#3 - Shane McAnally

This episode is chaos in the best way. On Wait. What?! With Aimee Mayo, Grammy-winning hit songwriter and producer Shane McAnally pulls back the curtain on the music industry, fame, family, and the weirdest moments you cannot make up.

From producing Dolly Parton to a completely unhinged Oprah encounter, to kids accidentally outing their dads, to Hollywood, Broadway, Nashville songwriting, and addiction recovery, this conversation is funny, dark, brutally honest, and wildly entertaining.

Shane has written and produced over 50 number one hits for artists like Kacey Musgraves, Sam Hunt, Kenny Chesney, Miranda Lambert, and LeAnn Womack, and created the hit Broadway musical Shucked. But behind the success is anxiety, imposter syndrome, creative fear, and the constant pressure of “what if it never happens again.”

They talk songwriting, country music, celebrity stories, stand-up comedy, parenting, marriage, manifestation, rejection, and what it really takes to survive a creative life.

If you like Theo Von, Call Her Daddy, Joe Rogan style interviews, country music stories, Nashville songwriting, celebrity interviews, comedy podcasts, and raw, unfiltered conversations, this episode will hook you fast.

Shane's Socials: 
https://www.instagram.com/shanemcanally/

https://www.facebook.com/shanemcanallysongs

Transcript

Cold Open And Guest Welcome

SPEAKER_06 0:00

I mean, that sounds insane. I'm producing dolly parts.

SPEAKER_01 0:02

And I learned it's a trigger word for a soccer. The word you start throwing destiny around.

SPEAKER_06 0:08

And they said, Where's your mom? And he goes, she died.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Stop!

SPEAKER_06 0:17

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

What do your kids think about your career?

SPEAKER_06 0:20

Nothing.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

I saw them all over and gale in the mirror, and I just stopped walking and went flying off the tremendous. You didn't run in front of them.

SPEAKER_06 0:32

Yeah, you dance again.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

I'm so excited about my yes today, shunning my family. He has written and produced over 50 hit songs. He wrote a musical called Shugs that's probably my favorite musical I've ever seen. He has won Emmys. He's got four Grammys. He is just such a great storyteller. And I think everybody will love this episode. I had so much fun today with Shane McAnally. We'll talk a little bit about it, but you've done so much stuff. It's hard to even, I need a poster board to even. No, I mean, seriously, like you, you've kind of done a little bit of everything.

SPEAKER_06 1:38

If it's any constellation, I am tired.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Well, I mean, like, I don't know. That's one major thing that I want. I just feel like you live your life right. Like, I want to learn from you.

SPEAKER_06 1:48

I feel like that about you.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

You do.

SPEAKER_06 1:49

Like it's just dream it and do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

I mean, yeah, that part of it I got. I mean, I I'm a dreamer. Yeah, I know you are. And I try to manifest. I'll tell you what I do know. You've produced and written over 50 number ones. I mean, that right there. And then you have my favorite publishing company in Nashville. And then you um did a musical. Like you did a whole musical, like Broadway.

SPEAKER_06 2:16

That's insane. I think it's just

The Long Game In Creativity

SPEAKER_06 2:19

saying yes to things.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Yeah, but you worked really hard on that. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, for sure.

SPEAKER_06 2:24

I I look back on over the over these things and between the publishing company and labels and and the hits. It's so strange because I feel like I spent so much of my life worried that nothing was happening.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:37

Maybe even those years.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:39

And so I'm really trying to look at it and share that with people. I was just talking to a young songwriter last night, and I was like, you know, she kept saying, Well, like, what I've been in town this many years, and and this person's been in town this many years, and I was like, but you're in it. Like this is this is it. You know? And I said, because guess what? Someday you'll be on the other side of it like I am. And I'll still, I still have those days where I'm like, nothing's happening. Yeah. What have I, what am I doing?

SPEAKER_01 3:10

I think anybody doing creative stuff is like that. Plus, you know, you have a big hit, and then you're like, oh my gosh, am I gonna have another one? And you know what I mean? It's like, am I gonna have another one?

SPEAKER_04 3:20

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

And then what's funny, Chris's first single was amazed.

SPEAKER_06 3:24

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

And like I'd had other singles, and um, like well, that just ruined you. Yeah, he he just thought it was always gonna be like that.

SPEAKER_06 3:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

And that song just went on for like it just went on and on.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Because it was like number one with country, then AC, then pop, and it just like so he was completely screwed up because like I had had singles that didn't work. I had a song on Sarah Evans, and my family was like, when's it coming out? When's it coming out? And I'm like, it's already been out, it's always done. Yeah, it ain't they don't understand that. Yeah, they just know it's gonna

First Cut And Country Heroes

SPEAKER_01 3:59

be a single. Yeah, what was your first single?

SPEAKER_06 4:01

Last Call by Leanne Womack. It's actually my first cut.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Really?

SPEAKER_06 4:05

Yeah, and I had been in Nashville. I came to Nashville in '94, and she recorded that song in 2008.

unknown 4:14

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06 4:14

And that was my first cut. Now I had record deals. Oh, yeah, you had songs out and you charted your own rap. Yeah, I mean, if you can call it that. But there was a chart somewhere that had me on it.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

That, but that's a big thing. Like, like hearing yourself on the radio.

SPEAKER_06 4:32

Yeah, yeah, it was. I mean, and like, you know, talking about your family and stuff. I mean, that really sort of um, I think as excited as they were all along, when it started to turn towards songwriting, yeah, it was harder for my like my mom because she was like, No, but you should be singing it.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Yeah, I get it. Well, you should be, really. I mean, you have such a great voice.

SPEAKER_06 4:56

It it was one of those things that when it started to work in songwriting, it felt so right because I got to be all these different characters and got to be all, you know, and and all of my favorite singers. I mean,

Shane's Favorite Singer

SPEAKER_06 5:06

Leanne Womack.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Who's your three favorite?

SPEAKER_06 5:09

Well, she's my all-time favorite. So the fact, and she was really amused for me for years when I was writing songs by myself and didn't have anything going on. Leanne Womack was the person I heard singing my songs. And uh, so the the serendipity of the fact that she was my first cut. Yeah, she also is she's aware of my obsession with her.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_06 5:33

Um, but it's she's so sweet to me, but there's also a look of maybe stay within 200 yards of me. Um, because I just I gush over her because it's very hard to tell someone when they've be way beyond the cut. I'm talking about how she affected my life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

That's a big thing. Yeah. And if if you loved them growing up, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:56

Well, I was an adult when Leanne hit. I was living in Nashville.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Yeah, you would have been, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 6:02

But I just know exactly where I was when I heard her. You know, those moments and when uh the record, um, there's more where that came from.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

But I know that was a song that was in my head. That's like my favorite Leanne song.

SPEAKER_06 6:14

I think that's the best country record. I mean, I don't know a better country record.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Yeah, I was about to ask what's your favorite because that's mine, and I was gonna tell you that. Is that your favorite too? Yes, it is. That song is like what if you're gonna play somebody one country song, yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_06 6:28

Well, and that whole that album has so many of those. That's not the album that Last Call is on. That album has I May Hate Myself in the Morning. I mean, that's I don't know if it gets better than that. I mean, that's the kind of song that I came to town to write, you know, and and didn't really know it until she started putting those records out. And I was like, oh, and she's from Texas. She is, she is. And you know, I ended up linking up with a lot of those Texas girls, like Miranda and Casey, of course, and Marin. Um, and they're all from this sort of not too far from each other. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, uh Leanne is my she's my favorite singer. I grew up with obsessed with George Strait. I also think I got into the music business because of Barbara Mandrell. She was the first person that I ever just remember being like, oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

She's the first country when did you listen to other country?

SPEAKER_06 7:25

I did later, and you know, but but young, I it was all country all the time. I mean, Merle Haggard.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Um I know every Merle Haggard song.

SPEAKER_06 7:33

I I think you know, Merle's probably the best to ever do it as far as artist songwriter. I don't know anybody.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

He told me he wrote a lot of songs tapping his leg.

SPEAKER_06 7:41

Yeah, really?

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Yeah, and what's funny, um, I'll forget this, but Leanne Walmack, we had the craziest night with Leanne Walmack in New York. Like she won album of the year or something, it was at the awards, and then she lost like a Harry Winston diamond earring that was worth like 300 grand. Oh my gosh. Her publicist found it. But the funny thing is we went to this party at this brownstone, and everybody was drunk. And like, so we go up to the door, and she was mad because they had hay bells all over the street, and they were like, she's thought they think we're a bunch of hicks, you know? And so when we got up to the door, she kicked that door open at that party and almost hit that guy that played Tony Soprano in the face. Seriously, yeah. It almost, I mean, he would have gone to the hospital, but he was so sweet. Like, she's like, Who put these hay bells out here? And he said, I'm gonna find who put these hay bells and I'm gonna whack them. Like, he went into carrying it.

SPEAKER_06 8:42

That's such a Texas girl persona. I mean, she is she's so Texas, and I think that's why I was always drawn to her too, is just that energy. She just reminded me of all the girls I grew up with, and we actually sang it. Uh, there's so there's a group of Opry's that when I was growing up, like in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, and there were like the Stephenville Opry and all these different the Granberry Opry, and there was a place called the Johnny High Show with sort of the middle of all of it. And all of those girls that I named before, Leanne Womack and Marin and uh Casey Miranda, Leanne Rhymes, they all came up on this show that I also was on. And um Leanne and I didn't cross uh Leanne Womack, and I also was older than all those other girls, but Leanne Rhymes and I were on that show every Saturday night together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Oh, every Saturday night.

SPEAKER_06 9:34

Yeah.

Star Search And Family Lore

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Oh my gosh. Tell me what this song reminds you of. Sometimes when we touch.

SPEAKER_06 9:40

Oh my god. Still makes me sweaty.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Oh my gosh. I look, I was looking stuff up and I saw that today because I didn't know what to say.

SPEAKER_06 9:49

Dan Hill recorded that song, and that was the song I sang on Star Search. I was 15, thinking that was an appropriate song. That's the Till Boots story.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

That's one of my favorite stories ever.

SPEAKER_06 9:59

Oh gosh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

I think we should tell, you should tell a little of it because I brought it up.

SPEAKER_06 10:04

Basically, I got on Star Search when I was 15. I had tried for years to get on that the show that now has been repurposed, but uh it was Ed McMahon's Star Search, and um they came to the Dallas area, and I had already gotten like an audition, like send in videos and all that.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Well, did you sing that for your audition?

