#438 - Riley Green on Finding Love on Social Media + Losing 18 Pounds with The Flu + What Makes Him Nervous About His Career + Why He Almost Didn’t Record ‘I Wish Grandpas Never Died’

Riley Green (@Rileyduckman) sat down with Bobby Bones to talk about his new chapter in his life. He shares how he lost 18 pounds when he had the flu and then got into shape. He also details how writing while on the road is hard for him and he feels his most creative when he's hunting alone. Riley also recalls his upbringing in Alabama and how it influenced his music. He also reveals the true cost of touring, if he'd want to have kids right now, what makes him nervous about his career, why he almost didn't record "I Wish grandpas Never Died," and more! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm not like longing for that all the time. It's
just something to occupies some thoughts, so you know that
and hunting for me, it really is. So I can
see where a girl would take that place a little
bit and make it you wouldn't mind being off the
road so much.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Episode four thirty eight with Riley Green, we mentioned this,
but for a long time, his name to me was
Riley Duckman, not even Riley Duckman, which is how that
name started because he's a big duck hunter.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
But we talked about it, me like, oh, Riley Duckman.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
We get to that later, and I mean, this is
the most Riley and I've ever like talked as like
normal dudes.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
I was gonna say, this is a great example of
why it's almost better to do interviews in this format
because when he comes in here, it's still hard to
get things out of him so quickly.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
This was great.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
I mean eight nine, ten minutes and he's playing songs
on the radio show, so that's tough.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
This he even addresses this is kind of like therapy.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah. I talked about it later, but you know, Riley
and I've done the radio show. Riley and I bailed
me out of it a charity event where I was
performing Eddie and I were with Jordan Davis, and Jordan
wasn't able to come real quick, so I called Riley
and Riley went with us to do the show, and
so super cool of him to do that. We didn't
even talk about that because I mean, I felt like
we could have gone a long time. We did over

(01:19):
an hour, But I like Riley, I just hadn't been
able to really connect with him.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
But I do feel now like I know him a
lot better, don't you.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, his new album Ain't My Last Rodeo is now out.
He just kicked off his Ate My Last Rodeo tour
February twenty second, which is I think last Thursday. Tracy
Lawrence and Ella Langley out on tour with him, and
we talked about the Buford Bond Charitable Fund which he has,
which is inspired by his grandfather's. He just had number
one again. We talked about his duckman jam at Flora Bama.

(01:50):
And so you know, Riley Green, we can't play clips, right,
we can't. Okay, Well, his songs.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Are like this girl knowing that I didn't.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Sing him though, right, you can sing them all right,
and then half me he wants a cold beer. I
don't know if that's how it goes. That's a number one.
And then I wish Grandpa's never died wrestling peace Grandpa.
I don't know if he says that, but that's that song.
And then his number one that just happened was different
round here with Luke Combs.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
How's that one go? I just sang three, so I
can't get them.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
I haven't.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
I'm stuck on the other one, the Grandpa one, I'm
stuck on half me. He wants a dip. They all
have beer in him.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Oh all right, well, here we go. This is Riley Green.
Follow him at Riley Duckman. At Riley Duckman.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Enjoy Riley. Good to see you, buddy. Yeah man, Were
you a wrestling guy?

Speaker 1 (02:41):
My mom wouldn't let me watch wrestling ever, No, like
I had to hear about it from my buddies. The
closest I got was the I think Sega Nintendo sixty
four or something had some.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
Like playing it into Yeah, that was it.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
But if my mom orphan about that, I'd probably been
in trouble too.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
I was a wrestling guy, but growing up in the
South and it was just on like TBS and TNT.
I just watched the movie The Iron Claw, which is out,
and like zac Efron just got ripped for it.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
But I saw that, Yeah, he watched the movie.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
Saw it's all.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Is it good?

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, it's really because it's a true story of like
a family in wrestling, and it was a little before
like my time. But some of those guys in it,
and I just assumed if you were from the South
and but your mom wouldn't let you wine, well.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
It was certainly was from the South. It was very popular.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
I had a bunch of buddies that watched it, and
I heard about it every day at school. But uh,
I watched uh thirty for thirty on Uh maybe it
was rucke Flair. Yeah. Man, the stuff those guys went through.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
It makes you guys toring it.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
It really does. Like I feel like it's such a
sissy whenever I look at that, especially like I mean,
you know, I had some some years of what I
would call I thought partying a little bit but nothing like.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
That, and having to keep themselves going through any means possible,
and some of that was partying, but I mean the
partying turned into how do we keep our energy? How
do we keep even with the drugs they were doing
to keep their bodies in shape.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Well, the level of show that they had to put
on every night even versus what we have to do,
is like I wouldn't want that job. That's insane.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
You ever get sick and then have to call and
I've done this a couple of times. We have to call,
find a minute clinic and get them to shoot you
up as a steroids so you can get through the night.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah, I mean I had I lost eighteen pounds last
week with the flu, and I'm like one of those
where I.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Don't get sick off and if I do, hold on,
hold on, I need that flu then well I was.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Trying to Like it sounds like I almost trying to
put on someone I've never heard of. Eighteen Like I
broke a fever. This is no exaggeration. I've never had
this kind of sick. I laid in the bed and
just sweated for twenty four hours, Like I would get up, shower,
get back there. Like I had to change beds, change blankets,
Like it was insanity. But I was like two eight
or something. The morning I started feeling sick. I got

(04:53):
in the bed. When I got up and weighed again,
I was like one eighty nine.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Sounds like you beat a bowl up more than it
was the flu.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Hey, god, dang you to be here. I feel that way.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
Did anybody else in your crew get the flu? Or
are you the only one? Yeah, Josh gave it to me. Yeah,
I mean it always it's and Josh, you didn't create it.
I'm not No, I'm not saying you said in a.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Lab Josh and created the flu right like we all
get it.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
I will tell you the type of friend Josh is.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Josh went to high school with me, elementary school. He's
on the road with me. Now h comes up, goes
on the road with me, gives me the flu. I
would have never told me that, you know. He was like, hey, man, sorry,
I got you sick.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
Wait, what would you have know?

Speaker 1 (05:28):
I wasn't horribly sick before I left Jackson, Alabama to
come up.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Josh, how long have you been here? Oh he's new new.
Yeah he didn't know what he's doing.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, we don't do flu up up here. If we
have flu, we don't give it. We try to keep
away from people. Yeah, I don't know Alabama because Alabama's
I got the flu and he gonna get my cousin
because I'm in Arkansas.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
We used to do that too.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
What's fun about having somebody that's very removed from this
industry come into it is Josh always been around me
playing music, but like I get to literally teach him
lessons like that, Like hey, listen, I got verbatim and said,
just so you know, if you're sick, just don't cut
you know.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
He's like, oh, yeah, because it'll then he knows this.
Everybody knows this because then it slowly spreads even if
it doesn't get to you COVID.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Days, you know. And and you know, like even if
you weren't feeling bad, it wasn't that it was out
with dirks when we finally started back, you know, and
there was all those protocols and testing to get backstage
and everything was if somebody got it, you might have
to canceled the whole.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
A lot of people's love, a lot of responsibility. And
I felt that I was doing a show for nat
GEO and we were traveling around the country, but if
I got it, the whole cruise couldn't work. So that's
paychecks and so and if one of the crew guys,
like camera guys or audio guys got it. We could
just make do you could move some if it's you.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
Or if it's me.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
The whole crew got shut down, so there was a
different kind of responsibility.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Did you miss any shows because of flu Uh? I
didn't know. I just it was a good time.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
And if there is such a thing, it was after
a weekend run of shows. I got some fluid. Somebody
came on games some fluid. I got over it pretty quickly,
but but yeah, that rock dock will your life on
the road, somebody come by.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
And for a while I was traveling so much, either
shooting or just doing stand up on the road that
I was like, I got to find a way because
doctors are a little weird about prescribing things if they're
your doctor and your TA. So I have a like
a concierge doctor now and so I can call him anytime. Yeah,
and I can get whatever I want, like crack weed.
It's immediately.

