This Past Weekend - E500 Zac Brown

Starting point is 00:00:00 New McCafe Cold Brew has officially dropped and it's got people feeling smooth. Smooth like. New McCafe Cold Brew. Try it with French vanilla or caramel cream. At participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada. All right, I've got some new tour dates to tell you about we've added a second show in Belfast over in the United Kingdom on June 6th Tickets are available now for that show and we're gonna do more shows in Europe or white Europe and We just haven't had the chance to get them on so it'll happen in the future. This is just a brief time that we're visiting over there. As well, we have shows in Boise, Idaho,

Starting point is 00:00:53 Western Valley City, Utah, Dublin, Manchester, London, Las Vegas, Halifax, and Vancouver. I think we're gonna add a St. George as well, Utah. All those are at thetheovon.com slash T-O-U-R. And if tickets, if it's sold out and you're getting something on a secondary market, don't overpay for tickets. We'll come back through another time

Starting point is 00:01:23 and I appreciate the support. Today's episode is our 500th episode and that's unbelievable to me. And I'm just so grateful that we have been able to keep doing this. So thank you for showing up for us and checking out some of the podcasts. We'll talk about it more on a solo episode in the near future, but thank you so much. I love you guys. And yeah, dang, bro.

Starting point is 00:01:54 That's wild. Today's guest is a musician from Atlanta, Georgia. He's a three-time Grammy winner, the writer of countless hits over the years and I Can say first and foremost honestly one of the best live shows around? He's about to kick off a big summer tour We just got to hang out recently and I'm fortunate to get to spend time with him again today's guest is mr. Zack Brown Today's guest is Mr. Zach Brown. I

Starting point is 00:02:53 Left my phone Somewhere yesterday, and I don't know if you've done that Use the find my rig on oh, I did not have any of set up and um, yeah for two hours I didn't have my phone. It's a scary thing. It was scary and look here's the crazy part. I was okay. Yeah. That was the kind of the- Did you feel your pocket vibrate? Oh I felt- Yeah I kept, well I kept feeling my pockets. I was like well did I make sure I felt my pockets? Which was kind of a crazy thing to think. Oh, when I run out of Zen, or I don't have my can of Zen in my pocket, bro, I'll pat my pants like every 15 seconds.

Starting point is 00:03:30 I'm like, it's the worst feeling like a fucking crack head chasing a pebble, dude. I'm like digging in the carpet. I'm like, oh shit, I don't have any Zen. Yeah, I was even feeling on different parts of my pants I'd never felt on before too. Like, could it be,, is it in my cup? Yeah, yeah, like where where did I put it? And it is crazy. Yeah, I'd be like, oh, maybe I didn't feel my pockets

Starting point is 00:03:52 Well enough that would be the thought that would come to my head and I would go back and do it um And those cicadas are coming. Do you know about it? No The cicadas bro are on the horizon. They're coming. Um, so it's an insect, right? I know what cicadas are. Okay. Beautiful insect. Really the El Camino is an insect kind of, if you look at them, very unique, appreciated and do their own thing. But they have this year is especially you were this year, they have year where this year they have two brews

Starting point is 00:04:25 and they usually don't happen at the same time. And this is the first time since the 1800, 1805 or something that they are both happening at the same time. So there'll be some parts of the country. I think it's just like an Illinois where that'll get both of them at the same time. And it'll be so loud.

Starting point is 00:04:43 You won't even be able to hear. It's like the locals are coming. It's like the locusts are coming. It's like Alfred Hitchcock shit. Where people are like running around hiding in their bathrooms and shit. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, so if your spouse goes missing during that time,

Starting point is 00:04:55 then that's on Mother Nature, I think. But yeah, that's coming up pretty soon. I think it's in May and early June. So Zach Brown, man, good to see you, dude. Likewise. Thanks for having me. Thanks, bro. I appreciate you coming in, man. How are you? I'm doing great. Yeah. Doing awesome. You got a new song really doing well. Yeah, I got a new one out, summertime song. So we did a summer EP. You never really put together like just a bunch of like this kind of songs before. So we had the one we did for Jimmy

Starting point is 00:05:24 Buffett to the Pirates in Paris, which just came out. So that was part of, that this kind of songs before. So we had the one we did for Jimmy Buffett too, the Pirates in Paris, which just came out. So that was part of, that was kind of the slow run, but the other ones are all just kind of upbeat, just like lake or beach music stuff. So yeah, Top's the one that's out right now. And it's good shit, man. It's always fun.

Starting point is 00:05:39 It's like when you write a new song, it's like having a new baby, you know? It's like just excited to get it out and play it live and hear people sing it back to you. So it's a good baby, you know, it's like just excited to get it out and play it live and hear people sing it back To you. So it's it's a it's a good time fun time for that. Yeah Well, I guess what's that like it's like you get that song out there and then the first time you get it out there You start to see that people know it Yeah

Starting point is 00:05:56 Yeah, and usually if you see people like taking their shirts off while you're playing it, you know, it's gonna be a good one Yeah, yeah out in the crowd. So that Especially if those people are women, I think. Yeah, yeah, but normally the ones that, the women that wanna do that are not the ones that you wanna see do that, but it's still out there, you know what I mean? Yeah. You get to see what their R&D is like,

Starting point is 00:06:15 the relative nipple diameter. Oh, is that a big? Relative to the size of the person? Breast itself. Oh, yeah, huh. Yeah. So if it's like a mortadella, like a big salami slice, or is it just like a little tiny olive or something?

Starting point is 00:06:31 I don't know what it is. Like a little pimento or whatever. Yeah, exactly. Oh dang, I didn't think about that. I wonder who has the largest breast and the smallest nipple, you know? That's gotta be a Guinness thing, man. Somebody's had to be recorded on that.

Starting point is 00:06:45 You think it would probably be somebody that maybe be like kind of Swedish, Vietnamese, maybe I feel like. Yeah, that's a good cross. That'd leave like where there's no areola, it's just the tipple. Yeah, that's it, brother. Yeah. Annie Hawkins Turner actually, better known by the stage name Norma Stittitz is a website entrepreneur

Starting point is 00:07:05 and fetish model. Her pseudonym is a wordplay on enormous tits as a, uh, Gigantomastia. She has the proper word for giant. Yeah. For having big breasts is actually called Gigantomastia and she holds the Guinness world record for the largest natural breast. Wow. But no talk of the R and D. Yeah. Yeah. We're not getting really stats on her. Well, I want to get, yeah, I want to get some BTS stats on that lady. Um, yeah,

Starting point is 00:07:31 you've had success, man. When did you start to like, you've had a lot of success, right? You've had a long time of success. I've been blessed, man. Been blessed, but worked hard to get there. You know, just grinding, man, grinding for years and years to get to the beginning of the success. Oh, that's interesting. Do you remember like your first definition kind of of success and then do you feel like it's kind of changed over time?

Starting point is 00:07:55 It does, man. I think, you know, you constantly every few years have to redefine what success means to you. But you know, back in the early the early days it was like I want to get a gig or play some music in a bar you know and have them pay me and want me to come back you know that's kind of the first step and and I was playing backup for this guy just playing guitar for him and like singing backup for a dude and I was making a hundred bucks a night doing that and missing my early

Starting point is 00:08:20 classes in college because of it but But that was the first time. But even back then when I was a kid, I was in choir first grade all the way through college. Are you a little songbird, huh? Yeah, music was my first love, man. And it's still one of my biggest loves that I have. It just moved me, man. And it's always been my safety blanket as well.

Starting point is 00:08:45 Like when I had my guitar with me as a kid, like I carried it to school every day. I was that kid, like had a guitar with me, like football practice after football practice. It actually kept me getting hazed and playing football. It's like when I went to high school and was playing high school ball, if I could play some Pink Floyd,

Starting point is 00:09:04 if I could play some Wish You Were Here or something the guys would wanna do, then they wouldn't rub being gay on my nuts like they would all the other freshmen. You know what I mean? So. Yeah, you can't beat up the guy if you need him to do something for you later.

Starting point is 00:09:14 Exactly, exactly. That worked out good. That's a great thing. It's like, that is such a great survival skill. You're like, I have to be of value to these people in some way, shape or form. And where was that in Georgia where you're at? Yeah. And for Scythe County, Georgia, which was pretty wild growing up there because when I was probably eight or nine, you go to Walmart and there'd be a full like KKK rally

Starting point is 00:09:39 happening in the parking lot, like hoods and robes and beating on windows and handing out flyers. And, you know, I mean, that was like, it was not that long ago, but Forsyth County was pretty, you know, well known for that. You know what I mean? And figuring out what to do with that. And then I remember later, you know, when I was, yeah, when I was a freshman, we had the first ever

Starting point is 00:10:04 like African-American kid in the schools there that came there. No way. Yeah. And he was fast too. He was fast. Well, he had to be. He played football with us. But yeah, it's wild just thinking, man, it wasn't that long ago that it was like back then,

Starting point is 00:10:18 you know, it wasn't that far back. Yeah, it is kind of crazy. Well, I remember growing up when I was growing up in our town, like a lot of black folks didn't have, you couldn't even have like, like the, one of the kind of top jobs you would have would maybe be like a teacher. Like you, they didn't have like black doctors and stuff in our town, you know, when I was a kid, I've talked about that on here a lot, but you know, it's crazy to think that, that you, that, that a part of that was alive in your life, you know?

Starting point is 00:10:43 Exactly. That it was that, you know, the straight up your life, you know? Exactly, it was that, you know, straight up hoods, you know what I mean? That's crazy, and where would they meet at? Like a dollar general or whatever? Dude, I don't know, I don't know, but up in Dahlonega where I ended up moving for and graduating from high school up in North Georgia where I'm from there,

Starting point is 00:10:58 like the dude we knew, like the grand wizard lived in that house, I was like his house. And it was wild. Did y'all go trick or treat there. No, they give out like razor blades and M eighties or something. You know? Yeah. I think he would definitely. Yeah. Um, I don't know what, yeah. Cause I actually shared a fence with, uh, David Duke actually, who was a part of the,

Starting point is 00:11:20 I think he was like one of the assistant chiefs or something like that. Um, of the clue clocks client at one point, dude, they had a restaurant. I remember called clue clocks clams, dude, in, uh, home of Louisiana for a while. It was kind of like a little bit of like kind of a racial seafood kind of spot or whatever, but, um, yeah, I mean, it's definitely crazy to think, you know, I never saw David do do anything racist, but you know, obviously he had that in him in his past, you know? Yeah, I think a lot of it too is, you know, it is kind of based on just not being exposed to good people of all different kinds, you know? And that's like, you know, and I'm sure you feel the same way, like getting to travel with what we do.

Starting point is 00:12:06 Like I've been on the road since I was 17, like just all over everywhere. And so if you have, if all, if your granddad told you stories about these things, you just like the boogeyman, right? Like you should be afraid of these things or you shouldn't do this or whatever. You're like, yeah, screw those guys or whatever.

Starting point is 00:12:22 But when you travel, man, it just like, that ignorance gets gone. And then it's kind of like, you still see those guys or whatever. But when you travel, man, it just like, that ignorance gets gone. And then it's kind of like, you still see people hung in it. Cause I go back, like I went back to my, I think my 10 year high school reunion and the people had been doing the same thing every day since I left. And they might go to Panama City beach

Starting point is 00:12:39 for like vacation once a year, like we used to do on spring break, but they're still kind of in that capsule, you know what I mean? So that's one thing. And that's another thing too, I'm sure we'll talk about later, but you know, being a camp kid,

Starting point is 00:12:52 like going to summer camp and being around kids of all different backgrounds and ethnicities and abilities. And like, that just opens you up for living with people for a week that you might not normally get to do in your own circles. You know, like we're kind of limited to what our experience is,

Starting point is 00:13:08 to what our environment provides. And then if you don't make an effort to go get out and see the world, then you're kind of stuck in that thing, you know? Yeah, and it's kind of easy for it to happen for a lot of people, I think, when you come out of high school, because a lot of, in a lot of places,

Starting point is 00:13:23 there's a lot of tradition, right? And it's like, okay, well, you kind of go to the same place, maybe your family win or something like that. And it's great, you know, I think tradition is super important, but then sometimes you don't realize you can be stuck in some of the same, like your area can get stuck in a lot of same traditional patterns, you know,

Starting point is 00:13:38 of like, of just thought, you know? Yeah, for sure. But yeah, I'm trying to think of like my first time when I would go to camp. I think one thing that was good about camp was you would, people came from other schools. So it was like, suddenly your world was a little bit bigger, right? Even if they came from a different town, like I remember one time I met somebody and they told me they were from like a different, the place had a different name in the town. I was from, I was like, what are you talking about?

Starting point is 00:14:03 Yeah. I didn't even know that like, if you kept driving, you got to other places, you know, I just thought you would just, you know, you just got to the end of the street and there was just like this unwell kid out there yelling about deaf leopard all day, you know, I didn't know you could really just go out into the world. And you went to camp, you said? Yeah, I went to camp. And the camp that I went to and worked at as well was like an inclusion camp. So you'd have kids in your group that might be on the spectrum.

Starting point is 00:14:33 And you'd have kids that come from inner cities, like kind of impoverished areas. And then you'd have rich kids that just sit around and play Nintendo all day. And then you'd have, rich kids that just sit around and play Nintendo all day. And then you'd have, you know, all. So you put everybody together. And I remember like the transformer thing for me, there's just like a rope spiderweb, right?

Starting point is 00:14:53 And you get there the first day and you're kind of a group of these kids. And you're like, you're kind of talking to them or kind of not really. You're like, you're not really down with them. But the first activity you got to do is every single person has to be passed through this spiderweb without touching it and get to the other side so When you got to grab a kid, you know by his cankles and pick him up and pass him through the thing After you do that, you know, it's like a low ropes course kind of activity. But after you do that

Starting point is 00:15:19 Then you're that's kind of the best icebreaker because it it's like, nobody's ever like, everybody puts two fingers underneath and lifts you up off the ground. You're like, you had never been picked up by other kids necessarily, unless you might've been, you know, bullied or thrown around by them. But it's like, you gotta get everybody through the other side without touching the spider web. And then you can move to the next thing.

Starting point is 00:15:38 I've never seen this game. So this is a popular camp game? Yeah, it's just like a camp activity, like an icebreaker. But once you realize, yeah, see the picture right there of him holding them up over their head? So you have to pick kids up and pass them, and hopefully don't drop them on their head. But it's, you know.

Starting point is 00:15:53 Oh, wow. It looks very Egyptian almost, based on this photo. Yeah. Yeah, we went looking. Some kid went missing, boss, and we looked for him for almost two months, I remember. And they're like, well, that's camp. And we're like, we didn't even find Jeremy, I remember and they're like well that's camp and we're like we find Jeremy dude and they're like

Starting point is 00:16:07 whatever you know when I was when I was a counselor we had a girl so we see you end up being a counselor at that camp at that camp okay so that camp had a big effect on yeah okay but I realized as a kid like anybody that's really different than you from that point on after you live with them for a week and you pick them up off the ground and you gotta figure out. After you hold them, touch them, touching somebody. And you have to, you realize like,

Starting point is 00:16:29 you're not that different. It's just like, people have different things. Like, you know, some of the kids that I worked with, I worked with Special Olympics in high school too, and like, you know, some of the kids that I worked with that had Down syndrome, they were like the sweetest, most optimistic, like they just had a lot of parts of life figured out that mainstream kids maybe wouldn't.

