#420 - Heath Wright the Lead Singer of Ricochet on the Untold Story of the Band + His Connection to Bobby’s Wife’s Family + Heath’s Issue with Modern Country Music - Bobbycast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm not going to bad mouth today's country music, but
I have a friend, a songwriter buddy of mine said,
today's country music sounds like three beer commercials strung together
because they just don't tell stories anymore. It's like you're hot,
I'm hot, getting the truck.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
All right? Episode four hundred and twenty. Heath right from Ricochet.
You know Rickochet from Daddy's Money. She's got a daddy's money.
Her mama is good, looks more Left, said a stack
of comic books. What do I know? Which went top three?
I've gone breedomny Eyday, love is stronger than Pride.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
If I gotta get down money.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Rick Achet that hits in more Than and Now came
out on August eighteenth. They're from Oklahoma. Mike. My question
is because my wife ended up coming down. She's only
ever been done twice. She came down to watch this
because she knows Heath, because she grew up with Heath,
because Heat's older than her. But it's from the same town. Basically,
did you set this up because you knew.

Speaker 4 (01:01):
That I didn't have any idea. I remembered after the
fact that you had mentioned being at a party where
he was and performed mm hmm, and then I was like, oh, yeah,
that's why a funeral. Wasn't there another situation where the
opry Okay, yeah, that's what it was.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, but she said, did Mike she just knew that
you knew? She was like, surely, he said, I said no,
I don't think so. I think it's because they have
a record out. Yeah, the record. We tried to do
a lot of different artists. I just love doing the
nineties country. Yeah, me too, So all right, Ricochet they
want ACM Award back in the day. It's something I
didn't know about them, and you'll hear it later. It's
not a spoiler.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Who cares.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
They started as a cover band. It's so rare that
that happens, where there's a cover band that's so good.
They had turned into like a band that's actually making
original music. So there they are. Ricochet. For more information
ricochet online dot com. I can't spell Ricochet though, so
good luck google it. All right, thank you. Here is
Heath right from Ricochet. Heath, good to see buddy, you too, Bobby,

(01:55):
good to be here. My wife is also in the room.
She didn't want to be a part of the interview
or anything, but she was like, Hey, I want to
go down and hang out. Has she only ever done
this twice? Jake? Oh, and who's a friend of ours?
And Ronnie Down who's a friend of ours? And you
who she's known since she said she was five years
old eight, well zero years old.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, I've known your families long before you were born.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
I grew up with your uncle, your uncle Jeff. Yes,
so how did how did how do you know her family?

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well, they're from Vienna, Oklahoma. Her her mom and her uncle,
Jeff grew up in Yana, Oklahoma, which is where I'm from.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
And oh, you're from Vienne.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
From yes, I will. I grew up on a cattle
rast just north of Ja.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
I went went to all public school all through Vien
you know. So that's her, her uncle, Jeff and I
like marched in high school band together along with one
of the original members of Ricochet, who I think you
guys know, Greg Cook?

Speaker 2 (02:48):
We know Greg? Yeah, So he's the three of us.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
We were kind of, you know, we were band nerds
back in the day.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
So you and Jeff were friends, and Jeff and Greg
were friends.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Technically, it's more like the other way around. Jeff and
Greg were friends. They were in the same class. They
graduated in eighty three, and I was the young kid
that just kind of hung out with them. I've graduated
a couple years later than them. After them, we.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Were over Ateff's house and he had instruments everywhere in
his house. He had like horns and he had like
seven horns. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Well, he buys things off of you know, He'll go
on Facebook marketplace and he'll just buy anything that's available
and he'll donate it to the school. Because he lives
he splits his time between Houston and Vyenne.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Now.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
He's he retired to like at age forty three or
something and decided to come back home and bought the
oldest house in Vyanne, renovated it and then just started.
He's on this Van school board now and he does
things for our community to help bring some industry into
vyan Like we have a Love's gas station now because
of a.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
I've been at that love many times, have you really?
I've been at Vienne many times.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
My son works there now.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Really Yeah? Do you so? Where do you live live? Though?

Speaker 1 (03:47):
I live on at the cattle ranch just north of there.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Oh, you still live in I grew by.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
I grew up in Vyenne, I moved off. I came
here to Nashville May eighteenth, nineteen ninety three, and I
lived here exactly fifteen years. I got the last load
of stuff, moved back to my rancho on May eighteenth,
two thousand and eight.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
We saw you here at the Opry, Yes, when you
guys played the Opry. And we saw you in Oklahoma.
You and Greg played at Caitlin's grandfather's funeral. Yes, so
I didn't know quite where you lived. I know you're
I mean, it would be nice to live back home. THO,
wouldn't it? I love it.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
I moved, like I said, I moved back home in
two thousand and eight. And I had moved so many
times in my career, in my life. I just told
the guys that helped me get all my stuff back,
I said, guys, the next time y'all help me move,
you're going to be moving me from here to the
funeral home. Because I'm dying here. I'm never leaving again.
But I come back to Nashville every two or three
months to do stuff like this.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
So you guys are putting out the hits and more.
Is his name of the record.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
It is then and now Ricochet then and now the
hits and more. I don't know why we decided to
name it twice, but you know, it's a sixteen song project,
but there's new stuff on it. There is new stuff.
It's a whole album's worth of new stuff. Ten new
songs that we had kind of even back when Greg
was in the band. We would go in after we
left Columbia Records back in two thousand, we would go
into the studio with a producer, cut three or four sides,

(05:01):
and then two or three years later we'd do the
same thing when.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
We could afford it.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
We were self produced and self funded back then, so
as we could afford it, we would go back into
the studio and cut another two or three sides. And
we had ten songs ready to release and no record
label to help us get it out there and just
distributed and you know, nationwide. So it just sort of
set in the can for several years. And so this
stuff is some recordings that we did ourselves. Now, when

(05:25):
I say that, your viewers probably already know this, but
Nashville has a certain way of doing things. Back in
the nineties, we weren't even allowed to play on our
own records, so.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Meaning you had to hire.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
We had to hire studio casts, and I got to
play some on the first album and a little bit
on the third album. I was the only one in
the band that ever played on any of our original stuff.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
And that's because the label was like, if we're going
to pay for it, we need to hire these specific
people to play on it so that it sounds perfect exactly.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
And you know, like I said, they have a certain
way to do it. Producers like to get it done
with over. It's a process, and they wanted the streamline
the process as quickly as possible so that they can
have more of the production money to put in their
own pockets. It's just the way it works. It's just efficiency,
you know. And it takes us so it might take
us a little bit longer, but that's all right. It's
us playing. So when we went in to do these

(06:12):
every note on the record, on the all to ten
note news side, as well as the six old songs
that we re recorded, it's us playing, us singing. Some
bands don't even get to sing on their own records.
Wait what yeah, it happens. The lead singer, the lead
singer will sing, but they'll bring harmony guys to do
all the harmony vocals.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Why did I do that on our comedy record. Yeah,
it's so much easier if I just got somebody to
sing for my part. When you put out the new songs,
when you record them, are these songs that you've had
for a little bit, You're like, man, I cannot wait
to cut these we feel so good about it? Or
did you kind of write them because you were going
to do something new?

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Well a little bit of both. Like I said, we
weren't chasing radio at the time, so we weren't looking
for the next hit. We were just recording songs that
we love. So there's gonna be some songs on here
that your viewers and your listeners wouldn't expect from Ricochet.
There's a song one of my favorites is a tune
that Mark Bressard wrote, a tune called the Beauty of
Who You Are? And I just one of the guys
brought the song to the bus one day and played
it and I thought, my god, what an amazing vocalist,

(07:08):
What a great song.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
I just love the lyric. It's a real sexy lyric. Uh.
There starts off with a there's a soft, sweet.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
Space on the back of your neck, smells like rain.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
There's a way, there's a there's a way you turn
telling you it's it's it's a sexy lyric and I
love and the way he sings it just sings the
hell out of it.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
And I just wanted to try it, you know, see
if I could sing it, and uh, I can't. I
can't sing it as good as he.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
Did, but I tried. I tried.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
I did the best I could, so we we got
a pretty decent little recording on it, added some big
harmonies to it, the way the way we do things,
and uh, it's really cool guitar stuff that managed they
managed to turn on hit the red button just at
the perfect moment when I was playing good that day.
So I don't know that's That's one of the tunes
on there that's a little different, but we did write
some stuff as well. It's one of my favorite tunes

(07:57):
on there. Is a song that our buddy Greg wrote
called No Wrong Way to Fall in Love and it's
a it's a story songs. That's what I think is
the quintessential factor in nineties country is they're great stories.
They tell stories. They take you on a journey. I'm
not going to bad mouth today's country music, but I
have a friend, a songwriter, Buddy Mine, that said today's

