really likes the barbecue and pimento cheese. Nathan's like drools coming out of his mouth. He just gained three pounds listening to this. I'm going to throw up three times tomorrow. This is actually a really difficult menu.

I'm going to have to think about this tonight.'m gonna plan it out it's gonna be proper i promise you i love this yeah we have to come back tomorrow for the dessert you know chang has this thing at hot donuts this donut thing he does do you wear this house no he goes i've never had it. I'll tell you the story of how it happened. I went to Paul Tudor Jones, big investor. I went, spent a day with him. I walked into his house and a guy I knew was actually working in the kitchen. And then we had a beautiful dinner and then dessert comes out. And I'm like, wow, this is the most delicious thing I've ever had. I can't, what is this?

Because I didn't know what what is this because it i didn't know it was a donut because it had ice cream in the center and it was melting down and i go back in the kitchen and i'm like hey chef like you got to tell me because this is one of the best desserts i've ever had he brings me around the corner he's like see these stack of donuts they got to be at least two days old and they're dunking donuts a crispy cream and i was Dunkin' Donuts or Krispy Kreme. And I was like, wow. Because if you pan fry a glazed donut, it gets like melts a little bit and gets caramelized and almost comes toffee like. And then if you put ice cream in the center, it melts and becomes like unglazed, which is basically what ice cream is before you freeze it.

It's the best dessert I've ever had. But you also have to wait two days with the donut. Why is that? That's easy. That's easy. I'm not sure why. i'm just following the recipe it kind of make there's an intuitive uh aspect to that like letting it because whatever crunchy you want it like it hardens up a tiny bit you're not going to believe it but it's fucking delicious ass it's so you've had it oh yeah oh i fucking had it because

you're doing it we did it for the the Spotify dinner. Is it on the menu? Not always. Yeah. It's a special thing. It takes a lot of time, but we've added a little bit of a twist. We've turned it into more of a Bananas Foster kind of thing. One of the great- Still wonderful. Underrated.

Bananas, New Orleans. See, I love you, New Orleans. Bananas Foster, a top three dessert for me. Yeah. Also one of the great names for any food item ever, because it sounds like a 1940s boxer. It's like Bananas Foster. He fought Joe Louis. got knocked out in six i got one idea for a bet that we're never going to find the answer to okay but for people that don't know when you're an attendee watching this event you have to be on

certain behavior you can't run you can't shout it's like the opposite of the waste management everything is the opposite. If you're on your cell phone, if you are not behaving correctly, you are banned. You're never allowed to come back. You don't have a cell phone. Yeah, you're out. Or some people sneak it in because I've been told that, right? How many people

get kicked out tomorrow? Or through the entire week? There's got to be a real number that will never be. Yeah, because they're super discreet. That's not the news item that they're inclined to share. This is a place where if there's a line, they try and control the lines for the food

because they don't want there to be the appearance of people waiting. People know because there's such history here. They know they got to behave well. Yeah. But this is the real caveat. The drinks here are super, super cheap. For 20 bucks, you can have basically 20

beers. So that is what makes the behavior, I think, change a little bit. Some number get kicked out. There's no two ways about it. I think it's got to be around maybe 15 to 20. Is that too much? A day or the whole tournament?

I think at least 50. We've got to find out. There's definitely a number. It feels like I would set the over or under at 40 because I would say 10 a day. All right. Here's our schedule. Tomorrow, quick fairway rolling. You're going to do your report from the course.

Then Thursday night, we're going to have our big recap of day one master stories. Chang's going to unveil his official master's dinner for Tiger Woods or whoever ends up winning. Next year, I'm making that statement right now. I'm going to campaign to have my menu be the menu for 2024. And if that doesn't happen. For the 2024 champ. Yeah. Doesn't matter. They better fucking cook my menu be the menu for 2024 and if that doesn't happen 2024 champ yeah doesn't matter they better fucking cook my menu you mean the champion that wins this year serving the dinner no i've already made the menu for the 2024 champion we already i mean there's a natural so you tell me who's gonna win it and i'll just say the homie wins we could talk the homie into it right homie wins, we could talk the homie into it, right? Homie homo would do it. Yeah. 100%.

Done. Yeah. We have to get a Jon Rahm. We have to get a Jon Rahm. That would be the one. Because he's our favorite. How is Morikawa playing? Because I know him sort of.

It's a roller coaster. Can't count out Morikawa. Ever. Well. Listen, he's one of those guys who's getting in the 20s. If Colin wins, I have a legitimate shot of being able to determine the winner. No doubt. I'll root for it. Now I'm going to bet on Colin. This in the 20s. I have a legitimate shot of being able to determine the money. No doubt. I'll root for it.

Now I'm going to bet on Mark Howell. This is a good thing. I want the car. Let's be honest. This is like, you know, everything everywhere out once wins everything. Our buddy Steve has Beef coming out, which is going to be the biggest Netflix show of the year. Mark Howell winning the Masters. I don't know.

Okay. It feels like a narrative is starting to happen here i'm gonna work on this nodding intently now now i'm really pumped up about this man if i can make this happen that's a real do you know about this show beef no i don't know anything about it it's coming out on netflix one it's very very good it's coming out i think the first week of april it's gonna be a thing thing. It's going to be a big, big thing. And our friend Cho is in it. Who's being? As an actor. It's a story about road rage. Oh.

Really. Okay. And how it entangles the lives of everyone around the two characters that are in it. Yeah. Is it a series? 10 episodes. Oh, my gosh. Okay.

I was hoping it was about me. But it's going to, in my opinion, it's going to be huge. And our good friend David Cho. Our friend Cho is in it. He's like to, in my opinion, it's going to be huge. And our good friend David Cho. Our friend Cho is in it. He's legitimately acting in it. Legitimately, I think he could be nominated for a Golden Globe. Best Supporting Actor for a dramatic series is

legitimately on the table. What's surprising about that? He's an artist who does that? He's a character, though. He's a living character. There's a real chance that he could China

trying to get him and Steve on the pod for we're gonna make that happen in the next couple weeks all right we will we will report back tomorrow

on Fairway Row and stay tuned for that coming up a long conversation with our guy Jason Isbel because we have the new documentary

coming on Thursday can't wait for you to see it this episode is brought to you by my old friend we have the new documentary coming on Thursday. Can't wait for you to see it. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gangs here, you're tailgating outside the this. It's game day. All the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that are when

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It is a week before our latest Music Box installment, Running With Our Eyes Closed, premieres on April 7th on HBO. It stars this guy, Jason Isbell, who we've kind of been circling each other for a while. Grantland wrote a piece about you. I'm going to say it was 2014 range,

right as you were having that first renaissance you had. And you had a very nice tweet after they shut down Grantland, which I really appreciated. But I got to say, until we started really closing in on this documentary and seeing how the director, Sam Jones, intertwined your life, your career, your ups and downs with the actual music, I just thought it was incredible. What was it like to watch a documentary about you using your music to tell your story? I mean, it's such a hard thing to pull off.

