Jon Nite (@jnitewriter)is a Grammy-nominated, CMA and ACM award winning singer/songwriter with 15 No. 1’s and counting. He dealt with many struggles in his life growing up without much in Texas, getting his girlfriend pregnant when he was only 16 and the repercussions it had on his father who worked in the church. Jon talks about what motivated him to move to Nashville to study music and pursue songwriting even when everything in his world felt like chaos. He talks about meeting Gabby Barrett for the first time and writing and recording “I Hope” together. He also reveals the real story of how Charlie Puth got added as a featured artist. And the first time he met Garth Brooks and why he apologized to Jon.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Fall in love with this girl in high school and
I get her pregnant, and it was crazy to me
to know the right thing to do, you know, and
to be this young and the like. You know, I've
just screwed up my future. In that moment, I thought,
welcome to episode three eight three. John Knight a Grammy
nominated c M A and a c M Award winning
(00:26):
Singer songwriter back John won the Triple Play Award for
three number one singles in one year. You've got fifteen
number ones here that I know of, including beach In
from Jake Oh and break On Me from Keith Urban,
Big on Me If I Told You from Darius This
(00:46):
we got a Grammy nomination, break Up in the End
from Coles Window, we break Up Living from Derek's Bentley.
A song that's on the chart now that will probably
be a number one is Gabby Barrett's new one, pick
me Up, Massive, Massive, hit Maker. He was born in Amarillo, Texas.
(01:07):
He moved to Nashville when he was eighteen with his
wife and a baby. You know, he's a food stamp
kid living a trailer for a portion of his life.
He had a dream to go to Belmont and you'll
hear how he actually made that happen. Part time jobs,
full time jobs, writing deals, finally songs recorded. I mean,
(01:30):
he's such a good singer too. So it's John Knight,
so so many number ones, like I felt like after
doing this, I was like, man, I can hang out
with this guy like I liked him like that. John
Knight Episode three eight three. Enjoy the newest episode of
the Bobby Cast. John, Good to see you. Buddy. Hey,
I'm pretty good at this point in your career, just
(01:50):
because I was just reading an article about a chart
issue from the seventies. But are you genuinely still interested
in music or as music weathered you to the point
of you know, maybe you don't. You're not your interest
has waned because you live it. I you know what
I I'll answer like this. I went to l a
couple of years ago for the Grammys, and I was
so interested in going behind the scenes and seeing like
(02:11):
Universal Studios and I wanted to see like where the
movies were made and stuff like that. So my wife
and I went and I was about an hour and
I was like, I hate this. I don't want to
know the behind the scenes of why I love these
movies so much and why I'm like so infatuated with
all these movies. But like in music, it's different because
it's therapy for me. I'm still I'm in love with
(02:35):
like the high that I get. I'm not like and
any other highs except for writing songs, and like the
day we reade a great song, I'm like, oh my god,
that'll sustain me for a while. Yeah, I still love it.
That's that's awesome to hear I at times, Okay, let
me switch it up then, But I don't love everything
that I hear. Absolutely, I'm not even asking that. What
(02:55):
I'm saying, do you ever go, Danny? I just wish
I could do like a project like right on some
rock records, or like right on some some comedy stuff
for hip hop tract or just something because you flex
the same not that you flex a series of the
same muscles every day, every thousands of songs about the
same kind of twenty subjects. Yeah, I mean I can
(03:18):
do that because I'm a shadow, I'm not the face.
I'm kind of like an enigma. We get to do
whatever we want as writers. Were kind of lucky, and
that we can change our personalities musically every day. I
went to l A a couple of weeks ago and
wrote with Ryan to like Ryan Tedder's studio, a buddy
of mine rights for him. We all kind of went
out there and hung and wrote crazy stuff. Was that
refreshing to you when you say crazy stuff? As Oh? Yeah,
(03:40):
it was like a breath of just like almost like
the way I fell in love with country music, like
living in Emerald, Texas. Everywhere you're in it, You're breathing
it everywhere you go. When I would go to l A,
I felt that newness and like the love of it,
Like I was listening to George Straight and all that
stuff way back when I fell in love with what
I do. But there was just like the novelty of
writing crazy easy stuff that there's no box, there's no
(04:02):
real you can say whatever you want, there's no bleeping,
there's just whatever the truest emotion you can possibly put
in a song, go for it. Oh also make it
like like as catchy as you possibly can. So I
was very very much like, God, this is an amazing situation.
And we are like six seven songs and three of
them already cuts, so that quick, and it was weird
(04:25):
for me that has been doing sports. I did sports
a lot when I was younger. I did a national
Fox Sports show. I covered the Draft for ESPN. But
for so long I just you know, I've been doing
this morning show and you know, we play a few
songs the morning, but still it's the same series of
muscles for the most part, and you do it five
days a week, five hours a day. And I was like,
(04:47):
you know, I think I'm gonna get back into sports now.
I still do the show and love doing my show,
and I love what it's a good and I'm on
and it feels great. Like you said about writing a song,
it's the most film and I get. However, doing the
sports show has been that it's fun where it actually
makes me better doing the o G thing because I remember, oh,
(05:08):
this is what it feels like for it to like
be super fresh, and why I love doing what I
do every single day. When you take a trip to
l A or you write something, does that remind you
how even though you do it all the time, Oh yeah,
I forgot, this is really awesome. I freaking you do
this all the time. You come back with like that's
the magic that I gotta find the magic back in
(05:30):
this and music changed even like the last couple years
changed so much from like you, I went through like
the crazy you know, where everything was like truck Girl
broke up, you know, the broke country thing. I like
came up with it, and I'm not I mean, I'm
from World, Texas on a ranch in the middle of nowhere.
I'm like, that's not really what I grew up as
(05:52):
you know, my dad's a preacher. That wasn't my life.
But I was able to like get into that and
then change through this this whole next phase. And I'm
still amazed that you know, I'm even here doing this craziness.
Are you though amazed or are you amazed that it's
still being done the same ish way? I understand your
cinema because I'm like, Okay, this is crazy. I'm amazed.
(06:13):
I get to do the show for two cities and
I can just g poor kid in Arkansas. I get
to make all this money now, and but then it's
you know what, I've worked really hard, I've worked really strategic,
I have taken big risks, I've figured it. So I'm amazed,
but I'm also like, yeah, this is what happens when
hard work a little bit of being fortunate, a little
(06:34):
bit of being around the right people come together. Yeah,
I think me and you both have done something that
is hard to do and continue to do. It's like,
I write songs that I think are like my life
as as much as I possibly can. You your show
is your life, and you guys like are way too
open and like there's a big diary of the last
twenty years of you online and everything. It's it's amazing,
(06:57):
but it also makes us like we're listening every morning,
we're not as alone. When I write a song, I
want to write something that's real, like where it's like,
oh I felt that, Yes, Like that's a good song
to me whenever I go that person speaking for me
and they don't even know they're speaking from yes, like
if I if I have, I've messed up a lot
of my life, like big and small and like all
(07:17):
different ways, but I'm putting them in in the songs,
you know, and like that's the only ones that ever
make it through all these other formulas, you know, with
the exception of like some of fun, they'll make it.
But most of the time it's the real stuff that
I'm living with my buddies or all of us are
just kind of like puking on the page and bleeding
right there on in the lines of the songs. And
(07:37):
that's what makes it cool to me when I'm listening.
And yeah, maybe that's what pop is going through a
similar thing in that vein where I'm like, oh, these
are like sound like real things that are happening to
these people, and and Pop's go into that vein tour.
It's very descriptive, like overly descriptive and almost to a funny,
like the color of the brand of ten issue on
(07:58):
the exact street corner that they got it on a Tuesday,
and that's fitted into the lyrics and it's like, oh wow,
well that was a clunky, but now it's so honest.
That's now I like it. It doesn't feel made up
because it's like too it's almost too fake to be
made up. It's gotta be real. There's gotta be real,
real stuff. And that I asked about the music part.
But when I walked in because I was again this
article I was reading was about artists who and I
(08:19):
do find myself being genuinely I still just love the
history of music more than I do the current of music.
Ause I live in the current. I got current coming
at me every day, all directions, and maybe ten years
i'll like this. I'll appreciate this more of now. But um,
I love the history of music. And I was reading
this article about these artists who only got to number
(08:41):
two on the Billboard chart, but they had written number
one for other people. And the Billboard chart is a
different monster than the country chart or the country chart.
They almost it's too I'm not gonna say easy, but
they give away too many ribbons. I feel I got
in trouble for saying that big time, big time. I
was like, these record labels talked to each other, and
(09:03):
they decided who's gonna get the one here, who's gonna
get the one there? And some of the songs should
be number one for a lot longer than that, and
some shouldn't even crack the top ten. So I got
a bunch of trouble. It is what it is. It's
behind the oz Is curtain. You're just like, whoa wait, wait,
I'm seeing and they should. Everybody got pissed it was.
It wasn't great anyway. So for example, Bruce Springsteen, I
(09:23):
did not know that on his first album, and I
wasn't a big I'm not a big Bruce Springstein guy,
and that makes me not cool because I know Bruce.
People like Bruce. I like the hits. But he wrote
blinded by the Light, Wrapped Up and the Guy Who,
and when he put it out it was not a hit.
But like Manfred Man's Earth Band put it out went
(09:44):
to number one, and he ever only got to number
two on the chart, Bruce Springstein never got to number one,
which to me is also crazy. There was another Bob
Dylan did it twice and the only song that he
ever had get to number one was one he wrote.
And so I'm re I'm kind of talking to this article,
and I was like, wow, this is so cool, this
is so amazing. And I catched myself times sometimes going man,
(10:07):
I'm still really into music. This is super cool. And
I love those moments where I go, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
I still love music because a lot of times I don't. Well,
I've I've I've gone through seasons where I just the
grind of this whole thing is is you know, you
write thousands of songs and three become hits. But I
was reminded I was with Edwin McCain a couple of
(10:29):
weeks ago, we opened up I love that dude. Amazing.
I love that dude. Yeah, I was with him and
we opened for Old Dominion, Um and the color They're
they're just but we uh we had a day where
we were like skiing with kids and cancer and then
we had a day sometime or it was just me
and him and Edward and I were just skiing together
and like talking about real life and like I was
(10:51):
asking about like the nineties and like I was so
into his voice as like just a singular instruments inspiring
to me. And I'll be was like my daughter one
of her first song she's saying when she was like
three years old, she just screamed at the top of
her lungs. I just remember that being such a magical
part of like, oh yeah, this was like a huge hit,
and um, so I'm singing. I was like, dude, you
still like you sing it better than I've ever heard
(11:13):
you sing it tonight and for all these people, and
He's like, you know, he just made me realize that
like it's magic. I mean, sometimes you just strike magic
and you can't like describe when it's coming. You can.
You just have to show up and then he's been
saying the same song for thirty years and knows it's
magic and has there's no bones about it. He's like, yeah,
(11:34):
I'm I'm in. I love doing every night. I'll do it.
I can't not do it everything anywhere I go, you know,
and probably sometimes he doesn't want to do it. Oh
it's so freaking high. Can you imagine saying that everything
I'm talking about just singing it all the time. But
he also I bet you got to phases too, where
it's like songs massive, you want to play it all
the time, but then you're in that middle stage where
it's like, I don't want to play this song. I
(11:54):
have other stuff I want to do. But then you
kind of appreciate once things don't go arrow straight it up,
You're like, man, I really just should have loved and
appreciated that lightning in a bottle that we and I
think he's there now, Yeah he's appreciative of it. Yeah,
and I follow my TikTok. He's hilarious. How did you
guys become friends? We were I don't know. I think
(12:17):
we were just doing these little rounds like so sometimes
like these songwriter city people like Mike who put this
all together for us, well, will be like, hey, can
you come to a private gig? And I met him
on one of those, and uh, we just kind of
like hit it off. And the next year we were
supposed to do the same gig and his his uh
I think his father died or his mother died, and
we all sang i'll be and sent a video to him.
(12:38):
So we just kind of like we've just kind of
become buddies, right, you know, So he's coming to town.
We're right with Lee Bryce next week or a couple
of weeks from now. He's just that's cool. And for me,
I don't know how old are you? Okay? Same right?
So we're same age, we heard the same music, influenced
by the same things. For the most we got napster, right.
We're that first generation that was able to grow up
on tapes and c d s and we have digital
(12:59):
music sick like we got to experience all that, right.
And so Edward McCain, when I first met him, I
was geeking out a little bit. I'll be honest, I'm
supposed to be cool. I'm not cool, like cool ever really,
but sometimes I play cool. But with him. I just
couldn't be that cool because when I was a kid,
I went to see him at Washedtall Baptist University, just
him and a horn player. That was the whole show.
(13:20):
But I was such a big fan that I was
probably geeking out a little too much, and he's like,
why are you geeking out on me? I'm like freaking
Nette McCain. And when you were killing it, like that's
when I was me and consuming everything. Do you ever
get around somebody like that where you're they're like, why
are you geeking out? I mean, you've done so much,
but you're still like, man, I'm a super fan. Oh man, Uh.
There's there's two times I've geeked out, like really hard,
(13:42):
and Jeffrey Steele was one. And he's a songwriter, so
it's not like I shouldn't be, but I just respect
the songs he's done so much that when I first
got an opportunity to meet him, I was like, oh, dude,
I don't even want to go over there. Um, And
then the other ones like I met John Mayer and
Garth Brooks, and Garth Brooks I met him at a
an az cap thing. I know, that's not like a
small guy to be freaked out about. But he he
(14:04):
was like really late to sound check, and We're all
playing on the same show, and I'm like, this dope songwriter,
yeah that like shouldn't be on the show anyways. But
I'm playing and he I'm waiting for an hour thirty
minutes until he shows up. And he doesn't show up
some I'm sitting there like we gotta I mean, I
gotta get somewhere about. The show is like way behind.
And he shows up and he's like, guys, I'm so
(14:24):
sorry I was stuck in traffic. Um, go ahead and
sound check because it's my fault, you know, I was
just sitting there in traffic. So I sound checked my
song break Up in the end, and uh. We sit
there and Garth stands at like two ft away from
my face and like standing on the edge of the
front of the stage looking at me, just like rubbing
(14:44):
his belly, just being all you know, garthy and awesome,
and I was just like, I can't, I can't do it.
