July 23, 2024 • 51 mins
Bobby Bones sits down with Ashley Monroe (@Ashleymonroemusic) for this week's Bobbycast! They talk about her new song "Hot Rod Pipe Dream," and how she chases inspiration for her music. She opens up about The Pistol Annie's reuniting and other singer songwriters she's currently working with. Ashley also gets vulnerable about beating Waldenstrom Macroglobulinemia, a blood cancer doctors discovered after finding her anemic during routine blood work. She also talks about her friendship with Jack White, why she doesn't drink anymore and reveals when her new album will come out and more!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I would get up and just do rocky talk you
see tutsis And actually that's how somebody ended up hearing me,
and words started getting around randomly.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome Everybody, episode four sixty two with Ashley Monroe. Such
a good songwriter, a wonderful artist. Recently, you know, she
said she was making a fresh start because she had
a cancer battle, which was in the news for a while. So,
I mean, I've known her for a long time, and
to be honest, we hadn't talked in a while. But
it's one of those things where you have someone on
(00:39):
social media and you just kind of follow along. I
think I sent her a couple of messages when you
know she was sick, but or when I heard about it.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
But it was really good to see her. If she's
married to a former.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Major League Baseball player, which school, that's cool, right, it's
cool that meet your kids probably.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Already get in sports, right, all right? Or both?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, it'd be awful if I use it me and
my wife. For example, she's not pregnant, but if the
kid got like my athletic ability, that would suck for
the kid and like get missed out on hers. So
she has a new single called hot Rod Pipe Dreams
out now. Super cool new album coming out at the
beginning of the year. She's on tour with a Little
(01:15):
Big Town in the UK, and so I don't know,
let's just get to it. She's from Knoxville, Tennessee. She's
great here.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
She is.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Follow her on Instagram at Ashley Monroe Music. It is
Ashley Monroe. Ashley good to good to see you, so
good to see you. It feels like I don't know,
I mean, I feel like I know you. It's a
weird dynamic I have in my mind with you, right,
because we don't see each other that often, but I
feel like when we see each other it's so comfortable
almost immediately, because I think we knew each.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Other way early on in my time here.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, right, And so that feels like we have a
long term friendship where we don't ever see each other.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah in text here and there, like always like figure
my stuff or see you in Vegas when we were
I was coming home from Miranda show.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, it never feels like, uh, it just feels like
if we're we don't see each other for a long time,
which is off in the case, that is just.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Normal immediately and we don't have to do all that, like,
oh god, hey, we don't ask how have you been?
You know what? We sure didn't do that, didn't we.
I was like, what's up? Your hair's cool?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I mean, that's all. What's what's in front of us?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
How your boots are cool? In your promo picture though,
I was looking at that thank you? Do you do
you have O those yours?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
I got those. I've been on this kick where I
am just hunting down like the best vintage pieces I
can find, and I just can't get enough. I mean,
some would call it a problem, but you know what
I mean, I just I love like the soul of clothes,
and so I get these things in my head, which
I had those boots in my head for a vintage
(02:49):
from the sixties, never been worn exactly my.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Size, never been worn.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
But those that are listening and not watching, they are
like red, white and blue stars going up and kind
of wrapping round, but they go.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
They're basically knee high boots. They haven't been worn at all.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
No, not one scratch on the bottom. Nope, It's like
they're made for me.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Where did you find them? E's? Oh yeah, do you
do eBay at all?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
No?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I don't ever do eBay.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
I never did debay, and it came into a lot
of memorabilia sports memorabiliya. Yeah, and so I had too much.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Oh yeah, and I came into I mean I bought
it yeah right, yeah, and so.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I was like, I'm gonna sell some of a bag
because it was just like fun for me to acquire it. Right,
So I got a part of the eBay culture, but
never used to die.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
They're right, it's been around for twenty years or whatever.
I never have used debay.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
But now I get on eBay and I just type
in a keyword and I click ending soon and I'll
buy stuff by stuff I don't even need, but just
because it's like a lower price than it should be.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Yeah. Yeah, it's a problem because I don't need it
to steal, but I try to get the steal.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah. Well, because you're thinking you can resell it, sure, yeah, yeah,
I mean we think that.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Then they have to say that.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
The eBay premium or I just like it and keep it. Yeah,
when I never had the plan to do that.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, I get it. My husband has signed helmet from
every team that's cool in the NFL. But guess where
they're at in that attic because where you.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Put that, yeah, well know where my wife would let me.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
And that's why, right, that's why exactly you all would
put them around. But they're not as cute.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I'd be in the living room if it weren't me
decorating the house. I would have posters and helmets.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
So with John, for sure, he a big sports guy
just in general.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Oh my gosh, he loves sports. You know. He used
to play baseball, used to pitch for the White Sox
for ten years, and he just he loves sports like
I love music. And it's funny how different our brains are.
Well really, that's the end of the sentence. It's funny
how different our brains are.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
He has he hasn't been married for how long now.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Two thousand and thirteen? Is that almost eleven years?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yeah? And he's not pitched in ten years.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
No, he pitched four ten years, got it?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Uh huh?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
And he hasn't pitched in about five years? Is when
he retired?
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Does he miss that part of his life?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I think he does.
Speaker 5 (05:08):
I mean, doing your whole life.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
I'm assuming too, Like it's.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah, you know they're this big and those are their
friends when they're with them all day, they travel with
them has and the Lows. Yeah, it's yeah, it would
be hard. How'd you get when will we met at
Joe's Pub in Chicago, Ed?
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah. Were you playing a show?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I was with Miranda. I think that the Antie's modest
thing that night.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, yeah, what's that happened? What's happening with that? Do
you guys do anything? Are you guys ever talk about
doing anything? Again?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Well, I mean I feel like it's always like out there.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
But it's never not happening. But it's never happening, right,
It just exists if it wants to exist.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, yeah, that's cool. I was happy I knew you
before the Anti's though. To be honest, I just got
cool when you came around as a nanny. I was like,
I already know Ashley, so I don't have to.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Like be like, oh my god, this is no star struck.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah right, yeah, it's cool. You got a new song
out hot Rod Pipe Dream. It's out now Forward. It's
a lot of syllables, I know, it really is.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
I wrote it with Brendan Benson, who is one of
my dearest friends. He's the lead singer of rack and
Tours and he's old. He's an old friend of mine
and we just write so well together. And I was like,
I want to make something sound like the Beach Boys,
but now you know rock and.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Roll racking tours. But was Jack White and racktors for
a while. Yeah, he's not anymore though, Yeah he is.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
He.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I mean they're kind of like the Anies actually got it.
It just goes record and then where do they go?
We don't know. They're still friends, they still hang out.
When did they go again?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
And they both sing?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, yeah, they they both sing lead a lot.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Jack White, you ever met him? You know? Oh?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, I know him because he It was in two
thousand and eight. He reached out to me because he
heard me on WSM in his car, heard me on
the Opry, and he wanted me to do this thing
the Racontours and Ricky Skaggs. So I readd a song
with them.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
That's cool.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, So he's been a friend since. And then I've
been on the road with the Third Man Band and
wanted Jackson when he produced that record.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Did I never met him? I've been a fan since.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I mean, obviously I'm a fan if I know he's
Racing Tour, but so obviously White Stripes Jack White Solo
Racking Tour. Any of his projects, I at least check
out some of them. I love some of them. I
like right right, But I've never met him a person.
Is he really because I'm I'm pale as crap? But
is he really pale in person?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yea?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Like I respect that because I don't want to see
the sun ever. Yeah, I have no interest in the sun.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
So opposite and it's gonna.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Yeah, you're extremely tand like I don't.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Have to have so much work done.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
That's okay.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
I have spray tan too though.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Oh yeah, spray town to fix it all. Yeah, I'm
just I'm an enemy of the sun.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, and that's wise.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
You know, I don't like it. I feel like and
so I've and I've never drank.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I would like to drink, seems fine.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
I don't drink anymore.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Really, but but I would like to have drink.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Maybe I don't drink anymore, but maybe I would have
liked to have had you have drink. I just I
don't know how to relax, so, but what I do
know how to do is be addicted to everything. So
I know, you know, I've never drank. But since I
haven't drank and I haven't been in the sun a
whole lot, I felt pretty good about my chances for
like for like a pretty like unless something like hits
my bus hits me, I feel.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Pretty good on my life. Really. The only thing, yeah,
why do you stop drinking?
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Because I just started noticing I didn't like how I acted,
what I said, how I felt, what I did like
everything about it. I started going, I don't even like,
I don't like how it tastes. For sure, I'm like,
what what's the point?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
And you know, so what was the point? Is? Everybody
else was doing it?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
It was so much fun, that's what I wanted. That's
so much fun.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Okay, now I want to drink again.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I know. But when you have stuff to lose, the
fund's not worth it. That's the thing that shifts in
life is like, oh, well that's so dumb. The fight
you had when you're wrong, or all those things that
you're young and care free.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
It's just like, whatever what happens with your mind? Does
it ever? Stop making music? Can you take a break.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Either psychologically emotionally however, and just go I'm not gonna
do music? For a minute, or is it always going
with something?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
It's always going with something. Oh, there is no turning
it off. It's like how I breathe.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Always a song in your head or maybe a melody,
either a song that you heard or a melody that
you're working on. Is it always something that or something
I'm longing for?
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Like I I'm listening to something like looking for feeling
in music and not searching out if I'm not writing.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
It as in you're chasing Maybe this isn't what you're
trying to say, like you're chasing an inspiration or maybe
you're inspired and you're trying to I don't know what
do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Like I'll just think, I'll get in the car and goo,
how do I feel? And it'll be like either you know,
like a little Wayne.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Oh, so you'll play defined to identify.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
How you feel. Yeah, then but then I'll kind of
start searching for something that has a certain feeling in it,
Like I'm always searching for a feeling that's in It's
in like deep and it's in a lot of restless
heart songs. It's in that crowded house, a lot of
crowded house songs. I don't know if it's a way.
I don't know if it's a way like the chords
(10:20):
go or something, but it's like a mood that's normally
what I'm searching for.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Do you feel like you're a minor or a major
person minor? I thought I was gonna say that some
people could be insulted by that. I feel like I'm
very much a minor what I enjoy at least. Do
you feel like you're an artist minor?
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yeah, and my initials are AM a minor. I really
think that's so accurate. I have so many songs to
start in a minor?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
What key do you sing in? If you were to
pick your favorite where you feel most comfortable.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I kind of can find something on in every range.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
But like if there's like pick your you're gonna sing
for the king of the world and sing your.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Best song, irobably, see, I can only sing in D.
Really that I can't sing.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
So the only you know, I do music, comedy, music
right to everything in D because I have to because
I can't get I can.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Barely get in it, and I have no ability to.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Get out of it. So it's the good key.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
What's the it's the easiest key.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Actually, normally, when I get a guitar, I'll just play E.
That's my first like thing I'll hit.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
But have you ever seen the national anthem?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Oh? Gosh, I used to at tractor pools and those
and stuff in East Tennessee.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
But did you have to say and that matched the picture?
Could you just get it?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I could get it, but it was nerve wracking. I mean, oh,
it was nerve wracking. I remember I'd have to write that.
The words on post its in my hands. My hands
were so sweaty.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
And yeah, the problem with that national anthem? And it's
a great and I want everybody know I love America. Yes,
I can't get enough America, love it. Wish there were
more Americas. And I will speak for my friends that
won't say this because they won't like how it's misinterpreted.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
And you're not saying this either.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
But that's a very difficult not song to sing, although
it has its difficulties. But if you do it and
you crush it, everybody forgets about it thirty seconds later.
