You Know His Videos, Not His Name

James Shotwell, founder of Country Minute, breaks down how songs actually go viral in today’s music industry, what artists and labels are really paying for, and how influencer marketing is shaping country music.

Country Minute is one of the fastest-growing platforms in country music, reaching millions of fans every month through TikTok, Instagram, and short-form content that drives music discovery.

James explains:
◼️How songs go viral on TikTok, Instagram, and streaming platforms
◼️The real role of influencers in music marketing and promotion
◼️How record labels use content to break artists in 2026
◼️Why attention is the most valuable currency in the music business
◼️How to grow an audience and build a platform from zero

Connect with us:
https://www.tiktok.com/@stephanhogan
https://www.instagram.com/stephanhogan
https://www.facebook.com/stephanhogan
Email: contact@mavericksmediaco.com

Filmed in Nashville, TN
Produced: Stephan Hogan
Mavericks Media Co. Production

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Today's guest is someone who sits right at the intersection of music media and what actually moves the needle in today's industry. James Shotwell is the founder of Country Minute, one of the fastest growing platforms breaking down country music through short form content that reaches millions of fans every single month. But what makes James interesting isn't just the audience, it's the position he holds. He's a part of a new wave of tastemakers who don't rely on radio or traditional gatekeepers. Instead, he's helping shape what people discover in real time through algorithms, storytelling, and strategic promotion. In a world where attention is the most valuable currency, James is one of the people artists and labels are betting on to get their music heard. James, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_04 0:47

Thank you. You're trying to make me cry like out the gate. Would that make you cry? That was cry. Yeah, I don't take compliments well, and that was really nice. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_04 0:54

I don't know. Of course. I'm a guy who bestows compliments.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

You know, I'm in rooms being like, I like the thing you're the one interviewing, not being interviewed. So today's gonna be different. I appreciate it. I'm gonna try really hard not to interview you in return. Okay. Um first off, uh, I just wanted to get this out of the gate because we talked about it in uh our DMs, but um, you said something about someone paying your mortgage multiple times. Oh, yeah, yeah. More than once, I believe is what you said. Shaboozie.

SPEAKER_04 1:20

Shabozy has been that guy for us a few times, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:22

There's not he's not the only one though. There's a lot of artists like this.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Okay, so if if I didn't know you and I met you, yeah, and you described what you did to make money. Can you walk me down that road in the shaboozi example?

SPEAKER_04 1:35

In a shabboozi example, or we could say uh it really any big song that you've heard in the last few years, especially if it starts viral. Our role is kind of hard to describe to people. I like to say that we're traveling country music influencers because there's a big outdoor aspect to what we do. But at its core, we try to be a community hub for country music. Because the way I feel about it is that when I started to get back into country music in my 30s, I've quickly realized that there was so much segmentation, right? Like if you love Morgan Wallen per se, maybe you don't love traditional country music. And I've never been that guy. I like a little bit of everything. So we've always prided country men on being a place where you could learn about Travis Tritt and Shabuzi on the same day if they're both doing something. And I think the benefit of how that comes along is people who have a song to promote or an album or a tour or an artist or whatever it is, they come to us and be like, Can you start the conversation around this thing? Or can you help us amplify a conversation? So it's not a guarantee, and hopefully the right clients and labels always know this, but we play a role along with a lot of other influencers and people and just kind of starting the conversation in a way that maybe it wouldn't happen organically. It's it's almost like a trend starts to occur, a song starts to build a little momentum, but it's really desperate in this algorithm, right? Like you might see a girl listening to a song in the background, I might see a guy playing that song. We don't know that it's something's happening. We don't know that a lot of people are sharing that song. We see our role as kind of being like, this is what's happening, this is how all this is coming together. This is the wave that's being created. It's not just a whole bunch of people experiencing music individually. We're all learning of something kind of around the same time, and it's creating a moment in country music culture that we're helping to amplify. So the money comes in when somebody offers us to talk about it. And sometimes we'll talk about it organically, and then a deal will come along later while they'll want us to talk about something else, or sometimes it's somebody that we haven't even heard of yet who's trying to break through.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Okay, so you're saying it's basically based off of organic uh like I can't make something happen. Yeah, but like if a song blows up on TikTok or Instagram or whatever, it just becomes big. Yeah. Then you're getting approached. Absolutely. Fire or put gas on the fire. A little bit, yeah. And you and other people like you that are in the space of country influencers.

SPEAKER_04 3:47

Yeah, and it's not just like people like me that talk, it's also a whiskey riff or a country central or a faceless account that does just carousel posts on Instagram or static posts. Sometimes those can be the exact same thing. I mean, it's really hard to tell. There are times when I'll see something in my feed. Uh, I always tell people that if it's an artist you've never heard of, and all of a sudden everyone in country music is talking about them. Like in my my role, my lane, I think people start to realize something has to be going on here. Like all of a sudden, we're all talking about John Jonathan or whatever, some some country singer no one's ever heard of, and we're all like, this is the next big thing. And you're like, how did they all decide this on the same day? Well, somebody's probably helping us decide that.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

That leads to my question. When you post a song, yeah. What are you really being hired to do? Influence, taste, or manufacture demand? Ooh, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_04 4:36

I think I I try to personally not position myself. I try to never be like, we can make things happen for you. Because I don't think that I don't think that anyone's ever been like, I saw this country minute video, and we have got to sign whatever this thing is, or we've got to play this thing. But to me, what I what fascinates me about country culture is that there are young people and old people who both love things and we treat them like these separate segmentations. But online everyone comes together. So I look at us as being a place where, like Shabuzi is a great example, a bar song starts to take off. Well, there are people our age that are like millennials who might only recognize that Jay Quan sample in it, like tipsy. So that's kind of what our big video for that campaign was was they didn't ask us to make that. They asked us if we like the song and if we'd like to talk about it. And for me, what was so fascinating was this interpolation of Jay Quan's tipsy. Someone else might say something else. And to me, I feel like if I can make you interested in the song the way I am, if I can share what I love about it, hopefully it translates in a way where it makes you love it. Because that's why I fall in love with things. Like when my best friend is like sends me a song and it's like, oh my God, this changed my life. I'm gonna listen to it. So I try to become that friend. And then people are paying, at least on some level, for me to like that thing enough to tell people about it. But very clear, we have said no to way more things than we say yes to, because it does reflect on me at the end of the day, too. There are people early on, we might have done some things where people in the comments would be like, There's just no way that you like this. And I'd be like, Well, that's fair. You know, I I sort of had to catch myself, had to learn that lesson. But these days, it's it's not, and I think it brings bigger opportunities. And with Shabuzi, it was kind of crazy because at the end of that year, Google approached us and was like, We're making a video for like all the trending things that happened this year, and we want to use your talking about Shabuzy. And that was like, oh, I didn't realize like that. You don't know that's happening. I know you make content too. You never know like where people are seeing things or what it means to them, or who's listening or what's that? Or like, yeah, sometimes it's the video with 2,000 views that gets a like from your childhood hero. And the video that has a million views, you don't know anybody that saw that thing. And that that's what I love about this. And in Shabuzi, I think that might have even been the case here. Because for me, it came and went. But an artist who does what you described as what I always say, Pegar Morgasmore, is like Morgan Wallen is an artist where he's never approached us to do anything, but because of the platform that we've created and the way that we were able to rally his fans around things, that support has turned into monetization for us, you know, through videos and whatever else. And that has become a big anchor point of how we keep going.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Okay. Yeah. So here's my question because earlier I was uh I was thinking about uh the exchange of currency in the music business. So I'm gonna read a little brief uh thing, okay? Um for decades the music industry has been shaped by how songs get exposure. In the early days, labels used payola, secretly paying radio DJs to play records. After legal crackdowns, the practice didn't disappear, it actually evolved. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 deregulated radio ownership, thanks to Bill Clinton, allowing a handful of large companies to control hundreds of stations, which centralize what gets played. Today, instead of cash under the table, labels spend heavily on marketing, playlist placement, and influencer promotion. The system is more transparent on paper, but the reality is still the same. Attention is often bought, and the songs that win usually are backed by serious money and strategy. So do you feel like you're part of the new version of Payola just on social media instead of radio?

SPEAKER_04 8:23

I think you could make that argument, but I also, unlike maybe radio, because radio, traditionally speaking, there have been ways to game the system that don't really even require them to play this. It's a whole other ballgame to me. But in my world, I don't know, I don't really see it that way only because the thing has to still be good. Like I don't think we've ever there have been plenty of people who have approached us for videos and even songs that I love that I poured my heart into promoting in a piece that was maybe a collaborative brand deal or something, and the song still doesn't work and the video doesn't work and just go. But if it's a song that is an undeniable hit, sometimes it's just about you gotta get it in front of the right eyeballs for it to get up to that next level. I think that's the reality now. It used to be if you get on the radio with a song like Austin by Dasha and it and people would listen to it and give it a chance, that'd be good. But now they don't take as many chances on women at country radio right out the gate. You got to prove that you got something going on. So you're gonna invest first in getting that online conversation going. And hopefully it translates the other way. But a song like that doesn't work unless when people hear the clip, they still fall in love with it. I feel like I'm still just that best friend in the conversation, being like, this is what I like. You and more often than not, not everyone agrees with that they do with those songs. There's lots of stuff that there are even artists that I love that I want to make videos for in the same vein that I wish could have. I am like in my head when I approach them and I'm like, I'm gonna talk about you. I think they think I can do that. And then I make the video and it's like 5,000 views, and I'm like, I mean, it could still work, you know, it just doesn't hit the same way. So I don't know that I feel like we're that just because the predictability of it is so all over the place. It's really more shooting, shooting in the dark.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Here's a here's an interesting question that I always have. Do you feel like you know it's gonna be a viral clip before you post it? Do you are you at the point where your gut is like, mm, I think this is gonna go great? Because I have these moments sometimes where I'm like, oh, this one's gonna knock it out of the park.

SPEAKER_04 10:22

Oh, yeah, like a question and the person's answering, and you're sitting there staring at them like, keep talking, please.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

Yeah, well, yeah, or whatever their story is, you know. Like the um what's paid me the most is a story of Dan Teminsky talking about singing Hey Brother for Avici. And just like the behind the scenes of that, people are fascinated by it. I put a clip of it on YouTube, and now if you search like um Hey Brother, I think it's like one of like the first videos it is like in there or something. Anyway, all that to say, it's crazy to me that a piece of content can naturally just blow up because I didn't think it would.

SPEAKER_04 10:59

There are things that happen that we capture because we do, you know, there's content that I'm in, and then you know, we sometimes we're at events and we just capture content. So those moments you can sometimes predict. This is a great day to talk about this because last night I saw Florida Georgia Line reunite with my own two eyes. And it was, I yelped a yelp that I can't even like reenact for you right now because that means a lot to me, right? We're at this, we're at CRS, it's this industry event. Uh, it was a Jason Aldean party, and they brought out Florida Georgia Line first time in four and a half years. And so, like Laura and I, my wife, we immediately both pull out our phones and we we have a whole thing. We separate, we get different angles, and we film it and we get it up with very specific kind of SEO. So I know that's gonna explode. But when it comes to every single day, very rarely, there's like an art. I always say it's like we have a list of A-list artists that we know if they do something, it'll do well for us. And then beyond that, what's happen, what else has happened? So many other algorithmic factors to whether or not it's gonna work.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

And FGL's been simmering here for a little while since the picture of the two of them.

SPEAKER_04 11:59

And we do a thing called what we always call content seeding, which is if we know something big may or may not be happening in the near future, we try to kind of ramp up how often I'm talking about that thing. So if you like it once, you'll probably see me again and again. A great example would be back at the beginning, right before the inauguration, we had heard Billy Ray Cyrus was going to be playing at the that was whatever it was. Big, big moment for him in a bad way. But in the weeks leading up to that, we talked about icky breaky heart. We talked about a few other things that Billy Ray Cyrus had done. So we started to get all these people who would keep seeing our content because they engaged with it. And then when that moment happens and they open up their phone, even though every country out in the world is covering it, because they've kept liking Billy Ray Cyrus with us, we're gonna be that one that comes up on top and they're like, He's the guy. Or I was in line at Eric Church a couple weeks ago, and a guy approached me in line and was like, You're the Morgan Wallen guy. And I was like, That is not, you know, like I am, I mean, I I appreciate that. He goes, No, no, no, no, no. I don't even have to look at his page because if he's gonna do something, you're gonna talk about it. And I was like, I sure, you know, I I've learned to see that as a compliment. The Morgan Wallen guy. The Morgan Wallen guy. That's better than like the catchphrases because I people tell me I have a catchphrase. Okay. So in a lot of my news videos, I'll be like, so and so did this, and we have gotta talk about it. And it's just something I say because I don't know how to That's a good hook. It's a I didn't know, I don't think of it that way, right? Yeah. One night we were hanging out with Gavin Adcock backstage at a show, and he introduced me to Vincent Mason, not to drop names. And he goes, Vincent, have you met this guy? And he's like, No. And he goes, he does this thing where he says, You've got to talk about it. It's so good. And I looked at Laura and I was like, Do I do I say it that often? And then we were at CMA Fest last year, and someone walking by was like, We've got to talk about it. I was like, I I don't I don't know, it's I don't know how to respond to that. It's great, I appreciate it. But now it's like it gets in your head, and then I don't want to say it.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Oh no man. If it ride the wave, if it works, it works. I guess I guess taglines are great. So you are an influencer in the country world, and people come to you with music, and you probably as uh because you're a music lover, you discover it on your own as well, and you post about it. How many pieces of content are you posting a day? And I'm curious about uh the people out there listening that also feel what you probably feel, which is you're running a business based off of content purely. So it's a little different, I guess, than the artists that you interviewed at CRS that would have been not only making content or supposed to make content a lot, but also doing the music thing, songwriting, touring, playing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, but you're that's your sole job. So, what are some of the things that you've learned from that and how much do we need to be posting per day?

