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
Bourbon, Ballads and Big Tech's Threat to Songwriting :: Ep 69 Try That in a Small Town Podcast
In this episode-with-a-twist, Neil, Kurt, Tully and KLo sit down with 20-year-old podcaster Christian Hodges for a raw, unfiltered conversation that goes far beyond the headlines.
The conversation takes unexpected turns as they explore how country music has captured the hearts of younger generations, with 50% of young people now gravitating toward the genre. "With a country artist, they buy into the person, the personal brand," one songwriter explains, highlighting how authenticity creates lasting careers that pop music often can't sustain.
Perhaps most compelling is their candid discussion about artificial intelligence's looming shadow over their craft. "When I heard a song come out of that machine with a demo behind it, it blew my mind because it had emotion," Kurt admits, revealing genuine fear about AI's ability to replicate the human element of songwriting. This leads to a passionate debate about creativity, technology, and the future of their livelihood.
The episode culminates with deeply personal reflections on faith, family, and what they believe the next generation should never abandon. Christian shares his miraculous survival story—emerging from a six-day coma with viral encephalitis that carries a 10% survival rate—which resonates profoundly with the songwriters' own perspectives on prayer and purpose.
Whether you're fascinated by the creative process behind hit songs, concerned about technology's impact on art, or simply curious about the values that shape country music, this conversation offers rare insight into the minds behind the music that defines modern America. Listen now to hear what happens when songwriters speak their unvarnished truth.
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So everyone knows like where Joe Biden fell off the bicycle right. Everyone's seen that viral clip that's so good. So I was talking to Neil before all you latecomers got here.
Speaker 3:We were on time for the show.
Speaker 1:I'd be here to your stomping ground. It's okay, but I was telling Neil that's like where he fell off. It's just like in a parking lot. It's like 20 minutes from where I grew up. It's in Rehoboth Beach, that's where Joe Biden's beach house is, but it's just in the parking lot where I pull up to go to the beach. It's the cheapest parking around, that's where I go, and he just fell off right there. So someone on Google Maps renamed that one spot, that parking lot, brandon Falls. Are you serious? I'm dead serious.
Speaker 4:That's amazing, dude, that's incredible.
Speaker 3:So we'll just be writing songs early and thinking, okay, if I get any kind of idea, personally I think, okay, that's Aldine. First thing I'm going to do is call Neil and if he loves it, then we'll save it, tuck it away and then start working on it.
Speaker 5:Then, if he doesn't, then I'll try to write it with somebody else, but you're just trying to write wait, wait, wait what if you don't like it, you know most people just want to exist in in a landscape of common sense and just exist. No one, you know nobody wants. I don't know anyone who that's moved here from california that is trying to maybe force their policies. Most of them are trying to escape it and just live. Force their policies. Most of them are trying to escape it and just live normally.
Speaker 4:Maybe some of those people are in Nashville proper.
Speaker 6:I mean, Nashville is more Democratic, yeah of course, the Try that in a Small Town Podcast begins now.
Speaker 1:And we're back with the Try that in a Small Town podcast, if anybody ever wonders who's doing that crazy voice on the eSpaces intro.
Speaker 7:You're welcome eSpacescom.
Speaker 4:This is the Try that, in a Small Town podcast Coming to you from the Patriot Mobile Studios Powered by eSpacescom, try that in this small town podcast coming to you from the patriot mobile studios, uh, powered by e-spacescom nailed it. We love it here, we absolutely love her.
Speaker 7:That's thrash. Thank you, we got kaylo tk. I'm due hello, we're gonna go with you. Yeah, okay, I mean that's fine now I'm gonna go with douche, oh no.
Speaker 5:Oh no, let's take it right into our new episode. Yeah, exactly, it blends so well.
Speaker 4:It is so you guys are going to want to check this out. This is very, very different. Tonight we have a guest on. His name is Christian Hodges. He has a podcast of his own america don't give up, isn't that? Right, he has a book, uh, with the same title. You'll want to check this out.
Speaker 7:Uh, he's 20 years old yeah, he was nobody's supposed to be.
Speaker 4:That be our grandson yeah, he wrote the book when he was 17, I think yeah, crazy, this kid is impressive, uh, and I don't want to call him a kid because he's got an old soul and he's he's a man now. Yeah, it's, it's really cool what's about to happen. He's gonna he's gonna basically interview us.
Speaker 7:I think it's gonna go out on both podcasts, um I was a little uncomfortable at first, without being interviewed on my own podcast. I was a little little, I didn't know what was coming. Well, he was sitting in your chair. So I mean, that's it. That's uncomfortable at first, without being interviewed on my own podcast. I was a little little, I didn't know what was coming. Well, he was sitting in your chair or something. That's what it was.
Speaker 3:Maybe that was it. Well, this is the intro, so you really don't know what happened. We're fooling people into believing that it's about to happen?
Speaker 7:The secret's out.
Speaker 4:The secret's out. We already did the interview. We're just trying to make you believe this is the intro. You see what we did.
Speaker 5:Who needs?
Speaker 4:AI, but it's actually. I think you guys are going to really enjoy this. Maybe it'll be a thing.
Speaker 5:Maybe we can do it, maybe that'll be a thing that we have other people come on and While Tom Brady, come on and interview us.
Speaker 4:Interview us Because really we're very interesting.
Speaker 5:Very yeah. I think, so We'll find out, won't we?
Speaker 3:And we have a lot of spare time, yeah, so much spare time.
Speaker 4:Anyway, let's not waste any more time. Let's get to it with Christian Hodges.
Speaker 1:We're back for season two of America. Don't Give Up. We're starting off strong for season two of America. Don't Give Up, we're starting it off strong.
Speaker 7:Jason Aldean's guy, some of his writers, you're a little too comfortable on our set. I like it I wasn't expecting that comfortable Really.
Speaker 1:No, I like it.
Speaker 7:The Lord said have dominion.
Speaker 1:Proceed, sir, I love this.
Speaker 7:This is a cool format here. Go ahead.
Speaker 1:There we go. You guys are in the hot seat tonight. Okay, all right. These are the guys who wrote Try the Another Small Town Back when the BLM stuff broke out, I was about 15. What I just turned, 20 last week. Are you serious? No, bro, I just turned 20. I remember, wait, you're 20? I'm 20. Wait a minute I'm going to make you guys feel old a little bit.
Speaker 4:We got shoes older than you, that we use on stage. I was going to ask if you wanted something to drink, but I guess not, no.
Speaker 1:You got songs older than me. Oh God, here we go. Uh-oh, here we go. I'm going to get kicked out. Here we go, I'm going to get kicked out. But these are the guys who were at Trident, in a small town Back when that stuff broke out, because you guys released that just before BLM broke out, right If?
Speaker 4:I remember. Yeah, it was right around that time.
Speaker 1:Just about before. Yeah, I think I was going to my brother's graduation in West Virginia when the George Floyd stuff broke on the TV. That's when I remember seeing it. That kind of got my start in politics a little bit and threw me into it. But back then what's going through your head to release that? Before the BLM stuff broke out no one knew George Floyd was going to happen. But you guys were already ahead of the curve. You didn't release it for the BLM stuff.
Speaker 3:It was well after George. Floyd we're not great at timing and remembering things like that, but it really wasn't.
Speaker 1:We didn't write it in response to BLM that's the way I ever took it, of course definitely not the case that's exactly right.
Speaker 5:Jason's vision for that song was always, once he heard the song and liked it, it was always to release it with a video, yeah, together at the same time. Um, what happened was the label, I think, kind of got scared of the video and said, well, let's let the song do its thing first and then put the video out. It was supposed to come out together and it really wasn't trying to prove any point other than just look how crazy stuff is, and do we really like the way things are right now? So it certainly wasn't a timing thing or anything like that. It was just looking back on it. It was a very crazy time and I think that's why it struck a nerve is that it was hard to look at for a lot of people that that was happening.
Speaker 5:That's real footage that's not that's not acting, that's not, you know, scripted, you know. So I think it hit people in a weird way what year was it, kaylo, that you saw?
Speaker 7:what year was it that that all came? I don't.
Speaker 3:I don't remember what I mean it had to be when the song came out in may so it would have been. Yeah, we were talking about it over Christmas break, so it seems like it was 22. Yeah, it was K-Lo, so I think it was 22.
Speaker 3:K-lo came up with the title Okay, but it was in response to just like what happened, I think, in Cincinnati, where you had a group of people beating up one guy, right Okay, and just kicking him in the head, hitting him in the head as hard as possible. That just happened. I was watching Fox News and I just saw they put together a bunch of violence like that just a little lady getting hit in the face with her mask on, you know, just a stranger knocks her completely out, and they go to the next frame and it's six people beating people, beating up a 70 year old man and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:And so I just got to thinking about all that and and I just got madder and madder as I was thinking about it and I just said, try that in a small town, just kind of in anger, you know, and and then, when I did, that's when I thought oh all right, that could be let me call neil real quick, and so and so, and so we did, and that's how that that started and you can take over the story no, it was just a response to that.
Speaker 7:We write we. That's when we wrote on tuesdays, yeah, and he and I was ready to play golf because it was a pretty day, and he said I don't think we're playing golf today, and so he told me the title and I was like, oh my god, here we go. And it was like this thing has to be written exactly like you would think we didn't think it was going to get cut you thought it was too political, or you just didn't think.
Speaker 7:Yeah, I just didn't know it was just, there's only we. We said that day we kind of got started on a little bit and got through it and I go, dude, I was like there's only one artist on the planet that would ever even consider saying this. And that's when we called Curt and Tully. It was like, dude, you've got to help us finish this song. And the rest was history.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you said you just came up with the title just off the cuff, out of anger, Like when you're going to write songs. Do you usually come up with the title before, or does it matter? Is there any process to it?
Speaker 3:I like to have something before, just so you don't come in empty. You know, but everybody does it differently. You know somebody else might just have a groove going and then the idea people will be scanning through see if they have an idea for that and you guys may do it differently, but it happens in all there's no set thing.
Speaker 7:That's the cool thing I love about writing with all three of these guys is kaylo is a great idea, guy like try, that in small town was his title, tough crowd was his, was his title. And then and then I'll get musical inspiration and tracks from these two guys that are like will totally inspire a whole song. I mean the whole thing can be. I'll see it when I hear their tracks and stuff and and I hear that stuff and then if we take a song that we've started or a title to them and go in the studio, they actually make it a song Kurt turns into the mad scientist.
Speaker 7:I don't even see his face. The rest of the day he's just doing this on the computer like this and putting track, and then he picks up a guitar and plays and Tully's over there bitching at me.
Speaker 3:I say, come on, neil, that line was great. Talk to us, we're right here, you can't avoid that.
Speaker 1:But does it matter whether you record the track first or write?
Speaker 5:the lyrics, I don't care.
Speaker 1:You just put them together, mash them together.
Speaker 5:Generally, what we like to do is we'll go into writing and will have some, some ideas, some some landscape of a thought, a sonic piece, and, like kayla said, I like to look through the, the titles and see what. What does that feel like, you know? And and I never like to start any kind of right without a any kind of title or hook or thought. It just leads to nowhere.
Speaker 1:Just an idea, yeah.
