The Dale Jr. Download - Edwin McCain: The Song That Saved His Career & The Story He Can Finally Tell

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

Dale  Earnhardt Jr. welcomes Top-40 music artist and longtime NASCAR fan Edwin McCain to the Download to chat about his journey from a humble, local music scene to writing one of the most memorable songs in history. Edwin also shares how Dale Jr.'s 2001 July Daytona win had a profound impact on his life.  After being born in Greenville, South Carolina, Edwin was put up for adoption but admits he has never sought out much information about his biological mother. Dale and Edwin relate on the experience of asking parents hard questions at the end of their lives to get the real picture of their upbringing. Edwin explains he began playing music at an early age after struggling in school due to dyslexia. He and Dale chat about the music they enjoyed growing up and what musicians were a major influence on Edwin, and led him to pick up a guitar.Edwin gives listeners an idea of what the music scene was like in the mid-90s, when he, Dave Matthews and Hootie and the Blowfish were finding their way to major record label contracts. Edwin admits that his signing was largely thanks to the kindness of Hootie, who asked Atlantic Records to give him a shot. After an underperforming debut, in part due to Edwin’s disconnection from the project, Edwin saved his career with the smash hit “I’ll Be,” which remains one of the greatest love songs ever written. Edwin talks candidly about developing an addiction problem and his journey to rehab. Today, he is on the other side of hardship and celebrating the release of his new album “Lucky,” which is his first new release in almost 15 years.Dirty Mo Media is launching a new e-commerce merch line! They’ve got some awesome Dale Jr. Download merch on the site. Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com to check out all the new stuff.And for more content check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I just left a big department head meeting, and they're all talking about dropping you off the label. So whatever you turn in next needs to be great. And that was all being. We played it, and the response was crazy. And I was like, all right, there's a chance here. But that was not how it was received at radio. Oh. And this is the dirty secret.

And I think by now surely the statute of limitations has run out. The following is a production of... Dirty Mo Media. All right, so it's going to be pretty exciting to talk to our next guest, Edwin McCain. Edwin is an old friend and has certainly been a NASCAR fan, but also a friend of a lot of people in the industry for decades. And he was amazing and incredibly popular as a musician years ago. And remained so, continued to tour. He also had some tough moments in his life with,

alcohol and so forth, and we may talk about that. We'll see how far into the conversation he wants to go there. But when we ran into each other about six months ago, and he said, hey, I would like to come on the show. He likes the show. He likes what we're doing. And I said, hey, I would love to have you on the show. But for me, your story is about a comeback.

So he's got a new record out, first record in the last 15 years, new music. He's been touring, but now he's out, trying to push new material. He's motivated. And it's a challenge. And I said, I want to hear all about that, of course. And I want to celebrate your new record, lucky.

But I also want to, I want to hear about how far down you went and help us really appreciate the hard work it's took to become who you are today. I love those stories because it inspires me. and if it's inspiring me, I can imagine it's inspiring you. And we all need to be inspired. We all need to be motivated and reminded, you know, about good and bad and how we need to operate every day. And so I think his story, not only is going to be cool to hear from a guy who's lived a life, right? Seen the success and been in the big machine that is the music industry.

But he survived it and has came out of it a better man and it was a close call. And so I'm excited to hear about this. Let's bring Edwin McCain into the room. I think it's awesome, man. This room is something. Yeah. People walk in here and they're like, oh, hell. No, the whole thing is cool, right?

Like, the whole way in, I'm like, man, this is the epicenter. I think I was over here a long time ago. Yeah. This is the section of town where you can get stuff done. I'm just trying to raise teenagers. Yes. It's challenging. Yes.

How old are they? 19, 18, and 15. Yeah, the 15's got to be tough. No, she's the best one. Oh. I mean, that's a joke, kids. No, she's, I mean, I mean, I don't know how it was for you, but I was unsupervised as a child, you know. And we were just, we just figured it out.

own. You know, we lit ourselves on fire and made jumps and ramps. And, you know, we learned about gravity the hard way. And our kids had a completely different experience. So, I want, I can't wait to talk to you about that. You've been a friend of the NASCAR community. We were talking about that out in the thing. Yeah. Right. And, um, and so how did that, I guess how did that get started? How did you get introduced? Michael Waltrip. Right. He came to a show. No. I, so. So this got, you know, it was kind of all the things were happening. And, hey, you got hired to play this private event at somebody's house. And it's a famous NASCAR driver.

And they said, and I was like, who? And they said, Michael Waltrip. And then I, like, I'm so ADD. I immediately forgot it was Michael. And I was telling everybody, Darrell. And then they literally. flew a helicopter to Greenville and picked me up and took me to play this gig. And I was like, what are they?

Like, they, like, they have helicopters in this sport? Like, they look, everybody's like, I mean, I was like, okay. And so I literally just got plopped down in the middle of NASCAR. And admittedly, I didn't know a thing about it. And everybody was awesome. And we all had the greatest time. and then the next thing, you know, I was playing gigs for the Francis. And I don't even know if I even told you this.

But Brian France used to just call me and go, where are you? I'm like, I'm at home. Go to the airport. Okay. And I'd go to the airport and the jet would show up and I'd get in it. And they'd go, I'd go, where are we going? Well, to the Turks and Kekos. And we're going to put you on a little boat and carry you out to the yachts.

and you're going to sit on the back and play for your dad, Mr. Penske, the France's, and a bunch of other people. And I play for 45 minutes and they put me back on the little boat and they put me back in the plane. You didn't even get to hang. Well, no, I think that was kind of part of the reason why I was in a lot of the NASCAR stuff because I wasn't in everybody's grill. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because like, I mean, the damn, Turks and Kikos. Yeah, well, no, but I was, you know, at the time, I was running and gunning. So, but I think part of that is, is, is. I mean, you know how it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You need time with your group of friends.

And as much as I feel like I could probably be friends with anybody, I also understand that, you know, you made a plan to be with your friends. I hear you. That's pretty badass, though. Yeah, yeah, it was amazing. I mean, it was amazing. But that was right in the middle of all of the hype and the fame and your whole life just exploded.

Yeah. I want to get to that. So first off, all right, so you mentioned it, Greenville, South Carolina. You were born there. Born, put up for adoption, was in an orphanage until five months, and then adopted. What do you know about all that? That's all I know. Still today.

Still today. And what's funny about that is my dad, all the information is in a lockbox. in his closet and I've had access to it my whole life and I've never opened it up and looked at it at all. All right. That's heavy. I don't think so. The way I always thought about it is whoever my birth mother has made a heroic decision for a teenager to put me up. Do you know how old she was? Yeah, she was a teenager. And to put me up for adoption. And the only reason I would want to know any of the information is out of curiosity. Sure.

And I don't think curiosity is a good enough reason. Good enough reason. To go flip all that upside down. Have you been asked about that a bunch? Not really. From your family or no body pings you on that? Not really. I mean, I know I have an adopted son.

This is absolutely the kind of shit we talk about on this show. I know. And I love yours. So I watch, I'm a fan of your podcast. And I was like, I'm going to be a kid. be one of those guys that goes, you're going to be on your podcast. Because I love the conversations that you're having because I feel like this is the premium. Everybody's finally coming around to authenticity is most important. Yeah. And the exchanges are most important. Like, we've done the

marketing. We don't need to do that anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love these conversations. So you don't, you know where the information is, but you're, you're, and no one can understand. understand how that feels but you, and so I won't try, but I would imagine that at some point in my life, I would want to just know the truth. Yeah, I mean, I know enough. I know enough of the truth. To know you know enough? No, yeah, to also employ the acceptance. Would that knowledge change something? Not for me now. Yeah.

But I will say this, and over the years, it's weird how adopted people kind of know, end up knowing each other. And so I've met so many people over the years that are adopted that have gone down that road. And it wasn't. And it almost never works out. Yeah. Damn. because there's too much expectation placed on flawed human beings. Yeah.

That's a hard thing. It's kind of like don't meet your heroes, right? Sure. Right. That's a hard thing to put on people. For sure. Yeah. What about near the end of life?

So like when my mother was in her final few days or a few weeks, we asked her some pointed questions about the you know her marriage to dad and we just wanted to know anything and everything that might be unsaid you know now that we were now that she was in this moment in her life maybe there was something that she was like okay it's time for y'all to know um do you think about it like that at all like for you no what does she say nothing i mean she you know does she have any profound things to say um she did she said uh when So we always wondered about their dynamic of their marriage, you know, and it was only, they were married from, I don't know, 72 to 78. And the story had been told mainly from dad's point of view because we were, I was six when I left my mom and went to live with dad.

And so they, his point of view was your mom was really materialistic. and so, you know, she wanted, you know, she wanted a nice couch and a nice car, and that was problematic. But mom's point of view was your dad wanted to spend every dime on the car, and we would eat baloney sandwiches. Yeah, we needed a couch. We didn't have gas. Yeah, we didn't have gas to, you know, we didn't have gas to, or whatever. They used to have these, we lived in a double-wide trailer or a single-wide trailer, and it had this big gas tank on the end that they'd fill it up with whatever to burn the house, keep. heat the house and he would like spend you know how me and you would drive around when we're 16

and put like five dollars in our car instead of a full tank like that's how he did the tank he'd partially pay for the tank here's five bucks here's five more dollars here's five more dollars and never in one day she's like it pissed her all because he would take fifty dollars put five dollars into heating the house and spend the other 45 on the race car or whatever right and run around and raising hell and drinking and carrying home one night he could He got a lot of money from a race or something and filled that thing full. And then later that night or the next day came home drunk and hit the hitch of the trailer with the truck. And the trailer hit the trailer backed into the tank and knocked that tank over and all that shit went all over the ground.

And so she told us stories like that. Basically to help us, she wanted to protect our image of dad all our lives. Sure. And then at the end, she was like, look, you know, being married to him had its challenges, and he was, he didn't have his shit together. Right. You know, and so that was, and it was, I mean, you know, he's not here to defend himself, but also he's not here to tell that, his truth.

But so it was good to know. Well, there's mythology built up around your dad. Crazy, right? Unbelievable. I mean, I know. I mean, I was sitting on the back of the boat going, holy moly. Right. And he was always extremely nice and always spoken.

