#468 - Charlie Handsome on How He Met Post Malone Living in a Closet

On this episode of The Bobbycast, Bobby Bones talks with songwriter and producer Ryan Vojtesak, better known by his stage name Charlie Handsome! He is behind some of the biggest songs like Morgan Wallen's "Last Night," Post Malone's new country album and many more. He shares how the first time he met Post Malone he was living in a closet and recalls how they started working together. Charlie also talks about the only time he called Morgan Wallen to tell him he just wrote a number one song, and shares that he has 8,000 voice notes in his phone. Charlie dropped out of High School and worked in construction, so he explains how he got into the music scene, started working with Morgan Wallen, shares his best gambling story and more! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
We had talked about doing the country album back in
twenty fifteen. We did say album six pull a reverse
Taylor Swift and like be the biggest pop star man
to a country album. So when he asked me to
do this album, it was cool because I was just like,
wait a minute, how many albums have you had? He's
like five.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Episode four sixty eight of The Bobby Cast with Charlie Hansom.
One of the biggest writers and producers right now. I
mean I could list every Morgan Walland song he wrote
and produced, all the sum you proof which is Morgan
he did write and produce. I had some help which
is post Malone, Morgan Walland you know, one of the
writers there. But stuff for Jack Carlow and Kanye and Kaled,

(00:46):
Last Night, Morgan Wallen, Cowgirls, Morgan Wallen and Ernest more
than my hometown Morgan Walland so I could go on
and on. His name is Charlie Hansom, his real name
is Ryan. One of the biggest producer songwriters in all
of music right now and especially wait for the gambling talk,
Like come for the music talk, but stay for the
gambling talk. Charlie Hansome Episode four sixty eight. You can

(01:10):
follow him on Instagram. Charlie Hansome, but the Ian Handsome
is a three the producer of Post Malone's album that's
out now F one trillion.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
And here he is, Charlie Hansome. We have a.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Mutual friend and I was told that you were a
tough nut to crack. I got a message this morning
from a very close friend of mine and she was like, Hey, so.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Charlie's coming over.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
I was like, yeah, I didn't know what you I
didn't know what you went by like to friend people
like people that you know or maybe you know outside
of like the business.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
I don't know for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
And I was like, yeah, yeah, he's coming over, and
she was like, I really like him.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Good luck, he's a tough nut to crack.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Damn.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, how do you respond to that you're a tough
nut to crack? I don't know what do you think?
She means? Not sure?

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Don't smile a lot? Maybe don't don't you know? And
I have a thing where when I meet people don't speak.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
I'm me too.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Sometimes someone else doesn't intro Otherwise I'll just stand there
all night and not talk to anybody.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
My wife and I were in therapy. We got a
couple of therapy every week. You're married, No, okay, just
got married a few years ago. We were in a
couple of therapia yesterday. We go every week we have
since we got married. And she was like, you know
what if I don't ask him a question, he doesn't talk.
That's what she was saying about me, and I talked
for a living. Now you're you express yourself for a
living through music, through sound, through audio, through communicating through

(02:29):
an artist, even but you're not a human expressor has
that always been the case?

Speaker 1 (02:34):
I guess so? Yeah, I mean I think so.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
If I'm thinking back, we were the quiet kid.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Well it's been maybe, But I mean I also had moments,
you know, growing up. I think you know, I got
somewhat popular at certain times.

Speaker 3 (02:46):
What made you popular? First?

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Probably playing guitar?

Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah, how old?

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Thirteen?

Speaker 3 (02:53):
So why did you pick up a guitar? Thirteen? Who
around you?

Speaker 1 (02:55):
I had a guitar. I had a guitar since I
was like eight?

Speaker 3 (02:59):
Who put it there?

Speaker 1 (03:00):
I had? I had a great uncle he played a
lot of guitar. I started. I was hanging out with him.
He was really drunk one night and he was like,
he's like, if you could learn a song by meat
Loaf before the night's over, I give you a guitar. Yeah,
so I pretended I learned it and then he was
just like are you really playing? I said yeah. I
was like, all right, take the guitar, and uh So

(03:22):
that's how I got on and then I got into
it later because some friends of mine started playing and
I was just really competitive, and I mean I was interested,
but I was also like it started with a whole
Uh My first friend who played guitar was like I've
been playing six months and look how good I am.
And I was like, you don't sound that good and
he's like, well, it's really hard, and then I was
like is it though, So then I you know, it

(03:44):
was like I was almost like felt like I had
a challenge to do it. And the same with making beats,
Like I had a roommate who was making beats and
they were really shitty, and so I would be like, yoah,
I think your beats suck, and then he would be like,
well you try it, so I'm like okay, you know.
So that was kind of like what got me into
it initially, but then of course, once I started playing.
Once I started making beats all those things, I just
really loved it, so I just kept going.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Did you have any music education at all? No? Can
you play by sound? Can you play by Yeah?

Speaker 1 (04:12):
I can play by ear. I also know music theory
and stuff, but I mean it's just all you know,
self taught stuff.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
Stuff think Yeah. Yeah. So did you ever learn the
Meatlove song? Ever? Did you go back later and be like, oh,
actually I'm gonna learn I will through in the thing
for Love. I don't know what song it was bad
out of hell on to. I know I'm too deep
right there on meat Loaft.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah, probably No, I never went back. I'm not a
big meat Loaft guy.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, I mean either, really, I guess don't get meat Loaf.
I was way older than good actor. Well, well, you
play a lawyer or something like one of those CSI
shows some fight club. Yeah, I remember that.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
It was a good one. He was in a some
truck driver movie with Patrick Swayze.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Is that how you think of Meatloaf is a good actor?
Because I guess I just think I think I'm a
Doctor Pepper commercial. Oh yeah, because he did that Doctor
Pepper commercial with that song meet Love.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Some of those guys who I'm all. I was like,
he's dead, right, and I can't remember if he is.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
And he is because I was literally having the same
thoughts right then. I was like, as we talk about him,
is he alive? I was gonna ask Mike to fact
check it, but I'm I'm he's dead right.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Mike died in twenty twenty two.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Rest we see, but like recent I guess the point
I'm making is if you would ask me ten years ago,
he's dead, right.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yeah, so that's one of us. Wow, where'd you grow up?

Speaker 1 (05:20):
I was born in Atlanta. I was there for a little.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
Bit, like for real Atlanta or like one yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
Was Yeah, I was born in Atlanta. I was there
when I was a kid, and then we moved like
just outside the city, and then you know, I just
grew up working there. So I got a job when
I was like fourteen, and so I was just always
there every day, like commuting in and out.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
You got a job doing what at fourteen the construction stuff,
So at fourteen probably early stuff, Like I my early
stages of that were like roof tear offs before I
got to actually roofhouses. Yeah, but I was fifteen sixteen
doing that stuff. What were your intro jobs construction?

Speaker 1 (05:55):
I mean we were you know, demo and then uh
basic shit like for me windows, yeah, and what else?

Speaker 3 (06:03):
How did you get the job? You a family in construction?

Speaker 1 (06:05):
No, no, no, I was. I used to play guitar
in church and the bass player owned the construction company,
and so he was just like, you know, if you
want to come work on the weekends, you can. And
then it got to me where he was like, you know,
if you don't want to go to school, and so
I ended up dropping out of high school working full
time with him and then just like went to like

(06:25):
a program where you go do tests and shit and
then you know, you still get a diploma, but you
gotta just show up like I think once every two
weeks or something. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
Yeah, Were you a decent student?

Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah, I mean I was good. I was like probably
four point zero for the most part, and then I
might have fucked up like one thing at.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
The very end. You just didn't like it. It wasn't something
that yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
No, I mean, I didn't care about. It was just easy.
I didn't really put any effort into it. Actually went
to college as well, and it was the same thing.
I never went to class. I ended up getting two
degrees from a university, but I didn't go to class.
I just like fucked off the whole time.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
How do you get two degrees if you don't ever
go to class? You just clap out of a bunch
of stuff.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Yeah. Yeah, exams, Oh you would show up during the
semester and take the test.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
I would just do, yeah, just the exams.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Do you have some sort of photographic memory or some
sort of.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
A little bit. So, so what it was was I'd
write all the information I needed to know specifically, and
then I kind of memorize what the pages looked like,
and that was that was kind of my thing. So
it was just like I could kind of read the
note in my head a little bit, and then that
was kind of how I did the test.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
So what I heard says you didn't memorize all the
words and how they rolled together. You visually memorize the
page so you could go back and read it.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Well, yeah, because I would. I would try to do
them in patterns too, right, So I try to do
interesting patterns of the information so that it would be like, Okay,
not all the pages look the same.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
When did you notice you could do that? How old?

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Probably college?

Speaker 3 (07:48):
Really?

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Yeah, I don't think I knew before.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
That's a treasure.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
I mean it was just like staying up all night
eating that or all and doing that.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
How does that live in your music or how you
create or see or or.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
How you you know, navigate through a session.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
I don't know that it does.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
Like you can can you see music ahead of time?
Can you see what it's supposed to be?

Speaker 1 (08:10):
Yeah, I mean somewhat. I mean I've definitely said before.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
And I know a lot of musicians could do this,
so it's not anything special. But if I was deaf,
I mean I would still probably do this career Beethoven
and uh yeah, I mean because you know what shit's
supposed to sound like right at that point.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
So or even supposed to look like. Yes, what because
what you can see is actually you've learned it. You
can you know what the sound is supposed to be.

Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, And there's a lot of patterns. There's a lot
of math to it, you know, and especially in Nashville
with the numbers, like you know, if you work with
live bands, obviously everything's off the number system.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
So what's up to you?

Speaker 2 (08:47):
What was significant about Nashville that maybe wasn't significant in
other places that you had either written or produced. What
about the city, No, not so much about the city,
but about how music's done here.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Oh yeah, yeah, so it's different. I mean, right, I
came up in rap music primarily, and then kind of
went to pop and R and B as well, and
then I got to the country last, and actually I
got to lap music last. But that being said, everyone
kind of has their own thing, right, So it's like
different hours, it's different writing styles. I think Nashville's more

(09:20):
concept centric, right, So you need to get your concept,
You need to get your title. What are we going
to talk about? What are we going to write about?
And then once you know that, then you can start building.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
Like melody last for the most part.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah, I think, yeah, you go concept first and then
you start figuring out the melodies and then kind of
figure out the right track or build out the track
as you're going. And in other genres it's more like, hell,
it's freestyle melodies, and then once we like the melodies,
then we'll try to fill in the lyrics after.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
And by freestyle melodies, we're just trying to bang it
out by figuring out what melody we like and then
inserting words over the top of so.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah, you jumped in. Usually take a rough one take
through a track that you like, you know, and then
it's like you got to pick through that three minutes
and see what you liked and highlight it and arrange it,
which is fine. I made good songs that way as well,
but I think the Nashville is probably a better I think,
like what I've been trying to do is when I
work with rappers or other people that have worked with before,

(10:23):
I try to get them to lean into this way
of writing because I feel like it, you know, produces
different songs, different results.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
You feel like it's a bit refreshing either way.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Let's say you concept based, title based, like a lot
of my friends are that right here, right, I have
a lot of friends, right, and friends a bunch of songs,
and yeah, you're right. They for the most part, they
will chase down the melody. Second, they'll have the idea
maybe some lyrics or rhymes or whatever they want to
walk in the room with. But when they go to
LA and they do write some melody stuff, they like
it because.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
That's not usually what they do.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
When you have LA based writers La and whomever, and
you're like, hey, let's do some concept stuff.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
Is that refreshing to them or is it difficult? No?

Speaker 1 (11:02):
I mean I think I think it's good. I think
most people like that.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
And like, is there more preparation for concept writing though,
like you need to come in with a little more.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, you want to come in with ideas already, you
know most of the most of the good writers here. Well,
everybody's different, but my favorite writers here, they come in
and they already have like five six ideas and then
we can kind of like talk through them, see what
makes the most sense. If not, then otherwise we'll just
like fuck off for an hour, have conversations and see
what happens.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
What about writing in the studio whenever you have a studio,
and studios are different now because you do not have
to have the five million dollar room, right people would
rent reserve studios, have the whole space and then write
for days. Like that's money while writing, but you're also
there to record immediately.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
How do you feel about that process?

Speaker 1 (11:48):
No, that's good. I like that too. I mean I
like having that studio.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
You feel what's what's more creative? What's more? What do
you feel like you can get the most done.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
I mean, it doesn't necessarily matter, but I would say, like,
I'll like a bigger, nicer studio personally. But I mean
the writing rooms in town. I mean you probably know this, right.
The writing rooms in Nashville are small. They don't have
like a lot of equipment. They usually don't knock, they
don't have any bass, you know what I mean. And
people are used to it. So you got the biggest
artist in country music recording in rooms that like a

(12:18):
load Tier LA artists would be like the fuck.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
Room is this? Like why are we doing this?

Speaker 1 (12:23):
So I think it's easy for people to do that
here and it's not a big deal either way. But
like posts for example, we do in a studio.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
You're right, yeah, And so then when you have something
you go right to it.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yeah we could record it immediately. Yeah, But I mean, yeah,
it's just the studio environment's good, and you know, it's
something that he's been used to his whole career, so
it makes sense versus like you know, Big Loud for example,
and Morgan and everybody they are hardy whoever, everyone's in
the writing rooms, you know, and then the main studio
you've been there. I'm sure Joey's studio. You're not going

(12:56):
in there until you're ready to cut a song, which
is on a different day, you know, schedule.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
So is your phone full of melodies or concepts?

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Both?

Speaker 4 (13:04):
Like?

Speaker 3 (13:04):
What does your phone creatively have in it right now? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah, it's in voice notes. I probably got like I
don't know, maybe like eight thousand or something. But it's
like this morning I did nine, So I did nine
voice us this morning. It's all music, and then once
I chop that music up, then I'll maybe sing over it.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
I think you could ever go back through stuff you
did seven thousand ago and find something you like.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
Is that a bank for if you're not feeling creative
or if you're just not feeling it one day?

Speaker 1 (13:31):
No, I never really think to go back. But what
I do is this, which is just a random thing
I do. I'll put open iTunes because most of the
songs I have or pieces of music I've created, are
in my iTunes, and I'll scroll, like flick scroll randomly
so that the it's scrolling fast, and I'll double click
and flick it again, double click scroll a double click.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
So there's the opportunity for something that you have saved,
yeah months ago, just still pop up.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, for sure. I mean yeah, And this is something
I've said before. I don't know where because I don't
do a lot of any but I for sure told
somebody this is that when I first started in the
business and I did go flex with post Malone was
one of my earlier songs. That was a song musically
that I had done nine years before or eight years before,

(14:16):
and I just remembered it because I really liked it,
and it just like that day for whatever reason, I
remembered it. I was like, oh, check this out, and
he liked it.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
How developed was the music? Was it fully produced?

