Bobby talks to Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson on The Simpsons. She talks about her true crime podcast called Small Town Dicks. Mike D gets to ask her 3 Simpsons questions. She also to Bobby on advice for Dancing with the Stars. Bobby talks to Eddie Stubbs who announced his retirement after nearly a life-long career in country music and more than two decades with the most famed country station in the world 650 AM WSM.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to episode to fifty six of the Bobby Cast.
We're posting this a little earlier than we normally do
because we're heading out for vacation, but we get an
interesting episode here a little different than normal. We'll talk
to Yardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson on The Simpsons.
She also has a podcast called Smalltown Dicks that we
talked about. It's about detectives true crime, which I mentioned
because my girlfriends now true crime podcast listener. But I
(00:25):
know you were geeking out because the voice of Lisa Simpson. Huh,
it's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so check that out. You know,
we do music here nine percent of the time. But
if it's not a podcast that I want you guys
to check out, I think you'll like that Smalltown Dicks.
But she'll talk about that, and she even gets into
Lisa Simpson voice a little bit. Um and we are
on music podcast, and we'll talk to Eddie Stubbs coming
up in a minute, who retired from the Opery. He
(00:46):
has been the voice of the Grand ol Operty for
twenty five years and just great to talk with them.
The legendary six fifty a m w SM radio personality,
announced his retirement, So we talked with him for about
fifteen minutes or so. I kind of love that. So
we got a pretty cool but different episode. I'll mention this.
There are some records coming out, that's what it's all about.
(01:07):
And usually we'd sit here with the clips and play
them all, but we're not available on this Friday to
play them all. But Luke Bryan has Born Here, Live Here,
Die Here. That's a record coming out. Cassidy Pope has
Rise and Shine, Mary Chapin Carpenter has the Dirt and
the Stars. And I'm looking at some of these other people.
I don't know a lot of these folks are AMINII
(01:28):
deep Purple Glass animals. I don't know these people are.
So we're just gonna go with those three for now.
So we don't have the songs of anybody else. There
are three records. Let's just get going on this podcast.
Let's do okay, we'll do Yardley first and the Nettie subs.
All right, thank you guys, give us five stars if
you if you don't mind, we'd appreciate that. Thanks. Hey, Yarley,
are you hey? Really good? Nice to talk to you.
(01:51):
A couple of things. First of all, I was, you know,
reading some stuff about your podcast, Smalltown Dicks, and when
I clicked it, I wanted to see what you look
like because I watched The Simpsons forever and you don't
normally know the faces of the voices. People do that
with me too on the radio show. Sometimes they're like,
I had no idea what you look like. However, I
used to watch Herman's Head like great, that was one
of my favorite shows, and I was like, holy crap,
(02:14):
I know her from Herman's Head. Yes, wow, look at that.
So anyway, I'm I guess I'm a bigger fan than
I even thought. So it's really nice to talk to you.
Thank you. I want to start with your podcast because
I've just now got into listening to the true crime stuff,
mostly because of my girlfriend. She's a big true crime podcaster.
And I was like, man, I don't know about this stuff,
(02:34):
but I find myself a little bit caring too much. Now.
Is listen to the one called like bear Brook or something?
And it didn't have an end? The podcast didn't have
an end. So your podcast, small Town Dicks, these are
true stories, right, that's right now? Who are the people
investigating each each episode? Each story um Well. I co
(02:55):
host the podcast with identical twin detectives Dannon Gave, And
all of the cases that we cover on the podcast
are told by the detective who investigated that case. And
it came about because, um actually, so, I'm actually engaged
to Dan, detective Dan um And when I started dating him,
(03:17):
I never dated anybody in law enforcement. And he would
come home, you know, and actually we were a long
distance for about two and a half years, and so
when I would go see him, his day to day
was so jaw dropping. It was so like, I'm sorry,
what I mean. The mere notion that the minute you
leave your house somebody, first of all, you're going towards
(03:38):
all of the things that the rest of us run from,
and second of all, somebody might really willfully want to
harm you is just a completely foreign idea to me. Like,
when I leave the house, I go to do a
pretty fantastic special job, but nobody's trying to kill me,
you know. So. Um So, when the podcast came about,
(03:59):
it just seemed like a natural fit that all of
the cases should be told by the detectives who actually
investigated them, because in the podcast space, not so much
in the TV space, but you didn't have a lot
of firsthand accounts like that, and you had a lot
of If you do listen to true crime, there's a
lot of rehashing of very famous crimes, and so we
(04:19):
really wanted to illustrate the fact that big time crime
is happening in small towns everywhere, just with less frequency,
but the same level of reckless disregard for humanity and depravity.
And it's kind of shocking. And because I remember when
I would say to people, oh, I'm dating a detective
from a small town, like, oh, as you do like
riscue cuts and trees and stuff, You're like, no, actually,
(04:42):
there's murderer and there's you know, burglary and robbery and
horrible things happened. Um. So it just was an interesting,
a really interesting perspective I think on law enforcement. And
also one of the artifacts of small town police departments
is that they are expected to deliver the same high
(05:02):
level of work product as a big city agency, but
with many fewer resources. So you know, if you're on
the swat team, you're a detective probably too. Um. And
so in the back of your car, if your patrol car,
you have your you know, flak vest and your long
rifle and your helmet, like, oh, now it's a swat call.
(05:23):
It's just a very, very different animal than the fifty
swat guys sitting in Los Angeles where I live, waiting
for something huge to happen, you know, so um I
and I find it endlessly fascinating. And on my side
of the table, because I'm the civilian, I also want
to know, if you are the person who's going to
(05:44):
see the worst of humanity every day, where do you
where does that reside inside of you in order for
you to also be able to be a father, husband,
a partner in some way, just some you know, other
human being on the planet. Where do you put it? Okay,
that leads me to a lot of questions. I'm gonna
go with this one first, where they're twins and they're
both on law enforcement and they hit the same agency
(06:08):
and they worked Dan is now retired, but they worked
literally across the bullpen from each other. But Bobby, when
I tell you, there were only nine detectives in the
whole agency for this small town, and and two of
them where your your fiance and his twin, not even
just his brother who like passed him on down to him,
his twin brother who made the conscious decision at the
(06:30):
same time they wanted to be out. That's crazy to me.
I know they're identical twins are actually what they call
mirror twins. So Dan is right handed and Dave is
left handed. Um, they both played baseball. Dan played My
League baseball for the Cubs. Um. Dave was a pitcher
and then he blew out his arm before he got
to professional ball. But it's really, it is fascinating dating
(06:53):
a twin. I don't know if you've ever dated twin,
but they're do have this shorthand they couldn't kind of
read each other's minds. It's it's it's kind of great.
I kind of and I love Dave. I loved I
love me some some Detective Dave so much on this
podcast because you've now completed the sixth season and this
is a very successful podcast. And I'm only coming to
(07:15):
because I just now got into true crime like this.
This world has been open to me recently. So at
the end of each episode, are you is the crime
being solved? Some of them not all of them? How
does how did these things end? Or is that something
you talk about? Yes, we do. We actually only cover
adjudicated cases because a lot of our detectives who come
on the show are still working, and we never want
(07:37):
them to, for instance, be testifying in a trial and
have the defense attorney to say, oh, so you're part
of that podcast, so you're here to sensationalized crime. Um.
And nor do we want them to compromise the investigation
in any way. So all of the cases, I don't
think we've we've never actually covered a case that was unsolved. UM.
(08:03):
I like that honestly, because again, I listen to one.
I tell you, I listen only five episodes this day thing,
and at the end of it, they were like, and
we still don't know, and why did that just been
five and a half hours. There's no conclusion. It's so frustrating.
You know. It's funny that you say that I started
to watch this show. Um, I think it's on a
(08:23):
travel channel. It's one of those It's like a true
crime show, but they have a medium and then they
have a detective, and the medium doesn't talk to the
detective until they've both done their investigations of usually some
haunted house, right the people who live there are so
freaked out and they don't know how to there's like
(08:44):
an evil spirit and so the so they usually like, yes, yes,
the medium who's quite good, it seems um and really
does nail a lot of stuff. And then they go
to the homeowners and they do their findings and they go, yeah,
so you probably should get somebody in here to exercise,
and then you know, exercise the dwelling or whatever. And
(09:04):
then you see a chiron that says they're still looking
for a priest to come and exercise. The dwelling activity
is still happy. I'm like, how could you do that?
How could you not help these people? It's like, get
rid of this massive thing that's terrifying them. I just
feel I really feel cheated. It's just so wrong. Do
you know what that show is called? To watch? Oh?
(09:26):
It is, I do, I'll I'll look it up. Take
a second. Yeah, yeah, it's quite good. You know what's
interesting that you say your girlfriend um and I was
what I was creeping on you on Instagram? I follow
you and if great pictures you guys are and you're
a gorgeous couple. It's mostly her. I'm just the funny guy. Yeah,
(09:49):
we all need funny Bobby um and and so most
of our or a large portion of our audience over
is women. And that's true for most of true crime.
