#578 - Stephen Wilson Jr. on Going from Scientist to Musician and Turning Tragedy Into Art

Stephen Wilson Jr. joins Bobby to tell the wild path that took him from the science world to writing songs for a living. He talks about what he did before music, why he finally took the leap, and how that analytical brain shows up in the way he writes, records, and builds a career. Stephen also gets into the grind of starting over, how the loss of his father fueled him, and what he’s chasing next as his story keeps getting bigger.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
My dad hates thieves. The Cardinal sin to him this theft,
so I knew like, if I got caught, the most
supreme feeding ever was gonna come behind it. I was like,
don't care. I'll die for this. I got it. I'll
go to jail for this. I'll go to boys' school.
I don't care.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey, guys, Bobby Bones here, today's guest. One of my favorites.
It is Stephen Wilson Junior. He has been killing it lately.
He was nominated for New Artist of the Year last
year Cmas. He performed stand By Me. It was amazing.
The crowd went crazy. We talk about that. His album
Son of a Dad, came out last year, thirty four
songs basically dedicated to his dad who passed away. We

(00:45):
get into that here he's kicking off a whole new
chapter with a single Gary, and he's gearing up for
the Gary the Torch twenty twenty six tour, and go
to Stephen Wilson Junior dot com for tickets there. He's
also we talk about this way later. I'm married to
Lee Nash. The leads up six pencent on the Richer,
which fun fact, So we get into all that one
of my favorite artists right now in country music. Here

(01:06):
he is Steven Wilson Jr. When did you start playing
music of any sort?

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Around sixteen? My dad got me my first guitar for
my sixteenth birthday and he caught me picking out theme
songs to sitcoms on one of those crappy little Walmart
keyboards and he was like, well, how are you doing that.
I was like, I'm just doing it. It goes like this,
and he was like okay, And then he could he

(01:35):
knew I was super into rock and roll and I
was a real nerd. I like had piles of like
these biology notebooks and I was a real quiet kid
and super into science. And I think he was just
kind of worried about me so than anything. He was like,
this kid needs some help. And I was boxing. But
boxing is a solitary sport. You know, it's very it's

(01:57):
a lonely sport. It's one on one, it's not a
team sport. And so you know, he got me a
guitar because I think he could see that I had
this natural affinity for it, and I mean I just
started going. I just started playing it. It was it
was like I just understood it. I don't know, it
just made sense.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Was it was there science and music to you? Like
the math of it.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, I wouldn't say the math, but the shapes of
it and the alchemy of it, the chemistry of it,
more fascinated me than the math. I learned the math
later with some of the music theory. I didn't really
get big into it, but you can quickly see how
the numbers work within it. But I was more interested
in the chemistry of songs, like the alchemy of and

(02:43):
you know how they change emotions and the colors of chords.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
You see colors of chords.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Uh, yeah, I think so in shapes like a lot,
you know, that's kind of I kind of piece them
together in that way, and.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
You would see a shape or color like if I
just hit a G you would in your mind you
see a color.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah probably yeah, brown and uh and then yeah, like
a right triangle like yeah, I mean that's you're serious,
very serious. Yeah wow, But you know that's kind of
how you're it's your brains with allowing you to remember things.
They're just I think it's how I I've always been

(03:26):
pretty good at memorizing music, and yeah, I have a
very visual memory, Like I've always had that ability to
read things and memorize them fast. It's helped me a
lot through science because science is a lot of memorization
and regurgitation, and so, yeah, it helped me memorize music

(03:51):
because sonically I had a harder time memorizing it at first.
You know, it was the shapes helped me keep track
of it all.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
When you would explain to people what you were seeing,
would they understand meaning, yeah, I see a shape, but
unless someone actually knows music or understand what you're talking about,
or did you try to explain that.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
No, I never tried to explain it, and I've never
really explained it it ever until now. I guess it's
it's just a way from my own personal brain to
kind of, you know, synthesize it and compute it. All.
It makes no sense to anybody else.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
I say that, and my wife does this all months
have a number and she can see any word. He
can say any word to her and she can spell
it backward because she can see it in her head.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah, do that too, Yeah, and I had ABC's all that.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah, I don't have the ability to do that, but
I can say rumble Stiltskin and she can just look
at it and spell it backward all the way through. Yeah,
and she'd be like, I didn't even know people couldn't
do this.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, my dad could do that very well. He was
like a genius at it. So I think I inherited
it a little bit from him, even though he hated academics.
He just had this weird like visual memory, so.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
He hated academics. You were extremely academic.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
It sounds like, yeah, I was really nerdy, and you know,
in a different household, I think I would have been
a really great academic. But I grew up with so
much trauma with my mother. My mom and dad split
when I was a kid, and she ran off with
these these guys that were abusive and really abusive, and

(05:25):
so I spent a lot of my time in fear
of my mother's life.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
My old should she stay in your life?

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, she moved to Tennessee. So but we obviously stayed
in contact and visited a good bit and we're very
close now. But there was a time period in my
childhood where it was just tough, and you know, I
spent a lot of my childhood and just perpetual, like
kind of a catatonic state of just fear, and it
was really hard for me to be the student that

(05:52):
I probably should have been because I was extremely distracted
by that. But yeah, I think I a you know,
and it took me a long time to realize that
until I I kind of got past, you know, what
was happening with my mom, and once I got to
high school and I really realized what kind of academic

(06:14):
I was. And then in college, it really became obvious
because I my father imprinted so many things on me
and I you know, he didn't mean to do this
because he was a child with a child, but I
remember him telling me as a kid, you know, because
I got his name and I looked just like him,

(06:34):
so I think he was under the assumption that I
was going to be just like him. So I remember
him telling me, like, you know, Steven, I'm you know,
we're not good at school, Like we don't. You know,
you don't You're not going to go to college because
you know people you know, people like me. We we don't,
we're not good at school. I remember him just kind
of imprinting that on me as a kid, and I

(06:56):
was like, but I but I liked school and I
it's it's not hard for me. Most of it isn't
at all, and but I just kind of, you know,
it made me think that school didn't really matter, you know,
early on, and then I shook that loose because you know,
I kind of had to. I kind of had to
prove him wrong. I was like, no, like as I

(07:17):
got into like organic chemistry and ap classes, classes, he
could have never even thought about going into it. Kind
of it kind of challenged me to kind of disrupt
perhaps that family, you know, in his mind curse like
you you know, we don't you know, we work with
our hands and are you know, and that's it. You know,

(07:39):
schooling is not for you.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Do you think his dad imprinted that on him big time?

