wellRED podcast - #187 - Trae's Cat Can Open Doors, Drew Visits Georgia, and The CHO is Back in Yellow! + Tony Kamel!

Episode Date: September 23, 2020

Drew visits the CHO in Georgia, Trae fills us in on his cat's latest antics, The Cho's sobriety leads to some bizarre revelations about his past, and Bluegrass musician extraordinaire Tony Kamel drops by to talk music and quarantine stuff! for more on Tony check out http://www.tonykamelmusic.com lucy.co (promo code RED)

And we thank them for sponsoring the show. Well, no, I'll just go ahead. I mean, look, I'm money dumb. Y'all know that. I've been money dumb ever, since ever, my whole life. And the modern world makes it even harder to not be money dumb, in my opinion. Because used to, you, like, had to write down everything you spent or you wouldn't know nothing. But now you got apps and stuff on your phone.

It's just like you can just, it makes it easier to lose count of, well, your count, the count every month, how much you're spending. A lot of people don't even know how much they spend on a per month basis. I'm not going to lie. I can be one of those people. Like, let me ask you right now. Skewers out, whatnot, sorry, well-read people. People across the ske universe, I should say. Do you even know how many subscriptions that you actively pay for every month or every year?

Do you even know? Do you know how much you spend on takeout or delivery? Getting a paid chauffeur for your chicken low main? Because that's a thing that we do in this society. Do you know how much you spend on that? It's probably more than you think. But now there's an app designed to help you manage your money better. and it's called Rocket Money.

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I used Rocket Money and realized that I had apparently been paying for two different language learning services that I just wasn't using. So I was probably like, I should know Spanish. I'll learn Spanish. and I've just been paying to learn Spanish without practicing any Spanish for, you know, pertinent two years now or something like that. Also, a fun one, I'd said it before,

but I got an app, lovely little app where you could, you know, put your friend's faces onto funny reaction gifts and stuff like that. So obviously I got it so I could put Corey's face on those two, those two like twins from the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland movies. You know, those weren't a little like the Q-ball-looking twin fellas. Yeah, so that was money.

What was that a reply gift for? Just when I did something stupid. Something fat, I think, and stupid. Something both fat and stupid. But anyway, that was money well spent at first, but then I quit using it and was still paying for it and forgotten. If it wasn't for Rocket Money, I never would have even figured it out. So shout out to them.

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What about it's your boy the show. Corey Ryan Forster here. Wellred comedy.com. W.E.L.L.R.E.D. Comedy.com. That is where you can find our merch. We've got t-shirts and what not. Our book, The Liberal Red Comedy.com. Budneck Manifesto, Dragon Dixie Out of the Dark, our album, well-read live from Lexington. Also, check out our sister podcast. Trey has the Evening Skews. Drew has Into the Abiscuit with DJ DJ Lewis, and I have, Through the Screen Door with Corey Forster and my co-host and producer, Mr. Matt Coon. This week we had a special guest on the podcast, Mr. Tony Camel.

Tony is a Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter based in Austin, Texas. Skew! Hook them horns. He is known mostly for his work as the frontman and guitarist for the acclaimed bluegrass quartet, Wood and Wire. We had a great conversation with Tony. Tony is not only an extremely proficient, talented bluegrass artist. He's also made us look so ugly. He's such a good-looking, charming dude who was very nice.

We talked about everything from a little bit of politics, mostly bluegrass, music, good stuff like that, favorite bands, whatnot. Learned a lot about Tony, learned to love him immediately, and I know you guys will too. This portion of the podcast is always brought to you by Smokey Boysgrilling.com. Go to Smokey Boysgrilling.com and get all the rubs for all you meets. Also, carved vodka.com. Do you want to drink like a chow? Well, actually, I'm sober right now.

But when I do drink, it's Carve. Jacksonville's first and only craft vodka distillery. So go holler at them. And like I said, holler at our other podcast. Also, I mentioned the well-read merch. If you want some buttercream dream merch, baby, Here's what you need to get it. Here's what you need to do.

Here's what you need to do. I can never just get through this part without fucking stuttering one time. One day I'll get it. Go to below the collar.com slash the buttercream dream and grab you some buttercream dream shirts and take some pictures of you wearing them and send them to them to them. It makes me feel really good. Follow all of us on the socials and register to vote, motherfuckers. Here's the podcast.

Scoot! Next step makes some people upset. They got three big old dicks that you can suck. All right. What a guy. They're all, are they not always? I know. Just so goddamn cool and everything.

Better looking to us. Amazing looking. Like, Vidal Sasan. I know it's been a million times, but it's true. Like, why? I don't. They don't have, I think you can't be stressed out and exist in that world. And I think stress ugly's people.

I mean, look at, You might be on to something because, dude, musicians. It used to be an eight. It's so weird. Now, I look like I just ate. I've never hit. Yeah. Well, I mean, here we are. Here we are. We're talking about our guests a little bit later today.

Tony Camel, who's the frontman of Bluegrass Band, Wood and Wire, and we'll hear, he's here to talk about their new album, no matter where it goes from here, and that we will discuss later on. But we were just talking about how much of an adonis here. is, but also how, like, in our experience, musicians always be that way. And it's like, it seems like unfair almost. You know what I mean? Like, how come if you, if you hit real hard.

Now, drummers are bald. Corey could be a drummer. Yeah, and Michael Stipe, but I mean, he looks like an alien. Like, he wasn't. Billy Corgan, too. Yeah, they came. That's a different ball. That's a different bald and all.

Thank you. And also, they can. They wouldn't even let him have that. But, dude. You're a different ball. fat. You mean fat. Here's the thing though. What you've got to understand, yeah, that's accurate. What you've got to understand about Billy Corgan and Michael Stipe and those dudes is that they literally were part of a genre that was like, we're going to be the opposite of what

rock is, which means ugly. You know what I mean? Like, it's fine to be ugly. So somebody was like, let the bald have their day. And so, you know, I think that's one of their singles they did together. Let the balls have their day. You know what would help with our whole trying to be a little ghoulish thing. Let the bald was bald. You know how we're like uncool? Yeah. Kind of creepy to people, put people off,

make them uncomfortable, suffer through the art. Our whole thing is we shouldn't have egos, you know, so that's why we're as ugly as possible. Yeah, so anyways, thanks for that. And, uh, and, buddy, me and Trey don't look like rock and roll stars at all either. Tray looks like a bass player.

Nah, kind of. Stand up. No. See? That's why he would put the big stand-up base in front of his own of my stupid fat, not hitting himself. I think I look like the other kind of drummer, if anything. That's the thing, though, drummers, it's like, they're all over the map. They are all over the map.

You can kind of do, that's a lot of them shows. Yeah. For sure. I've told you this before, but I can't remember if I've said on the podcast, me and grew, we're at a concert once. I think it was when we went to see American Aquarium, but it wasn't American Aquarium that was playing. It was the band before them.

And I said, I leaned in. No, out here. It may not have been America. It was definitely show out here. It could, it might have been Sarah. Sarah. I can't remember. Whoever it was, it wasn't who we were there to see that was playing at the time.

And I don't remember that band's name. But while they were playing, I, like, leaned over to you. And I was like, a drummer kind of looks like a chord. Don't you think? Don't you think the drummer kind of looks like Corey? And you went, all drummers look like Corey. That's accurate. Just put him in the back and let him hit stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. So you get rhythm. Lee Bain's drummer, Adam, he has long hair, but otherwise looks like you. He looks like Corey does it. Travis Trittwig. I mean, if I lost 50 pounds, me and Chad Gamble would look the same. Adam and Blaker brothers.

My bad. Adam and Blaker brothers, and I'm just confused him. It's Blake. So you. you mentioned Travis Tritt. It cracked, so if people have been, I'm sure people have seen Travis Trit been through a little kerfuffle recently. But what's funny to me is that before that happened.

Which is not a pie he ate. That does sound like it hit. That's a good cereal. Curfuffles. Yeah. Truffle kerfuffles. That sounds good. Or when you don't give a fuffle.

