A Message from Bobby + #177 - Jay DeMarcus from Rascal Flatts on how the Flatts REALLY formed, his new book, and his faith.

Jay DeMarcus wrote a new book called SHOTGUN ANGELS: My Story of Broken roads and Unshakeable Hope. He stops by to talk about how the Rascal Flatts formed and how his faith shaped his career. He started out playing in a Christian band and had a No. 1 song on the Christian Chart. He also talks about how he met his wife during a Rascal Flatts music video shoot and how he got a girl pregnant that lead him to a very dark time in his life...but how his faith pulled him through. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mike and I were talking about really good episodes that
people may have missed if they've just subscribed to the
Bobby Cast. I'm gonna go back. I mean it's been
a while. I mean the episode was one seventies seven,
so it's been over a hundred episodes. Ago, we talked
to Jada Marcus from Rascal Flats on how the Flats
was really formed. They're all these urban legends and his
faith so it's a really great way. And you know,

(00:21):
Jay now has his own record label, and I think
those guys will eventually go, well, we should just play
we just get back together, do it again. Yes, I
know they're not that they've broken up. They're not together.
I don't know what their official status is right now. Um.
And I know Gary pretty well. Um, And I just

(00:41):
think eventually, even if it's two or three years from now,
they go, let's just do it again. You know. And
Gary and Jay they were in a video together recently,
their cousins, So I want this is a great His
book Shotgun Angels had just come out, so he stopped
by the house when we talked about that too. But
this is Jada Marcus from Rascal Flats in case you
missed it. It's a really great episode. Check it out.

(01:02):
Trying to get a nut, trying to I'm the ultimate squirrel,
always trying to get a nut. Me too, buddy. And
it's a book you name it. Episode one seventy seven
with Jada Marcus Rascal Flats. Um. So we're talking, we're
about to start saving us off the air because, uh,
it's tough to sell books, especially when it's not what

(01:23):
you're known for. Because that that's been my thing, is
that write a book? Like what what? What was Bobby?
What does Jay know about books? And so yeah, you
have to kind of go out and rehustle. You do, Wait,
musicians can write. I read exactly, Yeah you do. I mean,
I'm always up for a new challenge, though I'm I

(01:45):
think you and I are wired more alike, probably than
we know. I love to work like idle time does
not serve me. Well. I can't sit around and you know, spin,
I'll start spinning out about the silliest things if I do.
You know, is it I'm sort of deeper? Um maybe
psychological thing that we like to work, Like are you
trying to prove? Who are you trying to prove? Something?

(02:06):
To yourself. I think if you read part of that book,
it would be my dad. You know, there's a lot
of me that feels like I never quite lived up
to what he expected me to be. I guess that
put a lot of pressure on me, which I used
as fuel early on in life, but it still fuels me.
And for me, it's been like I grew up in
pretty close to poverty, and so it's like trying to

(02:27):
prove to yeah, to everybody that so I wish my
Idol time. My my itchiness with Idol time was just
because I do love working. But I think I've convinced
myself I love working because I'm trying to prove it
to everyone that I can make it. Yeah. I think
that I have a little bit of that in me too.
It's like when you whenever you have some success and

(02:48):
you celebrate it, you don't celebrate it and live in
the moment long enough because I go I gotta do
I gotta do more, because I haven't done it, I
haven't done enough yet. I gotta get back after it
and go back out there and do something good again.
And a lot of I like to try to prove
to myself too that I can take on new challenges
and have some degree of success with it, you know.
And I guess I'm just wired that way. I am

(03:09):
truly a workaholic, There's no doubt about it. I think
it drives my partners crazy sometimes, partners in all capacities
or you're talking about in the band, and I'm talking
about in the band, meaning you're always wanting to do
what well. I always want to go. I mean, if
there's money on the table, dates, let's go get it.
If there's work to be done, let's go do it.

(03:29):
And Gary, I wish I had a little more him
in me, because he loves to go out to the
farm decompressed. I mean, he could stay out there for
big chunks of times and there's nothing wrong with that.
We're just wired differently. So to exist in the same band.
Sometimes I'm like, I don't I don't think I can
sit around for five months. I gotta do something any
but write a book. How long out of the book?

(03:51):
Um start to be a seed in you, I think
years ago because I kept I keep journals, you know,
I like keep notes of things so I can remember them.
And I started keeping notes when Rascal Flats did our
first radio tour literally that long ago, because I wanted
to remember certain things in certain aspects of what we
were doing. And I always thought, someday we may have

(04:12):
a chance to write a book out into the future,
sometime when this all comes to whatever close it's gonna
it's gonna look like. And so I started keeping notes,
and the more that I did, the more I started
to reflect on my life, just myself and and really
reflect on all of the things that transpired to get
me here to eventually meet Joe do on one day

(04:34):
and then Gary come to town and us do what
we have done. And it started to I started look
at and go, maybe there are some people that can
like be inspired by some of the crap that I
went through, and maybe they can find their own hope
to forge ahead and to get up, dust themselves off,
keep moving forward. Because you know, a lot of times
we see our favorite entertainers, actors, musicians, whatever they are,

(04:58):
you see the culmination of a lot of uf and
a lot of hard work that got them to that point.
You didn't just end up on American Idol one day
by accident. You went through a lot of things to
get you there. I didn't end up in Rascal Flats.
I went through a lot of crap and a lot
of hard stuff to get me there. And I think
people deal with the same things you and I have

(05:18):
done with, and they deal with the same adversity, the
same tough times, and sometimes you want to quit. I mean,
there were many times that I wanted to throw the
towel in and move back home and just forget the
silly dream of music career. And I didn't. I found
some ounce of hope here and there, some friend or
some text or some something that would happen just in

(05:40):
time before I would give up, to help keep me going.
The name of the book. Let me shout the book
out here. Everybody knows you, but uh Jada Marcus of
Rascal Flats. It's called Shotgun Angels, My Story of Broken
Roads and unshakable hope. And it's funny you mentioned all
the crap that you go through, because and the first
book I wrote, I had to kind of relive some

(06:02):
of that stuff which I just kept compressed for so long,
just pushed it down inside, and it was tough to
not just acknowledge it, but to kind of kind of
dredge it all back up and relive it. To be
in my form of accurate about it, and did you
go through that at all? I went down. I joked
the other day that I had a bottle of Vodkas

(06:22):
sitting right by the laptop because I'd have to shut
it and take a break sometimes. And when the stuff
comes spoiling back up to the surface and you do
relive it, if you're an emotional person at all, you
feel those emotions all over again and how you felt
when you were living through that. And that was one
of the things that I didn't expect. That kind of
caught me off guard a little bit that I would
actually go back into it so deeply, but I definitely did,

(06:45):
And there were times and I just id take a
break from it. I stepped away and I was like,
oh my gosh, I can't believe that still affects me
as strongly today as it did, you know, thirty years ago.
It's wild to me. As I was reading, I didn't
get a chance to finish it, and I might be
read the whole thing, and he pulled out some parts
for me to read. Um, the the how you guys

(07:07):
got together. It's very interesting to me. I think we'll
start there, and then I want to go back to
the Christian Band in the scholarship. There's a lot again
stuff that and I felt like we've known each other,
at least semi socially for a while. I had no
idea a lot of the stuff which is interesting, just
on the music side of things. And so we'll go
to back to the beginning of the flats or Rascal Flats,
not the Rascal Flats. So I, for everybody's listening right now,

(07:29):
calling the Rascal Flats, dear God. So um, we're gonna
we're gonna move past college. We're gonna back to that
in a minute. You're in town and you have a
cousin that you guys weren't super close we were growing
up but lost touch, right, and which is Gary? And

(07:50):
Gary had been winning some karaoke competitions. Yeah, So I
kept hearing grumblings back home when I would go back
for the holidays that hey, you know your cousin Gary,
he's been singing a little bit. And I'd be like, really,
that's neat um and and and it wasn't that I
was being mean about it, but I was following my
own path, and I had the Christian band, and then

