The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 245: Luke Combs on the B-Side of Hunting

Episode Date: November 2, 2020

Steven Rinella talks with Luke Combs, Reid Isbell, Dan Isbell, Luke Thorkildsen, and Janis Putelis.Topics discussed: being on the tour bus; the Fatvian Seagulls; organic vs. assembly line song writing; ten cents per song on one of the best selling albums of all time; on being a lunch pail song writer; where country music and the outdoors intersect; on maintaining country music street cred in the outdoors; dudes that are actually like the dudes in country songs; letting the chickens out in your undies; when Northerners speculate on the lives of Southerners, and vice versa; turkey hunting as the poor man's elk hunting; country fried antelope; pronouncing the words, "pecan" and "crappie"; Steve's new hit song lyrics: "you gotta work with what you got, not with what you wish you had"; retreating to write; leave it to Stever; the definition of a hook and the Johnson motor; if Steve were a trout...; shit as fertilizer; the grizzly bear vocalist; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Download the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google Play Store. Know where you stand with OnX. Okay, buddy, we're on a... I'm tempted to say we're on Luke Combs' tour bus, but that's not accurate. We're on the tour bus of Luke Combs' band. Correct. We are. We are on the band's bus.

And they sleep in little submarine mariner bunks. Yeah, which is also great because i feel like this is a prime opportunity to to tell them that i've just destroyed their bus they're not going to know the floor feels a little bit right now as they're listening to this what has he done to our bus they won't know until shows start again this is day three of it too like a little funny prank in each bunk bed you You can't see here, but we have a lot of great Meteor stickers. And we'll soon be finding out which bunk my vegan band member sleeps in. And I'll probably just pop this right above his thing

so that every night when he goes to sleep, he'll be looking at a Meteor sticker. Okay. Okay. Starting with Luke, because that was the beautiful and lovely Luke Holmes. I want to do intros. The docile tones of Luke Holmes. And go as though dealing poker.

Giannis Patelis. Just regular old. Just Gianni. The Latvian Eagle. Here again. Yeah, I'm Reed Isbell. The younger brother of the Brothers Hunt. I'm Dan Isbell.

And I'm a member of the Brothers Hunt. I'm Dan Isbell, and I'm a member of the Brothers Hunt. I'm also a member of the Fatvian Eagles. Yeah, Fatvian Seagulls. Fatvian Seagulls. Fatvian Seagulls. Yeah, the Latvian Eagle, Fatvian Seagulls, me and Luke. Yep. And then Luke Tork.

Luke Tork. Yeah, Luke Tork. Tork. Tork. Whose new nickname is just plain old. It's just Tork. It's kind of hard having two Lukes. Plain old Torque.

Yeah, so just Torque now, I guess. I think I'm, like originally I was like, oh man, I was like really fighting to be the Luke and then Torque came along and I was like,

damn dude, I wish I was like fucking reciprocating saw or something. You know, like axe or something cool like that but now I'm not.

Horsepower maybe? Yeah, horsepower. HP. Yeah. You good? You Isabel brothers are from, born in? Tennessee. Well, born in Jackson, but from Savannah, Tennessee.

West Tennessee. West Tennessee, yeah. The easiest way to tell is right where Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee meets. We're a county above that, and Savannah's the county seat. But we spent the majority of our lives in Mississippi. Oh, so yeah also okay so that's what i was trying to sort out yeah i thought i assumed you were born there well grandparents live there parents are both from there i went to mississippi state my band like my my bandmates say country dan is from mississippi gotcha and the sophisticated dan yeah from t from Tennessee, I guess. Tell

people what you do for a living. So Reed and I are both staff songwriters at a couple different publishing companies and we literally write songs in hopes that artists cut them on records and then maybe singles. That's kind of what we do.

Yeah, I write. Dan writes for Sony and I actually write. Luke and one of what we do. Yeah. Yeah, I write. Dan writes for Sony, and I actually write. Luke and one of our buddies, Jonathan Singleton, started a publishing company, and I did a joint venture with his company and a company called Big Machine Publishing. Yeah, we write four or five times a week with different either co-writers or artists and go in with ideas, licks, melodies, whatever, and try to create a three-minute product that an artist like Luke or somebody else will dig and can relate to

and throw it on a record and hopefully throw it on the radio. So when you're doing this, you get together, like in the words of John Prine, 10 a.m. on a Monday morning. Just about. Usually it's 11 now. Back then it was, yeah. That was. Just about. Usually it's 11. Back then it was yeah. Now it's 11. You get to go to 11 a.m. on a Monday

morning. Hard day. In like an office. Early start. I mean it's not really an office. We will now write a song. Pretty much it's kind of like that. Weirdly enough. Is it like a full-on music studio? You just got like every instrument in there?

It can change. Each publishing house is different. So like where Dan's at, Sony ATV, they have actually two buildings. One's called the Fire Hall, which is an old fire station that they bought. There's a couple rooms in there. That's kind of the vibe of your spot here. And then they have their office that's across the parking lot, which is

like two-story newer looking office building where the track guys set up track guys but the executives are in there yeah they work in that same building and then there are rooms provided but it can and that's where you're going in to do it it can be sterile majority of the time it sounds like that can be very sterile it's like going to a college classroom it can be very sterile and it's because it feels like you're working from a cubicle up there. It's very, very plain. I don't know, man. I mean, here's the thing.

It's like you're not going to be at your job or whatever. You're not going to walk in inspired every day regardless of where you're doing it. But you can be inspired in other places and bring that kind of into the room and go, hey, man, my wife told me to wash the dishes this morning and i got to thinking that's a pretty decent hook i should wash the car wash the dishes but you can't wash my love away from you or whatever and then that is a really quick yeah because you're just sitting here in a tour bus right now no i mean i'm just saying it can be like a somewhat sterile environment.

But at the same time, when you're in your head and you're using the majority of your imagination anyway, it's kind of just a central meeting place to get it done. You know what I mean? So if you want a break for lunch, you can walk outside and you're right there. The publisher that you're trying to get the song to is literally across the parking lot and it's just kind of a central meeting place for I mean if I walked into a place and it was just a bunch of

John Prine posters and Willie Nelson's and there was incense burning in the corner I don't know that I'd be any more inspired than I am when I'm in a That's a good point Which totally that room's in Nashville somewhere

There's a bunch of There is that room And if you were in that room, you'd be going, God, we should get these freaking pictures of Willie Nelson off this wall so I could think. Yeah, there's no rhyme or reason to how you do it. As long as you end a product that everybody likes and agrees with, man, you can write one. In this bus, we've written songs on outside. We've written songs on the porch.

Just kind of wherever you feel like doing it. Do you guys have an obligation to how many songs you're supposed to write per whatever? 12 whole songs a year is a standard contract, which doesn't sound like very much. But when you're splitting them up three ways and four ways and two ways. Yeah, it counts as a fourth of a song or half of a song. I got you. So contractually, within the year, you're supposed to write 12. That's the normal.

12 full, quote unquote. But we write way more. Yeah, we all, all three of us. Close to 70, 80, 100 songs a year. Yeah, I'm amazed at the efficiency when you guys say that you guys can, in four or five hours, start to finish and have a song. I would say probably, what, Luke,ke 75 of the time that's the case but there is that weird 25 where you go man my brain is absolute mush my dog's pissing all over

everything in the house at this point is it cool if we break and maybe come back and finish this up another day because some days dude especially on like a late like a friday when you're just like smoked after sitting in a room trying to make words or something. Or a drum for 40 hours at this point. You may just cut it in half. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, if you don't have it ordered, like you don't have a clear direction of where that second verse is going to go or something like that.

You say, hey, maybe we just sit on this for a day. And I feel like a lot of big dudes like don't. A lot of big time guys aren't doing Fridays even now. No. Like a lot of guys that are getting – because, like, the quality of who you're writing with can be as important as writing that extra day. Absolutely. You know, if you're writing four days a week with – you know, if you write with Eric Church and then you write with whoever, you know, big-time artist-writer guys, that's different than saying, you know, I got to go in and write with five people that i don't know up and coming aren't proven or whatever that's tougher that's tougher in my opinion to do absolutely so the bigger guys are they're doing less less quote-unquote work but they're just

they have a lot more avenues to success for that potential song you know yeah um what is the is pardon me for saying this but in talking hanging out with you guys it seems i know there's a lot of mystique and creating stuff but it seems like it's uh something that i thought used to kind of occur in people's minds or like on their back porch or whatever like i, realizing that it's formalized. Is that normal for other musical genres where you're making a product? I think you would be shocked. I think what I'm trying to say is that our genre

is the most creative. Absolutely. Is that right? Like you pop out to L.A. You pop out to L.A., buddy, and it is like an assembly line. There's 14 guys on one song, three guys in a separate room working on lyrics, three guys in a separate room writing the track, three guys in a separate room trying to create a signature lick for this thing and it's like and then to a guy they may go after all that's gone that's nine

dudes they may decide that sampling an old queen song is the way to go so then you have to slap everyone that wrote that queen song on top of the nine guys that wrote it together and you're talking 14 or 15 dudes are credited with writing that one song that's what it's really like on really popular music it's insane that's even crazy to me yeah you know and i've never been out to la to write but i just from my experience in nashville and how we do it there you know i can't imagine being in a room with that many people trying to get something done. And then they meet back up together, and then they put it all...

They might have a little 20-second track thing they build together in the beginning, and go, all right, here's the basis. And this guy's sitting there humming something. What would be an artist, name an artist who, like a pop artist, unless you don't want to, whose process is like this?

All of them. Yeah, I would say, I mean, I would think it would be easier to name the guys who aren't, like I would say Ed Sheeran. Ed Sheeran's not doing that. Ed Sheeran's not doing that. He's a pure songwriter. He's an absolute, but he's also the biggest artist in the world. Beyonce would be a good example of someone who's probably not. Adele is probably not doing that.

They're not literally connected to their songs as much as, I would say, Ed Sheeran or us. I think Adele is probably one of the more organic ones out there. But I guess what I'm trying to say is they're inspired artists. I make this analogy all the time in nashville there's like i have a guy i work with who's like kind of a rock guy right so when he comes in everything he everything he throws out is going to be his he has to write his own original ideas like has to he can't say anything that isn't true to his life so it's he wants to do this it's going to sound like this we're going to going to da-da-da.

And your job as a songwriter that day is to help him convey the message that he wants to convey, correct? Yeah. So then there are guys like Luke who are pretty consistently inspired and have ideas and know what direction they want to go with songs but are also open to what maybe you've had happen in your life in the past six months. Right.

Or some sort of hook that you took back for them. And then you have other guys. are also open to what maybe you've had happen in your life in the past six months right or some sort of hook that you took back for them and then you have other guys and look i'm not saying any any one of these three people that i'm talking about here are wrong it's just different ways of doing the business so this far this far this guy over here he may be just an entertainer and he don't necessarily care what he's thinking about as long as he's on uh dancing with the stars or some you know what i mean he just all he wants you to do is to give him a product so for this guy there would be no real point in me and this other guy getting together write a song for this guy right maybe not even me and luke getting together write a song for this

guy even though luke can do that and i'll make the statement that the guy he's talking about is not a specific person obviously but the guy that goes and strictly cuts songs is the is the pillar of giving these dudes jobs absolutely 100 because without those guys there's no these guys yeah if all the artists wrote their own songs there would be no songwriting community it wouldn't exist i completely agree because those guys would just write their own songs in their house and put albums out and that would be it how big is the songwriting community so like how many how many dan and reed's are there i mean in it i mean it's been i think in the year like 1990 to 95 there were almost 10 000 professional songwriters in nashville that had publishing deals, I think it's under 500. Yeah, it's like 400.

What happened to them all? COVID? No, the records. I mean, it's hard to make money. Because records don't sell anymore. Yeah, records you don't make. Used to you could get an album cut and not even a single, not get on the radio in the 90s and make a good amount of money.

I don't know the X amount of dollars you could make. I got a very specific situation. So the Shania Twain album that came out in the 90s is Double Diamond, which means... Whose bed have your boots been under? Whose heart did you steal, I wonder? Anyway, that album sold, legitimately sold... Did you get sick some more of that?