But before that even happened, randomly, actually, I just remembered what originated it. I had forgotten this is so. absurd. I'm like a lunatic in my sleep, right? Like I say a bunch of crazy shit. I'll wake up in the middle of nights. I remember this. I'll wake up the middle of the night sometimes with like ideas and I know that most creative people do that, but mine are like literally never actually good. Like I think about it in the next day. Fax me a halibut. It's your, that's what we call Fax you a halibut moments. Well, there you go. Okay. Is that from like 30 Rock or something?

No, it's from Seinfeld. He wakes up and all day. He's got this note and he's like, Fax me a halibut. Is that anything? Okay, well, there you go. I do that all the time. Well, like you say, everybody does that, but you ain't hardly ever had a good idea at night. That's what you're-

Before, in sleep or whatever. That, yeah, exactly. I feel like usually people do that. Sometimes they'll have good. I'm 20%. Sometimes they're good. The reason I write mine down is I'm one out of five. So, anyway, that happened to me recently,

and what the idea was, was, and I don't, I know this doesn't, make any sense and I know this doesn't hit but in my in at three in the morning I wake up to pee this was the idea and I was like oh that's gold I thought that Corey should do a parody Travis Tritt song about having gotten drunk and said a bunch of really offensive and regrettable things on the internet and regretting it the next day and the name of the song is tell me I was meaming which was you know, Travis Trayvon tell me I was dreaming and I was picturing Corey

in the fake video with like a wig on and in a wheelchair for some reason. I know what you're doing that song. Guys, guys, look, I know this is crazy and it never worked. That's the best fucking idea I've ever heard. But you know what's funny though? I forgot all about, like I remember this is all clear as day to me now. Oh, this was a long time ago? This was, this was.

But it was what's wilder. But it was before I did my video. Right. It was right before. It was like one or two days before and Travis Trit. No, this is true though. No,

I remember it happened. But it was like he had the preface of like, I know this is stupid, blah, blah, blah, blah. So like it left my brain. And then me and Coon, I should call him Matt Coon. Me and Matt Coon, my producer, my other podcast,

were just bullshit like, it couldn't have been too long afterwards about doing something. It wasn't. Yeah, like literally days. like a couple days. And I was like, we were like, I was like, I need to do something because I can do kind of like a half-ass Travis Tritt voice. And at first it was going to be, I love the D-O-N-A-L-D, like the Donald. And they were like, wait, no, he's blocking people. Blocked works perfect. It goes right with the cadence. I literally until this very moment, for had forgotten all about you having said that. Well, here, so when I had that sleep idea and I texted y'all about the next day, at that point in time, I, I I hadn't nobody had thought of Travis Tritt in years. Like he hadn't been relevant or come up at all.

This was before that pitcher came out. It was a, yes. It was a completely random thing. And then like a day or two after that, after I had that ridiculous idea and texted you all that, Travis Tritt pops up out of nowhere in a hilarious fashion because somebody on the internet had taken his official with boy George. headshot, his official headshot and like, like glamorized it.

Made him queer. Made him look quick. Made him curious. And he got so fucking mad over it. And he looked so much better. Like all, dude, all, literally all he had to do, all he had to do was retweet it and be like, I'm a huge boy George fan. Ha, ha, ha.

And it was, it'd be over. And honestly, he would have looked cool. But he couldn't do that. He couldn't just do that. No. And he looked like. an old ugly mamma and then a hot mammoth. That was what they're up.

Yeah. And then he went on a tirade and started blocking people and stuff. And Corey made, he ended up making a parody Travis Tripp video where he made fun of that. But another little side note that's not really, it doesn't affect the trajectory of that. But another thing that was wild about that to me is when I first had that idea in my sleep, I wasn't in my head, it had nothing to do with, because Corey kind of looks like Travis Trit a little bit. Like, it wasn't, it wasn't that at all. But when I told you that, you used that app, what's that app? The reface app.

You use the reface app to put your face on Travis Tritt's head. And, like, if you take that picture and put it beside the real picture of Travis Tritt, there's not a lot of, like, you kind of look like Travis Trit. I know. And this all happened in the span of, like, four or five days. And again, Travis Trit ain't been relevant for 20 goddamn years. No. That's just weird. The whole situation was weird.

The reason I think that he did all that completely on purpose, like start up the shit, because it's just too coincidental. So I made the video of him doing the, you know, you got B-O-C-K-E-D. I made it. And then I was like, it was that the day that I posted it, I wasn't going to post it that day. I was going to sit on it for a second because I was like, okay, it's been a couple days since he did this bullshit.

I bet something reignites it. And I'm going to hold on to this and wait until something reignites it. And then I'm going to post it. it because then it'll be super relevant. And I swear to God, like, the second I thought that, and I logged on to Twitter, the first notification I get was like, Travis Tritt drops first single in over a decade. And I was like, God, damn. So like to me, this motherfucker, he's got like the Roger Stone of country music working for him

who was like, look, here's the deal. You ain't really been relevant in a long time. What you need to do is go out there and call a bunch of people queers and then hang out with James Wood and start blocking them. and then announce your single. Because, like, nobody's going to give a shit about it if you just come out and announce your single. Nobody gives a fuck about you.

But if you align yourself with Trump and Kevin on stuff. If you hate liberals, that's the new hot thing right now. So, like, it all just, like, all these weird coincidences just have, it was a very weird bubble that we were. Right. And no matter how much that single don't hit, it will hit for them. Right. If you have done that previously.

Does the single hit? I didn't listen to it. I do know this. My video got more views on the first day. than his singled in on his Twitter. Travis Gritz is hitting harder and Travis Tritz. So that hit for me. I mean, I'm sure now that's not the case.

But therefore, that one day, I was outperforming it. So it's weird because it doesn't seem like you guys are in the same place, but you guys are in the same place. Oh, yeah, I totally forgot about that. Yeah, he's downstairs. Drew is actually in Corey's house right now, everybody, but they're not in the same room because then we'd have echo and it sound weird. I went to do my podcast with DJ.

And by the way, a real quick plug, we are doing an online comedy show this Friday is the first meeting of the church of the eat fruit and fuck, but it's a comedy show, not a cult, I have to say,

for legal reasons. Send me $5 on Venmo or PayPal, and you can see me and DJ's comedy show. We will have guests. Who knows? Maybe one of these guys will be one of the guests. Did you say it's Friday? This Friday.

It's good. We're going to call it Eat Fruit. Friday's we're going to do a few in a row we're just going to treat like an open mic people think I want to come back for the third one because it's going to be DJ telling the same jokes three times in a row he's already told me buddy I got 10 minutes and I ain't doing nothing else well listen if I may if I may help pitch DJ Lewis out there DJ's one of the few comedians that even if he did do the same material three shows in a row is it really?

You know what I mean? Well, either way, you should listen to the first show, but yes, you're correct. Yeah, I mean, like, if DJ does something to say, he's going to forget what he did, he's going to do it in a different order, he's going to add something to it, he's going to look different, he's going to be more insane. The boy's all over the goddamn place. He's like, when we used to work at the comedy catch together, he was one of the few people who, because like, yeah, we would do the same material all the times because we're trying

to get it good, but he was one of the few that I was like, I'm still going to go watch it even though I've seen it a thousand times because God fucking knows where this is going to go. Y'all out there listening, you know DJ DJ Lewis is the most requested guests we've ever had on the well-read podcast. He's just, he's a torpedo of funny. So yeah, go check out the live show, the Eat Fruit and Fuck Convention Friday. Send Drew Morgan money on his PayPal or Venmo. Drew Morg comedy on Pinmo, Drew Morgan, at Gmail on PayPal. Here's my quick story.

Just no need to get into it, but you guys can comment on it. Andy and I, we have house setters. They're not there all the time. That's another story. Andy's got a camera that she put, like, facing the computer just so she didn't make the house setters uncomfortable. But she wanted to leave it on for the days they weren't there in case, because it turns on. Like an anicam? Yeah, it turns on if there's motion.

Yes, like a nanny cam, but it's not currently facing anything but the computer in the wall. Right. But the wall that it's facing is where the dog door is. and a cat has just taken our house. A cat has walked in our house. A cat has walked in our house. It turned on the motion cam, and we have not seen it leave yet.

