Episode 67: Brooks & Dunn's "Brand New Man"

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Cliff (00:00):
Today we're talking about Brooks and Dunn's Brand New Man.

Kyle (00:03):
Well, buddy, we're way down yonder on the Chattahoochee and it is
in fact hotter than a hoochie coochie.
do you wanna talk about?

Cliff (00:10):
You ain't play anything after that, did you?

Kyle (00:12):
I sure didn't.
Mm-hmm.
It's the heat.
I'm just gonna settle for a burgerand a grape snow cone and, uh,
we'll see where it goes from there.

Cliff (00:21):
Today we're doing a YouTube challenge.
Can two guys who don't like country thatmuch and actively dislike it in its modern
form, tell you how much they like thisold country record, and if they don't,
their family will lose all of its money.

Kyle (00:36):
Okay, Mr. Beast, we put two guys in a coffin to talk about the genre
that used to talk about death thebest, and now won't face it at all.
Let's see what happens.

Cliff (00:48):
We put two guys who couldn't launch a solo career into a coffin,
and they turned into brand new man.

Kyle (00:56):
I like the thought of it being about resurrection.
One of them also has a red beard.
Coincidence.

Cliff (01:02):
You two must be recreated as one duo that everyone likes more

Kyle (01:06):
tuned to conspiracy theories.
you'd never see Ronnie Dunn andKyle Stapleton in the same place.
What's that about?
it's them.
It's the global elite

Cliff (01:17):
it's fine.
It'll be our mostcontradictory episode anyway.

Kyle (01:20):
you gotta grow your mustache out so you can be kicks.
Brooks, can we do, let's do that forHalloween and I'll come to where you are.
We'll, we'll do

Cliff (01:27):
If I could grow a good mustache, I would've sported that already in
my life, but it doesn't come outlooking the right way when I try.

Kyle (01:34):
Damn.
Also, I, I'm a huge country fan andyou know that I'm a huge country fan
and you have laughed since we werechildren about what a huge country fan
I am driving an old Ford pickup truckwalking around barefoot all the time.
My whole God-given life and rocking thismusic very loudly a lot of the time.

(01:56):
I'm a country boy I drive a pickup truckthat has a license plate frame that
says, what would Waylon Jennings do?
a bumper sticker on the back thatsays, less honking, more Tonkin.
So I'm not saying that I've beenwaiting all my life to talk about
Brooks and Dunn to anyone who willlisten, but I'm not not saying it.

Cliff (02:16):
This album Will for sure, with all that being said, be the place where
we can Capital m meet in the middleabout country, because this is kind
of the only slice I can ride anymore.
And it's part of the reason this albumwas on the music calendar to begin with.
But also we knew that we both likedthis record a long time before we ever

(02:38):
had to make any decisions about that.
and we will spend the rest of thistime talking about why, 'cause it's
real clear and simple and direct.
And that's real nice.
Just a nice, uncomplicated "thisis good, actually." And then
let's try, not only from 1991when this was launched, but also.

(03:00):
I'm gonna pre elaborate on my own thoughtprocess here, but I hope that we can
cover what country was up until 9/11.
Um, at which point, Toby, Keith anda lot of other folks began taking
this in another direction that Ithink ended up in the place where
you don't like the implication verymuch and I'm right there with you.

(03:22):
but there was a special time, especiallyin the nineties, where the shit was
kind of cool actually, and a lot ofthese songs were really interesting.
And we'll also talk about too, likesome of these are really high quality
recordings, really good musicianship,really cool songwriting, and like
details that are worth seeking outin this record that isn't universally

(03:45):
applicable to everything in this genre.
For sure.

Kyle (03:48):
I'm preoccupied with the, cold name check of 9/11 in the first
five minutes, and well, I'd liketo let all the listeners know that
we have sort of a running joke.
Not joke.
maybe a serious idea.
if we find a briefcase full of money,tune dig merch.com and we'll say, this

(04:09):
idea is for td merch.com, but I justimmediately in my head visualized a,
why does this suck Magic Eight Ball?
And the choices on the dieinside the Magic eight ball are
slavery, Reagan and nine 11.
I'm filing that away.
Anyone can, yeah.

(04:29):
That's an open source idea.
Anyone can have that one.
We just wanna see it get made.

Cliff (04:33):
You can definitely do the seven degrees away from any of
those three things to anythingthat we're ever talking about.

Kyle (04:39):
Yeah.

Cliff (04:40):
probably more like two degrees actually.
You said Reagan was one of 'em, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
yeah, yeah.

Kyle (04:46):
Yeah.

Cliff (04:48):
There weren't all of the, all of the people who were listening to this.
Out of curiosity, because wecovered a country record, goodbye.

Kyle (04:55):
but I love Toby Keith too.
And, you know, you saidMeet in the Middle.
I mentioned Chattahoochee.
This really was a golden era,both for country and hip hop.
And I, I hate to be like,man, it was so good then.
I don't generally like getting hung up inthe amber glow of nostalgia at all, but.

(05:17):
You're right.
It is good just to feel good and wetake on so much challenging stuff in
this podcast that I sometimes yearnfor the simplicity of this album and
everything that it represents to my life.
And like that's kind of okay aslong as it's, you don't make it
your whole personality as longas it's a percentage of the pie.

(05:37):
But that reminds me that TobyKeith really was good in that time.
Should have been a cowboy.

Cliff (05:44):
Yeah, yeah.
Yes.

Kyle (05:45):
was one of the bangers.

Cliff (05:47):
Uhhuh, Toby Keith

Kyle (05:48):
don't sell it out for the man, man.

Cliff (05:51):
I feel like

Kyle (05:52):
At least Alan Jackson did the sad nine 11 song.
He didn't do, he didn'tdo the Islamophobic

Cliff (05:58):
were you?
Yeah,

Kyle (06:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Newnan, Georgia's own, baby!
Southside 'til we die.

Cliff (06:05):
That was exactly the moment though in American
culture where like this happened.
Alan Jackson wrote a song and thenSouth Park did a parody of that song
all in like a straight line, and itwas like one giant cultural phenomenon,
and then Team America and everything

Kyle (06:23):
I forgot about the South Park Allen Jackson song.

Cliff (06:26):
You never will again.
I.

Kyle (06:30):
sir. A Second American Patriot song.
Is it the Tower?
I'm really sorry to anyone who'sa fan of either of these guys who,
seem like fine enough guys that we,we devolved into this immediately.
But I also feel likethat's, kind of the point.
' cause the other way that I wantedto go with this was, attention all

(06:52):
people that are like, I like everykind of music except country and rap.
and just like immediately reveal thatyou're some kind of weird, racist,
classist person in a coded way and justsends the same fucked up signals as
an in this house we believe yard sign.
you know, we just talked aboutProject Pat and what fans we are

(07:12):
of that, and we're about to talkabout what fans we are of this.
so when I die, cliff, I just would likefor you to play the audio from this.
Just like, stop being adick about that stuff.
Just moratorium on, on saying that if yougot a weird, like identity politics thing
within any genre of music, you're a loser.
You're an absolute loser.
If you close yourself off from anysection of humanity, you're a loser

(07:37):
and you, don't deserve the miracleof life that you've been given.
Boot scooting Boogie.
Anyway, this would be a realgood time to get a cold beer.
just lighten the mood back up.
Just,

Cliff (07:50):
I would, if I could handle it these days, we don't need to lighten the mood.
Okay.
We go straight into thechorus on this album.
why not go ahead and get messyin the first 10 minutes of
trying to talk about this?
Because the whole, to me, a bigchunk of country to begin with.
It's just there is a contradictionat every step in turn that you take.
It is music that came from another place.

(08:11):
Even though it disavows the historyof its own genealogy and musical
cultural history and lineage, itpretends that things don't exist.
Moves forward is generally andgenerically ruined by American
white people on a regular basis.
country music is weird.
It's also full of awesome shit.
We've talked about Sturgill Simpson andthe run that he's been on for the last 10

(08:34):
years, which is standout and different andis directly connected to outlaw country
and everything that we talked about.
Which parts of this, uh, Brooksand Dunn record, we can point
to outlaw country as well.
So like there is stuff thatis still happening that is
based in all of the, like.
I guess at this point it would beneo neotraditional, country music.