SPEAKER_06 10:22

No, I sang I don't have uh it's a it was a Ronnie Milsap cover of a 50s song because since I don't have you.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 10:32

And um anyway, I got on the show this long processing and my mother, you know, flipped out. My mom's a pageant mom. My sister was in pageants, and she was like, we have to find the perfect outfit. And so she had found this teal-colored, crazy fringe suede jacket that looked like it was plugged in. It was so bright. I also had my hair has has tempered through the years. My hair was so red as a kid, like just Ronald McDonald, fire engine red, and this teal jacket. I was pale as a ghost, and she decided that wasn't enough with just like black wranglers and a white button up. She wanted boots that match this jacket. So she had these boots dyed to match that jacket. So we go out to California and they take her to her seat. I do rehearsal. I was so done for when I heard the other girl singing practice. She was, I swear it was a 15-year-old Whitney Houston. And I was just like this, you know, this hillbilly, just like hanging on. Oh, and um, and so they take my mom to her seat, and I'm back in the dressing room and I'm looking at myself in a full-length mirror, and I was like, I look ridiculous in this jacket with fringe down to here and these boots. I I had no time, but the only thing I could think to do was change out the boots. So I was like, what if I just put black cowboy boots on? Maybe it won't be so ridiculous. Go out there, sing my song, and uh, we get our scores, and I lose by quite a margin. And after they take you backstage, when you lose, they put you on a bus right away and take you to the hotel. And if you win, you stay and do another episode. So they took me right to the alley, put me on a bus, our little van, and my mom comes around the corner and she's just walking and she's so pissed. And I think she's pissed because I lost. I mean, it's like, you know, she was really expecting me to win, and she just looks at me and takes a long drag off her cigarette and says, Where are those damn tail boots?

unknown 12:29

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, I just love your mom. I want to meet your mom. I really want to meet your mom. I love the thing with her smoking in the tannin bed. Like, she just sounds like such a character. Anytime I meet people who are really fun, like you're to me, you're just so funny. Aside, we'll talk about that comedy because I'm so impressed with that. But anytime I meet people who are really funny and like resilient, they usually have a family. Totally.

SPEAKER_06 13:00

I mean, the thing is, she can get a little offended or her feelings hurt because I tell these stories about her. I sort of give this impression that she was such a hard ass, or that, like with that, you know, it's like, that's what she said to you. Of course, she was disappointed that I lost. Of course, her heart was broken. It was just funny that she thought the reason I lost were those boots. And, you know, my mom was a huge champion for me, but she's a character. And thank God for it.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

I love the stories I've heard about your mom.

SPEAKER_06 13:29

Yeah, I mean, that's where Mama's Broken Heart by Miranda Lambert was about.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

My mom's one of my favorites.

SPEAKER_06 13:34

Mary Go Round by Casey Musgraves. That was a line my mother said. She said, uh, we were in Texas doing a writing retreat with Casey, and Josh Osborne asked my mom why why there were so many cars in her neighbor's yard and around the house. And my mom said, I don't know, Josh. They're selling Mary Kay or Mary Jane or something. And it was like, you know, songwriter antennas. It was like, oh, that's a line.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

I love that song. Well, it's so hard to write a funny song, you know? Like in the opening line, like that's one of my favorite opening lines of all time. I cut my hair with a rusty. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 14:10

Well, that's what my sister, my mom and my sister were in a feud over a breakup my sister was going through, and my sister cut her own hair. And that's how we, I mean, you know, she's a Texas girl.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Oh my god. What did it look bad?

SPEAKER_06 14:22

It didn't look good.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Oh shit. Is she older or younger?

SPEAKER_06 14:24

She's younger. She lived right up the road.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Um is she so how many years younger?

SPEAKER_06 14:29

She's almost nine years younger. But we were very close. We're we still are. We're best friends. And, you know, our our parents married and divorced each other multiple times. Actually, I didn't know that. Yeah. And what's funny is they divorced after I was born, got remarried, and then they had her. And so everybody growing up, because we had so much distance between us, everybody thought we had different dads.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 14:50

And we would be like, no, uh, same dad's different marriage.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

That's awesome. Like, I'm real close to my brother too. I mean, like, I heard something that I love so much about the people that are in your lives the longest or your siblings, like because you grow up, they know everything. Yeah. And then, like, usually the parents go before, you know, so you're with them the longest of anybody. Like, and my brother, he's a songwriter too. And I'm just like, we're really close. And he's just awesome.

SPEAKER_06 15:20

But you know, a lot of people, I've been surprised in my life as I've gone into adulthood and had kids and moved away and moved away from my sister. There's a lot of people that aren't close to their siblings, and it's actually always so shocking to me because people will be like, Oh, I have a sister, I don't talk to her, or there she lives across the country, we don't ever see each other. I'm always like, Wow, uh, that's I I mean, I only have one sister, I only have one thing to compare it to. And maybe that's because her and I would have been friends anyway. I mean, we we were meant to know each other.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Does she have the same sense of humor?

SPEAKER_06 15:54

She's we're so similar. I don't think if you met her, you would be like, Oh, they look alike, but if you talk to her for five minutes, you'd be like, Oh, I know who I know who you're related to.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Like stories, like of where you grew up.

SPEAKER_06 16:05

Yeah, and expressions, and we're both, as much as we've resisted it and tried not to be, we're both just like our mother.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah. You know, yeah, you find that out when you get a little older.

SPEAKER_06 16:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

That's how like my family's the same way.

Crazy Writes

SPEAKER_01 16:17

I was gonna ask you, because I'm so curious, like, what's the craziest writing appointment you ever had? Just the just batshit crazy.

SPEAKER_06 16:26

Oh my god. I had a crazy write with Florida Georgia line early on with them, and they were huge.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Already they were already.

SPEAKER_06 16:36

They were huge. They had hit with crews, but that was such a big hit. And their lives have changed so much, so I can tell this story because now they're dads, and you know, they don't. But Luke Laird and I we went out to Tyler's place. It was like a it was like a log cabin out in the country, and they smoked so much weed that at one point in the right, we were, you know, probably 12 feet from each other. Luke was at the board and I was sitting on a couch. There was so much smoke in that room, I couldn't see Luke.

unknown 17:08

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06 17:09

And I texted him and I was like, Are you still here?

SPEAKER_00 17:13

What was happening?

SPEAKER_06 17:14

And I was like, What are we doing here? And um, like I said, that their lives are very different. That was early on, it was rock star static. You know, they were just like, Yeah, and they blew up it was crazy, and they I doubt they would even remember that, but that felt really nuts. Yeah. Um, you know, just like were they acting crazy or just yeah, just walking around, just like, you know, that sort of mentality of like, oh, we can do this and we can do this. And we got a song out of it. I I don't remember the song, but did it get cut?

SPEAKER_01 17:41

You don't know how it got.

SPEAKER_06 17:42

I don't think it did. Yeah, I don't think it did. But yeah, that I mean, there were others like that, but that one is one that always sticks out in my mind of just and say, oh, I'll tell you the really crazy side.

Jennifer Nettles And Writing With J Lo

SPEAKER_01 17:53

I love, I love these kind of stories. A crazy right.

SPEAKER_06 17:56

So Jennifer Nettles called me probably I I mean, it's so funny when you start talking about time. It's probably been eight, 10 years ago now. And she she reminds me a lot of you. She does, and I love her. And her sort of just she's so authentic and she's also very just direct. She just says it. Yeah. So basically, I didn't know her. I mean, knew her through people, but we had never written together. We weren't, you know what I mean? We we knew each other. She called me. I think she texted me first and said, This is Jennifer Nettles, I'm gonna call you, whatever. When I picked up the phone, she said, Are you sitting down? That's the first thing she said to me. And y'all don't know each other. No, and I said, Well, I mean, I knew who it was somehow. I don't know if it, you know, if I had her number or what, but I said, Well, I'm in the car. So I guess so. And she says, without asking me what my schedule was, without asking me what I had going on, she said, Well, a week from today, you're gonna be in Calabasas, California, writing with J Lo.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Are you serious? Yes, did you write with J Lo?

SPEAKER_06 18:59

Yes. With Jennifer.

SPEAKER_01 19:01

And what a crazy combo that is, Jennifer and J Lo.

SPEAKER_06 19:05

Yeah, it was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Um Well, what was, yeah, what's J Lo like?

SPEAKER_06 19:11

She was so nice, just could not have been warmer, could not have been more like inviting. She was just like instantly Did she seem normal? Likeable. She was then. I mean, I don't know if if things have changed, but I loved her. Loved her. I mean, she wouldn't know me if I, you know, I mean, it was one day she might.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Some of those people have great. That's true.

SPEAKER_06 19:30

That's true. But anyway, the point is that we we spent two days in her studio in her house, and she cooked dinner for us herself. Oh my god. She we sat at the kitchen counter and J Lo cooked chicken for us.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

That's so crazy.

SPEAKER_06 19:48

Anyway, there were, I mean, and and that song did get recorded.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Who's the most famous? It did get recorded. What's it called?

SPEAKER_06 19:54

It's called, oh god. It is not my favorite. Uh it's called uh My House is Your House. And it's it's on a Jennifer Nettles record. But but she I mean, I love the experience of it. I shouldn't say that because it's fine, but I just mean the experience was wonderful. It, you know, it's just it's a okay song.

unknown 20:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

I know what you mean.

SPEAKER_06 20:15

There was a lot going on.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Yeah, I know what you mean, but so Jennifer cut it.

SPEAKER_06 20:20

Yes, but it was a duet.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Oh, it was a duet on it.

SPEAKER_06 20:23

Yeah, they're both on it.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Oh my gosh, that's a wild combo for a duet.

SPEAKER_06 20:28

Yeah, and it was some really crazy lines in it that like you kind of can't tell if we're joking. It's like you do this and I do this, but we're really the same. Yeah. Like our boys shooting hoops, JLo said that line, and then Jennifer said, our boys shooting deer. And then I'm Jenny from the dirt road, I'm Jinny from the block. It was like this back and forth thing.

SPEAKER_05 20:48

I mean, it it was cute, but it also it I don't know that it aged that well. If that makes sense.

SPEAKER_06 20:55

You know, there's things that are trendy at the time, and then you look back and go, uh, but with that said, they were both lovely. Jennifer Nettles is one of my favorite people. She's just a doll. I mean, I really love her.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Who's

Producing Dolly Parton Up Close

SPEAKER_01 21:06

the most famous person? Is J-Lo the most famous?

SPEAKER_06 21:09

Dolly, probably. I didn't write with Dolly, but I've been I've I've produced a couple of things on her. Oh, wow. So um, as far as working with don't even seem real. She didn't. Have you met her?

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Well, when we got nominated, we went ACM Song of the Year. I was so pregnant, I wasn't supposed to fly, like the doctor told me not to, but of course I did. When they announced us or whatever, I was jumping up and down on the side of the stage. And I can't remember if she was hosting the awards or it or I I think maybe she was hosting the awards, but she's like, girl, you're gonna have that baby right here. You need to stop, you need to stop jumping. But I met her then, and then I met her a couple other times. And then our daughter, Magnolia, was in a video like last year with Dolly. Oh, wow. And she ended up sitting right next to her, and they talked, they had a great talk, and like it was she's Amazing.