Yeah, that was good. That album sold 25 million copies, right? So the predetermined royalty rate per CD sale is 10 cents per song to the writer that wrote it, right? So there is a song on that album that one dude wrote. It's a solo write, which means he made $2.5 million having a song on that album that didn't wrote it's a solo right which means he made two and a half million dollars having a song on that album that didn't even get played on the radio nowadays because it wasn't even like that particular tune never made like a billboard hit or whatever yeah right

so he gets but like if me and danny reed wrote that song we'd be splitting that 10 cents three ways but which would still be a tremendous amount of money but now if you write a song that's not a single i mean the the revenue stream is just there's nothing there those so you have two different types of albums sold that many guys yeah one of the best selling albums of all time you guys should explain single because you say yeah i think that's like a good point let's explain the difference between album cut and what a singer a song promoted to radio by your record label is a single which you're hearing on terrestrial the song that you're hearing when you turn the pop station on and you hear that justin bieber song or whatever his team he's cranking out his own for sure on his back porch i hope that

okay i hope he's listening to this that was dripping with sarcasm he's a big hunter for sure yeah no doubt no but it's like so that their team is collectively going we think this is a a hit so they're that's the song they're choosing to promote to radio as their next single yeah and so an album cut quote unquote is a song that's on the record that never gets chosen as a single but as a part of the collective but it's on the album but i uh i don't get too deep in the weeds out here on industry stuff but it used to be that a single was released as a single a side b side sure that was the same way ass old days yeah that's the you know when they were doing 45s and you know

and vinyls and stuff that That was what was going on. That's where it came from, was a single song. And then there was a B-side. There was two songs on it, you know? You play the one side, it's the single, and then you play the B-side. And some unknown tune. Which is what, another word for album cuts would be B-sides.

Oh, okay. That's the same thing, is a B-side. Can you guys take a stab, I don't care which one of you does it. Take a stab at articulating the connection between contemporary country music and, in a broad sense, the outdoors. The outdoors is revered. Sure.

Right? Nature. I don't know about nature. The outdoors and outdoor lifestyles are revered. Sure. Right? Nature, and I don't know about nature, the outdoors and outdoor lifestyles are revered by country music. It's like you do not say bad stuff about that stuff. I'm not exactly sure what your question is.

I get what you, I think it's not a question. It's not a question, just I'd like you to speak to that. Oh. I think he's saying speak to the correlation of the outdoor lifestyle in our particular genre of music oh god it's touchy isn't it is it touchy well yeah i just don't think it

happens as much as it used to there you go oh really i think i would guess it's more prevalent no i don't are you saying like lyrical content like lyrical that lyrical content okay let's just say this would oh i mean who are the toughest guys you know? The guys that cut logs, the guys that... Yeah, Latvian Eagle, for sure. Yeah, probably Yanni. Yeah, man, I can see him outside. I can see him running to chainsaw.

My brother, Matt. Yeah, probably outdoorsy kind of dude. He's tougher than Yanni. No way. Is he really? Way. Is he faster than him in this age? No way.

He's a tougher man. I'm telling you, man. The old kind of tough. Old man strength. Traditional tough. Old man strength. Dad strength. Dad strength.

Yeah, like eating weird shit. All right. Well, my point is that now perception is reality, right? Especially with the concept of social media. So to me, I feel like as an outsider i i'm a pure what what nashville would refer to as a lunch pail songwriter all right i have no desire i have no desire to explain that to people okay i i go into work i write a song and i go home i don't live with that song for the week and you know what i mean i write another one tomorrow it's my job i clock in a

clock out kind of deal. You take your lunch, play all the work. Literally, yeah. No performing. I'll do a Bluebirds show every now and then but nothing. Not really. I don't want to lose track but it surprised me the way you guys use the word artist.

You don't regard yourself as an artist. You feel that an artist is a performer. I regard myself as the utmost of an artist. But that's not who... I hear you use artist to be a performer. Yeah, that's not what Nashville titles. Well, there's a miscommunication of what artist really means. It's an industry term.

It's an industry term. I mean, Luke is an artist because he's literally developing his own ideas. That's what, to me, what art is. Yeah, but that's what I would define it as as well. So I say, you're an artist. You're a songwriter. Sure. You're an artist.

You're a songwriter. You're an artist. You're a songwriter and a performer. So let's say, just knock the word performer out and replace it with artist. Yeah. They're the same thing. Because we're in the industry that we're in. At a time, you wanted to be an artist.

True. But now you're a songwriter. A touring professional. How about this? wanted to be an artist. True. But now you're a songwriter. A touring professional. How about this? Just replace artist with performer. Yeah. At a time you wanted to be a performer, and now you're just a songwriter. True.

That's a better way of saying it. All the while being an artist. All the while being. Okay. Yeah. All right. So back to the perceptions of reality. So I think it looks pretty cool to be a big country tough guy, right,

to be seen as that. And so if you sing about it, now you back it up with a little bit of social media. Then before you, I mean, you post one picture with a deer head or maybe you're out there just fishing, you know, or maybe you're doing a little trap shooting, and all of a sudden there's a little bit of manliness attached to the name. And so when that song comes through talking about drinking cold beers on Outside Under the Stars, they can back it up with a little bit of pictures.

It's like cred or something. Country cred, that's what we call it. Yeah. You're trying to up your credibility to so i think it's more almost that because if you were to go listen to the top songs on the radio right now i mean i don't think there's maybe not one that mentions the outdoors the song that me and dan wrote that's about to go to radio talks about eight point bucks in autumn yeah it's the cut cornfields you know but that's probably the only one oh yeah

but it's more like yeah i would almost guarantee i almost bet you in it but it used to not usually what you get with pop music is them talking about you know their money or or the girl or their boys or whatever in a confined space but with with country music, it's more nostalgia, you know, and you write to a feeling that you're comfortable with, which with most of guys like us, we grew up in the outdoors. And you try to write what you know. And so for me and Luke and Dan, man, we're trying to write music that speaks to people and people can see

and putting a little color in there if it's Coke cans, shooting Coke cans with a BB gun on a creek or whatever.

Yeah, like the song I played last night, the Real Kids tune. I like that tune. Appreciate that. That was easy. Is that tune out there?

Yeah. Justin Moore. Justin Moore cut that song. It's out there. But not with you doing it. No. Well, I'll say,

I can send you me doing it oh that'd be cute anyway my whole point is that that uh you got to think about your audience right so especially as an artist i mean let's just go back to bieber bieber's not caring his he didn't he didn't care to be represented as an outdoors guy because the people listen to bieber could give a hot shit less if he's ever shot a duck in his life. As opposed to country music where you have guys who are appealing to these people who think manliness associated with countryness is hot, sexy, cool, or someone they'd like to be, depending on male or female kind of. A couple years ago, I read this book.

I wish I could remember the name of it. It was about Nashville in the 60s. It has a history of Nashville, but focused on Nashville in the 60s. And reading it, I was surprised that dudes like Waylon, rightlon and people from his area, and David Allen Coe comes in and out of it, drug addicts. And it seems that they spent, at times in their life, the bulk of their time playing uh pinball but that isn't what the like in describing their life they don't describe

their life that way no they would be like let's go to lukenbach texas correct right not like let's go um snort a bunch of cocaine yeah music row do you like shit loads of amphetamines yeah yeah and play pinball for days on end correct yeah absolutely because how that's kind of boring right JJ's Market right

that's where they went exactly yeah yeah I got an interesting story one of our best friends songwriter's guy named Michael Heaney

and he's from that era I mean he was he's had hits in the what, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s,

early 2000s. I think it's 70s. 70s, 80s starts there. Yeah, he's the only one running right now that's got hits.

So he tells us like five different decades he's had a number one song. He's awesome. No kidding. Consistent decades. Old crotchety man just awesome.

Dude, you would love him. Takes no shit. None. Not a performer. No, Lunch Pail. So, Not a performer. No. Lunch Pail. So,

Lunch Pail. Wrote a bunch of those Eric Church songs. Okay. He wrote George Jones, Doing Time. Still Doing Time. Still Doing Time. Really?

Yeah, and he also wrote Eric Church's Drink in My Hand. So, that's how far apart. He wrote 10 rounds. Yeah. He's had some great,

great songs. But my point is is so back in the day him christopherson i think it was whalen and maybe merle were at a cuff rose which is an older version of what sony atv is now where i work now and that's exactly what they would do they would all pile in on a thursday after they'd written for four days, and they'd play songs to each other. And they would just do lines of cocaine. And he said, man, we were – I don't think he'd mind me saying this.

We were jacked out of our brains, and we went to – it was like 3.30, 4 o'clock in the morning, and they went to find the key to lock the door. And they'd lost the keys to lock the publishing company up to leave. So they were like, well, what do we do? And they were like, I don't know. None of us can drive. There weren't taxis back then.

So they just all leaned up against the door. That way, if anyone came in to steal something, it would knock them all over and they would wake up. So the next morning when the secretary got there she came in the back door unlocked it came in and there and it took a picture of my buddy whalen christopherson and haggard all leaned up against this glass door passed out after a night of rocking how cool is that he's got that picture yeah but speaking to your point i think it's also

like those guys you're saying do lines and then go play pinball, and you can't write songs about it. Those artists are very in tune and in touch with their fan base. I was just about to say it's very similar to what happens now. Absolutely. Because those guys were doing something that their fans would totally have not liked to hear them sing about. Because at that time, the country fan was even more conservative as far as their religious

beliefs and their lifestyle than they are nowadays. You know what I mean? Nowadays, you can be more loose with what you're talking about and do this. It's still the most conservative, ethicallyically speaking genre that exists but way less so than it was in the 70s and those guys were doing way more extreme shit than the guys are doing now yeah that kind of stuff doesn't go on anymore because it just can't but in the era of social media and you know you just you would be you know quote unquote canceled in you know a hot second man if it were to get out that you were doing that kind of stuff yeah i mean

reason i bring that up is in hanging out with you guys uh it's gonna sound corny and hanging out with you guys for a few days, I was kind of, I felt like, oh, you know, they exemplify what, I felt like you exemplify the things that are applauded in the genre.

In a way that I was like, would have been more cynical about, not cynical in a bad way but just like like i understand that that there's certain tropes and certain things that are gonna you know that seem appealing to people going to the river at night to swim whatever like like agriculture being like agriculture being good um right right i got it and there's like like certain ideals stereotypes and like good ideas too that like got what you're saying and there's like like certain ideals stereotypes and like good ideals too that like you when you make a commitment but let's be a

friend you make a commitment to your wife make a commitment to your family like you stay absolutely right yeah um and like anyone you realize there's probably a lot of uh there's probably a lot of uh bs that gets built into it but then hang out you guys repeat us i'm like holy man these dudes are like country songs well that's i mean i take that as a compliment i think that's a compliment yeah man i mean that's that's what that's what you want to be because you know the last thing i want to do is is try to write a song that that is fake to you know to me yeah you gotta understand we can't take the credit for that well i gotta do better i gotta back up what i'm saying better okay okay dan was telling i'm not gonna tell what the story is about dan here was telling he'll have to tell you the story on his

own he's telling a very funny story that had a way different point. But within the story, it touched on agriculture, but within the story, he explained, it's an important part of the story that he explains how an evening goes down in his home. And in his home, at night, before bedtime, him and his wife like to go outside and light a fire and sit by the fire and spend an hour throwing the tennis ball for the dog in which they have a couple drinks, stare at the flames, and then go to bed. I'm like, that's some country music shit right there, man.

And he wasn't telling me to be like, I'm so damn country. No, man. He was telling me a crazy story that I don't want to tell you. But it was just a detail in the story. And I'm like, man, that's like a country song. That had me going, thinking about how me and my wife by the time we put our kids to bed,

sometimes, man, we don't do the whole fire and everything. You just kind of wash dishes and put the house back together and go to bed. I'm guaranteeing there's nights that they don't go outside

and don't sit around the fire to wash dishes. I'm not saying every night I'll walk out... That's not true. Every night I'll walk out shirtless and shut the chickens up. That is true.

