Jonny James

Episode Transcript
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Jay Franze (00:45):
And we are coming at live.
I am Jay Frenzy, and with metonight, the Robins, my Batman,
my beautiful co-host, MissTiffany Mason.

Tiffany Mason (00:56):
Good evening.

Jay Franze (00:57):
If you are new to the show, this is your storage
for the latest news, reviews,and interviews.
So if you would like to joinin, comment, or fire off any
questions, please head over toJFrenzy and dot com.
All right, my friend, tonightwe have a very special guest
with us.
We have a very special guest.
We have a country musicrecording artist.
Hailing from the great state ofIndiana, we have Johnny James.

(01:20):
Johnny, sir, thank you forjoining us.
Thanks for having me.
Although she told me you werethe Robin to her Batman before
we came on.
Either way, I get to weartights.
Okay.
Cool.
I don't have any pants on, sodisturbing.
We're disturbing.
We've taken a left already,folks.
That's all right.

(01:40):
Okay.
Sometimes you gotta weartights.
There you go.
All right.
Let's just jump right in, myfriend.
We know you played football.
Can you make a correlationbetween football and your career
now?

Jonny James (01:52):
Yeah.
Big, big, bright lights.
Yeah, I played football allthrough college.
Uh, I played at North Alabamaand Wingate, North Carolina.
So I always thought thatfootball was going to be my
living one day, and found out Iwasn't big enough or strong
enough or fast enough for any ofthat.
So I picked up a guitar again.
So I started playing guitarwhen I was probably 15 years

(02:15):
old, semi-seriously, in somebands around Jacksonville,
Florida, pop punk bands,surprise, surprise.
And um yeah, kind of fell inlove with it, got away from it
when I was in college, and thencame back to it not too long
after.

Jay Franze (02:31):
You have to be very disciplined to participate in
football.
So do you find that you cantake that discipline and apply
it to your music career?

Yeah, I have to because uh nobody, just like on
the football field, nobody'sgonna believe in it like you do.
So we have a lot of people thatwork for us, which is great.
Um, you know, we've gotmultiple booking agents and all
that kind of stuff.
Um, but I still do a lot of myown booking.
Um, we've been independent fromthe beginning.
We've talked to a few smallerlabels, but just nothing ever
stuck.

(02:58):
I still to this day design ourown merchandise.
We record a lot of stuff backhere.
We still record some inNashville, we go back and forth,
but there's a lot of disciplineinvolved in all of that.
And the booking, the tourrouting, the song releases, all
of it.

Did you make your logo?

I did.
All of them.
Everybody always asks me wherethis one came from.
This is my Heartbeats to theRadio logo, which you can't
really see it, but there's aguitar and a heart in there.
Okay.
My mom, my mom's a nurse.
That's kind of where I saw thefirst one that I thought was
really cool.
And then when I wrote HeartBeats to the Radio, I'm like,
that's the logo.
So it just became the thing.

(03:36):
And honestly, these hats sellmore than any hat that I have
because I wear it on stage allthe time.

Oh, sure.
Love it.

Jay Franze (03:44):
You mentioned you do recording at home, not
necessarily in your home, but inIndiana.
So where do you record inIndiana?

So the last song that we released, uh Worth It
All was actually recorded onit's actually called Yellow
Brick Road.
But um, my bass player, hisneighbor Ron, has a studio.
He's awesome.
And we go in there, and that'sactually where we do a lot of
our even demo takes, anythingthat we're working on, and we're
in the process of.
So, like this whole album rightnow actually is being recorded

(04:14):
there, and then it's beingshipped off to Texas to be
mixed, and then it'll bemastered by Ted Jensen in in
Nashville.
So it'll be mixed by uh TaylorKimball in Texas.
He does a lot of the red dirtstuff.
So I'm a huge Co.
Wetzel fan.
He did all the Co's earlystuff, and then Ted Jensen,
obviously, he does everybody'smastering, so he's just we're

(04:37):
lucky enough to be able to getthat done.
So how do you make thoseconnections?
So the first connection I madein Nashville, Tennessee was
Brian Bonds.
He was a lead guitarist forFlorida Georgia Line when
they're when they were on theirmeteoric rise.
So if you're looking, theblonde mohawk, that's that's
Brian.
But my guitar player, I met himin 2017.

(05:00):
He got brought in by theproducer of that first EP that I
cut.
Who was that producer?
So that producer was JonathanJP Parker.
He toured with Wilco and a fewdifferent acts.
He actually owned seven spinstudios here in Valparaiso,
Indiana, and that's where werecorded the first EP.
But he introduced me to Tyler,who's my lead guitar player, and

(05:22):
he's been my guy since, like Isaid, 2017.
And I had written Smoke in2019.
Him and Brian were close fromtime that they spent in
Nashville together and just kindof running around.
And he was like, Oh, like Isent that song to Brian, he
wants you to come down and likemaybe track it down there or
whatever.
And I thought he was full of itfrom jump.

(05:42):
I'm like, you don't know BrianBonds, and he's like, dude, I
swear, like, he, you know, we'llgo down there together or
whatever.
So Ty and I get in the car todrive down to Nashville,
Tennessee.
And I tell everybody, like, youcannot get in a car with Tyler.
He's the worst driver ever.
He works in Chicago, so he'sthat offensive driver, not my
style.
He's a sucker.
He's like the calmest dudeanywhere else, but in a car.

(06:04):
Um we made it down to Nashvillein about four and a half hours
with him driving.
We pull up to this condo, andI'm like, I'm still like, I the
whole drive there.
I'm like, dude, I do notbelieve you.
We pull up to the condo andBrian walks out and he's like
introduces himself and shows meall the gold records, all the
platinum records on the wall,and I'm like, all right, dude,
like this is legit.

(06:25):
So no, no, no, not just so.
How did you feel at thatmoment?
It was insane.
It's it's so crazy.
Like, even to this day, thereare things in your life, no
matter what it is that you'redoing, that like it it's a door
that opened for sure.
And it was like that was a doorthat got kicked down.
Like just meeting him and thepeople he introduced me to, like

(06:47):
Jake Summers, he's Luke Combsdrummer.
We talked to him a bunch.
Kurt Ozan, who's Luke's pedalsteel player, he played on our
second EP.
Sancho is what he used to beAsh McBride's bass player, he
played bass on the first EP thatwe did in Nashville.
The list is crazy of the peoplethat were on that first, the
first EP that we put out, whichwas the Heartbeats CD, was the

(07:08):
first one we put out down there.
But when we put smoke out, Idon't know.
I still don't know that Iconsider us country, not
country.
Like it's so hard with thegenres, how crazy it is these
days.
So I grew up in the rock world,I love rock music.
Eric Church is like my dudewhen it comes to like bending
the rules and all that.
I think we bend the rules alot.
But that being said, when weput smoke out, it got picked up

(07:30):
by 80 stations, I think, in theUS.
And like for a northern Indianaboy that has no connections to
radio, no connections toanything, it was pretty cool for
us.
And I mean it hit a millionstreams pretty quick, and it's
still obviously our number onekind of banger, I guess.

Jay Franze (07:47):
What genre do you think your music falls under?

I don't know.
The thing is, I listen toeverything.

Jay Franze (07:52):
So Eric Church is country.
Eric Church is country.

And so like I I think we fall into the red dirt
country.
If I had to pick something thatwe were, it would be the
co-wetzels of the world or thesome of the Eric Church stuff,
but like I'm kind of all overthe place.
So I think this next album isvery much like Mocking Bird and
the Crow Hardy thing, where it'slike there's some real country
stuff on there for sure, likeold school country, I like it.