And it's been three days. That hits. That does hit. Cats be that way. Yeah, they do. I've heard before, I don't know if this is true,

just like a prockerful internet bullshit, but I've read before that, like, the leading theory is that cats, that what you just said is essentially how cats became cats, which is to say that they domesticated themselves. Like dogs, dogs were purposely domesticated from like wolves or whatever because people are like, oh, we can hit with those. Yeah.

And cats saw humans and were like, oh, we could hit with those. And they just showed up and we're like, we're here now. Yeah. Yeah. Because like a dog will like, a dog will like show up at your house like a lot, you know, like it'll show up and be like, give me food. But the first day that you're not there, it'll like piss off. A cat will just come in your house and be like, I'm going to let you stay.

Yeah. So that's sweet. So you just watching this cat every day? Well, we ain't seen it since it came in. It's only facing that one wall and there ain't no food on that wall. And there's not much food there. There might be like dry rice. It's not like we just left meat out, you know.

But I'm convinced, you know, cats. Yeah, that wouldn't be like you at all. Exactly. cats will shit in like one place. I mean, they're not super nasty in that way, but I am convinced that one place is my side of the bed. You leave and immediately a cat just comes into your house and just start shitting on your bed.

Yeah, Trey's cats. How is your cat doing, Trey? Awesome. Shitting on Drew's bed right now. She's a pain in the ass, obviously, because she's a cat, but she's also very funny and precious and all that. The only thing, like I say Painting Nass, well, she's learned how to open the boys' door,

like the fucking Velociraptors in Jurassic Park because it's those types of handles, you know, just slides down so she can jump up and grab it like that and open it. And that really don't hit because, because, like, they got a bunch of beads and, like, arch and crafts type stuff, like little beads and shit.

in their room in drawers and she's a cat so she'll get in there and just smack all the motherfuckers out into the floor and all this shit and do that in the middle of the night you know like so that's what cats do in houses that they are welcome in yeah we could just close the door and and it wasn't a problem but now she can open the door and obviously we can't lock the door the boys are seven and eight like that ain't that don't we can't do that so so she just gets in that like she opens it during the middle of the night and the boys don't wake up and she just wreaks fucking havoc in there and you don't wake up i know good and fucking well that the only person that wakes up is katie yeah typically yeah that's how it goes sometimes she'll come into our room

sometimes she'll come also she does this and like i don't know she's done this less lately and i don't know why but she for a while was waking me and only me up at like 4 a.m. every day at first you want to go with her. Your cats. At first it was to be fed, right? But then I started feeding her before I went to bed, even though she wasn't hungry yet because I was like, now she'll have food there,

but she still was waking me up. And again, this may be bullshit. But I read on the internet that a lot of cats will do that, like, because people complain about, like, the cat will come annoying me, like come yowing and shit at me,

like it wants food, but I've already given it food. I don't understand. And I read on the internet that the reason cats do that is because they want you to like, be present while they're eating. So it's just like, evolutionary. You do that.

Evolutionarily, it's so, you know, hey, make sure nobody fucks with me while I'm eating this food is the scientific idea. But really, it's just like, waking up at 4 in the morning. It's like, hey, come watch me eat. A piece of a shit. Do you eat?

Do you eat too, though? Like, if it wakes you up at 4 o'clock in the morning, do you go in there and make yourself a snack? No, I don't. I care more about sleep than even fat and, like, you don't get up. Does it not keep me out? No, I know.

No, I do get up. But what I've found is like almost always at that time of night, I need to pee anyway. I mean, now, I would have continued sleeping. But when she wakes me up, I need to pee anyway. And all I got to do is get up and, like, just circle by her food. Like, I just walked her food bowl, turn around, walk in the bathroom. And she's like, that will do. And then I can go back to sleep.

Andy has this altar thing in the living room with, like, trinkets all over it. She doesn't call it an altar, but I don't know what the fuck to call it. It's got candles and shit all over it. I cannot wait to see what this cat has done to that fucking time. Without a doubt. Yeah, cats, I just, I like the fuck with stuff. It does hit. How's the fires?

I mean, they've got to be much better. I mean, I don't think they've got them completely under it. But for a while there, it was like, it looked like really, really cloudy or whatever every day, but it wasn't clouds. It was smoke. like that's how smokey it was. Is that it just like clad? It wasn't like in your neighborhood.

It was just up in the air. I don't know what I'm trying to say. Not up in the air. I mean, it was just like smoky outside and it smelled like a campfire and also like the air quality rating was really bad. And my elliptical was outside

and I still was on it a couple days during that. And it was like after not that long of like breathing heavy or whatever, your like throat starts burning and shit. It feels like you've been breathing in smoke, you know, because you have. And obviously that don't hit. And so it broke the record today.

It's not not right. What did you just say? It broke the record today in Los Angeles County for the largest. Oh, it finally had a catfire, whatever was like the amount that had been consumed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A hundred thousand acres. So that's a cumulative thing. I'm just saying like for my perspective being here, it looks nice outside today.

Right. Whereas it looked like a hellscape out there when it was at the work. so like it has to be better. I was out there during one of the last ones and my eyeballs was hurting when I was walking around. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I mean, you know, it's a head. It could have been us getting hammered

every night on red wine. Yeah, yeah, but I do that everywhere else too and specifically out there my eyeballs was burning. Speaking of which, by the way, week three starting today, sober. Three weeks? Nice. Today starts week three.

me too I've gained 12 pounds since I've been home I've been home a week yeah that's how that go I've gained five it's been sausage biscuits and miller lights I've gained five since stopping drinking

which is insane but it's just I very much for the first week and a half did the whole replacement situation and it was mainly yeah I made a lot of biscuits a lot of gravy

but I think now I'm at the alright that shit's over and now I'm trying to get carbs and bad shit back out of my life because I feel so good. No nicotine either. I've been three weeks solid, no nicotine, two weeks solid, no drinking starting week three. So this week, the challenge is to cut back on the carbs and quit replacing and maybe try to just be a functional human being for once in my life. I feel great. You're fucking killing it.

I was telling Amber, you had gone upstairs. You couldn't hear me breathe? Yeah, well, that, but no, we were lamenting over she's back at work, but she was like, no, it's weird, but I'm glad because I need, I need structure and I need something to kind of force me to do stuff. And I was like, oh, me too. You know, quarantine's not great for me because, like, I need something to make me. And then we were commenting, Corey, on how I guess impressed.

We both are, you've been a workhorse, both in terms of the amount of your output and the quality of it. Oh, well, thank you. I think part of it is like a, well, number one, And, yeah, sobriety has definitely taught me, dude, you should have done this a long time ago because you'd have been doing a lot more stuff. And like, I'm not, my anxiety's a lot down. I'm writing a lot better.

But there's part of me that's like, are you just working extra hard? Are you working extra hard because you have the energy to work extra hard? Or are you working extra hard to like, because you're like, if I stop for one second, I want to go have a shot of whiskey. You know what I'm saying? I don't give a fuck, though, because either if that's what I'm replacing it with, I'm good with it.

And also, even if it's not the latter, the fact that you're thinking that is proof that you're broken. Yeah, yeah. The fact that you're producing in spite of that, you're in a good fucking place. Take the victory, Corey. I am. I am taking the victory,

but it's just so funny to me that like, it's not once crossed my mind to be like, this sobriety, it's going to repair a relationship. it's like I'm going to write more dick jokes fucking hey it wasn't going to do that come on no for sure but yeah I do I do I do I mean I don't know man like it does feel different this time you know like I know that because hell we were talking about it when James Bain was on the podcast I was like man I think I'm done of course laughs all around and I get and I would never think I'm done oh you're done done no no I never think that but this definitely feels different because

those other times it was always like I feel so shitty right now I'm a fat black lob of shit. I need to get sober. But this time it was like, I've got a bunch of, I've got goals, and I think this is getting in the way of my goals. So it was different this time. You what I mean? Hell yeah, man, good for you. So it feels different. I feel better. I don't, like, I can't stand the thought of waking up hungover, even though I know. Like, go dog, sick them next weekend. I know what's such. Sure, sure, sure. But no, but at this point, hey, good for you, man. That's great. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

Wait, wait, wait. Here's how I know he's doing good, Trey. Why? I just said good for you. And I was waiting. I am to go, oh, yeah, good for you. I know what that means. Oh, good for you.