Speaker 3 (07:23):
It's uh.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
It's it's funny that it takes like my, I guess my,
you know, rise to be an in country music of
some level where something like that was available to me
was very gradual, so I can remember, like even in
the last couple of years, like struggling with calling my
like old primary care doctor back in Alabama, trying to
get a prescription standing and they won't. They can't do

(07:45):
across state lines. I'm running from five different walgreens other
and then I realized, wait a second, you can just
call this guy and it'll just show up with some stuff.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Okay, yeah, we'll do that. I did.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
I won't say what, but they had a doctor that
was kind of a wink wink doctor, meaning if you
were hurt, if you're injured, the wink wink doctor would
come and just go, what do you think you need? Yeah,
and you would get what you thought you needed. And
it was just kind of the understanding where I have
friends that are athletes that don't have wink wink doctors.
I made that turn up to it's pretty cool wink

(08:15):
wink doctor.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
Yeah, I thought it was a real turn But.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
They have a doctor that their goal is to if
you're not gonna hurt it further, which maybe always may
not be the right idea either, but I guess but
at your livelihood though, and.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
At your job, well yeah, and I mean, you know,
This is different than going and playing a football game
or something like. Yeah, you can strain your voice to
a point where I guess you could have to have
some kind of surgery or something. But for me, it's
it literally is just when you get in that type
of shape, you just got to get through it.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
You know, do you ever have.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Injuries, like like old athletic injuries that creep up on
you now that inhibit you at all?

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Seems like it just started about run I turn thirty five. Yeah,
it's a I try to work out on the road.
Just stay busy. It's hard to eat right on the road.
You know, as you get older, you forgot ways to
stay in some kind of shape. And my thing's like
waking up in a different bed where it'd be the
bus or a hotel or you know, home in Alabama
or home here, sleeping on different type mattresses is like

(09:12):
I'm an old person now, like it's it just kills me.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
How often are you in Alabama versus in Nashville percentage wise?

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Uh? Well, when we get busy touring, you know, like
if I'm off Sunday through Wednesday, let's say not on
the road, I'd usually go home. You know, like something
like this in town, or I had to write yesterday.
What I do is try to schedule all my stuff
to where I can kind of knock it all out
in a week and then go spend a couple of
weeks home a month.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
Can you write on the road effectively or when you're
on the road is it so much it's just stimulus
everywhere that you can't really sit down.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
It's tough. I've never been really good at it.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
I have taken some writers out on the road, written
some songs that ended up getting cut. But I think
I write best when I'm either just have an idea,
I'm passionate about something hits me and I like then
I want to sit in and ride that day. Or
if I'm just kind of if I ever have a
chance to get bored, you know, like coming home, we're
all about that today, and I walk by a guitar
and pick it up and want to play it, That's
when I'll write. You know, when you're on the road,

(10:08):
you're kind of like you don't really want to look
at your guitar again until it's time to get on stage.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
You know, being bored is a very undervalued thing. Once
you haven't been bored in a while.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
I haven't been bored in a long time. It's see
you can tell too. I think Christmas Break I wrote
more than I did, you know, the majority of the year.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Last year, I used to feel like if I was bored,
that meant that nobody really required my services anymore, and
I would start to look at it as maybe I'm
not in demand or I'm kind of losing my edge.
But now I just have run so busy at times
when I wasn't even really being effective. But now when
I'm bored, I mean it's like, you know, like for me,
it's in the shower, I get great thought. I feel

(10:44):
like they are great thoughts. In the shower, I'm like, oh,
because all inhibitions are done. But when I'm bored, like
I get really it feels like fresh, fresh, creative.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, well you go get in the tree for a
few hours, you know.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
I just I'm too cold.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
And I didn't even know that you couldn't have dogs
and Tennessee until like last week, because we had dogs.

Speaker 3 (11:02):
We had tons of dogs. We'd run dogs like crazy.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
And it's a little more exciting too though.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
That was fine.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah, that's my kind and Also I had to learn
how to drive at like twelve because if they're tracking
the dogs and he's like, hey, you need to go
meet us. Over all, So I'm twelve and you had
no your way around too. Yeah I'm twelve driving down
through the back roads. But I didn't know dogs in
Tennessee weren't allowed.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah. Yeah, And they've they've gotten real strict on dog
seasons in a lot of states Alabama, including like you
have like the last couple weeks of the season or
something like that. For me, like even not actually being
in the woods hunting, but like when I you know,
November hits and ruts on, or you know, duck season,
whatever it is, I'll go off somewhere be by myself

(11:46):
for a week, you know, like go up to Kansas.
I got a little house up there on some property,
and like I remember going to Kansas hunting for I
think five days, and I didn't talk to another human.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
You went doing by yourself completely.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, I mean I always do. I mean, you know,
Josh goes on home and the band they go do
their thing. I don't take anybody on the road with me,
and that's probably where I get most of my creative
work done.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
Do you know?

Speaker 2 (12:08):
And I'm sure you know him, but do you know
him in any close way? Craig Morgan, Yeah, courage great,
it's awesome. Except now he's like, you got to come
to Alaska. And I'm like, I've never been to Alaska anyway,
So the two states I haven't been to. He said,
you got to come to Alaska, and I'm like, ah,
and he knows I grew up. I don't anymore because
I went. But I grew up hunting and fishing in
my whole life right until like eight. It's all we

(12:30):
did is the culture. And so he was like, no, no, no,
you come to Alaska.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
You're gonna love. It's gonna take you back to your roots.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
And first of all, I want to be cold. Second
of all, what's good about it? He goes, there's no
electricity and no Wi Fi.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
I don't have those roots. I always had electricity.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
No, no, yeah, it's like, dude, all that is making it
work our grandparents Like there's yeah, no, that's that's their
grandparents for it.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
There's a middle ground for me, Like I've got a
little house, a little farmhouse. There's direct TV, you know,
and I got going there and I'll sit, but I
mean as far as like disconnect from what is the
norm of my life, which is not normal, you know.
And I think that's what you know, you certainly can
agree with. Is like when you're running and gunning and
just going wide open, you don't have that time to

(13:12):
really sit down and think about it. But when you
do get removed from it, whether it be sitting around
the house or some kind of breaking the holidays, it
is such a light switch of a lifestyle change.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
When can you really appreciate the hard work that you've
put in.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
Uh, you know, as much I had to say it,
COVID was a probably the best time I had for that,
just because when I signed a deal in eighteen uh
and it was kind of you know, I was on
a major tours, I number one songs, one of ACM Awards,
and things were just real, and it's hard to really
comprehend all that when you're in it, and you do
get in that, just get through it, you know, like

(13:48):
you when I'll look look at shows, is not necessarily
something I'm looking forward to as much as something like
me and I want it to go well, you know,
and you.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
Could do you enjoy it afterward. That's how I find myself.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
When the show's over and you know, a handful of
bud are there whoever showed up or all on the bus,
and everybody's been.