SPEAKER_04 14:44

Ooh, that's a good question. So I don't think you have to post every day. I do, but it's it's been weird. When we first started, it was like if I post a video a day, it's slowly ramped up, but it's always there's always these contributing factors. For example, but where are you at now? Right now, let's say we do 20 posts a week, maybe. I can't tell you the daily average necessarily. 20 to 30. A lot of that's because it's about three a day. Three a day, probably three to four. Now, it depends on the platform. TikTok, maybe one or two a day at max. TikTok's just done this for me. It's it's gone down. It's a little bit of that, but face Meta only monetizes us for static posts right now. So if I want to make money through Instagram and Facebook, we have to do carousels or something else. Why is that? I just just how it works. So I have friends that only get paid for video content. One for a while we got paid for video content, and then we got an update from Meta, and they were like, for the next quarter, which is going on like two years now, it's only gonna be static posts to get us to post more of those. So if you look at our feed right now, Florida Georgia Line last night, we posted the video, and then we posted a carousel that has a shorter version of the video in it, and that has done six times the views of that video, and we will get paid for that carousel. But it's really the same piece of content twice, just in two different ways. So that's upped how much we have to do to make our to make our ends meet. But it's not necessarily because a lot's happening, but on a day when nothing's going on, I'll post once if I'm lucky, because I don't I am at least cognizant enough to be like nothing's gonna happen today. So talking about this thing just because it's like what's being it's just not gonna do anything. So why waste everyone's time?

SPEAKER_01 16:13

So three times a day. Yes. So do you batch content on a single day basically?

SPEAKER_04 16:18

I wish I don't have I don't know what we're posting next as I sit here and look at you. Okay. I have an idea.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

What are you looking at in terms of trends?

SPEAKER_04 16:26

Um, well, again, it's like that seating idea, right? So we don't really play into trends, we're leaning into it a little bit more just for a little some character development and trying to like build out people understanding who we are outside of it for branding purposes and getting attracting people like that. But really, it's like, okay, the Luke Combs tour kicks off this weekend. Album came out today. We should be talking about Luke Combs. Morgan Wallen is on April 10th and 11th. So we've been doing a 40-day countdown to the start of that tour because again, Morgan Wallen pays our bills.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Can I can I side note something? Yeah. Uh Charlie Warsham, whose episode just released? New song with Laney Wilson today. What? How's the song with Laney today? And he wrote a song that's on Luke Combs' new record. Okay. The one that's featuring Allison Krauss.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

Oh, there we go. So I could have brought the vinyl. It's the vinyl's in our car right now. I stopped at drivers and bought it on the way here.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Dude. But uh, shout out to Charlie.

SPEAKER_04 17:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Because um, he's an awesome human being.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

One of Nashville's most underrated. I would agree. Yeah, integral part of the system. That's like, he's the kind of guy that is the career I'm aspiring to have. Like, I don't necessarily need to be the top of the mountain, but someone like Charlie Worsham, everyone respects, everyone knows. And it's like that feels more secure to me than being like the guy. You know what I mean? 100%. I have we have friends that have been the guy or the girl of the moment, and then we've watched them get kicked to the side. But someone like Charlie Warsham, I'm like, you're you're gonna work for everybody. No one's ever gonna not need you.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Charlie to me is like the um, and he's real close with Vince Gill. And so I feel like he's almost carrying that torch forward in a sense. I mean, he hasn't like popped off yet in terms of a commercial sense on radio and the DSPs, but I feel like it's just a matter of time for him to hit a hit a lick and things take off.

SPEAKER_04 18:11

He's also a kind of guy that needs nothing from a person like me, which is a thing I've had to learn. Like there are certain artists that like I could talk about all day, but they are not social artists and they don't need to be in order to have a big career. Morgan Wallin, Megan Moroney, Tucker Wetmore, even Parker McCollum, there's a social element that really guides their success too. It all kind of comes together. Someone like Charlie, it might help him, but he's also never struck me as a guy who's gonna post five times a day. So if he had one big viral moment, it would not necessarily change anything other than maybe make him more upset about how much social work he had to do.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Oh yeah. So I I'm incredibly busy. I was talking to him the last few days, and um it was like session, then this. He was in at a Netflix premiere for Laney's Netflix documentary, and the song that came out today is the end song.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

And and that yeah, that's what we're talking about. Uh but for real, like he's just so busy, and I'm like, man, like this dude doesn't need to post anything because he's just he's the getting the calls.

SPEAKER_04 19:14

Yeah, I think in a perfect world we post less eventually, but right now that is not where we are. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Yeah, I get that. I feel the pressure to to post more, but I also get in my head a lot because I'm like, am I trying to tell a story? Am I trying to educate somebody? Am I like, what am I trying, like, what's my purpose? What's my why? And I'm curious, what is your why?

SPEAKER_04 19:37

Oh man, that's hard. Okay. My why is that so I started this kind of on a fluke. I used to work in alternative music for a really long time. Like I was a manager on Warp Tour. I wrote tweets for Drake at one point in my career. Like, I've done a lot of weird jobs. But when I got back into country music, I was really loving it. And I was speaking in Nashville at this conference called Music Biz about the end of social media and the beginning of like what we call interest media these days. You know, you're not seeing your friends and family, you're seeing this other stuff. And I was at a meeting with some people in marketing, and I asked, I was really into watching my friend Jesse Lee, who makes alternative content a lot like mine. And I was like, Have you anyone seen someone do that in country music before? And everyone was like, No. And I remember like putting my hands on the table and being like, Everyone, shut up. Like, no one, no one take this idea. If I see any of you do it before I get home, I'm gonna be mad. And we went home. I went home and uh I told Laura about it. She was like, You should just try it, just post something. I remember the first video I ever made was about Ashley Gorley, the songwriter, who is like one of my idols and a person who I look at what he does, and I'm I don't understand how a human being produces so much. And everyone I've ever met tells me something about his regimen as a as a work like his work ethic, where I'm just like, I don't, I feel like I'm not built that way as a human. So I made a video about how many of these crazy songs he did, and it works so well. And that's what excites me is not, you know, the latest song from so-and-so. I like kind of letting bringing people deeper into these careers or like the story behind country music. I'm fascinated by the crossroads between like artistry and how this very specific part of the music business works. In other industries, it's like you talk to a band, one guy writes the songs and the rest of that. But when you talk to anyone in country music, it's such a bigger operation. You know, I learned very early on in my interviewing that you can't ask someone what a song's about in country music all the time if it's the artist. Because sometimes I'm like, I don't know. I wasn't there when it got written. I liked it as much as you did, and now it's on my album, and you're like, okay, that's not a story. Um next. Yeah, so I've I've pulled that mistake a bunch of times. And then I was like, well, if I'm if that's how I am as a what I consider a big, big fan of music, anybody who loves music even as much as me or less doesn't know as doesn't even know that much, probably. So how does it be a good thing?

SPEAKER_01 21:47

What's the most sorry to interrupt you, but what's the most interesting thing when you peel back the curtain or the what is the curtain you want to peel back and see the most of that you haven't gotten to see?

SPEAKER_04 21:58

Man, to me it's It's trying to find. Man, I'm fascinated by how songwriting works in general and songwriting camps in the way that they produce hits and things like that. You know, I'm always fascinated by trying to figure out who in the room came up with a thing that makes me like a song. You know what I mean? Like I love to get with a songwriter. Earlier today, we were interviewing Graylin James, who's written a lot of great songs, including Next Thing You Know for Jordan Davis. Graylin does not have a wife. He does not have a child. He's been through none of these life experiences. But you hear that song, and as a parent, you weep because you're like, he's gotten it. And so there's this thing where you're like, okay, how did you what's that thing? How did you tap into it? Was it someone else in the room being like guiding this thing? And that conversation, I think, is just fascinating to me. That's the magic of it. What was his answer? He does not give me the answer to that. Some people, some people keep those things close to the chest. In that case, that's just his gift. He's a guy who's able to tell stories by like talking to his parents and talking to other people. And like, this is what they've told me. And I he can turn it into a poem. Other people will be like, we heard a story today about an artist who just can't came into the room and was like, I have this idea for I have a title. And then everyone else in the room kind of like works to put that title together. And I think so it's like the publishing side almost. Yeah, the writing side. Yeah, just the writing side. That and then there's the gears of like who does and doesn't get to do the things, you know, who gets chosen, who doesn't get why do you only think it, you know, like all that little, all those little things because we have met so many amazing artists that have amazing songs, or they seem to have all the right pieces, but it just doesn't happen, or it does happen, and it's a total surprise. And figuring out that that magic, what was that thing? Where did it pivot? That's always fascinated me. Even as a guy who's been in music for like over 20 years now, and I've seen people do it. We're really close with people like Chase Matthew, who I've seen go from having a small following online to now being like this big rising country star playing new faces. And we spent time with him. And as a guy who loves him to death, sometimes I and he's the same way where it's like, if I were to ask him outright, like, how did this happen? He'd be like, I don't, you know? And so it's just that eternal mystery never stops fascinating me. Like, how did how does it work? Even as a person who's on the inside sometimes, that you don't and I know you know this as a person who knows of people like Vinskill, where it's like, I'm sure you're just like, How do you keep it going this long? What's the magic trick?

SPEAKER_01 24:15

When I first moved to town, I remember I was on the phone with him and I was really depressed. We were talking about anxiety and depression, somehow I struggle with, and um he was like, Hey, this is the like basically to me, it was the best piece of advice I could have been given, which was the results are out of your hands. Like you have no control when you make the thing and you release it into the world, yeah, you have no control of the result. Yeah. And so that it gives me goosebumps kind of thinking about it, but yeah, you're not in control of the results.

SPEAKER_04 24:51

And so is that the best advice you think you've you've gotten? From one of someone like him, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Yeah, because what I I think we all have a tendency to do is try to grasp life and control it and control the outcome. Absolutely. And it's one of the things that we fight against me as a man of faith, on like, all right, am I gonna trust God with this or am I gonna like just try to, you know, strong grip it? And when you can like do this and just have open hands and be like, all right, maybe this will work, maybe it won't work, maybe we'll hit this, or we won't, like, I'm not gonna try the try to control the outcome because I can't. No, and so that's what that piece it's almost like that talking of seeding, that was a seed planted seven years ago this month that has sprouted probably last year to really understand what the meaning of that is.

SPEAKER_04 25:43

Yeah, I love that. I'll tell you mine, you want to know my best. I do want to know.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

I'm interviewing you, but you asked me a question.

SPEAKER_04 25:49

It's fine, it's okay. Um, I loved meet, like one of the so when we started this, there's a lot of other really silly reasons why we do this. Like when we started, it was we had a goal to meet John Michael Montgomery because he was my childhood hero and we did that. But I love meeting these people who still have careers going many years later and kind of talking to them about just that transition, how it changes. We were sitting with Mark Chestnut last summer on his bus at Country Jam USA. And I tell this story all the time when we meet artists who are going through like a hard time with like what are their careers going. And at the time, we were almost done with our 2025 like bookings because we do all these traveling festivals and stuff. And I was like, I, you know, I don't know how to how you just stay, how do you keep it going all these years? What do you, what's the trick? And he told me, Well, I got a show booked in August of next year. So until August of next year, I don't have to worry about whether or not they want me. And I was like, Yeah, all right, okay, that actually works for me pretty well. Because in my head, I was like, all right, well, we do actually have something in 2026. And for whatever reason, that kind of like, so now I'm like, well, we always have that thing down the road. And I don't try to worry too much about like Laura would tell you that I worry all the time about this, but I try not to let a Tuesday get to me because I'm like, well, you know, at least in August we have to be in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. So until then, we're we at least got until Oshkosh to prove somebody past Oshkosh that we're worth keeping around.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

So is that your do you have a fear of failure and that you will become obsolete?

SPEAKER_04 27:12

Yeah. I mean, everything I've ever I've been in music, like I said, for like 20 years, and everything always ends up obsolete. I've worked I've worked at magazines. What are magazines?

SPEAKER_01 27:20

So, how how do you migrate your audience from social media into something that you own?

