John Rich: A Message for Diddy

In this riveting episode of The Arroyo Grande Show, country music superstar John Rich sits down with Raymond Arroyo for a wide-ranging, no-holds-barred conversation. Rich responds directly to Sean “Diddy” Combs in light of Combs’ conviction, revealing what inspired his defiant new song about protecting children and standing up to evil. His unapologetic take on faith, fatherhood, and spiritual warfare is both timely and deeply personal.

Rich also shares the highs and lows of his own journey—from getting kicked out of Lone Star to building Big & Rich, to redefining himself as a songwriter for legends like Faith Hill and Gretchen Wilson. He opens up about the hard lessons learned from early arrogance, rebuilding his career after failure, and the advice that kept him moving forward: when everything is out of your control, control what you can.

Beyond the music, this episode delves into Rich’s views on country music today, why he’s become more outspoken politically, and the influence of his father’s unique ministry. Raymond and John explore how art can reflect the struggles of its time and why Rich sees music as a weapon in the fight for truth.

Whether you’re a longtime country fan or simply curious about the intersection of music, faith, and culture, this conversation is filled with powerful stories, heartfelt moments, and fearless commentary.

🔔 Subscribe for more inspiring conversations: Arroyo Grande, available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and everywhere you listen, watch & stream.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Country music superstar John Rich has a message for Sean
Ditty Combs as he faces sentencing and the advice he
has about bouncing back from defeat and the power of art.
You have to hear it all on this edition of
The Arroyo Grande Show. Come on, I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome

(00:28):
to Arroyo Grande. Go subscribe to the show. Now turn
those notifications on. I want you to know what's coming
and we've got some amazing things in the days ahead.
Country music superstar John Rich is my guest on this
episode with Shaun Didty. Colmbs recently found guilty on two
counts of trafficking individuals for prostitution and immoral purposes. He

(00:51):
now faces sentencing. The federal law he violated, the Man Act,
carries a maximum sentence of ten years, which brought to
mind comments John Rich made to me recently. The songwriter,
singer and father is a fighter, one whose faith moves
him to call out injustices that he sees around him.
He had some choice words for Diddy and I also

(01:13):
spoke to John about coming back after a defeat and
the power of art. His advice is worth heating. You've
got a new song that I just heard. Yeah, it
hasn't been reading, but I've been reading about it and
it STI tell me about this song.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Well, if you can say you're inspired by Sean Combs.
I saw a video a couple of weeks ago of
that monster looking right into the microphone bright lights on
a stage. He looks in the camera and he goes,
I own your soul. I own it. I determine what

(01:53):
your kids wear. I determine what your kids listen to.
I determine all these things about your life, about your
kid's lives. And he's got that look in his face,
just look like looking straight at the devil. And I said,
look at this guy walking out here in broad daylight,
saying he owns us and owns the souls of our children.

(02:14):
Reminded me of Goliath walking out, mister hein and mighty,
mister powerful, biggest guy on the block walking out when
Gliath called out the Israelis and he's just mocking them incessantly,
and they all stood back, like, what are we going
to do? He's too powerful, he's too big. And then
David walks up and hits him with a rock, which
didn't kill him. He helped him down. He takes Golias

(02:38):
on sword and cuts his head off. So I go, okay, okay,
Sean Combs. So your weapon of choice is music? Correct?
Mine too nice to meet you. So I thought, you
know what, nobody's written a song about these devils. Nobody's
written that so.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Well, it's really not about the devil, It's about the
defiant reaction to the devil. Correct.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
We are not supposed to, as Christians, be weak. The
people that wrote the books in the Bibles were not
weak people. Jesus was not a weak Jesus was so
strong he allowed human beings to torture him to death.
He allowed them to do that. It says in the

(03:27):
Bible that we are supposed to be weapons in the
hands of God to tear down the thresholds of Hell itself.
A weapon cannot swing itself. An axe cannot cut down
a tree by itself. It takes an operator to pick
that axe up. Now, you hope when you pick it
up that it is heavy and it is sharp, and
it has cut trees down before. And when you start

(03:48):
wailing away at that tree, chunks of wood are going
to go flying. You hope that tool is ready when
you're ready to pick it up. So I look at
myself and I look at other Christians in this country,
that we better be preparing ourselves to be the tool
He created you to be. Maybe one guy's an axe,
one guy's a screwdriver, one guy's this, one guy's that
they do this. Everybody's got their job, But be prepared

(04:12):
for him to use you and the way he wants
to use you to bring it to these people, Raymond.
The most egregious sin I believe a person can commit
is to harm children. And the reason I believe that
is because Jesus Christ himself said in the New Testament,
you'd be better off to have a millstone tied around
your neck and cast into the sea than to ever

(04:34):
cause one of these little ones to stumble. He didn't
say to kill them or hurt them or abuse them.
He said to mess with them at all, to mess
with their innocence at all. He'd be better off dead
than ever being that person. So we know how Son
of God felt about it. And now we look around
our country and Tom Holman's going, there's three hundred to
five hundred thousand missing kids that we know about that

(04:55):
have come across the border that's not even taken into
account all the other ones, and they didn't come across
the American citizen bingo, And we're allowing this to go forward.
And then you've got people like Sean Combe standing there
on television telling us that he owns our souls and
owns our kids' lives.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
How long are we going to sit.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Around and just let them keep talking to us like that,
because it ain't just talk. They're doing it. So that's
what set you off to all this big time? Can
you tell me? Can you tell?

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Oh? Yeah, I can. I could feel it in the lyrics.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Face is getting hot talking about it.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Tell people about this song. About the lyrics, I mean,
it's basically, go and repent now, brother, while I go
get my gun. This is not I'm gonna go pray
for you.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
The point of the song is, you come after my kids.
Horrible things are going to happen to you. You will
not survive what happens to you. If you come after
my kids, you will not survive. You think you're tough,
Try it one time, come on, come on up my road,
Come on up and try to get my kid one time.
Try to take one of my sons and see what

(05:56):
I do to you is what the song is all about.
And it talks about because we fight with the sword
of the Heavenly Father and we ain't afraid to die.
Are you afraid to die for your kids? Me?

Speaker 1 (06:09):
Either?

Speaker 2 (06:11):
I would stand right in front of whatever I had
to gladly, happily. That song is going to keep them,
you know, to keep these demons off my kid.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
That song is going to be a huge hit, not
because you wrote it to be a big hit, but
because it resonates.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
I wrote it out of sheer anger towards these people,
and I want most of them. Probably won't hear this song.
I don't even know when I'm going to put it out,
probably pretty soon. It doesn't matter if they don't hear it.
I want parents to hear it. I want parents, moms
and dads to realize we do not have to put

(06:45):
up with these people and listen to them and give
no rebut back to them. Because they're so powerful. They
have no power. Their power comes from the Father of lies,
and we all know what happens to him. He gets
utterly destroyed in the end. You see what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
I do, and John, I love that you're writing This
is the path of every artist, whether it's Irving Berlin
or the great novelists of the eighteenth century. They're writing
about their time and they're using their art to speak
to that moment, correct, And that makes it like the
Book of Revelation. It's true in the moment it was written,

(07:20):
it's true for all time. In the case Revelation, it's
going to happen in the future too. So it's it's
the alpha and the omega, it's all of it. Art
has that same power, though in some ways do you
feel a part of that and has that and why
aren't others speaking to that same country? Music always reflected
the heart of the people in a powerful direct way,

(07:43):
and we're still singing he stopped loving Her today and
we're still singing those songs. Yeah, because they were so
true in the moment they were written. Do you feel
this is a part of that tradition.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, I just feel that the age were currently in
the world and in our country. Sometimes I wonder if
Johnny Cash was alive in twenty twenty four, what would
he say if Charlie Daniels, who was a good friend
of mine, if he was still around. He died in
twenty twenty, right before it all got crazy. What would

(08:19):
he say?