Speaker 3 (14:02):
It was a great It was good, Wasn't that I.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
Enjoy, you know, And it's it's kind of a weird
way to be about it, because playing music is fun
and I do enjoy that. So I think that when
I do have those little breaks, I can kind of
sit back and look at, you know, the things that
are going on. It's funny you said that about feeling
like it because your bored things aren't going well, But
that's just such a natural instinct because you are so
busy when things are.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Going well, and because if you're like me, the early stages,
nobody really wanted me to do anything.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
I was just begging for anything, like please put me
on this.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
And so by the time I was allowed to do
things and then got to choose to do things. And
if I'm not working, I'm not being valued.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
I think I was real fortunate, you know, because I
can imagine the stresses of that, especially in a town
like this, you know, with the competition of it and
trying to just grind every day and make relationships and
get opportunities that I didn't have to deal with any
of that. I was doing construction work and playing shows
on the weekends, and I had no aspiration of being
in country music industry.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
You know, Is it because you didn't know you could
have aspiration very much?

Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah? I never would have thought it. And it's a
little bit from you know. I mean, I played a
lot of shows for several years, you know, cover shows,
started writing a little bit, but I just saw so
many people that were better than me. You know. The
first time I ever played in Nashville, I think I
came and played an open mic deal at Tootsi's and
Broadway and it was like two in the afternoon, and

(15:26):
I played two songs and there was a line of people.
I remember, some girl with a fiddle and guy with
a bandjo like still Wait with their instruments on.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
They were all better me.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
I listened about five of them and left, and I
was that was stupid, And I went back and played
at the Mexican Restaurant in Jacksonville for one hundred and
fifty bucks.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
What would you tell, though, somebody that's going through that
right now, because obviously your perspective has completely changed.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
That you don't have to be better than. It's not
a better than type thing.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, I mean, my advice is going to be from
what I can say, and that said, I'm never I'm
never the guy that just like I sing the national
anthem and blow you away with my vocal range like
Chris Stapleton or somebody. I've never had that for me.
What could set me apart from somebody else is the
type of songs I could write just because of the
way I look at my life or how I grew
up or whatever that is. So my advice has always

(16:11):
been to just write as many songs as you can,
don't be critical of them, because a lot of the
songs I've got that have got me where I am
or not giant hit songs in the sense of a
record label, you know, Like I can think of several
songs I've got that have gotten me to this point
in my career that if I walked into any label
in town and played them, they went, what else you got?

(16:32):
You know? And I don't know why it works, you know,
that's just something something that's unique to me that I
write about. And I think that That's what people can
can do, can set theirselves apart, is just write a
lot of songs.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
What was homelike for you? You mentioned your mom earlier, but
what was homelke growing up?

Speaker 1 (16:46):
You know? Wrestling?

Speaker 3 (16:47):
Yeah, that's all I need to hear. We'll see you
next week, everybody.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
She'll be glad I brought that up. You know, she's
probably proud of that. Said, well, I didn't let him
watch wrestling. It was great, man. I was really fortunate.
Didn't realize it until, you know, around coll college. Mom
and dad both alive, both there, Mom and dad both there.
Both sets of my grandparents were alive the majority of
my life. My granddad be first one to pass in
twenty ten, so I had four grandparents, a great grandmother.

(17:14):
My granny lived until twenty twenty. She was ninety eight,
So all of my family right there, and like they
all grew up, like both sets of my grandparents knew
each other when they were kids, you know, and so
it was just I was really fortunate to have everybody
within a few miles of where I grew up at
and when I wasn't playing ball, I was out run

(17:34):
around my grandparents and I just had that relationship that
I know a lot of people don't have.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
How big was your school?

Speaker 1 (17:40):
I don't know what, graduated one hundred and twenty, one
hundred and thirty something like that of middle Yeah, I guess.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
So, yeah, I mean not small.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
I got for like fifty, right, that was small, but like, yeah,
five hundred some of.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
The you know those are thousand were There were some
bigger schools around us. We were Jacksonville, the city of
Jacksone where there's Jacksonville State, University of College and all that.
I kind of lived in. But my family's from a
community called Pleasant Valley, which is right outside of town,
which is like one flashing light. There's one store, It's
called Green Store. EO. Green runs a store out there,
and the old men played dominoes in the morning, and

(18:11):
it's like, you know, kind of like going back in time.
It hasn't changed since I was a kidd.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
How did the transition happen of you being in a
small town to you being here and when you started
to learn that it is actually the semi tangible thing
that you could do, Like when did that start to
get planted in your brain?

Speaker 1 (18:27):
I said, it was.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
Really really gradual.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
I can remember one moment of I was playing at
you know, two or three different bar type restaurants around
northeast Alabama every week. I did that for a few years,
working too, working, Yeah, I do, and I built houses
until twenty eighteen. Literally when I signed my deal, I
came to town and started writing because my goal was I
thought I had built enough of a fan base off

(18:52):
of writing songs. I thought I could get a published
started getting some publishing deal offers. Then labels started coming
to my shows. I had four record labels off me
record and I signed a pub some deal with Warren Chappell.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
One week.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
I signed a record do a big machine the next
week and quit working and went on the road doing
radio tour.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
So it was like that did that felt really weird though,
because as awesome as that would be, when your whole
life you've grown a custom and your knowledge is only
in go to work, work hard, support and now, but
now you're just a creative which I'm assuming nobody down
there was doing anything creative.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
I've never co written, because I mean there was nobody
around that I wrote songs with you know what you know,
so there was nobody that knew anything about what was
going on with me, and I didn't know what was
going on. I was fortunate to meet some folks in
town that kind of guide me in the right way.
And I'll never forget. I was riding around with Eric Dillon,
who wrote there was This Girl with Me, and I
was really stressed out about figuring out what record label
I was gonna sign with, you know, knowing that's a

(19:46):
big decision, said man, I can't wait till I get
this figured out. And I signed so I can go
back and have a little time off. I've been to
Nashville so much. And he's like, do you have no
idea what a record deal is? You're about to go
on the road I'm radio to And I mean he
was right, obviously, But it was just little moments like
playing at Iron City and Birmingham and you know, the
guy asked me to come down there and play, and

(20:07):
I remember thinking it would be empty. You know, it
was held like twelve hundred and thirteen hundred people and
we sold twelve hundred and sixty tickets and I didn't
know anybody knew what I wasn't burnonh In That was
an hour and a half hour from where I grew up,
at and started going to Georgia and playing Atlanta and
playing Athens and in South Georgia, and it just so
I had a fan base from me putting music out
that I didn't really know.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
Was there were you putting it up on like DSPs.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
So I was telling somebody yesterday. I don't remember if
it was CD baby was like an avenue or Tune
Corps or something, And what it did was I just
recorded it and it was all awful recordings, you know,
I mean like the production it was. I played guitar
on a lot of It was just like an engineering studio.
And I looked up where I was a big fan

(20:49):
of Drake Whitt and I was a big fan of Jasonisible,
and I looked up where they recorded.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
It was Famed Studios and Must Shows. It was about
two hours moets, so.

