September 17, 2025 • 36 mins
BiAs an Army brat, Larry May travelled more than most will by the time he was ten. His parents were stationed in New Jersey, Hawaii, Georgia and Alabama. He moved to Germany at age 7 and was exposed to many cultures and customs that shaped his world view. His family spent time in France, England, Spain and Scotland before moving back when he was eleven.
He was an avid reader and listened to music incessantly in his room.
His teens were typical of a small town Southern upbringing. He grew to love Alabama and its denizens. He also questioned some things that were commonplace. He met the girl that would be his wife when they were both seventeen. She took a young man mad at the world and stood him up, dusted him off and was patient while he figured it out. They opened CD Cellar Christmas 1997. The store has been through many iterations but continues to be based in a love for music and serving its musical community. Larry was responsible for starting a music festival for downtown Anniston. It ran for five years and brought national level talent to his hometown and also thousands through its gates. This spawned an art gallery and also reviving the Christmas parade under his watch.
The couple’s son, Andrew, was born in 2004. He’s an accomplished musician that plays with his band, writes and records their music and also is a full time student at JSU. Larry has written a music column for the Anniston Star newspaper for well over a decade. He interviews national touring artists as they traverse the Southeast.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/creator-to-creators-with-meosha-bean--4460322/support.
He was an avid reader and listened to music incessantly in his room.
His teens were typical of a small town Southern upbringing. He grew to love Alabama and its denizens. He also questioned some things that were commonplace. He met the girl that would be his wife when they were both seventeen. She took a young man mad at the world and stood him up, dusted him off and was patient while he figured it out. They opened CD Cellar Christmas 1997. The store has been through many iterations but continues to be based in a love for music and serving its musical community. Larry was responsible for starting a music festival for downtown Anniston. It ran for five years and brought national level talent to his hometown and also thousands through its gates. This spawned an art gallery and also reviving the Christmas parade under his watch.
The couple’s son, Andrew, was born in 2004. He’s an accomplished musician that plays with his band, writes and records their music and also is a full time student at JSU. Larry has written a music column for the Anniston Star newspaper for well over a decade. He interviews national touring artists as they traverse the Southeast.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/creator-to-creators-with-meosha-bean--4460322/support.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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Speaker 2 (00:34):
Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Creators to Creators. Today,
Today we have a special guest.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Hi, everybody, my name is Larry May. Not much else
to tell.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
We'll just we'll wing it and see what happens. We'll
just see what flash or genius comes flying out.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Welcome, Welcome to the show. I'm very excited to talk
to you about your journey, your life and all the
amazing things you're doing in your life. You know, I
love to go on back to the beginning. I always
say the beginning, you know, charge our trajectory in life,
little hobbits we pick up along the way, follow us
where to our adulthood.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
Tell me a little bit about your childhood. What was
that like? And you know what was Larry when he
was a child, like.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Uh, well, I'm gonna start here and go backwards.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Now, I am an unmitigated loudmouth who's always got something
really silly or stupid to say. But when I was
a child was extremely shy and bashful. That comes from it.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Really is.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
And if you have known me then, I mean seriously,
you could look at me cross eyed and I would cry.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
But my father was a guy.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Who came back from Vietnam really mean and like to drink.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
And hit, and it was almost a.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Sadistic pleasure to watch him hurt others. And that was
my childhood in a nutshell. I was scared of him
as a child. But my problem started when I was
in second grade. And I was always a really good reader,
and I got tested in the second grade for reading
and I was reading on a college level in second grade.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
And from there he just had it out for me.
And it wasn't just verbal anymore than after that. It
was just we'll put this way, my man. My father
was a brutal man with hard edges who gave no quarter,
he asked for none, and he did everything through sheer willpower.
(02:34):
And I could fill in the gaps from there, but
specific things, you know, And I could say the seventies
were a different time. Yeah, men were a lot more.
They're a little rougher than they are now. And yeah,
there's just not much other tell than that he liked
to drink and he liked to hit, and everybody at
(02:55):
our house suffered the brunt of that.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I'm sorry to hear that that's really but I mean,
I'm sure like growing up, you know, you know, as
an Army brad, right, you lived in so many places
before you were you're a teenager.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
How did that? I don't know that constant movement and
exposure to different cultures shape your kind of perspective, you know,
on how you live.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
I couldn't. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Because we were all army kids in a very very
small space. We had to learn to get along with
each other, and we had to learn a lot about
different cultures and different ways of living.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
And we were just very accepting of the way things were.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
And I wasn't as sheltered, and I you know, my
best friend was a kid who lived across the hall,
and he was an Asian kid and they were Mormon,
so we called him Norman the Mormon and it was
so stupid, but you know, and then my other my
other friends were just a mixed bag of just different
(04:03):
colors and different UH belief systems, and and music was
coming into my life in which was so important for
me to relate my UH.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
My dad had a soldier.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Who lived across the hall from us, in the uh stairwell,
and he was a DJ, and he made me my
first mixtape and it had prints and had the Gap
Band and Sugarhill Gang on it.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
So I was exposed to R and B at an
early age.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
And I've just never gotten away from my love because
of that one single Maxell cassette that that guy gave it.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
I don't remember his name. He was such a nice guy.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
That's cool, that's really cool.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
So the load retainment, we had one TV channel in
one radio station air Force is one and that's all
you had.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
You just had well, and it wasn't very good.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
I could turn the TV there in Germany and watch
Charlie's Angels and French, which did me no good. So
I read a lot and I listened to a lot
of music and stayed in my room and somehow turned
both into a career. I really just did it to
stay out of my dad's sight line, right, and that's
(05:16):
and somehow it manifested itself into doing two things that
I really enjoy And.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
If fifteen year old Larry would be thrilled with my life.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Now, yeah, I mean that's it's incredible. Like you said,
you know, you spent part of the Trida and Europe,
you know, Germany and France and all those places. What
are some of the customs or experiences from those that
stuck with you the most?
Speaker 4 (05:41):
When we would well, you know, we're right there on
the French border, so we would go over and visit,
and my parents had made friends with a French family
and I would go.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
We would go and stay with them sometimes, and.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
I learned some French from the two girls who were
roughly mine in my brother's age.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I had my first s cargo there.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
I but they taught us a lot about how more
accepting and more loving they are than Americans were at
the time.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
And it was really nice to.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
See people who were just really loving as a family,
and that was what I enjoyed about France.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
We went to England a couple of times.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
My dad would just give money to a cab driver
and he say, drives you boys around. So it was
around nineteen eighty and we were in at the back
of a cab going to see Big Ben and there
was a movie theater there was almost like a block long,
and the movie Flash Gordon just came out and the
band Queen was on top of the movie theater playing
(06:47):
the Flash Gordon thing. That was my first live concert
I ever saw for about ten seconds. But that was
just all kinds of stuff like that happened over there.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
I was.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
They would have USO trips and I met the guy
who played Darth Vader when I was Yeah, there's all
kinds of stuff that they would do. You know. There
were a lot of benefits to being in the military. Yeah,
so so I would like sad.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. You
could go to Germany, go to they are very big
on keeping their castles up. You could go tour castles
all day. They're very clean and well kept. The government
paid for everything and you could just go in and
just rummage through castles all day. And that was always really.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
Fun, right right, I Love, I Love.
