The Joe Rogan Experience - #2489 - Ryan Bingham

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

Ryan Bingham is an actor and musician. See Ryan Bingham and the Texas Gentlemen on tour this year, and look for their next album, “They Call Us the Lucky Ones,” on May 15.www.youtube.com/@ryanbinghamwww.ryanbingham.com Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe Rogan podcast, checking out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Man, good to see you. Yeah, this evening. Hold up to that microphone, sir. All right. You were fucking great at that McConaughey thing last year.

I really enjoyed that. That was my first time seeing you perform live. It was really cool. It was very cool. You're so relaxed up there, man. So it was like you brought everybody into a nice, like, comfortable, chill, vibe. It was cool. I'm glad you guys felt that way. Sometimes it takes me a minute to get into the groove, you know. Yeah, but it felt like that, you know, it felt like you were in it. Like it brought

the whole crowd into it too. That event that he does, the two events, the one, the singer-songwriter one, and then the other one with the auction and everything, they're so cool, such good events. Yeah, they're good people too, you know. I really grown to just appreciate the community around here in Austin and the hill country area and all of that stuff I definitely wouldn't have the career I don't think but it wouldn't have been for the community around here that this support and songwriters and music and the way that they do it's pretty incredible you know when they get behind anything it's just like it just feels so good to see that many people come together and it's a you know have that support it's a really good place man Austin is a really good community

it really is a very positive place in a lot of ways yeah I mean nothing's perfect there's no perfect places but it's really good yeah i like it so much better than when i was living in california just feels like real people just i miss it man i mean i'm i'm i'm moving the process of moving back to to texas where you at right now uh outside of dallas texas out by tyler okay i've been in a tapanga canyon in l.a for years you know so i've been in the middle of it and um doing that hollywood thing every time i get across the state line it's just like that weight comes off and you're Like, oh, man, I'm home, you know. Dude, you had the coolest fucking character on Yellowstone.

It must be so fun to play. It was so much fun, man. I had the, I laughed. I always talk about it. I felt like I had, like, one of the easiest jobs there, you know. It's because my, the character was kind of a smaller role. You know, most of the time I'd work, like, one or two days a week. And then the rest of the time, I'd just be, like, fly fishing and get lost in the mountains and just disappear out there.

Yeah. It was awesome. God, Montana. That is awesome. That show made so many people move out there, though. I know. You're going to take your license plate off your car before you go. Right. You better not have a California plate. Better not. They will fucking write things on your hood. Run you off the road.

Yeah, they get upset. It's very interesting. They're very proud to be from Montana. You want to keep it to themselves. Like, let it go, motherfucker. We're all Americans. All right? If you got a good spot, you should be happy that people from California figure it out. Yeah. Don't be a dick. Like, you're American, bitch. You're not. It's not the United States of Montana. Shut the fuck up. I guess it's kind of anywhere, right?

Not that much here. Yeah. Here's pretty inviting. I've never had that experience here. Yeah. Not really. Texas is a pretty friendly place. Yeah.

And there's so many different walks of life that have been here for so long, you know. I think up there in Montana and stuff, man, if you were tough enough to survive those winners and stake a claim up there back in the day, you had to fight for it, and they're still fighting for it now, you know. That does make sense. I mean, and that's also one of the things that's highlighted by the whole series, all the different Yellowstone series, the older ones with Harrison Ford. And, you know, they really do explain in a lot.

I mean, it's kind of a cool chunk of history to see, like, how this all got started. How the kind of people that had to survive out there when, you know, all you had is a fireplace. Yeah. That's it. You got a fireplace. You just don't. I love all those mountain men stories, you know, Jim Bridger and all that stuff. It's just like, man.

And there is something. You get up there in those mountains, it gets into your bones. It gets into your blood. And it's a different thing, man. It's a spiritual place. It is. And it's also, it's like the most potent art. Like, it's nature's art.

And you don't think of it as art. But, God, it's so beautiful. It's like stunt. Like, sometimes when you're up there, you just have to stop and look. Like, God, this is gorgeous. It's overwhelming if you have to have. It gives you a feeling. It's like it's almost like a drug that hits you because of the beauty of it all.

Like you take it in with the blue sky and you see the clouds in the mountain and maybe there's a lake below you in the canyon. You're like, God, this is gorgeous. It's like you feel it in your DNA, man. It's like your body knows like this is a fertile, beautiful place that's filled with life. And this should excite you. So all your natural human reward instinct. are all like this is a place I should be yeah like look at the sky look at the lake look at the

mountains this is fertile this is like life giving yeah yeah several years ago um I went to a guide school up there like a hunting guy hunting guide and it was a whole pack squad it part of it I grew up cowboy and ranching but I've never really been up there in those mountains like that and I'm my dad would always fantasize about that we'd talk you know one day we're going to go like a pack trip up in Montana and you know we'd watch all those movies like Lonesome Dove and all of that stuff so it was always just kind of a daydream and um years ago I was just kind of overwhelmed with music stuff and all that didn't know what I was going to do and I ended up I just wanted to go up there for a trip you know maybe going a pack trip and I started looking up

places and I found this uh place called royal time outfitters and they're like yeah you know we'd come up and you can take take you on a pack trip rather but we also have like this six week school you know that you can train to be a guy that's all mule pack and all kinds of stuff, you know. And so I was like, man, I'm going to sign up for that, you know, and it was life-changing. There was only six of us in the class and, you know, spent weeks back in the backcountry pack of mules and horses. Oh, wow. We just tie a rope between two trees with a tarp for sleeping at night and always post up

a couple of guys to watch over the horses at night. And I remember one morning I woke up, and it was in June, you know, but we were way back in there. I woke up and the snow was coming down. And I just kind of raised my head up and I was looking out at the horses and the snow was just falling down in their backs. And there was that moment in me.

I was like, I don't know if I'm ever going back. I was like, this is right where I need to be. Right. It was tough to come back to civilization after that. I think we're doing something with ourselves, to ourselves with civilization, that we can't really, fully appreciate because we're wrapped in it.

And it's not until you get to nature where all that weight just gets lifted off of you and you feel more normal. And you're like, oh, this is where people are supposed to be. Yeah, you know, no phones. There's no nothing, no distractions. And it's just like all your senses heightened, your eyesight, your hearing, your sense of smell, like all of that stuff. And, you know, I remember going into it. You know, I didn't know what to expect, really.

I've done some camping and things like that and grew up ramping. and all that. This was a way different deal. And I remember I just had this like backpack full of gear, you know. And by the time I got out of there, like I just felt like all I needed was a pair of scissors and some way to start some fire, you know, and that was about it. Yeah, I follow this one dude. God, I'm trying to remember his name. Clay, let me pull it up because I really enjoy his videos. But this dude, he lives, I believe he lives in Alaska, but he does a lot of trips in America, like all over America in the lower 48.

And he goes and, like, lives by himself in some kind of harsh environment. Like he's done it in the swamps Clayhays that's it does he like take his kid out there He I believe he has he's taking his dog but a lot of times he just goes entirely by himself Mm-hmm and they're very very interesting like he starts his own fire he'll figure out how to get food He figures out how to purify water he's taking salt water and made his own thing that kind of distills it into fresh water and removes the salt like very very slowly by using a piece of bamboo and fire and boiling the water in the bamboo so that the water evaporates and then drips down and it doesn't have salted in it apparently.

Yeah, I love that stuff, man. I love it. I mean, just to have those skills, just to know how to do it, like, whether you'll ever need it or not, just to know how to do that. It's just so cool. I remember in that guide school, there's a lot of different parts to it, which was so cool. It was like we did a whole week of like backcountry, like wilderness first aid. You know, he had a paramedic come in and teach us all this stuff. And then it was a whole week of just like leather work.

There was a whole week of shoe and horses. There was fly fishing and entomology and all these just kind of little skills. But one thing that really stuck with me was a fire building kind of drill when we started. It was kind of right when we first got there. And it was pretty wet and it had been snowing. And there's only six of us, you know. and we're guys from kind of all over the country. And I grew up in New Mexico and West Texas where it's pretty dry, you know,

and you kind of build a fire. You can kind of just take some little small twigs and get a little fire going, you know. So it goes, all right, you got two minutes to build a fire and you need to have, you know, like a flame to be three or four feet high. And man, I'm running around grabbing like little sticks and twigs. And I'm just, and we have a lighter too. You know, I'm just struggling. It's just smoking.

And they can't get it going. I look over, and there's a kid from Alaska in the class. And he just runs over to this big dead pine tree and just breaks off the biggest branch of dead, you know, pine needles and takes his lighter and just, within like five seconds has this massive fire going. I was like, okay, that's how you do that, you know. And it was so just the littlest things, you know, to have that knowledge, you know. And part of it was, you know, he was explaining to us the instructor. He's like, yeah, you know, if you're out here with your guide and somebody that's hunting, maybe he's an elderly guy or somebody gets hurt.

and you get caught back in the mountains and it's snowing. It's like, you better get a fire going and keep them warm real quick, you know. So it was always a reason and a purpose behind it, which was really cool. And I'll never, those are some of the things I'll never forget. Did they teach how to start fires

with like a piece of metal and like a flint, like, you know, what is that, a striking rod? Yeah, we did some flint stuff. And with like the pitch wood from some of the old pine trees, you know, you can find that pitchwood. And we did some bow. and wood drill stuff, not a whole lot of that fucking shit is hard. It was so hard.

So hard. I did that in the Boy Scouts and it took like hours to start a fire. You have to fucking keep saw and if you're doing it with your hand, you're going to blow your hands up. Yeah, you better get a bow. Get your technique down. You got to have the stick on the top and the stick that goes all the way, the base thing and you cut a little hole in the base thing so that like all the little embers can fall into your kindling and you got to saw the shit. And imagine trying to do that, you know, in the snow or it's wet, you know, it's like, man, it's just... Very, very unlikely.

You know what's really good for kindling? Freedos. Really? All the oil that's in it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of shocking. Yeah. We were in Alaska and it was raining all the time, and there was one day where it stopped.

I was with my friend Steve Renella took me up there with my friend Brian Callan and all these guys. So we went up there and when we got... One day, like a 10-hour stretch where it was not raining, we're like, we got to start a fucking fire. Because it was raining every day for like five days in a row. And we couldn't find any deer. It was a nightmare. It was tough hunting. So this one day, and we were trying to figure out things to light on fire because everything's soaking wet.

And so we got some pieces of wood from like underneath the bottom of trees and shit and dead trees that were covered by other things that were kind of sort of a little bit dry. And we used Fritos. And Fritos, when you light them, man, it's crazy how much oil is in those things. They just, and they stay lit for a long time, like a candle. Yeah. And so we started, like, piling little things. And we got that fire. I was like the happiest I've ever been in my life.

I bet when you're backer's stuck, just cannot get. Once you get that kind of cold, too, it's just like there's almost, you know, nothing to get you warm. It wasn't that bad cold wise. It was like in the 50s or 60s. Yeah, it was just the wetness. the wetness was impossible to get away from. I thought once you get in your tent, you'd be dry. You'd get in your sleeping bag, you'd be dry.

But I had to take a piss in the middle of the night, and I had to turn on my headlamp in the tent. And when I did, it was all just mist everywhere. It was moisture. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm never going to be dry. I had to just accept, like, there's no drying here. How long were you guys back in there? About six days.

We had to leave. We were supposed to be there for seven, but we had to leave on the six day because the storm was coming in. I was like, I could get stuck, because you can get stuck up there. Yeah. We were on, I guess, Prince Edwards, is that what the island is?

Yeah, you get stuck up there. And I was like, I got to get back home. I got to work. Did y'all get fly in, like on a puddle jumper? Yeah, we landed in the pond. And you could drink right out of the pond. Yeah, exactly. And you could drink right out of the pond.

Like, the palm was all rainwater, and there was no, it was too high for beavers. So you didn't have to worry about Jardia or anything in the water. You could just drink right out of the pond. Like, this is crazy. Yeah, that's the best. I've never been to Alaska only like in the winter on a like skiing thing, but I've always wanted to go up there to hunt and fish. The people are extraordinary. Those are rugged people.

Yeah. Like when I did a gig with my friend Ari and Anchorage and one of the things, it was weird because you get there, it's 11 p.m. it's bright out. Like this is weird. One of the things that we talked about after was like, those people were fucking cool. Like there's something about living up there like where you could die going outside like a good sense. Six months out of the year. There's fucking bears everywhere. If you look sideways at a moose, it'll stomp you to death in a fucking Walmart parking lot.

You better have your shit together. You better have your shit together. There's bald eagles everywhere. The salmon are as big as your thigh. I mean, the people there are, they work together. They're very friendly, but they're very rugged. But they're also like, they realize you need each other. realize you need each other. Like there's a sense

of like community and coolness. Yeah. You need each other. If your fucking car breaks down the side of the road you could die. Like someone's not going to let you die. They're going to pull over. In California they're like someone will get them. They just keep driving. So you just lose this sense of community. Yeah, you're not

calling. That's who you're calling for help in times of need is your neighbor. Exactly. I mean even if like the bridge washes out, it's like here comes your neighbor with the backhoe and the tractor and like you just do it yourselves. And that makes a cool friendship when your friend helps you out or when you help your friend out. I thought I miss about living in Texas too.

You know, it's just like some of the small things or whatever to teach, like, even up at my place in Topanga, you know, you want to build some fence or whatever. Like I do, I feel lucky I've got a couple of really good friends up there and neighbors that, you know, love to come, you know, work with their hands and get their hands dirty and we'll build stuff. And like, man, in Texas, you want to like weld something. You need something with a tractor, some heavy equipment thing, you know, like, you're not getting that done in California. Right. It's going to cost you a fortune to, you know, get someone with a skid steer up to your house to help you move some dirt around, you know.

But here in Texas, it's like, oh, man, just call Frank down the road. He's got one. There's people that have a long tradition of doing stuff, you know. It's like, it's a real place. I grew up like that, too, you know. You know, people cutting hay and stuff like that. especially when you're young like man we would go stack hay for everybody around you know it's like that was the summer job you know it's like let's just go that makes a strong person no people that

throw hay around those are strong mother like that term like farmer strength that shit's real yeah you better said i was always a little guy too so i had to use and learn how to use leverage real quick roll those bells up on your knee i think one of the last times i did that i remember is uh i was going to school in Stephenville, Texas, and had a good friend over in Glenrose, and it was in middle of July, and he's an older man and asked us to come help him stack hay in his barn, and it was, you know, we're stacking it in the barn, you know, and it's just like you're inside the money. It's just hot. It could have been 110 degrees in there, you know, and we're talking hundreds bells of hay, and it was just all we could do, and of course, we're hungover, and we're, you know,

in college, we're chatting, we're stacking hay, and I was like, I think, I think this is my last hay hauling job right now. Yeah, those jobs, those are good for letting you, know that this is not the life you want. Yeah. Like get a good, rugged manual labor job. It'll knock some fucking sense of deal. That's why I got the guitar, man. I learned pretty quick that the guitar felt a lot better in my hands in that shovel,

did. Yeah, I know that feeling. I spent one summer doing insulation in an attic. It was all that fiberglass insulation. I had it in all my skin. And your nose and your eyes. Yeah, you're sweating because it's hot. It's the summer.

