Ep. 97: Mom Life, Cult Stories, and Mama Ain't Jesus with Naomi Johnson

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
What is up? You are off in God's country. Indeed
you are with your boys. Read and Dan is Visible
also known as the Brothers Hunt, where we take a
weekly drive to the intersection of country music in the
great outdoors every Tuesday morning. You can hear it at
your podcast listening station and YouTube. Two things that go

(00:28):
together like uh cults and people on horseback with flags
riding around in circles, singing around a fire, chance or
peanut butter and rats brought to you by meat Eater
and your favorite time of the show.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
H to covis got my giving us.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Still sponsor shown now you baby, Thank you to co
still sponsor shown now baby, go ahead, gonna get you.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Some You ain't gonna regret it. They look good on
you if you're blonde.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Brown, already headed cuss co sponsor Really shut up man.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah yeah, yeah? To cover what's the dealer? Really? You
ain't got time to remix anything or anything. You drop
a beat, ray, drop a beat, right to find a beat,
to drop a real quick find a beat to.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Us to coat us he did drave beat there a
rap le' see if you still got your game do
it rap? I got the cobs on my feet looking
pretty good. I'm looking pretty neat at twelve o'clock and
I'm a little bit hungry.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
What you say, I ain't got no money pots on
my feet. They looking real good. I can't understood that
they're brown and they look real fly. I'm off to
my game high. I'm damn wow. That was awful. Right,
that was terrible. I thought I was flowing.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
You used under the one whole line was just the
word understood was at the end.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
I don't have to rhyme. God, that was bad. I
got a cold man. We'll listen up.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Wild at story. I think wild I think wildest growing
up story Top three on this podcast. Yeah too, maybe
I've ever heard Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Just Naomi cook Man. Absolutely Johnson an absolute inspiring human.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Keep talking. Well, the crazy thing about it was that
it was like I didn't know how.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Much she wanted to talk about all that.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Obviously, I knew it was like a thing about her
that she had had this weird upbringing and there was
like some cold stuff and blah blah blah, But I
didn't know how deep she was going to go. Bro
she deepened that stuff? Yeah, absolutely, man, it was very
honest and open about it. Yeah, it was crazy. It's
cracky even imagine the things we didn't talk about. Yeah, Josh,

(03:03):
Josha told me, like, have you ever heard her story?
Josh Kelly, who's producing this new music from first is like, dude,
you gotta you know she'll tell you about it, but
you got to hear her story, whether it's on the
podcast or not, Like you need to hear her story.
And thank god that she Yeah, that she opened up
about it and is comfortable with talking about it, because man,
it's a ride and and just to see like how

(03:23):
you know, strong of a human beings she is, and
and a mother and an artist and a songwriter.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
And jos as she is, man, she's proud of it.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
And uh, when she said she's never been in a
classroom never ever, has never sat in a desk with
a teacher in front of her smart cat too, it's
like it's not she used some words that I didn't
even know.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Oh yeah, I'm sure she did, but that kind of
happens on a daily base with you.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
I went to school and I'm done us that will
be Johnson man, She's she's are we are we roasted
cut that off ray, agreed.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
I ain't microwaving nothing. I'm about to go get me
some food. I'm starving. She's talking about rats. I was getting.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
New music. She's got a new song out, real life,
real life, growing up. This new music she's working on.
They don't know when it's gonna come out. She's about
halfway done with the record. But we got a little
sneak peek. It is some good raw stuff. Man, there
was something. Yeah, it's yeah, she's there. She's got some
Cherokee blood in her and and you can you can
tell she's kind of leaning into it.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
You should. It's awesome. May we cooks great? Maybe we
cook Johnson is great? Is that right? That's it? Right?
Nao John Johnson with Johnson. That's awesome. You're gonna love
this interview. Man.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
We just went I don't even know how long it's
gonna be. We just talked and let let her talk.
And but you're gonna enjoy it because it's insane.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah. Absolutely, Thanks for listening. Follow us on all the socials.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
The socials beat five star reviews, leave them, that's right,
or get out of here, ur g tfo, or we
will get out of here if we don't have five
star reviews from you.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
We're getting out of here right now. See you, hey man,
thanks for listening to us here on God's Country Podcast.
We appreciate you popping in cool Duck Hall. Yeah. Uh,
we just want to kind of address the elephant in
the room.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yesterday was a very yeah, as of this recording, yesterday
was a very dark day in America period. Charlie Kirk
was assassinated on the freaking petest. I mean he was
having a conversation at u Utah Valley.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Is that where it was. Yeah, So I was sitting
there with my kids last night and I was I
was putting them to bed, and we have a little
tiny house that we live in right now that we're
we're building, but we were standing in this eleven hundred
square foot house that we bought seven eight years ago.
So my daughter and son are sleeping in the same room,
sharing the same bed. So they both want me to
hold their hands, and it's kind of hard for me to.

(05:55):
And once again, I'm not trying to dramaticize this and
make you feel a certain way. I just this is
personally how I felt about the situation after it happened.
I was just trying to trying to shield them from
what you.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Can and also kind of, you know, deal with your
own feelings at the same time. So I'm laying there
and I've weighd my hand as far as I could
to the left, and my little girl grabs these two fingers,
and my little boy grabs these two And while I
was kind of just like just kind of sorry, dude,
I'm not trying to do that, like I said, not

(06:26):
trying to dramaticize it, but this is reality, right. And
as I'm kind of just like just kind of rubbing
her hands, it occurred to me that my daughter, who
is six, her hand is kind of slendered out a
little bit, but my three year old's hand is still
real fat. And I was just kind of feeling and
I was thinking, man, as I felt convicted about what

(06:48):
happened to Charlie for basically just taking a stand and
doing it in a way that was respectful to everyone.
Everyone he had a conversation with, open conversation with. I
never felt like he was the.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Meeting or belittling.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
He just had the conversation, right, it occurred to me
that he was not going to be able to do
that tonight. He's not going to be but and more
than that, his kids aren't going to be able to
feel him hold their hands as he goes to sleep
and as they go to sleep, and.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
It just it just angered me. I was sad, I
was angry.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
And I just went to the only source that I
know to get actual information from and I just prayed
a little bit and said, hey man, I don't really
understand all this.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
I don't feel good about this. Is this where we're
at as a country. And it was almost kind of
like I felt like God said, hey man, as long
as you take a stand for anything, you'll never get
along with everyone. Yeah. And essentially that's what was happening,
because we're consistently dealing with what I believe is spiritual

(07:53):
war for fair good and evil. As long as we're
in this world, there will be good and evil. Bible
says devil comes to steal, kill and destroy, and yesterday
he did and it affected a lot of people. But
I just want to encourage the listener that that wasn't
it for Charlie Kirk. He on this earth, yes, but

(08:15):
but I do believe that that he's in heaven with
Jesus and and and probably doing okay today.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
Yeah, I think people's people like that, their work continues
to get louder. You know when when when you try
to silence someone like that in that way, Because.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
That's what that was. Yeah, No, I mean it.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
I the fact that we live in an America right
now where someone lost their life because someone didn't agree
with what they said. I mean, this is this isn't
an mm A fighter or something like that that like
you know someone you know really f someone up one
time and they found him later, Like this is someone

(08:57):
who they do not agree with what he says. That
is what this country is built on, is we're allowed
to say what we want and not have the fear
of losing our life, our jobs, our community. And I
was so full of sorrow to see that type of
a figure. He's so young, he has children, and it

(09:19):
was it felt so.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Man.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
I love this country so much and she's hurting right now. Yeah,
And we have a few people that are brave enough
to like say things and uhs just taken out so far.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
We shouldn't kill them, regardless of what side you stand on,
because no, if you're a Republican, you need the Democrats.
If you're the Democrat, you need the request I think we.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Refine and sharpened each other moving forward to a better America.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
That's what we're supposed to do. Well, There's always.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
Been guest speakers on college campuses. It's to provoke critical thinking.
That is what they that's a college experience. They always
bring someone and I mean colleges have been doing that
since college like started, Like they bring people there.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
You debate the point of it, yeah, and shocking, Yeah,
and I think absolutely political assassination. Absolutely, somebody didn't agree
with what he was saying. But I think the bigger
picture and the bigger problem that has always been here
since the fall of Man, is that like, this is
a broken world, full of broken people and always going
to be, always going to be.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
It's it was created that way. So we need.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
Jesus and like and everybody, and we do, you know,
and and and probably now you know, probably today more
than ever because of something like that.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
So uh yeah, man, our hearts.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Break for My heart breaks for for Erica, his wife,
my heart breaks for his kids, my heart breaks for
his country. My heart doesn't break for him because uh,
I mean even even he said it, you know, on
a tweet or something, but it's like all death can
do to a believer is deliver him to Jesus. And
I think I think Charlie was delivered to Jesus yesterday
was and and I think he was celebrated. I think

(11:02):
he was, you know, welcomed with a hug and and uh.
He was a soul and a person and a and
a really good man that that was making, that was
trying to turn people towards the light. And he was
and I think he did. But I think he continued,
will will continue. I think his his uh, you know,

(11:22):
because of the Internet, Charlie Kirk will live on forever.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
And his message will live on forever.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
And and his message was the gospel and and in
a greater America. And uh and and he was he
was killed for it. He was killed for that message.
And uh but that I mean, you know, yeah, it's
just it's a it sucks, man, it's a sucky situation.
But I think God will last. He does, he will,

(11:47):
he will, he will work good into into it.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Probably probably already is R I P Charlie Kirk, and uh,
life well lived, absolutely all right.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
We are speed. We are speed. We're really in the
pro world is speed. We're really excited about this one.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
We haven't proud. We have a proud mother.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
We have a killer vocalist currently resides in probably my favorite.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
Place that right now is Utah. I mean, the place
is unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
Lived on school buses, learned to play guitar, and a
colt has fish, salmon and Alaska on a boat we
worked for. So I cannot wait to get into all
that to pay for her way to Music City. She's
an absolute badass, unbelievably talented. We got a name, Homie John.
You guys, that's your podcast today.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
I'm so excited to be hearing. I'm such a fan
of this podcast. Like I cannot believe I'm sitting here
right now, so so so jacked.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
I don't know why. You already know us, You already
know everything we're going to say, and here we are.
It's a great show. Thank you man. I appreciate it.
Coming in with the overalls with the shotgun was authentic.
They are.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
Yeah, yeah, I think I got these from uh, the
Army Navy. It's like an exchange that bring some new
stuff in there and some of it's new. Yeah, I'm
pretty sure that's where I got these. They got they
cut them off and everything.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
Shock Taylor, I do a pair of those, like a
couple of weeks ago. Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
Thanks, I try.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
I was trying to remember on the way in the
first time we met.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
I feel like I know you. I knew you early. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Didn't we write together? We wrote I wrote with you
when you were in the band.