I don't know if I can do this. Man. That
dude was like everything for me growing up, Like my
sister got tickets when when I was like ten years
old to go to Garth Pooks and Amilo and from
a friend of hers, and then at the last minute,
she she gave him way to a boy, you know,
(15:05):
and I was like, she was gonna take me, and
I literally was like crying as a little kids. So
to be sitting there sound checking and Garth's like, oh,
that's pretty good, you know. Yeah, Guard's awesome. Yeah, he's
he was like the real deal. So and and my
experiences with him of all, I just keep waiting for
him that to crack, honestly, because he's such such a
I mean, he's the biggest if you're just talking dad,
(15:28):
he's biggest selling American artists of all times. Ten time Diamond,
ten time Diamond Diamond, like the biggest song ever has
like seven million or something, ten time Diamond and probably records,
So wow, which is which is just I don't know.
No one will touch that ever, no, because he was
(15:48):
massive and now everything is so fractured. Obviously it's one
song and album. And when you talk about Garth's hanging
out and saying I was late to traffic. Late with
the traffic, we he had me come out and open
a show Razorback stadiums eight people hundred thousand people. Well,
he calls for a text me first from a number
I didn't recognize. I thought I had guards the number.
Apparently it's like eight numbers. He has one who knew
(16:11):
for every area code. And he's like, hey, many don't
you come out and open for me here? And I'm like,
who is this? It was April, the day before April
Fool's Day, right, and he's like, perfect, Yeah, it's Garth,
come open for me. It's people are Razor Back Stadium.
And I'm like, ah, shut up, who is this? Yeah?
(16:32):
This ain't Garth. And then I'm just like, nah, hey,
look if this really Garth called me after the show,
you know I'm on the air. I didn't think it
was Garth, but he freaking calls, Hey, man's Garth. First thing,
he goes, hey, you vaccinated? But that was the first question.
I'm like, yeah, sure him He's like, well, then here's
my question. You want to come? He was, but he's
just such a normal dude. When we were in sound check,
he came out and hung out. But I didn't want to.
(16:54):
I didn't want to play. I wanted him to get
off stay. I wanted him to go away because I
was embarrassed to know you're actually good. That's a difference.
I would be like. But I was like, gods, you
should go because I don't. I want you to realize
what you did by having me come out and do this.
You might rethink it. Yeah, he stayed too along the
sound check. There's Mike over here, Me here you. I
(17:19):
think we all kind of grew up with a trailer foundation.
I lived in either a trailer parks or a trailer
that was dragged to the top of a hill more
times than not. So Amarillo, Texas. Tell me about your upbringing,
where and how you live that kind of stuff. So my, uh,
my upbringing is literally like ridiculous, but um really sheltered.
(17:39):
My dad was a preacher early on, and we lived
at a ranch for like disadvantaged boys and outside of town,
probably forty miles outside of Amarello called cal Farley's Boys Ranch.
When I was a little kid, I might I remember
like being a rodeos and like wrestling with these you know,
wild kids, and a lot of them orphans and seven
hundred kids lived on this ranch. It was a working ranch.
(18:00):
And then you know, we just didn't have any money ever.
I just remember always having like this like this feeling of,
you know, I don't know if we'll ever make it
out of this oppression, that poverty is. I I read
your book and it was I like cried in certain
parts because I just have blocked most of that out
because you felt it. I felt like, yeah, I just remember,
(18:24):
you know, you know, And for a while, my dad
was like called to be a preacher. But then he
has his family, three kids, and we have no money.
He's making sixteen seventeen grand a year and we're living
in this little flat outside of town and like forty
miles away from everything, a truck that breaks down all
the time. And I remember him getting a real job
and moving into town, and I remember him like selling cars,
(18:45):
and then he was running a car dealership for a while.
And then the better his our life became, the less
I had a dad. And I just remember specifically at
the end of his like, you know, I was ten
years old, nine years old, and he was working ninety
hours a week to make us to get out of that,
you know. And then I learned one thing when when
(19:05):
he was he went over and did like a mission
trip to Russia when I was like ten, ten eleven
years old, and he came back just completely changed. I
remember he came back and said, you know, when they
went over they said that there's not a lot of
food in Russia. Was right before the fallow of communism,
was just crazy time where um, you know, Gorbor Chef
was like about to have a coup come after him.
(19:27):
But they didn't know that. They were just going over there,
you know, putting suitcases full of New Testaments and cover
them in t shirts and said, you know, trying to
hide them and bring him over. But they said to dad, hey,
bring some food, because you're not gonna have food there.
You're literally gonna have to pack food from what we've heard.
So they got over there and and he said that
he would go to these lines outside the grocery stores
(19:48):
and gonna be like two blocks long of people trying
to get in, and there'll be two shelves of bread nothing.
And so when he was over there, he started, you know,
giving out a Bible and didn't really with the Bible,
so he's like, why have food? And uh, when we
came back here, all this stuff that he traded because
they were so proud, they didn't want to just take
the food so he was like, well, here's a can
of peanut butter. And so one of the soldiers he
(20:09):
was talking to took the peanut butter and went up,
grabbed the Russian flag, the USSR flag off the pole,
folded it up, gave it to my dad and said here,
I'll trade you this for the peanut butter. And then
he took his hat off. And the next day another
guy took his watch off those the USS are issued
watch and I just remember him coming back to Amarillo
number one. We had a great laugh at that point,
(20:31):
I thought, um, and he was just like, I can't
keep doing this. I'm missing out in your life. I
feel like I'm called to be a preacher, and this
the fact that you go over there and that the
life is such that they would trade their flag of
their country for a can of peanut butter is crazy. UM.
So I just remember him at that point like starting over,
(20:53):
and he's like, I need to quit this. Um. We
lost all everything he and eventually became like preaching, and
we lost the house that we had, the nice car.
Everything kind of went back to square one and nothing.
But I was like kind of proud of him for
like starting over in the middle of his life, which
most people don't do, because he was miserable and he
was missing his kids lives, and I was just like, dude,
(21:15):
that's later on love. I look back, I'm like, dude,
that it's amazing to be He was running Don Judd
Dodge at the time, working eighty nine hours a week,
and then he goes from that to making twenty grand
and get We're getting shipped all around the country to California,
you know, just tagging along, trying to find a little
church that would allow him to preach and that kind
of thing. So I think I'm here and I'm thankful
(21:38):
for that because you know, he showed me you can
like start over at anytime. We get back to Texas.
When I was in high school and I was like wild,
you know. So I had my sweet sweetheart girl I have.
I still I'm hanging with her. But Krystal met when
I was fifteen, and by hanging with her, I've been married. Yeah.
I want everybody know you made by hanging and he
didn't be married. Yeah, I just hang. No, we've been
(22:00):
we've been heading for a while. We were inquired together,
you know, we were like super super cool. We weren't
like all state choir nerds or anything like that. But
we I met her on this, you know, and we're
back to being like dirt poor and Emerald, Texas and
I'm living with like eight d square foot house kind
of that kind of thing, but super happy. My parents
are happy, and they're working at a church, quite a
(22:23):
big church in town. And I fall in love with
this girl in high school and I get her pregnant,
and it was crazy to me to know the right
thing to do, you know, and to be this young,
and then like, you know, I've just screwed up my future.
You know. I had I aced all my essa t
s and all this kind of stuff, so I had
(22:44):
a lot of opportunities, and then I just saw myself
just kind of wreck it all. In that moment, I thought,
you know, so, and my dad, he's a preacher, and
I go into him and say that I got bad
news and you know, we're pregnant. I'm fifteen or sixteen
at the time, and I remember him just crying and
(23:06):
not being mad at all, just being like, we're here
for you whatever you need, just if you want to
get married. If you don't want to get married, we
don't care. We're here for you guys. I think, you know,
this is gonna be a massive change. But I just
was so enamored with the way he loved me, and
you know that it made me be like, okay, I
have to this is an amazing dad I have. I'm
(23:28):
so thankful for this, this dude that hasn't because I
think I would probably have been pissed it, probably screamed
to my kid and knocked him upside the ball cap
and be like years, you know, but he just did
it with such love that I was really affected by it.
And then he was very proud of us. And we
had a baby there, and I was in high school
and finished high school and worked, like, you know, from
(23:49):
twelve to seven, I worked at the plumbing company, and
I just really scraped by, and you know, I had
four or five jobs before that even But I remember
specifically he got fire from the church because he was
so forgiving and we were so public about it, and
I was, you know, he got fired from the church,
got fire from the church. So then it was just
(24:10):
one of those things where I was, you know, we're
sitting there, he doesn't have a job anymore, we're all
living in his house and well he was just you know,
it was bad. It was bad, I mean bankrupt. The
whole thing was just all evaporated in front of us.
And I just felt like this a massive amount of guilt.
It was my fault because I you know, in that
(24:31):
kind of Southern Baptist world that we lived in, it
was just not a good situation for me to be this,
you know, wild you know, sixteen year old kid. He
liked music and as a dad, now, I would have
to think that that season with your father, who was
very supportive at a time that was hard for everyone.
(24:53):
I would think, as you get older, this is just
me as signing my perspective to yours that it's just
you just respect it and like cherished that so much
now that you understand it as an adult even more
even though then you did as well. But now it's
gonna be a whole different version of you like loving
(25:14):
him and I can't put words to it because I don't.
It's it's so much emotion. I would just cry, it's crazy.
I'm so thankful that he reacted the way he did
and and he suffered great loss, and you know, he
went on to he moved when I was sent to
him to California. They started and I was just emancipated
and living my own life, you know, with my baby
(25:36):
and my wife. And then years later he told me
about my granddad and one of the reasons he was
so loving towards me was, you know, my granddad came
over from Germany. He was actually Poland, Germany, and he
was when he was a kid, his dad left. He
was an alcoholic. His dad left, and so my grand
father's mom I had to give them up for adoption
(25:57):
for a couple of years just to be able to
figure out when they came back from Poland. She was here.
Dad left, She couldn't work, she didn't know English hardly
she had learned English and go get a job. So
for two years, my granddad wasn't an orphanage with his sisters.
And he kind of told me that and it made
more sense to me. It's like, I don't want you
(26:18):
to be like granted, I don't want this to end
like that. I want you to you know, it makes
sense now, like why he was so loving and then
he's you know, he gets it, is your dad still alive? Yeah, yeah,
he's Yeah, he lives in Franklin. He was a he's here. Yeah,
he I moved him. Actually, yeah, we moved him. He retired,
he broke his back, and then he's had a lot
(26:38):
on health issues lately, so he was kind of forced
into retirement. So I found a house and I just
was like, you guys, come stay. I was gonna have
to move in with me, and my wife was like,
you realize, we're never gonna have sex again if they
move in. So we made alternate arrangements and very quickly,
and I'm thankful for that because I think it's very
healthy for somebody's been married for as long as we
(26:59):
had that we still and do stuff like that. It's
crazy you and your wife are married for If that's
the case, how long five years? I got twenty five
year old daughter, So okay, that's that's I say, that's why.
But my mom was fifteen when she had you know,
But when I think back, is that as a kid,
she wasn't young because she's my mom and she's older.
(27:19):
But then when I get older, and I'm like, that
would be like you would have like a twenty year
old right now? You know, No, I would have the
same as you're yes, my my wife's thirty one. Son,
that's it's weird. It's weird. My up. My daughter's boyfriend's thirty.
So I'm like, this is messed up. Something like I
(27:41):
feel wrong. I feel old and young at the same time.
That's wrong with So you moved here at eighteen, you're
you're you have a baby and a wife. Yes, when
did you get married? By the way, how old were you? Um,
we had to sign it off, Like my dad had
to sign me to get married at seventeen. Okay, so
when you're right before does he do that is part
of the emancipation process. When we go to get married,
(28:05):
he has to be there and literally like so make sure.
Otherwise it might have been like technically like my wife's
much older. I mean she's like eight months older. So
it might have been a little legal trouble, you know
what I mean. You're a ten you move here? Why? Why? Yeah? Exactly?
If I don't know now heard it was, I wouldn't have.
But I just told her. I was like, we're already
destut poor. We were looking at houses that were like
(28:26):
I was working on a plumber company. There was a
house was like twenty grand and the ghetto and email
and I was like, I don't know if I can
do this. This is my life. I can see my
whole life here. This is me. I'll be a plumber.
I'll make you know, fourteen bucks an hour, and you
know that'll be our life. But if we go to Nashville,
at least we maybe we could do something we enjoyed doing.
That was all that was my I want to do
(28:47):
something in a musical world that I enjoy doing. What
were you enjoying doing musical though? And Amarillo like, what
were you already doing at seventeen where you thought maybe
I could find something I like. I don't know. I mean,
my my family's really a good like way better than
me at music stuff. So did you play in church
or singing church? Yeah? From like five, they would have
me singing like harmonies and pretty easy. Oh yeah, it
(29:11):
was super easy for me. Did you play guitar? Piano?
I played violin because that's what they needed in the
family band, I think, or something I don't remember. But
if you can play violent, can't you pretty much play anything. Yeah?
I'm not good at violin, but I was. I could
play guitar pretty well, and piano. I was just I
would always my mom and she was a great pianis
so I'd fool around on like an old piano she had.
(29:31):
And did you know that you could make money in
Nashville other than being a singer? Like what did you know?
At a I just think of me at eighteen, I
didn't even know a songwriting was a thing. I did
not know. I just knew that I applied to belmont
On like this crazy whim and I was like, well,
I can go to college there and then maybe I
(29:51):
can do something like accounting and behind the scenes in music,
or like sell t shirts on the road or I
really didn't know. I didn't know the songwriting was a thing.
I had no idea. I got thought dominary when I
was a kid. I was like, these guys are geniuses.
This is all their songs, they're like so good. Yeah,
and Garth the same one. I didn't realize that was
that was like a profession at all, and never even
like when did that happen? Though? Where you did learn
(30:13):
that was a profession that you're shortly after moving here?