So it's getting into your pores. and you're always itchy, you feel like it's on you all the time. Also, like, it's got to be terrible to be breeding that shit in. Oh, the worst, yeah. And I don't even think we were using equipment. I don't think we used any safety equipment. Heck no, you didn't have a mask on or anything. I don't believe so.

I think we just installed it, just unrolled that shit and stuffed it into the rafters. Using paint with lead in it. And then back then the gasoline had lead, too. drinking out of the water hose. Right. Oh, yeah. I think it makes a resilient person to drink out of water hose. Heck yeah, you get tougher die.

You get extra minerals from the fucking copper on the faucet. Yeah, it's, uh, those jobs are really important, like, for a young person to figure out what they don't want to do. It teaches you work ethic, teaches you like, hey, like, this is, you can get some satisfaction out of a hard day's work and a hard week. Like you did it, you put it in, you feel good about yourself. You know it was difficult to do, but don't keep doing that. Yeah. Figure out a way out of this. Yeah.

You got to understand it. You understand it. You got a feel for it. You know what hard labor is, but don't ruin your life. Yeah, I feel real grateful. My granddad was always a real hard worker. And even when I was 12 and 13, you know, in the summers, I spent a lot of time living with them. and he always had a job lined up for me.

You know, it's like, hey, you're going to go over here and we're going to mow so-and-so's lawn this morning, and we're going to go over here. We're going to send you out to Kins, and you're going to build some fence this weekend. And I always enjoyed it, though. I enjoyed those guys. I was around, and, you know, I'd work all day,

and then we'd sit around, and they'd drink beer in the afternoon and tell me stories. And, you know, and even now, like, on my own place, you know, it's like, I don't want to be building somebody else's fence, but I'm glad I know how to build my own, you know, or things like that and have those skills. I still love working around the house and doing little projects and things like that. I meet a lot of younger guys and kids that sometimes I guess I have an expectation that they know how to do that kind of stuff, you know? Right.

They want to come over to the house and help us in projects and stuff. And I'm like, oh, yeah, cool. You know, I already dug those holes and set up a string line and we'll set these posts. And they're like, okay. And then after about a half hour, I look over out and they're just kind of looking up the ground. I'm like, what do we do in here? They're like, I don't have a clue what you want me to do. That's hilarious.

That's hilarious. But, yeah, it's wild. It's changed, man. Kids ain't out there mowing lawns no more, that's for sure. No. Well, there's something about that kind of work, like putting in fences and all the stuff that you see the Cowboys doing on Yellowstone. and then hanging out together afterwards, that's so, like, viscerally appealing to people.

There's something about watching that life. Like, it's, you would say it's, like, a simple, difficult life, maybe. I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, it's like, it's so appealing. Like, so many people wanted to be cowboys after they watch your show. I think it something goes to, like, you were talking about that guy living off the land and stuff like that. It's just, you know, something that's been. ingrained in us over thousands of years of survival and like we have we all have that in us still today and we just unfortunately lose in touch with it because

we're not doing it as much and so when you get the opportunity to even just go plant a garden or something like that I think that's it's it's in us you know and it's it wakes up something within it's just been a little bit dormant for a while you know and I think you're right you know I think that's exactly what it is I think it is like it's in our memory like the memory of our genes that this is like a pleasing life. This is a satisfying life. It's like that mama bear energy, you know, kids come.

It's just like, oh, man, you know. Yeah, yeah. It's there, you know. It's just like, I realize that having kids. It's just like, oh, man, it wakes something up within you that's always been there, you know, that you were born to have, you know, that survival instinct and all of those things.

And I still, that's what I still love about it. Like I even at home, being on the road and being in big cities all the time, and you're just surrounded with information and screens, man. As soon as I can get home or get outside or get into nature, it just wakes that stuff back up in me. And I feel like it puts that spark back in my eye, you know. Yeah. I try to stay in tune with that as much as I can.

Well, it's clearly so appealing to people that don't experience it. I mean, how many people that are watching shows like Yellowstone never go into those areas? but they watch it like, aw, I want to live like that. We see the prices of horses and just skyrocketing. I'm sure.

For like five grand. I'm sure. It's like 50,000 bucks for a trail horse, which is cool. You know, I hope people are enjoying that and getting something out of it. Like, you know, I still, I mean, I'm not running a bunch of cows these days,

but I keep a few horses around and especially for the kids, you know, and whether they want anything to do with them or not, like we enjoy. so much in the afternoons you go up and feeding them some carrots or brushing their tails and just being around that energy my youngest little boy he's just got he's got some kind of mojo with animals you know and i've got this old mule and her name's honey and she's got these big ears and she's massive you know and i remember when he was like three or four i'd be looking around for him in

the backyard and i'd look out in the pastor and he'd be out there with that mule and she'd have her head down and he's just out there petting her ears you know and just like his connection with those animals. And then, you know, getting kids up to the house or from the city that aren't around those animals that's their first time around horses or maybe even dogs and stuff like that. And you can see they're so anxious

or, you know, not maybe so scared, but it's just nervous, you know, this is big animals and stuff. And within like 20 minutes of just sitting them on their back or petting them, and you see them relax and you see that energy kind of slow down. And I love that. You know, I think it's so magical to watch.

Yeah, that's another relationship that's like primal, the relationship between people and horses. They do that with addicts. They do equine therapy where they just have like people that are like heavy anxiety and depression. They have them hang out with horses. I think even me. I still do. I mean, I get depressed and stuff like that or now and then. And I love being around them.

I can walk out to the barn and just being around them and laying on their backs. And it's just like, ah, yeah, all right, here we go. Just touching their head makes you feel. feel better like hey yeah how are you honey what's happening they look at me yeah can i get eye contact with them i think it's looking into your soul an ancient thing i mean they helped us survive we and you know and we took care of them it's like this ancient relationship and then when you're around them that connection like immediately rebonds reestablishes i think it's an rdia and i mean just think about like how many generations of humans how to survive on horseback before anybody

invented anything else. It's like if you wanted to travel faster than you can run, it had to be a fucking horse. So that was probably thousands and thousands and thousands of years just cooked into our DNA. And when you're around him, it's like, oh, my friend, this is my friend. It's waking it back up.

Yeah, it's weird. It's there, yeah. It's weird that that stuff is in you, that nature stuff is in you. I mean, that's why we like watching shows like this clay guy. I love that too. I love that Steve Rennell's show, that meat eater. I like watching that with my kids.

And aren't you friends with Remy Warren? Oh yeah, real good friends. He ended up being my neighbor when I was in Montana working on Yellowstone. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's crazy. And what I really liked up there was where they filmed the show. You know, it was kind of way out there, southwestern Montana.

And a lot of folks that were working on the show would go back to Missoula in the cities. But I was like, man, I want to get as far away out there as I can. And so I kind of went down this West Fork area that's on the right on the edge of the, the most massive wilderness areas out there that goes into Idaho. And the road I was on, you know, it was paved dirt, then it dead in it, and it turned into a dirt road. And then I got this cabin that was just way back up, and there was no Wi-Fi, no nothing, you know.

And I just disappeared out there. And ended up meeting some folks in Remy was just right down the road going towards Sula. And so I got the chance to just go over there and hang out with him and go stomp around the mountains with him. It's such a cool dude. Ramies the best. Just, you know, like you're talking about going to Alaska, you know, I love going into those places, but like you want somebody like that with you when you go. For sure.

Yeah. Yeah, he knows how to get around. Yeah. And he used to have a great show. Well, first of all, he had Solo Hunter where he'd go and film everything himself, which is so much more difficult than just hunting. Yeah. He would carry tripods with him and shit and set it up and make sure the cameras on the animal before he would shoot it and then film himself. filming himself moving up to their set up different cameras they could show him executing the shot and like god that's so complicated and he's a beast man just trying to keep up with him you know just walking around the mountains with that guy I'm like oh man wait up I'll be up coming yeah they get that mountain cardio yeah he's like a mountain goat well you know he hunts probably 200 plus days a year yeah and on top of that he does a lot of guiding and when he's doing guiding he's like always in the mountains always hiking it's like you're you just you just you're just

get conditioned to it. Yeah, he's fit. I went to Hawaii with him and did an Axis hunt over there. Cool, the coolest things I ever did. And I got this buck, and we load him up in the truck and all that. And he was like, man, I'm going to, I'll meet you guys back at camp. You know, and it was dark already. And, like, I know, during the day we were hunting,

we were just steep mountains up and down. And I said, you're just going to meet us back. He's like, yeah, I'll meet you back. And he just put on his backpack and just took off running. And we, you know, drove down this mountain. Road to go back and he beat us there about like a half an hour. And that was his workout though. He's like, ah, it's part of my workout.

I'll meet you guys back there. I was like, oh, you're an animal. Access deer in Hawaii is very interesting because they were given to King Kamea Mea in like, I don't remember what year it was. Find out what year they got introduced there, but they're everywhere now. I've gone to Lanai a bunch of times. That's where we went. Boe hunting.

Yeah, it was wild. Thousands of them everywhere. You're trying to sneak up on a group of 10, and then you don't even realize there's like a hundred right here laying down that you didn't even see, and then they get up and spook the rest and stand, well, you know, you've been there. Okay, it was in the 1800s, a gift to Kim Kamehamea from India. And there's 30,000 of them in Lanai and only 3,000 people.

I mean, it's crazy. It's the only place where you can go hunting, bow hunting, and you stay at the four seasons. Right. I think Remy said he got kicked out of there, though, because he was hunting so much. And, you know, all that red clay there, you know, on your boots and stuff.

He said so the whole hotel was just like red clay everywhere. The fridge is just full of meat, you know, like blood dripping out. They kicked him out of there? Oh, I don't know if they kicked him out. Oh, that's hilarious. He's like, well, maybe we ought to go find somewhere else to stay, you know. Well, just take off your boots before you come and see it. That's all it is.

But, yeah, it's that weird red clay. And it all used to be part of the dual pineapple plantation. So when you're around there, one of the things you notice is like there's layers of dirt, but then there's like almost like it's like plastic bag underneath it, like a hefty bag. From all the farming. Yeah. So I guess they had a layer of like that kind of whatever the fuck a hefty bag is made out of, whatever that plastic is.

And then the dirt was on top of that somehow. And then the pineapples would grow up through it. I always keep moisture and stuff like that in the ground. I would imagine, but it's disconcerting because it doesn't feel like nature. It feels weird. It's like this is weird. There's plastic everywhere in the ground. Yeah.

And then you get in the mountains and like those old World War II turrets and stuff that are up there. Do you come across any of that? I mean, it's just like, first of all, like hunting access deer in Lanai and like you get up on the top and you're surrounded by the ocean. I mean, what a trip, you know. I know. I just seeing that. And then coming across all those old relics and just all the history there is just something to take into. And we are laughing because obviously they're trying to control the population of the Axis deer there.

And I think somebody mentioned like, man, you just get a couple of Bengal tigers out here. Exactly. That'll thin out the population. It's thin out the population of people, too, unfortunately. Yeah. The thing about them is that they did evolve around tigers. That's why they're so fast. Like, they'll jump a string faster than any animal I've ever seen in my life.

I have a video of me shooting at an Axis deer at 80 yards. and we have a slow-mo of the arrow. So as the arrow's coming, it's a perfect shot within 10 yards of him. He hears it and he's gone. It's the craziest thing. You look at it, you're like, how the fuck did he move that fast? This thing's going at least from the actual, like, leaving the bow, it's going 275 feet per second. Yeah.

And he can get out of there within 10 yards. Within 10 yards, he's hearing it coming, and he's like, see ya. And nowhere near him. He was a foot in front of, it was the arrow landed a foot behind his ass. That's how fast they move. Yeah. It's crazy. How long did you go there for a while or just kind of like a few times?

I've been there a few times. Yeah. We found that the best time to hunt is actually in the afternoon because in the afternoon it's really windy. And when it's really windy, it covers your sound a little better. Okay. The morning's rough. Yeah. The morning's rough.

Like the morning, I got a couple of them in the morning, a couple of times morning hunting, I got a deer. But it's a lot of blown stalks. You got to walk super slow. You got to be real cautious. And again, there's a lot of high brush and you don't know where the fuck they're hiding. Yeah. You got to kind of find a pinch point. Yeah, you jump one and then the rest of them sound off.

The way they bark and all of that's pretty crazy too. Yeah, it's weird. It's a weird noise. What you got to kind of do is like find where they're going to be and just wait. because they travel so much, they do so much moving. You think I'm just going to go, you know, still hunt and spot and stock, and I'll find one. You're almost better off just stay and put. Yeah.

Just stay and put and wait for them because they're moving all over the place. There's so fucking many of them. It's crazy. Yeah. But it's amazing how unsuccessful people are bo-hunting them. Rifle, it's a done deal. If you want meat and it's the best meat in the world, it's so, it's great. For the people that live there, it's incredible.

I mean, they have access to the best meat in the world. 100% they're going to get a deer. But if you have a boat, we went there. So I went with Remy. I went with John Dudley, Cam Haines, and Adam Green Tree. Like all-seasoned bohunters. Everybody got a deer, and we made a podcast about it. We had a good old time.

They had 150 people go over the next year, and one was successful. with a bow. That's crazy. That's how hard it is. Yeah. Because it's like these fuckers are, they're dialed in, man. And they move.

A lot of people chasing them too. Yeah. They know the game, right? 365 days a year they get hunted. There's no season. And then they have snipers that are after them at night because, you know, they use it for meat for the restaurants and meat for people. And they just have to control the population.

There's so many of them. And no predators. Yeah. And still can't thin them out, right? I know. It's crazy. I think they got a good head start. They eradicated them from the Big Island.