SPEAKER_04 27:25

Man, well, thankfully, we do have everything, other than we are on what I call them borrowed lands in social media, meta, Instagram, TikTok, all that stuff. I call them borrowed lands because I don't own them. Thankfully, we own every aspect of country minute, and figuring out how to get that into something else is the crux of I think where we are right now. And a lot of like this week, we've been at this radio conference, and that's a question that we ask people who know more than we do about the subject. And it is a little bit of an emerging field where it's like some people be like, what do you want to do? And I used to say I'd like to be Bobby Bones or Cody Allen, because as far as the guy who talks about country music goes, I would say that those are the two guys. Um, and but I don't want to have the Bobby Bones show, and I don't want to take anything that Cody's doing necessarily. I kind of want to do what I'm doing and just be, I would just like them to like step aside and let me have a little space between them and be like the third guy in that and that thing. And I guess my fear is you mean this called on for the thing. Like we have or well, or like uh I always say Kelly Sutton is my favorite person in Nashville. She's a woman who does a bunch of different gigs around the city. She's in the Opry, she's on Amazon, Country Heat Weekly, and she feels like she's everywhere. And everyone, like like Charlie Worsham, where it's like an integral part of this thing called country music. You're just once you're in the community, yeah, there's like this security element. And especially because of the nature of what we do. We don't live in we don't live here in Nashville, which was a choice we made after talking to a bunch of people. It's hard to feel like we're a part of the machine enough where like if if tomorrow Instagram deleted, I don't know who's gonna call my phone next week necessarily.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

Yeah, that's what I was asking about migrating from socials, because this is something that I think about because my wife worked well, she still does, she's part of a TikTok program where she makes UGC videos, which are for people listening and they don't know, it's kind of almost what you do, but um, it's basically user-generated content. So it's like, man, I just got this new probiotic gummy, and it's a pre pre and probiotic gummy that has all this in it, but you do it in an organic way with an iPhone that looks like you're just talking about it versus a filmed commercial so people engage with it more. And um with the majority of income we were making was off of her platform, and then the stuff happened with TikTok at the beginning of the election year, and like it was shut down for two days and then popped back on, and then February 25, she lost like they deleted the platform that we were making all our money on. So to me it was like that's a job on social media, but it's very volatile, like you said, in the music business or any business. Blackberry, look at them, you know. So, like for me, I think about this podcast as the audience grows. How do I migrate them? It was one of my like Q1, Q2 goals, um, start getting people to text into a number where I get their like email address and their phone number so I can send them a text instead of just having them be someone that's a viewer that follows me.

SPEAKER_03 30:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Because now I own I own the audience instead of not now. I decided not to do that because I have so many other things I need to do before that.

SPEAKER_02 30:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

And but I feel like that's the move because we never know what way the wind's gonna shift in the social world. And I'm curious what uh platform you have the most success on, or is it platform predicated? Because for me, one video will do great on Instagram, terrible on Facebook, vice versa.

SPEAKER_04 31:03

I think right now Instagram has become our bread and butter, if only because that's where I feel like the majority of the industry sees us. Like when we're in conversations, that's where people will mention seeing us the most often. TikTok arguably makes us the most money still, but I think Instagram will ultimately be is currently like the legacy that is what people think of us when they see our stuff. And I that is where I put the most effort in terms of like curating and make sure we're engaging with people. But getting them off that and something else, I don't know what that part of it is like I don't know what that thing is. And so I don't want to try to migrate them until I'm so confident that I want to do what that next version of this thing is. And so for us, Laura and I are, you know, like I said, we there's a travel component to what we do that no one else really does. And that's been a part of that migration for us is being in the real world and being to people that people see and know, and trying to kind of build up that audience support in hopes that it helps translate into the industry support where people are like, oh, everywhere they go, there are people who are like know who they are. And it's not just, oh, I follow them online. I saw them at this festival or I saw them at the sphere or I saw them at Sand in my boots. That means way more to us. I want to have a real community of country music fans who feel accepted and have a place to go, whether it's online or off. And when we go places, we want that to be a representative of like this is a place where you can love whatever it is you love about country music and find people who feel that way about you. So that's kind of like the torch we're trying to carry. And until I know how to migrate people there and a thing we own, I'm happy to migrate that to things that want us to be there and be a part of what they're doing.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

That's cool. I was uh this is just a thought that I just had. I was watching this reel and it was talking about how independent media has taken over legacy media. And there's people now that are creating their own TV shows. Like they look like a TV show almost. But it's like, you know, your own show about whatever you want it to be. Like you see plenty of people sitting at like desks that are like talking about things. Have you thought about doing that? Where it's almost like you have your own show and it looks very studio-esque.

SPEAKER_04 33:13

We try really hard to fight the word podcast in our marriage right now. Because Laura and I have thought about doing it and she's probably I'm not even talking podcast. I know, but that's the thing. That's the thing is like when you start, so like this week at this radio event, we've been trying to tell people like our vision, and people kind of it's what it's What's your vision? So our vision, do you remember? You're old enough to remember this. Did you ever see David's Insomniac? Do you remember that old show from like the early 2000s? That's fine. Uh, it's a show on Comedy Central in the early 2000s. Uh, comedian Dave Vittel would be touring the country on co in comedy, but every episode would basically be like, he's in, you know, Baltimore, Maryland tonight, performing at this club, but most of the episode is him interacting with people on the street or talking to other comedians. And then a little part of the show is that thing he's there to do, to do stand-up comedy. The rest is something else. So we're heading into this season where we're going to be at all these festivals and events. And when I think about the show, I would want to watch as a fan or as a person that likes country music content. It's, I want to see all those pieces come together. Because right now we're going to make, let's say, Morgan Wall and opening day in in Minneapolis next month. We're going to be there. That's 12 to 16 pieces of content in one day for us, minimum, easily. I would watch a long version that was all that pieces of content together. So it's not, it's not a travel vlog necessarily, but it is we're in Minneapolis, we're interacting with the fans. Here's the merch, here's what the show was like. And you're coming with us on this bigger journey where we're kind of pulling in what it is, what it is to be a country music fan in America and hopefully eventually the rest of the world. But we're kind of focused right here, right now. Because that's that's what fascinates me. I love when we go somewhere, especially when we don't always love the headliners of the bands playing, and you get to see that community of fans. And by the time you leave, you're like, this was, I want to be a part of this. The best example I can give you is when we first started, Laura and I first started dating. I don't even know why we decided to do this, but we went to see Pitbull one summer at the end of the summer. It's like a fun day. Right. So like he announced a tour. We had not, we weren't doing this yet. And uh I was like, Do you want to go see Pitbull? And she was like, Absolutely, let's try it. So we went, we went to like the show in Detroit. It was sold out. We sat in the very back, and I'll tell you, I've never had more fun. And we have seen Pitbull like five times since then. Every year he goes on tour. We've traveled to see Pitbull at this point.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

That he goes in every time he comes in on a feature.

SPEAKER_04 35:29

Yeah, he does all the features, he does everything, it's everything he wanted it to be. And I didn't know, like, people were dancing. I remember that whole night, like it never stopped dancing, everyone's on their feet, and it was like this energy where I was like, 37 years on this, 35 years on this planet at this point. I've never felt this way at a live show. And now I'm chasing it like a dragon. Pitbull announced a show in our city, and we were like, we can't, we'll cancel the country show that's that night to go to this pit bull show because it's so good for our souls. And I feel like, especially in today's world of country music, it's really easy to get locked into. I like Stack Top 49 Winchester and Turnpike Troubadours and everything else doesn't count. And I really want people to see like, you might not think this is country or that's good country, but when you see the effect it has on the people who do love it, you can't tell me it's not art, it's not something special. And that's that's what we're trying to capture. And I don't think you can do that without making the whole thing part of the journey.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

Well said, I think that uh FGL being reintroduced into the market's gonna be an interesting move to see how everything reacts. Yeah, especially, I don't know if they're they have plans to reunion, do a record. I don't know if they talked about it last night.

SPEAKER_04 36:39

You aren't getting it out of me today. What? You won't get it out of me today.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

Uh but you got to see them last night.

SPEAKER_04 36:44

I did get to see them last night. And they opened with Cruz? They did only did a cover of Jason Aldean's You Make It Easy. So was this Jason Aldean number one's party?

SPEAKER_01 36:52

So it wasn't like an FGL like set.

SPEAKER_04 36:55

No, so it was a so this party at CRS every year is the Broken Bow Records party. It takes place uh the second night every time, and it changes every year, like what's happening. So last year it was karaoke themed, and so it was like Jason Aldean did a Tom Petty song and everyone was doing cover songs. This year it was a number one party for Jason Aldean and his 31 radio number ones. Blake Shelton came out first, then Alabama came out, which was like that alone was starstruck. I'm not starstruck anymore, but Randy Owen up there, that got me, got me moving. And then Travis Tritt came out, only sang Jason Aldean's night train, did not sing a Travis Tritt song, which was both frustrating and amazing. And then he walked off, and the announcer was like, We got one more surprise for you guys. And very subtly just like, after four years, Florida, Georgia line, they played that cover song. I think Tyler said something like, It feels good to be on stage with my brother again, and then they disappeared. There was no cruise, there was no talking. It was just like, let this moment be the moment, and then it was over. At the moment, I was frustrated because the very first thing we said to each other was like, No cruise? You're not just all you have to play is the first chord and we'll sing the rest of the song. The whole room would. Um, but no, I think it's almost better this way because it's it's like now the anticipation will be even higher. People know it's probably gonna happen. It's just a question of when and where. And uh that's exciting. Like as a as a fan of them, but also just how often in country music do like you see a large amount of people get excited about something that's not the same three artists. And I understand that they are one of those three artists usually, but they haven't been for a few years, so it's exciting to see them back. But they haven't been out so long.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Yeah. Large in part to Tyler's solo career, I would say, or argue that uh, because he's had some number ones. First four solo, first four solo songs to radio were number one. Yeah. Incredible run. I bet my buddy Cain and Smith wrote one last year. The one that went number one last year.

SPEAKER_04 38:50

Park, I think maybe.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

Maybe and then Jaron Johnson wrote the five foot nine song. Yes, five foot, yeah. I like that song too. They're great stuff. Yeah, which is your wife's eyes?

SPEAKER_02 39:04

Yeah, that's what I thought.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

Um it's it's actually about so apparently um Jaron was saying on this podcast that the song that Tyler's wife is actually not five foot nine. She's five seven. Yeah. He just he didn't know until they were wrote it.

SPEAKER_04 39:24

Well, five's seven doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

Well, they were like, yeah, they it's it's just things are better.

SPEAKER_04 39:29

Well, I you know, and I I'm glad that you pointed to her because it is uh it is important and not to sidetrack what we're talking about. But none of this happens without Laura. Like people used to think it was just me, and I've we've always promoted ourselves as a family. I know your wife was here before we started doing this, but doing this as a family is also a big part of it because working in the other industries, I never saw a family. And I remember when I got into country music, like one of the first people we really interacted with was Ian Munzik, his wife manages him. And it was this world where it was like, oh, we could do this as a family and go on this adventure together, versus I have to be gone uh 30 days between June and July. We can be gone together for 30 days between June and July.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

What do you do?

SPEAKER_04 40:06

Do you bring your two-year-old? No, we live in Michigan for a lot of reasons, but part of it is that our family is there. So my parents watch our son when we are doing these things usually. He'll get to a point where he comes out, but right now they really love being grandparents, so we take advantage of that as much as possible.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

I would take advantage of that also.

SPEAKER_04 40:22

I know, I know, yeah, I know you would, buddy.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Does it feel like when you get back and you see him, you're like, uh you know 10,000 new things?

SPEAKER_04 40:32

Yes, especially right now because he's two. It's been that's crazy. It's been like so. I was not doing this full time. I worked at a historic theater as a marketing manager, and that business actually went out of business. And Laura inspired me to try this full time. And she was, we had just had Justin. We he was six months old at the time, and I was like, You are insane that you know, because we have to pay for this baby. And thankfully, we've been able to keep it going so far. So we'll keep it going. And you will continue to keep going. We will continue to keep that's that's how she talks to me.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Yeah, that's not my mindset usually, but yeah, you have to have that mindset, man. So, what happened with this? So, your anxiety started seven months ago? I don't know. When is September? However long ago September was.

SPEAKER_04 41:13

I'll tell you exactly what happened. So roughly seven months. So we do these festivals. You'll see us this summer. If you go to our Instagram page right now, we have like a summer vacation schedule. It's like seven or eight festivals we're doing this summer. So people bring us in. You're on tour. We're basically I said that last year, and a couple of our artist friends were like, this isn't touring. And I was like, all right, that's fair. Festival touring is touring. Um, but we uh we do this thing where we go out and it's a lot of stuff. It's getting clips of artists, it's talking to artists, but a lot of it is like the man on the street aspect of it, talking to people. Like I said, we Which I love.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

I I think that's killer.

SPEAKER_04 41:47

That's killer, and it's it's it's that goal that we have of like, we've never been this summer. We get to go to Oshkosh for this thing called Crossroads 41. We've never been there before. But everyone that we know that's been there talks about what an amazing experience it is. And I want, I personally want to experience that, but I also want to showcase that to the rest of the world because in my I love the big festivals, I've been to all of them, but the little festivals in the middle of nowhere always have the best vibes, the best communities. And I want people to be like, I should go to Oshkosh, Wisconsin next summer. I know that that's a weird idea, but that's kind of what I'm going for. So we do these every year. And last year we pushed it really harder than we'd ever pushed it before. We started in May, and three weekends in a row, we went to Philadelphia to do George Strait, and then we flew to Alabama to do Sand in my boots, and the next like four, three days later, we flew to Vegas to do Kenny Chesney at the sphere.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

Now, are you getting paid for these? Are you still finding some of them?

SPEAKER_04 42:37

So sometimes we get paid to go to stuff and sometimes we don't.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

Do you recoup your investment?