Speaker 7 (07:29):
That was a start, and you know it's only up
from there.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Right, Yeah, well, then my you know, then my my
parents kind of divorce and I moved back with my
mother here to Alabama where we lived before we went
to Germany for four years. And after that it was
really not a lot to tell. It was just kind
of getting through school and working out some issues I
had from a shitty childhood.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
Yeah, but you still came. Yeah, you did, And I
think that's that's.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Amazing that you overcome those kind of you know, unfortunate
you know, the obstacles, and I mean that happened to
be your father, which is so unfortunate. But you still
made you still did the things that you wanted to do,
like music. You mentioned music when you got to Alabama.
How did you kind of start that that direction of
(08:22):
music and how did you get like acclimated into that
and stuff?
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Was that kid who was always listening to the radio
And I listened to the radio and I would play
a cassette because we had cassettes then. And MTV just
came out and we were all just blown away. Did
you see your favorite artists and new artists you've never
heard of on TV?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
All day?
Speaker 4 (08:42):
So we were just immersed in music. Yeah, and we
didn't have as much music as I do.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Now, but it meant more to us.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
I think there was a lot more reverence paid because
I do believe that we also had better artists back then.
The fact that I walked the same earth as Michael
Jackson and Prince and Stevie Wonder and Miles Davis is amazing.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
It's incredible, And I think too, I think the creativity right,
the things that you know people made back then versus now,
I mean, I mean, you're the you're them, You're the
you're the music king.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Like, how do you.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Feel the direction of music now opposed to back then?
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Is?
Speaker 5 (09:31):
And it is it going?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
There was so much more attention paid to arts development
and now you're either you're you're.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Done, and if it doesn't happen the first time, you
just get chewed up and spit out. But you know,
the the barrier for entry is so low now anybody
can do it.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
And that's awesome because anybody can do it.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
But at the same time, anybody can do it. So I,
you know, and my son's musician, and I watch him
trying to break in, but at the same time, I'm
trying to make sure he takes it slow and finishes
college at the.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Same time, and there are avenues, it's just cheaper. I
guess there's not as much artistry involved.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
It's you know, and I'm not going to name any
specific apps or things.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
That cheap in the experience.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
But I also believe back when the Internet became the
conduit for getting free music, people don't realize that they
lost because when you say, well I want free music, well,
if you want free art, don't expect great art.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
Interesting, it's good.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
That is good.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
I like to say a quote like that Madison, that
that's kind of like a sword dick. You can't beat it,
so take that how you will. That could be a
quote that you put in your biography.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
Home.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Also, I'm surprised that you've never actually ever like done
stand up like you totally should. I think you're absolutely hilarious.
That's maybe maybe maybe maybe soon one day after the
book that you rate.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
You know, I've had offers, and I've had people that
would were willing to back me, who had the money
and the connections.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
The biggest thing is I just I'm very happy doing
what I'm doing now.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
I love that, and it seemed and at fifty six,
I see no reason to start something new.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I feel that I feel that you know, you mentioned
questioning some of the traditions in commonplace things about Southern culture.
What were some of the things that you that you
push back against.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I'll tell you first what I like.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
I love Southern people because they are the best storytellers. Yeah,
they are so funny in the way they tell things
and in the way that they present a story. And
you know, a lot of my favorite writers are Southern writers,
and that is what I really I grew up watching
(12:15):
and listening to a lot of characters and they're everywhere here,
and everybody's got a story to tell.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
And if you've lived in the South for awhile, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
There's a certain cadence and a certain rhythm to telling
a story, and they're just hilarious. Some of the things
I could do without were some of the lingering attitudes
about race, et cetera, et cetera. And those are the
things that I think we still need to work on.
And I think we've taken a step back maybe since
(12:43):
the nineties.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Really wow, yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I've seen it.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
It was a lot better, and recently it's not. It's
not as good as it used to be and I
find that disheartening.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Yeah, it is, it is, and that's but you know, I'm.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Trying to take the good with the bad.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
That the dichotomy of everything is what kind of makes
the world go round.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
Right.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
So I've moved off a couple of times away from Alabama,
I've always came back because it's home for all its
false Andison is home.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
Yeah, I totally get it. And how is the music.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Scene in Alabama or is there in any music scene
in Alabama?
Speaker 3 (13:27):
It is? It is alive.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
And well, we've got so much homegrown talent that is
exploding on a national stage. Saint Paul and the Broken Bones,
Alabama Shakes, Yellow Wolf, Riley Green a big country artist.
He's from right here in our hometown. And I actually
got him to open one of my shows. I used
(13:50):
to promote a concert series here in town and I
had Marcell Tucker come to town and Riley Green.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Opened up for him.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
So I'm gonna say maybe I gave him his first shot.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
But Bo and we hired him for another thing at
the museum we were doing, and uh and Jamie Johnson,
he's another guy that went to jack.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
State Randy Owen from from Alabama. He went to jack State.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
And they're opening a big performing arts center there on
campus that's named after him. And another thing, he's not homegrown,
but you know, Cat Williams has just bought some buildings
and land at the Fort and there's gonna be some
big things coming from that.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
From what I hear, that's exciting. Yeah, that's exciting.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
I love I love that, and I hope it brings
you know, the changes that you know you would like
you want to see, right that bringing people together versus
you know, separate. So that's what it's really all about,
I believe. But I have a question, and I love
asking this question, and there is no wrong answer, I promise.
(14:55):
But the three levels of influence, money, power, and facts,
And if you could choose only one of those things,
which one would you choose?
Speaker 5 (15:03):
And why.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Influence Because of what I've learned in the music business.
If if you know a certain person, power and money
can be found pretty easily.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
But there's a lot of things that you can do
with a phone call that you can't do with a checkbook.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
So there's that.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
So I like those those three things you didn't mention dude, wives,
I think that's really important too.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
Yeah, definitely, that's a great answer. It's a great answer,
of course.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Can you imagine in the room they created that and like, hey,
let's just get something for just men that you know,
liked a little more attention. They feel they want to
feel pretty too, so let's.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Give them something to wipe their ass with that. That's great.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
You met your wife at seventeen. I just did so
amazing and.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Clearly very lucky woman.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
We start going out when I was seventeen, we were seventeen,
and then we got married when.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
We were twenty one. I got tired of listened to
her bag.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
It was shameful the way she would hang off their
car when I would try and leave. And I said,
let me just go ahead and whife her up and
just put her out of her misery.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Was married for thirty three years.
Speaker 5 (16:30):
That's incredible. What would you say is the key to
a healthy marriage?
