The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan - Producer/Musician Shooter Jennings | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

Producer/musician Shooter Jennings joins Billy Corgan on The Magnificent Others to trace his unconventional path from recording artist to acclaimed producer.Shooter discusses his disastrous Rick Rubin showcase, jamming with the band that became Velvet Revolver and producing Tanya Tucker, Charley Crockett and Brandi Carlile. He also recounts restoring a vault of unreleased Waylon Jennings recordings for Songbird and Diamonds, while reflecting on the musical legacy of his mother, Jessi Colter.Billy and Shooter debate AI, the disappearance of classic albums, and the importance of preserving the human element in music—before veering into Art Bell, ancient aliens, and dinosaur skepticism.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I pour, like, water on top of my head because I think I'm being rock and roll, and I fling my hair around, and I jump off the drum riser and immediately slip in the pool of water that I've just created below my feet. You couldn't get signed to save your life no matter what you try. Oh, music is subjective and objective. I listen to Stargunt. Oh, no, gosh, you're going to undo some of your good music knowledge by listening to that stuff. I mean, yes, your dad, yes, your mom, yes music.

But let's talk about what really matters. Art Bell. I'm sure a million people on the Internet are going to scream at me over this. in my ignorance, but I don't care. And so I'm going to go home, you know, a couple days a couple of times. Yeah. Shooter, Jennings, so good to see you.

It's so nice to be here. I was watching a clip this morning because I'm a whaling guy. I keep getting recommended these clips, and it was a clip I'd never seen before where it's your dad sitting playing acoustic and he's doing way more blues. Yeah, and your mom's sitting there. Yeah, but Jack Clement's studio where they did that.

It's kind of, I don't know what the context is. So, but, but he kind of's playing the song and your mom's kind of almost talking, commenting. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I, I enjoyed it because I, because it's your dad, but, but also it's like, it was cool to see the interaction of your parents. Yeah, and he says that I was tripling when I met her and I'm tripling again. And, you know, he says poetic license or something.

Yeah, she goes, you're going to need a lot of, you're going to need a lot of poetic license. Yeah. Yeah, that was the great Jack Clement who produced the album that that was on, Dreaming My Dreams. like he had a film studio also, and he was really into filming stuff. And I think there were a couple specials and things he made that never came out until later. But he definitely made like a whole special on himself

that I think you can find, or Jack Clement on the internet. But that's what that's from. And yeah, they had a cool relationship like that. Like he knew he'd write something that she'd get mad about and that she'd kind of laugh at him, which would be worse than being mad. Yeah, there's a,

because I do want to talk about both your parents, but there's this bit in the book where your dad's talking about his, his excesses in life, particularly as it pertains to drugs. Right. And he basically says, I don't know how she did it, but my wife,

meaning your mother, Jesse, she just didn't judge me. Yeah. He's almost like talking like it blew his mind. Yeah. That he could have a woman that just didn't judge him. Yeah.

It wasn't, you know, I mean, I've read the book. I have my experience. is with my mom and dad and the stories that my mom in my mom's book and stuff. But like, they really had,

I think that's how they made it, you know, because like she always said, you know, if we had to wait 10 years to get married, it would have been a little smoother in the beginning, you know, because I think he just wasn't ready to settle down. And she was kind of willing to kind of not, you know, this is a thing that when people die,

people like to, like, talk for them on the internet. Like, and I remember someone made some post about Waylon, I think it might have been Charlie, and somebody's comment was about like, well, he didn't treat Jesse that good. It's like, man, you weren't there. You have no idea what you're talking about. And in their relationship,

it wasn't like she let him walk all over. You know, she just understood, she understood the type of guy was, understood that if she tried to, like, build the walls around him, he was going to fly, you know? So I think she understood that she had to kind of let him be himself and figure out his way in life before she could kind of like make him,

behave a certain way. And that was a love thing and she had faith. And so that was, she was religious through a lot of it. And I think that really kind of gave her a separate kind of strength in a way. There's a,

there's a through line that I get from listening to your father sing, particularly when he sings about women. And obviously, you know, you're a singer, I'm a singer. Not everything we're singing is autobiographical. Right. But I always get this sense

that he had a, he had a deep understanding of love. I don't know how to phrase it other than that. Yeah. Like when he sings about love, I believe him. Yeah. There's, it, you know, it's Charlie Crockett and I talk about this a lot because the kind of concept of what a cowboy singer is is kind of different that because, you know, you have these guys that didn't really, they weren't cowboys, but they dress like that. Because they're heroes were the TV cowboys, you know, and the book cowboys, you know, and the stories of the old times.

So there was something about the masculinity and sensitivity of a cowboy. If you read like Louis Lamar books or like Larry McMurtry books, and they paint these portraits of these kind of men that are living out and living by themselves on their own, you know, kind of outside of society and slower than society a little bit. And I think there was a romance to that. And there was a, in country music, there was just so much in the songs at the time. And, you know, there was nothing cooler than hearing Willie or Waylon or Merle sing this, like, beautiful, like, tender, vulnerable love song. It was, like, the most manly thing in the world in a weird way.

Yeah, that's kind of what I'm after, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think it's a big part of what is missing in a lot of country now. And, you know, is that kind of, like, tender, masculine juxtaposition, you know? Yeah, well, it's also particular to that generation because, you know, the, the, the, the, the, baby boomer generation or I guess the post war your dad was born what year I wish 37 okay so he at least he grew up in that in that he wasn't a baby boomer baby but he grew up in that yeah at least what I saw and you're a decade younger than me plus um those guys that came out of that

era they were really shut down yeah there was a lot of alcohol going on because they just whether it was the war or whatever had gone on with the great depression or whatever there just a lot of shut down men. Yeah. I remember being in a lot of rooms where it was like, like, you had no idea what was going on in there. Right. And now that I'm an adult and I have kids, I think like, wow, they must have been going through a lot of, but they didn't show any of it. Yeah. It was this stoic. You're right. That's like it was really a way of being. Yes. And you were expected to suck it up or be tough or whatever. Yeah. So the idea of a man's man sort of open in his heart, there's a sort of poignancy there, but it's also, it's also, maybe we don't have it

anymore because everybody just talks about their feelings all the time. But back then talking about your feelings was sort of pooh-poohed as I said. Yeah, that's such an interesting point, you know, because, you know, my dad and I, like, had a great relationship, but my mom talks about me as a father all the time and says, like, you know, your dad, because I'm, I was just very hands-on, You know, I'm kind of a big kid that never grew up, so I kind of just played with my kids, like, for, you know, their whole childhoods. And she was just always like, you know, he could never do that because it was just he didn't come from that. He didn't come from like, but he did engage a lot with me, so I didn't always quite feel that way. But, of course, maybe he wasn't crawling around on the ground playing G.I. Joe every day with me.

Yeah. But at the same time, you know, that they just, they came, like you said, they came from a different time. And their parents were like these incredibly strong people that, like, worked all. You know, like my dad was like sharecroppers. Like, and they would just live in the house they were given that had dirt on the floor. Yeah. And six of them in there and, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you and I, in private, have talked about it. And I think this is why we have sort of at least a certain understanding with each other because both musician fathers. Yeah. Both had their wild kind of crazy times. Both came from that other world, whatever that world was. Yeah. It's long gone now.

Yeah. And this idea of sort of trying to find some emotional connection when we're sensitive. people. Yeah. And trying to figure that through line back through our parents. Yeah, it's, it is interesting. It is interesting because, you know, we grew up in a world that was much more open than theirs was. And also, we grew up in a world in which we had television, you know, and we had these communication systems that were in our houses that changed the way people saw the world. Well, it might even surprise you because, again, you're a bit younger, but like when I first started talking about what I was talking about in my

music in the early 90s, I was attacked for being overly sensitive. Wow. Really? Yeah. Like, in what way? Why are you talking about things like child abuse or why are you talking about things like violence in the home or why are you talking about? Wow. Is that such a strength to your music? Yes, but it was at the time it was perceived as sort of almost exploitative. Wow. Or overly raw, especially coming from a male. Right. That's kind of, that's wild. That's wild. In fact, to this day, sorry, but to this day, the most vehement attacks I get in, let's call it, digital life are usually from emasculated men who have a problem with being an emotional male. Wow. Wow. That says a lot. But they also never seem to leave. Right. They're sort of obsessed

with the idea of a man who's an alpha male in life, you know what I mean? Yeah. But can talk about things that are uncomfortable. And that seems to ignite some sort of inner, I call it beta male. It's like a beta male struggle. I mean, that makes sense. I mean, honestly, I mean, that's funny that you get, you still get any kind of pushback. Oh, still, yeah. I feel like, I feel like, less so, but still, yeah. Yeah. Sorry, I got off on a digression. No, it's, it's interesting to me, because culturally, you know, the masculine role has been a kind of a weird spot for a while. So I think a lot of people don't know. When you raise kids for 30, 40 years and tell them that just the act of masculinity is in and of itself toxic.

Right. You're inviting. Like, let's say that's even true, which I don't necessarily agree. But let's say it's true. And we all have known our toxic males, and I'm sure, I don't want to speak for you. I've certainly engaged in my own version of toxicity. Oh, yeah. Sure.

Sure. But the point is, is even if that's true, that's half the population of the world. Right. Like, what are you supposed to do with that? In essence, if you believe that masculinity is in and of itself toxic, well, I think you need to give it, let's, the withdrawal of masculine power in the arts, for example, it should be replaced by something. Right. Weakness is not replacement. Right.

You know, by saying you need to be lesser than in order to, like, do something else. I think that's sort of counterintuitive. Of course. And as parents, right, you want to give your kids healthy advice and life examples. You're happily married, so you're showing. your kids, this is love, this is, we're in this holy covenant, you know what I mean? Yeah, man, it's so true. I mean, I think it's so important for, for, you know, kids now to have that kind of example in their life because there's so much on the internet.

It's like, that's the thing that's so crazy about it. I mean, that's a whole other conversation, but, but like the exposure to so much at such an early age, even myself, like, when I walk, like I find myself trying to solve like five or six different things that I need to do on my phone, like while I'm like walking my dog while I'm doing something and then I'm like not paying attention or I'm not. I'm like, did he pay? Like I'm not, do you know what I mean? That's, I mean, it's a trivial thing, but it's like, like I find me thinking about all of the things that I've been absorbing on the internet or on the phone or through culture or that people are talking about over the last day or two. And it gets me into a frantic spot.

And I thought this morning about that. And I go like, man, I can't imagine from birth getting this much information. At least you remember what it used to be like. Yeah. For our kids, they only know the one year. We're like almost the last. Yeah, we're the last. Yeah, we're the last.

