This Past Weekend - E430 Lainey Wilson

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

Lainey Wilson is a country music singer-songwriter and actress. She won Female Vocalist of the Year at the 2022 Country Music Awards and also appears in the show “Yellowstone” on Paramount. Her new album “Bell Bottom Country” is out now.  Lainey Wilson joins This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von to talk about growing up in Louisiana, impersonating Miley Cyrus in high school, the early days of roughing it in Nashville, finding new success and much more.  Lainey Wilson: https://www.instagram.com/laineywilsonmusic/  ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com Podcastville mugs and prints available now at https://theovon.pixels.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit  https://www.amazon.com/stores/CELSIUS/ShopNow/page/95D581F4-E14E-4B01-91E7-6E2CA58A3C29 Keeps: Visit https://keeps.com/THEO to receive your first month of treatment free. Lightstream: Visit https://lightstream.com/THEO and apply now to get a special interest rate discount and save even more. RocketMoney: Visit https://rocketmoney.com/theo  to stop throwing your money away. Cancel unwanted subscriptions – and manage your expenses the easy way. BlueChew: Visit https://bluechew.com to try BlueChew free with promo code THEO, just pay $5 shipping. ------------------------------------------------- Music:  "Shine" by Bishop Gunn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [e-mail] Hit the Hotline: [phone] Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Producer: Ben https://www.instagram.com/benbeckermusic/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You know, I use keeps to keep my hair. I wanna keep it, I wanna take care of it. You know, I used to work on a farm and now I'm basically a hair farmer. I farm my own hair. Two out of three men will experience some form of hair loss by the time they are 35. Keeps offers a simple, affordable and stress-free way

to keep your hair. If you're ready to take action and prevent hair loss, go to keeps.com slash Theo to receive your first month of treatment for free. That's right. That's keeps.com slash Theo to get your first month free, keeps.com slash Theo. I've got some new tour dates to announce.

April 25th in Phoenix, Arizona, the Celebrity Theater. That's a new show that's been added. Also May 11th, Westbury, New York outside of New York City and July 2nd, Las Vegas at the Encore Theater. The other show there is sold out. Those tickets are available now at theovon.com slash tour. We now have Be Good to Yourself crewnecks available in light blue, maroon and cement.

That embankment gang color, you know it. Check these out along with the new windbreaker at theovonstore.com and thank you for your support. Today's guest, I mean, this lady's got that. I mean, she got the voice of just, I mean, you wanna climb in her throat and just and just start a family or knit an American flag. You just wanna dang just Betsy Ross around her tonsils, baby.

She's just, I mean, she has a timeless voice. It sounds like it just comes out of the core of the earth. And just, I mean, it just like a beautiful train just rolling through years. She's got it. She won the Female Vocalist of the Year at the 2022 Country Music Awards. She's also an actress.

You may have seen her on the show Yellowstone. Her new album, Bell Bottom Country is out now. And I'm just, I'm grateful to be spending some time with her getting to know her. Today's guest is Lainey Wilston. Shine that light on me. I'll sit and tell you my story. Shine on me.

Shine on me. And I will find a star when I was singing. I love the stars. So yeah, when things get busy, it's interesting how they get, you don't know who you're talking to. You don't know what you just did a line or four. You don't know what's going on.

It's crazy. And I also like thought people were kind of full of it when they're like, I don't know. I didn't know what city I was in. I didn't know what day it was. It's true. Oh, sometimes I'll be halfway through the statement. What's up?

And I will have to check in my head. Do you know what this is? There's times where I, all day long, I'm like, all right, I'm in Salt Lake. I get up there and I'm like, where am I? Yeah, it's kind of, it can be kind of challenging. I think just because of how quick things happen and how busy you can get.

Can you move this a little bit in and down? Yeah. But you can also move it if you feel like, I don't want you to feel cage up. I don't want to. Yeah. Oh, look, if you want to let loose some. I can unscrew it.

Oh, I love it. I love your voice. Thank you. Yeah, it's really nice. Thank you very much. It's a gift I feel like to the whole world, I'm sure a lot of people feel that way. I feel like when you're singing,

like somebody's singing from like, I feel like somebody's singing from the past. I mean, I feel like it's coming from like, yeah, I just feel like it's like coming from another. I'll take that. Thank you. Like playing or something, I'm like, it's almost like. Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong decade.

Really? Yeah. I mean, who knows what I was doing in a previous life, but yeah, I kind of have some weird feelings like that too. So. Yeah. Yeah. Like, do you think of a time like,

do you feel like there's a time like, do you get a sense of what is going on around you at that time if it was a past? I mean. I don't know what it was, but I do feel like a little bit of an old soul. I don't know. I don't know if it's,

which I have some family members and stuff who I think kind of feel the same way. So maybe it's just something like a little thing kind of passed down, but yeah, I wonder who I was. Who was I? Yeah, who were you? Who were you?

Oh, I know who you could have been. You could have been like a train conductor, but before they had a whistle, so you had to also be the whistle. So you had to be like, like you had to really belt it out, you know? I'm just trying to think of something where you'd also have to be like real verbose

and like let them know, you know? Toot, toot. Yeah. That's it. And what if people would have come, or what if somebody else was a conductor and you just were, you were the horn? Like they didn't have the horn.

No, I was a caboose. Don't even play. I was, I was the caboose. I have seen some videos on TikTok. You were probably the caboose. You were probably the caboose. When I tell you, I can't even get on TikTok without. People really coming for that romp, huh?

Coming for the romp. I'm like, I've been in Nashville for 12 years trying to do music. And here we are, the butt goes viral. And I mean, they find the music through the butt and they plan on sticking around, but it's a, I'm trying to embrace it. Yeah.

Nothing will keep a man around like some butt, I think. That's right. That's right. I'm like, whatever, whatever makes them listen to the music. Yeah. Hey, look, sometimes they start with the bass section, you know, before they get to the treble, you know? That's, yeah, that's exactly it.

I think that's all it is. I think that's all it is too. I mean, I didn't know how to feel about it in the beginning. I was like, I thought it was going to be just this little, little tiny viral thing. And next thing I know, weeks later, I'm still seeing big old butts. Yeah. What was that?

Can you pull that up, uh, Ben? If you find that TikTok, I don't even know. I just remember seeing that and it was like, something, yeah, it was like a side angle of you on a stage. And then it was with a leopard pants. Yeah. Now that'll probably do it too. That was like an optical illusion. I don't think my butt's really that big.

I think it was the leopard. I mean, maybe the leopard had a big butt. Oh my God. That is, see, that was, that was a good day. Also, this is a wide screen. Let's be honest. I mean, look, I'm just saying. Y'all doing me dirty.

This is 16 nine, baby. I think whatever that is, that thing is off. You got that silver screen rear. Dang, that thing is, uh, it's out there. Yeah. That cheetah must have been strong. What's, what's weird is people are like, where'd you get that from? And I say, I get the, the width from my mama

and the depth from my daddy. Really? My daddy's got a, he got a little booty on him. Does he? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I used to date a girl actually, and she had her father's butt. Oh my God. Yep.

And it was always like, I don't know. It was so hard for me sometimes to like want to mate with her sometimes. Cause you're just thinking about her father's butt. I wasn't thinking about her father, but it was like a very distinct looking buttocks, you know? I got to see this girl's butt. I mean, she was beautiful, but she had,

she had her father's butt kind of. I think, I mean, I don't know. I shouldn't even say that. I don't know what was going on. She listening to this too, and she knows exactly. She's like, yeah, he talking about me. I hope you, I hope not. Congratulations on your two top.

You have two songs in the top 10 right now, right? Which is crazy, both about trucks. Yeah, both about trucks. Wait in the truck, heart like a truck. I know. So, so, yeah, I mean, it's just amazing. And you're, I just want to start like, cause some audience might not know you, right? So I want to start, well, let's look at this TikTok.

Let's look at it real fast. Cause I want to see it. Well, there's a bunch of them. I want to see it again. And who is that guy? I don't know, but there's a lot of different versions. Oh, yeah. Yeah, this was opening for Morgan this past summer. I had been eating real good this summer, you know. Hey, come on.

Yeah, they look like frog legs almost right there with those pants in a way. Kind of, you know what I'm saying? Well, you look lovely. That's awesome. Oh my gosh. That's the security guard down there in the corner. He like... Oh, he's still writing letters to you.

Oh yeah. He's probably in a minimum security facility right now. You're probably right. You are originally, we're both from Louisiana. I know. That's cool. Different parts of Louisiana, but... Yeah, you're up from, you're from... I'm from northeast.

So like about 30 miles south of Monroe. Okay. Little town called Baskin of like 200 people. Oh wow. You're from Covington area? Yeah, I'm from Covington. And so, and Baskin is at near, cause I used to work up near Natchez, I worked on a farm outside of Natchez

up near like Vidalia. Not too far from Natchez, Vidalia and Farrity. Yeah, we had a good time over there. Alexandria. Yeah, we go to like, where is it? Okay, there we go, Baskin, dang. That's it. My God.

Yup, yup, there it is. You blink and miss it. We have a caution light. And what's the caution for is what is somebody, is there a mis, somebody who missed Baskin's town? It is a speed trap. When I tell you, if you go through Baskin, you better slow down.

Oh God. I got my first speeding ticket at 15 years old in Baskin. I had to go to court. Well, of course, there's nothing for them to do. They have to give you a ticket. Well, we gotta do. We gotta, gotta pay the bills. But yeah, I've been in Nashville for almost 12 years.

Got here August 1st, 2011 in a little camper trailer. Did you? Yeah, I lived in a camper the first three years I was here. And I'm just too hard headed to leave, honestly. I don't know how to do anything else. This is it. Yeah. Is singing.

Do you also play, you play instruments? Yeah, I play the guitar. I can play a little bit of piano by ear. But yeah, I love it. My daddy taught me a few chords on the guitar and wrote my first song at nine years old. I knew, I mean, my family took me on a trip. When I was nine, it was like a couple weeks

after I had written my first song. And we were driving back home to Louisiana and we drove through Nashville. I remember where I was on the interstate. I was looking at the Batman building and I told my mom and daddy, I said, this is home. I just knew it. Really?

