October 29, 2025 • 65 mins
This week, S.E. sits down with Chely Wright, an award-winning country music artist, activist, and author to discuss her multifaceted career and personal journey. Before they get into the emotional and professional challenges Wright faced as a closeted gay woman in the country music industry, S.E. asks Chely her thoughts on some big news (from Beyonce to Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban) that has come out of the country music industry of late. They also talk about Chely’s trailblazing reputation, what happens behind the scenes when you take risks, and whether the industry is evolving. And stay for a very country lighting round!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
In my heart and who I am naturally is a
really authentic, open, honest person. But the hardest thing for
me to write in my book was I became a
skilled liar.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to Off the Cup, my personal anti anxiety antidote.
We talk a lot on this show, as you know,
about career arcs and how many lives we might get
to live or have to live, depending on your perspective.
And it's such a fascinating, rich topic for me because
I've been going through a kind of midlife something. It's
(00:37):
not a crisis per se, and it's not entirely just
because of my age, although that plays a part. It's
because of where I am in my career, where my
industry is, where the world is, and I know I'm
not alone and feeling angsty and anxious and confused. And
(00:58):
we get to these crossroads sometimes start asking some very
scary questions like who am I without this job? Do
I even like my job? Could I do something else?
What would that look like if I leave my job?
Can I ever come back if I want? Are they
kicking me out for good? Will I be good at
(01:18):
something else? So scary but also so important, And these
are the moments that can change our lives in ways
we can't even foresee, we can't imagine. And for people
like me who are like I need to know what's
on the other side of that door before I open it,
it's really scary.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
And the thing you can't imagine on the.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Other side of the door might be better than whatever
you're predicting. So today's guest has lived many, many lives,
so many lives, and I really admire her for her strength,
her courage, her sense of adventure. She's someone who seems
to just constantly say I'm.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Just gonna go do that. I'm just gonna go do it,
And I love that so much.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I want to be more like that. She's an award
winning rue music artist. She's an activist, she's an author,
she's a corporate boss. Welcome to Off the Cops, Shelley, Right.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Essie, I'm so glad to be here with you. Wow,
what an intro.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I'm so glad.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I mean I could do your whole bio, which is great,
you have a very impressive bio.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
But like hear it off the cup, these are.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
The conversations we want to have, Yeah, asking ourselves the
scary questions and like how did you how'd you get
past that question?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
How'd you answer it?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
And I'm so glad we finally get to do this
together when I don't remember when we met.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
When do you think we met?
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah? I was thinking about that a couple of weeks ago.
I feel like because I think my wife said, how
do you? How long have you known Essie? Obviously you
and I have history in the recent in recent years
working on a project together. We'll get into that. I
think that the first time you and I met was
(02:55):
at thirty Rock, and I think we were both in
the green room about to do a hit on either
an NBC or MSNBC. Is that close?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I think that's right. Would would this have been twenty
eleven or twelve?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Probably? Yes, probably around that time. So I came out
of the closet in twenty ten, And of course we'll
get to all of that, yep. But I you know,
in between twenty ten and twenty fifteen, I was there
a lot, doing a lot of stuff, and I feel
like that's when we met. And I feel like, too,
you it was the two of us in a green room,
(03:36):
and I want to say it was Mira Sorvino in
there with her Dad. Yes, Oh my god, yes, I
just that just came to me. I feel like I
feel like they had a project and they were talking
about it and it was just us and then in
walks Paul and Mira and I think you and I
both looked at one another like, whoa.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Shelley, You're so right.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And I would never have remembered that part of it,
But now that you say that, oh, it's vivid, right,
memory is vivid. Yeah, Oh, I remember even which green
room we were in, because okay, so here's the I
was at MSNBC.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
I had a show at MSNBC.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I wasn't in the green room a lot because I
had an office there, but I was in the green
room this day because I was going on a show
I didn't normally go on. And I don't remember if
we were going on Morning Joe or we were going
on with like Chris Jansen or Thomas Roberts. But it
wasn't a show I was doing. All the time.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
You were guesting. You were guesting on someone else's show
and you had a show there at the same time. Correct, Yes,
this all makes sense. And you know what.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
All makes sense.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
This is the new truth. We're allowed to make things up. Now,
even if this isn't true.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
We'll just say it is. That's right, let's say that's
that's what it was. No, but I feel really good
about it. Yeah, I feel like that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
It Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
I'm so glad you remembered that.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Okay, and as you were, I I may see as
you were kind of giving a little intro to me
at the top, but asking yourself out loud, those questions
you've asked yourself. I realized that those are all of
the question. You've nailed it. That is the full complement
of questions.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, done deal, Yes, well, and I can't We're going
to get to that part. But like, I know what
questions you're asking yourself because I'm here. Yeah, and I've
been here, so yeah, we just I feel like we
have a lot in common. We're gonna get to it,
and I want to talk about so many things. But first,
(05:35):
can I just get your take on a couple country
music adjacent news items.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, okay, I'm here for it.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Okay, Okay, this will be quick, but like you're here,
I need your take, Keith Urban, Nicole Kidman, your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Ooh, I have met Nicole on a couple of occasions, quickly,
briefly in industry circles I have. I would consider Keith
a friend since the mid nineties. Yes, I think divorces
hard and breakups are hard, and they're hard whether you're
(06:10):
a publicly known person or not. But the lens of
fame and kids an intersection of all of that, it's
just it's hard. I just hope we can stay out
of it and let them have their Yeah, let them
have their marital breakdown. There's probably a lot going on
(06:31):
that we don't know, nor should we, nor is it
any of our business. But nineteen years married.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
That's a giant success, agreeing to kids.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
So I here's what's making me mad about this story.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
People are.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Imposing an explanation onto this, like he was threatened by
her success.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
That's what's let oh.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Really well, like I said, I don't know, we don't know, yeah, anything. Yeah,
And they're pointing to the fact that he, in past
interviews gets very reticent about talking about her, like this
is somehow proof.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
That he's jealous of her.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Maybe she said, honey, don't talk about me because I
want these interviews to be about you. And when they
ask me about you just shut it down. I don't
need to be in your headline.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Maybe this was her.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I just feel like we psychologize these celebrities and it's
like we're inventing shit out of thin air.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah. I wish we'd stop doing that. I mean, you know,
I look I like a soap operas next as much
as the next person. And same. You know, I remember
being a kid, and you know, there weren't that many
tabloids at the time, but I remember being interested in
you know, Glenn Campbell and Tanya Tucker. You know, breakups, breakdowns, breakthroughs, marriages, divorces,
(08:00):
kids out of wedlow, It's all happened. This has been
around forever. And you know, here's what I know. I
love Keith urban To in his just to his core,
in my core. And I assume that the woman he
made a life with for nineteen years and built a
family with is of his ilk.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
And something worked.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Something worked, Yeah, something worked, And it's I think of
the what is that? What is that it's a poem about?
Instead of talking about how we're falling, let's think about
how long we were in the air.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Nice?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, great, Okay, have you heard about the new Beyonce rule.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I am aware at a high level of the new
Beyonce rule.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Okay, to explain for people, Beyonce wins Best Country Album
at the Grammys in February. It was a little controversial
inside country music circles. Four months later, the Recording Academy,
the Grammys breaks up the country category into two Best
Contemporary Country, Best Traditional Country. The Academy says it will
award modern country while still recognizing subgenres like Americana.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Your thoughts, Yeah, I don't love it. I listened to
the Beyonce record and to end, I put good headphones on,
you know, laid on the floor and gave it the
listen it deserves. It's as country a record as anything
else that is coming out of Nashville or has come
(09:33):
out of Nashville for decades. I would ask us to
be self reflective as an industry and ask ourselves what's different?
What's different about Beyonce? Why did that really? Bryal us up?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
A good question? Good question.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I mean, I think back to when Shanaia Twain, you know,
obviously she had a couple of albums before she and
Mutt Lange teamed up and made you know, genre busting,
genre defining records, and people had the same complaints about, oh,
it's not country enough, and that said, you know, we
(10:11):
let her in, I mean, and she was a product
of Music Row by the way, she'd had a couple
of records out, you know, our Mercury records before those
records exploded. All of this is to say that Nashville
doesn't really do a great job. They're not ultra comfortable
with someone coming in that they didn't that didn't kiss
(10:33):
the ring, that they didn't raise it, that they didn't manufacture,
that they can't take credit for. And still, what is
different about Beyonce. She's a woman of color. This is
a black woman who owns all of her power and
brings it to bear in every space that she embodies.
(10:54):
And that is a country record by every metric that
we are looking at in contemporary country music today.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Okay, you heard it here.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
And then for the for the new genre of the
classic the traditional country record, my vote, full stop goes
for Sonny Sweeney, her new record that let's just call it,
let's just we have a winner. Let's just say that.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Okay, we'll check back.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
That's who I want.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
That's why I went to okay Bad Bunny at the
super Bowl. A lot of country artists feel as though
country music keeps breaking all these records and then the
super Bowl keeps ignoring it.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Your thoughts, Yeah, well, we've had country artists at the
super Bowl before it's happened. Bad Bunny is the right choice.
I think his downloads have surpassed even Tailor's. Bad Bunny
(11:57):
is arguably the biggest artist right now in the world,
and given that the NFL is and has been aiming
toward a more global audience, it's the right choice. I
know that everyone wants to think it's a political play,
(12:19):
and maybe there's a tinge of that, but I don't
know that the wider, the big global NFL audience wants
something different country music in some incredible stars that are
filling stadiums, right yeah, Brian, Yeah, Morgan Wallin obviously Kenny
(12:45):
Chesney Can continues to do it. But I think the
Bad Bunny appointment it meets the moment of where we are.
And I'm an I'm a huge NFL fan, and I
know you are as well. I'm I'm here for it
and have I ever bought a Bad Bad Bunny record?
(13:05):
I have not but I went the other day and listen,
I was like, oh, I know that, I know that,
I know that. I can totally see why the NFL
made this time.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I saw Bobby Bones, who's a friend I know you
know him too. He was saying, listen, Bad Buddies not
for me. That's okay, Like not.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Everyone has not everyone has to be for everyone. What Yeah,
I like Bad Buddy.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
It's fun, it's fun music. He's not my favorite, but
it's not for me.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
That's okay. Is that okay?
Speaker 1 (13:35):
And when you think about yeah again, I've it's not
I'm not going to a Bad Bunny concertor yeah, but
that's okay. But when I see what the NFL kind
of the pre show, the first half, how someone has
to be able to hold up that energy and that
viewership in that halftime show, which is just iconic, we
(13:58):
it makes sense. It makes so much sense. Okay, good job, that.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Was the news.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Thank you so much, Shelly Wright for your analysis.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Glad Toad, let's.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Get to you, and let's go back to the beginning.
I always like to ask, what kind of kid were you?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Oh, that's a great question. I was Okay, I was
a total weirdo. Still am a card carrying weirdo too.
I you know, I'm a nerd. I never got in trouble.
I was a brown noser. I sat on the front
(14:47):
row of class, I raised my hand, I always had
my homework done. Now part of this should be seen
through the lens of hypervigilance as a closeted queer. Yes,
in a town in Kansas where there were churches on
nearly every corner.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
So were you can?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
I just ask, yeah, partly because that were you a
pleaser if I please people?
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yes? And I had to be. And I was a
person of faith at a very young age, a genuine
My faith practice is really important to me, and it
always has been. I knew that I was a person
of faith before I knew I was gay. So it's
not that I ran toward religion to fix me. And
(15:38):
I put that in air quotes because I thought I
was spiritually you know, damned once I realized I was gay.