Yeah. But still, I mean, don't, you know, everybody went, uh. So to hear how in the 70s, when he was not famous, when he was not rich, he was flawed and imperfect. And we knew, you know, that he was, you know, very selfish and like, I'm doing, I'm going, I'm going to sacrifice everything to make it, right? We knew that. And we, we, you know, celebrated that a lot. but it was interesting to hear it from her perspective of how frustrating that was at the same time. She's trying to raise kids.

Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, but getting back to your story, you're adopted at five months. Yeah. Right? And so I guess what is your earliest childhood memory? I don't, I don't, I'm not sure. But my father always had a Super 8 video camera. And it was a couple of years ago.

My dad is such an enigma. He was a town pediatrician, and everybody loves him. And he just randomly goes, you know, I found the footage of when they brought you to our house, and I put it on a DVD. And we were at my in-law's house in front of a bunch of people, and I was like, wait, we're doing this now, like right here. and he was like, yeah, let's watch it.

And I was like, oh, okay. And so you got to picture this. It's my mom and my sister and my dad. My sister was natural birth. And so here comes this guy pulling up in a blue Ford Fair Lane. This is 1970. He's got a short sleeve buttoned down shirt with a big wide polyester tie. I'm just sitting in the front seat, the bench seat next to him in a diaper.

Damn. With nothing else on. No seat belts, nothing. And he pulls up in the driveway, scrapes me off the seat, walks over to him like, here's your pizza, and turns around and gets back in the car and leaves it. They didn't even say anything. It's the funniest. It is the most 1970s thing I've ever seen in my life.

And so I couldn't help but laugh in that moment. but I was like, God, that was, that was amazing. When were you going to show me that photo? Show me this stuff, right? Yeah. But he, you know, that, so that's a memory, but I don't, I don't remember that moment. But I was, I was always, from the beginning, they told me I was adopted. So I, I knew that at a very early.

Yeah, as long as I could, as soon as I could understand the concept of it. and I had tons of friends in grade school growing up. Half my class was adopted. I mean, everybody. There was so many adopted kids. And so we just didn't even, nobody even thought about it, right? And, but that was, that was just part of the drill. But I went through the exact same thing you're talking about with my mom.

She passed right before COVID. But starting in 1985, she got cancer. and she had five different kinds of cancer, and she outpaced it all the way to 2020. Yeah. Right. Crazy. Just outlived all the diagnosis.

She was just like too mean. She just wasn't going down that way, right? And as a result, she, you know, her cancer doctor, this poor man, And she was so tough on him because he would, you know, it would come back and he'd have to do a surgery. And I remember one time she looked at him in the, we were doing the consult. And she goes, hey, if you get in there and it looks bad, just nick an artery and let's just get it over with. And he looks at me like, what? And I go, just do what the lady says because we're all terrified of her.

But because she was like that, when he would diagnose new people with cancer, he would have them call. her and she would give them the arly army speech like you know you just got to get mean we got to fight this yeah no time for this other stuff we're gonna and and and so as a result she was kind of a hero in the cancer community around greenville and everybody loves her and she was real quirky and funny and you remember you ever see steel magnolias miss weezer that was my mom oh yeah that's my mom anyway like like she got pulled over in greenville got a ticket that she didn't think was fair and then she spent the next decade flipping off every cop she saw in the cop. And my cop friends would be like, saw your mom the other day. I was like, she flipped you off?

Yeah, yeah. She's pretty pissed at you guys. Yeah. And but so, uh, uh, the last time she, it came back, she's like, I'm not doing chemo anymore, you know, um, and they all lined up and kind of gave her a farewell and dad was getting the car and she goes hey i need i need some i need a favor i want you to help me with a bucket list thing i was like okay i want to take i want to fly helicopter around the mountain that i've lived on my whole life i was like surely i'll be able to throw them up a helicopter i'll figure that out so i called around i was looking for a helicopter with a jet engine i want a big helicopter like let's get a helicopter helicopter and i couldn't find one for the time frame so we got into a robinson r 44 with my dad my mom and took a piston powered helicopter ride and i was a whole time i was

like i am rolling the dice here man i am really tempted fate here with my mama um filling a bucket list cite him and we did all that and then we had a long ride out where I got to read to her you know all the books she read to me and and have the you know the conversations because she had a really hard time coming up because she had to take care of all her siblings and that generation like your mom's generation man that was a different they you know they they were expected to shoulder a burden at 10 years old yeah you know yeah get to work let's this is what you know we've I think back to my child I was like man we didn't have you know yeah and our childhood was a hundred times crazier than my kids have it you know I should I had one tour right yeah I mean I think back to

that so I think it it's lucky to be able to have that time with your loved ones on the way out yeah like I'm you know for sure yeah um describe your your childhood growing up you um you feel like that you struggled as a student yeah I was dyslexic I couldn't read I I was how did you because how did that work as a musician well so and like a lot of kids church choir is like southern daycare you know what I mean like that's just free child care so you get stuck in church choir and I could actually sing and I was having such a hard time in school because you know if you can't read and you write backwards and you know and in the in the 70s they didn't know what that was like they just you know that was a problem and and I was good at singing

and everybody seemed to like it when I was singing. So, and you know this, like, whatever you're good at when you're a kid and the adults seem to respond to, that's what we're doing. Yeah. And that just made sense. So it was easy just to, and, you know, everybody back then played sports. And we were always playing. We were on a team of something or other. So it was between sports and singing and being doing theater stuff.

Theater. Yeah, doing little children's theater stuff. I was full on. That was the direction. But I went on and I started playing in high school or in bands in middle school. And what would happen is normally I could play the fall sports. Like I could play football. But then I'd be on academic probation in the spring.

By the time spring rolled around, I was in trouble. I was in trouble. And so I would have, I would just be in my band playing games. gigs. And we would rent the National Guard Armory, this big building on the Air Force Base, and then I would go get staging and PA and lights from this place called Gordon Light and Sound, and all the guys from Jackal worked there. Oh, no.

And you had to run the gauntlet to go in there because they were like the hair metal guys. And I was like this 15-year-old kid coming in and they would give me a bunch of crap, you And we'd set up a big show out there and charged kids, you know, three bucks. And we'd have kegs and, you know, and kids from... How old were you around this time? 15, 16. And we have kids from five high schools there.

Yeah. And we would make... Sounds like dazed and confused. Yeah, and we'd make thousands of dollars. I mean, we were making money, you know, as a... And playing cover songs and stuff. And that was when I realized, that was when I learned the, um, the, um, the, uh, the, uh, the power of the rumor.

My dad used to, because he was a pediatrician, used to have this stuff called Flora tab that they used to see corneal scratches with black light. It made your eyes glow. And so I would steal these strips from his office, and then I'd trip it in my eyes and then go on stage with black lights, and it made you look kind of weird.

Because we weren't very good musically, so you had to do something, right? Anything to make it weird. But the funny thing was, I was in the bathroom, the public bathroom at the arm, putting these strips in my eyes and the rumor went out that I was just putting the acid in my like doing LSD in my eyeballs and that rumor just like made like I was like instantly the strange

okay they got to go see this band this crazy guy you know whatever and yeah you ran well and yeah never let it get in the way of a good rumor you know that's were handy to have but but my You know, my childhood was totally, that was the only struggle was the whole school thing. And I learned pretty quickly that as long as I moved in all the circles, like I knew, I was friends with everybody. Like I was friends with the computer guys and the, you know, the jocks and the skater kids. And as long as I could move in all the circles, that was cool, man. There was some cover. Yeah.

And my father was terrified that I was going to be a musician. He made me promise I wasn't going to do it. When I left home, he woke me up the morning. I left, and he was like, I had this terrible dream that you were riding around the country with long hair playing music for a living. Promise me you never going to do that. And I was like, uh-oh. Because that sounds like fun to me, right? How old were you?

So, first off, I guess, you didn't learn how to play. you didn't learn how to play music you played by ear because you couldn't yeah i'm sorry you couldn't read music no i can't i still don't know anything about that none nothing about it and i learned and i've learned the national number system yeah to where i i learned it one my guitar player taught it to me and i knew it backwards and forwards for a day and then the next day i woke up and was like i don't know how that i don't know that anymore and it's weird like that kind of stuff like i can remember lyrics and i learn everything sequentially and but for somebody who doesn't know how to play the guitar so you can pick a guitar up and you know exactly what to do to get exactly the sound you're looking for

i i can i can learn it by reverse engineering it from singing it so if i know the song and i sing it i can if i can figure out what the chords are and how to play it but when you write a brand new song how are you applying a guitar riff to the lyric? So I'll have an idea for a lyric or a melody in my head, and then I'll go, okay, well, let me dress this up. And I'll try it in 4-4 time. I'll try it at this tempo. I'll move the tempo way up.

I'll try it in 6-8 tempo. Sometimes I like 6-8. just as much as 4-4, so I'll do the first half of the song in 4-4, and then I'll switch it to 6-8. Like, there's a song on this record, this latest record we put out called Empire, and I liked both ways so much

that I just made an outro in a different time signature because I wanted to just put it all in there at once. And there's nothing stopping you. There are no rules to it. I mean, some people would say, like I regularly wrote songs without bridges that did, you know, because everybody,

there was kind of a standard formula, you know, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, done. And if that doesn't really serve the idea that you're putting out, then why do that? So I regularly just wrote linear songs that were,

you know, straight through. And it works in your favor when you have a lot of people who are fans that are sort of novice guitar players, because if you write simple songs, they can learn and play along. right you know if you're writing all this really complicated stuff it's hard for the guitar center guys to play yourself what was your musical influences when you were young so all my friends listened to classic rock

and i grew up in greenville and i'm sure it was similar there's the classic rock station and all they do is play almond brothers skinner doors you know and i just i i i just i i i i I love the almond brothers stuff and, you know, bad company and 38 special were on there. But for me, when I was seven years old, I put on an album, I still had its great record collection. And it was this album by a band called Earthwind and Fire. And I put that album on, and the first song on that record is a song called Serpentine Fire. And I had the headphones on. and the song started

and seven-year-old brain and I remember thinking well people can get together and make this happen I have to be a part of this somehow I got to figure out how to be a part of this and my mom used to make,

she used to tell this story she used to make fun of me she says she came home and I was like seven or eight and I was listening to her through the fire I was kind of sad and she goes what's wrong with you

I was like, I had just pieced it together. I was like, I'm never going to be able to be in earthwind and fire because I'm not black. And I was so sad. I just realized, I was like, wait a minute, what's missing here? But that band had such a positive message and they were worldwide. Oh, yeah. There was a worldwide movement and it was a positive, inclusive message. And it was foundational for me.