Speaker 3 (13:35):
Yes, but early on before that, probably because through Robin Shannon.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
That's what it was. Yeah, Rob Hatch.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah, Rob didn't like this, didn't like the song enough
to cut it.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
Don't get started. Don't I think we finished it? You
know you had to leave early? Yeah, I'm sure. I'm
sure I did.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
I'm sure I had a lot going on back then,
had to pick Laza his one year old.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
It was. It was way before.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
No, did we even have a record deal yet then?
I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
Maybe we were like in in it, like penning it early.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
Is that since then we've been facing our Instagram for Yeah.
And your life has been crazy, dude, But I didn't
know it was crazy before. But you just like, you're
a free spirit man. You you go where you want
to go and do what you want to do. And
I've got mad respect for that.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Thank you, because it takes a it takes a brave
heart to to go trust.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
Yeah, I mean well, I also like I had an
upbringing where you had to try stuff to get through,
and so that's just.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
Kind of how I do things now the way.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
Thank you for it. Yeah, I've yeah, I definitely. I
grew up like free spirited and and that's just how
I That's that's what makes me happiest. Is like when
it when I feel the wind change, I do something else,
and I say that it was more geographical, like a
move I move around, But I'm like.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, that's that's what I noticed. Honestly, what I notice
is like on Nashville for a minute, oh, in the
middle of the desert, oh in some on some mountains.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
I'm like, is that is that influenced by your up
ring but by the by the nomadic culture of how
you were raised?

Speaker 2 (15:23):
I think so.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
I mean I I I was on the road so
many years, and then it's interesting, like you know, your
life prepares you for your life, Like I I lived
on a school bus with my nine brothers and sisters
and my two parents, and then you know my profession,
I ended up on a on a bus with.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
You know, nine people. Wow and uh and wow.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
It felt more like home to me than maybe some
other people. But I've been way nicer bus let's let's
be around. This is way nicer, a lot nicer bumps.
But uh, but yeah, I had a realization. I was like, damn,
I'm back on the bus like entice tight quarters, and I.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Feel I feel right. That's kind of how I feel
about music.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
I store it off like a hundred times and it
just eventually just kind of nudged me back into it.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
And now it's literally how I'm alive. Yeah, we're gonna
get it all that week. Yeah, I can't wait. Get
too far down the road.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
We're gonna do a straight up what you're glad at today? Folks,
No mad, no mad in the world where we're a
lot of man in the world. Actually, we're gonna try
to try to kill the glad.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Woa you're glad? Ooh you're well?

Speaker 1 (16:36):
Oh man, I thought we were just okay what you're glad?
Just tell us what it is. What you're glad? Is
it your little cute kids, might be your best friend
or your favorite cat.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Just tell us what you're glad? Man, You're you did
not have a perfect pitch.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
That Play it again. Play that song, bro, you just
proved you have played the dick. Played the dick. I
even went to the.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
No, you didn't do that. Let the tape show. What's
I love?

Speaker 3 (17:13):
I love siblings. Nobody nobody does it?

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Can I can? I read this?

Speaker 1 (17:18):
This is what I'm glad that I saw it the
other day and uh I took a picture of it
so I could uh so I could read about it.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
This is this is so great man. Yeah, I read
about it. Let me show you first. Let me show you.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
I'll show I don't know if you can see the
camp the camera can see that, but check that that
that hat out there, I just know that hat. Yeah,
I'm ready for it, all right. So Josh Allen is
the quarterback for the Buffalo Bills the NFL. The NFL
m VP. Josh Allen arrived at his Sunday night game
versus Baltimore. This is as of the recording. Last week
was first week of so it would be a few

(17:50):
weeks as the recording drops. But Josh Allen arrived at
the Sunday night game before at versus Baltimore wearing the
first of nine custom hats designed by patients at Buffalo
was O Shi Children's Hospital. After each home game, Alan
will have his hat auctioned off to support the Patricia
Allen Fund. This week's hat was designed by five year
old patient named Jackson.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
That's just killer. Yeah, man, they're amazing.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Man, but but but but great on Josh Allen for
for being the kind of guy that does that kind
of stuff and doesn't care about what they're cool Jackson, Yeah,
no doubt, I want one.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
I'm glad that is a few months back, I told
a story on here about this is crazy. But a
guy came in to kidnap this girl and the brother
of the girl grabs his slingshot. You remember this, No,
but I'm in Okay.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
So he's literally dragging around the house and I mean
you watch the interview and everything. Grabs a slingshot David's
ass drilling drills. The guy hits him in the foot.
One he shot, he said, he shot two pellets. One
hits him and the eye. The other hits him in
in the chest so hard the guy thought he was shot.

(19:15):
Drops the girl, the eight year old girl, and takes
off running right well over the past whatever. It's been
six months since I've told that story. The guy lost
his right eye. Good Mingo tries to sue the kid.
I can't make this up. You've got tries to sue

(19:35):
the kid for eight hundred thousand dollars. You know what
Judge said, g tfo, dude, we ain't doing this. I
mean's a guy in jail. I don't know for potential
kidnapping maybe, but he yeah, tried to sue the kid.
Did you remember how accurate it used to be with

(19:56):
those slink slink shots if you went to my dad
went to through the We used to Saturday morning flea market.
It all okay, yeah, and snow cones and doughnuts and
all the oranges and remember oranges. One time we went.
Dad got us these slingshots, and I remember they had
a little like wrist thing and you flipped it down
and it.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Would rest right here and you could pull that back
as far and just yeah, you can kill small, small
game with you.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
My dad used to go to gun shows and he'd
take you know, six kids under twelve to these gun
shows and we'd come back with sling shots and blowguns.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
Remember the blowguns. One you can put my eyes. I
tried to shoot some squirrels with those. Yeah, yeah, well
we used I used to. We used to get a
dollar a rat.

Speaker 3 (20:43):
We would shoot rats in the barn from our landlord
and he would give us a dollar a rat, and
we got We got good at them. And our house
was infested with mice too. We lived in these old
farmhouses and in our pantry we would put some peanut
butter at this little mouse and we'd sit there and
pin under the wall, not getting you one one time,

(21:03):
my sister, don't one right through the eye.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
Yeah, I love that. That's what I'm glad. I can't.
I want to dive into that a little more eventually.
But that's what I'm glad. I'm glad that judge said, hey, man,
get out of here, get out of here. No talent
for idiocy, Yeah yeah, yeah anything. I'm super big, glory

(21:27):
a little bit, get a bit of an aura.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
I'm happy because I'm having a baby around too.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
Happy. Yeah yeah, I know.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
Round two. What a what a gift cast it? You
guys both have too, right? We have a million and
has ye.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
All I know is when they get together, there's a thousand.
It's just like three seems like a lot. Yeah, it's
one of though. I mean, I don't go for go, man,
keep going. We're going to We've got to keep this going.
You know, in the dark world. Always tell people that.
I like, I'm like, you need to be a dad
or a mom.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
Oh yeah, I can peg him to him, like you
need seven of you.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
Go on, let's I need some more of you running around. Okay,
so what tell us what you have already? You have
a we have a little girl. Yeah, we have a
little girl. She just turned too and she's the best ever.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
And it's like like, so my husband's an only child, gotcha?
And and he was like he'd never even held a newborn, like,
never even held like he had little cousins, but he
kind of was around them, you know, after about a
year or two old, you know, and you know, he
was twenty one. Like you're not super interested in little
kids near that age if you're not a creepy.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yeah, yeah, that's true. Until yeah. So but man, he
is like.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
The best girl dad in the world. Oh yeah, Like
it's so funny. He's like, you know, this this tough
rock and roll guy with all these tattoos and his
little girls just like they're watching Cinderella yesterday, who you
are as.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
A dude, I don't care if you're both of our
first one, the baddest, toughest, meanest, so brouchiest, the most
miserably human being. As a dude, if you have a
little girl, your life changed forever.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
She changes you forever, and there ain't no doubt. So
I'm thinking about when we so.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
Ultimately, when it comes to my boys and my girls,
my girl, it's like with the boys, I'll kind.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
Of like let them like get hurt.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
I mean not seriously hurt, but like with my girl,
I'm extremely protective, like way more than I am with it.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
And even though she's older. So it reminded me of
the time when when we were sled and remember we.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Were back, oh god, when I threw when I threw
her award some barbers at my farm.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
We had this.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
It was a little float that had a rope to it,
and she was right and she was just like, you know,
she couldn't do anything.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
She stuck her in it, so she she was all.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Just sitting there and we were just like, I mean,
you couldn't even feel yourself, yeah, dragging her well read
kind of popped it. It was like day two of
the snow, so it already frozen fall froze back up,
so it's just ice.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
And it was a sneaky thing. If you put your
kids on those, those things can flop. I mean there's
no way. But just so I don't know, we were letting.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
One of us was where you are and we were
sliding her, you know, and the other one catch her
and slider back or whatever. Well, nobody was down there
and Reed just kind of popped the rope and she's
like like going down this and Jordan's like, we have
it on video Dan's video. Jordan's like I was looking
at it and I was like, I was like, she's
going to and you just see dead spring Like he runs,

(24:48):
I dive into the barb Yeah right, did you catch her? Yeah,
my shoulder up, but like like I dove into the
bottom wire of the bar bar was let it Like.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
It's like you said the other day when you made
Jordan so mad when we went to Wayne County and
didn't come back, remember you, she was real mad because
you told her you'd be back by a certain time
and you didn't get there. You said it always happened.
Sometimes I screw things up, but I'll fix the screw
up that I screwed. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
Absolutely, and that's what you did, man, I feel like
you and then you sacrificed yourself to.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
Say this, dude, I have these two huge scars on
my thighs from barbar fence. Really yeah, ride and run
into it in a bike.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
You remember where you were when you hit it?