Speaker 3 (16:38):
We don't put boundaries on each other. We don't. There's
no power play, there's no you can do this and
you you can't do that. It's just.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Very It's built on on trust, but it's also built
on letting the other person.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
And that's the best thing I could say.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
I can't say that I've ever had it that hard,
because I see a lot of guys that have had
bad relationships.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
She's just made incredibly easy for me. I've never had
to work that hard at it. She's just.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
The best way I can put it, and it's it's
the most sincere compliment I can give her.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
She's just good.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
Oh wow, that's beautiful. That's a great answer.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
She's the backbone of our family and we all know it.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
It doesn't run without TINSA.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Oh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Thanks for sharing that.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
Well, CD's it was all.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
A lie, but you know, no, no, she's She's fantastic.
I would say she is my secret weapon. And if
you don't have if you don't have a Tenda in
your life, go get one.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
CD Seller has been around since nineteen ninety seven, which
is a huge accomplishment in the music retail world. What
inspired you and your wife to open the store and
how has it evolved over the years.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Uh, it wasn't actually even going to be my store
to begin with. I was a district manager for a
jewelry store company. And I had worked in record stores
on the side, and you know, and I was kind
of the music guy. And a couple of friends approached
me about opening one and running it, and they backed out,
and I said, well, I've got good credit, so I'll
(18:31):
just give it a wing and see what happens.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
And it's changed a lot.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
When we first opened up, it was gangbusters and it
was easy. Around seven eight, when the Internet crashed the
music business, that was tough. We went from being the
coolest guys in town to be the most pitied. Now
we're kind of back to being the coolest ones because
and that's all kids that love records and they love
(18:58):
CDs again, which is shocking. That's what happened in the
last six months. It's something tangible you can hold in
your hand, and they love that it's it's actually a
CD is considered vintage now.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
Right right, which is crazy, right.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
But listening to music and and have they're also figuring
out that if you stream, you don't own anything. You're
just paying to access someone else's collection. And there's something
that speaks to ownership, and you know, and and it
gives you a better relationship with the artists and you
can see what the artists meant with the liner notes
(19:33):
and the artwork, and because most albums are a work
of art from the way they sequence the songs down
to the photos on the front of it and the
music inside.
Speaker 5 (19:44):
That's so cool.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
That's so cool, if you know, you know, we we've
lost a lot of music legends over the.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
Years, and we're not replacing them, right, what it like?
What if?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
What music legend was like the hardest, like in the
last like I'd say, ten years to lose, Yeah, to lose,
and that was like devastating for you, without a.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Doubt, without because a lot of people throw around the
word genius. He truly was a genius. And as far
as I'm concerned, there's some really great musicians still, there's
only one genius left in his name, Stevie. Wonder if
when something happens to Stevie, I it will destroy me.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Yeah, But Prince was the big one. He's that was
rough on me.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
Yeah, And just how he died was just so crazy.
It was just the weirdest well he.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Was a weird guy. Yeah, you just got to say it.
But that's part of what made him so so great.
He was so enigmatic and.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
He was g march to his own drum, and I
love that about it. It brings to my and the
best way I can relate to it is Kurt Cobain
had a quote that was as people laugh at me
because I'm different, he said, and I laugh at them
because they're all the same.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
Ooh that's good.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Yeah. So that's kind of where I was with Prince.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
If you take just the year nineteen eighty four when
he put out Purple Rain, he had a number one movie,
had number one soundtrack, and he was writing songs for
all of his other artists, and the guy was just
so prolific, and every bit of it was quality, and
there was great stuff that he had he threw away
because he said it sounded too much like everything else.
I was like, wow, way, I'd love to hear it sometimes.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
Yeah, same same.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
That would be so cool to like if if they could.
But then again, I don't know, I don't know how
I feel about that. When some artists go and they
pass on, you see some of the big conglo like
studios will like come up with a new So like
when I think when I saw Michael Jackson's new song
with Justin tim Blake, I was like, but he's dead.
How did they make music take off of him? And
(22:00):
he's still still making music off of him.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Which is crazy.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
I get the the idea behind releasing the music so
people can hear it, but just sticking somebody else on there.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
I agree that was a bad move.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Yes, and I love Justin Timberlake's music, but and at
the time he was very popular, but I just I
just don't agree with it. But you know, I don't
think Sony's gonna call me and ask me what I think.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
Anyway, do you feel like it's better?
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Like, you know, there's a lot of artists, there's a
lot of people that are trying, that are doing the
music thing, and they notice, yes, Indy, the indie way.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
Is actually probably probably.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Better in the long run, or and you might save
a lot more money in your pockets versus well, you're
gonna spend money, but you'll see more money later on.
But you know, you hear the people say what I
want to. I want to you know, I want to
be signed to a big label, which I get because
you don't have to do the work. They'll basically do
all the work and get all the things going. But
(23:03):
now we see a lot of artists and people moving
into the indie route, which is very exciting and also
I think it brings a lot of I don't know,
room for creativity.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
You know, as far as like record label is doing
all the work they used to Now you've got to
do all of it yourself before they'll even take you on.
And it's kind of like the old adage where they say,
you know what, I'll I'll make you famous and I'll
make me rich. That's the music business in a nutshell,
and if you can do it yourself, that would.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Be the better route.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
The best example of that lately, I think is Ethel Caine.
She's doing a fantastic job of doing everything herself and
just using a WALLLT for a distribution arm and it's
made it totally on her own.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
It's fantastic.
Speaker 5 (23:50):
That's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, speaking of that, you your your son has followed
in your footsteps musically, so has.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Been except people play music.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
He's amazing. What's been you know, what's been?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
What has it been like to watch him grow, you know,
as both the musician and and a student.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
It's it's funny because when he was a child, Uh,
he was a lot like me. He was very bashful,
very shy, and he's he was he still is to
a degree unless you put him on a stage in
front of a microphone, then he turns in to a
big ham. But he just loves music so much and
(24:37):
he wants so badly to be the guy that's doing everything.
And I think that may come from our love for
Prince at the house. You know, Prince recorded everything, he
played every instrument, he mixed it, he mastered, and that's
what Andrew's kind of doing too.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
So I see him at two.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
O'clock in the morning playing, he's got class. At at
nine he's still playing and doodling. And I watched him
as a kid walk from the from his bedroom to
the kitchen with a guitar in his hand. He's just
always been obsessed with it and kind of like Michael
Jordan's shooting layups in the ring.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
You know, he was just he was.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
He did it because he loved it and now starting
to bear some fruit.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
That's beautiful. I love I love that. And he's so
he's so good, he's so talented.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
He's fantastic. And that's not just proud dad stuff.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
I've you know, I've been around live musicians for twenty
eight years now. I've promoted shows. I've seen tons of shows.
And I'm not just saying well, Andrew's got it because
I'm his dad. I would say he had it if
I had just met him yesterday.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
I love that. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
You know you've written music for more than you know
a decade, right interviewing national touring artist, what's been one
of the most memorable conversations and what do you think
makes a truly great interview?
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Last year? Well, we'll put this way. There's a couple
of things to know about me.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
I care way too much about the Los Angeles Chargers.
I care way too much about Toad the wet Sprocket.
