Jackpot! We have Monte and Brandi Warden. Part 1

How did they meet? How long have they been together? It's a Nashville/Austin love story that is amazing. We all know Monte Warden, but do you know his better half Brandi? Dive in and learn more about Monte's and Brandi's relationship and professional relationship. It's a true match made in heaven which is leading towards the release of Monte's new album with the Dangerous Few called "Jackpot" out May 17th.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, it's Bob Thicket. Weare on our way to the legendary Broken
Spoken. Come on, let's getout of the truck and head inside.
Damn, you're proud of it.Come on, it's going side, getting

(00:22):
ready for another tale from the BrokenSpoke. Now you can tell we're laughing,
we're giggling, we're having a greattime. I'm Bob Thicket. Welcome
back to uh Well, to thebe to the Willie Nelson Engagement Booth.
And now we've got a couple wellyou know, one of the voices,
but we're gonna do it to hisbetter half. Amen. Bonnie Warden is
righting. Oh amen, yeah,amen, Brandy Hattie Patty. Now wait,

(00:44):
just can you say Hattie one moretime? Because that's not Texas.
That's it's not how It's not Howdie. It's Hattie, Hattie Hatty. I
knew a girl named Hattie one time. That's how Tennessee and say, all
right, this is Brandy Warden.This is the Willing us An engagement booth.
This is where it happened. Heproposed to Annie in this booth.
I did not know you see,Annie was at our wedding. That's right.

(01:07):
This is the Brandy's flucky booth.That's what this is, right,
Annie was at y'all's wedding. Yes, yeah, a Brandy man is darling
for years Arlen Personality Studios. Howlong y'all have been married? Now twenty
five years in November? She knowshe's the one that answered the question.
Well, I prefer that because he'sthe professional talker. November sixth, nineteen

(01:30):
ninety nine. That's right, greatestday of my life. Okay, Now,
before we get into the record,which, by the way, it's
called jackbott it's coming out. It'sreally a love story. But I want
to know how you guys met.I don't remember this. Come on,
you know, we do have agreat meeting. So that's what I want
to hear. It is a greatmeeting story, take it away, But
I want to hear Brandy's version,and I want to hear your version because

(01:53):
he didn't know what was happening.So, okay, what year was this?
Let's go back this Stris. Thiswas in October of nineteen ninety seven
than Nashville, Tennessee. Okay,we were at the Harlan Howard Birthday Bash,
which was the annual obviously birthday partyfor Harlan Howard, world famous tiger,

(02:13):
I fall to pieces heart aches bythe number, picked me up on
your way down, just a Hallof Fame songwriter. And so Harlan's birthday
had always had turned into this industryevent and that everybody went, and so
it had grown into this thing,and this year it was at the hard
Rock Cafe. But you were partof the industry in Nashville. I was
working at Decca Records in the anR department at the time, and so

(02:38):
everybody was going. And I hadbeen working on some project that day,
and I was just in a sweatshirtand jeans and my burking stocks and socks
and not ready to go out toan event. But all my buddies I
worked with all these guys and theywere like, oh, come out of
it to be a good time.And I was like, okay, I'll
swing mind have a drink. SoI'm there with. One of the guys

(03:00):
I worked with at the time wasFrank Ladell, who's wound up marrying.
They hit the exact same UH anniversarydate as us too. They also got
married November sixth, nineteen ninety nine. So Frank, they've stayed together for
spite whereas we have stayed together.Frank is going to listen to this and
he's going to give you a call. Oh my lord. So Frank and

(03:23):
I are at this party. We'reup against the wall in the bar area,
going what are we doing with ourlives? How many more of these
events can we go to? Nothingagainst Harlan, but just with everybody that's
there, it's the same group ofpeople that go to the same events,
you know, five nights a week, and you're having the same conversations.
And I'm like, I can't keepdoing this. This is miserable. And

(03:43):
we're laughing about that, and Iknow, literally everybody in the room.
And then this guy that I've neverseen passes in front of me, and
it was I had always described itas if there was a spotlight on him,
but I have come to realize itwas as if the light were coming
out of him. It's like hewas glowing an aura about him. It

(04:03):
was And I literally, for theonly time in my life, got weak
in the knees and I grabbed Frank'sarm as I got weak, and said,
who the blank is that? Andthen the interested the guy behind him,
which was Maddy, and he goes, man, that's MANI Ward and
he used to be in the Wagoneers. And I said do you know him?