I was like, okay, this is this could happen. There
were several people I was like, lucky to be in
Josh Turner's class early on, and I saw him get
a record deal when he was like twenty something, you know,
And I was like, okay, so you and he was
writing songs with other people, and a lot of people
were getting publishing deals where they're making like thirty grand
(30:33):
a year. I was like, this is amazing. But how
do you even get in a class? So you move here,
you're eighteen, and I know my class. It's we all
got to the same time doing different things. But Dan
Shay before they were Dan and Jay, right, I knew
those guys and so but there's a whole group of
us that came in and we were all just like,
what the heck is, what do we do? What do
we do? Now? We're in Nashville doing different things, But
(30:54):
we came at the same time. And that's what I
really remember about moving here. These other people that it
just kind of started too. And but I knew what
I when I got here. I was already an adult,
but I knew what I was doing. If you're eighteen
or so and you just moved to town, one do
you find a house or department? And then where do
you start? When I was moving here, I was at
the last minute was not gonna come to Nashville at all.
(31:17):
I was just gonna stay in Texas. And a friend
of mine who was going to Vanderbilt, which luckily he
was a friend of here, and he kind of scattered
this place out. I told him I couldn't afford to
go to Belmont because I got like, I think I
had two thousand bucks a year I need or something
like that. It was a pretty much full scholarship because
I got lucky on when I sa teas and then
I sang for him and they're like, yeah, you were inquired,
you can. You can have a vocal scholarship. So you know,
(31:38):
I came here and I was like, I can't do it.
I tried. I looked at it. I was looking all
the figures and I was like, this is crazy. I
can't do this. So his dad called me and said,
what do you need. There's a check waiting, Just come
by and get it. Whatever it is. I don't care
how much it was. I was and at the time
I was making six bucks an hours, Like it's thousands
of dollars a year. You don't understand. And he's like,
I don't care, just come by. And he's the only
(31:59):
his I'm here. So when I got here, I had
that one friend, you know, in Vanderbilt world, and then
I quickly it was just immersed in the music classes
I was taking and those classes school. Yes, I thought
you meant like the class because that was not class.
Are you a literal class? Literally? And you were at
Josh tarn Over thing class with you? He was in
my vocal seminar. Yeah, there are four people in that
(32:21):
thing that ended up getting quitting school and getting like,
you know, publishing deals and whatnot. A couple of Christian
artists and before the mikescam when you were like, yeah,
as amazing my classes stuck and got a record deal.
That was Josh Turner. He did say that, dude, you
know what, he could make it rumble the seats. There
was not like a dry seat in the whole room
at that time. It was just like so amazing his
big voice. And then I would get up there and
(32:41):
I'm like a raspy and tinny and so that's how
you create a music community, literal school. That was for me.
So you see people doing it, which then she tells
you that you can do it. Yeah, And then I
thought it would just be easy I like they gave
us these opportunities to try out to be on records.
For I was on a record for Glenn Campbell when
I was a little kids, like eighteen or nineteen. I
(33:02):
show up to the studio and I have no idea
what I'm doing there. There's pizza there, and I was like, oh,
this is amazing. The little record was like a Christmas
record and got a Grammy nomination. I'm nineteen. I'm like,
I'm Grammy nominated. You know, this is the easiest ever.
But I never got further than that because I was
working at Sears and working you know, apartment complexes and
(33:23):
getting fired from jobs, and my wife was running. She
was throwing drinks down a bar and antioch, and so
I never was able to expand on that and go
and like get a publishing deal immediately. So when I
got out of school, it was I was did one
internship for Zamba Music and it was about to close down.
So I just bailed, and I was like, I quit
(33:43):
for years. Did you want to Did you want to sing? Though?
Because your your voice is so soulful and I'm sure
that you get compared vocally to a lot of people.
I don't know if you're gonna be I think it's
a good compliment or an insult. Like when you sing,
as I've heardasing like Darryl Hall, that that tone, that
soulfulness that kind of doesn't match, but it does. So
(34:06):
it's awesome. Like I feel that from you a little bit.
And so because you could do that, is that what
you wanted to do? I was very I was honestly
grateful to even be in Nashville. I didn't care. I
was never there, never was. In moment, was like, really,
(34:28):
I want to be a star because I knew that
I had screwed up so many times in so many
ways that just to be able to do this, I
was like, oh my god, I'm I'm thankful to be
able to write songs for other people and other people,
and I've got such anxiety. I can't imagine. I did
like a Chase rise to or opened up for Chase
for a whole season, and it was I was mortified
(34:49):
to go out in front of like five thousand and
six thousand people every night, but not really humble here. No,
I was like trembling. My hands were just like trembling
behind and then I would get out and it'd be
fine and it would go a well, And you know,
I just have a hard time having heard you sing.
And I hope you think that that Darryl Hall references
(35:09):
it feels it's amazing. Yeah, having heard you sing and
like rounds and that you would go out and beat
and mental health has nothing to do with the reality
of it. It really don't. I mean it's different, but
still when you see someone that's so good and they're like, yeah,
I'm I'm scared to go do what I'm really good at.
I just wish I had something I was good at
(35:30):
and I'm just like, what, how can you be good
at it and be scared to do it? And I'm
over here, I have a Swiss army knife, half doll,
trying to find anything to do. Where does that anxiety
come from? What are you an anxious kid? Or? Oh? Yeah?
I was like massly obese as a little kid. I
was like a hundred fifty pounds in fourth grade. So
I had these all these struggles that I was just
(35:50):
like coping with that until I was an adult, and
then I was you know, I'm still struggling with it
and trying to keep healthy all the time and working
out like crazy because my metabolism is just zero. But
that's not really that. You know what. My first publishing deal,
I turned in ten songs. It took to the record
labels and all the record labels said no, and a
lot of them said no because I was twenty five
and I had no hair. I shaved my head, so
(36:11):
I just thought, well, God doesn't want me to do this,
and I was really it was easy for me to
be like, Okay, I'm a songwriter that I was I
was never meant to be that, and I was pretty
at peace with that. And every time these things come up,
like they had a capital. A couple years ago, I
was like, you should do a record. I would love
to do a record, and I thought I was joking
because we're at a bar, and I was like, yeah,
(36:33):
that's funny. Yeah someday, Yeah, that's great. But I just
don't know that my soul is meant to do that
because you think though, if you'd have had and this
is about the compliment and a question, but again I'm
gonna say that one final time. You're such a good
thing or your your vocals are. The texture is a
little different, it's it's it's awesome if you would have
(36:53):
gotten a bit of positive feedback, just a bit. I
probably have done it. Yeah, so a lot of that
is bay Stan, what you felt the reality was off
a few do you wish you would have pushed through
that situation? Looking back? I'm a big fan of like
the gold you know rush era where they have like
Parker Snobble up on gold Rush Alaska and that TV
show and like all the guys from I've read a
(37:14):
lot about just weird stuff. But like in San Francisco,
all the people that made all the money, we're not
the people that were the ones holding the nugget in
their hand, you know, in the river. They were the
people that were selling them shovels, and they were the
people that were there auxiliary um And they weren't digging
in the dishes. They were home at night, sleeping in
the bed with their beautiful wife and having their families.
(37:34):
And the other people were out there on the mountain
digging and and losing sleep and like coming up bloody.
But they had the nugget. But the other people made
it possible. I'll do their thing. Yeah, that's I mean,
that's an awesome analogy because I was like, yeah, that's tupid.
But now now that makes all the sense in the world.
So I'm I hope I help people to be stars
(37:56):
and that's awesome. Do you want to love this? Do
you want what? You want? To be? Famous? Do you
answered so quickly again? No, dude, I'm telling you. Only
way I would be if I could be like Stapleton famous,
where it's like, do your own thing, not really have
to fit into this anything. You just kind of whatever
your soul, follow a sale that you you know, wind blows,
and do your thing. Yeah, that's cool. But other than that,
(38:17):
I'd like going to Target and nobody knowing, nobody caring.
It's fun. So when you play a show, if you're
playing let's let you're playing writers around and you're playing
your songs, I mean, are you getting fulfillment from that? Yeah?
It's fun. It's high, is it? To tell? You're about
as high as it's It's almost as high as writing
(38:37):
a great song, but it's like right below it. It
is below it. Yeah, even it's like five thousand people,
it's pretty cool. You've convinced me. I didn't believe it
at first, but you've convinced me. It's good. Dude. It's
a good life. Oh I'm not disagreeing with you. I
know what, the songs you've written, the lives you're doing
pretty good. Yeah, it's all right. Do you have any
(39:01):
number twos? I have several number twos, I think um
one of them that heard a little bit was with
the Chase Rice something was called Gonna Wanta Tonight. And
I had another song that was on the chart that
was the strip of down song for Luke Bryan and I.
I didn't know how things work behind the scenes, but
I think had I been smart, like called somebody on
(39:23):
Luke's camp and be like, I have the next one up,
but it just sat there and knocked it down. So
and I've had several that didn't go all the way
I had, Like, you know, it's a pretty good problem
to the next one up, dude, It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable.
I have one right now. I don't know what's gonna
happen with the Gabby song that I love so much.
It's gonna do great, Yeah, it's gonna be great. You
just never you never know. And I don't really know
either because I don't really do anything with the programming
(39:46):
side of it. But our show has such a big
imprint that I can play something and I can see
the difference. And also my management is Gabby's management. We're
like we're I mean, I worked together in American Idol,
you know. But I hope was that that was a
you deal that things crazy? Godle that was it was crazy,
(40:06):
like just from my world. It was crazy twice. And
I'll tell you there are only a few songs that
I ever here the first time and go oh, I
didn't expect that. That's awesome and it's catchy as crap,
And that was one of those songs because I was
just flipping, babe, I was on satellite or on the rate,
I don't know, but I hear. I hope, I hope
he does all this. I hope he did good stuff.
And I'm like, all right, oh yeah, yeah, good, oh good,
(40:27):
look Gabby, Gabby forever. Good for her. Good. Let's see
what this stuff, I hope, And then I hope it cheats. Oh,
holy crap, I was. I did not expect. That's so
only one of the few that that's happened where I'm like,
that is fresh. And so I want to talk about
this version of the song. Before I talked about it
going over to pop and what Charlie did to it.
(40:49):
But who is it? Who? Who would you write that with?
So it was Gabby, zach Kale and me on like
the day before Halloween or Halloween. But I had Zach
was I was trying to get into sign over at
Sony and I was trying to like somehow big brother
him and be part of his life and help him
and advise him. So I had him over and that's
(41:10):
how I found about Gabby. He was he was at
church with her or something like singing. He had on
his phones her singing like a sound check at church,
and that's how I heard her voice. I didn't hear
it on American Idol. I was just that he was
at my house eating dinner and he was like, check
this Scarlett. She's amazing. And I was like, that is
a great She's like I thought she was a black girl.
She had so much soul. I was like, wow, this
(41:31):
is insane. So I said, let's write with her one afternoon.
And that was it. That's how it was. That's how
it wasn't somebody from like that, because because again my management,
he went and like got her wreck, gotting chopped at
like he did the thing. And even when she was
living in Pittsburgh, Like I was doing a stand up
show in Pittsburgh and her and her sister and her dad,
they all came to the show and I was like, Gabby,
(41:52):
you did you have to move to Nashville? I think
on this show. I told her that before she moved
down here. I was like, she was like, I don't
have to in her like she's in Pittsburgh. But she
still does that like an effect on her voice, like
I don't have to move down there, like Luke says.
I'm like, no, no, I don't have to do you
have to Gabby? And then she moves down and you
see a video of all things, and that's how she
(42:15):
gets in the room with you. Yeah, it's weird. I
was asking him what artists. I was like, Zach, what
artists are? Like what do you love? Because I don't
know if any new stuff that I really am excited about.
We should just find something you love and and like
dive in and like really embrace it. And the first
song we wrote as I Hope and it was me
and him and Zack's like all right, and She's like
a dude, you know, he's got kids, and so I'm
(42:35):
sitting over here and looking like me and you and
Gabby who's twelve at the time or eight team or something,
you know, like two old dudes and Gabby, and we're
like talking, that's right. I will always love you like something.
She has such an amazing voice. Let's just like, you know,
acting like she's not in the room, and she's like, boys,
we're girls. Are not that nice? Can we do like
(42:56):
not do that much lovey dovey thing? You know? And
that's how the impetus from the first you know, handful
of lines that we had, we kept them, and then
we just flipped it and made it the chorus so
that we were like, oh, yeah, we're writing all these
nice things. Let's just keep them nice all the way
toil the end. And then we just stumbled into it.
(43:17):
And I hope he cheats, you know, whenever that comes out, whomever,
do you guys go, oh my god, that's it, or
do you go I don't know. It's so weird, it's
so different, you knew. I was so like, I was like,
I know in my gut the girls will scream this
at the top of their lungs and like throw their
(43:37):
water bottles out the window. They're so mad at an X.
I was like so, and I was I just saw it.
I never know. I didn't know about whatever she's got.
I don't know any any of the other half other songs.
I didn't know about We Were Us or any of
those other songs. Like when they were done, I wasn't like,
this is it, but that one we got done and
we're like the Sony Rider rooms. There was like a
pool table, were like hanging out by the pool table afterwards,
(43:59):
and and Za I was like, this is pretty good,
and Gabby was like I know. I was like, no,
this one's like, this is not pretty good. This is
like one of the best songs I've ever written. I'm
telling you this. I don't know how I know. I
just felt it. And they were laughing and like I
was like, oh, I'm not joking because I just had
gotten a number one for Breakup in the end, like
right when we wrote this, and so they were they
(44:21):
were like yeah, I'm sure whatever. And then I was
behind the scenes like calling everybody. I called Ross Copperman,
I called everybody Tom Lord, just don't let this one die.
Don't like let it fizzle and go away and you know,
so I was right, but it wasn't like really you
never know. I really didn't know, but I just my
gut was like screaming at me. You'd better say something.
(44:42):
It just felt different. It felt yeah. And so Tom Lords,
my manager, oh got so so he has Gabby and
I remember I just hearing it and I was like wow.
So I texted him and I was like, yo, because
I have nothing to do with picking songs for the
most part, I'm like, yo, that like that's it. It's brutal,
(45:04):
like I don't know what's gonna happen. That's it. That's song,
Like that's it. And he was like, I hope you know.
And then he's so funny. I hope. Yeah. He's like
like you never know, I hope. And so the song
you gotta give him credit. He ran up the flagpole
with that thing. He ran up the flagpole with her
and then ran up with it, and I was like, dude,
(45:24):
you're forgetting about me, Like, let's chill out. You know,
I'm in the coast Rica here, man, come come down
and visit me on set or something. Um. So, then
I hear the Charlie Pooth version, and all I remember
thinking is I heard like like a run at the beginning.