Starting point is 00:16:50 So it's like, once you're around that and you become a champion for those kids. And so if somebody else is picking on somebody that's different, you wanna like stand up because that's like your boy that you were in camp with. And so you realize in one week by dropping somebody into this situation, now they've been around all these different things and now now they're going to.

Starting point is 00:17:10 And also at camp, you get to be like courageous for the first time, you know, like everybody has to do a skit, right? You got to get up on a stage and you have to like do a stupid dance or whatever, like whatever to make people laugh. Oh, dude, I remember we had to do Michael Jackson. Sorry to cut you off, but I'm not, did I interrupt you really bad? No, you're good.

Starting point is 00:17:27 Okay, sorry, man. But I never, I never, I forgot about this. We had to do, uh, oh, another one bites the dust. Who was that? Michael Jackson. Queen bro, almost Michael Jackson. And yeah, we had, and I had never heard the song. I didn't know what it meant or anything, you know,

Starting point is 00:17:44 I thought it was about drug use or whatever. And, um, but yeah, we had to and I had never heard the song. I didn't know what it meant or anything, you know, I thought it was about drug use or whatever. And, but yeah, we had to get out there and dance in front of the other camp. I forgot about that. Yeah, and so, if you just go get up in your class at school and do that, dude, you're gonna get picked on forever. But being in that environment where you can be kind of brave

Starting point is 00:18:01 for the first time and other people are like celebrating it and you kind of learn to be a little bit more confident you learn about other people and different kinds of people and you learn so I realized like in one week of taking a kid and putting them in this and some kids like have a raw deal if they don't have any mentorship at home if they don't have anybody that shows them how to be or how to treat people or why or whatever it is then they leave camp with this new like there's like you were talking about, like you just keep driving out of the town past the kids screaming about deaf

Starting point is 00:18:31 leopard. Like until you get out of that and you realize there's another world, then they look forward to coming back there the next year. And that changes their mental capacity where they're like, Hey, if I make the right decisions, then I can get to a better place than where I'm at, rather than just being stuck there and, you know, watching people drink 40s and, you know, impregnate everybody in the neighborhood.

Starting point is 00:18:52 Oh, God, yeah. People should not be allowed in some areas, and I'm gonna say it, they shouldn't be allowed to have sex within probably 90 feet of themselves. That's a safe border, bro, because you have to land it perfect. probably 90 feet of themselves. That's a safe border, bro. Cause you have to land it perfect. Well, you'd have to be up on a building to get it 90 feet to

Starting point is 00:19:13 land in the right spot. Yeah. I think I'm not saying this well. I think they shouldn't be allowed to have sex. I don't know how you would phrase it. We obviously need a legislator to help with this, but yeah, I think, yeah, there should be like a lovely other. We need some, we need some better zoning and some genetic webs.

Starting point is 00:19:32 Talking about not breeding within 90 feet of where, of where they're at. Are you talking about actual physical touch of it? Cause that presented a whole nother problem to me. It's like, I got to figure out how to get with this girl. It's like 30 yards away And and succeed, you know, I mean there would definitely be a great form of birth control because the people that would actually Hit the bullseye is gonna be like super small. Yeah. Yeah, I mean maybe an archer. I guess I don't know Yeah, some other me the lacrosse. Yeah, that guy, that guy would be messy, but he would get the job.

Starting point is 00:20:07 Um, no, dude, you were just talking about something. Oh, we were talking about like kids with down syndrome and stuff. Right. So I was like, really humbled. Recently I went on this show. It's called beautiful tasty, beautiful. Right. And the guys it's these fellas, Sean and Marley, they're Australian, right? One of them, um, has Down syndrome.

Starting point is 00:20:28 One of them I think is just like a, uh, Kappa Sig or something. So here we are right here, right? Go to that beer chicken right here. I'm a huge fan of these guys, right? Been a fan for years and so on. When I was in Australia, I got to go to, I watched some of them cooking. Oh yeah. Yeah. was in Australia, I got to go to watch some of them cooking. Oh yeah. You have? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:20:46 Oh, I got to go do their show. So dude, here's the craziest part at the end, they're having a beer. I can't drink, right? That's cause I, in my life, right? Where I'm at in my life and I'm thinking to myself and the guys, uh, Molly's like, you know, have a beer. And I'm like, I'm trying to explain to them. I was like, I can't. He's like, you know, I have a beer and I'm like I'm trying to explain to him I was like I can't he's like have beer and I'm like I these I'm like I can't

Starting point is 00:21:11 If I ever thought some of those was like negative about these guys they can drink be I can't even They have Down syndrome. I Can't and they can have beer. Yeah. Like they're more reliable. Yeah. They have crazy gifts, man. Right. But it's like, I can't even have a, like that's the strata I'm on now. It's like when you are an alcoholic, you are outside of, considered by society,

Starting point is 00:21:40 outside of the web of people that even have down syndrome. It's like, God, I was like, I just felt like such a lame-o man. But yeah, these guys are, bro, unbelievable, like I didn't even know, I don't even know if they have down, they were so, I was like, these guys are way cooler

Starting point is 00:22:00 than most people I've ever spoken to. You know? It's like, there's a, you find this with kids too that have been given everything and like maybe their parents don't pay attention to them or maybe they don't really whatever but there's like a poverty of spirit that people have. So it's like you know you you can live in a nice house and have this or whatever but you don't really know how to appreciate anything that you have. But that's one thing with the people I've

Starting point is 00:22:21 worked with with Downs like they have this incredible spirit about it. And it's like you can't teach that you can't teach that to mainstream kids that might not be able to do it. But it's kind of infectious when you get everybody in the same group. You know what I mean? So we'd have like two kids that are on the spectrum or have downs and come from the part of camp called Sparrowood, which I worked at that spot also. Sparrowood, Sparrowood. OK.

Starting point is 00:22:46 And I was on staff one full summer living at Sparrowood, like different group in every week, and I'd have two campers that I'm responsible for, for having them shit-showered and shaved and ready to like come join everything. And you never know what it was gonna be, but. So you start off as a camp attendee, and then you, how many years then you got counseled? And then I started counseling

Starting point is 00:23:05 I was 15 and actually a year earlier than I was supposed to and I counseled till I was 17 okay, and then for three years every side lived the whole summer at camp working as staff so living there different group coming in every week for nine weeks or ten weeks out of the summer and What that taught me about myself was invaluable. Like, you know, I learned more about me than I ever thought that I would. But so that was the thing when I was like 14, I was like, I wanna play music and I wanna build a camp.

Starting point is 00:23:39 Like that's what I wanted to do. So I wanted to, my impact that it had on me made me wanna dedicate my life to building a place that does the same thing that I kind of experienced. Like a summer camp? Yeah, summer camp. And then we do, you know, we built an amazing campus. It's called Camp Southern Ground.

Starting point is 00:23:57 You have a camp now? Yes. Camp Southern Ground? Yes. Okay. Yep. Wow. Yep. So, so you're able to make this happen. What happens with music and you have to obviously stop

Starting point is 00:24:07 being a counselor once music got busy. Yeah, I had to stop being staffed, but then I was like, my dream, well, first of all, was to be a successful musician. Like just get to where, cause I worked at, I worked at this place in Dahlonega, not far from the KKK dude's house called the Wagon Wheel. And it was like a catfish fry house place, right?

Starting point is 00:24:26 And I washed dishes there. So when you take a whole pan of catfish grease and you lay it in the dishwasher and you have one of those sprayers, you grab the handle bro and you spray that dude, 80% of it gets on your face. And so I was washing dishes in this catfish fry house place for like months and I was like there's

Starting point is 00:24:45 gotta be something better than this you know. But the food was good. Oh the food was good yeah fried catfish and hush puppies and all the shit but um and then I'd clean the grease machine at the end of the night. You gotta filter all the grease and then take the filter put this filter on there that has all the cracklins and all the stuff in it and then you spray that bro it's like, so I would come home like half soaking wet, driving my granddad's old like Oldsmobile or whatever it was had the blue like plush seats, like giant ass heavy door. Like when you shut that door, bro,

Starting point is 00:25:17 it was like, you could hear it two blocks away, man. Oh, it was like when the tomb opened for Jesus, some of those doors. Yeah, yeah, and when you opened it, it was, same thing. But I would come home being soaking wet and like, I wore glasses back then too, bro. So like having. Oh, why?

Starting point is 00:25:31 Just because of the grease or because of the sight? I had, because I couldn't nose, because I couldn't see. I had bad vision. Who would let a guy who can't see go into a dang grease? I mean, it kept it out of my eyes, but I definitely wore the catfish on my face. And then I worked as a cook at McDonald's for a while too.

Starting point is 00:25:43 I was grilling at McDonald's, bro. Really? And they, they did they have a grill at that time? Or what's the actual It's a flat griddle thing. And then you put them into a warmer, you know, but I got fired from McDonald's because I had this manager at the time and she would her boyfriend would come up in like a blue Favo Mustang. And with this, you know, he had the hair, he had the whole thing. And she'd fill up a whole bag full of fries for him, just like a whole scoop, and throw it out the window to him or whatever. So one day, every hour,

Starting point is 00:26:11 they throw away all the sandwiches that we made, right? So every hour, it's gotta go in the trash. So I was taking a chicken sandwich that was gonna be thrown away. And my buddy was there, he was walking in and he was like, I'll eat that. And I was like, cool, I slid it across the counter. I wasn't trying to hide it or whatever. So I got fired from McDonald's with possibility to rehire

Starting point is 00:26:37 Well, it's like with possibility of parole like yeah, there's a good you can come back Yeah, and what was it a McFish? Yeah back. And what was it? A Mcfish? Yeah. Oh, it was, it was a McChicken. Oh, McChicken. Yeah. Well that's better. If you slide a Mcfish to somebody, first of all, you're obviously a dirty sorcerer.

Starting point is 00:26:54 Okay. Because who even eats Mcfish? Except sometimes your mom does when your dad left, right? That's the only person that ever ate a rock bottom sandwich. Oh, it's so sad. My mom would get it sometimes and every even times were hard for her then right. Times had never been easy for my mother and um and uh

Starting point is 00:27:13 and the wrapping paper on it was a little different. It had a little more adult yellowish color. It was a little more pastel than like the kind of electric kind of. It's the color of agony. Yeah, it was a little bit it had like the kind of electric kind of color of agony. Yeah, it was a little bit. It had, yeah, it just had more. It had been through a little more, right? You know, it had been recycled maybe. And I would see my mom get the McFish and I'd be like, oh, things

Starting point is 00:27:35 aren't going to go well at home. You know? Yeah. But that's life, man. But yeah, I can't believe you work with them. And then did you hope to get rehired or what? How did. No, I was pretty much you work with them. And then, did you hope to get rehired or what? How did? No, I was pretty much after, after cleaning grease and then doing McDonald's

Starting point is 00:27:49 and everything, I was like, I don't want to smell like old food anymore. You know? And I was like, there's got to be a better way to do it. And me and my buddy in high school, so we were singing together. He's my best friend and dude, his is, the stories of his family, bro, like, you would not even believe some of the stuff that his seven brothers and sisters, all their names start with R,

Starting point is 00:28:12 all of them have seven letters in them, all of them, but like, the life story behind all of them, dude, that's a whole episode of like three hours of talking about the stuff that happened with his family. But, unbelievable. But he was my boy, And so we sang together. And we had a quartet in high school. So we sang like barbershop, right?

Starting point is 00:28:29 There were three guys that could sing in choir. And the other dudes were just in there because their girlfriends were in there. And they were tone deaf and couldn't sing. So we'd have like, we'd do literary meets and compete against these kids that are like, everybody can sing. One dude can sing like bass, like a grown ass giant man.

Starting point is 00:28:44 Yeah. And then, but we always had one dude can sing like bass, like a grown ass giant man. Yeah. And then, but we always had one dude that was awful. Like me and my two best friends in high school, Tyler and Radford, we would all sing together and we could lock in, but that we'll always had one dude that was awful. And we never had one other dude that could ever sing that was in choir.

Starting point is 00:29:00 So we always had like, it was like the bad leg on the chair, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that, but me and Raffer sang like coffee houses and stuff together. And, you know, and did y'all have a little band at that point? It was just me and him just playing guitars and singing. And that was when- Were you a good guitarist? I would practice, man.

Starting point is 00:29:19 My brother took me to a bluegrass festival when I was 10 and they had like a guitar competition where kids would compete against each other. Oh, wow. My brother took me to a bluegrass festival when I was 10, and they had a guitar competition where kids would compete against each other. And there were kids that were eight years old, dude, that were just ripping the shit out of the guitar. And I was like, fuck, if that kid can do that shit, I can too. So I would go sit on my porch in Dahlonega and practice.

Starting point is 00:29:37 Isn't it crazy how seeing something, that's, it's like, it's so crazy, the value of getting to see something. Even if you're talking about whether it's another culture a skill set You know, I remember the first time I saw somebody do something. I was like damn dude. I could do something Yeah, you know, it's just like was it's unbelievable or somebody takes you to see like yeah Oh this guy plays music and then he show you like That's how little seeds get planted, but it really is. It's like, it sounds ridiculous,

Starting point is 00:30:05 but that's just the way it works. I remember a guy showed me how to do, one day I was at the, I was at YMCA, I was at summer camp, so we'd go to just YMCA camp. And it was good, you know, but it was just a lot of people that would get hay fever and we'd all be like kind of in one building, you know? And so I think it was just kind of safest way for the city

Starting point is 00:30:24 to have us be in the summers, because yeah, it was back before they had like Claritin or whatever. Right. And your eyes would just, you know, you would just like, yeah, and just, just weren't doing too good out there. And they give you a soccer ball, be like 97 degrees. You can't even see. Yeah. Yeah. Moldy. Like you s first summer camps. I went through super early. Like you'd be in a cabin that didn't have any air conditioning and it's like Georgia in the summertime. It's like, you know, and you'd have the old denim mattresses. You remember those? Like it had like denim pattern on them, like stripes on the mattresses and they're all moldy and

Starting point is 00:30:59 like the pillows are moldy and there's no thing. So the first, the first four days you just get used to sweating. Yeah. And then about day five or six, you kind of get used to it and then it's time to go home. Dude, isn't there something nice though about, there's something nice, like sometimes I'll be on vacation and the place I'm staying at won't have air conditioning. And the first night it's kind of like pain in the butt,

Starting point is 00:31:20 the second night, but then you almost get like in sync with the universe a little bit. Like I feel like my dreams pick up and like I feel like I'm a lot more in tune with things when I get to that point. Does that make any sense to you? Yeah, yeah, we adjust. That's one thing that's weird.

Starting point is 00:31:36 I think that's why our immune systems go nuts is like humans because we're made to live out and freezing cold or super hot or be scraped up. Like all that stuff builds our immune system. So when we sit inside at like 72 degrees every day all day and then something hits our system, then it's like the faucet turns all the way on because it doesn't really know what to do, right?

Starting point is 00:31:55 You're just like, you don't have an iPad. So your system thinks it's just time to make your nose run off like, you know, all the way down on your, down your pants. But it's like, we're made to adjust and adapt to those things. So like being uncomfortable is actually what makes us like our systems like work right.

Starting point is 00:32:13 Yeah. In a way. Yeah. I got to do better. I think I can do, oh, I don't want to like be upset at myself about it, but I think I can do a little bit better at trying to be a little more uncomfortable at times with a lot of things for me. It can be in a relationship It could be like George Kittle was on here and he talked about how he goes and gets in his ice bath every day

Starting point is 00:32:31 first thing in the morning and I'm like you are a Person from the beginning of time, you know, like you're not doing well George, but he he's just like I like to start my day off with something that's uncomfortable, Mike Tyson, I just heard him talking about it in an interview about like, because that's the only way you start to see what fear is. And you start to get a little look at fear. You might just think, oh, I don't want to do this. But really, a little bit of that's fear.

