Paul Harris: Musician, Comedian, Actor

When perfecting their craft, performing artists learn to connect with and captivate their audience. They fully embrace their stage persona, transforming into someone else. However, at times, the line between their public and stage personas can blur. Hosted by Dr. Brad Schultz and Amanda Price, this …. is Mustangs Unbridled. 

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Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;31;02
Speaker 1
When perfecting their craft. Performing artists learn to connect with and captivate their audience. They fully embrace their stage persona, transforming into someone else. However, at times, the line between their public and stage personas can blur. Hosted by Dr. Brad Schultz and Amanda Price, this is Mustang's unbridled.

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Speaker 2
We all appreciate a good humored laugh, especially Amanda, whose laugh can be heard throughout the entire building, an entire campus as the saying goes, laughter is the best medicine proven by its ability to reduce stress and boost mood. Many believe humor has the power to heal the soul. The same can be said for music, which uplifts the spirit and stirs the heart.

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Speaker 2
When laughter and music unite, they create a transformative experience, offering a unique blend of creativity and connection that leaves a lasting impact.

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Speaker 1
Lipscomb Academy parent Paul Harris has enjoyed a lifelong career in the entertainment industry as both a stand up comedian and musician from an early age. He has a gift for forging personal connections through humor and music. Renowned for his clever interpretations of modern hits re-imagined as bluegrass, Paul captivates audiences with his unique blend of creativity and wit. Welcome to the sound studio, Paul.

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Speaker 3
Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 2
So, Paul, let's start with your role as a parent. You have a fourth grader at the lower school. What led you to Lipscomb Academy? You know.

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Speaker 3
My wife's career actually. Did you know we lived in the Ozarks and I'd been working in in Nashville for quite some time. And my wife felt led. She knew my heart was here. You know, we lived here in the early 2000, so she knew my heart was in Nashville. But I was commuting quite a bit back and forth to the Ozarks.

00;01;56;02 - 00;02;23;20
Speaker 3
And one day she told me, she said, God told me to look for jobs in in Nashville. And so the very first interview interview she had was at Lipscomb University. We had lived here. We knew the area quite well, and we knew the schools that we wanted Hanly to go to. So we were looking in the College Grove area, and Lipscomb Academy wasn't even on our radar at the time.

00;02;23;23 - 00;02;53;20
Speaker 3
And then through her job, she found out about the academy. And because I travel a lot, she thought it would be easier for her to to be able to drop her off and pick her up. Whenever I was on the road. That's how Lipscomb got on our radar. And we had no idea about the community and about the perks of of being in Lipscomb Academy until we actually enrolled her here and just fell in love with it.

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Speaker 1
I've listened or read lots of interviews that you've given. Mm hmm. And you talk about your faith a lot if it comes up in most of your conversations. And and when you talk about the highs and lows of your career, there's always the sense of humility and that you were you were going by we're walking by faith. So I want to know why is it important that your daughter be a part of a faith community and that you all brought her here, especially since you said when you were moving to Cotgrave you didn't even consider Lipscomb Academy?

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Speaker 3
We Lipscomb wasn't on our radar. Now, you know, we had explored, like later on in life, maybe moving back to the Ozarks because we have family there and stuff. It's not even a question now. We want to live here so that Handley can be a part of this community. It's important to us because we both grew up in and in the church.

00;03;46;26 - 00;04;10;24
Speaker 3
You know, we both have Pray a mama's Lipscomb pours into her each and every day. And I can just see her walk with the Lord, just grow and grow and grow. And it's not only what we're doing at home, but it's the how she's being fed at school. And that means the world to us. Yeah.

00;04;10;27 - 00;04;19;15
Speaker 2
So we notice your daughter appears often in your socials as your comedic sidekick. So do you think she's going to want to follow you into your into your industry?

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Speaker 3
You know, I think that right now, that's that's on her radar. She but it changes daily. You know, her mom's in health care, so she explains it. She you know, she wants to be a nurse. She also wants to be a chef, but she wants to sing and act as well from an early age. She's been just funny.