(08:11):
somebody told me that he was talking to a producer
in l A about doing an R and B thing
and that he and Jamie Fox had spent some time together.
My uncle had actually told me that, and I was like,
he knows Jamie Fox. That's kind of cool. And it
was lost on me that again, he was talking about
singing and doing a pop thing. And then my mom

(08:31):
called me one day and she goes, now, your cousin
Gary's gonna call you and you need to listen to
him singing. He's been winning some contests up here. He's
been singing in Yeah, and you need to listen to
him sing. I was like, Mom, are you kidding me?
The last thing I want to do is tell some

(08:54):
family member who I'm not really that close to anymore,
you shouldn't try this. And she, while I've talked to
she called Judy Gary's mother, Jude Babe. They were closer
than sisters. They still are. She said, well, listen, I've
already told Jude Babe that you're gonna listen to him,
so you just need to let him come over there
when he's down there and sing for you. When he

(09:14):
was on his way to vacation in Florida, and he
stopped by my apartment in Brentwood and I sat down,
and I believe, if I'm remembering correctly, the first song
he sang was One Last Cry by Brian McKnight, and
I knew it well enough on the piano to kind
of hack through it, and he just stopped me in
my tracks. I mean, when he opens his voice and
you hear that come out of him, it's otherworldly. I mean,

(09:39):
I describe it in the book, is all of these
ingredients of gospel and R and B and country rolled
up into one. I had never heard anything quite like
it before, and it had an immediate, identifiable personality to
it that was just shocking to me. And we kept
talking over the next several weeks, several months, and I said,

(10:01):
you know, you gotta move to town. It's never gonna
find you in Columbus. And he was. He was struggling
because he had a great job, he had debt, he
had bills, he'd already forged a life for himself. And
he called me one day and he said, that's it,
I'm coming to town. I can't do this anymore. And
if I don't do it, I'm afraid I'll regret it.
For the rest of my life. And he lived on

(10:21):
my couch. I had a one bedroom apartment and he
lived on my couch and we played everywhere we could,
and when people would hear him, the reaction was just undeniable.
You could see it in their faces. They were like,
Oh my god, this guy is up there singing Merle Haggard,
but singing like r and b licks in it. And
now if you turn on country radio, you hear a

(10:42):
whole host of singers that were touched by him and
influenced by him. And that's a testament to what his
gift was and what he was able to bring to
this town and build upon. So you guys are playing
shows at Printer's Alley a couple of nights a week,
a few nights a week and doesn't even exist anymore.
The place we played it was a fiddle and steel
guitar bar, and I I think it's a boutique hotel now.

(11:05):
So you're going and say, hey, GARYL we're gonna get
a gig, just the two of us. And how do
you get that gig? You go up and say, hey, guy,
here's the tape. What's that? I'll tell you. So the
guy playing up on stage. We'd go in and hear
him sing, and he would let us sit in and
do a song. The owner was in there one night,
Allison was her name, and Greg Perkins. They owned it together,

(11:27):
and she walked over and she said, would you guys
want to do a night here? And Gary said, I
don't even live here full time. I'm just visiting on
the weekends. She said, if you guys will do a
couple of nights here a week, I'll fire him and
give you his gig. The guy that you were singing,
and the guy that was letting us, the guy that
that helped you. That's how cutthroat Nashville is. And and

(11:47):
we so we left and we talked about it, and
I said, do you do you want to do this?
And then that that's I think that's around the time
he called me and said I'm moving to town. Let's
take that gig and see see what happens. And he
was the two of us sitting beside a cigare a machine.
I had my keyboard and he had a mike, when
I had two mix and we sometimes there were two
people in there, sometimes there were twenty, sometimes there were forty.

(12:09):
But slowly, but surely, we we started to build a
following that would come in and see us, and then
the owners came to us and said, we're thinking about
buying the other side of this building, knocking down the
wall that separates the two putting a stage together. Would
you put a band together? And I knew a bunch
of guys from various bands, and I was sitting in
with and Gary and I were friends with a circle

(12:31):
of buddies that were great musicians and had been playing
in different places with them. So we put a band together.
And so you're playing with Shelley right at this time
to write like as your main you can play with
Shelly right. You're playing keys? Yeah, I was. I was
your band leader. Okay, so you're running the band, you're
playing keys, and you had hired a guitarist, which was Jodan.

(12:51):
And so when you're putting the band together, is that
when you bring jod on in. No, he didn't start
playing with us right away. Guy named Shane Sutton played
with us. Fantastic player, fantastic singer. And we were playing
down there for probably several months, and then I get
a call one night and Shane says, man, I can't
get out of bed I've got the flu. I've got

(13:12):
a fever, and I'm sorry to do this to you,
but I can't make it tonight. It was on a
Monday night, and I thought, oh, no, what are we
gonna do? I know who can play this. I know
who can do it. I'm gonna call Jodan. I called
him up and said, hey, what are you doing tonight?
And he's like nothing, I'm just sitting around. I said,
let's let's uh, let's play tonight. You want to? You

(13:33):
want to sit in with us? I said, I've been
telling you about my cousin anyway I want you to.
I want you to hear him and meet him in
real life. And I've been telling you know, Gary about
Jodan how talented he was. And so we pull up
at the club and Jodan sitting in his guitar amp
up and he's up there tuning up. Gary looks at me,
he goes, who is that? I said, no, out man,

(13:54):
I didn't want to tell you this, but Shane's sick,
and he goes, are you kidding me? This guy isn't
gonna know a thing that we do. We gotta play
a little three am and if this sucks, I'm out.
Of here, you can have this by yourself. And I
was like, Gary, please, like, just give him the shot.
He would barely even speak to Joe Don. It was
so funny. He was so frustrated. And I understand. See
Gary was getting up at four thirty am to throw papers.

(14:17):
So we finished in the club at two. He slept
right to work and he go right right to work
throwing papers. So I understood his frustration. But then we
got up there together and the first song, I think
we played it on one of your shows. The first
song we ever played together was Church on the Cumberland
Road by Shannondah, and we hit that first course man,
and I don't know what happened, but it was just
we all knew immediately. We looked at each other like

(14:39):
that is good, and we've got to have more of that.
So Shane, that Rigel guitar players the name right, He
basically Wally pipped and Wally played first days for the
Yankees forever. And while he got hurt, nothing, he didn't
do anything wrong. And he got hurt, and here it
comes Loue Gary, who's gonna fill in. And then here
it's now the Lue Gary world. I know what does

(15:00):
Shane say about that? Shane Shane still a buddy of Arrish.
We still see him out playing with different artists and
playing guitar. But he you know, he obviously gives us
massive amounts of crap for us firing and basically you
never I had to call him and tell him he
couldn't come back, and that was really awkward. I was like,
I think we're gonna go ahead and stick with Joe
don But I think anybody that heard us sing together,

(15:22):
and he would definitely tell you this to God, that
there was a special uh chemistry in a blend that
we had that was not common what was happening in
Nashville at that time? Though you got you three or
now you go, okay, this might be something, but what
was like the environment like because you guys cut through

(15:44):
so hard because you were so different. Now you kind
of created where everyone else has gone, so it doesn't
seem like you're that different. You guys have opened these
roads up for a lot of artists nowadays. At the
time who was popping around town where you're where, They're like,
you know what, You're not like them. We don't know
if this canna be a thing quite yet. Yeah, you know,
Nashville was was pretty safe back then. I mean there

(16:06):
were glimpses of pop in music. I mean you had
your South sixty fives and your uh forget Marshall Dillon
was around, but they were definitely trying to be five
guys that danced and we're bringing trying to bring the
boy band vibe over the country music and it really
wasn't resonating because they didn't play instruments. It was it
felt no offense to those guys that were trying to

(16:29):
make a living and do something, but it felt contrived, honestly.
And we were fans of bands that were really great
harmony bands like Diamond Rio and Shannondoah at the time,
and the Eagles were a huge influence on us. So
that's that's really what we were trying to do, was
bring elements of what we loved about pop music, but
still great authentic harmonies and the songs, the meat on

(16:53):
the bone of the songs with something to say in
a different way. It's really what we tried to hone
in on and and may the foundation of of what
we were. We weren't even really trying to be a band.
We didn't set out to do that. I wanted to
produce and write and help Gary get a record deal
so that I could try to be a record producer
and be successful in in that way. I had already

(17:15):
done the artist thing and we know how that turned out.
But the book, but it sort of had no aspirations
to do another artist thing. I wanted to kind of
forge a different career. But the more we had a
following and the more we sang together, it just felt
like it was evolving into that, let's rewind. Um. I
grew up Pentecostal for a while. My grandmother was Pentecostal.