Why is it that balanced? Pretty healthy? Um, she's emotionally stable,
(10:11):
except she wants to hear a podcast where people have
been cut up and stuffed into a barrel. And I'm like, what,
Like everything about you was like right on except two
kids we couldn't find their heads. Only three toes remained.
Who could it be? And then here I am two
days later, go all right, we're gonna find the end
of this episode. We still don't know. All right, goodbye everybody.
What I think part of it is that most of
(10:34):
the crimes happened to women, and that there's a kind
of um cautionary voyeuristic there. But for the grace of God,
go I And if what if I was in a situation?
What would I do? And can I learn from the
mistakes and the successes of the people to whom these
things have happened. Well, she's now starting to learn a
(10:55):
bit of self defense. I don't think she wants to
fight people, but I think if someone like she's learning
how if some one is coming in the house, what
to do with the door? Like it has also scared
her into learning how to protect herself. So I guess
in the end of full circle is a benefit that
she listens to these because she's so freaked out that
now she's learning. Were with your fiance fiance, right, that's
(11:15):
what you said earlier, with your fiance being a law
enforcement does he teach you some of these little things
to like, hey, if someone grabs you, or is he
just like I'm gonna be there, don't worry about it?
Both both. But for instance, he's off coaching first base
for an independent minor league baseball team this summer, which
he's done for a couple of summers now because he
(11:36):
still loves baseball and he's super good at it. So
when he's not here, he's like, Okay, here's the here's
the drill, and so I have you know, I want
you to lock yourself in this room if something should happen,
of course, at the alarm at night. Um, if somebody
did attack you, go for the eyes, um kick them
(11:56):
to kick screen, fight, fight like your life depends on it,
because might uh he you know, scream he's uh. And
and then all kinds of things like I learned never
to leave anything in my car and I kind of.
I kind of didn't really leave anything in my car ever,
he said, not even a charger. Or they don't let
(12:18):
them even see the wire of your phone charger because
they will break into your car on the possibility that
maybe there's a device somewhere, maybe in the center console,
maybe something. And so I never leave anything in my car. Um,
it's been quiet and and I think, having done this
true crime podcast, now I see things through a more
(12:41):
suspicious lens. I'm certainly a little more aware of my surroundings.
But Dan, when we go to a restaurant, if the
restaurants super busy, or we're out somewhere, his head is
on a swivel. And very early on I was like,
what is your deal, dude? What about like hello? I
like a little attention. He's like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
(13:02):
it's just now it's my default. He's got eyes everywhere,
always looking for the potential threat. It's quite fascinating. Do
you have nightmares after this point? Because I, like I
tried to I get nightmares. I can't want scary movies.
I tried to read Twilight and at nightmares. So, but
if you're covering these crimes, are you ever asleep thinking
about this crap, and you're waking up with your hearts
(13:23):
beating like this. Um, I I was sort of. I'm
anxious anyway, So yes, I'm always afraid somebody. I My
fear is somebody's going to break into the house, and
I'll I'll realize it too late, you know, like they'll
be standing over my bed by the time I figure
out that somebody is in the house. Um. But it's
(13:47):
interesting when you because I also edit. We have two
actual editors. You put the podcast into pro tools, but
I edit on paper and give notes and um. You
then sort of switch it to literally the other side
of your brain, the more analytical, less emotional side of
your brain, in order to make sure that everything is
(14:10):
lining up. Sometimes, because we're not dealing with professional storytellers,
sometimes they'll tell you the end in the first five
minutes and you're like, great, that's okay, We're just gonna
move that back alone like two minutes seventeen, create a
little suspense here, um, but never change the story. But again,
sometimes just rearranged the puzzle pieces. And so my job
(14:32):
as the editors to make sure because you have to
remember always that pretty much of your audience is doing
something else while they listen to your podcast. So they're
gardening there, walking the dog, they're going on their daily walk,
they're driving, they're cooking, and so my job is to
make sure that you can still follow the story even
(14:53):
if I don't have all of your attention, and if
you miss something, you're still interested enough to go back
fifteen seconds to go, oh, I want what I want? Oh,
hang on, and then you go back and pick up
where you left off. So it's really um. So that
helps kind of it's a terrible thing to say, but
dis associate from the horror of it, because it really
(15:18):
you just go People are horrible to each other, people
are I agree. I was watching I watched the first
episode of the Jeffrey Epstein thing last night on Netflix,
and I and I watched, and I was like, I
don't know if I can do anymore. I couldn't do it.
I couldn't do it, Bobby, I'm so with you. It
was just and I've watched, you know, some of that
Serial Killer stuff and I and I was intrigued enough
(15:39):
to finish the whole thing, but the Jeffrey Epstein stuff,
for some reason, I felt so like deeply sad in
my that I thought, why would I keep watching this
and continue to feel this way? And what I felt
there's nothing compared to what they felt. It was just
it was the only time I had listened to something
like that or watch something like that and felt that way.
Because when I watched the Ted bun the thing, I
(16:00):
was like, give me another episode, can't And I don't
know why I am so intrigued by that part of it,
Like that would be like a your podcast type thing,
but not like the Jeffrey Epstein thing. Yeah, I think
you know, I completely agree with you, and I feel
like the thing about people like Ted Bundy is he
(16:21):
seemed to work so hard to create a persona that
was the complete opposite of who he really was, and
Jeffrey Epstein did nothing to try to conceal that. Um,
did you finish it or did you watch? No? I didn't. Yeah.
My girlfriend too, was like, I can't do any more
of this, So anyway, I don't want to. I I don't
want to talk. Can I ask you some Lisa Simpson questions? Yeah? Yeah,
(16:43):
I love Lisa. Okay, Well, so I'm gonna let my
producer because I'm a Simpsons fan. I grew up in
the eighties. I mean I was born in the eighties,
so obviously it was a big part of my life.
But Mike d here is the biggest that I ever know.
He's my producer. He's got three questions for you that
he wants to ask, specifically, Mike, say hi, hey Gardley, Mike, Hey, Mike,
how are you big fan? Um? I actually just read
Mike Reece's book Springfield Confidential. Isn't it great? It was
(17:04):
so good? Much about the show from that the story
I love that he told him. There was about the
Michael Jackson episode where he came in read his lines,
but then he brought in like an authorized impersonator to
do like the actual song in the in the episode.
Do you imagine being so he was this lovely young um,
(17:24):
little white guy, and Michael Jackson had hand picked him
to seeing like Michael Jackson in front of Michael Jackson.
Can you imagine doing an impersonation of the artists themselves
right in front of you have somebody like that, like
a designated impersonator if you ever get sick to do
Lisa Simpson, No, actually, but we do have a guy.
(17:47):
His name is Chris Edgerley, and he does all kinds
of voices for video games for the most part, but
he he'll fill in for whoever is sick that day,
mostly the guys because the guy's just you know, multiple voices,
but he'll also fill in for me. And how would
I love to be a fly on the wall pretend
like I'm not sick, just came to see Chris. What
(18:10):
I love about Lisa's like I kind of identified her,
identified with her a lot of growing adress because she was,
you know, smart, didn't have a whole lot of friends,
but she also had like these lines that almost didn't
fit her personality. Yeah, was there ever like a like
a fight you had of like, Okay, I don't think
Lisa Simpson would actually say this, Yes, Um, There's only
there's one incident that I remember very early on where
(18:37):
they had I think it might have been there's an
episode called Lisa's Pony, which was in the first ten years.
Is a wonderful episode where Homer ends up working three
jobs in order for Lisa to be able to have
a pony. And in the original draft she got she
kind of had a crush on the stable boy, and
I just felt like it was much too mature, much
(19:01):
too sexual. This is kind of her in satuation with
this kid. And I'm like, this isn't right like this,
I don't, I don't, I'm not cool with this. I
don't feel comfortable with this. And so they changed it
and it just became much more sort of goofy and
sweet and um, as I think it should be. For
(19:21):
God's sake, she's eight, right, um. But I will say
again rare occasions, because they really get it right at
a time. But two things I object to. One, people
being really really mean to Lisa Simpson and her having
no recourse. There was a whole um. We had a
(19:41):
couple of showrunners who, when Homer got really really goofy
and really stupid for a few years, he would also
often be quite mean to Lisa, and I'm like, that's
not right. I don't. I'm not okay with that, Like
I need to stand up for my girl. And really,
the point was, even if I didn't win the battle,
(20:03):
it was important that I fight the fight, and and
they would usually for the most part, we would be
able to reach a compromise on things like that. But
my premises that mean humor is lazy humor. And it's
much harder to write something that's really witty and incisive
and memorable um as opposed to just hurling insults at somebody.
