#413 - Behind The Scenes of the Music Industry (Part 2)

In Part 2 of Behind the Scenes of the Music Industry, you'll hear from country music reporter & journalist, Marcus K Dowling, legendary music exec, Joe Galante, Grammy award winning producer, Nathan Chapman, General Manager of Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood's record labels, Lesly Simon, Luke Bryan and Cole Swindell's manager, Kerri Edwards and more!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing technical difficulties.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Welcome to Part two of The Bobby Cast that it's
all about behind the scenes of the music industry. In
this episode, you're gonna hear stories from legendary music executive
Joe Galante, who is now in the Country Music Hall
of Fame. From producer Nathan Chapman, maybe you would know
him from some Taylor Swift, the general manager of Garth
and Trisha's record labels, Leslie Simon, and then a.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Whole lot more. So let's get right into it.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Kicking off Part two of Behind the Scenes of the
Music Industry, Marcus K.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Dowling.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Marcus is a country music reporter. He's a journalist for
the Tennessee and he talks about his process for writing
stories that are compelling and what he learned from Ronnie Dunn,
the lead singer of Brooks and Dunn. For me, a
good writer or even a good curator, they don't have
an agenda, but they haven't a agenda at the same

(01:02):
time to give people a different outlook or maybe expose
them in a different way.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
Yeah, you're dead on with that, So.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
There's no agenda in that you're going to create a story.
But maybe, and I'm not saying you, I'm just gonna
do an universal you. Yeah, I'll do me. I'll do me.

Speaker 4 (01:17):
No, we can do me. It doesn't matter either way.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
So I don't want to feed you some bull crap
and make and give you some false facts. But I
definitely have a perspective constantly and consistently about how I
feel about this genre. And I've been praised and ridiculed
at the highest points. I'm both ye and I've always
had this perspective in its mind and I own it
now here you you're here now and you're writing. You

(01:40):
are writing for the biggest, the most powerful publication that
writes on country music. So you have to have that
not an agenda to make things happen, but an agenda
to cover it from your perspective.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
It's a thing with like so Ben God is my
boss at the paper. We got to sit down conversation
like first day and he's like, well, what do you
think about the job, And I'm like, well, we just
have to cover the best music, And to me, that's
like so great greatest side. Like I saw Morgan Wallen
twice at the Bridgetone Arena. This is after I spent

(02:15):
most of last year like writing like honest, hard hitting, brutal,
real pieces about racism. But I'm like, he also has
four billion streams on Spotify. So like, yeah, I'm gonna
sit there for two nights because I need to understand,
and partially because I care more about the job, and

(02:36):
I care more about the readership of the Tennessee and
and I care about what anybody thinks about me because
I know, at the end of the day, I have
to have an unbiased, unfettered opinion about all of this.
If my opinion stops at ninety nine point ninety seven
percent of country music and there's point three of it

(02:56):
that sells outsells twenty five artists who I think are great,
then I'm not doing my job.

Speaker 4 (03:02):
So like, for me, that's the thing. It's like, I'll
do that.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
I'll also write about Joy Clark, who's an amazing virtuo
so like black lesbian guitarist who like you know, I
met at Americana Fest last year and she's now playing
with Alice and Russell's band. Oh right, if I heard
in the same space, that's what you do, because it's
like to me, I look at it.

Speaker 4 (03:24):
I have a week, like I have a whiteboard. It's
like the week of country music.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
And if I'm not covering, to me, what are the
most compelling stories that week? Even once, it pushed me
and stretch me and make me have to like step
outside of myself or reconsider things or notions that I
would have outside of me having this job. That's what
I do, you know, I get, like I guessid I
went to Whiskey Jams, Like you know, like a lot

(03:48):
of my friends who like you know, look at me
from DC or wherever else and they're like, so you
like went to like Whiskey Jam for like four hours
and like sat there and like watch these guys play
country music. I'm like yeah, And they're like why, and
I'm like, well, it's the culture of the city. I'm like,
if you actually go to Lower Broadway, the music that

(04:11):
Hardy and Earnest and Ben Burgers are making kind of
like defines the top one percent of what Nashville's doing
on some level, and I wouldn't be doing my job,
Like yeah, is it a fascinating thing to do? Of course,
but that's the job, So of course I'm gonna do
the job. So it's a rule to have with new artists,
right because nobody's knew a country. Everybody takes like, you know,

(04:32):
a decade to become new.

Speaker 4 (04:34):
It's a beautiful thing.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
But to me, it's like, if you're new and you're
making the best music in my unbiased opinion, then I'm
going to have something to say about the music that
you were making, like unquestionably, And that's the thing. It's like, like,
for like, right now, I have like two stories I'm

(04:56):
working on about Pillbox Patty because Nicolette is an A
plus level writer and her music is expanding the expectations
of what women do in the genre in a way
that hasn't been expanded in like fifty years.

Speaker 4 (05:08):
And I'm like, I have to cover that.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
And she's new, you know, she's if I walked down
the street to the public's one percent of the people
in public, sino she is.

Speaker 4 (05:21):
But am I gonna put her into Tennessee?

Speaker 1 (05:22):
And absolutely like, she's making great music and she's on
the Ashley McBride album, and you know, she's got her
stuff and you know she's she's working and relevant.

Speaker 4 (05:31):
So that's why I look at it.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
I saw he did a story on Ronnie done absolutely
because he has a new record out. Yeah, what's your
experience personally like with Ronnie, Like you go to a
room and you meet him, how does Ronnie come off
to you?

Speaker 1 (05:45):
Well, for me, Ronnie Dunn is like essential to country
because people, if you don't know country music, you would
really wonder why I would give a million craps about
somebody from Oklahoma, Like, to me, Oklahoma, Texas, that area,
that red dirt area, that to me is like the

(06:08):
bread and butter of the genre. And Ronnie understands that
space better than almost anybody. He's like unquestionably, people want
to ask why Neon Moon is one of the greatest
songs of all time because it for a large part
of enormous genre in music.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
That song.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
Best defines what that look, sound feel, a texture of
a culture feels like. And when you talk to him,
it's just like, it's funny. He's the only person I've
ever met who, if you put him on too high
of a pedestal, will immediately lower himself to your level

(06:51):
by talking like we were talking and he's like yeah, yeah,
yeah this, but you you're a Parker McCollum he's on
my record, and he's like that guy. He looks verter,
he looks like stepped out of the gym, and I
like his look, and because he's got that Texas thing
going on, and you're just like wow. Because it's the
funny thing I learned from him, was like and especially

(07:13):
it's the thing that I love about country is that
you could be at the pinnacle of the space. But
because you feel competition every day because Nashville's that kind
of town where like somebody could have forty five number
one hits and somebody has fifty that walks in the
room right after them. Like you're always competing. You're always working,
so you're always comparing yourself to whatever you feel is

(07:37):
the newest, hottest, youngest, most relevant thing, because you're almost
like trying to figure out, well, where do I compare
and am I better? Am I worse? Or what could
I do to like meet or exceed that level.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
I don't want you to say any names, because I
wouldn't say names if you asked me this question either,
But you ever, because you get to sit down and
get intimate with these folks. Yeah, usually go to place
where they're comfortable and when they're comfortable, they get comfortable faster. Yeah,
you ever sit with someone and go, all right, this
person's not even really in this. They're they're putting on

(08:11):
something that's completely false just to make a buck, or
because they couldn't they couldn't hit it somewhere else.

Speaker 4 (08:16):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
It's it's a funny thing with me when it comes in interviewing,
because you I've interviewed you, so you've been in or
you've sat across from me.

Speaker 4 (08:26):
My job.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Is to pull down your barrier before we even ask
the first serious question. If I can't pull down the barrier,
then I know that, like I know something about this
person is not at all legitimate or relevant in what
they're trying to do or trying to accomplish. And I

(08:51):
find ways to make sure that I meet my subject
wherever they are in their creative process and what they're doing.
Like that, to me is more important than anything like understanding. Like, Okay,
you make music because you just want to meet cool girls.
There are a lot of people who make country music

(09:13):
because they want to meet cool girls. They want to
meet a wife, they want to have three kids in
a you know, four car garage, and that's it. And
if I could find that in that person and we
dive in on that and then I'll work back whereund
to the music and all the other stuff I need,
then that's an interview of value because I've found something
about this person where I know that I'm going to

(09:33):
get pure, honest, unadulterated facts. And for them, when I
come at them at that level half of the interview,
sometimes I feel like they're like off put because they're like, wait,
how does this guy know that about me? That is
strange and weird? And I've never really told anybody that,

(09:55):
but and that just comes from me from years of
just like observing people. Like music is people. You know,
It's like if you sing a song or you write
a song, something of yourself is in that song, and me,
as a journalist, my job is to like figure that
thing out and expose it to the whole world and

(10:17):
hopefully that impacts their development or their fan base or
their economic bottom line or whatever.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
I don't know if it was strategy by you, because
if it was, it was an awesome wonder if it
just happened to be the luck of the day. But
you know, you were here and you interviewed me and
I had done fifty five interviews in a row, and
so I came in and I had no my barrier
had be eating away any barrier that I even wanted house.
I was exhausted, but it's the best place to get me. Yeah,
because I just don't care anymore. I don't care for

(10:45):
the most part. Anyway, for the most part.

Speaker 1 (10:47):
I when it comes to you and me were the
same person. We're opposite sides of the same coin. And
it took me like a day of just like looking
at the YouTube channel and going, oh, I think I
know Bobby Bo's pretty well like and then I realized
you were forty two and I'm forty four. So and
then I realized you're a cultural influences in mine. And

(11:08):
I'm like, there's a lot of similarities here. And I'm like,
if I just talk to you point plank streight, there's
something about like the way that you create magic.

Speaker 4 (11:17):
When you interview people.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Any way, I try to create magic where I read people,
where I'm like, something really special could occur.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
Well, you asked me something no one's ever asked me before.
And again, as you've done three thousand interviews and I've
done many, and myself. I've been interviewed many times. It's
rare when something new happens. Yeah, and so I'm sitting
here and we're talking a good time. I like you great,
and most interviews go, ah, look at this, you did
best sellers, look at you, you did this show you
did and are like, which one which favorite? And you

(11:44):
went what do you what do you not have? And
I was like, oh, that's refreshing. Okay, yeah, set up
straighter and I just get I remember getting like fired up,
not at you, at the fact that I'd never get
to host the ACMORC and Mace because I lived with that.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Joe Galante is a.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
Legendary music executive who became the youngest person ever to
be head of a record label and he's now in
the Country Music Hall of Fame, which is crazy. And
he talks about signing artists like Kenny Chesney and the Judds.
This one was really cool for me. So you're in
your early thirties when you come to Nashville. Actually twenty four, Wow,
you're in your early twenties. Yeah, so you moved down

(12:19):
and you're working at RCA, But what is your job
when you move here?

Speaker 4 (12:22):
First?

Speaker 3 (12:22):
Because of No, you're you know, one of the youngest,
if not the youngest person to take over a major label.
So you move here in your twenties, what do you do?

Speaker 5 (12:30):
I had the glorious title of Manager of Administration, which
really meant whatever Jerry wanted me to do, I did.
But it really was trying to bring some semblance of
order to the various departments, trying to get them involved
with the corporation overall, the RCA corporation. I mean, I
had been in the company number of years. I had

(12:50):
a lot of friends in the promotion department and sales department.
So Jerry was, Hey, go up there and meet with them,
see what you can do for our records.

Speaker 4 (12:58):
And that was part of what.

Speaker 3 (12:59):
I did when I come back to that in a minute.
And that's where we are. You've just arrived in Nashville
and you have a job that sounds like I don't
know what it is because the words are so vague. Right,
you're doing it all. Let's move over a bin and
go to another artist, Kenny Chesney. So you met Kenny
around what year ninety and what did he have going

(13:21):
for him when you met him?

Speaker 5 (13:23):
Well, the story is Dale Morris coming back to the
same person, Dale Morris.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
I was getting ready to move back.

