May 5, 2020 • 45 mins
Wells meets a lot of people that started on a totally different path than what made them famous, and Adam Doleac is no different.
We hear the story of how he transitioned from a career as an athlete into a huge country star with a ton of songwriting credits.
Adam never expected to leave his hometown… and we hear the story of how everything changed and what brought him to Nashville.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is the Wells Cast with Wells Atoms and I
Heart Radio Podcast. Welcome back into the Wells Cast. I'm
I'm the guy whose name is on the show. I
don't even how to intro these things anymore, because, you
know what, Corona. I'm blaming everything on Corona now. The
(00:23):
fact that I'm not witty and interesting and can't come
up with cool intros into my show. Guess what it's
because of the wu Han virus COVID nineteen. The fact
that I can't perform adequately in the bed COVID nineteen,
the fact that I can't lose weight COVID nineteen, the
fact that my father doesn't respect my work COVID night Dead.
(00:46):
Does anyone else think that alcohol doesn't work on them anymore?
I've just reached a point I feel like in my
in my quarantine, where I just don't think alcohol works anymore.
My body is just become used to it. It's just
like a part of it's daily routine. My liver is like,
oh you gotta you're drinking again. Oh cool, I didn't
see that one coming. It's only noon yesterday you started
(01:09):
at ten am. Good for you. I'm starting to lose it.
A little bit. Thank God for this show gives me
something to do. And luckily I'm doing this show early
enough in the day where I haven't started drinking. But
you know what, maybe this show will be better if
I just got cocked on some BlackBerry brandy and said,
you know what, let's roll. Who knows? Probably not, though
I started doing TikTok's that's a thing. Am I too
(01:32):
old for it? Probably? Am I gonna do it? Why not?
Hope everyone got that stimulus check in. Here's the thing.
You know. I'll tell you who deserves this stimulus check.
My liver, That's who deserves it. It's been working over time.
Everything else is just taking it off. You know, my
feet aren't going to work because we're not walking anywhere.
My hair is not going to work because guess what,
(01:52):
haven't showered in a couple of weeks. My livers like
come home from a long day, Jesus Christ. Guys working
double shifts over and over again, and I'm losing my mind. Feater, like, really,
I haven't seen work in weeks. I don't know. Excited
about today's show. You know, you have all these guests
that kind of find these weird routes to success. The
common denominator of a lot of our guests are they're
(02:15):
really good at something else, and then realized that although
that something else came easy to them or they worked
hard on it, it wasn't the thing that drove them
to happiness. And everyone's heard that stupid line, you know,
if you do what you love, you'll never work a
day in your life. It's very true, especially for today's guests.
(02:35):
I mean, this guy started as a sports star. He
had his pick of playing collegiate golf or baseball, decided
to go play baseball, went to the University of Southern Mississippi,
which is a great baseball school. By the way, He
actually played in the College World Series back in two
thousand nine. Then you know what he was like, You know,
I'm a guitar. So he picked up a guitar, taught
(02:58):
himself how to play it, and then pivoted to become
a really well known country singer towards the likes of
Carrie Underwood, Chris Young, Kane Brown written songs for Darius Rucker,
Hoodie and the Blowfish. Today in the Wells cast, we're
gonna hear a very cool story from Adam Doleac so
stick around. This is one you are not going to
(03:19):
want to miss. All right, Welcome back to the Wells Cast.
Very excited to have on the show, Adam doleach Arer Man,
(03:42):
I'm doing great. How are you doing, buddy, I'm doing good.
I mean, I guess I'm doing as good as you
can do during these crazy times. How is your quarantine going?
Like you said, it's definitely crazy times. I wish I
was there next to you in the studio doing this,
doing this with you. But you know, I'm pretty lucky.
I think things that and done. I'm you know, being
a songwriter. Um. Obviously we lost the ability to go
(04:05):
play live shows, which is brutal, but um, I'm still
able to write. I've been writing songs every single day
using Zoom or FaceTime or whatever it might be. Um,
and you know, I still get to make music and
record music and all that stuff. So my life hasn't
changed as much as a lot of people's has. Um,
and we're just trying to find the positives in it.
I think, uh, somebody like myself. People don't realize, but
(04:27):
like I was home one weekend total last year out
of out of the fifty two of them. I was
there for one, So like me and my girlfriend and
I have gotten to spend a lot of time we
normally wouldn't in the same same with my family. I'm
actually down here in Mississippi with my my mom and
dad right now, so that's been good. I was talking
about it with my brother because my brother and I
both love going to see live shows and experience live music.
(04:51):
And really, I mean, this is hard on everybody, but
this is really hitting musicians hard. I mean, yes, you
make a good amount of money, you know, with your
published deal, and that's awesome, but like a lot of
musicians make their money hitting the pavement. It's selling merch
and all those live shows. How long until like you're
(05:11):
gonna be like, dude, We've got to get back to work.
Oh dude, I'm there now. I'm like, I mean, like,
my girlfriend played a song at the day on the
radio and it was a live version of the song,
and I was like, you gotta turn that off. You
gotta turn it off right now. It's just killing me.
I want to go play a live show right now.
I don't know. We're hearing a lot of absurd rumors,
you know, I've heard a lot of things from you know,
(05:32):
like fall of one. I don't think it'll be that long,
but obviously it's gonna be one of the last things
to get reinstated, this gathering of large people at concerts,
you know, so we're all think everybody is just kind
of optimistic for sometime this fall, September, October somewhere in there.
But I think as far as the level of hey,
we gotta it's time, it's there, you know. And what
(05:53):
people don't realize is, sure it sucks for me as
an artist, but take your Jason Aldan's or Kenny Chesney's.
You know, they've got a hundred people working for them
on any given day, and their crews and their bands,
and it really trickles all the way down so much
further than what what people see. And that's the that's
the hardest part. You know, people who aren't the musicians,
people who are going to these shows, we're all like
(06:15):
losing our minds and we need that, you know, we
need that feeling of live music and that togetherness that
you get when you go to a show. So hopefully
it'll be back to normal sooner rather than later. I mean,
it's cool to see all these musicians like doing Instagram
lives and performing, and I guess this is kind of
the same thing of people getting to listen to this
show while they can't go see live music and and
(06:38):
hear a musicians stories. But I gotta get out and
see a live show, and I just hope it happens
sooner rather than later. I think this whole quarantine process
has been I don't think anyone's gonna come out the
other side of it the same exact person they were
when it started, you know. I think people are finding
kind of new ways and even probably better ways to
do things having to be forced to do it differently.
(06:59):
But the one like kind of silver lining I feel
about that, and the live music is, like you say,
it's such a release and a relief to go, you know,
be around a group of people and singing at the
top of your lungs. Being a show. I don't think
that there actually is a replacement for that. You know,
no matter how long we're quarantine or whatever, you can
actually find something that would eventually take its place, you know.
(07:20):
I think it's just gonna be a matter of time too.
We can get back, but when it does, it's just
gonna be we may be playing six shows a week,
trying to keep up with the schedule, everything getting canceled,
but we're I think everybody's okay with that. You know
your EP Famous just dropped. Congratulations. By the way, Was
there a thought process of this is a good time
to drop a record because everyone's just stuck and just
(07:42):
kind of absorbing as much media as possible, or was
the thought I don't know if this is a great
time because you can't tour right behind it. What's the
business acumen going into that? Well, for us, it wasn't. Actually,
there was no strategy involved before this even happened. This
was kind of the plan the timeline of when this
was gonna come out anyway a um, And then once
this all kind of happened, we all looked at it
(08:04):
and said, well, should we keep it, should we keep
the release coming out? Should we move it till later
when this is done? You know? What should we do?
And I think I don't think this is ideal to
drop music for anybody, you know, in the middle of
something so crazy. But it in a in a time
where everything is shut down, streaming and digital and you know,
podcasts and everything is not and I think people are
(08:24):
definitely painting a lot of attention to their phones and
computers and everything right now, so I think it's, you know,
a good time to drop anything. But this was just
honestly the plan from the whole time, and luckily we
didn't have to deviate from that. I will say I was,
you know, you get to looking at the track listing
and some of these songs are four years old and
some of them are eight months old, and so they
(08:45):
all kind of come together, and I started looking at
the track listing and I ended up putting an EP
out with a song called solo and says I don't
want to be solo. And then the next song on
the EP is I Choose Only and I'm like you
you can't play it? Like, how in the world does
this happen in the middle of a quarantine famous the
(09:08):
single is the first two lines or must have been
living under a rock, must not left the house for
a couple of years. I'm just like, this is a
this is a quarantine EP. Yeah, you manifested this. You're
the reason why we're on my fall. I was just
looking at Spotify numbers and Famus has over twenty four
million spins, So way to go, dude, I saw the video.
(09:31):
Why did you choose? And And don't get me wrong,
because I love them and I served him drinks in
paradise and I helped console his broken heart. But why
did you choose to have Coulton on your video? You know,
I actually learned that about you this morning, that you know,
I actually didn't. I knew you from Lightning One in
Nashville and that kind of world, and I did not
(09:52):
know you were on The Bachelor. So I learned that
this morning when I was kind of looking into it.
But Colton and Cassie it was more of they kind
of chose me, other than me choosing them. I have
never been a hardcore watcher of the of the show. Um.
And I just signed my first record deal with Sony
in October of last year. So Famous came out January
of last year, a little over a year ago. And
(10:13):
so as an independent artist, when you put a new
new song out and somebody like Colton and Cassie with
millions of followers, they had reposted a video and they
said they had their their phone held up on a
road trip to ask and they're just kind of bobbing
their head and they go we don't know the words
of this song yet, but we love it. And they
posted on Instagram and then you know, obviously you know,
(10:35):
my friends text me and they're like, guess who just
posted your song? And I, honestly, just being truthful, did
not know. Even when I looked him up, I was like, well,
that's great, but who already you know? I didn't know,
and so I sent him a message on Instagram and
I was just I just said, hey, thanks so much
for sharing the music. And we had a remix coming
out of Famous shortly after that, so I want to
(10:56):
send him that too. We just kind of kept in
touch for the next six month or so, and like
you said, the song kind of took off and did
well enough for me to make a video for it.
