wellRED podcast - #147 - From American Aquarium.... its BJ BARHAM!!!

Episode Date: December 11, 2019

We couldn't be more pumped up to sit down with one of our all time favorite singer/songwriters BJ Barham! BJ is the frontman of American Aquarium (with whom he has released 10 albums.. all of which hit super hard) and the writer of all their tunes. We were lucky enough to catch BJ while he was in LA working on their latest album. During this sit down we talked about growing up in the south, sobriety, some parallels between comedy and music, how BJ almost quit the industry all together, gerrymandering, how we knew Trump was going to win, people who think they are conservative but aren't, and of course... giving coffee to babies! wellredcomedy.com for all our tour dates and merchhttp://www.americanaquarium.com for all of BJ and crew's dates, albums, march, info, yada yadda BUY ALL HIS SHIT ITS THE BEST 

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See Capital One.com slash bank for details. Capital One and a member FDIC. What is going on, everybody? It is your boy of the show, Corey Ryan Forster, well-read comedy.com, W-E-L-L-R-E-D comedy.com. That is where you can find out where we're going to be for the remainder of our 2009. 19 tour, but it's really, there's not a lot left, so I'll just, you can just, I'll save you some time. It's Nashville.

We're going to be in Nashville, December 19th through the 22nd at what I consider the best comedy club in the country. Zanies in Nashville. It is going to be our special Christmas slash homecoming shows. Not only are you getting stand up, but you're going to get some sketches and you're going to get some in other insane things. DJ Lewis will be there. He may or may not have a sword.

That's usually the case. with DJ. DJ comes with a disclaimer that he may or may not have a sword, but we're very proud of the show. It's going to be something a little bit different. So, even if you've already seen us this year on this tour, this will be a completely different show. It's a Christmas show. So come to Zanis. Check that out. Tickets are going fast, but you can get them at well-read comedy.com. Just click on the link there. Also, you can show, it's Christmas time, so you know what that means? If you haven't already bought the Liberal Redneck manifesto for everybody in your family, you can do that, along with our

critically acclaimed album. Well read live from Lexington. I hope people know that I'm fucking bullshit when I say that. I don't know. No critic has acclaimed shit. I like it though. I'm proud of it. I'm super proud of that album. Um, what else is new? Um, I don't have an official date yet, but stay tuned to all of our Facebook and Instagram and Twitters because we will be releasing our latest Comedy Central sketch within the next week or two for sure. Um, yeah, and other than that, we're not going back on the road till March. We're writing some cool stuff for you guys. We're working on TV shows and sketches and podcast. There will still be the podcast every week. And again, I'm very sorry about last week we had, we were filming the sketch on Tuesday when we normally record. And then the next day, I had a shit ton of meetings and I couldn't put it out. And then we didn't get the files till late. And it was a whole thing. So I'm so sorry that it only came, that came out on Saturday. That's me. I try not to let that shit happen. But this one is coming at you, uh, just as, as, promised on Wednesday morning and it's a great podcast we have one of our just absolute favorite

singer-songwriters of all time we all discovered him I'm fairly certain independently um but my god we're so pumped up to have the one and the only BJ Barham or BJ Barham however you want to say it it's barram but barham Drew had a joke about that in the podcast that you can enjoy he is the front man for American Aquarium one of our favorite bands. Their entire discography is great. You should buy it all from antique hearts to the Bible in the bottle. Bones.

Dances for the Lonely. Small Town Hems. Live in Raleigh. Burn Flick or Die, which was produced by this guy. You may have heard of him. His name was Jason fucking Esmel. Wolves live at Terminal West. Things change.

The boys met up with him in studio because he was out in Los Angeles working on his latest record with Shooter Fucking Jennings. His latest record will be lamentations. It will be out later next year. We have a nice sit-down with BJ, and we discussed growing up in the South and music and comedy and yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. It's fucking BJ Barham. You got to listen. And also go over and buy every single thing that American Aquarium has ever put out and everything solo that BJ has put out.

Oh, this portion of the podcast, I'm sorry, I almost screwed everybody over. This portion of the podcast is always brought to you by Smokey Boysgrilling.com. Go to smokeyboysgrilling.com to get all the rubs for all you meets. And also it's carvedvodka.com Jacksonville's first and only craft vodka distillery. Go check out what the Cho drinks. And also holler at some live oak whiskey. My buddy Paul, the CEO there at Carved vodka and live oak whiskey, just sent me a nice little package. A couple bottles of whiskey that I'm going to use to take to my buddy Conrad.

's house this weekend for a little Christmas partay. So appreciate you, Paul. Y'all go check all those things out. We love you and enjoy this conversation with our good buddy, BJ Barham. Ski-h-h-h-h-h-h-hue. They're the limeroy-rude-sex. They care way too much, but don't give a fun. They're the next that makes some people upset,

but they got three big old dicks that you can suck. Every sip. Yeah. All right. No judgment, but, like, I just want to know, you say your 18-month-old drinks black coffee. Are we talking about decaf or full-bore coffee? I'm talking about full-bore coffee.

I'm talking about single origin, Kenyon. Are you out of your goddamn mind? I'm a little curious about it, too. And I just mean, I don't even mean, like, whatever. I'm not worried about any kind of adverse effects that's going to have on the kid or nothing. I'm saying, who in the hell purposefully, like, primes up an 18 month old.

Oh, it's great. It's like rocket fuel. You're crazy, man. Will you do this when you come off the road? You're supposed to give him Benadryl, man. He's supposed to drug him in the other direction. Rachel, just like, knock their asses out. You come home, you wind her up, and then you take off.

This is what you do. No, it's crazy because we do it. She'll wake up from a nap and we'll do it and we'll go out in the backyard and it's fun. It's like winding up a fucking top. And she just like runs circles in the yard with the dog. And then she tires herself out. It's, it's, you can use it to your advantage. She crashes.

Yeah, she crashes. Like, if you give coffee right before a nap, yeah, you're setting yourself up for failure. But if you give her coffee and then cut her loose outside, that shit's fun. All right. Well, and also I think it's a, you know, this is an 18-month-old girl we're talking about. And I have two boys and, you know, everything. Totally different monsters. Yeah.

And Monsters is the operative word. There will have been some kind of intro before this if Corey does his job, although it seems to be the theme today is he might not, because he's supposed to be here and he isn't. But this is BJ, everybody. Hey, how are you guys? Front man, singer, songwriter, extraordinary American Aquarium and buddy of ours from North Carolina. Yes, sir.

American Aquarium, a band we have often thought about on this podcast. What are you talking? I introduced them to you. He did not. He did not. He did not. First of all, okay, I may be willing to grant you that You are the one who introduced Corey to them.

You did not introduce me to that band. I asked you about them and you already knew about them. So it didn't work in reverse. But I, that is that ain't what happened. Standing by. Standing by. To the day I die. To the day I die, he did not introduce me.

I think the record is dances for the lonely. I got it on vinyl recently on their store. I think that was the first one I heard. The first time I saw you was at my. favorite festival in the world at the time i still love it the bristol rhythm and roots that's a fan we're doing it again this year and i want to go it's always around my birthday but it's also a weekend we're almost always on the road i haven't been able to go you you guys played a bar that year that was years ago oh wow i believe it was the first time you were there i could be wrong it was like uh right there

on that main strip you had on your uh your embroidered rose rose pedal oh heck yeah which i totally ape your style now when i'm on the road by the way you got to man and uh i i stole it from some of I go short sleeve, you know, because I got better arms than you. I do more push-ups. I don't know, though. He's got the tattoos or slate, dude. Yeah, that makes a huge difference. I've been going ever since the full sleeve tattoos, you've got to go short-sleeve because.