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, you know, because they worked. They grew up in
body shops and worked in body shops, and you know,
the whole his plan for me was, you know, graduate
from high school. Best you can go, get your job,
get you some money, you know. And that was stability, rightah.
I mean that was in a small town in southern Indiana,

(08:04):
that that was the life, you you know, and he
believed I could at least do that. And I'll never
forget when I left for college. You know, I got
into college on my own. I did everything completely on
my own, like financial aid, saved up money. I took
a year to save up money. And and like, you know,

(08:26):
for about six weeks before I would, you know, I say, Dad, Mine,
you know, I'm going to college and he'd be like, well, no,
you ain't going to college, okay whatever, and uh. And
then like four weeks until I left, and I keep
talking about it, and and then the night I left,
I was, I was, you know, it was late. I

(08:46):
was gonna leave late at night so I didn't have
to deal with morning traffic driving out. And so I
left and I woke him up because he went to
bed at like eight at night because he'd get up
at four. And I said, Dad, I'm leaving. And he
said where are you going? And I said to college.

(09:09):
And I feel like in that moment, it just he
couldn't believe it, Like he thought I was kind of
making it up. He's like, oh, he's just gonna go
to a hotel or something for a couple of days, like.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
A little kid running away. He'll come back.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, like exactly, and he really it really and he
got up and he got his wallet out and he
pulled he had twenty dollars in it, and he was
here like, I don't know to tell you, Like he
gave me a hug and told me he loved me,
and and I was I never lived in his house
again after that.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
That's such a loving gesture though, of not knowing what
to do, so doing the one thing that you can
do to provide any sort of extra ability is handing
over money.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
Yeah, and it was just twenty bucks, but it was
that's it was a very meaningful twenty bucks. It was
the only you know, and uh and that's what started
my college career and I got a college degree with
When I graduated from college, I couldn't have couldn't have
seen a prouder father, really, because I think I defied
so many things, Like I broke so many paradigms in

(10:11):
his brain, Like it just I just took a sledgehammer
to those walls. And he was like, okay, we we
we aren't those people that I thought we were.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Well, you taught him something, yeah, totally. Not only are
we both wildly good looking guys obviously both of us,
it's like a mirror like, hey, hey, you guys. I
was I was the first kid to graduate high school
in my family, and when I applied to college, nobody knew.
I woke up and was like, hey, I'm leaving. I'm
going to college. I didn't have a bedroom, still on

(10:43):
the couch, yeah, my whole life. And so I grabbed
all the clothes underneath my couch, which was like my closet,
and I was like, you're just telling that story, and
it's like it's in another that's me in another dimension.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
And I got in my old suber route and left
and they were like all right, see you later. And
that was it. And I went to college. I mean
it was the same thing. I just went to college,
like there was no they didn't know anything about me.
Taking at acts. I did it all, got everything, you know, covered,
and then I just told him. I was like I'm
going to college today and they're like okay. And then
I just went to college. It's this, it's the same

(11:17):
version of your story.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah that's wild. Well, well here we are.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
It's like two models sitting here talking about our academic careers.
So if I chose this and you chose something a
lot smarter.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor. Wow,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
And you get to college, did you you had an
idea what you wanted to do, right, because you started
to enjoy like some of those you said ap classes
insights in high school.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah. When I first got into college, I was going
to be a veterinarian. That's if you, if anyone want
to ask me as a kid what you were going
to be when you grow grew up, I would have
been going to be a veterinary.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
You have animals at home, is that why?

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Oh? Yeah? And I just was obsessed with animal zoology,
most likely like a you know, working as like a
vet at a zoo, not like having my own practice
like I would have been like probably some specialty vet
or something drafts cheetah. And but I, you know, ended
up working as a vet tech for a couple of

(12:26):
years while I was in college and quickly switched gears
after I realized what veterinary medicine really looked like. I
had two great doctors I worked for and learned so much,
and then I switched to microbiology and chemistry, and because
I really found out that the microscopic world was way
more fascinating to me because I felt like the microscopic

(12:49):
world explained the macroscopic world or the macro world. Honestly,
you know a little bit more, you know than the
macro world could. It kind of like helped me understand
the small things, helped me understand the big things. And
I found, you know, under a microscope, a lot of

(13:10):
the small things are just mirroring the big things. They're
just they're like, you know, the worlds are the same,
they're just scaled up differently.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
So where did you end up like it? How did
you decide, like specifically, what you wanted to do for
a career.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Well, I didn't know exactly. When I graduated with my
degree in micro and chemistry, I was going to honestly
go get my medical doctorate or a PhD. That was
my first my next step because in you know, the
applied science is without a PhD, it's going to be tough.
But I ended up finding a really good job with

(13:49):
just a bachelor's I'll get to that, but that was
my plan. And I ended up starting this indie rock
band the last semester of my senior year of college.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
And what was the name of the band?

Speaker 1 (14:03):
And I was a lead guitar player played this green
stratocaster that I still have today, and it's a Jeff
beckstrat and we just started playing because I was playing music.
I was playing in jazz bands and university, and I
was a self taught guitar player, but I was a
serious jazz nerd and rock and roll nerd, and people

(14:24):
would hear me playing in dorms and stuff. And when
I moved to Nashville, I met some friends that I
knew from the previous college that I went to, and
they asked if I'd want to just playing this band,
and I was like sure, I had nothing better to
do outside of my degree and I was almost finished.

(14:46):
And anyway, we started playing shows, and before we knew it,
we had like a manager and we made a record,
and before we know we were on tour with these bands.
So I went and played in indie rock bands right
after I grabb situated from college, not really planning to
do that. They just this opportunity just kind of came up,
and I couldn't really say no to it. It was

(15:09):
such a cool experience to have, and so I went
and explored that and just to see what that life
was like. Living in a van with you know, three
of my best buds and traveling around the country and
sometimes the world and playing shows for five people or

(15:30):
five thousand, and you know, that's where I really learned
how to perform. Besides boxing, Boxing was kind of my
first stage, but this is where I learned how to
be in front of people with a guitar and not
boxing gloves on. And you know, because I was a weird,
quiet dude, not necessarily someone you'd be like, you belong

(15:52):
on a stage, so like, you know, you're going to
be a store. No, that was not like being spoken
to me. But I learned, you know, how to you know,
handle a crowd. And I learned how to sing because
I became a background vocalist in that band.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yeah, you said, you're playing guitar, you want the lead singer.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
No, I was kind of a shredder, playing too many notes,
but singing a lot of backgrounds. And I was writing
or co writing the songs with the lead singer. And
that's where I really for the first time, saw a
song that I'd written or co written and I'd see
people like react to it or start singing it, and
I was like, whoa, that's a that's a new experience,