Speaker 1 (25:34):
Uh huh?

Speaker 3 (25:34):
Yeah. We were at our farmhouse in Virginia. My sister
was chasing me with a stick, and I didn't know
how to use the brake. Some I just learned how
to ride this bike, didn't know how to pedal backwards.
And my dad always was like, if you think you're
gonna fall, steer to the grass, you.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Know, like that's just what it was. Never had we
like all all of us.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
Shared one bike, you know. Yeah, And so I started
steering to the grass. The bike just went right over
the grass and straight into this barb wire fence. Yash
my legs.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
It'll eat it'll eat you up, it'll eat me up.
I've got I've got plenty.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Pretty much every all my cameo pants have rip sent
them from Barbara either going over.

Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah, even the rusty ones, like even the ones who
don't have an edge anymore will get you, no doubt.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
That's kind of the worst tennis. Yeah, probably just need
to go get a shot.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
I've never gotten tetanus before. Knock on what I have been.
I have stepped on rusty stuff.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
I think I've eaten enough. You don't know that you've
ever had it. No, I don't know. I've never been
flowing at the mouth. I think I've eaten enough gas
station chicken wings. Cancel it all out. Yeah, it just
kind of goes no, tetanus. You're not big enough. That
used to be our thing.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
If we were like if we were hurt or like
you had a broken we just go eat gas station
chick intil they got better, fixed it all up.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
I don't run anything out of here. Yeah, they're like, no,
we don't want none of this.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Dude, My gosh, I just want to jump right into it.
And and and I know you've talked a lot about
your story and and everybody.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
I don't feel like you have to read. Everybody knows
a lot about it.

Speaker 1 (26:59):
But I just want to like from the beginning kind
of that what we were talking about earlier, that that
your upbringing and and your nomadic lifestyle and how you
were raised in all that?

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, I mean, like where were you born? Like where? Where?

Speaker 3 (27:14):
Was born in Virginia? So all of us were except
for my youngest sibling was born my two younger ones.
The rest of us are born in Virginia. Number five
out of eleven kids.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
Yeah, yeah, so we same mom, same day, same same parents.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Yeah home, yeah goodness.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
Yes. So my dad was a park ranger and uh
electrician at the Park a thousand Trails, and my mom
was a midwife to the Amish communities in Mena Nits
in Virginia.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
So we lived among the Amish and Mennonite.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
We weren't Amish, but to to like live among them
and interact with them, you kind of have to look
like them and and you know, be like them. They
don't really interact with well, thesemunities didn't really interact with
the outside.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Some of them do. So we did.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
We live.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
We lived larry plainly.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
My dad hunted for our food, We had a garden, animals,
and yeah, I my and my mom was a midwife,
so we we we you know, to an outsider, we
probably didn't look any different from the Amish kids, you know,
were just like we didn't have TV. Or radio or
anything like that. But my parents had vehicles, so we

(28:26):
were we were very more like Mennonites.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
I guess you can and be an electrician. I feel like, well,
like I said, we weren't on electricians. I feel like
that's a jest of position.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
He was. Yeah, he was a park ranger at the
at the Thousand Trails and he would do all the
electricity stuff too scary.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
I hate electricity.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
That's why we We were outside all the time.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
And you just lived outside pretty much literally and inside
lived Outah.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Did you ever do any hunting with them? Do you ever?

Speaker 3 (28:55):
My dad was a big hunter, you we I learned
how to shot a gun really young. I never hunted
with him, Yeah, but my brothers did. And you know,
like I was saying before, we always had blowguns and
frog gigs and we were just out. I mean, we
hurt each other all the time, Like someone would come
back with a dart in their shoulder.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
I at a lot of times. A lot of times
we would have like bb gun wars. And I do
remember one time. So my dad is like a big
outdoorsman and I'm Cherokee from his line, and he always
I didn't have a steak till I was like fifteen,
we only ate venison whitefish and.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
I remember we came back from playing down by the
creek and we had shot a squirrel and it was dead,
and we all came back.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
We got a squirrel, dad, and he made us clean
it and eat it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
He was like, he's like, you do not just kill
animals for fun. That's not what we do. That's not respectful.
He was very sportsman like like that. And yeah, yeah,
so we had to we had to say a prayer
of thanks over it, clean it, and eat it.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
And I remember, I remember distinctly remember that time because
it occurred to me, oh yeah, this isn't of course,
like that's a life, you know, I was, I was seven.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
You know, you realized this is how this works.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
Yeah, you don't kill something unless you're gonna eat it
for sure.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
But besides rats, yeah, besides rats. Yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:30):
My dad, he he, he taught us how to shoot
really young. You always said, the only dangerous gun is
one you can't use. And uh so we were all
out there, you know, shooting cans and stuff really young.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
But he are you going to raise you ears like that? Huh?

Speaker 3 (30:42):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I carry I carry you damn right,
you know. And I'm also like, he's right.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
By the way, Yeah, he's right. The only datish gun
is one that you I mean, I've seen that so
many times, especially with us, if we take somebody hunting, well,
we used to.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
We don't do that anymore since we have kids and
we had some scary situations. But like, yeah, when people
the dangerous thing about hunting with somebody with a gun,
or being around somebody with guns is when they pretend
to know.

Speaker 2 (31:10):
More than they actually know.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
I would much rather have somebody say, hey, I have
no idea what I'm doing, as opposed to like trying
to convince me that or us that they know.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
That's the dangerous Yeah. A guy that goes walking into
the woods like this.

Speaker 3 (31:26):
Yeah, or like trying to like rack around and they're
just like flying yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah. But my favor, my favorite is the shotgun over
the shoulder and they've been down to Tyler shoes and.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
Everybody dude, dude, yeah, it happens. Yeah. I mean, you know,
my my brother, so we were we were allowed to
like run around with twenty two's loaded. Way too young
in my opinion. Yeah, yeah, but you know, all all
the Mennonite kids are doing the same thing, Like, those
are the kids we hung out with. Every everyone is

(31:58):
it has a firearm, like.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
We'd strap on our backs and.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
Yeah my brother, my brother accidentally shot our family dog
with his twenty two and like and that's My dad
was like, maybe these kids are little too young to
be like just in the field with like live you know, guns.
He was like, yeah, yeah, but we felt so empowered

(32:24):
and like you know, we we and we were empowered.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
We were allowed to be outside all the time.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
We loved it. We would sleep outside if we wanted to.
But yeah, I really learned we we all learned our
love for the outdoors from my dad. My mom's a
very earthy person, and I learned a lot of like
my uh like foraging and herbal stuff from her. But she,
my dad's like was like the outdoorsman.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
But you think you go on one of these shows
like uh where they just drop you off and you have.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
To Yeah, actually I think so. Yeah a couple of
days look at her. Yeah, absolutely, no, I totally got.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
I did a survival course in West Tennessee a couple
of years ago. Do you guys know Mary O'Neil from
the Outdoor Channel. She's got country outdoors.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
So she's a friend of mine. We did this survival
course together. It was in uh, it was in some
Sumter Tennessee.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah, and okay, okay, yeah, so okay, you guys, we
have a lot of.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
Stuff to get into this because that was freaking crazy.
So I go I go there to do this this
survival show and there's a show. Yeah, well it turned
into a show. They were filming it and stuff. So
we go there and the guy who's who's doing is
like ex military, has been a cop for thirty years
like that, that kind of a guy. And so he's
teaching us survival stuff. I drive into this town and

(33:45):
I'm like, man, this looks familiar. I like, this looks
so familiar. I'm like looking around. And that night after
we did the show, I'm sitting in this Mexican restaurant
with Mary and I and I'm like we're talking about it.
She's like, yeah, this town is called Sumter.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
Sumner is the Sumner Sumner County probably.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
Sumner County, but there's a there's a town there. That
town is where we were in that cult. What yes, dude, yes, dude,
I could not believe it. I haven't been back there
since I was I don't know, nine, so.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
Much to the point you didn't even remember the name
of it.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
No, yeah, but it was it was like a weird
like I experienced what I what I would assume is
like a flashback kind of Oh.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
I was like, yes, that had been separate life crazy. Yeah,
I mean, yeah, yeah, ok.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
There's a Sumner I know, there's so County, Summer County.
I think it's Sumner. No, just look up like the
county seat of Sumner County.

Speaker 3 (34:44):
Yeah, wild Yeah, that's around Jackson, I think.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
So okay, so round Jackson.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
Yeah yeah, okay, so so okay, so much going on
over here?

