Daniel Kim Ethridge

Josh Mattei talks with Daniel Kim Ethridge!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
This week on Country on Deck. And it's funny, I was sitting
there and Brad is so humble and so gracious.
He goes, I can't believe you letan imposter into your Hall of
Fame. He goes, I just wanted to be all
of you. He was like, I just wanted to
come to Nashville and be you. You know, you, the songwriters.
And he's talking about everyone else in the room.

(00:21):
Clearly, we all know Brad Paisley is not talking about me.
Like, Brad Paisley is not sayinghe wanted to be me.
But I am at least on my taxes. I am a professional songwriter
by trade, right? Like, that's what I do.
And to hear Brad Paisley talk about and who's one of my
favorite country artists, to hear him say, like, yeah, I just
wanted to be one of the songwriters.
I just wanted to be 1 of you. It like, it genuinely like moved

(00:44):
me to tears. Discover the stories of rising
country stars Country on Deck with Josh Maddie.
Kick off your boots and settle in country on this.

(01:08):
About to begin? Josh Maddie's here.
Stars on the rise, voices of hope, Dreams in their eyes.
Singer songwriters, stories on phone, hearts of wander, hearts

(01:28):
out of bone, dusty roads, she writes.
Angelines captures her journey, shares their fights.
Country on this we're tuning in well the new star stories are

(01:49):
coming in from a small town dreams they're gonna take you
away country on day with just. Mad A.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Country on Deck,
where I sit down with today's rising country stars and help

(02:11):
you discover the stories behind their music.
I'm your host, Josh Maddie, and I'm back at my desk in
Connecticut with another rising country star on the show this
week. But first, if you missed our
conversation from last week, we sat down to talk to Andrew
McManus about playing one of ourNashville Style Writers Round
events at The Barn in Groton, CT.

(02:34):
And we also talked to him about what it's like balancing being a
musician and fatherhood. Strum 1 chord and the kids look
at me and they just start screaming for me to play let it
go from frozen and I'm like guys, do you want to hear
something else? How about that?
No, no, no. Then they start crying and a big
breakdown They're they're four and two.
So right now Disney is huge and if I'm touching that guitar, it

(02:58):
is Disney songs. And if not, I'm the only way I
can practice is like during my lunch break for work or if the
the kids are out of the house orsomething.
So it's it's a lot more challenging.
You can listen to our entire conversation with Andrew
McManus, that episode of streaming below this episode on

(03:20):
the platform that you're listening on.
And don't forget to hit that follow button on the platform
that you're listening on. We release new conversations
with new rising country stars each and every Friday, and we
don't want you to miss one. And if you're already subscribed
to the show, first, thank you somuch for doing that.
I really appreciate it. And 2nd, consider sharing the

(03:42):
show with a friend so that they can listen every single Friday
just like you do on the show this week.
He grew up in California, spent time in Texas, went to college
at Belmont University in Nashville.
You might have seen him on season 18 of American Idol.
He's played the Bluebird and theRyman and after years of being

(04:05):
in Nashville, finally got a publishing deal with Rodney
Atkins and Curb Publishing. Excited to have him on the show
and talk music and talk sports. I hear he's a big Dodgers fan on
the show this week, Daniel Kim Etheridge.
Daniel, thanks so much for for coming on the show, Man, I
really appreciate you making thetime.

(04:26):
I'm excited to chat. Oh, yeah, Josh, thanks for
having me. I can't wait to get after it.
How'd you how'd you get into doing country music podcasting?
I was originally on country radio for for a bunch of years
and loved listening to all the music and everything that came
with that. And then when I got laid off

(04:46):
during COVID, I was like, well, I want to keep doing this, how
am I going to go about that? And I looked into podcasting and
the rest is kind of history fromthere.
That's awesome man. So how long have you been doing
this now? I started in, it's kind of been
an ongoing project. I've had a couple different show
names and things like that. It's always been centered around
interviewing, but I I've been doing it since 2020.

(05:08):
Right around 2020 actually, right when I got laid off.
That's great. So you got like right on it,
huh? I did, yeah.
You're from California, right? Was born there.
I spent the 1st 10 years of my life there in Long Beach, in
Lakewood actually, And then we moved to Austin when I was in
the middle of fifth grade. So I went to elementary school

(05:30):
essentially in California and then middle school, high school
in Texas and and then I came to Nashville for college and I've
been here ever since. Oh, OK.
That's cool. So you've had like a diverse
background of living in a coupleof different spots.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, different,
different states, different cultures, different climates.

(05:52):
I mean, like, I'd never experienced heat like a Texas
summer until I lived it. And I was like, Oh my God, this
is horrible. But yeah, yeah, we, we moved
around a little bit when I was akid.
So I mean, I think I'm better for it.
You know, I got to be pretty well travelled, well versed.
Did your did your parents move here or were they born in the

(06:13):
States? So my dad, my dad was my dad was
born in California. He was born in Southern
California and the 50s and him and my mom, there's a bit of an
age gap. My dad was in the Navy and when
he was stationed over in Korea, my parents met, they got
married, but my mom is Korean. She's she was born in Jinhei.

(06:35):
And once they got married, I think they lived in Korea for a
few more years and then they, they moved back to the States.
Well, my dad is still in the Navy and they settled in
California and he retired from the Navy after 20 years of
service. And they just stayed, you know,
basically home for him. I appreciate his his service.

(06:57):
That, that's awesome. Well thanks man, he's 2020 years
is a long time. Honestly it's it's crazy.
Like, I have a buddy who I went to high school with who's in the
Marine Corps, and he joined basically, like right after we
graduated. And I was talking to him the
other day. He's like, yeah, man, I'm at 10
years. I'm like, dude, that's insane
that you've been like, in a career field for 10 years and

(07:20):
you have another 10, and then you can, like, retire and do
what you want. Like, it's, you know, military
service. Pretty crazy.
Yeah, it's hard to fathom havinga commitment for that long, but
it's also probably nice to know that there's maybe some light at
the end of the tunnel that you can retire from something.
Yeah. And and also it's like, you
know, super steady when you think about it, right?
Like someone, if someone tells you what your marching orders

(07:43):
are, you know, it's not, it's not like you trying to figure
out what you're doing with your life, like someone tells you
what you're doing with your life.
And I think there is something good to that kind of structure.
You are. You just celebrated a birthday,
right? September 28th.
I did, yeah. I just turned 30.
Oh wow, congratulations. Thank you.
It's, you know, it is crazy. I didn't, I didn't think it was