(08:55):
there's Casey Musgraves, there'sother artists who are doing
really interesting things.
So just like anything else, the factthat we're talking about this record is
not only a sign that we like it actively'cause we're telling you that we do, but
also is an exercise in trying to justlike do the thing that we like to do where
it's like, take the thing off the shelf,hold it up, turn on a bunch of lights

(09:16):
and look at it for all that it is becauseit's weird that this record ever existed.
1991 Country was weird.
The fact that it took over pop theway that it did, the way that it
evolved and devolved the phenomenonof Brooks and Dunn as an artistic duo
in general, it's all just like weird.
and it's cool to talk about because tothe point that you've made, we just like

(09:37):
it and we can use all of our disciplineand skillset that we use to critique
and evaluate important music likethe last record that we talked about.
And at the same time, we can come backto something like this and I can just
put Neon Moon on repeat and I can singit to myself 13 times in a row however

(10:00):
I want to because it's fun and becauseit's maybe one of the best songs that's
ever crossed in front of our ears.

Kyle (10:07):
I love that.
That's a place that we converge.
It really is the perfect song.
It, it can't be beat.
And we'll get into that.
You're right.
Cliff, uh, point rescinded.
What kind of cowboys would we be ifwe didn't get any mud on our boots?
We'd be the kind of people that wantto tell you they're cowboys right now
in 2025 with their very big trucks,with their $1,500 a month payment.

(10:29):
you, watch 'em get out, expecting to be abig guy and they have to jump away down.
Wow.
You're a, you're a small guy.
Can you see over the wheel?

Cliff (10:37):
I have seen all size people come out of those things, okay.
But point taken.
I will say, in sincerity, my currentfavorite travel game to play, with
my partner who enjoys this as well,is me telling her how expensive
the trucks are that we pass.
Just like, no, no, no, for real.
Nope, for real.
That's like a six figure truck.

(10:58):
Like that truck is.
Yes.
That truck.
Why?
You see those extra lettersthey put on the back?
That's why Yes, I am drivinga $5,000 car, judging them.
So that's my boot.
Scoot Boogie.

Kyle (11:12):
Private equity ass truck from a guy who can't spell equity.

Cliff (11:17):
So on top of liking this record and having it be our sort of.
Nexus throughout country together.
it's also just like, like topoint this out when this is true
about albums for us, for sure.
We've gotten away from just like readingthe Wikipedia page right at the top
of the episode or whatever, but like,it's very important to communicate.

(11:37):
This album was wildly popular.
It's like seven times multi-platinum.
Okay.
had, four singles rightoff the bat, right?
Brand New Man Boot Scoop Boogie,my next Broken Heart and Neon moon.

Kyle (11:51):
Four number ones out of 10 songs, 40% of the songs they made for this.
Again, their first recordwent to number one in 91.
This is right around thesame time as nevermind.

Cliff (12:07):
Right?

Kyle (12:08):
the country is not going in this direction vibe wise.
So very, like, very importantto contextualize it sort of
in the world that it's in.

Cliff (12:18):
And to further contextualize how much of an abrupt shift that was,
they were the second group, the secondcountry group, to have a number one
non-country single, like a genericallynumber one single, the first group to do.
It was right before that Diamond Rio.
Uh, I start walking Your Way.

(12:41):
That song.
Which, for what it's worth, I would notnecessarily spend an entire episode going
into Diamond Rio, but that song rules

Kyle (12:50):
That song's so good.

Cliff (12:51):
just a normal straight down the middle.
This is how a good song sounds.
But anyway, so like, that was likea wildly popular song, but there's
like 1900 people in Diamond Rio.
It's like the fucking polyphonic spree.
so this is just two peopledoing the equivalent, and
immediately going to number one.
And then again, like you said,like the four number one singles

(13:14):
from the same record, from a debutrecord, which like on every count,
you mentioned one of the things youmentioned, probably the first record
we've talked about that goes straightinto the chorus of the first song.

Kyle (13:25):
I don't think we'll ever cover a record again that opens with a chorus.
that's an insane move.
I remember a Dave Grohl interviewwhere he talked about that
being the genius of Aerosmith.
cause he was like,boom, Janie's got a gun.
Boom.
Loving in an elevator, loving inan elevator, loving in an elevator,
loving in an elevator verse.
Love in an elevator a hundred times.

(13:46):
Don't bore us.
Get to the chorus like it's a crazy move.
Also, this record is 30 minutes long andit's got 10 songs, so it's like tight.
I know people talk a lot about songsgetting shorter now in the TikTok era,
but 10 songs at 30 minutes and fourof 'em are number one hits like buddy.
There's just something to itwith the human attention span.

(14:07):
There was no internet when thiscame out, but you bet you're ass
that sub three minutes works.

Cliff (14:12):
Yep.
And we're just gonna keep dividing upand looking at the complexity of all the
cool shit that happened on this record.
So then inside of those four, numberone singles, which themselves were
like a huge phenomenon to begin with.
Each one of them effectivelyfeatures a different side of
country's genre splitting Thatwas happening exactly right then.

(14:36):
So like brand new man is, and we'll talkabout this more, but like, it's a very
straightforward, you mentioned Nirvanatiming, it also has a lot of U2 influence
in it.
It sounds like early nineties rockbeing kind of like pressed down
production wise on a country song.
So like brand New man has that, butit also has that chorus and hook that

(14:59):
it immediately goes into and makes noqualms about immediately going into that.
And then Boots Scooting Boogie is the nextone, which like effectively kick starts
line dancing as a phenomenon for people.

Kyle (15:12):
Why'd the nineties Love dances so much like this and the
Macarena, it's strange times.
I ain't mad at it, but itis a little hallucinatory.

Cliff (15:23):
we did dance a lot.
Then my next Broken Heart, Iactually saw in, in one of the, the
interviews that they talked aboutthat my next Broken Heart couldn't go
first specifically because it was atraditional country shuffle and they
didn't want that to be the first singlebecause it kind of wouldn't click.
they had concerns gettingairplay because like.

(15:44):
as a sort of reminder for howradio worked, it's not just
like a meritocracy the way thateveryone imagined things to be.
you had to get songs on the radio.
So not only did the singles themselveshad to be really good to become a
breakout single from country musicto begin with, but like someone
is doing a lot of coordination andwork to get that done to begin with.

(16:08):
So then they talk about that mynext Broken Heart, because it's
more traditional, had to be a latersingle, even though they knew it
was great 'cause they had to writeon the current success that they
would have from those other singles.
And then they drop NeonMoon, which is a ballad.
And I'll go ahead and just say Idon't think, like moment zero all
the way to the very end of thisrecord is completely strong and as

(16:32):
awesome as every other part of it.
I think there are standout tracksand standout aspects of tracks.
but for those four.
Genre angles to be hit with such success,precision, great production, good
songwriting, catchy hooks, all that was,I mean, it was like masterclass level
stuff, which itself was surprising becausethese two guys were like, people love

(16:58):
to throw around the term industry plant.
these guys were put togetherby a recording label.
they were two differentlysuccessful people who had not
made it as an independent artist.
They were connected together and then,they would actually go on to talk about
how they, they never super understoodthat very well or like necessarily
got along super well all the time.

(17:20):
And yet it worked.
Like something about it worked andespecially their live performance did.
And there's just some magic in thisrelatively simple country album from two
people who got together and figured outhow to make things work really special.
and it made a through and through funand enjoyable country honky tonk record.

Kyle (17:40):
Yeah.
you said a lot of thingsI totally agree with.
I would click into a couple of things.
One thing that I had never really thoughtabout as an avid listener of this record,
who has an old copy of this cassette inhis truck, that he like it it's legit.
I listened to it so much that thecassette warbles, it's got the
heat warbles, so it will probablydisintegrate at some point soon.

(18:03):
I had never considered the rockinfluence, you know, which sounds crazy
to say, say out loud 'cause there'sclearly some really rocky stuff.
but also in one of the interviews, oneof them said of the other, he had some
stuff that sounded kind of eagles to meand I saw the Eagles get invoked a lot.
Another band that really goes forthe chorus and does similar stuff

(18:29):
where it's rocking but light.
can't talk about this era of countrywithout talking about Garth Brooks,
who's another similarly huge personand a very interesting phenomenon.
And unlike Diamond Rio, somebody we couldprobably spend a lot of time talking
about, because he's made a lot of reallyinteresting choices in his career.
But in that search for, rock bands likeBrooks and Dunn and trying to think

(18:51):
about that uneasy thing where, you know,musically maybe there's some similarities,
but the posture is very, very different.
You know, the, presentation of the peopleand somebody mentioned kisses influence
on Garth Brooks as an arena performerand how the country star as an arena
performer and kind of a rock star and, andfiguring out how to be a country musician

(19:15):
in a down to earth genre at that scaleand entertain and electrify people, you
know, in the biggest sort of stage forit for a long time was like the Opry or
the State Fair or the Johnny Cash Showor whatever, like it, it's interesting
to think about this genre and again, Ithink hip hop is an interesting foil and
we've talked a lot more about hip hop.