(08:19):
county music sounds like three beer commercials strung together because
they just don't tell stories anymore. It's like you're hot,
I'm hot getting the truck, and so, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
You think it's more melody based.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, melodies too, And I love songs that start kind
of low in my register, like on the verses, and
then gives me a chance to really sing out on
the top part of my range.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
National Anthem, well, yeah, gotta start low. If you startready
higher than that time you get to the and you're cooked.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
I'm telling you. And a lot of people worry about
the high note. I worry about the low note. I
worry I'm not going to be able to hit that
low note with a lot of good depth and stuff,
you know. But yeah, National Anthem is one of them.
And we didn't put that one on the.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
New We haven't shuit have though. That was the track
you should have done. National Anthem should made up Newverse.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
It's gonna be on the what it's going to be
on the New on the new album, yeah, I promise.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
So the record came out in August and there's some
new stuff on there as well. I kind of want
to go back to the origin of the group, and
I'm always curious about the name and how many names
you had before you actually settled on the name, and
who did you have other names with. You know, it's
kind of like your whole dating history before we talk
about your your wife. So you started playing music, I'm
assuming at a very young age, even if it was

(09:18):
like piano or horn or whatever it was, because you
were in the band.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Well, I started playing guitar. I took my first guitar
lesson on the day of my ninth birthday.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Should have a guitar in a band? No you mean?

Speaker 1 (09:28):
And yea yeah, like in the March I played drums
and marching bands in the fifth grade, but by that
time I was already playing guitar. So you know, they
didn't have guitar in the marching band, so I had
to choose another instrument. I kind of wish I had
to choose a horn of some sort, maybe saxophone. That's
a sexy instrument, you know, but I didn't have the
amishur for it. I didn't. I've had bad teeth growing up,
so I didn't have the amishur so I was like, well,
I'll just play drums.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
So thirty the three drum thing, I played the Yeah,
but I played.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
Snare as well. At one time I was a decent
rudimental drummer, so I can play on reda m cues
and paradiddles all of that stuff. But yeah, I've been
played in some Oklahoma state marching bands and stuff.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Like that back in you know, Hi Nashville is they
don't let you do your dam accused of paradidis anymore. Yeah,
I know. It's like they get somebody else do a paradidal.
So you're you're playing guitar and you're playing drums in
the band. I feel the same way about band. For me,
I wish I would have just been in the band
because I would have loved to have learned how to
play a horn, just for simply knowing how to read
music better. Yes, at the time, I was like, I

(10:25):
don't want to get to beget in the band. I
could beat up, I could beat up enough, but I
wish I would have done that because it would have
served me so much better than me having to go
get a court sheet at Walmart and learn how to
play guitar like I did, you know, because I'm not musically,
I'm not in any way talented musically, so I had
to kind of like struggle with the fingers. But you're right,
maybe for you too, if you don't learn how to
play like a French horn.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
True, which is probably I think one of the hardest
brass instruments to learn how to xylophone, but you know
the xylophone, and then you don't have to march. If
you plays xylophone, you stay there on the sideline, really
can't roll them around, no wills. If you play the bells,
you got the harness, Yeah, to get the harness, but
yeah those no no no. Girl comes up and says, hey,
can I can you introduce me?

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Can I go? Yeah, I want to.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
Meet the xylophone player.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Nobody says that.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
So guitar that was that was the instrument.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
That will get you a girl. How long did you
play in the marching band.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
All through up from fifth grade all through high school?

Speaker 2 (11:13):
And did you play drums the whole time the whole time?

Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah, well in marching band, yes, in a pep band
or excuse me. In a stage band, I played guitar
pet band, which was our We played at basketball games
pretty much. Only by that time Greg had already left
to go to college, so I borrowed his bass guitar
and played that in pep band.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
Okay, talk me through these three here, because I'm very
jealous people who play music in band early on marching
band is I know that because I played football. Just
football games. You're out and in the middle of the field
doing the deal. Okay, pep band is basketball only, that's
what we called it.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Pep band. That was our basketball smaller, smaller band. So
we had a bass guitar and we weren't marching obviously,
so I could get more funk. I could bring an
app We didn't like marching band arrangements, but I would
take the tube apart and learn it on bass guitar.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
That's cool.

Speaker 1 (11:58):
So I wasn't very good reader back then either. I
could read one line because I was a drummer, but
I knew what all the notes and well the lines
and spaces were. But I was more of a treble
cleft guy because I played guitar, which is written in
treble cleft. This is for all you music buzz classic
me too, and so the bas bass cleft was a
little different. So I would have to like get a
sheet of music and write the letters under each note
before I could actually learn it. And my mom and

(12:19):
dads like you sure spend a lot of time with
this bass guitar. Are you done with your studying? I
mean that's I mean hours and hours at night. I
would just practice the bass part, which I don't even
play bass anymore. I just played it. That was two
years in pep band and that was it.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
And then the other one you called it stage band.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yeah, we like jazz band. In most schools, we would
do we would do like how many people in arrangements,
and let's see, guitar bassed drums and it was a
kit of drums, not like a drum line, but a
drum kit, and then you would have horn sections. You'd
have a couple of saxophones, a couple of trumpets. Yeah,
it was really cool. And I don't know why we
didn't add a vocal thing. We could have had like
a vocal quartet to it.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
But it was nobody saying no.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
It was just all instrumental arrangements.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah, it's like we did soul if nobody was singing,
But could you sing at that time?

Speaker 1 (13:03):
I could, but I was only singing harmony parts back then.
It was before my voice changed, and so I was
singing the high tenor vocals in every band I played
it back then. So I started high yeah, yeah, the
right above the lead vocal.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
So not not even that high the end.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
Well, it's too high for me to sing.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Now, what's uh, what's what do you what's the really
high one? Uh?

Speaker 1 (13:24):
For female voice to be soprano?

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Soprano or for a kid had his nuts cut off.
We call those costrados castrado.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
There's an actual term for that.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
No, way, we don't.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
I guess we don't do it anymore. But back in
the you know, the yeah, medieval serious, that's what they said.
That would they would take them off and then they
call Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
That's a funny band name too, but that would be
a good thing. We should remember that for the next
little parod you want to do. We'll call them the castratos.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
This is going to get millions of hits.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah, yeah, we were talking about, but that's really what happened.
That's what they used to do back in the day.
So you're playing music all through high school. Now you're
talking to your parents like they're like, you're getting your
homework done. Did they think that you actually had a
career in music, even if it was music teaching, or
were they like, all right, we need to really focus
because you're gonna have to run the ranch. Yeah, well

(14:14):
I was.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
Fortunately I had very supportive parents growing up, and they
would never like, you know, why don't you put this
music aside and focus on something real. They never asked
me to get a real job or anything like that,
and they and they knew that one day I would.
I was the only child, so I was going to
be the one who would inherit the ranch and have
to run it one day. But when I when I

(14:35):
graduated high school and moved on to college, they were like,
what are you going to study? I said, well, I
don't know. I was thinking maybe music education or something music. Yeah,
I said, sure, sure would like for you to consider
doing something else just in case, you know, the music
thing doesn't work out for you. Maybe just something to
fall back on.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
That was always their phrase, portfolio exactly.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
So I went to school and I got a degree
in business management with a minor and accounting. I can
still name four different depreciation methods right now I.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Can name none. So that's all right. Then you a
line or not. I have no idea for telling me
the truth. They're not if you're just saying words. So
where'd you go to college?

Speaker 1 (15:07):
I went to the Northeastern State University in Tallaquo, Oklahoma.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
And I know Talaquah too, don't probably have I been there? Oh? Yeah,
I've been. Carie Underwood used to work at the pizza
place and her big pizza thing is up there Salmonella,
And that's where the guys from Yeah, it's where Cal's
parents at school. But it's also the guys from term
paktriubiados are from there.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
That's true, you know the term pat tripe. Yeah, and
I just got inducted into the Oklahoma's Music Hall of
Fame last year.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
Really well, I brought up Tallaquater. They're like because a
lot of those towns I get mixed up.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
But we have a lot of weird Native American names
for our towns.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, and an you know, Native American sounds to me
a bit like German sounds, where some of the sounds
don't go together. And how I would spell out things.
But but so they kind of sound funny both to me,
even even like Mandarin, it just has a but the
same thing happens where I get them mixed up. And
I was like, hey, I knew how to say talaquad though,
and they got freaking out from Turnpike said, you know

(16:02):
to say talaqua. Oh, like I've been there. Yeah, yeah,
there's a There was a probing store too there right,
like a dry short store. They used to compete with
your moms. Okay, no shout outs there.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Okay, no shout outs. Yeah it's funny. But Telequah, as
you said, it got a weird Most people couldn't pronounce
it if they didn't know how to how to the
town that carry us all is from. Also, people used
to mispronounce her town all the time. She's from Chakota, Oklahoma.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
And I lived right near like Washaita, with it was
spelled Oi Chiitah, Yes, and so again had I not known.
I mean, it's just an odd pronunciation from a guy
from the south in Arkansas.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
I'm told that Jimmy Webb when he wrote Wichita Lineman
in washingtaw he actually wrote it as Washaita lineman because
he's from Oklahoma and he saw a guy working on
some highline wires one day. He thought, that's the loneliest
job in the world. And it was the Washaita Lineman
until he turned it into his publisher and the publisher said,
I love everything about the song except the title.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
All the things on Wichitar pissed right now that you're
sharing that, that's like, that's their claim to fame right there.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Well, you know, Jimmy Webb, he's our claim to fame.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
He's Okay, hang tight.