I knew it. I knew that I was gonna be a part of, of this industry. I just didn't know when or what that was gonna look like. And yeah, this is, has always been a plan. Wow. And so when you're starting, so you're a child and how do you get into music? I mean, obviously Louisiana,

there's a lot of like music passing through there. That's right. You could have a, you know, a sip of, of a local hose and you, you know, you, you might have a couple of notes just get lodged in you. It's definitely, it's in the world there. What, how did that kind of start for you? I mean,

Did your mother or father play? Daddy played a little mama, bless her heart. She can't carry a tune in a bucket. I'm talking about like, she sings the loudest in church. But like, even Jesus getting mad about that. He's like looking down like, that's of the devil. That's of the devil. But she loves music.

She loves to dance on both sides of my family. I have people who play like musical instruments and stuff. But in Baskin, I mean, country music is more than just a genre. It is truly a way of life. And so growing up, you know, listening to a lot of 90s country, I just, we eat, sleep and breathe it. We talk about music. We sit around, if I was riding the tractor with daddy,

like that's what we were listening to. And it was really a soundtrack to our lives. And so I didn't even realize as a little girl that country music was like a genre of music. I thought it was just, you know. Best music. I should see it. Yeah. Wow.

That's interesting. And what about for you down there? Well, what I'm trying to think of the first song I ever even heard, I think was Bon Jovi. And I was lit like this babysitter was giving me a ride to YMCA camp and she played it. And I'd never been like in a car like with a woman before that wasn't my mother.

And so I think it like everything seems so like real. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So my memories were like very alive, you know. And so I just remember being there and she let me put her seatbelt on her. I remember it was. Oh my gosh. Cause I think I was like, I was like, you know, we got to be safe.

You got to be safe in here. Let me buckle you up. Yeah. So I think she put mine on and I was like, oh, let me put yours on. You know, so I took mine off. And then when I put hers on, I was like kind of close to her like her body. And so I remember like, oh man.

So then I was like, let's put yours on again. Right. I just remember I kept like. Let's unbuckle. We didn't do this the right way. Let's do it again. So I put her seatbelt on like seven times and then finally she, we start driving and she put on Bon Jovi and I just remember hearing

that was like the first song I ever heard. Really? The first time I ever heard a woman sing that I remember I was in high school and they had, I'm sure I heard stuff on the radio, but some girl in our talent show at school played like a jewel song and it was like, dude, I like didn't even know what was going on.

Like I was like. Mesmerized. Oh, mesmerized. It was just like, I never, it just was so beautiful. It was like, it was like a woman just sitting there playing the piano and singing and it was, oh, I fell in. That feeling. Yeah.

Did you play in like talent shows and stuff at school? Was that? What was school? I mean, if 200 people are in town, how many are in school? I had to go over to the town next to me. There was a elementary school in Baskin and my mama taught there. My grandma was a principal.

But even going over to the town next to me, I mean, I still, I only graduated with 24 kids and that was one of the biggest classes they've ever had. So, you know, everybody, everybody knows you and it's like the best thing and the worst thing, you know? Yeah. They'll be there no matter what, but they'll be there no matter what.

Right, right, right. Yeah, it's so small, I guess, huh? Yeah. Like did you, so was, I guess it was the kind of town you probably had to have like a boyfriend from like a young age. Was it like that kind of town? Yes.

I mean, I dated the same boy for seven years. Wow, that's so popular in those type of communities. I know. It really is. And now like when I see, like if I have a songwriter buddy or whatever, if he's got like a daughter and I've realized they've been in this relationship for a long time, I'm like, tell her not to do that.

Like let go sow some wild oats, you know? Like at the end of the day, you might end up together. Right. But there's a big old possibility that you are gonna change. You're gonna be a completely different person. I mean, I'm a different person than I was five years ago. So you just change.

Yeah, a hundred percent. And so did you go to like prom? Was it like all of that? Like it was like all the same boyfriend, huh? Yeah. Wow. Well, there was one year where we had broke up for a couple of months and I went to five proms that year.

Oh, God. At that point I was just asking, I was like, anybody need a prom today? I'll go with you. Yeah. But um. So I wanna go back a little bit to like, just like when you were growing up,

like what was it like, like was it a, so your mom worked at the school. Yep. And what'd she teach over there? Well, she taught second grade for a while and then she taught the gifted and talented program. Oh, she did. And so she loved that.

And my daddy, he's a banker and a farmer. He does like crop loans for farmers and farms, corn, wheat, soybeans, oats. I mean, they had us doing stuff all the time. Yeah. It's crazy how much like growing up on a farm taught me just about life. Yeah.

In general. I mean, you get up every day. I mean, even when it comes to, you know, what you do, you get up every day, you roll your sleeves up, you have good years, you have bad years. Oh, they have, they have a lot. It's a tough, that is a tough business. I mean, something, a tornado could roll through.

A flood, locus, anything out the second half of the Bible, all of that comes through. And then you got to worry about the, all the loan side of it, the financial side of it. That's right. Yeah, I remember when I would work on a farm, we would get up, yeah, we'd roll out at like 630 and people would like, yeah, you just eat like gas station

food until you got to lunch. And then lunch was kind of a big, if you had a nice deal, unless like you were planning, then you had a pretty decent lunch. Oh yeah. And when I got home, I literally, I remember laying down as the first time I ever just, and then just woke up the next day.

It was like. Oh, you were tired. I was tired. Yeah. Yeah, it was nice. I know. We used to, like during the summers, when I was too little to actually help do anything,

Daddy wouldn't ever let me plant, because he knew I'd mess that up, but he would let me disc up the fields and stuff like that. But we would take food out to the field and let the tailgate down and kind of, that would be our little picnic table and have all the farmers come out. It's a good childhood memory.

Yeah, I bet. Yeah. Do you remember like having like a real, like connection to any female singers when you were young? Like was there anybody that really was like? I mean, Dolly Parton. Oh yeah. Everything about the woman.

I mean, just the way that she carries herself, I feel like she don't let anybody run over her. She kind of tells it how it is with like a little bow wrapped on top, you know? Yeah. She's just incredible. Singer, songwriter, I've actually never even met her. Really?

But I think I could, I've learned a lot from her by not meeting her. So I can't imagine how much I would actually learn from her if I sat down with her and got some advice. I mean, that would be absolutely insane. But yeah, her, and I love Lee and Womack. I love, I just love 90s country. Everybody from Shania to Reba to Trisha Yearwood.

Like I feel like those Faith Hill, those were the voices that were around. Yeah. What did Lee and Womack sing? I hope you dance. Oh yeah. The full, I remember the first time I heard I hope you dance. I was in sixth grade and my teacher came in

with a little boombox on her shoulder and she played it. And even in the sixth grade, I remember how that song made me feel. And I was like, whatever this feeling is, like I wanna make other people feel that way. Wow. That song. Yeah, music's so wild like that.

I realized that in the past year that a lot of music, it's like, sometimes you can't put into words what you're trying to say, right? And a song will do that. It's like, it's just such a gift cause it'll do that for you. It's crazy. Yeah.

It's a hard time completing, you know, full sentences. But I can write a dang song like. But I bet you, I don't know if out of basket, if everybody would have got together in a meeting if y'all could have put a sentence together. No choice. I don't know. I don't know.

I'm just saying Louise, yeah, I do. You know how it is. Oh bro, you will see, I mean, there was, I remember one kid turned in a paper and had no punctuation in it one time in our class. That sounds about right. And the teacher even showed it to everybody. She's like, I've just never seen anything like that.

I mean, that's how we talk. Yeah. It does never. We did right how we talk. But I love how, I mean, there's so many different like dialects and stuff in Louisiana. I feel like from where you're at, it's way different than where I'm from.

Oh yeah. Where you guys, it's a lot more farming up there. Yes. It's a lot more, I feel like, young gestation. I want to kind of say like, you know, a lot more youthful people getting, you know, pregnant and blaming it on God, but really they're seeing somebody.

That's right. You know, I feel like there's a lot more just kind of secret, like, I don't know what I'm trying to say. No, I agree. I feel like South Louisiana folks kind of just leave it out there. What you see is what you get.

And for some of the North Louisiana folks too, it's that way, but there's also a little bit of that, like, we're going to act like it ain't happening kind of thing. Yeah, act like the Lord's and really involved, you know? Oh yeah, like, the Lord made me cheat. He asked me to. You know?

And the Lord bought me another drink. Does Lord, he did it? He spoke to me. Yep. I've been there. Yeah, I'm trying to think of, do you remember going, so if you went to like a high school dance, where'd you go to that at?

At the school, at the, I mean. Were you guys at like Winsborough or something? Where were you guys? In Winsborough. Winsborough? Winsborough, that's where I went to school. Yeah. We used to go, I think to a grain elevator there.

I'm trying to think of, what did we do there? We went. Yeah, there was grain elevators. Was there? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think when I was working on that farm, we would go up there to, maybe it was to work, something like that.

Yeah. We go to Winsborough sometimes. There's a big old grain elevator right there in the middle of town across from the Walmart. Oh dang. Yeah. Dear Park, where else would we go to? I don't remember.

Not many people know Winsborough, so I'm surprised that that's why I didn't even say. Oh yeah? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's wild. Well, we'd go up there, yeah, sometimes like, I feel like that was it. I don't remember that well, but it was fun, man.

Yeah. I enjoyed it one time. I was, cause it always, I was just like a hand, you know, on the farm. So I would just do whatever. Yeah. And one time I had to paint this house and I was worried about the bees getting me, right?

Cause there's a lot of bees out there. So yeah, there you go right there. That's it. That's a grain elevator, baby. That's it. Put that grain away, boy. And so I put, I made this visqueen suit, right? Out of like visqueen and duct tape, right?

Yes. So I got on this ladder and I'm painting and these bees are like hitting me and I'm just like invincible, right? But what I don't realize is the heat, it was probably maybe 94 or something. Oh, shoot. So suddenly I start to see like at the bottom of my,

like these, like feet I made on this suit, cause I went really in on this suit. It was pretty nice. There's just like water kind of pouring out of it. I'm like, where, where is water? And then I just realized I was just losing water. Yeah. And, and it was bad, man.