(19:36):
I was thinking about Tribe 'causeTribe is another early nineties thing
here, and thinking about this as just acultural inflection point for a lot of
groups and types of people in America.
How everybody was trying tofigure out how to change as the
world around them was changing.
And Brooks and Dunn is another example.
The second thing is, I totally agreewith you that this is not the pound

(20:00):
for pound best record that we'regonna cover or that we have covered.
it is however inherently repeatablebecause there's enough slappers on here.
There's four absolutely A plus plus fivestar five Mike songs on this for sure.
The singles are the best songs.
Without question.

(20:20):
There's another two that are like b plus.
I don't think there's a c song onthis, but the quality of the singles
makes the other songs where you'relike, no, all right, this is fine.
You know, there, there is a bit of likefiller and, and we can get into how maybe,
Ronnie Dunn is a bit of the, the heat anduh, kicks Brooks is the meat or whatever.

(20:44):
that was a strange analogy.
One's the sizzle, one's, the steak.
I don't know.
They're both really good, but like RonnieDunn is clearly the better vocalist.
Interestingly, that really rubs,kicks Brooks the wrong way.
I've never really thought ofeither of them as superstars.
I've only ever thought of them as the duo.
So digging into them.
Having egos about themselves this wholetime, but quietly kind of took me aback.

(21:08):
You know, I was like, like Uncle Ricosaying, he could have gone pro if coach
had put him in, but you know, theseguys have had this great superstar
career and they seem really low key.
But there was a lot about that dynamic.
They've been so familiar and comfortableto me my literal whole life that it
was interesting to think about themin the way that we try to unpack

(21:29):
and explore a lot of these artists.
But I was trying to think about like,sports team analogies with these songs.
If these songs were a sports team,you know, are they like the Tim Duncan
Spurs, or are they like the early Laker?
You know, I, I'd get theanalogy wrong for sure.
Somebody who thinks about sportsstuff would know better than me.

(21:51):
But it is like a handful of player.
Everybody's really solid, butthere's only so much MJ and Scottie
Pippen to go around, but it doescarry them to championship weight.
Nobody's bad, everybody's solid.
But relative to Neon Moon, no other songcan be the best song you've ever heard.
Once you've heard NeonMoon, you know what I mean?

Cliff (22:12):
One of the reasons that's true, which is worth saying out loud
here to the production is so good.
It's, it feels ahead of its time.
Uh, especially listening,listening to anything from 1991
right now and going that soundslike today is shocking generally.

(22:32):
Um, but especially for a countryrecord that was turning the corner
before a lot of the rest of countrymusic was and found a way to inject,
again, probably rock based productionsort of into country to, to bring
out, uh, some of the different tonesthan we had heard kind of before that.

(22:53):
and the way that country sounds now,I would argue is a bit different.
You can even listen to the, Speakingof things we have mixed opinions
about maybe they did some reboot, uh,albums as they're called, uh, where
they rethought some of their songswith modern country artists, uh, and
as exactly you would expect, right?

(23:15):
I would, you know, point you directlytowards the Casey Musgraves involved
song and directly away from most ofthe other songs, that involve other
people, because they're the production.
Actually, how do I wanna say this?
The listening to the reboots washelpful to place the production
of Brand New Man in the right Spotfor me because it highlights that

(23:38):
those songs aren't just kind of onetrick ponies that trickled through.
They're not just okay songs thatweren't produced super well, but
they made it work because of thatalbum, or because something got
popular and it wasn't just production,it wasn't just this or the other.
Like when you start changingtoo many variables, like the
songs are not very good anymore.

(24:00):
It was instead like a hundredpercent on a lot of really important
parts, including the production.
And then something that I hope we'lltalk about some more for sure is like
the musicianship of the session players,specifically on this record, were, were.
mind blowing ho honestly, uh, is,is probably the best way to put it.

(24:21):
And we can give you some ways to go intothis record and listen to particular
songs where I can like, spin the globe,put my finger down and be like, this
is where you can hear it, for sure.
so seeing all those things cometogether makes this a real to use your
phrase, Kyle Lightning in a bottle typething that doesn't happen very often,

(24:43):
hasn't really happened so much again.
other than, you know, like you broughtup, like Garth Brooks took some of
this in a particular direction, but thecombination of things that were happening
and the newness of them to Americanculture, uh, and, and Canadian culture
also where country music is huge and washuge, was fairly unique to this moment

(25:04):
and is one of the reasons it's worthtalking specifically about this record
and some of the ones that were around it.

Kyle (25:08):
Yeah, Nashville.
The idea, not necessarily thephysical place, was really
in its bag in this moment.
I do wanna start getting into thesongs, but I think it's interesting,
the personnel bit of it you touched on.
The musicianship and the productionboth being really good and, you know,
you can go look through some of theinterviews and there's not as much

(25:31):
sort of source material as I would'vewanted, which just continued to
reinforce that they're kind of low key.
there's just not as much criticalreflection on this group as I would've
liked, which, you know, probablyspeaks to the, the pot bit of it and
the easygoing bit, but I do think somecritical examination would be really nice.

(25:53):
but they talked about how there'sthis like right place, right
time, right players type of thing.
They, they got what were considereddemo guys, you know, like not the
biggest name hired gun sessionguys that you go out and get.
they got like, I guess the B gradepickers in terms of day rate or something,
but they turned out to be sensational.

(26:15):
Um, and went on to do a bunch of stuffand they, one of them said, I think
Ronnie Dunn said, you know, we shouldhave taken them out as our band we damn
sure couldn't afford to do that now.
but.
it was a bit of a magical thing.
And then also on production, theyhad Scott Hendricks come to record
some demo stuff for some early stuff.

(26:36):
And then he wound up doingsome production on this record.
but he was fresh off of Alan Jackson.
It was like his second big thing.
He worked with a group restlessheart, and then he did some
banger Allen Jackson stuff, whichI'd also put in this category.
chasing that neon rainbow here in thereal world, don't rock the jukebox.
Wanted all incredible nineties countryclassics chasing that neon rainbow.

(26:59):
two neon songs from the earlynineties in country music.
Two of my all time favorites of the genre.
but you know, they didn'tget the biggest guy ever.
it's all very interesting because inother genres, genres or new movements
or whatever crop up all the time becausepeople come out of nowhere because
they are huddled off in their ownlittle world doing something different.

(27:22):
The obvious example forus is the dungeon family.
Organize noise, that kind of,you see it all the time in music.
You know, youth has a lot to do with it.
They don't know any better,so they do it their way.
And something new andbeautiful happens as a result.
That doesn't happen as much I don'tthink, in country because there
is such an established machine.
it's such a professionalizedgenre and industry that it doesn't

(27:46):
allow for that space as much.
And like the same stuff works forthe fan base a lot of the time.
at the risk of sounding derogatory.
And I think it's safe for me to say thisbecause I am a huge fan of country music.
they serve the same shitup year after year and, and
people like it and go for it.
'cause that's like an inherentlyconservative mentality.
I want things to say the same.

(28:07):
I like my life and the privilege in it.
So it's great.
So it is really refreshing whensomething different comes along.
And it's interesting theway that they achieved that.
And it seemed like there wassome level of deliberateness.
They did talk about trying to be newsound, new blend, different sounds.
but that's hard to do.
You know, the industry hadn't pickedthem up as individuals yet ' cause they

(28:29):
hadn't really found their thing, butthey found a bit of a secret sauce.
They, they tapped into just the right,it wasn't like radically different.
It drew on familiar things.
It was just all the right people, theright time, lightning in a bottle.
Everyone was super talented and we cameto appreciate them only in hindsight.

Cliff (28:47):
Maybe part of what makes this interesting then is, because the
country music engine had not spun up toits eventual apex, we did get I would
say I would take one exception to thebackup squad comment, which was just,
Brent Mason is the guitarist here.
And do know what you were saying,generally speaking about all these

(29:10):
musicians and sort of channelinghow they talked about that original
set of folks from this record.
But Brent Mason played electricguitar on this record and is one
of the best guitarists of all time.
I would kind of classify him likea lot of other, niche guitarists,
as someone you might not be awareof if you don't like guitar.

(29:33):
There are a lot of, like thewhole, like under Segovia,
Christopher Parker, classical musiclots of other folks like that.
Un unless you're sort of stepping yourtoe into the, the dork side of things,
they may have evaded your knowledge,but like Brit Mason is he played.
On over a thousand records.

(29:55):
he has been cited as like one of thebest session guitarists of all time.
He was, uh, speaking of another likeguitarist that you might only know if
you start to care about guitar a littlebit, but like he was discovered by Chet
Atkins, who is like, now you're sort ofreaching the, like you, you're actually
clearing the Jimmys at this point.

