Try That in a Small Town Podcast
In 2023, Jason Aldean's groundbreaking song and video "Try That In A Small Town" resonated with a resurgence of conservative values in America. The writers of the song, Kurt, Neil, Tully, and Kelley, took the opportunity to launch the Try That In A Small Town Podcast. This platform allows them to reveal the true inspiration behind the song and discuss the importance of common-sense values. With a lineup of influential guests, the hosts will entertain you with the stories behind their music, while also addressing challenging topics affecting our communities and country.
Try That in a Small Town Podcast
Michael Knox - From 40 Rejected Showcases to Artist of the Decade :: Ep 52 Try That in a Small Town Podcast
Michael Knox, the visionary producer behind Jason Aldean's groundbreaking sound, pulls back the curtain on one of country music's most remarkable success stories. Knox's candid revelations about their journey expose the harsh realities of Nashville's music business—an incredible 40 showcase rejections, multiple lost record deals, and years of struggle before breakthrough success.
What makes this conversation extraordinary is hearing how Knox deliberately architected Aldean's revolutionary sound when mainstream Nashville wasn't ready for it. "The whole plan with Jason was to be Tim McGraw's nightmare, to be the replacement of that generation," Knox explains. "You can't do that if you don't cover all the bases—I can tear your head off, steal your girl, make you cry."
Knox shares fascinating production stories, including how executives at Broken Bow Records first heard "Hicktown" with a broken speaker that eliminated the electric guitar parts—yet still loved it. He reveals the battles fought for now-iconic songs like "She's Country," "Big Green Tractor," and "Dirt Road Anthem"—all initially dismissed as career-ending risks by industry gatekeepers.
The conversation takes a personal turn when Knox discusses his father, Buddy Knox, who had the first self-written #1 hit in rock and roll history ("Party Doll") yet remains excluded from the Rock Hall of Fame. This family connection illuminates Knox's deep understanding of the music business's often unfair nature and his determination to help Aldean succeed against overwhelming odds.
What emerges is a masterclass in artistic vision and perseverance. In today's era of overnight TikTok sensations, Knox questions whether artists who haven't weathered rejection and struggle can develop the character needed for lasting careers. "These people today don't suffer like that," he reflects, celebrating the hard-earned journey that shaped Aldean's authentic connection with fans.
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So I brought it in there and we played Hicktown. We're sitting there listening to the first verse and chorus. You know you're excited, you're playing your first thing to the label and you want them, you know, to love what you do. So it hadn't registered yet that something's wrong with the playback. I'm noticing the electric guitar is not in because his left speakers are out and John's like this is amazing. So all they're hearing is the fiddle and the drums and the bass.
Speaker 1:And they're like this is amazing. And Jason looked at me and I said don't say anything. The whole plan with Jason is to be the most commercial, to be Tim McGraw's nightmare, to be the replacement of that generation. And you can't do that if you don't walk in the room and cover all the bases, which is, I can tear your head off, I can steal your, your girl, I can make you cry.
Speaker 4:You did it all and I can be.
Speaker 1:Y'all did it all it's, it's, but jason's voice does that you?
Speaker 5:know we bust a lot of balls in the talk bag mike, it's a tough room. Yes, I got news for you. You could make it with work less on a lean record it's funny because nobody would ever think of that.
Speaker 2:It's a tough room, you better you better have thick skin.
Speaker 5:yeah, no room for feelings in that room. And that's the magic of it, though, because I think that's what I mean, part of the psychology of it is to push everybody's buttons to say, oh yeah, well, I'll show you, man, your shit sucks. The Try that in a Small Town podcast begins now.
Speaker 2:And with that that, welcome back. There's another episode of the try that in a small town podcast coming to you from the patriot mobile studios. We got kaylo, we got thrash, we got tk. I'm kurt. Tonight this is going to be super awesome guys, guys, I didn't want him on, you didn't. Well, neil boycotted but Tully and I convinced him. We got some music. I mean really music royalty here. President, peer Music Nashville, I'd say super producer, I got to get these stats right. Yeah, 60 million singles, 30 million albums. How rude, it's insane, wow, how arrogant.
Speaker 4:It's insane. How arrogant Did he send you that? By the way, Is this Ashley Goyer?
Speaker 2:Google. It must be true. He's done everybody. Wow, that sounded weird. He's produced everybody from Thomas Rhett, trace Atkins and, of course, our most beloved Jason Aldean. We got Michael Knox in the house. What.
Speaker 3:Wow. You got a better intro than Paul Covey that intro that intro.
Speaker 4:It did.
Speaker 6:That was the best one, and we do a lot of people yes. Well, you got to to get where you are.
Speaker 2:I was going to pull this up, but it seems like Google can't keep up. How many number one singles are you?
Speaker 1:on. I'm at 29. Hopefully whiskey drink will be 30 yeah, he answered that way too fast. Well, I have. I have one more than jason, that's why he's this.
Speaker 6:John morgan went up the chart, so he can tell me I got it right, but um but no, we, we.
Speaker 2:You know, most of my stuff is with him by choice, so but I mean, like I said, I mean thomas repp, before kind of he blew up, right, yeah, yeah yeah, you know, um ret called me and you know scott, scott bruschetta called me and then ret said hey, man, I want you to.
Speaker 1:You know, look at my son, and I'd never met him before. So we went downtown and watched him play and and then scott sent me 10 songs. I picked four of them and and we cut them and got real lucky with. It goes like this yeah, massive song.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. No, it was a blast. I mean, that was my first thing outside of Jason. It was the first kind of experience of doing something, not including him, which I've made it a point not to do that because I didn't want to share our sound with anybody the people- we said no to was you know I'm not going to talk about him here because it's insulting, but quite a list.
Speaker 1:We turned down a lot of I turned down a lot of platinum max at the time that were calling us to kind of imitate our sound. So well, back to us that's why we're all here.
Speaker 5:We all love thomas, but back to us, kurt steer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, back to us, but y'all played on y'all played on pretty much everything I've done, you know, unless an artist says, hey, I don't want tully.
Speaker 5:Well, I mean that's on them. And then when they say that that's on them.
Speaker 4:It affects kurt and it affects rich you know, because I can't I can't just hire one of y'all. That's a really good thing I want to talk about later and maybe on another podcast have you guys ever played on anything separately?
Speaker 6:well, well, yeah, it's kind of like burton ernie, though you can't really separate, you can't?
Speaker 2:I mean, we've talked about it and not to make it about us, but I mean we did at a time and michael knows this I mean we were, we were a team. It's like that's kind of how we did it. Let's talk about how we met michael. Uh, tully was through your uncle, right?
Speaker 5:yeah, I mean I met michael the second day I moved to nashville.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 96, uh, you were it was working at water chapel, yeah, at warner chapel by the studio yeah, and you know people always ask me.
Speaker 5:you know that that was for for me. I mean, you know, lord send you down a path for a certain reason and that for sure, even today sitting here, sitting here, I love looking back and knowing I was laid on that path to see Michael. It really that's how I feel, michael. Neither of us knew Jason then, obviously, but I was 21 years old. I didn't know anybody. Michael immediately started plugging me in to some of the artists that he was working with at that time and developing and just kind of got me in the system of meeting people and around the building where you know I felt like I was, at least had one foot near the door of the music business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the first time I met you you were working. You were fixing to leave, to go work on, like this love boat. Well, that was called the love boat, Well, that was.
Speaker 5:I don't know if it's called the love boat. That was before the music industry. What was that? You know?
Speaker 1:the film industry.
Speaker 6:Yeah, that was like a let's talk it out, talk it out. This is great.
Speaker 5:Thank you, Michael this is great.
Speaker 6:Code name Dirk.
Speaker 5:That was a year after, though, I met you, so I ended up working for yeah, because you were hanging out in my office for a while and then you went away for-. I went to work for Disney playing an R&B band. Yeah, yeah, which was a tough decision at the time. But even before then I remember you would call me about things and you had artists you were working with and you'd send me stuff to learn and maybe they might be looking for a bass player yeah at that point, when you're 21 and you, you're looking for anything, and that was a great um thing for me.
Speaker 5:Oh my god at that point, yeah, yeah, but you gotta remember it was great for me.
Speaker 1:I was brought into a company. I didn't know anybody a lot of older writers, a lot of people have been there for 10 years. There weren't a lot of younger guys. I just met marv green too, and he was a brand new writer at warner chapel this warner chapel.
Speaker 1:So when I meet young guys my age or a little bit younger or whatever, I I I jump on that because I want to feed off that too. And roy was great at that time. Roy was one of my new songwriters. I was in love with his stuff, you know, and um. And then meeting tully was great and I time roy was one of my new songwriters, I was in love with his stuff, you know, and um. And then meeting tully was great and I met all you guys through tully well, and so just backpedal a little bit.
Speaker 2:So let's go, because I'm sure everybody they always ask the origin of the story with jason and us. But even before that you had gone to georg, georgia, for a talent contest, right, and it just happened to be Jason there. Give people that back story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was at Warner Chapel. You know, before Warner Chapel I started the first song plugging company in Nashville, you know, back in 91 called Hit Pluggers. I was working with Dobie Gray, you know Drift Away, bruce Birch, my mentor, who just passed away, which I miss him and you know. And then I moved in and opened this place called Hit Pluggers, which was the first song plug in company in town. So I started charging people 250 bucks to plug their songs. So I took out a press release I was an ad marketing major in college so I learned how to do that and all these old 50s acts who knew my dad started hitting me up. I had Don Everly, I had Freddie Weller, I had Vip Vipperman, I had Dobie Gray, I had I had all these 50s acts would come to me and these music sales corporations out of New York. They all knew my dad's name and they all wanted Buddy Knox's kid to plug their songs. So I started there and I was only there for about a year and we had one number one 10 cuts. And then Gary Overton brought me into Warner Chapel so to get to there. So I was there for a few years and I'm trying to find a write off to go see my grandmother a tax you know to like, go where I could put it on my expense account, a tax you know like where I could put it on my expense account. And I found this you know showcase at the buck board, you know, in 98. So I went down to the buck board, saw my grandmother during the day, went to the buck board at night and then 10 acts played. So I went to go see my grandmother.
Speaker 1:The next day went Saturday night and it was the night of the Warner Brothers assassins. You know where. They went in and fired everybody at Warner Brothers. You know they fired the whole staff. So all the Warner Brothers staff left. So I'm sitting there watching 10 more acts and Jason was 18. You know. So 18 acts, 10 acts went, eight went.
Speaker 1:And he came up at about 11 o'clock at night and him and Justin Weaver was his band leader on stage. So he went up there and played and I went up to him and talked to him and said I got to see you, man. So I left. He gave me a CD. I went out to his truck to kind of you know give him, you know, get some CDs from him and saw on his seat, on his truck seat or whatever he was in that night he had like Lionelel Richie, he had Merle Haggard, he had Alabama, he had Guns N' Roses. I was like this is amazing, you know, because everything he's saying live.
Speaker 1:You could tell he wanted to get somewhere and just couldn't get there. Just couldn't get there. But he wanted to go somewhere. So I went home, called him, went back down and saw him. It was worse. Went back down and saw him his third time and it was getting worse each time. So, the, so, the. After the third time, I just said man, come back to nashville with me. I want to sign you because it's getting worse when you say getting, what do you mean?
Speaker 6:oh man, the shows were bad, they were forgetting words.
Speaker 1:Nobody could play anymore like, just like jason was, everybody was getting every yeah, jason wasn't remembering I would send him songs and he, he wasn't.
