Sheryl Crow sits down with Bobby to talk about why she decided it was time to do a documentary. It’s coming out on May 6th on Showtime and she reveals what the hardest thing for her was to include. She talks about how she handled the success of her debut album “Tuesday Night Music Club” and what changes she made going into her 2nd self-titled album. Sheryl talks about what it was like at the height of her fame and shares what moment in her career brought her the most joy. Plus, what song she doesn’t like performing live and the funny response she got when she called Bob Dylan to help her with writer’s block.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M I'm a massive Cheryl Crow fan. I told her
that at the beginning. I tell her that every time
I see her. Actually ran into her a couple of
weeks ago at dinner and I did not want to
bother her because she's Chryl Crow and to meet massive celebrity,
big part of my life musically, and then she stopped me.
(00:21):
It was like or maybe I just said high and
she got I was like, oh, I'm a big man.
So she's just awesome. And I don't know if she's
kind of putting one over on me, acting like she's
a big fan. I don't know, Mike, I don't care. Actually,
I mean, she knows stuff from the show. I know.
It's just hard for me to believe that somebody that
I admire also thinks I'm not terrible at what I do.
So Cheryl Crow is in and we're talking about her documentary.
(00:43):
There's a companion soundtrack that's all out May six. I
hope you watch it on Showtime and the single from
the soundtrack, Forever, is actually out. Now here's a clip
up Forever, m Today, Heaven Moment Together Heaven, you know,
(01:16):
talking about Michael Jackson talking about her being a school
teacher talking about just fame, like what's it like? Like,
what's fame like when you can't boom? There it is.
I just really had a great time with this one.
So check out Forever the song. We're also featuring it
on the Country Top thirty the Women of Our Country
like it's a massive song that we love, and check
(01:38):
out the documentary which we talked about in here in
May six on Showtime. I mean, my favorite show Crow
songs are just songs that like strong enough, like gets
no better. I remember just played that in the studio
once and I was like, my life is over. I'm good,
I'm ready to check out. On this album, though, she
has if It makes You Happy, which is a jam
(01:58):
if it make because it's a two disco action, right,
so that's like greatest hits. If it makes you happy,
to soak up the sun, you know all I want
to do, which I think she's over. It was over
(02:19):
and it's now back at it. But there's one point
in this where I go, you know what what sound
I remember? And I go, that's all I did, And
then I like I was able to think about a
whole year of my life based on that one sound,
which is the beginning of a song and you'll hear
it coming up in just a minute. Cheryl Crowe, Here
we go. I love this. Thank you for being here.
Please give us all the stars if you don't mind
(02:42):
when you review this on Spotify. Now it's even easier
a little thing right there, click It's all the stars,
all right, Thank you and goodbye. Friends. Well, let me
say that it's tough for me to maintain professionalism and
be a super fan, so I'm gonna balance it here.
I love that. See, I'm a super fan too. I
never miss you, but I'm going we're going to keep
(03:03):
this about you and Okay, then let me just get
right out of the way the fact that every morning
on the way to school only back to school, I
listen to you guys, and I laugh my ass Okay,
thank you? Can I say the ass word? What do
you want? Yeah? There are no rules on this. Okay, Okay,
we're going to this is going to be a long
form and then we're going to take it and put
it on national shows. Okay. We have a swear jar
(03:30):
in my kitchen, yes, and who pays into the square
jar anybody that swears period, period. So if Liz has
he even had to pay into the sword jar? And
are there prices for the F word? Okay, so a yeah,
that's the big number. Yeah, what if you say the
C word? Does that My kids don't know that word? Okay?
(03:51):
We were talking about that on the show, like what
are a curse word? Like, yeah, that's that's low form.
Yeah is it a curse word? Though? Because it is
a brilliant appropriate word, I'd say, Oh, that's interesting. I
just assumed that inappropriate words are are curse words. I
did a thesis my senior year to be an honors graduate,
and it was almost eighty pages, and I did it
(04:12):
on Carlin's seven words you Can't say. And so my
theory was eventually some of them you would be able
to say. In a couple of them you can say now.
But I've always been infatuated with curse words and why
we assign different levels of severity to just a different sound.
And our culture has just said, you know the word
but means nothing. But if you said the F word
(04:34):
just your tongue working in a certain fashion, it means Okay,
I'm sure you're gonna add this out. But my my
fifth grader in second grade came home from school Christian School. Uh,
big tuition, Christian School. Um, what's the P word? He
said the word, and I'm like, oh my goodness. He's seven.
He wants to know what the word? You know, And
(04:55):
I said, it's a kitty cat. You know, it's a
pussy cat. That is true. But but I did say
but you know what. But he's like, well, I thought
it was a bad word. I said, some words, if
you use them with intention to be bad, they're bad words.
So you have to watch what you say. And yeah,
you don't want to say that word if you mean
it ugly. The reason I was talking about it, it's
(05:16):
so funny you brought this up is I haven't because
I write. I just finished. I have a kid's book
coming out in June. Even my stand up is completely clean,
and so I don't want to write using curse words.
So I haven't said a curseword like five years. Good
for you, And I'm not anti. I like to hear them.
I used to like to say them, but I in
the creative process, I don't want to use them as
crutches or rhymes. Yeah, because it just seems easy. But
(05:37):
so I will say if the place is hell for
referring to a place in hell. Great, but I will
not use that word if it is used as a
way of describing something. That's what we say in the car,
if we're talking about the place. Yeah, it's interesting. I
grew up around squear words, and I don't swear with
my kids. Ever. You don't even slip. I did say
(05:58):
dumb mass one day because because somebody passed me on
Hillsboro and it scared me. And then immediately my boys
were like, dumbass, dumbass. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no,
that does it doesn't work like that. Well, I'm I'm
so happy you're here. And you know, when watching the documentary,
the thing that I took from it is I again,
(06:19):
I am a super fan. And I knew most your
parents were interesting because I did. I don't know them
personally or haven't spent any time seeing them places, so
that was interesting. And then, obviously, like a good documentary does,
you went so much deeper into certain parts that I
only knew about. Some of them probably comfortable, some of
(06:39):
them probably very uncomfortable to talk about. But and you
and I want to make this slightly about me for
a second, and just see because I was trying to
find any parallels that we would have. And I when
I wrote my first book, it was a long stow
at how it ended up happening. But it was a
memoir and I was like, nobody wants to read this.
And I remember writing a part of it where but
at one point, and it was really hard for me
to right about and talk about my mom, who was
(07:02):
a really bad addict and is no longer with us,
she had called and said, Hey, if you don't give
me money, I'm going to do porn. And it was
it was so hard for and I wasn't and it's
still hard to even talk about. I wasn't putting it
in the book to go, look what I've been through,
But it was this is the situation, how it affected me,
(07:22):
what I learned from it. And I wonder in some
of the things that you talked about in this, I
was very uncomfortable sharing it. Did you have to give
yourself kind of that pep talk I had to give
myself when talking about things. Oh yeah, I mean initially,
when my manager came to me and said, hey, Pandemic,
you've got a lot of interested in in doing documentary,
I was like absolutely not for one thing. You do
(07:45):
documentaries after you're dead, you know, and those are the
ones I loved, you know, Nina Simone, I mean good please,
I mean there's so many good ones. I mean, even
even though they're not all dead. But I binge watched
the Beatles and it totally changed the way I felt
about making me again. But that aside, I wound up
giving into it and I said, look, it's can't be.
(08:06):
And I loved VH one and they definitely were instrument
in my career, but I was like, it cannot be
like a feel good behind the music, overdramatized and um.
And I picked somebody to produce it that I liked
her taste, I liked her sensibilities. And then we got
to work. It was hard, and it was I mean
(08:27):
it was it was really for one thing, it was
it was exhausting because you're trying to dig back through
all the memories. You don't ever sit down and think
about your life like that. You don't ever sit down
and like dig back through. I mean really, I was
sensibly forty years I mean I it started before I
was even a school teacher, and I knew there was
stuff that was going to be really hard to talk about,
(08:49):
you know, being sexually arassed for a year and having
people die along the way, you know, not only John O'Brien,
but Kevin Gilbert, who I was very close to, you know,
died in the middle of my second record. And I mean,
I got beat up in the press, and this is
before social media, and everything was my fault, and I just,
you know, at a certain point, you go, Okay, is
(09:11):
the story worth telling? Yeah? Well, there are lots of
facets to it. It's hard to be a woman in
any business. It's definitely hard to be a woman in
the music business anywhere where it's creative and it's all
run by men, and how do we monetize? How do
we make money off this person? It's worse, I think now.
It was really uncomfortable, and I didn't love that part
of it. I also found when I was doing it,
(09:33):
not to the level that you're doing, but I just
know what it's like to have to read dig through things.
Also found some joys that I had not felt I
celebrated enough, and you know, and and a new not
a new A. I revisited an appreciation that I had
for people in my life that were so instrumental my
grandmother who adopted me, and it was like the one
(09:54):
person that loved me, and so and I definitely want
to get to some specific things, but as I'm like
watching and knowing your story and seeing you go through this,
and I know it's a struggle to do it, did
you and I would like an example if you have one.
Did you like rediscover a joy that maybe you had
tucked away when going through the last forty years? Oh? Absolutely,
you know it's it's really a challenge to sit and
(10:16):
hold an emotion. So we don't, you know. I mean,
I can remember the first Grammys, which totally changed my
life and my career. We got on the bus after
the Grammys, after the parties and drove up to San
Francisco and I played the next next night like it
never happened. And that was the way my whole career was.
I never owned anything. I always felt like, well it
(10:37):
wasn't you know. It just always felt like I was
an impostor to me and going back through it and
seeing the transition, especially after having breast cancer, that transition
of going okay, that was all a crazy dream to
go from being a small town girl to becoming like
(10:58):
the height of fame and then it all suddenly jerking
to a stop and experiencing a reboot. I mean, just
looking at where I am now and how I feel
about life and how I feel about who I am.
I'm really happy and I'm super I'm proud of who
I am. I'm so grateful that all the experiences that
I had helped me to remember who I am. You know,
(11:22):
not not who I became, but who I came in as.
And you know, it's life is so unpredictable and it's
so not smooth, but you have all these experiences that
sort of forced you to return to who you authentically are.
And that, to me was the surprise of making the
documentary is being able to look at it um. And
(11:45):
there there are ten other documentaries that didn't get made
that are on the cutting room floor, I mean things
that we they didn't put in and watching and I
felt like, oh my gosh, that's only a slice of it.
But you can only use ninety minutes, so unless you
do the Beatles documentary and then you put it on
all of it from dead. Yeah, well, let me let
me start with whenever it comes to and I have
(12:06):
a jukebox over at the house, which is that direction.
And I don't have a lot of albums, and I
have like twenty and in those twenty are the ones
that have been kind of the soundtracks of my life
at different stages. It's a CD jukebox, so it can't
just download or but one of the top five or
six albums ever for me is two to Night music Club,
Like my I can think of where I was. That's
(12:29):
the strength of music. And I bet you could do
this with a couple of albums as well. I know
where I was, what part of my life I was
going through. I mean I knew where I was everything
about that based on when that first couple of notes
of those songs hit and how your brain reacts and
remembers like that was one of those albums for me.
When you look, what was a couple of those for
you that you really credit to shaping your early teenage years, Well,
(12:56):
this has nothing to do with it. Definitely shaped my
teenage years now. I came up when well, first and foremost,
I was raised in a family where music was played
all the time, like ad nauseam and by like music
played out louder players the instruments, played with instruments and
on the magna box. And my parents weren't a swing band.
They played tons of like big band music. Then as
(13:19):
that kind of faded out of their lives, we always
had the music going. It was everything from Aretha Franklin
to Motown to Willie Nelson to my little town played
only country music and like true, die hard country music.
But I grew up when it was like Boston, Foreigner Kansas,
a lot of Fleetwood Mac, but Fleetwood Mac was the
(13:41):
record rumors. I mean, I remember I got my haircut
like hers, I had shawls. I would dance around with
a curling iron. I mean, I was just so I
want to be Stephen Nicks so bad. But it's really funny.
There are a couple of songs that will come on
and I can even smell, like Baker Street, Jerry Off,
Jerry Rafferty Baker Street comes on, It's like, oh yeah,
(14:03):
my brown leather bucket seats and this cutle of Supreme,
you know, parking out by the old bridge. I mean,
there are songs that just do that where you're you
can remember exactly what the smells were where you were
circling dairy Queen. But all that music. When I hear it,
all that old classic rock, I'm out. I'm circling, circling
the main drag between Dairy Queen and A and W. Yeah,
(14:25):
that's how I feel with Tuesan Night Music Club. And
when it comes to those songs, you know, when you
walked in, we're talking for a second and you were
you to tem something good, which is that segment we
do and you know, full transparency here, I do that
segment so many times, and I'm glad it has been
a big part of our show in the six but
I do it all the time, and I've done it
all the time for years and years. You start to go, man,
(14:47):
I know people love it. Don't gotta keep doing it.
Do you feel that way about some of those songs? Okay,
it's funny. I was listening to you guys this morning.
I was like, your show is always so good and
fun and funny has emotionalized. I mean, it's just a
really great show. And I sat there thought, I wonder
if he ever just gets sick of doing that show,
(15:10):
you know what I mean, and also being being present
because it's hard work. Man, Like, there's some nights where
I walk out on stage and I have to like
fake it until I make it. And generally those are
the best shows. But there was a period where if
I thought I had to play all I want to
do one more time, I would just run straight out
in front of a backdrop. And it took it took
(15:31):
my I mean part of it is it took my
getting sick to really realize. I mean that song took
me all over all over the Middle East. I mean
we went to Israel, we went to we went to Tokyo,
to Kuala and Poora, we went all over South. The
people who couldn't speak English sang every word of that
wordy song. And I had I just embraced a full
(15:52):
on gratitude and I enjoy playing it now. But there
were a few years and there I was just like, ah, God,
I'm sick of this song. You know, I hate a song.
I hate this song. Um, but I love it. You know.
I think part of what happens is you get older,
you get really you know, you get sentimental, and you
get really grateful, and you get really boring. And I
(16:14):
love being boring. Now it's cool to reappreciate it is
it is because I've started to find myself reappreciating not
just professional things but also personal things. And so it's
cool that you have because I I live it, and
one day I'm gonna like, do and tell me something
good again. One day I'm gonna and I don't. You
can't tell that you don't like it, though, I mean
I will say that. It's not even that I don't
(16:36):
like it, it's that as you do. It's just we
do it four four times a day, five days a week,
twenty times, and individually all the stories are great, but
it's like man is twenty times again this week? Do
you hate shukakon now? No? No, I don't rufus cold
cold with me? And we go places and what's funny.