(08:18):
Or we're going back to like thesubtle acoustics and like
nothing crazy, all the way up toWorth It All is pretty.
Like I said, that's the one wejust released.
Like that one's pretty heavy.
It's about makeup sex, sothat's cool.
I I it's not Metallica,Tiffany.
Relax.
I was I was told two rules whenI got to Nashville, and it was

(08:38):
the songs have to be abouteither the F word.
I'm not gonna say it on here,but the F word or fighting.
If it's not one of those two,it's not worth writing, is what
I was told.

So wow, yeah, you got both into one.

I got both into one.
It worked out great.

I mean, it's gotta be platinum.

Exactly.

Straight to the top, baby.

Yeah, I don't know that it's ever gonna get played
on radio, but it's gonna getplayed on Spotify a ton,
hopefully.
It's awesome.

Well, going back to your connections and
everything, I mean, I've alwaysheard, yeah, it's who you know,
but it's really who you knowthat knows who.

Yes, yeah.
Yeah, so we, I mean, like Isaid, I used to crash at Jake's
place when I would go downthere.
He was awesome to hang outwith, and a lot of those guys,
like you would think that likethe bands are like super
interactive with each other, andI'm not saying they're not, but
it's like even knowing some ofthe like offshoots of Luke's
guys or Eric's guys or Ashley'sguys, like you're still six

(09:35):
degrees of separation.
So, you know, we've done a tonof openers, and I love it.
The only person I actually wenton the road with for like a
consistent period was Sam Grow.
We've done like three or fourshows with Chris Jansen, and
I'll be jumping back on with theOak Ridge boys here in Canton,
Ohio in December.
I just opened for them lastweek.
That was a blast, like that wassuch a throwback.

(09:56):
The last two openers I've hadwas Terry Clark and then the Oak
Ridge Boys, and so he called metwo days before the Terry Clark
show, and he was like, Listen,I know you don't usually ask the
artist for like a picture orwhatever, but like you have to
get a picture with her for mebecause that was my first crush
ever.

Oh my gosh, that's so awesome!

Yeah, he's like, it can be my birthday gift, and
I'm like, okay, so I almostmissed the opportunity because
we were at the uh guest cityperforming arts center, which is
an awesome place to see a showif you ever get a chance to get
out that way in Indiana.
But got done, got off stage, orI was getting ready to leave
stage, and I saw a bunch ofpeople like clearing out.
I said something about going tothe merch table and I was gonna

(10:38):
sign stuff and whatever.
And I was supposed to take mypicture with her and then go do
that.
Well, once I saw the place kindof clear out, I'm like, I gotta
go sell stuff.
Like, I can't I don't want tomake people wait, I don't want
to make people miss her show towait for me, whatever.
So I went out there fullyexpecting that I was not gonna
get my picture with Terry Clark,and my dad was gonna not be
happy with me.
So, anyways, I go out there, dothe whole thing, come back,

(11:00):
watch her show, end upbackstage, and she comes off.
She came off, she's just like,Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.
And I'm like, for what?
And she's like, I I just forgotto mention you on stage, and
like, thank you for opening.
And I'm like, you know what?
You can do me a favor rightnow.

So I will play that to my advantage and I will
take a photo with you.

Exactly.
So we got the picture taken,and actually, funny.
So I was wearing that EricChurch shirt, and uh her tour
manager just jumped on EricChurch's team as the production
manager on his tour this timearound.
So she was like, I don't lovethat shirt.
And she was like, she just kindof laughed, was joking about
it.
But it's so funny how many ofthose guys bounce from show to

(11:42):
show and different people.
But her whole team was so cooland laid back, and it's always
fun to have that when you have asuper.
I mean, that's she's asuperstar.
That's not even right, that'snot some you know, flash in the
pan.
Like she's been around a while,and uh her whole team was super
awesome to talk to and hang outwith.
Oh, she is awesome.

Jay Franze (12:01):
No, that's a great one to open for, but the Oak
Ridge Boys, we've had them onthe show here, and we love them,
they're great people.
Oh, yeah.
And I've had an opportunity togo see them several times now.
And I've taken my daughterLucy, which you just recently
met, I took her to the Oak RidgeBoys, and they were so nice to
her.
It was just like you were verynice.

(12:22):
Came up to her, talked to her.
But I'm hoping to go see themwhen they come back through town
again.
So having that opportunity tosee you again.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, the Canton thing is gonnabe fun.
Yes.
However, all the the countrytalk aside, yeah, what was it
like opening up for NightRanger?

Dude, I'll be honest.
So, like that one kind of mademe nervous, only because I
didn't know.
I mean, I you know, I I know abunch of their stuff, but it's
like I know how far out that isfrom like the rock stuff that
I'm talking about.
So when I'm talking aboutmakeup sex and songs and stuff
like that, like it's like I youyou gotta know the crowd.
We kind of did go back to a lotof that.

(13:03):
We did Heartbeats of the Radio,we did Smoke, we did some of
those, and it was an awesomeshow.
I mean, it was a great show forus, it was a great show for
them.
I couldn't believe those dudesstill throw down.
Like, I mean, their stage setupwas sick, their whole thing,
like it blew my mind how muchthey were getting around and

(13:23):
like just doing the thing.
Like they could have been 25,like they were still doing it,
and it was awesome.

Jay Franze (13:30):
So how does it differ from when you're opening
up for a country act?

Um, I mean, we it's just song selection for us, so
you kind of got to see it, Iguess, a little bit at Lori's,
but I'm usually superinteractive with the crowd, and
like I run around all over theplace if if I have the
opportunity.
Like, I just don't likestanding still.
So, like the Terry thing, Iplayed acoustic, the Oak Ridge
Boys thing, I played acoustic.
So, like, I'm just standingbehind a mic, and it's funny

(13:56):
because I still get that weirdlike twitch in my leg.
I get like it's not it's it'salmost like nerves, but it's
not.
I don't I don't know how toexplain it, but it's like just
standing still for so long makesme nervous.
So I don't like standing behinda mic and just holding the
guitar.
I need to I gotta run aroundand get the energy out.
So yeah, um, that's kind of mystyle.
So the yeah, the the NightRanger thing was just me being

(14:18):
me.
It was cool.
Is there any differencebackstage?
Uh no, not too much.
I mean, we've so we got to seethem a little bit.
Most of the time, a lot ofthose guys, like they've just
been doing it so long, they'rekind of hanging out on the bus
doing their thing, and they havetheir own routines, and I just
stay the hell out of the way.
Yeah, that's what it's likewith the Overage Boys.

(14:39):
Yeah, we well, and I get to Iget to actually eat dinner with
those guys.
But for the most part, it'slike I just yeah.
I mean, I know people havetheir own plan, their own thing,
their own it's superstitiouslike baseball.
Like you have to do the samething every day, every show,
otherwise something's gonna gowrong.
So do you have any of those?
Uh I don't really have anysuperstitions.

(15:01):
I mean, I did for a long time.
We would have to take a shot ofsmoke whiskey before I got on
stage, and obviously I told youI've been doing the 75 hard
thing for 51 days now.
So I've played about 14 sobershows, and it's uh it's new.
I like it though.
I've I've told the band alreadywe will do the the pre-show
shot, and then I won't have adrink on stage until I get off

(15:21):
again because I I feel like I Iput on a better show, I sound
better, I can sing the next day.
If we want to party afterwards,we can party afterwards, but I
want to give the crowd the showthat they deserve and they paid
for to see.

So feels like a solid, a solid plan.

Yeah.
Oh, like I said, listen, Ipromise you we're gonna throw it
on after the show.
I don't have to throw it onduring the show.
We're gonna throw it on afterthe show.
Yeah, it took a little bit ofgetting used to as far as like
crowd interaction goes.
You know, I'm I'm prettyintroverted usually, so getting
on stage, throwing on the cape,doing the Johnny James thing was
was different when I actuallywas fully sober on stage, but

(15:59):
but like I said, I do enjoy theshows better.
I know I sound better, I know Ising better, and and I want to
give give everybody the best ofwhat we got.