Well, hell yeah. Anyway, I stood super close, awkwardly introduced myself to you, all that stuff. And then the next time I saw you, I think, it was like completely, it was, you know what I mean? It was like I couldn't get to the front or I didn't want to fight with those. Yeah. You know what? Those early days were just drunken, debunking. botcherism. I look like a fucking punk rock

Woody from Toy Story who would fight you and try to take your girlfriend. That might be, that probably is true. Absolutely. But what I mean is like it was one of those where I guess people just didn't know. Yeah. And the people that were there who like trickled in from the festival,

it was immediate. It was like, oh shit, I'm glad I listened to my friend or whatever who brought me to this. And then the next time I saw you, you know, it was packed. Yeah. The dances for the Lonely Record was like the last record that wasn't some kind of, I guess, buzz maybe. Right.

Because that first Bristol, you could tell that there were people who were like, I love Bill Monroe. Yeah. And then they walked in and like, holy shit. This is like what an 18 month on coffee looks like. You know, it's like, we just, that's the fun part about playing those traditional festivals for us is we're a full-bun like energetic rock and roll band. Right.

Yeah. So like, you'll see like, oh, that guy, that band's got a mandolin. That band's got a banjo. It's like, that band's loud as shit and yelled at me for 90 minutes. I knew going into. That's what was never being. And I love it. it um but anyway i don't know well yeah of court reminness of course we sat here and waited on

corey for like close to 15 minutes they were finally like fuck it let's just go and then two minutes after we start core texas and he's like i'm here what's going on so anyway hopefully he'll join in a minute or he won't i don't know what's going to happen uh how old were you when you formed american aquarium uh it was been oh two um when i went to college you know when i went to college i started the band you hated wilco hated wilcoe was not inspired by them at all um Yeah, it's funny. Like, we don't sound too much like Woco, but, like, they were the ones that taught me

that you could still kind of write really great songs and be weird as fuck. Right. Right. The idea of just being country, like, where I grew up. Radesville, right? Reedsville, North Carolina. Yes, sir.

It's a tiny little town right there in the middle of the state, and I thought there was two kind of musicians. There was like a creepy uncle who tried to play banjo at the family union when he got drunk enough. And then there was Tim McGraw. And there was no fucking in between on either of those. You didn't have a musical family. We didn't have a musical family and nowhere near me had like an independent music venue.

You mean Southerners or you mean that was the broad like in general? I just didn't know that like you could be a musician and not be famous and still make a living. What kind of did your mom and or dad like listen to music and a show? Straight up country. Like on the radio country. Radio country. So like my dad had all the old records. So my mom was really big in like R&B Motown stack stuff.

and then my dad was really into like the outlaw stuff like whalen and Willie and all that stuff but then growing up all we listened to was like 90s country so like I was born and raised on fucking that what's coming back now what is what is seeing a huge resurgence which is like you know saw your brown and Joe Diffy you know all that great great stuff like and my dad was always like this ain't even real country music but like Travis Tritt like makes he looks like fucking Hank senior compared to the day well that's that's the bad it's crazy so I'm I know we've talked about this on here at least a few times, and I belabor this shit to the death,

you know, drunkenly with buddies of mine, but it's this ongoing, like, thing I wonder about my head, because the same way as you kind of, except it was my mom that listened to the radio country stuff. Well,

no, like you said, my dad also hated it the whole time. Like, at the time, he was like, this ain't real country. My dad called Dwight Yokem a pussy. Dude, my dad called Vince Gil,

a pussy. They couldn't stand him. I'm pretty sure, Gorge here. My dad would never. There he is. I could hear someone breathing and rustling around. But my dad hated, he hated the 90s radio country, and he was all about, like, you know, his shit was, like, Skinnered, but also David Bowie and, you know, and David Byrne, too, talking heads. He liked weird shit from back in the day.

But he also liked other stuff that was new at the time. like he dug third eye blind for example he fucking loved r em but he hated joe diffi and Travis tritt and all of them yeah my mama loved them so i had all that and then i've always had this thing looking back like because now that i'm in my 30s or whatever like i cannot stand the shit that's on country radio now oh yeah and i agree with what you said like compared to the shit that's out there now, those dudes in the 90s look like Whalen, like you said. I agree with that completely, but here's my question. Like, I've always, I asked everybody that grew up similar to us musically, this same thing.

How much of that, if any, do you think, like, just is nostalgia, like, playing a role? Like, if you were your age now or your dad's age in the 90s, when that was coming out, for sure, For sure. Would you have felt the way you do about the shit that's new today? I always tell people that stuff was like, country music took a horrible, horrible change in the 80s. It's where it started being commercialized,

and that's where you start seeing a split between entertainers and artists. Right. And the thing I chalked that up to is country music television. Yeah. It used to be, it didn't matter what you fucking look like. As long as you wrote good songs and you sounded cool, you were a country singer, Whalen and Willie, Merrill. They were all ugly motherfuckers, but they had great voice.

and they had great songs. I think Willis hot, personally. He's a man. I agree with you about Merle. But then in the 80s, they started making music videos, and then that started making a difference. Like, you had to have a good jaw line. You had to look good in tight jeans, and you had to be able to kind of sing. And so we just, that was a snowball.

And so then I think a lot of those guys were still talented, but I think it was just, they were starting to be more of the entertainers of the country music world. You still had your traditional. You still had, like, Randy Travis and Dwight Yoakam, that were still trying to keep true to the form. But it just became more of like looking better. And as we progress with time, as our culture tends to do, we started focusing more on the look and less on the talent.

And now we got to where we are to where it's just a bunch of, dude. Good looking dudes. Okay. But how about this? I've looked up just out of curiosity because I was having a conversation with my wife or something about this whole deal. And I just genuinely was curious what the like current billboard country charts looked like. Hot garbage.

This is about three weeks. ago, maybe a month. And so just a random selection as far as I'm concerned, though, because it just came up randomly. And I was like, well, I'll just check it out, see what it is. I got on the Billboard country charts. And do you know who was number one on the Billboard country chart at that time about a month ago?

Marshmallow. That DJ, DJ Marshmallow, right? Well, he ain't got a jawline. His head's a marshmallow. Yeah. He's got, you know, he can't see that motherfucker's face. He ain't got a jawline. Well, that's the problem with when you go visual.

You run, I mean, jawlines. eventually get old. Not to my mama, but... You need a LED helmet. Yeah. Yeah. Shaped like a snack food. To be fair, it was marshmallow

featuring Kane Brown. Yeah. Who is very much that thing. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, he's the... You know, he's the...

BJ, oh, I just reminded me, I got to ask you, I did a Twitter thread a while ago where I just turned all their names into a fucking... I turned every pop country artist's name into like a pun. Like, what? Kane Brown.

I wrote Kane Brown. That's what his fans think all laws should be. But it was just fucked up. But I did an Alt Country one recently, and I don't know if you saw it, but my favorite one is yours. Which one's that? Well, BJ Barham. These are three of my favorite things. B.J. Barr.

Hey, Corey. Check in here, please. Yeah, we can hear you taking your belt off. I know. What's up, dude? Jingle bells. Jingle bells. I think we're getting to a place and maybe I'm just being, I mean, Dre will tell you, I can be the most cynical.

I'm actually so contrarian that probably what's happened here is that everyone else got contrarian about it. So now I've got to turn hill a little bit. But, you know, we had saving country music like the theme and then also the website. All these independent artists started making these records. Sturgle Simpson has sort of carried the tort like standing outside of the CMAs, but also he's got a Netflix special. Yeah. You, I've been to your concerts, you're doing well. We go see Sarah Shook and she's doing well.

