The Joe Rogan Experience - #2085 - Charles Wesley Godwin

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

Charles Wesley Godwin is a country/folk musician. His newest album is "Family Ties."  www.charleswgodwin.com

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. What's up, man? Pleasure to meet you. What's happening? Pleasure to be here, Joe. Thanks for having me. Listen, my honor. I love your music. I got introduced to you by Duncan. We were in the green room of the mothership, and Duncan goes, you gotta hear this this and he puts on

family ties I went damn that's a good fucking song and then we played Q Country Roads and then we just got on a roll and then like the whole night we played your music hell yeah dude it's fucking awesome he was telling me that you know he he showed my music to you he said normally you don't like his recommendations but he said he'll he'll go a little emo on you but he said that you dug that and i was like holy shit man isn't that something i uh duncan was really cool i was like i was at uh apple studios in nashville doing like this live session thing with them when he he messaged me on twitter and asked me to be on his podcast. And like that made my, my freaking week. I was like, holy shit.

Duncan Trussell likes my music. Yeah. And then we were, we were doing his podcast and then afterwards he's like, yeah, man, I showed your music to Joe and he really liked it too. I was like,

fuck yeah. So yeah. Shout out to Duncan. I appreciate him doing that. No, Duncan's a man. He is one of the most unusual people that I've ever met in my life. There's not another one like him. Yeah. He's up yeah he's a one of one yeah that's a one of one when he moved here i was so happy because he was he uh went to asheville

because you know he grew up in asheville and uh he moved there and it was just you know during the pandemic it got bleak there you know the jobs were all dried up everything was fucked everything closed down and you said crime was crazy it's like asheville is like per capita in the top 10 of uh crime in the country oh holy shit so i mean i might have made that up no shit i mean that's the fact i think i'm pretty sure duncan told me that but he's like dude there's so much fucking crime. It's everywhere. Everyone's on meth. Your Duncan impersonation is way better than mine. But we recorded the album there.

Oh, no shit. We were there for two weeks last January. And it's like sleepy this time of year, I guess. Their tourism is at its lowest in January. And, dude, I loved it. It's gorgeous. I love the town. And, you know, I don't know. It had some homeless and stuff like that, but, damn, I didn't know that.

I went there back in, I think I did a gig there in 2015 or 16, somewhere around then. I was like, God damn, what a great town. Just the perfect size, not too big, you know, cool cool artsy yeah beautiful scenery you know it's like the mountains yeah i dig it we were at the uh we played the orange peel um you know like four or five weeks ago and it felt like a hometown show yeah that's awesome that's the stronghold there in the mountains duncan grew up there and he said when he was growing up there there were so many cows that had

magic mushrooms in their shit that the farmers started putting some sort of anti-fungal thing in the cow's food so that it would repel the fungus from the cow shit. I was like, how satanic. People were going out in their meadows

trying to harvest those bad boys. He said it was everywhere. What is this? It was up around April, so about a year ago. What does this have to do with Epstein? That's just a picture that's on the- Oh. I was like, what are you saying?

Tourist town Asheville rocked by violence in the wake of defund police movement, rolls out plan to combat crime spike. Yeah, so there was a big ass crime spike. Damn. Yeah, he said it was spike. Yeah, so there was a big-ass crime spike. Damn. Yeah, he said it was crazy. Yeah. He said, but that's the saddest fucking shit about, like, small rural communities

is when everything dries up, there's nothing. There's nothing there. There's no other jobs. There's no other place to go. If you have a small population of humans and they all live together, if the industry dries up, if businesses shut down, if things go under, like everyone's fucked. Like people are so reliant.

Yeah, that's happening in my hometown right now. What's your hometown? Morgantown, West Virginia. And it's, you know, it has its ups and downs. And right now it's definitely in a bit of a down. We had a big pharmaceutical company that was based out of West Virginia called Mylan. And the founder passed away a little over a decade ago. So then when that happens, you know, it goes into folks that didn't build it themselves. And they ended up selling to

an Israeli company. And once that happened, they shut down this headquarters in Morgantown where it had always been. I think that was 1,200 jobs in a town of 26,000 people in the city limits. So you imagine how many people

that affects in the big circle. Then COVID, which that happened during COVID. So then y'all said COVID. So, you know, our main street,

it's called High Street, is, you know, our main street, it's called High Street, is, you know, it's like one-third closed down and used to be all open. Fuck. Yeah. Did you ever see Roger and Me, the documentary?

Mm-mm. It's a Michael Moore documentary. It's the first one that he did. It's his best one, I think. And it's about Flint, Michigan. And it's about what happened when the car manufacturers all moved out of the country. And it's the saddest fucking documentary, man.

They just up and pulled the factories just so they could make more money, having people work for cheaper, and the whole town just collapsed. Collapsed. It's just so sad. One of the saddest things is there's a lady that has a sign that says bunnies for pets or food. Damn. Yeah. You want to think that you're committed to selling bunnies as a pet.

Imagine that little puppy. We're showing Jamie's getting a puppy, a French bulldog, and Jamie tried to con me into taking one of them. It might have worked. It might have worked. I did a dirty trick. I sent a video of this puppy to all my daughters and my wife, so we might have a puppy. And it was definitely like Jamie knew that was going to happen too.

Well, he didn't know that. I waited. He waited a little bit. He didn't know that, but the moment I emailed it to the daughters, I was like, they're going to fucking go crazy. But imagine. What's that? On to what you were saying.

There it is right there. Holy shit, man. Rabbits, buddies, pets, or meat for sale. That's something you don't see in the U.S. every day. It's a dark documentary. Look at her. She's skinning it right there. Yeah.

Like she's on alone. Yeah. And she kills it right there, too. She's holding it and cuddling it, and then she snaps its fucking neck and cooks it. It's just, you would imagine those puppies, they're like, Jamie, if they said you could keep this as a pet or you could eat it. Dude, you see it in Flint. We play there once a year, and our shows are great, and the people are great.

But, man, compared compared i see all the towns across america and that that one's it's dark different they haven't done jack shit to fix that water either i don't think they fixed that water at all have they i don't think so remember when obama went there that was a long time ago man that's two presidents ago i remember seeing videos of people you know lighting it on fire well that is uh from the that's fracking that's from that movie gas land and that's uh that's different did i get fooled yeah well they might have did it in flint too but there there are places in the country where you can light your fucking tap water on fire unreal yeah and they say there's been some of that that existed even before

fracking it's kind of confusing because you don't know how much the fracking industry is like oh that's always been here do not concern yourself with this yeah this is no longer an issue this is a little bit of contamination but look on the bright side yeah you never know just take tap water and fuel your car and you know use it as a candle yeah you you can never take you know the when when somebody's business is at stake you gotta kind of you gotta get some different points of view on those types of things yeah it's very difficult to know what the fuck is actually going on but overall it seems like fracking does a lot of fucked up shit. It says they've got their lead levels below the federal

threshold for like the 6th or 7th year in a row. Oh. Okay, but what does that mean? What's the federal? I don't like that. Right. I don't like that term. Federal threshold? It's still in there, but. What it mean, wouldn't it? How much would it cost? Think about how much money they spent on Ukraine. How much would it cost

to provide every family in flint with a filtration system like a real hardcore filtration system that provides them with absolutely clean water i guarantee you wouldn't be 170 billion dollars or whatever we've sent over to ukraine yeah it'd be a lot less than that. It'd be a lot less than that, but not a goddamn thought of it. Not a conversation about massive filtration systems. Like, there's a way to do this. We've got to provide every family. It's a

small... It's not that big. Yeah, I mean... There's just over 40,000 households. Yeah, that's not that big, man. That is not that big. $1,000 a piece. Yeah. How much is that? I'm just guessing. is not that big. $1,000 a piece? Yeah. How much is that? I'm just guessing. Probably.

If it was $1,000 a piece, that'd be pretty easy. I feel like it probably used to be way bigger than that, too. I bet. You know, that's not much bigger than Morgantown, you know, with all the car industry stuff that used to be there. It wouldn't surprise me if they had hundreds of thousands. Have you ever seen videos of Detroit from the 1950s and 60s? Yeah.

Yeah, it's like Boomtown. Have you ever seen videos of Detroit from the 1950s and 60s? Yeah. Yeah. It's like boomtown. Detroit was one of the biggest fucking most wealthy cities in the world. In the world. Yeah. And now you got trees growing through houses because the houses have been abandoned. Top Gear, that show, they went there. I think it wasn't Top Gear at the time.

I think it was when they did the other show, did it for Amazon. What was that called when they went over to Amazon? Oh, I know what you're talking about. I can't remember the name of it. But what they did was they bought a house for like $500. And, you know, they were like hanging out in this house while they were staying there. It's like, you get a house for $500? I looked into that one time.

It's a little bit of a loophole. When you're buying it for $500, at least the way it was when I read it, you're making a commitment to get it up to code within seven days or something like that. You have a very limited amount of time. You don't know if you have to, but yeah, you're spending $60,000 on top of that to get it up to code. Oh, really? You're't have to, but yeah, you're spending $60,000 on top of that

to get it up to code. Oh, really? Like, you're buying it for $500, but you're making a commitment to fix it. You get a house for $60,000? Shit. But also,

I think Mike Epps just fixed up a whole block of houses, not there, but in Gary, Indiana or outside of Indy. No shit. Shout out to Mike Epps. That's awesome.

Just like that. Just like he bought a bunch, bought the whole block. Fuck yeah. That's awesome. I heard Detroit has a bunch of manufacturing space. It's kind of a good opportunity for somebody

if somebody's got something that they want to make, it's kind of a good place to go and get after it. I think the last time we were there, we opened for Zach at one of those theaters there, but we were kind of chilling around downtown and it seems to be a little bit on the up and up in some parts of the downtown there by the

baseball stadium you know and then compared to years past like you know a while back when i'd been there before it seemed like maybe it's taking a turn for the better yeah there's a little bit of a resurgence there's a resurgence of like small businesses being established there i know shinola's out of there you ever heard of that company shinola yeah american watches they make watches they make a bunch of different stuff leather goods cool stuff they make like really good like messenger bags and that kind of shit like real cool american made stuff so you know that's nice it's nice that things like that are happening where people do recognize and if you drive down there's so much area that is available there's so many

buildings that are just completely abandoned the windows are all shattered and covered spray paint graffiti but the bones are still there yeah you know if somebody wanted to rebuild it yeah if you you got a good idea and want some manufacturing space that that'd be a good spot to go. Back in the day, during the car boom, like Canton, Ohio, Detroit, Toledo, Flint, it was a lot of folks from the mountains that were moving up there and getting those jobs. And I think that was the Hillbilly Highway is where that term comes from. And my grandparents were one of those. think that was the hillbilly highway is like that where that come that term comes from and my grandparents were were one of those they moved up to canton ohio my granddad was working for ford and the the place where we're from west virginia is super country like very rural i think there's

4 000 people in the county now and pendleton county and there's was this local guy, I can't remember his name, but my great-grandparents had an old store where you could kind of go and you could get your boots and your milk and your eggs and everything in this one little general store. And it was a hangout too. And this guy was like coming in the store.

He's like, I'm going to Detroit. I'm telling you all what, I'm going to get a job, head it up there. And he's talking about it for months and months. And then finally he's like, I'm going.roit i'm telling you what i'm gonna get a job headed up there and he's talking about it for months and months and then finally he's like i'm going and he gets in the car and goes everybody's like there goes so-and-so and then two weeks later he rolled back into town he never made it he couldn't find his way he couldn't read couldn't you know wasn't able to read a map well enough and just gave up and turned around and ended up coming home after two weeks. That's hilarious. Just gave up on that dream. Boy, imagine people

today trying to use maps. Isn't that funny that like being able to read a map kind of went away? Yeah. When I was a kid, not a kid, when I was 20, well, first of all, when I first started doing standup comedy, I would use one of these things, like a legal pad. And I would get a phone call, you know, and they'd go, hey, we got a gig for you. And here's your directions. You got a pen? I'm like, okay. And they're like, okay, you're going to take the 405 to this, to that, to the nine, to

the fucking, you're going to take a right on this road, go two miles down the highway, you're going to find a building. Like, wow, all right. Oh, my God. And that's how we did it so i used to have like a folder where i had the directions to all these different road gigs that were written down and that's how i got around and then when i came to california i got a thomas guide i was like wow i'm in the fucking future you know i got a whole book of maps and everybody had a thomas guide and you would i

remember first time bill burr visited my house uh he took he had a thomas guide he figured out how to get to my house with the thomas guide i gave him the address and he showed up with a fucking map book on his front seat unreal those are different now you know when i was a i was a little kid and on our family vacations my brother brother, my older brother would be like, he would read the map and like give the directions to usually my dad was driving. But yeah, by the time I started like working, you know, thank God for that GPS. I can't imagine doing that, like trying to find my way. Because, hell, I mean. First time I had GPS, it was like 98, something like that. 98 or 99. It was like a CD-ROM that you stuck in the CD player.

It had a little flip-up screen. I thought, like, this is the shit. I had an Acura NSX. And the little screen would pop up, and you put in the CD, and it was only for Los Angeles. Yeah. And it was real slow. It was real slow and shitty, but I was like, dude, I'm in a James Bond movie. Yeah, 98, that's some top shit right there.

This is Mission Impossible. Look at this. I'm fucking following the directions. I had a little thing that sat on the roof that was like the GPS thing that would like read the sky. And then it would somehow or another communicate with this map that was on my screen. Damn. Yeah. Did you ever miss gigs back in the map days when you're, you know?

I was pretty good at it. Pretty good at it. Yeah, I was pretty good at it. And they were pretty good at giving solid directions to retarded comedians. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like reading that map and then the type of folks that are comedians and musicians or you know are we're not the most capable always we're real similar musicians and comedians always seem to like get along real good we have like real

similar sort of just sensibilities yeah dealing with a lot of clowny shit a lot of clowny shit a lot of fucking irresponsible impulsive people a lot of a lot of substances a lot of a lot of chaos a lot of fun a lot of rebels you know you don't pursue that dream if you've got you know a law degree and you know a future with the firm and, you know, everything's lined up and you got your 401k. And I was like, you gotta be a wild person. You gotta have a screw loose. A hundred percent. Somewhere there's gotta be a screw loose or, you know, there's some, there's some major, some major issue, whether, whether they express it or not. And. But that's how the great stuff comes. Like, look at Jelly Roll.

