E534 Brooks & Dunn

Speaker 1 Don't miss Sebastian Maniscalco's new stand-up special, It Ain't Right, premiering on Hulu, November 21st. Filmed live at the sold-out United Center Arena in Chicago.

Speaker 1 Sebastian goes all in on family chaos, aging, non-existent manners, and life's most relatable and frustratingly funny moments as only he can.

Speaker 1 Watch Sebastian Maniscalco, It Ain't Right, on November 21st, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.
Some new tour dates coming up. Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Speaker 1 La Crosse and Green Bay, Wisconsin. Moline,

Speaker 2 Illinois.

Speaker 1 Colorado Springs, Colorado. Casper, Wyoming.
Billings, Missoula. Bloomington, Indiana, Columbus, Ohio, Champaign, Illinois, Grand Rapids, Lafayette, Louisiana, and Beaumont, Texas.

Speaker 1 Get all your tickets at theovon.com/slash T-O-U-R, and thank you so much for the support. Today's guests are icons in the world of country music.

Speaker 1 If they had a Mount Rushmore of country, you might see these fellas right up there on it.

Speaker 1 They had solo careers before they joined together to create one of the most popular tandems in the history of country.

Speaker 2 You know, there are many hits like Nin Man, Mam Rio, and Bit Gini,

Speaker 1 and many, many more.

Speaker 1 Their new album, Reboot 2, comes out November 15th. It has new takes on their classic songs with folks like Morgan Wallen, Jelly Roll, and Lainey Wilson.
I am so excited today to sit down with Mr.

Speaker 1 Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn.

Speaker 2 Brooks and Dunn.

Speaker 2 I'll sit and tell you my story.

Speaker 2 Shine

Speaker 2 on me.

Speaker 2 And I will find a song out of singing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, thank you guys for coming in, man.

Speaker 1 Good to be here. Good to see you guys.

Speaker 2 I watch you all the time. Not just saying that.
I watched you with Post Malone the other day. I don't know how far back that was uh uh videoed or shot oh yeah funny stuff yeah he's wild man

Speaker 1 yeah he's he's really

Speaker 1 he's just like an infectious thing kind of isn't it funny yeah yes sir no sir yeah

Speaker 2 i talk

Speaker 1 he's like a kid who got in trouble but he's gonna keep partying you know yeah you're right

Speaker 2 have you stopped drinking

Speaker 2 worst worst worst time of your life well that's when i was drinking you know have you stopped no

Speaker 2 What's different?

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 I mean, he's, yeah, he's never thought about it. He's an interesting cat, and he's absolutely a sweetheart, though.
Oh, you talk to him, it's like Mr., you know, Mr. Theo.

Speaker 1 You know, he's the nicest guy.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's super nice, man. You guys have had such a career, man.
Thank you so much for all the music.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Thanks for letting us hang around this long, you know.

Speaker 1 Appreciate it.

Speaker 2 Been around how long?

Speaker 3 Several semesters.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Does it feel, did it ever feel, did it feel like,

Speaker 1 because you guys got part,

Speaker 1 did you guys get paired together? Or how did it kind of the beginning become? We're not going to go through all the history, but I just want, you know, just so some people may not know.

Speaker 3 Classic story, you know, right out of the movies. Just a friend of ours who we both had a lot of respect for, Tim Dubois, great songwriter himself and whatever.

Speaker 3 It's actually an accountant at Vanderbilt as well, you know, smart guy too. But

Speaker 3 he just invited us to lunch and thought we might

Speaker 3 be a good pair up. And, you know, Ronnie and I are just kind of growling across the table at each other.
It didn't make any sense to us. And he said, look, you guys can both write songs.

Speaker 3 He goes, you know, just

Speaker 3 go see if you can write a song together.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 So I think that was Tuesday, maybe Thursday, we wrote Brand New Man. Friday, we wrote this song, Next Broken Heart.
And Ronnie had already written Neon Moon and Boot Scooting Boogie.

Speaker 3 And I had another song Lost and Found. And we just screwed up and been riding the bus for 30 years trying to figure out how to get off.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's like we weren't brothers growing up. Like, people

Speaker 2 just tell us to.

Speaker 1 Did it feel like a pressure? Like, you had to be like, I just want, yeah, like, because with comedians, they don't really have that where you kind of kind of partner you up.

Speaker 1 I guess for television shows and stuff, they do where they package shows. But yeah, I wonder, did it feel, did you guys feel a pressure like we have to, or it was just

Speaker 2 no, no, we felt we felt broke and hungry. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So, what's the motivation?

Speaker 3 we gotta we gotta back up a little bit we felt like none of this really working that great you know i mean i'd had some some success as a songwriter written a couple of hits and whatever and ronnie just been out in okie you know hiding writing great songs totally unheard of for somebody who hadn't been in nashville really studying the craft so to say to show up with songs like neon moon and boot scoot and oh yeah next album hardworking man and used to be my ronnie just had written all these great songs by itself which you know now i can't even tell you who's out there writing songs by themselves they'll probably watch and go hey how about me dude but you know it's it's a co-writing town it just really is it's becoming more and more of a co-writing town

Speaker 2 more and more writers on every song i saw one with nine writers

Speaker 2 nine writers i mean what the heck we used to like we'd throw a bet you

Speaker 2 like you know three writers in the movie

Speaker 1 did it feel like over did it feel like you guys had to, because I bet it's like once you get partnered with somebody, it's like, dang, we're part, this is a long ride and you don't really know how long the ride is when you start, you know?

Speaker 1 Did it feel like you guys over the years, like you had to be best friends? Did it ever feel like a pressure to be like that?

Speaker 2 Maybe, but we didn't, I don't think we, we took it to heart.

Speaker 2 I mean, it was like, hey, we, you know, Tim, back up on your story a little bit for me, but Tim, Tim had heard me in a, playing a bar in Oklahoma, and he was circling through, and

Speaker 2 Clive Davis, and he were putting a label together. So he told me,

Speaker 2 he says, I'm going to sign you. He said, I've already got Alan Jackson and

Speaker 2 Diamond Rio.

Speaker 2 He already had a voice singer and a band. Yeah, Pam Tilles.
And

Speaker 2 he's going down the list. We didn't realize this at first, but he was going down the list going, okay, now I need a trio.
I've got a trio now. I need a duo.
Yeah. But

Speaker 2 we didn't know that until after the fact.

Speaker 3 The judge were breaking up.

Speaker 3 He saw an open slot on the CMAs.

Speaker 2 Might have been true. Yeah, no, it was true.

Speaker 3 I think it was that manipulative.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I saw you guys do your walkout with Morgan. How was that, man? That was cool.

Speaker 3 He's got it stirred up.

Speaker 2 And it's like, okay, so where do we

Speaker 2 know how about that kid?

Speaker 1 Did you know about it before what it was or no?

Speaker 3 I really didn't. They were trying to explain to me what was going on.

Speaker 3 And like, we're going to look back and you guys come down the hallway and then y'all are going walk out together to his stage you know we're gonna film it and it's a big deal i'm like okay

Speaker 2 we keep up with it to the extent that we know how he's selling out stadiums everywhere and it's like you know get out of the way and he's crashing websites and live nation is you know they if you announce ticket sales at all you know it blows up through the roof so and i had i had uh did a walk-on with him at bridgestone when he played here a couple years ago oh yeah i saw that show actually i was at that show yeah yeah that was awesome yeah but yeah to do that, it's kind of an interesting thing because you're back there.

Speaker 1 You don't really know what's going on. You know,

Speaker 1 you can kind of start to hear people cheering, but you don't really know.

Speaker 3 So did you do that with him?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
I got to do one with them here in Nashville.

Speaker 1 Yeah, with DeAndre Hopkins that plays for the Tennessee Titans. Uh-huh.

Speaker 2 Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1 But it's still kind of confusing because you're like... J-Hop.

Speaker 2 Yeah, D-Hop.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's what I meant.

Speaker 2 Oh, what did I call him?

Speaker 2 DeAndre.

Speaker 2 No, but we didn't. When I did it,

Speaker 2 he wasn't doing the the walk yet. So

Speaker 2 we were in Kansas City the other night with him. Is that right? Yeah, yeah.
No, no, no. Yeah, we were in the city.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Kansas City.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's where you guys had to walk out with him, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because it's kind of wild. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's just this thing. I guess they kind of just started it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you don't know. Yeah, you're right.
You're just kind of thrown into the fray there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you just kind of don't know what's going on.

Speaker 2 Well, am I supposed to walk here and be cool? Am I supposed to rub your shoulders?

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 And it's starting to get weird. People are rubbing on him and people are.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Right. It's getting starting to get a little aggressive, I feel like.
Right.

Speaker 2 And the only thing you know is it's like

Speaker 2 stop doing that.

Speaker 2 Don't touch the artist.

Speaker 2 And they tell us, they said, no, he's going to walk fast. Okay, you're going to walk fast.
Yeah. That's it.
And off you go.

Speaker 3 It'll be cool when he just starts wrestling.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Towards running deck.

Speaker 1 It's him and his agent just back there fist fighting.

Speaker 1 Oh, I think, yeah, it's definitely bizarre because you like, you don't really know what's going on. And then he's like, all right, let's go.

Speaker 1 And for him, it's just, he's just getting to, you know, heading to work.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 It had to be weird because you get to the stage and then you guys can't go out to the stage.

Speaker 3 So it's like, yeah, it's like, yeah, we're on.

Speaker 2 It's like, stop. Yeah.
No. No, this is not your show.

Speaker 2 Stop hearing the cameras off. Follow that guy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it really was like that, man. Because I didn't even play anything, but I was like, I could try, you know?

Speaker 2 I was like, let's do it. Right.
You know? That's how we were. You just wing it.

Speaker 2 Go wing it. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 And DeAndre's like, he looked like he was ready to just run a 40-yard F flat, you know?

Speaker 1 So I was like, yeah, let's get him out here, dude.

Speaker 1 So that was interesting, man.

Speaker 1 What's been one of the tougher things that

Speaker 1 came with fame that you guys realized? Because you guys went to being, obviously you were doing well in your careers individually. But even as you were just saying,

Speaker 1 you guys. The first couple songs you put out were hits.

Speaker 2 That's right. First four were number ones.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, that's a lot of number ones, dude.

Speaker 2 You know, we just called some buddies up in a panic and started playing honky talks and bars. Even our manager told us not to do it.

Speaker 2 I said, no, man, if we're running off, like we're knocking hits out of the park right now, we need to have a tight band.

Speaker 2 You know, when they do, are we getting a place where we're in front of a lot of people? So we went for the first year, year and a half, playing clubs everywhere from

Speaker 2 here to California.

Speaker 3 Which was the coolest.

Speaker 2 It was analyzing. The coolest manner.

Speaker 3 The coolest memory

Speaker 3 for me because I probably like Ronnie. I mean, just a lot of years of turning corners on clubs and stuff, and there'd be four or six cars in the parking lot.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 You know, and you just have to go and set up yours, too.

Speaker 1 And one of them's a girl you came to invite to impress.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 3 And a couple of guys that don't like it because they want her too.

Speaker 2 And she's not cute at all.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you set your stuff up, you know, and nobody cares and whatever. And then next thing you know, we're, we're parking down the road and, uh, to get to a place because the parking lot's full.

Speaker 3 Those were great nights. They really were.
You know, you really, you really couldn't screw up too bad because it was fired up.

Speaker 3 And that's kind of what you dream about when you're learning to tune your guitar, you know, just man, just, just the clubs part of it.

Speaker 3 I mean, the whole Coliseum thing and that, that other kind of success was, I wasn't even thinking that far. This was just like, man, it worked.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 It was so crazy because we don't know each other from Adam. Even at that point, we don't know each other from Adam.

Speaker 2 We would learn in interviews about that one or another. About each other? Yeah.
Like, I didn't know you did that.

Speaker 1 Now, as you started to get famous, I'm just curious about this kind of stuff, you know, because fame and popularity is such like a, it's an interesting thing, right?

