Will Jones: Inside the Life of a Country Music Singer & Songwriter

In this heartfelt episode of Interesting Humans, host Jeff Hopeck sits down with rising country music artist Will Jones for a conversation that’s anything but ordinary. Known for his authenticity, storytelling, and deep Appalachian roots, Will opens up about the winding road that led him from playing bluegrass as a kid in Virginia to sharing stages with Josh Turner.

Will talks candidly about the pressure to fit in, turning down early publishing deals that didn’t feel right, and the moment he embraced being unapologetically himself. He reflects on the foundational influence of his father and grandfather, the values they passed down, and how those lessons still guide his decisions on and off stage.

You’ll hear stories of sleeping in trucks during tours, playing honky-tonk bars for little pay, and what it really takes to stay grounded in an industry that often rewards image over integrity. Will also shares insights into his creative process, the spiritual depth behind his songwriting, and the peace that comes from writing music with real emotional weight.

Whether you’re a fan of country music, someone chasing a dream, or just love hearing real talk from real people—this conversation delivers. Jeff and Will cover everything from fatherhood and faith to songwriting inspiration, road life, and finding joy in the grind.

This isn’t just another music interview. It’s a masterclass in perseverance, self-awareness, and building a life with purpose.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Guys, welcome to Interesting Humans Podcast. My name is Jeff Hopeck. I'm the host today. And sitting with me, I have a new friend of mine, Will Jones. We met a couple weeks ago at the Caverns. I think it's like a bucket list item. It was for my wife, if you haven't seen it. Incredible venue. But what I think was so incredibly interesting is we, so you're opening up for Josh Turner. Yep. And after you played, you said, come and meet us in the back. And my wife, I'm not one to typically do this, but my wife said, I feel like we need to go do that. And here we are just a couple weeks later. We're sitting here, your studio in Nashville, which is so cool, right? And I don't really have to come to Nashville to sport my boots. I got my boots on all the time. They look pretty broken. But yeah, it's just, it's an honor to be here. It's awesome. Yeah, it's an honor for me to be here. It's a new, like it's a new thing for me. So I've got, as you've seen, Secret Service, FBI, the list goes on, but I don't have music, and I certainly don't have country music, which is the love of mine. So you're out touring right now, opening up for? Josh Turner. Josh Turner, which we're going to get into. I have so many questions around that, who picks who, and I'm going to ask another question at the end. I'm dying to know the answer. When you're on a car ride, who are you listening to? Right? So we're gonna get into that. But my promise here today is to have something so unique and different than what I call like the usual music artist interview. It's typically the same kind of boilerplate question. So I'm dying to know a lot of these questions about you, but you got a lot of fans out there who wanna learn about you as well. So let's get started. I love this phrase. on your website you see this you see this career with substance yeah and a long game tell me about that yeah when it comes to music i take it really serious because it's all i've ever known it's who i am it's all of who i am is music so when it comes to my career in music I look at that just in a very serious way. So for me as an artist, as a songwriter, I'm not writing songs typically in a gimmick type fashion. I have fun songs. I believe in having fun. I believe in writing stuff that makes people feel, whether it's happy and carefree or if it's sad or if it's touching some sort of emotion. But in general for my career, I look at... writing music, singing, and performing in a manner that offers substance, that stays around a long time. Yeah. And it's you. Yeah, it's me all the way. So you're not looking out to other people going, let me get a little bit of what he has and a little bit of what she has. For sure. And I think that is such a difficult... That's a difficult... just, you know, thing to learn how to do, which sounds weird, right? But I mean, I feel like some, I mean, this goes for any career in any lane of the world, right? It's, you know, if, if you stay so busy trying to keep up with what someone else is doing or trying to achieve somebody else's goals, then you're chasing the mouse and you'll, you'll never quit. But if you like settle into being confident in just exactly who you are, which is like, you know, a humbling thing too. Sure. But being very comfortable in your own skin and what you do and recognizing what you do. So my guess, you weren't born that way, right? No. You can't be born knowing that. Where was the invisible, there had to be like an invisible line that you crossed that had you, that you changed from, if I just sing it the way that guy does and he was successful, I'll be successful. Where did you cross the line to like, no, I'm me. And that's who I am. Yeah, well, and a lot of that plays into my, you know, my backstory of my upbringing and music, which we can get into. But the point where I really realized that, I think, was when I moved to Nashville. I had signed my first publishing deal. What year? In 2020, I think it was. Okay. Yeah, in the last five years. And for the first time, I was kind of thrown into a machine or the fabric of Nashville in a manner that, you know, no one is... it's awesome. It's really dreams are coming true. But you're also, for the first time, coming up into a business because the music business is a business. And people who run that business, they are business people and they're looking at what makes money. And so they're looking at commercial opportunities and all these things. And so it does kind of test you for that first year of you're getting pushed in a bunch of different directions, whether it be who you're writing with or what songs that you write that they think is really represents you and you're going, I'm not so sure that that is truly who I am. And feeling that pressure kind of like, I don't know man, it's like being a rock and a string that kind of like starts smoothing out all these things and breaking you down into being, and everybody talks about this, but you almost have a full circle moment where you come back to being like, wait a second, this is who I am as an artist. I've known that, but recognizing it, believing in it, and pursuing a career in music, thinking that way is a whole different thing, right? What's the physical feeling when you were able to come to terms with that? Oh, it's all the weight off the shoulders. It's peace, it's your gut feeling. And I believe in gut feelings. I really do. And I mean, I remember, and this is kind of nerdy, but I had first moved to town and my dad had bought for me a book which anybody getting in the music business, go read this book. It's called Everything You Need to Know About the Music Business by Donald Passman. Okay. Right? It's like required reading, I think, now at Belmont. Now, I didn't go to Belmont. I wasn't in the music business. So I came into town not knowing anything about how any of it worked. Even better. And I read that book, and a big part of that book talks about gut feeling when doing deals and different things like that. Really? Yeah, it's referenced several times. But it's a real thing. And that goes for any business. Tell me a time when you had a gut feeling that was the opposite way. It's like, I don't want to do that deal because that didn't feel right. I did have that happen. And I had first moved to town. I was crawling on roofs. So I moved to town. I made the decision within like a week to move to Nashville. I was playing cover gigs. And we can get into what I was doing. I was playing clubs and playing cover gigs. I was singing other people's songs. Anyway, in like one week, it all just like storms into me. internally. I was like, I've got to move to Nashville. I've got to learn how to write better songs. The best songwriters in the world live in Nashville, Tennessee. And so I packed my 2000 model F-150 up with some shirts and jeans and my guitar and moved to Nashville. And within a few months, I was out playing rounds, writer's rounds, playing around town, and had gotten offered a publishing deal by a pretty prominent publisher in town at the time and somebody who's well-recognized and well-respected. But the deal was just, it was a weird deal. And I had read that book. And I saw some red flags in that deal. And I was like, you know, my gut tells me this is not the right thing to do. So I turned the deal down right at the last second. Wow. making some people upset, you know, who were applying pressure for me to do the deal. That's right. And I was like, oh, no, I have completely screwed up every opportunity I ever had. I'm banned from high school. I got to move back home. And I called my dad and I was like, man, I might have screwed up. You know, I said, I've turned this deal down. I don't know. You know, I'm crawling on roofs. It's hot. You know, it was just some of the pieces to how the deal was structured that they were they were putting in there that wasn't. It wasn't really correct. They wanted too much or they wanted whatever. Me and the lawyer was like personally, like their lawyer was personally texting me some, you know, trying to kind of put some pressure on me. And

SPEAKER_01: 8:16

I said, no, I'm good.

UNKNOWN: 8:18

And dad said, no, you didn't screw up. You just didn't do a bad deal.