Just what was the experience like the first time you saw it cut? You know, it was strange because the first time I watched it a couple years ago, you know, it was close to what it wound up being, but it was, you know, to basically approve it. But also it's like you have to walk this fine line because approval in this situation sort of means a different thing. It's like, can I tolerate this being on screen? You know, because it's somebody else's work. It's really Sam's work. So if I was watching it and I had made it, it would be a very different experience. But I had to lower my expectations of my own image enough to say,

all right, does this serve the purpose that it is intended to serve? And is it any good? And it is, I think. It's hard to... Somewhere about three albums ago, I got to this point with music where I could listen to a record as though I had not been involved in making it. I don't know what happened. I don't know what switch flipped, but I can ride around in my car and listen to a record and forget for a minute that I made the record and thereby decide if it's any good or not. But I can't do that. I can't do that with this. This is still like full on. I am looking at myself and my wife and my kid and my life. And so it was it was tough. You know, it was it was a challenge for me to figure out, OK, am I OK with this? And then does that matter? You know, does it matter if I'm OK with it or not? Because if I if I take out all the stuff that doesn't make me look cool uh it's not going

to be much of a documentary yeah and that was one of the reasons we got involved with this late it was already there was a cut that was you know fairly close to what ends up being at HBO and um I'm really dubious of these documentaries that are you know where the musician is really involved or the musician is really involved or the musician has some sort of final say. And we've steered away from that with the series. And in this case, you had a say, but you also really wanted it to be authentic

and you didn't use your say, which was what was appealing to me, where you were like, you know what? This is a warts and all doc. Yeah. And I may not have had a say. Yeah. And I may, I may not have had to say, yeah, I may,

you know, it was kind of like, I felt like, well, I have some sort of veto power, but at the end of the day, I didn't change anything. So I don't know if I ever had that veto power or not.

I mean, you don't, you know, until you use veto power, you don't have veto power. It doesn't exist. So, you know,

but the reason this is important though, is like, like I And it doesn't exist. So, you know, I've seen a lot of- But the reason this is important, though, is I feel like with music documentaries, and documentaries in general are at a really weird time. I've been involved in a bunch of them. And it's become because the whole genre has taken off that a lot of the ones that people want to make, whether they're about athletes, musicians, celebrities, whatever,

the celebrities know now that there's a real IP, that it's actually valuable. So if they're going to be involved, they want to stay over it. I would feel the same way if somebody was making a documentary about me. What was so cool about you with this was you're an open book and you're willing to be an open book for the doc. And that was why we loved this. When we saw the initial cut, we was like,

nobody's doing this anymore. Nobody's like, here I am. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the question for me is what do you, what do you want to make?

You know? And I'm not, you know, if there's any sort of concept to my career in general, it's the idea of undoing the programming about musical creative people that we've had for the last 40 or 50 years where it's like if you're a musician,

you're a recording artist, you want to be as famous as possible. You want to sell as many records as possible. You make your work and your art with a target. You point it at a certain group of people and you try to hit those people and you're creating a brand at the same time and you're always thinking about that brand as you're doing the art and I want to undo all that you know for me what really moves me is somebody who just keeps

trying to find the truth over and over and over and the truth is not promotional it's just the truth over and over and over. And the truth is not promotional. It's just the truth. And so I saw this and it felt true to me. And that's why I thought it was a good documentary. It's as simple as that. Most music documentaries are very boring to me. Very boring.

And I've watched a ton of them. I've been involved with a lot of them. And most of the time, it's like, yeah, the fans of this artist are going to appreciate this. It might pick up some new fans and that's about all it's going to do. And I think that we have the ability to do more. One of the things, this documentary I would describe as raw, which is also your music. You know, some of the songs you have written and performed over the years, which are autobiographical is selling it short.

You just put it out there. So to me, it makes sense that you would make a documentary that was also raw because you're already, you've been doing that with your music, you know, really since the late 2000s. There's a vulnerability you have that you're not afraid to share, which I think it's weird.

There's a lot of the great musicians have this, right? But then as you get older and now you have something to protect, then it becomes a weird place for your musician, right? Now I'm famous. Now I'm a celebrity. Now I have money. Now I have a family.

And then that's when things kind of go sideways and they start singing about stuff that's not authentic to them or writing songs about things where they're writing about other people and they kind of lose that self-authenticity, but you haven't lost any of it. So why? If I have avoided that, it's because of the awareness of it. When I was a kid, listening to a lot of my favorite songwriters, for a big percentage of them, there was this period of time where they made really amazing music. And then everybody found out about them. And then all of a sudden, their music wasn't so amazing anymore. I saw that happen

so much and it was very frustrating to me when i was first starting to you know fall in love with different songwriters and and uh try to go back because i was i was just naturally i would go back and study you know like like my favorite when i was a kid i loved eric clapped and he was my favorite guitar player and uh he led me you know his his music led me back to to the blues um uh but you know i can still tell he was born march 30th 1945 his mom's name was patricia clap his dad was a canadian royal air force like i can still tell you everything about you know all eddie van halen'sen's son's birthday is March the 16th. I remember all this because I just studied so hard on all of these people. And I tried to figure out why do they all of a sudden start writing vaguely and start writing about things that they don't have a firsthand perspective on.

