#311 - Kappy Manager for Luke Combs and Niko Moon + How Luke Combs Got To Where He Is and Sacrifice He Went Through To Be His Manager + Advice for New Artists on How To Make It

Kappy is Luke Combs' manager and has been with Luke since the very beginning...even before he had a record deal! Kappy talks about the early days and the sacrifices he made on the road because he knew Luke was destined to be a star. Kappy talks about what it’s like managing him and his roster of artists which include Niko Moon, Hailey Whitters and more! He also gives his advice to new artists who want to know how they can stick out and be discovered. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to episode three eleven. A Cappy Luke Holmbs manager
also Nico Moon's manager, is on. Just talks about well
a lot of Luke Hombs a story and how he
got to where he is. But also you know the
sacrifice that Cappy went through just to be a manager. Also,
if you're a new artist and you're like, how do
I make it? Cappy will give you his advice. It's
a crazy cool story. I don't know that I've ever

(00:22):
heard Cappy interviewed like this before. Um, but I like
him a lot and I was super pumped came over
the house. So Cappy coming up in just a little bit.
The new releases that I think you'll like, Let's start
at number five. Reba put out a remix of our
song I'm a Survivor. Now. You may know it from
the opening credits of the Reba Show or maybe see

(00:44):
it on TikTok all the time. I mean, that's why
it's probably being made as a remix, because it is
killing it on TikTok. See the one she did like
in response everything, It's like, um, if I were to
just come up on the top off the top of
my head, if I go and I'm like, I'm gonna
make dinner for Caitlin, and I cracked a couple of
eggs and I make something really wimpy, and I'm like,
here it is. It's like a single mom that worked too.

(01:05):
It's like it's things around the house. Mostly it's a
funny trend. It's funny. Yeah, but she uh did a
remix of it. And here's a clip of that single
moms her kids and never stops. What's Your Lands and
the heart of the FID I'm a survive Cla Done.

(01:28):
She has a new EP called in This Kind of Light,
The Crazy News about Claire Done. I'm not saying that,
I mean the timing is good for her for it
to come out now. She got beat up by like
an uber driver lift driver and said, I'm used to
being uber to all the bad stories of maneuver. She
got beat up by lift driver. But that story, and
I'm sure she never she wouldn't trade it, you know,

(01:50):
she doesn't want to get beat up. That story made
me think about what she up to. Then I saw
she had new music come out talking about it here,
So something kind of good came from a terrible situation.
That guy pulled her out of the car like he
needs to go to John and get beat up like
that a few times. Man, that's that sucked for her.
But here she has number four on our list. Here's
Claire Dunne with a new song, how it comes off,

(02:17):
But that's all, that's how it comes all. I hope
she's doing better. I saw the pictures of her face afterward,
and I don't know if that was from right after
or still today because that was about a month ago.
That happened right in June, so okay, so maybe she's back. Man,

(02:38):
it felt so bad for there. Number three, Cheryl Crow
finally put out her full album Live from the Rheyman
and More. Here it's her live version of every Day's
a Winding Road Love Chryl Crow. At number two, Lucy
Silva's has a new song out called cool Down featuring

(02:59):
Chryl Cur. I got it thirst from making you heard
because that's all luck, feeling nothing. And at number one,
the new album from Dan and Shay is called Good
Things and here is a new song called Steal My

(03:21):
Love Nobody. I saw a clip on Instagram to where
Danil Larrence and Matt Stell wrote a song together. Then
they released it and that's called over you as you
it's it and so you can check that out today.

(03:43):
Jamison Rodgers has one called one day in news. Limbiscuit
canceled the remainder of their tour quote out of an
abundance of caution, did not know they were touring. I
wonder how many the original guys are. I know him
and a guitar player for sure, like Monkey was the
guitar player for I think they even changed Monkey out
for a while. Really is Monkey still in it? I
thought I saw him at Lollapalooza. Stevie Nixt has canceled

(04:05):
all her remaining shows, including a c L because of
COVID concerns, Bonaroo and Milwaukee Summer Fest to require a
proof of vaccination or COVID test to attend. Um. Jillian
Jacqueline is expecting her first kid. Congratulations love Jillian. She
first announced that she and her husband Brian are expecting
the first kid. Boom, there you go. All right, that's

(04:26):
the releases, that's the news, and we get to Cappy
in a second. Just a fantastic and we love this guy.
I love I think you're gonna like it too. All right,
thank you all right here. I didn't know your name
was Chris Cappy. Does anyone call you Chris my mother?
But nobody here, nobody. I've never heard you refer to
as anything other than Cappy. That's all I've ever gone by.

(04:47):
It's been since kindergarten. Oh it's even before, like your
professional career started. And when I was in in college
and my fraternity, the joke was to get Cappy's signature
in your black book. You had to figure out what
his first name was, and then it was. It was
a long running joke. So but yeah, I've never gone
by by Chris by from anyone. My mother is the
only one that calls me Chris. I feel like we've
known each other for a bit, But then once I

(05:09):
was deep diving a bit more. Obviously there are new
things that I want to talk to you about. But
even your your title is chief navigation Officer at Make
Wake Artists. What the heck is the chief navigation officer?
And why that? Well, it's you know, it's funny. I
never expected to own a business and and have the
success that i've I've had um and when I did it,

(05:30):
I always said I didn't want to be a CEO.
I that's just not who I am. What I try
to do with my artists and my and my employees
that I try to help navigate. I used my years
of experience and what I've done and and point them
in the right direction and steer their careers and steer
their ships. But they're their bosses. I mean, they're the
CEOs of their company, and I'm there to help them.
So I'm not a CEO or a CFO or CEO.

(05:52):
I'm I'm the CNO. And I love being the navigation officer.
That's the most comfortable thing for me. But you got
to create that title, Yes, I just I just came
up with it. Well. I worked on cruise ships for
fifteen years, and you know, I was very at home
on the water, and I'm very and and and like
and I live on the river here in town and
I love being on water, and U that just felt
normal for me, Like, you know, just the head of

(06:14):
the ship. I'd say, you could be captain of something,
but you're already happy people call me that. Yeah, and
I want to get back to the cruise ship stuff
because I I definitely read that and that was the
first time that I had known that. Um, and by
the way, you're just beloved, not not by me, but
also you know my managers Tom Lord, Tom Lord and
Tom bet She managed me. But um, you know Tom
Lord was with you guys playing golf couple of weeks

(06:34):
as we did. We did, and he was like, man, cab,
he's just the greatest. You forget when you're only working
with him, you know professionally that he's just the greatest.
I appreciate. Tom is an amazing person. Has been such
a great friend of mine moving to town because I
didn't have any friends here when I moved to town.
So Tom and I met very early on and we've
always been very close. You moved to Nashville to do
what to manage Luke holmbs SO, and I've talked to

(06:58):
Luke and and I have his perspective on you and
him and just in a nutshell from his perspective, it
was like, you're the one that was like, hey, I
believe in you as an artist, like I know other
people are some people are saying this or that, but
I'm the one that believes in you as an artist.
And that's basically according to him, that was what made

(07:18):
him and you stick. And you wrote him a letter
made I did. I did. Can you just tell your
version of that whole story? Absolutely? So you know, I
moved to town September six of two fifteen to manage
Luke after we had we had done some things together.
So I moved to town and we started working together,
and then I had to go out of town to
finish some obligations I had that I've already given people
my word on. So I left town, and when I