SPEAKER_06 22:00

Yeah, you know, I I'll I'll tell you a fun story about her. I worked on this project called Forever Country, where we had like 30 heroes, legends, new artists, everybody it was on this.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Were you producing?

SPEAKER_06 22:12

I was producing and arranging it. Josh Osborne and I arranged the three songs Take Me Home, Country Road, I Will Always Love You, and On the Road Again and made them like a five-minute mashup. And so it was ultimately for a video that everybody was going to be on and um or in. And Dolly needed to sing one line, the closing line of the entire song, after 30 voices have sang, and each one had a moment. Dolly was the last moment, and it was I Will Always Love You. And all she had to sing was that line one time. So she likes to sing really early in the morning. So we no joke, we had the studio ready for her at 7 a.m. I'm driving to the studio on Music Row, Ryan Gore's place, and he is the shyest person on earth.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Oh god.

SPEAKER_06 23:02

And he texts me at 6 50 and says, She's here. And he is like, what do I do? And she had someone with her, like a manager or a person. But anyway, I get there, and by the time I get there, she's already in the booth. She has her headphones on. That's how we met the first time through the glass. And I put, you know, I'm like, producer. I mean, that sounds insane. I'm producing Dolly Parton. So I hit the talk back and I was like, hey, Dolly, I'm Shane. And she said, just tell me where you need me to sing. And I said, You're gonna have to give me a minute to catch my breath here. I said, This is this is a really big deal for me. And I for me to tell you where to sing is feels really strange. But she was so real and grounded and easy that she even went along with that. And she's like, All right, just tell me when you're ready. And I showed her and she sang it flawlessly. Uh uh. And I said, Uh uh, as much as I want to keep you here, I don't think we need anymore.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

And she did she just sang it like once or twice.

SPEAKER_06 24:06

She sang it once, and then I said it's perfect. And she goes, Let me give you another one in case that doesn't work. And she did it again. And then luckily she hung out and took pictures and we got to talk a little and had some mutual friends. But that's definitely near the top of my well, yeah.

Oprah Encounters And Awkward Destiny

SPEAKER_01 24:21

I don't know that there's a bigger I met Oprah. Oh, I need to hear your Oprah story because you're gonna shit when you hear my Oprah story so messed up.

SPEAKER_05 24:32

Mine's not, mine's not that crazy. I just I I met her.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

She's as famous. I was thinking who's the most famous, probably Oprah Dolly and Taylor.

SPEAKER_06 24:40

Yeah, on on the planet, yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

And I'm sure like there's some guys too, but those three come to mind. All right, how'd you meet Oprah?

SPEAKER_06 24:47

Oh, it's it was a very, it was a very quick meeting. I was at this, it was like a retreat for people like there were songwriters there, there were authors there, there were movie stars there, and it's this sort of a wellness weekend where they have speakers and they just talk about, you know, just different ways to make the world better. And and Oprah was one of the guests. And um, that was a big one for me. Because it was a small group. Yeah. And so when you're standing there and you're talking to different celebrities in a circle, and she just walks over to say hello to the other celebrities, and I'm just standing there and it's just Oprah. And somebody's like, Oh, do you know Shane? Of course. She's like, No. And I was just like, I was like, I can't, I can't catch my breath. Yeah. And I had this very awkward moment where um she, you know how she'll put her hands up like this? Yeah, all the time.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_06 25:41

I I didn't know what she was doing, and she did that to me because they said, Oh, he wrote Shucked, the Broadway musical.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Oh, that's recently.

SPEAKER_06 25:48

And she goes, Yeah. And she goes, Oh, and she put her hands up like, cool for you. And I went to shake her hand like a little dinosaur. And it was just so obvious. Like the thing is, when someone is that known, they're very aware. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

She approaches people that way, like she knows they know her. Exactly. And I appreciate that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 26:10

As opposed to trying to pretend like that that we don't all know who she is.

SPEAKER_03 26:15

Yeah. You know.

SPEAKER_06 26:19

I mean, she's she is who she is, and she knows that.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

I know famous people. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. I I forget they don't know me. Like, I think, like, with her, oh, this is so messed up. I took my mom to Live Your Best Life tour in Tampa, Florida.

SPEAKER_04 26:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

And it was like for Mother's Day. And so we're staying at this hotel across the street from the place Oprah's gonna be talking. And that night we're at dinner and my mom's like, where do you think Oprah's staying? I'm like, oh, she could never stay here. It's just all these people are her fans. And um, so we're talking and stuff, and then my back was kind of hurting. So like I decided I'm gonna go get in the hot tub. Well, I go, I get my like, I didn't even have a swimsuit, but I get my sports bra and my shorts on, and I go down there. And when I got down there, there's a couple making out in the hot tub. And I'm like, great, there's no way I'm getting in there now, you know, like because it's just those two.

SPEAKER_05 27:16

It was Oprah insteadman.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

No, no, no. No, it's that would be in the I would have got in. I think I would have got in. Like, I keep bumping it. So I go down there to get um in the hot tub. There's this couples in there. And so I'm like, uh, so I go to the gym because I could see out the window when they I could see when they're gonna get out, like I'll know. And so I'm I'm on the treadmill, like, but the crazy thing, I don't think I had ever worked out in a gym at a hotel like at the time. This was 15 years ago. I just I don't know. Yeah, yeah. And so I wasn't even supposed to be in there. That's what like I was talking about. But so I'm walking on the treadmill, watching out the window, and I just see in the mirror Gail and Oprah and Gail walk in.

SPEAKER_06 28:12

To the gym.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

And that gym, some guy came in there first with a headset, and like, I'm like, what's this weirdo doing? Yeah. And then they come in and I saw Oprah and Gail in the mirror, and I just stopped walking and went flying off the treadmill and fell right in front of them.

SPEAKER_04 28:30

That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

But then I jumped up and said, This is destiny.

SPEAKER_04 28:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

But I only said that because I wasn't supposed to be in there. I'd have never known that she was there. I wasn't supposed to be in the gym. I was getting in the hot tub. I'd never been in a gym. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she backed up with her hand. She's like, What's destiny? And I was like, I I don't even know what I said to that.

SPEAKER_06 28:51

Well, can you imagine though how many people say that to her?

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Well, and I learned it's a trigger word for a psycho. The word you start throwing destiny around, oh, well, it freaks people out.

SPEAKER_06 29:01

I I just mean that I know what a believer I am in the manifesting of your life and the design. And it's no accident that people like even talking about the Leanne Womack thing, you know, I waited all those years for someone to record my song, and it just happened to be my favorite singer. And even meeting Oprah, because I'm I'm so inspired by her. So what I'm saying is I know that there is a destination and a and a manifest to you seeing her, but I can only imagine how many people say that to her. Oh, yeah. Like this is meant to be. And and yeah, it is for them.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

But you know, it was like, I think I freaked her completely. Well, first of all, I fly off and fall in front of them, which that freaked them out a little bit, but then then I just jump up and say that. And then the the most embarrassing part though is I was I asked, oh my gosh, this is embarrassing and screwed up. I was trying out or gonna be on that, can you do it? Like American Idol did, were producers of it. But I was trying to figure out if I'm gonna get that show or not. And I asked Oprah something like, Well, could you refer me to that, like about this? And she said, I don't know you. And I was like, Oh my gosh. I was like, That's hilarious. I forgot. I know you. You've been in my living room 25 years, but yeah, okay. So, but then the next day at the seminar, um, Oprah's like, Where's Amy at? She called me out because I walked next to him and talked to him for a little bit. I got back on the treadmill and we probably talked 15 minutes, and then I went to get my mom so she can meet Oprah. Um, but that's so cool.

SPEAKER_06 30:39

And she stayed in there and you met your mom.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Yeah. Wow. And she was so sweet, but she's she was talking. I wish I had a copy of that tape. She was talking like, Amy, where are you? And she started talking in a real southern accent, you know? And then in front of everybody, she was like, and I was gonna ask you this too. She she was talking about in that seminar saying no. And she was talking about how, and then she asked me in front of everybody. She was like, Well, she said, How did you feel when I told you no? And I was like, I didn't really care. You know what I mean? That's just the truth. Nothing much, I don't know. I just bounce right up.

SPEAKER_03 31:18

Totally.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

And so I was like, I didn't really, you know, care. Uh, because I understood what you were talking about after, but then like, so she was telling people that I've gotten better at saying no.

Learning To Say No

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Like, what about you? You get asked to do it. You get asked to do everything.

SPEAKER_06 31:34

I I'm terrible at saying no. I'm still working on it. I very rarely will really put a boundary up. I, you know, I come up with different ways that I wish I was better at just saying, I don't have the bandwidth, I don't have the energy. I'm I'm better. You know, there have been a couple of asks recently where I was just like, I don't think you really know what you're asking me. You know, like you mean they're like just like sort of like what you when you said that to Oprah. Yeah. When you it, you know, you look back and you're like, it didn't make any sense. I was, you know what I mean? And and sometimes I'll try to say to the person like this might look different later, that it's it's a bigger deal what you're asking me than you think.

SPEAKER_03 32:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 32:20

You know, a lot of times that happens with like people who want somebody in their family to write a song with me.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

Oh gosh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 32:28

You know, and trying to explain to people that that's that really doesn't happen like that. Yeah. But in general, yeah, I have a really hard time saying no. I love to say yes to something and then get a resentment about it. And you know, and then be mad then when the person, look, just like you, you asked because you know what? I don't know if I'm ever gonna see Oprah again. Yeah, might as well, might as well use this moment. What do I have to lose? And I understand, I I mean, I remember when I was trying to get people to write with me, and I would run into someone. I remember talking to Keith Urban in a waffle house, and I pitched him a song idea. Um, you and I are similar in that way. Yeah, yeah. And he didn't like it. And we're you know, we're friends now, and he's recorded a lot of my songs. This was years ago. But the idea, which I don't remember, I just remember him saying, doesn't make the guy sound very good. It actually kind of sounds like a bad guy song. Like I wouldn't say that. And I was so embarrassed. And then as the months went by, I went, Of course he, like, yeah, that was so silly. But I had to do it.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

Did he remember? Yeah, that's it's weird. Like you're talking about remembering, and we're talking about remembering people, like when you write so many songs, like Chris is just like you wrote with him, like we wrote with him multiple times when he doesn't recognize somebody, right? And that's when a lot of people just say, good to see you instead of nice to meet you.

SPEAKER_06 33:58

Totally. Well, and I mean, remembering people's names, or if if somebody I mean, and I mean, I can't imagine what it's like for an actual celebrity. I know. I mean, can you imagine what because you know the recognition in people's eyes when they look at you and you know they think you know them?

SPEAKER_03 34:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:15

And imagine that energy if you were an actual, you know, like somebody like Dolly or like Oprah.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

I can't even imagine.

