This Past Weekend - E501 Red Clay Strays
Episode Date: May 9, 2024Red Clay Strays are an American soul/rock band from southern Alabama. They are currently touring all over the U.S. through the rest of the summer, with a new album announcement coming soon. Theo is ...joined by Brandon Coleman and Andrew Bishop of the band Red Clay Strays to chat about their recent rise in popularity, the worst shows they ever played, cross-country van breakdowns, playing in a river rafting shop, getting the chance to open for the Rolling Stones, where they want to go from here, and much more. Red Clay Strays: https://www.instagram.com/redclaystrays/ Catch them on tour: https://www.redclaystrays.com/tour ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ PrizePicks: Download the Prize Picks app and use CODE: THEO. Prize Picks will match your deposit up to $100. Valor Recovery: To learn more about Valor Recovery please visit them at www.valorrecoverycoaching.com or email them at admin@valorrecoverycoaching.com Blue Cube: Follow @BlueCubeBaths on Instagram for a chance to win your own cold plunge this Spring and Summer! They will announce the giveaway soon… Modiphy: Visit https://www.modiphy.com/theovon for 50% off the Last Website You’ll Ever Need. ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3A_coTcUek ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Ben https://www.instagram.com/benbeckermusic/ Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
You want to make mom smile this Mother's Day? You can start Mother's Day with flowers or surprise
her with gifts from the brands she loves delivered the very same day with DoorDash. Wow, that's a
great idea. Moms are such a gift to us and we should treat them the same way with gifts,
especially on Mother's Day. I didn't know DoorDash was doing that. That's exceptional. If your mom has a sweet tooth,
or if she's a tech enthusiast, beauty connoisseur,
if she's outdoorsy, no matter what she's into,
you can make her smile with a fruit or flower bouquet,
makeup, tech gear, workout wear, and more,
all deliverable through Door Dash.
Get all your Mother's Day gifts all in one place,
and get 50% off your next order up to $15
when you spend $15 or more on your next flower,
convenience, grocery, or retail order now
with code Theo, that's T-H-E-O.
Order using DoorDash today, terms apply.
Today's guests are two members of a band that I really enjoy. They're out of Mobile, Alabama.
They have a new album coming out in May and they've been picking up some steam.
I'm grateful to spend time today with Brandon Coleman and Andy Bishop from the Red clay strays. ["Shine That Light On Me"]
I'm gonna stay. Yeah, I guess Ben has a, he has that mustache.
Some people can't grow certain facial hair.
Oh, Brandon's native, man.
Yeah, I can't really.
I can grow a mustache and a little bit of a goatee, but that's it.
Everything else doesn't work.
Really?
Why? What happened? You weren't
scalped or something. Somebody wasn't. How native are you? I'm like Cherokee.
Doing the scalping. Yeah, we were doing the scalping. Then you think you'd have a
little extra collection? You would think so, like if my grandmother would have
passed them down or something, you know. Yeah. She never did any of that. Wow. And
so was your grandmother, did she seem kind of native?
Like, did she have a kind of a vibe like that?
Uh, a little bit.
It was really my great, great grandmother.
I have a old black and white photo of her somewhere that's she's
just straight up Cherokee Indian.
Wow.
That's like straight out of Red Dead Redemption two, you know.
Yeah.
Do you feel native sometimes?
I don't think so.
Like if you get near like,
like I wonder if you hear stuff different than
on like a regular non-native person hears.
I'll speak on, I think Brandon gets a little frisky
when like a, like a, like a rainstorm's coming in, you know.
Yeah.
Him and his brother, we'd take,
his brother's on the road with us too,
our videographers.
Yeah, I met him one time when I met you guys.
He can actually throat sing pretty good too.
Yeah, he does it as a joke and everybody's like,
you can't do that.
But he's like, I'm native, I can do that if I want to.
What, he'll start really?
He'll get into it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
See, he can do it too, watch out.
That's powerful, man.
Yeah, one time I was up in Minnesota,
like in Minnetonka, Minnesota and I went to they had a
What's it called like a big get-together that natives have? Pow Wow?
Every time I've heard the word pow wow just meant backing trucks up to a campfire and drinking whiskey all night
Yeah, but that sounds pretty native to me too. Yeah, you know cooking meat throw a little gambling in there, too
Yeah, pow wow is a gathering with dances held by many Native Americans and First Nations communities. Yeah, so that's it Ben was right
Yeah, Ben was right. Um, I didn't sleep that great. You guys have that ever? Oh, dude all the time
I don't I don't think we sleep good till we go home. Yeah, I don't sleep well
Going out on the road. It takes a couple of days to get used to sleeping on a bus and then getting home.
It takes a couple of days to get used to sleeping it in your own bed again.
Yeah. So that equals about no sleep. Yeah. Yeah. It is kind of a,
it's a real, you're always trying to get comfortable.
Yeah. That's what we carry a lot of Z-Quill on the bus.
Yeah.
Also the first couple of nights.
Have you, you, you pre-vose it?
You've been in the tour buses?
Yup.
Those things are hard to sleep in
for the first couple of nights for me.
What part do you sleep in
and what part do you choose to sleep in?
Like is there the,
cause there's the different levels of the bunks.
Yeah. So we're in a crew bus still.
So we travel 12 deep.
We got the crew, everybody in one bus.
So I'm the back middle.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm the top bunk.
We're looking for that second bus, but.
Yeah, no, we have one bus when we go
and everybody's in there.
They have a crew bus for like production.
So they're in a separate bus.
Ben's got some pictures, there you go.
There's definitely different values
to the different slots, I think.
Yeah, our tour manager and keyboard player, they all prefer the bottom bunk.
They say it's the nicest. They said the worst part about the bottom bunk is if you blow a tire out, it scares the crap out of you.
You're by everybody's feet.
Yeah, that's a good point. I guess there's a lot more dirt down there.
There's a little bit of foot traffic if you open the curtain.
People throwing their shoes off
and then you gotta wake up, move shoes out of the way.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, you have to really wanna get up.
So I will tell you our old bus, what we call it,
it's a bus, the one we traveled in before.
It's like a redneck Prevost.
It was a 99 E450 with six bunks built in the back of it.
You could probably Google it then.
Yeah, you could. The Breeze is what we named it. You could probably Google it then. Yeah, you could.
The Breeze is what we named it.
And this was homemade, so this is how you guys first,
when you guys started hitting the road.
Yeah, and it, we broke down a lot.
Picked ourselves up off the side of the road multiple times.
Yeah.
We had started looking for a van,
and the vans were just so expensive at the time,
so yeah, we're sitting on one of them. There's a front of it, yeah. Wow. I don't know if we have a picture of the vans were just so expensive at the time. So yeah, we're sitting on one of them.
Yeah.
Wow.
I don't know if we have a picture of the inside.
Probably not.
Not on the internet.
That's an old picture.
And this looks like one of those things
where they go to pick up seniors kind of
to take them to market and stuff.
Is it that sort of?
Yeah, like a shuttle bus.
Did it have that sort of door on it?
That's us waving goodbye.
Yeah, that was when we got the new bus.
It had the door, it had an electric open. We ended up just getting rid of it.
And then our security system was just a ratchet strap. It had an eye bolt on it and we just hooked to it.
It was rough.
At night time, yeah. But we were practically diesel mechanics. If you ever got a 7.3 and you worked on it.
Because there's so many breakdowns you mean? Yeah. We had one at, we had one, well, we had a guy that refused
to, he would buzz cut his hair every day, refused to cut any
of his ear hair.
What about his nose hair?
My, he, it was all coming out of his ears.
Whatever was supposed to be in his nose had really had gone upstream, I guess.
You could see it?
Oh yeah, you could see it.
I mean, it was like his, you know.
One of those little troll dolls.
Yes, yeah, like one of those dolls you would get at school,
you put on your pencil.
Yeah.
You gotta cut that at night.
You gotta do it for him.
Oh, I think the moon cuts his hair.
The moon cuts his hair.
I mean, it was like
it was involved in something extraterrestrial and he had but that thing broke down a couple times
and one time he just threw a cup of water on it I was like that's not how we gotta get it. Is he
shampooing it? I'm talking about the engine the engine broke down one time and he threw a cup of
water on it. I thought you're talking about his ear hair. Oh the ear hair No, the ear hair. We've thrown our share. Well, we blew a hub. We throw what we had to throw water on it
Yeah, just mostly just to listen to it sizzle how hot it was. Yeah. Yeah, it's hot. It's hot
That's always the best mechanic dude when you just crack that thing over here. Oh, dude. We've had some there was one you remember the
How we blew a heater hose and it had what's called a quick connect on it.
Was it a heater hose?
You talking about Joe?
No, this was me and you, you remember I spit on it.
Oh yeah.
We couldn't get it to go over that little,
it's like you just push it on it clips and that's it.
And we just fought with it for hours,
and I was like, you know what?
We missed our show, we had to cancel our show
and everything, because we could not get this thing
to slide up.
It just needed a, and I was like, you know what screw I went in there
We're all sitting in the bus kind of thinking about what to do
I went out there and spit on it and pushed it on there and got it good and it worked
Yeah, that's it. Oh, it's all you need a lot of times
Red play strays man
Thank you guys for coming in. Thanks for having yeah, I'm such a big fan guys. Why?
I Don't know.
There's something damn, there's something just damn, it feels like a little bit whimsical,
historical, romantic about the music, you know?
Thank you.
There's something that feels like you just hop on the clock hands and just start spinning backwards.
And it's like almost, it feels like a little bit
of like a time warp, I don't know.
This just feels, it feels good, man.
It feels good to listen to.
Well, that's cool.
You know, I know you guys started,
you guys are from the South,
you guys are from Alabama, right?
We all still live there.
Yeah. Born and raised, mobile.
And how do you guys, was it a couple of you at first, you guys have five guys now?
We have six now.
Okay.
But yeah, it was originally five.
Yeah.
We just, we just hired a keyboard player.
Oh, wow.
Like last month.
Yep.
And did you audition for that or how'd that go?
We actually met him on, uh, when we were touring with L King and he was playing with L at the time.
And then we realized last summer that he wasn't playing with L anymore and you know reached out to him. Immediately. It was one of those we showed
up like we're sevens he's like he's not with us anymore. We turned around made a
phone call like we got him now. He's ours. You're like they let him go. Yeah.
Crazy. Yeah. Oh that's perfect then.
So is that needed because you wanna add
a different element to the music or what do you,
how do you come to make that choice kinda?
I think it's, yeah, we just wanted to,
we've always wanted a keys player to lay down piano
and organ tracks and I could play a little bit
but not near as good as we needed, I guess.
So that's always been a thing we've wanted to add in our music.
And it was supposed to be, we were going to get our drummer's little brother to play keys with us, and he passed away in 2020.
So that was, Sevens is the right guy to fill that role that was originally intended for him, I think.
Yeah.
Was there like a trial night where he comes in and you're like, okay, this is.
Normally it would, we would hold an audition, but we already knew how great of a player
it was from seeing him play with L and just sitting around in green rooms when there'd
be a piano in the green room.
And he, we, we, you know, we saw him play and how good he was.
So I think we've always been kind of looking
for that piano player.
And when we saw him with those, like Brandon said,
it's one of those like, dang, that guy's, he's good.
So when we saw that opportunity,
we jumped on it as soon as we could.
And he fits in just long with us.
Yeah, when we called, we weren't like,
do you want to audition for us?
We were like, hey, do you want to play with us?
But here we are, we're auditioning,
we'll audition in front of house guys and guitar techs, but.
And how does the band start to form up?
Like when it started out, how does that, how does a band even start?
Because I'm used to just hearing some guys like get together, write down a
song or whatever, and then just kind of get in a fight at somebody's house.
And then the band is done.
We, we do that. we just haven't quit yet.
Plenty of fights have happened.
Now, I had actually met Drew
when I was still in high school
and then Drew introduced me to Andrew
and we had started a little cover band.
Drew, the guitar player,
he was actually the manager at the time. And you know, that band played for a while and we had actually
hired John in that band and he played for a couple months before it dissolved.
And then we hired Zach, our guitar player, and started calling ourselves
Wreckley Strays. And then Drew, eventually we learned that he could sing
and he was learning how to play guitar at the time.
So we started getting Drew to come on stage with us.
And when he first started getting on stage with us,
he kept his amp turned all the way down.
He wouldn't even actually play.
Yeah, he was just really shy.
We're all pretty shy.
I didn't know there's a way to be shy on there with you.
Oh yeah, he was faking it till he made it.
That's one thing that was cool to see is,
cause I lived with him and just,
he locked herself in his room every day pretty much
for like a year and just taught herself how to play guitar.
And so.
I used to tell him to stop playing too, I feel bad now.
He'd be in there, in the old band,
we'd be ending practice and he'd have like a beer bottle
just raking it across the strings.
And I'd just have to tell him like, dude, you gotta,
you gotta give me a minute.
You gotta stop.
And now he's like, Drew's one of those,
he gets the most improvement award every year for us.
He just gets better and better.
And it's just, he's good.
I wish I had his worth ethic when it came
to learning an instrument.
So it was just, so he was on with you guys and then he got better?
Well, he was the manager in our first band.
And then when Red Clay Stray started, the five of us started that,
you know, together. He was a handsome devil there.
He's like, I gotta get in here.
Yeah, I think he just, he's got it in his song.
Him and Brandon's little brother, Matthew, write
our songs, pretty much 50-50, and Brandon writes some too. So I think it's just natural in him.
He just had to find that way getting it out.
I think what got him on stage was we noticed he was singing harmonies at practice.
So we're like, hey, get on stage and start singing with us. And he didn't want to just be standing
on stage empty handed.
So he would turn the guitar down and just hold the guitar pretty much.
And then somewhere along the line decided that he wanted to start actually playing.
So he taught himself.
Wow. That's amazing.
Zach, he's just always been incredible.
Yeah, Zach's always been.
Zach just come right in, just ripping and shredding and blowing everybody away. He's now it's surprising to see that Drew and Zach, just two completely
different styles and how they've learned off of one another over the years.
And so like in the past, probably year things have started to get busier.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
We've been, especially, uh, I think things really started taking off for us.
Uh, we were actually off the road last year, last fall in November.
And we just see these numbers just like on a rocket ship.
Like what's, what the hell's going on?
Yeah.
So it's just, we just riding it out.
We hired my little brother who is the other songwriter.
So we had already, we had, we had already been playing all of his songs, you know,
but he would do his own thing.
I think he was driving for Uber at the time.
We took him on the Elking Run last year and then officially hired him last April.
He just went right to work recording us and monitoring our social medias and
like building a social media presence and then popping off on TikTok I think a
couple times really. Yeah. That with the L-Tour just kind of jump-started it a
little bit for us. Yeah he does a great job because there's a lot of really he
has a lot of fun clips on there. You guys have some cool stuff on YouTube and
stuff that I hadn't heard that wasn't released yet just like on Spotify and
stuff. That used to be how we tour released yet just like on Spotify and stuff.
That used to be how we tour.
Yeah. We toured off of YouTube.
We've just tell people to call venues and tell them to check out
YouTube and Facebook.
Yeah.