Speaker 1:He, you know, he was new man at that time. I had authority, I was powerful, you know he was, he was stressed around me, you know, and he wasn't learning words or nothing, man. So so I just said, man, you know that first night I saw you, it was amazing. I said I just want to forget everything I've seen the past few months and just come to Nashville and I want to sign you off that first night. So I signed him, brought him to town and I just said we got to get it better. So that's what I did. I brought him to town and, um, and, and you know, just started working with him.
Speaker 1:You know he, he looked like, you know, tracy Lawrence, you know Clay Walker, had the cowboy hat, the big belt buckle, tucked in shirts, you know, iron jeans, everything you need. Yes, well, I don't know. I don't know when he came in. I remember the first month he was there, he would come into the office dressed like that, like his stage gear, and I remember asking him I said dude, is that what you wear when you go out on Friday nights? Is that what you wear? And he goes, no goes, no, man, it's my stage gear. And I said, well, come in tomorrow with how you dress, come in tomorrow with what you wear on a date. And he came in the next morning in a ball cap earrings, thumb rings, chains. You know, he didn't have cowboy boots, he had something else. He had those other boots y'all wear and y'all no, belt buckle untucked, you know. And I said, dude, that's that, that's it, that's, that's, that's what you need to do, that every day, that's what you need to do. Just put the cowboy hat on stage and that's it.
Speaker 2:And, um, I'm sure he was gonna get there himself, but, um, I just, I just pushed it a little faster, as all yeah, I mean it was an interesting journey when he got to town and then you know, I don't know if we want to journey when he got to town and then you know, I don't know if we want to fast forward to when tully and I met him and rich and all that. But you know we joke about this now. But we did somebody want to tell me the amount of showcases we did for labels? We got the deal on our 40th showcase. Yeah, was it really 40? But before y'all yeah.
Speaker 1:But before all that we did, you know, 98 to 2004, we lost four record deals. Oh yeah, and Jeff Stevens at one time was a part of it and left us because he was like I'm not seeing it anymore. So we would get a deal with Keith Stegall. We'd go man, I want to sign you. And then he got fired. Monday we were getting presidents of labels fired.
Speaker 1:Every time they would offer Jason a deal a week away they would get fired Keith Stegall, tony Brown, larry Willoughby, mark Wright. They would all lose their jobs, like a month later.
Speaker 1:So it was a monster like curse, let down everything. So that that thing at the wild horse that night that that benny not benny, but the consortium group showed up you know those guys from broken bow to see us. We were supposed to play for universal and universal didn't show up. So we put twenty five,500 in this thing that y'all played at, as you know, I think. I think y'all were at that showcase, correct? Yeah, you know, because I know y'all played the Exit End showcase. Oh, we played so many showcases.
Speaker 1:And had the opportunity to go to Rushlow at that time. But that last showcase we were at the Wild Horse and they went there to see Locash do line dancing and sing a song during line dancing and we were to play six to seven and they were to teach line dancing right after or right before or right after and they said, oh my God, we want to meet this guy. So the next week Benny came and gave him a record deal. We spent probably $250,000 developing this project with y'all and Jason.
Speaker 5:I remember the capital deal and thinking that we had made it because the Capitol signed them. Yeah, he was there for two years.
Speaker 1:Dungan kept coming in going. Can you do another showcase? He's not smiling enough. And then it would be another one. Yeah, do one more, he's just not smiling enough. And we'd have managers there, you know, and they would all walk out just saying this kid ain't country.
Speaker 5:Oh no, we brought that up. Yeah, Don't I remember you leaving during? Yes, I'm pretty sure maybe we were probably playing wire when it looked so good at that point.
Speaker 1:No, you were playing evidence. Oh, evidence Wow.
Speaker 2:But, you know, we've said this before, I know you have. I mean, during those showcases we were playing hits, we were playing Emerald Sky, we were playing why. We were playing Johnny Cash, we were playing Hicktown which, by the way, the 20th anniversary of the release just came up, yeah, You're the Love I Want to Be In.
Speaker 1:You're the Love I Want to Be In.
Speaker 2:I mean all songs that were on the first record, or two that were big hits.
Speaker 6:Laugh Till we.
Speaker 2:Cry.
Speaker 4:But what people don't?
Speaker 1:get, get it in there, baby. But what people don't remember is that a lot of the showcases were at SR. Yeah, where Tony Brown would come in and I love Tony, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1:He'd come in and he would leave during the intro of the first song, I got to tell you, no, no, I had this whole 500 spread of lapaz. I had. I had him a beautiful chair couch, we had the room set up and it was great. And he and jason kicks into the first song and, um, and tony brown's sitting there, he, I, we ain't even out of the verse and he goes, man, I just think it's from me and I go dude, we're not out of the first verse. And then we get in and he leaves, and it was.
Speaker 1:But we had a few of those you know I don't want to spotlight Tony we had a few of those. I mean, we would go to conference rooms and we would play for these people at rca and and these you know companies, and they would go. Man, we're just not seeing the energy and I'm like, well, we're in a conference room. Can you, can you come to the show we're playing every? I had him at wild horse every monday night at six, seven o'clock. Just come, come to the show. But back then in the 90s, um, I was a song plugger then but you couldn't get anr out past six o'clock. You just couldn't get them out.
Speaker 5:They would come to sir yeah, what I remember most about, sir, is like we live there. It was room two, three, four, yes, and if you're lucky you get into the big room. Yeah, so we did like a numerous three was our room.
Speaker 5:We could yeah, three was a room and we would spend a lot of time these rooms and I remember michael goes. Okay, we got a big showcase. We're going to the big room down the hall. So they go to the big room down the hall, I think someone that tony brown was coming to and we we rehearsed for two days. We're in the big room, which is a big room, and they're all we start playing and they're and, and they're all lined up. Against the back wall.
Speaker 1:This is a football field.
Speaker 5:Against the back wall. It's huge. We got through half of the first song and I remember looking up they're gone, they're gone. We got four or five songs to go.
Speaker 1:What was the one on Music Row where they got the pizza joint Castle?
Speaker 2:Door, yeah, the Castle Door. The Castle Door, yeah, the.
Speaker 1:Castle Door. Oh, the Castle Door, that's the one that a supposed manager said he wasn't there. But I remember sitting in the back and I had Smoothie King come and cater it. We were trying anything different we could do, because we've done had La Paz, we've done had catering, we've done had. If I give, give you money, will you sign us? You know, to everything.
Speaker 1:And then we I said, let's do smoothie king. So we did smoothie king and and um, everybody showed up, we played all these things and then um, everybody left it was so sad too because of that.
Speaker 5:The castle door showcase is the one that my mom flew down, yeah, and aldine's mom was there, and so both our moms are at one of the front tables and the beginning of the show. They're excited by the last song. I swear to god they're they're saying like what are these boys gonna do?
Speaker 4:they gotta go get a job back at pepsi.
Speaker 1:They gotta go back to pepsi. Something's gotta happen. But the accident show was the one that stunned me, because everybody at the label came to me and said we had never seen anything that great before. Remember all the kids I drove up from the college, y'all were playing down in South Georgia and man, y'all killed it, you killed it. And that was the night Rush Low came back there and was like, oh my God, I got to steal his band. But we killed it. And even Mark and Clay Bradley at the time was in A&R there and they were like, oh my god, what do y'all? Y'all got to keep playing, or these kids are going to tear this place down.
Speaker 1:And we still couldn't get a deal. And then we got the deal at. You know, Larry Willoughby brought him over to Capitol when he got signed there and we sat over there for three years and then Dungan came and made a showcase three times and then he dropped him and I remember that day it was. You know, we wanted to get out of the deal. But when it happens, man, you hate it. You know, you're like crap, you know. And then Paul Worley was over at Warner Brothers. I hate dropping names but it's funny. But Paul Worley was at.
Speaker 1:Warner Brothers when he was there and I remember sitting there with him and Jim Head and he came to Jason's showcase at that thing we did in East Nashville. What was that place in East Nashville? Oh yeah, the.
Speaker 5:Woodshed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, woodshed, and that's the one Keith Stegall came to too and he offered us a deal and got let go a week later. And then Paul Worley and them were there too and they called us upstairs and I'm like, man, we're going to get this. And Tim's like, yeah, man, we're going to get this. And we go up there and Paul goes. You know, man, I just don't know. I think we want to focus on, I mean you, you know, we're signing rick trevino again, we're bringing him back and we want to focus on that. And we're just and we're like, you know, nothing against rick trevino, but he had already had a deal, lost it. You know, come back. And we're just like, god, man, what do you do now? What do we do? And then, luckily, the wild horse. I just kept y'all busy at wild horse.
Speaker 1:I wanted y'all to have money well, so I kept booking y'all we've talked about that a lot of money and I buy jason gift cards to restaurants because you know him and his wife at the time didn't have a lot of money and I was buying them gift cards to go eat food and and go, you know, have things during christmas. So I book a lot of rehearsals during christmas for y'all so y'all can get that hundred dollars a pop.
Speaker 5:Hey, that's really nice and and free food, oh yeah, and whipperman and all them.
Speaker 1:Everybody at warner chapel is being like man. You guys gotta let him go this year it's like seven years, guys, you gotta let him go this year and I'm going. No, I said I can't let something go. I love this much and and um and look what happened yeah, I got fired.
Speaker 4:it takes, I gotta let go, let me go. That guys, I got let go, I got let me go.
Speaker 2:That's how you know you're doing something right.
Speaker 4:They let me go, but it takes guys like you, though I mean to believe in an act. I mean our listeners don't get to hear stories, backstories, this deep and to see how long it took, you guys.
Speaker 1:It took a long time, it took a lot of stress, it took more hard times than people can imagine and more rejection. I don't think people understand. They all see us now, but I don't think they understand the depression, the rejection, the depression of just not being heard, you know, and I, and I hate that for the kids today because they get it once and they're they're, they're destroyed and I'm going. Y'all have no idea. Yeah, you know, the 90s were tough too much. A lot more competition, a lot more uh, gunslingers out there, man, and it was man no, no, no, no, he ain't good enough. Why are you wasting your time with him? It was tough and and who knew?
Speaker 1:I mean at the time at Warner Chapel I was signing John Rich to write songs for Jason. I mean I was signing teams around him that that was the whole point of this and getting y'all back in the studio to let y'all get good at the studio. So I created a a crazy job for y'all to be the showcase band for Warner Chapel so I could keep y'all get good at the studio. So I created a a crazy job for y'all to be the showcase band for Warner Chapel so I could keep y'all working and getting better. So when this opportunity came, we would all be prepared and then I would go live in the studio trying to cut demos and learn how to do that myself. It was a long process, you know of, and but very, very deliberate, you know it was always your.
Speaker 5:It was always your vision. I tell everyone this that the what they see up there when we go on tour was always your vision well, now I, I, I do, I hear y'all say that, but it was. But it was, though, because I mean taking the band in the studio, which which you know wasn't done then.
Speaker 2:It just wasn't done then, Especially an unexperienced studio band Like I hadn't played in a studio before.