Speaker 1 (08:20):
Now?

Speaker 2 (08:20):
These are old men, and I have to think there's
a big advantage to being an old man, being in
your eighties that you just don't care anymore. Well, I'm
not an old man. I'm fifty, so I'm not a
young guy. But I'm not an old guy and I
don't care. As a matter of fact, it worries me
more if something is laid on me to go say

(08:41):
and I don't say it, that is more dangerous than
saying it, because guess who you just upset the boss.
I put that on you and you did not follow
through with it. So guess what. I ain't sending you
any more of those or whatever else he might decide
to do. I think he opens doors for people who

(09:02):
have enough nerve to run through them. I don't think
he opens doors for everybody. I think he opens especially
the dangerous doors, the doors he goes. I need this
to be said, I need this. I need people to
hear this message song, whatever it might be. And so
I'm going to put it in that kid's brain and
see if he's got enough, you know what, to carry
through with it. And I'll be honest, it is unnerving

(09:23):
to talk about those things, those subjects.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
What do your colleagues say to you?

Speaker 2 (09:31):
Most of them that are my actual friends. Thank you
for saying that. Ah, I wish I could say that.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
I get that a lot. I'll bet I'll have.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Some of the biggest country artists out there, even some
of the new ones that are massive right now, back
channel and direct message me on X. Hey, I heard
that interview he did with so and so, keep it up.
Wish I could say that. Wish I could show you
those over and over and over that say that, and
I go, well, that's I wish they would say it,
But I understand why they don't. They're right in the
middle of what's going going on. I know what's at stake.

(10:02):
So maybe my job, Raymond is right now is to
keep your mind standing wide open and he hits you
with something that he wants to be said, write it down,
do it the best you can, and unapologetically slam it
out there.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Tell me about your father, Jim, who was a pastor,
but he spread the gospel in an interesting way. I
ready he had to always had a guitar with him. Yeah,
tell me how that marked you. What you learned from him.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah, he's a singer songwriter. Actually went to college on
a vocal scholarship. You know, he's a real singer. And
at nineteen he said, I was called to go preach
at nineteen and so he said, so that's why I
started doing. He started on college campuses where he was
going to school, and then when he got out of there,

(10:49):
he started going. He went to the Democrat National Convention
right after that, and then he started going to places
like Marty Grass, the Indianapolis five hundred, all kinds of
major events around the US. And he would go out
in the streets and take his guitar and take a
speaker and on a cliant's cart, stand it next to

(11:11):
him and start singing. And I asked him why. I mean,
I understand the point of why you're doing that. What
a great thing to do, But man, you're such a
charismatic guy, You're such a great minister. You could have
been preaching at a massive church somewhere. He goes, Yeah,
because the people I was told to preach to will

(11:31):
never walk into one of those churches. The people I
was told to preach to, so prisons, Yeah, Marty Grass,
like go where the people are who are never going
to walk in the front door of a church building.
They're the ones that need to hear what I have
to see.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
You feel that calling on your life? Now, I think
you're it in your music now, John.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, I think to a large degree, you know, an
audience that I've been able to build up with help
since the mid nineties with the band Lone Starr and
then Big and Rich and then solo and combinations of
those things. You know, they get used to hearing you
singing hit country songs and they go, I love you music.
I love your music. I love your music. Well, now

(12:14):
when they come up to me, they go, I love
what you stand for. I like your music. I really
love what you stand for. So I guess, with the
skill set and audience I've built over all these years,
I'm now able to write songs that mean something other
than just a check or an award or a plaque
on the wall. Like you can put into gear. A

(12:36):
piece of music that in three minutes can communicate more
to people, get them to think more, think more deeply
than if you talk to them for three weeks, than
any speech anybody could ever get. You're a musician, you know,
the power of music. It disarms people, It opens up
a different part of their mind. I believe a different
part of their spirit as well. So they're so and

(12:57):
when they hear something that's real, Ruth and it's wrapped
in music, it's a really powerful thing.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
And the guitar. You all, you and your father shared
guitar lessons.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, young, Yeah, that's how I learned how to play
my dad. You know, you don't get real rich preaching
in prisons and at Marty Grass.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
I mean you get reach in different ways John rich.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Well, of course, absolutely, but not monetarily. And so he
had a lot of different jobs. My dad slopped hogs
at a barn on the weekends, he was the night
watchman at Emberland National Bank where I'm from. He sold cars,
and he gave guitar lessons. And so when I was
a little kid, probably five, my dad goes, he's walking

(13:38):
out the door and he goes, you want to go
with me to the music store and do guitar lessons.
I was like, yeah, let's go. You know, I've get
to go with dad.

Speaker 1 (13:44):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
And so I go in there and there's this whole
like semicircle of adults that got their guitars out. He
pulls up a little chair for me, goes here, just
sit right behind me and hands me like a little
cheapy guitar. Just follow along, follow along. Well, after a
few weeks of tagging along, I'm sitting at the house
playing better than the adults were playing. And he went,
he picked that up pretty fast, Andy, I went, I said,

(14:05):
it's really fun, you know. And so then he said,
you want to sit behind me in the pulpit sometimes
when I go preach at these places and back me up.
I said, yeah, So that's where I got into playing
the guitar. Was wanting to play with my dad.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
What did your dad teach you about spiritual warfare and
the power of music and the gospel to counter evil?

Speaker 2 (14:27):
My dad priests a lot on that still does. Uh
that basically everything you see happening and the flesh has
already happened in the spiritual side. It plays out down
here amongst all of us, and that it's always really
important to remember that when you meet an individual that

(14:47):
seems vile, well, that seems violent, angry, way out of whack,
He said, look at that person and realize that is
not how they were born. They were not created to
become that. They started out as an innocent little baby. Okay,
they weren't like that. At some point in their life

(15:08):
the other side got a hold of them and ripped
their life to shreds. And this is how they are now.
And you know, when you look at presidents, for instance,
my dad and I had a conversation about that before
this last election, and he says, well, if Trump wins,
it'll be an act of God. And if Trump loses,
it'll be an act of God.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
I want to talk about your origin story. You leave home,
graduate high school, you go to opry Land, right, Why
opry Land? Why had you gone there? And said, I
went as a kid multiple tire. You go, yes, we
loved it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
So Operland, for people that don't know, is a big
theme park in Nashville for a very long time live
country music, bluegrass, gospel, and they had roller coasters and
log rides and everything else. And so as I was
a senior in high school, a friend of mine says, oh,
look at this back when we had a new Oh
look at this opulan's having auditions. I went, oh, that's cool, Yeah,

(16:04):
been there one hundred times. He goes, you should audition
for that. I said, they're not going to hire me.
He goes, why not, I said, cause you got to
dance and do all this stuff.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
I said.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
He goes, well, you know there's going to be a
bunch of good looking girls there. I said, well, no,
that is true. That's a good point, because you should
just go down there. I'll go down there with you.
I said, okay, fine, So drove my nineteen seventy one
Dodge Dark Swinger, which I still own by the way,
drove it down there and I auditioned.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
And I got the call back with your guitar.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
Just me and a guitar. They didn't make me dance
or anything. I just sang, got the call back, came back,
sang again, and they said can you dance? And I
said I can two step? I'm from Texas. I said
I can do that. But that's about it. They go,
could you learn some stuff? I said maybe, I don't know.
They said, well, it doesn't matter, because you're hired. You're in.
So I knew halfway through my senior year I would

(16:51):
be working at Appyland. So that's the first time I
ever got a real check. I think it was three
hundred and thirty dollars a week to do Opuyland, which
is where I met the guys started the band Lone Star.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Right Dean Dean Sean Sam Sam's how did you meet?