(08:06):
going to feel any different and it doesn't.
But the morning of I was talkingto Callie, my wife, and she was
like, how do you feel? I was like, I feel fine with the
front number change and I'm kindof freaking out.
When I turned 30, the the pandemic happened like months
after, just months after. And I remember getting this
birthday card from my better half's brother and it said in

(08:27):
this inside the car, it's all downhill from here.
Yeah, I mean, honestly, if I would have turned 30 or had like
a big milestone birthday during the pandemic, I would have been
like, oh God, it really is the end.
Yeah, I feel like I turned 30 and then like the rest is a blur
up until now. Yeah, yeah.
No kidding dude. Like you said, a milestone

(08:50):
birthday. Did you do anything fun for your
birthday? The week of my birthday, I had a
handful of shows, so I played. I played the Bluebird with Hank
Weaver and Ashton Naylor on the 26th.
And there's some, there are someTexas guys that I've been
working with a decent bit lately.
And so they flew up from the Austin area and and made their
Bluebird debut. Awesome.

(09:12):
So that was cool. And then on the 27th, me and my
band, Jude or Blue, we played the station in that.
That essentially like was my birthday party.
You know, we did a thing for friends and family earlier in
the week, but that ended up being my birthday party, which
is funny because I don't know, it feels funny to like celebrate

(09:34):
birthdays. I don't know.
I'm not, I'm not one to like really, you know, go over the
top to celebrate my being born. Like I didn't do anything.
My mom did all the work, you know, so it felt kind of funny.
But Cali, my wife had played a bunch of stuff and then we were
playing shows and it was, it waskind of a whole ordeal.

(09:54):
So it was, it was really cool and like really sweet to be
celebrated, but at the same timeI was like kind of dying the
whole time. No, no Dodgers games.
No, we, we'd done that. We'd done that previously,
actually, for my wife's birthday, we'd gone out to LA
and just to hang out and then wecaught a Dodger game.

(10:15):
But no, honestly, this year's been so packed that there hasn't
been much time to go catch a game.
We kind of have every year for the past few years.
But I'm, I mean, as we're recording this, you know, the
Dodgers went up to 0 on the Phillies last night.
So I'm I'm just taking it in from afar.
That that might be one of the few things that you and I don't

(10:38):
see eye to eye on because I'm still, I'm still kind of crying
about last year with the Yankeeslosing in the world.
OK, are you a Yankee fan? I'm a big Yankee fan, so you and
I are kind of clashing on that dude.
Here's. The thing though, I grew up like
I, I am a die hard Dodger fan and we grew up going to Dodger
games, but the Dodgers were honestly pretty bad when I was a

(11:00):
kid. So it was always fun to go see
like we'd instead we'd go see the Angels, like when the
Yankees were in town, you know, And so as a kid, like I was
down, I was down with the Yankees.
Like my, my dad wasn't like a Yankee hater, you know, his
favorite players were honestly like Mantle, Gehrig, DiMaggio.

(11:25):
And so, yeah, dude, when it was like the the Posada, Mariano,
Jeter, Pettit, Clemens, and thenyou all had Gary Sheffield like
I was, I was into the those Yankees for sure.
So I'm not, I'm not a true Yankee hater like some.
I was wondering about that because I saw an old picture of
you and your sister on on Instagram.

(11:45):
I saw her wearing a Yankee sweatshirt and I was like,
what's up with that? I think that that actual
sweatshirt too, I want to say I got that at Yankee Stadium
because at one point my aunt tangentially worked for ESPN and
she was living in Pennsylvania. And so I'd like spent the summer
with her and we went to Yankee Stadium and saw the Yankees play

(12:07):
the A's. And I think that's where that
sweater came. I think I bought it at Yankee
Stadium. Oh wow, that's cool.
Yeah. So not completely a Yankee
hater. No, no, like I am.
I'm a Padres hater. That makes sense.
You know California, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But, but it's like one of those things where it's like, like the

(12:30):
Lakers and the Celtics, you know, like I hate the Celtics,
but I respect the Celtics. I don't like the Yankees, but I
respect the Yankees. And also, like Derek, Jeter was
one of my favorite players growing up, so it's I can't hate
him too much. Are you a Golden State fan?
No, I'm I'm a Laker fan. I don't mind the Warriors, you
know, and watching watching thatera of basketball, especially

(12:53):
when Laker basketball was not good, I was happy to, you know,
watch Steph and Clay light him up.
But I'm I'm a Laker fan through the highs and the many lows.
So despite how busy you are withyou music, it sounds like you do
try to pay attention to what's going on in sports.
It makes me feel like a kid. My family, we we watched, we

(13:16):
watched so many sporting events as a kid, from the Lakers to the
Dodgers. And I was spoiled.
You know, I was born in 95 S as soon as I kind of can remember
sports like the Lakers were in the middle of a three peat.
And again, the Dodgers weren't great, but we went to games all
the time. You know, the Angels win that
World Series in 2002. USC was winning national

(13:40):
championships in football. And so for me, just like being
in LA as a kid, you know, those sports teams were so dominant.
And so I was like, oh, this is what sports is like all the
time. You know, it's always a party,
it's always a championship. And so honestly, just getting to
follow my teams in that way, it brings me a lot of childlike
joy. So I I do that as often as I

(14:01):
can. I feel the same way.
Yeah. So kind of just nostalgic.
Brings you back to the the good old days when life was a little
a little more simpler. Absolutely.
I mean, there's, there's nothingbetter.
I, I went to California last year and I, I'm not a fan of
these teams, but it was still cool to see the, the Angels
field up close. And then I tried to go see

(14:23):
Dodger Stadium. We got into like before you go
through the turnstiles like where if you were to pay to park
and they're like, Nope, you got it.
You got to get out of here. Like that was disappointing.
But the Angels you can like, go right up to it.
Yeah, man, yeah, you can go right up to it over there in
Anaheim. But honestly, next time you go
out to LA, you you got to go to a Dodger game.
You got to go at least once that.

(14:45):
'D be cool, yeah. Especially if the Yankees were
in town or something. Careful wearing your Yankee
gear, not Chavez Ravine, but they, I mean, they shouldn't
give you too much of a hard time.
Callie and I went to a Dodger game last year in Philadelphia.
We went to a Phillies game as Dodgers fans.
It was fine for the most part, like some people would want to
like talk trash or whatever, butit was overwhelmingly very good.

(15:09):
Actually. We made friends with the people
that we sat next to at the Phillies game, Matthew and
Charlotte, I believe, and they just got married and they did
like a little honeymoon trip to Nashville and they were in town
during Americana Fest when we were playing.
I got them tickets. They came to our Americana Fest
show and it was who we sat next to at the Phillies game.