Just, you know, hopefully they book us and a lot of them did.
So that's what we did.
And when did you guys start touring pretty heavily?
Kind of like, when did it?
Oh shoot.
Dude, we used to play, I mean, we'd tour, we'd play 200 cat rooms.
I remember getting excited for 70 people showing up.
I mean, we've always been, uh, we just wanted, our big thing was we want to be
the hardest working band in America.
So we would, I mean, shoot for the last couple of years, we've played majority
of the year we're out on the road.
Especially last year, we did over 150 shows driving ourselves.
So it's like more of like 250 travel days or more.
And then that was the same the year before we're just running around,
breaking down and just excited for 50 people to be in front of us.
It's crazy to look back at that now.
And they can, we, we always want it where we are now, we kind of
always looked up to like, man, I want
to play these clubs, you know, these thousand, 2000 cat rooms every night.
I could get used to that, like opening for people.
And now we're there and now we're like, man, those arenas look fun.
How about, how about getting used to doing that?
You know?
So yeah, our festival, do you guys do a lot of festivals too?
Well, that'll probably happen this summer.
Yeah, we do a lot of festivals.
Yeah.
I don't know if we really like festivals as much.
We like doing our own show. We're not pressed for time. Festivals, you got to be on time with
Sartnen and that's just kind of, we like to take our time and relax. Usually the set is really short too.
It's like 45 minutes and it's like, I'm just now starting to get warmed up at 45 minutes, you know,
and then it's over with. Yeah. Yeah, And we're not headlining festivals or playing at like three
o'clock in the afternoon, you know?
Oh yeah.
Sunburn time.
Oh yeah.
We just did it in Tortuga and Fort Lauderdale.
Oh yeah.
At the Heatstroke festival or whatever?
Heatstroke festival.
Yeah.
We, uh, we just felt like we just ruined everybody's beach party.
Yeah.
Oh, that's the worst.
We have to play sad songs.
Dude, I remember one night we had to play, I'm thinking of,
one time they put us at this Italian kind of cocaine
sort of Christmas kind of party.
And it was, this was in LA,
it was probably about like maybe seven years ago.
Like, are you guys gonna perform at this Christmas party?
This cocaine Christmas party?
Yeah, well everybody, we get there early
and everybody's trying to get us to do cocaine and we're doing it. And then like
we had to perform but we thought it would be like a stage and like a good
setup. So I think it had rained or something and they put like this party
in like a tent, one of those white tents with the fake plastic windows.
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Like yeah.
And so we had to perform in there right next to the tables. Like you were some people's backs were
like you were on the curve of the table and their backs and they were eating.
You were doing stand up in them?
Oh, it was just like you just in the way.
It was so hard.
Especially high on cocaine, I'm sure too.
Oh, it made me so like scared and nervous. and some lady kept kind of biting her lip at me.
And oh, that was one of the worst moments that ever happened.
She was probably doing the cocaine too. That's probably that jaw thing that goes on, you know.
Everybody in there was... You're probably misreading that one.
Everybody was rattling. Rattling.
Everybody in there definitely had a catalytic converter issue.
It was just, but that was a tough gig, man.
Yeah, we've had those. Those tough gigs make you humble though.
Oh yeah.
I mean we just had a, go ahead Brandon, I don't think I know what you're going to talk about.
I was going to talk about the Purple Buffalo.
Oh, I was going to talk about Dallas Cowboys. Was that a corporate gig you did?
No, I've done some really bad ones I have.
I hate corporate gigs, man.
Corporate shows are terrible, yeah.
Some guy made his son come up and give us $10 one night
when we were on stage and it was,
we were performing like an empty backyard.
Really? Yeah.
And you're doing comedy?
Yeah.
I've never seen someone tip a comedian on stage.
Oh, live, it's getting random cries of child.
Go give that nice man 10 bucks.
I've had, you know, and I've had those shows too, where it's, it's just like,
you're in someone's backyard and they're not paying attention, but at least there's music
and it's super loud and you can drown all that out. I can only imagine being in that setting,
trying to tell jokes and like, nobody's paying attention to you.
I don't know how you keep it together, man
I'd have an anxiety attack just trying to it just you're like, yeah, this is what I deserve
That's where it kind of ends with he you know
this tough part about the kid was he kept running across like halfway and then got confused with what to do and he would go
Back and ask his dad. So
He it was just like just give me the
Come get it, but I can't it was like I was just did you just take me the $10. Or I'll come get it, but I can't.
It was like I was, this horrible.
Did you just take it from him and he started crying?
Yeah, I was just like.
Don't drop out of school, kid, thanks.
Oh, that was a really tough one.
That's putting the grind in though, man.
Oh yeah.
Oh dude, I used to drive at 110 miles an hour
to get to the next gig, putting everyone's life in danger.
So that I could perform at like an O'Charlie somewhere.
It was like everybody. It was very
We used to have our Mexican restaurant gigs back in way back
in the day doing four hour cover shows.
Oh, that sounds fun.
It's not. We play it's fun for a minute for at least the first
first hour.
There was one right before COVID had happened and it was a place
called the Purple Buffalo and
North Charleston. Yeah, we played like right after this
heavy metal. It was like a punk rock show. Yeah, like a punk rock show.
Three punk rock bands before us. And then you? And then us and
we're playing covers at the time too. Our country bumpkin butts just get up there
and just start playing music. The room just empties out and we're
literally playing to nobody and I just go out in the crowd and I just sit where the crowd would
be where the crowd would be and I'm just sitting at the table singing to the band as they're playing
and then the whole time the bartender was like offering us drinks so we're and we're broke at
the time too and we're just thinking oh cool at least we got a bar tab at least we're gonna get
the drink and then after the show she just brings us the bill.
Oh yeah. Oh man. We didn't even get paid to play. It was like. Didn't make any money. Yeah. We're like
looking around the bus for change. Pay our bar tab at this place. Just drank ourselves.
There's a picture of an actual purple buffalo. I prefer that one. Oh yeah that's nice.
Oh that's what the place looks like with people in it. That's kind of cool. Oh, I've met her before.
She parties, dude.
We've definitely had those, those, those empty shows where you just play for yourselves.
Yeah.
That's when you really got to enjoy what you're doing.
We used to play for tips.
Like just our tip bucket determined how far we were going to get the next day. We'd have no money and you know, we'd get tip money for gas and maybe even one
hotel room for all five of us to pile up in.
And it was just chance every day, you know?
Yeah.
Damn.
Stayed in a lot of people's houses or even slept in the car a couple of times
before we got the bus or shuttle bus, that is the breeze.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We've, uh, I wouldn't say we're successful.
We're not where we are from overnight, I guess.
Yeah. I think that's what I was trying to get at a little bit,
just like thinking about all this stuff. It's funny.
A lot of times I'll forget about a lot of that. Oh yeah. In a weird way.
You can take it for granted pretty easily.
Yeah. Not in it's weird for me. I don't even know if I take it. I just forget.
It's like you forget the work that you've put into something. Yeah, you know, we've been doing me and you've been doing this since 2015. Mm-hmm
So, you know seven years eight years. I was in college to nine years for me and you
Yeah, I'm thinking I've known just red clay strays red clay strays been and the band before that. What was it called Coleman Mason?
But it was just a local cover band.
A band we don't speak of.
Really?
We would run the crowd out.
Yeah.
I love that.
Hey look, then Reg last night's ball from back here.
Yeah, we're coming as the bar closer, man.
They want to get them out, we got them out.
Oh, I love that dude.
It's like instead of playing closing time, it's like, let's hire this band.
Yeah, they'll get them out.
They'll get them out.
Hey, you want to shut this thing down? We got you.
Which even with, which we mainly ran people away because it was so loud, the guitar amps were so loud.
But even with Red Clay Strays, we would be, we were playing somewhere in Arkansas where the guy, the sound man come up on stage
and he told us to turn down.
And I was like, the only thing running through this system
that you're wanting to turn down is my vocals.
The drums are still gonna be loud,
the guitar's still gonna be loud.
And so I walk over there and I inch it down
just a little bit and continue playing.
And he just like walks on after a song
just right in the middle of the set. He said, we're not not doing this tonight and he just walks up and turns everything down by itself
And I was just like man if I didn't need this $500 I would freaking leave right now. Yeah
Oh, we used to talk a mad game was a pack of them leave. That was at a restaurant too. Yeah, that was in JJ's and
Little Rock, Arkansas. What's that Little Rock? No, that was Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Yeah, that's the tough part.
When you're gonna compete with people's moment to dine.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a dinner.
Yeah, those suck.
When you're gonna say,
hey, set that fort down for a second, mama.
I got something for you.
We'll give you a pork chop.
Can you turn the music down?
Can you tell them to turn it down?
That's what playing with people eating is like.
And we used to do our own sound too,
so we used to make it real loud.
Because we grew up listening to like, Skinner,
and we thought that's how it's supposed to be.
Yeah.
Just loud.
We're still pretty loud.
Yeah, we are probably still pretty loud.
You know, the number one thing I think that's tough sometimes,
if I go into like a small venue or like a bar and somebody's playing is and if somebody's playing is if they have if you can't hear the vocals a lot of times
Oh, yeah, it's though. It sucks
Cuz you're like, I don't I might love this. Yeah, that's why we we try to hire a good good sound guy
Dude, the sound guy is what I mean, that's your that's your he's practically a member of the band
He's making you sound good for everybody
And we've been to a lot of big concerts,
just like, this sounds like crap.
And this sucks, because we know how good that band is.
It doesn't matter how good the music is,
if you can't understand or can't hear something,
then it's pointless.
Yeah, there's a lot of venues
aren't really built for comedy or music
where you have to end up playing too,
which is kind of wild.
You know, like recently I went to some places
and the venue just wasn't,
it's not the perfect venue, but it's the only one in that area that you can play.
Yeah.
We've been to those where you walk in and the reverb in the rooms is ridiculous.
You just know you're just going to blow these people's heads off.
It's part of it.
This episode is sponsored by PrizePix.
It's part of it. This episode is sponsored by PrizePix.
If you love firing on sports,
then PrizePix is the best daily fantasy sports app for you.
You can fire on all your favorite sports,
like the NBA, NFL, UFC, and many more, hockey as well.
Instead of choosing teams, you choose individual players.
That's what I love about prize picks.
It's just a different element, a different way to do things.
Each player has a set projection,
and you either choose more or less than that set projection.
So if you think that Nikola Jokic
will score more than 26 points, you choose that.
Well, if you think Jamal Murray will score
less than 21 points, you choose that.
If you're smart with sports and you know what players
are gonna perform on what nights, like I do,
PrizePix is the best app for you.
Download the app now, use code Theo.
PrizePix will match your deposit
up to $100. Start prize picking boys. Are you struggling with keeping your website up
to date and running your business? Well, you're not alone. Now you can binge all the web design
You're not alone.
Now you can binge all the web design and digital marketing you want with Modify.
Modify helps you with unlimited web design and redesigns,
unlimited website updates, and 24-7 support,
including digital advertising.
Plus, you get a designated designer. Consider updating your existing
website or getting a new one. They've made mine and I'm thankful for them.
Visit Modify, M-O-D-I-P-H-Y dot com slash Theo for 50% off the last website you'll
ever need. That's right. Unlimited web design and redesigns, unlimited website
updates, 24-7 support, digital advertising included, plus you get a designated designer.
Go to modiphy.com slash theo for 50% off the last website you'll ever need.
When it came to the, yeah, the name of the band,
how'd you guys figure that out?
Man, that story's not even that cool.
You'd think it would be.
Well, Red Clay's all over Alabama.
Yeah.
You know, you get over anywhere over there.
I didn't like the name at first.
I don't think any of us liked any name we came up with.
What were some other options?
Oh, dude, one the band likes a lot,
Brandon Lane and the Hurricanes.
We on the Gulf Coast, we got Hurricanes.
That's his middle name, Lane.
It's perfect.
I liked it too.
That'll be the alter ego.
The alter ego.
No, but my, my brother came up with it.
Just randomly.
Brandon Lane and the Hurricanes, Red Clay Stray.
What up, we had the Dirt Leg Trio for a little while when it was
just me, Brandon and, uh, and John.
Yeah.
The Dirt Leg Trio.
We're from South Alabama. We don't get up making up names. Yeah. That one I think is a little while when it was just me, Brandon and John. The dirt leg trio, we're from South Alabama,
we don't get up making up names.
Yeah, that one I think is a little bit,
that's like a gangrene, that feels more
like an infection staff, the staff boys.
The staff boys.
Something I got from my job, it's like,
they wouldn't say, you redneck, they'd say, you dirt leg.
Dirt leg, that's worse than redneck.
What is a dirt leg? And they're like, well here's a redneck, they'd say, you dirt leg. Dirt leg, that's worse than redneck. What is a dirt leg?
And they're like, well, here's a redneck,
and then here's a dirt leg.
It's like trashier, worse of a person,
steal from you, they're a dirt leg.
Damn.
We would have somebody call,
yeah, we'd call like a dirt serpent,
that's Kid Rock, we call him.
I would say, yeah, I'd say Kid Rock falls
in that dirt leg category.
Yeah.
He's a dirt serpent.
I just described a lot of bad stuff. I'm getting dirt. I know, I'm just joking. No, he's leg category. Yeah. But he's a dirt serpent. I just described a lot of bad stuff.
I know, I'm just joking.
No, he's like, yeah, he's more of a dirt serpent.
He's like a leader of a club.
Yeah, you just had him not tell.
Oh, there's a, whoa, he brought up the Urban Dictionary.
Dirt leg, a female looking for a quick fuck who only has enough time to take one pant
leg off.
Nowhere we come from.
We ain't got those. Getting the one pant leg off. Not where we came from. Oh God. That's not what I heard.
We ain't got those.
Getting the other pant leg dirty.
All right.
Dirt leg.
All right.
Yeah, they just put that TikTok ban into-
Yeah, we actually, on the way down here,
or on the way up here, we actually just saw that.
We got to see in that.
I've seen it on Instagram.
Yeah, we saw it on the news.
Let me see, Congress had passed the bill this week
as part of a wide ranging foreign aid package meant to support Israel and Ukraine.
It was approved by the House on Saturday and by the Senate on Tuesday.
And also had TikTok hidden in, is that what it's saying?
Yeah.
Oh, welcome to our government.
I know. They always be doing that.
Yeah.
Aint reading that fine print, people.
Now we lost TikTok.
It's going to suck if it actually goes away, though.
I know. Man, there's got to be something behind it.
Even our band has grown so much from TikTok, you know. I don't even suck if it actually goes away though. I know. Man, there's gotta be something behind it. Even our band has grown so much from TikTok.
I don't even be ticking the talk.
I'm not even on it.
It's fun, it's dangerous,
because you can get into a warp zone
where you look up and suddenly your family hasn't eaten.
I could see that easily,
somebody scroll on TikTok and then they're just,
they look up and their children haven't eaten.
That's for any scroller, the death scroll with death scroll Instagram or tick tock
See I get all my reels from Instagram and my fiance gets mad cuz I'm like six months behind
Oh, yeah, y'all are behind over there. I do the YouTube shorts too. That's my my death scroll
Oh, yeah, I'm getting like eight months nine months behind. Yeah. I mean you're a hospice. The reason I like tick tock is
You can ask him like all of my Instagram stuff is just messed up people.
