The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 581: We Done Beat this Damn Horse to Death

Episode Date: August 5, 2024

Steven Rinella talks with Chris Denny, Charlotte Crosmer, Ryan Callaghan, Tony Peterson, Randall Williams, Chester Floyd, Austin "Chilly Chleborad," Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider.  Topics discussed: Please support Chris Denny's new album HERE; a terrible duck hunting accident; Steve’s favorite song, “Ride On” by Chris and his album, "If the Roses Don't Kill Us"; cautionary tales about drinking; why you shouldn't trade the first shotgun you ever bought yourself for a guitar; Koe Wetzel lickin’ his finger; Tony Peterson's note on why you need to stop believing you live in a big buck black hole; animal moms attacking Coloradans; the Makah tribe finally gets a waiver under the Marine Mammal Protection Act to exercise their treaty right to hunt grey whales again; how JT Van Zandt used to be Chris Denny’s manager; life is forgiving and time heals; the ace up his sleeve; too much hiking for the poodle; vulnerable talk about addiction and recovery; having masters degrees in chamber music and violin; a live performance; how to contribute to Chris' kickstarter campaign; and more. Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. The Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.

Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-t-l-i-t-e.com what i'm going to talk about first i'm not even going to introduce who's here because i'm going to talk about something that's such a um i don't know how to put it it's so sad and depressing i just want to talk about it for a minute and then we're going to put it behind us and we're going to introduce who's here uh i somehow did you guys know i didn't even know about this till maggie hudlow wrote about it on our website so maggie hudlow has a

piece up on our website um 20 year old faces involuntary manslaughter charge for duck hunting accident uh this happened down in wyoming on january 20 of last year but i hadn't heard about 20-year-old faces involuntary manslaughter charge for duck hunting accident. This happened down in Wyoming on January 20 of last year, but I hadn't heard about it. These three friends go duck hunting. One of them had never been hunting, was interested in getting started in hunting. His friends invite him out to go hunting. one of the kids has a, you know, has an accident with his gun that kills his buddy

and now has, is facing some serious charges. Student at the University of Wyoming. I'll let me bring this up because a couple of things. You know, me bring this up because a couple things. You know when we were hunting with the Flying V guys? I'm looking at Cal, but he's...

I've never got the invite to go hunt with those guys. You weren't there hunting with them one time? No. I hunted with them once and anyways, they do this thing. They do when they're getting ready, when that they do when they're getting ready when they set up and they're getting ready to hunt they tell a story that almost makes you not want

to hunt about duck blind safety like they're like hey i know everybody's having a good time but before shooting light begins and before we pick up our shotguns we're going to have a talk and they do this every they sell me they do it every time they hunt and they tell a story about a death and a duck blind and uh and they would say and none of those people ever hunted ever again with that right yeah oh it's sobering but i just wanted to acknowledge it i just yeah it's just like you know for even the kid that, you know, I mean, this kid could fail. And I'm not saying like, I'm not criticizing prosecutors at all, but in this accident, a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. I mean, like to go and put the emphasis on the person's trouble.

I'm not trying to do that. I mean, a kid died. It's just be careful. Yeah. Well, it has to be talked about because we talk about all the fun things and the food and the, and in this case, the dogs, you know, it's like waterfowl hunting is great. Um, it's also, you know, in my experience, like the place where accidents are going to happen, if I'm going to be got in such a way in the hunting world, it's not going to be

during archery season. It's not going to be during rifle season. It's going to be during waterfowl season. Um, and it is the ultimate responsibility sport because a very simple mistake can result in the loss of a human life. Think about how familiar this sounds. This is according to the investigating officer. Um, they're having a problem with one of their shotguns they set the shotgun aside use the other shotgun a while later he returns to trying to figure out what the hell's wrong with the shotgun and then yeah and it is it's the distraction right it's like, it's no longer a gun. It becomes an issue within the thing.

Yeah. And then it's your, it's a distraction. Yeah. Yeah. It's terrible. With that joined today by Chris Denny. Chris,

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's all right. Make you coming after that. Uh, we're joined by a bunch of people. I'm going to get there, but real quick. Um, people are familiar with you now.

Are they? They don't know it, but they are. Where are you from? I'm from Little Rock, Arkansas. Okay. So when was it, Corinne? 2023. In 2023.

First off, Chris, I realize only recently you didn't know this. We tried really, really hard multiple times to license one of your songs for our podcast. Hmm. For years before 2023. Dude. Oh, really? I don't know why it was so hard to get a hold of me. I'm so really good at all that stuff.

A lot of people thought I was dead recently, I think. When your album, If the Roses Don't Kill Us, am I saying that right? That's right. Okay, when your album, If the Roses Don't Kill Us, came out, I've listened to that album like a million times. Awesome. A million times. a million times thank you thank you good taste loved it loved it loved it liked everything about it and one of the songs

i like the whole damn album one of the songs i liked was um uh i like the happy and sad so i like all that shit but right on okay became a favorite and it became and i keep i've told the story before on the show is at some point time we had talked about like now that an issue will come up we'll talk about it talk about talk about talk about it something's kind of coming in the news yeah so now then it's we'll struggle to put a thing to bed uh-huh and i remember one time like we had talked about a thing so much that someone said something like um uh someone said you know we beat the horse to death okay and i said to a colleague i'm like hey go try to get permission to use the song right on because in it the point is we've done beat this damn horse to death it's time to ride on that's right and so they they come

back and like well you know this and that it requires this and that to license the song or not and i'm like well okay we're just gonna do it one time but then it lives forever so then it wound up being well maybe we just have to license it one time, but then it lives forever. So then it wound up being, well, maybe we just have to license it for eternity or like some long period of time. And then we dropped it. And then later on, I again said, man, we should try to go license the song right on. And eventually got it licensed.

And I assumed that whoever was doing it was dealing with you. Yeah. Well, we had sort of a falling out. i've been hard to work with over the years and so um it just i i just sort of just wasn't doing that anymore and a lot of things just didn't work out the way i wanted i uh said no to a bunch of things I probably should have said yes to. Got it. And anyways, this all ends up being me and my career are sort of strangers.

And then I started playing in a bluegrass band called The Gravel Yard. And I just really loved it because it really challenged me because that's a tough music to play. It's very fast. So many damn notes. And it's just wild. And so I'm really glad I did that because it got me back into playing. And also I met Charlotte in The Gravel Yard.

Hi, Charlotte. And we started dating. Hello. Yeah. She's here with me. She has to keep me in line. But you've been a musician your whole life, right? I have been.

I actually have videos of me dressed up in a cowboy hat with feathers on it and my shirt tucked in and alligator skin boots when I was four four years old singing all the words to like pretty much every country song that came on the radio and i knew all the words like it was crazy i i wanted to do it from the time i was really young so it's it makes it that much more bittersweet sometimes that i've had this issue with keeping my career in check. And it's just taken me a long time to mature, honestly. I thought I knew a lot of things that I had no idea about. And there were other things I was so worried about that didn't really, they weren't that important to me as a person. They were just ego trip sort of things i was dealing with you know um and uh

worrying too much about how i looked doing what i was doing instead of what i was doing you know i got you and the outcome of that being positive for my life you know a lot of people don't learn that sort of thing and and there's a lot of people that are born just surviving you know and um so it's just it's taking me a while to come around you know oh i got it well we're gonna dig in on that yeah you're gonna play some music for us yeah yeah we're gonna talk about if the roses don't kill us first we gotta here a cautionary tale about drinking with musicians i've got some of those real quick tony peterson is with us dr randall chester chili cal charlotte chili we keep wanting to we chili can you tell the cautionary tale about drinking well set it up should i set it up yeah yeah let's do that because

you love this story yeah and so this is my favorite this is now your story so i don't know about that hold your guitar up hold your guitar up chili so uh i only thought we're doing this only now because now that we have musicians in so we man so we had cole wetzel we had cole wetzel on the show when he was in town to do the show we went duck hunting and chili thought it'd be a good idea to go out drinking with those guys they get the playing pool and they get to batting and they get to drinking and eventually they start trading shotguns in a nutshell yeah in a nutshell no actually our lovely corinne uh texted me and said hey

you need to send we need to get these guys some some duck hunting stuff and it was a sunday uh veterans day weekend and i was like yeah i'll do that and so i meet him at the local watering hole the cat spa here in Mosman. Classy joint, for those of you who don't know. And hand off the gear, and they invite me to stay. The Cowboys were playing that night, and all those boys were from Texas.