I do that. I was about to say that. I was about to say it. I was about to say it. It's not like we do that. But don't come creeping on me at 6 a.m. or you're going to see a lot more of me than you want to because I'm going to let them it's not like we do that. But don't come creeping on me at 6 a.m. or you're going to see a lot more of me than you want to

because I'm going to let them chickens out in my drawers. But, I mean, dude, it's just what we love to do. And it was never contrived. It was never, hey, man, let's learn these things to seem more country. I mean, our dad and our mom made we ate gravy and biscuits and uh we listened to skinnered on the way to church yeah we're fishing on the weekends we went fishing on weekends off the bank we we pulled out stripers and filleted them on the bank and i mean we were never like had dogs as best friends constantly. It wasn't just...

I mean, we played tennis ball, baseball in the backyard. It's kind of where we grew up. And so it's a beautiful thing to be able to not have to fake it. And I think that may be what makes our point of view or songwriting craft, if you will, feel a little more authentic is because that's all we know how to talk about and with that i can't fake it yeah and and i would i'd venture to say that if even if luke wasn't a performer artist or you know and i we weren't songwriters nothing about our lives would shit

we'd still be doing the same thing we'll be doing the same thing we'll be living the same way where we're at yep but thank you for saying that. I appreciate you saying that. Yeah. You think we bring out the good. Yeah, that's a great compliment for sure. No, I've enjoyed it, man. I've enjoyed it. Go ahead. Do you guys... This might not come...

There's a thing that goes on in the North where now and then in the North, people like to, just as a joke now and then... Gosh, here we go. Speculate upon the lives of Southerners. Okay. We do the same thing. It's crazy.

That's what I didn't know until this. I didn't know that was a thing. What, that y'all are... The vice versa? I didn't know that you guys down there goofed on us. Oh, what? Box? For sure.

Oh, box? For sure. For pots. For pots. We don't even plant food. We just plant persammon trees. He does a good persammon. Give him the persammon. Oh, persammons. You got some persammon trees up there. You know. Two fillets.

Two fillets per salmon. Okay. Usually two box will come in per salmon. Wait about six o'clock. Two box will come in per salmon. Do about six o'clock. Two box will come in per salmon. Do you guys not know what you sound like? I didn't. I was like, I mean, it's got its nice...

We were always told growing up that the reason that you don't realize that you have an accent is because everybody on the news does it in like a Midwest accent. Huh. And so whenever you're watching the news or you know it's like done how we sound and so you don't notice it i had to take a class um called i think it was taught by roger gillis and i think it was uh a class called the structure of modern english and thrilling i actually does it actually does kind of sound interesting to me. I was kidding. And in this class, it had all these dialects on the map.

And it was saying, and it was looking at, he was focused for a while. I can't remember if it was him or not, but it doesn't matter. He was focused on three figures. Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and Bro brokaw because it was that era and he was like what how did we decide what a normal american sounds like oh man i love that that's pretty interesting yeah and it and it focused on this circle that kind of like included like i remember it captured chicago and it was like this circle oh man that's cool it was kind of like this is what we've decided it sounds like and here's where and this is the steps that you go to to represent that sound and he presented it through

like who presents america's news super cool man and like that's america yeah everything else derivates yeah well and that can leave people who are from that area probably feeling pretty damn cocky yes and those left out feeling pretty left out he also uh in the same class they got into this notion that if he said that if at the time I can't I wish I could remember if it was the Revolutionary War or the Civil War. If you had somehow made a barrier along the Mason-Dixon line

that there was no exchange that by now, which was now then because this was a long time ago, that by now these two groups would not be able to communicate. Wow. And he talked about, and he looked at the technology that's emerged,

everything to do with automobiles, everything to do with computing, everything to do with materials, fabrics, cultural stuff. It's like, it would be, at this point, no way. Are you going to say all that stuff was made up north so we'd be saying we wouldn't have had the shared we wouldn't have no no not at all we wouldn't have the shared we wouldn't have the shared exchange talking about how quickly things would drift you know like the point being that it was like the vernacular of the south um the

agrarianism of the South, the industrialism of the North at that time, it would have been like, we would now, we'd look at it like France. Two separate entities. That's super interesting. One of our good buddies, Marty Smith, he was a guy from North Carolina

with a hard draw, right? But he wanted to be in some sort of broadcasting thing, right? Yeah. That's all he wanted to do was be in broadcasting. But he says he has this quote, and he says, but you boys know. It took him a long time. He said, guys that talk like us don't get those positions. Said that.

And now he's an ESPN analyst. He works on NASCAR, of course. But he sounds like us. Started in NASCAR. He didn't go to a language quote coach or something no no and it's it's almost like what makes marty marty too is that's his appeal absolutely it's like he's i mean one he's very intelligent oh yes great great guy but he did start out in nascar so you kind of get the prejudice of like well stick the southern guy in the nCAR thing. Right. And he does love NASCAR. Right.

So, I mean, he's very knowledgeable on that subject. So he was obviously the right choice. But now he is mainstream. Now he does college football. That's right. I mean, he does everything now. He's, I would argue, one of the most recognizable personalities. Media decided to celebrate him as opposed to.

Absolutely. Yeah, but I think it became. It took him a long time to get there, though, to break down that thing of, man, you just don't sound appealing to the entire United States because of your Southern accent. Yeah, his personality outspeaks his Southern draw, and I think that's what ESPN gave into, and now it has become a part of the Marty Smith brand is the way I talk,

the way he talks. I'm aware of it man and like it's almost it look a lot better for me to not uh it look a lot better for me to not acknowledge this but i think that it's like fair to acknowledge that there what there's a legit um it's not fanged i mean like it's not fanged. It doesn't have strong teeth. There is a legit perception. It's true, man. There's people in the North be nice as shit

to whoever, but there's people that when they hear a Southern country thing, it's like whatever that person's saying is less important or somehow less reliable. Really? Oh dude.

I'm telling you, man, I hate to tell you it. I hate to tell you. I've never experienced that. I hate to tell you, but it's like a thing. I've even had good friends of mine talk about like meet,

like they may be like, you know, meeting an engineer from, from somewhere. And at first they're kind of like but how yeah but you oh i get i get what you're saying how would you like who are you to tell me about like the instructional integrity of yeah such and such you're from birmingham metal under right do you rest like like how would that shouldn't you be

telling me about corn well Well, I'll be – Do you know what I mean? I'm telling you, dude. I know exactly what you're saying. I hate to admit it, but it's like a thing that you grew up around. We grew up on all kinds of other prejudice that I don't really feel like even talking about. But, like, it's just shitty things people say. There's cultural differences, and there's no doubt about it.

I probably shouldn't talk about this, but I actually – I dated a girl recently. You know, my past relationship. Oh, sticky. I don't know if you want to go there, buddy. actually, I dated a girl recently, you know, my past relationship. Oh, sticky. I don't know if you want to go there, buddy. Oh, please, please. She was from Ohio, Northern Ohio, and had a Northern accent and the whole thing. And I would go up there and visit her family and almost would feel out of place. No, not almost. I felt out of place every time I went because it was such a different environment that i grew up in and that i knew every day and honestly that put a big thing between me and her

and and and we never like it was never a spoken thing but like the way we were raised and the way you know belief systems or whatever like it just something about where she's from and where i'm from did not match up yeah well i don't think he's i i think you're kind of addressing more of the fact that there there was like a little bit of a negative connotation whenever someone spoke so yeah just stereotyping i used to work with a guy in denver that uh it's kind of like a melting pot it's like not really anywhere it's midwest it It's West. Where is it? Yeah, so transient. Right. So he was from Oklahoma. And not like a huge

Hispanic influence too, man. No, yeah. So he was from Oklahoma, had a really strong Southern draw. One of the smartest people I've ever worked with. And it took a long time

for... Do we claim Oklahoma? Does the South claim Oklahoma? I feel like it's... I don't think so. I don't think so. We'll tell you what south is. That's southern.

Okay. But he had this really strong southern drawl. I'll field that one. He's crazy smart, but when we were working at this company, it took a while before people would acknowledge that what he was saying was intelligent. Really?

And some of the people that were maybe from the upper Midwest maybe not as smart or good at their job but it seems like people took him more serious right away because he talked differently because he talked different that is really interesting really i would venture to say the majority of those guys could give a rat's less what you think no i mean honestly it kind of comes with the territory it's like uh i don't necessarily care if uh somebody thinks i'm not as intelligent because of my dialect i'll happily walk out there in my uh cushy shoes and stomp a mud hole in that ass and just go home that's at my buddy i was

talking to him about it one day he was fluent in mandarin nobody would even believe him wouldn't believe him like that's not mandarin he would even believe him wouldn't believe him like that's not mandarin he would he would say something he's just choking nobody could verify like whatever but i was talking to he's like no i'd rather them assume that i'm i'm an idiot and then surprise them than the other way around yeah you know Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew, our northern brothers get irritated.

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you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit OnXMaps.com OnXMaps.com OnXMaps.com Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Dan, you mentioned jokingly I heard you say

two things. We were talking about someone being distinctly northern. And you had mentioned this a little. But I'm picking on you guys pretty hard, too. I know. Totally. And I welcome it. But things that are funny are often funny because there's a hint of truth.

A little bit. Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned you joked about pretentiousness. And then you joked about how you said you felt like we're sometimes that we sometimes on this show disgust the South. Disgust the South in the way they talk about it.

They don't know what they're talking about. Well, it would be like me talking about persimmons. You know what I mean? I'm just kidding. No, I'm just saying in order to get the flavor correct of

what you think you're talking about, you've got to spend a little time with it. I'm not bagging on you or anybody else. We make a lot of fun of people that have strong accents. It's not because... If I could lay out my favorite things in life it's

my favorite is listening to you guys tell us how we sound we're pretty close right oh yeah yeah it's dead on box i'm just saying no man i i think it's interesting that you said that about that there's some truth it always seems to be a little funny if there's a little truth in it i would venture to say that songs are the same way if you can find a way to sprinkle in some of your reality into what you're trying to sing i mean he can speak to this way better than i can as far as it's probably a little bit easier to sing to 40,000 people every night if it's something you actually live to believe in for sure yeah i would agree man i mean i think for me it's like there is no need for me to feel like authentic you know like i don't feel that pressure that i think a lot of other performers in my genre feel

you know because i feel like i'm very open and honest with my fans about where I came from and how I grew up and the things that I did. And the things that you do now. Right, and things that I do now. I think there's something to be said about somebody who can just be themself fully, and that's me, I feel. Absolutely. Listen, man, I'll tell you right on this podcast. I didn't grow up hunting. I didn't't it's not something that my dad did he grew up in the rust belt in ohio and he didn't go hunting with my grandfather because he was a truck

driver you know for his entire life and they lived in a you know suburban neighborhood and outside of akron ohio so it just wasn't something that they did so that wasn't something that my my father passed on to me it was something that I gained an interest in after I started doing music as an escapism type thing absolutely from the daily grind of my job so I don't go out and say man I'll you know I've been skinning squirrels since day one and using bones like a toothpick. I just don't say that because it's not true. And so I've always been cool with that. I'm just fine being who I am and just telling people like it is.

I think fans appreciate that. Yeah, I think you've made it. I think you've made being open about who you are and verbalizing your flaws or whatever part of your thing, which puts you in a pretty comfortable position. Absolutely. Where you're not sitting there being like, man, man i hope shit doesn't catch up to me yeah right no debt and i definitely i i definitely think that that would be an exhausting position but isn't that what a lie does isn't that what a lie does across the board absolutely if you make this

stuff no matter what it is regardless of what it is and i realized recognized this honestly about what 10 years ago in my life that i told you honest this long-legged you're honest i said dude if you want to find the quickest way back to the truck you need to follow your boy because i'm gonna i'm gonna find it i'm gonna find the easiest fastest way back to the truck and he was like all right man we'll try your way this time you know which actually turned out to be wrong sorry about that but i mean i i decided 10 years ago that it it it took less energy because because we all have energy right you're devoting so much energy towards certain things right you only have so much to get right mental energy being a huge part of that absolutely and it takes more mental and sometimes literal energy

to keep up the facade and sell the lie than it does to just tell the truth and deal with the consequences and so we stopped we stopped white fudging anything and i think just living honest i think the interesting thing is like if you're honest from the jump and in our genre i don't i don't think there are any consequences you know what i mean like i don't think anyone's gonna go that guy don't skin big bucks well if you don't talk about skinning big bucks no one's gonna say that you're not doing it right so just sing and talk about the shit that you actually do that's the thing that people need to understand like they try to come in and fit this mold mold that's perceived that's really not even there man

there's nobody in town going signing a guy and going we got to get this guy in a food plot i mean you know what i mean it's like immediately that's not happening You know what I mean? Immediately. That's not happening. You know, nobody's doing that. You know what I mean? And so I don't understand why there are some guys who feel so pressured to try to, like, fit in with their fan base. The guy that does it well is Eric Church. Yeah. Does well.