Speaker 5 (17:04):
The Bobby Cast will be right back, and we're back
on the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
So you're in Oklahoma and you're going to college. Did
you end up staying and finishing school or I did?
Really I did.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
I got my degree in business management, and I got
I went on the road with the band immediately after that,
because that's what I wanted to do.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
After you graduated college. Aster I graduated college after.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Well, I did take a short break. A band that
Greg and I had together at the time was the
name of it, This.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Is what I like.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
This band was called Breakaway Okay, And this band was
a group that we had put together from another band
that we had been in when we were kids, and
we sort of broke away from that band and decided
to make up do our own thing a breakaway, so
we went on the road. We got signed to it
with a booking agent and he put us to work,
and so I took a year off in the middle
of all that, but I did go back and finish
my degree.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
You finished school just in case. But while you were
in school, were you playing music around? It was?

Speaker 1 (18:03):
I actually played in Telllequah. I had a local band
at the time called the heath Right Band. I'll never
forget we played this Telequah has a thing back then.
They had a thing called Pioneer Days and it was
just a weekend out of the summer. This pizza place
hired us to play in the parking lot to kind
of bring people in. It wasn't Salmonella's. It might have
been where Salmonella's is now. But I forget the name

(18:23):
of the pizza place back then, and I'd never forget.
The sign on the front said all you can eat
heath Right band. Each year all they want, all they want,
they could eat heath Right.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
And how often did you guys play while you were
in college or did you have to not play as
much because you really wanted to graduate and finish school.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
Well pretty much weekends. I mean, there was a club
in Telecaul called El Paso City Limits, and we played
there a lot, played just a few clubs in Muskogee
and surrounding areas. So it was just a weekend band.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
Did you feel like you were just kind of buying
your time until you finished school where you could go
and pursue it professionally exactly? So that was the plan.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
It was the plan I wanted to get. I wanted
to get the degree, have something to fall back on,
like my mom and dad said, and then get out
and just start pursuing it full time. And I joined
a band, another local band in Oklahoma, and again they
were just doing nightclubs, just the nightclub circuit. And I
did that for a little over a year, and I
realized I wasn't really getting anywhere. I planned to the
same clientele every six weeks. We were on a six

(19:19):
week rotation. We had like eight or nine different clubs
that we worked in that area. And so I went
back to school, this time to study music at a
small college in level Land, Texas called South Plains College.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
I'm assuming that's in like north north Texas.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
It's west Texas. It's below the Panhandle. It's south of
the Panhella, but it's just west of Lubbock.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
Did you move down there to do that? I did.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
I moved there. I already had one degree, so I
didn't have to take any of the normal general educational requirements.
I think I had to take one history class because
Texas requirements were a little different than Oklahoma requirements.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
But I got a.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Degree in country music. They called it commercial music, but
I studied country music the whole time I was there,
country in western swing.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
That's like me geting a degree in People named Bobby
from Arkansas just already got it. There do a lot
of work, I already know.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
I knew a lot when I went there because I'd
been playing in bands for most of my life. But
I learned a lot while I was there, too. I'm
telling you, I learned about things that I didn't have
a whole lot of experience at being in the studio,
and I'd done a lot of recording in studios by
that time, but I was on the other side of
the glass, so I learned about different types of microphones
and signal flows, a lot of technical you know, a
lot of multi tracking study. So you know, I learned

(20:26):
a lot more about producing while I was there as well,
you know, taking a group of musicians and ended up
with a finished song, a finished product. I'd produced a
lot of my own student projects. I've produced a few
other students projects while I was there, and the faculty
just amazing. Some of those faculty members would hang with me,
like until nine o'clock in the evening in the studio,

(20:46):
just helped, just helping me kind of get my projects finished.
And the whole time, by the time I got up
every morning at seven am to the time I collapsed
in my bed at midnight every night, I was a
better musician. I knew that every morning when I woke up,
I was going to be a better musician the.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
End of the day. So you're going to school after
you had kind of been burnt out by playing the clubs.
Was it with the purpose of learning more so you
can go and try again at a different level, or were
you like, I still want to be in music, but
I want to go learn it. Maybe I'll be a producer.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Well, it was just so, I mean, if if you're
going to be a doctor, you go to medical school,
if you know, if you're going to be an attorney,
to go to law school. So I just wanted to
get as much knowledge as I could. But I didn't
really want to, you know, no offense to people who
play symphonies and stuff. I didn't have aspirations of playing
in a philharmonic. I didn't want to study Mozart and
Bach and Chopin and all of that. I wanted to study,

(21:34):
you know, George Strait and Garth and Restless Heart, and
I wanted to study that type of music that was
making money, that was out there. Commercial. That's so that's
the name of the degree, the commercial music degree. One
of my classmates was Trent Willman, the Cody Johnson's producer.
Natalie Mayin from Dixie Chicks went or excuse me, the
Chicks went there after?

Speaker 2 (21:55):
Were they were? They? They probably weren't even a band.
They were they were they had with a Natalie or
differentlyad singer at the time.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
I had Laura Lynch at the time.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
And so you're going to school down there, and again,
are you just looking forward to graduating so you can
go start again? Not?

Speaker 1 (22:08):
I wasn't looking forward to it. I look forward to
each and every day at that school. I soaked up
every single, every single minute of training that I got
while I was a South Plains And uh, since uh
they've named a freaking wing of the building after me
since then, and I've established a scholarship there. And next
month I go, They've named me one of the distinguished alumni.

(22:29):
So I get to go and you know, be part
of a big gala and is it galor gala?

Speaker 2 (22:34):
Could be out of the one? Would you wear a
cowboy hat in a robe? Do it?

Speaker 1 (22:38):
What?

Speaker 2 (22:38):
I wear a cowboy hat and a rope? If you
go as a distinguished alumni, you're wearing the robe. Are
you gonna wear the Tao.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
Hat or the cowboy hat?

Speaker 2 (22:45):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Oh, well, I don't know that they'll. I don't think
they do that there. I mean it's not during the
graduation ceremony, but they're just good to.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Do it anyway. You think I should wear them?

Speaker 1 (22:56):
Distinguished?

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Now, yeah, I got my own wing. I'm distinguished and
here I am. So you finished going to school down there?
And then okay, so then what let's form another band?
Let me try solo? What happens?

Speaker 1 (23:06):
I had been kind of doing some networking. Prior to that,
I'd lived in Dallas briefly to play in a band
that was based out of Dallas before I moved off
to South Plains. And while I was there, on my
nights off, I would go out to the nightclubs and
kind of network and just meet other band leaders and
guitar players. Is like, Hey, I'm playing in this band,
but we only work on weekends. We fly out every Thursday,
we fly home on Sunday. In Dallas, Texas, there was

(23:28):
nightclubs that we were opened six days a week. I said,
if you ever need a sub, here's my cassette. Cassette
back then, here's my business card. And so I had
met these guys called Lariot, a band that was based
out of Texas, and giving them my cassette and my
business card. And six months later I get a call
from them and they're like, hey, we're all based in Nashville.