SPEAKER_00: 8:21

That's incredible. Put that and chalk that up in the advice. Isn't that great? Call. Oh my goodness. That's incredible. So then there I was, you know, still playing gigs on the weekend, still crawling on a rooster in the week. And I didn't care, you know, and I kept going. And then I finally did my first publishing deal with Universal here in Nashville, which was really a great first publishing deal. How long after that period was? Well, so that was 2019 when I turned that deal down. And then, of course, we all remember the black hole of COVID that that hit the world, you know, right in there. And it was right at the tail end of that first year of COVID in there when I finally did that deal with the university. Which might've been, I can't remember. I'm losing track of the years. But it was somewhere in that couple years there. Effective 2021, you were considered signed. Yeah, that's right. That was the right way to put it, yeah. All right, let's go. way back now. Okay. To the start. I love it. Because you got another quote on your site that I can't wait to hear this answer. You knew three chords before you knew your ABCs. Yeah. Where's the truth in that and where's the humor? I think that's such a fun statement. I guess the way I would classify that is I've been playing guitar and singing so long that I don't really have any good memories of not having a guitar in my hand. Wow. I was around six years old or so. You just picked it up? Yeah, it's a really cool, it's actually a fun story. So my dad had bought me this cassette tape player. Okay. And if anybody remembers the cassette tape players that were like super colorful buttons and they had like a microphone on the side you could like kind of talk through. Yeah. They were kind of a toy, right? And maybe for Christmas or something I had gotten that. But I didn't have a tape to play in it so I went down to my dad had this music room because he's a hobbyist guitar player but a great guitar player and songwriter and he did it for fun. had a regional band and everything. And I went in there and stole a cassette tape to play my tape player. So it was J.D. Crowe, who's an iconic bluegrass banjo player. And there was a song on there called Crying Holy, a bluegrass gospel song. And I had learned this song just in my own time. Wow. Using my new cassette tape player. Yeah. Which is really funny now as a parent. Sure. Like that I'm just up in my room learning how to sing every word of this song. And so I come down stairs and I like wake my dad up who's in the recliner, you know, and he's like, what are you doing? And I said, man, I learned this song. And I just sang it all the way through. And he was like, okay, hold on just a second. So he goes and gets his guitar and that's kind of where it started. And so then he put a guitar in my hands. I wanted to learn guitar and And it was just one of those things that I literally could not get enough of it, man. I couldn't learn quick enough. I couldn't play enough. I was playing all day, every day. All day, every day. Just became obsessed with playing guitar and singing. Yeah. Would you say, so growing up, who's the most impactful person in your life? Oh, my dad. Yeah. My father, for sure. By continually like... Well, in all aspects, just in life in general. I mean, he's my hero, just in who he is as a man and what he's done, the kind of father he's been to. Now, as a parent especially, the respect for that just continues to grow. And what a great teacher. You know, not just in life, but specifically in music too. What did he do? So he played, you said, just as a hobby. Yeah, hobby as a guitar player. What kind of career was he into? Yeah, so he's a small town attorney. So he comes from, which we'll get into this too, but my grandpa, his dad, he grew up in the produce business with my grandpa, who was in the produce business. Very cool. A self-made guy, World War II veteran, who I'll talk about more in a little bit. He was my best friend. Wow. And so my dad went to college, he was the first to go to college in his family, went to Virginia Tech, where I later went. And then got done with that and was like, hey, what do I want to do now? And had decided to go to law school. And so went through law school at Richmond University Law School and came back and opened his own practice with my mom as a secretary to start out with, you know, and just standing outside the courthouse doors, you know, went from representing people from the first day of figuring this out to becoming very successful in that. Has a great private practice back home and is just exceptional at what he does and loves it. I mean, he likes to be in a courtroom every day, like on the front lines of defending people and litigating and doing that. Yeah. Yeah, man. And so, but also in that, he loves music. He's always loved music. He's still playing? Yeah, he still plays around the house and stuff. And even then, you know, he was... He had a regional bluegrass band that he was traveling around with performing. And where I'm from and born and raised, bluegrass music is the cultural music of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Appalachia. And so I'd always heard him playing guitar in the house. So that was already instilled in me probably by then too. Was there a point, like, do you remember saying, I'm going to do that and identifying that as being on stage and singing and... I don't know at that age if I could think big enough to know that, but I definitely knew it. There was a theater downtown. I was born and raised in a little farming community called Cana, Virginia. The farm we grew up on sits about a mile from the state line of North Carolina. The closest town to us was Mount Airy, North Carolina, which for anybody is where Andy Griffith was born and raised and where they based the whole show off of, Mayberry. Every Saturday morning, me and my dad would go down and play what was called the merry-go-round on WPAQ radio, which is the second oldest running radio station behind WSM here in Nashville. So there's a lot of history there from Bill Monroe and Flatt& Scruggs and all these guys back in the day traveling around playing radio stations. But every Saturday morning we'd go to the downtown cinema, And we would walk in and we would play the merry-go-round on stage. And then it sounds, I mean, this is how great my childhood was. But then afterwards, the Snappy Lunch, which is a really famous place there that sell a famous sandwich called the Porkchop Sandwiches. It's incredible and super well-known. Every famous actor you can think of, there are pictures on the wall eating this giant sandwich. But my dad would let me walk down the street and go get one of those sandwiches. So I'd walk in, you know, like seven-year-old Will after just like slinging bluegrass tunes for a few hours when go in and they'd be like, all right, we know what he wants, you know, go get me a sandwich, and that was my Saturdays. Wow. And that's where being on stage, learning how to be in front of people, talk to people, sing in front of people, that's where that really got crafted. Yeah. You almost didn't learn it. It was just... The way of life, it sounds like. It really was, yeah. And so I don't know that I necessarily could think to know it, but I did know it. And, man, there were so many legendary characters during those years. Claude Johnson, who was a radio host of that show, I think, for like 40 years. Some people like that that I think of. That kind of dips a toe into yesteryear in a lot of ways that I'm so glad I got a piece of. Yeah. Is there a place that you can point to that shaped... who you are today? Yeah, I would say a physical location would just be home, you know, because, and I think about this now as a father, you know, as a parent, but back then, nobody was running around with cell phones in their hands. You know what I mean? I was just on the very tail end of before that started. I mean, literally right at the last point of where that was a part of everyday life was, and then, you know, and then it wasn't, you know, in that transition. And so back home for me was, you know, literally running around on our farm and living a free life and running through hay fields and just a little Huck Finn style lifestyle, you know. Or spending summers out at my, you know, my grandpa lived right down the road. Buster Jones, who I talked about, World War II vet. And his front porch of his produce business set right on the main road through our community. So it was literally like old Pepsi machine on the porch. You know, me and grandpa. Just the way we envisioned it. I mean... literally picture-perfect, and we would sit out there on the front porch, you know, and all these characters would stop in, and people from around the community would swing in. We call it loafing. If you grew up in a rural area, you call it loafing, and we would loaf on Saturdays, but we would sit out there and just hear stories and talk and spend our time, and he would pay me like$3 a day to help grade tomatoes, you know, and I was probably not helping at all, but man, I remember I saved those$3 bills, you know, every day,$3,$1 bills, I would save them up, you know. That's awesome. No, what a great life, you know, great childhood. So that's really what shaped me between my dad, the man in my life, you know, my dad, my grandpa, my mom's dad. Yeah, special. Yeah. Was there a pivotal point that you would say where you could have, let's just say it's a why, and you could have either become who you are today or you were going down a path that could have been, whether it's much, much different for the better or for the worse. Yeah. One pivotal point. Oh, that's a great question. I feel like I've had several of those. What was the first one you can remember? The first one I can remember was the one that's typical for most people, and that is career choices. I graduated high school, I got accepted to Virginia Tech, and I thought, well, that's a great opportunity to go get an education. A lot of my friends at that time in music were just going straight into music. You know, they're like, why am I going to go get a college degree? Really? I'm playing music. Yeah, yeah. And I thought, well, I have this opportunity to do that. So I went to Virginia Tech, you know, got impatient with that pretty quick. Yeah. Just being in school and university. It just took one classroom setting probably. I don't know. It's just, you know, it's like I think some people really dive into like the college years and just like really love it. And for me, it just felt like, um it was pulling me away it just felt like just standing still or something i don't know yeah and i was playing music then too still yeah to make money and but being in college i got a degree in history and political science because i thought well you know i grew up you know seeing my dad and everything and thought well i could go to law school and i remember i graduated early from tech because i was impatient so i graduated a year early and said all right well i took my lsat yeah you know and and got a decent score on it and was like this is where you make the decision, right? Because it's either I'm going to do that and I'm going to take on that kind of debt and I'm going to be dedicated to that, you know, for the rest of my life. That's what I'm doing now until I'm dead. Yeah. And I was like, man, I play music. I'm meant to play music. Yeah. So I immediately put together a country band and started the next chapter. Yeah. And what was the name? It was just under my name, Will Jones Band. Yeah. And what... curious when you took that back to your dad, what was his advice? Oh, he loved it. He was extremely supportive. So he supported it? Oh, man, all the way. See, that's a giant. All the way. And even, you know, I had a family bluegrass band. My sisters got into playing after me, and we had that. So, you know, a big part of my life growing up in my adolescent years, I still did the public schools, and I was playing, you know, in public school, I was playing. I loved that. I was playing sports. Sure. You know, and... We come from a, in Carroll County, Virginia, we have one high school for the whole county. You know, so it's like the same 12, 15 guys are playing all the sports, you know, and it's awesome. And so, you know, I was super into that. And then on the weekends, I was out playing bluegrass festivals with my family. You were? Yeah. And so I had these two worlds that kind of didn't really, my friends just knew I didn't hang out with them on the weekends because I was out traveling around playing music. Sure. What about during the week? Would you do covers at schools, like on campus or anything like that? Not really. Did you play in your room? Yeah, I always had a guitar with me. Always playing. Always playing music in college. And yeah, I would do a little bit of that stuff here and there. Or go out and gig and try to make a little money during college. You ought to be a good student if you got accepted. I did, you know, I was, you know, like everybody, I think we all suffer from like extreme attention deficit disorder, right? I mean, nowadays it's more, it's worse than it's ever been. But yeah, so I probably could have done better if I'd like really been able to, you know, sit down and like apply myself. I was pretty notorious for procrastinating or, you know, all the typical things. So I could have been a better student, but I guess I was a good enough student to, you know, get accepted to school and get a degree and graduate. Yeah. I'm proud of that. So up until that point then, is there a day, a week, a particular year that you wish you can live over? During those years. Just during those years until LSAT time? No, I don't think so. I think I'm really satisfied with how those years went. Because You know, I do have years that I wish I could live over for sure. Just, you know, either it's like I could do that year better or, you know, I think there's probably some years in there. But at the same time, everything's retrospective. So you think, man, if I hadn't, you know, like made this mistake or if I hadn't made this decision, like I wouldn't be where I am right now.