(16:58):
Sometimes I'll go into a place if it's a bar
or restaurant. I'm gonna bars as much anymore, but they'll
play that song over the top, like once they see
I'm there, oh my gosh, and like that's so been
associated with I'll just beat or a basketball game anyway
here then and I'll look at me like and you'll
see the guy running pointing at me, like all right, buddy,
(17:19):
So did you ever do you talk about Stevin Knicks
Did you ever have a relationship with her? Did you? Guys?
Oh my gosh, Like that had to be the coolest thing.
I have so many weird experiences um with people like that. Okay,
So I like, if you dig back through the anals
of my um my school pictures, I had the Stevie
Nicks hair do. I met her at my first Grammys.
(17:39):
I met her at an after party and I have
a picture with her and Anita Pointer and Bonnie Wright
and Carly Simon and me, and I was the newbie,
and She's like, I love you. Would you I'm getting
ready to do some songs for Practical Magic that that movie.
Would you produce it? And I was like yeah. And
(18:02):
she came to New York and and she had her posse,
you know, some bunch of women, and and I produced
her and it was just it was unbelievable. I can
remember looking at her out in the recording booth and
she looked like a fourteen year old. I mean literally,
she looked like she had out aged a day. She
looked exactly as I remembered her. And she just was
(18:24):
like so embracing and so generals told stories like I
imagine that we probably talked and hung out for two
hours and then she'd sing, and then we'd hang out
and talked for a couple of hours and then she'd
sing and it was but it was so glorious. And
then she said, well, you were produced the record, and
I went up producing and going on the road with her,
and she's just been like very god mom to me.
(18:48):
And I don't want you to say any names here,
but I have had experiences where I really was I
loved people, got to know them, not that goal people
that I what and I now I don't really idolize
except for like hearts yeah yah, yeah, yeah, yeah yea. So,
(19:08):
but there have been times where that's happened and I'm like, why,
I cannot believe I could just spend time we're gonna
do And then you're like, oh man, I kind of
wish I wouldn't have because it's ruined what I cherished,
which was these beliefs. And yeah, I'm with how massive
you got. I had to assume that happened to some.
I will say I've been really lucky. Almost everybody I've
met has been beyond beyond my wildest dreams. Um I
(19:31):
got a few people and introduce you to then, Yeah,
I bet he did a few relatives. Interestingly, I worked
with Michael Jackson before I hit it big. I was
a backup singer. Went on the road with him for
eighteen months, and there were some things on that tour.
I was just like, this doesn't make sense. And then
later on the documentary came out, and um, I mean
(19:53):
he was. He was already eccentric on that tour. But
people asked me all the time, are you able to
listen to his music? And I'm like, man, that was
the first album I ever owned. I got it from
Santa Claus when I was five years old. ABC. I
grew up watching his TV show. I you know, all
that music was. It was important to me and it
definitely changed the way I felt about him. And but
(20:14):
I can still listen to the music from when he
was a kid because I feel like he was who
he was then. He wasn't who he became. But for
the most part, I mean, I can't really think of
anybody that's just been a douchebag, you know what I mean?
Can you separate art an artist? It depends, I mean
it depends there. Um, I mean we're kind of looking
at that with the Will Smith thing. Now it's like, okay,
(20:35):
we still we're gonna be able to watch some movies.
Can we take out that? You know, it depends. I
think it's how severe Yeah, well yeah yeah, like y R. Kelly.
Never even if it comes on somewhere, I'll leave. Yeah,
but again there are artists. Again, if Smooth Criminal comes on,
I probably just jammed along to it before I realized,
and then the song is over, and then I don't
(20:56):
want to leave because I got a burger and I'm,
you know, feeling pretty good. I did meet It's interesting.
I met a young artist who totally blew up, who
I had the weirdest experience with, and I can't listen
to her music. I wouldn't say her name, but I
mean it became massive. And you know, they're just certain
people that you go, Okay, they got into it so
they could be famous. And then there are other people
that you go, I can totally relate to this person.
(21:18):
They're just they love what they do. They're so into it,
and they wrote the book on this and they're still cool.
Whenever you were, you were blowing up. And it always
feels different than what it looks like. Um, but what
we knew about you from pre social media days was hey,
(21:42):
she was a teacher and now she's doing music, and
a lot of the like the background seeing from Michael Jackson,
the jingle, all that came out kind of later once
more information was just available, but it was teacher too,
rock and roll star and so overnight, oh yeah, they
over I stepped top. I get that too, and I'm
like overnight. But I was thirty when my first record
(22:04):
came out. So let's talk about that part. So you
were teaching were teaching music in St. Louis school system?
And what what ages were you teaching? I taught kindergarn
th six music in the public school system in Fenton,
which is in it's part of St. Louis. So when
you're teaching music, do you still have a dream of
(22:25):
well anything on a macro type stage, Like what's your
dream when you're teaching in St. Louis. Well, I don't
even know if this is in the documentary. You have
been engaged three times, and um, I was engaged when
I got out of school. I was engaged. The guitar
player in the band I was in, we moved to St. Louis,
he was born again, Christian. I was a Christian too,
(22:46):
but he was like, you, if you're gonna not sing
for the Lord, if you're going to be in bands,
we can't get married. And I'd already seen sign my
teaching contract. I was in a band. I just loved
singing and I loved playing. I was a keyboard player.
And but did you have dreams of ye? After that,
I just, you know, I was always writing songs. I
(23:07):
started getting gigs by myself in coffee bars, and I
had loved it, and I thought, you know, if I'm
ever going to do this, I should try and do
it now. I'm not engaged, I'm I'm I'm young, and
so I moved to California with a bunch of tapes.
It was so different than it is now. I mean,
there weren't the big vehicles like the Voice or anything
(23:28):
like that. I mean, you've basically went out there and
you tried to get into the parties where the celebrities were.
You tried to get in, you know, you tried to
get you put bands together, you try to get heard.
You had to pay to play, you had to like
it was a grind, and but on the flip side
of it, you could also go out and figure out
who you were without having the eyes of YouTube on you,
you know. And I got really lucky. I took my
(23:50):
tape to every every studio and I started getting some
work as a background singer. Found out about the Michael
Jackson tour by hearing other singers talk about it. Crashed
the audition. I mean, I just I don't know if
I knew I would make it. Like I've talked to
like Gwyneth Paltrow and I used to be very good friends,
and even Stevie, I'm like, it's interesting. Did you always
(24:12):
know you were going to be famous? Absolutely? I always
knew it, both of both of them. They always just
knew they were gonna be famous. I never, in a
million years I would have been in the yearbook like
least likely to become a rock star, super nice person,
like work really hard, things will happen. And that was
kind of what I thought. When you have to leave
the stability of a job like a teaching job, and
(24:34):
you know, I grew up in Arkansas, so we did.
I don't know anybody in Kansas like Central Hot Springs,
my town seven hundred people, mountain Pine, but near a
little rock. We used to drive to Blible to go
see the movies. Yeah really yeah, yeah. My orthodonist was
in Jonesboro. I know it. Well, yeah, but that's a
big job because some friends that I have just moved
to Nashville, but they were nineteen. Yeah, they weren't getting
(24:57):
a check and they hadn't already developed how to pay
the bill, how to budget, how to do adult things.
And you're playing music but you're also giving up an
actual paycheck and a job. I gotta think that you're
not eighteen. That was did not that not way into
it at all, Like are you just like screw it?
I'm going like I got one shot? You know. It's
when I, if I'm really honest with that myself, I
(25:18):
think I would have gone right out of high school.
But my parents were always like, you know, you need
to have something to fall back on. It was always
something to fall back on. And then, you know, when
I'm growing up, it's like you get married, you have kids,
that's sort of the order of things. And then when
that didn't happen. You know, I've got my degree, I taught,
I was engaged. Everything looked like it was supposed to do,
and then what it fell apart. I was like, shoot,
(25:40):
I'm just gonna I'm gonna see what happens. You know.
I'd save some money, had nine thousand dollars and I
went going out to l A. I stayed with some
friends and took all my tapes around. They were partying
like crazy, like doing blow. I'd never seen anything like that.
I mean, I was country pumpkin Um. I wound it,
(26:01):
moving into one better apartment, went through all my money.
I got a boot on my car. I mean, it
was just you couldn't pay for the boot to come off.
I was eating trail Max from Public's across the street,
start getting some work waiting tables, and finally got a commercial.
I don't know. I mean, I think I was so naive,
but also I just was. I was just really convicted.
(26:25):
I just really wanted I wanted to be heard, you know.
And now you know, after therapy and reflection and all that,
I realized I was a kid that wanted everybody to
be happy, and I always gonna make them happy, and
if they weren't happy, then I wasn't doing something right.
And I think there are a lot of people that
become famous or well known that have that story. Like,
(26:46):
if I can just make people happy, then I'll know
what it feels like to be loved. Well. I did
four seasons on American Idol as their head mentor, and
what what um? Anyway, there's so many people that are
more skilled in music than me. I me too, me too.
And what the producer told me after they hired me,
because I went and I was talking about song selection
(27:08):
and performances. What hooked them was me telling one of
the kids. Until I came to l A for work,
I've never been anywhere like this or New York. I'm
from Arkansas. We didn't see big buildings like this. So
I was relating to them in that way. I was like,
I know what you're feeling, like, like this stuff still
crazy to me. Did you experience that going to Los
(27:29):
Angeles or did you have absolutely? I mean I drove
a Renault Alliance all the way to Albuquerque and I
slept for forty five minutes in a bed that had
long black hair in it, and I was like, Okay,
I'm not that related, not that tired, And I got
into Los Angeles on the four oh five at rush
hour and sobbed. I mean, I was just like, what
(27:53):
am I doing it looked like Mars. To me, I've
never seen anything like it. And then I get to
this house and these girls are all doing blow. I
mean it's a girl from my hometown. I was like,
what what what is this? Is this Babylon or something like?
What culture am I now in? What have I dropped
myself into? And a huge learning curve And within a
year and I've never been out of my own country.
(28:16):
And within a year I was singing with Michael Jackson,
arguably the biggest star in the world, in front of
seventy people in Tokyo. And so it was just a massive,
massive um thrown into the fire. Figure it out. And yeah,
I mean I was just absolutely naive. And I still
(28:38):
feel like that. I mean, like, we're going home next
weekend for Easter and I always say we're going home,
and my kids are like, why do you say home?
This is home? And I'm like, I can't help it.
I'm so that is my small town. It's interesting. I
do the same thing. Yeah, I talk about going home
home to Arkansas. Yeah, it's like you don't live like
I guess we always have our home, you know, We'll
(28:58):
always have art. And that's that's the part of what's
inside of you, and that doesn't never leave. And the
further way I got from home, the more the more
I could relate to my small town raids. How did
you get to Michael Jackson background singing job? I crashed
an audition, Um you're supposed to be recommended about, like
Bruce Swedeen or um any Rod tempered in Quincy Jones
(29:22):
And I found out where it was and I went
and they some guy was there and he's like, tell
me about yourself, I said, named Cheryl. I just moved on,
Caryl Crow. I just moved here from St. Louis. I'm
a school teacher. I'm doing some backup work and they're like, Okay,
what do you want to sing? And I sang? And
then I got a call back the next day and
I sang with three guys and about a week later
(29:45):
we were rehearsing. I sang and I got to be
free with Denise Williams song and do you try to
sing it? Like? Because if I went to a back
backup singer audition, I would just be like, Oh, that's
how do backups? Yeah? So do you go they ask
(30:08):
you to sing? As I have no idea. There's a
dumb guy question, do you sing as you're a lead?
When they say yeah, they want to hear your voice.
But I think it's as much as that. I mean,
I think they they looked at me and thought, oh,
she looks pretty harmless. You know, I don't know. I mean,
I was a white girl with really curly hair. I
don't know why they picked me. It's it's I still go.
(30:30):
I mean, it's that same thing where you're talking about
other people are more musical. To me, I'm like, why
did I make it? There are people that are way
more talented, that write incredible songs that seem great, and
why why me? And that part of it is such
a mind bender, because I do believe there's a certain
amount of order to the chaos. But I also think
there's a huge argument for manifesting things that where you
(30:52):
put your energy it does you do get something back
from that? And I just kept showing up in my
own story, I just kept showing up. As you are
performing on this tour with Michael Jackson, are you also
hustling as in making sure people know that you're you? No,
because I didn't know who you was yet, so but
we all took recording um little recording studios with us
(31:15):
four tracks, and I would write, I wrote all the time.
The guy that was on the tour that ultimately became
my manager would be like, Hey, we're going down to
the Lexington Queen or whatever, you know, like the where
all the models hang out. And I was like, dam
I'm staying tonight. We're in Tokyo now I want to
work on my music, you know, I would. I just
(31:36):
worked all the time. When did you kind of figure
out who you were, what you wanted to say and
why you wanted to say it? Oh, about three years
ago the first time. I think after the first record,
the first record blew up and I was still like,
after the first record, they hear that, right, Yeah, after
the first record, the first I made a record that
(31:58):
cost a ton of mone with a really high profile
manager named Hugh Padgeum who produced Staying, and and I
hated the record. It was super, super slick. In fact,
it sounded like girls thinking Staying and I was just like, no, no, no,
this isn't what it was sounding. It was supposed to rock,
you know. And so I went to the record level
and said, please let me have another shot. At this
(32:19):
this is not it's the first record, talking about the
very first record four or fifty dollars. Now that's thirty
years ago, so that's like a mega bug and they're
like Okay. Finally they were like, well give you another shot.
And I sat around for quite a long time and
hooked up with Bill Buttrail and made the Tuesday at
Music Club record, which was a total blast to make.