He just does what he does so unapologetically and is so left of center of what i think the stereotypical the guy that maybe doesn't listen to country music thinks what a country music singer is he's so left of that mold and so outside of the confines of that particular you know stereotype and but he's never in a magazine going dude i'm a big hunter and i'm out fishing all the time like he never says that yeah so he doesn't have to try to acknowledge that or back it up with photo evidence or you know a need to feel like he's cooler than somebody else like he doesn't do that which fucking makes him cool that's what makes him cool is that he doesn't do that in my opinion to like it or leave it yeah you know it's take it or leave it thing take me as i am or not yeah i make music that i like people like it and i don't

make music for people that aren't going to like it so So I don't care if people don't like it. I like that a lot. Good stuff. That's a hook. I just wrote it down. You guys see me right there? Six way. Come on. The thing I appreciate about country

is that you can embrace things that are becoming increasing, like hot for people outside. Like you look at a dude you know even like actors who's the who's the prat yeah yeah oh he does well yeah he gets slapped in the face every time he does it man really oh and he'll like be like oh yeah we killed a lamb on the farm and then all of a sudden just like just like, you're a murderer! He's got to kind of chill on it. He's not holding the lamb up by the back of the head with the blow train.

Just saying. I've had other people I wish I could say this dude's name but I don't want to. It'd be helpful if I could say it but explaining to me flat out over the phone that he's a closeted hunter and he's got a secret game room.

No way. A secret game room. Because he has to hold a certain perception. He had a little thing built off his office. I'm glad that's not the case, dude, for me. Well, it's serious. There's people that can't go near it, can't be seen with it. And it's like the fact that that the fact that on one hand

in america you could have uh involvement right involvement in media and be in the public spotlight and have it be that you can't and if you do you gotta lie to have it be that you don't but then here's this other like thriving industry where you have to lie and say you do were you it's like how so people come and hit me i've been understanding late like people talk about the polarization of america you know and i'm like from the from a media standpoint i'm super sensitive but political media i'm like very sensitive and very nervous of the polarization of america like sure i don't want it to happen, man. I'm very worried about the fabric of the country.

But then the thing I keep reminding myself is every single time I go outside, every time I go outside, nice shit happens around me. Yeah, come on. I don't have any idea what the dude next to me, the dude next to him, the dude next to him, the dude next to him. I have no idea who they're going to vote for. But when I see those guys, it's, what's going on, man? You need any help with anything?

I got to be out of town for the weekend. If you don't mind checking in, I'm going to go ahead and like, well, I know you got to go away. I'm going to watch your situation. Heads up. I saw the kids over there. They seem to have a gun. It's like friendliness.

I would agree with that. Positive interaction after positive interaction. I go to the gas station. People are cool at the gas station. Oh, yeah. Everywhere you go, someone's cool. I'm with you guys. Everybody's cool.

But then all we hear about is the world's falling apart. But then I think, how can it be? You take something like Affinity for Honey. How can it be that if you like this kind of music, it's celebrated. If you like this kind of music it's celebrated if you like this kind of music you gotta hide it oh wow yeah and there's the same and a lot of the same people are listening to all the same stuff exactly right it blow i can't figure out where uh that's just like a example of it's just hard to picture that we're all in these wildly different trips you think there's guys wildly different trips you think like that particular guy right for instance i'm not sure who it is we haven't

discussed but you think that particular guy has like another instagram account like just to follow me either i don't know but you know what that would figure out why he wanted i could not figure out why he wanted to get me on the phone. And my wife's like, oh, my God. This guy wants to talk to you on the phone? So I was like, I don't know. I had no idea. I was like, well, definitely.

Like, if this dude calls, you call him. I called him. I'll tell you later. All he wanted me to do was tell him. He just wanted to talk hunting. He just wanted some justification. Never heard another word from him. Wow. He just wanted to shoot the ship for 45 minutes unreal wow that's with a fellow hunter yeah yeah yeah dude i can't imagine having to hide that man that'd be awful man i couldn't i don't think i could just make your own stack with your box

box stock box stock on the you know you can't even put that on the box. You can't put that on Instagram. Boxstagram, you know. Boxstagram. That's going to be my next Instagram. Boxstagram. Boxstagram. That's going to be your burner.

Boxstagram. I think you bring an interesting point. The second I get outside, it seems like I go to the gas station and people are cool. Yeah, you're not like, holy cow, the world's falling apart. I went to the gas station and people are cool. Yeah, you're not like, holy cow, the world's falling apart. I went to the gas station and they punched me. Right. Immediately. I'll take two.

Pump two. I completely agree with that. I mean, it just, you know, you get here. The second we got on the bus, after we met all y'all northern-speaking jokers, we were just like, dude, there's not a jerk in that whole group. We were like, this is going to be fun.

You guys were expecting out of eight of us, there'd be one. You try to sniff them out. Dude, there's more than eight of y'all out there. I mean, you've got a little bit of a posse. Yeah, I cooked gravy for hours last night. But I'm just telling you. Going by the gravy alone, I can tell. But I'm just saying, you know, there's usually one in there,

and there wasn't, man. We've had an unbelievable week. The landowners have been cool. You know, I just don't know if it's as bad as they like to say it is man yeah and i guarantee you based on if anyone listening could see if you lined up all the people here i feel like it would be a massive spectrum of political religious and social beliefs absolutely and there hasn't been one guy that's like, man, I don't like that dude, man.

I just don't get that guy. Because we all have this common bond of being out here and enjoying ourselves, cooking, eating food, talking, laughing and stuff. There's never once been like, Giannis, who you voting for, pal? You know what I mean? It's just like, that doesn't matter to me, man.

No, and that's another thing. That's the beauty of the outdoors is like in a world and in a culture that is ever-changing, man, daily, outside is a constant, you know, that going to hunt in a tree stand, sitting in a tree and watching a buck walk out, that's the same. You know, like that's a constant thing that you can always escape to bro coming in with some

those good nuggets right there well you i i listen to say it's not as normal as like when luke's i'm with you and i've been thinking about it i've been thinking about that idea of the constancy of nature because we've been working on this book project. Not to be confused with our Wilderness Skills and Survival book project, ladies and gentlemen, which is available soon. Go pick it up. You can pre-order now.

In fact, you can pre-order now. Where can they pre-order, Steve? Anywhere books are sold. Anywhere box are sold. Go are sold anywhere box are sold anywhere box are sold paper box we're going to have this other book project about kids

having to do with kids and nature and in it in thinking about this book I've been thinking about this idea that we invite kids our kids I've been thinking about this idea that we invite kids, our kids, invite people to feel... We invite them to all these forms of community in life,

meaning your community, the little place you live. We are invited to be participants in social media community we could be invited to be participants in like being fans of uh luke holmes right or fans of the local high school community and you feel like you're part of that and you might feel like you're part of the you know church and you're part of that um but not doing enough to invite kids to feel like they're part of an ecosystem. Wow. Right? Or part of nature, something.

And so I was looking at all these ways in which you can just, in your own yard, whatever it is, if you live in an apartment like your balcony i don't know wherever you are like you could participate sure and be like man i noticed that the sun was a few months ago rose over there and now it rises over here when i turn on my water and water comes out um where did that water come from like did it did it falls rain snow how did it get here is it part of an aquifer does the aquifer grow shrink when you flush your toilet like what is that water's path to the ocean right and you start piecing together that you're sort of involved with the world the threading of the physical world absolutely and you'd invite to be in that community and i'll think about how it's uh perhaps really comforting because there's this constancy. Right? Sun, all these predictable patterns. 100%.

And I'm always telling my kids this. The other day, not the other day, a couple weeks ago, we look up on the mountain near our house and there's like a pillar of smoke coming out of the mountain. It looks like the size of a wheelbarrow

burning. By the time I go inside and get my spotting scope that's some bitches like over the ridge top the next day burns down houses of friends of ours wow we're like under evacuate standby for evacuation orders saw it super small Dude, we saw it like a campfire. Is that what it was? We saw it so small that we're debating whether to call 911 or not. No, here's the thing. Two weeks earlier,

they have this map that shows all the lightning strikes. Now, I saw a new firefighter, but I'm like, why don't you guys just go? If you know where they're at from radar, why don't you just go to them all? He goes, because there's a thousand of them. A thousand of what? Lightning strikes. I was like, well, if you know there's one there, why don't you just go to them all? He goes, because there's a thousand of them. A thousand of what? Lightning strikes.

I was like, well, if you know there's one there, why don't you go put it out? He's like, good luck. It might be hundreds or thousands of them. That was what ended up doing it. It hit a tree. A lightning strike two weeks earlier. Gosh. Hit a tree, and it smered wow inside the tree and underground then whatever

one day it smoldered its way out yeah from the outside in or so they're set out yeah oh yeah just smoldered inside the tree no one knew people it's right by this like hiking trail no one knew there's like this little ember in air from a lightning strike that was about to burn the whole forest blows up and like 11,000 acres. Gosh. Then I'm sitting there thinking, this is like a long digression. But then I'm like, and there's also the really scary, wildly unpredictable shit about being involved in the natural world. Like, it's real consistent and cool.

And then, all of a sudden, it burns your house down. Everything's on fire. It burns your house down, man. So, it's like a and cool, and then all of a sudden, it burns your house down. Everything's on fire. It burns your house down, man. So it's like a complex relationship with it. I don't even remember what I was talking about. Well, you were talking about kids. Oh, kids.

I heard this analogy one time that was pretty cool. Man, I hope y'all didn't say it. Otherwise, it's going to look like I'm giving you a compliment. And we don't need that. That'd be terrible. But it's essentially like... Nice guys, y'all. He's made fun of himself. If you take a bunch of plastic toys to...

If we had a gymnasium and we put 100 kindergartners in it, and you took a bunch of toys and you put them in the middle and all the kids just flooded and played with them for 15 to 20 minutes and eventually would get pretty exhausted not covid safe not covid safe not saying in this current era we would do that but okay and then you in the old days and then you put them back you know you took all the toys out you took a little bag and you walked up there you opened the bag and there was a puppy in it and how many kids would eventually just bam get right on it everybody wants to touch it everybody wants to see it and i think i think deep within us even as as children we're we're born with the idea of of wanting to be connected to that world it's just we as adults have wrapped work and life

and city and concrete around it so much they have to literally fight through layers of existence to even fill the grass under their feet man and i want to make sure that it with my child i have a new one year old i mean we're already taking our shoes off and walking outside and and dealing dealing with with you know with with figuring out that we are connected to that and how to take care of it responsibly and enjoy it at the same time it doesn't have to be work all the time you know yeah shane mahoney said that on uh randy newberg's podcast oh randy's dan loves podcast nice guy dude podcast nice guy what uh what's your luke this is your first hunting trip out uh on the great plains yeah yeah impressions it's great they are the great plains these planes are great

and they are plain and they're great no no man it was i mean it's obviously drastically different than anything i've i've done you know like i said i'm i'm not uh not a lifelong hunter checking in here so and i'm drawing off the past five or six years of my personal experience which has mainly been hunting in the south you know in in the hardwoods of the south pretty much is where i've hunt you know deer turkey that's pretty much my lexicon of of going and hunting you know some bird hunting and stuff like that but all in the same environment so to it wasn't a gradual move it wasn't like oh man when we went to tennessee and then we slowly piddled out to like missouri and then we got into kansas and it was like you don't it wasn't working my way out.

It was like it went from Tennessee to Wyoming in two and a half hours. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so you come out, and it's like, I remember thinking the first day that we went out, when me and you went out, and it was like, you see this animal that's 800 or 1,000 yards away from you. It's cool to be able to see that.

In Tennessee, it's like a glimpse. There's so many trees you can't see. It's a glimpse. Like they come out in an open spot, and they might be out there for five minutes, tops, and then they're back on the other side of the woods. They're passing through, or they're coming in to feed for five or ten minutes, and they're back in the woods. Like their safe place is where they want to be. And there kind of is no safe, quote unquote, safe place for an animal to be in that sense here.