Speaker 2 (14:27):
Was a track produced or was it a raw you say,
like a voice note that you did and then you
incorporated that with him.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
I didn't even for that one in particular, I didn't
even find a voice. No, I don't think. I think
I just remembered it.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
Remember the page. You remember the page like in college.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
And then so I was like, okay, cool, check this out.
He liked it. So we recorded it, put it down,
made the beat, you know, and then he wrote the
song to it.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Once we had the drums and everything So where'd the
name come from.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
We'll go flex No, Charlie Hanson.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Charlie Hansom, Yeah yeah, Charlie Handsome.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
It's like a two part thing, right, So half of
its Charles Manson, which I thought was interesting, but then
I was kind of like, you don't want to be
Charles Manson. It's kind of weird.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
RD. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
Yeah, But I had a few like moments and things
that had happened. Like one thing I've always kind of
had was like in tough pressure situations or actual danger,
I'm generally able to get out of it unscathed, and
like essentially I don't know intimidate whoever is fucking with

(15:31):
me at the time. And so that's kind of where
part partially that came from. And then the other side
of it is there was this kid and I was
like sleeping on his couch and he lived in La. Right,
So I used to live in Phoenix for a little
bit and I was visiting La staying with my friend,
and he was We knew each other from like years ago,

(15:51):
but we weren't like super close, and he was like, Yo,
let's go to this party, and you know, so we
went to this party and we it was like a
bar hopping thing whatever, and we ended up both talking
to the same girl that night, and so when we
got back to his house, some people came back to
the house and he was trying to get the girl
to go hang out with him, and she ended up

(16:13):
getting with me instead and sleeping on the couch with me.
And so the next morning he was he was like
upset about it a little bit, and he was like,
he was an actor at the time. He was on
a show on HBO actually, and he was like, man,
you're not even fucking handsome. He was like, why would
she like you and not me? He was like, I'm
He's like, you don't even He's like, this is a

(16:33):
handsome face. He was like saying all this crazy shit.
And I never heard a guy say you're not handsome.
It's such a weird thing to say. So I was like,
it's stuck with me. And then I had to make
a name quick, just because I had some placements coming out.
I had some songs. I had a Travis Scott song
and jessej record and a couple of other things coming out.
And everybody's like, yo, you can't go about your regular name.

(16:54):
They're like your regular name sucks, no one can pronounce it.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
Doesn't look cool.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
That was my friends, so I.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
Thought maybe the guy said you're not handsome. A different
guy didn't get my.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
Friend who said it. His name was lifted, which is
obviously not his name. You know, so everyone in rap
has like a fake metro booming. You know, it's obviously I.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
Mean, my name's fake two but I'm not rap.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, well yeah, so you know it's just a it's
just a stage name. So anyway, they were like, you
need one quick. I didn't think it was the best name,
but I wrote down like ten names and then I
was like, let's go with this one for now, and
then when I figure out the one I want, i'll
change it. And of course that doesn't work.

Speaker 3 (17:30):
So you married the placeholder name espposed to.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
The place because once you get ship rolling and you're like, well, that.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
Was story of my name too. I never liked it,
thought I was stupidest name ever.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
Thought it's not like a pirate or like a yeah,
like a bone doctor.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Why did you go with that one?

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Because I had to make a decision quick, and there
was a literation and and I was like, I'll just
be this but then I started to have this station
and connected to that. I was on multiple stations, and
I was like, I guess I just have it.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Yeah, stuck with it, can't shake it.

Speaker 1 (17:58):
I mean, he'll I never listened to this interview, so
I hope you don't care that I'm saying this. But
my friend Murder Beats. He was like, that's not name. Yeah,
mister Beats. He was like, he's like, fuck, man, I
wish I didn't pick that name, you know what I mean.
But I mean, he's gone so far with it, so
you're not going to change that.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Our mutual friend who I guess you met at a
charity event, Josie.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
I don't know if I met her at a charity event.
She's friends with my fiance.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
Okay, so you're probably at the charity event together, correct animals.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
She was like she was over the house and we're
close with her, and she's our dog's ved and she
does a podcast on my network all this stuff.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
So she was talking about you.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
She goes I was with Charlie Handsome, and I was like,
that's the coolest name I've ever heard of her life.
That was literally my thought was like, it can't be
his real name. Yeah, but if it is a real name,
like that's double that's really the coolest name. But I thought,
on the surface, thought it was the coolest name I've
ever heard, Like if I was a wrestler, Charlie Handsome it's.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
Working out now, Yeah, that would be good. I mean
I've gotten used to it, right, So, I mean I
answered to Charlie. If someone says Ryan anywhere, I don't
look if.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
I hear somebody, Oh that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
I'm so used to this now. But but yeah, I
mean it worked out.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
Your parents still live, Oh my mom? Yeah? Did you
know your dad? No, okay, I did my dad was
that when I was five as well? Does your mom?
Your mom calls you Ryan? Right? You still talking about
She never calls Charlie accident.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
No, I mean maybe like as a joke. Yeah, you
know what I mean. But yeah, she still says Ryan.
But that's about it.

Speaker 5 (19:29):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
I know how people come up in Nashville, and how
if you're an artist, a lot of times you get
a published until first you come and you play open mics,
you meet people, you start writing songs and you slowly rise.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
What's the LA scene like?

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Because I don't feel like that community just being out
there a bit doing some TV shows and stuff, and
I feel like that community is as tight because it's much.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
Bigger, much more broad. How do you how do you
come up there?

Speaker 1 (20:09):
I think you just gotta do something big?

Speaker 2 (20:11):
Like what would you tell somebody who's nineteen. It's like,
mister Hansome, what do I need to do? I'm a
pretty good songwriter. I'm ready to start to put in effort.
What do I do in La?

Speaker 1 (20:20):
In La?

Speaker 3 (20:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yeah tough? I don't know you're you're a good songwriter
in La. I mean the advice that was kind of
given to me was kind of I was trying to
get with all these big artists. Kanye was one of them,
and a friend of mine said, and he was in
the music industry as well. He goes, they don't want you.
Like He's like, you gotta make your own shit. You

(20:41):
gotta have your own circle. And then when they see
that you're doing something cool, then they're all gonna start
calling you. And so he's like, you really just got
to focus on like the next thing and not what's
already good, and so that was kind of the approach
I took. I always worked with like new artists, and
like if you look at my career, like most of
my success, like looking back, you'll be like, oh, he's

(21:02):
working with these big artists, but like not when they started.
I mean I was working with all these guys before
they were big, Like my all my hits, like there's
maybe a few with guys who already established, but most
of them were like, Oh, this guy's about to blow
up or this guy's just starting, and then we do
the records and then we just stick together for a
few years.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Who do you look back at and say, Man, I
was pretty fortunate, And they were also fortunate that we
met each other before he had hit and before you
had really hit. Like what early artist, producer songwriter relationship
do you look at it?

Speaker 4 (21:36):
Go?

Speaker 3 (21:36):
Man, both got pretty fortunate that we existed before we
blew up and met each other.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Sure, yeah, I mean Post was definitely the first one
for me. I mean that's really what launched my career. So, uh,
you know, I was doing other stuff, but when we met,
we kind of locked in and we just started working
like you know, every day, and you know, living at
the same house for a little bit stuff like that,
and so when he got big, it kind of when

(22:01):
he blew up, it kind of let me start getting
other opportunities because people start reaching out, you know, obviously
checking the credits and then saying, oh, you made this,
we want to work with you on something. And so
I didn't actually meet Conye until after me and post
It started putting out songs. Then it was like, oh,
now Kanye wants to work.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
How did you and post meet?