(20:28):
I feel like we can do better than that. One
last question. I'm sure people ask you to, you know,
do the voice all the time. But Lisa Something never
had a catchphrase. If there was like one line that
you remember from the show to pick as a catchphrase,
what would have been, Well, probably, I mean it's probably
I am the Lizard Queen. It is so sad that
Lisa Same Thing doesn't have a catchphrase. I mean it's
(20:50):
kind of heartbreaking. Bart has like fifteen of them. You
can't get one to my girl. The other one that
people cited, I'll be in my room okay um really
was a very funny, dry delivery. When I think she
she just was like you, I am not I am
not one of you family. Somehow I think landed here.
(21:11):
I think my favorite was always just that'll that'll learn
him to bust my tomato. That was always my favorite line.
I don't know, I just always gravitated towards that line.
I would imagine yardly, it's Boby again. I would have
because and I have a very because you know, I
do this radio show and I do things. But a
couple of years ago, I did um Dancing with the Stars,
and I want but I would be in the airport
(21:34):
and you sure asked me. I would be in the
airport and people would come up to me and they
would go hey, and they would have known me from
the radio show or from the books or anything. They'd
be like, hey, you're the guy that one dance with
the stars, right, And I'll be like, yeah, would you
do a dance for me? And they would they I
would be in the airport, or I would be at
a Chick fil A and they would want me to
bust out a jive. Now I can imagine if you're
(21:56):
somewhere where there are folks, they're coming up to you
going hi, um, you are the voice of one of
those symptoms. Will you do the voice thing for me?
Does that happen to you everywhere all the time, all
the time? And usually I I decline. You know, if
they asked me for a picture, I'm I'm really at
the time, say absolutely, let's have a picture. But I
(22:18):
feel like, you know, it's not a party trick, it
sort of is. It's my job and it's hopefully you know,
something that I've honed as a skill that is has
some value to it. And it's also kind of weird
just to sort of being a supermarket and go, I
am Lisa Ming. I mean, nothing attracts more attention than
(22:41):
breaking into your cartoon character voice in public. Have you
had to learn say, oh, could you do my outgoing
voice mail? I'm like, no, yeah, I get yeah. And
sometimes people just randomly come up with their phone and
they're already talking to someone and they haven't said hello,
and they're like, hey, my cousin Jim's on the phone.
We talked to him for a minute. And I'm just like, man,
(23:04):
there's a whole process before the phone hand off, there's
a hello and ask yeah. So you also, I guess,
but people come up to you. Have you had to
learn how to draw Lisa a little bit? No, that's
such a funny question. Um. So I do these videos
on my Instagram and Twitter called Simpson Sunday and they're
(23:26):
really short, like two minutes three minute videos, and a
couple of them I've said, okay, here's a picture of
Lisa Simpson. I'm going to try to draw Lisa Simpson
freehand and it's horrible and it's hilarious and there's commentary
that goes along with it. And then the first time
I did it, the fans were like, oh my god,
it's so great, it's so bad. Can we have that?
(23:49):
So it's like, okay, so I forget. I held it
like a little contest and the winner got my really
terrible picture of Lisa Simpson. Um, it's really it's it's
I know I'm terrible at it. They're The short answer
is I can't do it. Well, I have just one
question about the Sibsons. The episode of twenty two minutes long,
(24:10):
and I guess when you hop into a to the
booth or I don't know if you're going into a
boot steal or technology allows you to do it from
home a bit like we can now too. How long
does that usually take to knockout an episode? Well, we
used to before the pandemic. We would record altogether like
a radio play, which is actually really unusual for cartoons.
When we did several years ago, we did that crossover
(24:32):
with Family Guy and I because it was on their
time slot, we recorded in their facility, their studio, and
excuse me, I went in and did it on my own,
did my lines, you know, just wild one after the other.
I had. All my scenes were with Mila Kunis, but
I didn't even meet her because she wasn't there that day.
(24:53):
But for us, our executive producer James L. Brooks, who
comes from sitcom and films, you know, Mary Tyler Moore
and Taxi and all these incredible iconics, it comes was like,
I don't know why you would treat this any differently.
It's still a conversation. And I'm a big fan because
even though at this point after thirty two seasons were
(25:16):
an incredibly well oiled machine. And when I go in
to do a d R, which is for your listeners
who don't know when you replace dialogue that they've rewritten
after the original recording session, I go in and do
it myself. But in the original recording, which takes about
four hours, we go through the scene four times and
(25:37):
then if they still don't have it they want, then
we'll just do individual lines as pickups. But the way,
for instance, I stand between Dan who goes Homer and
Nancy who does Bart. The way Dan or Nancy or
Hank or um you know Julie who does Marge says,
the line is going to inform the way I respond,
(25:57):
and so that's my preference. But and the coronavirus hit,
we all started to record from home. So because I
do the podcast, already had really good equipment and that
seemed like a pretty good setup. But I really hope
that at some point we get back into the studio altogether.
I just think it gives it a a texture that
(26:18):
you can't manufacture on your own, just because you know,
if I was next to you, Bobby, and I said, well,
then you would have a reaction to that, versus if
I was next to you and I said, hey, how
are you right? Yeah, we we dealt the same in
our studio. We were all working from homes for a while,
and there's definitely a vibe difference in just the production
(26:39):
of what we were doing. Well, I didn't know what
a d R meant, so thank you. And I also,
if I'm admitting to myself, I had to google what
adjudicated meant when you were talking about that earlier. I'm
being completely completely transparent here. Listen, Yarley, it's been so
nice talking with you. Everyone. Check out Small Town Dicks,
the podcast and Small Town Dicks. That's a detective, it's
a true crime podcast. These are big time crimes happening
(27:01):
in anonymous small town cities, and I'm gonna check it
out yardly. It's it's been so cool to talk to you.
Like I said, when I recognized you from Herman's Head,
I was like, oh, this is awesome. I'm looking forward
to this one a lot. So thank you for your
and I'm gonna I'm gonna follow you back on on Instagram.
So yeah, I don't I love it, but thank you
so much for having me. What a what a pleasure?
Can I just ask you, I really want to be
(27:23):
on Dancing with the Stars. Should should be ever all
be able to be that close to each other again?
Can you just tell me what that was like? Was
it great? Was it fun? Was it everything? Well? Do
you have any dancing I had no dance experience at
all like you have a little. I took tango for
several years. I think you'd like it because you're training.
If you're like me, I I valued the time to
(27:44):
be able to work with one of the best in
the world. I mean I never would have been able
to do that in my lifetime, to go and train
with a dancer every day. Um, I was still doing
my radio show and I was touring a little bit,
but um, it was for me twelve hours a day
because I had no experience. I didn't know what the
what the words meant. It was like when you said
adjudicated when they were like okay, I had to google
all the words to know. Like a sage, I don't
(28:05):
know what the stuff meant. So for me it was
great and that it was a really positive experience where
I got to train with the best and learn. I
never got great, I got to be okay. I ended
up winning because I won because the people right. Because
I also realized, just like in life, you can't just
be the best at something, You've also got to be
the person that people want to work with or want
(28:26):
to root for. So that was kind of my goal.
But I would if this weren't uber rating, I'd give
it four and three quarter stars. Like I loved my
experience on that show. Yeah, I'd love hearing that. I
would say if I wasn't an actress, I would be
a professional ballroom dancer. And not because I'm so great
at it, but I would That just sounds like happened
(28:48):
to me. I had no idea that it was as
tough as it was until I watched it with my
own eyes, and it is extremely I would love for
you to do it, do you know. I mean, I
can put a text into a couple of producers, Arlie,
just say the word do it. Do it. And when
we're back from non Corona and listen. I don't know
if they're gonna have having this season this year. I
think right now they're they're flirting with the bubble idea
(29:09):
where they're gonna put all the dancers in, which was
what we basically lived in any way. But that's what
I'm gonna do. I'm going to text the producer today
and say, next season, don't sleep on Yardly. She's a
professional dancer. She just hasn't been exposed to enough professionals yet. Okay, ' hardy.
Good to talk to you. Hopefully we'll talk against soon
in the future. It all right by Arlie. Thanks Eddie.
(29:38):
How are you? I'm doing fine? Bobby? How are you, sir?
You know I'm I'm really good. It's a real treat
to talk to you over on my side of things,
because I gets to talk to you sometimes on your
side and things in your domain. But it's a real
pleasure to have you over here. Well, it's a real
pleasure to be with you. I was thinking just the
same thing. You know. I'm used to seeing you out
at the opery frequently as a as a performer. In course,
(30:00):
your presence there has been heightened recently with your involvement
with Circle Television too. So you always do a great
job whenever you've been around, and it's always going a
treat to visit with you, and I'm looking forward to
chatting with you here today. Well, I got a couple
of questions, you know. First of all, Yeah, I would
think that today would be an emotional day because today
it's it's Wednesday, we're recording this Is this the last
(30:21):
day of the show? Yes, this will be the last
day of my employment with with Rhyman Hospitality Properties, which
of course owns WSM Radio and the Grand Ol Operate.