Like all these, and we've talked to Tyler Mayhanko about this a little bit too. I think the internet and the current state of things has allowed space for y'all. And for me, I've now stopped hating so vocally on quote-unquote bro country because I'm like, well, I don't listen to the fucking radio anymore. I haven't turned the radio on in my car in years. I used to do rants on stage about how much I have. hated it and then I realized like that I wasn't doing anything positive I wasn't changing anything I was I was I was preaching to people that if they were at my show they agreed with me so I wasn't changing anybody's mind and then I started looking at it like these people every summer go and play the Enormo dome in your town whatever the 10 to 15,000 person amphitheater is and they sell it out they make 15,000 people in every single town in America pretty happy for a Friday night you know cold beer pickup trucks pretty girl short shorts whatever like they get to turn off their brains from one of whatever mundane fucking tasks they've been doing for five straight days and actually just kind of enjoy life and there's something kind of neat about that that these people do that for them like

I wish that I was big enough to do this for them and actually have something I consider important to say about like society but like at the end of the day they're up there singing songs about trucks and pretty girls and making a lot of people happy well you you've gone even further than me about it because for me I guess I'm a narcissist my whole thing was like well if I'm ranting about that. I care about it just as much as the people who like it. Exactly. Like my honest to God response should be who?

Yeah. Right. A thing that I realized about my attitude towards all that at a certain point was that like there is an equivalent phenomenon I think most like hip hop heads would tell you in the world of rap music and hip hop, meaning that like, you know, the fucking, um like mumble rap or before that the future you know the the the future style of hudududududud like all that shit whatever that like um you know true connoisseurs of hip hop see that and like this is the fucking degradation of the form and it's a goddamn shame that

this shit is pop you know j cole's last album yeah that's on 1985 which was all about that or whatever but he wasn't just trashed it the whole time he was being you know sort of like being Big Brother mode about it. But I realize, because I like hip hop a lot too, but I realize at a certain point, I didn't, I didn't care about that. Like, I would listen to that, you know, to radio rap.

And I would be able to tell, like, God, this is such cheesy mainstream, you know, bullshit. But, you know, I do want to dance right now. You know, like, and I would enjoy it, and I wouldn't get, like, offended by it. Whereas, like, fucking Florida, Georgia Lime. You mean, like, just hurt me to my core. What did you say, Joe?

Not really. You mean like, you mean like Little John shit? No, because Little John was like, I was still the same age during Little John that like I was listening to whoever, you know what I mean? Like I hadn't got to this point of anger towards popular music. And what I realized. You can't be angry when Little John's on. Well, it didn't. It didn't reflect like my culture in any way.

Yeah, for sure. Like I hated the country shit because I was like, people hear this and that's what they think this is. or you know what I mean? Or like that, like, Oh, it's why when people ask me what kind of music I play, and if I, if I even hint at country music,

and they're like, oh, you like Sam Hunt? Yeah, right. And I'm like, oh, no, like, the complete opposite of that, like, I actually sing songs and, like, write things that people want. People out, living in California,

people hear the accent and stuff, and they'll, it's about, so do you like country music? And every single time, I'm always like, yes, I love it, but before we go on, let me clarify that we probably are not talking about the same thing. Because it's Uber driver or something.

Like you said, it's really great because I think them being so monolithic and being this big representation of what country music is, does carve out a good hole for us because there's people that get tired of the same, you know, 10 songs every hour on your local country station. And so they go out and they try to find something that sounds like that, that has a fiddle, that has a pedal steel guitar, but says something that speaks to them. And that's where I think artists like us,

and Sturgle and Isbel are thriving is because we're kind of, they're taking the big sunshine. You know, they're talking about all the good things about being in the South, like, have a cold beer on a Friday night with your pretty girl. And we're operating in the shadows.

We're operating in that dark corner where we're talking about your uncle's addiction. And we're talking about divorce. And we're talking about the wife taking the kids. And we're talking about losing your, we're talking about the fucked up part that they'll never talk about on Country Radio because it's not sunshine

and painting the South in this really pretty way. country radio likes to celebrate the Friday nights in the South. I like to celebrate the Monday mornings waking up and realizing that your shit is ruined. It's funny you mentioned days because Sunday morning coming down, which is couldn't be a more country legendary something.

They wouldn't play it on CMT if it came out right now. Of course not. No. It's one of those things, the rise of shitty country music is the only reason that I have a career these days is because people have looked elsewhere I need something that's not a Dodge Truck commercial.

I need something that actually speaks to me as a Southerner. And when you start operating, I like to talk about it, like the shit that your mom doesn't like you to bring up at the table. You know, when you start talking about like, well, the reason Uncle Bob is taking a nap is because he's been drinking for three days. Well, it's funny. That's quite literally how we conceived. Yeah, that was how we conceived our career.

I mean, sincere, like, not just like, oh, we kind of thought that we literally would chain smoke on a porch and say, look, man, if Jason Isbell can sell out the Beacon Theater in New York City, that's not Madison Square Garden, but those people, if they like that, they would like how we do comedy. You know what I mean? No disrespect to Jeff Foxworthy or Larry the Cable Guy. I mean, I will disrespect them if you want me to. But like, without any disrespect to them, just acknowledge this is, what we're doing is different. And I won't actually disrespect Jeff Fox rather you're right Corey what we're doing is different there's a place for that

and like the people you just mentioned including yourself literally made us think that way or did me yeah no yeah we always used the music version of it as our analogy when we were yeah drunkenly daydreaming at night however whatever the word for that is I will say we'd appreciate it if y'all get a little more famous because when we're in meetings out here

and we're like I actually try to take a dude to an American Aquarium concert. And when you were at Echo. Echo, yeah, yeah. And I was like, if you're trying to get us, just come to this concert with me tonight. And he was like, I'm busy tonight. Yeah, I bet you are.

Bet you are, buddy. We'll work on it. We were talking. Hey, BJ, also, when you were just singing that fake little parody of modern country music, that was actually really fucking good. And I want to hear that album. Yeah, I joked it.

Like, I could sit down and really applaud an hour to it. I could write, I think I could write a mainstream hit. Do it. You know, your daughter might get into Yale, man. But she might not get a full ride when she does. And how are you going to pay for it? True story. Brantley Gilbert.

I don't even know who that is. Singing your songs. That's the, just writing under a different, now. Literally, we joke about it. Just be like, man, it must, because it takes like seven dudes to write one of those country hits. Like, bought it like a back road. Like nine riders or some shit like that. You know, it's, it's.

That's just them spreading the love, I think. Yeah. But it blows my mind that, like, it took, like, more than, like, a kindergartener to come up with that thing. Well, Jamie, Johnson. He does it. Yeah. Or he did. I don't know if he's, I don't know.

Hockey-Tong-a-Donk-don. He wrote, that's what blows my fucking mind is, like, and there's, like, and there's people that. Like, paying the bills with that shit, writing songs for other people. Until their songs took off. Right, yeah. Who else? Stapleton. Chris Stapleton.

Oh, that's right. Yeah, but his word, decent radio. Like, Jamie Johnson writes stuff like, seen it in color. You should have seen it in color. Yeah. That's a pop country song, but one I like. For sure.

Stapleton did stuff like that. He never did anything as far as I know, like honky-tonk, but don't-a-donk. That specific one blew my mind because I was like, oh, that's a different genre. Yeah, you can't. Like, with a lot of the Stapleton hits, you can at least still back it up and think.