Speaker 5:I mean. So it's a but try that in a small town. What was funny is God has a way of handling things, and that's something he handled. I'll never forget when Neil sent he goes. Man, I got this rough sketch of an idea. He sent it on a voice memo. I put it down. I called him right away.
Speaker 5:I said this is it, this is what we've been waiting for, and we finished it and I still didn't believe it at all, at all I said, this is what we've been waiting for and you know, to cut through the rest of, we finished it and it just all came together like the same week track.
Speaker 5:We, we finished it was pretty quick because I remember when we got the the demo finished, when neil's singing the demo, um, I sent it to aldine. It was december and I sent it. And how long is that song? Three minutes, 302, 303 it Four minutes. Aldine calls. Really, he goes this is what we've been needing. It just came together. It was like the hook that Caleb had, with the honest lyric and the southern rock kind of sound that we put to. It was just this, god handles that stuff.
Speaker 1:It was an old school, Aldine and modern country. I got to tell you we're on tour this year.
Speaker 5:What's the third year we handles that stuff? Yeah, it's an old school, aldean and and modern country. Yeah, yeah, and it just I gotta tell you like we're on tour this year.
Speaker 5:What's the third year we're touring on this or third, is this third tour for the song? It's bigger. It's bigger than it was the first go around and and, uh, this year, you know, jason's not really on the tour we're on now. The the last two years he's kind of set it up where he would talk about it. This year we just busted into it and it is.
Speaker 1:They're waiting for it, they're waiting for it every night Really. Oh yeah, Where's that on the set list? Middle Middle.
Speaker 4:It's middle, a little bit down, so it's like two-thirds of the way down. It's a good spot. It's when the show. You know. It's like here we're simmering, we're simmering, and then that one goes and we're starting to ramp up to the end. It's a perfect spot for it. Yeah, so.
Speaker 1:Kurt Tully. So you're playing guitar for him, you're playing bass for Jason. Is that like the peak of your performance, the rock aspect of that coming into it? Do you like look forward to that song in the set list? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, what do you think this song? Means a lot to us for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 5:You know it was really good for us. It's. It's been great for us as writers, together as a team. Um, you know it's a bond. Um, I definitely look forward to it, just because I know the crowd is looking forward to it. Yeah, you know, um, and this year what's great is we added at the end of it, we've added an extended guitar kind of solo section, so we even get more stuff out of it.
Speaker 3:You know more time, more bang for the buck yeah, yeah I bet kurt loves that it was my idea well, and I actually, uh, I didn't even know these guys until until that song, like we never met him you know, I heard about them and their writing producing and I knew they're in jason's band and stuff but and neil knew him and I'd you know and I'd written for a long time but I'd never written with him at all but neil said hey man this is this is right up there.
Speaker 3:Alley said let's give him a call, said great, you know, let's do it. And then now, I don't know, a couple years later, here we are making no money in a podcast. It's amazing. It's amazing what God does.
Speaker 4:We know how to parlay something good, don't we?
Speaker 3:God can take something and turn it into nothing. Sometimes it's really amazing.
Speaker 8:My name is Glenn Story. I'm the founder and CEO of Patriot Mobile. And then we have four principles First Amendment, Second Amendment, Right to Life, Military and First Responders. If you have a place to go put your money, you always want to put it with somebody that's like mine, Of course. I think that's the beauty of Patriot Mobile we're a conservative alternative.
Speaker 6:Don't get fooled by other providers pretending to share your values or have the same coverage. Go to patriotmobilecom. Forward, slash smalltown to get a free month of service when you use the offer code smalltown or call 972-PATRIOT, you know what goes great with small town stories?
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Speaker 7:You know I've been drinking this every songwriting session today.
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Speaker 1:Join our original glory family and help ignite that original glory spirit. Back when I started my show, people were telling me don't go into it. The one thing that you should remember when you're making a podcast don't go into it to make money. If you do you're disappointed, right yeah. Damn it, wade you didn't tell us that.
Speaker 4:You told us the opposite.
Speaker 5:Wait a minute, wade, you said, we'll make money. I'm kidding.
Speaker 7:No, we're having a.
Speaker 5:that's one thing that God puts together with that song. We're having so much fun on the podcast. It is fun.
Speaker 1:I look forward to it it doesn't feel like you have to do it, but you still have to do it right.
Speaker 7:If we were going to quit, we should have quit six months ago.
Speaker 3:We're past the point of no return. Now, I never dread it.
Speaker 1:Ever, I always look forward to getting here, especially when you're here, it's like cool's gonna be fun. Yeah, you know, yeah, that's good. Uh, something I did want to hit on is how I mean back in 2023, the statistic was, uh, that 50 of like young people and say under 30 under 30 is called that young people. Uh, gen z's 1997 onto 2012. Uh, that's kind of been become like my niche and going on fox and newsmax and even with the show, I'm talking to young people my age, so they're about 12, or they're all the way up to 28 or 30. And I'm right there, smack dab in the middle, just turning 20. And I found the niche talking to young people. But in 2023, the statistic was that 50% of those young people were drawn to country music. That was their number one genre of music and I think we've even seen it in the past two years With what Morgan Wallen's done. He's taken over the game, right. It's hard to beat him.
Speaker 1:The sad truth is it's hard to beat him. I mean, how do you see that when you're writing songs, do you think about who you're writing to?
Speaker 3:It depends when we're writing. Do you think about who you're writing to? It depends, like, when we're writing I always say, like when a certain artist is in season, they're going in the studio, they're getting close. All we're thinking about, like anytime Aldine is getting ready, even I don't know six months prior really. Oh, at least you know, because it takes a long time, you know, to get the right thing for an artist like that. You know because, and so so we'll just be writing songs early and thinking, okay, if I, if I get any kind of idea, personally I think, okay, that's aldine. First thing I'm gonna do is call neil, you know, and if he loves it, then we'll save it, tuck it away and then start working on it. Then, if he that, if he doesn't, then I'll try to write it with somebody else. But but you're just trying to write wait, wait, wait what?
Speaker 3:if you don't like it, you know, but um, but anyway, like you are trying to and most of the town is trying to write for the next biggest artist, that's cutting right now. That's what everybody's trying to, yeah, trying to do that that's just business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, uh. Part of that I think. I mean you see some new artists coming on, forrest frank he's on the christian side, pop side, coming into things, but we even see that as a christian. Usually you don't have Christian artists cracking the Billboard Top 100.
Speaker 1:That doesn't happen, it's not a thing, is it? He's coming into it. I think I mean he understands the production end of it. He really does, and I was at a concert of his in Birmingham back in April. How was it? It was really good. It was a very diverse age range. You had kids who were 10, and you had grandparents who were with them and they wanted to come together as a family. You don't see that often, you don't. But the thing I really liked about his show he stopped at just men's show and he got on his MacBook and broke down a song, each piece. He started from the very beginning. There was nothing on the song. He added each layer to it. Oh cool.
Speaker 4:And showed how he created the song.
Speaker 1:Very cool Very cool, but as the artist itself, he understands it. I don't know. If you do, you see that artists actually get the production behind it, or is that?
Speaker 4:pretty unique. Well, I think it's very unique. It reminds me of Ed Sheeran kind of did that sort of thing too. You know, he would show his loop making thing. He'd do a little and then that would loop, and then he'd get a little guitar part. Then he'd put the keyboard and he would show people live, kind of creating the loop effect, and then he'd sing, you know, shape of you or something, yeah, so that's the only thing I can compare to that.
Speaker 4:That's a really cool idea, though, and a way to connect to some of that younger generation. You know, shoot, we're old guys like that kind of just goes over our head. Yeah, in a way to to put on a show like that.
Speaker 1:But I think that's cool man, I think it's super cool yeah, I mean I think that's the most unique part of a concert I think I've seen. Yeah, is saying that I've never really understood that before, like you see, like I mean growing up like a computer class and all of that, you have garage man and all of that sure, completely different right. Yeah, obviously, um, but I think part of that and the reason why there's there's kids who attend there, a reason why I think majority of the people there are my age okay, it's hard to see at a concert um, but the reason why is that his lyrics are actually connect with young people explaining their problems. But he's not just saying you're lonely, he's saying you've got tension in your neck, you don't feel good today, but he's breaking it down in that way. I think it's one way he's really been able to connect with them. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that and how he's connecting with the youth.
Speaker 5:I think every genre connects differently, though, oh 100%.
Speaker 5:My son's 18 and creates music in his logic and all this stuff, and he does. But I think the country audience what they're looking for is, and every genre is a little bit different what you're talking about. I spent some time as a musician in the Christian genre and toured and I spent time in the rock genre and country genre and what I love about the country genre is they're really hung up on the storytelling as much as it has to feel good and feel like something they've recognized. It might feel like an 80s or 90s rock song, but it's got some meat to the lyric. So that's what I look for. I like the connection there and why a song might connect. I think it's just a matter of a different.
Speaker 4:Every genre is different it is 100% and I think that is a major part of it. And the other part of it with country artists is people are buying into the artist as well. With the pop thing, it's just you like the song and it goes and you might not even know who it is and they might not even have another hit.
Speaker 5:But with a country artist they buy into the person, the personal brand, yes, yeah, and I think that makes a huge difference, which is why it's the only genre, kind of low, I will say, kind of like christian, in a sense of a like a michael w, michael w smith you know, country artists, if you really, if you really are loyal to your fan base, you can have a 40 year run, 30 year run. I mean just big touring, you know, I think they stay, I think that's the one thing that that a few pop acts have achieved, but yeah, but not quite as many as I mean country acts and you can. You can be around for a long time, make a great living as a country artist. You don't have to be an aldean or luke bryan or kenny chesney. You can be a nice mid-level act and have a nice run of five six, seven, number one hits yeah and and be around for 20 years as long as you want to.
Speaker 5:Really, I mean, yeah, you know, so that's, that's a great thing.
Speaker 1:I think it's still. You think it's harder to break into now.
Speaker 5:Then I think it's harder to stay. Stay okay. I think you can break in if you have a viral moment, which generally aren't. I think they're quick hits. I think it's harder for an artist to have a second hit and a third hit now once they have the first one. I think it used to be hard to have a first hit, harder than it is now, but maybe you could follow it up with with two or three good songs. I feel like now, with the way the viral moments are, it's such a quick burn. The audience doesn't give you that other chance you could. I mean, you can look at it like a shibuzi. That that that song? What bar song?
Speaker 5:yeah whatever huge, massive song yeah, it's almost so massive he can't come out of the shadow of it, not saying that he's not good enough, or shouldn't? I'm just saying it's hard to.
Speaker 1:That was what his first. That was his first as far as I know.
Speaker 7:It's the kind of thing and he's the kind of artist you go. What's he going to do next? How's he going to maintain that? Does he have a brand?
Speaker 5:and is he relatable as an artist or was it just a hit or a viral moment? You can look at it like a Walker Hayes and a fancy big moment. You know good form really good. I mean, he toured on that moment and it's just hard to come with something with a lot of meat on it when you have that kind of moment for them to take you seriously.
Speaker 1:I think it's a little more difficult now, because if you look at how you're marketing and distributing songs, distributing an album, it's all on social media now, isn't it? Yeah? I mean, before, back in the day, it was just radio. You're relying on radio. I mean, how has that changed the game?