Speaker 1 (20:55):
I drove there. They talked to the guy at the
front desk and he was like yeah, and he went
twists some knobs and I played it and he said
how's that. I was like, I guess it's good, you
know, I mean it was awful, But I just put it
out on whatever those platforms were, and eventually I started
looking in tune cors. There'd be some checks in there,
and then I knew I was going to be rich.
Like I was just looking. I was like twelve hundred
dollars or something in tune Corps once a month, you know.

(21:17):
So it was it was a cool thing. But it
wasn't like there was any a song on the radio.
Was the furthest thing from mine?

Speaker 2 (21:24):
Was there a local anything that started to play a
song first, like on a local weekend show or was
it you had to come to Nashville and then finally
it got put back onto the home stuff.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
There was a I mean, I wouldn't be a syndicated
show like a ninety five to five I think, wh may.

Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yeah, like even a small station.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yeah, there was a guy with a text Carter used
to kind of play some stuff on me. But I
was doing big shows in a small part of the world,
you know. Like I had a festival that I put
on called the Back forty Bass that I thought we'd
get a couple und of people to show up too,
and we had twelve hundred the first one. It was
on my property. We built a stage and you did
it at your absolute insanity. Yet Josh Jos tell you

(22:04):
to just insurance on the thing. Oh yeah, I got
like fifty dollars insurance from like my guy that does
my car insurance. But I had one buddy of mine
that was a county share work in security, and we
let people bring your own coolers, and it was moonshine,
and like everybody there got a fight. I got in
a fight. Everybody fought, and uh my mom was taking
up ticket money on one end, my dad on the other.

(22:24):
I never forget.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
It was real dry.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
I went to my dad and he was like when
he blinked, dust fell off his eyelashes. He was so
coded it. But he pulled out all this big water
and I said, we look at this when we're gonna
be rich, you know. I think we made like twenty
grand or something, you know, at this festival. So we
did it a couple more years, and my uncle Ty,
whose property was at the time, would say every year, like,
I hope you had a good time. We're never doing
this again, you know. It was like just a nightmare,
and then I'd give him a couple thousand. We'll try

(22:47):
it one more time, you know. But because of that,
I had relationship with those local stations and they would
kind of try to help.

Speaker 4 (22:52):
Me out, you know, hang tight the Bobby Cast. We'll
be right back. Wow, And we're back on the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
Who gave you your first guitar?

Speaker 1 (23:09):
My grandaddy Bufford was an old epiphone guitar, nothing real nice.
I wrote a song about him that I played at
his funeral, and there was a line in that song
that somebody asked me about. And I couldn't remember what
I was thinking when I wrote it, but it was
he never could hisself, but he taught me how to play.
And it's kind of weird because I don't remember what

(23:30):
I was thinking when I wrote that. I was sixteen,
seventeen years old. But he just enjoyed the guitar. And
so we started going and sitting on the porch of
my great grandparents house, who were no longer living, and
he'd get the Yellow Pages and call up so and
so that he used to play the banjo or the
mandolin whatever. And the next thing, he knows me and
all these old guys out there playing guitar, and started

(23:52):
a little deal called the Golden Saw Music Hall in
my great grandparents' house. And we did that every Friday
for about fourteen years, and I would just sit on stage,
the old guys and like watch how they made chords play.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
So that was kind of how I started playing music.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
But even with that kind of background, I didn't think
it was going anywhere, you know. It was just like
my green day. Lenden liked to fish and golf. That's
what we did when I was with him. I'm going
to do for like country music. That's when I was
around him, That's what we did.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
The guys that you were playing with, the old guys
from around town, were they generous with their time to
show you things or were you just learning through being
around it?

Speaker 3 (24:24):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (24:25):
Very man. Uh there's uh, you know how small towns
are like that. In this type of communities, man, everybody
kind of is just is just close. And they all
pulled for me because I was the kid up there,
I mean, and I was, you know, twelve thirteen years
old singing like great Speckled Bird by roy A Cuff
like I mean stuff that was, you know, seemingly one

(24:46):
hundred years before my time. And uh, they were very
helpful and and it they'd come over there during the
week and we'd sit around and play. And I learned
a lot from those guys. And uh, I wasn't very good,
but I got a lot of false confiden from the
fact that everybody was cheered when I got up there
because I was a kid, you know, among so much
of old guys. So it was it was a cool,
cool thing, another thing that I kind of took for granted,

(25:08):
didn't realize how unique it was until kind of after.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
What do you think motivated you to continue? Because that
thirteen fourteen, fifteen year old part of life, we're just
kind of all over.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
Yeah, but why who did you want to do it for?

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Was it for your grandfather because you felt like he
brought you or was it did the guitar just like
grab you?

Speaker 3 (25:27):
Songwriting just grab you?

Speaker 1 (25:29):
So all through high school nothing really came from it.
I played three sports and guitar was just, like I said,
something I did with my granddaddy.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
On the side, people at school did not know you
were a musician. I mean, it wasn't something that you
really I didn't like play a talent shows or anything.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
I mean, I was like quarterback of the football team,
so that wasn't what I was known for doing. And
I went to Jacksonville State, walked on, played a little
bit of football, there. While I was in college, I
played lead guitar in a band called Southern Harmony, and
we would just play like frat gigs. That one of
the guys that was the lead singer was in that fraternity,
so we just kind of grand followed in to play
We're not very good. And from that, I guess I

(26:05):
started to sing a little bit and then started to
play my own acoustic shows. And there was a time
in there, probably twenty two to twenty four twenty five,
where it got really monotonous to me. I was playing
the same shows every week, the same places, seeing the
same folks, when we were having a good time, you know,
making one hundred dollars a night, getting a free bar tab.
That was when it clicked for me, was when I

(26:26):
started writing songs. I got tired of playing the same
songs all the time, so I started writing some and
trying to replace songs in my set that did well
with something that I came up with.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
And that was a turning point for me. Was when
people would go.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
And play that when you played last week that you wrote,
you know, and then eventually I went and recorded some
of those songs, and that was, you know, that was
where it became more enjoyable to me. The songwriting part
of it's always been the thing that was the most
fun and I think the most motivating thing, because to
make somebody feel some kind of emotion from something you
came up with, I think is what any songwriter enjoys.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
The juxtaposition of you being an athlete, a guy from
the country, guy from the South. Then you're also singing,
you know. I mean, if you weren't big, maybe they
punched the shoulder a little bit. Yeah, yeah, I mean,
I certainly.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
My mom, I can remember when I was like sixth grade,
made me be in the choir at Kittystone Singers is
what it was called. Katy Stone was my elementary school
because she was gonna pay for me to play soccer.
We didn't have peee football, so I played baseball, basketball
and soccer and she said you can play, but you
got to be in Keystone Singers. And that was the
most painful thing I've ever done. It was just me
and a bunch of girls up there and I'm like

(27:32):
trying to you know. And I even went to one
voice lesson at Jacksonville State a guy up there. It
was very My mom was like set it up for me.
It was very like walked in the back door, you know.
I mean, I'm playing quarterback at jacksonvill State going to
voice lessons. You know, I walked into the guys like,
all right, give me a I don't know what you
call it, like a file la la la, And I
was like, I can't do this.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
I was left that was it.

Speaker 1 (27:54):
Yeah, not gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
So so you learned how to sing just by singing?