But then I went from there, and I was always listening to, you know, Luther Vandros, Marvin Gay. I used to go, I used to make my parents drop me off to see Gap Band, Zapp, and Roger. And I had to be the only, like, 10-year-old white kid at some of these gigs, just, like, freaking out at this. This music was so great. And so that was the first part of the musical journey. and then Van Halen showed up, right? And Van Halen, David Lee Roth, like, right around 9 or 10, they were the, I mean, that was the mightiest band.

And those records were, you know, perfect for that era. What I remember about that particular part was they were insanely popular. Maybe in like 83 to 85, the most popular rock band, but they hadn't had a number one until Jump. You remember like Hopper Teacher and all those songs never got the do and then all of a sudden Jump was the one that got them to number one.

And honestly I was a little salty about that because it was a freaking keyboard song. Yeah, everybody. Yes. But I think one of the things about Van Halen that everybody gravitated towards it because it was the first time that one of our heroes was considered a virtuoso. Like, you know, your parents always make you watch like,

whatever, Lawrence Welk, and it'd be so-and-so the greatest, you know, clarinet player of the war. You know, it was like, this is real music, kids. You know, or, you know, you check Pearlman, you know, the violinist. And it was always that, you know, their generation had the virtuosos. And now all of a sudden, we had Eddie Van Halen, and I would make my father, I, I remember one time I sat him down. I was going to convince him of the greatness. And there was a track on one of the Van Halen Records. I think it was on Diverdown. It was called Spanish Fly. And Eddie plays like a classical guitar. And I thought my dad will be able to stomach classical guitar, right? Because it's this mild sounding, because he's not going to listen to all the, you know. But I made him sit down

and listen to this one song to sort of convince him of Eddie Van Halen's validity of being a virtuoso and he, you know, I remember, I just remember his face. He just, he wanted to try to like

Van Halen, but he just couldn't. And I remember that moment when my son was trying to make me listen to Drake. And I was like, oh my God, this is the moment. I know. I want to like this, but I'm just not gonna.

I finally got to that point too where I finally reached this point to where I just don't like popular, I don't like today's music. And we kind of started, I don't know, about five years ago, but I was really good at liking anything relatively new up to a point. And then it just stopped happening. And like I don't, I don't get it. like the sound that I'm hearing. I think we crossed, you know,

you get to a point, you cross the line. Yeah. And this world isn't really for us anymore. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's for them. Yeah.

Is that? I quit, I just quit trying to, I'm like, all right. You know, that's for, that's for you. Country music still has the standard, you know, country music is still in its lane. And, but what I've always, and this is, we're getting in the weeds, but what I always, found, I guess what I found interesting is, is like, so alternative music comes around in the 90s, right? And we all, I just was obsessed. I couldn't believe it. It was amazing. Dude, nine inch nails. I mean, I changed everything about my life, right? And the way I dressed,

the way I thought. And then it just went away. And it, and alternative became something completely different. And that's kind of what's happened, what happens, I guess, in pop music too, if you go through the decades, like the 80s had its sound, the 90s had a sound, and now even today has a completely different sound. And I'm just not into the sound that's happening today. It may come back. It may come back to me, but. I have a theory about why, because we've gotten so good at editing that they've edited the soul out of everything. Like, because... It sounds way produced. Yeah, it's so, they've tried to make everything so perfect that there's nothing interesting

about it. There's no, there's no, there's no cliff, there's no ledge, you know, and this is what I was saying about y'all when I was in, you know, I was always doing the NASCAR stuff and everybody's like, what's the story? You know, I had friends that weren't, you know, around, they're like, what's, what is, what's the deal with, with NASCAR? I'm like, dude, you realize that these are the, these are the last gladiators on earth. Like, like, you realize what's happening at this, at these races, right? Like, this is not, this is, and, and, and it's, and it's compelling because of that, right? Yeah.

Because there is, there's a high percentage chance of danger for everybody, and yet everybody's still focused and willing to do it. And I think there was a period of, of music, and especially in the alternative. and I loved Southern California punk music for that reason too because it didn't have anything to do with money. It wasn't, they weren't pushing an agenda. They were just telling their truth loudly with no, you know, no, you know, everybody can get, you know, they're going to say what they're going to say and whatever's going to happen is going to happen.

And everybody was like, ah, you know, it was a compelling moment. And music used to be. be like that. And here's the thing. I mean, Johnny Cash used to be like that. I mean, they were, there was, uh, uh, Towns Van Zantt was saying things through music that made people uncomfortable. And that's the point. And now it's, you know, it sounds perfect. Yeah. The time is perfect. You know, everybody looks good. It's, you know, there's no, you know, nobody's pushing the edge of, you know. I think, uh, I listened to, uh, I listened to, pop punk and punk rock and I'm 50 years old and I listen to music that 28 and 25 year old kids are playing

right I call them kids and I like the sound of it because it reminds me of it's the only thing out there that's even remotely close to what I remember in the 90s is alternative music and who are your favorite alternative bands in the 90s in the 90s oh man I mean obviously I remember the I remember the very moment well I first heard never mind The very first... Yeah, every... Yeah. The first...

I remember the first... A buddy of mine, I've told this story a couple times, but I was standing... Me and a friend were getting ready to go run around in the streets with our car and just go to the mall or something and be idiots. And we were walking out of his house

and the music video came on and he goes, hey, stop. Have you heard this? I was like, no. I ain't heard it. He's like, you want to hear it. We're going to stand... And we stood at the doorway of his house

and watched that music video. And then we were going to leave. And I was like, holy... Yeah. This is amazing. There's nothing like that. this. And then we left. And hair metal died that day. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I was like, I was a huge, I was, you know, obviously, that was right in my wheelhouse, uh, twisted sister and, um,

and Molly crew. We were massive Bon Jovi fans. Bon Jovi and like we were all into, yeah, crew and Bon Jovi and all that stuff. And then alternative came. I was a big sponge fan. I like sponge. Okay. They had a couple, they had some really, uh, they had some really, uh, they had a song called Raining and a couple of the songs that weren't like single singles. So they, I liked, um, Spacehog. Spacehog was good. Yeah, yeah. That was a little.

That was on the poppy. They had a little popier. Yeah. I kind of like the, I love the, the, the, uh, I love the, um, the type of, I love that soft, loud, loud method, right, that Kerr-Bain, uh, Kirk Cobain used in all his songs. it was like smashing pumpkins i learned how to play the drums to smashing pumpkins he they made such good records yeah he used to jam me i had another buddy of mine that was trying to learn how to play a guitar and me and him would get in my double-eyed trailer and just make noise trying to play

smashing pumpkins um so and you never try to convince your dad to listen to smashing pumpkins did you no um my mom went through a midlife crisis and i made her a few CDs that she like, she bought a yellow Corvette, and she was like, it was right around that time, mid-90s, she was like, burn me a, make me a mixtape. I want all that stuff. You know, smashing pumpkins, stone tip of pilots, all that stuff.

I was like, you got it. Now, was her Corvette standard? Was it? I think it was regular. She was regular. She was a regular fireman in Virginia, North Carolina, Virginia, so it was kind of a regular Corvette. But she kind of dug it.

Dad listened to Country, but he also listened to he listened to Black Velvet. Who was that girl that sang that song? Hang on, if you give me two seconds. He loved that song. Alana Miles. Yes, they actually played that during the video of his. He won the championship.

Bankrupt happens. They play a video before he gets on stage and has his speech, and they played that song. He loved that song. And he loved Delbert McClinton. Yep. I'm in Delbert work. Pell is it?

Yeah. I'm a Delbert fan. I never see. That was something I couldn't never get into. Dad had a little record collection, and I remember being in the basement of the lake house, seven, eight years old, and seeing the cover of meatloaf.

Bad out of hell. Yeah. I'm like, holy, wow, this is pretty wild. The artwork was amazing. For that record, and I'm going to get a bunch of hate for this. The artwork was better than the album. Are you kidding?

Like, in my mind, I remember, I remember, because, I mean, honestly, I get it now, but when I was that age, it was a little too Broadway, theatric. Yeah. The music was. I love that. It's a great record. I like it now, but when I, when. 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

Paradise by the dashboard, like, when he tells her at the end of that song that the freaking world can't end fast enough, so I don't have to spend another minute with you, that is like the cold of shit. Especially for a kid to hear you're like, wait a second. They were just making out. Almost a home plate. And you don't want to know that that's the turn it can take. Yes. Right?

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I, have you, there, Malcolm Gladwell wrote this book called Outliers that sort of puts a spotlight on the importance of timing. And so we had really good timing. But I was in Charleston. and I got kicked out of the University of South Carolina after one semester. I refused to go to this class called University 101 because it was like this stupid class that they used to give football players an A. And it was like, here's where the infirmary is. And it was stupid.

I was like, I'm not going to that class. And that cost you your college career. And it turns out that was a mandatory class. And I was just too stupid to know that. And I got kicked out. And so anyway, so I ended up in coastal Carolina, and I had to get a good grade point average. So I enrolled in a guitar class.

I was like, all right, well, I'll pat up this semester with a guitar class. That'll be easy. And it turns out the guitar teacher, the guitar professor, was this guy named Tom Yoder. And he was a hair metal guy. I thought we were going to have some crusty, like classical music professor. But he was a hair metal like shredder guy and really knowledgeable about music. And part of the class was you had to play songs in front of the class.

You had to learn and play songs. And so I learned a couple of Jimmy Hendrick songs and played. And obviously, I didn't play them like that. I was playing acoustic guitar. And I was just doing it my way. And he pulled me aside and said, listen, I know what I'm talking about. I've been doing this a long time. I've been in a hundred bands all up and down the East Coast.

You have to go out and play. You have to go out and get gigs and play. And I was like, what are you talking about, man? I can't, I don't know enough songs to be able to go out and play. It doesn't matter. Start learning songs and go out and play. And he was the one that started pushing me to do it. And I, back then, you know, no internet.

