This is an episode of The BobbyCast -- The podcast Bobby does from his house. We thought you might enjoy this episode. Check out more by subscribing to the BobbyCast.
Mike Dungan is the Chairman/CEO of Universal Music Group Nashville which has artist from Luke Bryan, Keith Urban, Sam Hunt, Carrie Underwood, Darius Rucker and more. He talks about discovering Luke Bryan and having to tell him he didn’t have a good enough song for a single on his album. He also talks about seeing Darius Rucker play with Hootie and the Blowfish and being the first one to think he should do a country record and then getting him to. He also talks about breaking Rick Springfield “Jessie’s Girl” and when to expect new music from Sam Hunt.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, we're gonna play you an episode of the Bobby
Cast here. If you listen to the show on podcast,
I think you'll like the interview podcast that I do.
And this one is by someone who's not really that
famous unless you're way in the music world, but I
felt it was so interesting I wanted to put it
in front of you. His name's Mike Dungan. He basically
runs a record label and he talks about that and
what he does and how he discovered Luke Bryan and
I just want you to listen to this, and if
you like this, I think you'll love the Bobby Cast.
(00:23):
So you know, obviously you're here and you're hopefully a
fan of the show. If you're here to listen to
the Bobby Bone Show, but check out the Bobby Cast,
a show I do from my house. Here is Mike Dungan,
and then tweet me or send me a message on
Instagram and let me know if you liked it. All right, cool,
here it is a bonus episode of the Bobby Cast.
He's sounding great. I want to get it a little
closer though, Yeah, right up there, all right? Episode one
(00:45):
eighty eight with Mike Dungan, who is and I say
this in a loving way because Forbes of this article
about me a while ago, and they were like, the
most powerful guy in country music. I am not, And
I've often said they were wrong about that, that I
think you are the most powerful guy in country music.
I think the reason they would say that about music
because I'm just out there, like at my face is
out there. But you're the guy that's calling all the shots,
(01:05):
making all the careers. Yeah, so here's your chairman CEO
of Universal Music Group. And I kind of divided it
up a bit. H MCA, Mercury, Capital, EMI, show Dog.
Those are kind of the subs underneath the massive umbrella.
Is that a show dog is no longer. It's no longer.
No I had. I had a little arrangement with Toby Yeah,
(01:26):
mainly just because I liked him, get at get little
closer out there there you go. Maybe mainly, but just
because I liked him so so show dog no more. No,
He's doing that on his own, and that's fine. I'm
looking at the artist roster. I just have so much
to talk about. I was talking to Rod Phillips, who
is the head of iHeart Country Today, and he's like
Duncan has the greatest stories. He's like, he's like, have
(01:48):
him tell you the Sinatra story. I can't. Oh, I
can tell you that one most of my stories, I can't.
I don't even know what the Sinatra story is. Okay,
it's it's It's probably the proudest moment of my life,
the funniest moment in my life. I am all of twenty.
I've had the hair down to here. You can't see
(02:12):
im down on my nipples. I have a big beard.
I looked like I'm in the Grateful Dead. And I
was going to college, and I was working in a
record store, and I was a buyer for a couple
of major lines, and really just a kid. And all
of my friends are into I don't know what roxy music,
you know, all of this stuff. And I was too,
but I loved Sinatra, and I especially loved the Sinatra
(02:35):
account Basie combination, and I would talk about it and
play it all the time, and my friends was just
roll their eyes. So Sinatra comes out of retirement and
goes on the road. So he's coming to my hometown,
sin Sinati, Ohio. So I use whatever leverckog I have
as a twenty year old, you know, part time buyer,
(02:57):
and I get the best tickets I can for Sinatra,
and no one wants to go with me. So I
dragged this guy. I dragged this guy that works with me,
and he looks pretty much like I do. And we're
sitting like in the fifth row and it's in the round.
And to show you how good the seats were, like
Johnny Bench was like fifteen rows behind me. Ken Griffy
(03:17):
was fifteen rows behind me. I was just primed. He
comes out. You know, it's it's the big Orchestra, Nelson Riddle,
I think, and it's you know, he comes out, he
rips through fourth. Oh so right before the show starts,
there's one empty seat next to me, and this little
bald guy comes in. He says, he sits down and
(03:39):
he looks at me some while says how you doing.
I said great. He goes, it's gonna be a good show.
I said, yeah, I can't wait. So Sinatra comes out.
He goes right in to come fly with me. He
rips through like three more songs and then he starts
to talk and then he says, ladies and gentlemen, I
(03:59):
am so honored we have in the crowd tonight. One
of America's greatest tunesmiths, a man who can take a
word and change it into a lyric landscape that will
melt your heart. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the all
time great songwriters, mister Sammy Kahn, and spotlight hits the
man next to me. That was the guy. Yeah, yeah,
(04:21):
he's a little old man's he hits it end. Sammy
stands up and he turns around and he takes a bow,
and Sinatra says, Sammy, I am so honored that you're here.
I cannot believe that you're here. I don't know why
you came to Cincinnati, Ohio, of all places, but I'm
so honored that you're here. And I loved you so
much that I wanted to make sure you've got a
seat right next to Jesus, which was you with your
(04:45):
long hair. It was me and you had to be like,
Holy crab. I'm being kind of acknowledged by Frank Sinatra,
the chairman of the board. So what does CEO of
a record label? Like, what do you do? Because I
just picture like Saturday, all I have, Lord Michaels, go
and watch a comedian sit back in the back before
even an audition and you'll just know that he's there. Yeah,
and he's like it's dark and you're like, oh crap, Lauren,
(05:08):
Michael's there's like a big moment. But also you know,
he doesn't smile or laugh. He just watch what I
picture you doing. I going into some of these places
in the dark and just kind of watching these acts
and they know you're there. Yeah, you know I used
to do that. That used to be how this business worked,
and I loved it. I love that you could kind
of come in anonymously and you could come two three
times before an eybody I figured out that you were
(05:31):
had any part in, you know, signing someone to a
major label. But it's the business has just gotten so
crazy now, and these young kids that work for these
publishers in particular, they're on it and if anybody pulls
out a guitar, they're like running around behind him. So
there's no secrets, there's showcases, and you know, it's all
much more formal now. But I used to you know.
(05:54):
I mean, my story about signing Luke Bryan was a
pretty good one because I went four times by myself
and sat in the back before I pulled the trigger
on that you know, for a lot of reasons, you know.
And Carrie Edwards was here. Carrie Edwards was my intern. Yeah,
she was, and she is what led me to go.
I just want to talk to Mike too, because Kerry
was here. And Carrie and I worked into American Auto
(06:15):
with Luke together, and she was like, man, have you
had Mike on? I was like, I haven't, Like I
see Mike sometimes. Yeah, but she talked. And so you
tell your version of the Luke story going to and
seen Luke four times. As you say before you. Carrie
was a student going to Lipscomb and she interned for
me and for us at Arista Records. I came into
town in nineteen ninety to be the head of marketing.
(06:37):
I was on the pop side working for Clive Davis,
and I came down here because I completely fell in
love with Tim Dubox and I loved what he was doing.
I didn't consider myself a country guy, but I loved
just the way Tim Duboux carried himself. And Carrie was
an intern. Then she went away, I think. Then she
came back, was an intern in another department, and when
(06:58):
she interned for me, I thought her name is Julie,
and I called her Julie. Every morning I'd come in,
she'd already be there and I'd smile and say morning, Julie,
and she'd just look at me and say good morning.
And finally, six weeks later, she says, you know, my
name's Carrie, And I said, no, it's not. She said, yeah,
it's Carrie. I said, why would you not correct me?
She said, I was terrified anyway, So she comes back.
(07:21):
We give her a job as a coordinator in the
A and R department, and you know how that goes.
You know, you're you're kind of doing everybody's expenses and
you're taking care of the business in the AA and
R department. But before you know it, at kids also
listening to songs, and then they're going to showcases, and
then it's like having the Morning Zoo on radio. You know,
it just keeps building and building and building. Well that's
(07:42):
what happened when Carrie. Then we had an unpleasant end
to all that Arista Records thing when the corporation decided
that Clive Davis was too old and was going to
push him out. So we all got pushed out and
it was folded up into our CEA. So Carrie goes away.
She has a couple of kids. She came back and
she was working part time at a publishing company that
(08:04):
didn't really work out too well, and then she had
another kid, and then she came back and she called
me one day and she said, I think I got one.
I said, what do you mean? She said, when I
was at the publishing company and there was a guy
there and I watched him develop, and I think he's
an artist, and would you come see him? And I said,
anything for you. So I went to this place called
(08:25):
the Trap, which is which was owned by Earth Woolsey,
who's still George Strey's manager and has Winners Losers as
Winners Losers and a whole bunch of other places. And
I watched a guy who was incredibly undisciplined, whose songs
were okay, The band was sloppy, he was turning his
(08:46):
back to the audience. He was having fun with the
band more than with the audience. But you know, and
it was nothing professional, but there was something there. There
was something I couldn't take my eyes off of. And
it was that it was that start that you can't define,
and you know, it was like you were seeing Elvis
in the early stages. So I kept going back and
(09:07):
I went. He played every Thursday, and I went every
Thursday night and didn't know you were there. Yeah, okay, yeah,
because Carrie h and in typical Luke style, I think
he was unaffected by It didn't cost him to get
his game together anything. He was just as sloppy and
just as unpolished and unprofessional as he was, you know,
(09:27):
the first time, and then the fourth time. I took
A and R back and I explained to them what
I saw and they said, yeah, I feel the same way.
And then it wasn't we months went by, and I
was really depressed. We at this point, you know, I'm
running Capitol Records, and we hadn't found anyone worthy of
signing for a long long time, and I was just depressed.
(09:50):
And I was laying on the floor in the A
and R department throwing a tennis ball up in the air,
bitching about life in general. And I sat up and
I said, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna find
guy Luke Brian. We're gonna bring him in here. We're
gonna tell him we want to sign him. We're gonna
give him the money right now, but he's got to
understand that, you know, we're he's not ready and this
(10:11):
he's gonna have to work on this. And he came in.
He started crying, and everyone started crying and tears tears
of joy, and you know, of course he made a
record too fast and it wasn't I still say we
kind of survived. That first record had a couple of
hits on it. But did you tell him that you
(10:32):
didn't think he had a single. Yeah, so you hear
the batch of music and you go, I don't know
that the song is here. Oh. I had a couple
of those conversations, and probably if carry told you this,
it was probably the infamous second album when that came up,
because we had accomplished just enough on the first album,
which was driven one percent by his personality. You know,
(10:53):
everywhere he went people loved him, and radio people were saying,
oh my god, I love this guy. He's so awesome.
I just wish you had a song. Oh, but you know,
we pieced it together here and there. Then we you know,
we sold just enough to keep going. Then we hit
the second one. At this point, Luke had a lot
more confidence in under him and he came to me
(11:13):
with six songs and said, I've got it, and let's
just figure out what the first one is and we'll
put it out and then we'll finish the album later. Well,
I listened to it and he didn't have it. That's
the worst conversation you can have. And I've had it
with pretty much every star artist. I have had legendary
stories where they've hated me and for weeks and weeks
(11:35):
at the time, and then something happens and it all
gets put back together. But in this case, Carrie was
upset with me, Luke was upset with me. Jeff Stevens,
who was producing, was upset. They called me back about
two or three weeks later and said, can we meet
and talk about this again? But we don't want to
come in your office. That's how bad it was. So
(11:57):
we go to Jeff Stevens office and they had remix
these six songs and I said, guys, it's not it's
not the mixes, it's it's the songs. They're just they're
not great, and I'm sorry, you know. So Luke's getting
angry or by the minute, Carries won't look at me,
and I said, what else do you have. And so
they started pulling out discs and there'd be two songs
(12:17):
on each disc and there was really nothing there. And
then one point we must have listened to thirty different
songs and there was just nothing there. And I kept
I was thinking, oh gosh, this is going away. You know,
I had such great hopes for this young man, and
this is going away. The first what we accomplished on
the first go round was was it we peaked? And
I said, and then I said, what else you got?
(12:40):
And Luke, really angry, says and I got nothing. I
just got some scratch vocals on my laptop. I got nothing.
I said, bring it out. Let's listen. So we listened
and there were like three or four that were nothing.
And then and then he plays a song called and
this is a scratch vocal. It's just in a guitar.
It's called rain is a Good Thing. And I looked
(13:03):
at him, and at this point everyone was staring at
the ground. They didn't want to deal with this conversation
at all. And I said, guys, what's wrong with this?
And Luke turns to me, surprised and kind of angry,
and he says, you liked this? And I said, well,
I wouldn't want to make a career out of this,
but I'm telling you this can make big dent in
things for you. This could really get you in a
(13:24):
good space. Trust me. I don't know. I don't know.