I love Batman, I love Michael Myers. But that's leading
to this. I've interviewed told the wet Sprocket every year
for the last five years, and I had the best
time talking with the singer last year and talking about
(26:29):
because his journey as an artist started about the same
time as mine, after getting out of high school and
getting into music and taking it through those songs, being
my friends, through college, through marriage, through having a child,
and we were two guys roughly a year apart in age,
talking about being in your fifties and how you're running
(26:53):
out of time and how you've got to make the best.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Of time you have.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
And for me to have one of my favorite arts
of all time have this really frank conversation. It meant
so much to me to be able to talk to
Glenn for about ten minutes in an interview, and it
was really not even part of the interview. Is just
two guys with the similar ages talking about their lives and.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Mistakes they've made and things they've done right.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
And it was very, very important to me, and I
will treasure that for as long.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
As I live.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
That's beautiful. I love that. I do. I love that all.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
No, you know, Morgan, you should love that.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
I'm Morgan now. I love it.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
So last week and you were you were Preosan.
Speaker 7 (27:49):
Yeah, and I've never heard that name before.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
That's a new one.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
I love the book, Kok Boy, all that stuff, So
what I need more names as it goes along?
Speaker 7 (28:02):
For sure?
Speaker 5 (28:02):
For sure, absolutely I love it.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
You know, looking back on your journey from being a kid,
traveling the world and running music store, starting festivals, raising
a family, what do you feel has been your true
calling throughout everything through at all.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Now that I've done those things, now it's time for me,
at my age, to take everything that I've learned and
pass it down to younger people. And there's an old saying,
don't be the king, be the king maker. And that's
that's where my head is.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
That's where my.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Interest lies, is in taking people that I think have
talent and have drive and ambition and just helping them
and nudging them and kind of keeping them between the
lines and helping them as much as I can, because
at this point it's a young man's game and it's
just fun for me to watch others. And I'm not
just saying that, I really do believe that, and it's
(29:06):
from all the people that have worked here at the store.
We've created dozens of jobs for people. We've had musicians
walk through the door. We've gotten people jobs with record labels.
We've done a lot of that kind of thing. And
you know, we've gotten concerts downtown with big name artists.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
You know, go back to my Princes connection.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
When we brought more today in the time, there were
kids out there playing on the playground and meeting each
other and they had never seen a live show before,
but they got to see a world level talent for
free in their own town. And for me, again, fifteen
year old Larry would have been thrilled to be able
to do that.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
So that's what it is for me.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
I just want to see if anything I've learned I
can pass down and help somebody get where they're going.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
Absolutely, and you're doing like that.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
You like you, miosha, that's how you say that?
Speaker 5 (30:01):
Yeah, I try, I try.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
I know you look up to me as a as
a father figure and an icon, yes, a titan of industry,
and I just want you to know that I'm here
for you. We don't have a whole lot to work with,
but we're going to do. We're gonna make chicken sald
out of you, young lady.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
Absolutely absolutely. I love that you. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
That's what I did, uh now you saying you know
now it's your time, And I love that because you
know you're so talented and I got to I got
to hear a little snippet of something you're writing. Tell
me a little bit about that and and that, like
(30:48):
if you're okay with telling us a little bit sharing
that journey and where that comes about.
Speaker 5 (30:53):
And I'm very excited for you to talk about that.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
After writing for the local paper for years and just
just writing about music.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
I wanted to try something.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
That is going to tell my story from childhood on
up and in corporate some of my own things and
kind of pay homage to the writers that I really
love Southern writers, like I love Faulkner, I love him
anyways outside of I'm just saying, but my favorite writers
(31:28):
are like a guy from Oxford, Mississippi, nam Larry Brown,
who was fantastic, A guy named Frank Bill.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
He writes great books.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Still with one of the best writers that I've ever
read anything from. It's a guy named Rick Bragg who
used to write for the Anston Star. Now he's a
professor at the University of Alabama. The teachers writing and
try and use their style and relate it to my
experiences in a fiction kind of way and make it
(31:56):
as dark as I can because I love I love horror,
I love scary, I love thriller, I love psychological anything
like that. I just love really really dark horror field stuff.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
What's your process like when you're writing, Like, I mean,
how do you get in the zone?
Speaker 5 (32:15):
Like do you Because.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I mean, you hear about the writer's block, which you know.
Some say it exists, some say it doesn't. It's debatable.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
It usually starts with a phrase or like a turn
of words that I think, and then I'll email myself
really fast, and once I get that one phrase, I
can build paragraphs off of that nice and and then
from there it just kind of grows. But I don't
as far as writer's block, I've never had it because
I don't spend a ton of time, Matt, I should
(32:46):
spend more time. But the old saying if you're going
to be a writer is put your ass in the chair.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
I do a very bad job of that. But I
can write in big chunks, and that's how I do it.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
So I just if I get like a something that
I feel like is really clever, then I'll start from
there and then I can just spend hours and hours
just writing until I just vomited all out, and then
that's how it goes.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
I used to hate writing, gring I mean when I
got into film and when I finished film school, like
I was just like, you know, people say, you gotta
write your own stuff, make your own movies, and I
would just what I would do was just like I
have ideas and I would draw them out.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
To like storyboard form.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
But I know what I'm saying, but the actors didn't
know exactly, you know what I mean. So then I
took a writer's class, and I mean with some skill writers,
and I was like, wow, there's so much that goes
into this.
Speaker 5 (33:44):
I felt like not worthy to even be a part
of it.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
But I learned so much, and we wrote a we
wrote an anthology like twelve writers, and we kind of
that was the hardest thing in my life to do.
It was like keeping like continuing the story, but like
one of the characters from two stories back is in
my story, and then it just keeps going. But we
never actually finished, well, we finished a script, but we
never actually made it into a movie yet.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
So hopefully we'll do that.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
But I com in writers, so it's a you make
it seem so easy when I read you.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
Wow, It's the way I write is incredibly lazy. I mean,
when I write stuff for the newspaper, I've justally got
a deadline because it's artists. They are touring in town,
and I have to make sure that there's enough time
for people to read it absorbed that they're coming and
you know, and tell them about the music or the artist,
and that is what I'm forced to do.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
But if it's just me myself, like I.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
Said, I'll do it in big, big chunks, and that's
the only way I know.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
To describe it.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
I love that, and I'll jump from chapter to chapter
and somewhere along the line, I'm going to sew all
this together into something that looks like a cohesive thought.
Speaker 5 (34:58):
That's awesome. We have only two minutes left.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
But where can people find you and follow everything you
have going on just to get to know what you
have coming down the pipeline.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
I don't really have any social media for myself. All
of my social media is my store. It's anything CD seller.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Related.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
You can find me on CD Seller's Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat.
I think those are the main ones, but I don't
really post too much there. I want to start a
YouTube channel and hopefully somebody is going to help me
do that.
Speaker 7 (35:41):
And yes, I can't wait for you to start yet.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
I'm looking forward to doing that.