(15:31):
Wow. What are the odds of that?
That's crazy, yeah. You know, baseball, bringing
people together. Small.
It's a small world when you think about it.
So musically, were you musical in California when you were
growing up or did that not starttill you got the Texas when you
started playing guitar in Texas?Well, I grew up playing the
piano as as a kid and honestly, as most Korean children are

(15:56):
forced to his kids, you know, we, we have to learn the piano.
And I hated it early on in the Long Beach Unified School
District. And I don't know if they still
do this, but in like 3rd or 4th grade, they introduce string
orchestra. And so my mom was like, OK,
well, you can quit the piano if you learn an orchestra

(16:20):
instrument, if you learn a string instrument.
And I think right around that time I'd seen yo-yo Ma on Sesame
Street and I was like, well, that's cool.
Like that's that instrument's cool.
And he's, you know, Asian. He looks like me.
That'll work. And so I started playing the
cello. And so I, I did that all through

(16:41):
middle school and high school. But when we moved to Texas, I
had, honestly, I had, we moved to Texas and I had been like
mowing lawns and washing cars and stuff.
And I'd saved up money to get like a 270 to get a deer rifle.
And my mom and I, you know, I'm like 1011.

(17:04):
And my mom was like, no, we can't just start buying guns
because we're in Texas. And I was like, well, I saved
all this money up though. And she was like, no, no more.
And so I remember telling my parents, I was like, you know, I
have all this money and it was like maybe 300 bucks, right?
And I was like, what am I supposed to do with this money?
And my dad was like, I don't know, you've been playing that

(17:25):
stupid Guitar Hero game for 10 hours a day.
Why don't you just go learn the actual guitar?
And I was like, that could be cool.
You know, we just moved to Austin and my dad, my dad has
always been a huge music fan. My dad loves music and he loves
the history and kind of the mythology that comes with, you

(17:48):
know, rock'n'roll. And so my dad, I remember my dad
showed me the Austin City Limitstaping of Stevie Ray Vaughn.
And Stevie's up there just ripping and sweating and he has
the Strat and he's doing the thing.
And I was like, that's cool, I want to do that.
So that's how that is how and why I started playing guitar was

(18:11):
I wasn't allowed to buy a deer rifle.
And my parents had gotten sick of Guitar Hero, so real guitar
it was. You chose the the next best
thing. Yeah.
Guitar here. I remember when that was crazy
popular. Let's bring him back some
memories, do. You remember playing it?
To be honest, I I played it, I was never as passionate about it

(18:36):
as some of the other people in my friends group, but I
definitely remember playing it. I would play it with my buddies
or our neighbors or my siblings.But like I just, I just remember
like I would play it for so longthat when you would stop
playing, your eyes would hurt. Like my eyes would continue
moving because remember the screen is moving up like rapidly
as the notes went by. Yes.

(18:57):
As if you played it for long enough, when you stopped looking
at the screen and you just looked at like a static object,
everything kept moving because your eyes had been tracking for
so long. The the other big one was Dance
Dance Revolution. Did you ever play that one?
Dude, So listen, as as an adult,I still hate dancing.
And as a kid I hated Dance DanceRevolution.

(19:20):
Like it was one of those things where I was like, no, I have to
like dance and move and like do this in front of people.
And I was like, every bit of this is unattractive to me.
Like I don't want to do it. It makes me uncomfortable.
So. So how'd you get from Guitar
Hero to Belmont? Well, you know, honestly, you

(19:41):
know, I, I start playing guitar and I'm like doing choir and
orchestra and kind of all the music stuff and high school
comes around and, you know, I'm like playing in bands and stuff.
And you have to start figuring out like where you're going to
go to college. I'd started looking into
programs and figuring out what Iwas going to do.
And I'd kind of just assumed that if I wanted to go study

(20:04):
music, the only path was to go study like.
Classical music, like traditional, you know, classical
voice or cello performances, I don't know.
And then I remember talking to my mom about Berkeley, you know,
in Boston, and she was like, well, yeah, there are these
commercial programs. And then I was talking to my my

(20:25):
choir directors and then my orchestra directorate at my high
school. And they were like, well, yeah,
there's Berkeley. But also USC in California has a
commercial music program and Miami has a music program.
And then Nashville has 1, Belmont has one.
And I'd never even thought of Belmont.

(20:46):
I'd never even thought of Nashville.
And I've got, I got introduced to the concept of it.
And then also, you know, kind ofmy junior year, I'd been
educated on the fact that there were, you know, professional
songwriters and that that was actually a career field.
And I was like, well, that sounds really cool, actually.
You get to write songs and play guitar and sing.

(21:09):
And I was like, that's kind of all the stuff that I want to do
in one package. And so I applied to my colleges
and, you know, I got in. I got into Belmont, I got into
Berkeley. I got rejected from USC, which
honestly at the time was heartbreaking because that I

(21:32):
wanted to go to USC, you know, and be in California.
And I would have gone to UT, thereal UT, by the way, the
University of Texas, not Tennessee, but I, I would have
gone to UT, but there is no commercial music program.
And so I was like, well, OK, I guess I can't stay home.
I can't stay in Austin. And so I literally, I went, I

(21:53):
auditioned at Belmont and I got,you know, all the acceptance
stuff. And I was just like, yeah,
that'll work. And my parents are like, you
don't want to go somewhere else?I'm like, Nope, I think this is
good, this will do. And I just pick Belmont.
And I really liked Nashville. It kind of reminded me of
Austin, but a little smaller. You know, I mean, this is 2013
and I made my pick and I've beenhere 12 years now.

(22:16):
Wow, the the best advice you received at Belmont about
songwriting was just write better songs.
Yeah, yeah, sort of. Mike Valerius was was one of the
guitar professors at Belmont. And I think he's, I think he's
still there. And he's, I mean, an incredible,
brilliant player. And I was taking elective

(22:37):
private guitar instruction from him, and I'd been like, playing
for other people and kind of doing that thing that you do at
school, just accompanying other people.
And I was kind of just complaining to him One day.
I was like, dude, like just being the guitar player for
other people and like, really having to follow their direction
when I might think their direction is just not great, is

(23:00):
not super rewarding. And he was, you know, trying to
tell me to essentially, like, quit complaining.
And he's like, listen, if you don't like it, you should just
write better songs. And I was like, huh.
But you know, actually that makes a lot of sense.
Like it just there was no, therewas no bullshit.
He was like, you should just youshould just do better.