(07:38):
came back, I had heard, you know, through the grape
vine of of Nashville, that Luke had took some management meetings.
So I said, I'm not gonna let this happen. So
I sat down and wrote him a very long email.
Were you not his manager? I was his manager? But
I guess it was so early on that that I
was just a like afraid of what was going to happen,

(07:59):
because I so many people have talked to me about
this town, that it's the town that would will give
you a hug, But as they're giving you a hug,
they put a knife in your back. So I was like, well,
I don't want that to happen. So I was like,
you know, maybe somebody did go behind my back and
talk to Luke, so I'd said, no, what I'm going
to tell him how I feel? And I wrote this
extremely long email. It took me hours and hours and
hours to write, but I poured everything into it because

(08:20):
I was all in on him, and I hit send
and I just crossed my fingers and we talked the
next day and he said, I read your email, and
at first I got I was getting mad because of
the things you were saying, because you were like, you
were like saying that I was talking to somebody else
and all these other things. But as I read it,
I kept feeling how much you cared for me in that,

(08:41):
and I was And at the point I got to
the end of it, I was like, this guy. You know,
this guy's gonna do anything for me, so I gotta
go with him. And we've been, you know, glued at
the hip ever since, and um, I think you have
to when you want something bad enough, you have to
go all in on it. And and I did, and
I put it all out there. What was it about
Luke early on because you didn't meet while you were

(09:02):
in Nashville. Was it like a club? I'm just trying
to recall. So the way it all happened is uh.
A guy named Bradley Jordan, who owns Speech Tree Entertainment
called me. I was living in California and I was
working for six Man, which is the company before I
started with Luke. And he said, you've always want to
be a manager. You're forty two years old. You're throwing
your life away. If you don't do this, you're gonna
regret it. And he's my best friend and he can
say those things to me. And he hit me right

(09:22):
between the eyes and I said, you're right. So I
decided to move back. I was gonna work with another
I looked at a couple of other artists. None of
that worked out, and he calls me and goes, I
found your guy. His name is Luke Combs. We're gonna
do a show and you're gonna see him play. I said, fantastic.
He goes, you have to buy the show because he
doesn't have a show in the books. He has no shows,
so you're gonna have to buy the show, rent the venue,
and throw the foot through the event. So we did

(09:44):
buy the show. That so we had to go and
pay Luke to come and play the show because he
didn't have any shows. On the books. So this is
so early in his career. He only had one show
he had done, which was with Bradley at UM in Rome,
Georgia at the brew House. So we we bought the show.
UM paid Luke seven and fifty dollars, paid seven or
fifty dollars to the venue. And I remember being there's

(10:05):
only gonna be three people at the show, Bradley, Luke
and me. And during sound check, Luke started playing a
song and he's like, hey, man, I kind of text
you these lyrics and you burn them out for me.
I'm like, sure. It was Hurricane. First time you ever
played it live in front of the crowd. The only
place where it lived was on Facebook on a on
a video. So anyway, he's singing in sound check. I'm like, man,

(10:26):
this guy's really good, Like this guy can really sing
in the band. And so I walk outside and you know,
it's like nine o'clock and about to open the doors.
You know, it's a college town and there's people in line.
No priest sold tickets, and I'm like, wow, eighty three
people were there for this first show and he had
nothing going on, and they were singing every word every

(10:47):
song on his first two EPs that had come out,
which is six songs she Got the Best of Me
and the way she rides and kind of get an
out Law. And then he played Hurricane and they were
singing the words of Hurricane. It's only been on a
Facebook video. And for all the years that I worked with,
I was working with you know, John Mayer and Kiss
and and Kid Rock and all these Paramore three eleven,

(11:07):
these super passionate fan bases, and they would sing every
word every single song, even the deep cuts. They were
doing the same thing. And I was like, he has it.
He has not only does he have the chops because
he has that and he has the songs, but he's
got fans that are already in love with him. And
as soon as you see that, and that's what I knew.
I was like, this is it? Like he has it,
I can take this. And I told him, I was like, Luke,

(11:29):
in five years, well have you playing theaters on a
tour bus and you'll be making seven figures And I
can I can guarantee that in five years because I
saw so many bands do it and with just with fans,
and UM, He's like, okay, if you can do that,
you know, you're my manager, let's go. And that's kind
of how the whole thing started in the beginning. And
and we did that. You know, we really stayed focused

(11:49):
on on the fan base. And that's all we really
focus on is how do we affect the bootleggers, the
which is which is what we call his fan base. UM,
and uh, it works fans first, That's all we really
focus on. UM. When it comes down to it is
how does it affect the fan? So you're living in California,
you go to Georgia to do this. Were you already going,

(12:09):
all right, I gotta get to Nashville Or was it
after that night with Luca? After with Luke and he said,
if you want to be my manager, you have to
live in Nashville. Was he living in Nashville the time
he was he was already here. How quick did you move? Uh?
It took me six weeks. In six weeks, so you go, yeah,
I got this new artists, Let's be honest. If you're
just managing an artist, you're not making any money. I'll

(12:32):
just talk from the experience with my manage awards in
your mouth. My management makes fifteen percent of what I make.
If I'm making zero of what I make is zero zero,
So that's you moving to Nashville. Did you have some
money saved up? I had a little bit of saved up.
And when when Luke and I sat down, I remember
the first time, sitting in his apartment around you know,

(12:52):
the glass table with the four wrought iron chairs in
his in his apartment. I said, Man, what's the most
important thing for you? And he's like, man, I really
hate driving to these rights I'm in and this old
Dodge Neon that I had, and it was it's I
don't want to. In fact, I parked and walk two
blocks in the heat, and I was like, look, I
won't take a dime from you until you're making money
and we can buy you a car. So what we

(13:14):
would do is after every run, any extra money we
had left over, we would put into a bank bag
that lived inside a coffee can that lived in his kitchen,
and that's what we We stacked cash in there. And
then the rest of the time I was just using
my money, uh to live off of or fund whatever
we needed if we needed extra hotel rooms or we
didn't make enough money that night for gas in the van.

(13:34):
I mean, I just came out of my pocket and
did it. And because I wasn't going to give up.
And I think that's the difference of becoming a manager
at forty two years old and already having and living
a life. I was like, I'm I'm all in on
this guy because I'm okay to fail, because I'm I'm
ready to make this happen. So I'm gonna go all
in and um. I eventually it was April, so this

(13:55):
I was September. It was April. I was sleeping on
my couch because I was running out my room in
this house that I had in East Nashville that I
was living in. UM that was it was a hovel,
but it's all I could afford. Um I had somebody
living there to help me pay from a bill. So
I was sleeping on my couch. I was now forty
three years old, sleeping on my couch driving the van.
I had sold everything that I could sell to have money.