Speaker 8 (35:46):
And because I've got tons of content that I just
I don't know how to tie it together, and I
don't know the process and things I need to use technologically,
But once I get that, I think I should.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Be able to take more of just what I what
I do.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
In the capacity of running the store and being consumed
by music all day long and writing and talking to
different artists, and you get to hear I'll play some
of the interviews I've gotten. I've got some really good
stuff that I think people would love to hear, and
just my special brand of West Virginia hill billy cornponing
(36:28):
humor that I was born with. So yeah, I plan
to get that going up and soon pretty.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Pretty fau help, Yes, absolutely absolutely well, I'm I'm excited
for you, and I'm i'm I'm I'm ready to help
as much as I can.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
So thank you for coming on and sharing of your.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Story so much.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Absolutely absolutely thank you all for listening and always remember
to live, love, laugh.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
We'll see you guys next time.
If you love entertainment, current events, and Hollywood, do miss
Creator to Creators Hosted by the filmmaker Mio Shabine, known
for the shutter hit documentary or Noir and the acclaimed
film Anatomy of an Anti Heroo Redemption. This show features
interviews with filmmakers and creatives from around the globe. Join
(00:25):
the fun with guest celebrities and gain valuable insights. Subscribe
now and follow Creator to Creators.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Creators to Creators. Today,
Today we have a special guest.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Hi, everybody, my name is Larry May. Not much else
to tell.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
We'll just we'll wing it and see what happens. We'll
just see what flash or genius comes flying out.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Welcome, Welcome to the show. I'm very excited to talk
to you about your journey, your life and all the
amazing things you're doing in your life. You know, I
love to go on back to the beginning. I always
say the beginning, you know, charge our trajectory in life,
little hobbits we pick up along the way, follow us
where to our adulthood.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
Tell me a little bit about your childhood. What was
that like? And you know what was Larry when he
was a child, like.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Uh, well, I'm gonna start here and go backwards.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Now, I am an unmitigated loudmouth who's always got something
really silly or stupid to say. But when I was
a child was extremely shy and bashful. That comes from it.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Really is.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
And if you have known me then, I mean seriously,
you could look at me cross eyed and I would cry.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
But my father was a guy.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Who came back from Vietnam really mean and like to drink.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
And hit, and it was almost a.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Sadistic pleasure to watch him hurt others. And that was
my childhood in a nutshell. I was scared of him
as a child. But my problem started when I was
in second grade. And I was always a really good reader,
and I got tested in the second grade for reading
and I was reading on a college level in second grade.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
And from there he just had it out for me.
And it wasn't just verbal anymore than after that. It
was just we'll put this way, my man. My father
was a brutal man with hard edges who gave no quarter,
he asked for none, and he did everything through sheer willpower.
(02:34):
And I could fill in the gaps from there, but
specific things, you know, And I could say the seventies
were a different time. Yeah, men were a lot more.
They're a little rougher than they are now. And yeah,
there's just not much other tell than that he liked
to drink and he liked to hit, and everybody at
(02:55):
our house suffered the brunt of that.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
I'm sorry to hear that that's really but I mean,
I'm sure like growing up, you know, you know, as
an Army brad, right, you lived in so many places
before you were you're a teenager.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
How did that? I don't know that constant movement and
exposure to different cultures shape your kind of perspective, you know,
on how you live.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
I couldn't. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Because we were all army kids in a very very
small space. We had to learn to get along with
each other, and we had to learn a lot about
different cultures and different ways of living.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
And we were just very accepting of the way things were.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
And I wasn't as sheltered, and I you know, my
best friend was a kid who lived across the hall,
and he was an Asian kid and they were Mormon,
so we called him Norman the Mormon and it was
so stupid, but you know, and then my other my
other friends were just a mixed bag of just different
(04:03):
colors and different UH belief systems, and and music was
coming into my life in which was so important for
me to relate my UH.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
My dad had a soldier.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Who lived across the hall from us, in the uh stairwell,
and he was a DJ, and he made me my
first mixtape and it had prints and had the Gap
Band and Sugarhill Gang on it.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
So I was exposed to R and B at an
early age.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
And I've just never gotten away from my love because
of that one single Maxell cassette that that guy gave it.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
I don't remember his name. He was such a nice guy.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
That's cool, that's really cool.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
So the load retainment, we had one TV channel in
one radio station air Force is one and that's all
you had.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
You just had well, and it wasn't very good.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
I could turn the TV there in Germany and watch
Charlie's Angels and French, which did me no good. So
I read a lot and I listened to a lot
of music and stayed in my room and somehow turned
both into a career. I really just did it to
stay out of my dad's sight line, right, and that's
(05:16):
and somehow it manifested itself into doing two things that
I really enjoy And.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
If fifteen year old Larry would be thrilled with my life.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Now, yeah, I mean that's it's incredible. Like you said,
you know, you spent part of the Trida and Europe,
you know, Germany and France and all those places. What
are some of the customs or experiences from those that
stuck with you the most?
Speaker 4 (05:41):
When we would well, you know, we're right there on
the French border, so we would go over and visit,
and my parents had made friends with a French family
and I would go.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
We would go and stay with them sometimes, and.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
I learned some French from the two girls who were
roughly mine in my brother's age.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I had my first s cargo there.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
I but they taught us a lot about how more
accepting and more loving they are than Americans were at
the time.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
And it was really nice to.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
See people who were just really loving as a family,
and that was what I enjoyed about France.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
We went to England a couple of times.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
My dad would just give money to a cab driver
and he say, drives you boys around. So it was
around nineteen eighty and we were in at the back
of a cab going to see Big Ben and there
was a movie theater there was almost like a block long,
and the movie Flash Gordon just came out and the
band Queen was on top of the movie theater playing
(06:47):
the Flash Gordon thing. That was my first live concert
I ever saw for about ten seconds. But that was
just all kinds of stuff like that happened over there.
Speaker 6 (06:57):
I was.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
They would have USO trips and I met the guy
who played Darth Vader when I was Yeah, there's all
kinds of stuff that they would do. You know. There
were a lot of benefits to being in the military. Yeah,
so so I would like sad.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. You
could go to Germany, go to they are very big
on keeping their castles up. You could go tour castles
all day. They're very clean and well kept. The government
paid for everything and you could just go in and
just rummage through castles all day. And that was always really.
Speaker 5 (07:26):
Fun, right right, I Love, I Love.
Speaker 7 (07:29):
That was a start, and you know it's only up
from there.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Right, Yeah, well, then my you know, then my my
parents kind of divorce and I moved back with my
mother here to Alabama where we lived before we went
to Germany for four years. And after that it was
really not a lot to tell. It was just kind
of getting through school and working out some issues I
had from a shitty childhood.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
Yeah, but you still came. Yeah, you did, And I
think that's that's.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Amazing that you overcome those kind of you know, unfortunate
you know, the obstacles, and I mean that happened to
be your father, which is so unfortunate. But you still
made you still did the things that you wanted to do,
like music. You mentioned music when you got to Alabama.
How did you kind of start that that direction of
(08:22):
music and how did you get like acclimated into that
and stuff?