Speaker 2 (34:54):
So okay, it's yeah, we were a way. We're near Jackson.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
It's near there's a little town and the Yeah, this
colt moved there.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
That is crazy.

Speaker 3 (35:07):
They're called the Rose Creek Village. Now, so you might
be able to that might.

Speaker 4 (35:12):
Put him on blast. You're up in Virginia. Yeah, did
you go from Virginia to the to the school bus?

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Yes, Zelmer, they go so close. I almost said, do
you guys know about this freaking colt? No? Dude, I
don't think wait a minute, absolutely to capture you mean
that church we went to go right with your good

(35:50):
hair and your remixes and at member for sure, he's
way too slick. Yeah. So okay, so I I loved
in Virginia. Yeah, my mom, that my shot. Yeah what
was it? Called?

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Rose Creek Village is a religion based, intentional community in Somer,
Tennessee that it formed from twelve tribes communities and.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Was established and we were also in that one.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
It was established in ninety six, home to about two
undred members who live one hundred acres and operate several businesses,
including a restaurant, painting services, which construction. Yeah, it's probably
that Mexican restaurant you went to. The community members are
united by the desire to live out the teachings of
Christ and support each other.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
Uh huh yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
Yeah, okay, yeah, okay, okay.

Speaker 3 (36:35):
So we leave Virginia. My mom is a midwife there
to the Amish communities. Like I said, but this was man,
this was in early nineties and these midwives, like having
babies at home was pretty taboo. It was like really
like ultra crunchy hippies and Amish people were having babies
at home and my mom was practicing with aut a license.
All those midwives were it wasn't they weren't like certified

(36:58):
by the state and stuff.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Well, you know, I was really little.

Speaker 3 (37:02):
A lot of the stuff I remember really vividly, and
then there's a lot of little patchy spots, but I
remember her, the head midwife that was running this like
midwiffery group, got uh got charged with manslaughter.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
Woman died in.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
Childbirth with her unlicensed unlicensed trouble husband husband press charges.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
You know, I don't blame him. They probably should have
took her to the hospital earlier, you know.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
And honestly, the thing is like women women do unfortunately
die in the hospital too, Like like birth is risky,
Like that's what we face, you know, bringing life into
the world is like you can you can die doing this.
It's but nonetheless, she got charged with manslaughter. My mom
had had a complicated birth as well, where it was
got a little iffy. She got scared. I was like,

(37:52):
I've got I've got eight kids. This woman went to
prison her manslaughter. She's like, I've got eight kids, Like,
you know, they got scared. So before I know it,
everything's being packed up, sold at the flea market, giving
the goats away to friends, and we're going on.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
The road for a while.

Speaker 3 (38:09):
So they buy a pole behind our v and we're
pulling it behind this beat up white van, you know,
and we're we are so excited.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
We're talking about giving.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
Fifteen passenger man no a s dance inside, Like we
are so excited, Like we're going to stay in thousand
trails parks and my mom's going to do like uh,
you know, child wearing seminars and herbalism and and and
stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
So the Internet. How much fun was that? Though?

Speaker 3 (38:37):
Oh it would started off so funto off started off
so fun. I mean, we were so jacked. We were
sleeping in the van. We're sleeping. We would like we'd
park way back into you know, one of these thousand
trail parks and we'd all just like sleep on the
floor on the ground outside. And yeah, we were we were
block wild. We oh yeah, oh yeah. None of us
had ever gone to school. It was another thing, like

(38:59):
there was no internet, and like there was no one.
We were truly off the grid because we had never
we weren't ever accounted for. We'd never been in public school,
so it wasn't like where are the Cowers kids?

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Nobody existed?

Speaker 1 (39:11):
We were.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
And so yeah, we so we did that for a while.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
Then we ended up joining this colt which this this
is a long story and you know, maybe not even
a long enough podcast, but yeah, we joined this cult.
We ended up leaving for a lot of reasons. If
you guys want to go into that, I will. We
can talk about if you have questions on that, totally.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
Give me, yeah, give me.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
I just want to know, like, give me the closest
story to you can't tell.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
I want the one you can Okay, okay about the cults.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
Yeah, that you're comfortable with, and this is this is
the Selmer Tennsey right.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yeah, so we're starting to kind of lose dude. We
were fifteen minutes from you.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
Yeah, across the river, literally just across the Tennis River.
You remember Adams Adamsville at all. Adamsville is just between Yeah,
we're right there. I'm going to playing baseball.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
Term was there. Yeah, we were over there all the
all the time.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
So a lot of these people there had school buses
and okay, there's a couple. So so the first goal,
this one is, uh, this one's an all. Shoot, yeah
it wasn't even the first one. Yeah, this this one
in some and some Selmer sorry selmer is and our
members that left this Twelve Tribes cult. That okay, so

(40:27):
we get we get approached by this guy with a
bible in his back pocket and like weird clothes and
long ponytail.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
My parents were like very there. They still are.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
My dad's gone now, but my they're very spiritually lost
and very spiritually vulnerable. They both had hard home lives.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
And I was going to ask you about that actually,
like psyche of someone.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
Yeah, oh, they are the perfect perfect victims for cults.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
Like, looking back on it, yeah, there are people.

Speaker 3 (40:57):
It's people looking for family and looking for God at
the same time. And you're just searching and a little
too much, you know. And it's honestly, it's like you
don't got to look.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
That hard, Like you're thinking about yourself too much.

Speaker 3 (41:09):
If you're going if you're doing ayahuasca thirty times and
joining colts, it's like, he's right, it's right there.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
It's you don't have to go that far.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
Absolutely, it's it's he's right there. He's like yes, and man,
they my parents are just like really really naive. So
so they follow this guy back to this cult. We
end up staying there. But they wanted this Twelve Tribes
cult wanted us to can I say the word kill

(41:40):
on this They want us to kill our dog, our
family dog, because my.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Brother just did that two weeks. Yeah. Yeah, like no
dogs in the t because dogs were not biblical, they
were unclean.

Speaker 3 (41:57):
They're freaking weird and honestly, they they if we had
been playing with our dog, none of the kids would.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
Play with us.

Speaker 3 (42:05):
And my dad was like, we are out of here,
like that was he was like, you know, he love
we loved our dog. He's like he was getting antsy.
We're in a city. He's an outdoors guy.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
We all were.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
We're like wild country kids and we were like getting
cooped up. My mom was like pretty in on this place.
But she's a midwife. They don't go to the hospital
for babies. My dad has six daughters, Like we are
you know, a future for them. They really rolled out
the carpet for my parents.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
Oh that makes a lot of sense. Actually nice.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
Yeah, like they were like welcomed and you know, pretty
valuable members, I guess, but so yeah, I mean there
was some super sketchy stuff.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
A lot of child abuse goes on in those places.
It's very.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
You know, young girls are being married off. It's just
really they don't they don't talk. If there's any type
of like sexual abuse going on and someone you know,
report it's it, the cops come, no one will talk
to them. It's the same with Thomish. Yeah, it's kind
of like Netflix documentary stuff very much.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
So again, my dad has six daughters.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
There's some.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
He's like, yeah, he's My dad was never fully in
on those places, even though when I talked to him
later in his life. There's something that happens with cult
people that have been in cults, and I've seen this
in documentaries too, like they still have this like whimsical
view of it, kind of like they wish it worked
out or they wished that.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
I've noticed that eat sweet and prayer, keeps Sweet and pray.
It was the same way.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
Yeah, they were talking about that, Like even the people
that were out and left and admitted the abuse, we're
still like, my family's there some.

Speaker 3 (43:44):
Type of a nails still stuck in their yach if
you ask me anything.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
That has anything to do with abusing kids. Yeah, tomorrow dude.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
Yeah, and it's it's it's heavy. It's also it happens
a lot in Amish communities.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
To seems like in in my experience with those things
are a lack of experience. But but researching those things,
there always kind of seems to be a guy that's
like deistic in the in those things that is essentially
just satisfying whatever it is that he wants.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Yeah, they always there's always a leader. Is grossh it's
gross man. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
So we we we left that place in the middle
of the night, and I remember like some men from
this group like running out and trying to pull the
propane tanks off of our camper.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
My dad's like just driving, you know, getting that We're
getting that tweet dollars that mom was so upset.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
She did not want to leave. She wanted to get baptized.
She like she checked herself into a mental hospital. She
had such she was fighting so hard. Wow, and she
she was having a nervous breakdown because my dad was
making her leave.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
At this point, what's the house, what's the oldest child?
My sister was fourteen? Yes, so she feeling like this
is a weird existence at this point.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
Yes, And like so we were in uh this for
some reason. We were in Saint Joseph, Missouri, and we're
like in yeah, and it was like this big Victorian
house and about like fifty people give or take kids, men,
women and children all live in this house.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
Is this the cult too? This is the cult?

Speaker 3 (45:19):
And talk about So we leave this, We leave this
and we go to the Sumner the Selmer, Tennessee one. Okay,
because my parents are so we leave. We're staying in
state parks.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
Again.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
My dad's kind of we're kind of no money, no prospects, nothing.
You give everything to them. That way, you can't leave.
But they tell you if you the more you give,
the more high standing you have in this community, the
more dedicated you are to God. But that is how
they take your freedom. You can't leave. After that, they
hear about some people that had left that started this
other community and it was on a big farm, and

(45:53):
they're way more liberal, so to speak. They're not as rigid.
It's like way more spirit filled. And my mom really
wants to spirits spirits on that. And just like there's
a farm. My dad's like, Okay, there's room to run,
let's just go check it out. We end up staying there.
That's where after we leave that one after a year. Guys,
some crazy crazy that one in the silmer one. You

(46:17):
want to hear a story, Okay, this is one that
I will never forget.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
We're probably dude.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
This is this is insane. So this guy, there's a
couple in there. They're really young. They have three three children,
little girls like under five, like one to five. The
wife looking back, she was probably twenty six or twenty seven.
The wife drops dead, just dies out of thin air,

(46:43):
like in the middle of cooking. Dies boom and like
no warning, nothing, no stroke, nothing, just dies in the kitchen.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
Okay, okay, how are you remembering this? You remember this?