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Well? He worked at Aprey Land what he had been
there several years and uh, I wound up on a
show with him and he heard how high is saying
I was first tenor? I was really high first tenor.
And he said, hey, we're putting a band together, a
bunch of guys from Texas. You're from Texas. He said, man,
your voice is so high. We need somebody that can
hit those high notes. We're going to you know, covering

(17:25):
modern day country music because at that point he still
had a lot of harmony rest his heart in Alabama
and all that. I said, that's cool. He goes, you
play bass, right, I said, I mean, yeah, I can
play a bass. I'm thinking, how hard can it be?
It's only got four strings? How how could it be?
The answer was no, I was not a bass player.
So he goes, great, learn these songs and he hands
me a cassette tape of the top twenty I think

(17:48):
the first twenty out of the top forty country songs
of that week, so we're gonna have We're gonna have
a little get together this weekend. So I called a
friend of mine who was a pro bass player. I said,
can you show me how to play bass on all
these songs this week? And by the way, can I
borrow a bass and a cable and an amp. He goes, sure,
I can show you how to do it. So he goes,
here's the technique, and here's it. So I spent eight

(18:10):
nine hours a day leading up to that little rehearsal
with my thumb. You're supposed to play it, I play
it like this now, doing this, trying to find all
the notes. And went to the rehearsal and they said, okay,
you can stay in the band because you can sing
higher than Richie McDonald, which was the lead singer, but
you got to get better at the bass. You can't
stay in the band. I said, you got it. And
that's what really made me not go to college. Because

(18:32):
the guy's called up and said, hey, we got a
booking agent that can put us on a road for
about two hundred dates this year. I said, I'm supposed
to go to college. I said, I've got a full
ride scholarship to Belmont University on a vocal scholarship. They go, well,
you're gonna have to pick. And I went to my
dad and I said, I don't think I'm going to
go to college this year. He went, do what I said?

(18:54):
He said, what are you going to do? Instead of that?
I said, I'm going to get in a van pulling
a trailer with a bunch of guys were ten and
fifteen years older than me, and we're going to go
play holiday in lounges, rodeos and casinos. This is the
dad who preaches at Marty Grass so this world but
signs now. I can't even imagine the pit in his
stomach that must have given him. But that's He said,

(19:16):
what's your ultimate goal? I said, MultiMate goal is I
want to write hit songs beyond country radio and play
the grand O Library. I don't know how going to
college is going to do that. He goes, it won't.
I said, So he goes, that's what you think you
need to do. You're grown man. I was eighteen. You're
grown man.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
So that's what I did. I took off on the
road and never.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
Look back, and you have a number one hit. Of course,
not long thereafter.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
To Yeah, Come Crying to Me hit number one. That's
my first number one?

Speaker 1 (19:43):
How did that come to be?

Speaker 2 (19:45):
So in Nashville, when you get a record deal back
then you would get a de facto publishing deal. Because
you have a record deal, you get a default publishing deal.
And when that happens, they'll take these greenhorn songwriters like
me and sit you in the room with Hall of famers,
I mean, like the greatest country songwriter minds that have
ever existed. And you're sitting in the room with them,

(20:07):
and they're trying to write songs to get on your
new record. That's the point. And they figured if one
of the guys in the band is a writer on it,
he'll vouch for the song. We got a better show
to shoot into the album, right, So I got to
sit in the room with all these guys, and I
guess by just really watching them in osmosis, I started
getting a lot better. And so Come Crying to Me

(20:27):
was actually a co write. It was a three way, right,
So it was me and two established songwriters, but it
was my title and I had the thing going. I
was always walking with an idea started and they go,
that's a really good idea, let's write that. Why not
being my first number one?

Speaker 1 (20:40):
Wow? What did you learn from them that you didn't
know before sitting in that room? Because you always picked great.
I mean, when you're working with people at the top
of the game, I always tell my kids, you really
want to know how this works. Go find the best
people in this game next to them, clean their their
toilets or offices, do whatever you need to do to
be near them.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
Yes, do not hang out with people that are at
your level. If you can keep from it. You know,
you can say all day, well, I'm really good compared
to this one, this one and that one and that one. Yeah,
but are you pretty good compared to Johnny Cash?

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Right?

Speaker 2 (21:10):
No, and you never will, but you're pretty good to
compare to George Jones. No, Okay, Then keep their faces
on the wall when you're writing, which is what I
have at my house. What you learn from pro country
songwriters is which is what I know now and how
I do it. And if you listen to my songs,
you'll hear this play out. The first line of the song.
Better get your attention, I mean, right out of the gate,

(21:32):
you better say something bang, gotcha. That way they'll hear
the second line and the third, and really you want
every line in the song to be a standalone thought.
I'm kind of a I'm a still picture songwriter. So
some people saw different styles. But some people like to write,
you know, some chronological story. And that's fine too. I

(21:54):
love those songs.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
For me, ninety percent of what I write would be
I'm sitting here with you. I take a mental picture
of this room, and I write what's happening in that room,
so you could literally watch the picture and listen to
the song and be in the picture. I write in pictures.
I try to put you in the spot, make you
smell it, feel it, taste it. I want you to
feel what's going on in this situation of the lyrics

(22:17):
so almost voyeuristic to a degree. I've been able to
write songs for other people. Faith Hill said, I wish
you'd write me a song. Said, I'd love to write
your song. Faith, what do you want to sing about?

Speaker 1 (22:29):
Mississippi? Being for Mississippi?

Speaker 2 (22:30):
Do you know you know well? I know your songs, Yeah,
she says, I said, what do you want to sing about?
She goes, I don't know. Write a song where it
would only make sense if I sang it, no other
girl singer could even sing it. What do you make
sense for them? I went, well, that's quite a homework assignment. Okay,
all right, let me think about it. So we're right
on tour with Tim McGraw at the time, and Faith

(22:52):
was out there. And during the day you see Faith
Hill back in the back parking lots by the tour buses,
flip flops, cut off jeans, ball app sipping a corona,
got her kids playing at a kiddie pool. I mean,
just mom. And then the concert hits and Faith comes
walking off the bus in an evening gown and diamond
ear rings and her hair's all done, and she's singing
Itch Your Love with Tim mcgrawl of thirty thousand people,

(23:15):
and five minutes later she's right back in the parking
lot with her flip flops ball cap. I said, that's
what the fans don't know about Faith, because she had
been doing some Hollywood movies at that point, and a
lot of the fans said, oh, she's gone Hollywood. She
forgot about where she came from. So I said, I'm
gonna write a song about where she comes from. So
the first line of the song it's a long way
from Star, Mississippi, her hometown, to the big stage. I'm

(23:38):
singing on a night. So Martina can't sing that, Shanaia
can't sing that, Gretchen can't sing that, Riba can't sing
that because none of those people are from Star. You
see what I mean. So there's approaches that I've taken
to songs, all various approaches, but in general, it's writing
in pictures Gretchen Wilson.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Then you write redneck woman for greting right, Wilson?