(14:17):
And what I would do every night as I would
go to the green room and I would take a
merch bin in there. But it wasn't a merch bin.
It was my food stash. Because I would take the
food out of the green room the funyans and the
bottled water and whatever we had and put it in
there so I had food to eat because I couldn't
afford anything because I had to describe everything together so
we could make it. And um, I remember getting there

(14:38):
and we had enough money to buy Luke the car.
And I never once was like he never knew any
of this, Like I didn't let him know where where
it stood financially. I was late on my rent. I
was late, I was all my credit cards were past
to do. Um it was. I was like I was
sitting there one night. I was like, I'm like almost
rocking back and forth, you know. Um, I was like,
this he has it. I know he does. I know

(14:59):
we're gonna do this. And end we bought them the car.
It was a Ford Fusion. The very next week we
got an offer to play a show um in the
Outer Banks at an a TV park for ten thousand dollars.
I was like wow. And then the week after that
we got a private for ten thousand dollars, so instantaneously
I made three thousand dollars and I was like, this

(15:19):
is gonna work because you've got the truck. So now,
which is by the way, let me just stop you
before we go forward, for you to go, I'm not
taking any money until you're able to not only make
a little money for yourself, but to pay off this
first part of what can make your dream. I haven't
heard of such thing unless it's buy someone who has

(15:40):
a lot of a lot of money, and it is
pretty rich to do that. Like I've heard of some
friends of mine that are athlete managers or business They
can do that and they can go, hey, listen, I
got four other clients there. There are millionaires. I won't
take a dime until you But you weren't doing that.
Do you don't have anything? You were taking nothing while
you had nothing. You believe that much. I've never stopped
believe me, And I know you believe now, and I

(16:02):
know you believe darly. But I've had things in my
career where I'm like, I'm so for sure this and
I'm my head's down and I'm not stopping. And I
never stopped. However, there were times where it got to
be so questionable. I was like, am I delusional that
I believe so much? Because I do believe in certain things.
I've done so much, But there are times where there's
so much pushback where I start the question if I'm crazy?

(16:22):
Did you have a question if you were crazy? My
parents questioned me, I think very early on, They're like,
are you sure you want to do this? Like, are
you sure you want to give up a fifteen year career?
I know my brother was the same way, are you
sure you want to do this? Now? They see it,
but I mean, I think it's different when you're standing
there in a room and you're watching people pour their
hearts out and there and what they're doing and in
in in the connection that Luke had with the fans,

(16:43):
and I saw it so early on. I was like,
this is real, Like you you cannot create this no
matter what. And I was like, it's gonna happen. It's
just gonna I just have to weather the storm. And
I don't know whatever the higher power is, it's out
there said I'm going to test you and if you
don't break, I'm gonna reward you. And I never broke.
So when did the record labels? And then? What was

(17:06):
was that just fury? It was everybody after Luke at once?
Or was it one and then one season it's cool
and comes after it? How did that go. Well. You know,
we signed with the River House UM, which is Lenn
Oliver and Lynn and I are friends from years and
years and years ago, and I took her the music
and she heard it and she loved it. So she
signed the Looke to an independent deal and then she
was distributing it through thirty Tigers. And then as it

(17:29):
started to pick up momentum and it got some some
some radio play and then everything started to kind of
snowball from there because they started recognizing it and it
started to stream and um, and people started to like
perk up a little bit because we didn't play any
shows in town. You know, the big first show that
we did in town was Whiskey Jam Anniversary show. And
then after that show, um, because of the the pickup

(17:53):
we had from the early independent stuff that we had
done with the radio and everything like that, and people
paying attention then that been, there was a bunch of
A and R people there. Um. Actually Bo Martinovich was
there from from Sony and actually sent a video that
night were basing a hurricane too to the Sony team.
They decided to have conversations. We had conversations with three

(18:14):
labels in the very beginning, and it became very very
quick and and and hot and fast, and um we
opted to go with Sony and it was it was
a great opportunity. Were you leveraging because anytime anybody bidding
on me, we've always leveraged, right, you know what? And
at that point we really didn't. And that's not one
of the things that I do very well. I'm not
a big leverager in that in the in the sense
that I'm very transparent. In fact, I'm working on a

(18:35):
deal right now for one of my other artists that
I just sent like They're like, well, how much do
you have invested in this artist already? And I was
like hundred six dollars and they're like, oh wow. I
was like, yeah, here, I've me seeing the spreadsheet instead
of like bumping it or patting it or anything like that.
I just don't. I'm not a I'm not a giant
leverage person. But but for example, yes, there's a little

(18:57):
deal happening with me a few years ago, two years ago,
right one of the major streaming companies said, whoall give
you one dollar? Well, then I go over to IR
and go, well, they're offering me one dollar Like this
is leverage too, So can you beat one dollar? And
they're like, well, yes we can, Well then it's satis.
We'll just call it another that, Jeff, A little bit
of that happened. But I think, you know, the really

(19:18):
the reason we went with Sony and the and the
biggest thing that that really made that over the other
two was the relationship that they wanted to have with
Luke Um and the relationship they wanted to have with us.
So like, I think that was what really wanted out.
But no, it didn't get into a giant bidding war
at all, it really didn't. They Sony came very honest
and straightforward from the from the beginning. And you know,

(19:39):
we had already had Hurricane out there, so they they
also had to be ready just to pick up and
go with what we had already done and flip it
and and take it from there. And they did. Did
they use the exact track, did they do anything? Say
that they took it? Was that part of the deal
to like, hey, we know kind of what we was
already done. It was already done, so we were able
to deliver a full project to them, completely finished. And
then you know, it hard to argue anything when you

(20:02):
when you are Luke and you're delivering the songs and
they're doing what they're doing and having the reaction that
they are. Now, we do absolutely listen. I mean, originally
we were going to release Hurricane into one number a
way and they came back and said, hey, would you
mind releasing Hurricane into when it rains it pours? We
think it would be a better play. And and Luke listens.
I mean that that's the beauty of who he is
is he wants to hear great feedback, and we did

(20:23):
and then we um, we released it that way. Then
we came to one number away and it and it worked.
Is it to the point now where you have so
many offers to do so many things? That's hard to
keep up with for Luke? Absolutely, it's it's getting that
way for Nico and getting that way for Haley. Um. Yeah,
it's it's it's crazy. I mean, we have a full
team surrounding Luke. Um We. I talked with Luke every
Wednesday at ten am to go over a plethora of

(20:47):
of of asks and unfortunately I have to say no
a lot because if I did everything, the guy would
not have a personal life. You understand, how that is.
I mean, you can't. You probably get asked for so
many things too. You're like, guys, if I say this,
I I literally can't do anything else in my personal life.
So we have to be very selective now, which means
I have to be a no guy um, which I
hate being because I'm I'm I'm a pleaser um as

(21:11):
a person. But the most important person I have to
protect on my artists, right, So I have to say
no a lot. Yeah, there's a point, and it's a
great point. And I've get to experience behind a couple
of years ago where you went and I went from
begging for for yes for people to say yes to me.
I'm just like please, please, please, to now it's hard
to say no. But you have to go from begging

(21:31):
to yes is to figuring out which nos are important
to say no to now. And I could definitely see
that being a thing with Luke. And by the way,
you congratulates love Nico like I. I love Nico like
that guy. I can't be around him enough and he
is and he's also really good. And that's the thing.
Both of these artists are surprising in that way because
and I'll say one more thing about Luke with Nico

(21:52):
triggered this thought. With Luke, you know, as songs are good,
but when he sings in person and then listen, I
had the luxury of kind of getting to know Luke
early too, you know, and having him on the show,
and you did, and so he's he is such a
great singer, not just a yeller or a guy with
big fun songs. I don't think he gets credit for