Speaker 1 (28:00):
Yeah, yeah, I'm my older My oldest sister, Lindy is
a very talented singer.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
Does she do it?

Speaker 1 (28:07):
She does? She went to Lagrange George on a music scholarship,
was in several like plays, very you know, artsy whatever
you want to call that. But I'd never had any
type of I'm sure I don't sing right now, you know,
like as far as how you're supposed to do it.
But I just I guess maybe I got by without
getting beat up because of what I was singing.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
You know.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
I didn't sing a lot of fluffy songs. It was.
It was a lot of you know, Hank Williams type
stuff and Merle Haggard. So I guess I got got
away with it because of that. What was your mom,
like just in general, she was tough man. She she
used to just wear me out. I mean I needed it.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
I was.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
I was a lot more trouble before I was old
enough to get in trouble, if that makes sense. I
think when I was a teenager, I was a lot
more uh, just whatever I could get into. And she
Alway used to say when I made it the twenty two,
her job was done, like I'm alive. And one thing
that was cool about my family with the music thing

(29:09):
was nobody ever thought I would be where I'm at
or anywhere near where I'm at. But everybody was very
supportive of when I was doing it. I mean that
I don't know that they missed the show and I
played in town and some of them I probably wish
they wouldn't have been at because we used to get
a little rowdy, you know, playing in the hometown bars.
But they still come out to all the shows or

(29:29):
anything that's close, and you know, that's a it's a
pretty crazy thing to have as a goal or a dream,
is to make it in country music. So for them
to be as supportive as they were was what was
very fortunate.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
You have brothers and sisters. I know you have a sister.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
You have two sisters. Casey is two years older me.
She's got two little kids. And Lindy's was the singer.
She's three years older me. No, she's ten years older me.
She got three kids.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
So you're the youngest and the only boy that's right.
Was your dad a big guy?

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, he's yeah, he's six y three.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
When did you grow?

Speaker 1 (30:01):
I had like one of those three inch ninth grade summers.
I was probably one of the shorter guys in my
grade and then sprouted, and then it took me about
a year to get my coordination back, you know, playing
ball with big hands and feet, being along and everything,
and I could never put any weight on it was
always real thin. But yeah, I kind of had to
grow spread around ninth grade.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
So tenth grade, did you get to play on the
senior high team has the tenth grade?

Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (30:28):
Did you start? Yeah at quarterback? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Well no, I started quarterback eleventh grade. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
What'd you play in tenth grade? Like wide receiver?

Speaker 1 (30:37):
I think I played a little bit of everything, safety,
outside linebacker, played backup quarterback, and I think I lay
in both ways. My senior year too, we were we
had a tough time in football. We had a great basketball,
great baseball program, but we got knocked around a little
bit in football.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
How many people our football team, and we had to
play a lot of guys played both ways. I didn't
play much both ways.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
I hated hitting. I catch.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
I did not want to get hit day, So don't
hit me please, but a lot we had like thirty
eight players total, right, so you took a twenty two.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
Yeah, and then some special two were all y'all a
double A okay, we were for a and you played
both plays. Yeah, well so we I.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
Had three different head coaches tenth, eleventh and twelfth CA year.
We had coach changes, and the last one that came
in was like a Paul Bear Bryant esque Old school
ran the wishbone triple option, which if if your quarterback,
you you get hit every play, whether you have the
ball or not. You fake to have the ball.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
So, uh, you ran triple option your senior year. Yes,
you're just getting pounded.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
It was yeah, and we didn't have the best offensive line.
I'm glad Josh here he can start. He can be
like this in the background. Uh, but it was Uh,
it was tough. For me because when I got to college,
I had to almost like relearn how to read a
secondary because I mean we threw two or three times
a game and it was a touchdown because everybody was
in the box. But it was was a It was

(32:01):
a pretty unique experience having all that going on. And uh,
I think he I think he was pretty tough on
as he ran her. But I think we had twenty
two players senior year. I know that when somebody got hurt,
we didn't have enough to scrimmage, no way coaches had
to stand in on defense. It was wild.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
So if you're running the triple option, or you're running
any sort of year, any sort of that's not a
pro style, or even you know, shotgun spread formation, and
you're going to college where that's all they run pro styles, again,
you're having.

Speaker 3 (32:33):
To completely learn.

Speaker 1 (32:34):
It was tough.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
So and you walked on. Did you have any scholarship
offers at all? Uh?

Speaker 1 (32:39):
No, I actually had more talk to more schools about baseball,
because a quarterback, unless you're gonna call it Navy, Yeah
I was.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
Georgia Tech did it for a little while, but there's
not much calling for an.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Austin So you could, but if you're running the option
the whole time, my coach is gonna be like, hey man,
we've been watching your tape.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
Yeah, and I wasn't really built for it.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
I mean I was more like a tall, skinny like
I would I think standing in the pocket and passed.
But yeah, at the end of the day, I don't
think I was going to make it to the Cowboys.
So it's not a huge letdown, but it was tough
to try to relearn that going into college at the
old Wishbone.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
Why did you go play college football? Walk on?

Speaker 1 (33:16):
I just that was my favorite sport, I mean, and
that was Jacksonville State University was my hometown college. You know,
just that was kind of a dream come true to
even go try it, and even to this day, like
relationships I made guys I played with probably more than anything.
The accountability of being eighteen years old and having to

(33:36):
get up for a five thirty workout, you know, people
not making you go to class like that was irreplaceable
for me because I was not anywhere near ready to
join the job for us at that time.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
How many years did you play ball?

Speaker 2 (33:51):
Two and a half and what's the most significan plant
time you got in college.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Well, it was two thousand and eight. I was a
starter and we signed the former national championship quarterback from LSU,
Ryan Perlew.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
Highly recruited dude.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
I remember being at seven on seven and coach Luke
Pruk called me in the office and they said they
signed Ryan Paarlue and I said, clean up a locker. Yeah,
that sucks.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
Did you enjoy what you said when it was over?
Was that your identity to yourself?

Speaker 1 (34:25):
I mean I always did so much stuff. I mean,
I guess by the time I got done playing ball,
I was playing in bars a little bit. I'd always
done construction work.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
You know.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
My grandparents were always very supportive of sports, watched every
game and everything. But it wasn't like that's what made
me by any means. You know, I felt like I
had other places I could go, and I kind of
knew that was going to end at some point, so
it wasn't an awful thing for me to go through,
and it was.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
It really led into me going to work.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
I think my last semester of college, my dadd I
had back surgery and him and his brother framed houses together.
I left school and went and helped my uncle build houses,
and I was like, man, I'm gonna be rich doing this.
I'm gonna make, you know, a couple hundred dollars a
night and playing on the weekends and make five six
hundred dollars a week framing houses. And I got amazed.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
So I bet you made less money when you got
a record deal for a while.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
Then, I hate to think about it, especially when the
irs found out who I was sure then it was.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Really bad because you're making money daily. I used to
I roof houses for a while, and a lot of
that money you just make, it's.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
Well, you see it. That's the thing.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yes, But also like you're working and you're getting paid
when you're doing radio tour, you're just spending money.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
Yeah, they're not you're not getting paid. Well.