(23:49):
Now we've all moved from Texas to Nashville, and we
got some label interest, but our lead singer is leaving
to join his cousin Tim Rushlow to do a dual
Texas from Little Texas Yeah, to do a duo project
called Rushlo Harris, because you know, Tim's had like a
two hundred and three record deals. It's different different styles of.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Artists.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Where there be two I think he's had two bands,
Little Texas in a band called Rushlo and anyway. But
he was getting ready to do a duo thing at
that time, and he was going to his cousin, Donny
Harris was his name, was quitting the band Lariat to
go join Tim Rushlow.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Were you marketing yourself as a singer or I was
just a guitar.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
Player and that could sing harmony parts. Is the first
band I've ever been the lead singer of.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
So you're still like, here's my tape of my lead vocals,
It's like here I am, I play guitar nill.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Actually, to be honest, I had recorded four songs as
lead vocalists as part of projects with other bands that
I'd been in, the bands that Greg and I had
been in, But it.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
Wasn't your main thing, like I'm here to be the
lead vocal I didn't.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
I never marketed myself as a lead vocalist. I was
just a guitar player who could sing harmony parts, and
that's kind of what I was looking for. I didn't
never consider myself a front man, but they needed a
lead singer. They already had a guitar player, and so
I was said, oh, okay, I'll try that, And so
I joined the band and through no fault on my own,
And I want to point out, the band fell apart
the following month.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
Wait, you joined the band that you moved to Nashville.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
I moved to Nashville to join Lariot, to join the
group Lariot, which eventually became Ricochet.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
So okay, you move here for a month, you're in
Lariot and you're the lead singer Lariott for.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
For a month. Yeah, for about a month.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
How did it off all parts so quickly? Oh?

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Well, again, no fault on my own. The two original
brothers of Ricochet, Jeff and Junior Bryant, were the leaders
of the band Lariot, and they had signed a new
management deal with some guy that he wasn't really a
music manager. He owned a carnival business and he would
take his carnival from town to town and he would,

(25:43):
you know, tell the Chamber of Commerce, look, I've got
a carnival and bring it to your town and it's turnkey.
I've got all the food vendors, I've got all the rides.
I've even got a band that can play the beer tent.
So it was all turnkey. And so he had a
whole summer's worth of dates booked with Lariot, the band
I was about to join. And that was one of
the enticing parts about moving in, Asheville knew I wouldn't
have to get a real job. I could go to
work immediately with a band and make enough money to

(26:04):
pay my bills. And then they decided that they they
didn't really have either they didn't have a contract with
this manager dude, or they had one that had just
run out, because they decided to change management. And when
they did that, what they didn't realize is the old
manager had copyrighted the name Lariots under his name, so.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
He could just make Larry.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
So with him, put another band together and called them Lariot,
and then that you know, the whole He was able
to put all of those dates on his new band's roster,
and the old Lariot they were just they they were done.
They had a new manager, so they didn't have they
couldn't use the name Larry anymore. And at that point
after we lost all our dates, we started losing band members,
so the guitar plary quit. He was one of the

(26:45):
first ones to quit. I'm like, well, I play guitar too,
I can take that over that part. But then everyone
started quitting and it just eventually got to where we
were just rebuilding the band.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
So who was left?

Speaker 1 (26:55):
You and the two brothers, Jeff and Junior Bryan were
the only two. And we had a temper bass player
who didn't want to do it permanently. He was a
little older than us, he was in his forties, and
he didn't want to go on the road permanently. So
he was like, well, I'll stay with you till you
find someone more permanent. That's when I brought my buddy
Greg in from Oklahoma. From Oklahoma, Yeah, he had just
finished a degree in microbiology with a coarse concentration in

(27:18):
chemistry or something like all complain said, yeah, I've got
my degree, now I can come do what I want,
you know, So he was he was all for, you know,
moving to Nashville and joining the band. This new band
that I was putting together, and we were going to
we didn't even have a name yet. Honestly, mean you just.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
Moved here too. It's like you moved here to be
a part of something now all of a sudden, and
then all of a sudden, now you're the leader of
putting a band together exactly.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
So I get, Yeah, I get to be the guy
that starts networking and putting it all together. And so eventually,
I think by February of ninety four, we had it together.
We had our last member in place, and we had
our vocal blend that I really wanted. I knew I
wanted a big West Coast style harmony vocal blend.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
What's that mean? West coast?

Speaker 1 (27:51):
West coastyle.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
It's like the Eagles.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
It's when there's two harmony parts above and two harmony
parts below.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
That's sort of the West. So I got burger with
a lot of layers exactly.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah, yeah, above and below.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
So you're how many are in the band at that
ninety four when you finally say.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
This six we were a six piece of thing. So
me on lead vocals and.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
Looking money, that's too much bad? I agree, I agree,
But you know I want to recommend you did not
do that back in ninety four.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
Well, I kind of wanted to have a steel guitar player.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
You also wanted to have the Hamburger vocals or whatever
you called it. You can't do the best three people. Yeah,
I can't really do that with three people.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
I knew I needed at least five to do West
Coast harmony, like a restless Heart type type band. And
so I thought, well, I need something to set the music,
the bed part of our sound, not just the vocals,
but the musical bed set that apart from everybody else.
And I couldn't think of any bands out there that
featured a steel guitar and fiddle. We already had a
fiddle player. I was the guitar player, but we didn't

(28:42):
have a steal.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
So I talked to guys.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
I said, instead of hiring another guitar player to replace
the one that quit, why don't you let me take
over guitar duties and let's hire a steel guitar player.
And so that was the last instrument that we had.
The last guy was Teddy Carr, and we added him.
We found him here in Nashville. Actually he lived some
one of the outlying towns of the name of the
town escase me right now. But he he had advertised

(29:03):
in Dick mcvay's musicians Referral service, so I found him
through that, brought him in auditioned him.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
He was great.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
Wasn't a singer though, but that's all right. I already
had my five vocals, so I already had my five home.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
Take another one, so it's like European vocals and West
Coast I had one more. God dang, so you are six.
It that's just so many people. It was a lot.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
And we didn't make a whole lot of money at
the beginning because we were only playing nightclubs for like,
you know, three thousand dollars a week, and we'd be
there the whole week, you know, and so we were
maybe if we were lucky, we were getting about four
to five hundred dollars a week in our pocket.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Did you need that much to survive then? Though?

Speaker 1 (29:38):
No, No, I didn't have a family. Some of the
other guys did, but fortunately they had wives who had
real jobs. So you know, there's something to be said
for that.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
You know.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
It's like it's like, I don't know, it like having
every good rancher also has a wife that works in town,
has a good job in town, because you're gonna have
years where you just don't make money in ranching, And
for me, that's that's a every year.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
What was the name of the band at first? When
all six of you got together, that's.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
When we decided to go from Lariot Too, and we
knew we needed a new name, and we were the
new manager would own a nightclub in Columbia, Missouri called
the Silver Bullet. He wanted to call us a Silver
Bullet band, not realizing that already had that name for decades,
and so I said, now we can't do that, and
it needs to be one word, should be two or
three syllables, like Alabama or foca that's for restless heart.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
That's two words, but still three syllables.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
Something I'm jinking here. Yeah, I'm still thinking, trying, trying
to something that would be memorable, you know, but it's
only one or two words. And so our manager's his
wife come up with a name. How about Ricochet. It
would look cool on the marquee outside if it said
the Silver Bullet presents Ricochet. And I'm like, yeah, I
like it Ricochet. And after Shannondoa broke up, you know,

(30:48):
because there was a little time when they broke up,
we were the most misspelled band in country music.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
I don't know that I could call it ricochet right
now that looking the page, ri I c h they
over played. Don't know me? Rick is che are I see?
Oh shay, that's right? Oh shit, yeah shit. I close
my eyes though, so I know it was cheating. I'm
a man of integrity. What I've read that about you? Yes,

(31:16):
So you guys are playing there, six of you? Are
you good?

Speaker 1 (31:20):
We were actually fairly good, I thought. We not because
we were just naturally good. I think because we put
the work in. Uh, Like I said, we would beat
a night club for four or five nights at a time.
Back then we were just playing dance sets, you know.
And so during the day I told the guys, I said,
you know, if we were working real jobs, we'd be
working eight hours a day. So why don't we get
together and do a vocal rehearsal this afternoon. Let's learn

(31:42):
a new tune for this, you know, we'll add it
to the show. We'll go down to the club and
rehearse it, you know, make sure it's good. And so
we spend a lot of time just just putting in
the work and figuring out exactly where everybody's vocal was
going to be in the mix, and figuring out, you know,
parts and making sure everything was in tune and in
pitch and in time, and and paying a lot of
attention to like when we would work up someone else's song,

(32:04):
like a Diamond Rio song or something, making sure that
all of the parts were right. You know, I'm a
huge Jimmy Olander fan. I was just we just did
a show with him this past Saturday, and Jimmy's got
this cool guitar that's got double benders on it. It's
you got a kind of it's hard to explain, but it's,
you know, you can't just buy a guitar of the
off the off the wall that's got these benders and
you have to have them, especially installed. There's a guy

(32:25):
here in town named Joe Glazer that does them, and
so I had to have the same thing. I had
to have a guitar with double benders in it. So
we would work up a lot of a lot of
Diamond Rio stuff and make sure that all the parts
were right, vocal parts, mandolin parts, guitar or whatever, and
so any but anything we did, whether it be a
Tracy Bird, Tracy Lawrence song, Restless Heart, whatever. We took

(32:46):
great pains and efforts to make sure that our covers
of those songs we were right, you know, and I
don't know that a lot of cover bands did that
back then. So what if when you ask were we good?
I think we were. I think we were one of
the better, better cover bands out there at the time.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Two things, but one where you it sounds like you're now, Well, first,
you're the I moved in for a month. You were
a role player in a bigger band that you were like, hey,
I can fill in and I can take that job.
But now it's you're you're the general. I feel like
like you had to take a leadership position quickly.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
Pretty much. I don't know if the two Bryant brothers
just weren't cut out for that, or if they just
didn't want the job, because there's a lot of work
that goes along with leading a band. So I, you know,
I was the guy that carried the credit card and
kept track of the receipts and all of that stuff.
So I you think I have two degrees I had,
Well I had I have business degree too, so that
didn't hurt it. I actually read every contract that was

(33:34):
put in front of me every word of I'm probably
the only guy in the original Ricochet band that read
all sixty four pages of our recording contracts.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
You type A personality? Oh, yes, do you know what
your niagram is? What you're the niagram number?