Speaker 5 (13:29):
To Nashville running the company in New York, and Dale
called me over the weekend and said, I've got this kid,
Kenny Chesney. I said, who's Kenny Chesney. Well, he's on Capricorn.
I think you'd really like him. I said, well, send
me the record, you know, and we'll have a conversation.
So I got the record, and I thought it was
interesting in what way as a songwriter. I thought he

(13:52):
had a unique perspective. He was a country singer, which
at that point, from looking at the roster, we certainly
could use a few more of those. And he had
been out working the road, you know. I mean he
had been working through the whole process. I had a
respect for Capricorn Records, and Dale said, I think I
can get them off.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
So that's what we went down the road.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
So Capricorn Records. My assumption is I have never heard
of Capricorn. I'm assuming they're not around anymore.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
Maybe they are Walman Brothers and those kind of guys.

Speaker 5 (14:21):
That's the Phil Walden was the original guy that ran
that company.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
Small.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
Yeah, so Kenny's on a small independent label and so
you guys identify him as someone that you think you
could make into a major star. So you have the records,
you listen to it. He has an interesting perspective and
a ninching way to present things. So you call him up,
you go see him. What happens.

Speaker 5 (14:43):
Actually we met months later in the office, and you know,
I mean he was young. I mean he came in,
you know, was it was almost like George straight light.
I mean he was really trying that was.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
One was a cowboy hat then yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's crazy to think about. Had at Kenny, he's just
not that anymore and hasn't been for a long time.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
And so he says to you, what's Kenny Chesney's goal?

Speaker 3 (15:06):
Because he's on Capricorn and you think there's a nice
relationship that can happen there. What does Kenny Chasney tell
he wants to do with his career at that point?

Speaker 5 (15:14):
He wants to be one of those guys that everybody
you know, Phil small Stadiums weren't in the conversation at
that point. So it's Phil Arenas and I want to
be one of the biggest stars out there.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
And I'm sure a lot of people say that I mean,
I think pretty much everybody probably says that I want
to be a big star. Why was Kenny different as
far as aside from the record that you heard and
you thought his presentation was interesting and his songwriting, But
why Kenny? And why did you think he could be
the massive star that he is now?

Speaker 5 (15:41):
He worked his ass off, and I mean he really
whatever he didn't have as a skill as an entertainer
or as a writer, he would go out and find
those guys and spend the time to learn. I always
thought it was interesting when he was in town, he
was always going to see shows, something he continued on

(16:01):
much later on.

Speaker 4 (16:02):
You know, he went out and.

Speaker 5 (16:04):
Toured with Alabama when he didn't need to tour with Alabama.
He'd go out and open for George Jones when he
didn't need to open for George. He just wanted to
learn how do you entertain? What are you doing that
makes it so different? And they were, you know, his
heroes at the same time.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
When did can he go from being a guy that
had some moderate to good radio success to being a superstar?

Speaker 2 (16:23):
In your mind?

Speaker 4 (16:27):
Early two thousands.

Speaker 3 (16:28):
And what was it a song?

Speaker 4 (16:30):
Was it Forever Feels?

Speaker 3 (16:31):
That was the one and you can you're where you are.
I'm sure there are certain songs where you can just
feel it. You're like, Okay, we're looking at sales or
we're looking at concert tickets, like this is the element
that is changing it.

Speaker 5 (16:44):
He actually was doing better business concert wise than we
were doing on records at that point.

Speaker 3 (16:50):
So he was making more money at live shows than
you were selling he was selling records.

Speaker 5 (16:53):
Yeah, but I mean what you had where people think
about back then in the late ninety there's no Internet.

Speaker 4 (17:02):
People were just showing up.

Speaker 5 (17:03):
It's word of mouth, and so people are going out
to see him, and what we needed to do was
connect the dots he had. You know, we'd have a hit,
then we'd have a miss. We'd have a hit, we'd
have a miss. How forever Fuel was the first time
we started a string where we just kept going at it.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
Well, that string, the consistency of the string, what you
say you started to hit him in a row. What
was the consistent I mean in terms of numbers or
you know, in terms of you started to put them together.
But this was that a certain texture of the song's
a tempo, an idea. What it was he beach Kenny
yet was like, what was it?

Speaker 5 (17:37):
No, he hadn't reached beach Kenny. Yet he was getting there,
and he was developing the identity, you know, coming out
with the rock and roll T shirts, the type jeans,
the whole routine, working out physically getting there because it
was a physically demanding job that he had, and really
spending the money on the production. He knew that he
needed to make a bigger and bigger show. But you know,

(17:59):
when we made ords, we pulled four singles off, sometimes
five singles, and left singles on the album that we
could have pulled out. So the quality of the music
was there, and it was it was everything from the beach.
But then you'd go through, there goes my life, you know,
I mean, you know, it just it covered the gamut.
And occasionally he would write them, but most of the

(18:20):
time they were outside writers.

Speaker 4 (18:21):
You know.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
I often say that I love slow Kenny, like I
connect with slow Kinny anytime Kenny's doing a ballad or
slightly slower than mid like those are my Kenny Chesney songs.
Tequila yeah, oh man, that's one of my favorite songs
ever him. And so like slow Kenny, that's my jam.
Sometimes when he does the beach stuff in the fast step.
I don't even like the beach, So I'm like, you
know what, I'll pass on this one. But like, man,

(18:42):
the guy's got an emotional catalog. Let's go back to
New York. You moved to Nashville, you're working as some
administration position, and so do you start to climb here?
It was that a goal of yours to climb here
or was it a goal of New York's for you
to climb here.

Speaker 5 (19:00):
New York At that point, I think I was off
the radar in New York for that two year period.
We'd check in occasionally with each other, but I think
the turning point for me was that Jerry began to
see Jerry Bradley began to see when I go to
New York, I'd bring something back that helped us. And
I had this conversation with him one day because I
kept I was not in charge of promotion, but I

(19:23):
was trying to figure everything out in terms.

Speaker 4 (19:25):
Of country radio.

Speaker 5 (19:26):
I really had not been involved with the format, and
we kept getting these records that didn't quite compete with
everybody else on the charts. But I mean to the
most of us, it sounded like we should be competing.
So I dove into promotion and tried to start figuring
out meeting with people, going out with the promotion, guys,
hitting radio stations, and you know, I came into Jerry

(19:47):
one day. I said, you know, we're not we're not
doing what we need to be doing. And he looked
at me and he said, well, go goddamn it, go
figure it out. I said, well, I'm not in charge
of promotion. He said, you just go figure it out.
I'll take care of.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
It from there.

Speaker 5 (20:00):
So I came back and I said, well, here are
the things that we need to do. You said, okay,
I'll put you in charge.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
And I wait, wait, wait, wait.

Speaker 5 (20:08):
Wait wait. I haven't run a staff. You know, I've
been in promotion, but I haven't run a staff. And
so that was the trial by fire.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
And that fire.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
As you're in the fire, do you realize that it's
easier or harder, or that you're naturally good at it,
or it's something that maybe you didn't have the instinct
for but you could work really hard and figure it out.
Like where did you fall when you got into this
promotions world and now you're running it?

Speaker 5 (20:31):
I felt like I could do it, but I needed
the experience, you know. I was surrounded by other labels
where guys have been doing this stuff for ten or
fifteen years. I've been doing it for fifteen or twenty months.
So it took me time to build those relationships and
understand the system.

Speaker 4 (20:45):
But then I went after it.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
Did you feel like a little bit that you were
at the right age at a time when things were
changing and you had the right vision and mindset, because again,
if you're working with guys that have been doing it
fifteen years, I mean even you know, and eighty three,
eighty forty five, it's a significant change since seventy five
seventy six as far as technology. You know, I think

(21:10):
I got lucky be in this age because I was
using the internet and do you know, doing podcasting stuff
before everybody was doing it. But I happened to be
very young at the right time, and sever was like, wow,
look at this guy's doing all this revolutionary stuff. No,
I was just twenty two. It really wasn't revolutionary. I
just was young doing it. Did you find that a
bit of that was because you were younger and you

(21:30):
were actually using the technology of the day instead of
having to learn it at an older age.

Speaker 4 (21:37):
That was part of it.

Speaker 5 (21:38):
But I also think just like you, you given an opportunity,
you went after it, and you were not afraid of
trying things, and that gave you the entree.

Speaker 4 (21:47):
Same thing with me.

Speaker 5 (21:48):
I was not afraid of trying, failing if I need,
but I was going to go after it. And you know,
anytime I needed to be on airplane, out in La
out in New York, out in Dallas, I just went.
And you build the relationships and you begin to understand
the stations and the personalities and the markets. And that
really did help me when I went back to the
artists and said, look, this is what's coming back about

(22:11):
the music and why we're not succeeding, or if we
were succeeding, this is all the good news, and there's
not really a lot of bad news. And at that
point we had not developed a system. We were just
getting to the point of the tracking systems like the
BDS and media base that was just coming on. You
were still dealing in archaic systems where people were yeah, hey,

(22:32):
it's yeah, it's in power.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
They would just say how many times they played it,
and you had to believe them absolutely wow. So you're
credited with really changing the formula of how promotion has
done to sell records. What did you do in your
mind that was so different.

Speaker 5 (22:50):
Well, one of the things was bringing the new artists out.
I mean we created the original promo tour. I mean,
Loretto was the person that did it. I mean, we
would just use the same model. It started with the juds,
and we went out with the juds and took them
into studios and brought radio people into studios.

Speaker 4 (23:08):
And that worked.

Speaker 5 (23:10):
But what we found out later on when we did
KT and Clint was that if we went to the
actual stations, then people went in there, you met everybody
in the station. They you know, they'd cut jingles, they'd
cut liners. So there was an advantage to going to
the marketplace. Prior to that, people didn't really travel around

(23:30):
to radio stations.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
Is it crazy to you that's that's still the thing.

Speaker 4 (23:33):
It's a personal business.

Speaker 5 (23:34):
You know, it's nice to play it, but you want
to know something about them. Sometimes that personal relationship is
what gets you over the hump to heading a record.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
So what I hear you saying is people.

Speaker 5 (23:47):
Always a people of business, whether it be a songwriter,
a producer, or manager, it's always.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
People, let's go to the jugs for a second. Growing
up for me massive because my mom loved them. She
would sing them all the time. Like one of the
memories I have of my mother is her singing why
not me? Or just it was all Judds all the time.
And you know, you have a mom and a daughter
and I don't know that I have seen that before,

(24:13):
a straight mom and a daughter that made it to
a level like the judge or even a mid level.
So you're signing him you got invest money in them?
Like what did you see about those two that made
you think that was something to put a bunch of
money into?

Speaker 5 (24:25):
And well, believe in We used to when we go
out to La we'd stay at this little hotel called
the Park. And the guy that was in charge of
Curve Productions, Dick Whitehouse, who passed away about a year
and a half ago. He and I have been trying
to do business for a while, just had never hit
on anything. So we had breakfast and we were in
the suite talking and he was getting ready to leave and.

Speaker 4 (24:46):
He's I said to him, you got anything from me?

Speaker 5 (24:48):
He said, well, I've got this mother daughter, and I've
got a work tape, but it's not ready.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
I'll wait, wait till we get back. I said, what
do you think throwing your mother daughter before anything else?
It's magic if you hear I have a mother daughter,
Are you like? That's so original that if they're good,
I want it absolutely because I don't I've never heard
mother you know before them, and I don't know and
have the experience you have of being around I just
haven't heard a mother daughter do it on a level
of contemporary.

Speaker 4 (25:13):
And they were even on the demos, they were great.

Speaker 5 (25:16):
So I said, look, I'm going to be back in
Nashville on Monday. Why don't we get together anytime next week?
You tell me when. So I think it was Wednesday
or Thursday. That week went on in.

Speaker 4 (25:26):
Naomi came in, three songs, they walk out. I go.

Speaker 5 (25:31):
I called Dick and said, we've got to we got
to make a deal.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
And we did that day.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
What do they maybe you don't remember, what are they
coming and sing?

Speaker 4 (25:39):
Do they have a guitar?

Speaker 3 (25:39):
Are they doing acapella stuff?

Speaker 4 (25:41):
No, they had a guitar. And you know why.

Speaker 5 (25:43):
I was playing and singing and they were doing the harmony,
and Naomi is entertaining telling you the stories and honestly
don't remember at this point.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
So why not of them must have been? How old
was she a teenage robbing you see? Yeah, sixteen seventeen.
I think sixteen fifty is crazy.