(04:25):
He goes, oh, he's fromAustin's a great guy. And I
said, will you introduce me tohim? He goes, ohhirt, come
in my deca record sweatshirt. Iam not poised to go meet my future
husband. So Frank, my nicknamefor him was the Vapor because he would
disappear. You never wanted to ridewith Frank to an event. He would

(04:46):
just disappear. He never said goodbye. So I'm like, will you introduce
me? And he goes, yeah, let me go grab us a beer.
That's the last I saw a Frank. So I'm scouring these four hundred
people trying to find this man Ihad just seen walk in and I,
as God would have it, he'stalking to one of our recording artists,
this woman, Danny Lee. Itwas on our label. He's tarting to

(05:08):
her and I'm like, oh mygosh, and I made a beeline.
I don't know what I was doing. I was just overcome and I walked
right up to him and I said, I know everybody in here, Why
don't I know you? My name'sBrandy and he goes, well, by
God, my name's Monty Warden.And we were just there. We were
well, and like, I wasn'tgoing to go to the Harlan deal either.

(05:30):
I was writing for Warner Brothers WarnerChapel at the time, and I'd
had two writing appointments that day andI'd never done that before, never had
like a ten o'clock and two o'clock, you know, And I was worthless
at both of them. I mean, I was the reason why both songs
sucked, and so I just wasfeeling bad about myself. I was flying
out the next day and I calledmy publisher, this cat Kurt Denny,

(05:54):
who his daddy's Bill Denny, hisgrandpa was Jim Denny. Hired and fired
Hang from the opry. Yeah,signed Buddy Holly de Decca. I told
Elvis to go back to driving atruck. Uh. Well and uh And
I called Kurt and I said,but KD, I'm not going to go

(06:15):
to this Harlan deal tonight. AndHarlan had invited me. Harlan was was
so good to me in Nashville andintroduced me to so many great people,
and they were just people like likeThrockmorton. When I met Throckmorton, he
said, oh, yeah, Harlantold me about you, you know.
So anyways, I said, I'llcall Harland tomorrow. I said, I'm
just not going to go. Andhe said, man, you really need
to go. You need to beseen. It's an important thing. Harlan

(06:38):
invited. You don't know how manymore of these he's gonna have. He
was quite old at the time.There be women in sweatshirts there and then
and I said, man, Iain't gonna go. He goes, man,
it's the hard rock, which wassuch a stupid thing to say to
me. That's one more reason forme not to go. Yeah, why
why the hell would I go toa hard rock Well, he also said,
well, man, they have BuddyHolly's sweater and I want, oh

(07:00):
ship, Why didn't you say soBuddy Holly sweater. Oh of course I'm
going. So sure enough. Thatwas the hook that got me. And
I got to see this famous sweaterwas in all these pictures and and so
there I was, and then thischick just came up and comes up to
me, and I was talking toDanny, and I had two songs on
Danny's record, Brandy was production coordinatorfor the project. You know that at

(07:20):
the time. No, well,no, I didn't know who he was.
I had no idea who he was, had never heard of him,
didn't know his music, had neverheard of the wagoneers, didn't know anything.
Could have been anybody. He couldhave been anybody, riff raff guy
that it wouldn't have mattered if he'dbeen the bus boy I was. So

(07:40):
it was a thunderbolt. What washe wearing. I'll tell you exactly what
he was wearing a blue and wethought about this for years. A blue
custom shirt, black slacks and aleather jacket and boots. And no one
looked like him. He stood outand oh my lord, she came up
to me. He was so handsome. I couldn't get it together, baby,

(08:03):
you were only human. After allthat settled down, that happens a
lot. So we start flirting andeverything. And my next trip up is
I was going to come up againfor the Warner Chapel Christmas party because you
lived and I lived in Nashville.Yeah, and so this this was October
twenty ninth, and uh and sowe were just talking. I think this

(08:24):
was on a Thursday, and uh, and she said, well, what
are you doing this weekend? SoI just flirted right back and I said,
well, what do I need tobe doing? And she said,
well you need to be hanging outwith me. I mean, I couldn't
believe anything like this, And thenI laughed and I said, no,
I got to get home for Halloween. And you know I'm a thirty year
old man. She goes, whatafter you have to go home for Halloween?