Speaker 2 (23:56):
That out after that? Would know it was right before Faith.
Faith came to me because she heard me.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
You heard that one.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
She said, I want a redneck woman for me.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
I need my song. I don't blame her, she's got
a good air.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Yeah it was. It was quite a challenge, and I.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Wouldn't take you back. What happened with Long Start? They
boot you out of the band? Yes, they did? Why
because I deserved it? Why because I was.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
A real ass and it was hard to deal with?

Speaker 1 (24:21):
Man? Why were you so difficult? You're just you're feeling
your road. You got a number one hit right out
the gate, right, yes? And and when you grow up?

Speaker 2 (24:31):
So I grew up in a double wide trailer Emerald, Texas.
We didn't miss meals, but wasn't any extra laying around,
and a lot of people around me had said not
my dad, but others were down on me, down on
me all the time. Growing up, I was very as
you can imagine, headstrong kid. And when I finally broke

(24:55):
through and made it to the other side and had
started having real big success like that, I took success
like a hammer, and anybody that had ever messed with me,
I just whack them in ahead with it. By the
way I would talk, the way I would live, the
way what I would drive, how I would present myself,
what I would say in a meeting, what I would
say on a microphone. I mean, just one hundred percent

(25:17):
totally engrossed with my own arrogance. And so at one
point the band just said, you know what, we've had
just but enough of you thing. It's time for you
to go wow, which sucked because the very next song
they put out was Amazed Yeah, one of their biggest
songs in country. And I was sitting at home in
my little apartment that I no longer could pay for

(25:38):
because I just lost my income, lost my record deal,
and lost my what publishing deal because by the fault
you get the pub deal lost them both lost. The
management lost, a business manager lost, the shows on the road,
lost all of it. Boom, just like that in a
phone call. So, I'm sitting at home watching my old
band except the award for Amazed.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
And so, and you thought what when you watched it? Oh.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
I was viciously upset at them initially and then started realizing, well,
I would have fired me too. I would have fired me.
I deserve being fired over that. So I thought, well,
now what do I do? Maybe I can get a
solo record deal.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
I got one, You got one.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
I got one and it flopped. Put out two songs
and neither one of them hit. So I lost that deal.
Now I'm a two time loser. I got kicked out
of a band. My solo deal failed, and in country
music that's a big deal. If you can't hit your
radio goes. Now he tried it didn't work. Next, I mean,
it is just like that. It was at that point
I got some really good advice from a couple of

(26:40):
the older songwriters, and they said, listen, when everything is
out out of your control, find the one thing you
can still control. And control it well. They said, that
could be what you're eating. How many pushups did you
do today? Whatever? Find what you can still control and
control it well. For me, that was a pencil and

(27:00):
a piece.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Of paper writing back to the chora writing.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
So in the course of about four or five years,
I wrote around seven to eight hundred songs because you
couldn't stop me from writing, and I write, I want
every single day.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
All were making ends meet What were you doing?

Speaker 2 (27:17):
There was still a little bit of money coming in
from come crying to me and a couple of other things.
But that's about it. That's about it. It was.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
It was burning down then.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
And then I meet Big Kitty, which I know you're
gonna ask about, and he was kind of the same
thing where he was just writing every single day and
misunderstood by the industry. You know, my anglic country music
was ac DC was a banjo player. That's what it
sounded like. That's what I wanted to sound, you know.
I wanted to do save Ors, ride a cowboy Lone Star,

(27:46):
wanted to do mister Mom. They want to do love
songs and family songs. I wanted to do stuff that
make the college campus so controlling what I could control
in that time period. One of those songs got recorded
in that span of time, but the second bigg And
Rich and Gretchen hit. Al Dean also hit, which I

(28:06):
wrote four number ones on his first record, and then
the whole city starts coming to me and goes, you
got any more songs like these? I go, yeah, here's
nine hundred.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
You go, you're giving them.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
So there was just a raid on my catalog where
everybody wanted to cut those kinds of songs, and so
all the stuff I've been stockpiling now is valuable.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
So what's the lesson for people who find themselves in
those positions, those predicaments where God maybe hitting you across
the head two by four, Yeah, to reorient you do
what you can control. Is that the lesson.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Boil it down to the simplest thing that you can
still control. And it could, like I said, it could
be what you're eating every day. It could be that
you're gonna call your mother every day, it could be
whatever it's going to be. You go find a charity
you're going to want to go work with, and go
do the best you can at that. You basically start
rebuilding yourself. What you'll find is when you get that

(28:58):
next opportunity, which you will, because opportunities continue to come
for people that continue to push. All that stuff that
you screwed up in those first times come to bear
again and you go, oh, yeah, I'm not going to
be that guy this time. I'm going to be this guy.
And that's a never endings.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
I love that story. I mean, I read about this
that you're rebuilding, but you're also you're quietly and maybe
unbeknownst to you, rebuilding the future because that in the
panic and the loss, in the hurt, you found why
you were here.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
Well, there's two ways have gone when you're that upset
and now you're embarrassed in front of the whole industry
and your money is gone. Two ways to go. One,
drink your face off twenty four hours a day and
wind back up down on Broadway playing in a bar
somewhere as the guy who used to be in Lone Star,
and that's your claim to fame for the rest of

(29:52):
your life. A lot of people do they make that out,
Oh a lot of them. The other is to back
down into what got you in the game in the
first place. What's your original goals? Go back to piece
of paper and a pencil. Cheapest thing in the world.
Everybody has that.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
How did you and Big Kenny meet? How did you meet?
And why did the partnership work.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
There was a girl that worked for Fender Guitars named
Cindy Simmons, and back then, Cindy's job she was an
artist rep. So her job was to find up and
coming singers that she thought might get a record deal
or might get them early and say, oh, I see
you're playing that nothing to get your guitar, but that's

(30:36):
not a great guitar. And they go, that's all I
could afford. She goes, how about if I get you
a brand new Fender guitar? And they go what She'd go,
here you go? And she tried to get them to
play Fenders and then when they hopefully they'd go hit
almost like venture cap right. I can give it to
one hundred artists, three of them get deals and they're
playing Fenders.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
Right.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
So she had done that with me and done that
with Big Kenny, and we didn't know each other. She
knew the two of us separately and had told him
and told me about the other and hit me up
one night and said, hey, Big Kenny is playing a
show down at Douglas Corner. I said, okay, I'm gonna
be down here. Come on down here. I want you
to hear him. I said, can I ask you a question?

(31:13):
Why Big? I said? Is he big and fat, big
and loud, big and tall. That's the dumdest thing I've
ever heard. Why is he called that? She goes, Just
come see him and you'll it'll make sense when you
see a show. I said, okay, fine, So I go
down and sure enough, he walks out on statures. He
is tall, he's about six y fourth but all his
hair and he's going to everybody. He's like Willie Walker,

(31:36):
and I was like, what is that. Hagrid didn't like
him at all. I'm like, that's a strange individual. I
wonder what he sings like. And then I hear about
sixty minutes of his set and I went, I don't
know what I just heard, but that was some of
the most creative things I've ever heard somebody. Right, So
when it was over, walked up to him, Hey man,
I'm Johnny goes, oh, hey, I've heard about you, right,

(31:57):
and he goes. Cindy says, we ought to write a song,
because what are you doing tomorrow morning? I go, I'm
not doing anything. He goes, well, you want to come
over to my house and write a song, so she'll
leave us alone. Basically I said, yeah, I'll come over.
We wrote that next day. That was October of ninety nine.
Next day, we wrote again, next day, next day, next day,
And we have written hundreds and hundreds of songs. And
as a joke, people started calling us big and rich.

