Mark Miller of Sawyer Brown joined Bobby Bones to talk about his life and career journey! Sawyer Brown is often mistaken for a person, so he set the record straight that it's no one's name and just the name of the band. Mark released his book, 'The Boys and Me: My Life In The Country Supergroup Sawyer Brown.' In it, he shares stories of how the band got turned down by every label in Nashville and then got their start on Star Search. He also shares what some of his first jobs were like when he had to water ski as Pinocchio at Disney World. Mark also recalls the time he first met Larry Bird and they golfed together, and he didn't say a word to him the entire time! He also talks about his first new record in 20 years, Desperado Troubadour, and how he got Blake Shelton to produce it. Mark also dives into the stories behind some of Sawyer Brown's biggest hits and more!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
They say, you'll know when the one comes on and
some girls do changed are everything?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Episode four forty one, Mark Miller of Sawyer Brown. As
you'll see, there is no Sawyer Brown. That's not a person.
That's the name of a band that's like Hoody. There's
no Hoody and Hoody and the Blowfish. Actually Hoody was
two people, Hoody their friend and Blowfish, which is their friend.
It wasn't actually a group of blowfish.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Do you know that?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I didn't know that. Yeah. And Sawyer Brown is the
name of a band. And it's after they changed their
original name. They had to pick like a street they did.
That's their band. But Mark Miller is the lead singer.
Man love the Guy. Uh, some of the songs and
the races on Man Here Comes. And that was a cover,
an old George Jones cover which we talk about. Uh,
some girls don't like girls like me. M some girls do.
(00:54):
And if you're asking yourself, why is Bobby singing them
and not playing them? Because we will go to podcast
jail if we play them. We can't play the clip
or we get sued. Or how about I want to
thing Mama for the cooking, Daddy for the whooping the
devil for the trouble that I get into. That's the
number one Thank God for you. He's got a fortieth
anniversary project which includes his book. Also there's a documentary
(01:16):
on the band coming out. But there's a new album
and that's out called Desperado Troubadours. It came out March eighth,
So whenever this goes up, maybe a couple weeks ago.
His first album in twenty years. Blake Shelton produced it.
We talked about that and they're all over in twenty
twenty four. And he sounds awesome as far as how
he sings. Sounds exactly the same. He came and played
with Eddie and I at the Ryman a couple of
(01:37):
years ago, and it sounds exactly like you think Sawyer
Brown would sound if it was an album. So Mark
Miller of Sawyer Brown, I left this interview going like,
I'd like to be friends with that guy. I just
want to hear him talk a look.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yeah, Like sometimes I'm like, oh that's cool. I'd really
look up.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I looked up to them when I was a kid,
as a as an artist with great songs or they
seem like a good person. But I was like, man,
I want to go play Paul with Mark, or like,
I want to hang out with this dude. So all right,
Mark Miller, I saw Your Brown. By the way, we'll
have another one coming up this week with Sarah Evans.
It's a tour this week. All right, here you go,
it is the Bobby Cast. Mark. I'm a big fan,
you know. Let me just say for five seconds, I'm
(02:14):
a massive fan. So I'm a massive fan. I gotta
geek out for a second because then I gotta get professional.
But I just love you, love you guys, So all that, Eddie,
you want to say anything real quick. I'm a huge fan.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
And this is kind of embarrassing, Mark, but whenever I
get sick with nasal congestion, I sing your song.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Just because, like, your voice is so cool to me,
and that's the only time I can get it sounds
like that it gets So that's us geeking out and
now we'll be professional if that's okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
So Mark, you're in Sawyer Brown. Does everybody think you're
sawr Yes, because there are Hoody Darius.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
He's not really hooty.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
You're not Sawyer.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
When you name yourself saw your Brown after a person
was a street. Yes, did you know that was going
to be the thing where everybody thought you were Sawyer?
Speaker 3 (02:59):
No?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Well, you know because where the Panama hat on stage
and Tom Sawyer and the whole thing. Yeah, we we
really liked the name, like Barefoot Jerry and and you
know a lot of the bands that you know had
like name named Marshall Tucker, Leonard Skinner.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
So that was kind of the thought.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
But but really didn't have an idea that that people
were going to start calling me Sawyer.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
But they still do.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I would think so like with Leonard skinnerd I would
think that rhymes, that's funny, that's not someone's name. Yeah,
but I think Sawyer Brown is like a dude the mailman.
Like that's like the dude who lives down the road.
And I think forever, I probably as a kid, I
probably thought Sawyer was the lead singer. And are you
I bet that happens all the time. Are you Sawyer?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah? Yeah, I this.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
I did an interview last week with with someone new
in radio and I said, hey, this is Mark Miller
and she said, well are you handling Sawyer?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
And you know what, God bless that because that so
well saw Your good to see you. Yeah, so hey,
A couple of things. One we'll talk about the new
record in a second. But your book The Boys and Me,
and it's a memoir that you wrote about the band
and about all your life and all the times. And
I'm sure the books great stuff. But I want to
go to the bat here. So Eddie, I want to
(04:15):
read you one of these because what you do is
you ask people to say nice things about your book, right,
and someone someone wrote this. Mark Miller is a great
guy and a true loyal friend. The Sawyer Brown Band
is my favorite band, no wonder. They have been at
the top for forty years and still counting. You know
said that Larry Bird.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Wow, our buddy Larry Bird, but not your buddy.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
So Mark, you know, Eddie signed my Larry Bird ball.
I know, I know, I see that, an idiot. I
love Larry Bird. How do you know Larry Bird.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I've known Larry for for a long time. He's a
big Sawyer Brown fan.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
That's crazy and so but you know Larry's from Indiana. Yep,
you know, it's country boy for sure. I think at
times maybe we just associated with the Celtics in Boston.
And even though that's a very country centric place.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Now.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Maybe back then it wasn't. But yeah, he's a country boy.
The first time you met him, did he come to
a show? Did you go to a game? What happened there?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
First time I met him, his brotherhood come to his show,
Eddie Mark, I was older brother.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, I got it, got it?
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah, And so Mark tells me Larry's a big fan.
And I had a place in Naples. Larry also had
a place in Naples, and he said, if you go down,
Larry liked to golf with you.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So I get a call from Larry to golf and
so so I golf with Larry and we ended up
like I was down there six days. We ended up
golfing every day that I was down And that was
like in ninety three or ninety four.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Wow, Like that's like right after Dream Team stuff. Yeah, yeah,
did you talk about that? Do you? Like? No, you
didn't talk about asketball at all?
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Larry. Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
The very first day, we're literally driving, he picks me up.
It's about twenty five minutes to the golf course, and
we were on the way one of my songs comes
on the radio. He looks at me like this just
kind of sha. So, so we golf, you know, like
(06:13):
four and a half hours. He doesn't say a word
to me nothing.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Wait, you mean, not even a single word, not about.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
He would he would say, you know, there's a there's
a trap up here on the left hand side, there's
you know there, there's you know.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
In the same cart, in the same car. That's so awkward. Yeah, weird.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah yeah. And and we finished the whole day. We
go back to the hotel. He doesn't talk to me
on the way over or on the way back. And
we get to the hotel, he said, hey, man, that
was a blast. You want to go tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
He got a great time. That's funny.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So, but your interpreting was he just so competitive and just.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
So he's very he's very introverted and very quiet and
very private.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
That would be my best friend. We could just go
and say nothing. Yeah, I'm Mike Di and I go
along so wonderfully. We don't say a word to each
other for days and we're like, I love you too, man.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Okay, So, so so week off, like every day for
five days, and we're going to take the next day off.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
He said, I'm gonna take the tomorrow off.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
So so he calls me late that night and he says, hey,
can you go with me tomorrow? He said, I just
got called. I got to go, you know, do a
favor for a guy. And he said, I want I
want you to go with me and write in the
cart with me because I don't want to have to talk.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
To anybody and you're not talking. Yeah, so I'm the guy.
I'm the go to guy for not talking.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
So Mark at all, you didn't feel like you needed
to fill in those silent spaces just to not make
it awkward.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Because I'm the same way. Oh absolutely, Yeah, because I'm
that way too introvert, same way, don't need to talk.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, I introverted until it's time to be extremely extroverted exactly.
And then but I think a little bit of that
from me is because I've had to become extremely extroverted.
So then you're like, you know, I've got so much energy.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
And also I feel like I'm bothering people to right here. Yeah,
I feel like.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
If I'm textbook textbook same.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Did you ever have imposter syndrome where you were to
the point of like, we listen, we're killing it. But
do I really deserve it and I'm saying you don't
because I love you. But like me, I feel that
all the time.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Every day I get up every day. Yeah, yeah, very blessed.