Good for you. He don't mean it. And he didn't do it. And I said it twice to see, make sure he heard me. I think he's doing good. No, I am. He didn't react to good for you like it was an attack, which it was not. Yeah, he's clearly doing good.

Do you want to know how crazy I am and how I know I'm doing good? I don't know if you know how big of a step it is for me to wear a yellow shirt. I've never liked myself in yellow. But then like today I woke up, I got me a new, I got me a new special Olympic shirt. I say new. It's from the thrift store, but you got to have one, you know. It's yellow.

It's got some bright colors. It's blue and yellow. And I put it on this morning. And I was like, you look fine in yellow, Corey. Don't let anyone tell you any difference said that while standing like this in front of a mirror. So like I've clearly got my color back. I got my confidence. I feel good.

Whatever told you? Has anyone ever said that? Was it your mom? No. Actually, yes. Now, it's so funny. This is like a therapy session because I didn't realize it until we started talking about one time I wore a yellow sweater for picture day and I brought home my pictures and I showed it. And my mom just goes, yellow really washes you out.

And ever since then, ever since then, I. Every time I see a yellow shirt, I'm like, can't wear that. Fucking look washed out. Look like a fun, dumbass. This was like sixth grade, by the way. The last time you got sober and opened up to me, we figured out that you got molested in fifth grade by a big titty high school or so. That is accurate. This is better, I think.

But yeah, it's funny that you say that. It really was my mom. She told me that I look washed out in a yellow sweater in sixth grade. And ever since then, I see yellow. And I'm like, not for me. You fucking ugly duckling, blah, blah. But now I'm sober and I'm feeling better. about myself. So back in yellow.

Sorry. Can y'all hear that? I'm sorry. No. No. Okay. I do this on Katie's computer and Katie's getting a face time call right now. And it's like, in my headphones, it's what they want. In my headphones, it's autumn. No, it's autumn. It's autumn. Definitely. I don't know why Katie's not answering it. It's still fucking ringing. Anyway, but I, but as I was saying, I did, I quit. Um, right now is the alcohol, but first was the nicotine. And I don't know if you know this, but what helped me, you quit the nicotine, bro? I quit. I've been, dude, I've been off nicotine ever since. We got our care package from Lucy. Lucy Nicotine. It's a company founded by Caltech scientists and

former smokers looking for a better and cleaner nicotine alternative. Finally, tobacco alternatives that don't suck. And I can attest to that. It's been really great. It was research and developed for three years by four people, not patient. All right. Lucy has created a nicotine gum with four milligrams of nicotine that come in three flavors. You got your wintergreen, your cinnamon, your pomegranate. Now, at first I was telling everybody, and I still maintain that this is true because I was drinking, I was drinking a lot that when I was first starting to want to quit the nicotine. I was a big fan of the pomegranate because you could chew it and still drink and it didn't really affect the flavor. But then I got off the booze and I was just, you know,

straight on, you could do the winter green, the cinnamon, everything's good. They've also got a lozons that's four milligrams. It's in cherry. As if cherry wasn't good enough, fucking cherry ice, suck it, regular cherry. Each and every flavor. Each and every flavor actually tastes great. And like I said, sincere personal experience. I don't know if Lucy's going to be happy with this because I'm not like using the product anymore because like it worked. Like it just legit worked.

I used Lucy for about a week and a half. And then I realized. He said that before though. Do what? This made a dumb joke about you using a girl name Lucy. I'm sorry. Oh, hilarious. Okay, I thought you meant like I've tried to quit nicotine before.

And that's true. You are accurate. This is the longest I've gone off cigarettes was two years, but now I'm off vape. I'm off vape four weeks. I'm off nicotine gum three weeks. So like I'm crushing it and it was all thanks to our friends. In my opinion, over at Lucy, you go to lucy. Don't, Lucy.com, and use promo code red at checkout.

And what you're going to do is you're going to get 20% off of all products. including the gum and the lozenges. Yeah. Lucy.com promo code red at checkout. Also, we, Corey, we have to give the disclaimer. Warning,

this product contains nicotine derived from tobacco. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. There he is. But still, Pitts, go to Lucy. That's it.

It does it. It does hit. It does hit. But man, it was the weird. That was a weirdest experience ever because I really thought I was going to have to,

like, taper off. But like, I was just, using it to not vape and then one day like several days passed and i was like holy shit i hadn't even reached for the gum and now there's the long i mean usually like no matter what the fuck i was quitting i've also ain't i ain't done no drugs neither by the way um i was always like what have you been doing i know eating biscuits um dray are you worried about him at all in what way you know like he's going to do this and act right for like three four five

weeks and then it's heroin yeah no I don't know well I figured whatever he said was what he'd been thinking about the most yeah I mean I feel like honestly I know he went through his rounds with it but in recent years like yeah he got he hasn't been cori hasn't he ain't been much of a drugger in my expert like he don't he don't really fuck with drugs the timing of my question anyway the timing of my question I could see why you think I just meant like general drugs I just mean in general this new and improved like i'm afraid that it honestly i'm afraid he's going to be like guys the truth is i'm a scientologist i don't want to tell you all that but that's what the change in my life is oh there's something going on here no but i think i mean the last time i got it like

really really together better than i had in a long time was during downton flabby when the weight loss competition with corin five years ago which i smoked him you do and what happened was he failed I went, no, opposite of failed. I succeeded in a huge way. Oh, okay. Yeah, me. Yeah, me. Yeah.

Anyway, the tour started, I went viral, the tour started, shit popped off. Seven months later, I had gained 40 pounds because I was hitting too hard. Way too hard. But anyway, so like, I feel like, you all remember Charlotte? Oh, my God. Hitting way too. No, Durham. I don't even remember where it was.

Yeah, it was Riley. We had a real good run. We really did. We had a real good run. run. You have the kind of hits you can't talk about? We're going to get back to hitting at some point, at least I hope so. And that'll be the real hypmus test, if you know, in my opinion.

Although you did mention earlier, the thing that was always hard for me at first, well, it still is typically other than a couple of times I've managed to do it. There's certain activities that like just football games. Yeah, that's one of them. For me, it used to be stuff like football games or playing golf, being on the water, being on a boat, things like that. I haven't done this one in forever, but like playing cards, card games, watching football, golfing, being on the lake, probably some others.

There's just certain things that's like. Only interacting in person with one person for 17 months. So, so hard to be sober for. And those were always the biggest challenges for me. I don't have, it's not that hard for me to go. I know recently on the podcast, Drew, when you weren't on here, I talked about how, like, I had started drinking like three or four white claws at night instead because what I've been doing was eating my ass off.

And Thompson called me and made fun of me. He was like, I just love how you were like, yeah, here's what I've been doing better lately. You know, I've been drinking four bears. He's like, those are just bears for pussies. Like, you're drinking four bears every night, acting like that's a diet or whatever. And, I mean, he's right. But he's right. But here's what happened.

Like Saturday, I didn't. I didn't have any and I was like, fuck it. So I didn't get any. And I ate a half of a five, no, no, a half of a three, I ate one half of a three and a half milligram weed gummy, right? Oh. And I ate everything before I went to bed. It was probably 1,200 calories of shit before I went to bed versus foe hunted from some bitch bears.

so, you know, I still, I'm still feeling okay about it. But I'm, uh, anyway, what I've gotten off track here when we were talking about? The, you mentioned, you mentioned Georgia's, the Georgia game and shit coming up. Like, yeah, is your intent, are you going into that thing like, fuck it, I've been doing so good. No, I'll just drink four. Well, the thing is, my problem is, like, I actually do not want. Like, I have no, there's no part of me that's like, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm itching to drink. And so if I'm watching the game this weekend, I'm going to want to drink.

Robbie had mentioned getting a projector and putting it in his yard so that, like, some people could come over. The problem to me is the people part. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Because, like, it's one of them. And it's not Robbie for instance, like, because Robbie's such a friend of mine that, like, you know, he's one of them, he's one of them, he's one of them. he's one of your friends where like y'all can sit in complete silence for nine hours and it be fine you're totally comfortable but then there might be somebody that like i

don't fuck with too much and i'm like oh i really want a beer but like honest to god if i'm starting if i'm feeling like it's going to be that way i might just sit at home because i am feeling too good about it and i don't want to like feel that way like i really don't make it a month i don't i do i i i was thinking like once we like i want to do this and go through sober october I don't want a drink. Like there's no, there's no part of me that's like, once I get to this,

thank God I'll be able to have a drink. But it's, I also hate the, we live in such a world and especially such a region that like, it's so exhausting to explain to people while you're not drinking.