So I reached out and said, hey, y'all were the
first famous people to post about Famous WHI y'all want
to be in the which y'all want to be in
the video? I mean, well as you would have thought,
you would have thought that I was letting them do. So,
(11:16):
I mean they were like, absolutely, we want to be
in the video, and they flew down and I think
learning from them and they've become really good friends of
mine now and I love them and kind of sense
talking to them because they met in such a kind
of a weird way, like on a show or whatever,
and kind of a cliche way. They do these They
do this thing where they play out scenarios in their
(11:38):
heads where they imagine different ways they could have met.
And so I think they heard that song is like
kind of their song from the get go, and then
the video treatment was them meeting in a supermarket aisle
and it was kind of one of these things that
they had already imagined in their heads, and I think
it all just lined up, and I'm glad it did.
Though I love those two. Well, you should start watching
(12:00):
The Bachelor of the Batch Threat because they have country
stars play at dates all the time. So we gotta
get you on WATA fiasco this year, I actually had
a I had a bit of an inside track that
that was gonna happen from Bolton, so I kind of
I was paying attention to a look closely to that one.
I feel bad for Chase, but someone had called me
up and was like, Hey, what's gonna happen? I would
(12:22):
have said, there is no way, God God's Green Earth
that he isn't going to play the day with his
like ex girlfriend. They're like, it's just never going to happen.
So I wouldn't feel too bad for Chase, you know
what they if they want to have me come play
on the show and bring one of my ex girlfriends,
I'll deal with it. Just let me play the song
and front of millions of people will be good to go. Yeah,
(12:42):
I'm really excited to have you on the show today.
I don't know if anyone told you kind of the
idea behind this show, but I'm obsessed about origin stories
and where people came from. I think it's cool that
you have a blue check mark and millions of people
you know, stream your song now, but I want to
find out how you got to this place. And everyone's
story is different, and I was doing a little bit
(13:03):
of background research on you, and I don't know if
I would say that, like being a country music star
was what you set out to be when you left
for college. So if you don't mind, can we go
back to your hometown and start from there? Yeah? And
you're absolutely right, you know. I I tell people I'm
(13:26):
not the kid that was three years old with a
microphone in his hand. It always knew he wanted to
be a country music singer, you know. But yeah, I
grew up in Hattisburg, Mississippi. I had two really great parents.
I still have those parents. I'm at their house right now,
and I attribute a lot of who I am and
what I turned out to be to them. I think
the best thing you can have in the world when
you when you're born into its two good parents. And
so I grew up. You know, Dad was the soccer coach,
(13:48):
and I played literally every sport um all the way
down to I even found a way to play ice
hockey in Mississippi. Somehow, I don't know. I don't know
how that happened, but I did that. And when I
was about out twelve years old, I decided I wanted
to play golf in college. From that point on, I quit.
I was always kind of on the all star teams
and whatnot for baseball, um, and it was it was
(14:11):
the time for summer ball for baseball. When I was
about to be thirteen, I think that I quit. Um.
I said, you know what, I'm gonna play golf. And
I kept doing that. So me and my dad would
travel every weekend playing different tournaments and you know, working
towards that goal of playing golf in college, and that
ended up happening. I got a full ride. Actually, they
were paying me to go to college extra four a
(14:32):
month to go to Delta State, which is in North Mississippi,
pretty close to Old Miss, where you Actually, I'm pretty
sure it's just assumed that there's so little to do
at Delta State that you have to either drive to
Old Miss or Mississippi State to do anything. You know. Yeah,
I knew a bunch of Delta State dudes because they'd
come and they hang out our fraud parties and stuff.
So yeah, I bet that's what I would have died
(14:52):
if I had gone there. And y'all's girls ever at
Old Miss look a lot better than Delta State girls too,
I imagine. But honestly, that's what I thought. I was excited.
I had. I kind of verbally committed to this coach.
I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna go play golf. That's great,
and keep going through high school. I was playing basketball
and golf through high school, and so I remember my
senior year, I was at a smaller school. I graduated
(15:13):
with forty seven people. That's how small my school was
and that was our biggest class yet. Um So, it
was my senior year and it was the day of
the first baseball game, and I hadn't played since I
was twelve. And my friends come up to me. They're
trying to talk me in the plane. They're like, we
have a good team this year, we just need one
more guy. And so I remember vividly, I walked off
the basketball court from practice into a batting cage, hit
(15:36):
a bucket of balls. I walked onto the field at
third base, builded a bucket of balls, and then started
in a baseball game that night. Jesus and I and
I thought that'll be fun. You know what, why not?
You know, I got one more year high school, might
as well play baseball, And man ended up having a
like a good year. I hit over four hundred and
I was left handed in six four and Southern Miss
(15:58):
was in the same town is my high school, and
they were the only school that even knew that I
played baseball, because I didn't until then. And after the year,
my coach walked up to me and goes, Southern Miss
offered you a baseball scholarship, until which I responded, shut up.
I literally said, shut up. I was like, no that,
I thought he was kidding. Totally thought he was kidding.
And because they had come to a game two weeks
(16:20):
later or two weeks before, and I literally I struck
out three times in a row, all on the same pitch.
But I just looked like an idiot. I mean, I
was like, well, they're there. Theyre went that. So they
offered me a scholarship. And I've learned about myself. I've
always felt I was supposed to do, like something bigger
than a normal job. I don't know how to explain it,
but I've always felt I go with my gut a lot.
(16:40):
And so I got offered this baseball scholarship. And I said, well,
I just played baseball for one year and Southern Miss
was top in the country. So I said, I I
could play golf till I'm ninety five years old, can
build a simulation in my garage as you did. Um,
I said, I'm gonna go play baseball, and so I did.
Called the golf coach said, never mind a playing base all.
He said, you played baseball. I said, well not really.
(17:02):
It's a long story, but you know, ended up passing
on it. And that's kind of how the whole music
thing started, you know. That. That's when I first got
introduced to guitars and uh songs. And when I went
to Southern miss all my roommates played guitars like baseball
players due to try to get girls, you know, And
they were all playing a bunch of Gavin DeGraw and
(17:25):
I remember amos Lee was my first favorite vocal I've
ever heard. I just remember saying, who is that? And
they they played a lot of that, and so, um,
I've been a drum I had a drum set when
I was too. My dad was a drummer, my older
brother was a drummer, and so I've always loved music.
But that's when I first started learning songs on guitars
(17:45):
and kind of trying to. I would turn amous Lee
up really loud and try to sing along with with
them and sound semi like him just a little bit,
you know. Um, And that's kind of where it all started.
But until then, I had never touched a guitar, and
we played. Three years after taking that scholarship, I was
walking into the College World Series at Rosenblat and so
I got to play in the College World Series and
again had never watched it. On TV, So I didn't
(18:08):
know what I was. I didn't know what I was
walking into when I when I when you walk in,
there's thirty thousand people screaming at you, and you're just like,
you know, it's not a feeling that you soon forget.
And I think that's kind of what that motivation for music,
to play in front of these huge crowds. That feeling
is something that's always stuck with me. From there, I
had still not decided to music at all. I was
(18:28):
just this guy that played at the house and I
wanted to now play professional baseball. Um, so I wouldn't.
I wouldn't play in the cape Cod League. I know,
I probably. I think there's probably twenty five people on
my cape Cod team. I think twenty three of them
are now studs in the MLB. I mean, like everybody
was so good. Yeah, I remember I was an alternate
(18:50):
for cape Cod, so I was like, was almost good
enough to go play a cape Cod And somebody got
hurt and they called me up a month through uh
the season, and so I hadn't touched the baller that
in a month. And I show up at the Cave
Cord and the first person I see I don't know
if you keep up with baseball much, but George Springer
on the astros Um first person I see as George Springer.
He walks up and he's holding you know how people
(19:11):
that are really really jagged have a gallon of water
in their hands at all times. They just walk around
with water. He walks up with the gallon of water,
and he's got sixteen ABS and he's just taking VP
with no shirt on, and every ball is just way
over the fence. It's just waken best athlete I've ever
seen like in person. And so I had to, Uh,
I had to stay up all night in the Batten
(19:32):
cage and catch up overnight when I went up there.
But but yeah, I wanted to do that. I wanted
to play professionally, and my junior year I had to
really I think that was my best year. Had some
offers to go in the draft, ended up coming back
my senior year and not taking that. My senior year,
I had a good year, not as good as my
junior year, and still had some offers, ended up turning
that down. And I kind of started loving music at
this point. And it was actually my teammates that made
(19:54):
me play a show in front of people for the
first time, they would hear me singing around the house.
So my my thing is from the first time I've
ever saying even when I didn't it was probably very bad.
The one comment I always got was, hey, you have
a really unique voice, and you have a really cool voice.
And so that's kind of what I hung onto in
this environment of five million male guys trying to be
(20:16):
country stars. I said, well, you you gotta have something
that people can latch onto because I've always loved like,
John Mayer is one of my favorites, and he can
sing the phone Book and you know, it was John Mayer,
and I think that's important to have and I kind
of felt like I had that. So that's kind of
where the it started. But they said that to me,
They go, you need to sing in front of people,
and I'm like, absolutely not. I'm not singing in front
(20:37):
of that's terrifying. I'm not doing that. And so sure
enough they went around town and book shows for me
at these little bars and had his bird. The first
place I ever played was called Shuckers. It was an
oyster bar. It held probably two people, and like six
hundred people showed up because I had fans from the
baseball world, you know, so they were really just coming
(20:58):
because they knew me from baseball. But they showed up
and I sang probably terribly, but it was really fun
and they paid me a lot of money after the show,
and I don't know, I kind of got addicted. And
so by the time I ended up having to choose
between moving in Nashville or uh, trying to go play
in the minor leagues, which I was kind of looking
at them both as minor leagues. You know, music has
its minor leagues, just like baseball, and you know, I
(21:20):
have a business degree, and it just made more sense
for me to be like, Okay, I can work this
on my own in Nashville. I can go actually work
at this and see what happened. So that's what I did.
Thirty minutes later of the story, it's it's a weird
road to get to Nashville for me, but I ended
up getting there. It's funny I was doing this in
the intro. You know, we've interviewed I don't know thirty
people and it's there's a common denominator between really successful people,
(21:43):
and that is it wasn't like I came out of
the womb, was like, I know, I want to be
that thing. It's that they're good at a lot of things.