Starting point is 00:32:57 And he's like, and that's how you start to get to work with fear. I just thought that was kind of interesting. Have you heard that the flavored air category is quickly becoming the fastest growing alternative to vaping and smoking? Well, if you haven't, it's true and you're hearing it now. And the best to offer this flavored air is fume. That's right.

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Starting point is 00:35:44 So for 10 years, me and the drummer, well six years, me and the drummer, we just made our first CD, and we were called Far From Einstein. And so just leaving college to go and do this thing, and a friend of mine who works with us now loaned me like six grand to make the CD. And so we make this record,

Starting point is 00:36:06 we find this dude that worked at Guitar Center, had like a home studio and we went in and recorded it. Yeah, that's me on the left there. No way. Yeah, so we made this record far from Einstein. And so me and my drummer, we were like, dude, so we're gonna go to Panama City and we're gonna make it.

Starting point is 00:36:24 And next year we're gonna to be huge, bro. Everybody in the South, if you could, the way to make it was through Panama city. It was like the natural light in New York. Yeah. So we had a van, I sold my insurance policy and my dad had bought for me for like 1200 bucks and I bought a, like an old Dodge good times van, like had the bubble windows, it was a V8, but I'm pretty sure Times van, like had the bubble windows. It was a V8, but I'm pretty sure it was only like

Starting point is 00:36:47 four of them worked. And you could smell the gas just running out of it, like in the car. And so I had, we made a thousand CDs. Yeah. Yep. It's the bubble window one right there. It had an orange shag carpet in it.

Starting point is 00:37:04 I still have it. Yeah. It had an orange shag carpet in it. I still have it. Yeah. And so me and my dog, I had a Jack Russell at the time and then my drummer, we got in there, we had like our instruments, we had what we call shits on sticks, which are just the speakers,

Starting point is 00:37:18 like a powered PA system that had three on two speakers. And we went down to Panama City and we're like, man, we're gonna make it, bro. So we drove around and we found this dude that had a Dacry Shack. He had a trailer that had like a little RV that had a Dacry Shack in it, but he had power. We saw like extension cords going to it.

Starting point is 00:37:35 So we're like, hey man, will you let us plug in out here and set up? So we plugged in and we'd set out and we played for like eight hours, an afternoon and a night for this daiquiri shack and playing. And we were sleeping. There was a house that had been hit by the hurricane. And this is right on Robert's drive, right? Where like Spinnaker and LaVilla and all that stuff was trash dude. So we're tone low cooked up with my girlfriend too. I'll say it, dude.

Starting point is 00:38:03 And that's a true story. But anyway sorry. No no. So you guys played right out there and people showed up. No so we we we slept on the back because we had our van we were sleeping in the van it wasn't that great but we found a house that was kind of abandoned but the porch was intact on the back it had been like wrecked. So we sleep on the back of this porch and then the SunGlo Motel was across the street. So we go get in their pool shower and like take a shower and sleeping out of the van. And I remember this is like, we're just trying to make ends meet, right? Like just make enough money to buy something to eat, you know, just to be able to hang out.

Starting point is 00:38:36 So it didn't cost anything to sleep on the porch of this house. And I remember they were giving away barbecue Doritos. That was when the, that flavor just came. And some dude was walking down the beach and giving out sample bags and he was like, dude, do y'all want these? I don't wanna have to hand them all out. So he gave us a case of Doritos, bro. But I was like, somebody giving you a million dollars

Starting point is 00:38:53 back then, cause it was like, dude, that's like a dollar a bag times whatever for us. Yeah, probably 36 bags. And all I had was a gas card. So we get white bread and bologna and mustard and natural light. And that was our diet, bro. But then we added Doritos to the sandwiches and that changed the game.

Starting point is 00:39:10 We got three. Living la vida loca. Yeah, dude. Welcome to France. So while I was swimming out in front of this Sun Globe Motel, it was right on the beach, you know, right at this abandoned house. I was swimming and I met these older ladies that were out there and I was just like walked up to them, they were just standing out in the surf and I was like, what are y'all thinking about out here, whatever, end up making friends with them. Their mom owned a badass house that was down the road on Roberts Drive and they had a garage that

Starting point is 00:39:37 had a bed in it and a bathroom and everything. So we made friends with these people and it was Muriel and JB Ellis was their names and they were They were super old. She was like probably 79 or 80 at the time and he was probably 76. He wasn't at home first So it was just her but she just like led us in her house and They had a badass like stereo system and nine million bottles of liquor everywhere you open the cabinet. It was full of liquor Like it was just your citizens home. You guys are in now this yeah this and So She was like, oh y'all can stay here, whatever. And so we were looking for, so we had a place to stay, right? So now we had air conditioning and this badass house.

Starting point is 00:40:14 And basically, if you want to come in and have drinks with them or whatever, and they go out dancing, they go to this place called Salties, and they'd get up and dance and shag and get down, you know, but super amazing people. But I was wondering what the husband was going to think. Like, she just brought in like two stinky dudes. Two stinky youths, van youths.

Starting point is 00:40:32 Yes. Okay. At a motel pool. Yep. Okay. Right. Okay. Who have luckily come into 36 bags of Doritos. Yeah. You know, we had a big sack of Doritos. You know? My wife's leaving. Yeah. So we were worried about him coming home

Starting point is 00:40:49 and we hung out with her for like a few weeks or whatever and we'd sit and play music for him in the house. And he finally came home and he was cooler than she was. They were both just amazing, dude. So, and they supported us. So then we found out there's a new restaurant that had opened that was run by the Israeli mob. Oh yeah.

Starting point is 00:41:06 And it was called Joey's. And... Called America. It was about one of their guys, their brothers that had died or whatever, they named it after him. Wow. But this was down right on Front Beach Road, you know.

Starting point is 00:41:18 And so we got to, we auditioned for them and we set up on the deck. They had a little, you know little outdoor deck and we played outside. And that was the audition? That was the audition to play for them, right? So we set up and we played and they're like high-fiving each other, whatever. They drove Lexuses, they had the Gucci belts

Starting point is 00:41:36 and the slick back hair and all the thing. Hey! Yeah, but we started playing and they loved it. They were like high-fiving each other, whatever. So they gave us a chance. So we played the first 10 nights for 150 bucks a night for six hours a night. Wow.

Starting point is 00:41:51 So that was our first gig at this place, Joey. So we did the 10 nights in a row, we made 1,500 bucks. And we were fucking poor rich. Oh, we can. I went and bought some new Skechers, bro. I was like, yeah, I think he bought some Doc Martens. Bought your mom some sand Skechers, bro. I was like, yeah, I think he bought some Doc Martens. We were like-

Starting point is 00:42:06 Buy your mom some sandals or whatever. Yeah, and so we ended up like, so then we ended up keeping the gig there six nights a week. So we, and then after that, I negotiated to get 300 bucks a night. Let's talk business. So then this dude from Illinois, this mattress salesman dude was in the bar one night

Starting point is 00:42:19 and he was, he looked a little bit like John Candy, but more awkward and more really weird. He'd get really drunk and put his hat on backwards and roll his sleeves up. And like, he was interesting, but he just had a brand new condo and he's super lonely because he's pretty awkward dude. Right?

Starting point is 00:42:36 So he let us move in his condo. So we're living in a brand new condo now that's like Middle Beach Road, just one road off the back there. And we slept on air mattresses and like, we were making cash and like doing what we're doing. I remember calling my dad and like being like, I got a job or whatever.

Starting point is 00:42:51 And he's like, go, you know, go, go do it, you know? Dad, I'm living with an older guy from Illinois, you know? Exactly. If you need a magnetic mattress pad, I got the guy now. Dude. Wow. So, and so- So we just climbed that ladder in Panama city, bro. We were, we were doing good, but we were grinding just climbed that ladder in Panama city, bro.

Starting point is 00:43:05 We were, we were doing good, but we were grinding dude, six hours a night. And then we played from eight till two in the morning. Oh yeah. Well, it takes so long, especially then when you think this before social media. Oh, a hundred percent. Then it's think about the only way for something really to travel. You know, people had to tell you, Hey, you gotta hear about these guys.

Starting point is 00:43:26 I mean, unless you got to, you know, through the gates to radio play. Yeah. And we were set up there playing six nights a week, six hours a night. And we did that for, you know, the whole summer. And then we go back to Atlanta and I played some bars in Atlanta. And so we did a circuit for like, and so I had to create a business model, right? This place didn't have live music. So if I had grown up in Nashville

Starting point is 00:43:48 and I was like trying to go get a gig for 60 bucks a night to play somewhere, I wouldn't have fucking been able to survive. So what I did, I go to sports bars, like a Wild Wings, that didn't have live music. And I say, you know, I'm gonna come play here every Wednesday night and I just want the door. Right.

Starting point is 00:44:03 So it didn't cost you anything to have me here at first. Like, let us come In and prove ourselves give us a tab like give us like a hundred dollar tab and so we come in and play there But fuck after like six months dude on a Wednesday We'd have 300 people coming on a Wednesday night, and I was making five bucks at the door Yeah, so we were making bank then so so we did that three nights in Atlanta two nights in Panama City and three nights in Atlanta,

Starting point is 00:44:25 two nights in Panama City, and two nights in Birmingham. Every week? Every week. All like seven days a week for a long time, six days a week. I had to hire a dude from Mississippi State, like this old football player dude, who'd get bad road rage, man.

Starting point is 00:44:38 Really? Was it T.J. Mawany? Was that his name? I was in with Keith Lozier, but he drove us, dude. I hired him just to hang with us and drive. So I'd sleep against the window in my truck. I had my brother co-sign with me to get like a 1500 Silverado, like a red, like the mini extended cab,

Starting point is 00:44:55 like the little baby extended cab. Oh yeah, that little sex launcher, baby. I'd get that thing. Yeah. It's beautiful. Yep. So I had that and a cover trailer with my gear in it. So we were like stepping up, right? We were out of the Good Times van,

Starting point is 00:45:06 which got like four miles to the gallon, bro. It's like, it was, so we graduated. That's a big step. Yep. That's a big step up, man. And we could get around and we were just hustling, man. But six years, we grinded like that for six years, just like playing the same house gigs in three states,

Starting point is 00:45:23 just grinding, grinding, selling those CDs for five bucks a piece and then gaining tip money and whatever drugs people would throw into the tip jar at the end of the night, you know. And at that time, were you like crossing paths with other musicians? Like trying to think of Jason Mraz was coming out. I think he might have been out of or like, um, John Mayer. He was out of Georgia. Was there any like, did you cross paths with any of those? There was nobody in these circus,

Starting point is 00:45:46 because the places we played, no one, they never had live music. So I didn't know, I didn't know there were like a rule or way anybody else did it. I didn't know how anybody else did it, because we just fucking created it ourselves. So we didn't know like what we're supposed to do, because we just figured out something that worked for us.

Starting point is 00:46:01 But we add value to the places, because if you own a restaurant, if you make bank on a Wednesday night, that's all cake because you lose your ass through the week And then Friday Saturday you make it up. So yeah You know these places were stoked and I remember when we had outgrown playing the sidelines up in Kennesaw, Georgia We'd outgrown it and it was time and we moved on to like playing theaters and playing, you know Honky tonks and stuff like that, like bigger places. The manager, when I left, because they were making good money there, the owner, whatever left me a voicemail and I saved this one on my old phones, but it was like, after all I've done for you and all this shit and whatever, I hope you

Starting point is 00:46:36 fail. And I saved that voicemail and it's just, it's just funny, but what a negative kind of outlook, huh? Well, he was making a lot of money off of us, man. funny, but what a negative kind of outlook, huh? Well, he was making a lot of money off of us, man. Still, he could have just thought also, man. Yeah, I'm glad for you guys or whatever, but I guess, yeah, maybe that's you. So that made it even more like kind of entertaining to us. And also just like, you know, I didn't know where I was going. All I knew is that I just wasn't going to quit.

Starting point is 00:47:01 Yeah. But it got, you know, it's that law, like 10,000 hours, whatever you do for 10,000 hours, you're gonna get good at, right? So playing so many nights, so many hours, but it also taught me the appreciation of like loving all the people, like the dudes cleaning up the bar

Starting point is 00:47:15 or the waitresses and whatever it is. Like I was connected to those people. They became like family in those places. So for me, just treating people good was like, that it taught me to like, those people are, sometimes the only people listening to you at the end of the night when you're playing, you know? Cause I play some shitty gigs, dude. Like the worst.

Starting point is 00:47:33 Really? Oh, the worst. Like no one there, you drove eight hours to go play a show and you set up and it's just like, you know. Do you ever play during a fight? Any fights break out and you have to keep playing? Yeah. And I've had to join fights like in the middle

Starting point is 00:47:47 cause friends are involved in it. Really? In the middle of it. Why? Because y'all don't have a good percussionist in the area? What happened? Dude, there's some stories, man. The amount of bar fights you've seen

Starting point is 00:47:57 when you play in bars for 10 years is a lot. And your friends are bartenders and stuff like that or whatever and you'll see some shit about to go down. There's like three dudes that came in from one of the nights. So this is a Dixie Tavern, right? So I ended up. Was that in Jackson? It's in Georgia. It's in Marietta, Georgia. OK. It's right on Cobb Parkway. You're right where the Brave Stadium is now, the new Brave Stadium.

Starting point is 00:48:19 It's right down the road from there. But that was where I cut my teeth. So as we got out of that circuit of like Panama City, Birmingham or whatever, then we started playing around Atlanta more often. And I had like three or four house gigs around Atlanta and actually talked them into building the stage that was in there because they didn't have live music. So they built the stage and we would play there. And one of the nights these two dudes from Miami had come in, like one tall, skinny dude and one kind of heavy dude. And so one of my buddies was bartending at the time

Starting point is 00:48:49 and ended up having words with him or whatever. And so the tall, skinny dude called one of the female bartenders who was married to another bartender that was there, a different guy, a really bad word, called her the C word. And so it was off. And so the bouncers, so you know all the bouncers, you know like nobody's, you're not gonna get sculled,

Starting point is 00:49:09 you're not gonna get curb stomped because nobody's like looking out or whatever. So it was a little safer place to fight. And then we had off duty friends, off duty cops that would come in and hear us play and stuff like that. So they're about, so we come in, and I remember this night especially,

Starting point is 00:49:26 because somebody had given me like a little chocolate mushroom, right? And so it's like, Love you baby. So it's like right before, like two or three songs before the end of the night, right? So I ate a little piece of chocolate, right? So whatever.

Starting point is 00:49:38 And so we get done playing the song or whatever, and things getting a little HD, you know, it's looking good or whatever. And then these two dudes from Miami called her that name and the bouncers are trying to throw them out or whatever. And one of my buddies has the big one kind of, he's got his arm pushed up on his neck, holding them against the wall. And this other dude, this tall skinny one who I think he's on meth cause he was crazy strong. So he's like swinging at everybody. So when I was in college, I did judo at West Georgia. So this dude swinging at everybody, there's like swinging at everybody. So when I was in college, I did judo at West Georgia.

