The Joe Rogan Experience - #1087 - Sturgill Simpson

Episode Date: March 5, 2018

Sturgill Simpson is a Grammy Award-winning country music and roots rock singer-songwriter.

How long is it going to take me to get to LAX and what time should I be there? If you leave at 2, you have no problems at all. No problems. If you leave at 2, you're just going to coast in. Are we live? We're trying to figure out LA traffic, ladies and gentlemen. You've got to plan for that shit. You do, man. Like a natural disaster. In many ways.

When I moved to Colorado for just a few months and then came back here, it was instantaneous, the recognition of what effect it has on me you know like there's so many people you're driving it's like when you go somewhere where there's very few people you have there's a a real feeling of relaxation like it's legitimate it's real yes yeah it's almost like if you could buy that like uh yeah man i'm i'm taking this gum that puts you in a small town feel. Like a woodsy Colorado feel, going through evergreen, looking at the mountains. You can buy that. You just have to get out of California.

Yeah, for sure. But I was just thinking if you had a pill, a pill that did that, that would be a really expensive pill or a patch or some gum, you know, like nicotine gum, some, some, you know, peace and quiet gum transport you to the wilderness. How much would people pay for that? Right. Like think about the people that buy Xanax and shit and just anything. Just take a little bit of the edge off. Just take, take this edge off.

I don't know. I would, uh, I'd probably just buy it and smoke it yeah and smoke the shit out of that right but then would you be happy like

living in downtown LA in some graffiti covered building hearing the horns go off constantly I love the weather here I do I think that's why

I have to come out for work or anything else I never mind because everyday it's perfect except I've been here for like four days and it's rained

most of the time so it's my luck but uh LAie's beautiful you just basically i think you just sort of accept that you're gonna live in your car right you're gonna be in your car a lot you're gonna be in your car so everybody has nice cars that's why everybody drives nice cars in la it's also because we're all really really shallow oh we want to show everybody. Like, look what I got, bitch. You know, there's a lot of that. I like cars. I do too. It's okay.

I think about your song when I drive my Bronco. You got a really nice Bronco. I unfortunately no longer have a Bronco. You need a Bronco in your life, man. Yeah, but then I'd have a second car. It took me five years just to buy my first car. Yeah, you're one of the minimalist type characters. Doesn't want to admit they're successful.

I understand. No, I got no problem admitting that. I think it's from living out of a bag most of my adult life. Right. And you start, you know, I had one guitar for the first two or three years I was on the road. Wow. And then one day you wake up and you have five guitars now. Do you have a thing where you're trying to make your guitars?

I don't really need all these guitars. I only need that one, maybe two guitars is good. But I feel like guitar makers must want to get you a guitar. Does that happen with musicians? Yeah. Actually, I got one Martin made for me, and that's kind of an honor, obviously. That's amazing. Yeah, really old old historic legacy company um but then yeah your buddies build them and that kind of most i've

always made my own out of parts like at least telecasters and stuff you can buy parts and assemble them uh just as good as anything coming out of like what like a custom shop might be for a fraction of the cost wow that i didn, I didn't know that was a thing. Maybe even build an instrument that is, you know, more comfortable to play because you're building to the exact specifics that maybe somebody doesn't mass manufacture. Well,

I guess if you know guitars as well as you know them and you've been around them your whole life, that totally makes sense. Like what it's wood and parts, right? If you know, Telecaster is basically this table bolted to a baseball bat cut in half. You know what I mean?

It's hard to fuck that up. So the rest of it is just electronics, and the pickups have a lot. And anything outside of that is just your fingers and who's actually holding the thing. But to build one is not that complicated. Wow. Now, a Les Paul or a Martin acoustic guitar, that's literally like a hand-shaped uh piece of work that has to be made from start to finish whereas you know the guitars i'm talking about building you're just assembling there's like parts that are yeah widely accessible i have a buddy that's a classical

guitarist that's an art that's yeah he's uh he always had his nails grow long when he'd do jujitsu dimitri shout out to my friend dimitri dichenko uh he had uh to tape over his uh fingernails like when he did jujitsu because he had claws claw bitches eyes out motherfuckers i mean he had he had ridiculous uh long nails and powerful nails too because he strummed with his nails like that's what he did like he did everything he did with his fingers he's amazing at it i mean just freaky amazing you'd watch him play and be like holy yeah you know some play live a bunch of times and he would do like people would hire him to do like parties and but it's like it's an art form that for whatever reason i don't think it's the kind of respect that it deserves

no flamenco and classical guitar players that's that's highly complex musicianship yeah and so he would always explain to me like guitars like how they were constructed and it's amazing to me that there he is that's dimitri that dude was the heavyweight on the taekwondo team that i was on when i was like a lightweight i was like 155 pounds and he was fighting heavyweight. That dude used to fuck people up. He's got those crazy Ukrainian genes where he's just got giant hammers. He's chicken picking there.

That's like... Oh, he's a bad motherfucker. Yeah. Now, I don't know shit about guitar. I know it sounds awesome and I know that sounds awesome, but to you as a person who plays guitar... know shit about guitar. I know it sounds awesome, and I know that sounds awesome, but to you, as a person who plays guitar... That's country guitar.

That's what we call chicken picking. What he's doing on that classical guitar is pretty cool. He might as well be on lower Broadway right now. He's a bad motherfucker, right? Yeah, he's a bad motherfucker. For sure. And was Massachusetts State Taekwondo Heavyweight Champion. He also doesn't make silly faces.

I like that. He went on to compete after I stopped competing. He competed at a really high level nationally. Like, fought in some big national tournaments. So when he puts that guitar down, he's still a bad motherfucker. That's a legit bad motherfucker. He's a big boy, too. Like, he's a natural 220.

Like, the big Ukrainian rock people. They're just thicker people. They're rock people. They're just thicker people. They're rock people. They can pick rocks up and shit. Then on top of that, unbelievable guitarist. Crazy. How do you know him? We used to do Taekwondo together when we were kids.

When you were kids, okay. We started out together. I was like, I think he's a year younger than me. So I think I was like 15 or 16 when we met and he was like 14 was he was he like eight hours a day sitting home with his guitar like all this fucking discipline man i don't know if it's discipline so much as i think everybody that that plays music and that really gets into it that heavy there's like there's like a it's a it's an ocd you have to have a level of spectrum or to sit and just do the same thing over and over repetitively eight ten hours a day

especially as a kid when you're really learning you like when it gets you and you hook into it it's like you just it's this other thing that nobody else can be a part of you know what i mean i get it as an outsider i get it it's like you can do something, and once you start doing it, it must feel amazing to be doing it well. Yeah. Yeah, I played soccer and stuff when I was a kid, but I never was one of those guys that the team thing. I was always just introverted.

So when I really found guitar and got into it, I was like, oh, this is something I can – it's not a competition. really found guitar and got into it. It's like, oh, this is something I can, it's not a competition. It's not, you know, other than what you're pushing yourself to learn, I guess. Yeah, you don't have to rely on other people's personalities. Well, that's what bands are for, right?

Yeah, that's what I always thought about bands. Like, that's got to be the hardest part is everybody just being cool. Typically, that's... Crazy artists. Well, yeah, especially, I mean, it's really all about the hang more than anything i'm uh i'm down i got me and three other guys in my band now because it and it's like everybody's a great hang that's awesome everybody gets along and we're like

actually friends and you go out every night we're just like you know yeah if you could pull that off and it makes the road better like when i go on go on the road, I bring, like, Ian Edwards or Tony Hinchcliffe or any of my other friends that can do it. It's all, like, whether they're free that weekend. That's usually how I book it. Yeah, because you're going to be around these people for weeks, man. Oh, man, we have the best time. I don't do weeks. I just do a couple days at a time.

I never go on the road for more than a Thursday, Friday, Saturday anymore. I just stop doing it. Weekend warrior? Yeah. Really? And I only do it twice a week. Is that because of the kids and just being home? Yep.

I like being home. And also because I can practice. Travel makes you old? Well, it's just not good for you. It's just not good for you. So it's all those things. I like being around my family. I like being at home.

I like being around my friends. And also, I just don't think it's a healthy thing i think travel on occasion is okay but i think once you start getting into like every weekend flying i've heard of people doing that and i'm like you're beating your body up yeah there's no there's no ifs ands or buts about it well it's it's it's one of the the best things about certainly my job and your job, you get to go out and perform and entertain. But since things sort of took off, for me, I realized very early on,

I get paid to travel. The shows are free. That shit's fun. You know what I mean? We're out there doing what we love to do. But it's all the in-between and the beat down your body takes and being out of any kind of routine away from your family that's that's the really the thing that you come off for like four or five weeks straight of that and you know i'm a pretty healthy 39 year old dude

and it takes me four or five days just to get off the fucking couch yeah after a month-long run and my wife she finally started to understand like it's because you're the travel you know it's because you're the travel. You know, it's a different kind of exhaustion you can't really articulate, I think. There's the travel. There's the sleeping. Because usually you've got to get up. If you're doing it every day, too, are you bussing it or are you flying?

We're on buses mostly, unless it's like the logistics is just crazy. But, you know, you've still got to be there. So you might bus part of it. and then one night you're flying everybody, or a red hour the next morning, do that thing, and then get back to the bus or meet up with the bus. What helps me is cardio. Like whenever I go to a place, if I just, I don't want to. I feel like shit.

I'm like, oh, fucking tired. But if I could just force myself to get to the gym and just do like 45 minutes on an elliptical machine, just that 45 minutes out of the day, just that's what I'm doing period nothing else put the headphones on listen to a podcast listen and just get that 45 minutes of cardio and then i'm good then i'm straight then everything levels out but if i don't do that if i don't do that every couple of days at least i just feel worn out i think it's also an endorphin imbalance like my uh my buddy bobby that plays organ but he works out like a madman i mean like it's kind of insane you guys would get along

uh i mean i think a lot of that is to balance out you know just energy because every night when you go out and do we get two hours of cardio right on stage and just massive adrenaline blast especially when it really locks in and there's all this energy just slamming you in the face and then you walk off stage and it takes like four or five hours to come down from that every night. Yeah. And then so, you know, and the next day now your shit has to be off balance naturally, you know what I mean?

Just like you just had this massive blast of all these chemicals that your brain's pumping out, endorphins, and now the next day you're just like waking up trying to figure out where to take a shit and get a cup of coffee and is there a shower today you know yeah and it gets weird when you do a bunch of them in a row right like how often you wake up and stare at the ceiling not exactly remembering what town you're in um not well that never happens i never have you know because i like i'm always staying a week or two i guess the adventure the journey so to speak but uh i do wake up sometimes and just sort of well honestly it's bittersweet because the longer you're out the more you're playing and the better the music gets so you know by the last by the last show, there's always this really like,

man, you know, I'm exhausted. I really want to go home, but I can't believe this. We got to take a break now because everything just got super greasy, you know? Right. It's different every night, but you just, the chemistry and everything,

and you lock in and you kind of get in that head. Yeah, I could imagine that. A comedy is very similar. It's very similar when you're doing like a long stretch I only did it once with Charlie Murphy and John Heffron we did this little tour together. It's the only time I've done like 30 days where I did like 22 dates where I was just constantly out

I was only home for a day or two and then let's back out again But you get grew you get in that groove you just get where you just relaxed. Yeah, I've been doing a lot You feel it you get on this non-existent clock yeah it's a it's a it's a it's a routine of no routine is how i describe it every day is the same but completely different um but i don't mind it man like a lot of times it feels like i'm just back in the navy because we still sleep in bunks on the bus yeah you know we go out to sea for like 90 days and shit. That's probably way better for you psychologically when you go on stage than if you're staying in some giant suite. You're walking around the suite and you've got grapes on a plate.

I can't do the hotel rooms, man. I get it. You know, when you start it out and you start going on, you play like festivals or shows with your heroes and they're on buses before you are. And you go on and you talk to these guys and you realize like they live in this thing. They're institutionalized in the back of this bus and they never get off the bus. You're like, I don't get it. And then it happens to you and you realize that that's like this little safe space, like a hotel room overnight for me.

I'll go crazy waiting for a show. You're like caged up in this little box you know with cable tv and nobody to talk to and i got soured on buses when they pulled over willie and arrested him for weed on his bus that guy should have been demoted man like for sure like for sure you got willie on a pot charge good for you sherlock how dare you whoever you are there's things you just gotta let slide. I was in Texas too, right? Yep. Texas doesn't play when it comes to weed.

Unfortunately. It's really silly. If it did, it would change Texas. It'd make it better. I could relax some of those fucking cowboys. Settle down. And why are you saying it shouldn't be legal, stupid? That's crazy. The fact that that's still an argument in 2018.

You know what they said? Here's a funny one. One of the most recent arguments that I've read was that more pedestrians were walking out into traffic because of legal weed and dying. So, like, there's been uptick everywhere. I shouldn't laugh at that. That's rude. It could be me. Right?

It could be me. Why am I laughing? It was almost me this morning. Yeah. I'm an asshole. I'm sorry. I apologize. But I thought it was pretty funny, this idea that there's an uptick in people just walking out into cars, getting hit by cars because they're just spacing out because they're high. I think it should be legal just because I'm from Kentucky. And if they gave all those farmers and, you know, ex-coal industry employees

an industry that would really thrive since it grows extremely well in Kentucky, you know, instead of soybeans and tobacco, those guys could actually generate an income. What do you think is holding it back? For their family, community, politics. Actually, that's not true. Mitch McConnell,

or somebody, some like really staunch right-wing guy in Kentucky came out and was even pushing for legislation towards at least the hemp industry, which would be incredible. Yeah, the hemp industry is a no-brainer. You can look at the tax numbers alone. Well, you know, we buy hemp for on it. And for the longest time, we've had to buy it in Canada because you couldn't get it in the United States because until recently it wasn't legal to grow. And so to get like the best stuff that has the highest protein content,

we'd have to fucking ship it in from Canada. You can't even grow it here. Now you can. But when, I mean, when did we start on it? That's not that long ago. I want to say like seven years ago, something like that. So that was like one of the first things that we did is make a really good hemp protein powder.

And when we were looking into it, we were like, I can't even believe that you can't grow this. It doesn't do anything to your consciousness. Zero. It doesn't affect you at all because it's related to pot. It's illegal. It's insane. The National Hemp Museum is in Versailles, Kentucky. Is it really? is in uh versailles kentucky isn't really where i graduated high school because it's

woodford county kentucky was at one point the largest hemp producing county in the entire nation whoa it just i don't know something about the limestone the soil conditions the humidity sunlight oh shit pot and hemp grows really really well wow the first legal 508-acre hemp farm in Kentucky unveiled. So now it's legal? In October. Oh, wow. So now they can grow it. Excellent.

Beautiful. I don't live there anymore, so I'm out of touch. But hey. That's great news. That's fantastic news. That's amazing. We were just talking about something that I was going to bring up. Oh, shit.

I can't remember. Something about new... Mr. Nelson. Something new stuff that had to do with legalization. Marijuana in Kentucky is what we were just talking about. Yeah. It's just pretty crazy that you'd have a hemp museum and have it be illegal for so long with no argument. There's no science.

It doesn't pollute anything. It doesn't do anything to the environment. The nation was basically built on it. Yeah. Everything was made out of that shit. Did you ever see the first Henry Ford Model T where he made the fenders out of hemp? And he's hitting it with a hammer? I did not know that.

Dude, you've got to watch this. We'll play this for you. It's the craziest shit ever. Henry Ford's very first car that he made, he made the fenders out of hemp. And you're watching him hit this fucking fender with a hammer, and the hammer's just bouncing off the fender. Check this out. This is crazy.

I mean, I don't know. When was this? What did it say, Jamie? What was the time it said there? It was 1941. 1941. So in 1941, before it was illegal, so it was made illegal right around the time where

alcohol prohibition had ended and they needed something to go after so then they started using the same guys to go after weed and this was pre that look at this he's hitting this fucking thing with a the back of an axe and it's just bouncing off it was also a great way to discriminate against mexican immigrants it was and black people too the whole name marijuana came from a mexican slang for wild tobacco didn't have anything to do with marijuana they just created this thing like when they made it illegal the people that were they didn't even understand they're making hemp illegal they had all they had to explain it to everybody then they were they had like tax stamps that you had to explain it to everybody. They had tax stamps that you had.

I bet DuPont understood that. Oh, they understood the fuck out of it. So did William Randolph Hearst. That guy was the craziest. The guy who Citizen Kane was based on? Rosebud. That guy was the craziest. So here it is.

This guy's hitting this hemp fender with a fucking hammer. Henry Rollins testing it. Henry Rollins, godins god damn it look you barely smudge the thing i mean they're so superior to metal and it's easy it's a renewable resource like we're we've fucked this up so bad it's so obvious it's one of the biggest exam people said why are you droning on about pot all the time it's because these things like that are one of the biggest exam- and people say, why are you drone on about pot all the time? It's because these things like that are one of the biggest examples of just how egregious making it illegal is. It is a- it's one of the most amazing plants we've ever discovered. You can make your house out of it. You can fucking eat at it. You can get high with it.

You can make your clothes with it. It has all the amino acids. You could use it for heating oil. What? You can treat cancer patients. You can treat cancer patients with it. It's here for, I mean, somebody put it here. Come on. Come on. Come on.

Right? It helps reduce tumor size. It's crazy. Helps a host of different diseases. I know a lot of people that have, like, serious inflammation problems. They smoke some weed and they're all right. Just lightens everything up. And it's illegal.

And you can grow it. You can grow your own. You can grow a shit ton of it in your backyard. Anybody could. Do you have a sprinkler? Okay. You got some good dirt? All right.

You got some weed. That weed's just good to go. That's a fucking hardy-ass plant. Yeah, my grandmother, she just had some health stuff. And it's like, you know, how do I, you know, she's pretty old school. Knowing there's this thing out there that isn't anything that these doctors are going to offer her that's just going to make her feel awful. Yeah. And, you know, or have to go through all of that.