SPEAKER_06 34:22

I mean, they they're great at it, both of them. They just make you feel like instantly like you.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

They know how you feel about them, kind of that's it.

SPEAKER_06 34:29

That's it, yeah.

Taylor Swift & Garth Brooks

SPEAKER_01 34:30

That's the thing. Did you ever write with Taylor? Yeah, she's got that that crazy memory. Totally. You know what I mean? She's take you reminded me of her, yeah, and Garth too. Because I was waiting tables and Garth, I asked him, like, I asked, are y'all writing a hit today? Because he was in there with like two songwriters. And he's like, Well, if we do, I'll come back and tell you. And I'm thinking, yeah, right. And then, like, by the time he he came in there looking for me. I didn't work there anymore. And he said, Tell her we wrote Papa Love Mama. Like that day, he remembered.

SPEAKER_06 35:02

I mean, I've met him a few times. He always knows who I am. I we've never had a real conversation. It's not he knows. I feel like the last time I saw him, he remembered where I was from. I was like, I don't, you know.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

That's how Taylor is. We were working with an artist, and and a guy at um Sony said he was kind of bitching about this artist. Like, she don't even know my name. And I've been like working with her and put so much time into this, not Taylor, this other girl. He said, and I ran into Taylor the other day and she asked me about my kids by name. Yeah, you know, like that's her. She's just like got a crazy memory. But you I thought about her because like the first time she came over here, like I had a title for her. And I still remember the title. It was because she was like 16. Yeah, and the title was Cloud 999, which I don't know why I thought that was good, but I thought it was young. I thought it was kind of young, like for her. And plus, we had never written with a teenager before. Right. We had written with females and female artists, but I had never really done anything like we were doing.

SPEAKER_06 36:10

You can't talk about drinking, you can't talk about sex, you can't.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

I mean, it's like she kind of like we wrote probably the craziest song in my catalog that day. Like, that song is insane, but I realize she's just talking about her life. Yeah, she's talking about some guy she went on a date with, ran over his own foot, and she was talking about that movie Carrie, and just talking about like a homeless guy. It was just crazy, but it was awesome because I think that's why she has so much success. She's just telling real things.

SPEAKER_06 36:40

She's on a different frequency.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

That the the amount of songs nobody has that many hit records like over and over that are that good. Yeah, I know. I mean her concerts, they're just insane.

SPEAKER_06 36:53

Oh, I took my daughter to this tour, and it was like life-changing.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

You know, and like we went to see her, and then about a month later we went to see this other female artist, and it was really crazy because Taylor had been playing a while. She played, had played 22 songs, and I look at the set list and she had 22 more to go.

SPEAKER_06 37:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

44. That how I don't even get how you do that.

SPEAKER_06 37:17

I don't know how she did it day after day. Yeah. I mean, it was I was so exhausted when I left there with my kid.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 37:23

That I thought, and look what she just did. And she's gonna get up tomorrow and do it again.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 37:27

No, I don't, I don't know. She's just built different. She's built for it.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Yeah, she's some kind of crazy anomaly.

SPEAKER_06 37:32

She was made for the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

We never, we I never got a cut on her. We got to be real good friends, like because um we just like decorating and all the same stuff. Like, so we got to be real good friends, like, and I don't know. I I knew she was gonna be famous when I first met her, but like you never dream somebody's gonna be like that.

SPEAKER_06 37:52

Yeah, yeah, right. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

It was just absolutely nuts. Do you have any OCDs?

SPEAKER_06 37:58

Oh, like as far as like what I have, like a pattern of something. Yeah, just something. Um I have an ice like fetish.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

Like eating ice, yeah. Yeah, I did that for a while.

SPEAKER_06 38:08

And I have always been that way. And I have to have like when I write a song, I have to have like either a giant sonic cup, which that'd be a five. Nugget ice, yeah. Which we have in our house.

SPEAKER_01 38:19

We got that was what a present because I was obsessed with ice. Like, was it a present? It was, yeah, because you're probably hard to buy for.

SPEAKER_06 38:26

Well, that my husband got me that uh when I turned 40. Oh, actually. But yeah, I I mean, I guess I do have OCD tendencies of, you know, but not like where I have to turn a door a certain number of times or, you know, anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

That's what I'm trying to like. I don't do that either. I got number issues, but like people learned like I like certain numbers. When I'd be negotiating a contract, they would know and then they knew how to work me. I finally figured out like this isn't probably good. They know this.

SPEAKER_06 38:58

Right. That's funny.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

Yeah, yeah, it was pretty crazy.

Sobriety, Love And Returning To Nashville

SPEAKER_01 39:01

How'd you meet Michael?

SPEAKER_06 39:02

Well, there's a period of time between 2000 and 2007 where I left Nashville. I had been here from 94 to 2000. I went to LA 2000 to 2007, then I came back to Nashville. I went for a two-week trip and it ended up lasting seven years.

SPEAKER_03 39:21

I was wow, I did not know that.

SPEAKER_06 39:23

Yeah, and I was writing songs and playing like songwriter shows at um hotel cafe and doing all that, trying to do an artist thing, and never happened. And basically I bartended and did a lot of drugs, and um and it was a part of my story, but I got sober and uh have been sober at different times in my life. But the the first time I got sober and I went to a like a sober party, like um, and it was in Palm Springs, a big gay, sober party, like a weekend. He lived in Atlanta and he was sober, and he went with his friends to this same party. So we met there at this big sober weekend, thinking it was just a weekend, and although he says he knew it wasn't, but I was like, I mean, I live in LA, this guy's in Atlanta. And then it wasn't that long after that that I went to Nashville for a riding trip, wrote last call, and I love last call. And I had lost my house in LA. I it was it during the crash in 2008. Yeah. And my place, I couldn't make the payment, and so I it went into foreclosure, and he was in mortgages, and he helped me get out of that. It's just like this crazy, we met, and it was the things that I couldn't handle in my life, you know. And then moved back to Nashville, but literally because I got that cut. That was what moved me back to Nashville.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

Yeah, and he lived here.

SPEAKER_06 40:47

He lived in Atlanta.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Oh, yeah, he lived in Atlanta.

SPEAKER_06 40:48

And we did that, we did Atlanta and Nashville uh back and forth for five years until our kids were born. Oh, wow. Um, so when when we started having kids, we obviously need to be in the same city. But yeah, he would work uh the week in Atlanta and I would do my riding, and then on the weekends, I would either go down there or he would he would come up here and it really worked for us. It was a great, you know, because it was a time when things started working for me in the music business and I needed I needed full attention on it.

SPEAKER_03 41:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 41:17

And so I'd do doubles all week, you know what I mean? And then we would spend Friday, Saturday, Sunday together. And he was working that same way in his respective field. So he would go back and yeah. And then what ended up happening, we always thought I would end up in Atlanta because in the beginning it was slow going with the music. And we just thought when we get married and have kids, I'll move to Atlanta. But by the time we did that, my career had really taken off.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

Oh gosh, yeah. I mean, like I remember because I'll go through phases where I don't write songs. Yeah. And I was asking people, who's the hottest writer in town? And like everybody's Shane McNally, Shane McNally. And then I'd ask again, like two years later, who's the hottest writer in town? You'd be like, Shane McNally. I don't know. I'm just so impressed with you. Like, there's a handful of people that I just really want to learn. What the hell are you doing? Like the fact that you live in LA, but you have such a great career here, you know what I mean? And you've done so many different things, like from being on a TV show to doing a musical to opening a publishing company to writing all these hits, producing all these. I mean, just across the board.

SPEAKER_04 42:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

And that I love that because that's fearlessness. But I'm curious too about like you just seem to know how to run a team. Like, I went over there to your publishing company. It's my favorite publisher in town by far. The energy, like, because Nashville can feel like a dentist office in those publishers.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

No.

SPEAKER_01 42:47

I mean, it's a bad vibe a lot of times, but the vibe, it was so creative and just everybody there.

SPEAKER_06 42:54

I wish I could take more credit. It did start with me and Robin Palmer, who's still there, who was pitching my songs uh literally out of her house, you know. And we built this company together, and my husband uh did the business side of it. But somebody has been, I mean, it's God, obviously, but for some reason, I've just always said that there are just angels in my life. There always have been. I'm surrounded by people that really do have my best interests at heart, and I trust that. And so that's how Smack was built. That's how all of those things that you mentioned were built. And the times that something hasn't worked, I knew it from the beginning that it wouldn't, but I still don't.

SPEAKER_01 43:31

Did you have a gut instinct? Like, do you follow, like when you have because I've done a couple things this year, it's like I knew before I even did it. Like I knew, but I was impatient. I know. I just was impatient and wanted to do it, and I but I knew, and then then it's a problem you got to find a way out.

SPEAKER_06 43:47

Exactly. And it ends up just kicking the ball down the road. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Yeah. Well, so I'm curious too about like I just think it's so cool to

Parenting Travel And Two-Dad Moments

SPEAKER_01 43:55

me. You can have such a big career and then travel the world with your family.

SPEAKER_06 43:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

And that's the stuff that matters most. I mean, like, what's the craziest thing that happened on that trip?

SPEAKER_06 44:05

Oh, a million.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Y'all took a like a million trips.

SPEAKER_06 44:09

We went to all seven continents. We took the kids out of fourth grade. And we so we traveled with our our 10-year-old twins, boy and a girl. Yeah, they're 10 and 11 that we did this trip around the world. And oh my gosh, Amy. I mean, I wouldn't even know where to start. I can tell you that is, you know, some really wacky things that happened. Like at one point, we were in oh gosh. I don't remember. I think it was Columbia. And our kids had heard because in a lot of countries, there's still this gay is illegal, but it's not, they don't really.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

I know what you're talking about. We found that out. I didn't even know that existed. And we heard something about that. Like, I can't even remember where we went.

SPEAKER_06 44:54

They don't enforce it. They're not looking to imprison gay people. It's still so stupid to me. You know, but wherever we were, our son had heard that, like from a tour guide or something like, oh, well, you know, it's technically gay to be, I mean, illegal to be gay here. And he internalized that. We didn't even know he knew that, heard that.

SPEAKER_03 45:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 45:15

And we were um, we got at an airport, you know, a lot of times when you're traveling internationally, they they will talk to the children separately because they want to make sure they're not being taken or something. And so they said to our son, they were like, So where are you going? And you know, he said, wherever we were headed. And and they said, Where's your mom? And he goes, she died.

SPEAKER_01 45:41

Oh my gosh. Did he tell you he told him that? Or did you no?

SPEAKER_06 45:46

I was standing there. And when we got through, I was like, buddy, why did you say that? And he goes, That guy said that it was illegal to be gay. And so I didn't want them to take you. And uh I was like, actually, it's pretty smart.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

Quit thinking, quick thinking like that. Yeah, I love that story about your um son like asking, tell that story.