(22:12):
how pure of a singer he is because of his
songs and his image. But the guy can sing with
anybody like he could. He could sit with Shay and
sing with Shay. Well, he's a choral and he came
up as a chorus kid, you know, so he's been
singing his whole life. You know, when you come up
through chorus, you learned to really sing. And he was
in an a cappella group, you know. So Luke has

(22:32):
been a core singer his entire life. So I thank
you for saying that, because I think what's funny is
when you when you strip him down and you you
put him there with just him and a guitar and
you really let him be vulnerable, you really get to
see it, like it takes you back and you're like, wow,
that's that's pretty amazing. Was that the kind of the
the idea of doing better together like it was done? No,
you know what I know, and I wish I I

(22:53):
wish I had the thing. You know, Luke is, you know,
is in there, like he's really into the into the
the production of what he does, and he has an
idea of what he wants to do, and you know,
when he works with his producers, they'll come up with ideas.
And you know, I'm glad we did better Together that
way because it lit it let his voice shine and
all the award shows that we did, we did on

(23:14):
Billboard and we did another one, uh, and it was
really awesome to let that moment shine so people could
really see because I think a lot of people hide
behind um or they think they hide behind production um.
And when you get it that raw where it's just
a piano and a vocal, you can't hide behind that.
And it's really amazing to see that because then you
get all the critics out there there like, man, that
Luke holmbs really thing. Yeah, I mean, and again I'm

(23:36):
at the luxury of haven't been around him singing, you know,
for me to you and know that. And I'm always
kind of like dag, I wish people really knew, like
how pure of a singer right in the studio when
he comes into the studio and sits and sings in
right in front of you, right or we did. He
can't play a show with us at the rheman and
he say that on stage, and I'm just like, holy crap,
it's pretty amazing. But in Nique Go, which triggered that,

(24:02):
like Nico is obviously walks on the room. He kind
of owns the room by his presence and his smile,
just how delightfully write his teeth. He's just he's just
a smiling, happy guy. And he looks like he would
be total like emo or or sad because he's covered
in tattoos and he's wearing all black. But all of
a sudden, he makes the row happier. Dude. It's the

(24:23):
weird the weirdest thing. He exudes it. And but his
The crazy about Nico is he changed his real name
to Nico Moon. He that's him. That's that, That's who
he is, like, that's and you know the funny thing
is I was originally supposed to manage him back in
two thousand and eight nine, and he ended up signing
UM with Southern Ground, which is the Zach Brown Group,

(24:43):
and ended up going with them to be UH managed
by a company called Roar back then. So Nico was
gonna be my actually my first client I ever managed
years ago and it kind of fell through. And I
remember seeing at my at my table in my kitchen
and drawing out like the same technique that I used
with Luke, which I called it concentric touring, and I
drew it on a napkin and showed Niko. I was like,
we're gonna use this and it's how we're gonna break

(25:04):
you and stuff like that, and then it never happened.
I did the same thing with Luke. I was like, well,
it didn't work here, so ten years later, I'm gonna
try it again. And it worked with Luke. So that
was like the the idea. But that's Nico and I.
You know, when when I got the call years later
to talk with him about management because he was taking
management meetings UM, I was like, well, here's another chance,
let's try it again, and it ended up working for
the betterment for both of us. Let's play a clip

(25:24):
of a good time, so everybody can be reminded. We're
just trying to catch it good time with you know,
the song he was talking about there were, you know,
real drums on it, and he was like, you know what,
this isn't me. I mean, that's kind of a ballsy
decision to make and in country music to go. You know,
I think I want some electric drums on there. Um.

(25:46):
When a decision like that is made and has to
do with a song that could possibly be a single,
I mean, you get called in are you are you?
You know what, Bobby, I don't. I'm not a musician
at all. I cannot play anything I can do even
play a tamburine and the scant um. So what I
do is I listened like a fan um, which I
think sometimes it's just as good as being somebody that
can critically hear something like, oh that should be a

(26:08):
half step higher or lower. I can't do any of that.
So when I heard it, In fact, when I heard
Nico's music for the first time, I heard the song
way back and I was like, I love this because
I mean I grew up as a kid listening to
Uh black Hawk and in w a so as just
like he talked about having outcast and Alan Jackson I
did the same thing. So I came from a very

(26:29):
diverse musical fan background and when I heard way back,
I was like, this is I'm all in on you.
So we knew it was gonna be tough. But you know,
we also know that the format is opening up so
wide now, and you have artists like a Loop Combs,
and then you have artists like Dan and Shay, and
then you have artists like Walker Hayes, and then you know,
back to Chris Stapleton, you have such a wide swath

(26:49):
that luckily our genre is becoming more and more welcome
to wider sounds. And that's why it was so fun
to have Niko in there. But yes, that was it
a struggle, absolutely, and and and getting cert people to
um understand it. But you know, when the majority of
them meet Niko and they understand him, and they see
the show, the fan reaction and in in the reaction
that he has with them, um, it's undeniable. And then

(27:12):
a lot of people are like, wow, I get it,
I understand what's going on in his stage presence is amazing.
I didn't know a lot about Nico. UM. I remember
you know, meeting Rod Phillips, who runs Iron Country. Him
and I have been together in one form another for years, right,
so we're extremely close personally and professionally. And I remember

(27:32):
before Luke Combs, Luke was was on the Verge. Him
and I had a talk in a meeting in a
board room and it's like, who is it going to be?
And it was easily there was easily gonna be Luke's
and Yes came on the show that morning and remember
you made me cry? You cried. I do remember that vividly. Um,
it seems like a lifetime ago, honestly without but with Nico,
I was we were in the room and I heard
some Nico just his music. Didn't know what he looked like,

(27:55):
and Rod was like, what do you think. I was like,
I don't know anything about him, Like, I don't know
he goes well, but he's playing it the I heart.
There's there there's a meeting where eybody Music summit and
I saw Niko play at that music summit and I
was like, oh, that's the guy who goes Yeah, we've
already he's a no't matter what you say anything, We've
already made him on the verge. And I was like, oh,
I get it now though, I mean now that you're

(28:17):
right once you see, once you see him play, if
you haven't been convinced, you're like, oh yeah, like I
get it now. And that's what it was for me
with Nko because I'm just hearing songs all the time,
you know, I had I don't really have a relationship
with Scott boar shot at. I mean almost none back
when I first moved here kind of a little bit.
But I don't have a relationship Scott. And but we

(28:37):
everybody has. Everybody sell a number in town. And he
signed an artist named Tiara, who is an artist that
I've had on the show and that I've had to
do some stuff here. And I told him recently, I said, hey,
nothing moves me anymore because by nothing, I mean almost nothing.
Like I'm so jaded and I've heard everything I said.
But when I heard Tiara, I went, holy crap, like

(29:00):
there is something about her that really makes me, like,
gives you a little twings. Yeah, But that was the
same thing with Nico. Whenever I got to experience that
that Nico. What about Nico to you was a guy
that you want to invest your time and your money
is well. The work ethic is there, you know. Um,
the passion that he has for what he does and
the way that he does it. You know, he writes