If something would just give you comfort or ease nausea or make you want to eat food or those kind of things, like why wouldn't you want someone you love and care about to have that? But then at the same time, you know, you don't want to be the person trying to feed pot to your grandmother. Yeah, it's a hard sell. It's a hard sell it's a hard sell yeah it's just stunning how well propaganda from 1933 carried all the way the to 2018. it's stunning is it i mean but it years. Yeah. With what we, like the amount of information that you can get on a subject now, like say if you're, the medical benefits of cannabis, just Google that. And you'll just start reading all this shit.

Like, it seems to me that enough people would go, wait, what are we doing? Like, why is it illegal? Nobody's died from it. Like, no one. More people die of aspirin every year. Because zero die from pot. So, it's really, the number's zero. It doesn't mean that people aren't going to get year because zero die from pot. So it's really the number zero. It doesn't mean that people aren't going to get high and walk out of traffic.

Some are going to. But I think part of that is because we're not teaching people how to get high properly. Someone gets high for the first time, you let them take 10 hits. I wonder how many of those people that are getting hit by cars are actually looking at their phones. Could be a lot. They were high and looking at their phones. You don't see that here like you do in Nashville. I drive around.

I can't hate that. I'm just driving around town. Everybody's texting. Everybody's looking down. You can always spot them on the interstate. Yep, weaving. But you don't see that in California. You guys have really heavy laws about it.

Saw it today. Yeah? Saw it today. Some lady had drifted completely in my lane, and I looked over at her, and I saw the back of her head. I was on her driver's side. I was on that side looking over at her and I saw the back of her head. I was on her driver's side. I was on that side looking over at her and all I saw was the back of her head. She literally was looking at my car

and she was just looking at her phone and working her thumb and occasionally looking up at the screen or looking up at the windshield. I was like, whoa, you crazy lady. You think just because you're going 40 miles an hour, that's okay because you're on a side street? You're not even looking where you're going. You're driving a car.

What if you hit a kid? Jesus Christ. Fuck. What if you slam into some old lady? You know? What if you rear-end a bike? You're not even looking. You didn't even notice the bike was there.

Boom. You run over some guy's leg. What in the fuck, lady? Or dude. Maybe I was misgendering. I don't know. I don't know what her status is. bike was there boom you run over some guy's leg what in the fuck lady or dude maybe i was misgendering i don't know i don't know what her status is you gotta be real careful today sturgill man is it like that in nashville is everybody like super i don't know bro i don't leave the house i really don't have any idea i just sort of i think that's a good move um yeah you know i like my kids um i mean i'm somewhat aware of everything going on it's

surprising that none of that's really hit the music business as hard as it is but um uh there's just yeah i try to just do my thing yeah there's a weird weird world we're living in today i would like uh i would like us to figure this out better i would like us to do just a little bit better job being nice to each other getting our shit together so weird weird time it's real weird everybody's looking to argue strangest times on in my lifetime which isn't that long, but that I can recall, I don't ever remember things ever being like whatever this is. You know? Yeah. And I don't mean that in any generalized middle of the road.

It's like crazy shit with superpowers talking about nuclear bombs all the time every day now. And it's just like, how did we get back there right you know yeah how do we get back to putin telling us that he has some new nuclear missile that you can't defend against like yeah 1500 meter tsunami wave of apocalyptic death that thing could bomb out it's yeah why the fuck man and we don't have a defense system that can deal with it so he's basically saying i could kill you i have a defense system that can deal with it. So he's basically saying, I could kill you. I have a gun pointed at your head. I could kill you. Anytime.

Welcome to 2018. Oh, yeah. Donald Trump's president. I did that, too, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, man. It's terrifying. It's definitely cause for concern.

All this while pot's illegal. Pot's illegal, but it's legal to have a guy who is the host of The Apprentice run the nuclear armament. Or armory. You'd say armory, right? You know, I got in some trouble a few months ago because I did this. I had nothing to do one night and I went down. The whole thing was just a protest kind of based on answering questions. That was just the promise I made.

This buddy of mine, he videotaped it, and he had a press pass, so they couldn't tell us to turn the camera off. Somebody asked me, what do you think about Trump? And I answered it. What they didn't ask, what do you think of all politicians? You know what I mean? Right. To me, nothing ever really changes.

Right, left, this or that. It's all just sort of a different version of the people you never really see. We can't have an alpha chimp. It's a stupid position. We shouldn't have it anymore. We shouldn't have had it a long time ago. We should have figured out a long time ago that you can't have one person run the whole show it's insane it doesn't work it's crazy for them too it's not good for anybody it's not we

we can't pretend anymore that one person is special above other people like royalty doesn't work anymore it doesn't work we're all just people it doesn't work and you can't get voted into the number one person on the world. That's fucking ridiculous. Apparently you can. You can, but you shouldn't be able to. It's too old. It's too antiquated. And there's way better options. There's just way better options. You can't have all of us,

and you can't have some arbitrary date where everybody has to decide by. The presidential election should not be an episode of The Voice, is that what you're saying? Exactly. Well, it's got a time. But everything's an episode of The Voice now, man. That's just how it works. Or American Idol or something like that. There's a buzzer. It's got a time. But everything's episode of The Voice now, man. That's just how it works.

Or American Idol or something like that. There's a buzzer. It's all a big contest. You win the trophy. When you vote, there's a buzzer. The buzzer's over. You can't vote anymore, right? Right.

The votes are in. That's it. And the drum roll, please. I mean, it's showbiz. I don't know, man. It doesn't make any sense. I mean, I guess it does because then people could arbitrarily decide to remove a leader and put a leader back in. And you would just be able to vote and change your mind with the tide, like constantly.

But that's one more reason why we shouldn't have one person. It's stupid. Should have, first of all, we've got to overhaul the way we teach kids. We got to have more informed people. Then once you have more informed people, you let them in on what the fuck we should do. We all decide as a group, like the way they do it now, the way they do it now is just, it's, it's bullshit. It's fake. Like you're pretending that you have a choice. You do have a choice. You have a choice between this guy or that guy neither one you like so pick it but both of them are embedded in all the special interest groups and all the lobbyists it was

supposed to be a republic it was always supposed to be about the people yeah and by the people for the people now i don't yeah it's it's been co-opted by money it's real simple big pharma and all companies i don't know well the amount of people that are allowed to spend millions and millions of dollars to prop up politicians it's like why would we let that happen on both sides on both sides why would we let that happen that seems crazy that seems like any other job where you were in a position of influence over someone else's job you wouldn't be able to take money from that person to make sure that you did the right thing that would be called bribery right i don't know i mean it is like bribery they do it right they do do it but they get in big like

here's one they get in real big trouble for here's one that i think is interesting. Trump recently did something about steel, about bringing steel back to the United States and steel manufacturing back in the United States. But before he did it, one of his homies bought a shitload of stock in steel, like one of his super rich dudes. And so then the question is, hey, should he have been allowed to do that? Isn't that insider trading? And you're like, wait a minute. You can't just know shit? If I know shit, what what am i supposed to do i'm not supposed to buy stock like well then if you do know shit and you buy stock is that fair that doesn't seem fair what's the answer there the answer is the system sucks you got a wacky ass fucking crazy system that all your money's based on where people just buy and say sell parts of companies

Yeah, we're all I think the Chinese pretty much bought all the steel companies Right so while but they were smart enough to say oh you don't want that okay Nobody's ever gonna go back though once you can make money off the stock market fuck that I'm making money off moving numbers around on My computer fuck you. I'm staying do you play you play it no it's just terrifying terrifying no way no get the fuck out of here with that i've i've gained and lost before i was a victim of a pump and dump scheme i get nervous at the wheel of fortune dollar slots man in vegas you know what i mean much less you should those are dangerous okay they lure you in i'm down 19 i gotta get the fuck out of here i was a victim of a pump and dump scheme.

This dude told me to buy this stock. He's like, dude, I'm telling you, the stock's about to blow up. The guy was a Coke dealer, so I knew he was honest. Trustworthy, easy to listen to. I didn't know he was a Coke dealer at the time. I just thought he was a comic. And so he would tell me about the stock, and we bought into it. I don't think I bought that much, but it was like a few thousand dollars,

which is not that big of a deal. If you're, you know, looking at the greater spectrum of how much money people lose in the stock market, that's a, I lost nothing. I mean, people lose their whole, their whole life savings, their fortune, their, their, what they've inherited. People can lose it like that in the stock market. So we bought in me and and my business manager, and it went up for a little while. It went up because more people were telling more people to buy it. And then it just crashed. And when I mean it crashed, it just went through the floor like it didn't exist anymore. It was like it went from, I forget what the number was, but it was like in the many dollars down to like a fraction of a cent or a cent or three cent or something like that it went down to virtually worthless and we're like oh we got pump and dumped like that's what they do they pump it up they get a bunch of people to join and

then once a bunch of people are buying this stock they're like abandon ship and I got fucked I remember shooter going on about years ago all about the Bitcoin shit man yeah yeah you get hung up on the bitcoin for a minute i wish i wish i'd listened he loves that shit he he's um he's a a bitcoin believer yeah i'm a bitcoin this is me i'm like i don't understand that and i probably never will so i'm gonna stay over here yeah it's a good move i just every uh it feels a little like a little pyramid scheming does it i don't know i mean it's it's nervous it makes us nervous at this point in my life i just assume everything is a pyramid scheme it's always like a trickle of you know yeah if it could be proven to be as stable or more stable than money, I think we just go for it.

That's what I think. I think, why fuck around? Why use all these old, crazy, rich banker dudes' money when you could just do nerd money? Just digital nerd money. All it would take is people having to agree to it, right? That's all it would take. If everybody just agreed to just use Bitcoin. Or if everybody agreed to an implant that had all your info on it and all your money.

Don't you do that, Stargell. Cool. Walk into your movie, man. That's coming. Yeah, someone's going to give you the benefits of it. If you just put this in your dick, first of all. They just haven't inserted it yet, but we all have one. Yeah, they haven't turned it on yet we all have one you know yeah they haven't

turned it on yet it's in your pocket not your wrist yeah well some people it's on their wrist too i was i was texting one night with the guys in the band this was what really scared the shit i mean i got i got off social media a while back completely again i tried twitter again i probably told jason isabella give it a second shot but i realized my kids are way more interesting and like i'm trying you know i just rather be writing a song or doing something else. But one night, we all had a group text going on, and somebody said something. There was a lot of 80s film buffs in our band,

and somebody made a Jean-Claude Van Damme reference. And dude, five minutes later, I'm not in any way exaggerating this. My wife and I are sitting there watching TV, surfing Netflix, and instantly it's like my entire channel is full of Jean-Claude Van Damme selections. And I'm just like, what in the fuck is going on? I've never watched a Jean-Claude Van Damme film ever on Netflix. And now there's all this. It's like somehow that got cross-marketed to my television set

just because I'm on my telephone talking about this fucking guy freaked me out man I was like no more I'm dumping everything dude I've heard people tell me that they were having conversations on the phone with someone and then what they were talking about showed up in their google ads on their on their laptop how does that work how does that work I have no idea are they listening constantly something says yes yeah Edward Snowden says yes but that but the fact that it shows up in your Google Ads isn't that a little fucking obvious I mean that hasn't happened to me do you think that's real 100% 100% Jamie's looking Lee he looks like he should have a guy Fox mask now. Slip on one of them fucking anarchist masks.

Look at him. Definitely. He's smiling over there. 100%. They're listening to us. God damn it. Gmail's free for a reason, you know. Boom.

What, so they can read it? Definitely. Yeah, they're reading everything. Wow. It all makes sense now. That's intense. Now I'm freaking out, Jamie. Thanks.

Thanks, buddy. Fuck my head up, man. Here to help. Is that okay? Who signed off on that? How many people have ever read those terms of agreement? I don't. Have you ever? That's what I think.

When you buy the Alexa, you're just like, yes. You're buying it. Those people are crazy. Having those things in your house that you talk to and it listens to everything. Fuck all that. That just seems like too hackable. It's all weird, man.

And by the way, this is just the first drops of water that's going through before our roof collapses. Because it's coming. Or, you know, all cars now, automotive bills, it's all's it's coming or you know all cars now automotive bills it's all you know electronic systems and gps yeah i'm not a techie guy so excuse me if this is a really ignorant question but like what's to stop somebody from hacking into your car and crashing you into a fucking wall well that was always the case against michael or the death of against the death of the guy they said the cia yeah yeah i. Well, they don't know if the CIA or who, you know. But he wrote a story for Rolling Stone.

He was embedded in Iraq or Afghanistan, I forget. And he wrote a story about this general. It was very unflattering. And what happened was he got stuck there with them. And he lived with these people for a long time. And they let their guard down. And, you know, they said a bunch of shit they would say around each other they made a movie about it didn't they i don't know did they i don't know i don't know about that maybe they might have but this general uh apparently got

fired he was one of the best generals that you know it was like very highly ranked and um very really respected by the troops and people were were really, really pissed at this guy. And he was starting to say that he was in danger, that his life was in danger. And I think he even said something about if for whatever reason he committed suicide that he didn't do it. And he was driving his car and he drove straight into a tree over 100 miles an hour. I think it was on sunset. His car exploded. Engine flew from the car like crazy, horrific shit.

And then afterwards they talked to these computer experts. And they said, well, is it possible to take a modern automobile with all sorts of, there's all sorts of devices inside modern cars that make them hit the brakes if you're getting too close to something or literally move out of a lane. Some of them have automatic pilot so you could just fucking press the destination and it just navigates there. I mean, that's what a Tesla does.

I saw a lot of those in Pittsburgh. I was there some weeks back. Teslas are crazy. They have the self-driving Ubers out there. And they're getting better and better and better at that. Man. That's... I don't know.

I mean... Where do you go from here? Next thing you know, they'll be trying to shoot humans through pneumatic tubes or something, you know? But you think that people who kill people literally for a profession, right? Professional soldiers, especially the ones that this guy... or something you know but you think that's people who kill people literally for a profession right professional soldiers especially the ones that this guy mean embedded in combat mm-hmm I don't think it's outside the realm

possibility that they would light that guy up for getting that general booted out right I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility at all they would think that guy's the enemy and they said that he had amphetamines in his system and for a while i was like oh he had amphetamines maybe he's going crazy then i realized that almost all journalists are taking fucking adderall right they're all taking amphetamines you'll find it amphetamines and meth like substances and all of them not all of them don't get mad if you're straight you're like dude all i drink is coffee don't be a dick but a lot of them i have many friends that are writers or journalists i can think of two journalists that are friends of

mine that both take a lot of they love that shit good buddy of mine who's a doctor was just telling me that when he was in college and he was going through uh all the examinations his friends started taking adderall and he recognized this giant jump in their performance. And he was like, what the fuck? He goes, they were smoking me in the grades. And I realized, oh, these guys are on PEDs. I never did it. I've never tried it.

Want to try it right now? Not really. You and me together? No, I kind of like to be down here. You know what I mean? I've never understood that. I guess it never appealed to my disposition. I don't think I would function.

If you wanted to build a log cabin right now. Right now. It might be the way to go. Right. Well, they said when Jack Kerouac rode on the road, he was, they were on a lot of Benzedrine or like this inhalant things they used to buy. And he sat down and wrote the whole thing in like three days. Jesus Christ.

Or maybe a day. I can't remember. I don't remember. I'm not a beat aficionado, but I know that he was hopped out of his mind on speed and wrote the whole dang thing like in a scroll on a roof in Mexico while Ginsburg was probably downstairs molesting a little kid or some shit. I don't know. Jesus. That's a dark picture.

Right? There used to be, what do you got there, Jamie? How a generation of beat writers burnt out on speed. Wow. There was a big pool scene in the 1970s. Everybody was on speed back then. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Pool players.

That was the thing with pool players back then, is that they would take speed and gamble. When people first found out about speed, it must have been the most amazing thing ever. Before they realized how it could wreck you, I mean, think about it. There's no speed, and then all of a sudden, 10, 20 years later, everyone's on speed. I mean, it happened out of nowhere. There wasn't a bunch of speed burnouts that everybody could look back on and go, oh, look at that guy over there, learn from him.

Especially like Adderall. There's no burnouts that everybody could like look back on and go oh look at that guy over there learn from him like especially like adderall like there's no there's no burnouts so everybody's just been taking it for a few years like how long has it been around 20 years as long as long as uh how long you think adderall's been around jamie yeah probably after ritalin probably right so yeah 15 15 20 years it was invented at the same time as gluten So, yeah, 15, 20 years max. 15, 20 years? It was invented at the same time as gluten. Kerouac took so much amphetamine when he first discovered the inhaler high that he lost most of his hair and his legs swelled up with, what is that word?

Thrombophlebitis. Thrombophlebitis. Wow. That seems like he went overboard. A little bit. Saying he went deep. You know, do you know who that beardy man guy is? He does electronic music.

He's like one of those, what do they call those? EM artists? What do they call them? EDM. EDM. What do they call those guys? You know those fellas? He's got a beard.

But he, Greg Fitzsimmons and I were going over Hunter S. Thompson's routine before he would write. And he would just start off early in the morning drinking Coke. The whole laundry list leading up to start work at midnight. Yeah, at midnight, Hunter S. Thompson is ready to write. I'm like, holy shit. But him, same thing, right? His body just gave out, man. His body was just falling apart by the time he's dying.

He just burnt that fucking thing to a crisp. Well, they didn't know what we know now. Damn. Those guys were riding the lightning, and they never thought there'd be any. Yeah, but I think with Hunter, it didn't matter whether or not he knew. He would have done the exact same thing anyway. He was of a mindset that he's not here for a long time. He's here for a good time.

Right. And that's what he did. And I mean, that's why people love that guy. It's one of the main, not just because of his brilliant writing, but because that motherfucker went for it. And then when it was all over, he said, yep, this ain't fun anymore. You take care. Put a gun to his head. And that's a wrap.

Told everybody he was going to do it too. Said, hey, I'm going to get to a point where I don't like fun anymore. You take care. Put a gun to his head. And that's a wrap. Told everybody I was going to do it, too. Said, hey, I'm going to get to a point where I don't like this anymore. I got fake hips now. Can't move. Always in pain. That's a wrap. Take care. Boom.