Like there's not a lot of cover. There's not a lot of, you know, places to like, there's not a lot of holes and crevices to get in when we saw that we saw that mule deer you know pushed up against that cliff face there it was like where's he gonna sit out in the middle of the yeah you know thousand acre field yeah he had like worked very hard to find a little spot where something couldn't see him and here we are you know seeing him ruining his spot, you know what I mean? Kind of thing. But it was so different, man. And it was so fun to, to have like the challenge of getting to the animal,

I think was my favorite part of it. I, in a way, you know what I mean? It's never, to me, it's never been about killing something. That's not,

I mean, all the snake and around and going around and like, that was the neat thing. And like, and like, obviously a huge part of it has been, you know, learning from you and spending time with you out there was also, all the snaking around and going around and like that was the neat thing and like and like obviously a huge part of it has been you know learning from you and spending time with you out there was also you know really awesome for me as well that's not normal in a hunt obviously we're not going to be

hunting together every weekend you know what i mean so like that was neat and i took that in as well but it was like going with someone who knew what they were doing was huge for me. Like it wasn't like, all right, well, we're going to park the truck, and there's one over there on the side of the road. It was like, you know, just get out, and we'll get it, and we'll drive the truck up there and go get it, and then that'll be it. It wasn't that. You know, I would never have wanted it to be that.

So going down and hiking down this huge you know mountain for lack of a better term i mean it's not you know mount st helens or something but it's definitely not a hill either you know i mean and so going down that and going back up and you know getting spotted and then you're like well that's not going to work and just trying things and then finally when you get there and it all works out like being a part of that like that doesn't happen in tennessee except for when you're turkey hunting yeah which is why i love turkey hunting in tennessee so much right is it is casey kept telling the case he's the landowner uh i believe but he kept saying all my buddies call turkey hunting poor man's elk hunting

because they're calling back to you you're trying to find a response you know what i mean like so and i think that's a really solid analogy but i think it was a little bit it it was everything i loved about turkey hunting on a way more grandiose scale minus the you know the call and response you know element of it you know yeah you're trying to stay hidden you're trying to figure out how you're going to get there where do we need to set up how do we approach it i don't know it's just there's something you can really get lost in that moment you know and my job can be so insanely chaotic and like over over sensory you know deprivation it's like doesn't even begin to describe you know being in

like a television studio and it's like all right three minutes we're doing this and two minutes we're like down to the minute of what we're gonna do and just sitting there for an hour waiting for somebody to waiting for something to walk out on top of a mountain with people that you like hanging out with is just i mean it's pretty refreshing you can't even put a price on it in my but you know what i mean yeah you know a thing i was explaining to to luke not that i needed to explain this to him but we're just i guess it's more like we're discussing this is in the there are very few trees here i mean usually you can't see a tree usually they're like most places you go in this area in Wyoming,

you can't see any vegetation that would be higher than your calf. True. Most of the time, that's the case. It might be like a scattered bit of junipers or something. But typically, within 1,000 yards of you, there'd be like no thing higher than your calf. And I was saying that it creates the illusion, because you can see so damn far,

and you always see something out there, an antelope or whatever. It creates the illusion of there being a whole bunch of stuff. You're like, man, there's, because we're like being like, oh my God, there's some over there, and some over there, look at all these animals. I was saying if you took every square mile section

and took all the things that live there and put them in a pile right in the middle of that section, it would be small little piles. And there would be a lot of sections that the pile, there was nothing to put in the pile. And if you went down to Tennessee and farmland in Tennessee and took all that square mile and put it in a pile, you'd have a heaping pile.

That's true. That's very true. I agree with that. Like a pile of all, a heaping pile that's true that's very true like a pile of like a pile of all like a tour bus yeah like piled up there like a crew bus like a crew bus like second to like a jungle even i feel like only second to like a true jungle you know in like jungles actually don't have that much life really we've learned from being down there really yeah and you've heard the stories of vegetation.

Luke's never toured the Congo, so we haven't been. We'll let you know when we do. No, the early explorers that went and did trips had that same thought and went down there and got their butts in big trouble

because they just thought, oh, there's going to be fish and just game everywhere. It's a jungle. I mean, I think up until this moment. I thought that just until this episode. Really interesting. Dumb Southerners, dude. Oh, we're so dumb. Dumb Southerners, dude.

Oh, we're so dumb. Dumb Southerners. Here we are. Dumberners. I wish I had learned something from Yanni. Tennessee can just support a lot more. The habitat can just support a lot more animals. We were talking about cows per acre

and Casey's father here said that it takes roughly, what was it, 48 acres to support a cow and a calf per year and then Dan was saying that back in Tennessee, you can do that on a one. Cow per acre, yeah. Water.

Makes a big difference. And they were saying that oh he said well we consider that irrigated and i was like there ain't no pipe and water coming to my stuff he was like no no it's like rain that's i was like oh yeah i'm so dumb irrigated by the rain i think a good i think a good a good uh you know a good thing to get into to describe what we're talking about too is off camera on this time that we've been here i shot got to shoot a turkey and we opened up that pouch you know dude how vibrant was that smell man it's crazy open that thing and you were like so keen on like what's in there did one of the camera guys just throw that on his plate last night i think it was lauren but it was just grass pretty much what was this one type of the

non-native plant again a non-native plant sure that is spreading like what was that russian olive really yeah russian but when you go to Tennessee, man, you cut that thing open, and it's got everything under the sun in there, man. I mean, there's corn in there. There's acorns in there. There's grass in there. There's, you know, I mean, bird seed. I found mouse remnants in one of my turkeys crawls.

Oh, is that right? Yeah. I like that word, craw. You know what y'all call it? Not a crop. Crop. Crop. Oh.

I always thought it was a crow. No, it's one of them Yankee things, man. The border. Mason Dixon. You know, crop, not a craw. Thank goodness we can communicate. What's your – you guys cook – explain what you guys cook to us here at night, cooked for us.

Last night we did a – we had antelope backstrap. Did you call it country fried antelope? Country fried antelope. Yeah, yeah. We do a dredge of milk and, ah, buttermilk. Buttermilk, I'm sorry.

Don't give me no egg wash. Do a dredge and just cut antelope backstrap to two finger width and we scored it last night because the antelope hadn't had a ton of time to to break down those muscles and be super tender so we scored all the pieces and went

into a buttermilk dredge and then we went into self-rising flour with a little tony satchel he's mixed in with it a little kick yeah a little kick it was a nice little kick and you throw that into a pot of uh of canola oil that's that've got heated up or vegetable or whatever. Or bear fat. Or bear lard. If you're a fan of the meat eater podcast. Apparently that's a real big thing. We got a jar of bear fat

for you guys to bring home. I know, I'm excited. You better not use that without us, by the way. Oh, I'm using all of it. I'm going to be super pissed off. It's artists. I'm going full artist.

Dang. Dang. Artist night. And then, yeah, we... But shallow fry. Shallow fry. Not like... Yeah, you don't not like yeah you don't not fully submerged you don't dunk them in there it's a flip fry you know you you're gonna flip halfway

through it um we had that and and then to top it off we'd made a little sawmill gravy that uh that was passed down from my meemaw to my dad and down to me and r.i.p we were r.i.p man and i told the camera last night like every time you, we would show up at my grandmother's house, my Meemaw's house, you would either smell one of two things. You'd either smell chicken and dumplings that she made. Or palm balls. Yeah, that was all. You're always smelling that.

Yeah. You're always smelling that. Chicken and dumplings or a big thing of of gravy and biscuits and and sausage and bacon and uh that's what we had last night we just had a little southern fried antelope with a little sawmill gravy and and biscuits palm oil mill gravy do you guys feel that you um like day in day out do you guys feel like you're like uh that you eat southern pretty much i don't know man it's taco bell southern i mean consider that southern i'll say this we grew southwest man we definitely grew up

everything was fried man we're growing up i mean we dude we fried our chicken our fish you know uh but but now man i think we've we've branched out a little bit and they're trying to to calm the old cholesterol down a little bit yeah i don't know do you i mean do you consider that the only way for a country meal to be made is fried. I mean, I would say just like even eating country is... A lot of chocolate pie around. I'll admit that. Yeah, man. I mean, there's some southern things.

Yeah, there's a bunch of southern things, I'd say. Chocolate pie is southern? I mean, I would consider that pretty southern. Pecan pie? Pecan pie. Yeah, pecan pie. Pumpkin pie, for sure. You say pecan?

Yes, correct. I said it correctly. How do you say it? L-V or L-E? No, that's how we said it. I thought down south. I say pecan. I say both sometimes.

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welcome to the to the on x club y'all this gets me into a whole nother segue that's very important oh please man i was gonna ask you more about southern food for all of our friendships but we were talking about how we all didn't ask each other different things but this is one thing i will be judging all of you upon i'm just going to go so let me let me paint the the room for you here we're in my bus i'm I'm sitting on a nice love seat Mr. Patelis is to my left Reed is to his left Dan, Steve, Tork Clockwise

Clockwise, that's a circle Yeah, clockwise So I'm going to start with Yanni And go crappy or crappie Crappie Gross Yeah, crappie Crappie

Crappie Crappie Brutal Really, you're crappy? We can't be friends anymore do you okay if you go to the bathroom do you take a crap or a crop crap right it was i mean there's two there's not two p's in crap right there's two p's in crappy and my turd is not a fish sure no also so how does the...

Steve's an English guy. How does the second P change the vowel sound of the A to an A? Okay. If you put an E on the end of the word, it would be crepe. If you put a P, it's crap. Two P's is crop. Two P's is crop. Two P's is crop. No, that's not true because C-R-O-P doesn't have two P's.

I don't know. I would like to know. Slappy Joe's? Slappy Joe's. I don't know that this question is ruled. Not everybody calls Slappy Joe's. You just talked yourself out of it. I don't think it's ruled.

Slappy Joe's. It's not Slappy Joe's. I don't know that this is like rule. Not everybody calls Slappy Joe. You just talked yourself out of it. I don't think it's rule dictated. It's a Slappy Joe. It's a Slappy Joe. I don't know that this is like rule dictated, man. I don't know if there's a rule for it. Yeah, I don't know if there is either. Might be addiction thing. You guys call them crappies?

That's what we would joke about you guys calling them. Me too. I would joke somebody saying crappy. So this is a separation in even the southern situation. Oh, this is a bust. This is a bust of it. This is like Ole in even the Southern situation. Oh, this is a bus. This is a bus divided. This is like Ole Miss-Mississippi State. Yeah, a bus divided.

This is like Florida-Georgia game. Wait, when did your record come out? Which one? Crappy. I'll go with Crappy. I'll swap right now. Right. Yeah, you know, Better Together is not really.

No, I think it's Crappy. I think we'll just pull it. I think calling i'll just call randy everything randy if you're listening just go ahead and pull that one crappy it is uh tell people about this tell people about the the process of like how you guys you guys hang out you guys are like really good friends right yep yep who us yeah it's just your first um this is the first single is that right the you wrote together our first single together yeah we're what was this tell the song and tell what the seed of the idea was so the song is called better together it was written in the summer of 2018, I believe, in Boone, North Carolina.

On a retreat. On a writing retreat. Specifically going to write. Specifically going to write. That's usually how I operate. I take two weeks at a time, probably four weeks a year, and go and write the majority of my stuff. So I'm not, quote, unquote, a lunch pail writer like these guys.

And where do you go to do it? Sometimes I go to Boone. Sometimes I go to Florida. Sometimes at my house. Sometimes, you know. You clear the deck, and that's what's going on. That's it. There's no other.

There's no press. There's no interviews. It's different guys. So when I first started doing it I would kind of do so like let's say I bring Steve and Tork in for that be a good move man cuz I got some hooks and melodies that you guys would want to pay good money for. Now we know why we were invited. But give us a little bit of you can't work with Just give us a little.

It's a little hook I came up with yesterday. Oh, I had nothing to do with that? Thanks, man. I didn't know what a hook was, and then you explained it. So now it's yours. And I was I said

I was yelling at the Flip-Flop flasher about something, I feel like. Yeah, I think the flip-flop flasher was lamenting. Was that Seth? Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. Was lamenting. We were skinning an antelope, and I feel like he was lamenting not having something.