That's a well-written song. It just so happens to got popular. With Honky-Tonk, bad-donka-donk. You don't really have much room to fight for him. You're like, oh, well, yeah. But I don't think he gives the fuck. Exactly. He knew.

How many bad doododons does he got into touch? Because he wrote that song. And I definitely feel like that was his whole deal the whole time with that was like, I'm going to write this. I'm sure he thought it was some dumb ass, you know what I mean? He thought it was a goof, I think. Well, that might have been how we got into it. His friends were like, I mean, I bet you I could sit down two minutes and right. I have heard that he said that.

But if I were him, I'd start that rumor too. Yeah. It's, man, it's one of those things where, I'm not going to knock it too much just because I feel like I've got better things to do. Right. But I am appreciative of them continuing to put out the same trite because it allows people that, in my opinion,

like some of my friends and contemporaries that I feel like we have more to say about the plight of the South. I feel like it gives us more of a... People come to us like hungry for... Plight of the South. We were talking the other night. You're out here recording,

and when you got done in the studio Saturday night, me and Drew had had a comedy show and we went over to your Airbnb. We hung out for a while. And at one point we were talking about a guy who was like, who is still around, still doing it, but it was like kind of my entree into this world, me personally, when I was in like high school age. And it's Chris Knight. Fuck yeah.

Who was like. A badass. Yeah, a total badass. And I thought before that like he was like before his time. Like if he was like first coming out with the type of shit that he was doing then, but like now. in this world we're living in where you were saying where people are like looking for that type of thing do you mean if he was young and had a jaw line now I just mean if he was just

getting started now instead of 15 years ago or whatever before there was like a market for the type of thing that y'all do yeah he was he got stuck in like that kind of weird because he was like the Steve Irwin and if he came out right late 80s early 90s I think he would have been wildly successful if he came out five years ago but he was like right he was kind of the forefather for like writing really, really great songs that nobody cared about. Right, right. But he's still making, he's got a great career. Like, he's still.

Montgomery Gentry cared about four of them or something like that, so that had to be good. True, yeah. Like, he's got guys, like, he's the kind of guy that people who are looking for authenticity and their writing will go to him. I want to cut a Chris Knight's on it. That's something I was going to bring up that scares me, though, is that machine, you can't beat it. You can't break it. You can't get around it.

Now that the machine exists, we're talking about Nashville. as you guys get more and more successful, I'm terrified of the fake version of you guys. Well, we've seen that Isbell's, you know, cover me up, that Morgan Wallen kid. He did like a pop version of cover me. Oh, really? I didn't even know about that.

And it's pretty horrendous, but Jason's came out and said, like, on Twitter and stuff, he's just like, man, anybody wants to record my songs? He's like, you can listen to my version or you can listen to his version. He's like, it's brought a lot more people to the table, you know and I'm sure I'm sure the checks ain't bad right yeah what he's saying that's literally a cover I mean we've been talking about when they create you when Nashville builds Sturgel or you in a lab

and puts that guy when they look at you guys and are like let's do that and then they find a guy and like I said build him in a laboratory and then put that out there what is that going to look and sound like hopefully we'll be far enough of the curve and I hope that people could see through that shit you know it's like I think I don't think they'll care you don't think so they didn't care when to happen to Garth. I mean, you know, the people we're talking about right now, there were real versions of them. You know, Brooks and Dunn was making phenomenal, perfect studio records before

somebody found. A machine figured out how to make phenomenal studio perfect records and put, you know, Florida Georgia line in there or whatever. True, true. Yeah. I like to think, just for my own job safety, that there's always going to be like this hard line between. Oh, yeah.

the fantasy country land that they live in. I just mean as a fan, they won't be able to replace y'all. Yeah. What they'll do is they'll replace today's pop country stars with some version of y'all where this dude sings about the real dark shit. It's kind of like, no, for sure. And it was kind of like, you know how, and it was admittedly separated by a generation, at least, but the whole thing of like outlaw country coming back a few years ago, you know what I mean?

Like it was a huge deal. So many. With Jason Aldean and Eric Church or whatever would be on like a. an outlaw tour and all their merch had Outlaw Country on it and stuff and they would like sing about in reference Waylon and Willie and all them back in the day and like obviously it

wasn't it was not out there wasn't nothing outlaw about Wayland never wore bedazzled jeans I will die on that hill right well like that type of thing do you know what I mean but but again I mean that was separated by there's still kids in our genre our subset of country music like the independent country music

Americana's the alt countries that call themselves outlaw. And my biggest thing is like, if you have to even call yourself outlaw, then you've lost the point. Like the reason you, like, that's a bygone era. And the reason they're outlaw wouldn't because they robbed a bank and got away with it, bang, bang. It was because they weren't getting played on the radio. So they went out and did what,

they went out and found their own audience. But I get it because it's like alerting me. I mean, look, if I read that and then I see your album cover, and you've got on bedazzled jeans, I'm like, throw that as far as I can. But if I hear someone referred to as Outlaw Country and I know they're independent and they're underground and all that,

to me it's like, oh, they're alerting me to what I would now consider a subgenre of music. Yeah. Because it got labeled as such. You know what I mean? Like, I would never say, oh, my buddy BJ is an outlaw. But if somebody was asking me,

what kind of music is that? I would say, oh, you remember the Outlaw Country guys? Yeah. And then they go, oh, I know what that is. And I get that. I think it's more like outliers, outsiders than it is outlaw. Well, I'm also probably... Don't look as good on T-shirt, though.

Outlier country. I'm also... Outsiders country by S.E. Henn. I'm also very biased. I'm like questioning whether or not I should name names right now. Someone was talking about his ex and her band calling themselves outlaw and it pissing him off on Twitter. Oh, I know you're talking about. And his band is named after stolen guns.

Yeah. And I'm like, bro, you're doing the same thing where you're stolen. You ain't ever stole a pistol. Yeah. You ain't never had a pistol. pistol. I don't want to name names. I just want to describe them to the very thing.

I don't want to name names, but I'm going to name two people that you know very well and live in your home state. I don't want to name name. My only point with that, BJ, is like, I don't blame you. The Mad Lib. I don't blame him for naming his band after stolen guns. And then I don't blame her for, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, Like, you guys are both going for the same shit.

Like, this is all a little bit fake. That aside, I think Outlaw Country is a little useful as a genre identifier. It has been bastardized completely. Yeah, and it's been taking advantage up to sell fucking shitty Towns Van Zant T-shirts as well. But anyway, let's back up a little bit. So, all right, you're at what? Did you know when you were 18 and went to college that you wanted to get there and start a band? Had you been, like, diddling around with writing songs and shit when you were in high school?

that type of thing or what like i did what every kid with emotions did i put some words on paper and they were all shitty and they were talking about how blue some girls eyes were and how you know she made me feel like i was in the night sky or whatever the fuck yeah try to get pussy yeah but at the end of the day uh i moved i went to college i was majoring in political science and history i had every intention of going to the law school um that was my path i i was 10 or 11 i decided what i was going to do with my life i was like i'm going to be a lawyer and this was the path and so i got about a year year in and started going to shows. You're into college.

You're into college and started seeing people playing. I'm like, man, I can write that in that. I can write songs. And so I started writing songs. Still shitty songs about how blue girls' eyes were and all that bullshit. But after a couple years, I started writing some songs that people like outside of my friend group was like, man, that's pretty good. Like, you should play a show. And so I put a band together, you know, classic.

what's the name of the band? What are we going to put up on the marquee? I don't know. Let me think about it. So I was listening to Yankee Hotel Box Drive in the first line of that Wilco Records. I'm an American Aquarium drinker, and a buddy of mine from high school was like,

man, American Aquarium be a cool name. I was like, cool, that's the name of the band. Not thinking anything about it. And that was 2005-ish, and then fast forward. And once you name your band and put a record out, you can't really go back and change the band name. You're kind of stuck with it.