(23:22):
And I was like, man. Spitting straight facts.
Yeah. And so before that, I'd been
writing by myself. I hadn't been doing a bunch of
Co writing, and that was probably early in my sophomore
year of college. And so after that, you know, I'd
started meeting other students on campus and started writing.
And it's funny, I actually saw her last night, Emily Landis,

(23:43):
who's a writer at BMG, and she wrote the number one for Gabby
Barrett. The good ones.
Oh wow. I had classes with Emily and I
knew that she was a songwriter and I was like, hey, would you
want to like write sometime? And she was like, yeah.
And so Emily Landis to to my knowledge and one of my friends
might discredit this, but I'm pretty certain that Emily Landis

(24:04):
was my first Co writer. That's a pretty good one.
Yeah, it was a pretty good one. But you know, there's kind of a
through US at Belmont of, you know, me, Emily, you know, as
far as people I was riding with Emily Landis, Hunter Leaf, Will
Stone, Cassie Ashton and yeah, man, just I just kind of got
sucked into it. Troubadour Blue, did you meet

(24:25):
them at Belmont? Yeah, so everyone, everyone in
Troubadour Blue right now because, you know, we had, we
had a bit of a band change last year, but everyone in the band
right now went to Belmont. And I met everyone either at
Belmont while we were students together or because of it.
So Brenna, the fiddle player that I started the band with, we

(24:47):
were in the bluegrass ensemble together at Belmont.
And then Johnny plays dobro in the band was in the School of
Music while I was in the School of Music.
And so we met there. And then Rico that plays
mandolin is actually Johnny's brother.
And Rico went to Belmont after Idid.
So we didn't meet in school, butwe met because of it.
And then Max Sadler, who plays bass for us, also went to

(25:11):
Belmont and he and Johnny had studied guitar and Max is like 4
years younger than me and so I just met him through mutual
friends. And so, yeah, whole whole true
door Blue gang is Belmont strong.
And also all of us except for Max were in the bluegrass
ensemble as well. Well, that's a true testament to

(25:31):
how much talent comes out of that school that you guys were
able to put that group together and be all be so talented.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
I mean, I think a lot of it is just, you know, when you get
these big cities, whether it be Nashville, LA, New York,
Chicago, wherever, like if you kind of have a central hub where
all the musicians are like you're kind of kind of find your

(25:52):
people. Either way, everyone figures out
who to gravitate towards. And so I think we've all ended
up in the right spot for the most part, you know, and it's
been great. Did you meet Ashley Cook at
Belmont? Yeah, I met Ashley.
It's funny, her sister Jen just turned 30 the other day and we
were at their parents house celebrating Jen's birthday.

(26:14):
But I was telling someone at theparty I was like, yeah, I met
Jen and Ashley at like a house party in College in my first
couple of years at school. And I would assume this is
public knowledge, but Ashley andJen, her sister, they were in
like his sister duo when when wewere in school.
And so I had met them as like a unit and we'd, we'd become

(26:37):
friends. And yeah, we've, we've been
close for a long time. Jen and Ashley were both
actually bridesmaids in my wedding.
Oh wow, that's cool. Yeah, that's really cool.
You guys have that song Strangers Together.
What was it like working with her on a on a song?
And what's it like seeing her career kind of blow up recently?
It's got to be cool to see a friend do so well.

(26:58):
Oh man, it's been awesome to seeAshley do so well.
You know, it was funny when whenwe wrote that song, it was pre,
I think even pre publishing dealfor Ashley because that either
did it come out in 2020 or before it.
But we wrote and recorded that song basically as her TikTok

(27:19):
was, was really blowing up. And so it was, it was cool to
see just because, you know, she's incredible.
But when when we did that song initially, you know, it was kind
of just us like hanging out and writing to write it because why
not? But it's been awesome.
It's been awesome to see her really explode here in the past

(27:42):
couple years. And she works so hard and she's
such an incredible artist and writer, But also Ashley is a
really brilliant entrepreneur and business minded woman and
great friend. And so like, yeah, it's, it's
awesome to see. But honestly, I love getting to
hang out with Ash and like talk to her just about everything she
has going on because she, she really is one of one.

(28:05):
She she works incredibly hard and she puts out such great art.
As someone that's trying to do it yourself, it's got to give
you a lot of hope to see someoneso close to you making it work
and being successful. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I think, I think that's just part of being in Nashville, you
know, for a long time. Like I'm I'm at 12 years now,

(28:30):
right. And there are plenty of people
that when we were at Belmont, itfelt like they were way ahead of
me. And I was like, wow, that's
unobtainable, and I'm not going to be able to make it.
And the longer you stay, you know, some people that catch on
early, they kind of don't work out.
Some people that really didn't catch on when we were in school
do work out. You know, I mean, it took me the

(28:52):
better part of a decade to sign my first publishing deal, right?
You know, to get anyone to care about the songs I was writing.
Like Pendergrass. Me and Blake were in music
school together. We were suitemates during
orientation at Belmont. And, you know, he's said this in
interviews that I've seen that, you know, he wasn't writing like

(29:15):
a ton, a ton in college to actively be like a staff writer.
And now he's one of the biggest songwriters in the world.
He just had number one with Jelly Roll this week and he has
like 15. I I think 15 is the actual #15
cuts on the Morgan Wallin record.
What? Wow, that's crazy.
Yeah. I mean, I, I think he's on just

(29:36):
in case, but he's on. Yeah, I think he's on that.
My, my point being, I think he'sgoing to be on like basically
every number one that comes off of that record.
So you know, my my point is, yeah.
The longer you stay here in town, the more that you get to
see your friends in people that you struggled with, right?
Like, we went through the same struggle early on.

(29:57):
You get to see people really reap the the rewards of
persevering and, and staying in the saddle.
And so, yeah, man, it's, it's inspiring.
I've heard a lot of people referto it like a like a class.
You're kind of like in a class of of artists and your
particular class, everybody kindof knows each other and rallies

(30:17):
behind each other and watches each other either succeed or or
struggle. Yeah, I I would say that's
correct. Definitely.
That's definitely a cool way to to look at it.
Callie and I, we went to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of
Fame induction gala last night. We went with Curb my, my
publisher. And so we were there with the
team. But seeing seeing Emmylou Harris

(30:39):
get inducted last night, seeing JJ Kale, Jim Lauderdale get
inducted. And it's a great example of,
yeah, you see these people at the Hall of Fame induction on on
kind of the other side of the career get to get their flowers
and be rewarded but awarded, I suppose.
But yeah, very much so. They were.