They put me in a tub of ice at lunch and Oh my gosh. People were scared. Yeah. And one guy's praying. I'm like, dude, call the police. Pray, bro. You know what I'm saying?

Like I respect a prayer, but also text 911. This guy's lighting candles and stuff. Call 911 and then pray. Yeah. So we had a little bit of a different plan. You know, I like keeping my hair. You know that. I'm a hair boy and I'm a hair man.

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Lowest rates require excellent credit. Terms and conditions apply and offers are subject to change without notice. Visit lightstream.com slash thio for more information. Do you remember like going to like a high school dance or like being in love when you were young? Like what was that kind of like? A shit show.

Yeah. It's like a drama. Like, I thought that's how it was supposed to be. You know? Like you fight for each other. No, you don't. Oh yeah, yeah. You don't have to fight for each other, really.

You really don't. And it took me a long time to realize that, but that's kind of the mentality in some of those, you know, small towns. Oh yeah, I think there's so much like, I'm losing all my words today, but there's like a lot of stuff is kind of romanticized. So it's like, you know, we gotta do this.

I gotta tiger by the tail. Let's go, you know? So yeah, it was, but high school for me was, it was fun. I will say that I'm not friends with hardly any of the people that I graduated with just because we're living completely different lives. I might, there might be another person out of my graduating

class that's not married with kids. Right. Were you a loner? No, I wasn't a loner. Like I had like girlfriends and stuff like that. And, but man, just like we were talking about earlier, like people change, things change. And sometimes you figure out who people really are,

and it sucks. Yeah. But I will say looking back on it now, I wouldn't change it for anything. If anything, it kind of gave me that boost I needed to be here in Nashville, because I might still have, you know, oh man, I need to go back there

and hang out with my girls and, you know, having those ties or still dating that same old boy. Yeah. It kind of gave me that push of like, no, you get out there and you start your own life. Like I spent a handful of nights in my bed last year here in Nashville. Wow.

So you're on the road that much then? Every, between that and filming Yellowstone and, yeah, we're on the road a lot, but we're trying to, you know, burn up the road, strike one of the irons hot and got to take advantage of this viral TikTok ass thing going on. Is that really what you feel like it's kind of? I'm just playing.

Okay. I mean, a little bit. It's interesting how you get onto people's radars. It's so hard to get onto people's radars. I know, I know. What kind of stuff do you follow on TikTok? Oh my gosh. I follow like a few of my friends,

like my songwriting friends, Meg McCree, men chat, man, I love looking at their stuff, but I follow like stupid stuff. I love like watching people fall down. I love watching like little puppy videos, you know, it depends on what kind of mood I'm in. And every now and then I'll be scrolling, I'll get some, you know, like somebody preaching at me

and then I'll get into that and I'll be like, you know, if you watch the whole thing, you gonna get another one. I'm like, oh, the Lord, he trying to, he getting me. Oh yeah. I thought of God as my girlfriend's sweatshirt the other day off of somebody's, I ended up on some link. And now I got that coming. I just hope it's not too small because I feel like

that's not the sweatshirt you want to see. No, no, no, absolutely not. Yeah, that needs to be a big one. Yeah, I'm trying to think what I watch. I follow a couple of like, like people that have like disabilities or something. A lot of people like if like now it used to like, now people kind of champion if somebody in their family

has a disability, you know? So I follow a couple of folks like that. I follow this little baby named Samaj, this little black child who is so adorable with his mother. Yeah, he's always, he always says he has to go to work and then he has to go to his second job. What else do I follow? Yeah, I get it.

Sometimes the Lord, yeah, the Lord rolls through. Yeah, he'll stop you dead and you try it. You'll be like watching something you ain't supposed to be watching and then the next one will be like, stop. This one's for you. Don't scroll, you know. Oh, so then what is, what has, what was like a first job that you had growing up?

Did you have a job? We said. Oh yeah. I impersonated Hannah Montana. Oh, you did really? I really did for five years. No way. I started in the eighth grade.

I would do like three or four parties a week in. But whose parties really, if there's only 200 people in town. Oh no, I went everywhere. So the first party I did was for my eighth grade teacher and she had just bought me a little Hannah Montana wig. And she's like, will you just show up to my little girl's party and pretend to be Hannah?

And I just took it too far and went and bought the karaoke track, I already had a portable sound system. And so I put on a show on a flatbed trailer. And when I tell you it spread like wildfire. Wow. Next thing I know, I mean, I'm playing in Mississippi in Arkansas, Texas. The last place I did it was at St. Jude.

Dang. Like I would open up the show or I would at least ask like, Ken Laney, open up the show and they're like, who's that? And I'm like, person you hired to do this job. So. Oh, so you would do both characters? Yeah. I would try to cause I'm like, let me take advantage of this.

Let me just get up there with my guitar and see if they like my stuff. Yeah, that's a great idea. So yeah, I did that for five years I played with. Did you ever get to perform it for Miley or no? I've never met Miley. You haven't. But we got to do something together at some point

cause I mean, I can't get away from the Cyrus is the first song I learned on guitar was Aiki Breaky Heart. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's got to happen. I might as well be a Cyrus at this point. Yeah, I met some guy that I think dated one of, that dated Miley for a while the other day at a party somewhere, but I don't know if I've ever met her.

No, maybe I met one of her sisters. She's got a lot of siblings, huh? Yeah, there's a lot of fans. Cyrus is keep popping up. I know what, dang, I didn't know there. Okay, yeah. Okay, like, okay, Ricky Cyrus. You're like, all right, I don't know about that.

You know, you're like, okay, Deontay Cyrus. I don't know that sounds. Deontay, yeah. Everybody's trying to be a Cyrus. Yeah, I feel like a lot of this, it could be a lot of faux Cyrus is going. I did a lot of, like, I'll say whenever I first moved to Nashville

when I was living in my camper trailer. And when you're living in there with a man, you were living there by yourself. I was by myself. Oh, dang. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You have a security at him? Uh-uh, so long story short,

there was a guy from Baskin who wanted to move to Nashville and do music. And he ended up becoming a songwriter, producer, and had some success, like, in the 90s. But he wanted to move in the late 70s and my grandfather on my daddy's side, he gave him just like a few hundred dollars to kind of help him move to Nashville and get started.

So as a favor in return, like he was my mentor kind of growing up, he'd stop by my house whenever he came home to Baskin and stuff. And he let me live in his studio parking lot out in Bellevue for free for three years. So I hooked up the trailer to the water, the Wi-Fi, the electricity.

I mean, I flooded the thing, I was having plumbing issues and nobody wanted to help me work on the thing. So, you know, I've got my daddy on the other line and he's like, well, do this, close off your valves, fill up your tank, then, you know, let it run for a while, undo it, and let it kind of flush out while I fell asleep.

And the entire Dine Camper trailer flooded. It's, I mean, the floor eventually started rotting out. You know, you just had to be careful where you were stepping. Yeah, jump over the other part to get to the bathroom, you know. Oh yeah, it's like Dance Dance Revolution kind of in there at a certain point, you know, especially in a bad trailer. When they start to go, they start to go.

That's right, yeah. I mean, the whole thing needed to be redone. And I remember one time I was taking a shower and I had just started these like kickboxing lessons or it was something called Hotbox here in town where it's like super hot, but you're boxing. And you know what it is, you've been there? I mean, I used to, I've been super high

on a very small kickoff truck. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what Hotbox is. The other Hotbox. Yeah, and I've not been able to get out. So yeah, I was freaked out before one time in a truck and yeah, I almost kicked my way out of a window of a full range ranger. Yeah, well, that's the way I felt

because how camper trailer shower doors are, they've got the little latch on it. So you can close it when we're traveling. It's not like flinging open. And I remember I was sitting there showering and it was ankle deep water. My propane was running out. So the water was cold.

My shower head fell off. I'm showering with a water hose. And then I'm like, you know what? This is some shit, but whatever. So I try to, you know, I'm just like, I'm gonna get out of the shower and it's gonna be a better day. I get to go, you know, push on that door.

That dang latch, it closed. I was stuck in there. But you know what? Them kickboxing lessons came in handy because I'll bow. Right out. Bow. God dang.

Oh, put that cheek in there, boo. Get that leopard leg. I did. I sure did. Don't mess with me. Dang. Dude, I'm trying to think of, yeah, my sister, I've lived in a trailer for a long time

and she was so funny because like a branch fell in their trailer, right? In Louisiana, she live out in Gonzales. And she had such a positive attitude. Like one day she sends me a picture. There's a branch through their kitchen, right? Through the kitchen. And like one of her kids is like sitting

on the other side of the counter eating cereal. Like they're just so kind of not, right? And there's a bird on the branch. And she goes, look Theo, look how beautiful, right? And like, I'm like, I wish my perception of the world was like that. Look how beautiful. Right.

Look at this bird in our home, right? Like, look how cool. Wow. Honestly, I feel like I've just learned a lot from that story right there. Yeah. I mean, she's- See in the good.

You gotta see the good in everything. Yeah, she had the good going on. So what else can I ask you about? I mean, obviously with your career growing, it's quickly, it's crazy how quick you can get to places where you're like, okay, I could maybe work with Miley Cyrus or I could maybe work with Dolly Parton.

Like it's probably, like it's kind of like- It's crazy. That's wild. It is wild. And Mandolin and I, I mean, we've been working together, which is my manager for everybody listening. We've been working together for eight years. Have you all really?

Oh my gosh, we have, yeah. And I mean, she was setting me up, co-writes and stuff when, I mean, nobody would give me the time of day. She's like, y'all gotta listen to her. And everybody's like, who, no, sorry. But we have, we've been like, I mean, we're best friends. We work very closely together.

And we've dreamed up a lot of these things. I mean, everything we put on our list for last year, we've accomplished that and then some. So we were talking the other day, it's really cool to be able to dream a little bit bigger. It's like, my gosh, like it's really not that far fetch. I mean, we got on a tour bus last June. I've been traveling in a flatbed truck for 10 years,

you know, and that seemed far fetch. And now here we are. I mean, the wheels are turning and we're gonna do it. We're gonna accomplish everything on our list this year. Wow, yeah, I love that. I don't even think we've made a list, but we're gonna make a list. She's made the list.

