From Small Town Stages To “The Road”: Adam Sanders On Grit, Branding, And Country Music’s New Path :: Ep 79 Try That in a Small Town Podcast

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Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open: Boxers And A Buck
• 2:39 Welcome Back And Football Banter
• 5:47 Setting Up Tonight’s Guest
• 6:55 Adam Sanders Joins The Table
• 9:30 Uncle Scotty’s Seed And Early Start
• 12:37 Small Town Roots And School Days
• 14:37 The Velvet Buck Mishap
• 18:34 What “The Road” Really Is
• 23:12 Fans As Judges, Not TV Audiences
• 26:41 Touring Strategy And Market Fit
• 29:12 The Grind Vs. Going Viral
• 31:53 Building A Brand That Sticks
• 37:02 Finding Your Lane Like The Greats
• 40:44 Networking, MySpace, And First Cuts
• 45:33 Confidence, Rejection, And Resilience
• 49:50 Writing For Self Versus Pitching
• 53:54 When Authenticity Creates Demand
• 57:16 Case Studies: Urban, Church, Chesney
• 1:01:42 Brand In Two Words: Why It Matters
• 1:06:17 Resetting The Team And Self-Management
• 1:10:44 Appreciation, Influence, And Fan Moments
• 1:14:37 Football Detour: Gators And Coaching

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:32

I added Michael Knox to my space and um I messaged him and I cannot remember exactly what I messaged him about, but he responded and was super nice and at the end of our conversation I said to him, and this is 21-year-old full of piss and vinegar, me, that has nothing going on in the music industry. I literally said something like, Hey man, I appreciate it. Tell Al Dean I'm coming for it.

SPEAKER_05: 1:03

When y'all were talking about that, I think about Jamie Johnson. Like when he came to town, I was writing a D of mine, he got signed to E of mine as at the Christmas party. I didn't know, I didn't know him. He's he was new in town. But he was uh just had on a normal shirt, a leather jacket, and just uh just almost a high and tight haircut, just neat, neat as a pen. He didn't come to town as that, you know, with the outlaw and all the hair and the beard and everything, but he found through his music and everything, he found that lane and he took it over. And there's nobody like that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33

I think guys like Jamie Johnson, to that point, he was he finally let loose and did what he wanted to do. Correct. Yeah. Instead of what they wanted him to do.

SPEAKER_02: 1:43

I go to zoom in on my crotch and my thing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:47

Oh Johnny's hanging out is hanging outside of my boxes. And I'm gonna send this picture to 30 people. The water was cold, guys. It was cold. Yeah, literally cold.

SPEAKER_09: 1:58

A try that in a small town podcast. Begin out.

SPEAKER_06: 2:07

Welcome back. This is the try that in a small town podcast. You can't see it. Yep, there's somebody across the table from me that we'll get to. Um now let's just go. Who are you? What is this? Are you celebrating the Raiders or Alabama? Because I which side of the helmet?

SPEAKER_03: 2:24

Yeah, I mean, this is the Bama side, right?

SPEAKER_06: 2:26

Okay, that's the Bama side. Yes. What happened? Was there a game? Was there a game?

SPEAKER_03: 2:30

Come on.

SPEAKER_06: 2:31

Kurt, seriously, was there a game?

SPEAKER_05: 2:34

Yeah, there was a game. Well, there was a game.

SPEAKER_06: 2:36

There was Neil Paddington.

SPEAKER_05: 2:38

Yeah, Alabama had a had a game. Uh and Tennessee, too many, too many issues on the road. There were a lot of issues. I will say on um and Alabama's credit, they did play a solid game. There are some we couldn't run the ball. There's some but but that's kind of been a a thing that y'all haven't been running the ball true that good. I mean statistically, if you look at the numbers, it should have been a lot closer. You know, uh statistically they're about the same, but the scoreboard is a big thing.

SPEAKER_06: 3:10

The game switch looks at right before half. That was gonna be a game, and then they threw that horrible pass, pick six, game over. Game over it was just a bad pretty much.

SPEAKER_05: 3:19

It was a it was a horrible play call. Yeah. And you didn't have time for another play, so they knew it was a pass.

SPEAKER_03: 3:24

I've got to I've got you know, I've got to just I don't think it was a horrible play call necessarily, because you're not giving my team any credit. Of course. Well, we didn't get to that part yet. I I well He made the play.

SPEAKER_06: 3:37

I mean you could say He made the play, but there's a lot of bad things. Here's the thing too.

SPEAKER_03: 3:41

Tennessee called timeout, called the play, and then Alabama called timeout. And I told I turned and told my wife, I said, that's the smartest thing Deborah's done in a long time was call the timeout right there. And prepare these guys because they cannot run the ball. Yeah, that's the thing. There's no way they can run the ball. And the best thing he did was call that timeout, bring the guys to the sideline, and prepare for that play right there, and they did, and they broke on it. And it was just a very, very smart timeout.

SPEAKER_05: 4:15

Yeah, everything bad and and on the opposite side of that. And I and I do I do like Coach Heipel, but this season there have been some clock management issues that are on the field stuff that that he needs to correct because things like that cost you games. That was a that was a 14-point swing. I mean that that was uh you know just as Tennessee when you saw that is like, oh my god, you could that's the worst possible.

SPEAKER_06: 4:44

I'm with you the clock management up to it, the timeout it took before it, they screwed the whole thing up.

SPEAKER_05: 4:49

Yeah, it was just ri really bad, and you're already on the road and you just can't have that stuff. And I and I was gonna say too, Alabama, uh that when a quarterback throws is accurate and you have a talented receiver catching some of those, some of those plays it can't be defended. I don't care what DBs you have. Some of them are just you just look at it, and even as a fan, I'm like, all right, well, they couldn't I'm not mad at the player because you can't, you know, you can't stop that. But they had they had every chance to be in the game. I'm not gonna say, hey, they would have won if they'd have done this because I'm not that kind of fan, but they had opportunities even to stay in that game, even coming back out in the second half after that debacle, you know, because I was sitting there thinking, well, that's it. You know, and uh they come back out, Alabama gets the ball, three and out, then we score. On a running play, which why weren't we running the whole time? Because that's been the strength and that's that's Alabama's weakness, and we didn't start doing that to the second half.

SPEAKER_03: 5:47

I don't I don't want our listeners to think that I rub it in, because I don't, I'm not that way. And you know what? No, we didn't rub it in. We've kno we've known each other a long time ago. We didn't rub it in. But we're on a podcast now and we're live, and the world gets to see us, and I'm just saying, I'm I've the helmet's there. I'm not trying to, it's comfortable. I'm just kind of going back to my college days a little bit. Well, I'm not I'm not trying to rub it in.

SPEAKER_05: 6:09

Then you should have an MTSU jersey up here, then true. Neil was a punter at MTSU. Sticker.

SPEAKER_06: 6:17

Well, let's uh let's get to the important stuff because we have an awesome show tonight. We have an awesome guest, Mr. Adam Sanders. Neil, are you because I'd never met him. Is this somebody that you have written with? And how do you know Adam?

SPEAKER_03: 6:33

Uh me and Michael Delaney wrote with him. Okay. And and we uh I got to know him there, and we had a lot in common because the dude loves the outdoors, he loves to hunt. I love to hunt. We have we know a lot of people that the same people that we didn't know that we knew. So and we were writing that day, and I go, I go, dude, come on our podcast, would you? And for people he was all about coming on, and like we're so appreciative.

SPEAKER_06: 7:01

Yeah, and for people that don't know, he's on the show The Road, which Blake Shelton is on, uh Keith Urban, right? Yep. And it's a pretty awesome show, and he's one of the contestants, and this is like m must must watch TV.

SPEAKER_03: 7:16

They're two episodes in right now, two episodes in.

SPEAKER_06: 7:19

Two episodes in.

SPEAKER_03: 7:20

Yeah, I'm I'm gonna watch and I'm gonna be like pulling for the dude. Yeah, I'm pulling for him. Now that we know him, like we do.

SPEAKER_06: 7:27

He's a songwriter, he's had number one hits, and got a lot of uh uh He's been here a while, which so you want to root for the guy.

SPEAKER_05: 7:35

I like the way that he came up through the ranks. Um is really cool. You know, the way he'd been singing since he was three. You know, the uncle got he said, Hey, you ought to, you know, write songs like at twelve years old. And then he came to town and pretty shortly after that started having hits, you know, like right away, which is unusual. I know.

SPEAKER_03: 7:54

I almost almost told him, I go, it could be a curse. I want to be an artist too, and I started getting cuts before I was an artist, and my artist career never took off. Same with well, Jeffrey Steele did. Boy howdy was pretty good. No, he's gonna be uh Adam's gonna he's gonna rock it, man. He's his work ethic and knowing who he is, everybody's gonna know it after this episode.