But yeah, and I had a few drinks. I would say it's more of a cautionary tale about just making trades when you don't have what you want in hand uh-huh so anyways uh you know for the and then for those of you don't know co probably i think he co-plays with the gibson like j45 on stage or something like that um and he saw my shotgun in the back of my truck and i said hey you want trade i'll take that one of your guitars that you play with on stage and he was like yeah man that's all right that's cool let's do that and tell the shotgun you had yeah the shotgun i was running at the time was a franke 12 gauge uh it was actually the first shotgun i ever purchased like me personally like a guy went not some kind

of hand me down or whatever no no i went to shields there in south dakota and i bought it and that was like that was mine yeah and then um you'd arrived in life yeah i had made it i think it was my 18th birthday brought some scratch-offs some cigars and a shotgun join the marines and then yeah yeah it's the american way did you try to bring your shotgun yeah they wouldn't let me oh no i got my own i got my own uh but yeah and so well and so we agree and you know it's just a shotgun that's i guess it's not like super, but I was excited to get potentially like the Gibson J45 really nice guitar Or something or just something something that's not this thing. We got something

So you're saying as a as you guys got watching for everybody not watching on our YouTube channel It's uh when he says, he's got a guitar. What's that? A $150 guitar? Yeah, about $150. With a big picture of Colwetz licking his finger. He's licking his finger.

He's staring at it. What is he licking off his finger? I don't know. It's also that kind of photography with the hard shadow in the background. Yeah. It's too much. It's primo.

Primo. Primo. He also, for those that are not watching the video, even the ones that are, probably can't see this, but my nickname is C-H-I-L-L-Y.

Always cold. Always cold chili, yes. And he decided to spell it C-H-I-L-I. As though he likes chili. Like a bowl of chili. Cold and hearty. Like you're too hot. Yeah.

I think that upsets me. Oh, and when he addressed it and sent it to me, it said Aaron, which is obviously not my first name. And so... Aaron's the type of guy who wants a dude licking his finger on his guitar. Yeah. Not a chili, though. I was so excited.

Because I had just Not a Chili though. I was so excited because I had just bought a D18. Yeah. And we play together sometimes. So I was like, oh man, what's he going to send you? What's he going to send you?

So anyways, Chili, I know you're trying to spin this off as something other than a cautionary tale about drinking, but I think it's

a cautionary tale about drinking. Well, we'll let the viewers decide what it is. I don't think they ever should have repealed Prohibition. I really don't.

We can get into that. That would save me a lot of hassle. Do you know how much money I'd have had if they hadn't repealed Prohibition? Probably have more than you have now. Mm-hmm. You'd have more brain cells, too. Probably.

And you'd have more shotguns. I'd have more shotguns i'd have more shotguns or a better guitar but yeah anyway so months go by and like i don't get anything and like i'm you know i'm not worried about it i'm just kind of like you know i'll take it for what it is maybe just chalk this up to as a loss and then and like six months go by and i finally get a guitar in the mail and it comes in a cardboard box. It doesn't look like it's in a hard case or anything like that. And I'm like, I'm not too excited about this. And so I open it up and there's old Cole Wetzel licking ice cream off his finger or whatever.

And I was like, yeah. Staring deep into your soul. I don't think it's ice cream. All right. Well, anyways. Soaring deep into your soul. I don't think it's ice cream. Well, anyways. So, yeah, that's my story. And like, am I mad? No.

No. No, because think about the joy it's brought me. Yeah, I know. Everywhere we go, you're like, let me tell you. It's brought me so much joy. I'm about ready to buy you the shotgun. Because I don't drink, so I have a lot of money. I'm about ready to buy you the shotgun because I don't drink, so I have a lot of money. I'm about ready to buy you the shotgun

or buy you the guitar you wanted just because I like telling the story about that guitar so much. I've gotten a thousand bucks out of pleasure out of that. It's in the mail, Chili. Six months from now, get a picture of Steve licking his finger on the guitar. Chili, when you saw that thing.

But in my licking finger picture, I'm going to have a look up. His is a look of satisfaction. Yeah. I'm going to have a look of like. What exactly is that? When you opened the box and saw that. Yeah.

Did you pick it up and strum it as you would, I assume, any other guitar in the world? Or did you just slide it back down into the box? No, I can honestly say I didn't tune this guitar until Chester was over at my place about two weeks ago. I've had this guitar for probably over a year and a half now. Well, we tried to tune it. Well, we tried, and it didn't work. And then I tried again.

Yeah, it's just like... Chili, play a couple licks on there. Just sing your favorite song. Something you wrote. It's got to be something you wrote. Oh. I love Chili's voice. This is not a good guitar to do this on.

First lick your finger. Maybe he caught his finger on the string and he's licking the blood off it. Nah, he's got a cocktail in his hand. I found out because one of his buddies moved up here and I was like, hey, you need to text Coe Wetzel and say, thanks for the guitar. Chili really really likes it and that's what he did and co texted back and said that one of these guitars sold at auction for like 36k

yeah and i'm like huh i don't know who would have bought that but yeah quite teamed up. You want to skip? I mean, yeah. That's just the taste. I'm not going to sing it. Chris Jennings, do you let other people play your guitar? Oh, yeah. He can play if he wants to.

Hand that over. No. Oh, God. Just a quick lick. Just a quick lick. I want everybody to see how talented Chili is. He should get a record deal. I should get it.

Yeah. Oh, thank you. You can take that tape off i actually might use it okay that's a sweet looking rig right there man yeah i like how the little black teardrop's missing hey chester do you want to point your mic at the guitar a little bit strike plate a clear one on there tony peterson in a minute we're going to talk about um big box so get ready okay what are the words forgot them get a mouth on you like i never seen It's like I was watching you on the big screen Then we went and had a drink or two From then on I knew I'd be your fool He's taken, ladies.

So take me by the... I can't play it very well. He's taken. Yeah, I'm taken. But yeah, that's it. Thank you, man. Good work, Chili. It's a great story. Put me on the spot.

Ladies and gentlemen, Chili. Chili Chebel. What the hell is your last name? Chebelard? Yeah, that's it. Chili, you're also known as Aaron now. Alright, Tony Peterson. Foundations podcast on Cal's

feed. I got that. Oh, you know what else I forgot to say? Remember a minute ago when I was saying to people, if you want to see the guitar, you need to go, you'd have to go to our podcast network,

YouTube channel. So are we still, we're still talking about this? Yes. Just for the time for, for the rest of time. Yeah. That's how advertising works

oh oh oh uh o'reilly for the beginning of the rest of time or for the rest of time if you want to see the shows on our podcast network if you want to see the video the podcast network video how am i trying to i struggle with this if you want to watch the videos on youtube they're not on the normal meat eater youtube feed anymore we've created our own into like we've created our own podcast network feed so go to the meat eater podcast go to youtube search meat eater podcast network subscribe there watch this and you'll be able to see chili's uh linger ficking good uh guitar finger licking good guitar yeah good perfect all right now uh tony peterson

just recently wrote an article for us and he's in he's in the room today instead of joining remote stop believing you live in a mature buck black hole everybody does everybody does everybody does you don't think this is true no i don't think it's true can i can i say something that's not true i want to give uh corinne a suggestion here the more of these podcasts i do with you i'm a little surprised she hasn't slipped some adderall into your coffee in the morning just to keep you on the straight and narrow. Oh, no, no. Because there's a lot of.