00;04;42;22 - 00;05;03;08
Speaker 3
You know, she's she writes jokes all the time, constantly. She's writing jokes. I'm encouraging her to write a joke book because she's very clever. Yeah, she's a very witty kid. And I think it's possible that she would do that. She's she wants to be funny. She wants to sing, she wants to dance. She wants to do it all at this age.

00;05;03;08 - 00;05;13;01
Speaker 3
And I don't put any pressure on her at all. You know, I want that to be all organic. But I think it's possible that she might follow the arts.

00;05;13;03 - 00;05;17;24
Speaker 2
So how does Chelsea contribute to your comedy or skits?

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Speaker 3
So when I was doing standup, I did a comedy tour called Date Night Comedy, which is it's a marriage ministry. It started as a marriage ministry to encourage parents to date, to not be a not have a kid centered home, have a marriage centered, a God centered marriage centered home pattern. That kind of our model, that kind of a relationship in front of your kid.

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Speaker 3
The one stipulation about the material was, you know, you don't make your spouse the butt of the joke, but you can joke about, you know, your spouse and your relationship and stuff. And my wife is funny. She is she's funny. We get in and lots of situations, ones that are hilarious. And so she became quite a part of of of that routine whenever I was doing the date night comedy tour.

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Speaker 3
It's what's funny is I always run material by her and she don't think it's funny.

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Speaker 4
Because.

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Speaker 1
It's about.

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Speaker 3
Y'all. Yeah, well, whatever it is, she's like, I don't get it. And then when she sees me do it in front of an audience and put the timing and stuff together, she has the loudest laugh of anyone. My my former our former pastor back in the Ozarks. He was a part of that dating comedy tour. Ted Cunningham is his name, but he left when Chelsea was in the audience because he could hear her laugh over everyone else.

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Speaker 3
He would even make a comment. He goes up. Chelsea Harris is in the audience, not because she has a she has a great laugh, great sense of humor.

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Speaker 1
Okay. So what was one of those jokes that she thought would fall flat? That went really.

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Speaker 3
Well? Oh, Lord, don't get me.

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Speaker 4
Okay, Well.

00;07;04;21 - 00;07;29;13
Speaker 3
I'm like, I'm trying to say that. Oh, I found out that someone was making fun of my hair and said, Is that a wig? And I'm like, Well, you know, that's kind of offensive because you think if I was to wear a wig, it would be this bad. And then I go, That got me to Googling wigs. And I found out that most wigs are made out of horse hair.

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Speaker 3
So I found that there there was a there was a need there. So I started an organization to make wigs for horses.

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Speaker 1
What is it? There is a drum thing, but I don't know which one it.

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Speaker 4
Is not.

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Speaker 2
That one.

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Speaker 4
Or.

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Speaker 1
Okay, so you were telling Brad that you you want your daughter to encourage her to make a joke book. So what's a joke that she tells?

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Speaker 3
Okay.

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Speaker 1
Does she give one every day?

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Speaker 3
Constantly. She's constantly coming up with jokes. I think one that still cracks me up when when she was two, we were in the car or in my truck and she's in the backseat and she says she wanted a man. I always have a man's and she wanted a man and I didn't have any manners. And she goes, Hey, Siri, could you bring this.

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Speaker 4
Man's.

00;08;32;18 - 00;08;54;09
Speaker 3
You know, at 2 a.m.? I just cracked me up. I just thought that was hilarious. But that's her angle. She's always trying to find a jokey angle. Sometimes I've got to go. I need your real boys here. Okay? We need to. We need to cut out all jokes and talk serious here, and she can snap out of it, But, you know, she can get carried away.

00;08;54;09 - 00;09;07;16
Speaker 3
She's like me. And I'm always telling her, Read the room, you know, that's my that's my big thing with hers. This is not the time or place for this. You know, you need to learn how to read the room.

00;09;07;22 - 00;09;10;06
Speaker 1
That says that to me a lot. Grade the room.