SPEAKER_05: 8:19

He's too stubborn to leave. I know it. He really is. I love it.

SPEAKER_06: 8:23

All right, let's let's not waste any more time. Let's get to Adam Sanders right now. We got Adam Sanders in Adam. Thanks for being here, man.

SPEAKER_08: 8:32

When he came in, we we called him little Adam Sanders because we his chair was about three inches down. Yeah. We do that on purpose for the guests.

SPEAKER_05: 8:39

We try to build you up as the show goes. Seniority, right? Yeah. There we go. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02: 8:45

He looked like a door taller than me. If I'd have done that, you you wouldn't even have seen that.

SPEAKER_03: 8:50

Welcome to show, Adam.

SPEAKER_06: 8:53

It's like uh dwarf on golf. Remember that? That Tim Conway thing. He's got to be as old as me then. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_05: 8:59

Yeah, little shuffle.

SPEAKER_06: 9:00

Hey, so fun fact that I know the listeners don't know, but I know that you're gonna be interested in. I found out Adam's uncle is somebody we know.

unknown: 9:11

Who?

SPEAKER_06: 9:11

Who's a player?

SPEAKER_08: 9:13

Holding on information.

SPEAKER_06: 9:15

He's a session player, Scotty Sanders. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We knew that.

SPEAKER_03: 9:19

I need that.

SPEAKER_06: 9:20

Love Scotty. Isn't that amazing?

SPEAKER_08: 9:21

Pretty wild, huh? Yeah. Man, we used to do a bunch of sessions with him when we were doing demos back in the day at Station West. Oh, yeah. I'm not half as funny as he is, though. I'll be into something else. He is so great all the way around. What a great guy to have in a session, too.

SPEAKER_02: 9:37

Just awesome people. And you know, the wild thing uh is in the fate of how I got in the music industry was when I was 12, he called me one day because I started singing when I was like two or three years old, and he said, Hey, have you ever thought about writing songs? And at 12 years old, like that did not compete for me. Um he said, You should you should look into writing songs. That could be your way in the music industry one day. And so I hung up the phone and started writing songs with my dad, and then I started writing in high school and literally fast forward moved in 2009 and two years later got a publishing deal, and that's exactly how I got my start, was all because he planted a seed when I was 12. Is this your dad's brother? Okay. Yes, my dad's younger brother. And where were you living at this time? So I grew up in north central Florida, a little small town called Lake City. Um you blink, you miss it, I like to say. Um, but I kind of grew up just like you know, every small town America kid, you know, into sports and music was always my thing, though. You know, I always sang in talent shows and fairs and festivals and all that kind of stuff, and you know, so my whole goal from the time I could even remember was to literally graduate high school and move to Nashville. I had no other dreams or aspirations. Um I literally think I kind of procrastinated for about a year. I took a half semester at our community college, and I kind of thought to myself, well, you know, all my buddies haven't gone off to college yet, and we're all still hanging around during the summer and going to the rivers and you know, kind of hanging out and bonfires and and all that. And I was like, I'll I'll take like a uh half semester of college and like you know, business, and then I'll transfer it to like music business, which I barely graduated high school, so the thought of me going to college was never gonna work, you know. So literally it took about a half semester, and I was like, That was my same pass.

SPEAKER_03: 11:17

I gotta go to music business. The music business, yeah, right. Anything had business in the title? Yeah. I couldn't even spell business.

SPEAKER_08: 11:23

I still don't think I really graduated. I think they just pushed me through. Yeah. Because I mean I was right on the bubble him out of here.

SPEAKER_05: 11:30

Well, it's all the all the rich kids get a pass. Oh, yeah. Isn't that crazy though?

SPEAKER_02: 11:34

Like, I I talked to a lot of people in the music industry, and like as like creatives, like I was just not interested in school. Like, I wasn't a bad kid. I wasn't, you know, like in detention or getting expelled. I just didn't like to go. And if I went, I just wanted to go and socialize and hang out with my buddies. You know, like I didn't give a shit about you know what.

SPEAKER_06: 11:53

I mean, I think creative type should be.

SPEAKER_03: 11:55

They call that ADHD today. My boy being a boy is now called ADHD.

SPEAKER_08: 12:01

Hey Neil, I Neil, I gotta say, I I agree with you on that. It's true. Yeah, it's a there's always something you got a name for everything now. Yeah. You know.

SPEAKER_03: 12:10

In fact, I think there I heard something the other day where they're trying to like make recess like half the day of school. What do you mean? Like why? Run it, run it, run them, one, run them crazy, man. Run them wild. Shoot, let the kids go. They get too bound up in there.

SPEAKER_02: 12:26

Huh. That used to be my favorite time. I still to this day, one of my only claims to fame of growing up is I still hold the mile record in my elementary school for the mile run. I record the fastest time. Elementary, you're holding the elementary. No. I do remember this though. This was uh they still do it. I as far as it's a good one.

SPEAKER_05: 12:54

Maybe that's why maybe they stopped it.

SPEAKER_02: 12:57

I don't even know I don't even know if that school is still I don't even think it's even there anymore. So that is gonna bring the record books. But I but a funny story is I do remember um I was always in like chorus and drama and all that kind of stuff, you know, growing up, and I remember we did this uh we did this Grease play in fifth grade, and I got to like lead role and you know was John Travolta or whatever, so I exyed my hair jet black for this. And I had this crazy thought after literally we done the the play, and it was uh like a Thursday, Friday afternoon, and I was like, man, I'm about to go hit this mile. Like I I'd been trying to run it and I'd kind of gotten close to it, and I was like, I'm gonna do it. And I remember I got about three or four laps around this track, and I started sweating, and all that black dye started coming out of my hair, and it was all running down the side of my face, and I I somehow got the the fastest time as I'm running around with black hair going around. Does anybody have a picture of that? If they do, I don't know, and I don't probably don't want to see it. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03: 13:57

Speaking of pictures, I want to hear the story because Adam's a big hunter, like I am. Okay. And we're like when we've gotten together to write, all we do we spend half the day looking at deer pictures. Yeah. You gotta tell the story about the deer that you sh that you shot this year with your bow. Go.

SPEAKER_02: 14:16

This is this is uh this is embarrassing. I'll tell you this. Um so I go to Kentucky uh opening weekend for velvet season, and um I have a good friend that's up there, um George Cummins, that invited me to come up and hunt with him. And um These guys don't know what velvet season. Well, the velvet season. I was actually gonna ask him on their antlers. Oh, yeah, so on their antlers, velvet is what's on their antlers. And in certain states, you the hunting season starts early enough where you can harvest a buck that is still in velvet. Most seasons doesn't start until after they've already shedded their velvet. So it's kind of a unique thing to be able to hunt one that early to get you know a deer. So anyway, so I go up for that uh section of the season, which is literally the first weekend, and he puts me on this really, really nice buck. He scored 164 inches. So I shoot this deer, and uh where I shot him with my bow, he fell in this creek, and it was way off down in this big deep ravine. And so we go to track him and find him, and he's in the middle of this water, it's like four foot of water. So I have to strip down to my boxers to go in to get this deer out of the water. So all my buddies, you know, that are with me, they're on the bank, and you know, they're all laughing at me. Oh, any excuse to take your shirt off, you know, sort of thing. They're videoing me. And so I wade out in the middle of this water, like you know, waist deep, get him, we get him to the side of the bank, and uh I didn't think anything of it. So I just start posing him up and I start taking pictures, and I'm still in my boxers, and all I got is my boxers on and my hat. This this exact hat, I got it turned around backwards. So I started taking pictures and posing, and about halfway through I realized, hey, you idiot, like you probably need to put some clothes on. So I go and put my you know clothes on. So we get back to the truck, and you know, I'm sending these pictures around to all my buddies. Well, and some of the photos he looks the biggest when I'm in my boxers. And I thought it would be funny for them to, you know, tell the story. Hey, I had to get him in the water. I didn't realize this though. I had sent it to about 30 of my buddies, and I realized after setting about a week later, I go to zoom in on my crotch and my big box.

SPEAKER_01: 16:34

The water was cold, guys. It was cold. Really cold. So I was too high number of this big boxer buck.

SPEAKER_02: 16:42

I wasn't worried about what he was doing now. But now 30 of my buddies has this picture, and I don't know if they've you're in trouble. No, you're in trouble. If they were too busy looking at the rack. But so yeah, so now that I got a picture of my of my Johnson hanging out the side of my boxer's.