How you feeling today going into that last show? Well, it's, uh,
it's it's sort of a mixed bag, if you will,
very reflective, very thankful. Uh, you know, so many experiences
(30:43):
having been with the company and as an announcer with
the offering for twenty five years, but twenty four years
ago this month started hosting the Evening Shift at WSM,
and that's a that's a long run. So we've had
a lot of magical experiences over the years. But on
the other hand, I'm looking for word with great optimism
to to what the future holes. My wife, Debbie and
(31:03):
I are very much looking forward to getting out and
doing a lot of things we've wanted to do and
go do some traveling, and we've got some dreams that
we want to live and things we want to share.
Things she's like to do individually, some things I'd like
to do individually, will do them together, of course, But
we're just very much looking forward to this and have
a little more time to do it, and on top
(31:24):
of that, while we're still in relatively good health to
do so. You know, for folks that are listening and
don't understand that the amount of time that Eddie has
been doing this night show, that is such a level
of success to can to stay on there for over
twenty years, Like guess somebody who's doing it and trying
and grinding it out every day. Like I tipped my
hat to you, that is something that very very few
(31:46):
people in the whole world have ever done, and especially
at your level. Well, thank you Bobby for saying. That's
one thing I'm proud of is in the almost ninety
five year history of WSM, there's never been a longer
tenured host in the evening shift, and in the history
of Nashville radio overall, there was only one other personality,
man named John rich Board, who played rhythmon blues music
(32:06):
on w l a C late at night in the evenings.
He was on, I believe for twenty seven years before
he retired back in nineteen seventy two. So I'll play
second fiddle to John Orenge. He was great what he
did for what I gathered. You know, back to first
radio job three, you made twenty bucks per show. Now,
when you first started, wasn't on karts or records. How
(32:27):
were you guys doing the music? Then we played music
exclusively from records. My first radio jobs a w Y
I I and william Sport in Maryland, fifty five miles
from where I lived, and it was near Tagersound, but
I lived in Gayporsburg, Maryland was my hometown. But we
played on records and that was it. That was it. Yeah,
(32:48):
Elbow one of those things and then you're like, oh
my goodness, and you gotta run back to it. Did
that ever happened? Uh No, I never got called with
my records down uh there, but did at other places.
That just that seems scary because you you nudge one
of those things, the whole radio station goes crumbling down. Yeah,
(33:09):
they're they're very delicate, that's for sure. You played fiddle
back in the day with the Johnson Mountain Boys. Now
did you ever step into the circling before at the opera?
You mean, oh, yeah, I was. We were blessed a
guest on the opery several times, and that was a
great thrill. That was a dream that we had that,
you know, the one that we might become members of
(33:30):
the opera. And I had a dream as a kid
the first time I came there on a summer vacation
after between eleven and twelfth grade, I said, one day
I'm going to be on that stage. And I was
years later in the eighties as as a fiddle player,
but I never dreamed that, you know, seventeen years later
(33:50):
almost I think it was seventeen years to the weekend,
I was becoming an opera announcer. So that was it
was a dream come true to get to be able
to do all that. And he when did this voice happened?
Because I hear you talking, I thought, Man, if I
could have had this voice, I wouldn't have had to
be as as dippy as I am. If I had
just had the perfect voice, like Eddie here, where were you?
Eleven twelve? When did this thing finally set into where
(34:12):
you're like, I can do this now? Well? I always
had a deeper voice, And uh, it wasn't something that
I nurtured or went to broadcasting school to to to
try to work on to make it better. If I had,
it probably would have been a lot better. But I
give all the credit to God. I mean, he gave
(34:33):
me the talents that I have, Bobby. And as to
when it came in, you know, I don't know. I
guess like most you know, adolescents, your voice changes when
you're twelve years old, twelve, thirteen years old, fourteen, maybe.
But I always had a deep voice, BacT, you know,
as far as I could remember. I don't have anything
with me as a kid, you know, talking on it.
(34:53):
But it's just it's just what God wanted me to have, Man,
I want you wanted me to have that kind of
voice and set us dound like this. This sound like
the Peter Brady episode when he goes to puberty on
the Brady Bunch. That's my whole life right there. I
saw it. But you got you got the listeners, and
you got the fans, and you're you're the most powerful
broadcaster and country music. So it's a it's a thrilled
(35:15):
to be able to chat with you. There's room for
all of this, Bobby, and what we do? You know, Well,
I saw Dirk's write something really not. Dirk's a good
friend of mine and Dark's loves you. Did you get
a chance to see what Dirk's had written about you
on Instagram and and Twitter and all that? No forgetting
I'm I'm I'm a seventy eight RPM kind of guy
in an iPod world, so I don't be all that fake.
(35:36):
We're making those in fifty seven by the way, seventy gates.
So but I I haven't seen it, but I would
like to. Dirks has been very kind to me. Yeah,
I mean he wrote a whole lot and he said,
you know, I'll just read you a piece piece of it. Here.
He said, when I was hanging out at Station in
and really starting to dig deeper into the music. Two
of my biggest teachers were George Jones and Eddie Stubbs.
(35:59):
Who else goes back? I can replace just the steel
guitar solo of the song that he spun on vinyl
to explain to the listener the importance of that musician's
contribution to the success and greatness of the song No One.
So he wrote a lot more too. But I thought,
you know, a guy like Derek's who was just an
eight plus guy aside from being a great artist, his
words we were pretty touching. And I know you and
Dre Derek's have been pretty close over the years. Well
(36:20):
that's really flattering, and we have. He started listening to
me when he came to Snashville from Outain, Arizona. He
was a college student at Vanderbilt University, and you know,
it was always neat to have him around. You know,
he was just one of these guys. It was just
a sponge and just wanted to soak up everything he
possibly could. Who was it, Eddie that you would get
(36:41):
nervous to talk to, because you know, here we are
two thousand twenty and we we hear about all the
legends now, but who wasn't When they walked in the room,
you'd be like, oh boy, here we go. This is
about to be something. I got that way a little
bit with Earl Scrugs early on because he was such
a childhood hero of mine. And I wait, act, you know,
(37:01):
I was nervous being around Rape Price. That was before
I ever came to Nashville. I was back in the
early nineties when I was working in radio in Washington
A W A m U and getting to be in
the presence of these people, you know, for the first
time and meet them. Uh, you know I would, I
would definitely. I was definitely nervous. I guess anybody would be,
(37:23):
you know, at that at that point in tom with
you being able to bring on so many people on
that opery stage, especially for like the first time they
get to play the opera stage. When you look back,
who was it that maybe you had seen or or
part of their performance, but the crowd just absolutely went
bonkers for way early in their career, and you were
able to go, man, this is about to be something.
(37:47):
Josh Turner stands out very strong in my mind. Um,
I was there the night that he made his debut
at the at the Rhyme and Auditorium. He was a
brand new artist, didn't have a record out or anything
at that point, and pet Fisher of the manager of
the operate at that time, put him on the show.
And he came out and sang long Black Train, and
that voice was so unique and so special, and you know,
(38:09):
he just had a very uh what's the word I'm
looking for. He just had a presence about him that
with confidence he was who he was. And you could
tell that this guy wasn't just a great singer with
a deep boys and a great song, but you could
tell this guy was an artist. And there's a big
(38:30):
difference between a singer and an artist. Not every performer
as an artist, but I could sense that and he
you know, he got a standing ovation that night. He
was halfway up the stairs to his dressing room and
they had to go get him after after he'd done
his song. He didn't realize that he was being called back.
That's awesome. I have two more questions for you, because
(38:52):
I mean I could spent three hours here. I feel
like we should do a whole kinburn series on you, Eddie.
To be honest with you. But I got two more
questions for you. Number one is over the years, any
cool memorabilia from the opery that someone maybe had given
you or an artist would leave behind, or you keeping
anything as a memento from the opery. I'll tell you, Bobby,
that's that would be a hard question to answer because
(39:12):
I've always been a student of the music and a
collector and a fan, and I've got a lot of
memorability that I've bought, and I've gotten things that people
have given me over the years, lots of special things
that you know, pictures, song books, things like that. So
it would be hard to at PenPoint to say what
is my most treasured artifactive opering memorabil you. I do
(39:36):
have one item it's tied to the opery, so to seak,
and that's a seventy eight record on Columbia Bio Uncle
Jimmy Thompson, who was the man who was the first
person to play on WSM the field an hour's worth
of air time playing old time titled music because somebody
didn't show up, and that's what led to the birth
of the Grand Old Oprey. So having one of Uncle
(39:58):
Jimmy Thompson's seventy eight. You know it wasn't his personal copy,
but those records are very scarce. I have one of those.