I was like, wait, that's not in this song. And
so I hear it, I'm like, okay. So I asked
somebody I don't know who told me this, and you
(45:46):
can tell me if it's true or false. I believe
it's true even if you say false. And I'm I'm
supposed to know if I share this. I don't have
a filter, so I'll tell you the truth. Yeah. And
and this could be partially off or maybe this story
has been discussed in public, but from what I know,
Charlie just message Abbey and I was like, Hey, that
sounds awesome. Can you send me like some of the
stems that was it? Yeah? And then she they she did,
(46:08):
but didn't really know what was And then he just
sent it back and was like I did this. She
asked Zack and uh, and I was like, should I
do this? And we said it's Charlie Pooth. Yes, I mean, yes,
amazing it stems. Uh, let me like all the tracks
behind the musical. And what's funny about that song is
(46:28):
those stems ended up being what um Zack and a
couple of our buddies did that day for the demo,
they just a lot of those just got passed over,
and Wrath Like Ross took those and added bass and
drums and stuff like it. Her vocal from that record
was the demo vocal. It was literally one or two
takes of that demo, that's how good she was on
(46:49):
that day. And I didn't really realize how powerful her
voice was because I had to go trick or treating
with my little man, so I didn't hear the whole
vocal until I just got it, you know, and I
was like, oh my gosh, this is insane. So when
you get the Charlie version, it's crazy. I didn't even
know if it made sense at first. I was like,
does this make sense? This is amazing. I'm in and
(47:12):
did you wonder if you because I get it, You're like,
does this make sense? Though? I love it so much
because it's sounds good, but does it also still make sense? Yeah,
as as the story, so that again, it's it like
was allowed to breathe a new, bigger life because it
became a monster pop song too, and you guys didn't
have anything again. He just sent it back right, was like, Hey,
(47:35):
this is it. I hope you like it. Yes, And
what's crazy in those situations like Nashville is a different
place for the artist if if they change a line,
if they do stuff to the song, they're very kind
about it. Typically they know the writers don't have any
touring income and they're you know, our life is whatever
(47:55):
the song is. And a lot of times in l
A that's different, they will they will take a large
portion of the song. Um and I fully expected a
name like that who just had up a huge couple
number one worldwide number ones to take a big part.
He was so completely fair and like what he asked
for on the song that I was like shocked. I
was shocked, and I said that, yeah, that's great, no question,
(48:16):
don't even negotiate, do it because he's adding so much
interest to it that it makes it so fun for
me to be part of. You know, I think we
all grew up listening to the country and pop and
like hip hop and everything. So it didn't really like
rubbed me wrong to have him on there. It was awesome.
I was like, oh, another another cool like avenue for
(48:38):
this song, but I never felt weird about it because
it's cool. Gabby also could do both while not losing
her integrity because she naturally is that, but she sings
and so that I guess I never even thought about
that because there are some songs. You know, whenever uh,
George Jones put Snoop Dog on a record. Now, I'm
(48:59):
just saying that to not not really is that a record? No,
not really to point you figering anybody, but when somebody
really and then they put on a hip hop artist
and it doesn't make sense. You're like, I get what
you're where you're trying to go, but it doesn't really work.
But with Gabby that works because you her integrity is
she could kind of straddle that line like carry and
(49:22):
not to not to compare them because of both blonde,
big singers, but Carrie could do the same thing and
did the same thing for so long that we believed it,
and she did pop in country because it was true
and it makes her audience, you know, maybe it pulls
a lot of her audience into that world that But
I think more than anything, people discovered Gabby because oh Charlie,
(49:46):
I know, Charlie, what's Gabby? Okay? Oh wow, this is amazing.
So I think it helps help both of them. Honestly,
you know what song I like, is you got the
Moji whatever? David, Yeah, whatever She's Got right, that's what's on.
(50:07):
That's a really good song. It was fun. That was
a that's a long time ago. Yeah, like nine eight
or nine ten years ago? Even was was that one
of your first number ones? That was like maybe there
was a second number one. But we wrote it first.
We wrote it like it was before I had um
but on back for Dirks and then I had like
a song really like earlier called Glass for Thompson Square.
(50:31):
But Whatever She's Got was the one wherever. But it
was like okay, Like Luke called me and it was like,
can you want to write I like this daven Neil song.
Gonna write some songs. You know, people are other artists
heard it. Yes, it opened my every door opened from
that song, all the Keith stuff. You know. It was
partially because of that. Keith actually was going to cut
(50:52):
that song and I think he put a vocal on
that song, but then it just didn't feel like his
project he was doing at the time, and they were
all working together in the same and David na was
on the same record label. And thank god, David cut
it and sings higher than anyone ever hear that song. Yeah,
it feels like brand new. It's crazy. Uh, when you're
talking about Keith, I just want to talk about choruses.
(51:14):
But I want to a couple of the key. Well,
the one for sure is the the times Possible Miranda Keith,
the Randy we were us, Yeah, were straight melody here
yea or lack of melody for menut I'm nailing I'm
nailing it. What's what's the key in your mind to
(51:34):
a chorus working melodically, because there, you guys, there's some
strong ones. It just depends like most of it is
like what moode I'm in that day, but I'm always
That song was all about the feeling and up tempo.
And we tried to write that song in the morning
with Thomas, Rhett, Me and Jimmy like played him a
(51:55):
little thing which is two lines from that chorus and
he was having like his to day was not going well.
He got a call from his label. He was like,
hell hillacious. So we wrote a different song or half
of a different song that day. We were like four
half songs and then he's like, I gotta go. So
in the afternoon Nicole came in and we wrote that
little chorus to finished that out and she's like, well,
(52:16):
I would love to do this as a duet. I've
had people asking for duets, and so a lot of
it was Nicole and I come from a similar background.
She's like from the middle of nowhere. I'm from the
middle of nowhere. So we're just like, let's talk about
our towns, but not put anything in between them. And
so that melody, I think is almost a non melody.
It's like a couple of notes. They are just so
in that the tension of the pulling on the different
(52:38):
you know, it's all about tension for me. The chords
major and then they'll be a little bit of tension
because they'll be one that's right out of the court
and pulls back down the whole time, and that kind
of like mentally feels like catchy. Um. And then there's
melodies like uh, you know, break up in the end.
That course melody is very high and very like start
slow and goes crazy high, you know. And I I've
(53:00):
always liked like Somewhere over the Rainbow and songs with
actual crazy melodies, um, but those are not in our
genre all that as common because it's so lyrically heavy
and lyrically driven. You can't fit as many lyrics and
those kind of melodies a lot of times. So you
write melody not all the time university, But would you
prefer to or does it come to your melody first
(53:21):
or lyrics first? Just those two will keep story just
melody or lyrics first first. Um, yes, yes, no, I
think most of the time it's it's uh, it's lyric form, ma'am.
I'm very much. Do you keep lyrics in your phone? Yeah?
Oh yeah, it's like never ending all day. It's annoying. Actually,
(53:41):
every movie, every single TV show, every time I talk
to anybody. It's just like a annoying habit sponge. My
parents think that I'm like a jerk sometimes because I'll
be on my phone and I'll be literally like writing
down things they've said, and like, you should probably get
off your phone sometime I'm working. I do that too.
It I'm just on Twitter and tell my wife I'm
writing songs. It's exactly. Yeah, you actually look at electric cars, no,
(54:07):
you mentioned to just talking to people that I really
think are good and admire professionally also and with a
bit socially. Is Nicole Galleon, Ross Copperman both and have
you worked with both of them a lot? Yes? They
were very early on with like like you have your buddies,
your class. Then and Shaw you know that's my first,
(54:29):
one of my first co writes after getting a deal
with Nicole um and she was like, I don't even
know if I can do this, and she was an
assistance of some manager. And you know, we've known each
other a long time. And then Ross maybe the third
or fourth co write in town. You know that he
was in town. I was years before that. But do
you guys still right together? Yes, all the time. Really, Yeah.
(54:51):
I wrote with Ross and Brett Young yesterday and Nicole
and I wrote, you know, probably once a month. You know.
So I've never actually revealed this, but I can, and
this won't be the I mean, who cares, so so
you may with Ross from kid it was just Ross, yeah,
not Nicole. Oh yeah, it was a good one. That
So this is where you came up in my life
(55:14):
and it probably never got to you but a few
years ago, maybe four because the pandemics kind of yeah,
we shaped we the duck two years from life. Yeah,
it's tough, but maybe four years ago, I was talking
with Ross and I said, hey, I have this idea.
I was watching the news. I was watching like sixty
minutes and one of those news type shows that goes
on and in Japan they have this hologram that was
(55:38):
a pop star. Huh and like a dead pop star Nope,
created she never existed, but it was a hologram of
a character that was also a pop star. Perfect and
she was selling tickets to these shows. And so I
go to Ross and I say, hey, man, I watched
(55:59):
this story. Why could we not do this, But here's
ten openers on ten different tours. It's a hologram like
h So to him, like as a kind of a
business idea, I say, and there's a hologram. Now, I say,
(56:19):
this business model doesn't cost much to do. I mean,
I have no idea to make a hologram. It can
be a cartoon. In my mind, it doesn't matter. We
can have this fictional cartoon, not real human. We can
have it have a hit, but we can send it
on towards ten people at the same time as the
baby act, and you just need to come people to
run it all good And he's whomever at the time
(56:40):
it's just like it's just like let's and Ross' is like,
oh you know, Ross. Oh, I'm like, it's like a
money machine. Pull the handle. And Ross said, oh, what
do we do? And I'm well, let me have some
time on this. And I'm just thinking, how do we
make this work? And I go, okay, well if we
(57:03):
have some songs, I know the people that can do
the visuals. But somehow we've got to make the product
really good. To make everything else work. The songs you
have to have hits. It's like anything. If you don't
have the song, you have digitally, gotta have the song.
Got So I say to Ross, let's just go let's
just write some songs and not say anything about it,
(57:23):
and we'll create this this group. But they'll never know
our identity. Terrible, terrible. And he's like oh yeah. And
so I said, who do we Who should we do
this with? And he says, okay, I got a couple
of ideas and he says Nicole and you, oh yeah,
because because he he just loved he loved loved what
(57:46):
loved you, love what you did. And he was like, well,
we shouldn't do it with a big group because somebody
will tell because we all sign India's and he goes,
we need a girl. He goes and they're both excellent. Awesome.
He goes, let's talk to Nicole Andy, but we bring
John if Nicole wants to do it or doesn't. We
we hadn't never planned. So we called Nicole, called her
first two and she's like, I'm in. So we spent months.
(58:10):
No way, this is not real, this really happened. This
is we didn't talk about. I've never revealed. This is
amazing and Nicole. I took Nicole to perform once. I
was hosting the Today Show for a week and so
I took her up to perform on the show. I
was like, come up and perform. Then let me bring
in whoever I want. And so I said, hey, I'm
gonna bring up the Neon people. Stuff that's called Neon people.
Oh my god, I've never said that. It feels like
(58:31):
I'm saying a bad word. I think I heard this
in the backwoods of Alabama driving down to the beach
one time. You probably did. And I texted her and
she denied it was her. We couldn't we couldn't say
anything about it. I was like, I know you this
is you. I heard it. Me and my wife were
jamming it loud people. We wrote these songs and we
(58:51):
were just about too and I remember we were just
about to call you too. We've written like three or
four and cut them. And then Nicole got the running
that label and she was like, I can't do this
in more and we're like no, we just spent all
these months writing all these songs. We would go to
Ross's house. Now you know what it's like to be
a songwriter. Oh my god, I spent months and you
have no hit. It's like, it's great. We recorded, We
(59:12):
put them out there on their on streaming services Spotify,
the hundred thousands of listen, but you Yeah. My point
is I'm so close with and neither one of them
has ever told me. I've never said anything about it.
I spent hours across from him on a weekly basis,
and no one's ever seen anything that's on. That's a
good end. So and we just wanted it the integrity
(59:33):
of it. We wanted it to nobody to know because
I wanted to put out these songs that were super positive.
You like, well, I'm gonna show you. I'm pulling it
up here. So it was Neon PPL. We we had
the whole thing and so I guess they've changed the
background on it. But well there's no hologram here. But
that was that was the deal. Like one Little Town's
(59:54):
got three forty thousand views, and it was all to
be anonymous and put out positive then create, they create
the hologram, make much money, right So but yeah, that's
where you came up, dude. That's my kind of artistry
right there. We didn't anybody know it was us. I
could still raise my babies, you know, I cannot have
to get on but but it was. But it was you.
You were almost in this failed venture. Thank you for
(01:00:15):
saving me three months of my life writing songs that
no one heard. That's amazed. But you people heard those
for that one. Yeah, but if you're heard Nicole singing
on something, that was it. I texted her. She she
blatantly non lied, but she didn't really acknowledge it. She
would not say that. It was hurt and we crazy.
We did it and we are not selling holograms anywhere.
(01:00:38):
But it was a fun experiment. Well I'm glad. I'm glad.
I like going to a show and then somebody like
messing up and like it feels real. We can have
the hologram mess up too. That was part of the plan,
like the wrong chord. I'm sorry. It would be cool
if the pogram just falls off the stage and all
of it. That. Look, you're extremely successful in many ways.
(01:00:59):
You're inspiring, but not quite on the Neon people train.
You know, you can still write some songs for us.
I'm in, I'm in. Um you guys follow Ja night
Rider j N I t E Writer on Instagram. Um.
In the intro we did for you, we talked about
a lot of your songs. So that's all there and
right now that your other Gabby songs on the chart
(01:01:20):
we talked about a minute ago and and I told
you I feel good about it. So I asked that,
are you in the Gabby camp now? I think so? Yeah.
Like who she trusts and when it's like we need
to focus with people that I believe in, she calls you.
She definitely is like very thankful that we were kind
of believers and you know early and you know, she
asked me about getting married early. Know, like stuff like
(01:01:41):
that you would ask you know, an uncle or a boddy.
You know, that's awesome man, she's sweet. Well, I've really
enjoyed this. I would have enjoyed it more if we'd
been in Neon People together. But it is one. It is,
it's ever too late. It's you know, it is it is.
There are no rules. It's like pop it's there are
no rules. It's open. Uh, dude, good to talk to you.