Speaker 1 (33:47):
Now I don't even know what you're just like, you're
speaking a whole another one. I am.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
It's Mandarin. I mentioned it earlier. Oh you're good and
I'm kicking it. So yeah, I definitely feel a lot
of Type A in you, which I think is pretty cool.
You are with the group. There's five people. It doesn't
matter six and five, five plus U Okay, yeah, it
doesn't matter who the six are. And if you all
love each other. That's a hard dynamic. It is just
because you have six I mean, I do the radio

(34:11):
show and I have all my best friends, and there
are still times we want to kill each other even
though we love each other we've been together fifteen years,
because it's just six different attitudes, personalities, people, and so
now you're also probably having to manage that, which isn't
really what you knew. The dynamic wise, you're gonna be managing.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
So were you were you like the dad oh, probably not. Gosh,
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
I was.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
I was probably the problem child. Honestly, you can be both,
I guess, you know. And I'm I've got a weird personality.
I've got you know, I'm I'm very u meticulous.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
Well, the guys put them through boot camp too, play guys.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
Who used to love playing tricks onbody. For example, I like,
when I get into a hotel room, I have to
take everything out of my shaving kit and line it up,
you know, all the toothpaste and toothbrush right here, and
then the deodor the in the cologne here, and then
the shaven stuff over here. And I did that every
so I wouldn't leave stuff behind. So I did that
every single time with the organization. Organization. So the guys
thought it'd be funny as hell to take one of

(35:06):
those little trays and super glue all my stuff out
of order, and so that just little things like.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
That, pretty funny. Yeah, it was more like you than them.
And that's still pretty funny. That is, get super involved.
It's pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
I guess we had too. That's when I decided we
had too much time on our hands and we need
to do more.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
More work more work. Were they ever like he chill
out me and we don't want to practice every day.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
No, I was lucky, you know, like Eddie k especially,
he was he was great. He I don't think I
ever outworked him. He was great at just like he
was our vocal arranger. So if we did anything that
was non parallel vocals, like you know, when the melody
goes up, so do the harmonies. When the melody goes down,
so to the harmonies, parallel vocals. If we did anything
that was like counterpoint or any you know, choral type singing,

(35:47):
if we didn't like, for example, uh, we did a
a capella version of let It Snow. He arranged every
note of that. Our a capella version of StarSpangled Banner,
he arranged every other that was that's pretty meat and potatoes.
But he's he's just got that kind of mind. I
think it comes with.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
Being a keyboard player.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
So I was lucky to have a group of guys
that had a good, strong work ethic, and they weren't. No,
there was no lazy ones in the band, not even
the original band.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
How did you go from cover band to band that's
doing their own songs? That transition doesn't always happen. True,
We got lucky. Honestly.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
It was during a time when country music was going
through some changes and they were kind of losing a
lot of bands. I mentioned Little Texas had taken some
time off the road, Restless Heart Larry had left the
band to go do a solo thing. As a matter
of fact, our original guitar player went with Larry Stewart.
Other bands like the Gibson Miller Band and the Pirates
of the Mississippi they just disbanded. And so country music

(36:40):
was needing some bands at the time, and so we
got lucky that A and R guy from Columbia Records
heard us one night at a nightclub and as I say,
you know.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
The rest is history.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
So he was just there.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
Well, I think it was arranged for him to be there.
I believe somehow our manager had a friend of a
friend somehow knew Blake Chancey.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Did you know he'd be there? Yeah, we like a
ballplayer knowing or yeah, we were nervous outs up there.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, we were very nervous.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
Make them work extra hard that day, like four sessions.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
No, I think we probably rest of that day so
as to be fresh, fresh for the big record producer
that was going to be the an R guy that
was going to be in the audience that night.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Did he come up to you guys after the show
or was did he reach out like a couple of
days later. Now he came up to it.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
We met after I had a few drinks afterwards, and
he says, I really like what I hear. Let me
let me go back and talk to some people. And
I think I think he did it just as a
favor to his dad. Blake Chancey was his name. His
dad was Ron Chancey, the.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Big producer of the Oakridge Boys and T.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Graham Brown and and Ron was the friend of the
friend of our manager. So he managed to get in
touch with Ron. Ron got in touch with his son, Blake,
who had just taken over the an R position at
Sony Music. And so Blake did it as a favorite
his dad. But his intention was to say no, His
intention was to come out here, give it, give us
a listen. Oh, and he also brought a guy named
Cliff Aldridge with him, and so he wanted Cliff to

(37:59):
hear him so that he could put the blame off
on Cliff said, no, it's just not what we're looking for.
But they got back to town and they had a
meeting the next next day or the next week whatever,
and Cliff said, well, I think it's one of the
best live bands've ever heard. I said, but they're just
a cover band right now. But I think they have potential.
They have an original sound, so I think they have potential.
They have great vocals, and he sung our praises and

(38:19):
Blake was looking at hims like you're supposed to say no,
you know, but it did worked out, you know, it
worked out.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
Were you guys writing anything at the time or we
just practicing.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
Not a lot like a living We weren't right. I
had taken I was new to the songwriting game. I
had just learned how to write a song at South
Plains College, you know, the year before that, I took
a songwriting class there. It was part of the curriculum,
and so I was completely new. So I'd done some writing.
One of the reasons I brought Greg into the band
because I wanted him to be a co writer on
the road with me. He and I had written some
when I was home for vacations and stuff. Greg is

(38:50):
naturally talented that sort of thing. He's really good, and
so was Eddie kil Gallen. I was new to it
and still my main contribution to a co writing session
is a chord patterns melody, things like that. I'm not
a great lyricist, but you know, I could at least
lend that to a songwriting session. We didn't do as
much writing as I wish we had, because I wish
we would have had a whole bunch of songs to

(39:11):
turn into our label and say it took look at
all these songs we've written, let's record ten of those,
you know. But we didn't, and so we'd ended up
for the first album. Nobody got a single song on
the first album. I had had a publishing deal in
Nashville prior to that, so I did manage to get
some songs written here in town with some great songwriters,
and I thought one or two of them was good
enough to be on the album. But apparently the label

(39:32):
thought otherwise, so we didn't get anything.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
Whenever you're a cover band and then all of a
sudden you're a signed to band, how does your life
change or does it? At first? It does?

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Everything just goes and I mean it seems like texts
forever from the time they tell you you're going to
get signed, to the time you start working on the project,
and then it texts forever to get the first song
to radio. But once, once that first song hit radio,
what do I Know? Came out in November of ninety five,
and I'll never forget it was. It was just a

(40:02):
whirlwind after that. I mean we'd been on a radio
tour six months prior to that, kind of introducing ourselves
to the program and music directors and stuff and just
kind of making sure that they.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Knew who we were.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
And that was grueling, and sometimes we'd hit three radio
stations a day, and we did that for six months
all over the country.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
So that was a top ten song too, right, What
do I know?

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yes it was. It went to number three.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Really part of me.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
We were trying hard to get a number one out
of that one as a debut single, but it didn't happen.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
So that song is doing what it does right, it's
gratisseses are playing it? Are you guys playing shows as
that song is climbing? Can you fill the crowds getting bigger? Oh?