Starting point is 00:50:06 So this dude's swinging at everybody. There's like six dudes in a circle and this dude's just like swinging and just trying to hit somebody, right? So he's turning around, he swings one of my buddies and misses whatever. So I get on his back, I get him in a rear naked choke. And I'm starting to be special for my chocolate, right? So I've got this dude and I remember the feeling

Starting point is 00:50:25 of his warm neck, right? And so I was bigger, I was probably like 250, you know, I was a bigger boy. Jack? No, I mean, I was strong, but I was not. Thicker. Yeah. So this dude, he goes down to the ground with me on his back

Starting point is 00:50:42 and then this dude is methed up enough, got that super strength, stands up, picks me up with me on his back. And then this dude is methed up enough, got that super strength, stands up, picks me up with me on his back and gets up. And so then I started using my back. I full on just like cranked it out, right? So I kind of felt him start and my feet were off the ground. And so, yeah, he picked me up.

Starting point is 00:51:01 God, this is like a second date. He was like cowboy meth strong, like a bull riding meth dude. Yeah, let me las up. Oh my God, this is like a second date. He was like cowboy meth strong, like a bull riding meth dude. Yeah, let me lasso that pipe, huh? Yeah, so I'm squeezing this dude and I finally feel him start to go limp or whatever and my feet touched the ground, so I just let go of the dude at that point.

Starting point is 00:51:17 And this dude's standing, right, like this, and so there's a planter, a brick planter that's right outside Dixie Tavern. This dude fell like a tower, bro. Bap! Hit his forehead on the bricks, bro. Cut his head open. I'm trippin'.

Starting point is 00:51:32 Dude hits the ground. Pool of blood starts comin' out from this dude's head. And when you start to put it back in his head? And I think, and then I think at that point, I just kill this dude, right? So I run in the back and I go get in the beer cooler where the kegs are bro. And I'm sitting in the cooler with all the kegs are. You think you're gonna be so cold that the cops can't find you? Yeah, they weren't gonna find me with a thermal scan because I was getting hypothermia in there bro.

Starting point is 00:51:57 I was all by myself and so everybody's looking for me or whatever trying to find me. You're using a depth finder or something. So I'm in this, I'm sitting next to this coolant and after about 30 minutes bro, and I just keep seeing this blood going, like coming out of this dude's head. And I'm sitting there and I'm shivering or whatever and somebody finally comes in and it's like, are you okay? Whatever. And they're like, just stay in here or whatever. So I'm like, fuck. So then I get really cold. So I'm like, you know, I'm at like 35 degrees by then, bro. So I'm like, so I come out and I walk out and I look outside and there's ambulance firetruck police like the whole place is crawling with like

Starting point is 00:52:31 You know, yeah federales. Yeah, so So my buddy Mike was an off-duty cop and he was there He told the cops that he hit the dude and knocked him out and he hit the thing So I was off the hook or whatever, but that was, that was a wild trip. So, so this dude's on the ground and right when they start to pull a gurney up or whatever, to put this dude on a gurney and move him cause they didn't touch him cause they thought his neck was broken or whatever. He woke up and he runs to this bush.

Starting point is 00:52:58 Cops are all out there at this point. It runs out to this bush and starts shuffling around in this bush and cops are fucking pulling out their guns and shit and whatever. The dude pulls a gun out of the bush, grabs a gun and the cop fucking knocks it out of his hand, grabs him, puts him in cuffs and all this shit or whatever. But that dude, that dude was close to pulling that thing out and shooting shooting somebody. But he could have shot somebody earlier if you hadn't had that opportunity to ride on his back. Exactly. Yeah. He, that was, that was wild, bro. But

Starting point is 00:53:24 there's, there's a lot of nights like that, that I've had plenty of bars. What song we all playing when this happened? Dude, I don't, it was over cause I had just gotten done and it was like, they were just did last call and they were kind of clearing people out. And I don't think that they were ready to leave, but, that's kind of the most dangerous time. It's that weird time when the bar is like, you know, it's kind of closed. People are like, if they've been talking to a girl, they're trying to get in

Starting point is 00:53:46 their last words or something. It's almost like the final round of like a dating show. Someone's violently drunk. Someone has been abandoned by their friends, um, or spouse. Um, some guys just been doing coke and he's just chewing off the last few inches of his face in the corner somewhere. He finally shows back up. So I'll never want my kids to work in a restaurant or a bar because I've seen all that shit like

Starting point is 00:54:10 firsthand. And what happens after all that and like what people do to keep bartending and drinking shots like nobody can drink a thousand shots a night without doing a bunch of blow. Yeah. And so it's around everywhere. It's, it's, it's cash money and people are, you know, it's, it's where people ripping it pretty hard. Were you guys partying pretty hard? Uh, I wasn't, but there, as soon as I saw that the first time, then I started seeing it everywhere. Isn't that crazy? Dude, it's just like, that was all going on the whole time and I had no idea. Yeah. It's kind of like when you buy it, when you get a car, then you see them all the time. Exactly. Exactly. It's like the first time you see somebody do cocaine, you're like, oh, I see everybody doing this everywhere. People aren't just kind of casually touching each other's hands like that in the bar for no reason.

Starting point is 00:54:52 Yeah. Well, my bass player early on, I get done playing him, and people come up and go, hey, man, let me holler at Donny. Or let me holler at Jimmy, or whatever the dude's name was. And I was like, why do you need to holler at him? And so it turns out he was dealing blow at my shows. So I had to fire him. Oh yeah.

Starting point is 00:55:14 He could play fast though, bro. Oh sure. He could play fast, dude. And I had no idea this was happening, right? So I let go, but that's how I met John Hopkins, who was the first guy that was in my band that I have now John Hopkins. Yeah, and not the lymphoma guy. Is it the same? Same name it is John John Hopkins. Yeah. Oh

Starting point is 00:55:34 The I met him at um, Jimmy Jimmy John's yeah. Yeah, you guys played us. Yeah special event there So how yeah hops tops the first one that was in my band, but I was recording with him and I told him about my bass player and he was like, well I can play a little bass, I can sit in. So in February it'll be 20 years of him sitting in. Wow.

Starting point is 00:55:54 But he's one of the best singers, dude. Best fucking background singer, period. But he had a band called Brighter Shade, which was like this kind of heavier metal band that was badass, he could scream and, you know, was legit. So that was the beginning of the band that I have now. He was the first member coming into that. But because it wouldn't have happened if my bass player had been dealing blow.

Starting point is 00:56:14 Damn. Yeah. That guy could have still been with you. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know, dude. His tics would. I would have found out with the tics eventually. All the tics made sense after that. He had that pentameter on him. Some people get a little iambic, bro If you have a little too much bloating, baby, I've been there. I start damn I turn into a damn harmonica son Today's episode is sponsored by blue chew daddy, you know that when you are

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Starting point is 01:00:34 One thing I noticed about when your band plays, dude, it's not just you. Yeah. It is everybody. Yeah. It is a chorus. It is a re, it's like, it's a super ensemble vibe. Yeah, yeah. I think if you're doing it right, you're the worst dude in the band, right? So you have people that are in your band that could do all

Starting point is 01:00:55 this amazing shit and you want to show them off, man. You want to let them do what they're best at and let people see that, you know? But I think what I'm good at is just figuring out how to make that accessible, like being able to just like find the things that I feel like are gonna be the most impressive they can do and just letting them do it, man, letting them do their thing, you know? That's really what makes our band special is the musicianship of the people that I have.

Starting point is 01:01:18 Everybody in my band's a ninja, man. And I create things, I'm not really like a theory guy. I definitely had my party days when I was supposed to be studying theory because I went to West Georgia University I went there on a voice scholarship to sing classical music but then my roommate that I was with when they put me there in the dorm was this dude that smoked weed every five minutes from Tennessee so I'd never been around that really I saw it twice in high school or whatever but then this dude and then he's just sitting there, but it's puffing in there, rolling

Starting point is 01:01:48 out. Yeah. Then there was acid around and then there was all this shit. So I was supposed to be learning about theory and music, but I never, I never liked the rigidity of that. Like you can turn music into math, but it's not that to me. Like I want to make you feel something. So I got all these amazing people in my band that can tell you, oh, here's the math, right? Right. Like my bass player can listen to a song and write the chart for it as he listens one time down, all the notes, the timing, the thing, just... But that's not you. That's not me because I don't... I want to be able to try to transcend a feeling and then they can tell us what the math is and they'll make a chart and then everybody can play it. Like I can play a song for him on my guitar and then he gives it to my band and they have a chart and then the

Starting point is 01:02:29 first time we ever play it it's a song like everybody playing on it, but I I never had a class in school that taught me how to use my creativity Never had a class ever. It's all copy this shit copy what Beethoven Beethoven did, copy what Mozart did, copy Bach, copy all these things. And it's like, what would it have been like for me if I'd had a class that was like, here's how you write a song, here's how you take what you feel and put it into something like that.

Starting point is 01:02:54 Like it was never, there weren't classes for creativity. There was art class, you can make some shit with some strings or like string some macaroni and shit together. Oh yeah. Or make a dude, we had a class one time we had to make, this was insane. Um, casts, right? Like body cast or whatever.

Starting point is 01:03:12 And they had one, uh, girl put hers on it. Didn't take it off for like 14 weeks, dude. This lady, everybody at a certain point forgot that we'd even made it for class, right? Cause it was just one small thing we're doing week. People thought you was handicapped for like three months. Dude. I bet it smelled awesome in that too, bro.

Starting point is 01:03:31 I will say that hair. She had those like caterpillar hairs growing in her legs too. And she got that thing off. Never had a hair on her leg. Just took it off and full like bush all the way down her leg. It had a little bit of, I don't want to say Fern coming out of the edge of it, but it definitely, uh, she had her had her own, yeah, she was making her own little land before time over there. It felt like, you know?

Starting point is 01:03:52 Yeah, growing an ecosystem there. Yeah, she had a little bit of ecosystem going on. What else was I thinking about? Did you guys open up for some bands when you first started out? Yeah, so that was like a big bucket list thing for us because like I'm still just a music fan so like getting to hang out with people that were heroes to me musically, like musicians that I love are like superheroes. But they're real life, you know, and so if you run into them somewhere you're like, oh

Starting point is 01:04:19 my God, there's Superman, there's you know, whatever it is. So for me that was some of the craziest milestones for me when we started having success and going is like, we're just chilling with our heroes, and playing on stage with them. And then you get to be friends with them. And then that's even more weird. It's like, somehow appear with it.

Starting point is 01:04:37 But then you realize that they're just normal dudes too. And then it's like, and the greatest ones are always the coolest ones, man. They're always just like down to earth and cool. Yeah. Like I know you guys had this song for about Jimmy that was kind of in the Jimmy Buffett vein recently, you know? Did you got, did you have a relationship with him ever?

Starting point is 01:04:56 Yeah, I was good friends with Jimmy. He was, he was a mentor for me and he was, he was incredible, you know, and I've had him on some of my songs too. We had a song, Knee Deep, and he was on Same Boat. We did a version of that with him just a few years ago. But there aren't many people that I could call and ask certain questions to that could give you a real answer to that question.

Starting point is 01:05:17 I'm sure it's like you're friends that are big standup comedians and people like that that understand the lifestyle that you live, that have done it and done it on such a big level and built an amazing brand You know, we did crossroads with Buffett too when when That's we first got going But yeah, Jimmy Jimmy was here's the kind of guy Jimmy was one of my buddies was trespassing on his property fishing

Starting point is 01:05:43 Standing on the rocks on the back of his place in Key West fishing on the thing. Jimmy saw him out there, they're like watching a game inside or something. Jimmy walks outside to where the guy is and says, you need this kind of lure, gave him a lure, and he's like, and you need to throw it over there. And he went back in his house. So he didn't kick the guy out for fishing

Starting point is 01:06:02 in the back of his yard, he's like, let me help you succeed at what you're trying to do even though you're trespassing on my place. Because the guy wasn't there trying to like, mess with him, you know what I mean? But that's a good example of Jimmy and his spirit, man. He was such a baller. And dude, in the seventies, he was a gangster, bro.

Starting point is 01:06:19 Really? Gangster. Flying drugs from Cuba and fucking had operations flying shit in his plane. I wish I could do it. Dude, Mack McKinnelly told me a story. They were flying, I think he said from Jamaica or somewhere, and they didn't have a seat in the plane for one of the roadies, right?

Starting point is 01:06:39 So they gave him an eight ball in trade for letting him ride where the luggage was. Cause they were just flying a couple hours to get to where they needed to go, but they needed to get him there and they ended up picking up somebody else that needed to sit inside. So they're like, look, bro, if you'll ride where the luggage is, man, here's a, here's an eight ball. Yeah. Yeah. If you'll sit back over here with this, um, some, uh, uh, Samsonite. Yeah. Yeah. So he's, he's in the, he's in the cargo bay, right?

Starting point is 01:07:05 So the plane takes off and the dude's cruising in there. And, but they didn't tell that dude they had to land real quick to clear security. So the plane takes off and then it lands again like in 20 minutes, right? And then he's looking out the crack in the fucking door because he's in the luggage bay. And he sees dudes walking with fucking machine guns and shit outside so the dudes like fuck they're gonna catch me with these fucking drugs in here so the dude just toots the whole fucking bag sorry dude go on the whole fucking eight ball eats it whatever he does fucking down the down the hatch bro and then the plane takes anybody and

Starting point is 01:07:43 then the plane takes off again and it's in the air for like an hour and a half, right? And Max said when they landed dude and they opened this luggage compartment that this dude crawled out of there and he looked like a bruised banana. This dude had been fucking tweaking in there, getting bashed by roller suitcases and shit. Like, you know, not a lot of oxygen or whatever. Like a true nature's child. We were born, born in the wild. Pull up that TikTok of that bear getting out of that, coming out of hibernation, dude.

Starting point is 01:08:12 You seen this deal? This bear, I think, has just got out of hibernation. Beautiful animal. I mean, this arm just rolled. At least like Ron White getting up after. Yeah, that looks like Ron White after some good ayahuasca on me. God dang, he just lost a sideburn right there shaking it out, man. God, dude, that's fun, man.

Starting point is 01:08:44 That's fun, bro. Stories, man. That's a great story. And one of my buddies, his dad went to prison for a long time helping with one of those operations that he had and so for 20 years Jimmy raised him and so um and then he ended up being like the artist that made all the stuff in the Margaritavilles, like built the planes that were crashing into the things, painted it all, did it or whatever, like that whole, like there's a world in Key West that Jimmy was responsible for. And once you know the local people there

Starting point is 01:09:14 and you know the people, like it's such an extraordinary thing. And so when Jimmy, when I heard that Jimmy was about to pass and his main guy had texted me and said, he's about to exit the stage. That hit me hard because I realized like, all of his crew, all of his family, all of his business, everything, there was this hole that was there.

Starting point is 01:09:37 And it hit me hard, man. I was at home and it was like midnight or something. And I got up and I had to walk around and I started writing. I just had to write. I had to like, cause I felt that whole, you know, if something happens to me, there's a lot of families that depend on me to be solid and me to be there. And then without me there, there's all of these things that are necessary.

Starting point is 01:09:56 I can't do without them, but they can't do without me. The way that it is, the way that it's set up. So it's like, man, I just felt this whole there. And I, and that's when I was writing about it all. And, um, and ended up meeting up some other guys that had started a tune and, and that's, we wrote this last one called pirates in Paris, but that's about Jimmy. That's about, you know, saying goodbye to him and what he created. But yeah, yeah, I was listening to this yesterday.