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Speaker 4
Oh, you do? Sometimes.

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Speaker 2
Don't.

00;09;14;21 - 00;09;21;02
Speaker 1
So your daughter has. She's always been funny. Is that the same for you, or did you find out you were funny when people laughed?

00;09;21;04 - 00;09;53;29
Speaker 3
No. Like I've always I've always tried to entertain. My mom says before I could even talk, they had, like, a wooden coke box. I'm talking about Coke crate. And I would flip that over and my grandmother's living room and preach to everyone like I would just on my own. I just started doing that. They started even, you know, I didn't even have words coming out, but they knew I was preaching, you know.

00;09;54;01 - 00;10;21;09
Speaker 3
And then that kind of morphed into me putting on skits like I would always I had a keyboard or or, you know, a radio or something, a jam box or something. I was always putting on dances but not scared commercials, you know, always writing silly tunes. And that was all organically that just I don't know how that even came about.

00;10;21;09 - 00;10;42;27
Speaker 3
But I, I knew at a very early age that this is what I wanted to do. My family moved from Arkansas to Chicago and there was a really in northern northern suburb of Evanston, which is a that's where I went to school with the Cossacks.

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Speaker 1
Oh, Joan and John.

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Speaker 3
I went to school with his little sister. Susie was in my class.

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Speaker 1
And did your accent just blend right in?

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Speaker 3
It did like I actually am like a chameleon. Like I could. I would come back to Arkansas and they would call me a Yankee because I was talking. I was I was I had the Canada the north suburb, Chicago accent. And then I'd go back to Chicago after spending the summers in Arkansas and they'd call me a hillbilly.

00;11;14;11 - 00;11;47;06
Speaker 3
So but I went to that school and and from an early age, I started taking acting classes when I was about 13 and I was involved in theater. And my first band was a punk rock band. And then my family moved when I was 14. They moved back to Arkansas and I thought, you know, I thought my life is over, although there's no way I'm going to be able to do entertainment.

00;11;47;09 - 00;12;11;26
Speaker 3
And then I found this little country hoedown that is a show that's kind of kind of like the shows in Pigeon Forge where they have a cliche characters. And and at 16, I was working on that show and then that from there that went to Branson, Missouri. And I was in that system for about ten or 12 years.

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Speaker 3
And then, yeah, kind of morphed into what I'm doing today.

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Speaker 1
Well, I want to write something you just said. You said Jam Box, and I haven't heard that since the eighties.

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Speaker 3
I'm an AIDS kid.

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Speaker 1
Me too. Oh, wow. That was a blast from the past.

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Speaker 4
Yeah.

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Speaker 2
You have a mixtape?

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Speaker 3
I had lots of mix tape.

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Speaker 4
I did. Do you remember.

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Speaker 3
The record company?

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Speaker 4
Yeah.

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Speaker 3
I'm just waiting for.

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Speaker 1
Your spreads act and so cool. Like, I never did that.

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Speaker 2
Oh, I know I did. I was thinking I'm always like, there would be one night a week where you could do requests, you know? Yes.

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Speaker 1
Pillow talk. Pillowtalk.

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Speaker 2
Yeah. I need that record. A lot of those because we need those. Be good songs.

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Speaker 1
Were you ever in the the 99 cent like CD club or cassette club where you get 12 CDs or cassettes for $0.99 and then everyone up to that is like $25 each? You remember that?

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Speaker 3
I do remember that was part of it.

00;13;05;28 - 00;13;08;05
Speaker 2
I didn't know how to cancel. I forgot my username.

00;13;08;06 - 00;13;08;18
Speaker 3
Got your.

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Speaker 4
Milli Vanilli?

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Speaker 4
Yeah.

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Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah. I was a I love vinyl records and my first vinyl record that I ever got on my stereo was David Bowie. Ziggy Stardust. Yeah, that. That kind of started my love of music.

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Speaker 1
Mm.

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Speaker 2
So we heard that you like Saturday Night Live, I can imagine, with your love of music and comedy and bringing those two things together, Who are some of your favorite started out live characters or host those types of thing. I guess more of the characters on the show.