Can't believe this is still going on. And in the
in the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, one more Larry Bird thing. He's like six like
six nine, six ten.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Six ten, He's he's huge.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
He's huge to be as good of a shooter ball handler.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
He was so big when you see him and you
go back and you look at all those clips and
I was a huge fan, so I I you know,
the only show I was late to was was when
they were playing the Pistons and he steals the inbound
pass and you know they beat the Pistons. But when
you look at those you look at Larry and you
think you know the way he plays.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
He's six foot two, but he's six foot ten. Yeah,
he plays like a guard.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
He's huge, Like if he walked in that door, he'd
have to duck and when he came in like that
was the first thing I noticed about him. And when
you see other like other guys talk about him, was
how big he is. When you meet him, you can't
believe he's that big.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
You a big sports guy in general. Yes, favorite are
all your favorite teams? Florida teams that you grew up Florida.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Florida State, it's my favorite football team. But all my
folks are from Kentucky, so I'm a big Kentucky fan.
But I'm also I'm friends with you know, the coaches
at Arkansas as well.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
So which ones Keith Smart?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, I's Smart thought a few months ago.
Yeah he was the NBA coach too, you know. Yeah,
that's awesome. Okay, So the book, what's what's in the book?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Is it your life? Is it the band's journey?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Like if we read the book, what are we going
to get from it?
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Well, from from my childhood all the way up and
through the band and you know, my I'll just you know,
give you a couple of snippets. My job through high
I played college basketball at University of Central Florida. My
job in high school and college I was a trickwater
skier at what Disney World.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
That's all.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
So here's my question where I go on my head
is you're obviously a college athlete, but you're a trick
water skier at the same time, meaning if you if
anything goes wrong. You can't be a college athlete because
you hurt your ankle trick water skiing.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yeah. Yeah, but things were different back then, you know,
I mean, I mean, well, body is still broke.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I mean you know, yeah, did you ever hurt yourself
trick water skiing that you couldn't play ball?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
No?
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Did you ever hurt yourself playing ball? You couldn't trick
water skiing?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
No? No?
Speaker 2 (10:28):
And how did so? I guess growing up in Florida
on the water, you just learned how to ski really well.
And how did that turn into trick water skiing?
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Well, the job at Walt Disney World was a big
you know, they I was Pinocchio in the water Ski show,
and so your.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Water ski is Pinocchio. This is the greatest story.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
It keeps unlayering, one beautiful thing at a time.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
So so you have to do tricks, like so they
want to see your skin backwards and stuff, and you
would have to do like we would do shows over
at the Polynesian Hotel, the Contemporary, and you would have
to do like beach starts, doc starts and all that
kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
So you have to learn. You have to learn that later,
like once you see this is the job, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
As Pinocchio, though you're doing it.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, that was the toughest part because you've got this
this this helmet on inside of this rubber head, and
you've got these little eyes that you have to see
out of. And when when you get they get wet,
you can't see. It's like a screen door if the
screen gets wet.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
And when you lie, the nose gets bigger. And if
you're like I can see exactly, that's wild. All that's wild.
Were you a pretty good ball player?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
And do you still play?
Speaker 1 (11:37):
That's how that's how I know Keith Smart. I played
with Keith on the fort Wing Fury of the c
b A. Yeah, he and David Bailey. I was a
teammate of those guys.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
And Keith ended up playing in Indiana.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Yeah, he played in Indiana and I you won the
next championship. The shot hit the shot hit the shot? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Do you still play pickup ball at all?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
I do?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
You got to invite me because I because some of
these here's the thing, there's a group of guys that
play here a lot, like Caine saying, but they play
at ten o'clock on a Wednesday night. Yeah, I can't.
I have to do the show. And I'm assuming this
is an assumption mark that you don't play at ten
o'clock on a weeknight. No, I don't, So if you
(12:19):
ever need.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Actually, all of our guys play earlier, like we play
it like it's seven.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Well, see, I got this job to do too, unless
when do you want to play? No? No, no, you're not
building the game around me. Do you say seven at
night or seven in the morning?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
No, no, seven at night. Okay, I'll play that. Where
do you guys play?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Don't? Don't say? Is it like a public gym or
somebody have a place a court? I have a place,
You have a place, Okay, before you leave. I don't
know if you have my number already, but I'm gonna
give it to you. And you need a player, Okay,
don't create a game for me because I'm not good. Okay,
but we travel around and do sports shows and play
with college basketball teams NBA teams. But I need a
game that I can actually play in. Okay, yeah, okay,
it's still playing that. It was a college ball player,
(12:57):
your voice. You played with us, and we're very thankfu
for that. We did our charity show at the Ryman
and we're big fans, and we invited you to come
out and you said yes, and you crushed. Your voice
is still it feels to me as good as it
was ever. Why is that.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Because I've never taken the day off. I mean, I
mean really we've I mean.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
This year, we're coming up on our six thousandth show,
so so the only the only time we ever took
off was COVID and and everybody did so, so I've
just you know, and I always told you I got
a three note range. That's what he can sing with me.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Yeah, I feel.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Good about singing, Like I feel like I can sing
his songs really good in the showers. Yes, Like I
feel like I'm nailing it, But then I hear it back.
Do you have a record yourself and you think you're.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Not good, but you hear it back and it's not
as good as you thought.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
You started singing at what age in college? Did you
have an interest in music as a young kid.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
When I was very young, little, my mom would make
me sing in church and she took me to a
talent show when I was in the second grade and
it was a big talent show and I won it.
And I was so nervous about getting up in front
of people. I told her never again, I'm done. And
so I didn't do anything, and it really affected me.
I mean in high school I wouldn't even read out
(14:12):
loud in class. And so when I got in college,
I had a buddy that had a poem. He asked
me to put some music to it because I taught
myself how to play guitar. And I was a junior
in college and I put this music to this song,
and then I decided, well, maybe I could write a song.
(14:34):
So I wrote a couple songs. I had a friend
at Disney that was in the bandleader. I played him
these songs and he says, dude, he says, you wrote
these songs and I said yeah. He goes, well, who's
that singing And I said, well, that's me and he said, man,
he said there's something here. So that was in February.
(14:57):
So I had just written the songs. In February, I
write eight more songs, and a month later, my brother
talks me in to come to Nashville on spring break.
Me and Hoby. I've known Hoby since the eighth grade.
We went to high school together. We borrow a buddy's van.
We sleep in the van, and we come to Nashville
(15:19):
in spring break and start knocking on doors. And what
freaked us out was everybody took as serious. They would
listen to the tape. I got a meeting with Tony Brown.
He was at RCAA at the time. I mean, and
they're saying, well, here's the deal. You have to be here,
you need to move here, and you have to be here.
(15:40):
And so I worked the rest of the summer and
Hoby and I packed up.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
I left my senior year.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I went and talked to my coach and said, I'm
on a red shirt and go try this and came
to Nashville.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
So when you are a child and you sing, in
my head, I see a second of performing all got two?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Wherever did you have a deep voice for a second grader?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
No? Okay, all right, just just making.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Sure no puberty. Puberty took me down. God, puberty took
me down. I couldn't it was the worst. I couldn't
sing it. And my voice kept getting lower.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
And lower and lower and lower and lower, and it
just about took me down.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
And so from that time of elementary school to in college,
you really weren't singing.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
No, no, not at all. But I but I loved music.
I love music, and and my mom was in the
country radio. I wasn't a fan. I loved Creed Ince,
I loved the beat. The Beach Boys is my all
time favorite, and uh, James Taylor and then then you
know Elton John and then Billy Joel that That's what
(16:48):
I loved. And but my mom lists in the country radio.
So when I when I started to write, it was
kind of a hybrid. That's where like you get step
that step. It was like this hybrid of.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast looking back.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
And I was watching some old news clips and I
was watching like some cook and Chase stuff and I
love them too, and to have them, I've sat with
them and like that to me, it's like very exciting.
But to hear them at times describe you, guys, because
back then, and if I'm wrong, you can tell me,
but you were kind of like pop country to people
(17:36):
and they're like they're not all cuntry. But now it's
like that is what's it's so country now, And that's
what I always say is like, the one thing that's
been consistent about country music is there's always people that
are pushing the limits and that ends up being what
people now consider traditional country. Have you seen that can
consistently happen with country music since Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
And I will tell you, I mean, Nashville was so
so locked down at the time. If if it hadn't
been for Star Search, there's a real good chance we
would never got gotten a deal.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
We wouldn't have made.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
It, even though people were taking you seriously. And I
know you guys were the band for like Don Kings
his road band, right, So where did that happen before
you guys actually tried to make it together.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
We were on the well, we were on the club's circuit.
I mean the Sorry Brown with This is the first
band I was ever in.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Was it called saw Brown.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
It was called Savannah, And we we toured.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Like Kai Savannah. I'm Jim. They thought you were Sanna.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
We toured around the Southeast and in club dates and
we were killing it in the clubs and so but
we would come back home to Nashville, we would do
a showcase and it would be it would be hilarious
because we would be up, you know, doing you know,
just rocking out, and and all these record execs would
come in to see the showcase and we would see
(18:53):
him walking out halfway through the first.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Song because they did because of the way we were dressed.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
You know, it wasn't they weren't good. It was like,
they're obviously not fitting what we're looking for.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah, we looked like the Rolling Stones, and you know,
you know, because you know, that's that's what we wanted
to be.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
We wanted to be this. We wanted to be a
country rock band.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
So who decides we're going to pursue star search or
do they come for you.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
They came to town and they had an audition. We
didn't even know what it was, but they were gonna
we were going to be able to get a video
tape because some of the clubs out west wanted to
see us. So we went strictly to get this video tape.