(31:00):
They were a similar class. They came up together.
And Rodney Crowell is up there telling stories about when he
first met Emmylou Harris. And it was him and Emmylou and
Susanna and Guy Clark, you know?And it's like, yeah, everyone
kind of has their own class. And some classes end up being
like, legendary within the American Songbook.
And some classes maybe don't make as much noise.

(31:21):
But I think every, every bit of it is just as important within
the fabric of what we do here inNashville.
Like at the end of the day, you're kind of all peers.
You're all peers, you know, it was Brad Paisley got inducted
last night. And it's funny, I was sitting
there and Brad is so humble and so gracious.
He goes, I can't believe you letan impostor into your Hall of

(31:42):
Fame. He goes, I just wanted to be all
of you. He was like, I just wanted to
come to Nashville and be you. You know, you, the songwriters.
And he's talking about everyone else in the room.
Clearly, we all know Brad Paisley is not talking about me.
Like, Brad Paisley is not sayinghe wanted to be me.
But I am at least on my taxes. I am a professional songwriter
by trade, right? Like, that's what I do.

(32:03):
And to hear Brad Paisley talk about and who's one of my
favorite country artists, to hear him say, like, yeah, I just
wanted to be one of the songwriters.
I just wanted to be 1 of you. It like, it genuinely like moved
me to tears. I think in life, people just at
our core, we just want to be liked.
Like we just want to be included.
We just want to be, you know, a part of a club.

(32:26):
And getting to sit there last night and see these Hall of Fame
members get inducted and to be so humble and talk about like
all of them kind of in one way or another mention like, yeah, I
just wanted to be 1 of you. And at this very moment, like,
regardless of maybe not having the same amount of commercial
success as some of my peers, like I am a small part, I am a

(32:48):
member of that club that I've, that I wanted to be in for so
long. And so I turned 30 this week,
right? I've, I've felt very grateful.
I've I've had a couple weeks of just feeling immense gratitude
to just be where I am. Do you ever struggle with that
identity of of your career? Like do you want to be a
songwriter? Do you want to be like in a

(33:09):
group out touring? Like where do you see your long
term career headed? I don't struggle with it.
That might sound arrogant, and it's not.
I feel very confident that I wasput on this earth and given
gifts by God. Why?
Not Sure, But I do feel confident that I was given these

(33:30):
gifts and I was meant to, you know, write songs to create
music to do that, you know, And I think being a songwriter and
being an artist and doing all those things, I think that is
all genuinely one in the same. I think it could come in waves,
right? Some people will have these
seasons of writing all the time and really be deep in, like

(33:52):
being sort of a writer's writer.And then sometimes you're out on
the road and you're being a recording artist.
But I think it's kind of all part of the same pie, if you
will. We could take Chris Stapleton.
I think is is one of the easiestexamples.
Stapleton was here. He signed his pub deal early on
when he got to Nashville and he was writing, you know, Radio

(34:14):
Country songs for Josh Turner and Darius Rucker and Luke
Bryan. At the same time he was in the
Steel Drivers and Tammy Rogers, who's the producer of Troubadour
Blue, she's the fiddle player inThe Steel Drivers.
And so I've gotten to hear a lotof those stories.
But he was having that commercial success on the radio.
He was playing in this bluegrassband with the Steel Drivers.
He ends up leaving the Steel Drivers.

(34:36):
He's writing stuff. He's going for it as a solo
artist. But he also had like the Johnson
Brothers, which was this rock band, which rocks, by the way.
If you've never listened to the Johnson Brothers, they're
incredible. And so he was doing that.
And then the whole time he was still riding and then he cut a
solo record and the story goes like he cut solo records

(34:56):
multiple times that the label was kind of like, oh, I don't
know if that's quite it. And then, you know, he does.
I can't drink you away with Timberlake at the CM as and then
the whole world explodes. But the whole time he was, he
was kind of doing what he was put on this earth to do it just
kind of the pendulum kind of swung his direction and then he

(35:17):
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(36:20):
Old school, not old fashioned. The ultimate experience.
The the pub deal that you're assigned to Rodney Atkins was a
huge part of helping that come to fruition, right?
Yes, that is, that is correct. You know, that's awesome.
Yeah, working, working with Rodney's crazy.
And I mean you, I'm sure you know, especially doing this, you

(36:43):
hear the stories of how hard publishing deals are to come by.
I am a great example of publishing deals are hard to
come by. But we wrote once and we
finished the session and he was like, yeah, I'd love to ride
again. And I was like, yeah, me too.
And then literally the second, right, we were like halfway
through and he was like, are yousigned?

(37:05):
Where? Where's your publishing at?
And I was like, oh, I don't havea deal.
And he was like, well, I want toassign you to a deal, Let's do
it. And I was like, holy crap.
And he and he was true to his word.
He was serious. And so, yeah, I've been in this
deal with Curb and Rodney. We just started year 4 of the
deal. Oh, wow, yeah, Rodney Atkins.

(37:25):
I I kind of got into the countrygame late.
Rodney Atkins was one of the first artists that I heard and I
was like blown away. Like oh wow, I think I like
country music now. Like take a back roads.
I was hooked ever since I I heard songs like that.
And the, and those, those songs are take a back Rd.
Farmer's daughter watching you if you're going through hell.
Like, those are such enormous songs in the context of, you

(37:49):
know, country music, especially the late 90s, early 2000s, Like,
those were just massive, massivesongs.
With the Pub Dealer, are you limited in terms of like you
have a solo EP out and then you have the album with Troubadour
Blue, like are you limited at all With The Pub Dealer, like
how do you work all of these like moving parts that you have

(38:10):
going on? I'm not limited in any way that
I've experienced. You know, I can kind of as far
as being an artist, I can kind of go where the wind blows
there. I mean, that's, that's been
really fun and I think is for mereally healthy to be able to
kind of exercise that creative muscle however I'd like to.
I mean, honestly, the only thingthat limits me is like me and

(38:34):
just my level of organization orlack thereof.
And so a lot of that is just my wife Callie, who works on the
management team with True Blue and then essentially just
manages my entire life just making sure that things get done
in a timely and organized manner.
But as far as artist things in Curb, there have really been no

(38:57):
restrictions. So I guess for someone that
doesn't understand a pub deal, like how does that work?
Is it just strictly like based on this, the songs that you're
writing and then? Yeah.
So, you know, I go in most days of the week.
You know, if we're not on the road, it's it's like 5 days a
week. If we are on the road, that can
kind of shift. But I turn in songs, you know,