(29:21):
everything with Anna, his wife. That's a family affair. Um.
He wants nothing more than to um to be an artist,
and he wants to bring happiness to people. And you know,
I guess being a jaded person myself and many things
over the years of people like doing me wrong or
or or seeing things go wrong. I want to do good,
you know, and having Nico around and doing what he's

(29:43):
doing just like Luke does. I mean, I'm so blessed
that I've picked such great artists to let me work
with them. Um, they all are good people. And then
when I saw when when Nico and I and I
he played in the music and then he's like he's like,
oh yeah, let me let me show you this. And
he sat with a guitar. It was just him in
a guitar. Nico can sing too, like a lot of
people don't know that. They think he hides behind his tracks.
Also not even close. I mean, you get the guy

(30:05):
a guitar and let him just do his thing, and
he does that in the show now he's like, I'm
gonna show people. So he walks up with this an
acoustic guitar and does his thing. But um, I guess
you know, I just really like working with artists that
are like super positive and and and want to work
hard and and that's where I'm at and I'm luckily
every single on minor like that. What about haleywood Man?
You know, the funny thing is I worked with Haley

(30:26):
and I didn't know this. Back in two thousand and fifteen,
Haley opened up for three shows in US in the Carolinas.
It was Anderson, South Carolina, Darlington in another city. And
I don't remember this, but Haley told me when I
was interviewing with Haley two years ago to be your manager.
She had narrowed it down to myself and Matt Graham,
who co manager, and in another manager. And she finally
called and said, Hey, I'm it's YouTube. I want you

(30:47):
guys to manage me. And I was like wow. I
was like, what was the deciding factor? She goes, I
opened up three loop Comb shows. You walked me to
and from my car every night. You walked me to
and from the backstage area to to the green room,
I mean from the green room to the stage, which
was not much of it as a bar, and you
made sure I had water on stage every night, and
you made sure that my merch was taken care of,

(31:07):
and you settled the show for me if nobody else
did that. You were super sweet the entire time and
you had no reason to be. And she's like, that
was one of the deciding factors that pushed it over
the edge. And be like, if you were that nice
to me back, then, imagine what you're gonna be like
to me now and uh and uh, And that's kind
of where we are. And I mean I talked to
her every day. I just I literally hung up with
the phone with her. Els point, do you drive away? Well,
what a buzz on her? Though now too, it's you know,

(31:29):
I would imagine that sometimes you have to decide which
which avenue of the buzz you want to go down? Yeah,
and in in in this town or I guess with
your artists you really want to go down. You want
to make sure that the credibility side is really cemented
tough before you go for any commercialism, because you know,
the credibility is the one thing that you can have.

(31:51):
And then gain commercialism. If you have a ton of commercialism,
it's hard to get credibility. So um, I mean I
I don't, I don't. I can't even recall somebody that
that went full commercial and then was like, oh, this
guy is super credible too. So UM, with Haley, I
think the biggest thing we want to do is just
have her put her music out. When she wrote the
Dream and did it all on her own with Jake
and and her her now fiance and her producer, and

(32:14):
they put that record out, the entire town buzzed about
the sound. And then you know, I have to say
that the team at Big All Loud, you know, Seth
and And and Nicole Galleon and Songs and Daughters and
that whole team raised their hand immediately and said we
want in on this project. And we did an exit
in show right before COVID hit. I was like, I
had to miss the show. I was in Europe with
Luke Um when that all happened, and we had to

(32:36):
come back and Hayley was doing her show here and um,
it went over great And I got a tech from
Seth when I landed said we're in offers coming and
that's how fast it happened and the fast, but she'd
been here for twelve years and that's the truth. Yeah,
you know you you say something um that I think
you know pretty poignant and that the credibility has to
be there before the commercialism comes, which I think though

(32:56):
can be extremely frustrating. I speak and as what I
would call for a long time, I broke artist myself.
That's kind that's frustrating because you're going I go back
some money, like I need to make money, I need
to pay bills, and not only that, I'd like to
have a nice car like but it is more of
an investment in the future that the spoils that could
come then what you can get now. And I would

(33:18):
think that's a difficult conversation to have with people. Were like,
stay poor for a minute, because if you stay poor
and be credible, you can pick what you do later on.
That's why you have a good business manager. So in fact,
Luke and Haley have the same business manager and uh
and he's amazing like that, but that's what they do.
They say, Look, if you wait one more year and
do this this way, you can have three times what

(33:39):
you're looking for. Um. But yeah, you have to do that,
and you know at that point to body and you
know a lot of them are so poor they know
how to stay poor for a little bit longer. And
what you have to do is you have to reel
back and say, Okay, even though there's money in your
account right now, that money is already spent, so you
can't look at that. So, you know, working that way.
But you know, Haley was here for twelve years before
she got a record deal. You know, um, you know

(34:01):
some people come to town and in three months can
get a record deal. Um. But you know, we worked
really hard to have Hailey as a as a credible artist,
and we want to build evergreen careers. If you want
an evergreen career or do you want you know, um,
you know, a three or four year career. You know,
like a pop some pop artists only come around you're
a little bit and they're gone. So we don't want that.
Like I always use the analogy with my artist, you're

(34:22):
either going to be a C one thirty or a
rocket ship. See when thirty takes a lot longer to
get off the ground, but once we get up in
the air, we can gas up in the air and
keep going. When you're a rocket ship. You go up
and you either make it in the orbit or you
don't and you come crashing back down to Earth. So
you have to decide what do you want to be,
or you can be like Luke Combs and you're a
C one thirty and then they strapped four rockets to
your wings. Light on my fire and did you just

(34:43):
get going? How has he done with boom? You're extremely famous?
Real quick? He is the exact same guy. There's I mean,
there is literally nothing that has changed from Luke Combs
other than he lives from an apartment in hermitage to

(35:04):
a house where he lives now. Um, he's the exact
same fellow. I mean, he the guy will give you
the shirt off his back. Um. He does things for
people all the time. And there's so much stuff that
he's done that nobody even knows about. Um, and he
does it out of the goodness of his heart. He's
just he's a mensch. Was there ever a time where
you had the conversation of we're just gonna wear Columbia's shirts.

(35:26):
You don't need to look like I mean, did either
one of you have that with the other and go, hey,
what do we do, like do I just say the
same and never change or we we had that. It
was very early on. So like, you know, both of
us were big guys and we're both riding around together,
and we were both wearing Columbia stuff because their stuff
fits bigger guys really well. It's very boxy. And the
other thing too, is we were playing and we were
going from bar to bar to bar, staying in like

(35:47):
you know, choice hotels or or or holiday and expresses,
and I would literally be able to take that shirt
and I could wash it in the sink, hang it
up to dry, and in thirty minutes it was show ready.
So that's one of the reasons why. And when you're
playing in those rooms where you're under those park Hans
back in the day that are like it's like a
microwave oven. He could sing and play in that and
move and the shirt wouldn't stick to him. So we

(36:09):
decided just to keep doing that. And it was just
very easy. And especially when you're on the road and
you don't want to package giants suitcase full stuff, you
can just grab four of those shirts and throw them
into a bag. And you know, that's how we started.
And I just reached out to Columbia one day with
through an email to their corporate headquarters and to their
sea level executives and said, Hey, this guy is playing
every night and wearing your stuff. Can we get some
free gear? Like sure? And that's how the whole thing started.