(30:17):
Like it's, it's hard to express,like you're, you're into like people
who would still beat out the kidson TikTok these days territory.
Um, like people who trulyrevolutionize the instrument and
could play absolutely anything.
Um, so Brent Mason was discoveredand mentored by Chad Atkins, uh,
has been honored a bunch as countryMusician of the year, guitarist of the

(30:39):
year, all sorts of things like this.
Played on a ton of records that you'dknow of is a Grammy Award winner won
CMA award musician of the Year, like hasbeen kicking ass for a real long time.
He was known for being good at thispoint, but obviously we are now sweet.
Jesus.
30 something years in the future.

(31:01):
Am I doing all that math right?
Yeah, of course I am.
That's how you know you've reached old,uh, is just like if you double check
your own math every time you're tryingto tell the time from another time.
So, cool.
Neat.

Kyle (31:13):
The eighties were 10 years ago still,

Cliff (31:15):
Right.
Well, it, early nineties feelsuniquely hard to place time-wise.
And I'm sure you feelsome similar way to me.
'cause like we were children, this is the,we, like our brains came online at like
right
around

Kyle (31:31):
as this was happening.
Yeah.

Cliff (31:32):
This was, part of the reason I have such an aversion to modern country music
now is because it was so wildly popularat this time and it was just a part of
my life whether I wanted it to be or not.
to the degree and exclusionof other types of music.
That eventually became a real frustrationfor me as the human being that I am.

(31:55):
Uh, and so I have a littlebit of frustration about it.
And at the same time, I couldsing you a playlist of a hundred
nineties country songs right nowwithout looking at any of the lyrics
because some of it was real good.
and so to the point that I was tryingto make, I guess about the country
music engine spinning up becausethis was still early on, I guess I
could maybe do some light conjecture.

(32:18):
Like some of the musicianshipthat we see here feels more like.
Classic rock records or jazz recordswhere they spent time trying to just
get it right, instead of just saying,I already know what I wanna make and
I need to therefore crank it out.
There are tasteful electric guitarparts, fiddle parts, piano solos.

(32:40):
there's stuff on this recordthat doesn't have to be here.
And it makes it all betterbecause of it, and it's part
of the reason it's specificallycool to listen to this record.
but like Brent Mason wasa huge reason for that.
And I'll point out a few areas to listento, I think as we go through the songs.
But like, if you are attracted orinterested in guitar at all, this is

(33:03):
a low key, incredible guitar record.
Especially for, I would say maybe halfthe tracks, will absolutely blow you
away if you spend time listening tothe things that're coming up with.

Kyle (33:14):
I wanna be crystal clear that I'm not down on session musicianship at all.
In fact, quite the opposite.
I think it's an incredible phenomenon thatyou can get stuff, the quality that you
can when you're not the same four or fivehumans slogging it out in a small room,
standing in a circle with each other, infact, that's, it's apples and oranges.

(33:38):
But, it's in some waysthe superior musicianship.
Like, it's, it's a sign of your chopsthat you can dial into chemistry and
do it's like, technically I'm covered.
I don't have to think about that stuff.
I know when to get in and out of the mix.
I know how to set up my gear.
I like, you don't have toworry about any of that stuff.
You're gonna get an A one performance.

(33:59):
Technically speaking, but then creativelyto make good choices, tasteful choices,
which I agree are all over this.
It's not machine pressed into something.
Things weave in and outof each other beautifully.
There's space in it.
it's really, really well done.
it's a true embodiment of it being hardto make it look easy, you know, like

(34:22):
that's the sublime thing about sessionmusicians is it's so good that you can
really appreciate it if you sit andlisten to it, but you don't ever have to.
'cause they're just cookingon really good core solid body
engines that are the song ideas.
it just, there's something so magical.

(34:43):
It says something so magical about thehuman spirit that like the two and a
half, three minute song, the compressionof basic musical elements performed
really well is such a lasting thing.
You know, it's a nutrient forthe human body throughout time.
I'm really, truly in aweof a masterful pop song.

(35:04):
And by pop I just mean like short,sort of standardized in its structure.
Yeah I'm not down on anyonelike Brent Mason or anybody
else that played on this record.
And in fact, I was trying to thinkabout other albums where we've talked
about personnel that were like, kindof part of a band or a package deal
that came with the studio or whatever.
Thought about Otis Blue and howwe talked about the mgs at length.

(35:27):
I thought about, I want you, andlike we talked about Chuck Rainey
on bass and how he's played on morethan a thousand records as well.
so Brent Mason broughtChuck Rainey to mind.
I'm sure there were others.
but also on this record you haveLonnie Wilson on drums who played
in a band in the eighties calledBandana who charted 10 singles.

(35:48):
and, you know, eighties Country isjust as weird and surreal in a bit of
a different way as nineties country.
but he went on to play on othergreat songs like, Tim McGraw's,
Indian Outlaw, John MichaelMontgomery's, I swear Time marches on.
Is that a Tracy Lawrence song?
and then the Ineffable, thisKiss by Faith Hill, which is how

(36:09):
I learned the word centrifugal.
But my favorite of all with all respectto Brent Mason, and I love that you,
talked about, he's one for the real headsis Bruce Balton who played pedal steel
and like, maybe we talked about steela little bit on the Sturgill record.
I don't really remember, butif I had to pick a favorite
instrument, it would be pedal steel.

(36:30):
And that's another thing whereyou can have like a total hits
blunt moment and really watch avideo of a pedal steel up close.
There's some really good pedalsteel guys on TikTok, which is
a fun, I love a TikTok niche.
so Bruce Bowden is probably most wellknown for being one of the G men, being
one of Garth Brooks' go-to players.

(36:51):
but he's played on my God,an absolute ton of stuff.
Ricky Scaggs, Emmy, LouHarris, Confederate, sorry.
lone Star, Leann Rimes is blue,which made for a great knocked
loose intro for a little while.
Shania Twain's, come on over.

(37:11):
Winona.
Judd.
So I think it speaks to.
The like, talent factory, leadershipfactory aspect of this whole thing,
that this is a bit early on for allof these people that would go on to
be recognized superstars like B2Bsuperstars, I guess, if you will.
Uh, like real ones know and sought outthese people that were involved with

(37:35):
this because they were able to capturelightning in a bottle in this way.
And somebody was like, oh shit,I want some of that magic.
not to be too Rick Rubini, but I justlove the aspect of creativity where
forces come together into alchemyand nobody really knows, but then it
turns into like a perfect documentthat'll stand the test of time.

(37:56):
and I, I love that about this.
I hope everybody spends time watchingpedal steel go look up on YouTube.
The how it's made episode of PedalSteel, it is astoundingly complex
as an instrument and I could nevermake my brain and all, it's like
the complexity of drumming withindependent use of your limbs, with

(38:18):
also the notes, bit of a guitar.
And one of the, what was the thing thatI watched recently where the guy was
explaining how you like start on the cord.
You like, find the four andstart on the four and then use
the pedal to get you to the one.
And you gotta like transcode essentiallythe root note thing to think about

(38:40):
what the next chord iss gonna be.
And that's just like quick mental maththat steel players do and internalize.
It's a fucking wild instrument.
And like the fact that human beingsmade it, it's like the Hadron
Collider, it's the the C thing, orthe crisper gene thing of music.
To me it's a miracle of a thing.

(39:00):
And then it just sounds good.
It evokes feelings that there'sno word for it in any language.
It's a magical instrument.
And they use it to divineeffect on this record.
Like I think pedal steel can beused in kind of a signaling way.
I think if you listen to some moderncountry that they're trying to signal

(39:22):
is not bro country, it can be a bitof a, like we got a pedal seal player,
you know, this is real country.

Cliff (39:28):
If you're gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band.

Kyle (39:31):
That's right.
That's right.
That's exactly what it is.
It's a bit of a, let me pinch mythumb and forefinger on the brim
of my 10 gallon hat and bow to youa little, you know, like this is
what kind of club you're in tonight.
but they use it really, reallytastefully on this record.

Cliff (39:47):
I remember the first time I accidentally saw Robert Randolph live
and just was like, I was not familiarwith your game pedal steel guitar.
Like, what is happening?
Why don't we at least go throughthe main songs that we wanna
talk about and hit some moments?

(40:07):
Because I can sort of draw out the thingsthat we've talked about, especially from
a musician standpoint on each of them.
and I think maybe this album inparticular is worth doing a harbor
tour of as opposed to some of theother ones we try to walk through.