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Speaker 3
The list is long because I've been watching it since almost the very beginning, and even when I wasn't supposed to be watching it, my parents who knew I was watching it, I had a little black and white 12 inch.

00;14;06;25 - 00;14;10;06
Speaker 1
And then at 12 they would go get.

00;14;10;09 - 00;14;15;03
Speaker 4
The blank dead air. Yeah, about that.

00;14;15;05 - 00;14;31;15
Speaker 2
And they always feel like funny. Now, like the announcement comes on back then to remind parents, you know, where your kids are. It's 10:00. That's how like 40 we were. Cap is like they had reminders, you know, where your kid is. And then then and then the national anthem would play.

00;14;31;16 - 00;14;32;27
Speaker 4
Yeah.

00;14;32;29 - 00;15;03;12
Speaker 3
But yeah, the list would be long. I'll have them all like, you know, I love Bill Murray and Chevy Chase and Eddie Murphy. One when I was 13, 14, Eddie Murphy was everything and my were like that. You know, he was he was huge on Saturday Night Live, his stand up comedy specials that I wasn't not allowed to listen to.

00;15;03;15 - 00;15;30;23
Speaker 3
And I'm not going to say that I did, but I heard they were funny. I you know, I pattern like and I love sketch comedy. So when I was about 15, I got into a sketch comedy group at a community center, and I was the youngest kid I would ever but one else they were all adult except for me.

00;15;30;26 - 00;15;57;13
Speaker 3
And so anything I would watch on Saturday Night Live on Saturday, I would bring in to that sketch comedy group at the Robert Crown Center. And they all you know, I was just I was young, but they indulged. They let me do Mister Robinson's neighborhood in a Gumby. And all those characters, they did, um, and I still love Saturday Night Live.

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Speaker 3
I the 50th anniversary just happened on this record, and I can't wait til everyone's bad here in the next few nights that I get to sit and watch it.

00;16;10;13 - 00;16;28;01
Speaker 1
You mentioned a few minutes ago that you were in a punk band in Chicago, Huh? I want to know how you morphed from punk to bluegrass because it's different tempo, different sound, different audience. So how did your journey get there from here to there?

00;16;28;03 - 00;16;34;29
Speaker 3
Well, that was very brief, and my parents, soon after, moved back to Arkansas.

00;16;35;02 - 00;16;36;12
Speaker 1
So you didn't take punk with you?

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Speaker 3
I didn't. Well, I actually that's a funny story.

00;16;41;00 - 00;17;15;02
Speaker 3
So when we moved back to Arkansas, we moved. I went from a class of 1100 kids in my class to 11 and Fox, Arkansas. We graduated with six, this little tiny mountain school called Rural Special. And it was, you know, K through 12. In fact, I think 6 to 12 is in the same little building. Little tiny hallway.

00;17;15;04 - 00;17;45;20
Speaker 3
But I show up there and I'm wearing combat boots and tight rolled jeans and a t shirt and a leather jacket, and you can imagine the hair and everything. So I walk into the classroom and the whole class died laughing. I thought they were making fun of me, but I didn't find out until months and months later that they just had this discussion because the principal came and said, You guys are getting a new student.

00;17;45;22 - 00;17;54;21
Speaker 3
He's from Chicago. And so they were all in there. Go, I wonder what he's going to look like. I mean, he looks like James Dean. And then I walked in and they're all like, Oh, my.

00;17;54;21 - 00;17;57;28
Speaker 4
Gosh, he looked like James.

00;17;58;01 - 00;18;24;27
Speaker 3
But I always love country music. You know, country was a passion of mine. I love rock and roll. The great thing about my upbringing was is that there was just a melting pot of art and and music and all in different cultures and stuff that I was exposed to as a young kid where I didn't really put a genre boundaries, you know.