And there's still a third album to come, but like, where were the tapes, like, physically, were they in? In our house that I grew up in, in Nashville, there was a locked room that was always locked that had, like, his guitars and from the road. And it had just lots of stuff. And kids weren't supposed to be messed around there. So anytime that I'd go in there, you know, there was a whole wall that had been had, like, cubby holes of made built that had reels of tape in them, you know, just like tons of them. and rows and rows of them. And, you know, I think there was a point in time

where he wasn't allowed to book his own sessions with the people he wanted, let alone take the tape home all the way until, like, he, 1975. Wow, that late. Yeah, it was right.

Once he won this, like, battle, he cut the, 1974, he cut the album this time. And it was basically the label giving him enough rope to hang himself with and ended up being his first number one hit and a big record.

And he had cut that independently. And him doing that caused all these contracts to go void because nobody was supposed to be working not with the producers and engineers that RCA had in the studios. And they kind of thought he was going to fall in his face so it wouldn't cause any problems. And it became big. And then everybody wanted that freedom and they got it and all this. But, you know, once he got that, once he won that battle, he started. he started recording, he rented studios year round

and started recording and the tapes came home, you know, and he would decide what went on a record at the last moment and when he was putting it together and he'd make a transfer tape and give that to the label but keep whatever he didn't use at home. So when 2008, he died in 2002, in 2008, some folks from his band, Richie Albright, who was his drummer,

and a few other guys who had their own stashes of tapes, too, from the years. They kind of pooled it all together and digitized it with Iron Mountain. So I've had it. I've had it on drives. At first, it was 10 firewire drives that were like this big, and now we got it down to like a raid array. And so I had that on my shelf, but I just didn't really have the equipment or time to go through it, you know. Was it hard for you even with your father passing?

Is it hard to get into just even emotionally? No, I was excited. You know, I had opened it once, just briefly to glance in there and saw that none of it was labeled. So it was just like, so I was like, oh, no, this is going to be a big undertaking. But immediately when I opened it up, I found something pretty cool. And so I knew it was there. It was just kind of like, what do I do? I'd like to just kind of get a bird's eye view of what I have.

And it turned out I had a month. I moved into the studio at Sunset, and I had a month free. And during that month, I was like, let's do it. like somebody canceled a whole month's record. And instead of worrying, I just said, well, we're going to use it to do this. And we dived in it. It took a whole month.

And with Nate Hazley, who was an assistant with me, and we both were going through it and just figuring out what it was. And then once we had a list of it, I went through it a couple more times and re-familiarized myself with what it was. Yeah, so Songbird was the first one that came out. Songbird. Songbird was the first one that came out last year, and Diamonds comes out in November.

Of 2026 as we talk, yeah. as we talk, yeah. Yeah, so just the singles out, which is the song Diamond's. The Song Diamond says Glenn Campbell on guitar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's so interesting because your dad's such a supreme artist. It's like getting like another Picasso or something, you know what I mean?

Yeah, especially because it's that period where he was like on top of the world. Yeah. It really, it was wild. Like the song, Songbird and the cover of Leon Russell, she smiles like a river, were the first two things that I found when I opened it up. And I was like, like, whoa, like, and they were like done, you know, they had all the backgrounds on them and everything. I was just like, what would you peg the years on? Because there's like somewhere in there, like, he gets this thing where it's like everything sounds finished as soon as he opens his mouth.

Yeah. Yeah. It gets that thing where it's like he's so on point. Yeah, and the band too. You watch live recordings. He's just on a roll, like, whatever that is. He's on that, like, crazy role. It is, you know, that's this period and it's wild because if you, it's really 74, like this time sounds a little different because they cut that at Tompaw glazers and Willie co-produced it.

But once you get past that and you get into 1975, which is like, I've always been crazy and it goes all the way. Like these tapes, these tapes go further than this, but the bulk of them are like 74 to like 82. You know, that's kind of the period where he was constantly running a studio, constantly recording. And then maybe it goes a little further. And then Richie and him split up for a while. Richie took a break. And when that happened, it starts being a little more scattered and disparate, you know, in there. But that period where they were really all the band guys, Ralph Mooney, Richie, they were just on fire.

And they could really cut any song. and it just sounded great. And it was what they were doing. Yeah. So it's, it doesn't feel listening. It doesn't feel like, you know, scraping some bottom of some barrel. Right. Yeah.

It's like, like, like treasure or something. Yeah, it was, it was like that. Going home every day, I would just bring him to my wife, Misty, I'd be like, man, today I found this and you'll never believe it. I found this crazy song with like Glenn Campbell on it. And like, it just, it felt like I was in like a musical DaVinci code or something, you know, and as I would, there was, lot of mysteries. You know, I wouldn't

be able to find. I had documentation. I had some documentation. And I, but it was hard to figure things out. In fact, one thing I didn't figure out until, uh, until I put out a billboard with the lyrics to this song, I did not know Johnny Rodriguez wrote it. I thought it had to be an original or something. I see. And then I, and then when I, we put up a billboard in Littlefield with the first line of it, some press article goes, it was the first line of,

John Rodriguez is a cowboy, and I was like, it's not on the internet. Like, I had to find it. Oh, you couldn't find it. There's one on YouTube from weird vinyl transfer or something, but I didn't, couldn't find it at first. Oh, wow. This might be a bridge too far, but you take it how you want. My father passed away maybe like, I guess it about four years ago now, something like that. And there's not a lot of ways I could honor my father.

You know, I mean, there's obviously the memory of things, and I could say things. But it's like, there's nothing I could physically. do. Right. So this seems to me the act of doing this is a really beautiful way of you honoring your dad. I appreciate you saying that. I mean, it definitely is that. Like, I definitely am so proud of his legacy and just the guy he was and knowing, you know, the older I get and the more people I've met, and I see their family dynamics, I can really appreciate, you know, how open he was. So there's definitely, the big part of it is, is me wanting to honor him. And knowing that, like, he kind of had a rough ride on the way out, like, you know, he didn't live long enough to have, like,

what kind of cash had in a way and all that. He certainly deserved it. Right. I mean, I felt, you know, they were all kind of lost in that period. Like, he was, you know, going to indie record label to indie record label and stuff. And same with Willie and Cash for a minute, like in the 80s, you know, and all that. So, you know, he always kind of wanted, like, one last ride or something. Who doesn't, yeah.

Yeah, right. That's what they all say. Sure. But going in there and seeing it, you know, my intention when I did it, I didn't think I was going to be able to have all this material. I just thought my idea was maybe I'd find one or two new songs and I'd find some like alternate versions or alternate takes that I could throw together and make just a cool, like, make it feel like you're in the studio kind of vibe, you know.

But then once I saw how much great stuff there was, I was like, oh, this is going to be great. This is going to be really fun. And I knew there'd be some older fans that have been there. from the beginning that would be just like there's three more years. I'm going to stay alive for three more years for this. You know, like they would just feel excited about it. Yeah.

This might be a nerd question, but I thought it would be interesting to ask you because you've become such an accomplished producer. Thanks, man. And it's hard because he's your dad. But break your dad down as an artist. If we were just talking about your dad, like, as people who produce. records, right? Yeah. Like, just break your dad down as an artist. I'm kind of curious for your take on him as an artist. That's really interesting because, you know, like knowing and personally

kind of changes the perception, but, you know, he was very much in real life like a little kid. Like, when he was excited about a song, like, he didn't, he didn't walk around and, like, sit, sit me down and play me songs if he is or anything like that. Like, he was really into listening to other people's music, I think. If he found a song he liked, he would listen to it over and over and over and over again. And, you know, one of those was, my name is Mud by Primus. Like, he loved it.

Yeah, and another one was the smuggler's blues by Glenn Fry. You know, that he just played over and over and over, just couldn't get enough of it, you know. So he had a kind of reaction to music like, I think that was from his childhood that he retouched, that he retained the whole way through, where something just excited him. Like, you know, I remember when he loved dire straits,

when on every street came out, when the album came out, he was very excited, and he wanted me to hear the record. He wouldn't play it for him. There was a song called The Bug he loved on there. And then, like, he would, you know, so his vision of music was that of, like, a conceptualist, I think. That's interesting. Someone who, like, gets an idea.

and then wants to create it, as opposed to someone who just, like, sits and writes a song every day or, like, maybe meticulously plots out that. He would get an idea. He described it in his book, like, you know, a lot of people do. Like, you're kind of tuning into a different radio station, and some days it's there, some days it's not. But when you get an idea, they, like, you can bring it to fruition.

And, you know, a good example of this is there was a book, a short story called The Old Timer, and I wish I knew the guy who wrote it, but I don't. But my dad loved this little book. It was only about that thick, and he loved it so much that he bought it for everybody for Christmas. He did the same thing with one Christmas for the, with the Jesco, the dancing outlaw, you know, that guy?

The wonderful whites of West Virginia, you've never seen that? Oh, my Lord, dude, this is a Pandora's box to open for you. Guy who thinks he's Elvis and he dances. Anyway, that's a whole other thing that will blow your mind. But anyway, so there was a videotape of Jesco that he sent to everybody for Christmas. And this little book, he just loved this story about an old man who was in love with this younger woman, but he watched her live her life and just kind of watched her from far, form under land and all this, but never got to be with her, but was just always in love with her.

And so he ended up turning around and writing that into the song. And on one of these albums, the way he did it was so interesting. He made it go from like a waltz to like a straight time thing, and forth and and you know it was he was so interested in figuring out a way to tell that story lyrically and you know but and musically but it all came at the same time to him it was ideas and it was music and the buddy holly thing excited him you know the energy music cited him he wasn't just a songwriter it was all of it you know yeah but it's hard to break him down though i don't know if i can properly do that but i think with him i always start with the voice yeah oh yeah i mean his

I told you when we got to know each other a little bit that I was pretty late to hear your dad. I kept hearing about, because my father didn't like country music because he associated with the world that he grew up in. Right. Hit kick redneck music. Right, yeah. So I just had a natural allergy to country music thinking, like, well, if my dad doesn't like, there's a good reason. Right. So I came very late to country music.

And then, of course, you know, when you start getting into it, everyone's like, oh, you got to listen to this, you got to listen to that. And your dad was always one of those names that you'd always hear. Right. Because I didn't grow up with country music, it just didn't get it. You know, like to a guy listening to Sabbath or something, it's like, you know. I felt the same way, man. I mean, I grew up on MTV. I loved his music.

I was familiar with that. Yeah. But the other music that I heard in the world of country music was totally different than that. Yeah. So, but it to, and I'm certainly, you know, historian. But, like, once you understand, like, the Farron Youngs and the Carl Smiths and, you know, you know, like the people that your dad were influenced by, including obviously rock and roll from the one side and all that. Once you start to understand his place in it, and then you see how cool he is even in this genre that doesn't necessarily have a lot of cool associating with it.