Speaker 4:just going to social media, yeah well, 180 is changed the game, but you know they're still their country. Music fans still do digest songs on the radio right now. I mean, it's not as much as it used to be, but they still do it.
Speaker 1:Is that dying out? Is that on the way down? Yes, is it going to hit a People have said it for years. Radio's going away.
Speaker 3:Radio's going away. I mean it's not going away and the last format to go away would be country, most likely and speaking of that, as far as songwriters go, if we didn't have radio, we wouldn't.
Speaker 5:We wouldn't be here right now doing this free podcast I think there's a reason to your point, though I think there's a reason why, artists still really care about number ones is because it does matter.
Speaker 5:You know if you know, for if you got an artist and you're streaming a million streams a week on a song doesn't mean you can go sell 5 000 tickets somewhere, okay. The one thing you can still see, though if you have a top 10 hit at radio, you can see an upswing in ticket sales. So it does matter. If it didn't matter, no one would care about having a number one still, and all the labels and artists do care about it. It definitely for this genre. It matters still. I hope it continues to matter.
Speaker 4:The only thing that scares me with that is that they are now the cars. The automobiles that they make are not equipped with radios or CD players.
Speaker 1:You have to pay for it, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so that gets interesting there and a little bit scary to me.
Speaker 1:I mean, who listens to the radio when you're not in the car? That's my point.
Speaker 4:yeah, I do. If we have a song on the radio, you keep scanning, you're transitioning.
Speaker 3:I need to hear something that you wrote.
Speaker 5:Hey, I'm with Kalo, though we better hope that it stays. That's our main part of our livelihood and that's what's going to suffer the most is the song quality. It's already suffering. It's going to really suffer.
Speaker 1:You think song quality is not as good on the radio? Not even close. I was just getting ready to say something about it.
Speaker 5:It's not even close. That's where I come in.
Speaker 7:Preach on that. It's not even close. That's where I come in. No, I'm just no, I'm just like it's. This town used to be a place where you would have song pluggers who work for publishing companies pitching songs to producers and record labels and artists and they would be running into each other on music row taking the greatest, latest, greatest new song written by so-and-so to whoever. That doesn't happen anymore. It just, it's just. I've got and I'm speaking just for myself here I've written some of the best stuff that I've been a part of and collabed with with some of my favorite writers. In the last five years. I've written some of the best songs I think I've ever been a part of and I can't get them cut, really no. And there was a time that they would be fighting over them, and I know that. I know what a great song is. I don't know anymore what a hit song is.
Speaker 1:What's the next generation of that Of like the song pluggers? What do you think? Is there something?
Speaker 3:I mean now, and I think we will continue for a good while the songpluggers now are A&R reps. They're trying to create cuts in the room, like there's a chance of, hey, let's put you in here with this person, this person, this person, hopefully something will come from it. So you're trying desperately to get with any act that is happening, and if you can't do that, then your publisher is trying to get you in with an act that they think is going to be happening and who knows who the next Morgan Wallen is going to be. So you're having to write with a bunch of people, just over and over and over again, and you're writing a bunch of songs that nobody's ever going to hear, in the hopes that you're going to write with that next big artist. And then you have a relationship with that artist because you wrote with them before they had a hit you know, that
Speaker 1:went yeah.
Speaker 4:And the problem is Christian and maybe your listeners don't know this. They might, but they might not and kind of what we're referring to is that we get paid accordingly for songs on the radio. When it's on digital platforms, the songwriters get the show like we don't make shit it's just, it's a it's embarrassing it's a complete drop off. So we could have a percentage difference but somebody has the stats but.
Speaker 7:I mean, you know it's like well on terrestrial radio we get paid nine cents per spin.
Speaker 3:Okay, Well, there's a formula for that, but you're talking about more mechanicals, like a sail I'm talking about just in a performance in a radio spin as opposed to a stream.
Speaker 7:A stream is like 0.008 of a penny or something.
Speaker 4:So you could have millions of streams and then I could, maybe, and you're still broke. So that's the difference you get a million airplays on the radio.
Speaker 7:You're doing something, you're making a living. A million streams. You're still broke. You're still broke.
Speaker 1:To your point, kelly. You said you write so many songs, you only get one that actually gets cut. How many songs do you think you write? Is it 25 songs before one gets cut? Is it more than that?
Speaker 4:you had to put a number on it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it depends who the writer is. Yeah, yeah, for sure. If you're fortunate and you're, you're in, you know, and you're you're hitting the lick with, with aldine or or back. You know, years ago, when I was writing a bunch with, uh, with brad paisley, you know it's, it's just a. It's a great advantage for it for songwriters to have a relationship with an artist because one you know them so well, you know what they would and wouldn't say. And a lot of other people think, oh, this is perfect aldine song, perfect paisley song, but but you can listen to us now, they wouldn't say that yeah, but you're writing their words.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but so it, so it helps and you're not.
Speaker 3:It's not everything you're writing, but you're writing in their words. Yeah, so it helps and it's not everything you're writing. But you get to a point where if you're writing for those people and you're that close to them, you don't even start the thing unless you think that could be a hit for them. We're not going to waste time just writing a song for fun. It needs to be purposeful and we're trying to elevate that artist and make money and raise their families and stuff.
Speaker 4:But there are writers in town that write hundreds of songs that don't get any cuts. Yeah. It just like Kalo said. It's just we have been fortunate to have some relationship with artists. That it might be a little bit better for us, yeah, but that took time to develop and it may not have worked Right.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean, but it did.
Speaker 7:You still have to write a good song.
Speaker 3:You've got to be intentional.
Speaker 7:You can have the relationship. You've still got to write a good song. You've still got to be able to bring it.
Speaker 3:And even in that, just the creative part of you, I still think of ideas and I think, oh, this would be perfect for Lanny Wilson. This would be a smash. Now I have no connection whatsoever. So, lanny Wilson, this would be a smash. Now I have no connection whatsoever.
Speaker 3:So, Lanny, if you're listening out there, that's an amazing idea, but you still have that dreamer part of you, the same dream that you had when it started is because we didn't know how hard it was. So we're just writing stuff and being excited about it. So we try to keep that same feeling, so that you'll keep generating music, because it's not impossible to get songs cut. That's an outside song, meaning that you're not inside the camp. It's not impossible. It's just really, really freaking hard. But, like Neil said, we're trying to write a better song than everybody else on that day. Right, that's the contest.
Speaker 1:It's just the universal principle of networking. It's a skill you have to master, right, patrick? And I talk about this all the time, talk all the time. How can we get to this person? How can we get to this person? Can we get a meeting with this person? How do we do it as the songwriter, if you're not in the camp? How are you going to approach someone like Lanie Wilson to get into that camp?
Speaker 3:that's hard and the thing is, we understand the reason it's hard is because they're already doing great. She's already doing great without us. Now could we have hits with her too? Yes, do we need to for her perspective? No, she's having number one after number one and it's working.
Speaker 5:She's probably comfortable inside of her bubble. I think that's important for an artist number one and she's. It's working so and she's probably comfortable not to do it.
Speaker 5:Probably comfortable inside of her bubble and I think that's important for an artist like as, like you know, we're as much as we're victims of in some camps. We benefit from it with jason and other people because we're in the bubble right and other people are trying to get in the bubble and they can't get in the bubble right the bubble people Once you're tapped in, like Kayla said and you get on a run, you feel like you can't write anything they're not going to like.
Speaker 5:When you get to that point it's going to be hard for someone to come in. Like Kayla said, just hope that you write a better song than everyone else, such a great song that it's undeniable. It seems like those moments are harder now. Yeah, I think the artists hear things differently now. That's just my, my opinion. I think the the song quality has dipped a little bit where it's like you know, great songs kind of go over the head sometimes right you gotta maybe write more in the nose than you used to.
Speaker 5:Yeah, um, you try. I tend to find myself saying is it? Is it to a term like writery? Is that too? Saying, is it too a term like writery, is that?
Speaker 5:too inside is it too, because I feel like things today when we're writing something, I feel like it needs to be a little more on the nose for the artist to relate not all of them, but just in general what I hear. That's one reason I still listen to radio. I want to know what's out there. Is there a space for? And that's why I love aldine, you. We can write stuff a little bit. Sometimes that might be inside and left to some interpretation, where some artists I feel like you just got to write right on the nose, where they don't want to think, and to some credit to the artist, they know their fan base, sometimes the fan. Sometimes they don't want to think and, to some credit to the artist, they know their fan base. Sometimes the fan. Sometimes they don't want to have to think. They want to go buy a beer 20 000 people there, they want to have a good time. So that's when, like a try that in a small town comes up, that's the moment to make them think that's less of the story, right?
Speaker 7:yeah, you know I mean, sometimes you don't want to go get a beer when that they don't want to miss that intro. Right, they don't want to miss that song. They, a lot of them, came there for that song and so that's a moment there, right you?
Speaker 5:know where you can make them stop and think, but yet somehow they're still having a good time all right, yeah, you know you you kind of get that lightning in a bottle moment, which is always fun.
Speaker 1:You know you made it then yeah, yeah, yeah, uh, to the point of like networking. How tight are like the introductions around n around Nashville if you're trying to get to somebody?
Speaker 5:Really keeping the bubble that tight? I'll be honest with you Keep our bubble pretty tight. We've been here forever. I've been here almost 30 years, neil and Caleb we were just talking about this with Jason and I think the older we get, I think it's natural for the circle to close in and I think it's just for me. I know who my friends are and who I can really trust and I tend to want to work with the people that I trust. At this point, you know, it's just A thousand percent.
Speaker 4:I think that's I mean. But you, as far as networking, it is easy to get to people for sure, but to get inside that's really hard.
Speaker 3:That's years, yeah, and there's not enough time for everybody to write with all the people that you want to. There's not enough time. And then to what Kurt was saying a lot of that is artist dependent. Like the artist is having fun and getting great songs from his crew, so they're comfortable and they can hang out with those guys and they're like family and you're having hits. You don't need to let anybody else in. There's not a need for it.
Speaker 1:Right, I get that. It's the same in politics. I mean working with Dr Carson, with him that far into Carson, with him that far into his career. He's towards the end of his career. He's trying to wind down a little bit. He's got a circle, yeah. He doesn't want to add anyone to it like you're saying and you trust who he trusts and he doesn't trust who he doesn't trust. But trying to break into that is difficult. Can we trust you?
Speaker 3:He's at our table. Yeah, I think we already got it. His name's Christian. I mean, you can't hear that.
Speaker 5:You can't hear it, you got that roll-tied hat. Come on, is that good or bad?
Speaker 4:That's good, that's bad. That's good.
Speaker 1:And he's from Delaware, delaware. Oh really, that's the problem, joe Biden's stomping grounds I was just talking to Neil. I was going to say stomping grounds but it's more as crawling grounds.
Speaker 5:I'm sorry.
Speaker 7:Tell them about what they named, where the bicycle ended.
Speaker 1:So everyone knows where Joe Biden fell off the bicycle right Everyone's seen that viral clip that's so good. I was talking to Neil before all you late comers got here.
Speaker 3:We were on time for the show.
