The Morning Brew with Chris Bennett

🎙️ Honoring Our Heroes & Climbing with Country Star Trey Calloway

• Chris Bennett • Episode 121

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The Morning Brew began today with a heartfelt reminder of the funeral processions for Timber Mesa Firefighters Brenna Kulikowski and Damon Thompson.

  • Friday, Sept 26 – 10 AM: Service for Brenna at Show Low High School (procession starts 9:45 AM)
  • Saturday, Sept 27 – 10 AM: Service for Damon at the same location (procession starts 9:45 AM)
    The community is invited to line the route to honor these brave heroes. We also shared gratitude for the Town of Pinetop-Lakeside for canceling their parade out of respect and unity.

After paying tribute, we highlighted all the fun White Mountain weekend events:
🏈 Show Low Homecoming Game vs. Apache Junction – Friday at 4 PM (don’t miss Chris’s 100-yard race with a 50-yard head start!)
🚗 Run to the Pines Car Show – 41st annual classic-car celebration with the Cavalcade of Cars Road Tour on Friday and full car show all weekend.
🎨 Pinetop Fall Artisan Festival – Three days of live music, artisan vendors, and pumpkin-carving fun.

Then we welcomed our Country Climb Star of the Week, Nashville singer-songwriter Trey Calloway. From singing in church at age 5 to sharing stages with Joe Diffie and Craig Campbell, Trey talked about faith, his creative process, and his latest single “Must Have Had a Good Time.” We played the track and got a glimpse of this rising artist’s passion for storytelling.

It’s an episode that balances remembrance with celebration, reminding us of the strength of community and the joy of music.

SPEAKER_02:

From the Horn Auto Center Studios, Chris Bennett and the Morning Brew.

SPEAKER_00:

Before we start having too much fun this morning, I wanted to uh take a moment to honor uh two of our very own uh firefighters from the Timber Mesa Fire Department. We have uh firefighter paramedic Brennan Kulikowski and Firefighter EMT Damon Thompson, who gave their lives uh in service to our community. And the uh funeral services for Brennan are today at 10 a.m. at Sholow High School Auditorium, and tomorrow at 10 a.m. at the same location are the funeral services for Damon. Uh both days, today and tomorrow, a procession will begin at 9 45, and the community is invited to line the route, which will start at Owens Livingston in downtown uh Sholow and uh go down the deuce to the 260 to Oldland Road, ending at the Sholow Auditorium. And if you would like to make a donation, uh you can uh do so at azf.org. All that money uh will go towards this event, towards uh Brenna and Damon and their families. So you can donate at azf.org. Azf.org, and to Brennan Damon, and all who serve, we thank you. Our hearts are with their families and the whole Timber Mesa fire department. What's happening? Hot stuff. All right, it's now time to see what's happening in the White Mountains this weekend. There is a lot going on. Uh tonight at Sholo High School, it's Sholo Homecoming. Uh, they are hosting Apache Junction, and uh that game starts at seven. But probably the most exciting thing for me is uh yesterday we had uh Coach Mike Boyce, the head coach of Sholo Cougars in uh studio. And last year I challenged one of his uh players, Dane Ruzma, to a 40-yard dash. I had a head start and I lost. Well, this year we're doing it again at four o'clock at Sholo Football Field. If you want to come watch me get my butt kicked, but uh we're gonna do a hundred yards this uh time around, but I get to start at the 50. So we'll see if I could beat Dane Ruzma uh with a 50-yard head uh head start and a hundred yard dash. That's gonna be at four o'clock. Also, the run to the Pines car show is happening. I love this event. And uh starting today at 4 p.m. is the cavalcade of cars. They depart the LDS church uh and uh cruise down to the Honda Resort and Casino, and uh then the car show is uh gonna be Saturday, 8 to 4, and uh it's a lot of fun. If you've never been, it's at Pine Top Lakes Country uh Club and it's free with a canned food donation. And Sunday they go 8 a.m. to noon. So that's a lot of fun. And also the uh the fall festival is happening. Note uh Pine Top uh the Fall Festival Parade has been canceled in honor of the fallen firefighters. Uh but these events remain. It's the Fall Artisan Festival, Friday through Sunday at the Orchard at Charlie Clark's. There's also a par uh pumpkin carving demo by Ray Villafane and uh live music, and also the White Mountain Symphony Orchestra is having a concert America the Beautiful Saturday at Blue Ridge High School. And uh uh don't uh forget before we head out for a weekend of fun, make sure to take a moment to remember what truly matters. Uh tomorrow and or today and Saturday, we honor our fallen Timber Mesa firefighters. Uh those processions are going to be starting today going down the deues to the 260 to Old Linden to uh Sholo Auditorium uh starting today at 9 45 a.m. And uh the uh services for Brenna are today at 10 a.m. at Sholow High School and tomorrow at 10 a.m. uh for Damon at the same location. Make sure you line the streets and uh pay tribute to our heroes. That's what's happening on the White Mountains this weekend. Chris Bennett's Country Climb, star of the week. Today we're spar spotlighting an artist whose sound blends the heart of gospel with the grit of 90s country. He's North Carolina born, now Nashville uh based. It is Trey Callaway. He's already shared stages with legends like Joe Diffie, Tracy Lawrence, earned Texas Country Music, Songwriter of the Year. He's racked up millions of streams, he's had a video featured on CMT and premiered his new music video, Musta Had a Good Time, on the American Country Network. Please welcome today's Country Climb star of the week, Trey Calloway! Woo!