Right, right. Yeah, that's so true. I was just talking about that yesterday because it's like there really wasn't a cool factor. I mean, because Hank Williams was not cool. He was interesting. Oh, he was straight up. He was straight up here. Yeah. America, he was straight up hick. And he was probably a hick, you know what I mean? Yeah, it was like he wore that like a flag, yeah. Yeah, and so for it to be, you know, for there to be this kind of natural, I'm sorry, national cultural moment where like rock and roll and rock and roll was paying attention to

country and all that was was kind of the first time, you know. So I understand because like, country's such an odd genre because you can have Wayland and then six years later have like Garth Brooks flying from the. from the ceilings, and it's like a totally different type of music. And back then, when Garth Brooks came out, you were like, this is pop, this is sacrilegious, this is nothing, you know, and now you listen to him, and he's so far, like, the Overton window of pop country has moved so far that he's like a traditionalist,

you know. Yeah, I look back with your dad, like, when he, you know, he'd cover, like, Dylan or something. Like, he had it, he was showing even early on when he was still in that kind of controlled studio record company system. Yeah. He was like, I'm just going to do it. do it my way. I'm going to walk the way I want to walk, look the way I want to look. His vibe was always

like, I'm my own animal. He really was. And he also, you know, and he was always sneaking it in because they would, you know, they wanted to do this song and this song and this song. He'd be like, well, can I do the Dylan song or can I do my song or whatever? You know, and that whole thing was, Nashville was just crazy back then. It was such a club that you really could not operate outside of it unless you were in L.A. or New York, But once you got inside of Nashville, it was like controlled. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of still like that in his own weird way. Oh, yeah, it changes, but it's still the same. So can you talk about some of your early awareness of growing up in a musical family?

Yeah. You know, because your mom was successful, too. So it's, you know. Yeah, and they're both on the road singing together. So it was like when I was really little, I was traveling with them. So I was kind of growing up in the bus. Tour bus. Tour bus and all that stuff.

And, you know, And then once I- I- Stop you real quick, because this is my understanding. This is, at least this is the way it used to be. It was like,

they would tour like three, four days a week, and then you'd be home back in Nashville, right? Is that- Yes. I mean, when I was really young, there was some Wayland and Willie tours

going on that were like longer. Yeah. And there was the first highwayman when I was like four, which was like Germany and like they went all this over there. That was sweet. Which I went with them for that.

And actually the Berlin Wall was still up. And I remember seeing that. was a little kid, but I was very little. I was scared to death because they brought dogs on the on the bus, and I didn't understand why they were like three dogs on the bus and all this stuff, you know. But, um, but yeah, like I grew up on the bus, really, uh, and on the road, in hotels. Um, when we were in Nashville, the normal Nashville routine would be like you'd leave on Wednesday or Thursday, play through the weekend, come back.

And you're back home Monday morning. Right. And he'd go in the studio, right? But, you know, doing that, I was aware, but I kind of wasn't aware of what everybody else was like. Like, I kind of was there that until I got to, like, regular school. I was in kindergarten, you know, my dad used to tell the story because there was a kid named Cliff, and I went over to this kid's house in, like, first grade or something, or maybe even kindergarten. And his dad was a doctor.

So when my dad came to pick me up, he said, hello, Dr. Jennings, because he thought everybody's dad was a doctor, you know. So it was kind of like that in a weird way, you know. But it was interesting because like real kids were fine, but they were mean. I was like, oh, people are really mean outside of the like kind of musician-y circles, you know what I mean? It was like when you go to, I went to like one school that was pretty, it was like a private school in Nashville. And actually like looking back on it was a fairly, it was a good experience. But there were some kids that were real pieces of shit in this class, you know, picking it. Aiming right at me.

Because I didn't understand, like, Nashville was, like, very old money. It's like Belmead. It's like this generational wealth. And we were, like, like, poor people who got money. This is probably a discussion that we have not here. But, like, you know, there's that old Illuminati money in Nashville. Oh, yeah. Why do you think they built that Parthenon thing in Nashville?

Dude, yeah, the Parthenon is wild. See? Yeah. Exactly what I see. I know. I know we should talk about that. But, yeah, it's like, you know. So that's weird, because like Memphis, too, there's that old money that's still kind of there.

Yeah. Yeah, it's there. And it's weird. It's like a weird energy to it, the people who are part of those families. Yeah. You know, there were some wonderful kids, but there were a few where I was getting to understand that. I didn't understand how those dynamics worked. And, you know, I, you know how it is.

But, but like, either way, you know, once I kind of got into school, I really kind of could kind of understand. how all of this worked. And, you know, I actually kind of, after a while, he would take me on the road every summer. And I think by the time I got to about 16, I was like, can I stay home? I was like, can I have a girlfriend? I was like, kind of had a band, you know,

and I kind of just did not want to go back on the road, you know? But I did enjoy it, man. When I was like, my favorite thing to do is we'd pull up into town and me and my friend, who was my dad's steel player Robbie Turner's son, we would go find a record store and go buy your records or go buy records just based on the album cover, You know, like that was a lot of time to be alive.

Yeah. Hoping record store in every town. But did you, did you, did you grow up loving the atmosphere of music or like? Yes, I did. Because you have a life in music now. That's pretty obvious. As a kid, I didn't really start, I started playing drums when I was young and was probably, I was your drumming.

Man, now I tell you, all of this is great is good. My foot is what, I've never been pleased with my foot. I just feel like I can never get. the swing in pocket and there's just much better players. But I do love playing some drums just for fun, you know. But I did that and took piano and stuff, but I didn't really think I was going to play music. I thought I would be maybe more into art.

I was really infatuated by cell animation process at a young age. I wanted to learn how to do cell animation and all that before computers, you know. But at one point, around 13 and 14, around the time I start buying records. and I start really watching MTV, and I'm watching it all the time, and watching every band, and doing all that. That's all I wanted to do. I was like, that's the road.

That's the road. I think the MTV gave me my road because I never felt, I love country music now, but there I didn't feel like it belonged in that town. And there weren't any cool rock bands. I mean, there was literally like BR 5449, which is pretty cool,

hanging around, burgeoning Hank 3, which they were all in the kind of different scene that I was. And there was like the Scream and Cheetah Wheelys and Jason and the scorchers, which were pretty cool bands. But I remember being like, but out in L.A. is where all those people live. Yeah. New York, you know, that felt like the place you got to go. Yeah.

Even like in Chicago, we kept being told you can have to get out if you want to do anything. Right. It could never happen in Chicago. Like so much history in Chicago with music. That's so crazy. But at that point, the Chicago music thing had kind of fallen into a weird roof. There was the wax tracks thing happened in which was kind of cool.

Well, that was interesting. That's the one thing that you can look back and see if there was really something important going on. But at the time, it was just, it seemed local. Yeah, yeah. You know, you'd see Al Juergenson in the bar looking like Satan. In fact, not too long ago, Al and his wife reached out. They were doing like a ministry book and they said, can you share a story or something for this book? Wow, I love that, man.

And I told a story about how it was in this bar one time and I was tripping my brains out on LSD. and I had gone into this corner to kind of hide because I was just so overwhelmed. And I looked, I felt this like presence, you know, like somebody's standing there. They're just ordering a drink or whatever. And I looked up and it was Al when he looked like Satan. Oh, man.

I mean, I thought, I was like, I knew it was Al. Right. And I was like, oh, my God, he really is Satan. Oh, no. What a crazy. Had you met him before him? No, never met him. I was a fan, so I knew who he was.

You're tripping when he walks up. Oh, my God. I don't know what I would do. You look up. and there's like flashing lights and it's like Al looks like Satan. Yeah. And you want you to think he's Satan, you know what I mean? And I'd seen them before when he had like the slick back blonde hair.

Wow. Yeah. So I was aware of the evolution because I've been sort of following. Yeah. You know what I mean? Man, I loved that. But Al was like, you know, Chicago had like, you know, a couple local legends. Right.

We had a, we had a fake Bootsie Collins. Really? Yeah, we had a guy who walked around town and told everyone he was Bootsie Collins, but he was a fake Bootsie Collins. Wow. That's incredible. Buddy, Buddy Miles lived in Chicago. Right. Jimmy Hendricks, former drummer and obviously a great solo artist.

So Buddy was around. He did like a kind of every Tuesday night. He had kind of like a jam session, probably to make some bread. And that was kind of it. Everybody else would get out. Wow. So there really was, and everybody else was like, you know, like how local scenes can be would like, like, it was all inward facing. Right.

Yeah. And we were so different. We were treated like we weren't from Chicago, which was weird because we were from Chicago. man what year did you what year did you come here first from Chicago like to play or just to be around well to play

and be around like to kind of what was your decision to leave Chicago and go I need to go find did you find your deal? No we never left you never left you were signed out of Chicago oh yeah that's so cool that's so cool so then you became one of the local legends of Chicago we were told

over and over again you'll never get signed out of Chicago I thought for some reason you got signed out of New York or L.A. or something. Well, we did in the sense that we had to come out here to get signed. But, no, they would come to see us and they kept saying it's too weird, it's too weird. We were rejected by everybody. Wow. And we were eventually, we were signed a virgin out here. Right, which was like a great label at the time. Really amazing stuff. Yeah, kind of a boutique. Richard Bramson, you know, was kind of his boutique thing. And we were sort of weird enough

for whatever. It just sort of worked. But yeah, love it. But yeah, I remember even the first time we played in Nashville, which would have been like 91. I mean, it was literally like tumbling tumbleweeds down the middle of the road. Whatever was old Nashville was gone. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it wasn't really the tourist street, wasn't really the tourist street. We were like, this is Nashville. Yeah, it was really kind of in a weird lull back then. Yeah, it was like, yeah. I remember, here's how you know, right? Because think of Nashville now. Oh, yeah. We were, we were, we were in Nashville in the early 90s. And for whatever reason I had a car or something, and we drove downtown and just parked, like, there was plenty of parking spaces. And I was like, what city in America could you just go downtown

and, like, find a parking spot? It's like, that's not Nashville. I mean, it's like a ridiculous. It's insanity. Well, they never planned for it. The roads can never expand. Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, it's unrecognizable. And it, and it's all Jack White's fault. If he hadn't moved there. Are you blaming Jack? No, I like that he'd move there because it was exciting for the town, but it's the floodgates opened at that minute, and it was like everyone started going there, and then the pandemic, like, doubled that down. Insurance isn't one-size-fits-all, and shopping for it shouldn't feel like squeezing into something that just doesn't fit. That's why drivers have enjoyed progressives' name-your-price tool for years.