(17:35):
You did, Yeah, scary and you know it's for me
that when they would speak in tongues, that scared the
crap out of me too. And so I remember going
and my grandmother who adopted me for a long time, UM,
and she would speak in tongues and church and it
never became something that I was just like, oh this
is I was always scared by it. Um. This that

(17:57):
that there was so much passion and love in a
Pentecostal no doubt the most by the way of all
of you know, my time of of you know, being
really in the fabric of church, that was that was
the closest I'd ever seen church. So as much as
I'm like that scared me, it was also I've never
seen a close knit group like the Pedocostal church. Um,
what was your experience, because I know that's that was

(18:18):
a big part of your life, much the same I
was scared to death. They always told you to bring
your friends to church, and I'd say to my mom,
why would I ever scre want my friends to see
what lunatics you guys act like when you run around
and speaking tongues and jump all over the pews and everything,
and and I was never and you know this is
the truth, though I have to say it, I was

(18:39):
never very very comfortable in that environment because it wasn't
the way that I believed that I needed to express
myself and my beliefs. And it would and it always
troubled me a little bit. But I admired the fact
that people were so dedicated to it. And You're absolutely right,
there was so much love, so much Um. I've always

(19:00):
felt like I was surrounded by a family of people
that would do anything in the world for me, even
though I may not have agreed with exactly how they
went about it, you know. So for me, I'm glad
that I went through that because it laid a really
deep foundation to for the groundwork for my faith later
on in life. And I had to really figure out

(19:21):
what I believed and why I believed it because I
knew I didn't believe a bunch of that stuff that
I was exposed to. And I'm not saying that it
wasn't real. It was real for them, whatever that was.
But I had to deconstruct my belief system and figure
out why I believed when I believed and not just
because I was indoctrinated with it when I was a kid.
And so you start to play music, but you're playing

(19:43):
Christian music, Now, why why Christian music? Well, I wasn't
allowed to listen to quote unquote secular music when I
was a kid, you know. I couldn't listen to Kiss
and a C. D C. And until later on in life,
like a lot of the kids were listening to that.
So I went turned to bands like Petra and Milon
Lefevre and White Heart and bands that were rock but

(20:05):
we're using a positive christ centered message. Those were my influences.
And so going to church and believing in God myself
and believing in Christ myself. I started to write a
lot of that kind of music, and the more I wrote,
the more I really got into that and felt like
maybe that was what I was supposed to do. And
when I got to college and I was working at

(20:26):
the studio there on on the campus, I was doing
all kinds of demos and having my roommate Neil sing
the demos, and I was mailing them to publishers to
try to get a songwriting deal. And I got a
call from Benson Records one day, Don Cook at Benson Records,
not the Country, Don Cook, the ko c H. And

(20:46):
he said, I love your band. We'd like to bring
it to town to talk about doing a record on you.
And of course had to tell him we're not a band.
I was just trying to get a pub deal. But
so as you're deciding where to go to school, the
the these these folks come to you and say, if
you'll go to school here, we'll pay We'll actually pay
you away your debt, we'll pay your carpet. Like they say, Hey,

(21:08):
we're gonna write you about three thousand dollars, but always yeah,
something like that, we're gonna pay if you come to
school here and perform with the band that was at school. Yeah. Um,
so this this guy was known for hand picking the
best musicians at the school and putting together a recruiting ensemble.
So this this particular group of kids would be four
singers for musicians, a couple of other road crew and things,

(21:31):
and they we traveled on a on a tour bus,
and um, we went around the youth camps, convence youth conventions,
We went around the churches. We went around the camp
meetings and going in Pentecostal church. I know, you know
what a camp meeting is. But we would sing and
then we would talk about the school, and so we
try to recruit kids to come to the school. We'd
go overseas. I had the opportunity to see a whole

(21:55):
bunch of the world at a very young age playing
with that group. But as long as you played in
that group, you could keep your scholarship, you could keep
going to school. And that's kind of what my job was.
So a lot of these kids that would go home
for this summer that wasn't me. I toured my all
of my summers in school, and Neil and I were
dear friends we became dear friends, and lo and behold

(22:17):
we ended up in East West together and here is
uh the number one song from East to West, Prince
of Peace. How long has mit you heard this? Oh?
My lord? Probably years? Probably now as I was doing

(22:40):
my research about East to West that I look like
they were more than one lead singer. We both we
both shared lead, both were doing the lead. What's that
sort of dynamic when you have dual lead singers. Well,
it worked well for us because I played bass and
keys too, and then there's no doubt Neil did the

(23:02):
lion's share of the lead vocals. And I would take
a verse here or there, and you know, and and
that sort of thing, and and maybe sing one song
on the albums I would sing. So it worked really
really well because I cared, you know, I was such
a musician and muso head that I wanted to like
play everything I could and play a lot of it
on the record, And so I was content to let

(23:23):
Neil kind of shine and do his own thing. And
he was a fantastic singer. But it worked well for us.
Here is welcome to the next level from East to West.

(23:44):
When you can hear those Mr Mr and go West influences.
Can't you definitely cant here that era? Yeah, when you're
in a Christian man, do you get girls, Yes, but
they've got to be Christians. I was just kidding, but
at you know, like do you girls like are they
just are they like? Hey, band, guys, we'd like to

(24:05):
have fellowship. I mean, let's go to Bible stuff. Yeah,
like yeah, No, It's definitely not like it is in
country music or pop for sure, but there are girls
that are hanging around, you know, there are It's funny
that you know, you're you're dull lead singing and that's
such a funny question, and you're still going. You know,

(24:28):
I'm content with playing because I think that's a big
part of why again, from the outside looking again, why
Flats has been able to be so wonderful is that
you can sing, but you're actually okay not being the lead.
When I stand next to somebody that sings like Gary
does every night, it's like, what's the point? I love
to sing and I but I love singing harmony with

(24:49):
him because I feel like we have something unique and
he's you know, it's like anything he sings is better
ten times better than anything I would come up with
and that's okay. I think one of our drinks is
we realized what gifts and strengths we all three individually
bring to the table and we try to lean on
those with each other. And Uh, you're right. I am
okay because I get to sing beside one of the

(25:11):
greatest vocalists I've ever had the privilege of being around
every night. And that's a treat, you know, for me.
I would listen to the Google Dolls and they had
this bassis and these things like one or two cuts
every record gets so annoyed, like trying to be Johnny
Resume be the lead singer. You know, I'll get it's
rare that there's a band. Um. I'll give you a
couple examples, but they do different things. Lincoln Park had

(25:33):
two singers. They had uh, Mike Shinoda and they had
Um Chester Bennington. Chester would be the vocalist straight and
Shea would be like the rapping bear naked ladies that
Stephen and Ed and Stephen was the big singer and
Ed was kind of the rappi guy, which Steven got
kicked out of the band for the whole thing. Yeah,
did you guys ever talk about that in flats were like,
you would do you songs. I didn't want to be