If you mess it up in any way, it will
be put everywhere. And it's almost not worth going out
(12:19):
and risking it because all of a sudden. You're a
terrible American if you mess it up when it was
just an honest mistake.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
It's just too much pressure and the words are tricky,
and then you overthink it and then it's over. I
mean some people do it beautifully though without seeming to.
I mean a little big Ton just did it at
one of the Pred's games, and I'm like, they've got it.
I mean Stapleton, I mean.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, and they have it. I would just be nervous
with messing it up more than singing it. Like I remember,
Luke got in trouble for writing on his writing words
on his hand, Luke Bryan, Remember that I didn't. And
I worked with Luke for years and years away from
like Nashville. We did American Idol together, and so we
just hang out because you just be sitting forever, and
we were watching somebody sing National Night the ball game, like, man,
I don't do that.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
I can't do that anymore. After because he he.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Wrote a couple of words just so he wouldn't mess up,
and he looked down and got roasted for it because
he wrote bad.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
You get roasted no matter what I get there in
this world.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
I get roasted every day.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor. Wow,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
How you feeling. I'm feeling good, healthy?
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, what so what's twenty twenty four? My last chemo
was December one, and ever since I've I get checked
every three months. I think now it's going to switch
to six months.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Was that the recommendation three for a while and then six?
Is it still nerve wracking every time you get checked?
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, it's like I don't think about it. You know
how when things happen, you put them in like the
too hard pile of your soul. Well that one's over there.
And but I every time, like the day of my
my labs and stuff, it's like I put the mask
on going to the hospital and like it's like your
body thinks it's gonna happen again or something. But yeah,
(14:15):
I just struck through and so far it's been good.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Were cleared? How do they clear?
Speaker 2 (14:22):
You?
Speaker 4 (14:23):
Do?
Speaker 3 (14:23):
They say? Hey, we checked and you're you're now free?
Your cancer free? Like what is that?
Speaker 1 (14:28):
It was tricky because I went to Vanderbilt and I
when I first was diagnosed, I just kind of went
in a prayer zone. And just said, show me what
I need to do, and I would kind of start,
I don't know, seeing things in my head. And the
first thing I saw was the word Vanderbilt because I
just had doctors kind of all over like I think
that's normal. So I just got I got Vanderbilt. I
(14:52):
got a concier doctor who you know, I could go
in and get you know, fluids or whatever I needed.
And I got you know, all my doctors there, and
then I just started really listening to my gut. So
bone marrow biopsy is how they found it, which was.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Oh, why did they even do that? Is it because
you were not good? Like feeling not feeling good?
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I was anemic and they couldn't get to the bottom
of why it was so anemic. And so I just
and I tried everything you know to do not have
to do a bone marrow biopsy, but it just kept
I mean, it was going kind of fast, you know,
and at that point, it's like they worry that your
butt will be so thick that you have a stroke,
(15:32):
and I kind of was getting lightheaded and whatever. So
I got a bone marrow biopsy, which is just I
hated that so bad, and they want you to get
one in the middle of your treatment plan and at
the end. But I just told them, I'm not doing
that again unless it's going to change the course of
our treatment. Like so it's interesting and they were fine
(15:54):
with it. It's interesting what things if you really pay
attention to your gut, that you can kind of say
no to. And you know, we kind of just do
whatever the doctors say. But so at first, you know,
they had to do it to diagnose, which I understood,
and you know, they said six months of chemo and ratuxin,
which is amniotherapy, and oh and it was rough. It
(16:16):
was rough, honestly because I was already so an ee mix.
So then you just get so knocked down.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Just wiped out. Gosh.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, I mean I was just but I would just
come home and go to bed, you know, and just
think okay, And then after like four days, you know,
three or four days, I'd be like, all right, I'm
gonna go upstairs, I work out, make myself move, you know.
(16:43):
But then the first couple of months, yeah, I was
I had to get you know, several blood transfusions and
stuff because it was like everything was an infection. Everything
was just weird. It's just so crazy.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
What were you thinking about to get you through that?
Speaker 1 (16:56):
You know, there's just those moments in time that's just
like pure, like I'm going to put my head down,
and probably like disassociation in a way, which some people
think of it as a bad thing, and I think
it's bad if you live in it, but sometimes it's
kind of handy.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Yeah, I agree, sometimes it's required.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, shock is like a good thing sometimes, which.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Is why it actually happens right like this.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
It is actually a defense, right, Shock is a fricking
defense to make sure you don't completely lose your crap.
And when they say, hey, you're good, had you already
built back up? I mean, did you feel like you
were healthier leading up to it?
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Oh? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Is it a slow inclined back to I don't normally
isout the word, but back to what you used to
feel like.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
It was and better? You know, at the end, my
my red blood levels were in the normal range. Everything
was even better so than when I started.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
So healthier.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, man, and platelets, like my overall platelets at one
point they got down to thirty. That was at the beginning,
And now they're like.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
I don't know what that means? Though, like I don't
know the comparison.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
I think normals like one forty to three hundred.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
You were, and you were at thirty.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I was thirty. Yeah, and now I'm like every time
I get them, that's like one something.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Do you have anything that you used to monitor yourself? No,
because if it were like an or ring, I'd be obsessed.
I had to quit an or ring obviously not the
same thing, but I wore that stupid I looked at it,
looked at it every thirty seconds.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I have to throw away in mine to my or
rings or any sort of a off it. It's too
much power.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
And I would wake up in the middle of the
night to check my sleep, which is the.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Exact topic Bobby, exactly was it right?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Was it?
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
It'd be like, you're not asleep and you need sleep,
and I'd be like, yeah, it's a good point.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
I'm awake to check out my or ring.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
It knows too much.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
So I can't if I have any opportunity to like
over monitor same, I have to not do it at all.
Like I haven't looked at and things have been the
past three or four years definitely different with like the
radio show not so much the podcast, because I would
look at numbers of everything all the time. Yeah, I
get it, and have two modes. I need to look
(18:58):
at every number all the time or nothing thing.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yep, I one hundred percent understand that. And it's a
control thing, you know. It's I think that people who
don't we don't drink. I mean, there has to be
a flare up and control is a biggie. I mean
it's like, yeah, and actually this sickness forced me. I'm
still kind of a control freak, but I'm less of
one because when you experience something with that out of
(19:22):
your control. There was a moment where I just said,
take it fine, I can't control it, and then there
was such a good feeling about that. Really, so it's
good to kind of remind ourselves Like, but I think
the better option to that is not to look at
the things or not to eliminate things that are gonna.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah, my wife will be like, is your ring charge
you wearing it? I'm like, no, I don't charge what ring?
Yeah exactly, I don't. I just don't do it, and
I don't look at numbers. Every once in a while
that it might out and be like, hey, give me
the give me a month from the past fourteen month.
But if I do, yeah, like I drown in them.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
I know, I get it. I don't know. I stay
aloof on purpose. I don't. I haven't looked at the
chart well maybe ever, even when I barely graized them
back in the day, I thought, what's me looking at it?
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Going to do anything that's pretty healthy?
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Make me nervous, wreck and make me not want to
do music? Well, that's defeats the purpose.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Did you ever have when you were going through your illness?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Did you stop focusing on music or did you focus
on in a different way, like did you use music
at all?
Speaker 1 (20:20):
No? I went like, that's the only time that in
pregnancy that my music button was just like really pause. Yeah,
I don't know why did it?
Speaker 3 (20:30):
When did they come out?
Speaker 2 (20:31):
And I'm leading up to asking about this specific project,
but when did the music bug kind of get back
in your system? I feel like it's always lived there,
like I took a vacation. When did it come back
and move back in.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
And move back in when I got healthy?
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (20:42):
And it was like, you know, you process these things
without even knowing it. You know that you're taking it
in and what you know. I'll just feel like this
feeling like go get the guitar, ghosted it at the piano.
I always say, it's like an emotional sneeze. It's just like, Okay,
something needs to happen. And then a lot of times,
(21:03):
if I'll just push record and just start, I don't
know whatever it is. If I'll go back and listen,
there's words in there that I can sound out. It's
really interesting.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
You a melody writer or like a lyric writer, if
you and both I mean both, but which one do
you feel like you gravitate toward more instinctually?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
It's like I, I guess melodies. I love to like
attempt to make a melody that like breaks your heart
or like you feel you know what I mean? And
then words. I have all these notebooks. I mean, I
feel like I do both. I just a lot of
times I'll get a melody first, I guess, and then
I'll go look at my word ideas.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Yeah, well I thought I was. I was.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Literally The next question, like, you ever create like a
really cool melody and then you go back and you
find something you wrote eight months ago or pieces of
different things, like how does that work?
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Creatively?
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, I I love to go back. I'll just go
in my voice memos and go back to like twenty twelve,
you know, and there'll be a nugget on there. Did
that the other day on a flight.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
They a melody and a voice memoi. But words in
a book or do you leave words in a voice
memo too?
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Uh? No, words in the voice momoent Yeah, I trust it.
But I found a bunch of old Annie's things actually
that I put organized in a folder for us of
like ideas we had had on the bus years ago
that were good, you know, just I would have never
remembered the melodies. I would have never so I try to.
(22:35):
I'm try trying to be good about like organizing them
so they don't just fall off the edge of the world.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
It's always cool because there would be things that I
would have written and or even jokes that I it
wasn't the right time, and then you go back and
you're like, oh man, this was so good.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
I can still use this.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
That's always a good feeling, and also reminded me I
wasn't because I hate old stuff. I always hate the
old stuff that I've done, and I feel like that's
healthy ish because I maybe it feel like I'm growing.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah, it's like we don't identify because it's like we
can respect what we did back then. Like I'll go
back and listen to Gosh even five years ago, and
my twain is just so twiny, which everyone's always like
that's a good thing. It's like now I'm like, we'll
just try to ease up on your eyes and your whatever.
But I respect. But it just sounds like a little
(23:22):
old country girl.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
That's funny.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I still am. I'm just an older country girl.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
I mean, I went to speech pathology for years because
being from Arkansas, my accent was super thick. Yeah, right,
And it was it was the eyes, eyes or the
iron g's and those those were the biggest two. When
they did they have you say all this stuff, and
it'd be like, I just want to go fishing, and
they'd be like, okay, well let's work on a few
(23:47):
of these things. And it was the eyes that was
the biggest one. And I think if you're from where we're.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
From, yeah, it's kind of undoable.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
The eyes are tough.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I'll take the if I'll untwing.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
And then the I in g's.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
But it's funny that you feel like you were, or
people tell you were twangy year. Yeah, have you made
any like purposefully not been as twangy like with the
new stuff?
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Or no, I just try to if one sneaks out
that's just so over the top, I'll be like, oh,
I just gotta I don't try to take all of
them out.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Just the why why this record? Like what I don't
know what's happening here with this record?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
It's happening. So I just kind of felt like after
the whole ordeal, kind of like a homecoming of the
soul sorts.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
I just.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
I started hearing these melodies. Some of the songs on
the record are actually old, like two thousand and four,
you know, or when they were written. It's just songs
that have always meant so much to me, but they
kind of tell a story, and it's like I just
saw this vision in my mind of what I wanted
it to look like. It was like being from East Tennessee.