(08:45):
And I go, oh, Igot to take my kid's trick or
treating. And immediately her vibe wentfrom hot available chick to end of this
conversation. So my save was oh, no, no, I'm divorced.
So then it came back so theso the doors closed. But anyway,
so we resumed our flirting, andshe asked her friend, the artist Danny

(09:07):
Lee. She said, tell meabout your your friend from Texas and he
goes, oh, he's so sweetand he's a good boy. So anyway,
so we came. I came backup for the Warner Chapel Christmas party.
She was my date, and see, the thing is up there in
Nashville. I'd been divorced ayut ayear and a half and everybody knew I
was just always sad and just kindof mopey. And they called me blue
Boy. That's what they called mea chapel, was blue Boy. And

(09:28):
uh, no one could believe thatI showed up with Brandy from Decca.
And you know that's what everybody calledher, Brandy from Decca. You're taking
Brandy from Decca. Uh to ourtime. Oh she's a good time gals,
She's one of those fun girls fromMount Pilot and uh uh they just
couldn't believe. And we had sucha great time. And really from the
from that first date, we neverbroke up. Today, we never took

(09:52):
a break. What the hell arewe doing it? But you have to
convince her to move to Austin.Was that a tough I bet a convincer.
I begged her. I beg everyday. Like the weird thing was
is like in November, like atThanksgiving, I just told my family,
Look, I've dated a bunch ofwomen. I don't that's not me.
I'm just not that cat. I'mnever getting married again. I'm gonna be

(10:13):
a single dad. I'm gonna needy'all's help with the two boys, who
were eight and four at the time, and just a marriage is not for
me. So then I go ona date with her, one whole date,
and I come home. I tellmy dad I said, oh,
I think I'm gonna marry this girl. He just busted that laugh and go,
what about being a single dad?You know? I mean it was
love at first sight. It wasjust amazing. So I started proposing to

(10:39):
her after we've been going on aboutsix weeks, to which she said,
Okay, that's just weird. Wedon't know each other. You cannot propose
to me till we've been going outat least a year. So on the
one year and one minute anniversary ofour first date, I proposed to her,
and that was twenty six years ago. How long did it take you
to say yes? I said yesright away. Then I said I need

(11:01):
a year to plan. So wehad been together two years before we got
married. Yeah, she needed yearsto plan how to spend that much money
at a wedding. So when youfirst brought her to Austin, where did
you take her? Well? Itook her to the broken spoke absolutely the

(11:22):
it's like going to Mars from Nashville. We didn't have anything like that.
Now this is one of the firstplaces. I took you into Green Hall
and he was like, well,we'll take the kids. I said,
we're not taking the children to abar, and he goes, no,
it's a dance hall. And Igo, do they serve alcohol? And
he goes, well, yeah,it's a dance hall, and go,

(11:43):
we can't do that. I hadno cultural touchstone whatsoever. It was like
you either had a bar or youjust you know, went to I understand
that. But I'll say this aboutso many Tennesseeans, you know, counting
my relatives back in the eighteen thirty. Brandy is a cultural Texan. She

(12:03):
was born a Texans. She wasjust born in Mississippi. I mean,
everything about Texas was right to her, like she came in. She managed
Willie's two studios. After I gotfired from Warner Brothers, she started a
publishing company. She would never havestarted being a music publisher in Tennessee.
I don't think I see God,let you in the right direction, knows
what he's doing. All he cando everything but fail. You know,

(12:24):
amen, what a beautiful story.Yeah it's a shame, it's not true,
but that's what a beautiful press release. Okay, all right, let's
get to why we're here. Excitingnews man, Your second album is coming
out. Release date. My rightsecond album, the second album for money

(12:45):
Ward in the Dangerous Few. Thisis my I don't know a seventh album.
You know, I've been making thesame war the Dangerous Few, and
it comes out uh Friday, Maythe seventeenth, worldwide digital platform. Oh
my gosh, I'm so excited.I'm so proud of this record. You
know, the first danger She recordcame out in two thousand. You know,