Like you can't just say, I mean, Gaffirn has a whole bit about it. Right. You can't just be like. Yeah. Yeah. Like I can't just be like,

yeah, that's it. Like I couldn't just, there's no way I could just be somewhere and be like, I just don't feel like it right now. Let me found God. Yeah. then they'd have so many more questions.

That's not a whole other... Tell them your Islam. Although realistically... Tell them your Islam and they'll leave you alone. Oh, that's true. I'm Muslim now. I'm not. I'm off to pig.

I know he was a big. But yeah, it's like people have all these questions. And the worst thing you can say is, I just feel better about myself. Because then now you're judging them. Because that would piss me off too. You know what I? I mean, like, I'd be mad at that.

But you can't say nothing. What I usually do is, I've done this before where I didn't feel like drinking, but I didn't say anything anybody. I just went and I got, I get those Miller light, the pint cans, and I just keep refilling it with water and I just walk around with it. And nobody says shit, and you're not drinking. You know what I mean? Like that, the best, the worst thing you can do is be like, yo, I'm not drinking to these

savages that I'm friends with. Corey brings in a prop to trick, the friends he grew up with. that he doesn't have to talk to them about his life. Yeah, as we've said, that boy's never eating a carrot top. All right. Y'all want to get into the interview? Can I just say one thing? Sure.

You remind me of something. And I wanted to ask you all about this. Some of those at-home workouts, especially during the pandemic, it's like that would be the time to do them. My dad's got the P90X somewhere. I'm going to bar it from him and try to do it. But I was thinking about those things. I've never got into him.

And Corey, I think you just touched on the reason why. All the commercials, you said, if somebody says, I feel better by myself. Like, I don't know if I've hated anyone more. Maybe Republican preacher type senators or whatever. I don't know if I've hated anyone more than those exercise guru infomercial people that, like, advertise the at-home workouts. Yeah. I think there's some part of me that is afraid if I get all my shit together

I'll act like them. I know that sounds like a lame excuse. No, no, it doesn't. Stop drinking. But it seems like everyone I know who has their shit together and doesn't drink has the worst goddamn personality I've ever. Yeah. It's like a cliche about ex-smokers is it's like they're far,

they're the most like zealous and annoying people about like nothing hits less than an ex-smoker. And I go out of my smoker, like, and you know, that happens a lot. And because I was a smoker for so long and I hated those fucking people, I took notes and like, I forgot you stopped smoking. I go out of my way. I bring it up on this podcast for, you know, accountability reasons.

But like when I'm at like, I go out of my way where if I'm at a party and somebody says, hey, do you have a lighter? I always just say no. Because one of the things that used to piss me off so bad is when I'd be departed, I'd say, hey, do you have a lighter? And they'd be like, I don't smoke. And I'm like, motherfucker, I didn't ask if you smoked. I've asked if you had a lighter.

You don't have to fucking show me how much better of a person you are. It's like, I think about that shit all the time. I'm like, if somebody said, don't, don't say this, don't say this, don't say this. don't act like the thing that you are. But like with P90X and stuff like that, like, because I hear you like, let's say in some dream world I got in shape

or started doing hot yoga or some shit like that, there's going to be part of me that's like, just dude, don't just be the person that does it and doesn't talk about it. Be the person that does it and doesn't talk about it. But that P90X shit is fucking hard. So like if you do it, like you're going to want to tell people that you're doing it.

Oh, I'm going to tell you guys every day. And the thing is, is like you're supposed to like being a person and having friends is like you share your life. They damn sure tell you all the shit that they do. So it's just that the thing that you do is working out. Like at some point that's going to come up, you know,

so I don't know. I have very conflicting feelings towards it. So what I do is I just don't work out. You know, I don't put myself in that position. That's me. Buddy, you just summed it all up. Yeah. Why even go through all that?

It sounds terrible. That's why I quit being vegan. I knew it had to finally have to tell people. Is it the original P90X? I have no idea. Is it just, say P90X on it? It's a DVD if that helps.

That does a little bit of things. It should be multiple DVDs. I think they were all DVD. Katie used to, when Katie was a personal trainer, she was like certified with the, with Beachbody. That's the name of the company

and Beachbody owns P90X and all that other shit too, like Zumba and stuff. So anyway, I've done all the different P90Xs back in the day. That's what I did when I was saying earlier during Doughton Flabby. I was doing P90X three at that time.

But anyway, the original one is like, it's fucking brutal. Yeah, Dad's, it literally couldn't do it. It's six days a week and it's fucking... I don't know. They're all, they're all at least an hour.

I'm not going to do it. Some of the yoga one... Not a DVD player. That's what he said. He said the yoga one is like an hour and 45 minutes and it's fucking hard. What the fuck? He said it was the worst.

All of us. I was going to say who has time to do that? Literally all of us. We all have time to do it. Of course. I don't know. I've done it. I mean, of course, it's like, it's like,

of course it works. Like, yeah. But you work out for an hour and 45 fucking minutes. It's going to work. It's going to work. But that shit works. Like it definitely works.

No, I ain't doing it. Because it just bust your ass. But, uh, well, I have a, uh,

announcement. I have a brand new nephew and I have to go cook for my sister-in-law. Because she's, she's in the bed laid up. So boys, it's been fun. It has, uh,

to our audience, you're about to enjoy this conversation with Mr. Tony Camel of the Blue Grail. quartet wood and wire whose new album no matter where it goes from here is available now he's a good dude and a good talk so i hope you like it and we'll see y'all next time sorry it took me a couple minutes to hot spot it boys no problem uh tony is it okay if we talk about how striking you look are we record as long as we can talk about tray's mustache too yeah uh yeah i actually have toned it down quite a bit it was like dr robotnik levels

of sidelie whiplash. I saw that a luxurious haircut though. Trey, this is my admission that I still have not yet to watch your your latest Bill Maher, because I'm just now realizing that, yeah, you didn't shave the mustache off. No, not entirely. I felt like this was a compromise that you all told me to keep it. I mean, and I think we were right for the record.

Yeah. Hey, Tony's here. Tony, so just so you know, we will have. have this will be in the latter half of the episode and we will have already set up what's about to happen. You know what I mean? Like we will have already given an intro to the conversation and whatnot. And who you are and what you do. Yeah. So we can kind of just get into it. But here is everybody, the front man of the bluegrass quartet wood and wire from the sticks outside of Austin, Texas, Mr. Tony Camel. Hi, Tony. Hey, guys. Thanks for having me. Did he say that right?

Is it Camel? Yeah. just like the animal. That's a great fucking name for a musician. Is it? I, I've wrested with it

honestly. You'd be a good DJ name too. DJ Tony Camel on the ones and two. He also sounds like the like fuck up younger brother of the camel mascot, the cartoon Joe Camel from the Matt his clove smoking brother

Tony. Yeah. On his couch and shit. Tony Camel. When I was smoking cigarettes in college, they had Camel red cigarettes. Yeah.

Yeah. My last name is spelled with a K. Oh, that's right. Yeah. And they just, they weren't any good, but I'd buy them just because of that.

I smoked those because they were different. Yeah. Did you have a red package? Yeah. Did you have hair like that when you were smoking red package? Did not. Did not. Wasn't talking to you,

Corey. Wanted to know about Tony's hair. I thought it was like a joke like, like yeah, Corey, you smoked the same cigarettes, but I mean, did you look like that motherfucker and like,

no, I've never, I've never had hair like that. I wanted to know. know if Tony was on campus, rocking those locks, just smoking camels and driving the girls crazy. I squandered my campus years with short hair. Yeah, I've seen the long hair is a relatively recent thing. I've seen videos you guys performing and whatnot, and you always had short hair in them. Is that a pandemic situation, or you've made that choice beforehand?