(24:54):
I've always had like that smoky mountain feeling. It's always
been in my soul, and I wanted to come back
and just kind of reflect that place and who I am.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Did you write a whole bunch of songs and cut
it down or did you go now that these are
the songs I want to do.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Let's do these songs.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I mean I knew some that I were going to do,
and then some are kind of newer. What I did
was myself and Guina Johnson, who was an amazing engineer
and producer, and I just took the mind out of
it and we went to East Tennessee. We were rented
this cabin from eighteen fifty beautiful that backed up to
(25:38):
the Smoky mountains, and we brought all of this gear
and her and I hold it up there and we
shoot too yeah wow, and unloaded it. We were pouring
the sweat. I mean, it was like but we set
it up and I started recording. I just went in
the zone without thinking, you know. We went out on
(25:59):
the porch and she would record. We went out, put
a quilt in the yard and she recorded. That's what
I like trains is you can hear all the critters,
you know, because it's but I wanted that. I wanted
those textures like kind of woven throughout this whole scene.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Was she ever like, it's hard to do this because
I gotta edit, get edit the squirrel out. It's only
edit half a Squirrel out. No.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
That's the thing about her is that it's kind of
magical when you take like the thinking part out and
just kind of go, let's see what needs to happen,
you know. And she knows I like singing in the dark,
so she turns all the lights off and lights candles
and I sit there and I don't know. It's it's
really cool as opposed to just going to stud dumb
being like, Okay, we gotta I gotta hit that note
(26:42):
by five.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
You know, you ever have a song that's really emotional
and you cry while singing it?
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Yeah, I do.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I have a couple of those on on this album actually,
where I just yeah, and it always sneaks off. It's
like I can feel it right here and it's like, oh,
you know, but I think those moments are cool.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
I mean I agree.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
My answer is yes, I agree. It would be difficult
for that would be difficult for me. Yeah, I don't
think I have the vulnerability to do that. I've cried
on the air four or five, six sevens, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
I never plan on it, and it's like it jumps me.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
It's like I'm being attacked on anally. I didn't see
it coming.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I know emotions like that, but then I can. I
also have the power to stop it and do it.
But I and a lot of times I'll choose to
stop it. Do you ever, do you just keep going?
Will you just keep going? Or will you kind of regather?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
I mean, I try to stay in it as long
as I can keep control. I cut the song the
other day just because I wanted to. It's an old
Loretta and Conway song. Conway actually wrote it. It's called
as soon as I hang up the phone, I just
said I want I want to sing it just because
I felt it my soul. But Loretta does this thing
at the end where she does cry, and I felt
(27:55):
that same emotion that the end has snuck up on
me too, And it's kind of in the thing.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Do you do both parts?
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I know I didn't do any Conway parts. He on
the recording, he's kind of doing like he's like on
a CBE radio, like talking like I love you Loretta,
she singing, and he's like, I'm sorry to Loretta. So
I just kind of.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Well, if you need a CBE guy, I'm your guy. Okay,
I can lay down to me and ceb I learned
how to play You're the reason our kids are ugly
to me like that, that's like, that's a funny song, right,
And it's like that's what I think of when I
think of those two because I'm just not like funny music,
Like that's a good one.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Yeah you know that one? Yeah? Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I love them together. I think I love the idea
of like two stars just doing.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
A record happened a lot more back in the day.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
I know, I'm rallying up some right now. Some will
listen to me, just like I've always told Wayland Payne,
one of my dear friends, I'd love to do that
with him. Or I mean, you could just any any
artist respect it and you can literally just do a
record together.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
One. What about the cover songs on this project?
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Oh yeah, I have a lot of cover songs that
I just songs that I listened to a ton my
whole life that I've that have always just been my
favorite songs. I thought, let me just sn Kentucky Headhunter's
Deep Cut that I used to love, and I'm like,
I'm gonna record that Knights and White Satin.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
There's Knights and Whiteside Blues. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
And oh that's no way to say goodbye. That's when
I cried. And while I was singing it, the Leonard
Cohen one that was kind of haunting me. So yeah,
other kind of sprinkled.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Throughout any that you thought you may want to sing
and you didn't.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Nope, I have a lot of songs. I mean, I'll
probably have to hit it down.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Really or not?
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I mean really, who cares?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Yeah at this point, you know what, You're right, at
this point, who cares? People find out ninety song records
and it doesn't matter, It doesn't hurt anything anymore.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
There's infinite space.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Yeah, it costs money to make music, So I'm not
saying that it doesn't cost money to make music. There's
infinite space on on the music you put out now,
or it wasn't the case because there's only.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
So much, so much room on a CD or tape.
Do you ever have tapes?
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Is that a little bit have a tape that was
a homemade like hometown tape with like cover of yodel
and blues and you know all of the.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
So you never bought a tape just generally you didn't
go to the store.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
I bought tapes.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Oh, you did have tapes the.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Walmart singles, Yes, like like TLC would have them on
one side and then the karaoke version on the other side.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Oh, I don't remember. I don't remember that.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
I remember the singles, but they'd had like it'd be
like Vanilla Ice and then on the back side it'd
be Ices Baby, but then like play that funky music
white Boy in the back, so it'd be like one
side another one.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
One time I had a Vanilla Ice front side, MC
Hammer backside.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Yeah, tell me. I wasn't living then.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
I didn't even know they made. It was legit artist side.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
They I never had.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
I have vinyl now. Never I missed records that was
before me. Yes, I was at tapes. Never had eight tracks.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
No, Daddy had an eight track in the garage when
you washed the car.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Do you remember your first CD you ever had?
Speaker 1 (31:10):
My first CD was.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
My first CD that you bought?
Speaker 1 (31:17):
I know, my first tape was Aiming Grant, my first
you know, I went to kmart and got what was
my first CD? I don't remember. Probably LeAnn Rhymes. Honestly,
I'm sure it was LeAnn Rhymes. You let up my
life or something.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Do you ever meet her?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
I've talked to her on Instagram. I feel like I
might have met her briefly once before, but I want
to meet her.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Along but never never spent neat no quality time with her.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
I haven't either, but she was gone by the time
I got here, right And I don't know if you
guys ever crossed like little kids. I moved here in
twenty thirteen, yeah, and she was not here at all.
She like came in the studio one time, not even
as a yes. She just walked in the room once,
went what up everybody, and then left and I was like,
who was that?
Speaker 3 (32:04):
And they were like there was like in rhymes. I
was like, oh wow, that's weird, not not in a
bad way, but she she just popped and yelled high
and walked out.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
She's very mysterious. Then, like it just hiding from us.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
What's touring like touring?
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Well, I'm not touring really right now.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I'm going to tour with any shows though I know
you're in the UK stuff with a little big town.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
UK, little big tone. I've played a show here in Nashville, So.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
I guess my question is how did it feel to
do live music? Again.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
I feels so great. You know, I love I love
singing so much, and I don't really sing at home.
Son doesn't really like it. And my husband but he
doesn't say anything. But I just home is not where
I sing. I sing like hidden in my room at home.
So it feels good to sing out for people.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
It's like telling a pain or they can have paint
brushes in the house. What's happening here? Hey, da Vinci,
no paint brushes for you? I know, yeah, howl? Howld
your kid now?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
He is six? What right?
Speaker 4 (33:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:07):
That feels like yesterday.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
I know, it really does. It's so sweet and I'm
I'm so funny. It's like I have my creative side.
I don't really like some people are really good at
like taking their kids on on tour or something. But
I'm like, I do better if I can go focus
on that, you know, the work thing, and then come
home and then I'm in mom.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Mode, separate them. Yeah. Do you listen to like the
kid his kids music?
Speaker 1 (33:31):
No? No, no, no, no, no, I don't. He doesn't
really care about kid music. He he's always liked real music.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
What about like kids TV shows like Bluebird? What's his name? Blue?
Blue and Blue, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Two different ones. Yeah, both of those.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah, you've watched that. Would you ever do a kid's record?
We ever inspired to a kid's record? Because kids music suckt.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Yeah, there's probably a way you can make it lullaby.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Oh you're talking about young young kids.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
We're just like I mean, you know, Tom t Hall
put out that record that was really cool, so it
can be done. I've not really thought about it though.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Your son is he more music or sports?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
You know?
Speaker 1 (34:17):
He hums all the time. I noticed that, but then
he kind of throws the ball with John two. So
I can't really tell.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
You two careers that I would be like you definitely
don't want I would never want my kid to get
into any sort of art. Yeah, although it's awesome, but
as you know, everybody wants to do art. So it's
really hard to do and there's a lot it's it's
a very difficult place to make yourself. It's a very
(34:47):
vulnerable place you have to be. I'm creating something and
I need you to tell me if you like it
or not. And my whole worth is, at least professionally,
is gonna be based.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
On if you like it or not. That's tough and
then make a living at it. Yeah, I just I
would rather you go just dig a hole like it
makes it doing that.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
We'll see.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
I don't know your husband. How tall is he?
Speaker 1 (35:07):
My husband is six one, I guess maybe six two.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
How tall are you?
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Five six?
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Okay, that's pretty those are both pretty average.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Then I'm just thinking about your son and what what
the awesome mix of jeans he's got unless he is
like I can't play sports because he's so any music,
but then he's like tone deaf at the same time,
he gets the worst into both.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
I have been sneaking in some like I'll be like
match this, match this, and he'll instantly find it.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
I don't think I can do that.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
My mom can't do it.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Again.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
Mm hm, oh my god, I heard it.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
I heard it.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
You've landed on it.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
So I did not start there though, right I've looped.
Give me, give me one more, give me one more
that the same one?
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Oh give me do If I thought you said, yeah,
the same one you.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Want lower, I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Mm. That's like a harmony that I wasn't trying to do.
The harmony as the thing that one more time. H
m m hmm, oh, I thought you did the first one. Mm.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yeah, yeah, that was it. That was it.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
That's hard, I know. That's why I can only go.
I can only sing in one key and that's it.
That's the only and I only.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Kind of can you matched that last one? I hate
to tell you though.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Okay, So on the album, the whole the song is out,
the hot rod Pipe drink, The whole album's next year.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
The whole thing comes up next year, right, is tentative time?
Or like you guys have a plan.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Already, maybe like January February, you know. I put out
Like I Like Trains, which is an old Freddie will
Smith song that I've always loved. And then I put
out Risen Road, which is another one I wrote with
Brendan Vincent and Wayland Payne twenty I wrote it in
twenty fifteen. I always loved it. So I'm just kind
of putting out one at a time. And I don't
(37:12):
really know.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
I took Carter Faith out on the road with me
for some shows. Yes, I love her so much, like
she's got a real bite.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I like, yeah she does, and you don't really just
if you just look at her, maybe you don't see
the bite.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
But man, when you hang out in the best way,
like you hang out with her, like you learn about her,
you talk to her, you hear her music like she's
got it.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
There's something.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
I agree. We've written so many songs. I just can't
wait for her to release them. Actually, she's got a
few on my record too.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Yeah. What about her do you like?
Speaker 1 (37:47):
I mean she kind of feels like a sister or
something to me, Like I explained it, like she's enough hippie,
she's enough like Appalachin, like angel vibes, but got an edge.
I don't know, we just we write so well together.
I bet we've written fifty songs, like really really good ones,
and so I don't know. I just feel like those
(38:09):
those young ones that that really like speak to my heart.
I just like want to help them, but like, you know,
kind of help them and kind of gill any advice
they want or write with them or who.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Did that for you? Oh gosh, who comes to mind?
Who's the first?
Speaker 1 (38:30):
I mean the first person I thought of was Karen. Yeah,
just like somebody that's fair child, just like always been there,
always if you. But there's also more. I mean I
remember when I was pregnant. I was gaining so much weight,
Oh my gosh, and it was a new thing. And
I would text Jennifer Nettles, you know, just does your
(38:50):
body go back? I don't feel, you know. Or I
would text Karen, or I would text I don't know.