(13:07):
you know what that was like,and so we didn't get to tour
it, we didn't get to havein stores. We're having an in store
Waterloo Records in Austin five o'clock onMay seventeenth. Got to write that down.
Everybody, come, it's free,but we would like if you'd buy
a record. But the press offthe first dangers Few record was so amazing,

(13:28):
So the worldwide reception was incredible.Uh. It's the Dangerous Few album.
It's called Jackpot. The single that'sout now, it's called the Wax
of Hatchie Hoochie Coo and the DangerousFeu. It's kind of a jazz thing,
but it's got some roots in it. Nitty gritty stuff, and Brandy
co produced the record with Tim Palmer, and well that she she wrote the

(13:48):
song, yes, yeah, No, She wrote all but one song on
each album, Yeah with me andyou know such, and she produced it,
she publishes all of it, andshe wrote all but one song on
both records. It's really really coolbecause you know, we hadn't hadn't had
a chance to get into it.But you know, Brandy's third generation million

(14:09):
seller in the music business. Hergrandparents sold millions of records, her uncle
or daddy, her uncles, andnow she has to tell us about your
dad a little bit. What songswould we know? Well, uh,
he wrote the B side to JohnnyPacheck's hit Take This Job and Shove It,
which was Colorado kool Aid, andthat single is a six million selling

(14:31):
single, So people might know thathe wrote baby or Baby for George Straight.
That's right. He had to cuton the Randy Travis Storms of Life
with What's because he had to cuton each of the first two Cracked,
the Storms of Life and Anything isOn, Always and Forever, And he

(14:52):
wrote all of those songs. Hewrote Colorada kool Aid by himself, but
he wrote the other stuff, usuallywith my uncle Ronnie Scaife, who also
wrote Whiskey Ain't working anymore with MartyStewarle. I never knew that. You
never told me that story. Yeah, he wrote, he had, He
wrote, he wrote a B ofMy. He got a B a My

(15:15):
award in the seventies, eighties,nineties, and two thousand, so in
four consecutive decades. He wrote.He wrote men for Charlie McLain. Yeah,
he wrote Wrinkles for Uh Diamond Rio. He wrote, Oh, he
wrote Hearts are Going to Roll withhow catch him? Hearts Are Going to
Roll is written about Brandy. That'sright. I was going to ask you
for any songs you were inspiration for. Any songs Arts Are Going to Roll

(15:39):
could have been a warning for you, sir. Well, well now we
know who the real talent in thefamily is. What I've been saying,
My family is extraordinarily talented, andI'm sure you got I got a dose
of it. Well, and likeher, her great uncle Hot Cecil Scafe,
it was his name, but everybodycalled him Hot Scafe. He was
the sound house sound engineer for SunRecords, so he engineer Great Balls of

(16:00):
Fire and a whole lot of shakinggoing on, and I walked the line
and uh, folsom prison blues andlike if you google when Johnny cash gets
is getting his first gold record innineteen fifty eight, her uncle Hot is
handing him the gold single. Yeah, way, yeah, that's pretty cool.
Yeah. So it's it's deep.That's the family business. It is,

(16:21):
yeah, it is. It's reallyneat. So you can imagine how
devastated they were when I brought homea songwriter and they went certainly not And
then the first thing is, well, what cuts has he had so well?
And then it was like, ohhe's on a label. Oh could
we write with him? Can weget some songs too? But you know,

(16:42):
and I'll say this about the writingwith Brandy is uh, you know,
Brandy started her publishing company. Sheshe moved down here to manage Willie's
two studios. Well, I moveddown here to be with you, right
right, I mean professionally, firstthing you were doing and then uh,
what year do you start? Moonkisstwo two o two? She started a
publishing company. Literally, like likethis is true, man, It's like

(17:06):
I wrote for Universal. Therefore AlmaIrving PolyGram that I wrote for BMG Bug
and BMG. Then I wrote forWarner Brothers. I never had any real
commercial success. All my success wasartistic or you know, critical, but
nothing that you can eat, youknow. And when she started her publishing