Kyle (40:21):
Yeah.
I wanna start with the guy whodoesn't like country music that much.
Tell me, play the role of anotherguy who doesn't like country
music or thinks he doesn't.
How do you listen to this cold?

Cliff (40:37):
I, I've, okay, I had never considered

Kyle (40:40):
H how do I become country music?
Enjoyer.
Okay.
What did you, what did you

Cliff (40:45):
but

Kyle (40:45):
of?

Cliff (40:46):
have a cool answer actually, if you're, if you're feeling maximally
skeptical, make it all downhill for youand do the reverse order of this album,

Kyle (40:58):
Oh.

Cliff (40:59):
because you're gonna go ahead and get the painful bits out of the
way, including if I had a horse, whichis like, okay, alright, we are done.
Right?
We're close to the end.
Okay.
if I had a horse is the,is the chorus Alright?
I'm running outta steam.
so if you just start there,you're gonna build momentum
as you go through this record.

(41:20):
And you'll end up on brand new man,which I think would be pretty cool.
So that's one way to start tackling itbecause I, not only do I play a person
who doesn't like country music on tv, Iam also that person for the most part.
And those two people together say.
Some of these tracks aren't cool verymuch including the last one to me.
Not because it's actively bad, butbecause it feels insulting next to the

(41:44):
quality of about five of these songs.
and it reminds me of the way thatcountry music can, speaking of country
and hip hop, actually both of thesegenres, there's a lean back that you
can do in these genres that I hate.
I really, really, really hate it.
It's like, imagine dragoninside of this genre,

Kyle (42:07):
oh

Cliff (42:09):
yeah, I know the formula for this.
Let's just crank it out and12 bar blues and it a shuffle.
And it is hit the snare twice,uh, right before three and four,
and I crank that out and yeah.
And a country truck, truck dog.
And then, yeah,

Kyle (42:24):
okay.
Bo Burn.
I'm Jesus Christ.

Cliff (42:28):
if, I'm not even gonna say if I'll be generous.
There was, and can be cool valueto songs about country life.
We can probably name a bunch of 'em.
Country life can be Cool.
There were a thousand of them writtenand launched the singles, especially
in the time since this record.

(42:48):
So, stand by my aversion to the stupidaspects potentially of the genre.
but that's why I would also say, again,especially if you're a person who has any
amount of skepticism about this or aboutnineties country in general, first of
all, we're gonna get you just be clear.
We won't get you,

Kyle (43:06):
Going to get you good.

Cliff (43:08):
We won't get you.
And you,

Kyle (43:10):
We gonna get you

Cliff (43:12):
you're gonna be looking out line dancing tutorial

Kyle (43:14):
watch it.
Cliff, you say, you say some of thesephrases with a twang and somebody's
gonna take 'em outta context andyou're gonna sound like one of them.
We're gonna get you.

Cliff (43:25):
Uh, they made it this deep.
They earned it.
but for real, like, and, and that'swhy I'd like to kind of talk through
you know, especially the singles,um, but any other songs that you
wanted to highlight or moments.
'cause like there are things thatthis record can teach you about
country music that makes it feel cool.
Ads history, ads context,and does the like.

(43:46):
Constellation thing that we talkabout a lot where it's like, if you
care about music, you can sort ofgo back in time and then look at
the future from what you know now.
And it's really cool to see all thethings go off in these directions that you
never would've expected when it happened.
And again, as opposed to this albumitself just being a force, it sort
of released singles in differentdirections, like little carrier

(44:08):
missiles to other parts of the world.
Uh, and kind of created its ownlittle offshoot genres in country,
that are continuing to this day,more or less, with the exception
of the line dancing phenomenon,which I think we're done with now.

Kyle (44:22):
It is funny, we're two guys who aggressively hate micro genres,
but they, they did sort of do that.
I'm fascinated with the idea, you know,I watch like a ZZ top and they'll talk
about things that just started as moves.
You know, like I, I saw ZZ Hill dothis thing, you know, he did this
turnaround on this thing and how likea, a move or a nugget or of an idea

(44:48):
can spiral or be repeated into things.
I tried to think about whatthose micro genres were and.
Almost start pre playlisting in my mind.
How would you describe it?
I'm just always really interested whenit seems like there's an inside joke or
inside knowledge already around a thing.
I think I'm pretty well studiedwhen it comes to country music

(45:12):
and how to appreciate it.
But, then they'll do a thing like the,
the drumbeat on Cool Drink of water.
I don't even know what the termfor that is, but I also think about
the Grundy County auction song.
And I don't know, like I, I callthe Doey Dough beat in my mind.
but you're right, they're all goingfor slightly different things, I guess.

(45:34):
Skynyrd my, you know, my og favorite band.
Like, you can catch that.
If you hear Ronnie describe asong, like, here's a rock and
roll song, here's a country song,here's a blue song, and like, they
all just sound like Skynyrd to me.
it is sort of interesting how people learnto classify these things in their mind
and what's a real genre and what's not.
But I don't know.
It's all, it's all Brooks and Dun tome, man, which would be a good bumper

(45:56):
sticker for tune dig merch.com rightnext to the Reagan Slavery nine 11
Magic eight Ball Bundle and save.

Cliff (46:06):
I will issue a light and kindhearted challenge though to those
who would say they are versed in country.
But if I asked you for yourfavorite country artist, you would
begin to say the word Morgan.
like that's cool man.
Alright dude.
Like we have talked a million timesabout you do your thing, love your stuff.

(46:29):
Okay man.
So you can listen to thingsif you wanna listen to them.
But like Kyle, you sent me aTikTok recently of like people
being interviewed about theirlike country artists, Rushmore.
And even I, I don't careabout country music.
And I became angrylistening to these people.
Just be like, Luke Combs,Luke Combs, Luke Combs, Luke

Kyle (46:49):
It was randos on the street during the day on Broadway in Nashville,
so that was their first mistake.
It was literal touristsin country, music town.

Cliff (46:59):
So look, that's fine if you like that, but what I'm saying is if you are
feeling a, a tinge, because I'm describingyou right now, use this as an opportunity.
You're an hour deep intothis podcast already.
We got you.
We gonna get you anyway.
So like, so just like try to embrace theother places that this could take you
that aren't just showing up on your likeSpotify hot country playlist every week.

(47:24):
we sincerely think it makes you a betterperson if you learn how to go through
history and understand musical influenceand just get curious about stuff.
And like country is a, yeah,especially bro country.
I ironically like, or notironically, I guess bro country
and like Bro, death Corps are likefacets of the same phenomenon.

(47:47):
Okay?
It's everyone going lazy intothe same direction and not
using music thoughtfully.
Sometimes that's helpful, but like,you gotta pull back outta that.
that's an unhealthy wayto engage with music.
I'll just actually make a statementinstead of, uh, walking around it.
So I'm hopeful that this will do that foryou, especially if you're one of those
people who actually do like country musicor that's like part of your identity.

(48:10):
Like use this as a moment to make surethat you know a little bit about it.

Kyle (48:15):
The, the identity point is a really crucial one.
And thinking about these episodes assnapshots of our evolving headspace as
people, and where we sit on an idea thatis important to us as it evolves, the
identity one is really interesting for me.
Obviously we've wellestablished in this hour.

(48:36):
like it means something to me.
We've talked a lot overthe course of this podcast.
About it meaning something to us tobe southern boys and we wouldn't be
the people that we are had we comefrom anything other than Red Clay.
You said it beautifully at the topof the episode that like, there's
really shitty stuff about it,but there's really distinctively
beautiful stuff about it as well.

(48:57):
And we're proud of, we loveourselves, we're proud of
who we are most of the time.
and I don't wanna throwone out with the other.
So there's a couple of dimensions ofthe identity thing that I, I want to
capture that are really interesting tome that I'm chewing on and I don't have
an answer for, but I, I'm grappling withwhat they mean as I get older and kind

(49:18):
of feeling like I know what the rightanswer is, but it's still a discipline
to get better about it every day.
I guess what I'm trying to say is like,this is really personal for me in a
way that like, umo Sari might not be.
but your point about if country musicis part of your identity is a good one.
I think there's, there'sreally two types of people.
There's people who say, I amthis and they're constantly

(49:41):
trying to assert I am this.
And they have a fixed, crystallizedand portrait of who they want the
world to believe they are, whothey themselves believe they are.
And I just don't think that's real.
You know, even if you hold onto it.
For a moment.
if you're a rock, timemakes sand out of you.
so just orienting fromfixed to open at all times.
Being like, I might be this right now.