But so many kind of things coexisted in me that
I think are interesting in that people pleasers typically follow
(16:02):
a path and a trajectory that everyone else does. So
I followed the path of get give straight. A student
homecoming queen captain of my basketball team, president of the
band First Trumpet, dating boys, dating boys, I mean, you
(16:25):
can get into that fish. I did. I wasn't that
committed to it for obvious reasons. But so I would
take that path, but then I would diverge wildly from
the path, which got me in some trouble with my
peer group, caused some bullying. You know, I was the
recipient of some bullying. And then I also had this
(16:49):
crazy notion that I was going to go to Nashville
and become a country music singer and sing on the
radio and sing on the opry. So I think, through
a people pleasing lens, that was pretty wild.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah, right, And I know you realized you were gay young.
After you realized you were a spiritual person. Love, faith
in religion was important, but you knew you couldn't live openly.
I think we can all imagine why the pressures, but
I just want to hear in your words, why did
(17:25):
you feel like you couldn't live openly? Identify those points
of resistance for you.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah. So when I was I was baptized when I
was six in the Christian Church, which is you know,
there wasn't even a Catholic church in my town. It
was Methodists, Community Baptist, Baptist, all these kind of versions
of that. No one looked different in my town. Everyone
was white. We did have a couple of Catholics. No
(17:52):
Jews in my town, certainly no gay people, wink wink.
Yeah right. And when I was nine, I realized, and
I'll keep this brief, I was in third grade and
I had a beautiful teacher named Miss Smiley, Laura Smiley.
She was young, big, bright smile, you know, perfectly named.
(18:14):
Over the weekends, I just couldn't wait to get back
to school on Monday, and I just thought, I just wondered,
does she miss us? Does she miss the students like
we miss her? And I began to have kind of
little conversations with my friends, and I realized no one
was dying to get back to school on Monday like
I was. And then to see her. And then I realized,
(18:36):
uh oh, and why was this troubling that I had
a crush on my third grade teacher? Because everything being
talked about in my church, in my community, on the news,
and you know, I grew up in a farm community,
a ton of a thousand people. Teachers told gay jokes,
(18:56):
in my school, the word faggot was used by a
couple of teachers and Jim coaches, you know, and it
was widely used in the hallway, as no one got
in trouble for saying anything like that. There was a
game called smear the queer with the football, which meant
it's like a hot potato, you throw the foot. If
(19:16):
you can't get rid of it, everybody has license to
beat the crap out of you. And the preacher in
my preacher, Warren Skiles, talked about evil people and he
was a fantastic influence on my life. And he knew
not what he was doing. He would use the words
in his sermons drunkard, thief, adulterer, murderer, homosexual, and so
(19:40):
this is why I knew I could never ever share
my secret or be that. And then of course, when
I was nine, you know, realizing I was gay, I
had for five years had this dream of making it
to Nashville. So this wasn't And you know, people have
asked me, well, why did you decide to go into
country music once you realized you were gay? I'm like
(20:03):
being a country music artist. That dream predated my understanding
who I was as.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
A and maybe it wasn't even a decision, it was
a calling, like how do you?
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
I mean, when I was obsessed with Loretta Lynn buck Owens,
Conway Twitty, Connie Smith, there was just there was there
was no options. So so and then I knew that
I was going into an industry in which no one
had ever identified being gay. And when I got to
Nashville in nineteen eighty nine, I just doubled down on
(20:34):
my yea, you know that, Well, it's sure not going
to be me. I'm not going to be the first
one out of the closet and lo and behold you know,
long story short. Twenty years later it was I you were.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah, yeah, so you're young, you have a vision of
your future in no nowhere on the horizon is a
place where you can be yourself. That just doesn't it's
not it's not happening. And when you feel that, when
you feel shame as a child, when you have to
hide something that fundamental as a child, that's a trauma.
And as you know, traumas imprint on us, they show
(21:07):
up later. So how did your trauma from that show
up later in life?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Ooh, it's a really good question. I've been asked a
lot of questions, and I don't think anyone's asked me that.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
That's my favorite thing to hear.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
You're good at your work, guessie.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Let me just quickly just talk about the when I
was younger and thinking that's not a life I could ever,
I can't ever be myself as a gay person. Yeah.
The notion of that seems much more reasonable when you're nine, eleven, sixteen, nineteen,
because one doesn't at those ages really realize what weight
(21:50):
companionship and love have. Yeah, so when you're ten, you
can say, oh, I'll just never be that. I'll just
focus on the music. It's an unfair contract to sign
at that time. But to answer your question, how did
those traumas show up in my life later? I think
(22:11):
I developed such a muscle memory around perfection and a
skill set that I didn't and I wrote about this
in my book, a skill set that I didn't love,
which was having the ability to compartmentalize and in my
(22:33):
heart and who I am naturally is a really authentic, open,
honest person. But the hardest thing for me to write
in my book was I became a skilled liar and
coming out I had to really address that and own
that and hope that people instead of saying, see, I
(22:54):
knew it, You're a liar. You've been true, You've been
tricking us the whole time. I had to trust that
that the majority of people would say, tell me why
you felt like you had to be a liar? Yeah,
That's what I needed people to get to, and I
just had to trust that they would.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Your mom, how did your experience as a kid impact
the way you are seeing your children now? I came
across something you said were you talked about having sympathy
for the little you, and that resonates so much with
me because you know, in therapy we do that, we
try to show up for the little us as the
(23:36):
grown up us because maybe we felt as kids we
weren't being shown up for, and so seeing little us
now is just as important, It's crucial. So how are
you seeing your kids in a way that maybe you
wanted to be seen?
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah? So, my relationship with my mom and very different
than my reallyationship with my dad. Although they kind of
were one unit when I was a kid, they divorced
when I was twenty seven, and then kind of a
wild convergent convergence of relationships there. But my mom was
(24:16):
my biggest fan. As anything I did, she just said,
you can be the best at it. She just had
this real belief in my ability to excel. And she
also loved country music, so there was a particular delight
that she found in that I was not only wanted
(24:38):
to be a songwriter artist, musician, but that I was
actually good at it.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Yeah, that you could, which is always so.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Wild to me because I see so many people who
moved to Nashville and they want to do it, and
I'm like, that's probably not going to happen. I just
what a thrill that I actually had enough talent to
do it, to you know, cut and paste this thing
together and make it fly. My mother was complicated in
(25:06):
that she also was a polio survivor and that was traumatic.
So I think that there was unaddressed trauma for her,
and she gifted the trauma down to me. And my
siblings were all very hypervigilant in a number of ways,
and we get that from our mom that said, I'm
(25:27):
so glad to have that hypervigilance, that do sweat the
small stuff mentality, because I've built a career out of
sweating the small stuff. So cut to how do I
show up differently for my children? So I've got identical
twin boys, they're twelve, and my wife and I, you know,
(25:50):
we have a shared parenting style and then a different
parenting style in some ways no surprise to anyone. Both
of them want to be YouTubers.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Yes, that's all the kids want to be, Sitta.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
That's all they want to be. And so my wife
will at times say, you know that you're not going
to be a YouTuber, like that's not a real and
I am very mindful to tell them I think you
can do it. I think you can do it. I
believe in you, and here are the things it takes
(26:23):
to be really great at something. And they're looking at,
you know, their YouTube channel and they have thirty five
followers and they're like, Mama, how do you have so
many followers? Yeah, I'm like, well, let me let me
talk you through what that looks like. And so I
I want my kids when I'm dead and gone and
(26:43):
while I'm here, frankly, I want them to never to
feel as if there was never a deficit in my
belief of their dreams. Because this is the kid me
who when she was four told the entire town of Wellsville, Kansas,
I'm to be on the Grand Ole Opry and I'm
going to sing on the radio and make records, and
I ktch you not si yea. My whole town said yeah,
(27:08):
let's go.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
That was so big to me. And the older I get,
the more I realize how saying one's dreams out loud
as a kid and having people say, Okay, yeah, get
you know, get your work done, get good grades, stay
out of jail, do what you know. Yeah, follow the rules,
and you can do whatever you want. And so that
is my kind of a key tenant of my being
(27:31):
so exestile.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I'm so glad you said that, because, yeah, I need
to think about this more because my son, who's tenant, wants.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
To be a YouTuber and I'm I'm your wife. I'm like, no,
you're not. That's not real. They're not.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
But I really like what you said. I really like
shifting my perspective on that a little bit. I'm going
to think on that and maybe show up for him
a little differently. But I'm so scared of the YouTube stuff.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
I'm scared of it.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I'm scared of it. I hate the screen, like This
is a major point of it's poison, you know. And
what I try to tell the boys is if your
frontal lobe is still prefrontal cortex is still in development
and won't be until it's twenty five, and you're having
this struggle, look at adults around you. Look on the train.
(28:24):
Everyone has their face in a screen. If it's hard
for adults, it's going to be doubly If not triple
or whatever multiple you want to put on, it very
hard for you. And and we can't really get them
off of screens because they learn on screens.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yes, he just brought home a computer from class, like
he's going to be on screens. It's also the video
games and stuff. I really resisted for a long time
because I'm so scared of it, But it got to
a point where, like the video game We're thing was
a social access point for him. If he didn't have
(29:02):
that social access point to talk to his friends about
Super Mario Brothers and Pokemon and Minecraft, he would have
had no friends because he wasn't sporty. He's a bit
nerdy in the best way. He's on the spectrum. He's
socially a little developmentally, a little behind, and the kids
that are just like him are talking about video games,
(29:24):
and if I refused, he would.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Have had all like no social interactions.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
So for me it became an opportunity. And so once
I opened to that door, you know, now I have
to I we're here, you can't close it. Yeah, and
so yeah, but I'm just very scared of the online stuff,
especially with boys.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I'm very scared of it. But I have to get
to a better place. And I'm really going to think
about what you said.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Perhaps we can rather than our seeing the conversations we
need to have with our kids, especially boys of the
this age, instead of the conversations we need to be
having with them, how about we add something to that,
and that is the conversations we need to be having
with their friends' parents, because they these boys want to
(30:16):
follow the pack of well, you know, Oscars on it
and Arthur's on it, and you know, and and I
get that.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
But perhaps we can have a united front together.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
And there's a not there's an organization in New Zealand
I've done some work with in my last role. Anyway,
long story short, they are mobilizing parents with one another
as cohorts to help kind of change the watermark on
screens and games, and I think I think there's not
a there's not a magic pill on this, but I
think it's going to be several things working in concert,
(30:52):
and I think conversations with parents great.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, I've been thinking about this in preparation for my
interview with you.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
I can't decide if the fact.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
That you become a giant country music star, top new
female vocalist at the ninety five CMS, et cetera, while
you're struggling with your sexuality, if that put you in
the worst possible place at the worst possible time or
the best right Because I'm sure it made you incredibly
strong and resilient, but I know it was tough. I'm
(31:35):
wondering how you'd answer that question.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
If I told you that the thing I was convinced
for decades would be the thing that would end me
was actually my superpower. Yes, that would be effect a truth.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Say more.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Say more the effort and the skill set and the
energy and the strategy and the discipline that I had
to deploy to not only make it to Nashville, learn
the industry, get better as a songwriter, get signed, have
two failed records, get myself out of that major deal
and onto Universal Records. I was able to pull all
(32:18):
of that out because of my strategy and focus muscle.
And I have that strategy and focused muscle because I
had to hide who I was my whole life. You
get really good at stuff. And here's the kind of
the big reveal is that in twenty twenty, I was
on tour like every touring musician. I had to go
(32:40):
home like everybody, and it was a really uncertain time
and a really scary time for a lot of artists,
not just for their income but mental health wise, Like
this was a new normal. We'd no one had ever
done this before. Guess what I got to do. I
got to pivot into what was already for the past
(33:01):
ten years my side hustle, which is corporate consulting with
corporates around leadership, storytelling, D and I D E and
I D EIB whatever you call it. Were it not
for being a closeted country music singer who decided in
two thousand and six, I'm going to come out. Not
only am I going to come out, I'm going to
(33:23):
come out, well, I'm going to come out and tell
the whole truth and nothing but the truth and then
storytelling what I do very naturally. Just I had this
side hustle, and so I went from literally my tour
being canceled and picking right up and growing my client base.
What in the world?
Speaker 3 (33:44):
What? Yeah? Yeah, I love that. But I love that.