Speaker 1:But the funny thing is is but watching you with your dad at the disco parties. And then Redmond chimed in one year and I remember when y'all introduced me to him at SR and I'm like I already met him. He played CRS with y'all one time and pulling that together was my job. It was y'all's job to perform. It was my job to just be the circus. You know, let's create the circus Because nobody's doing the Brian Adams, the rock and roll thing Nobody. So we got McGraw doing it. You got Garth running around the stage wanting to be Kiss. You got McGraw wanting to be the cowboy guy, but nobody was doing. In your face, let's just guitar slinger this thing and drums. And that's why I went on the search for Peter Coleman. It took me two years to find that guy, to make my record sound like journey.
Speaker 2:Well, you know I heard tolly talking about your vision and I I 100 agree with them. I know tolly remembers the very first demo yeah, that we played on for jason. And you guys will get a kick out of this, because I don't think we've said this before but do you remember what it is?
Speaker 1:I have it you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember you skid row. Yeah, I remember you. And the only reason we covered it yeah, the only reason we did that is because I had him at the beach jason jason, I had him at the beach.
Speaker 1:We were on a retreat at warner chapel yeah and jason and we were going through songs and I played michael. What was that bluer than blue? Mich Michael Johnson, Is that right?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and Jason's like I've never heard that song. I really like that song. And then I played Always Something there to remind me and he was like, yeah, I like that song, you know, and blah, blah, blah. And then he goes do you know Skid Row's? I Remember you. And I'm like, yeah man, it's great man of it or something in my car. So he, what key did he? Do it in.
Speaker 4:Probably it was at least five steps whatever you played in the whole step down, that's it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it I have the demo. I can tell you that. No, no, no. But they all went in the back studio with pat hutchinson and we all. I just said let's cut it, let's just cut it. Yeah, so they went back there and we cut it, because I knew if we could get in the ballpark of that, then that is my, that was a vision I had.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like then this thing might can work. And all y'all went back there and we all, we all did a a great b effort and it was awesome.
Speaker 5:I would say that I would say that studio at the old warner chapel. Yeah, I would say that's where we actually started to figure out how to what that would be like. Yeah, sure you know in its most early stages, yeah, but I threw them into some horrible situations.
Speaker 1:We would have writer, we would have writer retreats, so I would make them go in there and be the band for the writer retreats. You'll have Jewel, you'll have all these big stars from Warner, chapel, pop, la or whatever, so I would have them go in there and these guys would horribly, horribly, horribly insult these guys.
Speaker 2:Oh, I would have had no business being there. You got Tully.
Speaker 1:Kurt and Redmond sitting in there just getting slayed by these guys. Yo, mr Guitar Guy, yo Mr oh it sitting in there just getting slayed by these guys yo mr.
Speaker 2:Uh, guitar guy yo mr. Oh, it was jude.
Speaker 1:Oh, jude, jude cole jude cole and and got all these people just horribly disrespecting them. And at the beginning I was getting upset. I would pull these guys aside going, hey man, these are my guys, what you know, you don't have to be an ass, you know. And and then I and then y'all would go play the showcases, then you would go play the showcases, then you would go play the things, and then it started getting really good and then y'all, but but all you guys were great musicians anyway, but y'all were all like indie rock cover band guys. So now we were getting into like being a unit, you know, being this thing, and and it took about two years.
Speaker 2:It took about two and a half years. Good times. Let's get to like the first record. And you mentioned John. You're talking about Depressed. I'm getting it over here Before you get through that.
Speaker 6:I mean, it's interesting and somewhat, you know, I hate that we've waited 50 episodes to find out the truth behind Jason Aldean and everything else. Thank episodes to find out the truth behind jason aldean and everything else. Thank god for michael knox and no, well, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it. That's. That's pretty amazing because because I think tully said didn't you say you discovered aldean? I think it's episode three I think, we've all discovered a different aldean for each of us.
Speaker 2:Good point uh, but I was gonna say, you know, we of course we were alluding to earlier hicktown, the 20-year uh release date, uh, and you mentioned john rich, who you know we've got a future episode coming on with him as well. Uh, hicktown, and you kind of talked about it like people weren't hearing that at the time.
Speaker 2:It was like you said Tracy Lawrence, uh, clint Black, that was a major risk, yeah, like a big time risk that was heavy, yeah, uh so what made you hear that song for one and go hey, this is you, this is what we got to do yeah, well, it all started with, know, building that team around Jason.
Speaker 1:We couldn't find the songs. You know he was writing a lot with Jeff Stevens, steve Bogart, and they were all writing George Strait songs, you know, with Jason singing George Strait songs and it was great. But there was no, there was nothing there. You know bigger. You know it's like it had to be something that would scare the crap out of you and make you nervous or make you worry about this. It was too perfect, it was too nice. I had Terry McBride in there writing for Jason. I had, and then I signed John Rich, who then I signed Gretchen Wilson, and then I signed some other cats and then this other energy was coming into building. So then picking wildflowers came out and then Boondocks and all these guys were floating around our building before then you know, a little big town. So I was hearing I mean, I was hearing all that crap too and I was like man, there's fixing to, there's fixing to be a big shift, there's fixing to be a big shift. So I want to be ahead of that.
Speaker 1:So John was turning in these crazy songs. You know, as he does. You know like things. That that you know he does you know, like things, that that you know he was writing for. You know if him and big kenny got a deal at that time which they hadn't at that time right. So I pulled all these songs aside and I told jason. I said, man, this is, this is the energy, can you sing these words? And hicktown was not a lyric for us. Yeah, but we both knew musically that would set the bar, it would push us to that place that we wanted to be. So, um, that's why hicktown came in there. Usually we usually don't say those kind of lyrics. You know, like you know yeah butt, crack all those things.
Speaker 1:But. But it was very important at the time to to scare the crap out of people to make wine, amarillo sky and these other things work. You know, because we had johnny cash already. Um, john pitched it out from under us on the first record to Tay Bay, otto and Tracy and, yeah, tracy Bird, yeah, so we had all. And why was getting pitched out from under us? All these, all these? John was desperate too. He was wanting to succeed. He just got bumped out of Lone Star, you know, he had, he had no place to go. He was creating his world too. So there was a lot of stress and friction going on to make this happen, you know, and um, but luckily it worked out in our favor.
Speaker 1:Man, we're, um, you know, terry mcbride and mcbride and the ride did not have a hit with amarillo sky and big and rich did not cut. Hicktown and sh Shannon Brown did not have a hit single and Taye Bay and Tracy Bird both their careers were over that that year. So we, we got all them songs and all them cuts. You know that. You hear, on the record are our demos. We just upgraded. All that crap was the stuff we cut in the demos. You know, and I remember I can say it now because we're 100 years later but I remember them being like hey, man, you need to go in and re-sing that, okay, and we'd go, will you like this? And we didn't do nothing and they're like yeah.
Speaker 1:That's a lot better and we didn't change anything. There you go.
Speaker 6:Now you got it.
Speaker 1:I mean because me and Jason are looking at each other like the education I am now. I'm like going, I don't know how to do it again. I just know how to do it that one time. You know, I don't know how to make this better.
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Speaker 2:Join our original glory family and help ignite that original glory spirit. We've talked about this a lot and maybe we'll talk about it with you. Since you're here, we'll give you your flowers. Uh, you know what feels good. You know what sounds good. You've always been the best song guy I've ever known. You can I appreciate it? Well, I mean, just a hundred percent. You, you can pick out a great song for your artist. You can pick out a great song for another artist, but as a producer, more than anybody I've ever seen or met and totally has likened you to like rick rubin, which I think is a great comparison well, I appreciate that no seriously, you know what feels good and you know it sounds good, and to that point you're like this is good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, why would we?
Speaker 1:mess that up. Well, I'll tell you a funny story about john loba and um. He'll probably hate this, but um he doesn't watch his podcast.
Speaker 5:Yeah, he's not on our side. What are they gonna do?
Speaker 1:they've tried for seven albums but um, so, um, we brought hicktown in. I don't know if jason remembers this and they were in cummins station, yeah, yeah. So I brought it in there and we played Hicktown and we're sitting there listening to the first verse and chorus. You know, you're excited, you're playing your first thing to the label and you want, you want them, you know, to love what you do. So it hadn't registered yet that something's wrong with the playback. So come the first verse, I'm noticing the electric guitar is not in because his left speakers are out. So so I'm sitting there and I finally figured out and I look at Jason and Jason looks at me and I said and John's like this is amazing. So all they're hearing is the fiddle and the drums and the bass and they're like this is amazing.
Speaker 1:And Jason looked at me and I said, don't say anything, they love it, they love it. And and I remember when the song came out, I remember loba asking me when, when the song went to radio, that hey man, did y'all do overdubs after we heard it in the office that day? I don't remember.
Speaker 1:I don't remember maybe hearing that aggressive I've never heard this, so the whole time they were cranking it in the office, the left speaker was out and we had things. We only had the one guitar, you know, which was that? Yeah, that guitar, yeah, and and that's the fiddle. Everything else was in the right and up the middle, so the left speaker wasn't on, so all they heard was everything else but the electric guitar. And um, we love it. Yes so wow so it makes me wonder what would have happened if they heard that, if they heard the electric that's meant to be all these years I didn't know.
Speaker 1:No, I never knew that story jack sizemore played the original guitar that we, that we took out yeah, and jack played on the first record yeah and adam schoenfeld was sitting in the studio and had to leave and he played the demo and I said hey, man can you just play what you played on the demo so we can know what to play? And that whole hick town was his one pass, rushed trying to leave to go to another gig. Yeah, and we just left it alone. I completely forgot.
Speaker 6:Well, I want to pick up on what Kurt said about you being a great song guy, and I want to show my appreciation Because you were a song plugger, which is back in the day for people listening, that's, somebody goes and actually plays songs for artists and managers and things like that. This ain't time it didn't happen as much. We'll send it, we'll text it, whatever. But I'd had maybe two or three hits and you guys were already rocking with with aldine and I was at emi, gary overton was running it, yeah, and and I got called in to to pitch for to you for aldine. Yeah, you know, and I thought I have never done that before, like, like, then it wasn't it wasn't normal.
Speaker 4:By yourself, you went over there, yeah, but it wasn't normal for, for uh no, it's not writers to pitch, to pitch to producers and things like that.
Speaker 6:I was like, wow, it must be a pretty big deal. And so I thought, oh man, I've got 25 songs I can pitch for Aldine, and this was like a month ahead.
Speaker 6:And so I started going through the list, taking my time, and I said I've got 28 songs. And then, three weeks in, I had 20. Two weeks in, I had 20. Two weeks in, I had 11. And by the time I got to you that morning I cut it down to one song Because I thought I was really something. I thought I had something for Aldine, yeah. And the more I studied and the more respect I had, I was thinking I only got one thing that won't embarrass me and all I wanted. I didn't even want to cut on aldine. I wanted to get another meeting with you to play for aldine when I had the right, do you?
Speaker 6:remember what you played. I don't remember it. You liked it. You didn't record it, but you but you, you liked it, you know. And you said you said uh, you said so, I really like that, so I'll keep that. You said you got something else. It doesn't know, that's all I got you and you were so surprised because most people try to play four or five, six songs.
Speaker 1:Well, that was a plugger's trick, that was my trick. That was my trick to bring one song.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and so that's what it is. So, to writers out there, you think you've got all these hits and everything. You think you've got them, until it comes down to it, and then you really start paying attention, thinking okay, the things I thought were great they're not great, they're just kind of okay, okay, well, the thing that I learned from being a going from plugger to production is, you know, plugging man.
Speaker 1:I loved it, I was. I felt like I was really good at it. I was on 180 million records in my years at Warner Chapel. I remember every cut I've ever had. I loved every second of it. I loved walking in there and knocking those home runs and and.