Oh, did they? Yeah. Somebody tried to reintroduce them or introduce, I should say, to the Big Island, and they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We know what this is going. He's going to destroy people's crops and destroy people's gardens. Take over. And they already have plenty of wild pigs on the Big Island,

so they just, they whacked them all, unfortunately. It's kind of like the pigs here in Texas, right? Crazy. And it gone wild. I don't, you know, growing up here when I was younger, I'd never remember them. and how they are now. Local news is in decline across Canada,

and this is bad news for all of us. With less local news, noise, rumors, and misinformation fill the void, and it gets harder to separate truth from fiction. That's why CBC News is putting more journalists in more places across Canada, reporting on the ground from where you live, telling the stories that matter to all of us, because local news is big news. Choose news, not noise.

CBC News. They don't stop. They have three or four litters a year, and each litter has, I think, they can have as many as six piglets. It's crazy. And they can get pregnant six months old. At six months old, they can get pregnant, and they're ready to rock, and they're just spitting out pigs. And just tearing shit up. Yeah.

We have a lease out here for Huntingland, me and some of my friends, and the amount of pigs is disturbing. It's like you hear them everywhere You hear them in the bushes They're all over the fucking place It's like most of Texas Probably that's not like city Has wild pigs in it It's just like

Taking over man And it's all came over on boats That's how it all got here Is that how they all got? Yeah It's important a man Yeah guys from Europe They brought boats and in the boats Some of them brought pigs

And then they let them loose It's crazy man tearing stuff up. Yeah, I don't ever remember them being as bad as they were in the last 15 years or so. It's actually bad in California too. And California has them

from William Randolph Hearst. Didn't they take, didn't they like eradicate them off the Channel Islands out there? I think so. I think the islands and they had mule deer on some of the islands out there too, right?

Mm-hmm. I think so. I forget which island had mule deer. But apparently they had like a, like you could go hunt on one of these islands. Yeah, I think you might still be able to, like, on Catalina or a couple, but maybe... Do they really allow that, too?

They did, because I know my buddy Matt, he did it, like, maybe the last year or the year before, but I think they're trying to put a stop to it and kind of stop it. Those Channel Islands are pretty interesting. I remember first moving out there, even just going out there 15 years ago, and seeing the islands out there, you know, and I'd ask people all around, I was like, man, what's the deal with these islands out there? and half the people that I would talk to be like, what are you talking about?

And I'm like, that island right out there, they're like, oh, I thought that was Long Beach, you know? I'm like, really? I was like, if you looked at a map, you know? I love maps, so I was starting, you know, doing some research and figuring out all about it. And they're really cool. And over the years I've met some really cool guys

go out there a lot and spearfish. And just to go out there to them. And besides Catalina, like Santa Cruz and San Miguel, and they're all like nature preserves and protected. So it's like going back in time when you get out there. And I love it out there. It's such a cool spot. Did they try to, are they trying to eradicate deer from Catalina?

I think I've read something about that. Let's see if that's true. I think they were trying to remove the deer because they said the deer were non-native to the island. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's what they did with the hogs. And I don't know. There's like a specific island. out there.

Yeah, here it is. As of early 2026, California officials have approved a controversial plan to fully eradicate the non-native mule deer population on Santa Catalina Island to restore the ecosystem.

Around 2,000 deer introduced in the 1930s for hunting will be removed by ground-based hunters to protect native biodiversity. Come on. That sounds crazy. How about just let people hunt them? Fogs wrong with you.

So the issue is Catalina Island Conservancy considers the mule deer an invasive species that disrupts the ecosystem as they consume native plants and seedlings while spreading fire-prone invasive grasses. Really? I have, I just always worry about conservancies and their judgments on things like that because there's a lot of, they want to eradicate all the pigs from Texas or the, from California, rather. They think of them as non-native and they want them out too, but you're not going to. They want to eradicate the...

There's like elk in California that are Yellowstone elk that were brought there in like the 1950s. They want to eradicate them. Like the Tuley elk? No, they're actually... They're actually Rocky Mountain elk.

Okay. Yeah, but they're a larger breed of Rocky Mountain elk. They call yellow, apparently. Like in the Cierras? Or down in all? along the coast. Tachby.

Tachby, yeah. Up in that area on those mountains. Big fucking elk, like 400-inch elk. Like a couple of those elk out there that are in the front. That's what they're from. That's the fair. Those are massive. Yeah, it's from Tihon Ranch.

Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's like going up over the grapevine. Exactly. That's where you got those? Uh-huh. Wow, I had no idea that they were that big out there. It's all, it's the biggest private ranch in California.

It's like 270,000 acres. I've heard of the ranch, but I didn't know that they had elk like that up there. Yeah. Yeah, one of the rare places, gorgeous fucking place. But they also go up, it's kind of funny, they go up to, there's a golfing community, higher up and Tachby. And the elk just hang out on the golf course. I just tired it up. Giant elk, like 400-inch elk, just chilling, hanging out together on the golf course, and dudes are playing golf.

That's wild. While they're lying down next to them, like, 20 yards away. It's crazy. I saw some one time I was driving up the coast. I think I was going up to San Francisco to play a gig. Maybe they're the Tully elk. I'm not sure what they were, but I was along the coast there, and I looked over in a field, and there was like 30 head of them just laying down over there.

I'm like, oh, man, I didn't even know there were elk down here. It's just, I love seeing wildlife that in unexpected places, you know. Yeah. They recently just found a wolf in Los Angeles. Or unexpected for me anyway. Oh, really? Yeah. See if you can find the story about that wolf that they just discovered in Los Angeles.

There's a mama bear, black bear with three cubs running around in Topanga. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of those. A lot of lions running around. There's a lot of bears. I've seen them in Pasadena and people's pools. I knew that there's a bunch out in Pasadena and like Glendale. Wolf detected in Los Angeles County for the first time in more than a century.

Crazy. Isn't that nuts? Those guys can fucking travel. I had a lady on who was a wolf biologist, and she was talking about, like, they would collar some of these wolves, and they would track them. They would go 500 miles. Yeah. Like, it's kind of insane.

I didn't know that. Yeah. That's incredible. Well, that's how they learned about them. It's really the only way to tell is to, like, put a collar on them and track them by GPS. Mm-hmm. And, you know, they mean they're extraordinary animals. Like where were they originating from in Montana, Wyoming, and where were they going, the ones that they were tracking?

I think the ones that they were tracking were the part of the group that was brought in, you know, in the 1990s. You know, so there was that pack in the subsequent packs that came after that. There were all the reintroduced wolves. And so they would, you know, dart and call or some of them. And when they would do that, they would just track their motion. They're like, Jesus. These puckers are covering some ground. They're covering some ground.

They're covered with some ground. It's interesting, too, that they actually make mountain lions kill more deer. Good competing with them. Yeah, because the mountain lines kill a deer, and then the wolves will steal it. So they'll come up on the mountain line and they'll surround them, and the mountain line will go, fuck this, I'm out of here. And he'll just go kill another deer. So he doesn't even get a chance to eat his deer because the wolves keep stealing his deer. And keep tracking the lions.

Probably just following them around. They're smart, man. Let them do the dirty work. Yeah. They do. Let them do the dirty work. Work smarter not harder, huh? What does it say?

The wolf that they found? Yeah, this is from February when they first spotted it. So the wolf was born in 2023, Plumas County's, where's Plumas County? It's traveled more than 370 miles. Wow. Including crossing state route 50-9 near Tachapie. There you go. They had one up in Tachapie, too, that a buddy mine, it was actually closer to the city

that's down there. What is that fucking city? Bakersfield? Bakersfield. Yeah. Exactly. Wildlife officials now estimate at least 60 wolves live in the state. Wow. One crossed over in 2011. Wow. From California, from Oregon.

So they find him in the Tachapia Mountains. Interesting. Biologists told newspapers that she could encounter a mate in the nearby regions such as Tachapu Mountains, potentially forming a new pack or continue to roam. What was that picture you just had of the elk? Yeah, that's that golf course.

Look at that. Giant fucking elk. Chill it on the golf course. On the flag. Yeah, look how beautiful that is. God, so pretty out there. Massive elk. Oak Tree Country Club.

Perfect sanctuary for them, right? Oh, yeah, man. And it's just, it adds to the coolness of playing golf. I mean, you're playing golf around giant, beautiful animals. I bet those greenskeepers love them, though. Right. They probably fuck up all kinds of things up there. Yeah.

The wolf thing is interesting because they just brought them back to Aspen, and they did a really stupid thing. They brought them into an area where it has a lot of livestock, and they brought them in from a place in Oregon where these wolves had all been captured because they were killing agriculture. So what did they do? They captured them, and they dropped them off in Colorado where they started. Killing cows again. They just do it. Well, it's on people's, my friend's ranch. One of them, they drop three wolves off on my friend's ranch.

That's tough, man. Even with the bears and stuff, you know, you get some problem bears or whatever. And then they go drop them out where farmers and rances are living. It's like, man, how's that going to work? Well, it's the people in charge of these things and making these decisions. They don't understand what they're doing. They're monkeying around with wildlife, nature, biology. And you don't know what you're doing.

Yeah. You don't, you have no idea. Also, like, how the fuck are you in good conscience take a wolf that's used to killing cows and put them around other people's cows? Yeah. It's already programmed, man. The dinner bells for a ring. It knows exactly how to do it. It knows it's easy.

They're all fenced in. They taste delicious. Why would it stop? Or why would it? Yeah, why would it go chase tougher prey, right? So now these poor ranchers have to have people monitoring their cows 24-7. have to have cowboys up all night that are wandering around and on horseback and just looking for wolves. I mean, it's a disaster.

They've killed dozens of cows. And these are folks that, you know, have been like we've been surviving on this land for generations and dealing with that and, you know, have a history with managing that stuff. You know, it would probably be the folks I'd want to ask of how to handle it, you know. Well, they would certainly tell you don't let the wolves in. And if you do, kill them. You know, but now it's gotten to the point where I think they're going to have to do something about them. Well, they put a hunting limit on them, you think? Honestly, that would probably do something, but really what you should do is hire someone to recapture them.

And don't drop them off there. Don't drop them off in fucking Aspen, you idiot. Because they're going to eat people's poodles, too. They don't give a shit. If they run out of cows, if someone or another ranch, you eat it. scare them away from the cows, and they make it into the town of Aspen, you don't think they're going to eat your golden retriever? They're going to eat all kinds of dogs. They eat dogs in Alaska all the time. Yeah. Yeah, I hear like the lions and stuff, man, you're coming after your kids.

Yeah. Yeah. There's been a stuff, that Malibu Creek Park, you know, I've heard a couple of incidents there, you know, hits like, man, they're, they're going to go eat something. Especially when they're old. Yeah. When they get old, you know, they can't catch a deer anymore. Yeah. and they're hungry and they haven't eaten in a few days. Then they see a kid hanging around a little too close to the outside of the woods. I got a big one that comes right by my house. I got a little game trail cameras set up, and I got a little fountain right in the front.

It doesn't come around when I'm there because we got the dogs, you know, a lot. But whenever I'm out of town for weeks at a time, I'll come back and that sucker's just laying on my front porch. Whoa. Just massive. And then the other day, a friend of mine was taking the trash out. And it was like around lunchtime, and it jumped over the fence. into the driveway and had a dead rabbit in its mouth,

just looking at her, you know, and she's like, holy shit. They're there, you know, so every time I'm even walking around by myself or with the dogs, you're just like, man, a sucker, just be in a tree looking at me right now. Yeah, you're just living with monsters. Yeah. Ooh.

You're there. California spent more than $100 million trying to make a bridge over, I forget which freeway it is. Is it the 101? I think you're right. So they spent over $100 million and it's still not done. Oh, my gosh. For a bridge.

A bridge for the mountain lions. Like, you fucking dorks. It's like this idea of like it's going to be a bridge, but it's going to have dirt and grass on it. So it'll encourage them to walk across so they don't have to go over the highway and die. It's a bit nicer than the roads we're driving on. Yeah. Well, $110 million is crazy. And it's still not even done.

Like it's so crazy. So that's what it, early 2026. It's like going up to Ventura, right? Yeah. So they want to have this big dirt mound and this bridge so the animals can get across the highway. But it's just like, it's so goofy. And they never want people to do anything about the population of mountain lines. Regardless of how out of control they are, they don't do anything about it.

They have to hire people. The state has to hire people to go and get. the bad mountain lions, the ones that are problems. And when they capture them, one of the things they find out is they're, they actually kill them, right? So one of the things they find out when they examine their diet, it's like 50% pets. Yeah. 50% dogs and cats. That's what your mountain lions are eating.

And that's crazy. Yeah. And they spend money, like a lot of money, going after these mountain lines. And instead, they could make money by letting people hunt these mountain lions and giving them tags. and control the numbers. In that place to hone ranch, one of my buddies works there, and they have a trail camera set up on a pond, and they found 16 different cats that were drinking out of that pond.

Oh, my gosh, that's insane. I was like when I first started going out there, too, the coyotes, you know, and even around like in Hollywood and stuff. Man, I swear I just saw a coyote running down the street with a pair of sunglasses on, a gold chain, eating better than any of us. When I went there in 94, that was the first time I ever saw a coyote. I couldn't believe it. I was staying at the, you know, they have those furnished apartments, the Oakwood furnished apartments.

Oh, no, not really. It's like temporary. Like for people that are like, don't have a house yet and you got to move to California quick, they have this place called Oakwoods. And you go in there, it's already got a couch. It's already got a TV. It's already got a bed. You're like, okay.

Like an Airbnb type of thing. Yeah. Almost like you just move in. Yeah. And I was driving up to the entrance to the place. and I see these little dogs on the street. I was like, what the fuck's going on? That ain't no dog.

I was like, oh my God, they're coyotes. Like, this is weird. And so this is like 94. I had never seen a fucking coyote. And they've been heard of a coyote being out just wandering in the street. I just couldn't believe it. That they just wander around on the concrete. Man, they're everywhere.

I feel like I've seen more there than anywhere. You see them more in town than you do anywhere else. Yeah, well, they have large populations of them in downtown where they know where they den up. They den up in certain warehouse buildings. Okay. Like abandoned buildings and under bridges and freeways and stuff. Yeah. They live there.

They probably keep the rat population. Nature will take back over one day, won't it? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I think they probably keep the rat population in check, though. Yeah. If you think about it.

Yeah. I keep a lot of other things in check, too. Right. Cats. Well, there's a terrible video from Woodland Hills a few years back where a guy was unloading his car and his toddler was out there in the grass. I saw that. And the county grabbed his toddler and tried to run away with his kid. Yeah, I saw that, man.