That's why.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
There's so many ways to tell a story. And one
of the stories is this was a really tough time
for you. You went into a space that was not
welcoming at a time where you needed to be welcomed.
But the other version is the story you just told.
And I knew there was going to be another version.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
That's why s Sie. I love the tenant that my
parents taught me when I was a kid was plan
your work and work your plan. Now the nuance of
the work your plan piece. It doesn't it doesn't mean
plan A is an effort.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
I In fact, I love it when plan A begins
to show its cracks. Yeah, because then I know that
the iteration process, much like in songwriting, the iteration, the editing,
the poking at it, that's putting it in the center,
walking around it and evolving it. That's how you get
a good song. That's how you get a stronger, better
(34:46):
keynote address I'll bet you were better at this podcast
than you were on episode one, right, So I love
the editing process, and the older I get, the more
I just want to shout from the mountaintop, and I
do shout from the mountaintops. What's behind that door? Do
as much work as you can plan for to knock
(35:07):
on that door, But there is always something better than
you can imagine that's right on the other side of the.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Door, and you can't imagine it, and you can't carry
for people.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I'm, you know, a type A. I also grew up
kind of a pleaser, a planner. I grew up very
anxious at a great childhood. I always have to say that,
because you know, I don't want it to sound like
I didn't, but I moved a lot and there was
a lot of expectation I put on myself.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
And so when.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I am contemplating a door, like I said, and I
don't know what's on the other side, that's very scary
for me.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
It makes me not want to open it.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah, if I can't predict and plan for what the
next thing is going to be, that makes me not
want to even approach it. And that's like I said
at the beginning. I want to be more like you
and just fly fling the door open.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Let me just let me offer this. I don't know
that I've ever flung a door open. I think that
is an un fair way to characterize my life. The
chapters of my life.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
The bravery, the bravery I see is you flinging the
door open, and you're saying it's more complicated than that.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
It's I decided to come out in two thousand and six,
the morning after I didn't end my life. I actually
came out four years later. Now what did I do
in the middle of that? I did the work I
had planned my work work. My plan evolved the plan
A and to plan LMNOPQ. However, the letters go yeah,
(36:40):
forgotten the alphabet in this moment. But there was a
tremendous amount of risk analysis, financial planning again yeah yeah, preparation,
getting the right team together. I'm I'm a I'm no
smarter than the next guy or gal, But I know this.
(37:00):
If it's a matter of strategy and poking at it, interrogation,
planning for mitigating risks, there is no one better at
that than me. Oh yeah, no one.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
I feel the same, Like I'm really good at that too.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Yeah. So the flinging of the door not the thing,
not the thing. It's like a show, right, it looks
like wow, you know Lebron James gets up there, Michael
Jordan goes, they slam duncan or yeah, what happens below
the iceberg? That is That's what I do really well.
So I don't think I've kicked any doors down or
(37:34):
flung any doors open. I am. Do you know my nickname?
Have I told you this before? My nickname amongst colleagues,
family friends, ban crew. My whole life is Captain's Safety.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Oh I love that, and I love.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
That about me. Yes, I love that about me. I
always have a blanket and a gallon of water in
the back of my bar. Can I tell you how
many times have been first unseen at an accident where
the blanket and the water was needed?
Speaker 3 (38:04):
How many times?
Speaker 1 (38:05):
So many people have recks in front of me? People
old people fall on the street in front of me. Yeah,
you know, so I am. I'm Captain Safety.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
So you date a few big country stars, Vince Gill,
Brad Paisley, people we all know. Were those relationships pr
(38:43):
Were they you trying to convince yourself were they like,
what was your intention? With no no judgment, I'm just
wondering what was your intention in dating very big you know,
mail stars at that time in your life.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, first of all, even if you asked this with
judge judgment, that's fine. Again, I yeah, I don't mind
being judged for it. In fact, when I came out,
I wanted to come out and tell the whole truth
and nothing but the truth. And that did include my
having to speak to what were you thinking? What was that?
(39:27):
And it was there was a p R benefit that
I realized. Was it my motivator? No? Did I appreciate
the cover it gave me when I was in a
relationship with a Brad or spending time with Vince Gill
(39:47):
or Brett farre or having a day with Troy Aikman,
all of I did. The benefit I did appreciate and acknowledge,
and the benefit was there not my motivator. So here's so,
I had a partner for twelve years during the zenith
(40:08):
of my career. We had a house, and we had
a Koi pond and pets, and we had a life. Yes,
we were deeply closeted. She didn't want to come out
I didn't want to come out.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
It was is Julie. This is Julie, Julie in your book, okayeh, Julia.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yep, And and it was just it was a non
starter to come out. That was just not ever going
to be something that happened. And in that twelve year period,
we had ups and downs and we had breaks. And
like many people who are like me gay, who know
(40:44):
that they can't exist as who they are, they make
decisions about partnering with people and it doesn't make that
other person a beard. Sometimes it is, but sometimes and
I the thousands of people I've heard from since I've
come out about this exact thing playing out. When one
knows that you can never be who you are in
(41:08):
terms of your sexual orientation, you begin to think tactically
and you begin to think, well, I knew I could
never live as an openly gay country music artist, and
I'm not going to go onto the dark web and
find someone to date. That just wasn't Yeah, that wasn't
something I was going to do. So I made decisions
(41:28):
about partnership companionship, and my thinking was, if I'm going
to have a partnership with someone, I'm going to pick
someone that I like and enjoy and that makes me laugh,
and that we write songs together and tour together and
have shared values. You'll settle for that, Yeah, because millions
(41:50):
of people have done it because they want to have
a family, or they want to stay in the town
that they live in and not get kicked out of
their church or their neighborhood. So, you know, 's talk
about Brad. You know many people are like, did he know?
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Was he?
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Or No? He didn't know. He had no idea. And
I could not have picked a better, funnier, more talented,
more kind of a person with whom I shared values
and similarities. He understood my work, I understood his work.
(42:29):
He was as lovely a human being, like if I'm
going to I've always dated really amazing men. Because that's
how I was thinking about it. Did in my wildest dreams,
did I ever think that I would come out? No,
So I wanted to have a life. Would it? Was
it the life that exactly would have brought me the
(42:52):
most joy. Again, I was in my twenties and thirties
making these decisions, still thinking I could keep this thing hidden.
So while there was a public relations benefit to it,
there was also a long take a kind of whiplash
of I knew that when I ended my relationship with
Brad that was going to garner a lot of questions,
(43:15):
a lot of speculation, and it did. So, Yeah, did
I answer your questions.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
Really really well?
Speaker 2 (43:23):
And I think the way you talk about it is
really relatable, even.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
For someone who doesn't understand that. I think that makes
sense to a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I remember I dated a guy in college very briefly,
and I liked him a lot, and it didn't last
long at all. But a few years later he called
me out of the blue just to say, okay, obviously
it was gay then, and I thought it was really
nice because he didn't owe me that personal private.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
Revelation.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
I would have found out at school we were in college,
I would have heard about it.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
But it just honored I wasn't using you. I didn't
want to be this.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
I didn't know if I had to be this as well,
you know, and I really liked you, and you know,
him telling that to me was I don't know, it
was nice.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
It was a nice thing.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Yeah, And that is so nice. And so you know,
I dated a lot of men beyond famous people. Yeah,
and I had close friendships with men who did develop
feelings for me that I didn't reciprocate, and and that
there was a lot of There was a lot of
(44:37):
hurt that that I, as a closeted queer person left
in my wake. And that was another I talk about
this in my book as well, is that I caused
more harm to others trying to hide who I am
than then I than i'd ever have as an open link.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
And then you would ever want to that. I wouldn't
want to do that.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Trying to talk your straight male friend who professes his
love for you into no, no, no, you don't really
love me. No I do I love I? Why can't
we be together? Like the And I have gone back
to a number of those men before I came out
and certainly posts coming out, and we've had that deep
(45:23):
conversation about you know, it wasn't you, It was me,
And if I were to want to ever love a man,
it would be you because you're amazing.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
It's complicated, and think about this just quickly.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
See when I've talked to so many men and women
over the years who have said, you know, my I
find I left my husband because I'm I'm gay, and
we've got kids together, and I just I feel so
guilty about it, or I left my wife. I'm gay,
have been you know that I've never and and number one,
I always say, okay, here, here's where you are. Good
(45:59):
for you. That to a lot of courage and the
gift that you've just given to the partner that you
ended the marriage with. They are now and it takes
a while to get there right. Heartbreak is real and
healing is real. But now that person that you finally
disclosed I'm gay, you deserve to be with someone who
(46:19):
is wired to love you completely. And that is such
a gift, painful as it is, rocky as the road
might be. I don't want to be married to someone
who isn't wired to love me completely.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Or forcing it or lying. Yeah, of course, I think
is a gift. That's a really good way of putting it.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Think of how many women are married to men who
haven't come out yet or don't want to acknowledge it.
Think of how un desirable she must feel. Think of
how many.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
She's questioning herself, what does she do exactly? What's wrong
with me exactly?
Speaker 1 (47:01):
That's a gift, A giant, It's a giant gift. I mean,
the truth really does open up a portal into so
many gifts like that. Yes, so.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
I know you you lost some fans when you came out.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
You would that happen today?
Speaker 2 (47:17):
You know, if a big female artist came out today,
would the industry?
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Would fans react? How would they react today?
Speaker 1 (47:29):
It's a really good question. And I think had we
been talking about this five years ago, I would have
a different answer. I would say change is happening. There
will never have to be a first country music out
of the closet like that. Won't ever have to happen again. No,
And there have been many who have come out since
(47:51):
I came out in twenty ten that said a like
a current Are you talking about a current hit maker?
Speaker 2 (48:00):
You don't know, big big star? How would that be
received today?
Speaker 1 (48:05):
Let's just talk about the American electorate. Ould how would
you categorize the right in percentages versus the left? What
are those numbers? Tell me, se Cup what those number?
Speaker 3 (48:21):
Fifty to fifty?
Speaker 1 (48:22):
Fifty to fifty? Okay, take that metric and then distill
it down to a hyper historically hyper conservative industry that
has not been known as a bastion of diversity equity, inclusion,
and belonging, and so then do you think that fifty
to fifty would hold? No, Okay, so if the American
(48:48):
electorate at large is half and half, I would do
some retooling with the numbers. I wouldn't think it would
be half and half. I would think it would be.
Off the top of my head, I think there'd be
a seventy thirty, eighty twenty.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
Yeah, right right.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
But you know that's just my my hypothesis. I'm a
pretty informed.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
I think no one knows better than you.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
I mean, you know, I'm Nashville. Here's the thing. Tricky
thing about Nashville. The industry itself is very in many
ways progressive and liberal. That said that, the product we
have always known we are packaging up and selling to
America is is to a different demographic. So, you know,
(49:39):
a lot of gay people in the industry in you know,
at the record labels, publicists, hair and makeup artists, managers.
But the product we are selling I think has been
pretty proven to be being sold to a conservative audience.
And I would say it's and I would say it's
(49:59):
be becoming more galvanized in that direction.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Yeah, okay, Yeah, you're a boss. Now I want you
to talk about what you do in your corporate life and.
Speaker 3 (50:14):
Whether it's as fulfilling as you hoped it would be.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Let me answer the latter, yes, yes, because it's actually
the same skill set I have used my entire life
and career. And remember, you know, as a country music singer.
Being in the music business, it was very heavy on
the business can I Actually I think I'm a pretty
good singer songwriter, But I think I tended to my
(50:38):
the business piece of it with a lot of focus
and strategy and discipline, which is why I think I
was lucky to have a career that spanned a few decades.