It's just like I feel like there's a lot of
them in country music. Miranda always but that's always like
my sister.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, not as motherly more now more a tough love,
I guess someone else. I had Laura Watkins come out
and play with us, yes, at the Rhyman and in
a different way. Lauren's like really nice but also does
not give a f It's like the best mix.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
I love. It's confidence too, you know. It's like confidence
and what they want to say, a very clear vision.
You know, they're not going to let anybody tell them
what they want to say or what they want to
sound like. And I respect that.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
I feel too that now in because there are definitely
some drawbacks to social media creating artists, but I think
one of the positives of it is a lot of
artists are who they are before an entity gets ahold
of them, and it's harder to change somebody once they
already have established who they are.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
We're ten years ago, you go are so we'll to
sign you.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
We're going to we're going to modify some things until
you and have you do this, and you'd be like,
all right, But now I think one of the positives
is you can kind of create your idea.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Yeah, and if they want you, they sign you, they
really can't change a lot.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Yeah, I agree, and I think.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
That people who have benefited from that. I think Lauren's
a big beneficiary.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yea right, Yeah, Lauren. That is who she is. I mean,
Lauren Watkins is and I love her too. I have
I guess two songs on her new record, I Pretend
You're Coming Home and Gallinburg we co wrote. But yeah,
I mean that's who she is. She's just that's how
she dresses, that's what she sounds like. That's she's got
amazing ideas. She's a great songwriter, confident in how she
(40:31):
wants them to sound. I mean, yeah, it's less work
for labels.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
I guess what about Miranda? Do you guys? Are you
guys working together writing at all?
Speaker 1 (40:39):
We write kind of all. I mean anytimes she's home
and in the writing zone, we write. We wrote with
Stephen Wilson Junior. Was that January? I guess it was
the last time we wrote. We always have a you know,
a text seat of a shared note. We have Miranda
Nash ideas, Annie's ideas, and it's the collaborate So it's.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
Like we're always Would you guys ever do a duet
record together?
Speaker 1 (41:03):
That'd be Franda?
Speaker 3 (41:04):
Yeah? Or would that or would that be like the
Annie's but missing without Ange? Oh? Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
I don't know. Angelina and I were talking once about
because we've written with Guy Clark a lot. It was
one of our you know, one of the best writers ever,
Like if we did a record of the songs that
we'd written with Guy, you know. So I don't think
there are any rules when you support the person.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Yeah, and again again, far less rules now that there's
an infinite amount of space to put music, yeah right,
not make music that still costs money, yeah right, but
you know, to you can.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Put as many songs as you want. Has your.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Philosophy strategy. It all changed about putting music out because
it used to be only do this here, do that there?
Or is it now just if you got it and
it feels good let's go.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yeah, I mean I like to have a little bit
of the game plan, but there's really no predicting what's
gonna I mean. Also, thanks for playing risen Road on
your show and Amy play it on hers. I mean,
that's a big deal of me. I don't have a
label right now. I don't have I'm funding all this myself,
which is fine. I like that, but you know it,
you can't really predict what's gonna stick and what's gonna not.
(42:10):
You can have a plan of like whatever, but yeah,
I like the blind faith. If it feels right and
the team that you have agrees, let's just see what happens.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
Do you remember your first time to Nashville when you
were a kid.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
First summer in Nashville was I sang at the Tennessee
Fairest of the Fair competition. I wasn't in it. I
was the entertainment.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Well, you came here to sing for the first time,
So you actually came to Nashville to sing.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Yeah, that was the only time my dad came to
Nashville with us.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
How old is alive?
Speaker 1 (42:40):
I was ten or eleven, I think, and so so
then that was that, and then after that my dad
died when I was thirteen. My mom and I started
coming here soon after that. We rent like limos when
you got here, yeah, and like party really looking back,
but also she was trying to get me discovered. Which
(43:02):
we'd go to Broadway. That was when Broadway was way different.
It wasn't shady, it was just not I guess it was.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
It was just chill. I guess it wasn't. Yeah, there
wasn't an Apple store you're saying there on Broadway, you know.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
And I would just go in and be like I
would just walk up to the band and go do
you know when will I be loved e? Rocky Top
you see, and be like can you sing? I'm like yeah,
I'm like, okay, I don't think that anybody would even
let anybody up now it's so.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
But you're a kid though, doing that right?
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (43:36):
I was like four fourteen when I started doing that.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
Yeah, did you ever have to do that here? Like
play at a bar for a while?
Speaker 1 (43:46):
No, not for not for long. I just kind of
I was just laughing because I don't know how good
I would be. I love slow songs so much. I
don't think I could rock for three hours. That's hard.
Those people that go dow there and sing for three hours.
But I would get up and just do like rocky
talk you see at Totsies. And actually that's how somebody
(44:09):
ended up hearing me, and words started getting around randomly.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Because you had sing Rocky Top.
Speaker 5 (44:15):
Yeah, the Bobby Cast will be right back. This is
the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
What kind of kid were you at fourteen fifteen?
Speaker 1 (44:35):
I was mature, I had lost my dad, my mom
had went a little wild. So I was trying to
like wrangle a little bit. And I told my mom
if she moved to Nashville from Knoxville, that we'd figure
it out. You know, I'd make it. And so it's
kind of a little hustler looking back. I mean, I
was like, I will figure out a way.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
Does that make you proud of yourself?
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Yeah, it really does, especially now that I have a
child and you look back at how young you know,
when you go through these traumas, it's kind of like, wow,
that's I wouldn't think I could or would be brave
enough to even go ask somebody, hey can I sing?
I would be too embarrassed or nervous or whatever even now,
(45:19):
So what would.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
You tell that that fourteen year old. If I do
this kind of crap in therapy, I do it all
the time. But we like that that artist. Fourteen year old.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Yeah, I mean I would say your dreams come true.
I found a letter, well, it was a prayer. It
was a few years back, and I had written it
on on a piece of notebook paper and it fell
down from my mom's one of her closets a few
years back. And we've moved so many times since I've
(45:49):
written this prayer. It was in two thousand and two,
so I was fourteen, and it was before I moved
to Nashville. And it says, Dear Lord, you have blessed
me and every possible. Your mighty hand has guided me
everywhere I've ever been and everywhere I'm going. Please, I
want to do this, you know. I have it on
(46:10):
my phone, but it's saying I love music more than anything.
I know you're the only one that can give me
the chance. I promise I'll let your light shine through
every note I sing because you live inside of me.
How could it not. I mean, just for fourteen year old,
and at that point I was my mom was gone. Actually,
my mom had kind of ran off for a while,
so When I wrote that letter, I was fourteen, had
(46:33):
lost my dad. I was living with my brother, who
was eighteen. Anyway, I don't even remember writing that letter,
but when I read it now, I tear up every
time because I thought, oh my gosh, my dreams have
come true. This is all I ever wanted to do.
And you know, you can get hung up on oh yeah,
but you know, if you're not selling out stadium, it's
not success. But all I ever wanted to do is
(46:53):
be on the opry. And I also get to have
songwriting and so many more part of that dream that
I didn't even kind of foresee at that age. So
it's it's funny how when you look back, I'm so
glad I have that because it reminds me that that's
a prairie answered like hardcore.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
And you still have it. You saved it.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Yeah, I still have a letter.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
The new single is out now Hot Rob pipe Dream
and the new album beginning of the year. Ish when
it comes out, let me know, we'll do something again.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
It'll be cool.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
I'll play it again, awesome, I'll play it on whatever
platforms we have. And going out with a Little Big
Town in September to the UK.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
To the UK. What are those shows like, well, I
don't know yet. The UK shows in general, like you've
played over I.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Love oh yeah, UK shows in general, Oh my gosh,
I love it over there. They just get me. I
can just do acoustic things. I think I'm just going
to have them put you know, put a piano out
from a little big town set. I'll play guitar, maybe
play a couple on piano, and I just don't have
to worry about them not listening.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
Reallypectful, yeah, like grateful'skful.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Oh yeah, and they and they seem to know every
word to everything, even like I don't really have hits
per se, but they make you feel.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
Like you do. I guess, what's your instrument of choice
to write on?
Speaker 1 (48:16):
I switch it up? I mean I like I like piano. Recently,
I used to play classical piano, and I can find
different configurations that way. I do clear carry around a
classical guitar because I think that always makes it sound
more what's that like, nylon string?
Speaker 3 (48:34):
Got it? Yep?
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Makes it sound more like romantic willyish. I get kind
of bored with the acoustic guitar sometimes, just like, oh,
I've already played a g I've already just sounds like
so I kind of am ended up writing on different instruments.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
Just a couple more.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
But I'm just curious about because you were singing, But
when did you start playing music? Where did that come from?
Who said here's an instrument? Who kind of allowed that?
Speaker 1 (48:57):
That was always me? I just I felt it, oh
so early on in my soul.
Speaker 3 (49:02):
And mom or dad didn't play music.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
You know, my dad played secretly. He was an electrician.
It was his work, and he would practice piano, but
he didn't want anybody to listen. He would like and
he could play by ear. And then my papa, my
dad's dad. His first cousin is Carl Smith, who's in
the country'sic call Fame, Carling Carter's dad. And I'm from Maynonville, Tennessee.
(49:26):
So there's like some Roy Acuff, you know, maynardal people.
There's been a lot of Chad Atkins. So I feel
like it's kind of in my blood for sure, through Carlsmith,
you know, on that on my dad's side. But I
don't know, I just always knew it. I always felt
it so deep, and it's the only job I've ever had.
I mean, I worked at the Smoky Mountain Barn Theater
(49:47):
when I was like ten and eleven. That was my
only like paycheck.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
What would you do there to sing? Just perform singing?
Clog and clog? Yeah, where did you learn to clog?
Speaker 1 (49:58):
I took clogging lessons.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
From somebody in your town. It was that part of like, Okay,
so you do music, you also have to clog or
we like, you see somebody clogging.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
On the side of the road, You're like, I got
to do that.
Speaker 4 (50:08):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
I think I just saw it and said, yes, that's
my wife clogged. She does. I'm like, god, we should
do routine.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
And every once in a while she'll be like, oh
I see a routine to.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
This, and she'll start, oh my god, it's so much fun.
Speaker 3 (50:21):
It does look fun. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
And it's hard, honestly a little bit hard.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
I can do that about as good as I can
match pitch. You did good self, Credit you guess. Follow
Ashley at Ashley Monroe Music on Instagram, TikTok and check
out the new song get ready for the new music.
Go see her when she's touring. I'm it's super good
to see you. I'm glad that you feel good. You
look great, Your boots are awesome?
Speaker 1 (50:45):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
Have you worn them since?
Speaker 1 (50:47):
No, but I've looked at him since and thought, where
am I gonna wear them again?
Speaker 2 (50:51):
I do the thing where like I'll buy a nice
shirt and I'll continue to give myself reasons this is
not a nice enough thing to wear the shirt too,
So then I never.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
Wear the shirt.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Well, yeah, because it's so so so speat.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Yeah, I'm my god, you just got to be the
right thing. And then two years ago by I've never
put on the shirt. I know that's what I would
do with Those boots are so cool.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
I know I knew they were going to be in
the video, but it has to be a really special thing.
I do that with clothes, and then sometimes my clothes
max out on memories, Like I had to toss out
a funeral dress not too long ago because of the
memory you have Grand Finale on your that's the saddest
you can get funeral dress.