And Carrie started to do the yeah. Well I always
liked it, but Luke didn't like it. So I just said, look,
just let's just cut it and if you hate it,
we won't put it out, but please just cut it.
I think there's something here. Well, a great thing happened,
and that was a couple of weeks later, he hooked
(13:45):
up with Dave and Charles from Lady Annabellum and they
wrote Day, which was one of the great great songs.
So we put out Day. It was a mass said song,
and then we came back with Rain is a good
Thing I believe, was a four week number one, by
the way, And uh, you know, to this day, when
(14:06):
I see him, when he when he opens with that
guitar part that day being here, I kind of roll
my eyes because it's so cheesy, and you know, I
had a hand, and I had a hand in this cheese.
But it made a big difference for him, and it
made for all of us. I want a great story.
And you went through that many songs? Yeah, probably thirty
that day. That's hard. That's hard when you're feeling nothing.
(14:30):
I've been through that. Look several you ever ever wrong
and go this isn't one and they go I'm come yeah,
I'm like and they go, no, we really and you
go like, okay, you can hang yourself like you can
die on this hill if you want, And then they
end up being they were right. Has it happened to you?
Not not in not that directly. Um. There have been
songs that you know you'll get into, like your third
(14:52):
single choice and I want something yeah, and the band
wants something else. I want to talk about Stableton for
a second, Okay, because with Chris I was getting into
some trouble back in the early days, because before Traveler
came out, I would have Chris on and he'd come
on and play, and he'd mostly would come on to
play the songs he'd written for other people. Yeah, and
some of the high ups at the company at the time,
(15:13):
who aren't there anymore. That was I don't know, I
don't know what this guy's he's not researching, he's not testing. Yeah,
and I would say yeah, but like I can tell,
like I think I have probably not as good as you,
but I have a talent of knowing what people like
sometimes before they like it, and I missed some, but
for the most part, I do pretty good at that game.
And I'm like, man, there's just something about this guy,
(15:33):
and they're like, you know, maybe you shouldn't have him
on that fourth time. And thank god the CMA has happened,
where justin timber Lay everything, I've never seen something change
in a night before like that did, with the staples,
like the whole stabled and project and brand and artist.
What was that like for you? Well, I saw it
(15:54):
in dollars because digital downads of tracks were still kind
of a big thing. They're less of a thing now.
But um, I had my phone and I had the
app for the iTunes store and I'm watching click click,
click click, one purchase after another, and then they're rolling
(16:17):
just out of control. And we went from I'd say
nine hundred thousand dollars in the Hole two in the
black before he finished the song that quick, that quick, unbelievable,
absolutely unbelievable. And so when that was did did robertin
pitch that idea of Stapleton timber Lake. Did you guys
go after? Like? What was that? How had that come together? Um?
(16:39):
You know, do you know that just hit timber Lake thing?
This is so such an odd story. I don't I
don't know if this is interesting or not. I think
it is. I think it is okay, all right. First
of all, I had tried to sign stapletonant Capital in
two thousand and seven something like that, and I ended
up he see him really hard and I couldn't figure
(17:03):
out why, and then he was sending all the signals
that you know, he was a problem child. So I
walked away and didn't do it. And it turns out
that he told me later that he didn't want to
be an artist. When we offered him to the gig,
he panicked. He first his ego went off the chart,
and then he panicked he didn't want to be an artist,
(17:23):
so he was doing everything he could to sink the deal.
So right before I came to Universal, Brian Wright signed
him at Universal. So I sit down with Chris and
he said, listen, I'm worried that you don't like me
because I put you through a lot. And I said,
you know, I'd like an explanation for what you did.
(17:44):
And he told me, he said, I didn't want to
be an artist. And I said, we did a pretty
good job sinking that one. I said, but I like it.
I liked you before. I wouldn't made the offer before,
So let's just get to business and do it well.
He had a whole bunch of songs that he had
put together that he brought to play for me, and
again I didn't I didn't hear anything. Now. It wasn't
(18:09):
that they weren't good, it was that they were in
the best way I could describe it as three chord
rock and roll songs from the Mitch Writer era. They
didn't have the lyric integrity that I was used to
from Chris. They didn't have the structure that I was
used to from Chris. And I said, what are you
doing here? Where are all the great songs that you've
(18:30):
written for everybody else? And he said, I write those
for everybody else. That's not for me. This is what
I am. I said, I'm not telling you this is
good or bad. I tried never to use the words
good or bad. It's what works in the market or
it doesn't work in the market. And I said, but
I don't know what to do with this, and I
don't want to hurt your feelings. Well, he's thinking that
I'm flashing back to when he burned me years ago,
(18:53):
and so I'm getting even I wasn't. I just didn't
know what to do with it. So we went sound
and around a little bit, and then he wrote three
things that were much more in the groove than anything
we've ever heard from him. And it didn't really work.
(19:15):
And I think it was because radio looked at him
and said, well, he doesn't look like Luke Bryant. He
doesn't look like a male model, he doesn't look like
a star, whatever that is. And you know, we had
twenty five radio people that said this is awesome, and
one hundred and twenty five that said he really he
looks like an Almond brother. We don't, you know. It's
(19:36):
not country music, at least not at the time. So
he comes in my office and he says, look, it's
painfully obvious Radio isn't going to deal with me, so
just let me make the record I want to make.
But I promise you I'm not going to give you
what I gave you the first time. I want to
make a real country record, and I said, okay, just
(19:56):
do it. So he went away and did it. I
would say the records not really a country record. It's
more like a Memphis blues record than anything else. But
it was great. At this point, he was still a
little stunt. See how this pattern of pissing off my
artist at some point and with this patter, you know,
(20:18):
he was like no, he was looking at me as
someone that he could never trust. So he delivers the
record and he was dancing around me, dealing with people
around me instead. And we had like not quite finished
copies of The Traveler, you know, they weren't polished up
all the way, but it was really close. And a
guy named Joe Fisher worked for us in an r
(20:40):
and Joe Fisher had befriended a guy named Trace Ayala
who has been justin Timberlake's best friend from Memphis since
the third grade. And so they're hanging out in the
weekend and they're in Joe's car and this changer changes
from one disc to another and on comes the staple
(21:01):
to music, and Tracey Ala flips out and he says,
oh my god, what is this? And Joe Fisher explains
it to him, and he said, you know who I love?
This is Timberlake. He said, can I send this to him?
And Joe calls me from the car and says, you know,
would you be mad if I gave him this copy
so he could send it to Justin Timberlake? And I said, well,
(21:24):
the worst that can happen as we make a fan
out of Justin Timberlake. No, we'll give it to him.
So and Timberlake went crazy. So about a month later,
phone rings in the office Joe Fisher his office, and
this woman says, you don't know me, but my name
is Jessica Beale and I'm married to Justin Timberlake and
his birthday's coming up and in a month, and he
(21:47):
has everything, so I try to give him experiences. And
I wonder, we're gonna have a party for like forty
of our closest friends at our place in Montana, and
I wonder if this guy, Chris Staple consider coming and
singing at the party. So Stapleton calls me and says,
what do you think about this? And I said, you know, jeez,
(22:09):
if nothing else, you can tell your kids and your
grandkids that you were at this party one time. And
Harrison Ford was there, and who knows else who was there,
and you know they're going to fly you on their jet.
So he goes out there, and the story is that
Justin was so enamored by him that he was borderline
rude to the rest of the guests. He didn't even
talk to them. He just wanted to hang with Chris.
(22:30):
So they started this close relationship, and Justin said, I
want to produce you. Me and tim ba Lake are
going to take it to New York City and produce
something that's more blues oriented. Well that never came together,
but you know, we put together a pretty good campaign
to get Chris nominated for CMA, especially for an Album
(22:52):
of the Year, because we knew Nashville loved this record,
love this guy. And I think Robert Deaton's looking at
it's like, Okay, I don't don't really know what to
do with this because you don't have a hit, you know,
But the guy's got four nominations, so it's almost guaranteed
he's gonna get on the show. What are we going
to do? And Cindy Maybe who's our president, went to
Chris and said, do you think you could call Timberlake
(23:14):
and see if he do this. Chris said, well, I'll try.
So he called him and he said give me the
day and he said I'll be there, and the rest
of his history. I mean, it was just, you know,
from huge financial loss to a massive, massive examination of
(23:36):
overnight success. Yeah. I have never seen anything changed like
that in a single night. Then that performance and which
really he was and he is who he is, but
after that, it was he was freaking Chris Stapleton. Yeah,
Like that was the moment. I think the biggest moment
I've seen since living in Nashville, like a scene, if
(23:56):
I had to pick a singular moment, Yeah, I think
that's the biggest one I've seen. Yeah, and you know what,
it was culturally a huge moment because we don't do
things like this in Nashville. You know it prior to this,
at the risk of now, everyone's gonna get mad at me,
But prior to this, everything was more calculated, and it
(24:20):
was you know, it was put together, it was marketed
pretty well, and this was just something that happened totally organically.
And I'm sure someone's gonna, you know, listen to this
and call you and say, oh, I was part of
one in nineteen sixty seven, and it was just as big,
probably right, but to my eyes and ears, it was like, Okay,
this changes the game, This changes everything for everyone. And
(24:43):
you know, the funny thing was, starting the next week
and pretty much every day for the next three months,
we were auditioning mountain men in my office. I mean
massive guys that came out of the hills of somewhere
with long hair and scraggly beards, and they all sang
like monsters. I mean they were so good, you know,
(25:06):
but you know, you can't push that too hard. How
do you feel about that? Because you know an artist
will come and break through and then there are four
or five similar sounding and looking artists. Like, where's the
line for you when you're running a label of who
is going to be someone that has the long term
to them or who's just like the viral thing or
(25:27):
the you know, the kind of today thing. Well, if
it was just four or five, it could be tolerable.
But honestly, it's like more like fifty seventy five. I mean,
I have always made my way in this business by
looking for talent that is, talent that sounds really like
a product, looking for artists that are. You know they're
(25:48):
they're square pegs, and you know there's square pegs that
are close enough that now we do our job and
we cram that square peg into a round hole. That's
the most gratifying part of the job. But the problem
is and everyone after that as a copy And Keith
Urban was the classic example because I didn't sign Keith Urban.
(26:11):
He was in a band called The Ranch and they
were originally at Warner Brothers. Warner was not doing anything
with it. There was a head of business affairs at
Capital that was a big fan convinced Scott Hendricks, who
was then the head of Capital, to take over the
project for like next to no money in exchange for points,
(26:32):
and it didn't work. But another guy came in to
run the company and Keith announced that he wanted to
leave the band and have a solo career, and this
guy said, okay, go Maco Records. So they made their
first record and it wasn't happening. I didn't have any
real success at radio. The album was put out prematurely,
(26:54):
it wasn't selling anything. It did not look good for
this guy, Keith Urban, and I came in and I
went to two shows that he was doing and just
I had seen the ranch, but I was not ready
for what I saw with Keith Urban. And it was like,
holy cow, this is the gift from God. This is
this is the one that I'm just gonna roll the
(27:16):
dice on this guy and everything we do after this
point it's going to be built around Keith Urban. And
we did it. And I mean it was a lot
of work from a lot of people. We had to
sell so much money had been spent without any financial
reward that we sold about eight hundred thousand before we
even broke even that's crazy. Um. But the minute he
(27:38):
did break, everyone who came through the door was Keith Urban.
They had the same little you know, he had that
rhythmic tick to him that just made him so unique,
and all of a sudden, every kid in the world
was cutting his hair that way and was playing everything
came in and went anything. You know, it was like,
oh please. You know, sometimes the market can handle one copy,
(28:00):
maybe two, but not twenty. And you know that's why
that's how we get into trouble as music people. We
allow this, you know, same old, same old. You know,
we're just copies out there. You know, I'm not real
wild about what the music sounds like right now in general. Yeah,
And I think it's because there's there's a lot of
(28:22):
sameness out there, do you feel like Because I feel
the same way, and you talk about sameness, I feel
like everything is so everybody's looking at short term lines,
like how do we hit our quarter? Yeah, So therefore,
if you grab a coffee, it's gonna make you money today,
it may not make you money in a year. And
people are chasing tomorrow more than they're chasing three years
of a substantial project. Yeah, And I think what happens
(28:47):
is the music all starts to become the same sounding
because all the acts feel like they've gotta be the same,
and they're chasing other acts so they can get on
the radio. Well, I will tell you it's probably the
hardest thing to resist signing these people to come in
and are really good, but they're derivative of something right
before them. If it was derivative with something from twenty
(29:08):
thirty years earlier, that kind of turns me on. But
the you know, the copy thing does not. But you know,
I don't know why other labels or companies do that.
I do know why, but I'm not gonna say it here,
but I've always tried not to because you know, it's
a much rather reload with something that's exciting and try
(29:29):
to cram that square peg into another round hole. You know,
we talk about moments, I think another big moment was
Casey one of the Grammy for for Album of the Year. Yeah,
with Golden Hour, Like that's up there with one of
the bigger moments in the past five or six years.