You don't get a Jelly Roll with a guy who's had, like, a perfect education and a well-rounded lifestyle. You don't get that beautiful, amazing, soulful music and that incredible human being. You don't get that. I don't know him but you know just listening to him talk i don't think even 15 years ago jelly roll could be who he is now right if it would have happened earlier because he kind of jokes about you know like best new he got the best new artist of the year and he's like 39 or whatever and he was kind of joking about that but But, you know, for him, that is the right time for him. And, you know, it's just everybody has a different path. It aligned perfectly where a guy like Jelly Roll, especially in country, right?

We see a guy like Jelly Roll with face tattoos and, like, gold teeth and shit. Like, what? Yeah. Like that guy? Yeah, 20 years ago, you'd never see that. But, you know, times are different in a good way, in a lot of good ways in country music. A lot of great ways in all music, in art in general.

It's like these communities are sort of colliding with each other, and you're getting these sort of interesting mixtures of people. Yeah, you got Post Malone singing country music and covering Sturgill Simpson and stuff like that, and it's like, fuck yeah. Exactly, exactly. the same country music covering sergio simpson and stuff like that and it's like fuck yeah exactly exactly i watched his uh sorry the uh npr tiny desk concert oh i didn't see that dude it's amazing did you see scar faces no oh my god it's incredible incredible scar face from the ghetto boys

no i didn't see his tiny desk concert fucking amazing amazing Just like he did it he altered the music to fit the vibe of This tiny desk thing you you a ghetto boys fan I didn't listen to him do when I was a kid ghetto boys with it shit when I delivered newspapers I should deliver newspapers. I drive around listening ghetto boys. Yeah I used to deliver newspapers. I'd drive around listening to Ghetto Boys. Fuck yeah. He was on here before talking about playing to a half million people?

Was that one of them? No, no, no. Or was that somebody else? No, that was B-Real. That was B-Real from Cypress. I remember hearing that. Yeah. I'll never forget that when he was telling that story. A half million people at a music festival.

That was Woodstock. Yeah, half a million people. Someone stole his shoes. He was crowd surfing. Someone, half a million people. Someone stole his shoes. He was crowd surfing, and someone stole his sneakers off him. When you're playing to half a million people, and you lose your shoes, whatever. That's the price you pay for just getting to experience something. God, that's got to be crazy. How many people have ever experienced that in their life?

I know, right? That's got to be nuts, man. That's got to be nuts. This is something nuts about just enormous crowds, but enormous crowds vibing to your music has to be crazy. That has to be really, that has to be so surreal. There was a video that my bandmates were showing me from, I think it was like that 90s Woodstock. It might have been the same one, maybe a different day,

but it was like Metallica or Korn. I think it was Korn. And that sea of people, it looks like a sea with all them like jumping up and down. Oh, wow. And the video is profound. It was incredible. I don't know how many, I can't believe nobody died. with all of them jumping up and down. Oh, wow. And the video is profound. It was incredible.

I can't believe nobody died in that with all those people moving. Dave Chappelle and I did the Tacoma Dome once. That's it? Look at that. That's so crazy. Look at that. Oh, my God. It does look like water.

Wow. Look at water. Wow. Look at that. Wow. By the way, that's a really good way to get brain damage. I never used to think of that until I talked to my friend Mark Gordon, who's an expert in traumatic brain injuries. And he's like, yeah, you're not supposed to be bouncing your head around like that. I got to stop doing that.

I do that in my shows. I need to stop doing that. I think it legitimately gives you brain damage. I'll start getting punchy and I never fought. Yeah, soccer players get it, man. Soccer players get CTE from heading the ball. A soft-ass ball bouncing it off your head over and over again will give you brain damage. Yeah. Jet skiers.

You get it from jet skis. Oh, yeah. Bouncing on waves all the time. Bang, bang, bang. You can get brain damage that way, which is nuts. Hard to believe. I need to start rethinking my life show a little bit. I do that a little too much.

It's not like I just feel it, but maybe I ought to stop doing that. Well, I was going to say about Dave Chappelle and I, we were, we're, uh, we did the Tacoma dome, which is 25,000 people in Tacoma, Washington. And, uh, we sold out the Tacoma dome and it was like the highest, we broke the attendance record and we're backstage and, uh, the crowd is just nuts. And Dave's sitting there with a cigarette and he looks at me and he goes, not a whole lot of motherfuckers get to do this. Yeah, yeah. The percentages of people that ever get to experience that.

No, it's so small. And you guys do it with just a microphone. That's crazy. Damn, I'm one of the least funny people you ever meet. So like seeing folks that can play an arena just because of your jokes and shit, and your ability to tell a story and the timing and the punchline that's a uh that's something i can never do never ever do i have

none of that no talent for that at all it's a thing that you either want to do and have to learn how to do it or you don't but it's not it's not outside of oh there's a lot of funny people they just don't do it it's not a thing that it's it's but it's a long journey like to get good at stand-up it takes like 10 years takes 10 solid years of constantly performing and every comic will look at a comic like you did like someone tell you like how long has he been doing it two years like all right see you in eight years like there's like a thing like everybody looks at comics that haven't been doing it any more than 10 years and they how good is he you know what's he got he got a good solid 15 minutes like what happened does he fold up when you know

like what's his bits like do they have any depth to them? What's the timing like? Is there any misdirection? What is the level that they're at? It takes so long. It takes so long. But it's not like singing. You can either sing or you can't sing.

You have a God-given voice. There's people that just can fucking sing man they can sing like they just have this there's a quality to their voice and they're just born with it it's pretty amazing i don't have that yeah whatever that is that that's the whole reason i can do what i'm doing because i didn't pick up a guitar until i was 20 really yeah so i got a late start and you know i'm not a great guitar player. I'm still very much like an intermediate guitar player, but, you know, I was fortunate enough to, and I didn't grow up singing. So I just found out that I could sing in my early twenties.

And then realize- How did you find out? Like what, what, what were you doing before you started doing music? So I was at West Virginia University and I wanted to play football, but I wasn't good enough. That, I had no God-given talent to be good enough. And when you want something really bad, you know, that was like my first dream that died, you know. And once I let that go, I had all this free time, and I was like, I need to, because I've always hunted and fished, but when you're going to class every day, you can't always, I need more things to fill my time up. So I was watching the Grammys in 2011 and the Avert brothers played, and then they played with, with Bob Dylan and Mumford and Sons. And I just remember watching them and being like,

man, that that's incredible. Maybe I should pick a guitar up. That'd be something I can do productive in the evening. So that's how I got started. pick a guitar up. That'd be something I can do productive in the evening. So that's how I got started. And then it was about a year later in 2012 when I actually could like string some chords together and then I started singing and then I started figuring it out. So you initially just started doing it just for fun? Yeah. Yeah. It was just going to be just another, like just something to get get into and, you know, something, a productive hobby. You know, I was just kind of looking for some more things because since I gave up, you know, trying to play football, it just wasn't going to happen. You know, all that time I used to spend working out and trying to make that happen became free time because, you know.

happen and it became free time because you know so i just had to try to fill that time up with something because i just didn't want to sit around and and bullshit with my friends all the time and you know and so that's how i got into it was there a thing that made you realize that you could do this professionally was there a moment where you figured it out um i got i had a very unique first gig so i was on the spot the promise scholarship at west virginia and that was this thing for in-state kids if you had good grades you'd go to school for free at an in-state uh university so i was at wvu going to school for free because of my grades. And they had a study abroad program. And my junior year, I was like, I'd never been overseas. And I was like, that would be, I'd like to experience that. So I went in to the counselor's office and they kind of laid out some different options.

And I got a finance degree at WVU. And there were four places I could go. There's Hertfordshire, England, Bamberg, Germany, Tartu, Estonia, and Hong Kong. So they kind of like were telling me all about the different schools. I ended up landing on Tartu, Estonia as the place to go to. So I went over there and had brought my guitar and I just continued practicing a little bit in the evenings just for fun, but I had six flatmates, so there was no way that I could go anywhere and not be heard by them in our place. So I was a little uncomfortable with that because I wasn't used to people listening to me at all

or singing in front of anybody, but I didn't want to like not play the guitar for half a year so i kept doing it and then when i was over there we went to a show and one night there in tartu and there's this uh this club it's like a little like 150 cap room maybe 200 and we go to the show and one of my roommates after i left had taken my guitar and after the show was done he ran up on stage and for some reason the mic was still on his name was balam and he uh he ran up there and said charlie come play a song i was like fuck no no way and then he got the room to start chanting charlie charlie and then i'm like kind of calculating my head the pros and cons of like bitching out or just falling through and i was like at this point

it'd be way worse if i bitched out and didn't go up and play one so i went up and played like a song was it an original song no no i hadn't started writing then didn't have any aspirations yet to do to do this professionally what song did you play probably country roads i probably only knew like six songs um and i was like shaking in my jeans just so nervous but i got through it and then i got a facebook message the next that was a friday so on monday i got a facebook message from a fashion designer there in town and she asked if i could play for her fashion show that friday and i said yeah sure hell yeah she goes can you fill 20 minutes i'm like i can fill 20 minutes yeah so i showed up and it was at this uh it's like this this cafe with like one of those

courtyards in the middle of the building you know what i mean you ever been in a place like that and had these two french doors and they had the sound all hooked up, and a couple of my American buddies that were over there with me came with me, and they got me set up, and then it ended up being a lingerie fashion show. Is this it right here? That's it.

Oh, Jamie found it. Oh, shit, Jamie, don't embarrass me. You're playing. Play it, play it. No, no. Let me. You're playing. Play it, play it. No, no. Let me hear it. No. By the way, this is a song you could fucking never write today.

Yeah. Hey, little girl, is your daddy home? Did he go and leave you all alone? Different times. I got a bad desire. Ooh, I'm on fire. What the fuck? So that's my first gig.

I made 150 euro. Wow. And as they'd go in and out, they'd come out with less clothes on each time. What a strange gig. A lingerie fashion show. There's little kids there. People are hanging out. Fashion shows are so strange.

They're so strange. So I made 150 euro for doing those 20 minutes. And I was like, this is the easiest work I've ever done in my life. I'm going to keep doing this. Wow. So when I came back to West Virginia, I started singing bluegrass music at WVU and bars and stuff around town and the state. Did you get any more gigs while you were in Estonia? I think I did.

I think if I remember right, I might have played at that cafe a couple more times, maybe max, but it was really when I came back to West Virginia where I started like, you know, So that gig that we saw right there, that gig was the thing that started the spark. It started. Wow. Yeah. What year was that? It was 2013. Wow. started, yeah. Wow. Yeah. What year was that? That was 2013.

Wow. There it is. Yeah. June 17th, 2013. Yep. Wow. Wow. Yeah.

And that's how it began. And I sucked because I just picked up the guitar and i was just a beginner in you know in the whole business and it took until 2017 oh jesus oh jamie you're embarrassing me now bud this is you're gonna make me blush no fuck Fuck Come on man This is great Don't be embarrassed It's like if you were

Watching yourself At an open mic Oh yeah I've seen those videos Yeah So it took me Until 2017 2018 To find my voice.

When did you start writing your own original songs? 2014. Okay, so after your first gigs. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I was playing covers and singing bluegrass and stuff. Had you had any ideas about writing songs? Had you ever written any lyrics or had any lyrics in your head or anything like that?

I started trying to do it when I really made the decision that I wanted to do this. And I was like, well, you can't do it without writing your own music. So then I started doing that, and that was really bad for a long time. Do you remember what your first song was that you wrote? I can't remember what the first one would have been. I know, I remember the third one, because the third one wasn't terrible. And it was actually one that I put it on the new album

for, you know, just kind of, I thought it'd be cool to put it on there. That is cool. Soul Like Mine. But, yeah, most of them were really bad. And, you know, just started working on it and figuring it out. What is your writing process? Do you sit with a notebook?

Do you just start playing the guitar and start singing? How do you do it? Yeah, I sit with a notebook and that voice memo. And then when I'm out and about, though, that notes and voice memo app, I have them separate on my phone. And I'll jot down ideas hum melodies into it and I try to stay pretty consistent with it and show up every day and put some put some thought into it in front of the notebook to to get my stuff and so do you wait for an inspiration to come to you or do you sit down no I'll sit down even if I got nothing just because if I do that then I'll find myself maybe going a whole month with without yeah you know i um

years ago i listened to jason isbel was given kind of some advice on it and he said you know treat it treat it like a job like consistent you know show up to the notebook consistently show up every day even when you're not inspired and that'll it's kind of like um making your own luck so to speak have you ever read uh stephen pressfield's the war of art i did yeah yeah i read that i think last year the year before um he sent us a box of those if you want one hell yeah a signed copy fuck yeah yeah he sent us a box of sign i think i probably sold more of those books for want one. Hell yeah. A signed copy. Fuck yeah. Yeah, he sent us a box of signed. I think I probably sold more of those books for him than anybody alive. It's a great book.

It is. I don't remember who recommends it to me originally. I probably mentioned it on the podcast and I forgot who it was. But it's one of the best books in terms of like a practical guide to creativity because you really genuinely have to treat it like you like he considers it the muse like there is a muse and you contact this muse and if you do it deliberately and you do it with respect and you do it every day those ideas will come and they do they really do come like it's a muse. Like I think there's a reason why.

Yeah, if you don't, and for me, if I don't show up to the notebook and put my time in and come up with a bunch of junk. Yeah. I don't think I would have as many of the days where a beautiful line or a melody would just pop into my head. Yes. It's like you're just kind of laying, you're like paving the way for those, those more of those sparks. That's the same with comedy. Yeah. I think it's the same with literature. It's the same. I think it's the same with everything. Do you know the term museum comes from the term muse? Yeah. That's what it's from. I had no idea. What a museum is, is a place where the muse's creations can be exhibited. I had no idea. Isn't that wild?

Yeah. I just found that out recently. But it makes sense. Yeah. And there's quite a few words, apparently, that come from the origin of the idea of the muse. Yeah. But that's what a museum is.

Make sure that's true. I'm pretty sure it's true. I'm pretty sure it's true. Yeah. It makes sense. It totally makes sense. I mean, museum. What does it say?

The Greek form museum meant the seat of the muses. There you go. A designated philosophical institution or place of contemplation. Yeah. But it makes sense. You know, the muse, you address the muse, the muse gives you these ideas, you create these things and you exhibit them. Yeah.

We were driving down from Dallas this morning listening to Willie Nelson's autobiography, and he was talking about almost being like a mouthpiece for the gods. He was saying that all the songs, I'm paraphrasing, but it was like something along the lines of all the music that he's ever written was in him before he was born. And it was just, you know, his task was to just connect with that. Like what was already inside of him. He was saying that his grandmother told him that all that music inside of him was given by God.