Congratulations on everything. Thanks for inspiring everybody. Oh I didn't
(01:02:04):
do the same. Same for you, man, It's really cool
to have you up here. And you know, I got
to tell you that's a pretty cool looking pet shot
you have there. I took it on an iPhone. You did, Yeah,
you do photography? Oh alright, no mine? Alright, John night, everybody,
thank you.
Fall in love with this girl in high school and
I get her pregnant, and it was crazy to me
to know the right thing to do, you know, and
to be this young and the like. You know, I've
just screwed up my future. In that moment, I thought,
welcome to episode three eight three. John Knight a Grammy
nominated c M A and a c M Award winning
(00:26):
Singer songwriter back John won the Triple Play Award for
three number one singles in one year. You've got fifteen
number ones here that I know of, including beach In
from Jake Oh and break On Me from Keith Urban,
Big on Me If I Told You from Darius This
(00:46):
we got a Grammy nomination, break Up in the End
from Coles Window, we break Up Living from Derek's Bentley.
A song that's on the chart now that will probably
be a number one is Gabby Barrett's new one, pick
me Up, Massive, Massive, hit Maker. He was born in Amarillo, Texas.
(01:07):
He moved to Nashville when he was eighteen with his
wife and a baby. You know, he's a food stamp
kid living a trailer for a portion of his life.
He had a dream to go to Belmont and you'll
hear how he actually made that happen. Part time jobs,
full time jobs, writing deals, finally songs recorded. I mean,
(01:30):
he's such a good singer too. So it's John Knight,
so so many number ones, like I felt like after
doing this, I was like, man, I can hang out
with this guy like I liked him like that. John
Knight Episode three eight three. Enjoy the newest episode of
the Bobby Cast. John, Good to see you. Buddy. Hey,
I'm pretty good at this point in your career, just
(01:50):
because I was just reading an article about a chart
issue from the seventies. But are you genuinely still interested
in music or as music weathered you to the point
of you know, maybe you don't. You're not your interest
has waned because you live it. I you know what
I I'll answer like this. I went to l a
couple of years ago for the Grammys, and I was
so interested in going behind the scenes and seeing like
(02:11):
Universal Studios and I wanted to see like where the
movies were made and stuff like that. So my wife
and I went and I was about an hour and
I was like, I hate this. I don't want to
know the behind the scenes of why I love these
movies so much and why I'm like so infatuated with
all these movies. But like in music, it's different because
it's therapy for me. I'm still I'm in love with
(02:35):
like the high that I get. I'm not like and
any other highs except for writing songs, and like the
day we reade a great song, I'm like, oh my god,
that'll sustain me for a while. Yeah, I still love it.
That's that's awesome to hear I at times, Okay, let
me switch it up then, But I don't love everything
that I hear. Absolutely, I'm not even asking that. What
(02:55):
I'm saying, do you ever go, Danny? I just wish
I could do like a project like right on some
rock records, or like right on some some comedy stuff
for hip hop tract or just something because you flex
the same not that you flex a series of the
same muscles every day, every thousands of songs about the
same kind of twenty subjects. Yeah, I mean I can
(03:18):
do that because I'm a shadow, I'm not the face.
I'm kind of like an enigma. We get to do
whatever we want as writers. Were kind of lucky, and
that we can change our personalities musically every day. I
went to l A a couple of weeks ago and
wrote with Ryan to like Ryan Tedder's studio, a buddy
of mine rights for him. We all kind of went
out there and hung and wrote crazy stuff. Was that
refreshing to you when you say crazy stuff? As Oh? Yeah,
(03:40):
it was like a breath of just like almost like
the way I fell in love with country music, like
living in Emerald, Texas. Everywhere you're in it, You're breathing
it everywhere you go. When I would go to l A,
I felt that newness and like the love of it,
Like I was listening to George Straight and all that
stuff way back when I fell in love with what
I do. But there was just like the novelty of
writing crazy easy stuff that there's no box, there's no
(04:02):
real you can say whatever you want, there's no bleeping,
there's just whatever the truest emotion you can possibly put
in a song, go for it. Oh also make it
like like as catchy as you possibly can. So I
was very very much like, God, this is an amazing situation.
And we are like six seven songs and three of
them already cuts, so that quick, and it was weird
(04:25):
for me that has been doing sports. I did sports
a lot when I was younger. I did a national
Fox Sports show. I covered the Draft for ESPN. But
for so long I just you know, I've been doing
this morning show and you know, we play a few
songs the morning, but still it's the same series of
muscles for the most part, and you do it five
days a week, five hours a day. And I was like,
(04:47):
you know, I think I'm gonna get back into sports now.
I still do the show and love doing my show,
and I love what it's a good and I'm on
and it feels great. Like you said about writing a song,
it's the most film and I get. However, doing the
sports show has been that it's fun where it actually
makes me better doing the o G thing because I remember, oh,
(05:08):
this is what it feels like for it to like
be super fresh, and why I love doing what I
do every single day. When you take a trip to
l A or you write something, does that remind you
how even though you do it all the time, Oh yeah,
I forgot, this is really awesome. I freaking you do
this all the time. You come back with like that's
the magic that I gotta find the magic back in
(05:30):
this and music changed even like the last couple years
changed so much from like you, I went through like
the crazy you know, where everything was like truck Girl
broke up, you know, the broke country thing. I like
came up with it, and I'm not I mean, I'm
from World, Texas on a ranch in the middle of nowhere.
I'm like, that's not really what I grew up as
(05:52):
you know, my dad's a preacher. That wasn't my life.
But I was able to like get into that and
then change through this this whole next phase. And I'm
still amazed that you know, I'm even here doing this craziness.
Are you though amazed or are you amazed that it's
still being done the same ish way? I understand your
cinema because I'm like, Okay, this is crazy. I'm amazed.
(06:13):
I get to do the show for two cities and
I can just g poor kid in Arkansas. I get
to make all this money now, and but then it's
you know what, I've worked really hard, I've worked really strategic,
I have taken big risks, I've figured it. So I'm amazed,
but I'm also like, yeah, this is what happens when
hard work a little bit of being fortunate, a little
(06:34):
bit of being around the right people come together. Yeah,
I think me and you both have done something that
is hard to do and continue to do. It's like,
I write songs that I think are like my life
as as much as I possibly can. You your show
is your life, and you guys like are way too
open and like there's a big diary of the last
twenty years of you online and everything. It's it's amazing,
(06:57):
but it also makes us like we're listening every morning,
we're not as alone. When I write a song, I
want to write something that's real, like where it's like,
oh I felt that, Yes, Like that's a good song
to me whenever I go that person speaking for me
and they don't even know they're speaking from yes, like
if I if I have, I've messed up a lot
of my life, like big and small and like all
(07:17):
different ways, but I'm putting them in in the songs,
you know, and like that's the only ones that ever
make it through all these other formulas, you know, with
the exception of like some of fun, they'll make it.
But most of the time it's the real stuff that
I'm living with my buddies or all of us are
just kind of like puking on the page and bleeding
right there on in the lines of the songs. And
(07:37):
that's what makes it cool to me when I'm listening.
And yeah, maybe that's what pop is going through a
similar thing in that vein where I'm like, oh, these
are like sound like real things that are happening to
these people, and and Pop's go into that vein tour.
It's very descriptive, like overly descriptive and almost to a funny,
like the color of the brand of ten issue on
(07:58):
the exact street corner that they got it on a Tuesday,
and that's fitted into the lyrics and it's like, oh wow,
well that was a clunky, but now it's so honest.
That's now I like it. It doesn't feel made up
because it's like too it's almost too fake to be
made up. It's gotta be real. There's gotta be real,
real stuff. And that I asked about the music part.
But when I walked in because I was again this
article I was reading was about artists who and I
(08:19):
do find myself being genuinely I still just love the
history of music more than I do the current of music.
Ause I live in the current. I got current coming
at me every day, all directions, and maybe ten years
i'll like this. I'll appreciate this more of now. But um,
I love the history of music. And I was reading
this article about these artists who only got to number
(08:41):
two on the Billboard chart, but they had written number
one for other people. And the Billboard chart is a
different monster than the country chart or the country chart.
They almost it's too I'm not gonna say easy, but
they give away too many ribbons. I feel I got
in trouble for saying that big time, big time. I
was like, these record labels talked to each other, and
(09:03):
they decided who's gonna get the one here, who's gonna
get the one there? And some of the songs should
be number one for a lot longer than that, and
some shouldn't even crack the top ten. So I got
a bunch of trouble. It is what it is. It's
behind the oz Is curtain. You're just like, whoa wait, wait,
I'm seeing and they should. Everybody got pissed it was.
It wasn't great anyway. So for example, Bruce Springsteen, I
(09:23):
did not know that on his first album, and I
wasn't a big I'm not a big Bruce Springstein guy,
and that makes me not cool because I know Bruce.
People like Bruce. I like the hits. But he wrote
blinded by the Light, Wrapped Up and the Guy Who,
and when he put it out it was not a hit.
But like Manfred Man's Earth Band put it out went
(09:44):
to number one, and he ever only got to number
two on the chart, Bruce Springstein never got to number one,
which to me is also crazy. There was another Bob
Dylan did it twice and the only song that he
ever had get to number one was one he wrote.
And so I'm re I'm kind of talking to this article,
and I was like, wow, this is so cool, this
is so amazing. And I catched myself times sometimes going man,
(10:07):
I'm still really into music. This is super cool. And
I love those moments where I go, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
I still love music because a lot of times I don't. Well,
I've I've I've gone through seasons where I just the
grind of this whole thing is is you know, you
write thousands of songs and three become hits. But I
was reminded I was with Edwin McCain a couple of
(10:29):
weeks ago, we opened up I love that dude. Amazing.
I love that dude. Yeah, I was with him and
we opened for Old Dominion, Um and the color They're
they're just but we uh we had a day where
we were like skiing with kids and cancer and then
we had a day sometime or it was just me
and him and Edward and I were just skiing together
and like talking about real life and like I was
(10:51):
asking about like the nineties and like I was so
into his voice as like just a singular instruments inspiring
to me. And I'll be was like my daughter one
of her first song she's saying when she was like
three years old, she just screamed at the top of
her lungs. I just remember that being such a magical
part of like, oh yeah, this was like a huge hit,
and um, so I'm singing. I was like, dude, you
still like you sing it better than I've ever heard
(11:13):
you sing it tonight and for all these people, and
He's like, you know, he just made me realize that
like it's magic. I mean, sometimes you just strike magic
and you can't like describe when it's coming. You can.
You just have to show up and then he's been
saying the same song for thirty years and knows it's
magic and has there's no bones about it. He's like, yeah,
(11:34):
I'm I'm in. I love doing every night. I'll do it.
I can't not do it everything anywhere I go, you know,
and probably sometimes he doesn't want to do it. Oh
it's so freaking high. Can you imagine saying that everything
I'm talking about just singing it all the time. But
he also I bet you got to phases too, where
it's like songs massive, you want to play it all
the time, but then you're in that middle stage where
it's like, I don't want to play this song. I
(11:54):
have other stuff I want to do. But then you
kind of appreciate once things don't go arrow straight it up,
You're like, man, I really just should have loved and
appreciated that lightning in a bottle that we and I
think he's there now, Yeah he's appreciative of it. Yeah,
and I follow my TikTok. He's hilarious. How did you
guys become friends? We were I don't know. I think
(12:17):
we were just doing these little rounds like so sometimes
like these songwriter city people like Mike who put this
all together for us, well, will be like, hey, can
you come to a private gig? And I met him
on one of those, and uh, we just kind of
like hit it off. And the next year we were
supposed to do the same gig and his his uh
I think his father died or his mother died, and
we all sang i'll be and sent a video to him.
(12:38):
So we just kind of like we've just kind of
become buddies, right, you know, So he's coming to town.
We're right with Lee Bryce next week or a couple
of weeks from now. He's just that's cool. And for me,
I don't know how old are you? Okay? Same right?
So we're same age, we heard the same music, influenced
by the same things. For the most we got napster, right.
We're that first generation that was able to grow up
on tapes and c d s and we have digital
(12:59):
music sick like we got to experience all that, right.
And so Edward McCain, when I first met him, I
was geeking out a little bit. I'll be honest, I'm
supposed to be cool. I'm not cool, like cool ever really,
but sometimes I play cool. But with him. I just
couldn't be that cool because when I was a kid,
I went to see him at Washedtall Baptist University, just
him and a horn player. That was the whole show.
(13:20):
But I was such a big fan that I was
probably geeking out a little too much, and he's like,
why are you geeking out on me? I'm like freaking
Nette McCain. And when you were killing it, like that's
when I was me and consuming everything. Do you ever
get around somebody like that where you're they're like, why
are you geeking out? I mean, you've done so much,
but you're still like, man, I'm a super fan. Oh man, Uh.
There's there's two times I've geeked out, like really hard,
(13:42):
and Jeffrey Steele was one. And he's a songwriter, so
it's not like I shouldn't be, but I just respect
the songs he's done so much that when I first
got an opportunity to meet him, I was like, oh, dude,
I don't even want to go over there. Um, And
then the other ones like I met John Mayer and
Garth Brooks, and Garth Brooks I met him at a
an az cap thing. I know, that's not like a
small guy to be freaked out about. But he he
(14:04):
was like really late to sound check, and We're all
playing on the same show, and I'm like, this dope songwriter,
yeah that like shouldn't be on the show anyways. But
I'm playing and he I'm waiting for an hour thirty
minutes until he shows up. And he doesn't show up
some I'm sitting there like we gotta I mean, I
gotta get somewhere about. The show is like way behind.
And he shows up and he's like, guys, I'm so
(14:24):
sorry I was stuck in traffic. Um, go ahead and
sound check because it's my fault, you know, I was
just sitting there in traffic. So I sound checked my
song break Up in the end, and uh. We sit
there and Garth stands at like two ft away from
my face and like standing on the edge of the
front of the stage looking at me, just like rubbing
(14:44):
his belly, just being all you know, garthy and awesome,
and I was just like, I can't, I can't do it.