(16:34):
and so I really became enamored with that, you know,
because I was super into poetry and songwriting. I was
kind of like a secret songwriter, you know, outside of
my science stuff. It was my own little secret. But
I wasn't singing them or anything. I was just writing
these poems and stanzas. I had books of them, and

(16:54):
my mama did that. I used to find her like
writing poems on junk mail and throwing them away, and
I just kind of stole that little technique from her
because she was going through terrible stuff, like so she
would write all these poems. So I just picked that
up and I channeled that into that band, and then
kind of saw those poems come to life in that band,

(17:15):
and I was like, this is a really special thing.
You like music and being a creator of it. I'm
not sure if this is is this my career path?
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
You have a job at this point. I was in
nine to five.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
I was working as a contracted scientist.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
So you were doing that while you were touring. How
did you I feel like you're a scientist, you're kind
of stationary.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yeah, I was working contract to contract, so i'd work
at one lab and I work at another lab for
a week, and I kind of work around our touring schedule.
And there is this company in town that is a
staffing agency for scientists like chemists, microbiologists and engineers. Think
of it like a staffing agency for anything, but especially

(18:00):
for the applied sciences. So you know, some businesses and
some laboratories would need a scientist, but not permanently. They
just need it for like six months on this project,
or six weeks or maybe six days. And there was
the contracts could be as interesting as you could think of,
as long as you could imagine, and you can take

(18:20):
them or leave them, and they were hourly and they
would get their cut and you get your cut, and
you could just kind of walk away go on tour.
Maybe another contract would come in. And I kept doing
good work and kept doing contracts, and I eventually got
one for this company, Mars, the food company, and they
kept giving me contract after contract, and one day they

(18:41):
just said, hey, we want to stop giving you these
contracts and just give you an employment contract and like
hire you for real. And they kind of that was
like the first time I'd ever been offered a job
like that, and I couldn't. I just married my wife
and kid, and I had a kid, you know, a
steps on through her, and you know, I was in

(19:02):
that indie band still, and so I made a decision
to kind of leave the van and tray their life
and go into full time science. But I kept writing
songs constantly through all of.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
That, thinking you'd get back to it one day at
one point one day.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
Maybe it was always just kind of just personal fulfillming. Yeah,
personal fulfillment. Is this something I could not turn off.
That's really what it was. It was like it's almost
like a tick, you know. I had to do it.
And what are you doing?

Speaker 2 (19:33):
At Mars?

Speaker 1 (19:35):
So they hired me as a product developer and a
food scientist, and so I started developing products for them.
I developed this one product called Dentistics Fresh. I don't know,
if you have a dog, it's like this green breath fresh.
Yeah yeah, yeah, that's my baby. And it's still on
the shelf doing well. And you know, I have a

(19:58):
couple other products I got to help design or code
or develop or co develop, and that was my life.
And I was kind of doing the whole corporate thing
and how long for three and a half four years,
and I had a really great boss. Because I was
writing songs the whole time. I could almost like work

(20:20):
in a lab and do my work with one hand
and write songs with the other. And I had a
great boss that had been there for quite some time.
And you know, he kind of saw myself and him,
you know, some years ago, and I think he knew
where my heart was. He knew I wasn't supposed to
be there. In the weirdest way. I think he knew that.

(20:44):
And he told me, Hey, they're about to put the
golden handcuffs on you. That's what He was a really
powerful metaphor. And I'm a word nerd, and he knew
that I like words, and that he knew that was
going to do something to me. And he said, take
you know, do with that what you will. But you know,
you're doing great here, but they're going to chain you

(21:04):
to that desk, and your dreams of being a songwriter
are going to die with it. And I said that
to you. Yeah, And so I said, you know, it's
going to be impossible to blow your world up. Then
you're going to have a better car, a better house,
maybe your kid in private school. Blowing up that world's

(21:25):
going to be very hard, if not impossible. I I'd
recommend you blow it up now, like while there's less
pieces to pick up, and it's going to be terrible,
But I think it's going to be way more terrible,
if not impossible. And I fear that you know your
inability to do that later would just be a heartbreaking

(21:46):
situation for you. And I just want you to know
that's kind of coming down the pike. I see it
like ten years down the road for you, just saying,
you know, cheers, have a good day. I put them
in two weeks. Six weeks after that conversation, I walked
out of there, and you know, everybody thought I was crazy,

(22:07):
Like what are you gonna do? Like they all thought
I was like going to Nestle or something, and I
was like, Nestley get you And I was like no, no, no,
Nashville did. And they're like, where are you gonna do?
So you're gonna go write songs for somebody? I was like, no,
like you got a publishing deal. No, someone's cutting your songs, right. No,

(22:29):
have you ever sang a song before?

Speaker 2 (22:30):
No, so at this point you weren't even singing.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
No, I'd never sang a song for anybody in my life.
And so that was you know, that was a lot
to come to come to terms with. But you know,
it was a real leap of faith. You know, I
had this you know, what I call a great pestering
with a capital P. It was like this feeling you

(22:56):
could hear. I've spoke about it before, but when I
first got into that company, like it was real quiet
because it was such a comfortable job. It was this
new world, but there was this quiet kind of feeling.
But I could deal with it. It was it was
something I could cope with. And then as a couple

(23:18):
of years went down, it got quite louder. And if
I could translate what the frequency was saying into English,
it said you're not supposed to be here. That's only
I know, That's what it was saying. Whatever that sound is.
And I would hear it and I know it, and
I'd be like, okay, whatever, but this job is, I'm

(23:40):
doing well here and keep my head down. And eventually
that feeling got louder, I mean honestly deafening towards the end,
right around the Golden handcuffs conversation. So like, while this
dude is telling me this, I got this like roaring
feeling in my head. I think that he can even
hear at this point or kind of sense, and which

(24:02):
was so wild because when he said you're not supposed
to be here, I was like, oh my god, he
just literally said what I'm hearing. And so it really
helped me make that decision. But what really did it?
What made me like actually put in my two weeks
because you know, I spent six weeks pondering at what

(24:22):
if it's this, what if this happened? Scenario? Planning this
and that. But the thing, the deal breaker for me
was one day, what if one day you walk into
this office and that sound, that feeling that you can
hear is gone. What if it just gives up on you?
And that honestly, I was like, that day would destroy me.