So we auditioned and that was on a Friday. But
they had told us, said we've already booked the show
(19:36):
up through show twenty two.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
We don't even know what that means. We just want
the video tape. And they had taped four show.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
They said we've taped four shows, but we've booked all
the way through twenty two. So we get a call
on Monday and they said, hey, you've been bumped in
front of everyone. They want you on the next show.
And he says, we want you out here in La tomorrow.
So I said, well, you know, we can't afford you know,
(20:08):
I start making excuses because I don't know how this
is going to happen. And he says, buddy, my job.
His name was as Steve Stark and and he's in
the documentary as well. It's pretty cool, but he said,
my job is to get you here tomorrow. So we
go out and we're on the next day and it
(20:28):
was like the theme to the Beverly Hillbillies is playing
in my head, you know, I'm on the plane and
it's like, we can't believe this. So we get out
there and so so we win the first show and
we're kind of we don't even know what that really means.
So Steve comes back into the dressing room after it.
Everybody's like all excited, and we're kind of but they'd
(20:52):
given us five different dressing rooms, but we all dressed
in one. You know, we were so intimidated So we're
all in this dressing room and he comes in and
he says, Okay, we have another show in three days,
blah blah blah. And we're sitting there and we're kind
of stunned, and he goes, what's wrong, and I said, man,
we just brought enough clothes for today, and so he goes,
(21:16):
hang on. So he goes in. He comes back and
he's got like five vouchers. He says, we have you
booked on a red eye. We want you to go home.
And he looks at me and he says, Mark, I
want you to bring back a lot of clothes. So
we were out there for six and a half months.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Wow, Hey, Morgan Star starts for example, because I think
of American Idol, but before American Idol, but think of
Ryan Seacrest about Ed McMahon.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
It was that show.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
It was the original version of that and they would
give stars like three and a half stars, four and
a half stars. When you did you get the money,
You actually get a one hundred thousand bucks and a
recording contract or was it one hundred dollars was.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
No, they weren't allowed to offer because of the California
laws at the time. It was only a teav show,
so they were just it was we got five thousand
when we won, but we were getting after scales, so
we thought we were rich, and in our minds we
were because we were getting like sixteen hundred dollars for
after scale and then five thousand for winning each show.
(22:14):
We kept winning, and then the ultimate prize was one
hundred thousand dollars and.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
You got the money.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Oh yeah, after you performed through or four times, did
you feel like we might be onto something like we're
l liked.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yeah, well, it was the it was the fifth show.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
We went to the Beverly Center, the mall out there,
and people freaked out.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
It was it was like hard day's night.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
The security guards had to come get us and get
us back to the hotel.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
And that's wild, weird to think of too, because there
were like four channels. Let's be honestly, we didn't have
many channels back then. Yeah, and so everybody that was
a big show.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
It was.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
It was huge, and we just you know, we found
out really quick. I mean the first show we did
after that was an afternoon show in Palm Beach and
at the Fair and it was an afternoon it was
a mid week and they had crowd controllers like you know,
twenty thousand people life it changed.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
So you guys do that show. But then you come
back to Nashville, did they because you had success? There?
Were they like, well we knew you were good?
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Was it that?
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Or were people like you know what we were wrong?
Now we kind of see what we were missing?
Speaker 3 (23:21):
We we got it.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
We we ended up then getting an offer from every
label and and and we signed. We signed with Curb
and in Capital. Curb and Capitol did a joint venture
for us. But this was the funny thing was all
of the LA offices were calling that Nashville offices and
why don't you know about this band? And they had
(23:45):
to say, we did know about them, we passed on them.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
And so like their bosses were calling yeah, yeah, going hey, yeah,
what's up?
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Why that's and the first the first three albums were
handled in LA.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
We were we had LA budgets.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
I remember our video budgets were one hundred and fifty
thousand in nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
That's a lot of our video budget.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah it's not that now, no, I mean in one
hundred thousand bucks back then.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
So it was it was crazy and we were selling
a lot of.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Records, so we got a few things we're talking about here.
Let's talk about the album for a second. So it's
Desperado Troubadours. What I noticed about it was when I
was looking at the track list, was that Cody Jinks
long with Cody Jinks.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah, Cody, Cody and I wrote Desperate the tribute doors
he and I and Tennessee Jet and Cody text me
yesterday and he goes, man, I'm freaking out. I'm in
my favorite motorsports store and Desperate Troubadours just came on.
And he goes, he goes, I'm having like a geek
fanboy moment right now. And he goes, I'm like telling
(24:46):
everybody I.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Wrote this song. We really like Cody, and oh he's
the best.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, and someone who like paid his dues and came
up organically the hardaway, but also says, this ain't the
way you want to come up, like it's very honest
about it. Yeah, So how did you and Cody even
get to know each other? You know?
Speaker 1 (25:04):
You know, I think I think it was maybe the
thing that we did at the opry and and and
he came in and he loved the walk and he
was just you know.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
So I met him there.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
We ran into him at in Montana, but my daughter
had lived in Texas for a couple of years. She
became a big fan and she kept telling me, you,
you and Cody need to write songs together. Just she
picked him out and so we we connected and we
actually had to do a zoom right. It was the
(25:35):
first time I'd ever done a zoom right and uh,
and we had we wrote Desperate out of Troubadours, and
on the heels of that we I had the idea
for under this Old Hat and so we rolled right
into that as well. So ended up writing a couple songs,
but had become really good friends since then.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
The record came out earlier this month, and Blake is
one of the producers of the record.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
He produced, Yeah, he produced the whole record.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
So what does that mean? Everybody has a different role.
That's pretty sir. What did Blake do?
Speaker 3 (26:01):
He was there from start to finished. He was he
was really there and was start to finish.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I mean, I flew out to Oklahoma, uh and uh
and and come to find out, he's a huge historian
of the band. I mean he was asking me questions,
you know that. We're like, I'm like, holy cow. So
he's a huge historian.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
How do you even get with him to know he
wants to produce it? Like, where did that even?
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Well, he had done a People magazine article and he
said that Sorry Brown was his first concert and The
Race's Own was the first record he ever bought. So
my brother, who's our manager, just says, hey, you know,
let's get somebody to call him. So, so Narvel, his manager,
you know, gets a hold of him. Well, he calls
me within five minutes and he goes, dude, he goes,
(26:45):
I know you produce a lot of your records too,
But he said, man, I'm in. I would love he goes,
he goes, You're my hero. So he's I would love
to do this. So so we we I go out
to Oklahoma. We we talked through everything and I said,
you know, the I want I want it to be
(27:05):
in nineties record. I want it to sound like us.
I don't want to go chasing something and and he
loved that. So when we you know, he and Gwynn
flew in and we camped out in the studio for
like three or four days, and he was the first
one there, last one to leave. But his instincts, you know,
(27:26):
and and and also this is what I'll tell you,
and you probably already know this, but he, you know,
has this Jethro Bodine like personality that you know, he'll
come off sometimes like like this goofy country boy.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
He's really really smart.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
He's like really smart, and and his like his memory
and so he can he can recall songs things.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
So he was doing that in the studio left and right.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
And he has all these great instincts. And and there's
a couple of songs that I thought he saved. We
got in there and started struggling, you know, because they
were all brand new. We don't do demos, so we
just write a song and go make a record. So
he was really like he was a champion on on
some of those things.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
You like to hear yourself back, No, because I hate myself.
Do you ever hear even in you know, some of
the biggest songs that you guys have done. Do you
ever hear slide imperfections of things in hits or did
you get them exactly right before you press them?
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Early?
Speaker 1 (28:24):
On a lot of imperfections that that I'll hear. But
because always early one, I always would get nervous when
I would go in the studio, so I always felt
like I sang better like live sometimes like I would
I would like do his like I would do a
song like the Walk or something live one night and
go God, I wish I would have sang like that
on the on the record.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Do you feel like it's because you're a freer, Like
just making a sports analogy, if you're not tight and
worried about it, usually play better. But then you get
in your head you want to play well, and it
tightens jupplet.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Bit absolutely percent. And I really felt that early on.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
You know, the race is on nineteen eighty nine, Where
were you? What was life like?
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Well, when I hear that song on and not because
of me, when I hear that song sonically, it still
holds up. So that's what I think, just as a
as a producer and as a music guy, like when
I hear that, I'm gonna go wow, man, we made
a great record. But you know, at the time, Hobe
(29:25):
and I had had were in New York and we
were in like this boutique store and we had heard
this punk rock version of the races on and and
we're like sitting there. So we were in doing the album.