00;18;24;29 - 00;18;54;19
Speaker 3
Well, that ain't country, that's not rock and roll or I've never been that type of person. I just love all styles of music, classical music, jazz music, the transfer, migration from punk to to bluegrass wasn't that hard. And I was quickly in the country music, but we moved to an area called Stone County, Arkansas, which is the the county seat is Mountain View in Mountain View, Arkansas.

00;18;54;21 - 00;19;02;06
Speaker 3
Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday, people bring their instruments into town. They sit up in groups.

00;19;02;09 - 00;19;03;06
Speaker 2
In the Mountain View.

00;19;03;11 - 00;19;04;16
Speaker 3
You have.

00;19;04;18 - 00;19;05;11
Speaker 2
Chicken farms up.

00;19;05;11 - 00;19;09;10
Speaker 3
There. There's lots of chicken farms.

00;19;09;13 - 00;19;10;21
Speaker 2
I remember.

00;19;10;23 - 00;19;11;03
Speaker 4
There.

00;19;11;06 - 00;19;13;18
Speaker 2
Was a chicken well, a chicken farm. Sorry I didn't interrupt.

00;19;13;18 - 00;19;44;10
Speaker 3
But they could have been there. Yeah. Okay. Every, every evening people bring there when the weather's nice, they bring their instruments into town or pickers come from miles around actually, and go to the square, and they form groups and they jam. There's jams going on all around the square every summer evening. And so I quickly got into bluegrass music and folk music, you know, kind of grass roots type stuff.

00;19;44;12 - 00;20;16;02
Speaker 3
And so the clever ladies, the idea for that was taken all those stereotypes that I witnessed on the on the courthouse square of all those groups. And yeah that kind of that that along with Christopher Guest movies Spinal Tap Martin Best in show I always loved those tops of of of of sketch comedy stuff and those types of movies.

00;20;16;04 - 00;20;47;02
Speaker 3
That's how the idea for the Clever these came along was all those stereotypes I saw into like a mockumentary style of a movie because the clever these was actually a television concept before it was a group before we started touring it stuff. So all those ideas and kind of put in the music and the comedy and all this stuff together is kind of how the clear release came about.

00;20;47;05 - 00;20;56;16
Speaker 2
So in 2010 you were on a show still The King. It included Billy Ray Cyrus and some other actors. So tell us a little bit about that show and how that came about.

00;20;56;19 - 00;21;30;00
Speaker 3
Well, we at the time, we had a a production deal with the makers of Still the King. And we were we were actually developing the show about the clever release. And at the same time they were in developing this show with Billy Ray about, you know, still the king. And so they asked me to to be in the pilot because I was in the in the pilot as a completely different character.

00;21;30;02 - 00;21;48;26
Speaker 3
And so, yeah, I came and shot the pilot. And then and then got an opportunity to come back and play in several of the episodes. So that's how I got involved in there, because I was already involved with them on a separate project, right?

00;21;48;29 - 00;22;11;07
Speaker 1
You've talked some already about the clever Liz, but we really haven't talked about what they are. So I want to read this quote that I found on your on your website. It says, Bluegrass Meets the Office. If Dolly Parton, Earl Scruggs and Spinal Tap spawned a litter of puppies, it would be the clever ladies high in dysfunction and low on personality.

00;22;11;09 - 00;22;15;09
Speaker 1
So can you just just tell us what, what, what is the clever release?

00;22;15;11 - 00;22;17;25
Speaker 3
That's the best quote I've ever heard.

00;22;17;28 - 00;22;18;25
Speaker 4
Me to.

00;22;18;25 - 00;22;48;01
Speaker 3
Explain it. And it was a writer from The New York Times had come really early on. We did a showcase in Nashville, and he came it was at 12th and Porter and we didn't have a lot of people there of the first showcase we did. I think we had six people and there was nine people and we brought six of them who is three outside of there?

00;22;48;03 - 00;23;17;07
Speaker 3
And then, you know, each time we came back, we'd have a little bigger audience. But this writer came and he was sold right off the bat. He said, I get it, I love it. And he did an article about us and that was his quote. And I've kept it ever since because I even have a difficult time trying to describe it, because when you start describing, people think, Oh, it's a cover band, but it's far from just being a cover band.