UNKNOWN: 21:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 21:51

So I recognize that through those pivotal years for sure. Okay, so let's move into the creative and the artistic process that we talked a little about. So what is it? Is it you have a title in mind and then you write the lyrics to it. Is it exactly backwards of what I just presented? Or is it this third hybrid that you have a story and you just got to try to get it out of your head? Or is it all of them? Yeah, it's all of them. How does it work? Yeah, it's typically all of them. I love this question because I get asked that question a lot as a songwriter. Yeah. It can be anything. It can be like, you know, the hook might come first. You might be out fishing or something or hear somebody say something. Personal conversations, that is where you get all your songwriting material, talking to people. And so if you're ever with a songwriter and you're having a conversation and they just pull their phone out in their notes or whatever and they start writing something down, you probably gave them an idea for a song. Really? Yeah, or said something really cool. Okay. Reading books, watching old movies, getting out in nature. But sometimes you'll come up with a hook first and be like, okay, guys, I've got this hook. We've got to figure out how to write it. And then you'll spend some time with melodies. What does this sound like? What does this hook sound like? If it's a good, having fun, drinking song, let's put a honky-tonk shuffle behind it or something. Or you something might be a big ballad. And you can tell just from the title. How do you know if it was written before? That's really tough. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. Especially if it's like a really good one. If you're like, there's no way that this song hasn't been written yet. Right. Do a little research. Can you tell tell us where you actually go to? Is it a website? Can you reveal it? Is it a top secret thing? No, it's not top secret. No, I just go through any of the streaming platforms, Spotify, Google. Oh, so you're doing a front-end search. Yeah, general database searches on things that's been released in the past. Do you ever have to look at copyright and trademark scenarios? Well, you try to stay off of other ideas if they've been written or you know but nowadays you know even if it's an idea that's it just you know you just want to stay off of not doing what they do right and people talk about this too it's getting harder to write songs right because in the 60s there hadn't been as many songs written yeah which seems like just such a like a you know simple fault but it's true there hadn't been as many songs written back then so nowadays there's been millions of songs written millions you know and you try to stay as conscious of that as possible I'll reveal how, okay, go ahead. No, but what I was gonna say was, yeah, so you might get a hook and you might be like, man, we gotta write that. Or you might get a guitar lick that you just can't stop playing and you might be like, okay, what is that? Or a melody in your head. Yeah. It comes from those three or four places. Anybody ever, you ever been like at a random place and somebody's like, oh, I always wanted to write a song about this, or I think this story should be a song. Did you ever get ideas from that? Somebody suggesting something to you? Yeah, I get people hit me up all the time or at shows. Anything ever stick? Sometimes, yeah. It might even be for an idea you already have, and it might be a line in a song. It might be, you know, it could be anything. But that does all fuel inspiration for sure. Then how do you know, what is it called? Not a chord, you called it a lick? What'd you call it? Okay. Yeah, like a signature lick. How do you know if that exists, forget the words, if that exists in a past song? I don't really worry about it too much. Do they exist? The only thing is, I thought I thought of that, right? Somebody will say something and your subconscious picks it up. But most of the time, whenever you're playing a lick like that, you'll know whether or not, because you might go, oh man, that sounds like something.