(24:45):
I'm not sure if I'd recover from it. And then
I was like, I'm out of here. So that was
I'd rather blow up my world now than to go
through that later. And so that was really that's really
what did it. So there was like a kind of
a bigger presence, a bigger influence that had a lot
to do with it, and my dad being the cornerman

(25:07):
that he is. He was always in my corner in
the fights. He was my trainer from day one, and
he became a trainer in that moment too, like a
cornerman straight up. Like when I left that job, he
was like my number one go to and uh for what?
Just advice? Like am I crazy to quit this job?
And he told me out never forget. He said, you're

(25:29):
you're crazy not to quit that job, because you know,
like and I could see that, you know, going back
to his dreams as a boxer. I could hear that
young fighter that you know, could have been something. I
could hear that part in his voice, and so so
that that helped a lot too. And then when I

(25:50):
quit the job, I went and bartended and waited tables
for three years and he was like in my corner
the whole time. I got rejected more in one week
than most people experience in a lifetime. You just get
constantly told no, no, no, you don't write songs about
trucks and beer. You're really weird, you're too old.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
You're trying to a publishing deal.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
And I was just trying to get a publishing deal.
I was just trying to get other people to sing
my songs. And I'd get meetings occasionally here and there,
but I would just be told, like, you know, it
was a pretty much a resounding no, like this isn't
going to work here. You're not going to work here.
And then this guy named Chris Oglesby at BMG Publishing,

(26:36):
a thirty year veteran in the publishing industry. He's been
through it all. Signed Craig Wiseman. He signed so many
of my heroes. And he heard one of my weird
songs at a guitar pool and I was on a
Friday and he said, come into my office on Monday.
I want to talk to you.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
You were playing it, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
I was playing at this guitar pool. I just got
it right now.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
You're singing, though, this is the first time you said
you sang.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
No, I'm singing at this point, so you're you know,
I've quit my job. You know, I've been waiting tables
for three years. I've had to start singing. I've had
to start learning how to sing during this waiting.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Where did you sing first?

Speaker 1 (27:14):
The first time I ever sang was at Bluebird Cafe.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yeah, well that's a heavy place to sing for the
really time.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
It really is, and it was. It was a big
moment for me. I was like, you know you're doing this.
You quit your job, told everybody you're going to be
a songwriter. You're at Bluebird Cafe. It's time to go.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
What was that nice?

Speaker 1 (27:34):
It was like in their boxing terms, it was like
ding ding ding, it's time to was it?

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Did you put your name in? Did where? Did you
have friends that were there?

Speaker 1 (27:42):
They had a friend that invited me to be part,
you know, not part of the round, but he like
let me take his spot for one song, just invited
me in as a guest.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Nervous going into it.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
I'm so nervous. I was terrified, and you know, but
I did it. And that was the first place I
ever sang and then I found myself going After that moment,
I would sign up for any open mic night at
the Commodore. I played at the Commodore Grill, that holiday
Inn place like a Debbie champion. She's my champion. She

(28:17):
like had me in so many nights to come in
and play, just to like start developing like some kind
of confidence to perform in front of people, not to
be an artist, but just to go to the listening
room and play a song and have an impact on somebody.
And then eventually I started getting you know, you know,
I went to Puckets like every night and played their

(28:40):
Writer's Night. I would sign up for everything I could,
and while I was waiting tables and doing all that stuff,
and that's where, you know, I really kind of learned
to at least begin to sing. And I didn't. I
still thought like, I don't have a voice. I'm just singing.
I have a songwriter's voice. I have a voice that's

(29:01):
just good enough to sell the song. In my mind,
that's what I was telling myself. And I went to
this guitar pool. I got invited to it at BMG
through some mutual friends. I said, played that song. Chris
invited me in on Monday and he said, man, that

(29:22):
song you played. I just I was blown away by it.
And I think you're seven years ahead of this town.
And I've been around this town a long time, and
I just I think you're you're making great music, but
it's going to take a while for this town to
catch up to it. And I believe like seven years.
And I was like, God, that's so long. And He's

(29:47):
like and I was like oh, well, thanks for the advice.
And he was like no, seven, yeah. No. He was like, no,
I want just to tell you how serious I am.
And he pressed in aro on his laptop a publishing
deal printed out from a printer behind him.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
That really happened, really happened.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
And he turned around, pulled it out and put it
on the table and he's like, for the love of God,
don't sign this right now. This is you. Take this
to your lawyer, get this properly, broker. But I just
want to let you know this is what I see
in you. I think you're going to change this town.
And this is how serious I am about it. And

(30:26):
I don't know if you're getting a lot of these.
I hadn't gotten zero and uh. And I was like, okay, cool,
think about it. And he I was like, oh my god. Yeah.
And you know, he's like, my plan is to put
you in the rooms with the greatest songwriters in this
town because I think you're you could be. He said,

(30:46):
you're going to be a Hall of Famer.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Did you believe he felt that way?

Speaker 1 (30:51):
I did be only because he was Chris Oglesby. Like,
if anybody else told me that, I would have been
like you are full of it, Like, but it's Oglesby,
like he's seen all this, like he he signed and
developed wise men, he's signing like he's all these writers
that you know, I would have killed the gout in
the room with so so I did believe him, but

(31:11):
I was like, that's that's wild, but okay, and he's like,
but it's gonna take a while that we're gonna get
you there, and I'm gonna I'm gonna help you in
any way I can. And he did, and sure, sure
enough he just started. I signed that deal like a
week or two after that.

Speaker 4 (31:28):
The Bobby cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Did him seeing that in you help you see that
in you little more?

Speaker 1 (31:45):
Absolutely? Yeah? I Mean his belief in me, uh was
like fuel, Like it was so much fuel. And he
kind of became in a weird way of kind of
a father figure for me in this town. He may
not like to hear that, but you know, he became
like family. He came to my dad's funeral, you know,

(32:09):
he showed up right, you know, because this is twenty sixteen.
My dad died in twenty eighteen. So I spent a
couple of years writing with everybody writing two hundred songs
a year doubles, you know, two songs a day, three
songs a day sometimes. And I play my dad all
my demos because he was like such a great you know,

(32:32):
resource for criticism, like red light, green Light. It wasn't
like he was going you should change this on the chorus.
He's just going to be like it.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Wasn't off any tips on the bridge.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
No, not at all, cut the bridge, dude. But yeah,
he he was such a great resource for that. And
I'd play him all my demos and and you know,
he loved Chris because he took a chance on me.
I remember him like, shake in Chris's hand and like,
thank you for taking a chance on my boy. You

(33:04):
won't regret it. I remember him saying that, like I
was like, shut up, dad, and uh, because he had
My dad had so much belief in me, Like it
was like it was an an unhealthy amount of belief
in me at the time, Like I I was like,
you're just you're just my dad, and you're just very
biased and it's very sweet of you, but it was