It was an interesting idea on it. It's a good way to look at it. It was an interesting idea on it. It's a good way to look at it. If you just think that there's an endless well of inspiration and creativity that's inside you. That God gave you this thing and you just got to just keep working and get it out of you. And then give it out to people. Yeah.

And that train of thought helps you when you go, when you're in a rut. Yeah. If you tell tell yourself this is what i'm put here to do this is what i'm meant to do so i'm going to do it yeah and you know i found myself uh been 2022 that was me i i was in a rut because just a lot of circumstances in in my life and in my in my work life had new new things in, new pressure that I was having a hard time writing because before I'd just been so free and didn't have people depending on me and all kinds of expectations. And just being reminded by my father-in-law about, you know, this is what you're put on this earth to do. This is what you do best. This is what got you to the show in the first place.

Just do that. Don't worry about all the other stuff you can't control there's a lot of that with creative peoples is this a sort of wrestling match in your mind about you know anxieties what what you desire what you hope to happen you know what where is it going what's the future how's it all gonna unfold do i have my run dry do i have any more songs left inside of me yeah you know am i gonna lose it all yeah am i gonna just start sucking am i gonna fall off is nobody gonna like me anymore that's a big one and that was happening to me um yeah and it it was February of 22. We got off tour and labels started coming into the picture for the first time. Before that, I never had to worry about that.

And then I had a band that was dependent upon me. And they'd given up their jobs. Like, they'd gone all in. So they have, you know, their livelihoods were dependent upon it. And it was, it was, uh, it, it took me a lot of work to, to shake all that off and get back to like that, that like clean slate of mind of just writing because I love doing it. And that's what I'm put here to do. Hmm. Yeah. That, that if you can have like a, a mindset that you could call upon, an understanding, a calling that's in your mind that you know, no matter how much confusion there is, no matter how much doubt, things go sideways, you're not real sure, just stay on the path. Just stay on that path.

And then you'll have those dark moments, but then you come out of it and you're like, oh, I'm all right again. I'm all right again. Yeah, and once you've gone through something like that, it makes you a lot better on the other end because when you see it again, you're like, oh, I know what this is. Yes. I'm just going to keep working right through it

and we'll be fine. We're going to be just fine. Well, that's why I like heartache for teenagers is the hardest thing ever. You've experienced it before. Yeah. You know, you get dumped when you're 15. You're like, the hardest thing ever. You've experienced it before. Yeah. You know, you get dumped when you're 15. You're like, the world is over.

I know. It's devastating. Yeah. It's fucking devastating. If I could go back and talk to myself as a teenage kid. Oh my God, I'd have so much advice. Yeah. I would have so much advice, but I wouldn't listen anyway.

My young me was an idiot. He wouldn't have listened I'm like dude you're gonna be fine no I have to marry her she's the one for me I'm lost without her you fucking idiot you just listen to too many stupid songs you're fine

yeah life is short but it's also pretty long and sometimes young folks they lose sight of just how much time there is ahead of them for who knows what's going to come their way. There's a song lyric in that. Life is short, but it's also pretty long. Because that is 100% true. Yeah, definitely a good theme for a song there. Yeah.

Life is short. It really is very short. But it is fucking long it's the the the learning process is long yeah it's long to figure out life it's a slodge every day every day it's just like a little more information creeps in and gets sort of like like accepted yeah like written in i get it now okay now i fucking now i really get it now i get it get it yeah and then there's some other little little aspect of life that comes around the next year and you learn the hard way on that one oh shit i didn't see that one coming yep yeah boy that's one of the things that is positive and negative about things like COVID, you know, like some major upheaval of everything or the whole world just gets thrown sideways. You're like, whoa, the negative. I mean, there's so many negatives, right? Loss of life, loss of businesses, everybody fucking at each other's throats.

loss of businesses, everybody fucking at each other's throats. But on the other side of it, and the other end of it, you're like, oh, now I kind of understand people a little bit better. Now I understand why character and discipline is so important in friends and people that you love, people that can hang in there and deal with things versus people that cannot adapt and just fall apart and then look for someone to rescue them yeah and these these things you you only learn them there's only one way to learn them you have to go through some shit yep yeah yeah if you were to if you would ask me in 2019 how was i gonna get through and react to what ended up happening there in 2020 you know i would have been bullshitting you up happening there in 2020, you know, I would have been bullshitting you if I pretended like I knew, you know, my wife and I, we had

no idea until, until we went through it. Me too. Yeah. I've always had in my head this thought that things could go sideways and that I literally had an apocalypse truck built. I had a, a Toyota Land Cruiser built with a giant gas tank and all steel bumpers. And so I'm like, if something gets fucked up, I want something that holds a lot of gas that can go real far and I can drive over hills. Did you get like that U-end, like bulletproof plating?

I didn't. I didn't. Because I figure like if it gets to that, you're kind of fucked. If you're in a goddamn gunfight and you got rubber tires, like, you're kind of fucked no matter what. Dude, this is a side note. Not to go too much to the side, but I saw a wild video the other day of these two, like, armor truck guards in South Africa. Oh, I've seen that. Did you see that?

Yeah, that's wild. They're trying to take over this guy's armor truck. How good were those dudes at keeping their shit together keeping they keep they kept it together and you could and you know what was so rare about that video is like it's just a stable camera on them where you're watching somebody like trying to keep it together and keeping it together yeah but that this is it right there there it yeah this is they've already got the bullet in the glass. You know, the driver, he's already fighting, you know, in his way. And then you got his passenger there.

Now he's like, all right, like you can see it on his face. He's like getting ready to go. Yeah. Wow. That is a crazy video. That truck ends up coming on the passenger side and shooting some more on that one, trying to ram the truck. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, these guys are trying to take over this armored truck. South Africa is wild. I was looking at this house that's for sale. I was just looking. I just enjoy looking this house that's for sale. I was just looking. I just enjoy looking at architecture videos for whatever reason. It's not looking to buy a fucking house in South Africa. But they had this house that's for sale in South Africa in Cape Town. And it's called the Iron Man House.

And this house is insane. It's one of the coolest fucking houses I've ever seen in my life. It's insane. It's like Tony Stark's house. Oh, yeah. On a cliff. They built this house that, I mean, I think it's like $20 million, which is insane in Cape Town, South Africa. And it's just overlooking this thing.

But Cape Town is so riddled with crime Like to have a house like that in Cape Town you're like like hey, here's what the money My god, bro Is that the sickest fucking house you've ever seen your life? It's insane It's so sick, and it's like overlooking this water. It does look like the Tony Stark house, too It looks better than the tony stark because the tony stark house is all just cgi this is real does it come with that hot lady this hot lady in her underwear just keeps appearing in all these pictures like you can have her it's a good way to sell it yeah she's in every picture and then she would be here drinking

waiting for you and then she'd be in her underwear waiting for you to fuck. Look at this video. Look at these photos, man. It's a fucking incredible house. But that part of the world is a wild part of the world. I was just in the British Virgin Islands, and one of the people that I was with was this lady who's from South Africa. And she was explaining to us what it's like there. And she's like, you know, my generation, it wasn't that bad, but now it's pretty bad. It's just like... It's worse now.

Yeah, she's like, the violence is just crazy. Damn. Yeah. Yeah, I... Some country music people tour there. Really? They tour South Africa? Dude, Kip Moore was there over the summer

and, I mean, it looked incredible for him. But I don't know if I ever find my way there or not. It's like the elevated levels of, I guess if you lived there, you just get accustomed to it. People get accustomed to everything. But there's elevated levels of risk there that just don't exist if you're in Austin. Yeah. But not necessarily, because 6th Street, where my club is, there's some fucking shootings there on a regular you know yeah we uh we played uh i was uh opening for a show at um all that like blues club downtown

back it was like during antones yeah that's right and there was a shooting that night ended up being a shooting that night yeah it happens like in in shooting that night. Yeah, it happens. Like in America, well, shit, in the world, you're going to have violence. Especially, it seems like post-COVID, everything just got kind of like norms sort of dissolved. Reality sort of shifted into this new strange place where things get, there there more heightened tensions and things are more bizarre I think than ever before and I think you just get accustomed to that and if you live in South Africa I guess you just get accustomed to life in that that vibe just dealing with that shit. Yeah, the only people there They all have like barbed wire all over their fences and shit I can't even imagine. High security systems.

I mean, I would imagine everybody has to be armed. Also, when you kill somebody, you get out of jail pretty fucking quick. That Pistorius guy. Dude, I saw that. He's already out. Damn, that wasn't long. He murdered his fucking girlfriend in like 2013, man.

Yeah, if I were her dad, I'd be doing something about that. What year did he kill his girlfriend? 2012? Dude, it was like 10 years ago. Yeah, I think he did 11 years. It says nine years. Nine years. He did nine years for murder?

Dude, I got... For fucking murder? There's people I grew up with that are doing three times that for, you know, an armed robbery when they're 16 or 17, you know? How about dudes about dudes selling weed or still in jail for the rest of their life yeah i mean that's one of the cruelest things about colorado when colorado changed over and uh became legal and marijuana was legal in colorado was the first state there's dudes in penitentiaries that could look out their fucking window and see a weed

store that's they're in jail for selling weed that's a damn shame isn't it a parole board granted pastorious's petition in november on the grounds that he had served half of his 13-year sentence for murdering steenkamp making him eligible according to south african law jesus christ if all you have to do is 13 years for killing people boy there's a lot of people that are out there like I think I'd kill that dude now I'll do 13 years get him off the fucking planet there's a lot of people like in him out there wandering around how many people out there like that's your daughter that guy killed your daughter and he only did nine years it'd be a no-brainer look at her she's so beautiful yeah bud no i mean what the

fuck dude he still says he's innocent yeah he shot her look he shot through a fucking door and and killed her you know at the very least he's guilty of reckless manslaughter like what you you don't know what your target is you're just shooting through a fucking bathroom door or whatever he's doing okay yeah i didn't know if my i wasn't like relying on my memory too much but it was a bathroom too i believe so like who the fuck is an armed robber is in the bathroom was he in the bathroom or was she in the bathroom was he shooting out of the bathroom i don't remember i feel like i thought he was in the bathroom was he shooting out of the bathroom i don't remember i feel like i thought he was in the bathroom yeah that's what i'm kind of remembering about something else and that yeah well one thing you have to take into consideration if there's a lot of break-ins

there's a lot of home invasions in an area like where my friends in la are telling me like i have friends in la who used to be anti-gun and they they said, why do you want guns? And now they all have guns. And they're all terrified. And there's not all of them, but there's quite a few of them that have experienced break-ins. And one of my friends just moved to Portugal. He's just like, there's so much shit going down in L.A. I don't know what to do. And I was telling him, hey, move to Austin.

And then I hadn't talked to him for like six months. And I sent him a text message the other day because he loves Korean food. I go bro i found a dope korean food spot in austin he goes hey man i moved to portugal i was like what he's an artist crazy dude hell of a move i was like what did you do move to portugal it's amazing here the food's incredible people are so nice crime's low i have heard that and portugal is doing portugal is doing the thing where everything's legal yep is that right yep they decriminalize everything okay all drugs and they experience a giant drop in in murders a giant drop in addictions in in in crime yeah yeah look you're not supposed to have things that people want to do illegal it's unfortunate if people want to do things that are

terrible for you it is unfortunate but you the the flip side is people are want to do things that are terrible for you. It is unfortunate, but You the the flip side is people are gonna do it anyway, and if you make it illegal then you're propping up illegal enterprises Yeah, and I mean if I'm just you know at the end of the day. I'm a musician. I don't know shit But if everything was legal somebody goes in and buys whatever drug. Legally, they're probably not going to be laced with fentanyl. Exactly. You know? 100%. Look, you would have more overdoses.

You would have more deaths. Like, if they just decided today to make everything legal, you're going to have a spike in deaths. There's no way around that in my eyes. But would you have a corresponding drop in fentanyl deaths? I think you would. So you would have a drop in accidental deaths where people just take a little molly. They just want to go to a rave and just fucking dance and all of a sudden they're dead. You would have way less of those.

So that would drop. But you're going to have people that are just addicted to drugs and they're going to overdose because of availability. And you're going to have also people that try drugs that wouldn't have tried them because they're illegal and they don't want to, they wouldn't know where to buy them. They don't know anybody who's selling drugs. If you could just go to a store and buy Coke, like, oh, what's the fuss about? Let me try this cocaine out. And the next thing you know, you're a Coke addict and you've ruined your life. That's possible too. But you know, that there's personal responsibility. There's also education. There's counseling.

There's a bunch of different things that could be set up to mitigate that. And I think that's the better direction for society, better than propping up cartels. We've got this fucking thing that's happening right across our border where there's immense organizations that have insane amounts of money because they've been selling drugs that are illegal in America. Yeah, they're like warlords. Yeah, legit warlords. Some of those property owners down there, I don't know how they're dealing with that. Bro, I was just watching this video today of this guy who lives on the border. They're dealing with all these people that come across the border that are smuggling

drugs and it's it's fucking dangerous he's like you can't approach them can't go anywhere near them you have no idea what they're carrying you have no idea who they are or what they're doing and who they work for and he's like it's terrifying they're just traveling across your property with a backpack you know and you just gotta just let it happen yeah and two years ago i I played a, I played a show down in San Antonio and there was a rancher there at the show and we were talking afterwards and he said, and this would have been like right around that time. This had just happened. So this is April 21.

He said, uh, one of his best friends, who's also a rancher, got a bunch of feds rolled up to their house one day and put him and his family on house arrest for two days without any explanation as to why and then two days go by and they say okay um it's all good you know we're so sorry for the inconvenience and the guy's like whoa whoa whoa you can't just you you have you can't there has to be an explanation here and i guess you know i don't know if i'm not getting somebody trouble here but the guy's like i'm not supposed to tell you this but uh we there are nine insurgents and that were that had crossed the border and we you know just so happened to get them here on your

property oh you know i bet the feds were probably watching them and then when they decided to to actually take them it must have been on this guy's ranch so yeah i mean you got your your kid your kids are out maybe doing a chore on the on your ranch on your own farm so yeah you got thousands acres or something and who knows what what you could be running into have you seen some of the recent videos of the lines the migration lines moving not just in mexico they're moving from south america through mexico into the united states i saw the ones from like a few years back but but I, dude, I've almost like tuned out. The numbers are insane.