Starting point is 01:10:23 Um, wow, man. Yeah. It's, uh, that's so crazy to have one of your heroes become a friend and then they are gone. You know? I mean, it's just like, I don't know. Life gets scared of me like that. Um, every day is precious, man. That's why it's hard to sacrifice. The people you keep in your circle is directly reflects and results in whether you're successful

Starting point is 01:10:53 or where you're going and what you're doing. Because if you just hang out with this dude because you used to shoot natural light together and whatever because of this thing, it's like you're not hanging out with expanders. You know what I mean? Being around people that are expanders and that you fucking share energy with

Starting point is 01:11:07 and you can lift each other up, everybody has hard times, but like that directly results in your success. And as you trim that circle down and keep it tight with people that you just, you know, you resonate that, it's like-minded. Like keeping like-minded people around you is like directly related to your success success because you hang out with sick people

Starting point is 01:11:26 You're gonna get sick or you hang out with people that aren't motivated. Where'd you learn that lesson? Do you learn that lesson or is it something that you always kind of had? I learned that lesson, dude Everything I've ever learned I learned the hard way bro punching myself punching myself in the face the whole way doing it man And then finally like oh wow, maybe I shouldn't punch myself in the face anymore, you know and But I'm always I'm a curious person man I'm always curious like how things work how things operate like, you know, I brought some knives actually for you I brought last time I gave you a little one, right? Yeah, you did man. We got it on one for the yard Oh my god, well, but making

Starting point is 01:12:01 Making things and like, you know, finding the rabbit hole, man, finding something that there's always another level of, you know, and figuring out how to. So you just push with your thumb to pull that thing out. It kind of locks in right there. That little tab, just push that. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Starting point is 01:12:18 So I have a knife company called Southern Grind. It's all production knives, but that's kind of like the replacement for a hatchet or, you know, cutting limbs and things like that or you know whatever somebody reaches in your car trying to carjack you too. Yeah whatever you need to use it for. Little bit of finger sashimi homie. That's right. I'll freaking take a knuckle off of some little cat if he's trying to get my watch. That's right. Wow this is you're you have a company that makes these? Yeah, yeah, Southern Grind. This is a real knife? Oh yeah, it's sharp. Ooh, yeah, boy. Those also throw really well too,

Starting point is 01:12:49 if you like throw knives, yeah. Dude, one thing at a time, man. I just got a hold of this thing. I have to register this online. Yeah, oh yeah. Thanks, bro. Yeah, man. This is really cool.

Starting point is 01:13:04 You know one thing else that I got really nice one time, not to take your gift and talk about another one, John Popper one time gave me a harmonica. And I thought that was pretty cool. Did he leave some grease in it? Had he been sucking on it? It looked like it had a little bit of work done on it. Like it had a little bit of lung left in it.

Starting point is 01:13:20 That dude killed on the harmonica, bro. He was so good. Yeah, he was so good. But wow, to say that I had that in Zach Brown's knife. Yeah, that's cool, man. Yeah, I guess I can use it in the yard. I just got a couple of bird houses. So I'm sure that nature is gonna be flaring up

Starting point is 01:13:35 back there a little bit more. What do you consider success now? Like what's the kind of your view of success? You've gotten to have a lot of like commercial success, you know, like what do you think about success? My first main thing is my family man my kids, you know, just just showing up and being there for them I get them half the time and I'm a waspin so I live ten minutes away from from from their mom and we just rock co-parenting together and

Starting point is 01:14:04 But when I have my kids, man, and it's a great thing, it's just like humbling and whatever, because I'm basically like the house bitch when I'm home, man. I'm there to help like take them to school and, you know, pick them up and hang with them. And I just, that's my first priority is making sure that the time I have with them is like the greatest

Starting point is 01:14:20 that it can be. So that's half my life. And the other half is like, I tour, I adventure, I spearfish, you know, I bow hunt. I do things that really fulfill me, but it's really about just being out in the wild. Cause that's what refills my cup, man. That's what makes me feel like if I'm doing something

Starting point is 01:14:41 that's so engaging with me, that I have to, there's no other chatter, you know, I don't have any noise that's happening or whatever. So success for me means like obviously being there for my kids and then trying to be creative, trying to still write good songs, trying to take care of myself, take care of my body. Like I wanna be able to do that stuff when I'm super old,

Starting point is 01:14:58 you know, investing in it, like being a little uncomfortable every day will save you from being uncomfortable and miserable your whole life from being all bound up and and not feeling good. So yeah, I guess today I didn't want to go out I didn't want to yeah But that's that's what that's what it takes man But but you know how you feel and you kind of get momentum in those areas where you feel good So anything that I can do I work with an amazing like regenerative medicine doctor and

Starting point is 01:15:24 He's got me on a good like peptide regimen. I take N, I work with an amazing like regenerative medicine doctor. Um, and he he's got me on a good like peptide regimen. I take NAD. I take, um, I do IV every month with exosomes in it, which is like, were you telling me about this? I think so. Yeah. Were you telling me about exosomes? Stem cells create exosomes when they're like, go to an area to heal things,

Starting point is 01:15:43 but they have, oh, it helped your shoulder. Are youell me that Yeah, completely healed my shoulders up Getting some stem cells and getting things like that like, you know, there's a lot of controversy around stuff like that for people But you know, you can't argue with results, you know, and you find people that you can trust and they're like, hey I think you should try this. So yeah Exosomes are extracellular vesicles generated by all cells and they carry nucleic acids proteins lipids and metabolites they are mediators of near and long distance intercellular

Starting point is 01:16:15 communication in health and disease and affect various aspects of cell biology so i don't know what that means keeping your cells really healthy and um dude, I've noticed for my voice, like once a month I get an IV, they draw blood, they do testing on me and stuff, and then they give me about six vials of those little exosomes, man. And dude, that thing, it's like. And what can you, you can't put them

Starting point is 01:16:35 in like a vape pen or something, can you? You can put them in a nebulizer, actually, and you can inhale them in a nebulizer formed that way for your voice. But you can, getting them getting them this way has made my voice stronger man. So I just want to be able when I'm like 80 years old dude, I don't want to look like I'm 80 man. I want to feel good. I want to be able to run up and down mountains. I want to be able to pole vault, you know, just the things that are, you know,

Starting point is 01:17:01 that normal 80 year old people can't do. Yeah, I love that, man. Now that's a good definition of success. You know, being able to spend time with your kids, being able to, um, still be active and do the things that you want to do, you know, I think that's a, it seems like a really good definition to me. Um, Oh, tell me about this. So one thing I'm thinking, why do you sometimes bands do covers and sometimes they don't, some of this may seem like novice level questions to you, but I just am curious about that.

Starting point is 01:17:29 Cause sometimes audience members are like, do a couple more, you know? But then sometimes they're like, oh, that's too many. Yeah, yeah. I don't know, man. I love other people's music so much that when we get to like reinterpret it and do it our way, like I love every show that we play,

Starting point is 01:17:43 we're gonna play three or four cover songs, at least, because it's kind of like tipping the hat to people that you really love and does something. And also you can read the crowd, man. When you start playing, you start a good cover and they know it's coming and they start going crazy. I love that, but I love trying to do it in a different way, trying to figure out some way to make it special,

Starting point is 01:18:03 make it your own. And I think that comes from me just being a music fan. It's like, you know, I got three hours to keep these people engaged. Like what can I do mixed in with our songs that are gonna make it like the best night possible, you know? And so every time we come to a city,

Starting point is 01:18:17 we have new covers that we worked up to do. So we don't get the same show twice. You know, it's competitive, man. It's like if people are gonna buy our ticket and the next time they come buy our ticket again You can't be half drunk on stage. You can't be you know, no slurring and whatever It's just a waste. It's like you don't respect those people enough to give them everything you got So for us, it's like we're like athletes like we go after it like We're gonna be ready, bro

Starting point is 01:18:42 We're gonna come back and we're gonna give them every inch, you know even if it's two yeah that's all you got man hey that's a lot in some regions you know fruit by the foot um do you have to ask another band before you play their cover or not no once the song's released you can cover record it, you can do whatever you want with it. But sometimes we'll get hit by those people, they're like, I heard this cover. Like James Taylor sent me a text and was like, we did Sweet Baby James and he sent me like a text and was like, great job on Sweet Baby James.

Starting point is 01:19:21 But he talks in license plate things. So he'll text you like nine letters, and if you read them, it sounds like a sentence. So he texts me like that. And it's like, it takes me a while to figure out what he's saying, you know, because he talks in license plate letters sometimes. Oh, he does?

Starting point is 01:19:37 Yeah. And just like acronyms or something? Yeah, pretty much, but it's, you know, it's like B-S-U-R, it's, it's like B as you are, you know, B B as you are, or you are in, in ML, like you're an animal. Oh, wow. Like those kinds of things. And it's kind of a thing he does.

Starting point is 01:19:54 And then he told me that he has a song, he has a song called B as you are. And literally the whole sentence of the chorus is all a license plate thing. Wow. So they just had, did you see that song that um, what's that guy's name? Korean dictator Ho Chung? Oh, Kim Jong. Kim Jong-un released this song, Friendly Father. It's really him? About him, oh he's a great and friendly leader, yep. Exactly like Naomi Park talked about, bro. Everybody's happy and having a good time.

Starting point is 01:20:37 If they didn't throw those flowers up in the air right, they were definitely going to cut all their legs off. You kind of wonder. Show a little bit more of the video first rather. It's really, it seems like I want to say this from the video, it seemed like they're having a great time. There's alligators underneath there all around. Look at my lady. Let me, I'm going to read some of the lyrics. There are, there's one awesome part where he hugs a couple of children. Hold on. She can get to that. And it's just so crazy.

Starting point is 01:21:05 I'm making, I don't know firsthand. I'm just by what I've heard. Yeah. It's, you know what I mean? I don't know. So I don't want to be getting hit up by it. Look, I think it's safe to say the guy's kind of a risky landlord. Okay.

Starting point is 01:21:19 I would say, I think that's safe to say, um, go. Yeah. There's a part, no, it's, yeah, there it is, right there. Just a lot of it, there's him with a lot of children. And the song is called- Was she breastfeeding right there? He could have been.

Starting point is 01:21:32 The song is called Friendly Father. He definitely has a bit of a her, him. He definitely has a bit of a her, they vibe, I feel like. He goes, let's sing about Kim Jong-un. These are the lyrics. Our great leader, let's boast about Kim Jong-un. These are the lyrics, our great leader, let's boast about Kim Jong-un, our friendly father, warmhearted like your mother, benevolent like your father.

Starting point is 01:21:51 He is holding his 10 million children in his arms. Is he holding 10 million children in his arms or he's holding 10 million children's arms? Oh, that was a good question. Wow, that's so kooky. Could you imagine being in a place where you just have to, it's almost like Disney world probably, but you know, where you're just like, as soon as that scene's over, you gotta go back to real life, man. You gotta go back to what it's really like. I want to go. I want him to come on the podcast so bad. Um, he's probably one of the top, uh, guests. I would love to hear that. It'd be wonderful. You know, I would love to see, cause he could be doing a great job.

Starting point is 01:22:28 It's like, we don't know a lot of what we see is Intel. A lot of what we see is bad AI. This reminds me of the naked gun. It's like, I remember that. Naked gun was so good. Remember how good naked gun was. It's funny when you go back and watch those things and you remember it's not exactly as you remember it now But still they're horrible now a lot of them are um you talked about fitness, man

Starting point is 01:22:56 Yeah, you when I look at even just pictures are there from when you had your um first band Ferran What was it called far from Einstein far Einstein. To now you have a different, your fitness is more fitness now. I mean that's really just in the last probably five or six years, man. Just really trying to dial myself in, man. I'm trying to be, after I went through my divorce was like the darkest, craziest time ever for me.

Starting point is 01:23:19 Was it really? Just because. Did you want to get divorced or not? I did. Sorry if it's an uncomfortable question. No, I answer it. I did, but it was one of those things I didn't, I didn't want to. It's one of those weird things as a man where you feel like you can't leave and

Starting point is 01:23:37 you can't stay and you can't because of pressure and things that you put on yourself, like the kids that know what it means, you know what I mean? Like they don't know what kids don't know what it means. You know what I mean? Like they don't know what it means. The kids don't know what it means that you're getting a divorce, whatever it is. Yeah. It's horrible. Yeah. That part.

Starting point is 01:23:53 And so knowing that it's leaving the wake of those types of things, but knowing whatever, but I had a couple of friends of mine that had taken their own lives and it made me realize like that ain't ever going to be me, man. I got caught in that space and not knowing what to do. Well, yeah. And whatever was eating at them that they couldn't face it enough to like get out of the situation, regardless of whatever judgment it may cause, regardless of whatever it is, man. So for me, that was like a sign that I saw of like, okay, I gotta get,

Starting point is 01:24:21 I gotta get out of this or whatever. But the place that it put me in and even my own choices through the last few years of it, like before that happened and things like that, like just darkness and coming out of it and feeling like, you know, I can't be like this anymore. And it was weird, cause I'm not one of those people that goes and like gets my cards read and shit like that. But I ended up getting my cards read at some lady in LA,

Starting point is 01:24:44 like some older lady who read my cards and was like, show me a picture. And it was like, is a card that had like a nice house and a lawn and like kids running around. It's like, this is what your life looks like from the outside to other people. But that's really not what it is. And if you don't get out of this,

Starting point is 01:25:02 you're gonna get a serious physical illness and you're gonna die. So if you don't get out of this You're gonna get a serious physical illness and you're gonna die So if you don't and I felt that because I'd carried around all this weight and guilt and shame and shit like it felt like someone was squeezing my heart like a hand was around it like physically felt like It was clamped down on and I could I could feel that and I was just so I came out of that and just like whatever Whatever it takes to get to the other side of this river that I'm in right now that's just beating my ass right now,

Starting point is 01:25:30 I gotta keep swimming, I gotta get to the other side of it. And then I gotta figure out what's going on with me. Like what do I need to do to be there solid for my kids and to be there for their mom and like to provide and to be able to do those things. Like what can I do to try to get myself on track where I feel like find myself again because I think in the middle of it in the middle of the codependency around all of it I lost who I was around all of the stress that was around that and all the businesses and all the other shit it was

Starting point is 01:26:01 literally like just taking fire from all sides. So coming out of that, I can't even just, I can't even, it sounds like a lot. It's, it's hard, man. And it takes a, you know, it takes a lot of grace, but you find out who in your circle, like is really there for you and who really wasn't there, but was around. And then, but coming out of that, man, I was like, I want to, I, you know, I quit drinking the year before I actually got divorced just to, just to be clear, you know, I wanted to be clear and know exactly what was going on and see the thing.

Starting point is 01:26:33 So that was, you know, six and a half years ago, and I had to get clear and I had to see the pattern and see what was going on. And I realized that it wasn't going to work. And like, you the only way out of this is through it. So just go through it and do it. Was it hard to go through it? Is it hard to go through something like that with grace? Like how do you do it in best honor your partner, like your spouse and stuff in it? Cause it sounds like that was something you took into consideration.

Starting point is 01:26:56 Yeah, you have to, I just had to ask her, you know, what do you want? What do you, what, you know, obviously other than us not, you know, getting along, like, you know, what, what do you need? And just what she asked for, I gave her and just did my best to try to do that. But obviously, other than us not getting along, what do you need and just what she asked for, I gave her and just did my best to try to do that. And it's taken time to heal the relationship and things. And she's an amazing lady, and I'm blessed to have her as the person

Starting point is 01:27:16 that helps raise our kids and to have that, like a solid human to be there to help me to do that. And I'm grateful, I know, I'm grateful. I mean, I'm grateful for everything. Like in the rear view, everything hard that's happened has like served us somehow. It's just really hard to see it at the time. But I came out of that phase of my life, like wanting,

Starting point is 01:27:35 okay, what can I do to make myself be better, feel better? I did like three years of plant medicine journeys. I did, you know, lots of therapy. Anything that I could do to try to just like shed these feelings, you know, shed this like weight that I carried around and like reprogram my belief system, reprogram myself so that I could be present and so I could be, I could find my love for myself and for my creativity and for these things again. So where has been the last six years? Wow. Where, um, yeah.