SPEAKER_06 46:13

So when you know, that's the funny thing about having two dads, is they just always knew they had two dads. It never occurred to them that weirdly that we were gay. I know that sounds crazy. I'm totally people are always like, What do you mean they didn't know you're gay? I mean, we slept in the same room and we, but you know, we're their parents. Yeah. And so when the kids were eight years old, we were down at uh 38. We used to have a place down there, and a friend of ours was visiting, and our daughter was sitting at the kitchen counter, and our son was sitting on a couch, and he was like, What playing a video game, like laid back? Seems like he's not paying attention. He's kind of dopey. And um, our daughter is talking to our friend and says, Um we're not there. And she's saying, Are you single? And he's like, I am single. And she goes, Oh, well, do you want a wife? And he goes, Oh no, actually, I'm gay like your dad. And our son sits up and goes, Oh, my dad's gay. And our friend is like, Oh my god, I've just outed. So he's like, Um uh, yeah, your dad's gay. And our son goes, Does our other dad know?

SPEAKER_00 47:19

That's one of my favorite stories. I just freaking love that story.

SPEAKER_06 47:24

It's so innocent and it makes so much sense. But then later we talked to him and I was like, What do you think gay is? Yeah, and he said, Well, it's when two boys kiss. And I said, Well, you've seen Pop and I kiss. And he goes, I don't know, I just never thought about it. And I realized they just thought we were like Bert and Ernie or something, like we were just eternal roommates. But truthfully, there is something super sweet about it because they think of us as just their the their safety. Yeah, and we're both their parents.

SPEAKER_01 47:53

Well, I just think y'all are such great parents, you know what I mean? I just think you guys are such great parents. Like, I show the good stuff. Your kids are so funny, like they're so funny. That your kids remind me of our kids with their sense of humor.

SPEAKER_06 48:08

Well, it's because y'all are funny.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

I mean, it's well, and and they're just like, what do your kids think about your career?

SPEAKER_06 48:14

Nothing.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

Yeah, exactly. Nothing. That's the thing.

SPEAKER_06 48:17

Like it is like, you know, whoever the hottest person is at the moment, Taylor. Yeah, if you don't know them, then you know, that means nothing to them.

SPEAKER_01 48:27

Yeah, our kids are the same exact way. I think every super famous person like needs a kid.

SPEAKER_06 48:32

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

It screws them up because it'll keep them like it keeps you grounded.

SPEAKER_06 48:36

I mean, you know, I have Grammys, and and our kids have never noticed them in our house. And then until somebody else came over and was like, Oh my god, you

Grammys And The Songs That Last

SPEAKER_06 48:45

have Grammys? How many Grammys, dude? Of four.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

Four?

SPEAKER_06 48:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:48

I don't even know if I know anybody with four. That's a lot. That's a lot.

SPEAKER_06 48:54

But it's sort of beyond my what'd you get Grammys for? They were all songs that I wrote with Casey Musgraves.

SPEAKER_01 48:59

Really?

SPEAKER_06 49:00

Country songs. Yeah, the meaning country song of the year.

SPEAKER_01 49:02

Was Arrow one of them?

SPEAKER_06 49:04

No, but it but we did, I did win for that album for producing it. So I have one for producing and three for writing. But what a cool Space Cowboy, The Architect. Oh, and Mary Go Round.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

Well, the thing that's wild with those songs and with her is like she was popular and it's awesome. You know what I mean? Critical and such a different feeling. If you have a hit song you're proud of, yeah, some of them just like I'm surprised. Do you have some that you're surprised were even hits?

SPEAKER_06 49:33

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 49:34

I mean, I guess a lot more that you surprise aren't hits because you know, yeah. But oh my God. I mean, especially comparatively, because most of the songs I've written with Casey, she's Casey has technically only had one radio hit. I mean, that was Mary Go Round and the rest.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_06 49:49

I mean, she's had songs that have streamed and and have done well, and like Rainbow would be considered a a hit song because it's had a life beyond radio. Yeah. But you know, our metric in Nashville, we care so much about terrestrial radio. So in that regard, she hasn't really had big hits. So there have definitely been moments where like The Architect, which was the song we won't be able to do. That's such a cool song.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

I saw what's funny is I didn't know that song, and I saw that it won the Grammy, and then I went and listened to it. It's just so good.

SPEAKER_06 50:21

Well, that's the kind of thing that you're kind of like, it can be disappointing when you came up before it won. I mean, that obviously that sort of the the Grammy was a nice healing for all of it. But you know, it went to radio but didn't do anything. And so that's you know, it's those are sometimes hard to take.

SPEAKER_01 50:38

Yeah, radio, like, there's not songs on radio that are that are that good, really. I mean, a lot of times they're just it's a different they're kind of just fluffy.

SPEAKER_06 50:48

But remember when we were kids and even young adults, the songs like House That Built Me. Oh my gosh. Songs that you go back to. I mean, remember Where Have You Been by Kathy Matea? And these elaborate stories about someone with dementia. Yeah. I mean, those songs could never be on the radio now because it's just a different time. And that's okay. You know, I I definitely have been the guy that was lucky enough to happen at a time when strange songs were still getting played on the radio. But you know, in the last few years, I've been the guy who has the coolest song on the album, but not the single.

SPEAKER_01 51:24

But it's so like it's so awesome when you get a song you're proud of, yeah, recorded by somebody like Leanne Walmak or something. That's like the best. What's your favorite cut you've ever had?

SPEAKER_06 51:35

I love Last Call because it was first. Somewhere with you by Kenny Chesney.

SPEAKER_01 51:39

I love Somewhere With You. That song gets so stuck in my head.

SPEAKER_06 51:42

I think because that really represented what I did.

SPEAKER_01 51:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 51:48

And no, and it wasn't common. Yeah. That song was weird.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

And it was really cool for him, too.

SPEAKER_06 51:53

It was different for him. And that really, I feel like that was the song that really sort of lit my career on fire because he was okay with it.

SPEAKER_01 52:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 52:02

So then all these other songs that had that weird phrasing, yeah, people started asking for them.

SPEAKER_01 52:07

Oh, and that the one, bro, and nothing, that's the one. The phrasing on that one is amazing.

SPEAKER_06 52:13

That one has really, I did that at the symphony last night. Yeah, I want to talk about that. It's so fun to see the reaction of people still. That song, and Kenny talks about that song. You know, I went to the sphere and saw him sing it. And it's amazing he's kind of had a second go because of American Kids. Those are his words. Yeah, yeah. You know, he said that added 10 years to my radio career.

SPEAKER_03 52:35

And he's smart. He is smart.

SPEAKER_06 52:37

He's so smart. And he knows, you know, he's a great songwriter.

SPEAKER_01 52:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 52:41

But he knows to also record songs he didn't write.

SPEAKER_01 52:43

I know. And that's the thing. Like, I was trying to tell somebody the other day, if you look at the artists like Tim McGraw, Kenny, Blake, George, they all cut outside songs. They knew they couldn't write the best song.

SPEAKER_06 52:58

Who was one of the best artist writers ever, but so many of those songs he didn't write. He didn't write Friends in No Places. Oh, yeah, but it's like Kenny wrote I Go Back by himself.

SPEAKER_03 53:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 53:10

So that tells you the kind of writer he is. Yeah. But he also knows that we're hitting the pavement every day.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

And he respects songwriters. That's rare these days, too. I mean, like, it feels like everybody's got to write everything, especially the females. I mean, the females, like, we would get with somebody to write, and like they would come in, and it didn't matter how good they sang. I wanted to hear their first single. What are you putting out? Yeah. And usually it was so crazy because it would be like a song that was not their best. Then they'd play their third, this is gonna be my third single. And it's like, well, that should be your first single for starters. Like, because that's a hit song. And I think, I think a hit song will always win, even if it's a ballad and the labels really pushing tempo.

SPEAKER_06 53:58

I think I I Oh, a hundred percent. I'm so tired of hearing that forever. Yeah, they need a tempo. The things that cut through just cut through because they're great and they're different. And that that conversation of when they say we have to have a tempo for the first single, I'm like, no, you don't, not when the right ballad shows up. That and they know it too. Yeah, it's just running scared, you know. The the business has just changed so much, and people are just trying to crack a code that is not crackable.

SPEAKER_01 54:23

Yeah, you know, and I mean, like, have well, you have had tempo hits, like a tempo hit, man, especially if you get one like I would call it.

SPEAKER_06 54:33

Well, American Kids is a tempo. Body like a back road is a is a song that's gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

Oh god, I forgot you even wrote that song.

SPEAKER_06 54:40

That was, you know, a but uh but but a lot of my stuff uh is is bad. Did you produce him? I did. Uh yeah, and I still work with him and very, very closely. He was so also responsible for what happened for me because I met him and Casey, Sam Hunt and Casey Musgraves around the same time. They were not connected, but she had this incredibly critical thing, and he had this commercial thing. Yeah, and I was associated with both of them. And that really it was accidental, it wasn't intentional, but it when people say, like, how did you do that? Yeah, it was just I just happened to bet on these two horses that really well, but oh, and y'all worked great

Producing Sam Hunt And Industry Politics

SPEAKER_06 55:20

together.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

Which songs did you write for Sam?

SPEAKER_06 55:23

Pretty much everything. Um, I mean, I've What's your favorite one on the record? Like that first record? Yeah. Breakup in a small town. Me too. Yeah, that me too. That song, it was so different for him. I mean, what well that was the first record was different for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 55:38

Everybody, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 55:39

And you know, that wasn't a number one record, but that song has has acted because it was so strange. And I I said it was different for him. That was his first record. It was just so different for the town, and he bet on it. He was like pushed for it.

SPEAKER_03 55:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 55:53

And that really changed things in a great way. I think a lot of people were resistant to it, but now everybody sounds like that record.

SPEAKER_01 56:01

That's one of my favorite songs. Yeah, that might be my favorite song you've written.

SPEAKER_06 56:06

Wow, thank you. Well, I that's up there for me.

SPEAKER_01 56:09

Oh, I just love that song. And that's another case of a song being killer and a radio hit, you know, like that's just you know, he had that chorus.

SPEAKER_06 56:20

You will get down with somebody.

SPEAKER_01 56:22

That's my favorite. You won't believe how many times I tried to write something that hit on that. Oh no, that hit on that beef. He he did he had that whole chorus. And but you produced it?

SPEAKER_06 56:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

How did you do that?

SPEAKER_06 56:36

Well, that I will say I have to Zach Crowell. We produced it together, but I but I'm putting that in quotes if anyone who's just listening. Zach is uh he's an incredible engineer, and he I do not know how to run a board. So I can't like look at a computer. I have to have live musicians. Yeah. And that was when things were really changing to a lot of, you know, a lot of sounds that were triggered and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 57:00

Well, and I think that started a whole different thing. It did.