SPEAKER_04 42:42

If it's depending on what it is, sometimes we've learned. So last year, again, this was part of the it was a crash course, so we didn't know what it's gonna cost us to go. We no one had ever asked us that before. So we're you know, we're just throwing out a rate, and then you know, you book hotels, you book flights, and you do everything else, and you're like, oh, we made$400 in three days, but we had a great experience. At least you didn't lose$400. Well, yeah, how many people go to festivals and actually leave with money? So technically it's a hundred percent an improvement over what used to happen in our lives. Yeah, but um, we did this run, it started there with those three shows, and it didn't, it felt like it never stopped. And then it was September, and somebody offered a no, it was like August, and we were just getting done, and someone came through and was like, I have a festival in September in Texas, and we met in Texas, and I might you learned before we started this, I'm really bad with heat. And I had not considered Texas in September when we said yes to this. We just needed money, and somebody was like, Would you like to come to this first time festival in Texas? So we fly to Texas, and the whole time I'm like, this is gonna be awesome. We're seeing Parker McCollum, we're seeing Robert Earl Keane, we're gonna interview Parker McCollum, which was a bucket list for us. We get to this festival. Where was it? I don't even remember the names. Temple, Texas, which is Central Texas. Again, didn't look any of this up before I went to Texas. So we pull up to the festival and we're in the parking garage. I'm not kidding you, Stefan. It was like 98 degrees on the car thermostat, and it's like two in the afternoon. And I was like, okay, well, we gotta, we gotta go do the thing now. We don't always show up early, but this festival being a first first year, there were some really cool bands playing early, and I was like, let's just go and see what the vibes are. So we get out of the car, we walk to the festival, we shoot a piece outside that's like, welcome to Tanglefoot, let's go inside and see what's going on. For starters, and I and I they don't care that I say this. There was nobody there at two in the afternoon because it was 98 degrees outside. Like there was there was nobody on the festival grounds. So we're just hanging out with like the 13 people that are watching the drop tines from the one element of shade. And I start feeling like dizzy. I don't do well in the heat, so I was like, I'm dizzy. And I went to sit down, and I just I would describe it and maybe you'll understand this. It was like the train of thoughts left the station, and I could not pull the lever. You know what I mean? Like I was, it was spinning, not physically spinning, but like I could not stop my brain from thinking. And I'm I don't and I was texting Laura because she went to get me some water, and I was like, I don't think I can stand up right now. Like that was my brain. And I was doing the math of how far we had walked from the car to where we were because it was like a really weird fast, it was like one of those things where you have to walk like a mile and a half. And I was like, I don't, because she was like, let's just go back to the car and go to the hotel. And I was like, I don't think I can walk through the car from here. I've never been in this position. And it's noon. So she gets medical help from me, and these guys rush in. I'm in the way, they have like an air-conditioned bathroom area. So I'm hiding in there. They knock on the door and they open the door and they're like, Are you okay? And I'm so embarrassed because it's 12, like two o'clock in the afternoon. And I'm like, I'm okay. He's like, Can you stand up? He's like, Are you drunk? I'm like, haven't had a drink, haven't had anything. I'm stone sober. I've had nothing but water today. And he's like, Okay. Like he's kind of not believing me because he's like, How then why are you feeling this way? We're in Texas. Um, and they put me on the cart and they take me over to like the medical area. And the whole time, half of them are ragging on us because Laura's cracking jokes about how I lilt like a willy, like a lily in the heat. Like he's she's just like, he does this everywhere we go. They're like, Yeah, it's not even hot here today. Meanwhile, I'm like trying to catch my breath. We get like liquid IV in me and stuff, and I start to recover. And then I think the next week we had to be somewhere else, not a festival. Well, not even that same weekend. We have to go interview Parker McCollum that night. So I go back to the hotel room. I sleep for like an hour. I think I get up, I feel awful. And uh, we had spent two years chasing a Parker McCollum interview, and he had finally agreed to do it with us. And like, this is he that's like Mount Rushmore for Laura and I. So we were like, we have I'm like, we're doing this.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

You guys should have been me on the first night of CRS. Because MC we were invited to uh um not to the big old fancy house party?

SPEAKER_04 46:43

Yeah, no, we saw him on we saw him at CRS too. Oh, you did? Well we didn't think of the party.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Well, we we didn't end up going because we had to do something for a sponsor.

SPEAKER_04 46:53

We learned that it was outdoors, we didn't want to go stand in the cold. Oh, you did?

SPEAKER_01 46:57

No, yeah, we learned that the email I got that day it was not outdoors.

SPEAKER_04 47:01

We didn't we looked it up and we're like, this seems like an outdoors show, and it was outdoors. It was, yes. See, but um anyway. So we get to the festival and we're gonna do the interview and we're standing backstage, and then it starts to happen again. But now, by now it's dark and it's cool, so it's not the heat. You know what I mean? And uh she would probably tell the story better than that.

SPEAKER_01 47:18

So now you're calculating. Yeah. Are you calculating like why am I feeling this way? Am I having the heart attack?

SPEAKER_04 47:24

She'll tell you that my brain doesn't when I get like this, like that's the thing. I can't stop the brain from like diagnosing, rediagnosing 100%.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

And you're convinced you're dying, eh?

SPEAKER_04 47:34

Yeah, and then I get that stage strength. So then, like, his tour manager is like, Parker's ready for you, and they open the bus door, and then for like 20 minutes, I can pull it together. But when we get off, that that leaves, and then I'm just I'm so tired because the the all that stress is just drug dumped out of me. So then a couple weeks later, we go to another thing and it happens again. And I'm like, this is getting out of hand. But we had to travel again. So for a while, I was like, maybe it's just the travel. And then at the end of October, we were interviewing Kip Moore in our hometown of Grand Rapids at the venue that we would call our home venue, the intersection. And we were backstage, and his tour manager's like, You guys want to drink? Just hang out, Kip will be ready in a minute. And you've met their team, they're all so nice, they're very dishonored, they're very gentle with you. You know, I didn't feel like there's no pressure in the moment. But he leaves to go check if Kip's ready to do the interview. And we're in the green room and his band is coming up and saying hi to us. I can't even speak. Like, I'm locked into my brain. And I'm looking at Laura like, I think I'm gonna pass out right now. And meanwhile, she's very, very well at like working the room and being like, Oh, it's so nice to meet you guys. We're so excited to do the interview. And I'm looking at her like, can I leave? Can I just go anywhere else with this interview right now? And she's she has to wrangle me back in. Um, but I go outside and catch some breaths. And again, we get on the bus with Kip. And I I couldn't even tell you how the interview went because most of the time I was just trying to be like, catch my heartbeat. And he's such a chill guy, much like you, that it's hard to have like fighting anxiety energy next to Kip more because he feels centered like Rom Doss sitting next to me. And I'm like, what are we doing? Um, so after that, she was like, You have to get medical help because we can't, I can't keep doing this, and you can't keep it, it's gonna ruin everything. So I talked to a therapist about it, and he was like, Have you ever tried anxiety meds? We were going to Tokyo, and I was kind of getting nervous about that because I was like, a 14-hour flight is probably not gonna work out well for this body situation that we're doing right now. So they gave me anxiety medication for the first time, and it was like life changed the first time I took it. Like my remember my doctor was like, Was that the medicine we talked about previously? No, that's just like a generic benzo of some kind.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

No, so it was a benzo.

SPEAKER_04 49:41

Yeah. And she was just like, in about 15 minutes, it'll feel like a wave just like washed over you. And I remember we were, I think we were on the plane. I can remember specifically, we were on the plane, and the little cart that they serve stuff in stopped in front of our row, and I was trapped. I don't know. We're already over the Atlantic Ocean. It doesn't matter that I'm trapped. But my brain was like, what if, what if something I don't that happens again? It took it in that wave happened. And so I was like, oh, that's good. And then I made the mistake of being like, well, now that that's happened, I'll probably never do that. That'll I'll never have another anxiety attack. Obviously, this medicine cured me of that. But then the other day I heard it spoiler alert, everybody, I still have a lot of I had one today before we were on our way here. Um but what I learned, I heard someone say the other day, and it was such a good description of it. They were like, once your body figures out it can do that to you, it almost like defaults to it in certain situations. Where it's like previously before September, before that moment, and I don't know if it was just we were been pushing it too hard or whatever, like it's like my body never even thought of having an anxiety spiral like that. But once I did it once, it's almost now like I'm actively fighting it whenever I get close to it. And it doesn't matter if I'm meeting somebody that I look at as a hero or we're going to hang out with like one of our good friends, like Chase Matthews, a country star that we see all the time. I'm like, it's it's I'm dealing with it right now. It's just a thing where I can't stop it. And I don't know if it's I I don't know if it's a lack of confidence in myself going into the moment, or if it's I have no idea.

SPEAKER_01 51:06

Is it all centered around interviews?

SPEAKER_04 51:09

No, no, I wouldn't say it is. I have to look at her.

SPEAKER_02 51:13

No, I think it's people in people.

SPEAKER_04 51:15

I I don't do well.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

Yeah, no people.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

Yeah, because I am a stay at home dad most of the time. Yeah, because I'm a homebody. Yeah. So if you go out, I take less medicine when I'm at home than when I'm out in in the world. Yeah. And one of the things I've noticed about myself is that uh like if I'm downtown, like you guys are you know, like it stresses me out.

SPEAKER_04 51:40

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 51:41

This week has been where you didn't go to CRS this week, but no, I just didn't go. But um but I yeah, so I I I was like, I can't wait to get back up to where we live, which is on some land, and it's just birds and cows and crows.

SPEAKER_04 52:00

Absolutely. And it's funny because Laura will sometimes ask me, she's like, isn't this what you've always wanted? I'm like, that doesn't mean that it doesn't terrify me for some reason.

SPEAKER_01 52:06

It almost should. Here's this is what my friend told me, and I'll tell you because it might be helpful. Because when I started podcasting, I was I would get so nervous, man. I feel I would feel like sometimes I'd be in a podcast and I'd lose my train of thought, you know, where your mind kind of goes blind. It's probably what the the bust was with the kip in you, you know. Like for me, I just like all of a sudden can't think. Oh yeah I even now on my podcast I am well spoken outside of podcasting, and when I cut when it comes to podcasting, the words that I would regularly use I can't even access in my brain. Which is a really weird thing. Yeah, like but to me it's about my buddy John, he's he's really cool, he's a consultant, and he does consulting gigs for like Google and for these people at these Fortune 500 companies and goes flies all around the world. And I was talking to him about it, he's like instead of fighting it, he said, You should be nervous. Like nerve nervousness and anxiety are okay feelings. Like you going into an interview, not being nervous or not being a little anxious would be weird.

SPEAKER_04 53:20

Yeah. I guess I mean it used to be a weird where I was anxious because I think I think there's been a little bit not a power dynamic shift, but something similar to that, where it used to be I've always felt like the underdog all the time in my life. Alternative music through now, and I've kind of prided myself on that. And then, like, spoiler for CRS is last we've gone to CRS for like six years, and for the first four, nobody knew who I was. Last year, I think like two or three people would be like, Oh, you're that guy. But this year, unexpectedly, we ran into way more people. And like people would just come up to us and be like, We stopped at Bucky's on the way to Nashville, and a kid asked for a photo. That's never happened to me before. And it's and it's it's that, it's more of that thing where the parasocial relationship of this is doing really well. So when I meet somebody, they have a whole relationship with me on the internet that I don't have with them, and I don't know how to navigate that conversation in the real world. So I love when somebody's like, I like your stuff, and then they keep walking and we don't have to interact. But sometimes people will stop and be like, I really like your stuff. And then I'm like, So are you from around here? Or I don't know, I don't know how to take that from them. Or we have to explain how they know me. We've gotten good. Laura and I always tell the same joke, which is like, if you're on, picture yourself like going to the bathroom or laying in bed trying to fall asleep. Like maybe if you look at me like at this angle, I might you might figure out who I am because you're just you're usually hunched over looking at me when you see me. I'm all I'm a late night find, I'm your comfort buddy. Uh so people just don't put me together, or they only see me from like here. You know, they don't know, I don't want to have someone, you know, like you said earlier, you didn't know what I looked like. Well, I was curious, yeah, if I looked the same on camera as I do. I think you do comparison. I think you do. And I think it's funny you say that about how you speak because everyone I know that knows you or has met you has always been like, he speaks so well. He's made me slow down. And I was like, Yeah, that's how he makes me. You disarm people that way. So it's yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:16

Yeah, that is a gift that I got given maybe from I don't know, my mom always just said I was a people person growing up. But yeah, that's the vibe. I mean, I'm just that way. I'm like low-key, which is what when people find out the anxiety thing, they're like, you seem so unanxious. How is it that you you know you have anxiety? So it's a very interesting relationship I have. I I almost wonder if like my vibe went in the opposite direction of my brain.

SPEAKER_03 55:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:50

It was like, I'm gonna get away from this as hard as I can. So I'm gonna but it's not something that I chose. Does it come from people just in general?

SPEAKER_04 55:58

Like, do you think it's that are you living up to what they want, or do you think you're not living up to what they want?

SPEAKER_01 56:02

Long long story short, um, trauma childhood trauma, like sexual trauma. My parents got together and then split up a bunch of times and got divorced. I was told the night before we moved out, my mom told me we're moving tomorrow. And this was my eighth grade summer going into high school, and then my brain kind of like flipped out. But I was already having panic attacks before that. I didn't know what anxiety was, just like you. It's like if you're never taught about it or told about it, like this is something I'm gonna do with my son. Like, hey, if you ever have weird thoughts or blah, blah, blah, blah, like that stuff's normal. Talk to dad, talk to mom. Like, I'm a safe person to talk to about that because, or if you feel like a weird way, like the paramedics think you're drunk. Yeah. If I was there, I would have been like, he could be having a panic attack right now. That would be one of the first things that I would think about.