We get dark.
Our Instagram reels get dark.
People get in a motorcycle wreck and just,
a lot of crazy stuff that I'm like,
how's this on Instagram?
We done screwed our algorithms up.
But then TikTok is like, well,
here's how you make a garden in your backyard,
or here's how you-
For now until you get on the dark side of TikTok.
I haven't been on the dark side of TikTok.
Damn, I don't wanna get over there.
Don't start searching things.
What are some things?
Look under some of my links.
I have a couple of favorites that I've had on there recently.
Oh, here we go right here.
Now this is something I saw.
This is called the Oriental Shorthair.
These are tubular, long and tubular with rock hard bodies, tight clothes, slaying coats.
And then they have this super refined.
That thing ate a ruler, homie, that thing.
Really, really fine.
That's a different ethnicity of a cat.
Got your measuring stick, huh?
That thing's out of town.
That was a wiener dog at first.
Yeah, it is, that's a damn wiener cat.
Wiener cat, dude.
You don't wanna see our recent searches.
Really, it's getting pretty bad?
Well, those are just some of them. That's one of my faves. I'll go through a couple more. What the cat videos?
Well, yeah, we might as well enjoy TikTok while we got it cuz it ain't gonna have it much longer. And that's aging guy walking with turtle and that's always a beautiful
That's really a very wholesome algorithm. That's like the notebook in Japan do that video right there
It's their notebook. What else do we have?
This guy's a little nativity scene on the go
This is like door- nativity scene play it one more time. Is that all it is? Yeah, it's like 40 bucks the dude pulls up
Oh. It's like those things at the fair.
Does he have like an actual little baby he could start using too for Christmas?
Probably.
If his wife maybe, if he's probably got to ask his wife.
It reminds me of those booths at the fair.
You pay like 20 bucks, go see the snake lady.
Oh yeah.
You walk in, it's just like a...
We just had a carnival worker on and his grandfather was the great Lentini and he had three legs
and two penises.
Okay.
And, um, no, that's what people thought at first, like, damn, one of these
things needs a shoe on it.
Oh, this is real.
Yeah.
This is a real guy, Frank Lentini right there.
Wow.
He's got his own Wikipedia, but wait, he said his dad?
The carnival worker that we had in named Mitch, he had a
granddaddy. Okay, cuz I got born in 1889. Yeah, this guy
Where is he from?
Damn Narnia probably. That's the stuff you see in like the Marvel movies though, man.
Dude, I bet that dude could run a foot race, play soccer. I bet he could climb up walls and stuff.
Oh, I bet that dude.
That's a modern day Spider-Man.
That's what I was gonna say, I bet he lives in a web.
That would be, yeah.
I can't believe they have one nude picture of this man.
I wonder what his attitude was.
You think he had like a temporary one,
get in bar fights and just start kicking people?
That's a great call, huh?
It would be crazy if you're standing there talking to him
and then one of his foot just puts a cigarette
into his mouth.
You know, this is what the UFC's missing right here.
It really is.
Or if you think the weirdos, like the people from Nick,
who have like feet things,
they see this guy, it's like.
Oh, on Foot Finder, this guy would have been, yeah.
Spokesman.
Yeah.
Oh, he would have been the Naomi Campbell of Foot Finder.
Three legs, four feet, 16 toes.
Come see him, boy. I'd impress him.
That math ain't mathin', is it?
Yeah, it was a different time, different math.
Did they ban all that?
In 1915, he had one extra.
Didn't they ban, like, you can't show yourself off in carnivals and stuff?
Like freak shows? Did they ban them?
I thought they did. It was considered inhumane.
That's a good question.
Well, what if you, like, signed yourself up?
It didn't matter. They banned it anyway. If they did, it was considered inhumane. Well, what if you sign yourself up?
It didn't matter, they banned it anyway.
Freak shows remained popular till the 1940s
when public opinion began to shift.
Throughout the 20th century, several federal laws
made discrimination against people
with physical disabilities illegal,
and the exhibition of extraordinary bodies
was outlawed in some states.
Wow.
Now that seems a little prejudiced, if you ask me.
What I read was the freaks in the freak shows
got mad because they were like, this is how we make a living. Yeah. Of course. People paid to look at me,
but I don't know how true that was. Well, it's like the Redskins now having to probably change
their name back because the natives got mad at them for changing it. Oh, they did now? They got
mad at them for changing it? That's what I've read, yeah. They're trying to change it back now?
Yeah. Supposedly. Wow. My friend Cliff Kingsbury is coaching up there. It's his first year up there.
Yeah. Supposedly.
Wow, my friend Cliff Kingsbury is coaching up there.
It's his first year up there.
His offensive coordinator.
I graduated college with the safety, Jeremy Reeves.
Oh, wow.
I did sports medicine in college, so I did some of his rehabilitation.
Damn, and is he healthy now?
Yeah.
Well, he just came off an injury, but he's good.
Damn.
Good enough to be playing with the commanders.
Which who knows if that's good.
We'll see.
We'll see.
Remains to be seen.
He's getting paid.
Yeah, which states outlawed,
which states outlawed those shows?
That's kind of interesting.
I wonder if it was like,
like who would do it?
I wonder what states would do it,
Southern states or?
Well, I wonder if they looked at it as like,
you're just-
It's hard to imagine the
political demographic back then in the 40s. I wonder if it's like you're just it's hard to imagine the political demographic back then yeah
I wonder if it's like you're bringing like you can't really call them special
It's like handicapped people and making a show of them
But what if they sign up and they want to make the show themselves?
well, they have the same thing type of now where it's you know, they have like a
lot of people with which what some people call disabilities have like shows on TikTok or
social media channels.
TLC.
Yeah, TLC.
Their whole network is based off of people with four necks or whatever, you know, or
double, you know.
Do you ever watch my strange addiction?
That was when I watched when I was younger
It would be like lady drinking gasoline
One lady liked to eat toilet paper
She ate the foam out the mattress
She was a big one too
Went straight to her hips, she sure did
Damn really?
Damn boy
Felt Squidward with them Krabby Patties, you gotta watch out
Pimperpedic baby, I like them Thiccys baby
I think she ate the springs too You'd have to look that one up, Lainey.
Well, we had a we spoke with a man the other day who ate glass.
Was it on the street or was it on the podcast? I can't remember.
But yeah, he's had a lot of it.
You know, I don't like anything like that.
I wouldn't think so. Yeah. With the demise of the carnival, an important slice of American history risk being lost,
but the residents of Gibsenton, Florida
are trying to keep the legacy
of the town's famous freaks alive.
I think a town of freaks.
Yeah.
It is Florida.
Gib town was a utopia.
Its first settlers, the giant and his wife,
the half woman ran a campsite,
a bake shop and the fire department. Wow.ite, a bake shop, and the fire department.
Wow.
That's a whole town of like the freak show.
In the golden days of American carnival,
all roads led to Gibsonton, Florida.
The self-defined 14,900 inhabitant town
12 miles south of Tampa became
the industry capital, Carny Town.
They must have been next to to one of those power plants.
It makes me wonder though,
if it became illegal to stare at freaks in a freak show,
but it's okay to go watch mentally handicapped people
in the Olympics and stuff,
why is one except on bull and one's not?
That's a good question.
Yeah. Is it just because one's doing sports and the other's just sitting on a couch?
Shoot juggling. I've seen some stuff. You probably see him juggling.
Yeah, you would think I would like...
That's a sport.
Dude, I think it's like it doesn't even... People with handicaps are more...
Like if you watch this show with, um, dating under the influence of
down syndrome or whatever, what is it called?
Down for love.
Dating on.
I've never watched it, but I've heard of it.
It's amazing.
Right.
And it's just like, it's people that have disabilities, some of them are
down syndrome and they go on first dates, right.
And they start to learn relationships and they are just as awkward as anybody
that doesn't have
the disabilities, you know?
In fact, sometimes they are better at dating than people that have disabilities because
they're a little bit more frank about what's going on.
A little more open, a little more bold about it.
Yeah, yeah.
It's fascinating.
That show is fascinating.
I was just watching Baby Reindeer.
Have you seen that?
Mm-mm.
We don't watch cable.
Yeah, I don't really have a lot of time to watch TV.
Damn, I'm living in damn luxury then.
And we ain't got cable.
I try to watch stuff on the bus,
but I usually just end up falling asleep.
Yeah, that's impossible.
Yeah.
What's Baby Reindeer?
Baby Reindeer.
It's this guy, Richard Gad is his name name and he writes this it's amazing. It's a it's like eight episodes or six episodes
it's about he had a stalker and
And it goes from there. That's a it's British. Is a reindeer involved?
It just he I said he looks like a baby reindeer. It looks like a reindeer involved? Um, it just, he, I said he looks like a reindeer.
There's a baby reindeer.
It looks like a reindeer.
Interesting. That sounds cool.
You guys have one full album out, right?
Yeah.
And now you're putting together another album.
It's put together.
Oh, it's done?
It's done.
Okay.
It's ready to come out.
It'll be coming out here in the very near future.
Wow. Hopefully by the end of summertime.
How does that feel?
Because that's really...
I can't wait for people to hear it because it's just a lot better of an album than the
first album as far as production goes.
Because we recorded it with Dave Cobb.
Oh yeah, Chris Stapleton.
He's done all our heroes.
Yeah, it's been a, it was always a goal of ours to work with Dave since we very
first started. Yeah, there he is. And now how does that come to pass that you guys
get to match up with him? Does he reach out to you? Do you start to interview a
series of producers? No, we actually at the time we were we were looking up studios.
So we wanted to go to a studio that where the Alabama Shakes recorded their first album. I
think it was called the Bomb Shelter here in Nashville in Nashville. And that's that was the
the plan until Brandon Moldin who works with Conway Entertainment, which is where our manager works,
made the connection. He reached out to Dave for us and he was like, hey, we represent this band if you're interested
in working with them.
And Dave knew who we were.
And so he was like, yeah, I'd love to work with them.
And then he set up a Zoom call with us and reached out and we talked to him that day.
We were actually on the way to a show.
We had to pull over on the side of the road and talk with him.
And uh...
Why, so the van wouldn make us a noise. Yeah
We were like we stopped for some barbecue to this I'm like eating a barbecue sandwich talking to there was no service
They were like walking around trying to service during this because it's like we're talking to one of our heroes
And yeah the middle of Alabama in the middle of nowhere, but you're like this guy's candy
They can't even produce a call there. I'm gonna make
Somewhere in Alabama too.
Wow, that had to be a pretty magical moment.
Yeah, that was.
And we didn't know how to feel about it.
It was crazy.
We're just, we don't really like that.
The record, the first record that's out,
like I cannot stand to go back and listen to it.
Really?
At all.
It was such a cluster making that thing.
I like it.
I like it for what it is.
Yeah, for what it is. We we just gotten out of another record deal that wasn't working for us
and the only way to continue forward was to get out of it so we finally made it
out of that thing and then just on our own not knowing what to do and you know
we go to this guy's studio in Huntsville sink Sink every dollar we had.
Go in the debt making it and that's eventually,
we were still unhappy with it trying to make it,
but eventually we just had to, you know,
call it quits and say it's done and then.
Was that because of money?
Like just had to call it?
Yeah, it's just, I mean.
Money and time.
Yeah, we didn't put all this work in,
this window of time we opened up for it.
So this next one though, we listen to it every day. I think and it's incredible
Yeah, I haven't gotten tired of it. Yeah, we're ready to put that one out. It's gonna should be pretty good
Hey, I can't people hate it. We don't know I can't even imagine
Cuz it yeah when y'all's music come on man. It just feels good
Can we listen you take me through who comes in on wondering why like in the beginning,
just in the beginning so I know who the different,
because you guys have different band members,
I wanna make sure that I get the gist.
Can you play it for us by chance?
Do you wanna do it in the headphones or?
Can you just play it through the?
You can play it through the speaker,
we can walk through. Through the telly.
Yeah. What song you wanna listen to?
Wondering why, yeah, yeah, this is right here.
Can you just take, I just wanna know who comes in when,
right, because it starts off just with you singing. Yeah. this is right here. Can you just take, I just want to know who comes in when, right?
Cause it starts off just with you singing.
Yeah.
You probably won't hear it,
but I'm in the right at the second verse.
Okay.
First verse.
But I just play bass.
It's not that big of a deal, you know?
But you come in,
boom.
Yeah.
That's it.
Well, I go to the court, you'll hear it.
This is Matthew record.
That's me doing
So that's you on the guitar
And here comes my big moment
Right here right here. One earlier cut used to have finger snaps right here. Yeah. But who was
hitting that cymbal right there? That's John. That's Drew. There's Drew.
And there's Drew. And then it's everybody.
That's awesome.
And that's Zach in there,
laying in those backup parts.
What, just ride, like fretting that.
Does he play a slide on that?
No.
Is that called fretting?
He does this right here.
Are you courting or making courting?
That was Zach.
Got it.
Yeah, I was just listening to the other day
and I was wondering, I was like, who's coming
in when, just so I know who's doing what.
Yeah, what's the collaborating like for an album?
Like, do you guys seem to like, does it get tough?
How is it like battling egos and stuff?
I guess at this point, if you spend that much time in a, like in that close of quarters, you guys have got it figured out. Oh we're
brothers man. Yeah we used to we would work up songs and in the earlier days you
know we we would get aggravated if we didn't want to take the song in our
direction or my direction or Zach's direction or whatever. But at somewhere along the line, I think we just got to a point where we realized
at the end of the day we all want the same thing is to make good music.
And so we try everything, you know, and there's always a way to make everybody happy
as far as making music like that. And we'll try everything even if we have to play the song for eight or nine hours while we're working it up
just play it over and over again all these different ways until we find the
right way and there's not really any egos involved with that you know.
Damn. I don't think a lot of bands are like that at least I wouldn't think so so
feel very fortunate. Yeah I know when I met you guys,
when I met you guys, we were in Virginia,
Charlottesville maybe?
You were playing.
That's where you brought us out to your show up there.
Yeah, you were, where the heck were we?
I don't know, I can't remember.
Shoot.
I feel like it was Charlottesville.
I think it's Charlottesville, it was Charlottesville.
But we came at the end and saw a couple,
you got to see a couple of the songs.
We were that goofy Jeff Gordon Jackass.
Yeah.
I didn't believe you were going to show up.
Oh yeah.
You guys were probably going to come out and I was like, I think you guys are going to
be way too busy to be worried about us.
Dude, I had so much fun.
Yeah, look, there we are.
But y'all's band, every bud, there was just, there was an energy in there.
You guys, we all sat in there and just chatted for a little while, but a lot of groups, it's
not like that.
You'll meet a group of a band sometimes and it's not the same energy. You know?
Yeah. Yeah.
Dude, we live, we make each other laugh day in and day out. You put five of us, the five of us
with each other, we're going to just, we can't help but just crack up laughing.