Is A is something that's very meaningful.
Welcome to episode to fifty six of the Bobby Cast.
We're posting this a little earlier than we normally do
because we're heading out for vacation, but we get an
interesting episode here a little different than normal. We'll talk
to Yardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson on The Simpsons.
She also has a podcast called Smalltown Dicks that we
talked about. It's about detectives true crime, which I mentioned
because my girlfriends now true crime podcast listener. But I
(00:25):
know you were geeking out because the voice of Lisa Simpson. Huh,
it's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so check that out. You know,
we do music here nine percent of the time. But
if it's not a podcast that I want you guys
to check out, I think you'll like that Smalltown Dicks.
But she'll talk about that, and she even gets into
Lisa Simpson voice a little bit. Um and we are
on music podcast, and we'll talk to Eddie Stubbs coming
up in a minute, who retired from the Opery. He
(00:46):
has been the voice of the Grand ol Operty for
twenty five years and just great to talk with them.
The legendary six fifty a m w SM radio personality,
announced his retirement, So we talked with him for about
fifteen minutes or so. I kind of love that. So
we got a pretty cool but different episode. I'll mention this.
There are some records coming out, that's what it's all about.
(01:07):
And usually we'd sit here with the clips and play
them all, but we're not available on this Friday to
play them all. But Luke Bryan has Born Here, Live Here,
Die Here. That's a record coming out. Cassidy Pope has
Rise and Shine, Mary Chapin Carpenter has the Dirt and
the Stars. And I'm looking at some of these other people.
I don't know a lot of these folks are AMINII
(01:28):
deep Purple Glass animals. I don't know these people are.
So we're just gonna go with those three for now.
So we don't have the songs of anybody else. There
are three records. Let's just get going on this podcast.
Let's do okay, we'll do Yardley first and the Nettie subs.
All right, thank you guys, give us five stars if
you if you don't mind, we'd appreciate that. Thanks. Hey, Yarley,
are you hey? Really good? Nice to talk to you.
(01:51):
A couple of things. First of all, I was, you know,
reading some stuff about your podcast, Smalltown Dicks, and when
I clicked it, I wanted to see what you look
like because I watched The Simpsons forever and you don't
normally know the faces of the voices. People do that
with me too on the radio show. Sometimes they're like,
I had no idea what you look like. However, I
used to watch Herman's Head like great, that was one
of my favorite shows, and I was like, holy crap,
(02:14):
I know her from Herman's Head. Yes, wow, look at that.
So anyway, I'm I guess I'm a bigger fan than
I even thought. So it's really nice to talk to you.
Thank you. I want to start with your podcast because
I've just now got into listening to the true crime stuff,
mostly because of my girlfriend. She's a big true crime podcaster.
And I was like, man, I don't know about this stuff,
(02:34):
but I find myself a little bit caring too much. Now.
Is listen to the one called like bear Brook or something?
And it didn't have an end? The podcast didn't have
an end. So your podcast, small Town Dicks, these are
true stories, right, that's right now? Who are the people
investigating each each episode? Each story um Well. I co
(02:55):
host the podcast with identical twin detectives Dannon Gave, And
all of the cases that we cover on the podcast
are told by the detective who investigated that case. And
it came about because, um actually, so, I'm actually engaged
to Dan, detective Dan um And when I started dating him,
(03:17):
I never dated anybody in law enforcement. And he would
come home, you know, and actually we were a long
distance for about two and a half years, and so
when I would go see him, his day to day
was so jaw dropping. It was so like, I'm sorry,
what I mean. The mere notion that the minute you
leave your house somebody, first of all, you're going towards
(03:38):
all of the things that the rest of us run from,
and second of all, somebody might really willfully want to
harm you is just a completely foreign idea to me. Like,
when I leave the house, I go to do a
pretty fantastic special job, but nobody's trying to kill me,
you know. So. Um So, when the podcast came about,
(03:59):
it just seemed like a natural fit that all of
the cases should be told by the detectives who actually
investigated them, because in the podcast space, not so much
in the TV space, but you didn't have a lot
of firsthand accounts like that, and you had a lot
of If you do listen to true crime, there's a
lot of rehashing of very famous crimes, and so we
(04:19):
really wanted to illustrate the fact that big time crime
is happening in small towns everywhere, just with less frequency,
but the same level of reckless disregard for humanity and depravity.
And it's kind of shocking. And because I remember when
I would say to people, oh, I'm dating a detective
from a small town, like, oh, as you do like
riscue cuts and trees and stuff, You're like, no, actually,
(04:42):
there's murderer and there's you know, burglary and robbery and
horrible things happened. Um. So it just was an interesting,
a really interesting perspective I think on law enforcement. And
also one of the artifacts of small town police departments
is that they are expected to deliver the same high
(05:02):
level of work product as a big city agency, but
with many fewer resources. So you know, if you're on
the swat team, you're a detective probably too. Um. And
so in the back of your car, if your patrol car,
you have your you know, flak vest and your long
rifle and your helmet, like, oh, now it's a swat call.
(05:23):
It's just a very, very different animal than the fifty
swat guys sitting in Los Angeles where I live, waiting
for something huge to happen, you know, so um I
and I find it endlessly fascinating. And on my side
of the table, because I'm the civilian, I also want
to know, if you are the person who's going to
(05:44):
see the worst of humanity every day, where do you
where does that reside inside of you in order for
you to also be able to be a father, husband,
a partner in some way, just some you know, other
human being on the planet. Where do you put it? Okay,
that leads me to a lot of questions. I'm gonna
go with this one first, where they're twins and they're
both on law enforcement and they hit the same agency
(06:08):
and they worked Dan is now retired, but they worked
literally across the bullpen from each other. But Bobby, when
I tell you, there were only nine detectives in the
whole agency for this small town, and and two of
them where your your fiance and his twin, not even
just his brother who like passed him on down to him,
his twin brother who made the conscious decision at the
(06:30):
same time they wanted to be out. That's crazy to me.
I know they're identical twins are actually what they call
mirror twins. So Dan is right handed and Dave is
left handed. Um, they both played baseball. Dan played My
League baseball for the Cubs. Um. Dave was a pitcher
and then he blew out his arm before he got
to professional ball. But it's really, it is fascinating dating
(06:53):
a twin. I don't know if you've ever dated twin,
but they're do have this shorthand they couldn't kind of
read each other's minds. It's it's it's kind of great.
I kind of and I love Dave. I loved I
love me some some Detective Dave so much on this
podcast because you've now completed the sixth season and this
is a very successful podcast. And I'm only coming to
(07:15):
because I just now got into true crime like this.
This world has been open to me recently. So at
the end of each episode, are you is the crime
being solved? Some of them not all of them? How
does how did these things end? Or is that something
you talk about? Yes, we do. We actually only cover
adjudicated cases because a lot of our detectives who come
on the show are still working, and we never want
(07:37):
them to, for instance, be testifying in a trial and
have the defense attorney to say, oh, so you're part
of that podcast, so you're here to sensationalized crime. Um.
And nor do we want them to compromise the investigation
in any way. So all of the cases, I don't
think we've we've never actually covered a case that was unsolved. UM.
(08:03):
I like that honestly, because again, I listen to one.
I tell you, I listen only five episodes this day thing,
and at the end of it, they were like, and
we still don't know, and why did that just been
five and a half hours. There's no conclusion. It's so frustrating.
You know. It's funny that you say that I started
to watch this show. Um, I think it's on a
(08:23):
travel channel. It's one of those It's like a true
crime show, but they have a medium and then they
have a detective, and the medium doesn't talk to the
detective until they've both done their investigations of usually some
haunted house, right the people who live there are so
freaked out and they don't know how to there's like
(08:44):
an evil spirit and so the so they usually like, yes, yes,
the medium who's quite good, it seems um and really
does nail a lot of stuff. And then they go
to the homeowners and they do their findings and they go, yeah,
so you probably should get somebody in here to exercise,
and then you know, exercise the dwelling or whatever. And
(09:04):
then you see a chiron that says they're still looking
for a priest to come and exercise. The dwelling activity
is still happy. I'm like, how could you do that?
How could you not help these people? It's like, get
rid of this massive thing that's terrifying them. I just
feel I really feel cheated. It's just so wrong. Do
you know what that show is called? To watch? Oh?
(09:26):
It is, I do, I'll I'll look it up. Take
a second. Yeah, yeah, it's quite good. You know what's
interesting that you say your girlfriend um and I was
what I was creeping on you on Instagram? I follow
you and if great pictures you guys are and you're
a gorgeous couple. It's mostly her. I'm just the funny guy. Yeah,
(09:49):
we all need funny Bobby um and and so most
of our or a large portion of our audience over
is women. And that's true for most of true crime.