They're doing it again and stuff. The numbers are insane. Somebody just released a graph that shows the numbers of illegal aliens over the last year in comparison to previous years. So it's like you see the graph and it's like 2014, 2015, 2016, and it gets to 2021. It's just like like yikes there's more illegals have made it into this country over the last year i believe than are people that live in five different states legally oh my god yeah west i mean west virginia's got 1.8 million on a real good year, maybe. It's probably a little less than that.

There's a lot more illegal aliens every year coming in. I mean, what's the number per month now? What's the fix for something like that? You got to fucking have a secure border if you want to fix it. It doesn't seem like they want to fix it. Like AOC was on TV the other day doing an interview, and she was saying, you know, she was calling them undocumented people, and the way to do it is to give them a path to citizenship. Well, how about you know who the fuck they are?

Because if you're a person from another country, say if you're in Europe and you want to come to America and become an American citizen, you know, you're an architect or whatever, this is like a long, lengthy process. They only take a certain amount of people every year, and you have to prove that you have a skill there's a there's a reason why you should be here legally yeah but if you want to do it illegally they'll give you money they'll give you a cell phone there's people in mexico what they're doing is this is pretty wild because there's a radio station in san diego that is a Mexican radio station. This guy was on the Mexican radio station is explaining how we do it. He's like, he's gone back four times that month. So every time he crosses over,

he gets $2,000. He's gaming it. So he's gaming. He made $8,000 in a month from the federal government. You almost like, what do you do? You set up a, cause back in the day,

you know, when there's, you set up uh because back in the day you know when there's you know i don't know everything obviously but like maybe the similar time in american history would have been the early 1900s and you had all those europeans coming over on the boats to to work over in the u.s that's how my family got here yeah and everybody went through ellis island or somewhere like it where you go in and you got some sort of papers. Yeah, it was pretty easy. Honestly, I didn't really check. At least, though, they got you.

At least they got a name. Yeah. Well, not even. People change their names. Yeah, they change it right there if it was too hard to pronounce sometimes. Yeah, a lot of people do that. Yeah, my bass player's last name got fucked with a little bit, I think. I'm sure. Yeah. A lot of people's names got changed. It was easy to come over here back

then when my grandparents came here, but that was the law back then. This is not the law. The law is that you're supposed to go through this process where they vet you and they find out if you're a criminal and they find out if you're a terrorist. They're not doing that at all. They're just opening the border and they're essentially buying votes're a terrorist. Yeah. They're not doing that at all. They're just opening the border, and they're essentially buying votes. Yeah. They're doing this. They're letting these people come in, and they're assuming these people are going to vote for the Democrats.

Mm-hmm. And it's wild. It's wild that it's happening right in front of everybody's eyes, and most people aren't aware of it unless they see these videos. Or like Elon was telling me that when you go there, do you really understand the scope of it? He goes, it's extraordinary. You can't believe the numbers of people that are making their way across.

It's just insane. It's just – and everyone knows about it. So all these people that live in these – and I don't blame them at all, man. If you're just a regular person that was unfortunate to be born in a terrible environment and you realize if i can get to america i can feed my family i get a job i can work on a farm i can whatever it is i can work in a factory and we could live in a good way instead of being trapped in this hellhole in which we were just unfortunately born in yeah i get it you're gonna go for it fuck yeah if i was in guatemala 100 i'd have a backpack yeah 100 i'd% I'd be on that fucking trek.

Let's go. Yeah, if you get up here and get some work and send money home. How many lazy Americans do we have in this country that just fuck off and don't want to do jack shit? And they're just fucking. Meanwhile, we got people walking here from Mexico. Yeah. Yeah, you see it. And that's the thing.

Like back to the COVID thing. Man, it's like a flip to switch in a lot of folks' heads from one end of that to the other with you know, I mean, if you're not where you're at in life,

you know, you're never going to get there half-assed in your day. No. Wherever you happen to be, it might be the best idea to like give it your best. Yeah. And that's like, or else you're just going to be a miserable fuck the rest of your life.

Well, that was one thing that happened to a lot of people that was good. They realized that this job that they had, they hated that just went away. Okay. You know, not only did I fucking hate this job, but I thought it was necessary because it was the only thing that I had.

I didn't want to lose it. But then they just fucking took it away from me. God damn it, I'm going to go for my fucking dream. And a lot of people did. They went for their dream. They started small businesses. They got their shit together. They lost weight.

A lot of people did a lot of very positive things when their back was against the wall. And then a lot of people just went on unemployment. And a lot of people never wanted to get on it. I mean, I had friends that were in the bar business, and they couldn't get people to work. They couldn't get bartenders. They couldn't, because people were making more money being unemployed. Yeah.

Taking unemployment. And they would rather live like that. They'd rather get that free check. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that was like, you know, I'm 31 and I released my first album in 2019, but I didn't get booking and management and stuff like that until even after that. So COVID cut the legs out from me. Things were just starting to actually look a little bit legitimate you know in my life

and COVID cut the legs out from under that so on the other side of that is really where you know I could have gone two ways and I went back on tour in the spring of 21 and then I started taking my full band out with me and or a seven piece including myself in the summer of 21 and then I started taking my full band out with me and or a seven piece including myself and the summer of 21 and I went broke in the fall whoa yeah yeah I couldn't I couldn't pay my guys one week and I had uh my second album which we made during the COVID year went on pre-sale during the COVID year went on pre-sale that next week. And I explained to my guys what was happening and they stuck with me. And once I put the pre-sales up, then I got a little bit, you know, to keep paying them and we were able to keep working. And then I was bleeding real bad in 21 and came down to one point in Bloomington, Indiana. We played the Bluebird one night.

And I'd just gotten a new day-to-day manager who's done a phenomenal job for me. But anyways, he'd just gotten on the job and basically broke it down for me on the phone how much I was losing per month and was just saying, he's like, you're going belly up here. This is over.

You have to cut half these guys, and even then, we're going to have a hard time making it. And after that gig, we all sat outside in the alleyway, and I explained to them what was happening. And they all took half pay. Damn. So my guys were willing to go $50 dollars a show damn and they were in a hundred percent they didn't have the you know their jobs and stuff back home they're there with me and they were game to go for that what you can't live off that and we we kept hanging on there for a couple months and then that second album came out in November and we gotten on the road with uh Zach Bryan brought us out on the road with him and you know the the album it

worked you know the album it did great and we made the most of our opportunity getting to open that tour for him and you know we made it the universe rewards that I you know it it was that close to just even if i wanted to i wouldn't have had money to even put in the gas tank but that's what makes the story beautiful the terrible stories you quit that's the terrible story you're sitting on the porch one day and you're an old man going god damn it i think i could have made it yeah those are the most bitter of people man those are the ones that talk the most shit about other artists they talk the most shit about other people the people that just have these regrets

the failed attempts they didn't go through the door they didn't do it they didn't take that risk they didn't just run they didn't just fucking suck it up and try it that's a scary thing but if you can get through that scary thing that's a better life that's a scary thing but if you can get through that scary thing that's a

better life that's a better life the the life of fear and the life of regret that's a terrible life that life of wishing i could have the could have life that's the shittiest life yeah you don't want to be that god damn you don't want to be that especially when there was a spark when there's some potential. Yeah. Like in the comedy world, when you start out as an open mic, or you start out with a bunch of fucking mental patients and crazy people, because anybody can go on stage, you know? And there's always like one or two guys that you're with or girls, and they got something.

They got something. And some of them make it and some of them don't. And if there's 100 of them, maybe one of them will become a professional. Maybe. It's probably not even that. It's probably for 500 open micers, one, it's probably not even that.

It's probably 1,000. For every 1,000 open micers that regularly shows up, one of them will become a working professional. Yeah, that can actually sell tickets. But man, I have these fucking dreams sometimes where I remember these people that I knew that they had it, man. They had something, they had something. This is a girl that I dated when I was like a 21. It was like the last time I ever dated a comedian, but God damn it. She was funny, man. She was really funny. She was really funny. And I remember thinking, damn, she's funnier than me. Like she's funny,

man. She's good. Like she, she could, she's funnier than me. Like, she's funny, man. She's good. Like, she had something. And it wasn't always. You know, you'd have these open mics are rough, like bad crowds. Like, sometimes you bomb. Sometimes you do well. But every now and then, she would be on stage, and she would catch that wave,

and it'd be like, look at her go. Look at her go. She's going to do it. She's going to make it. She fucking quit. I think about people like that. I think about dudes that I knew that just had it, man. There's this one guy that I knew from New York.

I remember the first time I watched him on stage. I'm like, oh, my God, that guy's the next Bill Hicks. Look at this motherfucker. Holy shit. Quit. Disappeared. Went away. It's a hard road.

Hard road to go. Fuck. But that's the life of sadness and regret just to fucking not ever go for it it's the worst so that's like the universe gave you a little challenge yeah that one man i was i was losing sleep bud it was it was about yeah it was it was like three-fourths of nights i was getting up at two in the morning and just god i could imagine i was freaking out but uh you know stretched out and and honestly like i i love my guys because they went through that with me and they're they're willing to like stick in there so beautiful, I'm planning on as long as they'll be with me, you know,

that's fine by me. Fuck yeah. We're going to do it until we're 90 years old like Willie Nelson. Yeah, fuck yeah, dude. Trying to do it. That's amazing.

Yeah, everybody loves, and if you can hear a story like that, if you're a person out there listening and you're not sure what to do and you hear a story like that,

God damn it, go for it. You might not make it. It might not work out but if it doesn't guess what are you alive can you breathe can you walk well you can do it again try it again try it a different way figure out what you did wrong and sometimes and and this this is with me because like you know and even though it's a small thing you know i wanted to play football for west virginia and I wasn't good enough.

And everybody I grew up with knew I was trying to do it. My hometown knew what I was trying to do. And it was embarrassing failing in front of all those folks. But once you've done that once, you gain an advantage with having felt that before. Because you know what it's like. So if it happens again, well, you've already been through it. Right. So if you've never just fallen on your face before, you might be scared to do it. Yeah.

But, you know, that's something that, you know, so if somebody chases something out there and it doesn't work out, don't view that as a bad thing. It may pay off later when you find the next thing. Yes. And you're not scared to go for it. Yes. Because you already went for this other thing back in the past.

So, you know, why to go for it. Yes. Because you already went for this other thing back in the past. So, you know, why not go for it? It's also, failure is very important. Because that feeling, that sucky feeling of failure is an amazing motivator. Mm-hmm. Some of them, like, the big leaps that I've made in my career as a stand-up all came after bombing. Mm-hmm. Like, you bomb and you're just like, I gotta get to work. Like, I gotta figure out what the fuck I did wrong, why that show went so bad.

I got to buckle up and get better. I really have to fucking focus. I can't be lackadaisical. I can't be lazy. I got to get after it. Like that feeling, that horrible feeling, that's there on purpose. That's there. It's a tool.

It's like a motivational tool. It's there to let you know. It's a tool. It's like a motivational tool. It's there to let you know. It's a sign. It's a very important, potent reaction that you have to this bad path. You did the wrong thing. You went the wrong way. You took a wrong turn. You fucked it all up.

You feel like shit, right? You feel like a fucking loser? Good. It's because you are a loser. Like right now, you're a loser. You don't want to be a loser, right? Okay. Get to work. Yep. You can't be to be a loser, right? Okay, get to work.

Yep, you can't be resting on those laurels, you know. Yeah. You just got to keep pushing. One of, you know, a really valuable thing, and honestly, I've been listening to this show. This show fills a lot of time when I was, you know, on the road all these years. And so I was like a 23-year-old kid

driving my old Highlander to gigs, and I listened to this show. And there's, I can't remember exactly when it might've been multiple times, but you'd be talking with like fellow comedians about your all's come up and you were talking about getting the famine mentality out of your mind. You know, you had to figure out that that's a toxic place to be at mentally is, is letting other people's success like fuck with you or make you being jealous about it and all that. And and I remember listening to that as a kid and I hadn't figured that out yet for myself. But hearing that I was like, oh, yeah, that's that's smart. Just be happy for folks and keep moving. Focus on you. And that was one of the most valuable things that I ever, you know, learned from somebody else.

things that i ever you know learned from somebody else was that just to get get that out of my head they're way back at the beginning and just have that like healthy mindset going into you know what is a a decade-long crucible trying to make it in the music industry that's beautiful is getting that uh that just positive frame of mind where you're just you're just working on you and if you see something good happen to somebody else, hell yeah, good for them. It can be a positive thing. When other people succeed and you have that jealous demon gets in your mind, you can turn that around and use that as inspiration. But you have to consciously understand what's happening here. And other people's success, that is not your failure.

That's their success. And you could use that as fuel. That could be inspiration. And it could be entirely positive. And especially if you know those people. The saddest thing to me is when there's a friend and one friend has something really big happen. The other friend gets jealous and starts shitting on that friend because of it and you see it in comedy all the time and it's a it's a terrible mindset and there's the same experience could be approached in a completely different way where your friend makes it you know like dude fuck yeah god damn it you did it this is incredible holy shit you're killing it i'm so pumped man i'm gonna get to work now i'm gonna i'm gonna work so pumped man. I'm gonna get to work now. I don't know. I'm gonna work harder I'm gonna I'm gonna carve my path now now that I know that you did it now I feel that that that sense that I want that in my life. I want to achieve that It can be fuel and that fuel is important

It's so valuable and instead people piss that fuel away as jealousy and bitterness Where it does, you know good and bitterness, where it does you no good. It poisons you. It ruins you. You're hoping for someone's failure. It's such a terrible weakness. It's a terrible weakness of character that so many people just give into. And you don't have to.

The exact same experience where someone is killing it can be fuel for you, even if you don't like that person. Like, that's the highest level of it. You don't even like a guy. And you see they're killing and go, you know what? They fucking earned it, man. They're out there kicking ass. Maybe I don't like their personality. Maybe they're just fucking, they're so focused on success, they're kind of a cocksucker to other people.

But you know what, man? Look, that fucking guy put in that work and now he's only i admire that ambition i admire that work ethic i i will embrace that i'll embrace i don't want to be that person i don't want to be a shitty person i want to be a nice person but i i also want to be successful how the fuck do i incorporate this into my life i i need this this is fuel for me and to look at it that way that's a way better way and it's the same exact experience the same exact materials but instead of using those materials to those like why not me instead you're like fuck yeah I'm now I'm gonna go for it it gives you positive energy instead of negative energy it's just a mindset that you have

to embrace it's huge yeah and I think that, I don't know if I would have made it. You know what I mean? It just, those, those years, you have got to muster up all the positivity you can, cause you're not, you're not getting it, you know, from the bar, the restaurant and the brewery and the cafes and sleeping in the back of your car, um, being broke, you know, folks coming up and telling you to turn it off. I mean, I, I mean, shit, I, you know, man. Um, so yeah, that having that frame of mind gets you through those hard times and the scene, you know, I, I came up, you know, and, and basically in the West Virginia music scene, there isn't much of one. And it was not that.