I got a lot of jumping around I need to do here. No, I'm just, I'm kind of obsessed with the idea, not just in, I mean, I apply it to hunting, right? But everybody's like, oh, if I only lived in Iowa, I'd have big bucks. Or if I only lived this place or if I had this property. And I'm like, they're out there all over. No. Yeah, they are.

No, they're not. What did you kill in Oklahoma on public land down there? Nice little buck. Now, do you think that most people hunting that public land would consider that a little buck? No. Right? That'd be a nice buck.

Right. And how many people do you think you could- I'm not- I was just trying to counter your argument when I said that. But Adderall's ADHD medication. You know the Mitch Hedberg joke? The Mitch Hedberg joke? Where he's not afflicted.

He doesn't have ADHD, but his buddy, he takes one of his buddy's ADHD pills. And then he said, I spent the rest of the day thinking to myself, there's gotta be more to that story. Anyways, go on. Yes. Yeah. They're all over. And it, but I feel like some places they're not

though, but it's all relative. Right. I mean, so we talk a lot. It's like a fish in a six inch brookie stream. And then you get a seven inch brook trout. Right. I mean, so we talk a lot. It's like a fish in a six inch brookie stream. And then you get a seven inch brook trout. Right. You're like, holy cow, look at the size of this thing. Right.

Yeah. But I, I think in the whitetail space, a lot of people sort of talk down on like, if you take the Pope and young minimum, 125 inches for a typical, people will talk about like a little 125 inch or, or like a young, it's kind of like a, they're kind of dismissive of it. Yeah.

But I would bet that 99% of all deer hunters out there that see 125 inch or walking down the trailer, like there's a big buck coming and I'm going to shoot. And it's, that's not like that crazy of a bar to get to. And so, so much of this is like, just kind of in our heads, you know, like I know Chris is probably

going to get into this, but I was, I was reading the story about you, uh, that Corinne sent out to us and that kind of mentality sort of bleeds into all parts of our lives. Like you think, oh, like I can't get sober. I'm wired wrong. And it's like, now you have this built-in excuse to fail, you know?

Like I, I'm never going to kill a big buck because I don't live where they're at. And I think that's, I think when you start with that mindset, you're just screwed because you've already given yourself an hope. Yeah. It's like the guy that wrote in that we always like to have a laugh about who wrote in a letter to us that was signed a pissed off Michigan deer hunter. And, um, it was, it was that, uh,

by the time the hunting season opens, all the big bucks have been killed. Right. By youth hunters. Right. And crossbow hunters and whatever. Right. They're not there anymore.

Yeah. I mean, it's defeatist. Right. It's easier to have a built-in excuse for failure than to put in the work to get there. 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. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery,

24K topo maps,points and tracking that's right you were always talking about uh we're always talking about on x here on the meat eater podcast now you um you guys in the great white north can can be part of it be part of the excitement you can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service that's a sweet function as part of membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet.

OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. You know, I mean, you see this a lot. You're seeing people, a lot of Colorado residents are really celebrating. The non-residents are now in 2025 and beyond. It's going to be all draw for elk tags, you know, no more over the counter. And you see these guys who are like, you can't go out and kill a bull on public land in an over the counter unit. Can't do it.

Too much pressure, too many non-residents. And I go, there are people who drive in from Pennsylvania who do that. And you live there, but your idea. Not only that, but thousands. Right. Yeah. Right.

I've never had a bad hunt on a over the counter hunt in, on public land out there. It's all, I've always had opportunities. And I look at that and I go, the reason that you don't is because you've given yourself an out. You're not going to put in the work. And that's just everybody. Which nobody likes to hear, Tony.

Well, this is, I get, dude, I get so fired up. You're going to trigger me here, Cal. I get so fired up about this resident, non-resident fighting thing where I never hear anybody say, wow, the pressure on public land is more than it was 10 years ago. So I'm going to scout harder or, or hunt mid-October versus the rut whenever he's going to be there or something like that. There's no, it's always like, can I take you out of the equation to make it easier for me? You know what I mean?

Yeah. And if, if, if things getting harder was a reason not to do things then everybody would have quit hunting um jim bridger wouldn't have hunted right bridger bitched about all the pressure right did you know this jim bridger bitched about all the pressure yeah things aren't like they were well right right. There's eight people in the county now instead of four, you know? Yeah. I mean, talk to the black feet, right. See how they're feeling about pressure.

Yeah. But it's, it's just so easy for us to sort of, you know, just, just believe that there's some other reason we can't do this, like it's out of our control to find this success or do whatever. And it's just like, well, like you were talking about playing guitar. You're like, ah, that, that moment's passed for me in my life.

It is. I'm like, no. Yep. Two moments passed for me. He meant to say his moment wanting to passed. Well, my moment to learn Spanish and my moment to learn how to play a guitar have passed.

You could learn them both at the same time. Flamenco. It's something happened. Yeah. La Bamba. I do have to say, Steve has spent a remarkable amount of time in Mexico without really knowing any, any Spanish.

I pinned all my hopes on my children. Because in his head, he's like, I'm done. I can't do that. That's past. He's compartmentalized and moved on. It's like, nope, don't know that. do that. That's past. He's compartmentalized and moved on. He's like, nope, don't know that. I pinned all my hopes on my children.

Tortilla. What the hell? Give me some of that flatbread. It's terrible. That's terrible. I think you'd be better off as like a stand-up bass guy with those big fingers of yours. I'd like to tell you what Tommy Edson the blue collar scholar in describing my fingers

I don't want to use a bad word he basically says it's a fist full of packers but use a naughty word so it's yeah so it's like a self-help article that you wrote a lot of the content we make is thinly veiled self-help yeah but you but i but i'm hunted with you and i believe it because you are um you are uh like not a like i don't want to say like an optimist you're an optimist but but not you don't have you don't you don't have the rosy disposition but you are like not taking no for an answer that was a very pragmatic insult no i mean you're not like today's the day boys no anything could happen yeah i mean you're just

gonna grind it out and there is no other way that shit is gonna go except that you're gonna do what needs to happen to make it happen and like other conversations are not welcome with a scowl if need be with a scowl on your face it's just, because I know, I know the process. Yeah. You know? And I mean, that's, to be fair, that was not like a, a totally, uh, normal take on me because I was, I was taking my boss's boss's boss on a public land whitetail hunt. So I was stressed to no end. But honestly, when I was a freelance writer way back in the day, and I was like, I'm going to focus on public land whitetails.

Because the magazine I was working at the time, everybody kept writing in there like, I'm sick of the unrealistic stuff. You know, I don't own a thousand acres in Southern Iowa. And I'm like, as kind of a no-namer, I'm like, I'm going to go. I didn't have kids yet. I'm like, I'm going to go, I didn't have kids yet. I'm like, I'm going to, I'm going to go after this hard. So many people told me you're, you'll never kill one big buck on public land ever. Like you can't do it. You can't make a living at it. And you would hear this from state to state, right? You're going to Nebraska, talk to some dude at the gas station or whatever. It was always the same story.

All the big ones are killed off. There's not enough public land in this state, whatever. And I would go out and have awesome hunts, just fun hunts where sometimes you'd kill big ones. And I was like, there's just so much of this, like these beliefs that just aren't true. But then you kind of figure out like our hunt where you're like, there's, there's no path to success for me anyway, other than just like, you got to figure it out and go every day. And you got to use that time in between the sits to scout like we did. Yeah.

But eventually they're going to give you something to work with, you know, and there's going to be nobody in that parking area. So you can go in there and it's just going to line up, but it's stressful, you know, cause the weather changes, all that stuff. But it's like so possible. You just kind of got to believe it. You did stuff that I wouldn't have done where he, I don't know if you guys ever heard the story. He kills, we killed three deer out of a tree a tree he's he kills two out of a tree um and sees a buck gets kind of bumped like a buck we were he's got the buck and a nice buck shows up and bumps i would have been like dude you killed two deer out of the tree and spooked that buck, that place is done. And he's like, tomorrow, go back and do X, Y, and Z.