Speaker 3 (51:22):
You're out of here.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
So that's opposite of interestress with that feeling.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
Yess guys, follow Ashley Ashley, great to see
Speaker 5 (51:29):
You, Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.
I would get up and just do rocky talk you
see tutsis And actually that's how somebody ended up hearing me,
and words started getting around randomly.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome Everybody, episode four sixty two with Ashley Monroe. Such
a good songwriter, a wonderful artist. Recently, you know, she
said she was making a fresh start because she had
a cancer battle, which was in the news for a while. So,
I mean, I've known her for a long time, and
to be honest, we hadn't talked in a while. But
it's one of those things where you have someone on
(00:39):
social media and you just kind of follow along. I
think I sent her a couple of messages when you
know she was sick, but or when I heard about it.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
But it was really good to see her. If she's
married to a former.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Major League Baseball player, which school, that's cool, right, it's
cool that meet your kids probably.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Already get in sports, right, all right? Or both?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, it'd be awful if I use it me and
my wife. For example, she's not pregnant, but if the
kid got like my athletic ability, that would suck for
the kid and like get missed out on hers. So
she has a new single called hot Rod Pipe Dreams
out now. Super cool new album coming out at the
beginning of the year. She's on tour with a Little
(01:15):
Big Town in the UK, and so I don't know,
let's just get to it. She's from Knoxville, Tennessee. She's
great here.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
She is.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Follow her on Instagram at Ashley Monroe Music. It is
Ashley Monroe. Ashley good to good to see you, so
good to see you. It feels like I don't know,
I mean, I feel like I know you. It's a
weird dynamic I have in my mind with you, right,
because we don't see each other that often, but I
feel like when we see each other it's so comfortable
almost immediately, because I think we knew each.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Other way early on in my time here.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, right, And so that feels like we have a
long term friendship where we don't ever see each other.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah in text here and there, like always like figure
my stuff or see you in Vegas when we were
I was coming home from Miranda show.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, it never feels like, uh, it just feels like
if we're we don't see each other for a long time,
which is off in the case, that is just.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Normal immediately and we don't have to do all that, like,
oh god, hey, we don't ask how have you been?
You know what? We sure didn't do that, didn't we.
I was like, what's up? Your hair's cool?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I mean, that's all. What's what's in front of us?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
How your boots are cool? In your promo picture though,
I was looking at that thank you? Do you do
you have O those yours?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
I got those. I've been on this kick where I
am just hunting down like the best vintage pieces I
can find, and I just can't get enough. I mean,
some would call it a problem, but you know what
I mean, I just I love like the soul of clothes,
and so I get these things in my head, which
I had those boots in my head for a vintage
(02:49):
from the sixties, never been worn exactly my.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Size, never been worn.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
But those that are listening and not watching, they are
like red, white and blue stars going up and kind
of wrapping round, but they go.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
They're basically knee high boots. They haven't been worn at all.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
No, not one scratch on the bottom. Nope, It's like
they're made for me.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Where did you find them? E's? Oh yeah, do you
do eBay at all?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
No?
Speaker 1 (03:12):
I don't ever do eBay.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
I never did debay, and it came into a lot
of memorabilia sports memorabiliya. Yeah, and so I had too much.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Oh yeah, and I came into I mean I bought
it yeah right, yeah, and so.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I was like, I'm gonna sell some of a bag
because it was just like fun for me to acquire it. Right,
So I got a part of the eBay culture, but
never used to die.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
They're right, it's been around for twenty years or whatever.
I never have used debay.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
But now I get on eBay and I just type
in a keyword and I click ending soon and I'll
buy stuff by stuff I don't even need, but just
because it's like a lower price than it should be.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Yeah. Yeah, it's a problem because I don't need it
to steal, but I try to get the steal.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah. Well, because you're thinking you can resell it, sure, yeah, yeah,
I mean we think that.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Then they have to say that.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
The eBay premium or I just like it and keep it. Yeah,
when I never had the plan to do that.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, I get it. My husband has signed helmet from
every team that's cool in the NFL. But guess where
they're at in that attic because where you.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Put that, yeah, well know where my wife would let me.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
And that's why, right, that's why exactly you all would
put them around. But they're not as cute.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I'd be in the living room if it weren't me
decorating the house. I would have posters and helmets.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
So with John, for sure, he a big sports guy
just in general.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Oh my gosh, he loves sports. You know. He used
to play baseball, used to pitch for the White Sox
for ten years, and he just he loves sports like
I love music. And it's funny how different our brains are.
Well really, that's the end of the sentence. It's funny
how different our brains are.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
He has he hasn't been married for how long now.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Two thousand and thirteen? Is that almost eleven years?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yeah? And he's not pitched in ten years.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
No, he pitched four ten years, got it?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Uh huh?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
And he hasn't pitched in about five years? Is when
he retired?
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Does he miss that part of his life?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I think he does.
Speaker 5 (05:08):
I mean, doing your whole life.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
I'm assuming too, Like it's.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah, you know they're this big and those are their
friends when they're with them all day, they travel with
them has and the Lows. Yeah, it's yeah, it would
be hard. How'd you get when will we met at
Joe's Pub in Chicago, Ed?
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah. Were you playing a show?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I was with Miranda. I think that the Antie's modest
thing that night.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, yeah, what's that happened? What's happening with that? Do
you guys do anything? Are you guys ever talk about
doing anything? Again?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Well, I mean I feel like it's always like out there.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
But it's never not happening. But it's never happening, right,
It just exists if it wants to exist.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, yeah, that's cool. I was happy I knew you
before the Anti's though. To be honest, I just got
cool when you came around as a nanny. I was like,
I already know Ashley, so I don't have to.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Like be like, oh my god, this is no star struck.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah right, yeah, it's cool. You got a new song
out hot Rod Pipe Dream. It's out now Forward. It's
a lot of syllables, I know, it really is.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
I wrote it with Brendan Benson, who is one of
my dearest friends. He's the lead singer of rack and
Tours and he's old. He's an old friend of mine
and we just write so well together. And I was like,
I want to make something sound like the Beach Boys,
but now you know rock and.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Roll racking tours. But was Jack White and racktors for
a while. Yeah, he's not anymore though, Yeah he is.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
He.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I mean they're kind of like the Anies actually got it.
It just goes record and then where do they go?
We don't know. They're still friends, they still hang out.
When did they go again?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
And they both sing?
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, yeah, they they both sing lead a lot.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Jack White, you ever met him? You know? Oh?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, I know him because he It was in two
thousand and eight. He reached out to me because he
heard me on WSM in his car, heard me on
the Opry, and he wanted me to do this thing
the Racontours and Ricky Skaggs. So I readd a song
with them.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
That's cool.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, So he's been a friend since. And then I've
been on the road with the Third Man Band and
wanted Jackson when he produced that record.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Did I never met him? I've been a fan since.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I mean, obviously I'm a fan if I know he's
Racing Tour, but so obviously White Stripes Jack White Solo
Racking Tour. Any of his projects, I at least check
out some of them. I love some of them. I
like right right, But I've never met him a person.
Is he really because I'm I'm pale as crap? But
is he really pale in person?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yea?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Like I respect that because I don't want to see
the sun ever. Yeah, I have no interest in the sun.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
So opposite and it's gonna.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Yeah, you're extremely tand like I don't.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Have to have so much work done.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
That's okay.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
I have spray tan too though.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Oh yeah, spray town to fix it all. Yeah, I'm
just I'm an enemy of the sun.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yeah, and that's wise.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
You know, I don't like it. I feel like and
so I've and I've never drank.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I would like to drink, seems fine.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
I don't drink anymore.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Really, but but I would like to have drink.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Maybe I don't drink anymore, but maybe I would have
liked to have had you have drink. I just I
don't know how to relax, so, but what I do
know how to do is be addicted to everything. So
I know, you know, I've never drank. But since I
haven't drank and I haven't been in the sun a
whole lot, I felt pretty good about my chances for
like for like a pretty like unless something like hits
my bus hits me, I feel.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Pretty good on my life. Really. The only thing, yeah,
why do you stop drinking?
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Because I just started noticing I didn't like how I acted,
what I said, how I felt, what I did like
everything about it. I started going, I don't even like,
I don't like how it tastes. For sure, I'm like,
what what's the point?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
And you know, so what was the point? Is? Everybody
else was doing it?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
It was so much fun, that's what I wanted. That's
so much fun.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Okay, now I want to drink again.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
I know. But when you have stuff to lose, the
fund's not worth it. That's the thing that shifts in
life is like, oh, well that's so dumb. The fight
you had when you're wrong, or all those things that
you're young and care free.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
It's just like, whatever what happens with your mind? Does
it ever? Stop making music? Can you take a break.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Either psychologically emotionally however, and just go I'm not gonna
do music? For a minute, or is it always going
with something?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
It's always going with something. Oh, there is no turning
it off. It's like how I breathe.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Always a song in your head or maybe a melody,
either a song that you heard or a melody that
you're working on. Is it always something that or something
I'm longing for?
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Like I I'm listening to something like looking for feeling
in music and not searching out if I'm not writing.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
It as in you're chasing Maybe this isn't what you're
trying to say, like you're chasing an inspiration or maybe
you're inspired and you're trying to I don't know what
do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Like I'll just think, I'll get in the car and goo,
how do I feel? And it'll be like either you know,
like a little Wayne.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Oh, so you'll play defined to identify.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
How you feel. Yeah, then but then I'll kind of
start searching for something that has a certain feeling in it,
Like I'm always searching for a feeling that's in It's
in like deep and it's in a lot of restless
heart songs. It's in that crowded house, a lot of
crowded house songs. I don't know if it's a way.
I don't know if it's a way like the chords
(10:20):
go or something, but it's like a mood that's normally
what I'm searching for.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Do you feel like you're a minor or a major
person minor? I thought I was gonna say that some
people could be insulted by that. I feel like I'm
very much a minor what I enjoy at least. Do
you feel like you're an artist minor?
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Yeah, and my initials are AM a minor. I really
think that's so accurate. I have so many songs to
start in a minor?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
What key do you sing in? If you were to
pick your favorite where you feel most comfortable.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
I kind of can find something on in every range.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
But like if there's like pick your you're gonna sing
for the king of the world and sing your.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Best song, irobably, see, I can only sing in D.
Really that I can't sing.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
So the only you know, I do music, comedy, music
right to everything in D because I have to because
I can't get I can.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Barely get in it, and I have no ability to.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Get out of it. So it's the good key.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
What's the it's the easiest key.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Actually, normally, when I get a guitar, I'll just play E.
That's my first like thing I'll hit.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
But have you ever seen the national anthem?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Oh? Gosh, I used to at tractor pools and those
and stuff in East Tennessee.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
But did you have to say and that matched the picture?
Could you just get it?
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I could get it, but it was nerve wracking. I mean, oh,
it was nerve wracking. I remember I'd have to write that.
The words on post its in my hands. My hands
were so sweaty.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
And yeah, the problem with that national anthem? And it's
a great and I want everybody know I love America. Yes,
I can't get enough America, love it. Wish there were
more Americas. And I will speak for my friends that
won't say this because they won't like how it's misinterpreted.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
And you're not saying this either.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
But that's a very difficult not song to sing, although
it has its difficulties. But if you do it and
you crush it, everybody forgets about it thirty seconds later.
If you mess it up in any way, it will
be put everywhere. And it's almost not worth going out
(12:19):
and risking it because all of a sudden. You're a
terrible American if you mess it up when it was
just an honest mistake.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
It's just too much pressure and the words are tricky,
and then you overthink it and then it's over. I
mean some people do it beautifully though without seeming to.