Speaker 1:But the thing that I remember the most is when I would go like play for Garth Fundus or go play it for who was Randy Travis's producer, Kyle Lenning, kyle Lenning, kyle Lenning was tough man. I'd play something. He'd pass on it in the intro and I would always be like, man, you need to get to it, you need to get to it. And now that I'm producing on that other side, I get that 100%. I can hear something in 10, 15, 20 seconds and go, man, that just ain't what we're looking for. So it's definitely a different ear to learn and I respect all them guys now that I before would dog them, insult them, because they'd cut my stuff off early. But when you know it's such an awesome feeling to be in a room with a producer that knows what they're looking for Instead of, like some of them, would just go bring me a hit. You know a hit, anybody can sing and I'm like, well, that's horrible.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know that would be a horrible thing I can't believe K-Lo actually came and played songs. Yeah, because I couldn't do that because these are like your babies and you're like yeah, I know they're, they're gonna reject, but I love these in your face.
Speaker 1:I love meeting with songwriters over pluggers. Anyways, the the pluggers had a car salesman thing about them and I knew that because I was a plugger, you know. So when I met with songwriters I felt like I was getting a personal moment. I felt like you were pitching me something that, as a fan, what you wished he would sing, and I had more success with that. I had a lot more success with that. You know, getting songs that way I got. I got more cuts from the songwriters than I ever did the pluggers.
Speaker 6:Well, and you'll still email us back. You know like, even if it's something that you're not looking for, you'll still tell me to this day. Email, email us back.
Speaker 5:What's your?
Speaker 6:issue.
Speaker 3:Just say hey. For a writer it doesn't matter who it is.
Speaker 6:If we think it's from you, it doesn't matter, it's just enough.
Speaker 7:But just say hey, cool song not what we're looking for right now.
Speaker 6:And I'm thinking hey, hey, listen to it, and then you're happy.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the busboy in me too. It's like when you go to the restaurants now you over tip because I was a bus boy, I get it, I know what they're doing and I was a plugger, so I'm like man. The only thing I hated is to know did you really listen to it? Have you listened to what I sent you? I hated to not know, so I always want people to know when I'm listening so you know, but I'll just I try to listen to everything I get, even to.
Speaker 1:Today, I do. I mean, it's just amazing.
Speaker 2:Thank you, and you know, what I love is kind of the push and pull relationship you and jason have and with songs and, speaking to what you were saying before, it's like, yeah, there might a song might be a hit, but it just might not be for aldine. Yeah, uh, one of my most vivid memories of you going to bat for a song that aldine wasn't sure on and I I'll be in this boat as well, and you had to convince him on was big green tractor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I got. I got on another band's tour bus and drove up to play it to him one more time and drove 400 friggin miles to that jamboree in the hills or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember west virginia yeah, well, wherever it was, I don't know. I just remember getting on a bus and we were cutting the next week and, um, some guys I knew were riding up there and I said, well, man, you know, that was the days I was young, I could get on a bus. I'm like, yeah, let me go up there. And I remember walking in and he looked at me and goes, what do we do? What did we do? Why? What are you doing here, what did we do? And I just had that one song and I played it and y'all were sitting there on the couch, I remember it was uh, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 5:You wrote up they were crossing dixon.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah it was a brand new man you have such an incredible.
Speaker 5:I remember all this amazing it's, it's, it was a festival and that's when you did it and thank God you did.
Speaker 1:For me to get on that bus too. Yeah, Because it wasn't a good bus.
Speaker 1:That's another podcast, I don't know if there was a good bus, so for me to get on that bus and ride up there and play this big green tractor, but I kept sending it to him and he wouldn't respond you know or something, or he would pass on it. Yeah, I can to him and he wouldn't respond you know or something, or he would pass on it, or yeah. I can't remember the how the routine worked, but I just remember going. Man, we got and this was one of those hicktown lyrics where it ain't really what we do, yeah, but it was a pivotal moment for us to kind of say, okay, it seemed, with dirt road anthem. Man, we're sitting at that, um, that daggum restaurant right there off the exit, at cool springs, right in front of them, what is that outback steakhouse? We're just sitting there in the parking lot and I bring up dirt road anthem.
Speaker 1:I said, man, I know you don't want to cut this last record, you know. And said, man, you know, let's revisit this one, because I had just cut it on brantley gilbert, and brantley walked away from his record deal. I cut that one, um and a couple other songs, you know. So so I pitched that one to him and my kind of party at the same time and we had had it before. We just never really went there and I'm sure it was because Brantley was hot local. He was a Georgia boy, jason, georgia boy. Sure, he was being respectful to Brantley's. You know thunder, you know that he was having with it.
Speaker 1:But it was just one of those moments, like big green tractor, where it's not something we do. But it's funny how those she's country, big green tractor, hick town, um, you know my, you know, uh, dirt road anthem, these things, uh, burning it down. These things were everything main people at the label told me were going to be career ending. Yeah, where our career, that's how you know it's good, our career moving songs. And I mean they would say career ending. I mean I'm talking burning it down. Oh, my god, you're not gonna put out a rap song. And I said, dude, I, I made it a point to cut every instrument analog so there would be no drum loops. They can't.
Speaker 1:That was the beauty they can't not play it, yeah you know, because redmond sat in there all day and played everything. I made it a point to do that.
Speaker 4:Do you remember the day that I came over to the studio Because I had a couple of songs on that record, a couple I don't?
Speaker 2:remember that was on my party record.
Speaker 1:You had a few.
Speaker 7:You talking about Buried Down or Dirt Road? Anthem no but, Dirt Road Anthem.
Speaker 4:Dirt. Road Anthem. No, but Dirt Road Anthem. Dirt Road Anthem. And he took me out to the truck and played me Dirt Road Anthem. He didn't play me anything, they'd tracked on mine. He wanted me to hear that one. And do you remember what I said to you? I said I was sitting there and I go. I just want to be on the album that that song's on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Because I heard it wrote an anthem. I was like that's going to be freaking huge. I just want to be on the record. But you ended up being the last two singles on that, which was what? Fly Over States? And Tattoos yeah, tattoos, my favorite. Jason Aldean cut my favorite song I've ever cut. My favorite production, my favorite video, my favorite recording. My favorite song I've ever cut on. Jason, okay, why You're welcome, exactly ever cut.
Speaker 4:Okay, why, you're welcome, just exactly. You don't have to say that to me, that's just I'm thanking you guys.
Speaker 1:But that's just a perfect song, a perfect image for him. You're walking. Everything was perfect about that. The video was perfect, everything was perfect and I love that song, that that guitar lick at the intro. I knew when I heard the demo I'm like, okay, I can beat this demo, what?
Speaker 4:And then when I heard the song, I was like that's what you got to do with Knox is just do a substandard demo, just something on a good song that he can beat.
Speaker 1:No, I love. I love because y'all's demos are insane. Anyway. You, wendell, david Lee Murphyphy, these things, man. Well, we get these kind of songs, man, they're, they're. So all we're trying to do is not to mess it up. And something clicked that day where that intro lick, the band, the feel, the vibe, the, the open track, how the delays are just falling.
Speaker 4:And it's just this moment, it's just, it was just a great moment I gotta say, though, I remember the first time I heard um, and I don't I can't remember what just it was just a great moment. I gotta say, though, I remember the first time I heard um, and I don't I can't remember what single it was when y'all started getting edgy and it was. There wasn't a lot there, there wasn't a bunch of static, wasn't a wall of sound, it was just edgy, and I remember the first time I heard it. I remember going I want to be a part of that. Yeah, well, you were you. I brought you in, that's, that's, that's what I'm talking. I'm like I'm, I'm gonna be a part of that she's she's country.
Speaker 1:I couldn't get anybody to hit the high harmony and I brought in, I brought in girls, I brought in everything and I said who's the one girl that can hit this? And it was neil. Neil hit that, you know, and it made the song. It kept it so red on top and it kept it so aggressive on top. And she's Country. The demo was all drum loop. So we had to cut that completely different. And I remember playing that and Carson at the label was like Carson and Lee was like are you going to keep all them guitars? And I said this is the cut.
Speaker 1:This is it?
Speaker 4:What are you going to keep all them guitars? And I said this is the cut, this is it, what are you?
Speaker 1:talking about this, is it? Why do they hate the guitars? Because it's just not familiar to them.
Speaker 5:Nowadays. That's what's so funny. We're catching up. Why do you think you can have all those guitars on your stuff? You have to go back and and look at it. Moments of that wide open album like big green tractor for one, like the first time we played big green tractor the very first time was the night we shot the wide open live dvd. Yeah, we'd never.
Speaker 5:Yeah, not played that right, it was in yeahville, yeah, and I remember playing that and literally the place went crazy and those days it was great because no one heard anything until you did. Until it was on the album. So that was a big moment, and same thing with she's Country. I mean CMA Awards played that thing.
Speaker 4:I remember hearing she's Country and I'm like I can't wait to sing this. I can't wait to sing on this.
Speaker 1:They did an amazing background on that award show, that whole presentation. He walked out in the white T-shirt, jeans, and then they did that whole checkered board thing. Behind y'all it was everything but rebel flags. It was insane and that's what blew us up. After she's Country. It was like own. It was done. We were, we were, we were.
Speaker 5:The next thing period, it was though, because, like in those days which people again don't understand, like you're playing award shows, you know everybody's in there, they're black, the band's in the shadows, everybody's in their black suits the artists is you know. Everybody's in their black suit. The band's in the shadows. Everybody's in their black suits. The artist is you know. We came out. I remember you know, we had white T-shirts and jeans and Mikey Fry, who at the time was our spare guitar player, had a quarter top cut off.
Speaker 2:He was wearing a halter top.
Speaker 5:He was like I'm Jody Messina and you could really smell us coming off the bus and I remember playing that thing and looking at you know, because the great thing about award shows for us, still to this day, is about the first 10, 15 rows. You know, all the artists are there and they're dressed up and they're stiff. I remember specifically making a point that they felt this, you know, and I could feel, okay, this might be our moment.
Speaker 5:Yeah, to your point yes, maybe this is maybe this is going to be our next little run it needed to happen yeah, oh, I was at home watching it.
Speaker 1:I made it a point because whenever he plays I'm such a, I keep myself in such the fan zone. I love being at home watching it, love. That's why I don't really go on the road that much, you know, but I like watching it, like the fans watch it. You know I'll go stand out by the board. You know, back there in the stands behind the board or something or whatever, I love watching those things, man. And after that show that night it was ours to mess up Wide open record was such a shock, you know, um, you know coming album was laughed until we cried on the second, the third, the second one.
Speaker 4:It was relentless.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying, I'm just saying that was my introduction to no, I mean I mean you, you rock.
Speaker 4:You blow everybody's you know balls off and their hats off, and then all of a sudden he comes out and does your song.
Speaker 1:Laugh until we cry, but that was he pulls that off like like it was his song, yeah, but, but that was why we have one of those on every record, laughing till you cry should have been a bigger hit than it was, and the video was perfect. You know for what that was and that that whole moment was just us fighting, that sophomore thing that was coming Relentless, relentless.
Speaker 1:I thought Relentless was a horrible choice for our single at that time, Even though I loved the track. I loved everything I wanted it to be. Do you Wish it Was Me? Which was a cool?
Speaker 2:thing.
Speaker 5:I remember you saying that that record I actually feel like making that album, michael. I don't know, we never talked about this, oh, here it comes.