Gloves. Right? No. He had gloves. I thought the back half he did. A tool of some sort. Oh, no. You know what it was?

He was lamenting having to do it with me. That's right. That's what it was. Which I completely understand. That I wasn't holding up the, I wasn't doing enough. You weren't holding the, I wasn't doing it right

because I was talking with you. That's right. And I said to him, I want to get this right because this is like a pretty good hook. Think about it. I said to him, you got to work with what you got, not with what you wish you had. Not with what you wish you had. You got to work with what you got. So I'm developing this into a hit.

Not what you wish you had. Well, it's not that. I was hoping it would be more of a country hit, guys. It's a snap track. You guys are had. Well, it's not that. I was hoping it'd be more of a country hit, guys. Snap track. You guys are kind of taking it in a wild direction. You gotta work with what you got. So that's a hook.

So who, oh, anyway, so, yeah, so, I want to get to the hook. I want to go through the whole damn deal. There's a hunting and fishing reference in there.

There is, there is. The first thing in it, the first thing in it, this is another thing I want to get into how did you guys know that the engine should be a johnson because we know dude come on dude because it wouldn't have it can't be a tahatsu no we don't have we don't really have i mean nobody really uses tahatsu it's like it's like read the room, Steve. I know. I was pleasantly surprised.

It's like when you're watching a, um. This guy's selling a short, man. No, I'm complimenting you. A 40 HP Johnson. If you've got a flat bottom boat in the south, you've got an Evan Root or a Johnson on that bench. Used to. Well, if you're making $40,000, you've still got one on there.

You know what I'm saying? That's what I got on mine. You ain't got a 40. You got about a 25. That's what I'm trying to applaud. Meaning, now and then, I do want to get back to the song, but I want to applaud the choice. Because lyrically, I thought it was astute.

Because, and I'm just like where this stuff comes from because now and then like i'm always talking about how much i like cormac mccarthy the writer cormac mccarthy because he does his homework right when someone has like when someone like has a firearm or something it's like it's the firearm yeah that they would have brought to you by weatherby yeah and it like it makes sense so every time he references something um whatever like something about someone's footwear something about whatever like some detail like god that's exactly it's the correct one like that's exactly right right um and having a yeah i thought that the inclusion of that it was a johnson outboard it was like steve was listening no the johnson outboard i'm like because you see it is

a johnson out but i wasn't even there but it has to have been a johnson all them southerners run them damn johnsons but it's like it sort of you hear like someone having a johnson gone and it's like right away it's a old ass engine that someone has put in a lot of effort rebuilt the carbs at least eight times it's like it's not running by accident anymore it's running because someone had to keep it running yeah so the inclusion of having it be that, I took note. It helped sell the authenticity to you. It set me where I felt as though I was in good hands. There you go.

That, what you just described, is what we as songwriters work so hard to craft is something undeniably honest, but pictures that not only you can visualize, but tap into a little bit of life. Yeah. You can go back to a time. And if we can accomplish that, and we can convey that, I mean, to me, that's the bones of a successful turn.

Would you have been less there if it was an Evan Rood? Good question. It would have been... Nothing would have occurred. I wouldn't have took note because it's more prevalent. No, I just would have been like... It feels more buzzword-y. No, I was just like, it wouldn't have brought me like...

You know, there's that little bit of delight that occurs when something's perfect yeah i remember i was talking about the book um i'll take that i was telling you about there's a great book about the great plains called great plains sure in the great plains the the writer ian frazier describes a red tail hawk sitting on a power line and he talks about that it would fan its tail right and he mentions that uh somehow he draws a simile between someone working a deck of cards oh dang that's good yeah right that's so beautiful it brings like it's like you can see it there's like a delight that occurs yeah absolutely it's a split screen and you got you got it happening on both sides.

You can see them easily. Yeah. So, you know, had he said some other analogy or some other metaphor

or some other simile, it just wouldn't have clicked. So if you had said Evan Root, I don't know, it would have just been like, eh. I wouldn't have thought

what a mess. Giannis is a bit of a songwriter now. He's a bit of a critic, too. Oh, tell me about it. I've been in trouble with him for four days. Yamaha might work, maybe. He did dance me around the floor.

He lat me and danced me last night. I saw that. I saw that. I caught a little jig out there. My back hurt. That's one of the songs I wrote. Nummies, nummies, nummies, nummies, nummies. Back to the song.

So I digress by saying I took note of the Johnson mention. And I was just pointing out that there are some outdoors references. For sure. In the song. And so you go to a write and retreat. Yeah. Go to a write and retreat. We're in Boone.

And Dan was there on that particular day. And our buddy Randy Montana was there as well. Is that his birth name? No, it's not. It's not his birth name. But that's the moniker that... His dad is a Hall of Fame songwriter who went by Billy Montana.

And so he assumed that pseudonym once he went into songwriting. What did you guys think about when it was Steve Fever? Steve what? Steve Fever. Fever? Steve Fever. It would feel a little mushy okay stever you know like it would sound like you were saying steve ever you know fever you know leave it to stever i like that who's got a fever yeah leave it to stever um but now anyways we're up there and and i think we wrote the chorus

that day and the first verse yeah so that's what, and I think we wrote the chorus that day and the first verse. Yeah. So that's what you start with. Chorus. We wrote chorus first. Is that typical? No.

No. It's just a bit. It depends on the day. Can you tell me the chorus? Of course you can. Yeah. You know, some things just go better together. I mean, if we're going to sing it, are we going to sing it?

No. Dude, sing it, man. No, I can't. But it's like, go listen to the song. to song on your local streaming service Dan would like a 80 HP Johnson on his neck but it's but that's the the idea was like it was about things working in in correlate in like he keeps key talk about that like who's there was that where was the beginning of that idea yeah who said how about it be about this i i do know this

so randy montana said man i got this hook and i and we said okay what is it he said i got this hook it's just like we go together like good old boys and beer yeah that's a bit much what what is what is that as the chorus correct that's the hook of the song oh define a hook for me i think i misunderstood oh man so it means like the conceit upon which it's built not necessarily there are many it's consider a country song a bit of a trot line. So you have multiple hooks. The hook that got you, 40 HP Johnson. Oh.

So you try to sprinkle those in. Now, the main hook of the song, if you're talking about that, that is the ending, essentially the ending line of the chorus. A good old, like good old boys and beer and me as long as you're right here two hooks so the thing that hooks that isn't the chorus and the thing that hooks you is that up to the entire song you have no clue what we're talking about until the last line of the chorus that's a that's another thing that's another thing that. That's another thing that I found pleasure in. Yeah.

You got some chill bumps on that. Remember when I was telling you about the song I thought was very flawed? No. Who was I talking about the flawed song with? I didn't want to have it be a friend of your guys and then make it. It really doesn't matter. Oh, you're talking about that as, I think, that's my boy. Okay. Craig Campbell? No, no, no. No? You're talking about that as, I think, That's My Boy. Okay.

Craig Campbell? No, no, no. No? You're talking about LV Shane. That's My Boy. Yeah. Is it the one where he's a stepfather now? No.

Nope. No. I'm not exactly sure of the song. Lee Bryce had a song called Boy, too. No, that's Boy. That's not the same thing. In the first verse. That's My Boy.

In the first verse. Yeah, that's the one. It's like the high in the first verse that's that's the one there's like a high school football game and his kid kicks the shit out of some other kid and he stands up in the bleachers be like that's my boy that's how i described it how do you guys not know what i'm talking about i thought you'd pay attention to everything man i'm like in song a lot of stuff yeah no i don't mean that i mean all country songs i mean i we only like good songs and you said that song was flawed yeah yeah i probably just dismissed it if it was only thing being there's a there's a there's no redemption in

the song reason i bring it up is i never i the to the whole song i'm waiting for the hook through the whole song i'm waiting for the payoff right and there isn't and i feel that the payoff is going to be that he's painting the picture of this kid there's this dad and this dad is like absolutely loyal to his son even when his son is wrong he's loyal to him i'm expecting at the end of the song that it's going to be something like he the boy throws himself on a grenade in iraq to save his buddy or whatever. Which is? Or does, like, and he'd be like, oh, yeah, man.

This dude, like, he's like, that's my boy. Right or wrong, that's my boy. One of the verses is his kid goes down and takes a.22 and whatnot and goes down and shoots up this other guy's property. And all the kids come home, and the old man comes over. You know what I'm talking about? No. I think you dream this up.

The old man comes over, and he says, one of these kids shot up my property. And he says, that's my boy. And he's like, yeah, that's my boy. So I'm thinking in the end, the kid's going to do some heroic thing. And then it'd pay off to be like, that's my boy. That the payoff then it payoffs be like that's my boy that's what i'm saying man that's my boy but in the end it never happened the kid's just kind of still an and the song just yeah it's like it's so when i'm yeah as a listener it led to so much disappointment that me and mo fallon he's talking about all the time we

every time that song came on we'd be like it just leaves me being like but like we thought that someone screwed up and they and they left the verse off the track can we get back to talking about marcel yes because here's the thing i i got the pleasure the pleasure that was denied me you got a bow and that was when you're doing all these like and you're're like, all these things that match up. Okay. All these things in life that match up makes sense. I'm like, okay, whatever. Things that match up makes sense.

And then all of a sudden I'm like, oh, shit, man. Like this dude and this woman. It's a country love song. Yeah. And so when you finally go like, why is he telling me all this? Right. Why is he telling me all this stuff that goes together? And then I register again that delight.

If Steven Rinello was a trout and we were fly fishing, and we're just back and forth, back and forth, and we just lofted that little fly out there. Stripping it a little bit. And I sipped it. You sipped it. You sipped it? Fire! God!

Gotcha. We got you with 40 HP Johnson. So I liked it. Thank you. No, I like it lyrically. I like that it delivered me a product. Sure. And as a songwriter, you want that hook to be that aha moment.

That's where this is all going. Yeah, and that's even in the room. that hook to be that aha moment. That's where this is all going. Yeah, and that's even in the room. If somebody throws out a hook and you want to say, well, what's the twist on it? What's the spin on it? What's going to grab them? How do we make that aha moment?

And there are many different ways to get to that. There you go. Sure. There are many different approaches to getting to that aha moment. And it doesn't always have to be this whoa if everything was you know it was the butler moment then you it was colonel mustard in the study with a it would get pretty annoying right so i mean it's okay just don't be afraid of songs that don't have the... Grandi also... It was the guy behind the curtain the whole time?

I'm not afraid of it. In fact, I want to get back to y'all's process, but I like the films of David Lynch. And what David Lynch toys with you, it'd be good to listen to. It'd be good to watch. As a songwriter, it might be good to watch David Lynch movies because what David Lynch messes with you often is the whole time you're like, okay, listen to it'd be good to watch as a songwriter might be good to watch david lynch movies because what david lynch messes with you often is you're the whole time you're

like okay where is it all leading like what's the point where is it all leading what's the point and the movie ends and you're like damn me for thinking they're like yeah you don't want a sucker what a sucker i am man oh yeah but i think that's what he's showing you. He's like showing you. And that would be. Corman McCarthy does the same thing. Through the whole book, you're like, I can't wait till this super evil guy gets his. Never happens. Nope.

The book just ends like the evil guy is fine. Like all the good people are dead. The evil guy drives off into the sunset. Do you think he's doing that for your own imagination to continue that process? See, I don't want that. I think he's doing it to mess with you. He's doing it to show you

that you're a sucker. Okay, okay. I want a bow on my books or a bow on my movies, man. Yeah. Wrap it up. You know what I'm saying? Wrap it up.

I don't want to be left hanging out like loose baloney. Remember the end of No Country for Old Men? I do remember that. Yeah. There's like the one person left, the beautiful, sweet girlfriend. But there's a bit of a bone there.

And he goes to their house and comes out and checks the bottom of his boots presumably to see if her blood's all over his boots. He promised her he was going to do it, though. He promised her he was going to do it. Wasn't the end of The Sopranos like that? People were all up in arms. it was like this guy comes in to they're all sitting around the table at the restaurant and this dude comes in and it was just like you're like oh man something's gonna happen and then it was just like boom and that was just the end of the whole series i don't like that

i don't like that i don't like to leave like a leave you hanging. That seems lazy to me, dude. I completely agree. That feels lazy to me. It does. There's got to be a certain enjoyment for the creator of that, though, to be like, what did you like to know? Because he's a dick. Yeah. That's why.