SPEAKER_04 56:51

Well, I still have even in that moment and Laura can attest to this, even when I'm having that freak out, I still want them to like me. So I'm like, oh yeah, that's probably what I'm trying to like crack a joke with the paramedics while meanwhile I'm looking at her, like, I don't want to die today.

SPEAKER_01 57:03

Yeah, yeah. For me, I just like get gave up on the people pleasing.

SPEAKER_04 57:08

Oh no. I think when that happens, I may not might not need to do this anymore. Is that your superpower? Oh, I don't know. I don't know what it is. It's uh, but I do know that that's a little bit of the anxiety when I meet people because it's like I don't know. I I like I like like there are people that wouldn't go to these events, I want to meet. Like if we were to run into Ashley Gorley, and I think it would be I feel the same way. I think I overthink talking to people that I admire for the same reason where I'm like, I don't want to put them in that position of like, oh, this is uncomfortable because you have so much you want to say to me, and so little that theoretically you need to hear me say to you. And you know, if I were to meet Vince Gill, who you know, and I would like, please never introduce me, I'll have so many questions. And by the end of it, he'll be like, that was a long day.

SPEAKER_01 57:48

Oh, so you're just really curious.

SPEAKER_04 57:51

Yeah, I'm really curious. And so when I get around those people, I'm always like, it's hard for me not to be like, Can I ask you a question that has even when we do interviews with people, usually we'll do like the interview that everybody sees, and we call cut, and Laura knows that I'll do this. I'll always I'll have the most specifically random question to ask them about like a song from 2013 and one line in it, or like, how did you choose this mix on this song or something? And sometimes people appreciate it, and then sometimes people are like, Oh, you know too much. You're getting a little too close to the bone, you know what I mean? A little like a little going a little too deep here.

SPEAKER_01 58:23

Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_04 58:24

Yeah, yeah. You do a show where you're allowed to go deep, but we do a lot of really short things, so it's hard to like go off the deep end right away. Yeah. Kip is an exception, or like you and I both talked to Bear recently, Bear Reinhart. Yeah, he dives off the deep end with you right off the right out the gate, I feel. There are a lot of artists we meet where I I catch myself being like, Oh, I'm sorry, we should have we should have just walked into the pool together. I didn't realize.

SPEAKER_01 58:46

Yeah, one of the things I've realized is uh the la like some people will come with their team. And the team thing's a different dynamic. Like Bear doesn't care if people were here. Like Bear came on this podcast, MCA contacted me. He didn't even he met the day we did the podcast with the PR people at MCA for the first time.

SPEAKER_03 59:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 59:12

So he didn't even know them.

SPEAKER_03 59:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:13

And I felt like he didn't really care that they were even here. But there's some people that if they come with like help or management or anything, like there's like five people sitting in here. Yeah, they're a little more like, hmm, like they're looking over there.

SPEAKER_04 59:29

Like Please like pull me aside if I ever have that many people. If it's ever more than just me and Laura, just like pull me aside. Like, bro, what are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 59:35

No, I had one, I had one, I won't say who it was, but they uh they would just gave me PR answers. Oh yeah. And I can't that's what I hate, man. You hate PR answers? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:45

I hate non-answers. There's nothing worse than like because to me it's like I don't like talking points.

SPEAKER_01 59:50

See, that's the thing. And you like we went we're in different lanes because I feel like you're on the you're right where music's at. I don't listen to country music that much. And I live in Nashville and I end up talking with people that are heavily integrated into the business. Like uh Rusty Gaston's gonna be on the podcast soon from Sony. And they're more in country name than Rusty Gaston. I don't know. But he's like the the big baller uh over there, you know, like the head of publishing. And um like I don't know. To me, I just am disconnected from that world, but very connected at the same time. So I feel like I don't get starstruck or anything.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:34

It's really hard to starstruck me. Usually it's it's it the Starstruck only happens if somebody, even if they're lying, when somebody says something too nice to me that somebody I admire, sometimes that puts me on my heels. Like we met Cole Swindell last summer, and after we thankfully after we were done filming, he was like, I watch all your videos, man. I really like it. And I was like, That's crazy. Like that I can handle. But if he had said that before the interview, whole thing would have gone sideways. Because in my head, I would be like, he's gonna see this later. And I'm gonna I mean, it's is it gonna live up to that content? What is it? What do you like? What have you seen? Because we also make a lot of different stuff. So I'm like, what do you mean when you say I like what you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:09

All of a sudden you're curious. Yeah, then I'm like, Yeah, Jordan Davis told me that. He he's like, I discovered you on TikTok like before I ever started this. I used to be like, I'm gonna send the same song to five publishers and see what they say, and then I'd read the emails back, and they were all drama dramatically different, or drastically. See, this is where my brain doesn't work in interviews, they were drastically different, and then my point was it's all opinions. Yeah, it's everything's in opinion.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:37

It's like that classic Luke Combs story about playing was it one call away hurricane and something else, and the guy like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:43

And they're like, Yeah, BMI. They're gonna happen. Yeah, BMI.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:46

You know, they have like the artist like writer reps at like BMI. So I had a friend that had a rep there, and I went in and I was like very excited. I went in and it was kind of like this this person was like, Well, play me three songs, and I was like, Oh, cool, like I'm gonna play these three songs, and like they're gonna walk me into the best publishing thing, and they're gonna be like, This guy's great. Like, how could you not love this guy? Give him a publishing deal. So I played Hurricane, When It Rains, and One Number Away, which were my first three number ones. And they were like, Okay, here's the deal. You gotta get better at songwriting, you gotta write better songs, and you're never gonna be an artist. So that's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:31

I don't have anything with any uh anybody, really.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:35

I do think that I think we're gonna round it though. Like, our goal right now is I want to meet those A-list people and be in those rooms, but I also don't want to be there because they think, like, we started this conversation that I am that I I like you're a hoe? That we're a hoe, that we're an influencer who's I hate when people are like, every time I tell people what we do that don't know us, I almost always add, I don't dance. You know what I mean? Because they'll be like, What do you do? I'm like, Oh, I'm a music influencer, and they'll kind of give you that look that's like, All right, can you dance? Like, what's what's the thing? And I'm like, oh no, I I just kind of talk about things I like. And right now, the thing that I'm really love is country music, and I love trying to get people to care about it the way that I care about it. Yeah, it's not a very interesting answer, but it isn't what we do.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:18

That's there's a purity there.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:20

Yeah, I like to think so. Where does it come from? It comes from just like when I think of my childhood. Now we have a son who doesn't who hasn't gotten into music this the way that I did. My childhood was spent in front of a stereo making cassette tapes off the radio. Like me too, brother. And like just playing stuff on a loop. Laura works in radio, so she she brings that into the mix as well. But we will listen to a song. Yesterday we were sitting at the MCA lunch, and Jacob Hackworth, who they just signed not to promo a song here. This is an unpaid promo right now. Uh, Jacob Hackworth got on stage and played this song. And I remember, like, not even through the first verse, we looked at each other and we were just like, This kid is doing it. You know what I mean? Like, what it's one of those moments where you're just like, This is you're seeing the rocket ship take off. I don't even know if he is Jacob Hackworth. He's written a bunch of songs. I think he worked on a couple songs of the Morgan Wall and Record and a few Bailey Zimmerman songs. And he's got a song out today when we're recording this, but we watched his set and I was just like, that is, he's got it. He's got the thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:15

So do you feel like you could be the best, one of the best AR people in town?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:20

I don't know because the things that I'll I'll be like, this should be a number one. The problem is I could be an AR for songs, but not for artists. I think artists are such a harder thing to choose. Like I've met fantastic artists that didn't go anywhere, and I've we've met people who are I was like, Well, that was kind of a stiff interview, and then they go on to be like a megastar. Well, I guess it doesn't matter that they're a stiff interview. Yeah, it's kind of hard to tell in that aspect. There are people you meet where you're like, there's no, nothing's gonna stop this person. Like we say this about our pal Chase Matthew. I don't think there's anyone harder working in country music. He's never said no to a radio show or an industry event, or heck, I think I could call him and ask him to donate to a GoFundMe, and he'd probably send me$5. You know what I mean? He's just one of those guys who's willing to put in the work, gets up every day, and he has great songs. And then you go see him live, and like I get exhausted just like looking at his day sheet, like what he has to do in a day. And he does that every single day and he doesn't ask for anything. And it's like that kid's gonna be a star. Even if people don't want to play the song, by the time they meet him and get to the end of that meeting, they're gonna spin the song. It's just one of those things. Or like I remember when Tucker Wetmore did CMA Fest the first year, we didn't get a chance to do an interview with him, but we were waiting, we were somewhere in the back halls of CMA Fest, and we saw him sitting on a bench and we walked up, and he had done the whole litany of press all day. And I was like, I hate to interrupt you, but I just wanted to say, like, we we it's happening. Like, I remember saying this to him very specifically. I was like, I've been watching what you're doing, and I'm sure everyone else is saying this to you right now, but it's gonna happen. And he like gave us a really genuine response and seemed really thankful in the moment. And like, there's nothing better than that again to tell somebody like the thing that you've been dreaming of your whole life is like it's right here. And maybe you don't see it yet, or maybe you think it's happen but like standing on our side we get the we get the joy of seeing somebody right before they go over that cusp and being like oh this is a moment and getting to kind of celebrate in that journey with an artist is really a rewarding thing for us you know chase was somebody that we promoted before we even did country minute when I was an alternative I was starting to get into country and now when we celebrate things with him it's like we've gone on this five year journey of watching this guy do this thing and it's beautiful and uh it's emotional in some ways to think of all that time. But then also I'm like I don't know did we play a part in that did we not or were we just a good hang as Nash is so built on sometimes which is I'm sure you might be this way I am not a good hang generally speaking so when somebody does welcome us into the circle let's define good hang. Well it's okay. I well here's a great example of a good hang today is New Faces at CRS which is like this big industry event where radio picks the six people that they're gonna focus on next year. They play a concert this year it's like Ella Langley Chase is one of them Kelsey Hart Megan Patrick Josh Ross and I'm forgetting the other one so forgive me.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:02

The only one I know out of that list is Ella.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:04

Well she's and she's huge right so they're gonna do this show tonight. It ends at 10 p.m we've been invited to the after party chase who I just have I've explained as one of our best friends is at this after party and all day long Laura has been like we're gonna go to this after party and my I have no desire. Not because I don't love him not because it's just it's not all week long she's we've done this. Being a good hang at this afternoon just being seen and schmoozing a little bit but also just even being in the room where the schmoozing is happening I have no I'm really bad at it. I'm not I'm not a an approach a guy who approaches people usually and I again as I think I've made it clear that being approached is usually pretty awkward for me. So unless like there's a mission to like the hang, you know what I mean? I'm a I'm a very driven person. So like if if it's like so and so is going to be at this event and if we go we might get to talk to them not to like advance our career necessarily but just to be like I want to say hi to this person or I want them to know I appreciate them because a lot of this week I've been running into like other content creators and being like I really love what you're doing and just like giving them that speeches and stuff. Is CRS is CRS still going on today?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:10

Yeah 18 we left we did I still get my press pass no I think press wrapped at noon today.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:18

We did an interview at 1140 with Grayland James we did an interview with the CEO of Tiny Vinyl this afternoon and then we came here. But then we we might end up going back later to do this thing but when I talk about good hang everyone I've I have friends that have moved here like I said we chose not to and everyone that I have that have moved here has some crazy thing happen to them and the story is always like at a bar at a bar or like so last week I met this girl who works in marketing for this company and then this A-list artist needed a social media person and I got the job and you're like what do you mean what do you mean it's like yeah they didn't even know that I did XYZ thing that I do they just asked me if I wanted to do the job and they're like that's not when you live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that doesn't happen in country music. You got to really fight for those things. So the idea of being a good hang is really hard for me because when people come to town it's like we try to do all the stuff before the show I never want to like because if somebody's like can we do it after the show I'm always like oh my God it's a whole thing for me. So for me that's the good hang element is just being in the room. And I and I try not to read into it. I'm a uh extrovert and introvert so I can like put it on hardcore you can just turn it on I yeah I get energized actually really yeah a little bit sometimes I try my thing is like I try not to read into it if we do the hang and then we don't get invited to the next hang it's really hard for me. So like I'll I'll really like circle on that. Sometimes it's just like you also have to understand where you are in country music. Like right now we might be able to help XYZ but in six months they might we when they come back through or whatever they might not see us as being so conducive. And if we you know if we don't have that predetermined relationship of kind of being friendly we just might not interact again and that's been a that's a thing you got to learn to let go of it's like I tell Laura all the time um I have to remind myself I might print it out from my office that scene in Almost Famous where he's just like they are not your friends I've had to learn that lesson a thousand times dude do you do so here's my question.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:06

I've asked it before and I'll ask it to you outside of Chase and maybe a couple people do you think there are friends in the music business?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:16