00;23;17;10 - 00;23;28;13
Speaker 3
And he explained it the best. I think if Dolly Parton, Earl Scruggs and Spinal Tap spawned a litter of puppies, that describes it the best.

00;23;28;15 - 00;23;52;23
Speaker 1
Well, I watched several of your YouTube videos. Mm. And I felt like it had an element of the Coen brothers. It was so a little off off character. And each character was what you wouldn't expect. So I really like a he hasn't seen the YouTube videos, but I really like this quote because I do feel like it kind of wraps it all up.

00;23;52;23 - 00;23;54;01
Speaker 1
That is just all over the place.

00;23;54;02 - 00;24;30;26
Speaker 3
Then one of the in the very beginning when we were really working on the TV angle, I never thought that it would be a a touring band or that it would even be anything past that. The idea of it being a television show in order to really practice and and get involved in our characters, we would dress up like our characters, the original group, and we would we would show up to gigs like that, you know, almost the Andy Kaufman thing or we don't break character.

00;24;30;28 - 00;24;55;18
Speaker 3
That was our idea in the very beginning. We figured out later on that was really hard to do. We showed up at 12th and Porter in character and in the original group, the the bass player was was blond, his character was blond. And so he showed up as this blind guy, and he's in the back by the cooler.

00;24;55;21 - 00;25;23;21
Speaker 3
And the bar back came in and she wanted to go into the cooler. And he's just standing there in character. And she says, you know, excuse me, You know, it kind of rudely, excuse me. And one of the guys goes, Oh, I'm sorry, my dad blind. And she goes, Oh, I'm so sorry. And so she grabs his hand, starts kissing his hand, and he starts filling up her face.

00;25;23;21 - 00;25;46;16
Speaker 3
And so she does her thing. And then we go out and do our show and after the show, he walks outside, puts his base in the back of his truck and starts to drive off. And she Russ, bring into his truck and stop. She said, You got me. You got me. Like, she's all kind of mad, but laughing at the same time.

00;25;46;19 - 00;25;53;06
Speaker 3
Yeah. So we, we, we really took the character thing to another level. Then we don't so much do that anymore.

00;25;53;12 - 00;26;02;29
Speaker 2
So I, like you guys have adapted your character some, but we also heard that you never kill off a character in case if somebody leaves or you don't come of the they can come back in the future.

00;26;02;29 - 00;26;04;17
Speaker 3
Only one. Okay.

00;26;04;19 - 00;26;05;18
Speaker 4
Yeah.

00;26;05;21 - 00;26;07;03
Speaker 1
Which one was that?

00;26;07;06 - 00;26;09;21
Speaker 4
I'm not telling.

00;26;09;24 - 00;26;15;01
Speaker 2
So what are some elaborate ways people have left the group.

00;26;15;03 - 00;26;31;28
Speaker 3
Some more and went walkabout one as I'm studying the the impact that the North American Grizzly has had on the sea lion population in the Galapagos Islands come to find out there's no impact.

00;26;31;28 - 00;26;33;15
Speaker 4
I thought I was.

00;26;33;16 - 00;26;33;27
Speaker 2
Trying to.

00;26;33;27 - 00;26;39;12
Speaker 3
Think, yeah, that's our tax dollars at work. You know.

00;26;39;14 - 00;26;47;22
Speaker 1
We've talked a lot about the clever ladies and we're wondering if Dr. Digger would like to come talk to us when available.

00;26;47;23 - 00;27;14;00
Speaker 3
He is available. I mean, he can be. And there's not a whole lot of difference between the two of you, to be honest. We but I will say that, you know, we were talking about my brother, Miles. I miss him. He was born blind, but that never slowed him down. He could claim drove the bus on straight stretches and got my two boys involved in the group.

00;27;14;00 - 00;27;15;01
Speaker 3
Junior and junior.

00;27;15;01 - 00;27;17;26
Speaker 4
Junior.