Speaker 3 (46:57):
I will never forget this. I see, No, I didn't
see her die in the kitchen, but like it, you know, yes,
I know.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
Everyone buried.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
They bury her in this back pasture where they used
to have these well wild gatherings, like I'm talking like horseback,
like standing up on horses.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
They had flags.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
They were very like, very self indulgent, tons of music,
like just very wild, and they bury her in the pasture.
So about a like right around the time that we left,
they get evicted from this farm and I don't know
if the owners just get sick of the rumors or
they just want to they just want this cold out
of there.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
And it's gro It's about two hundred people.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
And so they buy a new piece of property in
some in some selmer and they move everyone there. Well,
they want to bring this woman with them. They dig
her up with spade shovels, like six dudes, put her
body in a tarp and put it in a pickup
truck and they start driving, just driving her like no

(47:59):
more tissue, no nothing.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Just riding down the road in the back of a truck.
They stopped to get gas, okay.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
And probably the raceway probably, yeah sixty four.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Pretty good trick.

Speaker 4 (48:14):
I know.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
It's the cheapest, is the chepest gus potato are five,
it's the cheapest gas around the fire Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Okay, good.

Speaker 3 (48:23):
And some concerned citizen smells this dead body, of course,
goes over to the truck and sees a freaking tarp
with a body in it.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
Oh my goodness, and calls the police. IMA, be honest.
Part of me feels like I remember, I believe dude,
it's a small town. Kind of feel like I remember
somebody saying you hear about that dead body they found
the back of the truck. As a kid, how old
are you? Forty one?

Speaker 3 (48:49):
Okay, yeah, yeah, I would have been. You'd have been like,
I don't know, twelve or something.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
That's what I mean. I almost kind of remember. I
mean that that I was in the naties. I was
a kid.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
Fifteen, Yeah, yeah, that's that is a story that would
have got around a town like like summer. Okay, all
the guys get arrested, all of them, like of course
they get taken in, you know, upon further investigation of
crime has been committed, and they let him go. But
even when I was a kid, I remember going, dude,

(49:24):
the the out of touch with reality that these people
have been living in their own little like bubble and
their world, and they they have all these weird names
they rename each other, and they're so out of touch
that they dug up a body, put it and pulled
into and just like either were untouchable by their God

(49:46):
or whatever it was. But I was even as a kid,
I was like, this is nuts.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
I mean, it might as well been a cat to like,
I mean, it was, it was important to them, but
it was like there was no significance of yes.

Speaker 3 (49:57):
So shortly after that, shortly after we we were on
that property not very long, and my dad was like,
we're out of here like this, yes, And my mom
very much was like was like you know the but
my dad once he was like, he was like done.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
So we left that.

Speaker 3 (50:14):
We went to go live with some people who had
left that community to way back in the woods in Tennessee.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
And that's when that's when.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
My dad bought a bus and revent and and started
to clear it all out and we started living in
that but we lived in their garage. We lived in
these people's garage for months.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Yeah, in the woods.

Speaker 3 (50:33):
I honestly I remember living outside like I remember living
outside and yeah, so that was that was crazy because
we were off the grid there and I remember somewhere,
I really remember exactly where we were living with a family.
They had nine kids. They had left that but they
had left that group.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
They had nine.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
Yeah, it was a bunch of we're buck wild. You
guys are like wild. But I remember that was that
was where so two black SUVs pull up one morning
into this like we're living way out, Like we don't
have a phone, we don't have a dress, no one
knows where we are. We're truly off the grid. And
it's the FBI and they were looking for our family

(51:14):
and they had a suspect for a string of bank
robberies that had happened in Virginia and it was my brother.
Oh wow, yeah, seventeen, he rubbed thirteen banks and the
FBI found found my parents. They were like, we had
he's one of the suspects, and they show, you know,

(51:37):
they have some footage of him. They didn't have him yet,
but my parents were like, that's our kid. You could tell,
you know, the way he walks or whatever.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
So there were few that had left enough.

Speaker 4 (51:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
So well, my oldest brother never went with us on
the travels. He stayed with our some family friends back
in Virginia and.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
Yeah, yeah, he was wild.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
He ran away from home at fourteen and like joined
the Christian cowboys camp and started. Yeah, he passed away. Yeah,
he so he went to prison. That was crazy that
my parents. That ruined their marriage. So my mom wanted
him to take the money and run and my dad
wanted to turn himself in, and he ended up turned

(52:18):
himself in and it.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Just man, that was the beginning of the end.

Speaker 3 (52:23):
Of their marriage was just like I don't think they
could really get past that one. And uh, he went
to prison for five years and then he got out
of prison and he died ten months later.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
It's really tragic, but man, he was wild. Dude.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
He robbed one one of one of the banks he
robbed twice.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
He robbed the same bank twice.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
I think that's so funny.

Speaker 2 (52:47):
Yeah, at least like get out of the county, same bag.
You didn't even get a different doble. Jeez man, Oh dude,
I love it. I love rebellion back in the day.
I mean you didn't not. I mean, this is crazy
to say, but like not every bank had hogh tech cameras.

(53:12):
That's not too long ago.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
But like, yeah, I mean stuff got robbed a lot. Yeah,
I can't do nothing anymore, right, Like everything's video.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
Yeah, I mean I worked at a bank for a while,
which is ironic and and the only way to really
steal money is to walk in and take it.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
And there's a lot of people that do that and
get away with it. Wow.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
But yeah, the crazy thing is is that so my dad,
my dad was a big outdoorsman hunter all that, and uh,
and he he lost his right to bare arms because
he ended up robbing.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
A bank too twenty years later.

Speaker 3 (53:49):
If you stay yeah, don't don't commit a felony. But
it really really really broke his heart. I think it
broke his spirit. He couldn't hunt anymore. But uh yeah
that Yeah, my brother and father are both convicted fellon
bank robbers.

Speaker 2 (54:06):
Yeah, that's the dismantling of the bus family.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
Yeah, that's what starts. So where what happens to you guys?
Where do y'all go? Where does the thousand kids go?

Speaker 3 (54:17):
So we so there's a lot of talk of Alaska,
going to Alaska, of course, because yeah, that's well you
can get free land. If you're a homestead, you get
dividends and and and stuff. So my parents were just
grasping at straws at this point of like where we're
going to go, We're gonna do And so we started
heading to Alaska and we started traveling like down the Southwest,

(54:42):
and we only made it to Arizona. And my dad
had like crippling depression and my mom is severely, severely bipolar,
and a lot going on. Yeah, and then one of
my siblings was born on the bus, which is crazy,
and so yeah, so we were just like that's where

(55:05):
so I learned how to play my guitar and a
cult in one of the cults from a kid, but that's.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
Where my musical journey.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
They had beautiful music and I learned how to play guitar,
and I was like eight from another girl for a
little girl in the in the call. Yeah, they wrote
their own music and stuff, but I took off with it,
like I just loved it. So my mom bought a
guitar from a pawn shop. They were pawning stuff to
make get some gas money. Bought a guitar for us
to share, and I was the only one that played it.

(55:37):
So anyway we started, we start getting like along along
the way in Arizona and we are completely stranded and
I start playing my guitar on the street corner for
gas money. Yeah, and and that's where I caught the bug.
Like I would get I put tip, you know, five
gallon bucket, and I'd sit there for hours and play

(55:58):
and people would give me tips and we'd yeah yeah wow,
So that's yeah. So we ended up there and then
and then we ended up back in Tennessee. Some friends
gave us some money to move back there, and we
ended up in Woodbury, Tennessee, and uh some you know, dilapidated.

(56:18):
We were all we were either in the bus or
in like super old condemned homes like old farmhouses yea.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
And I never had heating and air or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
So we would sleep outside when it got hot, and
I yeah, it fostered my love for the outdoors.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
So when were you like, arm out out of the
I'm going to pursue.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
Yeah, okay, so I was.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
We we left school. No, I've never been in a
classroom ever that I maybe have a sixth grade education,
Like maybe.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
You're real smart. Well, thank you, yeah, thank you somewhere
along the way you got it. Yeah you get smart.

Speaker 3 (57:02):
Yeah right, yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
Yeah. I grew up fast, you know.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
And I had a lot of responsibility have I had
six siblings below me, and yeah, I couldn't go to school,
like by the time I could work and bring money
in that's what I was doing, and and and school
sort of felt a little bit like small potatoes to me.
Then I felt like, you know, I'm keeping my family together.
And then I did want to go to school, but

(57:31):
I also was like, man if I if I go
to high school, Like, I'm not gonna be able to
play any sports. I'm not gonna be able to, you know,
do anything. We're so poor, like we don't even have
electricity right now, and I'm gonna probably be made fun of.
And then I started getting a chip on my shoulders,
like out in school, you know, I'm doing bigger things.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
So I started gigging.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
I started playing music with my guitar, like in some
bars and restaurants in Florida.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
Do you remember what kind of guitar it was? Yeah?
It was uh, it was uh innovation, they go cheap
ovasion plastic back. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:05):
Yeah. And so I did that and I did odd jobs.
And then we also had like a greenhouse garden center,
like like a nursery that we did.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
But I left.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
So I went to Alaska and I took I took
this fishing job. I took a job as a deckhand
on sam fishing boat in Alaska. And that's where I
got a little grip of cash to move to Nashville.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Got you, Yeah, was that the that was the plan,
going to going to Alaska make enough money to.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
Go to this room. Yeah?