And so, I'd say, I made it through my junior year at NC State, and then I got offered a tour. And by tour, I mean, a very loose definition of the word tour. I got offered six shows in six different cities that weren't in North Carolina, and I dropped out of college. We made it!

I was like, fuck it, boys. Hell, yeah, baby. I was like, we're going on tour. And by tour, I mean, I went to Chicago and New York and Nashville, and I got bit by the bug. I got bit by standing in front of people telling stories and playing them songs. And then I started,

I dropped out of college and focused on, okay, fuck being a lawyer, fuck school, fuck academics. This is my calling. Right on. It was like a craft. It was just like keep writing shitty stuff until it got better and then so on. So just to get a little bit nuts and bolts on the process of it because I'm, you know, fascinated by this type of thing.

You said you started going to shows seeing people you were like, hell, I can do better than that. what did that take the form of for you specifically at first sitting in a room with nothing and like doing the lyrics i had to learn how to play guitar okay which was the hard that was part okay well that was part of my question was like did you were you like you know a three chord strummer already and you're like you didn't know you didn't know shit i grew up uh what what was first like did you have like a little hook okay so i started singing in church and then i started singing in school like i was in like all the choirs and I was like a drama kid, a theater kid. So you had the musical.

I had the musical ability. I had the ear. I could sing. I could hold pitch. I could, I had vocal training. You just needed to train your fingers. You didn't have to train your ear or whatever.

I loved music and I could sing. And all I had to do was learn how to play an instrument to sing along to. And so when I started doing that, it was very much like watching like, you know, this is before YouTube's going online and finally a chord chart and like, this is a G. And then this is a D. and so I learned how to play GCD. And then when you start, you learn like the first five chords, you realize like, holy shit, I can play the entire like Hank Senior Cannon.

Right. Like, this is great. Like, I can be a country singer. And then I think I've learned four more chords in the last 15 years. And really, really just churched it up, though, an A7 in there every now and then. Grab a guy who can play the steel. That fucking rule. That's what I learned is, is.

You're a goddamn outlaw, bitch. I learned to surround myself with much more talent. to musicians than me because as long as my songwriting was as good as their guitar playing or their drummer and their bass I could hold water well that's your job you're a drop man right well so all right you sit in a room now that you you know you've learned your chords you're sitting a room with a guitar and you work your way through a song right yeah come up with the song and you have that and you have that and then do you go to the band and you're like all right here's what i've been working on and they and they hear it and then the steel guys like we think about this and throws that that's how

it's always been i bring them these like extreme extremely skeletal versions of songs and they kind of add the meat yeah yeah for sure and and and even with this new record uh up until a month ago the boys had never heard any of the songs i had the record written and then we met up in raleigh for two days and i played them for them and then we built them up a little bit more we waited a month sat on it and came here and then we're in the studio now with shooter jennings and uh we gave him like a day to kind of make notes on what we already had and then we just started recording them and so it's fun to to watch as a writer, as a creator of these things in their infancy,

to watch them go from just like three-cord folk songs, like ruminations in a living room to these gigantic banders. As somebody who just liked music, like, when I was younger, but didn't know anything about it at all, I always just kind of assumed that whoever the songwriter, what the guy, that you had to do all, every bit of that. You know what I mean? In my head, it was like a...

Oh, there's some people that do. There's some people like control freak songwriters that literally have every, like they hear the base, like Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys is that way. Springsteen was that way. Like they hear. Prance, I believe. Prince was that way. They hear the full song in their head. The Mount Rushmore.

That's what I said. Brian Wilson, Springsteen, Prince. And of course, Kid Rock. He plays that instrument, Bob. Oh, Richie. Fucking Bob's in there. Oh, Bob Rishy. laid it down that sweetness he's like no we're almost done but bob won't get off the bass

he won't get off the ball at a bar uh yeah it's it's one of those things where i i know friends who you know they hear the full band arrangement and they go in the studio with the band and kind of tell them what to do isn't uh ryan adams like that or used to be i don't know i think i've read that i don't know yeah i've known for a while now that not it doesn't like work that way but it was weird like i always just assumed for whatever reason that that's sort of how the process. One thing that I'm jealous of from what we do and what you do, many things. But one thing is, you get the best of both. So many. So like, you're a writer who gets to write something, take it to other people. They work it out. You go into the studio. Shooter Jennings, who's a fucking legend in his own right.

He tinkers with it. Then you put it out. And that's that album. And you get that from beginning to end, the collaboration. The only thing we have like that is something like a sketch or whatever. But then you also get what we get with stand-up, which is, I'm made this today and I worked on it for a little while and now I get to go out and put it out and get the validation and that's like put it in my fucking veins. Oh, that's why we do it. Right. It is being able to go share it with people and put it out in front of people. And then if you do it the right way and you do it good enough, people like it and people

talk about how good it is. And, you know, I've been on both sides of it. I've put out records and people be like, this is a pile of 45-minute garbage. And then I put records out that like our last couple records. everything since burn flicker die has been extremely well received by like critics or critically yeah i gotta tell you they've all been fucking great i gotta tell you a quick story scott nosson was a comedian i did uh stand up with in new york i think he's like you know married quit sense or whatever long hair beard and he's not from the south he's from uh like maybe vermont

maybe maybe maybe like a kind of rural but i don't even think that i think he grew up like in a suburb or whatever and he found out i was an american aquarium fan and just dude this my favorite band we gotta go see him and all that Scott would do comedy in the most like timid character like he I'm Scott I work in an office you just not not at all like a rock and roll or not southern at all and then we'd go to your shows

like in New York he would get hammered drunk my man like hammered drunk and then the burn flicker die album was like sincerely his favorite album of anything of all time and you play burn flicker die and you know no different than the neon lights you'd be like this is us man this is us bro

telling you jokes doing comedy we're rocking fucking roll and i'm like i don't know scott i'm not sure if we are dude we tell dick jokes in the basement it's never got neither of us laid not one single time but if you believe it in your heart buddy that's all that matters here let's have another piece i love i had an accent i'm with scott for the record

i feel like that's you know i always like any song like that like burn flicker die is it's like you know fucking live fast die young look what we're doing you know yeah just out here rocking it something about just doing a bunch of fucking rails in a bathroom. And then coming up with like, let's do this until we die. Right.

I've always. Oh, to B-25 again. Always, of course, associated shit like that with comedy, just because that's what I do. Isn't there a verse about how we ain't going to make it? Yeah. On that one.

That was his favorite verse. That's how most of the records are. It's like you're writing at this point. All my writing is pretty biographical. And so it comes, you know, you're sitting there and you're hammered and you're watching all your friends

get successful and you're just like well fucking I'm never going to get big and you start writing these songs and it's funny because like all the songs I wrote about about that being a failure and not doing well are the things that lift propelled you yeah like burn flick or die was supposed to be our last record yeah it's an entire record about like

okay this if anybody ever wonders why we quit they can go back and here's a documentation of why we quit right and it's just this song about like being a failure and like embracing failure and like just like well I guess you know that we weren't cut out for this and then we put it out.

Everybody's like, yeah, you can do this for the rest of your life now. I'm like, oh. Well, that's like. All I do is ask for it in the song. Well, that's what I'm saying. When that album came out, the three of us were all, we'd already met, we're already buddies, we're already doing stand-up, we're already doing shows together and this type of thing. And like, but also we all had day jobs and everything sucked and nothing was going.