(32:20):
We'd show up at somewhere late at night to come
hang out there, but go, oh, look it's big and rich.
Ha ha. That's where that came from.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
That's where it came from. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
So Kenny is Kenny and are really polar opposites on
many many things, including creatively. And so what's interesting about
that is I'll come at you with a straight line
and he's coming at you with flowers. So, like I said,
Kenny likes to smell the flowers and I like to
mow them down. But when you lock those two together,

(32:48):
what do you get, Raymond? You get a three sixty
view at the whole song, at the whole subject that
you're writing, whether it's a love song, party song, whatever song.
So that that locking in of the two opposites like
that have really created something. I know.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
It's hard to describe why partnership work, creative partnership works.
It's always hard. I mean I remember talking to Jerry
Lewis about why he and Dean Martin worked right, and
he knew, but he didn't know. How would you why
does this partnership work?

Speaker 2 (33:18):
I would take that answer. I would say, you know,
but you don't know.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
One of the reasons that Jerry said it was love.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Well, okay, I would say on between Kenny and I,
it's mass respect for the other person's competency and ability
and creative energy. I don't have what he has and
he does not have what I have, and we both
know that. You know, it's like in a relationship, if
you're both the same, one of you is irrelevant. That
goes for marriage to that is exactly right, you know,

(33:47):
it's the opposite track. Well, that's a real thing. I mean,
you want to be strong where they're not, and you
want them strong where you're not. And I think even
though you know we've disagreed over the years strongly on
a lot of different things, like what we've disagreed on
political things, we've disagreed on musical things, business moves. You
can imagine it's a duo. Man, it's hard both have

(34:10):
to agree or it does not happen. Right, And so
if you had, you know, three people, or it's a
band like lone Star, majority rules. There's no majority in
a duo, yeah, right, it's one in martnership.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
Yeah, but throughout.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Now you're looking at twenty years since our first record
came out, came out in two thousand and four.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
Amazing.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
We're still on the road doing fifty sixty cities a year.
The crowds are, I would argue, maybe bigger than they
were back in the day. You know, all our original
fans are all still there, and now it's their kids
are all coming out. You got college girls hanging out
with their moms going save of ours right again, loving it.
And then the Patriot crowd from songs like Eighth of November. Right,
It's just massive at our shows. So I think we're

(34:52):
a good example of how Americans ought to try to be.
Me and Big Kenny, are you.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
Get your first record deal? Worried about that first record
coming off of what you would come off of?

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Well, the whole music industry, except for one guy said,
big and rich music is what is that? I mean,
is this a clown show? What are you guys trying
to do? I mean, first of all, John kicked out
a loan star, his solo deal totally failed. And what
is a big Kenny? I mean really, and you've got
a big black rapping cowboy, cowboy Troy who at that

(35:25):
points working at foot locker in Dallas, Texas. They're like, guys,
it sounds like a lot of fun. Enjoy playing that
in the bars. That was everybody's answer except one guy
named Paul Whirley. And Paul Whirley is one of the
best record producers, guitar players it's ever been, highly creative guy.
He signed the Dixie Chicks and a bunch of others.

(35:46):
He was producer Martina McBride, and he heard about us
at a jam we were doing called the Music Mafia,
where Paul's daughter Ashley had started coming to these On
Music Mafia, seventy eighty people crammed into a room on
Tuesday nights, me and Kenny and other artists that we
knew that nobody had a record deal, we would jam
and Paul came down and saw that He goes you

(36:06):
guys want to come to my office tomorrow. I just
became the president of Warner Brothers Records last week. We went, yeah,
we'd love to come to your office. We're thinking we're
going to pitch him a song for somebody. We get
in his office, he goes, no, I want to talk
about Big and Rich. I think that's a thing. We
go to his office and he said, play me some
songs that you would play if you had your own record.

(36:26):
So we started playing those songs and he goes. He
slams his hand out on the table. He goes, boys,
I want to do this. Kenny goes, you want to
do what? He goes, I want to sign Big and
Rich to Warner Brothers Records. And I looked at Kenny.
I said, are you hearing this? He goes, are you
serious right now? And he goes, yeah, I want to
do it. And we went well, all right, and we
high fived. I was it and off to the races.

(36:47):
So he was short of him, seeing that there was
something there. I doubt you'd have ever heard of us.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Course of the different colors at first time they fought
you though on Oh, they including some of your biggest.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
The industry hated that record why because it didn't sound
like anything that it ever happened. And Nashville goes through
these phases. I think it's in one right now it
starts trying to break out where it sounds like they
all went to the school of redundancy school.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
You mean the truck I left my truck running school.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
I mean, same tempo, same court progressions, everybody looks the same,
the storylines are all the same. And it's kind of
gotten back into that. There's a few breakouts starting to
push out now. But at this point, country music, that's
where it was at that point, and they said, you
don't fit on country radio. What are you even singing about?
I mean, really, you guys are songs based off of

(37:39):
bumper stickers you saw, which is exactly what save worst
right A cowboy was what, Oh, he has a bumper sticker.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
You saw a bumper sticker.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
The friend of ours saw it, yeah, and said that'd
be a funny song. Right. We're like, yeah, it would
be a funny song. Let me go, right, And it
was a funny and it is a funny song.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
But they said, no, don't do it. They said this
wouldn't This is saying to trivialize you.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
If you put this on the record, guys, nobody's going
to take you seriously. And we said, but yeah. When
we played at Music Mafia, people go nuts. They're like, Okay,
we'll put it on the record. We'll just bury it
in the track count. We'll put it at track seven
or eight. It's not going to be a single though,
that's fine, just let us put it on the record.
So we put the record out. A song called wild

(38:21):
West Show was our first single, and when that single
came out, the whole record became available, so fans started
buying a record. Next thing, you know, radio stations are
getting hey, can you play track seven on the horse
of a different color record? On drivetime? On Friday? Wow,
a station in Florida played it one time. Phones exploded
and we went The record label goes, well, I guess

(38:42):
it's going to be the single A single.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
Thought.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
Thank goodness, because if we walked out and didn't play
sab Ors Ride a Cowboy, they'd be throwing stuff at us.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
You know, how do you write and where do you write? Well?

Speaker 2 (38:54):
I write for various You say, how.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
Do I write? You know? I like to be in
my I like quiet I don't like a lot of
noise when I write, but I'm not writing music right,
So where do you go? Do you have to be
in a place so you write wherever you are.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
I sit next to Tom Petty one time in La
at the ASCAP Expo, which is a huge songwriters deal.
It was usher, Tom Petty and me, I'm the country
guy on the panel, and a lady asked Tom Petty
from the audience, mister Petty, how do you get your
ideas for your songs?