Speaker 1 (40:52):
Yes, we're playing some of the same nightclubs we had
played as a cover band, but we're playing our own music.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Card tickets and people are coming to pay money some.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
Part tickets, and they put us on tour. They cut
us on a couple of major tours. We went out
on the Double Trouble Tour with the Marty Stewart and
Travis Tritt. We were on the T and T Tour
with Travis excuse me, with the Tracy Lawrence and Tracy
Bird and then eventually the John Michael Montgomery Tour. We
won our first ACM when we were on the John
Michaelmgomery Tour.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
What was that ACM for? It was for New Vocal
Group or Duo of the Year nineteen ninety six. What's
it like back in Vienne Now that you guys are
on the radio, I gotta imagine, well, everybody's time now,
not now, but then, Oh, back then we were like
ninety seven. Yeah, it was pretty awesome.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
We used to play a show back in Vyenne at
the football stadium and we donated all the proceeds to
Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital because there's two boys from
Vyenne who both ended up with leukemia, both treated at
Saint Jude and now they're both adults, you know, so
we we be and Greg talked about it. If we're
ever in a position that we can do something for
this hospital, we need to do it. So we started
doing this thing called Green Country Jam back in Vyenne,

(42:00):
and it was just people would would come.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
You know.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
That was always a difficult day because everybody wanted to
get on the bus and how do you tell your friends, no,
we can't get this many people in the bus, and
plus we're trying to get ready for show, and now we.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
Got to leave.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
We gotta leave, you know, right after the show. But
that sort of thing. But so my tour manager came
up with this, this test if people actually knew me,
then they could get on the bus. And he knew
how to test them because my name, my full name
is Perry Heath, right, and in school I went by
my first name Perry Wright. But then after school I
didn't think that sounded real show busy. I just started

(42:33):
using my middle name, Heath. But most people back home
still call me Perry. Caitlin's uncle still calls me Perry
half the time. So you know, it's ah that would
be the test that our tour manager was here to
knock at the bus door and open up saying, I'm
full friends with Heath and Greg. He said, really, what
what do you call him? What'd you call him in
high school?

Speaker 2 (42:52):
Heath?

Speaker 1 (42:53):
No, Sorry, if they said Perry, he'd let him on
the bus.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
So, so, Vyanne loves you, Nashville loves you. You're doing
this festival. How long did you do that? This show? That,
the show at the high School? How long did you
do that? Man?

Speaker 1 (43:04):
I think we did that for five years. I want
to say we started in ninety six or ninety seven.
Dixie Chicks were on the show that year. They hadn't
even had a record deal, or they had a record deal,
but they were in developmental steel so no no hits yet.
And Emmy and I used Emily the banjo player. She
and I used to date.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
I've heard all this, but I know all that. They
knew that whatcus Kaelin would tell me these stories. I
wasn't going to bring it up, oh, because it's not
my business to bring up your business. But if you're
bringing it up, I know all this because Kanlelin would
be like, yeah, I'm at the Dixie Chicks back in
the day and you were at that show.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
Awesome, Oh awesome.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Yeah, so yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
The Dixie Chicks were there on the very first one,
the inaugural show of Green Country Jam, and they had
just played in Las Vegas, New Mexico the night before
and they pulled up in their little RV and you
could tell they were exhausted, but they got up and
did a hell of a show.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
Just amazing.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
And a couple other my friends were on the show
that that year, and I'll never forget the year that
we did it. One of the last years we did
at Joe Diffy was on the show and Joe, as
you know it is an okie. He brought his mom
and dad out to the show, and my mom and
dad were there as well, and my mom and Joe's
mom sat on the bus and chatted like they were
old high school buddies. It's so good to see him

(44:12):
get together.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
Joe refused.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
At the end of the day, we would write checks
for at least expenses, because we wanted to give as
much money as we could to Saint Jude. But we
would reimburse these guys for their payroll and their bus
fuel and their bus lease or whatever they whatever. Their
expenses were they would just give us an invoice and
they'd say all right. Joe refused to take a penny
and expenses.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
That day, so he took a loss. He took a lot.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
See definitely, I don't know if he was if it
was a routing day for him or for he just
and we only asked him to fly out and do
an acoustic set and we would pay for his plane
ticket and all of that, and he says, I'm going
to bring my whole band. And the reason he did
that is because we had.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Played his He had a charity show for First Steps.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
I don't know if you remember that. He had a
country show used to do with the Ryman every year
called Country Steps in for First Steps, and we played
it like the four or five years prior to that,
so he I don't know, maybe he felt like he
owed us, but he was such a good guy. Refused
to take a penny and expenses that day.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah, you guys have a record deal. The song goes
number three, Where do they come with second? After Daddy's Money?

Speaker 1 (45:06):
Daddy's Money was the next, So we would have released
Daddy's Money first, But what do I know? We weren't
the first ones to get our hands or maybe we were.
We It was written by three great songwriters, Stephanie Smith,
Kathy Majeski, and Sonny Russ, and they all had different
publishers and so no one knew who got the hold
on the song first because the publishers were pitching it
around town. So we both both us and Linda Davis

(45:30):
recorded that song at the same time. We knew that
if we released Daddy's Money first that we would probably
lose What Do I Know as a single, so instead
we went with the more mid tempo ballad what Do
I Know, And we didn't even release a video with
it because we spent all of our promotions budget on
a tour, a radio tour six months prior to that. Anyway,

(45:50):
we managed to get What Do I Know released and
then it went top five, number three on Billboard or
rn R and five on Billboard I think, and then
we were free to release dad His Money, and that
thing shot up to number one, like in sixteen weeks.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
Yeah, I was gonna ask if it felt different from
the moment that it hit, because then the first song.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
It sort of did because there was a video on
that one, so we were more recognized after that. A
lot of people would come to our show before that
and they would, you know, they knew that there was
a free show at you know a little bit of
Texas in Saint Louis or whatever, and so they would
come out and listen to us, and they've been we'd
do what do I Know? And said, oh, I didn't
know that was you guys that did that because there

(46:29):
was no video on what do I Know? But Daddy's
Money had a video attached to it, and so there
was a lot more recognizability there.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
And that song is so catchy. I mean, we will
still play it sometimes on my show Awesome just O.
Kaitlin also sings it all the time too, walk to House, Yeah,
all the time. So that song, you say, sixteen weeks
is what it took to get to number of teen weeks,
as I recall him. Now, did it go away quickly
because it shot up so fast? Or did it stay
stuck a number one for two weeks? Which I guess
was pretty good back then, because I remember everyone being

(46:57):
so surprised that that was there for a second week,
because we, like, like you said, we were kind of
expecting it to to be more of a you know,
in and out kind of song it is. I mean,
it's let's be honest, it's it's that song is not
going to cure cancer. It's not really saying anything. It's
fun change the world.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
It's just a fun song. Cat It's fun and catchy,
and you know it was it served as purpose for
that for that summer for us. We needed a fun,
catchy song for the summer, and we released it and
it went to number one and got us a whole
lot more recognition and even got us an award, and
so you know, we were lucky to have that song
as part.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
Of our career. Did you ever feel like you resented
the song?

Speaker 1 (47:32):
Ah, that's well, I resent it every day when I
try to sing it now because we still do it
in the same key you happen.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, that would be touching up. It's so high, it's
just I can see that. Did you did you ever
feel like because I didn't even know all the words,
I just knew the melody from hearing on the radio
that Cale was singing it so much. I know every
word in the song now because she says it all time, Yeah, everywhere,
And so did you ever feel like and I say
this because I think I love the song and I

(47:59):
look back at that time in my life and it
brings me back to that time. Right. That's a music, guys,
It take us.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
People tell me that a lot. Yeah, because that music
is the soundtrack of your life, you know.

Speaker 2 (48:07):
And so I remember, you know where I was at
that time. But you you have this song that you
say you didn't get a single cut on the record
and they had you put in it shot up, but
where you were, like, I wrote songs better than this.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Well I might have had that thought of time or two.
But it's truth is it's those little, simple, catchy songs
that absolutely that sounds so easy, but they're not that easy, right,
you know. I mean, who would even think about that
scenario about this guy being all you know, confused and
not not being able to pay attention to the preacher
because he's got his eyes on this girl in the

(48:38):
choir off and that's all he can think about. And
now he's praying to God, if you got any if
you got any miracles handies. He scrant me, one, let
me walk down the island and say I do to
that angel with the choir RoboN. You know that it's
just little little scenarios like that don't come every day.
And I've heard that Mark de Sanders used to write
along those lines a lot. He always would have some

(48:58):
sort of little religious thing in his songs, like a
walking in Jerusalem, Tracy Byrd he wrote that, so he
would put some sort of little wholesome churchy thing in
all of his songs like that.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
And who knows.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
I mean, I really think Jeff Carson for showing up
at the right time. Do you know the story behind
that addy his money? I don't, all right, settle in.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
It's a long story. All I know is that I
would hear to the kid and be like, more less
than a stack of comic books where I is, And
I'd be like, I don't really comic books. This must
have been an older dude who wrote it, That's what
I used to think. Well, it's three older dudes.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
I guess he can call him that now, But it
was Mark D. Sanders, Bob Dapiro, and Steve Seskin. They're
sitting in a room one day at a publishing company,
trying to come up with something to write about, right,
And there's a window there in the room that they're
writing in, and they see this young demo singer named
Jeff Herndon pull Up, who eventually would become Jeff Carson.
So Jeff pulls up in this brand new Jaguar. He's

(49:51):
just a demo singer. He's hadn't even got a record
deal yet as far as I know, and absolutely no hits.
And the guys started talking, well, how the hell can
Jeff afford to drive a Jaguar. I mean, he's just
singing demos for we know, and maybe maybe has a
publishing deal, but you know it hadn't written any hits
or anything. And I believe it was Mark d said,
well have you seen that woman that he's married to, Kim?
Not only is she gorgeous, apparently she's got her daddy's

(50:11):
money too. Whil they had something to write about it
at that point. So I used to think, Jeff, I say, man,
thanks for showing up just the right time, and thanks
Kim for letting for letting him drive your car that day.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
You know, oh that was her car too. It was
her car. That's funny too. So when they when they
they say, Okay, you guys, it's not awesome live, but
we need a record now. So this is this song
called Daddy's money record. What did you think the first
time you heard it to record?