The second you can't walk up or down a few flights of stairs by yourself, that's kind of when it's over, you know. For a lot of people you know a lot of people manage to still find some reason to keep going and enjoy themselves and and you know and they're fine but it's like when you're a guy that's just still hitting it hard every day he never got he never sobered up there was no sobering up at what point though is that sad? Yeah. When is it? I mean, there's obviously a pretty inherent level of self-medication going on to get through the day so you don't wake up and blow your brains out. Right. You know. Yeah.

Maybe it was just me. I don't know. guy like him his his path was probably pretty clearly carved from the time he was very young he just he what I mean the thing that's so interesting about him is that he was so genuinely thoughtful like he really did think about he's one of the greatest writers of our time no question I'm Anna Anna Kentuckian so yeah there you go it's gotta be all right yeah I read a lot of it but I read it way too early because you know when you're I was one of those kids got just at older cousins you get exposed to all that shit yeah it was too soon you know probably high school when I read the campaign trail thing, the Nixon book.

Yeah. Yeah, that was a great one. His documentary, you ever see that Gonzo? The Life and Time is fucking amazing. Yeah. You want to just do something with your life after you watch that. Not to, I don't know. I don't have any friends that like wave 44 Magnums around in their living room, though.

It's not good. You're right, 100%. He definitely wasn't perfect. I would go to that party. Don't get me wrong. I'd go to that party, too, but you'd make a shot. I wouldn't move in. No.

No. No. You'd go to the party. Johnny Depp moved in for, like, what, six weeks or some shit? He moved in, yeah. He went all the way. They went all out. Sort of had to, though. I wonder if he cooked Johnny Depp moved in for like what six weeks or some shit he moved in yeah he went all the way they went they sort of had to though

I wonder if he cooked Johnny Depp's brain I wonder if that's when Johnny Depp started going wacky holy shit it probably is I'm gonna spread a conspiracy theory Johnny Depp was reasonable

and calm and polite and had his shit completely together until he did too much acid with Hunter S. Thompson and that's why he's wacky now

what do you think I don't know. He's from Kentucky too, so I'm not going to say anything bad about the guy. Damn, it's a full Kentucky house. Did you ever read the Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved? Yeah, absolutely. And it still holds true.

Oh, it's an amazing book. Or amazing article, rather. Well, that was where he sort of really found the style. That piece in particular was where he was like, I'm going to go over here and do this. Yeah, there was definitely that. And then that fear and loathing in Las Vegas thing, too, where that started out. He was being paid to cover a motorcycle race. It became this just fucking crazy screed about drugs and partying.

And we were outside a barstow when the drugs began to take hold. And there's fucking bats in the air and shit. They're driving a convertible Cadillac across the country, headed to Vegas. I mean, it's a fucking amazing, amazing piece of work. And it started out as a Sports Illustrated story. They wanted him to cover a race. And also a very fitting and beautiful eulogy

to the whole 60s flower power shit that just caved on itself yeah like a there's that one line to a bunch of fucking quitters man well what do you think happened with them i think they took away their pot i think they took away the acid and they arrested a bunch of people and they definitely clamped down and then you know you have a few um college student massacres and and uh youization of the Manson murders probably didn't help. Right, sure. That became like a big narrative piece.

Hippies, LSD, Manson, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it was all tied in. But, you know, musically, since I should stick to talking about things I know about, which is music, I think that that was probably just the best shit that ever happened and ever will happen. Like that 65 to 70, it just sort of exploded in all different directions and a lot of things happened that maybe they couldn't happen now. Or even two decades ago they couldn't have happened. a musician what do you think was the catalyst like what made them go from the 50s sound to the 60s just experimentation and and mind whatever you know looking for different ways of life

right philosophically speaking maybe i think what they were all writing about but i mean and then some guys were just pushing the sonic limitations of the studio. Like Hendrix didn't really do that much drugs. You know what I mean? The guy was all just about like, I mean, yeah, he partied, but he wasn't like a druggie. You know, he probably ate acid on stage a couple times. And both of those, I think he was spiked. Really?

Yeah. He was just a serious blues head and they wanted to stretch out and really push what the limitations of the gear at that time in the studio you know well i don't i don't only want to have eight channels what if we had 16. some of the experimentation and things that guys like him and pink floyd and uh later bands you know allo just really pushing the parameters of what you could do with a traditional style of music in terms of arrangement and how you frame that. I always assumed that because he got arrested in Toronto with heroin that he did drugs. I feel like if you have heroin on you.

You got drugs. Did he get busted? I thought it was barbiturates or. It's a good question. I'm pretty sure it was heroin. I don't think he ever. I could be wrong. You might be right.

You might be right. You might be right. What does it say? It says a small amount of heroin and hashish. Huh. That's chasing the dragon. Yeah. See, so when I read that, I'm like, how much do we know about what Jimi Hendrix did during his day? Like, people don't know how high I'm getting.

I know. How would they know? I mean, if they see us get high on the show yeah they know how high i got today right but they don't even because i could get high before i go running i might get high when i'm sitting home to write i have people tell me they that i'm high when i'm not even high yeah but you probably are a little still you know i just have really sleepy like hound dog eyes so i'll always look higher even but whatever it It doesn't matter. Jimmy liked... He was into some weird shit.

I know he had this thing about filming women walking away from the hotel. They said they found this big collection of home movies of him hanging out off hotel room balconies. As they walked away? As they walked away. That was some kind of weird fetish. What is that? He was not guilty on the charges. They don't know that they might have been planted on him.

Oh, interesting. They're not sure if they're actually his. Interesting. Interesting. It said he had no drug paraphernalia in his luggage or needle tracks on his arms. No, he smoked pot, but he didn't like... Oh, they might have fucking framed him.

That dude was too creative and prolific his arms no he smoked pot but he didn't like oh they might have fucking framed him that dude that dude was too creative and and prolific just in the amount of time he was alive to have been a junkie you know what i mean like yeah you gotta but don't you gotta make a junkie get up and do shit that's true but they say that about potheads too but i know a lot of pretty prolific potheads i don't buy that i don't Smoking pot gets me off the couch. Yeah, right? It makes you a little paranoid. Totally.

Yeah, like, I gotta get some shit done. Well, you know. Like, I'm maybe not working hard enough. It makes me feel like that. Like, I could be getting more shit done. Yeah. They said Lennon actually, you know, when he was on heroin for a while,

but that motherfucker laid in bed with like 18 cats, you know, and it didn't do anything. And then they said Paul would be like, oh, I've got some songs. We've got to make a record. And he'd be like, God damn it. Wake up. I have to write five songs in a week. Oh, really?

Because he just lay around like a sloth, butt naked, until all the maids to pretend like he wasn't there when he walked through the kitchen butt naked to get a glass of milk. You couldn't do that anymore. They'd take your house. Yeah. The maids would be fired. You couldn't even make it like it like an arrangement well you can make an arrangement the other way though there's like a topless maid service they come over your house and they take their top off see that just seems weird it's definitely weird i don't know i would be like yeah imagine the people that those poor ladies have to deal with on a daily fuck man yeah that ain't a good time but um you could have a topless maid service but

you couldn't have a you come over and wash the house while i'm naked deal because if it's your house and you're naked and they're walking around your house then you're forcing them to look at you naked right i would think that that's yeah people are losing their careers over there right now yeah you can't really not supposed to do that yeah but in old days, like a king who didn't give a fuck, he would just stroll around and let everyone look at his cock and walk right through the fucking building, wouldn't give a shit. Have your head chopped off if you didn't have sex with him. I would not want to live in those times.

I've been watching a lot of Vikings. I haven't seen it, man. I feel like four people tell me to watch that shit. I don't have time. I didn't believe them. I didn't believe them. I didn't believe them. I'm like, there's no way. It's on regular TV.

Is it that good? It's fucking good. Really? It's a good show. You have to get through the first couple episodes. First couple episodes, you're a little like, what? Yeah. My buddy Ferg's all about it.

He's like, why you got to get on this Viking shit, man? They have to set things up. That's the problem with shows. You're a little skeptical until you get to know everybody, and then you get the feeling of the characters, and get sucked in that's why binge watching is so awesome binge watching is great for if you're especially if you're a touring musician oh yeah right you know i can never get into shows when they come out because i'll see a couple episodes and then we go on tour for two months and you're like what the fuck? But now I can come home and just watch a season of something

in a day while I'm recuperating. My wife's pretty, she knows what the good shows, the programs and shit. I wouldn't know what to watch but I've found a lot of things. Have you seen Stranger Things? I saw the first season.

Yeah, we saw those. What about Ozark? Saw that. I like Batemaneman that's a good one like that sardonic shit there's a new one coming out with uh jared leto but the yakuza movie it's a movie it's a movie on netflix yeah he joins the yakuza most handsomest white looking yakuza guy ever. Perfect features. Right. Cause that happens all the time. It's happening in this movie,

bro. How about to spend a little disbelief for Jared? They're just walking around Shinjuku looking for white dudes to fucking run shop. You know, do you think he's learned how to speak Japanese? I hope so. It's going to be pretty weird if he doesn't. It's beautiful.

He's prettier than most women. Oh, he's prettier than a lot of women, man. If you put him in a long-haired wig type situation, it's beautiful. There he goes. We're going to look at pictures of Jared Leto now? Is he supposed to be half Japanese? Is that the premise of the show? Oh, it better not be.

Because he's got his hair dyed. They can't do that anymore. That shit is cultural appropriation. You're not allowed to anymore. But how else is a white dude going to get in Yakuza? He's got to be like a catch there. I think he was a soldier that was friends with a guy and he stayed over there to help him.

Gotcha. Like if you have a movie today and you have a Chinese character in a movie but you have a Japanese guy play the Chinese character, you're fucked, right? People will get angry. You can't do it anymore. No more pretending you're fucked. Right? People will get angry. You can't do it anymore. No more

pretending you're someone else. Unless you're Robert Downey Jr. Yeah, he could get away with it, but not anymore. He got away with it in that one movie. But if you were an Asian guy, though, I firmly believe no one would have a problem if they took an Asian guy

and gave him some sort of facial prosthetics that turned him into a European looking guy and then gave him lead roles in a movie where he plays a European guy

people would have to shut the fuck up they would be they would want to say something but then they'd go it's amazing how far we watch a lot of movies on the bus sometimes

and I watch if I'm at home and I'm by myself, like I watch weird shit. I like old films and a lot of old westerns and stuff. I watch the same movies I've seen a hundred times over and over as opposed to watching a lot of the newer shit. But if you watch a lot of these old westerns from the 50s and it's like – it's all white painted up like native american indians yeah with the headdress and it just looks so cheesy and they have these these affected horrible accents and you're just like how the fuck did that ever happen but then you get to the 80s and you watch something like 48 hours now and it's the most sexist racist misogynistic shit like and they were just pumping those things out of studios two, three decades ago.

Any female characters in those films, you're either hooker one or secretary at precinct who everybody dismisses. You know what I mean? Those were the only roles. Yeah, that just happened. That's when we were kids. Yeah, when we were kids. Yeah we were kids yeah we were on that movie

i just called out specifically we watched it on the bus one night we were all like this would never fucking get made there's no way so much would never get made it's weird i mean is that is that cultural evolution i think so i mean i hope so there's a little bit of it but it's happening it's such a hope it's all not just's a little bit of it but it's happening at such a rapid rate I hope it's all not just like catchphrases and shit I hope it's actually

doing something I have weird ideas about this I I really feel like if we weren't completely embedded in it that we would look at

this as like a system that's pulling us into its web and, and forcing us to be more and more entangled. And this system is the, the system of electronics. It's like almost like it's, it's preparing for us to give birth to artificial life.

And so in the meantime, it's completely sucking us in and making us be completely embedded. Phones in your pocket, constant Alexa listening to everything you do. It's just as deep as it can in the biological systems world until it gives birth. And we're going to force it out of existence, force it into existence just by being completely fascinated with electronics. Are we? Is it the universe forcing it into existence? That too. I think it's a natural thing.

I've always described it as like a. It's figured out a way to interconnect itself even more, man. Yeah, it has. With data. Yeah. And force progress. Like, think about what they were saying about Putin. Like, if Putin really does have that kind of missile.

It's fucking Skynet, man. You know? It sure is. Yeah. There you go. But if someone has that kind of missile. It's fucking Skynet, man. It sure is. There you go. But if someone has that kind of power, if there really is something that a person can think up that didn't exist 200 years ago, 200 years ago there wasn't even the thought of it.

So in 200 years, two small amounts of measurement of time in relationship to the entire age of the universe, they could figure out a way to kill every person on the planet like that literally wreck the planet where no life would be it wouldn't be possible to have life there's enough nuclear bombs to do that what is it gonna be like in 200 years from now it's gonna be way way way way way more accelerated it's almost gonna get to the point where the universe is gonna be a like a place where you could visit like people can go way, way, way, way more accelerated. It's almost going to get to the point where the universe is going to be a place

where you could visit. People can go places. If not people, things can go places. As long as I'm holding a lightsaber before I die. You'll get one of those. It's all fucking worth it.

But the problem with the lightsaber is I was always like, well, why does it end there? Why doesn't it just go on for infinity like a laser? Oh, yeah, right? Why is it only three and a half feet long? Yeah, what's it doing?

Unless it was a rod and the laser went around the rod, but it knew to stop at the top. That would make sense. But the fact the laser only extends three feet or whatever it does, the fuck out of here. George Lucas was a big Kurosawa fan. Was he? Yeah.

All that shit's based on samurai films. Oh, that's right. And Leone films. All that shit's based on samurai films. Oh, that's right. And Leone films. All those guys just like, it's like generations of dudes paying homage and ripping each other off that lead to the new thing. It's the same as music. Wow. Well, Quentin Tarantino's always been pretty open about that, right?

He makes unapologetic cinematic homages right down to framing shots and scores. He's a, yeah. Does it masterfully though like it isn't it what are you doing when you're remaking King Kong making money yeah you make a money you're making a lot of money but if you do it right you're making art I don't think anybody's done King Kong nobody's done King Kong you might not be able to do King Kong right maybe it's a bad example but the Hulk the CGI just shit, for me, man, it really took the magic out of everything. That with HD, because you watch Harry and the Hendersons with your kids now or something,

and that looks better than a lot of the stuff coming out. It's just, I don't know. The suspension of disbelief isn't there. HD TV just fucking ruined movies for me. I'm like, eh. Get the fuck out of here. It's fake as fuck. Yeah.

Give me some VHS, you know. It's better. Blur the lines a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, like digital music, same thing. You hear all that separation and air and sterilization, I guess, is the best way to put it. Yeah. I think it definitely works that way for physical things.

It's one of the reasons why the original Alien movie was so terrifying. It was a physical thing. Oh, fucking. or the first halloween yeah yeah there's no blood in that film it's just tension and dread and real anxiety real people yeah and some crazy fuck running around in a william shatner mask even american werewolf in london just quick scenes also from kent. Was he really? Yep. Damn, Kentucky. And Muhammad Ali.

Yeah, we don't fuck around. Louisville. Yeah. Abraham Lincoln. Daniel Boone. Damn. Harry Dean Stanton. Well, imagine the Daniel Boone days.

Imagine being. Brother, I don't have to imagine where i live now it's like daniel boone days i walk out it's like yep there's uh they found this some there's some caves down we we moved to the smokies where they just give land away down there really and uh yeah like fucking my own woods now for less than what a townhouse in Nashville would cost. And, uh, but they, the people bought it from, they found a cave on the back, back of the property down the, can we kind of back up to this national forest? And, um, there's a bunch of like 3000 year old Indian cave paintings in there, like Native

American cave paintings. So the university of Chicago came down and studied it all. So now I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to keep my fucking kids from going in there and doing something, you know. Right. And Dick was here. Yeah. We're drawing big cock and balls on the Indians.

But here's the thing. That cock and balls would be revered by people who have founded 2,000 years from now. Right. Why do we say it? Yeah. I mean, if you went to a cave uh two thousand years from now they uncovered some cave and it was a bunch of advanced life comes drawing guys jerking off yeah people would be excited they'd be like well this was three thousand years later what happened

you know yeah well if you look at like some of the ancient artwork right like how about some of the roman statues where dudes are grabbing each other's dicks and wrestling do you ever see that i've seen that yeah yeah they they wrestling, and in the process of wrestling, one dude's grabbing the other guy's junk, which they did do. They'd crush your balls and shit. That was a move back then. Well, let's be honest. In a real fight?

Yeah, it's a move. That's a move. It is a move. It's a way to go. It's definitely a way to go. If you crush a man's taters or take away his ability to breathe, the fight's pretty much over. There was actually an MMA fight where that took place back when there was no rules.

There was a guy named The Pedro, and he was fighting a guy named Big Daddy Goodrich. And Big Daddy reached into his pants and grabbed a hold of his cock and balls and crushed it in his hand. See this guy? What the fuck? He's just grabbing dicks, man. The guy on the bottom is grabbing a dick. He's holding that guy's hog. It's rude. But that's how they wrestled back then they didn't give a fuck the the dick was something you could also

hold on to you can hold on to the foot why not why can't you hold on to the dick so they were yanking on dicks and pulling people along well they really turned it up back then didn't they they had to how long were they living you know i mean, if you were one of these bad motherfucker wrestler dudes, how much time did you have to be that guy? I'm gonna go grab some dick and roll around in the dirt and then I'm gonna eat some grapes and have a giant orgy and watch a lion eat my friend later on today. That's a day. Look at the

apple on the end of that guy's dick. Jesus Christ. Look at the size of his hog. If that was real, he was hard. This is sex then. This is not fight for the death. That guy's getting off on that or if he Doesn't if if he's not getting hard, and that's just how big his dick is when it's soft This is not at all where I thought we would I didn't end up I'm a way over here, but it has to be said last time. I think we talked about Bigfoot

Yeah, no new opinions on that I got a bigfoot story really no, I think i already told it i made it i think did i well i was going out when i used to live out west a long time ago my buddy and mine were driving up to this little town called leavenworth washington to go check out there's like this weird little aspen swedish ski town in fucking fucking northern Washington where you go get your potato soup. That's another story, though. And we stopped at one of these roadside coffee stands, which are every 300 feet in Washington State. But this one was on like this sort of timber road going up through the forest.