Speaker 4 (25:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
And to have a you know, you hear about stage
parents a lot. That's a literal stage parent, that's a
parent on stage with you and you're doing it together.
What was that dynamic like for them early? Because they're
equal stars, yeah, but they're not equal in the house,
So I would assume that's managing that dynamic would have
been tough.

Speaker 4 (26:21):
It took a moment.

Speaker 5 (26:23):
I think that, you know, why was beginning to see
that she was the center of attention, but she did
need her mom for the harmony part and also for
the entertainment part. And why just was really good talking
to people, you know what I mean? NAILI was Why

(26:43):
was still she was a kid? Yeah, but she was.
She was gaining the experience rapidly.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
So you're going station to station, You're doing you're figuring
it out. Your data is happening because you found a
new technique, right, and you're starting to slowly see it.
When do other companies start to see what you're doing
and how it's working, and they start to mimic what
you're doing.

Speaker 5 (27:02):
Several years later, but you just you know. Then we
went from you know, those promo visits to the bus tour.
We would go around the country on a bus, and
at first we did it just as a label, going
into radio stations you know and hitting them and taking
them on the bus, showing the videos playing on the
music talking for a while, you know, three cities a day,
just kept going around the country for four or five months,

(27:25):
and then we got the idea to start doing bus
tours where you would bring the artists to the radio
station on the bus and again take.

Speaker 4 (27:32):
Them on spend the time just and that.

Speaker 5 (27:35):
We had that lockdown for a couple of years before
somebody said, oh, we'll do that too.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
It's also a costly yeah, I mean, it costs a
lot of money to move an artists around for months
in a bus.

Speaker 5 (27:45):
And it's time consuming for your staff coordinating everything, you know,
getting everything together and making sure that you've got everything
you need. And at the same time, promo guys have
it to keep you know, working on those records.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
So you're promo touring, your head of promotions when does
that turn into or maybe there's a couple steps in between,
but when do you actually take the helm? Uh?

Speaker 5 (28:09):
Jerry stepped down in eighty two, so I took it
right after that.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
And how did that feel to you? Like it's my time?

Speaker 4 (28:15):
Or like holy crap?

Speaker 3 (28:16):
No?

Speaker 5 (28:16):
I think well, I know at that time the company
was kind of like, are you ready for this?

Speaker 4 (28:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (28:25):
Was it because your age?

Speaker 4 (28:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (28:26):
More than anything else, because it sounds like you've done
things that nobody else has done. You've seen things and
ways that haven't been seen, and had you maybe been
forty five, they wouldn't have asked a question. Possibly, So
you're thirty two and they say you're ready for this?
And what do you say?

Speaker 4 (28:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (28:38):
What did you feel though? Inside your heart?

Speaker 4 (28:40):
Yeah? I felt like I could do it? You know.

Speaker 5 (28:41):
I mean again, just as I said before about running
a staff, running a label is a different thing than
being like the GM you know at the buck stops there.

Speaker 3 (28:51):
What new responsibility did you have running a label that
maybe you didn't know you were going to have.

Speaker 4 (28:56):
When running a label, when.

Speaker 5 (28:58):
You start building a roster, that's a completely different experience
than just working records, because you're painting a picture what
you really do see should represent this label? And where
are the holes in the marketplace? What has the competition got?

Speaker 4 (29:13):
What do you have?

Speaker 5 (29:15):
Can you do better than they are in the various areas.
You could have three women on the on the roster,
but maybe they weren't better than Trisha Yearworth. You know,
you got to find where and so we had the jugs,
you know you could crack through and you know, moved
on to Laurie Morgan and you know, it was just
working through that process of trying to find When you

(29:37):
build a label, you build a catalog and you have
to have those artists that are going to have a
long tail, be able to sell for a long period
of time. If you just have a series of one
hit wonders, you're just constantly spending.

Speaker 4 (29:49):
You're on a Durbim wheel.

Speaker 5 (29:51):
But building, yeah, you know you have to be consistent
about the music, consistent about the moves with the manager.
In terms of touring. What are you doing on the
TV personnel? How do you get them on the shows?
Moving through the entire process.

Speaker 6 (30:03):
Hang tight the Bobby Cast. We'll be right back. Welcome
back to the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Jesse Fraser is a Grammy nominated songwriter and producer. He
talks about the number one hits he wrote for Thomas
Rhett and what that songwriting process was. Like, here's some
of the Thomas red stuff. So this is let's see
you produce die happy Man by the way, which is
not on the new record, but you produce this song here.
When you produce this song, are you getting any points

(30:38):
on that forever?

Speaker 4 (30:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (30:39):
Okay, you are. So it's not just a producer fee
up front and then you're done.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
We have gett advance and we get points on the record.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yes, oh you're printing money. Just wait till you hear
this other stuff. And like, I'm happy for you. ILL
love to see people make it. I love to see
people be successful, especially if they're working hard. So here's
some songs that Europe for t are life Changes, which
is the current single. Here, such a good song. He
text me about two months ago. And I don't know

(31:06):
how much I factored into any decision, but he goes, hey, man,
you think life Changes is too personal? And I said,
for what? He goes for a radio song, and I said,
I don't think there's a such thing as too personal ever, right,
And then he's sort of if you let people into
your life, but in a world when things don't matter
to anybody anymore because there's so many things yeap like
you're basically putting out a biography in three minutes, right,

(31:29):
and people get to know you with a super catchy hook.

Speaker 4 (31:32):
Right.

Speaker 3 (31:32):
This song encapsulates tom Trip perfectly. You guys did a
great job of the song.

Speaker 4 (31:36):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
But he knows you'd be honest too. Oh for sure
I would have said no, I don't think so, and
he does.

Speaker 4 (31:40):
You know.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Is for someone being as.

Speaker 7 (31:42):
Confident as he is in his place and taking risks
and pushing boundaries, he does think about that. What is
the next fan going to think? Is this a fan song?
Or is this a universal song? And those kind of concepts.
So I'm sure he knows you're gonna shoot him straight
on that.

Speaker 3 (31:58):
When you guys write that, though, is that a conversation
in the room too, like? Ooh, is this too personal.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Of a song?

Speaker 3 (32:02):
And then is it a conversation before you put on
the record. Yeah, I mean to be honest with you,
I don't think any of us expected it to be
a single.

Speaker 7 (32:09):
It was one of the last songs we wrote. We
wrote at the farm his dad was there, was me
and Ashley and Rhett and Thomas, and we were in
the little guest house there and.

Speaker 4 (32:19):
He was going through a lot.

Speaker 7 (32:20):
I mean literally, I think there was nerves that life
was about to get turned upside down. So it was
a little bit of a unknown and I think we
were just sort of having fun and it was just
we figured we already had the whole record written and
you know, take a stab at it.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
So it's such a smart move if that play works,
to put out something that people would like to consume
while they learn about you at the same time, right,
just for the Thomas red brand. Sure, because and I
learned this, I put out a book.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
I think was gonna read that thing Ohnest to God.
I wrote a book.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
I thought, no, he's gonna read this was bestseller for
four weeks. And I didn't know what I was doing
when I was, but I learned, Wow, if I can
make something good that also people relate to and learn
about me, it helps my message. Sure, And so I
think you guys captured up with the song I got.
I think the song is really thank you. It really
good and really cool for an artist to do, to
put like what if Luke puts out a song goes

(33:14):
like it's for Osborne. I mean, it's just so it's
just a perfect thing for a brand when you're trying
to brand yourself right now, right because it's so hard
to be No, we actually changed the lyric in the
second verse just to go to radio with just because
he had already had the.

Speaker 4 (33:27):
Other baby, so it was you.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Know what was the original verse? The original was.

Speaker 7 (33:32):
One on the way, and now we've changed it to
the you know another sweet baby.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
James, Ah, how about this one? This he's from the
record Unforgettable. And then so before the record came out,
Tom's right, Kim in the studio and he played like
five or six songs in a row from the record.

(33:56):
He came in the studio and he was playing this
and I said, Hey, is that really about Lauren. He's like, no,
it's not. And he doesn't say that a lot now
because he said it early. Sure, I don't scream because
it care I like for people. But he's like, not really,
we just kind of wrote a song, right, What can
you add to that? What he told me?

Speaker 2 (34:12):
No, that's true.

Speaker 7 (34:13):
This was a bus song, Unforgettable, Marry me kind of
happened in the same two week period on bus trips.
It's amazing that we had this amazing run. There's actually
a song called eighty that was on a Target exclusive that.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
The number two.

Speaker 7 (34:27):
Yeah, so we had this amazing two week run, which,
by the way, side note we most of Thomas's records come.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
From bus trips.

Speaker 7 (34:35):
He writes on the road more. It feels like that's
like his office, so he doesn't write as much in
town as he used to, just because when he's home
he's with family.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
But yeah, it's just kind of one of those things.

Speaker 7 (34:45):
I think the Mango Margarita thing came out and it
just sort of felt like a fun up tempo because
sometimes we struggle with up tempos and Thomas brand when
we're writing for him. It's because naturally he kind of
gets drawn to those singer songwriter ballads. And it just
was sort of a high energy thing with Ashley banging
out on piano while we were on the bus. We
set up a little pro tools rigs like this like

(35:06):
you have here and basically capture it right there before
he goes to meet and greet.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
Tell me about this bus thing.

Speaker 7 (35:12):
So you go out Wednesday nights, meet at the Kroger.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
That's where the bus ride. Like the bus is parked
in some big parking walmart. Yeah, yeah, so you get it.
Does he have a bus for just you guys.

Speaker 7 (35:24):
A lot of times we'll get a rider bus. I
prefer it because then they can kind of have their
own space. A lot of times they've got tour managers
with them or whatever. So it's great when we've got
a rider bus out. Sometimes, like last weekend I was
with him, we were on his bus. So we'll meet
the buses park there or uber to the buses hop
on around Wednesday at midnight typically and wake up somewhere

(35:48):
Thursday morning. I'll set up the pro tools studio on
the table there right in the lounge and start writing
around ten thirty right till four h thirty just and
then pack up, put it back in the suitcases, roll
and do it the next morning. Come back Sunday afternoons.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
He'll go on stage after he writes. Yes, so you'll right, Yes,
he'll pack up, he'll go.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Do his things, meet and greed. Absolutely, he'll go on stage.

Speaker 4 (36:08):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
That right is a grinder.

Speaker 7 (36:11):
So like he'll come right off stage or he'll come
back from meet and greet, want to hear where the
mix is at, or do a background vocal after the show,
you know, get right back into writing. So like we
finished four or five things last week and got vocals
on seven. I mean, one great thing and one reason
like Ashley or myself loved going out with him is

(36:33):
we know we're out there to work. I mean, we're
just out there to grind because we're all away from
our families. So it's not just a party. Go see
the show. I want to get some songs written, so
it's pretty efficient.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
Here's marry Me.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
I wrote this one. This is a massive number one too.
So the concept of this song, it flips on you
pretty quick. You should have going, okay, well, first you
read the title and you got the song about getting married,
please marry me.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
But then it.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
Turns out he's not. She's not marrying him because he
screwed up right. Where where did that concept come from?

Speaker 7 (37:04):
Basically it was the opposite of what truly happened. He
had broke up with Lauren and actually went and said
or they were friends for a long time.

Speaker 4 (37:13):
I think it was the story.

Speaker 7 (37:14):
And he actually went and said, look, I think you're
making a mistake. You know you're dating this other guy,
so sort of was what would happen if I didn't
speak up and say something.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
I think the song.

Speaker 7 (37:23):
Works so well because we had set up this brand
of I love my wife. He puts Lauren on a
pestel and and and that marriage is part of his
brand and and his message and songs. So to have
that twist in a song coming from Thomas Rhett, I
think was even more effective than it would be, you know,
coming from another artist.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
So I have a demo.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
Who's singing on the demo?

Speaker 4 (37:45):
Here?

Speaker 2 (37:45):
Here is this?

Speaker 3 (37:46):
You?

Speaker 4 (37:46):
Is this?

Speaker 2 (37:48):
She shame?