(29:49):
It's massive. It's just just huge and one of the
most um one of the most difficult to figure out
scenario that I've ever been involved with, because she consistently
makes unbelievable music that doesn't really fit in anybody's box.
(30:10):
It's just great that it touches a lot of boxes,
and it's so great that if you play Casey music
for anyone anywhere, they respond positively. But as a real
challenge for people who market music to you know, take
that we haven't gotten Casey to where she deserves to be.
You know, there's there's a lot more work that needs
(30:31):
to be done. And you know, you could argue that
with the exception of some of the instrumentation on the
Golden Hour record, it's not that country you know, it's
it's it's a much more pleasant, pop, universal sounding piece
of music, but not really doesn't really fit anywhere. It
(30:52):
just fits everywhere. Does that make sense? Yeah? No, yes,
it fits nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Yeah,
I mean, you know, just some degree. Norah Jones was
doing that. When she first popped, it was like, okay,
what is this? Oh, I know this is great? You know.
Nora Jones came from inside EMI. I was running Capitol.
(31:12):
A kid that ran sales for Blue Note had been
somebody that worked for me years ago sent me a
CD with roths of Nora Jones and I just he said,
I think you're gonna like it because it's kind of country,
and I just was all over it. And the guy
that ran Blue Note, Bruce Lundball, who's one of my idols,
(31:33):
he had a famous death meeting where he said, I
want to know why the Nashville people are more excited
about this than we are, you know, And it was
because everyone in my office was seeing it as you know,
the second coming of something special. Boy when don't know
why it hit Oh yeah, And it kind of existed
for a second until it was a monster. Yeah. Because
(31:55):
and that's what happens with things with Casey too. I
would say, you know, she had created her own lane
and then her own and then everybody else just kind
of fell into her lane. Yeah, once he'll start falling
into your lane. I mean I was on pop radio
at the time and we were slamming this every hour.
Oh yeah, yeah. You know, our pop labels didn't really
want to work the record because it didn't fit anywhere.
(32:18):
Our company created a promotion department just to work Norah Jones.
That's the truth. Well what a financial gamble, and well
what a payoff? Oh yeah massive. I benefited from it too,
because they created this promotion department. They were all pros,
(32:39):
and I had really good almost pop country stuff over here.
So you know, while those guys weren't working on Nora Jones,
they worked on Keith Urpan and that developed a whole
different career for him too. And that probably wouldn't have
happened if I had to jam it through La or
(32:59):
New y Arc. You know. You know, we talk about
some of the artists that are are special and are
hard to at times market and Kip, who's yours kind
of falls at that like so good, so passionate, such
a devoted base. Ye, but I feel like that would
be at times you just want to bang your head
against the wall, like, look, how comes some of the
stuff works so quickly and then how comes some of
(33:20):
it just won't take at radio specifically? Yeah, Like what
what do you feel like to struggle is with Kip
at times? Well? I think honestly, the first album was
loaded with hit songs, and the second album was things
that resonated to Kip's audience specifically, but they weren't across
(33:42):
the board universal hit songs. And I think he's back
to I think the new stuff that we had that
you'll you're very soon. I think you'll be You'll be surprised.
You know, he's got such a unique thing and a
lot of artists, you know, have this. It's got such
a unique one on one relationship with his audience. He
(34:03):
can sell out anywhere he goes and they love every
word of every song he's done. But to get past
that point, to get those people that are more passive,
that's where success comes in. You know, I kind of
you know, brothers Osborn not terribly different, completely different kind
of artists, but not you know, you go to their shows,
(34:27):
their fans are like tearing the place down. It's one
of the best live shows I've ever seen, by the way,
And both those guys are fantastic live. And I've spent
time with Kip personally where you know, I do stand
up and so we'll talk about because Kip like really
cares about his audience. Yeah, and he's like, man, if
I see one sad face, it like, oh yeah, puts
me out. And I'm like, man, you gotta stare at foreheads. Yeah,
(34:47):
that's what I tell them. Like, they could be sad
and then not be because something you've done, right. They
could has something sad in their family, or they could
want to feel sad right like, and you're allowing them
to feel that. But that guy's pat. I say what
I say, I love Kip because he's so pat. Times
I want I want to, you know, smack him to
the head and he wanted to smack me upside the head.
But most of that's from love, Like I just you know,
I really respect that guy. This uh AEG company put
(35:11):
together massive concert in England called Country to Country, See
to See, And when I first heard about this, I
rolled my eyes and thought, Okay, this isn't gonna work,
because you know, I didn't. I never used the C
word when I went to Europe because their idea of
country is like box car Willie. And if you say
Keith Urban's country or Casey's country or Kipped country, you're
(35:33):
gonna get those kind of people, yea. And they're like, well,
this doesn't sound like boxcar Willie, you know, and and
all the regular people go, well, I thought country was
boxcar Willie. So I didn't come. So anyway, so they
have this first show. I didn't go, but it was
pretty successful. So the next year I came back and
Kip was on the bill and he was a nervous
(35:54):
wreck and he was wrecked because he thought these English
people are not going to relate to me at all.
They're just not And I'm scared to death. I said,
just do your thing, Just do your thing. I said,
I don't know that any of these people know who
the artists are. That's my take on this. And I
was right. They Kip went out and he was as
(36:15):
big a star as the Dixie Chicks because they didn't
really know any of them, and because he worked so
hard and because he was so desperate to get their
love and attention. He killed it and he's got a
really nice career going on in England, particularly because of
that first show, and he's continued to go back and
you know, I go over there now, people say what's
(36:36):
going on with Kip worn It's like, really, okay, all right, great,
it's fun to hear a lot of the artists that
you've helped break. And I'm gonna go back in time
a little bit to Rick Springfield. Oh yeah, who you know?
Jesse's Girl was the song that women. We still play
it on my show now. I mean, this is the
song that lives forever, you know. So how did you
(36:57):
get involved with Ray Springfield? Well? I got fired for
that for one day. You get fired, You got fired. Yes,
I was a pop promotion guy in my hometown of Cincinnatio,
Hio for RCA Records, and I was a kid and
I didn't get a lot of great direction in that job.
And I can say that now because the guy who
(37:18):
hired me, who didn't direct me really well, passed away
last year. So God bless Eddie mask Golla. But he
was not really given me the kind of direction I needed.
But so in that day, singles and albums would just
show up at my front door and there was no
there was no conference called, there was nothing. You know.
It was like, no, we don't really know anything about
this artist, but somebody signed them. So here it is,
(37:40):
go see what you can do with it. And I
get this. I get Rick Springfield album and single the
same day. I didn't know anything about it. Might just
put it on and Jesse's Girl just killed me. I thought,
my god, this is a huge pop song. And I
was going on the road to Columbus, Ohio the next
day and you know, like I said, no one was
(38:00):
talking about it. I was supposed to get another record
play by another artist who I won't mention here, but
it was not a very good record. And I went
up to Columbus, Ohio and I started playing this song
and three of the four stations I visited hit the
record added it. And you know, in the Midwest, they
don't add records early. So I came back so proud
(38:24):
of myself that I was breaking a record, only to
find out that I was being fired by my boss,
who was really angry because I did not get anything
on the priority record. And he just called me and said,
you know, once again, you a and are everything. You
can't take direction, you're not a team player. You're out
of here. You're out of here, You're done. And I had,
(38:46):
you know, like a one year old kid, and I'm
terrified that I'm out of work. And the next morning,
his assistant calls me and says, John wants to know
what you've got on this or that. And I said,
John fired me yesterday. And she said, oh, stop it.
She said, you know he fires people every day. I
said what she said, he does, and I said, I've
(39:07):
never been fired and she said, well now you have.
And uh, you know. That record went on to sell
I don't know how many millions, but it was. It
was a great thing for my ego and my self worth.
And you know, Rick and I were talking my kitchen
to his kitchen. I didn't have an office, so I
worked in my basement and my kitchen to his kitchen
every night, big plans and I did some cool things
(39:31):
I did. I did. I had a radio station in
Columbus where we broke the thing that the general manager
was on the border director for the Columbus Ohio Zoo
and it was like their second or third year in existence.
And he came to me and said, we've had so
much rain on weekends that our gate sales are awful,
(39:52):
and we have no money. There's no there's no know,
nothing in reserve here, and we're worried that our zoo
is going to go bankrupt. And he said, you got
this kid, Rick Springfield, right, And I said yeah. He said,
and he's on general hospital right and I said yeah.
He said do you think you can get him to
do anything for this? And I said, like what? And
we went for some drinks and we concocted this event,
(40:15):
and I knew he wouldn't. I couldn't afford to put
him up there and have him perform, and it just
wasn't ready, you know. But we brought him to the
Columbus Ohia Zoo and we pulled up a big stage
and charged ninety eight cents to get in. It was
w NCI ninety eight cent day, had the biggest grossing
day they've ever had. It was miles and miles of
(40:35):
thirteen and fourteen year old girls. I've never seen anything
like it in my life. If I had been around
for the Beatles, it probably would have been like that.
Rick goes up on the stage and he's trying to
talk and it just got the screaming was so loud
I couldn't hear him, and I was twenty feet from him,
and all of a sudden, the barriers, the security barriers
(40:55):
went down, and then the stage started rock and I
just rememb remember the cops going, that's it, we're shutting
it down. And they grab him and they're dragging him
off the stage and they're saying run, and I'm running
and Rick's five steps ahead of me, and we're all
running for this little administrative building, concrete, you know, nothing building,
(41:17):
and there's a wall of kids running after us, and
you know, this is not particularly a proud moment. But
out of nowhere, this tiny, little twelve year old girl
is a speedster and she breaks through the crowd. She's
going to catch Rick, I means, and if she slows
him down, we're all dead. We are dead. So I
(41:37):
just I'm running and I just cold cocked her with
an elbow right in the side of the head, knocked
her down into the mud, and we made it into
the building. Well. The interesting the zoo director was a
guy named Jack Hannah. Oh wow, Jack Hanna. Jack, He
was just Jack Hannah. Director. So we're all stuck in
this building while these kids are like trying to get
(41:59):
at us. It was like a zombie movie or something.
And I got to know Jack and his wife, and
there's a million pictures from that and to this day.
Jack and I have a bit of a relationship. And
if I need anything from Jungle Jack Hannah, I just
pick up the phone and say, Jack, would you do
something for me? He says, anything for you. So I've
put Jack in the little videos, and he's been in
(42:22):
Luke Brian campaigns, and you know, I run into him
every once in a while. Steve Hodges was working for me.
We were in the airport and all of a sudden
he walks past and he goes, Hey, there's that guy
from TV. I said, that's my friend Jack Hannah. He said,
your friend. I said, hey, Jack, and he came over
and we had breakfast together. And you know that's awesome. Yeah,
what a grace to all that. There's like four layers
(42:43):
of good story in that story. Yeah. So Rick and
I we fell out over the next two or three years.
I didn't let's just say we just fell out. I
didn't like the way he was handling his business. And
it didn't end well, and I've always felt bad. And
I've been just him live a couple of times, and
my friends always go, are you going to go backstage
(43:03):
and say hi? And I'd always say, nah, no, I
don't so. Uh. Mark Niederhauser and it works for Warner
used to work with me at our CEA. He was
in Denver, I think when when all this was coming down.
And last year at country radio seminar, Mark and I
went to lunch and Marks the kind of guy that
(43:25):
like stays in touch with everybody. Birthday, every birthday? Oh yeah,
you get a car? Do I call? Every birthday? Oh yeah?
And every artist that we ever worked with, he talks
to him on a regular basis. I just I don't
do that, you know. And I said, that's what about
Rick Springfield? You talk to him and he goes, yeah,
every once in a while, I said, how's he doing?
He goes, he seems okay. I said, well, I read
(43:46):
his book. You know, it's kind of sad and uh.
And I told Mark what happened between us and he said, well,
that's that's really that's that's not fair. It's really not
fair to you. And I said, yeah, I know, I
said to me a favorite, if you have information, give
it to me. So I reached out to him the
next day, send him along email and he bam came
(44:09):
right back to me, said, oh man, it's so good
to hear from you. You know everything you said here
just you know, I think about this all the time.