00;27;17;29 - 00;27;44;06
Speaker 3
My other boy, Ziggy. I met his mom, Burning Man. The storm separated us and I. I haven't. I never met him until about three years ago. And. And he showed up, and I was glad I got him through high school. He went to a snake church picnic and got hold of some clear liquor and run off with a denture model.

00;27;44;08 - 00;28;07;29
Speaker 3
And they eloped to Myrtle Beach, and she ran off with a Tom Jones impersonator because he had a polygraph endorsement. But now he's back and I got him in church and he's on a straight NA where he's a part of the family business now. I'm thankful for that.

00;28;08;01 - 00;28;19;26
Speaker 2
So, Dr. deGruy, we've heard rumors that the alpaca business in Arkansas is booming. What kind of surprised to hear about that? Or at least it was. How are things fairing now?

00;28;19;28 - 00;28;24;18
Speaker 3
Pretty good. You know, alpacas are indigenous to north central Arkansas. Do you know.

00;28;24;18 - 00;28;25;15
Speaker 2
That? I did not know.

00;28;25;15 - 00;28;44;25
Speaker 3
That's how we kind of got into it. Fell into it. My dad, he opened the first free range alpaca dairy in the country and found as hard as milk him thing when they're free range and like they're quick and toothy too. They got short days so I better. No, no that's.

00;28;44;25 - 00;28;46;07
Speaker 2
Llama. Okay.

00;28;46;09 - 00;28;47;17
Speaker 3
That's the llama.

00;28;47;19 - 00;28;49;14
Speaker 2
It'd be tough to tell you, though, right there.

00;28;49;14 - 00;28;53;09
Speaker 3
Kickers and jailers, though.

00;28;53;12 - 00;29;00;22
Speaker 1
Y'all live in Spur, Arkansas. We do. Well, is there anything going on in your community that we need to be updated with now?

00;29;00;29 - 00;29;29;13
Speaker 3
You know, you be happy to know that we've moved to Nashville now. We still have the place in Gainsborough, but we moved to Nashville and then I was feeling pretty good about it till about three or four months ago. Saw that hotel manager downtown got arrested for breaking in people's rooms and sucking her toes. Do you remember that that happened?

00;29;29;15 - 00;29;59;13
Speaker 3
That happened. Let Google go glitter right now. Get your phone out and Google it. A hotel manager downtown broke into someone's room and sat their toes, which is I mean, it's a victimless crime, to be honest with you. You wake up with clean towels, you know what I mean? And I was at the barbershop and some old bill was said, You okay?

00;29;59;15 - 00;30;01;03
Speaker 2
You're going to go the bathroom.

00;30;01;06 - 00;30;41;19
Speaker 3
I was at the barbershop by the day and we were talking about this story and then some old boys in there. They need to penalize him. The full penalty of the law, which I agree. You can't just break in someone's room, start sucking on towels. But honestly, if honestly, if sucking toes is your fetish, haven't you been punished already?

00;30;41;21 - 00;30;46;20
Speaker 3
Should I continue? You want to get a breath.

00;30;46;22 - 00;30;52;05
Speaker 2
Or some water.

00;30;52;07 - 00;30;53;09
Speaker 4
Either?

00;30;53;12 - 00;30;56;15
Speaker 3
That's a real story, by the way. It was on. It was on the news.

00;30;56;21 - 00;30;59;22
Speaker 4
Lit up. Google it up.

00;30;59;24 - 00;31;07;09
Speaker 3
It's on the Google Earth.

00;31;07;15 - 00;31;32;27
Speaker 2
It's I don't know who answered this question. I think this is this is just you. So some of the clever these YouTube videos have crossed a million views. You think people are drawn to them. Music, humor. I mean, what do you think? Is it really I mean, 1,000,000 million views doesn't just happen. So some really there is resonating with people.

00;31;33;00 - 00;31;33;27
Speaker 2
What do you think it is?