And then the thing that they probably should have done,
they decided not to do it because they didn't bring
them as much joy as the thing that they ended
up becoming really success full at, which sounds exactly like
what you're saying. I want to rewind the reels a
(22:04):
little bit because I am kind of blown away by
this story because because okay, so you you seem like,
and don't take this as a slight to you, but
you seem like the guy that's fucking good at everything.
You're that guy. And you know what, I played ball
in college. I know those guys. I love those guys.
(22:25):
But also you're a little annoying, Okay, just right off
the bat. Yeah, So I want to know how good
of a golf are because I'm a golfer too. Were
you a scratch golfer in high school? Yeah? I was.
My best round I think was a sixty seven. So
I would I would shoot you know, under far here
and there. I was never the most consistent golfer. I
would also I would shoot tournaments on the weekends. I
(22:47):
would go seventy nine. You know it was it was
you know, you never really knew what you're gonna get
with me, But yeah, I was good at one point.
I'm a lefty too, so that short game was my
you know, get out of trouble in short game, where
my bread and butter. Yeah you're Phil, Yes, he was
my idol. Yeah, you're a great golfer. You get an
offer to go play collegiate golf. You hadn't picked up
(23:09):
a baseball bat or thrown a baseball since you were
twelve years old. You go play that senior year season.
You get offered the Southern miss scholarship was the Delta
State A d Like, screw you, dude, I offered you
this like years ago. You know what he probably was.
(23:29):
I remember called. I remember calling, and I remember thinking
that he he took it really well, like if he
was feeling that way, then he didn't show me that,
which was nice of him, because I'm sure he was.
Because I was. I was the the freshman or the
senior in high school that they that came in and
they did the whole They showed me all the cool
(23:51):
fields to drink in at Delta State. Yeah, I mean
they really gave me the tour, and they even said,
we've never offered a freshman this much money. And they
did the whole, the whole spill, and it was a
big thing for them, and I did. I called back
a year later and said, you know what, thanks but
no thanks, and it was it was an awkward phone call,
but he did. He took it really well. How do
(24:12):
your parents react to this? You know what? I asked
myself this question all the time, Like, my parents have
done the same thing since they were My dad's been
working at the electrical company that his dad started since
he was like eight years old his whole life, and
my mom worked as a typewriter in the courtroom since
she was like sixteen years old. The whold their whole life,
(24:32):
which is probably why I'm so erratic with what I
tried to figure out what to do. But they also
took it well. I have really great parents. I can't
I didn't realize in the moment how crazy I must
have sounded by First of all, switching from a full
ride to hey, you don't have to pay for my
college to the baseball scholarship was good, but it wasn't
a full ride, and um, I switched that they handled
(24:56):
it really well. Um. I had worked at my dad's
electrical company every winter or summer break i've had, so
I'm I'm kind of a hack electrician, Like if you
had something broken, I could probably fix it, um so.
And it was kind of, you know, a little bit
expected that I would stay in my hometown and go
work at the electrical company after I finished baseball if
(25:17):
if professionally didn't work out, and so after after professionally
didn't work out, I did work there for probably half
a year, and then I walked into my dad's office
and said, Hey, Dad, I think I would move to Nashville.
Both my parents thought i'd be back home in a
year for sure. I mean that my mom was like,
you'll be back in a year. I'm not worried about it. Um,
(25:37):
But that is a question I ask all the time.
It's like, Wow, my parents have handled this really really well.
I mean they could have. They really could have gone
off the deep end and just told me I was crazy.
And I might have even believed them, because looking back,
I was crazy. And there's a song on my new epiece,
one of my favorite songs that I've written, called Mom
and Daddy's money, and it's a real looking back tribute
(25:58):
to them, and it's it sounds kind of like a
fun any title, but it's really not. That would encourage
people to listen to that one, and you too, if
if you if that's kind of your thing, but it's
my it's my thank you for handling my my craziness
so well song to them. So they did, they took
it really well, and they've been nothing but supportive in
all of my random decisions and career choices. I've found
(26:20):
this to be true with a lot of successful people
and also in my own career that sometimes the most
powerful word and the word that like will make you
the most money or make you have the most success,
is the word no. You had to say no to
Delta State to go play golf there, You had to
say no in your junior year going playing professional baseball.
(26:42):
Why the hell did you not take the deal your
junior year and why did you decide to come back
for your senior year? You know, when I got offered,
and I had an interesting baseball career, so you've probably
heard of this thing happening before. But when I got
I got recruited by a guy. But after my freshman
year left to go to a different school. So I
was you know, when you get recruited by somebody, they
(27:04):
obviously want you to do really well. And so I
was there for one year, which I read shirted my
first year, so I didn't get to play under this
guy at all. Then a new coach comes in and
he obviously has all of his recruits that he wants
to do really well. So I was kind of fighting.
I had this really big chip on my shoulder the
whole time. It's the guy. His name is Lane Burrows.
He was the guy that recruited me to take the scholarship.
(27:24):
So as that happens, the guys who recruit you are
the ones that they're your champions. They want you to be,
they want you to do well, they want you to start,
they want you to get drafted, all of that good stuff.
And so after my red shirted freshman year, Lane Burrows
took another job and switched school. So incomes this other
guy with all of his recruits and people he's had
his eyes on, and so I had to there was
(27:45):
a bit of a uh had to work a little
harder to get the same amount thing that I had
going on in school. Um, and I was also this
guy that had just played baseball for one year and
was now on the top twenty five team. You know,
there was there was probably a little doubt that I
had to kind of prove the coaches as well. So, um,
(28:07):
the same thing works with the draft. So the new
guy comes in and he's been there for I guess
two or three years by the time I'm eligible to
get drafted, and so he's really pushing for um, you know,
his guys to get drafted more so than the guy
that he didn't recruit. And so that was that it
all kind of works together that way. But the reason
I didn't take it was a of a I was
(28:28):
having a blasting college. I loved college and and just
was just kind of felt like I was where I
was supposed to be. And it was a late round
draft pick as well, and so it was just, you know,
I figured, come back, have another good year, get drafted better, uh,
get drafted higher, or um, you know, take it now.
And I don't want it to come back and and
(28:50):
hang with my friends and have one more year college,
I think. But and also it just goes back to
that gut feeling thing for me I just didn't feel like,
this is your shot, this is what you're supposed to do.
I didn't have this same feeling I had when I
was turning down the golf scholarship to go play baseball.
You know, I just kind of felt like it wasn't
where I needed to be. And so I just said, now,
what's more terrifying playing in the College World Series in
(29:14):
front of thirty thousand fans or playing the first gig
ever at Chuckers and Hattiesburg in front of six people? Oh? Man,
probably Shuckers. I'm kind of I'm kind of built for
thirty thou people. Shuckers. Was the microphone in front of
my face that night? Was was mighty nerve racking. It's
funny people kind of asked that question going forward the
(29:37):
stage I'm at in my career now, where we're getting
to play for you know, ten thousand people on one
night or something like that, and they're like, man, are
you just so nervous? And I'm like no, in my head,
this is where I was standing singing them, you know,
I was this is I write the songs to sing
to this environment. I'm just finally here. Now, you know
that's not nerve racking more so as exciting. You know,
at what point did you realize that baseball was and
(30:00):
the answer and that music was. Was there an aha moment?
I don't know that there was an aha moment for me.
It wasn't a light bulb that came on and said
I was supposed to be a singer songwriter Nashville. This
whole time, I never had that. It was just little
stepping stones along the way. You know. I wrote my
first songs ever with my baseball teammates, like in class
(30:24):
we were we would write these songs and I had
recorded five of them and put them online. And this
is after i'd already you know, the baseball my senior
year of baseball wasn't as good as my junior and
the draft pick didn't get any higher, and I was
just you know, no, that's not the that's not the thing.
And um, I remember I put him on YouTube. I
had written this song called travel On and it got
(30:44):
like five thousand views on YouTube, just kind of out
of the blue. Anyway, I heard from this guy. I
won't say his name was, it doesn't matter, but it
was just manager type in Nashville. Ended up being not
a great thing or a great guy. But he did.
He did had urged me once a week to move
to Nashville. Come just get to Nashville and right, just
(31:04):
come up here and right. And so I slowly started.
I would drive up there for a couple of weeks
and I would drive back. I would write songs and
drive back and go back to work. And meanwhile I
was playing. Like I told you, I'm a business major,
so I was trying to make this into a business.
I was playing two shows a year on the road
while working a full time job as an electrician. So
(31:26):
I was, you know, really in the same place. But
I was going back and forth, and I did the
same thing. When I finally moved to Nashville, I would
I was there for half the month and then on
the road, playing really shitty gigs for half for half
the month, I mean, but I was just trying to
I was on the Southeast and trying to make money
because I had to pay my rent in Nashville, you know.
And so it was it was that it was that
(31:48):
manager and that went to like another manager, and then
it was two years of really the first two years
with the Hearts. The first two years were like Okay,
was my mom right, I need to just go back
home because I've got this nice job at home. You know,
I know what life would look like, and it would
have been the easy way. But part of me hates
the easy way. I think I am the way I am.
(32:10):
Some people end up the exact same as their parents.
I ended up, I think, just going against going the
opposite way that my parents went, you know. And so
it was a lot of that, uh, just meeting people
in Nashville, and those two years were kind of stagnant
other than playing the live shows. And then it was
two years later where and this is what I say
all the time. My my journey has not been the
(32:31):
overnight thing. It's been a lot of nose. You know.
You get told no more in this industry, probably more
than any other industry. And even my first success was
a note we played. One of these managers had me
a showcase for a record label. It was in like
a rehearsal room, so it was just us on the
stage and then a bunch of music execs with their
arms crossed then and they're looking at you, and we
played six songs and then afterwards, you know, the record
(32:54):
label comes up and they go, I would think you're
really talented, but I just need a little more time.
Not now is not the time for us. And so
we got passed on by a label. But right after
the label left, up walks Sony, a TV publishing who
happened to also be at the show, and he walks
up and said, man, I think you're really great. I'd
love to sign you to a publishing deal. And so
it was like, you know, a no and a really
(33:15):
cool yes. We got a yes from something I didn't
even know I was playing towards that night, and so
that was the first That was the first time I'm like, Okay,
now I'm writing songs for a living. I'm getting paid
to write songs. Um. He actually he actually said I
want you to come. It wasn't a deal on the spot.