And we really did it, didn't we And it's so
great to hear it from you. And you know we
we haven't talked since then, but it was one big
email exchange and this is about a year ago. Wow. Yeah,
I had a great story. Yeah, Darius and Hoodie. I'm
(44:31):
a huge Hoodie fan. Yeah, I'm a huge Darius. Darius
is my first interview every when I was seventeen. Really,
I got Hoodie and I got Darius. I was a
diehard fan. And you know, Darius and I've done a
lot together since then, kind of because I wrote about
it my first book. I was like, this is the
first guy ever talked and I was so nervous talking
to him. I was shaking. He's so great. He grabbed
my hand. I was like, I got you. I was seventeen,
and he led me through this interview. And so Darius
(44:52):
hit me up about a month ago, was like, Hey,
my wife's writing a book, would you write a chapter
for me? So I wrote a thing for him, and
I was like, in exchange, I would like to hear
some new hoodie music and so and I don't listen
to music earlier ever from anyone, even my friends. It's
get slippery slope for me. So I just stay away
from it. But I'm such a Darius friend and fan
and hoodie fan. Yeah, and so he sent it. And
(45:13):
what I wonder is is the hoodie is it country?
Are you guys gonna try country? I don't think so.
I think if you based on the fact that if
you go back, if you took those hoodie records that
were big and you put them in the market, now
they would be country record absolutely. And so you know,
that's kind of how we started Darius a solo thing.
It took a while to get there. And there's a
(45:36):
somewhat of an interesting story on that too, if you
want to hear that. Yeah, so how it makes it
sound like I'm a genius again, but you know it's
a true, absolutely a true story. How did the Darius
solo stuff start? Well, I never liked the hoodie and
Blowfish Records, not even review. No. I moved to Nashville
in nineteen ninety had been on the pop side, and
(45:57):
I moved to here in nineteen ninety and immediately fell
in love with the art of the song and the
craft and the way people would lay out a lyrical landscape.
And it was just like, Wow, this is the way
it's supposed to be. And I was like a song snob.
I became a song snob real fast. And so I
(46:18):
didn't care for those hoodie records because I thought, lyrically
they were just pop records, you know. So But years
later I'm a Capitol and I had you know, I've
always had really bad work habits. I'm not the earliest
guy in the office. I don't come in too late,
but I'm you know, I'm not there at eight o'clock
in the morning, but I'm usually there at nine ten
(46:40):
o'clock at night. And when I was at Capitol, I
had a very prominent spot on the corner of West
End and Murphy Road, and people would go by and go, God,
I can see your fat your fat ass rolling around
in your chair up there. You just go home, you know.
So what it comes down to is I would get
home and I still could pretty much do this. I
(47:02):
get home and my wife has either gone to bed
or going to bed. She's eaten by herself. Again. I'm sorry,
and I haven't eaten anything, and I'm gonna go to
bed though, because I'm going to get up in the
morning and go back to work. So I would sit
in front of the TV with the bowls cheerios and
I did it last night, and you know, bowl of cheerios,
and then I turn on the TV, but I can't
(47:24):
commit to anything because I'm only going to spend fifteen
or twenty minutes in front of it. So I would
just slip through the channel. So I don't know what
year this was, so five, two thousand and five something
like that. I would slip through the channel and there
was a high definition concert put on one of the channels,
and it was it's all the same ones all the time.
It was Dave Thomas, it was Peter Frampton, it was
(47:45):
Mickey Thomas, and it was Hoodie and a Blowfish, and
there were others, but those are the ones that I
remember seeing all the time. Dave Matthews band and every
time I see the Hoodie and the Blowfish things. I
would think, oh, I'd never liked this band, but you
know what, that guy this is inappropriate. But I'd think
to myself, that black guy, he phrases like a country singer.
(48:09):
And so, you know, two weeks later, i'd be flipping
through again. There would be saying, show it's a different song.
I think, oh, man, he phrases like a country singer.
So I had this weird idea that I was gonna,
you know, nobody had heard from these guys forever as
far as I knew. I was gonna try to find
Darius Rucker and see what he was all about. But
I never did it because I was busy and it
was you know, it was a pipe dream. It didn't
(48:29):
really make sense. End up going to dinner with Doc McGee,
the famous manager who managed one of my artists at
the time, and when we sit down, Doc starts bragging
about and a Blowfish tour tickets, and I said, what
do you have to do with him? He said, I
manage him, and I said I didn't know this, And
I tell the story about the Cheerios about and he says,
(48:51):
he says, you should make a country record with him,
and I said, no, that's why I'm telling you this.
And Doc's looking at me. He was like, yeah, yeah,
he'd love that. But I could hell in his eyes
at Doc thought, no, he's just kidding me. So we
get our cars out of LA and I said, Doc,
don't forget about Darius. He goes, no, I'll call him.
Well months go by, nothing, and every I talked to
Doc every every week and I'd say, Doc, what about Darius.
(49:13):
He goes, oh, I just got off the phone them.
I forgot. It's like you forgot. So weeks later, I
get a call from Doc and he says, hey, you
got somebody wants to talk to you. And it's Darius
and he goes, hey, man, I hear you're trying to
get a hold of me. And I said, yeah, I'd
very much like to meet with you. I'll come to you.
Just tell me. When he says, no, I'll come to
you tomorrow. Tomorrow, Okay, can we go to dinner tomorrow?
(49:35):
So he flies to Nashville from Charleston and we go
to dinner at rus Chriss and I loved him. I
just fell in love with him. I had no idea
what what his sensibilities were, but we started talking about
country music. And he started telling me about his experience
with it. And Darius didn't know his father, and you know,
(49:57):
he has a single mom and some brothers and sisters.
And there was an older gentleman across the street that
kind of you know, took a special role in Darius's
life and in his heart. He called him Uncle Charlie,
I think, and he would listen to country. He'd listen
to the Opry on the radio on the front porch.
Darius would go over there as a little kid and
(50:17):
he'd get up on Uncle Charlie's lap and they listened
to the opry. So Darius had a sense of this
that surprised me to death. Let me talk about more
and more and more, and he said, oh man, my
brothers and sisters, they used to make fun of me
because I would go around the house singing or you
know Web Pierce songs. And my friends would make fun
of me because you know, I knew mel Tillis songs.
(50:38):
And I said, that is wild. And so we start
talking about making this record, and he came in. He
had been thinking about this for so long. He had
a paper bag full of cassettes and on there were
scratch demos of these country songs that he had been
writing inspired by the experience with Uncle Charlie and the opry,
(51:01):
and he planned for me and they were they were
one of two things. They were either kachunka chun Ka
Chong Texas two Steps songs, yeah, or they were tearing
my beer vern gosd and ballads. And I just kept saying, ter,
this won't work, and he went, what do you mean, man,
it's country music. I said, well, it's not really. If
I mean, it's not what's on the radio, and if
(51:22):
that's what we're trying to do, it's really So we
went around around we you know, it was I didn't
have any answers. I was just in love with this guy,
and you know, I will admit that the fact that
he was an African American was more than a little
bit interesting to me. But as I got to know him,
(51:42):
I pushed back on that really hard because the press
when when we broke him, the press we're saying, how
does it feel to be the first guy to break
an African American in country? Beyond say, you know what
I mean, the fact that he's an African American is
pretty self evident. But it really diminishes his talent. And
I hate to even talk about this now. I was
aware of it when I started this, but it's not
(52:05):
about that for me anymore. It's about this guy with
the most unique voice at this great phrasing and a
big laugh and a big smile and a warm heart
and you know. Anyway, so we got to the point,
and along the way we talked to a bunch of
producers and then he fell in with Frank Rogers and
he kind of fell in love with Frank, And between
(52:26):
Frank and Darius and I, we just sort of talked
us through and what we came to was the music
shouldn't be that different than Hoodie and a blowfish, but
it needs to say something. You can't just say hold
my hand, hold my hand, hold my hand. You got
to lay out some kind of a lyrical landscape, at
least in the verses. And you know, it took a
(52:47):
while for Darius to get that, but with Frank's guidance,
and Frank was, you know, also a successful songwriter, pretty
quickly it came together. And you know we had four
number ones off that first record. That's pretty big. Yeah. Yeah,
when he I did this little thing with my staff
every year, where the artists come and they just play
for us, and it's very inside. There's no plus ones.
(53:10):
My wife's never been. It really bothers her that she's
never seen this special thing. But Darius came for the
first time. He was new to us, and he got
up and did this song called don't Think I Don't
Think About It, and the room was in tears. It
was just in tears, and it was like, holy cow,
this is gonna be massive. And then you know, I
(53:31):
did the I don't think it's strong enough. I love
that song, but I don't think it's strong enough for
a new guy who forget the fact that you're African American.
The biggest thing we're gonna have problems with is you
were the lead singer band that was so big that
you're a joke, and we've got to overcome the joke
part of it. And I don't know that this song
(53:52):
is going to be strong enough to do that. And
he went, okay, man, and then we cut a whole
bunch more, and then we came back six months later
and I said, don't kill me, but I think we
should leave with don't I Don't Think about It? And
he said, you know what, I'm not mad at all
because because of that extra effort and that extra pressure,
we made this record so much better. Yeah, we wouldn't
(54:13):
have had these other four songs if you didn't make
me go back. So I feel less guilty about it.
We have about five minutes left. I want to run
through its something because I mean, we could do this
for three hours. I feel like, Um, Eric Church, how
does he not get nominated for Entertainer of the Year.
You know, I don't know. I mean, he doesn't does
not win it. I mean, it's all it's the same
(54:34):
thing back. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you know,
the Entertainer of the Year, at least for the CMA
is so Nashville centric and ACM's becoming that way too. Um.
And Eric's never been one to play the game. He
doesn't really go out and show his face and hang
out and events. And you know, he does the t J.
Martell wine dinner because he's into wine, and he has
(54:56):
a golf tournament on his own, but he doesn't you know,
Eric is Eric. He's an artist, and he only does
what he wants to do and what he wants to respect.
He and Casey are very similar in that there's no
there's no pretense whatsoever, there's no compromise between either one
of them. And I think that hurts him in that sense,
(55:17):
and he knows it. We've talked about it, and you know,
he looks at me like, yeah, well, you need to
market me, you need to market me around me. So
but you're right, it's unbelievable, four hours of just killer stuff,
night after night after night. Sam Hunt, Yeah, you know,
(55:41):
he he's threatening to deliver new music in two weeks. Threatening. Well,
I said this because I've been through this so many times.
And you know, the truth is, Sam had turned out
to be much more of an artist than I ever
anticipated when we signed him based on what he was doing,
(56:02):
which was very pop and contemporary pop music influence. I thought,
all right, you know, he's one of those guys. He's
really good at it, but he's one of those guys.
And but the truth is, once he had that big
success with that first record, he said several times quietly,
I don't want to repeat myself. I don't want to
do the same thing again. And if I think that
(56:25):
if he could make a really really country record, he
would do it. But I think he's afraid to do
that too, and so we'll see. I don't know he
he loves. I've heard a little bit of two songs
just and they're really not finished. They're just like choruses
that he's written. But you know, this is a guy
who loves Diamond Rio. There's a guy who loves John
(56:47):
Michael Montgomery. He knows this stuff inside. Now. He's not
a pop music carpetbagger. He's the real deal. He just
like a lot of young people, he grew up a
lot of influences and they they're coming through And that
isn't that wonderful? Isn't that what makes this go around? Yeah?
You know, I have a bunch of friends. I've been
writing with them over the past few months. Well that's
(57:10):
good to hear alone. Yeah, you know, that's good to hear.
Like I kind on a plane. I went to the
Grammys and I came back and I got on this
plane and he and his wife got on there, sitting
right across from me. I'm thinking, oh my gosh, this
is perfect, be a chance for me to talk to him.
Immediately he falls asleep, and then we get off the
plane and we are legitimately standing trying to talk to
(57:34):
each other right off in the gate, and I got
overrun by people, people that you know, I just hadn't
seen you a long time, and he said, you know,
I'll see you downstairs by baggage. And we just never thought, no,
I'll end on this one. I'm doing celebrity family food
and I took Lauren and John party with me. So
(57:55):
it's me. Yeah, heard a little bit about that both
dear friends, aren't they awesome? And we go, but John's
about to have new music finally, Yeah, and it's it's awesome. Yeah,
And you talk about a guy that you know. He
he didn't want to repeat himself either, and he kept
saying all along, it's gonna be real country. I hope
you still like me. Gonna be real country. And it is.
(58:16):
And you know when when when we signed him, a
lot of people in town and a lot of people
on my own staff rolled their eyes and said, I
don't know what you're doing here. He's so country, it's
so traditional. I don't know what you're doing. And I
would just smile and say, that's why I did it.
And you know, I had one major radio consultants say
to me when I played him in the demos. He said,
I don't know what you're doing here. That guy's voice
(58:37):
is annoying. And he said, you know it sounds it
sounds terrible, And I said, his voice is picatris. And
why I sat do because you know you'll hear him,
you'll know right away who he is. Sink. Yeah, listen,
we're out of time. I want to say thanks. I
know you got a lot of things. I tried I
google j net Worth to see if they'd pop up,
just see how rich If you're the richest person to
come in here, it doesn't show up. That's because I
(58:59):
have no money, but the most influential person we've had
in here. So hey, thanks for I really appreciate you
making time to come over and do this. And we've
threatened to get together and we still need to do that.