Okay, I don't know about this cape, so I'm
gonna need to know more aboutthe cape, and then I'm gonna
need to know the origin story ofthe cape.
Please invite you.

So there's there's no real cape.
I have a jersey, I have aJohnny James jersey.
So actually, they're baseballjerseys, which is super funny
because I didn't play baseball,I played football.
But when we when we got intothe designing of the
merchandise, so like I said,I've done all of my own stuff.
When we got into the designingof the merch, I'm like, dude,
like nobody's gonna want to weara football jersey to a show.

(16:36):
Like, even if you buy it fromthe merch stand, like we'll have
people put the t-shirts onright away or whatever.
But I'm like, let's just dolike a button-up baseball
jersey.
And the first one I did, it waslike uh it was a custom just
for me.
Like I was gonna have one justfor me on stage.
Like, sure, this is my mygetup, whatever.
People just started askingconstantly, like, where can I
get it?

(16:56):
Where can I get it?
I'm like, dude, these thingsaren't cheap.
Like, it was expensive for meto get one made, you know.
So now I have to gamble andhope that people buy them.
And we sold out of them prettyquick, and so now people are
asking for more.
And I I always said that waslimited edition.
So we're gonna end up doing adifferent style, I think.
We'll probably do a smokewhiskey one or something like
that.
And I think I want to do like apre-sale on them so that

(17:17):
everybody can kind of pick theirown number.
It won't have to be all 83 onthe back.
You can pick your own numberand and have it'll still say
James on it, obviously, andit'll have the smoke whiskey on
the front or whatever.
But I think if we pre-sellthem, then uh everybody can have
their own customer.

Jay, you can get one with an eight on it.

Jay Franze (17:33):
I can, and just so you know, double X, just
throwing that out there.
All right.
Double X, double eight.

What's the eight about?

Jay Franze (17:41):
That's always been my favorite number, and as far
as I can tell, I trace it backto Carly Scremski playing for
the Red Sox.
Okay.
So then back to 70s, 80s.
I was thinking like Troy Aikmanor Yeah, it's gotta go back to
Red Sox, but well, you know, youmight have missed the boat.

I I I'm just saying, because my daughter went
to the Morgan Wallin concertand came home, and he's got a
picture of like a footballjersey on.
I was like, what why is thiscountry kid wearing the well and
he was a baseball guy?

Right.
Swappity back.
We just switched it out.

Jay Franze (18:17):
A lot of people grab the jersey from the area
they're at.
So whatever city you're at,they'll just grab the football
jersey or the baseball jerseyfrom that city.

Yeah, which is dope.
I uh I've thought about thattoo.
Like we do we do so much in theMidwest, so like we're in
Wisconsin.
The problem is I'm a huge OhioState fan, so I'm not putting on
a Wisconsin jersey or anIllinois jersey or a Michigan or
Michigan jersey.
I'm from Minnesota.
Go blue.

I spent a lot of my married life in Minnesota and
no Green Bay, no Green Bay.

I'm a Saints fan.
It's a sad, sad thing to sayout loud these years, but ever
since Drew's been gone, it'sbeen rough.

Jay Franze (18:53):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, being a Bostonian, we'renot allowed to like anything
that doesn't come from Boston.

That's true.

Jay Franze (19:00):
That is true.

We don't have a football team.

Patriots.
I was gonna say, theyabsolutely have the the football
team of my childhood.
I hate the Patriots because ofit.
Everybody does, I hatefranchises.

Jay Franze (19:11):
Yeah, yeah.

Well, like I told you, my I'm taking my little boy
to the Kansas City Jags game onMonday night.
And he's a Kansas City fan, ofcourse, because he's eight and
he doesn't know any different.
Taylor Swift.
I'm like, bro, I can't.
I just the bandwagon thing.
And I told him, I'm like,listen, I was a Cowboys fan when
I was your age too, so I getit.
Cheerleader.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I remember all the kids had the cowboy big
winter coats.
Uh huh.
Uh-huh.

Jay Franze (19:34):
We're getting confused here again.

Yeah.
This is a throwback show.
Cheerleaders and calendars.

Jay Franze (19:41):
I don't know where you're coming up from these
jackets.
Starter jackets.

Yeah, the starter jackets.
They were cool.
All right.
All right.
Let's talk about Johnny.
Let's talk about Johnny.

Do we have to?
I was gonna say, I was gonnaask the same thing.
We could talk about anythingelse.

Jay Franze (19:57):
All right.
Well, let's go back to theearly influences.
So you you mentioned rock beingan influence of yours.
Let's talk more about thoseartists.
What artists from the rockworld are you drawing influence
from?

So I I mean I was a big Ataris fan, which I don't
even know if you know who thatis.
Probably not.

I thought you said Atari.

The Ataris.
So Chris Rowe was fromAnderson, Indiana.
And I always thought it was thecoolest thing on the planet
that some dude from Anderson,Indiana like got out and ended
up on MTV.

Jay Franze (20:27):
Yeah.

Um, so that was a big one for me.
I loved like Green Day.
I any of the pop punk stuff waslike kind of my my world.
We opened for a lot of coolact, like red jumpsuit
apparatus.
We opened for when I was inhigh school, yellow card.
We opened for when I was inhigh school.

So what was the name of your band in high
school?

I don't want to say.
I'm kidding.
I will tell you.
Uh we had multiple names.
One of them was high schoolheroes.
Uh, the other one was anotherlosing streak, five-man army at
one point.
Okay.
What else?
High School Heroes.
I think we actually cut.
Like there is a CD roamingaround Jacksonville somewhere.

Oh, wow.

That we sold like five or six hundred copies of.

Okay, well, I'm local.
I gotta find it.
High School Heroes.
These does will you sign it forme if I see you in a side?

I'll sign it for you if I can scratch the back of
it up so you can never listento it.

Fair.

You could look at it, you're not allowed to
listen.
I think there was a song onthere called You Broke My Heart,
so I killed your boyfriend.
Like I legit think there's asong there like that.

Jay Franze (21:29):
So that's awesome.

Well, going back to the styles of music, so I yeah,
I mean, I listen to everything.
Dallas Green, he's uh thesinger for City and Color.
He used to be in Alexis onFire, he's Canadian.
I just love his songwritingstyle.
So, like when I started writingmy own stuff early on, um, I
really started paying attentionto just the lyrics and the
stories and like how thingsintertwined and play on words,

(21:55):
like you know, love or hateMorgan Mullen, Love or Hate
Hardy, any of that stuff.
Like, those dudes' word game,it's crazy.
Like their play on words iscrazy.
Luke is his stuff is the samething.
Like, you don't have tonecessarily like their music or
their musical taste or whatever,but like when you actually
listen to the words that they'resaying and how they can twist
it and tell the story in such aweird way and give you a movie

(22:19):
scene, but in a song, like Ilove that.
I love musicals, like I'm anerd, so I think it's the
coolest thing on the planet thatpeople can take a three-hour
show and put it to nothing butmusic.
Like, I think that's soawesome.
I do not have that talent, butI appreciate people that do.

Jay Franze (22:34):
My daughters are into Hamilton, and they're
constantly singing and aroundthe house, and I listen to these
songs, I'm like, how couldanybody write this stuff?
Right?
It's just amazing.

What was the one?
There was one when I was inhigh school, it was probably the
first musical I ever saw, and Icannot think of the name of it
right now.
I wish I could because it'slike a total throwback, but
yeah, it it was the one that wasby the way, just throwing that
out there.
That's yeah, that's more oldschool than me.
No offense.
Yeah, well, I'm much older thanyou.
Gotcha, I wish I could think ofwhat it was called.

(23:06):
I'm gonna get it, I'm gonnafind it.
It was honestly like anautobiography about this guy's
life, and it was just like himchasing this music world, and
like he went all over the place,like he was in Amsterdam and he
was like all over the place,and how he left his family
behind and whatever, and like itwas the one thing he missed the
most and ended up coming back,and like it was just but like I
said, to be able to tell a wholestory, a life story like that.