With the name-your-price tool, you tell them what you want to pay, and they show you options that fit your budget. Enough hunting for discounts, trying to calculate rates and tinkering with coverages. Maybe you're picking out your very first policy, or maybe you're just looking for something that works better for you and your family. Either way, they make it simple to see your options. No guesswork, no surprises. Ready to see how easy and fun shopping for car insurance can be? Visit progressive.com and give the name your price tool a try. Take the stress out of shopping and find coverage that fits your life on your terms. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates, price and coverage match limited by

state law. Fun fact, I did not know that your mother was married to Dwayne Eddy. I learned that today. Oh, really? Yeah, I did not. No, I'm a huge Dwayne Eddy fan. I feel like we should have crossed that in our conversations about Lee Hazelwood and all that, because like, you know, yeah. Yeah, yeah, she was married. I literally have every Dwayne Eddy record. Really? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, like I have like all of them. I just love this. sound of his records. Oh, man, so do I. And I love, like, you know, it's so wild that Lee, like, had the vision for him to be this guitar player and built that tank, the original reverb chamber

thing and all, like, crazy person, but wow, just, like, created this whole genre of music that's really kind of echoed forever, you know? Have you ever heard Duane Eddy's cover of, it's a Beatles song, now I'm escaping me. He covers something like, he covers something that's kind of unexpected, like a later Beatles song. Oh, I don't think I have. Like come together or something. Really? Yeah. Oh, no. I'm going to do that. I'm going to check that up. And he's on a psychedelic label at the time, which is, I can't think of the name of the label at the time. It's like a very colorful label. What years of? Maybe it's like 67, 68. Wow. That's so cool. So he's doing Duane Eddie, but he's doing like some weird Beatles song. Like come together or something.

I've got to listen to that. I got to find it for you. Duane was always really nice to me. Like he was around a lot, you know, when I was young, his, my sister is his daughter. And my nephew's struggle. Your sister is his daughter. Yeah, my mom, my mom had a daughter, yeah, who's, but, you know, she was kin. Yeah, yeah. And her son, who's an artist named Struggle Jennings, who's out there, he's like one year younger than me. He's my nephew, but he's one year younger than me.

And he's Dwayne's grandson. So we would go to Dwayne's house. That's some Southern stuff you got going on. Yeah, oh, dude, it's Hillbilly. It's all, I got, yeah, I got a bunch of nephews that are only one you're younger than me. Yeah, that's so cool. I want to talk a little about your mom, you know, being a fanboy, you know, whenever I'm pestering about your father, we've talked about your dad. But your mom had a really cool kind of run there.

It's an interesting thing. I know she still makes music here and there, but can you, for people who would know your mom's musical life, can you kind of quantify it? Yeah, you know, what's really interesting about my mom is she. But people, it's like people who will know your mom's professional name, Jesse Colter. Jesse Coulter, yeah. She was, she, her name is Miriam, her real name, and she grew up in a church in Mesa, Arizona. Her mom was a preacher. Her father built race car engines, and she grew up playing piano in the church and

met Dwayne at one point, got married. And, like, what's funny about my mom is she gets mad at me because I never tell, I never tell anybody when I'm going to be on TV or something. Like, back when I'd play and we'd do, like, Letterman, I'd kind of forget to tell everybody. I would just, what a reason she'd get really upset with me. But she's the same way, because I'm sitting there talking to her about, I was looking at, we had so many conversations about, about Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra and Dwayne Eddie, because she has, she has all these memories of hanging out with Lee Hazelwood and hanging out with all these guys around the Dwayne years, you know. Those sessions. Yeah, those sessions and

stuff, and Phil Spector and stuff, you know. And so I was sitting there looking at Boots, and there's a song on there. It says, Miriam Eddie, written by Miriam Eddie. And I was like, Mom, you wrote a song on Nancy Sinatra's Boots album, like, by yourself? And it's totally her style. And she was like, oh, yeah. I'm like, well, you don't tell me anything either. You know what I mean?

Because she just hides all this really cool stuff. But yeah, so she, you know, she became Jesse Coulter after she got with my dad and they got married. And she started, you know, writing. And what's interesting about her is she comes to that gospel piano thing, and she knows so much country music. She grew up listening to country music, but knew so much more music and stuff through the gospel thing and through all of the musicians that would play and stuff at her church.

So she has really kind of unique feel to piano playing, and even the way she sang and sings. And it's funny because she doesn't care. Like she loves making music, but she could care less about, like, her career or like whatever. She's not in the Country Music Hall of Fame. I'm trying to get her in there, but she could care less, right?

But, yeah, she got on this run of, like, these records, and Richie Albright was producing some of it and playing on it. My dad was playing on a lot of it, and it kind of had this really unique, gospel, bouncy country thing that really complimented his thing. And she didn't want to go tour her by herself, so she would just join his show, come out and do some songs. A couple songs, yeah.

You know, and it kind of became a thing like that. But it was interesting because she had a hit before he did. I'm Not Lisa was like an AM radio pop hit. Yeah, it was out all those pop collections. When I was a kid growing up, you'd watch the 800 number, and they'd be like solid, soft gold from the 70s. And I'm Not Lisa would always be on that. But, you know, it was funny because the press asked her one time.

They were like, what do you think about being more successful than your husband? and she was like, well, I write hits. He writes standards. That was her response. And I was like, that's a good response. That's a good response. Very beautifully put. Have you ever recorded your mom?

Man, I have. At one time, I did, when I was 20, about 20 years old, this is such a random thing. But someone who was involved with the passion of the Christ reached out to my mom. and wanted her to, they were doing an accompaniment like Faith CD kind of like to go with it and asked her to come up with something. And I had already told her like, this is even before my first record. And I was like, let's record it together. We'll record it in Nashville. And I was excited to just record something.

I hadn't really ever done it like on my own. And so we went into Starstruck Studios there and kind of wrote a song on the spot. We were looking at other ones, but they were just too long and too, like, old and boring. And so we wrote this song called Please Carry Me Home on the spot and cut it together and both had verses and everything. And that was the first time I recorded her.

And then, you know, I've never gotten into an album on her. I've wanted to. I tried to at one point. It didn't come together. It was years ago. And then she did something with Don was. And then recently, she did something with Don was. And then recently she did one with Margo Price, and I mixed that, but I didn't, I didn't work on the record.

So it's hard to get her to motivate to do another album, but I, I am on her about it because I'm like. You got to get me in the mix. I'll get in her ear. Dude, I would love that. Because I listen to some recent stuff that she'd done, maybe in the last couple years. Her voice is completely intact. Yeah, she's got, she really can sing so great. Great.

Like, some people's voices don't age. Yeah. I don't know how else to put that. some people like they retain their youthful kind of sound. Yes. She's still got her voice. It's wild because she's got so much, you know, she can sing so airy and yet have like diaphragm pushing going on and it's like both sides of that.

She are still really strong. So it's like, yeah. It seems like a no-brainer. I know. I know. It's just, it's weird because it's, you know, for her to get into a music mode is like, she'll sit in play on the daily just by herself, but to get into, like thinking that way.

I've seen her do it. Like when she, the Margo record was stuff that Margo picked. And I don't think she was as motivated, but she had like a stockpile of stuff she'd written that she hadn't done anything with. But like the record she did with Don was a few years before that

or maybe about really 10 years ago, she was very motivated. She had a lot of feelings about my dad and everything and had been writing about all that. And that was kind of her expression of it. I get it, yeah. And now she's like remarried, happily remarried to this guy, Arlen, and they have like this really quiet kind of cowboy life that she likes.

And she still writes and stuff, but I think she's still living and then digesting. And I think it hasn't come out in songs yet, you know. Oh, that's interesting. Sometimes you have to kind of just live for a minute to get the songs. This might be too esoteric a question, but, you know, much is made about outlaw country. Yeah. You know. And then, you know, I think.

like you were, it was, it was a little before your time, but you sure grew up in the, in the sort of the aftermath. Right. That is such a good way of putting it. Thank you. So I guess what I would say is because every great scene, every great movement has its mythology, but people who are really interested in it really want to know, okay, well, I certainly see the positive result of that moment of time.

these personalities coming together and working together. Yeah. Like you talk about the highwaymen and like things happen. Relationships are formed. Yeah. And they're deeper, you know. There's your dad told that famous story about George Jones coming over and acting crazy. And I think tie him up.

You tied them to the couch once and a tree once. Yeah, right. So, so, exactly. So, but, but behind all the mythology, there's real people and there's real, like, there's the reality of what went on. Yes. So growing up, let's call. in the aftermath of outlaw country. Like, at least give me a little snapshot

between the mythology and the reality of those things. Man, that will, you know, there's two parts of what you're saying that are so important because that mythology takes over when they die a lot. And that's part of the why this collection and honoring him is so important to me

because at least as someone who knew him who's still alive, I can kind of try and paint him the way I knew him, you know, because he wasn't a, rough and rowdy kind of character like you would think when I, when it, a different period in time he was, but like by the time I was

you know, four or five years old, he had stopped. The only thing he did was was, he didn't drink. He was, didn't even know how to drink. Like our liquor cabinet was pathetic, but like he you know, it was on amphetamines and was on pills before that

and had had years of really kind of being charged. And, you Yeah, I think there's a reason, you know, that that stuff was actually necessary. He was, you know, ashamed of it when I was little because he was afraid somebody at school would tell me about his notorious habit or whatever. But I never, it never affected me as a kid or anything. But a lot of times that stuff takes over. And all you have is people on the Internet and what they say about him, you know, who didn't know him. So a lot in this, in this, going through this material, one thing that I saw that was so real about it was that it was really,

all about the music. Like, there was no tough guy bits in all of this. There was no, like, you know, material that was anything, but just kind of really kind of real music. Like, the fact that the Fleetwood Mac Choir, a song that he chooses to do is Chrissy McVeehie's song at the end of the album, you know, Songbird, as opposed to, like, something that would be more manly

or more, like, expected of him to do, you know? Yeah. So there's a side of that, which unfortunately happens, after they go away and it kind of gets washed, like the actual person gets washed away. But to answer your question, like growing up, see, I remember, I remember Cash, Willie, Christopherson being around vividly,

you know, in different parts. Like, Willie, I remember when he came over to my house one time and we were in Nashville and he was in the basement letting me play with his pigtails, he was under the table. Like he was like, he would get, like get stone and then go play with me and he'd be really nice you know and and and uh and so i remember him being feeling always kind of warm or whatever and and cash was also the same way at one point i

my dad my godfather was uh his manager and they had a fallen out and he let me pick another godfather which was kind of interesting thing and i picked cash and so like cash through a roller skating party for me and all my friends and there's a picture i have in my house of them of cash my dad lacing up roller skates and my dad's smoking and And so, like, and Cash had the same thing like my dad did where, like, when he came in a room, they would, like, set the room at ease because they're intimidating big figures, but they would immediately joke or cut up with, like, a little kid or, like, a lady that's in the room or something in a way that would set everybody at ease. And then you would kind of see that they were, like, big kids. You know, Christopherson, on the other hand, was, as a little kid, like, I remember him, but getting older, he was, he was, he was. He was the one like the first father's day after my dad died. He called me, which I did not expect. And it was very nice.