Well, it's scary. Yeah, she probably has, that's good. It's scary, like, yeah, making a list and realizing that you can actually, like when you start to achieve some of your dreams, it's kind of scary kind of. It is. So, you know, I think I'm prepared for what's going on,

but there's absolutely another level of pressure to look good, sound good, be good, be on, be prepared for everything. Yeah, be fancy enough. Yeah, I mean. Yeah, seem the right way. But some of that I think is also a trap, I think, especially I feel like with country music,

I feel like people come there because they want, I love stories, right? And so that's why I think I love a lot of country and singer-songwriter stuff is because I want to know the, I just want to hear the story a lot of times, you know? That's right. So I feel like it's at least a genre where,

and a universe where you can be a little bit more. You can, normal? Yeah. You don't have to look like you got it all together. Yeah, in fact. I don't, I'll tell you that, I do not, and. Yeah, the less you have it together, the better. I mean, look at Morgan's an example, right?

You know what I'm saying? Morgan is like. He's a relatable one. Yeah, he stays, I mean, hell, he lived, he lived in like a, like a duplex. I was like, how do you live here? Like you can't, you're too popular to live here, right? But he tries to stay as relatable as possible.

Yeah, I think he does a good job without. A lot of those guys do now, you know? Party, John Party's kind of the same way. He's out there feeding his animals, sparing around. I think he's like. I think you got to do things like that to, I mean, if we're going to write about it, we got to do it. Yeah, I've had some experience with it, I think, you know?

That's right. But that gets scary as your life gets bigger and busier. It's like, you don't have some of those same exact moments, you know? For sure. I did just buy me some land here around Nashville that I'm excited to, you know, kind of get back to some of that because when I first got here, I mean,

you just can't afford to have animals and you can't afford to. Oh yeah. It's expensive. Yeah, having an animal, yeah, I'm trying to think of what kind of animal you would get. I want to give me some horses. You do?

I grew up on a horse and. Can you be on a horse easily? Oh yeah. Oh really? Oh yeah. I definitely, I mean, we rodeoed a little bit. Me and my sister, we were PRCA rodeo flag girls. No, what is it?

That big old butt state is in the saddle, you know what I'm talking about? Really? Really? Not as your sister pretty cheeked up or what's going on with her? She pretty cheeked up, it ain't as far out, but it's definitely as far this way.

Okay, okay, okay, yeah, I like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so she ain't going nowhere in the saddle either. She got that J in the tray baby, that's what I like. Yeah, yeah, and her name is Jana, so. Is it? Yep. Jana.

Jana. And does she have a couple children or not? She does. Oh yeah. She got two little boys, Knox and Ledger. Oh wow. And they are bad. Yeah?

They're cute, but they're bad. They live in Louisiana? They live in Louisiana. Oh god, they sound like damn train robbers. Uh huh, they probably will be. I know. They probably will be, I love them to death and they got to come to a show,

I was doing with Luke Holmes out in Oklahoma City, that was the first show that the boys got to see. Oh wow. And I think they were like, they had a little bit of an idea what Aunt Wayney does, but not really until they got to see it and I think they were a little bit like, oh okay. And now they're dancing around the house,

singing in the broomsticks and like, uh oh, maybe they got bit by the bug. That's how it starts, I think. You have to be influenced by something. Something kind of has to like physically connect you to things sometimes to know it even exists. I remember the first time that I saw a comedy, I didn't know comedy really existed.

I mean, I'd seen it on television and stuff, but that wasn't enough for me to really get an idea of it. And then somebody took me to a comedy show in college and I was like, oh my gosh, like this is a real thing. I was watching this guy and I was like, this is a real thing that people do. Wow. Did you guys have like a big festival in Yallstown?

What did, cause in Louisiana, like I- They known for the festivals. Oh, Louisiana will throw anything. We got a festival for everything, yeah. I mean, literally I went down to, went down over wherever you want to say it's at. We did the Rose Bowl Parade in LA and I got to be on the Louisiana float

and represent Louisiana. You did. So, and there were lots of queens and I mean, there was the crawfish queen, there was the catfish queen, there was the frog queen, turtle queen, duck queen. Locust, frog. I mean, queens everywhere, but-

Yeah, raccoon, you're like raccoon, that's- Yeah, I'm like, okay, that's all right. It's just some guy up there, like with a, there's like, with one of those tank top sunburns on, you're like, that's- My, one of my favorite stories about my sister is she was trying to do a pageant for the, what was it? The watermelon festival.

And she gets out there and she's, you know, trying to change her accent and stuff. And she's like, I'm Janna Wilson, Conkessica Kent number three. And then she goes, shit, in the microphone. Conkessica Kent. She didn't win, she didn't win, but we had the catfish festival was in Winsborough.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Conkessica Kent. That's crazy. You know, you're under pressure sometimes, you just- If she says shit, I'd give her a 10. Yeah, yeah. You should have been the judge. Cause I think they were like, no, she ain't no queen.

Conkessica Kent. She was in another pageant too. It was like junior miss or something. And they were like, what does, what does going green mean to you? And she goes, don't pollute. And then walks up, she didn't win that one either. She didn't win that one either.

I won Franklin Parrish Farm Bureau coin. Did you? I mean, yeah, that was just like the thing to do. You're just like, ooh, I did. I was trying to say I'm really amped. I mean, I bet, but there was a couple, couple broads at loss that are still a little bit TO'd about it. They probably are.

They probably are. My question was like, you know, what does agriculture mean to you or something like that? And I think the line that like really got him was, I was like, agriculture is the backbone of America. Oh, dang. And then they were like, oh yeah, we're giving her the crown.

Dude, I lost a spelling bee in fifth grade. I'm not even joking to a girl who after she, who was, who was the same year got pregnant and was in quit school. Really? Yeah. She was older. So she wasn't, you know, fifth grade age. She was probably eighth grade age.

What was the word that you didn't know how to spell? Her name was Helena, I remember. And I couldn't do a inconvenience. Well, I wouldn't be able to do that anyway. Yeah, I'm like, I couldn't handle it. Damn, I couldn't handle that pressure. Oh God, dude. And I still feel every time it comes up, I just.

It just takes you back. God, yeah. And then I started thinking about her and her child every time I hear that word. I need to go down rabbit holes, I know. Yeah. It's really inconvenient. So yeah, so it gets a little wild.

That's funny. I'm going to Louisiana this week actually. I got shows in Shreveport in Baton Rouge. You're going to get you some crawfish. Maybe some oysters, I guess. OK. And if you guys can hear on this, apparently a neighbor is, we're in Gaza, I think.

We're like literally in Baghdad. I feel like. Something going on over there. Only two times have we ever had like real issues here. And this, when Jelly Roll was here. Well. And then today. I saw Jelly Roll last night.

You did? I must be bringing in the Gigi. Really, how was it? I love me some jelly. Oh, I love jelly. I just, I worry about his health though. Did he look pretty good? He looked good.

He looked like he was feeling good. I mean, he, yeah, he's one of my favorites. We're on the same label. Oh, y'all are? Yeah. He said the reason he knew he wanted to be a part of that label. He said, because I got on the website and I looked to see, you know, the roster.

He said, I saw Laney's old redneck hippie ass. We're trying to wear bell bottom stuff. And then I saw, you know, Jimmy Allen. And then I saw Frank Ray. He's an ex Mexican cop. And then I saw who else was it? He said, it just looked like a halfway house. He said, and I said, this is a place for me.

I'm like, perfect. I'll take that. He's the best, man. A bunch of misfits. People love him. He's so, I mean, there ain't nobody like him. Nope. He is just him.

Yeah, he's like a, yeah, there's nobody like him. And that just is his stories. Yeah. And you get, you want to, and you love him, like the music obviously is great. And he's had a, even had a number one. I mean, how far did his son of a center go? It's so good.

It did go number one. It's so good. Yep. Sorry. But yeah, there's just something about him. And he's got so many great stories. He just, just everything about him. I know.

It's like, even if the music wasn't good, you'd still want to root for him. But it's just a plus that the music is good. Right. Yeah, I think there's just, yeah, you just love him so much. I think that's, that's the, there's, I feel like there's two types of artists in almost any genre. I think you're, or in any like template of art,

you're either like, people are there for you or they're there for the art. That's right. And sometimes it's both. And sometimes, yeah, you're right. But some guys, it's like you get, are you, or your reason you get into them is one or the other. I know.

I mean, it's just, yeah. Because sometimes it's like, I like the person so much, I almost don't care what they make. I agree. I mean, I got some buddies, so I'm like, ooh, that is. But I love you. But I love you. Yeah, but I'm going to get some oysters, actually.

So I'm excited about that, I think. But oysters, oysters are so weird. Oysters are like, I think they're supposed to not be eaten. Here's the thing, for me, it like depends on the day. And I'm kind of that same way with sushi too. It just depends on the day, whether I can actually do them raw or not. Yeah.

I will say, if you haven't been in Hendersonville, there's a place called Moby Dickies. It's on the water. And I wouldn't normally like eat oysters around here, but they have some really good oysters. But why would you eat them around here? I don't know. I mean, I just feel like eating them in South Louisiana

is probably a little bit better. That's true. Yeah, it seemed like the, how'd they get up here? You know, did they Uber or were they trained up here? Yeah, I think they Ubered. I don't know, they might have left. They usually left, for sure. Yeah, oysters seem like they usually left.

Yeah, they definitely left. Because oysters aren't supposed to be eaten. First of all, who would eat, if you, I can't imagine, you'd have to be, I feel like some type of pedophile or something to open something that small and put your dang tongue in. No, you're right. It's a little bit.

It's a little bit weird. Yeah, I think we all might be a little weird. It's a little, I mean, it's like, cause it's just so small. I just, I don't know, every time I open them, I feel bad. But I tell you what, I feel like I'm from Louisiana every time I do it. I'm like, I'm doing this cause I'm from Louisiana, you know?