Why is it that balanced? Pretty healthy? Um, she's emotionally stable,
(10:11):
except she wants to hear a podcast where people have
been cut up and stuffed into a barrel. And I'm like, what,
Like everything about you was like right on except two
kids we couldn't find their heads. Only three toes remained.
Who could it be? And then here I am two
days later, go all right, we're gonna find the end
of this episode. We still don't know. All right, goodbye everybody.
What I think part of it is that most of
(10:34):
the crimes happened to women, and that there's a kind
of um cautionary voyeuristic there. But for the grace of God,
go I And if what if I was in a situation?
What would I do? And can I learn from the
mistakes and the successes of the people to whom these
things have happened. Well, she's now starting to learn a
(10:55):
bit of self defense. I don't think she wants to
fight people, but I think if someone like she's learning
how if some one is coming in the house, what
to do with the door? Like it has also scared
her into learning how to protect herself. So I guess
in the end of full circle is a benefit that
she listens to these because she's so freaked out that
now she's learning. Were with your fiance fiance, right, that's
(11:15):
what you said earlier, with your fiance being a law
enforcement does he teach you some of these little things
to like, hey, if someone grabs you, or is he
just like I'm gonna be there, don't worry about it?
Both both. But for instance, he's off coaching first base
for an independent minor league baseball team this summer, which
he's done for a couple of summers now because he
(11:36):
still loves baseball and he's super good at it. So
when he's not here, he's like, Okay, here's the here's
the drill, and so I have you know, I want
you to lock yourself in this room if something should happen,
of course, at the alarm at night. Um, if somebody
did attack you, go for the eyes, um kick them
(11:56):
to kick screen, fight, fight like your life depends on it,
because might uh he you know, scream he's uh. And
and then all kinds of things like I learned never
to leave anything in my car and I kind of.
I kind of didn't really leave anything in my car ever,
he said, not even a charger. Or they don't let
(12:18):
them even see the wire of your phone charger because
they will break into your car on the possibility that
maybe there's a device somewhere, maybe in the center console,
maybe something. And so I never leave anything in my car. Um,
it's been quiet and and I think, having done this
true crime podcast, now I see things through a more
(12:41):
suspicious lens. I'm certainly a little more aware of my surroundings.
But Dan, when we go to a restaurant, if the
restaurants super busy, or we're out somewhere, his head is
on a swivel. And very early on I was like,
what is your deal, dude? What about like hello? I
like a little attention. He's like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
(13:02):
it's just now it's my default. He's got eyes everywhere,
always looking for the potential threat. It's quite fascinating. Do
you have nightmares after this point? Because I, like I
tried to I get nightmares. I can't want scary movies.
I tried to read Twilight and at nightmares. So, but
if you're covering these crimes, are you ever asleep thinking
about this crap, and you're waking up with your hearts
(13:23):
beating like this. Um, I I was sort of. I'm
anxious anyway, So yes, I'm always afraid somebody. I My
fear is somebody's going to break into the house, and
I'll I'll realize it too late, you know, like they'll
be standing over my bed by the time I figure
out that somebody is in the house. Um. But it's
(13:47):
interesting when you because I also edit. We have two
actual editors. You put the podcast into pro tools, but
I edit on paper and give notes and um. You
then sort of switch it to literally the other side
of your brain, the more analytical, less emotional side of
your brain, in order to make sure that everything is
(14:10):
lining up. Sometimes, because we're not dealing with professional storytellers,
sometimes they'll tell you the end in the first five
minutes and you're like, great, that's okay, We're just gonna
move that back alone like two minutes seventeen, create a
little suspense here, um, but never change the story. But again,
sometimes just rearranged the puzzle pieces. And so my job
(14:32):
as the editors to make sure because you have to
remember always that pretty much of your audience is doing
something else while they listen to your podcast. So they're
gardening there, walking the dog, they're going on their daily walk,
they're driving, they're cooking, and so my job is to
make sure that you can still follow the story even
(14:53):
if I don't have all of your attention, and if
you miss something, you're still interested enough to go back
fifteen seconds to go, oh, I want what I want? Oh,
hang on, and then you go back and pick up
where you left off. So it's really um. So that
helps kind of it's a terrible thing to say, but
dis associate from the horror of it, because it really
(15:18):
you just go People are horrible to each other, people
are I agree. I was watching I watched the first
episode of the Jeffrey Epstein thing last night on Netflix,
and I and I watched, and I was like, I
don't know if I can do anymore. I couldn't do it.
I couldn't do it, Bobby, I'm so with you. It
was just and I've watched, you know, some of that
Serial Killer stuff and I and I was intrigued enough
(15:39):
to finish the whole thing, but the Jeffrey Epstein stuff,
for some reason, I felt so like deeply sad in
my that I thought, why would I keep watching this
and continue to feel this way? And what I felt
there's nothing compared to what they felt. It was just
it was the only time I had listened to something
like that or watch something like that and felt that way.
Because when I watched the Ted bun the thing, I
(16:00):
was like, give me another episode, can't And I don't
know why I am so intrigued by that part of it,
Like that would be like a your podcast type thing,
but not like the Jeffrey Epstein thing. Yeah, I think
you know, I completely agree with you, and I feel
like the thing about people like Ted Bundy is he
(16:21):
seemed to work so hard to create a persona that
was the complete opposite of who he really was, and
Jeffrey Epstein did nothing to try to conceal that. Um,
did you finish it or did you watch? No? I didn't. Yeah.
My girlfriend too, was like, I can't do any more
of this, So anyway, I don't want to. I I don't
want to talk. Can I ask you some Lisa Simpson questions? Yeah? Yeah,
(16:43):
I love Lisa. Okay, Well, so I'm gonna let my
producer because I'm a Simpsons fan. I grew up in
the eighties. I mean I was born in the eighties,
so obviously it was a big part of my life.
But Mike d here is the biggest that I ever know.
He's my producer. He's got three questions for you that
he wants to ask, specifically, Mike, say hi, hey Gardley, Mike, Hey, Mike,
how are you big fan? Um? I actually just read
Mike Reece's book Springfield Confidential. Isn't it great? It was
(17:04):
so good? Much about the show from that the story
I love that he told him. There was about the
Michael Jackson episode where he came in read his lines,
but then he brought in like an authorized impersonator to
do like the actual song in the in the episode.
Do you imagine being so he was this lovely young um,
(17:24):
little white guy, and Michael Jackson had hand picked him
to seeing like Michael Jackson in front of Michael Jackson.
Can you imagine doing an impersonation of the artists themselves
right in front of you have somebody like that, like
a designated impersonator if you ever get sick to do
Lisa Simpson, No, actually, but we do have a guy.
(17:47):
His name is Chris Edgerley, and he does all kinds
of voices for video games for the most part, but
he he'll fill in for whoever is sick that day,
mostly the guys because the guy's just you know, multiple voices,
but he'll also fill in for me. And how would
I love to be a fly on the wall pretend
like I'm not sick, just came to see Chris. What
(18:10):
I love about Lisa's like I kind of identified her,
identified with her a lot of growing adress because she was,
you know, smart, didn't have a whole lot of friends,
but she also had like these lines that almost didn't
fit her personality. Yeah, was there ever like a like
a fight you had of like, Okay, I don't think
Lisa Simpson would actually say this, Yes, Um, There's only
there's one incident that I remember very early on where
(18:37):
they had I think it might have been there's an
episode called Lisa's Pony, which was in the first ten years.
Is a wonderful episode where Homer ends up working three
jobs in order for Lisa to be able to have
a pony. And in the original draft she got she
kind of had a crush on the stable boy, and
I just felt like it was much too mature, much
(19:01):
too sexual. This is kind of her in satuation with
this kid. And I'm like, this isn't right like this,
I don't, I don't, I'm not cool with this. I
don't feel comfortable with this. And so they changed it
and it just became much more sort of goofy and
sweet and um, as I think it should be. For
(19:21):
God's sake, she's eight, right, um. But I will say
again rare occasions, because they really get it right at
a time. But two things I object to. One, people
being really really mean to Lisa Simpson and her having
no recourse. There was a whole um. We had a
(19:41):
couple of showrunners who, when Homer got really really goofy
and really stupid for a few years, he would also
often be quite mean to Lisa, and I'm like, that's
not right. I don't. I'm not okay with that, Like
I need to stand up for my girl. And really,
the point was, even if I didn't win the battle,
(20:03):
it was important that I fight the fight, and and
they would usually for the most part, we would be
able to reach a compromise on things like that. But
my premises that mean humor is lazy humor. And it's
much harder to write something that's really witty and incisive
and memorable um as opposed to just hurling insults at somebody.