Speaker 1 And it's its own thing because you can't exactly plan for it. Like, were there things that you kind of missed kind of immediately about that? Like, cause once you kind of

Speaker 2 once it starts to happen it's hard to put it you can't really put your life back into that old jug really no and you don't see it coming you can't plan for it no matter where where it is I think you know even if you grew up around it which I didn't but I can remember this is so strange still I can remember going home after the first like say run the real like tour when we were opening for Reba or whatever and uh my wife and

Speaker 2 mother-in-law going she

Speaker 2 said you've changed I'm like what she goes you changed he said you're not the same and it's like

Speaker 2 I didn't feel like anything was any abnormal other than I was going out on a bus and singing in front of people I didn't come back going you know heh I'm famous yeah yeah just but people's perception of you changes you know don't you think yeah and that yeah it is and yeah and it's kind of uncomfortable because you don't

Speaker 1 You kind of wish it wouldn't.

Speaker 2 Well, you need that safety net of normalcy

Speaker 2 to come back to, especially at home. And it was just kind of,

Speaker 2 all of a sudden you're getting pushed in the corner in a way by that whatever perception is of fame. I just did a bunch of acids, so we're heavy with this.

Speaker 2 Oh, I'm not even here.

Speaker 2 This shit's just coming. It's coming out of the cosmic space.

Speaker 2 Mushroom, not acid, acid job.

Speaker 3 I think that it's funny. I'm just, my wheels are turning just thinking about those times.
And honestly, I love somebody made a statement one time.

Speaker 3 We're having a conversation like this and said, yeah, I want to be a star. I want to be a star.
I want to be a star. Will you people please leave me alone? You know, I've never felt that way.

Speaker 3 You know, I mean, like Ronnie for so many years, I was 36. He was 38 when we met, you know, with nothing going on, really.

Speaker 3 And I mean, that's, that's...

Speaker 3 That's pretty old to just get started with a career where you're put together by a record company and to think you're going to have a 30-year plus run or something, you know?

Speaker 2 Well, we didn't think about the 30-plus year run. I know, that's what I mean.
Our philosophy was, hey, you got three to five years. All right, let's maximize it.
Let's take what little money we make.

Speaker 2 And I was going to go, our big, Janine, my wife and I just, just got married in Oklahoma. So our goal was, you know what, interest rates are like 10%.

Speaker 2 And this was back. Tells you how far back it was.
Interest rates are 10%. We make a million dollars.
We can live off $100,000 a year and live like kings.

Speaker 2 We drove up to the first house, bought this little house in Nashville, and we go, we're just here for a little while. Save your money.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Honestly, I don't know if you remember this, Ronnie, but

Speaker 3 we were sitting in the Nashville airport just shooting the bull. And we've always just, I guess, had kind of a natural.

Speaker 3 Just a couple of guys and we're smart asses, just, you know, just goopballing all the time, talking to people, just like we are today and and anyway these two girls came over and that i saw three of them over there talking and they came over and asked if they could get an autograph and they had a cd and whatever and you know we just shot the bull back and forth a little bit and whatever and i mean they were sweet and whatever we signed their cds and i've always been happy to do that glad anybody cares you know oh yeah and uh Man, a couple of minutes later, their friend comes over and said, our friends told us what you said.

Speaker 3 We're getting rid of all our CDs. We've always thought y'all were so great.

Speaker 3 I mean, just teed up on us.

Speaker 3 And we're looking at each other and going, I'm trying to remember this conversation, what I could have possibly said that, and I, I mean, I like to think of myself as a good guy, nice guy, and I, and I've always respected our fans and everything else.

Speaker 2 I'm like, what just happened?

Speaker 3 But it made me realize.

Speaker 3 That moment, that

Speaker 3 minute that we spent together totally

Speaker 3 wraps somebody's impression of you and what kind of human you are and how they'll tell everybody they meet for the rest of their lives that they're just jerks. You know, and you just, that's the part.

Speaker 2 Did you ever find out what you said?

Speaker 3 I have no idea what we said.

Speaker 2 You were involved.

Speaker 2 Don't tell me you must have been. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
What did you say? Yeah, I wasn't there. I wasn't there.

Speaker 2 Don't pull it. Don't suck me down that rabbit hole.

Speaker 1 It does feel like you get on this one, like this one-minute game show to prove to somebody that you're okay or something. I don't know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that stuff, it's like it's like a job interview.

Speaker 2 You got to be quick.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and you, yeah, and you, and the job is you want them to think you're okay or something, you know, because you're the guy for the job.

Speaker 2 Yeah, one minute. Yeah, yeah, you can do it.
I can't.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that kind of stuff gets a little tricky. Was it tough? Like, um,

Speaker 1 what about like having a family and stuff in touring so much? Like, what were things that, like,

Speaker 1 yeah, what's that like? Like, dude,

Speaker 1 is it hectic?

Speaker 2 Dude, I had just been married. I mean, we just got married, came up, and June Carter Cash gave us a little cabin on top of the hill,

Speaker 2 not far from their house to live in. Wow.
And

Speaker 2 so

Speaker 2 nice little house, like something out of a magazine.

Speaker 2 But it was on top of a mountain by itself. And so was she.
Boom.

Speaker 2 We had a hit right out of the gate. We're gone.

Speaker 2 And it wasn't too long. It's like, I mean,

Speaker 2 we didn't have, we had like cell phones, but we didn't, thank God, have cameras. But I started getting these terrorist faxes.
I called them.

Speaker 2 Like, she would fax the hotel because I talk longer than we talked so long on the phone. They go, okay, all right, all right.
All right. I'll be home, you know, in two weeks.
I know. I understand.

Speaker 2 I get it. I love you.
Bye. You know, ring.

Speaker 2 I'm not answering the phone. That ain't going to happen.
So not 10 minutes later, I get this knock on the door, and it's like they slide this stack of faxes underneath. So, she started faxing me.

Speaker 2 It's like, what the hell?

Speaker 2 And this goes on for, I don't know, a few months, and we sorted it out. But to this day, I mean, man, she's it was I had to go to therapy over it.
Oh, I'm sure. With her or without her

Speaker 2 with her,

Speaker 2 at her request, obviously, you know, because I'm broken. She's not, anyway, that's the long thing, you know.

Speaker 3 Break Chennault had one of those that, because we had a

Speaker 3 cell phone per se on tour, but it was like something that the Army would use. You know, it had a suitcase thing that it was in and all that.

Speaker 1 The second you press the button, a helicopter would come on.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 18 bucks a minute. You're a long way from 18 bucks a minute.

Speaker 2 It's important. It wasn't cheap, man.
It wasn't.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but it wasn't with our wives or anything.

Speaker 2 We were a little. No, we didn't give our wives a number.

Speaker 2 It's important.

Speaker 3 It was strictly a beer phone.

Speaker 2 You're like, we need an airdrop now.

Speaker 1 You know, I recently had a subscription that I'd forgot about. It was

Speaker 1 a content monitoring app that I was using on my phone and computer. Thankfully, Rocket Money helped me.
Can you name every single subscription you have? I know I can't name all of mine, no doubt.

Speaker 1 And I'm not alone. I just learned that over 74% of people have subscriptions they've forgotten about.

Speaker 1 With Rocket Money, I don't have to remember every subscription or worry about forgetting any because I can see them all laid out in front of me.

Speaker 1 Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps you find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings.

Speaker 1 Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's features.

Speaker 1 Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash Theo.

Speaker 1 That's rocketmoney.com slash Theo. Rocketmoney.com slash Theo.

Speaker 1 When you think about a business that's selling through the roof, like ALO or AllBirds or Skims,

Speaker 1 sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand, and a brilliant marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the business behind the business, making selling simple.

Speaker 1 For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify.

Speaker 1 Nobody does selling better than Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet, and the not-so-secret secret with Shop Pay that boosts conversions up to 50%,

Speaker 1 meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going.

Speaker 1 Upgrade your business and get the same checkout that A-Lo and AllBirds uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash Theo, all lowercase.

Speaker 1 That's right, go to shopify.com slash th e o lowercase to upgrade your selling today shopify.com slash theo

Speaker 1 hey hey this episode is brought to you by manscaped the global leader in men's lifestyle and grooming Every man knows the unbeatable feeling of a fresh barber shop shave.

Speaker 1 Now, what if I told you that you no longer have to wait weeks or or even months between appointments to experience it? Introducing Manscape's latest release, the Chairman Pro Package.

Speaker 1 I used it this morning. The all-in-one set includes everything you need to recreate the luxury of a professional shave right at home.

Speaker 1 Whether you're after the daily silky smooth finish or prefer to maintain a rugged five o'clock shadow. The Chairman Pro package has you covered.

Speaker 1 Head over to Manscaped.com and join the over 10 million men worldwide who trust Manscaped by using code THEO for 20% off and free shipping.

Speaker 1 Get the Chairman Pro package today and experience a shave that is as smooth as you deserve it. It has everything you need to keep your face looking and feeling its best.
All in one box.

Speaker 1 Get 20% off and free shipping with the code Theo at Manscaped.com. That's 20% off and free shipping with the code Theo at manscaped.com.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 my kids were on the bus. That was in the summer.
It was good because we were still playing a lot of fairs and stuff back then. And, you know, during, it was kind of like summer vacation, honestly.

Speaker 3 It was. And

Speaker 2 I never, never mind.

Speaker 3 We got. Fortunately, we did have some success and made a little money and were able to get our own buses pretty early is the reason we're still sitting here having this conversation.

Speaker 2 There were 13 of us on one bus. Yeah, remember that with the merchandise, you know, boxes of t-shirts and stuff like that.
And then one of our guitar players slept in the back with the merchandise.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, there's always that one. It was animal house.

Speaker 2 I got human gerbils back there just burrowing in a bunch of extra large back there. It was absolute animal house.

Speaker 1 He just completely just covered himself with nine mediums back there, you know.

Speaker 2 It was got named Bird Burton, who was the famous guitar player for the amazing rhythm aces and a bunch of rock stuff. And he'd come up there, bless his heart.
We worked

Speaker 2 really trying to keep him around.

Speaker 2 So you have the sofa at the back with the merchandise.

Speaker 2 He goes, we don't have any blankets, so you sleep under t-shirts, right?

Speaker 2 Anyway, it was

Speaker 2 animal house.

Speaker 1 It was like animal house?

Speaker 2 Yeah, we had one guy that's like, you know, all the bunks, like there's what, nine,

Speaker 2 six

Speaker 2 to a side, I think. Yeah.
And then the back lounge. And there's one guy that we called him, what, Fred Sanford,

Speaker 2 he was the junk man. And you couldn't stop at a truck stop and he wouldn't go in and like buy a freaking CD.
What sounded like a CB radio and a bunch of chips. You hear him at four in the morning.

Speaker 3 Turn over and be like an ace hardware

Speaker 2 in his bunk. Okay.

Speaker 2 Sandbags crinkling at night and stuff. I'm like, what? And then all of a sudden there's a...
There's

Speaker 2 the wall and then the bunks. And you see like the chip bag would like fall down through the next guy.
He's like, God dang, man. It was crazy stuff.
Truck stops are great, though. Oh, man.

Speaker 2 So much good stuff. So much good stuff in there.

Speaker 3 Especially when you cross the border. Early on, Faith Hill was opening up for us.

Speaker 3 Oh, wow, huh? Yeah, and I forget. Oh, and ways of it.

Speaker 2 Homeboys love that.

Speaker 1 Y'all struck out with her, I guess.

Speaker 2 Damn, huh?

Speaker 2 We got stranded in Canada in

Speaker 2 a snowstorm. Yeah.

Speaker 2 A lot of stuff.

Speaker 1 God couldn't have set the table any better if you wanted to.

Speaker 2 It was one of you guys. It was rough.

Speaker 3 So in the first truck stop i go in and i'm looking at all their cool stuff in the freezer in canada and i pull it was an eel it was a frozen eel in the freezer and i'm like wow so i bought it i mean i have no idea what i'm going to do with this but i couldn't resist but that was a phase when everybody started interrupting but that was a phase when everybody was playing pranks on the road

Speaker 2 faith and faith was like she was one of the guys i mean you have to keep up with that she would she would throw stuff and an eel could come in handy

Speaker 2 in all kinds of regions who'd even had an eel?

Speaker 1 I don't even, some people don't even know.

Speaker 2 Canadians. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think that was the point. That's why you bought it.
It's like, look at this. What the hell?

Speaker 1 So it's kind of a little bit of a nicer snake. It's the most Canadian thing, you know?

Speaker 3 Yeah. But we get to the end of the tour, and sure enough, I walk by.
We're fixing to go to the

Speaker 3 stage Faith is on next. And Wade Hayes had just gotten off stage.
I went by to tell him, you know, good show and whatever. And he's kind of leaned over.
He's looking pretty peaked.