I agree with that.

Bring it back is crazy.

Yeah, yeah.
I'm a big fan of The GreatestShowman.

I do love the greatest showman too.
My kids see that's the one mykids sing all the time.

Oh my gosh.
When it first came out, I Iwatched it seven times in one
month.
Like I just could not getenough of it, and I love the
music from it.
So but I agree, just when whenthey have such clever words that
you can vividly pictureeverything that's going on, it's
it's magic for sure.

Yeah, well, see, my kids are young enough though,
where it's like, you know,obviously frozen got played a
ton in my house still to thisday.
On repeat.
Yeah, I was gonna say I wasjust about to say it still comes
up from time to time.
But all of my kids, like theythey all enjoy music.
My oldest can sing her buttoff.
She won't she'll never sing onstage.
She did with me years ago whenshe was my youngest age.
So she was probably five orsix, and I stood her up on a

(24:19):
stool, and she her and I sangsome Ed Shearing together, and
uh it was crazy.
She was it was awesome.
I think I got a video of itsomewhere.

I should and she won't do it now.

She refuses.
That girl puts me to shame.
So I wish she would.
Maybe one day we've talkedabout she's she's in sixth grade
now, so we've talked about herjoining choir, doing all this
stuff, and she's just like, Idon't want to stand on stage.
I'm like, what's the worst thatcould happen?
You could fall on your face,dad does that all the time.

Well, I mean, she could be like the voice of a
Disney princess, you know.

That's true too.

Where she doesn't have to be on the stage, but
her talent still gets to shine.

Yeah, so my wife actually in high school, she did
they call it Sandpipers here,but it was like the theatrical,
like it was a lot of that stuff.
Um the plays and the music allmixed.
She loved it.
And our and the high school intown, this town that I live in
now, she grew up in all throughhigh school.
I grew up here until highschool, and then we moved away.
I was kind of a troublemaker.
But uh now, yeah, I know it's asurprise.

(25:15):
Now, but the high school herehas a great music program, and
so I'm hoping we can slowly workher into that.
You know, both my girls dodance, they're both
cheerleaders.
My son plays baseball, likethey're all they stay busy as
all get out.

Yeah, I saw you had a post and it was about
baseball, and then there wereabout I don't know, 60 tags
after, and there was likebaseball family, baseball,
baseball lover, baseball this,baseball that, baseball,
baseball, baseball, baseball.

Well, like I said, it's so funny to me too, because
I always tell everybody, like,so he got a baseball bat for his
second birthday.
I think it was his secondbirthday, and it was one of
those plastic bats and a ball,whatever.
And we were sitting in thefront room, and I just threw one
at him and he broke it.
Nailed it.
Oh, dude.
And so, like, we just startedlike we just messed around with
it forever.
And then when he turned four,he begged forever.

(26:04):
He's like, I want to playT-ball, I want to play T ball.
And the one in the one in townwouldn't let him play.
They said he was too young.
So we actually took him to onetown over, and he's been playing
ball ever since, and he's youknow, he's been playing up in
divisions and stuff like that.
Like, he's cool, he's a beast,but he's a beast because he he
works hard, and I tell him thatall the time.
I'm the dad that just, youknow, I'm like, hey, you're

(26:24):
you're as good as you arebecause of the work you put in,
not because anything else.
God gave you a lot of talent,and that's great, but the work
you put in means a lot more.
So he's out in the front yardall the time just doing his
thing, whether dad's home ornot.

I love a lot of the um social media posts that
you have on Instagram, and itdoes show that mental toughness.
And I think that like myparents didn't talk to me about
that.
They didn't, you know, comealongside me and be like, you
can be anything you want to be,you know, and so I think that
that's something that's kind ofcool to see when parents are
coming alongside their children,and especially you who you know

(26:59):
you have to invest a lot andyou have to be mentally tough,
and you know, you're reallyshowing that to your children.
I would like to know.
Um, I see a lot of it hashtagrise and grind.
What is that all about?

Just getting up every day and doing the thing,
whatever the thing is.
So the mental toughness thingis a huge thing for me.
So my uh my parents, I youknow, they they loved me.
They look and they love meplaying football and all that.
And I remember the first time Iasked for guitar and they were
like, Absolutely not.
My dad was like very gung-hoabout I was never gonna play

(27:31):
music, I was gonna uh And nowhe's getting Terry Clark
signatures for that.
Yeah, not only that, now he'she's my biggest fan now.
So we uh we went through phasesfor sure through my teenage
years and my younger years.
So I just you know, I'm one ofthose people that life's too
short, and there's gonna be amillion people that tell you you
can't do something.
So why am I gonna add to that?

(27:51):
I'd rather be the guy that'slike, why can't you?
Like Derek Jeter made the majorleagues, right?

Jay Franze (27:57):
Like, why can't you?

If it happens, it happens.
If it doesn't, it doesn't.
Same thing with my music, youknow.
Like, there's a million peoplethat'll tell me this will never
work.
Sure.
Okay, that's cool.
I don't I don't needcheerleaders, I need fans, I'll
find them.
So yeah, that's what it is.

So you had your lead guitar player and yourself,
and how did the rest of yourband form?

Yeah, so there's been a few different renditions
of the Johnny James band.
Um so it started, like I said,2017 before I had Thai.
We actually brought the studioband out.
And here, let me go back evenbefore that.
So I was never gonna recordmusic.
I I did a lot of cover shows.
We did, I mean, I did acousticshows in a bunch of bars and

(28:41):
made a lot of money and justplayed nothing but covers.
And then my father-in-lawpassed away in 2017, and it was
kind of a shock.
I mean, not kind of a shock, itwas really a shock.
So he had he had had cancer,and then he was cleared on a
Friday of his cancer, and thenhad a heart attack on Sunday and
passed away.
Like shocking.
Um Wow.

(29:02):
Yeah.
And a few days later, I wroteShotgun in the Sky, and my son
was six months old at the time.
Um, my oldest was three, myyoungest obviously wasn't born
yet, and I had written shotgun,and I wanted, I just wanted to
like memorialize that.
Like, hey, this is who yourgrandpa was.
My my father-in-law, and I saythis at most shows when I play

(29:24):
shotgun.
My father-in-law and I spentmore time together than my wife
did in the first seven years ofmy marriage.
Like him and I did side jobstogether, we drank beer in the
garage together, we snuck outand drove the back road, smoked
cigarettes, listened to musictogether.
Um, when I got hired in at themill full time, I'd ride with
him in the morning listening totalk radio, which I hated at the
time.
Now it's all I listened to, butlisten to talk radio and just

(29:47):
kind of BS and hang out.
Like he was he was one of mybest friends.
And so when he passed away, itwas like a huge shock.
And I just wanted my kids toknow who he was and how
important he was to our familyand and all that kind of stuff.
So I went into JP studio, wentinto Seven Spin, and I said, um
and JP and my dad had known eachother for years.
They went to high schooltogether, and so my dad's like,

(30:09):
Oh, go talk to JP.
I'm sure he'd record whatever.
So I went in, recorded, Irecorded that song.
He's like, What else you got?
And so we did Why We Fight.
We did um Daddy's Arms.
We did um I mean, there I don'tremember what's on that album.
There's six or seven songs onthat EP.
And like I said, it was allliterally just four shotgun.
I didn't care what else was onit.

Jay Franze (30:30):
Mm-hmm.

And then we got invited to play.
I think JP was one of thepromoters on a on the Popcorn
Fest show, which is a big thingin Valparaiso.
If you don't know what PopcornFest is, look it up.
Herbal Reddenbachers from thearea.
So Popcorn Fest is huge.

Yeah.
Um it looked like it.