I don't know if I can do this. Man. That
dude was like everything for me growing up, Like my
sister got tickets when when I was like ten years
old to go to Garth Pooks and Amilo and from
a friend of hers, and then at the last minute,
she she gave him way to a boy, you know,
(15:05):
and I was like, she was gonna take me, and
I literally was like crying as a little kids. So
to be sitting there sound checking and Garth's like, oh,
that's pretty good, you know. Yeah, Guard's awesome. Yeah, he's
he was like the real deal. So and and my
experiences with him of all, I just keep waiting for
him that to crack, honestly, because he's such such a
I mean, he's the biggest if you're just talking dad,
(15:28):
he's biggest selling American artists of all times. Ten time Diamond,
ten time Diamond Diamond, like the biggest song ever has
like seven million or something, ten time Diamond and probably records,
So wow, which is which is just I don't know.
No one will touch that ever, no, because he was
(15:48):
massive and now everything is so fractured. Obviously it's one
song and album. And when you talk about Garth's hanging
out and saying I was late to traffic. Late with
the traffic, we he had me come out and open
a show Razorback stadiums eight people hundred thousand people. Well,
he calls for a text me first from a number
I didn't recognize. I thought I had guards the number.
Apparently it's like eight numbers. He has one who knew
(16:11):
for every area code. And he's like, hey, many don't
you come out and open for me here? And I'm like,
who is this? It was April, the day before April
Fool's Day, right, and he's like, perfect, Yeah, it's Garth,
come open for me. It's people are Razor Back Stadium.
And I'm like, ah, shut up, who is this? Yeah?
(16:32):
This ain't Garth. And then I'm just like, nah, hey,
look if this really Garth called me after the show,
you know I'm on the air. I didn't think it
was Garth, but he freaking calls, Hey, man's Garth. First thing,
he goes, hey, you vaccinated? But that was the first question.
I'm like, yeah, sure him He's like, well, then here's
my question. You want to come? He was, but he's
just such a normal dude. When we were in sound check,
he came out and hung out. But I didn't want to.
(16:54):
I didn't want to play. I wanted him to get
off stay. I wanted him to go away because I
was embarrassed to know you're actually good. That's a difference.
I would be like. But I was like, gods, you
should go because I don't. I want you to realize
what you did by having me come out and do this.
You might rethink it. Yeah, he stayed too along the
sound check. There's Mike over here, Me here you. I
(17:19):
think we all kind of grew up with a trailer foundation.
I lived in either a trailer parks or a trailer
that was dragged to the top of a hill more
times than not. So Amarillo, Texas. Tell me about your upbringing,
where and how you live that kind of stuff. So my, uh,
my upbringing is literally like ridiculous, but um really sheltered.
(17:39):
My dad was a preacher early on, and we lived
at a ranch for like disadvantaged boys and outside of town,
probably forty miles outside of Amarello called cal Farley's Boys Ranch.
When I was a little kid, I might I remember
like being a rodeos and like wrestling with these you know,
wild kids, and a lot of them orphans and seven
hundred kids lived on this ranch. It was a working ranch.
(18:00):
And then you know, we just didn't have any money ever.
I just remember always having like this like this feeling of,
you know, I don't know if we'll ever make it
out of this oppression, that poverty is. I I read
your book and it was I like cried in certain
parts because I just have blocked most of that out
because you felt it. I felt like, yeah, I just remember,
(18:24):
you know, you know, And for a while, my dad
was like called to be a preacher. But then he
has his family, three kids, and we have no money.
He's making sixteen seventeen grand a year and we're living
in this little flat outside of town and like forty
miles away from everything, a truck that breaks down all
the time. And I remember him getting a real job
and moving into town, and I remember him like selling cars,
(18:45):
and then he was running a car dealership for a while.
And then the better his our life became, the less
I had a dad. And I just remember specifically at
the end of his like, you know, I was ten
years old, nine years old, and he was working ninety
hours a week to make us to get out of that,
you know. And then I learned one thing when when
(19:05):
he was he went over and did like a mission
trip to Russia when I was like ten, ten eleven
years old, and he came back just completely changed. I
remember he came back and said, you know, when they
went over they said that there's not a lot of
food in Russia. Was right before the fallow of communism,
was just crazy time where um, you know, Gorbor Chef
was like about to have a coup come after him.
(19:27):
But they didn't know that. They were just going over there,
you know, putting suitcases full of New Testaments and cover
them in t shirts and said, you know, trying to
hide them and bring him over. But they said to dad, hey,
bring some food, because you're not gonna have food there.
You're literally gonna have to pack food from what we've heard.
So they got over there and and he said that
he would go to these lines outside the grocery stores
(19:48):
and gonna be like two blocks long of people trying
to get in, and there'll be two shelves of bread nothing.
And so when he was over there, he started, you know,
giving out a Bible and didn't really with the Bible,
so he's like, why have food? And uh, when we
came back here, all this stuff that he traded because
they were so proud, they didn't want to just take
the food so he was like, well, here's a can
of peanut butter. And so one of the soldiers he
(20:09):
was talking to took the peanut butter and went up,
grabbed the Russian flag, the USSR flag off the pole,
folded it up, gave it to my dad and said here,
I'll trade you this for the peanut butter. And then
he took his hat off. And the next day another
guy took his watch off those the USS are issued
watch and I just remember him coming back to Amarillo
number one. We had a great laugh at that point,
(20:31):
I thought, um, and he was just like, I can't
keep doing this. I'm missing out in your life. I
feel like I'm called to be a preacher, and this
the fact that you go over there and that the
life is such that they would trade their flag of
their country for a can of peanut butter is crazy. UM.
So I just remember him at that point like starting over,
(20:53):
and he's like, I need to quit this. Um. We
lost all everything he and eventually became like preaching, and
we lost the house that we had, the nice car.
Everything kind of went back to square one and nothing.
But I was like kind of proud of him for
like starting over in the middle of his life, which
most people don't do, because he was miserable and he
was missing his kids lives, and I was just like, dude,
(21:15):
that's later on love. I look back, I'm like, dude,
that it's amazing to be He was running Don Judd
Dodge at the time, working eighty nine hours a week,
and then he goes from that to making twenty grand
and get We're getting shipped all around the country to California,
you know, just tagging along, trying to find a little
church that would allow him to preach and that kind
of thing. So I think I'm here and I'm thankful
(21:38):
for that because you know, he showed me you can
like start over at anytime. We get back to Texas.
When I was in high school and I was like wild,
you know. So I had my sweet sweetheart girl I have.
I still I'm hanging with her. But Krystal met when
I was fifteen, and by hanging with her, I've been married. Yeah.
I want everybody know you made by hanging and he
didn't be married. Yeah, I just hang. No, we've been
(22:00):
we've been heading for a while. We were inquired together,
you know, we were like super super cool. We weren't
like all state choir nerds or anything like that. But
we I met her on this, you know, and we're
back to being like dirt poor and Emerald, Texas and
I'm living with like eight d square foot house kind
of that kind of thing, but super happy. My parents
are happy, and they're working at a church, quite a
(22:23):
big church in town. And I fall in love with
this girl in high school and I get her pregnant,
and it was crazy to me to know the right
thing to do, you know, and to be this young,
and then like, you know, I've just screwed up my future.
You know. I had I aced all my essa t
s and all this kind of stuff, so I had
(22:44):
a lot of opportunities, and then I just saw myself
just kind of wreck it all. In that moment, I thought,
you know, so, and my dad, he's a preacher, and
I go into him and say that I got bad
news and you know, we're pregnant. I'm fifteen or sixteen
at the time, and I remember him just crying and
(23:06):
not being mad at all, just being like, we're here
for you whatever you need, just if you want to
get married. If you don't want to get married, we
don't care. We're here for you guys. I think, you know,
this is gonna be a massive change. But I just
was so enamored with the way he loved me, and
you know that it made me be like, okay, I
have to this is an amazing dad I have. I'm
(23:28):
so thankful for this, this dude that hasn't because I
think I would probably have been pissed it, probably screamed
to my kid and knocked him upside the ball cap
and be like years, you know, but he just did
it with such love that I was really affected by it.
And then he was very proud of us. And we
had a baby there, and I was in high school
and finished high school and worked, like, you know, from
(23:49):
twelve to seven, I worked at the plumbing company, and
I just really scraped by, and you know, I had
four or five jobs before that even But I remember
specifically he got fire from the church because he was
so forgiving and we were so public about it, and
I was, you know, he got fired from the church,
got fire from the church. So then it was just
(24:10):
one of those things where I was, you know, we're
sitting there, he doesn't have a job anymore, we're all
living in his house and well he was just you know,
it was bad. It was bad, I mean bankrupt. The
whole thing was just all evaporated in front of us.
And I just felt like this a massive amount of guilt.
It was my fault because I you know, in that
(24:31):
kind of Southern Baptist world that we lived in, it
was just not a good situation for me to be this,
you know, wild you know, sixteen year old kid. He
liked music and as a dad, now, I would have
to think that that season with your father, who was
very supportive at a time that was hard for everyone.
(24:53):
I would think, as you get older, this is just
me as signing my perspective to yours that it's just
you just respect it and like cherished that so much
now that you understand it as an adult even more
even though then you did as well. But now it's
gonna be a whole different version of you like loving
(25:14):
him and I can't put words to it because I don't.
It's it's so much emotion. I would just cry, it's crazy.
I'm so thankful that he reacted the way he did
and and he suffered great loss, and you know, he
went on to he moved when I was sent to
him to California. They started and I was just emancipated
and living my own life, you know, with my baby
(25:36):
and my wife. And then years later he told me
about my granddad and one of the reasons he was
so loving towards me was, you know, my granddad came
over from Germany. He was actually Poland, Germany, and he
was when he was a kid, his dad left. He
was an alcoholic. His dad left, and so my grand
father's mom I had to give them up for adoption
(25:57):
for a couple of years just to be able to
figure out when they came back from Poland. She was here.
Dad left, She couldn't work, she didn't know English hardly
she had learned English and go get a job. So
for two years, my granddad wasn't an orphanage with his sisters.
And he kind of told me that and it made
more sense to me. It's like, I don't want you
(26:18):
to be like granted, I don't want this to end
like that. I want you to you know, it makes
sense now, like why he was so loving and then
he's you know, he gets it, is your dad still alive? Yeah, yeah,
he's Yeah, he lives in Franklin. He was a he's here. Yeah,
he I moved him. Actually, yeah, we moved him. He retired,
he broke his back, and then he's had a lot
(26:38):
on health issues lately, so he was kind of forced
into retirement. So I found a house and I just
was like, you guys, come stay. I was gonna have
to move in with me, and my wife was like,
you realize, we're never gonna have sex again if they
move in. So we made alternate arrangements and very quickly,
and I'm thankful for that because I think it's very
healthy for somebody's been married for as long as we
(26:59):
had that we still and do stuff like that. It's
crazy you and your wife are married for If that's
the case, how long five years? I got twenty five
year old daughter, So okay, that's that's I say, that's why.
But my mom was fifteen when she had you know,
But when I think back, is that as a kid,
she wasn't young because she's my mom and she's older.
(27:19):
But then when I get older, and I'm like, that
would be like you would have like a twenty year
old right now? You know, No, I would have the
same as you're yes, my my wife's thirty one. Son,
that's it's weird. It's weird. My up. My daughter's boyfriend's thirty.
So I'm like, this is messed up. Something like I
(27:41):
feel wrong. I feel old and young at the same time.
That's wrong with So you moved here at eighteen, you're
you're you have a baby and a wife. Yes, when
did you get married? By the way, how old were you? Um,
we had to sign it off, Like my dad had
to sign me to get married at seventeen. Okay, so
when you're right before does he do that is part
of the emancipation process. When we go to get married,
(28:05):
he has to be there and literally like so make sure.
Otherwise it might have been like technically like my wife's
much older. I mean she's like eight months older. So
it might have been a little legal trouble, you know
what I mean. You're a ten you move here? Why? Why? Yeah? Exactly?
If I don't know now heard it was, I wouldn't have.
But I just told her. I was like, we're already
destut poor. We were looking at houses that were like
(28:26):
I was working on a plumber company. There was a
house was like twenty grand and the ghetto and email
and I was like, I don't know if I can
do this. This is my life. I can see my
whole life here. This is me. I'll be a plumber.
I'll make you know, fourteen bucks an hour, and you
know that'll be our life. But if we go to Nashville,
at least we maybe we could do something we enjoyed doing.
That was all that was my I want to do
(28:47):
something in a musical world that I enjoy doing. What
were you enjoying doing musical though? And Amarillo like, what
were you already doing at seventeen where you thought maybe
I could find something I like. I don't know. I mean,
my my family's really a good like way better than
me at music stuff. So did you play in church
or singing church? Yeah? From like five, they would have
me singing like harmonies and pretty easy. Oh yeah, it
(29:11):
was super easy for me. Did you play guitar? Piano?
I played violin because that's what they needed in the
family band, I think, or something I don't remember. But
if you can play violent, can't you pretty much play anything. Yeah?
I'm not good at violin, but I was. I could
play guitar pretty well, and piano. I was just I
would always my mom and she was a great pianis
so I'd fool around on like an old piano she had.
(29:31):
And did you know that you could make money in
Nashville other than being a singer? Like what did you know?
At a I just think of me at eighteen, I
didn't even know a songwriting was a thing. I did
not know. I just knew that I applied to belmont
On like this crazy whim and I was like, well,
I can go to college there and then maybe I
(29:51):
can do something like accounting and behind the scenes in music,
or like sell t shirts on the road or I
really didn't know. I didn't know the songwriting was a thing.
I had no idea. I got thought dominary when I
was a kid. I was like, these guys are geniuses.
This is all their songs, they're like so good. Yeah,
and Garth the same one. I didn't realize that was
that was like a profession at all, and never even
like when did that happen? Though? Where you did learn
(30:13):
that was a profession that you're shortly after moving here?
I was like, okay, this is this could happen. There
were several people I was like, lucky to be in
Josh Turner's class early on, and I saw him get
a record deal when he was like twenty something, you know,
And I was like, okay, so you and he was
writing songs with other people, and a lot of people
were getting publishing deals where they're making like thirty grand
(30:33):
a year. I was like, this is amazing. But how
do you even get in a class? So you move here,
you're eighteen, and I know my class. It's we all
got to the same time doing different things. But Dan
Shay before they were Dan and Jay, right, I knew
those guys and so but there's a whole group of
us that came in and we were all just like,
what the heck is, what do we do? What do
we do? Now? We're in Nashville doing different things, But
(30:54):
we came at the same time. And that's what I
really remember about moving here. These other people that it
just kind of started too. And but I knew what
I when I got here. I was already an adult,
but I knew what I was doing. If you're eighteen
or so and you just moved to town, one do
you find a house or department? And then where do
you start? When I was moving here, I was at
the last minute was not gonna come to Nashville at all.