(33:26):
really like an insane belief. He would tell me these things,
and it turns out he was right like and Chris,
when my dad died, you know, Chris kind of like
swooped in and became the kind of like the coach
in the corner after the cornerman died, like when my

(33:49):
mickey was gone, like you still have to have somebody
there to hold a bucket for you to spit in.
And Chris was that guy. And uh and when he
my dad died, like my dad used to, you know,
tell me like, well, why don't you just sing these songs?
Because I was so new to singing and so insecure

(34:09):
about it. And I'd be like that, I'm a writer.
I write the song, someone else sings them. That's how
this works. You know. My publisher didn't sign me to
sing songs. They signed me to write songs. He's like, okay, whatever,
do you sound great? And I thought I sounded not great.
And I had this song called I'm a song that

(34:33):
I had written and I put it out, you know,
a couple of years ago, and it's really changed my
life as a song. And he heard me play that
song like a week after I wrote it, and he
recorded it with his phone and he told me, like, Steve,
that's my favorite song I've ever heard, and I was like,

(34:58):
I mean, once again, I think you're just being and
biased and he's like, no, you really need to listen
to me. That that song like changed me. It's like really,
it's my favorite song ever. And I was, Okay, it's weird.
And then he died like a little over a month
or so after that conversation. He had a pulmonary embolism,
a blood clot and his lungs and yeah, he was

(35:23):
fifty nine years old. He wasn't supposed to.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Die, and so there was nothing leading up to that reason.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
Well, he'd been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis about six months prior,
and that might have been like something that helped was
associated to it, but could have been. There's there's like
three or four different factors that could have caused it,
you know, the doctors say. But that was most likely
an at least an attributing factor, and it was that's

(35:50):
a very serious illness. And we had gotten that diagnosis
about six months before he passed. And it doesn't kill
people in six months by any by any means. But
that that was like a freak thing, and he died quickly.
It doesn't nobody dies quickly. From that it was and
I said goodbye to him on an iPhone eight in

(36:12):
the middle of Kentucky on the side of the road.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
What do you mean he called you?

Speaker 1 (36:19):
My sister did and my you know, I was writing
in Texas on this artist writer's retreat, and my sister said,
we're Dad's not he's having some serious issues. We're taking
him into the hospital. He's got to get an operation.
And uh, he went and got an operation. And he
texted me that night He's like, Steven, I almost you know,

(36:42):
I think, you know, I almost They almost got me.
Last night. He was joking around about it and uh
that he was feeling really good. And I was flying
beelining at home to go spend the weekend with him
in the hospital because he's supposed to be released in
like two days. And you know, I was just gonna
go out with him to make his weekend better. And

(37:02):
I had just gotten in and it was nine o'clock
in the morning, and my sister called me hysterically and
she said, you have to get here now, and I
don't think you're gonna make it. You'd better start driving,
And you know, I started driving like one hundred miles

(37:23):
an hour and it's in southern Indiana. It's about three
and a half hours away. I thought, man, I can
make it, you know, I didn't. I was in the
middle of Kentucky and she called me and she said,
answer your phone now or or you're not going to
get to And I pulled over on the side of

(37:44):
a highway, on the shoulder of the road, and we
said our goodbyes. And it was terrible, obviously, it was
like the worst day of my life. And his last
words were write a good song for me, Stephen, and
and he said four I love yous and he was gone,

(38:06):
and and I just about tore my my steering wheel
off the car. I almost like destroyed the whole car.
Like I was so angry at God. I was so
like angry at him, like like, how dare you die
on me like that? How dare you like leave me

(38:29):
in this moment, like, you know, which was so selfish,
self centered of me to think. But he had no
clue what he just did in that moment. I remember
saying that out loud. I was like, you have no
clue what you've just done, and and like and that's

(38:49):
where all of this started. And that song I'm a song.
My first performance as an artist, you know, really was
at his funeral. I sang that song at his funeral,
and I was That's when I knew everything was about

(39:10):
to be different.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
And how hard was that to I had to speak
of my mom's funeral and I broke down and it
was hard for me to get through it. And I
got I'm not a big son and from above guy.
Almost if I can't touch it, it's hard for me
to believe it. Almost. And I was speaking at my
mom's funeral and I was having trouble talking as one would,

(39:36):
and it was it felt a little more violent than
crying because it wasn't My eyes weren't wet. I was
really struggling. And I'm not an emotional guy, not generally.
I you know, I've kind of killed the uppers and
the lowers, you know, just being a trauma kid, you
don't want to have to go through the crap, so
you don't let yourself fall that low, so you can't
get that high. So I just even lyne yep, but

(39:59):
I it was really taking me over. I didn't expect
to have it happen. And uh, I'm talking and I'm
breaking down and I'm having to just pause. And there's
a phone that rings in the audience. I guess it's
not all. Everything's an audience to me, and that's that's
so weird that called that an audience, because that's not weird.

(40:20):
And so there's a there's a phone that rings, and
it was a ring tone of Bad bad Le Roy Brown,
you know, Bad Bad Lee Roy Brown Baddest Man in
the Hold And that was one of my mom's favorite songs.
And when that song hit, it just kind of zipped

(40:40):
me up focused in a really organic way, but like
something happened there. It was that song that guy. I
didn't even know that guy. He was like a friend
of an uncle or something. That song played out loud,
and again, I'm just not a big sign guy, but

(41:02):
if I were, that would have been a freaking sign. Yeah,
and I got through it. It was one of my final performances,
and but I remember just thinking, like, I don't know, man,
like something happened right there. I don't know what happened
right there, but something happened right there. Do you believe
in that kind of stuff?

Speaker 1 (41:21):
Well, yeah, I have no choice not but not to
At this point, like the evidence has become overwhelming. I
think God knew I would need a real smack in
the face with a two by four of evidence. I wasn't,
you know. I'm kind of a natural born skeptic, as
scientists scientists generally are, you know, that's why they become scientists.

(41:45):
And but yeah, you know when I when I sang
it at his funeral.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Yeah, that's my point. Did you get through it without crying?
I did?