Speaker 3 And I'm like, did you okay? He's like, no, man. It's like, Faith put salt in my drinking water on stage tonight.

Speaker 2 I go, oh, and

Speaker 3 he's six. I'm like, that's wrong.
Go, I got you, dude. So she was at

Speaker 3 a hotel, but we had the codes to her room and her fictitious name, whatever she was using at the time. So me and Doug make a run.

Speaker 3 Well, first I put the eel in the microwave and the eel didn't even have a head. I mean, and then once you've thawed him out, he got real slimy, you know? So we head over there.

Speaker 1 That breaking childhood it must have had.

Speaker 2 Dude, you know it.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 bring your own food.

Speaker 3 Pull back the covers and just laid him out right where those pretty little feet were going to go, you know. Kind of pushed it down so we put the covers back, just made it look really good.

Speaker 3 Anyway, and the next didn't hear a thing. She didn't say anything.
We just keep waiting for the other shoe to fall. Nothing.

Speaker 3 So we're going through customs, getting back into the States the next day, you know, and so

Speaker 3 I go through and, you know, lady's going. She goes, Mr.

Speaker 2 Brooks, I go, Yes.

Speaker 3 She goes, I need you to come over here to the side. And I go, yeah.
She goes, apparently, there's been a complaint filed against you about some stolen jewelry by Miss Faith Hill.

Speaker 3 And she starts pulling this rubber glove on. And I go,

Speaker 2 don't do that. Don't do that.
It ain't in there.

Speaker 2 You better not be kidding her. I swear to God.

Speaker 3 She couldn't hold it. No, she finally broke.

Speaker 2 I go, come on. It's not our first day.

Speaker 2 Leave me alone.

Speaker 3 You're not even in this game.

Speaker 2 You do sing a little higher that night.

Speaker 1 The world was fun then, too, when things were a little bit more simple, you know. Oh, yeah.
You know?

Speaker 2 In a lot of ways.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That was a lot of fun, man. And you couldn't capture the moment as much, so you had to enjoy the moment because that was the only, you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 Well, you got too much downtime. I mean, it was not, you know, if you're not on stage doing something creative, you're doing something destructively creative on the backside.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, you know, you've been out there.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's the dark arts out there, brother. It is.
Did you guys ever have a comedian that opened up for you guys? I know sometimes they used to do that on shows.

Speaker 3 Gary Muldeer.

Speaker 1 Oh, really?

Speaker 3 Yeah, still a good friend.

Speaker 2 Love Gary.

Speaker 3 Yep, we did,

Speaker 3 what, Vegas?

Speaker 2 Vegas a couple times

Speaker 2 with him. It's hysterical.
I don't know how many times, but he was out with us quite a bit.

Speaker 1 That's a tough gig, I feel like. Well, but he played guitar as well.

Speaker 3 Well, you know, Gary's like,

Speaker 3 he does play guitar. And it's, you know, it's incredible because he just did a, we did a show together out in California not too long ago.

Speaker 3 And he played because he always, he's got a Johnny Cash voice and he'll do Ring of Fire or something like that every now and then. He's he's hysterical, though.

Speaker 2 Just real.

Speaker 3 real straight-faced joke teller and can just break you down.

Speaker 1 I got to tap in with him. I've heard of him before.
I've seen a lot of like, because comedians, you go to the next club and the other person's just been there, you know? And I've seen a lot of his,

Speaker 1 you know, seen his name a ton over the years, but I've been playing it.

Speaker 2 He's been around forever.

Speaker 3 But he actually performed a song and it was, God, I bet this thing had 20 verses. And it was, it was, it was, I'm not kidding.

Speaker 3 It was like, but it was a real country music analog kind of take you through this whole journey of thing. It was really neat.

Speaker 3 Big time stand-in-oh because I've seen him perform, I don't even know how many times at this point and

Speaker 3 and everybody there was like wow you got that off your chest and he did not tell a single joke really

Speaker 3 he sang that one song and left the stage so it was so cool but it was a humorous song no it wasn't funny it was it was a real song and it was it was he was a comedian he is a comedian he's a great comedian yeah maybe that's his idea of comedy him and Roger Miller him and Roger Miller toured together and you've heard of people doing these Rogerisms these funny things that he told all he knows all of them.

Speaker 3 I mean, if you ever run into him, get him going on Roger because

Speaker 3 he's one of the great historians, the keepers of the Rogerisms, too. Great guy, funny comedian.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I need to run into him. Yeah, what do you feel like, like,

Speaker 1 being a duo, was there, were there other duos that like in music that reached out to you guys over the years to help learn how to navigate

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 like that template kind of does that make any sense to you

Speaker 2 yeah it does make sense but but no no you know as as friendly as they say that you know the world of country music is it's so darn competitive you know everybody hates one another they act like they don't on tv but you think people are really competitive though oh heck yeah no big time competitive One of my favorite things is Dolly Partner in an interview years and years ago, they were talking about somebody being,

Speaker 2 she just goes, oh, honey,

Speaker 2 there's room for everybody. No, there's not.

Speaker 2 You want to get down to it? No, there's not.

Speaker 1 What's the most competitive part? Is it people trying to get the best songs? Is it like, where does the competition really come in, do you feel like? Because that's interesting.

Speaker 2 I think just by nature to be, to be here and be in this game, be in your game or anything,

Speaker 2 there's a competitive, don't you feel? There's a competitive dynamic that runs through it.

Speaker 1 Especially in the beginning, for sure.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but you want to catch up like, how many number ones do you have? Who had a number one this week? Who has it?

Speaker 2 And we can be cool and like sit back and go, go, you know, we don't care. You know, it's no big deal.
We're not in it for that. We're in it for the love.

Speaker 2 And that's not the case.

Speaker 2 But that's also healthy. It's what keeps you going.

Speaker 3 We do make some real friends along the way.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, you do.

Speaker 3 There are people that you're competent. I mean, David Lee Murphy is a great example.
You know, he said he wrote with him yesterday.

Speaker 3 You know, the song Dust on the Bottle? I be a little dusty.

Speaker 2 That's what David Lee Murphy goes. Him singing, him writing.
Oh, turned into writing a lot of great songs too.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and we got here, both got here in 79, literally swept floors for Charlie Daniels for 30 bucks a night. I was, you know, getting rent paid and playing writer's nights and stuff.
And,

Speaker 3 and still, he's on tour with us now and, uh, you know, going out with us next year. We toured again last year, and we've toured together before.
Just there's, we've got real friends that

Speaker 3 the competition,

Speaker 3 I can't say, I don't know, maybe it does go away or something. And at some point in your life, I think you have a certain amount of success.

Speaker 3 You still want to succeed, but it's like you're not so ferocious.

Speaker 3 Like when you start and everything matters, and it's not that everything doesn't matter anymore, but it's like everything

Speaker 3 kind of turned down the heat a little bit. You know, let's simmer here and see if we can't do something real, something good.
Now we kind of know you build confidence too.

Speaker 3 Again, like I said, Ronnie and I, we didn't figure we'd go a year or two. That's why we were desperate through pretty much through our whole careers, just kind of, this isn't going to work.

Speaker 3 This, we, you know, we're always doubting ourselves, you know, always trying to do anything we could, what, you know, to do something really special because it's probably going to be our last song, you know, our last video.

Speaker 3 I mean, we've always kind of felt a little desperate, I think.

Speaker 1 Does it feel like it's out of your control sometimes as a musician? Because a lot of it is what songs you get, right?

Speaker 1 And you can write your own songs, you can write them with other people, but does it ever feel like it's out of your control, kind of like

Speaker 1 how well you keep doing, or does it feel like it's in your control?

Speaker 2 You know what this it is. I mean,

Speaker 2 60, 70%. I don't know how much you can add to the diameter.

Speaker 1 I can add up to 100%

Speaker 2 of luck, right?

Speaker 2 No, I'll go there.

Speaker 2 I guess. I don't know.
We could try to do more. I can't even do it.

Speaker 2 A lot of it is luck, you know, but it's the thing if, you know if you're you're working and at it and luck strikes, it's like you're ready for it, you know, you got your ball mid on, bang, catch it, and we're work from there.

Speaker 2 But, you know, but we work hard at it. I mean, we're songwriters before we're right, that's a good point.
That's a great point.

Speaker 1 Y'all weren't up there just, hey, somebody sell me a hit. You're like, I have the ability to make my own.

Speaker 2 It's all about the song. It's all about the song.
And then as you move through the business, you meet people, you meet people that are pitching.

Speaker 3 You're giving you good songs too, you know, and you can't write them all you know uh and timing has a lot to do with it too yeah it really does what do you mean that's luck too yeah it certainly that is it's all yeah luck is just time yeah time is just luck with a clock huh there you go that's great write that down we both i mean we both had some kind of solo record deals before we had a duo deal ronnie was singing his ass off before i met him why at 38 years old why wasn't he a star already right you know i don't know

Speaker 3 i'm just saying it's 38 years older Are you afraid of that?

Speaker 2 Don't you look 30 years old? I wish I was.

Speaker 1 Yeah, is it tough to age gracefully?

Speaker 1 Is it tough to be like, because even I notice it, you know, in my own career, it's like, you know, you start to do good and you're like, oh, well, I'm getting older.

Speaker 1 And then you're like, you start to see the younger guys that are doing well. And you're like, oh, well, this is all going to, is there a graceful way for this to end? Or does it just end? Or like.

Speaker 2 I think you just play that one by ear, you know?

Speaker 2 And I keep telling people, I'm going to die in denial about, about you know related to age it's like i'm i'm not going to know how old i am i don't want to know it pisses me off to see every every article you know there's somebody they're writing stuff and you go well and so-and-so you know

Speaker 2 80 years old whatever uh you know legal age out of this i think he's out there rocking he's cool oh yeah yeah

Speaker 2 go to willie you know he'd be the standard bearer for that but no i mean mccartney they're still out they're still out doing their thing yeah i was actually saw him in a bath and a couple of months ago i was at we were in the same bathroom at the same time wow what'd you do huh what'd you do just the number one did you try to shake his hand or anything oh no i didn't do anything like that

Speaker 2 i freezed

Speaker 2 just let it be dude

Speaker 2 that was a little

Speaker 3 wow you you said something to him

Speaker 1 I think I honestly, I probably said like, good day or something like that. Like, I think I was probably trying to welcome him in like a British tone or something.

Speaker 2 Good day, Mike.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I freeze.
I freeze anytime I get around somebody. I don't realize.
Don't call me Mr. Bay famous.

Speaker 2 I'm balked off.

Speaker 2 They don't hate you. Oh, you're in Ireland.
Good day, Mike.

Speaker 3 No, they're like prisoners from England or something.

Speaker 2 Good freeze.

Speaker 2 I'm never cool around somebody famous. I wish I could be.
Uh-uh.

Speaker 1 Yeah, were there guys like that coming up that you guys met?

Speaker 1 What question had I just asked? Let me make sure I stay on topic. Sorry.

Speaker 3 Were you ever in the bathroom with Paul McCartney?

Speaker 2 Tell us about the time Paul McCartney were in the bathroom. Oh, one time I went to a,

Speaker 2 one time I was also in the bathroom with, I'll go through them all.

Speaker 1 Montelle Williams, okay, who's a talk show host, and Kid Rock one time, and I urinated right between them, dude. Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 That's a dangerous though. That's a DMZ, man.
Yeah, it really is.

Speaker 2 Incoming.

Speaker 2 You make the wrong move there. Anything can go to happen.
Either way, yeah.

Speaker 1 Either way, it was.

Speaker 3 I just want to try and shake hands just to see what they're going to do though

Speaker 3 hey man it's just i've always you know just especially if you reach over the stall yeah

Speaker 2 johnny cash said that you asked the the the strangest thing like that that ever happened to him and he said that he was in a in a stall in the airport or something said this this paper slips under the wall

Speaker 2 we're good

Speaker 1 i don't have a pencil like hey that paper likes men. That's all I'm saying.

Speaker 1 So, you guys got to meet Johnny Cash?

Speaker 2 Yeah. No way.

Speaker 1 What was he like, like, just as a regular guy? Was he like a friendly guy? Was he kind of like a stoic guy?

Speaker 2 Stoic, quiet by nature when you first meet him.

Speaker 2 And that's that in and of itself is intimidating. Oh, yeah.
And then as you get to know him, he's a 17-year-old kid. You know,

Speaker 2 that was it. I mean, he'd do just crazy.