(50:02):
like Jim Carrey went on that sort of likehead trip for a while where he was like,
Jim Carrey was a character that I playedalong with all the other characters.
Like, I don't think you gotta getthat slippery, uh, you don't have to
like your, let your fingers get thatwrinkled in the hot tub of relativism.
Like you, you can still be a fixedpoint in time a little bit so
you don't lose your whole shit.
don't take the bad acid man.
there is that.

(50:22):
But then the other component of it thatlike us is, you know, if functionally
we are critics of music, I guess like,that's a weird way to put it, but you
and I have talked about grappling with,that's essentially what this is like,
using the lens of music criticism tothink critically about the world, not
to criticize, but to think criticallyabout why music exists and moves us and
what it says about the world and people.

(50:43):
I struggle so much, you know, thecrossroads that I'm at is like, when do
you gate keep and when do you be reallyopen because like, you can be too open.
there's shit that we hate andwe talk about, you know, not
wanting to spend too much time.
You know, it takes fewermuscles to smile than to frown
all that sort of orientation.
So it's like not really in the tauoft dig so to speak, to be a hater.

(51:05):
'cause it's a waste of time andenergy, neither, which we have.
but there's so much around country thatactivates am I going to connect with
the, what I think are the right kindof people through this music or not?
And you know, like you and Iare hardcore kids and there's
so much of that in the scene.
is this gonna let the right kind of peoplein or is there going to be friction?

(51:29):
And country's such an interestingflashpoint 'cause it's like
you're, this is going to bring alot of people that you'll probably
straight up hate to your door nomatter what type of person you are.
You might be shithead monster Energy drinkdeath core Jim bro, that also listens
to Morgan Wallen that I'm talking about.
Like dude, big truck dudethat I joked about wanting
to punch in the face earlier.

(51:50):
unfortunately we all stilloccupy the same planet.
So I love thinking and talking aboutcountry music and I double down on
being proud of being a southernerbecause we've grown up learning to sit
in the ugliness and the discomfort.
And I think that's why you and Iare so comfortable talking about
race stuff as two white guysbecause we grew up in a deeply.

(52:11):
Culturally mixed environment.
And it's not weird to talk becausepeople are talking about race all
the time, not living separated.
so I like going back to that.
You know, I listen to everything yousaid, country and rap closed off.
I guess the threading of the two pointsis like, country is really beautiful.
Even if you don't just on a straightup musical level, love a lot of

(52:32):
it because it's the key to gettingto know a lot of the world that
you might be closed off from.
It's simple enough andstraightforward enough that like
it's for everybody to some degree.
And when it's really good,like with Brooks and Dunn,
it's a transcendent thing.
So like if you hate a lot of shit inthe world, neon Moon might be a re

(52:54):
a reset line dancing or joking aboutline dancing or sending a TikTok about
line dancing to boot Scoot and Boogiemight be a remedy to all that shit.
And I'm not trying to teach the worldto sing in perfect harmony, but I am
grappling with like, how do we get outtathe mud culturally and why am I still so
proud of being right on the other sideof Occam's Razor or whatever from some

(53:18):
of the worst shit happening in America.
That discomfort feels really good.
And so I would encourage like, all thisrecord feels good, and I don't wanna
put all the weight of all that shit onthis record, but this could also be a
gateway into just like this could justround you out so much as a person.
Anyway.
Fuck that.

(53:39):
A lot of wind up.
let's talk about the songs.
I don't want to, don'tgo backwards, but yeah.
Let's talk about the singles.
What's your favorite of the four singles?

Cliff (53:47):
Oh my fate.
I, I do

Kyle (53:50):
Maybe Neon Moon doesn't count.
What's your favorite

Cliff (53:52):
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah, yeah.
If you take that out, brand new man,I love the full move of everything,
including it being the first song onthe record, dropping into the chorus.
I love the U2 Edge ass sounding guitarsolo, which like, that's the first thing
I'd like to put your brain on if you'reinterested in the instrumentation.

(54:15):
Of this record, they not only havevery good musicianship from each
of these individual instruments.
And we talked about basicallymicro genres inside of them.
But then even inside of that, there arelike these really specific and particular
moves that never get repeated again.
on a macro scale, this is why I likethe band between The Buried and Me.

(54:38):
'cause they will do a unique thingonce and then be like, well, there
it goes, never again for you.
Goodbye.
It's buried in an hour anda half of music and it's the
coolest riff you've ever heard.
so like similarly hearing the guitarsolos specifically on Brand New
Man, to me it's like actively cool.
I can imagine 10 otherguitar solos that go there.

(54:59):
Um, and you know, Imentioned the reboot efforts.
Nothing Will put the Masteryof Guitar in, uh, sharp Relief.
Quite like hearing what they did on thosesongs when they didn't just literally pipe
the old guitar playing into the new song.
Like hearing Less Energetic.
Guitar playing changes.

(55:20):
The nature of so many of thesesongs, uh, and brand New Man is,
is no exception to that one either.
Uh, it's like a surprising guitar move.
It's cool, it's coolthat it's produced well.
you are nearly hitting justfor about five seconds.
You're nearly in shoegaze territory inthe middle of a huge country, single.

(55:40):
It's really cool.

Kyle (55:42):
Yeah.
They do a weird OneNote jangleand then they climb into
kind of a country rock thing.
But you're right, it is, kind of a long.
One.
Yeah, it's strange.
The other thing about brand New Man thatsurprised me, and again, it's because
I don't, I actually don't listen tomusic with full attention and presence.

(56:03):
I do it for the vibe constantly.
And so when stuff's really in mybones, going back and listening
and being like, oh, that surprisesme, makes me feel insane because
I feel like I know it really well.
But there's more levels, theharmonies, the vocal harmonies.
When I think about Brooks andDunn, I think about single voice.
Is this a Kicks Brookssong or Ronnie Dunn song?
And their voices are so differentthat I don't think about them as a duo

(56:26):
that melds well vocally, but they are.
And brand new man is as goodof an example, sort of a thesis
statement as you're gonna get there.
And like duos are reallyinteresting as well.
There's great duos throughout thehistory of music, and certainly
there's great duos in country music.
you know, I would argue they'reone of the all time great duos
in musical history because ofthese things that they produced.

(56:48):
But there's a lot of moments on thisrecord where you can tell they're
still trying to be solo guys.
This is an Andre 3000 song, or thisis a big boy song and let's just
make a whole CD of each, almost.
But on brand new man, you get a man.
The chorus harmony on that is so good.
reminiscent of another great duo.
Maybe one of the greatest duos ever.

(57:09):
The Everly Brothers, the kings ofvocal harmony, as far as I can tell.

Cliff (57:14):
Hell yeah.
it's an immediate moment to divefurther into what you just pointed out.
so much of the harmony we hearthese days is just vocal doubling.
So it's the same person.
And then especially if they givea shit about it, they are doing
multiple takes, but it's stillvocal doubling by the same person.
And so to have two people with notonly two different people, but people

(57:37):
with such distinct voices from oneanother to have it work harmonically
the way that it does is killer.
And the, harmony linesare perfectly chosen.
it's a really cool foil to the ideathat kicks Brooks wasn't important
because he wasn't the primary vocaliston their most popular singles.

(57:57):
no, there is no way you can takehim away from Ronnie Dunn and
still end up with, well, I meanliterally with, with Brooks and Dunn.
Yes.
I, but Ronnie Dunn, eventhough he has a significantly
better name than Kicks Brooks.
sorry.
It just frustrates me thathe never changed his name.
Like, dude, you're trying to getfamous alongside somebody with a

(58:18):
good running name like Ronnie Dunnand your name is kicks Brooks.

Kyle (58:23):
I am sorry, do do you know why that's his name?

Cliff (58:25):
No, tell me.

Kyle (58:27):
I'm really glad that I gotta drop this on you live.
Uh, this is from theircountry Music Hall of Fame.
write up or whatever.

Cliff (58:34):
This having a reason is gonna please me deeply.
Okay.
Go

Kyle (58:37):
Leon, Eric Brooks iii.
Would you rather it be that earned?
His nickname kicks with an X likethe serial because of his boisterous
behavior in his mother's womb.
They called him kicks 'causehe kicked his mom in the womb.
Just like I had an uncle.
Have an uncle, he's still alive.
Or great Uncle, uncle Duck.

(58:58):
'cause he got bit on thetoe by a duck as a child.
Then they call him that his whole life.
That's some country shit.
You kicks me, kicks Brooks.
But the name later fit his performancestyle as he twirled strutted
and kicked to Dramatize Brooksand Dunn's rocking arrangements.
He was raised by his father,an oil company engineer.
After his mother died, when Brooks wasthree years old, he kicked her to death.

Cliff (59:21):
Oh man.