I made the choice last spring because my wife has been asking me to grow my hair long for for about five years. So I started growing it out. Last haircut I got was in Cincinnati in May of 2019. Right on. And so, well, the pandemic made it easier to,

to avoid the temptation. So you're the person I know who came out of the pandemic looking like fucking Vigo Mortensen. So, all right. Front man. I mean, is that accurate to say the front man?

Yeah, I'd say so. Yeah. Front man of wood and wire. Bluegrass Quartet, Austin, Texas. You guys, you know, you got a great bluegrass sound. Also, Grammy nominated, by the way. I think we all three, we love bluegrass, you know.

I do wonder sometimes, I want to start by asking how bluegrass becomes the specific genre or whatever that you sort of jump into in this day and age, you know, in our generation. Because obviously, and again, I love bluegrass. I love modern bluegrass and everything. too, but it's, you know, it's kind of got, it's like, oh, it's old timey. Bluegrass is old-timey music. So like, how do you get into that world, you know, as a younger guy in the first place? Yeah, for me, I think it was a combination of, when I was in high school, I grew up in Houston, Texas, which is by no means a bluegrass town. But I loved music. I loved going to

see shows and going to high school in the late 90s. A lot of my friends were in a jam band, so I got into that too and a lot of those jam bands who play bluegrass songs I worked backwards when I got to college at University of Texas here in Austin they had a massive music library so I'd hear bluegrass songs being played by modern jam band

and then I'd look up the songs and figure out where they came from and then go check out the records out of the library and frankly I'd rip them onto my computer and listen to them later but you could read you could check out like 40 50 CDs at a time. And then eventually, I, you know, I was playing for fun that whole time. Eventually, I went to a bluegrass jam and got my ass handed to me. Like I think any bluegrass player has to go through, you know? Sure. Kind of like I said, comedian for a time. I imagine it's pretty tough, you know.

Yeah. But yeah, that's sort of right of passage happened for me right after college. So it kind of came into it late, you know. What, is there something about it that attracts like extremely technically proficient musicians? Do you know what I mean? Because like, I feel like that's also a thing with bluegrass like, you know, grass and jazz. Both of them for sure. Seemed to be mostly not for young people, but I'm glad, you know, I'm glad that, you know, people are into it like me. And then, yeah, like he said, very proficient players. Yeah, man, because I know some people who, like, they're Bluegrass fans and, like, they're not necessarily fans of Bella Fleck, but they still, like, admire it. They're still like, look,

look at it. Like, watch it. Like, it's perfect. Like, there's nothing wrong with this. Right. I think it's the jam aspect, kind of like jazz. It's a communal art form. It has a math problem essentially associated with it. And if you want to jam, you got to know that math problem. And it's really fun. So you want to do it more and more and more. If it gets in your blood, then you're going to spend hours doing it. And I think over the years, that attraction and that obsessiveness that a lot of us have has just grown into even more and more proficient players. So I think really where it starts is the fact that you can get together with people and know these songs, even if you've never met them, you can play them together like you've been playing

them for years. Can you talk a little bit more about it being a math problem or there being a math problem to it? Like, I'd like to hear you expand on what that means. Sure. So in any genre of music, music is just, in a sense, it's numbers associated with sounds. And jazz, in bluegrass, there's chords within a key, right? And the one chord is going to be. And be the key that you're in. If you're in the key of A, the one chord will be A, four chord will be D, and the five chord will be E. And that one four or five has a specific kind of sound. There's more to it than that, but that's sort of the basis for a lot of, a lot of music. And the way you play it, the way you do the rhythm structure, on guitar, at least, what I play in the band, the boomchuck

rhythm and the bluegrass rhythm, that's a series of up and down strokes at different times. there's a math problem right there, whereas in jazz you might start off with different numbers within the key like 25-14 or something like that. So knowing those math problems within the genres is sort of how you figure it out. So at a bluegrass jam, if someone says, hey, I want to go, here's a,

we're going to play sitting on top of the world in A, which is a real common bluegrass tune. But if I didn't know that song, someone could just tell me it's 1-4-5 on the A part, and then the B part just goes 151 and then you do that over and over again. Then I know the song, even if I don't quite get it,

I see it happening around me and figure it out pretty quick. Okay. That sounds difficult to master, but basic in terms of its application. But then when I see it all play, I don't, it seems difficult in every way. Does that make sense?

Like obviously, it's okay, so I play guitar, very poorly. There's like, sometimes there's a guy strumming his guitar, and I'm like, I could do that part. So I guess what I'm getting at is what you just said sounded kind of bait, like these are the chords. But it seems like with bluegrass, every player has to be able to lead and play rhythm. Yeah, the lead, the difficult, the more difficult part, I think for a lot of people, it's just hard.

I mean, there's no other way to put it, the way that you play. play this genre. If you're taking leads, if you're doing it the right way, it's going to be difficult. It's just technically, technically difficult thing to do. And as a somewhat of an ambitious and obsessive musician, that's one of the things that attracted it to me as well, because it was difficult. And once I saw, once I saw Doc Watson playing, I was like, I'm going to do whatever it takes to learn how to do that. Turns out it was a lot. It was a lot. It wasn't a good place to start. Black Mountain Rag by Dodd. Watson, his version of it, that's not a good place to start if you want to learn how to

flat pick. So, but yeah, I mean, it's essentially scales, different scales being played at different times over different courts, and then then over time you learn how to compliment the melody. And all of that takes years and years to learn. I guess I'll question. I'll go ahead. Go ahead, Troy. Okay. I was watching you guys earlier. And my dad used to talk about this every now and then, but it made me think of something because I recently, about a year or so ago, I started for the first time getting into metal, into heavy metal. I was going to, I found some heavy metal bands I've really gotten into and whatnot in the time since. And I never had a problem with metal, but I'd never been metal fan before that.

And so then after the past year or so of getting more into heavy metal, I was watching you guys play on videos earlier today. And one of the main things I immediately thought was like, man, these guys are fucking shredding right now. which like as what, you know, bluegrass is like that. You shred also. And I was just wondering, because I'm not a bluegrass musician, I'm just a music fan. Is there any, is there an overlap there between those two genres you typically find like bluegrass people like have an appreciation for metal and vice versa, that type of thing?

Or am I just, you know, making shit up in my head? No, you're spot on. That's definitely true. Our banjo player, Trevor Smith, is a huge hardcore fan. He likes hardcore music a lot. Mandolin player, Billy Bright, likes punk rock music and punk rock attitude is something we've got in the band as well. But the heavy metal thing, the level of proficiency is definitely related. There's a lot of bluegrass musicians I know that love and play heavy metal.

There's a kid out there now who's just blown up. We've known him since he was a teenager, but he's killing now. His name's Billy Strings. Oh, yeah, baby. Yeah. And Billy Strings is big time. He was like in hardcore and metal. bands when he was younger too. So you see a lot of that overlap. You're dead on with that, Trey. Yeah, I'd actually heard, I can't, maybe we'd talked about it before and I can't remember where I saw it. It was probably fucking Reddit or something, but somebody was talking about their, it was their theory on that heavy metal came from bluegrass in terms of the first heavy metal

people or kids of their parents played bluegrass or whatever. And so they like, they had like learned from them that sort of like progression and that sort of speed. But then they were like, like, you know, this isn't metal. And so they started making it metal. So that was a question I was actually going to get into. One thing I also wanted to talk about was, and this is one thing I love about bluegrass and I love about folk music.

It's why I'm such a fan of the genre. And I go to the festivals and I just worship at the altar of these people. Because in no other genres does it seem like you truly are, you have to be doing it because you love the game. And I say that with all respect in terms of, Like, if you ask, if you go out on the street and you ask 100 people who's named the best banjo player of all time. I'm not saying around here where I'm from, you know, some people are going to be like, well, you know, Bill Monroe was pretty fucking fire and blah, blah, blah, but like Bluegrass isn't necessarily something where there's no Beyonce. You know what I'm saying?

There's no prints. There's no this. So when you're, when you're going in. Sam Bush just pops up from behind court. What the fuck you job? I'm rea. But see, but that's actually a really good point. Like we know and love Sam Bush.

I've seen Sam Bush a thousand times. I've seen Sam Bush. I don't know if you have. But I've seen him literally one time I saw him play a fiddle with his mandolin, like doing all that shit. But like, are you like, is there ever a point?