Yeah. Crawlfish, though. I mean, I could, I'll make a special trip home just to go get me some crawfish. Yeah. Yeah, but that oyster, every time I open it, I feel like its parents aren't home, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just feel like such sneaky. I just feel bad. Just nasty. I mean, I won't say nasty, but I feel nasty. I feel a little bit like a creed kind of. I agree. So you got into some acting, right? Yeah.

How has that been like? And what was that like? Cause also the main character in, oh no, not Yellowstone. I'm thinking of that show, 1942. Have you seen her at 1732? What is it called, 16? Well, there's that.

You don't want to talk about it? Yeah, yeah. There's several of them. 1823. 1823. 1923. I was going to say too, sorry, I interrupted you. The first time you met Jelly Roll

was your first acting day, really. Oh, it's true. Let's talk about that real quick. Okay, the first time you met Jelly Roll and Mandolin as her manager, she's here and she just chimed in and just said the first time she met Jelly Roll was, you guys acted together.

No, I was pretty much an extra in a music video that he was doing with Uncle Cracker. No. And they told me earlier that day, they were like, we'll pay you $100 if you come out here for the day and act like a drunk person passed out on the ground. I did it and I never got my $100.

You did it? I don't even know if I've told Jelly that I didn't get my $100. Dude, I'm gonna tell him. He better Vimmo me. I know. He better, uh-huh. I don't know.

And Uncle Cracker passed away, didn't he? I don't, did he? I don't know. I don't think he did. He might've, people don't know. I feel like he's one of those people that just go to fast away and you don't know, you know? Yep, yep, yep, yep.

I don't know, everybody I feel like who spent time with Kid Rock ends up dying, so. I better not hang out with him then. No, I'm joking. I love Bob. Bob is a nice guy. But, okay, so tell me about, oh no, but the man I'm thinking of is from Louisiana.

He was an actor on that show 1940, us, Faith's. You talking about Tim McGraw? Tim McGraw. Oh, 1883, you're talking about, okay, okay, okay. Sorry, I thought you were talking about 19 something. Thank you, yeah. Well, he's actually from, like, Start, Louisiana,

but I had some grandparents that lived in Ward 3, Louisiana, and he got brought home from the hospital to like a little house that was in Ward 3, and my step-grandmother used to babysit him. Really? I've never met Tim, either. Wow. But we know a lot of the same people.

Ward 3, that's a town? Ward 3, yep. Hang on, you can notice some small towns. Uh-huh. We had, wow, so your grandmother used to babysit him? My step-grandma. And what did she say about him, anything? I mean, he was like a tiny, tiny baby, like.

But still, you can, I think, even look at him a baby. She's how I knew he was a star. And is this it right here? Let me see, third ward? No, that's third ward of New Orleans, dude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ward 3, it's just like. Yeah, the third ward, I think,

is that's where Lil Wayne is from. Ward 3, Louisiana. Who knows, it's even like an actual official name of a town, but that's what they call it. Wow, Ward 3. It's like Crowville, Louisiana, and then right outside of it is Ward 3. Dude, I met a girl one time.

We had like the student council thing and like all the rappers, it was at our school and high school, right? And so I think I was on student council. I don't even know what I was doing, but I was there. And they had like all these kids came from other places and I met some girl from Rain, Louisiana. Where is that?

I don't know, I'd never heard of it. Rain. But I was like, oh my God. Sounds pretty magical. You are beautiful, I remember this thinking. Rain. And I just wrote a big piece of poster board that said, you are beautiful.

No, you did not. I did. And I gave it to her. I gave it to her. As you're sitting there opening up an oyster. Yeah. You are beautiful. I got a warm oyster for you, dude.

Yeah. But I remember, yeah. And as she said, you should come to the Frog Festival sometime. Oh. And I was like, I'll start jumping now to get there. Cause it was far away, it was like kind of, it was far away and I never,

I think we called each other one time at night. And that was it. That was it. I remember I used to write down things on a notepad of what to talk about when I was like talking on the phone in high school or junior high, whatever it was. I'd be like, ask him if he caught any frogs while he was frog gigging.

Ask him how many frogs did he gig? Ask him, did he have fun? I'm like, do you not know how to have a conversation? Yeah, I don't know. Lord. But sometimes you don't, I think sometimes you don't know how to have a conversation, especially when you're young

and you're like talking to the opposite sex. And then my mom would get on and she would always be like, you need to go clean something. And it would always be like, what? When you were just getting to the good part. Oh, there was never a good part, but I was just being alive on the phone with a woman.

And then, oh, she always ruined it every time. I remember being so nervous. Yeah. It was crazy. Like, why? Because I think it's just your first time doing it. Like, you can't even replicate those nerves as you get. It's like, I mean, you're like,

you don't even know what's going on. You're like embarrassed. Also, you're embarrassed. It's embarrassing. Yes. You're almost embarrassed of who you are. Like, how uncomfortable you are. Yes.

That's very embarrassing. I remember that. Like, who am I? I don't know. Who am I, dude? What do I do? I know. And then seeing a girl at school, like, that was always weird.

And then you had to see them between class. And you don't know if you need to make eye contact going down the hall. Yeah. And you just scream, like, I love you. You just scream something insane that you're like, what? Oh, yeah. Do you know how much your subscriptions cost?

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When you use our promo code Theo at checkout, just pay $5 shipping. That's BlueChew.com promo code Theo to receive your first month free. There was Valentine's Day. I was in seventh grade, I believe. I just switched schools. And this boy, I don't know if he had a crush on me,

but this ain't the way to let me know if he did. But it was Valentine's Day. And he goes, Lainey Wilson, you know, everybody kind of turns around. And he goes, roses are red, violets are black. Why is your chest? His flat is your back. No way.

And I was like, yep. That's honestly pretty good. I'm going to write that one down. I couldn't help being a songwriter. I was like, that's pretty good. You're like, that's copyrighted. That's it. Yeah.

Shouting stuff down the halls. I remember those days. Oh, yeah. And I would always lie to my friends. And I would say that I had a girlfriend that lived in another town. And I remember doing that. And then my first girlfriend, she played softball.

And she was strong. God, she was strong. I whooped that butt. And I think she was a woman, you know? And I remember the bus would come by, she would pick me up and like kiss me when the bus would come. I was sort of like, pick you up. Yeah, she was strong.

And literally. I wonder where she's at nowadays. Oh, I'm sure she is. You think she's coaching? I don't know. Oh, yeah. You should look her up. She's coaching some man.

Yeah, yeah. She's whooping somebody butt. Yeah, she's, yeah, yeah. This kid, she could be doing chocolate body contest. Who knows? That's her. But she remember, and I remember she would even wrap my legs around her waist.

She was like, she was. And he loved it. I didn't have, I was scared. I was scared, man. And then the worst part was the bus would be there. And my brother and his friends, and they would yell stuff at us out of the bus. When you were just sitting there and just on her like a baby,

had you on her hip? I didn't want to be, I just, yeah, I just didn't have any other choice. She was so strong. Yeah. She played second base and middle feet and just outfield. Yeah. God, she was strong.

And I think she drove. I'm like, how do you drive? Like, we don't even. Yeah. But she was just so strong. Me and my sister used to drive to school. We were, I was 13, she was 14, and we would park at the hospital and then walk across the street to the school.

Wow. Oh yeah. It was such a big adventure, wasn't it? Oh, it was. And we'd stop by the convenience store in Baskin, get them crispitos, or one of them deep fried hot pockets. Are they deep fried a hot pocket? Yes.

God. They ain't doing that in South Louisiana. I don't think so. I feel like if you went to the gas station, it was a lot more like chicken tenders. And like, I remember that like a homemade root beer somebody did for a while, but it was bad. Oh.

And people were getting sick. He wouldn't stop me from getting it. Oh yeah. I mean, we drank it for months. Yeah, but we were sick. People's hair was falling out. It was a bad, bad. But it's still good.

I think it had like Monsanto in it or something. It was bad. It was a bad batch. What was that article? Oh, a couple of monkeys. They got two monkeys that had been taken from a zoo. Did you all have a zoo in Baskin? No, we did in Munro.

And did you all have an animal petting facility? Because we didn't have a zoo, but we had an animal petting facility that was nearby where you could go and pet them. I think they ended up getting one of those after I had already gone. Not in Winsborough, but kind of like on the outskirts, kind of like a little safari, like drive through safari thing. It's like a petting zoo kind of.

Yeah, which I've never been. You never been to a petting zoo? No, I feel like my house was a little bit of a petting zoo. Really? But I mean, we had horses and a lot of family members and stuff would have other goats and sheep and chickens. Did you all have like a cook shed in the back and stuff? Did you guys like?

Because some people have that in Louisiana. They have like a cook shed, you know? I mean, we would honestly go to the tractor shed at my granny's house. And we'd, yeah, they would fry up some stuff. I feel like somebody was always cooking something, you know? Yeah, it's popular. People like to grill, cook and kill something

and then just cook it. Did your, are your grandparents still married? Are your parents still married? Yeah. Oh, wow. They are. They are. They've been married 36 years.

Oh, dang. I believe, yep. My mom and daddy met. She was 19 years old and they got married when she was 19. I think she met him when she was like 17 or something like that. He was going to college and, yep, he swept her right off her feet.

They crazy. They're the good kind of crazy, but they crazy. Yeah, I remember like, and even in like junior high, they'd have like older men or like guys would come and like bring like McDonald's to like the girls that our school would put it over the fence. And that was like. Now I don't make them fall in love for real.

That's like, get me a McMuffin. That's all, that's it. The second we saw like a girl from our school walk over to the fence to get fast food from an adult, we knew we lost her. She gone. Oh. She gone.

Oh my God. That was bad. I just remember, because you'd see the car pull up and you'd see them get out, you know, and you'd hear his boots in the ground. Like I can't do that. Like I can't offer her that. Oh, I have nothing, you know.

It's over. Yeah. I'm over here. Yeah. Just having me a little handful of runts that I bummed off a buddy and she's over there. And then she'd walk, whoever it was, walk out. You're like, God, no, they got Amber.