(39:17):
to my publisher, they pitch themor, you know, they also book my
calendar. So they'll book me with artists
or people that I haven't met andkind of help expand like that
web of writers that I work with.And so we'll be writing with
artists for their projects are working to pitch for outside
cut. But when you sign a pub deal,
you enter a partnership, right? And so they when it comes to

(39:41):
publishing and ownership, right,there's the writer share.
So like if you and me wrote a song together, right that?
'D be pretty cool. You then like, if we wrote a
song, we would each own half of it, but then there's the writer
share and the publisher share. So you're half of the pie,
right? You then cut in half again, so

(40:03):
half of it is the writer share, half of it is the publisher
share. So if you and me wrote one
together, what would happen is the way the pie would get
divided is you would own your full half writer share and
publisher. I would own all of my writer
share, so a full 25% and then. The other 25% is my publisher

(40:25):
share that Curb and Rodney own, and then I also have like a
percentage of that. And so that is kind of in theory
when people are like, well, where did the publishers get
valued? When you get someone like Craig
Wiseman who, you know, owns Big Loud.
But for this exercise, let's just say he was a regular staff
writer. If he was in a deal where the

(40:46):
publisher owned 100% of his publishing and you know, he was
writing these like mega songs for Morgan and Luke Bryan and
all these guys, then them owningjust the publisher share on
royalties is where all that value comes in.
Is there like a requirement for a certain amount of songs that

(41:07):
you have to provide them? Yeah, I mean, you know, most pub
deals in general at this point are, are like pretty LAX.
I I think for them in general, it's usually like you owe the
publisher like 10 to 12 songs a year at minimum.
But again, like if you and me wrote one together when I turned
it in, that counts as half a song.

(41:29):
You know, like if. So that'd be if you they got one
in that scenario, you'd only be providing half of it at that
point. Yes, like as far as as far as
like what my deliverable is on 12 songs.
So you know them like 9 1/2 songs if you owe them 10
essentially. Yes, yeah, yeah.
So as far as that deliverable goes, I write so frequently that

(41:52):
I blow past that deliverable within the first like month and
a half. There's really never any sort of
concern about me like hitting how many songs I need to
deliver. Because the end of the day,
right, you want more songs, You want more to go back to the
baseball thing. You want more at bats, you want
more played appearances to get ashot at getting the song on a

(42:12):
record, getting the song on or whatever.
So I write as much as I can. You want more Aaron Judge home
runs in World Series. I'll take the Freddy slams all
day. Oh man, that was so awful.
He was such a pain in my ass watching him in the world.
Dude when when he hit that GrandSlam I was at a wedding party

(42:33):
for my buddy. I was the best man in the
wedding and him and his family are all from New York and are
all super Italian and they are die hard Yankee fans and we are
watching the game together. When he hit that home run, I was
the worst person in the world. In that moment.
I dude, I was insufferable. I can only imagine he's probably

(42:55):
sitting there like miserable andyou're like in his face rubbing
it in. Dude I literally was next to him
when he hit it and I grabbed Jason by the shoulders and was
like shaking him screaming. It was it was.
And then he got married the nextday and I gave the best man
speech and we were good, but like I was the worst in that

(43:16):
moment. He's like, just give your speech
and get out of here. Yeah, yeah.
After, after you got out of Belmont, before this pub deal,
you were on American Idol. That's, that's really cool, man.
I'm a big fan of that show. You were on season 18, right?
Yeah, see, I guess it was season18 in my head.

(43:36):
It's just like the first season that it came back, you know,
'cause like the show had gone away and then was it ABC that
picked it up or something? You're on the debut season.
Yeah, I was on, I was on the debut reboot, you know.
But yeah, man, that was, that was a cool experience.
I was, when I auditioned, I was like graduating from college, I

(43:59):
think, and I didn't have a pub deal.
I was, I was playing guitar for other people and riding and like
kind of doing solo stuff. And I was in this rock band
called Sadie Hawkins. And so we're kind of doing
stuff. But honestly, going on the show
just that time was a nice boost of even just, I didn't go very
far. I like got to Hollywood week and
did some stuff there. But when I came back, it was

(44:20):
like super helpful and like landing more meetings and
publishing things because peoplelike, Oh yeah, Daniel, we
should, we should get coffee with Daniel.
Like honestly that was the biggest help of the show for me.
You had no idea that you were going to sing that song about
your sister. I had no idea in that we were

(44:42):
supposed to like get songs cleared.
And I had said on the thing thatI was a songwriter.
And so when they're like, oh, you should play US1 that that
was unprompted and the producershad been like, if you play an
original song, we have to clear it with your Co writers or we

(45:02):
can't air it because we don't have the permissions on it.
And so in the moment, I was like, Oh, well, I have to play
one that I wrote by myself because I I can give permission,
right? So yeah, that was kind of how it
went down. But yeah, dude, that was that
was nerve wracking. I mean, Katy Perry was like
staring through my soul. You're like, what's going on

(45:24):
right now? Seriously, have you gotten the
video yet from Lionel Richie giving you that Whitney Houston
compliment? No, dude.
And I want to find it like I'm still friends with some of the
people that are like producers on that show.
And I'm like, please, please. I know it's in there.
I know it's on a hard drive somewhere like.
Yeah, I heard that you were one of the older cast members on

(45:46):
that show. You like you made you were
making more friends with like the crew than the actual people
on. The Oh yeah, dude.
Because like, you know, I mean, when you go on the road and
you're like a side man and all that, like you kind of make
friends with the crew because all of you were like, suffering
together. And yeah, when I went on the
show, I was like 23, maybe 2223 somewhere in there.

(46:09):
And you know, everyone else on Idol is like 16.
You know, it's all like, yeah, I'm hanging out with.
And even then, like looking back23 super young, but I was like,
I need to hang out with the adults.
Like I got to, I got to go somewhere.
But yeah, man, that's, that was a cool experience.
I I don't know that I would wantto do a singing show again

(46:30):
necessarily, but I'm really gladthat I did it at that time in my
life. Is that song that you sang up on
Spotify anywhere or? Yeah, it's called One Day I'll
Know My Songs. And as far as I know, that's on
like my solo page under, you know, Daniel K Matthew Age so.

(46:52):
That's got to be cool to to lookback at that.
I kind of this project that got everything like this momentum
going for you. Yeah.
Yeah, it was. It was cool, man.
That was a really fun time. Esecially like I said, like I
didn't, I didn't have anything rofessionally going on South.
To have that as like a little boost was nice.