SPEAKER_03: 17:01

You know what? If you win the road, my God, you it's not gonna be only your face going viral. Oh god.

SPEAKER_02: 17:08

Only fans deer hunting edition.

SPEAKER_08: 17:12

You ever watch Seinfeld? So there's an episode where the same thing, like Kramer. Uh oh. So Kramer takes a picture of Elaine for a Christmas card and uh turns out her her nipples showing and she doesn't realize it until the Christmas card's already sent out. So that should be your Christmas card. That's right.

SPEAKER_02: 17:31

See who first person I'm gonna send it to you. See who catches it.

SPEAKER_01: 17:34

See who pictures on the print. Merry Christmas.

SPEAKER_02: 17:36

Luckily you can't see much about it, but you can tell what it is.

SPEAKER_03: 17:41

Oh my God.

unknown: 17:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_03: 17:43

I want to hear about the road. I want to know how that's going. Man, how it started.

SPEAKER_02: 17:46

Yeah, tell people what it is and and what's happening. What a wild opportunity, first off. Um, I mean, man, like like I said earlier, I moved to Nashville in 2009, and my whole goal when I moved here was to be an artist and you know, found my way through songwriting. And I feel like, you know, um for my early years, I got such uh success early in songwriting that I kind of got labeled as the songwriter pretty early, like in Nashville. Um and I think a lot of labels and everything sort of just saw me as like the young kid that had two number ones and all these things, but like I didn't have anything really developed in the in the artist side of things. And so I've spent the last ten years just sharpening the knife, going out and playing shows and getting better and writing and finding what my brand is and and understanding the difference of there's already a Jason Aldean, there's already a you know Luke Bryan and Luke Combs. What is my thing that separates me? And so, you know, I kind of feel like I hit on that uh about Boxer shorts. Uh yeah. That's your thing. I yeah, well, uh Luke Bryan's got the jockey stuff going on. So I don't know if that's yeah, that might be uh competitive conversation. I see a big endorsement coming. So um, so I literally get a call out of nowhere one day from Blake Shelton's production manager, and he says, Hey, can I pitch you for a show? And I was like, sure. I have to do that. Did you have any connection with him? Did you have any connection with the other? No, so I played a I think I played a Country Thunder festival, which you guys have played Country Thunders before. Uh I played the Wisconsin one, and he saw a show and he was like, Man, I just love what you do. He was like, this is great, you know, you got like a thing about you. And so he remembered that performance, and when they were starting to look for people uh for the show, he reached out to me and I was like, sure, whatever. Well, I had never had any uh bit of um thought to do any sort of singing competition show. Like I that was the furthest thing from my mind. But when they told me sort of the parameters of the show, I got a little intrigued, which was so Blake Shelton produced uh this show and was the uh creator of the show, him and Lee Metzger. So they come from the you know the voice, obviously. From my understanding, Blake was in a position where he was like, Man, I feel like this model is broken. We're not producing stars. We basically, you know, have we're putting singers um on a polished stage that is you know confetti falling. It's the furthest from reality of what you know an actual star is supposed to be. Um and a lot of times, you know, no fault of their own as far as the contestants that were on these shows, a lot of them are pretty inexperienced. So when they win the show or they do well, when it comes time to say, okay, well, now what is your songs now that you're not gonna cover a song, they don't have that sort of stuff built. They don't have the foundation built, so they spend the next four or five years building all that. Well, by then all the hype is sort of sort of went down the drain and they're kind of caught in this weird spot of like, well, they won this television show, but they could never capitalize on it because they didn't have all the mechanics.

SPEAKER_08: 20:52

Or they lose their platform.

SPEAKER_02: 20:53

Yeah, you know, so so Blake was like, We need to get more established artists that are kind of right under the surface, that have all been sort of doing this, grinding it out, and it's just a moment away from having their career go to the next level. And he said, We need to put them in real show environments. So what they did was they got Keith Urban to come along. Keith Urban is headlining the night, and we started with 12 contestants, we all opened for Keith Urban that night. We had a session band that we all played with, and Keith used the same exact band, so there was no changeover. Um, and we basically did two songs each night. We did a cover and we did an original. Um and the goal was one in every, you know, so many audience members got a voting device. And they said, Hey, you pick who you think did well. And so what they would do is, you know, all these fans show up thinking they're coming to a Keith Urban pop-up show. They get in this thing, and then the producers walk out and say, All right, you're here to see Keith Urban, and he's gonna play after, but you're also here for the filming of the road, and uh you're gonna see, you know, 12 contestants you've never seen before, or how many ever are still in the competition, and whoever got a voting device, they're gonna play their two songs. You've got two minutes, rate them from one to ten, voting closes and goes to the next person.

SPEAKER_06: 22:19

Oh, that's a great concept.

SPEAKER_02: 22:20

So it's not a TV audience, it's an audience that's there to see music and then oh by the way Malone. Country music audience that are is there to see you know Keith Urban play. That's awesome. Are they uh letting them drink? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That that's a good end of it. And here's the thing. So when when I understood sort of the parameters of it, I thought, man, okay, this is a cool opportunity because I've spent the last 10 years touring, anyways, and I've been fortunate to open for some of the biggest acts in our format. I'm gonna tour either way. So if I can tour in front of Keith Urban for a handful of shows, and I can get some national television exposure, and I'm doing my own original music, and I can um have the freedom to pick what songs I play, when and where, and you know, like there's not a host of the show per se, so I'm sort of telling all the artists are telling their versions of of their careers through their own eyes. So you're representing yourself. So whatever your story is in your mind, you get to tell that. They don't necessarily fabricate that and sort of say, Well, we should brand this person this way, we should brand this person that way. They sort of give you the freedom to say, All right, well, what do you want people to know about you? You know, and so I thought that was really cool, and I did it to sort of prove a point, which was I knew what I was doing out on the road. I knew the amount of engagement that I was having and the meet and greet lines, and I knew what my streaming numbers were doing. My problem with being an independent artist is I never could get any consistency. I would go out and I would open for, you know, uh Carrie Underwood for, you know, three or four shows in, you know, the state fair of Iowa. Well, I couldn't get the booking agent to send me back to a club to build that market out after they've already seen me. So I was falling in these pitfalls of like, man, I would go on a run a run of a year or two where I was playing great shows, but we couldn't convert it to hard tickets and we couldn't build up markets. And so I said, I'm about to do this to prove what I already know, which is I know there's a demand for being my music, and if the fans decide this, I feel like I got a shot, you know, to go all the way to the end with this. So um it was a a wonderful, wonderful experience. I can honestly say that there's not anything about it that I would um say was negative in any sort of way. It was uh it was pretty cool from top to bottom because I feel like it in po it empowered the artist, and it wasn't this um fabricated thing, and and it's meant to be sort of a docuseries, so it's not a reality-based thing. So it's a lot of b-roll, a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff of when we're in rehearsal and we're trying to figure out transitions and we're trying to figure out what songs we're gonna play, um, and the band sort of helping us, you know, say, okay, well, uh, for time purposes, we got to cut the intro, so we gotta do a dry start. Okay, well, what if we add two bars in the verse or whatever, you know, sort of thing. Um all that all they gave you the tools to be able to say, all right, here's your moment, here's your two songs to wrap an artist or wrap an audience in, give them what you got.

SPEAKER_08: 25:30

That's awesome. I do I do what love what his Blake's model is though, is that it's it's the people that are just bubbling. Yeah, and and we always talked about it for years being here for so long before YouTube and TikTok and all the stuff that happens now and Instagram. So many great artists were just a breakaway. And they're incredible, you know, but they didn't ever get that one break that you needed. Yeah. And that's that's that is the audience truly gets to decide.

SPEAKER_02: 26:03

100%. That's what I love about it. And the great thing is, is the diversity of music in this show is awesome. You've got a couple artists that may lean a little bit more towards like a red dirt, you've got, you know, a guy that is like more of an old school kind of Whalen feel, then you've got kind of my thing, which is probably right down the middle country radio. Um, and so when a when a viewer watches this show, regardless of what kind of music you like, there's going to be someone that you identify with um and sort of connect to. And so I think that the beauty is is you know, they didn't sort of get all of the artists that do the same thing. There's a lot of diversity in that whole thing. Um, but I also think that, you know, you had to be pretty strategic because you guys know this. You know, you go and play different markets, different crowds and different regions of the country are different as far as what they're kind of looking for, kind of what they want. So I think, you know, like that served me well to sort of think that through all the way to the detail of okay, we are in, you know, Fort Worth, Texas tonight. What does a Fort Worth, Texas crowd want to hear of my music that they can relate with? You know, versus what does a you know um a Nashville crowd want or wherever it may be, you know. So um so it was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_06: 27:32

We talked about this a lot too, whether it's and like you said, it's no fault of their own, but if you're on the voice or if you're on any of those shows, they're you don't have the background of grinding in a club for five years and knowing how to fail, knowing how to have success after that failure. And like you said, they've got these artists that have done it, been bubbling at the surface. I love the concept, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_08: 28:00

Yeah, because you've been you've been working at it. And that that's my biggest complaint with some of the artists today, the new artists, is they're they may go viral, whatever that means on whatever platform, and they're tossed out there on a tour and they don't know how to do a show. They're out there and they're and you're like, oh, this is it's so uncomfortable to watch. Yeah, you know, it's a full-free. Well, half of them haven't even played with in-airs before.