And you pull over. Speaking of Harry and the Hendersons, wow, it's all serendipitous. and you pull over. Speaking of Harry and the Hendersons, wow, it's all serendipitous. But we get out of the car and the wooden statue from the beginning of that movie is like in the driveway.

I don't know if you've ever seen it. It was this old Sasquatch statue. That's where I remembered it from. I was like, that looks just like this thing from Harry. Right there. Yep. And no, that's not the same.

That's badass though. Is there a lot of Bigfoot sightings out there? Well, funny you not, that's bad ass though. Is there a lot of Bigfoot sightings out there? Well, funny. You should mention that. Uh, we were stopping and we're getting coffee from this lady and I'm like, you know,

whatever, trying to talk about the statue from the movie. She's like, yeah, they stopped and filmed here. And then she pulls out these, she had these old photo books, like family photo albums,

like huge photo albums, two or three of them, at least full of polaroids of sasquatch that her family had taken in this house supposedly it's greatest idea to sell coffee ever polaroids like photographs like fucking old of a real sasquatch photos of how bad they look that's what she really wanted us to think right yeah um there were just so many of them i remember thinking like god she really went to some trouble here man because there's like

giant photo albums of sasquatch and they were all sasquatch photos they'd taken off their back porch or out the windows of the house and because they lived like right off the side of the road and it was just fucking wilderness you know and that's my sass walk story was there any of them that made you go hmm not a damn one because i was i don't believe in bigfoot so it definitely used to be a real thing i think that's what i think you think at one time it definitely existed and they're all gone now there's an animal called the gigantopithecus right you know about that one right that was a real thing so that was basically a bigfoot there's an eight foot tall gigantic bipedal ape so they know that that was real so if that was real it's entirely possible that one of them made it across the Bering land

mass with human beings entirely possible because they were from Asia and they were from Asia a right around yeti yeah yeti yeah yeti um Yeah, yeti. Yeah, yeti, Neanderthal, I mean, Sasquatch, there's like a bunch of different names for them, but it was a real animal that lived I think they found bones that were as recent as 100,000 years.

So anatomically modern humans definitely lived in the presence of this thing. So what do you attribute all the sightings to in the last five or six years? Bullshit. Yeah, it's hurt bullshit. Hurt bears. Right.

Bears hurt their paw. They walk on hind feet. They do it all the time. I think most of it's bullshit. The reason I say that is because there's no real compelling evidence, other than like a couple of footprints that you think someone could have found. You actually had a show for a while. You wanted to talk to all these crazy folks, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Were you ever at any time like, this guy might have saw something? One lady I think saw something. I don't think she was lying. But I think she probably saw a wounded bear. And she saw it very briefly. And the problem, the real problem with people's memory, especially in some situation that freaks you out, like you think you might have saw a Sasquatch, your brain starts fucking with you. It starts filling in the blanks with a bunch of shit.

And then you start repeating that shit as if it's the actual- There's a name for that. Something. Yeah, I don't know what it is. Something syndrome. But I would imagine if you're- I'm sure you've been- You lived in Seattle for a while, right? For a little while. So you know what it's like when you go up into those mountains.

It's like so thick. It's beautiful. Unbelievable. I mean, if I was going to go fuck off and get lost somewhere, that would be- Dude. That's some real wilderness, man. Mount Rainier, right? Yeah.

God, it's gorgeous. But the wilderness is so dense. I always describe it as like trying to look through a box of Q-tips. It's like a Petri dish. Yeah. They're just, and the ground is so soft and smushy from all the pine needles. So my point is, this lady saw something in the distance she saw elk running right and then she saw something standing up and she looked at its face and she realized it

was an ape she's like oh my god i see an ape how is there an ape and then she she said to herself oh it's bigfoot that's bigfoot and then it went over through this patch of timber because everything's super, super dense, you know, 10, 20 yards further and you can't see it anymore. She lost it completely. But it makes sense that a bear was chasing elk. That's what they do. They do it all the time.

They're probably chasing elk. There's probably a fawn. They're probably trying to get it and the bear might have been hurt. They know how good that shit tastes. Yeah. And the bear might have been hurt, in which case, which happens all the time.

And when bears are hurt They walk on two legs. So if you're looking at this thing Bears can grow nine feet long, right? That's real black bears can be nine feet long a really big black bear So if you're looking at this thing in the Pacific, it's probably rare but they could be seven feet all day You can find a bunch of seven-foot black bears. Those are those are legitimate So this black bears walking around seven feet, standing up on its hind legs, and you're seeing it through the trees 30 yards away. You're like, oh, my God, I see Bigfoot.

So in her head, I don't think she was lying. I think she definitely saw a big-ass animal. She saw elk running, and she saw a big-ass animal in pursuit. But it easily could have been a bear. And she could have filled in the blanks in her mind with all these false memories right that are attributing like oh i saw its face it looked at me it made a noise and all that stuff like people get wacky like you think you saw something and you didn't there's no bodies that's the problem there's nothing like no one's no one's found shit no one's found anything anything. Not a single fucking bone.

I mean, they found this gigantopithecus bone in an apothecary shop in China. Then they did a dig. They went back to the spot. These anthropologists said, where the fuck did you get this? They had this giant primate tooth that wasn't a gorilla. It wasn't a human being. They're like, where'd you get this? And they take them to the spot where they got it.

And they find bones. They find jaw bones that indicate that it was bipedal. It's kind of controversial, apparently. But apparently, by the way the jaw is designed, they knew that this thing stood upright. And it's huge. I don't know. I met some dudes from Stornoway, Scotland once,

which they looked like they were from another planet. They were like the biggest fucking people I've ever seen in my life. There was four or five of these guys at this little music festival in Kilkenny, Ireland. And they'd all come down for the festival. And these, I'm not shitting, man. They were the biggest people I've ever seen. And all of them, they were just like fucking mountain men. Just blocked out the light when they walked through the door.

And they had these long gray hair and beards and shit. And they're like, you should come up and play in Stornoway. Fuck that. It only takes eight fucking fairies to get there. You know? I would actually love to go up. I think of those dudes whenever I think of those Atlas Stones. Do you know what Atlas

Stones are? Like the most manly way to work out ever. You're basically picking up these enormous balls of stone and these dudes lift them and they get them on their chest they hoist them onto these blocks they have contests to see who can like when they do the strongman contest they pick those atlas stones up and put them on progressively higher and higher shelves giant giant people stone yeah balls giant stone balls those people i mean those are the ancestors of the Vikings for sure, right?

Oh, for sure. That's where the Vikings turned around, I think. Yeah. If I'm not mistaken. They fucked everybody. Fuck this. They shot loads into everybody. It got wintertime, and then they bailed.

Let's fuck this place. It's always raining. Let's get out of here. They took off. Too depressing. I got some really good buddies now in Glasgow, all musicians you meet over the years touring, and a couple guys particularly that if I go over sometimes

I'll do a little pickup band with these guys, and they're both like hard glass Weejans. And my friend Lloyd went to, last time I was over there, he took me up on a proper like car trip up to up to the highlands and back down and one day i think we got as far as like obon or anyway but yeah there's there's parts of that stuff it's it just it looks like you're on another planet man i can't even describe it look i remember we got out of the car in a couple places and you try to wrap your head around how ancient that shit is and everything that took

place there and and and how you know how one we're just standing outside the car on the side of the road and i'm like i am fucking freezing to death you know in the middle of august it's just a raining literally upside down and it's not even raining you're just like this it's some harsh brutal shit always cold always cold always wet even when it's not somehow i don't understand it it'd be like sunny and a mile and a half later there's like a blizzard and it was just like fucking mental man but it looked like another planet i was only i felt like this could have been a setting out of star wars or something yeah if you think about it when you think about scottish people you always think of hardy right oh yeah hardy tough people that's like

instantly comes to mind well you know that another weird thing about it is you always think of hardy right oh yeah hardy tough people that's like instantly comes to mind well you know that another weird thing about it is you always appear Americans especially like where you're from your ancestry and this and that and I was grew up in eastern Kentucky and then moved to central Kentucky but like most of the the early settlers in the Appalachian region was like predominantly Scotch Irish and some German. So the first time I went to Scotland, uh, to play music, I had jet lag.

And the first morning I woke up like really early, you know, and I was like, fuck, I might as well go walk around and check things out and get out of the city. And everything's kind of coming to life and people are going to work. And I'm looking around at the faces, man.

And I realized I was like, yep, this, I might as well be in Hazard, Kentucky right now. It's the same stoic, very guarded disposition. But then once you get to know them, and especially once you become friends, they're just like they would do anything for you. It's a very regal, stoic, working-class city. There's something really special and magic about Glasgow. Damn. But it just kind of hit me like,

this is definitely where my fucking people came from. That might as well be my Uncle Bobby right there. Damn. The people that live there today, man, they get to go by castles and shit. There's castles near there. You drive by a castle. And how old are those castles?

Like, what's the oldest castle in Scotland? I'm not sure what the oldest one. I mean, there's... Like, what's an old one? A thousand years old? I think the one in Edinburgh is probably 1,200 years old. Wow. Got a penicillin.

Imagine going back and looking. years we played a there was somewhere in ireland this little town and across the street from the hotel was this guard tower that had been there for 1300 fucking years and there's like viking boats they had on display around i'm just thinking yeah somebody a thousand years ago was up in that window with a bow and arrow like you know that's all they had that's all they had shooting arrows down invading people and it gives you perspective though when you especially europe in terms of old world isn't that old when you think about china or a lot of southeast asian cultures you know you're talking about 10 000 yeah but like europe is a good

example for me every time i go he gives me perspective because you think about everything happening in our country and everybody's like oh it's it's fucking going to hell and you know we're such a baby yeah you know there's there's churches over there that are five times older than the united states and it's still working somehow yeah the oldest shit we have is like when i was living in boston there was a cemetery that you can go to where you could see tombstones from like the 1700s. And you could barely read it. You could barely.

They were all weathered and worn out. Someone tapped that shit with a rodent. Yeah. In the 1700s. And you could just go over and touch it. It's right there. But people touch it too much because it's got the numbers are all fucking worn off and shit. Look at that one right there.

Which is this one? It's a cathedral built in 1471. It's the oldest building in Glasgow, I think. 1471. The coolest gig I ever played was in London. It's called St. Pancras. It's this old church building, which I think monks at one time, they built it acoustically and designed it out of stone for choirs,

like chamber choirs. And they didn't even have a PA. It was just me and an acoustic guitar. I remember sitting there thinking, like, it was the most insanely beautiful natural reverb I'd ever heard in my life. Wow. And it's a really, it's like right around King's Cross, you know, kind of a busy

intersection but i think is that it right there saint pancras no that's the uh the train station oh look at saint pancras old church it's really special though i remember walking in for sound check and i was like i don't give a fuck if anybody comes tonight i just get to sit here and play my guitar in this room. Is it right here? That's it. Yeah, it's like a little pewed building. And so the way they built the whole place,

it reverberates? All the rounded edges and everything? Actually, that's the side hall. And then there was a... See the one third from the right? The darker one? Yeah, the dark. That's it.

Whoa. Wow, that's beautiful, man. Yeah, it was really special. So if somebody wanted to look at this, Jamie, what is the image if someone's listening to this? St. Pancras. Old town. P-A-N-C-R-A-S. Pancras.

P-A-N-C-R-A-S. How beautiful is that construction? It's the oldest standing house of worship. I don't want to hope I'm not misquoting this, but I think it's like the oldest standing house of worship i might i don't want to hope i'm not misquoting this but i think it's like the oldest church in the united kingdom and it's in the center of london wow so they designed it so that people could play acoustically it was made it was built to sing in like you just be like does the thing that the old keyboard effects just have built in just puts that like

wow that bloom on everything when i was a kid uh i lived down the street from this place called Does the thing that the old keyboard effects just have built in. It's that like... Wow. That bloom on everything. When I was a kid, I lived down the street from this place called Echo Bridge. And Echo Bridge is near Instant Newton, Upper Falls. And it's this place where we'd all go hang out and drink. But if you get underneath the bridge, it gave you this crazy echo. Just like ridiculous, ridiculous. Hello, hello. this crazy echo. Just like ridiculous. Hello.

That's shit geeks like me walk around constantly listening for. Yeah, every kid in my high school thought he was Billy Squire when he'd go down there. Lonely is the night when you find yourself alone. You'd be screaming it

like a fucking dork. Remember we knew how to do the Van Halen thing on our notebook? The VH? The logo? That's my first concert. Yeah, man. That freaked me out. Van Halen. They were amazing. I had a buddy. I used to work at this grocery store in Nashville when I was out kicking it around. And, uh, this guy was,

he's really cool. He's older. He's in his fifties and he was local grew up in nashville and he's a big music guy you know and so he saw like every show that ever came through town in the 70s and 80s we kind of grew up in that and he was he'd always like tell me about the shows you know because he remember he saw van halen at the little coliseum in nashville like down on the north side of town back in i think he said 77. So it was before the first album had come out and they were opening for black Sabbath and, you know, but this time deep purple and all these like riff rock bands were just sort of

the thing. And he said, these guys come out and he said, it was like a bomb exploded in that fucking place, man. Like Eddie's like doing back flips off his aunt and all that crazy shit. Nobody ever heard that stuff, you know?

And he said, then Sabbath came out and everybody basically walked out after the third song because like they realized they had just seen what was next wow man i saw kiss when i was like 10 10 or 11 years old I saw him live were you into him or did you just totally into him yeah

I was really into him and my uncle worked for their advertising company that designed their album covers Howard Marks advertising company

they're the ones that did well he's a genius Howard Marks the marketing yeah whoever was handling the marketing on that well it was uh my uncle vinnie and his friend dennis were the artists they would make the album

covers that's crazy yeah so i got to meet ace freely without his makeup i was like 11 ace freely is actually the first guy who ever did the harmonic tapping on tape really eddie later got all the acclaim. He took it and ran with it, but I think the first time that was ever recorded was on a Kiss song. Dude. Somebody using that technique.

He was fucking phenomenal, man. Apparently a really nice guy, too, right? Ace? I don't know. I never met him. I know that he didn't get along with some of the other guys, like Gene Simmons and Paul Stout. Because they're all fucking pricks.

But Ace, I think, is supposed to to be the sweetheart, the guy that's... Maybe. Maybe. Paul Stanley was nice. He was a nice guy. Gene Simmons has been nice to me. Right. Obviously, everybody knows.

It's part of their thing, man. I get it. Yeah. I mean, they were just... They were rock stars. They've been rock stars for so long. I mean, think about that. They were rock stars in the 70s. They were rock stars when've been rock stars for so long i mean think about that they were rock

stars in the 70s they were rock stars when when it meant something yeah it's different it's a different thing i'm not sure what if it even is necessary do we really need like whatever that is of rock stars yeah here's the problem we know too much about them all the mystery's gone you know it used to be like robert plant would come down on fucking magic carpet. We didn't know where he was coming from. He would show up. He probably, at the time, thought he was on one. And just think about Robert Plant in his prime, right? Who the fuck ever saw

anything like that before? They were taking Elvis off the Ed Sullivan show because he was shaking his hips. Robert Plant has got a piece on him, and it's pressed up against his pants. His pants are as tight as a glove. he's got no shirt he's like his shirt is completely open right he's completely bare chested long hair and a voice that you never heard before he never heard someone sing like hold out of love i mean it's just he's doing

something different he's got some new thing going on and you don't know shit about him there's no fucking podcast that he does he doesn't have a twitter page where he says stupid shit about trump you know they they actually did they never did any interviews or good and he didn't release singles yeah actually a lot of people didn't know you hear all these classic songs on the radio now but they'd never put single they refused to do singles they didn't do press dude if you wanted to see led zepp, you had to go to the show. Look at his cock. Look at it. Look at his cock. And that's pressed up against his pants.

Of course he does. I don't know if he had a sock there, but I want to believe that he was just up there slinging dick. A dude was like 17 when that first record came out. And he wasn't even the first choice. They went through a few people Jimmy Page did when he put the band together. One of my favorite singers of all time.

I love Robert Plant, but I always felt like if Steve Marriott, I always wanted to hear what that would sound like. The guy from Humble Pie. Fucking incredible voice. Was he supposed to be? I want to say maybe Page wanted him, but he couldn't do it. I know they talked to maybe Rod Stewart. Was it Faces at the time or earlier? I want to say maybe Page wanted him, but he couldn't do it. I know they talked to maybe Rod Stewart. Whoa.

As it was at Faces at the time or earlier. I know Robert Plant wasn't choice number one. Dude. And they had to talk Bonham into taking the gig. Page and John Paul Jones had known each other through session work in the mid-60s, and when the Yardbirds broke up, Jimmy somehow thought he had rights to the name, and he wanted to put together like a super band of all his the favorite his favorite musicians he played with and Bonham was recommended by the

bass player John Paul Jones but they had to go and like talk him into it because he was playing when bands at the time that paid him a lot more money Wow Jimmy's I got to explain what they were trying to accomplish and sell him on the idea but that was that was sort of a like everybody talked about bands that are put together by labels it wasn't jimmy page was a genius and a very you know visionary kind of guy so he knew he needed to build this band to take over the world and that's what he did wow great producer too. Fucking phenomenal guitarist, right? Probably one of the most inventive guitar players ever. A lot of people say sometimes, especially later when he's on the morphine,

sometimes it can be a little sloppy, but I like that. I hate perfect. There's probably nothing more boring than perfect. Is the sound of a guitar similar to a voice? Sometimes the dude will have a raspy, crazy, fucked up voice, and it just makes it, right? I mean, yeah. Any real artist player with an instrument,

it doesn't matter what the guitar is or the amp or anything. Anybody that has their thing, they can pick up anything, and within three notes, you just know it's that person. What do you think of that? How do you say his name? Ray LaMontagne? Is that person you know what do you think of that how do you say his name ray lamontagne is that how you say it yeah he's a like a songwriter yeah do you know that song jolene i do that song yeah he's got a really cool voice man damn my buddy dan did a record with him and i've never met him but no he's a i think a really cool dude dude his voice i think he's kind of like he

was sort of if i'm not mistaken i'm gonna be like well sort of came into it later like i did he had like jobs and shit before and then just started doing it and that makes sense found success later on i think that makes sense with a lot of people man i just think people like justin bieber like he's got a way harder road. It's a way harder road to try to figure out who the fuck you are. Like, all things considered, he's probably handling it okay. He's handling it phenomenally. You think about, he was what, fucking eight?