Speaker 2 Funny as I'll get out. Yeah.
Yeah. My wife,

Speaker 2 her first husband,

Speaker 2 invented that car one piece at a time.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 Johnny sang about it one piece at a time.

Speaker 2 Her built that car. He built a car.
Oh, built that car one piece at a time. Sorry, yeah.

Speaker 2 He built the car. So he.

Speaker 1 Or Johnny really built a car, sorry, I'm confused.

Speaker 2 No, her ex-wife built the car about the song that Johnny sang. Got it.

Speaker 3 He liked a song, and him and his bud said, man, let's build it.

Speaker 2 Let's actually build it. They're always going around.

Speaker 2 they own coal strip coal mines in oklahoma and he uh johnny did or his friends no no janine my wife's okay got it yeah so she was they were well acquainted they they all became fast friends traveled the world together i mean really really tight and uh

Speaker 2 so when when i was brought in her husband passed away And when I was brought in, it's like

Speaker 2 she's marrying or dating a musician, you know. And

Speaker 2 Janine goes, I'm going to take you to John and June's house in Nashville first time that she did it from Oklahoma. And I went, no, I don't really want to do that.

Speaker 2 I just kind of saw that one coming, you know. And

Speaker 2 John.

Speaker 2 And, of course, John's real quiet.

Speaker 1 And would you wear over that? Did you get dressed up or what?

Speaker 2 You know, black, all black.

Speaker 2 No, I mean, wearing jeans, what I have on now, this kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 Were you nervous or not? You remember? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I was always, I was super shy and quiet. And I'm kind of coming out of my shell a little bit these days, but

Speaker 2 he was obviously glad to see her. I mean, I'm the new kid on the block.
You know, you don't just scrutinize. It's like long drinking, take a walk.

Speaker 2 Your girlfriend's bringing you over to meet her parents.

Speaker 1 Who's this pervert or whatever?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, I don't know you, but I mean,

Speaker 2 I'm a pervert, so I'm sure most of us all are. No, that goes with it.

Speaker 2 I can't be a band, not be a pervert. Yeah, anyway.

Speaker 2 And Johnny knew that.

Speaker 2 He'd be a pervert himself.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, who is, man? Right.

Speaker 1 Dude, if you show me 70 people, yeah, I'll show you 70 perverts.

Speaker 2 You're in a band, you're a comedian. Yeah, yeah, you're a pervert.

Speaker 1 Wow, that's pretty fascinating, though. And did people look up to him as like a, like, kind of like, was he this? Was he as.

Speaker 1 Because now he's almost,

Speaker 1 there's an idolatry about him in a way. You know, you see the t-shirts with the Johnny Cash and just says cash.

Speaker 2 No, he's, but he's always been that way. He's always been that way forever.
Listen, here's a funny thing.

Speaker 2 So the log cabin that they had us live in, so June did that for Janine, not for me. You know, called her and said, look, okay, this guy's going to try to make it in the music business.

Speaker 2 You know, good luck. It ain't going to happen, but we'll give you a place to live.

Speaker 2 We'll give you a flammable home. Right.

Speaker 2 Temporary residence, okay? Because it's not going to last long until I find you, a guy with money. All right.
So thank God we have these hits right off the bat.

Speaker 2 And suddenly June goes, whoo, okay, you're in. You know,

Speaker 2 she told Janine during that first visit, she said, look, here's how it goes down. She says,

Speaker 2 the odds are a million to one, no, 10 billion to one, you know, that they make it. And if he does, it's not going to last long.
It's just, that's not, that's the nature of the business.

Speaker 2 And number three, they're all crazy. If they do make it for a long time, you know, so

Speaker 2 she called her babies.

Speaker 2 It was Wayland Jennings, Willie Nelson, Hank Jr.,

Speaker 2 Larry Gatlin. I mean, just the wild boys of that era.
Oh, yeah, the feral. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So she goes, you know, just look. Not insurable.
They put us through hell, right?

Speaker 2 She says, so get ready. You know, she said,

Speaker 2 there's no good to it.

Speaker 2 So anyway, where was I?

Speaker 2 With Johnny. You said, was he stoic and stuff? First day there,

Speaker 2 June takes Janine, and they leave the house to go shopping.

Speaker 1 No, No, so it's just you and him?

Speaker 2 And me and John in that house alone. Okay.
Oh, John's staying in the middle of the morning.

Speaker 1 John takes a minute to get ready to...

Speaker 2 Yes, sir. It's like I'm the unwelcome guest, or at least I'm feeling that way.
Oh, for sure.

Speaker 2 You are.

Speaker 2 John's quiet anyway.

Speaker 2 He hasn't. He hasn't like.

Speaker 1 And what's he just polishing a gun or something?

Speaker 2 No, no.

Speaker 2 Probably. Yes, pretty close to it.
He comes out of the far end of the house. There are two black leather recliners in front of this TV.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 he sits down and he's watching like CNN or whatever. And I sit in the next one, just sitting there and no one says anything.
I'm like,

Speaker 2 longest day of my life.

Speaker 2 I didn't know what to say to him because he didn't talk. But now I know, know what I know, he didn't talk to anybody.
Right.

Speaker 2 And all of a sudden out of the blue, he goes, you see these,

Speaker 2 you see these newsreels here, these things. He He said, that's a loop.
And he said, you know, I'm an addict. And I went, okay.

Speaker 2 And he goes, I used to sit and watch TV for days until those loops would end. And then he said it would start a whole other cycle of the news.

Speaker 2 And he's explaining, you know, how TV works to me and that stuff. And

Speaker 2 through the eyes of being high. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, and shortly after that, it seemed like two days that we were sitting there. It was probably a couple hours.
And Janine and June come back. And they've been shopping at Steinmart.

Speaker 1 I like Steinmart, actually. Some of the sleeves are a little different.

Speaker 2 June took her there in her new blue Rolls-Royce that John had just given her for her book. So there's a little dog, you know, yin-yang there.
Yeah. Janine was just pale, white.

Speaker 2 Now, she knows no strangers, so you never see Janine down. So she kind of walked in.
She was like,

Speaker 2 she's just been scared by a ghost. And so I kind of peeled away and met her in the back of the house.
I said, what happened? She goes, I'll tell you later. I can't talk about it.

Speaker 2 Well, June had read her the right act on all this stuff I just told you about, you know, they're not going to last, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. And I said, can we go now?

Speaker 2 She goes, no, we got one more day. He goes,

Speaker 2 please.

Speaker 2 One more day. Right.
But no sooner did we get here and they were the most absolute supportive people in the world. John came up one day.

Speaker 2 We were getting ready to shoot the CD cover for Brand New Man, the first CD. And I said,

Speaker 2 he was always into everything. He goes, what are you going to wear? How are you going to look? How you do your hair?

Speaker 2 That kind of stuff into image. I said, well, I don't know.
I said,

Speaker 2 I've got a few things, ideas. He goes, all right, I'll be back.
He said, he left, getting this Mercedes shot out. It's down the hill.
He needed a goat to get up the mountain to it.

Speaker 2 He goes flying down the hill. I guess he goes home, comes back in an hour or so,

Speaker 2 opens the trunk of the car, reaches in, and hands me this black suit. And he goes, he goes, I had this back in 1972.
It was made by Manuel.

Speaker 2 And he goes, I was sick back then, which meant

Speaker 2 he was sick. Yeah.
Right? So he was skinny enough for me to wear my skinny ass to get out of that suit, you know? And he goes, don't tell June. She doesn't like me giving stuff away.

Speaker 2 And I have it to this day. I wore it on the back of that CD cover.
Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 that's crazy oh it was hey man check the pockets dude let's party

Speaker 1 that thing's got something

Speaker 3 man the parties there too was strictly lemonades lemonade and iced tea really keeping it sober

Speaker 3 keeping it completely sober uh on the table for sure oh yeah you know and nothing in the back kitchen i mean she she was she was pretty she wore the pants in that deal huh

Speaker 2 at that was she pretty much a yeah he probably needed a care somebody to really care care for him yeah let me add spice to that that little story is that that particular weekend that we were there, he was on furlough from rehab.

Speaker 1 Okay. How long do you have to be in relapse?

Speaker 2 You get furloughed? I thought that was a military. No, no, no.
Johnny Cash, right? Only Johnny Cash would have went to

Speaker 2 boot camp. Right, for rehab.
Right. And so all of a sudden, at the end of the day.
How many tours did he do? Right.

Speaker 2 Oh, he did a lot. But

Speaker 2 the day before he's supposed to go back, this is a Saturday. He's going back on Sunday.
He comes down with the flu.

Speaker 2 June's having no part part of that. She's completely just,

Speaker 2 no, we're done. So she wanted to talk to him, and we're caught in the middle of that.
And I'm going, Jen,

Speaker 2 can we go home now? Can we go home now? She says, no, no, no, not.

Speaker 2 Please go home.

Speaker 2 Janine can tell this story better than I can.

Speaker 2 So June goes to Janine. She goes, y'all have to drive me to the hospital.
Take him to the hospital here in Hendersonville. Make sure, just see what's wrong with him.
She says, I'm not talking to him.

Speaker 2 She says, he can walk as far as I'm concerned. Okay, we got it.
So we get in the car, start to get in the car. John wants to drive.

Speaker 2 Okay, so John drives. He drove.
Yeah, man. But it was like pedal to the metal, boom, off all the way.
Pedal to the metal. And Janine, so he drives.

Speaker 1 He started nodding off, and he nodded back off.

Speaker 2 He nodded.

Speaker 2 So we get to the hospital, and they're rolling him in in

Speaker 2 a wheelchair. And Janine goes up to the desk to give him all the information, and they take John back.
And he's there maybe an hour. And then we come back.

Speaker 2 And he goes up to his room, you know, his hospital room at the house.

Speaker 2 He's playing it up, man. He's like, I got pneumonia.
I can't go back. She goes, you're going back to rehab.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 June goes, well, how did it go, Janine? She goes, well, they asked for his doctor. And June goes, oh, hon, he's in rehab.

Speaker 1 The doctor was in rehab?

Speaker 2 The doctor was in rehab. Oh, Lord.

Speaker 2 He goes, oh, sweet. No, no, no,

Speaker 2 he hadn't made furlough yet. Dr.
Nick's in rehab.

Speaker 2 Okay, we can go now, right? She goes,

Speaker 2 pretty soon. Wow, that's a great story.
That's my first Johnny Cash

Speaker 2 in June Carter. Unbelievable.

Speaker 1 We had Ric Flair. We spoke with him one time, the famous wrestler, you know, him.
And he's quite a character. And

Speaker 1 he was in a rehab center and the doctor that

Speaker 1 got it put in there with him. And he was in there.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 1 one day they're giving pills to both of them. And he's like, why are you giving pills to the doctor? I'm like, no, the doctor's in here now.
We're like, damn.

Speaker 1 So apparently that's part of the deal, man.

Speaker 2 Well, it's just everywhere. Let's say that.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Look, so many of my friends, I mean,

Speaker 1 I go to recovery meetings. So many people deal with, you know, that sort of stuff.
Was it tough for you guys to keep it clean over the years? Did you guys get tempted with drugs or alcohol?

Speaker 2 Or what was that like? Never. I don't know, really.

Speaker 3 Tempted with drugs or alcohol?

Speaker 2 Huh? Yeah.

Speaker 3 No, not me. Did you, Ronnie?

Speaker 2 I'll go with you. You only want you to explain this.

Speaker 2 We might have took a drink or two along the way.

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 2 I think Ronnie took a lot of pills, but I never did.

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 2 Foul.

Speaker 2 Foul.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but I have allergies.

Speaker 2 Oh, now you do.

Speaker 2 A lot of allergy shit.

Speaker 2 I've never seen somebody in

Speaker 2 that dust will give it to you. I'm from Louisiana too, dude.

Speaker 3 I started drinking at a very early age

Speaker 2 wow

Speaker 1 was it hard yeah were there certain points where you guys had to like tell each like yeah at what point do you guys have do you guys ever have to be like each other's like uh

Speaker 1 caretaker yeah not caretaker in the sense like actually physically but just like you know and then how hard is it to take that suggestion from the other guy, you know, like from the other lead.

Speaker 2 We don't do it much. We don't do it much.
I mean, that's one of the unique dynamics about how we, we,

Speaker 2 you know, the relationship we have. We don't do that.

Speaker 2 If it is, it'll be some comment in passing, and

Speaker 2 you'll know.