I mean a little big Ton just did it at
one of the Pred's games, and I'm like, they've got it.
I mean Stapleton, I mean.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, and they have it. I would just be nervous
with messing it up more than singing it. Like I remember,
Luke got in trouble for writing on his writing words
on his hand, Luke Bryan, Remember that I didn't. And
I worked with Luke for years and years away from
like Nashville. We did American Idol together, and so we
just hang out because you just be sitting forever, and
we were watching somebody sing National Night the ball game, like, man,
I don't do that.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
I can't do that anymore. After because he he.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Wrote a couple of words just so he wouldn't mess up,
and he looked down and got roasted for it because
he wrote bad.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
You get roasted no matter what I get there in
this world.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
I get roasted every day.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor. Wow,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
How you feeling. I'm feeling good, healthy?
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah, what so what's twenty twenty four? My last chemo
was December one, and ever since I've I get checked
every three months. I think now it's going to switch
to six months.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Was that the recommendation three for a while and then six?
Is it still nerve wracking every time you get checked?
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, it's like I don't think about it. You know
how when things happen, you put them in like the
too hard pile of your soul. Well that one's over there.
And but I every time, like the day of my
my labs and stuff, it's like I put the mask
on going to the hospital and like it's like your
body thinks it's gonna happen again or something. But yeah,
(14:15):
I just struck through and so far it's been good.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Were cleared? How do they clear?
Speaker 2 (14:22):
You?
Speaker 4 (14:23):
Do?
Speaker 3 (14:23):
They say? Hey, we checked and you're you're now free?
Your cancer free? Like what is that?
Speaker 1 (14:28):
It was tricky because I went to Vanderbilt and I
when I first was diagnosed, I just kind of went
in a prayer zone. And just said, show me what
I need to do, and I would kind of start,
I don't know, seeing things in my head. And the
first thing I saw was the word Vanderbilt because I
just had doctors kind of all over like I think
that's normal. So I just got I got Vanderbilt. I
(14:52):
got a concier doctor who you know, I could go
in and get you know, fluids or whatever I needed.
And I got you know, all my doctors there, and
then I just started really listening to my gut. So
bone marrow biopsy is how they found it, which was.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Oh, why did they even do that? Is it because
you were not good? Like feeling not feeling good?
Speaker 1 (15:11):
I was anemic and they couldn't get to the bottom
of why it was so anemic. And so I just
and I tried everything you know to do not have
to do a bone marrow biopsy, but it just kept
I mean, it was going kind of fast, you know,
and at that point, it's like they worry that your
butt will be so thick that you have a stroke,
(15:32):
and I kind of was getting lightheaded and whatever. So
I got a bone marrow biopsy, which is just I
hated that so bad, and they want you to get
one in the middle of your treatment plan and at
the end. But I just told them, I'm not doing
that again unless it's going to change the course of
our treatment. Like so it's interesting and they were fine
(15:54):
with it. It's interesting what things if you really pay
attention to your gut, that you can kind of say
no to. And you know, we kind of just do
whatever the doctors say. But so at first, you know,
they had to do it to diagnose, which I understood,
and you know, they said six months of chemo and ratuxin,
which is amniotherapy, and oh and it was rough. It
(16:16):
was rough, honestly because I was already so an ee mix.
So then you just get so knocked down.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Just wiped out. Gosh.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, I mean I was just but I would just
come home and go to bed, you know, and just
think okay, And then after like four days, you know,
three or four days, I'd be like, all right, I'm
gonna go upstairs, I work out, make myself move, you know.
(16:43):
But then the first couple of months, yeah, I was
I had to get you know, several blood transfusions and
stuff because it was like everything was an infection. Everything
was just weird. It's just so crazy.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
What were you thinking about to get you through that?
Speaker 1 (16:56):
You know, there's just those moments in time that's just
like pure, like I'm going to put my head down,
and probably like disassociation in a way, which some people
think of it as a bad thing, and I think
it's bad if you live in it, but sometimes it's
kind of handy.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Yeah, I agree, sometimes it's required.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah, shock is like a good thing sometimes, which.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Is why it actually happens right like this.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
It is actually a defense, right, Shock is a fricking
defense to make sure you don't completely lose your crap.
And when they say, hey, you're good, had you already
built back up? I mean, did you feel like you
were healthier leading up to it?
Speaker 3 (17:29):
Oh? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Is it a slow inclined back to I don't normally
isout the word, but back to what you used to
feel like.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
It was and better? You know, at the end, my
my red blood levels were in the normal range. Everything
was even better so than when I started.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
So healthier.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, man, and platelets, like my overall platelets at one
point they got down to thirty. That was at the beginning,
And now they're like.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
I don't know what that means? Though, like I don't
know the comparison.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
I think normals like one forty to three hundred.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
You were, and you were at thirty.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
I was thirty. Yeah, and now I'm like every time
I get them, that's like one something.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Do you have anything that you used to monitor yourself? No,
because if it were like an or ring, I'd be obsessed.
I had to quit an or ring obviously not the
same thing, but I wore that stupid I looked at it,
looked at it every thirty seconds.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I have to throw away in mine to my or
rings or any sort of a off it. It's too
much power.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
And I would wake up in the middle of the
night to check my sleep, which is the.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Exact topic Bobby, exactly was it right?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Was it?
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
It'd be like, you're not asleep and you need sleep,
and I'd be like, yeah, it's a good point.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
I'm awake to check out my or ring.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
It knows too much.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
So I can't if I have any opportunity to like
over monitor same, I have to not do it at all.
Like I haven't looked at and things have been the
past three or four years definitely different with like the
radio show not so much the podcast, because I would
look at numbers of everything all the time. Yeah, I
get it, and have two modes. I need to look
(18:58):
at every number all the time or nothing thing.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yep, I one hundred percent understand that. And it's a
control thing, you know. It's I think that people who
don't we don't drink. I mean, there has to be
a flare up and control is a biggie. I mean
it's like, yeah, and actually this sickness forced me. I'm
still kind of a control freak, but I'm less of
one because when you experience something with that out of
(19:22):
your control. There was a moment where I just said,
take it fine, I can't control it, and then there
was such a good feeling about that. Really, so it's
good to kind of remind ourselves Like, but I think
the better option to that is not to look at
the things or not to eliminate things that are gonna.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Yeah, my wife will be like, is your ring charge
you wearing it? I'm like, no, I don't charge what ring?
Yeah exactly, I don't. I just don't do it, and
I don't look at numbers. Every once in a while
that it might out and be like, hey, give me
the give me a month from the past fourteen month.
But if I do, yeah, like I drown in them.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
I know, I get it. I don't know. I stay
aloof on purpose. I don't. I haven't looked at the
chart well maybe ever, even when I barely graized them
back in the day, I thought, what's me looking at it?
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Going to do anything that's pretty healthy?
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Make me nervous, wreck and make me not want to
do music? Well, that's defeats the purpose.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Did you ever have when you were going through your illness?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Did you stop focusing on music or did you focus
on in a different way, like did you use music
at all?
Speaker 1 (20:20):
No? I went like, that's the only time that in
pregnancy that my music button was just like really pause. Yeah,
I don't know why did it?
Speaker 3 (20:30):
When did they come out?
Speaker 2 (20:31):
And I'm leading up to asking about this specific project,
but when did the music bug kind of get back
in your system? I feel like it's always lived there,
like I took a vacation. When did it come back
and move back in.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
And move back in when I got healthy?
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (20:42):
And it was like, you know, you process these things
without even knowing it. You know that you're taking it
in and what you know. I'll just feel like this
feeling like go get the guitar, ghosted it at the piano.
I always say, it's like an emotional sneeze. It's just like, Okay,
something needs to happen. And then a lot of times,
(21:03):
if I'll just push record and just start, I don't
know whatever it is. If I'll go back and listen,
there's words in there that I can sound out. It's
really interesting.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
You a melody writer or like a lyric writer, if
you and both I mean both, but which one do
you feel like you gravitate toward more instinctually?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
It's like I, I guess melodies. I love to like
attempt to make a melody that like breaks your heart
or like you feel you know what I mean? And
then words. I have all these notebooks. I mean, I
feel like I do both. I just a lot of
times I'll get a melody first, I guess, and then
I'll go look at my word ideas.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Yeah, well I thought I was. I was.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Literally The next question, like, you ever create like a
really cool melody and then you go back and you
find something you wrote eight months ago or pieces of
different things, like how does that work?
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Creatively?
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Yeah, I I love to go back. I'll just go
in my voice memos and go back to like twenty twelve,
you know, and there'll be a nugget on there. Did
that the other day on a flight.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
They a melody and a voice memoi. But words in
a book or do you leave words in a voice
memo too?
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Uh? No, words in the voice momoent Yeah, I trust it.
But I found a bunch of old Annie's things actually
that I put organized in a folder for us of
like ideas we had had on the bus years ago
that were good, you know, just I would have never
remembered the melodies. I would have never so I try to.
(22:35):
I'm try trying to be good about like organizing them
so they don't just fall off the edge of the world.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
It's always cool because there would be things that I
would have written and or even jokes that I it
wasn't the right time, and then you go back and
you're like, oh man, this was so good.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
I can still use this.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
That's always a good feeling, and also reminded me I
wasn't because I hate old stuff. I always hate the
old stuff that I've done, and I feel like that's
healthy ish because I maybe it feel like I'm growing.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah, it's like we don't identify because it's like we
can respect what we did back then. Like I'll go
back and listen to Gosh even five years ago, and
my twain is just so twiny, which everyone's always like
that's a good thing. It's like now I'm like, we'll
just try to ease up on your eyes and your whatever.
But I respect. But it just sounds like a little
(23:22):
old country girl.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
That's funny.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I still am. I'm just an older country girl.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
I mean, I went to speech pathology for years because
being from Arkansas, my accent was super thick. Yeah, right,
And it was it was the eyes, eyes or the
iron g's and those those were the biggest two. When
they did they have you say all this stuff, and
it'd be like, I just want to go fishing, and
they'd be like, okay, well let's work on a few
(23:47):
of these things. And it was the eyes that was
the biggest one. And I think if you're from where we're.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
From, yeah, it's kind of undoable.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
The eyes are tough.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I'll take the if I'll untwing.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
And then the I in g's.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
But it's funny that you feel like you were, or
people tell you were twangy year. Yeah, have you made
any like purposefully not been as twangy like with the
new stuff?
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Or no, I just try to if one sneaks out
that's just so over the top, I'll be like, oh,
I just gotta I don't try to take all of
them out.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Just the why why this record? Like what I don't
know what's happening here with this record?
Speaker 1 (24:23):
It's happening. So I just kind of felt like after
the whole ordeal, kind of like a homecoming of the
soul sorts.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
I just.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
I started hearing these melodies. Some of the songs on
the record are actually old, like two thousand and four,
you know, or when they were written. It's just songs
that have always meant so much to me, but they
kind of tell a story, and it's like I just
saw this vision in my mind of what I wanted
it to look like. It was like being from East Tennessee.