But you know you're just you're too big time now.
It's hard to you get overrun anytime we go anywhere.
I'm a guy from Ohio, that is all I am.
Episode one eighty eight when Mike Dungan, Thanks, Mike, you're
(59:20):
one hundred and eighty seven people more important than me,
less important. You're the most
Hey, we're gonna play you an episode of the Bobby
Cast here. If you listen to the show on podcast,
I think you'll like the interview podcast that I do.
And this one is by someone who's not really that
famous unless you're way in the music world, but I
felt it was so interesting I wanted to put it
in front of you. His name's Mike Dungan. He basically
runs a record label and he talks about that and
what he does and how he discovered Luke Bryan and
I just want you to listen to this, and if
you like this, I think you'll love the Bobby Cast.
(00:23):
So you know, obviously you're here and you're hopefully a
fan of the show. If you're here to listen to
the Bobby Bone Show, but check out the Bobby Cast,
a show I do from my house. Here is Mike Dungan,
and then tweet me or send me a message on
Instagram and let me know if you liked it. All right, cool,
here it is a bonus episode of the Bobby Cast.
He's sounding great. I want to get it a little
closer though, Yeah, right up there, all right? Episode one
(00:45):
eighty eight with Mike Dungan, who is and I say
this in a loving way because Forbes of this article
about me a while ago, and they were like, the
most powerful guy in country music. I am not, And
I've often said they were wrong about that, that I
think you are the most powerful guy in country music.
I think the reason they would say that about music
because I'm just out there, like at my face is
out there. But you're the guy that's calling all the shots,
(01:05):
making all the careers. Yeah, so here's your chairman CEO
of Universal Music Group. And I kind of divided it
up a bit. H MCA, Mercury, Capital, EMI, show Dog.
Those are kind of the subs underneath the massive umbrella.
Is that a show dog is no longer. It's no longer.
No I had. I had a little arrangement with Toby Yeah,
(01:26):
mainly just because I liked him, get at get little
closer out there there you go. Maybe mainly, but just
because I liked him so so show dog no more. No,
He's doing that on his own, and that's fine. I'm
looking at the artist roster. I just have so much
to talk about. I was talking to Rod Phillips, who
is the head of iHeart Country Today, and he's like
Duncan has the greatest stories. He's like, he's like, have
(01:48):
him tell you the Sinatra story. I can't. Oh, I
can tell you that one most of my stories, I can't.
I don't even know what the Sinatra story is. Okay,
it's it's It's probably the proudest moment of my life,
the funniest moment in my life. I am all of twenty.
I've had the hair down to here. You can't see
(02:12):
im down on my nipples. I have a big beard.
I looked like I'm in the Grateful Dead. And I
was going to college, and I was working in a
record store, and I was a buyer for a couple
of major lines, and really just a kid. And all
of my friends are into I don't know what roxy music,
you know, all of this stuff. And I was too,
but I loved Sinatra, and I especially loved the Sinatra
(02:35):
account Basie combination, and I would talk about it and
play it all the time, and my friends was just
roll their eyes. So Sinatra comes out of retirement and
goes on the road. So he's coming to my hometown,
sin Sinati, Ohio. So I use whatever leverckog I have
as a twenty year old, you know, part time buyer,
(02:57):
and I get the best tickets I can for Sinatra,
and no one wants to go with me. So I
dragged this guy. I dragged this guy that works with me,
and he looks pretty much like I do. And we're
sitting like in the fifth row and it's in the round.
And to show you how good the seats were, like
Johnny Bench was like fifteen rows behind me. Ken Griffy
(03:17):
was fifteen rows behind me. I was just primed. He
comes out. You know, it's it's the big Orchestra, Nelson Riddle,
I think, and it's you know, he comes out, he
rips through fourth. Oh so right before the show starts,
there's one empty seat next to me, and this little
bald guy comes in. He says, he sits down and
(03:39):
he looks at me some while says how you doing.
I said great. He goes, it's gonna be a good show.
I said, yeah, I can't wait. So Sinatra comes out.
He goes right in to come fly with me. He
rips through like three more songs and then he starts
to talk and then he says, ladies and gentlemen, I
(03:59):
am so honored we have in the crowd tonight. One
of America's greatest tunesmiths, a man who can take a
word and change it into a lyric landscape that will
melt your heart. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the all
time great songwriters, mister Sammy Kahn, and spotlight hits the
man next to me. That was the guy. Yeah, yeah,
(04:21):
he's a little old man's he hits it end. Sammy
stands up and he turns around and he takes a bow,
and Sinatra says, Sammy, I am so honored that you're here.
I cannot believe that you're here. I don't know why
you came to Cincinnati, Ohio, of all places, but I'm
so honored that you're here. And I loved you so
much that I wanted to make sure you've got a
seat right next to Jesus, which was you with your
(04:45):
long hair. It was me and you had to be like,
Holy crab. I'm being kind of acknowledged by Frank Sinatra,
the chairman of the board. So what does CEO of
a record label? Like, what do you do? Because I
just picture like Saturday, all I have, Lord Michaels, go
and watch a comedian sit back in the back before
even an audition and you'll just know that he's there. Yeah,
and he's like it's dark and you're like, oh crap, Lauren,
(05:08):
Michael's there's like a big moment. But also you know,
he doesn't smile or laugh. He just watch what I
picture you doing. I going into some of these places
in the dark and just kind of watching these acts
and they know you're there. Yeah, you know I used
to do that. That used to be how this business worked,
and I loved it. I love that you could kind
of come in anonymously and you could come two three
times before an eybody I figured out that you were
(05:31):
had any part in, you know, signing someone to a
major label. But it's the business has just gotten so
crazy now, and these young kids that work for these
publishers in particular, they're on it and if anybody pulls
out a guitar, they're like running around behind him. So
there's no secrets, there's showcases, and you know, it's all
much more formal now. But I used to you know.
(05:54):
I mean, my story about signing Luke Bryan was a
pretty good one because I went four times by myself
and sat in the back before I pulled the trigger
on that you know, for a lot of reasons, you know.
And Carrie Edwards was here. Carrie Edwards was my intern. Yeah,
she was, and she is what led me to go.
I just want to talk to Mike too, because Kerry
was here. And Carrie and I worked into American Auto
(06:15):
with Luke together, and she was like, man, have you
had Mike on? I was like, I haven't, Like I
see Mike sometimes. Yeah, but she talked. And so you
tell your version of the Luke story going to and
seen Luke four times. As you say before you. Carrie
was a student going to Lipscomb and she interned for
me and for us at Arista Records. I came into
town in nineteen ninety to be the head of marketing.
(06:37):
I was on the pop side working for Clive Davis,
and I came down here because I completely fell in
love with Tim Dubox and I loved what he was doing.
I didn't consider myself a country guy, but I loved
just the way Tim Duboux carried himself. And Carrie was
an intern. Then she went away, I think. Then she
came back, was an intern in another department, and when
(06:58):
she interned for me, I thought her name is Julie,
and I called her Julie. Every morning I'd come in,
she'd already be there and I'd smile and say morning, Julie,
and she'd just look at me and say good morning.
And finally, six weeks later, she says, you know, my
name's Carrie, And I said, no, it's not. She said, yeah,
it's Carrie. I said, why would you not correct me?
She said, I was terrified anyway, So she comes back.
(07:21):
We give her a job as a coordinator in the
A and R department, and you know how that goes.
You know, you're you're kind of doing everybody's expenses and
you're taking care of the business in the AA and
R department. But before you know it, at kids also
listening to songs, and then they're going to showcases, and
then it's like having the Morning Zoo on radio. You know,
it just keeps building and building and building. Well that's
(07:42):
what happened when Carrie. Then we had an unpleasant end
to all that Arista Records thing when the corporation decided
that Clive Davis was too old and was going to
push him out. So we all got pushed out and
it was folded up into our CEA. So Carrie goes away.
She has a couple of kids. She came back and
she was working part time at a publishing company that
(08:04):
didn't really work out too well, and then she had
another kid, and then she came back and she called
me one day and she said, I think I got one.
I said, what do you mean? She said, when I
was at the publishing company and there was a guy
there and I watched him develop, and I think he's
an artist, and would you come see him? And I said,
anything for you. So I went to this place called
(08:25):
the Trap, which is which was owned by Earth Woolsey,
who's still George Strey's manager and has Winners Losers as
Winners Losers and a whole bunch of other places. And
I watched a guy who was incredibly undisciplined, whose songs
were okay, The band was sloppy, he was turning his
(08:46):
back to the audience. He was having fun with the
band more than with the audience. But you know, and
it was nothing professional, but there was something there. There
was something I couldn't take my eyes off of. And
it was that it was that start that you can't define,
and you know, it was like you were seeing Elvis
in the early stages. So I kept going back and
(09:07):
I went. He played every Thursday, and I went every
Thursday night and didn't know you were there. Yeah, okay, yeah,
because Carrie h and in typical Luke style, I think
he was unaffected by It didn't cost him to get
his game together anything. He was just as sloppy and
just as unpolished and unprofessional as he was, you know,
(09:27):
the first time, and then the fourth time. I took
A and R back and I explained to them what
I saw and they said, yeah, I feel the same way.
And then it wasn't we months went by, and I
was really depressed. We at this point, you know, I'm
running Capitol Records, and we hadn't found anyone worthy of
signing for a long long time, and I was just depressed.
(09:50):
And I was laying on the floor in the A
and R department throwing a tennis ball up in the air,
bitching about life in general. And I sat up and
I said, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna find
guy Luke Brian. We're gonna bring him in here. We're
gonna tell him we want to sign him. We're gonna
give him the money right now, but he's got to
understand that, you know, we're he's not ready and this
(10:11):
he's gonna have to work on this. And he came in.
He started crying, and everyone started crying and tears tears
of joy, and you know, of course he made a
record too fast and it wasn't I still say we
kind of survived. That first record had a couple of
hits on it. But did you tell him that you
(10:32):
didn't think he had a single. Yeah, so you hear
the batch of music and you go, I don't know
that the song is here. Oh. I had a couple
of those conversations, and probably if carry told you this,
it was probably the infamous second album when that came up,
because we had accomplished just enough on the first album,
which was driven one percent by his personality. You know,
(10:53):
everywhere he went people loved him, and radio people were saying,
oh my god, I love this guy. He's so awesome.
I just wish you had a song. Oh, but you know,
we pieced it together here and there. Then we you know,
we sold just enough to keep going. Then we hit
the second one. At this point, Luke had a lot
more confidence in under him and he came to me
(11:13):
with six songs and said, I've got it, and let's
just figure out what the first one is and we'll
put it out and then we'll finish the album later. Well,
I listened to it and he didn't have it. That's
the worst conversation you can have. And I've had it
with pretty much every star artist. I have had legendary
stories where they've hated me and for weeks and weeks
(11:35):
at the time, and then something happens and it all
gets put back together. But in this case, Carrie was
upset with me, Luke was upset with me. Jeff Stevens,
who was producing, was upset. They called me back about
two or three weeks later and said, can we meet
and talk about this again? But we don't want to
come in your office. That's how bad it was. So
(11:57):
we go to Jeff Stevens office and they had remix
these six songs and I said, guys, it's not it's
not the mixes, it's it's the songs. They're just they're
not great, and I'm sorry, you know. So Luke's getting
angry or by the minute, Carries won't look at me,
and I said, what else do you have. And so
they started pulling out discs and there'd be two songs
(12:17):
on each disc and there was really nothing there. And
then one point we must have listened to thirty different
songs and there was just nothing there. And I kept
I was thinking, oh gosh, this is going away. You know,
I had such great hopes for this young man, and
this is going away. The first what we accomplished on
the first go round was was it we peaked? And
I said, and then I said, what else you got?
(12:40):
And Luke, really angry, says and I got nothing. I
just got some scratch vocals on my laptop. I got nothing.
I said, bring it out. Let's listen. So we listened
and there were like three or four that were nothing.
And then and then he plays a song called and
this is a scratch vocal. It's just in a guitar.
It's called rain is a Good Thing. And I looked
(13:03):
at him, and at this point everyone was staring at
the ground. They didn't want to deal with this conversation
at all. And I said, guys, what's wrong with this?
And Luke turns to me, surprised and kind of angry,
and he says, you liked this? And I said, well,
I wouldn't want to make a career out of this,
but I'm telling you this can make big dent in
things for you. This could really get you in a
(13:24):
good space. Trust me. I don't know. I don't know.
And Carrie started to do the yeah. Well I always
liked it, but Luke didn't like it. So I just said, look,
just let's just cut it and if you hate it,
we won't put it out, but please just cut it.
I think there's something here. Well, a great thing happened,
and that was a couple of weeks later, he hooked
(13:45):
up with Dave and Charles from Lady Annabellum and they
wrote Day, which was one of the great great songs.