SPEAKER_02: 28:20

It's like they don't even know what an in-air mold is, you know. So it's like how can I mean the stadium if you don't you don't have that? But I do love the dragon.

SPEAKER_08: 28:28

And of course, Blake would because Blake was a grinder too. So he gets that. Like the people that have been work like yourself that have been working at it, you know, writing songs and and trying to build your brand, that's who we should be given the chances to. Amen. That that that makes the most sense to me because you know how to do it. You know how to to get a crowd. If you start to lose a crowd, how do you get them back? You gotta learn the only way to learn that is by playing shows. Yep. You know, so great. I mean, I just I actually I didn't realize that was the the kind of the platform model.

SPEAKER_06: 29:00

Yeah, so uh we'll keep talking about it, but what channel is this on? How do people watch?

SPEAKER_02: 29:04

Yeah, so this is on CBS Paramount Plus. Yeah. So every Sunday night, um 9 p.m. Eastern, 8 p.m. Central, uh it's a live episode basically, you know, of that night. And if you miss it, you can, you know, stream them all on Paramount Plus. Um and so this thing is gonna run all the way up into December until they whittle it down to you know, what episode are we on now? So we uh just finished the second episode. Okay. Um so there's two shows in.

SPEAKER_06: 29:34

Um Do you know if you made it past a second episode?

SPEAKER_02: 29:37

Yes, yeah. Uh so yeah, so we're we're we're locked in and good to go and still still do it.

SPEAKER_06: 29:44

Third episode's coming up. We need people to watch us singing. Hold on, not the TV audience doesn't do it. It's only the people actually in the audience.

SPEAKER_03: 29:51

Oh, we give you a try that in a small town podcast t-shirt, will you wear it on the show?

SPEAKER_02: 29:56

Yeah, yeah, uh, yeah. Let me go let me go back in time and report back. Hey, the funny thing is though, is we have been doing uh some pickup shots through this because they sort of realize as they put these episodes together, you know, we filmed all of this February, March, and April. Okay, well, when they got into post production, they realized, man, um, we didn't have enough of this. So we would have to go back and they would sort of ask me, hey, you know, like the first show um you did uh your your song What if I'm right? You said it was the most streamed song to date. Can you talk a little bit more about it? And then I would go in and be like, well, you know, put this out and Blah blah blah in 2021, blah blah blah, you know, and so they would add some of those elements in to kind of give more backstory, you know, to it. So good for you.

SPEAKER_03: 30:39

And I like the song too. I heard it. It's great.

SPEAKER_02: 30:41

Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_05: 30:43

I think the coolest thing, like you said, it might have been a uh negative for you being uh known as a writer first and everything as far as the artist thing. I I think it's the huge strength because your success as a writer took off pretty quick. I mean, when you move to town, usually it doesn't happen that fast. So what do you attribute that to? Were you just a great idea guy, melody guy? Was it the right co-writes, relationships?

SPEAKER_02: 31:04

I think it was finding your crew, you know, and you guys all know this. Um man, when I moved here, um, so you know, having Uncle Scotty in the business was a little bit of an advantage, but my uncle has always sort of been a guy that is not the, hey, look how great my nephew is. He is never that way. And you guys know him, you know, personally, he's just not that way.

SPEAKER_08: 31:25

And as a steel player, I gotta say something before, and I'm glad you brought him back up, because steel players are a quirky bunch, to say the least. Yeah. But not him. He's an amazing player, but just an amazing guy and normal.

SPEAKER_06: 31:42

He's a pretty normal guy. As far as steel players go, I think know this.

SPEAKER_08: 31:46

This is nothing like I'm gonna offend anybody. They're weird as shit. Like steel players are weird. We're all weird as being a little bit.

SPEAKER_01: 31:58

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_08: 32:01

Yeah, no, he's a good thing. They're weird. They're weird. But he is awesome. I remember being in sessions with him, and he was I mean, sitting there just feeding off each other, which was really, really cool. What a great tell him he said hello. I will. He's a great man. But he is he's a great player, but also just a normal guy.

SPEAKER_02: 32:18

Yeah, so when I moved here, the first thing I thought of is I said, All right, my dad's uh in construction. So I said, I moved in with my dad. We lived in this double-wide trailer, and uh so I said, Alright, I can go work with him, I can live with my dad, so I got a place to sleep and got a place to stay. Um I'm gonna work with him for a week, save up a little bit of money, and then I'm gonna call my uncle Scotty and say, Alright, where what sessions are you in for this week? And he would text me, I'm at County Q 10, 2, and 6, or I'm at you know Legends Corner or whatever, you know, this these sessions. So I would just go shadow him for a whole week, and I would set in the on these sessions, and every time, you know, as they're demoing songs, I'd get him to print me out a chart because I wanted to learn, you know, the Nashville number system. I was like, I'm in class, here we go. So sort of by association and by being there, um, so many times I started running into the same songwriters, and you know, after I don't know, three or four months of this, I would have guys, hey, what are you you want to write? You know, sort of thing. So that sort of started to happen. But what I was also doing is I was going out and networking, and I would go out to winners and losers and you know, Red Door and all these places, going to whiskey jams and all this, and and meeting guys that were all in the same level as me. And some of my best friendships still today came from those times. You know, uh that was back in the MySpace days, if y'all wow, yeah. Tom was my friend. And uh so we uh, you know, some of the very first people I ever met was Cole Swindell and Chase Rice and John Party and Blaine Rhodes, you know, that's in publishing, and uh, you know, so uh Ryan Bisel and all these people that like we all started to kind of rise together. And you know, back to your question, Kallo, I feel like my early success was by writing songs with my crew that we all started to kind of grow grow together. Like my first number one was uh song called You Ain't Worth the Whiskey for Cole Swindell. And so we wrote this song before I had a publishing deal. Uh Cole had just signed a publishing deal, um, and our buddy Josh Martin was a security guard officer at Belmont University, which is who introduced us together. He had the title, we write this song, and this song just kind of like floats around Nashville for like five years, and it was on hold for Montgomery Gentry, and I think Luke Bryan had it on hold at one point. Easton Corbin had it, and we always joked. We said, All right, out of the three of us, whoever gets a record deal first is going to cut this song. Cole gets a record deal first, he cuts the song, ends up being my first number one, his third consecutive. And so, same thing. You know, my second one was uh hell of a night for Dustin Lynch. Uh he saw me play a whiskey jam one night, came up to me and was like, hey dude, I love what you do. A month later, I'm on the bus with him writing uh songs. Now Boy Boyer said he wrote that by himself.

SPEAKER_08: 35:20

Yeah. Now wait a minute now. Jaron Boyer.

SPEAKER_02: 35:28

We love Jaren with this with this. Um but I I played that song on the on the bus while we were out. Um we were um we were out to I think me, Zach Crow, and Jaron might have been on that run, and me, Zach Crow, and Jaron had written that song a few months prior, and I played it for Dusk on the bus, and he ended up cutting it. And so it's just by finding the guys that I was, you know.

SPEAKER_06: 35:49

You're a hundred percent right. And what you said also, people always ask, hey, I want to come to Nashville, what do I do? What do I do? And that is one of the biggest things is you just gotta get out. You gotta get out and meet people, find people that are in the same spot or different. Just get out. You have to be present to be able to make anything work. And and that's what we did when we came to town, too. It's like you just have to be present.

SPEAKER_03: 36:13

Yeah, well we got enough, we got enough writers in town right now. Just wait another five, ten years. Well, but well we we got it covered till the end, right? I think so.

SPEAKER_02: 36:22

Yeah. I don't know. Let me tell you what not to do though. I can't wait. Y'all are gonna get kicked out. We know this, too. Y'all are gonna get a kick out of this. All right, so this is MySpace days, right?

SPEAKER_03: 36:32

And what's MySpace now? Were you on MySpace now? No. I just got a cell phone. It was before Facebook.

SPEAKER_08: 36:39

Yeah, it was the OG of it.