(17:27):
company, O two before she gother paperwork back from BMI confirming her publishing
company, she had a top fortysingle for me. Wow, Michael Peters,
I'm Michael Peterson. That's right.So you know she got desperately to
George you know, the Travis Trittthing when it went platinum. That was
all with her publishing that And youtold me a story one time. Who's

(17:51):
the person that convinced her to starta publishing company? Well, that would
be me. No, No,somebody else that you mentioned, somebody else
in the business that gave you theconfidence. You've told me the story a
couple for her to be a writer, writer, not a publisher. Okay,
who was that? Who was that? Ruth Carter? That's where I'm
getting that. Yeah, you tellthat baby, that was you. Well,

(18:11):
just because he brought me kicking andscreaming to being a publisher, I
said, I don't know anything aboutthat because in my family, the publisher
was the man, and so wewere just all these ragtag people out and
you know, people in camouflage witha notebook and a pencil out in their
truck writing songs. Publishers worked atan office and they knew what they were

(18:32):
doing, and they got paychecks andand so when I was down here in
MONTI said, well, you shouldbe a publisher. So it took a
lot of convincing for me to dothat. So he finally got me to
do that, and I was successfulat that by some miracle. So then
he was trying to kind of getme to write and whatever. And we
were running a lot with Bill andRuth real quick. It's not that I

(18:53):
was trying to get it to write. I'd be writing these songs and then
she would throw out a line,what what about this? I said,
oh, that's great, Well youco wrote that, Because no, I'm
being a publisher like Fred Rose,because that's what that's what Fred Rose would
do for Hank Williams. As hewould make these little lyrical suggestions, musical
musical suggestions. It just might tightensomething up. So anyway, so we

(19:15):
were hanging with Bill and Ruthe.We were running tight with Bill and Ruth.
Wonderful phenomenally talented people and so damnfunny and uh, and the three
of them would write, and thenthey would play me what they wrote,
and I might say, oh,how about this, or have a suggestion
anyway, And and Ruth and Iseveral times to talk about you said well,

(19:37):
you ought to write with us,and I go, oh, well,
I'm not a writer. I didn'tget the writing gene. I said
that a million times. And onetime Ruth and I were standing outside just
kind of shooting the bull and theguys were inside, and I said that
again, I'm not a writer,and she looked at me, I mean
dead serious, and said, don'tever say that again. You're the only
one who says that you are awriter. And it was like something in

(20:00):
my brain switched, and I justrealized the way I've said it since was
Ruth gave me the permission. Ididn't really realize I was waiting on to
write because in my family, mygrandmother was a writer, but everybody else
were the men. And it wasjust like, I don't know how to

(20:22):
explain it. It was like theywere the writers. And then my boy
cousins dabbled in it, and theywere writers. But I don't know what
it was, but it was likewe were just not they were not even
considered that we would write My sisterand I I say we and she doesn't
either, but I'm saying this.It was just well, it didn't do

(20:45):
that. And you know, becauseBill's been a guest on our show,
right Pickett. But you know it'sa he wrote all those songs with Ruth.
I mean Ruth is you know,she co wrote Crossfire for Stevie ray
Vaughn. So it's not just thatRuth, you know, just another chick
talking. This is a my millionaireaward, right, yeah, I know,
God bless her. Oh just justamazing. But like for us,
the for me anyway, what wasso cool when when Brandy and I started

(21:10):
writing together was one, It's notjust that I'm writing with, you know,
my wife, big deal is yourwife can't write? Who cares?
But at all times I'm writing witha third generation, professional, million selling
family songwriter. And also Brandy comesfrom not just songwriters, but commercial songwriters.

(21:30):
And then Brandy was major label andart department. So Brandy's ear,
her instincts, her eyes, youknow, all go towards is something going
to be pleasing to a wide audience. Brandy knows no other way than that
that that's her family. Like shesaid, the family business is how do
we get this across to millions ofpeople? So there's just that automatic commercial

(21:56):
aspect to it that is subconscious Ithink for her. But like back in
twenty twelve, the Wagoneers, afterwe'd reunited, we went in to make
a record still unreleased, but it'sa hell of a record. It was
produced by Mark Bright, who didCarrie Underwood and Rascal Flats and Luke Bryan
is just an uber producer. Andwhen Mark came on board to produce the