And I'm like, this is the dumbest thing in the world. And go back and here comes that buck. Because of the layout and whatever, you know? Well, I mean, think about that buck. I don't know how old it is. Just nice, really nice buck for Oklahoma public land. How many times do you think that deer has been bumped? that buck, I don't know how old it is. Just nice, really nice buck for Oklahoma public land. How many times do you think that deer has been bumped?

And we were. Multiple times a day. Think about how. I mean, I don't know about that. Multiple times a day, he's alarmed by something, right? Right. Every day of his life in the season, he hears somebody park, watches somebody walk in, smells where they went through, some level of encounter with humans.

Right. And think of how many non-hunters too. Dog, dude yelling at dog. Right. Fish, guy fishing, farmer doing something. I mean, you know. Yeah. They, you're not going to shake them off their routine that way.

And that, if that deer had, had looked up into the tree and saw us, we would have moved to that next spot down. But because we were down a hundred yards from the stand, gotten that deer and he walked up nine 30 in the morning. I'm like, this deer's, he's just here. Like he's close to where he wants to be moving.

You know, it wasn't like first light and he was trucking through and we hadn't hunted that place in the evening yet. And when I found it, I was like, this is going to be like in my head. I'm like, when we sit here in the evening, it's going to be good. I didn't know it'd be as good in the morning.

I thought it'd be pretty good, but it's just cool, man. And, you know, people think you can't do that. And it's like. Well, the, um, the comment of like, uh, not a a monster but i got a buck right like all the qualifiers that you hear throughout the season the only response that anybody who hunts should give to anyone who says oh i got a deer should be great deer a if they're happy with it, you be happy with it. B, if you'd say, oh, that's not a great deer,

they're going to think, oh, there must be bigger ones around. And you're just shooting yourself in the foot anyway. So it's always a great deer. Yeah. And man, you shouldn't, if you don't like it, why'd you shoot it? Right. That's a good point.

Right. Another article from our website that's kind of crazy. This is by Jordan Sillers. Like an alarming string of animal moms attacking Coloradans. My nature

is mad at Coloradans. May 30, elk attack.une 3rd elk attack june 7 elk attack june 7 deer attack think of that all in the same area well it's all described out but yeah ungulates have had enough ungulates are up to here there's like an aggression gene well first week of june right so everybody's got ungulates are like chili with that guitar i had enough finger looking good oh yeah yeah had enough we reported on this a whole bunch over the years. We haven't beat the horse to death.

It's not time to ride on. Well, we reported on this a bunch. So the Makah tribe in Washington, years ago, there was a big hubaloo. How many years ago was it? 25 years ago. Is that really? I remember that like it was like, God, I'm getting old.

True. I was like an adult when that happened. 25 years ago, I was an adult. 25 years ago, the Macaw tribe in Washington exercised their treaty rights and killed a gray whale. And they hadn't killed a gray whale since the 20s when gray whale populations started to collapse. You can imagine how much news that made.

Alaskan tribes have been hunting whales fairly consistently and in other places too, but they hadn't done it in forever. And they did 25 years ago and it made tons of news everybody was pissed off um they ran into some problems they had part of the thing is like you know whale hunting is a huge part of their cultural identity and cultural heritage but they had lost some of the skill set so they got the gray whale and i think if i remember right um they ran up against time right they're trying to process the whale uh a lot of stuff spoiled before they could get it adequately addressed uh they haven't killed one since they've been petitioning that they want to they've been petitioning the national oceanic and atmospheric administration

um to give them permission to again go out and exercise their treaty right and they have been again granted permission to go and resume very limited whaling they're looking at doing um how many are they looking to do here? They've been granted. So last time we talked about this, they were petitioning for a waiver under the Marine mammal protection act of 1972. And a judge just granted them a waiver under the Marine mammal protection act. And they will resume very limited whaling of how much.

I want to say they can get some pinnipeds too. In the next decade, they're going to hunt up to 25. They have permission to hunt or hunt up to 25 whales. I find it like kind of surprising that they're even, um, I find it a little bit surprising that the tribe has even been like waiting for formalized permission. Right. Yeah. a little bit surprising the tribe has even been like waiting for formalized permission right yeah uh that they even were willing to play such a protracted legal game because it's in their treaty right to do so historic like they they signed a treaty with the u.s government saying

you have the right to do x y and z and that they willfully pulled away from that to wait for everything and not just to eventually say, well, sorry boys, but we're going. Right. Just in preservation of the culture would be reason enough. Um, all the usual players are very upset about this. Uh, I believe they can, they can hunt sea lions too. Is that right? I think so, which would make them a lot of people's friends.

Yeah, that's true. On the salmon fishing side. Then a lot of salmon fishermen would be like, by God, that's a great idea. Yeah, exactly. Why don't you get a whale while you're at it? No. So the Makah tribe of Washington,

am I saying that right, Makah? Makah? I think so. The Makah tribe of Washington, am I saying that right? Makah? Makah? I think so. The Makah tribe of Washington set to resume whaling. And I think that would make them the only lower 48, the only active whaling culture in the lower 48. Yeah. Yeah, it's gotta be. The first time around, it was really interesting, as you'll recall, because there was like a lot of people who were

just against whaling but the way that they weighed in is um by saying that well if this is a cultural thing why are they using motorboats why are they you know it's just like you know i know how you indians are supposed to do things exactly yes yeah just jack yeah they killed they harpooned and killed it with a gun and people like that's not what indians do i know all about indians yeah yeah i know how they ought to hunt i've seen the movies um god bless them in this case i i'm i'm glad that it turned out the way that it did for the macaw tribe yeah i think it's awesome chris denny hey born in arkansas did you grow up you grow up doing some fishing yeah Yeah, mostly trout fishing. On the White River?

Yeah, White River, yeah. Is that right? Jack's Resort in Mountain View, Arkansas. My grandparents on my, well, I was adopted by my uncle, my dad's brother, his wife, her parents. So my adopted grandparents um they uh lived there and i really struck a good relationship with him uh and so i'd go spend some time there in the summer how what how why were you adopted how did it come to be that you were adopted by your uncle Well, my dad, he traveled a lot doing construction, and my mom, she just wasn't really that grown up when she had us. So she just was just figuring herself out, I guess.

So my uncle took over guardianship of me. Got it. Um. That was your dad's brother? Yeah. They just both were addicts and, um, they both were, um, just like, I guess I kind of was like the parent in a way. Like when I was young, I had to like kind of take care of them.

They were, they were a little bit out of control. So. Like partiers. Yeah. Beyond yeah beyond partiers they weren't together anymore either i think that like my dad was probably like too controlling and i think that my mom was wild and i don't think that that was like a good mix yeah uh you still in touch with those guys so no actually um i'm an orphan now both of them are uh passed away yeah they're deceased yeah how old were they when they died um my mom was uh 62 and my dad was uh 54 actually wow did they die related to drugs and alcohol yeah they both did yeah my mom bless her heart uh had a real bad uh ending but yeah it was sad but she she was able to tell me

she loved me before she passed away and uh she was able to wait till I got there before she passed away, which was just, they just couldn't even, the doctor said, like, it was wild that she had consciousness when I got there because she had waited. Because my sister had called me and she called my name out and, and I was able to just hold her while she passed away, you know? So did you guys, did you guys grow up real poor? Yeah. Yeah. Um? Um, so did you guys, did you guys grow up real poor? Yeah. Um, yeah, we did. Uh, my dad made good money, but he, uh, he liked to gamble and he, uh, just, he was just wild, you know? Uh, so, uh, it was always like, you know, we lived a kind of a crazy life, You know, my mom taught me to kind of work the system, you know. When I was young, we had food stamps. And my dad, you know, he would work on the weekends doing side jobs.