Speaker 3 (37:52):
Oh yeah? So you wrote this with Shane and Ashley
and Thomas. So same same setup, right in the middle
of bus playing keyboard.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
Is that Mike out in the country?

Speaker 3 (38:05):
Not too many, So thomasesn't think it's on demos. A
lot of times he does. It depends on where his
voice is. If he knows he's done one, he's got
to sing a show.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
His voice is tired.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
Last year we wore his voice a couple of times
doing demos, So you would be singing on the bus
and he's gotta go singing. He's like, oh no, you
actually spoke up about this song too, just because you
were like, it was this one unforgettable. You're like, man,
I feel like that song was just getting.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Heard by the time the charts for sure.

Speaker 4 (38:33):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
That's a big irritating thing to me as a consumer,
because I try to walk that fine line of being
someone that has millions people listening to them and knowing
that I do have a bit of influence, but at
the same time, I want to still take in music
like my people do.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Sure, and it's a really hard line and a fine
line for me to walk.

Speaker 3 (38:51):
But so I try to watch these charts and go,
this song is just now starting to be a thing
before the record lavels are moving off of it because
they shot it's number one so quickly. Yeah, and so
I think it was a maybe even a three week
number one, two or three, whatever it was. I was like,
this has two or three more weeks in it, right,
Like if this were real life, this is a six
or seven.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Week number one.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
But in the world, they're just throwing songs up, you know,
one jerk it down, which long term hurts the artist. Yes,
because okay, Blake has thirty number one, let's use Blake
for an example. Sure, how many of those thirty number
ones do people really resonate with? Nine?

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Right?

Speaker 8 (39:27):
Really?

Speaker 2 (39:27):
There?

Speaker 3 (39:28):
I mean there are number twos from ten years ago
that are huge deals because this has only started happening
in the past eight to ten years where they're shooting
these songs up. Great for trophies, right, you know number
one trophies are fun, everybody likes to get there, but
really long term, not good for the big artists that
have multiples and not good for the consumer. Sure, because
they're off up again, do.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
You think it's unique?

Speaker 7 (39:49):
You come from other formats as well, so is it
unique in our format?

Speaker 2 (39:53):
Absolutely?

Speaker 3 (39:54):
The speed, Absolutely the speed, because one this is such
a superstar format. Once you've become a superstar, you're given
a pass. Your song doesn't have to research when everybody
else researches. You know, it's a long time you got
oh my song researching? Will radio play it? So if
you're a superstar, sometimes your song will be number one

(40:15):
before it even starts researching. I've seen songs from we'll
call it the A lusters, like that's top seven or
eight artists, which now tr is in At the time
he wasn't. This is three years ago. I've seen songs
that would fly at the chart, not register's research, be
number one and then fall off the chart and then
go oh, the research was terrible for it, where if
it would have really spent the time, but it would

(40:37):
have not been a number one, that'd being said, it's
not realistic for anyone that's not a superstar. If you're
a B level act and be's a real positive, that's
you know, that's not the entertainer of the year category.
But it's like, let's go male or female vocalist of
the year. So let's say you're in that B category
and you have a song, so it do'll take fifty
weeks forty weeks to be number one when it's a

(40:58):
smash and it shouldn't. It should have shot it faster
than the superstar and pop. It's all really, who's got
the best song? Came like a bay Oh six weeks
right number one? Zed Maren nine weeks number one, and
then it will stay there for four or five weeks.
It's really dictated on research plus streams, non playlisted streams.

(41:19):
By the way, playlists, you know what the big You
put a song on a playlist, who knows how that's
going to count. Sure, so people don't look it's looked
at differently right as well. But anyway, I mean it
the weird thing here. Not to get too inside. I
get inside.

Speaker 7 (41:33):
No, the I remember first coming and seeing behind the
curtain of OZ and going, oh, there's push weeks and
they the target meets and they know these numbers and
the syndications, spins and all this stuff. It does kind
of remove a little bit of that mystery when you
were a kid going oh the billboard charts. And you know,
obviously I make a living off of airplay predominantly, especially

(41:54):
these days, you know, but it is wild to see
what goes into the business of the charts compared to
what you thought it was before you peek behind the curtain.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
I mean, I host a countdown on one hundred and
thirty stas or so much or something like that, and
I know, you know, I at this time, I know
what's coming because I see the formula of record labels
and sure, but I listened to Casey k Some as
a kid or rig Ds and go wonder what's number one?
He's it really was a thing, and now it's just
like what was number two last week? That's probably gonna
be number one this week.

Speaker 4 (42:24):
Yeah, I do.

Speaker 7 (42:25):
There are those heartbreaking moments where you're like, you know, Devin,
you know.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
I was like, oh that Devon Dawson. He missed it
by one spin, not even a full spin, in a
major market. I think it was six points. Yeah, which
you get an amount of points if you're listening to this.
It's so inside. But the bigger the market you are,
the more valuable your spin is worth. So for example,
let's say you spend a song in Houston, it could

(42:49):
be worth ten points. A spin one play in Houston's
worth ten points. Devin Dawson was at number two. He
lost by six points, less than a spin in a
big city.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
One spin.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
He finished number two. I've never seen anything like that before.
By the way, that's an outliar.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
That's going to be pretty unique.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
In my five plus years, I've never seen anything like that.
Song got so close before I got here, Glorian, I
lost to Love and Theft like in that year or
so far. I got here and it was very close,
But I have never that Devin Dog. That was crazy
to me. So it's a spin, it's that was one.
It was less than one spin. My if I spent
a song on my show, it's worth sixty or seventy

(43:29):
points one spin, So it's a significant and I don't
screw with that if it's close, because I'm staying out
of any battles right just because I'm not having a
label or a management team or an artist upset with me.
And what if if you you know how you do
snippets sometimes in the morning when you're like going through
guess you're talking about something.

Speaker 7 (43:47):
How much of a song before it counts as a spin?

Speaker 3 (43:49):
So that's that's a great question because what happens is
you don't really know where the tone is in a song,
so I have no idea. So it'll have to hit
a certain amount of time, and the tone has to play.
Usually it's in the first half of the song.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
But a tone.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
Hits since is it says, oh, this is count as
a spin. And sometimes I've spun songs without meaning to
and given a song way more value. But the problem
is the next week they have to go above what
they did the week before the song dies, and I
have to put them in a bad spot. So I
really try to watch that now. But that's a really
good question. There's a hidden tone in songs. Did you

(44:24):
know that, Mike, Yeah, I didn't know that, and so
fteen years and didn't know it. Here's Leslie Simon on
how she became the general manager of Garth Brooks and
Tricia Yearwood's record labels.

Speaker 9 (44:36):
You know, everything in life happens for a reason. I'm
a huge believer in that, And I'm also a huge
believer in one door closing is just making room in
your life in space for another door opening. And right
when so I left Sony and Arista in February of
twenty sixteen, and I mean, I want to say it

(44:58):
was like either right before that or right after Garth
announced he was staffing the Imprint and said for.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
Garth yeah, I was like Brooks and You're like, yeah,
and so how does that happen? And you're still with Garth?

Speaker 4 (45:17):
Yes? Right?

Speaker 3 (45:18):
And Tricia Yeah, so uh, how does how does that conversation?

Speaker 2 (45:22):
Does he call you? Does so?

Speaker 9 (45:24):
Mandy McCormick was working was the first person that went
over to work directly with he and Tricia, and so
she was really helping him staff it. She called me
and we had a couple of conversations and then she
said he's playing the show with a Ryman and we
want you to come up and see it. And it
was his first time to play the Ryman, y'all, which
I did not ever.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
Yeah, oh ever, I thought it was like his first
time to play Rymand, like twenty years in this.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
He get too big, he quick, I think he did.

Speaker 9 (45:53):
He all of a sudden he had not played the Rymen,
and then he went out and was playing these huge shows.
And I don't actually remember the exact story of why
he didn't play it until that moment, but it was
when I say it was one of the most special
music experiences of my life. My husband came up here
with me. We went to the show, and at one
point in the show, I had tears coming down my

(46:14):
face and my husband looked at me and he's like,
that's a visceral reaction to music, and if you are
emotional in a happy way, not a sad way. I mean,
it was just so it was such a beautiful performance.
I mean, here he's playing these covers at the beginning
with the with the curtains closed on the stage of

(46:34):
the Rhymen, and he's playing George Jones and Johnny Cash
and just this You're like, oh my gosh.

Speaker 8 (46:40):
I mean, you're.

Speaker 9 (46:40):
Listening to this amazing music and from him, and then
he and Tricia come on stage together. It was just
it was really a powerful night. And the next day
I remember my husband looking at Mandy and is like,
she's going to do this. And then he called me
that night the next night and we just had a

(47:02):
conversation about, you know, kind of where I was in
my life and what I wanted to do and what
he wanted to do with the label, and you know
where he was. And at that point, I was like,
I'm in It's weird.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
When Garth calls on the phone. It's weird because you're
just like, that's crazy. The guard's voice is coming out
of a little phone right.

Speaker 9 (47:21):
There, and he's just the kindest.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
Yeah, that's weird too.

Speaker 9 (47:25):
He's so kind and he's so gracious, and he's so
he listens better than anybody I know. I mean, like
he literally listens to the words coming out of your
mouth and what you're saying. And some people are thinking
about what they're going to say next when they're talking
to somebody.

Speaker 8 (47:45):
He doesn't.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
I agree.

Speaker 3 (47:47):
It's again, I keep using the word weird because you
just don't expect a massive start, the biggest star in
the world. I have time, yeah, hard to care.

Speaker 9 (47:54):
And he all that he makes the time and he cares.
He really cares about human beings. And I mean Tricia
is the same. She's one of my very best friends.
I just absolutely adore them. And I have to say,
I mean, you know, I started in September of twenty sixteen,
and you know, here I was the gem of their

(48:15):
labels and we're launching this new team and this new music.
And six months after I started, I was diagnosed with
cancer and both of them immediately went into whatever you
need every single time that I called him, and I
was like, Okay, I want to really not focus on

(48:36):
the cancer. I want to feel normal and focus on work.
And so, you know, after I had the surgery and
i'd kind of get over the hump of chemo, I
would call him to talk about work, and he'd answer
the phone and he'd stop me.

Speaker 8 (48:50):
I mean, I'd go, hey, howy doing.

Speaker 9 (48:51):
I want to talk to you about it, and I'd
just like dive in and he's like, WHOA, hey doing,
and I'm like, I'm good, how are you feeling? And
I would always stop and want to talk about how
I was, and I felt like with both he and
Tricia my health and where I was, not just physically,

(49:12):
but I mean, you know this kind of a disease
is it's emotionally trying as well. And they were always
so concerned about me and my family and how we
were doing in the juggle. And I remember saying to him,
I need to work. I need to feel normal, and

(49:32):
working makes me feel normal, and he was like, you know,
you can work as much as you want to, but
you also need to take care of yourself.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
You felt supported personally and professionally, which makes you feel
even more supported personally exactly.

Speaker 6 (49:52):
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
Nathan Chapman is a Grammy Award winning producer who worked
with Taylor Swift before she even had a record deal.
He talks about that and what his role was as
a producer. So Liz, who I love and know Liz,
She's like produced these demos. But how produced were the demos?
Were they you know you got instruments, drums or was

(50:29):
it you know, just Taylor at vocal? I like, what
was the what was the early Taylor demos?

Speaker 2 (50:33):
Like they sound like the first record.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
Did a lot of them turn into the record Tied.

Speaker 10 (50:38):
Together with a smile is just the demo upgraded. It's
one of the tracks on that first album. And but
we we went in and recut a lot of that stuff.
Because I didn't have a budget, I was just playing
everything myself. You know, demos are still kind of cheap.
You try to make as cheap as you can. But
then when I remember when Scott and Taylor called me

(51:00):
on speakerphone and said, hey, you know, we want you
to go in and track some songs. It was basically
an audition. Scott was like, this guy, the demo guy,
you shata you made Scott Scott wisheada because Taylor she
had been in the studio with a couple of different people,
and she just felt like that the demos we were
making really captured what she wanted. And I was twenty
eight and she was fourteen or fifteen, and neither one

(51:23):
of us had a clue what we were doing. We're
just making music. I certainly didn't have any clue what
was going on. I was just making songs.