Speaker 3 (58:30):
I felt like Alaska is a bit of a hale
to go make some cash.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
Well, you know, I had a friend that had done that,
had done it. She worked at the canneries where the
fish come ashore and you put you know, the fish,
and you can them up. And so I'd been trying
to get a job at one of those, but they
fill up so fast.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
We got a deckhand. You can do that, Yeah, and
so I had to some wild stories from that being
on the boat.

Speaker 3 (58:56):
Dude, that was hands down one of the one of
the gnarliest things I have ever done my life.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
How long were you own them?

Speaker 3 (59:02):
I was on this boat for five weeks, never got
off of it. Yeah, it's crazy, but it was awesome.
It was like, so, you know, I knew I was
about to embark on this adventure, you know, And I
was nineteen, and I'm all about it. I am down,
and I'm like, I'm in good shape. I'd been clam
farming with my brothers and.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
Yeah, it's probably nothing like scary for you because at
that point you yeah, yeah really.

Speaker 3 (59:26):
And and my stepdad was working on this boat I
was going to so I had I had some type
of an anchor. My mom remarried, my parents got divorced
after my brother was killed in a car accident and
their marriage just didn't survive this, and and so my
mom remarried. And that guy was a fisherman, uh oysterman
like all all of that. And he'd been going to

(59:48):
Alaska every season. So their deckhand fell into a fishole
and broke his ankle, and he called home and he
was like, we need someone now, and I was like
I'll go yeah. And he was like, are you sure,
and I'm just like I flew. I was like, yeah,
I'm sure. He was like, You're gonna be treated like
a man here, and I was like, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
I was like I'm good. I'm totally good.

Speaker 3 (01:00:09):
You know, dude, I had no idea what I First
of all, I've never seen water like that ever, Like
i'd been, you know, in the Gulf of Mexico, which
is a lake, you know, and so the water is insane.
It's freezing cold, the waves get massive. It's usually like
we were in a bay, so it's not like wildest

(01:00:29):
like deadliest catch big, but dude, I mean there's swells
like nine feet swells I've never seen.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
I've never seen anything like.

Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
I got seasick as a as a mother for three days.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Do you get used to that or do you just
kind of stay sick.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
No, I had to get medicine because it's it's in
your head.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
You don't have a virus.

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
It's like, that's why people that's why I see people
people throw themselves over boats with seasickness and stuff because
it's never going away. You're not gonna after a week,
it past, druns its course, like it's in your head.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Wow, you medicine.

Speaker 3 (01:01:04):
Yeah, people will kill themselves over it. And you could
I could see the shoreline, so there was like by
day three, I was like, I'm thinking about swimming over there.
Like I started to come into my head, like get
off the boat.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
I got so sick one time back when I had
no money. I told that, I told this is this
is really messed up. But we were at Luke's uh
when he got married, and they went we went out
and it was like five foot swells and we were
supposed to be snorkeling. Oh everybody there were forty of them.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
Thirty eight of us were sick, and the other two
people swam around the back of If everybody was on.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
The boat, we could have left. But the other two
people swam were those people you know exactly who, so
they know who they are. I literally said to the guy,
I was like, hey, man, I will write you a
thousand dollars check the second we get on them. And
I had no money at the time, but I felt
that bad. I'll right you a bad check.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
If you will take me back, if you will take
us back to everybody was sick, everybody was destroyed.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
Well, it took me a while to get used to
the bus once I got back onto a tour bus
because the motion sickness, like it's just once you get seasick,
you can't you always do. But yeah, anyway, I was
out there for five and a half weeks, never never
got off the boat, and it was it was all
gill netting, and it was really really hard work. It
was quite the adventure. And there's a ton of Russian

(01:02:30):
so like Russia. You can pretty much see Russia from
where we were, and so yeah, so they come over
during the fishing season and it's what makes it so
intense is the state of Alaska. So you're only allowed
to fish at certain times, like very specific time windows
so that this enough salmon can get up into the rivers.
So if your nets are not out on the minute.

(01:02:52):
I mean Alaska, they've got they've got fishing game. Helicopters
like watching everyone. They've got telescopes are watching you. And
uh and so if your nets are not out, like
out of time, like you, you'll lose your whole season money,
Like they'll find you so.

Speaker 2 (01:03:08):
Hard and uh. So it was like you have to
be like.

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
Pulling it out. But at the same time, you also
got to get enough fish to make.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
That worth it. Yeah, so you you're working.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
We were, We would work twenty one hours around the
clock and take shifts.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
You just don't. You don't sleep. You don't sleep. And
but the fish is so good.

Speaker 3 (01:03:28):
It's like when you're pulling it right out of the net,
it's like it tastes like candy. It's all red and
like warm, and it's so it's like any other salmon.
It doesn't even taste like salmon.

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
I did for a long time.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
Yeah, I still won't buy it out of season when
this season h June, like middle late June to late July,
soaky salmon, king salmon only, I only.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
Buy it then. Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
Yeah, that's why the farm stuff is disgusting. It's disgusting.
It's riddled with disease and like it's not even fish.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
Don't do it past cool. I've been passing. But yeah,
that was that was a wild adventure.

Speaker 3 (01:04:08):
I got a little grip of money and and I
bought this, Like I bought a Chevy Blazer, and I
drove to Nashville two hundred no from from Florida. I
came back to Florida, Florida.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
Bought some Nashville. Yeah, I'm gonna try. Yeah, started working
at Tootsies.

Speaker 3 (01:04:26):
Wow, dude, when when it was sketchy downtown back then, Yeah,
like sketch. Yeah, I'm sure like like we'd you know,
I'd play four hour shifts at do you remember honky
Tonk Central and Rippies? Okay, so it was it was Tutsi's,
honky Tonk Central and Rippy's. And that's where I learned
how to play with the band and like work a
big crowd, and you know, we leave at midnight with

(01:04:48):
like a wad of cash and people started getting attacked
in the parking garages for their cash, like pushed down
the stairwells and stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
And like it was sketchy down there. It was like
it was not Disney like it is now. At all?
What was your what was you?

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
Because I mean growing up in cults and no electricity,
you're not listening. You listen to the radio.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Like what was your introduce into country music? Like who
did you?

Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
Alison Kraus was my first like country music singer. And
then when I heard her voice, I was like I
was I was like, what is this? And a friend
of ours had given me that c D. It was
oh it was uh, it was a CD and it
was the soundtrack to a brother Arty and Alison It's Union.

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:37):
It was like gillion yeah yeah, And so that was
my My mom was like listening to like hippie rock,
like she liked like Fleetwood, Mac and Crosby Stills now
yeah yeah, stereo te.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:54):
My dad liked the Almond brothers and Brookes and stuff
like that. And uh and so that's Brooks and Dunn,
Shanaia and and Alison Cross were like my my my
country intro.

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
Man, those are three. Yeah, and I.

Speaker 3 (01:06:08):
Love Shania because like at the time, it was when
you looked around, it was a lot of like it
was a lot of like blonde hair, blue eyed girls.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
It was like Faith.

Speaker 3 (01:06:16):
Hill and uh Carter, Yeah, Diana Carter day. It was
a lot of like blondes. And when I discovered Shanaia
kind of looked like me. And I was like what
And I love the music.

Speaker 2 (01:06:28):
There was a lot of blonds. Was there a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:06:32):
Of blonde girls?

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):
Tucker, Yeah, yeah, all those kids. That's wold. I never
thought about that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:39):
And then Shanna came home and I came on, busted
makes makes you want to run through a wall.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
I'm gonna tell you something, nothing nothing called my attention
as a fifteen year old male.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
Like horse there a little shirt jacket thing, oh it
was it was perfect.

Speaker 3 (01:07:06):
Man laying at his crusher.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
That and that was mass and now was mass Millia.

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):
And I also like at that time, I was like
I didn't want to be I didn't know that I
wanted to be a singer. I just knew I could
sing and I loved it, you know, and I I
I've been singing. So I was really little and I
could play guitar and stuff. But I had a little
bit of trauma mixed with the guitar thing because the
family it was like we were literally like no food,
are you still rolling on.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
The ovation or have you bought something new? I don't
even know where that happened, saying when you when you
moved here, what were you guitar with this one?

Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
When I moved here, I had a tailor bought Yeah,
I bought a Taylor nice and yeah. But I was
like I didn't know that, like kids like me got
to be singers.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
You know. I didn't know anyone in music, you know,
we were so poor. I thought, like, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:08:03):
People like Shania they get music lessons and they you know,
I just thought that I didn't even go to school.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
I didn't know anything.

Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
So but then when I when you actually like start
to learn about these people like Shania has an insane story. Yeah,
you know, Dolly has twelve siblings. You grew up with
a dirt floor. Yeah, yeah, it was it was like
when I started to learn, because that's really what I
think I did. I figured out what my heroes did

(01:08:31):
and I just studied them and I was like, I'll
just do that. That's great kind of and then it
takes you on your own. You end up doing your
own journey.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
Sure, but it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:39):
Seems feasible when when you see somebody come from that
and do it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
Yeah, yeas too, especially especially if that's what you're national.

Speaker 3 (01:08:46):
Yeah, and Shania like she took care of three of
her siblings.

Speaker 2 (01:08:49):
She was twenty one.