Yeah.
So he ended up getting us on.
It was a side stage thing atPopcorn Fest.
And I'm like, hey dude, I don'thave a band.
He's like, well, we'll just usewe'll use the studio guys.
And then that's when heintroduced me to Ty.
So fast forward after thatseason, Ty introduced me to
David, my other guitar player,and my neighbor actually was
playing drums for me for awhile.

(31:09):
His name's Pete, but he playeddrums for me for a little bit.
And as we grew and got biggerand started going to in-ear
monitors and click tracks andlike taking things more
seriously, like Pete was like,I'm not really digging it.
He's like, I you know, it waskind of more of a jam band
thing, which I get it.
It's cool.
Like we were taking it moreseriously, and he was more like,
Hey, I don't want to drive toMinnesota and play a show.

I'm like, I do.
So yeah.

So he ended up stepping away.
My bass player stepped away atthe same time.
And then Nick, my bass player,during that time, kind of during
that transition, was actuallyplaying pedal steel and banjo
for me.
So he does.
I mean, that dude's he's just abeast on everything.
So he can play, he can play itall.
He plays dobro, he plays bass,he plays guitar, he plays pedal
steel, he plays banjo.

(31:54):
So he was my auxiliary guy.
And I'm like, hey dude, we needa bass player.
He's like, okay, jumped in,played bass, and he's a beast at
it.
Um so then I had thethree-piece, and I was just
looking for a drummer.
And Joey, my drummer, the lastnot last year, but the year
before, two seasons.
I had Joey.

(32:14):
He was from Fort Wayne, so itwas just a it was a hard, you
know, if we're gonna haverehearsal, if we're gonna add
songs, if we're learning newstuff, if we're tracking things,
it was just a pain.
Um he's a great drummer, and Ithink he's actually touring
with, or not touring with, buthe's playing shows with another
buddy of mine, Jared, andthey're kind of doing the
Indiana thing, which is cool.
But my wife actually introducedme to Elliot, my drummer now.

(32:36):
And she was just like, Hey,like, have you ever and I've
known Elliot for a long time.
I didn't know he was stillplaying drums.
And she was like, Have you everthought about like talking to
Elliot?
And I'm like, Yeah, like I'llI'll call him.
I never called him.
So she three-way calls me andhim, and she's like, Hey,
Johnny's looking for a drummer,you're a drummer, like come do
or like come try out.
And Elliot was all about it,and he came over to the house,

(32:57):
came down to the basement, sawthe setup, and was just like,
Oh, like this is like legit.
Like, yeah, I mean, if we'regonna do it, we're gonna do it.
So we had the light rig set upand all the everything going,
and uh he jumped in and bestdrummer we've ever had.

So oh wow, yeah.
So the group I have nice inIndiana to have a basement.
We don't have those here inFlorida.

Yeah.
Well, you listen, I you wouldyou would think that it's nice,
except for my father-in-law andI built this house seven years
ago.
Well, like I said, right beforehe passed away, actually.
We finished this house, and himand I built it.
We had some subcontracting, butwe did most of the work
ourselves.
This actually, this ceilingbehind me is my pride and joy.

I was gonna say it looks nice, yeah.

It was a pain in the ass.
Um, but uh yeah, so thebasement is flooded like three
times, so it's a nine-footbasement, and the sump the sump
pit sucks, and so I'm like, itscares me.
But one of these days, and likeI said, none of my equipment's
ever been ruined, so that'sgood.
Okay, that's always a fear.

Jay Franze (33:58):
I fear that all the time.

Yeah, dude.
Well, so I ended up, I justbought like a $750 some pump to
uh alert me if anything remotelygoes wrong.
Like we have a generator, we Ihave a full house generator, all
that kind of stuff.
So, and that's the only reasonwhy I have a generator and all
that is because I don't want mybasement to flood.

So good for you.
But also, I mean, you are inthe tornado area, so it's nice
to have the generator in theevent.

That is true.
I have a little bomb bunker inmy basement too.
It's all concrete, it's prettydope.
I'm not I'm not necessarily aprepper, but I can be.

Jay Franze (34:31):
You can be prepared.

I am prepared.

Jay Franze (34:34):
You can't see in front of me.
I got uh you know, the typicalstudio set up here in front of
me with console and monitors andeverything.
And directly to my left is thehot water heater on the other
side of that wall.
So my fear is that blows oneday and I'm screwed.
Or the shower that's rightabove my head with my kids that

(34:54):
don't know how to close a showercurtain.
All these things kind of freakme out a little bit.

Y'all seem to kind of play in playing the
game, huh?

Well, that's it.
Well, the thing is this too.
Like, I'm like, you know, Ihave buddies that are like, oh,
like I live in an apartment orlike they're you know, they're
early 30s, single, whatever.
And they're like, I'm lookingat houses.
I'm like, don't.
Why?
What are you talking about?
Like, bro, if I was single, Iwould not have any of that
stuff.
I would have somebody mowing mylawn.
I would be living in anapartment, like eating peanut
butter jelly.
I don't know what you'retalking about.

Jay Franze (35:23):
That's what I told my wife.
I'm like, why are we gonna geta house?
Why?
Let's just go live somewhere,have someone else take care of
things, and we'll just go onvacations.

I was gonna say, yeah, we'll just bounce around
from place to place.
We'll call it home.
Right.

Jay Franze (35:37):
All right.
You mentioned your influencesin the songwriting ability and
what they did with lyrics.
Can you tell us what yourpractice is when it comes to
songwriting?

Um, it kind of depends.
I mean, so every now and thenI'll just have like a weird
moment where things just come tome.
So like I'll literally I'llwake up in the middle of the
night.
I'm one of those people thathas a notepad by the bed and
just write some stuff down.
More times than not, I've wokeup to like just scribbling and
there's means nothing to me.
Um and I've forgotten, I'veforgotten more great ideas than

(36:10):
I remember.
I always tried to have therecorder with me.
I was about to say from time totime, now that I got an iPhone,
I have the little recorder appor whatever's on it.
And I'll just I guaranteethere's probably 250 on there
right now, and most of themmight be trash, but there's
definitely a couple gems, soyeah, it's usually just like a
melody going on in my head, andI so is it melody first, lyrics

(36:32):
first?
It's usually melody first.
Okay.
Almost always, actually.
In high school, I was reallyinto poetry, like really into
poetry, and uh I tried to turn abunch of those into songs, and
it just felt weird and likebackwards to me.
So I stuck to the melody.

Jay Franze (36:48):
You mentioned the importance of the story of these
people you were takinginfluence from.
So I didn't know if you wrotelyrics first, but even melody is
close to lyrics first.
You start with your melody andthen you craft that into the
lyrics.
So do you do that always beforemusic?

Um, not always.
I mean, it like I said, itreally does depend.
Like every now and thenthere'll be it'll just be a
line.
Like there'll be one thing thatI'm like, oh, like that's a
hook of a song.
Like, I need to write thatdown.
I'll put that in the notes inmy phone and then come back to
it 10 years later and write thesong.

Jay Franze (37:20):
Nice.

That's the other thing.
It like it's never convenient,it's never a convenient time to
write.
So the band and I have talkedabout this winter where I talk
about going off to Michigan fora week and just like sitting
down jamming together, catch acouple not in Michigan, but um
catch some big screen TVs, um,watch some Ohio State.
Listen, Ohio State's gonna winthe national championship this

(37:41):
year.
I don't think anybody'sfighting that.
Yeah, no, there's a I my wifehas a girlfriend that's got a
lake house up there, and she'slike, Oh, we don't, they don't
Airbnb it or anything.
I'm like, well, I will Airbnbit from you and we will yeah, we
will use that because I think Iyou know, I always tell
everybody too, like I run out ofideas.
I'm I'm the least talentedmusician in my entire band.

(38:02):
So if they can come up withsome cool stuff for me to write
to, that would be great.