UNKNOWN: 25:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 25:46

And sometimes you'll be like, okay, that does sound like something because it's whatever the song is. But then you go, man, I really like the feel of that though. How can I take that idea and that feel and do something different with it? And you can always find something. So would it be true then that when I listen to music, I can't name two songs that sound alike, certainly not lyrics, I mean, obviously, but the music to the songs, the beat, all of it. Is there a database that you have to submit that stuff to? I usually just turn them into my publishers and them, and they run with that. So maybe if they was to pick up something from there, but that doesn't happen as much as you would think it does. How do they know that it's not some... random song that a famous person wrote 25 years ago, and you have the same... Right. Well, there's only so many chords and so many melodies and so many words. But there's not like a... You're not copywriting that. No, yeah, no. The song is copywritten. Yeah. But not the individual. No, and you have to free yourself up and just enjoy writing songs and melodies and not worry about it too much. Did you ever get fully finished with a song, start to finish? Yeah. put it out and go, I wish I didn't put that out. I haven't yet, but I was very conscious about that. I was very conscious about that. In fact, I didn't release music for a long time. And what's so funny is even when I first put my first band together right out of college, I had started an open mic back home as a way to audition players. Oh, that's cool. So I was like, okay, let's start a live band open mic. I want to start this with what would become my first bass player. Joel. And then all these players started traveling up from like Winston-Salem and all these places and like getting in because the music was so fun. And they're like, I got to go get in on that Wednesday night open mic jam that they're doing. And that's where I found all the players from my first band. Wow. Yeah. And jumping into. And they're all still. No, they're not. They're not still with me. No, they're all, they all live back home, but they all still play music and do it. I talk to them all the time. They're some of my dearest friends. That's so cool. I'm just curious, were you attracted to them based on skill set only, skill set and personality, personality only? Yeah, well, skill set. But what if you had a good skill set and they were just not a kind person? No, we talk about it all the time. It doesn't matter. Yeah, it does matter because you spend a lot of really personal time with these people on the road. Yeah. you're faced with a lot of really good opportunities to do bad things as far as like, you know, people are always shoving drinks and all these things. You have to have, you know, you want to be around a good hang is what we would call it. Good hang. The hang man. I like that. It's got to be good. But that really, what we're talking about is like somebody who's a solid person. Yeah, solid person. And somebody who can spend a lot of like really intimate, I mean, you're in a van together for 20 hours and in hotel rooms together and together all the time, right? So, yeah, that definitely plays a big part in it. but also musicianship. Yeah, makes sense. So this is my assessment would be that you are different than the 96 probably percent is my guess. You're definitely a standalone, again, my assessment. I spoke to Jess before this. I know some of your story. I found some of your story online and I talked to you before this interview. You have a true north. is what I like to refer to it as. So you had accountability, you had this gut instinct instilled in you, learned from day one, or how would you, where did it come from? Oh, I think you continue to learn that. Okay. Especially when it comes to accountability, right? Because, I mean, no one's perfect. No one does things perfect the first time. And especially in any business, but especially the music business, you kinda just gotta jump in the deep end and start figuring it out. And there's a lot of paralysis that happens with, especially artists who are like, I know I wanna be an artist, but I don't know what, what are those first steps to, you know, And people ask me that all the time. And I say, start booking shows and start going out and performing in front of people. I spent years playing cover shows in clubs, a lot of clubs that closed down during COVID even. And those years, a lot of times I think, man, did I spend too much time playing for no money and playing other people's songs? But then I think, no, because what I was doing was I was learning how to run a band. I was learning how to book shows. I was learning how to put a country band together. I'm a bluegrasser, so I come from an acoustic genre, and now all of a sudden I'm strapping a Telecaster on and I'm playing chicken-picking country music with drums and basses and pedal boards and all that changes everything from how I grew up playing music. And so I was learning how to do all those things, how to crawl in an old 95 E-150 conversion van and drive four hours to make 200 bucks. Right. And keep band members happy and all that. So I think during all of those years, that's where you start learning that. You learn accountability. You learn all those things. And you still continue to learn that. So is it true then when they say a musician is somebody who has– who puts$10,000 worth of equipment into a$1,000 car to drive 100 miles to make$10. Take a zero off. Even worse in bluegrass because bluegrass, we love old vintage guitars. And so you'll go to a bluegrass festival and people might be carrying around a$100,000 pre-war D28 Herringbone Martin.$100,000? Oh, for sure. A lot of these vintage instruments will go for anywhere from 50. I mean, Lloyd Lord Mandolin's pre-war D45 Martins and all the guitar nerds will kind of know what I'm talking about, but... Yeah, that's really common, especially in the bluegrass scene, because we like really good quality instruments. So what's the fine line in between if something's bluegrass or country? Oh, man, bluegrass, there's a lot of history there. As a history nerd, you'd have to go back into the actual roots and the culture of Appalachia and bluegrass music and immigration of where all the pieces of bluegrass music came from, whether it be Irish fiddle music, which is still very present in bluegrass music. Or banjos that came over on slave ships as gourd instruments and was brought into this rural environment. And all of it mixes into this culture that creates mountain music. And it's very, very diverse and incredible. Can you play the difference on here right now? Yeah, actually, I probably could do that. Show us the difference. This is taking me back, man. You know, I used to, when I was really young... It's on stage. It's on stage. It's actually funny. Yeah, so when you think of bluegrass or mountain music, a lot of that comes from Scots-Irish or Celtic influences, right? So a lot of times you're playing... fiddle tunes. And a lot of times when you hear a song that makes you feel, it feels like a home reunion. It might feel like it strikes your instinctive deity. You're like, man, something about that song makes me feel at home. It probably does because it probably has been a piece of your you know, your ancestors' history and everything else, too. That's so cool. Because music, I mean, as a world language, I mean, it does do that to you. If you think of, like, a fiddle tune or something as a flat pick, acoustic guitar player would be like a... You know, so it's Celtic, Scots-Irish fiddle music. I love it. But then you get into, like, you know, country music might be based more off of, like, the Memphis, the Mississippi, Delta, blues meets fiddle music. You know, everything from, like, Hank Senior to New Orleans to Cajun to, like, anything. And all that, like, geographically literally blends. Yeah. Right? With the migration of people. Yeah. And it starts... But then you might get into the country stuff. It's hard. But any kind of... That's a harder one because it's so broad now. But any of that... You know. Love it. Any of that stuff. So it all... You know, you can... Gosh, we could spend a day talking about... We might have to do it. About that. But it is really... fascinating cool so it's incredible yeah is this is this the one you play with no that is that is uh it has been my main axe out on the road my main guitar out on the road for the last year and a half or so yeah but i got several but uh i'll show some love too because i love i love guitars it's awesome man yeah yeah i love how much you change as soon as you get this in your hand oh that's yeah that's where i'm at home you open up i know i love it yeah so when you're writing is it for therapy for storytelling for both or am I off? You're not off at all. No, it depends on the day, just like anyone else, right? Yeah. It depends on your life at the time. It depends on what you're going through, what you've been through, if there's something weighing on you, you know? Interesting. It just depends on those things. For me, it's all of that. Music is obviously a therapy. That's why I tell people all the time, they come to me and say, I'm too old to learn guitar. I really want to learn guitar. And I'm like, you're crazy. Go learn guitar. Because in one year, you can learn guitar, and then you can do it for the rest of your life. It's not like you're... That's a good point. Do it forever. Yeah. And it's really good for you to exercise music. So on a typical day, typical work day for you... the way I would see it is you can have two different kind of rides home at the end of the day. You can have a really good ride home, you can have a not so good ride home based on what happened during your work day. What could or couldn't happen in your work day to give you a good ride home versus a not good ride home? Well, a typical day for me is I get up, I go to the gym, You know, my wife, who's a saint, she keeps me on a pretty healthy diet these days over the last couple years. It's awesome. And I'm definitely a healthier human now. So part of my every day is I go to the gym. I usually listen to a podcast. Yeah. I'll work out. Any favorites? I'm going to pause. Any favorites? No, I fluctuate. I mean, the typical, you know, Joe Rogan or Sean Ryan. We were talking about Sean. I love his show a lot. There's several, you know, depending on what I'm into or who the guest is. Yeah. And then I'll get back home and eat breakfast, do the normal thing, and I'll sit down with my guitar for a minute just for ideas and melody ideas in the morning time, drink coffee, and then go write. For me, I love sad music. I love positive music. And that's like a running joke in country music. It's like how can really sad country music make you feel so good? But it does. But it really does. You can listen to the saddest, heartbreak country song, and it makes you feel good. And it's the relatability of being human and hearing, oh, I'm not the only one that's went through that. And that makes you feel good. you know, I love sad country songs. Wow. So there really isn't anything that can make me feel bad because if I write the saddest country song known to man, I'm going to feel good from that. Or if I write just like a really good, feel good, beer drinking country music, everyone, let's go have fun. Yeah. Obviously I feel good about that. Yeah. Yeah. So the ride home for me is usually pretty enjoyable. Let's use your most recent song. Yeah. Lonesome Dove. Take me through the process of it. I have a bunch of questions, but how long from you got the original idea to it's now done, like a done final product, and just what happens along the way, who inspired it, all that stuff. Give me the whole gamut. So as a songwriter in Nashville, when you're kind of in the fabric of the songwriting community in Nashville, you have a publishing deal, you're also an artist. But during the week, you're writing songs typically, say three days of the week. You have co-writes. So you're writing with other writers in town. You look on your calendar, you show up to whatever place is on your calendar, and you're writing with so and so and so and so today at wherever it may be, Sony or something. And so you show up, and after you've been here for a few years, the people on your calendar are all your really good friends. Because you've found the writers you write well with, and you kind of stick into that cycle. So that day I was writing with my buddy Davis Corley and Lee Starr and our buddy Dan, and we were at Black River. And Lee said, we were talking about Lonesome Dove. I'm a huge fan of the western series Lonesome Dove. And Lee was like, man, that'd just make the coolest love song. And so we got to talking about that and it kind of evolved into this conversation of, if you've ever seen it, what would Gus say to Lori Darling, you know, because he was a cool cat, man. It's like, how would he approach that in Lonesome Dove if he was talking to her in a bar? And then it grew into what we wrote, you know, with Lonesome Dove, and that is it don't matter who you are. Like, if you are, you know, single, alone, for whatever reason, widowed, I mean, it doesn't matter, you know, or you're just at a bar by yourself, you know, even if it's just for one song. Not everybody's looking for love, but you don't have to be lonesome, Dove. You can just have a dance and it's fine. Yeah, and how long, start to finish? We probably write that song in a span of, I don't know, four or five hours, something like that. Do you pop up in the middle of the night ever and go, oh, this is the word, and it never comes to you, or the sentence? Yeah, it does. That does happen on a variation of songs. Sometimes I'll write three or four songs in a week. Yeah. But it happens a lot where I'm laying in bed and I can't sleep. Sure. And I'm just staring at the ceiling. Just thinking of it. Just get an idea and I just sneak out of bed and go down to my music room. I have so many voice memos on my phone of me whisper singing with a guitar. Yeah, they sound awful. But I'm getting that down or that idea down or I'll pull my notes up and write something in. Do you have anything out there that... you hear it and you're like, gosh, I wish I would have done a different word there or a different sentence or does it not work that way? Sometimes you might, you know, you might have a song that you just continually work on or sing it a little different after you've been singing it for a couple years. But most of the time, you know, I had a guy tell me one time because I got really hung up on this when I was in my teenage years. We were recording, I was recording music for the first time and so I'm recording bluegrass music with my family band and And when I was like 14 or 15, my guitar ability and my singing ability and all of that was like really changing. So I would hear something from two years ago and be like, man, that sucks, dude. Like, why did they, you know, because I'm so much better at that now or whatever. And I had this someone tell me one time they said, it doesn't matter because what you're doing is you're documenting who you were and where you were in your life at that time. That's all you're doing. It doesn't represent who you're going to be or anything else. I was like, you know what? You're right. You're literally just representing exactly where you're at in life in all aspects at that one snapshot. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't let it bottom me too much. Yeah. And they say going all the way back to the beginning is helpful and can also be not helpful too, but that's the right perspective. Yeah. Your first piece of work is... I mean, how can it possibly be your best, right? Dude, I mean, for me, I was... It was a piece. Like... 10 or 11 years old. Obviously I'm better than like 11 year old Will now, you know what I mean? But now I like go back in and listen to it and I enjoy it, you know, cause it's fun to like remember where I was at during those years. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just curious. You, you said somewhere along the way you struggled to put stuff out. What did you, what is that? related to this, what you're saying? And so I'd signed that first publishing deal with Universal. The first song that I had ever turned in as a writer for my first publishing deal was a song called Sedona that I wrote with Davis Corley and Lee Starr, who would later become co-writers on a lot of the stuff that I've released over the last couple years. And I said, I love that song. I'm proud of that song. I would sing that song on stage beside of or in front of anyone Let's record that and put it out. So we did. And that was my first song ever released. First one. Very cool. Yeah. All right. Let's lift up the hood of Will now and talk. Let's do it. So I'm first curious, what does a routine look like? You mentioned your routine. You go to the gym. Sure. Let's unpack that a little bit. Yep. What kind of stuff? You're 33? 33 years old. That's right. Are you a runner? No, I don't run. I do lift weights. So my routine is my wife... man, God bless that woman, you know, because she is definitely, you know, she came into meeting me, you know, when I moved to Nashville, I was probably drinking too much. I was staying out all night and playing honky tonk country music and all the things. And she has never once ever put any guardrails on me, but let me come to those realizations myself, which wasn't hard to come to. But maybe a couple years ago, I was like, man, I just want to feel good all the time. And I got really serious about personal health. And so my routine now, which has been pretty much the same, I eat the same thing for breakfast every single day. Literally. I have eaten the same thing for breakfast for years. What is it? Going back to my wife, who is a godsend, she meal preps me baked protein oatmeal with chocolate chips and blueberries and stuff in it. And she cuts it up into squares so you know this square's got 20 grams of protein in it or whatever. I eat a piece of that and two eggs with egg whites every day. Every day. Every single morning. So I get up. What if you're on the road? I'll pack it with me. Or if I'm on the road at a hotel, I try to eat as close to that as I can. Like if I'm at a hotel or I'll go get it or whatever. Try to get something as close to that as possible. That's cool. Like Starbucks has got the egg bites or whatever. Yeah. Things like that. But yeah, I get up every day. I go to the gym. I work out. I listen to podcasts. I get my mind right. Sit in the sauna. Come home. I eat that. exact meal for breakfast every day, and then I start my creative process on looking at who I'm writing with, what we wanna write, or what I'm in the mood to write, or all these things, and start getting the creative thing going. Usually talk to my manager, John, Some other people on my team to check in, I'm sure I'm like calling them and annoying them half the time because I'm one of those guys that, you know, if I feel good, I'm real annoying in the morning. So like I get up and I'm like, you know, out doing things. For sure. My neighbors, I'm sure, like I'm slamming the hood on my truck and I'm just feeling good, you know. I love it. But I'll do that and then I'll go right. And then I'll get done with writing and I'll either have something else to go do in town, whether I'm playing somewhere or doing something that evening or meetings or what have you. And then I go to the house and wait for Kristen and my daughter Evie to get home so that we can have some time together. That's awesome. Yeah. Tell me a time that you were so convinced you're quitting. I'm done. I just can't. I can't do this. That was probably during those years of playing clubs and playing cover shows. Because that's a grind that, unless you've done it, you just don't realize how hard that is. And that's just here in Nashville. Well, at that time, I was traveling all over the East Coast, but regionally traveling mostly in the Carolinas and the Southeast. And I was playing these clubs, and you're playing from Tyndall to... At night, you're staying in like the worst of the worst hotels, motels, you know, and because you don't have no money, you're not making any money. And you're driving your own truck, your own gas. Yeah, that's right. All these things. I mean, you're paying for anything. No, you are living broke. No sponsors. No sponsors. You're just, you know, and you're playing clubs and doing this. And they would have cover bands come in and you know, even as an actor, an artist, you know, even, and this has always been that way, but a lot of artists might have, say, five original songs that they believe in, you know, and then the rest of the night they're playing top 40 country music. Got it. And so for me, I'm a pretty traditional country guy. I'm a roots guy, bluegrass guy, you know, and I like, we rock pretty hard, you know, but... During those years of when the country music, which is always evolving and always changing, and it's bigger now than it's ever been, which is awesome. But at the time, it was in a spot where the top 40 country didn't really align with what I authentically could do. And so I was going into these clubs and they're saying, we need you to play top 40 country music because we're trying to sell beer and keep people on the dance floor. And I'm trying to sing these top 40 country songs. And I'm like, man, like this is awful because I don't sound authentic doing that at all. Right. That's not the will. The guy paying me. Right. But the guy paying me wants me to do it. So I'm trying to do that. And man, when you're in a spot like that, the only the only way I can explain it is like feeling homesick. Oh, right. You feel homesick, but like in a general bigger sense. Yeah, because what you're doing is you're you're you know, you're you're insides are like saying like, this is not who you are. And that's a powerful thing as a human. Insides don't match the outsides. That's right, man. It's saying like, whoa, dude, like this, you know. And so during those years, I was like, man, maybe I'll, this, is this worth the grind? Yeah. Like, is this really worth it? Huh? You know, because in music, the odds of breaking through any noise, I mean, it's not like I'm the best basketball player in the world. I'm the sports-related, like I am the best. It's not like that. You can be the best, but people also have to love you, like you, believe in you, see that you're authentic, and also you have to write songs and music that resonate with people enough to get their attention out of the noise of millions of other artists. So you say, dude, that's an impossible mountain to climb. Is it worth the grind? Yeah, you just got me quitting. Right. You just got me quitting. Right. Like literally sitting here listening to that. Right. I go, I'm done. I can't see. That's Mount Everest. And that's the door. That's like opening the door into that. Yeah. But then I think that's why it's important to like literally not have a plan B. What were you looking at? So to me, it's like you're staring at Mount Everest. You can't even see anywhere. Forget the other side of it. Yeah. prize were you looking at? The eye on the prize type of thing? What did you see? I saw creating a life that sustained me enough to play music for a living as an entry point. If I could write songs and perform and make enough money to pay the bills and make money doing it, then I've gotten to the foundation of what it was. I think if I hadn't had music be a part of my life for so long that maybe I would've quit. But at that point in time, you gotta understand, I had already been playing music for, I mean, I don't even know, about 15, 16 years at that point, and had traveled, performed all over the country, had already had kind of a smaller career in the bluegrass genre, got out of bluegrass music, and now was entering the country genre and the country world, which is like starting over. Really? In a lot of ways. So yeah, if I hadn't had that momentum behind me, I might would have. But for me, there was no plan B. I play music. That's who I am and what I do. Take that story, snip it, and what a gift for your kids to hear. Yeah. Yeah. Right? No doubt. It's not all because I'm guilty of it myself. Oh. grab a hat, run down the street, grab a pair of cowboy boots, get yourself a tour bus, and you're a country singer. Like I can make that mistake in my brain. For sure. So that's... Well, and it's impossible for anyone to like truly be educated enough to know, because to be educated enough to know what it takes or to like be in that working machine, you would have to live it. You got to live it. Every day. And it's got to be different than what you thought it was coming in. It's got to be so much different. It is a little different. But for me, it's like and this is also which I don't take for granted. It's where I am in my career and what the last few years have looked like. So it's different in like a really exciting way because in some ways it's not what you know, it's exactly what you were hoping it would be. Yeah. I mean, you come to town, you get signed to a publishing deal. Next thing you know, you're getting paid to write songs for a living. You're starting an artist career. Wow. People believe in you and you're going out recording music and playing shows and you start. So that that part is, you know. Yeah. Where you really are living the dream, which is what I'm doing. Where's the where's the ugly side of it? Oh, the ugly side is definitely the traveling. Okay. Yeah, for touring artists. Which you can't avoid. No, you got to get from point A to point B. What about the industry? Like, what about the industry as a whole? Right? I can look to other industries, and as I learn about them, I'll hear like, oh, that's it right there. Like, that's the snake oil. Sure. I don't want to use that word in country music, but where's the... you gotta really watch or you can lose it all or be unethical. I think that's almost like, I think it's almost applied to any business. So is it in the label deal? Doing a wrong deal? I don't know. I mean, I think every industry might have some bad seeds in there that might be trying to take advantage of somebody. But, you know, most people can smell that from a mile away. So what I've always noticed is like once you get around really successful people in this business, whether it be in the business side of things or artist side of things or anything else, most of the time you find out that they're like really good people. Yeah. So you don't have to say the name if you don't feel comfortable.