SPEAKER_02: 36:41

You really don't know what MySpace is? Really? MySpace was like the OG of Facebook. Yeah. And you could have like a music page. So you would basically have a page and you'd have like your top friends on your page, and so we all created music pages, and we would put our songs up on the music page, and you would find someone that's kind of new and you'd listen to their songs, and if you liked them, you would do what every young writer does. Hey, everybody should write sometime, you know, and then you would connect, and so that's how I kind of social networks. But uh crazy and funny story, and I cannot believe I'm about to say this because I have never told this story before.

SPEAKER_06: 37:17

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SPEAKER_02: 38:39

I added Michael Docs to Facebook or to MySpace. And um I messaged him, and I cannot remember exactly what I messaged him about, but he responded and was super nice. And at the end of our conversation, I said to him, and this is 21-year-old full of piss and vinegar, me, that has nothing going on in the music industry. I literally said something like, Hey man, appreciate it. Tell Al Dean I'm coming for it.

SPEAKER_01: 39:13

16 years later, still coming for him. You're still coming for him, though. We're all coming for him. I love the attitude of that. You need that.

SPEAKER_02: 39:23

I I he I don't know if he remembers that, but I as Did you get a response? I I think he laughed, you know, but it's fun, but it's funny to me, like now being in the business, I cringe at thinking that I would have done something that way, but 21-year-old mind to me was like I mean every word of that. I was like, hell yeah, I'm freaking out. I think you I think you'd have that attitude.

SPEAKER_08: 39:45

Trust me, he's heard you know, I met Michael when I was 21. Yeah. And so he was slinging songs at Warner Chapel, you know. And so he's heard it, he's heard he believe me, he appreciates that.

SPEAKER_06: 39:56

Oh, I 100%. And it's like, you know, when we were opening acts, playing 20 minutes in front of Urban or Rascal Flats or anybody, that's what we said. Yeah. We're coming for your crowd. We're taking them. Yeah, yeah. Not really. We're doing 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_02: 40:12

Yeah, I mean, but we thought you gotta have that confidence, man. Like, I mean, because you guys know, man, you get kicked in the teeth so much with this business. Like you have to have an unwavering uh belief in yourself and what you do. Um and obviously, you know, there's a line there. You don't want to be cocky and you don't want to be um sort of uh a know-it-all, but you gotta kind of have that competitive spirit in you, I think, because look, as a creative, I'll be the first to say it.

SPEAKER_08: 40:38

Like, there's that shell of confidence, and you gotta keep that confidence here because underneath that shell is just a bunch of insecurity. 100%. So if you break through that confidence, which you gotta keep that strong, yeah, if you get down to the mush as a creative, it takes very little to like really start questioning yourself and what you're doing. And so that's that's the confidence is crucial to have. I go back and forth all the time from those levels.

SPEAKER_06: 41:06

Well, it's a failure business. We said this a lot. Ninety percent of what we do is failure. It's like you can tr write a hundred songs, most of them aren't getting cut, most of them aren't gonna make it. It's like that's what happens. Most of them aren't any good.

SPEAKER_03: 41:20

Yeah. Yeah. That's a fact. It's a truth. And then when somebody tells you that they're not any good, it all depends on how you handle that rejection because I we all went through that. Yeah. It's like, you know. Well, this could be better. And I'm like, what are you talking about? It's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02: 41:35

Exactly. When you think, when you're like, well, they don't know music. You know, and you get older and you kind of realize, yeah, well, but some of them know and some of them don't.

SPEAKER_05: 41:43

Correct. And it's hard to figure that out. That takes a minute.

SPEAKER_03: 41:45

Thank God we were surrounded, or at least I was, by people who actually knew what the hell they were talking about. If you look at that, oh sorry, Karen.

SPEAKER_08: 41:52

I was gonna say if you if you if you if you reference Al Dean in that as far as like confidence, and you can look at him, he's a great example of it. Like, we got passed on for years telling people telling him he's no good. And these songs are no good. You know? So if you don't have that confidence to in yourself to say, okay, even if you don't have the right songs, you've got what it takes. You know it, right? So without that, I mean, we wouldn't have half the artists we have.

SPEAKER_02: 42:21

Well, uh, you know, for me personally, man, like I I wouldn't trade anything for my my story and my path because where I sat today at 37 versus you know what I was when I first moved to Nashville, um, I've sort of become like a journeyman in in so many different aspects of the business because I've had to do it. Like I know what it's like to uh advance shows and to to add ISRCs, you know, to distributions and all these things. And so um, you know, I've always looked at guys like Aldean and um Chesney and and some of these people that like man I don't know if a lot of people saw anything in them early, but they just kept grinding and just kept I always just call it sharpening the knife. They just kept sharpening it until one day it cuts. And so I feel like I'm in that season of my career now to where, you know, a lot of people are discovering me on the road, but it's like, man, I've been I've been hitting the pavement hard for the last 10 years, and I think I've got a lot of people in Nashville that they're kind of like this guy will not go away. You know, and I don't think there's any sort of like they don't want to see me succeed, but I think it's a little bit of like, man, that's awesome that he's like sickening out. But for me, it's never been an option. Like I've always sort of said, music is what I do, regardless of the success. I am always gonna write songs, I'm always gonna play shows, I'm always gonna record songs. To matter to whatever success there is, I have dreams and goals where I want to be. But if it was about being successful, hell I'd I'd have hung it up a long time ago, you know. Um, but I feel like now having all that knowledge that I have and having the story I have makes me pretty dangerous now, you know, to be in this position.

SPEAKER_06: 44:05

I love that man. I love you referencing Jason and of course Chesney too. It's like, are they talented? Sure. But more than that, they succeeded because of the hard work and the per perseverance, and even more so when the opportunity came, they were ready for it.

SPEAKER_02: 44:22

Yeah, what's the old saying? You don't have to uh get ready if you stay ready? That's it.

SPEAKER_08: 44:27

He also said something crucial to the whole process, but I think people uh some artists today don't get the chance to do this, which is defining their brand. And when you when you find your brand and you feel comfortable in your own skin, you attack and you stay there. And that and that's what Al Dean did and Chesney did, that's what Tim did. That's the art of it. That's what Blake did. You know, when you find that and you have that success, then you can experiment, then you can veer off, and you can be creative but define your brand.

SPEAKER_02: 44:58

Someone told me that um uh three or four years ago, they said to me, when you identify what makes you different than anyone else, that's what you lean into. And that is the center and core of your brand. You know, so if you look at a guy like Chris Stapleton, there's not a soul on this planet that can sing like Chris Stapleton. That's why he can stand there on stage and not move a muscle and wow a crowd. There's not a performer like Jason Aldean and you know, that had that style of music, you know, and so um it's you find what makes you you and and better than anyone else, and nobody can beat you at your game. And so when I look at it as like, you know, I don't want to get in a singing competition with Chris Stapleton because I know he'll sing circles around me. Um but I know what my thing is, and people can't beat me at my game. You know, you got you know, same thing with quarterbacks, you know, you got guys that can throw deep balls, you got guys that you know can run, you got guys that you know are you know good backups, whatever it is, but when you find what makes you successful and different from anyone, that's when you got a shot, I feel like. And generally when you find it, you realize that's the truest you.

SPEAKER_08: 46:17

100%. You know what I mean? And then when you buy into yourself, you know, you realize that oh, okay, well the crowds the this crowd, country music, the fans they love authentic like being authentic and they will buy into that. They believe it.

SPEAKER_05: 46:32

Yeah, you know, yeah, it's and the fans have a weird way of knowing without ever talking to you. They they know if you're yourself or not. It's it's just weird. Yeah, country fans especially.

SPEAKER_08: 46:42

No, they they will see through it if it's not. And but man, if it's true, that they seem to buy in and they'll buy in for 20 years, 30 years. Yeah. You know, that's the great thing about this genre and these fans. You know, you're that's great. It's very exciting stuff going on for you.

SPEAKER_03: 46:56

No, Adam's a true pro. He's a true pro I've I've been able to write with him and sit in the room with him, and I've written with a lot of you know artist wannabes. And y'all have too, and we've all been in the room and like Kunil. Come on. Yeah, I'll say the buttons. It's a trash talk. A little trash talk, just a minute. No, no, no, it's not it's not. I'm just saying some of these guys don't bring anything to the table.

SPEAKER_04: 47:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 47:20

You know, and gals, and they and and I get it. They're they're they're being forced into these into these writing rooms, but this guy can actually bring it as a writer. You know, and it's it's uh Well and if you like like you've been saying, because you know it cuts the workload in half to write with guys that that know who they are and what they want to be. You know, and you're gonna be big, I think, especially when the boxer pictures come out, the boxer short pictures. I mean for all the wrong reasons.