So he had a company he worked for. And it was just, I don't know where all the money was going because they were making a lot of it you know um but uh you know it was two different lives for me when i got adopted i went from being able to do whatever i wanted whenever i wanted uh to you, being basically like just there was so much authority being brought down on me so quick that I think I probably became worse. You know, I was really a kind of a good kid when I could do what I wanted. When I was told what not to do, I started to not like it. And my uncle and I had a really hard relationship because of that but um he is uh definitely like a father to me uh meaning you know i love him uh and and his approval means a lot to me but how old were my nerves ch gets on my nerves. Chris? Oh, for sure. How old were you when the structure change happened?

Oh, it's a crucial time. I was like 11 going on 12. Oh, wow. So I was just about to start going through puberty, which happened really quick for me. I was an obese child. I was a huge kid. I was about four foot tall and I weighed a hundred and probably 60 pounds. And then the next year in seventh grade, I was five foot nine, how tall I am now.

And I weighed like 140 and girls, I was invisible up to that point. Then all of a sudden it was like, I was like good looking, tall. I got to be tall for like a year or two. Never grew another inch. Never grew another inch. Everybody caught up to you and passed you up. They just, I mean, I was like, God, you do hate me. It's good to know. At least you know he's there, you know? When, uh, get back into the, how you were exposed a little bit to fishing?

Yeah. Oh, uh, well, um, you know, I really was one of those kids that was kind of always like looked at anything that was living and breathing and was real freaked out to hurt it in any way. You know, there's always been people that have, I've sort of, you know, I am, I consider myself a Christian being, being from the Bible belt. It's just a path to least resistance, honestly. But I more believe in just God. And I don't believe that anybody gets to decide all of the vocabulary that needs to be used or anything else, particulars. I know that that's all sort of what that saying, the devil's in the details. You mean you don't have to understand Latin to understand God?

I don't know if you do. I'm not sure. But I have to ask the Catholic Church, and I'll get back to you on that. All right. So I felt really sort of weird about handling animals and fish and killing animals. But then as I got older, I sort of, that became secondary to things I started to enjoy, which were like, you know, I got really into the lures because I'm a collector. I collect things, antiques. I love just my girlfriend would call me a hoarder. We have to like for her sanity.

I have to when we first moved in together i had to basically just get rid of 90 of what i had a lot of your prize because she won't say anything but i can read it on her face and it's like she was like what is one of my friends actually said your girlfriend's kind of a genius isn't she and i was like why you said that and she was he was like she doesn't really like having anything that she's like it's's just like cleared out, you know, like there's one or two things in there. And he equated that to intelligence. Yeah, yeah. I was like, and so what am I?

You know, I have like multiple bars full of junk. There's, you know, I mean, it's just. What is the, what's the collection that was the most irksome? Oh, my goodness. I don't know if I'm necessarily irked by them, but there's baseball cards everywhere, stamps everywhere. One time we drove to Houston and back in one day to try to sell some stamps. I thought I had a stamp. We were selling some stamps That were worth money

It didn't work out It didn't work out So you collect the You collect the classics Stamps and baseball cards Yeah Yeah And more just became like

Charlotte like basically Paying to drive me Down to Houston And like me not even Having money to eat And her being like You want to get some food And like me being like

Gosh she's a keeper You know She's a keeper She's a keeper you know she's a keeper she's a keeper so uh but yeah like lures i'm very interested by that sort of thing i really like i like fishing lures a lot of been actually messing around with trying to to make some and oh so talk to chester down there yeah Yeah, I will. I'll talk to you. 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. Well, if you're sick of, of you know sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love in on x are available for your hunts this season 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.

That's right, we're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater podcast. Now you, you guys in the great white north can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team.

Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet on x maps.com

slash meet welcome to the to the on x club y'all so when you grew up on the like the white river fishing were you like were you fly fishing spinner no no No, no, I never have done that. Actually, you know, my old manager, JT Van Zandt, he's a big fisherman and he did a lot of fly fishing

and stuff and told me it was great, but it seemed like a lot of work to me. Your manager was JT Van Zandt? Yeah, he was my manager for a while. He fired me. He said I was too much like his dad.

He sort of fired me. Really? He's been on the show. Has he? He knows me. He mentioned me to him. He'll get a grin on his face for sure. He was my manager. He was a good guy. He's a fly fishing guy. Yeah, he's great. Yeah, sure is.

He should stick to that, too. I had no idea he was a manager. Yeah, he manages, what's that guy's name, the guy that does country? He sounds kind of like Waylon Jennings, and he has a Bluegrass album, too. Sturgill Simpson? Sturgill Simpson. He's his manager. He was at one point. What?

Yeah, he sure was. He was your manager? He was my manager. And fired you for what? He just being a just not doing my job. Stay close to your mic. Not doing my job. Which is making music. I was trying to get back there when I said that. Thanks.

But doing my job which is i was trying to get back there when i said that thanks but uh he he was uh he he was my yeah he oh well i i tell you what uh he's he did he said that he said you know you kind of scare me you remind me of my dad you know his dad was was a terrible addict uh great songwriter um Yeah, I mean, he wrote all the songs. Yeah, yeah. He wrote every last one of them. Like me, you know, he got famous, more famous after he passed away. Hint, hint. But yeah, he just, I went on this tour, and it was supposed to be sort of a comeback thing

because i had had a falling out with my label they wanted me to go to rehab basically and uh he i i just i went to that tour i i went to little rock and I relapsed and I just got stuck there for five years. I swear it was five years later. I was sitting in a jail cell. And in Little Rock, Arkansas, and I'd been in there almost nine months and I knew no one was going to be getting me out. And that I that was it. You know what I i mean like things had to change when i came out of there um and they did you know uh so i was in there for a year and then i ended up going to rehab when i got out is this after if the roses don't kill us it was yeah it sure was yeah and so at what age did you start drinking oh drinking oh drinking? Oh, I can't remember a time I didn't drink.

No, I'm just kidding. Just as a little kid. Probably young. 14, actually. Probably 14. It was marijuana was the first thing I really enjoyed was like about 12 or so. I got into that. And yeah, they were drinking for me was always sort of something I didn't

like too much. I didn't like the idea of, of getting drunk and waking up and having all of these problems, more problems than you had before you started drinking because you, you, you, you don't know even, and you feel like crap, you know, that's, that wasn't my thing. So Randall's nodding his head down there. Yeah. We've been there. It's just, you got to be tough to do that all the time.

You know, I guess I'm not that tough. But you got into weed young. Oh, yeah. I mean, never got out of it. I was listening to a neuroscientist on Terry. You ever hear of an interviewer named Terry Gross? She has a show called fresh air she was interviewing a neuroscientist and the neuroscientist was talking about

like it's kind of hard not hard to explain i want to take a ton of time to explain it but if you drinking young like drinking young makes alcoholics you don't she was talking about there's not many drunks that start drinking as adults when you're when you're and when i was a kid like like booze was the thing in high school junior high even right but it's it's that you start drinking young and it your brain it rewrites your brain chemistry. Like it offsets what's normal. Yeah. Right. You,

you don't find your sort of like baseline tolerances, your baseline happiness. You whack this whole thing out of whack and that gives you the drunks later. Yeah. If you go through, if you go through maturity and go through adolescence and you'd be like at 30, you're like, I'm going to have a drink. Dude, you you're not gonna turn into a drunk yeah yeah i mean it happens but not like it does when you start at 15 that's true and there's a belief in aa meetings which i've gone to a lot of um

there's a belief in there that uh people stop maturing emotionally when they start drinking. And I sort of believe that because what are we trying to do if we're addicted? We're trying to cover something up most of the time. There's a way that we're feeling that's good, that we like more than the way we feel so much that we'll keep doing that over and over regardless of how much it's hurting us therefore i do truly believe that we probably do emotionally stop maturing at that same time when we start reacting to everything stop consciously thinking things through we're just like okay i'm going to run to this thing sort of like a rat stuck in a maze trying to get out

but then there's this thing that it likes it just keeps going back to that you know and it'll go to that before it'll go to the door that's open you know and then it'll be closed by the time they go over there and do that because it's it's a reaction it's and i don't know what it is about feeling good you know there's a levon helm song feeling good all the money in the world spent on feeling good and i thought it it feels good to be feeling good again. Yeah, that's a good one, too. That's a real good one. Yeah, it is.