We'd finished the album, and so we're sitting there and
I had this idea of you know, there's George Jones
(29:48):
and there's punk rock, and we're somewhere in the middle
of like, we could do this, we could we could
pull this off, but it would have to be like
unbelievable or you know, you're on you know how wood.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Grew you're covering I mean the George Jones and the races.
I mean, it's got to be so good or we're like,
what we're even trying to.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Do exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
So so we're we're in the studio and we're kind
of just talking through it and and I think it
was Larry London was was like in there and Larry goes, okay,
he said, he said, listen, he goes, he just starts
his beat and he goes, he goes Mark. He says,
Mark's going to come in, and he says, everybody lay
out until the til the we get to the chorus.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
And he says, and.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Then all heck needs to break loose when you get
to the course. And that's what we did. He just
start boom, bump, bump, bump, bump bum A real to
you was willing and and it was like boom and
we we we recorded it and we knew, we knew
we had something, and Randy Scruggs produced it, and Randy,
(30:55):
when we got through, he goes over and calls Jim Vogelsong,
was the president of Capital at the time.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Of Scrugs as in the The Scrugs Fly.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Scrugs got yeah, Yeah, it Earl's son, Randy Scruggs got it.
And he goes home and he calls Jim vogel Song,
who was a president at the time. He gets him
out of bed and he says, you got to hear this.
So he gets out of bad. This is eleven o'clock
at nine. He comes over, he listens to it and
he just said, Wow.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Did you think it was going to be a single
when you cut? I mean, it's it's a cover obviously,
and you changed it to the tempos much faster. Did
you think as you're recording it would just be a
fun song to do or there was a shot that
you would put it out?
Speaker 1 (31:35):
I did, I didn't. I knew, I knew when we
finished that night. I knew it was going to be
a single. I knew I was going to fight like
everything for it to be a single. But I knew
it was going to be a battle. But but you
had the best description I think on a on a
TikTok thing of talking about chart positions, because you're exactly right.
(31:56):
Some of our songs that went number one aren't as
big as song that went number five, and the race
is on it is a perfect example of that. It
was just a huge impact record.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Some Girls Do in nineteen ninety two. I mean, you
guys have so many massive songs, but again your music
is layered where there is the rock band, but again
you can hear that banjo in the background that gives
it the texture of oh this is for real.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Well, Some Girls Do was recorded three times. I first
went to Muscle Shoals and I got an unbelievable recording
of it Muscle Sholes, but it was too rock and
I knew. But when I wrote Some Girls Do, I
thought it was the only song that I've ever written
that I knew I had one.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
I thought, okay, I've.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Written one, this is this could be something, So I
go and record it in Muscle Shoals. It's so good.
It's like zz Top. It's so rock, so good. I
come back to Nashville, I play it for Randy. We
go in the studio, we cut it in Nashville. It's
so country. I want to throw up.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
So it's a complete opposite.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Yeah, I just I hated it. So I thought, okay,
it's again. It's got to be somewhere in the middle.
So so my favorite steel player is JD. Manis, who
played on all those like California Cool.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
He's from l A. We flew JD and Uh and.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
We bring up some of the guys from Muscle Shoals,
and we bring in some of the Nashville guys and
we we recorded again.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
I play in both records.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
It was that hybrid.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
It was a hybrid.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah, and and but the song was that important to me,
and and and it and it is the mac Daddy,
It's it's the it's the biggest.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Thing to you.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
That's the one.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Well they always always say, you know, like in your career,
when things happen, then there's a shift and and and.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Like I thought, first of all, I thought step that
step was it?
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Well, it was number one.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
It was about yeah, yeah, and then I thought the
race's own was it? Then I thought the walk and
the walk was huge and but but they say you'll
know when the one comes on. And some girls do.
Changed are everything. Some girls do took us into arenas.
That's what that song did.
Speaker 6 (34:13):
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Nineteen ninety three. Thank God for you. What comes to mind?
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Mac mcinally mack and I wrote three or four songs.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
He of course for all these years. But Mac is
Mac kind of like.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
He and I became really good friends the first time
I went the Muscle Shoals. He played on the stuff
with us down there in the eighties. Became great friends.
But he also really really knows the band and and
he he came up with that that chorus and it
was you know, uh, And we were did all this
(35:00):
stuff on Muscle Shoals, All of our stuff, the big
hits were in Shoals. Mac and I put a studio
in his old house down there, and we would go
down there and camp out and make make our record.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
This is the Coral Reefer, Yeah, Mac mcanalan, Yeah, so cool.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
When you get sick, did your voice get deeper?
Speaker 3 (35:18):
It does. It's like pop pop now Mariah got are exploding.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
I would feel though, because if I'm you know, doing
stand up or anything and my voice gets much deeper,
if yours gets a lot deeper, can you still sing
in the same key?
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Uh, yeah, yeah I can.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
That would be a benefit having I have to.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
I have to get a like Mac and Mac and
I did something that the Hall of Fame last Saturday,
and I had to get up and it was going
to be like at noon, so I had to get
up at like seven o'clock in the morning and start
singing and try to, you know, get the cobwebs off
of it, because.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
That's me every morning three o'clock. Listen. We're big fans, really,
And they were like, hey, Mark wants to come up,
and we are pitched a lot of people, and I
was like, yes, I don't even care what it's about. Absolutely,
is it his new you know, nude modeling, whatever it is,
he can come and do it again.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Such big fans. The documentary now that isn't out yet,
is it all right?
Speaker 2 (36:22):
So but Blake's a part of that too that I read.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
He's the executive producer on that. He wanted to sign
on to do that, and he is. He does a
huge interview. You know, the documentary is ninety minutes long,
but Blake's interview itself, you know, had to be edited.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
His interview was an hour and a half. He the whole.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Length of the documentary. Yeah, exactly. Blake talks about Solia Brown. Yes, yeah, so,
and what you guys shopping that now too different.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
It'll come out on one of the streaming services.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
You know.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
We're still you know, working on that deal, but it'll
be out before the end of the year.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Do you ever hear your song randomly at like a
Mexican restaurant and then point at yourself like.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Hey, I will hear, like we've done so many songs,
I will hear a song and it'll just be real
light in the background, and I'll kind of get mad
because I'll go and that's somebody trying to sound like me,
and it'll be me.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Funny, Okay, the boys in me My life in the
country music supergroup Saw Your Brown by Mark Miller, who
is saw Your saw Your Brown's not a real person.
Everybody in case you were wondering all the tour dates
and you got to plaint a bunch of shows. Saw
your brown dot com. You can see all the dates there, one.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Hundred cities this year.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Really, yeah, you're still at what point do you start
to get tired?
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Yeah? You know, I really don't. I'm kind of like,
you must.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Not do a morning radio show while you tour.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
It's like show three.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
I'm like, I'm exhausting.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Why I sign up for this?
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Congratulations on everything. I'm glad that you put new music out,
first album in twenty years. Yeah, that's cool that Blake
was involved. Yeah, but let's be honest.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
He didn't need him. He didn't need Blake. No.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
And then also, it's so cool that you know Larry Bird.
Do you ever talk to Larry anymore?
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (38:05):
You guys still are friends?
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (38:06):
If you ever play golf again, then you need a fourth.
I don't care where you are, I will, I will
come right over and I will say nothing. Well, I
won't look at icon.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
I'm working on something for the signed basketball.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
That'd be really nice.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Mark.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Well, Eddie just wants that because Eddie signed my Arry
massive Did you really not see that on there? No,
it was my fault again, it wasn't all my fault.
But I don't want him to feel bad. We were
signing balls for our sports show and that ball was
on a table display because we were doing a different show,
and then we were just signing and it's like an
assembly line. He just grabbed it, signed it and moved on.
(38:40):
He didn't even know he did it.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Mark.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
It was next to all the other balls, so I
just grabbed it.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Sign I didn't even see.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Great. Thank you. Yeah, I really appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
And you're a terrible basketball player.
Speaker 4 (38:49):
You're terrible, But oddly my kids are really good.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Hey, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
It's really weird. Okay, so the book, the record. You'll
let us know when the documentary is out, Yes, just
let me know, and I'll tell everybody to go check
it out the tour. Congratulations, And I mean if you
have any ball player in town, let me know.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
I'll do it.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Other than that, anything Eddie before we go, No, no,
just that.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
I mean if you need another player too, I'm available. Okay.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
All of a sudden, this phone doesn't work. Oh man,
I must not have got that text mark. Thank you
and congratulations on everything.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Thank you guys. And I'm a huge fan, thanks man.
And my daughter is a huge fan and she's out there. Yeah,
him Madison she directed the documentary.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Oh that's cool. Yeah, so does she have is this
the first document Like? What is her background?
Speaker 1 (39:37):
She has her own TV show called Chasing Down Madison
Brown on RFD TV.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Oh that's awesome. So she knows what she's doing. Yeah,
it wasn't like let me randomly pick one of my
family members. You right, Awesome, that's really cool. We can't
wait to see it. Congratulations, that's really cool. And that's
the b side of Blake just doing an interview for
ninety minutes. If it's so successful, they just put that
out too. Mark Miller saw your Brown Follow on instagm
I'm at Sawyer Brown band and check out the book
(40:02):
and the record and go check them out on tour
because are so good.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
All right, thanks, thank you man, thanks for listening to
a Bobby Cast production.