Speaker 1 (35:45):
I can remember because I didn't have a booking agent
and I was playing, you know, one hundred hundred and
twenty shows a year up until I signed the deal.
You know, I didn't have a manager nothing, so I
was it was just word of mouth. I had a
little business card to my phone number on it. I
just give to people on bars would call me or
owners or whatever promoters and so people would call and
ask me about playing a private show. And that was

(36:05):
a tough thing for me because I hated to be
like ten thousand dollars, you know, like that's a bunch
of money. I was working during the week for five
hundred a week, but you know, like weddings and stuff like,
they had a pretty big budget. So it was always
a weird thing for me. Somebody would call and I'd go,
you know, five grand. I remember sitting with Red Akins
one time, right and going, how much money would you

(36:27):
have to have to turn down fifteen thousand to go
play acoustic for five minutes. I don't know that I'll
ever have that much money. I mean, that's still a
bunch of money. And I remember when I got with
a manager and a booking agent all stuff, and then
people would call out a private show and we'd have
to turn something down. I'm like, man, I'll go do
it for eight grand were talking about. And then you
realize when you got a bus and you got this,

(36:49):
and you got that it cost me whatever to go
play a show.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
I would hate to know what it costs now.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
We got four buses and two eighteen wheelers and lighting
boards and camera guys and everything else. So it's, uh,
we're very blessed, and it's it's an awesome way to
make a living, but it's a very expensive way to
make a living.

Speaker 4 (37:06):
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
I want to talk about work ethic for a second,
and I'm gonna mention Sam Hunt for a second.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
We went to Western Kentucky. I do a sports thing.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
We were hanging out with the head coach a Western
Kentucky who is Sam's quarterback Coachka and yeah, and so
he was like, yeah, I used to coach Sam at
u AB and you know he's not the head coach
there now. And he's like, how's Sam doing? And I
was like what was Sam? This was not even on
a microphone. I was like, what was Sam like? And
he was like kind of like he probably is now,
like quiet, dedicated, was going to show up on time

(37:49):
and get the job done. If I were to ask
your coach from back then today, if I were to
see him, like what kind of work ethic did Riley have?

Speaker 3 (37:59):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
I think that I was always very mindful that I
wasn't the best. So I think maybe because of that,
I tried to outwork people in some ways. I think
that that definitely carried over into my music career, is
being very mindful that there were things that I wasn't
as good as other people at, but I was always

(38:21):
I was always very I had a lot in my
head about what other people thought, being like my dad
or my grandparents or whoever. It was coming to my
games and growing up in a small town. I always say,
you're very much held accountable for how you do anything,
how you treat people, how you drive down the street.
You know, if you cut off somebody's grandmother, you're going
to see their aunt and when Dixie and they're gonna

(38:42):
you know, so like that to me, the small town
made me want to be a hard worker in sports
and the writing music and you know, building houses for
a living. That's how you get work as reputation, you know,
I think that that's where I got a lot of that.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
Do you get any sort of flag for how old
are you?

Speaker 2 (38:58):
Know?

Speaker 3 (38:58):
Thirty five?

Speaker 2 (39:01):
I got married a couple of years ago, but I
was thirty nine when I got married, and everybody back
home was like, you're broken or gay because you're not married?
Is everybody where I was from was you got married
at nineteen twenty.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
I mean not you.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
Oh yeah, no, everybody, my parents and yeah, they were
convinced the thing that I was off, like intellectually or
that I just they were like, it's okay if you're gay.
I'm like, I'm like gay, and if I was, I
would tell you.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
But I've been called a lot of things.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
But it's like I'm thirty nine and you're thirty five. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
I think that now it's probably at least everybody that
knows me personally has seen what my lifestyle is like
in the sense of how much I'm gone.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
I mean, I don't have regular relationships with my friends,
but what about it at home?

Speaker 2 (39:42):
Are they like Riley, well, you know, well you're not
married because at home they don't see probably what your
travelfe My mom didn't see my travel.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
Life was like yeah my mom. My mom has my calendar.
Oh yeah's my mom has been really great about that.
It's like maybe early on, I'm sure she had a
little bit of that and was worried about me, you know,
finding somebody whatever, But now I think she just knows
that this is such a timely point in my career.
I've obviously been very blessed and if accomplished things I
never thought I would. But there's also a lot of

(40:10):
opportunity that comes with that. And I just kind of
had in my head when I was going to sign
a record deal to just put my nose down and
grind it out and do everything they asked me to
do anything I could for a couple of years, which
that's stretched into five now. But I think they get that,
and I don't see a lot of pressure. I think
that my lifestyle is going to have to change to

(40:31):
where I go from playing you know, one hundred and
twenty shows a year to sixty But.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
What's going to make that happen?

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Though?

Speaker 4 (40:37):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Like, what's what's a fact?

Speaker 1 (40:39):
That's a great question, because I because it's you know,
as you well know, it's up to me. Yep. I
mean I could turn down anything I want to. Uh,
I don't know. I hope it's just something clicks and
we get to a place where I can say, this
is the budget for the year, this is how many
shows we can go do it. I'm happy with making
this much and this is the career I'm going to

(41:00):
have from this. And maybe that's from you know, a
lot of opportunities not being.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
Available that are right now.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
I don't know. It's a probably one of the more
scary things about it is knowing that with this type
of travel schedule and lifestyle, I don't really have much
chance of beating somebody, and how much things are gonna
have to slow down for me to get to that place.
You know.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
It's also a momentum based industry very much.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
It's such a battle to stay relevant right probably now
more than ever because of all the avenues of new
music and a new artist discovery or whatever that is.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
So it feels like if you let up by letting
something else in regardless of what it is, if it's
you want to go away for three months to hunt,
or if you want to have a serious relationship, Like
you're like, well, if I have dedicated this is the
struggle that I went through. If I dedicate my time
to this, then this is going to suffer. And so
I was never going to get married. Just I was
just like, you know what, I'm never gonna have time
for it because I also I feel like I am

(41:54):
I have a huge imposter syndrome, and like if I
don't keep going, I'm never going to get back to
this level. And then I met my wife and it
was like she kind of boss me out of it,
and for the first time ever, I let her because
I was happy that I met a person that as
much as I was annoyed by it, I was more
annoyed by the fact that maybe she.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
Wouldn't be there.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
And it was the only time and I dated. But
I mean it was you know, I'd had my move
to Nashville. Holy crap, I never got girls, and I
got all the girls at once that it was so
it was wild, and then it was but this is weird.
And then I was like, I'm never getting married.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
Who cares?

Speaker 2 (42:31):
And then I met my wife and I was like, man,
I really don't want to slow down. But worse than that,
I don't want to like lose her. That's whomever I
don't even know. You're you're you never married, right, never
married everything, You're not going to ever go. I only
want to make this much money this year.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yeah, I just uh, you know, it's a really funny
thing to say, probably to my buddies back home from
the outside looking in, because they're like, oh, man, Rotherly
meets no but where do you really meet a girl?

Speaker 2 (42:56):
At you know what I mean, where do you get
to invest time in a human exactly?