(20:28):
I feel like we can do better than that. One
last question. I'm sure people ask you to, you know,
do the voice all the time. But Lisa Something never
had a catchphrase. If there was like one line that
you remember from the show to pick as a catchphrase,
what would have been, Well, probably, I mean it's probably
I am the Lizard Queen. It is so sad that
Lisa Same Thing doesn't have a catchphrase. I mean it's
(20:50):
kind of heartbreaking. Bart has like fifteen of them. You
can't get one to my girl. The other one that
people cited, I'll be in my room okay um really
was a very funny, dry delivery. When I think she
she just was like you, I am not I am
not one of you family. Somehow I think landed here.
(21:11):
I think my favorite was always just that'll that'll learn
him to bust my tomato. That was always my favorite line.
I don't know, I just always gravitated towards that line.
I would imagine yardly, it's Boby again. I would have
because and I have a very because you know, I
do this radio show and I do things. But a
couple of years ago, I did um Dancing with the Stars,
and I want but I would be in the airport
(21:34):
and you sure asked me. I would be in the
airport and people would come up to me and they
would go hey, and they would have known me from
the radio show or from the books or anything. They'd
be like, hey, you're the guy that one dance with
the stars, right, And I'll be like, yeah, would you
do a dance for me? And they would they I
would be in the airport, or I would be at
a Chick fil A and they would want me to
bust out a jive. Now I can imagine if you're
(21:56):
somewhere where there are folks, they're coming up to you
going hi, um, you are the voice of one of
those symptoms. Will you do the voice thing for me?
Does that happen to you everywhere all the time, all
the time? And usually I I decline. You know, if
they asked me for a picture, I'm I'm really at
the time, say absolutely, let's have a picture. But I
(22:18):
feel like, you know, it's not a party trick, it
sort of is. It's my job and it's hopefully you know,
something that I've honed as a skill that is has
some value to it. And it's also kind of weird
just to sort of being a supermarket and go, I
am Lisa Ming. I mean, nothing attracts more attention than
(22:41):
breaking into your cartoon character voice in public. Have you
had to learn say, oh, could you do my outgoing
voice mail? I'm like, no, yeah, I get yeah. And
sometimes people just randomly come up with their phone and
they're already talking to someone and they haven't said hello,
and they're like, hey, my cousin Jim's on the phone.
We talked to him for a minute. And I'm just like, man,
(23:04):
there's a whole process before the phone hand off, there's
a hello and ask yeah. So you also, I guess,
but people come up to you. Have you had to
learn how to draw Lisa a little bit? No, that's
such a funny question. Um. So I do these videos
on my Instagram and Twitter called Simpson Sunday and they're
(23:26):
really short, like two minutes three minute videos, and a
couple of them I've said, okay, here's a picture of
Lisa Simpson. I'm going to try to draw Lisa Simpson
freehand and it's horrible and it's hilarious and there's commentary
that goes along with it. And then the first time
I did it, the fans were like, oh my god,
it's so great, it's so bad. Can we have that?
(23:49):
So it's like, okay, so I forget. I held it
like a little contest and the winner got my really
terrible picture of Lisa Simpson. Um, it's really it's it's
I know I'm terrible at it. They're The short answer
is I can't do it. Well, I have just one
question about the Sibsons. The episode of twenty two minutes long,
(24:10):
and I guess when you hop into a to the
booth or I don't know if you're going into a
boot steal or technology allows you to do it from
home a bit like we can now too. How long
does that usually take to knockout an episode? Well, we
used to before the pandemic. We would record altogether like
a radio play, which is actually really unusual for cartoons.
When we did several years ago, we did that crossover
(24:32):
with Family Guy and I because it was on their
time slot, we recorded in their facility, their studio, and
excuse me, I went in and did it on my own,
did my lines, you know, just wild one after the other.
I had. All my scenes were with Mila Kunis, but
I didn't even meet her because she wasn't there that day.
(24:53):
But for us, our executive producer James L. Brooks, who
comes from sitcom and films, you know, Mary Tyler Moore
and Taxi and all these incredible iconics, it comes was like,
I don't know why you would treat this any differently.
It's still a conversation. And I'm a big fan because
even though at this point after thirty two seasons were
(25:16):
an incredibly well oiled machine. And when I go in
to do a d R, which is for your listeners
who don't know when you replace dialogue that they've rewritten
after the original recording session, I go in and do
it myself. But in the original recording, which takes about
four hours, we go through the scene four times and
(25:37):
then if they still don't have it they want, then
we'll just do individual lines as pickups. But the way,
for instance, I stand between Dan who goes Homer and
Nancy who does Bart. The way Dan or Nancy or
Hank or um you know Julie who does Marge says,
the line is going to inform the way I respond,
(25:57):
and so that's my preference. But and the coronavirus hit,
we all started to record from home. So because I
do the podcast, already had really good equipment and that
seemed like a pretty good setup. But I really hope
that at some point we get back into the studio altogether.
I just think it gives it a a texture that
(26:18):
you can't manufacture on your own, just because you know,
if I was next to you, Bobby, and I said, well,
then you would have a reaction to that, versus if
I was next to you and I said, hey, how
are you right? Yeah, we we dealt the same in
our studio. We were all working from homes for a while,
and there's definitely a vibe difference in just the production
(26:39):
of what we were doing. Well, I didn't know what
a d R meant, so thank you. And I also,
if I'm admitting to myself, I had to google what
adjudicated meant when you were talking about that earlier. I'm
being completely completely transparent here. Listen, Yarley, it's been so
nice talking with you. Everyone. Check out Small Town Dicks,
the podcast and Small Town Dicks. That's a detective, it's
a true crime podcast. These are big time crimes happening
(27:01):
in anonymous small town cities, and I'm gonna check it
out yardly. It's it's been so cool to talk to you.
Like I said, when I recognized you from Herman's Head,
I was like, oh, this is awesome. I'm looking forward
to this one a lot. So thank you for your
and I'm gonna I'm gonna follow you back on on Instagram.
So yeah, I don't I love it, but thank you
so much for having me. What a what a pleasure?
Can I just ask you, I really want to be
(27:23):
on Dancing with the Stars. Should should be ever all
be able to be that close to each other again?
Can you just tell me what that was like? Was
it great? Was it fun? Was it everything? Well? Do
you have any dancing I had no dance experience at
all like you have a little. I took tango for
several years. I think you'd like it because you're training.
If you're like me, I I valued the time to
(27:44):
be able to work with one of the best in
the world. I mean I never would have been able
to do that in my lifetime, to go and train
with a dancer every day. Um, I was still doing
my radio show and I was touring a little bit,
but um, it was for me twelve hours a day
because I had no experience. I didn't know what the
what the words meant. It was like when you said
adjudicated when they were like okay, I had to google
all the words to know. Like a sage, I don't
(28:05):
know what the stuff meant. So for me it was
great and that it was a really positive experience where
I got to train with the best and learn. I
never got great, I got to be okay. I ended
up winning because I won because the people right. Because
I also realized, just like in life, you can't just
be the best at something, You've also got to be
the person that people want to work with or want
(28:26):
to root for. So that was kind of my goal.
But I would if this weren't uber rating, I'd give
it four and three quarter stars. Like I loved my
experience on that show. Yeah, I'd love hearing that. I
would say if I wasn't an actress, I would be
a professional ballroom dancer. And not because I'm so great
at it, but I would That just sounds like happened
(28:48):
to me. I had no idea that it was as
tough as it was until I watched it with my
own eyes, and it is extremely I would love for
you to do it, do you know. I mean, I
can put a text into a couple of producers, Arlie,
just say the word do it. Do it. And when
we're back from non Corona and listen. I don't know
if they're gonna have having this season this year. I
think right now they're they're flirting with the bubble idea
(29:09):
where they're gonna put all the dancers in, which was
what we basically lived in any way. But that's what
I'm gonna do. I'm going to text the producer today
and say, next season, don't sleep on Yardly. She's a
professional dancer. She just hasn't been exposed to enough professionals yet. Okay, ' hardy.
Good to talk to you. Hopefully we'll talk against soon
in the future. It all right by Arlie. Thanks Eddie.
(29:38):
How are you? I'm doing fine? Bobby? How are you, sir?
You know I'm I'm really good. It's a real treat
to talk to you over on my side of things,
because I gets to talk to you sometimes on your
side and things in your domain. But it's a real
pleasure to have you over here. Well, it's a real
pleasure to be with you. I was thinking just the
same thing. You know. I'm used to seeing you out
at the opery frequently as a as a performer. In course,
(30:00):
your presence there has been heightened recently with your involvement
with Circle Television too. So you always do a great
job whenever you've been around, and it's always going a
treat to visit with you, and I'm looking forward to
chatting with you here today. Well, I got a couple
of questions, you know. First of all, Yeah, I would
think that today would be an emotional day because today
it's it's Wednesday, we're recording this Is this the last
(30:21):
day of the show? Yes, this will be the last
day of my employment with with Rhyman Hospitality Properties, which
of course owns WSM Radio and the Grand Ol Operate.