They say, you'll know when the one comes on and
some girls do changed are everything?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Episode four forty one, Mark Miller of Sawyer Brown. As
you'll see, there is no Sawyer Brown. That's not a person.
That's the name of a band that's like Hoody. There's
no Hoody and Hoody and the Blowfish. Actually Hoody was
two people, Hoody their friend and Blowfish, which is their friend.
It wasn't actually a group of blowfish.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Do you know that?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I didn't know that. Yeah. And Sawyer Brown is the
name of a band. And it's after they changed their
original name. They had to pick like a street they did.
That's their band. But Mark Miller is the lead singer.
Man love the Guy. Uh, some of the songs and
the races on Man Here Comes. And that was a cover,
an old George Jones cover which we talk about. Uh,
some girls don't like girls like me. M some girls do.
(00:54):
And if you're asking yourself, why is Bobby singing them
and not playing them? Because we will go to podcast
jail if we play them. We can't play the clip
or we get sued. Or how about I want to
thing Mama for the cooking, Daddy for the whooping the
devil for the trouble that I get into. That's the
number one Thank God for you. He's got a fortieth
anniversary project which includes his book. Also there's a documentary
(01:16):
on the band coming out. But there's a new album
and that's out called Desperado Troubadours. It came out March eighth,
So whenever this goes up, maybe a couple weeks ago.
His first album in twenty years. Blake Shelton produced it.
We talked about that and they're all over in twenty
twenty four. And he sounds awesome as far as how
he sings. Sounds exactly the same. He came and played
with Eddie and I at the Ryman a couple of
(01:37):
years ago, and it sounds exactly like you think Sawyer
Brown would sound if it was an album. So Mark
Miller of Sawyer Brown, I left this interview going like,
I'd like to be friends with that guy. I just
want to hear him talk a look.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Yeah, Like sometimes I'm like, oh that's cool. I'd really
look up.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I looked up to them when I was a kid,
as a as an artist with great songs or they
seem like a good person. But I was like, man,
I want to go play Paul with Mark, or like,
I want to hang out with this dude. So all right,
Mark Miller, I saw Your Brown. By the way, we'll
have another one coming up this week with Sarah Evans.
It's a tour this week. All right, here you go,
it is the Bobby Cast. Mark. I'm a big fan,
you know. Let me just say for five seconds, I'm
(02:14):
a massive fan. So I'm a massive fan. I gotta
geek out for a second because then I gotta get professional.
But I just love you, love you guys, So all that, Eddie,
you want to say anything real quick. I'm a huge fan.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
And this is kind of embarrassing, Mark, but whenever I
get sick with nasal congestion, I sing your song.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Just because, like, your voice is so cool to me,
and that's the only time I can get it sounds
like that it gets So that's us geeking out and
now we'll be professional if that's okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
So Mark, you're in Sawyer Brown. Does everybody think you're
sawr Yes, because there are Hoody Darius.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
He's not really hooty.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
You're not Sawyer.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
When you name yourself saw your Brown after a person
was a street. Yes, did you know that was going
to be the thing where everybody thought you were Sawyer?
Speaker 3 (02:59):
No?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Well, you know because where the Panama hat on stage
and Tom Sawyer and the whole thing. Yeah, we we
really liked the name, like Barefoot Jerry and and you
know a lot of the bands that you know had
like name named Marshall Tucker, Leonard Skinner.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
So that was kind of the thought.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
But but really didn't have an idea that that people
were going to start calling me Sawyer.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
But they still do.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I would think so like with Leonard skinnerd I would
think that rhymes, that's funny, that's not someone's name. Yeah,
but I think Sawyer Brown is like a dude the mailman.
Like that's like the dude who lives down the road.
And I think forever, I probably as a kid, I
probably thought Sawyer was the lead singer. And are you
I bet that happens all the time. Are you Sawyer?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah? Yeah, I this.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
I did an interview last week with with someone new
in radio and I said, hey, this is Mark Miller
and she said, well are you handling Sawyer?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
And you know what, God bless that because that so
well saw Your good to see you. Yeah, so hey,
A couple of things. One we'll talk about the new
record in a second. But your book The Boys and Me,
and it's a memoir that you wrote about the band
and about all your life and all the times. And
I'm sure the books great stuff. But I want to
go to the bat here. So Eddie, I want to
(04:15):
read you one of these because what you do is
you ask people to say nice things about your book, right,
and someone someone wrote this. Mark Miller is a great
guy and a true loyal friend. The Sawyer Brown Band
is my favorite band, no wonder. They have been at
the top for forty years and still counting. You know
said that Larry Bird.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Wow, our buddy Larry Bird, but not your buddy.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
So Mark, you know, Eddie signed my Larry Bird ball.
I know, I know, I see that, an idiot. I
love Larry Bird. How do you know Larry Bird.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
I've known Larry for for a long time. He's a
big Sawyer Brown fan.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
That's crazy and so but you know Larry's from Indiana. Yep,
you know, it's country boy for sure. I think at
times maybe we just associated with the Celtics in Boston.
And even though that's a very country centric place.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Now.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Maybe back then it wasn't. But yeah, he's a country boy.
The first time you met him, did he come to
a show? Did you go to a game? What happened there?
Speaker 3 (05:03):
First time I met him, his brotherhood come to his show,
Eddie Mark, I was older brother.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, I got it, got it?
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Yeah, And so Mark tells me Larry's a big fan.
And I had a place in Naples. Larry also had
a place in Naples, and he said, if you go down,
Larry liked to golf with you.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So I get a call from Larry to golf and
so so I golf with Larry and we ended up
like I was down there six days. We ended up
golfing every day that I was down And that was
like in ninety three or ninety four.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Wow, Like that's like right after Dream Team stuff. Yeah, yeah,
did you talk about that? Do you? Like? No, you
didn't talk about asketball at all?
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Larry. Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
The very first day, we're literally driving, he picks me up.
It's about twenty five minutes to the golf course, and
we were on the way one of my songs comes
on the radio. He looks at me like this just
kind of sha. So, so we golf, you know, like
(06:13):
four and a half hours. He doesn't say a word
to me nothing.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Wait, you mean, not even a single word, not about.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
He would he would say, you know, there's a there's
a trap up here on the left hand side, there's
you know there, there's you know.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
In the same cart, in the same car. That's so awkward. Yeah, weird.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah yeah. And and we finished the whole day. We
go back to the hotel. He doesn't talk to me
on the way over or on the way back. And
we get to the hotel, he said, hey, man, that
was a blast. You want to go tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
He got a great time. That's funny.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
So, but your interpreting was he just so competitive and just.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
So he's very he's very introverted and very quiet and
very private.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
That would be my best friend. We could just go
and say nothing. Yeah, I'm Mike Di and I go
along so wonderfully. We don't say a word to each
other for days and we're like, I love you too, man.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Okay, So, so so week off, like every day for
five days, and we're going to take the next day off.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
He said, I'm gonna take the tomorrow off.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
So so he calls me late that night and he says, hey,
can you go with me tomorrow? He said, I just
got called. I got to go, you know, do a
favor for a guy. And he said, I want I
want you to go with me and write in the
cart with me because I don't want to have to talk.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
To anybody and you're not talking. Yeah, so I'm the guy.
I'm the go to guy for not talking.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
So Mark at all, you didn't feel like you needed
to fill in those silent spaces just to not make
it awkward.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
Because I'm the same way. Oh absolutely, Yeah, because I'm
that way too introvert, same way, don't need to talk.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, I introverted until it's time to be extremely extroverted exactly.
And then but I think a little bit of that
from me is because I've had to become extremely extroverted.
So then you're like, you know, I've got so much energy.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
And also I feel like I'm bothering people to right here. Yeah,
I feel like.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
If I'm textbook textbook same.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Did you ever have imposter syndrome where you were to
the point of like, we listen, we're killing it. But
do I really deserve it and I'm saying you don't
because I love you. But like me, I feel that
all the time.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Every day I get up every day. Yeah, yeah, very blessed.
Can't believe this is still going on. And in the
in the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, one more Larry Bird thing. He's like six like
six nine, six ten.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Six ten, He's he's huge.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
He's huge to be as good of a shooter ball handler.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
He was so big when you see him and you
go back and you look at all those clips and
I was a huge fan, so I I you know,
the only show I was late to was was when
they were playing the Pistons and he steals the inbound
pass and you know they beat the Pistons. But when
you look at those you look at Larry and you
think you know the way he plays.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
He's six foot two, but he's six foot ten. Yeah,
he plays like a guard.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
He's huge, Like if he walked in that door, he'd
have to duck and when he came in like that
was the first thing I noticed about him. And when
you see other like other guys talk about him, was
how big he is. When you meet him, you can't
believe he's that big.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
You a big sports guy in general. Yes, favorite are
all your favorite teams? Florida teams that you grew up Florida.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Florida State, it's my favorite football team. But all my
folks are from Kentucky, so I'm a big Kentucky fan.