Speaker 1:I'll be here to your stomping grounds, okay, but I was telling Neil, that's like where he fell off is just like in a parking lot. It's like 20 minutes from where I grew up. It's in Rehoboth Beach, that's where Joe Biden's beach house is, but it's just in the parking lot where I pull up to go to the beach. It's the cheapest parking around, that's where I go and he just fell off right there. So someone on Google Maps renamed that one spot, that parking lot, brandon Falls. Are you serious? I'm dead serious.
Speaker 4:Dude, that's incredible.
Speaker 5:I can't help but feel slightly you know bad, it's an old man like I don't know he fought his bike.
Speaker 4:I know it is a little bit of elder abuse a little bit.
Speaker 5:I mean he shouldn't have been on the bike anyway. No, you can put two helmets on. I forget, did he?
Speaker 4:have the bike shorts on hopefully not.
Speaker 1:I don't know about the whole outfit that they get.
Speaker 3:Yeah but no, you're not making fun of him because of that. It was just the fact that he was the president and everybody was saying, no, he's sharp as a tag and he's the most physically fit he's ever been in his whole life. And then you could just see him maneuver around. So all of us, if we're blessed enough to live that long, we're all going to be like that.
Speaker 1:So we're not making fun of you, we just don't want to be on the front cover. We're not going to be the president.
Speaker 4:We're not going to be the president either, though, oh my God, it's been a while since I've seen that.
Speaker 7:I'm not riding a bicycle when I'm that old.
Speaker 5:There's another clip I love and this is again. I feel bad.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, lord, that one, and that's hard for anybody. It's really hard for Joe when he's trying to walk in the sand.
Speaker 4:I don't know if I remember that, jim.
Speaker 6:Can you dig it up? Well, I was going to say that he was wearing shorts. Yeah, but they were not bike shorts in the traditional sense.
Speaker 5:Okay, if you can find the clip of him on the beach walking behind. He's trying, but he's not going anywhere. He's having a hard time in the sand.
Speaker 3:It's hard to look cool walking in the sand. It's that thick powdery stuff.
Speaker 7:I knew if we brought up the Biden thing, this was going to happen.
Speaker 4:Sorry, christian, sorry. Continue.
Speaker 7:Go on. We're not very political, obviously.
Speaker 1:No, I just tell people he's my uncle, and then they start dying. Now my brother just moved, like northern delaware. Uh, he's a lawyer, so he's one of those people. Nobody likes those people uh, yeah, nobody likes those people I don't even know if I like them.
Speaker 4:Yeah, is he older?
Speaker 1:he's 10 years older, yeah we look alike, we think alike. We're basically twins 10 years apart. Wow, so we kind of butt heads a little too much. Okay, um, but he had moved up there, take a new job, whatever. Uh, he was going to tour this apartment building to stay there and he pulls up, like before he even goes in, and it seems like a black suv like pulling up and they open the trunk and they're just pulling out. Ars, because the secret service really yeah, they just happened to pull up and and they were saying that's where they live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in the same apartment building. It's really close to Joe Biden's house up there, like where he spends most of his time. That's like an hour and a half away.
Speaker 4:We do that. Delaware's like it's about two hours. I know.
Speaker 1:When you said northern Delaware, I was like do you really do that, or is it just Delaware? We have three counties.
Speaker 7:It sounds like Alabama to me. We pull up down there on the Gulf and pull out our ARs and go lay out, that's what we do.
Speaker 5:Nobody says a word. I thought I was going to say open the trunk and I'll pop Joe Biden. It was not a hearse. Oh, there you go, ouch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I had to go up to New York City last week. Newsmax, I was weed eating last week just around the house and everything weed eating around. I get a call. My phone starts buzzing. It's Newsmax calling to ask me on the next day. So I do it, but thinking about like, try that in a small town going to New York City, I don't think we need to say anything. Yeah, right, and what happened a few days ago? The shooting in Midtown? Crazy, crazy. Try that in a small town. It's not going to go well. But I think about my small town. I grew up in a town of less than 5,000 people. My mom's been in that small town, her family, same part of the river, same town for over 200 years. Tracing back your genealogy it's like the late 1700s.
Speaker 1:They probably came over like the Mayflower and one of those. But now, because her family's there forever and she grew up there, my parents met in college and they moved back there. But my dad served on the town council for a little bit for 15 years and he stepped down after 15 years. He was like I did my time, that's fair. But now that he's stepped down we see people from New Jersey, people from New York, people from Pennsylvania, people I mean Idaho is seeing this, texas is seeing this, tennessee is seeing this.
Speaker 1:People are moving from California, moving from these liberal states, and they're coming to small towns like the Franklin. They're coming to small towns like the Franklin, they're coming to Columbia, they're coming to Spring Hill, they're coming to even Colocasia, right down there. They're coming to all these small towns, like my small town in Delaware, and they're bringing their liberal policies and saying I want to move to a small town. I love the small town aspect, I just want to relax and settle. And then they bring their big city mindset, their liberal mindset, into these small towns and they ruin it because they create it just like the town they came from. Yeah, they don't really consciously realize that, because they're getting away, this is much better than where they came from.
Speaker 1:Yet for a family like my mom's, who's been in this town for 200 years and seeing these liberals come in and now become the mayor of the town and completely take over the town on the council, uh I mean, my mom's just ready to leave. She never thought she would get to the point that she would want to leave delaware and she, she grew up there, that's where her family is. Now that her parents have passed, it's a little easier, I guess. Um, but I mean, I've had an idea for a song, so I guess, this is the place right.
Speaker 3:Well, it's like that, saying you know don't California, my Tennessee, you know, and people said that, and there's all. There wasn't so many shirts about it, we would have, we would have wrote about it a long time ago.
Speaker 1:But it's true, you know small town blues people are doing that.
Speaker 3:They forget why they moved. I mean that they forget why they moved. I mean just everyone's experiencing this.
Speaker 1:It's not unique to delaware.
Speaker 4:I mean, people in alabama are experiencing this, yeah, um I do wonder, though, like if and I don't know this, but I wonder if you're trying to move to columbia, tennessee, are you really getting away with those liberal thoughts?
Speaker 7:no, you're not, not in franklin, you're not in college grove where I live it's like we we probably had 70 in the last three or four years. We probably had 70 over 70 people move in from california into our neighborhood. They had like that many closings, but they all, from what I could gather, they all wanted to join our camp. Yeah it, it really felt that way. The who, they found out real quick. The ones who maintained their ideology they found out real quick this wasn't a place for them and they sold their house and left. But a lot of them, most of them, want to stay.
Speaker 7:Most of them want to stay.
Speaker 1:They love the people you look at the Tennessee landscape you have a lot of conservatives. Mainly conservative rights are at stake. But among the conservatives, who's actually in the conservatives? It's a debate a lot of people are having now who's running for governor this time around?
Speaker 4:We had Marcia, yeah, marcia.
Speaker 1:I heard she's about to declare. I think she already did. She declared on our show.
Speaker 7:Really, I forced her to declare. I think she already did. She declared on our show, really, really, I forced her to declare. I think most people.
Speaker 5:I really do think most people. I have friends that moved here from California a lot of them during COVID because it was so crazy and they were business owners and their business got shut down. They moved here. They just want to live their life, raise their kids, pay the bills. They don't want to be caught up in any radical left policies. They just most people just want to exist in in a landscape of common sense and just exist. No one, you know, nobody wants. I don't know anyone who that's moved here from california that is trying to maybe force their policies. Most of them are trying to escape it and just live normal.
Speaker 4:Maybe some of those people are in Nashville proper. I mean Nashville is more. Democratic.
Speaker 1:Of course yeah.
Speaker 4:And the small town areas.
Speaker 1:And they just become a sanctuary city. Yeah, kristi, noem and DHS just declared them a sanctuary city a few weeks ago.
Speaker 3:I can't tell you this yeah, Nashville hasn't, but they do. I can't get out of Nashville fast enough.
Speaker 5:When I'm in Nashville, yeah Downtown, I can't and that's sad. We go there to work, most of the studios are shut down, so a lot of it doesn't happen, even in Nashville. I find myself in a hurry to get out of Davidson.
Speaker 1:County, just the safety.
Speaker 5:Not not safety, or is it just?
Speaker 7:it's just like trash a lot, a lot of a lot of things. Um, it's, it's so. I mean it's turning into atlanta.
Speaker 5:It's hard to even get anywhere anyway it's crazy, it's like, all of a sudden, rush hour is from 9 am till 6 pm. There is no time when you can get anywhere, but just in general it's. It's not. Um, you know, I'll go down to starbucks on 21st Avenue, which I used to go to that Starbucks every morning before we were in the studio, and I'm in there now and it's like you're such a liberal what's going on at Starbucks?
Speaker 1:I used to always go there.
Speaker 7:I'd go get my coffee it was a shame the coffee's good, it was a great place to go, it was fine.
Speaker 5:And now I went in there recently and I'm like okay, well, this is the last time I'm coming in here. It's filthy, uh, gonna have a guy. That day. I had a guy with a beard and a dress, so I'm so I'm I'm confused, I'm confused and I'm like what this? I just wanted a latte man. I don't want to try to figure out what I'm doing here. What do I got going on? Dude ma'am full makeup beard dress. I'm like okay.
Speaker 7:I think I need to get back to the counter. It's crazy because Starbucks doesn't realize and a lot of other companies don't realize that that is hurting their business down here, but they don't care and they still hire pink hair with a dress and a bulge. How are you? Seeing that behind the counter they're still hiring those people. I'm sorry that latte doesn't taste as good when that dude hands it to me. I mean when that thing, ends up.
Speaker 5:There's a funny taste in it. I can't disagree with you there.
Speaker 7:No no, no, it's just I don't Especially ingredient.
Speaker 1:Oh no, Yikes.
Speaker 5:It's time for a hey, welcome to the Try that Podcast everybody. No, I think I don't really care. Honestly, if someone wants to live their life, just live it. Just do your thing. If you're confused, I'm sorry, just making me deal with it. At 830 in the morning and you've got full heels on and a manicured beard, I'm I don't know what the hell to say. I just want this coffee early, early. I got a long day. I'm trying to figure out what's going on here that's why I don't go down there anymore.
Speaker 1:It's just a lot I keep going, I keep. They keep pushing me further south. I'm just gonna keep going.
Speaker 7:They keep pushing me further south. I'm just going to keep going south Until you end up back in Alabama. It may happen.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you guys heard Delaware is home to the first transgender congressman, Sarah McBride.
Speaker 5:I can't keep track of it.
Speaker 1:We have one congressman in Delaware. We only have one representing the whole state.
Speaker 4:Is that right?
Speaker 1:And it's a transgender.
Speaker 4:Really, I did not know that.
Speaker 1:It's a man identifying as a woman, so they go by Sarah McBride.
Speaker 3:So is it Congress man or woman? I call it Congress man. Okay, I mean they identify as a woman.
Speaker 5:It's a.
Speaker 7:Congress day.
Speaker 1:Congress day, congress them.
Speaker 7:Yeah.
Speaker 5:I'm just kidding. I can't even process this.
Speaker 7:I can't either. This is DC. I can't believe we're talking about it. I mean seriously. We've gotten to the point where this is actually a serious discussion, Apparently so I know it's un-freaking-believable to me. It's been for a minute.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's happening, but there's people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the number of young people going towards that, yeah, and actually identifying as, actually identify as transgender. The highest numbers lesbian.