(24:54):
I've always had like that smoky mountain feeling. It's always
been in my soul, and I wanted to come back
and just kind of reflect that place and who I am.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Did you write a whole bunch of songs and cut
it down or did you go now that these are
the songs I want to do.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Let's do these songs.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
I mean I knew some that I were going to do,
and then some are kind of newer. What I did
was myself and Guina Johnson, who was an amazing engineer
and producer, and I just took the mind out of
it and we went to East Tennessee. We were rented
this cabin from eighteen fifty beautiful that backed up to
(25:38):
the Smoky mountains, and we brought all of this gear
and her and I hold it up there and we
shoot too yeah wow, and unloaded it. We were pouring
the sweat. I mean, it was like but we set
it up and I started recording. I just went in
the zone without thinking, you know. We went out on
(25:59):
the porch and she would record. We went out, put
a quilt in the yard and she recorded. That's what
I like trains is you can hear all the critters,
you know, because it's but I wanted that. I wanted
those textures like kind of woven throughout this whole scene.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Was she ever like, it's hard to do this because
I gotta edit, get edit the squirrel out. It's only
edit half a Squirrel out. No.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
That's the thing about her is that it's kind of
magical when you take like the thinking part out and
just kind of go, let's see what needs to happen,
you know. And she knows I like singing in the dark,
so she turns all the lights off and lights candles
and I sit there and I don't know. It's it's
really cool as opposed to just going to stud dumb
being like, Okay, we gotta I gotta hit that note
(26:42):
by five.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
You know, you ever have a song that's really emotional
and you cry while singing it?
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Yeah, I do.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I have a couple of those on on this album actually,
where I just yeah, and it always sneaks off. It's
like I can feel it right here and it's like, oh,
you know, but I think those moments are cool.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
I mean I agree.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
My answer is yes, I agree. It would be difficult
for that would be difficult for me. Yeah, I don't
think I have the vulnerability to do that. I've cried
on the air four or five, six sevens, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
I never plan on it, and it's like it jumps me.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
It's like I'm being attacked on anally. I didn't see
it coming.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
I know emotions like that, but then I can. I
also have the power to stop it and do it.
But I and a lot of times I'll choose to
stop it. Do you ever, do you just keep going?
Will you just keep going? Or will you kind of regather?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
I mean, I try to stay in it as long
as I can keep control. I cut the song the
other day just because I wanted to. It's an old
Loretta and Conway song. Conway actually wrote it. It's called
as soon as I hang up the phone, I just
said I want I want to sing it just because
I felt it my soul. But Loretta does this thing
at the end where she does cry, and I felt
(27:55):
that same emotion that the end has snuck up on
me too, And it's kind of in the thing.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Do you do both parts?
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I know I didn't do any Conway parts. He on
the recording, he's kind of doing like he's like on
a CBE radio, like talking like I love you Loretta,
she singing, and he's like, I'm sorry to Loretta. So
I just kind of.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Well, if you need a CBE guy, I'm your guy. Okay,
I can lay down to me and ceb I learned
how to play You're the reason our kids are ugly
to me like that, that's like, that's a funny song, right,
And it's like that's what I think of when I
think of those two because I'm just not like funny music,
Like that's a good one.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Yeah you know that one? Yeah? Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I love them together. I think I love the idea
of like two stars just doing.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
A record happened a lot more back in the day.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
I know, I'm rallying up some right now. Some will
listen to me, just like I've always told Wayland Payne,
one of my dear friends, I'd love to do that
with him. Or I mean, you could just any any
artist respect it and you can literally just do a
record together.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
One. What about the cover songs on this project?
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Oh yeah, I have a lot of cover songs that
I just songs that I listened to a ton my
whole life that I've that have always just been my
favorite songs. I thought, let me just sn Kentucky Headhunter's
Deep Cut that I used to love, and I'm like,
I'm gonna record that Knights and White Satin.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
There's Knights and Whiteside Blues. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
And oh that's no way to say goodbye. That's when
I cried. And while I was singing it, the Leonard
Cohen one that was kind of haunting me. So yeah,
other kind of sprinkled.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Throughout any that you thought you may want to sing
and you didn't.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Nope, I have a lot of songs. I mean, I'll
probably have to hit it down.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Really or not?
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I mean really, who cares?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Yeah at this point, you know what, You're right, at
this point, who cares? People find out ninety song records
and it doesn't matter, It doesn't hurt anything anymore.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
There's infinite space.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Yeah, it costs money to make music, So I'm not
saying that it doesn't cost money to make music. There's
infinite space on on the music you put out now,
or it wasn't the case because there's only.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
So much, so much room on a CD or tape.
Do you ever have tapes?
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Is that a little bit have a tape that was
a homemade like hometown tape with like cover of yodel
and blues and you know all of the.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
So you never bought a tape just generally you didn't
go to the store.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
I bought tapes.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Oh, you did have tapes the.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Walmart singles, Yes, like like TLC would have them on
one side and then the karaoke version on the other side.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Oh, I don't remember. I don't remember that.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
I remember the singles, but they'd had like it'd be
like Vanilla Ice and then on the back side it'd
be Ices Baby, but then like play that funky music
white Boy in the back, so it'd be like one
side another one.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
One time I had a Vanilla Ice front side, MC
Hammer backside.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Yeah, tell me. I wasn't living then.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
I didn't even know they made. It was legit artist side.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
They I never had.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
I have vinyl now. Never I missed records that was
before me. Yes, I was at tapes. Never had eight tracks.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
No, Daddy had an eight track in the garage when
you washed the car.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Do you remember your first CD you ever had?
Speaker 1 (31:10):
My first CD was.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
My first CD that you bought?
Speaker 1 (31:17):
I know, my first tape was Aiming Grant, my first
you know, I went to kmart and got what was
my first CD? I don't remember. Probably LeAnn Rhymes. Honestly,
I'm sure it was LeAnn Rhymes. You let up my
life or something.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Do you ever meet her?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
I've talked to her on Instagram. I feel like I
might have met her briefly once before, but I want
to meet her.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Along but never never spent neat no quality time with her.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
I haven't either, but she was gone by the time
I got here, right And I don't know if you
guys ever crossed like little kids. I moved here in
twenty thirteen, yeah, and she was not here at all.
She like came in the studio one time, not even
as a yes. She just walked in the room once,
went what up everybody, and then left and I was like,
who was that?
Speaker 3 (32:04):
And they were like there was like in rhymes. I
was like, oh wow, that's weird, not not in a
bad way, but she she just popped and yelled high
and walked out.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
She's very mysterious. Then, like it just hiding from us.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
What's touring like touring?
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Well, I'm not touring really right now.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I'm going to tour with any shows though I know
you're in the UK stuff with a little big town.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
UK, little big tone. I've played a show here in Nashville, So.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
I guess my question is how did it feel to
do live music? Again.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
I feels so great. You know, I love I love
singing so much, and I don't really sing at home.
Son doesn't really like it. And my husband but he
doesn't say anything. But I just home is not where
I sing. I sing like hidden in my room at home.
So it feels good to sing out for people.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
It's like telling a pain or they can have paint
brushes in the house. What's happening here? Hey, da Vinci,
no paint brushes for you? I know, yeah, howl? Howld
your kid now?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
He is six? What right?
Speaker 4 (33:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:07):
That feels like yesterday.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
I know, it really does. It's so sweet and I'm
I'm so funny. It's like I have my creative side.
I don't really like some people are really good at
like taking their kids on on tour or something. But
I'm like, I do better if I can go focus
on that, you know, the work thing, and then come
home and then I'm in mom.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Mode, separate them. Yeah. Do you listen to like the
kid his kids music?
Speaker 1 (33:31):
No? No, no, no, no, no, I don't. He doesn't
really care about kid music. He he's always liked real music.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
What about like kids TV shows like Bluebird? What's his name? Blue?
Blue and Blue, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Two different ones. Yeah, both of those.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah, you've watched that. Would you ever do a kid's record?
We ever inspired to a kid's record? Because kids music suckt.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Yeah, there's probably a way you can make it lullaby.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Oh you're talking about young young kids.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
We're just like I mean, you know, Tom t Hall
put out that record that was really cool, so it
can be done. I've not really thought about it though.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Your son is he more music or sports?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
You know?
Speaker 1 (34:17):
He hums all the time. I noticed that, but then
he kind of throws the ball with John two. So
I can't really tell.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
You two careers that I would be like you definitely
don't want I would never want my kid to get
into any sort of art. Yeah, although it's awesome, but
as you know, everybody wants to do art. So it's
really hard to do and there's a lot it's it's
a very difficult place to make yourself. It's a very
(34:47):
vulnerable place you have to be. I'm creating something and
I need you to tell me if you like it
or not. And my whole worth is, at least professionally,
is gonna be based.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
On if you like it or not. That's tough and
then make a living at it. Yeah, I just I
would rather you go just dig a hole like it
makes it doing that.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
We'll see.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
I don't know your husband. How tall is he?
Speaker 1 (35:07):
My husband is six one, I guess maybe six two.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
How tall are you?
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Five six?
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Okay, that's pretty those are both pretty average.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Then I'm just thinking about your son and what what
the awesome mix of jeans he's got unless he is
like I can't play sports because he's so any music,
but then he's like tone deaf at the same time,
he gets the worst into both.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
I have been sneaking in some like I'll be like
match this, match this, and he'll instantly find it.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
I don't think I can do that.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
My mom can't do it.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Again.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
Mm hm, oh my god, I heard it.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
I heard it.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
You've landed on it.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
So I did not start there though, right I've looped.
Give me, give me one more, give me one more
that the same one?
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Oh give me do If I thought you said, yeah,
the same one you.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Want lower, I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Mm. That's like a harmony that I wasn't trying to do.
The harmony as the thing that one more time. H
m m hmm, oh, I thought you did the first one. Mm.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yeah, yeah, that was it. That was it.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
That's hard, I know. That's why I can only go.
I can only sing in one key and that's it.
That's the only and I only.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Kind of can you matched that last one? I hate
to tell you though.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Okay, So on the album, the whole the song is out,
the hot rod Pipe drink, The whole album's next year.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
The whole thing comes up next year, right, is tentative time?
Or like you guys have a plan.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Already, maybe like January February, you know. I put out
Like I Like Trains, which is an old Freddie will
Smith song that I've always loved. And then I put
out Risen Road, which is another one I wrote with
Brendan Vincent and Wayland Payne twenty I wrote it in
twenty fifteen. I always loved it. So I'm just kind
of putting out one at a time. And I don't
(37:12):
really know.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
I took Carter Faith out on the road with me
for some shows. Yes, I love her so much, like
she's got a real bite.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I like, yeah she does, and you don't really just
if you just look at her, maybe you don't see
the bite.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
But man, when you hang out in the best way,
like you hang out with her, like you learn about her,
you talk to her, you hear her music like she's
got it.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
There's something.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
I agree. We've written so many songs. I just can't
wait for her to release them. Actually, she's got a
few on my record too.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Yeah. What about her do you like?
Speaker 1 (37:47):
I mean she kind of feels like a sister or
something to me, Like I explained it, like she's enough hippie,
she's enough like Appalachin, like angel vibes, but got an edge.
I don't know, we just we write so well together.
I bet we've written fifty songs, like really really good ones,
and so I don't know. I just feel like those
(38:09):
those young ones that that really like speak to my heart.
I just like want to help them, but like, you know,
kind of help them and kind of gill any advice
they want or write with them or who.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Did that for you? Oh gosh, who comes to mind?
Who's the first?
Speaker 1 (38:30):
I mean the first person I thought of was Karen. Yeah,
just like somebody that's fair child, just like always been there,
always if you. But there's also more. I mean I
remember when I was pregnant. I was gaining so much weight,
Oh my gosh, and it was a new thing. And
I would text Jennifer Nettles, you know, just does your
(38:50):
body go back? I don't feel, you know. Or I
would text Karen, or I would text I don't know.