But I'm also I'm friends with you know, the coaches
at Arkansas as well.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
So which ones Keith Smart?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, I's Smart thought a few months ago.
Yeah he was the NBA coach too, you know. Yeah,
that's awesome. Okay, So the book, what's what's in the book?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Is it your life? Is it the band's journey?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Like if we read the book, what are we going
to get from it?
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Well, from from my childhood all the way up and
through the band and you know, my I'll just you know,
give you a couple of snippets. My job through high
I played college basketball at University of Central Florida. My
job in high school and college I was a trickwater
skier at what Disney World.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
That's all.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
So here's my question where I go on my head
is you're obviously a college athlete, but you're a trick
water skier at the same time, meaning if you if
anything goes wrong. You can't be a college athlete because
you hurt your ankle trick water skiing.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yeah. Yeah, but things were different back then, you know,
I mean, I mean, well, body is still broke.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I mean you know, yeah, did you ever hurt yourself
trick water skiing that you couldn't play ball?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
No?
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Did you ever hurt yourself playing ball? You couldn't trick
water skiing?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
No? No?
Speaker 2 (10:28):
And how did so? I guess growing up in Florida
on the water, you just learned how to ski really well.
And how did that turn into trick water skiing?
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Well, the job at Walt Disney World was a big
you know, they I was Pinocchio in the water Ski show,
and so your.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Water ski is Pinocchio. This is the greatest story.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
It keeps unlayering, one beautiful thing at a time.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
So so you have to do tricks, like so they
want to see your skin backwards and stuff, and you
would have to do like we would do shows over
at the Polynesian Hotel, the Contemporary, and you would have
to do like beach starts, doc starts and all that
kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
So you have to learn. You have to learn that later,
like once you see this is the job, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
As Pinocchio, though you're doing it.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah, that was the toughest part because you've got this
this this helmet on inside of this rubber head, and
you've got these little eyes that you have to see
out of. And when when you get they get wet,
you can't see. It's like a screen door if the
screen gets wet.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
And when you lie, the nose gets bigger. And if
you're like I can see exactly, that's wild. All that's wild.
Were you a pretty good ball player?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
And do you still play?
Speaker 1 (11:37):
That's how that's how I know Keith Smart. I played
with Keith on the fort Wing Fury of the c
b A. Yeah, he and David Bailey. I was a
teammate of those guys.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
And Keith ended up playing in Indiana.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Yeah, he played in Indiana and I you won the
next championship. The shot hit the shot hit the shot? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Do you still play pickup ball at all?
Speaker 3 (11:58):
I do?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
You got to invite me because I because some of
these here's the thing, there's a group of guys that
play here a lot, like Caine saying, but they play
at ten o'clock on a Wednesday night. Yeah, I can't.
I have to do the show. And I'm assuming this
is an assumption mark that you don't play at ten
o'clock on a weeknight. No, I don't, So if you
(12:19):
ever need.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Actually, all of our guys play earlier, like we play
it like it's seven.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Well, see, I got this job to do too, unless
when do you want to play? No? No, no, you're not
building the game around me. Do you say seven at
night or seven in the morning?
Speaker 3 (12:31):
No, no, seven at night. Okay, I'll play that. Where
do you guys play?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Don't? Don't say? Is it like a public gym or
somebody have a place a court? I have a place,
You have a place, Okay, before you leave. I don't
know if you have my number already, but I'm gonna
give it to you. And you need a player, Okay,
don't create a game for me because I'm not good. Okay,
but we travel around and do sports shows and play
with college basketball teams NBA teams. But I need a
game that I can actually play in. Okay, yeah, okay,
it's still playing that. It was a college ball player,
(12:57):
your voice. You played with us, and we're very thankfu
for that. We did our charity show at the Ryman
and we're big fans, and we invited you to come
out and you said yes, and you crushed. Your voice
is still it feels to me as good as it
was ever. Why is that.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Because I've never taken the day off. I mean, I
mean really we've I mean.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
This year, we're coming up on our six thousandth show,
so so the only the only time we ever took
off was COVID and and everybody did so, so I've
just you know, and I always told you I got
a three note range. That's what he can sing with me.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Yeah, I feel.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Good about singing, Like I feel like I can sing
his songs really good in the showers. Yes, Like I
feel like I'm nailing it, But then I hear it back.
Do you have a record yourself and you think you're.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
Not good, but you hear it back and it's not
as good as you thought.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
You started singing at what age in college? Did you
have an interest in music as a young kid.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
When I was very young, little, my mom would make
me sing in church and she took me to a
talent show when I was in the second grade and
it was a big talent show and I won it.
And I was so nervous about getting up in front
of people. I told her never again, I'm done. And
so I didn't do anything, and it really affected me.
I mean in high school I wouldn't even read out
(14:12):
loud in class. And so when I got in college,
I had a buddy that had a poem. He asked
me to put some music to it because I taught
myself how to play guitar. And I was a junior
in college and I put this music to this song,
and then I decided, well, maybe I could write a song.
(14:34):
So I wrote a couple songs. I had a friend
at Disney that was in the bandleader. I played him
these songs and he says, dude, he says, you wrote
these songs and I said yeah. He goes, well, who's
that singing And I said, well, that's me and he said, man,
he said there's something here. So that was in February.
(14:57):
So I had just written the songs. In February, I
write eight more songs, and a month later, my brother
talks me in to come to Nashville on spring break.
Me and Hoby. I've known Hoby since the eighth grade.
We went to high school together. We borrow a buddy's van.
We sleep in the van, and we come to Nashville
(15:19):
in spring break and start knocking on doors. And what
freaked us out was everybody took as serious. They would
listen to the tape. I got a meeting with Tony Brown.
He was at RCAA at the time. I mean, and
they're saying, well, here's the deal. You have to be here,
you need to move here, and you have to be here.
(15:40):
And so I worked the rest of the summer and
Hoby and I packed up.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
I left my senior year.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
I went and talked to my coach and said, I'm
on a red shirt and go try this and came
to Nashville.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
So when you are a child and you sing, in
my head, I see a second of performing all got two?
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Wherever did you have a deep voice for a second grader?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
No? Okay, all right, just just making.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
Sure no puberty. Puberty took me down. God, puberty took
me down. I couldn't it was the worst. I couldn't
sing it. And my voice kept getting lower.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
And lower and lower and lower and lower, and it
just about took me down.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
And so from that time of elementary school to in college,
you really weren't singing.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
No, no, not at all. But I but I loved music.
I love music, and and my mom was in the
country radio. I wasn't a fan. I loved Creed Ince,
I loved the beat. The Beach Boys is my all
time favorite, and uh, James Taylor and then then you
know Elton John and then Billy Joel that That's what
(16:48):
I loved. And but my mom lists in the country radio.
So when I when I started to write, it was
kind of a hybrid. That's where like you get step
that step. It was like this hybrid of.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast looking back.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
And I was watching some old news clips and I
was watching like some cook and Chase stuff and I
love them too, and to have them, I've sat with
them and like that to me, it's like very exciting.
But to hear them at times describe you, guys, because
back then, and if I'm wrong, you can tell me,
but you were kind of like pop country to people
(17:36):
and they're like they're not all cuntry. But now it's
like that is what's it's so country now, And that's
what I always say is like, the one thing that's
been consistent about country music is there's always people that
are pushing the limits and that ends up being what
people now consider traditional country. Have you seen that can
consistently happen with country music since Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
And I will tell you, I mean, Nashville was so
so locked down at the time. If if it hadn't
been for Star Search, there's a real good chance we
would never got gotten a deal.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
We wouldn't have made.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
It, even though people were taking you seriously. And I
know you guys were the band for like Don Kings
his road band, right, So where did that happen before
you guys actually tried to make it together.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
We were on the well, we were on the club's circuit.
I mean the Sorry Brown with This is the first
band I was ever in.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Was it called saw Brown.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
It was called Savannah, And we we toured.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Like Kai Savannah. I'm Jim. They thought you were Sanna.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
We toured around the Southeast and in club dates and
we were killing it in the clubs and so but
we would come back home to Nashville, we would do
a showcase and it would be it would be hilarious
because we would be up, you know, doing you know,
just rocking out, and and all these record execs would
come in to see the showcase and we would see
(18:53):
him walking out halfway through the first.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Song because they did because of the way we were dressed.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
You know, it wasn't they weren't good. It was like,
they're obviously not fitting what we're looking for.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah, we looked like the Rolling Stones, and you know,
you know, because you know, that's that's what we wanted
to be.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
We wanted to be this. We wanted to be a
country rock band.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
So who decides we're going to pursue star search or
do they come for you.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
They came to town and they had an audition. We
didn't even know what it was, but they were gonna
we were going to be able to get a video
tape because some of the clubs out west wanted to
see us. So we went strictly to get this video tape.