And those kind of gestures throughout life, which were very, very sweet from him. You know, it's kind of interesting because I have different experiences with all of those guys. But the one thing is they were all really warm. It was all, they were all really warm and they were really brothers because they had all been through different journeys. Yeah. But come to the kind of same place and just been in each other's backyards the whole time. See, this isn't a side, but I know you love your alternative music. Oh, yeah.

Somewhere in the late 90s, early 2000s, when I saw that the business was changing. Right. I actually reached out to some of the top managers in the biz. And I said, and I use country music in an example, but also rap at the time. And I said, where they're smarter than us is they form these relationships. Maybe some are professional, obviously, I'm not in the case of the highwayman gas. But by working together as opposed to oppositionally, you can create new opportunities, new music, and new sustain. And I pitched like an alternative super tour.

Man. End of 2000. It's so smart and ahead of its time for that, but you were so right. And I remember that period of time when Brock was so like, I mean, all the way through the 90s, it was so like everybody was competing with each other. So I don't want to say any names because I sort of out of respect for everybody, but you can guess some of the names that I called. My idea was we should really try to work together because pop is coming. And just like the country guys, you know, or some of the rap guys,

if you work together, you create like maybe different musical opportunities. Right. And maybe we can create different type of musical moments that will benefit everybody. Right. And literally everybody said no. wild. Because alternative music is so based on I'm my own thing, I don't need anybody,

I'm not part of this, you know, I'm like, I'm in my own little space capsule. Right, like everybody's in their own world. Yeah, they don't collide. And, and I'm not saying I'm a genius. I'm saying is I saw where there's something that goes on, you know, all the way going back to the 60s with like duets, even like, you know,

June Carter Cash used to do duets, I think, with like red foley or, you know what I mean? Like, they would put these pairs together. Yeah, or famously Dolly and Porter Wagner. Right, right. And they would have hits. And then later, and then they go solo and then they have other hits. Yeah.

So I was like pitching this idea, you know, we should try to work together and not be so separate because how are we going to compete against pop? Yeah. And everybody told me to take a walk and pound sense. That's so crazy to me because it seems like you're seeing that came out around the time you did was so vivid with color and imagery and new sounds. And it was like the, really the last era of new sonics, I think. I don't think we've had an era of new sonics and music since then, you know. Especially from the guitar, from the point of here by the car. Yeah. Everybody was kind of

doing their own thing and it collectively added up to this mighty roar of new music. Yeah. And like, to me, like, it's that, that bonded everybody together in a way that should have been the same as like whalen and Willie and cashing those guys in terms of... Yeah, so... And what I guess I'm saying even beyond, like, it's called just the obvious capitalistic business part of it all is that, you know, I never had that. I never, you know, I'm really envious of those types of relationships.

Right. I'm not bonded with anybody and I'm... Maybe it's because they didn't want a bond with me. That's totally an acceptable reason. But I'm saying is, as I look romantically at those types of bonds. Right. Because now that I'm 59 years old, I don't have any of those bonds. Right, right. I understand that, you know, but I also think like, you know, the time, by the time that, like, the culture of the business was so much different, you know, back then because they really were, like there wasn't a successful example of them in a way and not like there wasn't either for you. But what I guess I mean is when you guys came out, the system had now been figured out.

out and geared to pitch you guys against each other. You know, back then, I don't think that any, they thought any of those people would even meet each other, you know, or would have success independently and then come together or whatever. You'd play a festival and nobody would even talk. That's so crazy. That is so crazy to me. I mean, it seems like that just seems like a bummer.

Like if we get off stage and you can't go see your friend's band. Now, there's a, there's a book that came out about Lollapalooza. I declined to participate because I could just smell a rat on the whole thing. So I declined to participate. But there's a mythological set of stories in there about me that not only are not true. They're sort of totally fabric. Really? Yeah.

But one of the stories involves Wayne from the Flaming Lips, basically saying that I used to come lurk around their dressing room and they didn't want me in their dressing room and they used to make fun of me. And it's told. And, of course, when the story came out in the book, first of all, I've never had a negative encounter with Wayne Coyne in my life. Right. Ever. Ever.

So bizarre. In fact, in the 90s, we went, I think when we were on La La Pluice, we actually went over to their house where they all lived in the same house and hung out one day. Never had a negative encounter with him in my entire life. Never an argument, never if I,

always totally pleasant exchanges. Do you think some of those guys like that might have been a little jealous of your success? I like to, there's a guy used to listen to, the internet, he's passed away now, but he used to say I'm not a mind reader. Right. But basically, I can, I can sort of, you can do certain math. Right.

Right. Yeah. And maybe jealousy is a factor in that, but I don't, put this way, even if it was, I don't care. Right. But what's so interesting, because, and I'm only telling this story, because I'm trying to get a different point, which is like, so, first of all, the story is not true, but, but, even if it was, how am I the bad guy if I'm trying to be friendly,

with people. Yeah, right. So the story's told to make fun of me that I so was desperate to like, I don't know, hang out with the indie band that's selling one 18th of the number of records I am, that I'm held up as an object of derision. This is classic alternative mindset. Right, yeah. The people who don't sell records make fun of the people who do because it's better to be

cool than to tend to be popular. Right. It's better to write one hit than 40. that's right i mean in the culture of like oh their first album is their best album oh i still get that yeah it's like that that didn't exist in country like that's that's kind of what i'm trying to say maybe for maybe in the case of the people were talking about maybe men who grew up in a system that was highly capitalistic right they had survived it had changed the business and found a a brotherhood that was above the stupidity of the whole thing right maybe which is like we're singing real songs for

real people. That would track with a lot of hip hop too, you know, because a lot of... That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's like, because they had, out of adversity, they, they were united when they came out of the scene. That's, you know, one example I make sometimes is, you know, UFC lifted the, the promotional model of wrestling. Right. Right. I'm going to beat you up. You're going to beat me. And they lifted a whole cloth. And for many years, wrestling had a hard time responding because UFC stole the heat of wrestling. Right. Right. And basically, glomboats. prompted on to something that's real, a true physical fight, not a stage contest. Right. Alternative music was slow to understand that once the world went pop,

these old value systems of like, you know, I'm my little artist in my little bubble, doesn't mean anything. Right. And since you've seen the collapse of the gatekeeper class, the pitchforks of the world, those people don't really know how to compete. Yeah. And saying my album's cooler than your album. Right. That's such a good way of putting it. I mean, and especially with the, with, you know, the internet. and the just millions of, it's just like the reason why everyone is clawing and dying to have their, their song on a commercial when it would, it was the ultimate sin in back in the day.

They had like a Coca-Cola commercial. But now it's like, well, it's the only way to make money, so this is how we got to do it. Well, that's the, they flip. In fact, Pitchfork started writing articles how it was okay that they were doing it now because it was the only way they could get money. Yeah, how right? Oh, yeah. I'm sure they have a paywall and a half and they have a politically motivated content. Back to your pop for a second.

So I remember reading his book and correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember him saying, you know, I knew I had to quit. I was doing a lot of, it was blowing a lot of money, but man, I sure love something like that, right? Am I right? Yeah. He was kind of like, I sure loved it, though. Yeah, oh, yeah, he'll still talk. He would talk about it like that.

He wouldn't go to like how he didn't. Yeah. And I have that right, right? Yes, yeah. I mean, absolutely. I mean, he didn't look at any. You know, it was really wild about him. I mean, he was, he was proud of himself for kicking it.

He would get mad at the other guys if anybody claimed to be sober. And he knew they kind of weren't totally sober, you know, because he'd be like, hey, like, I'm over here not having any fun. But, but yeah, I think there was a, there was a certain part of the, you know, I had a, there was a guy and he's unfortunately not involved with it anymore. He was a fantastic writer and we were working on a script for like a bio-opic. Oh, you told me about that. Yeah. Yeah. He had a really interesting take on the drugs. And it was like, he's like, you know.

He's like after the Buddy Holly thing, you got to imagine. This is a dude who believes he's a dead man walking. Like he shouldn't be alive. And this whole thing has affected him so dramatically. And then he goes into this system where he's like, you know, fighting against something. And it's like in a weird way, like all the drugs was like an almost like a necessary armor for him to kind of do what he needed to do to get through all of that. Yeah. Because like, had he not, he's a what a drinker think that would have been a bad mix.

But, you know, just it was how he was how he. plowed through as he did uppers and just people would say, you know, there's engineers that say, and I'm not making excuses, but I heard this many times, and their engineers say, the more he did, the better he sounded. It said, we'd never worked with anyone where it was like that, but I was like, wow. I wonder what that was. Yeah.

I need some of that. Yeah. Whatever that was. So you catch the music bug kind of in your teens, like you said. Yeah. When did it become, okay, I want to be a musician. I want to like, I'm... Oh, I tried to start my first band with a friend when I was like 14. And then... What was the name of the band?

Baxter. A horrible name, Baxter. I don't know why we... Yeah, where did that come from? I have no idea. It was me and Bobby Turner. And, you know, and I was playing some keyboards, and he was playing some guitar and I was playing a little drums.

But then I started building a home studio. I got, like, it was really Resner, man, because I was really into the industrial scene and all the stuff before Resner. But, you know, with him, pretty 8 Machine, I know everybody loves that record, but it was kind of not my bag as much. Like, it wasn't until I heard Broken,

and then when the downward spiral came, then I was just like, whoa, this is the coolest stuff I've ever heard. Yeah, so we were working with, flood during that during that time yeah or sort of just after that so I was hearing all the stories and then even infamously I went and visited Alan Mulder was working with

Trent up at the what you know we commonly call the the Manson house right where the tape murders had happened right yeah and Trent was in there a sconsed you know recording so I even went to that house during that period so I was hearing stuff before it came out that's cool

And, yeah, I mean, it was such a wild, like that, he never really went back there. The downward spiral itself, to me, sits in a spot because he was just using all those 12-bit samplers and just found sounds. It was so many recorded sounds. The REX-50, do you know about that? No. That's the sort of the secret sauce on that record. Oh, really? At least what I was told.

Wow. The Yamaha RX-50, it was a tabletop multi-effects processor that Yamaha put out late 80s. Wow. had a really kind of like scratchy digital distortion. That's cool. I got to get into that for sure. I've collected a lot of things. I think that's part of that kind of bit.