00;31;33;27 - 00;32;04;21
Speaker 3
You know, I think it's the music of show. It's the irony of these guys doing this song, you know, And that's kind of how we pick out this. A lot of the material is, you know, the idea that we would do a Destiny's Child song or T-Pain, Blackstreet, any of those things and turn it into a bluegrass song, I think is what draws people in initially.

00;32;04;23 - 00;32;36;15
Speaker 3
And it's like, Well, these guys look stupid. This is kind of cheesy or whatever. And then it's like, Dang, well, these guys can really play, they can really play and they can really saying, I wanted the music to be really good and top shelf musicianship and their arrangements to be well thought out. And so if you can get past the look of ice and the quirkiness and the cheesiness of the comedy and just and kind of dive into the music, then you're you get a whole different layer to the onion.

00;32;36;15 - 00;32;46;12
Speaker 3
It's like, Man, these guys can really cut it, you know? And that was kind of the point of, of doing those types of arrangements.

00;32;46;14 - 00;33;06;17
Speaker 1
So Dr. Digger, I kind of think of when I when I watched your YouTube videos, it was kind of like watching a mixture of Hee Haw and B, your five, four, nine. So if Hee Haw was ever rebooted, who do you think in your family would would be on the show? Who do Who would host it?

00;33;06;20 - 00;33;13;00
Speaker 3
Well, that's a good question. I'd have to be the host.

00;33;13;02 - 00;33;14;25
Speaker 1
Why is that?

00;33;14;27 - 00;33;44;06
Speaker 3
Well, I'm the leader. I'm the patriarch, I'm the mastermind. I'm the one that pulls all the strings. I'm the one that shares the Packers. I'm the one that turns the butter. It have to be made me the host. And then, you know, I want junior and junior. Junior, Junior. Junior is the mastermind behind all of the socialize media.

00;33;44;08 - 00;34;27;10
Speaker 3
You know he's got us on ticked to he's got us and then we're off and then we're back on. He's got us on the Instagram and Facebook, even on some of the dating sites like Ancestry.com. Swipe right on that, if you don't mind. You know, actually, any number of us could probably pull the hosting duties, but I'm just there to kind of oversee it and and I think I could put it together pretty good loved halo and for that comparison I think is is a true compliment because I grew up watching Hey yo Me too.

00;34;27;12 - 00;34;28;11
Speaker 4
Yeah.

00;34;28;14 - 00;34;35;14
Speaker 2
Bitcoin's and oaklawn and especially. Yes. So singing.

00;34;35;17 - 00;34;40;27
Speaker 1
What was the woman who blew into the jug wells? All she did was blow into the jug.

00;34;40;29 - 00;34;43;18
Speaker 3
My mama used to do that.

00;34;43;20 - 00;34;44;21
Speaker 1
She part of the cleverly.

00;34;44;24 - 00;34;48;13
Speaker 4
You know.

00;34;48;15 - 00;35;05;20
Speaker 2
So people can take pride in a genre of music. And like you were saying, like, Oh, well, this is not true to this or that's not true to that. And you felt good about blending it when you say, Hey, I'm going to do something in a bluegrass style, what does that really embody? Like what makes it bluegrass?

00;35;05;22 - 00;35;36;14
Speaker 3
You know, the instrumentation also, you know, there's a certain there's a certain kind of groove to it, but and that's changing, too. You know, there's a lot of a lot of young people that have come in and and really kind of thrown their their styles into the mix and bluegrass as it's grown. There's a there's a certain part of the community that wants to keep it just Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers you know I call them that that bluegrass crowd.

00;35;36;17 - 00;35;37;08
Speaker 1
That's my dad.

00;35;37;10 - 00;35;59;29
Speaker 3
That ain't bluegrass. You know, there's the that ain't country crowd. You know, they're all they're but like country music, it's it's evolving. Bluegrass is, But I think it's the instrumentation and the harmonies have a lot to do with it in my but, you know, there's a lot of things I think, that make it bluegrass and make it authentic bluegrass.

00;36;00;03 - 00;47;24;21
Speaker 3
But from my point of view, a lot of the covers that we.