You know, I'm always watching around for stuff. With my art kiddos or just people around the neighborhood and stuff, you got to remind yourself, you know, they're there and they're not scared of you. Exactly. They're not afraid. I remember one of the first times I went up to Ohai, just north of L.A. there, you know, and I just wanted to go up there and go hike around and check out the area. And there was an archery shop up there. And I had this old guy, kind of looked like Charlie Daniels, just big overalls, big old beard, you know,

and I walked in there and just to check out the shop and also just ask him about, you know, some areas to go stomp around. And I had an Australian Shepherd dog at the time. and just ask him where, you know, good places go stomp around. He said, yeah, you know, you go up there. He goes, but I wouldn't take your dog with you. I was like, really? Why? And he's like, man, those lions are real deal up here, you know?

And he's like, you, he goes, you won't see them, you know, until they're on you. You know, and I just, you know, I knew they're lying and stuff like that, but hearing it from that guy, you know, maybe he's trying to scare me a little bit, but, you know, it's, it's real deal. It's real. It's real. and they try to downplay it. Because all the wildlife lovers, all the greenies,

they don't want you like sound in the alarm and killing them. Yeah. But their goal is to have zero hunting. Their goal is to have all the animals just balance each other out. I think it'll happen. You can't. Not with humans in the mix. No, the humans have interrupted that whole idea, right?

So if you've got a city and then you've got wild giant predators, like a hundred and seventy-pound cats that are killing dogs and they're like, you've got to control them. Can't manage one without managing the other, right? And so the first thing they did to stop people from doing it is they ban hunting with dogs. So if you ban hunting with dogs, guess what? You basically, you're killing most of the hunting

because the reality of mountain lines is you can't find them. They're really hard to find. Really hard to catch, really hard to find. And the best way to control their population is to tree them. And you get dogs to treat because that way you know if it's a Tom or if it's a female. You know if it's mature. You know what size it is. You have a really accurate estimation.

You can look up at it. Oh, that's a mature Tom. That's what we're looking to kill. And then you can control their population. Yeah. That's the only way. Same with bears. It's a great way to control bears.

Yeah. And decide if it needs to go or if it needs to stay, right? Yeah. But they do little things to stop the effective hunting first. So California, you can still hunt for black bears, but you can't use dogs anymore. So as soon as they stop the use of dogs, the amount of black bears they harvested went way down. So the amount of bears and the population went way up. Yeah, I don't think they've, I mean, I know they've been around in Pasadena a lot,

but I don't think there's been one in Topanga for a while. I mean, I've been up there, shoot, almost 15 years and hadn't heard of one. This was the first time that one's kind of made it over into that air that I know of anyway, maybe up, you know, around the Maldon Creek in those state parks. In Dupangans, there's probably people feeding them. Oh, 100%. I've got berries for you, my friend. Giving them weed.

Some berries. Dapang is great, but it always catches me out of a fire catchers. Oh, man. We got hit hard last year, as you know, the Palisades stuff. And man, I didn't, that was kind of it for me too. I was like, I'm out, you know. It's terrifying. Yeah, I've evacuated out of there several times over the years,

but I've got horses up there now and stuff like that. And luckily, I had like a, I always keep a big truck and a trailer just in case. And I've got some friends down in Burbank that have some stables, you know, that I'll have like as a backup plan. But this was just a different deal. As a crow flies, I could see the smoke from the Palisades, you know, it's like a mile away. And we were actually working in our arena there, and smoke came up.

And I was like, shoot, let's just go. Every time I see the smoke, like, I don't wait. I'm just like, we'll be the first ones out and, you know, beat the mad rush of everybody that's going to decide to try to stay. And loaded up the trailer and the truck and the camper and the dogs and all that stuff. And I was like, let's go. And my wife and I went down to Burbank. And I remember we were driving through the night, and the wind was just howling, like, I've never seen. for and power lines are snapping and it's just like trees are coming down and it just felt like the end of the world you know and uh

we get to burbank and we pull back in these stables and there's a kind of a big cinder block wall and i just got as close to that as i could because it was blocking the wind you know from hitting us and the next morning i woke up and i just my throat was sore and hurt and i could hardly breathe and i opened the camper door and the alta dina fire had started and it was right there and so it was just a a mountain of black smoke coming over the top of us there and so like let's go and let's get out here let's like head north and had some friends in Moore Park you know up in that area going towards Ventura that had horses just trying to find some places to go with some horses and they're like yeah come on up here so we went up there stayed there a night and then they cut all the power off up in

that area because the winds were snapping power lines and they were worried about fires and and you know after doing that a few nights and i was like let's just head east and go to texas There's always so many friends you can, like, show up with five horses and a bunch of dogs, you know, like, hey, we're going to stay for a while, you know. Especially in California. Yeah, we're like, let's just get out of here and head it back. And you didn't know when we were going to make it back. And they, you know, closed indefinitely or whatever. I'm just like, man, I'm over it.

I got evacuated a bunch of times when I lived there, but the last one was 2018. and when the last one, we got out early. I came home from the comedy store and we saw fire coming over the top of this hill. And it was probably like 1 o'clock in the morning and me and my wife were sitting there. I go, what do you think? She's like, let's get the fuck out of here.

Like, let's get the fuck out of here. Let's just grab some shit and maybe it'll come this way, maybe it won't. So it didn't burn the house down, but my neighbors, the front three neighbors, all lost their house. And my next door neighbor, his roof caught on fire, but my friend who refused to leave,

he stayed in the neighborhood and protected his house and guided firefighters. He brought the firefighters to that house and showed him that it just started on this guy's roof and they hosed it down. They stopped it in his tracks, but it was pretty fucking bad.

It's wild because you know it's going to burn. I mean, it's not a matter of, you know, if, it's just a win. I mean, that's canyons have been burning like that for thousands of years and even the two masks were setting them on fire on purpose to get ahead of it, right, and controlling all of that.

stuff and now there's just so many houses and communities back up in there it's just it's a it's a tough thing but when they hit man it's they just they're rolling through how fast they come through those san anna winds are blowing like that and it's just very surreal in person you can watch it on the news and you kind of get a feeling of it but when you're there and you're driving down the 101 and you look at the side of the highway and you see like these hills in the distance are just covered in fire. Hundreds of yards of fields of fire just making their way over the top of this hill and burning houses. We saw it when the palisade thing was start. You know, from our house, there's kind of a little mountain that comes up on the back and I hiked up there and was

watching it and you could see the smoke and then you could like start seeing little flickers of the flames. And then it was just like somebody dumped gasoline on this thing. And I mean, the flames. The shot up hundreds of feet into the air and my wife was on the balcony you know the house and I'm kind of up on this little mountain I'm looking over looking in her eyes I'm like start packing up it's yeah I'll go hook up the horse trailer I'll be upset let's load up and just and you know the wind was blowing like offshore then you know so the fire is like all on the coast you know and it's depending on where that how that wind is blowing you know at the beginning it was

blowing offshore and then within half an hour it just shot up the coastline and just ripped up through Malibu and burned all that coast like that's the stuff that you always thought was the safest right you know yeah and then the next day the wind shifts coming back on shore and it blows it back towards Burbank you know going back up like the fourth up that way and then the winds are shifting again and then coming back across you know so I was amazed at the I've seen some of the fires that I been through seeing the firefighters up there those guys are incredible man those helicopter pilots the airplane pilots seeing those tankers fly through there i mean it's just incredible what those guys can do i mean if it hadn't i mean they saved that whole canyon yeah of tapanga at least you know

it's like man there's so much brush in there that probably needs to burn that's been accumulating over years you know and cutting those fire breaks and seeing them drop the retardant on the ridge lines and stuff and watching the wind. It's just like, man, hats off to those guys. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, think about the amount of damage that was done in that fire and how much more would have been done if it wasn't for the firefighters. That's how crazy it is.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I met one of the helicopter pilots. I was on a flight somewhere. And we just happened to be sitting next to each other when we were talking about it and just, you know, learning from him, you know, about, you know, the thermals that come up from underneath and trying to hold those helicopters and, you know, in formation and all of that stuff and how heavy they are when they're full. Right. And then as soon as you release all that water, whatever's in them, that, you know, all of a sudden

that the power that they got, you know, throttle's full throttle, you know, when they're loaded down and then they drop all that water and, you know, trying to get back a hold of it. Oh, I never even thought of that. Yeah. And then you got, then you got 90-mile-an-hour winds blowing and, you know. And, you know, I could see them. from the house, you know, there'd be like two or three helicopters that would come in, start dropping water, and then they would move out, and then the tank, the planes would come in,

and then helicopters back in, and then you had the guys on the ground, you know, trying to contain it as well, just the coordinated effort between them, you know. I can imagine the conversations there. Yeah. Hey, man. It's so crazy that they didn't have the reservoirs ready. Oh, dude, it's so sad. I had Spencer Pratt on. You know, he's running for Maine. now. He was explaining it, like, how bad it was? Yeah. How do you fuck that up that bad? It's devastating to hear that it's like, you know that that stuff's coming, you know.

To not be prepared for that. It's just unacceptable, you know. Incompetence. Yeah. Just complete total incompetence. And yet they still are there. Yeah. Like, you're definitely not good at the job.

And yet you don't take any personal responsibility. and blame everybody else and the problem it's just fucking it's a problem that happens every few years like you're going to get fires period the fact that you don't have a full reservoir is crazy

it's crazy you should dump all your resources into fixing that fucking reservoir stat get that shit filled up the residents are more prepared than anybody you know because I think they just got to where you can't depend on it you know I mean I know our neighbors

and stuff have a pretty good program in place. We all all get together and talk about, you know, who's got fire hoses and swimming pools with access to water and where, you know, evacuation plans or, you know, there's some folks that will have horses, but they don't even have a horse trailer up there. And, you know, I'm like, okay, I'll come get yours to or whatever, you know, we need to do.

And you kind of just have to have that mentality, I think, you know. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. It's, you know what's really freaking me out about, like, the palisades is what is in the ground now? You know, like how much toxic shit got melted into that ground? Because think about how many people have electric cars now. Well, all those old houses, too. You know, I'm talking about the materials that they're made out of, asbestos or lead. I mean, the stuff in the air that was even if you, you know, you were several miles away

from the actual fires of the wind and blowing all the ashes and the smoke and all that stuff over. I remember going back up in their weeks and just trying to get stuff out of the house or whatever when they'd let us back up. And you could still, it would just make your throat hurt, you know, breathing that air and stuff. Right. It's bad stuff. It's not just wood fire. Yeah. No.

No. Like chemicals. Yeah. Wood fire is hard enough. But the chemicals burnt TVs and computers and hard drives and electronics and refrigerators. Treated lumber. Yeah. All that shit's going to get in your ground.

Water. Like, it's, it's, it's on the surface. It's going to rain. It's going to seep through. Like, what happens to the water? Is anybody checking the water out there? No, you got to imagine. I doubt it.

Especially, like, Topanga, I bet a lot of folks have wells, don't you think? I think there's some, you know, it's definitely all, like, on septic up there, too. You know? Right. I mean, all of the building code stuff's got pretty crazy up there. I don't know. It's a mess. I would just worry about even breathing the air.

that has the dust of all that shit in it. Like, I probably wouldn't want to live there anymore. If I was in a place where all the houses burnt to the ground and I knew there was toxic shit in the ground, I'd be like, hey, let's get the fuck out of here and sell our house to China. Oh, man. Because that's the other thing, Spencer said. They're the ones who are the number one land buyers. All right. It's China.

Is it going to be a golf course resort up there before we know it? Who knows? or affordable housing. Yeah. One or the other. I don't know either. I don't know, but it's just I really wonder what the long-term damage of all those chemicals in the ground is. It has to be pretty high.

Got to be. You know, I don't know. You know, I was talking to some friends of mine out the other day that have grown up there, lived out there their whole lives. And, you know, going over the Channel Islands, you know, they've got those oil platforms out there in the water. And there's been oil spills, obviously, throughout there through history. but also like when you're surfing and stuff like that, there's oil that's been on top of the ground. It's just like so surface level

that's been there for millions of years, you know? And so I don't know, you know. It's like I'm sure all the toxic stuff that happens and how long does it take for it to dilute, you know, there's not much rain or the wind or like what, you know, I'm not an expert on it, but I feel like Mother Nature takes pretty good care of herself. You know, we're the ones in trouble, right?

Right. Mother Nature will sort it out over time, but I just don't know how good it's going to be for the people that live there. It can't be the long term, you know. I have a buddy that has a house out there, and he lost his house and burnt down, and I asked him about it. He said, I think what they're going to do is take all the dirt out of their backyard and then replace the dirt. And I'm like, oh, okay. I don't know if that's enough. Because what about his dirt?

What about your neighbor's dirt? What about all the toxic shit that's in his dirt that's going to get down into your ground? as soon as it rains and also the air. Along with all the roundup and everything else is coming down. It's just, it's sad, man, you know? It's sad. That's just kind of the state of it. It's like it seems like just it's so far of a mess that even the folks that do have answers

that do want to fix stuff, it just kind of becomes impossible for any solution. You know, it's like all the red tape and all the hoops and things and all the permits or whatever. You can't even, you know, the road's blocked. Okay, well, before we could even get somebody out here with a tractor to move the rocks, you've got to call 10 other people to get it approved and in the process. And then it's not, and it's like, that's like, that's the part. I'm just like, man, I wish I could just call Frank down the street with his bulldozer. We'll just go move this right now, you know?

And it's like, you know. Well, government has increased so much in California, and they just want more regulations so they could justify more government. and so they just regulate themselves to a place where people just want to leave. They just go, look, I can't fucking do this anymore. Let me get out of here. And it's expensive, man.

It's so expensive to live there. Meanwhile, it's beautiful. It's such a great place. They fucked it up so hard. It's paradise. It's paradise. On the mountains within like two, three hours, you can be in the Sierra's.

You can be in Joshua Tree National Park, man. Skiing and then swim in the ocean on the same day. It's gorgeous. Yeah. Beautiful places I've ever been. You'll send them. I mean, get out of town. Yeah.

Yeah. Incredible weather. Kern River. Yeah. This is beautiful. But they got ruined. They got ruined with progressive politics and bureaucracy that just ramped up all the control they have over people to the point where you can't even buy flavored zins. They ban blackjack.

You can't have blackjack anymore. They just stopped blackjack in the casinos. They stop flavored zins. They just regulated into oblivion. They're all these people that want to be the mommy of the world and tell you what to do. Like, fuck off. Yeah. Like, fuck off with all your goddamn rules.

You're just making your government bigger so you can justify all these fucking rules. And you need the rules for the government to sustain itself. So you just keep adding more rules and adding more government. Yeah. We were reading about it the other day. Like, what was the number that California's government went up by like 24% and their population went up by like 1%. I know. Now you're running, kind of we're running out of places to go.