Speaker 5:Highest numbers of gay, highest numbers of transgender they keep coming through I think there's a sad to say, though, a certain percentage of parents out there who push that on the kids. If they're confused, or if your four-year-old says, dad, I want to be a dinosaur, you don't take them to the doctor and sew on a tail and say, okay, well, you're a dinosaur. I mean, give him a chance to be. I mean, these are kids. Like, it's a tough thing to swallow when you're talking about confusing your own children and why you would want to. It's confusing enough to be a child today. It's just evil. You know, you've got social media and you've got all these other things that we didn't have like influencing us when we were kids and they have access to it.
Speaker 7:So it's um and you see it on TV. Yeah, Do you know what we did? We did, we, we had, there was stuff didn't have these.
Speaker 1:Well, not yeah, but it wasn't like, but I mean, it wasn't as accessible. No, no, no, it wasn't, but, but you also didn't have the option of transgender back then.
Speaker 7:No, that was a good point. Who wouldn't even think about that?
Speaker 5:no, who would cut your balls off?
Speaker 1:you wouldn't do it. Right, you wouldn't do it.
Speaker 5:Yeah are most of them cutting their balls off I don't know.
Speaker 3:I don't know here's my thing.
Speaker 5:What are they doing with the?
Speaker 1:balls, I will they pickle them, put them, I will.
Speaker 3:They put the balls they pickle them and put them in jars they're making footballs, do they really?
Speaker 5:this is the start of a season where pickleball came from no, I don't think that football I'll be on footballs made out of old ball skin don't say that about alabama um that was the thing, so we had this debate?
Speaker 4:did caitlyn or, uh, bruce I think bruce might he if he was smart he actually go through with.
Speaker 5:That was the thing we had this debate. Did Caitlin or Bruce? I think Bruce might. If he was smart he'd come Did he actually go through with that.
Speaker 7:Are you seriously calling him Caitlin? I'm never doing it, it's never happening.
Speaker 4:Then I corrected myself. I said Bruce, did Bruce have the surgery? Someone could change their name.
Speaker 1:You could kind of get behind that I can't get behind the transgender. I'm not pretending.
Speaker 7:That's the one thing that pissed me off about Fox. It's the one thing that pissed me off about them. Well, give it what. No, it's when Bruce came on there, and now he's. What do they call that? When he's on there, he's a correspondent, or whatever A contributor. And they pretend and they call him Caitlyn.
Speaker 3:Yeah, pretend, and they call him caitlin, yeah, and, and it's all just pretend, but he does have a lot of common sense stuff politically and that's why they have him on there. I believe he was woman of the year, I know and but it was so disappointing to see them fall into that pretend thing.
Speaker 7:You know, we're gonna cater, we're gonna, okay, let's, let's respect caitlin, sorry christian, are we getting you in trouble with this?
Speaker 3:Probably. I think he started it. I just won't see the letter today.
Speaker 1:No, no, that's what they need to hear.
Speaker 5:I remember being in LA man, kurt, when it was probably late 90s and you would see, when we were 15. Yeah, when we were 15. I remember going to the laundromat and doing laundry and I'd see like a transvestite, whatever it was called back then, and I was like, wow, it was a big deal. And now it's just like, okay, well, are some of these people doing this? I feel like some of the the guy at Starbucks I saw are just doing this to like get reaction Validation. I think there's actually people who are legitimately confused and they're living in this place where they just can't find their way, and I and I hate that. But I also feel like there's a lot of people who are just pushing the buttons. What can we do to push the boundaries and make people uncomfortable? And that's what's weird to me. Like you know, look, don't grow a beard, put a dress on, make up and just a with my head Language telling.
Speaker 7:You can tell people not to do that stuff and they can hear us rant and rave about them and the way they dress. It's a depraved mind at the end of the day.
Speaker 3:Just pick one.
Speaker 7:It's all a big spiritual battle right here. It's all demonic. They've given their souls over to the devil yeah, you see that in that and it's just a depraved way of thinking, and and and god has given them over to their depravity he has.
Speaker 3:That's, that's what scripture says, and I think I mean, each one of them have a different reason why, like they're not, we can't put them under the same umbrella. You know, because some, some people, had tragic childhoods that that just did something to them. You know they might have been molested or something you know just awful, and it and it changes their changes, their brain and stuff and they're I don't know it. Just, I think everybody, I think there's a lot of tragedy in a lot of those people and I do think that they're, they're lost, you know, but, and and maybe maybe some are just trying to fit in, but other others have psychological problems. Some people are just, are just weak-minded and they go and they think like, oh, life will be easier this way, which is the total opposite. I mean, yes, you can be in a protected group, you know, if you want, if you want to be protected, right, um, then, yeah, I guess you can do something like that. But but what's next? You know?
Speaker 3:I mean that's what will be the next, the next thing, because, because if somebody says, says oh, I'm gay, he said oh, okay, right, uh, cool, I just need that's my coffee right there, and you don't think a thing about it. You're so in a transit, you're up in the ante, you know what's the what's the next thing once that gets. Oh yeah, there's, there's a lot of. You know what I mean. I don't know.
Speaker 5:It's scary to think about. Well, the next thing is what's happening in schools? Are coming in dressed as a cat and they're little boxes and that's in Delaware in.
Speaker 1:Delaware.
Speaker 5:I mean, this is an actual problem If you have young kids. Thank God my kids are a little older now, but it's a thing. If you're forced to be exposed to this and someone says I'm a cat in a litter box, come on.
Speaker 4:I mean, I've heard that.
Speaker 5:That's a real thing, it's a real thing the furries. I'm not making it up, it is, it's happened Wow. There's no end. There's no end.
Speaker 7:Once you get on that road, there's no end to it. I mean they're going to be dressing up like cats and pissing in litter boxes and they're going to be marrying animals. They're going to be marrying their dog. They're going to be.
Speaker 1:Bestiality. Absolutely, this is legal. I believe in Europe.
Speaker 7:There's no end to it. Once you give in to that, once you take that road, there's no end to it.
Speaker 1:It goes on and on, I think if we walk it back a little bit. I don't know if you're familiar with what's called the World Economic Forum. They call it the WEF. It's headed up by Klaus Schwab. They meet in Geneva, switzerland, multiple times a year. I mean I see that as like the playbook for the future. They're the ones pulling strings behind the scenes. As I see it in politics, and this has been their plan for the past decade or two to get to the point of transgenderism being normal. It's normalized today. You walk into a Starbucks, but it's okay for them to be there, societally acceptable for them to be there, societally acceptable for them to be there? Not really to us. We still. It rubs us the wrong way because it's wrong. We know it's wrong, innately, we know it's wrong. Um, but the wef, what they've revealed is like their next plans and they've tried to uh bring up in their meetings in geneva uh, is pedophilia. If you're asking what's next, if you can stand behind that, all right, that's I have a hard time even talking about it.
Speaker 7:Yeah, no, I don't like, yeah, no it is everything that used to be in the dark and behind closed doors. It's it. It always finds its way on the other side, always right, and it always will it always that's the direction that side's headed.
Speaker 3:Right there, well and the thing is, with the trans and things like that, it I mean I'm, I'm all for it. I think all of us are just, you know, go, go, do your thing, whatever, as long as you're not, you know, breaking the law, hurting anybody or whatever. Do, do your thing, you can. You can be trans, you can be gay. I, I don't, I don't care and I don't judge that person. You know, I I think about it, man, what, what, what made them? You know, just for a minute, you know, think what made them make that huge decision. You know, but I just want to live my life, you know, and but, but what I don't want is for, you know, a transgender person to to try to preach to me of of this is right.
Speaker 7:For your kids.
Speaker 3:And you need to agree that it's right.
Speaker 7:That's what they want.
Speaker 3:You know, and for me you know, I grew up, I'm a fundamentalist, bible-believing Christian and I'm just not going to be able to say, like I'm not God and I'm not condemning anybody, but I'm not going to proclaim that is right.
Speaker 5:I'm just not. You can't stand behind that. Plus, what really turned me? My daughter's a freshman in high school, heading to be a freshman, so the last few years she was in cheerleading and stuff. The thought of a guy walking in where she's using the bathroom, that's. That's a an opportunity you're giving to someone to do harm to your daughter and there's no way, no way to look and and if anyone that supports that, I can't imagine them having a daughter or anybody supports a trans and and girl sports to harm your daughter and not lift up. We're supposed to be lifting up our daughters and our women and and how's that doing that? It's not protecting them, it's, it's no, it's, it's quite the opposite. So I I found that really disheartening when I saw so many people get behind this. You know, being able to walk into a, a girl's bathroom because you identify as a woman, that's just an avenue to take advantage of our young girls.
Speaker 1:It is, and it happens all the time. That's the biggest problem I see with Sarah McBride. There's a lot of problems, but the problem that we had earlier in the congressional session like this year, maybe it was in the last year right after the election session, like this year, maybe it was in the last year right after the election is that when Sarah McBride was elected, he, she, whatever, they were just elected this year. So they got to Congress and there's a congresswoman by the name of Nancy Mace, so she's a woman, biological woman, going into the bathroom and Sarah McBride walks in with her. I mean, as Nancy Mace, you're not okay with that.
Speaker 1:But something I want to hit on with you guys is when I talk to young people and we're talking about the transgender stuff, I mean the biggest answer I would get from them, the biggest reason I would get for how this happened, is the influence that's been had on them in entertainment, in Hollywood, in music. How have you seen it come into music, be infiltrated into music, have you? Oh, yeah, yeah, I mean what would you say? Big time, yeah.
Speaker 7:I think it's part to blame. Yeah, it's entertainment, but here's the thing. It's like I always monitored what my kids listened to when they were growing up, and you're a writer. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7:But I, when they were growing up and you're a writer, yeah, yeah, but I always, I always knew what they were listening to and if and if I listened to something, I'm like I'm like you ain't listening to this, no more. I mean really, and I always knew who they hung out with. I always knew I was just that that kind of me and my wife were those kind of parents. Right, we always knew, and it started there. But the freedom that some of these kids have today and once, once, they dive off into that world and they get accepted to in that world, I mean there's, there's no end to the depravity that they can fall into right.
Speaker 1:It all starts at home all 100 because you have to because what's different?
Speaker 5:I'll say it again my kids grew up, are growing up, in the era of social media and accessibility, and so it's more important than ever to have honest conversation with your kids about what's going on, communication, raising them with God in their life, because they're exposed to it, whether it's on their phone or their friend's phone or they go to school. They have to know what's right or wrong.
Speaker 5:They have to know when they watch the Grammys and see something weird in the Grammys, they've got to know that that's messed up. That's on the parents. If you teach your kids the opposite, that you accept everybody and that's okay, then that's what's going to happen and that's that's what neil's talking about with the.
Speaker 5:It is a battle with like right and wrong, how you believe and and you should always you have to take your kids and you have to explain this to them from the very young age right and just put them in god's path and do. That's all you can hope for. I hope they stay there. I hope they stay there.
Speaker 1:The scripture says teach them the way, and they shall not depart from it when they're old. That's in the Proverbs. But it's not even just telling them that trunk. Explain to them the why behind it. Otherwise, if you don't know the why, you don't know.