And I didn't understand exactly what was doing it at that point. that don't really, that they don't have a firsthand perspective on, you know. And I didn't understand exactly what was doing it at that point in time. But as I got older, I saw, okay, they're writing a lifestyle or they're writing to protect and to conserve rather than to expand. And, you know, so that I just thought, let's not do that. Let's just write to expand our connection. Well, you know, it's interesting just thought, let's, let's not do that. Let's just write to expand our, our, our connection. Well, you know,

it's interesting as you're talking about this, I was thinking Springsteen's one of my all time faves. Yeah. And he does. So he has born in the USA that comes out and it becomes an absolute phenomenon during a mid eighties music era where we have Thriller and we have Madonna and Cyndi Lauper and Huey Lewis and News. Like there's just Lion Lewis and News. There's

just Lionel Richie. There's just all these mega, mega, mega stars. And he was kind of an improbable choice to be in that stratosphere, but that's what happened. And then he didn't make an album for a couple of years. And then he makes Tunnel of Love, which was the most fascinating album, in my opinion, that he's ever made because it's so personal and it's about him falling in love with Julian Phillips and then breaking up and then him reconciling it. And it wasn't the album people were expecting to make

after Born in the USA, right? It's like, oh, what's next with this huge thing? And it's like, no, here's actually this fucked up album about this relationship I had with a celebrity that didn't work out the way I thought. I love that he did that. And I felt like he stayed authentic to that. Oh, yeah.

The whole way, even though now he's in his 70s, he's still selling out. But he never lost that authenticity, which is why I think people love him so much. Right. And he made intentional choices along the way. You know, Nebraska was very clearly an intentional choice to say here's what i am i'm a songwriter with a guitar you know and i'm writing about a certain type of american experience and then you know with tom jodey went back to that and he every every so often he would say this is where i came from i'm still there some part of me is still there and you you know if you're going

to play bigger shit like you have to expand you know have to get a bunch of trucks and more people on the crew. You can't keep playing bars forever. If you're selling millions of records, you can't play in a tavern. Everything has to get bigger to serve the work and to serve the audience. But the one thing that does not have to get bigger is that song. The song and the story can stay because it was already huge. You know, if you were writing it right when you were 19 or 20, it was already opening itself up enough to where it could fill any space in any room, you know, and you don't

have to make the song broad and vague. You just have to make the lights bigger and the PA bigger and that you can do one and hold on to the other and keep the other kind of safe and fragile. What's the perfect venue for you? Because I saw you last week, you played seven songs after the premiere. And we probably had 200 people there. And it was amazing.

And it was really cool. And it's just like, I don't know how often you only play for 200 people, but I'm going to say it's not often. But it was like you were completely overqualified to be playing for us, obviously. But what's for you, like for a connection with the audience, what do you think the right number is? Because I've heard different answers for this. It depends, you know, because like I've seen,

I was before the lockdown, I was right, actually during the lockdown, I was doing the Zoom with Lyle Lovett, you know, and he was doing like, he would do a show where you would Zoom in. And we were talking about, I asked him when we were like off camera about Houston, you know, back in the 70s and about when the first time after Towns had written Poncho and Lefty. What was that like in your community, in your little friend circle?

You know, and he just walked into a bar and heard one of their friends singing it, you know, in front of 50 or 60 people. And he said it was this sort of line of demarcation, like everything was different after that song had happened. Sometimes that's what works best. Sometimes it's just a little room with a small group of people, and I love it. But there's also horsepower, and you can't really argue against a band and a big room. I love big theaters. That's kind of my favorite thing. It's like the Fox in Atlanta. Rooms where it's like standing room on the floor and then seated behind it. I love that because then everybody who wants to get up and raise hell and have a good time can get on the floor and everybody who needs to sit down can sit down and you know those theaters sound great i love the rhyming um you know it's got to the point where we have to play a couple weeks there you know we do that every october and then i mean red rocks is great the greek is great um uh wolf trap is great but also the Bluebird Cafe.

I mean, here in Nashville, because it's like the place only holds maybe 100 people and they don't let you talk while the singers are singing. You can't make any noise and it's just perfect. If you have a new song and you want people to hear the song and that's all, then that's the best room for it. What's the biggest room you've played? Have you played football stadium? Not as a headliner.

We've played a couple of baseball stadiums. I think probably the sheds, the summer amphitheaters. And I don't love those arenas. We played a few arenas and a few sheds and i told my my booking agent uh a decade ago that i want to be big enough to play the arena but i don't want to play the arena instead of doing you know instead of doing that i want to play the theater that holds three or four thousand people and do it for three or four nights and that way everybody gets to stay in the city

for a little while. And the crew doesn't have to take everything down and set it back up every day. And the shows are better and the sound is better. And it's just a better time. Yeah, it's been interesting to watch you, especially over the last 10 years, because you achieved a certain level of fame,

but it was like the cool kind of fame. This happens in comedy too, where these comics become the comedian's comic, where they're famous, they're doing well. This was Bill Burr for a while. And then he actually graduated from that and became bigger. Then he just became Bill Burr.

But there's that stage where all the other comedians love him, love whoever it is. And if you're like, who's the funniest person right now? Fucking Bill Burr. He's the best one. And it seems like you've been in that zone musically where the other artists love you.

And that's been the case for 10 years. And yet, I wonder, are you going to have that moment? And maybe this documentary will kickstart it. But is there another level to it? Are you happy where you are? You know, I am happy where I am. I accept that there is another level.

I don't know how probable that is for somebody who makes the kind of music that I make. If it happens, I think I'm pretty well equipped to handle it. My best friend, Will Welch was asking me this question the other day. He was like, man, what if this makes you more famous? And I was like, yeah, it's not going to do that in a way that hinders anything. I think it was Diddy and Joan Diddy that said, you want to be famous enough to get a table at the good restaurant, but you don't want anybody to interrupt you while you're eating. There's this perfect line.

And like I said the other day at one of the documentary, at the documentary premiere here in Nashville, I can go to Target by myself. I can buy anything in Target, anything that I want in the whole store, and I can go in there without getting bothered. So I really like that. That's a nice place to be. If it takes off more, that's fine.