SPEAKER_08: 48:04

Depends what kind of boxes we got. Yeah, especially under cold.

SPEAKER_01: 48:09

Well, there's your endorsement.

SPEAKER_05: 48:10

I think with the temperature being that cool and it coming out at all is a good sign. Cheers.

SPEAKER_08: 48:21

Shrinkage is a thing. Unfortunately it's a thing.

SPEAKER_05: 48:25

But no, like like the songwriting thing, just to just to harp on that just a little bit. Even on the uh it's uh it it just helps in every way, like all the artists that we're talking about, whether it be you know Al Dean, Chesney, McGraw, there's it's not an accident that those those guys, girls, carry under wood, whoever it's it around, because whether they're writing mur writing those songs or not, they know what a hit song is and they know what a hit song is for them. That's exactly what it's like. And that's that is really and it's and as writer, just a straight-up writer, a lot of times we get frustrated and say, Man, it's such a smash. I mean, they I don't know why they wouldn't record that, but it's not the right song for that artist on that particular day.

SPEAKER_02: 48:59

Yep. And for me, like as a as a young writer artist, I feel like that was uh a lot of where my growth and learning came from was if you look at the songs I released early in my career, they were all good songs, and we had great success. You know, I had songs on Cirus X in the highway that you know ran up their chart and we sold tons of downloads and you know, I think we're 200 million plus streams all independently. But they were all there was nothing consistent. And what we were doing was, and this is no fault of anyone, but this is just sort of the way that business is, you know, I would write these songs and they would, you know, my publishing company would pitch it to you know all the top artists. Well, when they wouldn't cut it, they would say, Well then you you should put that out. Well, the problem is is when you got four or five songs deep, you realize that one's going this way, one's going that way, one's going this way, and it's like there's no consistency here. You got good songs, but where's the brand, you know, sort of thing. And so identifying that, you know, a lot of people's asked me, like, how do you how do you now write songs and know what's for you? And and it's when you realize what your thing is, like I can still go write all those songs and we can pitch them to whoever, you know, now, but I can quickly tell you this feels like something in the sandbox I would play in, or this is a better off being a pitch, you know, and so um I I I like doing both. Like sometimes, yeah, it's cool to write for what I'm thinking, but a lot of times it's more of like, man, let's just write the best song we can write that day. And if it falls in my category, cool. If it doesn't, you know, there's plenty of buddies we can pitch this thing to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08: 50:38

Well, plus if you I really believe this and and even the young artists that we work with or produce or whatever, I do think there's a switch that has to be flipped from writer to artist. And when you switch that flip to switch it to artist, you're gonna write songs that are so good for yourself. You you probably end up getting tons of cuts anyway because they're they're true to yourself. Yeah. And you're writing for yourself, and that's the most pure part of it, right? And so it's it's they'll want what you do. And all of a sudden you're gonna have a pile of songs that you were kind of writing for yourself that oh, that everybody wants.

SPEAKER_06: 51:13

Yeah, and all of a sudden they're unique songs because you're not gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02: 51:18

This happen all the time, you know. Like, look at the run Hardy went on. Yeah, yeah. How many outside songs did Hardy have cut because Hardy created his thing, and then everybody was like, Dang, I kind of want a little bit of that, you know, sort of thing. That happened with Thomas Rhett back in the day and Cole Swindell, he had tons of you know, cuts, and so yeah, it's it always comes back.

SPEAKER_08: 51:36

It's hard to figure out young, but when you get older and you're in that spot now, it's like you're figuring out damn, just do what we do, do what you do. Yeah, and that w will generally give you the best shot. I mean, it ha it's it has for us, it's been it's been a great learning. I wish we had learned this years and years ago, you know. It's hard to figure out you feel like you're always chasing something. Yeah, chasing you is always a step behind. We used to feel like we're a step behind. Whether it was you know as an artist or uh being with Jason or writing, always felt like we were chasing something. When you find when you find that you're just doing something to yourself, generally it uh it starts chasing you, and you're like, oh, this is great.

SPEAKER_02: 52:16

And you become the leader of the pack. And then you see the trend of, you know, I've sort of brought up uh like Zach Top. Okay. Zach Top is doing authentically what Zach Top does. Okay. Well, you see this resurgence of I call it late 80s, early 90s country. Okay. Well, now you're gonna see a wave of 30 people trying to do the same thing, and my mind is like, you're late to the party. Like when when Al Dean came out, he was the first one to plant the flag and say, Hey, I'm having grungy guitars, do do do do do do do, and it was like a rock show. Well, then everybody was wearing a wallet chain and and you know, tight jeans and a cowboy hat the next day, you know, walking around with an armband on, you know, and it was like, buddy, like they'll there will be versions of that, but you like if you're the first one to do it, it's hard to beat the first one, you know, at it, you know. So for me, it's finding what that lane is and and kind of knowing what that next wave is.

SPEAKER_08: 53:16

It's smart though, because a lot of art a lot of artists, even after a certain amount of success, I see artists that have you know four or five number ones on radio, still can't do a hard ticket, right? So I I feel like they I all hear single to single is different. They're still chasing they're chasing the hard ticket now, they're chasing something else. How can you connect on a bigger level? You're already ahead in the sense that you know it feels like you already know what you need to do. Yeah. Stay true to yourself.

SPEAKER_02: 53:47

You look at all of the guys that I call it sticking power. Every person that has sticking power that has been in this business and at the top for you know decades, all have a brand. And a lot of times you can describe their brand with one or two words.

SPEAKER_03: 54:07

What's yours?

SPEAKER_05: 54:14

Give an example of that, like one or two words for like uh like a Chasner McGraw or something.

SPEAKER_02: 54:20

Sam Hunt, for an example. Sam Hunt is mysterious. Like he's you don't ever see him doing these selfie videos. Hey, what's up, guys? You know, I'm Sam Hunt. He's just kind of that guy that's like you he's just he's either there or he's not, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 54:38

The one thing that Sam Hunt did, he came out, he came out of the chute with awesome songs. And they were unique. They killed every writer in town, they killed the the listener, everybody just loved what he was putting out. The songs were just killer.

SPEAKER_02: 54:54

Um Yeah, I mean, even look at like a guy like Keith Urban, you know, like Keith Urban is like a mold of like a triple threat. Like he's he's like guitar playing, writing, and singing all in one. It's like it's hard to kind of like twine that up, you know, like into one thing, you know, like that's his his thing. But he's got energy in his show, but it's a different energy than what like Aldean is, you know, like it's Al Deen's more of a rough around the edge as a shit. He's a badass thing. Yeah, it's just a different kind of cool. Yes, he he's he's the hat down, he's kind of that slant, like that, that slant smirk, you know, kind of thing of like girl, you know you want it. And she's like, yes, I do. That's what that's what he is, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 55:40

Uh and he's coming after you, Al did.

SPEAKER_02: 55:43

And and and Urban is just kind of that, he's just man, he's just got a little swagger to him, you know. It's like it looks effortless, you know, like he just plays his notes and he just kind of has this little lean about him and his hair. He does do that shoulder thing. Yeah, he just yeah, you know, he just has a thing.

SPEAKER_08: 55:57

Urban oh, we've always been a huge fan of Keith, just because he's you know, we used to go out, we opened for him in years and years ago. And he was at that point, what I what I would say was our purest, you know, closest thing to a rock star we had in country music, just with the way he was going about it, you know. And um always been a fan of his. And you're right, he's got he's got all things covered, he puts on a great show, does his thing. You know, that's it, does his thing.

SPEAKER_02: 56:25

And you can to me one of the best examples of this, Eric Church. When Eric Church threw on aviator sunglasses and pulled that ball cat down and crushed it down, and started beating on his chest. Yeah, well he found his brand and he leaned into that. And it went to, hey, I'm sort of a little bit against the establishment here, and I'm I'm gonna kind of be the rebel of I'm gonna I'm gonna be the the the the stepbrother of country music over here, and I'm not gonna let anybody tell me how to do it and what I do. I'm not gonna be confrontational about it, but I'm gonna stand right here and if I'm gonna sing a song about smoke, a little smoke, I'm gonna sing it, you know, sort of thing. We love Eric, you know, so it's that, you know, sort of thing. Like he was great before, but he was just kind of a guy. Well, I was gonna say, with those glasses on, son, and it was just like a light.