He's only 24. He's 24 years old? He's 24 right now. Holy shit. He just turned. And all this has already happened. Just turned 24. And he's rolling around on a G7. That's 24 years old? He's 24 right now. Holy shit. He just turned. And all this has already happened. Just turned 24. And he's rolling around on a G7.

That's his day-to-day, you know. He does whatever the fuck he wants, dude. All the time. You know, you don't pay attention to things. I'm not glued into pop culture, but somehow you just can't not know what Justin Bieber's up to once a month, just walking around in the world anymore. But I would say that kid, for most people to be handed that type of existence

and all of that scrutiny and all the shit that comes along with that, like that does things to people, you know? It definitely does. Especially if your personality's not even formed yet. Yeah. I can't imagine. Like I'm so grateful I got into this business at 35.

Yeah. And not 21. I was talking to my friend john this weekend about this and i was saying that it's almost like if you made an epoxy right you know if you have epoxy you just put a couple ingredients in like there's one thing you mix it with another thing then it hardens but if you add some shit in that that's not supposed to be there and it's fully developed right you're not going to take that shit out like if you added oil you threw some oil in the epoxy like ah now you fucked that whole thing up that's kind of what you're doing to a person when you raise a person famous if you take some reality star from the time they're five and then they're in a sitcom in a movie and then you've gone through your whole i don't know why i said reality star but you've gone through your

whole life if you're that person if you're justin bieber you've gone through your whole i don't know why i said reality star but you've gone through your whole life if you're that person if you're justin bieber you've gone through your whole life under that eye under the eye and it's gotten bigger and bigger and bigger and more and more people paying attention like you never had a moment like you did where you're working for the railroad tracks right or like you know i did going on the road for years or some of the jobs that i had before i was ever a comedian they don't have any of those those. They don't have the wondering if you could pay your bill feeling. They don't know that feeling. They don't have the, you know. See, I still feel like that.

You know, that's what's fucked up. My wife, I'm still like, I'll never not feel like that, you know. Yeah. From never really had money or anything like that or any aspirations to own a house or those kind of things. So it's just, you know, especially with kids now, like I just don't, there's no flamboyance. Yeah.

But now he lives a different life where people like Rihanna, they're like literally citizens of the world. And any day of the week they could be in some five-star hotel and God knows where, you know. Yeah, God knows where. You know, it's a crazy way to live. Very bizarre. Jet setting, flying around. I couldn't do it, man, because there's no way. I don't ever want to wake up and have that kind of career because it takes so many people around you on a daily basis just to maintain and keep a machine that large rolling, logistically speaking, that you become enslaved to the job.

You know what I mean? Because you have all these like there's always this name like when you have Superstar X you know you put this head right here and then everything below that just to make that thing go around you know it just turns into this it's like a corporation really like with

20 semi trucks and all this shit you know and you got to go out and make that happen because now all these people depend on you for their livelihoods and make that happen because now all these people depend on you for their livelihoods and careers. So then that's going to affect the artistic decisions you make because you have to stay relevant, culturally speaking. And if you want to do something different next time,

well, now this massive fan base isn't really going to fucking deal with that very well. Like when Beastie Boys put out Paul's Boutique. Exactly. People went, what the fuck? They went, what the the fuck but now it's one of the greatest records ever made but people back then didn't know what to handle they didn't know what to do with that they didn't have the Beastie Boys

classified in the artist box they had them in the pop music box so this is silly you gotta fight for your right to party you guys are partiers and then all of a sudden you know paul's boutique is like whoa what is this i mean like david bowie went from ziggy stardust to doing a soul album in like nine months with luther vandross and yeah those

are huge classic amazing records now but like you realize those guys were playing theaters when all that shit happened whoa and he's just like, I'm done with this. I'm gonna go do this now. You literally can't see anymore because I fucking killed it on stage. Yeah. That's over.

You know. Do you think Rod Stewart gets enough credit? I don't, actually. I don't either. I think, especially Man of Faces and even his early

solo records, those are some amazing albums. His voice is incredible. You know what happened to him what the hits got too much pussy do you think I'm sex brain yeah once he hit that everybody's like check please he's like wait oh that's all I got to do because remember go back to Maggie Mae you know wake up Maggie like that song was that was there was something in that song right there was a guy trying to figure his life out hanging out with some chick yeah roger stewart's a badass oh

man question what is that song is it called maggie may yeah him and uh elton john all those guys like that's yeah he was a beast a different level but then he started wearing like leopard tight pants and shit because Because he could. I mean, look at that shit. It ain't like it's not working. You know what I mean? Look at him. Look at that look.

He actually was a... I think he almost played professional soccer for Celtic or somebody. Wow. He was a really great soccer player when he was a kid, but he was too small. And he's another one, right? That basically you're never going to see one of those again. No. I don't think so you're never going to see a lot of things again just because it there's just no nobody that's actually that might you know that's not necessarily true you might see more

things now because that's true too right you know i'm getting ahead of myself like i you know for all intents i shouldn't be here right you know it wasn't an industry creation right so now like anything really is possible yeah that's a good point you just have to fight and sift through so much shit most of it mediocrity to get to something that really hits you or that you connect with well i think that you're also saying this out of your own personal experiences where you realize you could you could have not been you like easily you could have not turned out into being you. Oh, if I'd have sat down in a room with a bunch of people who know what's best, I wouldn't have been me.

Yeah, you and most people that are successful. You know, my first record, we did shop to a few labels in town, but I was a little bit ahead of the whole neo-trad curve that sort of kicked off in the last few years. I made this really traditional country record. But it was like hard country. It was very like an album I'd always wanted to make. And we shopped it to a few people, and they just didn't really know.

It wasn't the right time, so nothing came of it. So we self-released it so then when i did the second one metamodern and now i've got this whole record about like you know mine the journey of a soul or a mind or whatever talking about turtles and fucking tripping and shit right i was like i knew nobody's going to get this like i can waste time trying to find somebody to release or we can just put the damn thing out and i'm so glad we did it that way just because it i know what happened was a result of people hearing it and sharing that with their friends 100 that's how i found out about it i found out about it for people online and i gotta tell you the the cover of it threw me off at first

the cover of it i was like that was me being a smart ass because i was like there's all this like uh you know you go to these festivals and stuff i'm like a grown-ass man you know what i mean work fucking stupid jobs like now i was in this all of a sudden in this position of going out playing all these festivals and looking at these kids and stuff doing it and all and it's great you make a lot of friends but there's it's there's a lot in any industry there's a lot of uh people like for the wrong reasons you know what i mean like chasing something they want to see themselves in as opposed to something they see within themselves right and so we started doing these festivals and there's a lot like what they call like the younger hipster kids and stuff when they have these tin type photos that were really popular a few years ago and i was like well how can i out hipster the hipsters so i'll do a painting of a 10 type photo and surround it

by like the tackiest outer space my buddy that i did the thing with we were actually trying to make the worst album cover of the year we ended up we ended up making a top 10 list on rolling stone we didn't get the cherry but uh i was like let's just make the tackiest fucking thing we possibly can like those cheesy fonts and um it's kind of crazy the music was to me was so heavy and personal and real so i was like god i mean i don't want to be i kind of wanted to make fun of like the dude levitating in the fucking cave before before people turn you into that you know what i mean because that's not at all a lot of the shit was just stuff i've been reading about or yeah you know you're in character yeah but it was psychedelic country music it was like well which is a lot i love a lot of 60s rock and some of my favorite country records ever made were made in the late 60s some of the uh like gene

clark and some of the early verne gosden brothers type stuff there was this level of psychedelia in the production that made it so beautiful. I got to get a list of shit to listen to. Yeah, I'll throw you some shit, man. But then, talented guys, and I was kind of a taskmaster, so it was such a young band because they wanted to play loud, and you got to pull things back, or like you can only have this cymbal, that kind of thing, get it down to the structure of the songs.

And we spent like three months on the road just carving those songs out and the arrangements. And I had it pretty much, you know, duck pussy tight, which is waterproof. And then, you know, we came off the road and went right into the studio the next day for four days and just banged it out. Oh, wow. So you just were in the groove. Yeah, basically just plug up like five mics, don't move anything,

and just lay it all down. And then Dave and I with the mixing, and then he had some great ideas in post-production, like getting the sounds around. But then you come back, and we had all these separated recordings. So to me, I realized the real fun is putting everything in sequence and making these cycle to maximize, I guess, the emotiveness of the records. Right. In terms of a roller coaster of emotions, you know, instead of just so like every time we do it now it's always different like the record i did after that

was recorded that one a totally different way still going fast but you know i always wanted to make a big kind of lush orchestral soul record that and then what i've learned is that i don't want to be in the music business because i don't want to be in the music business because i'm just going to be in the sturgill business um because there's this like the mechanical timeline of it all by the time we go in and make that record you're so you've been processing and thinking about it so much for for months and you get in and you have that release and it's it's like i equate it to driving in a really heavy downpour rainstorm for like an extended period of time which is there's a mental exhaustion that comes for but you have to just kind of like keep

going and but by the time it's finished and mixed you've heard this thing like a thousand times you don't ever want to hear it again but now you got to go out and play it on the road every night for a year and a half. So we were constantly trying to reinvent every night, how to keep that fresh and exciting while, while holding the pause button on going over here and recording what creatively you may already be onto. Wow. So I'm, I realized this year I'm going to take the reins and we'll do like, I'm gonna play 30 festivals because those things are always so fun.

Just go out and get all the energy in your face. Then we're going to do probably a double album and another record and record it all. So that when I do turn around and want to go do a really big, long two-year tour, we have all this new material and the old stuff to pull from. I like how you're approaching it. So you're approaching it like a plan. It is a plan. You have to look at it like a plan.

Do you think everybody does that? Well, there's all kinds of different plans. I just know what works for me. I've learned more importantly, what works for my family and my sanity. I don't need to go play 300 shows a year. Yeah.

I don't, you know, I'd rather go play 30 or 60 shows and know that every one of those was 110 as opposed to you know you got the tuesday and wednesday shows to get you to this weekend market where everybody's counting their checks already and shit and you're exhausted and then the shows suffer and these people pay money or maybe they don't realize that like you can't hear anything for 40 minutes because you don't ever want to project negativity from the stage if you can help it. But there's, you know, the bad nights. I just want every night to be great. But most importantly right now, for me, the fun is the studio

and the process of trying to push it and get to what's next. Yeah, you do totally different albums. Every time you put an album out, it's a completely different feel. I'm a music listener and lover, first and foremost. Probably a musicologist more than a musician at this point word yeah i mean i guess that's my field of study musicologist yeah if i had to like say that i have obsessed over one subject enough to where somebody should probably give me a fucking piece of paper that says i know what i'm talking about it's probably music um did you when did it start like did you have this your whole life

early early yeah whole life wow probably honestly first time from Michael Jackson maybe I was like

you know what's kind of fucked up about this what you wouldn't have been you if you didn't come into this so late no hell no but think of your whole life

right your whole life you loved music yeah you could have easily just been on a path from the time you were in high school well always played right but i'm glad i never like recorded anything right until yeah because when you're younger you know like eric clapton i love eric clapton huge influence never met the guy but uh there's a great documentary just came up but you can look back in his career he was so young and passionate and talented There was one particular record he did with a guy named John male was like kind of the birth of like rock and roll guitar

tone is the first time everybody plugged a Les Paul into a Marshall and just cranked the fucking thing and That record that sound Everybody's like whoa like that was a thing that happened But you can look at his career and he was such a chameleon going through all these phases. And a lot of it was emulation or reinterpretation because he got into substance abuse. But you can see how much his career shaped him more so than and all the people he'd been around and was friends with and exposed to and him rubbing off on them and vice versa. Wow. But anybody in their 20s is still anybody i know in their 20s is definitely

still figuring out who they are as a person much less an artist yeah i'm almost 40 and i'm still figuring out who i am as an artist you know because every year you're gonna feel different every fucking day much less two years from now it's time to make a record yeah and you're gonna change it up as you see fit you're you're gonna to go with what's going on in your mind right now. Right. That's a beautiful thing, right? You don't have a, I mean, even though you have like a whole sort of entity behind you in terms of like people carrying your stuff and all the jazz that's going on,

all the equipment that's involved in doing one of your shows. Yeah, very few people. How many people you got? Myself, three members of the band. We have a tour manager. We have our side monitor sound guy the front sound guy and my merch girl so you got there's 12 people nine people on the bus with the with the driver so i know always be in one bus we got one truck to haul the gear and all that shit that's pretty minimal compared to some bands in respect to like what you do yeah kind of shows you do that that is pretty minimal it's uh i would like

i would keep it there as long as possible no matter what happens um just because you know i've never been like a big lights guy or any of that stuff it's just putting the guys in my band are all pretty amazing players we try to go out and put a show on. If you were doing something else, though, like say if you were a part of a band, that band was being promoted very heavily by some record company that had put the band together. You know, they do like those manufactured bands or something like that. You'd be in a situation where you're basically required to do commercially successful and viable music.

You couldn't just freeball like you're doing and doing whatever you want to do. Honestly, I don't know, man. All I know is what's happened to me. And most of my friends are people that just kind of do their thing. But there definitely is that element. to just kind of do their thing. But there definitely is that element. But there's, you know, I've only,

I never thought I'd ever sign with a record label. Really? Yeah, I never had any interest in it whatsoever. And the, you know, when things kind of took off, we met, all of them came knocking. But it was working fine by ourselves, just sort of subcontracting my team and the one thing i the only reason any artist should ever sign with a record label is for larger recording budgets you know a larger toolbox with right with in which to use to make your product let's call

you know for lack of a better term um so they they have like serious places where you can go to you can get to ridiculous studios and they're not i mean i still i still record in the you know my favorite studio in nashville there's nothing fancy about it it's just money for players and gear you might not have or and then mixing and then the more time to spend in the studio it really is i don't you know we we did we did metamodern in three or four days because we had to it doesn't necessarily you know dark side of the moon was made like nine months yeah i don't know but yeah it was definitely like two separate extended sessions wow you know you don't just for me is the that's the fun is sitting in that room and figuring out how to break shit

and make sounds I haven't heard before. And you need time to do that. You need, you know, money. But you can make great records for very little money, too. So what's the benefit of having a record company? They pay for the gear? They pay for production? The benefit of having a record company is simply somebody else pockets.

It all comes back on you. We don't want to pull the curtain back too much here. I looked at it as going into business with a bank for at least two records, take out a loan that I'm pretty sure I'll never pay back because the recoup, you know, it's in there. But I feel like I'm more of like it all comes down to the bean counters eventually. Like, you know, my records sell two, three hundred thousand copies. And at some point they'll have to decide whether that's fiscally viable to them anymore because they don't they don't make any money off me unless I sell records. You know what I mean? Like they don't. don't make any money off me unless i sell records you know what i mean like they don't it was a very friendly structured deal like touring and

all that publishing shit's completely separate there's nothing to do i just make records and they have to sell them right and i get to make the records that i maybe couldn't or would make on my own i don't know but outside of that a record company or perform um provides marketing or reach or push or even sadly in the music business there's probably less bullshit in politics there may even be less politics in politics uh you know i probably would not have been up for album of the year at the grammys last year had i been on 30 tigers as opposed to atlantic records you know what i mean right um no i think it was a great record. I know I deserved to be there, but it wouldn't have happened

if you didn't have that kind of weight at the table. That's very honest of you. And that can make you feel, like, jaded against it all, or you can be like, okay, well, you know, Wiz Khalifa, they probably spend more money marketing one single for Wiz Khalifa than my entire project costs. So because they make all those records and bruno mars or whoever sells 18 gazillion records guys like me get to make records and that's how it works it's a trickle down you know right and it's all based on the

money that they made from a long time ago really and then maintaining some sort of they're still making money man the streaming thing you know they're still making money, man. The streaming thing, you know, they're all in bed now with the streaming services. Yeah, we've talked about this before. You've seen profits

steadily climb back up. For them, but not really for artists. Not really for the artists. Which is crazy. I have nothing against Spotify. I know people are like,

fuck that shit, but look at it. Like this, man, the people that are streaming music, they're not buying records anyway, but they're still

finding your music. They're still telling their friends about it. They're still coming to your show, which is how we get paid, playing shows. Yeah, they're still buying records anyway but they're still finding your music they're still telling their friends about it they're still coming to your show which is how we get paid playing shows yeah they're still your fans so you have to either embrace it

or go fucking do something else yeah yeah that's a good point but now when Spotify starts kicking songwriters 12 points then yeah I'll do commercials for them until then but they are doing

whether you realize it or not you see it does count up but it counts up but it is a weird thing when your business model is based on you selling art and you don't pay for it specifically even even with it i feel more like atlantic went into business with me i feel in many ways still feel like a very independent minded artist like no i don't go to meetings nobody's telling me what to do right. I don't have a manager or even technically a publicist at this point. I'm just sort of floating and writing songs and making records, and then we go play shows.

If you could just keep that. That's where I've, in the last five years, figured out where I want to be and what parts of it mean and something to me, and I know I'm getting and giving back with the fans Well, I think it's also when if you can stick into that groove you stay in that groove right there You can maintain who you are you can you can still explore new ideas You can you're not you're not being pushed too much you know if you were if you were were being pushed to constantly produce new stuff,

I could imagine that wears on artists. I just spent so much of my early life working for other people. I just made a point one day before I moved to Nashville, I'm not going to do that ever again. I don't want to work for anybody else unless it's somebody I really admire or is a really exciting, creative thing that I feel like I could benefit from or learn from being involved with i understand a thousand percent but what's interesting is when i talk about on the podcast sometimes people who don't do that they do work for someone

they have a job they get upset right they feel like it sounds like you're talking down on jobs but the reality is you're working there for money we've all done it everybody's worked for money everybody's worked for some of my, I love the railroad gig. If this all gave up tomorrow, I actually could be just fine. I'd go back to the railroad and be totally happy. Go out and throw switches 12 hours a day, have my four days off, make a good salary, whistle while I work, all that shit, man. Yeah.