That's why. Sure, man. I'm kind of on both sides of the fence there. Because I like when that Salem Sopranos, that thing goes down. I like to imagine what happens. You know, what happens next. Right, but isn't it your job to tell me what happens? Absolutely.

I'm not watching your movie to imagine something. I'm watching it to see what you imagine. If I wanted to do that, I would have just done it from the start. I would have just sat there and went, that was a cool story I just thought of. Man, what a great ending to that story.

When Dan told me the story earlier that I don't want to tell the details about, but he told me the story that happened to include his night at the campfire with his wife, my joy in that story was primarily how excited I am to tell his story. Oh, absolutely. I'm like, I'm going to tell the shit out of this story. Every time this subject comes up from now on, I will tell this story. Oh, absolutely. I'm like, I'm going to tell the shit out of this story. Every time this subject comes up, I'm like, I will tell this story. I got one for you. All right, so there you are.

So Johnny Montana says, I've got a book. Randy Montana. Randy Montana. Joe Montana. Joe Montana. Joe Montana comes into Boone, North Carolina at the right trip. Yeah, he says that thing. And then that eventually works too.

We're discussing. I remember this. And you're in the room or not? Yeah. We're actually sitting on a deck of a house in the mountains. Looking over Grandfather Brown. Yeah, that's how I picture this stuff. 70 degrees every day in the middle of the summer there.

Rainstorm comes through. Rainstorm comes through every day. But it's awesome. So we're out there. Everybody's holding a guitar presumably just one guitar probably just one honestly you know it kind of gets to be a bit of a town hall meeting if there's more than one yeah if there's more than one everyone's kind of oh really people get to noodling one or two usually you know what i mean and you're like

okay can we get some focus here but anyways i remember i still have this we sat down okay can you tell real crap sorry who's holding the guitar so you don't get to hold it luke sometimes it's ever changing okay dan's got the guitar dan's holding the guitar okay i'm in the i'm in the scene i'm dominating over the guitar i'm in the scene clutching the no it's more like i'll be like and a lot of the times there's nothing happening on guitar it's not like dan's just sitting there playing for three hours or four hours. It's like I'll sit there and I'm like, hold on, let me get that real quick. You know what I mean? Like he'll pass it over to me.

I'm sussing out something in my own head. But I explicitly remember Randy had that idea. We were discussing it and had landed on the Better Together thing. And we were like, what's the best avenue to approach this thing and so i sat down i had my pen and paper and i just wrote out a bunch of stuff that i felt like went together really well johnson 40 in the flat bottom exactly it was all these different things and it was a list you know It was 10 or 12 lines long of just different things that I felt like worked together really well.

And it was like, how do we, in a clever way, make all these things? Not maybe these explicitly, but this is, I was writing with a guy named Charlie Worsham this past week, and he had a great analogy for it. He says, I have to just say these things and for everyone to hear him because he refers to it as fertilizer it might be but sometimes the is the fertilizer that leads to absolutely the growing of the common goal that's

a metaphor and it was awesome and so he throws it I'm so I'm throwing out this fertilizer you know of these different things and then we're all going and then it was almost like an explosion of yeah like oh well this and that and this and this and and you know we how much time is the lapse at this point a couple hours probably two hours maybe you know there's a lot of coffee drinking and you know just kind of shooting the and i do remember specifically in the second verse, if I can take this part, I remember looking at Luke and being like, man, I feel like this is the point where we start, because Cat's out of the bag at this point, right?

On the girl being the focus of the song. I said, well, why don't we give this second half to them? And I said, is there anything specific that you feel like you and nicole do that's kind of just very specific to your relationship and he was like no shit he goes man you know whenever we go to town she puts her license into my wallet that was a fucking great detail yeah and as soon as he said i was I was like, whoa! Whoa. We are writing that down. I don't know how we're making that fit,

but we're making that fit. And immediately it was like, your license in my wallet when we go out downtown. I said, anything else? He goes, her lipstick's all over my coffee cups. Next line goes, your lipstick stained every coffee cup that I got in this house. I had to put in,

you're always moving my shit from one cabinet to another cabinet. So please stop. Your mother, for some reason, takes my really good knife and cuts my kids' grilled cheese sandwiches. In a pan. In a pan. In the pan. For some reason. On my mom's iron chops. For some reason. On the Marlin cast perhaps.

For some unknown reason. But I think my favorite spot of any song, and I think, and I don't want to sound like I'm tooting my own horn here, but I feel like my strongest points in my songs are the bridges. The bridge of the song is that it's different from the verse and the chorus. You have your verses and your chorus, and you have the spot that sits on its own melodically, structurally, and lyrically from the rest of the song.

Oh, I forgot this. You wrote this by yourself, didn't you? No, we wrote it in the fire hall. That's right. Can you educate people on this? Because this is a concept I get but I don't get. Yeah. Can you take a well-? Because this is a concept I get, but I don't get. Yeah. Can you take a well-known tune, okay?

Sure. Take whatever song you think most clearly exemplifies it. Do one of your own or whatever the hell. I mean, I think... Where you're like, like, lay out how a song could be structured and what function the bridge has. I don't get this.

Okay, so typically, for example, in Better Together, the song we're talking about, just for clarity. No, it's great. We'll do the first verse is 40 HP Johnson on a flat bottom metal boat. And then that's the length that it is. It's four lines or something. Yeah. That's verse one.

Normal structure. Normal structure is that's verse one. Then you're usually right into a chorus chorus don't bore us get to the chorus as we always say then you write your chorus which usually stays the same throughout the entire song so each time you're referencing back to that chorus it correlates with a verse it'd be considered a universal course it stays considered a universal chorus. It stays the same. Universal chorus.

Then you're going into verse two, which will be the same length and melody as the first verse. They're identical in that sense. Just the words are interchangeable. Right? Yep. And so then you hit your second universal chorus. So you've got two minutes or two and a half minutes of your song

about at this point. Yeah. And so then you're probably going to go into, there's one of two options here. You're going to go, if you feel like you've said everything that you need to say in that amount of time, you're going to go with a straight up solo rhythm.

Musical moment. Torques on the strat. You know, he's like... Stripping it. You know what I mean? Working the fingers on that thing, dude. Get in there, and then you're back to universal chorus.

His Weatherby guitar. Right, his Weatherby guitar. He's shredding the fluted neck on that thing. You know? No muzzle brake is off. Muzzle brake suppressor is off. Suppressor's gone. Flame maple. and so if you feel like you've said everything you need to say in that amount of time you're going back into a chorus after that solo and then you're out so the chorus sits in for the verse

what no well there's not another verse because the verses is where you're saying lengthier wordier things you know describing what you're talking about in the chorus right generally speaking and so if you feel like you've said everything you need to say you do another chorus and the song ends okay because there's nothing else sure usually because you're trying to say you're trying to stay usually in this three minutes certain three to four minute. Yeah. Like three.

And it's even getting smaller now. Yeah. Now it's getting less and less. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. 245, man. That's what their mark is right now. When I first came to town, it was 340.

And then it went to 330. Then it went 315. Then it went three minutes. And now we're sitting at about 250. Who decides this number? The listener. The listener. The radio.

Yeah. Radio. Just because our attention spans suck? Yeah, you guys are on the way out. Yeah, absolutely. So anyways, but if you haven't said everything that you want to say, after that second chorus, you usually go into a short solo section, like a half-length solo section,

and then you'll go right into what we refer refer to as the bridge of the song which is i'm not sure why it's called that i guess it's different it bridges the gaps but it's supposed to be a bit of a departure from a departure of what you've listened to exactly that's the bridge that's why nobody nobody knew what you were talking about. Because it was the bridge. But so essentially you want a completely different melody, completely different lyric structure in that small section of the song. It could be two lines. It could be four lines. It could be one line.

But you want it to contribute to the story. Absolutely. It's the bow. McCarthy would not have any bridges in his songs. Oh, he wouldn't? Yeah, because he'd leave you hanging after the second chorus. He'd just roll it on out and be out of there. And you'd be like, oh, man, I feel like he was going to say one more thing.

Did you say Cormac or Paul? Cormac. Oh, I thought you said Paul McCarthy. No, that's Paul McCartney. Oh, that's it. Yeah. But anyways, so the bridge in Better Together, it's a normal structured tune. Verse one, chorus. Verse one, chorus.

Verse two, chorus. Short piano, solo section, because the song is just me and piano. And then it goes into the bridge, which is, Sometimes we roll in water, but I wouldn't have it any other way. And if I'm being honest, your first and my last name would just sound better together. We just tied into the chorus. Tied up.

You know what I mean? It's like a different thing. And then it takes the song just from like, oh, they're a cute couple, to like, hey, you trying to get married? You know what I'm saying? You trying to get married? Yeah, man. It takes it to another level.

I got to admit to you, I didn't get that until right now. I thought he was saying that he felt at a time. I didn't know that he was advancing and now he's wanting to seal the deal. Yeah, absolutely. I thought he was saying, I've always liked it and that's the way it is. I didn't know he meant I sure would like this to happen. Yeah, and my thing, I think... said, you know, I've always liked it, and that's the way it is. I didn't know he meant, like, I sure would like this to happen. Yeah, and my thing, I think. Dude, then it double delivers.

And I think the maybe triple deliver is, like, the juxtaposition of all the things that go together, and then when you say sometimes we're oil and water. Like, sometimes we don't always get along. Like, sometimes we have those moments where we're very contentious. But we wouldn't have it any other way. But we wouldn't have it any other way like you have to have that in a good relationship in my opinion you have to tune starts to make its own gravy and listen but here's the thing i pride myself on sniffing the gravy out and i was missing some of the gravy yeah and that's

your belt that delivered well you only heard it one time too you have to yeah true yeah and the full version you you know, and like outside, you're not getting the voice projection and the... See, I didn't catch the oil and water. I thought you were a bridge guy. I'm a bridge guy.

I was getting inundated with stuff, man. Okay. I feel like there's some famous Did you get the oil and water? rock and roll song. No. I didn't catch that lyric. But I feel like there's some famous

rock and roll song where they actually call out't catch that lyric. But I feel like there's some famous rock and roll song where they actually call out, bridge! And then it goes into a... That's like Tenacious D, I think. That song. They do that. I'll say this. That song seems to connect so well with...

And I guess I'm kind of taking my own horn here. But a lot of it has to do with the delivery, right? It's kind of a heartfelt delivery, especially on the album. I played it for you, Yarns. Me and Yarns were riding around listening to Spot and Antelope. And I actually played it for him. It was a piano ballad, right? And the last show I saw Luke play before Pandemic was Rupp Arena in Kentucky.

Biggest show ever done there, by the way. Broke Paul McCartney's record. Oh, look how we came off! That's rapid bridge. On Valentine's Day, actually. Very good hosting. It was good guesting. It was guesting to the level of hosting. Yes, it was.

You get an immediate or segue badge for that. So, in the midst of him playing that song, which he encored with, when it got to the bridge, sometimes we're all in water, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

I look around me and I see multiple dudes dropping. I saw six couples get engaged from where I was standing.

There ain't no telling how many he saw. No. How did they know? I took pictures with them. They knew the song. They knew the song. I took pictures with them. So they're like,

they've come in preparation. Yeah, but the song hadn't released. It had released at that time. It had released. It was out. It wasn't a single. Oh, okay. So the album was out

and that song was out into the world. And he's like, in case he does this song and I have no reason to believe he will. True. I'm bringing my shit. That's very true. That's very true. Ready to roll.

Yeah. My buddy leaned up, and he goes, this guy wrote that. They were like, can we get a picture? And I was like, I guess. All right, so let's get back to the creation of the tune, because is Randy on it? Yeah, Randy's on it. Yeah. So he's one of the writers. He's one of the co-writers. Big fan of y'all's, by the way. Oh, he's on it yeah so he's one of the cult he's one of the

writers he's one of the co-writers big fan of y'all's by the way oh yeah he's a big outdoor man yeah so he gets he's in on it luke you're in on it dan you're in on it anybody else get in there on it god unfortunately no and he's not even he if he was more um if he was more like machiavellian he'd be uh he'd be like taking little swipes sure he'd be like yeah really the song i mean could have improved greatly with uh you know sure sure sure it's a very it should have been a tahatsu yeah i thought i said yamaha in that moment when you guys are well on to this idea and the lyrics are coming and you've written down all the things that go better together,

has music been introduced yet? Yeah. Chorus was done already at that time. I would say, and you can absolutely smash this. I'm not trying to give myself credit in any form or fashion.