And she kind of showing it off a little bit. You know, like everybody's like, how did you get that? Yeah. It was just the biggest deal. God, if you had food from somewhere else at lunch. It was cool. You were like a, you were like someone that had gone to outer space.

Truly. And everybody's looking at you like you're the center of attention for the meal. It was good stuff. Yeah. That is so true. It was just like, yeah, it was just little things like that, man.

Do you remember the first date that you ever went on, like where you went on an actual date? Yep. Went Red Lobster. I ate some of them cheesy. Have you had the cheesy biscuits from there? Cheesy biscuits? Yeah, someone killed their spouse over a batch of them.

Can you look that up? Well, I can understand why. I mean, really, are you, you're for real, that really happened. Oh, yeah. Oh, you can Google someone killed spouse over any food and there's something. Now that's crazy. Keep looking.

So y'all went there and what was it? Did the guy pick you up? Oh, no, we were like really young. It was like we went, this is the guy that I dated pretty much my whole life. He was like my childhood sweetheart. So it was like his parents were sitting at another little booth, kind of like watching us.

But I remember he ordered crab legs. And I remember he, he like. What was he a damn mayor? No. But he cracked it and a piece of crab flew right in my hair. And I was so embarrassed. I was mortified. I was over there just enjoying my cheesy biscuit

and that dang crab landed in my hair. And I'm like, oh, I don't know why, but at 13 years old or however old I was, I was like, oh, he's not going to like me anymore. What do you mean? Even though he did it to me. Dude, in Southern Louisiana, that's like catching the bouquet at a wedding.

You're right, you're right. If you get a piece of crab stuck in your hair? Yeah. That is dang good luck. I know, I think you're right. I didn't know to appreciate it then, but I do now. That's hot magic. Yep.

So that was my first date. And I think we got that, is they have like this big old chocolate chip cookie skillet. Yeah. Now that right there, I could just eat that for my meal. Oh yeah. Well, some places, you know, in the Midwest,

they'll have pie first. They'll be like, do you want your pie first? Really? Or dinner so you don't, to make sure you have room for it. It's real common. You walk into like a lot of diners there and they say, do you want your pie first?

Wow. And I get it. I mean, I'd rather have the pie too, but. Yeah. But to say, yeah, but it's just interesting. I've seen that over there. But speaking of like real official dates and stuff, I did not have like a real official date

until a few years ago. Really? When somebody actually, Mandolin, manager, she was setting up my dates too. Really? Setting up my co-writes, setting up my dates. She literally told her friend from school, she was like, Lainey has never been on like an official,

like, you know, somebody asked you to go somewhere, like a first date. Right. Like an official date. Because it's always been like, I hung out with a dude or whatever, and then we would go get some food. Yeah.

But it was nice. He showed me what it was supposed to be like and. And did he pick you up or you meet him there? I met him there. Okay, because it was a first date. Yeah, I met him there. That's kind of, that makes sense kind of. Yeah, I met him there, but it was, he was a gentleman.

And did he, and did y'all, did he open the door? Open the door? Oh yeah, like he walked me to my car. And then, then we went and kind of, it was one of those things where we knew, neither one of us, we weren't going to date. He was kind of just doing me a favor. Okay, okay.

He's like, I'm gonna take this girl out. Like, he knows that I was just too much for him. I mean, really. Oh, really? Yeah, I mean, he's just. Wow, what happened? Was he very. I mean.

Was he small? No, no, no, no, no. Not small, but like, I'm just, I'm pretty sassy. Are you? And spicy. Oh, nice. Yeah, I can't help it. Really?

It's just that Louisiana thing. Yeah. I mean, are you violent too or no? No. Okay. No, he fed me good. Oh, that's good. Yeah, you gotta sedate him a little bit.

We knew like, after we hung out, where I was like, yeah, we'll be friends. It'll be, you know, when we see each other, we'll catch back up and a good boy. He showed me what it was supposed to be like. He showed me that like, yeah, it's, it's okay to still be traditional. I like being traditional.

You do? Yeah, I do. Yeah, I like tradition, I think. I like a lot of traditions in our country, I think. You know, I don't think tradition is good stuff. I think it's like, it's nice to have like patterns and stuff, you know? I agree.

I mean, at the end of the day, like I can tend to myself and take care of, you know, like I don't need somebody to open up a door for me, whatever, but every now and then it's nice to feel like. Yeah. That's very nice. Yeah, I got it for you. Yeah.

Do you remember the first time you ever had a kiss? Do you remember it? Yep, I had braces. Oh, damn it. We went in. We kissed somebody with braces on, man, a pervert. No, yeah, that's pretty sick. Somebody with a pervert, man.

That is pretty sick, bro. Hey, bro. Yeah, but. God, if I'm kissing somebody with braces on, bro, take me to jail, bro. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were out in a little shop. They were like.

And what do you mean there's like machines and stuff around? Hammers and you know, wrenches and stuff hanging on walls at my friend Katie's house and her boyfriend had just left and I thought tonight's the night I'm going in. So you planned it. Well, I knew it was happening. Okay, right. I can just tell how he was acting like

he gonna try to kiss me tonight. So I need to be prepared, but I was a little too prepared because when I tell you, I just opened my mouth up wide and did this. Me too. I literally was like trying to eat his face or something. I don't know why, like what made me think

that I needed to just do this? That ain't how it goes. It took me a minute, but it didn't run him off. Really? He liked it. Well, yeah, look, if some chick comes at me with an open mouth, I think I'm gonna figure it out, you know? That would terrify me.

Oh, that was, that's spooky. That happened to me. I was playing, we played spin the bottle in this girl I loved. Oh my God. And he messed it up with that kiss. I'm like, there's no way she might really like me. And it was like, yeah, I had the chance to kiss her.

And I was like, I remember like leaning forward into the group and I couldn't even feel my arms. They were like, they felt like they belonged to somebody else. And somebody like who was like, like somebody I didn't even trust. It was like, they were just like rattling dude. And I felt like you could hear my freaking bones rattling.

And I'm like, oh my God. And then I just opened my mouth. I'd seen that on TV. I think like open mouth. Yeah. Yeah. And everybody was laughing. And then I remember I almost like,

I felt like- So y'all didn't go in like a closet or anything to- No. Y'all just don't do it right out there. And that's terrible. They shouldn't have done you dirty like that. God, it was horrible, man. And then I knew I felt like a fish trying to eat something.

And then I felt so sad. And then I remember thinking, oh man. That's it. That's it, you know. And then I saw this other real creepy dude later that night brushing that girl's hair by the fire. And I'm like, at least I'm not that deep. Yeah, no, that's, yeah.

That guy's a real creep. I wonder what he's doing now. I don't know. I could imagine time. Yeah. So tell me about acting some. So I know some about your career, right? And I know general stuff, and I know some specifics,

but I like to just see what you think about stuff. So was that scary? Was it like, I mean, obviously it's exciting because Yellowstone's a big show. Yeah. But was it, would you think of that? It's a big time commitment with acting. Oh, for sure.

It is. So Yellowstone, I mean, they've been great to me. They put several of my songs on the show, which really just introduced me to a crowd of people who might not listen to radio or stream music. I mean, I have people still, you know, come to the shows and they're like, before your acting gig, like I found your music through Yellowstone.

So it's crazy to think that a show's soundtrack is really like that helpful, but for Yellowstone it is. It truly is. And Taylor Sheridan, the writer and producer, he's just been good to me. I mean, he called me last February and he's like, he said, I got this idea. He said, I want to create a character specifically for you.

And he said, wear your bell bottoms, sing your songs, it's pretty much be you, but go buy a musician named Abby. And I mean, this is my first acting gig. I've been acting to fool my whole life, but this was like, you know, the real thing. And this was like a huge thing considering it was my first too. But I had so much fun. I didn't know what to expect.

I will say there are a lot of similarities like with what I normally do on a daily basis and that. I mean, it's a lot of hurry up and wait. You get ready for the scene, you're waiting for your moment to shine and you've got like a few minutes to show them what you can do, you know? Or even when it comes to like learning the lines,

it's like learning a song that I didn't write. But everybody made me feel so comfortable. I mean, I became great friends with a lot of them. Beth, I mean, she is Kelly Riley. She is so badass and she's actually really kind. When we first met, because my very first scene was with her. Bring her up there, buddy.

Kelly Riley, bring her up on there. Kelly Riley, you know, she's British. Oh yeah, I know about them. Yeah, she British. So you should have heard mine in her conversation. We needed a dang translator. Yeah. But she's great.

She's still, you can tell that she's still got that spitfire spirit about her. But she is a good human. I mean, she made me bath salts and. Oh dang. I was like, okay. I thought you were going to put me in a headlock. You make me bath salts.

Bath salts are, people die from them though, huh? Yeah. Well, we're going to do the right thing with the bath salts. Okay, I understand because. Yeah, maybe she's trying to get rid of me. Yeah, if somebody rolls up. I never thought about it. I'm going to call her.

Yeah, man. That's Swimmer's myth. They call it. That's it. That's it. That's some hardcore stuff. Wow, so, but tell me your first scene when you got to get out there and do it.

Cause that's when it's scary. When they're like, when the, you know, when they say action and it's on, like you got to get that line out. And your brain is like listening to you say it. It's like you get stuck in that space. Kind of, I mean, what was any of that like, was it? I'll tell you, I was, I was real nervous that day,

but I have, I had a lot of family members praying for me that day for me to not be nervous. And for me to just kind of be in my body and people were sending me good vibes. And I really think that helped because when I got out there to do it for some crazy reason, I was not nervous at all. It was like I had been doing it my whole life.

And I'm like, kind of freaked out that I wasn't nervous. You know? Wow. I was nervous for the kissing scene, my first kissing scene. Oh, y'all were kissing on there? Dude. Yes.

I said, I'm going to be on a dang church prayer list back at home. Crab up your hair, boo, that shit is, I get it, it's time. I didn't know what to expect with all that either. I'm like. And who was the man? He goes by Ryan on the show. His name is Ian Bowen.