Well, I think you saying uh it's not convenient
timing or whatever.
I mean, when you're the man ofthe household, you know, you're
worrying about the kids and yourwife and your equipment getting
ruined, and has the houseflooded and is everything
protected, and you know, there'sa lot of responsibility, and
your brain is being pulled in amillion other ways.
That doesn't really allow youto be creative.

(38:27):
You know, you're not you're notcalm enough, you're not still
enough, you're not in thatcreative space long enough to
fully get into creation.

Well, and that was the great thing about, and that
still is a great thing when I godown to Nashville, like we're
there for a week, we don't goout, like I'll go out one time.
I always say, I'm like, listen,we'll go out one night.
It's usually the last nightwe're in town.
Like we'll go hit Broadway,we'll do the thing, unless we're
taking going with somebody thathas never been.
Because if they've never been,like it's a lot more fun.
Right.
I've been a million times, it'sthe same thing.

(38:57):
You're gonna hear the samesongs on Broadway.
If you have a favorite bar,which obviously I do now with
Chiefs, then cool, like we'llhang out at that bar.
But for the most part, we don'twe don't go out every night
when we're down there.
We get to focus on what we'redoing.
So when we record here, if mywife's got an issue with the
house, my son's driving hernuts, she can call me and I'm 10
minutes up the road.
So it's a little more of yeah,you get pulled out of it.

(39:18):
But also, I still work at themill full time here.
Uh my my bass player is stillat the mill full time.
They let me do what I want asfar as my show schedule goes.
I mean, I've taken way too manydays off in the last month
playing shows.
Um but they give me thatfreedom, which is great, and I'm
beyond blessed to have that forsure.
But I mean, I still put inusually between 46 and 60 hours

(39:41):
a week there, and then I'mcoaching little league baseball
and running girls around todance classes and cheerleading.
My wife's in real estate, soshe's you know, her schedule's
crazy.
So it's like yeah, trying totrying to figure out all the
things at once is is always fun.

Yeah, and you guys have three kids?

Yeah, so I have uh my my oldest will be 12 in
November.
Uh my son is eight, and myyoungest daughter will be six in
December.
So they're all officially inschool full time now, which is a
plus.
Ooh, that's a fun one.

I mean, gosh.

Jay Franze (40:14):
Yeah.

Well, we talked for a long time about having
another one, and our kids allwant us to have another baby.
And I'm just like, I I listen,dad's dad's not 40 yet, but I'm
pushing it, and I don't uh yeah,yeah, we're good.
Yeah, family of five is this isthe thing.
When we had one, I I alwaystell everybody this when we had
one, it was you know, two on onedefense.
That's easy.
We go to man defense with two,not a huge deal.

(40:36):
We're in zone defense now, andit's like they all want to do
everything, right?
Like my girls want to cheer,they want to dance, they want to
play volleyball, they want to.
My my youngest is doing likefour different dance classes
right now, and she wants to docheerleading.
I'm like, bro, like that's alot.
Jamma wants to play baseballand he wants to play soccer, and
he's in basketball.
And I'm just like, hey, dadwants to be a rock star, so you

(40:57):
guys gonna have to calm thisdown a little bit.
Let me chase my dreams first,and then nice.
One of us is past our prime,all right?

That is tough though, I think.
You know, like I think asparents we sacrifice a lot and
put a lot on the back burner,and then I know like in my
community of women that are intheir mid-40s, a lot of them are
talking about like secondchapter, you know, and like
they're like, Okay, now it'stime to focus on me.
And, you know, I mean, whycan't we chase our dreams while

(41:28):
the kids are pursuing theirinterests, you know?

Yeah, I think there's a happy medium to all of
it.
I mean, I uh, you know,summertime is obviously a crazy
season for music, it's a crazyseason for baseball.
And so I try to as much as Ican, I try to make shows work
together with wherever he's at.
So if I mean, you know, he'splaying most of his stuff.
It's kind of local, it's notcrazy.

(41:52):
Usually, like I said, we playso much in the Midwest.
Like we're the furthest we Imean, we've done Colorado, we've
done Florida, obviously, we'regonna be back in Florida, but
like we've kind of been all overthe map.
But for the most part, ourseason stay in Illinois, in
Michigan, Indiana, Ohio,Pennsylvania, Kentucky, like
we're not going too, too faraway.

(42:12):
And my drummer loves to driveat night.
That's not true, I'm lying.
But um, but he does it anywaysfor me.
Who else who likes to drive atnight?
So we well, we drove back fromLori's that night and got home
at like 4 30 in the morning.
Here's a story for you when itcomes to being a dad and being a
rock star thing.

Yeah.

He had uh he was supposed to have a game in Crown
Point, which is like 30 minutesfrom me.
It was a tournament, so it wasall weekend long, and we were
supposed to be playing a show inHobart, Indiana, which is like
15 minutes from the venue, or 15minutes from where he's playing
baseball.
Sweet.
Yep.
I can coach him all day, go playthe show, come back, we're

(42:51):
good.
The game got moved to south ofIndy, and it ended up being like
a five-hour drive.
So I took him, the show wasSaturday night.
I I had the girls.
My wife was on a girls' tripwith one of her girlfriends, and
so I had all of them.
My dad ended up flying, flyinginto town to meet me because he

(43:12):
wanted to he wanted to see JMOplay baseball anyway, so it was
good.
But he flew into town, flewinto Indy.
We played the games Fridaynight.
He had two games Saturdayafternoon.
I left Saturday at two o'clock,drove straight back to Hobart,
so the four and a half, whateverit was, five hour drive back,
played the show at eighto'clock, played from 8 30 to 10,

(43:34):
whatever it was, and then drovestraight back down after the
show, and then coached abaseball game at eight in the
morning.
So and we lost, so that sucked.

Probably the coach was not at his prime.

Coach was not awake.
I'm the assistant coach.
Uh, remember the mental stuffwe were talking about?
That's my job on that team.
I I am not the baseball guy forsure.
I mean, I love baseball becausemy son loves baseball.

Jay Franze (43:58):
That's yeah, yeah.
You mentioned Lauri's.
Do you remember that night?
There had to be over a hundredbikers.
Yeah, it was like 150 bikers.
Right.
I mean, I thought that wasinsane.
We pulled up the entire parkinglot was full of bikes.
Yeah.

So I they were doing uh it was a benefit.
I don't know what the benefitwas.
It was like a there wassomething with it.
Because I remember when Jesscalled me and she was like, Hey,
like we're doing this benefitthing, and I'm like, Oh, cool.
Like we just wanted to getback.
So we did uh Battle of theBands, whatever it was, a few
months ago, and the old promotermoved on to another spot.
And I don't know what he'sdoing now, but either way, it

(44:32):
was like we had talked to himthat night about like, oh, you
know, he's like, Oh, we're gonnaget you back out here for sure
and we'll make it happen.
And then he ended up leaving,and Jess came in, and uh we had
reached, I just reached out toher and she was like, Oh, yeah,
like we'll we'll figuresomething out.
And then this thing came up andshe was like, Absolutely.
So yeah, it was crazy though.
There was at least like I said,I think they said there was at

(44:52):
least 150 bikes there thatnight.
I'm like, it was awesome.

Jay Franze (44:55):
I mean, I was I spent more time in the parking
lot looking at bikes as I wastrying to leave.
My daughter's like, look at allthese bikes.
She wanted to go play pool witheverybody.
She's like, Look, they're allover there playing pool.
Can we go play pool?

Right.

Jay Franze (45:10):
What's the craziest thing you've encountered on your
trips around the the country?

Craziest thing.
I don't know.
I don't know what's what's goodand what's not good on here.

Jay Franze (45:20):
Whatever you want.