(25:58):
that annoying guy. It's like, oh, okay, we know the
bass player sings too. But I will tell you when
we played the clubs, you know, we don't have to
play five hours a night. So we passed around the
lead vocals a lot more often back then, because it's
a lot to ask Gary to sing five hours a
night in in smokey barbers. Back then, you could still
smoke in the bar rooms, and so we did sing

(26:19):
a lot more. But I saw the value of having
that lead vocalists established, and the sound that he had
was so identifiable and so great that it wouldn't it
just wasn't that important to me to have a song
on the record where I sang. Now, Joe Don and
I have sung verses here and there on some songs,

(26:40):
but I just don't think it's that important to either
one of us to like, oh, look at me, I
can sing a lead vocal too. I love bands that
have multiple lead singers, by the way, I mean the Eagles,
I mean Lady Annabellum. I love that they all sing.
I love that, you know, we can go back to Chicago,
Peter Sitter and Bill Champlin and you know Terry Cat
when he was still alive. So there is a merit

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You know. For me and I related with the first
part of your book as it starts, because I've just

(29:15):
I've been at the right place a few times, but
I've been at that place when it's the wrong place
many many, many times. And when you just sit there
and go, man, just can't wait for my shot one day,
one day, one day, and you know, and all of
a sudden, I'll give you an example, um, because I
think your book starts with with a really great story
about just life in general. Um, just a recent example.
I've been working on Idol now as a mentor, and

(29:36):
you know, I have you know, I'm on every episode,
have a bit parts. But that's Luke and Katie and
Lionel Show and Ryan Show and I come on and
I'm on tift minutes two hours, which great a great
look for me. But Ryan got sick and they're like,
it's fifteen minutes before the show starts. We need somebody
to host the show, Bob, we need to host American Idol.
And I'm like great, Like for fifteen years, I've been
just waiting for this shot, right, wait and wait, and

(29:58):
you know, you read the news next day and it's like, wow,
this guy lucked out. He got I was like, wait,
I've been in the wrong place so many times, like
ten thousand times, nothing's happened. And I find and then
but because of that that one look I got where
Ryan got sick. Now a lot of these doors have
opened up because I got a stage and I was
able to do relatively well. And and your book starts
with the dude get It's like a dude get six

(30:20):
snow storm. He's stuck in a snowstorm. Yeah, and you can't.
He can't get there, so you you sing. Yeah. The
owner of the the venue said, I've got a house
full of people and no artist. What are we gonna do?
Can somebody go out and like do a few praise
worship songs and explain our situation? And I said, I
got a keyboard, like I can go out and sing

(30:42):
some songs. And you know, miraculously enough they stayed and
we ended up doing about an hour, you know, and
it was one of the first legitimate times I thought, well,
there's opportunity meeting preparedness, like I had practiced my whole
entire life for that one moment, really, and I was
a nervous wreck. But you know how those things go.

(31:04):
You feel confident in your ability and your skill set
enough to go. I'm a nervous wreck, but I'm gonna
overcome and suppress these nerves so I can go to
go out there and do what I feel like I'm
meant to do. And I even say that in the book.
There was a moment where everything slowed down. I took
a deep breath and I was like, yeah, I'm in
my element. This is what I'm supposed to be doing.

(31:25):
Isn't that crazy? I felt the same way. It was
like White, I have to one a fifteen minutes. They're like, yeah,
no time for rehearsal. But about a third of the
way through the show, I went, oh, like, yeah, this
is a big deal. But this is what I've been
waiting to do, Like I've worked to get here, and
my skill set is that too? Good on the prompter,
good to the people I know. I know Luke and
Lionel really well know Katie a little bit so I

(31:46):
can talk with them, and well, forget the prompter. You're
good on your feet too. More importantly, yes, you know
the prompter could go dead, and I'm quite sure you
could carry the whole show by yourself. And that people,
It amazes me too, because I've I've done a little
bit that I've done some acting, and I've done a
little bit of podcasting and hosting some things here and there,
and I co host the Tennessee Miss Tennessee pageant with

(32:09):
my wife for the past twelve years. And people don't
appreciate how hard it is to get up in front
of a crowd, especially live television, and have to stretch
and fill in blank spaces while people are screaming into
your ears what's coming next and what you need to
talk about next? And I have to say, even to
this day, you and I don't spend a lot of
time visiting with one another, but you're one of the

(32:29):
best set and I've ever seen, and and and and I.
You know the future is only gonna get brighter for you. Man,
you're scratching the surface getting older. I'm older than you.
You know, your wife, though I like your wife a
lot he's only been super kind to me. She's awesome.
So she hasn't come through yet with finding me a girlfriend.
Every time I see he's like, I want to set
you up. Never not once. Well, you know you need

(32:54):
to um start a Christian band. Apparently I don't need
this any more. Bad get a girl pregnant, then you
get kicked out of that said Christian band. So okay,
that was the first story that I and for me
when I wrote my first book, I just wonder what
they were gonna run with, because you send it out
to people, it's clickbait, and you go what clickbait? Well
they create and yours was said, you gotta go up

(33:16):
pregnant and so at the gap, you're gonna prebay at
the gap you met the gap, although that had been
a great Ye, that's the clickbait at the gap inter gap.
Yeah in both Yeah, that would have been true. That
would have been true. Uh, so many places that could
go uh yeah, that was you know, people people have

(33:37):
said to me, it's hard to believe that you had
sex one time, and there's no reason to make that
story up. It coulduced as easily say we had sex
a hundred times. And I ended up getting pregnant with
the same result. But it is the truth. It was
one time condom broke. My life turned around in one instant,
and everybody that had anything to do with me in

(33:57):
my career at that point in my life, um, most
of the people. There were some great friends that stood
by me and supported me and loved me no matter what.
But most of the people, some of whom had jobs
because of my career scattered. I got dropped by my
record label, management, booking agency at all, just went away.

(34:17):
And I say this, I believe all too often people
that call themselves Christians kill their wounded instead of nursing
them back to health and making sure that they're okay.
And that's what pisces me off so much about organized religion.
It's so judgmental, and it's so easy to cast a
stone at somebody when they've got a million problems of

(34:38):
their own and they battle millions of demons themselves. And
that's what I wanted to write the book for us
to say there's a different side to being a believer,
and being a believer doesn't mean that you're perfect. It's
actually quite the opposite. It's admitting that we're all flawed
human beings that need help. I don't believe any of
us are meant to live through this life alone and
handle all of this crow by ourselves. You know. It's

(35:02):
almost that their strength and vulnerability, you know, the same
thing that you're saying right there, like we think that
the right thing is to be the right whatever right means.
By the way, it was um but yeah, right? So
so the only sex are one time Connor broke? Did
you know immediately the Connor broke? I knew it. I
knew it broken. You know, we're getting down in the

(35:23):
weeds here, Yeah, we are, we are. Did you have
the pop? Well? I I realized after we had finished,
and I freaked out so badly. She she left. She
didn't want to anything to do with me. She was like,
you're freaking me out. This is so weird. It's not
like that these things don't happen. It's gonna be okay.
I said, you don't understand. And I was really freaking

(35:45):
out because I'd made a commitment to myself and and
the that's trying to do it the right way. I
was gonna wait till I was married, have have sex
on the wedding night, do the whole thing that you're
taught to do when you're a Bible believing Chris. And
then I wanted that was important to me and I
failed in that. But this much the first time I
have sex ever. Though well during while I was in

(36:07):
the Christian band, though I definitely lived when I was
trying to stand for you know, but when you're in
the Christian band, like like, would you have sex with girls?
No good for you? I did before. I mean when
I was in college, I went through a phase where
I lost my mind. But when I when I was
in the Christian band, I was very good about and
I dated a girl that was in a that was

(36:29):
a Christian artist too, so it was easy for us
to help keep each other in check and make sure
we didn't cross those lines that we couldn't, you know,
we wanted to. But that's a good though, because I'm
a big believer, and if you surround yourself with the
best people, then you do make the best decisions. So
if you have her with you, and they doesn't have
to be this one even instance, but if if she's

(36:49):
a good influence on you, it makes you make good decisions. Ah,
you go to college, you said you lose your mind
in college a little bit. Yeah, I definitely was one
of those kids that had been sheltered a little bit.
And I always and you know, I tell the story

(37:09):
about my mom and how she struggled as a single parent.
I always tried to keep my nose clean as a
as a teenager and as a kid growing up, because
I saw what my mom was doing to make sacrifices
to make sure our life was good. And so I
didn't do a whole lot of partying in high school.
I didn't, you know, I kept my nose pretty clean.