I forget what the actual numbers were that we found, but it's... Yeah. I'm always looking for hideouts, you know, to kind of get away from. It's like, man, you find a spot to go to. You kind of don't want to tell nobody about it. I know, right? That's what I hear about West Texas. I think that was hard about Montana, you know, when I first started going up there years ago.

go. I mean, it's just such a, and it still is. It's a paradise. It's just, you know, and I think that's probably what a lot of people are upset about. It lived up there. It's like, man, the secret got out a little bit and I can understand that. I get it. I get it from that perspective. They got to let that go. Where's the next place, you know? The thing about Montana, though, or like Wyoming, another example, is that winter will thin the herd. It's like West Texas. That's funny. Same kind of thing, like, you know, Marfa and out in that area. You know, I grew up all out there going to junior rodeos and all kinds of stuff. And it was just ranches, you know, and local diners and stuff like that.

And, you know, I hear people going out there and buying houses and, you know, all that stuff. And then they go out there for like a week and they realize it the only thing open at night's the Dairy Queen. They're heading back to New York pretty quick, you know. Yeah. You're right about Montana. Those winters will thin them out. The winter gets you. The winter's rough.

It's cold. Yeah. We were, the first time I went hunting was with Ronella. That's where I got that mule deer that's on the table right there. And it was nine degrees in October and we're camping. And so we're sleeping on the ground and nine degrees. I'm like, bro, how did these fucking people? And you also, you go by these old homesteads.

So they were giving land out there for people. You can get a chunk of land, just start farming on it. And the government was encouraging people. You know, prove it up. But it's all this, like, muddy ground. Like, the ground is, like, mucky. Like, when you hike in it after, you know, a while, your boots are so heavy. Just clay, huh?

With this clay. Yeah, just muck all over your boots. And so it's not fertile. It's not good, like, in the Missouri breaks, like that area. It's not good for growing things. So you find these abandoned homesteads. It's really eerie. Yeah.

And you just think, like, this family. they came out here in like the 1800s and they tried to set up shop and maybe got killed by Indians and, you know, maybe. All the way. I think about my family. I mean, I've got stories, you know, of them settling in New Mexico and, you know, coming out on a covered wagon with maybe a steer and a pig and then like, yeah, here's you, a bunch of acres and you got to prove it up, you know, and dig a hole in the ground is what they're living

in a dugout, you know, and dig a hole in the ground. That's where you're living. and you tried to build a ranch out of it. I always laughed. I was talking to family or my grandparents. I was like, why did y'all stop here? You just thought you were so beat down. You were like, oh, this is the driest, flattest place.

But we're here, the most roughest. I was like, it's only maybe another thousand miles out to California or just keep going. They're like, nope, this is it. We're done. Yeah, I guess people didn't know what they were going to find if they kept going, either. Like, you want to keep going for, like, another month? Oh, yeah, just miles and miles of more desert and no water. I mean, how long would that wagon trail take?

Weeks. Even just like Missouri, Texas, and then out to through, even like just going through West, Texas to get to, you know, southeast, New Mexico and all that. And you're in, you know, that's just rough country. And people have always been tough out there to survive out there. Yeah. You're a sitting duck. You're a sitting duck.

with a wagon pulling the horse. You got all your shit in the wagon, and they're just looking at you from the hills. Yeah. Wouldn't glamorous. No. I know my, you know, my granddad was a pretty tough old guy and is real a cowboys you'd ever want to know or meet, you know.

But he wasn't really one to ever brag or, you know, or fantasize or romanticize about the cowboy stuff, you know, because it wasn't romantic then, you know. It was survival and it was rough and it was work and you had no running water. And I remember him having a conversation with this guy and he was like a tech guy. You know, he invented all this website shit or whatever. And he was asking my granddad, he said, you know, what's the most important invention of your lifetime? And I think he was expecting my granddad to say like the computer or the internet.

And my granddad said, refrigeration was the most important invention. You know. Yeah. When he was growing up, he was like. Like, they had no way to keep their food cold, you know, other than like a root cellar. You kept it underground, you know, so it was just a perspective, you know. I think everybody was surprised to hear it, yeah. Well, I think people are so accustomed to electricity and so accustomed to things like refrigeration.

Yeah. Yeah. Just like. They're running water, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when there was no refrigeration, you had to eat what you had, you know, like that day. And then the next day you had to get something else.

Yeah. And unless you knew a place that was an ice house, you know, that would get a giant chunk of ice and you could have an ice box and stick it in there and cool things. Like, you're fucked. Yeah. You're on your own. Yeah. Well, you had to learn how to dry meat. That was a lot of it.

Make pemmican dry meat. Make things that'll survive and last. And, you know, that's also how market hunting almost white. out all the deer in this country because people needed fresh meat every day. So they were just shooting everything that existed. Yeah. And then finally they started looking around and going, hey, we lost all the elk. There's no more deer left.

Like, let's make some fucking regulations on this shit. And they stopped market hunting. I did not know that. Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah. Beginning of the 1800s by, you know, the time, I guess, when did they start doing regulations in terms of hunting regulations in this country.

Because obviously they wiped out almost entirely the American bison. They were almost gone completely. And you know, a lot of that was just for tongues? No, man, that's crazy. Yeah, they would send them back east. They would pickle their tongues. Didn't Steve Rinala have something like a show on them? My buddy was telling me.

He's got a great book, too. I haven't seen it yet. It's really interesting. He's talking about the history of the bison and hunting and all of that, yeah. Yeah, I think his books called American Buffalo. but it's really good. First hunting regulations appeared in colonial laws in the 1600s, mainly as seasonal closed seasons for certain game like deer.

In terms of nationwide U.S. law, the first major federal game protection statute was the Lacey Act of 1900, which targeted commercial and market hunting and interstate trade in illegally taken wildlife. Yeah, there was elk in every state. Yeah. And we wiped them out. And there was deer in every state. But now there's more deer than there ever has been before, which is interesting. Congress passed the Lacey Act when modern regulations start.

So the 1900s. Most states had game and fish commissions, hunting seasons, bag limits and license requirements, all reinforced by federal laws like Lacey Act and later migratory bird protections. Well, it's amazing that they did that. We have an amazing system, too. Like the fact that the United States has so much public land, you know, there's so many different places where people can go and they can hike, they can white water wrap, they can fish, they can hunt, they can camp. I mean, we're unlike any country when it comes to that. It's like the amount of land that we have that's available to Americans that every, it's public for everybody is fucking incredible.

Yeah. I mean, being up in Montana, New Mexico is like that too. in California. Up in Montana, you know, staying in that wilderness area, like that little cabin that I stayed in, you know, probably didn't have much land with the cabin, but, man, there's thousands and thousands of acres of wilderness public land with dirt roads everywhere. Man, I would, you know, on those days off that I had, I would just drive back in there for miles, man, and just see the most beautiful country, you know, and I'd haul my horse back in the way of the trailheads and just go explore stuff, you know, and you go over one ridge into the next,

and there's a waterfall, and there's another drainage, and it's just like, you know, and this is the wilderness area, too. This isn't even a national park. You know, I was like, man, this is as beautiful country as I've ever seen anywhere. Did you run in any, Chris? Lee's? I never did, you know, I was always on my toes about it, and I'd talk, you know, knowing Remy up there, he knew that area really well, so I'd kind of ask him spots to go check out.

and about bears and stuff. And he said, man, there weren't too many grizzlies back in there, but you never know, you know, especially coming over from Idaho and stuff like that. So I never did. I run into some black bears, never in any wolves and all that, but, you know, I don't know, maybe being horseback too.

I don't know, a lot of those places I never did, but I definitely had my eyes open. Yeah, that's another animal that they want to list again and make them available for hundreds. particularly in Montana and Wyoming they just have a lot of grizzlies yeah they have a lot and people don't want you to shoot them they think of it as trophy hunting or whatever it is like it's tough man but man you live like you said like those folks that live back up in there you know that they all they have is their neighbors and people to depend

on you know and it's like man you get mauled by a bear taking your trash out you know or something like that that's what you your experiences with them and you know everybody wants to keep them as pets until they're in the backyard with you. They don't play by the rules. They don't play by the rules and they're 900 pounds. Good luck. That 900 pound giant fucking wild animal that eats everything you can. Yeah.

Even like that lion hanging around my house, I was like, man, I'm cool. You're fine, but once you go on down the road, you know? Yeah. I don't need you in my backyard. The thing is that you can't do anything about it either. In Texas, you could just shoot them. Yeah. Yeah, we don't have that problem.

Yeah, that's how it should be. Yeah. Like, you shouldn't have wild monsters living in your yard. No. And you should have the right to decide that for yourself. 100%. Not only that, they're going to be fine. There's still going to be plenty of them.

Yeah. Okay, but it'll probably be a more healthy number if they get whacked whenever they eat someone's dog. Yeah, and have a healthy respect for coming in your backyard or coming after your animals or your kids. Yeah. Yeah. They should understand that. But just like, we're so goofy. We make laws to protect them that don't protect us.

Like, help me out. Like, do you love animals more than people? Like, I love animals. But I'm on team people. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Everybody else is cool, but team people first.

Yeah. You know, oh, we got monsters in our neighborhood. No, no, no, no, no. We got to kill the monsters so the kids can play outside. You don't have to worry about them getting eaten. Yeah, me too. I mean, growing up ranching or farming or whatever, I mean, that's your job is to take care of animals, you know?

Yeah. It's animal husbandry. It's, it's, that's your job. I mean, to take care and provide for these animals, to provide food for your family, you know, and the wildlife that's around it, you know, it's like, and to take care of the land and the dirt and then the water and the grasses and all of that stuff has to be supporting each other to make it all work, you know.

And at the end of the day, I just feel like we've just lost touch. It's cities. It's urban environments. It's unnatural environments that have given people this delusional idea of what our relationship is with nature. And, you know, people just think food comes from a restaurant. Yeah. And, you know, the ground is for streets. And you drive around.

Sidewalks. Just pave it all. It's all just this delusional perspective that comes from that sort of urban existence. and I just think that's why people that live in the country and live in, you know, environments like Alaska where you're confronted by nature, they're like more interesting people. They're more robust, they're cooler.

Were you saying out there earlier that you rode bulls? Mm-hmm, yeah. Dude. How many times? Shoot, I started when I was a kid, you know, riding steers when I was like 10 in the junior rodeos and then...

You were 10 years old. Did someone let you ride a fucking steer? Really? That's so crazy. It was like Little League Baseball, you know, when I grew up. So a steer is a bull that doesn't have nuts. Yeah. And so how much less do they kick when they don't have their nuts?

Oh, they're a lot. They're pretty dogs. Is this you? Oh, you found a video. How old are you here? This is, I was like 17. This is in Monterey, Mexico, actually. Wow.

Why in Mexico? go, look at you, dog. Damn, that's crazy. Damn, dude, you're good. And you got off without getting stomped, too. Is it just knowing when to release? Yeah, you got to know when to get off, that's for sure. And right there.

Uh-huh. You're like, that's a wrap. Yeah, he kind of bucked me off there. He kind of had me over to the side in the area, you know, but that's a good time to check out. There's like that gray zone, you know. Either that or you hang on and you end up underneath them. You started out when you were 10 years old, though.

How wild are your parents? Like, yeah, that's a good age. They, you know, they ranched and grew up out there, and my uncle rode bulls professionally. Oh, really? Yeah, and that's kind of how I got into it, too. I looked up to him a lot and see pictures of him riding bulls, and then it was just around. And I was like, I want to go try that, you know? And then I just got the bug for it, like, super young.

I was like just ate up with it. Wow. From 10 years old. That's nuts. Yeah. And so how do you teach someone how to fall off of a bull without getting stomped when they're 10? Well, when you're riding those little steers, you know, a lot of times they cut bulls and turn them to steers because it makes them a lot more doss. Steers are, you know, typically like 600 pounds, six, seven hundred pounds, you know, compared to 1,500 pound bull that's aggressive and, you know, back that wide and horns like that, you know.

They're like little steer, you know. I remember my dad or uncle would get in the shoot with me and hold their horns, you know, and like these times they just kind of run out there and jump and kick and fall up on the side. Yeah, not too bad. And then you kind of graduate up into like the junior bulls and then the bigger bulls and then all, and then the harder they buck, you know. So there's kind of different levels you can progress as you go. But it was a lot different deal back then when I was riding.

It was really before the PBR started, you know, there was no helmets. There was no vests. There was like none of that stuff. It was just old school rodeo, you know. But at the same time, I say that, but, you know, it's evolved in such a sport now. Like the bulls are just so much rancor now than they were back then. You know, it's like now they're breeding them, like, race horses and the genetics where every one of those bulls, you know, bucks, you know. And like, you got to go to get on three or four of them in the night.

You know, back when I was doing it, we'd go to the, they were still kind of full rodeos with all the other events. events and, you know, out of 15 or 20 bulls, there might be one or two in there that were, like, bad to get on that would hurt you, you know. The rest of them were pretty rightable, you know, to say so. And, you know, we're smoking cigarettes and drinking beer back behind the shoot. So, you know, that kind of a thing, you know, we weren't training and doing yoga. I like all these guys out of day, you know, but I loved it. I had so much fun and I loved the road part of it, you know, get in the truck.

with your best buds and go down the road in the weekends, and there was always a band playing. And, you know, it was just so much fun. I love the culture of it. And it was just good times, you know. How many times do you think you've rode Bulls? I mean, I rode until I was about 23. From 10 to 23.

Mm-hmm. Wow. That was all I ever wanted to do. Really? Yeah, I wanted to just ride Bulls, yeah. And, you know, I rode in high school. I rode junior rode Bulls at high school. And then I went to Tarleton State and Stevenville and Road Bulls for Tarleton.

And then I got my pro card for a couple of years. And that was when, like, the PBR was, like, starting up and all of that. Wow. It got intense. It would be backwards on one. What, Jamie? There's one picture I just lost. He was backwards on it.

Oh, yeah. I was probably getting – there is. That's probably getting dusted. Oh, no, that's not me. That's not backwards. That guy is riding backwards. Yeah. I don't know if it's on purpose.

That seems like a ridiculous choice. He pulled it off if he did. What a terrible choice. Yeah. Okay. When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh.

Then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my out of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth Advice. creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. It was cool, though. I loved it, man.

I loved it. How do you go from that to anything else? Like, how do you stop riding bulls and eventually become an actor and a singer? It was all very much kind of a natural progression, you know. Really? Since I was a kid at the junior rodeos, there was always a dance afterward and a band playing, you know. And it's very much a family, community deal, you know, like you go to these towns and it was the junior, the rodeo was going on. And then the dance, the street dance and food and music and, you know, growing up listening to bands play, especially in Texas.