Starting point is 01:28:08 Where did you go try plant medicine at? Did you go to other country? I did. Um, I've done it in different places. Um, I, I. What's something you learned from it? That might be a better question. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:28:22 Cause I've done it a few times and I've learned some pretty cool stuff or things that I have been helpful for me. I hired a life coach and I worked with her for six months, like intensively and you know, she incorporated the plant medicine into our program. So because I'd had some experience with those things before, it wasn't just a normal thing. We started off the six months, like day two of doing it with a psilocybin journey.

Starting point is 01:28:48 And it was the most transformative of anything that I've ever done. And it was like a hero's dose, like seven grams. Oh yeah, like good stuff that came. All aboard, huh? And like an hour into that, I was like seated in a chair and I had to revisit lots of things and I had to breathe my way through a lot of things.

Starting point is 01:29:08 Cause there's like subconsciously there's things. What was the most amazing to me is the intelligence that exists that the psilocybin has finding our trauma. Cause it found it bro. It found it and like subconsciously working through, pulling that stuff out. Like there's moments where it sucks and you gotta breathe through it and you gotta take and stay in gratitude.

Starting point is 01:29:30 Like if you're in a mental space where you're ready to accept whatever it shows you, like good, bad, or ugly, whatever it is, and just stay in gratitude, even for like the painful parts of it, then you can stay in gratitude. If you're mentally in a place to do it, I think it's the most transformative thing that I've ever done.

Starting point is 01:29:46 I had, after that journey, it was like five hours long, and I came out of that with more gratitude than I could hold in my face, dude. Like tears rolling out of my face, and I had visited like my children being born again, and I had seen, but I had that bowling ball that I carried around in my chest and in my gut after that five hours, that whole like 40 pound ball of shit was gone.

Starting point is 01:30:08 Really? It was gone and it hasn't been there since then. And I got to do something. It was, it was the most transformative out of everything that I've done. I've, I've, I've done cambo as well. Oh, have you? That you see the toad as well. And that's like 20, not smoking it, but like they burn you with the vine that comes from the area. And then they put your, you mix your saliva with the venom and put it on.

Starting point is 01:30:31 And it makes, as soon as they put that on, bro, your hands feel like they're vibrating, like the fastest you've ever felt anything in your life. Like the minute it touches, it's like, and then that's only last like 20 minutes. So you can like breathe through the uncomfortable part of that, but that's like a spiritual and, you know, physical detox as well. Yeah, booby. And then I went to Peru and I did a ayahuasca journey in Peru for 10 days, a dieta.

Starting point is 01:30:58 God, 10 days, man. So every second day you would take the medicine and you're out in the jungle and being connected. And who was out there with you? I took one of my boys, Jake, one of my best friends. You met him the other day, he was on the plane. Oh yeah. Jake Nodar.

Starting point is 01:31:12 I didn't meet him, I gotta set him up with Chelsea, with Chelsea Lynn about doing some cool content together. Yeah, dude, Jake's one of the funniest, amazing dudes that I know. He's just one of my favorite people. But he went with me, but you're isolated, so they put you in these tambos so you're by this river like big muddy river and you dude

Starting point is 01:31:28 you're in the jungle. Yeah it doesn't sound like there's like a Hampton it's not a Hampton Inn or anything. No you take you take a big boat up to you know a thing your car goes on a ferry across the river over a thing and then you get in a boat like a panga a long one where you're all lined up like 13 of you in a row with like your bag and you go down and then you get to this creek and you turn it off the big river and you go way up there and then there's like this hut with a kitchen set up in it or whatever and that's where the plants grow. That's where they come from. And how many people are out there on that trip?

Starting point is 01:31:59 There were 16 people. And is it kind of a pretty social group or is it a lot of people that are like, I need some help. I'm out here. No, they were pretty social and we were the only people that had never done it before because I didn't know this, but to do the dietsa, which is like the five, yeah, yeah, you got to have the thing or whatever. They were like, well, how many times have you done it? And I was like, I've never done it. They're like, you chose this to come as your first thing, but I was, I was open, man. I was in a place where I was just like

Starting point is 01:32:26 Anything that's gonna help me heal help me be better. Like let's let's let's face it, bro. Let's jump in and Living in this thing. So you basically have a little hut It's about as big as this part of this roof right here And then there's a hammock and then there's a bed with a little mosquito net and a little desk like a one chair and a desk Oh my gosh, who's the desk for? Anybody or it's just a- No, it's just, that's your spot. Okay, you just sit in a little chair.

Starting point is 01:32:48 And about every like 300 yards down the river, there's another one. And so you have your own place. And so for 48 hours, you're just sitting in this thing, chilling. I mean, you can get out and walk around the jungle or- Can you go talk to a neighbor or you stay by yourself? You don't talk to anyone until you gather every other day

Starting point is 01:33:05 for the ceremonies at night. So you're basically, and these people, I'll be like walking by, there's dudes in like full linen shirts and pants or whatever, meditating for like eight hours a day, just sitting there, just like breathing it up or whatever. And I'm like, thank God I brought a guitar because there's no phones.

Starting point is 01:33:23 You can't use toothpaste, you can't use deodorant, you can't put any chemicals on your body, you can't eat any salt or sugar, you eat just what they give you. They give you a tea to drink, and you drink this tea, it kind of makes you sleepy, which was great, because I would just nap the day away. And then I'd nap the first day like super hard,

Starting point is 01:33:40 and the second day I was like, probably the most well rested I've been in a long time. So then I couldn't really nap anymore. And then I was like trying to like figure out what the deal is. Because I brought like some Laura bars, some stuff to like snack on, you know what I mean? And I was like, there's no way I'm going to be starving. But the lady told me on the way there, because you take like a three hour cab ride like in a bus to get there. I'd bring some pistachios, I bet.

Starting point is 01:34:00 But you can't eat. You can't eat anything except what they give you. So she was like, do not break the contract like you're entering a contract that that's what I call it the diet because You only consume the things that are from there and like so they give you a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast Nothing, but just water and oats with like a bowl potato stuck in it and that's your breakfast And they bring your tea and then and what's in the potato anything or is it empty? No, no It's just empty. No salt no sugar. You're drinking drinking this tea they make you they bring you like a little thing of tea it's really red I would drink all of that foods right here to avoid before

Starting point is 01:34:33 ayahuasca and usually before ayahuasca it's called the dieta please abstain from the following foods and activities two weeks it says pork sexual activities that's a not a food They snuck it in there. Um, alcohol, marijuana, uh, all street drugs, uh, spicy foods and ice cream. That's ice or ice too. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:34:58 So you basically go on and just like getting rid of everything extra in your body, refined sugar. Sorry, Zach, just a red meat junk food of any kind, salt and pepper. So you can't even listen to push it. That song, um, oils, animal fats, carbonated and fermented drinks, dairy products, fermented foods, caffeine and other simulants. Oh my God, dude, what the hell? You can have like breast milk.

Starting point is 01:35:26 You can have water basically, yeah. So you're out there and you brought your guitar. Now is your guitar bothering the neighbors? Do you get any noise? You're not close enough to hear anyone. You're far enough away and you're basically isolated. And the more that you- Do you write stuff down?

Starting point is 01:35:39 Yeah, I had a journal. Thank God. Had a journal. Isn't it crazy how a journal becomes your friend? I remember when I was on Iowa's, I reminded myself how much I even used to. Thank God. I had a journal. Isn't it crazy how a journal becomes your friend? I remember when I was on Iowa's, I reminded myself how much I even used to like to write. Oh, I forgot I used to love to write. You just don't do it that much anymore.

Starting point is 01:35:52 You know, and it's like, man, I just really loved it. So you were out there for that long. Yeah, so here's what happened. So the first couple of ceremonies were like positive ones. The third ceremony, it was the hard one, like the death of ego one where you're just like, you know, and I didn't know you're supposed to interact with this being or this thing that you're experiencing when you're in there. And the people didn't tell me that so after that night, because I was like, it just beat my ass the whole thing. But something weird that happened, my dad appeared in one of my visions I was having

Starting point is 01:36:27 and I went to put my hand on his shoulder and he vanished and I had this weird feeling like something was wrong. So we get through the ceremony that night, it was a tough one. I spend the night, I get up first thing in the morning and I'm thinking something's wrong with my dad. So I hike out in the river, which is muddy and you know, I've been getting a bucket. They give you leaves that smell a little bit like

Starting point is 01:36:49 garlic that you put in a bucket. So you take the bucket and get some water. No, but you use them as like soap. Okay. You scrunch them up and then you smell like body odor and garlic at the same time. I remember one night I was doing the ceremony and I had a tank top on, bad idea. And I remember putting my arms over my head and just smelling that garlic shit and my body odor too Cuz you didn't wear deodorant. You know, I don't forget about it. I've been at the gym. You know, it's awful. Yeah But in that, you know that river so I went out in that river and I brought my sat phone with me Which I always have whenever I'm out in the woods or wild or whatever in case you get stranded somewhere so go out in the river and I call my daughter

Starting point is 01:37:26 and she picked up and she said, the first thing she said to me was, did you hear about Papa? And my dad had just been put in the hospital. But what's weird is the medicine told me that that night. So I ended up having to like call my pilots and get them to relocate. So I didn't make it for the last two ceremonies,

Starting point is 01:37:45 but I made it like seven days into the journey. But it was good that I made it to my dad because he needed to eat some good stuff and needed to like get back. They had botched a catheter going in. So he'd had like blood clots that kept him from going to the bathroom and like little mountain hospitals, bro, you know,

Starting point is 01:38:02 where they put like, you know, hog mauls on stuff when they get hurt. Oh, in Georgia? Yeah. Oh yeah. It can get really rural. A lot of people just rub some cracklins on that. Yeah. People think whispering behind your back, just some curia of something, you know, like this. Yeah. People think gossip helps cancer or whatever. Cause you'll see people out there with signs gossip for cancer and you're like, that ain't going to save nobody in this small town. That's a dang lie, dude, bro. That, but the power of that kind of stuff of being under that medicine and the

Starting point is 01:38:32 things you hear and learn in the moment you have, it shows you a connection in the universe that's almost, it's unbelievable. I mean, just to that the universe knows what's going on too much, dude, even to go back to cicadas. So cicadas, right? They get born, uh, the parents meet the, the sound you hear is the males, right? The whatever the like, you know, is a males and they're trying to get S C X. I won't say it, but, and then they get with the ladies,

Starting point is 01:39:08 then they, the eggs, the lady has them and puts them in a tree, makes a little slit in trees, puts them in there. Then after a certain number of weeks, they fall out of the tree into the ground. They turn into nymphs or something, I think it's called, or lymphs. You find that for me? Oh, turn into nymphs. They fall think it's called or lymphs. You find that for me?

Starting point is 01:39:26 Oh, turn into nymphs. They fall to the ground and go into the soil and they stay in the soil for 13 or 17 years. And then after that amount of years, when the, when spring comes and it hits 64 degrees, they bloom and come out. That's why all their buddies that eat a lot of dirt when they're little, bro, they could be eating this cicadas and they're just making a village in there somewhere

Starting point is 01:39:51 where you don't even know what's going on. Oh, definitely. I mean, I think you definitely want to get their, you know, I would probably get their BMs tested, you know, to be honest, I would test their bowels. But just unbelievable. But just to think the things that, like that's what I learned from Ayahuasca was, wow, there's some connection going on that is beyond.

Starting point is 01:40:12 I think it's because we're so void of it. Same thing as the 72 degrees thing. Like we're made to be interacting with the earth. We're made to be digging up stuff out of the dirt and pulling things out of the ground and getting scratched up and being out in the wild. And because we're so void of that, we lose our connection to nature and those things. Like I resonate a lot with like Native American theology around, you know, like

Starting point is 01:40:35 nature being what they called God or whatever. Like I, that's where I find church for me is out in the wild. Because seeing the sunrises and sunsets and a hard rain or a storm or in the ocean, like those things for me. Um, and we're so void of nature, everything around, I mean, it's like, we have things that look like nature, but it's really not, but we're not interacting with the earth and we're not having to adapt to the environment and figure out things and because of that void, then we're, we're left and we're not having to adapt to the environment and figure out things and because of that void then we're we're left we're left without that connection right we don't have a connection but I believe the

Starting point is 01:41:12 Native Americans had that connection because that's where they were living and that's where they got their food they there I have some friends that are native that do sweat lodges it's guy, Tom Blue Wolf's incredible. If you've ever done a sweat lodge, dude, you should go to Georgia, do a sweat lodge with him. It's unbelievable. You've done it before? Unbelievable, I've done it several times.

Starting point is 01:41:32 Uh-uh. Yes, he is amazing. But the way he sees the world and talks about it and whatever, he's like, if you're living a good life, then the food shows up, deer will show up. Things will happen where life provides for you if you're living a good life. Wow.

Starting point is 01:41:47 That's him. But that's his sweat lodge right there. That's in Talking Rock, Georgia. That's not far from where I grew up. But it's not like there's no hallucinogenics or anything like that. But you're just going in this hut and sitting on the floor and they're bringing in these rocks that they heat up. They only heat them, use them one time and they bring them in like they have a huge fire out front and a guy's

Starting point is 01:42:09 you know tending the fire. They have a fire keeper and these huge river rocks they heat them up and these things are like glowing orange right and before you go in you sit and you make your intentions and they they give you little pouches little things of tobacco and little pieces of fabric and you you write you put your intentions in there because the natives believe that tobacco is where your memories are whole. Like the great spirit remembers whatever was put into tobacco.

Starting point is 01:42:34 So like if someone dies, they take tobacco and they float it out into the river and remembrance of that person or whatever. But that was the plant for them that they smoked as a ceremonial thing for memories. So you put your intentions in there, put your intentions in, and you take your intentions into the thing with you

Starting point is 01:42:53 and you sit there, you're like on a cold, sandy ground, and they bring them, they call the rocks grandfathers. So they take a shovel and they lift this thing out and it's dark in there, and they bring it in and set it in, and he takes Palo Santo and like sprinkles it on there. And it looks like a constellation, like almost inside there and the smell of it.

Starting point is 01:43:11 And then he has sweet grass. He brushes it with that and smells it. And so you say welcome grandfather when they bring the stone in. It's like your ancestors basically coming in. And so they get a pile of grandfathers and then he closes the thing and he's got a drum and he starts chanting and then he'll take water and pour it on there. It's just like being in a sauna. Yeah. So

Starting point is 01:43:29 you're in there and it gets it gets hot. I love those. And then he opens it again and then he brings in more grandfathers. So by the end by like round four or five bro there's a lot of grandfathers in there. And it's like it's it's so hot that some people have to like lay down close to the ground. It's like a VFW, yeah. You're like, whoa. But if you sit there and through the ceremony, as it gets hotter and hotter and hotter, you'll start seeing things. You'll start seeing visions and seeing shapes and seeing things like that.

Starting point is 01:43:58 And you purge, you're just sweating, man, sweating everything out. But he's leading you. You know, that was this thing I would say about plant medicine. Like, if you have somebody that's intentionally guiding you, taking you on the journey and they know what they're doing, you're going to have an amazing experience. So it's not just, you know, let's go see fish and eat a sack full of mushrooms.