I think there are friends in the music business as long as you believe in each other. I don't feel like there's it transactional not all the time I do think that there are people who it it depends on how you want to see transactional. I mean I don't think that it's transactional directly in the classic sense but I do think that if you are a good person or a good hanger in some instances and people like you, it can be beneficial in that your name will be spoken in rooms where you're not in. And for people like us who are not here in those rooms that can be the difference between keeping doing this or not. You know what I mean? But how you get somebody to do that for you, I don't think can be as transactional as like especially for us because I have nothing to offer somebody to in a position to do that for me other than like them thinking that we're interesting in some way. So I don't find it that way but I do think that those relationships are so important and I try to not chase them as much as I want to like our relationship we met online I think we hopped on the phone we just kind of became friends randomly from afar and that that wasn't transactional at all.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:24

I don't even know how that happened but it's folks like you that aren't on the um like label side I feel like when it gets into the business side things are very transactional. That's been my experience and I heard Stephen Bartlett on diary of a CEO talk about I'm not gonna interview someone I don't want to talk to and it was something that he decided when he started the podcast and I realized to advance the podcast and be able to grow and get more guests I've had people on that were transactional in the sense that I'm not necessarily interested as much as I am wanting to foster the relationship with this company this PR firm this label so that way I can get people that I would like to talk to. And that's a little bit of a tightrope I gotta walk, you know but one of the things now I feel like is that I'd I'd much rather sit across from someone that I'm legitimately interested in talking to like you than someone that I'm not interested in talking more to.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:42

Um I was just thinking Tucker Wetmore that's how you say his name Wetmore yeah like I wouldn't want to talk to him because I have nothing to ask him that's fair which is and that's not a jab or anything. And again I don't listen to a lot of music in the format but I listen to the songs my friends wrote like Joy Beth Taylor is one of the first people I wrote music with when I moved to town and she wrote Weren't for the Wind and She's in Texas. And when I first heard She's in Texas I remember I called her and she was about to give birth and I left her a voicemail and I was like hey I just heard this song and or I left her a voice message and um it's gonna be a number one and she's like they're not even going to radio with it yet like I don't even know if it's gonna be a single and I was like oh yeah it's going to be I could just tell like I think I'd be a killer AR person personally. But anyway I um it was an interesting thing where it's like those are the like Ella's career I follow because Joy Beth's yeah like involvement in that and like this guy Johnny Clausen who's a writer and I think on the writer side or on the like maybe we call them artists but what they really are performers because everyone's an artist. What you're doing is a form of art songwriters what they are doing is a form of art being in radio is a form of art. So it's all art the performers are the ones on stage so I guess I have less of an interest in some of that stuff sometimes um just because I'm more interested in like you know the audience out there likes to hear from artists but my audience really what they need they need to be mentored by people that can help them along on the journey and sometimes it's not the person that's climbed the mountain and gotten to the top sometimes it's the person that's climbing like you I'd say that I say that's true. And and I have some questions I want to ask you because if someone's made it this far into the interview we can give them like secrets and peel back the curtain a little bit. Because I had asked you about uh how many times you post per day. You talked about seeding you talked about SEO search engine optimization for those that don't know yeah and um those are all really important characteristics of a career in in like this space the space and media in the attention economy and the fact that your content can now be seen by I mean Gary V always talks about it but it's like you could start a new account and be Isaac from Idaho and post a pick post a video on a brand new account and get millions of views. Or you could have a channel like you have that you've been fostering for what five yeah three or four years now I think four almost four yeah four years uh and do the same thing and not get the result you know it's like a very interesting thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:46

We had a video not do a thousand views on TikTok this week and we have you know a quarter of a million followers just happens. Yeah because your followers aren't seeing it as much as it's like no so what are what are some of the things that you've taken away on the um social side that are like tips and tricks well I mean for us it's it's old school in a way but it is about that sense of fostering community and that seating content's kind of the tip of it. But it all goes into this bigger country ecosystem of what we love and I think maybe Kenny Chesney is the best example because I was when we got into this I liked I was never like a Kenny Chesney guy. My dad was my mom was I liked him and then we went to was it Atlanta? Yeah we went to Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta and saw him a couple years ago and we did the whole day so if you don't know you know he has fans they camp out up they do like the Grateful Dead thing they put up tents and they hang out. It's like 11 in the morning someone's offering us pineapple jello shots it's like a crazy thing right so we went and we talked to those people all morning then we went to the show and by the time we left it was like I'd been converted to the Church of Chesney for the rest of my life and I wanted so badly to figure out how I could as somebody who was on the outside and by the end of night this night was on the inside and obviously we're given access to the show and we have amazing seats and all everything goes as well as it possibly could when we go to a show usually I was like how do we capture this and bring it into things for people and so at the end of the day that's our goal. And for when I'm looking at content to me it's like how do I make other people feel like they're part of this thing that means so much to me or that I find very interesting or why is it that this thing is working. So it starts with like here's the Kenny Chesney show the big idea but then you can you can kind of niche down from there. So it's like today we interviewed Grayland James he wrote Happy Does for Kenny back in 2020. So that's like a that's an extension of this Kenny Chesney community. And we'll talk about the other guys who wrote for his songs or we'll talk about the sphere residency. And it's about not thinking about especially if you're gonna talk about things like music it's not about just the one release it's about looking at all the different pieces of how this thing works and then letting people into them because most people don't ever think about it and they find it fascinating and they want to be a part of it. And when it's especially when it's something that's hard to gain access to like Kenny Chesney who's doing what 12 shows this year, you have the ability to create a space online where everybody who likes this thing wants can be a part of it and it costs them nothing but their time. And that to me is like the most rewarding thing in the world and the thing that I'm always telling other people to do because that's what I want at the end of the day. It's cool if all the labels like us and the artists tell us they like our content. But when we are in the middle of nowhere somewhere and somebody's like I I watch everything you do, I know that they feel a part of something bigger than themselves. So I think you should always be thinking about how do I make people feel like they're a part of something. You know it's not that's a good framework. And it's true I struggle and this is something we're working on right now is like people didn't like I said people didn't always know that Laura was a part of it. We we are actively trying to do that and we try to make people understand me better because as you know trying to find sponsors and stuff people look at our content and they go well you talk about the news and it's like yeah but we're human beings. You know people like people could watch the news anywhere there there's there's something about us they like so we're trying to figure out how to integrate that but it's hard for me because I don't feel like talking about myself is is as much inviting into that communal aspect. So that's something that we struggle with. There are creators I think who do a really good job of where I feel like I know them before I meet them and I don't feel like that's the case with us.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:13

Yeah I think that you um have to I've thought about this a lot for myself I always post videos of the other person to try to highlight them and what they said. Because after all to me it's like if I'm asking you to come on or someone's an interviewee and I'm interviewing them I have the interest in them as does my audience. But at the same time there's part of me that's like I kind of want to build a brand as well at the same time because some of the guys that I listen to have done that really well and what they have to say I want to hear more than what the guest is going to say.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:54

Like I almost just want to hear them interviewed every week and hear about their lives and what the nitty gritty is, you know? Like that's just how I am. And I think for you Country Minute could easily transition to like your face being the thumbnail instead of that's actually the next step the logo.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:15

We picked the logo intentionally to separate ourselves but we've reached a point in in the AI apocalypse of life where people don't know that it's a real thing. Like people see boots which is the name of our mascot and we'll assume that it's like an AI channel or something or that we're just doing the content. And that's that's been a very recent thing and that's uh Laura congratulations to her again here she's the one who's like you should use your face.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:37

Yeah you should I felt like that ever since we first talked yeah I don't yeah it's hard for me. Yeah because then I'm and I also think and so here's another thing for me and my podcast because I'm niched into country music essentially being in Nashville right but that's kind of a narrow that's a small bucket and a big C. So then I have to ask myself to build a viable business I can't just be in this small bucket forever. I mean I could you could be you could be you could be the Bobby Bones but he I mean he's pretty connected outside of just country he's also on Dancing with the stars. Yeah he's he's a character beyond country he's a personality I don't even know what happened to Cody he was on CMT yeah shot he'll be fine he was on he'll be fine Cody Cody's got Sirius XM and uh other projects I love him he's great so the media landscape's changing and who's gonna influence country media is going to change but my interest goes beyond like we were talking about mental health I could talk about that all day yeah there's a lot of things where I just want to be able to equip people that I guess the through line's music well I think it's I think that's an emotional soft spot for everybody. Yeah the through line's music but everybody in music wants to be happier healthier you know human beings and they connect with the humanity of others so if I can say hey you know musician or hey executive like this is going to help you whoever you are if you're in the if you're in the music business or not this is going to be interesting because it's gonna help you as a human being being a better healthier happier human. We all want to be happier right absolutely so my thought is like I've got this thought I'm just curious what you think about it. Like we're just talking on the podcast and I want a bridge where it's like every while or every once in a while I have an episode where it's like that's not country music. But if you're a country music listener you like it you like it. Mm-hmm I mean that's do you think about that with your business?

SPEAKER_04 1:22:50

Absolutely well what I try to do is I think about like how do I introduce people to myself through the thing we're talking about in country music. So like I have a dream of interviewing Dirk Spentley because two albums ago he had a song called Walking Each Other Home. It's a Ramdoss quote and I'm a huge I have a Ramdoss tattoo on my arm. And he's kind of been like a big spiritual guide for me in a lot of my life and the idea I can't make a video on Country Minute that's like let's talk about how Ramdoss viewed the world. But if I can find a way to leverage lyricism or another artist's work and kind of foray into that Bear is great at this because he's a guy who has lived a lot of life and has the ability to like talk about faith and all these other things and how they weave into the stories he tells in his songs. So I try to use music as a launching pad to talk about those other things I find fascinating. You know, the idea of like is it I know that the road is fun and you're excited about the album and you're proud of the songs. I don't need none of those questions need to be asked. I want to know like I told you when I worked in alternative music it got to a point where we would be like how are you paying your health insurance right now? Because we know none of us are going to be able to keep doing this for the next five years you know things like that. So I for me I think the best way to build express that part of myself is by kind of like sharing it through the interview process of being like well here's the thing I I've always found interesting how does that work into what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:24:09

That's smart.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:10

Yeah so when we get to Dirk's Bentley and I bring up Ram Doss don't act surprised it's he would probably enjoy that question. I actually had the dream of giving him a an original copy of that of Ram Doss's book because it means that song means so much to both of us and like that that really changed my life when I needed it.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:29

Dude um it's interesting because Dirks opened for Kenny Chesney and Charlie was telling me on the in on the podcast about how Dirks has basically learned how to be the best touring healthy band and they had a person whose whole job on tour is uh quality life management. No that's a that's a gig yeah but to literally keep morale up that's amazing for the band and the crew like to do things to make them feel appreciated and special and um that was all because Dirks was mentored by Kenny Chesney and Kenny Chesney was like apparently the father of treating people well on tour which I thought was really cool and really interesting gave me a lot of respect for Dirks.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:17

I we lean on those people when we make our decisions like I said we don't live in Nashville that was not a decision we made lately we spent probably a calendar year every single time we met an artist we'd kind of bring it up and be like should we move to Nashville people would ask us when you move into Nashville and I remember somebody said you don't need to 10 years ago you should have now you don't have to but things like that we use as guideposts Kenny Chesney and Dirks and those guys like I remember a few years ago Dirks left Nashville and he moved out to Colorado I think he's back now. But I remember he did an interview where he was like I this is what I need to get out of Nashville for a few years. And those kind of big moves where you're prioritizing yourself is what the path I want to follow. Because I see a guy like that or Kenny Kenny Chesney's we're gonna be talking about Kenny Chesney when we're 80 and he's however old Kenny Chesney is at that point because he'll probably still be alive because he's the healthiest man in country music. And that's like that's the path I want to follow this other thing where you're just 200 shows a year and stuff I can't that's not I'm not built for that clearly based on all the other stories I've told you in this conversation. So I'm always aspiring to find a way to do those things. I find those guys very inspirational.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:17

I think those 200 show guys try to boil it down to like 64 or 50 and then to 30.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:24

I've never met someone happier than when they are like I'm playing 35 shows this year but we're making as much as we made last year playing 100 and you're like well that's the dream. 100% that's the only you want to do or like those guys the the legacy acts like Sawyer Brown we met Exile last year. Those guys are getting up there and they play like maybe 20 shows a year and they're all relatively easy to get to and stuff and that's that's like Morgan Stadium stuff. Yeah that's the reverse almost but in the same simplicity where it's like how do I do the most with the least yeah we're at a point now where we're almost at we're right now we are in a how how when do we say no position which is a lot different where it's like how do we push it as far up to the hinges like I said with this anxiety stuff I've been going to the gym I do have the medication I'm doing all the things because we have all this stuff coming up and it's like we we have to make it work this year so that maybe next year we can up the rate and do a little bit less. We did a little bit this year we changed things a little bit but we have friends like raised rowdy who've been doing something similar for a while and we lean on them to be like how do you do this productively because shooting from the hip from the world of alternative I come from a world of like I can sleep on your couch that's enough payment for the night I've had to learn to like work in the country especially when you have a kid like kids change everything in your priorities too. Yeah we this is the last summer that we'll do this many dates we've already talked about that for the same reason because we have a son you know I said between June and July we're gonna be on the road probably 30 days.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:49

That's just that's that's summer that's a chunk man. Dude so here's my question how many times have you guys through your journey just experienced extras existential dread and That you're like, what am I doing? Why am I doing this?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:03

How often I was quit with that.

unknown 1:28:05

Every day?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:06

Every day. Laura would tell you every day. Constantly.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:12

Laura's just saying how you're James, you're in your own lane.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:17

And you are in your head about it. And what was and you said, how do you do it in the a good way?

unknown 1:28:24

Like how do we sustain this?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:25