So we auditioned and that was on a Friday. But
they had told us, said we've already booked the show
(19:36):
up through show twenty two.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
We don't even know what that means. We just want
the video tape. And they had taped four show.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
They said we've taped four shows, but we've booked all
the way through twenty two. So we get a call
on Monday and they said, hey, you've been bumped in
front of everyone. They want you on the next show.
And he says, we want you out here in La tomorrow.
So I said, well, you know, we can't afford you know,
(20:08):
I start making excuses because I don't know how this
is going to happen. And he says, buddy, my job.
His name was as Steve Stark and and he's in
the documentary as well. It's pretty cool, but he said,
my job is to get you here tomorrow. So we
go out and we're on the next day and it
(20:28):
was like the theme to the Beverly Hillbillies is playing
in my head, you know, I'm on the plane and
it's like, we can't believe this. So we get out
there and so so we win the first show and
we're kind of we don't even know what that really means.
So Steve comes back into the dressing room after it.
Everybody's like all excited, and we're kind of but they'd
(20:52):
given us five different dressing rooms, but we all dressed
in one. You know, we were so intimidated So we're
all in this dressing room and he comes in and
he says, Okay, we have another show in three days,
blah blah blah. And we're sitting there and we're kind
of stunned, and he goes, what's wrong, and I said, man,
we just brought enough clothes for today, and so he goes,
(21:16):
hang on. So he goes in. He comes back and
he's got like five vouchers. He says, we have you
booked on a red eye. We want you to go home.
And he looks at me and he says, Mark, I
want you to bring back a lot of clothes. So
we were out there for six and a half months.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Wow, Hey, Morgan Star starts for example, because I think
of American Idol, but before American Idol, but think of
Ryan Seacrest about Ed McMahon.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
It was that show.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
It was the original version of that and they would
give stars like three and a half stars, four and
a half stars. When you did you get the money,
You actually get a one hundred thousand bucks and a
recording contract or was it one hundred dollars was.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
No, they weren't allowed to offer because of the California
laws at the time. It was only a teav show,
so they were just it was we got five thousand
when we won, but we were getting after scales, so
we thought we were rich, and in our minds we
were because we were getting like sixteen hundred dollars for
after scale and then five thousand for winning each show.
(22:14):
We kept winning, and then the ultimate prize was one
hundred thousand dollars and.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
You got the money.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Oh yeah, after you performed through or four times, did
you feel like we might be onto something like we're
l liked.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yeah, well, it was the it was the fifth show.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
We went to the Beverly Center, the mall out there,
and people freaked out.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
It was it was like hard day's night.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
The security guards had to come get us and get
us back to the hotel.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
And that's wild, weird to think of too, because there
were like four channels. Let's be honestly, we didn't have
many channels back then. Yeah, and so everybody that was
a big show.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
It was.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
It was huge, and we just you know, we found
out really quick. I mean the first show we did
after that was an afternoon show in Palm Beach and
at the Fair and it was an afternoon it was
a mid week and they had crowd controllers like you know,
twenty thousand people life it changed.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
So you guys do that show. But then you come
back to Nashville, did they because you had success? There?
Were they like, well we knew you were good?
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Was it that?
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Or were people like you know what we were wrong?
Now we kind of see what we were missing?
Speaker 3 (23:21):
We we got it.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
We we ended up then getting an offer from every
label and and and we signed. We signed with Curb
and in Capital. Curb and Capitol did a joint venture
for us. But this was the funny thing was all
of the LA offices were calling that Nashville offices and
why don't you know about this band? And they had
(23:45):
to say, we did know about them, we passed on them.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
And so like their bosses were calling yeah, yeah, going hey, yeah,
what's up?
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Why that's and the first the first three albums were
handled in LA.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
We were we had LA budgets.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
I remember our video budgets were one hundred and fifty
thousand in nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
That's a lot of our video budget.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah it's not that now, no, I mean in one
hundred thousand bucks back then.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
So it was it was crazy and we were selling
a lot of.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Records, so we got a few things we're talking about here.
Let's talk about the album for a second. So it's
Desperado Troubadours. What I noticed about it was when I
was looking at the track list, was that Cody Jinks
long with Cody Jinks.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah, Cody, Cody and I wrote Desperate the tribute doors
he and I and Tennessee Jet and Cody text me
yesterday and he goes, man, I'm freaking out. I'm in
my favorite motorsports store and Desperate Troubadours just came on.
And he goes, he goes, I'm having like a geek
fanboy moment right now. And he goes, I'm like telling
(24:46):
everybody I.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
Wrote this song. We really like Cody, and oh he's
the best.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, and someone who like paid his dues and came
up organically the hardaway, but also says, this ain't the
way you want to come up, like it's very honest
about it. Yeah, So how did you and Cody even
get to know each other? You know?
Speaker 1 (25:04):
You know, I think I think it was maybe the
thing that we did at the opry and and and
he came in and he loved the walk and he
was just you know.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
So I met him there.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
We ran into him at in Montana, but my daughter
had lived in Texas for a couple of years. She
became a big fan and she kept telling me, you,
you and Cody need to write songs together. Just she
picked him out and so we we connected and we
actually had to do a zoom right. It was the
(25:35):
first time I'd ever done a zoom right and uh,
and we had we wrote Desperate out of Troubadours, and
on the heels of that we I had the idea
for under this Old Hat and so we rolled right
into that as well. So ended up writing a couple songs,
but had become really good friends since then.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
The record came out earlier this month, and Blake is
one of the producers of the record.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
He produced, Yeah, he produced the whole record.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
So what does that mean? Everybody has a different role.
That's pretty sir. What did Blake do?
Speaker 3 (26:01):
He was there from start to finished. He was he
was really there and was start to finish.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
I mean, I flew out to Oklahoma, uh and uh
and and come to find out, he's a huge historian
of the band. I mean he was asking me questions,
you know that. We're like, I'm like, holy cow. So
he's a huge historian.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
How do you even get with him to know he
wants to produce it? Like, where did that even?
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Well, he had done a People magazine article and he
said that Sorry Brown was his first concert and The
Race's Own was the first record he ever bought. So
my brother, who's our manager, just says, hey, you know,
let's get somebody to call him. So, so Narvel, his manager,
you know, gets a hold of him. Well, he calls
me within five minutes and he goes, dude, he goes,
(26:45):
I know you produce a lot of your records too,
But he said, man, I'm in. I would love he goes,
he goes, You're my hero. So he's I would love
to do this. So so we we I go out
to Oklahoma. We we talked through everything and I said,
you know, the I want I want it to be
(27:05):
in nineties record. I want it to sound like us.
I don't want to go chasing something and and he
loved that. So when we you know, he and Gwynn
flew in and we camped out in the studio for
like three or four days, and he was the first
one there, last one to leave. But his instincts, you know,
(27:26):
and and and also this is what I'll tell you,
and you probably already know this, but he, you know,
has this Jethro Bodine like personality that you know, he'll
come off sometimes like like this goofy country boy.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
He's really really smart.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
He's like really smart, and and his like his memory
and so he can he can recall songs things.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
So he was doing that in the studio left and right.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
And he has all these great instincts. And and there's
a couple of songs that I thought he saved. We
got in there and started struggling, you know, because they
were all brand new. We don't do demos, so we
just write a song and go make a record. So
he was really like he was a champion on on
some of those things.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
You like to hear yourself back, No, because I hate myself.
Do you ever hear even in you know, some of
the biggest songs that you guys have done. Do you
ever hear slide imperfections of things in hits or did
you get them exactly right before you press them?
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Early?
Speaker 1 (28:24):
On a lot of imperfections that that I'll hear. But
because always early one, I always would get nervous when
I would go in the studio, so I always felt
like I sang better like live sometimes like I would
I would like do his like I would do a
song like the Walk or something live one night and
go God, I wish I would have sang like that
on the on the record.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Do you feel like it's because you're a freer, Like
just making a sports analogy, if you're not tight and
worried about it, usually play better. But then you get
in your head you want to play well, and it
tightens jupplet.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Bit absolutely percent. And I really felt that early on.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
You know, the race is on nineteen eighty nine, Where
were you? What was life like?
Speaker 1 (29:04):
Well, when I hear that song on and not because
of me, when I hear that song sonically, it still
holds up. So that's what I think, just as a
as a producer and as a music guy, like when
I hear that, I'm gonna go wow, man, we made
a great record. But you know, at the time, Hobe
(29:25):
and I had had were in New York and we
were in like this boutique store and we had heard
this punk rock version of the races on and and
we're like sitting there. So we were in doing the album.
We'd finished the album, and so we're sitting there and
I had this idea of you know, there's George Jones
(29:48):
and there's punk rock, and we're somewhere in the middle
of like, we could do this, we could we could
pull this off, but it would have to be like
unbelievable or you know, you're on you know how wood.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Grew you're covering I mean the George Jones and the races.