(31:17):
I was just gonna stay in Texas. And a friend
of mine who was going to Vanderbilt, which luckily he
was a friend of here, and he kind of scattered
this place out. I told him I couldn't afford to
go to Belmont because I got like, I think I
had two thousand bucks a year I need or something
like that. It was a pretty much full scholarship because
I got lucky on when I sa teas and then
I sang for him and they're like, yeah, you were inquired,
you can. You can have a vocal scholarship. So you know,
(31:38):
I came here and I was like, I can't do it.
I tried. I looked at it. I was looking all
the figures and I was like, this is crazy. I
can't do this. So his dad called me and said,
what do you need. There's a check waiting, Just come
by and get it. Whatever it is. I don't care
how much it was. I was and at the time
I was making six bucks an hours, Like it's thousands
of dollars a year. You don't understand. And he's like,
I don't care, just come by. And he's the only
(31:59):
his I'm here. So when I got here, I had
that one friend, you know, in Vanderbilt world, and then
I quickly it was just immersed in the music classes
I was taking and those classes school. Yes, I thought
you meant like the class because that was not class.
Are you a literal class? Literally? And you were at
Josh tarn Over thing class with you? He was in
my vocal seminar. Yeah, there are four people in that
(32:21):
thing that ended up getting quitting school and getting like,
you know, publishing deals and whatnot. A couple of Christian
artists and before the mikescam when you were like, yeah,
as amazing my classes stuck and got a record deal.
That was Josh Turner. He did say that, dude, you
know what, he could make it rumble the seats. There
was not like a dry seat in the whole room
at that time. It was just like so amazing his
big voice. And then I would get up there and
(32:41):
I'm like a raspy and tinny and so that's how
you create a music community, literal school. That was for me.
So you see people doing it, which then she tells
you that you can do it. Yeah, And then I
thought it would just be easy I like they gave
us these opportunities to try out to be on records.
For I was on a record for Glenn Campbell when
I was a little kids, like eighteen or nineteen. I
(33:02):
show up to the studio and I have no idea
what I'm doing there. There's pizza there, and I was like, oh,
this is amazing. The little record was like a Christmas
record and got a Grammy nomination. I'm nineteen. I'm like,
I'm Grammy nominated. You know, this is the easiest ever.
But I never got further than that because I was
working at Sears and working you know, apartment complexes and
(33:23):
getting fired from jobs, and my wife was running. She
was throwing drinks down a bar and antioch, and so
I never was able to expand on that and go
and like get a publishing deal immediately. So when I
got out of school, it was I was did one
internship for Zamba Music and it was about to close down.
So I just bailed, and I was like, I quit
(33:43):
for years. Did you want to Did you want to sing? Though?
Because your your voice is so soulful and I'm sure
that you get compared vocally to a lot of people.
I don't know if you're gonna be I think it's
a good compliment or an insult. Like when you sing,
as I've heardasing like Darryl Hall, that that tone, that
soulfulness that kind of doesn't match, but it does. So
(34:06):
it's awesome. Like I feel that from you a little bit.
And so because you could do that, is that what
you wanted to do? I was very I was honestly
grateful to even be in Nashville. I didn't care. I
was never there, never was. In moment, was like, really,
(34:28):
I want to be a star because I knew that
I had screwed up so many times in so many
ways that just to be able to do this, I
was like, oh my god, I'm I'm thankful to be
able to write songs for other people and other people,
and I've got such anxiety. I can't imagine. I did
like a Chase rise to or opened up for Chase
for a whole season, and it was I was mortified
(34:49):
to go out in front of like five thousand and
six thousand people every night, but not really humble here. No,
I was like trembling. My hands were just like trembling
behind and then I would get out and it'd be
fine and it would go a well, And you know,
I just have a hard time having heard you sing.
And I hope you think that that Darryl Hall references
(35:09):
it feels it's amazing. Yeah, having heard you sing and
like rounds and that you would go out and beat
and mental health has nothing to do with the reality
of it. It really don't. I mean it's different, but
still when you see someone that's so good and they're like, yeah,
I'm I'm scared to go do what I'm really good at.
I just wish I had something I was good at
(35:30):
and I'm just like, what, how can you be good
at it and be scared to do it? And I'm
over here, I have a Swiss army knife, half doll,
trying to find anything to do. Where does that anxiety
come from? What are you an anxious kid? Or? Oh? Yeah?
I was like massly obese as a little kid. I
was like a hundred fifty pounds in fourth grade. So
I had these all these struggles that I was just
(35:50):
like coping with that until I was an adult, and
then I was you know, I'm still struggling with it
and trying to keep healthy all the time and working
out like crazy because my metabolism is just zero. But
that's not really that. You know what. My first publishing deal,
I turned in ten songs. It took to the record
labels and all the record labels said no, and a
lot of them said no because I was twenty five
and I had no hair. I shaved my head, so
(36:11):
I just thought, well, God doesn't want me to do this,
and I was really it was easy for me to
be like, Okay, I'm a songwriter that I was I
was never meant to be that, and I was pretty
at peace with that. And every time these things come up,
like they had a capital. A couple years ago, I
was like, you should do a record. I would love
to do a record, and I thought I was joking
because we're at a bar, and I was like, yeah,
(36:33):
that's funny. Yeah someday, Yeah, that's great. But I just
don't know that my soul is meant to do that
because you think though, if you'd have had and this
is about the compliment and a question, but again I'm
gonna say that one final time. You're such a good
thing or your your vocals are. The texture is a
little different, it's it's it's awesome if you would have
(36:53):
gotten a bit of positive feedback, just a bit. I
probably have done it. Yeah, so a lot of that
is bay Stan, what you felt the reality was off
a few do you wish you would have pushed through
that situation? Looking back? I'm a big fan of like
the gold you know rush era where they have like
Parker Snobble up on gold Rush Alaska and that TV
show and like all the guys from I've read a
(37:14):
lot about just weird stuff. But like in San Francisco,
all the people that made all the money, we're not
the people that were the ones holding the nugget in
their hand, you know, in the river. They were the
people that were selling them shovels, and they were the
people that were there auxiliary um And they weren't digging
in the dishes. They were home at night, sleeping in
the bed with their beautiful wife and having their families.
(37:34):
And the other people were out there on the mountain
digging and and losing sleep and like coming up bloody.
But they had the nugget. But the other people made
it possible. I'll do their thing. Yeah, that's I mean,
that's an awesome analogy because I was like, yeah, that's tupid.
But now now that makes all the sense in the world.
So I'm I hope I help people to be stars
(37:56):
and that's awesome. Do you want to love this? Do
you want what? You want? To be? Famous? Do you
answered so quickly again? No, dude, I'm telling you. Only
way I would be if I could be like Stapleton famous,
where it's like, do your own thing, not really have
to fit into this anything. You just kind of whatever
your soul, follow a sale that you you know, wind blows,
and do your thing. Yeah, that's cool. But other than that,
(38:17):
I'd like going to Target and nobody knowing, nobody caring.
It's fun. So when you play a show, if you're
playing let's let you're playing writers around and you're playing
your songs, I mean, are you getting fulfillment from that? Yeah?
It's fun. It's high, is it? To tell? You're about
as high as it's It's almost as high as writing
(38:37):
a great song, but it's like right below it. It
is below it. Yeah, even it's like five thousand people,
it's pretty cool. You've convinced me. I didn't believe it
at first, but you've convinced me. It's good. Dude. It's
a good life. Oh I'm not disagreeing with you. I
know what, the songs you've written, the lives you're doing
pretty good. Yeah, it's all right. Do you have any
(39:01):
number twos? I have several number twos, I think um
one of them that heard a little bit was with
the Chase Rice something was called Gonna Wanta Tonight. And
I had another song that was on the chart that
was the strip of down song for Luke Bryan and I.
I didn't know how things work behind the scenes, but
I think had I been smart, like called somebody on
(39:23):
Luke's camp and be like, I have the next one up,
but it just sat there and knocked it down. So
and I've had several that didn't go all the way
I had, Like, you know, it's a pretty good problem
to the next one up, dude, It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable.
I have one right now. I don't know what's gonna
happen with the Gabby song that I love so much.
It's gonna do great, Yeah, it's gonna be great. You
just never you never know. And I don't really know
either because I don't really do anything with the programming
(39:46):
side of it. But our show has such a big
imprint that I can play something and I can see
the difference. And also my management is Gabby's management. We're
like we're I mean, I worked together in American Idol,
you know. But I hope was that that was a
you deal that things crazy? Godle that was it was crazy,
(40:06):
like just from my world. It was crazy twice. And
I'll tell you there are only a few songs that
I ever here the first time and go oh, I
didn't expect that. That's awesome and it's catchy as crap,
And that was one of those songs because I was
just flipping, babe, I was on satellite or on the rate,
I don't know, but I hear. I hope, I hope
he does all this. I hope he did good stuff.
And I'm like, all right, oh yeah, yeah, good, oh good,
(40:27):
look Gabby, Gabby forever. Good for her. Good. Let's see
what this stuff, I hope, And then I hope it cheats. Oh,
holy crap, I was. I did not expect. That's so
only one of the few that that's happened where I'm like,
that is fresh. And so I want to talk about
this version of the song. Before I talked about it
going over to pop and what Charlie did to it.
(40:49):
But who is it? Who? Who would you write that with?
So it was Gabby, zach Kale and me on like
the day before Halloween or Halloween. But I had Zach
was I was trying to get into sign over at
Sony and I was trying to like somehow big brother
him and be part of his life and help him
and advise him. So I had him over and that's
(41:10):
how I found about Gabby. He was he was at
church with her or something like singing. He had on
his phones her singing like a sound check at church,
and that's how I heard her voice. I didn't hear
it on American Idol. I was just that he was
at my house eating dinner and he was like, check
this Scarlett. She's amazing. And I was like, that is
a great She's like I thought she was a black girl.
She had so much soul. I was like, wow, this
(41:31):
is insane. So I said, let's write with her one afternoon.
And that was it. That's how it was. That's how
it wasn't somebody from like that, because because again my management,
he went and like got her wreck, gotting chopped at
like he did the thing. And even when she was
living in Pittsburgh, Like I was doing a stand up
show in Pittsburgh and her and her sister and her dad,
they all came to the show and I was like, Gabby,
(41:52):
you did you have to move to Nashville? I think
on this show. I told her that before she moved
down here. I was like, she was like, I don't
have to in her like she's in Pittsburgh. But she
still does that like an effect on her voice, like
I don't have to move down there, like Luke says.
I'm like, no, no, I don't have to do you
have to Gabby? And then she moves down and you
see a video of all things, and that's how she
(42:15):
gets in the room with you. Yeah, it's weird. I
was asking him what artists. I was like, Zach, what
artists are? Like what do you love? Because I don't
know if any new stuff that I really am excited about.
We should just find something you love and and like
dive in and like really embrace it. And the first
song we wrote as I Hope and it was me
and him and Zack's like all right, and She's like
a dude, you know, he's got kids, and so I'm
(42:35):
sitting over here and looking like me and you and
Gabby who's twelve at the time or eight team or something,
you know, like two old dudes and Gabby, and we're
like talking, that's right. I will always love you like something.
She has such an amazing voice. Let's just like, you know,
acting like she's not in the room, and she's like, boys,
we're girls. Are not that nice? Can we do like
(42:56):
not do that much lovey dovey thing? You know? And
that's how the impetus from the first you know, handful
of lines that we had, we kept them, and then
we just flipped it and made it the chorus so
that we were like, oh, yeah, we're writing all these
nice things. Let's just keep them nice all the way
toil the end. And then we just stumbled into it.
(43:17):
And I hope he cheats, you know, whenever that comes out, whomever,
do you guys go, oh my god, that's it, or
do you go I don't know. It's so weird, it's
so different, you knew. I was so like, I was like,
I know in my gut the girls will scream this
at the top of their lungs and like throw their
(43:37):
water bottles out the window. They're so mad at an X.
I was like so, and I was I just saw it.
I never know. I didn't know about whatever she's got.
I don't know any any of the other half other songs.
I didn't know about We Were Us or any of
those other songs. Like when they were done, I wasn't like,
this is it, but that one we got done and
we're like the Sony Rider rooms. There was like a
pool table, were like hanging out by the pool table afterwards,
(43:59):
and and Za I was like, this is pretty good,
and Gabby was like I know. I was like, no,
this one's like, this is not pretty good. This is
like one of the best songs I've ever written. I'm
telling you this. I don't know how I know. I
just felt it. And they were laughing and like I
was like, oh, I'm not joking because I just had
gotten a number one for Breakup in the end, like
right when we wrote this, and so they were they
(44:21):
were like yeah, I'm sure whatever. And then I was
behind the scenes like calling everybody. I called Ross Copperman,
I called everybody Tom Lord, just don't let this one die.
Don't like let it fizzle and go away and you know,
so I was right, but it wasn't like really you
never know. I really didn't know, but I just my
gut was like screaming at me. You'd better say something.
(44:42):
It just felt different. It felt yeah. And so Tom Lords,
my manager, oh got so so he has Gabby and
I remember I just hearing it and I was like wow.
So I texted him and I was like, yo, because
I have nothing to do with picking songs for the
most part, I'm like, yo, that like that's it. It's brutal,
(45:04):
like I don't know what's gonna happen. That's it. That's song,
Like that's it. And he was like, I hope you know.
And then he's so funny. I hope. Yeah. He's like
like you never know, I hope. And so the song
you gotta give him credit. He ran up the flagpole
with that thing. He ran up the flagpole with her
and then ran up with it, and I was like, dude,
(45:24):
you're forgetting about me, Like, let's chill out. You know,
I'm in the coast Rica here, man, come come down
and visit me on set or something. Um. So, then
I hear the Charlie Pooth version, and all I remember
thinking is I heard like like a run at the beginning.