Speaker 3 (01:08:50):
Both her parents were killed in a car accident, and
she like, you know, worked at a casino or something
like that. It just felt like, whoa, Okay, that's the
similarity similar to me, you know, I could do this.
And then I met Rob Hatch him in Florida. He's
from he's from that area that I was living in. Yeah, okay,
and yeah, they they've been my mentors and they've just

(01:09:14):
been in my corner the whole time, the whole time.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
That's how I remember him either talking about you or
as meeting through that or something. That's that's definitely what
yeh Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:24):
Dude, he's he's man like. He has been rooting for me.
I was their nanny. I used to clean their house.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
That's what it was. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:33):
And I was cleaning houses in the Governor's Club and
and and gigging down at Tootsi's and stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
When when I got my record deal.

Speaker 3 (01:09:39):
Awesome, so and taking care of my two siblings who
moved in with me, was like.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
There's everybody, now, where's all the siblings? You keep everybody's
in Nashville. Yeah everybody.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
Yeah, wow, except for me. I'm in Utah now yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
Yeah that's right. Yeah, you moved out. I moved out.

Speaker 3 (01:09:58):
Yeah, man, I just I love I love wide open
spaces and then the mountains are are magical and I
love being outside, you know, and it's it's it's amazing. Also,
the recreation is insane. The weather is great. You can
literally camp all year. You can't do that here.

Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
It's an amazing place to raise a family kids. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
Yeah, every time I go out there, I say this
all the time. Every time I go out there, I
never talk about home, like, but when I'm here, I
always talk about that there.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
Interesting like just look at her fill, the pool fill.
Have you guys hunted out there yet? You have? Okay, okay,
so I haven't been more November out there. Yeah, there's there.

Speaker 3 (01:10:44):
Well, there's a lot of I mean there there are
herds of elk that will just like go through our neighborhood.
There's literally a mother moose with two babies that come
down to drink out of our creek like a couple
of times a week, two babies. We're in Park City,
so you are in part yeah, yeah, and that when
first of all, just to see a moose, so Native
American culture, when you see an animal you're meant to

(01:11:07):
it's a message.

Speaker 2 (01:11:08):
It's like a.

Speaker 3 (01:11:11):
It's you're being told something. And so moose are strength
and courage and moving forward and you know all that
type of a thing. But to see a mother with
babies means new life, tenderness, youthful like. It makes you
like you should be starting to kind of, uh be
more childlike. And so I've seen a moose before, I've

(01:11:35):
seen a baby moose.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
I've never seen twins.

Speaker 3 (01:11:37):
It is amazing watching walk around.

Speaker 2 (01:11:40):
No no, no, no, no no, but it's awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:11:44):
It's like those those animals are dude, have you guys
seen seen a moose.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
In your life? They are enormous. They're huge.

Speaker 3 (01:11:52):
They're the size of a horse. But it's exciting. Yeah,
some bigger transfer.

Speaker 2 (01:11:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
We were.

Speaker 3 (01:11:59):
We were on a hike and uh and we rounded
we rounded one of the switchbacks and there was a
male moose with a huge rack just like chomping on
a bush. And I mean it was it was, I
mean the size of the first dangerous. Don't no, it's

(01:12:20):
it's it's exciting. Being out there, there's so much there's
so much spirit in that in that area of the country.
And I just mean, I think, I think this country
is so beautiful. I've seen so many, so many.

Speaker 2 (01:12:32):
Parts of it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:36):
I've been to every state. I love this country. Like
I'm I'm an all American girls. It gets you know,
like even with my Cherokee heritage, like I you know,
my heritage goes back nine generations in East Tennessee with Cherokee.
But I'm like, I love it here. I love this
country and I've seen I've seen it in every stage,

(01:12:58):
you know, every every piece of it, like the good,
the bad, and the ugly.

Speaker 2 (01:13:01):
And I just I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
When you look back on how you're brought up, and
obviously that has a lot to do with the way
you live your life.

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
Now, would you redo it?

Speaker 3 (01:13:14):
And that's a good that's a good question, you know.
I'm apt to say no, because man, I I really
like the challenges that I've had to go through specifically
have really made me really really smart and sharp and

(01:13:36):
and and I've been through so much adversity that I'm
just like, there's not much that can hit me that
makes me flinch, you know, And like, man, this is
a this is a tough world to live in, to
to to get hit, you know, So, yes, I mean
I think I wish my parents would have been more
protective over us. I think they were so naive They

(01:13:58):
put us in so many dangerous situations.

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
That as a parent.

Speaker 3 (01:14:03):
Now when when you asked me that question, it probably
would have been different before I was a parent, But
now I look back and I'm like, man, we were
put in so many dangerous situations really really yeah, and
should have And it literally we were protected by angels.

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
We were like, we were like, there's no other thing.

Speaker 3 (01:14:22):
Yeah, I mean, so many bad things, so many other
worst things could have happened to us and should have,
you know. And I say that, you know, my brother
lost his life. But you know, when you look at
a family our size and the the intense poverty I
grew up in, a lot more people would have ended

(01:14:43):
up on drugs or teen pregnancy or whatever whatever. The
you know, things happen like that. Somehow we just didn't. Like,
we just pushed through. We helped each other. And I
think if I didn't have all these younger siblings to
look after and like to keep straight for maybe in
my life would look different.

Speaker 2 (01:15:00):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
Man, what an incredible story.

Speaker 2 (01:15:05):
Yeah, you being awesome and having Yeah, I want to
ask about about this new music and thank you. So
you've been through the Nashville.

Speaker 1 (01:15:17):
Gauntlet, right, like you've had the record deals and been
in the bands and and written the songs and been
in the rooms and all that stuff. Now you're in
Utah making a record out there with one of my
favorite dudes on this planet, Josh Kelly.

Speaker 2 (01:15:29):
I love I love him. What talent. It's incredible, man,
But there's incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
Yeah, he's in the next level and we we got
to listen to the song. I got to listen to
some of the songs this morning driving in. God, it
just feels so real. It feels so authentic, and it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:47):
Even feels more authentic now, Yes, it fel then.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
It's so different due and like knowing about your your
Cherokee heritage is like it almost feels like like some
of the songs was like, you know, they're to your
mom and and sentimental and about your story, but like
there's some like warcraft stuff on there. Yeah, you know,
and like it just feels like you're at a point
in your life in your music career and you're making

(01:16:12):
music in this stage of your life. That's just like
you can't make it any other way than that. It
feels like like.

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
That feels like that's the only only songs you can
be writing right now. Thank you? Yeah, you nailed it.

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):
I I uh.

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
Yeah, man.

Speaker 3 (01:16:27):
I Once I had my so I almost died giving
birth to my daughter, and.

Speaker 2 (01:16:35):
I had a realization.

Speaker 3 (01:16:36):
I'd put out a couple of songs before that, and
it was very much like I was doing like a
Shania Twain thing, and which is authentic to me.

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
I've been touring a ton. I love to perform.

Speaker 3 (01:16:46):
I just wanted to like and kick the walls down
and and and and you know, perform songs in an arena.
I was just like, bring it on. So I was
putting out like very bombastic kind of like bon Jovi
meets Shania Twain songs. When I had my daughter and
I had this realization, I was like, you know, if
I had died and she went, which women die given

(01:17:09):
birth sometimes, like.

Speaker 2 (01:17:10):
I could have you know, she wanted to go and
listen to my music.

Speaker 3 (01:17:14):
She would have heard these kind of like you know,
like selling T shirts and beer songs, and she would
never know anything about me. Ever, she never know you know,
who I am as a mother, a wife, a friend,
a daughter. You know, she would She's blonde hair and
blue eyed. She cannot look in the mirror and see
her Cherokee heritage like I can. Ye. And it just

(01:17:35):
became so important to me that I not be afraid
to talk to tell my story through music. And I
didn't really think I had the skill the songwriting chops
yet either, you know, to write about my brother, you know,
being a bank robber, and to write about you know,
my mom's alcoholism and mental illness and how that has

(01:17:57):
generational effects and you know a verse if you will.
I think there's a dark spirit over it, and you
know it's come from generations behind me. There's a lot
of witchcraft and Native American culture too. I think that
you know that that lurks around it lurks, you know,
and so I I it became really important. Like it

(01:18:17):
was always fun knowing that we were that we were Indians,
and we were kids. It's wild and we love being
outside and we could feel it in a way, but
it's just a fun thing. It was not important to
me to bring it into my life and my identity
and my music like it is now.

Speaker 2 (01:18:33):
You're ready to leave something, yeah, and then when you go, Okay,
what do I want to leave them with?

Speaker 3 (01:18:38):
You?

Speaker 2 (01:18:39):
I want to leave them with my story. That way
they have a better understanding of who they are. Yes. Yeah,
I think you're very brave in a lot of different ways.
And I'm so proud. We are so proud of of
who you've beca through all of that stuff. And your
music is so great, and the record's great, and it
feels it's inspired, inspired, and I think it's a great story.

(01:19:01):
I want you to continue to tell your story because
I feel like it's important to have that view that
lends of things. You know.

Speaker 3 (01:19:11):
Yeah, it's definitely it's an autobiographical record. And I you know,
there was something about when I started making it out there.
I started writing with Josh because he's my neighbor, yeah, and.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
Which he's kind of spirit.

Speaker 3 (01:19:26):
Totally is and I need I needed that at the time.
I needed to kind of get out in Nashville and
like the music that I make you not to sound anyway,
but it really doesn't sound like anything sort of and
I needed to find that without being influenced, like we're
all influenced all the time, you know, by each other,
by all.

Speaker 2 (01:19:45):
The music we hear, and.

Speaker 3 (01:19:48):
Josh is he's a wild man, like there's nothing he
won't try, and he's not slammed with seventeen.

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
TikTok artists that he's just like draining his creativity, and
so his creative he is wide open to.

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
He writes songs when we play golf all the time,
and then they send me a snippet of a master
that he did.

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
Right, He's a He's just a wild man. He just
does what he feels and I'm co producing it with him. Combination.
I mean, that makes total thank you. Yeah, he's he's
so good.