I mean, it's got to be so good or we're like,
what we're even trying to.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Do exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
So so we're we're in the studio and we're kind
of just talking through it and and I think it
was Larry London was was like in there and Larry goes, okay,
he said, he said, listen, he goes, he just starts
his beat and he goes, he goes Mark. He says,
Mark's going to come in, and he says, everybody lay
out until the til the we get to the chorus.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
And he says, and.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Then all heck needs to break loose when you get
to the course. And that's what we did. He just
start boom, bump, bump, bump, bump bum A real to
you was willing and and it was like boom and
we we we recorded it and we knew, we knew
we had something, and Randy Scruggs produced it, and Randy,
(30:55):
when we got through, he goes over and calls Jim Vogelsong,
was the president of Capital at the time.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Of Scrugs as in the The Scrugs Fly.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Scrugs got yeah, Yeah, it Earl's son, Randy Scruggs got it.
And he goes home and he calls Jim vogel Song,
who was a president at the time. He gets him
out of bed and he says, you got to hear this.
So he gets out of bad. This is eleven o'clock
at nine. He comes over, he listens to it and
he just said, Wow.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Did you think it was going to be a single
when you cut? I mean, it's it's a cover obviously,
and you changed it to the tempos much faster. Did
you think as you're recording it would just be a
fun song to do or there was a shot that
you would put it out?
Speaker 1 (31:35):
I did, I didn't. I knew, I knew when we
finished that night. I knew it was going to be
a single. I knew I was going to fight like
everything for it to be a single. But I knew
it was going to be a battle. But but you
had the best description I think on a on a
TikTok thing of talking about chart positions, because you're exactly right.
(31:56):
Some of our songs that went number one aren't as
big as song that went number five, and the race
is on it is a perfect example of that. It
was just a huge impact record.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Some Girls Do in nineteen ninety two. I mean, you
guys have so many massive songs, but again your music
is layered where there is the rock band, but again
you can hear that banjo in the background that gives
it the texture of oh this is for real.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Well, Some Girls Do was recorded three times. I first
went to Muscle Shoals and I got an unbelievable recording
of it Muscle Sholes, but it was too rock and
I knew. But when I wrote Some Girls Do, I
thought it was the only song that I've ever written
that I knew I had one.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
I thought, okay, I've.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Written one, this is this could be something, So I
go and record it in Muscle Shoals. It's so good.
It's like zz Top. It's so rock, so good. I
come back to Nashville, I play it for Randy. We
go in the studio, we cut it in Nashville. It's
so country. I want to throw up.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
So it's a complete opposite.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Yeah, I just I hated it. So I thought, okay,
it's again. It's got to be somewhere in the middle.
So so my favorite steel player is JD. Manis, who
played on all those like California Cool.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
He's from l A. We flew JD and Uh and.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
We bring up some of the guys from Muscle Shoals,
and we bring in some of the Nashville guys and
we we recorded again.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
I play in both records.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
It was that hybrid.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
It was a hybrid.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah, and and but the song was that important to me,
and and and it and it is the mac Daddy,
It's it's the it's the biggest.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Thing to you.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
That's the one.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Well they always always say, you know, like in your career,
when things happen, then there's a shift and and and.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
Like I thought, first of all, I thought step that
step was it?
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Well, it was number one.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
It was about yeah, yeah, and then I thought the
race's own was it? Then I thought the walk and
the walk was huge and but but they say you'll
know when the one comes on. And some girls do.
Changed are everything. Some girls do took us into arenas.
That's what that song did.
Speaker 6 (34:13):
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Nineteen ninety three. Thank God for you. What comes to mind?
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Mac mcinally mack and I wrote three or four songs.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
He of course for all these years. But Mac is
Mac kind of like.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
He and I became really good friends the first time
I went the Muscle Shoals. He played on the stuff
with us down there in the eighties. Became great friends.
But he also really really knows the band and and
he he came up with that that chorus and it
was you know, uh, And we were did all this
(35:00):
stuff on Muscle Shoals, All of our stuff, the big
hits were in Shoals. Mac and I put a studio
in his old house down there, and we would go
down there and camp out and make make our record.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
This is the Coral Reefer, Yeah, Mac mcanalan, Yeah, so cool.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
When you get sick, did your voice get deeper?
Speaker 3 (35:18):
It does. It's like pop pop now Mariah got are exploding.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
I would feel though, because if I'm you know, doing
stand up or anything and my voice gets much deeper,
if yours gets a lot deeper, can you still sing
in the same key?
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Uh, yeah, yeah I can.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
That would be a benefit having I have to.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
I have to get a like Mac and Mac and
I did something that the Hall of Fame last Saturday,
and I had to get up and it was going
to be like at noon, so I had to get
up at like seven o'clock in the morning and start
singing and try to, you know, get the cobwebs off
of it, because.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
That's me every morning three o'clock. Listen. We're big fans, really,
And they were like, hey, Mark wants to come up,
and we are pitched a lot of people, and I
was like, yes, I don't even care what it's about. Absolutely,
is it his new you know, nude modeling, whatever it is,
he can come and do it again.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Such big fans. The documentary now that isn't out yet,
is it all right?
Speaker 2 (36:22):
So but Blake's a part of that too that I read.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
He's the executive producer on that. He wanted to sign
on to do that, and he is. He does a
huge interview. You know, the documentary is ninety minutes long,
but Blake's interview itself, you know, had to be edited.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
His interview was an hour and a half. He the whole.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Length of the documentary. Yeah, exactly. Blake talks about Solia Brown. Yes, yeah, so,
and what you guys shopping that now too different.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
It'll come out on one of the streaming services.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
You know.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
We're still you know, working on that deal, but it'll
be out before the end of the year.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Do you ever hear your song randomly at like a
Mexican restaurant and then point at yourself like.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Hey, I will hear, like we've done so many songs,
I will hear a song and it'll just be real
light in the background, and I'll kind of get mad
because I'll go and that's somebody trying to sound like me,
and it'll be me.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Funny, Okay, the boys in me My life in the
country music supergroup Saw Your Brown by Mark Miller, who
is saw Your saw Your Brown's not a real person.
Everybody in case you were wondering all the tour dates
and you got to plaint a bunch of shows. Saw
your brown dot com. You can see all the dates there, one.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Hundred cities this year.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Really, yeah, you're still at what point do you start
to get tired?
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Yeah? You know, I really don't. I'm kind of like,
you must.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Not do a morning radio show while you tour.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
It's like show three.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
I'm like, I'm exhausting.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Why I sign up for this?
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Congratulations on everything. I'm glad that you put new music out,
first album in twenty years. Yeah, that's cool that Blake
was involved. Yeah, but let's be honest.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
He didn't need him. He didn't need Blake. No.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
And then also, it's so cool that you know Larry Bird.
Do you ever talk to Larry anymore?
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (38:05):
You guys still are friends?
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (38:06):
If you ever play golf again, then you need a fourth.
I don't care where you are, I will, I will
come right over and I will say nothing. Well, I
won't look at icon.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
I'm working on something for the signed basketball.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
That'd be really nice.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Mark.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Well, Eddie just wants that because Eddie signed my Arry
massive Did you really not see that on there? No,
it was my fault again, it wasn't all my fault.
But I don't want him to feel bad. We were
signing balls for our sports show and that ball was
on a table display because we were doing a different show,
and then we were just signing and it's like an
assembly line. He just grabbed it, signed it and moved on.
(38:40):
He didn't even know he did it.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Mark.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
It was next to all the other balls, so I
just grabbed it.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Sign I didn't even see.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Great. Thank you. Yeah, I really appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
And you're a terrible basketball player.
Speaker 4 (38:49):
You're terrible, But oddly my kids are really good.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Hey, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
It's really weird. Okay, so the book, the record. You'll
let us know when the documentary is out, Yes, just
let me know, and I'll tell everybody to go check
it out the tour. Congratulations, And I mean if you
have any ball player in town, let me know.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
I'll do it.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Other than that, anything Eddie before we go, No, no,
just that.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
I mean if you need another player too, I'm available. Okay.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
All of a sudden, this phone doesn't work. Oh man,
I must not have got that text mark. Thank you
and congratulations on everything.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Thank you guys. And I'm a huge fan, thanks man.
And my daughter is a huge fan and she's out there. Yeah,
him Madison she directed the documentary.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Oh that's cool. Yeah, so does she have is this
the first document Like? What is her background?
Speaker 1 (39:37):
She has her own TV show called Chasing Down Madison
Brown on RFD TV.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Oh that's awesome. So she knows what she's doing. Yeah,
it wasn't like let me randomly pick one of my
family members. You right, Awesome, that's really cool. We can't
wait to see it. Congratulations, that's really cool. And that's
the b side of Blake just doing an interview for
ninety minutes. If it's so successful, they just put that
out too. Mark Miller saw your Brown Follow on instagm
I'm at Sawyer Brown band and check out the book
(40:02):
and the record and go check them out on tour
because are so good.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
All right, thanks, thank you man, thanks for listening to
a Bobby Cast production.
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