It'll require some planning and it'll bring new challenges, but that's not what I'm looking for. I like to have guitars. bring new challenges, but that's not what I'm, that's not what I'm looking for. You know, I mean, I just like, I like to have guitars. I like, I like to have a lot of old guitars. They bring me a lot of joy and I like to not have to worry or argue with my wife about money. Other than that, you know, other than that, it doesn't really serve me to be more, more famous. You mentioned Will Welch. He's running GQ now, but you've known him for a while. Is he like your conciliary on some of the celebrity career stuff? Oh, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause he knows actual famous people, you know? Yeah. Um, and I'm like,

what works and what doesn't, you know, he, he sort of, we talk about all kinds of stuff. We, we've been really close for 20 years now. I met him right around the same time I met Amanda, my wife. Right. Which was interesting because this was like the lowest point of my life when I met those two. I was making a record with the Drive-By Truckers and Will was... The Fader sent Will down to cover that. He was writing for The Fader in New York. He'd just gotten out of Columbia and he came down to Alabama to cover that. And, you know, I was I was in the process of getting a divorce with another member of that band and with Shauna, the bass player. And I was just drinking myself into a stupor every night and and really thought, you know, this is I've hit bottom and I bounced for a while. I didn't just, you know, I didn't clean up right after that.

But you don't realize what kind of stuff's happening to you when you're at, you know, what you think might be the lowest point of your life. I was meeting two people who would be extremely significant to me for a long time. So sometimes it looks like terrible things are happening and good things are happening too, you know. thinks to. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. What does possible sound like for your business? It's the ability to reach further

with access to over 1,400 lounges worldwide. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. I don't want to spoil the documentary for the people who haven't seen it yet, but it goes into some of the demons you're battling,

especially in the 2000s when you're in drive-by truckers. Can you be a great artist if you're not coming from some basis of pain? You don't have to experience the pain personally. If you're very aware and very empathetic, then yeah, you can be a great artist and have a nice, normal, well-adjusted life. But no matter what, you have to be aware and you have to understand. You got to either empathize with yourself or empathize with somebody else.

And I think definitely everything that I did led me to here, so I don't regret it. But I also don't think it's necessary for any kind of creative brilliance. I think if you learn how to make something, and then there's plenty of sad shit going on within a one-mile radius of wherever we are in the world. So, you know, I think there are some really great artists who probably haven't, you know, who've been pretty well adjusted human beings for their whole lives. But, you know, for whatever reason, that's not what happened with me.

Yeah, I do think there's probably different paths, right? One of the paths is when I was growing up, not me, but just in general, I gravitated to my guitar because it was my escape from all this other shit that happened. And that seems like a lot of what happened with your childhood where you're like, all right, I have this. I'm good at this. Totally. I could disappear into this. And you're just playing, playing, playing, playing.

And by the time you're 17, you're like a prodigy. Yeah. No matter what happened, man, whatever it was, you know, that's always where I went and that's always what I focused on. And I was kind of obsessive about it, you know, and I spent 10 or 12 hours a day playing the guitar, you know, and I'm still that way. I still feel like that. I don't have the time that I had when I was 12, of course, but, uh, but I still, you know, I get up thinking about the guitar and, and, you know, go to bed checking all my calluses and my fingernails to make sure that everything's holding up. Sometimes I have to put super glue on them. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's something that served me really well. And I think, you know, that that's one of the main purposes of art. And

I think that's how you get really, uh, personal and for lack of a better term, authentic work, you know, if it's something that you've come, come to the hard way, you know, I love, man, I love the blues. Like the first time I heard that stuff, I just fell in love with it. My grandfather would, he was a Pentecostal preacher and he would play guitar with me for hours. And, you know, I'd have to play rhythm guitar while he played banjo or mandolin or fiddle or something. And then to reward me at the end of that, he would tune his guitar to an open tuning and play it with his pocket knife and play the blues. And that for some reason, I was just immediately addicted to that. So that's what I became obsessed with. And my life did not have similar patterns to Robert Johnson's life or Sonny Boy Williamson's life or Howlin' Wolf or whatever.

But I understood those emotions enough to know what music, what purpose music was serving, you know, and as I got older and studied more of the kind of life that those guys led, um, it, it, it helped me sort of broaden the context for what they were singing about and what they were doing. And, um, I can't sing the blues. I'm not qualified to sing the blues, but, but that, that spirit, you know, is in everything that I do. I think, well, if they could have this difficult a life and sing about it in a way that's this beautiful, at least I can do my version of that. At least I can do my best to stay honest and to keep showing people more of myself in the work. Yeah. You know, people ask me for advice or the parent asking for advice for their kid.

My kid wants to be a writer. My kid wants to go into podcasting, whatever it is. I always go to the default thing of like, if you really want to do something, you have to be like obsessed with it. If you want to be really good at it. Right. And it probably starts at an early age. Like, you're not gonna be something, you have to be like obsessed with it. If you want to be really good at it. Right. And it probably starts at an early age. Like you're not gonna be like, oh, you know what?

I've decided I want to be a writer. I'm just going to start writing stuff. It's like, cool. Well, how many books have you read? What are your favorite books? Who are your favorite authors? How many, how many times have you read the same book over and over again? Because you became so obsessed with how the person did it that you just want to keep reading it to see how they crafted it and you know same thing with music

all right i love i want to become whatever all right how many who are your favorite artists how many what are you trying to steal from each person what are you trying to take away and it's that obsessiveness and that drive that makes the. And it's really hard to explain to people that. It's not just like, oh, I'm going to walk into being blank. It's like a lifelong obsession with whatever. Those are the people that usually make it. I don't know a lot of people who are like, oh, my son fell into blank and all of a sudden he's great at it.

It takes forever. This is one of the things I try to tell my kids. It's, you know, if you want to be really good at something, you have to become a little obsessed by it. And if you're not obsessed by it, you're not going to be good at it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. The difference between being something and doing something. You know, if you want to be a writer, you're probably shit out of luck.

But if you want to do writing, then one day you will be a writer, you're probably shit out of luck. But if you want to do writing, then one day you will be a writer. You know? And my little brother was a kid. My mom said, he wants to play baseball when he grows up. And I said, look out the window and tell me if that boy's got a baseball in his hand. Right.

I said, if he doesn't have a baseball... It's 4 o'clock in the afternoon. If he is not holding a baseball, he is not going to be a baseball player when he grows up. And that is, it's true. It's that need to do something rather than the want to be something, I think is what winds up getting you there.