But there were several people that were sort of around
(32:42):
and we jammed and that's how we got started. And
then once it became my record, started working with Bill
on my own, and there was a lot of bitterness
once it started taking off, Like once everybody started making money,
it was complications, complications, and even though all the publishing
was split and everybody is making the same amount of money,
I was devastating. I was like, why is there we
(33:03):
so mad? Nobody wanted to go on the road, So
why was everybody so mad? In the least complicated explation, well,
the least complicated explanation I could say is that nobody
wanted to go on the road because they all had
their own gigs. You know, David and David Um, all
of them amazing artists in their own right, but they
(33:23):
didn't want to go and so I went to back
to St. Louis. I put together a band, band together
with locals. Once the record took off, then they were like,
we want to be in the band. I was like,
we can't fire my band. I mean, they've been with
me during the hard part anyway. So the second record,
I think when I went in and I went up
producing it on my own, that's when I was like, Okay,
I'm just gonna make a record. I like, I'm just
(33:45):
gonna make music the way I make it, and if
nobody likes it, that's cool. And that was the one
that was self titled and had if It makes You
Happy and Everbody's winding Road, and you know, I felt
more like I didn't feel like I had to prove myself,
but I definitely felt like this was more authentic. Do
you do you resent the success of the first record
that you don't have complete adoration for? No, not at all.
(34:07):
I mean I loved making that record. I loved being
a part of that group of misfits, and I loved them.
I was really sad and I was really devastated by
what happened in the end, and that was a big
learning lesson for me. You know, money is a destroyer
and I just I didn't see that coming. You know,
(34:31):
I don't know. I mean I still, I still and
once leaving Las Vegas when that came out and the
guy that wrote the book killed himself and there was
all kinds of weirdness around that, like I had known
him and I'd never met him. It was damaging. I mean,
it changed me. I I started wearing like goth makeup.
I was just like, don't talk to me. I'm not
(34:53):
the girl next door. You're not gonna I'm not going
to be your friend. I've already been people's friends. And
I saw how that worked out, and it totally changed me.
And it took me a long time and start crying.
It took me a long time to get back to
feeling my meld self. Do you think and not to
sit on this too long, but as you're talking about this,
and I'm very familiar with the story because it's also
(35:15):
talked about the documentary, do you feel like that some
of the negativity was from he killed himself, but people
were beating up on you that weren't him. Do you
feel like that was from others and not from him,
or was it just about it because you guys didn't
know each other. You said that yourself now and he
didn't beat me up. It all came from the guys
(35:35):
in the group, and they're there. I mean, honestly, there's
only one guy in the group that I think had
real problems with the truth, and that's a pathological thing
that's Had I known, I probably would not have been
I wouldn't have been around him. And you know, to
be told, they're amazing pathological people that have pathological issues
that are extremely extremely entires of. I mean, just like
(35:58):
interesting people, people that are high achieving. Narcissists and pathological
liars can be very engaging. But sometimes when you don't
know that, you wind up on the wrong side of it,
and you know, that's that's all I can say about that.
I didn't know John O'Brien, but I did know he
was somebody's son, and had I known him, I wouldn't
have written that song. I mean, I didn't know the
(36:18):
title came from a book. So anyway, I also think
that there is something that happens when you are you
are unknown, and people love you and they're there, They
discover you, and they feel like you're somebody that they
discovered and they're extremeing loyal, and then suddenly you become
famous and people are addressing you and it's like, um, actually,
(36:40):
so s too big for bridges now or whatever. And
then the press turns against you. And I wasn't aware
of that either, And we watch it every day, you know,
weird to see because it's like, you can continue to
get more famous, but at some point you're going to
get so famous and popular that you're not popular anymore, exactly,
Like there's a threshold. Yes, we only allow you to
get so popular before we have to turn on you
(37:00):
and you have to turn us back. And it's an
unfair thing, especially now because you can see it coming,
especially with an artist who's killing it. You know, Well,
let's hope that when everybody turns that they're able to
withstand that and turn them back, because I have friends
that that was a real struggle for. Um. What is
(37:20):
and I don't not to stay long on this part,
but what is fame like when you first get just
true freaking fame, when you walk into a restaurant they
have a table, or when you um when you never
have to pay for anything that's always been a weird thing,
like they're gonna send me clothes why. I mean, I'm
happy with the stuff about it. The you know second
(37:41):
hand place, Um, it's a it does a number on you,
for sure, and the number it did from did on
me was this is this is amazing. I don't know
if I deserve it. So you start questioning yourself. But
then the other part of it is when you stop
getting invited or let's just say, in the the instances
where you're not the most popular person in the red carpet,
(38:03):
you start feeling and scare. It's like you get this bright,
shiny code of paint and then suddenly they're little cracks
in the veneer, like, well, how do I smooth the
crack out? So I'm still I'm still the most popular
and it really totally doesn't number on you. And then
you start thinking about, Okay, what what do I have
to write to get to stay in the top ten,
(38:24):
to keep getting played at radio? And that's no good either.
You're saying it changes your direction creatively from what do
I have to say too? There's a difference of what
do I have to write people will like not because
I'm saying it and feeling it, but because I know,
I'm trying to chase what they like. And then there
is that moment where you're about to turn forty and
(38:45):
you're still popular, but um, everything on the radio is
Britney Spears and Christian Aguilera and their seventeen and they're
wearing schoolgirl outfits and you're about to be forty and
that doesn't number because forty doesn't get played at radio.
It's just a weird thing, you know, there's not anything
realistic about it. And I do wonder what girls today
(39:06):
that seemed to be like navigating their own They they're
in control of their social media. They project their images,
and the images sometimes they're sexual, or most of the
time or sexual, and that as long as they're in
control of that, Like, how much of it are they
able to because I don't read even a sentence about myself.
(39:26):
I don't read anything because I'm too sensitive. Like how
do girls now, especially when you're bringing looks into it,
embody image and all that, how do they not? How
is it not demoralizing? Because fame to me was already
like Okay, I'm a really private person and I'm a
really nice person. So and everything I'm reading about myself
(39:50):
is okay, I got my haircut. Now I look like
a soccer mom and just like mean stuff. How does
anybody navigate it? I don't. I don't know. It did
a number on me for sure. When I think about
sounds that like really fun, positive musical sounds, like quirky
(40:11):
sounds and songs. The beginning of every Day's Winding Robe
was like what you know before? It? Actually does that
make sense? Like duck, I hear that whole. I can
hear it all. Yeah that I'm always curious of why
things get put in and left in and where their
conversations about where do we start this song? And then
(40:33):
what is that story? First and foremost. I got my
degree in piano m in piano performance, but I always
played by ear, so it's never a great concert pianist.
But everything else I've ever played, I've never taken a lesson,
so I'm all self taught. And I would go into
the studio and knowing that it was never going to
be perfect, wasn't gonna be slick, it seemed more interesting
(40:56):
to me for it to be quirky and to be
more we call it ignorant more just kind of ignorant,
you know. And some of the stuff that we left
in was as cool as the stuff that we took out,
you know. And it's just always been that way. In fact,
when I first worked, when I worked with Bill Patreell,
he would always say, if you if you're a great
piano player, you're not allowed to people play piano, And
(41:17):
so nobody ever got to play the instrument that they
play because that way you were creating, like you were
literally you weren't just playing, you were creating. And I've
sort of always stuck with it. I like that idea.
That's one of the reasons I went up playing so
many intrant instruments was that, Okay, well i'm gonna try this.
I'm gonna try that, I'm gonna try this, and um
(41:38):
Vince Gill once said to me, I I love the
way you produce records, like you'll have just some one
little random thing that comes in then you never hear
it again. And it is kind of like that. It's
like what fits the moment, what fits the lyrics, the song,
the story, And it's just the way I approached record making. Mike,
can you play that just from the beginning to the
first I mean that that I could just hear that
(42:05):
and know exactly what's that. That is just when I
think of just that time, the early two thousands, I mean,
I don't think I need the song, just that that
should be unhurdle that. Yeah, yeah, that is. Um I've
always wondered, like why that I love it an entire
era of my life. Um So, the first album comes
(42:29):
out Tuesnight Music Club, it has the hits. Second album
comes out. You've got two number ones again, which and
we're talking about not like country genre. You're talking about
massive number one Billboard number one song. Those two records
go when you're getting ready to again for Come On,
Come On? Which is the next record? Globe Sessions. Okay,
(42:51):
are you nervous? Is it? Is it less about I'm
excited about what's happening? Or is it more about, oh
my god, can we keep it going? Like when does
start to be? The conversation started happening during Come On
Come On? When I was about to turn for you,
the um the Globe Sessions, I'd moved, I would had
been engaged again someone else that fell apart. I moved
(43:13):
to New York City and everything about New York was inspiring,
and I was also super raw, you know, really emotional,
and I could not wait to get in and start writing.
And that was that was so much in line with
how I had made the second record, like just go
in and just write and record. Um. The next record
(43:33):
was tricky. That was the Soak Up the Sun record,
and it took a year and a half to make.
It was a million and a half dollars, tons of
starts and stops. I did not start working, and you know,
eight years I've been on the road constantly, and you
have to walk into a studio a having something to say,
be having some life experiences. And life experiences don't happen
(43:54):
necessarily because you're famous, and because you're on the road
all the time. I mean, that's not real life. And
and you don't want to write about that. Nobody wants
to hear about you know, you're your corvette breaking down,
and it's just you need to go out and and
live and then come in and write write a record.
And that record really screwed me up. And by the
(44:16):
time I put it out, had spent a ton of
money and just was like, is this even a good record?
And luckily you can listen to the record and you
can't really hear all the machinations that went into it.
And there are a couple of things on that record
I love and that are my favorite songs. But that
was a hard one in your process because you're describing
something that when I'm writing a joke or a funny
bit music for a stage show, I'll do it so
(44:38):
many times I don't even know what's funny anymore, Like
I'll have Okay, let me change this word. I think
this may hit better, and I'm like, yes, I don't.
I can't tell I've been so I have to just go.
I thought the concept was hilarious. I have to stay
with it, even though I don't feel I can find
it anymore. When you talk about that process, that's what
(44:59):
I felt like to me, Like you're so in it,
you spent so much money, you're pulling your hair out.
How do you know what's good and what's not anymore?
I know? And that that was the story that record,
because I could not finish anything. I think it's in
the documentary, but I remember one of my first gigs
was opening up for Bob Dylan, and I met him
and he was really generous, like, any time you need anything,
call me, here's my number. Let me know if I
(45:20):
can never help. Blah blah blah saw him a few
times through years, always had a great hang with him.
So cut to this record. And it's been like eight
months and I've not finished one thing. I've got like
forty things in the camp, haven't finished anything. I've moved
my studio from New York to my living room in
l A. I've gotten where I don't even want to
walk into my house because there's like a throbbing organism
(45:42):
in my living room saying you need to be working.
So my managers like, why don't you call Bob Dylan.
You know, he went through a period where he he
just could not finish anything. So I called Bob. I'm like, hey,
sir Crow, Hey you doing. And I said, man, I'm
just calling you because I I feel like I got
this writer's blocking and uh, you don't understand you went
(46:04):
through ruder block. He is a no maybe, and I'm like,
oh no, And I said, he said, when's the let's
teme me finish the song. I said, it's been like
about eight months ago. And he's like, oh, that's bad,
and I'm like, oh my god, what's happening. Um, yeah,
you know, it's it's it's it's awful, and there's there's
a point at which, yeah, you just you have to
(46:25):
walk away from it, give yourself a little space. Christie
Hannon was the one that said life is not your work.
Your work is your work, and your life is your life.
And so I took off some time and I came
back to it and I could sort of find the
golden nugget and some of the stuff I was writing
enough to be able to finish it. But yeah, it
(46:46):
doesn't number on you. And I don't know how you
write a joke, because I'll write something, I'll write a
song and I'll go, oh my gosh, this is the
best thing I've ever written. And then I'll listen to
it enough that I start picking it apart and I'm like,
this isn't even any good. Was I thinking? This is trash?
That's everything I've ever written, but trash. You You should
have just stopped write it. Not must Day. That's like
(47:06):
one of my favorite songs of all time. What's really
weird about that is Nathan Chapman was then, and he's
produced all the Taylor stuff earlier and he was like,
you know what was a really great song? And I'm
thinking he's gonna say, I don't know some old George
straight it's like nama stay and I'm like, I just think.
I just think people are messing with me, like this
is some joke you all text each other before they
(47:28):
come over. No, I've I've seen it to everybody I know.
I mean I even go around singing my kids even know.
I'm like, no, it must stay. Well, thank you when
I get embarrassing that. So, uh, you're live shows, you're
still playing a I was looking at the beach boy
stuff you're doing. I think in Ohio the free shows
you're out on tour too. You have so many songs
(47:50):
that everybody knows all the word to, all the words to.
Do you still play them the same melody so we
can sing along? Yes, I do, Thank God. Yes. Because
I'm gonna tell you. I thought he's gonna have to
shake Audam dirt for about fifteen years. Yeah, no, no, no, yeah,
a lot of times because I know Adam and we've
done quite a lot together. It's been a very long time,
and I'd be like, dude, don't even know what song
you were singing same and that's my favorite band ever.
(48:12):
Yeah yeah, I'm like, I can't. I learned my lesson
on that. Two years we went on the road first
first record. Uh. For a year all we did was
to a Colorado and France. There are only two places
that played it. By the time the record won the
Grammys and it was huge, we were backing on the
road for a year and a half and I started
messing with all I want to do. We did it
(48:32):
like a like a Jack Caro whack, like uh spoken
word and people were piste And I know, I know
how that is when I go here my favorite bands,
I want him to sing it right down to the
oh you know, I want to hear the riffs. I
want to sing the guitar solos. We we stick with it,
(48:55):
and sometimes I have to go back and listen to
my own stuff to remind myself and my off leaving
Las Vegas. Am I singing it the exact same way?
How do you indulge yourself in your set when you
have to do so many things that you're doing for
(49:15):
the fans, Like what will you do that makes you
feel good during your set that's just for you as
an artist, A ton of choreography. Okay, that's IM naked.
Um no, I that's really interesting. I really, you know,
part of it is I just enjoy it more. Now.
(49:37):
You know it sounds kind of hocky, but after I
had breast cancer. Pre breast cancer, I didn't want to
see a single face in the audience. And after that,
I wanted to see everybody. I wanted to leot people
in the face or into their cameras whatever. I just
wanted that connection. And now you know, I'm sixty. I
can't even believe I'm saying it out loud. And my
band and I, you know, we've been together long time.
(49:58):
We every time we walk out and we're still alive.
We're like, we're still alive. We're playing the old you know,
it's like we've we're we're super stoked. We're super stoked.