There's none of that. None of that. So you had to go to a music store and buy songbooks of songs to play. play. And back then, you know, it wasn't like there was, there was a songbook to teach you out to play Jane's Addiction. You just had to learn that, right? So I went and got some songbooks and very quickly realized, like, I'm never going to be able to play the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald because there's 30 chord changes in this, and I don't know the chords. Yeah. So I'm going to go and learn the songs I like. And I was listening to, you know, a bunch of Hendricks, you know,

um jane's addiction just you know all that stuff and i started learning so on it's and then some you know the older rmb stuff i could i could kind of piece it together so i started doing that got at charleston was not doing well i got i just i hated college and so uh and i was out partying and i crashed a car a friend of mine's car jesus i owed like four thousand dollars on the repairs So I started cooking pizzas and busking. Throw a guitar case out on the street, open it up, stand out there in the market and just play. I'm just trying to pay this money back, right? The restaurant I was in front of goes, the manager comes out there one day and goes,

hey man, if I paid you $75 and fed you, could you play here three nights a week? On the sidewalk or indoors? At the restaurant. at the, on the deck at the restaurant. I dropped out of college the next day. I was like, I'm rich. And so I didn't, you know, I didn't have a lot of songs. I had like 20 songs, but 20 songs was exactly the amount of time people would be sitting on the deck.

And then the turnover would happen. And I just play my songs again. And, you know what I mean? I just repeat the thing. And it was a perfect way it placed for me to start putting in my 10,000 hours. and what is that supposed to mean so 10,000 so in Malcolm Gladwell's book he his assertion is that to be an expert in any field requires you to put in 10,000 hours of just grinding to learn the craft it doesn't matter what it is and at 10,000 hours is when you get the bump up to the next plateau right and and you can apply that to any and so you know I was just getting my 10,000 hours in on the job. And I moved to Hilton Head Island.

There was a guy named Shannon Tanner that I looked up to, and he helped me get some gigs on Hilton Head. And as soon as I landed in Hilton Head and figured out I could play, I figured out if I did it right, I could play 10 shows a week. I would do three on Saturdays because Saturdays the Tiki Hut would let me play 12 to 4. sneakers would let me play 630 to 1030 and then Daddy Zaks would let me play

11 to 2 a.m. And every gig was paying me 200 bucks in cash and I was 18. And I was like, this is the greatest. I mean, I'm a genius. Yeah. This is amazing.

And so I was sitting there just putting in the time and the crowds at my shows got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And Hootie and the Blowfish started coming down to play the rock club in town. And I got to be friends with them. So I knew them a little bit. For the one semester I was at Carolina, I knew Mark and Darius because they used to do an open mic night at this place called Muldoons.

And I used to go bug them and let me play my one back. bad company song. So I kind of knew them. And they would come see me play at the Tiki Hut, and I would go hang out with them. And it, you know, the idea, I was like, well, these guys are in a band. They have a band. And I had a couple of guys that played with me, but we weren't a band. We weren't able to be, like, in the clubs.

And so the sax player was with me, the same sax player was with me now 35 years later. And I was like, do you know, because he went to music school. he has a degree. And I was like, do you know any drummers or any bass players? Like, we need to put this band together thing. And so we, he knew a guy. And we went from, you know, making money every gig to basically starving to death in our band. In our band.

But at the time, it was Hootie and Dave Matthews were just kind of starting to pop. And the way everybody did it was you would play fraternity houses. and you play the fraternities until you got big enough to go to the local club and then and then the fraternity people would follow you to the club and you'd just start building followings like that but we would literally camp out in the triangle raleigh durham and chapel hill and just play fraternities until we had enough money to go to texas and we run out of money and we come back to the triangle and do it all over again and that's what everybody did Did you know when you were that doing it, that that was the method?

Did you know what you were doing? Yeah, no, we knew. Well, we knew we had to. So everybody kind of went the same thing. There was a company called, I think it was East Coast Entertainment or something. And their specialty was booking college shows. And everybody worked with them. And we all knew that if you could get into the college circuit,

then you could cross it over. and everybody kind of followed that method. And Dave Matthews was on the tip of the spear. And Hootie was right behind them. And we were playing with the Aquarium Rescue Unit and Colonel Bruce Hampton. And there was a band called Egypt that was big, another band called All Good Music Company and the grapes.

And we just, it was this, we were all, like Johnny Quest, Dylan Fence, I'm going to forget some of them, but we were all really good friends with each other and everybody helped each other out. We weren't competitive, like driving and crying, all the bands. So if somebody got into a wreck and their van was wrecked,

somebody else would loan a van or loan equipment. So it was really, everybody was trying to help each other because as far as the music industry, no one paid any attention to Southern bands. They just didn't. It just wasn't a thing. All the bands came from L.A. or, you know, New York. And as this started to grow, and Dave Matthews and Hootie started to grow in popularity,

I think Dave sold 10,000 records of his independent release, and RCA records showed up. And then Atlantic showed up to sign Hootie. And mind you, there was a period of, there was a week. weekend at W&L University where it was Dave Matthews at SAE, Hootie at K-A, we were at Pi-Fi, and the grapes were at another fraternity house all on one weekend, and a month later, everybody had record deals, and it was going to the moon. It was crazy. I mean, it was the height of the music industry. And we were still playing club gigs. I remember we were coming back from Nantucket on the ferry.

listen to the radio and the DJ said this is Hootie and the Blowfish and the whole my hand came on and I was like it's happened we're here and the Hootie guys

when they signed their deal with Atlantic every record label wanted them so bad and they were so nice to me they literally told Atlantic we'll sign your deal but you need to give our friend a deal too. And they were like, yeah, sure, fine. Bring the big head kid. That was it. Yeah. And, and, I mean, who does that? Well, how much

original material did you have? Well, by then I had, well, by then I had made a CD on my own and, and I had, I had enough music for a record anyway. And, and, and, and, and it was one of those things where if you really wanted to get them to believe in you, you had to have an, a, independent release and be selling it at your shows because that was their way because they they're it's not hard for a multinational corporation to go well if dave matthews can sell 10,000 CDs out of his van we could probably sell 10 million yeah so um and and they all showed up and that was that was the timing part of it it was right at the tail end of grunge everybody was sort of tired of feeling bad about themselves You know what I mean? I guess.

And all of a sudden, here's Hootie and the Blowfish. And now, and it's like, they're, I was like, look, they're fun and they play golf and everybody loves them. And, you know, everybody was, I mean, that and that summer tour, the 95 summer tour, was insane. It was a phenomenon. And that record sold like 25 million copies of it. I mean, it was crazy.

Yeah. And, I mean, we went out last summer. And, and. I had forgotten that 20,000 people are going to show up and sing every single word to every single song on that record. And they did. And here we are this many years later, and they all showed back up and sang all those songs.

And, yeah. It was a cultural shift occurred when Dave and Hootie showed up. Because Hootie was everybody's feel-good friend, and Dave Matthews created a new genre. like he combined genres and made me which is hard to say like you know to actually do something as innovative as Dave did at the time that he did it because he combined poetry and jazz and then you know some of the baddest musicians on the planet to play complicated arrangements because his song his music is not that accessible like the guitar center guys aren't playing Dave Matthews yeah and uh And it, you know, it was just like this crazy moment where you had those two, they were, they were like the icebreaker. They cleared the way for everybody. Yeah.

And we were just riding in the wake. So you're on a, you get a record deal. You have enough original material on your own. Is there like an immediate moment of whole shit? You know, now I got to get to work and start building whatever this is. My opportunity here is here, right? Yeah, and I, and everybody had been so successful. Like, we're literally just watching our friends blow up.

And I was just like, well, I guess, you know, it's my turn next, right? And I laugh about this because 55-year-old me would not really be friends with 25-year-old me because 25-year-old me was kind of a dumb ass. You know what I mean? Like I didn't, I don't, I didn't know, I didn't know to put the work in. I should have put more work in in the beginning because I was like, well, we have producers now. And it's their job to make the record great and to make all the cool decisions that are going to make this record sound great. And I'm going to go out in L.A. and go to the strip club and party.

And, you know, I'll show up and do my parts, but that's their job. They're getting paid a lot of money to do. do this, why do I have to sit there and labor over a tambourine part? Yeah. You know, or sit there and have an opinion about shakers. I mean, I have a bunch of really good, talented guys in the band. They can just play their instruments and I'll be back when the record's done. You know, I mean, that was kind of the way I thought about it.

And it was stupid because I didn't understand, and you know this, there has to be a lead dog. that has the vision and directs things to where they're going to go. Because otherwise, you just end up with C-minus all the time. Yeah. So if you're the lead dog and you are absolutely driving the direction and you have to make those calls, it's A or F? You know, and when it's A, you share it with everybody, and when it's F, you own it.

but that's the way it needs to be in those types of businesses where there's a lot at stake. Yeah. You can't just go, everybody, just do whatever you're going to do. I'm going to be over here. I'll be across the street at Strip Club too. Just call me when I need to come back. Yeah. That was a stupid way of doing things.

And as a result, our first record only sold like 250,000 copies. And at that time, that was a terrible failure. Like, everybody was selling $5 million, and we sold $250. And my head was on the chopping block right away. And I was on a little subsidiary of the Atlantic called Lava that was run by Jason Flom. And we're friends to this day. We work together on the Innocence Project stuff.

He's a fantastic human being. He always told me the truth. He absolutely, he never sugarcoded it. And he called me and he was like, Jethro, he used to call me Jethro. I just left a big department head meeting, and they're all talking about dropping you off the label. So whatever you turn in next needs to be great. And that was I'll be.

How did you find that song? I didn't. It was an amalgam of some things that I had said. I used to have this girlfriend that I just knew. was kind of out of my league and I used to always say you know I'm always going to be your biggest fan yeah and then I overheard this dude this drunk guy fumbled the words he meant to say I'll be your shoulder to cry on and he fumbled it and said crying shoulder and I wrote it on a napkin and I had it in a bag of mine and and when flam said you know we're going to drop you I started

immediately pulling out all these fragments and put them on the table and under pressure wrote the song that saved it. You know, pulled me out of the nosedive, like half-court hook shot at the buzzer. And it's an anomaly. That song just keeps going. And we're almost 30 years in, and it just keeps going.