You know, you got all the guys like Gary P. Nunn. I remember he always played the dance halls. And you get Robert R. Keene and some of the, you know, growing up hearing those bands. and I moved to Laredo, Texas when I was like 16 or 17 when my dad and my mother had bought me a guitar and I didn't know how to play it much and walked into this place my dad was living at and he was playing dominoes with these guys and this guy saw my guitar and he's like, yeah, you know how to play that thing? I said, no.

He said, well, let me see it. And he picked it up and he played this killer like mariachi song called La Malagena. And I was just fascinated with it. I was just like, wow, I can't believe you made that guitar sound like that, you know? I've been dragging that thing around for a couple years. I didn't even know how to tune it up. And he's like, you want to learn how to play this guitar? And I said, yeah.

He said, let me show you this song. He taught me the Malagena. It had a couple little parts, you know, finger-picking part, it's a strumming part. And it really kind of gave me that foundation, you know, just kind of those few little tools. And then I went up to Stephenville to ride Bulls at Tarleton after that. and a couple other friends that I'd met there that rodeo could play the guitar a little bit, and they had bands that played every weekend

in the town that was a little bar. They're called City Limits where all these bands would come play, like Jason Bolin and the Cross-Canadian Ragweed guys and Pat Green and Robert Earl Keene, like all the Texas guys would come play, you know? So I was like, I went from being on the border, kind of just mostly like the Carrillos and Tejano bands

that I would see, which was really cool. But when I got up there, I was like, oh, man, there's all these, like, cool kind of song, you know, guys writing the original music and songs and playing in bands and we'd go watch them all the time. And as I was still rodeo, and the only song I knew was that Malagena tune. So I was like, I got to come up with some new stuff is all I know how to play. I went and got a book of chords to teach myself some new chords on the guitar and we just learn one or two at a time and I'd start making up songs about our adventures on the weekends,

you know. A lot of it was just sitting in the back of the truck. and being in places where you didn't have radio signal or, you know, nothing to really listen to, you're tired to listen to the same old stuff, and I'd make up songs, and then whatever town we would get to, my buddies would be like, man, play that song, you were singing in the back seat, you know, and so that's how the whole songwriting thing started. And then I ended up getting a job working for a guy named Mac Altizer.

He had a rodeo company called Bag Company Rodeo and Del Rio. And I'd ridden Bulls at some of his rodeos, and knew him. My uncle knew him, you know, over the years. And so I was kind of familiar with that whole thing and started working for him on the ranch and helping with some of the rodeo stuff and still riding bulls. And he found out that I could play the guitar and sing a few songs. And he always had a party at the rodeo. He was kind of notorious and famous for having just awesome parties. And he's like, man, all right, Bingham, get your guitar. You're going to play like the after party, you know, and pull the flatbed trailer up there for the hospitality tent

for all the contestants after the rodeo. And those are like the first, he really encouraged me to like start playing for people and doing that. And then it would just spill over into the bars afterwards. After the rodeo, and everybody would end up going to the bar. And I was like, Bing and Bring a guitar with you.

And I started getting gigs in the bars. The bars would ask me if I wanted to come back and play. And just after like, I feel like a few years of that, it was just like, you know, I was kind of a weekend warrior riding bulls. I was definitely not making a living. doing it always had to have a day job during the week you know either working on the ranch or doing something and uh i started getting to where i could go to these bars and make like a hundred bucks and

tips you know within a couple of hours and get free beer and free food and i was like man this is almost as much as i made all day digging holes with the shovel you know so it didn't take me long to figure out that that was pretty cool and uh i was just like i'm gonna stick with it you know What an organic sort of a journey, you know, like a natural progression. Yeah, and I didn't have high expectations, you know, but I just like, and I was talking about kind of community in this Austin area and in Texas in general. It's just like, man, people were so supportive then. I'm just like, if you had a song to play it, people love live music, they're like, yeah, get up and play, you know.

Mac with the rodeo company and all the guys that worked there, Dave Jennings and Casey and Smert, there's a whole crew of the bad. company crew from those days and they always had kind of the bad company house band too where everybody would get up and try to play a song and it's just like man we don't care if it's any good or not just get up there and play we're all we're all in it together and there were so many like places that were like that that i don't think if i was in that environment i probably would never pursued it you know i said so many people you know support you and encouraging to try it and it took me a long time you know to uh work stuff out and learn because i didn't have any really formal music

musical background or lessons or training, I had to really just learned it on the road and playing in bars and from other musicians. Really? So no lessons at all? Just kind of figuring it out along the way. Yeah. Wow. You know, the guy taught me the La Malagena there, but then after that it was just, you know,

anybody else who had a guitar and might know a song. I'm like, oh, how do you play that chord? You know, oh, you play it like this, you know. Yeah. Wow. So how many years were you doing that before you got Yellowstone? Oh gosh, for a while. I mean, I think my, you know, I was 22 or something like that in Stephen Bill.

You know, Ryan Bull was starting to play songs, trying to play gigs. After, you know, ended up moving down here to New Bromfels in the Austin area playing music for a while and then ended up going out to Los Angeles and playing and then hit the road with a band for, I think I had four or five albums or so, you know, out, you know, and been touring for five or six years. I think how old was I, like, when Yellowstone started, like 36, 37? So, yeah, I'd been playing, doing the music stuff for a long time.

And so how did the Yellowstone, how did you go from music to Yellowstone? Like, how did you even, did you do any yak, acting before that? No, I'd been one of, I'd done a film with Jeff Bridges years ago called Crazy Heart and wrote some songs for that movie. And that was really my own thing.

That was a good movie. It was pretty cool. I was just like, Jeff Bridges plays a musician in the show and we're like the backup band at the bowling alley for one of the scenes, you know, which was really cool. And then written some songs

for some other films and some TV shows since then and I met a game named John Linson out in Los Angeles, he was a producer, him and his dad, Artlinson, and they did like Sons of Anarchy, a bunch of shows and a bunch of great movies, and he introduced me to Taylor, and Taylor was, I think it was that movie, Wynn River, his first movie. I'd met Taylor and just kind of talk about music and stuff, and he wanted me to write a song for Win River,

and I'd given it a shot a couple times, never really had anything that fit for what he wanted, but he ended up using a song that I'd already written. And we just kind of kept in touch. And then when the Yellowstone thing came up, he got in touch again about writing some songs for the show. And then he learned that I used to do all the rodeo stuff, I think, and grew up ranching.

And he's like, well, shoot, you can do a lot of this stuff. I've got to find a way to get you in the show, you know. And it literally went from the conversation. He was like, well, I don't know what I'm going to do with you, but I'll find something to do with you, you know. And he literally said that he's like, you know, if you do good, I'll, you know, you guys, if you suck, I'll kill you off. If you do good, I'll keep you on. Something like that, you know, I'm like, yeah, good enough.

So you had no formal acting, like training or anything? No, not at all. That's what's amazing, dude. You're really good. Oh, I appreciate that, you know. I get to kind of play a cowboy and be a little bit of myself. Yeah, but it's, that role's got some complexity to it. It's not just a cowboy.

It's like you've got some complicated scenes, you know, some emotional scenes, some deep scenes, and you're really good, man. Thank you. That's impressive. I appreciate that. I enjoyed it, you know. I hadn't done much acting at all. And I've got to give a lot of credit to the actors that are on the show, too, you know, those folks that have really studied it and paid their dues learning that craft. You know, they really create the environment, you know, especially for me not knowing much about it.

you know and just kind of being a part of the scene like they're so good that they make you react in a certain way right you know they know they know how to get it out of you yeah whether you know Cole and kelly and Luke and all those folks you know they like they know how to set up the scene they know they know what they're doing so they already kind of have the whole thing set up and so when i walk into a scene and they say they're lying to me it's just like oh okay yeah i got to answer right like i'm just like kind of like naturally you know answering that you know right Right, yeah. It's like if you work with a really good actor,

sometimes you forget they're acting. You're like, oh, like, oh, yeah, we're acting. Like, you seem like this is really happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For me, like, I think it was the moments where I thought it was really happening. How long did it take before you got comfortable, like, doing that on camera?

Still not. Really? Yeah, still not, yeah. Well, you play it off, good. Well, thanks, you know? I think some of it comes from the riding bulls, you know, you learn how to channel that anxiety or fear and to just like, oh, okay, it's go time.

Let's just like pull it together and channel that, you know. If you could ride a bowl, I think you could kind of do basically anything. Man, you know, that's one thing my uncle taught me when I was young. You know, he was really quick to be like, man, it doesn't matter how strong you are. You know, it's not about it. It's all mental. It's all in your mind. And it's all, it's not, I think I can.

It's I know I can and I will. And he goes, if you don't, if you don't believe, believe that every time you go put your rope on one of those on their backs he's like it ain't going to happen yeah he says you don't it's not being cocky it's just being confident you know and believing in yourself and and having that that power of mind over matter you know yeah if you could do that acting is easy and take that in anything in life yeah and i and i do because i definitely have moments where you know i'm like whoo okay take a deep breath right it's go time let's go you know Well, especially having more than a decade of doing that with bulls.

Mm-hmm. Like, that's so uncontrollable. Like, it is, like, you're at the mercy of fate and how this plays out. Yeah. And you have this enormous beast, and you've chosen to scare the shit out of yourself. Get on top of this thing and try to ride it. You've chosen to join the dance. Yeah.

If you can do that, if you can do that and be successful at that, I kind of think you could do anything. thing. I think that that I mean I wouldn't want my kid to do it at 10 but fuck it's probably if they could survive pretty valuable. I laugh I really picked two of the easiest professions you know riding bulls and playing music like right two that have the least amount of success ratio impossible tasks right well did you ever get any serious injuries? You know I was fortunate like not serious here I did there was one of the worst I ever I ever I got knocked all these teeth out, and I got jerked down one night in Weatherford, and took my lip off, and my teeth went through down here,

and these are all fake up here, and then my lip was just hanging by the thread. It didn't knock me out, which was wild, though. I got on this bull, and I remember it was in Weatherford, Texas, and it's got a Butler arena there, and he had this little Angus bull there. Didn't have horns on him, a little muley, and usually you can go up to the guys that own the bull, bulls and a lot of the bulls have patterns, you know, that they, that they'll do over and over, you know, so you can kind of talk to the stock contractor or the guys that don't want him

be like, hey, you know, what's this bull generally do? And he's like, most time they'll take two jumps out and they spin to the left or they take two jumping and they go to the right or oh, they just, you know, they'll jump kick around and make a circle. And he goes, man, he goes, I don't know, he's like the last two times I bucked, he hasn't been ridden, he'll usually jumps out there and just spins right in the gate. And he's said, nobody's really ridden him past three or four seconds. So he goes, I don't know what he's going to do after that and sure enough that's what happened I got on him and I jumped out and just got it on right there and the gate just spinning right there and I rode him through it like three or four

rounds and after I rode him like I think the bully didn't know what to do next he got a little frustrated and he just stopped and just stopped dead still and just blowing and just you know just mad and you never really want to jump off of them when they're still like that because you just you'll fall right beside them you know so you want them to them to to have a little momentum so when you, you know, you're checking out, you can get away from them. Right. And so I spurred him a little bit to get him to jump. So when he jumped, I could jump off.

But when I spurred him, it just jumped off straight up off the ground like a cat off all fours. And when he came crack, and when he jumped up like that, I, you know, kind of rocked me back on back like that. My hand's still tied in the rope. And then when he came down, he just brought all that jerked me down with the fours. And I came forward and he threw his head back and I just head budded him. And when he did, and then my hand was still caught in the rope, and then he took off, running around, just drugged me around, and just stomped the crap out of me, you know, for a bit. And I finally got loose, and I remember running over to the fence, and I just, you know,

I kind of had my arms on the fence, and I could see all the blood just kind of pouring down all over me. And one of the bullfighters ran up, and he looks at me, goes, oh, buddy. He's like, whoo! So they have to stitch your lip back on? Yeah, you know, and the shock was just, I didn't feel anything. Like, I was just, like, in shock. And I was like, oh, man, you know, I remember, like, my girlfriend was there from high school and my buddy. And we drove to the little, you know, they're like, you want to call ambulance?

I was like, nah, I don't have health insurance. And I'm calling no ambulance, you know. Got my buddy's car, and we drove her over to the emergency room in Weatherford. And I go in and the nurse, she's just like, oh, man, she's like, we can't do anything for you here. you're going to have to go to Dallas to like trauma. You're going to have to get like an oral surgeon to put you back together. And she goes, you want me to, you know, get you an ambulance there. And I was like, no, I think we can make it, you know.

And she's like, she gave me some pain pills. She goes, don't take these now. She goes, hold on these. And then when you get to Dallas, then take them because you're probably going to have to wait, you know, before they can, because it's three or four in the morning, before they can get somebody in there to see us. And sure enough, we got to Dallas. and I'm just sitting there in the weight room,

and I had a rag, and I was just holding my mouth together, and the shock wore off, man, and then it's, you know, I was starting to feel it. I took those pain meds, and then the doctor came in and held me back and gave me a big shot in the roof of my mouth, tried to numb everything, and just, I think it took them longer to clean it all up, you know, pull all the hair and dirt out there and sew me up. Oh, it was an ordeal, you know, for sure.

For months after that, you know, it was a deal. that, you know, getting the dental work done and all that crap. So how was the lip hanging off? It bit it all, it would have came all the way off. It was just hanging on right here by side, so it was just hanging down. And so they just had to stitch

the lower part to the upper part and put it all together again? Yeah, just all across, right through the middle and kind of, if I shave, I got a big scar that kind of goes down there. And then they went through down here. So I got some stitches down there, and then most of the stitches were all in my gums and all of that. So they had to

like posts and implants and all that stuff? Wow. Yeah. That shit takes forever, huh? Kind of knocked the front four out and it just dominoes the rest of them. Riding Bulls with no health insurance is wild. That's crazy, man. That's crazy.

Yeah, it was just life back then for me, you know. I think going into the music stuff was like, I don't know. I just wasn't really scared about it or even the expectations of me. making it or I mean to me at the time I had a truck and a camper on it and I was like man I was like I got no bills I got no responsibilities I'm just like go make a hundred bucks a night playing music in a bar I was like this is the dream you know I'm like I made it yeah well I think when you've done something super super difficult everything else seems easier and if you've done what you did with riding bulls for that long like the music business is like that's the worst

thing that could happen. Yeah. Even the travel part, you know, like, you know, in the early days of playing, when I really decided I was going to try to make a run and play, you know, and it was like, oh, what, we got to get in the van and go drive around and playing bars, you know? And I was like, we've been doing that rodeoing for years, you know, where you sleep in the back of the truck or whatever, and it was fun for us. We loved it.