SPEAKER_01:

What's up, Chris? How you doing, buddy? Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_00:

First, before we get to the nitty gritty, let's have some fun with some rapid fire questions.

SPEAKER_01:

Sounds good. What was the first concert you ever attended? Charlie Daniels. Charlie Daniels with uh Darius Rucker and Trace Atkins. It was at the Grand Old Opry. Yeah. It was life-changing, man. How old were you when that happened? I think I was about 13. It was when I first started to kind of show some interest in country music. And so my mom and dad took me to Nashville, took me to the Grand Old Opry, and man, yeah, Charlie Daniels came out there and wore it out. So he did. It was cool.

SPEAKER_00:

Is there a song you can't help but sing along to every time it comes on?

SPEAKER_01:

It's probably Devil's Down of Georgia. Uh my son, I have a little son, and he's obsessed with that song. So we'll just jam it out in the car. We'll just listen to every word. And then I always try to be a good father, I'll always, you know, turn down the bad part at the end. But he knows what they're saying. He knows what they're saying already. That's the one song that I've played and heard a million times, but never really get tired of.

SPEAKER_00:

If you had one country song to request for the rest of your life that's not your own, what country song are you requesting and why?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh man. Oh man. Well, I'd have to say it's probably the song that made me want to become a country singer. It's uh it's much too young to feel this damn old by Garth Brooks. I'd say is the one just because of what it means to me. It was the first country song I remember hearing that made me sit back and go, man, that's what I want to do right there. And I've got so many favorite songs, but because of the sentimental value of that song, um, I'd have to say that'd be my request.

SPEAKER_00:

It's time to find out about your country climb, Trey. Uh, how how did you get started and how did music grab a hold of you?

SPEAKER_01:

I was raised in a Pentecostal church. Um, my dad was a Pentecostal evangelist when I was growing up, and so I would travel from church to church with him, traveling and all out on the road, and I would sing before he would preach his sermons. And um, so I had the music bug very, very early on, probably five, six years old, I knew, that I could sing. You know, I didn't play any instruments yet. But around the time 13, 14, I started playing the guitar and and uh wanting to write songs and wrote some gospel songs. Um but then I started listening to to a little bit of country here and there, and uh my mom and dad bought me this country gold greatest hits uh collection that had like Sammy Wynette and George Jones and Merle Haggard and uh all all of the classics, Loretta Lynn. I'm a big Loretta Lynn fan, always have been. So I really got to know the deep roots of country before I got into more of the popular modern country. Um and I've loved all of that since, you know. But I've always been a student of all kinds of music, you know, funk and rock and country and heavy metal. I mean hard rock and heavy metal was and pop punk, you know, all that kind of stuff. Has always been a big influence on me just when I sing, country comes out usually. So uh that was the thing that made the most sense for me. And then, you know, pretty early on I figured out, hey, if I do this, you know, I can make a little bit of money. People want to pay to hear me do this. And uh so I'd start playing bar gigs and and stuff like that. And I think, you know, very early on I knew, like, all right, at first it was baseball. Um I really loved playing baseball, and I was pretty good at it, but uh, you know, it was definitely just a dream. Uh music was definitely my future. I'm addicted to it, man. It's like a drug. Uh I can't do anything else, or don't want to do anything else, you know, besides being a father and a husband, country singer is the other part of my identity. You know.

SPEAKER_00:

It's now time for musician questions for a musician. Are you ready? I'm ready.

SPEAKER_01:

I was born ready, brother. What's uh I don't know, maybe I'm not.

SPEAKER_00:

What's your songwriting process like? Are you a lyrics first, a melodies first? Give us the process.

SPEAKER_01:

That's a great question. I love talking about this. I love songwriting. Um, you know, I I I'd say my process is is definitely more random, uh, more conversational. I'll be I'll be talking to somebody, a friend, or or somebody I just met, and they'll say something catchy. Something that sticks in my ear. And I'll be like, What'd you just say? And I'll say, Oh, you know, I gotta write that. It sounds like the title of the song. And a lot of songwriters do that, but then I think they don't write it down. You know, I always remember I've been in the most inappropriate situations, like meetings with executives, and they'll say something and I'll go, Can you just hold on one sec? And I'll write it down real fast. And um, yeah, so I'm definitely a hook guy. I always like to throw out the idea of the song and say, hey, let's write something about this. I also um, you know, this may be taboo, but I will hear a song that I really love. Um a big Ronnie Milsat fan. I've been listening to a lot of Ronnie Milsat songs lately, and and I'll hear a record of his that I really, really love, and I would say. I always like to say, let's like like almost like let me write my own version of this groove or this feel. Um I'm not really a super lyricist, I would say. Every now and then I'll I'll have a bright idea. Um but there's so many poets who just can spin a yarn. Um that I'm good with melodies. I'm really good at hey, how do we take this okay line you say? Because I look at things from the perspective of an entertainer. You know, how is this gonna hit an audience? How is this gonna get the crowd dancing? Because I come from the clubs, I come from the bars, and I come from the Hill Beach bars where you're dancing, you get people dancing, you try to ring that register to try to make that bar some money, as well as make yourself some money. How do we get these people up out of their seats? How do we get them moving? Um, I'm a student of that. You know, most of my favorite artists were were guys that like to rock.