Speaker 2 Honestly, we sit here and laughing about this stuff, but there's not a lot of nonsense that goes on. It's like we're up there to do what we do.
We appreciate where we are. And

Speaker 2 God knows we know the pitfalls. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And have we ever been overserved on stage or whatever like that? Yes.

Speaker 3 Has anyone ever told us?

Speaker 2 Are you swearing your words? Yeah, you're swearing rigger.

Speaker 2 You swear your vehicle.

Speaker 3 You know, you've already written that song. Don't write it again in the middle of it.
You know, that kind of shit. But

Speaker 2 yeah,

Speaker 3 we've had a few faux positives. People don't believe when I tell them this.
We have never, I mean, we're both, you know.

Speaker 3 hard-headed whatever's, you know, I came from a pipeline background, same with him, you know, and it's, um, we have never raised our voices to each other.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 3 Have we ever been mad at each other? Yeah. Have we ever been pissed at each other? Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 We'll go off and pow.

Speaker 3 But that's it. You know, we've always been able to go to our separate corners and come back later.

Speaker 1 And some of that, you think it was just because you started to achieve

Speaker 1 your most success that people would know you from once you were older? Like, you think if it would have been younger? Like, do you ever think of the blessings of that?

Speaker 1 Because it's kind of a blessing and a curse because

Speaker 1 everybody wants to be 27 and famous, you know?

Speaker 1 But if you're 38 and you get popular, you know, it's it feels a little different, you know, has a lot to do with it.

Speaker 2 You appreciate it, yeah,

Speaker 2 exactly. Yeah, because there was there was a point for a long time where there was no plan B, yeah, you know, and we both felt that.
And uh, no, so you you learn to you appreciate it.

Speaker 2 It's just that just

Speaker 2 you know beating into you through the ranks,

Speaker 1 yeah, dude. We used to slow dance to y'all's music, dude.
I would be so nervous, dude.

Speaker 2 God, dude.

Speaker 2 I just couldn't even.

Speaker 1 I would stand so far away from the girl, like as far as I could, but still touching her a little, like this kind of deal.

Speaker 2 Barely touching her.

Speaker 2 Two fingers.

Speaker 2 You were down in the trenches, man. Look, you were on the floor.

Speaker 2 See, we're up there on the bandstand going, I don't look right.

Speaker 2 Just go on, dude.

Speaker 3 Go on, get up against it.

Speaker 2 Go on.

Speaker 2 What are you doing?

Speaker 2 i couldn't get up it was terrible

Speaker 1 man whole front of my body sweating

Speaker 1 i never knew you could sweat just in one hemisphere of your body

Speaker 2 and never move

Speaker 1 you guys uh we were talking about songwriting earlier you guys your new album has a lot of like um some of my favorites on and people that have that we've been able to have on the podcast before.

Speaker 1 I think Ernest is on, Hardy, Morgan. Yeah.
Lainey. Lainey Wilson,

Speaker 1 How amazing is Lainey Wilson?

Speaker 2 She's great. She's special, man.

Speaker 1 She's special. She's a Louisiana girl.

Speaker 3 She's from right up the road from where my farm is.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean, literally, we're honestly 18 miles apart.

Speaker 2 Oh, that is close.

Speaker 3 You're from Covington, I think I saw somewhere.

Speaker 2 Did you really spend, grow up there? Yeah. You did? Yeah.
I grew up there.

Speaker 1 Our town is, we have this tallest statue of Ronald Reagan there.

Speaker 1 Somebody stole the arm, but they got it back.

Speaker 2 They got it back? Yeah. Somebody like How did they get it off?

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 2 What kind of, is it bronze?

Speaker 1 I think it's bronze.

Speaker 2 It's kind of great or something.

Speaker 1 Oh, no. It's special.

Speaker 2 Oh, there you go.

Speaker 2 So, so which arm? Huh? Was he the army, his right arm or his left arm? I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 You can Google that, too, how they get the arm off.

Speaker 2 Yeah. You can weld that stuff.
You can Google that.

Speaker 2 How'd they get the arm off? How did they get the arm off Reagan? I don't know.

Speaker 2 In Covington, Louisiana.

Speaker 2 A lot of welders have there, right? First of all,

Speaker 2 they got torches. A lot of welders.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 They got torches.

Speaker 2 That's pipeline country, man. Damn right.

Speaker 3 Oh, we can get an arm off.

Speaker 2 You want an arm? Yeah. How far?

Speaker 1 They tried to recycle it. That's how they caught the guy.
Wow. And yeah, they took it to like the local aluminum.

Speaker 2 Oh, no, because he's thinking it's maybe copper or something. He can buy some of the colours.

Speaker 1 I'm going to give me, hell yeah, I'm going to give me a couple hundred bucks for this ride.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they cut it. I guarantee he's a welder.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Look at Ronnie.

Speaker 1 Oh, that was in Poland. Yeah, so they must have done it.
But they did it by us, too. Somebody got it off, but they got it back on.

Speaker 2 It was a copycat. What?

Speaker 3 A copycat arm thief.

Speaker 2 Wow. That's dark.

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 3 No, they did it in Poland.

Speaker 2 How far. Okay.
How far is Covington from El Dorado, Arkansas? It's a long way.

Speaker 3 It's South Louisiana. Okay.
Yeah, he's close to Batman.

Speaker 2 Because we talk a lot about northern Louisiana, where their farm is, and Monroe, and all that.

Speaker 2 All my grandparents are from El Dorado, Arkansas.

Speaker 1 Okay, it's a beautiful country out there. Yeah.
I mean, it's pretty.

Speaker 1 Shreport's kind of gone through a, it's been through some things, you know.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's pretty funky, which is where I went to school.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Whatever, yeah.

Speaker 1 They just tore down the tallest building in Shreport. What? Really? Bring it down.

Speaker 3 Not the Beck building.

Speaker 1 This was an they did a beautiful implosion. I watched it the other day on TikTok.

Speaker 3 Wow, I wonder if that's where it was. That's where my father's office was.

Speaker 2 Was it a drone attack?

Speaker 2 Dude, I don't know.

Speaker 3 The tallest building in Shreport.

Speaker 1 There it is. They just brought brought it down.
Yeah, I think it was the.

Speaker 3 That's a bank building.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was a bank building. You're right.

Speaker 3 Because I think the middle one nickname. The bank building's 20 stories.

Speaker 2 It must have been the richest, richest building in town.

Speaker 2 That's pretty fancy right there.

Speaker 1 Beautiful building. Look at all those.

Speaker 3 What did they tear it up for?

Speaker 1 Real glass windows on them. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't know. That's it.

Speaker 2 Wow, wow.

Speaker 1 Probably somebody's wife was trying to get it.

Speaker 2 Look at all the buildings around it.

Speaker 3 It wasn't the tallest. It was the only.

Speaker 2 Probably for a casino.

Speaker 2 It could have been, man.

Speaker 1 Street 4 is kind of wild. That whole, I've been like, there's a lot of haunted.
Everything there seems kind of haunted.

Speaker 2 That's Louisiana in general. Yeah.
It's just like New Orleans. You know, everything's really haunted.

Speaker 1 Like, if you want to buy this haunted biscuit or whatever, monkey foot.

Speaker 1 It's two extra bucks. It's good.
It's got some damn ghost jam in it or whatever.

Speaker 2 Everything does. It's got voodoo all over it.

Speaker 2 Is that hot?

Speaker 2 I hope so. Ghost jam.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I just think, oh, yeah, everything in New Orleans is haunted. It's like, oh, you haven't been this haunted.
This is haunted, you know? It's like a nursery for children, but it's haunted.

Speaker 2 Okay, so I read this article.

Speaker 2 Well, I guess it was

Speaker 2 online. It's like the top 10 most

Speaker 2 least desirable states to live in. And Louisiana was number one.
Oh, wow.

Speaker 3 I can't imagine that.

Speaker 1 That's what I'm saying, bro.

Speaker 2 Come on. Champs.
No, you got it. You got to have it.

Speaker 3 Everybody's not into haunted.

Speaker 2 Look at it. Apparently, rich and famous.

Speaker 3 49 states worth of people that aren't into haunted.

Speaker 1 Yeah, if people don't like shit haunted.

Speaker 2 Yeah, y'all just stay off there. We'll keep it.

Speaker 2 I forget what it was based on.

Speaker 1 Oh, you want to live in the natural realm?

Speaker 2 That's fine, bitch. We're doing other things.
You don't have a monkey foot under your pillow

Speaker 2 hanging from your hand.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you don't have a baby that's chewing on a lucky rabbit's foot.

Speaker 2 That's your problem. You wouldn't know a hoodoo man from Colonel Sanders.
What?

Speaker 2 Bro, everything there is haunted or soaking wet, dude. Yeah, that's Louisiana.
Yeah. Yeah.
Or mill, dude.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Everything's got a little bit of mold on it.

Speaker 2 We go down there. You go down there all the time because your farm's down there in place.
Are your buddies three, four? Love it. We go down there and duck hunt on the marshes.

Speaker 1 I've never been duck hunting.

Speaker 2 It's going next week. Are you?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Is it more enjoyable than turkey hunting or do you feel, is there something different? I think so.

Speaker 3 I like stuff stuff flying you know I've I've shot my share of turkeys but really don't care about popping them anymore it's like

Speaker 3 you know it's like do something you know you're like

Speaker 2 okay

Speaker 2 I'm over here you know it's almost like you're attacking like a bird in a wheelchair

Speaker 3 exactly they get all puffed up too it's like some you know he's on his last he's making his last move on her he's so puffed up he can't even walk anymore you know he's just like like me at the dance yeah just like doing that got his two fingers up there just trying to get close to her to do the neon moon

Speaker 2 and then you go bam he's headless shit sorry about that yeah

Speaker 2 Turkey's done all the work of calling him in this place we go down in Louisiana is called Little Pecan Island and it is it's like one of the four seasons I shouldn't rat us out really it's beautiful they've got a lot of good turkeys in there unbelievable

Speaker 2 turkeys ducks oh ducks a good friend of ours Jim Flores Flores from Houston, owns it, and it's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 And what kind of ducks do you get out there?

Speaker 2 Everything.

Speaker 2 I have pictures of the sky full. I mean, of just, it's unbelievable.

Speaker 2 Do they go in shores or how do the ducks go?

Speaker 2 They migrate at different times.

Speaker 1 Oh, so they're not like releasing them and then they come back and they're not. No, they don't release.

Speaker 2 No, it's all wild. It's

Speaker 2 good.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they come from the north and they get cut off down in Missouri and whatever. There's a lot of duck habitat on the way for them to stop and eat and whatever, especially with climate change.

Speaker 3 Won't get into all that. But like Arkansas flooded timber, a lot of those ducks come out of the rice fields and stuff.
And they're primarily greenheads, mallards, you know.

Speaker 3 But by the time you get to the marsh, you got every kind, you know, teal and mallards, and you could go on.

Speaker 1 You have a fat stork up there, even.

Speaker 2 Oh, everything.

Speaker 2 It's like Africa. It's like going out into the marshes.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 You're in that kind of environment. Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 So it's so natural. You mean it's a good thing.

Speaker 2 It's so real. It's so real cool.

Speaker 1 And are you in a boat or are you in...

Speaker 1 You go out in a boat.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 Everybody gets their own guide in their own boat, too.

Speaker 1 And you have to hide underwater or you can hide your own shotgun.

Speaker 2 Scuba tanks.

Speaker 3 You have scuba tanks and shotguns.

Speaker 1 Is it really your line?

Speaker 2 No, but

Speaker 3 the blind about as big as your sofa.

Speaker 2 And it's sunk in the water, and then

Speaker 2 it's covered with, and every guide has his own group of blinds he has to take care of.

Speaker 3 A lot of straw and stuff, natural.

Speaker 2 Okay, so you're hiding in there? Is there bugs or anything? Yeah, bugs everywhere,

Speaker 3 bugs everywhere bugs everywhere you know snakes alligators for real alligators all over the place first thing they do when they get to your blind you know the guy will get out and make sure there's nutriia no water music

Speaker 1 snakes and gay clean of all the appetizers get all that out of there exactly then they'll take

Speaker 2 come back pulling a pier

Speaker 3 sink the p-ro next to your blind get in there and start quacking at them wow amo ducks are good to eat too turkeys you know people can say what they want you know you can fry anything or whatever, but turkeys aren't that great to eat.