You know. It's like we get played at home Depot
and Whole Foods were Yeah, we're like music to shop too,
(50:19):
and we're you know, we we played it um bonarue
but three or four years ago, and I was like, man,
who's gonna come? And there were people there that were
my I mean, my kid's age and they knew every word.
It's just it's a different thing now, you know. Do
your kids understand how how differently awesome you were then
(50:40):
as to how awesome you are now? Like, do they
get it? I'm not. I'm not really, I'm sort of
cringe e sweaty try hard. Um. Do you know those
phrases I have a teenager, you're so sweaty try that
is so craze. I know from TikTok, not from paying
out a teenager. Okay, let me ask your opinion. Should
I do? Should I be on TikTok? You know that's
(51:01):
yet The answer is yes. But what happens is and
it's not about you. I've also and I think I
talked to Tim mcrawl about this too, who has quite
the presence. Now you have to really make sure what
you're doing is in line with who you are and
not the trends of TikTok, because if I got on
there and I'm doing the dances and I'm doing some
(51:21):
of the it just looks like I'm an old guy
trying to be seventeen. However, it is a platform for anything.
Now you're a bird watching expert. They got people that
will show you the coolest birds that they see from
their phone. So it's you. I mean it goes back
to just being a creative. You doing what you do
for people who like you. The answer is yes. The
long answer, well, I got asked by the powers that
(51:45):
be that would like me to promote more to be
on TikTok talk and my kids I thought their heads
were gonna explode. They're like, Mom, you cannot be on
t That is so cringe e. As long as you're
not doing the sound, it would be awesome. What if
we light our farts? Come on, who doesn't think that's funny?
That's the one thing you should do. Yeah, I mean
only that. If you only made that your thing, you'd
(52:07):
have so many followers. Yeah, TikTok to me the best
because there's just so many creatives there. Right aside from
all the trendy things. I think you should get on
TikTok because there's just this lady Babs is that her name?
What is it? Frinch with Babs? Yeah, I don't know.
I want you. Are you on TikTok? I am embarrassed
to say that I don't do social media at all? Well,
(52:31):
participate in it. I do participate it like, I know
what we post and I'm involved in it. Do I
go on and look at it? Absolutely not. I gave
my Life is too Full Chryl Crow two three eight
five hundred bucks and Apple gift card yesterday. I thought
it was you see, this is another thing we've If
you mean I go on and post, I'm like, people,
please know I don't need the money. I'll take the money.
(52:53):
I don't need the money. I'm not asking you for it.
That's a whole weird thing people have. I had a
woman show up at my gate with a U haul
recently at night. She said her computer told it was
told her it was okay for her to come, and
then I was her computer. Is that somebody talking to
her as you or I wouldn't have questions she has been. Um,
(53:13):
I didn't know who she was, and I don't. I
don't know about the people that are COO for Kocka Pops,
but um, I guess she's been an uber fan for
a long time. And you know, because it was me
in a wig, it was I would have let you
inmost day. I would have known. I have a few
more and I want to. And we did a whole
intro here talking about the documentary and the song which
(53:35):
we're also featuring on the national show that I'm doing,
which is just great. It's in the not the beginning,
the credits, Forever and Forever, and then the the album
that comes out on the sixth. At the same time,
they call that a companion album. I'm just getting my
words right, right, guys, I did not know that, right,
Is that right, Mike? And accompanying accompanying? No, I don't know. Yeah, so,
And we spent time telling people how they can watch
(53:56):
it May six on Showtime. It is gritty, it is beautiful.
It is a documentary that you don't even have to
be a fan of you to like the art. And
I think that's how I try to watch them now,
because there's some really good ones out there. And the
fact that you didn't want to do that VH one
style says a lot about what you want to represent you. Um.
(54:20):
It reminds me a bit of when I read Steve
Jobs book and he wanted the documentary and the guy
was with him to write the book. He didn't want.
He was like, finish it before I ever get to
read it. I want you to do the most real
version that you can do. It just felt like that
is what you wanted portrayed. Whether you did or not,
it just felt like that you wanted because there were
(54:42):
some things, like I mentioned way earlier, that couldn't have
been comfortable to have to talk about again. But I
just my appreciation for that piece is super high, aside
from being a massive fan of you. So if you're
listening to this and you're not familiar with Cheryl's music,
it's just a great documentary as well. So who does
to your team? And for you for being very vulnerable
(55:02):
in that situation, it was I mean it was interesting
because I only watched it once and you know, you
you basically hand over your story to um a director.
Amy was fantastic, but you know, three fourths of it
wound up on the cutting room floor and I made
a couple of suggestions which did not make the cut
because they basically decided what the story was. And the
(55:23):
reality of it is for me is that I am
a real person. I think we forget that sometimes and
there's a whole world um that goes into making a
person particularly want to be an artist, particularly want to
raise their voices up into the fray. But also that
makes them who they are. And I didn't interview with
a guy recently UM for newspaper who said, I watched
(55:49):
the ninety minutes and it defied everything that I thought
about you. And that made me feel good because I'm like,
there are a lot of people that aren't fans but
that might get something out of it, and there is
a good story there, you know, and we are all people.
I think sometimes we forget, especially now more than ever,
that um, you know, at the core, you're just like
a little kid from small town. I have a few
(56:11):
brief questions to wrap this up. I would do want
to say at the beginning of this, this last segment here,
you got to be in the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame, like I mean, it's I well, I don't know.
I mean, I don't know how those things were. No,
I'm just saying I'm not. I don't think you can
call somebody and go like, hey, probably just said I'm in.
I know that can't happen. Jason Nisbel already did that.
(56:31):
It just it doesn't feel complete without you in it
and the body of work that you can present his data,
but also what you've done as a person. It just
feels like, if there is someone from our generation that
deserves to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
it is just you. Thank you. I don't you know,
(56:53):
I I it's hard for me to even say anything.
I mean, it's you know, it's I don't don't say yeah,
leave it at that. I mean, I appreciate you very much.
There's no reason I have had a great run. I mean,
I will say that. And you know, it's a weird
thing to be what they call a legacy artist because
it basically means you're still around. Um, but I do.
(57:15):
I'm loving the second half. I feel like I have
so much more in me. So you know, if I
if I become a member of the Rock Hall of Fame, cool,
If I don't, I still donna keep going talk about Nashville.
Why are you here? Well, I grew up three hours
from here. Um my sister lived here, has lived here
(57:35):
for years and years and years. When I got diagnosed,
I felt like I've been in l a twenty three
years and I don't even have a church. I just
felt like I didn't ever put any roots down. It
was always a stopping off place, and yet twenty three
years later, I was still there, and that was such
a game changer. I decided, you know what, I'm gonna
move closer to home. I can either move to Memphis
(57:58):
because there's an report, I can move from nash Field
and I have friends here, um, you know, Emmy lou Vince.
There were people I knew and that I loved, Amy
grant Um and my sister and I put down roots
here and it's just been an incredible place. Is it home?
Me home? Miss It's not home, but it is Nashville. Yeah,
I mean it's My kids are living a normal life,
(58:21):
you know, Like I said that, they're not on social media,
and they go to school like every other kid, and
they're living what I consider to be, you know, the
kind of life I lived. I don't know if anybody
will ever be able to live the kind of life
where you get on your bike and you come back
at dinner. But they are as close as possible living, Um,
the kind of life I did, which is a normal life.
Your kids there their faces in the documentary first time. Yeah. Yeah,
(58:46):
I was like wow, I've I've seen them in human form.
It being Nashville, Um, but I was like wow, So
what was that decision? Why? Well, yeah, I can't tell
my story without them, and um, they are the biggest
part of my story. I just had never had them
on social media because, you know, I felt like for
a long time celebrities use their kids like an expensive handbag, like,
(59:09):
look how beautiful my kids are? And and I did
find that when I lived in l A or at
least was there still with my little ones before I
sell my house, having paparazzi chase them around was There's
that's just not right. You know, I'd rather than be
able to be anonymous. And then if they want to
get out there, then at which point they're mature enough
to understand how it works, they can do that. So
(59:31):
that's one. Here's two or three? What's I did watch
the documentary? You have an appearance in it. Briefly? Do
you see that the documentary? What is it? What? Yes? Yeah,
I didn't see it, but yeah, yeah that real. You
were artist, you're separated a bit, right, But what was
it like for you? It was whatever I can tell you,
It was worse than that. Whatever you can envision. It
(59:53):
was absolutely awful. And it makes me sad because the first,
the very first one, obviously I wasn't at the second
one was I mean euphoric. It was such a beautiful
celebration of the first one. The next one was what
was wrong. It was everything with what was wrong with
what the music business was becoming, which was money, money, money, money,
(01:00:15):
and it was degrading to women. It was a demonstration
of the worst of what's in us, with people throwing
feces and throwing pennies and water bottles. It was just
a bizarre experience. And even the bill wasn't It was not.
It was not a bill that was sensitive to people
coming together and being a part of something cool and peaceful,
(01:00:39):
which is what Woodstock is emblematic. Is pretty pretty angry.
It was like Andy Dick and then Cheryl Crow and
then the insane clown Posse and it was just like,
what is happening here? I didn't even finish my set.
I mean, at which point Pecs landed on my my
base neck. I was like, yeah, you know what, I
(01:01:02):
was like, Yeah, I was. I just walked up to
the mic and I was like, I'm done. Okay, well yeah,
let's brutal. Let's end on this one. So it's uh,
I want to know what makes you happy? Now? Like,
where do you find your fulfilms. Oh my gosh, which
is a tough one. And then I want to at
the very end of that, in parentheses, how come all
my friends get to go to your barn parties. I'm
never gonna buy it, but let's get that at the
hold you will never happen again. And this is the
(01:01:24):
first real part of the question, like, OK, what is
it now that fulfills you? My joy? My joy comes
from just man watching my kids grow. It is such
an honor and such every day I'm like you, guys,
I'm so excited. I'm so happy I get to be
your mom. I mean, my kids are adopted, and I'm
telling you what God was all over, up and through.
(01:01:46):
And then we have a French bulldog that makes all
of us laugh. In fact, sometimes we look at each
other and go, who are we? Who were we before Buster?
We were no one? Um and barn parties, you know,
it's it's sort of tragic. I used to have barn
parties a lot. In fact, I used to always have
a Christmas party, and then it slowed down before the pandemic,
(01:02:07):
and then it screeched to hall. I just haven't gone back. No,
I'm just wasn't question, like you have all these and
I'm like, hey, what I was over you and Kate
have to come. I was like, oh yeah, that must
be cool. It's okay, let's do a fundraiser there and
you guys can play. We would let's sit in with you.
We would do that. You no, no, for Ukraine, I'm not.
I'm not. You wouldn't let me sit in on a day?
(01:02:28):
I would. I would be embarrassed if I would sit
in and do one and then and no one care.
I would love that. Here's what I would do. And
I'll tell you this because I have one of my
dearest friends is Brett Aldridge. It's like I love That's like,
oh my gosh, my best friend. I saw you guys. Yes,
his voice is kill It's fine. I've heard better anyway.
(01:02:51):
So I tell Brett all the time, like when you
want because you know when love is Christmas album? Okay.
When you have friends, there's that fine line of working
and business or what's the same thing working friendship? And
I'm like, hey, dude, if you're going to do some
sort of charity event like you're my guy, like I
love you, I will do stand up. I will host it,
you do the mute whatever, just let me know what
(01:03:12):
you need. And so I will also tell you that
right now if you're doing something here, let's do something
for Ukraine and you need that kills me, we can't
do anything. I will do comedy. I will do whatever
you need. If you're also I'll get the Valet Parker.
Don't feel like it's no, don't no. You gotta do
more than that. But I'll get the Martins barbecue. I
love what. I'll stop the bar what you stand for.
(01:03:33):
I just just a if you need me, please, I'm here.
I'm gonna call you. You know I would well, I
would be disappointed if you didn't, but you never have.
So I'm just gonna assume you not going to you
have I have to. I have to, like face what
do you do? You know? I'm always like telling Liz
does my LISZT you've got to post this and I'll
send her like something about something I just heard on
the Bobby Bone Show in the morning. Um okay, But
(01:03:55):
I'm here for you, all right, and and we'll end up.
And I don't say things if I don't minutes, So
don't go sitting on a microphone. So may not. I'm
I'm looking at you in the eyes right now. Let
me know you. I will take you up on it. Um,
everybody check out the documentary. It's great. It's just a
great piece of work, aside from her large body of
(01:04:16):
work that has been wildly successful. So May six on Showtime, UM,
and then May eighth again of Mother's Day, and I'm
assuming you'll be able to just stream it well on
the Showtime app streaming. Yep. I got the show Time
mapp to watch Yellow Jackets. Watched this. Oh my gosh,
you finish it? I have not? Have you started it?
I've started it, but I haven't finished. I'm in season one,
the only season one? Oh okay, but the girls that
(01:04:37):
crashed the plane? Yesh, sason one? Is there no another season? Okay?
Just one? But I want to watch the two in faith? Also,
what do you mean faith one? Do my faith? What
there isn't that the no? No, no, no no no,
that's not the precursory. No yellow jack Jacket. Oh no,
I haven't seen that. Two totally different shows. Okay, okay, okay, Showtime.
(01:04:58):
It's okay. It's a good just saw her high school
talking to the crashes and they have to survive. And
I've heard about yellow Stone. Okay, yeah, yes, yeah, and
then that's it. I'm sixty. See that's the way it works.
But that's the thing. You don't seem it. But I
don't even know what sixty means anymore, because it's not
a thing to be sixty, and that just means something
(01:05:19):
because of the number you are. But it has been
really fun talking with you, Billy. Thank you. I'll take it.
Did I call you something wrong? No, I'm just saying
I'm sixty, so I called you billy. I don't associate
sixty with old Okay, yeah, okay, I'll take it. So
I'll take a joke fell so flat because I didn't
even think that was what the concept was. Yeah, okay,
(01:05:41):
I'll tell you what you I'll stick with music and
then you just stick with comedy, and I want, I
want no, I'll try no, I'll try not to break
into the comedy thing because it doesn't really work. I'm
opening for Garth and we can have it. You are?
Is he playing a uh Bridge Stone? He's playing it
here in Nissan stadiums saying, but he asked me to
come to Arkansas. I was playing the Razorback Stadium, eighty
(01:06:02):
thousand people, and it's like, come dude, come oh, that's cool.