Speaker 1 (39:28):
I didn't ask you that one. I know, bumper sticker.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
He's leaning back in his chare. He goes, well, I
just stick my antennat there as far as it'll go
and wait for a song to drift across it. Then
he just stopped talking. The whole place went okay, but laughing.
Hey Tom, and I heard that answer. I went, that
is not far off from exactly how it is. I
don't know what it is in a songwriter's brain, but

(39:55):
you don't just walk around thinking about songs all the time.
But there is a spot that if you give me
three or four minutes, it's almost like you can turn
a key and it opens up. I always point to
this down in my head. It feels like they come
out of here for some reason. But all of a
sudden it opens up and you as a songwriter, I
will hear melodies, rhythms, lyrics, all kinds of stuff. It's

(40:15):
almost like a faucet. Turn it on and turn it off,
turn it on. Every now and then one will hit
me so hard that I wasn't in the frame of
mind to write a song, and it will literally just
come into my head like as loud as you can imagine.
And that doesn't happen very often. It happened with a
song called Revelation or something. That's when you grab a

(40:36):
guitar off the wall and tell everybody, Okay, I'm going
off in another room. I need an hour and get
your pencil out and you get to going out.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
But you write along. You like quiet when you write
when you're working the song.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
If I'm working a song, now, I gotta be by myself.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
It's yeah, yeah, but I figured yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Because you're wrestling with your own thoughts, you know.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
Is it harder writing for others when you write women easy?
I mean you're a for Taylor Swift as well.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
Yeah, he'sier writing for somebody else.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
Because you can see the whole person on you.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
You can't see me.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
It's harder writing see you.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
You want me to write a song about you and
about this this podcast. I can do that for you
in about ten minutes. I can have you a song.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
Ready to go, a new a royal ground.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
I think I can see you, I can hear you.
I know what you're about. I know what the point
of this is. But if you're writing it from your
own perspective, man, that's a deep spot to go to
because you're there's nobody to bounce it off of, and
you're just you're wrestling with your own thoughts. What am
I feeling about this subject that I need to get
on the paper as strongly as possible.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
Why have you gone more political in recent years? Is
that just where you feel God taking you, the times
taking you and your music?

Speaker 2 (41:48):
I think after my two sons were born and started
to get old enough to realize Dad is part of
this industry here, and they would watch me get upset
at the television screen like we all do, and say,
be talking to my wife about something going on in

(42:08):
the music industry that I didn't like, but then turn
right around, cowboy up, walk out, the door, hit the
red carpet, go play patty Cake with all these people.
I was just yelling about is hypocritical. That's being a
hypocrite in front of your own two sons. And one
day that hit me really hard. I said, I am
being a hypocrite. Not only am I upset that they're

(42:30):
watching me do that, I'm upset that I'm watching me
do that. How long am I going to keep this up?
Because the record labels in the industries are telling me
at this point, do not do that interview with Raymond,
do not go on that network, Do not talk about
this on social media? No, no, no, no no. They
would have meetings about it. I'd make a comment something,

(42:51):
you know, something they didn't want me talking about, and
they'd have a full blown meeting with the press they're
press people at the record label and bring me in
and say you got to stop doing that. You're going
to blow your career up. And I listened to that
for quite a while. I'd go, Okay, well, I don't
want to blow my career up, and I don't want
to cost Kenny his career. And you got a band
and crew and bus drivers and yeah, wife and kids

(43:11):
and Okay, okay, I'll back up. But after a while, man,
it got to the point where I said, yeah, that's
being a hypocrite. And so if it means that I
got to say exactly what I know needs to be
said and do it like it needs to be done,
I run the risk of losing this industry that has
put more plaques on my walls than I can count.

(43:31):
They will be done with me if I ever go
to this point. But can I live with myself if
I keep playing this stupid game with these people? And
the answer was no, you can't. And by the way,
your sons are watching you, and what are they going
to do when they grow up and get out of
the house. They'll go, well, yeah, I really don't like
how this is going. But you know what Dad did.
Dad just yelled at the TV, rolled over and took

(43:52):
the check kept going. Which is the problem with a
lot of Americans and Christians that they'll just roll over
and get along, get along and stay in a nice, easy,
comfortable spot instead of taking the harder route and punching
through it.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
It's a good time to talk about revelation. You mentioned
it a moment ago, which is this incredible song you
wrote this year, and you said, I'm gonna quote it
felt like a hammer hit me in the back of
the head. Was it physical? Was it a jolt?

Speaker 2 (44:23):
No, I mean no, not like a physical hammer. But
it was if you could take a thought and pound
it into your head, as if you hit yourself with
a hammer. That's what it felt like. It was mine
in my own business. And I mean out of nowhere boom.
I could hear the melody, I could hear the lyrics.
I'm seeing that revelation this has been you know, there's

(44:46):
been so much intensity placed upon our country and so
many things going on that I have read about in
the Bible my entire life, and I've heard it preach
my entire life, and not until recently have many of
those things even been possible to be carried out. You know,
most of Revelation and Daniel and Second Thessalonians and places

(45:07):
that talk about the end times seem like science fiction
to people, including my own father. He goes, We never
could understand how these things could be possible, he says,
until recently. And now it's really easy to track everybody
on the face of the earth. It's really easy to
control how you spend your money and what you're allowed
to buy and sell, which is what the Mark of

(45:27):
the Beast is about. He said, with the advent of tech,
where we are in the world today, the globalization of
everyone that is new, that's new that allows for these
things to now take place. Doesn't mean they're going to
take place tomorrow or even in my lifetime, but it's
now possible and we're looking at it. So I've been
thinking about that and really scrutinizing things and watching and

(45:50):
that's when that song came and I realized, Raymond, nobody
had written this song. I started going back through gospel bands,
Christian artists, contriar artists. I could not find an anybody
that literally wrote what the book says in the Book
of Revelation and.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
Saint Michael the Archangel and the battle with Lucifer. I mean,
the whole thing is in there. All of that is there,
all of in the song.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
Yeah, and it's throughout the Oh, it's in the song. Yeah.
The video. The goal of the video was can we
show what spiritual warfare would look like if it came
into the physical huh. I remember telling my video director,
Doc Abbott, who lives here in Nashville. He goes, how
do you think how do we do that? I go,

(46:33):
probably CGI. I said, I've got a great guy that
works with Tom McDonald, who's probably my favorite rapper alive
out in California and he has a lot of CGI
in his videos. I called Tom told him the idea.
He goes, oh, yeah, you need to work with Jared.
Jared's up in Washington State. So I sent it to Jared.
He goes, that's going to be difficult, but I'm definitely
capable of making that happen. I said, I want the

(46:54):
Devil and Michael the Archangel to have a battle with
me standing in between them. That's what I'm looking for.
He goes, okay, and so we shot it and that's
what the video is.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
Have you ever seen a.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Video like that?

Speaker 1 (47:07):
No, I've never seen a video like that. I never
heard a song like that either.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
A prophetic song in many ways. Do you think of
it that way?

Speaker 2 (47:15):
No, because the song is not really even a song.
It's me saying what the pages of the book say.
I just made them rhyme. Those are not my words,
those are John's words.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Well, but those are prophetic. It's a prophetic. Yesterday and today.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Spoken by the prophet John as he was exiled to Patmos.
He's writing what he's seeing and hearing, and that becomes
a book of revelation. And two thousand plus years later,
we're standing in situations that look an awful lot like
what he was talking about. And so here's your lone
songwriter who think God doesn't have a record deal, publishing deal,

(47:48):
or any company that can tell me, I can't put that.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
Song because you would have never been hit.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
No, not in a million years never. You would have
never heard a song. If I had a record deal,
that song does not get heard.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
I forgot. You were at the Mandalay Bay shooting right
You were performing with Jason Alden. What did you think
when that hill of gunfires started falling on these poor people?
It almost hit you. You were there, what forty minutes before?