Like I don't know really exactly what I'm trying to ask, but like is there ever a point where you're like, yeah, all right, I'm going to be fucking this guy and I'm going to get the chicks and the drugs are just like, look, I know that's not going to happen.

This is bluegrass, but I'm going to play these strings real goddamn good. I'm going to smoke pot with my friends and I'm going to be a legend to this niche group of people. going to be fucking witch guy what what does that sorry it's a comedy podcast how to get one yeah yeah no man it's a what you said is really it's really true one of the beautiful things about the genre is that the the the founders of it are the following the second and third generation right of the sort of leaders of the genre they're accessible people they'll take your phone call

right and with you in the campgrounds there's none of us getting in the bluegrass trying to be someone like Beyonce. And please know that I meant that with all due respect. Oh, I take that as a huge compliment. I love Beyonce. She's incredible. Don't worry about that. But yeah, man, that's one of the really neat things about it. It really struck me when I went to my first folkish, fulcish, bluegrass-ish festival when, you know, Tim O'Brien, who's this guy who I worshipped at the time still do, he played with, he played on his own. And then he came into the campgrounds. was picking with people and I was like, you know, holy shit. I put this guy up on that type of, on a Beyonce type of pedestal.

Sure. But in my ignorance, I didn't realize, you know, he's a hustler, just like all of us are. There's really a not big, not that big of a difference between someone like Bella Fleck, Tim O'Brien, Sam Bush, us or even bands that are just getting started. We're all hustling for the same festival, same gigs. None of us are making shitloads of money. and there's no guarantees at all. Just with you guys,

there's no guarantees some pandemic is going to come and kill you tour or that someone's going to keep you on whatever project you're on. So that sense of hustle and stuff, it goes all the way to the top in the genre, and that's a really cool thing. I was actually, you brought up the pandemic, I was going to ask you about just you

and the band's general experience with it so far because, I mean, yeah, comedians and musicians, and any kind of like live performance-based thing has obviously just been absolutely ravaged by the pandemic to an extreme degree. So, you know, how have you guys handled it so far? It's been a huge bummer, frankly. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and sugarcoat it. There are certainly positives about it.

I've gotten to spend the summer at home with my wife, and that's been really nice. But I think that sort of honeymoon phase of being able to be home and hang with family more is starting to wear all. off. Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's venues here in Austin that are closing. Right. There's venues all across the country that are closing. And we're facing a pretty serious situation of the industry as a whole. I mean, our, our, basically our own, only comedy club closed. And, and that was really sad for me. The Belveter Room? Yeah. No, no, Belveder Room still open. It's, uh, Capital City Comedy Club. Okay. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so things like that are going to start to disappear. And, you know, we got to keep them here somehow.

And it starts at the national level. It goes down to the state level. And really what's important is the cities if they decide to keep the soul of their cities. And I don't have the answers to that. But what we've been doing, we've been real busy doing the press for this record. And that's been keeping us busy and making us feel good, but it's winding down. You know, things don't last that long anymore. You're in vogue for a couple weeks, couple months.

And then you're lucky for that too. Yeah, exactly. and you just hope that whatever you've created permeates, and when we can get back to playing shows, there'll be venues to play, and people want to hear the songs. So it's been a bit of a downer, but I do have some hope,

but, I mean, it's... These last couple weeks have been kind of rubbed. I do think bluegrass and comedy fans alike. One overlap there is... It would be very unlikely, in general, that anyone would be a superstar and make billions of dollars, but once they... find out about you and they like you and you start getting those Grammy nominations.

I would say they're pretty laid you around for a while because they're not wishy-washy. Much like you saying, I'm going to do bluegrass even if I don't get lots of money and chicks. I think if you're a bluegrass fan, you know, you're in it for the skill and all that, not for the newest thing necessarily, you know. Yeah, the fans are incredible. And since it's a traditional music form, the fans are make it will always keep it there. A lot of fans are also players. And so it's like there's a ceiling, right?

It's like you're not going to be a millionaire or whatever. Maybe there's a few of people that are. The ceiling is at a certain level. It's not a bad level, but it'll always be there. And one of the cool things about bluegrass is that you can become old as shit and still look cool and sound cool doing it. It's like a musical retirement plan or something, you know? Yeah. That's why Ricky Skaggs plays bluegrass now because he did all of his country shit early.

For sure. And if you look at Del McCurry, that guy is the coolest guy at any festival you go to. Yeah, I feel like comedy can sometimes be the opposite. Like you got your rare people like George Carlin, who it's like he would, you know, his last special, he was 69, he was crushing it. But with comedians, sometimes it's like, you get to a certain age, you're like, all right, you need to shut the fuck up. Yeah. Well, because it becomes very old man yelling at Cloudsy. It has that feel to it.

Like when you're younger as a comic, you're like railing, you know, raging against that machine or whatever. it plays a lot better than, yeah, and then you get old and you have the same opinion as you had 40 years ago, and now all of a sudden it's like, ugh, I don't know whether this guy's. I think playing banjo to the clouds is certainly a better look.

Oh, absolutely. I don't know, man. I always wanted to be, I've always been a huge stand-up comic, comedy fan, and I love y'all stuff. I listened. I knew who y'all were, but I hadn't dug in, and I listened last week when I knew I was going to do this.

It's just correct. And I really respect what y'all do. it's a really difficult art form. I always wanted to do it, but I found out that I haven't been through enough bullshit yet. You're too hot. Well, yeah, you're way too good looking, but I can go ahead and tell you right now

that you could definitely do what we do before any of us could dare do what you do. For sure. So let's talk about the album a little bit. You mentioned it. It seems to me very aptly named, just giving the time that it's been released. and it's called No Matter Where It Goes From Here.

So why don't you just tell us a little bit about it, sort of the origins of it and whatnot and that type of thing? Sure. The songs came together over the course of a couple years. That particular name for the album is a lyric from the tune called Home in the Banjo. Billy our Mandolin player wrote, The line goes, no matter where it goes from here, you bet your bottom buck I'm going to steer clear.

They're going to build a phone right into your ear no matter where it goes from here. So he wrote that. And as we were coming up with album titles, our bass player Dominic suggested that one. And that might have been the only thing on this record that we didn't bicker and argue over before making the decision was the name of that record. Because I thought it was really poignant.

Without a doubt. How do you guys go about the writing process? Because I know every band can be a little different. Sometimes you got like the one guy that's sort of the driving force of that whole process always, and sometimes it's way, way more collaborative and whatnot. How do you guys approach the songwriting part of it? It's real collaborative.

In the beginning of the band, I was a real inexperienced musician, or a performing musician, but I'd written a bunch of songs. And so a lot of those songs became our first record and second record. Then over the years, we became way more collaborative. And it's gotten way better as a result. Whoever brings the song to the band, we sort of have an ethos that it becomes the band's song. And anyone has a say on what it can be, whether you wrote it or not, the best idea comes out. The lyrics are open for change by anyone.

And we all have different styles, and we just trust each other's styles for the instrumental arrangement stuff. And we don't tell each other what to play, but we make suggestions on all kinds of things. And then once we're done and we record it, it's not ours anymore. It's everybody else's the peoples, as they say. And they, you know, we can talk about what every song is about all day, but they're going to listen to it and apply it to their own. If it touches them, it'll interpret it their own way, you know.

So it's real collaborative, and that's gotten easier over the time, the more we work together. It's been almost 10 years. So we're better at fighting, if you will. Yeah. You know which battles to pick. about like the general subject matter of the songs you write being a bluegrass band do you know what i mean i feel like they need it there's a certain feel that the sort of lyrical content

needs to have to sort of fit within the bluegrass framework unless you're being like way more experimental on purpose or whatnot is that something that just sort of happens naturally for you guys or do you all like talk about that like this doesn't feel right or whatever As far as lyrical content goes, we're sort of known as a band that doesn't have content that you would expect in bluegrass music. We're all from different parts of the country. None of us are, quote, rednecks like you guys, although we all came from, I came from the fourth largest city in Houston. You know, that's a huge place. And Trevor's from Tucson.