Speaker 5:They have to make sure, without god, without god there in their, in their life. That's what I'm talking about. You've got to have that as a foundation, everything up from there right if you don't have that and 100 and, unfortunately, like I see a lot of parents that don't, and and and their kids get off on a weird path and and they sit there and they ask themselves why. Well, why is? Because you didn't do it right and it is on the parents.
Speaker 3:Well, and sometimes I definitely believe that that can be true. But I also think that you can have good, solid parents and you can do the best you can raising them, and these kids are influenced by so many other people that are more powerful than you as they grow up. And if they, if my kid God forbid you know came up and said, hey, I'm gonna, I'm thinking about you know, right, being a transgender, I would. I would be, I'd be devastated and I would. I would talk to her over and over again, I would pray, do all the things, but but I would still love her and work through it with her and stuff like that, like it's not like it's not like these, these, these people are like, oh you're, you're terrible people, we don't want to be around.
Speaker 3:It's not, and stuff like that. It's not like these people are like, oh, you're terrible people, we don't want to be around you. It's not that it's like you would try to love them through that, because their life is going to be at some point in time, their life is going to be much more complicated than it was before. They decided to do that. Whatever they are running from or trying to get out of at some point that's coming back because that you just can't to me. Your mind is not wired to accept the life lived as you're not supposed to live it. Biologically, you're created a certain way.
Speaker 1:God created you ruined your body.
Speaker 3:This way and and they've messed with you and the hormones and all the stuff that affects your brain and all that stuff you know but you're going back to the music and the social media.
Speaker 7:It's a today that's like media. Today that's an assault on the youth and it's going to get worse. It's going to get worse.
Speaker 5:I think we're just finding out, and we'll find out the true effect of what it's done to our kids.
Speaker 7:If you hand this to a six-year-old, you hand that phone right there to a six-year-old and go, you hand that phone right there to a six-year-old and go, that's a pacifier. Go and you're not you're, and you just give it to them and let them be who they're going to be. It's nine times out of ten they're going to turn out with a problem.
Speaker 1:You're going to have a problem on your hands right, the next generation after gen z is called gen alpha. Uh, they're born after 2012. Uh, there's a whole joke. You've probably seen the memes online. You have the iPad kids. They have what they call an iPad cough. As they're sitting down, they're slouching in their chairs, they're on their iPads all day long because the parents don't want to do their job and be parents. So they hand them an iPad and they say go entertain yourself. I mean, there's no limit to what they can get on there, if what they can get on there, if they have the vocabulary, they can get anything right.
Speaker 1:Thankfully they don't. But I mean that's a huge problem. I mean, if we're talking about the principles that we're trying to raise kids with, that we're trying to start in the home, how do you think about that from the writer's perspective when you're writing the music? Because you don't just want to write feel-good songs that are sentimental. Those don't just want to write feel-good songs that are sentimental. Those don't perform that well, do they? They don't perform the best. How do you think about putting those values into songs?
Speaker 5:Well, I think we, you know to be fair. I mean, the first thing we think about usually is career-wise is writing the right song for the right artist.
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 5:Like if I Didn't Love you when we wrote that song it was like One of my favorites, to be honest. You know, we're just trying to write a great song that he wants. You know, I think we're not going to. I think all four of us we try to write songs that, you know, don't have a bad message Right, you know, but also will be successful. Right, but also will be successful you know, and so it's I don't know how much thought.
Speaker 5:I mean, I don't think we're going to sit down and write something that's that's going to negatively affect any children, you know Right, and it just. I try not to, but it just it just depends man Telly's right.
Speaker 3:You are trying to, you know, write the next hit, for that can write something, or you just fall out on on an idea. You know that that has that talks about god or jesus or spiritual whatever, and then sometimes they get recorded. And I've told these guys a couple weeks ago that uh, chris jansen had called me and he had uh recorded a song that's like nine years old that me and him and his wife kelly uh wrote and has a lot of spiritual stuff in it, you know, and it's a really really song. It's called the Broken and to me it's like everything I'm about and the way that you feel about people and taking care of people and stuff like that. Really same as try that in small town You're taking care of people, but it's always really cool when that happens. Whether it be a single or not, I don't know, but he did record it and put it on there, so we don't shy away from it, it's just generally, they're not looking for hey, I'm looking for a spiritual song.
Speaker 7:It's country music. We're going to still write some drinking songs. We're going to put whiskey in songs Every other song we've written for a certain length of time had whiskey in it.
Speaker 3:Whiskey in town.
Speaker 7:I used to listen to Hank Jr when I was a kid. I used to listen to all that. It didn't turn me into an alcoholic because I was listening to Hank Jr.
Speaker 5:I think sometimes too it's fun because it's entertainment.
Speaker 7:It is.
Speaker 5:Interesting though Kalo reminded me of something it is fun to use the power of songwriting to get a message across. So on, on the new, on the new aldine project coming out, we were run that deals with dementia and that kind of thing, because we have people that we love going through it right, and that was a real therapeutic song to write because it was like it got a lot of emotion out that I didn't even know was pent up, you know. And so it is fun when you, when you tap into something that you're like, wow, this, this means something a little bit bigger than just the normal song.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you begin to realize that a little bit bigger than you know, being in a box, a lot of songs you write are like Neil Sedgwick.
Speaker 5:you know we write country music we love, so it's got a thing. But it is fun when you tap into something that you think someone might get on a bigger level.
Speaker 1:Almost to that point, maybe branching out a little bit. How would you break down the factions in country music? Because you have Trudy Oak going all the way on the rock and roll side of country, then you have Ann Wilson all the way on the left going to the Christian country kind of side, which is more of what we're talking here. How do you break down, like those different factions?
Speaker 5:I break it down ticket sales I do. I break it down to the headliners. I break it down to what they're doing. I break it down to the mid-level acts that have been around and what new acts are speaking to the crowd. I mean, you can define anything. You can define yourself as a country music artist. Are you connecting? That's the disconnect for me with streaming and these platforms is you have a lot of people who can call themselves successful artists because you're streaming, but I like to listen to the one like the Stapletons and those guys. What are they tapping into? I break it down like that. I break it down like who's having success? Because that is what we're doing. That is what we're doing.
Speaker 5:I say it all the time. There might be an artist. The other night we were talking about an artist we were hanging out and he's not my favorite artist, but he's selling out arenas every night. Can't argue with it. Can't argue with it. You cannot argue with a hard ticket and a merch number. That's how you break it down. Who's on the come up? Who's going from clubs to theaters to little arenas to opening, to headlining? That's what's fun for me. Who's really tapped in, like Morgan did it better than anybody Watched him come up and he just. You know, that's how I look at it, you know.
Speaker 1:Right. If you had to buy stock in three people today who are like coming up, who would it be? Wow?
Speaker 3:Coming up.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 4:That's a good question If you're saying who's starting at the clubs?
Speaker 1:who's going to the theaters?
Speaker 3:who's moving their way up.
Speaker 7:Yeah, you're talking about new artists.
Speaker 3:Zach Topp would be one, just because he's got a good lane. Is he from?
Speaker 1:Montana.
Speaker 3:I don't know where he's from. I don't think he's from the South. I've got a great idea for him.
Speaker 7:also, we'd have to say John Morgan just because we work with him and I'd go with him and he's a true artist, like a lot of these newer artists that come out.
Speaker 4:Um, they might not have the whole package, but he's one of those guys that has it if you, if you wanted to buy early stock, inexpensive stock, buy Mary Cutter stock, okay, but check her, we're producing her and she's well.
Speaker 5:I'm not just saying that cause we're producing her.
Speaker 1:You're paid to say this. No, no, I'm really not.
Speaker 5:Cause you can look at. You can look at what we look at in the business.
Speaker 5:You can look at social media and what she's done. She's connecting on her own. That's another thing. Okay, okay, you can. You can look at social media and some people may have a way to buy some of that. And some people just do a ground floor right and I look at that like, okay, you know, how did she get millions of views on something? She's tapped into something I'm. That's why we are producing her, because there's a there. I think there's a. There's a rising stock there. You know, I I zach tops a good one. I think he's tapped in that's. You know who just did.
Speaker 1:Indigo. Who was that? What's the lady's name? Indigo, just came out, let's see I don't know. Let me see. I'm blanking on her name in the spot Indigo Avery Anna. Oh, avery Anna, we know her, she's great.
Speaker 4:Our friend David Fanning is working with her and she's you're right, she's tapping into something that people are buying.
Speaker 1:I like her a lot. She's the one who stands out to me. Yeah, she's great yeah Since we're plugging.
Speaker 7:I'm going to plug Ben on your show. There you go, ben Gallagher. Okay, yes, ben, he's amazing, he's a stud.
Speaker 5:Yeah, there's a lot of talent out there. I mean, it's harder for these young kids to like cut through because there's so much noise around it, you know. But I think if, like I said, in this genre, if you stick with the fan base, you can have a great career, you know.
Speaker 1:What do you think is young guys trying to break into it? Is there like a right age to?
Speaker 5:break into nashville nowadays seems like any, seems like it's off the table pretty much. It's pretty broad right yeah it is, it is, it seems like it's it. You can't be, I think I'm gonna try hey, that's the great thing about country music seriously, I don't know, why y'all?
Speaker 7:I think you can still. It can still work. Have a shot when you're in your mid-30s. I got a good 20 years left and then you have someone like Mason Ramsey, who's what 12?
Speaker 1:Whatever he is, but he had the viral moment. Like you said earlier, he already broke in and he can tour just because he went viral once. Right, it's interesting. Now. I want to throw something before you. Have you heard of Josiah Queen? No, he's more on the Christian side, but he's breaking in. He's doing Bridgestone.
Speaker 1:He just sold out Bridgestone, actually two months ago my lord, he got married at like 1920 and now he's 2122 and he's based out of Texas, he's not even in Nashville and I think he's got his second album. Might have just come out. It's about to come out no, september. I think he's got his second album. It might have just come out. It's about to come out. No September, I think, is when his second one comes out.
Speaker 1:He's independent, not signed to a label, started out that way, just started pumping songs out there, releasing single after single after single, then EP after EP after EP, just putting them on blast, right. And he's on a whole tour, just as an independent artist. I mean, I think about, like as an author. I think about, like, the publishing world in books. You have the HarperCollins, you have the Penguin Random House, you have all these publishing houses, the Big Five, they call them. You're trying to break into those. It's similar same concept when you're in music, trying to get to the big record labels, big publishing houses and sign those deals. And then you have the option of self-publishing a book. That's what I did myself and I enjoyed it because I'm the entrepreneur, I wanted control over it, right? And what do you think about the independent rise in music, independent artists? Do you have any thoughts?
Speaker 5:Those publishers. Let me sign you up.
Speaker 3:No well, it's, it's interesting, and I I don't have a lot of these guys have a lot more, but it it's interesting to me because you can find out you're writing with an artist and they're not on radio. They don't have a deal or anything, yeah, but they're making like like seven to ten thousand dollars a month, right, you know, by putting out content and on all the social YouTube, all that stuff. They have a business. They're doing really, really good. A lot of them. They're not chasing a label, they're happy and they're getting to perform. They go out and play. They're doing great. I don't know, I love it.