I worry about with the culture we're in now where you get the media gratification for so many different things. That journey is so much harder now because you have so many... Think about you if the internet and video games and all these different things had been there in the late 90s for you. Right. Would you have gravitated to your guitar for 10 hours a day. You know, probably not. No, probably not. And also one thing that concerns me is the idea of displaying something before you've had enough time to really master it. You know, nowadays I see a whole bunch of like kids on Instagram playing the guitar. And, you know, yeah, there's promise there. And some of them,

there's virtuosity there. But eventually, everybody's going to be basically the same age. You get to a point past 18, where no longer are you a child prodigy. You're just a dude with a guitar. And there's a million of you. And what's impressive when a kid does it is not so impressive when an adult does it. Um, you know, so it's like I'm glad that I wasn't given the opportunity to show the world what I could do when I still couldn't really do it. You know, when it was impressive because I was a kid, that part scares me. You're like a 14 year old playing Layla and putting it on

Instagram. Exactly right. Great stuff, man. You killed it. And then you think you're good and you're not good yet. You go do something else. Yeah. Instead of, you know, instead of my uncle saying, yeah, that's not exactly right. You keep practicing, you know, that you got somebody on Instagram saying, oh, that's amazing. You're the, you're, you know, just follow your dreams. And, and, you know, so that's a little bit disconcerting. And also there's this thing now that I have noticed where, because there's not as much money in the music business, it's not as, uh, um, um, financially feasible to be a side person, you know,

like in the sevents and 80s, you had these famous people who would go out, you know, Reggie Young and Michael Landau and all these incredible musicians who, Pino Palladino, people who would play an instrument and they would join an artist or join a band and they would make a good living. And they, you know, nowadays they all live in Hawaii

and it's fantastic, but we don't, the records don't sell like they used to. So that money is not there and side people don't make what they used to make. So a lot of people are choosing to have their own band or their own act. And so there's so many of these kids who are really great musicians, great guitar players, but they don't have songs. And so they're playing fantastic guitar and the songs are just awful.

And I'm thinking, man, if you were in a rock band, if you were playing with somebody who has some songs who could sing, the finished product would be so good, but they can't afford to do that because they have to keep their bills paid and they're not have to reenter the workforce. They have to be their own artists. So that's a little bit of a change too. There's also, this is a learning from past generations thing. The stories that we grew up with in the 60s, 70s and 80s

were usually this band where they started the band all together and they all split the royalties. But there was one guy who was the most important part of the band. And eventually he was like, wait, why the fuck am I sharing all this money with these guys? And then the band would split up. Now in the last 20 years, it seems like we've moved away from bands and more toward the individual

artists who then has, you know, the musicians that work with him, but it's not the band in the same way that we grew up with. And there's just way less bands. And I can't, there's lots of reasons for this. Like, I think that's one reason. It's also rock music in general. Maybe there's been so many different songs that have played over the years

that it's hard not to be derivative of one of them. What are other reasons you think we don't have bands like we used to? We've moved into producer-driven media in a lot of ways. And, you know, I'm not, I'm not bemoaning this.

I don't, I have no value judgment on whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. It's just the way things are. But because of the ability, technology's made it possible for you to produce music on just the laptop that I'm sitting here talking to you on, you know, I could make an entire album on this. I could write top lines. I could make a pop record and then get somebody in to sing it

and there you go. It's done. That's the whole album. I could master it in this machine. I could put it up on SoundCloud or on any DSP. I could do it all with just this. And then when you don't sell a whole lot of records, you know, and you have to cut costs, that's the best way to do it. So you got people who are controlling more

as a producer than they ever have in the past. And the last thing a producer wants, trust me, as a producer, the last thing you want is a band in the damn studio. It's the worst thing you want is a band in the damn studio. It's the worst because you've got to go through every single member of the band. There's always one guy that's all fucked up and shows up late and doesn't

know what he's doing. And he's the one that has the most opinions. And it's so much easier just to do it all inside the box and then get somebody to sing. And then you're done. You know, bands have sort of priced themselves out really over the years, you know, just by using their celebrity or their fame or their success as an

excuse to get away with being an asshole. You've sort of eradicated yourselves because people just don't want to deal with you anymore. And it's so much easier just to deal with my computer and make a record and not have to put up with a bunch of personalities. I don't want to spoil the doc, but we do cover the part when you randomly join the truckers and all of a sudden you're there. And how old were you when you're... 21 when I joined yeah yeah so you went from being like man it'd be awesome to be in an awesome band today and all of a sudden it's happening to you and you're touring with this band that's already established yeah and needless to say you didn't handle some aspects of that well what what would you if you could go back and tell 21-year-old you, yo, here's three tidbits.

What would you tell 21-year-old you as that's happening? I mean, knowing what I know now, I think the only thing I would say, honestly, the only thing I would say is don't get married because you're not ready for that. Right. Everything else, everything else. I mean, we were grownups. They were sure grownups. They were much older than I was. And I look back on it and think,

I'm truly grateful for all that stuff because I joined the perfect type of band for what I wanted to do then. They gave me something that I would not have gotten otherwise. We listened to a lot of music that I never heard before, stuff that I fell in love with, because they were really kind of a punk band. They were an independent punk band. And I saw, most importantly, that making a successful career out of the music business is not all or nothing.

It's not a lottery ticket. Like, you know, Patterson was booking those shows himself on the one cell phone that we all shared while we were riding down the road in the van. He had a big notebook that had all the gigs written down in it on the dashboard. in the passenger seat and he would call promoters and club owners and book shows four or five months in advance write them down in that notebook and we'd go play those suckers and um you know when a manager or a label or somebody didn't do what we thought they should do or didn't do what patterson thought they should do he'd let him go you know he'd find a way out of that deal and unafraid you know not like uh what are we going to do without these people supporting none none of that it was like this is what we're doing and if you don't want to

allow us to do that we'll find somebody else and i learned so much from that experience and then yeah you know i mean uh i was not easy for them to be around after a few years and shit got real weird and it got real heavy. And, you know, but I don't I don't necessarily think that I regret it. I think that it just had to it had to happen to teach me some of the things that I know now. You know, if I hadn't learned those lessons then I don't know how long it would have been before I learned. One of the things I love about this documentary

that we have coming on April 7th is it's about the process of creating art. I think that's what drew you to it too, especially as you saw different cuts of it. Did you see the Beatles documentary about when they were

making that? Oh, God, yeah. I wept, man. I sat there crying for hours. Yeah, I was going to say, was that like everything you ever wanted in a documentary? Yeah, that's the greatest fucking music nerd moment of all time, man. Because it's just like you just get to see it happen. Like, you know, John and the manager were having a conversation about, you know here's a john and uh was a grossman john and the manager over having

a conversation about you know how they're going to design the stage uh for the rooftop concert and you hear in the background you know you hear you hear let it be hear the chords to let it be happening on the piano you know and then paul's stopping and he's like, no, that's not right. And it's, it's just mind blowing. It's mind blowing. And, and yeah, poor Ringo.