Starting point is 01:44:16 Like there's nothing, I mean, nothing wrong with that if people want to do it, but it's a different intention, right? 100%. I've had two experiences. I've had one where a guy was a good shaman and led us. I've had another one where a guy played like Ed Sheeran for three hours, you know? And it was like, still fun, little different, you know?

Starting point is 01:44:36 I've had one where they made like a real altar in the middle with all these different deities and candles and everything. I've had, I've been to one where they just lit one candle in the middle of this dark room. And at first you're like, that's never going to light this room. But by like the second day you're like, it's like all the lights you need. Like you slowly adapt to how much light you have and you're just like, oh, that's everything we have is right there, you know? But yeah, so definitely the ambiance and if you have a shaman like leading you, it can be.

Starting point is 01:45:10 And the sound, the life coach is like managing the sound and playing music and playing different like drums or things that help to do that. So if there's intention behind it and you're doing it for healing, but I would say out of the things that I have done, the guided psilocybin journey for me was unbelievable, dude. I can't explain how much that helped me

Starting point is 01:45:31 to let go of things, but they have an intelligence. They're gonna go in and find it. I was kind of felt a little more like chaotic almost, like I'm trying to figure out what it's trying to, and it showed me some things that were very, like it showed me that at one point I was like hugging myself and I was hugging myself and I was like, and I didn't realize

Starting point is 01:45:48 that I'm separate from my mind, right? My mind and my spirit is a separate thing than my body, right? Our body is our own company. But I never thought about it that way because I'm like, I'm by myself. But then I never really relied on just being alone is okay because you have yourself, you have your body. You can actually,

Starting point is 01:46:06 you know, like I hugged myself and I was like, it felt like I was holding another person and I was like, wait a minute, I am my own person. Like, I know that sounds weird, but it's like, it's, it's, I know what you're talking about. It's like realizing that you have yourself. Yes. Cause you're so, I'm so cerebral, always thinking about stuff. I don't think like my body's something different than that. It's just kind of waiting on me to tell it what to do, you know? No, it's powerful, man. That's a really, I'm really glad you said that. It's just such an important thing to, yeah, to realize. Yeah, because sometimes I'm thinking like, I got to do this, I got to do that. I need somebody else. I need some help. I forget that I am, I can be there for myself.

Starting point is 01:46:46 I have myself. Yes. You know, to have a really strong moment like that is pretty powerful. But that's interesting that it's a little more chaotic, that mushrooms would be a better, that a, that a psilocybin journey. The mushrooms showed me everything hard,

Starting point is 01:46:59 every weird betrayal, every beautiful thing, every, it started with the hard things and you just gotta be, if you're ready, like if you're open and you're ready, I think it can be the hard things and you just gotta be, if you're ready, like if you're open and you're ready, I think it can be the most transformative thing that you've ever done. Because we sock away shit all the time. We just stuff stuff under the rug, man.

Starting point is 01:47:14 You know, the kid that stole the baby Ruth from me, you know, or pushed you off your bike, you know what I mean? You don't even think about that until you get put back on, you know, I don't know. That to me was the most transformative of everything that I did. So somebody was going to do it for whatever it matters for what I think. I think that's the, that's the one to start with and have someone that's really great

Starting point is 01:47:37 and make sure they know where they're getting it from and what's happening and having a guide to do it. Because since I've been better for myself and for my family and for everyone since I did it and so I don't, I don't care what other people really think about the idea of doing it as much as I do a result. If somebody's doing something and you get a good result from it and it helps. I'm in. I'm in. Yeah. Amen to that, man.

Starting point is 01:48:01 Um, what's your fitness regimen like? You got a good regimen? Cause you, now you, you see guys, it's like do 40, like, uh, Walrus tusks or whatever do seven, like salami bridges or whatever. Do two X wives. I saw somebody just wrote that. Some guy wrote that on the board. It's like, that's just personal information there, dude. You're just writing stuff in there, you know, do 50, um, you know,

Starting point is 01:48:24 it was like, do 50 like a ball, um,, you know, do 50, um, you know, it was like, do 50, like, uh, ball, um, but, you know, bareback ball warriors or whatever. It's like, they're always the great, like, what are we fucking doing? Man, I- Like, is anybody in shape? Is everybody, am I a Harlem Globetrotter now? Like, what are we now? My trainer that I've got now is all about taking care of your joint mobility, stretching, making all the little muscles strong so that you have your stability so you don't get hurt doing other things. So I'd say 80% of my workouts is stretching, foam rolling, posture balls, lacrosse balls, TRX bands, like stretching with them, not even like working out on them. Really?

Starting point is 01:49:11 And he started with that for me. I'm only like close to four months in with him. And his wife is a gold medal Olympic swimmer, and she's a nutritionist. So she tells him what to eat, he tells him what to do, and he sends me a sushi menu, but he was with the NFL for 18 years. And I'm actually working on a project.

Starting point is 01:49:29 I'm gonna do, I did a cookbook a long time ago that was just about soul food, because I love to cook and stuff like that. But I'm working with them on creating a new book that's basically on just how to be well, how to feel good, how to be able to move good, how to do those things. So his name's Luke Richardson and he was NFL strength coach for 18 years,

Starting point is 01:49:50 like was with the Broncos when they went to, um, you know, won a super bowl with Peyton Manning. He was the one in charge of their strength and flexibility and all the things through these times, but he's gotten to work with the best. Luke is his name? Luke, the best physical therapist in the NFL for 20 years. He's worked with him. So he knows what to do.

Starting point is 01:50:08 But it's like, when you finally, it's just like the same thing with my life coach. Like she took me on the guided psilocybin journey, transformational, same thing with him. He's taken me on what he learned through all of that to help me to get my body feeling good and where, you know, I'm looking the way that I wanna look and I'm getting myself healthy in my range of motion

Starting point is 01:50:29 because gravity will whip our ass as we get old. And people's diets, man, people make themselves sick with diets, I mean, type two diabetes is self-inflicted. It's like, it's everywhere. God, I hope it's not around here. I feel bad for people that don't understand. So we're just trying to make like a Cliff Notes version for people of just like,

Starting point is 01:50:48 here's a step toward like getting started and here's like, you can try to make it as simple as we can. But then if you go on our app, like then you'll be able to figure out like, here's the rabbit hole of what it is and why, and all these things that happen. Right, if you really want that deeper dive with information.

Starting point is 01:51:00 Yeah, so you guys can have a cookbook and an app? That's the goal. Oh, that's swaggy bro. Yeah, we just started working on it, but working with them like the last three months, dude, the first month I lost 30 pounds. No. 30 pounds. God. And then my joints feel good. My, my back feels good. You seem so, yeah, you, you're, you're, you seem super present. And a lot of that comes from diet too, man. I mean, even if you didn't do all the stuff I'm doing with Luke to work out, just getting your diet under like the amount of inflammation you carry,

Starting point is 01:51:28 just eating box food and fast food and junk and stuff. But it's not that hard. You just have to follow it and you got to be willing to just like do the work, man. Just, just like don't eat the shit you're not supposed to eat and do it. And then I carry like a snack bag, a bag here of shit that I can't eat. If a case, I can't get something that I'm supposed to eat. So, but it's all the beginning, like where do you begin? Like if you wanna feel better,

Starting point is 01:51:51 where do you begin to start with? So that's what I wanna do in the first book app thing is like. It's a good call, yeah, where do you begin? Especially as we age and we trying to figure out, looking at that second half of our lives and how do we wanna feel? How do we wanna approach it? What do we want to approach it? You know? Yeah. What do we still want to be able to do?

Starting point is 01:52:07 Because if we prepare ourselves now, we don't know what the future will allow for us. Exactly. If we show up with the best scenario, the best, uh, the best of ourselves to the future, we don't know if it meets you halfway. Yeah. Then, then who knows? You know, the possibilities there, you know, are squared practically. So. If you're in pain and you're hungover

Starting point is 01:52:27 and you're whatever it is, man, the way you see life is different. I mean, you know, after being sober, it's like the way that you see the world and you see yourself and all that changes, man. It just changes and I. Well, I have to look at myself. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:52:43 That's the thing. You have to live with yourself. You can, you can't get away from yourself. You gotta be there, you know? I know dude, God, I wish I could just put myself on a dang shelf for a half hour. I would fucking just have a party if I could. Yeah. Um, you said you're going to play the sphere, man. I gotta go to that dude.

Starting point is 01:53:02 Man. It's still one of my favorite shows was, um, you were doing a, uh, I think it was a private event, I guess it was, it was at Jimmy John's summer camp. Um, uh, at Jack pine summer camp at Jack pond lodge over there. And man, that was, and just seeing your whole band show up clay. No, who's a clay clay. Yeah. Just you guys, this whole band and the energy, man, It was like, dude, it was, it was exceptional. It was a fun time. That's what I felt like I had.

Starting point is 01:53:32 And I felt kind of bad because the night before I'd heard that like Vince Neil and Kid Rock had gotten in a fight or something was there that night. Oh yeah, Kid Rock threw a shoe at Travis Tritt. Oh, okay. I don't remember what happened, but I was like, damn, I'll wait. I missed that shit. Which, hold on, I will say was awesome. But not as good as you guys' ensemble performance, dude. Yeah, I think, yeah, Kid Rock was a little more kid than rock, I think, and he fucking just couldn't handle it. He tossed that, yeah, he just, he hummed a loa loafer at him you know and I see people do it all the time he just can't handle anything they just take a loafer off and just yeah

Starting point is 01:54:12 those Weasons will hurt people too man got that hard leather sole on them it was a damn penny yeah those penny loafers though it's like I got an edge on them on this leather thing this thing was a Sry. It was a Sperry I think. It could have been um land. Sebago? Yeah it was something. It was pretty nice I thought but I wouldn't. Do you remember when a kid like when I learned how to tie the little like honeycomb thing on the end of my

Starting point is 01:54:36 like on my Sebago bro? Did you ever wear those? No pull them up please Sebagos brother. So you learned how to tie the knot and it looks like a little honeycomb so you don't have to tie your laces you just had these two like little honeycombs on either side but I remember feeling very accomplished as a kid when I could tie that that knot I could probably still do it if I had to I believe you could do it yeah oh wait I think I do know what you were talking

Starting point is 01:55:00 about dude oh first of all let me me pull up the green, blue, brown one down there. If somebody had that on, dude, they were rich. Looks like my buddy's, yeah, my buddy's beach house. Yeah. Like back in 1984, some shit. That dude was rich, bro. If he had them, bro. Look at the salmon ones, bro.

Starting point is 01:55:20 Salmon and gray, what is that? Yeah, that dude ain't, yeah, he ain't eating at our house, dude. That guy's a R we're eating at his house, bro. Dude, remember when you got a rich friend, you went over to their house, dude, and their mom was like home or whatever and fucking making something. It wasn't ramen noodles.

Starting point is 01:55:40 What the fuck is going on here? We got to get in. We got to get some help in our area. The Sphere, man, that's crazy. Have you been to a show at The Sphere yet? Yes, I've been to, just saw Fisk there, just saw you two on opening night, saw the movie there, been going. Oh, that's right.

Starting point is 01:55:56 Whenever I talked to you, you had just taken your children to see, they had, or they had, Postcards, yeah. Yeah, you guys had seen, it was a nature film or something. Yeah. It's the movie that they made for the fear, fear to kind of show off what it is and what it does. A lot of, they traveled the whole world with that 16 K camera set up and filmed all over the world. Um, amazing though, but that's the greatest canvas that's ever been created. And it's so far

Starting point is 01:56:18 and it's, and to get to be one of the first bands that goes in there to do it. So this is our masterpiece, man. This is, this is our chance to really show what we can do as a band and to get to be one of the first bands that goes in there to do it. So this is our masterpiece, man. This is our chance to really show what we can do as a band and to get to... Look at that, dude. Zach, that's crazy, bro. You guys are gonna be in there? What if God comes back and picks it up and takes it home, dude, then you win?

Starting point is 01:56:40 That's great. I'll fly away, bro. Look, dude, we'll miss you and congrats. Those are the things I would say to you. That fish show was unbelievable in there. It was cool and then what they did conceptually is cool because they played four hour shows, four of them and they didn't play the same song twice or they didn't use the same content twice. No way, any of that content was the same? But it's different so they use it kind of as a big backdrop for what they were doing and for their shows.

Starting point is 01:57:08 And their fans loved it and did it. I got some glimpses of what was fully possible with the building when U2 was there, because they play the same show pretty much every night. Because you pay to create all this content and make it this thing where they put you into something. But I've got a team put together for this thing, man. And it's gonna be the biggest spectacle we've ever done. And I'm very excited, because this puts us in another league. And the goal is for our band to just keep going, man,

Starting point is 01:57:39 to be like the Rolling Stones or like the Grateful Dead. Or to be like- Like Jimmy Buffett. Yeah, Jimmy Buffett. Like be in that legacy acts thing. So this is really our first thing that I'm putting like a year plus of working and making one show. Wow, it's gonna only be one show?

Starting point is 01:57:53 No, it'll be that show whenever people come. Yeah, cause then if you go see it, then did it change your perspective on what you can even do with the background and everything? That's why I'll see every show. Everyone that's playing there between now and us, I will be there to see it and see what they're doing, what's working, what's, you know, could be better maybe

Starting point is 01:58:09 from my perspective and, you know, it's, but there's never been a venue created like that. When you're watching the sunrise in there and they have a wind generator, you feel the wind on your face and you're watching the sun come up, I mean, you feel like you're outside and you feel like you're in a, you can't tell it's not real.

Starting point is 01:58:25 And that's the first thing that's been created on that scale that's like that. Oh my God, we have to do that in like homeless shelters or whatever, or like make it like- The nice, yeah. Yeah. Make a whole refrigerator box, bro.

Starting point is 01:58:37 Like 400 feet tall. Yeah. You're in the biggest frigidaire box that's ever been made, dude. Yeah. And like fresh half sandwiches. Oh, God, just smell that chicken Caesar sandwich. rigid airbox that's ever been made, dude. Yeah. And like fresh half sandwiches. Oh God, just smell that chicken Caesar salad.

Starting point is 01:58:51 Yeah. I bet some secondhand Caesar would be pretty, you know, I wonder how much soft lettuce they have to eat to stay on bro. And to stay street regular as they call it. You know what I'm saying? I heard if you're homeless, if it rains, then it makes you have to go to the, like do number two or whatever. I don't know why that is, but I think it's,

Starting point is 01:59:12 you just, your body just really becomes like street legal or whatever, but I don't know it. I wonder if you marinate in your own solution long enough, if that like somehow makes you more durable. Oh, that's a great idea. I think. And that is something we got to explore as a community. Okay.

Starting point is 01:59:34 Yeah. We're not, yeah. Well, look, I'll be honest. I urinate on my feet in the shower sometimes because I think it helps them out. Somebody told me that once. Yeah. It's like a little ammonia supply, like a little,

Starting point is 01:59:44 like Windex in your toes. Yeah, dude. It's like a little ammonia supply, like a little, like Windex in your toes. Yeah, dude. It's like, yeah. It's like, if that guy came over to my car on the corner of a street and was like, Hey, let me piss on your feet. I might be like, all right, dude, whatever this guy's got in him is probably been through a lot, going to help me out. You know, that, uh, clear coat. Yeah. Yeah. So my homie Neil, gonna help me out, you know, that clear coat.

Starting point is 02:00:07 Yeah, yeah. So my homie Neil, so Neil Kamamura is a good friend of mine. He's a knife maker on Big Island. But he didn't make this. No, no, that's made in our shop. Okay. But he's a hand maker. I've learned a lot about forging from him.