So and not all artists are that, not all artists
want to be that, but that was kind of how
I think I was seen in the industry and which
delights me. And so the skill set is entirely transferable. Storytelling, leadership,
(51:06):
attention to detail, being on time, being a really good listener,
being a good communicator, distilling information. Reading a crowd is
the exact same thing as reading a boardroom, and so
I currently so when COVID hit, I took a new
(51:27):
client and then took a full time role as chief
Diversity officer with a global design build firm called Unispace
based out of Australia, did that for four years and
now I've pivoted over to an even bigger company, a
Denmark based company. Three hundred and three hundred and twenty
thousand people in the company, and we do facilities management.
(51:50):
The company is called ISS, not International Space Station, not ISIS.
I do not want right, but we dodies management. I
e would simply put, we do janitorial technical services in
corporate dining. Yes, and so it is it. It is
so delightful and so rewarding that I get to I
(52:14):
lead up our corporate social responsibility and new market growth.
So I get to play in the spaces that I
love to play in. And it's really wild. What is
behind that door? Just wild?
Speaker 3 (52:28):
I love that. I love that for you. Okay, this
is uh.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
We're going to do a lightning round to end at
this incredible episode.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
I hate that this is over. There's so much more
to talk about me too.
Speaker 3 (52:41):
Literally could do this all day with you now.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
If I get to come back to your podcast, Asie
is there is there are there pajamas like a two
time club. I know, Andy Astroy, our pal has like
our ropes, right, got a robe? I'm just remember on
did you ever do the Ellen Show?
Speaker 3 (53:02):
I didn't know?
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Okay, so she gave out these cute boxer brief boxer briefs,
but I still have mine. I'm really great for sleeping.
I just want you to just kind of begetting merch. Yeah,
I just I'm gonna.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
Know that I've got lots of show swag too. And
we've never had a returning guest. Oh, so we'll have
to think about that.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
How many years has have you had the podcast?
Speaker 3 (53:26):
This is our second season.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
Okay, so you're gonna have some returners.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
Probably we're going to okay for sure, and uh, you'd
be top of the list. Okay, So I will start
thinking about a gift for repeat repeat offenders.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
That's okay, great.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
I just want to advocate for soft PaJaMo bottoms. I
love it, okay, Okay.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
Great, great, great, that's very on brand for me too,
as you can. I like being comfortable.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
Love it, okay. Lightning Round.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
Two thousand and two, you're named one of People Magazine's
fifty most beauty full people. Totally deserved, but any insight
as to how that list comes to be?
Speaker 3 (54:07):
What do you know.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
Yeah, So it's all just a machinery of publicity. I
had a great publicist, Leslie Kilner at the time, and
she worked with my She with MCA Records, and they
just I my star was rising. I'd had a couple
of big hits, and that's just kind of one of
the things that they do.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
I mean, that's how people what people assume.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
Yeah, I mean, notice when you look at the list
when it comes out, it's no one who doesn't have
a project out. Yeah, right right, So, I mean, as
flattering at it as it is to be named, you know,
one of the fifty most beautiful people, it's just and
George Holtz took gorgeous photos. Yeah, and so, but it
(54:52):
was it's just it's a it's a pr piece, that's
that's all.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
We both got married in Connecticut. Where did you tie
them up?
Speaker 1 (55:00):
We got married, so I have two dates in my
wedding band. We planned our wedding for Litchfield, Connecticut in
twenty eleven because we were not allowed to get married
in New York City.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
But about a month or so before our actual wedding,
marriage equality became legal in New York City, so we
did that lottery system. Got chosen to get married in
Manhattan on the first day that marriage equality is legal,
So we have two dates in our wedding bands.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
I love that new country or old country, and who's
the best from both?
Speaker 3 (55:34):
Mmmm?
Speaker 1 (55:36):
Well, Lorette Alynne is my favorite of all time. Great
new country. Gosh. I love Maren Morris.
Speaker 3 (55:45):
Yeah, she's great.
Speaker 1 (55:46):
I love Maren Morris. And you know, country country music
has had its way of kind of pushing her aside.
She's harry, outspoken. I think she has recently said she
might be a little by curious or yeah, right, her,
she her songwriting, her just everything. I just think she's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (56:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:08):
And then Alison Krause, I know she's not a new artist,
but you just she's still touring, she's still making new records.
And then also, let me just say Leanne Womack Womac
and Trisha Yearwood and ty Herndon. Okay, the three biggest places.
I'm sorry, I just I can't stop. These are not
only are they all my pals, but they are I
(56:31):
go down to Leanne Womack hole sometimes I put on
the fool and then I'm done. I'm dying. Kids just
can't stop anyway. So a lot of good country music
out there, but in terms of traditional country Buck Owens,
Connie Smith, the Red Lynn.
Speaker 3 (56:44):
Love It, that's it?
Speaker 2 (56:46):
Okay, this is this is tough. What movie about country
music is the best? What's the best movie about country music?
Speaker 1 (56:57):
Coal Miner's Daughter?
Speaker 2 (56:59):
Okay, I I was thinking that's probably the correct answer.
I don't make cases for Walk the Line.
Speaker 1 (57:07):
You could make a I didn't see Walk the Line.
Speaker 3 (57:10):
That's fair. I could make a case for Rhinestone, which
I know is like pand but man is a kid?
I love that movie. I love that movie.
Speaker 1 (57:18):
Yeah, really good stuff.
Speaker 3 (57:21):
But Cole Miner's Daughter is like the right answer.
Speaker 1 (57:23):
I mean anything Dolly is in like great.
Speaker 3 (57:25):
Automatically great.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
And I could also, if I wanted to, I could
make a case that Steel Magnolia's had a little country
music to it, maybe because Dolly was in it. Sure. Yeah,
And but I'm gonna I'm gonna go final answer Coal
Miner's Daughter.
Speaker 2 (57:41):
That is I think fairly uncontroversial, inarguable, that's great.
Speaker 3 (57:47):
What's your favorite thing to do alone?
Speaker 1 (57:49):
Walk me too?
Speaker 3 (57:52):
What's your sleep routine? Do you have one?
Speaker 1 (57:54):
Is it?
Speaker 3 (57:54):
Is it complicated? Is it interesting.
Speaker 1 (57:56):
I have struggled with sleep my entire life. I can
have been up for forty hours and still have a
hard time falling asleep. I think all the years of
touring overriding my circadian rhythm probably mess me. Yeah. I
put lotion on my feet every night before I go
to bed. I am the softest person in Panit Earth.
(58:20):
I move a lot. I have to get into a
lot of different positions. I have a leg pillow. I
have to sleep in a king bed with my wife.
I don't even understand how people sleep in full and
queen beds. This morning, for instance, I've been awake since
three twenty eight. Oh that's bright so and I'm in menopause,
(58:42):
which tracks right. Ye, but sleep routine, I would say
my go to Lauren is in bed a good twenty
minutes before I am.
Speaker 3 (58:51):
Is the crucial? Is it crucial that she's in bed first?
Speaker 4 (58:53):
No?
Speaker 1 (58:54):
She It kind of kills me, kind of makes me
mad sometimes because she doesn't have quite the reto I
take off my makeup. She doesn't really wear makeup. She's
just like lightning fast red meg. Yeah, and I resent
it so I sometimes want I heard it like stay up,
stay upright? Until I can get in bed too. But
that's that's fun.
Speaker 3 (59:13):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (59:14):
I don't know why it makes me Some days it
really makes me mad. But anyway, Yeah, the footloation that
I have a very Pavlovian kind of Oh it's bedtime
when I put on my foot loation.
Speaker 3 (59:24):
Great. Yeah, we got to find what works.
Speaker 2 (59:27):
As we mentioned, Beyonce crossed over to country last year
with a lot of success post Malone, Daaries Rucker or
others have done it. Who's an artist today you think
could and should make the crossover?
Speaker 1 (59:39):
Well, I on my late walk last night, I was
listening to Amy Poehlar's podcast Good Hang.
Speaker 3 (59:46):
Yes, I listened to it all the time.
Speaker 1 (59:47):
It's a giant fan. Well, she had Kristin Wig on. Yes,
and at the end of the episode, you know, Kristen
sings and Kristin is like throwing out she was. Amy's like,
you should make a record, and Kristin is like, how
do I? I would love to. I don't even know
how to start. I have it in my head now
because she has a lovely voice. She actually so I
(01:00:08):
am a I'm I'm starting a movement and see you
can join me. Yes, I think the next artist should
be a crossover from Saturday Night Lives Kristin Wig to
Americana artist Kristin Wig. I know that sounds like a joke,
but I think she needs to make a record, and
I have a sense she really wants to make a record.
Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Let's speak it into existence.
Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
I mean I could produce a couple sides as you can.
Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Yeah, Oh my gosh, well I love that. Fantastic talked
about country. But who's your favorite folk singer or folk band?
Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Rodney Growell? Okay, okay, cool stop. He produced, not only
and it's not because he produced a record of mine
and we've written songs together. But oh gosh, I'm going
to change my answer. Rodney and an equal measure, Roseanne Cash.
Yes they used to be married, Yes they share children
(01:01:07):
and grandchildren, and yes they are individual artists. But for
my money today, if you're looking at an important body
of work, yes, and two artists who reflect what is
happening in the world exquisitely, expertly, provocatively, empathetically with a
(01:01:28):
lot of intelligence. Yep, and that's what folk music is
supposed to do. Yes, it's Rodney Crowell and Roseanne Cash.
Speaker 3 (01:01:35):
It's great. I love seven year ach. That's such a good.
Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
Song, so good. What a backbeat like?
Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
What a pucket?
Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
It's so good, so good, so good.
Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
This is the last question.
Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
It's the most important to me. I'm spiritual about it.
It's culturally important to me. When is it iced coffee season?
Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Not for me? Okay, I'm hot coffee all year long.
Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
Okay. But the important part is you like coffee?
Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
Oh yeah, I love coffee. I have two cups, two
giant cups, every morning, and I don't typically have coffee
in the day after that. Now, if it's one hundred
and ten degrees out, I will get a rando iced coffee.
But I am kind of coffee. Yeah, hot coffee all
year long, every day.
Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
It's not the correct answer, Shelley.
Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
But American America runs on Duncan, and so does SI cup.
Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
Well, I definitely do. But no, that's okay.
Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
The correct answer is year round. But we just appreciate
hear it off the cup where coffee is very important
to us. We just appreciate that you like coffee.
Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
I don't align with anyone who doesn't. In fact, I
question their ethics perfect. I've got a lot of colleagues
who say I don't drink coffee. I drink tea, and
I'm like dilete, I don't understand you.
Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
We don't speak the same light.
Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
Yet She's sorry if we're not aligned, our values don't align.
Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Lly right, this was incredible. I knew this was going
to be great, but even better than I thought. And
I'm just so glad we did it. And I'm so
glad you're in this world and sharing all of your
talents in all of the places, because everyone deserves to
be touched by you just a little bit in some way.
Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
Essie, thank you for that. I love you, I admire you,
I see you. You are an expert thinker, and we
have to be thinking expertly in these moments. And there
are days when I feel like crawling under the blankets. Yeah,
(01:03:38):
and I don't, because we just don't have that luxury.
And it is voices like yours and brains like yours,
and you're a mosaic and I love all of your
pieces and you're really unique. And I don't know how
many times you have gotten me through a day since
(01:04:00):
you know, in the past, since I think COVID pre COVID.
I just am delighted and honored to be on your
podcast and to be your friend.
Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
Thank you, It's mutual. Thank you, Lessie.
Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Coming up next week on Off the Cup, I sit
down with the west Wings Janelle Maloney.
Speaker 4 (01:04:19):
There's this crazy thing now where it feels like I'm
on a hit show that I did twenty five years ago.
Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
It's great.
Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
Everyone's so great.
Speaker 4 (01:04:27):
The fans are great, many many, many of them were
not born when we started West Wing.
Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
Off the Cup is a production of iHeart Podcasts as
part of the Reason Choice Network.
Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
If you want more, check out the other Reason.
Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
Choice podcasts, Politics with Jamel Hill and Native Land pod.
For Off the Cup, I'm your host, Si Cup. Editing
and sound design by Derek Clements. Our executive producers are
me Si Coup, Lauren Hanson, and Lindsay Hoffman. Rate and
review wherever you get your podcasts. Follow or subscribe for
new episodes every Wednesday.