Speaker 1 And some people are just food, just real creeps when it comes to eating. You know, I've had owl.

Speaker 1 I don't know if we can say it or not, but.

Speaker 2 No, you can't.

Speaker 1 Well, I didn't. You just did.

Speaker 2 I didn't have it. You ate an owl? You just said you did, though.
Huh?

Speaker 3 You just said you had owl. Did he not just say he had owl?

Speaker 2 I didn't do it. Wait, wait, wait.

Speaker 2 I think he said eagle. Yeah.

Speaker 1 No, I didn't say eagle, dude.

Speaker 2 And if I did,

Speaker 1 it was a wigged eagle.

Speaker 2 I don't eat bald eagle.

Speaker 1 No, but I did have, we had owl. My sister

Speaker 1 grilled up two owls.

Speaker 2 You just said you didn't. Was it fries?

Speaker 2 Well, you, you, you can't.

Speaker 2 You can see. Ronnie did it.
No.

Speaker 2 I eat anything.

Speaker 2 You're awesome.

Speaker 2 A bald eater.

Speaker 2 You didn't have a lot. Well, you didn't

Speaker 2 have a lot.

Speaker 1 There's not a lot to them. That's the trick.

Speaker 3 You didn't swallow?

Speaker 2 I didn't inhale.

Speaker 1 You're the frogs of the animal kingdom, of the bird kingdom.

Speaker 2 Owls are the frogs of the bird.

Speaker 1 Won't you pull that skirt up?

Speaker 1 You know, I've done some things in my day, but nothing.

Speaker 1 But even just to look, it's.

Speaker 2 There you go. We're letting you run with it.

Speaker 2 Pull up what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 Let's at least see the.

Speaker 1 So we just, and these are the owls.

Speaker 2 Did you Photoshop the Eagle Owl?

Speaker 1 They were of age, too, the ones I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 Man, these were adult owls.

Speaker 3 You're not supposed to do that. So much for wizards.

Speaker 2 Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are we doing?

Speaker 1 Brother, that is something needs to take care of. That's disgusting.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 They migrated over from Chernobyl.

Speaker 3 Yep. That's a Russian owl for sure.

Speaker 1 They just had, what did I just see about Russia, dude? They're giving away.

Speaker 2 Well, there's a war in Ukraine. There's a war in Ukraine.

Speaker 1 No, but it was something more. It was something exciting.

Speaker 1 Oh, Vladimir Putin urges citizens to have sex during work breaks to address Russia's dire birth rate.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's just trying to get, he's just trying to

Speaker 3 make everybody happy.

Speaker 2 He's trying to put an army together.

Speaker 2 He's trying to earn an army.

Speaker 2 Like, hurry up.

Speaker 1 Nice. That's not a bad deal, though, dude.
Now, that's the kind of stuff we need around here. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 3 It's like, you know, when everybody's really down over there and depressed and whatever, it's like, okay, sex on work breaks.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 That's a bored bored dictator.

Speaker 2 That's a bored dictator, is what that is.

Speaker 2 Literally, brother. Yeah, he didn't have to push that through Congress.
What are we going to do?

Speaker 1 What are we having for lunch? Depends on who texts me back.

Speaker 2 Everybody duck, right?

Speaker 2 I'm proud of him now.

Speaker 2 No wonder Trump likes him.

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 2 The only thing about communism is just starting to sound appealing, right? I'll tell you this.

Speaker 1 Yeah, communism sucks, but I'll tell you what, the lunches are good.

Speaker 2 right?

Speaker 2 Lunch break is hard to beat.

Speaker 1 What I just see, I saw another call that do you see that pizza hut thing? I don't know if you can find that, Nick. It was Pizza Hut.
Now, listen to this.

Speaker 1 People are having such a tough time getting jobs.

Speaker 1 What is that? It was Pizza Hut will put your resume on a pizza box to help you get a job.

Speaker 2 Whoa,

Speaker 2 whoa, whoa. So you can send.

Speaker 3 I took a leave of absence

Speaker 3 78. I've got like a 50-year hole in my resume.

Speaker 2 Okay, so

Speaker 2 I've had this idea forever. Sorry.
Sorry.

Speaker 2 But it's like,

Speaker 2 we're always talking about random ways to promote records and do things, right? That's a good way.

Speaker 2 What about Amazon boxes? You know, we go to Amazon and go, hey, what if we like, what would it cost

Speaker 2 to put our logo or whatever on an Amazon box?

Speaker 2 How many people?

Speaker 2 I'm sure that's non-negotiable. Everybody.

Speaker 1 I bet that's a, dude, I wouldn't be surprised if they, I'm amazed they haven't done that yeah really because they they own most of the that's something most of us see all the time yeah but yeah that pizza now you can put your resume you can send it to somebody you're trying to get employed by you send them a little you know send them a little pizza yeah yeah i'll tell you this if i'm having a slice i'll i'll because you're putting you're feeling good you're eating pizza yeah so i'm not i'm gonna think that guy's pretty quality your endorphins are already stimulated by the pizza and you look over there and go you know what i like that guy i know like a couple of weeks later you're like hey hey, what happened to that pizza box?

Speaker 2 Oh, what?

Speaker 1 Oh, you know, never mind. We need a new guy in the tech department.
We need it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 What happened?

Speaker 1 But then you might start just naming your workers. You don't know their names.
You just name them like pepperoni, like the Italian guys is like extra pepperoni.

Speaker 1 Like, yeah, remember we hired him, you know? Or meat lovers is the guy that's maybe a little zesty, you know?

Speaker 2 Big sausage.

Speaker 2 Spicy sausage.

Speaker 1 So, with the new album, is is it going to be,

Speaker 1 tell me about it a little bit. What made you guys want to come back and make more? Because at a certain point, do you feel like you've made enough or does that never go away?

Speaker 1 What is that kind of like?

Speaker 2 The first one was just to keep everything between the lines, not stray very far from

Speaker 2 the previous cuts.

Speaker 1 The first what, you mean?

Speaker 2 The first record, Reboot 1. Oh, okay.
We're on Reboot 2 now. But neither of these were our ideas to do.

Speaker 2 It was our manager's, which is, he's had, this is the first good idea he's had, I think, in years.

Speaker 1 I've had managers. I know what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 That's why I'm a man. Clarence is a great man.
He's a great man. He's a big reason we're here.

Speaker 2 Is he?

Speaker 3 Why Baltimore is the day after Sacramento?

Speaker 2 I still haven't quite figured it out.

Speaker 2 His big saying is, hey,

Speaker 2 what are you bitching about, man? He says, I give you 85%.

Speaker 2 Or his other one is...

Speaker 3 This is a charity. You know, I wouldn't need to do this.

Speaker 2 You know, I mean, damn, Clarence, you're in.

Speaker 3 He goes, I know. So what is 15% of nothing? It's like, never mind.

Speaker 1 Poor little children.

Speaker 2 And what is his name just so we can't, we're 30-something years without a contract. Yeah.
He's got Aldine.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 these don't even write.

Speaker 3 He speaks fluent, Brooks and Dunn. We couldn't do it without him.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. I can imagine that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you got to have somebody to handle a lot of stuff for you. Today's podcast is sponsored by Boot Barn, America's largest Western retailer supporting the cowboy and country lifestyles.

Speaker 1 Boot Barn opened their first store in 1978, and today they have over 400 stores nationwide located throughout 48 states, and they open one new store a week across the United States.

Speaker 1 I wear the Cody James Black 1978 boots, only available at Boot Barn. They're crafted with premium exotic skin, a hand-laid cording detail, and classic Western stitching.

Speaker 1 The outsole is leather, and the insole is cushioned for maximum comfort. That's right, the Cody James Black 1978 boots are only available through Boot Barn.

Speaker 1 Visit bootbarn.com and use code Theo for 15% off one item through October 30th. That's bootbarn.com code Theo.

Speaker 1 Today's episode is brought to you by BetterHelp.

Speaker 1 Have you been off, uncomfortable, can't figure something out?

Speaker 1 Something changed maybe in your relationship or in your workspace or with a family member, and you just,

Speaker 1 you don't know how to get through it.

Speaker 1 Well, don't do it alone.

Speaker 2 BetterHelp can help.

Speaker 1 That's what I'm telling you. BetterHelp, if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try.
It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule.

Speaker 1 Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge.

Speaker 1 Therapy can help you learn all about and accept different parts of your world so you can

Speaker 1 go through life easier. I think everyone should give it a try.
Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash T-H-E-O today to get 10% off your first month.

Speaker 1 That's better H-E-L-P, betterhelp.com slash Theo.

Speaker 1 This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. But yeah, so tell me a little bit about it.
What was it like getting to work with some of these artists? Had you worked with them before?

Speaker 2 No, no uh laney uh is you know she comes in and does her thing they all get to pick their their own songs 18 artists okay uh they they they pick whatever song they want and that goes on without us they're that's all up to them and then maybe they

Speaker 2 haggle about it with management or whatever anyway uh everyone showed up with their own version of the song And it was like, you have your artistic creative license to do whatever you want to do with this one.

Speaker 2 Oh, dude, I can't put me up there.

Speaker 1 I can't do karaoke. I mean, if it's Christmas carols, I can do it, but it's like even some of that, I get nervous, like in the second stanza or whatever, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Melanie has to feed me behind my words to my songs in my left ear.

Speaker 1 Oh, I thought she was feeding you. I thought you was going behind a speaker and eating

Speaker 1 bird seed out of her hand. Yeah,

Speaker 2 she has to feed me whiskey all through the show.

Speaker 3 I did a tour over in Afghanistan with Robin Williams and Lewis Black and Kathleen Madigan. And Robin just impressed me because

Speaker 3 he seemed like he's just ad-libbing everything, you know.

Speaker 3 And the one thing that I learned from him before, and we would spend all day on Blackhawks going to real remote places everywhere, you know, and then at night we'd do in Kandaharcable or whatever, some larger shows.

Speaker 3 But he was, before he would go on, he was, he had a little piece of paper, you know, he'd just written a handful of notes and whatever, and he would pace back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

Speaker 3 And I was just really impressed at

Speaker 3 his professionalism and the way he, and knowing you guys do, people just, you make it look so easy, you know, that when you're flowing through your deal and you got your deal clicking right.

Speaker 3 And it's, I was just, I learned a lot. And Lewis was hysterical, as you can imagine, just

Speaker 3 hanging with him. You spent any time with him.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's very entertaining. He's very smart.
The way he talks is funny. Yeah.
Just to listen to him, you know?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 He is so aggravated. It Really, really is.
Of course, we couldn't, you can't drink over there at all, you know. And

Speaker 2 that's made it worse, probably.

Speaker 3 Well, yeah, when we got there, Lewis has this giant bag like you carry around, this huge kind of smaller duffel bag.

Speaker 2 Like a man bag, you can go across the world, you can go around the world. It's completely full of those airport scotch bottles.
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 mine's still allergy medicine.

Speaker 1 They're like, damn, I didn't know Jim Bean made allergy medicine.

Speaker 2 That's insane. Look at all these different colored allegors.

Speaker 1 Dude, you guys are funny, man.

Speaker 2 We didn't mean to be.

Speaker 1 It's probably helped y'all over the years being able to laugh, huh?

Speaker 2 You gotta hit it. You gotta laugh.
You gotta have a sense of humor. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's like comedians for the most part. You see this profile.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but it's like, you know, it's kind of

Speaker 2 a lot of comedians are kind of dark, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
And

Speaker 2 it's kind of,

Speaker 2 it's anger coming out in humor sometimes,

Speaker 1 more times than not not to go dr phil here yeah no yeah i think it probably is a lot of them are dark yeah i mean definitely a lot of them you lose a lot of them to suicide and yeah um

Speaker 1 it's a pretty too much downtime too you know yeah that gets kind of scary yeah you know uh

Speaker 2 everybody out there gets that

Speaker 2 no matter what business you're in

Speaker 2 we're on a bus for you know you're sitting venues or whatever you don't go to beat on a bus dude i used to ride greyhound that'll make anybody want to take their lives oh

Speaker 1 I used to ride. I used to work on a farm up in Natchez, Mississippi in the summer, and I'd take a Greyhound up from Baton Rouge.
And they put all the inmates on there.

Speaker 1 And it's a lot of like missing people on there. Oh.
Like, I remember a dude came up and he was like, have you seen me? He said to me, I'm like, you sound damn missing, dude.

Speaker 1 It's just like, that's a crazy thing to ask.