I know. It's astonishing. Yeah. And I'd love to tell you that I knew that, but nobody knows. When you wrote it, you didn't know. I got emotional. So the songs that are,

In my experience, the songs that have the most juice in my world are, I'm emotional when I write them. I get a little snotty-nosed. And usually they have some, they're rooted in some kind of truth or something that I've learned. And at the time, I was living in this little apartment in Atlanta. It was a futon. I had a futon. Atlanta. Yeah, it was this apartment that was behind Benihana's off of a peach tree.

And I had a futon, a green futon, and a Sony TV on a stand, and that was it. And I was not in a good place. And I was, because I could feel it slipping away, right? And I wasn't, I was not sober. I wasn't mentally healthy. I was really not in a good place. So that line, I'll be better when I'm older, was sort of like, God, I hope I can be better.

You know, because it didn't look like, it didn't look, it wasn't looking really good. You know, when you listen to that song, you put it in the total context of love and a conversation to another female about what, you know, how badly you want this to work. And you don't ever think about what your person struggle would have been or even plug you won't even plug that into the meaning of the song at all

and for me it was just a Hail Mary prayer you know that I can get out of this you remember the first person that you you might have showed that project to and they were like dude what the hell where is this been do you remember that moment I remember yeah and I know exactly so I did a demo of it and I played it for Ed Rowland from Collective Soul because he's such a good producer too. Like Ed's a great musician, but he's a really good producer. And I was like,

if I can get Ed Rowan from Collector Soul to produce this song, it'll really make it great. And so I played it for him, and he was like, he was mad because he was like, I wish I had written this song. And I was like, okay, we got something here.

And then I played it live in front of a crowd, and the audience and usually audiences hate new songs, right? Like if I want to tease my audience, I'll walk out and go, tonight I'm just going to play all new songs and they go, no!

Yeah. But we played it and the response was crazy and I was like, all right, there's a chance here. But that was not how it was received at radio. Oh. And this is the dirty secret

and I think by now that surely the statute of limitations. has run out. Atlantic did not really want anything to do with me, but Flam got them to put the song on three stations, Birmingham, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and maybe Huntsville, Alabama. And we knew, so if a record company is really going to roll a song out, they roll it out, and why they throw three quarters of a million dollars at promotion. You know, it's a real thing. This is what they would call a test, but this is just kind of a, yeah.

So I called my manager, who was a college friend of mine at the time, and he and I had been shucking and jiving this whole thing together. And I called him, I was like, how much money are you having your checking account? Because we got, this is it. This is the, these three stations, this is it. And so we rounded up some bunch of friends of ours, you know, and got them to go to these three towns where everywhere it was getting airplay, they would go to the record stores in town and go buy albums and then change their clothes and go to buy albums. And then they would mail them to us and then we would sell them again at our shows. And the UPC would count as two.

And so what would happen, what that meant was everywhere we were getting airplay, we were showing sales. and they call that a spin to sale ratio. So if spins go up, sales go up. And if they can show that, Atlantic sees that little ratio, they'll start to believe. And we had a three-ring circus going on doing this. And Jason Flom called me up right in the middle of this. Jethro. I was like, hey, man, you better not have your cousins buying albums down in Alabama.

And I was like, oh, what you're talking about. And I was, you know. And so they took that information. They went to the publicity department. They got the publicity department to put the song into Dawson's Creek. In the final episode of Dawson's Creek, and the sales went from, you know, 1,800 a week to 18,000.

And off we went, right? So we had done a little bit of shuck and job to get it off the ground, but then it really, that's when it actually started to go, But that was almost a year later. Yeah. Because the song came out in 97, but it really didn't start blowing up until that Dawson's Creek thing in 98. And then things kind of went from there.

But Jason and I were playing golf about five years ago. And riding down the fairway, and I look over and I go, hey, man, I feel like I need to come clean about something. He goes, what? And I go, remember when you accused me of buying records from my cousins? He goes, I knew you did that. I was like, ah, sorry about that.

It's always felt guilty about not telling you the truth about it, you know. And we laughed about, oh, God. That song will be voted one of the greatest love

songs of all time by VH1. It's got an incredible legacy. You mentioned how tough life was around that time. How did things change after that?

Well, everything went haywire because when when you get, a chance to really get in the conversation and have the full weight of Time Warner and the machine working for you, it's crazy. And there's no time to spare. And so, you know, I was up at 6 a.m. every day. You go to more radio, two different radio stations, then an in-store, and then you do a meet and greet, then you do sound check, and you do the show. you party your ass off until about 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock in the morning, get on the bus,

start all over again the next day. So you're operating on about four hours of sleep, and we did that for 10 years. I mean, you remember what it was like when things really heated up, right? And I didn't know any better. And because of my background and growing up, like, I couldn't say no to anybody for any reason ever, because I would just, I would die a thousand deaths to say no. to anything because we had starved to death for so long. You couldn't say no to gigs.

These gigs are paying like real money. Like no way you're saying no to that. And you're not saying no to the record company because if you say no to them, maybe they won't keep the juice turned on, right? So it was just like, what do we have to do? And you, and I, you know, it didn't take long for everything to get way out of balance. You know, and that's a... Around what year was this?

Well, from 98 to about 2005, 2006. So in 2001, I'd seen you and met you and knew who you were and barely, but my new Michael and you were great friends. In 2001, I was at Daytona in July and won the race after my dad passed away at the first of the year. and I tell this story a lot, but the race is over. I'm standing in the bus lot. It feels like it must have been 1, 2 o'clock in the morning. Everybody's gone. And most of all the drivers have left hours ago.

And I looked to my left and Dale Jarrett standing there drinking a beer. And I was like, holy shit, Dale Jarrett, what are you doing here? And he's like, I wouldn't miss this for the world. This is awesome. And it's just like 10 of us standing around drinking beer. You were on my right. Do you remember that? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I know, so I've never told you this. I remember you, I remember that afternoon. You were, Michael's bus was parked across from mine, and you had been there for the race. And I remember in the middle of the day, you came over and went, hey, man, you got, there's a cooler outside my bus.

And you're like, mind if I grab a beer out of that cooler? I was like, yeah, help yourself, man. And you sat down in the chair, and you were like, all right. And I was like, yeah, no, this is this. No, I knew who you were. But I was like, we hadn't merely been. formally introduced. And I was like, damn, that's awesome.

And then later that night, there you were, standing there with the rest of us. And I was like, I, again, part of the thing was with, I was really good friends with Dale and Michael, but I also learned, and Skinner, but also learned, it was kind of like you had it, especially on site, like,

I always gave, I tried to give people's space without like being too, like in the, in people's faces. because, again, you've got a really important thing you're about to do, and you don't really need a lot of distractions. But we were laughing. Michael and I saw Michael last night. And we were laughing about when I first started hanging around NASCAR,

I didn't know the etiquette of like what not to say or ask and stuff. And so I'd be hanging out and he'd wreck or something would happen and he'd come off the track. And I'd go, what happened? I'd start asking him questions like what'd you do wrong you know what I mean and Hondros had to come over and go

hey man don't ask him don't do that and I was like okay all right I'll stop but I never told you this but I was at Daytona I was in

Brian Francis jet leaving when your dad crashed and I saw it from the plane because they always wanted to get everybody out early. And I didn't know what it happened until I landed. And I talked to Michael. And, you know, we never really taught. We never talked about it.

We never really reconciled the whole thing. And I think that was one of those. And then when I was there for you, yeah. That was one of those moments where I knew, the universe looked after making things happen right. Yeah.

You know what I mean? I don't know how to, how else to say. Like I took, I took a lot of, it took a lot of, of, of anxiety out of my existence

to see you do that. Because I was like, there's, there's justice in that moment. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Maybe it's not a, maybe it's not a reconciliation, but it was some closure. Yeah.

Yeah. I was, that moment standing there at two or one o'clock in the morning between you and Dale Jarrett and four or five of my buddies and whoever else was just happened to not leave was just really important. Like the night couldn't end without the right ending. right yeah the winning the wind was awesome the celebration was awesome but then you got to go back to silence right so i don't know how you do that yeah right like like your highs are so high yeah so to stand there and like decompress over a cold beer around the people that were there really was the way to to let to let the pressure off with your friends yeah with you know and that that was the other thing too I think you really are brothers in arms in that community.

And I don't know if it's still like that now. Does that camaraderie exist? A little bit. Good. Yeah. I'm glad to hear that. Yep. Hey, TJ, you know that I got my own Chevy dealership down in Tallahassee, Florida.

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experience. Chevrolet, together, let's drive. You talked about the success of the music, but you also talk about your bad habits. Yeah. How? I took it, I took it to the bad place, you know. Was that, was that a product of the business? Because like, when you were a teenager, you know, goofing around their buddies, was it? it abnormal or I think it would I think it'd be easy for me to say that that the business had something to do with what led me to catastrophic addiction but I don't think that would be true um I I did love all the Motley crew videos and I when I was 14 and 15 I thought that would be really cool to ride around my friends on Harleys and be rich and get wasted and you know

But that's not, but a lot of people do that, and they don't go to the place I went to. And what I would say is, and after going to rehab and doing a whole autopsy of the entire situation, it was an inevitability based on my brain chemistry, based on some trauma, and based on my inability to create my own balance. And I sort of always thought that, you know, and it was my own doing. I never, I couldn't take my foot off the gas and doing the business,

like going and playing gigs and doing all that stuff because you get to be in the cast machine for, you get to be in the thing for a minute. And you just, yeah. Yeah. No, it was like we would have family vacations planned and you could count on two or three private events would show up right in the middle of the vacation. And my wife and I had this deal. I was like, you know, if they come in with the number, you have to, we have to, you have to do that, you know.

And so I, anyway, all that said, and part of my story was I'm so ADD and I was unmedicated and cocaine is. really works well if you don't have the proper medication. So that was kind of part of my story. I started using cocaine to get up in the morning to get up and sharp and doing that. And then we were drinking like crazy people for two hours stretch after the show. I never drank before shows. I was always pretty disciplined when it came to that. But then, you know, we were sprinters, right? So we like, you know what I mean? So the big disaster would always be if there was like some kind of situation where I'd start day drinking. Like if I started drinking at noon by 245, I'm a rat.