It was very much the famine mentality. So I got help from certain promoters and venue owners, but other established musicians in the state, no. And when, you know, I recognized that at the time and I told myself if I'm ever in, if I ever have the opportunity to, I'm going to do things differently. And then once I started getting out there into the music world a little bit and actually playing some proper shows, man, I was blessed to be, to get to open for very supportive people that helped me out and were happy to bring me on the road. That's awesome. And, you know, they wanted to bring the best show That's awesome. And, you know, they, they wanted to bring the best show that they could and, you know, I'll never forget that. And then I, I try to do that now. Who's the first person that brought you on the road? The, the first legit

shows that I got to play and open for somebody, um, you know, traveling and show to show with them was William Clark Green here out of Texas. I did an East coast run with them and William was super cool to me. And you know, I was nervous going into it because these are some of my first like actual venue shows outside of my hometown that I ever played. I'd only done restaurants and bars before that. And I remember one night William was like, if you, he told the crowd towards the end of his set, he's like, one of y'all if you guys buy a piece of Chuck's merch I'll give you a free cd like a free signed cd or something like that so I mean oh wow you know I mean I think I made like 700 at the merch table that night as a solo opener and man that was that was a good night then that's all back in that day and then Ward Davis took me out with him for two years and you

know that allowed me to get my feet on the ground and start building a good loyal following and you know Ward's learned a lot of hard things like a lot of things the hard way and shared a lot of experience with me which has saved me some hard lessons that's important that's like someone who's a mentor that's gone through it already and can give you some advice. Yeah, absolutely. And then, uh, and then Zach Bryan and, you know, in Zach's way, just opening up his giant following to, to us and letting us open, you know, three of his tours. Oh, that's amazing. You know what I mean? i mean and and you know those those three in particular like were were huge and then you know i've opened for some fantastic people since then but like those

were the three that were like you know william was the first and then ward was the you know ward and zach were the ones that i opened for the longest and yeah it's it's nice to be in a spot now where i get to pick folks that are coming up that are really really fucking good and it's cool get to bring them out on the road and have a show just the the internet you know the internet you know hearsay and you just hear things about about folks um one guy that he opened a west coast tour with us this summer. And this is like kind of that great example of just like having a good circle of folks that you're able to work with. Wyatt Flores.

And Wyatt can't be opening for me now. Like, I mean, we did our last show together. He was one of my openers at the Ryman. And we did a shot after the second show. And I said, now you got to remember this, bud. And remember when you play Madison Square Garden the first time, you and we did a shot after the second show and I said now you got to remember this bud and remember when you play Madison Square Garden the first time you make sure you have me and the boys as your opener for that one because you know just everybody's on their own timeline and why it's just you know his is his is going real fast that's awesome yeah and

it's great for him man that is cool. And that is where that mentality comes in, that other people's success is not your failure. It's beautiful. It's just beautiful. Yeah. My wife and my kids are fine. My band now, everybody's, you know, they're getting married, getting homes,

and, like, we're good. That's great. Everything's going to be fine. We just keep doing our thing. Exactly. And the more folks that succeed, the better. Yes, yes. And the world needs more great music.

It really does. There ain't nobody that's only listening to one person. I always say iPod. Nobody's got an iPod anymore. But there's nobody that's only listening to one artist on their Spotify or Apple. If they are, that's probably a stalker. You know what I mean? Like, people are listening to a hundred different folks.

Maybe Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift might have, like, one dude out there that only has Taylor Swift songs going 24-7. He's got a Taylor Swift t-shirt. He tucks his dick in his fucking underwear and stands in the mirror and pretends he's her. There's a few people out there that might be listening. God, imagine being her security detail. Jesus Christ. I'd be interested to hear some of their stories.

I bet there's been some shit. Oh, my God. It has to be. There's, I mean, in the history of artists, there's only a handful, a small handful that have got to that Taylor Swift level. That's the level where almost everyone goes crazy. I don't even think you can count it on two hands. I don't think so. No.

It's like there's Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Elvis. There's like a few. But she's in a crazy place, man. She's doing stadiums every night. Every night. Stadium, stadium, stadiums. They're all, they sold out instantly. Tickets go for astronomical numbers.

And then there's a stadium of people outside the stadium. Just trying to listen to the echoes of the PA. Yeah. That's something I've never seen. Like you see some sold out stadium tours and stuff, but you don't see that. Yeah. Or like it's that overhead and then it looks like the Washington mall outside of the stadium. Folks just trying to hear like that like echo of her voice from a half mile away some of the first live shows that i ever saw i was a security guard at great woods great woods is this place in mansfield massachusetts it's just like outside uh performance amphitheater and uh some of the first shows that i ever saw live first show i ever saw live was a

jay giles band maybe maybe it was georgeogood. It was like George Thorogood and Destroyers. And I think that was like the first band that I paid to see when I was a kid. But then when I was older and I worked as a security guard, I worked for this place. So I saw concerts all the time. I saw so many different concerts. And I remember one time I saw Bon Jovi. I was working the Bon Jovi concert and we were pulling the security truck up. And as we were pulling the truck up, we got out and outside of the venue here, shot through the heart and you're

to blame. You give love a bad name. Pow! And everybody goes, wah! And I was like, this is crazy. Because it was one of my first nights on the job, and I was like, man. Hearing that pop for the first time. That energy's insane. It's insane. The energy of a live show is something that's just, because it's not just you're watching the performance. You're watching it with other people.

And they're all excited and you feel their excitement and everyone's happy and it's all, everyone's together in that fucking, yeah. It's all together. Yeah. It's wild. It's a beautiful thing, man. Oh, it's so beautiful. Yeah. man oh it's so beautiful yeah that's uh it makes it makes the travel worth it you know to have that feeling where you got all those folks just like they're all having that moment the travel's rough

together the travel breaks you down do you do anything to keep the travel from breaking you down do you take vitamins you take care of yourself at all yeah yeah i do i do my best and i'm getting better um as as the years by. I run just about every day. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, it's good for my cardio. Good for your head too, right? Good for my head. And then, yeah, I take vitamins, a lot of vitamin D,

trying to keep my kids are in daycare. Oh, my God, brother. They're little disease factories. Dude, I've been sick more in the last two years than I was the 10 years prior since my son first went in it is like a little petri dish I'm going to come out like a cockroach here in 18 years

you come out of that iron immune system I take vitamins I started doing AG1 that's great stuff with the little droplets in it too a couple months ago. Vitamin D, K2, yeah.

And kind of like everything's the same except I don't, that afternoon, like, I could take a nap. I don't have that when I'm taking that. That's good. That's the big difference I've been getting from that one. The hard thing is the diet when you're on the road. That's the hard thing. Yeah. Really make sure you eat clean.

It just has a giant factor in whether or not you can recover. Yeah. Yeah, the discipline there after the show is a big part of it. Yeah, the jack-in-the-box, Burger King pull is strong. Yeah. If I had perfect discipline, I'd look like an Olympian. I'd be pretty – I wouldn't be that strong, but I'd be pretty ripped. But we're moving to the bus this year.

So this will be my first year in the bus. And I'm looking forward to that sleep. Yeah. I don't know if I can sleep that good on a bus. I'm always worried about crashing. Because the thing about a bus, if you crash, it's like you're just falling on top of everybody. You're not even strapped in. It happens too, man.

Oh, yeah. What was that woman's name? Gloria Estefan. She fractured her back. I think, yeah. Serious accident. Hardy had a bus accident, I think, last year. Oh, yeah?

Yeah, I think, you know, I think it was pretty bad. It's scary shit, man. And you got to rely on that driver. Stay awake. Yeah. And then who knows what kind of fuckheads are on the road doing stupid shit and crashing into things. But I've been driving myself, you know, for seven years with my dogs.

And then, you know, sleeping in a rollout mat in the back of my car, you know, behind venues. The hard way. Three years in the van with me and the back of my car behind venues. The hard way. Three years in the van with me and the guys and driving all day. So this is the only way I see me being able to keep my health up for the rest of my life is getting that sleep. Do you drink? A little bit. I cut way back this year.

You kind of got to. Yeah. right? A little bit. I cut way back this year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get into the thirties, things start like sticking to you a little bit more. And I was, I was looking at myself at, we went to the beach back at the end of May and I was looking at pictures of myself. I was like, yeah, that's it. I gotta, I gotta lock this shit down or I'm going to let it's getting away from me. Well, it's just the fatigue factor. The difference between drinking and not drinking, like how you feel the next day is so significant. It's hard to ignore, you know, it's hard to ignore that fatigue factor. Like you're poisoning yourself every night. Yeah.

It's fun. Yeah. It's great. Have a few beers, throw a few shots back. Woo. Have a little party. It's great. Parties are fun. But you are legitimately poisoning yourself. And you got to be aware of what the effect of that is. Yeah. And it's not good for the voice either. You know, sometimes I'll do four headlines in a row. That's like Zach smokes cigarettes like a chimney. And I was like, how are you doing that?

You have this fucking incredible gift, this amazing voice, and you're sucking on cigarettes all the time. Yeah. He's a pup still. He is a young boy. He's a young fella. One day he will. Maybe.

I don't know. I mean, maybe his voice will change with the cigarettes like Sinatra's. Yeah. You ever hear Sinatra when he was young? Oh, yeah. Yeah, those early 50 like Christmas songs and stuff It sounds strange Strangely different. Mm-hmm. It's like a completely different kind of voice like it when he got older it was like this

I did it my way, but when he was younger it was just like this insane voice like This beautiful, you know, he was arrested. i have one of his mug shots out there you know i have a whole collection of mug shots out there in the lobby one of them is sinatra and uh he was arrested for seduction yeah i think he banged somebody's wife the wrong person's wife i guess somebody to like the mayor's like that was what was listed on his rap sheet. It was seduction. See, that's true, right? That's an old school law right there.

Here it is. Seduction. Let me explain. The year was 1938, years before Sinatra would go on to star in his first movie or release his first single. He was just 23 years old by today's standards. Shocking that he spent any time in jail for his crime, even though it was less than 16 hours. So during that time period, a person could be arrested for seduction, which was a charge usually given to a man who slept with a woman based on false promises or using some kind

of lie. Oh, interesting. For instance, a man could be arrested after sleeping with a woman after a false promise of marriage. Wow. Reportedly, Sinatra's ex-girlfriend was his accuser. Also, it wasn't a wife. I was wrong.

Saying that he promised her marriage and then broke up with her. You get arrested because you break up with a girl? That's hilarious. Frank was willing to say anything to get in that night. Right, the list it is. However, it turns out that she was actually already married, which canceled out the charges of seduction. That's why I thought it was someone's wife.

Even so, the state of New Jersey arrested Sinatra and charged him with adultery after learning that they couldn't nab him with seduction. The charges later dropped after he paid a $500 bond. $500 in 1938, that's probably a stiff bond. That's a lot of money. Back then. Back then, dude dude people buy a house for like 500 bucks yeah in Detroit right yeah I thought about that right as I said you can find some recordings of Sinatra from when he was young because it really is crazy when you listen to the difference in that music the sound of that voice and that's gotta be like a lot of Jack Daniels and cigarettes i think the

the earliest i've listened to him is maybe the 40s so maybe i if he was singing in the in the the 30s there i'm i probably haven't heard that it's an incredible voice it's but it's so different it's hard to believe that it's actually sinatra because it sounds so young and high pitched it's just a different that's so much range his voice had this incredible range that all got blunted by the cigarettes and then you know as he got older it just became i had regrets you know like it became almost more talking than the the vocal range that he had when he was younger it just kind of adapted all the years of kind of like just playing night in night out too can can take somebody's range away oh yeah man vocal surgeries and stuff like that it's tortures

your throat he left 29 broken hearts that's different. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So this is older. This is the wig days. Strange times. It is. Looking right at the camera doing the hand work. Well, you got to think back then, that's all new.

Being on television was new. He's the fucking man right think back then that's all new you know being on television was new he's the fucking man right there back then i didn't know there was no one on tv before him it was like how many how many years of television even existed before that was it 10 you know it was like 15 maybe like was it the early 50s when the right late show started oh my god if you go back and watch those what's crazy is if you go back and watch those what's crazy is if you go back and watch those shows especially like the late night talk shows like the jack par show and stuff like that like that thing where you have the desk and then someone sits beside on the couch they still do it that way today they fucking never adjusted it's the same weird

it's weird like why you have a desk? Are you working? Are you writing books up there? Like, why do you have a fucking desk? Yeah. Why are you sitting in front of that desk? And it's just like, that was the Tonight Show. Ladies and gentlemen, hey, have a seat.

And you got this guy sitting there at a desk, and next to him, it's a couch. Like, this is a bizarre way to do a show. Yeah. But because it was the way they did it originally these uncreative motherfuckers just kept doing it that way forever and everybody does it that way yeah they still do uh the only person like norm mcdonald man oh yeah fuck i'd sit i'd sit there on youtube and just watch like his his like late night show interviews where he's in that situation he turned that in like, oh, yeah.

No, he was the man. A few people did it differently. Arsenio Hall did it differently. Arsenio Hall had like seats where they were sitting next to each other. He did it differently. George Lopez did it differently. George Lopez just had like seats. They just kind of faced each other.

Kind of like Letterman's Netflix like the netflix show that he does now yeah yeah yeah that's that's a cool setup it's a good setup um the only problem is that way of talking to people you don't really it's too performative there's two there's people there like a real conversation it's not it's not the same when there's an audience it's a different thing sometimes it's a fun thing like live podcasts in front of an audience they can be great mm-hmm but it's a different thing it's not it's not the same thing that you get from just sitting in a room with someone having a conversation with them yeah which is the best way to talk to people yeah yeah it you know you're getting a little bit of the the public

persona yeah somebody if you're in a theater and you're doing an interview. Yeah, I mean, and everybody does it differently. Like B-Real, who we were talking about before, he has a show called Hot Box. Is it called the Hot Boxing? No, that's Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson's Hot Boxing. What's B-Real's show where he has this old, cool car that they've done up and they got cameras inside of it.