UNKNOWN: 53:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 53:41

Point me to the last time you picked up the phone. and called a mentor on a real serious business, whether it was something that did or didn't feel right, it doesn't matter, but you used a mentor, like you physically used one, you picked up the phone. I believe in always talking to other people, especially mentors. Tell me the whole story, like what happened. I won't get into the details of anything, but there's always going to be points in time in your career where you want to make sure you're making the right decision, you know, and it doesn't always mean that someone's trying to take advantage of you either. It might just be like a career choice and a pivot and a move. and things like that. And for me, I've always called my dad. He's just a level-headed guy. That's so cool. You know what I mean? But I also might call the people in the industry who have been mentors to me. Yeah. You know, that I met in the early days. But the point is you have that. I do have that. You have that established. I think everyone has to have that. And in this, it's probably similar in this regard to many other industries, but is it... is it ever the feeling of you all don't want the other one to get above you? I mean, does that ever come into play? I don't know if that comes into play. Yeah, I mean, I think it's like any business, you know, I mean, who can make a better deal or who can do something or whatever. You might both mutually recognize that and just smile and be good buddies, you know, or whatever. And just, yeah, I don't know. That's a good question, though. All right, so this is Will, not your career. This is you. What's something that scares you in life? Oh, man, I hate spiders. Yeah. I hate them things, man. All of them. Even the daddy longleg ones? Yeah, those don't bother me too bad. I don't care about snakes, dude. They don't bother me at all. Really? Dude, something about. Spiders over snakes. Like a brown recluse, bro, that you just don't even know is there. The worst. The worst. Do they have those nasty, what are they called, the jurors? Do they have those in Tennessee? I don't know. I don't know. They're regional. There's a bunch of bad spiders here, dude. Black and yellow. The first apartment we moved in after we got married. was not real nice, right? And so we're like newlyweds and we're living in this apartment. Yeah. And I walk in the bedroom and I mean, it was fine. You know, it was, we were there for like seven months. My wife's like, weird. And I go in the, I go in the bedroom. I'm like, I mean, we're doing the best we can. And I look and this like giant brown recluse is like dropping down off like the bed. I mean, the window curtains.

UNKNOWN: 56:09

Whew.