SPEAKER_06 57:03

That that this whole thing. Sam knew that. Yeah. Sam was like, it has to be this other thing that with the demos and things we were doing weren't gonna get him all the way there. And I didn't know how to do it. And so he found Zach. Zach did a breakup in a small town. Although I worked with the lot the live musicians and am credited as a producer, that drop that you're talking about, that was Zach. I mean, that was where the that sound came from that he was doing.

SPEAKER_01 57:30

How did he do? What is happening on that? The way that hits.

SPEAKER_06 57:34

I know it's almost like a reverse.

SPEAKER_01 57:36

Uh, I'd have to ask him, but another song that does it, because I got obsessed with that song, and then I got um that's there's a song by the weekend called The Hills. Oh, yeah, yeah. It does that too.

SPEAKER_06 57:47

Yeah, it almost feels like I don't know how to how to describe it. I know exactly what you mean because it also hits me that way.

SPEAKER_03 57:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 57:56

And when they when he first played what I would call like a drop, when he played it, I was like, I can't believe this is the same song. I don't know how you did that. But Sam knew where it was supposed to be. I mean, Sam has incredible instincts.

SPEAKER_01 58:10

That's what I've heard. I never wrote with him, but I always and I'm He's a real writer. I mean, like he would I'm gonna have to track it.

SPEAKER_06 58:17

He would be a hit songwriter without a career.

SPEAKER_01 58:20

I love this story, and I I may have this a little wrong. Somebody told me this, but I just loved it. That so Keith Urban cut a song. I don't know, like, was it on his record or was it on some?

SPEAKER_06 58:32

This has happened to me a couple of times. It happened to me both with Sam and with Casey. Now, the Sam song I was producing, I did not write it.

SPEAKER_03 58:40

Which song?

SPEAKER_06 58:41

It was cop car.

SPEAKER_03 58:42

Oh, yeah, cop car.

SPEAKER_06 58:43

And it was the story of Sam and his wife, now wife, it really happened to them. And it was a very detailed account of a night that he got put in the back of a cop car with his girlfriend.

SPEAKER_03 58:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 58:57

And Keith Urban heard it because these publishers in this town, oh, when somebody wanted the yeah, when you know, Sam hadn't had a hit yet.

SPEAKER_03 59:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 59:04

And so they're all like, you want to bet on Keith Urban.

SPEAKER_03 59:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 59:07

Because you don't know what's gonna happen with you, because artists blow up all the time. You don't know if it's gonna work, if it's not. So basically what happened was a publisher, one of the publishers played it for Keith and he fell in love with it. And he called Sam and asked for his blessing, and I don't think he really got it. I mean, I think, you know, it's fine now. This was a decade ago, but I think in the moment it was like Sam was like, Well, that's how'd you even hear that song?

SPEAKER_03 59:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 59:37

And I think a lot of times people uh these uh you know, publishers expect that these new artists are gonna be like, please get me a Keith Urban cut. And that just wasn't where he was.

SPEAKER_03 59:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 59:48

But they ended up both cutting it. Uh Keith had a big hit on it. It ended up also, it's a huge live song for Sam. I think he would say now it all worked out. Yeah, he had plenty of hits from that record, and you know, it's his song. But the exact same thing happened with the first Casey record. Oh my god, a song called Mama's Broken Heart. Oh, yeah. And we wrote that, Casey Brandy, and I wrote that song, and Casey did this crazy demo of it, and um she was, you know, intent on cutting it. And the publisher, one of the publishers, I even think it was her publisher. Yeah, because she didn't have a hit yet.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:24

They were like, We should play this for Miranda.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

And um Did they tell her first or just do it?

SPEAKER_06 1:00:30

No. And I mean, the craziestness of at her at her wedding, at the her first wedding, Casey was there, and Miranda said, I've heard this on Mama's Broken Heart, I want to record it. And Casey was like, uh-huh. Like, you know, sort of caught off guard.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:47

And you know what she did was really for Brandy and I, who were not swimming in hits at that point. I mean, we had Brandy had never had a hit. I think I had had one or two. And, you know, everybody was telling her, like, I mean, think about Brandy and Shane. They wrote this song, Miranda Lambert's the biggest artist on the planet. Exactly. And so Casey asked Miranda, she said, if you cut it, can you can I sing on it with you? Which she did. So what ended up happening ultimately, the the great blessing of it was we had a big hole in her record that we went to Texas and wrote Merry Go Round.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:21

Oh, wow. That was one of that was meant to be.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:23

Yeah, and they were both singles at the same time. I think it legitimized Casey as a songwriter right away.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:28

To me, too, me too. That song, like, you know, you there's songs like you remember where you were the first time you heard them, you know. That's one, breakup in a small town's one. Like that, and then I just flipped out when I heard you brought it up. I bring it up all the time, The House That Built Me. It's like if somebody came with that idea, I think I don't pass out.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:51

Even hearing the title, you know, you're just like, well, I remember hearing the title. Yeah. And saying, Have you heard of the song The House That Built Me?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:58

And being like, No, but my God, where was I that day? Why has that never occurred to you?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:04

I heard they wrote it like Oh, for seven years or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you ever write with Tom Douglas?

SPEAKER_06 1:02:10

I've written with Tom one time and loved it, but we and we know each other. But you know how you know how we some paths just don't cross that often and and uh ours just haven't.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

He writes a song at the end of every song. Like he just does these outros that are just going, go and go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:27

Oh, he's I mean brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:28

I'm trying to think of all the stuff I want to ask you

Chasing Comedy Without Permission

SPEAKER_01 1:02:31

because there's so much, but I have to know about the comedy.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:34

I have to know everything.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:36

Well, I've always loved comedy. I mean, I was, you know, a kid that grew up with afternoon sitcoms after school, the Jeffersons, and Who's the Boss? Yeah. And I was always drawn to that world. Uh country music was my first love. But sitcoms, friends, yeah, um, stand-up comedians, I always just loved them. I mean, I'm that person who just has watched every stand-up special and is like, oh my God, you know, repeating jokes. And, you know, when you're in Nashville and you have the opportunity to do like the bluebird, and then you do rounds other places. What ended up happening along the way was I was always funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

I mean, you know, you've always been funny in the songs, like to get to have songs that are funny. To me, that's the hardest thing to do as a songwriter. Nothing's harder than writing a funny song.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:31

Well, I agree. And I and I in growing up, I think my like people I grew up with, they would say that would be what people would say. Shame is always funny. And I'll be honest with you, a lot of it was because I was just wanting to fit in so badly. And also, I was in the closet in a small town in Texas. You gotta be something. I couldn't play football, so I was funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:49

And painful things make people funny.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:51

It is, it's true, absolutely. And finding the humor in that is really the safe fear, you know. So, with that said, for years, Josh Osborne and I would do these rounds and blueberry, and we would just laugh. I mean, it just the whole time. And we'd write silly songs. And um, Trevor Rosen, actually, before he was an old Dominion, he used to do stand-up comedy years ago. And we would just always banter. And I just said, you know what? Someday I'm gonna take all this stuff and all these stories that I've been telling you about my mother for all these years, and I'm gonna do a version of stand-up. And um, when I turned 50, what I did was I had a birthday party in Vegas, a bunch of our friends, those people that I just mentioned were there, and I wrote a little 20-minute stand-up set. And basically, because they were at my party and I was paying for it, I said, I'm gonna get up and I basically took a microphone and stood on a stage and did 20 minutes of stand-up comedy in front of all my friends and family. And um, you know, it was a safe place, and they loved me and they were gonna love me either way. Did they go crazy? They did. Yeah. And everybody was like, you've got to do this. And so look, I'm still at the very beginning of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:09

It's so impressive to me. Like, I've now I've heard that stand-up's the hardest thing there is. That's what everybody says.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:17

The great crutch of music. Yeah. So I can storytell the songs, like, you know, say this is how it was written. And what I do is I tell the stories of my childhood and then go, and then look how this showed up in a song.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:32

So it can also be inspirational, and it can also show that everything you do.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:36

It's impressive, man. People loved it when we came to see you at Zany's and you played, you know, after you had already been telling these stories. I was just like, wow, when you most people that do comedy, they don't start out with that long. You know what I mean? Like kill Tony's one minute.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:53

I know. Oh my God, I watch that too, and I get so nervous for those people. Um, I didn't know what So funny is when I wrote the show, the you know what I mean, and started writing it, I didn't really know what to do. So I wrote an hour. I was like, I an hour, yeah. And that was what I did. I went to the bluebird first because you know that was a safe place for me. And it's small.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:15

Is crazy.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:16

I know it is. I know it is now, especially. And my friends that are, you know, comedians that I've talked to, they're like, Oh, do you, you know, how how do you have 20 minutes? You have I'm like, I have an hour five. And they're just start. Well, and also, look, you know, I've got a lot to work out. I understand why people do it over and over and over before they tape a special because I got to go on tour with Walker Hayes last year and do 12 different markets with him. And I did 30 minutes before him in theaters, and it just got so much better every time I did it. And, you know, just doing it over and over, even though it's a lot of the same stuff, you come up with new stuff on the spot. Yeah. It's like writing songs.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:53

Well, that's how Louis C.K. he doesn't write his stuff down. He'll just have an idea like I'm gonna talk about my dog when it ate chocolate. Exactly. And then he figures it out on stage. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:05

Like And that's the same with Leanne Morgan, who is truly my hero. I mean, as far as this goes, I'd I'm just so inspired by her. You know, she's 60 years old. She's been doing it for over 25 years, and now she's hit her stride. And she all the dreams that she had of having a sitcom, of having a hit special, of touring and playing arenas. It all happened in the same year. She was in a movie with Will Farrell and Reese Witherspoon. I mean, all of these things happened to this woman when she was 58 years old, and she's just so on fire.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:38

And I don't know, it doesn't have anything to do with being old or young. It's just doing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:43

To me, that's like a giant thing, like that. I think she inspired so many people that are like in their 50s. Like 100%. I mean, you can break if you know in your 50s. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:57

Well, guess what? Because there's a whole lot of us that are in our 50s.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:59

Yeah, and you know what? We're the ones like with money to go to shows. We're the ones that listen to podcast, you know, like across the board.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:08

And we're also the ones who have kids that were going through the same thing that either she went through a few years ago or might go through. It's like, you know, she talks about uh plannerficiatis and and going to rock concerts and and all the things that now we're in our 50s that we're all relating to. And anyway, and young people relate to her too. Oh, I know. It's just I I you know, I'm I know I'm going on and on about her. I love her. She's she's just an example of somebody who just kept dreaming and and did it.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:40

Yeah, and kept going for it. That's the thing. So many people give up on a dream. You know what I mean? They do. I think she's such great inspiration for somebody that has a dream that it hadn't happened yet to keep going. And that's the thing too. I love like new chapters, you know? Like, and that's what I love with you. This comedy thing is a whole brand new chapter.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:01

It is, and you know, it's sometimes it's hard to not let the imposter syndrome talk me out of it because they're like, these people who are comedians, they've been doing this their whole life.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:12