Speaker 4 (01:05:03):
H
In my heart and who I am naturally is a
really authentic, open, honest person. But the hardest thing for
me to write in my book was I became a
skilled liar.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to Off the Cup, my personal anti anxiety antidote.
We talk a lot on this show, as you know,
about career arcs and how many lives we might get
to live or have to live, depending on your perspective.
And it's such a fascinating, rich topic for me because
I've been going through a kind of midlife something. It's
(00:37):
not a crisis per se, and it's not entirely just
because of my age, although that plays a part. It's
because of where I am in my career, where my
industry is, where the world is, and I know I'm
not alone and feeling angsty and anxious and confused. And
(00:58):
we get to these crossroads sometimes start asking some very
scary questions like who am I without this job? Do
I even like my job? Could I do something else?
What would that look like if I leave my job?
Can I ever come back if I want? Are they
kicking me out for good? Will I be good at
(01:18):
something else? So scary but also so important, And these
are the moments that can change our lives in ways
we can't even foresee, we can't imagine. And for people
like me who are like I need to know what's
on the other side of that door before I open it,
it's really scary.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
And the thing you can't imagine on the.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Other side of the door might be better than whatever
you're predicting. So today's guest has lived many, many lives,
so many lives, and I really admire her for her strength,
her courage, her sense of adventure. She's someone who seems
to just constantly say I'm.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Just gonna go do that. I'm just gonna go do it,
And I love that so much.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I want to be more like that. She's an award
winning rue music artist. She's an activist, she's an author,
she's a corporate boss. Welcome to Off the Cops, Shelley, Right.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Essie, I'm so glad to be here with you. Wow,
what an intro.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I'm so glad.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I mean I could do your whole bio, which is great,
you have a very impressive bio.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
But like hear it off the cup, these are.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
The conversations we want to have, Yeah, asking ourselves the
scary questions and like how did you how'd you get
past that question?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
How'd you answer it?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
And I'm so glad we finally get to do this
together when I don't remember when we met.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
When do you think we met?
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah? I was thinking about that a couple of weeks ago.
I feel like because I think my wife said, how
do you? How long have you known Essie? Obviously you
and I have history in the recent in recent years
working on a project together. We'll get into that. I
think that the first time you and I met was
(02:55):
at thirty Rock, and I think we were both in
the green room about to do a hit on either
an NBC or MSNBC. Is that close?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I think that's right. Would would this have been twenty
eleven or twelve?
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Probably? Yes, probably around that time. So I came out
of the closet in twenty ten, And of course we'll
get to all of that, yep. But I you know,
in between twenty ten and twenty fifteen, I was there
a lot, doing a lot of stuff, and I feel
like that's when we met. And I feel like, too,
you it was the two of us in a green room,
(03:36):
and I want to say it was Mira Sorvino in
there with her Dad. Yes, Oh my god, yes, I
just that just came to me. I feel like I
feel like they had a project and they were talking
about it and it was just us and then in
walks Paul and Mira and I think you and I
both looked at one another like, whoa.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Shelley, You're so right.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
And I would never have remembered that part of it,
But now that you say that, oh, it's vivid, right,
memory is vivid. Yeah, Oh, I remember even which green
room we were in, because okay, so here's the I
was at MSNBC.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
I had a show at MSNBC.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I wasn't in the green room a lot because I
had an office there, but I was in the green
room this day because I was going on a show
I didn't normally go on. And I don't remember if
we were going on Morning Joe or we were going
on with like Chris Jansen or Thomas Roberts. But it
wasn't a show I was doing. All the time.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
You were guesting. You were guesting on someone else's show
and you had a show there at the same time. Correct, Yes,
this all makes sense. And you know what.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
All makes sense.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
This is the new truth. We're allowed to make things up. Now,
even if this isn't true.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
We'll just say it is. That's right, let's say that's
that's what it was. No, but I feel really good
about it. Yeah, I feel like that's for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
It Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
I'm so glad you remembered that.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Okay, and as you were, I I may see as
you were kind of giving a little intro to me
at the top, but asking yourself out loud, those questions
you've asked yourself. I realized that those are all of
the question. You've nailed it. That is the full complement
of questions.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, done deal, Yes, well, and I can't We're going
to get to that part. But like, I know what
questions you're asking yourself because I'm here. Yeah, and I've
been here, so yeah, we just I feel like we
have a lot in common. We're gonna get to it,
and I want to talk about so many things. But first,
(05:35):
can I just get your take on a couple country
music adjacent news items.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yeah, okay, I'm here for it.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Okay, Okay, this will be quick, but like you're here,
I need your take, Keith Urban, Nicole Kidman, your thoughts.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Ooh, I have met Nicole on a couple of occasions, quickly,
briefly in industry circles I have. I would consider Keith
a friend since the mid nineties. Yes, I think divorces
hard and breakups are hard, and they're hard whether you're
(06:10):
a publicly known person or not. But the lens of
fame and kids an intersection of all of that, it's
just it's hard. I just hope we can stay out
of it and let them have their Yeah, let them
have their marital breakdown. There's probably a lot going on
(06:31):
that we don't know, nor should we, nor is it
any of our business. But nineteen years married.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
That's a giant success, agreeing to kids.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
So I here's what's making me mad about this story.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
People are.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Imposing an explanation onto this, like he was threatened by
her success.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
That's what's let oh.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Really well, like I said, I don't know, we don't know, yeah, anything. Yeah,
And they're pointing to the fact that he, in past
interviews gets very reticent about talking about her, like this
is somehow proof.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
That he's jealous of her.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Maybe she said, honey, don't talk about me because I
want these interviews to be about you. And when they
ask me about you just shut it down. I don't
need to be in your headline.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Maybe this was her.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I just feel like we psychologize these celebrities and it's
like we're inventing shit out of thin air.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah. I wish we'd stop doing that. I mean, you know,
I look I like a soap operas next as much
as the next person. And same. You know, I remember
being a kid, and you know, there weren't that many
tabloids at the time, but I remember being interested in
you know, Glenn Campbell and Tanya Tucker. You know, breakups, breakdowns, breakthroughs, marriages, divorces,
(08:00):
kids out of wedlow, It's all happened. This has been
around forever. And you know, here's what I know. I
love Keith urban To in his just to his core,
in my core. And I assume that the woman he
made a life with for nineteen years and built a
family with is of his ilk.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
And something worked.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Something worked, Yeah, something worked, And it's I think of
the what is that? What is that it's a poem about?
Instead of talking about how we're falling, let's think about
how long we were in the air.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Nice?
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, great, Okay, have you heard about the new Beyonce rule.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
I am aware at a high level of the new
Beyonce rule.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Okay, to explain for people, Beyonce wins Best Country Album
at the Grammys in February. It was a little controversial
inside country music circles. Four months later, the Recording Academy,
the Grammys breaks up the country category into two Best
Contemporary Country, Best Traditional Country. The Academy says it will
award modern country while still recognizing subgenres like Americana.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Your thoughts, Yeah, I don't love it. I listened to
the Beyonce record and to end, I put good headphones on,
you know, laid on the floor and gave it the
listen it deserves. It's as country a record as anything
else that is coming out of Nashville or has come
(09:33):
out of Nashville for decades. I would ask us to
be self reflective as an industry and ask ourselves what's different?
What's different about Beyonce? Why did that really? Bryal us up?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
A good question? Good question.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I mean, I think back to when Shanaia Twain, you know,
obviously she had a couple of albums before she and
Mutt Lange teamed up and made you know, genre busting,
genre defining records, and people had the same complaints about, oh,
it's not country enough, and that said, you know, we
(10:11):
let her in, I mean, and she was a product
of Music Row by the way, she'd had a couple
of records out, you know, our Mercury records before those
records exploded. All of this is to say that Nashville
doesn't really do a great job. They're not ultra comfortable
with someone coming in that they didn't that didn't kiss
(10:33):
the ring, that they didn't raise it, that they didn't manufacture,
that they can't take credit for. And still, what is
different about Beyonce. She's a woman of color. This is
a black woman who owns all of her power and
brings it to bear in every space that she embodies.
(10:54):
And that is a country record by every metric that
we are looking at in contemporary country music today.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Okay, you heard it here.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
And then for the for the new genre of the
classic the traditional country record, my vote, full stop goes
for Sonny Sweeney, her new record that let's just call it,
let's just we have a winner. Let's just say that.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Okay, we'll check back.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
That's who I want.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
That's why I went to okay Bad Bunny at the
super Bowl. A lot of country artists feel as though
country music keeps breaking all these records and then the
super Bowl keeps ignoring it.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Your thoughts, Yeah, well, we've had country artists at the
super Bowl before it's happened. Bad Bunny is the right choice.
I think his downloads have surpassed even Tailor's. Bad Bunny
(11:57):
is arguably the biggest artist right now in the world,
and given that the NFL is and has been aiming
toward a more global audience, it's the right choice. I
know that everyone wants to think it's a political play,
(12:19):
and maybe there's a tinge of that, but I don't
know that the wider, the big global NFL audience wants
something different country music in some incredible stars that are
filling stadiums, right yeah, Brian, Yeah, Morgan Wallin obviously Kenny
(12:45):
Chesney Can continues to do it. But I think the
Bad Bunny appointment it meets the moment of where we are.
And I'm an I'm a huge NFL fan, and I
know you are as well. I'm I'm here for it
and have I ever bought a Bad Bad Bunny record?
(13:05):
I have not but I went the other day and listen,
I was like, oh, I know that, I know that,
I know that. I can totally see why the NFL
made this time.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
I saw Bobby Bones, who's a friend I know you
know him too. He was saying, listen, Bad Buddies not
for me. That's okay, Like not.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Everyone has not everyone has to be for everyone. What Yeah,
I like Bad Buddy.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
It's fun, it's fun music. He's not my favorite, but
it's not for me.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
That's okay. Is that okay?
Speaker 1 (13:35):
And when you think about yeah again, I've it's not
I'm not going to a Bad Bunny concertor yeah, but
that's okay. But when I see what the NFL kind
of the pre show, the first half, how someone has
to be able to hold up that energy and that
viewership in that halftime show, which is just iconic, we
(13:58):
it makes sense. It makes so much sense. Okay, good job, that.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Was the news.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Thank you so much, Shelly Wright for your analysis.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Glad Toad, let's.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Get to you, and let's go back to the beginning.
I always like to ask, what kind of kid were you?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Oh, that's a great question. I was Okay, I was
a total weirdo. Still am a card carrying weirdo too.
I you know, I'm a nerd. I never got in trouble.
I was a brown noser. I sat on the front
(14:47):
row of class, I raised my hand, I always had
my homework done. Now part of this should be seen
through the lens of hypervigilance as a closeted queer. Yes,
in a town in Kansas where there were churches on
nearly every corner.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
So were you can?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
I just ask, yeah, partly because that were you a
pleaser if I please people?
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yes? And I had to be. And I was a
person of faith at a very young age, a genuine
My faith practice is really important to me, and it
always has been. I knew that I was a person
of faith before I knew I was gay. So it's
not that I ran toward religion to fix me. And
(15:38):
I put that in air quotes because I thought I
was spiritually you know, damned once I realized I was gay.
But so many kind of things coexisted in me that
I think are interesting in that people pleasers typically follow
(16:02):
a path and a trajectory that everyone else does. So
I followed the path of get give straight. A student
homecoming queen captain of my basketball team, president of the
band First Trumpet, dating boys, dating boys, I mean, you
(16:25):
can get into that fish. I did. I wasn't that
committed to it for obvious reasons. But so I would
take that path, but then I would diverge wildly from
the path, which got me in some trouble with my
peer group, caused some bullying. You know, I was the
recipient of some bullying. And then I also had this
(16:49):
crazy notion that I was going to go to Nashville
and become a country music singer and sing on the
radio and sing on the opry. So I think, through
a people pleasing lens, that was pretty wild.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah, right, And I know you realized you were gay young.