(47:12):
Out of love, That's on the Troubadour Blue album that was
released. That's the wedding song from
your wedding with your wife. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, we.
That's cool. That was me, Brenna Will Stone
and then Natasha Myers. And I just, I'd wanted to write
a wedding song. And which honestly is really
nerve racking, like, 'cause you as a songwriter, you don't want

(47:32):
to write a wedding song that is bad, you know?
But yeah, that's, I love that song.
We still play in the set, like pretty often, but there's a line
in there in the second verse that says when 25 feels older
than it is. And so now when we sing it, I
make the line 29. And I figured just as I get

(47:53):
older be like 25293539 and it'lljust go on until I die I guess.
Well, what's your wife think about being married to this big
American Idol songwriting star? What's what's?
Oh gosh. She's sick of my ass all the
time. She's just tired of.

(48:16):
Me, I'd be tired of seeing the Dodgers hat dude.
You know what though? What's nice is like my wife is
from Tennessee. Is that where you guys met?
Yeah, we met. We actually met in college at
Belmont. It all goes back to Belmont it
all. Goes back to Belmont.
I tried to date her in college and all her friends told her not
to go out with me. And so we didn't start dating
until like 2020 actually. But with her being from

(48:39):
Tennessee, she didn't really have a baseball team.
And so, you know, I'm such a Dodger fan that she's like kind
of become like a de facto Dodgerfan, but she doesn't, you know,
she's not is like deep into it as I am.
So it's good. We have like a Dodger flag
hanging in the front yard. It's great.
I saw you guys years back, you dressed up as Russell and Mr.

(49:01):
Fredrickson. I think that was the year we
started dating and we went down to Texas and helped my family
during Halloween. And yeah, dude, Callie, Callie's
all in. She'll she'll commit.
I'm the one that has to get liketalked into it, but she's she's
in all the time. Halloween's coming up right
around the corner. Any plans for a 2025 costume?

(49:24):
Last year she and I were the mouse from if you give a mouse a
cookie, I would assume somewherein the next week or so here
she's she's going to think of something.
So we we will see. Is that something that you guys
try to do every year or every couple of years or when you just
kind of feel like it? It's just, yeah, if if the if

(49:44):
the spooky season urge hits, we'll, we'll kind of go deep
into it, but it's not like a fully annual tradition by any
means. My my wife has texted me
actually. All caps Halloween costume
Brooks and Dunn. Wait, like this is happening as
we speak? Yeah, she, she literally just
texted me and she said we have to be Brooks and Dunn.

(50:07):
No way. So.
Crazy. I guess that's what we're going
for. I am not tall enough or handsome
enough to be Kicks Brooks or Ronnie Dunn, so we'll just let
her choose who she wants to be and I'll be the other one.
Maybe she's like somehow listening or something.
I mean, she's, yeah, she's on the other.
She's on the other side of the house.

(50:28):
I'm sure she hears parts of it. That's pretty cool.
So she's the other manager of Troubadour Blue.
I saw the some of the videos on social, those are pretty funny
stuff. Yeah.
So Callie Co manages us with Courtney Gregg.
It's been great. Callie started tour managing us
basically in like 2021 on our first run out with the steel

(50:50):
drivers and has been a, I mean ahuge part of the team basically
since Day 1. And in this past year, she got
bumped over to also being in management because she was just
basically doing our our day-to-day operations anyway.
And so we're like, yeah, please,please move over.
And also just take this on officially because we need the

(51:12):
help. So you have like a couple of
different projects out right now, one of course with
Troubadour Blue, the the album Shadow of a Doubt deluxe and
then you also have an EP1 take which came out earlier in
September. How do you how do you balance
all that? And is there like, do you like
feel more rewarding for one overthe other or like how do you

(51:33):
feel about like those multiple projects?
Honestly, I wouldn't say it's one more than the other, you
know, true or blue, we're in themidst of releasing the Heathen
EP with all of these. Like I'm a writer on on all the
songs coming out. And so it's just really
rewarding to get to be part of like the genesis of songs and

(51:56):
then see them as they're out into the world and you know, as
as we get to perform them with the band or honestly with my
solo stuff. The reason I put that out is
Cali had been posting videos of me on her TikTok of me playing
these songs. And in Nashville, sometimes we
refer to these, like, songwritersongs.
They're like, kind of, they're not like the most commercial

(52:18):
leaning and they're not the most, like, catchy, but they're
just kind of like story, like prose style, songwriting.
And she put up a couple of videos of me singing those.
And I was like, yeah, no one's going to care because this is
kind of like my little, you know, heady songwriter stuff.
And then all of a sudden these videos are getting, you know,
like 1000 comments, couple thousand comments, you know,

(52:38):
100,000 views. And I was like, well, I guess we
should put out some acoustic demos, like if people actually
care about this. And so that's what the One Take
EP is. But on the true or blue stuff
right now, like on the Heathen EP as it's coming out, having
Jerry Douglas, you know, legendary do RO player come and

(53:00):
play on James Carey and and to have him come and play on
Mountain Dew and get to do thosetypes of things.
I mean, it's it's pretty nuts. Like it's all of it.
All of it is equally rewarding and mind blowing in different
ways. I liked the the artwork on the
One take EP. That was cool.
Who? Who designed that?

(53:21):
I'm going to be honest with you,a lot of that is my good old
friend AI, and it is based around our cats.
Oh, OK. So we have we have two cats,
Hermione and Salem, and 1 is a black cat and 1 is a kind of
striped calico and. Is there a Harry Potter fan in

(53:43):
the house there? There is Cali.
Cali is a huge Harry Potter fan,but Hermione was named Hermione
before we got her. And.
We just let the name stick, but I had essentially wanted the
artwork to be a combination of the cats and then artwork
inspired by the Josen dynasty inKorea, which was like kind of

(54:07):
the longer lasting dynasties in the Korean eras.
And so that it has a really specific art style.
And I just kind of requested an amalgamation of those things.
And I just kept drafting and drafting until it got to what I
wanted. That's cool.
I like that. I kind of paying tribute to your

(54:30):
culture. Yeah, absolutely.
It's a big part of my life. Not not even necessarily because
like, you know, every day I'm doing like Korean things, but
you know, for me working in country music, working in
Nashville and obviously like, I don't look white.
Like I'm very visually, at leastpartially Asian.
And so I'm like, yeah, that's that's a big part of who I am.