He said, I want you to come into my office.
Let's talk about it, play me some songs. I've never
met Kenny Chesney, but Kenny Chesney was a big part
(33:37):
of me getting my first publishing deal. There was this
song called she Was Right and it was one of
like the first good songs I've ever written. I played
it for Troy in his office and Troy stops right
after and he goes, hold on one second and he goes,
I'm gonna send this song to Kenny Chesney. He made
me record the song on a voice memo. He emailed
it to Kenny Chesney on the spot in the in
(33:58):
the meeting, he emails at Kenny Jesney and then five
minutes later, thank you. Kenny. Kenny responds with like, O
m F n G. I want to cut this song
while I'm still in the meeting, And so now I'm
an independent writer with probably a Kenny Chesney cut, you know.
And so Troy's like, then I got my deal like
the next week, and everything has kind of unfolded from there.
(34:20):
But big thanks to Kenny Chesney. There. You've written songs
for a lot of really famous musicians. Who else has
ripped off your genius? Oh, that's probably nice of you
to call it genius. My first ever cut was Kane Brown.
Kane is a buddy of mine. We actually picked Kane
up on the way to go record the demo for
(34:41):
this song and he just happened to be there and
while we were recording it, he just loved it and
recorded it. So that was my first my first cut.
My second was Darius Rucker, who doing the Cracked Rearview,
was like my one of my first records I had.
And so Darius is another guy I've still never met.
I think he's a a golfer as well. We ought
to take him to pebble Um, but Darius, I've still
(35:04):
never met the guy. But he's one of the few
guys that were kind of similar. We sing kind of
the same way. His manager heard this song I had written,
called Don't and send it to Darius, and Darius loved
it and recorded it, and I was like, Wow, that's awesome.
Can't get any better than this? And then that comes
out and the next I think eight months later, Hooting
the Blowfish has decided to get back together. And this
(35:25):
is when you move to Nashville. You have goals and
dreams of things you hope you can accomplish, but getting
a getting on a Hooting the Blowfish record, which not
even it's not even possible, right, And then all of
a sudden they're back together and we so Sony has
this writing camp, uh that kind of all the songs
you're geared towards Hooting the Blowfish. And for a lot
(35:46):
of people, their country writers who have to try to
try to try to write Hooting the Blowfish. I'm more
down that lane naturally anyway, So I'm like, all right,
this is gonna be great. And I wrote a song
and sure enough I heard back and Hooting the Blowfish recorded.
It's called Roland Um and that happened last year, which
was that was one of the coolest things. I mean,
I got to and I thought that was the coolest thing.
(36:07):
And then um, Jeff Trott, the producer, called me in
and actually let me sing harmonies on the song with
various separately. Still haven't met him, but I got the
same the harmonies on the record, So that was that
was pretty cool. Is there any musician or band, Because
I'm a big put it out in the university, it
probably will happen. Is there any musician or a band
(36:27):
that you would love to have them cut your song
aside from the stable of amazing musicians that have already
done it with you. That's an interesting question because normally
it's who would you want to work with? But this
has record your song. There's a couple of people. If
Chris Stapleton were to record one of my songs, that
would make me really happy because he doesn't need to. Yeah,
(36:49):
you know what I mean. He he's got such He's
an incredible song He was the songwriters longer than he
has been an artist. But people like that. If he
were to hear something that, you know, ultimate compliment is God.
If somebody, if somebody basically says that you in the
writing world, it's it's the ultimate compliment. He's like God.
I wish I would have written that. That That would be
cool to see Chris do that, or I've already mentioned him,
(37:13):
but probably I would love to hear aimoss Lee saying
thing anything that I've written, even a word of that'd
be pretty pretty awesome. Speaking of things that you have written,
I want to get you to play Famous. Is that
a possibility? Yeah? Absolutely. Okay, let's take a quick break
and when we come back, Adam Oliak is going to
(37:36):
play the song that is just going crazy right now
on radio and streaming services, a song called Famous, a
stick around for the Wells Cast. All right, back in
(38:00):
the Wells Cast. Very excited to have Adam Doliak on
the show. He just released an EP called Famous, and
before I let you go, I really would love to
hear you play some of that. Is that a possibility? Yeah,
I'd love to play that for you. All right, guys.
It is the first time we've ever had anyone perform
on the show, So Adam taking away man, all right,
(38:33):
must have been living on must have not left the
house for a couple of all the telephones, TVs, radios
on photo by phold On Cotton because you got this
(38:54):
sense and interact organiza about you day. Yeah, girl, you
look famous soap each our vega, a paper on the supermarket.
That dress on you last I know I'm somewhere gotta
(39:19):
know what's your name? Girl? You love famous? When you
smile Famous Adam Live on the Wells Cast. That's the
(39:40):
title track to a brand new EP called Famous. Downloaded
stream it. Buy it from your website is probably the
most direct way to inject some money into your bank account?
Uh is it? Is it available on vinyl as well.
I'm waiting for the full record for vinyl, but that
will that will definitely to be something I do when
(40:01):
I get to make the full record, probably later this
year early next year. Very cool. Your story is crazy, man.
I'm just always blown away by the similarities that other
famous actors, musicians, they all have and and the common
denominator is that probably should have done something else, but
you decided to do what you loved, and that old
(40:23):
adage of you know, do what you love you never
work a day in your life is true. I feel
like it also makes the hard parts that much easier
because you still are happy with what you're doing. Even
the nose from you know, Sony or whatever whatever record
deal it was, it's still makes it all worthwhile because
(40:44):
you love it. I think you're absolutely right. And I
tell people this all the time. Type of person that
I am, if you're not comfortable with being told no,
and I think it's probably another common denominator with a
lot of these people that have crazy stories, is it's
almost we're almost more comfortable being told no. Yes. You know,
when people when something goes the right way or somebody
says yes, you're great, I'm like, I don't. I don't
(41:05):
even really know what to do. I'm like, no, why
did you say that? I'm just expecting it knows I
can keep working at it, you know. It's that's why
I like to describe this as a lot of nos
with little yes is attached, because that's that is what
it's been for me, and I wouldn't have rather did
it any other way. And and you're right looking back. Um,
you know Sony who ended up offering me a record
deal and the one I ended up signing last year,
(41:27):
they offered me one in two thousand and sixteen as well,
And as I told them, no, there's that word again,
which no one does. No one turns down record deals.
But I told him no because I figured if I
didn't have it going independently myself, it really didn't matter
if somebody else would just come along and hop in
front of me. So I did, and sure enough, the
day I signed my current record deal, Randy Goodman, the
(41:48):
president CEO of Sony, walks up and he goes, the
best thing you ever did was turned down that deal
offered you a couple of years ago. It's so funny
you said that story. I had Gavin, a girl on
the show I don't know, ten episodes back, and he
was telling the story of when he got offered his
record deal. He said no, Just like you, he said
no to it the way that he rationalized it, which
I which I loved. He said, they offered me not
(42:11):
very much money. When I went back to them, I
said I couldn't take the deal, because if that's how
much you think that I'm worth, then I'm not worth
enough yet and I need to go practice and work
on my craft to get to a point. So you
have to pay me more money because you know I'm
worth it. Yeah, And that's and that's essentially the same
(42:32):
thing that happened to me, except I wasn't looking at
it for I never got far enough in the deal
to see a dollar amount to see, okay, this is something.
But I did see a time a time stamp, and
they had said, uh, we'll get to you in about
a year. I think you need about a year. We
want to sign you now, but we'll get your stuff
out in the year. And I did the same thing.
I said, Well, if you're not ready to go right now,
(42:52):
then either somebody else is or I'm not where I
need to be to be in this in this deal,
do the same thing. I want to let you go,
want to be respectful of your time before I do.
Do you mind doing some rapid fire questions? Not at
all all right, Adam Doliak on the Wells Cash rapid
fire questions starting right now? What is your favorite book
(43:12):
where the Crawdad seeing I just finished that great book.
Me Too, Me Too. Who was your first kiss? Tory Napier.
Everyone always remembers their full name. It's amazing. Your first
car Toyota four Runner two thousand and six. Who would
you call to get you out of jail? My girlfriend
m Kennon Morrisey. And depending on what you did, I
suppose that the biggest pet peeve traffic speed bomps, actually
(43:35):
speed bumps. Teacher influenced you the most, Miss Carter fourth grade?
Did you have a poster hanging on your bedroom wall?
I did several. The ones that's coming to mind right
now is Dave Matthews Band. Yeah, okay, then I'll pivot.
What was your favorite Dave Matthews Band record? My first
CD I ever owned was Dave Matthews Band Live at
Red Rocks, and I got it right at the same
(43:56):
time my brother gave it to me. Is right at
the same time that I got that four Runner I
just mentioned, And so I just wore that CD out.
I think that I go live at Luther College. I
was the same kid. I had a Toyota land Cruiser
and my first concert ever was Dave Matthews Bandit Shoreline Amphitheater.
What was your first concert ever. Oh man, it's kind
of an embarrassing one. Uh first concert ever? Was The
(44:20):
lineup is insane? The headliner was n Sync. Yeah, the
opener was Britney Spears and the opener for Britney Spears
was a girl band called be Witched. All right, we
gotta end it right there. Adam bill Ya, thank you
so much for being on the Wells cast. Your story
was so cool, so interesting. I love the song famous
(44:43):
despite Colton being on the music video. Is there anything
that I didn't ask you about that you want to
talk about or promote? No, I think you did perfectly.
Just the new EP out right now. Excited to have
that new music out. These songs are from you know,
four or five years ago and then even eight my
us through a year ago, so it's cool to see
them all on the same track listing. And uh, I
(45:03):
hope everybody's enjoyed listening to it. People want to find you,
where do they go? Anywhere you look, you'll find me, unfortunately,
But you can just go to Adam Doliac dot com
and it'll take you to any of the socials and
that's probably the easiest way. You're the last name is
spelled kind of interestingly. It's d O l e A
C Right. Yeah, people make it harder than it actually is.
(45:24):
You just sounded right on out, dole eac. It's really Adam, dude.
Thank you so much for being on the show. Pleasure
to talk to you. Be safe out there, and hopefully
when this all is over, we'll go play some golf together.
I was just gonna say, I can't wait to play
some golf. Man. Thank you so much for having me, dude.