And so it's like, that's the reason, in addition to it just being an awesome record, that's the reason that I've loved it so much was because all those things. I was feeling in my head too. Oh, for sure. It's like, God, we are, this is stupid. We are there. Rock and roll is bad. We are wasting our time.

We should just quit. I had texted you about how much that record meant to me, but I didn't go into detail. And it was pretty much because of what Trey said, it was around, it had to been 2015 or whatever, because I had just moved back from New York where I went to think that I was, you know, I was going to make it as a comedian. and I got, you know, just went into debt, got told immediately, you know, never this ain't going to work. You fucking suck.

I had to watch, I had to move my aunt into this house in fucking Florida and I had to drive back by myself and I was feeling so down. And I put that record on and was just like, you know what? Fuck yeah. I was going to say, I'm glad you're still here. Most people would have careened off the road and just been like, fuck it. We were in. Blaze of Glory.

Jacksonville. Jacksonville did hit a little bit too. I was about to bring that one up. That was one we talked about a lot, especially with Corey and everything, because that buddy, that one goes in. On the void. Yeah. I love it.

And like, we were. Don't stand too close to that hole because if that one comes on, you're accidentally falling in. We were in. Which Jacksonville? I've always wanted to know. Florida. I thought so. Well, we were in Jacksonville, Florida on tour a couple years ago now, and I'm not going

to go too hard into the details, but it was a very Florida evening. Okay. There was some fucking white. trash Florida shit we had found ourselves in. I brought an alligator to the show. They got in a fight. On cocaine. He hit her with the truck.

She don't work there anymore. I don't mind saying it. The manager tried to get me to fuck her in front of her husband who was a sniper. So, you know, Florida. They had math, too. Those are always the best when the husband's there. We were watching. We had, of course, smoked weed and were high and stuff.

At one point, while I was already thinking it in my head, one of them, I think, Drew, like in the height of this Florida insanity, sent me a text message open it and it said, if I can just survive one more night of it. And I was just like, oh, God, you've done it to me. We've got to get the fuck out of here. Yes, the reason, it could be Jacksonville and North Carolina, too. That's a very desolate place as well.

Right. For many different reasons. They got one in Alabama, too, don't they? I think every Jacksonville. Yeah, right. I hate to tell you. If you live in a Jacksonville, this song's for you, buddy. The only reason I know about North Carolina is that Whiskey Town record.

Yeah. And it doesn't make it sound like a very fun place. Yeah. So I thought it was possible. But I assumed it was Florida. There's a military base there. And it's literally like every other military base in the South. It's like liquor store, guns store, strip club, liquor store, gun store strip club.

The things the troops need. Yeah, the things all the troops need. Yeah. And so. But Jacksonville, Florida, I was just writing because it was like this kind of the epitomey of while we were failing. It's like we would go to these towns and no. nobody would show up. So what we do is just sit at the bar and get hammered until we played.

And then we'd get up and play these hammered shit ho-like in front of the five people that were there. And those five people were like, what the fuck was that? And the next time there'll be four people there. And we're like, we're moving backwards. And it's all because of our own doing. And so that's why that song. But it's funny because a year after write that song, you know, I met my wife in

Jacksonville. Right. You know, I've literally learned that if you just put it in a song, luck changes. Because the Wolves record, I wrote about never having a house. I was never going to have a house is in that Lose inside of 25 and the next year

I bought a house and I was like fuck what else can happen what? What? What was that? Did you just fart into the mic? Are you,

Corey? Corey just died. Are you asking me if I farted in the mic? Yeah. No, I didn't fart in the mic. What? What did you just do?

He put it in a song. That's Corey's future. I didn't do Nothing. As a matter of fact, y'all were on mute. That's why you couldn't hear my first response. I had it on mute. So in case I farted, it'd be fine. In case I farted. He was going to fart. Safety mute. He was farting. Well, BJ, can you put in a song how there's not a TV show, a comedy specifically that represents your people and where you come from? And you would like one to be on TV? I'll write that. He'll do that and somebody else will get it, some younger version. Hey, it made you in a laugh. I defended Chick-fil-A on our last. I defended Chick-fil-A on our last album. and now they don't donate to gay hate and charities anymore, so I take that for myself. Good job, child.

You did it. I did it. The Chick-fil-A thing's crazy. We get so much shit because I still eat chick-fil-A. Yeah. Because I think the hate-in-them. It's fine now. It's not fine.

It's just they say, it's still in there. It's still in the chicken. You can still taste the hate. The hates what makes it good. I know you're about to say that. It's funny because Corey has a bit that's basically, sort of about that notion which is true, but it's just something about

hatred just makes chicken better, you know. It's funny because my wife's side of the family is very much gay, and so I always get a lot of shit. Like if I'm on the road. Her whole side of the family is gay?

That's unusual. She just showed up on a blanket one day. She just showed up on a blanket one day. Like her mother's a lesbian. Her two sisters are lesbians. Yeah, that's pretty gay. Yeah, but it's, it's, or what one was, I guess. Yeah. We just thought you meant they like books or something, but you mean.

No, like it's a very, like a female side of the family. And so my wife, anytime I eat at Chick-fil-A, she takes a picture of me and sends it to my mother-in-law. And then I get like a sad face back and be like, you shouldn't be eating there. I got lucky as far as that go, though some people would argue the opposite, I guess. but like I never liked Chick-fil-A to begin with because I had like two bad experiences and that's all it took for me. First one I ever went to was in the Opryland Hotel and I guess it was just that location was shitty but it was garbage.

It was cold. They were about to close and it's in the Opryland Hotel but still. The shit was cold. It fucking sucked. And so I was like, and that was like before they really popped. That was when Chick-Fle was still on the come up, you know? This was like 2003 or something. This was their first record.

Yeah, right. And so years later, they start getting big, and I'm living in the major metropolitan area of Cookville, Tennessee. B.J. We were talking about the other night, you know, big fancy city there. And we got a Chick-fil-A when I was like 21, 22, so it's like 0-7-08. And it was a huge deal in Cookville at the time they got a Chick-fil-A. And I was like, man, fuck that place. I remember it's sucking.

But then one morning on my way to work, I was like, all right, I'll give it another shot. See what's up. I drive over there. I get to the drive-thru. I was like, must not be too good. I ain't fucking nobody here. Yeah. It was a Sunday morning.

And I got up there and I was like, what the fuck? What do you mean? What do you mean your club? What the fuck is this shit? And I found out that it was because of Jesus who I hate. And I was just like, and I was. Baby Jesus is preventing you having that delicious chicken biscuit. I was just like, man, fuck this place.