Smokebox. Smokebox. And you get barbecued. I mean, barbecued is a place you don't know what you're talking about five seconds ago. And you're on this podcast just getting baked and you're stuck in this car with Be Real and those guys are, nobody smokes weed like rappers you want to smoke oh yeah you ever smoke weed with rappers no no i can only imagine i was uh ice fishing with jamie johnson last week and i was just trying to keep up with him and he had me

he had me blasted there yeah it's it can get it can get tricky and i'm sure jamie johnson can hang in there too he definitely can I'm sure he could do it. I can't try smoking weed with Snoop and Wiz Khalifa. Oh, yeah. You're going heavyweights. Action Bronson. Action Bronson did the podcast once. We had to take a picture of all the blunts that were in the ashtray at the end of the podcast

because it was so ridiculous. Like, how are you alive? Yeah. Yeah, dude. Some folks, their tolerance. I just posted this. It's like this at the first 48 hours. Like, how many blunts he has in this thing?

That's Snoop? Yeah. Oh, my God. 40, 30. That's so crazy. It's one an hour. When he did this podcast, the whole time he's talking, he's just rolling blunts. And he rolls his own blunts.

So he's sitting there talking to you, and he's just like, we're talking about shit, and he's just rolling blunts and he rolls his own blunts so he's sitting there talking to you and he's just like we're talking about shit he's just rolling blunts yeah he had a sound machine with him had like lights and shit like oh he's such a character snoop is an original he's a that's an original human being everybody loves him too man oh my god how do you not love him he's a great guy few people in the world or there's like a there's like a second grader that knows who he is and my mom knows who he is. Remember, he was doing that show with Martha Stewart. Yeah. And it was great. Yeah.

Who would have ever thought that that teaming would work, that that pair would work? Yeah, back in the day, you'd never see that coming. Perfect. She got done dirty. She did. Back in the day. They got her. They got her and they put her in jail for the same shit Nancy Pelosi made hundreds of millions of dollars for oh yeah yeah so many of those folks in congress

in the senate they i wonder what happened why they went after her like that i wonder what the real story behind it was she must piss somebody off uh-huh yeah there had to be something it does otherwise doesn't even make sense like why would why would you scalp her? Why are you going after her? Martha Stewart? What, you don't like beautiful things? Well, and also, I'm saying in his book, he thought they came after him. Look at her. Still hot.

Look at her. Woo. She looks great. 2023, looking good. Got a little Zempik or something. Woo. That's a thing, isn't it? Yeah.

It's a dangerous thing to some people. Yeah. Some people, it gives them heart. My friend Brian got horrible side effects. He was like bedridden. For some people, a certain percentage of the people, it affects their gut very badly. Yeah. They get all these gastrointestinal issues.

And all you have to do is just not eat shit. And you could lose that weight. You could just not eat shit. And you could lose that weight. You could just not eat shit. Cut all the sugar out of your life. You will watch weight fall off your body. Yeah, there's another way to do it. There's another way to do it. Yeah.

But that's not what people want. People want that quick fix, you know? Especially if you're a weed smoker. If you're a weed smoker and you just want to. All the munchies. Yeah, you get the munchies. Especially late night. It's hard.

It's hard not to just fatten up. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes at home, man, I'll raid that pantry. I'm sure. You know. It's hard. It's hard.

You have to have healthy choices like something that you can that you can eat that you actually enjoy one of the things i really like doing like late night after a gig i like cooking i'll come home and cook a steak at like one in the morning i'm like look i'm a fucking grown man i could i could eat whatever i want like i just cook a steak right now yeah just cook a steak you're hungry don't just go pour a bowl of Froot Loops. Make a fucking steak. Let's eat something healthy. Let's eat real food.

Let's have some vitamins, drink some water. Let's do it the right way. Yeah, and that's another thing I'm looking forward to that bus is because we can stash some better options on there for after a show. Yeah, I think it's going to help. They pulled over Willie's bus in Texas and arrested him. Isn't that amazing?

When did they do that? What the fuck? I want to say it was like 2000... Oh, that's fucked up. 2007 or some shit? 2009? When did Willie Nelson get arrested? It might have even been later than that.

It might have been 2013. It was something crazy where the whole world was like, what? 2010. 2010. 85 miles outside of El Paso. For weed. Willie Nelson.

Yeah. What are you, a communist? Fuck is wrong with you? That's like butchering the Texas Longhorn mascot or something. It's so stupid, too. It's like the dumbest thing to arrest someone for. Like, Jesus Christ,

how are we still doing this in 2024? We're not really like it's decriminalized in Austin, but it's still illegal in the state of Texas. It's still federally illegal, even though it's legal in a bunch of States, it's still federally illegal. That's the thing in music is, you know,

people will stop and, and dump it off like in the van and stuff like that yep so stupid kansas too is another one well there's a lot of states where when you go through the airport they have a designated marijuana depositing box like so if you're you're traveling and you're gonna fly into a state where it's illegal. You just dump it in this box. Like in Nevada, they have that because Nevada has these, you know, weed dispensaries. They have stores now where you can buy it legally. Yeah.

So if you're flying to the airport, you're like, all right, I don't want to get caught. Dump it in this box. And at the end of the night, I bet those people that work there raid that box. Yeah. Oh, yeah. that box. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Of course. Yeah. We're going to do Canada for the first time this year,

and that was like a thing that our tour manager was telling all the guys, you know, make sure you get your passports going now, and, like, you know, make sure, plan on, like, not having any weed when we cross the border. Well, it's legal in Canada. Yeah, but you can't cross with it. Right, you can't cross with it. But once you're there, you don't need it.

Why would you bring it with you? Yeah, they've got dispensaries up there. Yeah, I remember when it was illegal in Canada, and then all of a sudden I went there one year, and it was like, oh, my God, there's weed stores everywhere. That's how it should be. It should be legal. You don't like it, good. There's a lot of things I don't like. It doesn's how it should be it should be legal like yeah you don't

like it good there's a lot of things i don't like it doesn't mean it should be illegal you don't have to take it yeah i was kind of hoping back home they would they would have legalized it in west virginia kind of more at the front end of the states and made some of that money you know yeah we needed that yeah that's the thing that's really crazy they're biting off their nose to spite their face yeah missed out on it we could have been selling to people in all the border states there for a good handful of years and making good money are you living there now yeah i still live there with with my wife and kids and that's where that's where i go back to when i'm when i'm off the road you plan on living there forever i'll always have uh you know, my family,

we have family land that I'll always, at my great-grandmother's house. So I'll always keep that. And, you know, whether my wife and I end up splitting time maybe between there and somewhere else, that might happen. But, yeah, I'll never leave that completely. You feel like it's, like, in your bones?

Yeah, I love it, man. It's, like, my comfortable place in the world. It's like truly, you know, you know, I'm, I'm fortunate to, to feel that way about where I'm from. That is very fortunate. That's beautiful. Yeah. Not everybody does. It's nice to have a place that grounds you to where you go back and you're like, I'm, I'm at home base again. Yeah. Especially for a guy like you that does the road so much and all the travel. Yeah. I like my routine, my small town and, and, you know, I grew up with, with so many people I see around on the day to day. That's cool. And, um, you know, folks watch me grow up, you know, the older folks and, you know, they, they know me and yeah, I get to go about my day-to-day life and it's all very, very normal.

Where even in Nashville, it's not that, you know, because everybody's in music. Right, right, right, right. You got people that, you know, they want something from you or something like that. Yeah, that's what I keep hearing about Nashville, that Nashville's become kind of a Hollywood light in a lot of ways.

Yeah, you know, and it's great. I'm just saying, yeah, there's a lot of people in the music industry. Right. And if you're in the music industry, then you're going to get people come up and ask you this and ask you that. At home, there ain't nobody in the music industry, so there ain't nobody that has anything to ask of me. Right.

It's just that's where I'm comfortable. Yeah, that's nice. It's nice that someone's not trying to angle on you and just use you for something else or get to this to you or connect themselves to you or hit you right there's so many social climbers and so many people that you know they've got a business

they want you to invest in yeah and that's what when I met you I met you the first time at Two Step Inn that festival north of Austin back in April that was when I met you the first time at Two Step Inn, that festival north of Austin back in April. That was when Zach was playing. Yeah, and I met you just real brief, and that was the last thing that I even wanted to come off. That's why I was real weird when I met you that first time, because it was like, hey, man, it's nice to meet you. I don't want to bother you, just because I can only imagine what you run into on the day-to-day.

So, yeah, it's nice back home you run into on the day to day. So, yeah, it's just it's nice back home. I don't I don't get that so much. Yeah, it's an unfortunate aspect of the life that I have. But it's this life is so I'm so fortunate in so many ways. I'm so blessed. I'm so, so extraordinarily lucky that that's to complain about that. I mostly put it out there so people realize that's something that comes with this.

You should know. And if you're on that path too, you're on the path to you want to be in show business, you want to be in entertainment, or if you just want to be successful, I think, in any business. There's going to be people that they pretend when they're talking to you, they don't really give a fuck about you. They're not having a real conversation. They're angling. They're just trying to work an angle.

They're just trying to, like, figure out a way to get close to you, to get your number, to get an email address, to talk to you about this or that. And some people are terrible at it. They're just, like, right away. Like, there's a thing that I'd love for you to invest in. It's a new startup. It's, like, I'd love to show you a dock. Like, no, bro. Yeah. The currency of status. It's a, yeah.

I had to have a conversation with this guy. I can't push. And I go, Hey man, I don't invest in anything. I have zero. I don't invest in nothing. I got nothing. I have a guy who takes care of like financial stuff. And as far as like me, like investing in businesses, I do zero of that. I don't want to have nothing to do with that. I don't want to, well, you don't even want to think about it. Well, I'll think about it. I will fucking think about it. If I give you a bunch of money and I'm going to attach to this company,

I'm hoping you run it right. What are you, crazy? You don't think I'm going to think about that? Of course I'm going to think about that. Well, everything will be handled. I don't do that. I don't do it. Sorry, not interested. Yeah. Yeah, it's tough. Yeah, and some people just don't do that. I don't do it. Sorry.

Not interested. Yeah. Yeah, it's tough. Yeah, and some people just don't want to take no for an answer. They just keep coming back. And then you just got to like, okay, I guess I need a new phone number now. So I do that. I have four phone numbers.

Yeah, I'm thinking about maybe switching. And again, here we are complaining about this stuff. Listen, it's the smallest of things. It's the smallest of things. I always tell people that have too much work, I go, listen, man, the worst thing you can have is no work. That's the worst thing. To have too much work is so much better than have no work. To be too busy is so much better rather than to wish that you were busy.

Yeah. Yeah. If you're too busy, you can back off a little bit. You can take some decisions and go, you know what? I'm wearing myself out. I'm going to slow down a little and do a little less of this, a little less of that, and you'll be all right. Yeah.

There's something I was like, I would kind of tell myself in the last handful of years, I would say yes to damn near everything because like what the story I was telling you about in 21, that's where I'm coming from. So, you know, you say yes, so that you get to that point where you can say no for the longterm. Right. And, and finally this year, like, you know, the, the, the quantity of shows is going to dial back a little bit you know i've already i've said no to some things that i would have dreamed of just having the opportunity to do in years past but you know it's more time you know with my wife and my kids and you know doing my best to find that balance with the babies and do you take them on the road with you at all

cherry pick some you know some good ones they're They were down here in Texas with me in October. We did Green Hall, and we did the Texas Motor Speedway before that. So they came down for that weekend. They were in Nashville with me in December, but not all the time. Yeah, I'm trying to balance that. Yeah, you don't want to wear them out either. Yeah, I don't want to wear them out either yeah i don't want to wear them out and just trying to have keep uh some normalcy and routine in their life and hopefully you know trying to trying to

navigate those waters and you know with with samantha my wife like trying to yeah trying to balance that yeah there's like so many benefits to the life that you have, but then there is that, the time away. Yeah, I've been gone hundreds of days a year for years. Whew, that's hard. That's hard. Yeah, I mean, I've had these guys on that are WWE wrestlers, and not only are they gone hundreds of days a year, it's like some of them are doing 250, 260 days a year,

but they're also getting thrown onto tables 260 days a year it's like some of them were doing 250 260 days a year but they're also getting thrown onto tables 260 days a year they're getting pile drived and fucking body slammed and like imagine that and then you come home every monday and friday yeah and then like you know the two other ones in the week that aren't on tv exactly it's like 52 weeks a year and you come home and you're you're beat up and exhausted and broken and your back's in agony and your knees are all fucked up. Yeah. Yeah, that's another level. Like back to the pain pill thing, like the knees and the necks and things like that.

Oh, yeah, all those guys. And music, too. A lot of folks, the knees, necks, and backs. Oh, sure, man. I mean, that's how, necks, and backs. Oh, sure, man. I mean, that's how we lost both Prince and Tom Petty. Lost both of them to fentanyl, you know? Yeah. Sad shit, man.

With Prince, it was just all that dancing, and apparently he had a fucked-up hip for a long time, and he was in agony. You know, and he just just doing all those moves all those years show after show after show after show you know yeah i'm from friends with uh maynard from tool and he had to get a fucking hip replacement from stomping yeah he's always like stomping on stage when he's singing yeah it blew his hip out if i keep going with my neck i'll end up having you know neck stuff i already got this thing that i lay on 10 minutes a day at the end after shows it decompresses all of it what's

going on with your neck right now yeah it's just head banging and stuff like that when i'm playing shows right but is it good no i don't it's nothing serious now that's why you know maybe i need to adjust that and how long are you in town for? I'm leaving tomorrow. Tomorrow or tomorrow morning, later on in the morning. What time in the morning? What time is your flight? 9.30. I want to see if I can get you into ways to well. There's a stem cell clinic in Austin, and they'll take care of you.

They'll shoot you up with stem cells in your neck. Hell yeah. If you have neck problems. I was trying to talk my dad into that. My dad worked in the mines for 20-some years. Oh, wow. And he's 70 71 now and and he's feeling all that so where minor imperfections come from yeah that's a great song

yeah my buddy zach mccord and i wrote that for our dads that's a great song yeah both of our dads are minors and and that was for him it's a great song yeah yeah they're that work is fucking insane that works insane yeah that's like when people man we want to talk about the hard life Yeah, that work is fucking insane. That work's insane. That's like when people, man, we want to talk about the hard life. That's the hard life. Yeah, when my dad was my age, from 27 to 30, he worked in 26 and a half inches of coal. That's from floor to ceiling. Wow. And it was for a small, so, you know, there's coal companies,

and then sometimes there'd just be this guy that was a landowner back in the day that would get, you know, the right permits and stuff to be able to mine a seam of coal on some property he bought. And that's what the case was with, you know, that job that he had there for three years, was it was like for a small like private mine they weren't using roof bolts oh my god so he had he had uh cave-ins before where he was digging his way crawling on his on his belly trying to dig his way oh my god yeah he did that for three years and oh my god he had cave-ins like that? Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's completely, I mean, that never fly nowadays. But my dad started in the, he was born in 53, so he started in the early 70s, and he went into the early 90s.