SPEAKER_08: 57:17

We all know Eric before it happened for him. Two two pink lines, Eric. Mm-hmm. Yeah, was different than Eric allowing allowed to be Eric. You know what I mean? And that we they he was on tour with this opening when he right was discovering that. Like uh Smoke a little smoke had just come out and you could see, you know, two pink lines that was going away, and he's discovering who he is, his what his sound is, and that that's a great thing because it really that was it was different. It was different than what we were doing. Edgy and i they're both edgy but different kind of edge. Correct. You know, so that's he found his little lane. And those lanes exist. And if you can find it, like like Kenny just destroyed that lane. When he figured out what he was, man, he is now the Jimmy Buffett of Country Music. And it is it's amazing to see what he's done. Talk about an example of I I think he sets the bar as an example of how to do it. Oh, for sure. From from discover from the from the work ethic to discovering his brand to how to tour, to how to treat his people, to how to do it all. There's I can't do it.

SPEAKER_06: 58:31

I agree, he's second to none, and his work ethic is like unlike anything that I've ever seen from any other artist. Yeah. And he's hands-on at everything. Everything.

SPEAKER_08: 58:42

It is it's really impressive to be out there. We were out there with him for a little bit, and it was like, man, this is this is how you do it. Like, this is a great example for for us and for other artists who were wanting to learn, still learning. We learn from we you know, Kenny stayed a step in the next learning.

SPEAKER_03: 58:59

He stayed a step ahead in the music world too. I mean, like, as far as the the the songs he was cutting, he always stayed a step ahead of everybody else. Yep. He just got inducted to the Hall of Fame. Yeah, yeah. He was my first cut I ever had over 30 years ago. When he was on Capricorn Records. What song was that? Uh Angel of the Devil. Wow. I've got to watch his career and follow his career since the city.

SPEAKER_02: 59:22

But like but like he's a guy that like his first couple records. Right. He's just kind of a guy, right? Yeah. Like and and there's a little success. But when to me, it turned when that first album where he's standing on the beach and he put a black tank top on and he's got a black cowboy hat with a puka shell necklace, and he comes out with, you know, wanna be rebels that didn't have a clue. You know, like it turned there. And that's when it went to he started selling the Tonight is not about me, it's about all of you. I'm the host of your party and I'm inviting you to have a great time, and I'm selling you nostalgia. I'm selling you, you know, young and you know, all the I Go Back and all those things, you know, that made you remember your childhood and all that. Like that's what he sold, you know, and it made it work into like a a a stadium, and that's I mean And and you can hear in every artist's first couple albums, right?

SPEAKER_08: 1:00:20

I look listen to our first couple albums and they're all over the place. Yeah. Okay, you've got Hicktown on the first album, but then you've got stuff that's like, wow, what were we doing? You know, but you're trying to figure out yourself. And that's In the it it happens around that third album. Oh, this is what we're good at. And and that's exciting to watch artists figure that out when they have the the chance to. Eric, everybody. You know, you start to Blake, you can see it. Keith, figure it out, you know.

SPEAKER_05: 1:00:50

It's kinda like uh I when y'all talking about that, I think about Jamie Johnson. Like when he came to town, I was writing at EMI, he got signed to EMI as at the Christmas party, and I didn't know I didn't know him. He's he was new in town. But he was uh just had on a normal top shirt, a leather jacket, and just uh just almost a high and tight haircut, just neat, neat as a pen. He didn't come to town as that, you know, with the outlaw and all the hair and the beard and everything, but he found through his music and everything, he found that lane and he took it over. And there's nobody like that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:20

I think he I think s guys like Jamie Johnson, up to that point, he was uh he finally let loose and did what he wanted to do. Correct, yeah. Instead of what they wanted him to do.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:31

And I identify so much with that because like I am now, you know, when I first got here and I started like uh putting out songs uh on my own, you know, I had a publisher and I had booking agent and management. I was like, my team looked like the Patriots, like on paper. And I said to them, Hey, let's stop chasing record deals. For whatever reason, we're getting uh not right now, which is we all know what that means. And I said, I need to just kind of do some soul searching and figure out what my thing is because I identified it and I said it can't be why is this not translating to a record deal? It can't be the numbers, because I was crushing on numbers. I had plenty of show experience at that point. What was missing was the brand. Like they what my thought was is you know, they were looking at me and was like, How do we build a star out of this? You know, with with nothing like a you know, foundation. And so I stepped back from it, and when I realized what made me me, and I started turning it, their thought and version of me was going this way, mine was going this way. So I tore it all back down to the foundation and started all over again. And literally for the last six years, I've literally self-managed myself, you know, I went through some booking agent stuff. I am just now building it back because I had to go out and prove the model of what it was that I'm doing, and now that it's working, it's like, okay, now we can bring back the managers, and now we can bring back the business managers and you know, all these things make it their idea. It's always their idea. It is, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:10

And you let them think it. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, of course you do.

SPEAKER_06: 1:03:13

Of course you do. Adam, I didn't know you before you got here. I'm a fan. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Thank you. I'm a big fan. You I won me on the floor.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:23

Look, I've I've been a huge fan of you guys. I I can honestly tell you, uh, the first Al Dean record changed my life. Like it literally, I remember, you know, being in my hometown, getting ready to move to Nashville, and when, you know, heck, uh, you know, just that whole first you know, couple records, you know, like I just I remember listening to it thinking, whatever this is, I want to be a part of that. I think it was authentic, and that's probably what you felt. It was just like But I love the energy. So I'm a very like I'm a very passionate singer. Like I love to sing. Um and I loved the energy that it brought, like, in the in the speakers. Like I grew like Alan Jackson was my childhood idol. But Alan Jackson ain't getting out there and welling on a guitar and you know hitting these big rangy notes, you know, whatever. And so like I always just was a was a guy that just loved to sing big belty notes, and Al Dean does a lot of that stuff. And so so man, I like I said, I've been a fan of you guys just watching y'all's whole career grow and then all the songs you've been a part of, you know, through the years, and you, I mean, both of you guys have been a part of some of you know the staple songs of my life that I can go back to and say, Man, like there goes my life, and you know, all these songs that I look at that like made me want to be in this business, and to be sitting here with you guys today is man, it's crazy. Like I'm I'm I'm literally living uh what my three-year-old dream was, you know, is to be sitting here, you know, just go on, go on, very kind. But no, continue.

SPEAKER_05: 1:05:00

By chance.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:01

Yes, all of them. He doesn't even know that song. I knew it. My all-time favorite crypto.

SPEAKER_05: 1:05:14

Yeah, yeah. See, that's pretty good. Yeah. I mean, being the you know, top five.

SPEAKER_08: 1:05:18

You know what's funny? It it is I actually that song, Laughter We Cried, should have been a five-week number one song. It was just we weren't the right ones to do it at that right time. Yeah. At that time, we were we were we were just not but that's it's funny. It it all pertains to. Yes. And it also goes back to people chasing what something is. So I remember the label being like, okay, well, this this is a huge like a Tim McGraw type song. And that's what you did. Like, what's the next what's the quickest, best way to get to the next level? And that song was a incredible song. It just wasn't right for us. Yeah. And looking back on it, I it's easy to say that. Then it it felt we I remember cutting it in the studio. I remember saying, Oh, that's just a you know, everybody's like that's a huge song. Caleb does it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:10

Yeah, but good, a really good version of it in the writer's rounds. I'm gonna I'm gonna brag on you because it's really good because it goes the room goes. And it's really, really good. Well, it helps because you're singing with me. It makes a sense. No, it's really good.

SPEAKER_05: 1:06:22

Anything you're singing on, it elevates by a lot. But uh but I was gonna say too, um uh you've you've got a single out now on uh Drew, uh Baldur Drite the Top People Top 20, something like this?

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:35

Well it uh double dipping it topped out at top 10 and they pulled it. Okay, uh, but I do have his next single that is uh coming out to radio too. And it's too Russia. So yeah. Coming out in two weeks.

SPEAKER_05: 1:06:46

Am I the only one at the table that doesn't have a single and charts right now? I don't. But you can't don't you have uh don't you have that pop thing out?

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:53

Uh with oh yeah, it's not on radio, but it's it's been out a while. It's still going though. It's like but it's like all the main international. So we need to make your own here.

SPEAKER_05: 1:07:06

I'm more I'm more local.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:09

We're more mom and pop. You're Walmart and we're uh we're we're granny's kids.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:14

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:15

You're IKEA. I forgot about that. Thank you, Caleb. I feel better now. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_06: 1:07:21

Don't forget to watch Adam on the Road. I'm gonna watch now. CBS Paramount. CBS Paramount Plus. Yep.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:28

We're gonna have watch night now. I'm gonna have popcorn. It's like I'm gonna be jumping up and down like I'm watching a Bama game. By God, yeah, do it. He's Florida, by the way, Klo. Oh, I am appreciated.

