Charlie Worsham: Craft, Character, and the Nashville Journey

In this episode of The Stephan Hogan Podcast, Stephan Hogan sits down with one of the most respected musicians in the Nashville music industry, Charlie Worsham.

Charlie is a singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist whose career spans bluegrass, country, and Americana. He made his Grand Ole Opry debut at just 12 years old and has since become widely known in Nashville as a true musician’s musician. 

His work appears on records with artists including Luke Combs, Dierks Bentley, Vince Gill, Eric Church, Carrie Underwood, Kacey Musgraves, Riley Green, Ernest, and Lainey Wilson, and he was named 2024 CMA Musician of the Year and a two-time ACM Acoustic Guitar Player of the Year. 

Charlie also recently played acoustic guitar and mandolin on Ella Langley’s new record, including the song “Choosin’ Texas.” 

But beyond the awards and studio credits, this conversation reveals the deeper story behind the musician.

Charlie opens up about mentorship, faith, fatherhood, and what it means to build a meaningful life in music while staying grounded as a husband and dad. From lessons learned from Vince Gill and Dierks Bentley, to navigating the Nashville music industry after spending 12 years signed to Warner Music Nashville, Charlie shares the wisdom that comes from playing the long game.

Stephan and Charlie discuss:

• growing up playing bluegrass and making his Grand Ole Opry debut as a kid
• the mentors who shaped his career and character
• balancing music, family life, and fatherhood
• the philosophy of playing fewer notes and making better music
• leaving a major label to become an independent artist

Charlie also shares details about his upcoming music, including his new single “They Never Do,” releasing March 20 and featuring Lainey Wilson. The song will also appear as the closing track in the upcoming Netflix documentary on Lainey Wilson.

In addition to releasing new music independently, Charlie will also be playing guitar with Vince Gill this year, continuing a musical friendship and mentorship that has shaped his career.

This episode is a thoughtful conversation about craft, character, faith, family, and the long road of building a life in music.

https://www.charlieworsham.com/
https://www.instagram.com/charlieworsham

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Filmed in Nashville, TN
Produced: Stephan Hogan
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Charlie Warstrom is one of Nashville's most respected musicians, a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, a producer whose career bridges bluegrass, country, Americana, and probably a lot more. He made his grand old debut at just 12 years old, and today he has uh he's a two-time ACM Acoustic guitar player of the year and the 2024 CMA Musician of the Year and the 2024 CMA Touring Musician of the Year. As both a studio musician and songwriter, his work appears on projects by artists like Megan Moronia, Ella Langley, Lainey Wilson, Luke Combs, Dirk Spentley, Vince Gill, Casey Musgraves, Carrie Underwood, Kip Moore, Eric Church, The High Women, Brent Cobb, Aaron Watson, Darius Drucker, Riley Green, Ernest, and more. Most recently, or maybe not most recently, you played acoustic guitar and mandolin on Choosing Texas. I did by Ella Langley, which has broken some records. And you're currently rolling out a new independent record. Yeah. Today we're going to be talking about burnout success, bluegrass, the music business, independence, fatherhood, faith, health, and the lessons he's learned along the way. Most importantly, Charlie's a husband, a father, and a man of faith. Charlie, thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

Stefan, it's been a long time coming. Thanks for your patience in me getting here. I'm so glad to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Dude, it has been a long time coming. I feel like we've been talking for a year. I think we have.

SPEAKER_03 1:31

But I mean, is that not our whole industry sometimes? Crack. You wait and you wait and you wait and then you look up one day when you least expect it and the thing happened.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Yeah. And the cool thing was that I got to meet you before today on that random run-in at that publishing company. Yeah. That one day. Universal. Yeah. Yeah. And uh it was like, oh Charlie, I think that's Charlie. Yeah. It was cool to sit to see and meet you then. All right. If someone met you on a plane, they had no idea who you were, what you did, how would you describe who you are?

SPEAKER_03 2:09

I am first of all the guy on the plane who finds a window seat and puts in his in-ear monitors, and I will do anything I can not to be on a plane and end conversation. It's not that I don't want to meet people or talk to people, uh, but the busier my life has become, the more that has become like a private uh fill the well back up time for me, whether it's reading or sleeping or filling a blank page. And I've I've always felt this way that planes are so great for creativity because you're forced to be still. Uh and I mean, I know we have Wi-Fi now on airplanes, but uh I still, from flying when I was younger, have that mindset of, you know, nobody can reach me when I'm in the air. But the to the point of your question, uh I would be much more likely to be talking about uh being a dad, just because it's so fun and it's such a great universal, uh, not everybody's a parent, but everybody has someone who helped to bring them into this world and helped raise them, whether that's a biological parent or not. And uh it's where all the good stories are, really. And also to, you know, just in that random encounter at an airport or in an airplane, and this is a great point that uh Tom Bukovac makes, who's a great session player. Uh, but usually like the musicians that really, really play at a high level and and do that for a living, they are not quick to advertise the fact that they play. And I try to prescribe to that mentality. So I would be talking about kids, you know, how old are your kids? And then and then probably where I'm from. And that would that's a two-answer question for me because I feel very close to my home state of Mississippi where I was born and raised, even host a podcast on Mississippi's musical heritage. Uh, but you know, I'm coming up on 20 years in Nashville, and I'm by God, I'm a Nashville. You know, I went to Opera Land when I was a kid, so I feel a lot of pride uh in Music City.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Yeah, you moved here in 06, right? Moved here in 06, August of 06, yeah. Crazy, man. It's seven years for us this month. All right, it's awesome. Yeah. So you played the Grand O'pry. You're 12 years old. I watched the video on YouTube. Yeah. I thought it was hilarious and awesome. And I was like, dude, I had no idea that you were that much of a picker, and it reminded me of a Joe Bonamassa video. I saw him playing blues when he was a kid. I don't know if you've seen it. He's opening up for BB King. I've got to go check that out. That's cool. But I was like, oh, y'all mirror each other on this. You're just playing bluegrass on the blues. But I was curious, um, when something big like that happens that early, do you feel like it's a gift or does it quietly create expectations in you that you feel like you have to fulfill?

SPEAKER_03 5:02

That is a great question. Um and you know, you bring up a good point. This is maybe I'll answer that last question over the next four questions, maybe, because I do think that being a what I call a multi-hyphenate is something I have learned to embrace and learned about my own heart. I was a picker first. That's why I ended up on the Opry playing banjo. Uh more specifically, I had gone to Smithville, Tennessee, and played this banjo competition there. And it was uh it's the hometown of Mike Snyder, who's an Opry member and Opry Star. And I had seen Mike Snyder play at Opry Land Theme Park when I was younger. That's what inspired me to want to pursue banjo. Because the whole way to Nashville, that trip, I was begging for an electric guitar. And after seeing Mike Snyder, it was like, wait a second, this is pretty cool. Uh he also sang a song called the fur coat song about backing out of the driveway and running over the family dog and making a fur coat for his wife out of it. So when you know you're an eight-year-old kid, that's pretty funny. Uh yeah, man. And and also, you know, in the in the vein of a lot of national songwriting, too, having a smile in the lyric, you know. But uh to answer your question about the expectations being set up, you know, it was inspiration first and foremost because the Opry has been something. I don't remember a time in my life that the Opry wasn't there. Uh all those trips to Nashville, the the town I'm from in Mississippi, Grenada, it's about a five-hour drive uh from there to Nashville. And so we went a lot on family vacations, Opri Land, uh, you know, going downtown to the Ernest Tub Record Shop to Gruin Guitars. Uh, and I was never uh a great athlete, so music just became the focus outside of regular school and home life. That and being outside, I still love being outdoors. Uh but you know, the part of it that could create expectation, I credit my parents for um, you know, in the year following that Opry appearance, um my parents always supported my pursuit of music, but with the mindset of uh listening to my heart. And and I loved, and I do love the spotlight still. Um the first thing I did after the Opry was come back to Nashville six, seven, eight months later to a house in Gallatin. Uh, a guy named Bobby Clark who played mandolin for Mike Snyder. He had been there at the Opry that night, and we had kept in touch with him, a guy named Charlie Cushman, who at the time played banjo uh and acoustic for Mike Snyder. Uh he's now a renowned banjo. Like if Vince Gill plays a bluegrass gig, he's calling Charlie Cushman to play banjo. And um, he's also a great banjo repair guy and um just a font of wisdom. These guys, uh Bobby Clark had an old two-inch tape recorder in his house. And so my parents recognized that what I was really in love with the most was creation, creating music. Um, I was not writing songs yet at that point, but I was way into picking, way into bluegrass picking specifically, but also interested in stuff with drums. And so I made this record in uh just outside of Nashville, in this guy's house, in this living room with these legends like Bobby Hicks, the legendary fiddle player who had played with Bill Monroe and uh Uncle Josh Graves, who was this legendary Dobro player, like the great the OG of bluegrass dobro playing, had played with Flatten Scrugs and is uh actually a songwriter of some of those great instrumentals and stuff uh as well. Um, and so that experience was as much of a big deal for me as the Opry. It just didn't have the audience. Um, and so I played the Opry. Six months roll by, I make this record in Nashville. Now I've got, you know, 500 CDs in the trunk of the car, and I can go play, you know, the nursing home, the clothing section of the Grenada, Mississippi, Walmart, you know, whatever gigs came up and some Blue Rest fairs and festivals kind of things. Um, I had a very supportive community in my hometown uh that always gave me an opportunity to perform. Um, but at any point, if I felt a little overwhelmed by that, I had a great support network. It was always more about the music and learning and creating. And, you know, by high school, I was playing in a bar band. So it wasn't at all like what the opera is, you know. And for me, being a teenager in a bar, it had nothing to do with trying to party or anything. I just was in this band with these older guys who were better players than me and could teach me something. And I had four 45-minute sets a night, most Friday and Saturday nights throughout high school to get that 10,000 hours in. So it was really kind of always about that. And I was lucky to have that support network around me throughout my entire my teachers and my family and my community. Uh I was never pushed into trying to be something that wasn't authentic.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

So, how does the transition happen to being in Nashville full-time and then getting a record deal? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

So I was also and am still quite a nerd, and I did pretty well in school academically.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Yeah, you went to Bur Berkeley School of Music.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

I went, yeah, to Berkeley up in call uh uh Berkeley College of Music in Boston, and I was lucky to be well traveled for a kid from Mississippi by the time I turned 18. And so I felt comfortable being in an unfamiliar environment. You know, I had been uh my mom is a school teacher and had taken our her class on these trips to Europe several times, and uh so I had been on the London tube and I knew what it was like to be in a city where the signs were not in English, and so Boston didn't feel super scary, it was just this fun new place, and then in this little corner of Boston where I was going to school, because the campus isn't really a campus, it's just a few blocks in one corner of Boston happened to be where Berkeley's buildings are, and so you're in you're absorbed into the city. And at Berkeley, I was this big fish from a little pond with all these other big fish from all these little ponds, all not just across the country, across the world. It's a very international school. And I happened to be one of the few representatives of what I call three-chor music, you know, and had my banjo. I was in a bluegrass on, so I got college credit for playing banjo in a bluegrass band and um got college credit for building a set of studio monitors. I was very interested in the studio at that point.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Um that's what your degree's in.