Ringo just wanted to keep being a beetle and everybody else had all this other stuff going on. And Ringo's just like, ah, this is not over. You guys don't know what you're talking about. We're going to, beetles will live on,

you know? Right. And it was, yeah, it was, it was beautiful because it is like, you know, those guys are the defining moment of what we do. I mean, even if you're not a Beatles fan,

you have to understand that before they started making records the way they made them, you know, engineers were wearing lab coats and a musical studio was treated like a hospital or a science lab where you weren't allowed to touch anything if you were the musician. You came in, you did what you were told, you know, you stayed out of the way. And they changed all that and made it possible for us to really express ourselves.

So to see it happen in real time was amazing. Did you see, did you recognize any things that you've gone through with like the relationship with, with, uh, Paul and John and how George was kind of over there and they needed him, but there were times where he's like, Oh yeah, I'm not, I'm not really in this. This sucks. Yeah. The resentment of it, man, that's, that's the worst. And, and, you know, that, that definitely happened with the trucker stuff and it's, it's happened, you know, in other forms since then and, and will happen for the rest of my life in some way. You'll always wind up in a room with somebody who just hates your fucking guts at that moment and doesn't know how to communicate that with you.

But it is, they were young. They were kids when that was happening. 25, 26 years old. And, you know, it's to me that idea of being able to say what you need and make boundaries for yourself, you know, it limits the number of resentments you have as you get older. I think that's how it's supposed to work, you know, and probably nowadays, if they were all in the same room together trying to make that record, I think George would be able to say, hey, this is not okay with me. I, too, am a Beatle. And my songs are good.

And this is a good idea. But when you're a kid, man, and in that kind of spotlight, I can't imagine. Sometimes it's just easier to sit there and stew about it. I don't want to spoil our doc, but there's a couple moments when you're playing out a song that you came up with for everybody else and they're kind of reacting to it in the room. Somebody mentions how that's basically your process is you bring them the semi-finished song and then they kind of add stuff to it.

When did that become the process? That's sort of always been the way I've done it. The early days with the truckers, we would write separately. And very, very rare. I don't think we ever really wrote together. We would just come in like I've written this song and we would play it for everybody. And then we would go sit down and start figuring it out. that's kind of how how i do it with this band now you know um uh because it seems to for me if you've got really good musicians you know if you don't

have really good musicians then you're going to spend a lot of time in the studio it's going to cost you a lot of money so you need to rehearse things beforehand you know if you only have a couple days to make a record you've got to rehearse things beforehand. If you only have a couple of days to make a record, you've got to rehearse everything before. But for us, we're at that point where we can get a nice room for a couple of weeks. And we're also good enough players where we can quickly get something recorded before you get to that point where you're just performing it. I like to try...

My production method is to try to get a bunch of good players who don't really know the song yet and that's usually where the good take is when they're still working off of creativity a little bit before they start going into what they've memorized you know um so that's one of the coolest part of the doc it's like one of my favorite parts of the doc because we captured a few times in there. But you know, why would... I mean, to me, it seems like why would you do it any differently? And I know if you're making a big slick pop record,

you got triggers and you got everything has to be the same intensity and you got to do all these vocals and all these whisper tracks that make things sound a certain way. But we're a rock band. And if you're a rock band and everybody can play it, just go in there and play, you know, and if the song is good,

it all works out. But the hard part is that first time you play that song for everybody, because nobody's heard it yet, you know, nobody but you. And you always in the back of your mind, you're always thinking, I might be completely out of touch with what's good. You know, I might think this is good because I wrote it, not because of its own merits. Has there ever been a time when you were like, I'm right and I know these people are wrong. None of them like this song, but I know this is the right song.

And either you were right or they were right, but you just kind of kept going and you just ignored all the social cues? No, not really. So you trust them? You trust the group? I trust them. Yeah, we've known each other a long time. And I grew up with Chad and Jimbo, the bass player and the drummer. And then, I mean, Derry's been with us for 16 years, 15 years. And, you know, Sadler's the new guy. He's on like year 12 now, I think.

So it's, I trust him. And they really don't, I don't know that that's ever happened. I mean, if the song makes it out of my house, you know, because usually Amanda hears them. If the song makes it out of the house, if it survives the house, then it'll survive the studio because she can be very honest. Right. Think about something you're good at. Now think about how you got there. Chances are you had someone to help you

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And when the buzzer sounds, you deserve a Coke Zero Sugar. The one with irresistible taste and zero sugar. Win or lose, Coke Zero Sugar is the most refreshing way to end the game. Coke Zero Sugar, best Coke ever. Learn more at Coca-Cola.ca. Well, we haven't even talked about it, Amanda. Yeah. Well, we haven't even talked about Amanda. It's pretty rare for a musician to have their wife doubling as their muse, but then also being in the band, but she's also a one-on-one and she's even become more famous since Sam started working on this documentary, but I would say it's about as unusual of an arrangement as we've seen in music. I don't really know that many other... Are there other parallels to this?

There are, I think, but I don't know that they've all ended well. It's a tough dynamic, but I'm easily uh in a relationship and and i think amanda is too so it's kind of we needed some challenges and yeah and i think that i think that keeps us happy and keeps us on our toes and uh also i mean it clearly results in better work, I think, from both of us. And I mean, I think it's super important to have somebody around who knew you before you were a big deal and will call you on your bullshit. And it hurts, man. It hurts. It sucks.

It would be so easy just to have a bunch of people who said, you know, whatever you say goes. And that's great. But that's great, but that's not good for your brain. It's not good for your soul. You got to have somebody there who will say, this song's not great. You need to work on this some more. And yeah, it's tough. And sometimes you get mad about it. And sometimes you stomp around and sulk for a couple of days. But if you got any sense, you'll go back and look at it again. And if you trust the person. But yeah, we constantly navigate. When is she going to play with us? When am I going to play with her? When are we going to tour together? When are we

going to tour? Who's going to take the kid? It's a lot of logistical questions to answer and a lot of emotional questions to answer, but I like it. It makes me feel like I'm alive and I don't think I would want any different. I don't want to dwell on that because it's such a big part of the documentary. I mean, it's about you, but it's also really the relationship and how you navigate that. So I don't want to hit that too hard. I want to say this though, because I got to see you in person last week with her and you can see it in the doc too. There's something captivating about you guys on stage together. And it's a really,

I remember 20 years ago I went to, uh, the summer K rock concert they have in LA when Jack and Meg way, it was the white stripes. They were at their, like their absolute apex. And there was just something about watching them on stage. It was just the two of them.