But it doesn't hurt to have a plan B. But no, working for other people was never something I enjoyed. But I think anybody that even hears us say that, the reality is if someone gave them the option, you don't have to work ever again. They would go, okay. What would you do, though? You do whatever you want. What I would do? I would fill my day up with learning shit.

You're one of the busiest fucking people I know, though. You don't have a job, but you're you, you're a very proactive human being. You know, you do whatever you want all day long, but it doesn't mean you're not working. You're not benefiting. I do whatever I want, but I earn it. Like I do shit. I earn it. I feel like I have to, I have to work.

My, the thing with my job is it doesn't feel like work. Right. There are parts that did feel like work that I identified that really have nothing to do with what I want to wake up and do. Now I just don't do those things anymore. And now it's like, you know, the travel sometimes feels like work. The things that I do don't feel like work. This definitely never feels like work. Podcasts don't feel like work.

Stand-up doesn't feel like work. Working for the UFC doesn't feel like work. Those things don't feel like work. But the stuff in between those things to make sure those things work well, that's the work. Sure. Like working out and writing and stuff. Do you handle the day-to-day admin? 100%. I don't have anybody. I don't have an assistant. My take is always, if you need an assistant, just do less shit. You don't want someone that you have to constantly check in on and make sure they're they've got their shit together and i've had some friends that had assistants and then your life becomes their life and your problems become their problems

their problems become your problems as well anybody you invite into your life you're inviting their problems into your life it's just that's ultimately what i've learned and it's also i don't necessarily think in my case it's necessary. Maybe other people are more busy and they need assistance, and I have a lot of friends who have assistance, a lot. But I don't function that way. When I wake up, I have a bunch of shit I'm going to do today. I set my alarm clock, and I have a schedule.

But that schedule's mine. I made it. It's yours. Yeah, when I went running today. You change it whenever you whatever the fuck i want yeah but our manager is like this the sweetest most empathetic human being i've ever met and you know he's not just he's not just responsible for me he's like the babysitter and the mother of the whole family but like sometimes if we've been on the bus for a while or rolling most more than anything to give everybody else a break and do him a favor i'll go off on my own and like stay at a different hotel or i'll go to

a different city for two days and he's always like you know he's from new zealand he's like so sweet he's like fucking gigantic and uh he's like would you like me to book your room no i got it man it's like are you sure he's almost like i almost feel like i'm hurting his feelings because i won't let him like take care of my day it's like motherfucker i got price line you know i can do this i go you know people don't expect you to be doing that right that's what's interesting right they want they want to be able to handle it so you don't have to do the mundane things that a normal person so you got eight other people to to take care of right now i'm a grown-ass man yeah i would never want to do what you were saying John Lennon did.

Just lay around. Walk around naked. And I can't do it. I don't think he liked to work. Yeah. I mean, he was a true artist. Yeah. I get it.

I mean, I get it. But for me, it's almost like I know what makes me feel like shit. And I know what makes me feel good. What makes me feel good is when I get shit done. What makes me feel like shit is i know what makes me feel good right what makes me feel good is when i get shit done what makes me feel like shit is when i'm lazy then i get anxiety depressed feel weird yeah i don't feel good i don't feel like i'm getting anything done and people think that oh because i work hard and i'm i'm constantly doing something that i never feel like that no i definitely will feel like that that's why i do something recently they proved that task completion your brain releases a chemical that makes you fucking feel great oh yeah man like i did this i did something on purpose

when you finish your album when you're done it's amazing oh but it's also terrifying i'm sure you're like god i gotta like release that yeah people are gonna hear that shit. But yeah, it does feel like a release is the best way to put it. Yeah, I think everybody should experience that. Even in a small, I think little kids get that when they earn their fucking karate belts. And you see a little kid get a yellow belt and they tie it on, they're beaming this face. Like they can't believe it. I did it, I did it. I give my oldest a high five for anything and it's like you see them light up.

Yeah. It's just like that affirmation. Yep. Getting something done. They did it. It didn't, I mean, think about, especially when you're talking about, like, little children. Like, my seven-year-old loves to draw. She's really into art.

And, like, she takes a piece of paper. And this is not a big deal to us as grown men. She takes a piece of paper, and that paper is blank. And in her little brain, she decides what's going to be on that paper she's like i'm going to draw a dog and then boom it's a dog and i'm going to draw a dog that has a wing and also has a tail and has a tail that grows out of his forehead and just makes wacky shit up and she thinks it's fucking hilarious like look he's got a tail on his head but in her little mind she's learning that she can do whatever the fuck she wants with that time there's nobody there saying you shouldn't do that no one's saying anything

and little kids gravitate towards that man when little kids start drawing they gravitate towards this expansion of the creative aspects of your mind like whatever it is in your mind that causes you to have these ideas whatever in your mind that causes you to think up a story that you want to write down or a drawing that you want to try to ideas. Whatever in your mind that causes you to think up a story that you want to write down or a drawing that you want to try to accomplish and try to put down. Those little things to a kid are magical because they didn't have any of that before.

I mean, they just learned how to talk. She's seven. And she's only been talking for five and a half years. You know, all that other stuff before was gibberish. And all of a sudden, she's sitting in front of the pad and no one tells her what to do. Little seven-year-old like, hmm, I think I'm going to paint today. She gets out the paint and just puts a little of this and a little of that.

You're flexing those little muscles, you know, just as if you were doing push-ups. You're flexing those creative feels, you know. And to encourage that with kids, that's what we all love. We all love doing something. And people say, well, I'm not very creative. I just like working with wood. That is fucking creative. Like carpenters are goddamn creative.

You built a house, motherfucker. Do you understand? I can't do that. I can't do that. I'm in awe of that. It's amazing. I grew up around construction. It's fucking hard to do.

You build a badass house, that shit is hard to do. Or people that are highly mechanically inclined can just take a car completely apart and put it back together in the garage i've always been really envious guys who build cars that's art that's art mechanics there's an art to even being a mechanic just doing it all perfect putting it together using your mind thinking out how to maybe get bore out this and put that in and swap this out and what's the issue with the vehicle and there's like a there's a there's a creative aspect to anything that's really satisfying and i think that you know we kind of pound that out of kids man yeah i think that's very true we pounded out of them very true well it has no it doesn't serve capitalism yeah you know so yeah i the the like i was saying earlier i had this this train

job and the first year i was there i was like out on the ground like throwing the switches and disconnecting the trains and hooking them back up and that kind of thing and then yeah i got i got uh promoted to what they call like a yard master or like well you're a yard boss and you're in the truck and you're sort of in charge of the inbound and outbound manifest and everything that comes in and how it gets blocked apart and switched over to this track and you're building other trains and you got to get them out on time and like as soon as they put me in that job it was like the greatest job i ever had because i was playing tetris you know i mean i was just like fucking baron von munchausen and my little

fucking truck with my 8 000000 radios tearing trains apart and just watching it all happen and get it out the gate on time. It became like a high. Wow. Because it's high pressure, very dangerous. Yeah.

There's only three guys out there making all this shit happen. You've got the guy driving the engineer, the dude breaking them apart, and then whoever's on the back sort of playing the chessboard. Whew. Yeah.

I was like, this is fucking awesome. I got a big old thermos. All that shit, man. Yeah, there's some good jobs, for sure. But if somebody came up to you in the middle of that good job and said, you don't have to do this ever again, you can do whatever the fuck you want, you would leave. It's a good job for a job.

Yeah, that's what I did. Yeah, it's a good job for a job. Well, I fucked up and took a management position after that. Oh, no. And these offices totally out of my element getting screamed at on a conference call when some other asshole didn't get the train out on time. Isn't that crazy? Because you went from having this cool high-pressure job that makes you feel good to making more money, but you don't get that juice anymore. Yeah, I was like, man, this is way too stable.

I better be a songwriter. You know? No, I burned out. yeah i was like man this is way too stable i better be a songwriter you know no i burn out i hit vapor lock because it was just i was like i'm gonna go to fucking golf i can't imagine shit with other dudes and khaki pants now like i can't even pretend to be this guy like what am i thinking those are the guys that i think of when i that thoreau quote uh most men live lives of silent desperation. Those are the men I think of. Those men that have fallen into some salary position where they're not happy and they want to get out and they don't know how to. Well, they have the downfall of being highly efficient individuals

and other CEOs recognize that and be like, I can put you on salary and work you 90 hours a week and you're going to get it done because you won't let yourself fail, but you'll probably fucking drink five pots of coffee a day. Listen, Sturgill, if you keep going, you've got a good position in this company. I'm telling you, you've got a bright future. You can make it happen. 401K, 519A, I'm making those numbers up.

All that shit. It's crazy. It's most people. People get tired of people hearing this because they don't know what to do and so i didn't know what to do yeah forever i mean i just worked you know but then you do well you know always played music but never thought it was something you could even do for a job we would have known known where to go or how to do that until i married somebody a lot smarter than me one day. And I was like, man, I'm really unhappy.

And she's like, it's because you're supposed to be playing music, dumbass. And so I was like, oh, that's probably true. But if you did it earlier, you wouldn't be you. It's the craziest thing ever. It's like you had to go through all that bullshit to get the sound that you have now, to get the soul behind it that you have now. Sure. That's the sound of a man who suffered. Oh, sure that's the the sound of a man who suffered oh yeah it's the sound of a man who understands that's the woes is me that's real that's a real that's there's a real emotions you know like that

jolene song that we're talking about yeah it's your all lost though man if it had happened when i was younger it would have been way more interesting to watch. I would have fucked it up so good and proper. You would have spiraled hard, right? So good and proper, yeah. No. I mean, that's props to Justin Bieber. We're happy, man. It's keeping it together. It's hard to... It's hard to complain.

Yeah, it should be. We got a great band. Family's healthy. Dude, you're in the groove. I'm in the groove. I'm doing my thing as far as I want to. You're in what my friend Vinny Shorman calls Hakalao.

It's when he's a hypnotherapist. He does a lot of mind work with fighters, like a mind coach. And he's like, there's this state that you get in where everything just flows. Everything's flows. And that's what you've figured out how to do so brilliantly in your life is after you've been through a bunch of bullshit you figured out to get to a place of success and then you're able to just do your thing that's that's your flow like you found your thing that's uh yeah and i had to learn that even in the last few years you know because you it's so easy

when i've always said use a metaphor when you're on the train it's hard to tell how fast it's going and more importantly where it's going because a lot of times you don't really have any control or even say so in that matter in some regards you don't want to know yeah how the sausage gets made but then it i've i am at a point now where as as far as i ever want to go because i i'm i have all the freedom to do what i want right and it might not sell as good or as as great as the last one did but like i'm having fun and it's going to be okay you know i don't think you're going to have any problems i think the the real issues have always been in the past about distribution in terms of radio play, album sales. So we don't do any of that.

But a guy like you, yeah. And a guy like you, you're so locked in. You came along at the right time, man. You locked in the zeitgeist. But you came along at the right time of the internet. I think it was all luck and right time. Definitely not all luck. But there was definitely like i'm just i'm just glad nobody else wrote a song about turtles that year because it would have been

very different outcome it would have been like that year that they had the two meteor movies oh yeah yeah right exactly yeah can't have fucking can't have two songs yeah i can't have that some guy wrote a book this year with the same title that song i mean he's getting all kinds of shit on is he and i was like i didn't fucking come up with it like don't send this to me yeah i stole it too yeah turtles all the way down people don't want to look into things i didn't know what it meant until you explained it i don't still don't know what it means i just thought you know yeah that's cool no i know what it means but in a very dumbed down to make this a standalone podcast explain to people what turtles all the way well it's a

jocular expression uh more of a um a funny way to put what is originally a concept as far as i know that was first described in detail by a jaycewit priest named pierre d'achardin all about how about the omega point in the universe and how all consciousness emits from this one central point of origin where the whole thing banged out from and it's all just expanding and reciprocating back to itself and like absorbing everything going on but it's this one point where all things spiritual scientific metaphysical all matter in the universe all fucking knowledge emits from and he got blackballed from the vatican for preaching that whoa because he was like you don't necessarily need to stand in a building to talk to god because god is everywhere and all

around you and inside you all the time whatever you want god to be or you know um so the the i got it from a stephen hawking book where and it's weird you can go around the world there's all these ancient civilizations whether it be some native american tribes or parts of far eastern asia where they find like these adherence to turtles and elephants and old culture and hindu mythology there's even a hindu illustration representing sort of a similar figure or myth that it all set on the back of this great turtle like flying around in space because they they held those animals in such regard as old and wise creatures actually turtles are the oldest living species on the planet they predate

crocodiles wow and the the symmetry of their shell designs no matter what species it's always 13 pieces which a lot of the old tribes thought had something to do with the lunar phases of the sun and how it was all tied in together with, you know. Whoa. Anyway, long way of saying that that song was written as a result of a lot of fucking reading, not necessarily taking drugs, you know. Wasn't that the original one of the more original calendars wasn't there like a 13 lunar cycle

calendar yeah it's a was it Mayan yeah I think that is what it is I think it is a Mayan calendar but it's all these things I sort of found or the symbiotically or connected I was reading at the time and it just and I was about to have my first child I was just like, man, I want to make a country record about all this shit or write a song about the Book of the Dead but as a traditional country record

and then incorporate some classic rock, psychedelia. So that was all that was. That's how I found you. People online, like, yo, dude, this guy's making psychedelic country music. You've got to have him on your podcast.

But then, like, then everywhere you go, people are making, like, handing you, like, hand-boned glass third eyes and shit. You know what I mean? Like, you get some real interesting characters, man. You get a little too many of those. When you throw it out there like that. There's too many bongs out there. Right. People still rock the bong, though.

Got to respect that, you know? It's like driving a manual car. I never was a bong guy. It's too heavy, man. I got shit to do, man. I can't just peel down. Or the dab thing. I got friends in Colorado, California.

Now the first time I ever did that shit, this is a pretty embarrassing story, but my buddy, they were all California, Colorado guys. They rolled pretty hard. I'm not really a heavy smoker, man, to be honest. On the road, it keeps me occupied from time to time. But if I'm riding, maybe. But at home, you know, there's no need. So the first time I did that shit, I didn't know what it was, you know.

I just pulled it like it was a big old bong rip. And then, like, everybody's face was like, oh. You know, I was like, I need you to instantly know you just did something you shouldn't have. Oh, no. And I was like, oh, fuck, man. So I sat down, and after a couple minutes, I just started getting really cold and clammy. And I was like, yep, I'm going to puke. So I went over and I was like, I fucked this guy, so I puked right in his sink.

And I was like, dude, I got to go home. I feel like dog shit now, and I'm pretty sure I'm dying. And I was like, dude, I got to go home. I feel like dog shit now, and I'm pretty sure I'm dying. So we lived in this apartment, and I was like, went out the door and turned the corner to go down the hallway. And it was full-on vertigo. Like, the hallway. Every time I took a step, the hallway got twice as long.

And I was like, this is fucked up. My wife was out of the country on work at the time. And I was like, I remember I was sitting down in the hallway just, like, trying to get my shit together, man. Because I thought I was having a fucking heart attack. It was just like sweating. And I remember this voice saying, get up, you stupid junkie fuck, before somebody comes out here and sees you, you know, sitting in the hallway like a dumbass. And I managed to like pop out of it. And as soon as I got back to my place and sat down on the couch, everything was fine. But it was just so initial and the rush i was just like i don't nobody needs to be that stone you know that fast i'm sorry yeah what kind of milligrams are you getting you think they just had like that nail head torch thing with this three thousand dollar glass piece i was like you

guys are taking this shit way too seriously. You could be curing fucking cancer somewhere right now, I'm pretty sure. If they put the effort, energy, and mind power in. Have you seen the laser bongs now? I got a video sent to me the other day, this guy, like a pressure activated laser bong

that shoots a beam and ignites the flower. Oh, Jesus. What the fuck's that guy doing? Come on, man. The thing is, they might be curing cancer. We've got space colonies that somebody's going to need to build. How many cancer patients are taking dabs? That might be the key.

Out here, probably a lot. Get them on it. If I was dying of terminal cancer, that's when you want to be that high. Look at this thing. Do that again, Jamie? Yeah. Oh, that's it. Look at this thing. Do that again, Jamie. Yeah. Oh, that's it. Look at this thing.

Of course he had to put fucking LED lights in it. He hits the light. Look at this laser. This is fucking insane. Now, how do you not go blind staring at this? So he's heating it up. It's cooking. That's a good question.

And then he takes a big hit. Wow. Yeah, anyway. Fuck, man. The medical strength stuff I totally understand. Fuck. That seems like you go blind. Like you're staring at a big hit. Wow. Yeah, anyway. Fuck, man. The medical strength stuff, I totally understand. Fuck. That seems like you go blind, like if you're staring at a welder. Yeah.

You know? Do you have to wear a welding mask? Somebody very close to my life in my life recently that was dealing with that. Vertigo? No, like heavy medical issues, health issues. And we got him some edibles and, uh, he's like,

it's the only thing that made it. Okay. Like that discomfort. And so when I had to have a sinus surgery, we talked about this when we played the Grammys out here, uh, last year, I was sick as fuck,

man. Like I was getting all year for like the last year and a half on the road, I was getting these horrible sinus infections all the time. And I just assumed it was allergies. Tennessee's really bad about that. Or we'd go to Texas or Atlanta places in October when all these crazy dogwoods are kicking off. And I would lose my voice. And, you know, by no fault of my own, it became very frustrating from a touring standpoint because I felt like I was always sick.