(37:31):
I did have sex when I was seventeen with my girlfriend,
but I felt really guilty about it and never did
it again. But then I got to college and I
was around a whole group of like minded people like
the party a little bit, started hanging out with some
you know, pastor's girls, or when they when they get
out of the nest, they like to get out and um,

(37:52):
you know, test that newfound freedom. And there were moments
that I'm not proud of. I went through a lot
of you know, um, what, what's the word I'm looking for?
Debauchery in college. I think we should shout out your
mom real quick. Because you do mentioned that single mom
work two jobs and to put you in a Christian
private school, like you're broke and she's working to put

(38:14):
you in school, which showed what she valued for you
are a kid, and I mean that's a not even
just a clothes on you, but also make sure you
get into a Christian school. I know it was remarkable
now when I look back on it, and you know,
not until later on in life did she tell me
how much money she would have left in her wallet

(38:36):
or how much food we would really have in the
pantry that she was going and how in the world
am I gonna make this last through the weekend? Living
paycheck to paycheck. Somehow, some way it all came together,
and she would she told me stories that's unbelievable about
boxes of groceries showing up on our front porch and

(38:57):
she would not know where they had come from. Things
like that that I had no knowledge of until much
later on in life. You know, it's wild you say
that because for me growing up, we that we I
finally figured out who it was, but it was the church.
They would drop off Christmas presents and food and the
p t A because you know, my mom or my

(39:17):
grandmother when she was just raising me and my little sister.
They would know, they would drop it off and we
would get to eat. Or I remember once for Christmas,
I got a color by Number paints. It was only gift.
I got the whole year color by Number paint set
and I painted it was the stupidest duck, but it
was the best duck ever painted like it was my
Christmas gift. And the church brought it and left it
at the door with a bow on it and didn't

(39:38):
say who. Well, I we found out it was a church.
But it's funny you say that because a lot of
those stories zoo Man, and I think those have lasted
with me to how I tried to treat people too.
I don't know if it has for you, like if
that's left in impression with you. Definitely, it definitely makes
me think about the way that I treat people. But
it also I think has allowed me to live in

(40:01):
the moments and the life that I've been able to
live and appreciate it to a deeper level too, maybe
than some others would, because I wake up every day
and this is no joke, thanking God for the chance
to do what we've been able to do for nearly
twenty years now, which is almost in heard of too
in this day and age. But I really don't take

(40:23):
it for granted because I feel so blessed, far beyond
what I ever imagined I would have been and it
and it's not lost on me how hard it is
to make it in the music industry. You see it
all the time, how many people come to this town
every single day hoping for a career in the music business.
And I'm just so grateful to be able to look

(40:43):
back on all I have been through, but to know
that all of that was for a very necessary reason,
and now on the other side of it, I can
really look at it and go thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank you God so much. Mhmm. You talk
about being twenty years in twenty years and to to

(41:05):
maintain a level of success for that long, But I
look back at like your first let let's play your
first thing over here, let's let's go back, let's go,
let's go, let's do I have the whole thing here,
let's do uh. These days before the video was shot,
as you right, you that are well? You thought you

(41:28):
had a heart attack. Yeah, I was dealing with panic
attacks pretty badly in my mid to late twenties, and
I would have them periodically, but this one was a
really bad one and I thought I was having a
heart attack. So I drove myself to St. Thomas and
I spent most of the night there. But this is
also right before the video, Right before the video shore, Yeah.
I called our manager and said I don't think, I think,

(41:50):
and he was like, yeah, it's a bigger deal than
what you think to just move a whole entire video shoot.
And I said, well, I'm exhausted. I've been at the
hospital all night. They've been in blood tests and I
don't think I can make it, and he goes, come
in as late as you can, but please do your
best to be there because we we we can't move
these times. And I showed up and sat down beside

(42:12):
Allison in the makeup chair. And that, by the way,
is your wife. Now, as the book says, she wasn't
getting listen. I'm oppressure a little bit about this because
you sit down in a makeup chair as you go,
and you're tired, and you've had a heart attack slash
panic attack the night before first video. You sit down
they're gonna make you pretty. And there she is, and

(42:33):
what do you say? I said, Hey, how are you doing?
She's like fine, nothing back, like playing tennis by herself.
I'm like, she doesn't have a ring on the or
take it off with the video. It's exactly right. So
I'm like, I'll try again. Where are you from, Jackson, Tennessee? Again?

(42:55):
Playing tennis by yourself? Nothing? No lab back? Where are
you from? Oh COLUMBUSO? Oh, I'm glad you asked. You know.
I'm just sitting there, like working so hard, you know,
Like so if have you heard the song before? And
she's like, I don't really listen to country music. I
think I heard one of your songs like called waiting
for Midnight, Like, well, actually it's Praying for Daylight. A

(43:18):
really big fan, I can tell. So uh is she was?
She was not cold? But stand office, you know, And
now looking back, I understand why. But as the day
went on and the longer the weights were in between
each setup and each take, we started to talk and
I really really enjoyed her company. Let me stop you

(43:38):
for a second, but stand office because she was engaged, right.
I just didn't know that. I did not know that.
In my defense, I did not know that. And so
you guys are shooting the video and you're getting to
know each other and you're you're you're feeling a vibe. Yeah,
I mean, all I know is I like being around her.
And she was hot. She was hot. I mean she
was really hot. She just you know, um, And so

(43:59):
I would go find her. I would seek her out
and I'd sit down beside her. And she was mildly
annoyed by me, I could tell. But you know, I'm
kind of quick on my feet and funny and make
people laugh. And I started to make her laugh some
and well, she's not impressed by the music thing. She
could have cared less. Absolutely could have was hired to
be in the video. You guys here they are Nashville

(44:22):
signed ba bam ba boom. This is nothing. Huh. She
could have cared less. I'm telling you, it was amazing.
And I was like anything that a younger me or
any younger musician would use to, you know, to impress
a young lady, you know, like, hey, look at me, Well,
don't I look sexy when I play nothing? I mean nothing, nothing.

(44:42):
And so at the end of the night, we're talking
I'm on a truck bed with her. I never on
a tailgate. When I'm sitting there, like, I hate this
because like after we wrap, I'm never gonna get to
see you again. This is sucks. It's been really great
talking to you. And she said, well, actually I'm I
mean gauged. And I know that you didn't know that
because it made me take my ring off. But I'm

(45:04):
getting married in about a month or so, a couple
of months whatever it was, four months, believe you say, yeah,
that sounds about right. Yeah, And so I was just like,
this is terrible. But she's been really really nice to
me tonight, and she's talked to me and we've shared
and she finally goes, can I go on your bus

(45:25):
and use the restroom before I leave so I don't
have to use the porta potty? And I was like, absolutely,
I'll take you up. So while she's in using the restroom,
I pull on a piece of paper and write my
phone number down and I handed it to her and
I said, listen, I know you're gonna ask for this anyway,
so I'm gonna go ahead and give this to just
like that too, you know, really cheesy, And she takes

(45:45):
it and she goes. My daddy raised me never call boys,
but if you want to get in touch with me,
this is my number. And I just thought, man, who's
going to give their number to somebody if there isn't
a little bit of chink in the armor and armor there?
So I kept calling her. She never called me back, honestly,
and I ran into her at the Old Green Hills Grill,

(46:06):
and I ran into her again at another restaurant. I
forget where we were at that time. Was she ever
with her fiance and she was never with him. She
was with her mom and her grandmother and a and
a friend another time, and I ran into her and
I the second time, and I called her and I said,
this is the last time I'll call. I promise. But
if that isn't a sign that we shouldn't, at least
like go to lunch, I don't know what it is.