Speaker 1 (50:33):
I heard it over the phone for the first time.
I was at home in Oklahoma. The record label had
given us a small signing bonus, and so I took
my two or three thousand dollars to the sale barn
that day to buy some effers. And that's how I
wanted to invest my my record bonus, my record signing bonus.
And so my dad and I, this was before cell phones.
I didn't have a cell phone. Dad and I would
have to sale all day long. And we came home.

(50:55):
My mom says, son, somebody named Uncle Ron just called you.
I said, Uncle Ron, that's Ron Chancey, that's our purduce. Well,
he says, you need to call him back immediately, something
really important. So Uncle Ron Ron Chancey plays that song.
He says, we just got this tune in and if
we don't put a hold on it soon, we're gonna
lose it. So he played it for me.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
I listened to every word of it, the whole the
whole demo.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
Ron Wallace sang the demo I'll never forget great vocal,
and I thought, that is the silliest damn song I've
ever heard what was the But I said, look, we
got to hold it because it's going to be a
huge hit.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
I got you sonically obviously on a phone though. But
the demo was it a fully produced demo or fully produced?
Had like electric guitar?

Speaker 1 (51:31):
Yes, yes, I don't know that. It had fiddle and
steel on it. Shit, it was a full band production.
It wasn't just acoustic guitar vocal. But it was catchy
as crap you could do. It was and you know,
like you said, more last than a stack of comic books,
the country is a turnip green. Come on, These are
just phrases that I know are going to stick out
and and and be memorable. People are going to remember
these phrases, So I thought, and I like the melody,

(51:51):
and I like the way it it kind of soared
up in the chorus. Give me a chance to kind
of stretch out on my high range. And so it
I was like, yeah, I love the melody. It's just
little lyric and I think it's I think it's gonna
be catching enough that people will love it.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
So did you have the expectation that it would do
what it did? That one songs on the record, just
even at the time the thing was number one, are
you like, I can't believe that's the one that did
it because we have all these other songs too.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
I knew I'd been studying country music trends for a
long time, and a lot of I mean a lot
of times it's the silly little songs that are always
gonna be are gonna be huge.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Hits because they just are fun to sing by everybody
else who buys music or li'sen to music.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
True exactly, Yeah, I mean it was just I just
had that commercial appeal to it, you know, because like
I said, I I've been studying country music trends and
songs and for most of my life, because I knew
I wanted to be part of country music one day.
So when I know I can't bring one to mine, right,
White Lightning. I bet when first time George Jones heard
white and like the yeah, yeah, they're yeah whatever that

(52:48):
is the hiccup? Yeah, yeah, you know who wrote that?

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Right?

Speaker 1 (52:51):
The Big Bopper wrote that?

Speaker 2 (52:52):
Oh really?

Speaker 1 (52:53):
Yeah? So and I'm sure that when George Jones heard
the Big Bopper, everybody listening, Hello, babe, that guy, Yeah,
that guy wrote quite lightning. So I'm sure George thought
that's the silliest song I've ever heard, but it's going
to be a huge hit. So I kind of felt
the same way about Daddy's Money.

Speaker 5 (53:09):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor.
Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
So you go, and the song crushes number one for
two weeks, which doesn't even happen a lot now, much
less than at the time. So, and people are seeing
you on CMTAC. Are you starting to get recognized just randomly?
And do you wear a cowboy hat? Would you wear
a cowboy hat out? Because I would if I were on.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
A well back then, I didn't wear a hat. Back then,
I had the award winning mullet. Dude, Come on, I
know that version of you. Oh really, no, I watched
the video sometimes I've never beautiful haircut, really.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
Was never see do you remember him with the mullet?

Speaker 1 (53:54):
Oh really Yeah, I just started wearing the cowboy hat
after I moved back to the ranch in two thousand
and eight. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
See, I don't know you without the cowboy hat.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
Whol Is that that's kind of neat the cowboy version.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
I need to see hold on, I need to see
what is Oh no blue.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
It was a maybe powder blue shirt, which was a
gift from Emily. Believe it or not, I don't know
if I ever said that an interview or not. That
powder blue shirt that I'm wearing on the on the
cover of our debut album was a gift as well
as the boots. The Austrich boots I was wearing was
a gift from Emily Irwin Dixie Chicks.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
Okay, right, I still have the boots.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
And somewhere I probably have that powder blue shirt somewhere.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
I did heath Right hair and it gave me a
hair salon.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
Just put in Daddy's Money, Yeah, okay, do you play
videos on your podcast?

Speaker 2 (54:38):
Are you allowed to do that? Well? Yeah, we can
put it in whatever kind of clips. Daddy's Money video.
I feel like I'll be Oh my god, award winning is.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Very popular.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Haircut that is crazy and long, and there's a vest.
You're in a vest.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Uh No, it's a bandoned collar shirt with a with
a with a black rings.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
Oh you look at the hair.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
Oh yeah, I'm wearing a frock coat. Look like a
preacher in a frock coat.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
This is wild. Look at you?

Speaker 1 (55:18):
All right? So we added what do I know at
the beginning of this video right here, so that the
people would know that those guys that's saying what do
I know are the guys you're about to see.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Yeah, that's a good idea. Who had that idea?

Speaker 1 (55:28):
Somebody in the in the A and R department or
maybe marketing department, Probably somebody in the marketing department at Sony.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
Dude, I wouldn't even reck it if you walked in
looking like that, I would be like, who is this? Dude?
They said Heath was coming over the cowboy hat. Dang,
that's great. So what is it like? How old were
you then?

Speaker 1 (55:47):
You think I was twenty eight twenty seven?

Speaker 2 (55:49):
I mean, were you married?

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Twenty eight?

Speaker 2 (55:51):
Were you married? No?

Speaker 1 (55:52):
What is that to get married to my.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
Midor what is that like? You're twenty seven twenty you
get a hair like that, you're traveling the country, you're
single as a pringle. I imagine that's got to be
pretty good. You get all the happers you want, right
it was.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
Life did not suck. I'm not gonna lie. It did
not suck. Back then. I lived my single life and
I lived the hell out of it.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Were you in Nashville Were you living in Nashville and
coming back to Nashville? Were you back in Oklahoma? Then?

Speaker 1 (56:15):
No, I was living in Nashville. Like I said, I
moved out here in May teenth, nineteen ninety three, and
we got signed to Columbia in March of ninety five.
So everyone said it was a five year of town
to be prepared to be here for five years for
anything happens. But as I said, we were lucky because
Nashville needed a band. The several different labels were losing
their bands and so they needed one. So we got
signed within two years of my moving here.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
So when you moved back, was there a time? How
did you guys end the band whenever you ended it
the first time?

Speaker 1 (56:40):
Well, truth is, we have never ended the band. Greg
and I my buddy from vy Enn. We kept the
thing going. We just didn't have a record deal, and
so everyone thought that the band disbanded and we lost
a lot of you know, most of the original members.
I'm the only original one left, so you know my
Some would say why don't you just go solo and
do the do a solo thing, And I've always answered

(57:01):
that with it. I like being in a band. I
like the dynamic of a band and the big vocals
and just their West Coast vocals. West Coast vocals. It's
just something different about a band energy that's you know,
it just feels different than being a soloist. And also
the name there's some there's some name records.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
If you do, if you do have video, as Heath Right,
then you got to put both songs at the beginning
of the videos. They know that you sang all those
true by the time you do three songs in, you
haven't play the video yet, you know what I mean. Well,
that's a good point.