SPEAKER_03 11:51

That's what my degree's in, although I'm still a few credits shy of the degree. That's a that's because I took the speaker building class instead of counterpoint. Uh I didn't like my counterpoint teacher, and I thought if I take this class, I get a set of speakers. I might not get a degree, but I'll get my set of speakers, you know. But um, you know, in high school, I also had this mentor, a guy named Norbert Putnam. Uh Norbert played bass uh for Elvis and was a uh legendary Nashville uh musician and producer, a multi-hyphenate, if you will, um, and had produced like records for Joe and Bias. He produced Margaritaville, a bunch of Jimmy Buffett's work. Um, Norbert had a project studio in Grenada. Uh he had married a Grenada girl, and um he invited me and mentored me uh through his project studio. So I became fascinated with recording. I'd really become fascinated with recording from being in that house in Gallatin, Tennessee, making a record and looking at the two-inch tape machine and going, This looks like a spaceship. I want, you know, like I get to be a part of Star Wars with this kind of gear. And uh so, in addition to playing in the bar band, I had acquired some of Norbert's gear and had a sort of bedroom studio and was building. I actually made a record of my own in high school uh with the guys in my uh bar band that I played in. And uh that was a part of what I submitted to Berkeley. I had gone to a Berkeley summer program before my senior year and fell in love with it. And uh I wanted that access to the studios because they had SSL consoles and 1176s, and you could rent practice time in these studios from midnight to 6 a.m. And uh so I did a lot of that at Berkeley. And after a while, I ran out of things to record, which is what led me to writing songs. After a while, I needed to chip in on the singing in the bar band. That's you know, all of these things happened by necessity, becoming a singer because they needed somebody to help in that fourth 45-minute set, and becoming a songwriter because I ran out of fiddle tunes to record. And it all came together at Berkeley. I got a great songwriting mentor in Pat Pattison, uh, got some other great mentors and the professors with the production and engineering program, uh, and I met friends. That was the best thing about Berkeley was when I moved to Nashville uh just a couple years later, I moved with my pal Eric Massey, who has worked with me on many of my records and you know, just produced that uh Parker McCullum record with Frank Liddell, uh Maddie Diaz, who's an insanely talented singer and songwriter and artist in her own right, uh, who ended up singing on a bunch of my records as well. So I had this gift of community that traveled with me when I landed in Nashville.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

You mentioned mentorship like four times and as you were talking about that, yeah, and it kept catching my ear because it's something that I feel like is kind of rare these days to find someone that will take you under their wing. Um what was the name of the gentleman that played for Elvis? Norbert Putnam. Norbert? Yeah, Norbert. So him and the others, did they just see in you a curiosity, an awe, and a drive, and they're like, I want to help this kid out in his journey? I think that's probably true. I I think that And my other question is how do we get mentors now?

SPEAKER_03 15:32

Right. Well, it's on us. We now are the mentors. That's cra and I still feel like I have so much more to learn. I probably feel like I have more to learn now than I felt I had to learn 10, 15 years ago. Um but I think it is a constantly evolving dynamic, and it's funny because uh, and I'm sure we'll talk about Vince Gill, but he's the ultimate for me. I mean, he was and is who I want to be when I grow up. Um, and I'm lucky that at this point I've had a lot of experience by his side and can call him a friend in addition to a mentor. Uh, but you know, he's always been a North Star for me. And I I think in talking with Vince about this very same thing, you know, something he has revealed, and and I think he's mentored a lot of people, but he sees himself in people that come along. And he also remembers uh with empathy, right, uh how he felt at that time and how much it meant when someone said, Hey kid, let me show you something, or let me help you avoid stepping into this, you know, metaphorical pothole here, uh, because I did, and I can help you avoid that. Um, I think that's the through line to all the mentors I've had, uh, that they saw a little bit of themselves in me at the time.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Uh what's the biggest lesson Vince has taught you?

SPEAKER_03 16:57

Oh gosh. Uh well, one of the most impactful ones is to maintain a growth mindset and and the way that he describes it uh is like never be the best musician in your band. Always be trying to surround yourself with people who are going to challenge you and make you a little bit nervous, make you want to stand a little taller. And so I do try to find that everywhere I can, whether it's in a band or in a co-wright or uh you know, working with I have a new management team that I feel I have so much to learn from because I spent a year and some change without a manager and uh in trying to keep the trains running, uh learned a lot and learned to appreciate a lot about what uh the people on the business side do, uh what it takes. And um yeah, so with Vince, it's it's so many lessons, but you know, being authentic is one. Because you've played for him on tour a few times. I have, and I will do that again this summer, which I'm so excited about. Like, talk about getting to be in a band where you're not the best player. I mean, it's insane.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Are you playing a little bit of everything?

SPEAKER_03 18:09

Uh in the past, I have. Uh, the last time I was on tour with him, I was on stage right next to Wendy Moten, who is one of his uh the members of his band, and she's insanely talented, one of the most incredible voices you'll ever hear. And so singing harmony alongside Wendy, with John Jarvis, this legendary keyboard player behind us. Uh, and then, you know, on the other side of Wendy is Vince, and I have an electric, I've got an acoustic, I've got a mandolin, I've got a banjo, and I'm singing a lot of harmonies. This time I'll be on stage left next to Jed Hughes, uh, holding down the other electric guitar next to Jed, uh, sandwich between Jed and the Steel player, um, which will be a different steel player who I've not met at this point. Um, but the last time I was in the bands, Paul Franklin was the steel player, and that did not suck. Yeah. They played together forever. Forever and ever.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Yeah. That's exciting. It's an exciting thing. The thing I I I got to play with with him. Uh and it was for this little thing at Third and Lindsey that I got to play with him and his band, or the band he had at the time. Tom Tom was playing guitar. Yeah. Uh they all knew when not to play.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

They all know when not to play. They mix themselves on stage too, which is something, you know, you asked, you know, how do we have mentors now? I mean, I think similarly we have in-air monitors for a reason. And and in my time with Dirk Spentley, which isn't we should talk about that. I mean, talk about a mentor who is also a friend, someone I've learned an immense amount from as an entertainer, as a songwriter, as a guy in a band, as a dad, you know. Um, but an entirely different approach to putting on a show. And to put on that kind of show, you have to have in-air monitors. It's it's because of the way the venue is, it's because of how much we move on stage. You know, definitely apples and oranges. And it doesn't mean you can't mix yourself on stage, but it's much harder to do so when you have, you know, the amplifiers behind you blowing your pants' legs with the air it's moving, and you're listening on a wedge that is coming to you direct, you know. And you're not over-singing. That's actually. And that's one of the hardest that's one of the challenges with in your monitors. Um, but with Vince, too, you know, the venues are another member of the band in these beautiful theaters like the Ryman, for example. Um, you hear your sound coming back to you. So you literally play to the room in every sense of that phrase. And a great band like what you're talking about at Thurden Lindsley, they mix themselves on stage. Yeah. Um, and that is a really cool thing to be a part of and to witness.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

And it's interesting because it's almost hard to not overplay because me coming here uh on the player side or as a musician with that goal in mind, yeah. I grew up uh playing in church, but nobody n the folks there weren't, you know, like Nashville, you know, players, right? This is like near Sacramento, and there's a bunch of churches, and if you play bass guitar, you get in the worship band kind of a thing. Yeah. So nobody really has everybody's stepping on everybody and all that, and that's kind of what I like grew up in. So I uh and then when you and I remember it was just this black and white moment when I played with them, and it was just like I feel like I'm playing to a recording that's just absolutely wide open. Yeah, but then there would be a little boop here, yeah, a little boop there, and you hear On great records too, just knowing when to put certain parts in certain places. Yeah. And some of my favorite records. And uh even listening to your stuff is like figuring out what to play and what not to play. And Vince will always say, like he tries to subtract and play as the least amount of notes as possible. Forgive me. No, it's fine.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

You know, the another thing I equate it to one of the benefits of being in Boston at Berkeley is I'm a stone's throw from all of these world-class museums.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Good lord. Oh, drink all the water you want. I will. It's uh stay hydrated and don't die on me.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

Yeah. So one of the few classes I took at Berkeley that was not a musical course was art. Because why wouldn't you take an art class in a city with world-class uh art museums? Because we had class in the museum half the time. Oh. And our teacher would walk us from room to room. Uh, and I took Renaissance art, and so a lot of that was studying the sculpture and producing a record or playing in a great band that has uh the discipline not to overplay. It is very much like sculpture. You are taking away so that you can reveal what is within that stone that is a piece of art, that is your vision, as opposed to slapping paint on it and more paint and then more, which is also totally valid, uh, but two very different approaches of how can I reduce so that I reveal what's there and let it shine, versus how do I layer on and layer on and layer on. And you know, honestly, too, you can kind of have both at the same time in music. Uh and I I think too, when when you're making music, anything creative, uh maintaining a uh a flow state of just play. Like if a part of you isn't like a kid in a sandbox creating, then it doesn't matter how high level your thinking is or your skills are, like that is an essential agree ingredient that must be there or it's not going to have soul and heart and move other people. You gotta be the kid in the sandbox just making stuff up and playing. Yes, your other part of your brain that you have worked on and trained and developed these skills with can come in and shape it. But man, if you're not just having fun, then why would you expect other people to hear what you made and also have fun or feel something?

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Yeah. And we play better when we have fun. We do. As soon as you overthink things, that's when wrong notes start happening. You know?

SPEAKER_03 24:44

Well, if you're not overthinking and you hit the wrong note because you will, that's being a human, you turn it into a new move.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Tell me a little about Dirks, because you mentioned him as a mentor as well. Yes. And a dad mentor and a friend. Also, side note, is he still flying the band?