They were so fucking good. It was like one of the best music fan experiences I've had in my life. They were just locked in. They had this weird chemistry and vibe together. I didn't know, the audience kind of, you don't even know how to describe it. And it was so intense

and they were just locked into each other. And there was just more going on than the music. And you're like, what's going on with these two. And somehow you guys have that, even though it's a more benevolent version of it, but, um,

it's really rare. Sometimes it's benevolent. Yeah. Um, but it's really rare to see that on stage because for the most part, you see people who are band members or people that grew up together

or people that are buddies, but you don't see like a male and a female who are as good as each other musically and then they're carrying all this baggage and good and bad that they're bringing on the stage and you're kind of watching and you're like, what am i watching here there's performance it's authentic it's just unusual but it's really captivating and i think you guys both know it too um yeah oh yeah yeah it's rock and roll you know and it's like you can when you're watching that you know that these

people aren't just going through the motions right Right. You know, they're up there, whatever they're doing, they mean it in one way or another. You know, there's something, they're not acting. They're not just showing us work that they've already done. They're actually doing emotional work in the moment. So when did you stumble into that? What year? Like, when did you realize you had that with her? Oh, you know, she had joined us on a few things,

like in the studio and a few live shows. I don't know. Probably 13, 12, 13 years ago. And, you know, the first thing she played on Alabama Pines and coding off of that solo record that came out before Southeastern Here We Rest. And that was the first time we'd really worked together. And then she came out and played a few shows. And you just had it?

You just had the chemistry? You could feel it? Yeah. It was obvious that we belonged on stage together. At that point, it wasn't obvious that we belonged in other places together, but it became that way after a while yeah um but that's the thing about uh like we were talking about bands you know that's part of the part of the allure is is seeing people that you know they

know each other really well and they're not just hired guns and they're not up there you know just for a paycheck they they're up there working through some shit in real time you know yeah and that's kind of that's sort of the ultimate beauty of live music you know this fragility like i remember back in the day you know you would go see cat power you know when you would see her perform sometimes she would just get terrified of being on stage of being under the lights and she would she would just take off you know done run off stage that's the end of it uh but you always knew uh that something real was happening like uh elliot smith at the oscars that year you know when it's like celine dion all these people dressed up and famous like dressed up in versace singing these huge ballads and and then ell then Elliot Smith's out there

with a Yamaha acoustic guitar and a thrift store tuxedo singing by himself. It's just, it's instantly, you're aware of the difference between that and some big presentation. It's like, no, this dude's scared. You know, I don't know.

He looks terrified up there. This is amazing. Let's like, no, this, this dude's scared. You know, I don't know. He's, he looks terrified up there. This is amazing. Let's see what happens. So let's see if he can keep it on the track. You know, you know, the best example of this for me is Fleetwood Mac who worked out all their shit in one of the greatest albums of all time.

And then really on stage forever. And it just, they had multiple relationships going sideways intertwined but the Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham part which just kept going kept going they finally

the band breaks up they get back together and then they have that 97 concert I think it was called The Dance when she sings Silver Spring and she has so much baggage from that song because they wouldn't let it on Rumors she was pissed off concert. I think it was called The Dance. When she sings Silver Spring. And she has so much baggage from that song because they wouldn't let it on Rumors. She was pissed off about it for 20 years. It's about

Lindsey Buckingham and she's singing it to him and she gets mad at him during the song. And it's like it's part performance but it's part like 100% real. And it cuts to him a couple times. And he has this look on his face like, what the fuck is going on? And she's just like 25 years of whatever they went through.

It was just coming out in the song. It's fucking amazing. it's, it doesn't happen that often with the stage performances, but when it happens, it's the, it's the best. Yeah.

It, you know, at Fleetwood Mac, it's like, that's, that's what I call the bait and switch. Cause it's like, it's like Keith Richards. It's like like when you see them doing that, if you are a young musician, do not think that you can do that and that you want to do that. These people are not like you. Keith Richards is not like you. Fleetwood Mac is not like you and your wife. Do not try this at home no matter if you think you can handle it or not

because those people have a constitution that is made of different stuff than the rest of us i watched that show that daisy jones show on amazon i watched all 10 episodes with my wife it's okay it's it's basically like they're it's basically they're doing fleetwood mac but not really they're doing a different version of it. It's probably too many episodes, but there were some good parts and a lot of it was stealing a lot of that working stuff out on stage, how you really feel about somebody. I don't know if you saw it. Did you see it?

No, I haven't watched it. It's a little close to home. I know some of the folks that that stuff was based on, so I'm kind of like, there's no way I can go into that and get the full effect, you know? Because I'm always thinking, that's not what happened.

That's not what he said, you know? What was the Star is Born experience like for you? It was great. Because you wrote a couple of the songs. I don't know if everyone knows this who's listening, but you wrote a couple of the songs that became kind of the iconic songs from that movie.

That movie became a phenomenon and they were your, they were your music. Yeah, I wrote, well, I wrote the one, I just wrote one and it was the one that was Bradley Cooper's hit. Oh,

I thought you wrote two. You only wrote the one. No, just the one. Yeah. Okay. My bad. But it was,

it was great. It was like, uh, you know, I was finishing an album with Dave Cobb and Dave was working with them. And he said, do you have anything that might work for this movie or can you write anything? And I said,

no, I don't, I don't, I don't have time for that. You know, I heard a star is born. I thought another remake of this movie. Yeah.

Um, you know, it's not going to be worth my trouble. And I just wrote a record and recorded it. And Amanda was like, you're crazy. You have a lot of songs, you know, go dig through all your shit and come in here and sing it for Dave

and see if anything works. It'll take you one day. And don't be an idiot. And I was like, okay, all right, fine. And sure enough, she was right. I had a song that worked perfectly for it. And then I met Bradley Cooper and he told me about the movie and I thought, this might actually not suck. And when I saw it, the way that he had treated it, the way he was approaching the story, I was like, this is good. It's shockingly, that was one of the biggest surprises in my life was that A Star Is Born, that remake turned out to be good. I agree with you.