(46:27):
So let's just go to lunch. And we went to lunch,
and honest to god, we sat there for five and
a half hours. We met at noon when she left
there at five thirty, and it was really like I'd
known her my entire life, Honestly, it was so easy
and so fun and natural, and you know, now we're

(46:48):
old and sick of each other. But at the time
it was I'm kidding. Have you thought that she never
had a fiance and this whole thing was a no no,
I know him? So uh the guys did just to
break it off? Huh, Well it was you know, I
think that I was more of the straw that broke
the camel's back. It was headed that way anyway. And

(47:11):
she she did tell me, she said, I need to
sort my life out. I've had fun with you, and
I definitely loved being around you, but I've got to
make some big decisions and decide what I'm doing with
my life here. And so she cut it, shut it
down with me for a long time. And one day
I got a call from her saying that she had
told her dad she couldn't get married. And we went

(47:32):
to dinner and we're never apart after that. Here we
are fifteen years tomorrow. Is that right? Congratulations we got
on your big anniversary. Well, we gotta leaves. I don't know,
let's find someone ask him stop. You know how much
kids cost, and you've seen my wife, you know how
much money she spends. I need a gig on idol

(47:53):
or something. Can you get me another judge spots off it?
You know, I remember watching because I was over in
Pop whenever you guys crossed over, Um so I was.
I grew up in Arkansas. I was a die hard
country family. When I went to Pop, I kind of
checked out a bit because I was just consumed by
what I was doing with my work, and you guys
what hurts the most. It was a big country and

(48:14):
then started to creep into my world a bit, right,
So I remember watching you guys on Yester Dear. I
suppose it was up for a daytime Emmy wasn't it
performance on there? Listen? And I remember thinking, oh, I
like these guys, because I mean I can remember it vividly.
You know, yesterday was a sitcom and uh, they you
guys like showed up and they were trying to get

(48:36):
into your show and then you stole our limo. Yeah,
and they got and you guys, but then you're all
right riding together in the back of the car. That
that's funny. That's I think my first like real moment
of knowing who you guys faces were. I'm still dear
friends with Liza Snyder from that show. We we forged
a really great friendship from that show, and that's a

(48:57):
favorite memory of mine. That was a fun shoot. It
was about three days. Well, so you're making it over
in country, but it's gotta be a whole different world
once all of uh like like, oh yeah, boulders are
falling instead of it was weird, man, when when What
Hurts the Most was number one on UM Top forty radio.

(49:21):
It was a moment that I'll never forget because we
started getting calls to then go to which was unheard
of back then. You it was a different time, not
a lot of Like now you'll see a lot of
country acts like Dan and Shaye and Florida Georgia Line
and folks like that and a little big town at
the A M A S and at the Grammys and things.
It just wasn't that common back in uh, you know,

(49:42):
fifteen years ago. And we were getting calls to do
those shows People's Choice Awards, you know, and it was like, wow,
this is cool. This is beyond the scope of the
c M as, the c M T s and the
A c M s, which we love. But we were
opened up and exposed to another whole a whole another
war old. And I remember sitting on the floor of

(50:03):
the American Music Awards with Gary and Gary sitting next
to me, and he nudged me and he goes, would
you have ever thought we'd be able to do this?
Sit in this room with jay Z, Beyonce, Madonna, Lady Gaga,
all of these people, And he said, I'm gonna lay
something on you you haven't thought about. I said, what
this was the year two thousand six? He said, We've

(50:24):
sold more records this year than anybody in this room.
And it stopped me in my tracks. And he wasn't
saying it to be boastful or to like be you know,
braggadocious about it. He was saying, can you believe what
we've done outside of just being in country music? And
it was overwhelming to me. I never will forget that night,

(50:47):
in that moment that we shared during the commercial break there,
which is the two of us, it was so cool.
Did you guys get crap for being a mainstream success
from any of the Nashville you know, hardcore country folks.
Not really, No, not to be honest, we didn't. We had,
I mean people, I felt like we're you know, except

(51:11):
for the moment there when the song was released Murder
on music Row and they talked about pop coming over
an infiltrating country. It was a little bit of a
movement there, but most people rallied around us and got
behind us. And you know, there was a there was
a batch of us doing something different, and Keith Urban
and in Us and and Shadaisy at the time, and

(51:31):
a few people that were putting poppy or elements into
the country music. And I feel like they welcomed it,
and it was you know, some of the critics, of course,
derided us early on and we got a bad rap,
but most of the people in the music industry were
kind of excited that there was kind of a new
movement coming along, you know. And Bless the Broken Road

(51:51):
another song that crept into my life and then slammed
into my life. I played it all the time on
pop radio. Yeah. I mean, you guys are a full
fledged not that you're not country, but you're a pop
act at this time, Like it was just expected. When's
that I'm talking about from my side, when's the next
Rascal Flat song coming out? It's really cool to hear

(52:14):
you say that, because I don't think a lot of
people are saying that today, you know. I mean it
was we We had that sweet spot where you're kind
of in adell, you know, and you just sit there
in it and soak it all up, because it seems
like you have a moment in time where you put
a song out it resonates with people, and you have

(52:36):
your fingers crossed, and you put another one out and
it resonates with people, and then you start to get
scared that you're that you're gonna be in this spot
to where you're never gonna be able to put another
song at that resonates with anybody. And it was such
a magical time for us. We had about ten years
there that we're just phenomenal. And it's testament to the
songwriters in this town too, because the songs we were

(52:58):
able to get our hands on, the writers that were
sitting in rooms writing for us, that knew what we
wanted to say, how we wanted to sing it really
had their fingers on the pulse of who Rascal Flats was.
I can't thank them enough. The car song, which people
know it as the car song, I actually know it
from uh any money, no no, no, I WoT had

(53:19):
the money it's it's not any money, it's um the
original thing highway Tom Cox, Tom Cock, Right, that's right. Um,
but you guys sing this. But this was never a single, No,
it wasn't, but again it was played everywhere. Yeah, and
that movie was huge, huge, huge for us. And I
remember going to dinner here at the Capitol Grill with
um John Laster, who took us out and showed a

(53:42):
storyboards of the movie, going, I've got this movie about
these cars that talked to each other and saw the
storyboard of cars storyboards. Yeah, and I really want you
guys to do this um montage where he's on Route
sixty six and he's driving and you're doing Life Is
a Highway and looking at the storyboards and he's wearing
a toy story shirt with Woody on it, and it's

(54:06):
weird kind of you know, John is a sweet guy,
but it's just kind of like, can we write a song? No,
I really want you guys to remake you know, Life
is a Highway like Chris Lado did it in the
nineties and kind of made it a hit again. And
are you sure we can't write a song? He goes,
I really got a vision for this guy's if you'll
see these cars talk to each other, you know, it's

(54:28):
like wow. So we did it and one of the
best decisions we ever made. First song we ever cut
with Dan Huff, by the way, who's been on this
show and as a dear friend. I don't know. I
talked to Dan like three days ago, and Dan, if
you go back and listen to an older show, if
you're listen to this right now, Dan, we'll talk about
how he would cut songs for like Paul Abduel or Uh.