So we put out Day. It was a mass said song,
and then we came back with Rain is a good
Thing I believe, was a four week number one, by
the way, And uh, you know, to this day, when
(14:06):
I see him, when he when he opens with that
guitar part that day being here, I kind of roll
my eyes because it's so cheesy, and you know, I
had a hand, and I had a hand in this cheese.
But it made a big difference for him, and it
made for all of us. I want a great story.
And you went through that many songs? Yeah, probably thirty
that day. That's hard. That's hard when you're feeling nothing.
(14:30):
I've been through that. Look several you ever ever wrong
and go this isn't one and they go I'm come yeah,
I'm like and they go, no, we really and you
go like, okay, you can hang yourself like you can
die on this hill if you want, And then they
end up being they were right. Has it happened to you?
Not not in not that directly. Um. There have been
songs that you know you'll get into, like your third
(14:52):
single choice and I want something yeah, and the band
wants something else. I want to talk about Stableton for
a second, Okay, because with Chris I was getting into
some trouble back in the early days, because before Traveler
came out, I would have Chris on and he'd come
on and play, and he'd mostly would come on to
play the songs he'd written for other people. Yeah, and
some of the high ups at the company at the time,
(15:13):
who aren't there anymore. That was I don't know, I
don't know what this guy's he's not researching, he's not testing. Yeah,
and I would say yeah, but like I can tell,
like I think I have probably not as good as you,
but I have a talent of knowing what people like
sometimes before they like it, and I missed some, but
for the most part, I do pretty good at that game.
And I'm like, man, there's just something about this guy,
(15:33):
and they're like, you know, maybe you shouldn't have him
on that fourth time. And thank god the CMA has happened,
where justin timber Lay everything, I've never seen something change
in a night before like that did, with the staples,
like the whole stabled and project and brand and artist.
What was that like for you? Well, I saw it
(15:54):
in dollars because digital downads of tracks were still kind
of a big thing. They're less of a thing now.
But um, I had my phone and I had the
app for the iTunes store and I'm watching click click,
click click, one purchase after another, and then they're rolling
(16:17):
just out of control. And we went from I'd say
nine hundred thousand dollars in the Hole two in the
black before he finished the song that quick, that quick, unbelievable,
absolutely unbelievable. And so when that was did did robertin
pitch that idea of Stapleton timber Lake. Did you guys
go after? Like? What was that? How had that come together? Um?
(16:39):
You know, do you know that just hit timber Lake thing?
This is so such an odd story. I don't I
don't know if this is interesting or not. I think
it is. I think it is okay, all right. First
of all, I had tried to sign stapletonant Capital in
two thousand and seven something like that, and I ended
up he see him really hard and I couldn't figure
(17:03):
out why, and then he was sending all the signals
that you know, he was a problem child. So I
walked away and didn't do it. And it turns out
that he told me later that he didn't want to
be an artist. When we offered him to the gig,
he panicked. He first his ego went off the chart,
and then he panicked he didn't want to be an artist,
(17:23):
so he was doing everything he could to sink the deal.
So right before I came to Universal, Brian Wright signed
him at Universal. So I sit down with Chris and
he said, listen, I'm worried that you don't like me
because I put you through a lot. And I said,
you know, I'd like an explanation for what you did.
(17:44):
And he told me, he said, I didn't want to
be an artist. And I said, we did a pretty
good job sinking that one. I said, but I like it.
I liked you before. I wouldn't made the offer before,
So let's just get to business and do it well.
He had a whole bunch of songs that he had
put together that he brought to play for me, and
again I didn't I didn't hear anything. Now. It wasn't
(18:09):
that they weren't good, it was that they were in
the best way I could describe it as three chord
rock and roll songs from the Mitch Writer era. They
didn't have the lyric integrity that I was used to
from Chris. They didn't have the structure that I was
used to from Chris. And I said, what are you
doing here? Where are all the great songs that you've
(18:30):
written for everybody else? And he said, I write those
for everybody else. That's not for me. This is what
I am. I said, I'm not telling you this is
good or bad. I tried never to use the words
good or bad. It's what works in the market or
it doesn't work in the market. And I said, but
I don't know what to do with this, and I
don't want to hurt your feelings. Well, he's thinking that
I'm flashing back to when he burned me years ago,
(18:53):
and so I'm getting even I wasn't. I just didn't
know what to do with it. So we went sound
and around a little bit, and then he wrote three
things that were much more in the groove than anything
we've ever heard from him. And it didn't really work.
(19:15):
And I think it was because radio looked at him
and said, well, he doesn't look like Luke Bryant. He
doesn't look like a male model, he doesn't look like
a star, whatever that is. And you know, we had
twenty five radio people that said this is awesome, and
one hundred and twenty five that said he really he
looks like an Almond brother. We don't, you know. It's
(19:36):
not country music, at least not at the time. So
he comes in my office and he says, look, it's
painfully obvious Radio isn't going to deal with me, so
just let me make the record I want to make.
But I promise you I'm not going to give you
what I gave you the first time. I want to
make a real country record, and I said, okay, just
(19:56):
do it. So he went away and did it. I
would say the records not really a country record. It's
more like a Memphis blues record than anything else. But
it was great. At this point, he was still a
little stunt. See how this pattern of pissing off my
artist at some point and with this patter, you know,
(20:18):
he was like no, he was looking at me as
someone that he could never trust. So he delivers the
record and he was dancing around me, dealing with people
around me instead. And we had like not quite finished
copies of The Traveler, you know, they weren't polished up
all the way, but it was really close. And a
guy named Joe Fisher worked for us in an r
(20:40):
and Joe Fisher had befriended a guy named Trace Ayala
who has been justin Timberlake's best friend from Memphis since
the third grade. And so they're hanging out in the
weekend and they're in Joe's car and this changer changes
from one disc to another and on comes the staple
(21:01):
to music, and Tracey Ala flips out and he says,
oh my god, what is this? And Joe Fisher explains
it to him, and he said, you know who I love?
This is Timberlake. He said, can I send this to him?
And Joe calls me from the car and says, you know,
would you be mad if I gave him this copy
so he could send it to Justin Timberlake? And I said, well,
(21:24):
the worst that can happen as we make a fan
out of Justin Timberlake. No, we'll give it to him.
So and Timberlake went crazy. So about a month later,
phone rings in the office Joe Fisher his office, and
this woman says, you don't know me, but my name
is Jessica Beale and I'm married to Justin Timberlake and
his birthday's coming up and in a month, and he
(21:47):
has everything, so I try to give him experiences. And
I wonder, we're gonna have a party for like forty
of our closest friends at our place in Montana, and
I wonder if this guy, Chris Staple consider coming and
singing at the party. So Stapleton calls me and says,
what do you think about this? And I said, you know, jeez,
(22:09):
if nothing else, you can tell your kids and your
grandkids that you were at this party one time. And
Harrison Ford was there, and who knows else who was there,
and you know they're going to fly you on their jet.
So he goes out there, and the story is that
Justin was so enamored by him that he was borderline
rude to the rest of the guests. He didn't even
talk to them. He just wanted to hang with Chris.
(22:30):
So they started this close relationship, and Justin said, I
want to produce you. Me and tim ba Lake are
going to take it to New York City and produce
something that's more blues oriented. Well that never came together,
but you know, we put together a pretty good campaign
to get Chris nominated for CMA, especially for an Album
(22:52):
of the Year, because we knew Nashville loved this record,
love this guy. And I think Robert Deaton's looking at
it's like, Okay, I don't don't really know what to
do with this because you don't have a hit, you know,
But the guy's got four nominations, so it's almost guaranteed
he's gonna get on the show. What are we going
to do? And Cindy Maybe who's our president, went to
Chris and said, do you think you could call Timberlake
(23:14):
and see if he do this. Chris said, well, I'll try.
So he called him and he said give me the
day and he said I'll be there, and the rest
of his history. I mean, it was just, you know,
from huge financial loss to a massive, massive examination of
(23:36):
overnight success. Yeah. I have never seen anything changed like
that in a single night. Then that performance and which
really he was and he is who he is, but
after that, it was he was freaking Chris Stapleton. Yeah,
Like that was the moment. I think the biggest moment
I've seen since living in Nashville, like a scene, if
(23:56):
I had to pick a singular moment, Yeah, I think
that's the biggest one I've seen. Yeah, and you know what,
it was culturally a huge moment because we don't do
things like this in Nashville. You know it prior to this,
at the risk of now, everyone's gonna get mad at me,
But prior to this, everything was more calculated, and it
(24:20):
was you know, it was put together, it was marketed
pretty well, and this was just something that happened totally organically.
And I'm sure someone's gonna, you know, listen to this
and call you and say, oh, I was part of
one in nineteen sixty seven, and it was just as big,
probably right, but to my eyes and ears, it was like, Okay,
this changes the game, This changes everything for everyone. And
(24:43):
you know, the funny thing was, starting the next week
and pretty much every day for the next three months,
we were auditioning mountain men in my office. I mean
massive guys that came out of the hills of somewhere
with long hair and scraggly beards, and they all sang
like monsters. I mean they were so good, you know,
(25:06):
but you know, you can't push that too hard. How
do you feel about that? Because you know an artist
will come and break through and then there are four
or five similar sounding and looking artists. Like, where's the
line for you when you're running a label of who
is going to be someone that has the long term
to them or who's just like the viral thing or
(25:27):
the you know, the kind of today thing. Well, if
it was just four or five, it could be tolerable.
But honestly, it's like more like fifty seventy five. I mean,
I have always made my way in this business by
looking for talent that is, talent that sounds really like
a product, looking for artists that are. You know they're
(25:48):
they're square pegs, and you know there's square pegs that
are close enough that now we do our job and
we cram that square peg into a round hole. That's
the most gratifying part of the job. But the problem
is and everyone after that as a copy And Keith
Urban was the classic example because I didn't sign Keith Urban.
(26:11):
He was in a band called The Ranch and they
were originally at Warner Brothers. Warner was not doing anything
with it. There was a head of business affairs at
Capital that was a big fan convinced Scott Hendricks, who
was then the head of Capital, to take over the
project for like next to no money in exchange for points,
(26:32):
and it didn't work. But another guy came in to
run the company and Keith announced that he wanted to
leave the band and have a solo career, and this
guy said, okay, go Maco Records. So they made their
first record and it wasn't happening. I didn't have any
real success at radio. The album was put out prematurely,
(26:54):
it wasn't selling anything. It did not look good for
this guy, Keith Urban, and I came in and I
went to two shows that he was doing and just
I had seen the ranch, but I was not ready
for what I saw with Keith Urban. And it was like,
holy cow, this is the gift from God. This is
this is the one that I'm just gonna roll the
(27:16):
dice on this guy and everything we do after this
point it's going to be built around Keith Urban. And
we did it. And I mean it was a lot
of work from a lot of people. We had to
sell so much money had been spent without any financial
reward that we sold about eight hundred thousand before we
even broke even that's crazy. Um. But the minute he
(27:38):
did break, everyone who came through the door was Keith Urban.
They had the same little you know, he had that
rhythmic tick to him that just made him so unique,
and all of a sudden, every kid in the world
was cutting his hair that way and was playing everything
came in and went anything. You know, it was like,
oh please. You know, sometimes the market can handle one copy,
(28:00):
maybe two, but not twenty. And you know that's why
that's how we get into trouble as music people. We
allow this, you know, same old, same old. You know,
we're just copies out there. You know, I'm not real
wild about what the music sounds like right now in general. Yeah,
And I think it's because there's there's a lot of
(28:22):
sameness out there, do you feel like Because I feel
the same way, and you talk about sameness, I feel
like everything is so everybody's looking at short term lines,
like how do we hit our quarter? Yeah, So therefore,
if you grab a coffee, it's gonna make you money today,
it may not make you money in a year. And
people are chasing tomorrow more than they're chasing three years
of a substantial project. Yeah, And I think what happens
(28:47):
is the music all starts to become the same sounding
because all the acts feel like they've gotta be the same,
and they're chasing other acts so they can get on
the radio. Well, I will tell you it's probably the
hardest thing to resist signing these people to come in
and are really good, but they're derivative of something right
before them. If it was derivative with something from twenty
(29:08):
thirty years earlier, that kind of turns me on. But
the you know, the copy thing does not. But you know,
I don't know why other labels or companies do that.
I do know why, but I'm not gonna say it here,
but I've always tried not to because you know, it's
a much rather reload with something that's exciting and try
(29:29):
to cram that square peg into another round hole. You know,
we talk about moments, I think another big moment was
Casey one of the Grammy for for Album of the Year. Yeah,
with Golden Hour, Like that's up there with one of
the bigger moments in the past five or six years.
(29:49):
It's massive. It's just just huge and one of the
most um one of the most difficult to figure out
scenario that I've ever been involved with, because she consistently
makes unbelievable music that doesn't really fit in anybody's box.