Speaker 1 (22:20):
I think, if I'm not mistaken, I met him at
this house. There was this weird house we were calling
at the White House because it looked like the White House.
It was in Encino, California, and it was like this
big like mansion that I don't know the exact details,
but I think like fifteen kids like threw in on.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
I think some of them were by the place or
rent the place.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
And I think it was like some of them were
YouTube kids, and some of them were aspiring rappers and
producers and different people. But I think they all just
kind of threw in and kind of like we're you know,
It's like you go in there and there's like no
furniture and there's you know, shitty, but like it's a
big house, So I think he was sleeping in the closet,
Like he would have to confirm that. I've been saying

(23:00):
that for years, so if I'm wrong, I'd be crazy.
But like, I'm pretty sure he had a little room
in a closet somewhere. But I was over there working
with other people. And when I take smoke breaks because
I used to smoke cigarettes a lot, Like, he would
be out there and we would talk, and then he
would come in the studio as well, and then he's
he eventually like played me some stuff that he did

(23:20):
and it was, you know, it was awesome. And then
I was recording one day, I think we were writing
a song is one of the songs that Travis Scott cut,
and I asked him to jump on the mic and
he got on there and sang, and it was like
it was like, why the fuck aren't we doing this guy?
Like this is who we should be focused on, Like
is the talent. So once I saw that, we kind

(23:41):
of locked in and just you know, I think his
success kind of goes hand in hand with my career
as well.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
Do you think he'd say the same thing about you
that he was fortunate, and he was like, man, why
have not I been working with this guy?

Speaker 3 (23:54):
Like it was a marriage meant to be?

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, I'd hope so, But I mean it was also new.
It wasn't like he tried working with them million people before.
I mean, he was probably eighteen when he moved, so
I think I met him either when he was eighteen
or nineteen, So it was like, you know, he hadn't
been in the game. I don't think he had any
songs out when we met, but he wasn't. He didn't
even have post alone the name when we met. He
had a same thing like we're saying, like he I

(24:19):
think he had a couple of names on a paper
and was like one of them was his post, and
I think me or somebody else was like, yeah, but
if you google post, you're gonna be like fence post,
lamp post.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
Yeah, the serial brand whatever.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
But then he also had post malone written down, and
that was like that sounded cool.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
So it doesn't sound by your description that he was
super aggressive, like this is my music, let's do something.
Mostly it was like you guys were just sharing ideas
or like this is what I think you're in that house.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
I mean, I don't know. He didn't come to you
and me like, hey, will you produce my stuff?

Speaker 1 (24:50):
No? No, no, not initially, no, not at all. But yeah,
I think he was working on stuff here and there.
You know, because I'll say this, like when you walk
in the house initially with that man people, it's unclear,
like on first glance, like, wh who's who's gonna blow up? Yeah? Singing?
Who's rapping? Like I think the first song I heard

(25:10):
of him was straight rap. I don't even think there
was any melody maybe, but once I heard him singing,
I was just like this, this is the guy. And
uh we had moved into a different house where we
met somebody who had a studio in their basement, and
uh so we all started working over there and you
know that's where we got it going.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
But yeah, the first song you did with him, fuck,
I don't know that. I mean, go flex Is that
one of them?

Speaker 1 (25:39):
It's early? Yeah, I don't know. I can't remember the
first song, but it's probably not the first one, but
it's definitely early. Like the SoundCloud, A lot of stuff
that was coming out on SoundCloud before he had a
record deal. We were doing and he put out a
mixtape as well.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Was that pretty wild for you too to see that
SoundCloud stuff explode with him?

Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah? I mean, and that's also when you know, you
look at the music industry. Obviously now it's TikTok. Back
then SoundCloud was became the thing, and he was one
of the first people. Maybe I don't know everyone, but
he might have been the first like big artist off
SoundCloud that got huge, and then you know a few
others like x x X and maybe UZI Vert. But

(26:20):
I think, like I think the first month. Again I
could be wrong on this, but I think he got
like two hundred million plays on White iverson in a month,
and it was like, the Fuck's going on? This shit's insane,
you know, so the all the labels and everybody was
paying attention at that point.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
What was he like to hang out with then, same
as he is now?

Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yeah, I mean, he wasn't that much different. He's always
been like a really sweet guy. He's always been like
a really nice kid, so kind of the same, you know,
chain smoking SIGs and drinking and playing songs on guitar
and like, you know, because it's like we'd make songs
in the studio but then we had this like little
porch fire and we would just sit out there and
still jam on guitar and play covers. Right, so it

(27:04):
was like covering country songs, covering bright Eyes, covering some
emo shit.

Speaker 3 (27:11):
You know. I found them to be very sweet. I
think that's a great word.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Like I think I've had three occasions where I've spent
more than three minutes with them. Yeah, and very like
sweet and kind feeling. And he felt like he was
sensitive to what I wanted to talk about or and
I did not expect that from somebody who was it
didn't matter who it was, but somebody was just so

(27:35):
wildly famous.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
You know, having been around other people that are famous,
it's usually not that way. A lot of times you'll
know this better than anyone. People that are wildly famous
are they're that way because they demand all the attention.
They It's very much a me centric world in the
world of entertainment. But I did not that any time
that I was with him, I did not find that
at all. Yeah, which was extremely different than what I.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
Was used to do.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah, I would say he he kind of stuck with
that too. I mean, he's the same and he you know,
he's just like conscious of the people around him and
you know, obviously a big yes ma'am, yes sir to everybody,
making sure you know. He'll also sign more autographs than
most people, Like he'll sit there and do it for everybody,
Whereas it's like, you know, I've been with a lot
of artists who you know, you gotta leave, you gotta

(28:19):
go to the next thing, which is not even anything
bad on them. They're actually busy.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
He came and played the Rhyman Show with me. Was
super cool, and he stayed longer than any other artist.
He took pictures with every person and I posted about
it and I was like, and a little bit it
was to some of these guys that won't do anything.
It's like, you got a guy that's twenty x famous
than you. Yeah, and he spent time with every single

(28:47):
person that has stayed back to say hello and again.
I found that to be super cool. I'm assuming you
guys still work well together. I mean, you're doing the
record as we talk. It's not out yet, but by
the time this is heard, it is out. So how
long how many years have you guys worked together?

Speaker 3 (29:02):
Now? A long time?

Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah, technically a long time. We definitely spent some time
not working together as well, got it, but that'd being
the case.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
How long have you been known?

Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah, we started working. We probably did our first song
either late twenty fourteen or early twenty.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
Fifteen, ten years so yeah, that's crazing.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
So twenty fifteen, we were like locked in really doing
a lot of stuff, you know, technically, and I don't
know where it says it. I guess you got to
buy the physical copy of his first album. Technically I'm
an executive producer on that album. I don't really do
all the work necessary necessary, like to be executive producer.
But that was kind of where we were locked in
on his first album. And then you know, kind of

(29:42):
went separate ways for a little bit, and then you know,
I caught I think I put a song on his
album two albums ago. It was a random song that
I sent them, you know, But we weren't, you know,
we weren't actually working as much. I was living in
Nashville doing my thing. He was doing his thing. And
then we had talked about doing a country album back

(30:03):
in twenty fifteen, and you know, I go back and
forth on power Manifestation shit, But we did say album six.
That was the conversation where like, your sixth album could
be country and you could do a pull a reverse
Taylor Swift and like be the biggest pop star and
then do a country album. So when he asked me

(30:24):
to do this album, it was cool because I was
just like, wait a minute, how many albums have you had?
He's like five. I was like, shit, you know, so.

Speaker 3 (30:30):
What do you mean you go back and forth on
the manifestation? Oh? What are your two areas you live in?