And it was because I was. So when we flew out and did the Grammys I was all plugged up couldn't sing obviously biggest gig in my life kind of stressing it so the label guy sent me to this doctor who looked up in there and realized you know I probably had my nose broken at some point or just a really deviated septum when I was younger so like a broken air filter but then when they did the scan, like all the cavities were just completely caked with residual bacteria and infection. And he's like,

he's like, if you get on a plane and fly home, you're probably going to get meningitis. Whoa. So we had to play the Grammys. He put, he like nuked me with all this shit. I don't even know what he did,

but it opened it up for like a day. That's where I was able to sing. So the next day, the whole band, they flew home. I had to stay out here for like nine days i think and go in every morning twice a day for ivs for him to clean that shit out so i could fly home so then we came back and did this surgery to correct it all and like went in there and scraped and cleaned them all out and shit and uh along with the the septum they fixed the septum so i haven't had a single issue since all that happened i haven't been sick one time which is like changed my life but while i was recuperating

long story short i didn't want to take any of the opioid or the fucking pills that they gave me to deal with the pain i was like i'm not taking that shit i'm you know you're gonna give me this for four weeks like no no way and so i just got a bunch of medical strength edibles and my wife and the kids they had to come my way to rent a house so i had to be here to like recover and shit and man just laying in bed listening to headphones stoned out of my mind for like a week recovering and that's it's kind of awesome because you feel like when you're actually in pain or when you need that type of that heavy type of alleviation what what it is actually doing and offering you in terms of relief and it gave me a whole new understanding and respect for like the medical side of that shit here we are back on pot again

but yeah um and then my buddy who dealt some pretty serious cancer said it was literally the only thing that made him feel better so what did it do for you like so you're you're in this terrible agony yeah those are all fucked up it's all plugged up i had like all this gauze and shit and i could feel where they'd been in there like behind scraping and i could just you know so immediately like all that was gone and you just sort of get really docile and euphoric and relax i mean like so fucking high but like it didn't affect me in a in a overdosey nauseous sort of way. Like if you're eating too many edibles because your body actually needs it, needs it. Yeah. I laid there listening to headphones and came up with the record I'm working on now.

It's great for me because it was like, that's what I want to do next. You know? Yeah. It's a it's a crazy ride, those edibles. But if you can take that ride, you get something out of it. And sometimes people take the ride and the feeling is just too self-examinatory, too paranoia-inducing. Sometimes people just can't handle it. On a mass legality issue, I mean, if anything, I know it's just going to fuck pot up. But from a medical stance, I can't see any reason why we're still even talking about this. Yeah.

You know, no, it doesn't make sense. We were, we're being fucked over by giant pharmaceutical companies that are making billions of dollars and they would realize how much more money they would be losing every year. If marijuana becomes fully legal,

they've already lost money for sure. I guarantee you there's people that are buying edible marijuana right now that would have bought pain pills. They know it. Also insurance companies. Yep. You know, on-the-job accidents. Oh, we had weed in the system.

We're not going to pay that. My life insurance now, man, this is crazy. I did one of the first interviews I ever did, I think. I talked about the first time I moved to Nashville and how I didn't really know anybody. It was 2005, and it was a different town then. So basically, I said I spent most of my time listening and playing bluegrass and drinking, which is pretty much what everybody does the first year they move to Nashville. But then I said after that, well, I moved out to Utah and got this job and got sober.

I was working all the time. So somebody put on my Wikipedia page that I've talked about my struggles with alcohol. And those people read that shit, man, when I had to get a life insurance policy. Like, they showed up. They'd read all the interviews and, like, wow, you've been really open about this and that. And I was like, yeah. And they're like, so you do the whole medical test. And, of course, I test positive for THC because I'm on the road all the time.

And I was like, but I don't smoke it, you know. Vape or edibles. Like, I'm not a smoker. I never smoke cigarettes. But they list you as a smoker. And now I have, like, a criminally fucking insane yearly life insurance policy. Because, of course, like course like you know they think well musician too this guy's gonna die we can't fuck i have the exact same thing yeah it's insane

like i don't know i don't even smoke but i'm i'm listed as a smoker and it's like literally nine thousand dollars some crazy fucking premium just to make sure my family's okay if i die on a business trip yeah they um they tested me and uh they said, well, you tested positive for pot. I go, yeah, that's because I smoke pot. You already know that. Like, what are you doing? Trying to pretend I'm not healthy? Has anybody ever died from smoking pot?

No, it's stupid. It's a dumb thing. Unless you think that I'm going to do dumb shit because I'm high all the time, if that's what you think. But that doesn't make any sense. You need to test how healthy I am. Guess what?

I'm fucking healthy. Right. Yeah, I work out all the time. Super healthy. Eat good. I know what I'm doing. Like, you don't know what you're doing. the problem is you don't know what you're doing You're the insurance guy you don't know what you're doing if you knew what you were doing You would look at each individual and go out this guy's fine This guy's healthy this guy's concentrating on his health this guy who doesn't smoke pot and just eat sugar all day this guy's kind of

Fucked though. Oh that guy's real fuck that guy's fuck this guy Who's on Adderall because he's got a prescription for ADD and you have a problem with that, that guy's fucked. All these other people, there's a lot of people that are fucked out there. And these insurance companies that think that a guy who smokes pot is more likely to die, there's no statistics to back that up.

There's no statistics that say that people who smoke pot are more likely to get diseases or die of some sort of a fucking debilitating syndrome that came about because of overuse of THC. It doesn't exist. But they're not even testing you for alcohol. They're not even telling you. They ask you how much you drink without testing you.

Like, they can't test you. It's not in your system anymore. It's really strange because in the Navy and the railroad, there were very stringent, obviously highly stringent drug policies. But drinking your ass off every night is completely fine. Completely fine. Don't smoke a joint at 5 p.m., but kill that six-pack and come in here and build this train the next morning. Those were always the guys that made me nervous. Not only that, there's a culture of honor behind it, like how much you can handle your drunk.

How much can you handle your drinking? Bobby had 17 fucking beers. I swear to God, bro, you would think he had zero How much can you handle your drinking? Bobby had 17 fucking beers. I swear to God, bro, you would think he had zero. He's right there. Good for Bobby. Bobby's an animal. Yeah. Bobby puts them down.

Like, there's like a badge of honor that goes to that. Bobby's, meanwhile, he's taking something that's completely hindering his thought process, his stability, his emotions are all out of whack. Like, he's fucking drunk as shit. Right. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's wrestling. His brain is wrestling with alcohol right now,

which is one of the weirdest depressants. It's awful. One of the weirdest drugs. You spend a lot of time on the road traveling constantly. One, you can't really drink, especially at our age. It just does things to me. You look at rooms full of people every night that are sometimes really drunk or like if you work with people.

I don't. I refuse to. I don't really let people drink in my band on the road. And that's cost me players because they'd rather drink than be in your band. Would you say you don't drink? Can they have a glass of wine with dinner well there's there's well that's like you know a beer or two you know right there's not getting hammered there's people that shouldn't drink right you know what i mean yes like the guy that has one drink and instantly turns into a different motherfucker all together yeah and then by the time he's on that third one everybody's like how

much longer we got to do this yeah there's a lot of those guys out there too a lot of people I didn't know that existed until I'm the first time I met one one where the switch goes off and they get your below the Jekyll and Hyde drunk yeah they get gerbil eyes like herbal eyes wow that's a good way to know it's weird whoa and they're moving around like they're a normal, a woke person. Hashtag woke. Yeah, there's a weird contradiction we have in this society. We were constantly drinking drugs in the form of caffeine,

constantly getting drugs in the form of whatever your doctor prescribes you for depression or anxiety or ADHD or whatever that is, constantly going out and having drinks, taking drugs, the drugs being alcohol, taking a whiskey drug and a vodka drug, and no one thinks anything of it. And they're like, well, I don't do drugs. You do drugs all day. All day.

There's so few people who don't do any drugs. Some drugs are super beneficial. Think about those weed edibles that made you write this album. all day. All day. There's so few people who don't do any drugs. Some drugs are super beneficial. Like, think about that, those weed edibles that made you write this album. That's a beneficial, well,

it didn't make you write it, but you were on it while you wrote it. Give it a little credit. I think I was listening to some old records early love and I was like,

yeah, that sounds good. I'll do that. You could feel music better when you're high. Britney Spears sounds good when you get high britney spears sounds good you get high enough man you kidding me turn that shit up like yeah britney god bless her i like miley cyrus's music while i'm high i'm gonna admit it right now that song malibu it's a good fucking song man

it's a good song don't laugh at me jamie it mocks me as if it young cute girl can't be a real artist son of a bitch like the first thing you played in the studio here in the in the right super loud yeah you got a stereo here oh yeah oh do you have a man of course in the gym is filled with speakers good for you I went to uh my name drop real quick because yesterday was probably one of those one of those days we're like yeah this is why i do this um well i ended up going up to malibu to rick rubin's house and was playing him some of some of this record i'm working on just to get some feedback and it's one of those moments when you like you realize you're sitting like rick rubin's like all engine style on his couch head banging like a fucking caveman and he had literally the best sounding stereo system I've ever heard my life can only imagine I mean better than any top-grade studio

monitors I've ever set in front of it was just like yep yeah that's really Rick Rubin too that's the coolest part that was the only thing that was in the fucking room was the couch it was like literally like the TKA guy sitting in the chair in front of this tower

you know it's like just the stereo on the floor in this fucking empty room but I don't know what it was or what the speakers even were I've never seen anything like it but it

I bet it's like what Rollins has Henry Rollins has these speakers we were talking about the other day they're like a quarter million dollars. Is that what they were? Quarter million dollar speakers in his living room.

These towers, these two towers. And they're just, I mean, I've never experienced it. So I don't know what it's like. But I got to assume that you've spent a quarter million dollars for some speakers. I thought I'd heard some pretty impressive speakers in my time. But this was like some really holy shit, this exists kind of moment. Right, right. It makes sense.

It doesn't even have to be that loud, right? It's just that the sound is so powerful, right? Yeah. The only thing, I don't want a car. I want a samurai sword and Rick Rubin's home stereo. That's what I'm aspiring to now. And a Bronco. And a lightsaber.

Give the man a Bronco and a lightsaber. Yeah, I had a Bronco. now. And a Bronco. And a lightsaber. Give the man a Bronco and a lightsaber. Yeah, I had a Bronco. I had a badass Bronco. My second one, we moved to Nashville in Bronco. It was my wife's. It died. I ended up scoring this sweet one, this redneck in Livingston, Tennessee or somewhere I bought it off from.

It was a 92, and he'd like matte blacked it out. My buddy Bobby took it for like a month while I was on tour in Europe and stripped all the interior out. We rhino-hide the entire liner. Took all the plastic, everything. It was just like a fucking Mad Max death trap. And we had these bucket Colbert leather racing seats we bolted in. And then I had two kids.

And it was like, I'm going to die driving in this thing. It had a 400 Windsor rebuild with, like with cams, headers, the whole goddamn thing. My neighbors hated it. And I gave it to my drummer when his truck died. And he actually, unlike most kids of the millennial era, really put time and money and effort and work into it. It was like fixing it up and making it his. And then he's getting married, so he's got a real truck.

So now that Bronco's gone. I feel like it's probably time to find a sweet Bronco yeah that's a good era too the oj's bronco here is a more understated bronco yep the locking hubs yeah the move is to get one of those and keep it plain j in the outside but on the inside just put a bad ass that's what i really want to do is uh um because i don't i'd like to have some yeah it's very unassuming and on the inside just look like a rocket ship with all the accoutrement. That could be done. Yeah, easily.

And very modernized user friendly. What are you going to pay to do that, man? You could fucking go buy a 1970 Cuda or something. You could buy a house. Right. Yeah, you could buy a house where you live. For real. Yeah, buy a fat piece of land. Nashville. The real estate has gotten pretty I don't live in Nashville anymore, but I Don't know it much like Austin. I

Mean five years from now there may not be any music in Nashville cuz I don't know how many musicians are gonna afford to live There. Yeah, that's why I'm trying so fast like an explosion an explosion Logistically the infrastructure the traffic it's like a miniature version of L.A. now. When did it start? Hard to say. I mean, the first time I lived there was in 2005, and it was a different city then. None of this had happened. A lot of the hip bars now, like, there could have been eight people in there on a Friday night.

I'm not really sure. I moved there 2011. there on a Friday night. I'm not really sure. I moved there 2011. And I think it was like in the last two or three years, though, all the gentrification started around then they were building these, you know, what used to be the blown out, dilapidated parts of town, the high rises started going up and shopping centers and that sort of thing. And there's still very much the old Nashville. it's almost like two or three different cities in some cases in terms of personality but the influx and all this change has sort of changed what it what it is but like austin used to be a thriving music scene but

now it's like all the tech industry moved in the cost of living and property is just insane hmm like struggling service industry job day to day as we say artists people trying to make it can't they're all having to live like an hour outside of town and commute in for the gigs Wow that's crazy and what do you think was the catalyst like what what caused the launch just became a cool place to be yeah i mean well there was there was uh i'm not sure well in terms of uh well it's always been a publishing hub right no it's not i mean it's a music town but there's and there's all kinds of music they're not just country music when did that tv show come out there was a big nashville tv show that would have been about

four or five years ago do you think that fucked it up all those dorks they go oh we're gonna live there well there's definitely tours from that tv show drink out of a match mason jar it's such a soap opera version that isn't really that far enough away from how that world probably works i never saw it i didn't either i watched my wife watched it one night and I just was like, no. I've been there a bunch of times playing Zanies. Okay, now that little street where you're talking about, that corner on 8th Avenue, there's Zanies, you got

Douglas Corner, then there's a lot of shops that I go to on Sundays. They're auctioneers. They do all these old estate sales and really cool furniture. But that little pocket, that intersection, is probably one of the few remaining bastions of funk left in Nashville. That's probably my favorite little corner in Nashville because I can just stand there and it still feels relatively similar to what it probably felt like 30 years ago. You know what I mean? Right, right.

But a lot of other things change around things that don't. Does that make sense? It does make sense. Yeah. Those are cool little pockets then, right? Yeah. I think I got a good friend, Billy Wayne Davis. I met him at Zany's one night back when I was on Twitter.

He reached out, like, I'm playing here tonight, free ticket. So my wife and I went. We like comedy and got to know him. And he ended up opening a tour for me. That place is one of those places where you know it's good and old based on the number of dead people on the wall. Right. Seriously. And you're walking around.

You're like, oh, Richard Jennings. If you can walk in and taste cocaine. Yeah. You know. Well, I mean, the photos, the head shots of all the dead comedians, there's so many of them. You know, that place has been around forever. Aren't you coming to Nashville soon? Yeah, like a couple of weeks.

What day? I don't know. I should probably know. I'm doing the Ryman on the 30th. Yeah, the 30th. Yeah, the 30th on the Ryman with the Golden Pony Tony Hinchcliffe then we're in Charlotte

the next night that's what I like little short weekends bing bang four shows two shows Friday two shows Saturday have you done the Ryman before

yeah couple times yeah I love it it's fucking awesome I'm gonna be out of town I'm bummed what are you gonna do what are you gonna do

what are you gonna do I'm always coming through I come through like once every year maybe a year and a gonna do i'm always coming through i come through like once every year maybe a year and a half at most i love it i might come through again and do zanies um after this when i write my new hour just to fuck around stretch it out because uh you really want to stretch it out at a comedy club you don't want to stretch it out in front of 3 000 people it's just not it's not a good it's not a good uh development. It's not the room to try things out. The big rooms in the room, that's when you're done.

You got it. You got the set. You know what you're doing. You fuck around while you're up there, but you basically have a structure for your act. You have a structure for each bit. And occasionally, y'all deviate. But what I don't want to do, I don't want to work out brand new material in front of 3,000 people. Fuck that.

One night, I think I came to watch your show at the store. Yeah. And this was like a year ago. And you had to jet right after the set and go to Pasadena for another set. My buddy that I brought with me, we're going to hang here, see who comes out. And like Jeff Ross or somebody comes out, and he's doing his bit. And right in the fucking middle of it, the back curtain opens and Chappelle walks out and just kind of like taps Ross on the shoulder like, fuck off, I got this.

And just jacks the mic. And pretty much everybody else is set who was supposed to perform that night and stands there for like three hours, man. We're just sitting there. I was like, dude, this will probably never happen again in your lifetime. So I'm not fucking leaving. And we just sat there the whole time. He sat there rocking tequila bombs and getting drunk and just really talking there were times where it was the funniest thing i've ever seen

literally and there were times where like it kind of got dark and you're like where's what the fuck's happening where's this going and he was working things out and then later on those netflix specials land and i realized i've already heard like 90 of these jokes and because the guy was just like i'm gonna go hijack the main room, work my shit out because I got it like that. I'm Dave Chappelle, you know. But it was fucking amazing. Yeah, he does that a lot where he'll just drop into a place and just do a set.

And that's how he kind of works his material out, you know. He just kind of drops in and keeps tweaking it. And if he has a structure, right, like if he has a few ideas that he's talking about, he can just riff, and especially if he's drinking, just go on stage. I'm drinking. And then he's always got dudes behind him that are taking down notes, letting them know,

like, oh, you talked about this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm sure they record it, too. And they'll go over it and eventually boil it down to, like, what that Netflix special was. The two Netflix specials. That shows you how prolific that dude is. To put out a Netflix special and then a year later put out two Netflix specials.

Right. And then Netflix is like, we'll take it. What do you got? He's like, hey, I wrote this one this month and I'd like to put it down for all eternity. Are you cool with that? Most people, you write something and it's a good solid year before you even consider putting in a special. You know, some guys were doing, like, a special year, but too much of it was, like, half-cooked.

It was like, if you just waited six more months, this thing would be, like, an all-time great special. But instead, you're banging them out one a year. You never get the essence of the thing. Well, his thing, too, part of his thing i think is is making it look like it's so effortless because the night at the comedy store and it just like it did feel like he was just sort of making the shit up on the spot and then you see the netflix specials and it sort of feels the same way like he's just being dave and like he would a little subtle things i noticed like probably 10 times throughout the night at really awkward

moments he would call the waitress to get him another drink but he would he would only say bar whore and every time he'd say it it'd get a little a little more awkward like a little less appropriate each and every fucking time we're probably eventually everybody in the room was like that's not really cool and then at the end of the night, he's like, the last thing he says is like, I'm really sorry. I called you bar whore. I just don't have any fucking jokes. And he walked off the stage. And I was like.

Yeah, that's how Dave writes. That's one of the ways he writes. But he's got it down. You know, he's got it down to a science. And the other thing he does is he just travels to towns. Just decides to travel to a town and then go on stage, show up. Three nights at the Fillmore. Yeah, but, I mean, he doesn't even – he'll do that, but that's booked.