So he was at that unique time where there was still some of that old-time stuff, and then, you know, it was transitioning into the modern day mines, you know, today where it's just underground cities. Like when he left, he was the long wall boss at federal number two for Consol. And that was the biggest long wall in the world at the time. And I mean that, that mine, it stretches like, like over a hundred miles underground, you know, it's from from western it's like from western mon county to damn near the ohio river like really yeah and that and and that's a small that's small compared to what people are doing now really oh yeah they got mines in in like utah where because of the elevation of the mountains they they can drive in to a seam of coal

and automatically be already 10,000 feet underground because of the height of the mountain above them. And then it's like 16-foot seams of coal and stuff like that. Things have gotten, you know, the stuff that my dad started out in is just a thing of the past. So when your dad was doing it, he was, would you say 27 inches? 26 and a half. That's what he told me. And so you're just on your back chipping coal out? No, they would have, I mean, they would have had machinery.

They weren't doing that by hand. So with machinery, though, you're crawling on your stomach? Yeah, crawling on your stomach. And then how are you getting it out? Would have been conveyor belts or something oh my god yeah and you're just in that entire enclosed environment crawling yeah all day long yeah i would be freaking out if it was that oh my god and then you're dealing with cave-ins yeah oh my god yeah i had no idea that there's mines that are that big, that are 100 miles.

Oh, yeah, they're huge. Is there photos or videos of those mines? Counties. That sounds insane. I had no idea. Yeah, they'll keep, from what I understand, I think we got mines that start in western Mon County and go all the way to Wetzel County, over close to the Ohio River. They're huge.

Wow. the way to like wetzel county like over close to the ohio river they're huge wow and and these massive ceilings and have lights in there and everything yeah i got you know lights and guys can i imagine stand like pretty much stand up have you seen those i don't know how tall the scene is in it they've had fires in them since like the 50s yeah there's a there's a town in pennsylvania yeah i think that you know there's like a before and after picture because ended up one like an old mine ended up catching fire and the thing's still like smoking toxic fumes everybody had to move out of the town yeah like 50 60 years later yeah it's still on fire to this day. I'm just like, what? How much coal's in there? Yeah. The fires are too deep to burn and too hot to be fought effectively.

250 years before. What? However, experts believe the fires under Centralia could burn another 250 years before they exhaust the coal supply that fuels them. Wow. The fires are too deep and burn too hot to be fought effectively. That's insane. Jamie, if you

would, check... 1962. Wow. Fact check me on how long those mines can go. I was just trying to figure out where should I check for? Just be like biggest mines in the world, longest mines. Just make sure I'm not talking out of my ass.

Well, it sounds like- Again, I'm a musician. At the very least, they're huge. This is all knowledge. This is my dad's knowledge that I'm trying to spit back out. Just make sure I'm not talking out my ass. What is the largest coal mine? 10,000 acres.

Whoa. That's pretty big. That's miles. That's fucking huge. 10,000 acres and it's a mine? Hobet Mine Complex. Holy shit. Where's that?

West Virginia. I just checked in West Virginia. I'm sure there's bigger ones in Colorado. I think, yeah. Do they have footage of that? I mean, it's going to be a lot of underground. Yeah, but I'd like to see it. I just want to see what it looks like.

10,000 acres of mines. Holy shit, man. That's incredible. Yeah, they got some big ones out in Utah. Alabama's got some big ones. I think Drummond knows those. I would have never guessed. I would have never guessed they got some big ones. I think Drummond knows those. I would have never guessed. I would have never guessed they're that big underground.

Oh, those are strip mines. That's strip mines. That's different. That's the, like, underground coal mine footage. It's a hard life, man. That's a hard life. Yeah. And in some places, it's the only thing that's available in certain of the country yeah it was a it was a great opportunity for my dad

you know it allowed him to to you know elevate himself economically and does he have lung problems because of it no no no he doesn't no he was i think starting in the early 70s, I think they figured a lot of that out. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I don't think it was as bad then as it was, you know, back in the 50s and before. Yeah, I don't think he has any, like, long-term issues. You know, Sturgill has a lot of people in his family that came from that too it's like there's that is just a different understanding of hard work and and of poverty too i mean the people that that when those mines shut down that's another sort of similar example those mines if they shut down the whole town relies on those mines and there's nothing mmm yeah yeah you got ghost towns in West Virginia mm-hmm got to

ever read the book rocket boys no by a Homer Hickam and then they made the movie October sky about it and you ever watch that no what is it dude it's a it's an incredible is Bailey mine Look at that machine. Holy shit. There you go. Yeah. And what causes coal? It's vegetation and pressure over millions of years, isn't it? Is that what it is?

I think. Wow. Wow. Look at this fucking life, man. Underground, just using machines to cut out chunks of the earth that people are going to light on fire. And then most people want to ban that shit anyway. But meanwhile, China, we're just looking at how many,

like when people are talking about, we've got to stop people from eating meat to save the planet. Bitch, you need to pay attention to the world because most of that shit's coming from China. There's more than a thousand coal mines in China. Yeah. There's more tonnage of coal being mined now than ever before in history. Crazy.

You know, it's, yeah. Yeah. It's a complicated world with a lot of, like, really narrow-minded narratives. Like, a lot of confusing things that people repeat that they don't really understand the whole depth to what they're saying yeah you could close down all the mines in the United States and that demand for that coal is still gonna be there and it'll just get mine somewhere else yeah that's not to say that maybe you know there will come a

day where coal probably becomes a thing of the past and isn't used anymore. Probably, once they run out of it. Yeah, once they run out of it or they think of something better. And then we're going to have to deal with earthquakes and sinkholes because we're going to fucking carve these huge fucking pockets out of the earth and things are going to collapse. Yeah, at the end of the day, that's not going to solve the world's problems if they just shut all that down in the U.S. overnight.

I watched a video of a coal mine collapsing in China, and it was horrifying. My friend Tom Segura and I, every day we send each other the worst shit we find on Instagram. It's very traumatizing. It's like I'll show it to you on my phone after the podcast is over you're gonna go what the fuck man every day every day we send each other car accidents gunshots animal attacks over and over and every day every day some new

shit yeah and um one of them was this insane coal explode. This is it. This is it. So these people are working in this. Oh, my God. Yeah, they just get engulfed. Open pit coal mine collapsed. Four people injured, six missing, 49 others. Yeah. Just 53 folks.

They're dead. They might be missing. They're dead. Massive landslide Yeah, well, that's mean you're digging into the fucking ground and creating instability Scary shit. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's that's insane. Yeah, the people want to stop coal mining like yeah, I understand But you have to understand how much of that is going on outside this country And we detailed that yesterday one to this sort of a deep dive on it Most of it is coming from China most of its China and then second place is India the United States is

Minimal in comparison to what's going on over there. Mm-hmm, and they're not gonna stop they don't give a fuck I don't give a fuck about what you say about the environment Yeah over there in Paris like when they're all having that conference like they don't give a shit about what they're saying and and those things well it's just crazy when they're talking about climate change and then they cornered bill gates like you fly here on a private jet like what it's like yeah i actually have one of the largest carbon footprints like so you're a hypocrite like what what's your real angle here buddy like you probably have a business that profits from people deciding to take a green angle and that's really what's going on he's trying

to push plant-based meat and a bunch of other bullshit and and that's why it's it's important for him to get that narrative out there about climate change just like during the pandemic he was heavily invested in mRNA vaccines. And then at the end, he bailed. He sold all his shares and then started talking shit. Like, it wasn't as effective as we hoped. Like, what about what you were saying in the beginning when you were saying it was really effective and everyone needs to take it? Remember that?

Why is anybody listening to that guy either, by the way, when it comes to public health? You look like one of the least fucking healthy people alive you like as far as people his age he looks way older than he should look he's got a pot belly he looks like shit yeah it was like total shit yeah and that i mean that vaccine thing that was uh you know i i had to get that i had to show that to play my shows yeah in 21 yeah and you know i felt like i had to do it in order Yeah. A lot of people did. In 21. Yeah. And, you know, I felt like I had to do it in order to work. A lot of people did. A lot of my friends did. They did it because they had to. Mm-hmm.

People were coerced, and then it didn't even work. Then I ended up getting it. Yeah. Of course. And, you know, it was fine. It was like a cold for a little bit. Yeah. It wasn't what we were feared, what we're afraid of.

And then you realize like, oh, there's a lot of motivation that they have to scare the shit out of you. Because that's how you'll do it. Remember when the White House, this is during Omicron, which is like the most mild version of COVID. It was basically just a mild cold for most people, especially healthy people. It was basically just a mild cold for most people, especially healthy people. And the White House put out a release that said, for the vaccinated people, you've done your job. For the unvaccinated people, you're looking at a winter of severe illness and death. Yeah. Where did that come from? They're cunts. That's what it came from. You're a bunch of cunts. Yeah.

And it's not even true. It wasn't even true. I mean, the number of people that are dying from COVID now, like the CDC is like, we need to get, people need to get vaccinated. The COVID deaths are up. No, they're not. Go look. They're really low. They're super low. And by the way, those people that are dying, they're in terrible shape.

They're not doing good already. And most of the people that died even during the pandemic, it was some of the age, some of the range of 90% of the people that died had an average of four comorbidities. Yeah. Four things that were killing them. And then COVID got them. And then also there was the thing where the hospital had an incentive to say that so-and-so died from COVID. Yeah.

My friend's grandpa had some horrible disease, and he didn't have COVID. And when he died, he died in a nursing home. They listed him as a COVID death. And he was furious. He was like, he didn't have fucking COVID, man. They didn't even test him for COVID. But they listed him as a COVID death. Get that money.

Exactly. There was a financial incentive to list people as COVID deaths. And that's how you inflate the numbers. And that's how you motivate people to take that vaccine. It's wild, man. It's wild what they pulled off. It's a lot of goofy shit. And then that year, year and a half, two years.

Scary what happened the where my wife and i talked about it and we drew the hard line with our children you know we weren't going to do that good for you yeah good for you because um you know my kids were being pressured by uh some of their their families friends like their their families like their their kids were getting it. And their families were wondering why my kids weren't getting it. I'm like, hey man, you can go fuck yourself. This shit's all totally experimental. And by the way, the early data, very early on, it was shown that it's not dangerous for kids. Both of my kids got it and it was nothing. I mean nothing. They've had flus that knocked them on their ass and this was nothing like that. It was very mild for the kids.

Yeah. Yeah. You get over it just fine. What did Tim Kennedy say? My kids shit it out in a day. Dude, look, you know, obviously I experienced the backlash in the wildest way because I got, I got healthy quick without the vaccine, but they came for me in a way that was so stupid. the vaccine. But they came for me in a way that was so stupid. It was such a checker's move. It was such a dumb move. Like, because you're going after a guy for taking a medication that worked. Yeah. Like, by the way, it was one medication amongst many medications that I said I took. And here I am three days after this thing that's supposed to kill you. I'm 55. I'm not young, but I'm healthy and I work out all the time and I take a lot of vitamins and I'm always fit. And I got over it quick. I'm saying, sorry, I can't make the dates. It was about a concert

that I was supposed to do with Chappelle. We were doing shows that weekend. We got to move the shows. Sorry, I got COVID. I'm fine now. Three days ago, I got it. And then they, oh, he's taking veterinary medicine it's like that's when you get to see how corrupt the media is that they're all on cnn and msnbc and all these different shows lying straight up lying i didn't take horse dewormer i took human ivermectin that i got from a doctor yeah a doctor that the way, they have prescribed that medication over, like, what, three billion times for who knows how many people all over the world. It's on the World Health Organization list of essential medicines.

Big range of things. Yeah. And I imagine you got good doctors. Yeah, I got good doctors. I bet you do. I got good doctors that are objective, that really understand health. Yeah. And they're not just about injecting you with shit. They're about staying healthy all the time. I mean, I've been preaching the value of a healthy lifestyle, healthy diet and vitamin

supplementation forever. So when I get sick, I get over it quick quick if i got sick at all and the only reason i got sick was i was out my friend john showman who's a uh shout out to my friend john who uh is a pool cue manufacturer and he i love this dude and he makes like some of the best pool cues in the world and i was in florida so i got a chance to see him and we played pool till like fucking 3 30 in the morning and i had like five margaritas. That's why I got sick. Yeah. We get that run down.

Yeah. I was just beat and I was after a show. So I did a show at an arena in Florida. So people are screaming. So it's like 15,000 people and I'm in the round and they're laughing. So it's, ah, so there's a COVID spray headed your way. Getting rained on by droplets was a, was a hot word there for a couple years i was still fine i was still fine until i got drunk i mean i was at the end of the night i was pretty

tired i was just beaten up from playing pool to three thirty in the morning and then we were drinking and the next day i was like god am i hung over i feel like shit and then it hit me i did a show the next night with covid no problem killed had Killed. Had a great time. Yay. See you guys. And then on the way home, I was like, man, I feel like shit. And then I called my wife. I was like, I might have it. I feel kind of shitty. Then I woke up in the morning. I was sweating. I had a fever. I was like, got tested, got positive, got all the meds, got the IV vitamins. The next day I was like, oh, feel pretty good. And then the day after that, I made that video. I was like, oh, I feel pretty good. And then the day after that, I made that video. I was like, yeah, I'm all right. And then they came for me. I was like,

wow, you corrupt cocksuckers. You don't give a shit about health. If you did, you'd be saying, hey, look, this guy who's not young, who got COVID and is not vaccinated, got over it pretty quickly. So look, maybe it's not as bad as we think it is, or maybe it's not as bad if you're fit and healthy, or maybe there's some other options other than just taking this experimental medication that's never been mass injected into hundreds of millions of people in this country. But no, they were all corrupt because they're all a part of this industry that was relying on the advertising revenue from the pharmaceutical drug industry. And they were all in the pocket.

Oh, yeah. They jumped in. Dirty people, man. Dirty, dirty monsters. Yeah. And they came forward. And, you know, most folks around the country, you know, a lot of folks don't speak publicly on it, but they saw that and knew exactly what it was. Well, it killed their credibility.