Speaker 1 (30:33):
No, just some of it doesn't really make sense. I
understand that if you're saying something thinking about it, you'll
actively start making moves towards it, But some of it's
just kind of ridiculous, like and it feels like it
shouldn't be real.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
But it might be.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, but it might be. And that's why I don't like.
Then I get into these weird who's got stronger manifestation?
If we're both manifesting the opposite. I started looking at that.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Yeah, and I think that too, like if two people
are praying opposite things, yea, even in that way like.

Speaker 3 (31:04):
Who wins? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
It's like so sometimes like someone will say something to
me and I'll be like yo, like you know, take
that back, you don't say that, you know, yeah, or
like I'll be like, oh, your manifestation powers week. So
I'm not worried because like people will say some shit,
you know.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
Yeah, I think about too.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
And again, this is just my weird brain going down
places that I probably spend way too much time that
actually makes nothing good for me. But I'll think about
either if it's manifestation or prayer or however you want
to even describe that, that that communication within yourself or
to others. But I'll see somebody on Facebook like, hey,
we could use all these prayers, but all these what's

(31:42):
the number that becomes? Is all these more than one?

Speaker 3 (31:46):
Does if it's just one, does one count as equal
as all these?

Speaker 1 (31:49):
Interesting?

Speaker 2 (31:50):
I think about that a lot, because you know, if
you get ten thousand people to pray for something, does
that mean it's more powerful than if you just pray
for it by yourself. And if so, let's we need
to get a prayer, go fund me just for bigger
causes then and get more people. So yeah, I get
tired thinking about stuff like that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
And it's also that you bring up prayer because it's
a separate thing because I'll pray too, but I don't
almost exclusively. I don't ask for anything and prayer like you.
I'll pray more for a situation, okay, rephrase. I'll ask
for something for somebody who maybe is hurt, or somebody
who maybe is going through some shit but you know,
or a safety thing, but it's not It's never like, man,

(32:28):
can I get a number one song?

Speaker 3 (32:30):
I'm not asking for shit like that. I think with me,
it's I realized that I've done a lot of things
wrong that ended up very right. Yeah, Like.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
I've been sued for millions of dollars, I've been fine
millions of dollars. I've made a lot of mistakes, but
either greater good came from that. So my desire is always,
even if it has to be something that's very difficult
for me to go through, I just want it to
be right.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
I'm not asking for something good.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
I'm asking for something bad, just like keep me in
a space that I'm going to continue to get to
be the best version of me for myself and the
people that I care about.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
Yea, And yeah, I don't ask. I don't ask either
for specific things. Maybe I should, but I don't ask
either I do ask, put me in a space that
even if it doesn't go right, so it was supposed
to not go right, so the greater good can be
achieved or the greater learning can be achieved from it.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
Yeah. Yeah, I also fuck with back and forth on
that one, too, right, because I heard this one, but
I liked it. It was everything happens for a reason
that people just make up afterwards.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
I completely everything happens for a reason. I do not
subscribe to at all. I think what happens, things happen.
But again I can't prove I'm right right, like we're
all these are theories for sure. I do not subscribe
to everything happens for a reason. I subscribe to everything happens.
And then we've got to figure out a reason that
it happened. And so our most positive feeling is, well,

(33:57):
if that happened and it wasn't good, it must have
happened for a reason. It's us associating the best possible
outcome with what has happened. But again, I can't prove
I'm right. Nobody can prove they're right, really in these situations. Yeah,
so when he says he wants to do a country
record for real And you guys have talked about it
so many times.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
Did you ever think maybe or did.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
You think do you think he was serious about it?
Or was he just kind of flirting with the idea
he needed you to kind of push him?

Speaker 1 (34:21):
He was for sure serious? What do you mean back
in the day?

Speaker 3 (34:23):
No? Now, because back in the day it felt like
you have just talked about it for fun because you
liked the music. But no, I knew, I knew serious.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
I mean it Also, timing wise made sense, like it
was the sixth album, his fifth album was you know,
a bit of a departure from his previous four, right,
I'm assuming y'all y'all have heard Austin and you know
it had more like rock elements, have more.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
Indian instruments too. Yeah, you can actually tell.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
Them, you know. So it was a different project already,
so he was already experimenting with different things and and country.
You know, wasn't that far of a step. But when
he said yeah, I didn't think Yeah, there was no
part of me that was like, oh, he might not
be serious. And also where I'm at made sense right
as you were here, Yeah I'm here, But I'm also
like not to be whatever about it. I'm also like,

(35:13):
have the biggest country songs right now. So it's like
not that I always will, but I'm saying like right
now I do. So like it kind of just worked
out because you know, he could come to town. I
already know everybody. I've already done like the groundwork here,
like fucking you know. So I felt like as soon
as he said he wanted to do it, I kind

(35:33):
of already knew, like instant things start. I just started
getting ideas, thinking, oh, I know who I want to call,
I know who I want for this that whatever, you know,
down to the band stuff, like where do.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
You start in your head?

Speaker 2 (35:45):
Because again, if it calls you and you guys are
doing this project, everybody else going to come on and help,
But it starts with that nucleus, right you and him?
Where do you start in your head? Immediately? Is it
what features you want to put on? What studio you
want to go to, what's the sound?

Speaker 1 (35:57):
Like?

Speaker 3 (35:58):
Where do you go? Because there's so.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
Many I think songs first, because without songs, what are
you doing?

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Did you have any already?

Speaker 1 (36:05):
I had some songs that I thought, yeah, maybe he
would like I had sent him a few, but he's
also you know, he wants to write the stuff too,
so it's not he's not as much an artist, and
especially in the way he's come up. You know, he
doesn't cut outside songs. If you look at all his
old albums and stuff. Like when I say I put
a song on one of his albums before, it was

(36:25):
a song that I sent him that I had like
four lines of lyrics too, incomplete, very incomplete. I had
the melodies, but I didn't have much of the lyrics
at all. So yeah, he always wants to write, and
so yeah, I mean it was more so I was
thinking song ideas, start coming up with concepts, start creating

(36:47):
a sound, because that's that's really As a producer, what
I try to do is like make sure each artist
I work with has that we do a unique sound
for them.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
I don't want to be.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
One of the producers, like I don't want to name it,
but like the dudes who it's like, oh, you.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
Can tell that they've produced it or not even in a.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
Bad way, like like oh, Frell did a song for them,
and Frell did a song for them.

Speaker 3 (37:07):
I would compared to guitar players, and they sound similar.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
Like tone guitar tone, even though the songs are different.
You can definitely tell just to keep you out of
getting into the producer world where you may say something
because you know, I'm just what you're saying. I can
do guitar players as is that example, though, I can
tell a slash riff. Yeah, no matter where it is,
who it's with, what's going on, right, the tone by
this specific tone, Yeah, for sure, and a lot of
the how he fingers the guitar. So same with producers.

(37:31):
I can also tell, for the most part by how
slick it is, by how exactly who's producing it. Because
I've just been around enough and you didn't want to
fall into that trap.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yeah, I mean I still to an extent. There's there's
things that maybe people can hear and say, okay, like
this probably Charlie probably made this. But when it comes
to artists, I mean, like there's songs that I write
on a daily basis, Like if I'm just doing a
writing session, like yesterday I wrote two songs with some guys.
If we write a song from Morgan Walling and then

(38:00):
Morgan doesn't want the song, I don't pitch it to
anyone else.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
It dies.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
Yeah, I generally like ninety nine point nine percent of
the time the song is.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
Dead because it was written specifically with something or someone
in mind.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
Yeah, well, country becomes interesting in that juncture. Not to
take away from anyone else, If I write a song
not for Morgan, a country song, then I feel like
it's open. Then I feel like it's like, Okay, there's
probably ten artists that could sound good doing this right,
but with him specific I feel like we've done such
a We've honed in such a sound that no one

(38:34):
else really was doing that. I don't if I have
something that sounds like that and he's like, I pass
on it, I'm not giving that to somebody else, you know.
I don't want to create that situation. So I feel
like when I get with any artists on a project
like Post, I was like, Okay, we got to figure
out what feels right for you. But also that when
when someone listens to the whole album, they don't go, well,

(38:56):
this could have been and then name and different artists,
so that could have been their album, Like it has
to be just that artist project. And so I feel
like Post already has some you know, things he was
looking at. He was looking at nineties country. He was
looking at classic country records. He was, you know, he
wanted to explore all those things. And I feel like

(39:17):
we did that and we did a good job of it.
And then obviously the first single was probably the most
pop leaning thing you'd hear for the whole album. And
then it like, as you keep diving deeper into it,
it's gonna, you know, keep going more into like the
roots and more into the older shit.