But it's just, you know, I've been learning that my emotions are out of whack. I got to thinking about things. I started thinking, you know, look who I was raised by. God love them. I do love them. But they are crazy people. The two people that raised me were nuts. And so there's no way that I could come out with all that much right. Like,

you know, I was thinking I was right about everything and I was mad at the world. And I had to go, you know, it's possible that I don't know everything exactly, you know, like I think I do. And that maybe i'm wrong you know maybe the reason that these relationships these uh uh you know relationships with my family um you know jobs things like that maybe there's a reason that i can't do this and you know it's part of me that immediately wants to be mad at the the whole structure of life and society because it doesn't align with you know my upbringing and the things that i went and society because it doesn't align with, you know, my upbringing and the things that I went through and people just don't

understand how bad I've had it. And you know what? They never really will actually. And so it's, it's like I had to get to a place where I was like, I'm not going to treat myself like shit anymore. You know what I mean? It's like,

I wouldn't let other people treat me like that. I immediately flip out when someone, you know, tries to treat me the way and then the way I treat myself. It's just like, wow, you know, and those are moments that are want to be and where you are so far off that it's going to take a miracle to get you back on track. You feel that way. But life is good in that it is forgiving and, you know, time can heal things, you know. And you just kind of keep trying to do a little bit more right for yourself, good for yourself every day. And you realize again, okay, I'm right back where I should be. I like myself and, uh, the things that, um, I become insecure about those maybe are the best things about me as far as i'm concerned you know when did you get

serious about music um i've always been serious about it that's that's what i meant earlier when i i there's videos of me and my dad um is putting a t-shirt on me and i said no sir i'm not wearing no t-shirt and i put on this dress shirt and you see me tuck it in and it was like I was like four years old and it was like I was very serious about I'd make my whole family sit there and listen to me and there's videos of me just singing that's just what I want to do I always took it seriously and I knew when I left high school I'd already been telling people that I was signed to a major record label and when I left high school, I'd already been telling people that I was signed to a major record label. And when I left high school, I went to New York.

And I actually, before long. You were telling people that you were? Yeah, I was telling people that when I got out of school, I'd be going up there because I already had a record deal lined up. And I actually, kind of like you were talking about, like positive thinking and positive putting out there in the world. I did that because before you know it, Atlantic Records was offering me a deal. Rounder Records. I got flown to meet Rick Rubin. You know, I turned it all down.

Stayed with this little label. Why'd you turn that down? I'm not judging it. I didn't turn down a deal with Rick Rubin. Let me straighten that out. I turned down a deal with Atlantic and with Rounder because I had gotten on this label. They had assured me that there was money. I talked to their backer, all these things, and then everything fell through right after that. And it just sent me into a whirlwind of just being pissed off and emotional depression.

And like, I just, I couldn't trust anyone anymore. It all fell through. This guy was there, him and his brother, and they had the money. We were like a family. We were building a relationship. We were going to actually say no to a deal that really wasn't good for me because it was when the industry was coming out with 360 deals, which meant they got part of your merch. They got part of all these things. They didn't

have any business having. And so this was a good deal for me. It felt right to stay where I was. You know, but it just, the, his brother pulled all the funding and the money for it. And it just there was no I didn't know how to raise money at the time. That's not even where my head was. You know, I thought raising money was something that some other people did that I didn't get lucky enough to be that kind of person. I didn't realize, you know, I didn't use media and stuff like that very well. And so I couldn't do it. Now there's a chance for me to be able to raise money.

Nowadays, you can do that. That's where I'm getting to a place in my life where I need to put out records, and it's hard for me to work with other people because they always want to try to change something because my voice is different, it unique and that's that's it that's fine why why mess around with that you know and they want you to sing different well sometimes yeah people do they they do they do and i won't i'm not going to you know um it's just that would feel not wouldn't feel right to me to do that so are you is that an ace card on your shoulder? Yeah. Are you a gambler? Well, not a very good one. But I met a guy in San Francisco when I was out there living with my sister.

Ace of spades. And he said he was a homeless guy I met. And I'd just gotten a bunch of money for some songs that Marlboro was using. And I said, well, let's go get that tattoo. I want to hear about the tattoo, but explain that to me. Oh, Marlboro was uh doing some some songs uh online they had this thing going mart the cigarette place yeah yeah steve this is when he was responding to licensing music yeah okay so different experience marlboro i'll take the call and uh so they they give me a great meat eater marlboro mix-up yeah yeah yeah so they wanted some of your songs with your voice they they did yeah they did they didn't even ask me to sing

different they wanted me and they were using them in cigarette ads no sir i would never do that they were uh they were were used in an actual campaign to get people to quit smoking. No, I'm just kidding. They were used on their website.

They were just kind of promoting some bands in the towns they were from. It was just a thing they were doing that was kind of like

the, remember the Marlboro Miles? Oh, shit, yeah. Save that shit up and go and get them a backpack.

what was the, I remember like, remember Camel Bucks? Yeah. Everybody had those white sweats that said Camel down the side of them from smoking so much. They were yellow though. You smoke so much

you wind up with some sweats. Or a bag. You've got your dad's backpack that he ordered from Marlboro Miles going to school. Poke holes in it so it's see-through. But yeah, ordered from Marlboro Miles going to school. Oh, yeah. Poke holes in it so it's see-through, you know. But, yeah, that's that.

No, just real quick. I don't mean to pry, but was that like a good chunk of change from Marlboro? I don't know. Is it $200,000? No, I'm just kidding. You know, it was like $20,000. Okay. Cool.

So, anyways, you run into a homeless guy. Yeah, he was like, I always wanted to get an ace up my sleeve. And I was like, let's go get that tattoo. And so we did. We went and got it. And he got one and I got one. And he got his on his face. Well, how's that up his sleeve? I'm not sure.

He's been wearing a shirt of rocks. But it was right above his eye, kind of like Mike Tyson or something like that. That's when he got the ace of spades? He got the ace of spades on his face. Yeah. See, yours is even a little high. And then he put his shirt on. When I think of an ace up my sleeve, I think it's right here, right on my forearm.

Yeah, but he's a short sleeve guy, obviously. Oh, no, yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. I would have been just as bad as him if I had got it up there, probably. Got it on his face? Yeah, he got it on his face. That's not how I expected this story to go.

That was great. I didn't expect a lot of things. That guy was pretty wild. Well, I thought he was the guy who did the tattoo on when you first started the story. Oh, no. But then you treated him to a tattoo. Yeah. Yeah, and at the last minute, he went to get it on his face.

And I almost said, hey, you know, that's not up your sleeve. Did he assure you? When we got outside, he was like. That's up your eyebrow. Impulse control. What the hell was Corinne saying about you hiking a bunch of peaks in Colorado? Is that true? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I didn't make that up. When I was younger, I went to a church in North Little Rock, Arkansas, and the pastor there was an avid outdoorsman. So he was on a mission to do every 14,000-footer or 12,000-footer. He was on a mission to do every 12 footer and uh so summers we would uh go on some of those with him i guess he wasn't going to stop for running the youth group uh he just decided to make his mission our mission so we uh i was actually telling a story uh to charlotte yesterday um as uh we're at the hotel uh Downtown that y'all put us up in

What place are you staying at? It's the Armory You like it there? Yeah, I do They rented me out And not rented, it's free But a Gibson And they told me actually that I could bring it over here

And play it, but I went in and brought mine Chili, next time you want to play a Gibson, buddy. Sounds like you've got to get yourself down to get a room at the Armory. I've been to the Armory and they never offered me no Gibson. You give them a shotgun? I'm about to, though. You can get any kind that's in the

case, you know, in front of the hall where they play music. Those four Gibsons in the case, you can rent any one of those. Well, if anyone's at the Armory that's listening, you just bring Chili a guitar. Put your face on it. Yeah. I can't remember what I was asking you about. Oh, climbing all those four teams.