And then years later, when all the gay stuff comes out and I just saw all these people that I couldn't stand, make a, make a fucking moral stance by eating a goddamn. fried chicken sandwich you know what that's my favorite is like just so yeah diabetes for jesus you know and it just like solidified me on fuck chick filet so i don't have to worry i think the left a little left and the right do it you know anytime there's true anytime like the fucking Nike shit with right i'm gonna burn i'm gonna burn all my shoot it's like okay i get it like there's there's companies that make terrible fucking decisions with their money and who they give it to and it's like do you like there's not gonna target's not going out of business because they let anybody go in any

bathroom. It's like Nike's not going out of business because they're right won't wear Nike tennis sheets. See, that's what I'm saying about being lucky because, dude, I know, I know my fat ass self. If Chick-fil-A hit for me, I would stay eating it. And I'd just be like, sorry, Uncle Tim, who's gay. I'm not my bad. I just, it's too good, but I just happen to not like it. So lucky. I stand with y'all. Let it come out that Taco Bell hates Asian people and watch this man not give a fuck. Sorry. Sorry, China. I'm with you It's Taco Bell

It also man Some of that stuff Mexicans ain't supposed to like the Asians Everybody knows that And this is a little bit cliche For me to just belabor this point All the time on this podcast But it's so true

Just like the fucking The system we live in look dude Some people Like if Taco Bell came out How many poor people would give a single fuck If they had two dollars And that's what they could afford to eat For lunch that day

And how many of them should have It ain't their goddamn fault you know oh right yeah dude for sure yeah that's one of the boycotting thing that's one of the luxuries of being upper mental class and right is getting to you know dial those heels and take stances on not eating or eating chicken sandwiches if you can do it and it does have an effect like more power to you i'll give you a perfect example your home state people told us not to come play there because of a lot of folks cancel shows there yeah the hb2 law yeah but our argument was Tray launched on a rant about this very issue

and therefore attracted so many fans with this accent who are trans or have trans people in their lives and they want to see us. And when we go to a show and do a show in Portland, it ain't like, you know, we're just there, we're having a good time making some people laugh. But when we do shows in the South, it is fucking cathartic for some of those folks.

Oh, yeah. Because they have a voice. Exactly. And for us to cancel a show, and, you know, therefore, what, at that time, 800 people in Asheville or in the surrounding area

ain't going to get us and that amount of money, whatever that is, is going to be pulled from the state, that's going to have no effect. But on the flip side of that, the boss, you know, we were just talking about him

or he canceled a show there. That did have an effect. Right. I respect the fuck out of Bruce Springsteen for doing that. You know, and 20,000 people don't go to the PNC arena. Right.

You know, that's a huge deal. That was my, that was the other part of my argument the whole time. I get messages stuff saying that you're going to play there you shouldn't play Alabama too

after their whole abortion same thing and it's always been like and Georgia. A, what you said, which I of course agree with about the people

that are coming to see us there they don't fuck with that shit either. I don't want to fuck them over but also the powers that be who you're trying to send a message to if someone tells them like hey, the fucking liberal redneck

is boycotting. They're going to be like A, who? And B, B, the liberal redneck they're not coming fucking it must be my birthday

you know what I mean like that's good news to like the best and like we also donated money they don't want us to come well that's what Beyonce Beyonce came in the Alabama show Beyonce played the show in North Carolina

and then donate it to like the ACLU and just like that's huge like when you're sitting there and you're like oh because she sold out like Carter Finley Stadium which is like 20 some thousand people and then she just turns around and donates that to like trying to get this stupid fucking bathroom bill

because it put us North Carolina, believe it or not, was a progressive state in the South. In 2008, it went for Obama. It was the first time. Yeah, y'all were on the upswing. It was the first time North Carolina flipped to a Democratic candidate since Carter. Don't you think that's exactly why the bathroom bill even fucking came up in the first place? 100%.

Meaning those motherfuckers at the state level that you guys still had in North Carolina, it was like a big swing that they took. You know what I mean? Like, we got to do something to get this state back on track. and that's what they landed on was that shit. Because I just remember, everywhere we went, we're like, oh, from Los Kalan, it's like, oh, shit. Right. Yeah.

And it's hard because, you know, we had these pockets. It just so happens to be where all of our universities are. Yeah. All the towns that have major state and public universities are extremely progressive places. Like, we're Southern, we like everything Southerners like. We love college football, NASCAR fried chicken.

But we also love rights for everybody. Right. We love, like, that kind of stuff. And it's weird because, like, the minority of our state somehow represents everybody. Well, North Carolina is actually one of the most, one of the worst examples of that in the nation. They've used, like, they're like the case study for. Specifically, North Carolina's Jerrymandering situation. Well, they finally changed that for this upcoming election.

Yeah. The Supreme Court ruled that it was, in fact, illegal to draw giant fucking lines and just pick, which. you know districts how the districts were set up I mean you guys were literally the worst in the nation oh as far as you're every comedy show took their their hits at being like

it was a hit and it was also like factual those are always the worst those are the hardest hits to take we've been there from Tennessee the ones you laugh at and then you realize it's your truth and you're like oh fuck me that's rough but it's supposed to be better

in this next election but who knows we're still very very much a conservative state and we just we're lucky we live in that pocket of Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill that is extremely progressive yeah and so you know we're the kind of people that lived in that echo chamber in the 2016 election we're like there's everywhere you go and Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill was just all Clinton signs and then when you start yeah I do not have that and then when we'd leave for tour and get on 40 and once we get outside of like Chapel Hill and you start getting into the the

heart of North Carolina you're like oh this is going to be a lot close than anybody 15 miles west east even thinks it's going to be. And you'd see the exact same thing in Washington State too. Colorado. Every state. Right, yeah. You know, inside. Yeah, I mean, that's, you're in Denver and all of a sudden, it's, it's fucking legal pot and Hillary signs, but you get outside of Denver and it's like, yeah, I got a bunker.

I'm ready for it. Right. Yeah, that's what, like, I would tell a lot of my liberal friends who they would in one sentence say this, they were like, yeah, on my face. and on my Twitter, I've blocked everybody who likes Donald Trump. I've blocked all of them. And then the next sentence, they would say, you know, I just, I don't see, there's no way Trump's going to win because I just don't see the support for him like I see for Hillary.

And I'm like, yeah, you fucking deleted that from your whole life. I have, meanwhile, I just drove through 40 states. And I fucking promise you, if, if election signs mean anything, this dude's going to win in a walk. Oh, for sure. Everybody in Raleigh Duren, they live in that echo chamber because it's a self-inflicted echo chamber. Like you said, they block people, they unfollow people that disagree with their opinion. So all they're surrounded with for an entire election cycle is people just patting them on the back telling them they're right. And I'm playing shows in Texas in Oklahoma and Mississippi and Alabama.

And I have fans that are 50% one way, 50% the other way. And I'm seeing it. I'm like, this is not like a cakewalk for anybody. like there's a lot of people who are standing up for either I'm going to tow that party line and I'm going to, you know, I'm going to vote Republican or there's people that are just so, have been so full of hate and not been able to expel it. And finally there was this guy who walked up and just kind of turned the valve open and said, it's okay to say it. Yeah. And then that's when like my whole, like certain sides of my family was just coming out and you would see it on like Facebook and you're like, holy shit, you can't write that. And then nobody said anything to it.

You think that and it's like, oh, they've been thinking it the whole time. It never went away. That's the part of the South is we live in this gigantic underbelly, this shadow that we thought that we thought we doubt around. I'm talking about just this specific South. Let's call it what it is slavery. We like to pretend that that was like this, it was like dinosaurs. It's this distant ancient thing. And like my great, great, great grandfather owned people for our tobacco farm.

It's not that far removed. My grandfather remembers a man that owned people. people at one point in time. Like, that's how not far back it is. And so for, let's just say for 150 years, 200 years, most of those people have just been quiet because they told they had to be. But now it was like Pandora's box. Somebody just undid the lid and said, it's cool to say it again.

What do you think about the argument, though? And I kind of go back and forth on this sometimes, but I think ultimately I fall on the side of like it, I do prefer that they be vocal because, like, they did always think that shit. They weren't going to. at one point. Right, exactly. And now that they, now that they have open Pandora and are just being open and out on front street about it, like, yeah, it's really disconcerting and discouraging

because you're like, God damn, I didn't realize it was like still this bad. But on the other hand, it's like, they were going to be that way anyway. So I'd rather us all know where everybody stands, you know what I mean? And like you said, eventually you'd be an account. But it's hard because you see it and you think that like, it's just like, you're just like, you know, your racist uncle that has those thoughts. But then you get on it and there's like your best friends from high school. Right. Your teachers that brought you up and like people you went to church with posting this stuff.