That's certain distortion sound is that. Yeah, and he kind of did something with that record. And that was the record where I go, okay, and I was already a computer nerd a little bit. I can play keys. I'm like, I read an article, found out what software he used, and I, like, started messing with Studio Vision Pro. And I was like, so that kind of got me off the ground. And then now all of a sudden I was like, hey, I could actually. have a band now because I can like, we don't have to have a drummer right now. I can like figure it out,

you know. Baxter. Yeah. Baxter. So then Baxter's gone. Yeah. Now it's Kill Raven or something like that. And then, you know, that event, and then I discover Bowe that eventually morphs into Stargun because it's just just because don't skip your head because because I, this really touched me when you told me this that your dad was incredibly supportive. Yeah, very supportive. And not, no judgment on your musical choice. No, I mean, he thought, you know, I remember this was so mortifying to me. Can you imagine as a kid who's really into, like, you know, I was really into your band. I was really into Nightish Nails. I'm really into Mance and I'm really into all of that stuff during that period.

And I played my dad, The Downward Spiral, and he liked it, but he was worried about the lyrical content on it because I'm 15. Yeah. And, you know, and I'm loving it. I think it's so killer, you know. But he's, but he doesn't say anything about it, really. He just, you know, but he was so blown away by what the music sounded like just because he never really heard anything like that before. And he goes and does an interview and somebody asks him, he said, your son likes Thinich Nails, and he says, I think he's a musical genius, but a lyrical idiot.

And in a magazine. And I was like, Dad, what have you done? Oh, no. What have you done? Oh, no. This guy's going to hate us now, you know? Oh, no. So I remember, but I understood.

That was his reaction to. his worry about having undue influence on me. But yeah, so he was very supportive. And, you know, he wanted, when I got into the studio gear, he was like, why don't we build a studio together? Because he had a little rig that he was recording demos on, but he thought we could really do something at home, you know? So he bought a Mackey 24 track mixer,

and I had my computer rig, and we had a keyboard that he had. Is this the Phoenix Sun album? That was when we did that. I didn't know about this record until recently. We made it then, back then, and in fact, even one of the songs was in the running for the Outlaw song was almost going to make the soundtrack for the Romeo Juliet movie, the big one. Because some guy had worked it and then it got taken down, and we even sent that record to John Malm at nothing records to get signed. Oh, wow. you know, which was like an industrial whalen and this kid album.

But, yeah, that was the first thing recording there. And then I started working with the band. And then after I got into Bowie and the Beatles, and then about that time, I was 20, and I was like, I'm not going to go to college, Dad. I'm going to go to L.A. And he was worried, but he let me go. Stargun.

Stargun. Yeah. I listened to Star Gun today, by the way. Oh, gosh. You're going to undo some of your good music knowledge by listening to that stuff. Well, I think what I'm after, I mean, we don't have to go everything. I mean, at this point, you had the, let's call it the quintessential L.A. band. Right.

Right. You know, the sunset strip kind of vibe. Exactly. You did that. You did that. And you said, I think, am I accurate, you said you couldn't get signed to save your life no matter what you tried. No matter what, no matter what, even Tom Morella. Can you tell the story about when Rick Rubin came to see you?

Oh, my gosh. Tom got us, because Tom became a fan really fast and was really supportive. and got us a showcase for Rick Rubin. And it was in SIR here, and we get there. And it's only, it's, no, it's, it's so funny. I mean, Rick is alone with his assistant sitting next to him. And we play this show. And, you know, he's just sitting there by himself.

And, man, we are, we're just overhyped, under, under-experienced. And at one point, I jump up on the drum riser and I pour, like, water on top of my head because I think I'm being rock and roll and I fling my hair around. And I jump off the drum riser and immediately slip in the pool of water that I've just created below my feet. And I fall down, like midsong and pop up and say, I'm okay. Midsong. Rick's just still looking there like this, just not flinching. I guess you will. Wow, man.

Wow. Yeah. Oh, man. And then my guitar player unplugged is getting. guitar and right after that happened, he couldn't figure out why it wasn't make any noise. And his response was yick. That's what he said to Tom was yick. He said, told him to call me when they're, they changed your name to platinum Stargun. That was his response. Say, Rick, I never called you because it never happened. So, um,

and again, I'm not trying to jump past all this, but it, you know, you've put out seven albums under your own name. Right. But the, the most curious thing to me, me and you know okay let's start here um when you you're like right i'm going to be shooter jennings right you know i mean i'm going to have the family name and and i know what's coming the expectations and especially you're going to do anything remotely country right right right so what's the thinking at that point like you know what's weird about it is i had been here so long at that point like so i moved here in 2000 and i didn't start working on that first record until about 2003 at I was rehearsing, meeting a band, and it didn't come out until 2005.

So I think I, and I didn't really have any musical experience in Nashville because I was so young. So, like, I kind of didn't know. I was kind of dumb about it. Like, I kind of didn't. Oh, okay. So it wasn't like you. I didn't feel pressure at the moment, at the moment. I felt actually like I had to do something.

I felt like I wanted to do something. Like, my mental thinking is I'm a really, I'm really snobby when it comes to music. And if something like sounds too poppy or too corny, like, It just sounds done, especially when I was younger, I was very sobby about it. But so I thought country music at the time, and remember this is like Rascal Flats is the time when my first album came out.

They were on top of the world. And it sounded like Backstreet Boy, like they had literally, like, unfortunately, that group, Rascal Flats, canonized the Backstreet Boy, like boy band type pop writing that was really kind of isolated to that style of like the in sinks and all that. I see.

I can't really put my finger on what that actually is musically. It's just once you had a group that kind of had that boy band vibe in the country lane, this led to what is like the Post Malone record. Like there's a lot of those writers and those same guys have canonized that style where it's like, it's just pop with a band. Yeah, it's basically like, like, it's like, it's like, could have been on an in sync record. But anyway.

And to be fair to all those people, and it was just inevitable, the way the world was going. Totally, totally, totally inevitable. But at the time, we were all very judgy. So the concept of that first record was like, let's do something that kind of brings in all of our influences and sounds cool to us,

which basically cool to us would mean tingees of 70s rock, 70s folk, and then like psychedelic rock from the 60s. So it wasn't really an intellectual thing. You're like, I'm just going to kind of chase whatever I feel. I felt like doing a solo thing, I had had a bad experience with the band thing. And I had like mutineys at the end of it.

Sorry to laugh. Oh, no, a bunch of pressure me to fire the manager, which I did, who was not the problem. Was it also true you got offered to be the singer for Velvet Revolver? Not as straight up as like you can have the job, but they, I played a show with those guys here in town, in town, basically like my band opened for Duff's band loaded at the key club. and, and,

because you can sing rock, no problem. So, you can kind of see it. They, they asked me to sing three songs with them that night. It was going to be Slash and Duff and Matt Soram and Keith Nelson from Buck Cherry play guitar. And I came back, I came out and did three songs with them. I'm like 22. I couldn't believe this happened.

One of my favorite bands when I was really young. And, and then I got an email, like, a couple weeks later, I don't really know any of these guys. I met him to party once before, you know. And that show went good, I guess, for the three songs or whatever. And I got like an email saying, like, would you like to jam with these guys? And I was like, no, I'm okay. My band's doing. I'm still working on my band. And I mean, that was so nerve-wracking. Like, in Rockstar the movie, it'd just come out and I'm like, in the event that I did do well, I don't know that I want to start my career off this way. Or I also can't sing that high and would be expected to hold very high, long

notes, if I'm replacing axle, like, or whatever, you know, or that kind of a vibe. I know it was Vel-R-Rvolver, but like all that was just kind of happening. So I kind of passed on it and didn't even know that it didn't even come from somebody that was authoritative. So I kind of thought that must have been something else. And then later, Matt Soren made fun of me when they were like playing at Madison Square Garden. And I was like, man, I would have blown this. I would have absolutely blown this.

I was too young and too young. Yeah. But they were nice, you know. Yeah. So I guess what I'm saying is the curious thing is, and maybe it starts you working with Dave Cobb out of Nashville, the producer, but like this transition into production where I feel, at least from a personal perspective, you really found your lane.

Yes, I very much feel that way. And I feel like when I look back in my life and like I'm telling you a little studio we built at home and the way I was doing all that, it was like very much what I'm, I think I was wanting to, I just had to use myself as the artist. You know, I wanted to explore music in ways to do it. But the way I only way I knew it to do it was to be the artist. Yeah, because maybe if you're a cynical observer, which I'm not generally, but if you're

cynical observer, you think like, oh, he tried to do the music, think it didn't work and then he made the production. It seems to me it's like a natural evolution of like you just kind of feeling your way through it. Yeah, it definitely felt that way. And I had met a, there was a guy named the Colonel John Hensley, who was a man of a grad who unfortunately passed away, but he, for the very small period of time that we were friends and manager, you know, he was like, you need to be producing other people. Like,

he, and he wanted us to start a label, which we did, like, a third man type thing and produce things for other things. And he could see that I was, that I was really interested in that. And I was kind of limited because I was, every time I would do something for me, it would always get hit with all this other, like if I went away from what I was normally doing, I'd get, if it was more electronic, or if I, you know, the Wayland crowd or the non-Wayland crowd, it would just, it always felt like,

here I was doing some really cool stuff, but nobody's getting it. Like, or no one's not necessarily getting it, but just, you know, I'm just kind of all over the place as an artist, but if I extract myself as the artist and I work with like an electronic guy over here, like a rat guy over here, this thing, like, I'm getting to do this.

that. I'm going to explore it. Without all that. Yeah. And something, you know, I always, I hate to say this, but it's like, I've never really felt very comfortable on stage. Like, as a little kid, piano recitals, I hate, I'd like run off stage. Even to this point in time, I always felt like shows felt like, because I'm like really prone to fuck out my lyrics. I'm really prone to like sing off key, like whatever. And I'm very hard on myself. So like, every show would be a struggle session to like get through it and it be all right judgment wise and then I would just want to party afterwards because I'd be like oh I did it you know but every day like leading up to the show was just like hours of stress and hours of like I don't you know and I couldn't get anything done on

the road like I can never write a song on the road I can never work yeah and I just felt like I felt like my creativity was dying or something I think of all the songs I've lost by being on the road yeah right because I can't write for on the road yeah I can't I can't do anything because I'm thinking about the show I got coming up. And then like I said, when I'm done, I don't want to go, right. I don't want to go party. And so it's like there was just a struggle with it all. So I was

gravitating. I'd already started producing other people. A few people asked me in the 2012. So 2012-13 is when I really started. And then when the pandemic hit, I had already kind of gotten a flow, but I was balancing both things. And I was like, this is my chance. I'm going to get out of the road

now. I'm going to cancel all the forthcoming shows, and I'm going to completely pivot to produce. So it kind of gave me the opportunity to do that. So I was grateful for it in that sense. Yeah. So for people who don't know your production, I mean, you know, when we first met, I brought up the Tanya Tucker record, which, you know, was like an album of the year in Nashville. And it seems like a big deal. I don't know.