Speaker 3 (51:29):
Why do you think she was drawn to what you
two were doing versus what she had experienced so far well.

Speaker 10 (51:36):
I mean I was playing all the instruments I had.
There was a couple of times I would bring in
bass and drums from rhythm section guys, but I was
playing all the guitars. And I think it just I
think it just sounded younger maybe then, like the way
even now, it's like, you know, there's the track guy.
I'm making air quotes for people who are only listening
the track guys in Nashville where they programmed the drums

(51:58):
and they get a sample from splice. Well, sometimes that
stuff is just captures the magic and it just sounds
like what is going on or what's happening. It doesn't
sound old and stodgy. I think for some reason, when
we would make those demos and then she would go
in the studio with a producer and with a band,
and it would almost kind of like take the cool
out of it, I guess, and it's happened to me.

(52:21):
I've been the guy who's taking the cool out of
songs where you have a demo that's just awesome, it's
really cool. And I'm sure you've heard those. I'm sure
artists like, hey, I just wrote this song, what do
you think of this? You know, before it's even being recorded.
Then you go and record it and it's better technically,
but it's just not as exciting, you know. And there
was something to what me and Taylor were doing where
it was like she was writing these songs that were

(52:44):
super odd ball for the time. You know, Tim McGraw
was the title of one of the songs. You know,
they were not they didn't fit anywhere. And then I
was doing these productions that really didn't have any business
being in Nashville. I was more I was trying to
make like pop music with country instruments kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
So we were just a good fit with that.

Speaker 10 (53:01):
And she just she went to Scott Borchetta and she's like,
I really think these demos just sound more like me.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
And and he, to his credit, he gave he gave
me a budget.

Speaker 10 (53:12):
He gave a demo guy a budget and never really
done anything and gave me a shot.

Speaker 3 (53:17):
So when Taylor's making Tim McCraw, which you just brought up,
which is a good example, it didn't sound or feel
or it wasn't like what was happening here at the time.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
Well, I mean it kind of it wasn't.

Speaker 10 (53:28):
It wasn't, you know, I mean her her youth, and
her her songwriting, her perspective, her story, which was, you know,
I'm in high school and I'm feeling I'm feeling these
feelings and I'm feeling rejected or I'm feeling like I'm
in love, and you know that combined with a twenty
eight year old guy who doesn't really know what he's doing.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
But it all came together, you know.

Speaker 3 (53:57):
Do you have to when you're producing And it doesn't
have to be Taylor, but it can be. But somebody
young who's a teenager. I'm just assuming you have to
handle them in a room differently than you would handle
an artist that's been there many many times. Just the
psychological part of it's tough. So with Taylor, you don't
know what you're doing, she doesn't know what she's doing.
How do you communicate? Okay, I don't know. If we

(54:19):
like how that vocal went, let's do it again? What
was that communication? Like?

Speaker 10 (54:22):
Well, I think we didn't realize it at the time,
but because neither one of us had any kind of
reputation or any kind of like, you know, success, it
was just honest.

Speaker 4 (54:33):
You know.

Speaker 10 (54:33):
I remember one time I was like, you don't sound good. Today,
go home, We'll work again tomorrow, you know. And would
I say that to a big famous person, you know,
especially not when I was young, And then she would
be like, you know, dude, that track is horrible.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
You know.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
I mean, we're just saying what we felt.

Speaker 10 (54:53):
And there was no I wasn't worried about making a
big famous person mad. And then some times I feel
like new artists when you're in the room, like me
being more of a veteran and then being a new artist,
I feel like they want to they want to tell
themselves that I must know more than them because I'm
older and been doing this longer. But there's a beauty
in just like being super honest with people. And if

(55:16):
you do it out of love, and you do it
because there's a common goal of making something great, then
hopefully it doesn't offend.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
When you make the record. Did you do the entire album?

Speaker 4 (55:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (55:25):
So you make the first album. And this is the
most cliche question that I can ask, but I just
did you feel like there was a shot at something
right there, something more than just a good record that
may have a couple hits, which what everybody wants. Yeah,
did you feel like, all right, we might have something groundbreaking.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
Well, I will.

Speaker 10 (55:46):
You have to put it in the context of where
I was at the time, where she was a young artist,
you know, fifteen, and I think Billy Gilman was in
the Rhymes. Were the only two kind of like people
who had been successful before her and Scott Borshetta and
Big Machine Records had two artists besides Taylor, Jack Ingram

(56:10):
and Daniel Peck And I remember collectively, between those two artists,
Big Machine had only sold maybe fifty thousand albums as
a label. So my hopes were high from a creative
place and from knowing that Taylor was really really good,
like that she was very very special as far as

(56:32):
like songwriting talent, her communication skills and as an artist.
But business wise, I was like, this probably won't be
that big a deal because.

Speaker 3 (56:43):
The same reason you mentioned my songwriter friend earlier, Like
you said, you just looked at the landscape, you saw
what was being created and sold. Yeah, and it probably
just looking at the numbers mathematically, wasn't.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
Going to be that big of a deal.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
Yeah, even if it was great, even if it was
the greatest print that ever, mathematically it probably wasn't going
to be as big of a deal as you had hoped.

Speaker 10 (57:06):
Well, the story of Big Machine Records could be its
own documentary of like a David Goliath thing where Scott
you know, he had investors pull out like he had.
I mean it was they were painting the walls in
the building. The paint was still wet. It smelled like
wet paint in the Big Machine office when we were
stuffing the envelopes to send out her first single. It
was so new, and I'd been in Nashville, grew up

(57:28):
here long enough to see companies start and fail, you know,
So I wasn't like if I if I said I
was some kind of savant and could see the future
that this was all gonna work, I'd be lying. But
a lot of people in town didn't know. It's I
will say this. It's not like I didn't believe. It's
just I didn't know. I was just like this, This

(57:48):
could go either way.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
You know, Tim McGraw tear drops of my guitar, our
song picture to burn. I mean I should have said, no,
you know, inside of that are there any of those songs?
And it could have been. It could have been a
deeper cut too, where you're like, wow, she is quite
the communicator here, Like I've been working people around here
that can't do this communication at this level.

Speaker 4 (58:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (58:11):
Well, I mean our song she wrote by herself when
she was like fourteen, and if you think about the
lyric of that chorus, it's really genius. That was kind
of the first time I was like, oh, dang, like
who is this person? Because our song is a slam
and screen door, you know, sneaking out late, tapping on
your window, talking on the phone, you know, is the

(58:34):
way you laugh if you think if.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
You break that down, like if you.

Speaker 10 (58:36):
Put that chorus in a in a college literature course,
you'd be like, Okay, our song the courus. Everything she's
describing is sounds, you know, it's like slam and screen door,
tapping on a window. It's like, that's pretty genius, you
know for basically a you know, a kid, a minor

(58:58):
for you know, writing that kind of stuff by herself.
I was like, this is really next level writing. And
I was always a fan of her songwriting ability and
understood how good it was. But like I said, it
was like, I don't know if it's gonna work, but
it's really good.

Speaker 3 (59:15):
So it works. That first record works obviously, do you
worry that as the guy who didn't know what he
was doing? This is what you said that now, Okay,
well she hasked some success. She they're probably going to
get somebody now really good, Like, do you worry about
that or do you go for Oh, they have to
go with me. We just did this together. Oh.

Speaker 10 (59:30):
I mean I think that from the first record to
the second record, there wasn't any time to catch your breath.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
I mean we just hit just hit the ground running. So, yeah,
Fearless came.

Speaker 10 (59:41):
We started recording Fearless right away because she was writing
those songs, and then Speak Now was definitely a lot
of pressure because we had one Album of the Year
at the Grammys for Fearless, and we were like, Okay,
everyone in the world's going to listen to this album.
That was a difference between Fearless and Speak Now. When
we made Fearless was like people might hear this, you know,
but speak Now is like everyone's going to listen to this.

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
Do you think if you could go back in time
and there was more of a gap between record one
and record two, do you think with success that'd been
like let's let's go to somebody who's done this with
some bigger artists. Do you think that you were obviously
not lucky because of your skill set, but lucky in
the timing that since you were just going, you got
to keep going.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
And if there would have been a longer break, they
would have looked for a more established producer.

Speaker 10 (01:00:28):
Yeah, and eventually they did. You know, Max Martin came in.
That's one of the pod is stuff though, right, yeah,
and that's and that's how I sleep at night. I'm like, oh,
she she didn't fire me, she just changed genres.

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
Oh. I always I always felt it that way. I
felt like, you know, that was a switch, because she switched.
But I just think it's so amazing that she had
to continue making She didn't have to be You guys
kept making music between one and two. And if there
would have been a break, that had been like, hey,
the record was such a success, maybe we upgraded producers.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
Yeah, well they Yeah, and.

Speaker 10 (01:00:59):
The security that we all have as music makers would
would say that.

Speaker 4 (01:01:03):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
I was thinking that.

Speaker 10 (01:01:05):
I was also just really focused on enjoying what we
were doing and trying to make the best music we
could and and I figured like it can't go forever,
you know, But I was grateful that she came back.
And yeah, if there had been a long time, or
if the first record hadn't done very well, like the
first record sold a lot too. Yeah, if if something

(01:01:27):
had happened where it was like a real you know,
face plant, like on a release or something, I think
that that would have that would have happened earlier. But
we were We were together from the first album, second
third half of Red, and then I had one track
on nineteen eighty nine, So it was a really good time.

Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
Before you take a project, or let's say you just
say I will produce this artist, Okay, what is the
pre of what you have to do before they come
in and actually start recording?

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
Okay, that's a great question.

Speaker 10 (01:02:01):
I think that it's like measure twice cut once, you know,
in construction. It's like the more thought you can put
into the project before you get the studio, the better.
Sometimes that's the artist is obsessively overthinking what their record's
going to be, and I'm there to just kind of.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
Help realize it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
Do you mean in concept or in sound or because again,
your job is all encompassing, like you're you're producing the record,
you're the guy, you know, vocal. Everything has got to
go through your lens with the help of you know,
the artist, but your name on it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
Yeah. But when you mean they're.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
Overthinking it in what way do a lot of artists
overthink their their music?

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
Well, it's different for everybody.

Speaker 10 (01:02:41):
I think that for someone since we were talking about Keith,
for someone like Keith like he has a real, really
clear idea of what his next step is artistically, what
his next what the next paragraph is in the conversation
with his fans, all of our big artists and country
music they are having we don't realize it because we're

(01:03:03):
all fans. I'm a country music fan, I'm a pop
music fan. I love all music. But one thing that
country music artists are doing, whether the fans realize it
or not, is they're having a conversation with you. They're
telling you stories that they want to get a reaction
from you. Whether it's you know, something that we're kind
of used to about being on a back road, or
whether it's like, you know, something like where Caane Brown's

(01:03:26):
move where he kind of did that song about love
and everybody coming together, and it's like whatever, you know,
Miranda might be killing a guy, you know, it's like
we're it's basically we're being told stories by storytellers. And
any great story doesn't just say the same thing over
and over.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
There's like an arc to it.

Speaker 10 (01:03:44):
So depending on where someone is in their career, depending
on where they are in their relationship with their fans,
is where they're going to be in that story. And
you know, when you think back to great artists like
Cash and Haggard and you know, Mac and tire McBride,
I mean, Hill, whatever it is, it's like you when
you look back on an artist's career after they've been

(01:04:06):
doing it for a couple decades, you feel like you
really have been on a journey with them. If you're
a diehard and you're buying every record, listen to every song.
And that's what I feel like what I mean by
over obsessed. And the music part of that is kind
of subordinate to the story. In country music, in pop music,
it's like, you know, whatever, the storytelling is almost in

(01:04:27):
the musical Side's like remember when Bieber put the song
out the where Are You Now? Had that weird whistle
sound in it, and everyone's like, WHOA what is that?

Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
You know?

Speaker 10 (01:04:36):
That was kind of his way of talking to his
fans is like, Hey, this is where we're going now musically,
we're doing this, now, we're doing that, Then we're going
to do was that song Lonely he had.

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
That was like the ballad?

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
Yeahah.