(54:51):
And I'm I'm proud of it. And honestly, that art style I
think is so beautiful. And so to be able to include it
was a no brainer for me. Are you a shoe head?
Are you obsessed with shoes? I, I am.
I really love sneakers. You know, I have a lot of
Jordans sitting behind me right now.
I was going to say, I saw a video.

(55:12):
It looked like you had like a whole wall of shoes behind you.
On some video I saw, yes. Between between Callie and I,
they're there's a pretty serioussnap stack of Jordans in old
school Nikes. Once really once I got married
and we had to like, you know, start planning life things and
buying a house and all that, I slowed up a lot because I was

(55:34):
like, man, we do not have as much disposable income as I
would like to be able to buy things at a high rate.
But yeah, I'm, I'm a big fan. Honestly I just in general am a
big fan about like nerding out about things and going down
rabbit holes. What are some other things that
you do that with? I am like kind of neurotic as

(55:54):
far as like vintage guitar buying and selling and
researching goes. So I am a massive, massive nerd
when it comes to vintage guitars, especially,
particularly Martin and Gibson acoustic guitars from like the
40s to like the mid 60s. And so, I mean, there's that,

(56:15):
there's the shoes. Sometimes it's cars that'll kind
of come and go. Right now.
It's it's Pokémon. Oh, it's.
Just I just found some old Pokémon cards the other day
actually ironically. It is my friend Jason, the one,
the Yankee fan that I was the best man in his wedding.
We were talking a few months agoand I was like, Jason, should we
start like trying to buy some Pokémon cards and like flip

(56:39):
them, you know? And I was like, should we just
be degenerates and like be thoseguys?
Jason was like, I don't know, man.
And I was like, well, OK, well, just think about it.
And I had kind of said it as like a just a passing thought.
And then dude, we're like, what,two months in now and Jason's
texting me every day. He's like, dude, look what I
bought. Like he he hasn't sold one

(57:00):
Pokémon card. He's just gone full adult child
and is amassing his dream collection from his childhood.
And I was talking to his wife the other day and I was like,
Shelby, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that I dropped this
into your life. He forgot the most important
part. You're supposed to sell him.

(57:21):
No, dude, Jason, Jason, listen, he works in accounting.
He has a real job. Shelby has they're fine.
Like they can they can go for itand he can just make his
collection. But it yeah, yeah, dude, I have
a good time. We have.
I've been told by some people though that those original
cards, they're pretty lucrative.I mean, they can be, you know,
depending on condition and how they were stored and all that.

(57:45):
But it's like, it's kind of likewith anything, right?
When people like, well, if you have an original Beatles record,
like if you have an original pressing of the White Album, it
could, it could sell for X amount of dollars.
I'm like, yeah, if it was like pristine, you know, if it was
perfectly capped and never touched and never, you know,
dust never got on it. And so that's always like it

(58:06):
happens. It happens every once in a
while, but, you know, the cases where those things are like
completely untouched and still meant are, you know, decently
rare. Well, I'm definitely excited for
for the future of, of your career and everything that you
have going on with Troubadour Blue Man.
I appreciate it man. Thank you.

(58:26):
You said that you guys have likemore projects in the works that
are going to be coming out soon.Yeah.
So we're about to wrap up the release of our EP Heathen.
We have a song coming out this Friday, which is the Holler
version of James Carey. So it's one of the songs we put
out a couple months ago, but thebluegrass version.

(58:48):
And then we'll do the Holler version of Heathen, which we
just put out, and that'll kind of wrap up the Heathen EP.
I think we're doing some Christmas songs, so we'll do
those and then next year we havea full length album that we'll
be putting out that we haven't announced the name of yet, so I
won't mention that. But we do have a full length
record coming out. So that's what's going on with

(59:08):
Troubadour Blue. And right now we're in the midst
of the beginning of Grammy voting season.
And I have a song with the Steeldrivers called The River Nose.
I wrote that with Hall of Fame member Tom Douglas and bluegrass
Hall of Fame member, I think Tammy Rogers.
So that is being sent as American Roots song of the year.

(59:31):
And then the album Outrun by thesteel Drivers is being sent as
Bluegrass Album of the year. And I have two songs on that.
And so hopefully, you know, by the time this airs, those things
have gotten pushed through and maybe we're looking at some some
Grammy nominations because that would be a nice feather in the
cap. Yeah, this episode is set to

(59:52):
come out on Friday, October 10th, so it sounds like they
will have some new music to go check out after they listen.
Yeah. That'll be great.
Yeah, the new James Carey will be out October 10th and yeah
man, just keeping things truck and over here.
That's exciting, Yeah. Sounds like you definitely have
a, a lot going on a jam packed busy schedule and that's that's
really good. Well, Daniel, it was a lot of

(01:00:13):
fun having the opportunity to chat with you.
I think this was an awesome conversation.
I really enjoyed it and I hope people learned a little bit more
about your story and and go check out Troubadour Blue and
and some of the solo stuff that you have out as well.
All right brother, I appreciate it.
Thank you for letting me ramble on.
Oh I, I love the stories to be honest.
So I don't see it as rambling atall.

(01:00:34):
I'm I'm all in on the on the storytelling.
Oh thanks man. Well, I appreciate you having me
and hopefully we can catch up again soon.
That's going to do it for this week's episode.
And even though he's a Dodgers fan, I still really enjoyed
talking with him. Daniel Kim Etheridge on the show
this week. Thank you so much Daniel for
making some time for us and and chatting.

(01:00:57):
And I just really enjoyed getting to know him.
And I hope you enjoyed learning more about his story as well.
Coming along for the ride on this week's episode with with
Daniel. If you'd like to learn more
about Daniel, Kim Etheridge and the troubadour Blue, you can
head to his website danielkimetheridgemusic.com or

(01:01:17):
look him up on on social by heading to AT Country on Deck.
You'll be able to find his Instagram account.
He'll be tagged on our out now post for this episode.
You'll find that on our on our profile grid.
I'm sure we'll throw it in the Instagram story a bunch of times
as well. We'll be back next week.
We have another rising country star on the show next week, next

(01:01:40):
Friday. So make sure you hit that follow
button on the platform that you're listening on right now so
you don't miss it. And and when you do that, we so
appreciate it. Welcome to the country on deck
family. I'm Josh Maddie and until next
Friday until next week. Thanks so much for for
listening. Take care.

(01:02:06):
Kick off your boots and settle in country on this.
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(01:02:34):
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this we're tuning in Well, the new star stories are coming in

(01:02:55):
from a small. Thank you so much for listening
the Country on Deck with Josh Maddie.
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