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Was that kid who was always listening to the radio
And I listened to the radio and I would play
a cassette because we had cassettes then. And MTV just
came out and we were all just blown away. Did
you see your favorite artists and new artists you've never
heard of on TV?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
All day?
Speaker 4 (08:42):
So we were just immersed in music. Yeah, and we
didn't have as much music as I do.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Now, but it meant more to us.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
I think there was a lot more reverence paid because
I do believe that we also had better artists back then.
The fact that I walked the same earth as Michael
Jackson and Prince and Stevie Wonder and Miles Davis is amazing.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
It's incredible, And I think too, I think the creativity right,
the things that you know people made back then versus now,
I mean, I mean, you're the you're them, You're the
you're the music king.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Like, how do you.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Feel the direction of music now opposed to back then?
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Is?
Speaker 5 (09:31):
And it is it going?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
There was so much more attention paid to arts development
and now you're either you're you're.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Done, and if it doesn't happen the first time, you
just get chewed up and spit out. But you know,
the the barrier for entry is so low now anybody
can do it.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
And that's awesome because anybody can do it.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
But at the same time, anybody can do it. So I,
you know, and my son's musician, and I watch him
trying to break in, but at the same time, I'm
trying to make sure he takes it slow and finishes
college at the.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Same time, and there are avenues, it's just cheaper. I
guess there's not as much artistry involved.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
It's you know, and I'm not going to name any
specific apps or things.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
That cheap in the experience.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
But I also believe back when the Internet became the
conduit for getting free music, people don't realize that they
lost because when you say, well I want free music, well,
if you want free art, don't expect great art.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
Interesting, it's good.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
That is good.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
I like to say a quote like that Madison, that
that's kind of like a sword dick. You can't beat it,
so take that how you will. That could be a
quote that you put in your biography.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
Home.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Also, I'm surprised that you've never actually ever like done
stand up like you totally should. I think you're absolutely hilarious.
That's maybe maybe maybe maybe soon one day after the
book that you rate.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
You know, I've had offers, and I've had people that
would were willing to back me, who had the money
and the connections.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
The biggest thing is I just I'm very happy doing
what I'm doing now.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
I love that, and it seemed and at fifty six,
I see no reason to start something new.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I feel that I feel that you know, you mentioned
questioning some of the traditions in commonplace things about Southern culture.
What were some of the things that you that you
push back against.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I'll tell you first what I like.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
I love Southern people because they are the best storytellers. Yeah,
they are so funny in the way they tell things
and in the way that they present a story. And
you know, a lot of my favorite writers are Southern writers,
and that is what I really I grew up watching
(12:15):
and listening to a lot of characters and they're everywhere here,
and everybody's got a story to tell.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
And if you've lived in the South for awhile, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
There's a certain cadence and a certain rhythm to telling
a story, and they're just hilarious. Some of the things
I could do without were some of the lingering attitudes
about race, et cetera, et cetera. And those are the
things that I think we still need to work on.
And I think we've taken a step back maybe since
(12:43):
the nineties.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
Really wow, yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
I've seen it.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
It was a lot better, and recently it's not. It's
not as good as it used to be and I
find that disheartening.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Yeah, it is, it is, and that's but you know, I'm.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Trying to take the good with the bad.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
That the dichotomy of everything is what kind of makes
the world go round.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
Right.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
So I've moved off a couple of times away from Alabama,
I've always came back because it's home for all its
false Andison is home.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
Yeah, I totally get it. And how is the music.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Scene in Alabama or is there in any music scene
in Alabama?
Speaker 3 (13:27):
It is? It is alive.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
And well, we've got so much homegrown talent that is
exploding on a national stage. Saint Paul and the Broken Bones,
Alabama Shakes, Yellow Wolf, Riley Green a big country artist.
He's from right here in our hometown. And I actually
got him to open one of my shows. I used
(13:50):
to promote a concert series here in town and I
had Marcell Tucker come to town and Riley Green.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Opened up for him.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
So I'm gonna say maybe I gave him his first shot.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
But Bo and we hired him for another thing at
the museum we were doing, and uh and Jamie Johnson,
he's another guy that went to jack.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
State Randy Owen from from Alabama. He went to jack State.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
And they're opening a big performing arts center there on
campus that's named after him. And another thing, he's not homegrown,
but you know, Cat Williams has just bought some buildings
and land at the Fort and there's gonna be some
big things coming from that.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
From what I hear, that's exciting. Yeah, that's exciting.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
I love I love that, and I hope it brings
you know, the changes that you know you would like
you want to see, right that bringing people together versus
you know, separate. So that's what it's really all about,
I believe. But I have a question, and I love
asking this question, and there is no wrong answer, I promise.
(14:55):
But the three levels of influence, money, power, and facts,
And if you could choose only one of those things,
which one would you choose?
Speaker 5 (15:03):
And why.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Influence Because of what I've learned in the music business.
If if you know a certain person, power and money
can be found pretty easily.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
But there's a lot of things that you can do
with a phone call that you can't do with a checkbook.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
So there's that.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
So I like those those three things you didn't mention dude, wives,
I think that's really important too.
Speaker 5 (15:38):
Yeah, definitely, that's a great answer. It's a great answer,
of course.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Can you imagine in the room they created that and like, hey,
let's just get something for just men that you know,
liked a little more attention. They feel they want to
feel pretty too, so let's.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Give them something to wipe their ass with that. That's great.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
You met your wife at seventeen. I just did so
amazing and.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Clearly very lucky woman.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
We start going out when I was seventeen, we were seventeen,
and then we got married when.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
We were twenty one. I got tired of listened to
her bag.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
It was shameful the way she would hang off their
car when I would try and leave. And I said,
let me just go ahead and whife her up and
just put her out of her misery.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Was married for thirty three years.
Speaker 5 (16:30):
That's incredible. What would you say is the key to
a healthy marriage?
Speaker 3 (16:38):
We don't put boundaries on each other. We don't. There's
no power play, there's no you can do this and
you you can't do that. It's just.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
Very It's built on on trust, but it's also built
on letting the other person.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
And that's the best thing I could say.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
I can't say that I've ever had it that hard,
because I see a lot of guys that have had
bad relationships.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
She's just made incredibly easy for me. I've never had
to work that hard at it. She's just.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
The best way I can put it, and it's it's
the most sincere compliment I can give her.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
She's just good.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
Oh wow, that's beautiful. That's a great answer.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
She's the backbone of our family and we all know it.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
It doesn't run without TINSA.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Oh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. Thanks for sharing that.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
Well, CD's it was all.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
A lie, but you know, no, no, she's She's fantastic.