How is it sustainable? Exactly. That's the question. Because the fear is that what's the fear? It goes away. It goes away.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:32

To me, it's as easy as tomorrow it's as easy as okay. So like last year we did really well on TikTok. I can tell you this much, because I don't like always get into the numbers. But last year, TikTok probably accounted for about 50% of our income. And the rest of it is brand deals, festivals, and a very, very small portion comes from Meta. Um, so if TikTok were to go away this year, because like it, like you said earlier, this year it kind of felt like it would for a day, or like it's just down right now, it's just performing poorly.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:54

So every time I post something, they want me to buy pay to promote it.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:58

Exactly. So we have to have a serious conversation that's like, all right, so if we don't get X amount from TikTok this year, what are we gonna do to supplement that? Because you know, a lot of the festival money comes and goes, it's like going on tour. You're not, you don't see any of that money really until after we play the festival. And by then we've already spent it, and then some probably. So it's it's a matter of like, what are we gonna do to sustain it? And so when we come to Matt, and it's it's weird because we are in such a specific lane. Like this week, we've been talking to people, trying to pitch ideas and stuff, and people, everyone's really excited. People will tell you, I'm really excited to find out what you guys do next. But it's like this non-answer where they're like, I don't have any idea. That's natural. When you figure it out though, I'm so gonna celebrate you. And it's like, thank you. I appreciate it. You know what I mean? It's like, but I I've already got this far. I need you to help me go the next 10 feet, and they're like, Well, no one's ever made it this far, so I don't know what the next 10 feet are. And that's that's a fair, it's a good problem to have, but it is one that, like, so if it's a Tuesday and we're in Grand Rapids, Michigan, there's no shows going on, there's no news, and the last three videos have tanked. It is definitely like Laura gets very frustrated, and she should, because I am a wreck of like, it's over today. Today's the day. So you let there was a call in Nashville, and they were like, you know what?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:14

Not anymore. So so you let it affect you on uh identity level.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:20

100%. I don't I think if I said anything else, it'd be a lie. I try not to, but it is hard not to be because it is to me, it's like it is my face, you know. I am the hardest. Are you doing therapy? Yeah, I do a little bit of therapy. I need to do more. I need to go five.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:34

I do it every Monday.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:36

Every Monday.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:37

On telehealth. Telehealth, yeah. So talk space is the name of the the uh talkspace is great. My chick's great, and she does EMDR. But all that to say, I think that that I've done so much therapy.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:50

Not only do I a people pleaser, when we leave it, it could go so when we leave this, I can promise you, we'll sit in the car. We won't even be out of Springfield, Tennessee, not to spoil where we are. And I'll probably look at Laura and be like, was that good? Or like, did he like me? And she'll be like, obviously he liked you. You were there for two hours, and I'll be like, I don't know. So send you a text and I'll be like, You'll you'll know because like I did this today. We got an interview with the artist we I'd been trying to chase for a long time. And I sent him this, I per I purposely sent a text to his publicist that was like, You don't know how much of this, like I'm overly grateful because I'm always not expecting anything, and especially not to be liked, even if they give us the opportunity and it goes well. As soon as they leave, I'm like, Well, that was the last time we're gonna hang out with that person today. And she's like, they high-fived you and gave you their phone number. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm never gonna come. I'm the same way, dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:37

I had a meeting recently, and I thought it was the best meeting of my life, and then I got ghosted. Oh, I've had two of those. That's my fear. That's my fear. I've had two of those. I've had one, I had this recent one, and I was so excited that day after that meeting because I was just so like this was like we connected, we're on the same page, and then uh had another one with someone at a label, and it went so well, they were like, we gotta come and introduce you to the head of the label, and you guys need to talk about it. So to me, I was like, I got my one hour, I need to pitch this thing like I'm on Shark Tank because I have one chance to sit with this person, I may never talk to them again.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:19

And then after that, like I painted the vision, the picture, the monetization structure, everything, projections, and then never heard back anything, and it was because I was too eager.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:31

Yeah, that's probably me a lot of the times.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:33

But what I learned, what I learned is like it's the controlling the results thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:41

And I think for you, dude, I feel like um I just want to give you a piece of advice that I'm gonna give other people too. I feel like a lot of times we undervalue ourselves, especially when we have a negative core belief of not being good enough, or a fear of failure.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:01

I think that you have a big fear of failure. That might be your biggest negative belief that you're a failure. Maybe. Yeah. Or not good enough, because if you're attaching your identity to what you're doing, then you're in for a rough one. But hey, it's gotten you this far, so you don't have to listen to what I say. But I think that the big thing is like realizing and this is something I'm working on, but it's like one your value is not predicated on what you do, it's who you are. Which is a very hard pill to swallow. But it's like, do you love your two-year-old because of what your two re two-year-old can do? No. No, I see what you're saying. Why do you love it's an unconditional thing, you know how that is. It's automatic, right? They didn't do anything to earn love. No. No, other than exist. It's other than that.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:59

It would feel dirty to feel any other way towards you know, you have a toddler. It's it's weird. Even when they're the worst day in the world, you get into bed and you're like, wow, what a blessing that was to experience.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:10

So my my view is that's how God views us. Ooh. And my view is that's how my wife views me.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:19

All right, all right. We're gonna make the waterworks come out of me at this point.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:23

No, I'm for real though, man. And I think that um the I get the dude, I was so hungry and so people pleasy-ish for I mean so much of my life, because I started coming here 13 years ago. And uh I took everything that everyone said as gospel, and I thought I needed to be liked by everybody, and anytime I was rejected, it was like I just a bullet in the freaking back of the head, like a stab in the back, whatever you call that. Execution style, bro. And I was just like devastated all that to say that I learned if someone says no, then it's good because it was it means that wasn't meant to be, that wasn't the right thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:15

You know, like, oh, I as a no, that means it wasn't the right thing. So almost I almost pray I heard this in a co-write, but this guy was like, I pray that God'll close the right doors instead of open the right doors. I pray that they'll close the right doors. And I thought that was cool, man, and that's how I started to pray, and doors started to close, and then it starts to make things more clear. Yeah, less options are almost better sometimes. Yeah, and then the other thing was limiting your access that people have to you.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:45

Yeah, with we've had that conversation this week quite a bit, actually.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:49

Because the more limited Rolex is killing it doing this, by the way. They have enough watches that could carry them in all their stores, and they don't. They put you get on a list and it's very exclusive. Apple does it well in their marketing, they put a few iPhones on one huge table, but uh, because there's only a few, there's scarcity and there's exclusivity. And if you allow yourself to be available and open to everyone all the time, they're not going to think that you are valuable like they would if you made yourself unavailable.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:26

I have a feeling Laura might play this voice memo back to me later and be saying this frame. Swift frame just a step in underneath it.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:34

Nah, I'm just that's the vibe I'm getting from you.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:36

Like, no, I mean that's you're I mean, you're nailing me to the wall right here. It's not, I mean, you're not wrong. It is, it is a thing, but it's also like coming from a world where, like I said, it's the underdog thing. So now to be in a position where people want your attention, it's also it's it's a weird thing. It's like being kicked your whole life, and then someone wants to hug you, and there's that apprehension of like, but nothing's better than the power to be able to say no. I'm not good at that. No's my worst. I'm working on no. Like I said, we're getting I and it's funny because it's been a question I've been asking people a lot. I I realize that in my interviews, I often will ask people questions that are somehow related to what I'm trying to figure out myself. So for a lot of like we've been talking to people like Zach John King, who's an up-and-coming country artist that is feels like he's on every tour this year and is just doing so much. And I I'll ask him, like, have you had to say no yet? Or how do you say no? My favorite answer, someone recently told us, Well, I don't have to say no. I got people who say no for me. And I was like, Well, I don't, I mean, I guess I could ask Laura to say no for me, but that doesn't solve my problem.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:33

Or just like uh get a surname and hire a third person named Sarah. Yeah, and Sarah can start doing all our fake manager, like assistant, some of us executive assistant.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:43

Some of us creators have are also our managers under surnames, so there are people who work that way for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:48

Yeah, it's how Priscilla Block said she booked all her gigs.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:52

That's smart. That's smart. My my we have a guy that helps us with all of our stuff, and he he does the same thing for some of his artists where he's like, I'm I'm more than one person in the back end of this band.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:01

And it's perception, yeah. It is it's that scarcity perception. Like, hey, there's a few walls you gotta go through to get to James.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:10

Yeah, no, I and that's something we're working on. We're trying to figure out how to do that efficiently because this week unexpectedly kind of made us have to start to think about some of these things. Because for so long, it's been like I'm used to being in a room and people like kind of looking at me across the room trying to figure out who I am, but we don't talk. And lately it's it's getting more and more where people are like, Oh, I I feel like I know you. And I'm like, Oh, I don't know you at all. And then there's that, you know, that like, oh, we gotta figure out how to bridge that or just pull it back. But still coming out of CRS, what's the thing you're most proud of? Honestly, most proud of for this week is just making it through the week. Honestly, because it's hard for me to do these kind of things. I like, I love it. I love talking to artists, I love talking to people, but I'm not a I'm not a people person. Like, I this I said on our drive here, I was like, this conversation is the finish line for this week for me, and then I can just not talk about myself or ask a question. Laura and I might not even have small talk on the drive back to Michigan. We'll just I'll just be like, when we just we'll listen to Florida, Georgia line because we're in that mode right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:12

Damn.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:13

And and my motivation music has been two chains all week. It's a weird dichotomy in our lives.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:17

I love that.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:18

Yeah, and uh, so we'll just listen to that. But to for honestly, to me, it's just it's being there and being seen and then feeling like I do feel pride when people that are in a position, obviously, acknowledge what you're doing because it feels like you're in a vacuum and you feel like you're just a thing people see when they're falling asleep or going to the bathroom. And if it resonates with them, I never expect it to. So when people do connect with it, it's like okay, so I'm doing something here. I still don't know what it is. I couldn't explain it to my mom if I tried. I I try all the time, but yeah, it's it's something's happening.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:50

It almost reveals itself. Yeah, it's like a song in songwriting, like the song almost reveals itself as it's being written. I feel like uh me starting this podcast was that way. Yeah, I didn't like start out with this huge vision and then it grew, and then like it just kind of like formed.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:10

Yeah. Can I tell your business like what we're dealing with right now? Okay, so like the other thing I'm really proud of is two weeks ago, Laura works in radio, but she uh was down downsized from her, she lost her role in radio two weeks ago. She's been doing it for like 20 years. So we've been trying to figure out what the next move is. If it's going all in on country minute, if it's moving somewhere for a new opportunity, if it's whatever it is. You've had these conversations.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:33

It's going all in on country minute.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:35

It's yeah, so but but we came to CRS this week almost being like, well, maybe we can find a rich daddy to like to like to like give us the security of going all in on country. Some BC to health insurance. We we know people who are able to make independent radio shows and sell them who have ended up taking full-time jobs because like health insurance, whatever the thing happens to be.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:59

So I think they're at Starbucks because they have great health insurance. Yes, and you get free coffee.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:04

Yes. I talked to someone this morning who I I see as a peer, and I was like, they have to be crushing it more than we are. And they were literally on a Zoom call for their day job. And I was like, oh, okay, so maybe we're just the only crazy ones doing this all in right now. But we went to CRS kind of with this mindset that, like, maybe we'll get into the room with like one of those five old men who control radio, and they'll they'll give us the king tap on the shoulder and say, It's finally your time. And we talked to, let's say, two or three of them, I would say, and every single one of them was like, really love what you're doing. That's like the you know, that's the whole thing. Someone told us today, they were like, they're never gonna help you unless they're incentivized to help you. You know, they have no, there it does not benefit them to give you a leg up.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:48

Like you said, by the time that they want to help you, you don't need their help.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:54

Yeah, so I think the lesson we walked away, like, if anything, this week reaffirmed that we need to like we get into this pattern where it's like, who's gonna save us if it doesn't work out? And this week we were like, maybe we could get a lifeboat and that would sustain country minute. And it was like, no, I think we have to figure out how to do it without we have to keep. Unfortunately, we did this the hard way, and I we have no choice but to keep doing it the hard way. That's what I did, dude. That's like you know exactly what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:17

But I own all my intellectual property, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:20

Someone said that to us. And I'm in control of what I do, terrifying and exciting in equal measure.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:26

And Haley and I really went all in on this, and uh it's been very difficult, but I don't think that anybody that ever did something that was like really great didn't have times where they were like, I don't know how I'm gonna pay this. Yeah. Which, you know, it's and that's I think it's part of the journey. Yeah, it's the refining process that creates in you the grit that you need to be able to run a business.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:52

Do you want to know why we decided to do this all in on the first place?