Speaker 1 (57:31):
It's a good point. Yes, I don't know how I
would do, and who knows. I may do something as
a soloist one of these days, because I've got the
freedom to do that now. I'm I'm in creative control
of any project I record at this point on. So
we've talked about, you know, doing a like Heath Right
of Ricochet album someday, because there are certain songs that

(57:51):
you can record that might not lend themselves well for
a band, because they don't lend themselves well to big
West Coast style harmony. And I'd like to record some
of those songs. I've got a whole bag of songs
like that that I'd love to record some one day,
but they just haven't been right for a big band
to record.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
I feel like you invested your money widely.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
If I had money, I think I would have invested
at wisely. I've invested in my ranch, and there's anybody
I tell people the best way to become a millionaire
in the cattle business is to start with two million.
It's just I don't know how my dad did it.
My dad managed to put me through college just selling cows, and.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
He was being humble.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
No, I'm not wealthy, wealthy man, not at all. I
might one day know what it's like to be a millionaire,
but that that hasn't happened yet. So I'm I'm happy
doing what I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
How much is telling? How much does it heer cost?

Speaker 1 (58:43):
Right now?

Speaker 2 (58:43):
They're really high.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
I'm getting ready. I hold five grown cows and I
think they were all pregnant. I'm having them progtested. But
they sold what is today Tuesday? They sold yesterday, and
I expect to get for a pregnant cow, I expect
to get about eight hundred, two thousand dollars each.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
For them, and so what do they cost to raise
that pregnant cow to that point?

Speaker 1 (59:03):
Well, I'm selling my herd down right now because cow
cows are really high right now. They're about three dollars
a pound so alive. Yeah on the hoof, Yeah, on
the hoof, they're three dollars a pound now, Hamburger meet
is three dollars a pound. So I should be you know,
if I, if I had all the FDA, I should
be taking them to a processor and sell them in
a package as opposed to sell them on the hoof.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
But there's a whole lot of FDA stuff. You got
to go skip over that. Who needs them? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (59:26):
Who needs all the governmental Who need them?

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Do you still? Do you still enjoy the ranch life?

Speaker 1 (59:33):
Some days I do, and some days I just want
to haul them all off right now. But the other
day Sunday I was working cows. I was trying to
get everything done before I came out to Nashville, and
so I was vaccinating and ear tagging and cutting the
bullcaves and just trying to get everything ready because I'm
going to have I'm start hauling them. I'm getting rid
of most of my herd right now. So I'm and

(59:53):
about at midday, about five o'clock, we had this cow
jump over the gate and get her dang leg hung
in the gate, and I couldn't get that thing out.
We couldn't have for thirty minutes. We tried, We tried
getting hack saws and saw on the gate, off the hinges,
and I was afraid she was just gonna die on me,
just gonna lay down and die. And we worked for
half an hour just trying to get that cow free

(01:00:14):
of the gate. When I finally realized that I bought
this new thing called we call it a hip hugger,
which you kind of clamped down on the hip bones
of a cow and you hook something, you hook a
rope or a chain to it, and put her on
your tractor and lift her up. That's the only way
we got her out. She survived somehow, she but at
one point I was just afraid I was going to
just have to shoo her in the head like.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Live a piano. It feels like you have to lift
it and swim.

Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Yeah, So that's kind of what we did with the cow,
only we lift her up by its hipbones basically, and
she's fine. I mean, she's running around. I've got her
in the pasture of cows that I'm about to sell.
So she's going to be fine. And she's a young cow.
I think she's only a three or four years old, sheeked.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
Let me reask the question, do you sometimes still love
being a rancher?

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
There are days when I love to go out on
my tractor and watch them. When it's early in the
morning and I'm watching them grays and all fences are up,
and I haven't had to haul off anything that just
laid down and died, because cows will find a way
to either just lay down and die or kill themselves
in weird ways, like what just almost happened with this
one cow. When everything's going perfect and I didn't have

(01:01:15):
to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on hey or
you know, fixed fence the day I was supposed to
leave for a road trip or whatever. When things are
perfect and the sun is coming up or going down
and I can watch them out there grazing all my ranch,
that's when I really love it. But days like Sunday
that I had, when I'm trying to keep one from
killing itself or trying to get them all run through

(01:01:36):
the shoot before it gets dark and get them all
vaccinated near.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
Tag and it's tough.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
It's not. Ranchers aren't for sissy's. I'm being a ranchers.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
That's why I'm not one. That's exactly why I'm not one.
So Ricochet, the hits in More Than It Now came
out mid August. It's out now and again you said
there are six or eight new songs on.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
It, six new songs, ten excuse me, ten new songs,
six re recordings of the hits, got it?

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
This has been awesome. We've done over an hour here, seriously, seriously,
That one by Fast done over an hour. That Keep
You Loving Me is the single from this record? Right, Well,
that's a good question.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
There's I guess you could call it a single from
the record. That one sweet Tea are two of my
favorites on here. I've co wrote both of them. What
You Leave Behind is another co write of mine.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
Uh, all singles, I guess you can. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
I mean we we kind of released to the DSPs.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Six Lingo about and then digital. Yeah, come on, so.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
Yeah, we've sort of released six singles to the DSPs.
But we're I guess at this point, we're just hoping
that people uh, either download the project or oh, let
me talk about this for a minute. We have partnered
with the Wounded Blue. And I don't know if how
familiar you are with the Wounded Blue, but it's an
organization out of Las Vegas, Nevada whose sole purpose. Yeah
they yeah, adopt exactly, Yeah, yeah, adopted cop dot com.

(01:02:57):
You can go to that website and donate twenty dollars
or more and they will send you one of our
new CDs. We donated boxes of CDs to them, so
we're hoping to help raise money for them because their
their mission is to help out wounded law enforcement officers.
And you know, you'd be surprised. Over one hundred and
twenty thousand law enforcement officers were intentionally attacked in the
last two years. That's on their website.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
I read that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
I pulled that from their website, and it's just amazing
how much how much they do for us, and that
gets overlooked. I've said it one hundred times. I think
that the three most dangerous words ever spoken in this
country were defund the police. I'm not a fan of
that movement. This is our way of trying to counter
that movement.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
I think we should fund the ranchers is what I think. Hey,
we should just give you money for no reason. Just
come give me money. And could you know what people
do that?

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
People will come to a ranch just to stay on
it for a few days. Well, they call them dude rents,
just for the whole wrenching experience and they'll actually help you.
Well not yet, but I'm working on it. I'm building
a barn to many of them so that people can
come spend the weekend with me and bring your work
gloves and you don't get me a day.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
Yeah, and then they pay me.

Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
And then they helped me do my work. They helped
me fix fence, they helped me work here.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
They didn't grow up in the country. Then, because I
ain't doing that, as you know, I did much haul
too much. Hey, I work or too much? Yes, don't
tell don't tell them. This is a part of the
ranching experience. Well, all your rich city selectors out there,
the ranching experience of heat is a really great place.

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
You never know, you might we might get a cow
a leg hung in a gate or something. Yeah, that's
that's the that's got to pay extra for that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
Well, you do have to.

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
If we have something like that happened.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
You got to pay pay extra. Yes, Caitlin, did I
miss anything? Is there anything? We won't put your camerack
you to make it. You want to talking to the microphones,
we can hear you, Okay, don't. You won't be on
just come over here, but we can't hear you're yelling
from across the room.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
It is.

Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
It's interesting to everybody. If it's interesting to you, you're
the most interesting person I know. I'm here, thank you. No,
I just wanted to say thank you for seeing at
my grandpa's funeral.

Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
Well, I was honored. He was a great man. He
was as your uncle said. I don't know how.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
Jeff got through that. That eulogy.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
That was the best eulogy I've ever heard at any
any field. And Jeff told me the night before, you say,
here's here's the songs that I want. And he's like
five songs. I'm like, Jeff, normally at funerals you don't
do that many songs. He says, yep, but I want these.
And it was like uptempo songs like with a circle
be unbroken, things like that. I was like, well, these
aren't really normal funeral songs. Funeral songs are like amazing

(01:05:15):
grace and it is well with my soul and stuff
like that, and he says, no, I want this to
be a celebration, a celebration of life. JB was a
great man. He and my dad were good friends. And
I was honored to get to sing it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
Oh. We were very thankful, and I got to talk
to Greg briefly after, but I didn't get it. Thank you,
So I just wanted to thank you a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
Thank you. I thank Jeff.

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
He called me up that night.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
I said, thanks for having me at this man. I
was really pleased and honored to get.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
To do it. Good. Okay, you guys, follow official Ricochet
band on Instagram, check out the record and again, go
to adopt coop dot com and donate and you'll get
a record there as well. Listen to s CD. There
we go. That's it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
Thank you, guys, thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.

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#420 - Heath Wright the Lead Singer of Ricochet on the Untold Story of the Band + His Connection to Bobby’s Wife’s Family + Heath’s Issue with Modern Country Music

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