Yeah, yeah. And now you're funny, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:09:14

So that's the thing is I have to remember writing songs, performing these songs, telling these stories, producing these records, uh, running a label, all the things that put me in front of people, doing the TV show, those were all things that are leading me to doing these stories in this comedy. It's all part of it. And I needed to do all that stuff so I'd have something to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:36

Yeah, totally. That's the thing. I love I'm I'm kind of obsessed with calm. I just love comedy. Yeah, me too. We go to everything, like, and we like who's your favorite, like three comedians.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:48

Well, I love Eddie Murphy. Yeah, um, yeah, and I think he was the first person that I remember being like. I mean, it was so taboo to as a kid to watch him, but I still think he is so brilliant. I mean, you watch those things. I mean, he was so young. I just watched his documentary.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:07

I did too. I just watched it's so good. And he's he's a different kind of guy than I would have thought. Me too. Yeah, I didn't know he struck him like that.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:14

I know he's sort of, I don't want to say serious because he's not, but he's but he takes it seriously. Yeah, it's like he really worked. Yeah, and talking about how young he was when Beverly Hills Cop and all that, but his rhythm, I just think he's brilliant. His energy and he was new, he was fresh.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:33

You know, I love people that do something nobody else has done.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:35

Me too. Me too.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:37

He's definitely up there. I mean, I love Nate Burgatzi. Yeah, he's amazing. I love Saturday Night Live. Yeah. I've always loved it, even when people say it's bad. Have you ever been? I know I have. I got to go with Casey two times when she performed. I think my window for getting to be on Saturday Live is probably closed as far as like being a cast member. But I think I I think I hell, I can, you know, hopefully I can hope. I think the the issue with that is you have to be at a point in your life where you can spend 16 hours a day.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:08

Actually, the your kids, if you want to have kids in a family, that's the that's what I've always heard is the thing, like with them. When we went to Saturday Night Live, like there was one moment that I laughed and nobody else, Chris got pissed, like because I laughed so loud. You can straight out hear it like on TV because nobody else laughed. I love Bill Header. Oh, he's just so I love Kristen Wigg. I love they were baby.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:36

I mean, Meyer Rudolph, I worship these people. And I think they're the smartest, most they are they're just so talented.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:44

Canadians are about as smart as any any profession, I think, because it's just so hard to do. Yeah. And like the thing with what's crazy is with Bill Hatter, it reminded me of something one of our kids said. That's why it was funny to me and not anybody else. Because our son Oscar, when he was like five, we were in Hawaii and he was in the pool with these two Japanese kids and they were speaking Japanese, and he was like, Stop talking like that.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:11

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:12

He thought they just weren't playing with him. Yeah. Dale Hatter was like, Stop saying it. So it made you think of and it triggered that, and I just lost it. Like, so were they on, like, were they cast members when you when I went?

SPEAKER_06 1:12:27

No, it was, you know, who was uh hosting one of the nights was Melissa McCarthy.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:33

Oh, I love her.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:34

Me too. But it was a newer cast. This was in the last few years. Kate McKinnon was there, who is incredible. I can't even Keenan Thompson. Uh yeah. But I've always loved Saturday Night Live since I could stay up and watch it back when like Jan Hooks and the Sweeney sisters. I mean, I that stuff, I feel like that developed my comedy chops. You know, I mean that's Did you meet Lauren? No, I didn't actually really meet anyone except I don't guess I met any of the cast. I was just in her dressing room and then hung out there kind of in the back. And like they that changing area is right there. Like they have to get behind that curtain, and Melissa McCarthy would run by. And, you know, it just certainly didn't feel like I could say hello as you're doing live television. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:19

Did you like have you seen the outtakes on the I can't remember which movie it um it's oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:25

It's um I it's this is 40.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:27

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:28

When she says, when she says everybody hates you to the principal, and she's like, I'm gonna scissor kick you.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:34

I've watched the set you on fire.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:36

I'm gonna set you on fire. I have watched her name is Jill. I think she's saying Jill, the principal. Yeah, yeah. I think she's like, that's why everybody fucking hates you, Jill.

unknown 1:13:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:46

Oh, I have watched that 10,000 times. I think she is just so great.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:51

She, man, I'd love to meet her.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:52

Yeah, and I like I said, I didn't meet her. I was right by her, but we never did you go to the after party? But I used to watch her, I did go to the after party, but I didn't hang out with anybody. I hid in the corner and you know, tried to take weird pictures. I used to see Melissa McCarthy at the Groundlings. When I lived in LA from 2000 to 2007, I would go to the Groundlings all the time, which is where you know a lot of SNL casts come from. And um, she was one of the main uh members there. And I would what she would work out a lot of those characters that ended up, you know, that she would go. I guess they we went but she wasn't an SNL cast member. She she was she just is on the show a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:27

Yeah, yeah. We've gotten lucky at so many comedy shows in LA where people would be on the lineup. Like we went that guy, Sebastian.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:36

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:37

He was there. There there were people that have all had hit like specials. They were just working out their stuff in this little room.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:44

If you go, if you go in those places, a lot of times that's what happens.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:48

Um, yeah, I saw Fortune Femester recently and Jed Appetite came out.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:52

Oh my I love him. I would love to interact with him. He's doing a movie about country people. Do you know he's doing a movie about a country singer right now?

SPEAKER_04 1:15:02

No, I did not.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:02

I've been thinking, oh, I would love to tell, I would love to talk to him about this. Like, I love Leslie Mann. She is she's one of the funniest underrated people, I think.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:13

I love her.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:13

I love her too.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:14

I think she's just awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:16

Man, maybe we can go to dinner with if they're in Nashville trying to research, you know, like that movie looks like it's gonna be really funny. It's got that guy in it that's in everything now. He had a show like about football. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:30

Um, Ted Lasso guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:31

Um Sedecas?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:33

No, not Sadecas. Uh, what's this guy's name? He's kind of he's a real cute guy and he's a heart throb and he had this show. Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:40

I know exactly what you're talking about. You're talking about um the top gun guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:43

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:44

Oh my god, I can't think of his name. I know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:46

He and so, oh, I love Judd. Have you seen his masterclass?

SPEAKER_06 1:15:50

No. Oh, it's amazing. I need to watch that. I watched Amy Polars.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:54

Amazing.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:54

I need to watch that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:55

Yeah, it's really good because and he did a stand-up act.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:58

Did you see he did stand up then? I saw him one night with Fortune Phoeps. He walked out of the room.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:03

So he got up and did stand-up that night?

SPEAKER_06 1:16:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:06

When was that?

SPEAKER_06 1:16:08

Six months ago. Where I at uh Largo. I'm gonna be hanging out there like in right there, you know, Largo right there in uh Beverly Hills or by the Beverly Center.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:18

Oh, I would just love to see. Well, I just respect him so much too, because he's such a great writer across the board.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:25

Yeah, and he helps other people. That's what I love. Yeah, he is always I mean, Lena Dunham wrote the forew in this in his book, and hearing her talk about how he champions young writers, comedians, filmmakers. It's like that is the ultimate. Yeah. You you have that and you get to give it away.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:44

He's done so many shows with people like her that you wouldn't even know he was a part of it.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:49

I know, I know.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:50

And he just championed all of them. There's a there's a show called Love that he did, like with this skinny guy. Like it's on Netflix. It's really fun. Yeah, he does. Man, I'm gonna make I'm gonna put it in the universe that you and me go to dinner with those two. Oh my god, listen. How amazing would that be to just talk about writing? Because I you know that he's gotta be curious about, you know, if you're making a movie about something like country music, you want it to be authentic.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:17

Authentic, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:18

Because people get it so wrong.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:20

I know.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:20

I mean, they get it so wrong.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:23

I too. Figure this out.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:24

Hopefully, we'll be talking too.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:26

I hope so.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:27

That would be amazing. I love

Building Shucked From Idea To Broadway

SPEAKER_01 1:17:29

him. How in the world did you end up doing a musical?

SPEAKER_06 1:17:33

Well, I didn't grow up thinking that was gonna happen. I did not even know. I had no idea that a lot of the songs I loved growing up came from musicals. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:45

Well, when's the first musical you went to?

SPEAKER_06 1:17:48

Book of Mormon.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:50

I want to see that show.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:52

It was incredible. And so that was the first Broadway show I'd ever seen. And I was with my husband who knew a lot more about uh theater than I did. I did theater growing up, but we didn't have musicals, we just did plays. Anyway, when Book of Mormon was over, and I had just started like literally, I think I'd gotten that Lincoln Walmart cut. I mean, it was things were just starting to happen. Some seeds were starting to, you know, happen and grow. And and we when Book of Mormon was over, it's a hilarious show, but I had tears in my eyes because I couldn't believe it. Yeah, I could not believe what it must have taken. And I was like, I want to do this.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:32

And of course, when you're not, you didn't even know the world. There's this naivety, almost like the comedy thing. Yeah. Where you're it's almost a it's a it's actually an asset.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:42

Because I didn't know how hard it was. I didn't know how small the number of shows that compared to what they're working on.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:51

So two years later, um, and I and by the way, in the in-between, I'd seen a bunch of shows. We went back and I would, you know, watch the things. I saw Book of Mormon is still my favorite. It's the most brilliant. Uh I it's so funny.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:05

But also, there's like a lot of political statements in it, and it's just so smart.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:09

I also love a show called Avenue Q that a lot of people don't know. Okay, that was. I'm gonna have to see. Is it on right now? I think it is off Broadway. It's incredible. It's done with like Sesame Street puppets, but it's grown up theme.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:20

Oh my gosh, that sounds amazing.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:22

The songs are hilarious, and it's like one of the songs was um Everybody's a Little Bit Gay. And the just all these different, like hilarious, if you were gay, I don't remember exactly. It's making me want to go to New York right now to go see it. The internet was for porn, and it's like a Sesame Street character singing it.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:40

But anyway, I love that. I loved that show too. But a couple years later, Brandy Clark and I had worked together a lot on a record she was making called 12 Stories that you know had a lot of uh similar small town themes. And uh Gaylord was sort of floating the idea of a hee-haw musical, and because they owned the rights to hee-haw, the old TV show, the vaudeville show. And they hired a writer named Robert Horn, who had a lot of television credits, and he liked what we were talking about before, where he wanted it to be authentic. So he came to Nashville, he wanted to meet with country writers, and someone played him Brandy Clark's record, and he said, This is how the music should sound. And so he met with us, and it was such a far-off, far-fetched. It was like, we're gonna write a musical about hee-haw or based on hee-haw, but it's gonna be a story.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:32

And we want songs that sound like that. I mean, we did paint by number. Basically, on a whiteboard, he wrote, okay, you need an opening number, and then you need an I want song, so that the lead character, you know what they're after, and then you have to have a song for the villain, and then you have to have a love song and the love triangle song. I mean, it was literally like this is what happens in musicals. Now, through the years, it changed. Yeah. But at the beginning was what I call paint by numbers because it was like then you need what they call an 11 o'clock number, which is a big number before the finale.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:07

And that's sort of the payoff, and you know, so we sort of started filling in those songs on the whiteboard.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:14

How many songs are in it?