Speaker 1:So since album not michael, I don't know. We never talked about this. Um, oh, here it comes. So, since I got you here, no, I remember the first record.
Speaker 5:What I loved about that record was you can, to this day, you can hear the desperation in it yeah, yeah no you can you, can you can feel like this might be it, and I remember like half the songs on the album have a never-ending fade out yes, because we don't know how to end them.
Speaker 5:Yes, so we're like wait a minute, how's this gonna end and who's gonna do it? When we got to the second record, I remember making it thinking boy, this feels like we've technically, like we've gone up a step. The sounds were good, like we're always playing good. Everybody rose up. It didn't connect commercially, but I felt like we grew. I felt like the record actually is an underrated album.
Speaker 4:What songs weren't relentless?
Speaker 1:Johnny Cash was our first single which was the first song we ever cut five years earlier. That was the demo. That was the demo. I just upgraded the demo. That was actually the demo Jason singing the. The demo, yeah, and that was actually the demo Jason singing the demo four years earlier and everything. So it was that one. It was Relentless and you're in Kalo's song.
Speaker 5:Well, there were some great songs in that. I mean on that album, I just think the sophomore slump thing. There were other songs that could have went with singles. You know Kalo had a great song.
Speaker 4:It was one of my favorites too.
Speaker 5:It was, but what's interesting about that song, though, is like I remember even thinking then. This is a really great song. Great song what we were doing though it was tough to do Hicktown and Amarillo than why we had developed this thing. I know it, it was tough to do.
Speaker 5:Hicktown and Amarillo than Y, and we had to develop this thing, I know it. It was tough to like. It felt like we were sliding into someone else's lane when we did. As great as it is, I remember thinking this doesn't feel like our lane right now. It did maybe a couple years ago, but now we've got this kind of roots rock country thing, you know, yeah, anyway, it's just crazy how it all works out.
Speaker 6:Kevin O'Neill loved it. It was one of his favorite songs, which one. Kevin O'Neill we were at his house. Michael will appreciate that story. When you were introducing me he said hey, kevin, you know Caleb wrote Laugh Until we Cried and we're at his house. We just played golf and having drinks and stuff like that. It was a great day and Neil's being nice, just trying to bring me in the circle.
Speaker 4:I didn't know anybody. I know him as Hobgood now, but I know now. I know, yeah, Kevin O'Neal.
Speaker 6:That's his music industry now, yeah, and he was fixing a drink or whatever. He said I hated that song. He said I hate that song. I've always hated for Neil and I was like, hey, thanks guys, we'll see you later. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll end you on a good one. When we played the record to the staff, keith Stegall had just come in and he was going to head the A&R, john Loba left and went to Big Machine for two years, and I think it was around that time john was leaving. We can't, you know. Keith stegall came in and we were at keith's house and we were playing him the record with the host staff there and that song popped up and I remember keith going that's gonna be a monster, that's gonna be a monster. And jason looked at me and goes that's money, that's money, you know. And they hadn't heard the mixes yet, you know. So, um, that song, that song should have been bigger than it was. It was just where jason was in his career. We were in a sophomore, weird place, coming off of relentless and I think the town loves to root against, against it and I think that they were wanting him to go away. And then she's country made that not happen. Well, plus, we were.
Speaker 5:We were touring hard, you remember. Remember, I mean relentless. So when that album came out, we had the whole hicktown album before that, right, so we've been on the road, living on the road, for 290 days sleeping in airports maybe, maybe more than that, and every radio station in the country had been out to our shows and they're. They were heavy shows I, the song was great. I just feel like the timing, that weird sophomore thing right yeah, we had john, yeah, we had Johnny Cash.
Speaker 1:Then we had that one, and then we, because we didn't have a number one on that whole record and we barely had a number one on why I didn't know that.
Speaker 4:You know because we got jumped on why.
Speaker 1:You know, somebody jumped us and almost kept us out of number one with why, and so we didn't even have a number one during that whole record, and it was john.
Speaker 5:You know, johnny, cash your song and then relentless there were some sad lonely nights on the bus during the album there was some sad. I remember it was just like a year earlier. We were like it was like hell on wheels. Yeah, down the highway on the realest. We could feel a little dip and we were like, oh no, this is it 15 minutes is up.
Speaker 2:Oh no, it's happening, but you know what.
Speaker 1:If it wasn't for the Relentless album that made us more aggressive, made us jump off the cliff and that's what made us go head over heels with Wide Open and you came into the picture. Then you got to remember, man, I was building the writers around every two or three albums I would have different groups of writers come in, and Neil came in during the Wide Open record and Night Train is my favorite album period and you got the majority of them songs on there. So Night Train is, I think that was, the pinnacle of what we do. It's a decent song. It's a decent song but an amazing record Great merch.
Speaker 5:It's a great title of an album and a decent song Great hats.
Speaker 1:You had other songs on there that I felt were better. Yes, mike, you had other songs on that album that I felt were better than Night Train.
Speaker 4:Me too, that we didn't get to 100% with you.
Speaker 1:Yes, that we didn't get to 100% with you.
Speaker 5:Hey, one of my favorite songs, Talk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Talk. I love that song oh.
Speaker 4:I wore that out. It's me and Wendell. I love that song Staring at the sun, Mainly the bass line that bass line song.
Speaker 1:Well, absolutely, I can't believe.
Speaker 4:I had a solo part on that song.
Speaker 1:No, but Feel that Again is probably my favorite song on the record. Oh Michael.
Speaker 2:I've said this before. That was the one that got away after me. Yeah, feel that Again was it, and the first one on the record.
Speaker 1:What was that Town? Nothing Town.
Speaker 5:Nothing Town.
Speaker 1:Nothing Town should have. It was 48 on the charts just being played and and the label would not go to jason.
Speaker 6:Listen to this podcast, it'd be cool to have another, another hit with town in it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, he needs another one of those. Well, luckily we had 1994 to save us all.
Speaker 4:So let me tell you something this is no secret, so no one has to get me started.
Speaker 5:No one has to to be like it. We are very vocal. I remember I remember we were playing LSU the football stadium on a festival and Aldine goes man, we're going to cut this thing. And he played it for me and Kurt and we're like the demo of it and, oddly enough, it was a song that Thomas Rhett wrote. Yeah, I remember saying to him the demo I'm like, dude, we should not cut this. Oh man, it's just going to be an album piece. I'm like, if we cut this, I guarantee you they're going to think it's like the next Dirt Road Anthem. That's why they're going to do it. They're going to make you put out no, no, they're not.
Speaker 2:Me out no no, they're not me, and kurt like please don't make us cut, we cut it, and what? Happened. Well, it's almost to your point before. It's like if they hate it or they think it's going to ruin country music, it's a hit if you got all the old guys going.
Speaker 1:Oh, this is a hit yeah, you know it probably well. The problem with that well, the problem with that too is that I remember the day we heard it. Um, luke laird came in and played it to us. We loved it and Jason loves Joe Diffie, yeah. So we were like, yeah, man, we're going to cut it and just have fun with it. There were parts of it that I got to admit that I liked. Yeah, we thought I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:We thought that after my kind of party, that we would have some authority to say no, and it didn't work that way. And it didn't work that way. I remember them coming to me going man, this is another Dirt Road Anthem. And I remember specifically in the office going this is not Dirt Road Anthem.
Speaker 2:This is a novelty.
Speaker 1:I said let's just do a video and just put it out.
Speaker 4:No, no, no Better idea.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, this is Dirt Road Anthem.
Speaker 4:That's the thing I hate about labels sometimes.
Speaker 5:They try to repeat what they've done, but what they did to us on that song, though, what they did to us was bigger than a, than a piss poor decision, because they don't see what happens?
Speaker 1:is they're not out there every night in the road?
Speaker 5:yeah, we are living with exactly we are living with them especially especially up to the night train record, because now we've established really we're confident in what we're doing sonically. We're confident what we're doing, what we think we, what we know we are right as as a band and musically they pulled the rug out from under us in that song because it it wasn't us even though that could have been maybe a moment in time say you do the video or say maybe for another artist before we were doing my kind of party and, yeah, night training and there's a little more album, a little more, a little more.
Speaker 1:It was just more grit, a little more grit but you know it's, it is what it is it's, it's, it's a stain it's.
Speaker 5:It's a stain. You know what? I'm looking I'm looking at all of those things.
Speaker 4:All of those things were meant to be. They were meant to happen. I agree it makes you go. It's like learning lessons and we all go through it. Thankfully, you learn through it and it freaking.
Speaker 1:You're right though, but I will let you know. Every time they failed on getting something up the charts that they went to bat for pretty hard, we got more authority for the next few singles. Every time that happened, we got more authority for the next few singles. Every time that happened, we got more. So Night Train wouldn't have happened. The Truth wouldn't have happened. Yeah right, we wouldn't have had the Truth if we didn't let them have Crazy Town. We had to give them Crazy Town to get to the Truth. And Jason was like well, can we do the Truth and then Crazy Town? No, if you do the Crazy Town town, then you can have the truth, you know. So it was always something we had to do. Now you know, these stories are awesome behind closed doors. We knew what we wanted to be singles and, and we didn't mind, but we just had a different rhythm of how we wanted them to fall, you know.
Speaker 5:But crazy town is interesting. You brought that up because I remember cutting that song. I remember having fun cutting. I remember never liking the song. Really, as you know, it's one of those things that we didn't like. Now, what's funny about that song is like it's more sticky now than it was then. Like if you, if you go to our show, even playing it now, it's like it's evolved and it feels bigger now than it ever did when it was out, for some reason.
Speaker 1:Well, you gotta remember, yeah, but you weren't in fan mode, you were in man.
Speaker 4:This is kind of he was in hair mode. Yeah, well, this is quirky.
Speaker 1:I don't want to say this. We're so cool, why are we doing this? But fan mode, that would have been a song. Well, I did pitch it. You know that would have been a song. I would have pitched, you know, saying no, no, this is what I want to hear y'all sing. You know, because everything can't be cuts like a knife. You got to give them some other things.
Speaker 5:You got to give them a laugh if you cried.
Speaker 4:to keep them honest, you got to give them a laugh if you cried, thank you, you got to give them some meat.
Speaker 1:But the whole plan with Jason is to be the most commercial, to be Tim McGraw's nightmare, to be the replacement of that generation. And you can't do that if you don't walk in the room and cover all the bases, which is I can tear your head off, I can steal your girl, I can make you cry.
Speaker 4:You did it all, man. Y'all did it all.
Speaker 1:But Jason's voice does that. That's why he can sing your songs. He can sing Rodney Clawson, he can sing Wendell Mobley and he can sing David Murphy.
Speaker 4:And he would cut my songs. I would send you songs and the key that I would do it if I was doing a record and they're like up here and he would hear through all that just because of the song and take it down two whole steps.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but he heard through all that well, he loved, you gotta remember that's the smooth rock side and even the, even the ballads of lana richie, kind of really just sweet slick sides of what he does, you know. But I mean, you know he's my life in music, you know all these other things. You know the. You know my whole purpose of producing was to create this artist of the decade and I, you know it's always been my plan, you know. So when that happened it was something really, you know you're hitting yourself on the shoulder are you taking credit for the whole?