Yeah, I was really, that was such a, the Tanya record was really amazing. It was, she didn't want to do it. Everybody thought me and Brandi were crazy. So, wait, can I stop you for saying? Yeah. one of the great voices, one of the great personalities, like what's crazy about making a record with somebody like that? But I'm saying, just saying it just as an observer.

Well, you know, the Nashville system is really messed up and what's really, really cool about it is we kind of stomped out this part because prior to this, she got a reputation for like just not being ladylike, as they would say, it's ridiculous. But like in the, she was hanging with Wayland, all those guys. and she was kind of wild and she was doing her thing. And, you know, they really kind of like blackballed her in a lot of ways. And she had to, not her fans.

She always is out of career. I just mean in terms of like Nashville and the music business getting a record deal. The word that comes to mind is parochial. It feels very parochial there. Yeah. Yes. And, you know, and they just were disrespectful. And so what was really good about it was even, and she was, she didn't know that I

knew enough about it, I think, is why she was doubting it, but she trusted me, but she didn't know at all who Brandy was and was, and Brandy's huge fan hers. So it was a lot of talking into it, and she was asking, you know, because I think in her mind, like a lot of older artists, and she's not really that much older, she was so young starting, but,

but with a lot of the artists that come from the old model is they kind of are stuck in that mindset of, like, must be a major label, must be like the biggest, like Rick Rubin, it must be at this studio, you know, whatever. Well, money follows form or something. Right, yeah. And so, you know, a lot of labels, it's all changed. And what was really good is it caught fantasy records at a very good moment.

And they signed her and were able to like kind of go around Nashville and do it on the national stage, which really kind of helped. And it changed, it changed a lot for Tanya, which made us very happy. and we had to do a second record with her. And I love her. I really want to go in again with her and do a really honky talk record because the last two were like emotional and kind of more stoic storytelling.

And she's so good at that like kind of upbeat country, you know. Roundy kind of thing. Yeah. But love her. Yeah. Can you, I don't know if I have the right words, but can you give me how you estimate your production approach? Yeah.

You know, I kind of don't, I kind of thought it was one thing until I had done it enough where I kind of, now I start to realize what it is more. But, you know, I think, first of all, I've had some experiences where I just felt like that you would kind of get in a situation. Now, I got very lucky to work with Dave Cobb for a bunch of records when he lived out here. And that was my first four records were with him. And, you know, so I got to see somebody who likes to make music in an enjoyable fashion, not someone who's like an abusive personality or something because I know it's being a music producer, I imagine it's the same in the movie business. It gives you a lot of license if you want to be a dickhead.

You know, if you're a type of person that feeds on power dynamics, it is a, you're kind of almost protected if you're that type of person. because, you know, the labels and things that are involved. The artists a lot of times doesn't know what they're getting into. Yeah. So I felt to me, I'm like, you know, when it comes to my judgment about things, like some producers, I got into some situations where, you know, they see it one way. And a lot of times they're a musician and they want to play.

And they kind of see it like, well, I know better. This is what we should be doing, you know? And like for me, I feel like my judgment is not better than the artist that I'm working with about what they're looking to do. Like in my mind, it's my job. I'm being led into the band in a way more psychologically than musically most of the time.

But, you know, I'm kind of being led in the group and I feel my job is to land the ship, you know, and to accomplish what the artist wants to accomplish and distill it, not in a way that colors it differently, but makes it achievable through whatever knowledge we learned in the process. So I often feel like I'm, like if someone plays me a song, my first instinct is not going to be that I don't like it. It will usually, if I do like it a lot or something I'll say it, if I like it, but if I don't get it, I will feel that I need to hear it more until I understand

it, because I just don't think that judgment, that, that, judgment, that, that, that, that, you know, music is subjective and objective in different ways. Like, you can't tell Michael Jackson that you know better what's in his head when he's a young guy trying to write something and do it. You have to, like, figure out what it is and help him get it out there, you know, or something. So to me, I feel I definitely don't like to, like, put my mark on stuff. And I don't like to, like, oh, when you're doing a record with me, it's going to be in this direction. Like, I really like to go into it.

and and hear what they want to do and then try and figure out a way to do it and be excited about it together. But it seems like you're very attracted, is it something you've evolved to, but you seem to be attractive to a very warm, clear, and slightly romantic recording. Is that fair way to put it?

In a sonic sense, yes. You know, you and I bonded immediately over our love of like all of those great 60s and 70s recordings that are so lush done in some, you know, many of them done at Sunset Sound or studios like that. And so for me, I love, I love really beautiful recordings. So when we're going to record a band, like, we're going to attempt to go and do it like they used to do it, like the proper way and find, find the right drum sound.

Do you see it anecdotal, though, to where we've gone in modern terms? I mean, because obviously, you know, you could do it the other way and you made records like that. And you even like electronics and stuff. So, you know, is it, is there somewhat a reaction or is it just something that you've been led to? I think it's both. I think, I think that's a really interesting way of phrasing it because it is, you're right. There is an anecdotal point to it, because now with the introduction of AI and the kind of exhaustion on electronics and, and kind of all of that. It's happening. Pitch correction and everything. Yeah, all of that. It's like, to me, I feel, well, we have to do none of it, you know, and I feel like that it's, you know, and I feel like that

it's, there's a side of me, I guess the anecdotal side in a way is like a preservationist in a weird way, like, okay, I have this studio that I'm currently working out of that has these mics, has this room, has this great board, like I'm, I need to treat it like they treated it back then. Yeah. And kind of do it from that perspective, not to go on a total tangent, but I'm reading this really great book about the making of the shining that my daughter got me for Father's Day that is just so fascinating. and it really goes through his entire process.

You see all his notes, like from the beginning of when he got the first script, manuscript to when he finishes. And it's so awesome. And when I read it, I was like, oh, because it really, really quantifies his process. It seems so mysterious until when I read this. And it's just so, it's methodical, and it's very much easygoing, and it's very much like, it reminded me of when I'm in the studio a little, in the sense that he would expect someone,

like he would hire a lighting guy and he would hire this actor or he'd hire this person, and he lets them do exactly what they want to do because he wants to see what they come up with first. And then he can just say like, oh, hey, what if you make that one just a little quiet? You know, that turning that light down just a little bit.

Or like that seems way off. Like, just try it one more time. Or even with the takes, like, we don't do hundreds of takes ever because it usually is the capture is in the moments. but the way he was doing all those takes and there were upsetting people and stuff, it was because he was trying to let him,

at some point their guard comes down, and then there's a moment when he can capture that and there and visually did him, that was what he was looking for, you know? So it just, I feel when I'm in there, like, I want, I love working with bands that are not the people I put together. I used to hate that. I used to think I hated that, but I love it,

because now I get to see the dynamic at play, and I can really work with, the different members of the band to try and like encourage them, you know? Yeah, I have this feeling and I'm still figuring out for myself, which is like, we've had 20, maybe even 30 years of digital technology. Yeah.

And of course, there's going to be evolution in digital technology, but like the bloom is off that rose. We know the good of it and we know the bad of it. Right. You know, you could take somebody off the street and make them sound like a pop singer. I mean, we know all that stuff now. Right.

And of course there's a convulsive reaction which is like, well, we can make records the old-fashioned way. Just the people in a room record them live. Somewhere in there in between those two polarities, I feel is going to be a sort of a new form of truth. But I don't think we've gotten there yet, but I don't know what that is. That's really interesting. You're in a lot. You know, I mean, you're working a lot. Yeah.

And so I feel like, I don't know how you even articulate it. I wish I had the right way to put it. But I feel like we're coming into a new kind of age of recording. I think so, too, because I just wonder, you know, there's so many facets of the actual technology of capturing video or sound that are changing with the, you know, evolution of AI and stuff. So it's like, I kind of wonder how far it's going to go, what kind of different directions. AI is such, you know, at this point, it's an exhaustive conversation, but it's like, what's interesting about it is, is the reaction to it is really like what I feel is interesting. I read something today. Someone who's saying, he goes, by the way, this AI business,

they would be charging a lot more for it if it was actually that productive of a product. So just everybody doesn't need. Well, it's free because they're learning office. That's really what's going. That's really the intake of all of our art. But yeah, like I wonder where it's going to go. I feel like it's interesting because the things I find getting older in life that I'm interested in, just hobby-wise are usually technology that's older technology that people have continued to develop, even though it was abandoned by culture.

Okay. Like, for good examples, like old computers, old video games, those kind of things. Like there's people, I collect like, you know, a 1992 Gateway 46 computer because I'd love all the old games and old stuff. And there's people that have developed new technology for those devices. Oh, that's interesting. There's ways to do like Bitcoin transactions using old modem. and things. And so there's, I'm fascinated.

I think there's a side of that that's coming. Because if you've just seen like some of the newer tech and just like there's, there's some people now recently that have been making new space echoes. There are these really awesome because they also have a spring. They've got a delay. They've got all these other things. But they're an advancement on the space echo, but they're still that same technology. Like they've improved some of the faults of the tape and stuff,

but they've kind of advanced it. And like that teenage engineering company has just made a lathe, which is really exciting. It's like a totally modernized lathe to make records on. Like acetates or pressings? Actually, pressings.

And it's pretty cool. And like, you know, they're improving upon some technologies from that period. So. Yeah, maybe that's what I'm saying, is that maybe it's, there's nothing new under the sun,

but we're going to find some new evolution. because there's not the sort of holy faith in digital technology that there was even five years ago. Because the end result seems to be there doesn't seem as many classic records being made. Right. And why is that? And if you want to say, well, you're old and that's what bitter old artists say. But it's empirically provable that there are less classic records made in this generation and the generation before than there were every other generation before. And films, too, which is a weird thing.

saying. So something's going on culturally that sort of created a flattening effect. Yeah, yeah. And maybe, maybe like maybe too much good is less great or something. Yeah. Yeah. But just music, that's a good point, though, because, you know, it's even in, it's across all genres, which is really strange. Like, because if you look into, in country, like, you could find, probably in the country worlds, where you're going to find the most emotionally impactful stuff these days, like when it comes to, you know, I guess rock is interesting because it's, lit up. So you like, like, you know, if you want to listen to active rock, you want to list alternative rock, you'll list. Yeah, it's like all that kind of stuff, you know. But, but, but like this, there's just not songs that are like really that original sounding anymore. It's like

new sounds and hip-hop, it's like they've, they've gone extremely minimal, right? Where it's just kind of like strings and a... Well, even, uh, uh, Olivia Rodriguez, uh, put out this new song. People were writing me saying, I think it's influenced by one of your songs. And she's talked about being a fan. So I listened to it. It's a really good song. I think it's called the clap maybe or something or the cure, not the clap. The Cure. But the first minute or so of the song, it's just literally just vocal and I think maybe like a piano or no, it's a vocal and acoustic. Wow. There's nothing for like a minute. Wow. And this is one of the biggest pop singers in the world. That's cool, though. It's cool. And it goes somewhere. So it's not, you know, it's not just this

minimalistic thing. Yeah. But even for a top flight pop artists in 2026 to make a decision that the first minute of the record is literally just acoustic and vocal. Yeah. And it's not strummy acoustic. It's like very kind of da-da-da-da-da. Wow.