SPEAKER_06 1:21:16

I think there's 12, but we wrote 40.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:18

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:20

40 songs for a music. That's crazy. Well, it makes sense because they were so good.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:25

And yeah, through the years, whittled, whittled, whittled. I mean, what they told us when we first signed up to do this was most musicals take about a decade to get all the way to Broadway.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:35

What'd you think when you heard that?

SPEAKER_06 1:21:37

No way.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:38

We're disappointed. It won't take many. We know we know how to do this. You know, we're already writing the kind of songs you want. Five years in, we were in Dallas. Uh, we had an out-of-town run in Dallas that I thought was Broadway bound.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:53

And it was called Moonshine then. It had changed names and changed the stories had changed, and and it just didn't work. And people loved it in Dallas, but nobody in New York came calling. Like they all the people from Broadway came down to see it, and they were like, this is a great show for Texas. Yeah. This is not Broadway material. So we basically the producers were sort of like, we're kind of at an impasse here. We've spent all this money. And we, the writers, were like, oh, like I don't know what's gonna happen beyond this. It kind of just fell apart. And the producers went away, and we didn't have any money to, you know, we both we all started working on different projects. And uh actually through my husband having a friend in New York whose husband was a Broadway producer, he he uh had heard about our show, and uh he asked his wife to ask my husband to ask me if he could read the script of what we had.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:50

Did y'all write the script?

SPEAKER_06 1:22:52

Robert Horn wrote that the what they call the book, which is the script. I mean, I he is a genius, so I'm not taking any credit away from him, but we work as a all three of us work together. He he helped us with a lot of the songs, vice versa. But um ultimately this producer named Mike Bosner, a young guy who had only produced a couple of things, was like, I think you have something here if you guys would be willing to really rework it. I think the theme is great, I think country music is needed on Broadway. And then it was six years after that before we were on Broadway. Wow. So we had two other out-of-town roads. So amazing. So it's 11 years when we hit Broadway, and now we just this week they had their 500th show on tour. Oh, so the American tour just played 500 shows. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:36

That's the it's like the gift that keeps on giving with a musical.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:40

It's true. I mean, it took all that time, yeah, but now we're making a movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:44

Yeah. Oh, you're making a move. Talk about that. I need to know about that.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:47

Yeah, we're really early in the process, but the Mandalay, the bot who does a lot of huge movies, and they bought the rights and now we're re-reporting. Have they casted it? No, no, but the script is is in the process of being close. Like it's a it's a new version, you know. But yeah, that is really exciting, and we're gonna be writing some new music for them. Oh great. So it is like the gift that keeps giving because all these other things happen from it.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:14

That like, and then everybody will be singing it, like these musicals, like because so I guess so many more people, you know, get well, but if they're touring, then a lot of people can go that way. But so many more people get to see it when it's a movie, like because like a lot of people don't get to go to New York.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:32

Well, you know, I I almost hesitate to talk about it as a movie because it movies take so long. And of course, you know, like I I mentioned the movie to my mom, and you know, two years later, she's like, Is this really happening? I'm like, I mean, as far as I know, it can take another 10 years, but really I've tried to stop shrinking myself. I think you will relate to this. Like when someone says, Oh, it there's a movie, I want to shrink and go, Well, we don't know. I mean, who knows what's gonna happen. You know what? As far as I'm concerned, it's gonna be a movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:03

Yeah, let's just put that out there.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:04

You have to own it and just go, look, we're working on it being a movie. I don't know when it's gonna happen or how it's gonna happen. But and right now it's about the journey of and the creation of.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:12

So until the people that I know that have been the very most successful, like Taylor, just people that they just believe they just do it. They just believed it was happening. It's absolutely you know what I mean. Yeah, and I love one of my favorite quotes is what you believe determines what you'll make true.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:31

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:32

I mean, if you walk in a writing room like and somebody's just like you can't even have a hit in Nashville anymore. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:39

You certainly can't.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:40

It's like I'm ready to go right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:42

100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:43

And so I believe it'll be a it's gonna be a movie. It's gonna be a movie. Like, I mean, if you can get a musical, you can get a movie.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:51

I mean, that's way more like far-fetched, is that it got all the way to Broadway. It's insane.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:56

That's that is insane.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:57

You know, you have to think there's like 25 Broadway houses. Half of them are full of shows that never leave. Yeah, wicked phantom. Exactly. So you have very few options to get on Broadway, like when you're really talking about Broadway theater houses. And we got all the way there, you know what I mean? And we got nominated for nine Tonies, and it won a Tony, and we played for a year before we went out on our American tour. It is a wildest dream I didn't even dream for myself. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:28

Yeah. What so what's your favorite song in it?

SPEAKER_06 1:26:31

Well, the I mean, the opening number is called corn.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:34

Yeah, I love that opening number.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:37

It's the kind of song that you know those songs in your life that you write that when you listen back, you think, I couldn't have written that.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:44

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:45

It had to have been coming through me because I don't even know those words.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:49

Yeah, and I don't know how I did that.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:51

Exactly. Yeah. That's how corn feels to me. And and I think Brandy would agree, it's just this massive, it's like a history lesson, and it's like jokes, and it's like, and we listen to it and go, when did we write this? Yeah, like how did this happen?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:05

How did you get the title?

SPEAKER_06 1:27:07

Oh, for the song corn for the musical. We spent months like after the story was done and we knew that it was about corn because the show originally wasn't about corn, it changed through the years. When it became about the corn dying, I mean, I bet we had a thousand names. And shucked was just it, it kind of sounded like a dirty word and it just kind of had a bite to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:29

It just seems perfect.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:30

Yeah, it it took it took a very long time.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:32

I think it like really means a lot. If it I always feel like if somebody can get a good title for something, then it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:38

Well, we were able to use it so many times in the show is the you know, we're shucked. Yeah, somebody's getting shucked.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:44

Yeah, it was man, that show was so funny. And then okay, what was that number? The one that everybody talks about, the one with the like, because brandy, brandy made me laugh so hard that night. The one, I'm not gonna say the title.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:00

Is it is it in the show? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:01

It's the one that um the big independently owned.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:05

Yes. And operated. Yeah, the one she won the Tony. She did. Well, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:09

She should have because it was amazing. But Brandy, like, oh my God.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:13

I will say this. That opening night when Alex Newell came out and sang that song and got a full standing ovation.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:22

I did tell Brandy in that moment I looked at her and I said, I don't know if I could ever feel higher than this moment. Yeah. And I've done all the drugs. I was, I felt like I was off the floor, you know. I felt like I was floating.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:35

I think that's the best moment I've ever seen in a musical ever.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:39

It was unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:40

And there's a reason there was a Tony, you know, like for that.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:44

Absolutely. That moment.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:46

Because that song, like it Chris and me both were just like, holy shit. I mean, it was a big thing.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:51

And the arrangement, the music director knew Alex's range from top to bottom and arranged our little country song that we actually patterned after. Here you come up here. Oh my god. That's where we started. And our arranger knew uh Jason Howland, he knew Alex's voice and was able to go from the bottom of their voice to the top of their voice. And when we heard that arrangement, I just was like, I there's no way I wrote that song. How did this happen? But they put my name on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:21

Unbelievable. It's so good. Everybody needs to see Shucked. I mean, because it's so fun. It's so good. Like that. I would say I'm trying to think of like a musical I loved as much as that. I spent the whole time at Hamilton upset that the guy that did it wasn't there. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, I just like I won't because I was used to him singing those songs.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:43

No, Hamilton is so brilliant. I mean, it's brilliant. Yeah, and that's it. It changed the whole game.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:47

Yeah, it did. And the fact that you could do a musical about that.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:50

I know. I know. It really opened it up to what everybody is, you know, knows is possible.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:54

Yeah, it's true. Thank you for being here. I would. I just love you so much. You're one of my favorite people. Oh, I got

Delegation Family Life And Goodbye

SPEAKER_01 1:30:02

one last question. Yeah. How do you are you good at delegating?

SPEAKER_06 1:30:05

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:05

You're not.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:06

I think I've gotten better, but I definitely what what I am good at is letting people do their job.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:13

If meaning I think that like in a writing room, if somebody's great at something, I say I defer to them.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:22

But as far as delegating, I guess I am. I just think it's taken me a long time to let things go.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:27

To be like, I don't have to be the one to do the demo. I don't have to be the one. That's new for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:32

To be like, look, if there's going to be a demo of this song, y'all are going to have to do it. Yeah. Because I used to have to be the one.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:38

And it would wear me out, but I still wanted to do it because I thought I was the only one that could like do it the way I wanted.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:45

And and I don't do that anymore. So I guess, yeah, I guess I've gotten too much.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:48

What about in business? And life outside of like music stuff.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:53

In general, like yeah, I think I am probably because I was just like That's probably how I've been able to do so much. I mean often to let other people do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:00

Exactly. Well, y'all had a travel agent, and I'm like, we are just doing this wrong. Because I was just messing stuff up left and right.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:06

Yes, that, yeah. We had to, you know, let somebody else just and and I look, we got some of it wasn't right, and some of it was.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:14

But y'all did such cool stuff. I mean, like, that's something you'll be thankful you did for everything. I know. It's worth more than anything, really. Like, and then y'all got this new baby that he's so cute, and I love the name text. Thank you. I love the name text.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:29

We're so obsessed with that child.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:31

He's getting he definitely runs the risk of being very spoiled.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:35

Oh, I bet because he's got like two siblings like are gonna just like, yeah, yeah. That's a beautiful thing. And your sister, nine years, yeah, there's a spread. Like the ours, ours have a spread too. Like, we've got Truman, who is like 10 years older than Lola. Oh, yeah. And and they're the most alike, and they just go talk about how screwed up we are. Like they go to lunch.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:56

It's sort of like what how our sister, my sister and I I was a matter of our family. Yeah, yeah, it was kind of like we bonded over how the craziness of our of our family. And so maybe that's what Tex will bond with his brother and sister over. Um, but when they go to college, he goes to kindergarten. Oh and I'll go and I'll have to go to the hospital and lay down.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:18

But kids keep you young. You know what I mean? Kids keep you young.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:22

They both I always say they keep you young and they make you old.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:24

It's two things. Yeah, but like you'll be healed. You know what I mean? You'll know who whatever everything is going on. Like because that's how I feel with our kids. Like, I know stuff people would never believe I know.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:36

Yeah, especially music. Well, you're the best. You're the best. Thank you for being here, and thank you. I just am so happy you were on here.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:44

Me too.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:46

You guys rock. Thank you for watching.