Speaker 7:If we wrote a song with them, we're making $7 to $10 a month.
Speaker 1:That's the problem. How does that work on the writers?
Speaker 7:then Some of these new artists are giving master percentages away to writers that are right with them. Now, that's a thing now which is good. It's an incentive for songwriters to write with them. If you're independent and you're not really selling product or anything like that, and you're not on radio, there's really no incentive for anybody to want to co-write with you, unless you're not a business to it yeah, but it's cool, man, I think it's great that there's an avenue for an independent artist yeah, to put his music out there without signing with a record label.
Speaker 4:I think it's awesome. Yeah, uh, and if it connects, it's going to connect and it's. That's right. I, I think it's incredible.
Speaker 7:I think it's great because the fans get to decide if they love it that's exactly right, it's going to be huge. It's not. It's not a business or a political decision, it's the fans actually get to go. I love this and it goes viral.
Speaker 5:Well, that's the reason, though, is why we're stuck with some things, though A little piece of me. I like the gatekeepers, I like the label head.
Speaker 7:The gatekeepers, or the gatekeepers the gatekeepers.
Speaker 1:Move beyond.
Speaker 5:LGBTQ. I like the head of the label with the A&R staff Cause we it's harder to get through, but I like sometimes it protects the industry from things that shouldn't go viral and shouldn't be as big as they are. Just my opinion. I take some backlash for that, but I don't want to hear fancy like on the radio. I don't. I think it's bad. So I don't know God, I love backlash.
Speaker 1:So you prefer the corporate style?
Speaker 5:Well, I prefer the corporate style as much as just. I like it when a legit artist who has great songs and john morgan's a great example, one of the best singers we've got in this genre, he's, he's our guy, he's you know, he writes. The songs that he puts out are great songs. They don't stream huge because they're not, they don't have that viral element to them, but they're great songs. Okay, it could be harder for him to be a big star today than it would have been 15 years ago because of the reason that he doesn't write those viral type cheeky songs. So, yeah, I think I like the idea of taking a John Morgan and having an A&R staff concentrate on him and just okay, push it to radio and next thing, you know John Morgan's headlining.
Speaker 7:Well, he deserves it, he's worthy of it. That's what I mean.
Speaker 5:Yeah, exactly, and I'm not saying everybody is or isn't. I'm just saying there's tons of artists who are not worthy of any attention, the legit great singers, great artists, who maybe don't love dancing around on tiktok like the dude singing in a toothbrush. What's it was warren zeters. Uh, yes, that guy's trash. Well, but he's trash. But john's not going to dance in front of his truck at midnight doing a tiktok. If that's what it takes, then john's probably not gonna gonna do that.
Speaker 3:So I think that part of it for me is frustrating I mean that well, that just then go ahead well, the part that in I like a lot of that, other stuff I don't, and just the fact that I think it gives there's too much talent there that they can't all get out on the radio and the labels don't have the capacity to sign all the talent in the world. So I do think there's legitimate talented people that because of social media and all that, it's giving them a chance, it's giving them a vehicle and I like that. I mean to me it's more hopeful, it's, it's it's american, it's great. I mean I think you can, uh, I think there's a lot of positives to it. And and if I don't know, and if somebody comes out and they don't have a a great song, you know, like if if, say, say you don't like fancy, like, like for me as a writer, I wish I wrote it, cause I'd like to be cashed in that chair, like I would like for you to make fun of a lot of songs.
Speaker 3:Just because I would be, I would be making money. So I just think it gives writers and artists just more opportunity Though I know what you're saying, but at the same time.
Speaker 5:I like the opportunity. I think it works and hurts all at the same time, but I feel like it's harder. There's no doubt it's harder for an artist Quality artist.
Speaker 5:Quality artist who's not going to spend time on TikTok? Because, let's be honest, as labels, the labels want TikTok and all that stuff to do the work for them. So that's. It's not so much as the diamonds in the rough that come up that you notice through TikTok. I think it's great. I think it's great, but it's harder for legit guys who maybe just want to be, you know, like a Keith Whitley type. See Keith Whitley out there singing into his hairbrush. No, I mean, we're going to miss out on some stuff. Now we're going to have some stuff Zach Topp's going to come up, that's amazing. But we're going to miss out on some great artists who are just great, who maybe don't have the social media presence or don't have that chip in their brain.
Speaker 7:They don't have it in them. They're not that desperate.
Speaker 5:I think. But to Kayla's point, kudos to the go-getters on social media. Who that is working for?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean and if it's great, it'll last, if it's great, it'll last.
Speaker 5:If it's not, it won't. It'll prove itself. But I do hate the. I do feel should be given a shot that just won't because they don't have the right social numbers. If you can take advantage, that's a good point.
Speaker 7:Yeah, if you can take advantage of social media and you're willing to put in the time and the effort to do it. More power to you If you're willing to look stupid.
Speaker 5:Absolutely, it's true, if you got it, if you're willing to do that.
Speaker 7:Do it, you know, and it's like and that leads me to the AI thing with songwriting I'm like that's a real thing and it's coming. You think that's going to replace you guys? Yeah, you do, Absolutely, From what I've gathered and what I've seen.
Speaker 1:Different opinion. What do you think?
Speaker 7:No, no, no, Because there's going to be songwriters out there that are going to call themselves songwriters and they don't have to write a thing, that they don't have to do a thing. They can throw a phrase into a uh and it'll spit out a whole song with a demo and it's. It sounds amazing, and they're going to call themselves songwriters and that's what we're up against. It's already here. Yeah, it's like, and if we don't, if we don't, learn how to use it to our benefit, we're going to get left behind, right, that's a fact. I've already seen it. It's amazing, it's mind-blowing.
Speaker 3:I think it'll affect us in some ways, but I think and Tully said this on a previous show I think AI it has to take from something, it has to learn from something. So AI is not going to be able to come up with the idea I came up with this morning. It's just not. You've got to feed it, and so I still feel like there's always going to be the need for writers to create new things to feed AI you have a question on that, we'll have to do that, but what I'm saying is somebody who doesn't know anything about songwriting and has never written a song in their life, can feed it anything and call themselves a songwriter and put their name on it.
Speaker 1:The way AI works.
Speaker 7:But what I'm saying is AI is smart.
Speaker 1:I mean it will spit out an amazing lyric they can write you a book if you wanted to An amazing lyric.
Speaker 7:Yeah, I've seen it and I was blown away. I'm like I wouldn't have thought of that.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, it's, it's. I've seen it and I was blown away. I'm like I wouldn't have thought of that. Right, and it's not that you guys doing this intentionally, but ai is built off a model and it's built off of things that are out there presently. It's built off the songs that you guys wrote 100, yeah, so you guys fed it. You didn't know this was gonna happen. But how do you, how do you compete against that now, when you almost built the, the model for it?
Speaker 4:I don't, that's the question yet, because when you get into copyright and publishing, like you said, it has to learn from something, it has to take from something, and that's the big battle. I don't know the answer. I really don't.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and who would figure up that math? Because it's hundreds of thousands of songs. I guess what I'm trying to say here.
Speaker 7:AI is going to turn out to be the most amazing co-writer that's ever lived.
Speaker 1:It's going to be amazing.
Speaker 7:It's going to do all the work and you're just going to be in the room and watch it do its thing and keep feeding it stuff. If you don't like it, you can fix it, throw it back in there. Ai is going to be an amazing companion for a lot of people in the songwriting industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you think it will be used on the production end.
Speaker 4:Yep, Well, I mean it already is it already is?
Speaker 7:Yeah, it already is. It's going to put a lot of people out of business.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't know what it was. Who did I see?
Speaker 2:The AI artists? Yeah, they are. Who is that it sold? That they are. Who is that?
Speaker 7:for 500,000 copies of something it's like oh god, dang, yeah, yeah there's gonna. I predict there's gonna be. There's gonna be. They're gonna put record labels out of business and everything. Or record labels are gonna put everything out of business and have no artist to pay, have no, no overhead whatsoever. They will. I predict an AI-generated artist will sell out Bridgestone in the next five years. It won't even be anybody. What do you guys think?
Speaker 7:Hey, I knew it was going to happen when I saw a DJ with a light show sell out Bridgestone. Well, I mean some of the With a light show. He's just a guy doing this and plugging his stuff in and there's these tremendous lights and everybody's just and they sold out Bridgestone.
Speaker 3:So, it was over when I saw that, as we've said before, and this is true people are easily entertained.
Speaker 7:Yes, absolutely. They're here now. Look at Jim.
Speaker 4:I don't think he's entertained. Yes, he is Yep so entertained.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 5:I'm going to. I've got to a, you know, I think God will take care of this, I think, and with Kayla, in the sense that it still there's no motion there. So I think we're still it's dehumanized. I can't let myself believe that that will replace the heart and the imagination of what we do or artists in general. You know, it still feels plastic to me. You know, I've. You can have someone spit out lyrics and it's, it's fine, that's just. You know what?
Speaker 5:it's just not, it's just. It's just numbers it's ones and zeros, it is but I gotta, I gotta say this I got.
Speaker 7:This is the scary part. This is coming from I. I've written a lot of songs in my life and we have, freaking, put my heart and soul into a lyric before. And when I heard a song come out of that machine with a demo behind it, it blew my mind because it had emotion and that's what blew me away. I was like I mean, it was amazing, it was, it blew my mind. I'm like we're in trouble. We're in trouble and when was? That this thing can think when did?
Speaker 7:you first see that oh, it's been in the last month. Okay, yeah, this is all fresh. Yeah, it's all brand new. The music was amazing, the singer was amazing and the song was amazing, and the song was amazing and I was. I was blown away. It was all fake.
Speaker 5:I haven't heard that side of it. Yet Maybe I? I don't, I don't want to, but everything I've heard out of it or like seen, or what it's spit out. We were messing around one day with the, our boys, the Warren brothers were joking around and they said something and it was like okay, well, that's, that's, that's really not good, you know.
Speaker 4:And so I haven't seen the, the true fear that I've seen in my friend now but you know for me to say it, though I know I mean it's like I, it scared me to death well, and we, you know it wasn't real, I guess and the way we approach it, like we, these guys write for everybody yeah, I've had hits with everybody we kind of more, you know, focused towards jason right, and when we're looking for songs for jason, the ai doesn't do it because there's a very specific yeah thing. But no, I see what you're saying, man, I really do.
Speaker 7:It's going to come a time where you can throw an idea in and go write it for Jason Aldean. Well, we did it.
Speaker 4:Believe me, we did that. We like write this.
Speaker 1:You guys tested it oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Write this title in the style of Jason Aldean.
Speaker 7:It won't hit it every time.
Speaker 3:It won't hit it every time, but sometimes it'll spit out one and you're like holy shit To me it sounds really good, but it falls under the category of hey, that's pretty good, but to me my experience is pretty good songs don't get recorded.
Speaker 7:Right, there's a lot of them out there.
Speaker 3:I'm just saying I would have disagreed with you there.
Speaker 2:But I said my experience, but I think it's a good tool.
Speaker 3:I think it'd be a good tool, Like for me. I'm not a great melody guy at all, so for me if I'm working on something, it'd be kind of cool to say hey, spit it out and make this more of a rock thing and you can start hearing pieces of demos.