Starting point is 02:00:20 He's one of my favorite knife makers on the planet, dude. Just awesome dude. Neil what, what's his name? Kamamura. Neil Kamamura. what? What's his name? Let's bring him up. Kamamora. Neil Kamamora. Yeah, he's half Japanese, half Hawaiian and local, but he's incredible.

Starting point is 02:00:32 But before he started making knives, he owned a pumping business, like pumping out grease traps, pumping out, you know, shit like that. So I think his immune system, dude, I'm pretty sure he could eat a turd and be okay because he was, his business was crawling in these grease traps of like old food and stuff,

Starting point is 02:00:51 pumping them out or whatever. Like whatever you subject yourself to, I figure like our physiology like somehow adapts to it and figures out how to like deal with it. But- Oh yeah, this guy definitely, and there's a lot of delicacies over in that area of the world anyway. Dude, he's, he's one of my favorite knife makers and he's

Starting point is 02:01:12 taught me how to forge something. So now when I get done forging a knife, it looks like a knife coming off the anvil and I don't have to just grind it into the shape of a knife, but that's one of my boys, man. Dude, that's cool. I would like to meet that guy. He's my Hawaii family. He's a knife maker. He makes the best, yeah, there's like a three year waiting list to get his knives. Really? Yeah. Wow, Neil.

Starting point is 02:01:31 Kamamura. Kamamura. Unbelievable chef too, man. Him and Flora, that's Flora right there. That's his baby mama. And she's a Brazilian chef. She's made some of the best stuff I've ever eaten in my life.

Starting point is 02:01:46 Amazing, amazing people. Um, but yeah. So you got this here. Do you guys know when this sphere will be? Is it part of a new tour or anything or is how does that work? So 2025, um, that's what we're doing for touring. So 2025 will be the sphere. 2025. Oh, a residency.

Starting point is 02:02:01 Yeah. Yeah. Let's go. Congratulations, man. So I'm, I residency. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Let's go. Congratulations, man. Yeah. So I'm so excited. And I'm just, I just wanted, I want to make something that people would not,

Starting point is 02:02:10 if you don't know me and know like before, like creatively what I'm capable of, but I've never had a place where I can fully utilize all that and pull favors from all of our incredible people that we know and everything and just like pull something together to make something where it's like, you go and see this thing and you leave there and you go, what just happened?

Starting point is 02:02:30 So that's my baby, that's my dream. And it's happening. So now it's like, we just got to grind all the details, like every single thing, getting it right, gonna film a 40 piece orchestra, bringing them in, recording all the parts with them, getting that made and composed by the right person to help to make sure that's amazing.

Starting point is 02:02:51 Film all of that, film the choir, film the things, be able to make it like Vegas too, where you can ask acrobats and dancers and things like that at moments. But the concept and part of what makes something great like in movie or film or score or something like that the concept and you know, part of what makes something great like in movie or film or score or something like that is when something really creates a lot of tension, when something makes you kind of feel like uncomfortable,

Starting point is 02:03:12 like it's like, oh, and then when that releases and it goes into like something that's really beautiful. So the juxtaposition of everything, so that's the goal. It's not just gonna be like this American celebration thing or whatever, it's gonna be making people uncomfortable and then releasing that and having the series of this roller coaster. But it's a really a journey. You're so, yeah, I mean, yeah.

Starting point is 02:03:33 Cause some people, it would seem like you just put a dang eagle flying around for, you know, for two and a half hours if you wanted to, right? If you wanted to in a cobbler, you know, an eagle making a cobbler. Yeah. But yeah. And thank God for it too. I had an Alabama for the first an eagle making a cobbler. Yeah. But- Peach cobbler. Yeah. And thank God for it too. I had it in Alabama for the first time.

Starting point is 02:03:48 Couldn't believe it existed, right? Called my mom from a pay phone, called her a, I won't say it, B-I-T-C-H, for not telling me it existed. Right. I love peach cobbler. That's how much I love it. I just, I hate that they kept it from me for so long. That's the sound of fried chicken with a spicy history. Thornton Prince was a ladies man.

Starting point is 02:04:15 To get revenge, his girlfriend hid spices in his fried chicken. He loved it so much, he opened Prince's Hot Chicken. Hot Chicken in the window. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. But yeah, because you could just do it like that if you wanted to, you know? But yeah, I love the fact that you're a really creative guy, dude, it's inspiring.

Starting point is 02:04:48 Sometimes I forget I get caught in business sometimes and forget about the creativity. Yeah, I'm blessed, man. I'm blessed, I'm just like a student of the world, man. I learned stuff by talking with you last time we hung out and got to sit and talk about it. And you're telling me about things that you're doing and what you're doing.

Starting point is 02:05:06 I think it's the key is just staying curious, man, and learning from anyone that you can. Never feeling like you know everything because it's not about that. It's about learning from each other, learning from each other's mistakes. You know what I mean? I don't want to do meth for 10 days straight

Starting point is 02:05:21 and stay up for a couple months like you did that time. I don't want to do that. I want to sleep, bro. You know what I mean? Yeah. I want you to get a good night's rest, buddy. You have your family, you have your music, you have your creativity coming through, you have knife making, I know you guys have a wine company, and what about, what else keeps you busy? Like what is there a part, what else is something that you're really passionate about? Well, one of the things, you know, I wouldn't say I'm a religious person. I started off that way and everything, but I'm definitely a spiritual person. And I think, I think I was given my music for a greater purpose spiritual person. And I think I was given my music

Starting point is 02:06:05 for a greater purpose other than myself. I think I was given my music as a gift to be able to pull people together to do things. And so the greatest thing that I've done or been a part of helping to come together is Camp Southern Ground, the place that we built. And it's kind of like a university, pull up a picture of it.

Starting point is 02:06:28 Thank you for telling him to do that too. I always have to be the one to tell the guy. So when you tell people it's a camp, it's not what you would expect, right? So if you go to- We look at a 4.8 on Google reviews. If you go to images. That's great, I've never even seen a 4.8. So

Starting point is 02:06:45 everything every so first of all what I feel like I as like the founder of this place what I feel like I could do is to build a place and build the structures and everything where it's gonna be there for like hundreds of years. So like the buildings are wrapped in a zinc envelope so that they don't naturally degrade. It's they're gonna be there. That's the lodge, the third picture there. And so I spent four years working with a firm to create and design everything. And then now we're about 50% of the way

Starting point is 02:07:15 through building the place. And it's really just a really super sturdy, amazing place to host things and do things. So one of the things we do, we have nine weeks of summer camp. It is an integration camp. So kids that are on the spectrum are in with mainstream kids. Yeah, just like the one I went to.

Starting point is 02:07:33 So Bar went from that. And so nine weeks of that. And then we do 34 weeks of veteran programs through the year. We just started our veteran family camps, which is six weeks of putting a veteran with their family as a unit and helping them to see each other as a unit. So when they get fractured,

Starting point is 02:07:50 sacrificing everything that they've learned how to do and like been specialized in one thing, and then they're just like, oh, I don't need you anymore. And then they got to go back to a normal, sitting in a chair somewhere and a, and whatever it's like, figuring out how to help them transition back home from that and having programs that help them

Starting point is 02:08:09 and help with PTSD to help with things. We run the Warrior Path program, which is Bernie Marcus's thing, one of the founders of Home Depot. So we were like the first or second campus that was chosen to do this. But my- But you've built all these buildings and stuff here.

Starting point is 02:08:26 Yeah. So it's more like a university-style campus. But what we do there is we help people to learn how to treat each other, how to love each other, things that matter, help them to dream, help them to believe that they have potential to do things, help them to see the diversity that's around. So they take that out into the world. We help our veterans come back and help them to find purpose. We have a warrior song program where a lot of them don't want to

Starting point is 02:08:50 talk to civilians about their story, but they'll write a song about it. So we put amazing song writers in with the veterans and they learn how to tell their story through a song. And then that's something they're willing to share. It kind of helps them to open up and do things. So 34 weeks of veteran programs, nine weeks of children's programs, we host things there, like Mercedes rents out our tree house. That thing that looks like a spacecraft right there, that's the tree house. And it's got a, it's open in the middle. It's got a table, a circle table that comes out of the ceiling and comes down.

Starting point is 02:09:20 And so we put executives, that's where we do all of our vision development. So like for the summer camp, we bring in all the nutritionists, the best nutritionists around that we can find in the nation or around the world. We bring like eight of the best nutritionists in, we sit around this round table, we talk and dream about what we need to feed the kids while they're there. So it makes them feel good, but it's accessible. So they'll eat it and things like that. And we got a 16 acre organic farm. We the food there the kids learn how to pull stuff up out of the ground I love that kind of stuff radishes I remember yeah we would do them that's awesome Zach dude dude congratulations man but it's not really there's nothing about this place it's about me this is what I feel like I owe

Starting point is 02:10:02 this and this is like a god thing for, where I felt like I was given the music to help to create something bigger than myself. But I was kind of here following orders, man. You follow orders. And if you make your life about something bigger than you, it's not just about all the shit you can have and being on a fucking mountain somewhere with all your shit.

Starting point is 02:10:21 Then that's really where real meaningful, like a meaningful life comes from is helping other people and doing it. So we have an incredible campus at Camp Southern Ground to do that. Wow. Do you go there each year? Yeah, I spent a week, I lived there as a counselor this last summer. So I was, I was sleeping in the, in the bunks and they're just like I used to do and being there and had kids that, you know, it's a little rough for some of the kids

Starting point is 02:10:45 that are on the spectrum the first day, like trying to get through to them and help them feel comfortable and doing that. And I have just, just the leadership we have there and the people we have coming in, it's amazing. But we can help other people use their program there too. Like if you wanted to do a retreat there and bring people and have people come down, do team building, leadership,

Starting point is 02:11:03 we feed you good, we put you up and take care of you. And our staff helps you to have whatever experience you wanna have there. Wow, so it's kind of like, it's where people can rent out the, like the play or organize their own function there. Exactly, and we help to do that and pull it off, you know, without a hitch, taking care of people.

Starting point is 02:11:19 That is cool. Yeah, I love the idea of thinking about something that's greater than yourself. You know, sometimes I get stuck too much in the minutia of my own life. And I know it's important because it is my own life to me. Yeah. Yeah. But, um, but to get so stuck to it sometimes is, uh, you know, I think it's natural. I'm not looking down on myself, but to try and have more of this mindset.

Starting point is 02:11:44 I've had more of this mindset. I've had more this mindset at times. Yeah. Sometimes it's tough. I guess it feels a little tougher than others. I think you mentioned we were talking earlier about having a way that you thought about contributing. You mentioned to me like kind of a halfway house or something. Yeah, I want to get to try to get a halfway house going and we're working on it. We're starting like, there's a group, a men's group that we started. That is every week has a meeting right now.

Starting point is 02:12:12 It's just a Zoom meeting, you know? But just the roots of it, you know? Trying to look at that and figure that out. Well, I think aligning that mission with whatever you're doing, whether it's your shows or whatever it is, there's something tangible to talk about. This is what we're doing, this is our mission,

Starting point is 02:12:27 this is what, zeroing in on what that is and then aligning that with what you're doing. And then that naturally, honestly stepping off into the dark on stuff like that, the road rises right up to your feet underneath you when you start doing it. And I've seen the craziest, I will say miracle,

Starting point is 02:12:45 but the craziest things happen that aren't a coincidence. When you start aligning yourself with that, with what you feel like you can contribute to and make a difference in, then those things start, it starts manifesting. Like those things start happening. And so just talking about it, like you were telling me about it and like taking action on it

Starting point is 02:13:02 and aligning it with what you're already doing. And then having that purpose, like everything starts to fall and literally stuff falls out of the sky on you and you're just like damn like that's another affirmation that just keep going with it like because we're talking about it right now is one of those affirmations it's like but um but getting that place like and we still got to raise the money for the second half of building it all you know what i mean So it's like finish the place out. We have all the basics of what we need, but then the biggest building in the whole place

Starting point is 02:13:29 is what we're raising for right now. And so finding people that realize, and we're past the impossible point, cause it used to be, I was like riding around a field, like this is where this building is going to be. You know what I mean? So now it's there and they can see the quality and they can see the impact of what we're doing.

Starting point is 02:13:43 So trying to find the people that have something to give that wanna contribute in some way of doing it. Right, to say, hey, look, I love, I see what you've done halfway here, let me help. Because I have the financial means, let me help you contribute towards the other half. And it's not about me, I don't care. It's nothing about that, it's about me.

Starting point is 02:13:59 It's about the difference that we can make there doing it. And if some people are looking for something to align themselves with that can make a real impact, like we have one of those things. And if some people are looking for something to align themselves with, that can make a real impact. Like we have one of those things and there's other things out there, but finding something that you're passionate about that you wanna give back, there's nothing that makes you happier than like,

Starting point is 02:14:15 I knew there'd be a day when I could stand out, it's pretty close to my house, where I could stand outside and hear kids like singing and laughing through the woods. And then like to get to hear that now and to feel it or whatever, it's just like, it lets me know that I'm on the path of where I should be doing and that my life has purpose. Like it's not just raising my kids and trying to move people with music,

Starting point is 02:14:35 but it's like, I'm using that as a tool to make a difference. Yeah. Amen dude. Gosh, man. I want to come work at that summer camp. I feel like, sometimes. You should. Do I have to have a jurisdiction or whatever? Like a, it's a... They're gonna make sure you're not on some government lists and things like that.

Starting point is 02:14:56 Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Yeah, I'm cool with that. I'm thinking, yeah, I gotta think about what it's called before I ask about it. Dude, Zach Brown, I'm just, I'm excited to get to spend time with you, man. I know that we've gotten to talk before and, and I'm a big fan, dude. And just thank you for all the wonderful music that you continue to make. And yeah, just nice to have some inspirational thoughts and thinking

Starting point is 02:15:20 about things that are bigger than myself, you know? Yeah. Finding that purpose because, yeah, sometimes there's just this, you're like, then what am I doing? It's funny, I was laying in bed the other night and I was like, what am I doing this for? And I know that sounds crazy.

Starting point is 02:15:36 Maybe I'm not trying to sound like, whoa is me or anything. And maybe sometimes the first time a question comes into your head from God or from like the light of the world, it comes in confusingly, you know? maybe sometimes the first time a question comes into your head from God or from like the light of the world, it comes in confusingly, you know? Instead of maybe in, you know, maybe I'll lay down tonight

Starting point is 02:15:51 and be like, well, what am I doing this for? You know? But interesting, man. Grateful to have spent time with you today, dude. You too, brother. You bring a lot of joy to people, man. I know so many people that you are just a light for and, just making people laugh and making them feel good to just being yourself as we're all huge fans of yours and what you do, man. I'm stoked to get to talk to

Starting point is 02:16:13 you and get to visit and hang out more. So thank you. Thank you, Zach Brown. Um, dude, I was talking about one of my favorite moments and I might just add this in somewhere, but you and me were in a car with Kid Rock, remember? And the radio was up and he goes, hey, can you guys turn the volume down so we can talk about me? Yeah. And you know what?

Starting point is 02:16:37 It really made me- We were crammed in the car. There was like, you're like a clown car. There was like eight of us in the back of this suburban. He's like, hey, can you turn the radio down so we can talk about me? It was hilarious, dude. And you had the latches so perfect, man. One of a kind.

Starting point is 02:16:53 Uh, and so are you. Zach Brown. Thank you so much for my nice gift, man. And, um, we look forward to coming to see you at the sphere. Yes, sir. Thank you.

This Past Weekend - E500 Zac Brown

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