Speaker 2 Somebody.

Speaker 2 Oh, God, here, you know, I don't know if it's even still where it was. My sister had.

Speaker 3 This au pair who came from France, this real sweet girl that I'd met up in Maine. And I told her, you ought to come visit Nashville sometime.

Speaker 2 Forgot all about it.

Speaker 3 And I get a call one night at the house, you know, and I said, Mr.

Speaker 2 Bruce says, she's crying.

Speaker 3 I go, yes,

Speaker 3 Mr.

Speaker 2 Bruce says,

Speaker 2 it's Rosa. I said,

Speaker 2 it's horrible. I go,

Speaker 2 what has happened? What is wrong?

Speaker 2 I'm here. I'm here.

Speaker 3 I go, you're where?

Speaker 2 In the

Speaker 2 middle of Nashville. I go, you're here in Nashville?

Speaker 3 Yes, I'm here. I go, where are you? What is wrong?

Speaker 2 Rosa says, I'm at the gray dog.

Speaker 3 I'm at the gray dog?

Speaker 2 You're at the Greyhound bus station?

Speaker 3 I said, my God, I go, look, do not go to the bathroom.

Speaker 3 Go sit in a chair. Don't talk to anybody.
Don't look at anything. I'm on my way.
It's like emergency.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 It's like getting in the opposite of a hospital.

Speaker 2 It's going faster than my wife when she's just having a baby.

Speaker 3 It's like, I've got to save her. Like right now, this is an emergency.

Speaker 1 Dude, every row of the Greyhound bus thing gets seedier and seedier. First, it's weed, and then four rows later, they're doing like abortions and like early term, but still, like, it's like,

Speaker 2 it gets real dicey, dude.

Speaker 2 Whoa, it gets real dicey on Graham.

Speaker 1 But, yeah, to have to rescue a French woman from a Greyhound bus turn.

Speaker 2 Was this her first time in? I mean, Mr. Surrey.

Speaker 3 She had been on up north, they've got real trains, you know, tram and stuff. But they, on the schedule, if you look at it, I'm like, how did you get here? She showed me her schedule.

Speaker 3 They put a Greyhound bus in the middle of

Speaker 2 Amtrak.

Speaker 3 It's like you go from these beautiful, nice things

Speaker 2 to America.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you can work on your computer to, oh my God, what happened?

Speaker 1 A lot of people on there, yeah, just testing pills on each other.

Speaker 2 A lot of people, yeah,

Speaker 1 making their

Speaker 1 people drinking their own bathwater.

Speaker 2 I had a dude selling 40-proof bathwater once.

Speaker 2 I didn't have a lot, but I had a little.

Speaker 2 It wasn't that bad. It wasn't that bad, dude.
I'll tell you this.

Speaker 1 It kind of had a peppermint snops vibe to it.

Speaker 2 Oh, I'll say that. God dang.

Speaker 2 There's a routine, man.

Speaker 1 Jerry Clower was one of my favorite comedians.

Speaker 2 Did you guys ever get to meet him? No.

Speaker 2 I ran into him.

Speaker 3 Oh, no, I didn't get to meet him.

Speaker 1 He was a famous Southern comedian, yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was great.

Speaker 3 What about Brother Dave Gardner?

Speaker 2 I never watched him. Oh, really?

Speaker 3 You got to check him out.

Speaker 1 Brother Dave Gardner is his name?

Speaker 3 Oh, yes. And he was like...

Speaker 1 Let's bring him up, Nick.

Speaker 3 He was sort of the country Lenny Bruce without using a lot of foul language, but some real dark humor and very inappropriate humor.

Speaker 2 Oh, good.

Speaker 2 That's him, Brother Dave.

Speaker 3 Look at him smoking that cigarette. Yeah.
Oh, yeah, it is. Got his suit going.

Speaker 2 Check that hair. It's shining, man.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, no.

Speaker 3 That cover up on the right, I've got that album.

Speaker 3 It's all torn over a dog who chewed the corner off. My dad loved him, though.

Speaker 1 Wow, when he started listening to him,

Speaker 3 he was something else, not like your average uh yee haw

Speaker 3 um country comedian.

Speaker 1 Um, was there an artist that's passed, and you got when you guys were admired growing up? You went to their service or anything, somebody you guys really miss.

Speaker 1 And or on cash for sure, did y'all go to his service? Were you allowed to go? Or how? Yeah, yeah, oh, wow, that must have been really interesting. I'm sad

Speaker 2 in June,

Speaker 2 June. Same way, we were at the hospital, and she was

Speaker 2 had her heart attack.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 3 Didn't get to go to Merle's.

Speaker 1 Was he a funny guy? What was he like?

Speaker 2 He could be funny.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but

Speaker 2 he wasn't being funny on this one.

Speaker 2 No, he came out and did the last five or six dates with us on our tour in 2010. We were shutting things down.
And

Speaker 2 it's just one of those

Speaker 2 instances where you know you meet somebody famous and hag just shut me down i could not carry on a conversation with him you know it's about as bad as as as cash he just didn't like chatting well no he didn't but he liked you and he let you know you know where john didn't he didn't let you know for a while he just smoked you out just just just to see what you got you know merle you could survive it merle's agreed to go on tour with us but we had to perform with him every night which of course was on stage together yeah

Speaker 3 throw us in the briar patch. I mean, that's was such a huge honor and whatever.
But he would come up with some obscure songs and whatever. And I'll jump.

Speaker 3 It wasn't like Silver Wings or anything.

Speaker 2 He's throwing his curveballs from way in the back.

Speaker 2 Like, okay, tonight.

Speaker 1 I was out there singing Pit Bull or something. Live it in person.

Speaker 3 And I hopped up on his bus one afternoon to find out what our song was. And we were in Woodstock, New York, I remember, and he's up there burning one down.
And

Speaker 3 he goes, you need to sit down.

Speaker 2 I go, Okay.

Speaker 3 What is it, Merle? He goes,

Speaker 2 What the hell's wrong with y'all?

Speaker 3 I don't know, Merle. What's wrong with this?

Speaker 2 He goes, I got that damn window.

Speaker 2 All them people out there.

Speaker 2 What the hell's wrong with y'all?

Speaker 2 I don't know, Merle. What's wrong with this? He goes,

Speaker 3 all them damn people out there, and y'all want to quit.

Speaker 2 Well, Merle. That's a good point

Speaker 3 that was ingenious isn't it right our last we sure saw it yeah you know so merle you know i gotta tell you poncho and lefty is probably one of my favorite songs ever i said and watching you and willie in that video it's one of the coolest things i've ever seen you two y'all are like best friends i mean

Speaker 3 Ronnie Dunn and I didn't even know each other when we met. You know, we've bullied our way through this freaking career for 20 years.

Speaker 3 We have not taken a break, you know, and we've just gotten to a point where we think it'd be the best thing for us.

Speaker 3 We've made it 20 years. You and Millie, Willie Nelson made one album together.

Speaker 3 And he goes,

Speaker 2 Yeah, but we only had one hit.

Speaker 2 Okay, Merle, what's my song?

Speaker 3 And he started laughing.

Speaker 2 I'm like, you win.

Speaker 3 You're smarter than me. You always will be.

Speaker 1 It is crazy to think, though, when you almost say that to some people, even me hearing it from you guys, like, yeah, this is going to be it.

Speaker 1 Because it's, because, because it's, but that's just, it is what it is. It's like your life's at where it's at, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 1 When you've taken breaks, what are other things that you've started to fill your lives with that became like important to you or that meant something to you?

Speaker 1 I know you have your vineyards.

Speaker 2 Uh-huh. Yeah.
My friend Chris used to do that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but that was, I started that 20 years ago and other things. Really, what I really wanted to do, and I'd been offered a couple of bit parts and movies and stuff along the way.

Speaker 3 And, you know, making a movie takes a long scheduling and all that. And we really, we did tour 20 years without stopping.
And I kind of did some theater in college. I went to Louisiana Tech, you know.

Speaker 3 Oh, hell yeah, dude. Yeah, and enjoyed all that.

Speaker 1 The red fern grows. They used to do that musical up there.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. A lot of good.

Speaker 2 A lot of beautiful hobbies.

Speaker 3 All right, Covin. Don't get me started now.

Speaker 2 Talk amongst yourselves. This is a war you don't want to see.
Hey, look, Donald Reagan.

Speaker 2 Rustin versus Covington. That'd be a great battle.
Bring that arm back.

Speaker 2 Keep Terry Brad Saul.

Speaker 3 Anyway, but I got in, told, call William Horse, you know, and said, books, listen, said, hey, I don't want to start a movie. I'm not qualified or, you know,

Speaker 3 don't have the chops, but i would i would if there's a bit part or something that maybe some some whatever if something comes up you know yeah and so yeah they started sending me some things and i actually started doing some movies this and that and my son had studied film at vanderbilt in english and i wanted to be a screenwriter and one thing led to another he came out and started writing with some guys that had produced i i co-starred with ernie hudson eventually in a in a western oh sweet i'm not familiar with ernie hudson Yeah, you are.

Speaker 1 The Hudson River? No.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you are.

Speaker 3 He was in Ghostbusters.

Speaker 1 He doesn't know him. I don't remember.

Speaker 3 He was in the original Ghostbusters.

Speaker 2 Oh, he was.

Speaker 3 Oh, the tall guy with the glasses? The only black guy in the movie.

Speaker 2 Are you kidding? Oh, shoot.

Speaker 2 That Ernie Hudson. Oh, that Ernie.

Speaker 2 I know who he is. Uh-oh, Ernie Hudson.
Ernie Hudson.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I can tell you.

Speaker 1 No, I'm joking, Ernie.

Speaker 2 No, that's a

Speaker 2 so.

Speaker 1 That's something you've enjoyed getting to do then?

Speaker 3 Yeah, so I got to do that a little bit, and my son wound up being a screenwriter, went out to L.A. to be Tarantino, and he writes movies for Hallmark now.
Did he really?

Speaker 2 He does. Oh, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 Well, Hallmark still makes a lot of movies. You know, a lot of places aren't even making movies.
So

Speaker 2 kudos to him. At least he's got some work.
He has some movies a year or something.

Speaker 1 Hallmark does. Literally.

Speaker 1 Some of the studios hardly make any movies anymore. So good for them, man.

Speaker 3 Wow, that's it. What about you? You've been in movies?

Speaker 1 No, I just wrote a movie with

Speaker 1 me and David Spade wrote a movie together. He did like Tommy Boy, and you know who he is.

Speaker 1 And so we wrote a movie, and I think we're going to start making it on January 6th.

Speaker 3 David was in Ghostbusters.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he was, dude.

Speaker 2 He was the black guy.

Speaker 2 With the glasses?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 With the glasses.

Speaker 2 And one R.

Speaker 2 One R, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 1 I'm scared about it, but

Speaker 1 I think it's going to happen. We worked on it for so long, and now it's supposed to happen.
Now I'm like, I'm scared, you know?

Speaker 2 That's natural. That's normal.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think, yeah. Be as scared of something, maybe that you don't know how you can do at it or something.
But we also have done it all ourselves. So it's like,

Speaker 1 so that feels good.

Speaker 2 You should talk to Billy Bob Thornton. Really? Yeah.
I mean, think what he did with Sling Blade.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 Sling both calls it a sling blade.

Speaker 2 But they sat and did that. So

Speaker 2 ZZ Top was out. So I'm like, oh,

Speaker 2 Billy Top, I mean, Billy Topp. ZZ Topp, was out with us.
And

Speaker 2 Billy Gibbons

Speaker 2 was telling about the editing process after Billy Bob and all of them finished it up. And Dwight Yoakum.
Oh, yeah, he was in. He says, I go to this little apartment building in L.A.
says hot as hell.

Speaker 2 He says, I go up, second floor, right?

Speaker 2 So I knock on the door. And he says, you know, it kind of cracks open.
And he said,

Speaker 2 they go, oh, he says, me, Billy, Kelly. Oh, let me in.
Come on, what are you doing?

Speaker 2 So it's Dwight Yoakum and they're all in like their they're like white wife beater t-shirts or whatever sweating all over the place in there with old hand uh uh old school uh uh hand uh editing machines cutting uh sling blade wow doing all that wow but I bet he's fascinating guy Billy Bob Thornton yeah and Dwight Yoakum I've been working with him on a Taylor Sheridan this next series coming up with a landman doing some some music stuff together but it's just fun it's fun he's got got a band he does yeah billy bob thorn has a band yeah yeah yeah i've known that for a long time i've never gotten to see him play but i would probably enjoy it have you seen it tim

Speaker 2 billy bob thorn's band i think they're gonna be here in a while

Speaker 2 i'd love to go see them then i'm gonna make a point of that they're coming before long he told me the other night yep boxmasters that's it next month they got their gigs starting uh uh opening for zz top Bill Ham, their manager.