Speaker 4 (39:34):
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
I feel like, just from and again, we're recording this
before the record comes out the record's office, So I
may sound like I'm a time machineist, because I'm not.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
We're not where this is right now.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
But from the songs that I've heard that have been released,
it does feel like it's walking a little deeper and
deeper into the more traditional country. Even the Blake song, right,
that's more country what people would consider traditional. Then, like
you said, the Morgan post song, which is super catchy,
Like like you said, it's of all of them.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
It's the poppy, it's it's not a pop song.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
But yeah, I'm already feeling that now with the songs
that have been Luke Combs. We had the lukecom song
Sure today, I feel like it's slowly going into that
and there's more. It gets even more.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
Oh yeah, it gets. It gets all the way back
to that you know Texas swing shit. It gets all
the way back to I don't even know what you
call it, like, I just call it that fucking those basslines
and like that kind of stuff. So there's a lot
of stuff that you can look at that that's gonna
be like nineties seventies country as far back as like

(40:47):
fifties country. I feel like, like the Blake one, for example,
that to me feels like, you know, early two thousands.
It doesn't feel like brand new, but it doesn't feel
like super old either, So that one's kind of like
walking that line. But yeah, I think people are going
to be, you know, maybe surprised by some of the
stuff with kind of how like classic it goes.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
Any songs that you fully produced for this record that
did not make the record?

Speaker 1 (41:10):
How many did we do that didn't make it?

Speaker 3 (41:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (41:12):
I mean, are there any done, fully done songs I'll
never see the light of day?

Speaker 3 (41:16):
Yeah, Like what happens to them? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
I'm not sure but I know that I'll never pitch them, like,
I'm not gonna send them to anyone else unless.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
But he tried, he put his vocal on it. You
guys finished the song, but you decided not to put
on the record.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Are there any of those?

Speaker 1 (41:31):
I'll say this, there's one that there's one that we
wrote because you know, in a day, you usually write
a couple songs, right, So obviously we did have some
help with Morgan. But we wrote another song with Morgan
that felt a little too progressive for the album and
so probably just Morgan will probably keep that.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
One so it'll live.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
So no songs fully produced that you love that just
aren't getting used at all. They just die and no
one ever hears them.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah, I mean after you died, they secretly released.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
It like the ones, right, the ones that aren't gonna
make it. I feel like we all had reasons for
why they shouldn't. You know, they weren't our favorite songs.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
Maybe you didn't follow through with full production.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Well some of we did, though it was like we
did because you also got to look at the timeline
of this was we actually finished the album like maybe
like two months ago because we were like, oh, it's
eighteen songs, and then we finished it, and then it
was like, well, shit, we still got time to do
more songs. And now it's like, okay, so now there's
the second batch of songs.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
That you know.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
I can't tell you the exact track this because we
probably gott to decide that this week or next week,
but I'm guessing twenty six.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
You know, that's a lot of songs.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
It's more than I think. When he called me, it
might have been I swear the number might have been eight.
It might have been like, Yo, let's just do like
a thing, you know, and then it just kept going
from there.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Do you think it would have grown if you guys
weren't fully inspired and loving what you were doing.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (43:02):
No, I mean that's what it is, right right.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
Yeah. No, he's having a great time. I feel like
he's like he's super happy doing this. I mean, I
feel like he's just like I can't speak to how
he did his last album. I wasn't there, so I
don't know like what his energy was like, but I
know that he's genuinely having a good time. He's actually
like really enjoying the process of coming out here and

(43:27):
write songs. In this way and just like also just
getting on board with like how different it is. Like
I think maybe one of the first trips he was like, man, y'ah,
y'all are fast, Like everyone's fast out here. And it's like, yeah,
because most of these guys are doing a session for
two hours, three hours right the gaining about nine am,
doing like a ten to twelve, whereas in LA will

(43:47):
kind of go fuck off at the studio for twelve
hours and you know, you write a little bit, you
have a drink, you tinker around, you know what I mean.
So then it's so drawn out here. It's a lot
more laser folks with like let's complete this song, let's
do another one, or let's go home.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
So yeah, I think.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
Exactly how you said it, like because the process was good,
you know, and we would still do more. It's just
like this is I don't I don't make those decisions.
I don't know how labels decide when to do shit. Obviously,
if it was pushback further, we just keep making songs.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
But is this home to now? National?

Speaker 6 (44:23):
Home?

Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (44:23):
I live here, I mean I feel like home.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, National's good, Like I like
it better than La Anyway, I was in LA for
like ten years, and I came here primarily to stop
paying taxes, but you know, I also had like a
great I don't even want to call them client, like
a friend here, like in Morgan who I was working with.

(44:46):
So I was like in Earnest and you know other
people as well. But I'm saying like I had something
where I could go okay because people were telling me,
They're like, if you leave LA, your your business, it's
like a hit, You're gonna make less money. You know,
I have opportunities because La. I mean there's so much
shit there. I could wake up every day and find
something to do. They're like, when you come here, it's

(45:07):
not gonna be like that. But I mean it's actually
been really good, and people have started to come here
to work, so that's been really nice. Like, you know,
there was a time when I'd reach out to the
artists I was working with and say, yo, come to Nashville.
Let's do a thing, and they're like, Noah, you come
to LA. So I was like, Okay, cool, I gotta
go to LA. But now it's like people actually enjoying

(45:30):
being here and having to switch up and so a
lot of people are coming here.

Speaker 3 (45:34):
Were they correct?

Speaker 2 (45:35):
And that you got here at first and it was
a little more difficult to find work.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
Did it take you a minute to kind of get
in the group? It pretty quick?

Speaker 1 (45:43):
No, But I put in I put in like time anyway, right.
So I came here in twenty seventeen, actually did a
few rights. Came back in twenty eighteen, did some rights.
I actually my first trip I came out here was
to work with Florida Georgia Line, and I met Morgan
the first night I was in. Yeah, before I even
did the FGL session, and so I think, yeah, we

(46:06):
did it find on me that night, you know.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
And so.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
I already had that song like kind of in the
pipeline coming out. And then you know, I worked on
like I helped Sam Hunt on Downtown's Dead, even though
they had already written the song. I just kind of
helped do some production stuff. But I had a few
things going, and uh, you know, I knew people out here,
So I feel like I had come out enough where
people were like, yo, the student isn't just trying to

(46:34):
get on our shit. And I also try to approach
it in the right way. I didn't come in and
say like, here's how I produce stuff. This is what
we're doing. Because I was like it felt too drastic
of a change, and so I feel like we I
kind of slow rolled into everything and this is more
getting technical. But even if you look at it, find
on me I used like weaker eight of eights that

(46:55):
I normally use weaker bass, not because I you know,
I I felt like we had to like move the
production a certain way. I was taking more pop sounds
and mixing them with the country sound on that.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
You know.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
I think when we got to Heartless with the Diplo collab,
we got to lean in a little more. By the
time we got to something like Broadway Girls, it's like
you're already in Broadway Girl. I'm saying just from a
production standpoint, Like if I would have came here in
twenty seventeen and just started playing the Broadway Girls, people
would have been like.