Yeah. Cause our theme song on the podcast was made by a group called Bishop Gun. Did you guys ever
hear of them? Yeah. Yeah. They're from South, or they're not together anymore, but they were from South Mississippi.
Yeah.
And they really had a great start, you know?
Like they got to open up for the stones.
That's us watching you.
Oh, gang, dude.
That's awesome.
They had us over their side stage.
We were there for like five minutes and we're like, we're like watching the clock.
We had to leave right at a certain time to get back to start our own show.
Oh, thanks man.
We didn't want to leave, man.
No, it got bad.
Did it?
It was fine.
We left at a good time.
It's funny because we don't really listen to much music as a group.
When we come on the bus after a show, it's comedy.
Oh yeah?
Yeah, it's Kill Tonys or somebody's stand up special.
Kill Tonys is so great, man.
We actually saw a couple, I guess it was a couple weeks ago,
we went and saw Shane Gillis invite us out.
He put us up in the suite and everything,
and then we got to meet freaking Tony and Jeff Ross.
Tony was just standing outside smoking a cigarette,
and we walked up on him.
That dude's as goofy as you'd think he is.
Red Clay Strings. That's what he's as goofy as you'd think he is.
That's what he's like, oh hey guys.
Had his big old Texas belt buckle on, you ain't from here.
Wow, wow, wow.
Tony is one of a kind, bro.
His show, they have like a hundred thousand people watching it at once when it comes on.
That's unprecedented in the world, I feel like. I can't remember how we even discovered it,
but it's a, we watch it all the time on the bus.
It's just about every night after a show.
It's so great.
Kiltoni's coming on.
It's incredible what it does.
I think we're going to a Kiltoni in a couple,
probably I think next month.
Yeah, you guys gonna head down to Austin?
Yeah, we're gonna, yeah. I think Tony invited us out to do a Kiltoni with him. Really? I'll be there. Yeah, come hang out with down Austin? Yeah, we're gonna Yeah, we got I think Tony invited us out to do a kill Tony with him. Really? I'll be there
Yeah, well then we're gonna hang out with you. It'll be a party then. I think it's at Rogan's place. I'm not mistaken
I don't know where to shoot it. Yeah, I'm gonna go down there for a couple weeks and work on some material
You gonna be on the panel that night you think? I don't know. They asked if we wanted to go on stage and I was like
Hell no. No, I want to go watch. I don't want to get on stage. Yeah, you ain't gonna hurt my feelings today
Those poor guys I've been doing comedy for 13 years and they just get roasted to hell. It's like dang
Yeah, the the balls that that takes cuz yeah, so hard to make people laugh in a minute
It would almost be like hey guys in one minute make me believe that you are a good band. Yeah
You can't do that. It'd be really hard good band. Yeah, you can't do that.
It'd be really hard.
Yeah.
You know, I mean, you could do a couple riffs or whatever,
but I feel like it'd be really tough.
That in comedy is just something
I don't understand how to make.
Yeah.
I like sitting there watching it
and wondering where a joke's gonna go
and then the punchline comes in
and just makes you roll while you're laughing.
I can't do that, you know?
So I wouldn't want to go on the, on Kill Tony just for that reason.
I'd be up there just playing a band.
Yeah.
And just, I told Brandon, if he ever goes on, you just gotta go up there and sing for
a minute.
That's all you got.
That's what you gotta do, bro.
I'm not even gonna tell you to just lean hard into it.
Yeah.
Lean into what you do best, brother.
If they invite you to bring potatoes, bring potatoes, dude.
It's just that being a comedian seems, man,
it's like we have music to hide behind
and we have the five of us up,
or six of us up there to hide behind.
And we have each other when you're like watching,
especially watching you and Shane,
it's like you're up there by yourself, man.
You're out in the abyss.
That's what's so fascinating about it.
You're floating around hoping people laugh or, you know, get what they paid for. We couldn't do it with, I think the hardest thing
I think to do is that improv where people are working with other people, you know?
That's the thing to me that seems like it's really the toughest. I, that's where I like,
I've tried to take improv classes and stuff and I was not good at it in Los Angeles.
You weren't good at improv. It was so hard, man.
It was like, cause it's just, you're so used as a comedian,
you're so used to just, yeah, I was just so used to like
controlling things myself, you know, that I would just,
I don't know, it was hard to do it with somebody else,
I guess to trust that somebody else,
it was going to work well, you know?
It's kind of that-
Probably chemistry too though.
Yeah, there's a surreal moment for even us.
It's like, it's hard to believe that people are coming
to see you do what you do.
Oh, it's crazy. And it doesn't feel right.
One time I was stuck in traffic,
we were coming back from the YMCA
from working out for a show.
And I was like, man, what the fuck, dude?
This fucking town.
And it was traffic from my own-
Coming to you. Yeah. Oh, dude, yeah. And the driver goes, dude, this fucking town. And it was traffic for my own show.
And the driver goes, dude, these people are going to see you.
I was like, oh shit man.
You're complaining about the traffic.
See that's when we, these people are awesome.
That's one of our goals when you've made is when you can shut down the
damn free road, freeway outside of the arena.
That's when you made it.
That's how we felt pulling up to your show with all that traffic.
It was like, are we even going to have time to get in?
We're like sitting in traffic.
We get out and just start walking.
The Uber's just like, we're just get out here.
And we just started walking down the sidewalk.
Literally the red clay strays, dude.
You guys are just wandering around.
Yeah.
I think we're in a cool spot right now to where it's like, we definitely
get noticed a lot now, but it's still hit or miss in some places.
So, especially if I wear a hat.
It's like an imposter syndrome for us too.
Like, it just doesn't make sense to us why people like what we don't feel.
I mean, we feel what we do is half ass mediocre, you know?
It's just like, you could go spend your time and money on a lot better things.
Well, people, but even talking to me about the number of shows you guys did last
year, I mean that, you know, the only person I've heard talk that's done that
many shows was Lainey Wilson last year did a lot of shows.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, she was, you know, I saw her at the end of the year and I was like, man,
she is gone.
She's, it just hasn't ended.
You know, you have to, I think that's where you, you know, I think that's
where the boys and the men are separated it's it's not about being
the best it's not about it's about literally just going and doing it well
you can stick through it yeah oh yeah resiliency for sure and then I think
like even with Bishop Gunn they had like a dick they had like some addiction
issues in the bay like that kind of stuff tore them you know oh yeah I mean
we've seen that, not with ourselves,
but it's so easy being on the road, how you can,
I mean you probably see it with comedy,
how you can easily turn to those things.
Oh yeah.
It's a dark hole, you don't wanna go down.
We've all,
It's not the 70s no more.
Yeah, it's not the 70s anymore,
and the whole sex, drugs, and rock and roll thing
is kind of a, you know,
what's the word I'm looking for? Like a thing in the past? It's like a
stereotype. Yeah. Everybody look from the outside looking in they think that's
what it's like and it's not really like that anymore. Yeah. And we've always made
it clear like you know everybody has their struggles and whatever you're
gonna do but don't let it get in the way of this.
If you're struggling with alcohol,
not to say that any of us do,
but just in the sense of if you are struggling
with something, stay sober for an hour and a half a night
to play the show.
These people pay money and they take their time
out of their day or their schedule to come see you
and you're gonna get on stage too messed up to perform.
That's not cool with me or not cool with any of us so that's we also been a strict rule
with us I think like we're talking earlier us five are so close to each
other we're like brothers when somebody slips a pack corrects and you know we've
really oh yeah we've all gotten our ass chewed after a show or two you know
that's pretty fortunate then that you guys are able to have that symbiosis or
whatever yeah within your group, you know.
We want the best for each other and we all love each other very much.
We all recognize that we're doing something bigger than ourselves.
If you're worrying about yourself and what you want to do or how you've been done wrong,
then you're going to find all kinds of excuses to get mad or to quit or to argue or fight
with somebody.
But if you keep it selfless instead of selfish,
that's where you can find fulfillment
and the strength to keep going, I guess.
Yeah.
And I think a part of that was our come up,
meeting some of our heroes and realizing
these guys are not cool.
And that's how we don't want to ever treat other people
or treat our own crew, let alone
each other.
So yeah, just seeing that kind of stuff on different festivals or different things like
that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, we've met some people that you think would be douchebags and they're cool as hell.
Yeah.
And that's always cool.
You know, it's like meeting you, you could have been an asshole to us, you know?
Yeah.
You kind of were, but yeah, that's okay.
We're here, you know, I had to be I guess.
What did I do something bad? No. You wore that Jeff Gordon jacket that was that was problem one.
That'll turn some people off man. I made you take it off. I gotta pee really fast guys. You gotta pee anybody else?
I gotta pee. You remember the first song you ever heard? I remember the first song, sorry I'm a little out of breath
going up the stairs. The first song I remember singing was a song by Tracy Bird called We're
From the Country and we like it that way. Everybody knows everybody, everybody calls your friend. Yeah, that was a good song, huh?
Don't need an invitation.
Kick off your shoes and come on in.
Yeah.
We know how to work.
And we know how to play.
We're from the country, and we like it that way.
How old were you when you sang?
I had probably four or five years old.
And were you singing to the family?
Were you performing for someone, or were you just
sitting somewhere just singing that?
I've always, my mama told me, uh, even before I could talk, I'd walk around just going,
nah, nah, nah.
Already on the vocal warmups.
Okay.
So.
But I've always, yeah, just always been a songbird, I guess.
I remember having the little radio off of a Toy Story,
the microphone.
Oh yeah.
I was just dragging the radio around
and it took a cassette tape.
And so I'd have the Tracy Bird cassette tape in there
and just, everybody, yeah.
Oh dude, gosh, I just brought back some memories.
Yeah.
Yeah, the one I had.
That looks like Sketch who was just on here.
Oh my God, is that? Maybe that's what's a basis basis off of what's up, brother?
Yeah, what's up you gotta send him one oh, yeah, we've got a cinnamon will you write that down been okay, um
Yeah, what was that sound you made again?
nah, nah
Reminds me of Squid Games kind of.
I did not like that show.
You didn't?
No, it freaked me out a little bit.
I'm a grown man.
Yeah, it's a little freaky.
A lot of, yeah, I don't, look, I've, yeah, I got some Japanese friends and they, they're
prone to violence at times, you know?
Really?
I can see that.
Oh, they liked, yeah, they, they're really, cause they keep a lot of their feelings in.
And so the only, they-
Well, that's like the way of the ninja though, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, I guess so.
They just busted a dude with a samurai sword out there grilling meat.
Where was that at?
Sounds like Florida.
Um.
Samurai sword and grilling meat.
Yeah, this man, man grilling and shopping cart used sword as skewer arrested near Santa Monica.
Well, he didn't try to stab nobody.
That's what I'm saying.
This guy is video from the Citizen app
captured the wild scene before 3 p.m. on Sunday.
The man is seen dragging a shopping cart through a bike lane.
That looks like California.
The main compartment of the cart is filled
with flaming wood while the man uses a sword as a skewer to hold meat over the flames.
Here's the thing. You can't, if you have so many people who are without homes, right? They're going to start to open up
barbacoas or whatever this is called, you know, they're going to start to open up hair cutting.
I get my hair cut when I'm in LA by a guy who is a street man.
A street man.
But he makes a living cutting hair.
He makes a living cutting hair.
This dude, Dreamer, he's Native American actually.
That right there, that's a food truck,
well, food cart, but same concept.
It's the same concept.
And yeah, sure, maybe it's FDA approved, maybe it's not.
People, it's still society,
they're still gonna start a civilization,
you know what I'm saying?
Everybody's gonna start a civilization.
And if they don't have money to pay permits
for food trucks or whatever else, they're just gonna-
That machete is that man's permit.
Yeah, they're gonna resort to whatever they can.
They're gonna figure out,
and I think we gotta put more swords on the streets.
I bet that's some of the best barbecue
you probably ever had too. Oh samurai sword? Yeah
samurai, oh yeah Willie's samurai barbecue. What do you think that meat is? He probably did not buy that at the grocery store.
Damn dude I think that's damn. He's got some of them Cali raccoons I don't know what they got out there.
Oh I think that's probably brazed human bro bro. Oh, shit. Who knows?
You don't know when you're getting it out of a shopping cart. No.
Dude, it's, look, obviously, and here's the thing,
the shopping cart will make you think that it is.
Grocery store quality.
Yep.
So really, that guy's got a great concept.
Really, it's the grocery store manager quality.
Where does, yeah, where does some of you guys' influence
come with music?
What are you guys listening to right now?
What am I listening to right now? What am I listening to right now?
I've been listening to Lake Street Dive a lot lately.
We just saw them at Mooncrush.
Really?
They're incredible.
Lake Street Dive, you never heard of them?
Uh-uh.
Oh, they're incredible.
Put me on, put me on.
Always been a huge fan of them
and then seeing them live just kind of reignited that.
So I've just been on a Lake Street Dive kick
for the last few days.
Our listeners... Her vocals are just insane.
I love that organ player, man, when he sings. I mean, they're like, it's like the 70s,
modern day 70s music right there. It is incredible, especially live.
Yeah.
Really, really good.
Lake Street dive.
I got obsessed with like trying to do vibrato because I
Can't do it couldn't do it at all
but now I can kind of do it, but she was one of the ones that I would listen to trying to
Figure that out how to do that with your voice
Still can't do it that well, but yeah try my best so so a singer will learn different tricks from other singers kind of or not
tricks are just
Manipulations or ways to perform kind of? I just learned by listening
if I listen to
Lake Street Dive or listen to Waylon or
Whatever I'm listening to long enough. I'll start to kind of
Mimic that on stage a little bit. So how I sing at whatever show I'm at depends on
What I've been listening to for the past few days, I guess.
Yeah, I think there's something about that about being an entertainer. Part of you wants to, especially if you're staying open to things, you're gonna be kind of a sponge in a way, you know, you may, yeah, if you've been, if you've been absorbing one thing,
then the next time you perform there could be some of that in just in your energy, you know?
You want to be kind of a conduit for good energy, you know? And a lot of creativity
in music, art is good energy usually. Do you see that in comedy at all?
Yep. If you watch too many or too much of one guy you kind of oh, yeah start taking that personality
Oh, I'll watch some Chris Rock and I'll go out there and be like
So, yeah that'll happen
Oh every comedian when they started out like at my time everybody started just like Mitch Hedberg like all the like
People that were booking clubs all the people that were booking clubs,
all the bookers were like, yeah, everybody just,
everybody right now sounds like Mitch Hedberg,
it's just cause he's so popular right now.
So I think there's a lot of that that happens.
Who's some guy who yells, right?
He would be like, no, that was.
Who am I thinking of?
Oh, you're thinking of.
He died a long time ago.
Yep, you're thinking of Sam...
Yeah, I can't...
I like this game, no, it's fun.
Sam...
Don't ruin it, man.
Kennison.
Yeah, Kennison, that's it.
Sam Kennison.
That guy was hilarious too.
Well, he had a crazy story with this guy, Carl LeBauve.
Can you bring this up?
So, Carl LeBauve,
RIP to him till he passed away. Really funny, sweet guy.
I never knew Sam or met him.
But they had a, one of them had a daughter.
Can you bring it up?