And because I was a sprinter. I was like, yeah. And so I remember actually once again at a NASCAR race, we had, you know, gone way off the deep end. And I ended up, I think it was in Atlanta. showed up as spectators, you know, and Dale Jared had gotten me tickets and stuff, and we all showed up in the infield. And I was a disaster. And I remember catching a look on Dale's face where he was disappointed in the shape I was in. And I instantly was like, man, I got a problem with this. I got to do something about this. And I tried, you know, I did the thing, this is how bad

an alcoholic I was. I did the thing where, because everybody around me was starting to say, hey, man, you need to start, you need to think about, like, you need to tone this down. And, but, but they're not really, because I'm, I'm, I'm generating a lot of money. So there's not, they're not going to, nobody's going to make me stop. Yeah. Because I'm still, I tell you what to do. Yeah, I'm still turning up.

Yeah. I'm turning up. And, and, and. So to get everybody off my. back. I was like, all right, I tell you what, I'll quit drinking for a year just so you guys will know that I don't have a problem. Well, that's what real alcoholics do. So I white-knuckled it for a year. Really? And then I got to the end of a year. You did a year? 100%. And I got at the end of a year and I said, I'll tell you what, I'll throw an extra six months on it. So I don't

ever have to hear y'all talk about the way I drink. That, now think, if put, like, that is some like next level matrix alcoholism to elbow yourself out, especially. to really get to it the way you want to. And so when that next six months got to the end, I literally went totally ballistic, and it did not take six months for me to be suicidal, like so bad off that I had to make the choice between living or dying. And, and, and,

And that is such a common storyline. Like I thought I was so unique. You know, I did. I mean, I really did. And I got to rehab and I had this terrible secret that I had, you know, planned on committing suicide. And I mustered the courage to tell this group I was in the next morning. I was like, I need to come clean about this whole plan I had.

and I told them my dramatic plan about killing myself. And this guy's sitting next to me and goes, yeah, welcome to the club. And everybody in the room was like, yeah, that's where it goes. That's how this ends. And I was like, wait, everybody. And they're like, welcome, welcome to rehab. And I was like, oh. And that began the journey of getting,

rid of the ego and learning about acceptance and balance and being able to say no and and and owning your and making the amends that you have to make and and all of the all of the things that I needed to be a good human and a good father and the friend my friends deserve and not. not just the ringleader of some crazy circus that I thought was hilarious, you know? Yeah, he thought everybody was having a blast. Yeah, but you know what was really funny when I, right after I got out of rehab and I was, I was out on doing shows, very quickly, because I used to think everybody was as drunk as me. And then I started, I would go to parties.

I'd be like, yeah, nobody was, nobody's, nobody's as drunk as I was. Yeah. I just thought everybody was. Was it one? One attempt at rehab, but it take many? No, it was just one. One. Due to the severity of the issue, was it a surprise to you that it took one? Because we, you know, it seems like that it's just not that simple.

No, but. For a lot of people. No, no, but it was dire. So a lot of people don't go all the way to the end where, there's no choice. Where suicide starts making sense. And here's the logic behind it. I don't want to make it sound dramatic.

What happens is you try to stop it. You do the year thing. You know, everybody goes through this. And then you invoke the Hemingway Clause where you say, well, there were a lot of really creative alcoholics and you just kind of try to wear it. Like, okay, well, that's just what I am. And then that doesn't work. But then you start realizing that your existence in that mode is dangerous for other people.

Like driving a car, you know what I'm saying? Like there's innocent people that could be permanently harmed by just you being you. And that's not fair. And you can't seem to stop it, but there's one thing that'll stop it. And that logic kind of starts to creep in. and I think most alcoholics have, it's a weird pattern, but everybody starts, that starts making sense, right? When you just can't stop it, and they're, well, there's one thing that'll permanently stop this.

And you start to think of yourself as a hero, because if you keep going, bad things will happen. But if you stop it, you did something heroic. Yeah. And you start to tell yourself that that's going to be a better thing. And because you have life insurance policies, everybody, be better off without you. You know what I mean? You can kind of convince yourself that that was a great thing to do. And I remember I just had that classic moment of clarity sitting in the basement my house with a 40 cow in my lap saying, there's got to be a better story to tell for my, for my

sons, they were really, they were one. There's got to be a better story for them to grow up here. then your dad was a hopeless alcoholic. And then I said, well, you know, we haven't tried rehab. Why don't we give that a shot? You've had that in, you had that thought yourself, by yourself? Yeah. I was like, maybe, maybe, let's try rehab. And then if that doesn't work, you can do this stupid shit you're planning on.

And so that was the, um, where did you go? I went to a place called Talbot in Atlanta. And it's, it was long term. I was there for like 120 days. Like I was supposed to be there for 90, but then I stayed extra to work with the young adults to do some like, because I really enjoy, I really, that entire process fundamentally changed me. And I'll tell you the reason it stuck is I paid for all of it in cash. I have skin in that game. And I'm so cheap, I am not about to lose that money.

I got made this investment. Yeah. But it fundamentally changed me as a person, and I just didn't, I had never considered this idea of mindfulness and paying attention to the way you're thinking. I just thought that whatever thoughts were in my brain were me, and it was me and my little buddy, and we're going to go do the things we want to do without any question of why or intentionality or any of those things. and so that was the beginning of a of a big change for me let me ask a question or two so when you

got is 120 days it's a long time understand but you got to go back into the mouth of the beast yeah so you go back to work yeah I did so where was your confidence level where you scared were you worried where you totally like I'm convinced I'm confident problem? No, I was very, the first two years out of rehab is like tap dancing in a minefield. Like they're just so your brain is trying to play tricks on you. I'll give you a perfect example. I was playing this gig at Eddie's attic and there was a woman named Jennifer Angier that had worked at Talbot while I was there and she came to the gig and I was right about to go on. She came run up. She goes, hey, she gave me her new card.

She goes, I'm not at Talbot anymore. I just switched over. I'm working at this place called the Meadows. Give me a call sometime. I got her card, started to play the show. In my mind, I went, hmm, I wonder why she left Talbot. I bet she found out they were misdiagnosing people just so they could take their money. And she came here to tell me that they misdiagnosed me.

And I'm not really an alcoholic. Like she's coming to spill the big. She's coming to spill the beans. And I played with that thought during the whole gig. And now I laugh about it. Yeah. But is that crazy.

So this is the thing. And every alcoholic that sees this podcast will be laughing because we're all that crazy. We've got this voice in our head that is trying to come up with every way possible to kill us, to sneak us back into this thing. you know and when you're when you're a couple of years out of rehab those those little sneaky ideas you can play you can start to run with it right and I was even starting to run with it

and then halfway through the gig I was like what are you doing what are you doing right now and then I started laughing about it which sort of takes the power away but for somebody that's fresh out and dealing with it like and I'll give you another one I had when the boys were 10 and 11. I remember I was just sitting there mind of my own business and out of the blue, out of my like crusty brain. You know, it'd probably be a really good idea to have a bad relapse right in front of them at this age so they could see how nasty it is and never pick up a drink. Like I'd be doing them a favor if I had a really nasty way. And you're sober for a years. No, I'm by then I'm sober 10 years. And this.

10 years. This thought comes flying in that I'd really be helping them if I had a big relapse and showed them how bad it is. So they'll never drink. So even 10, you know, let's just say it was eight years, but even all those years later, the lure, you still have the, you still have an understanding of the lure in the back of your mind. Yeah. So, yeah. And it's what it, and the way, and the way. way that it works is my midbrain has been corrupted and the central part of my brain has been corrupted to forever want drugs and alcohol and the thing about the midbrain that's where the fighter flight lives and it only sends one way messages and so it sends messages out to your little

creative frontal cortex and it'll send it out there and then your then your cortex goes well we got to try to make sense of this. And so here comes that weird-ass idea. Yeah. Right? And it gets over time, and especially if you're creative, over time, it gets more creative slash ridiculous because you learn how stupid that is, right? And of course, you'd never do it.

And we, I called Jennifer, she's now the CEO of the Meadows. And we we talked to each other about that crazy voice. And all the alcoholics I know have it. And you'll go, and she called me one time, she was celebrating her 20th sober anniversary. And she goes, you know what mine says every time, every year anniversary. I said, what does it say?

She said, mine says, you can't hold out forever. You know what I mean? And it's like, you know, and we laugh about it. And I know it sounds crazy. It sounds insane. Right, it sounds terrifying. But to us, it's funny now because you learn to laugh at that. And you also learned in a really weird way to appreciate it because if it wasn't for that,

I wouldn't have the life I have now. Sure. And I wouldn't be the person I am now. I mean, I've been a dependable friend. and, you know, I've had, you know, I've saved a couple of lives with the Heimlich maneuver. You know, there have been some, yeah, there have been some pretty sketchy moments that have occurred that I was present and ready to handle. You know, my son was attacked by a dog and, it was a long story. All these things that happened in life. But had I not made those changes, I wouldn't have been there.

Right. How do you, in the industry you're in, right? I saw you, six months ago down in Sullivan's Island or Al-A-Palms playing and I thought about you in that environment making the choice to be who you wanted to be but all around you everybody's drinking yeah everybody's part and carrying on and that's your existence like you but pharmacists go to work every day handling their drug of choice that is unaffecting You see people out in your crowd raising hell. You're just like, hell, yeah, go. Yeah, and but see, they have a different relationship with alcohol.