SPEAKER_03 25:04

Yeah. And uh that is the greatest gift of that gig at the time. You know, uh, I'm one of several dads in the band, and maybe more than anyone in the band for the four years I spent in it. I mean, my gosh, we had our son who would have been probably one or two years old when I started, and he's about to be five now, and we had a daughter in that time frame, and I got so many Thursday morning school drop-offs and Sunday mornings waking up with them that I would not have had. And there's so much that he has taught me for use in the industry, but boy, even as great as that is, it doesn't hold a candle to his understanding of how powerful it is to make time for your family. And that's something I just love about the guy, too, is um, I mean, man, when he's out there, he's living life to the fullest. He is playing pickleball with the guys. We're coming up with a hot country nights bit, whatever it is, uh, jamming bluegrass songs uh in the dressing room, being a just he is like the gold standard. If you're opening for someone like, trust me, you want to pray and hope and manifest being an opener for Dirks. Dirk's learned how to do it uh as I understand it. He learned how to do that from Kenny Chesney, who is the OG, uh take care of people on the road. Um, but boy, he is the guy, you know, carrying that banner into the next generation. Mentor, right? He was mentored. He is now mentoring. Uh, and I am one of the many people who has learned that from him. You know, if I'm ever the guy selling out a jumbo stadium, I will know so many things to do right because of my time with Dirk's. Uh, and that's not just him, it's his tour manager, Chris Thacker, it's Josh Castle, who is literally his job title uh is quality of life manager and just thinks of really great ways to improve morale every day on the road and make sure people are doing okay. Um, and the band is incredible, and we were all buddies. Dirk's, I think, maybe uh, you know, as much as any of us is uh looking at the way he navigates his time on the road. He's getting his cup filled so that when he is off the road, he is dad. He is present. And I am amazed at how much he does on how little sleep I think he gets. Um and I just love that. And it's such an inspiration for me. And the way that he puts a show on is such an inspiration for me. I mean, even just the hot country nights, as silly as it might seem, it's a brilliant move. And the reason is, uh, like I was saying a minute ago with the being a kid in a sandbox thing, you know, our musical spirits, our musical hearts, I think, are sort of imprinted uh in the most indelible way when we're about 12 or 13 years old. You know, uh, we've talked about Tom Bukovac. He has this theory that whatever you're listening to at 12 or 13 is what's going to be your core musical DNA for the rest of your life. And when I put on the wig for hot country nights, I'm a 13-year-old kid who loves 90s country music and gets to goof off and pretend that I'm on stage with all my 90s country heroes and doing all the cheesy moves. But if you're playing a show and it's not your best night or it's not the easiest crowd to win over, or it's super hot and sweaty, or whatever, something else is going on and that's weighing on your heart, you still know that at the end of the night you have 10, 15 minutes to be a total goofball and act like you're 12 and 13 and you're trying to make your buddies laugh. And it's like this insurance against ever having a bad show. Like we just can't have a bad show because at the end of the night we're gonna be total goofballs. Like genius move. Genius move. So what's your metric for a good show? That has changed a lot over the years. I think a uh uh common thread throughout my life has been how I felt about how I played and sang and performed and connected with the crowd. Um, I used to get really angry with crowds that didn't care or weren't a fan of what I was doing at that moment. I think a lot of that had to do with going into things with unrealistic expectations. You know, don't you know who I think I am? Um why don't you sing every word to this song you've never heard before? Um, but you know, connecting with the crowd, having a good night with the band. It doesn't mean I played every note perfectly. It just means I went for stuff and maybe I landed a couple. I, you know, to not be an athlete, I would imagine it's a lot like being on a team, uh a sports team and playing a great game, whether you won or not. I mean, it's always more fun, I guess, to be able to say you won. But man, if I got out there and knew I left it all on the field and I knew that I had my teammates' backs and they had mine, and the crowd roared at some point, that's a pretty good game, and thus is a pretty good show.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

I uh I was curious back to when you were talking about the sculptor and the subtraction.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

Uh I feel like it equates to life as a principle for addition by subtraction, which is kind of a uh uh if you were to look at you know, the headline from my year, it's uh addition by subtraction and peace. And we live in such a busy culture. And as musicians and artists or content creators or whatever you do, you feel this pressure to have to be online. And I feel like Dirks came up at a time when he didn't have to be an Insta-ho, you know. Um I I don't know if he felt the pressure to have to post all the time like people do today, or he felt the pressure like, oh, in order to get a record deal, I need to be on TikTok. Or that first I think his first record was up on the ridge, super bluegrass.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

Well, that was uh a couple records in for him, and that was actually because I love that record. I do too. Uh his first record, uh, was it Modern Day Drifter, the one with his dog Jake on the cover? I think Modern Day Drifter might have been the second record. Um, but he had a couple records before Up on the Ridge. Um, and Up on the Ridge was uh a way for him to have, I would argue, I mean, he's not here, so I don't want to speak for him, but I would argue that that making that record was an addition by subtraction move. You know, let me take this step back, I'm having these hits. Um, but instead of like running full tilt further down this road, let me kind of hit tap the brakes and get back to the version of the guy that had moved to Nashville and was going to hang out at the station inn every Tuesday night because he just was head over heels in love with bluegrass. Um, so I think that was a great heart move. And I I again I took notes from that.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Um and then addition by subtraction and travel with a band as well. Yeah. And I'm just making parallels right now. Yeah. But I want to get into your career and about addition by subtraction. Big time. And your career. Yes. Because for listeners that don't know your story, and you're gonna hopefully share it here. Because you were with Warner, which is one of the big three labels UMG, Sony, Warner, pretty much, right? Like those would be the top three. I think they own the most in the world. Uh so a major record deal with them for twelve years. Twelve years. Um and then that ended. Now you're independent. Yeah. So there's a huge subtraction. In a lot of ways, and maybe a lovely addition.

SPEAKER_03 33:22

It's both, for sure. And you had mentioned I don't want to get a w too far away from speaking on uh the social media part of this. Um, because and I've said this before in other places, which you and Kip in in the episode with him have a great conversation about this. About, you know, do you think if he he started out just before that became such a necessary part of it? As did Dirk's. Um, and in a way, I guess as did I. Uh, I kind of got in under the wire of that. You did. Um, but pretty early into my career, it was a I mean, it was there when I started, it wasn't what it is now. Um, it was Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

Uh but um But that wasn't a driving factor for labels and making decisions.

SPEAKER_03 34:08

No, I mean, in a lot of ways, if I was starting now, um what I felt I might need would be is is way different than what I felt I needed at that point, because at that point the only path was radio, and the only way to get radio was a major label, and the only way to sustain uh realistic business in that environment is to go for um Nissan Stadium. And if you can't, then we'll settle for Bridgestone or the amphitheater uh 20 minutes outside of town, right? But the metrics of success uh in that system required a certain size, right? And um, I think for me that was something I've been examining a lot in this time since I parted ways with Warner because it's been this refreshing season of oh, I'm so relieved. Like I am so relieved that it's okay for me to say now that honestly, playing the Ryman is kind of look, I wouldn't, I would not be mad if they said there are enough people that they want you to play Bridgestone, or even, hey, there are enough people that love what you do, they want you to play Nissan Stadium. Great, awesome. But the the driving factor for me was never ever uh at my core, being at the top of the charts all the time, breaking the records for attendance and selling the most tickets and playing the biggest venue in a city. Um, it was how can I play the most music I can at a level that's going to challenge me to be better? And how can I set up my life so that I can enjoy a really comfortable life and afford to travel, uh, you know, even before I had a family, but even more so now that I do, um, and have these life experiences I want to have uh doing what I love. And how can I make as much of doing what I love in music, my own songs, my own stories, my own uh musicianship, my own shows and records. Because I mean, at the end of the day, if I could snap my fingers and fill up the calendar, either writing a song, going into the studio, making a record, and then playing that record to a crowd in a venue like the Ryman, where I can feel the room, where I can be on wedges and feel the air in the room, where I can look with my own eyes and really kind of almost make out some of the facial features of the person in the back row. That's kind of the ultimate. But going back in time to when I was 24, which would have been about the time I so I moved to Nashville around my 21st birthday, spent the first three years in Nashville uh in this incredible like animal house style uh house on Villa Place, a block off of Music Row, playing in this band called King Billy. And boy, talk about a you know, winning the lottery in terms of how to move to Nashville and have a great first chapter there. Being in this band with guys that were all, you know, I'm an only child. They were all the older brothers I never had. We got to get in a van and drive across the country and play club gigs and like almost get a record deal and figure things out and make a record and have jam sessions till three in the morning and have a residency at 12th and Porter. And the guitar player was John Osborne, who is a freak of nature on the instrument and also just a great guy. And half the band lived in one house. So I got all the experiences I was about to have after my record deal got signed. Before I ever signed my record deal, I had a practice run, but it wasn't my name, it wasn't my individual uh uh persona or uh reputation that was completely on the line. I was in it with a band of brothers, like, oh my goodness, what a blessing. And, you know, uh so when I when I did go into that season of, you know, I've parted ways with this band, I really do have this desire to do my own thing. And it's interesting how somehow I just never, you know, I do believe in intuition being a very wise force. Um, and I think that my intuition knew that I needed to spend a few years being in a band. Um, but then getting back to okay, solo time, what I didn't really do a great job of at that particular time of my life when I was 24 was um let things get quiet and listen to the one quiet voice that is always true, which is my heart. Our industry is full of so many loud voices that are quick to tell you what you should do. And this is not me saying I had people giving me bad advice. It is uh, I know that you end every episode uh asking, you know, what's one piece of advice, but I'm gonna go ahead with it now because it's so important to if I could go back to 24-year-old me, this is what I would say, and what I would say to anyone listening who is in that position in life. If you don't reveal your true self to others, others will create a persona for you, and you may not like who they create. I've never made a record that I felt wasn't me, but I did go through a good chunk of my first 10 years, my well, a lot of my my early solo career days, um feeling like that part of me that always knew the ramen, man, that's that is the goal. Like, okay, yes, Bridgestone is cool, but like the rhyming, that's that's what I want. I didn't feel like I could say that because you don't feel like you can say that to a major label, because they're gonna be like, uh, we need somebody who wants to play the Joe Normo dome, bro.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Uh and not that they're and to sideline, I was just gonna say with the rhyman, and that makes total sense. Because to me, if you watched a Kim Burns documentary and you see the role that the Ryman played in the Opry and the history there, yes, for anybody that's a music lover or country music lover, just being in that room adds magic to it. You know, well so I would see why you would want to play that, especially given your background playing the banjo, and you probably grew up watching people play the Opry.

SPEAKER_03 40:28

Dude, of course I did. And you know, when we started, sat down here at first, you talked about me playing the Opry at 12. Yeah. Man, before that, equally impactful to my life and still a highlight of my life, at 10 years old, I sat in on stage with the king of bluegrass, Jimmy Martin. Tom T. Hall was on stage with us. It was the encore, and I played banjo on that stage at the Ryman Auditorium at 10 years old with my bluegrass heroes because my banjo teacher was a 10 year veteran of Jimmy Martin's band, and he brought me up on Jimmy's bus first time I was ever on a bus in the parking lot outside the Ryman. I was wearing uh jean shorts. We had to go down to it's Margaritaville now, but it was a hard rock cafe, and like my parents got me a collared shirt so that I was presentable for the you know, we didn't think I'd be playing. I brought the banjo up because I'd always play on the sidewalk for tips. It's actually how I got my first electric guitar. Uh, I was $100 short to get a telecaster, and uh, so I went outside and played for two hours, took the tip money, and I could buy that first tele from Gruins. Uh but um my banjo player or my banjo teacher just knew if I get him on the bus and he plays Wheel of the Circle for Jimmy, Jimmy will invite him to join for the all-skate on Wheel of the Circle, and I did. And so yeah, the rhyman at that moment did become the ultimate. Um, and then my gosh, the embarrassment of riches of how many great experiences I've had at that place since. It's insane.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

I uh the embarrassment of riches.