Let me see.
The late comedian Sam Kennison left his friend and fellow comedian quite a belated surprise.
Carl LeBeau says that Sam was
the real father of the daughter he thought was his. Oh no. We heard about it on the Joy
Behar show where LaBeau said he found out that Sam was the father after Sam died. So yeah,
Carl had raised her her whole life and then found out that Sam was the father. I was definitely-
This is with his wife?
Yeah. So I think there was a rumor that the child was
conceived while he was on stage one time.
Wow. That is some disrespect.
Yeah. I mean, there's craft services and then there's
craft services. I was devastated. Carl said, we're
talking about at the same time of 14 year friendship,
we started out together. So we had survived living on
the streets. You know what it's like to start on comedy.
I mean, we stole fruit from the bars at night just to eat and slept in my car and we
survived for a very long time. And then with the Rodney Dangerfield special, it changed our lives.
And of course, Sam became huge and I was the head writer and his best friend. We never live more
than a mile apart. Wow. Then he slept with his wife. Yep. And he was sleeping with his wife.
That's crazy. Yeah. What does it say happen? You can say best friend and do that.
I know.
That's what's wild.
So I called my ex to explain to her
that I was having a tough time,
and that's when she told me that Sam had fathered my child.
Wow.
Huh.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
Carl LeBeau had not been able to legally establish
that Sam Kinison was the child's father in court
because all the blood tests proved
that she was related to the Kenison family.
Now with the DNA test, he has definitive proof
that Sam was the father.
Wow, that had to be so wild.
I wonder, yeah, I wonder what his thoughts were.
It's like, because his best friend died.
And so that's normally something you would be mad about,
you know, him sleeping with your wife,
but at the same time it's like he left you
a little part of himself to raise.
I don't know.
It's almost a story out of the Bible almost,
it seems like, you know, in a way.
Yeah.
In a way of like, you know, like,
or maybe not out of the Bible,
but it's like one of those ASAPs fables or something,
something where you like learn a lesson learning story.
Cause that'd be crazy.
You would hate him, you'd be angry at the wife.
But then you'd also have something that you cared about for so long.
So he didn't learn that until the death?
Right. He didn't learn it until like way after the death.
Yeah. I think the daughter...
Wow. You have to look at that child a little different too. That's not your blood anymore.
I know. I wonder if that starts to happen inside of you. But you also had that connection like an
adopted child. Right. And that probably wouldn't disappear I think. I've seen mixed emotions from
different videos. Like some men are like, it doesn't matter. That's my kid. I don't care. And
then some men are like, well that's not my kid anymore. I don't know how I'd feel in that
situation. Yeah. Yeah. One guy I saw was playing hit the road Jack on his phone after he found out
Really? He was like pretty excited. Yeah, that's what depends on the man, I guess
Yeah, what else have I been listening to? Yeah that in comedy what Stephen Wilson jr. I listen to
Eddie nine volt. I listen to him. Yeah, we got him
Eddie Ninevolt, I listen to him. Yeah, we got him opening for us at a show.
Oh yeah, we'll do that for you.
Eddie Ninevolt.
Yeah, bro, they're a vibe-y man.
Oh yeah, we got-
I'm on the come up.
Yep.
Yep.
I'm on the come up.
We got a band called The Moss opening for us on the West Coast.
They're out of, I think they're out of Salt Lake.
They're cool.
The Moss?
It's a little more indie rock, yeah.
Not so much.
I don't know if you're into that.
You're West Coast, aren't you?
Yeah, I would listen to some, I would listen to anything.
A lot of times I need people to tell me what to listen to.
A good one that they're no longer a band anymore,
yeah, The Moss.
Jay Roddy Walston and The Business.
Oh yeah, that's some groovy stuff too.
That's like some good rock and roll music.
Yeah.
Yeah, all the albums they put out,
did they put out two or three?
Oh, I couldn't tell you.
That was, you introduced them to me.
Jay Roddy Walston in the business,
baby, I like that.
Yeah, that's some cool stuff.
I don't know if you ever listened to Alabama Shakes.
Yeah, I hate that they're not a band anymore.
That's one that we looked up to.
What happened to them?
Well, I think there's some,
we read some dark stuff about one of the
members in the band and I think that probably led to the downfall. I don't, I don't know how true
that was though. Yeah, we don't know if true, but I think they are a band like we are that started
together equal, you know, like a lot of bands nowadays are built around a star or a singer.
And I think they were one that started together and ended up breaking up together. More of a
constellation. Yeah, wow.
Yeah, what happened?
In 2018, the band went on hiatus
due to Howard's focus on her solo project, Jamie.
Yeah, she's done a bunch of stuff after that.
Which led to a solo tour in 2019.
Howard released her second solo album in 2024.
In June, 2020, guitarist Heath Fogg released his debut
solo project under the name Sun.
I'm not familiar with any of that, but Alabama Shakes was incredible.
And was that all the members of Alabama Shakes?
What's that?
Those people right there?
Some of them. That's part of the band.
So some of them, they obviously just some of them went their own separate ways.
Something must have happened and then went their own separate ways.
Or she wanted to do her solo stuff, which is what happens.
That sounds like it. Man, that's the scary part, you know?
Well, that's what's interesting about the ego.
The ego, you don't know how it's gonna grow.
It grows like a moss, man.
I could see myself doing solo stuff one day,
but I'm not gonna quit Red Clay Stray's,
you know what I mean?
Yes, hers was more of a quit.
Yeah, this came back to it.
Like that band Need to Breathe,
you know who I'm talking about?
That's another one to listen to.
Ben knows.
Their lead singer does a project called Wilder Woods
And he goes and does Wilder Woods stuff, and he still doesn't need to breathe stuff. It's
This is just if I ever get extra time on my hands and just want to start other projects
I could see myself doing it but
Definitely wouldn't need to breathe. Yeah, they're great. They're they're Brandon actually showed me them too. That's I would say have a pretty
Similar we have a similar sound to them. I would say I grew up I grew up listening to them
that's definitely somebody that I
Started trying to mimic like learning how to sing. You got a very
powerful loud voice and that's
how I started singing everything was very powerful and
very loud and then getting into I guess diving deeper into it starting to learn
technique and how to use your voice and stuff and then I wanted to learn how to
sing like opera singers with vibrato and stuff so it just depends on who I'm
listening to. And would you sing, so after you was rattling around
the house, mimicking and learning some, you know,
and running your pipes, you know, like,
did you start to sing in church or what is that like?
Like where'd you're singing, Kanye?
Yeah, I started singing.
How'd you start to sing?
Yeah, where'd you start singing at?
Oh yeah, that was the first place I ever sang
in front of a crowd was at church.
Yeah.
Yeah, I started playing drums in church when I was like 12.
That's a dangerous move usually.
Did they put you in that little shed or whatever behind that thing?
No, I hate those things.
I do too.
Usually the church always puts that guy back there behind that little aquarium.
It depends on the church you go to.
The ones that Brandon was in, they're in there joking.
It's not contemporary.
All the churches are moving that way where they want to shield everything you know, that Brandon was in there, they're in there jooking. It's not contemporary. It's a... They're out there.
All the churches are moving that way where they, they want to shield everything
and have all of the actual sounds of the instruments coming through the PA system.
And it's like, I want to, I want to feel the sound waves, man.
I want to go out, just let the drummer play, let the guitar player play.
And I want to get hit by a damn drum stick in there.
Yeah.
And that's how you get into it.
I actually had to go to, it was Brandon was playing in the church and John,
our drummer, John was playing drums in the church.
This was probably four or five years ago.
And I grew up in a Catholic church and it's, you know, you walk in with, with a
tie on and the organs playing and congregations singing, I come in there and
they are in there throwing down.
I thought it was a WWE match.
Oh yeah.
I had to bring John's snare drum. He asked me to bring his drum and I'm like in shorts. I didn't
know what I was coming to. It's such a wild different environment, but I mean, you feel the
Holy Spirit moving in a bunch of different ways.
So there's a lot of energy in there.
Oh yeah.
That's why I've always like, I'm-
Pentecostal?
Yeah. I'm more non-nominational because I don't really,
the Baptist, the Pentecostal, the Catholic, this is all preference based in my opinion.
But I do like a Pentecostal church because I zone out so easily and I'll lose attention
and if I got somebody up there screaming at me and, you know, stomping his feet and getting
into it, like a performance pretty much, it keeps my attention. I love that. And my pastor, he it like a performance pretty much. Yeah. That keeps my attention.
I love that. And my pastor, he was like 72 at the time.
He'd be running across the pews, running over the top of them and just feeling it,
man, it's just something that keeps your attention the whole time.
Yeah.
Do you think that's had an effect on how you perform kind of?
Yeah, I'd say so.
Now this, the church he's talking about is what I, where I was going as an adult.
The church I grew up in was more of a, still a Pentecostal church, but it was more of a smaller
building and a lot of older people were there and just the old country, southern country
church I guess. It wasn't a lot of energy until I started playing drums there.
Brandon brought the Holy Spirit back in there.
Did that change the vibe in there a little?
Yeah, it was literally just at the time, it was literally just the, the pastor
with no amp or anything, just playing his acoustics, singing hymnals.
And then I started playing drums and then they had a keyboard player and that's,
I guess I started doing that around when I was like 12 and played, played in there
all the way up through high school
before I started going on the road
and being gone all the time.
Yeah, man, that church, especially if you got a church
that's got a feeling in it,
that's why I remember the first time I went to black churches,
man, them things were different.
I've been looking for a good black church to show them.
I mean, I see a lot of similarity in the church
like Brandon's talking about.
They're in there getting down, the preacher's up there, you know,
really preaching and throwing energy into it.
The music's bumping and jiving.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that's what they do.
Yeah, I love that.
Because, well, there's definitely something, there's, I mean, it's even if you look at
like Tony Robbins, he jumps on his like trampoline before he goes on stage.
Like there's something-
Get that adrenaline going.
Yeah, to get just his like,
I think he says it's to get like the lymph in his body.
Like basically just to get the,
it's like shaking the snow globe, baby.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
You want some weather, you just want nothing, you know?
So you gotta start your own weather a lot of times, you know?
Hop on that trampoline. And a lot of times, you know. Hop on that trampoline.
And a lot of times the Holy Spirit or whatever, that feeling you get,
I feel that a lot on stage.
And that's what I project a lot of times, singing.
And just to see that in a pastor, you know, feeling that passion,
to make him raise his voice or to make him stomp his foot.
Yeah.
You know, he's up there in the moment. He's feeling it.
And that just keeps you drawn in the whole time.
Yeah.
Yeah, man, I need to find some good churches
that have stuff like that.
I thought of like-
That's the South, I think, and just in general with churches.
I would love to one day maybe end up in a road like that.
There's some moments on stage where
I feel a little bit like a pastor.
Is that weird to say that?
Well, I mean, you're up there with a microphone. I wouldn't say so.
Yeah, yeah. I don't feel like in the sense that I'm like some, uh...
Like a spiritual leader.
Right, no. But I do feel that in a sense like, oh, I wonder if there's part of me that has this calling a little bit.
That's what it is. It's like a little bit of energy goes through me and like, it's even a moment where it's when I'm talking about God in this one bit and I'm like,
wonder why does this bit stand out to me so much?
You know, or I wonder.
That could be the Holy Spirit talking to you.
Yeah, at least whispering.
At least whispering.
I think God gives you a platform
and it's a constant trade off.
God raises you up and gives you a platform
and then you turn around and give it back to God
and raise him up and then he raises you up. And that's just and then you turn around and give it back to God and raise Him up and then He raises you up.
That's just the way I've always looked at it.
God gives you talents, He gives you drives to do things and then gives you a platform
and you can either make it about yourself or turn around and give the glory back to
God and it's just that constant trade off that's always going on.
Wow. I never really, yeah, that's a great way to say that, man.
Like, yeah, it's like volleying with tennis kind of.
It's like love, love, love, love, you know?
Yeah.
Huh. That's fascinating, man.
Do you have a pretty good faith?
And is it just that has a pretty strong faith brand?
Is a lot of your band members? or is it a church going group?
We're definitely not a church going group, but yeah, we're all pretty faith based.
Yeah, especially the five core of it, we all come from different religious backgrounds
with it too.
Like I said, I'm Catholic, Drew's Methodist, Brandon grew up Pentecostal.
John, I don't know where he came from.
Southern Baptist. Southern Baptist.
Southern Baptist, yeah.
Wow, yeah.
So we actually, I mean, we've had a lot of late...
Through the portal then.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's like none of us are fighting for to live like a Baptist or to live like a Catholic.
No, no, no.
Yeah.
It's just we all grew up that way.
We have some great conversations though.
The goal is to do what God put you here to do, you know?
That goes back to not making it about yourself.
It's something bigger is going on than just yourself.
And so I think that's another big reason why we haven't broken up or anything.
Even when we do disagree or get in fights or whatever, the goal doesn't change.
There's still something bigger going on.
Yeah. But to get everybody to believe that,
that's hard to do, you know?
Cause some people can believe something, you know?
Two out of five people sometimes be like,
yes, this is how I believe,
and this is how I'm going to behave based on that belief
that there is something bigger than us going on.
Yeah.
But to really get all five, that's pretty miraculous.
Yeah. And it's not like, I mean, like our even our whole road crew, we're built of,
you got Christians, we got atheists, it's just like we have a common goal
and it could be something different for that other guy, but we know it's
something bigger than ourselves. Yeah. And I know if somebody doesn't believe,
it's not my job to save them.
You know what I mean?
I'm not gonna, I'm not out trying to preach to anybody
or convert anybody or anything like that.
I'm simply just singing songs.
And if you like it, if you like the message
and if you like what we do, then listen.
And I don't care what you believe or anything like that.
Yeah, oh, I'm not the Lord's EMT.
That's what I said.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
That's the thing you can do is pray for them, man. There's power in prayer. Yeah. I'll follow the ambulance, but I ain not the Lord's EMT. That's what I say. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? You can do us pray for him man. That's power and prayer. Yeah, I'll follow the ambulance, but I ain't the Lord's EMT
You get right behind get through traffic. I used to do that one
I took behind that thing. Yeah, we going to lead to skirt through traffic
Yeah, he's lead blocking for me right through rush hour
Amen
I used to love to try to look in that back window and see what they're doing in there.
Oh yeah, they should put on the outside what's going on.
Oh well, I like how they leave the lights on. You can see them in there working on somebody.
Yeah, it's almost like, it's almost like...
Kinda eerie though when you see an ambulance with lights but no sirens, like, oh that guy's dead in there.
More than likely.
They're just driving to the hospital.
Well, it's almost like, do they say, is it cheaper not to do the sirens? I wonder at that point,
it's like, oh this guy's dead, or just run up the bill. This guy's dead
Yeah, like does that siren cost you a little extra? You got insurance you go the whole thing. They're gonna take you
You ain't got no insurance. You're sitting in traffic. We'll get you there buddy, but you're gonna save about 500
They should have a second level of ambulance for people that don't don't want to pay the high
for people that don't want to pay the high premiums of regular ambulances. Because how much does it cost for an ambulance to come get you?