He's become a dear friend of mine too. He's actually one of my biggest champions. I mean, he just, he shows up to shows. He knows all the words to my songs better than I do. Well, heck, you kissed him. I'd freaking probably follow you. Yeah, yeah, he's following me. Bring up that man if we can, huh?

Bring him up. Ian Bowen. Ian Bowen, and he's out there lip locking out there. That's right. And it wasn't his first rodeo. Oh, dang, he's handsome, huh? Yep. I mean, he's all right.

I mean, all the cap boys on that show, they, yeah. It's a real, it's a real lot of handsomeers on there, huh? A lot of handsomeers. Because I've seen the other one. I haven't seen this show. Yep. I know that some of the cast, but I've not seen this show. But yeah, it looks like handsome guy.

Oh, look at that, huh? Oh yeah. I mean, we got down to it, that was the first, our first little interaction and. So did you guys talk before it, yeah, huh? Yeah, we did. We actually had a few days of working together before we actually had to, you know, do the thing.

But yeah, we just got to know each other. And I mean, I didn't, like I said, I didn't know. I didn't know if like we really needed to go in or like just go in or whatever. I mean. Y'all made on there too or is just kissing? It's just kissing. I mean, I wake up in a tent in one scene.

So it's kind of up to your imagination. Oh, dang. But, you know, that's as, as risky as it got. Well, my imagination, it has, yeah. Yeah. It's, it is not allowed around me anymore. Uh-huh, put that thing away. So yeah, yeah, better take the batteries out of that thing.

That's right. Wow, that's so wild. So isn't it, isn't it interesting? I need to feel like your dreams coming true. What is that kind of like? You ever able to get in any moments like that? Cause that's kind of interesting. Like, you know, a lot of so many people have dreams

in the world and it's hard to, you know, not all of us get to have them come true. That is very true. I feel very lucky. I feel like we talk about this all the time, but it seems like the stars have to align over and over and over and over again. And they got to align again, you know?

And I mean, you can work hard and keep your head down and do your thing or whatever, but it's still, it's gotta have a little bit to do with luck too. I feel, I feel like I've been, cause I've been here for so long and working at this ever since I was nine years old. I'm 30 years old, you know?

I feel like I've been like preparing for the race. Like I finally entered it and just now I'm about to run it. I mean, it feels like it's just beginning now. So I don't think, I haven't had a moment where I'm like, oh, I've made it. I feel like we're doing it, you know? I feel like things are coming to fruition, but I also feel like there's a lot more shit to be done.

Yeah, it's really interesting. Yeah, it's almost like when you've, cause there's times, there's times when you're going through your career, you're like, I should be having this opportunity, right? Yeah. You realize later that if you'd have gotten those opportunities at that point,

you wouldn't have even been ready. Nope, you're right. I'm glad it's taken me a long time, I mean. And not that long. You look lovely, by the way. And I don't think you look a day over, probably 20. Oh, I like you. Or 20 and a half, maybe.

Oh, okay. I'll take it. Or 22, sorry. And I'll keep going until we get, you know, until everything seems okay with anyone. No, I will say for the longest time, people made me feel like, like don't talk about your age in this town.

Like it's going to date you, you know? But at the end of the day, I'm proud to be 30. I'm proud, you know, that it has taken me this long. Cause I feel like time is a part of my story. And I feel like it's, I don't know. You know, I want to, I want to show little girls and boys that sometimes it's going to take you a little longer than some folks.

I mean, I moved to this town and people were passing me up, left and right, getting publishing deals, getting record deals and at the end of the day, sometimes slow and steady, you know, is better. And I feel like I've been trying to do brick by brick, just one thing at a time, cause I want longevity. I don't want to just be a flash in the pan and I'm not, I'm not doing that.

So. You couldn't be, I don't think. I don't see how it would even be possible. And it's funny because if I listen to heart like a truck, right? But you're 24 years old. It's not, I don't believe that. Yep.

No, I've been through some stuff. Yep. And I'm proud of it. It's been hard. I mean, there's definitely times where I wish it wouldn't have been that way. I mean, I mean, even it's weird because like I'm experiencing like really great things with my career right now.

Even when I was filming Yellowstone, I was going through like we were losing my daddy. He ended up surviving, but like he spent two months and I see you and I was having to actually a few of those scenes right there. I would go over to the corner and cry and then come back and then shoot it again. And it just seems sometimes I'm like,

man, am I supposed to go through these things so I can be more relatable to people and be more understanding and be able to write the kind of music that people are really gonna connect to and listen to. And that's kind of what I chalk it up to sometimes because I mean, life ain't easy. Yeah.

It is what it is. You just gotta keep rolling. Yeah. And sometimes it's like, I don't know. I feel like sometimes like God has a way of reaching people, right? And not to make it religious or anything, but it's like sometimes you're just part of that way.

That's right. You know? And it's not even, yeah, it's you have talents and stuff, but it's like sometimes some things they're so, especially with music, it's like, man, this thing is, and so many people have written and you know, there's other people playing and it's like really to make this thing.

It's like it takes a village. It does take a village. You know? I like the best way for me to explain it to people who ask about the industry. I just say it's like, the artist is like at the center of the wheel and there's a million different spokes.

I mean, you got your label, you got your management, you got your business manager, you got your tour manager, you got your band, you got publicity, you got publishing, so many different spokes to the wheel and all of them have to be turning fluid. You know, they all have to be lining up. And if one little thing is off. You in a ditch.

Yeah, you in a ditch. You're on a unicycle in a dang ditch. That is it. That's the best way to explain it. With crabbing your hair, boo. What happened with your father? He was sick? Yes, it was actually a fungal infection.

Oh, dang. That kind of took out the left side of the inside of his face. So anything that this fungus touched, just it turned to dirt. It's like the most aggressive type of fungus there is. How do you get it? Um, I mean, it could have been from the farm.

It could have been from the barn, anything like that. Super rare, super rare. And he's actually the, with the people who were kind of like leading the case and stuff, he's the second person to ever survive it that they've worked with. And with a few of the doctors, he's the first one to ever survive it.

But he had nine surgeries in a month and a half. They kept going in to remove the fungus and then he had a stroke on top of all that. So. Oh man, that must have been heartbreaking. It was. And it's, he still got a little ways to go, but actually this past week, a big old praise report,

he went back to work several, just for like a couple hours, just to go up there and kind of bullshit with some of his friends. But that right there. That's work in Louisiana. That's work. And that's also just, that's a big old step.

So. Wow, that must have felt awesome for him. Yep. I'm ready for him to be able to, I mean, he's still driving the tractor and he's doing stuff like that, but ready for him to start having some more interactions with people.

Cause I think just interacting with people is healing in general. Yeah. You've healed me today. Oh, well thanks. Back at you. Yeah, I felt, I've just felt so off my, I don't even know what's going on today.

I get it. You do? I get it. You're moving right now. No, trust me. For me, it's like, it's just like that mojo that you find right before you go on stage. Sometimes it's hard to find that like impossible.

Impossible. Yeah. Is it, are there shows, and obviously I'm sure all your shows are great. Are there shows and moments where it's like, are there some shows where for some reason you're able to hit another gear? I find that with comedy.

I don't know if it's like that with music at all. Oh, it absolutely is. I feed off the crowd. And you probably do the same exact thing. I feel like it's like an energy exchange. Like if their energy is up here, that's where I'm at. If their energy's down here, that's kind of where I'm at too.

I mean, one little thing can throw the show all off. Like the other night, I had somebody spit at me. I'm like, why are you gonna pay for a ticket then spit at me? Like I ain't trying to fight nobody tonight. And I had that in my brain the whole night, you know? And then it kind of, you need to go down rabbit holes and be like, why aren't I spitting at me tonight?

Yeah, huh? Who spit? And you see somebody just spitting like dip and you're like, fuck him. You just start losing on anybody. I'm like, there he is. That's him right there. Get him out.

Some guys drool and some guys like, he has like a Bell's palsy. Yeah, yeah, that's him. He did it. We had to show you the other night, some girl was just what, and usually for comedy, you want people to be quiet. Yeah.

So oddly, it's kind of the opposite. You want it to be silenced because you'll use the silence to kind of create the next moment for the joke, you know? So you want them to laugh when it's funny, but you want them to otherwise kind of, and people want to yell out stuff, you know, and just yell out cocaine and all kind of shit sometimes.

When everybody on the crowd saying, Free bird, free bird. I'm like, the amount of times I've heard that. Yeah, so yeah, it's like the other night, the show is just, it threw everything off so much in the beginning that it was just kind of a bad show I felt like, you know? I know, I get that.

And it's hard to kind of come back from it. Yeah, it's hard to bounce. Yeah, sometimes it's hard to bounce back. It's just, and sometimes you just got to chalk it up to that's just how the night went. The crowd sometimes doesn't even know. I know, yeah, they have no clue. Cause there's times where I'll get off stage

and I'll tell my band like, oh my gosh, I was like struggling tonight. I could not find that thing. Or I was like, I was searching for that certain feeling, you know? Yeah, that's what it is. And I didn't get that feeling. So therefore I feel like I let myself down

or let everybody else down and the band was like, oh my gosh, to me that was one of the best shows that we played yet. And I'm like, is something wrong with me? Yeah. And then there's times where they're like, I did terrible tonight. And I'm like, this is the best show we've ever played

because of that feeling. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. I'm looking, it's almost selfish. I'm looking for some feeling that I think that, that I usually get when the show feels good to me. Yes. And they might not have any clue. No, they're thinking that is the best thing I've ever seen.

Yeah. The funniest thing I've ever seen. It's interesting. Yeah, we had a, yeah. Usually it's a woman that gets crazy at a comedy show. Sometimes it's like a lot of times it's a woman that'll get outrageous kind of. Like a drunk woman or something.

Yeah, yeah. A real drunk lady. She'll get drunk. How do you deal with that? We end up usually tossing them out. Yeah. Yeah. Because then it just sidetracks you completely.

But they get to deal with her husband or boyfriend. And he's like, you know, muffin never gets drunk. And I'm like, well, first of all, muffin gets drunk. That's right. And muffin is drunk tonight. Muffin gotta go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We need to put muffin in a damn to-go box.