I enjoyed it. Yeah, see a man. Anybody better subscribe
to Wealth cast on I Heart Radio, Apple Podcasts, Score,
(45:46):
anywhere you get your podcast. It's the Internet.
This is the Wells Cast with Wells Atoms and I
Heart Radio Podcast. Welcome back into the Wells Cast. I'm
I'm the guy whose name is on the show. I
don't even how to intro these things anymore, because, you
know what, Corona. I'm blaming everything on Corona now. The
(00:23):
fact that I'm not witty and interesting and can't come
up with cool intros into my show. Guess what it's
because of the wu Han virus COVID nineteen. The fact
that I can't perform adequately in the bed COVID nineteen,
the fact that I can't lose weight COVID nineteen, the
fact that my father doesn't respect my work COVID night Dead.
(00:46):
Does anyone else think that alcohol doesn't work on them anymore?
I've just reached a point I feel like in my
in my quarantine, where I just don't think alcohol works anymore.
My body is just become used to it. It's just
like a part of it's daily routine. My liver is like,
oh you gotta you're drinking again. Oh cool, I didn't
see that one coming. It's only noon yesterday you started
(01:09):
at ten am. Good for you. I'm starting to lose it.
A little bit. Thank God for this show gives me
something to do. And luckily I'm doing this show early
enough in the day where I haven't started drinking. But
you know what, maybe this show will be better if
I just got cocked on some BlackBerry brandy and said,
you know what, let's roll. Who knows? Probably not, though
I started doing TikTok's that's a thing. Am I too
(01:32):
old for it? Probably? Am I gonna do it? Why not?
Hope everyone got that stimulus check in. Here's the thing.
You know. I'll tell you who deserves this stimulus check.
My liver, That's who deserves it. It's been working over time.
Everything else is just taking it off. You know, my
feet aren't going to work because we're not walking anywhere.
My hair is not going to work because guess what,
(01:52):
haven't showered in a couple of weeks. My livers like
come home from a long day, Jesus Christ. Guys working
double shifts over and over again, and I'm losing my mind. Feater, like, really,
I haven't seen work in weeks. I don't know. Excited
about today's show. You know, you have all these guests
that kind of find these weird routes to success. The
common denominator of a lot of our guests are they're
(02:15):
really good at something else, and then realized that although
that something else came easy to them or they worked
hard on it, it wasn't the thing that drove them
to happiness. And everyone's heard that stupid line, you know,
if you do what you love, you'll never work a
day in your life. It's very true, especially for today's guests.
(02:35):
I mean, this guy started as a sports star. He
had his pick of playing collegiate golf or baseball, decided
to go play baseball, went to the University of Southern Mississippi,
which is a great baseball school. By the way, He
actually played in the College World Series back in two
thousand nine. Then you know what he was like, You know,
I'm a guitar. So he picked up a guitar, taught
(02:58):
himself how to play it, and then pivoted to become
a really well known country singer towards the likes of
Carrie Underwood, Chris Young, Kane Brown written songs for Darius Rucker,
Hoodie and the Blowfish. Today in the Wells cast, we're
gonna hear a very cool story from Adam Doleac so
stick around. This is one you are not going to
(03:19):
want to miss. All right, Welcome back to the Wells Cast.
Very excited to have on the show, Adam doleach Arer Man,
(03:42):
I'm doing great. How are you doing, buddy, I'm doing good.
I mean, I guess I'm doing as good as you
can do during these crazy times. How is your quarantine going?
Like you said, it's definitely crazy times. I wish I
was there next to you in the studio doing this,
doing this with you. But you know, I'm pretty lucky.
I think things that and done. I'm you know, being
a songwriter. Um. Obviously we lost the ability to go
(04:05):
play live shows, which is brutal, but um, I'm still
able to write. I've been writing songs every single day
using Zoom or FaceTime or whatever it might be. Um,
and you know, I still get to make music and
record music and all that stuff. So my life hasn't
changed as much as a lot of people's has. Um,
and we're just trying to find the positives in it.
I think, uh, somebody like myself. People don't realize, but
(04:27):
like I was home one weekend total last year out
of out of the fifty two of them. I was
there for one, So like me and my girlfriend and
I have gotten to spend a lot of time we
normally wouldn't in the same same with my family. I'm
actually down here in Mississippi with my my mom and
dad right now, so that's been good. I was talking
about it with my brother because my brother and I
both love going to see live shows and experience live music.
(04:51):
And really, I mean, this is hard on everybody, but
this is really hitting musicians hard. I mean, yes, you
make a good amount of money, you know, with your
published deal, and that's awesome, but like a lot of
musicians make their money hitting the pavement. It's selling merch
and all those live shows. How long until like you're
(05:11):
gonna be like, dude, We've got to get back to work.
Oh dude, I'm there now. I'm like, I mean, like,
my girlfriend played a song at the day on the
radio and it was a live version of the song,
and I was like, you gotta turn that off. You
gotta turn it off right now. It's just killing me.
I want to go play a live show right now.
I don't know. We're hearing a lot of absurd rumors,
you know, I've heard a lot of things from you know,
(05:32):
like fall of one. I don't think it'll be that long,
but obviously it's gonna be one of the last things
to get reinstated, this gathering of large people at concerts,
you know, so we're all think everybody is just kind
of optimistic for sometime this fall, September, October somewhere in there.
But I think as far as the level of hey,
we gotta it's time, it's there, you know. And what
(05:53):
people don't realize is, sure it sucks for me as
an artist, but take your Jason Aldan's or Kenny Chesney's.
You know, they've got a hundred people working for them
on any given day, and their crews and their bands,
and it really trickles all the way down so much
further than what what people see. And that's the that's
the hardest part. You know, people who aren't the musicians,
people who are going to these shows, we're all like
(06:15):
losing our minds and we need that, you know, we
need that feeling of live music and that togetherness that
you get when you go to a show. So hopefully
it'll be back to normal sooner rather than later. I mean,
it's cool to see all these musicians like doing Instagram
lives and performing, and I guess this is kind of
the same thing of people getting to listen to this
show while they can't go see live music and and
(06:38):
hear a musicians stories. But I gotta get out and
see a live show, and I just hope it happens
sooner rather than later. I think this whole quarantine process
has been I don't think anyone's gonna come out the
other side of it the same exact person they were
when it started, you know. I think people are finding
kind of new ways and even probably better ways to
do things having to be forced to do it differently.
(06:59):
But the one like kind of silver lining I feel
about that, and the live music is, like you say,
it's such a release and a relief to go, you know,
be around a group of people and singing at the
top of your lungs. Being a show. I don't think
that there actually is a replacement for that. You know,
no matter how long we're quarantine or whatever, you can
actually find something that would eventually take its place, you know.
(07:20):
I think it's just gonna be a matter of time too.
We can get back, but when it does, it's just
gonna be we may be playing six shows a week,
trying to keep up with the schedule, everything getting canceled,
but we're I think everybody's okay with that. You know
your EP Famous just dropped. Congratulations. By the way, Was
there a thought process of this is a good time
to drop a record because everyone's just stuck and just
(07:42):
kind of absorbing as much media as possible, or was
the thought I don't know if this is a great
time because you can't tour right behind it. What's the
business acumen going into that? Well, for us, it wasn't. Actually,
there was no strategy involved before this even happened. This
was kind of the plan the timeline of when this
was gonna come out anyway a um, And then once
this all kind of happened, we all looked at it
(08:04):
and said, well, should we keep it, should we keep
the release coming out? Should we move it till later
when this is done? You know? What should we do?
And I think I don't think this is ideal to
drop music for anybody, you know, in the middle of
something so crazy. But it in a in a time
where everything is shut down, streaming and digital and you know,
podcasts and everything is not and I think people are
(08:24):
definitely painting a lot of attention to their phones and
computers and everything right now, so I think it's, you know,
a good time to drop anything. But this was just
honestly the plan from the whole time, and luckily we
didn't have to deviate from that. I will say I was,
you know, you get to looking at the track listing
and some of these songs are four years old and
some of them are eight months old, and so they
(08:45):
all kind of come together, and I started looking at
the track listing and I ended up putting an EP
out with a song called solo and says I don't
want to be solo. And then the next song on
the EP is I Choose Only and I'm like you
you can't play it? Like, how in the world does
this happen in the middle of a quarantine famous the
(09:08):
single is the first two lines or must have been
living under a rock, must not left the house for
a couple of years. I'm just like, this is a
this is a quarantine EP. Yeah, you manifested this. You're
the reason why we're on my fall. I was just
looking at Spotify numbers and Famus has over twenty four
million spins, So way to go, dude, I saw the video.
(09:31):
Why did you choose? And And don't get me wrong,
because I love them and I served him drinks in
paradise and I helped console his broken heart. But why
did you choose to have Coulton on your video? You know,
I actually learned that about you this morning, that you know,
I actually didn't. I knew you from Lightning One in
Nashville and that kind of world, and I did not
(09:52):
know you were on The Bachelor. So I learned that
this morning when I was kind of looking into it.
But Colton and Cassie it was more of they kind
of chose me, other than me choosing them. I have
never been a hardcore watcher of the of the show. Um.
And I just signed my first record deal with Sony
in October of last year. So Famous came out January
of last year, a little over a year ago. And
(10:13):
so as an independent artist, when you put a new
new song out and somebody like Colton and Cassie with
millions of followers, they had reposted a video and they
said they had their their phone held up on a
road trip to ask and they're just kind of bobbing
their head and they go we don't know the words
of this song yet, but we love it. And they
posted on Instagram and then you know, obviously you know,
(10:35):
my friends text me and they're like, guess who just
posted your song? And I, honestly, just being truthful, did
not know. Even when I looked him up, I was like, well,
that's great, but who already you know? I didn't know,
and so I sent him a message on Instagram and
I was just I just said, hey, thanks so much
for sharing the music. And we had a remix coming
out of Famous shortly after that, so I want to
(10:56):
send him that too. We just kind of kept in
touch for the next six month or so, and like
you said, the song kind of took off and did
well enough for me to make a video for it.
So I reached out and said, hey, y'all were the
first famous people to post about Famous WHI y'all want
to be in the which y'all want to be in
the video? I mean, well as you would have thought,
you would have thought that I was letting them do. So,
(11:16):
I mean they were like, absolutely, we want to be
in the video, and they flew down and I think
learning from them and they've become really good friends of
mine now and I love them and kind of sense
talking to them because they met in such a kind
of a weird way, like on a show or whatever,
and kind of a cliche way. They do these They
do this thing where they play out scenarios in their
(11:38):
heads where they imagine different ways they could have met.