(30:10):
It's just great that it touches a lot of boxes,
and it's so great that if you play Casey music
for anyone anywhere, they respond positively. But as a real
challenge for people who market music to you know, take
that we haven't gotten Casey to where she deserves to be.
You know, there's there's a lot more work that needs
(30:31):
to be done. And you know, you could argue that
with the exception of some of the instrumentation on the
Golden Hour record, it's not that country you know, it's
it's it's a much more pleasant, pop, universal sounding piece
of music, but not really doesn't really fit anywhere. It
(30:52):
just fits everywhere. Does that make sense? Yeah? No, yes,
it fits nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Yeah,
I mean, you know, just some degree. Norah Jones was
doing that. When she first popped, it was like, okay,
what is this? Oh, I know this is great? You know.
Nora Jones came from inside EMI. I was running Capitol.
(31:12):
A kid that ran sales for Blue Note had been
somebody that worked for me years ago sent me a
CD with roths of Nora Jones and I just he said,
I think you're gonna like it because it's kind of country,
and I just was all over it. And the guy
that ran Blue Note, Bruce Lundball, who's one of my idols,
(31:33):
he had a famous death meeting where he said, I
want to know why the Nashville people are more excited
about this than we are, you know, And it was
because everyone in my office was seeing it as you know,
the second coming of something special. Boy when don't know
why it hit Oh yeah, And it kind of existed
for a second until it was a monster. Yeah. Because
(31:55):
and that's what happens with things with Casey too. I
would say, you know, she had created her own lane
and then her own and then everybody else just kind
of fell into her lane. Yeah, once he'll start falling
into your lane. I mean I was on pop radio
at the time and we were slamming this every hour.
Oh yeah, yeah. You know, our pop labels didn't really
want to work the record because it didn't fit anywhere.
(32:18):
Our company created a promotion department just to work Norah Jones.
That's the truth. Well what a financial gamble, and well
what a payoff? Oh yeah massive. I benefited from it too,
because they created this promotion department. They were all pros,
(32:39):
and I had really good almost pop country stuff over here.
So you know, while those guys weren't working on Nora Jones,
they worked on Keith Urpan and that developed a whole
different career for him too. And that probably wouldn't have
happened if I had to jam it through La or
(32:59):
New y Arc. You know. You know, we talk about
some of the artists that are are special and are
hard to at times market and Kip, who's yours kind
of falls at that like so good, so passionate, such
a devoted base. Ye, but I feel like that would
be at times you just want to bang your head
against the wall, like, look, how comes some of the
stuff works so quickly and then how comes some of
(33:20):
it just won't take at radio specifically? Yeah, Like what
what do you feel like to struggle is with Kip
at times? Well? I think honestly, the first album was
loaded with hit songs, and the second album was things
that resonated to Kip's audience specifically, but they weren't across
(33:42):
the board universal hit songs. And I think he's back
to I think the new stuff that we had that
you'll you're very soon. I think you'll be You'll be surprised.
You know, he's got such a unique thing and a
lot of artists, you know, have this. It's got such
a unique one on one relationship with his audience. He
(34:03):
can sell out anywhere he goes and they love every
word of every song he's done. But to get past
that point, to get those people that are more passive,
that's where success comes in. You know, I kind of
you know, brothers Osborn not terribly different, completely different kind
of artists, but not you know, you go to their shows,
(34:27):
their fans are like tearing the place down. It's one
of the best live shows I've ever seen, by the way,
And both those guys are fantastic live. And I've spent
time with Kip personally where you know, I do stand
up and so we'll talk about because Kip like really
cares about his audience. Yeah, and he's like, man, if
I see one sad face, it like, oh yeah, puts
me out. And I'm like, man, you gotta stare at foreheads. Yeah,
(34:47):
that's what I tell them. Like, they could be sad
and then not be because something you've done, right. They
could has something sad in their family, or they could
want to feel sad right like, and you're allowing them
to feel that. But that guy's pat. I say what
I say, I love Kip because he's so pat. Times
I want I want to, you know, smack him to
the head and he wanted to smack me upside the head.
But most of that's from love, Like I just you know,
I really respect that guy. This uh AEG company put
(35:11):
together massive concert in England called Country to Country, See
to See, And when I first heard about this, I
rolled my eyes and thought, Okay, this isn't gonna work,
because you know, I didn't. I never used the C
word when I went to Europe because their idea of
country is like box car Willie. And if you say
Keith Urban's country or Casey's country or Kipped country, you're
(35:33):
gonna get those kind of people, yea. And they're like, well,
this doesn't sound like boxcar Willie, you know, and and
all the regular people go, well, I thought country was
boxcar Willie. So I didn't come. So anyway, so they
have this first show. I didn't go, but it was
pretty successful. So the next year I came back and
Kip was on the bill and he was a nervous
(35:54):
wreck and he was wrecked because he thought these English
people are not going to relate to me at all.
They're just not And I'm scared to death. I said,
just do your thing, Just do your thing. I said,
I don't know that any of these people know who
the artists are. That's my take on this. And I
was right. They Kip went out and he was as
(36:15):
big a star as the Dixie Chicks because they didn't
really know any of them, and because he worked so
hard and because he was so desperate to get their
love and attention. He killed it and he's got a
really nice career going on in England, particularly because of
that first show, and he's continued to go back and
you know, I go over there now, people say what's
(36:36):
going on with Kip worn It's like, really, okay, all right, great,
it's fun to hear a lot of the artists that
you've helped break. And I'm gonna go back in time
a little bit to Rick Springfield. Oh yeah, who you know?
Jesse's Girl was the song that women. We still play
it on my show now. I mean, this is the
song that lives forever, you know. So how did you
(36:57):
get involved with Ray Springfield? Well? I got fired for
that for one day. You get fired, You got fired. Yes,
I was a pop promotion guy in my hometown of Cincinnatio,
Hio for RCA Records, and I was a kid and
I didn't get a lot of great direction in that job.
And I can say that now because the guy who
(37:18):
hired me, who didn't direct me really well, passed away
last year. So God bless Eddie mask Golla. But he
was not really given me the kind of direction I needed.
But so in that day, singles and albums would just
show up at my front door and there was no
there was no conference called, there was nothing. You know.
It was like, no, we don't really know anything about
this artist, but somebody signed them. So here it is,
(37:40):
go see what you can do with it. And I
get this. I get Rick Springfield album and single the
same day. I didn't know anything about it. Might just
put it on and Jesse's Girl just killed me. I thought,
my god, this is a huge pop song. And I
was going on the road to Columbus, Ohio the next
day and you know, like I said, no one was
(38:00):
talking about it. I was supposed to get another record
play by another artist who I won't mention here, but
it was not a very good record. And I went
up to Columbus, Ohio and I started playing this song
and three of the four stations I visited hit the
record added it. And you know, in the Midwest, they
don't add records early. So I came back so proud
(38:24):
of myself that I was breaking a record, only to
find out that I was being fired by my boss,
who was really angry because I did not get anything
on the priority record. And he just called me and said,
you know, once again, you a and are everything. You
can't take direction, you're not a team player. You're out
of here. You're out of here, You're done. And I had,
(38:46):
you know, like a one year old kid, and I'm
terrified that I'm out of work. And the next morning,
his assistant calls me and says, John wants to know
what you've got on this or that. And I said,
John fired me yesterday. And she said, oh, stop it.
She said, you know he fires people every day. I
said what she said, he does, and I said, I've
(39:07):
never been fired and she said, well now you have.
And uh, you know. That record went on to sell
I don't know how many millions, but it was. It
was a great thing for my ego and my self worth.
And you know, Rick and I were talking my kitchen
to his kitchen. I didn't have an office, so I
worked in my basement and my kitchen to his kitchen
every night, big plans and I did some cool things
(39:31):
I did. I did. I had a radio station in
Columbus where we broke the thing that the general manager
was on the border director for the Columbus Ohio Zoo
and it was like their second or third year in existence.
And he came to me and said, we've had so
much rain on weekends that our gate sales are awful,
(39:52):
and we have no money. There's no there's no know,
nothing in reserve here, and we're worried that our zoo
is going to go bankrupt. And he said, you got
this kid, Rick Springfield, right, And I said yeah. He said,
and he's on general hospital right and I said yeah.
He said do you think you can get him to
do anything for this? And I said, like what? And
we went for some drinks and we concocted this event,
(40:15):
and I knew he wouldn't. I couldn't afford to put
him up there and have him perform, and it just
wasn't ready, you know. But we brought him to the
Columbus Ohia Zoo and we pulled up a big stage
and charged ninety eight cents to get in. It was
w NCI ninety eight cent day, had the biggest grossing
day they've ever had. It was miles and miles of
(40:35):
thirteen and fourteen year old girls. I've never seen anything
like it in my life. If I had been around
for the Beatles, it probably would have been like that.
Rick goes up on the stage and he's trying to
talk and it just got the screaming was so loud
I couldn't hear him, and I was twenty feet from him,
and all of a sudden, the barriers, the security barriers
(40:55):
went down, and then the stage started rock and I
just rememb remember the cops going, that's it, we're shutting
it down. And they grab him and they're dragging him
off the stage and they're saying run, and I'm running
and Rick's five steps ahead of me, and we're all
running for this little administrative building, concrete, you know, nothing building,
(41:17):
and there's a wall of kids running after us, and
you know, this is not particularly a proud moment. But
out of nowhere, this tiny, little twelve year old girl
is a speedster and she breaks through the crowd. She's
going to catch Rick, I means, and if she slows
him down, we're all dead. We are dead. So I
(41:37):
just I'm running and I just cold cocked her with
an elbow right in the side of the head, knocked
her down into the mud, and we made it into
the building. Well. The interesting the zoo director was a
guy named Jack Hannah. Oh wow, Jack Hanna. Jack, He
was just Jack Hannah. Director. So we're all stuck in
this building while these kids are like trying to get
(41:59):
at us. It was like a zombie movie or something.
And I got to know Jack and his wife, and
there's a million pictures from that and to this day.
Jack and I have a bit of a relationship. And
if I need anything from Jungle Jack Hannah, I just
pick up the phone and say, Jack, would you do
something for me? He says, anything for you. So I've
put Jack in the little videos, and he's been in
(42:22):
Luke Brian campaigns, and you know, I run into him
every once in a while. Steve Hodges was working for me.
We were in the airport and all of a sudden
he walks past and he goes, Hey, there's that guy
from TV. I said, that's my friend Jack Hannah. He said,
your friend. I said, hey, Jack, and he came over
and we had breakfast together. And you know that's awesome. Yeah,
what a grace to all that. There's like four layers
(42:43):
of good story in that story. Yeah. So Rick and
I we fell out over the next two or three years.
I didn't let's just say we just fell out. I
didn't like the way he was handling his business. And
it didn't end well, and I've always felt bad. And
I've been just him live a couple of times, and
my friends always go, are you going to go backstage
(43:03):
and say hi? And I'd always say, nah, no, I
don't so. Uh. Mark Niederhauser and it works for Warner
used to work with me at our CEA. He was
in Denver, I think when when all this was coming down.
And last year at country radio seminar, Mark and I
went to lunch and Marks the kind of guy that
(43:25):
like stays in touch with everybody. Birthday, every birthday? Oh yeah,
you get a car? Do I call? Every birthday? Oh yeah?
And every artist that we ever worked with, he talks
to him on a regular basis. I just I don't
do that, you know. And I said, that's what about
Rick Springfield? You talk to him and he goes, yeah,
every once in a while, I said, how's he doing?
He goes, he seems okay. I said, well, I read
(43:46):
his book. You know, it's kind of sad and uh.
And I told Mark what happened between us and he said, well,
that's that's really that's that's not fair. It's really not
fair to you. And I said, yeah, I know, I
said to me a favorite, if you have information, give
it to me. So I reached out to him the
next day, send him along email and he bam came
(44:09):
right back to me, said, oh man, it's so good
to hear from you. You know everything you said here
just you know, I think about this all the time.
And we really did it, didn't we And it's so
great to hear it from you. And you know we
we haven't talked since then, but it was one big
email exchange and this is about a year ago. Wow. Yeah,
I had a great story. Yeah, Darius and Hoodie. I'm
(44:31):
a huge Hoodie fan. Yeah, I'm a huge Darius. Darius
is my first interview every when I was seventeen. Really,
I got Hoodie and I got Darius. I was a
diehard fan. And you know, Darius and I've done a
lot together since then, kind of because I wrote about
it my first book. I was like, this is the
first guy ever talked and I was so nervous talking
to him. I was shaking. He's so great. He grabbed
my hand. I was like, I got you. I was seventeen,
and he led me through this interview. And so Darius
(44:52):
hit me up about a month ago, was like, Hey,
my wife's writing a book, would you write a chapter
for me? So I wrote a thing for him, and
I was like, in exchange, I would like to hear
some new hoodie music and so and I don't listen
to music earlier ever from anyone, even my friends. It's
get slippery slope for me. So I just stay away
from it. But I'm such a Darius friend and fan
and hoodie fan. Yeah, and so he sent it. And
(45:13):
what I wonder is is the hoodie is it country?