Speaker 3 (01:20:17):
I'm so so grateful to have him and like being
able to make music in the foothills of those mountains city.

Speaker 2 (01:20:25):
In your freaking city, so so fulfilling crazy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
Do you feel comfortable? Could you play like a verse
chorus of something off the record?

Speaker 3 (01:20:33):
If not, you don't have to, but I could, but
I play in this open tuning, Okay, don't don't don't
worry about it is going to be a little bit
of a.

Speaker 2 (01:20:41):
It would be. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:45):
Yes I can, but it's an open tuning thing. You
I would probably play Mom and Jesus, so thank.

Speaker 2 (01:20:55):
You, thank you. I wrote that with with some cats
here and.

Speaker 3 (01:20:59):
Uh oh gosh, uh Clawson, Brad Clawson, love that guy.
What a smart songwriter's and Brandon Powers got you. Yeah,
I think that's Brendan Day.

Speaker 1 (01:21:15):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:21:15):
Why to say powers? He's powerful?

Speaker 3 (01:21:20):
So Mom and Jesus is uh man, that's my That's
a little glimpse into me as a mother. I I
often think about, like you see moms out grocery shopping,
you know, or or somewhere somewhere out in the wild,
and they like they look so vulnerable sometimes with their kids,
and they're distracted and and just kind of looks like

(01:21:40):
you could you know, someone could hurt that really easily,
but like the mistake that you would make is just
just under that distracted shopper. Vulnerable mother is a vicious
one woman assassin, you know, who will kill, especially if
you mess with they're young. Yeah, And I felt that

(01:22:01):
come alive in me when I when I became a mom,
and you know, I carry, and I'm very proud of that.
I'm very proud of my right to carry and never
leave yet and I do I keep I I I
want to teach my child to to do the right things,
but like you know, I've I've lied, and I've started

(01:22:21):
fights before, I've stolen things.

Speaker 2 (01:22:23):
You know, I've done it. And it's weird to teach your.

Speaker 3 (01:22:26):
Child to like not do that, knowing that one day
she'll she's going to find out that I'm flawed. But
what she'll know forever is that like I will kill,
I will cut someone's head off. And I do I keep,
I keep my I keep my nine loaded for a reason.
I will kill someone for her absolutely fast, no question.
I feel like I mean, I feel like.

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
Yeah, because mother, you're supposed to feel like that.

Speaker 3 (01:22:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:22:49):
And if you don't feel like that, I check it out.
Yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:22:55):
I saw a recent post about that they asked mothers
if they would be willing to kill for the protection
of their daughters, and it was about sixty forty no, no, yeah, nuts,
they said, I mean I could do it. Yeah, they
say that, And in the moment, let something happen and
see see what internal takes over.

Speaker 3 (01:23:12):
Yeah, I mean, I'm not even I'm talking, not even
in the moment. If I hear about something that happen.

Speaker 2 (01:23:16):
Oh, no, totally, absolutely absolutely. I don't even got to
see it go down. I'm ready, ready, got good thing
only dog. Yeah try me.

Speaker 1 (01:23:28):
I say that all the time we guns around our house.
She's like her neighbors are hearing to shoot guns. I'm like, here,
yeah they are. They know I got them up here,
So come see me.

Speaker 2 (01:23:36):
That's what freedom sounds like. Amen, Yeah, we we.

Speaker 3 (01:23:41):
So I've been back to Alaska because we did a
couple we did a couple of things for the military
bases up there, and this I'll never forget this. So
we're at the We're at the air Force base called
Fort Wayne Wright Air Air Force Army, and it was
it's a there's a ton of cloud coverage. Alaska can
get pretty cloudy, and and we're just hearing these huge

(01:24:01):
airplanes just flying, I mean all these like like overhead.
It sounds like there's a war going on up in
the sky. And uh so the uh, the sergeant major
came in to greet us and he's like his you know,
his uh, his flight gear and a cowboy hat.

Speaker 2 (01:24:18):
Avy it looks like he stepped out of the movie Tough.

Speaker 3 (01:24:21):
He comes in to greet us and we're like, what
is this has been what's going on up there? You
know kind of he's like because it was obviously training,
and he goes, girls that there's freedom sounds, no doubt.

Speaker 2 (01:24:33):
It's like, you got so tough, that's.

Speaker 3 (01:24:38):
What freedom sounds.

Speaker 2 (01:24:39):
Last loved that, hook man. Yeah, you would have. He
would have Nailmi. You are unreal man, for real.

Speaker 1 (01:24:54):
It was so much fun to hear about all of that,
to to kind of just live it for a second
with you and inspiring keep on doing your things.

Speaker 2 (01:25:04):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
The music is so good. Thank you, The music so good.
When's it come out?

Speaker 2 (01:25:09):
New song?

Speaker 3 (01:25:09):
A little halfway done with the record right now, but
I have a new song coming out Friday, which is.

Speaker 2 (01:25:16):
Already recording this now. Yeah, it'll be it'll it will
be out by the time you guys hear that. Yeah, yeah,
what is it? How they go? Oh yeah, I'll listen
to that. We're going fast? Awesome? Thank you. Yeah, I'm
said that that's over. I know we can sit here
for another three hours. Man, will you come back come back? Yeah, dude,
I'd love to come back. It was a blast.

Speaker 3 (01:25:35):
You guys are so like thanks for listening and like
having me here.

Speaker 1 (01:25:39):
Thanks so thanks for being vulnerable enough to talk about care.
Let you get out of here without singing something?

Speaker 2 (01:25:43):
What you want to do?

Speaker 3 (01:25:45):
Dang, dude, I like nineties country, not because it's trendy.

Speaker 2 (01:25:51):
But because we were raised on it.

Speaker 3 (01:25:54):
Yeah, yeah, man, I I've been listening to Brooks and
Done Again a lot, and they're like, what's that face?

Speaker 2 (01:26:01):
You don't like Brooks and Killers? But I love dude,
I love it that one hell situal swing z. Let's

(01:26:22):
do let's do a little faith. Hell, baby, tell me
where where do I? Sorry? All right, don't baby? Tell
me where you ever learn to fight without saying.

Speaker 3 (01:26:50):
So?

Speaker 2 (01:26:50):
Tell me how far it is? How can you love
like this? I'm not sure that I ca when we
don't talk, when we don't.

Speaker 3 (01:27:05):
Talk, when it doesn't feel like weary and love.

Speaker 2 (01:27:12):
In manners's to me? When I don't want to say,
I don't know what to do. I don't know when
to really even manners to you? I can I make
you see? Oh it matter? Take matter? Yeah Dan? How

(01:27:46):
do you know so many songs? Yeah? You're so good
at that.

Speaker 1 (01:27:49):
Hell, you're gonna walk juice one day. I'll let my
secrets out, but not today. So much so Killer? That
was killer we have a to COVID since your present.

Speaker 2 (01:28:03):
Oh yeah, you're coming.

Speaker 1 (01:28:04):
On the show. Jobs was jealous of these. There's a
show checking out there you go. It's kind of the
only reason most people come on the show.

Speaker 2 (01:28:14):
But yeah, I didn't actually really need a new pair
of boot there you go. What's that shoe? Are you
look at? Two?

Speaker 3 (01:28:21):
Are?

Speaker 2 (01:28:21):
What are those?

Speaker 1 (01:28:22):
I couldn't give I couldn't get my big toe in
those things. Yeah. Absolutely, thanks for coming on, Betful, Thanks
for being awesome story.

Speaker 2 (01:28:34):
Yeah, congratulations Edi you What are you feeling? What are
the spirits telling me? What are they telling you? They're
telling me a bunch of stuff? What are these animals?
They're looking down on you right now? They got things
to say? What do you think?

Speaker 3 (01:28:47):
You know, some people are weird about taxing on me,
but I think it's dignifying. Yeah, you know, they're like, oh,
people hanging their trophies. I'm like, well, you know, if
you're going to eat an animal, give them some dignity.

Speaker 1 (01:28:58):
If I'm not up there, I always tell people it's
a it's a way to honor it for the rest
of us.

Speaker 2 (01:29:03):
Alf I think of every I know exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:29:06):
Where every one of these were taken and the stories
behind them and and the memories that we have.

Speaker 3 (01:29:11):
They're honored in my opinion for you guys are real
sportsmen and hunters, and I I mean, I think I
think just a discard of a beautiful animal like that
is a shame.

Speaker 2 (01:29:18):
It is. I agree, Yeah, I agree. If you ain't
gonna if you it, don't kill it.

Speaker 3 (01:29:23):
YEAHSI throw him out to the cat.

Speaker 2 (01:29:29):
Something's going to eat him though, isn't that That's something?
He is going to eat him. They're not going to
lay there if we don't get out of her. What
you want to?

Speaker 3 (01:29:35):
I got to say, I saw a dead cat on
the side of the road, uh a couple of weeks ago,
and nothing touched that cat, And I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:29:42):
Like, what's going But.

Speaker 3 (01:29:44):
That's that's a sign something was wrong with that cat.
Otherwise something like no crows, nothing weird.

Speaker 2 (01:29:50):
The sort of spirit spirit implications could have been a skinwalker.
Next time.

Speaker 1 (01:29:59):
You ch out the new song grew Up Fast out
Now record Growing Up Growing Up Sorry what she did?
She grew up fast, grewed up, growing growing Up Fast
out Now. New new music coming. Thank you so much,
You're awesome, Thank you for thanks. All Right, we'll check

(01:30:19):
out next time see it,

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Dan Isbell

Reid Isbell

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Stuff You Should Know

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 97: Mom Life, Cult Stories, and Mama Ain't Jesus with Naomi Johnson