I would say she is my secret weapon. And if
you don't have if you don't have a Tenda in
your life, go get one.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
CD Seller has been around since nineteen ninety seven, which
is a huge accomplishment in the music retail world. What
inspired you and your wife to open the store and
how has it evolved over the years.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Uh, it wasn't actually even going to be my store
to begin with. I was a district manager for a
jewelry store company. And I had worked in record stores
on the side, and you know, and I was kind
of the music guy. And a couple of friends approached
me about opening one and running it, and they backed out,
and I said, well, I've got good credit, so I'll
(18:31):
just give it a wing and see what happens.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
And it's changed a lot.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
When we first opened up, it was gangbusters and it
was easy. Around seven eight, when the Internet crashed the
music business, that was tough. We went from being the
coolest guys in town to be the most pitied. Now
we're kind of back to being the coolest ones because
and that's all kids that love records and they love
(18:58):
CDs again, which is shocking. That's what happened in the
last six months. It's something tangible you can hold in
your hand, and they love that it's it's actually a
CD is considered vintage now.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
Right right, which is crazy, right.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
But listening to music and and have they're also figuring
out that if you stream, you don't own anything. You're
just paying to access someone else's collection. And there's something
that speaks to ownership, and you know, and and it
gives you a better relationship with the artists and you
can see what the artists meant with the liner notes
(19:33):
and the artwork, and because most albums are a work
of art from the way they sequence the songs down
to the photos on the front of it and the
music inside.
Speaker 5 (19:44):
That's so cool.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
That's so cool, if you know, you know, we we've
lost a lot of music legends over the.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
Years, and we're not replacing them, right, what it like?
What if?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
What music legend was like the hardest, like in the
last like I'd say, ten years to lose, Yeah, to lose,
and that was like devastating for you, without a.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Doubt, without because a lot of people throw around the
word genius. He truly was a genius. And as far
as I'm concerned, there's some really great musicians still, there's
only one genius left in his name, Stevie. Wonder if
when something happens to Stevie, I it will destroy me.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Yeah, But Prince was the big one. He's that was
rough on me.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
Yeah, And just how he died was just so crazy.
It was just the weirdest well he.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Was a weird guy. Yeah, you just got to say it.
But that's part of what made him so so great.
He was so enigmatic and.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
He was g march to his own drum, and I
love that about it. It brings to my and the
best way I can relate to it is Kurt Cobain
had a quote that was as people laugh at me
because I'm different, he said, and I laugh at them
because they're all the same.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
Ooh that's good.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Yeah. So that's kind of where I was with Prince.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
If you take just the year nineteen eighty four when
he put out Purple Rain, he had a number one movie,
had number one soundtrack, and he was writing songs for
all of his other artists, and the guy was just
so prolific, and every bit of it was quality, and
there was great stuff that he had he threw away
because he said it sounded too much like everything else.
I was like, wow, way, I'd love to hear it sometimes.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
Yeah, same same.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
That would be so cool to like if if they could.
But then again, I don't know, I don't know how
I feel about that. When some artists go and they
pass on, you see some of the big conglo like
studios will like come up with a new So like
when I think when I saw Michael Jackson's new song
with Justin tim Blake, I was like, but he's dead.
How did they make music take off of him? And
(22:00):
he's still still making music off of him.
Speaker 5 (22:04):
Which is crazy.
Speaker 4 (22:05):
I get the the idea behind releasing the music so
people can hear it, but just sticking somebody else on there.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
I agree that was a bad move.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Yes, and I love Justin Timberlake's music, but and at
the time he was very popular, but I just I
just don't agree with it. But you know, I don't
think Sony's gonna call me and ask me what I think.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
Anyway, do you feel like it's better?
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Like, you know, there's a lot of artists, there's a
lot of people that are trying, that are doing the
music thing, and they notice, yes, Indy, the indie way.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
Is actually probably probably.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Better in the long run, or and you might save
a lot more money in your pockets versus well, you're
gonna spend money, but you'll see more money later on.
But you know, you hear the people say what I
want to. I want to you know, I want to
be signed to a big label, which I get because
you don't have to do the work. They'll basically do
all the work and get all the things going. But
(23:03):
now we see a lot of artists and people moving
into the indie route, which is very exciting and also
I think it brings a lot of I don't know,
room for creativity.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
You know, as far as like record label is doing
all the work they used to Now you've got to
do all of it yourself before they'll even take you on.
And it's kind of like the old adage where they say,
you know what, I'll I'll make you famous and I'll
make me rich. That's the music business in a nutshell,
and if you can do it yourself, that would.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Be the better route.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
The best example of that lately, I think is Ethel Caine.
She's doing a fantastic job of doing everything herself and
just using a WALLLT for a distribution arm and it's
made it totally on her own.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
It's fantastic.
Speaker 5 (23:50):
That's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah, speaking of that, you your your son has followed
in your footsteps musically, so has.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Been except people play music.
Speaker 5 (24:03):
He's amazing. What's been you know, what's been?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
What has it been like to watch him grow, you know,
as both the musician and and a student.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
It's it's funny because when he was a child, Uh,
he was a lot like me. He was very bashful,
very shy, and he's he was he still is to
a degree unless you put him on a stage in
front of a microphone, then he turns in to a
big ham. But he just loves music so much and
(24:37):
he wants so badly to be the guy that's doing everything.
And I think that may come from our love for
Prince at the house. You know, Prince recorded everything, he
played every instrument, he mixed it, he mastered, and that's
what Andrew's kind of doing too.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
So I see him at two.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
O'clock in the morning playing, he's got class. At at
nine he's still playing and doodling. And I watched him
as a kid walk from the from his bedroom to
the kitchen with a guitar in his hand. He's just
always been obsessed with it and kind of like Michael
Jordan's shooting layups in the ring.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
You know, he was just he was.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
He did it because he loved it and now starting
to bear some fruit.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
That's beautiful. I love I love that. And he's so
he's so good, he's so talented.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
He's fantastic. And that's not just proud dad stuff.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
I've you know, I've been around live musicians for twenty
eight years now. I've promoted shows. I've seen tons of shows.
And I'm not just saying well, Andrew's got it because
I'm his dad. I would say he had it if
I had just met him yesterday.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
I love that. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
You know you've written music for more than you know
a decade, right interviewing national touring artist, what's been one
of the most memorable conversations and what do you think
makes a truly great interview?
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Last year? Well, we'll put this way. There's a couple
of things to know about me.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
I care way too much about the Los Angeles Chargers.
I care way too much about Toad the wet Sprocket.
I love Batman, I love Michael Myers. But that's leading
to this. I've interviewed told the wet Sprocket every year
for the last five years, and I had the best
time talking with the singer last year and talking about
(26:29):
because his journey as an artist started about the same
time as mine, after getting out of high school and
getting into music and taking it through those songs, being
my friends, through college, through marriage, through having a child,
and we were two guys roughly a year apart in age,
talking about being in your fifties and how you're running
(26:53):
out of time and how you've got to make the best.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Of time you have.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
And for me to have one of my favorite arts
of all time have this really frank conversation. It meant
so much to me to be able to talk to
Glenn for about ten minutes in an interview, and it
was really not even part of the interview. Is just
two guys with the similar ages talking about their lives and.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Mistakes they've made and things they've done right.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
And it was very, very important to me, and I
will treasure that for as long.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
As I live.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
That's beautiful. I love that. I do. I love that all.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
No, you know, Morgan, you should love that.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
I'm Morgan now. I love it.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
So last week and you were you were Preosan.