Speaker 2 (48:14):
I was there forty five minutes before the bullets started
flying through the drum risers on the stage. So big
and rich we opened for Aldean that night, and so
as soon as we got through playing, we left on
the bus. Actually had a red Nick Riviera kind of
satellite little bar over there, and I will go over
there and hang out with the local band and you know,
get ready to leave town. We get over there and

(48:36):
we're up there singing a little bit. The security man
comes up to me and he says, he goes, stop
the music. Stop the music. I'm like, what are you
talking about. He goes, stop the music. They pulled the plug,
killed the pa. I'm like, what is going on? And
they say, there's a mass shooting happening at where you
guys just were at the concert. I went what, So
everybody got quiet. We turned on the local news. We
had you know, we had TVs everywhere. Yeah, and the

(48:57):
local news is reporting if you were anywhere near Mandalay Bay,
Bellagio or Caesar's Palace, get away from the windows. Well,
we were looking right at Blagio. We're looking at the
fountains and all that. I'm like, everybody, get away from
the glass. So you go get off in the corner.
And I remember looking down you can hear all this

(49:19):
racket going on. We're kind of up high, We're looking
down and you could see police squads moving through the
streets down below. I'm like, okay, so somebody's on the
loose through the town. So I said, somebody needs a
whole point on this front door, and I asked, has
anybody got a weapon in here? And everybody went, uh,
I know, well I did.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
The only one.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
I had a Colt forty five in my belt, so
I pulled it out start walking to the front door.
We got a glass door, and this big old cop
officer brown flops his badge out and I looked at him.
I thought, oh, I'm in trouble because I have a firearms.
First thing I thought, He goes, I'm a police officer,
Minneapolis Police Department. I'm here with my wife on our honeymoon.

(50:00):
Can I have that and letting me protect the door?
I said, yes, sir, and I turned the gun around.
I said, it's not chambered, and he grabbed it, went
it is now, and he racked it, got down on
one knee and put his elbow up on the T
shirt table there and just held point on that door
because for all we knew, somebody was coming straight through
the door. Got back home after all that had happened,

(50:21):
and was going through my suitcase and I found the
hotel key because we were staying at the MGM. Found
the hotel key, and I'm watching the news and I'm
looking at the room number on my hotel key, and
I'm looking at the news, going hang on a minute.
My ceiling of my room was the floor of that
guy that was lobbing those bullets shooters all day. I'd
been up in that room just waiting for the show

(50:42):
to start. He was literally right there all day long.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
Are you satisfied with the answers that we've gotten about
this guy?

Speaker 2 (50:48):
What answer?

Speaker 1 (50:49):
This old man running back and forth between how you
know how long? That's sweet? Was Yes?

Speaker 2 (50:54):
What answer? There are more cameras per square inch in
Las Vegas, Nevada than probably any city on the earth.
There are cameras everywhere, everywhere. Can't find any camera footage.
The cameras we don't have cameras reminds me of other
things I've heard since then. And then you start thinking about, well,
how in the world can one guy sit in a
hotel room like that, because my hotel room would have
been exactly like his and fire thousands and thousands of

(51:17):
rounds and not choke to death. That's the first thing
I thought. I'm a shooter. I'm like, man, if you
fire enough rounds outside, you can start okay, clear the air.
He's inside a hotel room doing this, and then you
think about what the local news said, get away from
these hotels and get away, and then national news took
it and I remember seeing the big FBI guy leaning
over that sheriff while the sheriff hands are just shaking

(51:39):
like a leaf, trying to read the statement. There's the FBI.
I'm going is what happened? What really happened here? Anybody
that was there, anybody that was around that situation, None
of us believe a word that we were told. And
I'm hoping in this new administration that is one of
the things. There's many, but I hope they tell us

(52:00):
what that actually was, what actually went down to a
lot of people, that over fifty people got killed at
that concert.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
Your fans, your fans, you had met with some of
these people who are victims of this. Right before the
concept died.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
Yeah, that died. A young young man came through with
his wife and the meet and greet, big fan took
pictures with him, and I got word that when the
bullets came in, he turned his back to where the
bullets were coming, shielding his wife, and he took several
rounds in the back and he died. And you know,
they deserve answers. We deserve answers. And pardon me for
being so skeptical when you go through something like that

(52:36):
and you go back and look at it and go,
that is not true. That is not true what they're
telling us. And America knows that a lot of things
have happened in our country that America knows is not
the truth.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
We need answers, particularly for that. I mean that that
is a that well, the shooting here in Nashville too,
that school shooting here not sufficient answer. No, and we're
talking about babies.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
And shop you Valdi, Why are the cops standing in
a hallway for an hour while this guy's executing kids
and they're all got bulletproof, vest rifles, everything they need
to walk in that room and take that guy out,
and they just stand there for an hour as the
shots keep popping and killing these kids. Yeah, America is
sick and target it. Honestly, That's one reason why Trump won.

(53:19):
It is it is it is the gravity that is
that finally got together of all these things, put all
into one big package and drop it in your lap
and go Trump, fix this, tell us the truth, tell
us what's going on. I have a feeling if we
all know the real truth about everything, it would change
America's future for probably a century, because it'd be real

(53:40):
hard to trick us in anything again for a long time.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Tell me about Rednick Riviera. I've loved the Rednick Riviera
because I know the origins of that. But I'll bet
a lot.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
Of people, yeah, the Gulf Coast.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
Tell people where that title came from. Why you had
to call it red?

Speaker 2 (53:55):
As a as a songwriter, it's one of my favorite
phrases because it's funny. First of all, I like funny stuff.
But it's basically, back in the sixties, people living on
limited income, which is still the way it is today,
couldn't afford to go to the French rivi era. So
where would they go? We got to go to the
redneck rivi So that's like Destin Florida, Gulf Shores, Alabass

(54:16):
Mall City Beach, and the beaches are pristine, and the
food is great, and there's music everywhere, and you can
drive there, you can afford to stay there for a
week and your family have a good time. And so
I always thought, man, what a great phrase. Growing up
blue collar myself, I thought, yeah, I remember calling it
Rednick Rivera. When I was a kid, first time I
ever got stung by jellyfish was in Panama City Beach.

(54:37):
My dad drove us down there in the station wagon,
and so I thought that should be a brand into itself.
So I wanted to step out and build all American,
one hundred percent made in the USA brand that reflected
my life, Like basically I grew up blue collar. My
brain still works that way. But you go to a

(54:57):
place you can afford because it's truly nice memories with
the family, and can we get back to veterans to
a brand which we have to fold.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
How many tuitions have you paid? The folds and honor
a lot?