SPEAKER_05: 1:07:38

He's a gator. Hey, yeah, uh go ahead, tell me what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:41

Speaking of that, it's funny because uh, you know, we've we've had a tough year, you know, obviously, in a few years, but um I ain't looking over there.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:49

Um I brought this for KLO, sorry. We did Don't interrupt the story.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:53

We did uh the the the the premiere of the road was uh the 19th of October and so that was Sunday, and um I texted a buddy, uh he was like, How you feeling? You know, it's the premiere and I was like, Man, this is a great day. Florida's getting a new head coach because they fired, you know, final day beer and the premiere of the roads tonight. Heck, I couldn't be any better.

SPEAKER_06: 1:08:14

They needed to do that. They needed to do that in my opinion. He was it was time to go for now.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:18

Yeah, I mean, I was a I was a fan of them, you know, but at some point, i you win ball games or you don't. You gotta know, like that's what it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_06: 1:08:26

And Florida deserves to win games. I mean, they really do. That's that kind of program.

SPEAKER_08: 1:08:29

You know, you can't have a you can't I mean Florida, you had a great run.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:35

You can't it can't be like this. See, I was I was a senior in high school and all that was going down. Uh Tim Tebow come and played at uh at our high school um when he was a senior, and then when I got out, um you know, that was all during the Tebow years or whatever, and so like man, my early 20s was the bomb.com. So it was awesome, you know, and then it's it's been a little rough through the years. But I don't know. I I'd love to see us get back on top. And um, you know, everybody keeps saying, you know, we might get Kiffin, might get Urban back, and it's like I don't know. I don't know. You don't want Urban. I don't know if we're Urban.

SPEAKER_05: 1:09:09

Like everybody seems to like they really pushing Kiffin.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:12

It seems like why would Kiffen leave where he's at? I don't think he would. I don't know. He's got a pretty good gig there, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:17

Because it's Florida. But it but all right. To pick up where Spurrier could go on.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:29

Than Kiffin. Are we just as a Florida fan, and I'm trying to be honest with myself, am I, you know, we won a national championship what 20 years ago? So are we looking at it from a standpoint is Florida really as prevalent of a job as as we think it is? If you look at the last 20 years, you know, I would like to think it is. I think it's like there there is some some uh some some deep roots that are there at Florida, you know, what it could be.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:00

Well, nobody wants to play the swamp. Yeah. Especially Tennessee. I'm a Tennessee fan. We we don't ever want to play there.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:05

I mean, when we're right, that is the good that is the good thing about Florida. Like when Florida's right, they're they're tough to handle. I mean I mean they're giving a lot of people some headaches. But when we're bad, we're bad.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:20

Well my whole mission, my whole mission tonight was just to start a feud between you two, and I was just gonna sit back and watch. Well, it's not really a feud right now.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:28

We don't play for a couple of times. We do. I mean that fan base.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:31

Why did they move that game so late this year? Because it's always the third or fourth game of the season.

SPEAKER_08: 1:10:36

Yeah, I'm not sure why they're gonna do that. Does it still mean as much? Oh, yes, teams are better if they're all both O and two. I mean, like if you're still doing okay from last week, you yeah, I'm doing it. Neil's being very nice to you tonight, by the way. Yeah, I wasn't sure how much we'd be.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:50

It's easy to be nice.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:51

I didn't know we talked about football a lot, but Adam will talk about it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:54

We can talk about anything. You can talk about killing deer, football, whatever you want to go. Where are you gonna talk about next? You know?

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:58

So but I do I do owe you a hundred bucks because that was the that was the big thing. It was five hundred. Uh no, I guess a thousand. We whittled it down to a hundred. Jim can Jim can pull it. You don't want to put on the jersey that Nick. No, that wasn't the that wasn't the the deal. That wasn't part of the deal, remember?

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:14

You gotta wear Alabama boxers. Oh, heck yeah. Nick brought it to me. Nice, Nick. It's a gift. He knows, roll tied. You ever you ever put it on? You're an Alabama fan? Okay. Oh, son.

SPEAKER_05: 1:11:26

And I did your podcast? Yeah. That's 615.

SPEAKER_06: 1:11:34

Amazing.

SPEAKER_05: 1:11:35

Yeah, that was a rough game.

SPEAKER_08: 1:11:36

That was a rough game. Hey, you should have to uh next time loser goes hunting in boxers, goes in the water, boxers, takes a picture with the other teams on.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:46

I can't wait to see the picture. I can't wait.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:52

It's gonna be dangerous. There's only uh two or three people that that knows about that. I've actually told like what happened. There's gonna be now. What they've done is we're we're in this thread and they have zoomed in on it, and every about third day they just send a picture of just the zoom in the text thread, and I'm just like I love that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:10

I can't love it now. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:12

There'll be about 30 something thousand looking at it next week. They're gonna be searching it. Good luck on the road, dude. Yeah, hey, we're gonna be able to do that. Congratulations too.

SPEAKER_08: 1:12:22

Congratulations on and it's so great to for an artist like you to be getting this sh shot and doing it the right the right way. You know, I think it's important. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:34

You guys know, man, uh there's so much of this and it's is fate and timing. Like how many people do we know that we have seen through our careers that are just as good, just as deserving to be some of the biggest songwriters, the biggest you know, artists, but for whatever reason, fate and time it just didn't sort of work out, and for whatever reason, I just feel like, you know, um my fate and timing is, you know, now and you know, to capitalize on these these opportunities I've been given over the last, you know, year or so. And um, you know, at some point and and the crazy thing is is um about a year and a half ago uh my prayer was I kind of had gotten in the spot where I was just kind of like, Lord, I felt like everything that I had accomplished in my career was all manifested through my hard work. Because I could justify it from the standpoint of saying, man, because I grinded my ass off, and because I stayed up till three in the morning and making all these, you know, social media posts and you know, uploading these songs to Tunecore and all these things, and emailing people at playlists and all this, I can directly say this is why these things moved. And I feel like that's a bad place to be in, because obviously everything comes from you know him and giving you the ability to have you know the strength to do that. And I kind of got to a spot in my career where I said, you know what? If all the success that I've had is all that it is, I'm good with it. Like I kind of accepted, like, if I never write another number one song, if I never get, you know, the dream of you know selling out, you know, Nissan Stadium, you know, whatever, I'm good with it. You know what my dreams are and what where my heart is, but my prayer was I said, Lord, at some point you have to open doors for me that I cannot open myself. And if you open them, I will walk through them, but there's gotta be fate and timing with all this. And when I literally let go of it all and just sort of said, Hey, it is what it is, but I'm gonna keep working, everything started to line up. I got a song back on radio, I got this opportunity to go on the road, you know, and and all these different things that are happening. So I feel you're on try that in a small town podcast right now.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:54

I mean, wow. This is real time prayer. Whatever. Hey, God works in mysterious way, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:03

Very mysterious. But it's it's just crazy the fact that, like uh, you know, five, ten-year-old uh go me would be so chomping at the bit right now to manifest something, like trying to connect dots and trying to do this. And I'm honestly just kind of like like I didn't ask to be on this podcast. You know, you'd be like, hey, you want to come do that? I'm like, hell yeah, I'd love to do that. You know, before I'd be like, hey, you if y'all got any open spots, okay. Hit a brother. You know, so so it's good to be in this spot of feeling a little bit free to kind of like, I'm just taking it as it comes and not over-exerting myself with worrying about things that like you try to put together because you know, 80% of the things that you spend time trying to manifest, they don't ever pan out anyways, you know, so you just wasted all that energy over here on stuff that didn't even matter, you know.

SPEAKER_06: 1:15:53

Yeah, amen. You're in a good spot.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:55

Well, one of the requirements of coming on here if you're an artist is you have to write a song with us. Okay. Done deal. Okay. That'd be easy. Well, it's just one of the requirements. Okay. Whether it's easy or not. I don't care if it's easy or not.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:08

Oh yeah, I'm on it and I I don't I don't do it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:11

We'll talk about it, but we're talking about that later. We'll talk about it. Yeah. It's just one of the reasons. It's just one of the requirements. Yeah, just initial here.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:20

Okay. It can't be any worse than the road participation. That's gotta be right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 1:16:25

With that, make sure you're watching Adam on the Road, CBS Paramount Plus. Make sure you're watching us on YouTube or on Spotify or Apple Music, all the places you can get podcasts. We're there, I think. We're there. We're everywhere. Yeah. Download all of the stuff. We want to thank Patriot Mobile. We want to thank eSpaces. We want to thank Original Glory Beer. Thank you to Adam Sanders. This is a try that small town podcast.