Speaker 7 (27:49):
Yeah, and I've never heard that name before.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
That's a new one.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
I love the book, Kok Boy, all that stuff, So
what I need more names as it goes along?
Speaker 7 (28:02):
For sure?
Speaker 5 (28:02):
For sure, absolutely I love it.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
You know, looking back on your journey from being a kid,
traveling the world and running music store, starting festivals, raising
a family, what do you feel has been your true
calling throughout everything through at all.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Now that I've done those things, now it's time for me,
at my age, to take everything that I've learned and
pass it down to younger people. And there's an old saying,
don't be the king, be the king maker. And that's
that's where my head is.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
That's where my.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Interest lies, is in taking people that I think have
talent and have drive and ambition and just helping them
and nudging them and kind of keeping them between the
lines and helping them as much as I can, because
at this point it's a young man's game and it's
just fun for me to watch others. And I'm not
just saying that, I really do believe that, and it's
(29:06):
from all the people that have worked here at the store.
We've created dozens of jobs for people. We've had musicians
walk through the door. We've gotten people jobs with record labels.
We've done a lot of that kind of thing. And
you know, we've gotten concerts downtown with big name artists.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
You know, go back to my Princes connection.
Speaker 4 (29:26):
When we brought more today in the time, there were
kids out there playing on the playground and meeting each
other and they had never seen a live show before,
but they got to see a world level talent for
free in their own town. And for me, again, fifteen
year old Larry would have been thrilled to be able
to do that.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
So that's what it is for me.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
I just want to see if anything I've learned I
can pass down and help somebody get where they're going.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
Absolutely, and you're doing like that.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
You like you, miosha, that's how you say that?
Speaker 5 (30:01):
Yeah, I try, I try.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
I know you look up to me as a as
a father figure and an icon, yes, a titan of industry,
and I just want you to know that I'm here
for you. We don't have a whole lot to work with,
but we're going to do. We're gonna make chicken sald
out of you, young lady.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
Absolutely absolutely. I love that you. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
That's what I did, uh now you saying you know
now it's your time, And I love that because you
know you're so talented and I got to I got
to hear a little snippet of something you're writing. Tell
me a little bit about that and and that, like
(30:48):
if you're okay with telling us a little bit sharing
that journey and where that comes about.
Speaker 5 (30:53):
And I'm very excited for you to talk about that.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
After writing for the local paper for years and just
just writing about music.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
I wanted to try something.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
That is going to tell my story from childhood on
up and in corporate some of my own things and
kind of pay homage to the writers that I really
love Southern writers, like I love Faulkner, I love him
anyways outside of I'm just saying, but my favorite writers
(31:28):
are like a guy from Oxford, Mississippi, nam Larry Brown,
who was fantastic, A guy named Frank Bill.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
He writes great books.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Still with one of the best writers that I've ever
read anything from. It's a guy named Rick Bragg who
used to write for the Anston Star. Now he's a
professor at the University of Alabama. The teachers writing and
try and use their style and relate it to my
experiences in a fiction kind of way and make it
(31:56):
as dark as I can because I love I love horror,
I love scary, I love thriller, I love psychological anything
like that. I just love really really dark horror field stuff.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
What's your process like when you're writing, Like, I mean,
how do you get in the zone?
Speaker 5 (32:15):
Like do you Because.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
I mean, you hear about the writer's block, which you know.
Some say it exists, some say it doesn't. It's debatable.
Speaker 4 (32:23):
It usually starts with a phrase or like a turn
of words that I think, and then I'll email myself
really fast, and once I get that one phrase, I
can build paragraphs off of that nice and and then
from there it just kind of grows. But I don't
as far as writer's block, I've never had it because
I don't spend a ton of time, Matt, I should
(32:46):
spend more time. But the old saying if you're going
to be a writer is put your ass in the chair.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
I do a very bad job of that. But I
can write in big chunks, and that's how I do it.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
So I just if I get like a something that
I feel like is really clever, then I'll start from
there and then I can just spend hours and hours
just writing until I just vomited all out, and then
that's how it goes.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
I used to hate writing, gring I mean when I
got into film and when I finished film school, like
I was just like, you know, people say, you gotta
write your own stuff, make your own movies, and I
would just what I would do was just like I
have ideas and I would draw them out.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
To like storyboard form.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
But I know what I'm saying, but the actors didn't
know exactly, you know what I mean. So then I
took a writer's class, and I mean with some skill writers,
and I was like, wow, there's so much that goes
into this.
Speaker 5 (33:44):
I felt like not worthy to even be a part
of it.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
But I learned so much, and we wrote a we
wrote an anthology like twelve writers, and we kind of
that was the hardest thing in my life to do.
It was like keeping like continuing the story, but like
one of the characters from two stories back is in
my story, and then it just keeps going. But we
never actually finished, well, we finished a script, but we
never actually made it into a movie yet.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
So hopefully we'll do that.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
But I com in writers, so it's a you make
it seem so easy when I read you.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
Wow, It's the way I write is incredibly lazy. I mean,
when I write stuff for the newspaper, I've justally got
a deadline because it's artists. They are touring in town,
and I have to make sure that there's enough time
for people to read it absorbed that they're coming and
you know, and tell them about the music or the artist,
and that is what I'm forced to do.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
But if it's just me myself, like I.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
Said, I'll do it in big, big chunks, and that's
the only way I know.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
To describe it.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
I love that, and I'll jump from chapter to chapter
and somewhere along the line, I'm going to sew all
this together into something that looks like a cohesive thought.
Speaker 5 (34:58):
That's awesome. We have only two minutes left.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
But where can people find you and follow everything you
have going on just to get to know what you
have coming down the pipeline.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
I don't really have any social media for myself. All
of my social media is my store. It's anything CD seller.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Related.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
You can find me on CD Seller's Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat.
I think those are the main ones, but I don't
really post too much there. I want to start a
YouTube channel and hopefully somebody is going to help me
do that.
Speaker 7 (35:41):
And yes, I can't wait for you to start yet.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
I'm looking forward to doing that.
Speaker 8 (35:46):
And because I've got tons of content that I just
I don't know how to tie it together, and I
don't know the process and things I need to use technologically,
But once I get that, I think I should.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
Be able to take more of just what I what
I do.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
In the capacity of running the store and being consumed
by music all day long and writing and talking to
different artists, and you get to hear I'll play some
of the interviews I've gotten. I've got some really good
stuff that I think people would love to hear, and
just my special brand of West Virginia hill billy cornponing
(36:28):
humor that I was born with. So yeah, I plan
to get that going up and soon pretty.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Pretty fau help, Yes, absolutely absolutely well, I'm I'm excited
for you, and I'm i'm I'm I'm ready to help
as much as I can.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
So thank you for coming on and sharing of your.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Story so much.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Absolutely absolutely thank you all for listening and always remember
to live, love, laugh.
Speaker 5 (36:56):
We'll see you guys next time.
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