Episode 217 with John Rich & Dugger Band

Last week, Dugger Band took the internet by storm after brothers Seth and Jordan Dugger shared a video reading an email that WSMV-TV in Nashville sent about their new patriotic song "True Colors." The brothers were set to perform the self-penned and John Rich-produced track on Today in Nashville, but were told by station management that the lyrics were deemed too "politically biased" and recanted their offer for that song.

Blindsided, the brothers contacted Rich who advised they should not appear on the station at all. Instead, Dugger Band and Rich shared messages on social media that went viral and shot their song to No. 1 on the independent download charts.

"I think WSMV probably had no idea that I had produced this record because if they would have known that my name was attached to that, they would have known all hell was about to rain down if they made the move that they made," Rich tells us in an interview. "But I'm glad they made it. Know why? Because it pulled the curtain back on that television station, WSMV. They're total cowards. They will not answer an email. I have friends in conservative media who have called them multiple times. Guess what they do? They hang up the phone the second they ask the question. So, They're weak. They thought they could kick the Duggars around because the Duggars aren't a big act yet. They thought they could get away with bullying somebody and shoving them around. And they didn't get away with it. And the result of it was these guys go number one on the country download chart. So, hell yeah."

The Duggers said the song was written to unite, not ignite, people.

"We wrote the song trying to bring people together," they share. "We didn't see it as a political issue at all. We saw it as a patriotism type and so we wrote the song with that in mind. And whenever they scheduled us to come perform it on the show and we were excited about doing it. We told our fans, 'Hey, we're going to be able to go on this news network in Nashville and perform this full band on the news.' And it was just about a day and a half, about 36 hours or so before we were supposed to perform, whenever we received the email that they had determined that it was too politically, divisive, I guess, to be able to play it. And we still don't know what lyrics they were talking about, because we wrote the song with patriotism in mind."

The Music Universe has reached out to WSMV for comment, but still has not heard back a week later.