Speaker 1:I'm taking 100 credit well, you should, no, no no, but I just mean that that was always the plan. Yeah, you know. So, in order to do that, you had to go through these hurdles and these fights and these things that we did.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm speaking of hurdles and fights and all that. You know. Kind of the impetus for this podcast is obviously the song. Try that in a small town. Yes, um, so let's get your uh, your take on it. Did you ever even see the song as controversial or a risk, or how did you see it when it came in?
Speaker 4:I can't wait to hear this. What's that I can't wait to hear?
Speaker 1:no, I I never saw it controversial, because that's what we do. Yeah, you know you're it's not as a small town.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're asking somebody brought up in ashland city. You're asking somebody brought up in macon, georgia. You're asking somebody brought up in Ashland City. You're asking somebody brought up in Macon, georgia. You're asking somebody brought up in a small town. So, when you hear songs like that, to me that's nothing we haven't done before. That is a small town lifestyle vision and this is what we do. This is our target audience, this is who we are.
Speaker 1:So, to me, that was when all the controversy came. I was just excited. I was like, oh man, this is going to be bigger than we thought it was going to be. You know. So to me, um, I love the song from day one. I wanted to cut it. It was in there and and I never, um, I never saw what everybody else saw in it, I never saw it being controversial, I saw it being our lifestyle, and you know so, that's my opinion of it. Now, when it grew and did what it did, it started getting real personal, and you know so, that's my opinion of it. Now, when it grew and did what it did, it started getting real personal and you were like, hey, man, we don't think like that, we don't do that, we, we don't, we don't go.
Speaker 4:You know, do history reports on local areas you know where that song came from, right, you know where the idea came from. Is from a songwriter named kaylo uh walking power.
Speaker 2:Walking in tights talk about it is a good story, but it was walking in tights. We don't need to talk about it.
Speaker 5:Neil, it is a good story, but it was Walking in tights.
Speaker 2:I didn't know.
Speaker 4:since you produced the record, I didn't know if you actually knew where it was born. No, no, a guy in tights power walking.
Speaker 2:Tell me Caleb, give him the quick version. No, I wasn't. Were you walking in tights saying try this in a?
Speaker 1:small town? No, small town, yes, yeah, try this at a small town.
Speaker 6:The quick version is it was a prayer walk. So before my workout I was doing a little prayer walk and sometimes you pray for a couple minutes, sometimes 15. Anyway, it was a short prayer day and the sun was out. It was a beautiful day and I said, in Jesus' name, amen. I was in a happy mood and everything. Then I started thinking about the news I was watching right before I came out and they did this montage of city violence and this little lady with her mask on getting punched in the face and knocked out. And they went to the next frame and another stranger, different city sidewalk. Somebody snuck up behind him with an aluminum baseball bat, full-on hip turn, hit him in the back of the head and knocked him out right. And so I started walking faster and faster and getting madder and madder and just and said out loud says try that in a small town, yeah. So got so pissed and said, oh lord, I'm sorry because I said you, you followed it up with mfr.
Speaker 4:Yeah, my mom it watches this.
Speaker 6:So but and I asked forgiveness right away, but but nonetheless, I said I said all right, that's something right there, and then I called neil with that.
Speaker 4:I just wanted the producer of the record to know where the song was born yeah, well, it had to come from something aggressive like that in your belief.
Speaker 1:You know, because of the things you say and and and how how personal you know the lyric is and and that's probably what made people not like it is because it was the more personal you get in a song. It's funny how people really draw a line to their you know how they like it or they don't like it, yeah, and try that in a small town. It's funny how people really draw a line to how they like it or they don't like it, and try that in a small town. It never hit me as controversial but, like I said, I stay in fan zone. I really do. I stay in fan zone and when I hear the song I'm like man, we got to cut that one. That's great, we got to cut that one. So I never thought twice about it. The only thing I wanted to do is make sure the second verse doesn't choke and make sure the guitar solos are cool and make sure when it hits that airway man, there's something that resembles my kind of party is what I wanted to give it and that guitar tone.
Speaker 4:You know I wanted it to be a ballad, aggressive song it's cool for our listeners to hear how our producers brain works when you hear a song yeah, but I don't you automatically think about stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I first, it takes me about a minute to know if I like the song. You know I love music. I listen, you know, to it all the time. I wake up with it, go to bed with it, you know. So you know a song you like immediately. So that was one that I don't even have to listen to all the words because I know who wrote it. I know the, I know it's going to be right. So by the second verse was coming, I was already thinking about how to cut it. You know, which was great, you know because. But there are those and then there's some that are a lot more, a lot more effort. You know that that you got to make sound like us, or make us fit into another mold, like burning it down or something you got to make us fit somewhere that burn it down was a but yes try that in a small town amazing.
Speaker 1:Um um. You know it was funny how radio if people pay attention, man radio was giving up on that. And thank god for those people who hated it because it made it made them put it back on the plate and we were fixing to get that whole type of music pushed away. And thank god for those haters because it made that song come back into play. It made 20 people follow it, it made all these writers start writing it again and so you know, thanks to them, you know that would have been the first people I thought at the number one global, global number one party is thanks to haters because this song was negative, spins had lost its bullet the week the video came out, and thank you.
Speaker 6:Wow, thank God I didn't see that week of the charts. I thought it was doing fine.
Speaker 1:It was, but it was going slow. It was a very slow song, but thank God for that, because that brought that whole generation of what we see now. Without those things being pushed, we wouldn't have had that, you know, wow. So thanks to them, but I'm sorry, no, no, no.
Speaker 5:I mean that was great. I was just saying at Burn it Down I mentioned that, remember that song was the first time that we'd we had used like something loop, heavy, yeah, heavy loops. And so redmond sitting there in the room, I remember I'm thinking this is a departure you know, yeah, no drums until the very end.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the last course, yeah, you know of course, but it ended up fitting right in.
Speaker 5:Wait, tell me, I end up billboard song of the year. Yeah, just, and we won album of.
Speaker 1:I ended up billboard song of the year. Yeah, just, and we won album of the year at billboard.
Speaker 2:That's the last time the awards liked us I don't know.
Speaker 1:We did good with carrie.
Speaker 2:We got some yeah yeah was obviously great hey I I want to make sure that we don't uh, dismiss this, because I think it's really cool and it's a great story and you kind of brushed by it earlier. But your dad is Buddy Knox. Yeah, he had a number one song, Party Doll in the 50s. If I'm not mistaken, he was the first artist to write his own number one song. Yeah, is that right?
Speaker 1:He was the first artist in the history of rock and roll to write and sing his own number one song. Yeah, yeah, he's the first artist in the history of rock and roll to write and sing his own number one hit. Still not in the rock and roll hall of fame. Still not in the songwriters hall of fame.
Speaker 1:I gotta sit around and watch, ll cool. J get in the rock and roll hall of fame and my dad is, you know, died on a, died in a in a winnebago touring the world, because that's all he knew to do. So those things are tough and I hate to bring this up, but I even talked to the board, I even talked to the head of the Hall of Fame and they were like you know, man, it's just your dad's already passed away, it's not really relevant, it's not this, it's not this. And I remember a year and a half ago I told them I said who's the guy singing? Uh, what lift goes up where we belong? What's? That Joe.
Speaker 1:Cocker yeah.
Speaker 1:I said, oh, so you're telling me Joe Cocker's never gonna be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he's dead and she goes. Well, it's hard to get people who have passed away in the Hall of Fame and your dad's not relevant, so it'd be hard to find advertisers. And I said, well, well, number one Joe Cocker's going to be in the Hall of Fame and he's dead. And number two, we don't want a show. I just want my dad in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You can just do it tomorrow and we don't need a show. I said this isn't. You don't have to perform for us.
Speaker 1:My dad belongs in there with his Gretsch guitar, sitting in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, being the first guy to sing and write his own number one hit. And a year and a half later, joe Cocker's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and dad's still sitting there. Just because he didn't die in a plane crash with Buddy Holly, just because something didn't happen drastic to him, they let this one hit wonder. That was the first to do something go away and that's horrible. I hate that, I hate that for him and I hate the Songwriters. Hall of Fame don't recognize that either.
Speaker 2:That's horrible. I hate it for you and your whole family because that's BS. Yeah, just straight up BS. You said he died in Winnebago. Is this kind of like the 50s where you have Colonel taking all the money?
Speaker 1:Yeah, my dad died in 99. And but he was a tour, he tried to make a living. He did all this his whole life and he lived on the road. He finally cancer caught up with him. You know he lived in clubs, you know so. But but yeah, he was signed to Roulette Records. The mafia Mafia never paid him. They used to put polaroids in our mailbox of my mom and big brother wayne playing in the front yard and just say you got a great group, you got a great family, buddy, just polaroid and put it in there so dad would never go sue them for the royalties. And then when morris levy died in the 70s and um, you know, so dad started getting some money but he had already sold 20 million records. So 20 million, well, party dolls, so 20, probably about 20 million to this day 20 million singles yeah, to this day, but you gotta remember that's 1957.
Speaker 1:He was on the american graffiti soundtrack. He's been, he's been played on every. He was the the 13th biggest song in the 50s. You know it was all these things. You know, dad, just he'll lose traction every now and then because you know somebody might pass away. Elvis gets a lot of attention, these things. But I got, I got Polaroids and eight millimeters of my dad and Elvis hanging out in the military, everything. You know.
Speaker 1:Paul Anka slept in my dad's bathtub before he sang Diana. I mean, I mean there's. He drove Buddy Holly to meet Norm Petty. You know he was supposed to sing That'll Be the Day and oh Boy, you know. So it's a lot of personal things like that where you're like going God man, just because he's a nice guy and didn't scream and yell or didn't die or didn't or didn't. You know he. You know Steve Miller put the Joker has Lovey Dodovey in it. You know my dad had the hit with lovey-dovey. Yeah, I really love your peaches, let me shake your tree, lovey-dovey. But it was a blues hit too, but dad had the commercial hit. So you know he had things you know he had. He had three gold records, one of them. So probably 15, 18 million copies that's unbelievable, that's so cool.
Speaker 2:Uh, this is one of those conversations I feel I could go on for hours and hours.
Speaker 4:Oh, we could go on forever.
Speaker 6:That's one more thing.
Speaker 2:You got to go.
Speaker 6:It's a terrible transition.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 6:So maybe, jim, you could put this somewhere else. It may not make the podcast, but I think you know my father-in-law, andy Kerr and you mentioned Cross and Dixon early on.
Speaker 6:And you guys play pranks, you know, and you guys play pranks, you know, and all the artists play pranks and things like this. So he was telling me. Actually he told me a few months ago and I hit him up today and I said, hey, what was that Cross and Dixon story you had about Knox? And he said, well, it really wasn't about Cross and Dixon. They were out there on the road and they were at some festival and Aldine was out there and Knox says Andy, you still got any of that liquid ass? He said I want to play a prank on Halding. And Andy said, well, not on me. I mean, I got some in the office. So he went back he said would you go get it? And he went and got it. So apparently you sprayed it. And he told you he said don't spray much. And apparently you sprayed too much. Can you tell that story?
Speaker 1:Do I remember this? I don't. Did you not do it? Is this one of my road things? I overhandled Apparently.
Speaker 5:Too many Zimas.
Speaker 6:He said that you did it and they had to evacuate the bus.
Speaker 1:That was the story that sounds like me. I mean again, Was that? An early version of you that was probably the Hicktown version of me, but I got off the road a lot when Lawrence Mathis got on the road which is a whole other name.
Speaker 2:It's like Bealejuice.