I want to meet muffin, though. She does sound like a good time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I'm trying to think of what else. I mean, obviously your career just really speaks for itself. You know, I'm grateful that we got to sit and chat a little bit. Anything, Ben, that you wanted to bring up?

For you, do you have little pieces of the puzzle that help you start writing a song or finish a song? Yeah. Like, what do you tell those writers listening to you right now? Yeah, I like that. What is it? What is it?

And that is a big old question. You're going to have to repeat it again. Because I barely know him. OK, basically, like, no, here's the easy version. What is like my songwriting process like? Because it's probably pretty dang similar to, like, the way that you write, you know? OK.

For me, the cool thing about songwriting is it's different every single time I sit down. I mean, I feel like some people, you know, they start with one thing pretty much all the time. But for me, it could start with a melody. It could start with a guitar riff. But no matter what, it always starts with an idea for me. I keep this little list in my phone called my hookbook.

And that's where I just, you know, probably you probably did the same thing. You jot down stuff. Yeah, mine's kind of seedy women. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so then I look through there. But at the end of the day, I feel like I've been given the opportunity to write with so many incredible writers

here in Nashville that they've kind of taught me how to put myself into the shoes of whatever it is that we're writing about. I mean, if we wanted to write about this thing right here, you know? Then they've kind of taught me how to, like, feel that for everything that it is and write from that perspective, which is pretty dang therapeutic.

Oh, that's interesting. So you find there's a lot of therapy in it, really? It is. And sometimes, I mean, of course, a lot of my songs I have and most of the songs I end up cutting are songs that are super personal to me. But there is something really cool about kind of just stepping outside of your shoes

for a minute and putting yourself into somebody else's. And that is very freeing. I love it. I love songwriting. I mean, songwriting was my number one. Like I said, wrote my first song at nine years old. And when I moved here in Nashville, that's what songwriting was the foot that I led with.

I figured that was my strength. And that's the only way that I could maybe get my foot in the door was through my songwriting. So it serves a very special thing in my life. That's interesting. Yeah, I used to love to write music. I used to love to write country songs. I used to, sometimes when I was working on that track,

I would stop it and I would stand out on it and listen to like Top 40 Country. And it was like Clay Walker was, he had this song called She's Always Right. And I would like sing that at the top of my lungs. And I used to love to write country music. Did you, was there a point where you thought you would just be a songwriter?

I always knew that. Like does that happen in artists? Like I just wonder like, because sometimes with comedians, right, there's you do comedy and then sometimes you're like, oh, I'm just going to be a writer. And I'm a write for like a late night show or like a Fallon or like what you were just on or like, you know, or I'm going to write for a comedian.

But I don't know if the dream ever goes away to just do comedy, but sometimes life gets in the way. You'll get a family or something. Yeah, and things kind of have to shift. I'll say, I didn't want to have to choose. I was like, I can do both. I'm going to be a songwriter. I'm going to be an artist.

I'm going to do it all. But I had somebody who I was working with at the time who made me believe you can't be both. He was like, you got to choose. Are you a songwriter or are you an artist? And I'm like, I'm both. He's like, no, no, no, but you got to like, you got to really, and I'm like, no,

look around at some of the most successful artists. I mean, decades and decade for decades, you know, they write their own stuff and they sing their own stuff. And it doesn't mean that I'm opposed to, you know, cutting outside songs at the end of the day. Like I said, the best idea and the best song wins. But you can do both. Look at Morgan, look at Hardy, look at all the guys and.

Look at Ernest, he used to pitch for Lipscomb. That's what I'm saying. Like you can do it. You shouldn't be in creative. You shouldn't be scared to step outside of the box. And in my opinion, that's not even really stepping outside of the box. It's just singing the stuff that you wrote.

Yeah. And he was going to sing it better than you, you know? He was so wrong. That really seems to, yeah, that amps you up. I'm ready to fight. Dude, I'll fight. Yeah, you can beat the shit out of me if you want. I might.

I've been beating my women. I might. They going to put it on the camera. We're going to do it afterwards. Uh-huh. I mean, we'll do whatever y'all want, honey. Look, we'll do whatever y'all want. What do the people want?

Look, we'll all open a Bible. We can beat the damn devil out of me if we want. That's going to be hard to do. That's going to take a few Bibles. It might take an hour, yeah, yeah. We're going to give mandolin a Bible too. We're going to beat the shit out of you. Dude, Bibles should come with a little bat.

What am I going to feel like some of them, you know? Because some people really need to be beating about. That's right. Okay, so what's coming up then? You just have a lot of touring. I mean, how does that end? Yeah, this was my song. She's always right.

Did you ever hear that song? God, I fell in love every time I heard this dang song. Uh-huh. Yeah, I used to love that one. Love it. Is it a good one? Oh, Clay Walker. All right.

I've taught your ears off. Yeah, it's okay. It's been nice. Thanks for your patience. Thank you. Thank you for having me. This has been fun. I knew we'd get along.

You did? Yeah. Yeah, I thought we probably would. I mean, I feel like you get along with everybody, but- Yeah? Yeah. I don't know a lot of female singers, really.

Yep. You know, I don't think anyway. I might. You might. I can't remember. But anyway, congratulations on all your success. You'll just be touring a lot then. Is that what's going on?

Yep, we are doing my first headline and tour right now called Country with a Flare. Okay. We got my friends, Mae McCree, Ben Chapman, and Lea Blevins out with us and love them, believe in them so much. It's nice to feel like I'm finally able to, like I'm in a position where I could help somebody else

because I've had so many people help me along the way. It just, it feels good to be able to do that. Just even inviting them on the road, you know? Oh yeah. Like I could help them. So doing that, we are going out with Luke Combs for the stadium tour. Really?

Which is a full circle thing for me because he used to come over to my camper and we'd write. And so we're doing that. We've got so many things, exciting things this year and hopefully be filming some more Yellowstone, we'll see. Dang, that's a lot. It's a lot. So people can just go,

well obviously they can get tickets to the Luke Combs show and then your tour. My tour is completely sold out. We're even moving to some bigger venue. So it's exciting stuff considering, I mean, last year looked different. I'm not gonna lie, it's crazy. Really?

Yeah. I played a, yeah March of last year in Tuscaloosa. We had had a hit with things a man ought to know and never say never with Coles Wendell was just, it was killing it at that time too. AC, like there were so many things that we had done but I still could barely sell a ticket. I sold like, was it a hundred or like 91 tickets

or something like that. And a lot of people there were family. And it was like, where is this not connecting? You know, like I feel like we won some awards, we got some number ones, but still at that time I was pretty faceless. I think that's what happens with a lot of artists. So explain that to me when you say faceless

because this is interesting. Yeah, I think a lot of people know songs on the radio. I think during that time, if you would have asked anybody who listens to country music like, you know that song, things a man ought to know, they all would have said yes, but they did not know me. And that's where the disconnect is.

And I think that's really where Yellowstone has been so beneficial because, you know, they see your name up on the screen and stuff. And then they finally just like, see your face. And they're like, oh, okay. And then they have to see it a million other times for it to really, really connect. How many times they say you got a,

I think they say like 12 to 15, you know, impressions? Yeah, you have to have like 12 to 15 impressions for people to even like remember or be like, oh, that's who that is. Let me go check it out. Dang. Cause there's just so much out there in the world. I mean, people just,

Oh yeah. Well, it's crazy. I mean, I spent half my day watching mentally unwell. People do, you know, go to the mailbox and do regular stuff. I know. And so it's like, yeah, it's crazy because, like you said, Lucas Nelson, right?

Was somebody you had done a collab with? Is somebody, yep. Willie Nelson's son. Okay, nice. And Ray Lynn, he has a daughter too, right? I haven't met, I actually have not even met Lucas in person yet either. But you guys did a collab together?

We did a collab together. So you go in it separate times and do it? Yeah, he actually, he lives in Hawaii half of the year. Oh, dang. Yep. He lives out there. I don't know. And we FaceTimed and got it done,

but I mean, he's such a cool dude. Is he? How cool he is. Oh, man. He's that kind of cool. That's the best kind of cool. Yeah, that's cool. That's cool, bro.

Yeah, I think, but yeah, like, oh, dang. What was I saying? Just talking about like the faceless, like the disconnect. Well, yeah, so to get people to see you, right? It's funny because you could say his name. I've heard his name before, right? But it's like, yeah, I wouldn't be able to put his face. It's hard.

You gotta get seen, you have to, there's just so much. But this, you know, some of these, like I could pick out this one dude who has like, you know, there's like a guy who's kind of mentally handicapped and he opens baseball cards all day. And if I saw that dude, I would lose my mind. It's just crazy how they have, you know, different things you're into.

Or there's a baby. There's actually two babies. If I saw one of those babies in person. You'd be like, I wouldn't do it. You're gonna get arrested. Yeah, they would have to call the cops. Like the baby's dad would be like, hey, that's fine. You gotta stop.

Yeah, you gotta stop. That baby's real young. But it's true. But it's like just the things that take your attention. Well, I think you've got everybody's attention now. I don't know how you could ever get rid of it. I mean, once I heard your voice, I don't think I could ever.

Thank you, man. I could just, it's in my ears forever, you know? It is very powerful. Thank you very much. And thank you so much for just spending time with us. Absolutely, we're gonna do this again. Now I'm just floating on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.

I must be cornerstone. Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind. I found I can feel it in my bones. But it's gonna take a little bit. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll be sharing thoughts on things like current events,

stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your partner. The answer may shock you. Sometimes I'll interview my friends. Sometimes I won't. And as always, I'll be joined by the voices in my head. You have three new voice messages. A lot of people are talking about Kite Club. I've been talking about Kite Club for so long,

longer than anybody else. So great. Hi, Swia. He's a deal. Anyone who doesn't listen to Kite Club is a dodgy bloody wanker. Jermaine. Hi, I'll take a quarter pot of his cheese and a McFlurry.

Sorry, sir, but our ice cream machine is broken. Oh, no! I think Tom Hanks just butt-dialed me. Anyway, first rule of Kite Club is, tell everyone about Kite Club. Second rule of Kite Club is, tell everyone about Kite Club. The rule.

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