(54:50):
He'd play guitar on them. Yeah, I know, she was
even in the vocals and he'd be in the airport
and go, I do they like that guitar? Laud brother
be like, that's you idiot. I mean, the guy is
so good and he's so humble, it's disgusting. There's not
a kinder human being on the planet and he's played
on I mean, you know a lot of people don't
know this. I'm gonna tell something on Dan. He started
White Heart, one of the Christian bands that I was

(55:11):
obsessed with as a kid. He was one of the
founding members with his brother David, and so I followed
him early on before he was even a session player
in l A and playing on all those hit records.
There was something special about his playing even in that band,
that I knew that I loved and gravitated towards. So
that's another great blessing in my life is to be
able to come back around and work with somebody like Dan,

(55:34):
have him produce our band and being his presence and
watch him work. It's just something I never would have
ever expected or dreamed either, you know. And now to
be able to call somebody like him a true friend
is just phenomenal with me. It blows blows my mind.
You know. Was there ever a point with you guys

(55:56):
you're three that you're like, this is probably it. We're done.
When Lyric Streets shut down in two thousand ten, Um,
we sat around in my man room and looked at
each other and we're like, do we have anything left
to say? Even? I mean, it's been a great tenure run. Um.

(56:17):
We were getting ready to either quit or make a
management change, and a lot of things were going to change,
and we knew it and it was gonna be tough,
and we sat around and considered whether or not it
wasn't time to lay Rascal flats down, and I think
after an hour or so of talking with each other,
it was just like, it hurts me to think about
the last time that I'll look over to my right

(56:40):
and not see Gary beside me. When I think about
that day, it makes me emotional. I don't know when
that day will be, but I wasn't ready to face it.
And to think about never making music with the two
of them again. Boy, it's something that even though we
were in twenty years and we love each other like brothers,
and we've certainly fought like brothers before. I love those

(57:02):
guys with all my heart, and we've done some things
that a lot of people will never see or never
be able to do. And we've been in the trenches together,
and we know each other in ways that our own
wives don't even know us. And to think about not
having that anymore, I think all of us were not ready,
and we were willing to stay together because we felt

(57:23):
like we had more to say and more to do,
and we still do. I don't know that it's going
to come to a close anytime soon. I think we will.
We will all three have things we want to do
individually as we get older and have opportunities to, but
I don't see us ever really going away and and
having an official, quote unquote break up. Do you ever

(57:44):
think about a sideband. I'm in one already, and it's
tough to be in that one sometimes in the time
that it takes in the commitment level, I thought about
maybe doingside projects and things like that. I band that
you're in, Why don't I know this? Or do I
know this is a secret? No? I mean, I mean,

(58:04):
I'm in Rascal Plants. In the commitment I was like,
how do I not know? No, No, I I don't
have I mean, I certainly love making music on any
level and music by the way, Yeah, well, I'll opened
up a Christian label back in October, so I've got
artists signed there to that label that I'll be releasing
records on. So that my time commitment there with that

(58:25):
that new thing in my life is pretty substantial. So
I'm going to try to make sure that's as successful
as it can possibly be. And I want to continue
making music and producing for other people. And I've had
I've had the chance to do a lot of great things,
and you know, uh, I'm at a really great point
in my life now. To where I really really enjoy

(58:48):
everything that I'm doing right now, and I'm not just
doing it because I have to. You know, has Gary
ever said how do they go do a solo record?
I think Gary will do a solo record someday. I
don't know what it will be. It maybe a Christian record.
I'm not sure what it will be. And I think
here's the thing. I think he should do a solo record.
I think that if it's in him and something he
wants to do, I would support that and in his

(59:10):
aspirations and dreams one percent. Would you have seven years
ago or do you feel now you're at a place
where you're kind of comfortable with where the band is.
You hit a big you came back, you hit it
big again, You've had in the last few years. You
had number once again. So it's a part of that
because of all this success and now you feel a
little more like we're stationed, like we're a thing. What

(59:33):
id he to come? You know after Blessed the Broken
Road and said, guys, I want to do it. This
is quick solo thing, like like you see Boheman rapidly
were like, Fred, you gotta do a solo record. Yeah,
that didn't happen at all. With you guys, it didn't happen.
I think that all of us appreciated where we were
and appreciated each other and loved each other. And Gary
was um extraordinarily gracious in the fact that he was

(59:56):
in a band and and never put us in a
bad issuing to go. I think I'm gonna go off
on my own here for a little bit and and
try it on my own, and and you know, I'm
grateful to him for that. The flip side is it
doesn't turn out well for a lot of people that
try to leave a group situation and and and go
out on their own. It's really tough to do. And

(01:00:16):
when you've done it at a high level like we have,
and all of a sudden you've got to realize you're
coming out of your own pocket to pay for all
the luxuries that you won't have anymore because you're virtually
starting over. I think it's hard for some people. I'll
look at you. Here you are with a book. Yeah,
I'm all grown up, has the book to I've been
a grind for you, it has been, but it's been fun.
I mean, I've enjoyed being able to talk about my

(01:00:39):
life and being able to celebrate my mother and tell
my story from a different side. You know, I'm sure, um,
maybe you deal with some of this too, But I've
always I've always been you know, like referred to as
the funny guy or the cut up in the band
or the whatever, and and I wanted the chance to
really tell some things from my perspective and and talk

(01:01:01):
about my philosophies on life and hopefully people see another
maybe a little bit deeper sign to me than just
being the funny guy. Yeah, it probably you know, you
get to exercise a bit of depth which people don't
always come to the funny guy for. And so yeah,
it feels good, right Like, it feels like it's kind
of like it's kind of like a real it's a lot.

(01:01:23):
It's a lot to dig up this stuff, and it's
a lot. Even for me. It was tough to to
re talk about this stuff. Um, But then you start
to realize, which back to your very first point was
there are people out there that are struggling with some
of the same things that you struggle with that I
struggle with, that feel like they're alone. And if you
can see that, you you know, Mr Rascal Flats can

(01:01:48):
do it and it had to happen to him and
can deal with it. Then, um, then it happens to everyone.
I think that's the point is you think about people
when they're by themselves and the lights are off and
the doors shut and they're behind closed doors. What kind
of pain and hurt that people deal with on a
daily basis? Will never know? And sometimes it's nice to
know that somebody you know, or somebody you may look

(01:02:09):
up to, or somebody you may admire, has gone through
some of the same things. And look, here's how they
have dealt with it, and here's how they have overcome it,
and how how they still still deal with it. You know,
it doesn't go away. Um, hurt and pain doesn't go away.
The older you get, you just learned a different skill
set and you have a different bag of tools to
deal with it. And that's all I wanted to do

(01:02:31):
is just say, look, if you're willing to try therapy,
and you're willing to try pills to balance out chemical
imbalances and things like that, maybe there's another option. And
maybe that option could be finding your own faith in
God and finding your own relationship with him because you
might find some hope and strength you you never even
dreamed before. You say, your greatest blessing isn't the flats,

(01:02:53):
It isn't even your family, but it's hope. Yeah. What
do you mean by that? Well? I meant that hope
was the only thing I had. Sometimes, before I had
my family, or before I had the flats or anything,
all I had was hope. And sometimes it would be
the smallest little ounce of hope. It would be a
friend that would call me out of the blue and go,
I thought about you the other day. I just wanted
to check in on you. You're doing okay. And it

(01:03:16):
would blow me away because it would be when I
needed it the most and least expected it. Or I
would see uh sign of a on a billboard in
front of a church that would be a scripture and
I would look it up in the Bible and and be,
you know, something that would give me like, hang in there,
You're on the right track. I know you can't feel it,
but you gotta stay the course. Sometimes it was my mom.