It's just like I feel like there's a lot of
them in country music. Miranda always but that's always like
my sister.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, not as motherly more now more a tough love,
I guess someone else. I had Laura Watkins come out
and play with us, yes, at the Rhyman and in
a different way. Lauren's like really nice but also does
not give a f It's like the best mix.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
I love. It's confidence too, you know. It's like confidence
and what they want to say, a very clear vision.
You know, they're not going to let anybody tell them
what they want to say or what they want to
sound like. And I respect that.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
I feel too that now in because there are definitely
some drawbacks to social media creating artists, but I think
one of the positives of it is a lot of
artists are who they are before an entity gets ahold
of them, and it's harder to change somebody once they
already have established who they are.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
We're ten years ago, you go are so we'll to
sign you.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
We're going to we're going to modify some things until
you and have you do this, and you'd be like,
all right, But now I think one of the positives
is you can kind of create your idea.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Yeah, and if they want you, they sign you, they
really can't change a lot.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Yeah, I agree, and I think.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
That people who have benefited from that. I think Lauren's
a big beneficiary.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yea right, Yeah, Lauren. That is who she is. I mean,
Lauren Watkins is and I love her too. I have
I guess two songs on her new record, I Pretend
You're Coming Home and Gallinburg we co wrote. But yeah,
I mean that's who she is. She's just that's how
she dresses, that's what she sounds like. That's she's got
amazing ideas. She's a great songwriter, confident in how she
(40:31):
wants them to sound. I mean, yeah, it's less work
for labels.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
I guess what about Miranda? Do you guys? Are you
guys working together writing at all?
Speaker 1 (40:39):
We write kind of all. I mean anytimes she's home
and in the writing zone, we write. We wrote with
Stephen Wilson Junior. Was that January? I guess it was
the last time we wrote. We always have a you know,
a text seat of a shared note. We have Miranda
Nash ideas, Annie's ideas, and it's the collaborate So it's.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
Like we're always Would you guys ever do a duet
record together?
Speaker 1 (41:03):
That'd be Franda?
Speaker 3 (41:04):
Yeah? Or would that or would that be like the
Annie's but missing without Ange? Oh? Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
I don't know. Angelina and I were talking once about
because we've written with Guy Clark a lot. It was
one of our you know, one of the best writers ever,
Like if we did a record of the songs that
we'd written with Guy, you know. So I don't think
there are any rules when you support the person.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Yeah, and again again, far less rules now that there's
an infinite amount of space to put music, yeah right,
not make music that still costs money, yeah right, but
you know, to you can.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Put as many songs as you want. Has your.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Philosophy strategy. It all changed about putting music out because
it used to be only do this here, do that there?
Or is it now just if you got it and
it feels good let's go.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yeah, I mean I like to have a little bit
of the game plan, but there's really no predicting what's
gonna I mean. Also, thanks for playing risen Road on
your show and Amy play it on hers. I mean,
that's a big deal of me. I don't have a
label right now. I don't have I'm funding all this myself,
which is fine. I like that, but you know it,
you can't really predict what's gonna stick and what's gonna not.
(42:10):
You can have a plan of like whatever, but yeah,
I like the blind faith. If it feels right and
the team that you have agrees, let's just see what happens.
Speaker 3 (42:22):
Do you remember your first time to Nashville when you
were a kid.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
First summer in Nashville was I sang at the Tennessee
Fairest of the Fair competition. I wasn't in it. I
was the entertainment.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Well, you came here to sing for the first time,
So you actually came to Nashville to sing.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Yeah, that was the only time my dad came to
Nashville with us.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
How old is alive?
Speaker 1 (42:40):
I was ten or eleven, I think, and so so
then that was that, and then after that my dad
died when I was thirteen. My mom and I started
coming here soon after that. We rent like limos when
you got here, yeah, and like party really looking back,
but also she was trying to get me discovered. Which
(43:02):
we'd go to Broadway. That was when Broadway was way different.
It wasn't shady, it was just not I guess it was.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
It was just chill. I guess it wasn't. Yeah, there
wasn't an Apple store you're saying there on Broadway, you know.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
And I would just go in and be like I
would just walk up to the band and go do
you know when will I be loved e? Rocky Top
you see, and be like can you sing? I'm like yeah,
I'm like, okay, I don't think that anybody would even
let anybody up now it's so.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
But you're a kid though, doing that right?
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (43:36):
I was like four fourteen when I started doing that.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
Yeah, did you ever have to do that here? Like
play at a bar for a while?
Speaker 1 (43:46):
No, not for not for long. I just kind of
I was just laughing because I don't know how good
I would be. I love slow songs so much. I
don't think I could rock for three hours. That's hard.
Those people that go dow there and sing for three hours.
But I would get up and just do like rocky
talk you see at Totsies. And actually that's how somebody
(44:09):
ended up hearing me, and words started getting around randomly.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Because you had sing Rocky Top.
Speaker 5 (44:15):
Yeah, the Bobby Cast will be right back. This is
the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
What kind of kid were you at fourteen fifteen?
Speaker 1 (44:35):
I was mature, I had lost my dad, my mom
had went a little wild. So I was trying to
like wrangle a little bit. And I told my mom
if she moved to Nashville from Knoxville, that we'd figure
it out. You know, I'd make it. And so it's
kind of a little hustler looking back. I mean, I
was like, I will figure out a way.
Speaker 3 (44:56):
Does that make you proud of yourself?
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Yeah, it really does, especially now that I have a
child and you look back at how young you know,
when you go through these traumas, it's kind of like, wow,
that's I wouldn't think I could or would be brave
enough to even go ask somebody, hey can I sing?
I would be too embarrassed or nervous or whatever even now,
(45:19):
So what would.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
You tell that that fourteen year old. If I do
this kind of crap in therapy, I do it all
the time. But we like that that artist. Fourteen year old.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Yeah, I mean I would say your dreams come true.
I found a letter, well, it was a prayer. It
was a few years back, and I had written it
on on a piece of notebook paper and it fell
down from my mom's one of her closets a few
years back. And we've moved so many times since I've
(45:49):
written this prayer. It was in two thousand and two,
so I was fourteen, and it was before I moved
to Nashville. And it says, Dear Lord, you have blessed
me and every possible. Your mighty hand has guided me
everywhere I've ever been and everywhere I'm going. Please, I
want to do this, you know. I have it on
(46:10):
my phone, but it's saying I love music more than anything.
I know you're the only one that can give me
the chance. I promise I'll let your light shine through
every note I sing because you live inside of me.
How could it not. I mean, just for fourteen year old,
and at that point I was my mom was gone. Actually,
my mom had kind of ran off for a while,
so When I wrote that letter, I was fourteen, had
(46:33):
lost my dad. I was living with my brother, who
was eighteen. Anyway, I don't even remember writing that letter,
but when I read it now, I tear up every
time because I thought, oh my gosh, my dreams have
come true. This is all I ever wanted to do.
And you know, you can get hung up on oh yeah,
but you know, if you're not selling out stadium, it's
not success. But all I ever wanted to do is
(46:53):
be on the opry. And I also get to have
songwriting and so many more part of that dream that
I didn't even kind of foresee at that age. So
it's it's funny how when you look back, I'm so
glad I have that because it reminds me that that's
a prairie answered like hardcore.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
And you still have it. You saved it.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Yeah, I still have a letter.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
The new single is out now Hot Rob pipe Dream
and the new album beginning of the year. Ish when
it comes out, let me know, we'll do something again.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
It'll be cool.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
I'll play it again, awesome, I'll play it on whatever
platforms we have. And going out with a Little Big
Town in September to the UK.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
To the UK. What are those shows like, well, I
don't know yet. The UK shows in general, like you've
played over I.
Speaker 1 (47:39):
Love oh yeah, UK shows in general, Oh my gosh,
I love it over there. They just get me. I
can just do acoustic things. I think I'm just going
to have them put you know, put a piano out
from a little big town set. I'll play guitar, maybe
play a couple on piano, and I just don't have
to worry about them not listening.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
Reallypectful, yeah, like grateful'skful.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Oh yeah, and they and they seem to know every
word to everything, even like I don't really have hits
per se, but they make you feel.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
Like you do. I guess, what's your instrument of choice
to write on?
Speaker 1 (48:16):
I switch it up? I mean I like I like piano. Recently,
I used to play classical piano, and I can find
different configurations that way. I do clear carry around a
classical guitar because I think that always makes it sound
more what's that like, nylon string?
Speaker 3 (48:34):
Got it? Yep?
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Makes it sound more like romantic willyish. I get kind
of bored with the acoustic guitar sometimes, just like, oh,
I've already played a g I've already just sounds like
so I kind of am ended up writing on different instruments.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
Just a couple more.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
But I'm just curious about because you were singing, But
when did you start playing music? Where did that come from?
Who said here's an instrument? Who kind of allowed that?
Speaker 1 (48:57):
That was always me? I just I felt it, oh
so early on in my soul.
Speaker 3 (49:02):
And mom or dad didn't play music.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
You know, my dad played secretly. He was an electrician.
It was his work, and he would practice piano, but
he didn't want anybody to listen. He would like and
he could play by ear. And then my papa, my
dad's dad. His first cousin is Carl Smith, who's in
the country'sic call Fame, Carling Carter's dad. And I'm from Maynonville, Tennessee.
(49:26):
So there's like some Roy Acuff, you know, maynardal people.
There's been a lot of Chad Atkins. So I feel
like it's kind of in my blood for sure, through Carlsmith,
you know, on that on my dad's side. But I
don't know, I just always knew it. I always felt
it so deep, and it's the only job I've ever had.
I mean, I worked at the Smoky Mountain Barn Theater
(49:47):
when I was like ten and eleven. That was my
only like paycheck.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
What would you do there to sing? Just perform singing?
Clog and clog? Yeah, where did you learn to clog?
Speaker 1 (49:58):
I took clogging lessons.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
From somebody in your town. It was that part of like, Okay,
so you do music, you also have to clog or
we like, you see somebody clogging.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
On the side of the road, You're like, I got
to do that.
Speaker 4 (50:08):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
I think I just saw it and said, yes, that's
my wife clogged. She does. I'm like, god, we should
do routine.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
And every once in a while she'll be like, oh
I see a routine to.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
This, and she'll start, oh my god, it's so much fun.
Speaker 3 (50:21):
It does look fun. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
And it's hard, honestly a little bit hard.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
I can do that about as good as I can
match pitch. You did good self, Credit you guess. Follow
Ashley at Ashley Monroe Music on Instagram, TikTok and check
out the new song get ready for the new music.
Go see her when she's touring. I'm it's super good
to see you. I'm glad that you feel good. You
look great, Your boots are awesome?
Speaker 1 (50:45):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
Have you worn them since?
Speaker 1 (50:47):
No, but I've looked at him since and thought, where
am I gonna wear them again?
Speaker 2 (50:51):
I do the thing where like I'll buy a nice
shirt and I'll continue to give myself reasons this is
not a nice enough thing to wear the shirt too,
So then I never.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
Wear the shirt.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Well, yeah, because it's so so so speat.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Yeah, I'm my god, you just got to be the
right thing. And then two years ago by I've never
put on the shirt. I know that's what I would
do with Those boots are so cool.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
I know I knew they were going to be in
the video, but it has to be a really special thing.
I do that with clothes, and then sometimes my clothes
max out on memories, Like I had to toss out
a funeral dress not too long ago because of the
memory you have Grand Finale on your that's the saddest
you can get funeral dress.
Speaker 3 (51:22):
You're out of here.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
So that's opposite of interestress with that feeling.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
Yess guys, follow Ashley Ashley, great to see
Speaker 5 (51:29):
You, Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.
Host
Bobby Bones
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