SPEAKER_03 42:05

Yeah. Yeah. Expound. Well, just that I am blessed uh beyond uh my ability to comprehend it. You know, it's almost embarrassing how much I have been given in this life. Um, but the rhymen is such a touch point. Uh I mean, kind of a funny experience there to give you an example. I attended Earl Scruggs' funeral at the Ryman, and I had bought this old uh suit from the hip zipper, this old vintage shop in East Nashville. And um, I wore the suit, but I rode my bike to the funeral. And in riding my bike, you know, in a suit that was never meant to be worn while riding a bike, I had ripped a hole in my pants. So I'm sitting here trying to honor my banjo hero with a hole in my pants, you know, whatever. But uh, but yeah, and just all the nights at the Opry, uh, when the Opry was at the Ryman and being uh on stage for Ashley McBride's Lindyville show, being at the Ryman with Vince more times than I can count, singing Rich Girl with John Oates on the stage at the Ryman. I mean, you know, playing my own set there with uh on tour with Sam Hunt and Kip Moore. Uh it's just crazy. You know, it's almost like it's a normal thing. But I if I stop and take a breath, I I remember this is absolutely not normal. This has become my normal. Um, my now wife, the first time I introduced her as my girlfriend, was side stage at the Ryman. Uh it's just bonkers, man.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah. You were talking about um we went back to the social media thing. And out of coming out of the time where you didn't have to have that. And there was the bro country period. Did you get signed before that hit? Like before. Like cruise did like cruise.

SPEAKER_03 44:08

What happened? I I got signed. Uh I had a record ready to go. I had a record halfway made through my publisher at that point. And it was that thing where the label kind of buys what were demos, but we knew we were trying to create what would be a record and became the record. Finished the second half of that record, which became the my debut rubber band, uh, after signing. And somewhere in that same season, went on radio tour, set an ad date for the first single, which was Could It Be? Um, and um had the album launch date set for August of 2013, I want to say. And someone with a Google machine can check this, but I want to say that Cruise being released and my album rubber band being released were within a couple weeks of each other, or at least a couple months, you know, it was within the same year for sure. Uh, and I think my second single went out around that same time as well. And so, yeah, right as I zigged the industry or the the uh style of what was popular in country zagged. And you know what's crazy too? I don't think I've ever talked about this, but I wrote with Tyler and Brian somewhere in there too, and it was right before they blew up. And what I didn't know at the time, they had just come off the country throwdown tour and they were like, you know, the uh had grunt work on that tour. They, I think Tyler has talked about in interviews, they they had like the crummiest uh slot in the lineup for the shows. They had to drive themselves hauling a grill, and like they were also in charge of like cooking for the bands or something. So they were like cleaning grills, driving through the night to make these shows. And because they had such crazy success early on, I don't think that they get credit for having to pay their dues. And dude, I am embarrassed by some of the feelings I had towards Bro Country at the time. I am fortunate that I have gotten to know Tyler in particular in the years since, and uh consider him a friend and someone I admire and respect and look up to, not only as a creator and an incredible songwriter and singer, but as a dad and as a husband and somebody committed to working on themselves. I mean, I just think the world of that guy, and I realize now with a few years on me and a little more wisdom and perspective that like anyone trying to do this, first of all, it's a miracle that it ever happens. Any hit song that ever happens is flat out a miracle. And anybody that gets that far should be celebrated and high-fived for having made it that far because it truly is a miracle. And it doesn't take away from anyone else's success. And to me, what really, really, really matters is was that authentic? And I don't mean that in a way to judge the person, I'm I mean it in a way of empathy for the person because I wanted a hit song so badly in those years. Um, and I mean, I still would love to have a hit song, but to me, worse than not ever having a hit song is having a hit song that wasn't authentic to me, because then you have to play it every night. You play a show for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_00 47:23

That is torture. Were you being pushed bro country? Not at all. Because I listened to pre I think like this morning I told you I woke up real early and I was going through all your records, and they uh none of them ever caught the bro country thing. No, no, and and you know And I was like, Whoa, that's interesting because you were with the label for a long time, yeah, which is rare to be with a label for that long, not going uh downstream, but going upstream or doing your own thing different.

SPEAKER_03 47:55

It is an anomaly that I was, you know, people are not kept on a roster as long as I was, and that's you know, I mean, if there's something I can be proud of and maybe share as a bit of wisdom in the spirit of being a mentor to someone watching this who's getting started, it's like man, have those goals. It's good to pursue goals, but keep in mind that the greatest feeling in the world is being respected by people that you respect. Like I know that Vince Gill has respect for me, and that is so precious. I don't ever want to do anything to mess that up. Um and it is just as valuable and special as any commercial accolade. Um and I am fortunate that in all that time at Warner, I did lose myself in a sense along the way. But what it was, I ended up wearing orange Chuck Taylors, and that was not the right move for me. It was like a weird, and it actually worked as a branding thing. It worked, and it's not that I am mad that I tried it, it's just it was an easy symbol to show that is representative of the fact that I turned the volume down on my own voice in some ways. But once the music started getting made, I I never have ever felt like I strayed from trying to write the best song that was the most me it could be. And in fact, um, I think when more than any other time, I would have been encouraged to, hey kid, listen to what's on the radio and write more songs like this, or cut this, you know, at the time Dallas Davidson song. Uh nobody ever pressured me to do that. That's credit to Chris Lacey, who is the person who signed me. And I think equally as a gift, talked with me in a real uh with real candor about hey, just so you know, uh you can stay on this label if you want, and we can record a couple songs at a time. Um, but also here's what it would mean if you parted ways with us. And we should talk about that. But to go back to that moment where Rubber Band had this great critical acclaim, but it was not commercially a big success. Um I I was in New Faces with Thomas Rhett and Brett Eldridge, and I think Cassidy Pope. Uh and so, in a lot of ways, things looked like okay, well, his first single didn't ring the bell all the way, we got to 14, maybe. Which is still still a huge feat, and is a credit to the war at the time, WAR promotion team at Warner, and I'm still friends with a lot of those folks. Um, I think only one of them are still in that particular, which is another lesson. You never know where people are gonna be taking. Everybody hops around. Everybody hops around, but you're gonna see the same people, and you want that to happen. Like, I am better for having worn different hats and done different gigs. I am a better artist because I've been a side musician and and vice versa. Um, and better studio player because I've been the artist, all uh better songwriter because of that, better artist because I write songs. Um, but uh at that point when the second single died, uh Bro Country kind of became the thing. Uh the label and I started talking, Chris Lacey and I started talking. And I was the guy that like at any point like that, I would just go back to like my favorite records and start reading the liner notes. Like, well, it seems like every year you hear Jay Joyce's name and Frank Liddell's name at these award shows, having produced in some fashion the records I most love that were nominated for album of the year. So I just went down the list. I was like, hey, Chris, I kind of love Frank Liddell. And I mean, my goodness, like, I can't tell you how many thousands of miles I've put on the band van listening to records he produced. Can I make a record with Frank? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

You know where some of those those records.

SPEAKER_03 51:44

The records that Frank made. Yeah. Uh I don't think he's credited with uh Call Me Crazy or uh There's more Where That Came From, but those two Leanne Womack records, I know he was involved in shepherding, and it was the songs, and it was the fact that it was the real band. On the bees, you hear the dead strings on Randy Scruggs' guitar, and you know, that's Keith Urban singing harmony, but they're not advertising, it's just it's just awesome. Um, and uh it would have been that, it would have been a lot of the Miranda records at the time. Um, and it's funny. So I wanted to make the record with Frank, but Eric Massey had been with me on rubber band as engineer, and I was like, I sit down with Frank for the first time, and I'm like, Frank, you're my one of my heroes, one of my bucket list producers. I want to make this record with you, but I really want to keep my buddy Eric Massey, who actually might have been with us in the room at the table sitting down. And his message to us, he would have been, because Frank said, Well, hell, I mean, I just think y'all just keep going with what you'd already started doing. I mean, I listened to the record y'all just made, and my buddy Ryan Tyndall was a co-producer on Rubber Band and wrote all those songs with me and wrote a bunch of the songs on the next record. And I love Ryan, and he deserves credit for a lot of what's great about Rubber Band. Ryan and I also fought like brothers, you know, which is also part of that process sometimes. Um, but you know, I had known Eric since college, and I really wanted him to be in the room with me. And instead of being like, I don't know, got this guy Chuck Hanley over here I've made a million hit records with, and he's done a million records before that. He records Martin Offler. He was like, I think what you guys do is awesome. I think you just need to take it even further. And immediately I felt safe. The pressure was off, the noise was locked out of the room. And that is what is required to make great art. Frank knew that. And as a matter of fact, throughout the process, he would play me Frank Zappa records and stuff and be like, Look, this guy had a career. He's like, You're not Frank Zappa. He's just like, I'm playing you this to show you that anything you write and record is going to be commercial and it's going to come out country. So go write the most fun, craziest, wildest thing you can, and it'll be fine. Don't worry, you let me worry about how this is going to be commercial. And of course, the record we made was not a commercial smash, but I am as proud of it as anything I've ever made. Um, that's a lot to say right there. Yeah. And it holds up. It's actually, I think its stock is higher now than it was when it came out. Uh, it's a record called Beginning of Things. And what I also love is if you listen to it, it's got a little bit of audio whiplash. There's a really tender ballad called Old Time Sake. And then within two tracks, one way, you've got a Roger Miller-esque song called Lawn Chair Don't Care. Two tracks the other way, I cut a Luke Dick song called uh Birthday Suit that's got like fuzz guitars on it. And there's these funky Memphis string and horn sounding songs that uh one that Abe Stoklasa uh Rest in Peace, sweet Abe, wrote. Uh another one Abe wrote that was the title track uh with a guy named Donovan Woods called Beginning of The Beginning of Things. Um they're all way different, but they're all very much me. I played a zillion guitars and instruments on it, um, and I had a blast making it. Matt Chamberlain was the drummer. I mean, give me a break, man. The dude played drums on one headlight, like okay.

SPEAKER_00 55:16

And one of the best mixed songs of all time, by the way, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_03 55:20

I agree. You know, as a song, as a performance, um, talk about having discipline as a musician. Listen to that five-minute song and see if you ever hear him hit a cymbal crash. He doesn't.

SPEAKER_00 55:32

Like speaking of, you have a five-minute song on uh your new record. I do. And it's my favorite song on the record.