Speaker 1:You can't really say his name, but that don't mean anything. Dude, I'm ADD If I do something to spur the moment. I don't remember half that stuff, but that sounds a lot like me and it sounds very familiar, because I used to do that to like Shoney's.
Speaker 1:I would go in shonies and get that stuff you'd buy at spencer's and put it in the ashtrays and watch everybody leave. I was like eight years now. You know what's that? 12 years old, what is that stuff? Just the same stuff. Oh, you know, you know it was just same stuff, but I you know. So that sounds like something I would do okay, yeah, you know what I love.
Speaker 5:I think people also they might like I don't know. I think it's cool. You go back to the 90s when we were Working at the same studio. We cut all the albums in.
Speaker 1:today, Same studio.
Speaker 5:Same engineer, Same guys. Every time I go in there it's just like it's going back in time. It's crazy. It's such a familiar. I think a lot of people think we're people maybe cut records in different places. Every other record it's like we're in the same place.
Speaker 4:You guys have cut in the same place this whole time.
Speaker 5:I mean seriously, you'll grab a coffee cup.
Speaker 1:And it'll be your same cup you've had, it's the same cup.
Speaker 5:I probably use when we're doing the Hicktown record.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the people you're mentioning that go to all these different studios and stuff. You can say that they're experimenting with sounds and stuff. They probably have multiple producers. They probably they probably didn't invent something. You know when, when, when you invent something, I don't care what anybody says. You know when, when Jason came out, everybody after him was bro country. That was bro country, not the inventor, that's right. You know so that you know.
Speaker 1:So, when you're there and you're inventing something, my goal, you know, we don't need to travel. We don't chase what these other people sound like. We stay true to who we are and what we do. We might experiment with one or two songs on a record, but we don't go and say, okay, let's go cut over here to sound like this, let's go cut over here to sound like this. We don't want to sound like anybody, but what we've invented and if and if and if what we did wasn't so unique, then we wouldn't be going back to the hole.
Speaker 1:And and that's important for people to understand, because that was the whole point of me saying no to platinum artists people on tour with jason would hit me up and say I want you to cut the next record, I want. I want that and I'm like going no, man, I can't do that now. I did it with Thomas Rhett because it was only going to be two songs and I never wanted to cut just two songs. But all these other platinum acts that were asking me to cut stuff, it was a true discipline to say no and save that. You know, save that sound for us. That's what I didn't want to be Dan Huff and I didn't want. I wasn't good at that. I wasn't good at producing things. Just to produce it. I had to A&R it, I had to control it, I had to be a part of it. I had to feed off a group of people that I believe in. So I did that one year with y'all, if you remember, I cut six, seven albums Worst year of my life.
Speaker 1:Worst year of my life going in there trying to be in love with six different artists cutting 60 songs. I'm like I don't love 60 songs. You know there's no way. And so I hated. I hated that process. I hated asking you for songs for the other artists I was working with. I hated pulling my crew that I thought was my crew. I know y'all had other crews, but you're my fucking crew. This is what I do, you know, this is what we do, and I hated pulling those favors with all them other acts and and that's when you started seeing me experiment with other artists, other people to find people who could fit into our world. So if it didn't work, it didn't affect us and that was a discipline. It was a tough discipline and but you know, my goal was not to be the greatest producer in the world. My goal was to help Jason become Artist of the Decade.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you did it. That was the goal. Well, we did it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know we did it. It is a.
Speaker 4:It's cool to sit over here and be a part of what you did, what Tully did, what Kurt did and Caleb will try that in a small town. Just to be a part of the Aldine ride is one of the coolest things of my career. One of the biggest things of my career, so I thank all of you guys?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but to go back when you were leaving your deal and came over to Pierre, whoa, whoa, whoa, can't be talking about my old deals, your old deals, and you were leaving and you were coming to Pierre.
Speaker 1:That was a planned situation. After coming off of Wide Open, I'm saying, okay, man, I've got to build these next group of songwriters around. So it was you. It was David Lee Murphy was coming present a little more and this whole thing was coming a little more present. Rodney Clawson was slipping away, John Rich was slipping away a little bit. There was writers that we were doing.
Speaker 4:I never thought we'd get Flyover States cut. Oh yeah, me and Delaney would just sit, and bitch and whine and just like, okay, he's got the song, they got the song. But we had a few of those. I'm just like when are they going to?
Speaker 1:cut it? Are they going to cut this? Drowns the Whiskey was seven years old, you know. Fly Over States was seven, eight, ten years old and you got to, you know. So all those things, you know we had more first-time songwriters on our albums than probably anybody. One album, what was after? I think my Kind of Party had like nine first-time cuts. Oh, really, Really yeah, Jaron Boyer, Thomas Rhett oh, yeah, Michael Tyler.
Speaker 1:No, no, michael wasn't there yet. Oh really, I brought all them in after Night Train. I was grooming them to be this next group of guys and then y'all came in current. Y'all were the two albums ago. This is your album to peak. This is what we're working for is this album, and that's why this album will be better than the last album and that's why it's clicking so much easier. That's why you can't say no to certain songs and that's why we have so many songs on this record, because you're in a zone and it takes two albums to get there. And that's why Night Train was so special for you, because you were flying by the seat of your pants and wide open.
Speaker 1:And I never thought that song would get cut, and then Night Train came and you were just ticking them off. It was you, you know, and then you know. So it's all a plan for me every three or four albums, you're bringing in a new group of writers, and jason brought y'all in this time and and that was great, you know, we all wanted to do it together anyway. So it, you know. So that that's where we are right now. This next album, y'all will probably have your best aldine cuts, you know, and you know. And then kayla, it's your turn yeah, to come back to make a comeback.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great, I like this plan well, I don't mean that in any way it's just you're welcome, do you?
Speaker 5:ever think. You know, we talk about this a lot and I think we're all guilty of it. I know I'm very guilty of this. We're just, we get your head down so much and you're working making a record and you're, we're in the studio and this last time, for some reason, you know, I got very, almost a little emotional in the studio with, with you and with all the guys on the floor, peter, thinking to myself you know, from making the demos of johnny cash and why burning all of your, you make a record, you tour, you make a record, you tour. It's like I really took stock of, like everybody, like all you guys in the process. It was like we don't stop enough to take it in, yeah, which I want to try to do that better. But, like you know, when we're making an album and we bust a lot of balls in the talk bag, mike, it's a tough room. Yes, I got news for you If you could work with us on a Bean record.
Speaker 2:It's funny because nobody would ever think of that. It's a tough room, you better.
Speaker 5:You better have thick skin. Yeah, no room for feelings in that room. And that's the magic of it, though, because I think that's. I know it's for me like I want to hold up my end of the bargain, and I know everyone on that floor. I wish someone I mean I don't know if they have recorded it, but all the ball busting, but that's part of the psychology of it.
Speaker 1:Part of the psychology of it is to push everybody's buttons to say, oh yeah, well, I'll show you, man, your shit sucks my, my stuff is great. So so we dog, I get dogged, everybody. I mean, what did redmond yell one time? You know, well, yeah, I mean, we're just gonna play like the demo. You know, like like I had no purpose in the room, you know and, and you know I mean, but we all do this, I mean we all, we all lay into each other, you know, but it's nice, man.
Speaker 1:One day, uh, kurt, you said something to me one day. One day you walked in and goes, man, good, good job on them guitars and you're the player. So that made me feel like, hey, man, I pushed him to a place that they weren't thinking about it. You know, and those are the moments you, you live for in the studio when you're cutting stuff that is so easy to cut. It's easy to cut a Neil song, it's easy to cut a hit song, but it's hard to make that hit song sound like Jason, and that's what people don't understand. The transition is because it's so good with Neil singing it. We're just trying to make it in the ballpark of your demo. Now, if nobody's ever heard your demo. We're frigging great. We have cut a masterpiece, but you hate that the world don't get to hear those things. I got a record coming out, but that's all we're, and I'm producing it.
Speaker 6:It's called Midnight Train. Well, maybe I'll get some cuts again it's called Midnight Train.
Speaker 1:But that's the truth you got to remember. Look at the people we get songs from. We get songs from David Lee Murphy, morgan Wallen, neil Thrasher, wendell Mobley, real singer, songwriter guys, guys that are elite in what they do, and y'all are a big part of Jason's direction and sound. It's like Alan Jackson. Alan Jackson, if he doesn't write the song, he defines his direction. George Strait does not define his direction. So we relied on you guys to write Jason's life and that's why Tully and Kurt and them are hitting so well with y'all is because they kind of know what Jason would say and wouldn't say Because they've lived with him for 25 years, 30 years.
Speaker 1:But that know what jason would say and wouldn't say, because they've lived with it for 25 years and that's it. And but that's so important in the process of of making jason like a song is having that process, you know and I'm a big process guy.
Speaker 5:Everything to me is a process. You know, it is such a crazy thing in there. You know, sitting in the same spot we've made all these albums in the same chair, in the same, looking at the same view, like I wouldn't know what to do if I was sitting where kurt was and looking at you through the glass you should change it up sometime when they okay, I'll try next time.
Speaker 4:As a matter of fact, see what happens. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't change it up, I make them.
Speaker 1:When I pull in the studio, I make somebody was parked in my spot and he was in the other studio. Who would do that?
Speaker 4:he was in the other studio knew nothing about us it comes down to that everybody parks in the same spot every album that that that is my tradition is hey, I pull up by the door and I sit there and make them move.
Speaker 1:I'll sit out in the car and we won't even start until they move their freaking car, I can't tell you walking in even in the control room and it ain't, it ain't an ego thing, it's a tradition, it's almost it has to be a certain way, like if walking in that studio it's the same furniture, nothing's.
Speaker 5:This is not an updated place like no, this place was already burnt down I mean, like I said, I mean they're not restored. Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful, it's like, in that sense, like man, this is like what a rare thing to be a part of. When you start rolling down the road and you start, it just becomes part of life. When you look at it outside for one second, like it's like really unique, oh, it's a shit yeah but, it's like going back to your hometown and it's a piece of shit, but you feel awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're like going. Oh my god, man, this place is run down, but can I just stay here? You know, this makes me feel awesome and um, but yeah, I mean, I mean the whole place. We, we cut the, we cut the, the, the relentless record, and we had the safeties and the master sitting on the board and we were going to start mixing the next day.
Speaker 1:I go in the next day and the whole building's burnt down, but the control room and the tracking room, everything's burnt down. The doors melted shut. You know I going to take from Trump God saved our masters that day. It's amazing. The doors melted shut, the glass didn't break, you know how it should have melted and went in and smoked up and destroyed everything that whole control room and the other room, but everything else burnt down. So while they're mixing the album, I'm coming in every day. Peter and them are having to change shirts two or three times a day. They're in the control room mixing, the doors are melted, I'm walking through burnt wood everywhere and there's black smoke coming in the air conditioner vents and they're mixing the whole. So that's probably what happened to the Relentless record events and they're mixing the whole, so that's probably what happened to their relentless record if everybody was high as a kite on on burnt smoke, you know yeah, that's what it was, yeah we'll blame it on that.
Speaker 6:Sounds good. We'll blame it on that I.
Speaker 2:I feel like the relationship that we have and that we all have. I honestly feel like this will never be duplicated. Yeah, the way it happened, how it's happened and we didn't even touch, like you kind of did when you first met jason, I mean, you were like you said, you were giving gift cards, you were taking them to movies, you were taking them to go-karts you did that with us too. Not only were you the producer, you were our mentor. It has been an amazing ride, and the fact that you've included us on it and we were a part of it is just unbelievable.