Speaker 2 (55:09):
It'd be hard to say how many tuitions. The brand
has generated one point six million dollars since twenty eighteen.
That's a lot for any brand, much less a privately owned,
small upstart brand. But I look at that as you know,
the only reason guys with high school diplomas who grew

(55:29):
up in a double wide in Texas and nothing fancy
get to go out here and just shoot at the moon.
Literally just go all the way as hard as you
want to go and chase the American dream. It's because
of the United States Military. Short of those men and women,
you don't get to sit here and be on TV.
I don't get to go make music. Nobody gets to
do what they want to do short of life, liberty

(55:51):
and pursuit of happiness being kept in tact by the
US military, And so Folds of Honor puts kids and
spouses through college who lost their mom or dad, or
who have a family members one hundred percent disabled. That
was the income earner. And so there's people all of
the US right now going to college. Parsley subsidized by
Rednick Riviera.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
Love that. I love it, and you got and you
have the club here in Nashville, which is a great
place to one place if you want to come to.
If you're coming to Nashville, you should go to the
Redneck Revie. It's a lot of fun. It's a great bar.
There's a love of music. And you were one of
the first country artists really to start. I mean everybody
followed John Rich's lead on this way.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
Everybody. Alan Jackson had a play. There was a couple
of the big dogs. Yeah, places not.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
Like it is now. Everybody and the dog's trying to
get a place. It brought you out.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
I mean it truly. I think every building down there
has a country artist's name on it at this point.
But we try to make the bar really be its
own thing, and it really is. When you walk in
the front door. We call it the Heroes Bar, and
that's where if you're a vet, active duty or a
first responder, you get the seat and the first drinks
on the house and the walls are covered in patches

(56:58):
and military coins. Part of the proudest moment I've had
seeing that place operate was a bunch of rowdy guys
were down there having a bachelor party at the Rednick Riviera,
and I mean they're getting you know, you can imagine
they're having a big time, and these two old Vietnam
vets come walking in with their Vietnam Veteran ball caps on.

(57:18):
They come walking in. It's six deep at the bar.
You can't get up to the bar. And I watched
these bachelor party guys see those old men and got
up out of their chairs and moved people out of
the way and said take my chair, come on, take
much here, and sat the old man down at their
chairs and then they got up and that was the
coveted spot to sit and respected those old men for

(57:40):
their service. So that's really the culture of that kind
of encapsulates the whole brand really.

Speaker 1 (57:44):
Well and what the country should be.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
I hope we get back to that.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
I think we're getting there. I want to ask you
quickly before I get to I have a list of questions.
I ask everybody give me the state of country music
through John Richard's eyes. Now you've said there couldn't be
a rede all End today, there couldn't be a Johnny
Cash today. Why not? Especially when you hear those young
artists reaching out to you privately and saying thank you
for saying that. Clearly that's where they are still.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
Yeah. So the talent of a Loretta Lin, but the
talent of a Johnny Cash can exist in Nashville and
does there There are people with unbelievable talent and Nashville
that are that are coming up through the ranks. The
part that's different is is the record label's stranglehold on creativity.

(58:35):
Back in the day, Johnny Cash could sing you know,
I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die,
and they would let him put that out and let
the fans decide if they like or something like the matter,
if Johnny Cash is too crazy, I don't want to
ever hear that again. That's really not how it is now.
And I know that for a fact because I was

(58:56):
in it. And then now all these artists that come
to me and go, I'm gonna play let me. I'm
gonna send you a song I just wrote. The label's
not gonna let me put it out, but I wanted
you to hear it. Anyway. They'll send me a song
and it'll be it'll be making some kind of a
cultural statement or something, and they won't even bother turning
it in to the record label. It's almost like it's
not censorship because nobody ever puts it forward to even be.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
Some self censorship.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
It's self sense.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
They get what they understand, what's going to.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
Make a no go, So why don't even try? And
that's not healthy?

Speaker 1 (59:27):
No, Okay, I'm gonna I gotta put my hat on.
Can you throw that hat to me for a second? Good?
I gotta put my hand.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
I didn't know. I think that's my hand I got
it almost looks like look at that, look at you.

Speaker 1 (59:37):
That's a big one, all right?

Speaker 2 (59:39):
One tip pull it down?

Speaker 1 (59:40):
A little bit lower.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
There you go. That's it. That's that guy's ready for
the grand ole up.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
Really right, here we go, ladies, and they won't let
me on the opery that'll bring down the stage forever. Okay,
these are my royal Grande questionnaire questions I asked everybody.
He's a rapid fire, but they're important. Who is the
person you most admire my dad? Why?

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Because he is unyielding and relentless?

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
You took the lesson? Well, my friend, who's the person
you most despise.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Right now? Sean Combs and anybody like him?

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
What is your best feature?

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Loyalty?

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Ah? And your worst?

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Hm? Which one should I pick?

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Took a card? Any card, I.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Would say, rushing to judgment.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
The last great book you read? And your favorite book?
I think I know the answer to this one.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
Well, I mean discounting the Bible, not counting the not
counting the Bible. Hill Billy Elogy is one of mytown
favorite books. To be honest, the yeah reminds me of
where I grew up, my people.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
The American people. What do you fear, John?

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Something happening to my kids?

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
We all fear that, all of us. The greatest virtue
is what.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
Patience.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
I think we have a shared lack of that. I
guess what the word you could not live without?

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
Idiot? I say that word a lot every day. Look
at this idiot. Sometimes I'm looking in the mirror and
go look at this he.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
Oh, No, you shouldn't do that. If you could live anywhere,
where would you live?

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Probably just outside of Yellowstone?

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Wow? Except in the winter.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
No, in the winter too gets a little deep. That's
why with me? Wow, Yeah, I like it out there.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Beautiful country, good air, beautiful country. What is your biggest regret, Johan?

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
Not jump in that train and get an a hell
out of this interview?

Speaker 1 (01:02:09):
We're almost done. Your biggest regret, John, besides jumping the train.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
Biggest regret probably disrespecting my father in my youth. Hmm.
I've apologized since then, but still I regret it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
The best piece of advice you ever got was.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
What You're never truly free until you can say no.
Who gave it to you, Larry Gatlin?

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
Wow, You're never truly free until you can say no.
I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
If you could not do what you're doing now, if
you weren't a singer and a songwriter, what would you be,
What would you like to do? What else were you
called to do? Do you think.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
Something where I can inspire people? Whatever that would be.
I've always thought if I'd ever gone into the military,
I would have been a guy that would have really
probably enjoyed that and excelled at it, being around other
really competent people, younger ones, especially bringing them up. I
don't know that it would have been military, but something
that would have put me in a spot where I
can communicate.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
Like that final question, what happens when this life is over?

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
When this life is over, every single human being that's
ever lived stands directly in front of the Son of God,
and he will either say come on in or he'll
say depart from me. I never knew you one or
the other. And the only way you get into heaven
is by submitting your entire life and will to Jesus Christ.
Going to church will not get you in. Academia about

(01:03:35):
the Bible will not get you in. All of your
philosophy will not get you in. Doing good deeds will
not get you in. If that was the case, the
thief on the cross would have never gone into heaven.
That's what happens when you die.

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
Now you're on your way. There, my friend. God bless
you great John.

Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
See you next time. Looks good.

Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
I've never taken it off. Now here's the least in town.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
Give me one of these.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
There you go, Thank you, John, here's the hole. I
love the John Rich, like all great artists, uses his
gift to reflect his values and his time, whether it's
his outrage over Diddy or concerns about where the country
is headed. And that advice he gave was golden. I
hope you listened. When everything's out of your control, find

(01:04:19):
the one thing you can still control, and control it,
do the one right thing you're capable of, and build
from there. And I love that he holds onto his hat,
which I'm going to do too. Why live a dry, narrow,
constricted life when if you fill it with good things,
it can flow into a broad, thriving Arroyo Grande. I'm
ramming to Arroyo. Make sure you subscribe like this episode.

(01:04:42):
Thank you for diving in, and we'll see you next time.
Arroyo Grande is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and
is available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get
your podcasts. Specs spoken consists spoken spooks,