(36:31):
And now is that a bigger thing? Yeah? Yeah, he's
an ambassador. Uh yeah, I mean I would imagine he
has to have to share the company. Now, you used
to work on Festive. You talking about festivals and cruise
ships and you know you mentioned John Mayre and Kid
Rock read three eleven, you mentioned Paramore. How long would
you stay out on the ocean at a time. There
was a point at one time that I was out

(36:51):
for twenty five days on cruise ships, and we would
just flip the ship, you know, every five days, and
you know, we would come into port, dump them, and
then go back out. And in that time frame of
that three hours, we would take all the branding down
for one event, so like let's say Paramour, and then
we would turn around throw all the branding up for
Kiss and we would just move the people back and
forth and then go out again. Um. And I did
that for fifteen years. I ended up doing eighty five

(37:13):
full ship charters. When I had finally left, How did
you have a life on land? It was lucky so
my All the ships were done in the in the wintertime,
so it was all from November to February. And then
when we were back on land, I was setting up
all the relationships. So I worked with all the brand
UH partners, and then on board, I worked with all
the artists in their in their in their teams on board,
and I was like one of the hosts, Like I

(37:33):
was gone stage and I was welcoming people and running
the games and that kind of stuff. And um, that's
what we would do the whole time. But I spent essentially,
you know, UH, twelve ships or ten at the end
when I left, it was I was I think it
was twelve a year on the water and um. And
the thing is is the reason why I ended up
leaving to go work with Luke is because I wasn't

(37:54):
challenged anymore. I could deal with anything. Because everything we've
ever seen on the cruise ship short of a five
or a rogue wave, UM, I dealt with everything else.
So UM, there was no challenge. It was kind of
like I was just phoning it in and then I
met Luke and I was like I felt energized again.
I was like, wait a second, I get to drive
the van. I'm gonna sell merch. I'm like, I'm gonna
like I was. I mean, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday was manager Thursday, Friday, Saturday,

(38:17):
I was tour manager. Uh merch guy like mixing ears
on my phone from the merch table, like they're pointing
at me, like you know, pointing up and down. Um.
And then Sunday I'd come back, I'd pay everybody and
then you know, put the money away and start again
Monday morning and I was energized again, Like I loved it.
I was like, oh man, a challenge. And and that's
where I just I went crazy and I was just
like I'm so happy again. Before you you know, had

(38:40):
you know, a company and and tenny artists you have
you know, I have twelve artists and fourteen employees. So
before that version of you, whenever you're just managing and
you're you're you're really catching on as a manager. What
is a day like as a manager of an artist?
And like a Wednesday, I can give you a like today,
you know, there's a breakfast, meeting first with somebody here

(39:03):
in town eight am, like somebody like you're thinking about signing,
or somebody that you know. Yeah, I'll go in through
my full day. Alarm goes off at four am. Okay,
so I'm up at four, make coffee, let the dogs out,
spend thirty minutes with nothing on and just enjoying a
cup of coffee. You don mean clothes and clothes on,
pair of underwear. Nobody wants to see that money. Um.
So I enjoy a nice cup of coffee. Like I said,

(39:25):
I live on the Cumberland reverse, so I get to
enjoy that in the morning, watch the sun come up.
And then I start reading Twitter for an hour and
I type in all my artists name and I read
the last twenty four hours of Twitter because that gives
me a pulse of what's kind of going on. Um.
And then I started answering emails and I get get
to a good point. So I have to be below
ten emails every day when I finished the day, or
and when I go to start the day, with all

(39:47):
the emails that coming overnight, I filed them down and
I start my day. Then I went and met with
another manager here in town this morning. So I try
to meet with a manager that I've never met before
every month because that's it helps me increase my network.
And nobody would with me early on. So it's kind
of like my my giveback. I want to give back
to the to the industry. So I meet with the
manager that I don't know. Uh. I met with a

(40:07):
great guy today. We had a great conversation. I went
straight from there, UH, did a phone call at right
to my office, started working there. I've had four conference
calls today and then I'm coming over here, and then
I'm leaving here. I'll jump back on my phone and
then I'll be on it until probably about seven o'clock tonight.
What are these conference calls about? Not specifically, but as
this sure like, So we had a call today about

(40:28):
Luke's routing, uh to a routing we got with our agent,
Aaron Tannebaum. And UM, then I'll have I had a
call with a promoter. UM, I had a call with
my team. I had a call with two of my
managers internally. So um, and then that doesn't include just
the random calls that just happened that I'm like, you know,
you know, I had to change the auto responder on
my on my iPhone to say, um, I'm on a call,

(40:51):
call you right back, or I'm in a meeting police
text like the ones, and then I have to go
back through those and return all those phone calls. At
the end of the day, I also go to my
miscall page and to start calling everybody on there um
and and that's essentially what it is. It's no day.
Excuse me, no day ever goes as planned. Tom can
tell you that no day ever goes to planned. I
have I've never had a day go perfectly as planned.

(41:13):
And I'm usually canceling one, if not two things a
day every day. Something every dancel because of a fire,
because of a fire of some sort, because even if
it's not an artist fire, it might be an employee fire.
And you know, my employees are are one of the
most important things to me, um and if they have
a problem, I need to be there for them too.

(41:33):
Whenever you and Luke were traveling together, because Luke is
what thirty now and okay, did people ever think you
were like as older brother Dad? And this is what
Combs does. So Combs goes, he goes, that's not my dad,
he goes, that's my granddad. And I'm like, why do
you do that? And I almost made a shirt that
said not Luke's death, Yeah, not Luke's dad, but everybody.

(41:56):
So people would walk up to me and they'd be like, man,
is it fun to watch your son sing these sing
these songs? I'm like, man, do I look like is that? Like?
Biologically yes, I'm I'm eighteen years older than that, but no,
I'm I'm not. But yes, a lot of people think
that I'm his dad. The first time you heard him
play Hurricane, yes did you? Did you get it? I did?
I got it? I was like, this is it. I

(42:16):
would watch those early videos of him playing at bars
and playing Hurricane and seeing the whole bar scam it
back to all This song almost got me fired. Why
the video shoot? The video shoot at Wild No, at
Coyote Joe's and Charlotte. We were doing the video shoot
and the video company gave me a megaphone and they're like,
all right, why don't you tell Luke what to do?

(42:37):
And I was like, yeah, totally give me the megaphones.
So I'm doing. I'm like, all right, take seventeen of
Hurricane and he had to like you know he has
to do it. He goes take the microphone away and
get out of the building because I'm about to fire you.
Because he was because he because he was so because
because he's never done a video before, and like you're
having a mouth of the worst of your song. It's
seventeen time, and again you've dealt with this before. And

(42:58):
he threw me out of the building and I had
to go outside and he let me back in and
he's like, he's like, look, dude, I just had a moment.
You know. It wasn't like it was It wasn't like
a storry was like, you were kind of being annoying.
I just need to let you know that. I was like, yeah,
So from that point on, we understand how videos are shot.
And I don't say a word. What's your favorite Luke

(43:19):
song or one you heard it first and you were
just like, oh, god, dagn that's a good one. Well,
he gets mad at me all the times I asked
our requests for it. It It shows and everything, but it's
every little bit helps. It's a it's a deep be cut,
it's it's my jam. I listened to it loud and proud,
and it's just it's such a fun song. Who do
you like that you don't manage right now? That's that's
on the cusp or is a little more than the

(43:42):
cusp now, but it's it's kind of happened in the
last couple of years. Wow, that's a great question that
you'd have been like, dang, if I could have just
got them Wow. Wow, Give me a second and I'll
come back to you on that. There's a lot of
there's a lot of great talent in this town right now. Um,
I love you. Know what I love is I love
Jordan Davis and Zach Sutton, his manager and I are
good buddies. I love a lot of what Jordan Davis does.