Yeah. So the idea of, like, starving on the road playing in a band, playing music. I was like, let's go, you know. And getting a guaranteed paycheck every night, you know? Right, the gratitude you must have. The right and bulls, I mean, after time, you walked away with nothing. Right. You know?

A busted lip, nothing. Yeah, and no health insurance. And you're risking your life. And there's not a bunch of people that love you. No. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a great base to start out from, you know?

I mean, it sounds like, it's almost like the universe engineered this path for you to go down. Like if you wanted to pick a path that would bring you to where you are right now, it is the perfect set of circumstances. I look at it all the time, you know, just from an outside perspective, I guess, and just like, wow, how in the world all this come together. And just a lot of luck and perseverance or whatever. And I wouldn't say I haven't worked hard at it, you know. I feel like I have and all that. But there are a lot of luck out there. And a lot of good people, too.

Yeah. A lot of good people help. me out along the way and gave me gas money and gave me a place of sleep or place to eat and help us get other gigs and other I mean I remember going from one town to the next and not having gas money to get to the next and having no plan other than like let's just head west or head east and you know you'd go play at a bar and sure enough there'd be somebody there that were they like oh man y'all should come back to my house we'll have bonfire and play some songs and he's like oh my brother's got a bar and phoenix and you know he's like call them on your way

way out. We'd go there and we'd always like chop firewood or wash dishes or wouldn't mow your lawn or wash your car on the way to like to get gas money and keep on going. Wow. So that was just kind of how and always I feel like I learned early. If you were willing to help yourself, you know, people would help you all day long. I think luck is a factor, but it's only a factor if you've already had all those other experiences. Like think about it. If you hadn't ridden. bulls you hadn't gone through all the ranching all the hard labor all the

different things then like you probably wouldn't have capitalized on that luck the same way no not at all huh your character wouldn't be the same no you know it's like part part of who you are is the character that you've developed from what you've done it kind of conditioned me to do it in a way and it seems like it's your life it almost like it's engineered for this to happen the way it happened which is kind of crazy it's been cool man very storybook

you know yeah very like movie like a plot in a movie guy who's a cowboy bull rider starts singing songs people like hey you should probably do this for a living and then someone's like hey man you should be on TV

you know and the next thing you know you're on one of the biggest hits in the world I'd be like that song you know one day they're gonna put me in the movie yeah buckle I was like how about I live in

this thing right now, you know? It's like, I know I meet people all the time. They're like, oh, like, you know. They can't really believe where I'm from or whatever. They just think it's some like made up story. I'm like, oh, yeah, all right, man, you know. Well, it seems like a story that someone would make up if they wanted to pretend to be a cowboy.

Yeah. Well, I think a lot of people have. I bet, right? I bet. Yeah. And a lot of people still do. Yeah. Isn't that funny?

Uh-huh. That's funny. That's like stolen valor almost. Yeah, you know what I mean like in all kinds of stuff you know professions or whatever you know people pretend to be the Oh yeah what it is Would you mind if I went to the restroom? Oh no no no not at all I totally understand I want to keep talking about I don't want to stop this let's pause take a leak We'll be right back folks and we're back

Yeah it's um it's kind of funny that people would want to fake the life that you've lived but that is Such a romantic story like it's such a it's such a movie that it makes sense that people want to fake. It's got to be weird walking around, like having lived a life that people would want to fake and pretend that they lived. It is sometimes, you know, and it's like, you know, I remember when I really started for, you know,

playing music and stuff. I wore a cowboy hat all the time. I wrote bulls and, you know, it's very much my identity, you know. But no, cowboy stuff wasn't really cool then. You know, I feel like in the, early 2000s and all of that, you know, and there wasn't a big, there wasn't a big Americana scene or, you know, any of that kind of stuff, you know, and definitely going to

New York or going to Los Angeles and touring around, like, I'd be the only one wearing a cowboy hat, you know? I remember, I think the first time, one time I was in L.A., we were out on the Santa Monica Pier, and there was a guy that had like the one-man band thing, you know, out there, and there's all these tourists on the pier. And I'm just like out there checking out the scenery and just mind my own business. And this guy gets on the microphone and he just points over at me. He goes, oh, Brokeback Mountain.

And everybody on the pier turned around and look to me. They're just pointing at me and laughing at me. And I'm just like, ah, okay, you know. So I was like, that was the association with the cowboy had at the time. That's hilarious. Yeah, they changed cowboys for a while. Now it's a whole new ball game, you know. new monkey wretch that legend.

But, you know, now playing and, man, I'm so stoked to see all these new bands out there and, like, so many young folks playing actual instruments, you know, but for a long time there was so electronic and DJs and all the new and stuff, you know. Well, there's a giant country comeback that's going on right now, kind of nationwide. I'm sure you love Open the Gates, the Zach Bryan song. Yeah. That's such a great bull riding song. Man, I got some great tune.

man. Yeah. That's a great bull riding song. But there's so many great musicians out there now. And also have lived different but very, like Charlie Crockett. What a fascinating dude that guy is. Like just kind of performing on the streets. Yeah. You know, just being kind of a vagabond

traveling around and then finally catches and people are like, damn, this music is fucking great. Yeah, like wearing it on their sleeves, you know. And having the call. confidence to, I think people have always been, I think there has been plenty of folks out there, you know, writing from the heart and so to speak and all that and, you know, having a certain integrity to the things that they're saying and, you know, the truth in they're speaking into their songs and things like that.

Yeah. There's just a, there's a lot more of a platform to support them, you know, and like people like, oh, wow, there's a bunch of this stuff out there, you know. There's also an appreciation for it because I think we're all fear, that people like you won't exist in the future. Because it seems like a guy like you, you know, bull riding, living on a ranch, like singing songs in bars.

Like that almost is like a thing of the past. Oh, very much. But it's so romantic to people that like when we meet a guy like you in real life, you're like, oh, keep him around. You know, like you want to make sure that people like you still exist. It's a very exciting thing for people to have a person who's lived, to an authentically interesting life. And authentically out-of-the-box life, it's not a normal life.

Like, if you meet a million people, the odds of you meeting one guy who used to bull ride and then started singing in bars with his friends and was happy living on the road, and now all of a sudden he's on a fucking gigantic television show. It's not even one in a million. It's strange to it because sometimes I, you know, I meet people. and like, you know, I'm like, oh yeah, I grew up just like you, you know. And then I realize like, I don't think I did. I kind of have to think about it myself.

No, you definitely didn't. You wrote a bull when you were fucking 10, dude, okay? Most people when they're 10, they're playing with GI Joe's. Yeah. You know, they're not riding bulls. That's a very unusual setup for the rest of your life, you know? Yeah. I think if you do some things difficult when you're really young, you get accustomed to fear.

You get accustomed to anxiety and nerves. The thing that, I mean, that is like the mark of a man. Like a man is his ability to be in a very high stress situation and keep his shit together. You know, and to have gone through a lot of that when you're very young, like, writing a bull at 10 is crazy. To gone through that when you're very young, it just develops the kind of character that allows you to kind of do anything in life. and I think most men see that and they wish they were like that. I remember a moment, you know, it was really when I was, you know, riding steers and then I made that transition to the big bulls, you know.

And it wasn't like, oh, here's this like this little steer and then there's an in-between and then there's the big, it was like this little steer and then this big bull, you know. It was a junior rodeo in Odessa, Texas, and it was my first year to ride junior bulls. And I entered the bull riding. My uncle was there with me, and they started running the bulls up into the shoots, and they were big. They were, like, backs that wide and horns sticking outside of the shoots, you know. And they were big, but they didn't buck that hard.

You know, they just kind of jumped kick down there, but they were still big, you know. And, like, I remember, like, scared and, like, in tears, you know, kind of, I was scared. And my uncle, you know, was super cool about it. He wasn't like, you have to do this or you have to do. He's like, man, whatever you want to do? You know, you want to pack it up? We'll get out of here right now. It's like, this is either for you or it's not for you, you know?

And I remember just him telling me, you want to take like 20, 30 minutes and just kind of think about it. And whatever you want to do will make happen, you know. And I did. I kind of walked around there for a bit. And I just had this some kind of, like, I knew that I would regret it if I didn't do it, didn't try it. You know, there was something in me. We were like, man, because I slay. I slept it, I dreamt about it, you know, I just loved it.

And I was like, no, I'm gonna do this, you know. And I put my rope on him and had all the sport there that I needed in that moment. And they opened the gate and this big old high horn bullion. He just turned and kind of jumped out there, real docile. And I think I wrote him two or three jumps and fell off, and it was just like, I'm the king of the world. Yeah.

I was like, I'm a bull rider now, you know? I'm not just the steer rider kid, you know? Wow. kind of made that level and I remember after that I just man I just craved it like just the higher they jump the faster they spend the better I like it really oh just yeah this dirty rank just run them in there let's go and when I was when I was little I mean even I was like 14 or 15 you know the guys were starting to breed the bulls for like the PBR like they full on started these like breeding programs you know used to

you could go to a practice pen and you know being an old old farmer that had two or three old bulls that you could get on and practice and they'd just jump around and just you know nothing that was really going to hurt you bad you know and then they started breeding these young bulls and man you'd go to the practice pin there'd be 10 or 15 of these like yearlands that bucked and they needed somebody to get on them you know like test pilot and I was the test pilot there was a guy named Bradley raspberry I believe kind out in brownwood I remember going to his house and I could ride I could ride I I was pretty sticky when I was.

I could ride a lot better when I was younger than I was when I got older, you know, for some reason. I just had that no fear or whatever that was. And I'd get on 10 or 15 a day. They just kept running them in there, man. They'd be trying to flip over in the shoe and just, you know, they're young, green bulls that were half wild. And they're just trying to figure out which ones bucked and which ones didn't. And they would, you know, they'd get rid of the ones that didn't buck and keep the ones it did. And, man, I'd just be like, the wilder they got in the shit.

the more aggressive I got. I just like, oh, okay, that's what we're going to do. Come on, let's go. Let's do this, you know. I don't know why I was nuts, you know. God, that's so crazy. That's such a crazy way to live your life. You know, wild bulls, and you say wild,

like the ones that are out there in the wild, they're some of the most dangerous animals that you could ever encounter. When they're, like they call them scrub bulls. Like my buddy, Adam, he lives in Australia, or he's moving to America, but when he lived in Australia, he said that they would encounter these scrub bulls, which is like wild domestic bulls that got out and started breeding, and then many generations later, they're now completely wild.

They're like deer out there. Yeah, and they will run after you. I knew these three guys from Australia, or several Australian guys that came over lived in Stephenville. A lot of these cowboys have moved to Stephenville because it was so central, and it was kind of cowboy capital there. His name was Lance Kelly, had some brothers, and they were from up there in North Queensland somewhere.

And one summer he went back to work and then when he came back, he told me about where he was from all the time. You know, I was young, curious, I was always fascinated. I was like, wow, you're from Australia, you know, I've only seen movies, you know, like, what's the, the, oh, gosh, I said my mom's thinking. Crocodile Dundee. No, a man from Snowy River or not, which was a, anyway. But I was fascinated with Australia and him and his brothers.

And so he went home and he had videotaped a VHS. You know, he didn't have phones back then, but it was like the old CAMVHS tape recorder. And he'd videotaped it around his body while he was walking around working on the ranch. And he'd have his four-wheeler and they're chasing these wild cattle and rounding them up, him and his brothers. And he would just like chase him on a four-wheeler as long as, you know, to keep them running until they got. so tired they couldn't go anymore and then he had this piece of pipe on there he could run up behind him and kind of knock them down and then he'd jump off and tie their legs together and they would catch a bunch of them like that and then his brother would come by you know later with a truck and a winch

and winch them up into the trailer and they would catch all these wild cows like that and to be able to see that footage and stuff and have him tell me how they were doing it and show him and I was like oh that's the coolest thing in the world I want to go when can I go you know Australia is such a crazy place, man. It's bigger than the United States, or the size of the United States, roughly, and it has less people than Los Angeles.

And everything will kill you over there. Everything will kill you. Every snake spider. Every snake, crocodiles. They have saltwater crocodiles and giant fucking great white sharks. And like, whew! And hearty people, man.

Yeah. Hardy motherfuckers come from that place. I feel like Texas and a lot of folks in Australia like kindred spirits. Yes, I think so too. My buddy James McCann was on the podcast yesterday. He's a comic out of Australia. And he's from there and he spends time here.

He was living here for a while, but he had to move back because he had another kid. But now he's coming back and forth and trying to figure. He's really talented. He's trying to figure out. Yeah, he was living in Austin for a couple of years. And living in America for a couple of years, living in Austin for about a year.

But, you know, his wife's about to have another kid. And they just decided to go back to Australia. where she's got support, but man, he fucking misses it. He was here, he's like, mate, I miss it so much. Yeah. I miss it so much. Like, I think this is any place like this place. Mm-hmm.

It's pretty awesome. But Australia, it's like, it's the same kind of thing. It's like it's a rugged place, and the kind of people that live there, they're fun. They're fun, kind of, you got a super fucked up oppressive government, unfortunately. I think it's a lot about what you say, too. You know, when you survive certain things, in your life and um you know it puts things in perspective of what you're taking seriously

or what's a what's an emergency you know what's right right oh is this this is this is this is life or death or is it not or you know and and to be able to laugh at stuff and i love comedians it's just like man to be able to just joke and cut stuff about the most serious things or whatever it is like god we need that so much yeah it's an important service it doesn't seem like it is to people because it seems stupid. You're like, oh, you're just telling jokes. Like, not for, for me, when I go and watch a good comedy show, I feel better. It's medicine.

And I think it also puts life into perspective with a sense of humor. You can kind of look at things through a different lens and go, yeah, we're probably going to be all right. I get a feeling like, you know, I think a lot of folks have this idea that songwriters or where, you know, especially, you know, have a bunch of sad songs or whatever to go to that deep place and you live through stuff. that you write about. But, man, I find in comics, man, I feel like there's some of the heaviest stuff

in the world that those folks have experienced to be able to, you know, come up and tell these kinds of jokes and stories and the educational part of it with it, you know, it's so much, I don't know for me, it seems like so much more than just a joke. It is with some, I mean, some people just do jokes. It really depends on your style. But, I mean, if you go back to, like, Richard Pryor, his whole thing was, like, explaining life and telling stories. Yeah.