And you're like, oh, it's way worse than I thought. It's not just like the openly people who are like flying the Confederate flag on the back of their truck. It's like there's people that you know and love and respect that have a lot of hate in their heart. Yeah. And on that note. Yeah, man, it's nuts because like it'll be somebody who like I legitimately believe. shaped me as a person and made me the way that I am

and then I see all this stuff and I'm like how the fuck did I get where I am basing everything on this person and this is what they were the whole time I just cannot I can't wrap my head around well to take the I agree with that and I take the personal out of it and to extend that to you know where we are

I was on that side of it for a long time there was that great Pat and Oswald bit about you know I mean I'm not I can do the whole bit. One of his points was, if we know who's saying it, a better, a quicker example is the Roy Wood Jr. bit, you know, we got rid of the rebel flag, but now how am I supposed to tell which gas station not to go to as a black man in the South? You know what I mean? Yeah. And that's like very funny, but I also agree with what you were saying, you know, it's like, yeah, but now we know who they are. But what I've come to realize, and it's kind of what

Corey was talking about and you, it's not just painful to realize that people you love, your best friends, your teachers also have some of this insight. them we Trump got rid of shame surrounding some of those feelings right yeah and the wild crazy turned it into pride right the wild crazy racist guy I'm glad we know who that is so I don't you know I don't want my nephews around him in my hometown and blah blah blah but the people who are okay with that because at least he's on my team that's part that part's what's dangerous it's like I know what you mean let's get it out in the open but there's a part of me that's like part of sweeping it under the rug

made people who are 50-50 ashamed of that. Because you're supposed to be ashamed of it. That's the other side of it. They went some of years without saying it because they were ashamed of it and it's like, and that was a good thing. Right. Because you should be ashamed of that shit.

And yeah, no, right. And so there's people who, and it's like, let's take the morality out of it. You can hear what I'm saying right now and be like, well, fuck those people too. Sure. But we need to win an election. Like if you're worried about gay people,

you have to understand that we need some of those folks to vote our way. Oh, for sure. We're talking about real life shit here, not just what's morally correct or incorrect. And so there's a part of me that's like, maybe the shame was working, man. You know? Shame was a good thing, especially when it came to those kind of situations. Like you're not supposed to be able to vocally do that shit. Well, dude, we've been talking about race.

Let's talk about sexism and how quickly so many people in this country, as soon as this dude started just being like, you're grabbing by the pussy and do this and that. How many people I love and respect were just like, yeah, man, and all this shit's gone too far and blah, blah, blah, anyway. And I'm like, oh, fuck, they thought this the whole time. Yeah.

They kept it in out of fear being judged. People also vote that way. Like, and once that starts, that whole like, well, we can do whatever we want, and I like this guy. I like the way he makes me feel. I don't know. I think he's going to win again.

That was the biggest thing, the folks in my family that swung right on that election was just like man he says what he thinks he doesn't candy code anything like he he just for better for worse and i'm just like yeah it's a worse it's like he's the shitty saying is vile and you're and you yeah you might not be a racist for voting for trump you might might be a misogynist or a homophobic but you're okay with right you're complacent i was shocked by how many people are complacent and okay with it and i'm saying maybe shame helped go against that all for the sake of team like that's what it turned into it turned into are you on the team we go on the blue team and it's like just like let's make a college football now like if there's

one kid who might be like not smart enough to be on our favorite football team but the school somehow makes sure he passes we take up for that kid and we're like man he's fine like blah blah blah or if like anytime there's something that goes against our team we tend to justify as yeah jeline jennings did nothing wrong yeah exactly but then when it comes to politics i think that they've painted it that way too it's like you have to pull for your team and right there you're your enemy the team thing is why because like it's fucking i know i've known people before her you were saying it's way harder when you see like a somebody you know you were close with or whatever saying all this crazy shit and you're like god i didn't realize that you were like that and it is rough but on the other

hand i have known multiple people have multiple friends who are like we're raised very republican and christian conservative and all that and so like well all what they'll like they are republican they'll tell you the republican and vote republican but i i'm like i know you mean you man, I've known you for years and like, no, you're not. Do you know what I mean? Exactly. Like, I know that you don't believe all that. And I don't mean, like, even they'll say they believe it, but you can tell they don't.

I mean, if you pick any one individual issue that, you know, they're fine with gay marriage. They think weed should be legalized. You know what I mean? They don't have a problem with abortion. You know, whatever. You name it. If you pick one, they're, like, fall on the left of them. But then, like, go and vote Republican just because that's the team they're on.

were raised that way and they don't, they don't want their mom or daddy to find out that they didn't. I'm hoping that this election will be a little different. They'll even say, oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. You go ahead. Well, I was going to say, like, the same people, Trey is talking about, well, literally,

they'll try to, the way that they'll say, the way to say I'm a conservative, but I'm one of the good ones is usually they'll go, I'm fiscally conservative, right? So they'll say, I'm fiscally conservative, and then you hit all the checkpoints that would make someone fiscally conservative, and no, they're not.

They just don't want to piss their fucking dad. Yeah, we've almost tripled the national deficit in the last three years. Yeah, that's not the definition of fiscally conservative. They also just don't identify with the Democrats that are put out. It's the team thing. They were brought, like, kids my age, so I'm 35, and I say kids because I like to feel young. Kids my age, I was brought up Republican. I was brought up in a Republican household, you know, and it was a really funny thing.

It was right around like the Reagan administration. is where the Republican Party aligned with the Christian conservative right. And that was the most genius mood. Oh, dude. It's because it wasn't about politics anymore. People don't even look at platforms anymore. It was the baby Jesus versus the people that want to kill babies. And it was genius because they called themselves the fucking right. We only had two options.

We could be the left or the wrong. And we picked the left. You know, so like in the 80s, they align themselves with these family core values. And so now a lot of people when you talk to them, they don't even talk about the fiscal response anymore because that's absolute nut or bullshit. If you look at any statistic, they talk about how they're standing up for family values.

But then you confront them with the fact. It's like, okay, so the man you voted for has been married three times, had multiple affairs, multiple sexual charges, sexual assault allegations, has had women with, had children with, how does that align with your Christian conservative values? He's very anti-abortion. And it below, yeah.

That's like, that's it for a lot of them, literally. But also, one thing that I actually respect about them, that they're better at than us, they really are. He is putting in judges all over this country, and it's scary, who don't think abortion is a constitutional right. Yeah. He's, in other words. And they're there for a long time. In other words, guess what, guys, policy matters way more than what Donald Trump did with his third fucking wife. They don't want to say it because they like to keep face and have Jerry Falwell Jr. come out there.

But they know it. the right nose better than the left. They just know. They've realized it. They've internalized it. And it's like, he's going to put the judges in. He's going to pass the laws. I want him to pass. Fuck what he does in his spare time. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, listen, BJ's going to stick around, but the next part of what we're going to talk about, y'all aren't going to hear for a few months yet. Top secret. We're going to get into talking about the next album. And obviously, that's going to be spoiler territory. So the next part, you're just going to have to wait a few months. and then it will come out.

But for now, let's go ahead and sign off on this version. Mr. BJ Barham, everybody. Thank you all for having me in, man. Thank you for being here. And we'll see y'all next time. Scoo! Scoo!

Scooo! There it is. Got it. Thank you. I fit in. And now, a tune from the band who should be opening up for goddamn American Aquarium,

it's fucking Gypsy Speedboat with I can only come when I'm crying. Take it away, boys.