Speaker 10 (01:04:46):
So it's like I feel like in pop, it's like
it's it's a similar journey with an artist, but it's
a lot more about the musicality of things and where
we're going sound wise, and what are we partying or
are we crying?

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
Or with country music, it's like where are we in
our lives right now?

Speaker 10 (01:05:01):
Like where are we going through? What are we hurting about?
What are we happy about? What are we feeling when
we blow off steam? How do we want to do that?
Or we had a bonfire or we had a club.
You know, there's all those things. And I feel like
I feel like the best records that I've made have
been with artists who have a really clear idea of
what's next, what they're trying to say, and who they're
trying to be and where they are with their fans.

(01:05:22):
So so like with Keith, it's like he had a
really clear vision of what that Fuse album was supposed
to be, and in his perfect world.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
No other album does that.

Speaker 10 (01:05:33):
That album did that, and the next album does this,
and someone like when I was meeting with Tom Becchy
with that new band Homegrown that I'm going to work with.
I love those guys and Tom's a great manager. Autumn
Houses working with that too with that project too. They're
at the beginning of the story. How do you start
the story?

Speaker 4 (01:05:54):
You know?

Speaker 10 (01:05:54):
I think that's one thing about country music that I
don't want to get lost.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
The more we.

Speaker 10 (01:06:00):
Kind of do business like la and like pop, it's like,
I don't want to lose the story. That's my biggest thing.
And I feel like the great artists, the people we
really look up to in country music, they have.

Speaker 3 (01:06:11):
That so extremely macro is what I'm hearing, because you're like,
story wide, are we We're gonna then figure out everything
that goes inside of the bucket that you've now told
me we need to fill. And so if it's a
new artist, are you there's a lot of songs? Are
you then picking and cutting songs based on not how
good they are, but if it's a tie, okay, which
one better? Defines where you are right now? And making

(01:06:32):
this project like all the decisions even sounds inside the Sonically,
all those decisions are kind of based on I'm assuming
some communication you've had before, like where are you? And
now we're going to make sure everything we put in
this bucket is exactly on brand.

Speaker 2 (01:06:46):
With that well.

Speaker 10 (01:06:47):
And what's fun about a new artist is that there
may not be a bucket, and the bucket kind of
forms around the water, so to speak. You know, it's
like sometimes it's like, okay, what's going to work? Like
they have to get on the map, you know, So
what what of all the songs you've written in the
last year, which ones do we feel like might move
the needle. It used to be a radio conversation and

(01:07:08):
now it's both a radio and streaming conversation and ExM
and of like what's going to work? What's going to connect?
Is it going to be a streaming hit and or
is it going to be a radio hit? Or is
it going to be something that Exam will play or
is it just something that will work great live. It's
like you just got to move that needle first and
almost like figure it out after that. And a lot

(01:07:29):
of times a brand new artist, they don't have fans,
they don't have a conversation yet so they don't know
what they're supposed to say. I don't know who the
people are who are really going to be drawn to them,
what age group they're going to be, and all that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
We'll stick with Keith for a seconds.

Speaker 3 (01:07:40):
That's we were talking about him, knowing him a little bit,
not only personally, but you know, I've been to his
studio in his house and I've seen him and he's
all over the place, just as what I see, but
just him and I. He's moving and he's turning things
up and he's like, well just watch this point at
this and go here, oh my, And you're like, why
is he? Like had to work with too where he's

(01:08:01):
got so much energy and he's doing nine things at once,
and he's got visions that he's explaining, but it's almost
you can't understand his vision because it's a vision.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
Is that what working with Keith is? Like?

Speaker 10 (01:08:10):
Yeah, it's awesome. I mean, he's he's definitely Before I
worked with him, I was like a bucket list artist
for sure. And the first song we ever did was
the song with Miranda We were uss.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
That was the song.

Speaker 10 (01:08:23):
It was John Knight, Jimmy Robbins and Nicole Gallions all
their first number one, and that was the first song
I did with Keith, and it was a funny story.
We were making that song and he didn't have Miranda's
vocal on it obviously because we were just building the track.
And he said, uh, I really wish we had a
female vocal on here at just a placeholder, just to

(01:08:43):
kind of get us through the production while we're building
the track. And I was like, well, my wife's upstairs
and she's a great singer. And he's like, oh, go
get her. And so I went upstairs and my wife
was like seven months pregnant. She had adult braces, and
she was finishing a Chick fil A sandwich and she
crumbs on her belly, you know, from her belly sticking out.
And I was like, hey, babe, Keith's downstairs. He wants

(01:09:05):
you to come sing on this track.

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
And she was like, what do you hate me? I said,
come on, just come down here. It'll be fun.

Speaker 10 (01:09:14):
She had a great time. She and Keith hit it off.
They like had a great like rapport and everything. And she,
you know, she like you know, got a little bit
dulled up before she came downstairs because she wanted to
put a good impression, and so like, three days later,
out of nowhere, she goes.

Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
Didn't Keith have the best step smelling cologne?

Speaker 10 (01:09:34):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:09:34):
Always everybody says that about Kathy.

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
Yeah, And I'm like, are you thinking about him? Three
days later, out of nowhere you bring this up and
she was like, kay, he did smell really good.

Speaker 6 (01:09:43):
And I was like, oh, let's take a quick pause
for a message from our sponsor.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
Wow. And we're back on the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 3 (01:09:58):
Here's Carrie Edwards and she talks about being a manager
for Luke, Bryan and Cole Swindell. I wasn't here when
Luke started. I was still in Texas.

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
But was Luke?

Speaker 3 (01:10:10):
Was there some heat on him when he was a
new artist and people were like, oh this new guy
or was he like one of the new artists that
It took a bit and he he kind of puts
some songs down and people are like, I don't know, Like,
what was it like like with Luke in the beginning.

Speaker 11 (01:10:21):
Well, the first song we released was all my friends say,
and it ended up being a top five.

Speaker 3 (01:10:27):
So you're starting strong, He's start all my friends say,
So you're like, both, this is easy. We got to
figure out. How do you feel when this song actually
has some success? You're a brand new manager? Are you
like I made the right call? Like I feel good
about it?

Speaker 8 (01:10:43):
Which part about being a manager?

Speaker 3 (01:10:44):
Yes, all of it. You're like, holy crap, we got
a top five song, got a new artist, like, we're
ready to go.

Speaker 11 (01:10:50):
Yes, you do feel very proud and very excited for sure.

Speaker 8 (01:10:53):
But you know, one song doesn't mean you have a career.

Speaker 3 (01:10:56):
But you only put out one and you're one for one. Yes, okay, so.

Speaker 8 (01:11:00):
I'm very excited.

Speaker 3 (01:11:00):
You got a little new artists as this kid from Georgia.
It kind of has a kind of little little little
twang about him, a distinct voice, arry little flavor, little
little flavors get so okay, what's next?

Speaker 4 (01:11:13):
Next?

Speaker 8 (01:11:14):
Was a heartbreak for us.

Speaker 11 (01:11:17):
We put out a song called We Wrote in Trucks
and it died?

Speaker 3 (01:11:21):
How quickly did it die?

Speaker 11 (01:11:23):
I think it? I don't. I'm terrible on memories and
all that, but I'm going to say it got in
the thirties and our head of promo radio promotion and
at the time just felt like he wasn't going to
gonna get it up the chart. And the reason it
was heartbreaking was when Luke turned in his record and

(01:11:43):
I think I've heard him say so, I'm not misspeaking,
but that he believed, and I definitely believe like it
was his song. I mean at that point, like to me,
that was the song that was going to this one
launch it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:57):
Yes, we thought it didn't it did not go so well,
did not And.

Speaker 11 (01:12:03):
I was devastated. Really, he was beyond devastated.

Speaker 3 (01:12:08):
Because that was his personal like baby song like that was.

Speaker 11 (01:12:11):
I just feel like it was the It is still
like if you can and listen to it. I mean,
it's funny you play in those those because it's I
haven't listened to those in a long time as far
as like his voice, and it just sounds so different outfit.
But when you listen to the lyric of that song,
it was it was very well done and I was
just super proud of that lyric and what the message

(01:12:33):
was at that time. And you know, it was called
we wrote in Trucks, but it wasn't about trucks.

Speaker 3 (01:12:37):
Right, it was about life. So that one doesn't do well.
So then it's like, oh great, now we got it.
Now now the pressure's on because you just had one
just kind of petered out.

Speaker 11 (01:12:46):
So what happens, Well, you know that I'll say a
lesson I learned and that or that I ended up
learning when I looked back on it, I think at
that moment when that song didn't work, I remember sitting
in the office, I was ranting at Starstrik Entertainment and
telling myself, you know what, like, I can't just rely

(01:13:06):
on a liaison telling me why that didn't work, Like
I want to be able to ask people in radio
why that didn't work. But I didn't know them because
I was the brand new.

Speaker 8 (01:13:18):
Manager in town that no one knew.

Speaker 11 (01:13:20):
So it really became like a kind of a personal
mission of mine to figure out how to meet those
people and have a relationship with them. So the only
way I need to do that was to start going
to a bunch of shows.

Speaker 8 (01:13:34):
Road didn't do it.

Speaker 3 (01:13:35):
And it's funny, say get on the road, because even
before I would say you and I have a friendship now,
But even before we just worked professionally around each other.

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
You were always with Luke, always with Luke.

Speaker 3 (01:13:44):
And I was like, man, she's always with Luke.

Speaker 11 (01:13:47):
Well at the time, only he was my only client
very very long time.

Speaker 3 (01:13:50):
So there was that now when I knew you though,
because Cole Cole came around about when I came around.

Speaker 11 (01:13:56):
Yeah. Actually I worked with Kelly Bannon before that, so
she was my second signing. Nicole was around, but he
was around in a different role.

Speaker 2 (01:14:05):
Was that right?

Speaker 8 (01:14:05):
He was Luke's merch guy.

Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
So yeah, which which is funny to talk about.

Speaker 4 (01:14:09):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:14:09):
So with Luke, how many songs did he have that
didn't work?

Speaker 8 (01:14:14):
That was it?

Speaker 3 (01:14:15):
That was the one.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
So what was next?

Speaker 8 (01:14:19):
Country man?

Speaker 4 (01:14:20):
Okay?

Speaker 3 (01:14:21):
What was the turning point for Luke?

Speaker 2 (01:14:22):
Where you go?

Speaker 11 (01:14:23):
All?

Speaker 4 (01:14:23):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
Now?

Speaker 3 (01:14:24):
We went from being like an artists on the radio
and it's good.

Speaker 11 (01:14:27):
To like probably do I that he wrote with Charles
and Day from Lady A, that's probably the song that
you that you really felt like was making a turn.

Speaker 3 (01:14:41):
With this song? Was there ever a question of who
would get it? Because Charles and you know when artists
write together? Because I just had this conversation with tr
because tr Toom Shrutt and Matthew matt from Old Dominion
wrote some People do Together and they had the who
gets it? Because they both really liked it. Now, I

(01:15:01):
wonder when you talk about do I was that an
issue with them?

Speaker 11 (01:15:04):
If I remember, right, I want to say that Lady
already had their album out, and maybe it was the timing,
and you know, those guys were fired up about being
writers and stuff too, so I think they were just excited,
you know, to have a cut. You know, like I
remember the number one party and Charles you know, speaking
on that.

Speaker 8 (01:15:23):
Just how excited you know.

Speaker 11 (01:15:25):
Honestly for some reason, I was watching it not too
long ago, if somebody.

Speaker 8 (01:15:28):
Had a clip up it like the last two or
three months.

Speaker 11 (01:15:30):
But he's saying in that clip, you know, oddly enough,
this was almost more exciting for us than our first
number one, which I don't know, but they get had
I mean, need you now please write the biggest song
in the universe at that time, So they were doing fine.

Speaker 3 (01:15:48):
So that's kind of the turning point where like the
festival offers, are you now the big bold letters?

Speaker 2 (01:15:54):
Does this do that?

Speaker 11 (01:15:55):
But you know, Luke's been in my opinion, I think
he's always had a strong touring career. That was actually
probably a very big benefit to him. He always was
fortunate in that field of clubs and selling them out,
and you know, not maybe not the first time, but
like we really we really built that alone for a
while club circuit and coming back and coming back and

(01:16:17):
coming back.