SPEAKER_00: 56:09

And I didn't say anything to my wife, because I was like, if I tell her this, she's going to burn the entire apartment complex down. Yep, right now. Yeah, start throwing hand grenades. And so I was like, all right. So I get two boots or whatever, and I'm like, bam. And I kill this giant brown recluse. And dude, I couldn't stop thinking about it, because I was like, they're here. They're in here.

UNKNOWN: 56:27

Oh, my gosh.

SPEAKER_00: 56:28

We made out. Nest. Something. I mean, apartment complexes, who knows, right? We left. I hate spiders. The other thing that scares me is, in a serious note, Well, I take that seriously. That's serious, yeah, for sure. Screw spiders. Is when you become a parent, a father. Yeah. That scares you. It's not a bad one. I think it's just a reality check. Your whole reality changes, right? Your whole purpose, your whole reason, your whole why changes the second they put your baby in your arms. Yeah. And it's impossible to explain to anybody. Impossible. Especially when they're expecting to have a kid. Yeah. And they're asking all these questions. I'm like, there's no way to explain the miracle and the life change you're about to experience. I know. All the way to your core. It's the most, I couldn't believe it. I could not almost process it when Evie was being born. When it was going down, I was like, the nurses were laughing at me. Yeah. Because I'm just like, this is unbelievable. I can't believe this is happening, dude. Right? Right. It's a miracle. Yeah. But the scary part is like, that child is really, completely relying upon me in every way. And that's, to step up and deliver for your family, that's a pressure, that scares me. But also, it's a guardrail, man. It keeps you, it really, I mean, it just keeps you where you need to be. It grounds you all the way because it's a God thing, you know, in all aspects, man. So I think it's not necessarily like scared. It's just more aware. Yeah. Yeah. Of what that looks like. Yeah. Fear like, I'm afraid of that clown over there versus what we would call reverent fear. Correct. Which is more of a respectful fear. Yeah. That's right. That's a good point. And you get to do it again. I do. Coming up in December. And the miracle in that is that it's a miracle that the second one is as miraculous as the first one. 100%. Which doesn't make sense because you're like, no, I'm just going in again. Our fourth one was a miracle. It's amazing. It never quits. Do you almost pass out? Just curious. No. Actually, to be honest with you, my wife laughs because when you have kids, what you talk about with other parents all the time is having kids. And a lot of that comes into that hospital moment, the first night when the doctor's like, are you all about ready to go home? For us, it's two degrees outside. you know, we've got our tiny baby and you're like, dude, I just feel good every time y'all come and get our child to like take it away for five minutes, take her away for five minutes because I know she's in good hands. You know, and now I've got to bring this child to my house. I know. Where's the operating manual? Gosh, no, I loved it. I couldn't, I wasn't going to miss none of it, man. I was, I loved it. And when we met you, it was so cool. So I'm talking to you and Katie walked around to talk to your wife. Yeah, Kristen, yeah. and your girl was there. I mean, it was just so. Yeah, they don't get to come to a ton of shows, but they got to come down for that show, and it was really cool. My daughter, Evie Everly, we call her Evie, is just a little movie star, man. She loves it. I carried her in there, and I walked her up on stage before the show started, and I carried her up there because she also was excited to be in a cave. We're in the caverns, right? Playing a show in a cave. So everything she loves. She loves music. She loves the caves and stuff like that. She just can't get over it. I walk her up on stage, and I'm showing her around and she gets really serious and she looks at me and she says, am I singing? And was like dead serious. No way. And I was like, you can if you want to. It's still the whole show. What a memory. What a cool night. And you know that post is awesome about her having the, who needs the real protection? Yeah, so we were getting security escorted to the stage, and Evie goes up and grabs the security guy's hand, and next thing you know, Evie is in the security guard with a flashlight, moving the crowd out of the way with Evie in the front of the pack all the way to the stage. That's awesome. The real talent, man. The real movie star. So we got there real early because we were staying in those little cabins. Oh yeah, cool. And we just walked in. There was no security around, so we just walked in the caverns and you were walking out I remember because you had a baseball hat on yeah I remember him but we had gone in we were like checking it out and then all of a sudden a lady said like what band member are you related to she's like oh you gotta go what a special place though isn't that cool if no one's been to the caverns go That was my first time, it blew my mind. Yeah. It was awesome. And Josh Turner's first time too, right? I think you said? Yeah, his first time too. Playing underground? Mm-hmm. It's incredible. All right. Do you ever feel any kind of pressure? So, again, it could be business or professional, but more as you. Like, pressure to, I'm not around enough as a dad. That guy's got... this type of life and I don't. Or when you said you came to peace with your music, did that sort of permeate through life? It's like, I'm who I am. Yeah, I think we're all human, right? I mean, we have pressure. We feel pressure. We feel stress. It's not a question of like, if you're going to feel pressure, if you're going to feel stress. Right. It's how you deal with it. And that's the growth. process that happens you know that's the hardest part yeah I feel pressure all the time I feel pressure in delivering I want to perform every show I want to give the crowd 120% of who I am and what I can do because they've paid a lot of money and saved up money to come out and watch a show one night you know what I mean and I might be on somebody else's tour and I'm a guest you know on their tour now playing for their fans that they have been performing for and delivering that for for 20 years you know and I I don't want to let that down as a father or when I'm gone. Yeah. So, I mean, I feel that pressure and stress all the time. It's just a matter of how you deal with that and how you, you know, process it and handle it. That's the mental health piece. It is. Which is giant, right? Huge. It's everything. Do you have any, whether it's a protective measure or do you have any, like, hey, something's going a little... awry out here and I'm, and I'm not by my family, who do I call? What do I do? Yeah. I mean, you know, there's several things that will thicken your skin, but when you're out playing clubs for no money during those years, I'm talking about, you know, starting a band, figuring things out. Hey, you know, I was a great story for you. I was out on John party's tour, um, the first of last year. This is the first time I've been on a really big, big tour. I'm playing arenas for the first time. We were in Savannah, Georgia, playing a show at Saddlebags. The next week had to be in Billings, Montana. It's February in the Rocky Mountains in the Pacific Northwest. I didn't have a van or anything. All I had was a crew cab truck. I went and bought a camper shell for my crew cab truck. I told my guys, I'm like, okay, we just got to get in the truck and drive up there. They're like, okay. It's 10 degrees outside. We drive to Billings, Montana, and everyone gets a kick out of it because they're like, you know, they're asking like, hey, security wants to know, like, what are you pulling up in? You got a van and trailer. We got to make sure we're not just letting some stranger through the back gates, you know, where the buses are and everything. And I'm like, no, I'm in my truck, you know. And they're like, what? And I go in there like, did you just get in your truck and drive up here? And I was like, yeah, that's exactly what I did. What else was I supposed to do? So I come pulling in, you know, in this truck. We drive it from there all the way. We had one day of travel in between a show in Billings, Montana, and we had one day of travel off, and then the next day we had to be in Abbotsford, British Columbia, which is north of Seattle in Canada, which is about as far away as you can get. As you can get. So we drive the next day through two winter storms. one at like six in the morning in the crazy mountains of Montana. They call them the crazy mountains and we're laughing because we're like in life or death situation. And it's 10 degrees outside. And like, you see these signs, like road signs and we're like driving up the road, like, you know, at 20 miles an hour, hoping we don't like wreck because we're going to freeze to death. And we're in the middle of Montana. And like, you see these signs, like just appear out of like snowy fog that say the crazy mountains, you know, it's a nightmare. And we get through those and we cross the Cascades into Seattle that night at like 10. that night and hit another snowstorm that was like horrific. And then we pull into the hotel and the next day we got to play an arena in Abbotsford, British Columbia. My truck breaks down, pulling into the hotel. It's like 11 at night, 11.30 at night. I'm like, okay, well I got to get from here to Abbotsford, British Columbia, which is like 45 minutes or something. And I'm like, all right, everybody go to bed. So I had my guys at the hotel. They all went to bed. I found a shop like a mile down the road. This is the thickening of the skin. This is what toughs you up. This is it. There's no one there to help you. Your guys are relying on you. Live nation reps and everybody else expects you to be on stage. You've been contracted to play in an arena the next night where there's going to be 15,000 people waiting for a show to kick off. And you're the one kicking the show off. So I sleep for like five hours, right? Four or five hours. I've been driving for 16 hours through snowstorms. And I find a shop like a mile down the road. I call them. I'm like, hey, my truck, whatever. I make buddies with these guys. They get my truck in there. They're like, hey, it's going to be like 3,500 bucks worth of stuff going on with your truck. I'm like, it is what it is. Whatever, get it fixed. And then I realized that I got to be at soundcheck in like an hour and my truck's still not done. So I talked to the shop and they're like, just take the shop car. up there. We don't care. Wow. Take it. Wow. And I go, what's the shop car? And they pull around this like Kia Corte or something like the smallest Kia sedan made with like no hubcaps. You know, it's just like tiny. And so I look at the drummer. I'm like, you know, you got to stay in the hotel. You're not gonna make this show, buddy. Sorry. Like, here's some pizza money. We got to, you know, because I only had room for like me, the other guitar player and the bass player. So then I proceeded to drive through customs at the Canadian border. in this in full like stage gear, cowboy hat on, everything. Yeah, they didn't like that. You know, and they were like, who are you? What are you doing? Who are you? So then I pull in, like purposely parked the car right in front of John's tour bus because I thought it was funny, you know, because it's his tiny car. I pull my guitar out of the trunk and I go walking in and everyone starts applauding. They're like, he made it, you know. Just in time. Yeah, great show. It was awesome. What a story. Yeah, so those moments, you know, there's no preparing you for that. That shapes you. But there's also no one there to save you. There's no one there to help you. It's figure it out. You have to figure it out. You're a business owner, I mean, at the end of the day. You are, yeah. Like, you're a businessman, right? You are. There's no difference. You own a small business. Yeah. Depending on where you are in your career. That's incredible. Yeah, you own a business, 100%. Yeah, so it's fun. It's funny now. It wasn't funny at the time. So let's talk the Josh Turner thing. So I'm intrigued by this. Did he pick you? Were you sitting at home one day and you got a phone call? Hey, it's Josh Turner. Would you come out with me? How does it all work? Yeah, so a part of my team, I have a booking agent who's a part of my team, as well as my manager, John, and the different people who make up the core. Is the core here in Nashville? They're all local? Yeah, they're all here in Nashville. Everybody's local. And for the longest time, like last year, I didn't have any of that. So I was having to do everything myself. But I did get an agent, and then I started having some people lighten the load for me But through that, you know, they are able to like pick from maybe a list of opening opportunities or they might have somebody in mind, the artist might. But then, you know, the artist, sometimes they might call you, you know, but for me, like Josh, word was sent to me, you know, that he wanted me out on that tour and that was an opportunity. In what form? From my agent and from them. Was it a text like, hey, can you get this guy? Text or call or, yeah. Like he knew you? He met you somewhere, or he heard you? You know, I'm not real sure. I know all of his band really well, band members and stuff like that, but I'm not sure how familiar, how super familiar he was with me. Just so cool, though. Enough that he entrusts me with his fans, which has just been amazing. So the agent gets the contact, the agent... obviously calls you are you like jumping up and down with the phone on mute going oh my gosh this is the greatest thing like what's the feeling yeah you go are you nervous uh no you're excited yeah you're excited i was nervous whenever i got the call for the john party tour because i was like how am i going to pull this off yeah at the time and then you go through you know a little bit of that kind of touring experience and you feel bulletproof. You're like, there's nowhere I can't get to in the world. There's nothing I can't pull off. Even if it's in a little Kia, whatever. You'll always figure out how to get it done. And that's what kind of separates the people who are really serious about it as a career and people who are like, this seems fun. Yeah, right. Until it's not. What changes where... But you're excited. You're always excited. Yeah, you're excited. Yeah, you're thrilled. And then, I mean, you knew, obviously knew who Josh Turner is. Oh, yeah. You're like, oh, yeah, great opportunity. I could see it. Oh, man, yeah. What... What an honor. What changes were you at a band before, and now you're just up playing by yourself? No, so for me as an artist, I can kind of do a variation of shows. I can do a full band tour, which I do a lot, full band shows, which I really love. Or I can go out and just me and a guitar perform that way as well. And either show kind of offers something different. The full band's loud, rocking, like we're old school, amps on stage, wedge monitors. Traditional. Oh, yeah, dude, like grip it, rip it, crank it, like let's go. Me by myself with a guitar playing. takes me back to where I started. You know, nothing to hide behind. Nothing. If you make a mistake, if you screw up, everyone knows who did it, right? There's only one person on stage. And that's, I love that challenge. Yeah. I love that challenge. So I can do a variation of those different formats show-wise. And on the Josh tour, I've been direct support solo acoustic, which has been incredible. Every show? Every show with Josh. So it's the same? It's been awesome. It's been really awesome because his fan base really listens. Yeah. And you just feel really comfortable with them. Yeah. And the way I treat those shows is I really do want people to get to know me and I want to get to know them. Sure. And you can make any size crowd feel more intimate in that situation if you can, you know, and talking to them just like we're talking right now. Yeah. I'm just going to tell you why I wrote this song and I'm going to sing it for you. Yeah. And it's so cool. Again, back to the beginning, how we started today is like, that's how I met you. Yep. Is because you gave that offer. Yeah. To come back. And I just, we just thought that was so cool. Yeah, I mean it. I know. I do want to meet people. I want to meet everybody that I can meet. Yeah. And on Josh's shows, I've had nights where I stood at the merch table until the venue literally was like kicking people out. Wow. Because, you know, what a special opportunity. Yeah. And that's a really tender moment, too, because I get to be living the dream. I get to be playing music for a living. I write songs. And then I get to hang out and meet the people who give you the reason, give you the ability to do that. It's incredible. If that don't touch you, hit you in your soft spot, then there's something really wrong with you. Right. When you see somebody come up to the merch table and pull their money out and choose to take that$20... That's so cool. And like buy something with your name on it or your T-shirt. Like if that don't make you feel something, man. Yeah. So we were trying to figure out after. All right. Josh finishes. He leaves. Yeah. So we're looking at the band members up there. Yeah. Do they all get on the bus together and go to the next place? Do some of them fly different places? Is it whatever?