Speaker 1 (41:56):
And I don't know, some kind of string from some
other place showed up that moment, because yeah, there's no
other reality in which I wouldn't have completely broke down
in the middle of that song in front of that man. Yeah,
and it's, you know, my song I wrote, and we

(42:18):
had the lyrics on the program of the song just
because of that's how much it meant to him, because
he was a song. And but no, I I went
up there and I spoke about my father, and I
was the only one that spoke about and my siblings
were just devastated, and so I kind of had to

(42:40):
speak on behalf of all my siblings because they literally
couldn't you know. So I had a lot of pressure
on me as the big brother to be big brother.
So there was that too, But you know I had
some some kind of like an armor, like like some

(43:00):
kind of emotional armor, just for a moment, not for long.
I mean, that's what.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
I felt, like, an emotional armour. I didn't have the
words to say it like that, but when I had
heard that song, I had an emotional larmer.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Yeah. And fast forward, like you know, quite a few
years now, well, I'll just say fast forward. Two weeks
after he died, I was playing this songwriter festival in Deadwood,
South Dakota, And for about a year I'd been playing
this cover of stand By Me in my living room
in this weird way. It was just kind of you know,

(43:33):
that song haunted me because of the movie as a kid,
and I was always just like somehow attached to that song.
So I started just playing it. And I didn't know why,
but that song was kind of preparing me for I
think something like the loss of my father. I think
it was I was creating it. It's kind of creating

(43:56):
a portal with a song. I didn't know it at
the time. I was kind of inventing one. And you know,
two weeks after he died, I get invited to the
Black Hills of South Dakota to play, and they asked
me to play a cover and I was like completely,
I hadn't slept in like a week, and I was
in terrible shape, but I went anyway just because I

(44:18):
was like, had nothing to lose.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
I was.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
And really, really really bad state. And I played that
song stand by me. I'd never performed it really in
front of anybody, and the whole place went crazy. But
the portal part of it was like it opened up
this portal on stage, like it felt like my dad
was a little kid on my shoulders. It was like
this reversal of roles, kind of a weird energy exchange.

(44:45):
And that's when everything changed. You know. I felt this
crazy amount of emotion and I almost lost it during it,
but I didn't, but you know I did and expected
to have the effect on the people that it had.
I just went up there to play it in it
And then in that in that moment between singing at

(45:08):
my dad's funeral and two weeks later singing at that festival,
that's when I knew I was no longer just a songwriter.
I was like this, you know, back to you know,
the car, like you don't know what you've started here?
Like you know, that's when it all became really evident,

(45:29):
and I and I went on a mission to kind
of keep him alive because that that did in the
weirdest way for me personally, it literally resurrected him for
a few minutes, and I kind of started chasing that
feeling like a drug. And then you fast forward a
few like back in November of last year, I played

(45:50):
stand by Me at the CMAS and you know that
song is It's changed my life.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
Do you think that'll be a song that you will
always play or do you think that'll be a song
that eventually you go, it's a cover. I think I'm
gonna retire that one.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
No, it's h That song has transcended anything that I've
any plans that I have. It's like it's been like
a gift from God.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
I mean, the way that place erupted that night of
the CMA's and it was it was special. And I'm
so jaded. I've seen everything. But there have been a
few of those over my you know, fifteen or so
years here, like Stapleton doing that with Justin Timberlake, like
you doing stand by Me. There are only a few
of those, and that was one of those. Wow. Well,

(46:40):
and I think you've probably heard that right from.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
Well I have from time to time, but it honestly,
I don't remember the experience. Back to the emotional you
don't you don't remember it, I don't at all. I
don't remember any of it, and I still haven't watched
it and I don't think I ever will. I've seen
clips of it of course online.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
But is it because you want to remember it like
you remember it?

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Yeah, not remembering it at all. And uh and I uh,
back to the emotional shield like you asked about. I'm
just kind of putting this together because you brought it up,
you know, singing that song I'm a song at the funeral. Yeah,
it was the same shield that night at the CMAS.

(47:21):
Because there's no reality in which I should have not
like just completely lost it on that stage playing that
song with the history behind it and the the momentous
nature of that particular opportunity and experience. So yeah, it

(47:42):
really it was a lot, and I think that's the
reason why I don't remember it. I don't really remember
singing that song at my dad's funeral either. I know
I did it, and but yeah, there's like I think
your you know, your body or your mind or your
spirit or something bigger, like a way to kind of
protect you temporarily from it so you can just get

(48:04):
through it. Because and that's what tells me and and
and shows me that this is all bigger than me.
Because the point wasn't for me to, you know, have
this crazy reconnection with my father that night. The point
was for my father to show up in that room
and connect with everybody else but me, and I just

(48:28):
was more or less the transmitter, and that's that was
the goal. I knew he was going to show up,
but I didn't know he's going to show up like that, all.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Right, Final three questions. I love Gary. It reminds me
of my hometown. Thank you people in my hometown. I
just feel like that's a song for people to grow up,
you know, around hard working, blue collar people. Yeah, when
you write that song, what was the intention.

Speaker 1 (48:56):
Well, it's it was rooted in a tragedy, and the
intention was to celebrate those blue collar people. That was
that became the you know, the motive. But it started
with a memorial sign on the side of the road
of a highway. I was driving down and driving home
and I saw this sign and it said in memory

(49:20):
of Gary blank blank. I won't mention their name for
their privacy. And there was a picture of a boy
that couldn't have been maybe sixteen years old in high school.
And I would guess that he passed away on that
highway in a car accident perhaps, And you know, I

(49:46):
couldn't help but think in that moment, like as sad
as that was, and I really felt the heartbreak for
the family, Like you see memorials like that all the time,
but for some reason, that one just really hit me.
And the way, like the true were growing around it
and it was heartbreaking to look at. And I said,

(50:07):
there ain't a lot of boys named Gary these days,
like because it was a young boy like sixteen years
old named Gary. And I was like, man, I bet
that kid can fix anything, you know, I bet, like
you know every And I started thinking about the Garys
that I grew up with, and because I grew up
in a body shop, a body shop full of Gary's

(50:27):
not the name Gary, but you know, the metaphorical Gary.
And I started thinking of Gary as like an endangered
species or like how Jane Goodall studies primates, like look
at it kind of from a naturalist perspective, and you know,
what is a gary? What are the attributes of a Gary?