Speaker 8 (01:16:18):
You know, But then he did a lot of support.
I mean, I think our first support slot, I'm trying.
I think it was.

Speaker 11 (01:16:26):
I can't remember if Trace Adkins took us out first
or but the one I remember the most being the longest,
like real tour was Luke on the front, Bucky Cummington
in the middle, and Dirk's headline.

Speaker 3 (01:16:39):
Bucky Covington was playing the middle spot over Luke.

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
Crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:16:43):
The only time I hear Bucky Commington now is on
the airport when it's like, this is Bucky coach, thanks
for coming to being.

Speaker 8 (01:16:48):
A Oh no, where is he?

Speaker 3 (01:16:50):
I don't know, haven't even seen him around either. And
he was an idol guy, yeah right, I think I
think he was too, Yeah, from like back in the
back in the day.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
So first time Luke went was Entertainer of the year.

Speaker 11 (01:17:03):
I mean, you'll make me cry now thinking about it,
but it was. It was beyond and sane. It's that
I mean definitely that you feel like the validation from
your peers and coworkers and you know, but I think
it was even more so just knowing all the hard

(01:17:24):
work that he had put in and just you know how,
I mean, you don't top that moment, you know, ever,
and he and his family have had a lot of
unfortunate tragedies, and like watching them in that moment and
being able to enjoy that moment was you know, pretty
emotional and and I mean I was shocked though, I

(01:17:47):
mean I really the truth be told that year when
they were doing nominations and a lot of times you
discussed with your label kind of what your things are,
that your most your important emphasis for the voting period.
I told them not to include him an entertainer, Like
I literally remember saying that. I'm like, no, we don't

(01:18:10):
need to go there, because I mean, truthfully, I hated
like as an industry person, I always it always bugged
me when I thought people were on there and they
weren't quite ready to be on there, and I kind
of felt like that's where he was, Like I didn't
I mean, he was blowing up and I knew that
I felt that, but I still didn't feel like he
should be there. And then after the first round when

(01:18:33):
he made the second round. But then as a manager,
you're like, well they put him in there, I'm not
gonna sit here and not to try to.

Speaker 3 (01:18:40):
Support it out. Man.

Speaker 8 (01:18:44):
At that point, we went to work pretty.

Speaker 3 (01:18:46):
Hard, crazy, just because you were there from the beginning.
Like there's just all of that early early sweat. It's
so much more rewarding.

Speaker 11 (01:18:56):
It was mind blowing. Like I I mean, you know,
he's been fortunate enough. He's one two ACM entertainer and
two CMA. But I mean on all four times, you're
just overwhelmed because that's again, that's like the that's Trump.
That's like the biggest honor that you can get, you know,
in our industry.

Speaker 3 (01:19:16):
What's the most frustrating thing about fans with Luke or
not even fans critics. Let's go critics, because fans are
all fans love. I have this thing to where I
talk to people. I'm like, you can't. People just want
a voice. People are going to say things just to
be heard, even if they don't mean it. Sometimes, like
or I would get irritated for Luke is when they

(01:19:36):
would like hate on him for like the dancing.

Speaker 11 (01:19:38):
Yeah, I mean between the danccene and you know, my
favorite term bro country.

Speaker 3 (01:19:45):
You know it's funny. I don't even think of Luke
as a as a bro country artist.

Speaker 8 (01:19:48):
Yep, that's they started it with him, and it's.

Speaker 3 (01:19:50):
So they did it. Yeah, yeah, okay.

Speaker 8 (01:19:53):
Pretty much. I mean and then you know, became the thing.

Speaker 11 (01:19:56):
And I mean I don't know that I heard him
do an interview ever for like three or four years
that that didn't come up.

Speaker 8 (01:20:03):
It was exhausting.

Speaker 3 (01:20:05):
That's funny that that you And you're probably right. I
felt like it was an fgl thing more than it
was a looke thing.

Speaker 4 (01:20:13):
Is that right?

Speaker 3 (01:20:16):
And how did he feel about that? Did you just
hate it?

Speaker 8 (01:20:19):
Yeah? Yeah, he hated it.

Speaker 11 (01:20:22):
I mean it's his artistry, it's his you know, livelihood,
that's his face, it's everything, you know. So yeah, I
mean that's not what when you're out there working that
hard and putting that emotion and energy into writing and
singing and performing, and then that's the headline.

Speaker 3 (01:20:39):
As his confidant, like his closest person professionally. And I've
had to have these conversations with people that work close
to me, like what how do you because people have
to walk me through things. Did I get a bit
emotional or like I create something and it's not How
did you talk to him like hey, man, keep your
head down, like keep keep going, don't let us get
to you.

Speaker 11 (01:20:57):
I mean, he's good about that anyway, truthful, he has
a good sense of business, and he's and I think,
you know, I don't know, I'm guessing, but I think
a lot of it may be you know, the personal
stuff that they've been through, tragedy wise as a family,
and you know, it's a lot that's a lot heavier

(01:21:18):
than any of this would ever be, you know. So
I think just from those experiences, you know, he's good
about trying not to get heavy about that stuff, but
there's no way it doesn't you know, bother you at
some point. So yeah, he you know, he would have
moments that he would get really frustrated about it or
that he was over it, you know, over that being
you know, you'd go to a show and wherever Minnesota,

(01:21:40):
and that person would also like.

Speaker 8 (01:21:42):
You know, or you know, they would somehow reference it.

Speaker 11 (01:21:45):
But you know, the review would be great, the show
would be great, but he would still be in there
somewhere referred to as the Borough Country Artists.

Speaker 4 (01:21:52):
You know.

Speaker 11 (01:21:53):
So he, I don't know, he there was some time,
I mean, you know, I don't know in what year
it was, but it was like the top big you know,
and he would do interviews, and you know, a couple
of times I would have to maybe stop interview or two.

Speaker 3 (01:22:07):
And that's your job, Like you have to be the
bad person.

Speaker 8 (01:22:10):
Sometimes, like all right, we're done.

Speaker 3 (01:22:12):
My thing is And did you ever have to know me?
Did you ever have to stop with that? No? One, no, no,
that was a thing to me. But like early on, no,
I don't think so, I don't remember. I don't think
so I did get interviews because people were just they
were a bit I was a new guy, and they
were a bit like what is this guy up to?
But as a manager, you know our town.

Speaker 8 (01:22:32):
Now you know our town.

Speaker 3 (01:22:33):
Now I know what well. I just worked both sides
of it. So now you know, I'm doing the interviews,
but I'm also being interviewed all the time, and so
I also have my manager, right. There are times where
they have to step in and be the bad guy
or take somebody out of the room and have an
uncomfortable conversation when I they don't want me to be around,
And that's your job. You have to be the bouncer sometimes.

Speaker 11 (01:22:55):
And like I feel like it's one thing to do
that early on, it's harder to do it early on
because you still feel like you're getting your foot in
the door with everybody.

Speaker 8 (01:23:07):
And you don't want to make him any mad or
come off the wrong way.

Speaker 11 (01:23:09):
But then there's a certain point where you're just like,
all right, this is not the best situation for this
client and they need to know.

Speaker 3 (01:23:18):
So let's go back. And you mentioned Luke's merch guy, Cole,
and so Cole Swindell.

Speaker 11 (01:23:28):
Well, Cole has been in our life a long time.
He went to Georgia Southern and that's where Luke and Michael,
his guitar player, had gone to school. So they had
they were going at you know, back in doing like
fraternity parties and stuff, and Cole was in school there.

Speaker 8 (01:23:46):
He's you know, he's a few years.

Speaker 11 (01:23:47):
Behind them, and he would come to these fraternity parties and.

Speaker 8 (01:23:52):
He was just intrigued.

Speaker 11 (01:23:54):
He was in awe of like that they got up
and sang and then I mean Luke and I don't
think I was at the fraternity party phase of that,
but Luke tells the story of you know, him rolling
in to do a show and he had a new
song that he had written and just Cole's reaction like

(01:24:16):
you actually wrote it, like you wrote it in him,
like realizing like, oh my gosh, you know this guy
also wrote the song.

Speaker 8 (01:24:23):
Like how does that work?

Speaker 11 (01:24:24):
And just his he was just so I mean, Cole
just was like the sponge that couldn't get enough of it.
And he eventually ended up doing like a little duo
thing with another guy from you know that he went
to school with, and they kind of started doing the
little bar circuit thing too. But he was always I mean,
there wasn't a show that we did in the Southeast

(01:24:45):
that he didn't find his way to.

Speaker 4 (01:24:47):
You know.

Speaker 8 (01:24:48):
He would I would look out and be like.

Speaker 3 (01:24:49):
Oh, there's the cold, there's Cole kids here.

Speaker 11 (01:24:53):
I remember the day that Luke called me and said,
now let me paint the picture. I was a solo,
like I had zero employees, zero no help. I had
two small children, and I literally would stay up every
night probably I mean I would get them to bed
and then go back to my email, probably told two
or three in the morning. We were booking flights. I

(01:25:15):
mean I was booking flights for radio tours and hotels,
and I mean it was non stop. So I don't
think i'd I don't think i'd ever been paid yet,
which was fine. So I would work with songwriters kind
of on the side and pitch their songs and just
to have some income coming in, you know, for myself.

Speaker 8 (01:25:37):
So that's kind of how I made that work then.
But I remember the day that he called and said, hey,
so Cole's I just got off the phone with Cole
and he really wants to move to town. Do you
have a job for him?

Speaker 11 (01:25:51):
And I go, Cole, like I remember stopp I go
Cole like trying to think about.

Speaker 8 (01:25:54):
It, and he was like, you know the kid from Georgia.
I went, no, I don't have a job for Cole.

Speaker 3 (01:26:00):
Was like, how are we going to pay Carl?

Speaker 8 (01:26:02):
And he was like, oh, I just wanted to help him.
He wants to move to town.

Speaker 11 (01:26:06):
I'm like, I get it, but we can't pay him, Like,
I don't have a job for him. And we hung up,
and he was very Luke was very disappointed. And I
sat there and like ten minutes later, I was like, hmmm.
So I called Louke back and I'm like, well, we
do need somebody to sell your T shirts and he
would perfect, I'll call you back, and he hangs up

(01:26:26):
and calls him and literally Cole drives to town that night.

Speaker 3 (01:26:31):
Wow, he was that fired up.

Speaker 8 (01:26:33):
He was that fired up. He was ready to get
on the bus. So he was ready to go.

Speaker 3 (01:26:37):
So cool, we had a bus.

Speaker 8 (01:26:38):
We probably didn't have a bus then. Actually thinking back.

Speaker 3 (01:26:41):
Stead driving himself to all the shows. Now he's part
of the team going to the shows. Yeah, and he's
selling March. But okay, so how does he end up
telling Luke or you or whomever? Hey, I'm also like
writing songs.

Speaker 11 (01:26:50):
We knew that he had the art, you know, the
duo thing, so that wasn't a secret, you know, but
he he didn't, you know, Cole's Cole is gonna ease
his way in. You know, he doesn't walk in a
room and demand everyone to know everything. He kind of
you know, I think he sat back and kind of
watched it and learned, and he didn't do the.

Speaker 8 (01:27:11):
Artist thing for a while.

Speaker 3 (01:27:12):
You know.

Speaker 11 (01:27:13):
He was probably out with a selling T shirt for
probably two or three years before I ever really even
saw him.

Speaker 3 (01:27:19):
I saw him that many years.

Speaker 4 (01:27:20):
Huh.

Speaker 11 (01:27:21):
Oh, Yeah, he did it, I mean, yeah, for sure,
I mean he did it. Maybe, I mean he probably
he was out there with us definitely three or four
years selling. But I was gonna say, like it was
a few years in before I saw him actively out
there trying to write songs. So he and Michael Carter,
Luke's guitar players, started getting in the back of the

(01:27:43):
back lounge of the bus. And Michael wasn't really a
writer at that time. He had had like a small
deal maybe right when he first leaved to town.

Speaker 8 (01:27:51):
But I think they just kind of taught themselves how to,
like they would do it every day.