But with an amazing sense of humor. And then you would leave that and you'd like everybody feels like more united. They feel better. Yeah. Just like you like what everybody was thinking. Yeah. Everybody's thinking afraid to say. And also he would look at things from a very wise perspective that was also hilarious.

So you walked out of there feeling better. Yeah. You felt like you were better. It felt like there's bringing some hope. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. For sure. But there's hope in music, too. Yeah. You know, I don't have any musical talent at all, but I always think of music as almost like a drug. Because music, when a good song hits, you're like, fuck, like, if you're in the car and a good tune comes on, like, especially back when I used to listen to the radio, you know,

and, like, you didn't expect what was coming on. You can't rewind it. Yeah. All of a sudden it's radar love by golden ear. Oh, yeah. Fuck, yeah. Let's go. Like, you feel different.

It like changes your mood. Like a good, you hear like Freebird, like you're flipping through the channels and the fucking guitar solo for Freebird comes on. You're like, yes! You feel better. Like it excites all these parts of your senses, your consciousness, your feelings. It's a drug. I mean, it's an amazing thing. It's always been real therapeutic for me at the very beginning.

Like I said, I didn't have high expectations, but I knew when I kind of wrote some of the first songs that I wrote and I like got some of that stuff off my chest like it changed me you know yeah it like it became a tool that all of a sudden I had access to this thing that like was helping me heal in a way like I could get I could get stuff off my chest like the things that uh I was uncomfortable talking about in conversation with folks like I could put them into a song and like sing them to the wall and I was just like getting that stuff out like there wasn't anybody in the room and I was just like you But I was getting this stuff out of me, you know. And it's also a way for people to hear it where it's not annoying.

You know what I mean? Like if you just tell some sad story about your life, people are like, oh, geez. You're like, here we go. Crying a river kid. Everybody's got a story. But if you have a sad story in a song, it's like fucking kind of, it's beautiful. Like, I love a good sad song. You know, a song that has like real emotion in it, whether it's a real story or,

whether, like, one of my favorite Colter Wall songs is Kate McCannan. Yeah. Jamie turned me on to that song. He said to me. Man, Colter's a gem. He was fucking 21 when he made that song, which is crazy. Yeah. You listen to that song.

That sounds like a 58-year-old man who's been smoking cigarettes his whole life. Yeah. And that dude is interesting, too, because he still works on a ranch. Yeah. Yeah. He's a great guy. He's one of my favorites of the younger guys that have come up and been doing it. he's just

same way when I first heard those first songs I was like who the fuck is this you know then I saw it then I saw like a picture of him

I'm like oh man he's a kid you know crazy and I just a fabulous songwriter guitar player you hear that you're like

what is this yeah who is this guy and I couldn't believe he was 21 I'm like that makes zero sense yeah

he's got it man and there's a bunch of them out there now that I'm hearing too there's just like I'm like man how cool yeah how cool I'm so glad that they're getting a shot at it or just getting the support I don't know if it's saying getting a shot at it but it's like getting the love and support that they deserve for the it's good music man yeah it's great it's great music and there's a thing now with the internet where it's so easy to share something you know like someone's got a good song and it's on YouTube or Spotify and then you just send a link to your buddy yeah you go bro, check this out.

Like, I gotta say, like, half the songs I find out about my friends just send me. And then all of a sudden I'm like, oh, shit, yeah. And then I'll add it to my playlist, you know? It's like, it's easy to share things now where you don't have to go to the record store and pick up the record. And, you know, now it's just like within seconds of you getting it in your phone, you're listening to it. And it's easier to record the stuff, too. Oh, yeah. It's like you don't need a half a million bucks in a studio and all that stuff.

It's like, man, half the stuff you can record on your phone. Well, look at Oliver Anthony. Yeah. One fucking song. Yeah. One song, and the first show he ever does is like 18,000 people. That is the first show. That dude ever performed out.

I feel for him. I would never have been able to do that when I started, you know. I would not prepare for anything. And I don't know, maybe they're not. But that's a lot of... He settled in there. He settled in pretty easy. He figured...

out he's a smart cat he's a really smart dude and he settled in really easy I guess they have to you know I always think like you know gosh it's changed so much since I started out you know I mean we didn't even have like you know if you wanted to learn how to play a song

you kind of had to go listen to the record and just try to figure it out you know and rewind it now they're like oh here's a guy that'll just show you every note and this and that's a guy on YouTube that'll show you exactly how to do it yeah and that took me years to figure out you know and And, you know, maybe that is like today, you know, these guys that's, uh, they're learning how to do it at such a quicker rate.

And, like, they know how to handle the crowds and do all the stuff. And it's just like, boom, there you go. Well, that's with everything today. Yeah. You know, I think that's also why, like, I mean, in martial arts and, like, UFC is the reason why the guys are so much better today. And it's because they get to see everything that everybody's ever done. And then they practice it and improve upon it. And they get it at a year, early age.

You can essentially just on your phone watch every fight that's ever taken place ever in human history that's been recorded. I did that on the road a few years ago. I mean, I've always been a pretty rudimentary guitar player. You know, I can't solo all over the place and all of that stuff.

And I think it was like 2019. I put it out of record and I was going on a tour. And my friend Charlie Sexton produced the album. He's a wonderful guitar player. Charlie Sexton, the guy from the 80s, beat solo. Yeah, that guy. Play with Dylan, play the Archangel.

He was like really young when Beat So Lonely came out, right? Oh, man, he's, yeah, legend. And I remember calling him, though. I was like, man, I really want to get better at the guitar, you know? And he's like, well, just listen to all the stuff that you really like. You know, he's like, don't try to play it all note for a note. He's like, I just keep listening to it. And, like, you'll start eventually finding those places and develop your style.

But it was when I got on the road as well, man, I had access on YouTube. all of my favorite musicians and guitar players and I just kind of made a point of sitting down and I even found this guy that was just breaking down and giving simple blues guitar lessons for kids and I was like, man, this is great, never done anything like this and just went through, I went back, you know? I got to memorize all the notes on the frontboard

and I needed, you know, and it was just, I had so much fun doing it. And I also give confidence to get up and jam with other musicians and play and kind of know what key you're in, what you're doing, I went years without having any kind of lessons or training. And then I'm just like within three weeks of being on tour and watching YouTube videos of it just stepped it up so much. They're like, how'd you learn how to do it? About 20 years later in my career, I decided to learn how to play the guitar on YouTube. It is amazing.

I mean, that's the positive part of the Internet. If you can avoid the negative parts, there's a lot of great positive stuff in the Internet. And the access to stuff like that is amazing. Yeah, if we all could disavoid the negative of everything, right? Right. Unfortunately, there's a lot of people that don't have good lives, and they do have a lot of extra time because they're not really investing in their own life, so they just spread in negativity online.

Yeah. And it's just human nature. Wild world. It is. It's a wild world, but it's also a wildly positive world, too. Just what you just said about the guitar stuff. Or with the Oliver Anthony stuff. Yeah.

This guy standing there with a guitar. in front of a field with no production value at all but has a song they're singing from the heart like how many how many views does that shit have on youtube it's got to be like a hundred million views or something nuts and that song was fucking gigantic yeah rich men north of me i remember my wife playing it for me for the first time i was just like what the i was like what is that she's like oh man check this out you know i was like that's so fucking rad yeah i got a chance of see him perform live too with his band. They're fucking fantastic.

He's settled. He's completely settled into being famous now. He's cool with it. He's still the same dude. I met him real early on, and I actually talked to him on the phone. How many was it got $236 million? Holy shit.

Wow. When you say he settled, I didn't know it, was he having a hard time with it? He was freaking out at the beginning. And I contacted him early on, And he said, hey, can I ask you some advice? And we talk on the phone? I said, yeah, sure.

So I called him up, and he was just telling me that he was getting hit up by all these different people that were trying to give him money to sign a contract. And this and I go, hey, hey, hey, don't sign nothing. I go, you don't need nobody. You don't need to be locked up in any contracts with nobody. And he was like, they're all telling me I got a strike while the iron's hot. I'm like, fuck them. I go, you got talent, dude. Talent is the number one thing.

You already have that. You're going to be fine. You just keep making songs like that. You can't fucking lose. But what you don't want to do is be tied with some legal contract to some assholes just sucking you like a vampire. And they're going to be stuck with you for years. And then you're going to have to go to court and get out of that shit. Exactly.

Yeah. You have the opportunity. Like you said, man, you're writing good songs. You're doing good stuff. And you have a way to give it to the people. But he's getting an offer for like $7 million to sign this. I'm like, don't do it. I know it sounds like.

But that $7 million, they're giving you that because they're going to make 14. There's not a chance in hell. You don't need them. You should get all the money. You should get all all. You shouldn't give any money to anybody else. You don't need it. You can make your own records.

You can put it all together yourself. You don't need nobody. I guess you always got to remember they're going to buy for one, sell for two. Yeah, exactly. There's no way they're going to give you that money unless they're going to make a lot more. And then you're going to get stuck with them. Don't do it. And he's like, they're all telling me, I've got to do it now.

If I miss this opportunity, I'm like, you ain't missing shit. Yeah. You ain't missing it. There's not a chance you're going to miss it. Especially when you're that young. Yeah. And good. Yeah.

And just fucking good. Who knows what they're going to be, you know, be right in the next 10 years. Yeah. Have you heard that song, Woman Scorned? I haven't, no. Is that one his new ones? Woo! He wrote that one after a breakup, but it's just, woo!

You hear that fucker. It just gets you right in the bone marrow. Yeah, I get you. Yeah. It's fantastic. It's so good But it's just like You know

It's a beautiful story And I love a story like that He was like selling He was selling like Heavy equipment Like he was a salesman Just like Fucking machinery and shit

And then writing songs And he gets fed up one day And he puts this song Let's make a video With this fucking song Yeah And then all of a sudden Boom

Man people ask me all the time They're like man Who do you think You know The best young songwriter Out there You know musician or guitar

player. I'm like, man, I don't know. It's probably some 16-year-old kid in the garage that nobody's heard of. That's probably the best guy out there, you know. And he's ready to jump off. Yeah, and he's going to hit you with some song that this, you know, crushes you. Yeah. They're out there. It's just, but that's the thing that I was saying about guys like you, that people look at guys like you, and it's such a romantic story. They worry that there's not going to be any more of you. You know what I mean? Like this weird digital world and AI and just this strange fucking life that we're all living like now that are not I want to say simple because it's not simple but it's unencumbered by all the bullshit of the the world that

we think is fake and unfortunate yeah like to have this pure life and this wild romantic story when people meet a guy like you're like oh man there probably ain't going to be many more of them I don't know, man. I mean, look at this guy, you know. The guys are to come. I feel so fortunate, too. Like, when I did come to Austin, like in my, you know, mid-20s, you know, I met guys like Joe E. Lee and Terry Allen and Guy Clark and like these Steve Earl,

legendary kind of guys that I looked up to. And I remember being young men and being like, oh, man, you know, these are the last guys left, you know? Right. And so, you know, I don't know. there's so many these young folks out there that I think crave it and that's what they're interested in they want to play that music you know they want to feel that stuff so I'm optimistic about it but I can I can definitely is a different world out there these days

and I you know even for myself you know just going with the flow and like well where are we going tomorrow you know how is this like I have no idea how so much of this social media stuff is working or what you know and how you put out an album or songs, and it's like, don't worry about all that jazz. Just like, just keep writing. Yeah. Just keep writing, keep making it and...

Just be undeniable. And at the end of the day, if all of that stuff disappears, you know, you can always go sit on the sidewalk and put your tip jar out there and play a song for people who are walking down the street, and I guarantee you there's going to be somebody that's going to stop and appreciate it, you know? Well, that's what got Charlie Crockett started out.

Yeah. Yeah. I had plenty of gigs where, like, you know, You go into some bar and the, you know, my wife always says, go where you're celebrated, not where you're tolerated, you know. You go into some bar and they kind of, you can tell they don't really want, you know, they're not excited about you playing or whatever. Like, yeah, shit, I'll just go, I'll go parking the parking lot across the street

and sit on the tailgate in my truck and play and we'll have a party over there, you know? Yeah. That is the crazy thing about music. Yeah. You can just kind of set up anywhere. You don't need all that. So you're like talking about signing contracts and deals and all that. It's like, man, just like you got that.

guitar in your hand you got your song you know hold on to it yeah and protect it you know that's what's something that's that's special to you i think when i talk about the therapy of song rang or i said that's what i hold on and protect that ruthlessly you know i'm i'm not just giving that away you know and that's more that part of it's way more important than uh selling an album or a concert ticket or going on the road touring and all that man like i What I get out of music is like where I'm sitting at home in a room all by myself and letting that stuff pour out of me. I'm just singing it to the wall.

Like, that's what to save my life, you know? That's awesome. And ain't any of the rest of it. I'm glad that you articulate it that way too because I think there's young, aspiring songwriters and singers out there that are listening to this right now, that are feeling this and they just can't wait to get to a pad right now and start writing. You can pick up their guitar and start writing.

because it's like stories like yours and the way you express it it inspires people to get excited about it inspires people to really dig in i hope so you know i definitely had folks that mentored me like that and you know steered me in the right direction in a lot of ways uh terry allen the guy definitely i've just like man just keep writing keep you know and whatever it whatever that's making you want to do that in the first place you know like that like hold on to that you know and protect it and and the rest will all be always be around and it'll always come and it'll change and a good song will survive and find its way just like the guy you know that song you just like you said 200 million people here and it just they'll find its way you know yeah find it

they'll find it find it's way into people's hearts you know yeah and like i said it's just it's important for people like you to tell your story it really is thank you it's it's fuel for people Thank you for being here I really appreciate it It was a lot of fun I really enjoyed it And tell everybody They want to find you

Performing anywhere Where they can catch you You got a website That shows where you're gonna be at All over the inner webs Yeah it's all out there Is it do you have your own personal website I do

It's probably just Ryan Bingham.com Or Bingham Music.com Something like that All the dates are up there Do you use social media at all? Yeah we're on all this I mean, all the stuff. Do you pay attention to it or you got somebody who does it for you?

Both. Yeah? We both, yeah. Like, mostly like on Instagram, I pay attention to that one, you know, and check in and stuff like that. There's so much of it these days, I'm like, I can't keep up. Yeah, you can't keep up. It'll rob your time. Yeah.

I'm trying to go get away where all that stuff's turned off. That's where I'll go find me. Beautiful. All right. Thanks, brother. Appreciate it. It was a lot of fun. Thank you.

I appreciate it. Bye, buddy.