After you realized you were a spiritual person. Love, faith
in religion was important, but you knew you couldn't live openly.
I think we can all imagine why the pressures, but
I just want to hear in your words, why did
(17:25):
you feel like you couldn't live openly? Identify those points
of resistance for you.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah. So when I was I was baptized when I
was six in the Christian Church, which is you know,
there wasn't even a Catholic church in my town. It
was Methodists, Community Baptist, Baptist, all these kind of versions
of that. No one looked different in my town. Everyone
was white. We did have a couple of Catholics. No
(17:52):
Jews in my town, certainly no gay people, wink wink.
Yeah right. And when I was nine, I realized, and
I'll keep this brief, I was in third grade and
I had a beautiful teacher named Miss Smiley, Laura Smiley.
She was young, big, bright smile, you know, perfectly named.
(18:14):
Over the weekends, I just couldn't wait to get back
to school on Monday, and I just thought, I just wondered,
does she miss us? Does she miss the students like
we miss her? And I began to have kind of
little conversations with my friends, and I realized no one
was dying to get back to school on Monday like
I was. And then to see her. And then I realized,
(18:36):
uh oh, and why was this troubling that I had
a crush on my third grade teacher? Because everything being
talked about in my church, in my community, on the news,
and you know, I grew up in a farm community,
a ton of a thousand people. Teachers told gay jokes,
(18:56):
in my school, the word faggot was used by a
couple of teachers and Jim coaches, you know, and it
was widely used in the hallway, as no one got
in trouble for saying anything like that. There was a
game called smear the queer with the football, which meant
it's like a hot potato, you throw the foot. If
(19:16):
you can't get rid of it, everybody has license to
beat the crap out of you. And the preacher in
my preacher, Warren Skiles, talked about evil people and he
was a fantastic influence on my life. And he knew
not what he was doing. He would use the words
in his sermons drunkard, thief, adulterer, murderer, homosexual, and so
(19:40):
this is why I knew I could never ever share
my secret or be that. And then of course, when
I was nine, you know, realizing I was gay, I
had for five years had this dream of making it
to Nashville. So this wasn't And you know, people have
asked me, well, why did you decide to go into
country music once you realized you were gay? I'm like
(20:03):
being a country music artist. That dream predated my understanding
who I was as.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
A and maybe it wasn't even a decision, it was
a calling, like how do you?
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
I mean, when I was obsessed with Loretta Lynn buck Owens,
Conway Twitty, Connie Smith, there was just there was there
was no options. So so and then I knew that
I was going into an industry in which no one
had ever identified being gay. And when I got to
Nashville in nineteen eighty nine, I just doubled down on
(20:34):
my yea, you know that, Well, it's sure not going
to be me. I'm not going to be the first
one out of the closet and lo and behold you know,
long story short. Twenty years later it was I you were.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah, yeah, so you're young, you have a vision of
your future in no nowhere on the horizon is a
place where you can be yourself. That just doesn't it's
not it's not happening. And when you feel that, when
you feel shame as a child, when you have to
hide something that fundamental as a child, that's a trauma.
And as you know, traumas imprint on us, they show
(21:07):
up later. So how did your trauma from that show
up later in life?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Ooh, it's a really good question. I've been asked a
lot of questions, and I don't think anyone's asked me that.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
That's my favorite thing to hear.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
You're good at your work, guessie.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Let me just quickly just talk about the when I
was younger and thinking that's not a life I could ever,
I can't ever be myself as a gay person. Yeah.
The notion of that seems much more reasonable when you're nine, eleven, sixteen, nineteen,
because one doesn't at those ages really realize what weight
(21:50):
companionship and love have. Yeah, so when you're ten, you
can say, oh, I'll just never be that. I'll just
focus on the music. It's an unfair contract to sign
at that time. But to answer your question, how did
those traumas show up in my life later? I think
(22:11):
I developed such a muscle memory around perfection and a
skill set that I didn't and I wrote about this
in my book, a skill set that I didn't love,
which was having the ability to compartmentalize and in my
(22:33):
heart and who I am naturally is a really authentic, open,
honest person. But the hardest thing for me to write
in my book was I became a skilled liar and
coming out I had to really address that and own
that and hope that people instead of saying, see, I
(22:54):
knew it, You're a liar. You've been true, You've been
tricking us the whole time. I had to trust that
that the majority of people would say, tell me why
you felt like you had to be a liar? Yeah,
That's what I needed people to get to, and I
just had to trust that they would.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Your mom, how did your experience as a kid impact
the way you are seeing your children now? I came
across something you said were you talked about having sympathy
for the little you, and that resonates so much with
me because you know, in therapy we do that, we
try to show up for the little us as the
(23:36):
grown up us because maybe we felt as kids we
weren't being shown up for, and so seeing little us
now is just as important, It's crucial. So how are
you seeing your kids in a way that maybe you
wanted to be seen?
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah? So, my relationship with my mom and very different
than my reallyationship with my dad. Although they kind of
were one unit when I was a kid, they divorced
when I was twenty seven, and then kind of a
wild convergent convergence of relationships there. But my mom was
(24:16):
my biggest fan. As anything I did, she just said,
you can be the best at it. She just had
this real belief in my ability to excel. And she
also loved country music, so there was a particular delight
that she found in that I was not only wanted
(24:38):
to be a songwriter artist, musician, but that I was
actually good at it.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Yeah, that you could, which is always so.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Wild to me because I see so many people who
moved to Nashville and they want to do it, and
I'm like, that's probably not going to happen. I just
what a thrill that I actually had enough talent to
do it, to you know, cut and paste this thing
together and make it fly. My mother was complicated in
(25:06):
that she also was a polio survivor and that was traumatic.
So I think that there was unaddressed trauma for her,
and she gifted the trauma down to me. And my
siblings were all very hypervigilant in a number of ways,
and we get that from our mom that said, I'm
(25:27):
so glad to have that hypervigilance, that do sweat the
small stuff mentality, because I've built a career out of
sweating the small stuff. So cut to how do I
show up differently for my children? So I've got identical
twin boys, they're twelve, and my wife and I, you know,
(25:50):
we have a shared parenting style and then a different
parenting style in some ways no surprise to anyone. Both
of them want to be YouTubers.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Yes, that's all the kids want to be, Sitta.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
That's all they want to be. And so my wife
will at times say, you know that you're not going
to be a YouTuber, like that's not a real and
I am very mindful to tell them I think you
can do it. I think you can do it. I
believe in you, and here are the things it takes
(26:23):
to be really great at something. And they're looking at,
you know, their YouTube channel and they have thirty five
followers and they're like, Mama, how do you have so
many followers? Yeah, I'm like, well, let me let me
talk you through what that looks like. And so I
I want my kids when I'm dead and gone and
(26:43):
while I'm here, frankly, I want them to never to
feel as if there was never a deficit in my
belief of their dreams. Because this is the kid me
who when she was four told the entire town of Wellsville, Kansas,
I'm to be on the Grand Ole Opry and I'm
going to sing on the radio and make records, and
I ktch you not si yea. My whole town said yeah,
(27:08):
let's go.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
That was so big to me. And the older I get,
the more I realize how saying one's dreams out loud
as a kid and having people say, Okay, yeah, get
you know, get your work done, get good grades, stay
out of jail, do what you know. Yeah, follow the rules,
and you can do whatever you want. And so that
is my kind of a key tenant of my being
(27:31):
so exestile.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I'm so glad you said that, because, yeah, I need
to think about this more because my son, who's tenant, wants.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
To be a YouTuber and I'm I'm your wife. I'm like, no,
you're not. That's not real. They're not.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
But I really like what you said. I really like
shifting my perspective on that a little bit. I'm going
to think on that and maybe show up for him
a little differently. But I'm so scared of the YouTube stuff.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
I'm scared of it.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I'm scared of it. I hate the screen, like This
is a major point of it's poison, you know. And
what I try to tell the boys is if your
frontal lobe is still prefrontal cortex is still in development
and won't be until it's twenty five, and you're having
this struggle, look at adults around you. Look on the train.
(28:24):
Everyone has their face in a screen. If it's hard
for adults, it's going to be doubly If not triple
or whatever multiple you want to put on, it very
hard for you. And and we can't really get them
off of screens because they learn on screens.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yes, he just brought home a computer from class, like
he's going to be on screens. It's also the video
games and stuff. I really resisted for a long time
because I'm so scared of it, But it got to
a point where, like the video game We're thing was
a social access point for him. If he didn't have
(29:02):
that social access point to talk to his friends about
Super Mario Brothers and Pokemon and Minecraft, he would have
had no friends because he wasn't sporty. He's a bit
nerdy in the best way. He's on the spectrum. He's
socially a little developmentally, a little behind, and the kids
that are just like him are talking about video games,
(29:24):
and if I refused, he would.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Have had all like no social interactions.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
So for me it became an opportunity. And so once
I opened to that door, you know, now I have
to I we're here, you can't close it. Yeah, and
so yeah, but I'm just very scared of the online stuff,
especially with boys.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
I'm very scared of it. But I have to get
to a better place. And I'm really going to think
about what you said.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Perhaps we can rather than our seeing the conversations we
need to have with our kids, especially boys of the
this age, instead of the conversations we need to be
having with them, how about we add something to that,
and that is the conversations we need to be having
with their friends' parents, because they these boys want to
(30:16):
follow the pack of well, you know, Oscars on it
and Arthur's on it, and you know, and and I
get that.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
But perhaps we can have a united front together.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
And there's a not there's an organization in New Zealand
I've done some work with in my last role. Anyway,
long story short, they are mobilizing parents with one another
as cohorts to help kind of change the watermark on
screens and games, and I think I think there's not
a there's not a magic pill on this, but I
think it's going to be several things working in concert,
(30:52):
and I think conversations with parents great.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, I've been thinking about this in preparation for my
interview with you.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
I can't decide if the fact.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
That you become a giant country music star, top new
female vocalist at the ninety five CMS, et cetera, while
you're struggling with your sexuality, if that put you in
the worst possible place at the worst possible time or
the best right Because I'm sure it made you incredibly
strong and resilient, but I know it was tough. I'm
(31:35):
wondering how you'd answer that question.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
If I told you that the thing I was convinced
for decades would be the thing that would end me
was actually my superpower. Yes, that would be effect a truth.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Say more.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Say more the effort and the skill set and the
energy and the strategy and the discipline that I had
to deploy to not only make it to Nashville, learn
the industry, get better as a songwriter, get signed, have
two failed records, get myself out of that major deal
and onto Universal Records. I was able to pull all
(32:18):
of that out because of my strategy and focus muscle.
And I have that strategy and focused muscle because I
had to hide who I was my whole life. You
get really good at stuff. And here's the kind of
the big reveal is that in twenty twenty, I was
on tour like every touring musician. I had to go
(32:40):
home like everybody, and it was a really uncertain time
and a really scary time for a lot of artists,
not just for their income but mental health wise, Like
this was a new normal. We'd no one had ever
done this before. Guess what I got to do. I
got to pivot into what was already for the past
(33:01):
ten years my side hustle, which is corporate consulting with
corporates around leadership, storytelling, D and I D E and
I D EIB whatever you call it. Were it not
for being a closeted country music singer who decided in
two thousand and six, I'm going to come out. Not
only am I going to come out, I'm going to
(33:23):
come out, well, I'm going to come out and tell
the whole truth and nothing but the truth and then
storytelling what I do very naturally. Just I had this
side hustle, and so I went from literally my tour
being canceled and picking right up and growing my client base.
What in the world?
Speaker 3 (33:44):
What? Yeah? Yeah, I love that. But I love that.
That's why.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
There's so many ways to tell a story. And one
of the stories is this was a really tough time
for you. You went into a space that was not
welcoming at a time where you needed to be welcomed.
But the other version is the story you just told.