Speaker 3 (47:25):
That had been like, that's that's too extreme.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
What are we doing? Yeah, so I feel like we
had to with those kind of sounds. We had to
go gradual, and but you know, we did a lot
of other stuff on the in between as well, like
more than my hometown obviously not not taking any leaps
from a production standpoint, just a good song.

Speaker 3 (47:44):
Which are those songs?

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Because you have so many we were talking about it
before you got over here. We have so many, so
many songs that people are gonna remember where they were
at the time of their life when the song became
a hit. You have a lot of those in this
It's hard for anybody to have one of those. Yeah,
you have so many of those songs. You said a
couple of them there from Morgan, like, which one of

(48:05):
those songs?

Speaker 3 (48:07):
If it was Pour Me a Drink, or you prove
or even.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
I had some help as you were writing it, or
maybe as you were producing it. You're like, man, this
is special, not just good because consistently I think you're
really great.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
I think you know that too, or you wouldn't be
the successful.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
But it just felt even more special than what you
normally do great.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
I mean more than my hometown. Was definitely special for
me because it was maybe the first, the first song
that I was told was going to be a single
in country music, and because you know, all prior to that,
all my hits have been raped or R and B
your pop, and so that one felt special. This bar

(48:48):
even though it wasn't a single, this bar felt really special.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
What about as you were writing it, where you're like this,
if this isn't a hit, I have no idea what
I'm talking like, this is the biggest hit.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
Mid right that I maybe I've ever written. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
I don't really I don't really necessarily approach it that way.
So a lot of the songs that I had that
were hits, I don't know that we fully knew. I
remember I was talking to Stargate one time because they
were asking me questions about how I knew something was
a hit, and I told him I didn't and they
were like, oh, you don't even know what you're talking about,
Like you don't even know.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
I was like, yeah, whatever, but.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
Yeah, like Love Lives with Cleet, didn't know was gonna
be that big at all, Falling Trevor Daniel, it actually
wasn't big until it popped off on TikTok, So we
didn't know, you know, like first Gouts Jack Harlow, we
were kind of like, well, kind of makes sense, right,
But even that I was kind of like, I don't know,
you know what I mean, Like I'm not sure. But

(49:43):
with the Morgan stuff, it's a little easier to tell. Also,
the thing about Morgan, which you know, is if you
look at his whole album, his album cuts are good
enough to be other people's singles. So that's where it
starts getting like a little crazy. So we'll have conversations
like before Wasted on You as a single. I remember
we had a conversation where we were all like, I
think that's the sleeper. I think it's gonna be big,

(50:05):
and no one was looking at it originally. When we
were looking at the album, we weren't saying, oh, that's
the song, but it kind of felt like it could be.

Speaker 3 (50:14):
I'm trying to think.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
I feel like there's one example I'm not thinking of
where like oh, last night obviously, so last night that
was the only time I've ever done this because I
don't do this. When I called Morgan about that song,
I was like, Hey, I'm gonna send you a song.
I don't know if it's a phone call, text, but
what I said was, I'm gonna send you a song

(50:35):
and it's a hit song, and I'd love it for
you to do it, and if you don't do it,
that's fine, but it is gonna be number one. It's
gonna be all over the radio like someone's going you
felt it about the song, someone's gonna do it, and
you know, fortunately for us, he liked the song.

Speaker 3 (50:51):
So is that the only time you've said that to him?

Speaker 1 (50:53):
Yeah? Yeah, it was just like, I don't know, I
just had a feeling about that song, and I don't know,
it just felt like it would have been a cool
song for him, and I was just hoping that he
liked it, because you know, I didn't want to do
that song with somebody else.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
I really didn't.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
The production is interesting too in that again, you didn't
there's not seventy four layers yeah, on that song.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
Well, to be fair, most of my stuff doesn't have
a ton of layers. The most layered shit I'm ever
gonna do is gonna be this post album because because
how we're leaning into the classic stuff and because how
I'm utilizing the band. But when it comes to Morgan,
we kind of split up the duty with that shit,
where Joey'll do the band stuff and I'll do the

(51:36):
programming other shit, I'll do the initial music or whatever.
But I'm saying like I don't really personally ever hire
bands to do anything I'll just play all the instruments,
and I can't play live drums for shit, so I
always just program. But yeah, for that one, I think
we had a little bit of back and forth. Like
I did a version and then Joey brought a band

(51:58):
in for it, and I think a lot of the
band parts didn't make sense, and so we kind of
like had to meet in the middle and figure out
what made sense. But I say all that to say,
when I make a track, most of much just very minimal.
It's usually three layers and then drums in the bass.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
What's fun for you now, let's take music out of
the equation. Yeah, because your life is so dominated by music.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
I mean, making music is still fun, So that's a
good thing. Like I get to just fuck off and
do that, so that's nice. Outside of that, I don't know,
you know, what the fuck do I even do? I play?
I play like I play some video games here and there,
and then uh, you know, uh, I really like UFC,
so like you know, obviously when that's on, I'll watch

(52:42):
it or try to go to the fights if I can.

Speaker 6 (52:45):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
I like to gamble when I can, if you know,
anywhere there's a casino around me. I'm happy they don't
have one here.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
You like table games like sports betting.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
Mostly like roulette. I'm mostly on roulette.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
I can the problem with what is it's all listen,
you're not meant to win any of it, right, Those
things don't build themselves, right, Roulette you're just straight guessing, right, Yeah,
Like do you have a strategy?

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Yeah, for sure, for.

Speaker 3 (53:12):
Sure, because minus just bet on red as many times
as possible.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
That's cool. That's not a bad strategy at all.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
It's like, you know, yeah, depend how many greens or
our double double trouple green, depends on.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
What the high roller section.

Speaker 3 (53:25):
Yeah, then you'll have that must be nice.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
Yeah, so yeah you're a high roller section. I've sen
your house, you can go. So that being the case, Yeah,
you play up there and yeah, put some insurance, do it?
Do a spread on the zero in the two or
something like that.

Speaker 3 (53:39):
You look forward to that to go on to sit
at the table.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
Yeah. I love gambling, but yeah, I'm happy I'm not
doing it all the time because you know, it could
be a problem. But I've historically won, so that's that's
where it's interesting.

Speaker 3 (53:52):
You have the biggest win story.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
I don't know about biggest win I had. Here's a
here's a we could do this. I think, I don't
think anyone care about this story. You know ACMs when
they were in Vegas. We go to ACMs. It was
like day one. I think I lost like twenty twenty
thousand dollars or just roulette, So twenty thousand dollars down,

(54:17):
and then I was just not having any luck. And
then you know, and then you got to do the events.
You have to go hang out with people and do
all that shit, so you can't even really like sit
there and focus. And I was getting frustrated because I
was like, for me to play well in gambling, I
feel like it's like I try to get on the
table alone. I try to be by myself because once
I'm distracted, I feel like I'm off it. And so

(54:39):
I go, yo, I'm gonna go to a different casino
that nobody's at and go by myself and just gamble
and make my money back, because like I said, I
win a good amount. And I say this to say,
think about this. If the odds are forty seven percent,
what that really means to me is if you made
the same exact bet a hundred times, you should only
win forty seven times. So to me, unless you're doing

(55:04):
sporadic bets and different dollar amounts, you should be close
to even. You should be losing, but close to even.
So if you're this far down, fate should happen that
she should be able to come back up right that
which is stupid, that's gambling shit. But anyway, so I
finally I go to uh I forgot where I went,
fucking Mando A. And I go to the high rollers

(55:24):
area and I'm not looking at anybody. I like, just
walk to a table, put my money down, and I
hear people talking, but I'm not looking at them. And
then like I looked it was like Jimmy Allen, Chris Young,
someone else. I knew it. Like, I was like, what
the fuck?