Oh, you already had it, dude.
With insurance, the average out of pocket cost for an ambulance ride is $450.
So that's like an Uber black from probably...
Across town at least.
Oh, yeah.
You could probably get from Lebanon to here.
$450 black maybe?
That's true.
I don't know.
That's a decent ride.
That's about a... You might be able to get to Chattanooga in a regular uber in a regular uber. Yeah
But a long ride. Yeah, they should have that secondary market like hey, I don't know. I'm hurt. I
Don't you know? I'm not gonna die
Get me over you know I'm saying like get maybe a thing a narcan in the girl in the door
I said like uber could do something for you
like get maybe a thing of Narcan in the door. I see if like Uber could do something for you.
Uber emergency.
Uber emergency.
Uber E.
Uber E, yeah.
Uber E, it's a little more expensive.
They'll drive like a maniac.
You maybe get a little yellow light or something.
Yeah, yeah, nothing crazy.
Just something that's like,
if somebody who delivers mail in a rural community,
they would put that little orange light on top of their car.
They got the minivan.
You ever seen them left handed drive minivans?
Stick you with something?
Dude, my mom would deliver newspapers,
so she would have that one arm, boy,
it was just a slingin' hot dog.
That thing was damn.
Was she on a left-hand drive too?
It'd play for the Mets, dude.
Nah, she'd keep that window down,
she'd be sayin' somethin' to me,
and I'd have to just leave it on every time, brother.
And if you do, if you miss the canes,
you hear the wind come up and hit you with it.
Oh, you missed the canes, and hit you with it. Oh you missed the cadence baby,
you was full of the news.
See that's a mama you don't talk back to.
She probably got a backhand from,
she would learn you fast man.
When you're working out at Planet Fitness,
it's a judgment free zone,
so you can really step up your workout.
That's why we've got treadmills.
And our team members are here to help
so you can be carefree with the free weights.
They're also balance balls, bikes, cables, kettlebells, and T-Rex equipment.
But like, no pressure.
Get started at Planet Fitness today for $1 down and then only $15 a month.
Hurry, this great offer ends April 12th.
$49 annual fee applies.
See Home Club for details. A lot of you guys know we started off with our first advertiser ever was Grey Block Pizza.
Get that hitter, baby.
And the owner of Grey Block Pizza, my friend Thomas, evolved his business up in Oregon
to start Blue Cube Baths.
And he sent me one and it's absolutely
beautiful. A wonderful cold plunge, the best cold plunge in the market. If you
value American-made and pinnacle cold exposure, this is your cold plunge Blue
Cube Baths. What I love is you can you can set that temperature, get it down to, I mean, it might just, you
might be able to ice skate in there.
I haven't put it that low, but you can set it to a place where you feel comfortable.
I'll get in around 50 degrees for about 10 or 12 minutes.
And that's what really sets me and activates me.
I've done it before podcasts to really put me and just put me in my body and put me in the moment.
You know, the positive side effects of cold plunging are countless. You can follow Bluecube's
Instagram for a chance to win your own cold plunge this spring and summer. That's right,
they're giving one away. They will announce the giveaway soon. So follow them at blue cube baths and, uh, we wish them the best of luck.
Um, and thank them for supporting the podcast.
So early on is pornography causing a problem in your life.
That's a good question.
It's a real question.
It has in mind.
It has at certain periods in my life, watching porno and everything and watching porno was
making me, it was ruining my life. It was ruining my life, man. Made me feel just so
much shame. That's what it did. Well, watching pornography has become commonplace today.
And oftentimes men will use porno to numb the pain of loneliness, boredom, anxiety,
and depression.
That's why I want to introduce you to my friend, Stephen Wolt.
Steve is the founder of Valor Recovery.
He is a dear friend of mine.
He is a dear friend of mine.
And Valor Recovery is a program to help men overcome porn abuse and sexual compulsivity.
That's right, their coaches are in long-term recovery and they will be your partner, mentor, and spiritual guide to transcend problematic behaviors. There is zero commitment if you reach
out to them. It's just the first step in trying to figure out if you may need some help, if you can get some help.
To learn more about Valor Recovery,
please visit them at valorrecoverycoaching.com
or email them at admin at valorrecoverycoaching.com.
The links will be on the YouTube.
And again, there's no commitment when you reach out to them.
But I promise you, only something positive will come from you reaching out and figuring out if
what type of help, if any, could benefit you. Thank you. Did you guys go to college?
He did. Yeah, I graduated in 2018, so I got out at a good time.
Yeah. I started playing music right out of high school. Really? Yeah, he was actually in college
a while while we played music and he'd have to make deals with his professors to like come back
and take tests and stuff because we'd be out on the road. Yeah, we, our first tour, I was like a
sophomore and I went to the, uh, my advisor and I was like, look, I got, I need two weeks. Like,
I'm going to do it regardless.
Please let me make my work up.
Cause I want to go to school.
Yeah.
And what college was it at?
South Alabama university.
South USA, USA, red, white and blue.
South in your mouth.
That's what they, that's their mascot.
Oh my God.
The mascot's a Jaguar.
Yeah.
But it's the same, the motto is South in your mouth.
Yeah.
Y'all beat that sec team. It was Mississippi state. I was The motto is South in your mouth. Yeah. Y'all beat that SEC team one time? It was Mississippi State.
I was on the sideline for that one.
Really?
Y'all beat State?
Yeah.
We celebrated like it was the Super Bowl.
Oh God.
We came into the house.
They missed the field goal to win the game and we rushed the field like too early.
We had to come back.
They were still like probably at three quarters to play.
They missed the field goal. We out there still like probably at three quarters to play. They missed the field goal.
We out there celebrating on the logo.
It ain't even half time.
South in your mouth, south in your mouth.
South in your mouth, dude.
What is this right here?
Oh, British man has the largest penis in the United Kingdom.
That's not a lot of people in that country, just to say.
Yeah.
I mean, the US is what?
Probably rockin' a good 400 million. This is in the to say. The US is what? Almost 400 million?
This is in the news. What have we got here?
It's about as big as Rhode Island.
It can be a nightmare, is that right?
Yes, I think people have...
It's a very insolubrious topic to bring up,
so I think people have learnt a lot of myths from pornography and stuff,
where they don't realise the implications that it would have
when you're actually living with a situation.
You've got to get that fiber update.
When did you first realize that perhaps you had a little bit more than some of your classmates
or some of your teammates in the sports team?
Classmates?
I mean, predictably, it was in the winter showers at school.
I think that's what everyone has the first.
This dude looks like a creep.
Yeah, this guy, first of all, this guy seems like a trap.
I bet this guy is not of the biggest wiener.
He just is saying that, which is a great thing to say. Yeah, this guy, first of all, this guy seems like a trap. I bet this guy does not have the biggest wiener.
He just is saying that, which is a great thing to say.
And then you surprise somebody with a basic wiener.
But the man saying, your classmates, how do you know?
Like when you're like, hey, let me borrow a ruler.
And you're like, oh, nevermind actually.
I go under control.
Yeah, that's a creepy situation.
He looks like a school teacher. Yeah.
Why would he go on the news about that though?
Just to talk about it.
Dude, I think the, I don't know.
That's a great point.
It's a lot of ego right there.
What's the UK got going on?
Let me take this wiener for a walk, you know?
I'm going to be on the news.
Yeah, how'd they find out?
Is he posting about it?
He told.
Who's he telling?
Nobody's emailing the news like, in the park yesterday, you know?
Nobody's ever asked him to prove it though.
He's just going off word of mouth.
Yeah, that guy should definitely have to show up every year
at a certain meetup.
Oh, whoa.
They brought the ruler out, man.
That man is posed with a ruler.
Oh, where's he going right there naked?
Look at that look on his face on that bottom.
Why he won't get size reduction surgery
despite all the downsides.
See if you can find out what the downsides are.
Just look real quick, let's see.
Cause this is something, cause yeah, a lot of times
this is one of those things where you think
a lot of things are gonna be great
and then they're not.
The reality of it, you know?
I'm surprised, this is the news over there.
I, yeah.
Yeah. What are they doing in the UK?
You're going soon, aren't you?
Yeah, we're going to go over there.
This is it.
I guess you got to meet this.
You're going to have to bring him to a show.
Bro.
Yeah.
Talk about yourself.
I'm going to have to bring this guy on stage.
Yeah.
This is something about Cambridge.
Where'd he say he was?
Yeah.
Ben Shepard is his name.
Um, yeah.
Does it say anything that he says is the problems? Oh, to get a
reduction would cost... Yeah, I guess your insurance. So does he need to start a GoFundMe? I don't know, I've got insurance in the UK, I don't know how it works.
He could start a GoFundMe. That's true, huh? He'll just keep the money. Oh, that'd be the craziest thing.
And then he'll just have the money and the wiener. We had a guy that did a GoFundMe
or whatever and he was supposed to die or
whatever and he didn't die and people were all pissed when they saw it.
Yeah, I would imagine.
Oh, that's a letdown.
That's a scam.
Yeah.
People were like, what's up, Ron?
Thought you were dead.
Where's my 20 bucks, man?
Yeah, bro.
All right, pay me back on that.
Let's see that cash.
I would hate it. It would be cool probably in college, but even then it would be,
listen, I was hating on it. I'd hate it. No, it's not even fun.
Don't want it. I just wouldn't want to be known for that.
It almost go back to being like one of those circus guys, you know,
come see wiener baby or whatever. Hey, getting paid, getting paid, man.
Yeah. Come see Mr. Watch wear or whatever. That guy's pretty's getting paid, man. Yeah, come see Mr. Watch-Wear or whatever
they call him. That guy's pretty much the new three-legged gentleman over here. See, that's
Franklin Teeny. Come see the snake lady. That was, I went in my one dollar I paid back after I saw
that. I saw Tom Thumb, world's smallest horse once. It was enjoyable. Was it a small horse?
God, it was so little. I mean, dude, it was this big, brother?
You think there's like inbreeding to make them that size?
It looked like it, it looked like it wouldn't go to regular school, I'll say that.
Yeah.
When I looked in its eyes, but it was this big, man.
You could tell.
He rode the short trailer.
He was like, the short trailer.
It still, did it still stand up on its own?
A little bit, it tried to.
Oh man, we out here making fun of that horse.
I thought it was a pig that they glued some air on.
Like a potbelly.
That horse got issues, man.
Well.
We ain't here bullying that poor horse.
Look at him.
Look man, that horse is on the road.
It's probably opening up for a...
Look at what?
Look at it.
For a no-humped camel.
That horse is doing fine.
Paying money to see that horse.
You got the Budweiser horses
I paid I think I got a $2 280 horses can do it. Why can't people do it? That's a good point
That's a great point, huh? Yeah, let people take the show on the road, man
Well, that's the thing we're getting to a point where it's like little things are gonna start to start up and a man's gonna be you know
His own little homeless salt bay or whatever and making meats out of his cart and you
can have, yeah, everything should, everything's going to
have to be financed.
People are having a tough time.
They, everything becomes for sale.
Yeah.
I mean, everybody's like moving into tiny homes and they're
going to start starting these little villages, have a little
doctor and a dentist and a makeshift trading station.
Yeah.
And we have an end of the world plan
and sometimes I just wish it happened.
Sounds fun.
You guys have a plan?
A little bit.
I can't talk about it,
because I'll tell you where we're at,
but we all got little jobs already set up.
We got land picked out.
That's good.
Sometimes I just think that'd be kind of fun.
Well, you'd be a bet.
Yeah, at least you would have a skill too. You'd have a band skill. Oh, we're going to be kind of fun. Well you'd be a bet. Yeah, at least you would have a skill to
You'd have a band skill. Oh, we're gonna be hunting and gathering
Yeah, they ain't gonna be more no more time for music when he's got Native American in him. Yeah, we grow the crops
We're tracking the buffalo man. We ain't got buffalo in Alabama
Down there, I don't know dude.
I've been outside of some.
Alabama, Buffalo.
Do you guys go on tour with the new band now?
Or it's just your tour now?
Like is there a point where you don't open for other bands?
How does that kind of work?
It's just our shows now and they keep selling out.
So we keep having to move to bigger venues
because people are getting pissed about it. But we are actually open up for the Rolling Stones on May the 30th
So that's gonna be the stones out was pretty exciting. Where's that at? It's on Gillette Stadium, Foxboro
That's gonna be pretty that one actually just just hit us last week. Mm-hmm
So things like that are pop kind of popping up all the time now
Yeah, it's pretty cool cuz Mick Jagger allegedly has to approve all of the
openers, so he approved us. I think we get to take a picture with them too, I'm
not sure. We're kind of at a point now where we're, I hate to say too big, but
there's a point where you can't open for people and there's, now we're in this
weird state of trying to get people to open for us.
There's a you got a it's like a juggling act of figuring that out. Yeah. What bands
are big or that can open for you and what bands are we able to open up for
which really be like the Foo Fighters and Chris Stapleton or something at this
point and so we only got to really do it a couple times with especially with Elle.
We did a whole tour with her,
like 40 days.
She's the only one,
she was the first one that took us out like that.
And you know.
The only one.
We've never done it with anybody else.
That's awesome.
Yeah, her, I saw her perform during COVID here in Nashville.
Really?
I haven't been to one of her shows though,
I gotta go check her out.
Yeah, she's cool.
She's good. She's on a. She's good. I love her.
It's on a good show.
Yeah. People love her. Was there a moment where you guys kind of felt like, damn, we
really got a real shot? Like, or we're kind of making it? Like, what does this look like?
Was there like one moment where you guys all just maybe walked into a place and sat down
and then you like looked at each other
and you're like, damn, are we like making it?
Are we doing it?
Yeah, yeah.
Cause it's a weird thing, but it's a real thing that happens.
We have little moments like that.
Like when we first got on the tour bus and got off the bar, getting driven around in
a pre-vost, selling out the, we sold out three days days at the Ramen in like four hours, and that was really cool too.
And those were in September,
is that the ones coming up in September?
That was a moment like, because we had,
we knew, we had a good feeling we'd sell one.
And then it was like, okay, the second one,
we got to throw it up right now, like within the hour.
And then it's like, we got a third one,
we probably could have done five nights.
And then the manager was like,
hey, pick an opener right now for a third night.
We're doing it.
Okay, let me see.
We gotta throw it up in 30 minutes.
I'd say that's a moment.
And we got some big shows coming up this fall
that are gonna be kind of one of those moments.
I don't know specifically,
but those rooms are getting bigger.
Yeah.
Yeah, do you pick openers together like that as a group?
Yeah, we pick all our openers
We end up mainly let like Drew and Andrew y'all do a really good job at picking them Yeah, we just kind of find music we like and send it to the agents and hey
What they call can we get them? We have we have friends to like a
Taylor honey cut. Mm-hmm. She's from Montgomery and she's, she got started about the same time we did.
And she's on the up climb as well.
And, uh, so we, she's actually on one of our Rhyman shows.
Taylor Honeycutt.
Mm hmm.
This is great, man.
It's going to give me a lot of good stuff to listen to.
Yeah.
Oh, uh, Belgian man whose body makes its own alcohol cleared of drunk driving.
Yeah.