And I knew there was going to be another version.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
That's why s Sie. I love the tenant that my
parents taught me when I was a kid was plan
your work and work your plan. Now the nuance of
the work your plan piece. It doesn't it doesn't mean
plan A is an effort.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
I In fact, I love it when plan A begins
to show its cracks. Yeah, because then I know that
the iteration process, much like in songwriting, the iteration, the editing,
the poking at it, that's putting it in the center,
walking around it and evolving it. That's how you get
a good song. That's how you get a stronger, better
(34:46):
keynote address I'll bet you were better at this podcast
than you were on episode one, right, So I love
the editing process, and the older I get, the more
I just want to shout from the mountaintop, and I
do shout from the mountaintops. What's behind that door? Do
as much work as you can plan for to knock
(35:07):
on that door, But there is always something better than
you can imagine that's right on the other side of the.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Door, and you can't imagine it, and you can't carry
for people.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I'm, you know, a type A. I also grew up
kind of a pleaser, a planner. I grew up very
anxious at a great childhood. I always have to say that,
because you know, I don't want it to sound like
I didn't, but I moved a lot and there was
a lot of expectation I put on myself.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
And so when.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I am contemplating a door, like I said, and I
don't know what's on the other side, that's very scary
for me.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
It makes me not want to open it.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yeah, if I can't predict and plan for what the
next thing is going to be, that makes me not
want to even approach it. And that's like I said
at the beginning. I want to be more like you
and just fly fling the door open.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Let me just let me offer this. I don't know
that I've ever flung a door open. I think that
is an un fair way to characterize my life. The
chapters of my life.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
The bravery, the bravery I see is you flinging the
door open, and you're saying it's more complicated than that.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
It's I decided to come out in two thousand and six,
the morning after I didn't end my life. I actually
came out four years later. Now what did I do
in the middle of that? I did the work I
had planned my work work. My plan evolved the plan
A and to plan LMNOPQ. However, the letters go yeah,
(36:40):
forgotten the alphabet in this moment. But there was a
tremendous amount of risk analysis, financial planning again yeah yeah, preparation,
getting the right team together. I'm I'm a I'm no
smarter than the next guy or gal, But I know this.
(37:00):
If it's a matter of strategy and poking at it, interrogation,
planning for mitigating risks, there is no one better at
that than me. Oh yeah, no one.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
I feel the same, Like I'm really good at that too.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
Yeah. So the flinging of the door not the thing,
not the thing. It's like a show, right, it looks
like wow, you know Lebron James gets up there, Michael
Jordan goes, they slam duncan or yeah, what happens below
the iceberg? That is That's what I do really well.
So I don't think I've kicked any doors down or
(37:34):
flung any doors open. I am. Do you know my nickname?
Have I told you this before? My nickname amongst colleagues,
family friends, ban crew. My whole life is Captain's Safety.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Oh I love that, and I love.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
That about me. Yes, I love that about me. I
always have a blanket and a gallon of water in
the back of my bar. Can I tell you how
many times have been first unseen at an accident where
the blanket and the water was needed?
Speaker 3 (38:04):
How many times?
Speaker 1 (38:05):
So many people have recks in front of me? People
old people fall on the street in front of me. Yeah,
you know, so I am. I'm Captain Safety.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
So you date a few big country stars, Vince Gill,
Brad Paisley, people we all know. Were those relationships pr
(38:43):
Were they you trying to convince yourself were they like,
what was your intention? With no no judgment, I'm just
wondering what was your intention in dating very big you know,
mail stars at that time in your life.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Yeah, first of all, even if you asked this with
judge judgment, that's fine. Again, I yeah, I don't mind
being judged for it. In fact, when I came out,
I wanted to come out and tell the whole truth
and nothing but the truth. And that did include my
having to speak to what were you thinking? What was that?
(39:27):
And it was there was a p R benefit that
I realized. Was it my motivator? No? Did I appreciate
the cover it gave me when I was in a
relationship with a Brad or spending time with Vince Gill
(39:47):
or Brett farre or having a day with Troy Aikman,
all of I did. The benefit I did appreciate and acknowledge,
and the benefit was there not my motivator. So here's so,
I had a partner for twelve years during the zenith
(40:08):
of my career. We had a house, and we had
a Koi pond and pets, and we had a life. Yes,
we were deeply closeted. She didn't want to come out
I didn't want to come out.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
It was is Julie. This is Julie, Julie in your book, okayeh, Julia.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yep, And and it was just it was a non
starter to come out. That was just not ever going
to be something that happened. And in that twelve year period,
we had ups and downs and we had breaks. And
like many people who are like me gay, who know
(40:44):
that they can't exist as who they are, they make
decisions about partnering with people and it doesn't make that
other person a beard. Sometimes it is, but sometimes and
I the thousands of people I've heard from since I've
come out about this exact thing playing out. When one
knows that you can never be who you are in
(41:08):
terms of your sexual orientation, you begin to think tactically
and you begin to think, well, I knew I could
never live as an openly gay country music artist, and
I'm not going to go onto the dark web and
find someone to date. That just wasn't Yeah, that wasn't
something I was going to do. So I made decisions
(41:28):
about partnership companionship, and my thinking was, if I'm going
to have a partnership with someone, I'm going to pick
someone that I like and enjoy and that makes me laugh,
and that we write songs together and tour together and
have shared values. You'll settle for that, Yeah, because millions
(41:50):
of people have done it because they want to have
a family, or they want to stay in the town
that they live in and not get kicked out of
their church or their neighborhood. So, you know, 's talk
about Brad. You know many people are like, did he know?
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Was he?
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Or No? He didn't know. He had no idea. And
I could not have picked a better, funnier, more talented,
more kind of a person with whom I shared values
and similarities. He understood my work, I understood his work.
(42:29):
He was as lovely a human being, like if I'm
going to I've always dated really amazing men. Because that's
how I was thinking about it. Did in my wildest dreams,
did I ever think that I would come out? No,
So I wanted to have a life. Would it? Was
it the life that exactly would have brought me the
(42:52):
most joy. Again, I was in my twenties and thirties
making these decisions, still thinking I could keep this thing hidden.
So while there was a public relations benefit to it,
there was also a long take a kind of whiplash
of I knew that when I ended my relationship with
Brad that was going to garner a lot of questions,
(43:15):
a lot of speculation, and it did. So, Yeah, did
I answer your questions.
Speaker 3 (43:21):
Really really well?
Speaker 2 (43:23):
And I think the way you talk about it is
really relatable, even.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
For someone who doesn't understand that. I think that makes
sense to a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I remember I dated a guy in college very briefly,
and I liked him a lot, and it didn't last
long at all. But a few years later he called
me out of the blue just to say, okay, obviously
it was gay then, and I thought it was really
nice because he didn't owe me that personal private.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
Revelation.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
I would have found out at school we were in college,
I would have heard about it.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
But it just honored I wasn't using you. I didn't
want to be this.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
I didn't know if I had to be this as well,
you know, and I really liked you, and you know,
him telling that to me was I don't know, it
was nice.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
It was a nice thing.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Yeah, And that is so nice. And so you know,
I dated a lot of men beyond famous people. Yeah,
and I had close friendships with men who did develop
feelings for me that I didn't reciprocate, and and that
there was a lot of There was a lot of
(44:37):
hurt that that I, as a closeted queer person left
in my wake. And that was another I talk about
this in my book as well, is that I caused
more harm to others trying to hide who I am
than then I than i'd ever have as an open link.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
And then you would ever want to that. I wouldn't
want to do that.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Trying to talk your straight male friend who professes his
love for you into no, no, no, you don't really
love me. No I do I love I? Why can't
we be together? Like the And I have gone back
to a number of those men before I came out
and certainly posts coming out, and we've had that deep
(45:23):
conversation about you know, it wasn't you, It was me,
And if I were to want to ever love a man,
it would be you because you're amazing.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
It's complicated, and think about this just quickly.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
See when I've talked to so many men and women
over the years who have said, you know, my I
find I left my husband because I'm I'm gay, and
we've got kids together, and I just I feel so
guilty about it, or I left my wife. I'm gay,
have been you know that I've never and and number one,
I always say, okay, here, here's where you are. Good
(45:59):
for you. That to a lot of courage and the
gift that you've just given to the partner that you
ended the marriage with. They are now and it takes
a while to get there right. Heartbreak is real and
healing is real. But now that person that you finally
disclosed I'm gay, you deserve to be with someone who
(46:19):
is wired to love you completely. And that is such
a gift, painful as it is, rocky as the road
might be. I don't want to be married to someone
who isn't wired to love me completely.
Speaker 3 (46:35):
Or forcing it or lying. Yeah, of course, I think
is a gift. That's a really good way of putting it.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Think of how many women are married to men who
haven't come out yet or don't want to acknowledge it.
Think of how un desirable she must feel. Think of
how many.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
She's questioning herself, what does she do exactly? What's wrong
with me exactly?
Speaker 1 (47:01):
That's a gift, A giant, It's a giant gift. I mean,
the truth really does open up a portal into so
many gifts like that. Yes, so.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
I know you you lost some fans when you came out.
Speaker 3 (47:16):
You would that happen today?
Speaker 2 (47:17):
You know, if a big female artist came out today,
would the industry?
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Would fans react? How would they react today?
Speaker 1 (47:29):
It's a really good question. And I think had we
been talking about this five years ago, I would have
a different answer. I would say change is happening. There
will never have to be a first country music out
of the closet like that. Won't ever have to happen again. No,
And there have been many who have come out since
(47:51):
I came out in twenty ten that said a like
a current Are you talking about a current hit maker?
Speaker 2 (48:00):
You don't know, big big star? How would that be
received today?
Speaker 1 (48:05):
Let's just talk about the American electorate. Ould how would
you categorize the right in percentages versus the left? What
are those numbers? Tell me, se Cup what those number?
Speaker 3 (48:21):
Fifty to fifty?
Speaker 1 (48:22):
Fifty to fifty? Okay, take that metric and then distill
it down to a hyper historically hyper conservative industry that
has not been known as a bastion of diversity equity, inclusion,
and belonging, and so then do you think that fifty
to fifty would hold? No, Okay, so if the American
(48:48):
electorate at large is half and half, I would do
some retooling with the numbers. I wouldn't think it would
be half and half. I would think it would be.
Off the top of my head, I think there'd be
a seventy thirty, eighty twenty.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
Yeah, right right.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
But you know that's just my my hypothesis. I'm a
pretty informed.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
I think no one knows better than you.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
I mean, you know, I'm Nashville. Here's the thing. Tricky
thing about Nashville. The industry itself is very in many
ways progressive and liberal. That said that, the product we
have always known we are packaging up and selling to
America is is to a different demographic. So, you know,
(49:39):
a lot of gay people in the industry in you know,
at the record labels, publicists, hair and makeup artists, managers.
But the product we are selling I think has been
pretty proven to be being sold to a conservative audience.
And I would say it's and I would say it's
(49:59):
be becoming more galvanized in that direction.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Yeah, okay, Yeah, you're a boss. Now I want you
to talk about what you do in your corporate life and.
Speaker 3 (50:14):
Whether it's as fulfilling as you hoped it would be.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Let me answer the latter, yes, yes, because it's actually
the same skill set I have used my entire life
and career. And remember, you know, as a country music singer.
Being in the music business, it was very heavy on
the business can I Actually I think I'm a pretty
good singer songwriter, But I think I tended to my
(50:38):
the business piece of it with a lot of focus
and strategy and discipline, which is why I think I
was lucky to have a career that spanned a few decades.
So and not all artists are that, not all artists
want to be that, but that was kind of how
I think I was seen in the industry and which
delights me. And so the skill set is entirely transferable. Storytelling, leadership,
(51:06):
attention to detail, being on time, being a really good listener,
being a good communicator, distilling information. Reading a crowd is
the exact same thing as reading a boardroom, and so
I currently so when COVID hit, I took a new
(51:27):
client and then took a full time role as chief
Diversity officer with a global design build firm called Unispace
based out of Australia, did that for four years and
now I've pivoted over to an even bigger company, a
Denmark based company. Three hundred and three hundred and twenty
thousand people in the company, and we do facilities management.