Speaker 11 (01:27:55):
The two of them would sit back there every day
and write. And I didn't hear any of the songs.
I didn't really ask about him, and I think one
I don't maybe Cole shared one with me and I
was like, oh, that's that's pretty good.

Speaker 8 (01:28:08):
And then.

Speaker 11 (01:28:10):
He eventually would occasionally share one, and I remember hearing
like a demo session and there was there was a
song in there. I'm not gonna remember the title right now,
but I remember thinking that it was like the best
thing that he had ever done. And I went and
played it for Luke and I was like, hey, I
think they're getting the hang of it. And Luke's like, really,

(01:28:31):
let me hear it, you know. He got all excited
and and I mean, one thing I will say about
Luke and Cole was the same. They both are are
truly champions for other people like they do like I
watch both of them want other people to win and
have opportunities and they get I mean, Luke gets fired
up for new artists and Cole does the same thing.

(01:28:52):
And they just love watching people in those and those
steps along the way.

Speaker 8 (01:28:57):
But yeah, so he was our our merch god turned.

Speaker 3 (01:29:01):
Guy that's riding in the back of the bus. So
for you, when do you go, Okay, well, it's an
investment for you.

Speaker 8 (01:29:09):
He well, he came.

Speaker 11 (01:29:11):
I could tell he was really starting to hate me
out there, like selling the T shirt part. He was
really he had the writer bug bad. And so we
pulled him off the road and I went to Luke
and I said, you know what, I'm like, he's really
doing well. I was like, I think I'm gonna try
to help him find a publishing deal.

Speaker 8 (01:29:32):
And then I think.

Speaker 11 (01:29:33):
At that point I had the idea to go talk
to Luke's publisher and just see if they had any
interest or any interest of doing something with us or
I mean, I didn't really know. I was just talking
through it with a guy named Troy Thomlinson at Sony
Tree and that is where Luke was a writer, and
you know, I remember we went in there and met
with him and he's looking at us like, no.

Speaker 8 (01:29:54):
We'll make us do this. And I'm like, Troy, just true.

Speaker 11 (01:29:59):
I mean I remember, just trust us, Just trust us, please,
And He's like, do you know how many deals I've
done like this and how they've gone, you know, with
writer with artists, and I'm like, no, but just trust us,
you know. And I'm like, we want to sign Cole
and Michael Carter and they're gonna they're gonna be amazing,
And you know, he really did not want to, but

(01:30:22):
but the relationship was important to him, and he was like,
all right, we'll try it, and it has paid off.

Speaker 4 (01:30:29):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:30:29):
What was Cole?

Speaker 3 (01:30:30):
What was the first song that Cole wrote that was
like some had some you know, substance to it. They
got some radio players.

Speaker 11 (01:30:35):
I think I think his first cut was Scottie Careery
what water Tower Town?

Speaker 8 (01:30:42):
I think that was the first one.

Speaker 11 (01:30:43):
And then he had a Craig He and Michael had
a Craig Campbell song.

Speaker 8 (01:30:48):
Ah, what was the name of it? It literally was
the like one of the longest songs on the chart that.

Speaker 3 (01:30:53):
You Can't Stop Loving You? Was it Craig Campbell or
Craig there are two Craigs.

Speaker 2 (01:30:58):
Craig Campbell, M hmm, what was that?

Speaker 3 (01:31:01):
Because he got right in the middle, so it was.

Speaker 8 (01:31:04):
A great song. Can'm just blanking on it right now.

Speaker 3 (01:31:07):
Cole's writing. But is he going, I also want to
be an artist to you?

Speaker 8 (01:31:12):
He?

Speaker 11 (01:31:12):
I think he went and did a b M I
b M I does a retreat at key West with songwriters,
and he went and did that one year, and I
think that's when he got the bug back, like when
he and he had a couple of songs that had
been hits for other artists and he did that and
the reaction.

Speaker 3 (01:31:30):
And he, uh, this is it out of my head?

Speaker 8 (01:31:35):
Sorry, yes, that's it. Yeah, yeah, it's increatful.

Speaker 3 (01:31:40):
Yeah, this song whenever Craig Cambel got dropped and I
dropped label thinking folded and the song was so good
that my company I Heeart, was like, we're going to
make it on the verge because the song is so good,
and Craig was I remember this whole thing going down.

Speaker 11 (01:31:55):
It wasn't and it ended up I don't know if
it ended up being the longest running, but it was.

Speaker 3 (01:32:00):
It was a long almost sixty weeks, yes, a long time,
A long time with Cole as an artist. As you do,
you see him and go, Okay, this is the guy
who's going to have a bunch of hits and get
up and.

Speaker 11 (01:32:13):
No, not really, to be honest, I didn't at the time, because.

Speaker 8 (01:32:16):
You know, he's he's a little he's he's grown into
the artistry side. You know, he was a little more.

Speaker 3 (01:32:23):
Quiet even now he's so I.

Speaker 11 (01:32:27):
Mean, did I think But I knew like the songs
he was turning in and his writing, that part I
knew was great. And he came in and played me
a song when he had the song called let Me
See a Girl, and.

Speaker 8 (01:32:44):
I loved it. And I had talked to.

Speaker 11 (01:32:49):
Stormy and then John Mark's about like, you know, how
does this program work that you guys do on XM.
At the time, John was there and.

Speaker 8 (01:32:59):
They at the time, and when I.

Speaker 11 (01:33:00):
Asked them that question, FGL was the only person who
had done their program. So I was just kind of
inquiring about it because I knew that you didn't necessarily
have to be signed and they would support it. You know,
it was a little different angle. And he had agreed
to play this song. But in the meantime, Cole is

(01:33:23):
texting me going, hey, I wrote this other song. I
can't wait for you to hear it. I'm waiting, dying
for the demo. And he just kept talking about it.
And one day he calls and he goes, are you
in your office? And I go yeah, and he goes,
can I swing by?

Speaker 8 (01:33:35):
And I said sure.

Speaker 11 (01:33:37):
So he comes in and he's kind of nervous and
he said, well, I got that song back I was
telling you about and I said, okay, awesome.

Speaker 8 (01:33:45):
He goes, can you can you listen to it?

Speaker 11 (01:33:47):
I'm like yeah. So he hands me, you know, his
phone or whatever. I think it was a phone at
that and I plug it in and I'm just sitting there,
head down, listening to the song and he told he
tells the story like that. I have no reaction and
I'm not looking at him, and he is panicking because
he thinks I hate it. And I get why he

(01:34:08):
would think that looking back, but what I was really
thinking the whole time I was listening to the song
was oh my gosh, what am I going to do
with this? I mean, I really was like, this is
so fun and so different and so good and the
song ends.

Speaker 8 (01:34:24):
I turned it off and I turn around. I look
at him.

Speaker 11 (01:34:26):
I'm like, do you you really want to be an artist? Like,
you've been on the road, You've seen what they do,
you see what it's about.

Speaker 8 (01:34:34):
You really want to do it?

Speaker 11 (01:34:35):
And he goes, I really do, And I went, okay,
because this is the song, and I mean like, and
then we both literally start jumping up and down in
my office.

Speaker 3 (01:34:44):
And that song was chilling. It's so crazy that that
whole how one of them rolls into the other.

Speaker 8 (01:34:52):
It was insane. I mean.

Speaker 11 (01:34:53):
And at that time, the only artist I'd ever shopped
a duel was Luke when I was working with Kelly
Bannon and she was already signed to a label at
that time. But you know, I started, well, people start
calling me because they started seeing the streams and then
what was happening and he had no.

Speaker 3 (01:35:11):
Deal, And that's what a good position to be in.

Speaker 11 (01:35:14):
That doesn't happen often, obviously in this town. Maybe a
little more now with you know, more streaming services, I guess,
but you know, it was overwhelming. I mean, I think
at the end of the day, I think he had
an offer from every label but one. And so then
I was in a hall. I mean, I'm just begging
people to give a Luke a deal and we had
one offer one and a half. Somebody else was about

(01:35:37):
to and I'm like, no, they came to the table.
We're just gonna take this one. But with him, it
was a different thing, and it was I mean, I learned.
It was learning something new, really, I mean, which has
been a fun thing for me personally, like learning.

Speaker 8 (01:35:51):
You know, I don't feel like I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:35:53):
Stop learning, and nor will you ever. And if you
ever feel like you don't need to, then you're you're
done anyway.

Speaker 11 (01:35:58):
I mean, like you know, doing a deal for American Idol,
like doing a deal on that level, like just what
you have to learn to like be in the game.

Speaker 3 (01:36:08):
The game is the funny thing. And I wonder because
you've done so many things and there are a lot
of I get a lot of messages from new artists
in town that listen to this podcast because we get
deep into the weeds about songwriting and a lot of
the artists come in and talk about you know, second
and third layer type things that you don't really talk
about on the radio. So what would you say, like,
what's what's the key to an artist career, to starting one.

(01:36:31):
It's the ageal question, like what advice do you give
somebody come into town.

Speaker 8 (01:36:35):
Well, I mean I think.

Speaker 11 (01:36:38):
I think it's about one the people you surround yourself
with and that they really do believe in you and
that you trust them because it is.

Speaker 8 (01:36:48):
I mean, I talk to.

Speaker 11 (01:36:49):
All my clients every day of my life pretty much.
I mean, you are in the trenches with them. So
I mean, make sure you surround yourself by people that
I mean, you're gonna make mistakes and you're gonna you're
gonna be mad at some I somebody's going to take
advantage of you more than likely somewhere along the way
of life.

Speaker 4 (01:37:04):
You know.

Speaker 11 (01:37:05):
I mean, I mean I think, I mean Luke and
Cole both have examples that they would go you know,
but you know, you just got to look at it
like for some reason that was part of my path
and that's what it was. But move on and we'll
do the things we can control. I think that's part
of it to me, Like it's like stick true to

(01:37:25):
who you are and what you're about and what you
want to say.

Speaker 8 (01:37:28):
And it goes back to your critic thing.

Speaker 11 (01:37:30):
I mean, that was another advice or that I would
try to, you know, tell any of them when they
feel like they're getting beat up about something. It's like,
you know what all you can do is you and
somebody's going to have an opinion, and they're always going
to say something. But be you and be true to
you and don't get heady with it, you know. I
mean there are all those phases. I mean you talk,
I mean I think about you know, as an artist

(01:37:52):
has their fifth and sixth album, you're always questioning, like what.

Speaker 3 (01:37:55):
Do I do next?

Speaker 8 (01:37:56):
What I need to do next?

Speaker 11 (01:37:57):
You know, And that's good you should always question in that.
I think if you get too heavy with it, you'll
you'll be in a mess.

Speaker 3 (01:38:05):
I don't know.

Speaker 8 (01:38:06):
I think I did not.

Speaker 2 (01:38:07):
Even know definitely get it anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:38:10):
So what if the if someone's going, man, I think
I'd like to be a manager, like they go, I
love music run. I'm kidding, yeah, right, Like so what
and to condense it sixty seconds? What does a manager
even do? In your mind?

Speaker 11 (01:38:28):
I mean there, I guess I think of it like
there is nothing that happens in that artist career that
the manager is not involved in, or signing off on,
or approving nothing like if you I mean, unless it's
something a fan has done or put up, but like
anything that you think of a photo, a social post.
You know, are they on a show, are they not
on a show, or you know, what's the song? I mean,

(01:38:49):
you're involved in every single aspect of what is happening.

Speaker 8 (01:38:53):
So it's a lot.

Speaker 11 (01:38:54):
You have to be crazy organized and then you're still
not organized enough and it doesn't turn.

Speaker 3 (01:39:02):
Hey, guys, thanks for listening to this special of the
Bobby Cast behind the scenes of the music industry. Hope
you learned a lot about how the business works, how labels, managers,
radio producers, how they all work, and how they have
to work together. So thank you, and make sure you're
subscribed to the Bobbycast wherever you are listening to this,
and please give us five stars.

Speaker 2 (01:39:20):
We don't want to go off the air. We don't
want them to fire us.

Speaker 4 (01:39:22):
Five stars.

Speaker 2 (01:39:23):
Please I'm gonna cry. Okay, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:39:25):
We'll be back next week with a brand new episode
by everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:39:29):
Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production