UNKNOWN: 1:13:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:09

whatever everybody feels like doing. Yeah, no, it depends. Most of the time they crawl on a bus. So they're all getting on. Use him as an example. Yeah, sure. Any example. Most of them is the same. So they're all going on that red bus or blue bus, whatever. Yeah, pretty much like, you know, the crew and stuff they'll get in. You know, let's just use a show night to the next day. So they'll do a show, you know, where they've set up everything, performed the show. As soon as everybody leaves, they tear down all this production. It's a massive operation. They tear down all this production. They load it out into trailers on the back of the bus. Usually they'll have like a 12 or 1 or 2 a.m. bus call, meaning that's when the bus is pulling out. That bus will head to the next city, wherever you're playing. And they'll get there at either 8 or 9 in the morning or wherever it is, you know, how long it is. And they'll immediately start unloading trailers, setting up production for the next night, going through sound check, EQing the... sound system for the room. Doing all of that and rinse and repeat. And the artist sometimes will, depending on what they're into, they might get off and go and play golf and then come back and work out and then eat catering and take a nap and then get up and go do a meet and greet and then do the show. That's kind of the lifestyle. What a life. Do you have a favorite part of the country or even of the world that you've been to? Out west is pretty cool. I just always get out there during the middle of winter. So if anybody on my team, I would love to go to Montana when it's not January or February. That'd be cool. But I love it out there. I love being out west. I love going to Texas. I've gotten to go to Europe. To play? To play, yeah, in Denmark. Do you get to see the areas? Do you leave an area and you're like, I really felt it, or is it just so quick? sometimes you start making a like a conscious effort to try to like i'm a go-doer you know like if i'm going to be in dc i want to go to the mall and like go to every museum i can you know be a nerd or if i'm in boston like we were up in boston with gavin adcock back in the spring like we got to tour you know uh the the boston the baseball stadium and everything there the red sox stadium and so you try to like fit some of that stuff into the town that you're in and sometimes i'll be honest with you sometimes you just get there and it's eight hours of a conference room that they've made your green room. Oh, man. And you're sitting there on your phone or you walk a million laps around the venue. Yeah. You know, and you see everybody like awkwardly pass like the same person for the 50th time, you know, and you're like, hey, I want to go grab some celery from the catering. Like, you know. Yeah. So it just depends. So you got 24 hours. Mm hmm. No accountability, no commitments. You're locked in wherever you want. What do you do? I'll be honest with you. I'd eat Reese's peanut butter cups. Would you? I don't know. Crush a bag of Doritos? If calories didn't matter to you, let me add that caveat. If calories don't matter either. What do you do? Oh, man, I'm in the mountains. I'm in a river fly fishing for trout. Yeah. That's what I'm doing. That is my sanctuary besides church. Like a particular spot in a particular river or just any big river? You know, it might be 24 hours. I'm probably going to the South Holston outside of Abingdon, Virginia or Pisgah National Forest and wading rivers with a fly rod catching trout. That's what you did as a kid. You know, I got into it when I got older. I was like... you know, 1920 when I got into it. I was always, I lived, my entire life was outside. I've always hunted and always fished and been outdoors, you know. I'm a country kid. I mean, we literally were outside, get off the school bus, run down the driveway, change your clothes so your mom didn't bust you hunting, right? And then you go straight out in the woods. I love my mom. But you go straight out in the woods until dark. And then my mom could, like, cattle whistle, you know, like that really loud. Oh, yeah, yeah. So you knew a lot of times, like, Sure. Time to go eat supper. That's awesome. So I grew up in the woods, but that's what I would do. I would go straight out to a river, no cell service, and just spend 24 hours fishing. Yeah. What would you say from dad or grandpa, most important lesson that you take with you when you go up on stage? That's pretty good because those guys were so, I mean, they shaped who I am. Between my mom's dad, my grandpa Buster, you know, Jones that I talked about, World War II vet. And my dad. I think for all three of them, seeing what they were up against in life and that they overcome and were successful. My mom's dad grew up obviously in the Blue Ridge Mountains there around home with less than nothing. He grew up waking up with snow dusting on the quilts in the middle of winter through the cracks in the walls and getting clothes to fit and having to help raise his siblings. Like, what a tough guy. You know what I mean? Grit, man. Like, entered the Air Force in Korea and came out and ended up starting several businesses, clothing stores, grocery stores, and different things like that, and was successful, retired when he was in his 60s and played golf every day for the rest of his life. That's the produce connection. That's my mom's dad, my Paul Rod. And then my dad's dad, my grandpa Buster Jones, World War II. Grows up in what we would call now Scraptown. It's a sub-community of the community that I'm from. Oh, man. In the mountains there. And the baby of 12 kids was born in 1924. 12 kids? 12 kids. My great-grandpa Jesse, who would have been born in like the 1870s or 80s. Yeah. you know, then was, I mean, that guy started a country store by walking all the way to town. And he was like a giant man and carrying feed sacks back and selling them, started the country store. And then my grandpa, the baby 12, goes into World War II, was in Normandy, was in the Battle of the Bulge, you know, comes out with like five battle stars, Purple Heart, doesn't really talk about it. You know, it talks about the pretty women in the poker playing and all the good stories that came with, you know, being over there. and walked across Europe with a.45 under his arm, goes into Germany, comes back, gets into the produce business, and starts with nothing, and turns it into a great success. So I look at that model, which is like the American dream. That's like, if you want it, go make it happen. And you can. And so I think about that all the time, when it's hard or it's tough or it's, you know, you can overcome all that. That's generational. You could pass that down. 100%. Those World War II guys, depending on what... where they were, most of them, because I interviewed a World War II guy, he said what was the hardest part about it, other than the gun, you weren't allowed to say the gunfights, was that their feet were wet nonstop every day. I can't stand having my feet wet for like an hour. Imagine your socks being wet. Day in and day out. Yeah, and it's cold, and you're in the Ardennes Forest, and you're getting pneumonia.