And so I think they heard that song is like
kind of their song from the get go, and then
the video treatment was them meeting in a supermarket aisle
and it was kind of one of these things that
they had already imagined in their heads, and I think
it all just lined up, and I'm glad it did.
Though I love those two. Well, you should start watching
(12:00):
The Bachelor of the Batch Threat because they have country
stars play at dates all the time. So we gotta
get you on WATA fiasco this year, I actually had
a I had a bit of an inside track that
that was gonna happen from Bolton, so I kind of
I was paying attention to a look closely to that one.
I feel bad for Chase, but someone had called me
up and was like, Hey, what's gonna happen? I would
(12:22):
have said, there is no way, God God's Green Earth
that he isn't going to play the day with his
like ex girlfriend. They're like, it's just never going to happen.
So I wouldn't feel too bad for Chase, you know
what they if they want to have me come play
on the show and bring one of my ex girlfriends,
I'll deal with it. Just let me play the song
and front of millions of people will be good to go. Yeah,
(12:42):
I'm really excited to have you on the show today.
I don't know if anyone told you kind of the
idea behind this show, but I'm obsessed about origin stories
and where people came from. I think it's cool that
you have a blue check mark and millions of people
you know, stream your song now, but I want to
find out how you got to this place. And everyone's
story is different, and I was doing a little bit
(13:03):
of background research on you, and I don't know if
I would say that, like being a country music star
was what you set out to be when you left
for college. So if you don't mind, can we go
back to your hometown and start from there? Yeah? And
you're absolutely right, you know. I I tell people I'm
(13:26):
not the kid that was three years old with a
microphone in his hand. It always knew he wanted to
be a country music singer, you know. But yeah, I
grew up in Hattisburg, Mississippi. I had two really great parents.
I still have those parents. I'm at their house right now,
and I attribute a lot of who I am and
what I turned out to be to them. I think
the best thing you can have in the world when
you when you're born into its two good parents. And
so I grew up. You know, Dad was the soccer coach,
(13:48):
and I played literally every sport um all the way
down to I even found a way to play ice
hockey in Mississippi. Somehow, I don't know. I don't know
how that happened, but I did that. And when I
was about out twelve years old, I decided I wanted
to play golf in college. From that point on, I quit.
I was always kind of on the all star teams
and whatnot for baseball, um, and it was it was
(14:11):
the time for summer ball for baseball. When I was
about to be thirteen, I think that I quit. Um.
I said, you know what, I'm gonna play golf. And
I kept doing that. So me and my dad would
travel every weekend playing different tournaments and you know, working
towards that goal of playing golf in college, and that
ended up happening. I got a full ride. Actually, they
were paying me to go to college extra four a
(14:32):
month to go to Delta State, which is in North Mississippi,
pretty close to Old Miss, where you Actually, I'm pretty
sure it's just assumed that there's so little to do
at Delta State that you have to either drive to
Old Miss or Mississippi State to do anything. You know. Yeah,
I knew a bunch of Delta State dudes because they'd
come and they hang out our fraud parties and stuff.
So yeah, I bet that's what I would have died
(14:52):
if I had gone there. And y'all's girls ever at
Old Miss look a lot better than Delta State girls too,
I imagine. But honestly, that's what I thought. I was excited.
I had. I kind of verbally committed to this coach.
I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna go play golf. That's great,
and keep going through high school. I was playing basketball
and golf through high school, and so I remember my
senior year, I was at a smaller school. I graduated
(15:13):
with forty seven people. That's how small my school was
and that was our biggest class yet. Um So, it
was my senior year and it was the day of
the first baseball game, and I hadn't played since I
was twelve. And my friends come up to me. They're
trying to talk me in the plane. They're like, we
have a good team this year, we just need one
more guy. And so I remember vividly, I walked off
the basketball court from practice into a batting cage, hit
(15:36):
a bucket of balls. I walked onto the field at
third base, builded a bucket of balls, and then started
in a baseball game that night. Jesus and I and
I thought that'll be fun. You know what, why not?
You know, I got one more year high school, might
as well play baseball, And man ended up having a
like a good year. I hit over four hundred and
I was left handed in six four and Southern Miss
(15:58):
was in the same town is my high school, and
they were the only school that even knew that I
played baseball, because I didn't until then. And after the year,
my coach walked up to me and goes, Southern Miss
offered you a baseball scholarship, until which I responded, shut up.
I literally said, shut up. I was like, no that,
I thought he was kidding. Totally thought he was kidding.
And because they had come to a game two weeks
(16:20):
later or two weeks before, and I literally I struck
out three times in a row, all on the same pitch.
But I just looked like an idiot. I mean, I
was like, well, they're there. Theyre went that. So they
offered me a scholarship. And I've learned about myself. I've
always felt I was supposed to do, like something bigger
than a normal job. I don't know how to explain it,
but I've always felt I go with my gut a lot.
(16:40):
And so I got offered this baseball scholarship. And I said, well,
I just played baseball for one year and Southern Miss
was top in the country. So I said, I I
could play golf till I'm ninety five years old, can
build a simulation in my garage as you did. Um,
I said, I'm gonna go play baseball, and so I did.
Called the golf coach said, never mind a playing base all.
He said, you played baseball. I said, well not really.
(17:02):
It's a long story, but you know, ended up passing
on it. And that's kind of how the whole music
thing started, you know. That. That's when I first got
introduced to guitars and uh songs. And when I went
to Southern miss all my roommates played guitars like baseball
players due to try to get girls, you know, And
they were all playing a bunch of Gavin DeGraw and
(17:25):
I remember amos Lee was my first favorite vocal I've
ever heard. I just remember saying, who is that? And
they they played a lot of that, and so, um,
I've been a drum I had a drum set when
I was too. My dad was a drummer, my older
brother was a drummer, and so I've always loved music.
But that's when I first started learning songs on guitars
(17:45):
and kind of trying to. I would turn amous Lee
up really loud and try to sing along with with
them and sound semi like him just a little bit,
you know. Um, And that's kind of where it all started.
But until then, I had never touched a guitar, and
we played. Three years after taking that scholarship, I was
walking into the College World Series at Rosenblat and so
I got to play in the College World Series and
again had never watched it. On TV, So I didn't
(18:08):
know what I was. I didn't know what I was
walking into when I when I when you walk in,
there's thirty thousand people screaming at you, and you're just like,
you know, it's not a feeling that you soon forget.
And I think that's kind of what that motivation for music,
to play in front of these huge crowds. That feeling
is something that's always stuck with me. From there, I
had still not decided to music at all. I was
(18:28):
just this guy that played at the house and I
wanted to now play professional baseball. Um, so I wouldn't.
I wouldn't play in the cape Cod League. I know,
I probably. I think there's probably twenty five people on
my cape Cod team. I think twenty three of them
are now studs in the MLB. I mean, like everybody
was so good. Yeah, I remember I was an alternate
(18:50):
for cape Cod, so I was like, was almost good
enough to go play a cape Cod And somebody got
hurt and they called me up a month through uh
the season, and so I hadn't touched the baller that
in a month. And I show up at the Cave
Cord and the first person I see I don't know
if you keep up with baseball much, but George Springer
on the astros Um first person I see as George Springer.
He walks up and he's holding you know how people
(19:11):
that are really really jagged have a gallon of water
in their hands at all times. They just walk around
with water. He walks up with the gallon of water,
and he's got sixteen ABS and he's just taking VP
with no shirt on, and every ball is just way
over the fence. It's just waken best athlete I've ever
seen like in person. And so I had to, Uh,
I had to stay up all night in the Batten
(19:32):
cage and catch up overnight when I went up there.
But but yeah, I wanted to do that. I wanted
to play professionally, and my junior year I had to
really I think that was my best year. Had some
offers to go in the draft, ended up coming back
my senior year and not taking that. My senior year,
I had a good year, not as good as my
junior year, and still had some offers, ended up turning
that down. And I kind of started loving music at
this point. And it was actually my teammates that made
(19:54):
me play a show in front of people for the
first time, they would hear me singing around the house.
So my my thing is from the first time I've
ever saying even when I didn't it was probably very bad.
The one comment I always got was, hey, you have
a really unique voice, and you have a really cool voice.
And so that's kind of what I hung onto in
this environment of five million male guys trying to be
(20:16):
country stars. I said, well, you you gotta have something
that people can latch onto because I've always loved like,
John Mayer is one of my favorites, and he can
sing the phone Book and you know, it was John Mayer,
and I think that's important to have and I kind
of felt like I had that. So that's kind of
where the it started. But they said that to me,
They go, you need to sing in front of people,
and I'm like, absolutely not. I'm not singing in front
(20:37):
of that's terrifying. I'm not doing that. And so sure
enough they went around town and book shows for me
at these little bars and had his bird. The first
place I ever played was called Shuckers. It was an
oyster bar. It held probably two people, and like six
hundred people showed up because I had fans from the
baseball world, you know, so they were really just coming
(20:58):
because they knew me from baseball. But they showed up
and I sang probably terribly, but it was really fun
and they paid me a lot of money after the show,
and I don't know, I kind of got addicted. And
so by the time I ended up having to choose
between moving in Nashville or uh, trying to go play
in the minor leagues, which I was kind of looking
at them both as minor leagues. You know, music has
its minor leagues, just like baseball, and you know, I
(21:20):
have a business degree, and it just made more sense
for me to be like, Okay, I can work this
on my own in Nashville. I can go actually work
at this and see what happened. So that's what I did.
Thirty minutes later of the story, it's it's a weird
road to get to Nashville for me, but I ended
up getting there. It's funny I was doing this in
the intro. You know, we've interviewed I don't know thirty
people and it's there's a common denominator between really successful people,
(21:43):
and that is it wasn't like I came out of
the womb, was like, I know, I want to be
that thing. It's that they're good at a lot of things.
And then the thing that they probably should have done,
they decided not to do it because they didn't bring
them as much joy as the thing that they ended
up becoming really success full at, which sounds exactly like
what you're saying. I want to rewind the reels a
(22:04):
little bit because I am kind of blown away by
this story because because okay, so you you seem like,
and don't take this as a slight to you, but
you seem like the guy that's fucking good at everything.