Are you guys gonna try country? I don't think so.
I think if you based on the fact that if
you go back, if you took those hoodie records that
were big and you put them in the market, now
they would be country record absolutely. And so you know,
that's kind of how we started Darius a solo thing.
It took a while to get there. And there's a
(45:36):
somewhat of an interesting story on that too, if you
want to hear that. Yeah, so how it makes it
sound like I'm a genius again, but you know it's
a true, absolutely a true story. How did the Darius
solo stuff start? Well, I never liked the hoodie and
Blowfish Records, not even review. No. I moved to Nashville
in nineteen ninety had been on the pop side, and
(45:57):
I moved to here in nineteen ninety and immediately fell
in love with the art of the song and the
craft and the way people would lay out a lyrical landscape.
And it was just like, Wow, this is the way
it's supposed to be. And I was like a song snob.
I became a song snob real fast. And so I
(46:18):
didn't care for those hoodie records because I thought, lyrically
they were just pop records, you know. So But years
later I'm a Capitol and I had you know, I've
always had really bad work habits. I'm not the earliest
guy in the office. I don't come in too late,
but I'm you know, I'm not there at eight o'clock
in the morning, but I'm usually there at nine ten
(46:40):
o'clock at night. And when I was at Capitol, I
had a very prominent spot on the corner of West
End and Murphy Road, and people would go by and go, God,
I can see your fat your fat ass rolling around
in your chair up there. You just go home, you know.
So what it comes down to is I would get
home and I still could pretty much do this. I
(47:02):
get home and my wife has either gone to bed
or going to bed. She's eaten by herself. Again. I'm sorry,
and I haven't eaten anything, and I'm gonna go to
bed though, because I'm going to get up in the
morning and go back to work. So I would sit
in front of the TV with the bowls cheerios and
I did it last night, and you know, bowl of cheerios,
and then I turn on the TV, but I can't
(47:24):
commit to anything because I'm only going to spend fifteen
or twenty minutes in front of it. So I would
just slip through the channel. So I don't know what
year this was, so five, two thousand and five something
like that. I would slip through the channel and there
was a high definition concert put on one of the channels,
and it was it's all the same ones all the time.
It was Dave Thomas, it was Peter Frampton, it was
(47:45):
Mickey Thomas, and it was Hoodie and a Blowfish, and
there were others, but those are the ones that I
remember seeing all the time. Dave Matthews band and every
time I see the Hoodie and the Blowfish things. I
would think, oh, I'd never liked this band, but you
know what, that guy this is inappropriate. But I'd think
to myself, that black guy, he phrases like a country singer.
(48:09):
And so, you know, two weeks later, i'd be flipping
through again. There would be saying, show it's a different song.
I think, oh, man, he phrases like a country singer.
So I had this weird idea that I was gonna,
you know, nobody had heard from these guys forever as
far as I knew. I was gonna try to find
Darius Rucker and see what he was all about. But
I never did it because I was busy and it
was you know, it was a pipe dream. It didn't
(48:29):
really make sense. End up going to dinner with Doc McGee,
the famous manager who managed one of my artists at
the time, and when we sit down, Doc starts bragging
about and a Blowfish tour tickets, and I said, what
do you have to do with him? He said, I
manage him, and I said I didn't know this, And
I tell the story about the Cheerios about and he says,
(48:51):
he says, you should make a country record with him,
and I said, no, that's why I'm telling you this.
And Doc's looking at me. He was like, yeah, yeah,
he'd love that. But I could hell in his eyes
at Doc thought, no, he's just kidding me. So we
get our cars out of LA and I said, Doc,
don't forget about Darius. He goes, no, I'll call him.
Well months go by, nothing, and every I talked to
Doc every every week and I'd say, Doc, what about Darius.
(49:13):
He goes, oh, I just got off the phone them.
I forgot. It's like you forgot. So weeks later, I
get a call from Doc and he says, hey, you
got somebody wants to talk to you. And it's Darius
and he goes, hey, man, I hear you're trying to
get a hold of me. And I said, yeah, I'd
very much like to meet with you. I'll come to you.
Just tell me. When he says, no, I'll come to
you tomorrow. Tomorrow, Okay, can we go to dinner tomorrow?
(49:35):
So he flies to Nashville from Charleston and we go
to dinner at rus Chriss and I loved him. I
just fell in love with him. I had no idea
what what his sensibilities were, but we started talking about
country music. And he started telling me about his experience
with it. And Darius didn't know his father, and you know,
(49:57):
he has a single mom and some brothers and sisters.
And there was an older gentleman across the street that
kind of you know, took a special role in Darius's
life and in his heart. He called him Uncle Charlie,
I think, and he would listen to country. He'd listen
to the Opry on the radio on the front porch.
Darius would go over there as a little kid and
(50:17):
he'd get up on Uncle Charlie's lap and they listened
to the opry. So Darius had a sense of this
that surprised me to death. Let me talk about more
and more and more, and he said, oh man, my
brothers and sisters, they used to make fun of me
because I would go around the house singing or you
know Web Pierce songs. And my friends would make fun
of me because you know, I knew mel Tillis songs.
(50:38):
And I said, that is wild. And so we start
talking about making this record, and he came in. He
had been thinking about this for so long. He had
a paper bag full of cassettes and on there were
scratch demos of these country songs that he had been
writing inspired by the experience with Uncle Charlie and the opry,
(51:01):
and he planned for me and they were they were
one of two things. They were either kachunka chun Ka
Chong Texas two Steps songs, yeah, or they were tearing
my beer vern gosd and ballads. And I just kept saying, ter,
this won't work, and he went, what do you mean, man,
it's country music. I said, well, it's not really. If
I mean, it's not what's on the radio, and if
(51:22):
that's what we're trying to do, it's really So we
went around around we you know, it was I didn't
have any answers. I was just in love with this guy,
and you know, I will admit that the fact that
he was an African American was more than a little
bit interesting to me. But as I got to know him,
(51:42):
I pushed back on that really hard because the press
when when we broke him, the press we're saying, how
does it feel to be the first guy to break
an African American in country? Beyond say, you know what
I mean, the fact that he's an African American is
pretty self evident. But it really diminishes his talent. And
I hate to even talk about this now. I was
aware of it when I started this, but it's not
(52:05):
about that for me anymore. It's about this guy with
the most unique voice at this great phrasing and a
big laugh and a big smile and a warm heart
and you know. Anyway, so we got to the point,
and along the way we talked to a bunch of
producers and then he fell in with Frank Rogers and
he kind of fell in love with Frank, And between
(52:26):
Frank and Darius and I, we just sort of talked
us through and what we came to was the music
shouldn't be that different than Hoodie and a blowfish, but
it needs to say something. You can't just say hold
my hand, hold my hand, hold my hand. You got
to lay out some kind of a lyrical landscape, at
least in the verses. And you know, it took a
(52:47):
while for Darius to get that, but with Frank's guidance,
and Frank was, you know, also a successful songwriter, pretty
quickly it came together. And you know we had four
number ones off that first record. That's pretty big. Yeah. Yeah,
when he I did this little thing with my staff
every year, where the artists come and they just play
for us, and it's very inside. There's no plus ones.
(53:10):
My wife's never been. It really bothers her that she's
never seen this special thing. But Darius came for the
first time. He was new to us, and he got
up and did this song called don't Think I Don't
Think About It, and the room was in tears. It
was just in tears, and it was like, holy cow,
this is gonna be massive. And then you know, I
(53:31):
did the I don't think it's strong enough. I love
that song, but I don't think it's strong enough for
a new guy who forget the fact that you're African American.
The biggest thing we're gonna have problems with is you
were the lead singer band that was so big that
you're a joke, and we've got to overcome the joke
part of it. And I don't know that this song
(53:52):
is going to be strong enough to do that. And
he went, okay, man, and then we cut a whole
bunch more, and then we came back six months later
and I said, don't kill me, but I think we
should leave with don't I Don't Think about It? And
he said, you know what, I'm not mad at all
because because of that extra effort and that extra pressure,
we made this record so much better. Yeah, we wouldn't
(54:13):
have had these other four songs if you didn't make
me go back. So I feel less guilty about it.
We have about five minutes left. I want to run
through its something because I mean, we could do this
for three hours. I feel like, Um, Eric Church, how
does he not get nominated for Entertainer of the Year.
You know, I don't know. I mean, he doesn't does
not win it. I mean, it's all it's the same
(54:34):
thing back. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you know,
the Entertainer of the Year, at least for the CMA
is so Nashville centric and ACM's becoming that way too. Um.
And Eric's never been one to play the game. He
doesn't really go out and show his face and hang
out and events. And you know, he does the t J.
Martell wine dinner because he's into wine, and he has
(54:56):
a golf tournament on his own, but he doesn't you know,
Eric is Eric. He's an artist, and he only does
what he wants to do and what he wants to respect.
He and Casey are very similar in that there's no
there's no pretense whatsoever, there's no compromise between either one
of them. And I think that hurts him in that sense,
(55:17):
and he knows it. We've talked about it, and you know,
he looks at me like, yeah, well, you need to
market me, you need to market me around me. So
but you're right, it's unbelievable, four hours of just killer stuff,
night after night after night. Sam Hunt, Yeah, you know,
(55:41):
he he's threatening to deliver new music in two weeks. Threatening. Well,
I said this because I've been through this so many times.
And you know, the truth is, Sam had turned out
to be much more of an artist than I ever
anticipated when we signed him based on what he was doing,
(56:02):
which was very pop and contemporary pop music influence. I thought,
all right, you know, he's one of those guys. He's
really good at it, but he's one of those guys.
And but the truth is, once he had that big
success with that first record, he said several times quietly,
I don't want to repeat myself. I don't want to
do the same thing again. And if I think that
(56:25):
if he could make a really really country record, he
would do it. But I think he's afraid to do
that too, and so we'll see. I don't know he
he loves. I've heard a little bit of two songs
just and they're really not finished. They're just like choruses
that he's written. But you know, this is a guy
who loves Diamond Rio. There's a guy who loves John
(56:47):
Michael Montgomery. He knows this stuff inside. Now. He's not
a pop music carpetbagger. He's the real deal. He just
like a lot of young people, he grew up a
lot of influences and they they're coming through And that
isn't that wonderful? Isn't that what makes this go around? Yeah?
You know, I have a bunch of friends. I've been
writing with them over the past few months. Well that's
(57:10):
good to hear alone. Yeah, you know, that's good to hear.
Like I kind on a plane. I went to the
Grammys and I came back and I got on this
plane and he and his wife got on there, sitting
right across from me. I'm thinking, oh my gosh, this
is perfect, be a chance for me to talk to him.
Immediately he falls asleep, and then we get off the
plane and we are legitimately standing trying to talk to
(57:34):
each other right off in the gate, and I got
overrun by people, people that you know, I just hadn't
seen you a long time, and he said, you know,
I'll see you downstairs by baggage. And we just never thought, no,
I'll end on this one. I'm doing celebrity family food
and I took Lauren and John party with me. So
(57:55):
it's me. Yeah, heard a little bit about that both
dear friends, aren't they awesome? And we go, but John's
about to have new music finally, Yeah, and it's it's awesome. Yeah,
And you talk about a guy that you know. He
he didn't want to repeat himself either, and he kept
saying all along, it's gonna be real country. I hope
you still like me. Gonna be real country. And it is.
(58:16):
And you know when when when we signed him, a
lot of people in town and a lot of people
on my own staff rolled their eyes and said, I
don't know what you're doing here. He's so country, it's
so traditional. I don't know what you're doing. And I
would just smile and say, that's why I did it.
And you know, I had one major radio consultants say
to me when I played him in the demos. He said,
I don't know what you're doing here. That guy's voice
(58:37):
is annoying. And he said, you know it sounds it
sounds terrible, And I said, his voice is picatris. And
why I sat do because you know you'll hear him,
you'll know right away who he is. Sink. Yeah, listen,
we're out of time. I want to say thanks. I
know you got a lot of things. I tried I
google j net Worth to see if they'd pop up,
just see how rich If you're the richest person to
come in here, it doesn't show up. That's because I
(58:59):
have no money, but the most influential person we've had
in here. So hey, thanks for I really appreciate you
making time to come over and do this. And we've
threatened to get together and we still need to do that.
But you know you're just you're too big time now.
It's hard to you get overrun anytime we go anywhere.
I'm a guy from Ohio, that is all I am.
Episode one eighty eight when Mike Dungan, Thanks, Mike, you're
(59:20):
one hundred and eighty seven people more important than me,
less important. You're the most
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