This I've heard about this before.
It's a syndrome.
Sounds like alcoholism.
Yeah, it does.
But it's where your body makes booze.
Let me see.
A Belgian man has been acquitted of drunk driving because he has auto
brewery syndrome, a rare condition whereby the body produces alcohol.
As lawyers said. Wow.
People are not born with ABS,
but can develop it when they already have another
intestine-related condition.
Patients can present with symptoms
consistent with alcohol intoxication,
such as slurred speech, stumbling, loss of motor power.
So he's like always buzzed.
Yeah, that's not similar, he's just always drunk.
That's gotta be crazy though, if you just...
To not have to drink anything, but you're always buzzed.
People are like, damn.
How does that happen?
Does he have to put like fruit juice in
and get some hooch out?
I don't know, like Randy's burping y'all.
It's gonna be a...
Yeah.
Don't let him drink that apple juice.
Pull over, baby.
He's peeing, he's peeing liquor at that point.
Don't let him drive, man.
I have a hard time believing.
Auto, that sounds like some European stuff.
Auto-Bury syndrome or gut fermentation syndrome
is a condition in which ethanol is produced
through the endogenous fermentation by fungi or bacteria
in the gastrointestinal system,
oral cavity or urinary system.
Dang, you can make your own, that body wine, baby.
So does that, does it come with the,
the problem of drinking too much alcohol too?
I don't know.
Like does he, are you literally an alcoholic?
I guess just by standing around.
What happens if he gives blood?
Shoot, I don't know.
I'll take a pint though, dude.
Yeah, dude.
I'll take two pints.
Dude.
Hook that man up.
Uh, what else?
Any other news we got?
Um, I did see they had, what was that?
Oh, they had that, a dog that, um, did you see this?
It's like, look it up.
It's a dog.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is it.
Thurminator?
Throw flame unveils robot dog Thurminator
with flamethrower attached.
The Ohio-based Thurminator.
$9,400, look at this dog you can own.
$9,400?
That's the Boston Dynamics dog.
Yeah.
Dude, that's like Elon Musk
when he put those flamethrowers out,
except you can have it hooked to a robot.
$94.
Look at, that's Elon Musk at fire, dude.
That's like a nice,
that's a decent used car price right there.
You could have that, you could have that 2008 Durango out there.
What do you need that for?
What's the purpose of that dog with a flamethrower?
Burn stuff?
Yeah light a cigarette probably.
Burn a trash pile.
Or cook up some damn catfish dude.
I'll tell you this, that thing will grill up a tilapia, homie.
Man.
Bro, that thing could be a waiter for that homeless guy with that cart.
We're going to start seeing some crimes.
Like what if this is.
That guy who like just set himself on fire in New York.
If he was going to do that, he could have done it with one of those dogs.
Yeah.
Would have been cool.
It would have made the news probably a little bigger.
Yeah, yeah, it would have added more.
He was trying to start a revolution apparently.
Was he? Yeah. You haven't seen that? I didn't see it. I probably a little bigger. Yeah, yeah, it would have added more. He was trying to start a revolution apparently.
Was he? You haven't seen that?
I didn't see it. I know that it happened.
There was some protest.
I know a man set himself on fire.
If you're going to start a revolution, at least you use a robot dog with a flamethrower to do it.
Yeah.
Are those legal?
We're going to stop seeing drive-bys and it's going to be people walking...
It's 9,400.
Well, I'll tell you this, you could start some... If you get angry at your neighbor, that thing, you could burn someone's home down.
Yeah, just comes out of the garage and walks across the street. Like, oh shit. Hey, Jim, check out what I got.
Or be petty. Don't even burn the house down. Just burn their bushes down. Yeah.
Oh, that would be the worst, bro. You come out in the morning and your azaleas are gone.
Trash their grass.
So what do y'all's folks think? Has your lives changed?
Has that been interesting or has it been?
I mean, it's been so long.
It's just.
It's just normal, I guess.
Yeah, it hasn't.
I mean, I know it seems like we kind of just come out
of nowhere, but we've been doing this
for seven or eight years now, so.
So they're just, they've been on the bandwagon the whole time.
I mean, yeah, my mom really wanted me to finish college.
Which you did.
Yeah, I did. I was like halfway through sophomore year when I realized I could just do this.
And she really wanted me to finish. She wasn't paying for it either.
Did you get your degree?
Yeah, I got it.
Oh yeah.
It's hanging up.
I was kind of blessed in the sense of my parents weren't very
hands-on as far as that goes.
They were like, well, trust God and do what you're going to do, man.
You know, it's just pray and have a relationship with God and go find your calling.
You know, I didn't really have people holding my hand too much or overbearing
parents or anything like that.
So I could see it being tough though, as a parent.
And that's what your kids getting into, you know, cause
especially our parents, they were, they grew up in the 70s, 80s.
Yeah.
Back then it was a lot different.
Yeah, dude, my dad works in construction.
So I was like, yeah, son, if you want to be a rock star, go do it.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah.
It probably is.
I guess that's a two different types of parents is either You got to go with something safe or you're gonna be like dude
I've had to do something safer. Won't you get out there and take a swing at it both?
Yeah, well what people need to realize is whatever you want to do
You have to make that you're safe make that your safety net like don't you can't you can only go so long with like a backup
Plan or you can't be a side you can't Yeah, eventually you're gonna just have to dive into it and make that your safety net. Yeah
Figure it out. Yeah, it's a good point man
Even with like comedy you hear a lot of comics started out sleeping in the back of their cars
I mean same with musicians sleeping out in their cars to go do another show the next day and he's got us
He's got to send it
I was in love one time with a girl and I was like, I tried to stop and do real
estate for a while and I couldn't do real estate real good.
I actually filled out one of the leases wrong or something and bought the house yourself.
No, I had to pay some lady's rent though.
Really?
Yeah, I had to pay some lady's rent though. Really? Yeah. I messed up and.
During COVID, I sold roofs.
You sold roofs? Yeah.
There was during 2020 when those three, two or three hurricanes
hit the Gulf coast at once.
Oh yeah.
Everybody was down there just selling roofs and I was working with one of the
companies that was owned by one of my friends because he knew like COVID had
happened and it was shows weren't very common
at the time. So he hooked me up with a job working with him. I think I sold three or four roofs and
every single roof that I sold he lost money on. He'd like get under there and just find more and
more stuff wrong with it. It ended up being like a $40,000 job and the insurance only covered like
20,000 of it. You're like Brandon. Yeah. I'm not a good roof seller man. I'm not a good salesman period because salesman's job is to
convince you to buy something and I'm my attitude was just like buy it or not I
don't care like you know if you don't want it no skin off my back. Yeah.
There's the opposite of what you're supposed to do. Hurricane jobs are a real
thing where we are. It's really true. You hope for them hurricanes. Well it's so
funny it's like you kind of like, yeah.
Yeah.
So many of my friends work in like where they sell the, um, help process, like
people's insurance claims and all of that, man, that's what I got during
COVID my fiance's dad, uh, is an insurance adjuster.
So I was like unchanged.
So I was climbing on people's roofs, marking stuff with a, I had no idea.
I was up there just circling stuff. Just drawing whatever?
Yeah, I'd signed my name on half of them.
Just go up there and circle damage and take a picture of it.
Well, what's scary is...
I would hate to be those homeowners.
You got this hippie coming and climbing on your roof.
Up there coloring and drawing.
Yeah, he's just writing widespread panic lyrics up there.
Yeah, you need a new widespread panic lyrics up there.
Yeah, you need a new roof. Draw the Wayland symbol. Yeah.
Have you guys gotten to meet widespread?
No, no, I mean we listen, I wouldn't say we're the biggest fans, but I mean, I think everybody's listened to them at this point. Yeah, yeah.
It's just something, you don't hear a lot of people get to meet. It's just they're kind of like one of those interesting groups,
you know. That's like, we played with Eric Church, didn't meet him. He sent
a bottle of whiskey with a note, but we didn't meet the guy. I think it's
because he would literally fly in and play the show and fly out. I think that's how a
lot of those really, really big guys are. They come in, get business done, and
they're out. I went to Eric's house a couple years ago. Oh yeah, I'm out with him.
Yeah, and wrote a song. Me and Matthew and Drew wrote a song with him. How do you, something like that gets set up?
I have no idea.
I think one of the booking agents reached out to him.
Probably.
Yeah, I think it got set up through the managers
and I don't really know.
I can't remember how that went about.
If he reached out to us or if we reached out to him.
Are there like write up,
like are there writing sessions that you have scheduled coming up
kind of thing?
Or is that just like once in a while sort of thing?
How does like, because you guys have a new album,
so you won't be writing for a while,
or you just kind of write as you go?
Me, Drew, and Matthew make a yearly trip up here in January
after the new year.
And we usually stay up here for a week
and do a bunch of writing. And we're trying to do that more often now but yeah well sometimes
we'll meet people too and just get a co-write scheduled a lot of times though
when we write our stuff of our own it happens when we're at home it's very
hard to write and make music when you're touring all the time yeah most of our own, it happens when we're at home. It's very hard to write and make music when you're touring all the time. Yeah. And most of our songs come from with, you know, Brandon Drew and Matthew
writing and rather than from a co-write somewhere. Yeah. It's just kind of how it happens. That's how
it happens, man. We play all the new records at the live shows pretty much. Oh, sweet, sweet. That's
how we test them out. Yeah. And so the feedback, the response has been good. That's how we even do it before we even go in the studio. We just start playing stuff
if the crowd, if we don't feel a good response and we kind of go back and change a couple things and
they kind of grow with us on the road and we get, I mean it's like, it's quick feedback. You're
constantly in a space where you can experiment. Yeah we can test. Yeah. Yeah that's pretty awesome huh?
Yeah. It's like going out and trying jokes on the crowd to see Yeah, we can test. Yeah. That's pretty awesome, huh? Yeah.
It's like going out and trying jokes on the crowd
to see if it laughs or not.
Yeah, no, that is one nice thing about having shows
where you're just kind of cruising along
and you're working and you're writing at the same time.
Cause I learned a lot of times in the moment up on stage.
I think it's, you can write it, but it's, yeah.
After a while, you kind of know your voice too
and you know what'll kind of roll for you.
I think that's what you can't get.
And I'm not knocking anybody who does like the voice
or American Idol because if that's your way,
if that's the path you want to take, then cool.
But you can't skip the road dogging it.
You can't skip playing in front of a crowd
or playing in front of empty rooms.
No matter if you win a TV show or not,
you're still gonna have to acquire that experience
or it's just, you're gonna have a hard time navigating,
trying to figure out how to work a crowd
or figure out what works and what doesn't work.
Yeah, that's a good point.
I would hate to have gotten to,
had a chance to have a larger crowd and not known.
I mean, even then it's still tough sometimes
because it's still, you're in front of a huge group of people.
I mean, you see all the time, like entertainers have problems
with people throwing them out.
We've had to throw people out of shows
or people throwing stuff at like,
Nicki Minaj gets something thrown at her every other week,
it looks like, but-
I don't understand that.
Yeah, me neither, but it's like,
there's always gonna be that element that you're in a live space.
But to not have had the reps of like, I know how to be here.
It gives you some confidence too.
Yeah.
But yeah, I couldn't imagine, especially a comedian, like you're saying that just
gets thrown out to the wolves.
You're here, so over an arena, good luck.
But a lot of those guys off kiltonial have to do that.
That's a good point.
They go from a minute to, I don't know what you get as an opener.
Well, they get a couple more.
Yeah. That's a goal armor. When you got to, they usually start to with three minutes.
As a, as a like first opener.
Yeah. Comedian with three minutes. Like when you're first starting out, they're like, okay,
you're on a show. It's like, you're going to do three minutes.
Wow.
And you're like, okay, can I get through three minutes? And if you have to get down early,
you're just like, I'm done. And they're like, well, can I get through three minutes? And if you have to get down early, you're just like, I'm done.
And they're like, well, you weren't, but okay, come on back here.
You know?
Um, and then you try to get up to five.
And when you really start feeling like you're rocking as a comedian,
and then you get to like that 15 Mark.
Yeah.
I could see that you got a little time to get uncomfortable.
You're like, I might go on the road.
You might start saying a shit like that to people.
And people are like, you're out of your mind.
You work at Dairy Queen.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
You're out of your mind.
I got a 15 minute set, man.
You don't know me.
Yeah, I'm going on tour.
You don't know me.
I'm outta here.
Yeah.
And you just start yelling at people
while you're trying to throw that trash into the bin
at night behind the Dairy Queen.
Testing it out on the homeless people
that still hanging around outside.
Yeah, and then that's when it gets like,
that's when you can kind of go on the road with somebody.
But then there's those moments where you get stranded,
you burned all your 15 in 10 minutes,
it was a bad show and you still have to kill five minutes.
Oh, we've had shows where you just want it to be over.
Yeah.
What is it, sometimes it's just the energy of a room,
it's just the night, just is what it is. I mean, we had one reset.
Sometimes it's just from being tired.
Like we're just trying to think now,
we're no more than four shows a week
and no more than three in a row.
Yep.
Because by that third show,
and we've had five shows in a row,
and it's like by that third show,
you usually, you need a break.
And at the end of the day,
you're taken away from the crowd anyway,
because if you're up there tired and too tired
to give it your all, then you're selling your crowd short.
Yeah, you just kind of go into the motions.
But I mean, we've done that and people at the shows like,
that's the best show I've ever seen.
And sometimes it's like Tortuga though,
where it's like everybody's vibing
to a completely different style of music than we play.
And then we show up just playing rock and roll and the crowd's just like, bring back the beat.
Yeah, it's like, they were like doing, it's like a bro country or pop country.
And then we're in the middle of it. We don't even consider ourselves country.
It's just like we ruined everybody's beach party.
Yeah.
They're out there, they want songs about getting drunk and...
Oh, I could see that.
You guys are kind of in a little bit,
not your own space, but what is it?
I don't know.
We just do what we want, I guess.
We call it non-dom rock.
I like that.
Non-denominational rock and roll.
It's just like all over the place.
Everybody's at that beach, and we're like,
here's one about mental health.
Enjoy, if you know somebody.
Strays, that's kind of strays, that's one about mental health. Yeah. Enjoy. If you know somebody. Strays though.
That's kind of strays.
That's what strays do man.
Yeah.
We, that part came from just kind of being, I wouldn't say outcast, but we were
always a little different from the crowds we grew up in.
Didn't quite fit in.
I went to private school.
I didn't fit in with a lot of those kids.
I didn't really put that together too.
Yeah.
We are kind of straying from the.
From the norm.
From the norm musically.
A lot of people don't really know where to put us.
Well, there's some rifts in there.
Sometimes I feel like some of it has an Aerosmith kind of,
it's interesting.
I'll go through different moments
where I feel different things, you know?
Yeah, it's just, I mean, when we're writing or making music,
we don't try to sound like anybody.
Or we just do what we think sounds cool.
I think that's really cool, find your own little niche.
Yeah, well look, I think it's just a testament to,
but to be able to figure out what works for five guys
at once, it's pretty remarkable.