SPEAKER_03 55:42

Okay. Is it they never do?

SPEAKER_00 55:44

Yeah. Who's singing BGVs? Is it Laney? It's Laney Wilson. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:49

She is, I don't think she's going to be listed as a featured performer. Um, I knew it was you can tell it's yeah. She co-wrote the song with Dallas Wilson and Jason Nicks. And Jason's a homie. He's been yeah, he's great. Um, they all are. And uh Laney's the best, you know. Man, talk about somebody who you know, we're we're more peers than a mentor relationship, but you can learn from anyone, right? And I've learned so much from Laney about how to lift other people up and share your spotlight. I don't know anybody except maybe Vince who is as generous with their spotlight as her. Well, Dirk's too. I mean, for four years he would give me a moment to shine in his show. He didn't have to do that.

SPEAKER_00 56:34

But uh, you know, even her having you up uh at the CMAs at the CMAs on the intro. She said, Charlie Warsham. And you know a story about that? And that's just happened.

SPEAKER_03 56:45

It just happened a few months ago, and a story about that that people don't maybe know, anyone who doesn't know, you know, the CMAs take over Bridgedone days before the awards, and there are rehearsals and camera blocking run throughs and dress rehearsals and you know script adjustments. And, you know, if you're hosting that award show, it's a months-long process and a lot of work, which also you know gets me so aggravated when people have negative comments online because to a person, anyone who comments negatively, I guarantee you has never done the thing they are criticizing. Um, but which I also think she knocked it out of the park. I mean, Vince was my blueprint for how CMA awards should be hosted. Eighty or ten times. Yeah. And uh I felt that night watching her host solo, like, oh my gosh, to the kid that's sitting cross-legged on the floor that's 10 years old watching this, they're gonna get the same takeaway from watching Laney that I got watching Vince. A new generation is getting inspiration. That's the new guard. This is how we should go. Uh, but I watched her running through the opening of the show. Uh, and I was the very first part of that, which then led to all this dancer tennis. She's moving all the way across the room. Um, and I know for a fact because I watched it in the script, it was just like, why don't I just sing it for you? And then I come up and play guitar, and that's how it was meant to go. Wasn't on the teleprompter, but she go, Why don't I get my good friend Charlie Worsham up here to play with me? And after about three times, I saw the uh teleprompter guy walk up to her and go, Um, uh, do you want us to change this in the script, Laney? I know I noticed you're saying it, you know. And so the reason my name was spoken on national television is that she just did. She just said it until they changed it. You know, that's amazing. That's pretty cool. That to me, if you want to know who Laney Wilson is, that right there is all you need to know. That's the kind of person she is. Pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 58:49

When she was uh having success with her first single, she had sent a video that I shared with the followers uh for this TikTok that uh that kind of was the I guess springboard for the podcast. But she said, treat everybody like you're running for mayor. That was her piece of advice. Yeah, be nice, be kind. Yeah. That was like her big piece of advice, which I thought was so cool. Yeah, which is kind of the Vince way, which is kind what I like you have an energy about you that is very just like normal, kind, genuine. You can just sense it with people when you meet them, you know. It's not like even an air, like I'm trying to do this, it's just the character of who you have become. I try to be.

SPEAKER_03 59:35

I don't always do it, man. I can I can be very rude if I am all overstimulated and over anxious. Um, but you know the beauty of that is that there's this thing called repair, and especially since becoming a parent, man, repair is it is the golden ticket back to uh wholeheartedness. And um and you can very much go back up to someone, whether it's somebody at a hotel when you didn't get enough sleep in my case, you know, and I am rude. Uh I can go back and repair that if it's my my son or my daughter or my wife, and I'll let my anger get the best of me or something. I can there's a way to repair that. And so I, you know, that's also part of it, I think. Um sorry goes a long way. Yeah, or just being able to say, hey, I see what I did and I see the impact it had on you, and I'm going to take that and try to not do that next time. And uh that's really powerful. Um, that's a little bit of a detour from from what we were talking about, but I think it's equal part No, I just thought it was an interesting thing from Laney, you know, like saying that like you're running for mayor.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:48

Absolutely. And I was complimenting you, and you were like, Well, I can I can be a way at the yalk in, and I thought I think what you said was cool was repair. Yeah, uh, that's a beautiful way to put it. Yeah, and then in terms of repair, to go back to the label, because we were gonna talk Chris Lacey. Yeah, and I want to hear about that before we forget because I want to know kind of that like, hey, this is what it's gonna look like. I don't know, I have no idea, and the audience probably doesn't of what these conversations were, yeah, are and then how you got out of the dealer left or was it good terms, bad terms? Don't know if you even want to talk about it, but I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:29

It was the best of terms, and you know, regardless of the outcome of the music that I made in those 12 years, the fact remains by being on the roster at Warner, I was afforded the opportunity to have a home at which I could make records, and not just make records, but make my dream first record with rubber band. I did everything I could have ever dreamed of making that record the way I wanted to, and could could look back at it and be proud. Same with the second record, only I started to pick the first of my bucket list producers with Frank and still have my buddy Eric there with me. Third record uh was an EP. Uh, it was COVID times. Uh, but who's the next person on that bucket list of producers with Jay Joyce? I got to make a record with Jay Joyce. If I hadn't have been on Warner, I wouldn't have been able to pick up the phone and call him, and I wouldn't have been able to afford to make the record with him. So I got to do that with him. Uh, the last project I made at Warner was with Jaron Johnston. Still a bucket list guy, I just he was a buddy at that point that I knew really well. Um, so it didn't feel the same as, oh, nice to meet you, Mr. J, you know, whatever, just because I knew Jaron already and we were friends. Um, but I got to get all of that experience and all of that joy and all of that creativity on somebody else's tab. Um, and they opened those doors for me and they never pressured me not to do that, not to follow my heart. And then what it really came down to you gotta remember when I signed my deal, uh, everything was structured differently. Deals were structured differently, the path to success was a different thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:11

Um and were they structured more in favor of the artist than now?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:16

I think generally they're maybe more favorable to the artist now. I think. Um, you know, the way it is monetized, like if you own the master, you can really make a lot of money without a zillion streams. You you know, as a songwriter's a whole other problem and story and podcast. But um, you know, I think you have a better shot at owning and licensing out at least half your master uh these days. Um and I also think you just don't get a record deal as early in the process these days. Kind of got to have stuff going on. And I don't really know how I feel about that because I went through that experience at a different time when things were different, but I can appreciate in all that I've learned in the last two years, having to get further down the road on my own because of what I learn in that process. Then when it comes time to, well, how do you structure the photo shoot? How do you deal with setting up a tour? Like, oh, well, I had to do that for myself. So now when I talk to that person that's at the label, I can speak the language, I can make their job easier. And I also kind of know if they're doing their job well or not because I had to do it myself. Um, so I think those are all advantageous to someone trying to do this now. Um, of course, the flip side of that is that everybody, and it's just the flood of content, right? So you're swimming in a sea of people that are already overstimulated and saying, listen to this. But to go to that conversation with Chris, I had this great publisher uh step into my life in 2020 something, early 2020s. Um, and that's Josh Van Balkenberg. Uh and he really became the executive producer of this record I'm putting out that's called Once Upon a Second Time Around, that they never do on March 20th, whenever this does come out. March 20th is when they never do will be out. Um, and then songs every month until early August when the record drops. Uh Josh became executive producer throughout the process of this album being made. And he also AR'd it. Not that Chris Lacey didn't. There's some songs on there that Chris and I had talked about initially, but I had booked sessions. I was thinking, I think Warner's gonna be cool with this, but you know what? If they're not, I still want to record these songs. I'm ready to do this. I know this is what I want to record. I just got to talk to Chris and see what's going on. And she and I sat down and she said, you know, it's been years since I pulled up your contract just to see what's even there. But uh man, Charlie, your contract is not friendly for the way things are now for you. Um and you're pretty deep in the hole, which is fine, we don't care. But you're deep in the hole, which means two things. It means we can't really unlock the doors that it makes sense to be at a label because that's what they do is unlock doors. Um, for you, you know, we can't just go give you budget to make a full-length record. Um, and we can't go just push it at radio like you were on your first radio tour. Um in order to have that happen, you would have to create this momentum on your own. And at that point, here's what it looks like off the label. This is point number two. If you're off the label, all of a sudden all that money that comes in if you hit a lick comes straight to you. You're not paying off this massive debt. Um, so you are free to do what you want to do, um, but you should be informed. And I kind of knew instantly, you know, our hearts tend to know before our brains catch up. I think I already knew this was coming. Because I kind of was, it was a wonder to me that I'd been on the label that long anyway. I knew it had something to do with respect and love, and I was grateful for that always. Um, but you know, the minute it was spoken out loud, I was like, oh, well, yeah, it's obvious what I think I need to do. Okay, thank you. I love you so much. Thank you for all you have done for me. Let's continue to be friends, and we are. And I am so grateful to her and to all the friends I made at Warner and still have friendships with. Um, and a thing that she, I'm sure she won't cop to. Uh, but I had a question about, well, you know, I think I had signed a contract at some point in the process with someone else at Warner to agree to take less advance money because, you know, hey, you know, we usually don't even offer this option uh based on what the numbers were for the last record. So could you agree to take a smaller advance moving forward? And so I had this chunk of money that they did not have to pay me as we parted ways, but she kind of looked at this sugarcane EP and the compadres EP. I was like, those two add up to one record. So let's just say you completed your second option, third album cycle with us. And I'm just gonna rip up this little contract you signed, and here's that money. Never saw it coming, you know. Wait, is that not the title of the song you wrote with Vince that's on his record? Yeah. There you go. Never saw it coming. And uh and that was what a story. That was the chunk of money that allowed me to really make the record I wanted to make. Because the other part of this journey has been this freedom of I can do whatever I want, you know. Being at a major label sometimes means just because of the mechanics, that you might get their full support for six weeks, but then they've got to roster, they've got to service someone else. And so it's a really powerful push, but it's over so quickly. And I don't think I'm ever gonna be the guy that convinces the world to jump on board in six weeks. I am a slow burn, got to get to know me, takes a while guy, uh, the kind of music I make and everything, you know. Um, and so someone said when we were getting close to finishing the record and thinking about how do we want to present this to the world, they said, You should write a list down of everything you never got to do at Warner that you can do now and go do those things. And one of those was let's work this record one song at a time for six whole months. And so that's what we're doing. I'm putting out way more songs ahead of the album than I would have been allowed to at Warner. You know, you might get two, maybe three focus tracks uh before it has to come out. And now it's just like, no man, I'm gonna drip out six of these bad boys, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:39

So what's that like on the independent side in terms of uh trying to get it to the DSP's playlist and that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:46