Kyle (59:22):
But also Brooks gravitated to music at an early age.
His family lived on the same street asBilly Jean Horton, who'd been married
to both Hank Williams and Johnny Horton.
And he gave his first paid performanceat age 12 with Horton's daughter.

Cliff (59:33):
Huh.
That's awesome.
Put some respect on his name.
I just like on who he is as a person.
I was just questioning thesage name itself as such an
important person of a duo.
But I, I guess we understand whythat's a touching tribute to somebody.
So I'll leave it alone,

Kyle (59:50):
I'm sorry, I, I wasn't, I wasn't gonna bring up the bio
shit 'cause I totally agree.
Like, let's not just read theirWikipedia, but like, again, as
a southern boy, it delights me.
I feel like we're in awaffle house late at night
reading these to each other.
Ronnie Eugene Dunn said ofhis parents, dad was a hot
tempered maniac, honky honker.
I hope that's how my daughterdescribes me one day.

(01:00:11):
Mother was a Bible carrying Baptist.
She won't describe her mother that way.
Dunn felt the pull of both worlds.
He attended Abilene ChristianCollege as a seminary student, but
left after school administratorschastised him for singing in bars.
Boy, if that ain't Southernliving, I don't know what is.
Well, one Saturday night andwhat's Sunday morning like?
what are you gonna do?

(01:00:31):
Check this shit out.
After Done won the MarlboroughTalent Search Competition in 1988.
That's a talent show put on,sponsored by Marlborough Cigarettes.
Ladies and gentlemen, he and hiswife Janine, relocated to Nashville.

Cliff (01:00:45):
Incredible.

Kyle (01:00:46):
I miss when they called it the Winston Cup

Cliff (01:00:48):
Hell yeah.

Kyle (01:00:49):
And, uh, two Onic NASCAR fans.
On this podcast, I literally havea paint, an oil painting of Dale
Earnhardt hanging behind me on the wall.

Cliff (01:01:00):
One of my favorite, you're not Southern, but I'm gonna tell you about
being southern things is not NASCARspecifically, but top fuel drag racing.
I'm just like, let me tell you about thisthing that we do sometimes and how it
feels like the apocalypse is happening.
And then these little cars godown a quarter mile road as fast
as they can for four secondsand then they do it again and we

(01:01:23):
sit there.

Kyle (01:01:24):
man.
Dagg go fast man.

Cliff (01:01:27):
Yes,

Kyle (01:01:27):
gone furious.

Cliff (01:01:29):
and the various variations of the King of Hill cast try to win at
the beer Olympics with no competitors.
Also making a sharpturn back into the song.
I also wanna point out, you, you mentionedthe pedal steel on brand new man.
Listen specifically to the pedal steelin the chorus, like there are, I'm

(01:01:49):
gonna keep pointing out little placeswhere you can if you are a musician
at all, you will understand theyhad no business or need throwing the
flourishes in that they actually did.
And it builds out such great songs.
Like it really fills the whole thingout in a way that you notice their
absence on other songs and on other,you know, future songs by other artists

(01:02:14):
that would sort of ape the same style.

Kyle (01:02:16):
and there's micro moments.
The chorus is interesting, but likeI get so hung up on them coming in
with the drum hit, such a strong move.
but one of my favorite pedal steelmoments on the record is right
after the intro chorus before theybring it down into the first verse.

(01:02:38):
And I've never really listenedto Brooks and Dunn on headphones
that much, but you're rewarded.
With little things like that.
There's a lot of ear candy,

Cliff (01:02:48):
Yep.

Kyle (01:02:48):
especially on the Ronnie do.
If they're really trying tomake it singly, you're gonna
get a lot more of that action

Cliff (01:02:54):
So then piping that same group forward on my next Broken Heart, which is
just a good Country shuffle classic song.
I'm not saying it's mind blowing oreven in the category to me of Neon
Moon, but it's just a good regular song.
Uh, and we already contextualizea little bit, sort of how they

Kyle (01:03:14):
in anybody else's hands.
It would be their biggest song,

Cliff (01:03:17):
Fair enough.

Kyle (01:03:19):
you know what I mean?
That it's the fourth biggestsingle on this is not a slight to
it, it's just in a crowded space.

Cliff (01:03:27):
Yep.
But then, okay, so then tothat exact point, right?
doing something really specific in thismoment with Brooks and Dunn, collectively,
not just the two people, Brooks andDunn, but also their studio musicians
and everyone who's creating this record.
they're doing my next broken heart.
And on this one you haveelectric guitar and pedal steel

(01:03:48):
doing like a trade off solo.
again, just like, you getused to hearing the song.
You understand that it's there,you start taking it for granted.
Okay?
Those are the, those are the instrumentsin the song that I know and you will
forget because you've never gone backto it as an adult to appreciate it.
And like you said, listen to it onheadphones or something like that.

(01:04:09):
Like, once again, they are doing thingsat 10 x that they have no business
doing on this song is not necessary.
And no one asked them for this.
That was like, you can tell that thatwas something that happened because
we want this song to be really good.
We think maybe these two instrumentsshould play or something.

(01:04:29):
I, you know, we, who knows howthey actually got there, but like.
Let's actually trade off and do likean interplay between the instruments.
We're not even in the band.
This is the exact energy thatcreates awesome fucking music.
Like when people are just in service ofthe thing that's happening, and trust the
song and then sort of play into it andthen give a whole lot extra that you don't

(01:04:52):
know to appreciate until you look for it.
it's a pretty classic example to me of,something that I would not have ever.
I'm not even sure I would've beenable to say that that was in the
song, even though I know it untilwe went back and just started
listening to pick it apart and learn.

Kyle (01:05:08):
A hundred percent.
And the other thing about NextBroken Heart is your favorite
thing, cliff is lyrics.
and there are some moments that I reallylove lyrically, again, neon Moon, probably
Boot Scooting Boogie is the other one.
But my next broken heartembodies everything that I love

(01:05:29):
about country music lyricism.
And, you know, another thing that Ihadn't really thought of until preparing
for this episode is country musiclyricism has probably influenced the way
that I think write and speak more thanI've ever consciously thought about.
I've always attributed it to like,I started my career in the ad world

(01:05:50):
and whatever, and I learned to writequippy or, and then like we grew up
in early Web 1.0 where it was likefun to be quippy on the internet.
Turn of phrase is everything.
In country music, you don'thave a lot of time or space.
You gotta make it cleverand fun and memorable.
And there's a lot of southern,there's a lot of country folks

(01:06:11):
that like speak in weird aphorism.
There's a poetry to the way thatpeople speak in the south, believe
it or not, because it is such alike, oral tradition type of culture.
So I think about song titles like,I'm the only hell my mom ever
raised take this job and shove it.
All My exes live in Texas.
Cowboys are frequentlysecretly fond of each other.

(01:06:33):
and then I think about this song and theposture that it takes around heartbreak.
Just like, well, this one happenedand I know it's gonna happen again.
But like, that's actually kind of fun.
you can't really be that funny oryou, you can, I don't see a lot of
people being that sort of wry in manyother genres, but like one of the

(01:06:53):
verses is happy or sad, hard to tellYou taught me how to hurt so well.
When it comes to love.
I know my part.
Well, I'll play thisgame that I can't win.
I'll be somebody's fool againworking on my next broken heart.
It's like, it's a guaranteethat it's gonna happen.
And I think when we talk about,you know, this feels good, there's
a joyfulness to this record, eventhough it's like heartbreak songs and.

(01:07:17):
down on your luck songs and whatever.
there's just sort of a beautiful, I don'tknow, fatalism or something about that.
Like when I love the lyrics on thisrecord, I really love the lyrics on
this record, and I just love a songconcept and execution that is clever
enough to bring a smile to my face.
so big ups to the lyricson my next Broken heart.

Cliff (01:07:38):
I'd even say about most of the songs on this record, lyrically speaking,
would today be classified as Woke Country.
their songs about, I mean, brandNew Man is about like, Hey, I'm a
giant piece of shit, and then I foundlove and then now I'm not anymore.
Thank you.

Kyle (01:07:56):
yeah.
But, but draping it in Christian language,you know, in the language of salvation is
like right on the line of is it pandering?

Cliff (01:08:06):
yep.

Kyle (01:08:07):
Is it they weren't really thinking that hard about it, and it's just the
language, the metaphor that they know.
Yeah.
That is a reallyinteresting example as well.