Speaker 4:We're really appreciative but you don't get this on air, yeah, let's do it, let's do it on air, I mean don't expect much the people listening. Uh won't be able to see this, but we have a little gift for knox today. Oh, they can hear it yeah I don't know how you're gonna yeah, that ain't gonna pull so maybe, maybe we need enough. There you go, do it, there we go it's fragile it's what it's pretty easy, fragile from france.
Speaker 2:You see what this says. This this says for gilly or italian or whatever it says, it says nox. Thanks for for thanks for always making us sore.
Speaker 4:Is that what it says? Well, how do you spell sore? Yeah, no, no. It says thanks for making us all sound good, you in store, and it says you rock sorry about that.
Speaker 1:I didn't see nothing on there. Oh, there we go. Oh there it is. This is awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is awesome, this is incredible some of the people that are just listening. We ended up. Neil, did you hand write those lyrics? I did. That's awesome. That's my ability.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's what I was about to ask.
Speaker 1:This is awesome. This is a man cave thing.
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 1:This is great, yeah, and this song saved us, you know, saved us like she's Country saved us. Saved us Like I said you said.
Speaker 2:We feel like it was meant to be for a lot of reasons. It kind of gave us a reason to have a voice here as well.
Speaker 5:And it meant a lot that you were a believer in it, because I think the believers in this song are around this table and Jason and you, we were on an island alone with this a little bit and we appreciate you, you know, being the steering the ship we do With it all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I appreciate all that. But y'all don't understand. I love all the compliments, I love all the Don Was, I love all those things, but all I am is a contractor. You know, the only talent I have is is putting teams together, and that's that's how I look at it. You know, I can't sing, I don't play, I'm tone deaf, I don't. You know, I don't. I don't know when things are, I don't know what's wrong with it, I just know it don't sound right. So I always say, hey, man, let's keep going until it feels good. So I always rely on how it feels, not on what, how technically good it is.
Speaker 5:You always say, though, I gotta make sure I get this in there. I remember you say this a lot, and you're like man, if it feels good, it is good. Yeah, and that that that to me is, is a lost art today.
Speaker 1:Like it feel good I think, the rest of the world agrees well, that's what I learned from you guys is to stay in my, in my zone, in my lane of what. What I bring to the table and, and you know, it just happens to be in the producer role, you know, and. But you guys bring in the attitude, you guys bring in the songs, you guys bring in the, the emotions, and, and y'all bring in the. What we're chasing is to kill the live show. You know, and I know record labels. The last thing they want to hear is man, this will be, bring in the.
Speaker 1:What we're chasing is to kill the live show. You know, and I know record labels. The last thing they want to hear is man, this will be great in the show. Labels hate to hear that and I don't know why. I have no idea. You know, because they don't spend any time on the road, yeah, and they're listening to somebody at radio telling them what they'll play, and then we'll give them what they asked for and what they'll play. And then we'll give them what they asked for and it dies at 15, you know. So it's. I don't want their job either. You know, because you know a. You know a and r in the 90s is a lot different than a and r today. A and r today is is struggling. A and r today don't know artist development.
Speaker 5:They don't know, they don't know artist well artist development today is done by tiktok and youtube and what's not artist development, it's artist research and it's artists.
Speaker 1:You know they think it's something. So now we got a group of novelties, we got a bunch of people that that that that can get a lot of clicks for something that maybe not is long lasting. You know something that that you know when you develop a talent and you build something, you and when they fall down, they can pick back up. You know it's very athletic, it's very, it's very aggressive, like that, where today's world it's like yo man. You know it's real easy to invest in this because I don't care to get above a B anymore, I just want to be a B. But B can make me money, b can break even.
Speaker 1:But we have no superstars. You know we have no 10-year plans right now. And I know we got some stars, I know we got some great singers, but but you know there's always going to be a couple that will rise. But man, the 90s and and early 2000s were a whole lot different, you know, and and it was the independence that did it and their independence will do it again well, plus, you did, you could develop it though you were, you were great at that.
Speaker 5:You developed a whole you. You developed the whole sound over over a period of time. You know people don't have the the patience for that. Now to actually see what comes out of it or what it could be.
Speaker 1:Well, that was funny man. But the whole warner chapel productions, all that came from us developing jason, you know I signed gretchen. They took points off her, they took points off jason. Emily west, um, so you know, started that whole process of the warner chapel. You know division and then people don't invest in that anymore. Well, they don't invest in. You know, publishing develops talent, record labels don't anymore. You know, record labels are getting rid of radio teams. It's still funny. People with number one hits sells out stadiums.
Speaker 5:Well, we I tell everyone this, like you can. Still, there's no denying the feel if you're a young artist, okay. If you've got, if you're streaming, well, great, can you sell out a club? I don't know. You get a top 10, yeah, tops one. Even you start going out there, you start seeing the difference. Okay, all of a sudden you're filling up a club. So it does matter, in this format especially.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I'm not going to throw any artists under the bus because they all have done it the way that they feel they can do it. But there's a lot of new artists out there right now that are really big on TikTok or something, but you see them singing and you see them blowing their voice. You see them not having any kind of long-term stability in what they're doing and you're just like, wow, man, well, they're really big right now, but it's such a gimmick. Is there anybody in A&R where that can help them evolve into something else? Because, going back to, are there any people who can get out of a sophomore slump? That would be a best way to saying it.
Speaker 1:We got out of it because we knew how not to give up. We did 40 showcases. We played in front of people. We played in front of people walking out the door before our first course. We played 40 showcases to people that did not want to be there, and so we had that. These people today don't play that. They don't. They don't. They don't suffer like that. They don't do that.
Speaker 2:No it's an amazing point, and gary lavox was on here and he said the same thing and I thought it was a brilliant point. It isn't like what you can do to win a crowd over, what are you going to do when you fail? How do you know what to do then? Yeah, and that's exactly what you're saying.
Speaker 5:I think it's but they're not doing the showcase, they're not playing the bars. They didn't grow up doing it. They're not failing. They're not doing the 40 showcases or one showcase. They're just showing up on tour, yeah for someone, and they don't know how to do it or how to handle it and it's. It's just a crazy time looking out like that.
Speaker 1:Well going back to where we are right now, talking about this song and the idea, how you got the idea and everything. We're in a world now where people aren't allowed to think that or write that. So just to have that idea and say, you know, man, I'm gonna throw this up to guys in the room, I'm going to write this you have no idea how much that's jumping off a cliff when we were sitting through a COVID where they said no more, no more, no more of this, you know, no more patriot people. Hey, man, forget this. We want this and this and this. So just to bring that idea in number one and to say, hey, I'm going to write this, you write this. You're you know, I know, you know these people, but it's still a big deal to throw words out there, to throw a song out there, to throw an idea like that it was almost not written yes, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:I'm sure it was all. It was probably almost not singled, I bet if jason wasn't jason oh it wouldn't have been single. We talk about this all the time.
Speaker 5:But you know, the only people that were for the song are at this table and Jason, that's it. Like everyone else, you know, and I guess that's what will always bother me is like the believers are at this table and Jason is not here. But obviously, if he was here but you know, the people that were pushing so hard against it and to this day are, probably you won't say they loved it. They had no problem benefiting from it. Yeah, yeah, no, and and that's that's the thing, that, that, that that's what really will always bother me about it.
Speaker 4:Like, if you don't support it, well, you support it enough to benefit from yeah, yeah, I know you're right yeah, and I that's you know what at this, at this stage in my career, I'm good with it. Y'all can take credit if you want to. Whatever, because I knew it was going to come anyway. The naysayers now they're saying they knew it all the time. No, you didn't.
Speaker 6:No, you didn't, and that's okay.
Speaker 4:Whatever?
Speaker 6:One of the reasons we were so excited to have you on on the podcast is is because, with without you, all those years ago and your gifts, and you're super humble, saying I'm not this, this, this. You're a lot of things. You, at the time, you're the label, you're the manager, you're the producer, you're the booking agent, you're doing everything, you're finding the right sound, the right guys and believing in aldine like that. And because, if, if you wouldn't have done that, try that in small town, we might have wrote it, but Aldine wouldn't have been here to record it.
Speaker 1:So it would have just been sitting in your computer somewhere and nobody would have ever heard it. And one thing we never spoke about is putting the band together. I know, S-I-R I know, All them other musicians that came in and was trying out. I, the musicians that came in and was trying out. I know who's the one dude running around the room, mark easterling, I don't know if you're out there, but yeah, oh, he was great too. He was just, he was just, wasn't.
Speaker 5:He just wasn't the poser he just ran around the room, so we got a guitar player, though, uh, he's not here right now but he's gonna be here. Be here in two hours.
Speaker 1:I'm in St Louis. I'll be there in two hours and we're like going. St Louis is a lot more than two hours away.
Speaker 5:Well, that was my first day. I told Aldine and Knox. I said I've got the guy, I've got the guitar player. He's going to be it's like 930. I said, just talk to him no-transcript but seriously though it's like it may be another segment, but it's a whole that I still remember the first big show we did.
Speaker 1:you came in in in white leather pants. That's right, and I asked Kurt. I said I said, man, where does a dude find white leather pants? And he goes they're chick pants.
Speaker 4:I definitely can't there has to be pictures somewhere, oh there are unfortunately a lot of pictures.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's, it's. It's an amazing, it is a journey. I remember the whole process of like, I remember starving, being a band and starving and michael creating, creating showcases that you know no one would come to, but just to give us a couple rehearsals where we could make a hundred bucks to rehearse and maybe some free pizza or something we'd had. La paz, yeah, I mean that's, but uh, I don't, it's just cool how one act, al dean brought all of us together.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm saying that's why this, this, will never be duplicated. I just believe that for a fact because not today? No, because business is not run this way. No, it should be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they need to quit bringing people outside of nashville into our record labels telling us you know what we should be hearing and who we are. They need to be investing in in the town. The town in the 90s was all creative. All the people at the record labels were tony brown, tim dubois, mark wright. You know they were. These were all creative people, with bruce hentons who stayed out of their way. Or you know dungeons who stayed out of tim's way. You know it was a generation of creative people with Bruce Hentons who stayed out of their way. Or you know Dungans who stayed out of Tim's way. You know it was a generation of creative people running the show. And you know, and then that when that changed and you had people coming in here going, no, no, y'all should be doing it. You should be listening to this. You should cut this. You should be that we need to sign this person because they didn't make it out here, but they would be great here because these people are idiots.
Speaker 1:You know so but so I hate that. I hate where the town is right now, because they're not investing in us, they're investing in something else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're not investing in people or the you know the town, which is really unfortunate. Anybody got anything else?
Speaker 4:I mean we do, but but we can go on forever, we can totally go on forever, we can keep knocking this again.
Speaker 6:Yeah, we're gonna definitely have to come back and do another, another part two, because it's uh, we again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's so much we didn't even get to. Uh, we do need to tell people. If you're watching on youtube, leave us a comment. It's a pretty awesome episode. I know ed's gonna leave us some comments leave us those five star reviews download. Uh, we obviously want to thank our sponsors. We want to thank patriot mobile, we want to thank original glory e-spaces. Uh, tonight has been special for us. Really. Thank you, michael for being here.
Speaker 1:It's been special for me too. It's been awesome, yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you bro, thank you guys. This is the Try, that in a Small Town podcast. See you next time.
Speaker 3:Make sure to follow along subscribe share rate the show no-transcript.