It is different depending on the day you ask me. I'm learning more every day. And and uh That's such a mystery to everybody. Yeah, well, it is. You know, I I something I would say before I answer it is uh I think before we kind of officially got started, I was telling you some of my like grounding phrases I have for myself. And uh one of them is I ain't right if I can't write. Like if I'm not doing something creative on a semi-regular basis, my heart is gonna suffer and I'm gonna be in a bad mood and I'm gonna have that rude moment that I have to repair. Um and the person I'm gonna be hardest on is myself, which is not helpful either. And also, things don't run if I can't run. So I got to get physical, gotta sweat it out. Our bodies are supposed to do that. Um, it's actually how we process anger. And anger is really just an approach emotion. It's really just a signal that something else is going on. It's the check engine light that says, hey, you're actually really scared about something, or you're really nervous, or you're sad about something, or you're hurt. Um, you're not ever usually just, I mean, anger honors injustice. That's its purpose is to honor injustice. Um, the way that sadness honors loss. Right. And uh, and so if I'm not physically getting that anger out because that's what my body knows to do with anger in a healthy way, then it's gonna build up and I'm gonna have to go do repair because I did something stupid. Um but uh another grounding phrase of mine uh is to savor the moment and trust the process. But also savor the process and trust the moment. And what I mean by that is, especially if you have faith in a higher power, uh, and I don't even necessarily mean Christian faith, I just mean like almost more like recovery faith, like uh putting on the table, I am not in control of this, removing that burden from you and giving it to a higher power, right? Which for me is a Christian faith, but I think people can have a lot of really good higher powers in God as they understand it, him or her to be. Uh, but for me, trusting the process and and savoring the moment and trusting the moment and savoring the process means, you know, God put Josh Van Valkenberg in my life before either of us knew what that would really even be, the depth of that relationship would be. Like he's not just your publisher, bro. He is one of your closest friends that you call when you're freaking out about a dad thing. He is the executive producer for your records. He's gonna go find, you know, one of the things I'm excited about with this record is there's a lot of outside cuts on it. And that's partly because I've just been spread too thin to write as much as I need to to have the best songs. But to pitch the right songs, because I've been pitched a lot of songs that make no sense for me to cut, uh, it takes somebody who knows me intimately, as Josh does. So even though it was five years ahead of schedule, right? It was, I'm gonna put this guy in your life. And five years later, you're gonna realize why you needed him. And then I was supposed to already have music out. When you and I were first gonna sit down, I was gonna put the record out by myself. And literally within two days, I got a call from Vince because I had bowed out of the Dirk's gig and I was a little nervous about that. That was a good financial cushion. Um, Vince called and says, Hey man, I'm playing a few shows this summer, want to join the band? I was like, Oh yeah, I need that in more ways than one. I need that for my musician's heart, and I could use the the check. So thank you. Thank you, you know. Um, the next day I have breakfast with a longtime friend that I met on radio tour because he was a program director at that time. And it's this guy, Michael Bryan. And the last I had worked with him, he had been the first to call me in to host this thing called Picker's Radio, which again didn't know it at the time, but hosting and interviewing has become a big part of who I am. If I was on the airplane and they did pull out of me, well, what do you do? That'd be part of what I'd talk about. You know, I'll play music, but I also, you know, do these things. I interview people. I'm a curious guy, I'm kind of a historian and a nerd. Um, well, Michael had left Apple and was starting his own company. So the next day it is, well, I'm gonna go to breakfast with an old friend. I walk out, I think I have a new manager. And I and all of a sudden the music's getting pushed a month out, but there's so much more on the table.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:19

And he's such a great person to have in your corner.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:22

Such a great person to have in your corner. And somewhere along the way, I had been connected through another person at my publishing company, Chelsea Kent, who I first met way prior to that and had worked with on Pickers because she was at Apple at the time. Uh, she's the one who said, There's this company, Command Shift, and they can handle getting your own DSPs. It's a lot of DIY, but it's great and they're great. And so I already knew that was going to happen. And Command Shift is assisting us and helping us get the music out. Uh, but all that to say, learning to trust the moment and savor the moment because and learning to trust the process because, yeah, like act like you're running for mayor because the person opening for you, you might open for 10 years from now. You know, uh, I had known Dirks as the first guy to cut a song I wrote, and then he became one of the first to bring me into the studio as a session player. And it was in the studio coming out of COVID, and literally a joke that uh he made. He had he had hired me and Brian Sutton both on this session, which I love that two acoustic players. And he was like, But gee, I'm gonna have to get another guy in my band to cover all these cool acoustic parts on this record I'm putting out. And I jokingly in response said, Hey man, you know, I'm still hadn't gotten all the way back from COVID. My summer next year is pretty open. And then I get a text, I think on Christmas Eve, a couple months later, hey man, I know we were kind of fooling around, but in all seriousness, if you'd be interested, we'd love to have you cue the next four summers of my life, and so much music made and friendships developed and experiences and knowledge gained. You know, so trust in the process and savoring it because I am not in control of this. The one thing I can control is this and this, and how I choose to use those to drive this body and interact with other people and honor my heart and my music and my family and my friends and my community. And the rest, I can't really do much about, and neither can really anybody else. Uh, and so the it's it's a way for me to stay close to gratitude and try to be more present and and also to know myself better, which turns out all of that helps you deal with social media better because it really becomes, you know, the two things that have helped me the most on social media are like post and ghost. And I've done taken that to the point that I got a second iPhone. All of my socials are on an iPhone that does not have a SIM card. I have to be on Wi-Fi. Uh, and then when it's not something I'm literally pulling out of my backpack to post, it's going back in my backpack. Um, my phone is my now my phone. Um, and then I never tried to do the silly dance or do something that didn't feel me. I was like, there's probably some other guitar nerds out there. I'll do a little guitar nerd post. It's something I learned from Vince Gill. This is something I've watched Marty Stewart do on stage or Bukovac play in the studio. It's a little bit of knowledge. Here you go. I mean, it speaks to mentorship too, you know. So I I feel like that mindset and I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:35

That's your superpower stuff because you because you have the you know, connect with people, mentor, and then the obviously the the top side and playing so many different instruments.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:48

And anytime you can like teach someone something, I feel like that's huge, you know?

SPEAKER_03 1:17:52

Yeah. And by the way, in teaching someone something, you are probably gonna benefit more than you learn it. You learn just as much or more. Yeah, yeah. Because it's also like it's like, oh, you play guitar, huh? Well, draw me a guitar schematic. Show me how it's built, right? It's like, oh, I didn't say I knew how to do that, you know. If you or you think, oh, I can do that, and then you start actually trying to do it, you know. It's like, oh, I actually don't know that I understand the mechanics of this until I have to explain it to someone else.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:21

Yeah. What's one thing that you never want your kids to have to experience that you've experienced in your career? In my career? Um career in life.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:31

Career in life. It's hard to give the full answer. Um, but I would say I have to spend a significant enough part of my life operating out of a sense of fear that wears the mask of perfectionism and feeling like I have to execute and perform to earn things that don't operate in the currency of performance. Things of the heart, you know? And uh, you know, that's a daily struggle for me, for myself, but also as a parent. I'm sure in ways I don't even recognize I am keeping that in play in um my children's lives, but I am trying to be self-aware about it, and um I just want them to always feel uh unafraid and to never turn down the volume, more in a career sense here, but turn down the volume on their own voice. Um or feel like you know, the it's funny how the trickiest things in our lives are things that usually never get spoken out loud. It's just the voice in our head. That's that gets us into more trouble, I think, than almost anything. And that voice in my head is usually just like what makes you think you could say that? You can't say that, you shouldn't do that, or why would you, you know, like you need to give the answer you think this other person wants to hear? Codependency, codependency one-on-one. I'd hope for them to not have codependency in their lives as someone who is a recovering codependent. Um that'd be a big one.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:49

Yeah. I think when you're praised a lot because you're good at something from a little being a little kid growing up, yeah, and you always are told you're great, you're so good at this thing. Oh, dude. You're so good at this thing, then what it develops in you is what you just described, yes, which was my values predicated on my performance, yes, and how well I can perform, which is an impossible metric to ever really be able to put your self-worth on. Because you're never gonna be good enough because you're your own worst critic.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:29

So as you're singing, you hear yourself and you're like, Oh, I just sang a flat note, you suck, or as you're playing, oh that I just like flubbed that note or whatever. Like it could be anything, yeah, but I have experienced that myself. I'm speaking for myself because growing up as a kid doing the music thing in church, yeah, you get praised a lot. You're always told. And at first I didn't know how to take a compliment, like that was uncomfortable. But then I learned, like, oh, if it was sports or if it was music or whatever it was, my value is in what I do, not who I am.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:09

Well, man, I'll tell you another way of talking about this through the lens of what you asked, you know, what I hope my kids don't something I hope my kids have always is a comfort with all the numbers from zero to 10. Because for me, it's really hard to live between 10 and 1 or 10 and 0. You know, I'm either gonna run 18 miles a week, do 60 reps of weights and 3,000 jump ropes, or why would I exercise? I literally, and that's like an OCD thing for me, literally. Like I can tell you right now, I am 1.45 miles short of 18 for this week. I am four reps of weights short for this week, and I am 500 jump ropes in the plus for this week. I don't need to be that obsessed with my exercise. That is an unhealthy thing. So for my kids to be able to go, man, I'm a sixth today, and I am okay with that. I'm gonna give myself that grace. That is a hope I have for them. And to speak to what you said about compliments, man, I'm so glad you said it, Stefan, because something I jotted down in my notes, I wanted us to talk about was compliments in our industry. It annoys me to no end. I think we get compliments all wrong because they're always so superfluous. And rarely do we give them to a person that we even know well enough to give a compliment to. And I, you know, and this is not to hurt anybody's feelings that maybe watching this that has complimented me. And it's not to say that when they did this, it was this, but the thing that annoys me more than anything is when somebody comes up to me and says, Oh my gosh, you're just so amazing. Whoa, what a picker. Wow, my goodness. Oh, you're and uh I just love what you do. And it's just like I want to say to them, you are showing me more about yourself than you think you're telling me about me. You're saying you're saying to me that I want to dispossess myself of the discomfort I feel around this guy because I secretly feel like he is Americana, not country, or he's not really commercial, or like I secretly am assuming that he is sad or disappointed that he isn't a big star because that is my value, the metric of my value system, or whatever. And that couldn't be furthest from the truth, right? Like, I'd rather somebody be like, dude, how are you doing? You know, or like if you actually know something, like, hey, I heard the Ella song you played on and like it's we're doing really well. That's awesome, man. Congrats to you and that team. That's really cool. Tell me what was your favorite thing about working with them? You know, then I can go, oh man, my first time working on a record that Ben West produced. I actually, and then I realized he did the Steven Wilson Jr. stuff, which I love that record. And then, you know, wow. And it gave, and I'm so grateful to Ella for bringing me in. And like I love watching how she is in tune with her heart and she's just making music for her heart, even though there's probably a lot of pressure on her to perform and in a commercial sense. So that's a totally different conversation. Now, on the flip side, a guy like Vince Gill gives you a compliment, way different story because it's genuine and it comes from a place of truly being seen, and it has nothing to do with any discomfort he might have of knowing or not knowing how I feel. You know, he already knows my heart, and he doesn't give compliments superfluously. So when he gives one, it's like hell yeah. That is rocket fuel for my spirit, and I will take that, sir. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:49