We're not gonna play Namas State though. I'm like, I'm
not gonna play Yeah. All right, there we go. Cheryl,
you're the best. Thank you kind to be here with you.
Thank you. Get your number. That is it, Cheryl Crowe.
Everybody
M I'm a massive Cheryl Crow fan. I told her
that at the beginning. I tell her that every time
I see her. Actually ran into her a couple of
weeks ago at dinner and I did not want to
bother her because she's Chryl Crow and to meet massive celebrity,
big part of my life musically, and then she stopped me.
(00:21):
It was like or maybe I just said high and
she got I was like, oh, I'm a big man.
So she's just awesome. And I don't know if she's
kind of putting one over on me, acting like she's
a big fan. I don't know, Mike, I don't care. Actually,
I mean, she knows stuff from the show. I know.
It's just hard for me to believe that somebody that
I admire also thinks I'm not terrible at what I do.
So Cheryl Crow is in and we're talking about her documentary.
(00:43):
There's a companion soundtrack that's all out May six. I
hope you watch it on Showtime and the single from
the soundtrack, Forever, is actually out. Now here's a clip
up Forever, m Today, Heaven Moment Together Heaven, you know,
(01:16):
talking about Michael Jackson talking about her being a school
teacher talking about just fame, like what's it like? Like,
what's fame like when you can't boom? There it is.
I just really had a great time with this one.
So check out Forever the song. We're also featuring it
on the Country Top thirty the Women of Our Country
like it's a massive song that we love, and check
(01:38):
out the documentary which we talked about in here in
May six on Showtime. I mean, my favorite show Crow
songs are just songs that like strong enough, like gets
no better. I remember just played that in the studio
once and I was like, my life is over. I'm good,
I'm ready to check out. On this album, though, she
has if It makes You Happy, which is a jam
(01:58):
if it make because it's a two disco action, right,
so that's like greatest hits. If it makes you happy,
to soak up the sun, you know all I want
to do, which I think she's over. It was over
(02:19):
and it's now back at it. But there's one point
in this where I go, you know what what sound
I remember? And I go, that's all I did, And
then I like I was able to think about a
whole year of my life based on that one sound,
which is the beginning of a song and you'll hear
it coming up in just a minute. Cheryl Crowe, Here
we go. I love this. Thank you for being here.
Please give us all the stars if you don't mind
(02:42):
when you review this on Spotify. Now it's even easier
a little thing right there, click It's all the stars,
all right, Thank you and goodbye. Friends. Well, let me
say that it's tough for me to maintain professionalism and
be a super fan, so I'm gonna balance it here.
I love that. See, I'm a super fan too. I
never miss you, but I'm going we're going to keep
(03:03):
this about you and Okay, then let me just get
right out of the way the fact that every morning
on the way to school only back to school, I
listen to you guys, and I laugh my ass Okay,
thank you? Can I say the ass word? What do
you want? Yeah? There are no rules on this. Okay, Okay,
we're going to this is going to be a long
form and then we're going to take it and put
it on national shows. Okay. We have a swear jar
(03:30):
in my kitchen, yes, and who pays into the square
jar anybody that swears period, period. So if Liz has
he even had to pay into the sword jar? And
are there prices for the F word? Okay, so a yeah,
that's the big number. Yeah, what if you say the
C word? Does that My kids don't know that word? Okay?
(03:51):
We were talking about that on the show, like what
are a curse word? Like, yeah, that's that's low form.
Yeah is it a curse word? Though? Because it is
a brilliant appropriate word, I'd say, Oh, that's interesting. I
just assumed that inappropriate words are are curse words. I
did a thesis my senior year to be an honors graduate,
and it was almost eighty pages, and I did it
(04:12):
on Carlin's seven words you Can't say. And so my
theory was eventually some of them you would be able
to say. In a couple of them you can say now.
But I've always been infatuated with curse words and why
we assign different levels of severity to just a different sound.
And our culture has just said, you know the word
but means nothing. But if you said the F word
(04:34):
just your tongue working in a certain fashion, it means Okay,
I'm sure you're gonna add this out. But my my
fifth grader in second grade came home from school Christian School. Uh,
big tuition, Christian School. Um, what's the P word? He
said the word, and I'm like, oh my goodness. He's seven.
He wants to know what the word? You know, And
(04:55):
I said, it's a kitty cat. You know, it's a
pussy cat. That is true. But but I did say
but you know what. But he's like, well, I thought
it was a bad word. I said, some words, if
you use them with intention to be bad, they're bad words.
So you have to watch what you say. And yeah,
you don't want to say that word if you mean
it ugly. The reason I was talking about it, it's
(05:16):
so funny you brought this up is I haven't because
I write. I just finished. I have a kid's book
coming out in June. Even my stand up is completely clean,
and so I don't want to write using curse words.
So I haven't said a curseword like five years. Good
for you, And I'm not anti. I like to hear them.
I used to like to say them, but I in
the creative process, I don't want to use them as
crutches or rhymes. Yeah, because it just seems easy. But
(05:37):
so I will say if the place is hell for
referring to a place in hell. Great, but I will
not use that word if it is used as a
way of describing something. That's what we say in the car,
if we're talking about the place. Yeah, it's interesting. I
grew up around squear words, and I don't swear with
my kids. Ever. You don't even slip. I did say
(05:58):
dumb mass one day because because somebody passed me on
Hillsboro and it scared me. And then immediately my boys
were like, dumbass, dumbass. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no,
that does it doesn't work like that. Well, I'm I'm
so happy you're here. And you know, when watching the documentary,
the thing that I took from it is I again,
(06:19):
I am a super fan. And I knew most your
parents were interesting because I did. I don't know them
personally or haven't spent any time seeing them places, so
that was interesting. And then, obviously, like a good documentary does,
you went so much deeper into certain parts that I
only knew about. Some of them probably comfortable, some of
(06:39):
them probably very uncomfortable to talk about. But and you
and I want to make this slightly about me for
a second, and just see because I was trying to
find any parallels that we would have. And I when
I wrote my first book, it was a long stow
at how it ended up happening. But it was a
memoir and I was like, nobody wants to read this.
And I remember writing a part of it where but
at one point, and it was really hard for me
to right about and talk about my mom, who was
(07:02):
a really bad addict and is no longer with us,
she had called and said, Hey, if you don't give
me money, I'm going to do porn. And it was
it was so hard for and I wasn't and it's
still hard to even talk about. I wasn't putting it
in the book to go, look what I've been through,
But it was this is the situation, how it affected me,
(07:22):
what I learned from it. And I wonder in some
of the things that you talked about in this, I
was very uncomfortable sharing it. Did you have to give
yourself kind of that pep talk I had to give
myself when talking about things. Oh yeah, I mean initially,
when my manager came to me and said, hey, Pandemic,
you've got a lot of interested in in doing documentary,
I was like absolutely not for one thing. You do
(07:45):
documentaries after you're dead, you know, and those are the
ones I loved, you know, Nina Simone, I mean good please,
I mean there's so many good ones. I mean, even
even though they're not all dead. But I binge watched
the Beatles and it totally changed the way I felt
about making me again. But that aside, I wound up
giving into it and I said, look, it's can't be.
(08:06):
And I loved VH one and they definitely were instrument
in my career, but I was like, it cannot be
like a feel good behind the music, overdramatized and um.
And I picked somebody to produce it that I liked
her taste, I liked her sensibilities. And then we got
to work. It was hard, and it was I mean
(08:27):
it was it was really for one thing, it was
it was exhausting because you're trying to dig back through
all the memories. You don't ever sit down and think
about your life like that. You don't ever sit down
and like dig back through. I mean really, I was
sensibly forty years I mean I it started before I
was even a school teacher, and I knew there was
stuff that was going to be really hard to talk about,
(08:49):
you know, being sexually arassed for a year and having
people die along the way, you know, not only John O'Brien,
but Kevin Gilbert, who I was very close to, you know,
died in the middle of my second record. And I mean,
I got beat up in the press, and this is
before social media, and everything was my fault, and I just,
you know, at a certain point, you go, Okay, is
(09:11):
the story worth telling? Yeah? Well, there are lots of
facets to it. It's hard to be a woman in
any business. It's definitely hard to be a woman in
the music business anywhere where it's creative and it's all
run by men, and how do we monetize? How do
we make money off this person? It's worse, I think now.
It was really uncomfortable, and I didn't love that part
of it. I also found when I was doing it,
(09:33):
not to the level that you're doing, but I just
know what it's like to have to read dig through things.
Also found some joys that I had not felt I
celebrated enough, and you know, and and a new not
a new A. I revisited an appreciation that I had
for people in my life that were so instrumental my
grandmother who adopted me, and it was like the one
(09:54):
person that loved me, and so and I definitely want
to get to some specific things, but as I'm like
watching and knowing your story and seeing you go through this,
and I know it's a struggle to do it, did
you and I would like an example if you have one.
Did you like rediscover a joy that maybe you had
tucked away when going through the last forty years? Oh? Absolutely,
you know it's it's really a challenge to sit and
(10:16):
hold an emotion. So we don't, you know. I mean,
I can remember the first Grammys, which totally changed my
life and my career. We got on the bus after
the Grammys, after the parties and drove up to San
Francisco and I played the next next night like it
never happened. And that was the way my whole career was.
I never owned anything. I always felt like, well it
(10:37):
wasn't you know. It just always felt like I was
an impostor to me and going back through it and
seeing the transition, especially after having breast cancer, that transition
of going okay, that was all a crazy dream to
go from being a small town girl to becoming like
(10:58):
the height of fame and then it all suddenly jerking
to a stop and experiencing a reboot. I mean, just
looking at where I am now and how I feel
about life and how I feel about who I am.
I'm really happy and I'm super I'm proud of who
I am. I'm so grateful that all the experiences that
I had helped me to remember who I am. You know,
(11:22):
not not who I became, but who I came in as.
And you know, it's life is so unpredictable and it's
so not smooth, but you have all these experiences that
sort of forced you to return to who you authentically are.
And that, to me was the surprise of making the
documentary is being able to look at it um. And
(11:45):
there there are ten other documentaries that didn't get made
that are on the cutting room floor, I mean things
that we they didn't put in and watching and I
felt like, oh my gosh, that's only a slice of it.
But you can only use ninety minutes, so unless you
do the Beatles documentary and then you put it on
all of it from dead. Yeah, well, let me let
me start with whenever it comes to and I have
(12:06):
a jukebox over at the house, which is that direction.
And I don't have a lot of albums, and I
have like twenty and in those twenty are the ones
that have been kind of the soundtracks of my life
at different stages. It's a CD jukebox, so it can't
just download or but one of the top five or
six albums ever for me is two to Night music Club,
Like my I can think of where I was. That's
(12:29):
the strength of music. And I bet you could do
this with a couple of albums as well. I know
where I was, what part of my life I was
going through. I mean I knew where I was everything
about that based on when that first couple of notes
of those songs hit and how your brain reacts and
remembers like that was one of those albums for me.
When you look, what was a couple of those for
you that you really credit to shaping your early teenage years, Well,
(12:56):
this has nothing to do with it. Definitely shaped my
teenage years now. I came up when well, first and foremost,
I was raised in a family where music was played
all the time, like ad nauseam and by like music
played out louder players the instruments, played with instruments and
on the magna box. And my parents weren't a swing band.
They played tons of like big band music. Then as
(13:19):
that kind of faded out of their lives, we always
had the music going. It was everything from Aretha Franklin
to Motown to Willie Nelson to my little town played
only country music and like true, die hard country music.
But I grew up when it was like Boston, Foreigner Kansas,
a lot of Fleetwood Mac, but Fleetwood Mac was the
(13:41):
record rumors. I mean, I remember I got my haircut
like hers, I had shawls. I would dance around with
a curling iron. I mean, I was just so I
want to be Stephen Nicks so bad. But it's really funny.
There are a couple of songs that will come on
and I can even smell, like Baker Street, Jerry Off,
Jerry Rafferty Baker Street comes on, It's like, oh yeah,
(14:03):
my brown leather bucket seats and this cutle of Supreme,
you know, parking out by the old bridge. I mean,
there are songs that just do that where you're you
can remember exactly what the smells were where you were
circling dairy Queen. But all that music. When I hear it,
all that old classic rock, I'm out. I'm circling, circling
the main drag between Dairy Queen and A and W. Yeah,
(14:25):
that's how I feel with Tuesan Night Music Club. And
when it comes to those songs, you know, when you
walked in, we're talking for a second and you were
you to tem something good, which is that segment we
do and you know, full transparency here, I do that
segment so many times, and I'm glad it has been
a big part of our show in the six but
I do it all the time, and I've done it
all the time for years and years. You start to go, man,
(14:47):
I know people love it. Don't gotta keep doing it.
Do you feel that way about some of those songs? Okay,
it's funny. I was listening to you guys this morning.
I was like, your show is always so good and
fun and funny has emotionalized. I mean, it's just a
really great show. And I sat there thought, I wonder
if he ever just gets sick of doing that show,
(15:10):
you know what I mean, and also being being present
because it's hard work. Man, Like, there's some nights where
I walk out on stage and I have to like
fake it until I make it. And generally those are
the best shows. But there was a period where if
I thought I had to play all I want to
do one more time, I would just run straight out
in front of a backdrop. And it took it took
(15:31):
my I mean part of it is it took my
getting sick to really realize. I mean that song took
me all over all over the Middle East. I mean
we went to Israel, we went to we went to Tokyo,
to Kuala and Poora, we went all over South. The
people who couldn't speak English sang every word of that
wordy song. And I had I just embraced a full
(15:52):
on gratitude and I enjoy playing it now. But there
were a few years and there I was just like, ah, God,
I'm sick of this song. You know, I hate a song.
I hate this song. Um, but I love it. You know.
I think part of what happens is you get older,
you get really you know, you get sentimental, and you
get really grateful, and you get really boring. And I
(16:14):
love being boring. Now it's cool to reappreciate it is
it is because I've started to find myself reappreciating not
just professional things but also personal things. And so it's
cool that you have because I I live it, and
one day I'm gonna like, do and tell me something
good again. One day I'm gonna and I don't. You
can't tell that you don't like it, though, I mean
I will say that. It's not even that I don't
(16:36):
like it, it's that as you do. It's just we
do it four four times a day, five days a week,
twenty times, and individually all the stories are great, but
it's like man is twenty times again this week? Do
you hate shukakon now? No? No, I don't rufus cold
cold with me? And we go places and what's funny.