(01:03:39):
A lot of times it was my mom going, you're
not coming back home. You're where you're supposed to be,
and you've got to stay there. You gotta stay the course.
You gotta you know, dust yourself off, get back up
on your feet, and keep moving forward. And that's what
I mean about hope. My mom gave me that gift,
and I didn't even realize she was given it to

(01:04:00):
me when she was dragging me off the church three
or four times a week. But it was in there
and it took deep root in me, and I relied
on it later on in life when things get really
really bad. We're gonna end with this. By the way,
you watch a game with Thrones, I don't you are you?
Are you? You're your Thrones guy? Yeah, I try not
to be the Thrones guy that yells about it all

(01:04:21):
the time. Well, I know, and I feel so bad.
I've given it like two shots and I've made it
through like three or four episodes, and it's just so
much to keep up with. Ye. I feel like I'm
watching a high school play sometimes in about medieval times.
And I'm sure it's great, um, but maybe I need
to give it another shot. But because a ton of

(01:04:41):
people that I love and respect are obsessed with that shrip,
I think it's a great It's not my favorite of
my life, but I think it's the best TV show
in my lifetime, and I think there's a difference. The
best I think your TV show in my lifetime not
my favorite, So I don't if I get to pick
one that's not it. I caught one episode late one
night called The Red Wedding or something like that, where
everybody you know, that's the one there, and I'm like,

(01:05:03):
I don't think I could, Like, I don't think I
can deal with this week. That one was a big one.
But yeah, it's a lot um and you fall in
love with the characters and they all die, right, like
every single one of them. Listen, it's like fight club. Yeah,
you don't talk about it. We don't talk about it's
a it's a it's a fantastic show. But you don't
watch Thrones. What do you watch? Well, I'm kind of

(01:05:26):
more on the that I'm on the shallow into things
like I'm really into Ship's Creek right now on Netflix.
You know, I matched with the girl that's on I
don't know if I should say who it is, but
one of the main actors I'm on these dating apps
right and one of the main actors on the show
I matched with on the dating app and a little bit.
You gotta decide. Have you talked to her? Yeah? How

(01:05:48):
about that? It's awesome. I'll pull up Earth and we've
been talking about so I love that because the apps
are crazy. Man, it's like instant out everyone. You can
just it's like free, like even ten years ago, you know.
With It's something we talk about all the time too.
Don't you love how brave people are on social media

(01:06:10):
when they get behind a keyboard, they can just get
on there and just torpedo you with no repercussions. I
think that people just want to be heard, and they
find that the best way to be heard is to
be the loudest and most obnoxious. It just bugs a
crap out of me because it's your Facebook or now
even though I don't look at the show face page.
I I don't look at it. And I've almost thought

(01:06:32):
about muting my Instagram comments because there'll be a hundred
great comments and my personality is to zone in on
the one guy that's being an ass, you know what
I mean, and it will you send me over the edge,
you know, and be like, dude, this is how I
matched with. You have to say who it is. But
we've been talking do you recog for the show. Of course,
I do. Absolutely you watched the show, yeah, of course,

(01:06:56):
and that's why when I saw I was like click
the heart and then I was surprised at the came
back and so yeah, she's that shows shot in Canada.
Is in Vancouver. Um, I'm not sure where. If you
were out in l A. You can just go up. Yeah, ups, creaks, funny.
What else you're watching? Um, I'm a huge Walking Dead fan. Okay,
let me ask you a question. Me to die hard

(01:07:18):
with my favorite show for years. But I got I
got kind of lost, and like I think I'm like
a season behind and I don't know where I got lost,
and I'm not super into catching up. The show is
not the same with that Rick. It's really lost a
little bit. And I gotta tell you, it almost lost
me for good when they at the beginning of a
couple of seasons ago when they my my buddy Michael

(01:07:40):
Cutlitz was on there and they bashed his brains in
with the baseball bat and then they with Michael cut
let's play too, he played Abraham Oh oh yeah, red hand,
And then they killed Glenn Off too and they like
popped his eyeball out with the Baseball Man finally or
the first episode whenever? Yeah, Yeah, Nigannigan a man. I
love Jeffrey Dean Morgan. He's a fantastic actor. It just

(01:08:03):
they took it so far because of the shock factor
that they always try to do with that show, and
you never know who's gonna die. And I get it,
and I'm such a huge fans of the fan of
the show, but it started to lose me a little bit,
to be quite honest. Yeah, I when after Rick was gone,
I just kind of got lost what episode I was
and I wasn't just terribly horn to get back at it,

(01:08:25):
you know. And I love Darryl, but I don't know
that he's enough to hold the show by himself. I
turned into a TV critic all of a sudden, haven't
a um we all are at this point. Everything is
so good? If it's not so good, and right up,
our algorithm are human algorithm to what show we want
that we just move on to the next thing. Yeah,
and I don't love Christley knows best. I've been on
a bunch of those episodes of Todd. He's he's a

(01:08:45):
buddy of mine. He wrote on the back of your
book that he wrote the Hey, he's not a douchebag.
Read the book exactly. He's not the jerk you think
he is all of the time sometimes im You know
what show I like is none One. I think that's
a pretty good show on Fox. You the first season.
She's not in the second season, but um, it's it's

(01:09:08):
pretty decent. And we what we do is Allison. I
just binge on some stuff every once in a while.
I'm trying to think of what we're what else we're
watching right now? Watch any of the Marvel stuff on Netflix,
like The Punisher. I don't is it good? It's the
best show to be Agents of Shield any good. I
didn't get into all Right. I was never torn Away

(01:09:29):
and he's a big You see the Last Adventures? I haven't. Yeah,
I saw the End Game, so it's amazing. I turn
off Twitter when Game of Thrones ends because I'm on
I at the same time and have to go home
and look at it. But I'm avoiding Everything Adventures until
I can watch End Game because it's supposed to be
so freaking good. Let me tell you, I was amazed
at how great it was. I mean, it was three

(01:09:51):
hours and is that good? Huh, you don't know it's
three hours. I mean it goes fine a blank, doesn't it?
You know? I mean it really really does. Exacted about
John Wick three have yes, me too. I actually love
those movies. I think he read is my favorite actor.
I've I've declared he's not my favorite because you can
make fun of him, you can, but look at his
body of work. Respect the body of work. So he's

(01:10:14):
now America's favorite actor and mine. I love it. And
you know what else, I gotta tell you, Cobra Kai
is fantastic too. I haven't seen it. I know it's
a YouTube show. You gotta watch it. Man, It's fantastic.
What these guys have done with the storyline thirty plus
years later, with these two you never see coming, It
is really fantastic. Now. Billy Zapka, who plays Johnny, is

(01:10:35):
one of my lifelong dearest friends. So I've you know,
I've been a Karate Kid fanatics since the first movie
came out when I was a teenager. But what they've
done with the story and how they've taken those two characters,
you would really really appreciate and love interesting. Well, listen,
we've Here's the question I was gonna ask you before
I veered off the last question. I ask him, if

(01:10:56):
you could tell yourself, you give your your sixteen year
old self one a little bit of advice from you
right now? Would you tell him condoms do break? There
and there? There you have it. Listen, check out the book.
It's a Shotgun Angels, My story of Broken Roads and
Unshakable Hope. How was how hard that subtitle to have
and to come up with? It was? It was pretty tough.

(01:11:18):
They wanted, Yeah, what was the first title of the book.
Because I went to like nineteens, it was called something
like um uh, hope, Hope in the Hope in the
Forgotten Places or something. I mean, there were so many
different variations of that. I was like, none of them
made me happy. My co author, actually Timothy, came up

(01:11:41):
with that because the two stories in the book about
my folks and also the angels that ride shotgun next
to you that you don't even know about. Look at this,
You got a book, got a book. You play a
couple of songs on the keyboards, got it. He's got
a gift on the piano as occasionally funny things. I'm
not I'm glad he's Nobby. I'll tell you this guy. Ready,
there's no Bobby and Bones. Thank god, Um, listen that Jay.

(01:12:03):
Good to see you, but good to see you too.
Thank you for your time. One on nine. Look at this?
Have you every been ever? Be for hours straight? One
on one? Hey, and it's just like Avengers in game.
It didn't even feel like we were both die. I
don't even know what happened in adventures. All right, listen,
thank you, We'll see you the next time. Episode one
seven seven. Everybody