You're that guy. And you know what, I played ball
in college. I know those guys. I love those guys.
(22:25):
But also you're a little annoying, Okay, just right off
the bat. Yeah, So I want to know how good
of a golf are because I'm a golfer too. Were
you a scratch golfer in high school? Yeah? I was.
My best round I think was a sixty seven. So
I would I would shoot you know, under far here
and there. I was never the most consistent golfer. I
would also I would shoot tournaments on the weekends. I
(22:47):
would go seventy nine. You know it was it was
you know, you never really knew what you're gonna get
with me, But yeah, I was good at one point.
I'm a lefty too, so that short game was my
you know, get out of trouble in short game, where
my bread and butter. Yeah you're Phil, Yes, he was
my idol. Yeah, you're a great golfer. You get an
offer to go play collegiate golf. You hadn't picked up
(23:09):
a baseball bat or thrown a baseball since you were
twelve years old. You go play that senior year season.
You get offered the Southern miss scholarship was the Delta
State A d Like, screw you, dude, I offered you
this like years ago. You know what he probably was.
(23:29):
I remember called. I remember calling, and I remember thinking
that he he took it really well, like if he
was feeling that way, then he didn't show me that,
which was nice of him, because I'm sure he was.
Because I was. I was the the freshman or the
senior in high school that they that came in and
they did the whole They showed me all the cool
(23:51):
fields to drink in at Delta State. Yeah, I mean
they really gave me the tour, and they even said,
we've never offered a freshman this much money. And they
did the whole, the whole spill, and it was a
big thing for them, and I did. I called back
a year later and said, you know what, thanks but
no thanks, and it was it was an awkward phone call,
but he did. He took it really well. How do
(24:12):
your parents react to this? You know what? I asked
myself this question all the time, Like, my parents have
done the same thing since they were My dad's been
working at the electrical company that his dad started since
he was like eight years old his whole life, and
my mom worked as a typewriter in the courtroom since
she was like sixteen years old. The whold their whole life,
(24:32):
which is probably why I'm so erratic with what I
tried to figure out what to do. But they also
took it well. I have really great parents. I can't
I didn't realize in the moment how crazy I must
have sounded by First of all, switching from a full
ride to hey, you don't have to pay for my
college to the baseball scholarship was good, but it wasn't
a full ride, and um, I switched that they handled
(24:56):
it really well. Um. I had worked at my dad's
electrical company every winter or summer break i've had, so
I'm I'm kind of a hack electrician, Like if you
had something broken, I could probably fix it, um so.
And it was kind of, you know, a little bit
expected that I would stay in my hometown and go
work at the electrical company after I finished baseball if
(25:17):
if professionally didn't work out, and so after after professionally
didn't work out, I did work there for probably half
a year, and then I walked into my dad's office
and said, Hey, Dad, I think I would move to Nashville.
Both my parents thought i'd be back home in a
year for sure. I mean that my mom was like,
you'll be back in a year. I'm not worried about it. Um,
(25:37):
But that is a question I ask all the time.
It's like, Wow, my parents have handled this really really well.
I mean they could have. They really could have gone
off the deep end and just told me I was crazy.
And I might have even believed them, because looking back,
I was crazy. And there's a song on my new epiece,
one of my favorite songs that I've written, called Mom
and Daddy's money, and it's a real looking back tribute
(25:58):
to them, and it's it sounds kind of like a
fun any title, but it's really not. That would encourage
people to listen to that one, and you too, if
if you if that's kind of your thing, but it's
my it's my thank you for handling my my craziness
so well song to them. So they did, they took
it really well, and they've been nothing but supportive in
all of my random decisions and career choices. I've found
(26:20):
this to be true with a lot of successful people
and also in my own career that sometimes the most
powerful word and the word that like will make you
the most money or make you have the most success,
is the word no. You had to say no to
Delta State to go play golf there, You had to
say no in your junior year going playing professional baseball.
(26:42):
Why the hell did you not take the deal your
junior year and why did you decide to come back
for your senior year? You know, when I got offered,
and I had an interesting baseball career, so you've probably
heard of this thing happening before. But when I got
I got recruited by a guy. But after my freshman
year left to go to a different school. So I
was you know, when you get recruited by somebody, they
(27:04):
obviously want you to do really well. And so I
was there for one year, which I read shirted my
first year, so I didn't get to play under this
guy at all. Then a new coach comes in and
he obviously has all of his recruits that he wants
to do really well. So I was kind of fighting.
I had this really big chip on my shoulder the
whole time. It's the guy. His name is Lane Burrows.
He was the guy that recruited me to take the scholarship.
(27:24):
So as that happens, the guys who recruit you are
the ones that they're your champions. They want you to be,
they want you to do well, they want you to start,
they want you to get drafted, all of that good stuff.
And so after my red shirted freshman year, Lane Burrows
took another job and switched school. So incomes this other
guy with all of his recruits and people he's had
his eyes on, and so I had to there was
(27:45):
a bit of a uh had to work a little
harder to get the same amount thing that I had
going on in school. Um, and I was also this
guy that had just played baseball for one year and
was now on the top twenty five team. You know,
there was there was probably a little doubt that I
had to kind of prove the coaches as well. So, um,
(28:07):
the same thing works with the draft. So the new
guy comes in and he's been there for I guess
two or three years by the time I'm eligible to
get drafted, and so he's really pushing for um, you know,
his guys to get drafted more so than the guy
that he didn't recruit. And so that was that it
all kind of works together that way. But the reason
I didn't take it was a of a I was
(28:28):
having a blasting college. I loved college and and just
was just kind of felt like I was where I
was supposed to be. And it was a late round
draft pick as well, and so it was just, you know,
I figured, come back, have another good year, get drafted better, uh,
get drafted higher, or um, you know, take it now.
And I don't want it to come back and and
(28:50):
hang with my friends and have one more year college,
I think. But and also it just goes back to
that gut feeling thing for me I just didn't feel like,
this is your shot, this is what you're supposed to do.
I didn't have this same feeling I had when I
was turning down the golf scholarship to go play baseball.
You know, I just kind of felt like it wasn't
where I needed to be. And so I just said, now,
what's more terrifying playing in the College World Series in
(29:14):
front of thirty thousand fans or playing the first gig
ever at Chuckers and Hattiesburg in front of six people? Oh? Man,
probably Shuckers. I'm kind of I'm kind of built for
thirty thou people. Shuckers. Was the microphone in front of
my face that night? Was was mighty nerve racking. It's
funny people kind of asked that question going forward the
(29:37):
stage I'm at in my career now, where we're getting
to play for you know, ten thousand people on one
night or something like that, and they're like, man, are
you just so nervous? And I'm like no, in my head,
this is where I was standing singing them, you know,
I was this is I write the songs to sing
to this environment. I'm just finally here. Now, you know
that's not nerve racking more so as exciting. You know,
at what point did you realize that baseball was and
(30:00):
the answer and that music was. Was there an aha moment?
I don't know that there was an aha moment for me.
It wasn't a light bulb that came on and said
I was supposed to be a singer songwriter Nashville. This
whole time, I never had that. It was just little
stepping stones along the way. You know. I wrote my
first songs ever with my baseball teammates, like in class
(30:24):
we were we would write these songs and I had
recorded five of them and put them online. And this
is after i'd already you know, the baseball my senior
year of baseball wasn't as good as my junior and
the draft pick didn't get any higher, and I was
just you know, no, that's not the that's not the thing.
And um, I remember I put him on YouTube. I
had written this song called travel On and it got
(30:44):
like five thousand views on YouTube, just kind of out
of the blue. Anyway, I heard from this guy. I
won't say his name was, it doesn't matter, but it
was just manager type in Nashville. Ended up being not
a great thing or a great guy. But he did.
He did had urged me once a week to move
to Nashville. Come just get to Nashville and right, just
(31:04):
come up here and right. And so I slowly started.
I would drive up there for a couple of weeks
and I would drive back. I would write songs and
drive back and go back to work. And meanwhile I
was playing. Like I told you, I'm a business major,
so I was trying to make this into a business.
I was playing two shows a year on the road
while working a full time job as an electrician. So
(31:26):
I was, you know, really in the same place. But
I was going back and forth, and I did the
same thing. When I finally moved to Nashville, I would
I was there for half the month and then on
the road, playing really shitty gigs for half for half
the month, I mean, but I was just trying to
I was on the Southeast and trying to make money
because I had to pay my rent in Nashville, you know.
And so it was it was that it was that
(31:48):
manager and that went to like another manager, and then
it was two years of really the first two years
with the Hearts. The first two years were like Okay,
was my mom right, I need to just go back
home because I've got this nice job at home. You know,
I know what life would look like, and it would
have been the easy way. But part of me hates
the easy way. I think I am the way I am.
(32:10):
Some people end up the exact same as their parents.
I ended up, I think, just going against going the
opposite way that my parents went, you know. And so
it was a lot of that, uh, just meeting people
in Nashville, and those two years were kind of stagnant
other than playing the live shows. And then it was
two years later where and this is what I say
all the time. My my journey has not been the
(32:31):
overnight thing. It's been a lot of nose. You know.
You get told no more in this industry, probably more
than any other industry. And even my first success was
a note we played. One of these managers had me
a showcase for a record label. It was in like
a rehearsal room, so it was just us on the
stage and then a bunch of music execs with their
arms crossed then and they're looking at you, and we
played six songs and then afterwards, you know, the record
(32:54):
label comes up and they go, I would think you're
really talented, but I just need a little more time.
Not now is not the time for us. And so
we got passed on by a label. But right after
the label left, up walks Sony, a TV publishing who
happened to also be at the show, and he walks
up and said, man, I think you're really great. I'd
love to sign you to a publishing deal. And so
it was like, you know, a no and a really
(33:15):
cool yes. We got a yes from something I didn't
even know I was playing towards that night, and so
that was the first That was the first time I'm like, Okay,
now I'm writing songs for a living. I'm getting paid
to write songs. Um. He actually he actually said I
want you to come. It wasn't a deal on the spot.
He said, I want you to come into my office.