(44:05):
Is there a thing because you're a pretty inspiring guy?
I would say more than pretty, but well, thank you.
I think you're an inspiring guy and have always just
because of I'm a big, great guy, big tenacity guy.
Like I think that's got me to where I am.
Nothing else, it's just staying and fighting. Um, Like what
inspires you? Like? What do you read or watch or

(44:26):
what are you taking from to kind of keep that
that that flame lit. Sometimes when it starts to dampen,
you know, there's a There's a couple of things. One
as I read, um, the Daily Stoic, which is essentially
the teachings of Marcus Realius, and um, it's it's it's philosophy.
It's very philosophical stuff. And I read that every day, UM,
which helps. But you know, I think the biggest thing
is I have two beautiful nieces, and you know, one

(44:49):
day they're gonna put me in the ground. And when
the people that weren't happy with me or done being
unhappy with me and leave the funeral even though they
had to show up, you know, because they had to
be there. Um, I want people to pull my nieces
to the side and say, and your uncle was a
great dude, and here's a story. And I want them
to hear story after story after story because um, you know,

(45:09):
one of the things that I've learned is that everybody dies.
I just lost my father not too long ago, and UM,
it really hit me kind of hard and it and
it really brought mortality to me. Um. You know, I
had I had weight loss surgery about um two years ago,
and it was all because I was unhealthy. I had
an unhealthy relationship with food and had a healthy relationship
with myself and I need to make a change because
I was going to die. And when I did that,

(45:32):
I I started to have some very deep thoughts about
who am I as a person? Am I leaving a
good legacy behind? Am I? Am I? Am I doing
good for people? Am I watching out for my employees?
Am I doing all the all the all that I can?
And I wasn't And I made a concerted effort to
be better. And I think, um, if you can't look
at yourself and call yourself out on your bad things,

(45:54):
and I've had bad like tendencies and stuff like that,
and I and I pre judge, and I did all
that and I've worked very hard to not do that.
And having my artists that are like they are like
the Lukes and the Nicos and the Haleys and True
Parker and everybody, they don't do that. They don't do that,
And I learned so much from them. And so I'm
just trying to be a better human man every day
and hopefully one day. UM. I think being a human

(46:16):
is like being a musician. You're never perfect. You never
can be perfect, but you can achieve perfection if you
work hard enough at it. But you're never going to
be a perfect person, and that's what I try to
be every day. Man, I just try to I try
to go for perfection as best I can. And I
still screw up. Man. I still trip on my own feet.
I still upset people, But I just try to pick
myself up, dust myself off, and move on. A lot

(46:42):
of new artists that listen to this podcast because it's
very music centric and sometimes extremely business et centric. Music business,
and then the question we always get is how does
a new artists get discovered? So I'll ask you that
as someone who's actually trying to discover new artists, like
what what do you tell or what would you tell
someone listen into this that thinks, all right, I want
to do this, But how in the crap do I

(47:03):
get someone to pay attention? Well, you know, luckily these
days it's so much easier to get your music out
to people, which is one thing, and then of course
you can get your profile out the people. But I
get inundated every day with messages of trying to like,
please pay attention to me, please look at me, and
that kind of stuff, and you know, unfortunately I can't
um see everything because then I wouldn't be able to
focus on my artist and everything like that. So what

(47:24):
I've done is, you know, I let my team bring
everything in, so everybody in the company has the ability
to bring an artist at the table. So everybody the
works for you can say, hey, I found this artist
and they're pretty good. Yes, everybody can bring somebody in
and that, and that's very valuable. That's cool, and I'll
tell you why. And I want I want to hear
more of this. But I always say, if you want
to get to the guy, you don't go to the guy.
You go to the guys guy or the girls, girl

(47:45):
and guy. I mean universally sire girl, because you know,
when people try to get stuff to me, like you,
it's coming from every direction and it's like, what do
I grab? But if someone I trust, this's go who's
not getting hit with everything and actually has some time
to separate and listen and spend time. If someone I trust,
like Tom for example, both of them every great full moon,

(48:07):
they'll go, hey, this person is really freaking good, Like,
take a look at them, and maybe you want to
let them open for you to put them on the
radio show. I trust that because I know that they
have the capacity to actually do that. And it's interesting
you do that with your people. Have has Have your
people brought you anyone? Yes, I have two right now
that are brand new to to the team. A young

(48:28):
man named Tyler Dial and a gentleman named Red shahn Um.
Both of them are brand new and both came through artists.
I mean, I'm managers that are already with us. In fact,
Red came through us through our merchandise person that works
for us. We have a full time merch person that
works for Mallory brought brought Red in. And then Alicia,
who was Haley's day to day, brought Tyler in, and um,

(48:50):
you know when I heard both of their music, I
was like, wow, I mean this is great. And I
was like, well, if you guys are excited and and
and now Alicia and I co manage on Tyler because
I let all my managers have equity and all their artists.
And then Red came on and then um, we ended
up rolling him up under somebody else because Mallory just
wants to do the merch side of it. And uh,
you know, we rolled him up under the flat Land

(49:11):
Team Flatland Cavalry out of Texas and we brought them
both on and we're excited about it. You know, we're
very excited about it. And one thing that I love
to do early on with all my artists is they
all get a UM Artist Development Fund. UM I give
up to them. They have fifty thou dollars and they
can develop whatever they want. And I'm just like, look,
here's the deal. I don't own your art that's your
your masters or your masters. That's fine. I'll put them

(49:31):
out and as soon as you pay me back, you
get them free and clear. I'm not I'm not I'm
not trying to be a record label. I'm trying to
be your manager. And if you don't have the money,
I don't want you to go to someone else and
like an investor and you know, have to pay them
ten percent for the rest of your life. So I'll
just do it. And it's it's you know, it's burned me,
but UM. It's also given artists the opportunity to create

(49:52):
whatever they wanted to and put it out there. And
it's you know, one thing that we did with Drew
Parker and before we got the deal done at UM,
now he's at Warner U. You know, he had recouped
his entire thing. He was like done. He's like, here's
on your money back. And I was like, all right, man, great,
let's keep going. I want to play a little bit
of Tyler dial here is hold you to it. I
know we need it and not like to everything's just writing,

(50:14):
dancing while I'm set with the bottom. So the guy
like Tyler, how long? Like what's the forecast? When you
tell him timing wise on doing what he wants to
get done, you know, it's it's a little bit different.
So with him, we were like, all right, we need
you have songs written. He's like yes. I was like,

(50:35):
let's go into the studio immediately, then let's go cut.
And luckily he was during COVID, so we were able
to like I can't believe I just said, luckily during COVID,
but um, we were able to go into a studio,
cut the entire thing, get it done, and we were
going to go release it. And we're very close to
closing a record deal with him, um with a with
a l A label like way, it's out of town,
it's not even it's not even here, and um, you know,