But I think my natural progression towards songwriting comes from a bit of a storytelling basic chord structure, which is extremely simple. Because I'm not a great guitar player, right? So literally, we were just going one four one four and that's and if if if i am gonna be a part of a ballad i'm gonna try to push that simpleness onto the tune and onto the co-writers does that make sense so the course was already done and i i think i think i was just kind of like what if we kept it extremely basic and let the grizzly bear vocalist smash everything out yeah the grizzly bear vocalist i mean in my opinion he sounds like a damn line giant line on stage not a grizzly bear or a grizzly

bear depending on what continent you're in you know yeah to me it would be a grizzly bear. Or a grizzly bear, depending on what continent you're in. To me, it would be a grizzly bear. Lizly bear. Apex predator. For sure, man. You can't listen to what you listened to last night and go, that's probably the best vocalist I've ever sat in front of. Chester?

No, Dirt. Dirt. Yeah. Come on, guys. I thought Chester did surprisingly well. Oh, yeah. I saw youester did surprisingly well. Dude. Oh, yeah. I praised him for it this morning.

I saw you welling with pride. Oh, you know what? He hasn't even known the best part of it. I got to tell this real quick. So Chester, the molester, he- Don't do it. Cut that out. What's his name? Phil or something?

Chester just- Whoever's that. Chester just got married, and Chester sang a song at his wedding. He just sang a love song and didn't didn't properly intro it so they generated some confusion on part of the attendees who then a rumor spread how chester wrote that song and how great the song he wrote was and it made everybody cry and i can't believe chester knew how to write such a beautiful song and chester just got up and failed to say like oh and by the way this is a little number written by so-and-so. So then he had to go around clarifying to people.

In all honesty, and last night, Chester told me that Seth said to him, six months ago, would you have believed that you'd be singing a song next to Luke, or playing your guitar and singing next to Luke Holmes? And Chester said, six months ago, I wouldn't have been able to tell you that I knew how to play a guitar.

That's pretty cool. Because he learned just to, like, he had to learn just to like at his wedding which I think is like the cutest sweetest thing in the world we literally said that I want to go on record here and say if that guy's been playing guitar for six months how incredibly impressive

that performance last night was that was staggeringly impressive it was I'll say this it was as impressive and as pressurized as me and you and Reed cooking dinner in front of these jokers, man. Yeah, it was. I felt that the night before. Dude, why are they filming me? We're standing there whipping up gravy and biscuits and antelope, and Steve's got his hands in his pockets looking over the thing I spring it a little dust

in there he goes too early he's not ready yet and I mean it's the same kind of pressure Chester gets up there in front of a guy that's got nine number ones in a row biggest artist in country music he's like give me that guitar he's like I'll take a swing at her. And knocked it out of the park. Knocked it out of the park. That was a great tune. It was so cute. Oh, it was cute. And again, the reason I was celebrating him and it is like, instead of trying to be Mr. Detached and Can't Be Bothered

and the old lady, right? Yeah. Just to hang it all out there. I'm going to tell you this. Get up and serenade her at a wedding. So Steve and I had a little... Not be like, oh, I don't know, the old lady wanted to have a wedding,

so I guess I showed up. Oh, he owned it. He owned it. Yeah. But we had a bit of a plan working all day long to try to convince Chester to sing that song, right? Did you hear... You probably heard,

we were in the truck together with chester i was laying the groundwork to ask him to play but it was it was really easy i mean it's kind of like a circle hook like the kid hooked himself yeah all i had to do was reel him in and he's like uh yeah i'll play one if you guys will let i'm sorry i'll play one if you guys let me. I was like, absolutely, Chester. We would love to hear it. Heard you played Lady Maid.

He was like, well, I know a couple. It didn't take much convincing, did it? No, no. He stepped up to the plate. He was in. He was ready. That was really cool to see. I'd like to formally extend a thank you to you guys for having us uh next time maybe pair with somebody a little slower um less athletically a little less honest uh i'll take

you on this every time he's a class a guy and uh man i'll miss an antelope with that guy all day long appreciate you having us that was great you got an antelope with that guy all day long. Appreciate you having us. That was great. You got an antelope down. You got it. Dantelope, someone called him. Dantelope. We don't need to tell people how to find Luke Holmes. No.

Just pop a goog on it. Pop a goog on it. Turn your radio on. Just goog it. Turn your radio on, hit scan, and wait five minutes. There he is. You'll find him. Somewhere in the midst of the airwaves.

Brothers Hunt, Isabel Brothers, lay it out for people to locate you. Yeah, we've got a – we're mainly probably based out of our Instagram right now and Facebook. And you can go check us out, just Instagram, TheBrothersHunt, or Facebook, TheBrothersHunt. Tell people what TheBrothersHunt is because we've been talking about the songwriting. Yeah. TheBrothersHunt started actually on a porch at our deer camp in west tennessee and and we were sitting there just kind of talking um kind of going over the the scenarios of of what we do and and and how we're this affinity for hunting out west is becoming a thing for us and and our dad you know he's such a fan of staying home and hunting the whitetail deer. It's his favorite thing.

He has no passion about coming out here. No, what am I trying to say? No want to. No want to come out here to the west and hunt. And so we were sitting on the porch just kind of talking about it and decided that, you know, if we were going to go for this thing, that we were going to go all in. And that was probably, what, five years ago? Four or five years ago.

And since then, the Brothers Hunt brand is kind of – I always thought I was going to have to choose between songwriting and maybe the Brothers Hunt one day. Tell Steve how many girlfriends you've lost. Over hunting? Yeah. Every one of them except this one, hopefully. Yeah.

I mean, literally. Two seasons gets them. Two seasons. Yeah, they can make it through like a turkey season because you're kind of in and this one, hopefully. Every one. Yeah. I mean, literally. Two seasons gets them. Two seasons. Yeah, they can make it through like a turkey season because you're kind of in and out during the day. But then when a fall comes, they would always break up with Reed. Yeah, for sure. And so we started talking about the idea of this thing. And it got to the point where we wanted to, you know, showcase hunting in an ethical way, in an ethical light.

Because we thought we were seeing a lot of hunting portrayed in the grip and grin. We conquered this animal, man, and, you know, we deserve to do this. And we feel a different way, and the way we hunt, you know. We feel more privileged rather than deserving. Sure, sure, sure. And honestly, a lot of that was birthed from being in the writing rooms i'll never forget the the prime example i have of this we wrote with a guy from australia he's a good friend of mine he wouldn't mind me saying this his name is lindsey rhymes and uh we were

writing with an artist and the artist was just tripping over what he wanted to do and just could not get out of his own way right and so finally i was like all right man i'm gonna grab some lunch out of the out of the refrigerator in the in the break room i'll be right back and when i walked in lindsey was in there and i broke out a little baggie that had a i diced a tenderloin and grilled it and so it was a little nice neat little circles deer tuna loin and when i broke it out he went oh cookies and i was like no man no these he's british yeah well he's australian was that no no no that's good all right so he goes uh cookies and i said no man i said dude this is deer tuna loin he was like cookies i he there you go cookies i yeah he goes oh i said would you like one he's like no no mate

i buy my meat from the store huh and so he didn't understand the concept of how you could take your own meat and with a rifle or a bow and convert that into a meal that you might eat the next day at work it didn't even compute he said i like my meat from the store you know and and reed and i were talking about that way you know it's safe yeah yeah exactly and so reed and i were talking about we were like man there are many people that we come into contact with that uh that don't understand even even in the country music industry they don't understand how uh how hunting translates into food and once we said well maybe we can have we can use that platform uh whether it be through our artist friends or just the success that we have and kind of help turn people towards a more ethical and responsible way to enjoy the outdoors and to enjoy hunting specifically.

And try to paint a little more accessible light on being able to turn your passions and your hunting into some pretty damn nice table fare. And through that, and through that filming that we were doing, and started filming all our hunts out west and putting them into 30-minute YouTube videos, we were doing that to what Dan's speaking to. But it turned into us getting comments on YouTube and messages on Facebook or Instagram about guys who have lost touch with their brother or a hunting buddy or a dad. And they loved watching me and Dan, you know, communicate in the way we hunted together and the camaraderie that we had in camp. And we just started getting tons of messages of guys going, man, just from watching you guys,

it's going to make me reach out to my brother. And I'm going to reach back out to him. And I'm going to try to get a trip with the books. Because I haven't busted his balls in two years yeah probably so that's a lot of it i mean you've got i've seen it man we're pretty rough on each other but i mean it's it's all out of love it's all love yeah yeah and that's that's become the coolest part of this for for me is is being able just to do what we do but but being able just like a song man to to speak to somebody you know and and try to try to maybe inspire someone to get out there and do it a little more often,

maybe do it with some people you love. And then if they want to hear – see, this is the hard part. This is the hard – like, because you're a songwriter, and other people do your guy's stuff. Nah. How do they hear – well, if they want to go hear you do something. I mean, they can catch a show. Otherwise, we kind of keep it locked up.

Lunch pail, man. Lunch pail. Lunch pail. That's what we do. Click, click. Pow, pow. Alright, guys. This is fun, man. Hey, man. Thanks for having us. I've had such a good time. Man, us too, man. For sure. Oh, we haven't laughed as much on a shoot

in quite some time. Long time. It's good. Yeah, we were talking about it last night, and you're always coming into these camps or hunts. You don't know what to expect because you've never met these people and who you're hanging out with. Me and Torque talked about it, but there's not been one spooled apple. Let's high-five right now.

Yeah, bam. They've been high-fiving all week. Because we've been killing goats with each other all week. This is my final concluder. I was telling – I think I was sharing this with each other all week. This is my final concluder. I was telling, I think I was sharing this with Luke the other day. I was saying if Americans like one story, it's they like to know what

an asshole a celebrity is. The second favorite story is when they learn how great a celebrity really is. In that order. In that order. In that order. My wife said's true in that order my wife's like what are those guys are like i said man these guys are great yeah she said oh she's like really

like she was glad to hear it oh my god she wasn't like oh dude i have to say i have to say i want you to tell me a story about a horrible Luke Holmes. No, she's like, really? She's so happy. My wife loves you, dude. Oh, good. She loves the show, man. Shoot me your number, man. No.

She's going to laugh so hard. She's going to laugh real hard. Nicole watches. Yeah. Dude, Jordan watches. We're all big media fans. Dude, we're big fans, man. I mean, this is so cool for us, dude.

It's kind of out of... We kept saying that the whole way over. We were like, I can't believe this is happening. Yeah, man. It's almost been like a little shell shock all week. Because, yeah, we... How about Steve being a hard ass when he came up? Damn, Steve.

Steve. We were like... And he like he artist ghosted us he ghosted us he artist us for sure I want to work on that I'm just kidding listen man I view it that

you were guests that were trying to lay something out, and I was immediately very interested in just getting the lay of the land and everything's good and lined up. And once I got that, okay, this is cool, everything's cool, then I was ready to tell you about the South and what's really going on in the South. I've had a great time on this trip.

Last time I was on the, what was it? The Expensive Podcast? The name of it? When we announced the Weatherby Meteor Rifle. Exactly, yeah. And it was awesome to... The Very Expensive Podcast episode. Hell of a rifle.

That was just a few months ago. And now, a couple months later, you guys all using that rifle down some great antelope. That's a phenomenal rifle. Dude, I'll hunt with that rifle for years to come. Thanks for sending them to us.

Appreciate you. Thanks for everything. Weatherby 65300, meat eater edition. Some bitch made it. It will drop a goat in its tracks, baby. The third time reed did it that's right airball challenge dude reed won the airball dude i shot dan's gun it

was shooting high it was shooting high but my gun dead on all right let's go eat some antelope thank you hey thank you guys for thanks guys we've had a blast. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now, the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking.

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