Let's talk about it, play me some songs. I've never
met Kenny Chesney, but Kenny Chesney was a big part
(33:37):
of me getting my first publishing deal. There was this
song called she Was Right and it was one of
like the first good songs I've ever written. I played
it for Troy in his office and Troy stops right
after and he goes, hold on one second and he goes,
I'm gonna send this song to Kenny Chesney. He made
me record the song on a voice memo. He emailed
it to Kenny Chesney on the spot in the in
(33:58):
the meeting, he emails at Kenny Jesney and then five
minutes later, thank you. Kenny. Kenny responds with like, O
m F n G. I want to cut this song
while I'm still in the meeting, And so now I'm
an independent writer with probably a Kenny Chesney cut, you know.
And so Troy's like, then I got my deal like
the next week, and everything has kind of unfolded from there.
(34:20):
But big thanks to Kenny Chesney. There. You've written songs
for a lot of really famous musicians. Who else has
ripped off your genius? Oh, that's probably nice of you
to call it genius. My first ever cut was Kane Brown.
Kane is a buddy of mine. We actually picked Kane
up on the way to go record the demo for
(34:41):
this song and he just happened to be there and
while we were recording it, he just loved it and
recorded it. So that was my first my first cut.
My second was Darius Rucker, who doing the Cracked Rearview,
was like my one of my first records I had.
And so Darius is another guy I've still never met.
I think he's a a golfer as well. We ought
to take him to pebble Um, but Darius, I've still
(35:04):
never met the guy. But he's one of the few
guys that were kind of similar. We sing kind of
the same way. His manager heard this song I had written,
called Don't and send it to Darius, and Darius loved
it and recorded it, and I was like, Wow, that's awesome.
Can't get any better than this? And then that comes
out and the next I think eight months later, Hooting
the Blowfish has decided to get back together. And this
(35:25):
is when you move to Nashville. You have goals and
dreams of things you hope you can accomplish, but getting
a getting on a Hooting the Blowfish record, which not
even it's not even possible, right, And then all of
a sudden they're back together and we so Sony has
this writing camp, uh that kind of all the songs
you're geared towards Hooting the Blowfish. And for a lot
(35:46):
of people, their country writers who have to try to
try to try to write Hooting the Blowfish. I'm more
down that lane naturally anyway, So I'm like, all right,
this is gonna be great. And I wrote a song
and sure enough I heard back and Hooting the Blowfish recorded.
It's called Roland Um and that happened last year, which
was that was one of the coolest things. I mean,
I got to and I thought that was the coolest thing.
(36:07):
And then um, Jeff Trott, the producer, called me in
and actually let me sing harmonies on the song with
various separately. Still haven't met him, but I got the
same the harmonies on the record, So that was that
was pretty cool. Is there any musician or band, Because
I'm a big put it out in the university, it
probably will happen. Is there any musician or a band
(36:27):
that you would love to have them cut your song
aside from the stable of amazing musicians that have already
done it with you. That's an interesting question because normally
it's who would you want to work with? But this
has record your song. There's a couple of people. If
Chris Stapleton were to record one of my songs, that
would make me really happy because he doesn't need to. Yeah,
(36:49):
you know what I mean. He he's got such He's
an incredible song He was the songwriters longer than he
has been an artist. But people like that. If he
were to hear something that, you know, ultimate compliment is God.
If somebody, if somebody basically says that you in the
writing world, it's it's the ultimate compliment. He's like God.
I wish I would have written that. That That would be
cool to see Chris do that, or I've already mentioned him,
(37:13):
but probably I would love to hear aimoss Lee saying
thing anything that I've written, even a word of that'd
be pretty pretty awesome. Speaking of things that you have written,
I want to get you to play Famous. Is that
a possibility? Yeah? Absolutely. Okay, let's take a quick break
and when we come back, Adam Oliak is going to
(37:36):
play the song that is just going crazy right now
on radio and streaming services, a song called Famous, a
stick around for the Wells Cast. All right, back in
(38:00):
the Wells Cast. Very excited to have Adam Doliak on
the show. He just released an EP called Famous, and
before I let you go, I really would love to
hear you play some of that. Is that a possibility? Yeah,
I'd love to play that for you. All right, guys.
It is the first time we've ever had anyone perform
on the show, So Adam taking away man, all right,
(38:33):
must have been living on must have not left the
house for a couple of all the telephones, TVs, radios
on photo by phold On Cotton because you got this
(38:54):
sense and interact organiza about you day. Yeah, girl, you
look famous soap each our vega, a paper on the supermarket.
That dress on you last I know I'm somewhere gotta
(39:19):
know what's your name? Girl? You love famous? When you
smile Famous Adam Live on the Wells Cast. That's the
(39:40):
title track to a brand new EP called Famous. Downloaded
stream it. Buy it from your website is probably the
most direct way to inject some money into your bank account?
Uh is it? Is it available on vinyl as well.
I'm waiting for the full record for vinyl, but that
will that will definitely to be something I do when
(40:01):
I get to make the full record, probably later this
year early next year. Very cool. Your story is crazy, man.
I'm just always blown away by the similarities that other
famous actors, musicians, they all have and and the common
denominator is that probably should have done something else, but
you decided to do what you loved, and that old
(40:23):
adage of you know, do what you love you never
work a day in your life is true. I feel
like it also makes the hard parts that much easier
because you still are happy with what you're doing. Even
the nose from you know, Sony or whatever whatever record
deal it was, it's still makes it all worthwhile because
(40:44):
you love it. I think you're absolutely right. And I
tell people this all the time. Type of person that
I am, if you're not comfortable with being told no,
and I think it's probably another common denominator with a
lot of these people that have crazy stories, is it's
almost we're almost more comfortable being told no. Yes. You know,
when people when something goes the right way or somebody
says yes, you're great, I'm like, I don't. I don't
(41:05):
even really know what to do. I'm like, no, why
did you say that? I'm just expecting it knows I
can keep working at it, you know. It's that's why
I like to describe this as a lot of nos
with little yes is attached, because that's that is what
it's been for me, and I wouldn't have rather did
it any other way. And and you're right looking back. Um,
you know Sony who ended up offering me a record
deal and the one I ended up signing last year,
(41:27):
they offered me one in two thousand and sixteen as well,
And as I told them, no, there's that word again,
which no one does. No one turns down record deals.
But I told him no because I figured if I
didn't have it going independently myself, it really didn't matter
if somebody else would just come along and hop in
front of me. So I did, and sure enough, the
day I signed my current record deal, Randy Goodman, the
(41:48):
president CEO of Sony, walks up and he goes, the
best thing you ever did was turned down that deal
offered you a couple of years ago. It's so funny
you said that story. I had Gavin, a girl on
the show I don't know, ten episodes back, and he
was telling the story of when he got offered his
record deal. He said no, Just like you, he said
no to it the way that he rationalized it, which
I which I loved. He said, they offered me not
(42:11):
very much money. When I went back to them, I
said I couldn't take the deal, because if that's how
much you think that I'm worth, then I'm not worth
enough yet and I need to go practice and work
on my craft to get to a point. So you
have to pay me more money because you know I'm
worth it. Yeah, And that's and that's essentially the same
(42:32):
thing that happened to me, except I wasn't looking at
it for I never got far enough in the deal
to see a dollar amount to see, okay, this is something.
But I did see a time a time stamp, and
they had said, uh, we'll get to you in about
a year. I think you need about a year. We
want to sign you now, but we'll get your stuff
out in the year. And I did the same thing.
I said, Well, if you're not ready to go right now,
(42:52):
then either somebody else is or I'm not where I
need to be to be in this in this deal,
do the same thing. I want to let you go,
want to be respectful of your time before I do.
Do you mind doing some rapid fire questions? Not at
all all right, Adam Doliak on the Wells Cash rapid
fire questions starting right now? What is your favorite book
(43:12):
where the Crawdad seeing I just finished that great book.
Me Too, Me Too. Who was your first kiss? Tory Napier.
Everyone always remembers their full name. It's amazing. Your first
car Toyota four Runner two thousand and six. Who would
you call to get you out of jail? My girlfriend
m Kennon Morrisey. And depending on what you did, I
suppose that the biggest pet peeve traffic speed bomps, actually
(43:35):
speed bumps. Teacher influenced you the most, Miss Carter fourth grade?
Did you have a poster hanging on your bedroom wall?
I did several. The ones that's coming to mind right
now is Dave Matthews Band. Yeah, okay, then I'll pivot.
What was your favorite Dave Matthews Band record? My first
CD I ever owned was Dave Matthews Band Live at
Red Rocks, and I got it right at the same
(43:56):
time my brother gave it to me. Is right at
the same time that I got that four Runner I
just mentioned, And so I just wore that CD out.
I think that I go live at Luther College. I
was the same kid. I had a Toyota land Cruiser
and my first concert ever was Dave Matthews Bandit Shoreline Amphitheater.
What was your first concert ever. Oh man, it's kind
of an embarrassing one. Uh first concert ever? Was The
(44:20):
lineup is insane? The headliner was n Sync. Yeah, the
opener was Britney Spears and the opener for Britney Spears
was a girl band called be Witched. All right, we
gotta end it right there. Adam bill Ya, thank you
so much for being on the Wells cast. Your story
was so cool, so interesting. I love the song famous
(44:43):
despite Colton being on the music video. Is there anything
that I didn't ask you about that you want to
talk about or promote? No, I think you did perfectly.
Just the new EP out right now. Excited to have
that new music out. These songs are from you know,
four or five years ago and then even eight my
us through a year ago, so it's cool to see
them all on the same track listing. And uh, I
(45:03):
hope everybody's enjoyed listening to it. People want to find you,
where do they go? Anywhere you look, you'll find me, unfortunately,
But you can just go to Adam Doliac dot com
and it'll take you to any of the socials and
that's probably the easiest way. You're the last name is
spelled kind of interestingly. It's d O l e A
C Right. Yeah, people make it harder than it actually is.
(45:24):
You just sounded right on out, dole eac. It's really Adam, dude.
Thank you so much for being on the show. Pleasure
to talk to you. Be safe out there, and hopefully
when this all is over, we'll go play some golf together.
I was just gonna say, I can't wait to play
some golf. Man. Thank you so much for having me, dude.
I enjoyed it. Yeah, see a man. Anybody better subscribe
to Wealth cast on I Heart Radio, Apple Podcasts, Score,
(45:46):
anywhere you get your podcast. It's the Internet.
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