(50:57):
he was very receptive and I think what I do
is I sit down own and you know there's a
guy named ship Um Gordon who is like my spiritual
mentor chep, you know, managed Alice Cooper and a bunch
of people like that. And I watched he has a
show called super Mention. There's a documentary about him. So
I watched this thing and he says this thing where
he sits down with him. He looks him in the
eye and says, if I do my job absolutely perfect,
you will end up hating me because I'll make you

(51:19):
the superstar. And I do something very similar. I sit
down to him. I say, look, you're gonna have to
work harder than me every day. I'm gonna push you.
We're gonna put a lot of stuff on your plate,
and there's gonna be many days you're gonna feel like breaking.
But if you don't and you stick with it, you're
gonna have a career. And that's the only goal is
to make them have a career. Now, you know as
well as I do, there is no guarantee in this business.
But you can work super hard. And I've watched lots

(51:40):
of great bands who were never on the radio have
lifelong careers. Playing to three thousand people every night, having
a very comfortable life and doing everything they wanted to
without having the commercial success that you know that that
they would have, like being on radio. And then I've
had seen the other, the other side of it when
all of that kind of comes together and it can
really blow up. But you can have a fantastic career

(52:01):
by never um, by never having that commercial acclaim that
some people do have. Drew's on tour with Luke right
now is Yes, here is Drew Parker while you're gone,
you are dude star now just bi gigging with this baby,

(52:21):
baby baby. I gotta imagine that just being on tour
with Luke gives people cred. Yes, because they're going well
with Luke vouches for him, I should probably like him
to guilty by association. Yeah, but when you see Drew,
it's so funny because when you meet Drew, um, he
is He's a very good, humble kid. You know, Drew

(52:42):
moved to town. It was an X ray tech like
talking about like doing whatever you can. He was an
X ray tech and writing songs every day. So he
was X ray tech three to four days a week
and then would go and write music and so to
to make it and then you know, Drew, Drew finally
made it and we got him the record deal and
and it started to go. And then when you see him,
and Drew's a very nice, uh well reserved gentleman. You know,

(53:04):
he's he's a father, and and it's it's great. And
when you put him on stage, it's like a switch.
It's like it's it's just it's crazy. And he just
he puts everything out there and he leaves on stage
and it's it's so much fun to watch um and
and that's why Luke loves him. And he you know,
he wrote UM one too Many with Luke and and
Lonely One and then he wrote Forever after All. So

(53:24):
you know he's a and he wrote Homemade for Jake
Owen UM. So he's a great songwriter. But you know,
as a performer, it's fun to watch him go out
there and do that. But yeah, you get a lot
of that. But you know, with Luke, you get to
go and and you you get a full house as
the opener you're playing too. I mean we're scanning through
of the room before the opener even starts, you know,
because everybody's there for the experience. The entire show Um

(53:45):
because they do believe in it. And this year we
have Drew Um for half the tour and then Ray
Fulture for half the tour, Ashley McBride the whole tour,
and then Luke. So when you look at that lineup,
you're like, wow, that's really awesome. The Drew Ashley Luke
lineup we did two and a half years ago in
clubs and theaters and then Luke brought him back because
he loved him so much and he's like, we need
a bigger, bigger Look. You mentioned Flatlank Cavalry. Yes, here

(54:07):
is some things never change, flat lad instructions something commercially.
What's a goal with the with the band like Flatlank Calvalry, Man,
I think the biggest thing uh with them, Bobby, is

(54:27):
I really want to bridge that Texas to Nashville gap.
It's been such a chasm for so long that I'm
really ready to do that. They they are some of
the nicest guys you've ever met. Um In the way
that this thing, the whole whole thing happened is that
we had a show in San Antonio and Morgan was
was our direct support, but he couldn't play the show
because we added the show and he had already had
another commitment, so we had to find somebody else. So

(54:49):
our agent, Aaron recommended these guys and I listened to
one of their songs, like, these guys are great. Put
him on the show. So they got on the show.
They they had a great show, and then I started
listening to their music. Ended up talking to them. Found
out they had fired their manager the day. I called
the tour manager to get an interview with them. He said, oh,
that's weird. They just made me the manager thirty minutes ago.

(55:11):
And I was like, well, congratulations, if you need anything,
call me. Three months later he calls me. We had
a meal. Three months later, he says, hey, would you
want to co manage these guys. I was like absolutely,
I love their music. Flew to Texas, saw some shows.
This is during COVID, so it was all half house
shows and stuff like that. I met the guys super sweet,
and I was like, your music is amazing. There's a fiddle,
it's very traditional country and stuff like that, and people

(55:33):
are longing for that. When you have the you have
everybody out there that's like like the Tyler Childers and
and the and the Sturgil Simpsons and in the Cody Jinks.
You have that world out there and then you have
like the Looke colmesy of the commercial country side of it.
I think there's a great place for somebody like a
Flatland cavalry to find their their space. Now, are are
we going to hear them on country radio one day?
I don't know, and and maybe not, but we're okay

(55:54):
with that. So what we're doing is we're breaking them.
And we played here in town and we did n
fifty people at marathon at twenty bucks ahead. They have
no radio or anything, but they have a lot of
a lot of buzz around them right now. So that's
what we're working on. The music is fantastic. Luke wrote
the song A Cowboy Knows How. That was his song,
and he gave it to them and they and they
ended up recording it and making it their own. Um,

(56:15):
we had Jake Gear produce it. So we had a
lot of Nashville on the record, touching the record, but
we said, you guys be you. They played on it,
like you know, in this town, everybody gets session guys
to play on their music. The band played all they
did it all themselves. So that was really cool. But
bringing them to town and letting them record here was
really awesome. That there's the cowboy knows how He's now. Yeah,

(56:41):
Luke wrote that song three years ago with Jonathan Singleton
and um and I think Dan Isabelle and uh they
it never made a record, and UM, I always knew
that song was out there. I was like, hey, Luke,
can these guys record that? And he's like, yeah, tell
him to and they did and they made their record
and it's a great song. Well we've spent about an
hour talking for someone who who hasn't done this. You
ailed it. Well, you're such a such a treat to

(57:02):
you know, just be around. First of all, thank you,
but second of all, like you're great at this. You
know it's awesome. You know you came in like I
don't do this often. This is this was the greatest.
Made it very easy. That was like that was that
was a great conversation. I didn't do crap. Listen follow
Cappy at Cappy with the k K A P P Y.

(57:23):
You can also follow at Make Weake Artists. Uh, you're
just killing it. It's it's just it's just great to see.
It's inspirational to see it's not like you walked into
something that was already built, like you built it yourself
and you're building out from what you built. And I
think that is uh motivating and inspiring and it just
shows people that it can be done. Thank you, and

(57:44):
you you have proven that again and again and again.
And thank you for supporting the artists like you do,
and you do a lot and we appreciate it. You know.
The one thing that's changed about Jeff I do say
so every time I see your watches get fancier, That's
what it is. Every time I see that, Hey, that's
how you know. Cappy is making a little better every
time I samms watches get a little bit fancy. Yeah,
all right, there he is caffy and there you go.

(58:06):
Thank you about it. M