(50:50):
And you know, it occurred to me, you know, if
there ain't a lot of boys named Gary these days,
that our Garys are endangered, they are going extinct, and
you know, like what happens if there's no more Garys?
Like I started thinking about that world, a world without Gary's,
and like, you know, because technology is advancing very fast

(51:12):
and it's very happy to perhaps leave the Garys behind.
I don't think Silicon Valley cares about Gary. And at
the end of the day, though, there's still electricity to
be ran, and there's still septic tanks to be tended to,
and there's still plumbing to be done, and there's still

(51:33):
so many Gary's that actually make the world go round.
Like you know, I mean, iPhones and all that are cool,
but when life gets real, like you're going to need
a Gary when your h fact blows in the middle
of the summer in August, you know, chat GPT ain't
going to do nothing.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Hey I can't make a Gary.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
Yeah, but yeah, exactly. And I started to think about
all of those scenarios, and then I got deeper into
the Gary, the character so to speak. And you know
Gary's are fixers. You know, yeah, Gary may be a mechanic,
but I bet Gary also if a pipe blows in

(52:14):
his house, I bet he fixes that too. And I
bet you know, I bet he built his own shed.
I bet you know. He can fix a lot. He
can do a lot of things. And the reason why
is because he's had to, not because he wanted to
be a plumber, not because he wanted to be an electrician.
He grew up in a world that was broken and

(52:37):
he had to learn to be a fixer. And so
you know, art, I think my favorite art comes from
broken places. And fixers are products of brokenness because they've
been around so much brokenness in their life that they
just want to fix it. Like you know, you can
get it. You can go even doctors or kind of

(52:58):
like an advanced Gary, because usually something kind of affected,
some kind of brokenness made them want to be a fixer.
And but you know, you get down to the the
under celebrated hero that is the Gary, the one that
kind of shows up to your house gets you your
life back on track when it's literally off track, like
it's in a bad state. You know, if your septic

(53:20):
tank blows. I don't know if you've.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
Ever known a state than that.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
Yeah, like you need, you're in a bad state. Sometimes
two Gary, you go need more than one Gary. But
the one Gary comes into your house and gets it done,
he leaves and you pay Gary, and you never see
him again and you probably don't think about him again.
But that dude literally just got your whole world back
in order. And Elon Musk did not nothing against Elon,

(53:49):
but you know, and but we celebrate some of these
other people that I feel like are over celebrated and
don't really get people's lives back on track at all all.
And you know, these Gary's are all over the world,
you know, these little micro superheroes just getting everybody's life

(54:11):
back on track and com with fear of being forgotten forever.
And so if you can, you know, show me a
ten year old Gary, we will bubble wrap him, we
will protect him.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
Something we do here is guests will bring an album
that has really meant a lot to them and kind
of talk about why. And I know you have one
in front of you here if you want to, Yeah,
pick that up and kind of tell me what it
is and why you chose that one.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
Houses of the Holy Hope.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
Pull that mic back, pull that mic back to you there.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
You sorry, I'm doing Houses of the Whole. Yeah, this
is some album, right, Yes, this is led Zeppelins. So
you got one two through four. It has to be
their fifth record, I think. So they put out a
lot of records by then, so they were a very
well established band. And you know, yeah, this this album,

(55:21):
it's an eight song record, but it feels like a
twelve song record. The songs are longer and it takes
you on a journey. That's what I love about it
so much. I love music that takes you on a
journey like an odyssey. And Jimmy Page and the whole
band like John Paul Jones and John Bonham as a

(55:45):
rhythm section. Their rhythm section work on this record is
is unlike anything I've ever heard. When I first heard
this record, it blew me away.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
How old were you when you first started listening to
that record?

Speaker 1 (55:58):
Probably fifteen or something like that, Yeah, as a kid,
And I just remember, like, how was this made? Like
like if this was made today, this would blow my mind.
And you know, they didn't have a lot of the
technology you know we had at our disposal then. Like
this band, if I was paying, if I paid twenty
bucks to see this band play this, this would have

(56:19):
just destroyed me. And this album. What I love about
it also the it pulls me into the room, like
I'm in the room with these guys. When I listen
to this record, I'm like at the show. There's not
a lot of records that do that for me, And
I feel like this is some of Roberts better writing
to just you know lyrically, but just the arrangements, the musicality,

(56:43):
the way the songs flow into each other. It is
without dud It is dudlss it Michael Dudlass it is.
It really is. And I just think it's really really special.
You know, it's got kind of a weird cover.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
It does have a weird cover.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
Yeah, but you know, the the artistry that was put
into it is just profound, Like like every song when
you go you know, from song remains the same. I
think it's the first one no no no no no
no no no no no, And then you know the

(57:24):
crunch Oh my gosh. By the time you get to
the crune, you just like you're lost, and there's some
like it's just over the hills and far away. It
was what made me. Is one of the songs that
made me want to be an acoustic guitar player. And
really Jimmy Page, I don't think I've spoken enough about
his influence on my guitar playing, because he played in

(57:46):
a lot of open tunings and he had this crazy
right hand, but he was also like an orchestrator on
the guitar. He didn't just play guitar. He played like
orchestrations on the guitar. And he you know, he was
a composer, he wasn't a guitar player. And I feel
like all that's really evident on this record, and I find, yeah,

(58:06):
it's it's extremely listenable. That's what I love about it.
Like I can listen to this record anytime anywhere, whether
I'm getting my teeth cleaned, or whether i'm getting or
I'm going on a drive, or whether I'm playing cards.
There's not a lot of records that I can do that,
you know. I love like sad song sad song records,

(58:28):
but I just can't listen to them all the time, anywhere,
anytime of the year, and this one is that it's
like it's everything I'd ever want to be in a band.
It's like, I think the highest bar. You know, if
this band came out today, if you know, if this
record was made today and came out today, I would

(58:51):
it would you need a shovel to get my jaw
off the ground. And and I just I think it's
incredible that they made they made this when they ate it,
which is you know, the four of them, and you know,
they they set a bar for me as a musician
and in bands and all my bandmates, like every bandmate
I've ever been in with, in a band with for

(59:13):
a long period of time, in my band now they
are all obsessed with this record. It's like or this
band especially, it's it's like this is this is the bar,
and we are we're not even coming close to it.
But I also see you got the Weezer Blue album,
which is my record, my close second. Like I was, honestly,
I was in a tough it was a tough little

(59:36):
fight between these two. But I'm sorry, I think this
kicks blues out ass. But Blue honestly changed my life.
I heard My Name Is Jonas on the radio one time,
and I like, I was so angry that I couldn't
hear it again. I was like, where do I find
this song? How do I find out who this band is?