Speaker 1 And you guys opened for ZZ Top at one point, right?

Speaker 2 Is that right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, we co-headlined with them. That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 That's what I meant. A long time.
Had a blast. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Ronnie, what about you? What's something that

Speaker 1 you've enjoyed keeping your time with and when you have free time?

Speaker 2 I go to tinker at the farm a little bit. Still, you know, I'm always writing songs or something, but I grabbed a camera and a buddy of mine who had been a 25-year

Speaker 2 photographer for Sports Illustrated. moved back to town and we hit it off.
I'd just been to Cuba doing some photography and playing around with it. And he said, show me your stuff.
And I did.

Speaker 2 And he says, okay, you're going with me. So we took off for like a year, year and a half, two years, shooting everything.
Shine rodeo, Galapagos, all over the place. Wow.
Just, yeah.

Speaker 1 So you really enjoyed it, huh? Yeah. Do you sell any of the prints? I'd love to buy one at some point.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 I'll give you all you want.

Speaker 2 No no.

Speaker 2 No, literally, I'd love to give you one. But we shot some great cowboy stuff.
Did you? Awesome. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Dude, I just went to the PBR like two weeks ago when it was here. Yeah.
Oh, that was bull riding, but I love rodeo. Rodeo is one of the best.
Man, I'm with you.

Speaker 1 If you take your wife or kids out, you don't know what to do with them. If there's a rodeo within 40 miles,

Speaker 2 my parents used to do that. It's a blast.

Speaker 3 Have you been to the prison rodeo in Angola?

Speaker 2 No, I'd love to see you. Are you kidding me?

Speaker 3 Have you been? Dude, yes. Went just recently and actually played down there.

Speaker 3 You know about the rodeo.

Speaker 1 Yes, I know about it. It's unbelievable.
Eight seconds for freedom, they call it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. For freedom.

Speaker 3 But it's six seconds. You know, the first event is called busting out.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 yeah, these

Speaker 3 I've got a friend, Breonna Calhoun, who she does prison reentry. And we stayed at the warden's house.

Speaker 2 No, I want to be the warden.

Speaker 3 Oh, dude, he's fantastic.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I want him on the show.

Speaker 3 Yeah, we stayed up making gumbo and drinking beer till about one o'clock in the morning. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 But the rodeo, the first event, busting out, they put six prisoners on six bulls, and they're PBR bulls. They're real bulls because they do a PBR exhibit kind of thing there.

Speaker 3 Put six guys on it. They release all six of them at the same time.
Of course, the prisoners stay on for like a tenth of a second, and then it's all hellbreaks list.

Speaker 3 And every event at the rodeo is like that. There's one called Pinball, where they set up eight hula hoops in the middle of the deal.

Speaker 3 Eight prisoners stand in the hula hoops, they release two bulls on them, and the last one in the hula hoop wins the prize.

Speaker 3 No, it's fantastic.

Speaker 2 You got nothing to lose. You got to go.
The prize is just a little bit of sunlight.

Speaker 2 right you get two hours in the in the cage outside

Speaker 1 you get it you get to use a harmonica for 10 minutes

Speaker 3 right big time brag get a ball to bounce there were 96 volunteers uh this year and it happens twice a year you should really go it's unbelievable to watch i didn't know you could just go oh it's like there it's a 20 000 seat arena it's fantastic see there it is wow it's a real look at them there there's a that's it that's pinball right there

Speaker 2 oh my i'm not kidding kidding. What bull?

Speaker 1 We got to go on this.

Speaker 2 It'd be fascinating.

Speaker 2 This is the place where even the bulls are afraid to come out at you.

Speaker 2 Hey, going out there. There it is.
There's 20 wifers out there.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's amazing. I'd love to go to that.
I'm going to try to get to. I'd love to interview the warden because it's a fascinating thing.

Speaker 1 There's not another prison, I don't think, that does something as famous as this.

Speaker 2 Look at this. Here you go.
No, no, no. You're just going to stay.

Speaker 2 Oh, man down.

Speaker 3 She's still got one in there.

Speaker 2 Man down. He's walking.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 He's a pinball wizard. He's like, oh, never mind.

Speaker 2 No, he left the station.

Speaker 1 Oh, rodeo is so fun, man.

Speaker 2 Man, the shine rodeo. You get a press bunker where you're ground level.
And that's a big phenomenon. Yes.

Speaker 2 It's the daddy of a mall, they call it. Is it?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Then there's another one that's real organic.
We went to. What's the name of that?

Speaker 2 In Montana? Miles City.

Speaker 2 Miles City. And that's where

Speaker 2 the breeders bring all the rodeo stock in. They have for years, years.
I mean, 50, 60 years, whatever.

Speaker 2 And people watch them. These kids, the local cowboy kids, climb on these horses and they'll ride.
I mean, they used to run 300 horses plus through a day. They ride them to see how they buck.

Speaker 2 And then every now and then they'll stop and have an auction.

Speaker 2 And then they go right back to it. By the end of the day, these kids are back there and pick up trucks with like liters of whiskey just

Speaker 2 just tuckered out move man it's it beats them to death but yeah a buddy of mine's daddy sells um

Speaker 1 i guess horse semen or whatever however they i don't know what they call it your horse is it straws it's semen and it is straws is how they sell them now yeah they sell i don't know how much you can get i guess you can get a i don't i've never seen the containers they put it in but i know that they mate with other horses and they'll have lines of horses coming up to mate with their horse all spring sure he's like a quarter horses i think he's like a madambreds that with thoroughbreds, but quarter horses you can't.

Speaker 1 For racing horses?

Speaker 3 Racing horses have to be actually bred.

Speaker 3 The male's got to get on the field.

Speaker 2 Oh, you can't artificially inseminate them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think, yeah.

Speaker 2 I'd rather. Yeah, that's a part of the deal.

Speaker 1 They got to watch it.

Speaker 3 You can't be selling semen in the thoroughbred business because it's so expensive. You know, I mean, this is a secretariat semen, whatever.

Speaker 2 Can you prove it?

Speaker 3 You know, it's like.

Speaker 1 Oh, hell, the Celsius is $3 a can.

Speaker 2 I can't even imagine how much. They do with everything.

Speaker 2 Wildlife, you know, deer, things like that. You name it.
It's all out there.

Speaker 1 Did you guys ever get to play Asia? That's one last question I was thinking. Did you guys ever...

Speaker 3 What is Asia anyway?

Speaker 2 That's random.

Speaker 1 That's a good question. Asia is, I guess it's

Speaker 1 China, Vietnam,

Speaker 2 Thailand.

Speaker 1 Thailand.

Speaker 2 Come on, give us some

Speaker 2 countries. Japan,

Speaker 1 Korea, North and South. There you go.

Speaker 2 Malay.

Speaker 2 Malaysia.

Speaker 1 I couldn't say that, but yeah, Malaysia again.

Speaker 3 Maybe that's why they call it Asia.

Speaker 2 Asia, yeah. Malaysia.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 They just, yeah, it's a big Sacramento. Sacramento, yeah.

Speaker 1 But do you guys have how far?

Speaker 2 How far?

Speaker 1 I'm just curious, how far, because your music was like,

Speaker 1 has been a fixture

Speaker 1 in my life, you know, and so many people my age, but I just wonder, like, what other ethnicities and stuff listen to?

Speaker 3 They've never heard of us. We did a thing for Rock My World one year.
It was a record company's great idea. They came in with all these cue cards and whatever.

Speaker 3 every country you could, all the ones you just named, everything you could think of, but phonetically, how you would pronounce

Speaker 3 our new song is called Rock My World. We would love for you to like it in other parts of the world.
Right. You know, that kind of thing.
And so Ronnie and I are as stupid as we are.

Speaker 2 We said yes.

Speaker 3 Rich, we said yes. And we're every language you can think of, you know, from Japanese.

Speaker 1 You know, just and they had the cards that it sounded like.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, it

Speaker 2 for you.

Speaker 3 My sister's got a home in Italy. My brother-in-law's like, I'm over there watching a soccer game.
He goes, and your commercial came on in this bar and then break.

Speaker 3 He goes, and they shut the whole place down. He goes, everybody's on the edge of their seat.
They're looking light. And at the end of it, they go,

Speaker 3 so I still have no idea what we said in Italian.

Speaker 2 Oh, look.

Speaker 2 It was probably some exorcist thing that makes your head turn around back.

Speaker 1 As long as there's some young young Vietnamese kid sitting somewhere going,

Speaker 2 that's what matters, man.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 We might get that money.

Speaker 1 The new album and the new tour, will they come out simultaneously or how does that kind of work?

Speaker 2 Pretty close. I think the new album comes out in

Speaker 3 November the 15th. Yeah, and we start touring and

Speaker 2 heavy stuff starts hitting in February.

Speaker 2 Yeah, February, March, April, something like that. We're going to stop for a minute.
I think you're going to go do your deal.

Speaker 2 I'm going to run to Africa and come back, and then we're going to pick it up at the end of the

Speaker 3 run over there to Congo.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I'll go down to Williamsborough and Cov and get it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we'll be over in Murphysborough if you need us, dude. He's down there.

Speaker 3 Well, not Murphy's, Smyrna. It's really Murphy.

Speaker 2 Sorry, we'll go to Smyrna.

Speaker 2 Gulfstream promised me they'd have it fixed by then by plane. So we got it.
We're good.

Speaker 1 Anything else you guys wanted to talk about? Something you also wanted to get out there?

Speaker 2 No, no, we just were selling that record right now. Reboot 2.
Got to have it. Got to get it.
It'll change your record. Thanks for the hang, man.

Speaker 3 Love watching it. It'll be fun.
Your show and nonsense and everything is fun and games.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I appreciate it. I feel lucky to have a job, man.

Speaker 2 Really lucky to talk to you guys.

Speaker 1 This has honestly been one of my favorite episodes, I think.

Speaker 2 Awful.

Speaker 3 It really has. You never said that before, right?

Speaker 1 I've said it probably three times.

Speaker 3 Every freaking show.

Speaker 2 It's been like.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You guys made it so easy. And also, you guys have such a good sense of humor, I think.

Speaker 1 Sometimes you get with musicians and they don't talk. They don't, they're musicians.

Speaker 2 I remember Tom Petty would like to go on talk show and talk. Freaking musician.

Speaker 2 There's a reason why they handed him an instrument. Last guy you wanted to do is have

Speaker 2 Tom Petty come sit by you and do an interview with him, right? I guess.

Speaker 2 How's your voice? It's all right.

Speaker 3 Phil Basser told me I was interviewing him, you know, doing the countdown show. And I said, so how did you get to be such a good piano player?

Speaker 3 He goes, Well, actually, I was a drummer when I was a kid.

Speaker 2 And oh, really? I said, I've never heard you play drums.

Speaker 3 He goes, When I was a kid, man, all I wanted was a drum set. Christmas, I get a drum set.
He goes, I just beat on those drums relentlessly, day and night, whatever.

Speaker 2 He goes, I got good at it. I go, What happened?

Speaker 3 He goes, I came home from school one day and my drums were gone. There was a bicycle sitting there where my drums used to be.

Speaker 3 Shit, man. I go, What'd you do?

Speaker 2 He goes, Rode my bicycle.

Speaker 2 I got real good at it, too.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 1 that guy believes in himself too much.

Speaker 2 Drums are gone. That's one of those guys.

Speaker 2 Run it to Cincinnati.

Speaker 1 Kicks, Brooks, Ronnie Dunn. Thank you guys so much, man.
Thank you for all the years of wonderful music and entertainment. And yeah,

Speaker 1 I'm going to come and check out one of the shows on tour, man. I'm excited about it.

Speaker 2 Please. Yeah.
Come see us. I will.
All right.

Speaker 1 We certainly will. Thank you guys so much.

Speaker 2 Really fun. Joy to have you.
Big fans. Now, I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
I must be cornerstone

Speaker 2 Oh, but when I reach that ground I'll share this peace of mind I found I can feel it in my bones

Speaker 2 But it's gonna take