They're going for Joe. And then just kept, you know, moved on and never tuned in anyways to watch them. Well, there's a lot of people now that will watch those news reports on things, especially medical things, and go, hmm, how much are you telling the truth? How much are you telling? How come you guys are ignoring all the deaths? How come you guys aren't talking at all about the vaccine deaths? How come you guys aren't talking at all about the vaccine deaths? How come

you guys aren't talking at all about the all cause mortality spike that's unprecedented? How can we not talk about that? Are you guys the news? Are you guys some corporate mouthpiece for some company that pays you exorbitant amounts of money to push their shit? Because that's what it seems like. And if that's the case, somebody should probably step in and regulate you cocksuckers yeah i was i just watched the uh that the netflix short series on painkiller oh my god i just saw that and you know that you know affected west virginia big time big time um but i didn't you know i and there was a drama dramatization of of kind of the bullet points of what happened there. That was, yeah, it's a broken system. Well, they're monsters, man.

They don't care about death. They care about profit. And that is their business. Their business is making money. I mean, there's the people that make the medication, and their business is just to make effective medication. They're scientists. And then there's the people that are just money people. And their business is to sell it and sell it as hard as they can.

And they're incentivized, especially the Sackler family. I mean, that family is still not in jail. How are they not in jail? And they gave up $6 billion to try to avoid prosecution. But then the Netflix special, the series came out. And when that series came out, I believe there was a judge that put a hold on the decision to allow them to have immunity. And they were like, hang on, hang the fuck on. What did you do? And when you see what they did,

you know, I had Peter Berg on who made that,. Oh, okay. He's amazing. And he explained it, what they did. And, you know, he went into even more depth, you know, like things he couldn't cover in the series. And it's terrible. It's terrible, awful, evil, demonic behavior. That set off a chain reaction that affected a whole generation. And so many people died, but the people that didn't die how many lives are ruined i in my family i have people whose lives were ruined multiple people in my immediate in my close family and my connected family you know i know many people

who just got devastated by that shit and they're they're still struggling to this day yeah try to get off of it you know that's uh the kids that i that grew up in my grade we've we lost i think one or two to a couple accidents and then one to cancer and then the rest are all as a result of of that it's ended up odn um do you ever see there's a real good documentary on huntington west virginia i think it was called heroin no and it's just like following around the fire chief of of like huntington and she's just going around just person this is just like a day in the life and she's just going from person to person you know oh damn apartment to house just either saving somebody or finding somebody too late just all day it's a it's incredible they

did a good job of like showing the reality of it and what it does if you talk to emts that shit is happening all over the country all the country right now still to this day and now unfortunately it's harder for people to get the real pills so now they're getting this this cartel shit it's laced with fentanyl yeah and they're all fucking dying left and right so many people are dying it's parents worst nightmare oh my god it's so scary man yeah you know uh my comedy club we we had to start carrying narcan you know so one of our security guys uh made it imperative to get narcan to make sure that you know like we should have that on on yeah fortunately

we haven't had to use it yeah we haven't had anybody overdose during a show but we did have a lady go into a k-hole she's taking ketamine there's ketamine for whatever there's fucking people that are recreationally taking this insane drug, which is disassociative. You can order that on Amazon. Can you? I think so. I think you can get that on Amazon. It's wild.

I don't know if they do. I'm pretty sure. It's so potent, man. Get it like a vitamin. And so they're doing like this nasal spray. Oh, my God. People are doing nasal spray. And it's legal in some weird way like

it's there i'm in therapy getting therapy you're just getting blasted with ketamine all day these people are i know people that are claimed sober yeah but they're on in therapy and they take ketamine for therapy like bitch you are not sober now you just you're you're caved up all day long and they just party in a different way So I have friends that love it. They love it. I'm like, get that shit away from me, man. John Lilly, the guy who invented the sensory deprivation tank. Have you ever used one of those?

No. Oh, they're amazing. We have one here. I'd be interested to check that out. By itself, without ketamine, it's really great. You don't really need ketamine. But John Lilly used to do it with intramuscular ketamine. So he would inject his thigh with a blast of ketamine and then lie down and just go into this other dimension and communicate with beings.

And it's like whatever the fuck happens when you take ketamine and meanwhile people are doing this recreationally at a comedy show out of the show and this lady just fell down and just blacked out in the middle of the show and everyone's like what is she on what's she on and the boyfriend's like oh she took some ketamine like she's in a k-hole in the middle of a comedy show. Damn. Probably while Duncan's on stage. Which is ironic. Man, I love Duncan's cartoon that he had there on Netflix. It was amazing. I don't know how the fuck they canceled that. Yeah. Me and my bandmates liked that.

Adventure Time, right? What was it called? Yeah, just like he did a monologue. Is that what it was called? I can't remember what it was called. No, that's not what it was called. Adventure Time was like the same guy who did it, also did Adventure Time. The Night Gospel.

The Night Gospel. Thank you. Yeah. Oh, my God. Duncan's the best. And the cartoon would just follow his monologue. Yeah. It was great.

Yeah. No, it's incredible. He's, like I said, he's such a unique guy. And when he moved here, I was so happy. I was so happy. And he's so happy, too. You know, Austin's just such an amazing place you made it like uh it's like the episode it's like the center of comedy right now

yeah we uh when we built the mothership that was the goal I never thought it would work as well as it did it was just kind of like let's try let's give it a shot you know we're here I'm not moving I got out of California and I'm like i'm not going back every i got out of california early i saw the writing on the wall in may of 2020 so the the country shut down in march and i was like well you know two weeks the you know flatten the curve and then when it was like a month later i was like what the fuck is going on i'm always distrustful of authority and i'm always distrustful of narratives i just i don't there's just too much bullshit in the world and i've read too many books yeah i've been i've

been exposed to too many conspiracies i went too far down the jfk rabbit hole and the 9-11 rabbit hole and the fucking ndaa and the fucking the patriot act and i I'm friends with Alex Jones, right? So my head is filled with conspiracies. You know, with all this Epstein shit, Alex Jones taught me about that a long time ago. He was telling me about that. And I was like, come on, man. You're telling me there's an island where they take elites and they film them having sex with kids. Come on. He was right about that one. He was 100% right about that. Yeah. He's right

about most things. Alex is just, unfortunately, he occasionally goes down the wrong road and he did with Sandy Hook. And, you know, and so people always point to that, but he's a human being, you know, and people, human beings make mistakes. And he made a horrible mistake with that. But he's right way more than he's wrong. And he's right about all of this shit. He was telling me about the World Economic Forum a long time ago. I'm like, what power do they have?

What are they going to do? And now you see these fucking people like you own nothing and you'll be happy. Like, what? Yeah, that European guy. Yeah, Klaus Schwab. We have a photo of him in the bathroom. Have you seen it. That's kind of bad. I haven't seen that now We've got a photo of him with the full Darth Vader garb on like what he's literally telling you what he is at every step He's talking like this. It's like too much on the nose like if he was a bad guy in a movie

You were like that's too caricature ish. You know one's going to be that obvious, dress up like Darth Vader, talk in a German accent, and then try to control the world and get everybody to give up their cars and eat bugs. He's like a villain in a comedy. Amazing. You know, that goes back to like the Bill Gates thing, too, where he's jetting around, but then he's preaching to you. Yeah. You know, you should do this.

You shouldn't do this. Yeah, that doesn't apply to me though he was preaching about health those folks are a big fan of that aren't yeah they're a big fan of that a big fan of that doesn't yeah meanwhile they were all eating meat like one one of the reports of the people that went to this thing they're at this conference they're all eating chicken and steak and they're talking about how people need to stop eating meat like what the fuck are you saying this is all bullshit yeah this is all just control it's the oliver anthony song you know that's what it is he's a great example too right like that guy's first gig that he ever

did was in front of like 14 000 people did it like a farmer's market yeah incredible incredible the state fair i think it was like a farmer's market something like that yeah i think it was like a farmer's market yeah jamie was telling me about that he said he when he heard about that he he he got over there to to try to you know protect him from what he what he knew was coming his way yeah i helped him too i got him on the phone like early on he was like well people are telling me that i should sign this. And so I go, listen to me, man, don't sign shit. Don't say if they're doing that, they're just trying to catch you when you're vulnerable. They're trying to catch you when you're vulnerable. And they're trying to lock you up with some sort of a contract. It's like,

well, people are saying that if I don't act now, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I go, listen, man, you got talent. You're fucking talented. You ain't got to do shit. You're going to be fine. You got talent. People love you. You don't have to do shit. You don't have to sign shit. You don't want anybody controlling you. Don't sign any kind of,

for whatever they're, if they're giving you a million dollars or five million dollars, that means they think they can make 10 or 20. And they're going to make it off of you. More than that. More than that. And you're going to be the one that gets fucked.

Don't do it. You're the one with talent. You don't need anybody, man. Yeah. You already made it. You already got through. People already realize. That Rich Men from Richmond,

Richmond, north of Richmond, that song is so goddamn good. People heard that song, they're like, holy shit. Yeah, connected. Connected. Just a dude with a guitar. When you got 10,000 folks that'll come see you anywhere you're at, you don't need anybody.

You don't need nobody. You don't want any weasels and vampires like Zach's song, Damn Cold Vampires. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love that song. That's the thing, man, finding the right people to work with. Yep. And it's honestly, it's one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle if you find good people

to surround yourself with. 100%. And good people in the business aspect too. I've had the same manager since I was an open mic-er. I've had the same manager for 35 years. That's amazing. 34 years?

34 years, I think. That's best case scenario. You know what I mean? I've been years? 34 years, I think. That's best case scenario. You know what I mean? I've been doing comedy two years when I met that dude. Yeah, rather than having like the coked up manager that's like, oh, don't worry about your taxes. I'll take care of that. Exactly.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's a wide- You should invest in this company. Yeah, there's a wide spectrum. And you find yourself with good people, man, that's half the battle.

Yeah. Just having good people around you. Yeah. And, you know, I just met Oliver real brief backstage at the Opry just one night. Just said hi. So I don't know him, but I can only imagine what came his way. He's going to be fine. He's a good dude. He's a good, solid dude.

He's going to be fine. Yeah. I've hung out with him. He went to the mothership, and when Tom Segura was there, he went up on stage and performed in front of everybody, and they went nuts. Hell yeah. They went nuts.

It was beautiful. It was beautiful. No one expected it, you know. Tom got off stage. He was like, I'm going to bring somebody up. And he brings up oliver anthony he went yeah they went nuts it's he's fucking living it man it's happening what a dream i mean this guy was like selling farm equipment you know yeah like seven months ago whatever you know and now he's a giant superstar, but he's a cool motherfucker. He's a genuine, nice guy, and he's really gotten into the Bible. That's what's really crazy.

This guy was smoking too much weed, drinking all the time, wasting his life, and then has this epiphany of giving his life to Christ. And then within weeks, this song comes out within weeks mm-hmm and all of a sudden he's fucking huge it's like he did this thing where it's it's so cliche it's like in the movie like I'm gonna change my ways and and and then it all happens right after that like it's hard to know what to believe in but it's hard not to believe when something like that happens like you're telling me that's a coincidence are you fucking sure it's a coincidence

because i'm not yeah i'm not sure it seems like he's kind of like a messenger like something connected in him like whatever you want to say whatever whatever name you want to attribute to it, whether it's God, whether it's love, whether it's the universe, whatever it is, something got inside of him and he changed his life and he changed his mind. And then he started changing the world. Yeah. Yeah. You always also, you got to be aware of anybody that says they know there's nothing. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Yeah. You don't know there's nothing. Nobody knows there's nothing. That's nonsense talk. Nobody knows. I mean, it's faith. It's either faith or don't have faith, but nobody knows. But also, like, you can't dismiss positive experiences.

You just can't. Who the fuck knows what happens when you die you do not know and and then when you think about like the history of the bible and you think about the history of the human race the human race was essentially almost wiped out somewhere around 12 000 years ago well these stories all come from before that these stories were all oral traditions they're all they're so similar to like the stories of 6 000 years ago like the epic of gilgamesh is so similar to the story of noah and the ark there's so many stories they're just like there's got to be something to this stuff

yeah it's coming from something it's coming from something somewhere yeah there's so many parts of it that resonate with people still in their core. Like when they think about what, when they have feelings of love and companionship and they see beauty in the world and they have these moments, they said, God damn, I know there's something. I don't mean to say God damn there, but damn it. I know there's something there. I'm connected to something. There's something there. Yeah. And you know, I, I have faith and, and go to church.

And I think it helps me, helps me navigate, you know, I have faith and go to church, and I think it helps me navigate, you know. And I'm not pretending to know anything, that's for sure. But, you know, I choose to partake. A lot of the people that I know that choose to partake and choose to behave in a way that is inspired by that live beautiful lives. I think there's something to that. Yeah. Yeah. inspired by that, live beautiful lives.

I think there's something to that. Yeah. Yeah. If you're coming from a place of love and just trying to be the best you, you know. Yeah. Who's it hurt? That's exactly what I feel. Can we leave on one of your songs?

Sure. Okay. Hell yeah. Which one? Let me think. Minor Impressions or Minor Imperfections. Let's leave on that one. That's a beautiful song. That's a beautiful song because we've been talking about minors.fections let's leave on that one that's a beautiful song that's a beautiful song

because we've been talking about minors yeah let's leave on that can you play that Jamie and we'll wrap this bad boy up tell everybody

how to get a hold of you social media website yeah Charles Wesley Godwin my website Charles W. Godwin has everything

anybody would want to find all the dates all the social media, the albums. Do you have any dates coming up in Texas anytime soon? I think I'm down here with Luke. San Antonio in August, we're playing whatever the football stadium is down there. Oh, cool. Yeah, I'm one of Luke Combs' openers this summer.

I love that dude, too. Dude, he's awesome. He's awesome. We played a show way back before he was even doing it. Keep playing it, man. Oh, sorry, Jamie. My bad. I just kept rambling.

Let it go. All right, we're going to leave you with this, ladies and gentlemen. Much love to everybody. Bye. Thanks for having me on, man. My pleasure. It'd be three more hours until those halls are full But long walls don't run on nine to five

I didn't get it then Every day that man would fight To punch the clock and make it home alive He's got minor imperfections Blame it on his roots Calluses on his hands Cordas on his boots He's not one for

conversation when there's work to do That boss said get paid in cash company scripts and news Them city folks would shame him if he let them

But he's proud of his minor imperfections guitar solo Years have by and I grew up His brown hair faded white He somehow picks up every