(59:57):
And and I started watching him TV incessantly just to
try to see if they would come up again, and
I never saw this My Name Is Jonah's song. And
then this video for the song called the Sweater Song
came on and I was like, I hadn't heard that yet.
And I liked that just as much. It was so quirky,
the video was so like creatively shot, and everything about

(01:00:22):
the song was just amazing to me. And I told
my dad I needed to get some notebooks from Walmart.
And he was like notebooks from Walmart? And he's like okay,
And I was like, you take me to Walmart. I
had like no money, and back then, like CDs were
like twenty five dollars and I had no money, and

(01:00:43):
twenty five dollars was There's no way my dad was
gonna give me twenty five dollars. I just knew that
for a fact. But he would buy maybe a notebook
or something for me. And I said, you know, can
I have five books that buy a notebook? He took
me there and we went to Walmart. And I don't
care that Walmart knows this. I used to work for
them at their distribution center. But they got their money's

(01:01:07):
worth out of me. I'll tell you that. And uh,
you got a CD. I went in there. I stole
that CD. I went in there. I told my dad,
I'm gonna go in and get a notebook. And I
went in and I spent the next fifteen minute. I've
never stolen anything in my life ever, Like my dad
hates thieves, and I you know, it was always just

(01:01:29):
like the cardinal send it to him was theft. So
I knew like if I got caught, like the most
supreme ass beating ever was gonna come behind it. And
it was work. I was like, don't care, I'll die
for this. I got it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
I'll go to jail for this.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
I'll go to boys' school. I don't care. And uh.
I went in there and I got like a magazine
and I figured out a way to stick it in there,
and I just like walked out of there like you know,
like I owned the place and just walked right out
with that seat you know, they had that long, little
plastic thing on it, like just you know, just fearlessly

(01:02:07):
and got out of there with it, walked to the truck.
I couldn't believe I got it. I was like, and
I went home and I wore that CD out like
it just it changed my life, Like that was yeah,
those these two records.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
Really, I mean, it's why wore my glasses like this.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
I had a guy that I saw was cool but
could also care about learning. And I was like, oh,
he's cool, he's smart. Yeah yeah, and so but yeah,
buddy Holly and Rivers Cuomo, and I finally met them.
I was working on American Idol. I'd worked on there
for four years, and uh, they had come to do
a finale. I was, I don't really get nervous meeting people,

(01:02:45):
but you get nervous meeting people that you loved as
a kid. And they had parked the bus outside the
sound stage and so it was a couple of hours
they had done rehearsal, and so I went down to
a record store and got this in case I was
able to run into them. And so I was like, screwing,
I'm going down to the bus because that's some time
and I went knocked on the door. Rivers was nowhere
to be found, and they were super inviting, but it

(01:03:07):
was three of them, not Rivers, and they were like,
come in. I said, I work on the show, and
so I was like, I don't want to hold you guys,
but you guys mind signing this, and you know, they
all sign it, and there's but still above River's head
there's no signature. And he's the guy that made me
feel like I could be cool because he wasn't cool,
but he was so cool. And I see the back
of the bus. The door opens and Rivers is back

(01:03:29):
there like the sink or something, and they're like Rivers
and I'm like, oh, here we go. This is the
moment and meet Rivers Cuomo and he walks up and
goes walks back to the back and I was like,
that's all I needed. That's all I needed. You know,
I didn't expect much. I didn't get much, but it's
all I needed. I was able to meet him in later,

(01:03:51):
but it was super cool. So yeah, I love that
record too, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
Yeah, that Pingerton right behind it was big too, but.

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
It wasn't respected at the time. Now I like that, but.

Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
So much. I thought it was the most punk rock
follow up record.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
I was like, hell, yes, we could do the Weezer
Hour here if we wanted to. But I've kept you
long enough. I was gonna good. I was gonna show
you a picture because I'm a fan of your music
just generally speaking. And I was telling one of the
guys on my show. I said, hey, we've never had
Stephen Wilson Junior in and he said, yeah, we have.
I said, I swear to god we haven't because I'm fan.

(01:04:29):
And then he showed me this picture of you playing
in my studio.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
Oh, yeah, that's right. I've played with Lee.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
It's you and your wife.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
That is me.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
You played it my guitar. That's you playing with your
wife on my stage in my studio.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
Yeah, so I have been here. Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
I was blown away. I was like what. He goes, yeah,
that's Lee Nash's husband. I was like what, and he
said he played with her.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
Yeah. I was her guitar player for for years. That's
you know. I learned so much about performing from her
watching her just at the best seat in the house.
And yeah, we.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
Met before when you came in at first, we were
like hey, I said, hey, good to see you. I
definitely didn't say nice to meet you, because I didn't
know if you would know we had met briefly. Then.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Yeah, I mean I was in the same boat. I
was like, he probably I remember doing that, but I
was like I was, I'm kind of like a nope
in that particular situation.

Speaker 2 (01:05:20):
I would ever treat anybody coming in like a nobody.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
Like I know my role in that experience though, Like
I'm just kind of like, you know, side player, get
your guitar, keep it in tune, and get out of here.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
And well, after that picture was really cool. I said,
we've never had him in and he was like, he's
been in and it turns out you were playing for
your wife, playing guitar for your wife. That's super cool.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
Well, well you were really great to her then, And
you know I was. That was before I was really
doing much artist, Like I was really just starting the
artist stuff. So I was those were you know, those
were like the beginning days of of all this. So
I was in a very I don't know, premature state

(01:06:04):
as an artist, still incubating.

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
I think I'm still incubating. I think I'll die incubating.
Hopefully that's the goal. Never did not be incubating.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
Yeah, stay incubating.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
Stay. No, you didn't want that slogan. I asked him,
if you like this one, that's a nine. I we
don't like that one. Uh you guys, and we were
talking before you came in. We you know, talked about
the tour and talked about the record. So just a
massive fan. Thank you for your time. And I have
not seen you play live. All my friends have seen
you play live and they talk about the boxing ring
and how great you are live. A lot of them
went with people that were fans and they came away

(01:06:36):
massive fans because your live show is it is that moving?
Like it's an experience?

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
Well, yeah, it's so I've heard.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
I haven't been to a big show. I just saw
I saw you with your wife. That's the closest I've
ever been to it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
Yeah. Yeah, man, it's a lot louder. Yeah. And yeah,
they're are know, they're they're very emotional experiences because it's
a two way street. The fans that show up or
you know, they are there to you know, be there
and you know, I feel like if there's anything that
happens in those shows. There's a lot of Catharsis from

(01:07:12):
me and from them, and it's like this mutual exchange
and that's really all it is. And and I think
maybe people are observing that kind of mutual exchange of catharsisism.
And yeah, it's this kind of cyclical exchange of energy,
and it's a lot of love. And it's kids from

(01:07:35):
seventy from seven to seventy seven. I call them all
kids because they are kids. And yeah, I think we're
all kids or just some of us have been around
longer than others.

Speaker 2 (01:07:47):
And well, thank you for coming in.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
Really appreciate it, Thank you, Bobby.

Speaker 3 (01:07:50):
Appreciate you, sir, thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.