How you feeling today going into that last show? Well, it's, uh,
it's it's sort of a mixed bag, if you will,
very reflective, very thankful. Uh, you know, so many experiences
(30:43):
having been with the company and as an announcer with
the offering for twenty five years, but twenty four years
ago this month started hosting the Evening Shift at WSM,
and that's a that's a long run. So we've had
a lot of magical experiences over the years. But on
the other hand, I'm looking for word with great optimism
to to what the future holes. My wife, Debbie and
(31:03):
I are very much looking forward to getting out and
doing a lot of things we've wanted to do and
go do some traveling, and we've got some dreams that
we want to live and things we want to share.
Things she's like to do individually, some things I'd like
to do individually, will do them together, of course, But
we're just very much looking forward to this and have
a little more time to do it, and on top
(31:24):
of that, while we're still in relatively good health to
do so. You know, for folks that are listening and
don't understand that the amount of time that Eddie has
been doing this night show, that is such a level
of success to can to stay on there for over
twenty years, Like guess somebody who's doing it and trying
and grinding it out every day. Like I tipped my
hat to you, that is something that very very few
(31:46):
people in the whole world have ever done, and especially
at your level. Well, thank you Bobby for saying. That's
one thing I'm proud of is in the almost ninety
five year history of WSM, there's never been a longer
tenured host in the evening shift, and in the history
of Nashville radio overall, there was only one other personality,
man named John rich Board, who played rhythmon blues music
(32:06):
on w l a C late at night in the evenings.
He was on, I believe for twenty seven years before
he retired back in nineteen seventy two. So I'll play
second fiddle to John Orenge. He was great what he
did for what I gathered. You know, back to first
radio job three, you made twenty bucks per show. Now,
when you first started, wasn't on karts or records. How
(32:27):
were you guys doing the music? Then we played music
exclusively from records. My first radio jobs a w Y
I I and william Sport in Maryland, fifty five miles
from where I lived, and it was near Tagersound, but
I lived in Gayporsburg, Maryland was my hometown. But we
played on records and that was it. That was it. Yeah,
(32:48):
Elbow one of those things and then you're like, oh
my goodness, and you gotta run back to it. Did
that ever happened? Uh No, I never got called with
my records down uh there, but did at other places.
That just that seems scary because you you nudge one
of those things, the whole radio station goes crumbling down. Yeah,
(33:09):
they're they're very delicate, that's for sure. You played fiddle
back in the day with the Johnson Mountain Boys. Now
did you ever step into the circling before at the opera?
You mean, oh, yeah, I was. We were blessed a
guest on the opery several times, and that was a
great thrill. That was a dream that we had that,
you know, the one that we might become members of
(33:30):
the opera. And I had a dream as a kid
the first time I came there on a summer vacation
after between eleven and twelfth grade, I said, one day
I'm going to be on that stage. And I was
years later in the eighties as as a fiddle player,
but I never dreamed that, you know, seventeen years later
(33:50):
almost I think it was seventeen years to the weekend,
I was becoming an opera announcer. So that was it
was a dream come true to get to be able
to do all that. And he when did this voice happened?
Because I hear you talking, I thought, Man, if I
could have had this voice, I wouldn't have had to
be as as dippy as I am. If I had
just had the perfect voice, like Eddie here, where were you?
Eleven twelve? When did this thing finally set into where
(34:12):
you're like, I can do this now? Well? I always
had a deeper voice, And uh, it wasn't something that
I nurtured or went to broadcasting school to to to
try to work on to make it better. If I had,
it probably would have been a lot better. But I
give all the credit to God. I mean, he gave
(34:33):
me the talents that I have, Bobby. And as to
when it came in, you know, I don't know. I
guess like most you know, adolescents, your voice changes when
you're twelve years old, twelve, thirteen years old, fourteen, maybe.
But I always had a deep voice, BacT, you know,
as far as I could remember. I don't have anything
with me as a kid, you know, talking on it.
(34:53):
But it's just it's just what God wanted me to have, Man,
I want you wanted me to have that kind of
voice and set us dound like this. This sound like
the Peter Brady episode when he goes to puberty on
the Brady Bunch. That's my whole life right there. I
saw it. But you got you got the listeners, and
you got the fans, and you're you're the most powerful
broadcaster and country music. So it's a it's a thrilled
(35:15):
to be able to chat with you. There's room for
all of this, Bobby, and what we do? You know, Well,
I saw Dirk's write something really not. Dirk's a good
friend of mine and Dark's loves you. Did you get
a chance to see what Dirk's had written about you
on Instagram and and Twitter and all that? No forgetting
I'm I'm I'm a seventy eight RPM kind of guy
in an iPod world, so I don't be all that fake.
(35:36):
We're making those in fifty seven by the way, seventy gates.
So but I I haven't seen it, but I would
like to. Dirks has been very kind to me. Yeah,
I mean he wrote a whole lot and he said,
you know, I'll just read you a piece piece of it. Here.
He said, when I was hanging out at Station in
and really starting to dig deeper into the music. Two
of my biggest teachers were George Jones and Eddie Stubbs.
(35:59):
Who else goes back? I can replace just the steel
guitar solo of the song that he spun on vinyl
to explain to the listener the importance of that musician's
contribution to the success and greatness of the song No One.
So he wrote a lot more too. But I thought,
you know, a guy like Derek's who was just an
eight plus guy aside from being a great artist, his
words we were pretty touching. And I know you and
Dre Derek's have been pretty close over the years. Well
(36:20):
that's really flattering, and we have. He started listening to
me when he came to Snashville from Outain, Arizona. He
was a college student at Vanderbilt University, and you know,
it was always neat to have him around. You know,
he was just one of these guys. It was just
a sponge and just wanted to soak up everything he
possibly could. Who was it, Eddie that you would get
(36:41):
nervous to talk to, because you know, here we are
two thousand twenty and we we hear about all the
legends now, but who wasn't When they walked in the room,
you'd be like, oh boy, here we go. This is
about to be something. I got that way a little
bit with Earl Scrugs early on because he was such
a childhood hero of mine. And I wait, act, you know,
(37:01):
I was nervous being around Rape Price. That was before
I ever came to Nashville. I was back in the
early nineties when I was working in radio in Washington
A W A m U and getting to be in
the presence of these people, you know, for the first
time and meet them. Uh, you know I would, I
would definitely. I was definitely nervous. I guess anybody would be,
(37:23):
you know, at that at that point in tom with
you being able to bring on so many people on
that opery stage, especially for like the first time they
get to play the opera stage. When you look back,
who was it that maybe you had seen or or
part of their performance, but the crowd just absolutely went
bonkers for way early in their career, and you were
able to go, man, this is about to be something.
(37:47):
Josh Turner stands out very strong in my mind. Um,
I was there the night that he made his debut
at the at the Rhyme and Auditorium. He was a
brand new artist, didn't have a record out or anything
at that point, and pet Fisher of the manager of
the operate at that time, put him on the show.
And he came out and sang long Black Train, and
that voice was so unique and so special, and you know,
(38:09):
he just had a very uh what's the word I'm
looking for. He just had a presence about him that
with confidence he was who he was. And you could
tell that this guy wasn't just a great singer with
a deep boys and a great song, but you could
tell this guy was an artist. And there's a big
(38:30):
difference between a singer and an artist. Not every performer
as an artist, but I could sense that and he
you know, he got a standing ovation that night. He
was halfway up the stairs to his dressing room and
they had to go get him after after he'd done
his song. He didn't realize that he was being called back.
That's awesome. I have two more questions for you, because
(38:52):
I mean I could spent three hours here. I feel
like we should do a whole kinburn series on you, Eddie.
To be honest with you. But I got two more
questions for you. Number one is over the years, any
cool memorabilia from the opery that someone maybe had given
you or an artist would leave behind, or you keeping
anything as a memento from the opery. I'll tell you, Bobby,
that's that would be a hard question to answer because
(39:12):
I've always been a student of the music and a
collector and a fan, and I've got a lot of
memorability that I've bought, and I've gotten things that people
have given me over the years, lots of special things
that you know, pictures, song books, things like that. So
it would be hard to at PenPoint to say what
is my most treasured artifactive opering memorabil you. I do
(39:36):
have one item it's tied to the opery, so to seak,
and that's a seventy eight record on Columbia Bio Uncle
Jimmy Thompson, who was the man who was the first
person to play on WSM the field an hour's worth
of air time playing old time titled music because somebody
didn't show up, and that's what led to the birth
of the Grand Old Oprey. So having one of Uncle
(39:58):
Jimmy Thompson's seventy eight. You know it wasn't his personal copy,
but those records are very scarce. I have one of those.
Is A is something that's very meaningful.
Host
Bobby Bones
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