(16:58):
Sometimes I'll go into a place if it's a bar
or restaurant. I'm gonna bars as much anymore, but they'll
play that song over the top, like once they see
I'm there, oh my gosh, and like that's so been
associated with I'll just beat or a basketball game anyway
here then and I'll look at me like and you'll
see the guy running pointing at me, like all right, buddy,
(17:19):
So did you ever do you talk about Stevin Knicks
Did you ever have a relationship with her? Did you? Guys?
Oh my gosh, Like that had to be the coolest thing.
I have so many weird experiences um with people like that. Okay,
So I like, if you dig back through the anals
of my um my school pictures, I had the Stevie
Nicks hair do. I met her at my first Grammys.
(17:39):
I met her at an after party and I have
a picture with her and Anita Pointer and Bonnie Wright
and Carly Simon and me, and I was the newbie,
and She's like, I love you. Would you I'm getting
ready to do some songs for Practical Magic that that movie.
Would you produce it? And I was like yeah. And
(18:02):
she came to New York and and she had her posse,
you know, some bunch of women, and and I produced
her and it was just it was unbelievable. I can
remember looking at her out in the recording booth and
she looked like a fourteen year old. I mean literally,
she looked like she had out aged a day. She
looked exactly as I remembered her. And she just was
(18:24):
like so embracing and so generals told stories like I
imagine that we probably talked and hung out for two
hours and then she'd sing, and then we'd hang out
and talked for a couple of hours and then she'd
sing and it was but it was so glorious. And
then she said, well, you were produced the record, and
I went up producing and going on the road with her,
and she's just been like very god mom to me.
(18:48):
And I don't want you to say any names here,
but I have had experiences where I really was I
loved people, got to know them, not that goal people
that I what and I now I don't really idolize
except for like hearts yeah yah, yeah, yeah, yeah yea. So,
(19:08):
but there have been times where that's happened and I'm like, why,
I cannot believe I could just spend time we're gonna
do And then you're like, oh man, I kind of
wish I wouldn't have because it's ruined what I cherished,
which was these beliefs. And yeah, I'm with how massive
you got. I had to assume that happened to some.
I will say I've been really lucky. Almost everybody I've
met has been beyond beyond my wildest dreams. Um I
(19:31):
got a few people and introduce you to then, Yeah,
I bet he did a few relatives. Interestingly, I worked
with Michael Jackson before I hit it big. I was
a backup singer. Went on the road with him for
eighteen months, and there were some things on that tour.
I was just like, this doesn't make sense. And then
later on the documentary came out, and um, I mean
(19:53):
he was. He was already eccentric on that tour. But
people asked me all the time, are you able to
listen to his music? And I'm like, man, that was
the first album I ever owned. I got it from
Santa Claus when I was five years old. ABC. I
grew up watching his TV show. I you know, all
that music was. It was important to me and it
definitely changed the way I felt about him. And but
(20:14):
I can still listen to the music from when he
was a kid because I feel like he was who
he was then. He wasn't who he became. But for
the most part, I mean, I can't really think of
anybody that's just been a douchebag, you know what I mean?
Can you separate art an artist? It depends, I mean
it depends there. Um, I mean we're kind of looking
at that with the Will Smith thing. Now it's like, okay,
(20:35):
we still we're gonna be able to watch some movies.
Can we take out that? You know, it depends. I
think it's how severe Yeah, well yeah yeah, like y R. Kelly.
Never even if it comes on somewhere, I'll leave. Yeah,
but again there are artists. Again, if Smooth Criminal comes on,
I probably just jammed along to it before I realized,
and then the song is over, and then I don't
(20:56):
want to leave because I got a burger and I'm,
you know, feeling pretty good. I did meet It's interesting.
I met a young artist who totally blew up, who
I had the weirdest experience with, and I can't listen
to her music. I wouldn't say her name, but I
mean it became massive. And you know, they're just certain
people that you go, Okay, they got into it so
they could be famous. And then there are other people
that you go, I can totally relate to this person.
(21:18):
They're just they love what they do. They're so into it,
and they wrote the book on this and they're still cool.
Whenever you were, you were blowing up. And it always
feels different than what it looks like. Um, but what
we knew about you from pre social media days was hey,
(21:42):
she was a teacher and now she's doing music, and
a lot of the like the background seeing from Michael Jackson,
the jingle, all that came out kind of later once
more information was just available, but it was teacher too,
rock and roll star and so overnight, oh yeah, they
over I stepped top. I get that too, and I'm
like overnight. But I was thirty when my first record
(22:04):
came out. So let's talk about that part. So you
were teaching were teaching music in St. Louis school system?
And what what ages were you teaching? I taught kindergarn
th six music in the public school system in Fenton,
which is in it's part of St. Louis. So when
you're teaching music, do you still have a dream of
(22:25):
well anything on a macro type stage, Like what's your
dream when you're teaching in St. Louis. Well, I don't
even know if this is in the documentary. You have
been engaged three times, and um, I was engaged when
I got out of school. I was engaged. The guitar
player in the band I was in, we moved to St. Louis,
he was born again, Christian. I was a Christian too,
(22:46):
but he was like, you, if you're gonna not sing
for the Lord, if you're going to be in bands,
we can't get married. And I'd already seen sign my
teaching contract. I was in a band. I just loved
singing and I loved playing. I was a keyboard player.
And but did you have dreams of ye? After that,
I just, you know, I was always writing songs. I
(23:07):
started getting gigs by myself in coffee bars, and I
had loved it, and I thought, you know, if I'm
ever going to do this, I should try and do
it now. I'm not engaged, I'm I'm I'm young, and
so I moved to California with a bunch of tapes.
It was so different than it is now. I mean,
there weren't the big vehicles like the Voice or anything
(23:28):
like that. I mean, you've basically went out there and
you tried to get into the parties where the celebrities were.
You tried to get in, you know, you tried to
get you put bands together, you try to get heard.
You had to pay to play, you had to like
it was a grind, and but on the flip side
of it, you could also go out and figure out
who you were without having the eyes of YouTube on you,
you know. And I got really lucky. I took my
(23:50):
tape to every every studio and I started getting some
work as a background singer. Found out about the Michael
Jackson tour by hearing other singers talk about it. Crashed
the audition. I mean, I just I don't know if
I knew I would make it. Like I've talked to
like Gwyneth Paltrow and I used to be very good friends,
and even Stevie, I'm like, it's interesting. Did you always
(24:12):
know you were going to be famous? Absolutely? I always
knew it, both of both of them. They always just
knew they were gonna be famous. I never, in a
million years I would have been in the yearbook like
least likely to become a rock star, super nice person,
like work really hard, things will happen. And that was
kind of what I thought. When you have to leave
the stability of a job like a teaching job, and
(24:34):
you know, I grew up in Arkansas, so we did.
I don't know anybody in Kansas like Central Hot Springs,
my town seven hundred people, mountain Pine, but near a
little rock. We used to drive to Blible to go
see the movies. Yeah really yeah, yeah. My orthodonist was
in Jonesboro. I know it. Well, yeah, but that's a
big job because some friends that I have just moved
to Nashville, but they were nineteen. Yeah, they weren't getting
(24:57):
a check and they hadn't already developed how to pay
the bill, how to budget, how to do adult things.
And you're playing music but you're also giving up an
actual paycheck and a job. I gotta think that you're
not eighteen. That was did not that not way into
it at all, Like are you just like screw it?
I'm going like I got one shot? You know. It's
when I, if I'm really honest with that myself, I
(25:18):
think I would have gone right out of high school.
But my parents were always like, you know, you need
to have something to fall back on. It was always
something to fall back on. And then, you know, when
I'm growing up, it's like you get married, you have kids,
that's sort of the order of things. And then when
that didn't happen. You know, I've got my degree, I taught,
I was engaged. Everything looked like it was supposed to do,
and then what it fell apart. I was like, shoot,
(25:40):
I'm just gonna I'm gonna see what happens. You know.
I'd save some money, had nine thousand dollars and I
went going out to l A. I stayed with some
friends and took all my tapes around. They were partying
like crazy, like doing blow. I'd never seen anything like that.
I mean, I was country pumpkin Um. I wound it,
(26:01):
moving into one better apartment, went through all my money.
I got a boot on my car. I mean, it
was just you couldn't pay for the boot to come off.
I was eating trail Max from Public's across the street,
start getting some work waiting tables, and finally got a commercial.
I don't know. I mean, I think I was so naive,
but also I just was. I was just really convicted.
(26:25):
I just really wanted I wanted to be heard, you know.
And now you know, after therapy and reflection and all that,
I realized I was a kid that wanted everybody to
be happy, and I always gonna make them happy, and
if they weren't happy, then I wasn't doing something right.
And I think there are a lot of people that
become famous or well known that have that story. Like,
(26:46):
if I can just make people happy, then I'll know
what it feels like to be loved. Well. I did
four seasons on American Idol as their head mentor, and
what what um? Anyway, there's so many people that are
more skilled in music than me. I me too, me too.
And what the producer told me after they hired me,
because I went and I was talking about song selection
(27:08):
and performances. What hooked them was me telling one of
the kids. Until I came to l A for work,
I've never been anywhere like this or New York. I'm
from Arkansas. We didn't see big buildings like this. So
I was relating to them in that way. I was like,
I know what you're feeling, like, like this stuff still
crazy to me. Did you experience that going to Los
(27:29):
Angeles or did you have absolutely? I mean I drove
a Renault Alliance all the way to Albuquerque and I
slept for forty five minutes in a bed that had
long black hair in it, and I was like, Okay,
I'm not that related, not that tired, And I got
into Los Angeles on the four oh five at rush
hour and sobbed. I mean, I was just like, what
(27:53):
am I doing it looked like Mars. To me, I've
never seen anything like it. And then I get to
this house and these girls are all doing blow. I
mean it's a girl from my hometown. I was like,
what what what is this? Is this Babylon or something like?
What culture am I now in? What have I dropped
myself into? And a huge learning curve And within a
year and I've never been out of my own country.
(28:16):
And within a year I was singing with Michael Jackson,
arguably the biggest star in the world, in front of
seventy people in Tokyo. And so it was just a massive,
massive um thrown into the fire. Figure it out. And yeah,
I mean I was just absolutely naive. And I still
(28:38):
feel like that. I mean, like, we're going home next
weekend for Easter and I always say we're going home,
and my kids are like, why do you say home?
This is home? And I'm like, I can't help it.
I'm so that is my small town. It's interesting. I
do the same thing. Yeah, I talk about going home
home to Arkansas. Yeah, it's like you don't live like
I guess we always have our home, you know, We'll
(28:58):
always have art. And that's that's the part of what's
inside of you, and that doesn't never leave. And the
further way I got from home, the more the more
I could relate to my small town raids. How did
you get to Michael Jackson background singing job? I crashed
an audition, Um you're supposed to be recommended about, like
Bruce Swedeen or um any Rod tempered in Quincy Jones
(29:22):
And I found out where it was and I went
and they some guy was there and he's like, tell
me about yourself, I said, named Cheryl. I just moved on,
Caryl Crow. I just moved here from St. Louis. I'm
a school teacher. I'm doing some backup work and they're like, Okay,
what do you want to sing? And I sang? And
then I got a call back the next day and
I sang with three guys and about a week later
(29:45):
we were rehearsing. I sang and I got to be
free with Denise Williams song and do you try to
sing it? Like? Because if I went to a back
backup singer audition, I would just be like, Oh, that's
how do backups? Yeah? So do you go they ask
(30:08):
you to sing? As I have no idea. There's a
dumb guy question, do you sing as you're a lead?
When they say yeah, they want to hear your voice.
But I think it's as much as that. I mean,
I think they they looked at me and thought, oh,
she looks pretty harmless. You know, I don't know. I mean,
I was a white girl with really curly hair. I
don't know why they picked me. It's it's I still go.
(30:30):
I mean, it's that same thing where you're talking about
other people are more musical. To me, I'm like, why
did I make it? There are people that are way
more talented, that write incredible songs that seem great, and
why why me? And that part of it is such
a mind bender, because I do believe there's a certain
amount of order to the chaos. But I also think
there's a huge argument for manifesting things that where you
(30:52):
put your energy it does you do get something back
from that? And I just kept showing up in my
own story, I just kept showing up. As you are
performing on this tour with Michael Jackson, are you also
hustling as in making sure people know that you're you? No,
because I didn't know who you was yet, so but
we all took recording um little recording studios with us
(31:15):
four tracks, and I would write, I wrote all the time.
The guy that was on the tour that ultimately became
my manager would be like, Hey, we're going down to
the Lexington Queen or whatever, you know, like the where
all the models hang out. And I was like, dam
I'm staying tonight. We're in Tokyo now I want to
work on my music, you know, I would. I just
(31:36):
worked all the time. When did you kind of figure
out who you were, what you wanted to say and
why you wanted to say it? Oh, about three years
ago the first time. I think after the first record,
the first record blew up and I was still like,
after the first record, they hear that, right, Yeah, after
the first record, the first I made a record that
(31:58):
cost a ton of mone with a really high profile
manager named Hugh Padgeum who produced Staying, and and I
hated the record. It was super, super slick. In fact,
it sounded like girls thinking Staying and I was just like, no, no, no,
this isn't what it was sounding. It was supposed to rock,
you know. And so I went to the record level
and said, please let me have another shot. At this
(32:19):
this is not it's the first record, talking about the
very first record four or fifty dollars. Now that's thirty
years ago, so that's like a mega bug and they're
like Okay. Finally they were like, well give you another shot.
And I sat around for quite a long time and
hooked up with Bill Buttrail and made the Tuesday at
Music Club record, which was a total blast to make.