You know, yeah, because uh I think a compliment from someone like Vince or a compliment from Vince when all those voices in your head are telling you you're not good enough and you have that that thing to hang on, like this person said this about me. Yeah, they don't just hand out you know these things or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:15

Whatever they say, it's like that's the thing I can hang my hat on. Like I might feel like I suck, but oh, he said I was this or he, you know, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:27

And I almost feel like it's interesting when we talk about compliments, uh, you know, part of the intro was your awards. But I would imagine that more than winning a CMA award, the uh a compliment from someone like Vince is that a w what far surpasses a trophy that will sit on a counter somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:56

About winning that CMA it took a village to make that as great as it was, that moment. And what I mean by that, Sarah Trehern, who is the CEO of the CMA. For years, this is also one of that trust the process because you don't know today what it's gonna, what the seed you're planting is gonna grow. She has been working so hard to honor musicians, which the CMA has always done with that category. Uh but I watched as I became a CMA board member that they presented the award in the pre-telecast uh portion of the show. Um, but instead of sitting back and going, hey, we got them in the uh in the room, she goes, Yeah, we got them in the room, but the floor's empty because all the stars are still on the red carpet. What can we do to make that better? Well, let's let's put it in a commercial break. Because you know, they got to put on a TV show. They they can't, you know, it's got to be very strategic to make it a high ratings show, and we need that for our success as an industry. Um, so I don't take any of offense that it's not a part of the show. Uh, but the fact that she moved it into a commercial break meant. The floor was full. Therefore Dirks and John and TJ and Miranda and Laney and Eric Church and like all these people who have been lifting me up for over a decade jump out of their seat 10 feet from me. And I hear literally it was an out-of-body experience. And the first thing that brought me back to some form of like being able to get out of my chair and walk to the podium is I heard Dirk's Charlie. I heard his voice and it like brought me back. And then it was him and TJ like running to me to hug me, and like, and he had to like say, because I kept hugging him on one of the stuff, dude. You were one of the first people to get me on a record. Like I wouldn't be here if it weren't. He's like, dude, shut up. You need to go like accept your award. And then walking to, you know, I'm watching, walking across that front row, and like, there's Miranda, and uh there's Keith. And like Miranda called me to fill in for her longtime player, Scotty Ray. And that was a big deal for me 11 years ago when it happened. And Keith was the first person to get me to play on an award show. I played out at in Vegas at the ACMs. Like that, I got to relive all those moments in that one moment. And then I got to thank them and face to face. And then for the next three days, I got to sit on my phone and answer messages and texts and call. And like you would know, Vince Gill was the first person to leave a voicemail and congratulate me. And it's like, oh my gosh, he was watching. He paid attention and he cared. You know, like that. I mean, I'm super proud of that trophy and that moment. And every year I'm proud for whoever wins because you can't go wrong. Like everybody in that category every year deserves to win. I'm so glad Paul Franklin finally won. Um, but you know, those three days and all of those experiences, that was what it was all about.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:03

And it's not the award, it's the people.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:06

Yeah. Yeah. It's the 15, 20, 30 years. I mean, it's getting the text from your banjo teacher who got you on stage at the Rhyman for the first time. You know, it honors all the people that have poured into me from when I was the little kid. Every single one of them got to my piano teacher, you know, uh honors all of them because they invested in me. They believed in me, and I was able to be a part of this whole process uh and and make good on it. Which is also why anytime any single person ever has a hit song, we should celebrate it. Because it takes all of those people in that person's life for that one moment to happen, and it may only ever happen one time.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:54

And that was their dream, and that was their dream. That's what I always remind myself. Yeah. And I have a thing on my wall that says own lay, uh, own lane, own race, own pace. That's it. That's really cool to hear the backstory of the award because when we see an award given, yeah, we see a trophy handed to someone on the stage. But I didn't I didn't watch your speech. Did was it a lot of the thinging of people?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:23

Yeah. Well, trust me, Stefan, when I tell you, I had been practicing that speech since I was about eight years old. So I had it pretty dialed. I didn't have it written down or anything, but for the week leading up, just knowing that there was a chance, I wanted to be eloquent in that moment. I've also been fortunate to be in the medallion band, which is the band that plays uh at the medallion ceremony each year at the Hall of Fame when they induct Hall of Fame members. And my favorite thing about that night, other than playing in a kick-ass band, the great songs of country music, is hearing the speeches. And I've learned so much hearing those speeches, and I just think it matters a great deal. Uh acceptance speeches are very important. So I knew I only had a little bit of time, and I tried to find a way to honor as many people as I could in the clearest way possible. You know, and that meant my heroes, that meant my peers, uh, whether they are artist, writer, musician, producer, engineer, because they all matter, teachers, and also the CMA Foundation, because they support music education and the CMA, because they are looking out for the welfare of country on a global level. Um, and that is harder to do than one would think. So even if as an organization we stumble at times, it ain't for lack of healthy debate and earnest endeavor to do the right thing. Um, it's it's actually in a lot of ways I joke being on the CMA board, it's how I wish our government ran because you have people impassioned who who care greatly and have great wisdom and perspective getting in a room and saying, here are our problems, here are our challenges, let's be mindful about how we face them and let's look out for everyone. You know, take off your competitive hat and put on your, I'm a part of this community hat. So so that needed to be spoken. And as much as anything, uh, my family, you know, my parents supporting me, they could have discouraged me. Uh, they could have pressured me instead of just supporting me. Um and my wife and my kids. You know, because something I think about more and more these days is, man, my kids are going to be in their 20s someday, and they're gonna have no shortage of these to watch if they so choose, if they're curious about me. And so what I say publicly matters, and that they know that in the moments on the mountaintop that I have, that they are in my heart is very, very important to me. And it's very important that my wife knows and that the world knows that I wouldn't be on that stage if she wasn't in this boat with me, making it possible. Every time I go play a session, somebody else has to pick up our son from Pre-Kay, somebody else has to fix supper, you know, and like she's every part of this dream as I am. And um, so I had to say all those things and hopefully in under a minute, and I pulled it off. And I also had to honor the fact that while I was being given an award for a musician, musician work, uh I still endeavor to hopefully, you know, be recognized as an artist. If I don't, whatever, that's fine. You know, uh the dream was always to have a seat at the table, and I have one now. Um, but yeah, it'd be cool to win one of those as an artist, and I wanted to honor that too. So the first thing I said was, I love making records. I love it so much, I can't quit making records of my own. And it was just a way of saying, I see this for what it is, and y'all, if nothing else ever comes, this is the world to me. Thank you. Um, but just so you know, I still got that fire and I still do this other thing over here, but not in a way that demeans from pretentious.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:09

It was uh it's almost like putting your flag in the ground a little bit and saying this is who I am, yeah, but also acknowledging that that's also who you are.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:18

Yeah. And by the way, each of you sitting on this floor who called to hire me helped me make better records because I learned watching you make yours and you invited me in. You trusted me with your musical babies. Like, oh my gosh, what an honor that I would be trusted. You know, outside of the writers of a song and the publishers, like the session players are the first people to hear choose in Texas and any other hit I've ever played on. I was among the first 20 people to hear it in the world. That is bonkers, man. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:55

That's a huge trust. That's pretty sweet. There's not a lot of session players that are, I feel like, yeah on the younger side.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:06

Uh I feel like a lot of the folks in town, you almost get like uh grandfathered in throughout, you know, you played in the 90s and you still play or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:18

Well, also it's coming back around, and so it's cool to get Brent Mason on your record again. Yeah not that it ever wasn't, but it's back in style, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:26

Yeah, the 90s country thing or the 80. I don't know. He was doing all that crazy picking forever ago. Oh, yeah. But that's what everybody learned to play off of, I think. That's right. I didn't come from that music. I'm curious about bluegrass, real quick. Um, just as an interesting question I had for you, bluegrass music has never made it into the public public, like mainstream. Bluegrass to me, when I see it, it's almost like I don't know, it's like sped up jazz in the sense that the musicianship is well. I listen to slow jazz, like coffee table jazz, yeah, but like like Miles Davisy stuff. Yeah. But if you play really, you know, you're so technical, it's so fast, the pickers are so good, the accuracy has to be so on. You're self-mixing because you're all playing on the same mic. The music itself to me is just blows my mind. And um, I feel like it, like there's something in me that resonates with it. I don't know. I came from where the California Gold Rush happened, and I don't know what they were playing out there, but I imagine a guitar and a fiddle made it out there by some minor sitting somewhere. Yeah, do you ever foresee bluegrass blossoming into something bigger than it is?

SPEAKER_03 1:37:50

Oh, dude, I think it kind of is. It just isn't necessarily being broadcast on the main channel.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:57

Yeah, because it's not on the radio, it's not on the hot country playlist.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:01

No, you know, but you know what else wasn't? The Grateful Dead, and they were the biggest touring entity in the world for a long time. Still are one of the major players. And oddly enough, the Deadheads and the Bluegrass and the Jazz guys, they're all jamming with each other, they're all fishing in the same waters. And I mean, I would just simply say, look at Billy Strings, man. He's selling out Bridgestone two nights in a row, playing this really cool, psychedelic, but also anchored to the origins of bluegrass. You're right. I didn't think about it. But but you're also you're not wrong. It isn't on the radio all over the place. Um, although we go through seasons, and and this is a big thing Dirk's, I think, contributed. One of the many reasons he deserves to be in the country music hall of fame is that he waved the flag for bluegrass and he had this motto early on mix the kick-ass with the bluegrass, you know. And uh Josh Turner did a little bit. Josh Turner has done that. Um, and songwriters like Sean Camp have done that, written big hit songs. But man, you go see Sean play those songs at the station in. They work as bluegrass songs. So bluegrass has always been tucked into the fold. Um it it maybe, you know, it's almost funny to think that maybe if it was broadcast everywhere, it wouldn't be what it is. You know, I could wonder about that. Uh philosophize on that, so to speak. Um it's kind of cool that it's this thing that like your older brother has to hip you to. The blues are that way. The blues are never going to be. But man, listen to Ray Charles sing one of his hits. Like, you're telling me there ain't blues in that, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:39:43

Or look at Joe Bonhamasta.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:45