UNKNOWN: 1:20:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:31

and you got Germans shooting at you. Brutal. What a crazy, I mean, that's crazy. Yeah, things we take for granted. Yeah, no doubt, man. All right, you got a couple hour ride in front of you, let's say, hypothetical. What, are you listening to music? Okay, that's a good question. Are you writing? Are you thinking? I'm not listening to anything. No? Fact. Cool. My wife thinks I'm like crazy. Yeah. I don't listen to anything. If I got a five or six hour ride... Yeah. Most of that is spent in dead silence. Very cool. Ears rest, self-reflect, think about what you got going on. Yeah. Think about what you got coming up. Yeah. Maybe think about a song. Yeah. But just think. Yeah. And drive. Intentional thinking, like here are the five things I'm going to think about on this trip, or just let your mind go? Just let your mind go. Just let it run. to all those places. If I went in your truck right now and pulled up your presets, what's on number one? I don't even know because I haven't even said it. I also drive a 1996 F-150 that doesn't even have a working radio hardly. I love it. Yeah, so usually my windows are down and the little swivel window is open and I'm just cruising. That is so cool. Yeah, but if I was to listen to anything at all, it would be a podcast or talk radio or something. Something where two people are having an interesting conversation with each other. Right. That's what I would be listening to. Does it? They're probably at a point in time, my guess, it bugged you a little bit to hear yourself? Yeah, for sure. Does it still? No. No, it doesn't. I kind of got past that. But I'm also not like riding around just listening to myself all the time. How long did it take to get past that? I can't get past that. Oh, man. I don't know. It still does it to me. It depends. I hate listening to an episode. I would rather... This sounds like egotistical or something. This is not at all. But I would rather hear myself sing than I would talk. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. But... Was that always? It's pretty weird. No, I never wanted to hear myself. Period. Sing or talk or anything. The crazy thing is so many people out there are going to relate to this. I've heard news anchors can't watch themselves. Famous news anchors can't watch that. It's a real thing. I believe it. I know it's weird. I think you go back to a primitive life where you never heard yourself. Right. And now it's like, oh yeah, I want you to in-depth hear yourself talk, sing, sing. All that's wild, ain't it? The heebie-jeebies. All right, what's a hill that you would die on outside of, like it has nothing to do with music? What's a hill you're willing to die on? Oh, man, that's a good question. I don't know, probably my faith. I'd probably do that. Huge. Which is a pretty, you know, no statement gross. Yeah. Day one. Did it start as early as you can remember? Faith was always around, always a part of my life. Family? Family, yep, for sure. My great-grandpa was a primitive Baptist preacher. Oh, yeah. And a tobacco farmer. Yeah. So there's always been a lot of faith and stuff. Yeah. But I think that also comes from getting older, growing. Your faith changes and grows with life. You have kids, and even then, more so. More so, yeah. You know, it's also this like self-respect, you know, self-reflective humbling process of how can you humble yourself all the way down in human form, you know, and try to get, try to get a little closer to Jesus. Yeah. Love that. That's good. Yeah. What's, what would be something that your fans would be shocked to know about you? Good, good battering. Oh, this is okay. We got some fun facts. I'm a triplet. No way. Yeah. So I have two sisters that were born at the same time. I'm a triplet with two of my sisters. Yeah. And I'm one of five kids. I got four older sisters. Okay. So my oldest sister is five years older than me. And then the next sister was three years older. And then going for, I guess, kid number three, they wound up with three. So I'm a triplet. And yeah. Interesting. They both live down in Charleston, South Carolina. Yeah, I was going to say, are you close with them? Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm really close to my whole family and always have. But growing up, obviously really close with them too because we went through school together. They played sports together. We had all the same friends. Yeah. Me and one of my triple sisters went to Virginia Tech at the same time. So, yeah. But that's kind of a fun fact. That's a really fun fact. Yeah. All right. What's a guilty pleasure song? Oh, man. So you know every word to it. A guilty pleasure. Guilty pleasure. I don't know if I'm, I don't know. Would you refuse to cover one, like something that you knew, but you're like, no, I can't let anybody know I like that? You know, probably not. I don't know. Baby Shark? Yeah, Baby Shark. Yeah, it depends on if he's cried or not. I would totally play Baby Shark. But I don't know if I have any guilty pleasure songs. I've covered so much music. There really isn't anything I wouldn't play or sing for the most part. So you can't really be stumped? Oh, I can be stumped if it was newer music. Because I spend so much time writing my own music and things like that. And I've played everything from blues to funk to gypsy jazz to... All of it. All of it. Incredible. Yeah. So cool. I love it all. All right. So you got... You got dad, you got grandpa. Yeah. You got you. Yep. There's this generational, well, you got grandpa, you got dad, you got you. Yeah. You got this generational passing down. Mm-hmm. Is there a single thing, one single thing, that has to make it to your kids? Oh, that's a great question. Yeah, I think just... Instilling hard work, faith, and family. You know, or faith, family, and hard work. I think that has to make it to my kids. Being respectful and knowing what's humbling and good about, you know, loving everybody and being a, you know, loving other humans, man. Patience, things like that, that, you know, we all strive for, having more of, you know. And just thinking in that kind of way. Yeah. Well, the good news in that here in your hands. And I also should shout out to my mom. Doesn't matter what you say. In that, because man, what a saint. I mean, you know, she was like cooking supper for seven kids. I mean, seven people every night and just the toughest, best, loving, coolest. She still sends me music reels on Instagram like every day now. And my mom, by the way, I should say like my mom and dad have the coolest taste in music. Yeah. Like the, like, the coolest mama. What does she send you? Dude, it might be like some old like Waylon, you know, tape of like Waylon doing some B-side. Like she stumps me all the time with songs I've never heard. Like some like Haggard cut from, you know, way back that I'd never heard or whatever. And she'd be like, yeah, you should work this up or whatever. Yeah. She knows what's up, man. That's awesome. All right. Um, Thank you. Dude, thank you. This was so incredible to get a look under the hood. I mean, very, very special. Yeah, we should do it again. I learned a ton today. Yeah. I'm sure everybody out there is going to learn a ton about you as well. All right, last thing. Where do we go if we want to support you? Sure. Go to willjonescountry.com. That can take you to all the different places, the socials and the schedule and the music and all that. Do you all have a favorite platform? I meant to ask you, like, is a favorite one that you would like to promote people to go to? Maybe engage more there. I like them all. You know, I spend a lot of time on Instagram, of course. Will Jones Official is my Instagram. I spend a lot of time there. TikTok's the same. Will Jones Official. But we try to, I like engaging with people on all platforms. So if it's Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, all those places. Appreciate you, man. Yeah, thank you. Awesome. Yeah, it's awesome, dude. That's killer.