Yeah, okay. And you were telling Charlotte a story. Oh, you were telling Charlotte a story. I was telling, okay, I was telling Charlotte a story. We were looking out the window of the Armory, and I said, you see those big patches of ice that are up on the mountain you know um i said we rode one of those on a tarp with about seven people from youth group and someone had a little poodle and they threw their dog in the air when they said abandon

like because we were going to run into some rocks i mean we were flying dude and we were gonna run into some rocks and he just when he said abandon they just threw his poodle in the air and the dog abandoned the tarp yeah abandoned the tarp and i was like i i just you know rolled over and i flipped and then what stopped me was my face hitting the ice so hard that it just finally flipped me over and i slid down and then the guy our preacher was like all right sit down the other group we were just like what what happened to the poodle the poodle did not like the rest of the trip that poodle was definitely scarred and i don't think it walked on its own again after that i think it had like a little wheel thing it just

gave up it was not hiking though and two people were like my ankle for like almost another week several of us had to trade off carrying two full packs two packs up a mountain we'd be just trading it back and forth it was like your ankle hurts so bad that you can't carry your bag at all for the week the whole week worst time to be in in a youth no i mean you know i'm glad we got to help him, you know, with his mission to climb all those. Yeah. I had no idea I wanted to do that so badly. When you were spending that time, so at that time, had you already been exposed to drugs and alcohol?

I had. Yeah, I had. When you were like up in the, hanging around the mountains, hiking the mountains, did you ever feel like, did you ever get this feeling there's these different paths you can take in life? And one hand would be that you kind of run around the mountains and be all healthy and free, right? Or on the other hand, you go down this path of like being a musician and boozing all the time. I mean, did you feel like you had that there was a way to go in different directions? You know, I will say this. I did not feel torn ever that I wasn't being true to myself. I just felt like my value for myself was not very high.

So so there was that change that changed your decision-making processes. Yes, and therefore now they're changed. I will say this, though. Don't let anyone fool you. As you get older, everyone at this table seems to know this besides Charlotte. As you get older,

you will definitely be at a place where, though you wish you would have asked yourself those questions, you wished you would be in a more healthy spot where you did care about yourself more and that your value for yourself was higher. But for me, it wasn't very high. And I always thought that was for someone else. I wasn't good enough for that. And i mean that really has to change and you know there's a lot of people out there that have a real hard time making that sort of change on their own and they do need people to

care for them and love them and i i mean to be honest with you not to be too sappy but you know meeting charlotte's like changed everything for me because after feeling so just like I messed everything up so bad to have someone really good and positive in your life that cares about you, it can be the most important thing. So you can't give up on people, 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. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking a high-end titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. 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. That's right.

We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet.

Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. How'd you guys meet? We met playing in a band together. We play in this band called The Gravel Yard, and it's a bluegrass band and Charlotte actually has her masters in chamber music

What? Yeah, she's special Charlotte, I gotta tell you something terrible What? That's my least favorite kind of music, chamber music Why? Remember that show on remember that show performance today on npr i don't know man like if you listen to the news and also they're

like it's time for performance today i always be like dude i'm not ready i was listening to the news and everything and they'd cut into chamber music at 10 a.m and i'd be working away and i'd be like ah damn it and i started to take it out on chamber music well let's do master's degree yeah i went to um the university of michigan in ann arbor and i got actually two masters one in chamber music and one in violin. And then I moved back. I'm from Arkansas, and I moved back there. Oh, you're from Arkansas, too? Mm-hmm.

Oh, shit. Yeah, that make them good down there. Huh. Did you guys, being from Arkansas, do the whole fiddle camp thing growing up or any of that stuff oh I did for sure yeah tell me about that um well I started playing violin when I was four and then a few years later I started fiddling as well um and there were yeah there was camps and I actually taught at a fiddle camp in my hometown a couple years um my teacher, Tim Trawick. And there's Mountain View, Arkansas.

There's so much up there. And my grandparents lived in Calico Rock, which was close. So we would go up there and go to the people, just jam on the square. And there's a lot of music up there. Were your people mountain people going back in time? I wish they were more than they were. We didn't grow up. I mean, I kind of wish I grew up in Mountain View or something like that

because I just loved it there so much. I've always loved being outdoors. I don't know. But I grew up in near little rock so um yeah were you aware of his music when you met him um no i hadn't i hadn't heard of him before but i did stalk him after we joined so we met when we joined when Gravel Yard. He was already playing in it for a while. And I was just really excited to play with a bluegrass band. But then, yeah, I went and stalked him

and saw all of his old music. I was like, wow, he has a really unique voice. Oh, the most unique voice. Yeah. You don't listen to anybody that tries to make you sing different man oh i don't i just feel sorry for them i i can empathize because people have been telling me to sing different my whole life yeah but i actually should probably take that to heart

i don't know you're saying randall you don't know people you're saying, Randall. You don't? No. People tell me to sing different. Sorry, that didn't land. Steve just didn't get it. Randall's not a good singer. No, no, no, I get it now. If he sings, they're saying sing in a different spot. Yeah. So you wrote all your stuff before.

Do you write music now? Oh, yeah. For the Gravel Yard? Are you the primary writer for Gravel Yard? Oh, no, no, no, no. Gravel Yard, I haven't really written a whole lot for them. That's not really the path I'm going down. I'm writing for myself still.

Writing for yourself. We do a lot of old time bluegrass stuff. I see. Some stuff. I released a couple songs on an album with them called Strange Times. And they had a different singer actually before. So I didn't come into the band until the Strange Times record. But this whole thing with Christopher Denny, it's just,

you know, I've had, I've had the songs for a long time. It's been a long time since I've done a record. And it's just a great time to do, do a record and get, come up with the money and there's different avenues to doing that. And so that's, that's kind of what, where I'm at now, but yeah, I've been writing my own stuff recently.

How many stamps do you have to sell to cut a record? Oh, uh, I mean, apparently I don't know what's what. So this guy tells me, I don't know what's what that, that one would be on blue paper and have this many perforations. How much of a bummer if we have you play right on? Is it a super bummer that you can't play one of your new tunes? Do you guys know how to play your new tunes together? Yeah, we know some new tunes together. Can you do one?

Can you do right on and then do one of your new tunes? Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. Do you want Chili to get you to back you up on that finger licking? Oh, yeah, absolutely. But we'll tune his guitar first and then I have a thing that doesn't tune, man. It's not going to happen.

Yeah, I could play Ride On and then we could do a tune. Yeah, you'd be able to play fiddle on Volties? well i've never played right on so he's gonna solo on it there's only a couple yeah well that's that's fine dude i want to do it oh no let's do it okay let's do that let's get that done see this is all part of background because people people didn't know what the hell to make yeah when we started using your song people didn't know what to make of it yeah i read a lot of things online that were like yeah i thought that was a girl and

i was like you know i did too for a while phil always likes come on get everything ready oh man you know um while he's tuning that up my kids got those so my kids got pet pigeons a week ago it's amazing but they got those pigeons Oh man, you know, while he's tuning that up, my kids got pet pigeons a week ago. It's amazing. When they got those pigeons a week ago, they couldn't even stand up.

They couldn't ride. They couldn't move themselves. You had to manually move them from one place to the other. Those things now run all around the yard. And they are so imprinted on people, they think every single person is their mom. They follow the kids anywhere they go. Climb up on your feet.