(51:50):
The company is called ISS, not International Space Station, not ISIS.
I do not want right, but we dodies management. I
e would simply put, we do janitorial technical services in
corporate dining. Yes, and so it is it. It is
so delightful and so rewarding that I get to I
(52:14):
lead up our corporate social responsibility and new market growth.
So I get to play in the spaces that I
love to play in. And it's really wild. What is
behind that door? Just wild?
Speaker 3 (52:28):
I love that. I love that for you. Okay, this
is uh.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
We're going to do a lightning round to end at
this incredible episode.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
I hate that this is over. There's so much more
to talk about me too.
Speaker 3 (52:41):
Literally could do this all day with you now.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
If I get to come back to your podcast, Asie
is there is there are there pajamas like a two
time club. I know, Andy Astroy, our pal has like
our ropes, right, got a robe? I'm just remember on
did you ever do the Ellen Show?
Speaker 3 (53:02):
I didn't know?
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Okay, so she gave out these cute boxer brief boxer briefs,
but I still have mine. I'm really great for sleeping.
I just want you to just kind of begetting merch. Yeah,
I just I'm gonna.
Speaker 2 (53:15):
Know that I've got lots of show swag too. And
we've never had a returning guest. Oh, so we'll have
to think about that.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
How many years has have you had the podcast?
Speaker 3 (53:26):
This is our second season.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
Okay, so you're gonna have some returners.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
Probably we're going to okay for sure, and uh, you'd
be top of the list. Okay, So I will start
thinking about a gift for repeat repeat offenders.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
That's okay, great.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
I just want to advocate for soft PaJaMo bottoms. I
love it, okay, Okay.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
Great, great, great, that's very on brand for me too,
as you can. I like being comfortable.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
Love it, okay. Lightning Round.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
Two thousand and two, you're named one of People Magazine's
fifty most beauty full people. Totally deserved, but any insight
as to how that list comes to be?
Speaker 3 (54:07):
What do you know.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
Yeah, So it's all just a machinery of publicity. I
had a great publicist, Leslie Kilner at the time, and
she worked with my She with MCA Records, and they
just I my star was rising. I'd had a couple
of big hits, and that's just kind of one of
the things that they do.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
I mean, that's how people what people assume.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
Yeah, I mean, notice when you look at the list
when it comes out, it's no one who doesn't have
a project out. Yeah, right right, So, I mean, as
flattering at it as it is to be named, you know,
one of the fifty most beautiful people, it's just and
George Holtz took gorgeous photos. Yeah, and so, but it
(54:52):
was it's just it's a it's a pr piece, that's
that's all.
Speaker 3 (54:57):
We both got married in Connecticut. Where did you tie
them up?
Speaker 1 (55:00):
We got married, so I have two dates in my
wedding band. We planned our wedding for Litchfield, Connecticut in
twenty eleven because we were not allowed to get married
in New York City.
Speaker 3 (55:12):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
But about a month or so before our actual wedding,
marriage equality became legal in New York City, so we
did that lottery system. Got chosen to get married in
Manhattan on the first day that marriage equality is legal,
So we have two dates in our wedding bands.
Speaker 2 (55:28):
I love that new country or old country, and who's
the best from both?
Speaker 3 (55:34):
Mmmm?
Speaker 1 (55:36):
Well, Lorette Alynne is my favorite of all time. Great
new country. Gosh. I love Maren Morris.
Speaker 3 (55:45):
Yeah, she's great.
Speaker 1 (55:46):
I love Maren Morris. And you know, country country music
has had its way of kind of pushing her aside.
She's harry, outspoken. I think she has recently said she
might be a little by curious or yeah, right, her,
she her songwriting, her just everything. I just think she's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (56:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (56:08):
And then Alison Krause, I know she's not a new artist,
but you just she's still touring, she's still making new records.
And then also, let me just say Leanne Womack Womac
and Trisha Yearwood and ty Herndon. Okay, the three biggest places.
I'm sorry, I just I can't stop. These are not
only are they all my pals, but they are I
(56:31):
go down to Leanne Womack hole sometimes I put on
the fool and then I'm done. I'm dying. Kids just
can't stop anyway. So a lot of good country music
out there, but in terms of traditional country Buck Owens,
Connie Smith, the Red Lynn.
Speaker 3 (56:44):
Love It, that's it?
Speaker 2 (56:46):
Okay, this is this is tough. What movie about country
music is the best? What's the best movie about country music?
Speaker 1 (56:57):
Coal Miner's Daughter?
Speaker 2 (56:59):
Okay, I I was thinking that's probably the correct answer.
I don't make cases for Walk the Line.
Speaker 1 (57:07):
You could make a I didn't see Walk the Line.
Speaker 3 (57:10):
That's fair. I could make a case for Rhinestone, which
I know is like pand but man is a kid?
I love that movie. I love that movie.
Speaker 1 (57:18):
Yeah, really good stuff.
Speaker 3 (57:21):
But Cole Miner's Daughter is like the right answer.
Speaker 1 (57:23):
I mean anything Dolly is in like great.
Speaker 3 (57:25):
Automatically great.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
And I could also, if I wanted to, I could
make a case that Steel Magnolia's had a little country
music to it, maybe because Dolly was in it. Sure. Yeah,
And but I'm gonna I'm gonna go final answer Coal
Miner's Daughter.
Speaker 2 (57:41):
That is I think fairly uncontroversial, inarguable, that's great.
Speaker 3 (57:47):
What's your favorite thing to do alone?
Speaker 1 (57:49):
Walk me too?
Speaker 3 (57:52):
What's your sleep routine? Do you have one?
Speaker 1 (57:54):
Is it?
Speaker 3 (57:54):
Is it complicated? Is it interesting.
Speaker 1 (57:56):
I have struggled with sleep my entire life. I can
have been up for forty hours and still have a
hard time falling asleep. I think all the years of
touring overriding my circadian rhythm probably mess me. Yeah. I
put lotion on my feet every night before I go
to bed. I am the softest person in Panit Earth.
(58:20):
I move a lot. I have to get into a
lot of different positions. I have a leg pillow. I
have to sleep in a king bed with my wife.
I don't even understand how people sleep in full and
queen beds. This morning, for instance, I've been awake since
three twenty eight. Oh that's bright so and I'm in menopause,
(58:42):
which tracks right. Ye, but sleep routine, I would say
my go to Lauren is in bed a good twenty
minutes before I am.
Speaker 3 (58:51):
Is the crucial? Is it crucial that she's in bed first?
Speaker 4 (58:53):
No?
Speaker 1 (58:54):
She It kind of kills me, kind of makes me
mad sometimes because she doesn't have quite the reto I
take off my makeup. She doesn't really wear makeup. She's
just like lightning fast red meg. Yeah, and I resent
it so I sometimes want I heard it like stay up,
stay upright? Until I can get in bed too. But
that's that's fun.
Speaker 3 (59:13):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (59:14):
I don't know why it makes me Some days it
really makes me mad. But anyway, Yeah, the footloation that
I have a very Pavlovian kind of Oh it's bedtime
when I put on my foot loation.
Speaker 3 (59:24):
Great. Yeah, we got to find what works.
Speaker 2 (59:27):
As we mentioned, Beyonce crossed over to country last year
with a lot of success post Malone, Daaries Rucker or
others have done it. Who's an artist today you think
could and should make the crossover?
Speaker 1 (59:39):
Well, I on my late walk last night, I was
listening to Amy Poehlar's podcast Good Hang.
Speaker 3 (59:46):
Yes, I listened to it all the time.
Speaker 1 (59:47):
It's a giant fan. Well, she had Kristin Wig on. Yes,
and at the end of the episode, you know, Kristen
sings and Kristin is like throwing out she was. Amy's like,
you should make a record, and Kristin is like, how
do I? I would love to. I don't even know
how to start. I have it in my head now
because she has a lovely voice. She actually so I
(01:00:08):
am a I'm I'm starting a movement and see you
can join me. Yes, I think the next artist should
be a crossover from Saturday Night Lives Kristin Wig to
Americana artist Kristin Wig. I know that sounds like a joke,
but I think she needs to make a record, and
I have a sense she really wants to make a record.
Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Let's speak it into existence.
Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
I mean I could produce a couple sides as you can.
Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Yeah, Oh my gosh, well I love that. Fantastic talked
about country. But who's your favorite folk singer or folk band?
Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Rodney Growell? Okay, okay, cool stop. He produced, not only
and it's not because he produced a record of mine
and we've written songs together. But oh gosh, I'm going
to change my answer. Rodney and an equal measure, Roseanne Cash.
Yes they used to be married, Yes they share children
(01:01:07):
and grandchildren, and yes they are individual artists. But for
my money today, if you're looking at an important body
of work, yes, and two artists who reflect what is
happening in the world exquisitely, expertly, provocatively, empathetically with a
(01:01:28):
lot of intelligence. Yep, and that's what folk music is
supposed to do. Yes, it's Rodney Crowell and Roseanne Cash.
Speaker 3 (01:01:35):
It's great. I love seven year ach. That's such a good.
Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
Song, so good. What a backbeat like?
Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
What a pucket?
Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
It's so good, so good, so good.
Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
This is the last question.
Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
It's the most important to me. I'm spiritual about it.
It's culturally important to me. When is it iced coffee season?
Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Not for me? Okay, I'm hot coffee all year long.
Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
Okay. But the important part is you like coffee?
Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
Oh yeah, I love coffee. I have two cups, two
giant cups, every morning, and I don't typically have coffee
in the day after that. Now, if it's one hundred
and ten degrees out, I will get a rando iced coffee.
But I am kind of coffee. Yeah, hot coffee all
year long, every day.
Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
It's not the correct answer, Shelley.
Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
But American America runs on Duncan, and so does SI cup.
Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
Well, I definitely do. But no, that's okay.
Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
The correct answer is year round. But we just appreciate
hear it off the cup where coffee is very important
to us. We just appreciate that you like coffee.
Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
I don't align with anyone who doesn't. In fact, I
question their ethics perfect. I've got a lot of colleagues
who say I don't drink coffee. I drink tea, and
I'm like dilete, I don't understand you.
Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
We don't speak the same light.
Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
Yet She's sorry if we're not aligned, our values don't align.
Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Lly right, this was incredible. I knew this was going
to be great, but even better than I thought. And
I'm just so glad we did it. And I'm so
glad you're in this world and sharing all of your
talents in all of the places, because everyone deserves to
be touched by you just a little bit in some way.
Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
Essie, thank you for that. I love you, I admire you,
I see you. You are an expert thinker, and we
have to be thinking expertly in these moments. And there
are days when I feel like crawling under the blankets. Yeah,
(01:03:38):
and I don't, because we just don't have that luxury.
And it is voices like yours and brains like yours,
and you're a mosaic and I love all of your
pieces and you're really unique. And I don't know how
many times you have gotten me through a day since
(01:04:00):
you know, in the past, since I think COVID pre COVID.
I just am delighted and honored to be on your
podcast and to be your friend.
Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
Thank you, It's mutual. Thank you, Lessie.
Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Coming up next week on Off the Cup, I sit
down with the west Wings Janelle Maloney.
Speaker 4 (01:04:19):
There's this crazy thing now where it feels like I'm
on a hit show that I did twenty five years ago.
Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
It's great.
Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
Everyone's so great.
Speaker 4 (01:04:27):
The fans are great, many many, many of them were
not born when we started West Wing.
Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
Off the Cup is a production of iHeart Podcasts as
part of the Reason Choice Network.
Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
If you want more, check out the other Reason.
Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
Choice podcasts, Politics with Jamel Hill and Native Land pod.
For Off the Cup, I'm your host, Si Cup. Editing
and sound design by Derek Clements. Our executive producers are
me Si Coup, Lauren Hanson, and Lindsay Hoffman. Rate and
review wherever you get your podcasts. Follow or subscribe for
new episodes every Wednesday.
Speaker 4 (01:05:03):
H
Host
S.E. Cupp
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