But there were several people that were sort of around
(32:42):
and we jammed and that's how we got started. And
then once it became my record, started working with Bill
on my own, and there was a lot of bitterness
once it started taking off, Like once everybody started making money,
it was complications, complications, and even though all the publishing
was split and everybody is making the same amount of money,
I was devastating. I was like, why is there we
(33:03):
so mad? Nobody wanted to go on the road, So
why was everybody so mad? In the least complicated explation, well,
the least complicated explanation I could say is that nobody
wanted to go on the road because they all had
their own gigs. You know, David and David Um, all
of them amazing artists in their own right, but they
(33:23):
didn't want to go and so I went to back
to St. Louis. I put together a band, band together
with locals. Once the record took off, then they were like,
we want to be in the band. I was like,
we can't fire my band. I mean, they've been with
me during the hard part anyway. So the second record,
I think when I went in and I went up
producing it on my own, that's when I was like, Okay,
I'm just gonna make a record. I like, I'm just
(33:45):
gonna make music the way I make it, and if
nobody likes it, that's cool. And that was the one
that was self titled and had if It makes You
Happy and Everbody's winding Road, and you know, I felt
more like I didn't feel like I had to prove myself,
but I definitely felt like this was more authentic. Do
you do you resent the success of the first record
that you don't have complete adoration for? No, not at all.
(34:07):
I mean I loved making that record. I loved being
a part of that group of misfits, and I loved them.
I was really sad and I was really devastated by
what happened in the end, and that was a big
learning lesson for me. You know, money is a destroyer
and I just I didn't see that coming. You know,
(34:31):
I don't know. I mean I still, I still and
once leaving Las Vegas when that came out and the
guy that wrote the book killed himself and there was
all kinds of weirdness around that, like I had known
him and I'd never met him. It was damaging. I mean,
it changed me. I I started wearing like goth makeup.
I was just like, don't talk to me. I'm not
(34:53):
the girl next door. You're not gonna I'm not going
to be your friend. I've already been people's friends. And
I saw how that worked out, and it totally changed me.
And it took me a long time and start crying.
It took me a long time to get back to
feeling my meld self. Do you think and not to
sit on this too long, but as you're talking about this,
and I'm very familiar with the story because it's also
(35:15):
talked about the documentary, do you feel like that some
of the negativity was from he killed himself, but people
were beating up on you that weren't him. Do you
feel like that was from others and not from him,
or was it just about it because you guys didn't
know each other. You said that yourself now and he
didn't beat me up. It all came from the guys
(35:35):
in the group, and they're there. I mean, honestly, there's
only one guy in the group that I think had
real problems with the truth, and that's a pathological thing
that's Had I known, I probably would not have been
I wouldn't have been around him. And you know, to
be told, they're amazing pathological people that have pathological issues
that are extremely extremely entires of. I mean, just like
(35:58):
interesting people, people that are high achieving. Narcissists and pathological
liars can be very engaging. But sometimes when you don't
know that, you wind up on the wrong side of it,
and you know, that's that's all I can say about that.
I didn't know John O'Brien, but I did know he
was somebody's son, and had I known him, I wouldn't
have written that song. I mean, I didn't know the
(36:18):
title came from a book. So anyway, I also think
that there is something that happens when you are you
are unknown, and people love you and they're there, They
discover you, and they feel like you're somebody that they
discovered and they're extremeing loyal, and then suddenly you become
famous and people are addressing you and it's like, um, actually,
(36:40):
so s too big for bridges now or whatever. And
then the press turns against you. And I wasn't aware
of that either, And we watch it every day, you know,
weird to see because it's like, you can continue to
get more famous, but at some point you're going to
get so famous and popular that you're not popular anymore, exactly,
Like there's a threshold. Yes, we only allow you to
get so popular before we have to turn on you
(37:00):
and you have to turn us back. And it's an
unfair thing, especially now because you can see it coming,
especially with an artist who's killing it. You know, Well,
let's hope that when everybody turns that they're able to
withstand that and turn them back, because I have friends
that that was a real struggle for. Um. What is
(37:20):
and I don't not to stay long on this part,
but what is fame like when you first get just
true freaking fame, when you walk into a restaurant they
have a table, or when you um when you never
have to pay for anything that's always been a weird thing,
like they're gonna send me clothes why. I mean, I'm
happy with the stuff about it. The you know second
(37:41):
hand place, Um, it's a it does a number on you,
for sure, and the number it did from did on
me was this is this is amazing. I don't know
if I deserve it. So you start questioning yourself. But
then the other part of it is when you stop
getting invited or let's just say, in the the instances
where you're not the most popular person in the red carpet,
(38:03):
you start feeling and scare. It's like you get this bright,
shiny code of paint and then suddenly they're little cracks
in the veneer, like, well, how do I smooth the
crack out? So I'm still I'm still the most popular
and it really totally doesn't number on you. And then
you start thinking about, Okay, what what do I have
to write to get to stay in the top ten,
(38:24):
to keep getting played at radio? And that's no good either.
You're saying it changes your direction creatively from what do
I have to say too? There's a difference of what
do I have to write people will like not because
I'm saying it and feeling it, but because I know,
I'm trying to chase what they like. And then there
is that moment where you're about to turn forty and
(38:45):
you're still popular, but um, everything on the radio is
Britney Spears and Christian Aguilera and their seventeen and they're
wearing schoolgirl outfits and you're about to be forty and
that doesn't number because forty doesn't get played at radio.
It's just a weird thing, you know, there's not anything
realistic about it. And I do wonder what girls today
(39:06):
that seemed to be like navigating their own They they're
in control of their social media. They project their images,
and the images sometimes they're sexual, or most of the
time or sexual, and that as long as they're in
control of that, Like, how much of it are they
able to because I don't read even a sentence about myself.
(39:26):
I don't read anything because I'm too sensitive. Like how
do girls now, especially when you're bringing looks into it,
embody image and all that, how do they not? How
is it not demoralizing? Because fame to me was already
like Okay, I'm a really private person and I'm a
really nice person. So and everything I'm reading about myself
(39:50):
is okay, I got my haircut. Now I look like
a soccer mom and just like mean stuff. How does
anybody navigate it? I don't. I don't know. It did
a number on me for sure. When I think about
sounds that like really fun, positive musical sounds, like quirky
(40:11):
sounds and songs. The beginning of every Day's Winding Robe
was like what you know before? It? Actually does that
make sense? Like duck, I hear that whole. I can
hear it all. Yeah that I'm always curious of why
things get put in and left in and where their
conversations about where do we start this song? And then
(40:33):
what is that story? First and foremost. I got my
degree in piano m in piano performance, but I always
played by ear, so it's never a great concert pianist.
But everything else I've ever played, I've never taken a lesson,
so I'm all self taught. And I would go into
the studio and knowing that it was never going to
be perfect, wasn't gonna be slick, it seemed more interesting
(40:56):
to me for it to be quirky and to be
more we call it ignorant more just kind of ignorant,
you know. And some of the stuff that we left
in was as cool as the stuff that we took out,
you know. And it's just always been that way. In fact,
when I first worked, when I worked with Bill Patreell,
he would always say, if you if you're a great
piano player, you're not allowed to people play piano, And
(41:17):
so nobody ever got to play the instrument that they
play because that way you were creating, like you were
literally you weren't just playing, you were creating. And I've
sort of always stuck with it. I like that idea.
That's one of the reasons I went up playing so
many intrant instruments was that, Okay, well i'm gonna try this.
I'm gonna try that, I'm gonna try this, and um
(41:38):
Vince Gill once said to me, I I love the
way you produce records, like you'll have just some one
little random thing that comes in then you never hear
it again. And it is kind of like that. It's
like what fits the moment, what fits the lyrics, the song,
the story, And it's just the way I approached record making. Mike,
can you play that just from the beginning to the
first I mean that that I could just hear that
(42:05):
and know exactly what's that. That is just when I
think of just that time, the early two thousands, I mean,
I don't think I need the song, just that that
should be unhurdle that. Yeah, yeah, that is. Um I've
always wondered, like why that I love it an entire
era of my life. Um So, the first album comes
(42:29):
out Tuesnight Music Club, it has the hits. Second album
comes out. You've got two number ones again, which and
we're talking about not like country genre. You're talking about
massive number one Billboard number one song. Those two records
go when you're getting ready to again for Come On,
Come On? Which is the next record? Globe Sessions. Okay,
(42:51):
are you nervous? Is it? Is it less about I'm
excited about what's happening? Or is it more about, oh
my god, can we keep it going? Like when does
start to be? The conversation started happening during Come On
Come On? When I was about to turn for you,
the um the Globe Sessions, I'd moved, I would had
been engaged again someone else that fell apart. I moved
(43:13):
to New York City and everything about New York was inspiring,
and I was also super raw, you know, really emotional,
and I could not wait to get in and start writing.
And that was that was so much in line with
how I had made the second record, like just go
in and just write and record. Um. The next record
(43:33):
was tricky. That was the Soak Up the Sun record,
and it took a year and a half to make.
It was a million and a half dollars, tons of
starts and stops. I did not start working, and you know,
eight years I've been on the road constantly, and you
have to walk into a studio a having something to say,
be having some life experiences. And life experiences don't happen
(43:54):
necessarily because you're famous, and because you're on the road
all the time. I mean, that's not real life. And
and you don't want to write about that. Nobody wants
to hear about you know, you're your corvette breaking down,
and it's just you need to go out and and
live and then come in and write write a record.
And that record really screwed me up. And by the
(44:16):
time I put it out, had spent a ton of
money and just was like, is this even a good record?
And luckily you can listen to the record and you
can't really hear all the machinations that went into it.
And there are a couple of things on that record
I love and that are my favorite songs. But that
was a hard one in your process because you're describing
something that when I'm writing a joke or a funny
bit music for a stage show, I'll do it so
(44:38):
many times I don't even know what's funny anymore, Like
I'll have Okay, let me change this word. I think
this may hit better, and I'm like, yes, I don't.
I can't tell I've been so I have to just go.
I thought the concept was hilarious. I have to stay
with it, even though I don't feel I can find
it anymore. When you talk about that process, that's what
(44:59):
I felt like to me, Like you're so in it,
you spent so much money, you're pulling your hair out.
How do you know what's good and what's not anymore?
I know? And that that was the story that record,
because I could not finish anything. I think it's in
the documentary, but I remember one of my first gigs
was opening up for Bob Dylan, and I met him
and he was really generous, like, any time you need anything,
call me, here's my number. Let me know if I
(45:20):
can never help. Blah blah blah saw him a few
times through years, always had a great hang with him.
So cut to this record. And it's been like eight
months and I've not finished one thing. I've got like
forty things in the camp, haven't finished anything. I've moved
my studio from New York to my living room in
l A. I've gotten where I don't even want to
walk into my house because there's like a throbbing organism
(45:42):
in my living room saying you need to be working.
So my managers like, why don't you call Bob Dylan.
You know, he went through a period where he he
just could not finish anything. So I called Bob. I'm like, hey,
sir Crow, Hey you doing. And I said, man, I'm
just calling you because I I feel like I got
this writer's blocking and uh, you don't understand you went
(46:04):
through ruder block. He is a no maybe, and I'm like,
oh no, And I said, he said, when's the let's
teme me finish the song. I said, it's been like
about eight months ago. And he's like, oh, that's bad,
and I'm like, oh my god, what's happening. Um, yeah,
you know, it's it's it's it's awful, and there's there's
a point at which, yeah, you just you have to
(46:25):
walk away from it, give yourself a little space. Christie
Hannon was the one that said life is not your work.
Your work is your work, and your life is your life.
And so I took off some time and I came
back to it and I could sort of find the
golden nugget and some of the stuff I was writing
enough to be able to finish it. But yeah, it
(46:46):
doesn't number on you. And I don't know how you
write a joke, because I'll write something, I'll write a
song and I'll go, oh my gosh, this is the
best thing I've ever written. And then I'll listen to
it enough that I start picking it apart and I'm like,
this isn't even any good. Was I thinking? This is trash?
That's everything I've ever written, but trash. You You should
have just stopped write it. Not must Day. That's like
(47:06):
one of my favorite songs of all time. What's really
weird about that is Nathan Chapman was then, and he's
produced all the Taylor stuff earlier and he was like,
you know what was a really great song? And I'm
thinking he's gonna say, I don't know some old George
straight it's like nama stay and I'm like, I just think.
I just think people are messing with me, like this
is some joke you all text each other before they
(47:28):
come over. No, I've I've seen it to everybody I know.
I mean I even go around singing my kids even know.
I'm like, no, it must stay. Well, thank you when
I get embarrassing that. So, uh, you're live shows, you're
still playing a I was looking at the beach boy
stuff you're doing. I think in Ohio the free shows
you're out on tour too. You have so many songs
(47:50):
that everybody knows all the word to, all the words to.
Do you still play them the same melody so we
can sing along? Yes, I do, Thank God. Yes. Because
I'm gonna tell you. I thought he's gonna have to
shake Audam dirt for about fifteen years. Yeah, no, no, no, yeah,
a lot of times because I know Adam and we've
done quite a lot together. It's been a very long time,
and I'd be like, dude, don't even know what song
you were singing same and that's my favorite band ever.
(48:12):
Yeah yeah, I'm like, I can't. I learned my lesson
on that. Two years we went on the road first
first record. Uh. For a year all we did was
to a Colorado and France. There are only two places
that played it. By the time the record won the
Grammys and it was huge, we were backing on the
road for a year and a half and I started
messing with all I want to do. We did it
(48:32):
like a like a Jack Caro whack, like uh spoken
word and people were piste And I know, I know
how that is when I go here my favorite bands,
I want him to sing it right down to the
oh you know, I want to hear the riffs. I
want to sing the guitar solos. We we stick with it,
(48:55):
and sometimes I have to go back and listen to
my own stuff to remind myself and my off leaving
Las Vegas. Am I singing it the exact same way?
How do you indulge yourself in your set when you
have to do so many things that you're doing for
(49:15):
the fans, Like what will you do that makes you
feel good during your set that's just for you as
an artist, A ton of choreography. Okay, that's IM naked.
Um no, I that's really interesting. I really, you know,
part of it is I just enjoy it more. Now.
(49:37):
You know it sounds kind of hocky, but after I
had breast cancer. Pre breast cancer, I didn't want to
see a single face in the audience. And after that,
I wanted to see everybody. I wanted to leot people
in the face or into their cameras whatever. I just
wanted that connection. And now you know, I'm sixty. I
can't even believe I'm saying it out loud. And my
band and I, you know, we've been together long time.
(49:58):
We every time we walk out and we're still alive.
We're like, we're still alive. We're playing the old you know,
it's like we've we're we're super stoked. We're super stoked.
You know. It's like we get played at home Depot
and Whole Foods were Yeah, we're like music to shop too,
(50:19):
and we're you know, we we played it um bonarue
but three or four years ago, and I was like, man,
who's gonna come? And there were people there that were
my I mean, my kid's age and they knew every word.