Yeah, I know plenty of people that can go out and have a big time and they're careful and they take Ober's home and then they don't drink again for another three months. You know, that was their big night out and they do it correctly, you know. And so, but I, there was a period of time in the first, like, five years where people I used to really party with would come up and slip something in my pocket in a jacket if I was wearing a jacket and I didn't realize they had done it and then all of a sudden I'd later yeah like throwing stuff away like god dang dude what the hell yeah and and but then on the flip side of that I'm I'm 16 years sober and I met a fantasy football draft and this friend of mine who I've known forever he

knows my whole story. He walks up with a liquor glass, a tumbler full of ice, but he goes, hey, will you go put some more crown in this for me? And he hands it to me. And I'm holding the liquor glass. And I was like, you want me to go put some crown in this for you? And he goes, he goes, yeah. He goes, what? And I go, you want me to go fill this up with crown for you? And he goes, yes, what the fuck? And I was like, okay. And I started to turn to you. And he was like, oh my God. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I was like, but what happened? But what happened? But what happens is over time, everybody forgets about that part of it. And the other thing that everybody has to learn when you go to rehab is that the world doesn't need me at all. You know, like, I can't

spend 90 days of rehab. Everything will fall apart without me. You know what I mean? People didn't even notice I was gone. Yeah. And that was a great lesson to learn to. Like, you know, what, and it helped me implement my favorite thing, which is the four-day rule. Now something in our organization happens and everybody expects me to weigh in on it immediately. And it's some kind of situation where, you know, you think, I'll fix this and I'll run in there and yell at somebody or do something, you know. And now what happens is something will happen and I'll talk to everybody and go, listen, this is an important, this is important. And you're important. And you're important to me, you're important to me enough to where I need to spend some time and really

consider this and come back with a well-thought-through idea or answer for you. So give me four days and I'll get back to you. Into the second day, it fixes itself. And I didn't have to say and I didn't go in there and say something and now I got to apologize for. You know what I mean? guilty about. Yeah, the four-day rule is, it's magic. And I regularly tell people when they push back and they want an answer to sooner, I'll remind them, you know, Teddy Roosevelt and Howard Taft built the Panama Canal writing letters to each other that had to arrive by ship. And yet, they still manage to pull off the biggest engineering feat of mankind. So whatever it is we're doing can wait a few days. Let's give it a couple days.

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You have a new album titled Lucky. It's your first album of all new songs in 15 years. I've had to chance to listen to this and I love it. The song Lucky all the time is a great song. I think it says, it sounds like it's your motto to climbing out of that sort of mess and becoming the person that you are today. It sounds like a little celebration of that and how appreciative you are of the

fortune you have today. I guess of the many questions, why 15 years I just decided to dial it down and and be father be home with my kids and I knew and also

during that period of time they were still trying to figure out what streaming was going to be what is it going to be what is this music industry and I was like well I'm not just going to dive out here and we don't even know what we're doing it and I wasn't on a label

I was back to being independent and I'm driving. the bus doing all the gigs and we had plenty of gigs and then the other argument i had was i'm huge fan of acdc but i don't really listen to the new albums sure i love old stuff and i know my audience and i know the songs they want to hear and i don't i don't think they really want new stuff from me and I just I was sort of like you know you're kind of a hypocrite I I know and people and that was always something it was a nice thing for people to say when are you putting out a new record and I go I'm not you know because it's just a nice thing people say like hardly ever it's not

true I know well part of it part of it too was I had this thing in my mind where it's time to move out of the way. There's all these new artists and everybody's trying to come up and I'm taking up bandwidth and I had your run. I had my ride, man, and I have 10 albums. And I go and I play songs off of those records to all these people. And make it a living. And they like it and give the people what they want.

But then Lee Bryce was like starting in 2012 is just, he's all over me. And I didn't realize how big a, he's a huge, he was a big fan. to begin with, which is weird, right? Because, like, you get this super famous dude is like a fan. And he's kind of a jackass too, and we're friends. Like, we're mean to each other. And he's just calling me and he's like, hey, Bubba, I'm in an excavator because I was running. I was kind of side hustle running this land clearing business.

And so I'd be sitting in an excavator, listen to a book on tape. And he called me and go, hey, Bubba, all right, you know, you do. you do have a career in music. And as fun as it is for you to sit there in a machine moving dirt, like, you know, there are people like me that would like to hear a record from you

and I'll make it. And I'm like, you know, give me a minute. And he's literally, he was just getting kind of, he was just getting kind of frustrated with me. And finally, the 90s nostalgia just started to kick in. You know, you could feel it. And I was like, okay, I think now is it. And so I was like, all right, let's make this record.

And he's like, you're not lying to me right now, are you? I was like, no, I'm really going to do it. And so we started making it at Lees. And I wish I had, I'm so mad I didn't film the sessions where I was doing vocals. Because he's a singer. He's a great singer. He's a really great producer, too. So he knows how to get the best out of you as a singer.

You know, it'd be, it'd be like having a driver be your crew chief. Like they understand, right? And so in between takes, Lee would go, Hey, Bubba, do you mind doing this next take like English is your first language, please? Because that last one, I don't even know. And I, you know, it did the banner back and forth. You know, it was insane. And my wife was like, y'all are so mean to each other.

My wife says the same thing, not me and my friends. I'm like, can we just talk to each other that way? Just absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. If your friends aren't just totally sh-h-ing on you, are they really, your friends. Like if they aren't pouncing on your biggest insecurity. It's a guy thing. That's when you know that person truly cares about you.

A hundred percent. And that, that friendship is what this, that's record is about. You're back out, I mean, you've never stopped touring, but now you're out playing new songs. What's been the reception? It's been great. I mean, honestly, so that whole time, I was back to being indie, and I'm driving the bus, my 1999 bus, but I have the same, mostly the same band for 35 years. And we're just playing our little gigs, and everybody's making a living. And so to me, I never left. But what, what, you got to, you know, and you know this, like, if you want to be,

you want the general public to be aware that you, exist. It requires publicists and a lot of push. And to the general public, I disappeared in 2007 and nobody's seen me. And the feeling is everybody's like, hey, you're back. And I'm like, cool. But everybody's being really nice about it. And really, the reception has been really cool. And touching, because I didn't realize that I was gone. But I guess I really was. I was gone in that sense. And to be with a big management company and to be on a label again and sort of have,

like I'm sort of back in the drill. Like I've been out of the mix from the industry at large. Yeah. And the reception has been incredibly cool and kind. And I'm grateful. I mean, again, a little sentimental about it. because I, it's really nice. Like, I got invited to play the Opry.

And I was like, like, really? Right. Right here we are at the tail end of this thing. You got 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter. That's coming. It's amazing. But it's a little bit of a, feels a little bit like redemption, a little bit.

But I'm not trying to prove anything. Yeah, yeah. You ain't got to. It is redemption. So, it's a hero. arc. You know? And so the great thing about you is that you don't, I don't know that you, you really realize

how famous you had become in the initial onset of your, of your success as a musician. And at least in my world, how easy you are to be around, how well liked and appreciated you were, how great of a person and a guy you were, even though you went through these terrible things. I think everyone's so eager to embrace you back, right, now that you're out of the woods and have been for quite some time. You must have the most amazing wife to have went through that process with you. Incredible. Yeah, there was a period of time she could have shot me in the face with a shotgun and it wasn't a jury in the state would have convicted her. Not a bit, no. And so I, you know, and I was telling the guys, I was like, you know, I'm not sure how deep we were going to get into the story, but I was wanting to, I was wanting to kind of recognize that most people don't survive it. Most people aren't able to come out of it entirely clean and have a, you know, have a life with their feet, with their kids and have that time that you had. And so it's really remarkable and should be,

celebrated. I think there's a bunch of people that are going to, that have already heard your story and we'll hear it again through this show. That'll be helped and inspired by it. You, I wanted to share too. You, one of my most embarrassing moments, I've been embarrassed by this, and it came and went really quick, but you came, I asked you to come here and play for our company at the end of the year. We have a little party and I asked you to come. And I asked you to come. and do that, and I knew you might, because you were such great friends with everybody, you show up, and we're upstairs, and you said, hey, anything you want me to play tonight? Do you remember what I asked you to play?

100%. And here's the thing. It's not your fault. It is. No, it's not, because Napster mislabeled it. Mislabeled the song. You're like, hey, you do this really great cover of In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel. And I was like, oh, that's Jeffrey Yaines that does that.

but I learned it and we played it is it is it is it no and because of you is it insulting at all that not in any way I confuse the two no because it was mislabeled on Napster for a million years and so so

here's the other thing so many things got mislabeled that well first of all I still play that song as a cover I played it at the end of the jammer show because I knew you were there I know I was like asked you to play it and you're sitting there on the couch and you're like, yeah, that's not me.

But I'll try. Yeah, and I learned it in the dressing room. You learned it that night. We went and played it. And I had no idea you didn't know how to read music. And we've never stopped playing it ever since that night. Yeah, so you know, thank you for making me get off my butt and learn it. But, you know, that Napster mislabel thing got so out of hand.

Sean Mullins and I were mislabeled so bad. Oh, I bet. So I had like these 20 year old girls just angry that I'm not playing rockabai at the show. And I, and I'm like, you know, I'm sorry you bought the wrong concert ticket. But then I was like, this is disappointing these girls. I mean, these people, they're like, they're genuinely, they showed up to hear one song and then find out that they're not going to get to hear that song. I'm like, you know, I'm not going to let that go down that way. And I called Sean and I was like, hey, I'm going to start playing Rockabai. He's like, good. I'm going to start playing I'll be because he was having the exact same problem. And then I said, oh, and by the way, I'm signing your name to stuff too, just to make it

easier. Because like, I'm just like, like, seriously. And he was like, okay, good. So we literally went through a phase where we were just playing each other stuff. I had his CD. That was a great record. Man, I've really enjoyed sitting down and talking. You're a hell of a storyteller. I want to thank you for being so transparent in telling your story. I don't know how often you get asked to relive some of the more tougher moments. I'm glad you're out having fun. I'm glad you're making another run at it. I think it's fun. for us as fans of yours to see you put a new project together and go out there and try to score that touchdown in the fourth quarter.

Well, and I wanted my kids, you know, they're at that age where I wanted them to see, you know, I'm going to go out here and leave it all out on the field. It doesn't matter what happens. Yeah. Because what matters is that you try as hard as you can, right? And because for years, they just see, they've seen me work and do my thing. And I don't think it really occurred to them until they came to the Opry. They were like, wait a minute.

This is like a, this was a real, this is a real thing. Because they, you know, they're just like, there he is in the excavator again. But after watching, when you started this, you know, your willingness to dive in to all the real things and heal some, some wounds. and, you know, reach out and talk. I was like, man, what an ambassador you've become for this sport. And just for people in general, right? And I was like, you know. And I know, and I've always been, I've always tried to be super respectful of what you did

and what y'all did and not blow your phone up. Well, I wish you hadn't because we could have become even better. friends. Well, now, we'll have to spend more time together. But I always kind of, I always gave everybody's face because it's like Darius. So Darius and our lifelong friends, but the way I show my appreciation to him is I just don't blow his phone up because he's just draped in people busy all the time, right? And so, um, he knows, you know, if we, if, if I do get in touch, it's something important or it's something fun or, you know, one of those things. Yeah. Where can people see you now? We'll be on tour.

with train this summer and doing headline shows. But the good news is you can check edwin.com because that's the what that's basically what I do. That has all the information of everywhere you're going to be playing. Everywhere I'm planning. I know you're coming back through South Carolina this summer, I believe, for back to the windjamer. Yeah. It's great place.