Yeah. You know, or B.B. King's whole career. I mean, he he had the one big hit with Thrill is gone. Oh, yeah. Every once in a while it'll ring the bell. Uh Rocky Top, um, you know, the Beverly Hillbillies with flattened scrubs. Um, but yeah, I think it's I think it's kind of thriving in an environment that it's always thrived in, um, that is very much like a delicate ecosystem. You know, you go still, I'm a big Michael Pollan fan. He writes those books about food and uh what's the what's the car the omnivore's dilemma book of his. And he basically deep dives four meals. Everything from a McDonald's meal that you're eating, going driving at 80 miles an hour down the interstate, to everything in this meal I'm gonna eat at the end of the book. I either grew out of the ground or I hunted and killed and um and prepared uh and everything in between. And um where I'm going with that is in that book or one of his other books, he goes deep on how cheese is made. And they went to some ancient like monastery or something where they make this cheese, and the health officials came in and were like, Well, you've got to, you know, sanitize these giant containers that you let the cheese like get all bubbly in and stuff. And they were like, Well, you know, we've been making cheese for 500 years and nobody's ever gotten sick. And they did this study, and what what happened? They started to sanitize the container, and all of a sudden all this bacteria broke out. So they went back to the old way and they did the microscope and took samples, and they realized that by just making the cheese with care and letting it have its natural balance, uh, the good bacteria just always won the battle at the end of the day. I mean, maybe by this much, but it needed all that was in it to be what it was. And we need bluegrass, we need blues, we need black voices, we need all of these pieces of tapestry that are woven together that become our community and our music that we know as country music. Um one of the things that's so powerful about the Ken Burns documentary is in a way that had never before been presented, he does he tells that truth. Um and he gives credit where credit's he does. And you can trust it because I mean it takes him ten years to make a movie because he literally facts fact checks every single word.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:12

Um so that's your instrument that you grew up playing on is uh it comes from black culture.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:19

Oh yeah, it made its way over here in the in the minds of the people that were chained to the lower decks of a slave ship.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:28

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:29

And um it was a gift to us as a culture that we have the banjo. Yeah. Yeah. Big time.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:40

Well, you already answered my question on what's your biggest piece of advice to the next generation.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:46

But if it was outside of uh music and it was non-music related, um I think it's still a good question to end on.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:59

Because you're very well spoken and articulate, and I can tell that you said you traveled a lot.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:08

And you had a lot of mentors, yeah. You've been a lot around a lot of successful people.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:14

And just in some of my little experience, you become a such a sponge when listening to people talk.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:25

Uh that you respect.

unknown 1:43:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:27

You know, where you're like, you know, Vince said, you're not the best one on the stage in the band or whatever. It's like you're the you're the learning from who was it? Socrates. Plato was mentored by Socrates, you know, or however that went. Anyway, all that to say, I was reading, um, I'm reading, it's called uh oh, what's it called? It's by Marcus Aurelius. It's his journal. And it's got a name, it's one word. I'm blanking.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:59

Uh but I don't remember the name, but I know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:05

Anyway, it's one book and it's his journal that he wrote for himself, and the whole beginning is his mentors. And it said, This person taught me this, this person taught me this, this person taught me this, and it goes on and it goes on and it goes on. And I don't know how many there are, but I remember reading past 10, and it's like, my dad taught me this, my mom taught me this, such and such theologian taught me this, and it's just so crazy. And this is in like 400 BC, that this guy is writing things that are as pertinent today as they were back then. But the big through line was that mentor thing. So, you know, I feel like you've been I feel like you're and you've been recognized, but the world, because you're not the front-facing person on the radio, doesn't know you as well as they would know the person in the stadium. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 1:45:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:10

But I feel like it's probably positioned you to be in a good position to be the artist you are now more than ever, because you probably see things very globally and very macro, and you've soaked in so much at this point in your life, yeah, through learning from other people and this mentor stuff. So, as a mentor giving something to the younger generation, we talked about, don't take everybody's piece of advice because everyone has a different opinion. This is a city of opinions, and like Canaan Smith was just on, he was talking about how they wanted him to try this, you know, boots and don't wear the watch, you know. And it's like, okay, so we know that there's that molding of an image and a brand within the music business, and you're gonna maybe at like question yourself on who am I? And you get into these existential weird crises where you're not sure who you are as an artist or who you are as a person anymore, and all these voices are thrown in your ear, and then this publisher says the song's good, this one says it doesn't. This person likes it, my manager thought it was just okay, and then this person loves it. And it's like, which person do I listen to? Right. Do I just listen to myself? Um, but that final piece of advice outside of you know, that just pertains to music, music for musicians, this could be for an entrepreneur, this could be for a mom that's listening, um, for someone that's in the business or not. Yeah. Charlie Worsham's biggest piece of advice for the next generation.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:53

Why don't I give you a page from the Marcus Aurelius book here? Okay. And I'll sort of not super rapid fire, but let me sort of hit you with a few of my all-time greatest hits of wisdom that was imparted to me that I have now tucked into my proverbial journal for life. So um, you mentioned travel, so I have to say I think it's Charles Dickens or maybe Mark Twain, but travel is fatal to ignorance. So if you can see the world, it is more important than you think. Um you cannot give what you don't have. That was one from on site. And so, yeah, who do I listen to? The guy that likes that song or the person that doesn't, you know. Well, if you don't have clarity, you can't give clarity. So you got to first acquire that clarity. If you don't have uh an ability to be at peace, then how can you expect to be a font of peace for your partner in life? You know, you can apply that as you will in a million different ways. Uh, I've always found it to be helpful. You know, I ain't right if I can't write. That can also just mean journaling, no matter who you are, what you do. Uh and the reason I say journaling, and I specifically mean uh pencil and paper or pen and paper. That's just mean every day. Um and the reason that is part of it is your hand cannot keep up with your brain. If you are typing, it almost can't. And by having to operate at the pace of your hand, you get to kind of keep that stream of consciousness, but like edit your thoughts a little bit as they go, and and and and it slows you down just enough to have some really productive um mindfulness, and then you have a record of it so you can go back and see. Um, so that's big. Uh and then I'll I'll end with one that is uh the other answer I would have given for that original question that I answered earlier. Uh and you know, be careful, you know, if you if you don't reveal your true self, others will create a persona for you. Therefore, you may you may not like who they create. But this is one I learned from a therapy group, and it's it's a really good one in our industry in particular. But in these times where everyone has a social media account, it kind of applies to everyone. But public personas create abnormal life circumstances. Abnormal life circumstances create high levels of stress. Unaddressed stress causes depression, anxiety, addiction, loneliness, and a host of other things. All of which are cre are fatal to creativity. Therefore, we have signed up for a career designed to kill the gift that got us here.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:54

Ladies and gentlemen, Charlie World. Thank you. Amen. Thank you so much. Uh first single comes out the 20th. That's right. This will come out before that. Awesome. So it'll get people stoked. How can we support you?

SPEAKER_03 1:50:12

Man, I do so many different things, and I would just invite folks to uh, you know, if you think of my work as a train, like hop on whichever car is most interesting to you at first glance. So that might be my song, They Never Do, that Lainey Wilson co-wrote, and she's singing harmonies on. Uh and the other songs to come off this record. Uh, it might be if you're a nerd like me and you look at liner notes, like I played on the new Ella Langley record, I'm excited for that. Or if you're a songwriter hound, uh, I'm so excited to say I have a song I co-wrote that's on the new Luke Combs record coming out the same day as they never do. Uh, and Allison Krause is singing on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:52

Whoa, that's crazy. Uh yeah, I forgot to mention that in your title. Oh, the 2026 Luke Combs record.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:58

That's crazy, man. I'm so proud of that. And I love Luke, he's such a great dude, so talented, such a thoughtful guy. Um, and I would say then, you know, if you're a podcast fan, uh, I host Mississippi on the map. It is the story of America can be told through the story of Mississippi. Mississippi will shock you with how incredible it is. The best stories, it has an outsized role in our creative culture and our music and stuff. So check out Mississippi on the map.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:24

And side note, I just watched an episode of Charlie interviewing Morgan Freeman. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:30

Yeah. Oddly enough, the episode I would encourage people to check out first is with LJ and Houston. These are two guys that are incarcerated at Parchman, the state penitentiary. They play in the Parchman band. Um might be doing something with those guys coming up in May, so keep your eyes peeled.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:47

Philadelphia, Mississippi, Meridian, Mississippi, Cleveland, Mississippi.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:52

Week after Memorial Day, round a song called Blue Collar and a Purple Heart. Uh, but that is a fascinating conversation uh that I loved getting to have with those guys. And uh then this Vince project, 50 Years from Home.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:05

Yeah, your interviews have been great, dude.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:07

The interviews have been so fun. And uh it's you know, I encourage people to watch, not because of me, but because of just what wisdom he has and kindness and great stories. And then if you see Vince is playing in your city this summer, I will be there. I'll be playing in the band. I'll be singing a song of my own because he's very generous with his spotlight. And who knows if I'm not gonna be popping into a coffee shop and playing a noon show of my own. I did that last year on the Dirks tour and had a blast doing it. So yeah, if you're on the socials, if that's the way you keep up, you know, that's just meet me where you are, and I'll I'll try to meet you where you are, and you don't that way you don't have to come so far to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:46

At Charlie C H A R L I E W O R S H A M. A M. Like AM radio. There you go. That's it. And you do host a show on WSM.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:57

I do, the Air Castle Community Hour, and I love that thing. It gets me in the habit of listening to more new music.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:03

The oldest country or the oldest station in the United States.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:06

Yes, it is the reason this is Nash National is what it is, because the physical location of that tower, which if you're driving 65 South through Brentwood, you'll see it. It is the literal air castle of the South. Rural Americans didn't have another way to get the music they loved, and the Grand All Opry was where they heard it, and that radio tower is how they heard it.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:28

Um it went all the way Coast to Coast. Yep. Yep. Yep. That's one heck of a signal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:36

And it's one heck of a station, man. I love that station and the people that run it and that host the shows on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:42

Yeah.

unknown 1:53:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:43

I love it too, man. Well, thanks again. And uh that's a wrap, everybody. Make sure you go support Charlie and download his music. Buy buy it for what, a buck twenty nine ninety-nine cents. So buy his record. Hopefully, it comes out on vinyl when it's all set. We're working on that. Memphis record pressing. Yeah, come on, baby. I'll see you guys here for the next podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it, like, subscribe, share. Sharing helps the podcast tremendously. And I would love for this episode with Charlie to get out because he is a wealth of knowledge, and I've really enjoyed talking to him. So thank you again, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:20

Thank you, Stefan. And hey, just to take my turn looking at the camera and speaking directly, uh, well, thank you for what you do because this is a form of mentorship and building a library of wisdom. Uh, if you haven't already, check out other episodes of Stefan's podcast. They're really great, man. And I have really, really learned a lot and had a lot of fun uh watching and listening to your conversations with everyone.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:45

Thank you, man. Yeah, man. I'm a study of you as well on your interview and so I love it, man. Thank you. Thanks.