It's just it's a different thing now, you know. Do
your kids understand how how differently awesome you were then
(50:40):
as to how awesome you are now? Like, do they
get it? I'm not. I'm not really, I'm sort of
cringe e sweaty try hard. Um. Do you know those
phrases I have a teenager, you're so sweaty try that
is so craze. I know from TikTok, not from paying
out a teenager. Okay, let me ask your opinion. Should
I do? Should I be on TikTok? You know that's
(51:01):
yet The answer is yes. But what happens is and
it's not about you. I've also and I think I
talked to Tim mcrawl about this too, who has quite
the presence. Now you have to really make sure what
you're doing is in line with who you are and
not the trends of TikTok, because if I got on
there and I'm doing the dances and I'm doing some
(51:21):
of the it just looks like I'm an old guy
trying to be seventeen. However, it is a platform for anything.
Now you're a bird watching expert. They got people that
will show you the coolest birds that they see from
their phone. So it's you. I mean it goes back
to just being a creative. You doing what you do
for people who like you. The answer is yes. The
long answer, well, I got asked by the powers that
(51:45):
be that would like me to promote more to be
on TikTok talk and my kids I thought their heads
were gonna explode. They're like, Mom, you cannot be on
t That is so cringe e. As long as you're
not doing the sound, it would be awesome. What if
we light our farts? Come on, who doesn't think that's funny?
That's the one thing you should do. Yeah, I mean
only that. If you only made that your thing, you'd
(52:07):
have so many followers. Yeah, TikTok to me the best
because there's just so many creatives there. Right aside from
all the trendy things. I think you should get on
TikTok because there's just this lady Babs is that her name?
What is it? Frinch with Babs? Yeah, I don't know.
I want you. Are you on TikTok? I am embarrassed
to say that I don't do social media at all? Well,
(52:31):
participate in it. I do participate it like, I know
what we post and I'm involved in it. Do I
go on and look at it? Absolutely not. I gave
my Life is too Full Chryl Crow two three eight
five hundred bucks and Apple gift card yesterday. I thought
it was you see, this is another thing we've If
you mean I go on and post, I'm like, people,
please know I don't need the money. I'll take the money.
(52:53):
I don't need the money. I'm not asking you for it.
That's a whole weird thing people have. I had a
woman show up at my gate with a U haul
recently at night. She said her computer told it was
told her it was okay for her to come, and
then I was her computer. Is that somebody talking to
her as you or I wouldn't have questions she has been. Um,
(53:13):
I didn't know who she was, and I don't. I
don't know about the people that are COO for Kocka Pops,
but um, I guess she's been an uber fan for
a long time. And you know, because it was me
in a wig, it was I would have let you
inmost day. I would have known. I have a few
more and I want to. And we did a whole
intro here talking about the documentary and the song which
(53:35):
we're also featuring on the national show that I'm doing,
which is just great. It's in the not the beginning,
the credits, Forever and Forever, and then the the album
that comes out on the sixth. At the same time,
they call that a companion album. I'm just getting my
words right, right, guys, I did not know that, right,
Is that right, Mike? And accompanying accompanying? No, I don't know. Yeah, so,
And we spent time telling people how they can watch
(53:56):
it May six on Showtime. It is gritty, it is beautiful.
It is a documentary that you don't even have to
be a fan of you to like the art. And
I think that's how I try to watch them now,
because there's some really good ones out there. And the
fact that you didn't want to do that VH one
style says a lot about what you want to represent you. Um.
(54:20):
It reminds me a bit of when I read Steve
Jobs book and he wanted the documentary and the guy
was with him to write the book. He didn't want.
He was like, finish it before I ever get to
read it. I want you to do the most real
version that you can do. It just felt like that
is what you wanted portrayed. Whether you did or not,
it just felt like that you wanted because there were
(54:42):
some things, like I mentioned way earlier, that couldn't have
been comfortable to have to talk about again. But I
just my appreciation for that piece is super high, aside
from being a massive fan of you. So if you're
listening to this and you're not familiar with Cheryl's music,
it's just a great documentary as well. So who does
to your team? And for you for being very vulnerable
(55:02):
in that situation, it was I mean it was interesting
because I only watched it once and you know, you
you basically hand over your story to um a director.
Amy was fantastic, but you know, three fourths of it
wound up on the cutting room floor and I made
a couple of suggestions which did not make the cut
because they basically decided what the story was. And the
(55:23):
reality of it is for me is that I am
a real person. I think we forget that sometimes and
there's a whole world um that goes into making a
person particularly want to be an artist, particularly want to
raise their voices up into the fray. But also that
makes them who they are. And I didn't interview with
a guy recently UM for newspaper who said, I watched
(55:49):
the ninety minutes and it defied everything that I thought
about you. And that made me feel good because I'm like,
there are a lot of people that aren't fans but
that might get something out of it, and there is
a good story there, you know, and we are all people.
I think sometimes we forget, especially now more than ever,
that um, you know, at the core, you're just like
a little kid from small town. I have a few
(56:11):
brief questions to wrap this up. I would do want
to say at the beginning of this, this last segment here,
you got to be in the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame, like I mean, it's I well, I don't know.
I mean, I don't know how those things were. No,
I'm just saying I'm not. I don't think you can
call somebody and go like, hey, probably just said I'm in.
I know that can't happen. Jason Nisbel already did that.
(56:31):
It just it doesn't feel complete without you in it
and the body of work that you can present his data,
but also what you've done as a person. It just
feels like, if there is someone from our generation that
deserves to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
it is just you. Thank you. I don't you know,
(56:53):
I I it's hard for me to even say anything.
I mean, it's you know, it's I don't don't say yeah,
leave it at that. I mean, I appreciate you very much.
There's no reason I have had a great run. I mean,
I will say that. And you know, it's a weird
thing to be what they call a legacy artist because
it basically means you're still around. Um, but I do.
(57:15):
I'm loving the second half. I feel like I have
so much more in me. So you know, if I
if I become a member of the Rock Hall of Fame, cool,
If I don't, I still donna keep going talk about Nashville.
Why are you here? Well, I grew up three hours
from here. Um my sister lived here, has lived here
(57:35):
for years and years and years. When I got diagnosed,
I felt like I've been in l a twenty three
years and I don't even have a church. I just
felt like I didn't ever put any roots down. It
was always a stopping off place, and yet twenty three
years later, I was still there, and that was such
a game changer. I decided, you know what, I'm gonna
move closer to home. I can either move to Memphis
(57:58):
because there's an report, I can move from nash Field
and I have friends here, um, you know, Emmy lou Vince.
There were people I knew and that I loved, Amy
grant Um and my sister and I put down roots
here and it's just been an incredible place. Is it home?
Me home? Miss It's not home, but it is Nashville. Yeah,
I mean it's My kids are living a normal life,
(58:21):
you know, Like I said that, they're not on social media,
and they go to school like every other kid, and
they're living what I consider to be, you know, the
kind of life I lived. I don't know if anybody
will ever be able to live the kind of life
where you get on your bike and you come back
at dinner. But they are as close as possible living, Um,
the kind of life I did, which is a normal life.
Your kids there their faces in the documentary first time. Yeah. Yeah,
(58:46):
I was like wow, I've I've seen them in human form.
It being Nashville, Um, but I was like wow, So
what was that decision? Why? Well, yeah, I can't tell
my story without them, and um, they are the biggest
part of my story. I just had never had them
on social media because, you know, I felt like for
a long time celebrities use their kids like an expensive handbag, like,
(59:09):
look how beautiful my kids are? And and I did
find that when I lived in l A or at
least was there still with my little ones before I
sell my house, having paparazzi chase them around was There's
that's just not right. You know, I'd rather than be
able to be anonymous. And then if they want to
get out there, then at which point they're mature enough
to understand how it works, they can do that. So
(59:31):
that's one. Here's two or three? What's I did watch
the documentary? You have an appearance in it. Briefly? Do
you see that the documentary? What is it? What? Yes? Yeah,
I didn't see it, but yeah, yeah that real. You
were artist, you're separated a bit, right, But what was
it like for you? It was whatever I can tell you,
It was worse than that. Whatever you can envision. It
(59:53):
was absolutely awful. And it makes me sad because the first,
the very first one, obviously I wasn't at the second
one was I mean euphoric. It was such a beautiful
celebration of the first one. The next one was what
was wrong. It was everything with what was wrong with
what the music business was becoming, which was money, money, money, money,
(01:00:15):
and it was degrading to women. It was a demonstration
of the worst of what's in us, with people throwing
feces and throwing pennies and water bottles. It was just
a bizarre experience. And even the bill wasn't It was not.
It was not a bill that was sensitive to people
coming together and being a part of something cool and peaceful,
(01:00:39):
which is what Woodstock is emblematic. Is pretty pretty angry.
It was like Andy Dick and then Cheryl Crow and
then the insane clown Posse and it was just like,
what is happening here? I didn't even finish my set.
I mean, at which point Pecs landed on my my
base neck. I was like, yeah, you know what, I
(01:01:02):
was like, Yeah, I was. I just walked up to
the mic and I was like, I'm done. Okay, well yeah,
let's brutal. Let's end on this one. So it's uh,
I want to know what makes you happy? Now? Like,
where do you find your fulfilms. Oh my gosh, which
is a tough one. And then I want to at
the very end of that, in parentheses, how come all
my friends get to go to your barn parties. I'm
never gonna buy it, but let's get that at the
hold you will never happen again. And this is the
(01:01:24):
first real part of the question, like, OK, what is
it now that fulfills you? My joy? My joy comes
from just man watching my kids grow. It is such
an honor and such every day I'm like you, guys,
I'm so excited. I'm so happy I get to be
your mom. I mean, my kids are adopted, and I'm
telling you what God was all over, up and through.
(01:01:46):
And then we have a French bulldog that makes all
of us laugh. In fact, sometimes we look at each
other and go, who are we? Who were we before Buster?
We were no one? Um and barn parties, you know,
it's it's sort of tragic. I used to have barn
parties a lot. In fact, I used to always have
a Christmas party, and then it slowed down before the pandemic,
(01:02:07):
and then it screeched to hall. I just haven't gone back. No,
I'm just wasn't question, like you have all these and
I'm like, hey, what I was over you and Kate
have to come. I was like, oh yeah, that must
be cool. It's okay, let's do a fundraiser there and
you guys can play. We would let's sit in with you.
We would do that. You no, no, for Ukraine, I'm not.
I'm not. You wouldn't let me sit in on a day?
(01:02:28):
I would. I would be embarrassed if I would sit
in and do one and then and no one care.
I would love that. Here's what I would do. And
I'll tell you this because I have one of my
dearest friends is Brett Aldridge. It's like I love That's like,
oh my gosh, my best friend. I saw you guys. Yes,
his voice is kill It's fine. I've heard better anyway.
(01:02:51):
So I tell Brett all the time, like when you
want because you know when love is Christmas album? Okay.
When you have friends, there's that fine line of working
and business or what's the same thing working friendship? And
I'm like, hey, dude, if you're going to do some
sort of charity event like you're my guy, like I
love you, I will do stand up. I will host it,
you do the mute whatever, just let me know what
(01:03:12):
you need. And so I will also tell you that
right now if you're doing something here, let's do something
for Ukraine and you need that kills me, we can't
do anything. I will do comedy. I will do whatever
you need. If you're also I'll get the Valet Parker.
Don't feel like it's no, don't no. You gotta do
more than that. But I'll get the Martins barbecue. I
love what. I'll stop the bar what you stand for.
(01:03:33):
I just just a if you need me, please, I'm here.
I'm gonna call you. You know I would well, I
would be disappointed if you didn't, but you never have.
So I'm just gonna assume you not going to you
have I have to. I have to, like face what
do you do? You know? I'm always like telling Liz
does my LISZT you've got to post this and I'll
send her like something about something I just heard on
the Bobby Bone Show in the morning. Um okay, But
(01:03:55):
I'm here for you, all right, and and we'll end up.
And I don't say things if I don't minutes, So
don't go sitting on a microphone. So may not. I'm
I'm looking at you in the eyes right now. Let
me know you. I will take you up on it. Um,
everybody check out the documentary. It's great. It's just a
great piece of work, aside from her large body of
(01:04:16):
work that has been wildly successful. So May six on Showtime, UM,
and then May eighth again of Mother's Day, and I'm
assuming you'll be able to just stream it well on
the Showtime app streaming. Yep. I got the show Time
mapp to watch Yellow Jackets. Watched this. Oh my gosh,
you finish it? I have not? Have you started it?
I've started it, but I haven't finished. I'm in season one,
the only season one? Oh okay, but the girls that
(01:04:37):
crashed the plane? Yesh, sason one? Is there no another season? Okay?
Just one? But I want to watch the two in faith? Also,
what do you mean faith one? Do my faith? What
there isn't that the no? No, no, no no no,
that's not the precursory. No yellow jack Jacket. Oh no,
I haven't seen that. Two totally different shows. Okay, okay, okay, Showtime.
(01:04:58):
It's okay. It's a good just saw her high school
talking to the crashes and they have to survive. And
I've heard about yellow Stone. Okay, yeah, yes, yeah, and
then that's it. I'm sixty. See that's the way it works.
But that's the thing. You don't seem it. But I
don't even know what sixty means anymore, because it's not
a thing to be sixty, and that just means something
(01:05:19):
because of the number you are. But it has been
really fun talking with you, Billy. Thank you. I'll take it.
Did I call you something wrong? No, I'm just saying
I'm sixty, so I called you billy. I don't associate
sixty with old Okay, yeah, okay, I'll take it. So
I'll take a joke fell so flat because I didn't
even think that was what the concept was. Yeah, okay,
(01:05:41):
I'll tell you what you I'll stick with music and
then you just stick with comedy, and I want, I
want no, I'll try no, I'll try not to break
into the comedy thing because it doesn't really work. I'm
opening for Garth and we can have it. You are?
Is he playing a uh Bridge Stone? He's playing it
here in Nissan stadiums saying, but he asked me to
come to Arkansas. I was playing the Razorback Stadium, eighty
(01:06:02):
thousand people, and it's like, come dude, come oh, that's cool.
We're not gonna play Namas State though. I'm like, I'm
not gonna play Yeah. All right, there we go. Cheryl,
you're the best. Thank you kind to be here with you.
Thank you. Get your number. That is it, Cheryl Crowe.
Everybody
Host
Bobby Bones
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