Got to play the jammer. Oh yeah. You're going to be there? I probably will. Sweet. But I'm thankful for you, man. I'm thankful that you're out grinding. And all the guys that I have on the show that are no longer full-time,

the ones that still pittal or still race here or race there, I love it because I don't want to see them stop. I don't want to stop. You know, I swore I wasn't going to mention this because it's embarrassing for all my real racer friends, but you know I was racing Spec Miata, like hardcore, like SCCA racing. When? Right before I adopted my son, I was all about it, right? Just stupid stuff in those cars, because there's a million of those races all the time.

And then I got all into NASCAR 4 and was racing the Sim races. And I was blowing Michael's phone up and Skinner's phone up trying to get setups to the tracks. I'm like, dude, I need the Watkins Glenn set up. Well, it doesn't translate to the game. Just give me the setup. The Italian guys are killing me And they're going to be online at like 1 a.m. I got to get the setup.

Did you get sucked into that? Yes, of course you did. I would have had the setups that you needed. Yes. Did people know that they're racing you and they're on there? On there you have to use. Well, back then I think we had different names. You had to type in the things.

The one thing that we didn't get to that I wanted to talk to you about, maybe for the next visit. Okay. was you did a pilot show about you fixing a boat. Flipping ships. Yeah, yeah. Did you finish? So, yeah, yes.

What kind of boat? No, no, no. So that boat, I, oh, God. I actually finally had to tap out. What kind of boat are we talking about? It was an old Hatteras. What year? A 60s era, 68.

Super old, yeah. Yeah, but the hull is like three inches thick. You could drive this thing onto a beach and push it off with a bulldozer, and it would not be hurt at all. And the problem is, the whole reason why I even started that was because I got the boat for almost nothing. And I believe I can do anything, right?

So why wouldn't I start with like a bass boat? Let's restore a bass boat. Let's not start with a 50 foot, 40,000 pound. And this thing needed everything. I mean, I pulled the Detroit's out of there. We rebuilt them. We did all this stuff. I mean, we did so much stuff, and I still had three years worth of stuff to do.

And I finally, about a year ago, somebody made me an offer on it, and I typed out. I finally was like, I got to stop this because this is madness. But you shot a pilot for it. I shot a pilot, but that turned into an animal planet show where we were restoring. And I wanted it to be about this one boat because I was like, I can get animal planet to pay for this boat. it's going to kill me. And they turned it into, well, can we do different boats? And I was like, you know, the only answer is yes.

Like, sure, we can do whatever you want. And so it turned into this thing. And but more than that, what it turned into was there was a character on the show named Wayne. And I've known Wayne for, he's a wrench thrower. You know those, you know, you know what I'm talking about? The guy that gets mad at you and actually throws wrenches. Yeah.

Right. So, and Wayne was, he was born in Pumpkin Town with Spina Bifida, and you'd never know it. He had this outsized personality, and he kind of, you know, it was, he seemed like the crazy hillbilly, you know, and he's so funny. He's just, you never know what he's going to say. And Duck Dynasty was on at the time, and I was like, Wayne, Wayne's 10 times funnier. I mean, they waited until they get a load of Wayne. Right. Like, Wayne's the kind of guy, like, somebody in his neighborhood complained about his flower beds.

So he started mowing his grass naked. And then they just never complained again. But he's like, you know, he helps people. He's loud and crazy, but he's such a good-hearted dude. And I wanted to tell his story, right? Because I think it's important for people to see past, you know, that at the initial facade and and and i had i didn't get enough time to really tell the story of wayne but he was you know he he he's one of a kind and you know i mean you know you have character

i know you have characters uh and especially in the in this world um but that was sort of the kind of the the reasoning behind and after doing television it was one of those things i always wanted to know what doing television would be like and i'll never do you Yeah, me and Amy flipped a house in Key West and did a show. And that was a lot of work. It was immense. And so now, and it screws up television for you. I've never sweated that much in my life.

And I drove race cars that are 150 degrees inside. I sweated in my pants. And then you'd get something done and they go, and you have to do it five more times. Oh, yeah. And I'd- You would tile a floor, worked your ass off, and they'd go, hey, could you pretend to put that piece down there? And I'm like, where the hell were you for the last three hours?

I've been down here putting all these little pieces down here. Because they needed to get a different angle, a close-up of a thing. So now when you went, and it ruined TV for me, because every time we're watching TV and you see a camera angle change, I'll turn to my wife and go, that took four hours. Yeah. From that shot to this shot, that was four hours. There was four hours, and people yelled at each other. There were some tears.

Yeah. Like, honestly, it was a. It was an absolute revelation for, and I have so much more respect for actors, because you have no idea what they go through to just get a shot. Just to get a scene. Oh, yeah, I don't have that. I'm not made like that. I'm like, let's do it once and get it done.

For sure. Yeah. Well, man, it's been fun. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Edwin McCain on the Dale Jr. Download. Edwin McCain has left the building

That was a lot of fun I know that a lot of people recognize Edwin and a lot of people that listen to this podcast Our demographic for sure has heard his music And You probably knew a little bit about the fact that he

was connected to the NASCAR industry Through some great friendships that he mentioned and told that story, but I knew that he had gotten, um, kind of gotten himself a little upside down. I wasn't sure how bad it was or whatever. And I knew that he had sobered up and I knew and I saw him over the last 20 years that he had changed some things around in his life that, um, he'd made some new decisions.

Uh, but, uh, yeah, to his point, like, then he disappeared, you know? He went home, hung out, was a family man, a dad. And then I saw him. about six months ago at a concert and he happened to be hanging out at a at a friend's house on the in in the neighborhood and he texts me and he goes hey man I'm playing tonight yeah man think about going over and seeing it he goes hey I'm over such a such as his house right now if you want to come say hey so me and amy walked over there and sit down and hung out about a couple hours before he went to the went to the windjammer and played and so I'd always wanted to be

better, closer friends with him. And we had hung out a time or two just because we happened to be at the same place at the same time because of Michael Walter or Jimmy Johnson or some other reason. But we never became like buddies that were texting each other back and forth. And I kind of regret that that never happened.

And I was, he's kind of like me, I think. Like he didn't want to get in the way. I didn't want to get in his way. I was always, I was not. never the kind of person to, you know, get somebody's phone number that was a famous musician or something and then start just talking to them like they were my buddy. You know, if it didn't come naturally or just didn't happen organically, I just didn't let it happen. And a lot of times when it came to people of fame, I was almost, I didn't feel worthy of, you know, engaging and

communicating with them a lot of times. So, um, That was a different time back then. I mean, I was full of myself, but at the same time, not very, very insecure, you know. Anyways, enough about me. That was a great conversation. Edwin, thank you for, you know, just coming in strong and being open to telling your story. It was, I'm so thankful that he's in the shape he's in today, that he's the person he is today. I knew when I met him, he was a good soul.

And that never was lost, right? You know, he got into some bad habits, but that good, good dude and good person was always in there. And that's, you know, that's probably why him and Michael got along so well. Michael probably saw that same thing. But it's awesome to seem thriving today. and I'll definitely catch another show or two for the end of the year. I hope you all enjoyed it.

He's a great storyteller, and there's a lot more to it that we didn't even get to. I hardly looked at the notes, honestly. And he had a ton of stuff to talk about saying the national anthem at Gillette Stadium for the ASC championship game between the Patriots and the Steelers in 2017. He's involved. with organizations like the Meyer Center for Special Children and Project Host.

Very charitable guy. And so it's a lot of things we didn't get to that I regret that we didn't have the chance to talk about. But he's such a good storyteller and I didn't want to get in his way in some of the things and some of the directions he took us. But fun show. I think everybody who is still listening at this moment can say that. that it's definitely a good one for this year. And, yeah, we'll get to the white flag.

All right, it's time of the white flag. Monday, action is detrimental with Denny Hamelin came out. Denny, I'm telling you, man, it's the best show. Best show of the year. He really does a great job of telling us why he believes that the next-gen car struggles on the short tracks. It does. We're not going to argue that.

It does. And he will, he eloquently, in a very, you know, great way tells us what he thinks about that. And he takes no shots at anybody or NASCAR in general and just says, hey, here's what's going on. Here's what I think we could do. And we'll see. It's a complex situation. He understands the challenges ahead.

Great show anyways, if you haven't listened to it. We talked about it a lot yesterday in our dirty air segment, which, you know, we also had Kyle Larson and Ash Jr. is a great fun show. We did a little bit of dirty mowed dough as well And today Herman Strader in Speed Street Come out with Kenny Wallace and Kenny Schrader Kenny Schrader called me the other day Tell me how much fun he's having

Making this show with Kenny Wallace And I've talked to me and Kenny Schrader Have always been in touch But I'm actually talking to him more now because of this And I love that So I love that this show and this little arrangement Has brought us closer together And more communication between the two of us

Connor Daly does a great job Of telling us everything IndyCar because we love any car. We love that series and all the complex personalities involved, and Kyle Larson's getting ready to go do the double, so that'll be another great reason to tune in to Speed Street over the next several weeks. So also tomorrow we have Bless Your Heart. Amy and I will do another episode of that show.

We're having a blast. And, yeah, that'll be the weekend. Don't forget to shop at this website. shop.dirtymomedia.com. Shop.dotidemomedia.com. That's where you're going to find t-shirts, hoodies, hats from dirty-moe media stuff,

just dirty-modea-media branded stuff. And then you're going to find also specific podcast branded apparel. Door bumper clear, Padale Jr. download, Speed Street, action is detrimental. And even bless your heart. Amy herself.

I'm very proud of this. She herself has been working on the hats and the shirts and stuff for Bless Your Heart. And she's got some funny stuff coming out that is for the ladies. I'm very, very proud of that. Very proud of her. It's been a great week so far. We'll see you tomorrow with Bless Your Heart. Thank you.

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