I don't even know.
Craziest stuff.
Um well, we were playing a showdown in southern Indiana,
northern Kentucky, and it wasprobably three years ago.
So before we bought the thetransit van, so I bought one of
those 15 passenger vans.
We have the trailer, we pulledthe whole thing, whatever.
Before I had that, though,probably three years ago, I had

(45:44):
a Ford Explorer that I used topull the trailer with, and we
blew that thing up on the sideof the road halfway to a show,
and there's pictures of thattoo.
I think my hands are filthy,like I'd look filthy digging
through the hood of this uh FordExplorer.
And we ended up getting pickedup by a couple people and had
somebody else pull the trailerto the show.

(46:07):
So that worked out good.
That was one of the shows wherelike we didn't all ride
together, thank God.
But I'm also one of thosepeople that has to be super
early.
Whenever they tell me I need tobe there, I'm usually there an
hour before that because I justdon't like stressing about all
of it.
Like I'm just like, I want toget there.
Like, once we pull into theparking lot, there's no rush,
it's all like super chill, youknow.

(46:28):
99% of the time, especiallywhen we're opening for somebody,
like their sound check's notdone until 10 minutes before the
doors open, anyways.
Like, we may not get a soundcheck.
I don't care, but I want to bethere just in case.
In case we get one.
Do you have a routine when youare there?
With the 75 hard stuff, Iusually do my five-mile run as
soon as we get to the venue.

(46:49):
I'm kind of running aroundoutside, hoping people don't
recognize me too much becauseI'm sweating and looking gross.
But I usually do that, and thenno, I mean we kind of hang out
backstage.
I can't eat before a show, likeit's really weird.
There's like a time frame, andI still haven't figured out what
it is, but I don't like to eatbefore a show.

Jay Franze (47:06):
No, especially if you're singing and running
around, no way.

Yeah, it's like I'm yeah, I'm afraid I'm gonna burp
into the microphone orsomething to not be able to
breathe.
Nope, I understand thatentirely.

Yeah, yeah, I don't think I don't think fans
dig that.

No.
So I usually I usually tell thevenue I'm like, hey, like if
you're gonna close the kitchenat like 10 and we're not gonna
be off till midnight, like it'scool, just like leave me
something back there.
I'll heat it up later, we'llcall it good.
I don't, it doesn't bother me.
So it's usually pretty good.
Man, see that's the thing, butthis 75 hard, I choke down stuff

(47:39):
I hate all the time.

Okay.

Like, I'm like, I'm not, I always tell everybody
I'm not picky about food becauseI don't, I'm never really
hungry anyways.
Like I never have been.
When I just went and had I Ijust had blood drawn and a bunch
of like stuff, just likegetting prepared for the 75 hard
thing.
They did all these tests, theydid like a resting heart rate
test, they did an active heartrate test, they did the blood
work, and she was just like,Hey, you don't eat enough.

(48:03):
And I'm like, I'm just neverhungry.
Like, I don't, I'm and we'rerunning around all the time,
like I said, between the milland the baseball and the like I
just I eat like once a day.
She's like, That's not enough.
So I've been choking down likeoatmeal.
I hate oatmeal.
It's great.
I don't like textures.

You better be getting your protein in.

That's the thing.
So, like protein shakes, I'mgood with.
I don't mind that.
I've always been a supercarnivore, so I like I like a
good steak, I like burgers, Ilike bacon.
I mean, I'm yeah, I'mdefinitely a red meat eater.
I have no problem with any ofthat stuff.
But for a while there, that'sall I was eating.
And so I was like, you know, Iwas taking in like 1,500

(48:39):
calories of all red meat, andshe was like, Yeah, that's still
not enough.
So yeah, that's honestlyprobably been the hardest part
of the 75 hard.
I thought the not drinking myown whiskey was gonna be the
hardest part, and it ended upbeing the fact that I have to
eat more food.

I have had the same thing.
I have not been doing 75 hard,but it's basically the same
thing, and a lot of meat.
And I'm like, man, I just wantlike I'm a vegetable person, so
I can eat vegetables all daylong, but I gotta get the
protein in to build the muscle.

Jay Franze (49:08):
You heard that, folks.
Tiffany's a vegetable.
Tell us about your whiskey,sir.

Yeah, so I uh we've had the whiskey out for a
couple of years now.
It's been off and on becausewhen we first started, it was
during COVID, and we weresponsored by Bud Light.
We were sponsored by we weretalking to Jack Daniels about a
different whiskey, uh, or not adifferent whiskey, we were
talking to Jack Daniels aboutusing Jackfire and kind of using
them as like promo stuff.
And then the world went mad andeverybody went crazy and

(49:37):
canceled everyone and did thewhole thing.
Although I don't do politics, Idon't do any of that stuff.
I hate all of it.
So uh I avoid it like theplague.
So I wanted to just get awayfrom the big corporation stuff.
We cut a lot of oursponsorships.
I mean, we're still sponsoredby like PRS, my guitars, all
that kind of stuff.
We still have some.
Yes, I love PRS.
But we've been sponsored bythem, by JH Audio for our in-air

(49:58):
monitors, stuff like that, andthey've all been great.
But as far as like the externalstuff, the stuff that doesn't
benefit either one of us for meto actually be involved in, we
pulled the plug on a lot of it.
And I had a booking agent atthe time.
He did kind of some of mybooking and he did a little bit
of my management stuff.
But him and I sat down and Iwas like, hey, like there's this
distillery in town.

(50:18):
Like, let's see if they justwant to have like a
conversation.
And he's former military, theywere military-owned, and so he
went and sat down with them.
They loved the idea, and theywere like, Yeah, like let's sit
down and talk.
So we went in, we went throughlike 18 different tastings of
whiskey.
Uh, I don't know if you knowhow this is supposed to go, but
when you do a whiskey tasting,you're only supposed to like sip

(50:40):
it, like it's not they're nottaking shots.
Well when you're with a band ofKentucky, we have a lot of
distilleries here.
Yeah, when you're on yes, whenyou're in a band with a bunch of
hoodlums, uh you take them likeshots, and we did.
Like it was, I mean, the firstthe first night we were there,
I'm like, dude, like Isomebody's got to drive me home,
and I'm like three miles up theroad from my house.

(51:01):
Um, but we did like so I guessflavor profiles really worked
out that night.
Exactly.
So we went through a bunch ofdifferent tastings, and then he
was like, uh Vern owned DunlandDistillery.
He was like, Well, do you wantto try an old like a smoked old
fashioned?
And I'm like, Yeah, like I'dnever had one smoked, like I,
you know, whatever.
Like I always tell everybodyI'm not a kind of sewer of

(51:22):
whiskey, I just know what Ilike.
And so he smoked this oldfashioned with uh cherry and
applewood, and I'm like, dude,if we could get that smoke in a
bottle, like it would be what Iwant.
And uh it's got a little hintof cinnamon because I was a Jack
Fire guy, and I always toldhim, even when we started, I
said, Listen, this can't befireball.

(51:43):
I hate fireball, I've neverbeen a fan, it's too like thick,
and I didn't like the textureof it, and like whatever.
So, anyways, we get through thetasting, get to the one that
I'm like, this is absolutely it.
I love it, it's perfect.
He had a mason jar over off tothe side that just said control
on the side of it.
And he's like, We'll take ashot of that and see, you know,
what just compare them.

(52:03):
And so I took a shot of it, andI'm like, dude, I said, Is that
fireball?
Because that is disgusting.
Like, I can't, like, I told youI couldn't drink this stuff,
like I'll be hung over tomorrow.
And he's like, No, that's JackFire.
And I was like, Okay, well, wegot it right then.
So we were with them for ayear, and uh we ended up sitting
down January 2020, no, January22, and we were talking, and

(52:27):
he's just like, Listen, we can'tkeep up with the demand right
now, like we can't there's wehave 42 stores that we can't put
enough in stock, and he's like,I think you need to find a
bigger distillery and see whatyou can do.
So Journeymen Distillery, Idon't know if you've heard of
them or not, but they're apretty big deal.
They have their firstdistillery was in Three Oaks,
Michigan, and then they justopened up one in Valparaiso.