Dude, it's a wild little pet. I had him a long time ago, but I kind of forgot about all that. Is this making them reconsider the pigeon trapping business? No, they don't view it. I don't know. They sold 45 of them into like near certain death. They're able to hold that distinction. And he spent,

he gets to reading that one of his pigeons has a thing called canker. Okay, it's a little sickness pigeons get. He spent $24 yesterday on medicine for the pigeon. I'm like, I'm not putting money in these pigeons. So he sells pigeons at seven bucks a piece. So he traded three and a half pigeons live. Sells pigeons seven bucks a piece and then spent 24 bucks to medicate his other pigeon.

I love it. It's just like however things play out in kids' heads is so funny, man. You ready? Yeah, I'm ready. What kind of guitar you got there? This is a... That's an old-ass guitar. This is an old Craftsman.

Okay. Old Craftsman. It's a Harmony. Do you want to trade something? Yeah, yeah. You got a J45 or is it no i can get one all right i'm excited dude so you're gonna do right on yeah yeah all right and then you guys are gonna do a fiddle you're gonna do some something with fiddle accompaniment yeah yeah for sure excellent man okay everybody christopher denny Christopher Denny. Thank you.

When we met, you thought that I was shined and refined. About the time you ran to tell your mother your favorite color turned black. I walked through fire with my own kind of cross tried to feel like Jesus did but you're someone I can't forgive right on right, little darling. I want to see your gray hair shine like silver in the sun. Ride on, ride on, my longtime sweetheart. We done beat this damn horse to death So take your new one And ride on Oh, when you said you wanted up

That's when I wanted down You saw nice shades of tan, all I saw was brown When you found that my hoof was split You know you beat it just like a club. That's why it's time. To ride on, ride on, little darling i want to see your gray hair shine like silver in the sun ride on ride on me help if i help if i learn the chords to it. Hell yes. Dude, I love it. I love it.

Wow. That's great. Man, are you guys here tonight? Yes, sir. You guys should come over to my house for dinner tonight. Oh, yeah. I'm going to tell my kids, that's the dude that sings the Right On song.

They'll know all about you. We would love that. That'd be great. All right, what's next? So you're going to get your fiddle out. Yeah. Okay. Okay, this is when it's going to get good here.

Hey, do you want to do Bigfoot's Reel or do you want to play? Yeah, we can do either one. Okay. Should we do that one? Yeah, let's do that one. You want to just, I'm going to, are we going to? Bigfoot's Reel is very on brand for us bigfoot's real y'all like bigfoot can you do he's not real this is a r-e-e-l oh it's a type of

fiddle tune bigfoot's real oh oh oh like a virginia you're gonna play here or over here is that gonna be uh oh yeah where are you gonna post up charlotte yeah we'll have to pull tony and randall you'll have to either move or have to get that mic up there oh no let's just play that let's do relinquish the stage let's just do this you can take she can take this one i'm just she's playing guitar on this one so and then just do the slow part and do it out yeah thanks randall that's a good point i love it already. I love it already.

Well, this is instrumental, but if you want me to do one with singing, I can. No, do whatever the hell you want. Charlotte, do you want to go stand in front of that mic? Mahoma, do you want Charlotte on that mic? She can come over here. Yeah. Genuine master's degree in fiddle playing. Check these off.

All right. When are y'all ready? I don't know. I'm ready when you guys are ready guitar solo guitar solo I love it. Thanks, man. That was great. Thanks for letting us do that. That was great. Thanks for letting us do that. That's awesome.

After this, would you guys want to jam to, do you guys know Whiskey Before Breakfast? I just tried to learn that one. Yeah, I've told you. Out in the front. Yeah, let's do it. See if I can do it. Yeah, let's do it. That would be great.

Dude, thanks for coming out, man. Yes, I'm really glad to be here, and just thank y'all you know i want you to make more albums oh yeah yeah it's all about that um so whatever it takes for you to crank out more music here's what's so awesome so i i we freaked out and we were like we've got to get this thing done because i had been taking so long to do this kickstarter um and so we we weren't sure i had just assumed in my mind that we were shooting live today and so we like went crazy getting this thing finished and then um find out uh i finally asked i finally actually

asked green when we were when this was going out she said oh like a month or so and i was like oh my gosh i mean well yeah i got a bunch of yeah i got a bunch of travel so we got that's totally fine but i just you should have been in our household two weeks ago my hair was falling out you know charlotte's like i don't know if i'm leaving him or not like um so it's just uh it's so we're so i'm raising money to do a record uh um you know i'm in a place now where um i've got charlotte's gonna help me uh i've i've redone my business and i'm starting it uh fresh with um her helping me uh to just she's just I said, she's just my partner and keeps me in check. And so we're going to try to put out this third record. You know, I've been down through there with record labels. My brother, Drew Denny is his name, he actually heard my song on y'all's show because he's an avid fan, avid listener.

Oh, is that right? Really a big fan of yours so um he calls me and he says hey your song is playing at the end of this podcast that i love and i said well uh that's news to me so uh crank and show you our paperwork i i i i've already seen it um i'm just kidding no um but i think uh here's something that does happen uh when you when you let go of things in your world and you are succumbed to addiction you lose track of taking care of the things you need to take care of and people take advantage of you and they do that because you leave yourself wide open to it and um i i haven't received any kind of accounting or anything on my second record for anything and this is not the only thing that i've heard about you know not

to mention not a dime from any spotify songs anything i have not seen a dime from that record since it came out. So it's not y'all. It's partly me and it's partly the business. It's not made up of honest people. I'm not calling them liars, but they're not going to come out and do the right thing by you just for no good reason. You know what I mean? And so I'm doing a Kickstarter to be able to do this record and have some say in my career and my life. I believe that, uh, that it's going to happen.

You know, um, it's, uh, the album is called blue jeans, G E N E S blue jeans. Got it. And,

um, that's going to be the, the name for the, the Kickstarter campaign. Well, I'm going to kick in on the Kickstarter. Oh, well,

thank you. We can help kick off the Kickstarter. Well, we do appreciate that because uh we're you know and there's some some great uh things given back to uh on there uh so you know it's not going to be something that you just give money and you know you'll be a part of making something happen that needed to happen for a long time and it's going to be my best record i i i've got um uh i can't remember chad's last name but he's a guy i worked with in norman oklahoma at black watch studios he's gonna he's the guy i wanted to record it y'all when i went and recorded with him a few years ago i thought to myself this is about 10 years ago this guy's gonna do big things.

And he's worked on like Kelly Clarkson albums. They fly them out to mix. You know, he's just great. He's talented. And he's going to take on recording this and producing it if we come up with the money to do it. And it's going to be great. Well, how much money does it take to do something like that? I think we're asking for like $25,000.

Because I need money to run a press campaign for several months. That's important to me. Well, man, I'm glad you sobered up. Thank you. I don't mind a little bit drinking, but I'm glad you're not drinking drinking. You probably should stay away from any kind of drinking. I do. JT knows that

i don't need to drink uh so he can he can tell you that well dude thanks so much for coming out man that means the world to me that you came out uh i appreciate it a lot to get to know you i love your love your music i can't wait for you to make more i'm glad you got cleaned up didn't kill yourself yeah me too all right dude thanks man right, dude. Thanks, man. Thanks. All right. So how do they find the Kickstarter? One last time.

How do you find the Kickstarter? It's going to be Christopher Denny Blue Jeans. Spell your last name. D-E-N-N-Y and it's Blue Jeans. G-E-N-E-S like the jeans you're born with. Yep.

And I was born with blue ones. So it's going to be the Blue Jeans album, Christopher Denny, a Kickstarter. And then, yeah, that's it. Damn, man. I'm glad for you. Thanks, dude. Oh, yeah. Also, Christopher Denny's music page on Facebook.

And then there's links there to Instagram and all that. So, yeah, I'm sorry that I don't have the Instagram. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. All right. Keep it up. All right.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Awesome. Awesome. Oh, ride on. Ride on. Ride on. Let it ride on, let it run. I want to see your gray hair shine like silver in the sun.

Ride on, ride on, ride on, sweetheart. We're done beat this damn horse to death. So take your new one and ride on. We're done beat this damn horse to death. So take your new one And ride on