I was like, wait, that's not in this song. And
so I hear it, I'm like, okay. So I asked
somebody I don't know who told me this, and you
(45:46):
can tell me if it's true or false. I believe
it's true even if you say false. And I'm I'm
supposed to know if I share this. I don't have
a filter, so I'll tell you the truth. Yeah. And
and this could be partially off or maybe this story
has been discussed in public, but from what I know,
Charlie just message Abbey and I was like, Hey, that
sounds awesome. Can you send me like some of the
stems that was it? Yeah? And then she they she did,
(46:08):
but didn't really know what was And then he just
sent it back and was like I did this. She
asked Zack and uh, and I was like, should I
do this? And we said it's Charlie Pooth. Yes, I mean, yes,
amazing it stems. Uh, let me like all the tracks
behind the musical. And what's funny about that song is
(46:28):
those stems ended up being what um Zack and a
couple of our buddies did that day for the demo,
they just a lot of those just got passed over,
and Wrath Like Ross took those and added bass and
drums and stuff like it. Her vocal from that record
was the demo vocal. It was literally one or two
takes of that demo, that's how good she was on
(46:49):
that day. And I didn't really realize how powerful her
voice was because I had to go trick or treating
with my little man, so I didn't hear the whole
vocal until I just got it, you know, and I
was like, oh my gosh, this is insane. So when
you get the Charlie version, it's crazy. I didn't even
know if it made sense at first. I was like,
does this make sense? This is amazing. I'm in and
(47:12):
did you wonder if you because I get it, You're like,
does this make sense? Though? I love it so much
because it's sounds good, but does it also still make sense? Yeah,
as as the story, so that again, it's it like
was allowed to breathe a new, bigger life because it
became a monster pop song too, and you guys didn't
have anything again. He just sent it back right, was like, Hey,
(47:35):
this is it. I hope you like it. Yes, And
what's crazy in those situations like Nashville is a different
place for the artist if if they change a line,
if they do stuff to the song, they're very kind
about it. Typically they know the writers don't have any
touring income and they're you know, our life is whatever
(47:55):
the song is. And a lot of times in l
A that's different, they will they will take a large
portion of the song. Um and I fully expected a
name like that who just had up a huge couple
number one worldwide number ones to take a big part.
He was so completely fair and like what he asked
for on the song that I was like shocked. I
was shocked, and I said that, yeah, that's great, no question,
(48:16):
don't even negotiate, do it because he's adding so much
interest to it that it makes it so fun for
me to be part of. You know, I think we
all grew up listening to the country and pop and
like hip hop and everything. So it didn't really like
rubbed me wrong to have him on there. It was awesome.
I was like, oh, another another cool like avenue for
(48:38):
this song, but I never felt weird about it because
it's cool. Gabby also could do both while not losing
her integrity because she naturally is that, but she sings
and so that I guess I never even thought about
that because there are some songs. You know, whenever uh,
George Jones put Snoop Dog on a record. Now, I'm
(48:59):
just saying that to not not really is that a record? No,
not really to point you figering anybody, but when somebody
really and then they put on a hip hop artist
and it doesn't make sense. You're like, I get what
you're where you're trying to go, but it doesn't really work.
But with Gabby that works because you her integrity is
she could kind of straddle that line like carry and
(49:22):
not to not to compare them because of both blonde,
big singers, but Carrie could do the same thing and
did the same thing for so long that we believed it,
and she did pop in country because it was true
and it makes her audience, you know, maybe it pulls
a lot of her audience into that world that But
I think more than anything, people discovered Gabby because oh Charlie,
(49:46):
I know, Charlie, what's Gabby? Okay? Oh wow, this is amazing.
So I think it helps help both of them. Honestly,
you know what song I like, is you got the
Moji whatever? David, Yeah, whatever She's Got right, that's what's on.
(50:07):
That's a really good song. It was fun. That was
a that's a long time ago. Yeah, like nine eight
or nine ten years ago? Even was was that one
of your first number ones? That was like maybe there
was a second number one. But we wrote it first.
We wrote it like it was before I had um
but on back for Dirks and then I had like
a song really like earlier called Glass for Thompson Square.
(50:31):
But Whatever She's Got was the one wherever. But it
was like okay, Like Luke called me and it was like,
can you want to write I like this daven Neil song.
Gonna write some songs. You know, people are other artists
heard it. Yes, it opened my every door opened from
that song, all the Keith stuff. You know. It was
partially because of that. Keith actually was going to cut
(50:52):
that song and I think he put a vocal on
that song, but then it just didn't feel like his
project he was doing at the time, and they were
all working together in the same and David na was
on the same record label. And thank god, David cut
it and sings higher than anyone ever hear that song. Yeah,
it feels like brand new. It's crazy. Uh, when you're
talking about Keith, I just want to talk about choruses.
(51:14):
But I want to a couple of the key. Well,
the one for sure is the the times Possible Miranda Keith,
the Randy we were us, Yeah, were straight melody here
yea or lack of melody for menut I'm nailing I'm
nailing it. What's what's the key in your mind to
(51:34):
a chorus working melodically, because there, you guys, there's some
strong ones. It just depends like most of it is
like what moode I'm in that day, but I'm always
That song was all about the feeling and up tempo.
And we tried to write that song in the morning
with Thomas, Rhett, Me and Jimmy like played him a
(51:55):
little thing which is two lines from that chorus and
he was having like his to day was not going well.
He got a call from his label. He was like,
hell hillacious. So we wrote a different song or half
of a different song that day. We were like four
half songs and then he's like, I gotta go. So
in the afternoon Nicole came in and we wrote that
little chorus to finished that out and she's like, well,
(52:16):
I would love to do this as a duet. I've
had people asking for duets, and so a lot of
it was Nicole and I come from a similar background.
She's like from the middle of nowhere. I'm from the
middle of nowhere. So we're just like, let's talk about
our towns, but not put anything in between them. And
so that melody, I think is almost a non melody.
It's like a couple of notes. They are just so
in that the tension of the pulling on the different
(52:38):
you know, it's all about tension for me. The chords
major and then they'll be a little bit of tension
because they'll be one that's right out of the court
and pulls back down the whole time, and that kind
of like mentally feels like catchy. Um. And then there's
melodies like uh, you know, break up in the end.
That course melody is very high and very like start
slow and goes crazy high, you know. And I I've
(53:00):
always liked like Somewhere over the Rainbow and songs with
actual crazy melodies, um, but those are not in our
genre all that as common because it's so lyrically heavy
and lyrically driven. You can't fit as many lyrics and
those kind of melodies a lot of times. So you
write melody not all the time university, But would you
prefer to or does it come to your melody first
(53:21):
or lyrics first? Just those two will keep story just
melody or lyrics first first. Um, yes, yes, no, I
think most of the time it's it's uh, it's lyric form, ma'am.
I'm very much. Do you keep lyrics in your phone? Yeah?
Oh yeah, it's like never ending all day. It's annoying. Actually,
(53:41):
every movie, every single TV show, every time I talk
to anybody. It's just like a annoying habit sponge. My
parents think that I'm like a jerk sometimes because I'll
be on my phone and I'll be literally like writing
down things they've said, and like, you should probably get
off your phone sometime I'm working. I do that too.
It I'm just on Twitter and tell my wife I'm
writing songs. It's exactly. Yeah, you actually look at electric cars, no,
(54:07):
you mentioned to just talking to people that I really
think are good and admire professionally also and with a
bit socially. Is Nicole Galleon, Ross Copperman both and have
you worked with both of them a lot? Yes? They
were very early on with like like you have your buddies,
your class. Then and Shaw you know that's my first,
(54:29):
one of my first co writes after getting a deal
with Nicole um and she was like, I don't even
know if I can do this, and she was an
assistance of some manager. And you know, we've known each
other a long time. And then Ross maybe the third
or fourth co write in town. You know that he
was in town. I was years before that. But do
you guys still right together? Yes, all the time. Really, Yeah.
(54:51):
I wrote with Ross and Brett Young yesterday and Nicole
and I wrote, you know, probably once a month. You know.
So I've never actually revealed this, but I can, and
this won't be the I mean, who cares, so so
you may with Ross from kid it was just Ross, yeah,
not Nicole. Oh yeah, it was a good one. That
So this is where you came up in my life
(55:14):
and it probably never got to you but a few
years ago, maybe four because the pandemics kind of yeah,
we shaped we the duck two years from life. Yeah,
it's tough, but maybe four years ago, I was talking
with Ross and I said, hey, I have this idea.
I was watching the news. I was watching like sixty
minutes and one of those news type shows that goes
on and in Japan they have this hologram that was
(55:38):
a pop star. Huh and like a dead pop star Nope,
created she never existed, but it was a hologram of
a character that was also a pop star. Perfect and
she was selling tickets to these shows. And so I
go to Ross and I say, hey, man, I watched
(55:59):
this story. Why could we not do this, But here's
ten openers on ten different tours. It's a hologram like
h So to him, like as a kind of a
business idea, I say, and there's a hologram. Now, I say,
(56:19):
this business model doesn't cost much to do. I mean,
I have no idea to make a hologram. It can
be a cartoon. In my mind, it doesn't matter. We
can have this fictional cartoon, not real human. We can
have it have a hit, but we can send it
on towards ten people at the same time as the
baby act, and you just need to come people to
run it all good And he's whomever at the time
(56:40):
it's just like it's just like let's and Ross' is like,
oh you know, Ross. Oh, I'm like, it's like a
money machine. Pull the handle. And Ross said, oh, what
do we do? And I'm well, let me have some
time on this. And I'm just thinking, how do we
make this work? And I go, okay, well if we
(57:03):
have some songs, I know the people that can do
the visuals. But somehow we've got to make the product
really good. To make everything else work. The songs you
have to have hits. It's like anything. If you don't
have the song, you have digitally, gotta have the song.
Got So I say to Ross, let's just go let's
just write some songs and not say anything about it,
(57:23):
and we'll create this this group. But they'll never know
our identity. Terrible, terrible. And he's like oh yeah. And
so I said, who do we Who should we do
this with? And he says, okay, I got a couple
of ideas and he says Nicole and you, oh yeah,
because because he he just loved he loved loved what
(57:46):
loved you, love what you did. And he was like, well,
we shouldn't do it with a big group because somebody
will tell because we all sign India's and he goes,
we need a girl. He goes and they're both excellent. Awesome.
He goes, let's talk to Nicole Andy, but we bring
John if Nicole wants to do it or doesn't. We
we hadn't never planned. So we called Nicole, called her
first two and she's like, I'm in. So we spent months.
(58:10):
No way, this is not real, this really happened. This
is we didn't talk about. I've never revealed. This is
amazing and Nicole. I took Nicole to perform once. I
was hosting the Today Show for a week and so
I took her up to perform on the show. I
was like, come up and perform. Then let me bring
in whoever I want. And so I said, hey, I'm
gonna bring up the Neon people. Stuff that's called Neon people.
Oh my god, I've never said that. It feels like
(58:31):
I'm saying a bad word. I think I heard this
in the backwoods of Alabama driving down to the beach
one time. You probably did. And I texted her and
she denied it was her. We couldn't we couldn't say
anything about it. I was like, I know you this
is you. I heard it. Me and my wife were
jamming it loud people. We wrote these songs and we
(58:51):
were just about too and I remember we were just
about to call you too. We've written like three or
four and cut them. And then Nicole got the running
that label and she was like, I can't do this
in more and we're like no, we just spent all
these months writing all these songs. We would go to
Ross's house. Now you know what it's like to be
a songwriter. Oh my god, I spent months and you
have no hit. It's like, it's great. We recorded, We
(59:12):
put them out there on their on streaming services Spotify,
the hundred thousands of listen, but you Yeah. My point
is I'm so close with and neither one of them
has ever told me. I've never said anything about it.
I spent hours across from him on a weekly basis,
and no one's ever seen anything that's on. That's a
good end. So and we just wanted it the integrity
(59:33):
of it. We wanted it to nobody to know because
I wanted to put out these songs that were super positive.
You like, well, I'm gonna show you. I'm pulling it
up here. So it was Neon PPL. We we had
the whole thing and so I guess they've changed the
background on it. But well there's no hologram here. But
that was that was the deal. Like one Little Town's
(59:54):
got three forty thousand views, and it was all to
be anonymous and put out positive then create, they create
the hologram, make much money, right So but yeah, that's
where you came up, dude. That's my kind of artistry
right there. We didn't anybody know it was us. I
could still raise my babies, you know, I cannot have
to get on but but it was. But it was you.
You were almost in this failed venture. Thank you for
(01:00:15):
saving me three months of my life writing songs that
no one heard. That's amazed. But you people heard those
for that one. Yeah, but if you're heard Nicole singing
on something, that was it. I texted her. She she
blatantly non lied, but she didn't really acknowledge it. She
would not say that. It was hurt and we crazy.
We did it and we are not selling holograms anywhere.
(01:00:38):
But it was a fun experiment. Well I'm glad. I'm glad.
I like going to a show and then somebody like
messing up and like it feels real. We can have
the hologram mess up too. That was part of the plan,
like the wrong chord. I'm sorry. It would be cool
if the pogram just falls off the stage and all
of it. That. Look, you're extremely successful in many ways.
(01:00:59):
You're inspiring, but not quite on the Neon people train.
You know, you can still write some songs for us.
I'm in, I'm in. Um you guys follow Ja night
Rider j N I t E Writer on Instagram. Um.
In the intro we did for you, we talked about
a lot of your songs. So that's all there and
right now that your other Gabby songs on the chart
(01:01:20):
we talked about a minute ago and and I told
you I feel good about it. So I asked that,
are you in the Gabby camp now? I think so? Yeah.
Like who she trusts and when it's like we need
to focus with people that I believe in, she calls you.
She definitely is like very thankful that we were kind
of believers and you know early and you know, she
asked me about getting married early. Know, like stuff like
(01:01:41):
that you would ask you know, an uncle or a boddy.
You know, that's awesome man, she's sweet. Well, I've really
enjoyed this. I would have enjoyed it more if we'd
been in Neon People together. But it is one. It is,
it's ever too late. It's you know, it is it is.
There are no rules. It's like pop it's there are
no rules. It's open. Uh, dude, good to talk to you.
Congratulations on everything. Thanks for inspiring everybody. Oh I didn't
(01:02:04):
do the same. Same for you, man, It's really cool
to have you up here. And you know, I got
to tell you that's a pretty cool looking pet shot
you have there. I took it on an iPhone. You did, Yeah,
you do photography? Oh alright, no mine? Alright, John night, everybody,
thank you.
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