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah? Yeah, And and you know social media is probably
whereas some people would use that to meet people, it's
the opposite for me because how do you really use that,
you know, with a what I do for a living.
So it's it's an interesting thing. Like I said, I've uh,
I mean.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
I used it, but it wasn't for good. Yeah, Like
I used it, but it.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
Wasn't for meeting somebody to marry, right, it wasn't like
long terms. The girls I've met on Instagram probably watched wrestling,
and their mom probably let them watch wrestling, so it
would never work, or they were wrestlers. Uh. But no,
I've I've had a couple of years where we've said, man,
let's take off November and and and let me, you know,
go hunt just kind of disconnect and write whatever. And

(43:39):
we've never taken one off. So it'll it'll it'll be that.
I think that I've I've guaranteed myself a career that's
more than I've ever thought I would have. Uh. But
at the same time, there's just so much opportunity, and
I think the only thing that makes me nervous about
my career is not making the absolute most of it,
you know, not getting every opportunity that I can.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
But you're never gonna get every opportunity you can. You're
never gonna be able to get to every opportunity I
had to. I don't know if you if you go
to therapy at all, but god, dang, I thought this
was I know that it's probably what this is because
I go to like have we go to a couple's
counselor and I go to my own and he was like,
because I was, I would say that, and I'm a
little older than you, so I would be like, if

(44:22):
I don't take advantage of everything, and he's like, you'll
never be able to take advantage of everything, it doesn't matter.
You're you're running on a hamster whel that you can
never get to go fast enough to actually matter.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
Yeah, I think that it's a little bit of an
overthinking type thing. I will say, I'm mindful that there's
nothing that I feel like I'm gonna miss. If that
makes sense, Like, if my career panned out right now
and it is what it is, I can go play
shows for the next fifteen years. I would still be
very excited about that. So it's not like I'm gonna
be leaving something on the table. I just know there's

(44:54):
opportunity right now. And it's almost like, I'm sure you
were the same way. When I'm sitting around, I'm thinking, man,
what could I be doing nothing? That's pretty tough to
explain to a girl. Let's say you've gone on a
couple of days with and she wants to know why
you have a day off and you want to go
right or you want to go do this or that,
you know, And for me it was hunting. That was
a really hard thing to explain, Like why would you

(45:16):
want to go sit in the woods by yourself after
being on the road for eighty days this year and
I haven't found the answer to that.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
You'll get kicked in the nuts by a girl and
she won't care that much about you, and it'll it'll
like maybe two kicks in the nuts.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
And then my grandmother Little Jean tells me I never
be a girl that will care less than me.

Speaker 3 (45:33):
I haven't yet, and I never believed it.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
I was like, this is old old wives tell if
you stop trying, then you'll find it.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
And I was like, that's whatever. I'm just never gonna
get married. I'm gonna work. I'm be king dingling to work.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
And it happened, and I still am like really, so
that's what that's what i'd be And now my laugh too,
it's gonna be awesome.

Speaker 3 (45:50):
Yeah. Well, I mean to.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Your point, I think maybe if you met somebody in
your early twenties or me, I wouldn't be where I am.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
So absolutely I did not step some check at twenty
three years old, some random and trust me, no going
to asxt me anyway. So it didn't happen like twice.
But and I don't mean almost not get some d up,
I mean anybody having sex with me. But it'd all
been different, Everything would have all been different, And so
I'm glad I was a complete loser. You don't have

(46:17):
to agree with that because you weren't.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
That's okay.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
You're cool, you're a big athlete, you play guitar with
the grandpa.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
That's cool a lot.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
How many kids aren't either, So that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (46:27):
But I'm going through an agree there.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
I'm going to the kids thing now that you're going
through with the relationship part, where it's like I don't
with kids. I'm like, if I have a kid, I can't,
I can't. I gotta get off the road. I can't
go shoot my sports show.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
I can't go. But it's the same cycle over and
over a kiss.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Thing, which is is probably a backer's way to think
about it, because you should probably look at the girl
the same way as the kid.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
But I would I wouldn't want to have a kid
right now.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
I mean not that I don't want children, it's just
that I know how gone I'm gonna have to tell
Absen I would have to be.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
And you know, I mean, I would want to be
able to have a somewhat normal It's never gonna happen,
you know, with you. But what's normal? There's no normal.
You're normal. You're normal what you just talked about. Like,
I know people that grew up in like big cities,
they would think that like it's like a zoo. Like
they would look at you as like somebody in a
zoo because they've never seen that kind of life before.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
Yeah, so there is no normal.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Yeah, well this is a lot faster paced and something
about how I grew up that was a lot slower
in that town. I think there's values there that that
I think a kid's gonna get, you know, And that
was from spend a lot of time with my grandparents,
who was from the accountability, like I said, of being
in a small town. And uh, I don't know, there's

(47:38):
a lot of artists that that.

Speaker 4 (47:39):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
I think have managed to have a great career and
still have that home lifestyle, you know, and spend a
lot of time at home. And Jackson will be in
three hours from Nashville.

Speaker 3 (47:52):
You know.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
I think it's doable. It's just gonna take, you know.
I keep saying a couple of years.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
I said that too, Wait another year, Wait another two years.
It was never a year thing or it was like
wait till I have the opposite of council. And this
made me feel like more nervous than that. It's like
I live. I lived anxiously forever.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
I was like, wait till I get this much money
to bank, and it just mostly had to be the person. Yeah,
it didn't matter, it didn't matter, you know, this much money,
this much, but it was a person.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
And then I fought it and I was like, Nope,
can't do it.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
But then I was just more upset not being with
her than I was if I would have not been
able to work as much.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
And it's hard suck sometimes because I'm gonna work all
the time.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
I still have that desire not to work for fun,
to work to prove to others that I'm worthy to
be here.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
Well, I can comprehend that too, because I don't have
another hobby that would compete with work right now for me,
like I like to be on the farm and you know,
right around the tractor and you know, clean up some
of the property. That's kind of my like project when
I'm there, But I don't I'm not like longing for
that all the time. It's just something that occupies some thoughts.
So you know that and hunting for me, it's really it.

(48:59):
So I can see where A would take that, take
that place a little bit and make it where you could.
You wouldn't mind h being off the road so much.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
It'll be there.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
I'll laugh to him. I'm gonna good laugh at that one.
You find her and you're like, God, damn.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
You're probably like ordained or something on Jack, just let you.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
I was at one point.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
I don't know if found license is still good, but
I got ordained years ago.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
It's Internet.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
It's probably it's probably like mail in Alabama.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
Yeah, yeah, Uh did you almost not record Grandpa's Never Die?

Speaker 3 (49:23):
But like, what's the story?

Speaker 2 (49:24):
One of my friends said that he had heard you
maybe tell a story somewhere where you almost didn't record it.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
Well, Uh, what it was was we had my second
single was song called in Love by Now. We went
and filmed a music video for it, and belize, you know,
I had this big role out you went to radio
and uh, you know this maybe in the forties, and
I wrote, I ice Grandpa's Never Died. Obviously after my
gren day, Linden passed away, and I think I got

(49:51):
a little drunk. I was done in Georgia, maybe making
or somewhere playing a show. And I played it and
that video was the one that some you know, somebody
on their phone videoed it and got a couple of
million views in like a week, and it was it
was just a reaction, like to to every line in
that song for the first time people hear it, you know,

(50:11):
and you know that's that's a unique thing. So I
went and played the West Virginia State Fair about two
weeks later. I'd never played in West Virginia. And there's
a video of this on my Instagram, but they screamed
everywhere and it was off of a video is where
they learned it wouldn't record or anything.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
So I called labels, I we got.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
To cut this. I don't I don't know if it's
a radio single or what, but it's and of course,
you know it. It became took the place of that
single and became my biggest song.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
So I don't know that I ever.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
I certainly it wasn't thinking about recording it when I
wrote it, but it raised his hand from the first
time I played it, you know it kind of you
can't really argue with that.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
Well, that's gonna be wild that you don't record a
song but you're playing it and people know it. That
they're watching some recorded video with not the greatest audio
of you just was awful.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
Yeah, And to be honest with you, I watched that
video so many times to try to figure out what
about it, because I mean, I knew the song made
me feel some type of motion. I can comprehend how
it can make somebody else feel something, but I couldn't
forge out why if somebody watched that video over and
over again, you know, like for me, if I'm scrolling
through Instagram and something calls that, I'll turn it off,
like I can't. You know, it just was horrible quality.