Very interesting choices. So maybe it's just a swing back somewhere between organic and inorganic or. Yeah, it's got to be. Yeah, it's weird because I do feel like so many people are aiming organic. Like you look at the like the grill is, right? They put out that hand-drawn animated. movie that went along with their album. And that was like they said it was in response to the AI.

They wanted to like do a hand draw and sell animation thing, you know. And I think that's cool. There's definitely like the boomer response, which is like my response, which is like, I want no part of it. You know, and then there's people like, man, every telling me I'm an old man, you know. Yeah. But there's also like the people like that are young that are having a negative reaction to it or whatever. And then I meet, I meet a friend of mine who I just.

I can't approve of it, but he just uses it all the time to write songs, to write, make demos, or to, like, do art, which is fine, but it's like, I love what you said about it. You're, like, leaning into the thing that's going to destroy you is what I feel. And I feel like that someone who's a casual musician or casual music fan isn't affected by that, but someone who's, like, dedicated their life to it, not to be, like, you know, whatever. I just feel like it's, you are leaning, you are signing something, some kind of a deal. I think it's just the deeper point I'm making, I think, is, is it's like, it's like you're a married man, I'm a married man. It's like telling yourself that cheating once a year is okay.

Right. Once you open that door, you're no longer in the covenant between you and the song. Yeah. You're literally inviting somebody else in the room, and they're not going to ask you for 5%. Right. In fact, you're going to be able to justify that they don't get any percent, which is also part of the temptation. Right. And see, now there's so many layers, like you never, you can never really know if it was used now.

There's just no way of mind. That ship is sailed. Yeah, because the first step. Somebody told me three years ago that they didn't think there was one lyric coming out of Nashville that wasn't AI. Had it had some AI. They said normal writing session in Nashville. I heard this three years ago was they'd write lyrics like they normally would and there's, you know, three, four people in a room. They'd feed in AI and let it spit some stuff out and then kind of recalibrate the lyric based on what AI would.

suggest. Yeah. See, that's, again, it's like, I guess that's the work of someone who's trying to make something that's perfect. You know, I don't know. Well, what's the great folly thinking your God? Yeah, right. All right. So, thank you. A couple more things. Thank you, man. Thank you for having me here. I love it. Oh, that's cool. Cubs, you got. Yeah. I mean, yes, your dad, yes, your mom, yes, music, but let's talk about what really matters. Art Bell. Art Bell, yes. I'm happy to find that you're a fellow traveler in the dark shadows of conspiracy and secret knowledge and hidden histories. And if you wanted to, I just thought I'd throw that up. Dude, I love it. I love that you even opened the door. I have over the years watched you have very interesting interviews.

I know everyone asked you about the shapeshifter from Howard Stern and all that stuff. But what has been so cool is like, you know, there's not very many people who, who have been willing to go out there and talk about stuff like this, but just let's talk about even prior to this political period that we're in that like where everything has to be one color or the other. Yeah.

But back like, you know, 15, 20 years ago, you were talking about all this stuff. So it's like, to me, I grew up listening to Art Bell. My dad had Chariots of the Gods on the bus, the VHS, and we watched it all the time. He bought all the time life books on the paranormal. We watched Unsolved Mistole. every Sunday. You know, so that stuff has ate me up my whole life. I mean, you know, I made that

Black Ribbons record in the spirit of that stuff. But the older I get, it's like I get just more and more fascinated by it. It was so funny because you and I had this talk. We had dinner and you brought up to Zachary Sitchin's stuff. And I had not read that stuff yet. And I got this other book that Glenn Danzig told me to get about Atlantis and the Nazis and Hitler's obsession with the Atlantean power tools that he was searching for. And then low and bold, it gets right into all that and inky stuff. And man, I couldn't put that book down. I've got, like, a stack of, like, six more.

I bought a Sitchin book the other, just two days ago at Barnes & Noble. Because there's just like, there's something about the quest for that kind of knowledge that makes the finding it unimportant in a weird way. Like, the more knowledge I can find about it, it doesn't have to tell me what the thing is. It's just interesting. Yeah, what I find that people are cynical or skeptical, they want proof.

And I think that misses the point entirely. Yeah. I think here's, you know, because obviously once you get into this, let's call it the shadow world of ideas. Yeah. You can go any direction you want. But here's something I find really interesting.

And there's something I read somewhere. It might even have been a psychic talking about it, but it was the person was basically saying, the reason people are so obsessed with Star Wars the Star Wars stories is actually our story Right wow That we were We were this

You know we were these humanoids on this planet And at some point somebody shows up 150,000 years ago Whatever is the number And they start messing with us Right And they come here for their own reasons And for whatever reason

Probably because they were superior intelligence They decided to hide all that from us. Right. Or they told us a story that was, we're the gods. Right. You know, pillar of fire.

You read it in the Bible, right? I'm so fascinating. See, like, man, this is exactly what that book was dealing with, too, especially the pillar of fire and the gateway to Atlantis and the book of Bionk and all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So, so the idea is like, and I'm speaking more, as they're like, let's call it the artistic

mind. Right. Why are we obsessed with gold? Right. right it's a common understood thing going back to ancient cultures the obsession with gold right right why are there so comparative uh if you go back to ancient religions or you know what monotheistic or not why was why are there similar stories why is it the flood story that runs through everything right people even like to basically say jesus was just a mythology because there were other

iterations of jesus before jesus and ishtar this and all this stuff well if you take all that just at face value and you don't have to believe and you don't have to disbelieve. What is what is the common currency of the human obsession with these stories? Right. Why don't we just come over with a different story? Why do we come back to the same story? Good versus evil. Right. I mean, it's so much of it. I mean, you know, a lot of people are going to say like religion is crowd control and it's like establishing narratives, you know, or a value system, moral system. In this book, I mean, it talks about that the Inky and Inl idea is like that Inky is the one that flooded the earth. I'm sorry, Inl is the one who flooded the earth and Inkees the one who told them to build the raft,

right? That they were like battling and all that. So there's always like a put, but then you're like, well, their dad's a god. Like, who's that guy? You know, they never really talked too much about Anu beyond the beginning of this stuff. So when it comes to all the stories and myth stories, it seems to me, just from my point of view, that there is a story that is true in all of it. That it's, I wouldn't believe that there's a bunch of iterations or whatever,

but I believe that there is a story that's true across all of it that is being told in a lot of different ways or translating in different ways. But there's so much of what we've been told that I just, the older I get, I just don't believe. Like, I'm starting to get off the dinosaur train, man. I mean, I am. I'm just saying it, man. You know, there's not any real complete bones.

if you look at most of those ones that they have, their little pieces of them. And I don't know, man. It kind of is a very convenient. It's kind of a convenient deterrent. So everyone, my kid's no shooter. And so I'm going to go home, you know, a couple of days. I'm talking about a shooter doesn't believe in dinosaurs.

Yeah. My, my Misty, too, it's like, we've had all these conversations. She's like, you know, she's like, how does a T-Rex reproduce? And I'm like, you know, I'm not sure. How do they? That's a great question. How would a bronosaurus reproduce, you know? What does that look like?

Yeah, what does that look like? And then when you realize how little bones are actually out there because you grow up seeing these giant dinosaurs and museums and everything, and like 99% of those are just fake and they just have a couple bones that are real. Yeah. Then if you really want to get weird, it's like you want to start talking about giants and all that stuff. We want to talk about the nephalum and all that. you're like are those bones do those kind of fit in any range of that stuff is there what i see i would

love to see what uh actually like i'm i'm sure a million people on the internet are going to scream at me over this in my ignorance but i don't care i'd love to see an actual chart of what bones have been found specifically versus you know because we we just always kind of assume they've had a lot of them or something well here's one thing i i can at least say with some level of assurance whatever is known by whoever would know it, they're not telling us what they know. It would have to be a lie agreed upon by a large group of people to hold on to it. Because like even with the Giza thing, you know, they're saying they found those columns that go down under it, but they won't let them dig up under there.

They don't know if there could be the Hall of Records. It could be all of that, you know. And so it's like... We need to do our own podcast just on this. Yes, it would be fun. We should. We should go down the rabbit hole. Yeah.

So I guess two things. One is I've been saying it lately, which is like when I die, I just hope when I get wherever I'm going, hopefully heaven, they're going to tell me, hey, by the way. That's all I want to know. They're going to be like, Shooter was right. No dinosaurs. You know what I mean? Like, oh my God, really? He knew.

He knew. You're like, well, P. Did he kill both Tupac. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, like JFK. I want to know it all. I want to know it all. I want to know it all.

Last thing, because we obviously talking a lot about your dad with the record coming out, the Diamond's record. And I knew this story, and I think I even saw a clip of him talking about it, but I saw it in doing my research, getting ready to talk to you. And I'm so touched by the story that your dad later in life decided to get his GED. Yeah. Because he didn't want to set a bad example or he wanted to set a good example. Yeah, yeah, he did. You just find that so touching. It's so funny.

you brought, we talked about that a little bit, and then I found something recently, I think it was a, I don't know what it was, I found, I think I saw him on YouTube or something recently talking where it was talking after the fact, but yeah, I remember when he did it, he was ashamed that he didn't graduate from high school and he wanted that to get that, that GD.

See, that's that generation, you see. Yeah, yeah, because we- Our generation, we'd be like, yeah, whatever, it just didn't happen. Yeah, that generation, it was still this value system. That's really true. I didn't even ever think of it that way, but you were right. You know, but I think at the same time, I think he looked at it like,

he knew he's an intelligent guy and he didn't want to be branded as like a dumb hillbilly too. There's probably that pride part of it. Yeah. But like, I remember him studying and he was getting frustrated and stuff, and I would try to help him with the math and the science and stuff. I just, I'm so touched by that story. Aw. I just think it's such a tremendous story.

Yeah, he did, he was a funny character, man. Like when we went to go, I remember we were friends, with Carol Spinney, who does Big Bird and Oscar de Grouch. And, like, you know, he would come over to a house because my dad was in one of those movies. And he went to the set. I remember he went to the set of Sesame Street. And he did a song on Sesame Street, but because he didn't want to be seen in glasses

because he thought he'd make him look old, he's like this. A whole episode, if you can find it, he's squinted because he's trying to read the cue cards to the, to they'd rewritten one of his songs, you know, and all that. And it was so funny. And I was like, you should just wearing the glasses. you know right but it was kind of that that pride thing where he just didn't want to you know all right thank you dude thank you so much for doing this i love me next next next one we'll just go all conspiracies