SPEAKER_01 1:42:54

I'll tell you, it was one more this I also you do you decided to go all in, right? Yeah, that's the easy decision. That's where we're at. Yeah, that's that's what we're doing. Yeah. No, I'm serious. Like you should still have this conversation all the drive years. You will be doubling your manpower in your company by having your wife on on board full time. And if you're willing to do it, that's amazing. So we're figuring that out, but it has been I mean, your output, everything that you're gonna be able to do, you're scalable.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:21

That's why we're at 30 posts this week because she's been home for the last two weeks, and most people didn't realize this. So all of a sudden stuff started to go a little faster for us for that reason. And that's good. It's just it is the you know, and it is like that. It it feels so cliche to be like that the dad of the small child who's like, how am I gonna figure it out? I gotta get in. I gotta get in shape, I gotta get over this heat thing that I'm dealing with.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:42

Yeah, you know, yeah, I mean, just eat it Chipotle instead of McDonald's.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:48

More hot sauce, yeah. I've been trying these approaches. Um, I almost wilted yesterday. It was like 67 degrees in natural. It was the hot first hot day we'd had all year, and I was like, I'm dying. This is terrible. Um, but going all in on this, it's exciting and it's scary. But like you said, it's it's how you make something that's really special. It's just, it's so weird because it feels like we're building something with clay and it's spinning, and I'm I'm moving my hands on it, and it's taking shape, but I still can't, you know, it's never gonna be finished, but it's like, what is the next evolution? Because it feels like we're in a mutation stage right now where like we're becoming the next thing, it's starting to take shape. What is it? And then how do we get there? You know, how do we make that thing happen?

SPEAKER_01 1:44:29

Which is doesn't have an answer, it's a rhetorical question. No, because all you do is show up every day, yeah. One day at a time, put one foot in front of the other.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:37

You meet someone new, you ask them eight questions, then we move on to the next. Yeah, it's like some things are not gonna change, but in my brain, it's like, no, we're gonna reinvent what we're doing. People are gonna be like, I've never seen this thing before. And people are already saying that. So I don't know why I feel the need to like, there's someone I'm trying to impress. I just not sure what it is yet. It's the inner younger you. Probably, probably. He'd be very surprised. I was in punk bands growing up, so he'd be like, What are we doing here, bro? Fucking job. Yeah, but like honestly, why we tried to do this full time was I when I lost that job two years ago, the night before, or three years ago now, the night before Laura and I drove down to see Morgan Wallen the opening night of his tour in Indianapolis, and his team had given us tickets. We did not deserve tickets, but they gave us tickets. And they put us in these seats where at some point in the show he walks through the stadium, which is an awesome moment. We didn't know it was gonna happen. But he walks through in such a way where he literally walks like into me. You can see it in her video. He knocks my phone out of my hand trying to give me a high five. That's how close we got. But we had this moment where we like made eye contact. And you know this because you've like artists have seen you on social media. You know, when you're in a room and someone looks at you and you they give you that glance, it's like, oh, you're that guy. Like you can see their brain trying to figure out how they know you. We had that expression. I'm I know it sounds crazy, but looking at him as he was walking towards me, there was this moment where he was like, Oh, it's that guy. And then he kept going. So we're driving back from Indianapolis the next day, and I get a call from my coworker who's at the job, and she's like, So we just had this all hands-on meeting, and I think we're all getting fired today. And I was like, What? And I'm sitting in the car. I'm meanwhile, I'm wearing a Morgan Wallen sweatshirt. I'm like sitting in the car, like we're reliving this amazing night we just had. They had no reason to give us this opportunity. And as he was walking by, obviously he says hi to a lot of fans, but it was like one of those moments where it felt like it all fell into place for the first time. And when we left, we I was just like, I was so radiating with it, and I've carried it this entire time. I still think about it sometimes. When I'm having a bad day, I'm like, well, at least I dapped Morgan Wallen that one time, and he like we they know we exist, and that somehow keeps me going. But those little moments really add up and make it feel like it's worth to continue trying to do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:01

Mad respect.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:02

Four years in? Four years in, I think now, almost in August. Four years in August. It's like it's like August 18th, I think, is when I made that Ashley Gorley video. And the first one did like, I think the first video did like 300,000 views. And Laura was already like a TikTok, like playing on TikTok. I had never posted a TikTok before this video. I had always been off the platform. I had talked about it because I used to work as like a marketing guy in music, but she was making videos and she was like, just do it. Don't expect much. And I remember I posted it and she was like, How's it doing? And I remember being like, I think it's at like 100K. And I remember the madness of like, what? It doesn't happen like this all the time. And then here we are right now, where it's like, well, it still doesn't happen like that all the time, but some days it does.

SPEAKER_01 1:47:41

Yeah, that's amazing, man. What would be your advice to yourself? What would you say to yourself five years from now, looking back at you currently?

SPEAKER_04 1:47:49

Man, five years from now, try to enjoy it more. I think that's my hardest thing is like I'm always at the end of the thing that we're doing in my head. You know, if we we're gonna, I've been counting down the days to this. I hate to keep bringing out Morgan Walton, but he is like my favorite artist. Uh, we've been counting down the days. I love more Morgan Wallen.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:08

It's funny.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:09

Yeah, it's just it feels like it also feels like I'm just talking about the most popular thing in the world, but I do love Morgan.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:13

There's a reason he's popular.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:14

So I mean, that's fair. So we're going to Minneapolis in a few weeks. And in my phone right now, there's a list of pieces of content we need to make. And in my head, there's other things that we need to do. And I have like the show itself, I'm as excited as anyone who's going is going to be. But I have a really hard time being in that present moment. That's why I have the Ram Das quote, say it until you can hear it. It's a reference to grounding. Where am I here? When is it now? All that trying to stay here. So I guess take this to heart. You didn't get this on your arm for nothing. You're trying, you're trying to teach yourself a lesson. And all these years later, you still haven't learned it. But hopefully, five years from now, 10 years from now, we're in a place where we're just appreciating the moment as it happens rather than like so many of our country minute viewers experiencing it through the clips that I create while we're doing it. You know, there's there's some real magic to being present in the moment and like know that it's happening. There's nothing more beautiful than like when we're on the street talking to a fan and it's going well because man on the street is really hard. But you start talking to a person and you can tell that they've waited their entire lives to be asked a question about whoever it is that we're talking about that day. And trying to just lock in and that human connection. Because that's what I think we're trying to do with Country Minute. We're trying to build this big community hub where people feel connected to something. And I'm a person who struggles, even as a people pleaser, feeling connected to this thing. So my advice to myself is just to live it, be it, be in it for a minute, you know, sit with it, sit with how uncomfortable you are right now, not knowing what we're gonna do in September of this year.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:46

And uh that's the humanity that connects with people. The mistakes I make reading things on there, I'll leave them in there because it's human. And the conversation we're having is human, and it's something that people can relate to. to and I think the humanity aspect as you say looking back and being proud and uh being in the moment is very important and um it's a piece of advice I try to give myself and I'm terrible at listening to it because my brain's like yours I'm a thousand steps ahead of where I need to be and what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:21

But at least you talk at a pace where it makes me be present.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:24

That's good.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:25

I talk too fast and people are like wait what did you say? Uh you you speak at a speed where I it force is present and that's something I'm trying to work on.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:31

I've been told this talk faster.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:33

Oh maybe if we meet in the middle I feel like I couldn't do your you could do my interviews I could not interview the way you interview so this has been a very big treat for me for that reason. Really? Oh yeah I can ask questions that are this deep but they come out at about 200 miles per hour and people are always just like wait what I'm not ready to get that you know it just doesn't go that way but we also talk to different types of people so it's just how it goes sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:56

Yes. Well I think it's the skill to be able to talk fast. That's just I just am in the certain gear and that's just my thing and I'm like I'm sticking with it. I'm just gonna be me.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:05

Well Laura calls me on this all the time and it's hard I was trying to explain it to her yesterday. I will form the question before you're done answering the thing that I was saying. Like I know what I'm gonna say to you next. And then if you say something that forces me to rethink that oh the whole conversation's gonna go sideways on me. So I almost have to like force you on the tracks of the thing that I'm trying to do which is a little bit selfish and a little bit full of myself in that respect. But I'm like no no no no we're trying to get to this we're trying to get to this point on the map. Sometimes I try to relax and let it go where it wants to go.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:32

Yeah that's what I've learned is the best interviewing I I remember one of my first interviews I had this list of questions and I was 20 minutes into it and I had gone through all of them and I had this like speak of like panic attack like I was like what am I gonna do? This was like my second or third interview ever it's with this guy Rob Floyd he's on uh Bar Rescue and he does all the cocktails for Princess Cruise line and did uh alcohol whipped cream with Cardi B. Like this is like he's an awesome guy Rob Floyd but I was at a point where I was like I'll interview anybody about anything and he was awesome and he's a homie. But uh I remember letting go of worrying about the questions and just starting to talk and it was like and the conversation was like ten times better. Yeah I didn't have an agenda and I was actively listening and then responding and letting there be I guess space or silence or letting it breathe.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:42

Yeah that's how the big stars go small stars you have to be a little bit more on the rails but like a new artist you kind of have to kind of hit the beats but if we're meeting somebody that we really like usually there's maybe one or two kind of what I call a fan question I want to ask them and everything else is like let's just feel out by the first two questions I can tell whether or not we're gonna gel in like a I can just shoot the crap with you or if it's gonna or if it's like oh no I need to ask you about the single and then like the radio and the tour and the so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:12

Well that's good advice man so here's my next piece or my my last question as we wrap up. All right appreciate you coming all this way man. No worries um you do a lot you're doing a lot I'm stoked for you two to work together as a couple uh next time she'll be here too yeah I need I need to get a better setup that'll accommodate two people um I only got two inputs on my my little H5 right there I'll hook you back I I'll tell you what we use okay setup if I have to buy it I can't welcome to running welcome to going all in I'll bring it down with us I'll bring up a different board but we'll we'll sit back together in a few years when we're we're both flying private and then we'll have this conversation again and see what you know compare the today's podcast to you know maybe like 2030 and see what you know so what's the last question 2031.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:11

Uh if you had one piece of advice to leave with the world and it was like you were going to go away your work was going to go away but this piece of advice was going to stick with the world man I think I'm just gonna stick with being present you know when I talk to people about the things that inspire me the most uh it's usually Ramdas or Thoreau. I'm a big Thoreau guy. I think I've read I think I've read everything Thoreau has written at this point. But he has this big quote that I always like to talk about where he says uh you know he he he loved being in nature but what made him sad was the idea that he never got to see a complete nature. Like but he has this quote where he's like is it not the lands that we look at have been harvested by generations of people and all these animals are missing and it ends with I wish to know a complete heaven and a complete earth I want to see it all. I want to see the mammoth I want to see the dinosaurs and I think that's really just a quote about being present. You know everything is slipping away all the time. Things are going away and what we have now is just a fraction of what generations before us had. And you need to really take it in because it is such a finite thing this existence. And whether or not you're doing what we're doing or you're just somebody that loves country music and likes to go to concerts every now and then or if you work any job we have a friend that gets up at 5 a.m and stacks at Aldi's every day there is a beauty in the work and there's a beauty in the moment and there is a beauty in just about everything on this planet. And if you find something that doesn't feel like it's a beautiful thing or if it doesn't feel like it's for you try to have the knowledge that it's probably bringing joy or beauty to somebody else on this planet. And that alone makes it worthy. And so my advice is just to kind of try to appreciate that be present and see the beauty in all things. And I struggle with that too but like as a c as a music person nothing drives me more crazy than when somebody's like that's not country or that's not good because I'm like I've met people where the thing you think isn't good is the reason they're here today. And that's something I try to keep in mind we're all just trying to figure it out. So be present love everyone love everything and see the beauty in the chaos said. Thanks ladies and gentlemen James Shot I made it I made it of country minute wait before you're done I have to tell you Stefan this is my favorite podcast I've said that like six times on the car ride over here today Laura was like why are you nervous? You've done podcasts I was like I haven't talked to him though I don't know why this is a good version of like he's talked to people who definitely know what they're talking about. I don't know what I'm talking about. But you my friend are incredibly gifted at this and as a guy who has been making content since 2007 and before that was in bands and watching people make art I like to think that I know when somebody is doing the thing that they're supposed to be doing and I don't know that you could do anything else as well as I think you do this. And that's not anything against your other skills. I'm sure you're great at something else. But buddy I feel like when I watch you do this it's like it's like watching Michael Jordan play basketball. It's like there's nothing else he could be doing right now. Hopefully you don't love baseball too because it's not going to work out as a guy is 37 I don't mean to embarrass you and I know it's your show but I generally tell anytime somebody asks us like what podcast should we try to get somebody on or who should we look at, I talk about you because I'm like he makes something that I want to do. And I know that I you make a thing that I don't know how to make not because I can't make a podcast but because you have a type of conversation so you bring something out of people that I envy and envy and seeing without being like mad at you for it most of the time. Sometimes I'm like all this dude's talking to this person about this I I bumbled a question in front of Kip Moore and I was like Stefan didn't bumble a question in front of Kit Moore.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:52

And it was in the middle of the interview if you watch the clip I'm like I can seem to be like oh I can't believe I just did this dude it's all right thank you man had to give you your flowers I'm sure everyone does but no they don't in fact I I like flowers and I was thinking about why don't dudes get flowers. It's a thing for real though man thank you. Of course it feels good to hear that because a lot of the time like you said you don't know who's hearing it or what that's being consumed what they think about it. Am I making an impact? And there's times where people send me a message that are appreciative but it doesn't happen all the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:37

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:37

Because most of us don't take the time out of our day to send a DM to someone so it's like the thing with you experiencing that Morgan I'm thing like he's like I know this guy. Yeah it's just a pillar so it's like kind of cool the to hear you say that you recommend the podcast. Dude yeah that to me is a win man because I I stand on two pillars which is one make a friend like at the end of this I just want to have made a friend yeah and then two technically yes and the other one is uh if it produces fruit for one person it was worth it. Oh yeah and I always just gotta keep that one person in mind. What's your favorite fruit I'm not gonna answer your questions see