SPEAKER_00:

We are back with Trey Callaway today's Country Climb Star of the Week. And Trey, it's my favorite part of our Country Climb interview. Uh, because we get to play some new country music from you. Uh, this one is your latest single. It's called Must Have Had a Good Time. Tell us the story behind the song and how it came together.

SPEAKER_01:

So this was actually, so this album I'm working on is my first album that has some outside cuts. And for those of you out there listening that might not know what an outside cut means, an outside cut means a song you didn't write. You know, up to until now, and I think I've put out I had put out 45 songs and I've written them all, most of them written by myself, and then this one-in-man album last year was a lot of co-writing. But um, you know, I've always believed that the best song should win, you know, and uh so my buddies, uh Anthony Smith, that wrote Tomorrow for Chris Young, and Chris Young himself, and a fella named Frank Myers, who is and they're all legends, but Frank Myers wrote I Swear for John Michael Montgomery. Uh they wrote this song, it's called Musta Had a Good Time. And I was over at Anthony's house one day hanging out with him, and uh he played me the demo that had Chris Young's voticle on it. It was so super surreal. And I said, Man, this is a great song. I said, you know, it's sad that it never got to see the light of day. I think at the time a song with the word good time had come out, and so Chris just never got around to doing a version of it. And um he said, Well, man, if you want to cut it, cut it. So we got all the all the red tape out of the way and and did the thing, and and I cut the song, and then we made a music video for it. And this has been this song is really fun to play live. The band and I play it every night, and it is you can see people, you know, because sometimes people hear you got a new song and they go, oh. But then by the first verse and chorus in, they're like, Okay, that's a good song. And then by the third verse, they're singing along with you. Um, everybody has a night that they wish they could remember but can't, and that's what this song is about. Must have had a good time.

SPEAKER_00:

I love this song, and it's an honor to play it here on Q Country 925. Here is Trey Colloway with his new song, Must Have Had a Good Time.

SPEAKER_02:

Woke up on my couch again, but still made it ain't been slept in. I can't find my clothes or my case. There ain't no truck parked in my drive. I guess I cabbed it home last night. Looks like my friends and I got on the whiskey. I must have had a good time last night. Gotta clear the car well from my mind. Open up his good shot. Red eyes and it felt like a dead cap around in my head. Where'd the best tattoo come from? I can't remember one thing I thought. But judging by the bar seat I just found from last night. I must have had a good time. We went down town to hear some blues. Gonna have a severe old. And Tony ordered all the blues to shot on me. It all went down a hill from there, those jail bones and a smoke ear. Showed it a number on every ring. Must have had a good time last night. Opened up the shot. Where I didn't feel like a jack and wrong. Must have a good time last night. Got a good company. Open up the shot. Red and sit like a chicken mind.

SPEAKER_00:

on Q Country 925. And uh if you love that song, you're going to love the music video. Make sure you check that out. And make sure you download Trey Calloway's new song, Must Have Had a Good Time. If people are just hearing you for the first time, we know Must Have Been a Good Time is one they need to listen to. What are uh two other uh two or three other tracks of yours that uh you would recommend people listen to if they really want to get to know Trey Calloway?

SPEAKER_01:

Um She Don't Break It and She Misses Be and Misses. And I'll also do a shameless self-plug of the album I did last year, Wanted Man. Go check out that whole album. Wanted Man is something I'm really proud of. It was my first album I cut that I had a lot of hand in kind of co-producing and had a lot of self, a lot of say in what it sounded like, and it really turned out good.

SPEAKER_00:

So anywhere you listen and stream music, make sure you find Trey Callaway Music, C-A-L-L-O-W-A-Y. He's got so much music uh that uh you could just listen to, and it's just it's great, great music. Make sure you follow him on all socials as well at Trey Callaway Music and uh anything uh new, you have a new song coming out, and hopefully uh we can have you back on and hear that one.

SPEAKER_01:

Anytime, brother. I'm working on a tour for next year. That's the big thing we're kind of excited about, and um, you know, having a lot of taking a lot of meetings, you know, just trying to find my way through this crazy town. Um, but I love it. I don't want to be anywhere else. I'm addicted to the music business, man. It's uh it's really, it's really where I feel at home. I love this town. But I'm ready to get out on the road and and come to Arizona and play some shows. That'd be fun.

SPEAKER_00:

Heck yeah, we gotta make that happen. Trey Callaway Music, thank you so much for being today's Country Climb star of the week.

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks, Chris.

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Chris Bennett

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