You know, because you really have five inputs,
even though you have only three or four guys
contribute maybe on the songwriting edge, but.
We still all work it up together.
Yeah, we all create the songs together, yeah. But yeah but then yeah it just goes back to not being able to skip that step playing
in front of crowds together as a band and road-dogging it and everything that
comes along with all of that it's that's where you start to figure out how each
other plays or what each other is about to do. It's kind of like, what is it?
Telekinesis? Telekinesis? Telekinetic? No, it's not telekinetic. What's the word we're looking for?
Telepathic. When women all get on the same menstrual cycle or whatever, like on a volleyball team?
We definitely have that. Oh yeah. Well, we're on the same musical cycle. I like that, man.
Any unique things that have happened out on the road?
Any wild cat, any?
Oh man, we got stories for days.
Anything that really shook you out there?
Man, recent?
Or just in general?
Back in the day, we've had bus fires.
We've blown, we did a whole transmission swap
ourselves in Colorado.
No way.
We bought another bus.
We were going through Colorado, I think.
I-70 had washed out.
Yeah, I-70 was washed out.
So we had to go the Fair Play up through where South Park is
and it's like 13,000 feet.
And we had to go the back way to get to Grand Junction.
We were going up the side of this mountain
and I was laying in my bunk.
I was driving.
I hear like Andrew screaming.
I had my headphones in and I hear him screaming,
like, we just blew the transmission out.
And we're literally on the side of a mountain.
Yeah, it's 90 degrees straight down, 90 degrees straight up.
Two lane road, just right there.
Right against the side of it was rocks
and there's a falling rock sign.
And Drew steps out of the bus and hits some gravel
and immediately falls down.
Just pissed.
He gets up and starts punching the bus.
I just knew it was happening.
We're just going and when you get up that high, it's with our diesel especially, you
lose, you know the math, you lose what, 3% for every thousand feet or so.
Of what, brain power or whatever?
Our brain power.
No, for the motor.
Oh.
It's like if the air is so thin, the motor has to work harder. Probably some brain power too. Yeah, we're definitely losing some brain power, for the motor. Like if the air is so thin, the motor has to work harder.
Probably some brain power too.
Yeah, we're definitely losing some brain power.
I'm not good with altitude.
I've had some bad times, but.
And how'd you get that thing back down?
You had a tow truck?
Yeah, we had to order it.
We had to get a semi truck.
Yeah.
Loaded the bus up and our trailer.
Like a $5,000 tow to the.
A state trooper.
A state trooper gave us a ride as well,
out of the goodness of his heart.
And yeah, it was Buena Vista, Colorado.
And there was like one hotel room left in that whole town.
Because I was calling and calling and calling while we were waiting on the tow truck.
And finally got it and we all piled up in that one hotel room.
I'm like, well, what are we going to do?
Me and Andrew, so we had the bus dropped off at a transmission shop in town,
and it was probably a good four miles away.
And we got up the next morning right before the sun come up and just start walking towards it.
And we're like 10,000 feet. I mean, we're sea level men. We ain't built for that.
We finally make it to the transmission shop, and he's like, man, I'm two months backed up. Get this thing out of here. I can't built for that. We finally make it to the transmission shop and he's like, man, I'm, I'm two months backed
up.
Get this thing out of here.
I can't work on this.
Oh, so we're walking back to the hotel, wondering what we're going to do.
And we've, we've been in that situation before.
And cause I mean, we've had to roll up the shops like, Hey, we ain't leaving.
You gonna fix it or we stay in here with you.
And it's not like we just like, we just have to throw money at people, like just work on
it.
We'll pay you whatever. and he's not having it.
Damn.
He's like, sorry.
Isn't that where the Shining is, where the hotel is?
Bienavista?
I don't think so.
I don't think so, this is not a very nice,
I mean it's beautiful, but it's not a big town,
like where that big hotel would be.
Okay.
Ben might have to pull that one up,
I'm not sure where that's at.
Yeah, I see where that's at, man.
It is up in the mountains somewhere though.
Is that Montana? That's in Oregon, man.
Dude, that place is in England?
No, the interiors are filmed.
No, the Shining, yeah.
The interior, the real Overlook Hotel maybe?
You know, we got Good Godly Woman and the sequel to The Shining for like two seconds.
Oh yeah?
Dr. Sleep.
But to continue what we're talking about was,
we started walking back just like, what do we do?
And we had to start, me and Brandon's hitchhiking
through this town in Colorado,
literally walking out with a thumb out.
Yeah, with a thumb out.
Nuh-uh.
Yeah.
And this old guy in the Jeep picks us up
and he gave us a ride to the hotel.
We were just like, we have to do something.
Damn.
We've been picked up by strangers a bunch of times. He dropped us off and he's like hey
there's a white water rafting company that sells buses like the one you're talking about. Maybe
hit them up see if you can buy a bus from them and we were like yeah whatever thank you. Still
tried to find someone to rebuild the transmission and the closest person that would was in Denver.
It's like three hours away. He said if if you pull it and bring it to me,
I'll build it for you.
And so before we resorted to that, we had
rented a U-Haul van and went and talked to
that company, the white water rafting company.
And he had a bus just like ours that had a
freshly rebuilt transmission in it.
And he put like 30 miles on it and parked it
because he bought a school bus.
They use the buses to bus people out to the river to white water.
And, uh, he said he'd sell us the bus for three grand.
And then he figured out we were a band and he was like, well, if y'all play
a show for us, I'll unlock a grand off the price.
And we were here for like four days and the place is so they do that white water
rafting, all these teenagers come to be the gods, like a bunch of river rats come in and
they, you know, those campers on the back of a pickup truck.
Yeah.
They, it's a field full of them.
And that's where they're laying on the ground.
That's where these kids are living.
In those?
Yeah.
And the grass is all grown up around them and there's, they don't have power.
They're like-
Just the ground and then the camper top.
And the camper top.
And it's like, it's like a trailer park of them.
They're everywhere.
But it's not a full trailer.
It's just the little-
It's just that little cab.
It's just a camper seat, isn't it?
What do you mean?
Yeah, I mean, well, I think you can stand up in them,
but it have like that little,
the part in the top you can sleep in.
Here's what I'm picking a picture in like a pickup truck.
And then that thing that goes on the back.
That goes on the bed.
Yeah, like sits down in the bed.
It goes on the bed and kind of goes over the cab.
It goes over the top of the cab. Oh no, not that. I'm just thinking on the back that goes on the bed. Yeah, like sits down. It goes on the bed and kind of goes over the over the cab.
Oh, no, not that i'm just thinking of the one that just goes that's that's
Oh, you're thinking of a camper shell. No, this is like, uh, it's like a motorhult. Well now
I know what you're talking about. Yeah with the piece that goes over the top
And they're all window unit in them sometimes and these are straight hippies and there's no trucks
Just those just those and the grass is all over top of them. They're living in them.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like those, not as nice.
Like that one on the top right.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
No, oh left.
That one's too big.
That one.
It's a bunch of those.
And these kids are straight up real life hippies.
Like straight up, we were playing,
we set up and played for them
and they were dancing in between songs kind of thing.
It's all gravel, it's all dusty in here in the rafting building.
Yeah, they could play the show.
It was probably 30 or 40 of these kids.
Yeah.
Can I say kids? They're probably in their late teens, early twenties.
It was in the big building where they keep all the boats and we sat up in there and it was like a
gravel floor and just the dust from them like scooping and shuffling.
That hippie shuffle.
Dude, that's incredible. And that was, yeah, look up,
see what rafting company that was.
That's phenomenal.
Yeah, whitewater rafting in Buena Vista.
Yeah, we can, I mean, there's a couple,
it's in Buena Vista.
Some whitewater something.
So then you guys take off in that new bus?
Well, no.
We get the tow truck to drop our bus off
next to the one we just purchased,
and then we just start taking
them apart and we took the transmission out of ours took the transmission out of
the other one and swapped them around and I did something wrong in the process I
didn't put the torque converter all the way in and so we bolted it up and bent a
pump gear and had to pull it back out and take it to that original transmission
shop and we pulled one of the what he was talking about like hey we, hey, we need you to fix this, we ain't leaving.
He ended up having a soft spot,
he actually helped us out big time.
He took it apart and straightened out
what I had accidentally bent and put it back together
and then we got it back in there.
A two day job turned into like a five day job
and it was miserable.
But while like Brandon and a couple of the,
and this is just the five of us on the road together,
they would be working on dropping the transmission
or getting the other one ready.
Me and Zach would be just ripping every part
we could get our hands on on this bus.
You don't see these buses ever in like a pull apart.
Usually somebody will take minutes, a seven, three diesel,
those never show up.
So we're getting every part you could put a hand on,
snatching it out.
We took out like the turbo, we took the back AC unit,
we took the driver's chair, took the steering,
the steering box underneath it.
That thing would never drive ever again in its life.
We just straight pulled apart.
Somebody asked if they could have it
and we were like, yeah, you can have it.
He was like, we'll just drive.
Yeah, he said steer it over here and I'll pull it.
I was like, you ain't steering nothing.
So we straight left it.
You're like, we took the steering.
We took everything. That thing was, we took the
bumper. We swapped the bumpers, everything. I took the taillights, but we, um, we got
it put back, our bus put back together with all these other parts and got down to Mississippi.
So you guys had to miss some shows in it? You had a little break. I think we missed
one show. Did we? I don't know if we did. We missed the, where were we heading?
Mississippi.
No, we were heading somewhere else.
Oh, Grand Junction.
Yeah, we missed the last Colorado show,
but we had four days off, so we made it.
We just buckled up and drove.
Wow.
Yeah, that was a time in our lives that was,
looking back, it was fun in the moment.
It was, I think it was that American adventure expeditions looks familiar. Yeah
We went stop somewhere with this a good whitewater raft and it was in Tennessee those over near Chattanooga
Mm-hmm. I've never done it before it looks fun. They didn't nice. They didn't take us out
you think that had been part of the deal, but
there's
There's your bus. Oh, man. That's it. I mean, that's the town.
That's where we were trapped for four days.
It was beautiful.
Oh yeah, but we were underneath that thing,
bench pressing this transmission and this dude comes by
and he crawls up under there with us, he's hippie.
He had like a big mustache.
He's like, let me touch everybody.
Get his hands on us.
Eliza Thornberry's dad mustache.
We're having a moment right now.
It's like, yeah man, we're having a moment this whole week, thank you. Then he offered us some now. It's like, yeah, man, we're having a moment
this whole week, thank you.
Then he offered us some drugs.
He's like, man, y'all like to party?
Like, yeah, we like to party.
He's like, man, I got ketamine, I got cocaine.
I've got all sorts of stuff.
We're like, no, man, we're good.
We're gonna bench press this transmission.
Was it really good at reading the room,
just covered in grease, trying to put a bus ride together. I ain't doing no cocaine
with a someone who's super homeless. Oh yeah these are and you know it was
someone is I don't know if it was like a yeah I'll see where you're not living
at let's party let's come back to my camper we'll hang out but if somebody's
super homeless dude I'm out. That could have been it too that looks pretty
familiar.
There was two of them across the street from each other.
There was a Domino's down the street. That's all we had to eat.
Oh yeah, there always is.
Next to a mechanic shop.
They shared a driveway because they hated each other.
Where'd you guys sleep at where you're there?
The hotel was right in front of the rafting place.
I think that last night we had to sleep on the bus.
Yeah, we did.
As it was still blocked up.
Just we opened the windows and
Camped out in it man. Just like the hippies. Hell. Yeah, and that was when you was that that's when you're like
Oh now I see where that guy was coming from. Yeah, it was that was a
That was a tough time. Yeah
Yes, and I think it was it's the one across it's the adventure company. Yeah
That's who you guys are, man.
Y'all are the adventure company.
You guys have been on a lot of adventures, man.
I got a good rating.
That's the raft.
That's the, look at this.
There's that building, go up one, Ben.
That one.
No, y'all played in that raft room?
That one.
Yeah, we played in that raft room right there.
Amen.
That's where we set up.
They were still rafts hanging around.
People were hanging out at them watching the shows. It's kind of cool. Bro. That's where we set up. They were still rafts hanging around.
People were hanging out at them watching the shows.
It's kind of cool.
Bro, that's unreal looking.
We'll have to get in contact with those folks.
Dude, if you guys went back through there at some point.
Probably that bus is probably still laying
where we left it.
We need to go check on that bus.
Yeah, amen, man.
They hate that the mechanic shop next door.
They hated each other.
But you guys were kind of like the bridge
between them at that time.
Yeah.
Except we left that bus,
that mechanic said he was gonna go get it.
I bet he never went and got it.
It's probably still sitting in the same place.
Any stray animals you pick up out there?
Speaking of the strays.
No, not really.
Trying to think.
We've hit some animals.
Amen.
We did.
And RIP, sorry.
Yeah. But hey, look look sometimes the Lord uses you and your vehicle to bring an animal home. Exactly. It's good for the population
Let's just respond somewhere. Yeah
Dude I'm so excited about the new album when will it come out? Do we know yet? We're thinking late summer
Yeah, hopefully around August time. It's about to start picking back up again.
I think everybody's gonna really like it.
I'm amazed that you guys aren't even impressed
with yourselves yet.
I love that, man.
It's one of those things,
you kinda can't take it for granted.
It can be taken from you tomorrow, you know?
Yeah, it's like.
We could scanner this thing and die in a plane crash.
Yeah, people get popular too,
and they're popular for however long,
and then time goes by and then nobody knows
who they are anymore.
That could very well be us.
Who knows?
Just try to be thankful for it,
and never wanna be complacent, I guess.
Always wanna be trying to get better,
and just be a better person, put on a better show,
and be a better band, make better music.
Just keep, never stop growing, you know?
Yeah.
Well, the rest of us are impressed, man.
I'll say that, dude.
Good deal, I'm glad some of us-
We have a lot better music out there.
For sure.
Thank you guys so much for making good tunes,
and yeah, excited to hear the new album.
Do we even know a name of it yet, or?
Give it to them, Brandon.
Just give it to them.
The album is going to be called Made by These Moments.
And, uh, it's got a, it's got a good message to it.
I'm excited.
That's what I'm excited for people to hear the music, but it's just
got a good message as well.
So it's going to be cool.
No, we've never told anybody that publicly.
So, no, nice.
You heard it here first.
I'm sure you'll email me tomorrow
and ask me to take it out, but that's all right.
No, we in charge here, buddy.
We make the calls.
Oh, man. We make calls.
Yeah, well, thanks for sharing that,
made by these moments, man.
Yeah, it's a lot of what life is, man,
making them good ones, too.
I mean, that's what it stands for for us.
All the stories we were just talking about
is why we're here
So it means a lot to us
Amen red clay strays boys
Thank you guys so much man. I appreciate it thank you guys for coming and just chatting and spending time good to get to know you guys a little bit and
Yeah, I look forward to coming out and being able to catch another show soon. Yeah, you just let us know
You got always got a spot on the list for you.
Gang, baby, you got to stay healthy out there, man.
You too.
You too, man.
Thank you. Oh, but when I reach that ground I'll share this peace of mind I found
I can feel it in my bones
But it's gonna take a little