Oh, convenient, yeah, which was perfect.

It was perfect timing, everything.
And so I'm like, I had reachedout to some people I knew, and I
was like, hey, like, what arethe chances that I can get the
owner's number?
Everybody's like, Bill's notgonna want to talk to you.
Like, he they don't do that,they don't do the you know,
consignment thing, they don't dothe contracting out thing, like
you know, whatever.
And I said, Listen, same thingas always, I'm not afraid of a
no.
You know, I'd rather try andshoot my shit.

Isn't it amazing how many people are afraid of
the no?
Yeah, like what is the worstcase that's gonna happen?
You're gonna be right where youare right now.

Exactly.
I've heard no way too manytimes for that to even slightly
affect me.
So I agree.
Yeah, so literally, we Ben andI went and sat down with with
Bill and I showed him thenumbers.
I let him try the whiskey andhe's like, let's go.
And so I went through with hislike head distillers and we
remade Yeah.
I mean, so honestly, the secondone's better than the first

(53:44):
one, in my opinion.
It's a little it's got a littlemore of a bite to it, but I
always tell everybody if youliked the first rendition and
you don't, you know, you thinkthe second one's got a little
too much of a bite, put an icecube in it, it's the same stuff.
You just gotta water it down alittle bit.
But no, it's it's awesome.
I love it.
And that's why I said, like, Ido miss it.
I'm not saying it's not hard tonot have it for 75 days.
I am saying that uh um it'syeah, I just I love what it is,

(54:08):
I love the product, and I'mproud to have my name on it.
And like I said to you, anybodythat's like a connoisseur, we
haven't had anybody like sticktheir nose up to it and tell me
they don't like it yet, butanybody that does, that's okay.
Like, I'm again, I'm not awhiskey connoisseur, I just know
what I like.
So it's 80-proof whiskey.
We call it trouble on stage,but how do you market it?

(54:29):
So we've been doing the socialmedia thing.
Honestly, like right now, Ihave to I have to figure out the
distribution side.
So when we were with Dune Land,they did self-distro, which was
super easy.
Obviously, like we just calledstores and whoever wanted to
pick it up, we would go in, we'ddo tastings, I'd take my
guitar, sing a couple songs,we'd sign bottles.
But then when we switch over toJourneyman, now it's like a

(54:52):
completely separate entity.
So it's not a journeymanproduct, it's a Johnny James
Spirits product.
So I own it 100% now, which isgreat, obviously.
But the distribution side's alot harder now because I'm an
independent one whiskey company.
So we've been looking fordistribution.
I mean, the sales have beengreat through just the

(55:13):
distilleries themselves, and Ithink we've actually been
selling more in Three Oaks,Michigan than we have in Valpo,
which is kind of surprisingbecause we've been doing, I
mean, we've been doing solid inValpo, and obviously it's one
town over from me.
So anybody that knows me knowswhere to get it.
But I think that speaks to theproduct too.
The fact that it's sellingbetter in Michigan than it is
right here in my backwoods.

So now is it in Florida?

It will be in a week.

Okay, good.
Because I'm looking forward totrying it.
You guys, if you are listeningand you're local to
Jacksonville, Johnny James isgonna be in our area on Tuesday
night in Orange Park at fiveo'clock at Locals Pub.
Mark your calendars, join me.
I am so excited to meet you,and I cannot wait to try this

(56:02):
smoke whiskey.

Yeah, I can't believe how small the world is.
Like the fact, like I rememberI was looking at your guys'
stuff, and I'm like, wait,Jacksonville.
Like, oh, okay.
So yeah, like I said, I went tohigh school down there.
I went to high school at OrangePark and crazy.
Played football there for myfour years and then once he went
off to college.
But yeah, my whole family'sstill down there, and like I
said, I'm taking my boy to theJags Kansas City game.

(56:24):
He's a big Chiefs fan.
Sad, sad.

Is he gonna be okay when the Jags beat the
Kansas City Chiefs?

Listen, the fact this could be the year that
there's a chance that thathappens.
Uh, I don't think it's gonna,but I mean three and one.

I don't know.

I did tell him, I said, my little brother is a
huge Colts fan, and I rememberback when I was in high school,
we went to a game, he waswearing all of his Colts gear.
And like I said, I'm a Saintsfan, but I I I'm a pseudo Saints
fan.
Like I love the Saints, but Ilove good football.
I don't care who's playing, Idon't care any, like I I'm more
of a fan of the players than theteams.
So once Sean left, you know,when when he left and when Drew

(57:03):
left, like the Saints were kindof just the Saints, but I don't
really wear gear to the game, soI'll just wear my normal get
up.
But he was wearing a Coltsjersey to that game, and like we
almost got in a fight with Jagsfans.
Like the Colts won the game.
We almost got in a fight withJags fans.
I'm like, man, like with allthe crazy stuff going on with
the kids these days at sportsevents, like I may or may not

(57:25):
throw down at the Jags stadiumif uh things start popping off
of my son wearing his chiefsuniform because he's gonna, I
know he's gonna wear his jersey.

Yeah, yeah.

And I'm just like, man, the world's so crazy
anymore.

I know, they'll pick on a little kid.

I can't stand it.

I know.

I'm like, you're you're an adult.
Like, what I don't I don'tknow.
I don't get any of that stuff.

Yep, yep.

World's gone crazy.
World's gone crazy.

Jay Franze (57:49):
All right, sir.
We do this thing here we callUnsung Heroes, where we take a
moment to shine light onsomebody who's worked behind the
scenes or somebody who may havesupported you along the way.
Do you have anybody you'd liketo shine a little light on?

Yeah, my mother-in-law.
Tell us about it.
I've been super blessed to haveas many supporters as I've as
I've had.
I mean, my wife, the fact sheputs up with all the crazy stuff
is awesome.
My dad finally came around, butmy mother-in-law from day one,
I remember when my wife and Iwere dating and we might have
been engaged at the time, butshe had heard me singing and she

(58:21):
was, and I wasn't playing onstages, I was just playing
guitar at the house andwhatever.
And she was just like, What areyou doing?
Why aren't you playing music?
Why aren't you doing the thing?
And and her and myfather-in-law both were really
instrumental in like pushing meto do the thing, like go get on
stage, and reminded me what Ilove about doing this thing.

(58:42):
I always tell my wife, like, Ihope God never takes it from me.
I hope I never have to give itup because I don't know who I'd
be without it.
And I don't, you know, I don'tclaim it as like without the
music, I'm nobody.
I don't think that.
I just know that how much it'sjust brings you that much joy.
Yeah, yeah.
It's such a release for me, andjust pouring out all the
things.
And and so, yes, I'm gratefulto her and grateful to my

(59:03):
father-in-law, and like I mean,all of them.
I'm surrounded by people thathave that have helped me make
this thing happen.

Jay Franze (59:10):
All right.
We have done it.
We have reached the top of thehour, which doesn't mean we have
reached the end of the show.
If you've enjoyed the show,please tell a friend and Miss
Tiffany.
If you have not, tell two.
Tell to.
You can reach out to the bothof us or all three of us over at
jfrenzy.com, where we will behappy to keep this conversation
going.
John Easter, we cannot thankyou enough for being here, and

(59:32):
we would like to leave the finalwords to you.

Hey, I appreciate the opportunity.
Thanks for uh for hanging outwith us, and uh, let's do it
again real soon.
All right, tomorrow night it isbet.

Jay Franze (59:44):
All right, folks.

Tony Scott (59:44):
On that note, have a good night.
Thanks for listening to the JayFranzi Show.
Make sure you visit us atjfranzi.com.
Follow connect and say hello.

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