(51:23):
But at the same time, a lot of the songs
I recorded early on were not very good production. And
I think that the you know, the story or the
lyric or whatever that emotion people are getting from it
is is they kind of overlook a lot of stuff.
And that was a that was the first time I'd ever.

Speaker 3 (51:36):
Seen that with a song. It was it was it
was pretty cool to.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Watch what's that Duckman jam? Like, what's what's the difference
in that the one you step at your house?

Speaker 1 (51:43):
Uh Duckman jams will be a lot more organized, very
certain uh duck Man to well, obviously my Instagram name
was Riley Duckman. I think from duck Hunt. That kind
of became a little bit of my uh nickname or
whatever you want to call it. And Uh, I grew
up going to the floor watching a lot of artists
down there. I'm sure you've been down there at some point.

(52:05):
Learned a lot about kind of trying to win over
a touristy crowd, you know, from watching people play down.

Speaker 2 (52:12):
There and play And she doesn't want to really be
one over. That's right, Yeah, And I.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
Think those were the most helpful and beneficial shows for
me in my career was those acoustic shows. You played
for four hours, you take four or fifteen minute breaks,
and you get one drink per break, and I think
we made one hundred dollars. And I would I played
every day for three weeks one year during just every
college just bring break from twelve to four on the
beach under a little tent and just gotten to be

(52:37):
really good buddies with the owner down there and some
of the guys that run that place. And we've done
the wharf, but I just really wanted to go do
something on the beach in front of the floor of BAMA.
The last show we played before COVID shut us down
was on the beach. So we're gonna go do two nights.
It's April twelfth and thirteenth.

Speaker 3 (52:53):
I think it is.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
Tracy, Lawrence, La Langley, Jake Worthington, Drake White h and
do you know ten thousand people on the beach two
nights in a row. It's be a good time. That's
gonna be awesome.

Speaker 5 (53:07):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 3 (53:21):
Uh, you and Luke.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
You know, Luke hopped on a different round here, but
that song was recorded by you. I know we've talked
about this a bit on the show, on the radio show.
But so you have that song, you recorded the song,
and then you go back and ask Luke to come
on it, right?

Speaker 3 (53:34):
Is that? Is that how it happened? Like, hey, that
we hop on it.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
It's probably supposed to be done through the proper channels
and management and everything else. But I just texted Luke.
We were really talking about what the next single is
going to be, and that song has always raised his
hand to me, it's a hit song at my shows,
it always has been. And uh, I just kind of
mentioned the label maybe we go back to this one.
You know. Obviously Grandpaul's shook up what was my next single?

(53:58):
And and this and that. So I just texted Luke
said you have any interest being on this song? Obviously
buddies with Luke have been for a while. But I
also kind of knew that me being on a stadium
tour then would probably be a great end for that
to be something they would be motivated to do, you know.
Knowing that we're all trying to sell tickets to the
same tour and my success was somewhat his success at

(54:20):
that time. And I mean, you know, I hope he
enjoyed the song. I don't think he would have done
it otherwise. It was definitely a very beneficial for me
to have him on it and gave that song a
second life and came of my third number one.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
So they just send you the track when he was
done with it.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
The first I've done several features, you know, did have
me with Thomas Rhett that we sang together. That day,
I did a song with Justin Moore. We sang on
the same microphone, which you know, was like ible think
we was standing on a chair maybe, you know, but
I've done somewhere. We just send him, you know, in
the song with Jelly Roll. You know, he's so busy

(54:57):
right now, it's for us to get together. Was tough,
but yeah, I just into Luke and he sent it
back with Yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
My question is the first time you heard it was awesome.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
It was awesome. Well, I mean, especially from a songwriter standpoint,
it probably like every songwriter in town. I've never had
an outside cut, you know, I've written on my own songs.
But to hear somebody like that, especially somebody you're a
fan of, and somebody with that kind of vocals sing
a song that you wrote, you know, and better than

(55:25):
me by far, you know, So it was it was
really cool to hear that and definitely was was exactly
what that song needed.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
I want to ask you one more thing about the
Buford Bond Fund. What what like? What does that do?

Speaker 2 (55:37):
I know it's military at your grandpa too, right, Like,
why was this important.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
To you to create that? Well?

Speaker 1 (55:44):
Uh, I've done a lot of been fortunate in my career,
been able to do a lot of things with Saint
Jude and and and you know, the military has obviously
been a huge part of my life with my both
my granddaddy servant, but also just you know, how I
write songs, what I write about, and what I feel
like is important to spend my time doing. And what

(56:05):
was great about doing having my own foundation is I
can kind of steer it in any direction I want
to throughout the year. So something comes up, you know,
some stuff with Habitat for Humanity, which is great for
me because you know, being a homebuilder. It was awesome
to go outside of Nashville, and my dad and aunt
and uncle mom come up. They all got hard hats
on and tool belts and we're out there working. And
it's just been cool to me to be able to

(56:26):
see some of the ways that you can use, you
know what's a pretty awesome way to be able to
make a living to help other organizations. So I like
the freedom that be for Bond's Foundation allows me to
be able to kind of go in any direction. That's
kind of on my heart at that time.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
You have the next single? Was it ready damn good
day to leave?

Speaker 1 (56:45):
Yep?

Speaker 3 (56:46):
Is that out? I mean people know that, they know
it now? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (56:50):
Man, what's cool about it is uh, I've yea. Now
they know Eric Dillon who wrote there was This Girl
with Me and that was his first number one. He's
also on this song with me and a kid that
I signed to a Pubish deal named Nick Walsh, who
I'm a huge fan of. I got to tell them
that they were getting a single radio and it'd be
Nick's first and Eric's second. So that was cool. Man.

(57:11):
That's a different side of this business that I wasn't
really aware of.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
You guys can follow Riley at Riley Duckman or Duckman, Duckman,
mister Duckman, Riley Duckman, which I thought for a while
that was your name, Riley.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
I still I don't know who I told the story to,
but they call me Duckman every time I see him.
Was I pulled up at the Opry one time and
the valet guy came out, got opened the door, said, oh.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Are you mister Duckman? I guess I was you are?
Do you work for me for a bit too? Yeah,
good to see you, man. I appreciate the time. Congratulations
on all the success.

Speaker 3 (57:44):
And you know you'll be hearing from me.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
Yeah, man, let's let's talk. I'll have a lot of No.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
You'll be hearing from me.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
When you get kicked in the nights, I'll be like
I told you, that's what I was going to take.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
Oh call you.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
Yeah, you'll be hearing from me. All right, there is
Riley Duckman. Riley, mister Duckman.

Speaker 4 (57:57):
Thank you, thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.