Speaker 3 (55:39):
Man? I was like, man, I was trying to get
away from everybody trying to get away in the same spot.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
Yeah, they all try to get away to the same spot.
I think Jimmy had to leave. And Chris was like,
I don't know if it's his father and stepfather, it's
one of the two. And he was like, yo, my
my dad's first time gambling. I was like, no shit.
I was like Okay, I'm just gonna bet on what
he bets.

Speaker 6 (56:00):
To do a little beginning luck thing, and uh we
sat there, me and Chris pretty much bet the samet
bets and I think we said sat there and made
like forty thousand dollars in like an hour or something.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
And it was just like it was a quick comeback.
He was like, I was also down and I made
some money.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
And I come back feels.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
There was one where we were like, uh. I was like, man,
I think it's black or whatever. I put five thousand down. Uh,
he puts down five and I was like, you want
to go have a conversation. We just left the table,
went talked for a minute, came back. There was ten,
two stacks to ten. It was shit like that. It
was just like a really you.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
Know, well you sporadically changed color bets. See, I will
only stay red if I'm betting colors, I will only
bet red.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
No, yeah, I'll change color. Well yeah, yeah, it just depends.
I have this other strategy that's really fucked up. I
don't don't think I should say, but it's really fucked
I kind of want to tell you. It's so I
always play in the high rollers section just for the
better odds, right, But sometimes I'll go downstairs because it'
usually upstairs thing. But if it's not whatever, I'll go

(57:04):
to the regular tables where they have like three zeros,
and I'll just watch the table for a while and
I'll watch somebody who's like if I see somebody and
they keep losing and then they go to the ATM.
It's so specific, but I'll wait and if they go
to the ATM and they come back, then whatever they
bet on, I bet the opposite are at the table
and I throw like twenty thirty thousand or whatever I got.

(57:25):
I'm like and I'm like, I'm sorry. I always apologize.
It always hits at the table, and it's just like yo, man,
like you're just losing today and I'm just.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
And you did nothing to make them lose. You just
notice someone losing and thought you might use it to wins.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Fucked up.

Speaker 3 (57:41):
You didn't take anything from that.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
Again, none of that's real.

Speaker 3 (57:43):
It's all in our heads, like exactly right.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
That's the craziest part. That's the last thing I'll say
about that is that's how I like struck up like
a friendship with DANEA White because I saw him gambling
one day. I came I hit Black Too immediately, which
I always almost every time hit my first rolls. Black
Too hits most of the time. And then he was
kind of interested, like how the fuck? I was like,

(58:05):
this just always happens. I don't know why. But then
he started coming back to watch the gambling and he'd
be like, hey, you're up, go home, and I keep
playing and he'd be like, yo, if you don't go
home and I have the skill, drag you out of here.
He's like, he's like one of us has to leave
as a winner today, you know, incrementally different.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
He's betting millions. Probably I'm betting that it is different.
But yeah, that's good. That's good stuff. All Right, you
were not that hard of a nut to crack.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
I felt like I'm going to call her back after
to be like I actually liked him.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
I'm pretty chill. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
She didn't say one like you.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
She was like, he's not gonna, isn't talking much, And
I'm like, well, I think I will.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
I think we talk about degenerously. See, I feel like
we could have just talked gambling for a whole hour. Okay,
I could talk game, yeah know, me too.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
I Yeah, I have I have the I have the need. Yeah,
and I've turned that into sports cards. Now it's just
gambling because you're spending what is used ut all or
to buy a box that are far more than a dollar,
hoping that you have a dollar twenty five or dollars
fifty or three dollars worth in there when you sell it.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
So it's all it's just gambling.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
So do you actually collect a lot of shit though,
like like because if you're doing that.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
No, it's not. No, I don't really have No, I'm
not a collector. Generally. I love sports, but I love
I love gambling. Yeah, and I found a way to
combine the two.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
And so that's what it is.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
If I go to the card shop and I'm buying,
it's not really about the cards. It's like stocks and gambling.
And if I'm gonna spend a dollar, one are my
odds of making more than not? But the odds might
be like I had I bought a box of it
doesn't matter. But the box is like three hundred bucks
and there's like eight cards in there, And I had
like a Kaitlin Clark auto at eight hundred, nine hundred.

Speaker 3 (59:47):
Bucks that's the same thing as putting. It's a chip
on a wheel for sure.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
Yeah, but like yeah, it's almost like a stop.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
Yeah, no, it's that. It's just so Yeah, we could
have done an hour on just that. That's cool.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, who knew that that was the
thing I would be excited about, but.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
You probably did. It took me a minute to get
there with you. I don't know you're gonna ask that.
I didn't know I was gonna ask that either.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Yeah. Usually people ask me what I do outside of that,
and I say nothing. So I need to pick up
some more like physical activities that would be nice.

Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
You play pickleball at all?

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
I played twice. I played. I played with Ashley Gorley
and I played with Ben Johnson once and he beat
me so bad at it. I was like, that sucks.

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
But he so he faded you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
He took the newcomer he was and just whooped you
and got the victory.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Well he was he was going easy at first, but
I could tell, and I don't like that personally, so
I was like, man, just play like you would normally play.

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
And then yeah it didn't turn out. Good. Is he good?

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
Good?

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
I heard he plays with kid Rock like four or
five times a week.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Yeah, I mean, yes, there's a group that play with
Bob is the name they go. They constantly, like you
want to go to Bob's and play, But they play
when I'm working, right, Like their jobs allow them to
go in the morning time and play. But yeah, there's
a real big competitive pickleball group. I'm okay, I'm gonna
have a court. I don't know if you saw it
when you walked in. We just built it. It just

(01:01:06):
it's probably a few weeks ago.

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
I'm okay.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Yeah, yeah, I think I'm probably top fifteen percent. But
some of those guys play a lot. They even sit
up and play.

Speaker 3 (01:01:16):
On the road.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
Yeah, no, that's good though.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
Yeah, but I think that's fun because the floor is
pretty high.

Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
Like you can be okay at pickleball pretty quick.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
Yeah, you can be, oh, because it's you know, it's
like big person ping pong, right, you know, it's not tennis.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
I'm better at that. I'm better at ping pong personally.

Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
But aboy, golf, you play golf of those guys ever, Yeah,
I'm not very good at golf.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
I do go sometimes I go with Morgan or you know,
Urn or whatever, but I'm not that good. You know,
I've just recently figured out how to hit straight.

Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
You have figured it out. I played forever and I
don't have it figured out.

Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Well, it's by it's by hitting softs for me, So
it kind of sucks because I look weak when everyone's
out driving me. But I'm like, at least I know
it's not gonna do when I swing hard. It just
fucking does that. So I just can't even can't put
full power on anything.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Well, congrats on the record on all the success. It's
it's massive, like you are the guy, and it's just
like you said and you mentioned earlier, like you this
is freaking yours is your season, like you've been killing
it and so really cool to like spend some time
with you and talk to you about it and kind
of hear what's happening in the weeds a little more.

Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
Appreciate your time.

Speaker 5 (01:02:25):
Thanks going over, Thanks thanks for listening to a Bobby
Cast production.