(22:21):
Wagoneers, it was amazing. Hesaid, I you know, because his
fee for producing a record, whatwas it, three hundred three hundred grand.
You know, we were three hundredthousand dollars short of coming up with
that. So he said, look, I love the Wagoneers, I'll produce
you and I'll wave my fee.So he was his fee was zero because

(22:41):
he loved the band so much.He said, but you have to allow
me to pick the songs. Hesaid, They're all going to be your
songs. He said, I'm notgoing to come at the eleventh hour with
the bunch of six one five meaningNashville, but a bunch of Nashville writer
stuff. You write all the songs, but you have to allow me to
pick the final twelve. Send methirty songs, send me fifty songs,

(23:03):
whatever you want to do, becausehe would. He came to I don't
know how many of our shows,so he knew that the songs were there,
he said, but I get topick them, no questions asked.
It was great, they are allmy songs. What the hell do I
care? So I sent up likethe first batch, and uh, there
were. And if you for peoplethat don't know, when you send in

(23:25):
a song, you always send ina lyric sheet. Always, just if
you're an aspiring writer out there andyou're gonna pittch a song to somebody,
always include a lyric sheet. Andon the lyric sheet list the songwriters and
the song The songs that I sentup, you know, one of them
Bruce Robinson and I had written thatwound up being on the record. Another
one I'd written with a pretty wellknown Nashville writer, but I can't say

(23:48):
it was the best one, butit was good enough to send up.
And then another one was a bya very well established Nashville writer, but
I didn't think it was necessarily oneof the best. And Mark picked the
two two songs that had the knownNashville writers on it, and I went,
Okay, I'm starting to screw myselfhere this. These are not the
best songs. So the next batchof songs I sent up had no co

(24:11):
writer listed, no writer listed,and uh, because I knew that if
I was gonna start sending up songsthat I wrote with my wife, it's
gonna be Yoko two point zero.And we had just started, just started
writing, so we had no trackrecord. We had no track record,
and I didn't you know, there'sgonna say Monty Warden, Brandy Warden,
and people go, oh great,his old lady writes, so heavenly there

(24:32):
for the credit or whatever, rightright right, because you know, like
sometimes writers put people on a songfor tax reasons, for divorce reasons,
and it's like like Ernest Tubbs brotheris on is the only writer listed on
Waltz Cross Texas. It's the onlysong he ever wrote. Well, Ernest
was going through a divorce and hehid the fact he wrote it, so
he put his brother on it.Anyway. So I didn't want any of

(24:53):
that bulls going on. So Isent the next batch of songs up with
no co writer listed, and Markcalled me and he said, man,
I'm loving this bash Now this soundslike the Wagoneers. Who do you write
these songs with? And I said, well, what the f difference does
it make? And I was juston the phone to where there was this
pause pregnant enough for me to go, are you still there, hass Is,

(25:15):
Yeah, I'm here. Yeah,what the f difference does it make?
So of the of the twenty seventwenty four, twenty seven songs I
sent up to Mark, six ofthem were co writes with Brandy. All
six of Brandy's co writes made therecord, but none of them was she
listed as a co writer in preproduction. And Mark said, I'll never

(25:37):
look. I'll never want to seea writing credit on a lyric sheet again.
He said, that clouded my judgment. And this is a well known
producer. Oh way, it soldtwo hundred million records. Yeah, yeah,
And when we changed the way helooked at things and the and I
likely would not have landed any ofthem on there because it would have been
I known quant yea, I knowentity, we don't know. It's not

(26:00):
proven, and you know, let'sgo with these guys and his old lady.
The question is how come this album'snot out? I got to ask
that, Uh I haven't been releasedyet? Well just not time. No,
there there was initially some some personnelstuff that has it coming out.
By the way, it'll an album, this good will see the light of
day something that's what I want.But now we got this album, yes

(26:22):
here, Jackpot, Jackpot by theDitch. Now that's just part one of
our conversations with Matty Warden and Brandyof course about the brand new album Jackpot.
Part two continues next week on Tailsfrom the Broken Spoke. Tales from
the Broken Spoke is recorded live atThe Broken Spoke in Austin, Texas,
hosted by Country Radio Hall of Famebroadcaster Bob Pickett and Monty Warden, recorded

(26:47):
mixed down and produced by Mike Rivera