He books that. You have to book the Fillmore. You have to book that shit. Nine months. Right. But if he works somewhere else, he just shows up. Like he'll work at a comedy club and just show up. Gotcha.

You know, it's like I was in Denver once and he just showed up. I came in the green room after the show. It was after the late show Friday night. I went backstage and Dave's in the green room. I go, what are you doing, man? And he goes, hey, Joe, I'm just in town fucking around. I go, you want to go on stage? He's like, should I?

I go, fuck yeah. I grab him, bring the people back in. People were already getting up and leaving. I said, ladies and gentlemen, get back. Dave Chappelle's here. And he went, ah. Of course he wants to go on stage. Why else is he there?

That's why he's there. That's what he does. That's what he does that's what he does this thing you know but it's just weird to say like oh like this guy's so free he could just fly into a town where he knows his friends are gonna be he doesn't even have to call you in advance you know he just flew in and I see him like oh yeah get up there like he's he's as free as a bird he does like whatever he wants and then he does these Netflix specials they pay him an assload of money and then he just does shows whenever he wants to but his creative process is like almost like engineered around being loose like doing whatever he wants going where he wants to go doing whatever he wants and then writing you know and then figuring out on stage then riffing and then

just around it's fascinating fascinating to watch it's like jazz almost oh it's very much like yeah i mean he's um he's also got being dave chapelle down to a science like you were saying that you're in the sturgill simpson business he's in the dave chapelle business yeah yeah he does what dave chapelle wants to do that's the key i think i think that's the key if we could all be in the business of whoever the fuck you are whatever you do well it's i like to write songs and make records and pretty much say no to everything else i think that's a good life dave seems to be on a on a much grander scale you ain't like. I mean, is there any point of the day where you ever do anything you don't want to do? No, not anymore.

No, I mean, I do things that I know I have to do that I'm not looking forward to. But that's mostly, like, exercise shit. Right. You know, like, sometimes I'm just not looking forward to it and I have to force myself to do it. Or writing. I love writing, but sometimes I have to force myself to sit down in front of the computer but other than that like i know right on a computer yeah really yeah i can't uh write i write by hand too but when i write by hand it's really just rehashing things right when i write on a computer i there's no way i can write is uh with my hands as quickly as i can type i can type

pretty quick so if i'm if i have an, and I don't want to hear my voice, so I don't want to say it into a microphone. I want to just figure out what the beats are of things. Interesting. Yeah, well, I was going to say, I always write by hand because usually the meter or the phrasing, there's a way it makes me think about it. It goes down right the first time.

Or as opposed to I'm just like writing poetry on a computer screen or whatever you know you don't necessarily have a sense of uh the beat whereas like i want things to flow a certain way and land on on hits and that and i usually just like throw all the consonants away hmm you know bill clinton wrote his entire memoir on um like legal paper doesn't surprise me he wrote it on like you think about what you're writing yeah as a i think he wrote it on like a regular notebook like maybe one of those uh black and white ones that you used to get when you're with the with the splatter covers are cool. I wrote stacks of those things at the time. I still write jokes in those. When I write on a piece of paper, I'm really just reminding myself most of the time.

Occasionally I have an idea that I have to circle and I put an X next to it. But if you read my notebook, you'd think I was a crazy person. There's something to that, too, in terms of memory. I've learned a long time ago, if there's a song I want to learn, you've got to remember all the words. I'm never going to remember them until I just sit down and write that song down on paper. Like one time. Once I write it on paper and see it, it's like it's there.

Yep. You know? Yep. Whether it's mine or somebody else. I only forget the words to the shit I write, weirdly. That's kind of... In shows, it never fails. If I get lost or forget something, it's always a song I wrote.

Really? Like 8,000 old country bluegrass songs. I just pull out of my ass on a dime and remember all that shit, but it's always the ones I wrote. I wonder why. I don't know, man. That's interesting.

That makes sense, though, right? Because the other ones that you remember, they just had an impact on you. Like they mean something to you. Or it's the one you wrote, like it comes out of nowhere. It goes through you to your pad, right? It's like it's almost hard to recapture that state. And then you're like a normal person trying to remember what you thought of when you were in that zone.

Whereas if it was a song that somebody else made, you're like, oh, I love this song. I don't know if it's because you're reacting to it more strongly. I mean. Well, I think there's a thing of creativity that involves the no self. Right? There's that state that you get when you. Oh, there's a lot of shit that I write where I go back over it. I'm like, how did I write that bit out?

And then I go back and read it. I don't remember any of this. any of this right half of it i don't remember i took it in a whole different that's the hardest part that was getting to that lack of self yeah i mean even uh i think that's with any art when you're not thinking about it or self-aware or have any preconceived notions about where it wants to go yeah you know do you smoke weed and write wants to go yeah you know do you smoke weed and write i don't ever like do one way or another specifically on just whatever yeah i have written while i'm high i've written when i'm not you know right what about performing generally i don't enjoy it depends i can't i don't i don't really like to smoke weed anymore it's something about the way it hits me when I inhale it high. It becomes more heady and internalized and like any anxiety or the paranoia people talk about.

It's the only time I've ever experienced that is when I've smoked weed. But my problem is I don't like going on stage stone anymore because you're so ultra sensitive. My ear becomes like I already struggle with it enough. I'm hearing everything happening and dissecting it all, like hypercritical in real time. And you can't do that and perform and let go. So you kind of have to like, it's two different brains. But if I'm up there singing and looking at an audience,

if I'm stoned, I know enough about myself to know I'll get internalized and just only start listening to the band and the music and you sort of forget that there's all these people there you have to give a show to. And again, maybe that is the show. When we get lost in the music, and then I've also played some of the best gigs I've ever played in my life on edibles because it's sort of like an anti-anxiety and just very free, and you feel everything much more delicately in terms of response.

But it's not something I would like, oh, we've got to get high. It's a good time to play a gig. You do or you don't. I don't. Honestly, kind of straight away from it. No, no, no. That's what I mean. What I mean is you do or you don't.

Whatever you want to do. You do or you don't. Yeah, there's no if you are. It's just this is tonight. Right, right. You know, tomorrow is tomorrow. It's not like you have a ritual. Right.

Yeah. I like a drink right before I go on stage. A tonight. Right, right. You know, tomorrow's tomorrow. It's not like you have a ritual. Right. Yeah. I like a drink right before I go on stage. A shot. See, that messes with my voice. I get that. You got to stay away from it. I just like just a little, just that little feeling that you get with one shot. Like, oh, here we go. I like that.

Well, no, I did. What about food? Oh, man, it depends. I don't like eating close to a show, especially certain's just not good yeah not good um i try to i'll eat a big lunch and then just fast and i'll eat after the gig most time because i'm i jump around a lot and get into shit yeah me too um and then one time we did this like radio thing or some shit i was couldn't fucking sing anyway. My voice was gone. It was this freebie throwaway thing for Sirius. And we'd been in there setting up and rehearsing in the studio all day.

And then they realized, oh, we haven't eaten. I'm fucking starving. I've got to play a gig. So they had some pho delivered, and I ate it like 10 minutes before we were supposed to play. Dude, you said it correctly. Most people don't even know what pho is. Pho. It just gut bombed me, dude.

Like your worst nightmare. You out there like trying to really push and sing on a microphone and not shit your pants um so i've learned my lesson i hit the wall the other day in my house i don't know what the hell i ate but i literally had to put my hand on a railing so i could squeeze my butt cheeks together harder so i couldn't shit myself jesus it broke through some weird barrier where i thought I knew I had to take a shit, but I was thinking maybe I could let a fart out first when I'm on my way to the bathroom. I don't know what I was thinking. They call that the gambler.

But I took a step. I took a step, and all of a sudden it's like if I had a water bag inside my body, and it just broke. And then I'm holding it all together with my asshole and squeezing my ass cheeks and the fucking abdominal pain is like, whoa. I feel like, you remember when you were a kid and you used to put your thumb over the garden hose? Just try to really clamp that fucking thing down. And like you got to a place where you stopped all the water from coming out of the garden hose, but barely.

I mean, fucking barely. That was my asshole the other day. And I'm holding onto the railing, just squeezing. And I did these little baby steps like this towards the toilet where I wasn't even picking up my legs. I was just sliding my legs over. Barely, barely got my pants off and it was like a broken fire hydrant came out of my asshole just whoosh I was like

where was this where'd this come from like five minutes ago there was nothing wrong with me I felt a hundred percent normal I wouldn't have imagined that this could happen right and then all sudden it's flying out of me that's terrifying to think could happen could happen any time. You could be on a plane. Yeah. Stuck in your seat and you just shit all over your socks and your pants and it just runs up your back and down your legs. It can happen to anybody.

Have you ever had full-blown, like, absolutely horrible food poisoning coming out both ends and you literally think, I might die? Yeah. Yeah, I had a real bad once. Well, I've had it real bad twice but that barracuda that i used to have this cool 1970 barracuda was named the sick fish the reason why i named it the sick fish is i got food poisoning i ate linguine with clams in illinois there's no fucking clams anywhere near illinois and those things got me hard man i could even make a fist the next day i I was walking around like a zombie.

I was dead. I spent the whole night throwing up and shitting myself. And then the next day I was just dead. I drank like five or six cups of coffee because we had to film this thing where they were putting the engine in the car and they were going over the design. I was like barely able to stay awake while I was doing that. I was so wrecked. I had it one time from this Chinese buffet. And it hit me hours later, seven hours later that night.

And all of a sudden it was just in this bathroom for four or five hours. And it was those things like it was the worst shape I've ever been in. But in the back of your mind, know you're like it's okay you know i know i know this is food poisoning but like it's gonna it's okay it's gonna hit it's gonna go to a point and then and then it just throughout the night it just kept getting worse and i kept asking where is this point gonna be or do i need to go to the hospital because that was very uncomfortable you know like abdominal tremors and shit from puking so hard, and your muscles are just spasming.

No, you can die from it. I mean, people have died from E. coli poisoning. There was a scene in Food, Inc. where they talked about this little kid that got food poisoning from, I think it was a jack-in-the-box, and he wound up dying. It was, right? Yeah, it's horrible. It's a terrible way to die.

I mean, you're ingesting some sort of a poison and it just takes over your system just kills your cells your body can't process it quickly enough can't get it out enough you're shitting yourself and throwing up and doing everything you can to get whatever the fuck is inside you out right yeah on food food on the road we play it pretty safe yeah i'll skip meals a of times. I'll not eat if the only alternative is something, like, really shitty. Yeah. Just because, not because, like, oh, I'm a health nut, but it's just not worth it. You don't know.

I bring a lot of protein bars. Okay. I bring a ton of protein bars. So if I'm stuck and I just need to eat something, I'll just down, like, we have a bunch of Onnit protein bars. I like those. I like those Quest bars. They don't have any sugar in them. I like Muscle Pharma. Onnit protein bars. I like those. I like those Quest bars. They don't have any sugar in them. I like Muscle Pharma.

Some good bars. Just I don't live off of them, but it's way better than that. I'm not getting a burger. Do you eat sugar? Very little. Very little. Very little. I'll give them like last night I had a piece of apple rhubarb.

Now, strawberry rhubarb pie though with whipped cream. Ooh, I went deep. But that's rare. I did a thing a while back. I kind of got pressured, but I tried to see just how long it went like as long as i could without any sugar and how long did you go i was like 12 days that's not crazy yeah it was nuts man well this is hard because everything has fucking sugar in it and you just but and then but after even just abstaining that short amount of time when i did eat it again at first it was like everything tasted so sweet.

You could really understand how much we're getting drugged with food. But my thing is coffee. I drink coffee in the morning. I'm not a breakfast guy, but I just can't drink it straight because it tastes like a bucket full of asshole. I got to cut it with something. If I could cut out coffee in my life, I could probably cut out sugar. Oh, so you cut it with some sort of sugar and sugar usually see i just use cream man or i drink these did you like this cavemans i'll get a bunch that wasn't bad yeah i have a bunch sent to you

how do you get the mud butt down i mean it's just like i don't get mud butt from this i don't know what i ate that made me get mud butt but whatever it was it turned out to not be anything like i had that one terrible shit and then the rest of the day was golden. It was no problems. It's like something got in there. Some little micro bacteria. I eat a lot of probiotics. I don't know if that helps, but I'm hoping that that's, that helps.

And that when I eat something funky, all the good stuff that I eat, like I eat kimchi almost every day. Right. I drink kombucha every day. I don't eat steak, but I hate ass cancer. So I don't eat steak very often. I don't think steak really gives you ass cancer. I like it raw or really rare.

I like it raw. So I just know that the rare occasion when I have a steak, I'm going to get the chas because it's just worth it. But it makes me eat red meat very little now. When was the last time you had wild game? Oh, man. Like real wild game? Real wild game. Probably when I was out in Utah, I worked with this kid who was a big hunter,

and he would bring in elk, like filet medallions or like hamburger. He lived in Wyoming, so he could pull like two or three extra tags a year. Like cow tags, probably. The 18 deep freezers full of every possible cut of meat you can think of made from elk meat. And he would bring it in sometimes when we were working and cook that shit. And the first time I ever tasted it, I was like, I don't ever want to eat beef again. That was the most delicious meat I've ever tasted in my life. I basically eat it almost every day.

Elk. Yeah, almost every day. Because when you shoot an elk, I try to shoot an elk a year. You don't always get one, obviously. This year I got lucky. I got two. I scheduled two elk hunts. And I figured I was going to strike out, if not both of them,

definitely one of them. And I just got real lucky. On both? Yeah. Wow. Again, there's definitely having really good guides. I had good guides. How long can you feed yourself and your family?

A year. One year off one elk. Yeah, and I hand a lot of it to my friends. I give Gary Clark some elk. Honey, honey, they took some elk. I wish you were around, man. I'd give you some elk, too, if you lived around here. Well, we're living now.

I'm probably going to – if I sit on my back porch long enough, it'll probably be pretty easy. Well, Kentucky actually has a new elk population over the last, like, 40 or 50 years, I think. They've reestablished it to the point where it's a hunting destination now. They opened it up – I think you and I were talking about this. I think we were. It used to be flooded with it back, you know, 1800. They hunted them out, and they were talking about this. I think we were. It used to be flooded with it back in the 1800s. They hunted them out and they repopulated it. I want to say in the 90s, maybe early 2000s.

And now there's so many that they're opening it up again. Yeah. Shout out to the Rocky Mountain Elk Federation. That's what they do. They establish habitat for these animals. We're down in the southeast corner around the Smokies, man. It's really weird. A lot of wild turkey and deer.

It's supposed to be amazing there. I saw armadillo in the woods at my house. I was like, no fucking way. That can't ensure shit. They've migrated that far over and up. Wow. They're really varminty. They don't really do much good.

Do you have any elk near you? There's got to be. You ever hear it? I don't really do much good. Do you have any elk near you? There's got to be. Do you ever hear it? I don't hear them. How long have you been in this new spot? Well, we really haven't even been in it. I stayed there off and on a couple times when dealing with contractors. They just really got finished and out of there, which is perfect.

I've got to go back to work. Well, you won't really know until September. Right. September, you're starting to hear, There's so many turkey and deer, it's kind of going to be an issue. I can't walk outside and kick the fucking turkey out of the way. Turkeys are crazy, man. They get aggressive with you, too.

Yeah. I don't mind. The only thing, I tell you what, man, we got all the snakes and spiders and all that shit. I grew up around playing with, like, baby copperheads in the creek. My mom spanking the shit out of me when she caught me. I don't worry about this stuff. But I'll tell you what's fucked up my wife found she was sweet we get ladybugs that come like in this time of year they try to come in and on this like some porch and she's sweeping a pile up and found a scorpion oh i found a bunch of middle of the

pile i was like you what the fuck there's scorpion in tennessee now that That's crazy. I've got to worry about that shit? That's pretty crazy. Yeah, I couldn't believe it, man. I mean, I hate spiders, but that's like a whole other level. They're supposed to be in the desert, aren't they? That's what I thought, but there are two species of scorpion native to Tennessee. It's basically like equivalent to getting stung by a honeybee, but they just look so evil, man. I don't want to walk in the bathroom and have to be like checking under my toilet bowl for fucking scorpions.

I always assume that they kill you. When you see a scorpion, I assume it kills you. Well, you know why? Because remember the original Clash of the Titans? Oh, that's right. That thing. When you're moving and the blood dripped out of Medusa's head bag and it turned into giant scorpions. That was just as a kid. I saw that.

So it's like. They were giant. They were giant. Like stinging that guy. That movie was fucked up, actually. It was pretty fucked up, but it was good. It's terrible when you watch it now. That's like a Harryhausen movie, right?

Where it was like stop animation. Yeah, from some soap opera or whatever his name was. I don't know. That's right. Medusa and the Kraken. Harry Hamlin? Harry Hamlin. Harry fucking Hamlin.

How do I know that? And the guy that played Hades. You know, like the red devil dude that God's turning into. Dude, I forgot all about that movie. If you didn't bring it up. It was like the TBS that when I was a kid, they would play that and Beastmaster back to back like every fucking two hours. Beastmaster. But yeah, that original Clash of the Titans, man. Medusa did a number on me.

What do you got? A video of it? Look how bad it looks. I think that might have been the first time I ever actually saw bo, man. Medusa did a number on me. What do you got? A video of it. A video of it? Look how bad it looks. I think that might have been the first time I ever actually saw boobies was Medusa in Clash of the Titans. The blood hits the ground. That's it. Oh, my God. And then scorpions pop up.

The robotic owl. Look how bad the fucking special effects were. But we were like, dude, I'm in. That's how they did it. Yeah. You had to believe wow look at that dude

Sturgill you better get the fuck out of here you're not gonna catch your flight okay it's 2.20 right now yeah I should do that

we gotta get you moving next time you're in town I got a grill back here I got a grill and I got some meat I'm gonna cook for you thank you we'll have a meal

awesome we'll sit down like men we'll drink ale next time you come to Nashville I won't be there and I won't be able to repay the favor. Well, I'll be back again. I'll be back at Zaney's.

See you soon. Bye, everybody.