I thought the odds were like 20 to 1. Yeah, this could be terrible. There's no way. I mean, and it was great. They did a really good job with it. And, you know, now Eddie Vedder covers that song in his solo set. And I ran into him in a hotel gym.

And we didn't know each other. And I was like, hey, man, you sing one of my songs. I wrote that song from A Star is Born. And now I'm friends with Eddie Vedder. It's amazing. Oh my God. Yeah, it was amazing. hey, man, you sing one of my songs. I wrote that song from A Star Is Born. And now I'm friends with Eddie Vedder. It's amazing. Oh, my God. Yeah, it was amazing. Well, he's a National League rival of yours, though.

He's a Cubs fan. I know. I don't know if you guys worked that out. No, we haven't. There's no working that out, man. They got Dan Spee. There's no working that out. Yeah, that's bullshit.

That sucks. What's your favorite music movie, just out of curiosity? My favorite music movie? Just out of curiosity. My favorite music movie? You know, I love The Last Waltz because that kind of hit at a... That re-release hit me at the perfect time.

I really like for performance stuff, How the West Was Won, Led Zeppelin thing is really, really good. But I love Sam's Wilco movie. I'm trying to break your heart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As far as documentaries go, man, that's amazing.

I mean, that was an OG. That was first wave of setting a template for what the next 20 years were going to look like. Yeah, and everybody was, we were all watching it. We were all watching it. We were all watching it. But the Beatles, the eight hours of the Beatles, that's hard to beat. That just kind of,

that's leaps and bounds beyond everything rock and roll doc. All right, I promised you baseball talk before we go. You're a lifelong Braves fan, even though you grew up in Alabama. So what were the choices for baseball?

Because you don't have a baseball team. Braves or Cardinals, you just had to pick. Yeah, I had to pick. And yeah, so I was a Braves fan. But we had TBS showing all the games in those days. And then WGN was showing all those Cubs day games. And I spent a lot of time with my grandparents.

They were really religious. So we couldn't watch anything on TV because it might have a cuss word or a boob or something. So the only thing that we could really watch was baseball. And before I got them into it, they hadn't been into any kind of sports at all. And we wound up watching baseball together every summer. This is the early Bob Horner, Dale Murphy era to start? This was like, yeah, I started with like

Bob Horner and Dale Murphy and then moved on to the great, you know, the great pitching rotation. Yeah. The Smoltz, Glavin, Maddox and Avery, you know, the Charlie. You win, you win.

Asterisk World Series. We got it. Put a nice little asterisk next to that one. Yeah. Why is there an asterisk? A lockout World Series. It's fine. That wasn't asterisk World Series. We got it. There's still an asterisk. I'm going to put a nice little asterisk next to that one. Yeah. Why is there an asterisk on that World Series? A lockout World Series. It's fine. That wasn't a lockout World Series.

It 80% counted. It's fine. No, the lockout. You get to count it. The lockout was before that. You mean the strike when Tony Nguyen was about to hit 400? That was three years before. Yeah, you won the next.

You won in 95. It was the year after the strike. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but that didn't affect. That was still anyway. I put an asterisk next to it. Well, you can put an asterisk next to how many walks we had on that pitching staff that year if you want to do that. Because there was like, what, nine walks all season?

Yeah, that was amazing. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I was, what, 15, 16. And I was watching something with my grandparents who does that, who hangs out with their grandparents when they're 15 or 16 years old. Um, so that was really special. When did you start with the Braves? When was the first,

you must've played national Anthem for them at some point. No, I didn't. I've never, I've never done that. I've never done the Anthem. Um, I've been to a whole lot of games.

So I remember going and, and, uh, going down on the field a few years ago, and one of the front office guys was like, hey, you got to meet this kid. We just signed this kid. Come over and talk to him. It was Ronald Acuna, and he was 19, and he was skinny and just knocking the ball a million miles.

He's like, you just wait until he's had a couple years to work out and eat three meals a day because he's been in venezuela this whole time and he hadn't had access to anywhere to lift weights or right you know any kind of good food and just give him a couple years and sure enough man he just kept getting bigger and bigger and more amazing um yeah so that was that was really cool and i got to be pretty good friends with dale murphy over the years um and uh dale is a pretty incredible dude like he comes and sees us when we play in salt lake city and he brings all of his gigantic children they're all just huge square shouldered yeah you know um but you know like he'll go to the merch table and buy t-shirts for his whole family and then they'll go in the bathroom and change and put the t-shirts on and come back after the show to say, hey, get their picture.

They're the sweetest people in the world. Really cool folks. Well, we're taping this before the baseball season starts. And we're both excited about the pitch clock. And just in general, faster games, no more shift. Yeah. They finally started listening to us. Listen to anybody who cares about baseball.

Hey, can you fix a couple of these things? I hate the shift. I'm glad the shift is going. Me too. I don't understand the big bases. I don't think that's going to make people salivate and try to steal more. I don't understand why I'm out of this too. I didn't get that. That one doesn't make any sense.

But the pitch clock, that's great. Well, they got 15 and 20, 15 seconds to 20 seconds. And yeah, and there's going to be a couple guys who are smart enough to figure out how to take advantage of it. I look forward to seeing that too, you know? Yeah, I don't know if you've seen any of the Scherzer stuff, but he was like waiting until the last, last, last split second

to throw and do all these different things. He's the guy that's smart enough to pull that off. All right. So you have a new album coming out in June. This is coming out

on April 7th. April the 7th. All right. Awesome. Thanks, Jason. Good to see you. Thank you, Bill. Enjoyed talking to you, man.

All right. Good to see you. Thanks. Have a great day. All right. That's it for the pod. Thanks to House and Nathan and Chang. Thanks to Jason Isbell.

Don't forget about our new documentary, Thursday, April 7th, HBO and HBO Max. Running with our eyes closed. It's fantastic. Really proud of it. And we will see you. I'll be on the Fairway Rolling Pod on Wednesday. I'll make a Popeye on that.

And then I'll see you on this feed on Thursday. We'll talk golf and basketball. Can't wait. Feel the air Twinkling On the wayside On the proofs I never was And I don't have To ever