Dom's from Rochester, New York, and Billy's from El Paso, Texas. So we all come from places and the traditional bluegrass songs and art forms. And even some of the modern players came from rural communities. We didn't. So our subject matters isn't, doesn't touch on those things necessarily. We just write about what we know, what we want to write about. We don't think about anything else. You know, if we like it or write about it, if we like the way it sounds, we'll do it.

And we try not to stay put ourselves in any kind of box, you know. And honestly, I think that's set us apart. at the very least, different than everybody is. Not necessarily better. I mean, there's a lot of incredible groups out there. I can easily say we're not amongst the best,

I've getting that Grammy nomination. I've never had worse imposter syndrome in my life, you know. Yeah. But, you know, we just, we're more about the songs than anything, and the songs we write are come from personal places. And we've just been lucky that we've made a couple of records where they fit together.

I have a question about what you just touched on. I think in the bluegrass world, the fans are starving for newer artists and something new, but I know they also can be very unforgiving about their traditions and how sacred or whatever that they are. Have you guys run into that early on? Do you feel like you've won them over, or was that never a problem? Oh, yeah. And it's beautiful and it's kind of not, you know, it's like, it's good that there are people really

trying to keep it, keep the tradition alive, because even though we're not traditional at all, we think it's important to know the tradition, know the traditional form. But we play those traditional festivals. If you've guys ever, ever been to one, you know what it's like. You know, it's like people love their traditional bluegrass the way that they want to hear it played. And we get up there and play it. We'll usually hear, play our version of our bluegrass. We'll hear those lawn chairs snapping, you know what I mean? Sure. But, But then even if we see that, you know, we've been doing this long enough to we just kind of laugh about it because we're going to do our own thing. There's no sense in trying to adjust.

Even after a set like that, you'll get some woman or man, whoever coming up to you up to the merch booth. Kind of looking around like she's going to buy some mushrooms from you or something. She'd be like, I really enjoy that. Yeah, right. But that's just a joke. Honestly, there's a lot of people who really appreciate what we do in all parts of. the country in all walks of life and we're lucky to anyone sits down and listens to us to our thing. Yeah, I think my dad was in a bluegrass band when I was a kid and I just always remember that like

his band was very split on whether or not they liked Newgrass Revival or not. And my dad was on the likes Bluegrass Revival side, but the other ones were just like, they played drums sometimes. That boy sings too pretty. God damn it. Look, John Cowan. It sounds like a woman. hip hop has a lot of that and obviously country music has the traditional versus bro country versus what they call americana now going on is that i mean i'm just trying to think out loud i know rock and roll has people who are purists but it seems like it's such a popular genre that at this point yeah you know we'll play where you play yeah man it's in country music definitely still has it's purists but they've completely fucking lost their way it's like um they've they've associated it with their uh it's become i mean look at what uh look at what tyler childers

did this past week he put out that record he made a really uh incredible statement it's not an easy thing to do as an artist especially an artist from rural kentucky or any rural state um and he's getting roasted i'm sure you guys uh probably get the same shit you know you have to right like yep uh and they're telling him he's he's he's you know, I haven't looked at the comments, but I've heard. Yeah, some of them are rough. Yeah, I believe it. They're bad.

Yeah, well, I mean. They may be mad. Yeah, I mean, me too, me too. And so they think that they're this, this somehow associated traditional country with being hateful. Right. Right. Right. Yeah.

And that makes me so goddamn mad, man. Well, the idea that empathy is selling out is just an infuriating idea. Right. Right. Exactly. So, you know, you deal with, and the thing that's different, though, about bluegrass is that it has a really long history and tradition that predates all of that stuff. So it can be tough to bust through that wall sometimes. Yeah. I mean, some of the most open-minded liberal pot smoking hippie, free thinkers I know are also the biggest bluegrass fans that I know. So like it's never like, if I'm driving down the road and I see, you know, one of those, you know, one of those cars that's like completely covered in the liberal bumper stickers. You've got the fish with the feet, you know, Darwinism, fuck Jesus or whatever, the coexist.

Usually there's always a forever bluegrass bumper sticker on it too. And I'm always just like, hell yeah. So like, I don't know, man. Sometimes it just, it bothers me so much that you just, you hear the twang and everybody's like, well, that must be racist. And all the racists are just like, If you like people and are smart, then you're not really country. And it's just, it's infuriating. Right. I think being open-minded and liking a banjo, do go hand in hand, though, because if you didn't grow up on it, if you didn't grow up on it,

the first time you hear that, you're like, because it's so different. For sure. I agree. So twangy. Right. Hey, I got one right here. That was really sexy. Do that again.

Yeah, that wasn't bad. I'll play some. Please go ahead. Here we go. There you go. Nice. Well, with that, we're, we've taken it up too much this time. I have a quick question.

Okay. It's a fashion question. Okay. Did you get that shirt as Z-threads? I got it from the C-threads. I got it from the Haller Brothers. Okay. Company here in Austin that makes clothing.

Z-threads is in Austin. Those are bowling pins, right? Yeah. These are cactus. Oh, it's cactus. Okay. Oh. Drew's got a shirt that's David Bowie, but I always think it's shrimp and it's a similar type

shirt. And I got it at Z-threads. Z-threads takes old pearl snaps and then sews David Bowie or Sasquatch or whatever on there. Yeah, well, despite what you guys might think of me, judging from the way you talked about me earlier, I actually have an awful fashion sense. the only reason I have any clothes I have is because of my wife. That's okay. Yeah.

Well, then, well, okay, Tony, we believe you, but how did you know where the shirt came from then? Because it was free. It was free. Oh, okay. They sent that one to you. So, yeah, thank you for joining us, Tony. But real quick before you go, tell everybody, you know, how you would prefer they go about checking out the album, because I know that it is very different depending on, you know, the source of where you get it.

a lot of artists have their preference. How they'd love people to check it out. Why don't you let everybody know? Thank you for ask. I just find it in any streaming outlet, or you can buy it on our website, which is Wood and WireBand.com. But we've got, you know,

if you have a way of streaming music, we have it on there. And just give it a listen. We're out of it. It's not very long, you know. Give it a listen through and through and find us on the interwebs. It's all of our social media is at Woodend Wire Band, so that's Facebook, Instagram,

and now Twitch because people are doing a lot of live streaming these days. So we've made a Twitch account. But yeah, there's not a whole lot anyone can do right now with us playing shows, but just get to know the music so that when we can get back out there, we'll be able to somehow convince you to come check it out live. Yeah, we'll check it out. Again, it's called No Matter Where It Goes From Here, the band is Wood and Wire. Tony Camel, thank you very much, man. It's been a pleasure.

Yeah, thanks, guys. I really enjoy the podcast. I've been listening all week. It's fine. Thank you, man. By the way, that's a heavy thing. I saw you were on Bill Marr when we found out about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. So rest and peace to her, that must have been a hell of an experience right there. It was insane. One of the more surreal experiences of my life, you know what I mean? I know it's like a cliche, but it's like kind of a blur as a memory now

because it was also weird, you know. What was more surreal finding out Ruth Bader Ginsburg died when you were with Bill Marr or finding out that Hugh Hefner died while we were with Adam Sandler? Probably the former just because I was like, you know, on TV? They stay on TV. Yeah, on camera. Yeah, I was having a moment. And then you got roasted for being shocked.

Yeah. Thank you, rock and rope bluegrass man, Tony Camel. I have one more question for you guys. Who wrote the theme song? May. Yeah, me. Did you? Yeah, it's per, it was, it was performed by our buddy, uh, John Ferguson.

He, he, he, right? Yeah, John, it was John. And, uh, but yeah, that was, froze. That's why we were making noises, buddy. Okay. I was going to say, no, I'm pretty sure because I, I, I fucking shout him out all the time. No, yeah, you just froze up.

Okay. Yeah. But, yeah, my buddy John Ferguson sings it on the podcast. But yeah, that's all, that's all. Hey, man, that is, if you know, Trey, that is, straight tray you can't mistake yeah i'm a fan i'm a fan that's it right well thank you tony we appreciate you and we hope to have you again soon anytime anytime fellas take care okay i can't wait to see you live see you yeah yeah me too later guys thank you all for listening to the

well-read show we'd love to stick around longer but we got to go tune to next week if you got nothing to do jesus thank you god bless you good night and skew I feel