Speaker 3:Make this more of a rock thing and you can start hearing pieces of demos. I think for some people it can be a really good tool. Or if you're completely stone cold, blocked on a second verse or something I don't know, and said, hey, put it out, and it'll spit out something generic, that's been said before. I would never do that you won't do that will you, I haven't used it.
Speaker 7:I'm just saying but people will. But that was my point a while ago. There's going to be people who don't write songs for a living and they're just brand new. They'll throw a title into it, it'll spit out a lyric and they'll get to mess with it and edit it and do this and put it back in there and then do a little work tape on it with just their guitar on their phone, put that in there and out spits this record with this singer that doesn't exist.
Speaker 7:And that took 10 minutes. Yes, it is scary and it's amazing, right? That's my whole point. It's like there's going to be people who who haven't been doing this for 30, 40 years their whole life and still learning the craft for 30 years that'll be able to just step in here and just do that and that pisses y'all off. Right, you can stay pissed or you can adapt or die. I think it's going to be hard to make money.
Speaker 3:I don't think you could just become a hit songwriter just by feeding stuff into AI and editing it. It depends on who cuts it. I don't know, maybe it'll happen.
Speaker 5:I don't know if that's going to happen. We better hope it's regulated and it doesn't happen. At that point I don't think it'll happen. I don't know if that's going to happen. We better hope it's regulated and it doesn't happen. At that point I don't even think I want to.
Speaker 1:That's how well you suggest they regulate it. I don't know, I don't either. That's way above me, it's the same way.
Speaker 5:I think how do you regulate social media? How do you regulate any of it? It's all negative to me. The AI stuff for the creative music is everything. My soul won't even let me entertain the thought. So I think that's when I if, if it comes down to that, I don't.
Speaker 4:I think you know we are old, we are a dying breed. Yeah, if you're well dying.
Speaker 5:If a dying breed's creating music, if that makes a dying breed, then I guess I'm I'm dead because it's I'm not, I, I can't. Where's the joy in it, right? I find no joy in saying, spit me, spit me out. A second verse, like to me, it's like I. I love music with everything I have and it's like all I love and what I want to do, and forever I can't even.
Speaker 4:It's hard though I mean this is, it's a wormhole, but it's like. You know, people build tracks and music through samples and it isn't them creating the music. It's just oh, I see this online. Here's a sample. Here's a sample. Here's a sample. There's your song. So I mean, it's happening inch by inch, or even more than that.
Speaker 7:I don't think we're ever going to give in. I don't think the guys like this generation of writers. I don't think we're ever going to fully give in to AI. But the new generation coming up, especially even the younger, people.
Speaker 5:Well, yeah, you don't have to have any talent. I know it, I could do it. That's the scary part.
Speaker 4:You could, and it would be great Jim could do it. I'm kidding. Jim, I'm kidding Jim. I'm kidding.
Speaker 7:You're right, kurt, jim can do it. That's the sad part. You're not going to need talent.
Speaker 5:That's what I'm getting at Then what's the point of doing anything Just at that point?
Speaker 1:Don't give up. It's a super depressing night.
Speaker 7:Hey, I think it's a sign the Lord's coming back soon. That's what I think. I think a lot of things are yeah, but we can wrap this up.
Speaker 1:We've been at this like an hour, but I like to end every show with one question. So if we go around the room here a bit, if you could talk to a young person, if you look them in the eyes and you can tell them not to give up one thing name of the show is america. Don't give up weed. If you're talking weed, if you're talking in gen z a young person, what do you?
Speaker 4:say well, you kind of uh, touched on this and I think this is important. I'm glad my parents instilled this in me as critical thinking. Uh, I just think we've lost it. The younger generation has lost it. You're kind of told what to do. You kind of watch what to do right and I I know this guy has, and I know you have, and I know you're going to instill that in your kids uh, I'm very thankful my parents did that with me and in some ways you would disagree, but that's the whole point. That allows you to get through a lot of tough times. I hope that I'm doing that with my son. That's the one thing I'd say. Don't give up on. Think for yourself. Don't be influenced easily by others.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've been taught what to think, not how to think.
Speaker 4:More than ever, we've been taught what to think, not how to think. More than ever, we've been taught what to think Right.
Speaker 5:Well, I mean, I would say, just don't give up on God's message. What's that to you? Well, look, I know it's easy when things don't go right to question it.
Speaker 5:You know, like you may lose somebody close to you, you may something may not go right, you may hit a bad patch in your life. I've been through it, where it's like you start questioning you know is he out there? Has he got my back? Seriously, I've had those moments, you know, and I've learned like that he's always there, right, he's always there and it's those down moments that make you the strongest. That's a lesson that I wish I would have learned when I was younger. That I know now, but I think that's part of his plan. So I would say to the young people I've been through it, don't give up on that, yeah don't stay low.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mentioned Forrest Frank earlier. Earlier that new artist. Uh, he was skateboarding. Like a week ago. He broke his back while skateboarding. He's on tour and everything broke his back, uh. So he's like in bed right now and he's like I need to make a song and you just said it god's got my back. He just made a song called god's got my broken back. Wow, yeah so that song's doing well. Now I'm gonna going to put that in AI tonight. He just wrote it.
Speaker 3:Neil will have that out by tomorrow.
Speaker 1:But you should look up the video of him actually producing it because, it's interesting. He made it in his bed the guitar and everything.
Speaker 4:That's amazing.
Speaker 1:It's cool, I know my son knows it.
Speaker 4:I actually don't know much of him. I'll look that up.
Speaker 5:See, AI is not going to get that emotion.
Speaker 1:No, they can't. They can't time it like that. Yeah, Kelly.
Speaker 3:Uh, I mean, I would just say, you know um, those are both great, by the way.
Speaker 3:Um, but I would say don't give up on family, um, because the older you get, you know, and you and you start losing people. Um, you, you know, and you start losing people. You know. You just need to really value your mom and dad, your brothers, sisters and all that, because I've kind of learned that our family is kind of odd, because we all love each other. We don't have an ousted family member, you know, and a lot of people do have those people and they just don't repair it, like for whatever reason. I think it's just so incredibly sad because as you get older, you start losing friends and stuff like that. And even if you're going to be successful, um, you know, it's great if you're successful, but if nobody cares when you get there, I mean, what'd you do it for?
Speaker 1:right, you know.
Speaker 3:so I mean friends, come and go to keep yeah and you get older, I mean, your friend group starts getting real small Right.
Speaker 7:Yeah, mine's more related to what Tully said, but it's don't give up on prayer, because sometimes people get the wrong answer to their prayer, or it's not the wrong answer, but they don't get the answer that they want, and they'll give up on it really quick Because prayer works. I'm 60 years old and I'm here to attest that prayer works. I haven't gotten the answer I wanted every time, but it was for the right reason and I always found out later that it was for the right reason. So don't give up praying.
Speaker 1:Right, that's very true. My life's a testimony of that. Just a quick bit Senior year of high school. I wrote the book when I was 17. Senior year of high school I spent nine days in the hospital Right over Christmas break. Six days I was unconscious. This is only two years ago. Six days I was unconscious. This is only two years ago. Six days I was unconscious with what they call viral encephalitis. My brain was swollen and inflamed and I mean they didn't know if I would live. I mean people usually get that mortality rate on that is 10%.
Speaker 1:So if you want to talk about COVID mortality rate of 0.00 something 10% mortality rate. I was in a coma for a week. People, people who get that are in a coma for weeks, if not months, and you don't make it out, um, but I mean the lord uh showed up. Uh, the first week in the hospital I woke up from being unconscious. It's like midnight and there's like a gonzaga unc basketball game on tv.
Speaker 1:I was like I was trying to watch it in bed. But you're so dazed and out of it after a week, as you can imagine, and I couldn't focus on it. But there's one thought in my mind like at that point and it's like where's my Bible? I have like one of the big ESV thick study Bibles. It's just a brick.
Speaker 1:In high school I was known to be the guy who just carried it around, which is a good thing to be known by, but you can't beat it. And I remember like crawling out of bed and stumbling across the room, just hobbling over there like out of breath, huffing and puffing. Once I found my Bible on the windowsill, my mom's on a futon trying to sleep at midnight, my dad's in a recliner, to your point of family. They were there the whole time. They were there and I found my Bible. I got back to my bed, ripped the IV out of my arm to even do that.
Speaker 1:Nurses were not happy, but the stud. But I remember just flipping open and I couldn't even read the words on the page but I prayed the only two words. I can find the strength to mutter. It was I surrender. And after a week of being unconscious and a coma. A day later I'm out of the hospital. I'm running laps around the floor of that hospital, hospital, uh floor, running laps, running away from the nurses because they want to do more tests. I'm like, I'm out of here, I'm good, I'm done, uh, and I mean that was the beginning of my story.
Speaker 4:That's incredible.
Speaker 1:The Lord healed to the power of prayer. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the power of prayer. I was supposed to be on my first mission trip to Jamaica in that time. I didn't go. There were people in Jamaica praying for me, people in Europe. They had a whole prayer chain going across the country, across the world. That's where my parents resorted to first. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that. So I just wanted to throw that in there In that recovery process. I thought it was going to take two years. I didn't think I'd be 100% until now, within six months after that.
Speaker 1:I read a book Amazing and right before that book came out, that's when Fox invited me on for the first time and I was able to go on there talk about Gen Z, what we're talking about now. I didn't know what that was back then and now this has become my niche. But like right after I was on, that hit something kind of clicked with me, like when I was going back for those like checkup appointments with the neurologist, the rheumatologist, that all the ologists that you can't name these old guys probably get it.
Speaker 3:You're right.
Speaker 7:We didn't in the show on that one.
Speaker 3:I think he was looking that way, he was, he was.
Speaker 1:But I went to the neurologist's appointment with my mom and my dad and he approved me and everything. So I was good to go. I was cleared and he asked me and everything. So I was good to go. I was cleared and he asked me stupid questions like who's the president? And, knowing me, I hesitated when I said Joe Biden, Is he really the president? We don't know.
Speaker 4:The trick question. Maybe it was a dream the trick question.
Speaker 1:So I think I was on it. He asked me some math questions and I answered them and we're walking out of that room. This is in like February and first Fox hit was June of 2023. This is 2023. And book is out last day of June and we're walking out in February of that meeting and we're almost out of the room. He comes up and grabs me and he taps me on the shoulder and he says, Christian, I never want to see you again unless you're on TV. So in February he's saying that and in June that happens to come to be. Because this is never what I ever imagined myself doing. The last thing I ever thought I would do is to talk. I mean, my whole life I was a shy kid behind my mom's leg. I just wanted to sit there and observe. And here we are. The Lord's called me into this. So you're right, the prayer does work and I'm glad I think you guys understand that.
Speaker 4:I love it. You guys have experienced it. That's an incredible story, right. And we appreciate you being here tonight, dude.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you guys letting me come in and take your space and let me into your little bubble.
Speaker 5:Through the bubble you're in.
Speaker 1:I'm in, you'll get a bill, all right? Well, I think that's it. Thanks for tuning in everybody. We'll be back for the next episode.
Speaker 6:Make sure to follow along, subscribe, share rate the show and check out our merch at trythatinasmalltowncom.