Cliff (01:08:17):
I mean, this is the band that would go on to play the GOP convention in 2004.
So we don't have to overthink everything.
But yeah, I like, I specificallynoticed even lyrically that just it
still piped some of the things thatwe've talked so much about with outlaw
country and other forms of oldercountry and western music that bring

(01:08:38):
forward a genteel in almost like meekexistence of like, yeah, I am tough.
I live in the country.
No, no, no, no.
All those things, yes,those things are still true.
I'm a man mom.
But like, also especially in the lateeighties and then right in the early
nineties, like, man, basically everycountry song was about how I'm a dude

(01:09:02):
who just like folds when I see my woman,this even got me on another hook where
I started listening to old eightiesRandy Travis and stuff again, and
just like, I'm gonna love you forever.
Like, all these songs that are justlike, they're, you know, they're
channeling the traditionalism ofjust like a classic love song.
But when we put country genre on it andlook at it from where we are today, it

(01:09:27):
feels interesting and, and strange even,to have the sort of lyrics that, I mean,
that I see here, and we'll talk some moreabout Neon Moon, but yeah, I, I think it's
worth even even calling attention to thatbecause for every boot Scoot Boogie call
out thing about here's who I am and whereI am and what I'm doing and all that, for

(01:09:47):
every one of those lines, you have anotherline that's just like, I don't know, man,
I'm not a super good person, honestly.

Kyle (01:09:55):
right.
But, uh, but there's literallya song called I'm No Good

Cliff (01:09:58):
Yeah,

Kyle (01:09:59):
record.
It is what it is.
Man, it makes me think of that,thread that was going around on
social media for a while of like rand b's, not as good as it used to be.
'cause people, men don'tbe yearning anymore.
You
know, like A
man won't, a man won't go out inthe rain and sing the song at the
top of his lungs in the video.
This is totally that.

(01:10:19):
And like we didn't even, I, youcould spend a whole bunch more time.
I, I think a lot of what we're gettingat, wrapped up in this Southern man
shit is the masculinity bit of it.
It's like they're such conflicted andrestrictive ideas of what it is to be
a man or to behave masculinely that,identity genres can really lock into

(01:10:41):
and are at their best when they subvert.
But yeah, these dudes are real.
This is real man countrybecause they be yearning.
They be imperfect, they'd besoft and they'd be yearning.
My favorite lyric on the recordthough, is, something that I say
frequently, just like in my everydaylife, outlaws in-laws, crooks and
straits from boot scooting boogie.

(01:11:03):
this club has everything.

Cliff (01:11:05):
See, this is what I'm saying.
Even those two lines are like, here'sa big tent where everyone's welcome

Kyle (01:11:11):
That's right.
That's

Cliff (01:11:11):
outlaws in-laws, crooks, and straights.
Like all of them.
Everybody, everybody, everybodyin this tent doing a line dance.

Kyle (01:11:18):
Because they are all in the big tent of me.
I have been an outlaw and in-law acrook and a straight, like surprise.
Uh, the mom was the doctor the whole time.
I'm, I'm all of them.
I'm every woman.
The towel of Brooks and Dunn.

Cliff (01:11:32):
let's swing through boots, scoot and bogey then, because, I'll also
point out from, again, from a musicalstandpoint, this song could have been
straightforward, nothing interesting.
It would've still taken off inexactly the way that it did.
Like it was huge.
It's catchy.
It's cool.
It had a neat dance.
I remember watching people I'm relatedto and associated with trying to
do this dance is all hilarious andbeautiful, and also has some of the

(01:11:58):
best blues piano on it I've ever heard.
Is insanely good?

Kyle (01:12:03):
Yeah.
Well, is it the only song on therecord that has a blues progression?
It's certainly the one withthe obvious blues progress.
It's a blues rock song functionally,you know, they do the 1 4 5 or whatever,
and they have the overdriven, not pedalsteel, but the guitar, they play the slide

(01:12:25):
guitar, and there's like a real aggressivesort of car engine right at the beginning.
So, it revs

Cliff (01:12:32):
Yep.
And.

Kyle (01:12:33):
the other songs.

Cliff (01:12:35):
It's got a lot of really good fiddle on that song in particular that the
piano is like interacting with musically.
I'm telling people,
dude, listen to this like a fuckingJohn Coltrane record from time to time.
Like there is incredible stuff happeningin the background between these
musicians, um, that just is directlybelow the surface, uh, if you're

(01:12:57):
just sort of listening for pleasure.
So I'm just, I'm saying go in deepand in this one in particular, you
can listen to piano and fiddle.
Like you can perceive themalmost looking at each other

Kyle (01:13:08):
Yeah,
it's very live.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've long said that if I pick the pianoback up, that I would focus exclusively
on trying to play Boogie Woogie.
' cause it's like such anunderrated, underutilized style.
Like I, I have just always wantedto play the piano, like Billy
Powell, just like bar room blues.
but you have that do, do do do do, do.

(01:13:31):
And then I think right after that, toyour point, is that almost like dive
bomb fiddle line where it's like we,
yeah.
And I've never really thoughtabout them interacting again.
I just don't be thinking when bootsare scooting brain not moving.
but that is a real good moment.

(01:13:53):
There's a lot of movement andthat that's damn fine playing,
too, and, and nobody does too muchor too little, but it's iconic.
It's like, you know, in likehow at the gates changed guitar
for me, made me think about.
What if the guitar riffs werethe melody the whole time?
it's sort of like that, this is fullof little musical moments where you're

(01:14:13):
singing the instruments the whole time ina record chock full of memorable lyrics.

Cliff (01:14:19):
That's how you know

Kyle (01:14:20):
Yeah.
lot of nutritional density the space.

Cliff (01:14:24):
every moment that Kyle goes back to and uses his mouth to, to tell
you musically what the thing was, thatis a killer moment every single time.
I love it.
But yeah, that's

Kyle (01:14:36):
That's right.

Cliff (01:14:36):
it's a good catch.

Kyle (01:14:37):
where I immediately talked to our producer Brendan, and I'm like,
please put the actual music thereinstead for the sake of the listener.

Cliff (01:14:46):
You better fucking leave in if I had a horse every time, every time I
sing it, I wanted you to leave it in.

Kyle (01:14:53):
Okay.
I know we, I know we didn't wantto talk about the nons singles
maybe necessarily, but let's readthe chorus of that song after we
lionize the lyrics of this record.
you know, when you're hot, you're hot.
But as Jerry Reid would also say,when you're not, you're not, still in
love with you is, it's a, it's a song.
It's an earnest song.
It means, well, it's the end ofthe record and you can just fast

(01:15:15):
forward the cassette if you want.
If I had a horse, I'd ride offin the sunset if I had wings.
I'd fly off in the sky.
So blue, if I had the time, I'dspend my whole life dreaming and then
I'd wake up still in love with you.
What?

Cliff (01:15:37):
I think probably my favorite part about it, like my ironically
favorite part about that song is itfeels like it doesn't hit quite like
they wanted it to lyrically, and thenthey do a key change on this song.
Like it's a fuckingCeline Dion Disney Channel
original movie soundtrack thing.

(01:15:58):
It just like, alright, you know what?
They went in a hundred percent.
They came back out pretty quickly once thesong was done and the album was done, but.

Kyle (01:16:07):
are there.
That may also be a new frontier for tig.
if we've had records with a key changein a song in like a non jazz way, I
don't think we've talked about it.
And obviously that's a hugephenomenon in pop music.
Maybe the closest we've gotten istalking about Whitney Houston's.
I will always love you,and we talked about Dolly.

Cliff (01:16:29):
For sure.

Kyle (01:16:29):
This is what it's all about, ladies and gentlemen.
doing the connective tissue at thispoint in the podcast and finding all
the cosmic connections between allof these things makes me feel alive.
I will say, to your point about theyalmost landed it and not quite, I think
the second verse speaks to it becauseit scratches an itch in my right or

(01:16:51):
like it scratch it itches my writerbrain, be in Baton Rouge by morning.
Hope you're missing me by then.
I'd like to be the kinda memorythat makes you want to take
me back in your arms again.
Like it's just with all thepunchiness elsewhere, that's not
quite like, I love the sentiment.
It's like almost a lyric I'd write in anotebook, but it's not quite tight enough.

(01:17:13):
You know, that's, that's one.
And you think about the creative processof artists and like, what, you know, why
does it take two years for an album tocome out or whatever, distilling it into
the tightest, best version of itself.
I mean, it also reminds me they didstorytellers either for VH one or
CMT, and they talked about gettingtogether and Brand New Man being
the first song they wrote together.

(01:17:35):
they had that lunch with Tim Duboison a Tuesday and they wrote Brand
New Man on a Thursday, and thatwas the first thing they did.
but that Ronnie had the seed ofthe chorus, like, I saw the light.
I've been baptized bythe fire in your touch.
that's great.
Sometimes just a combination of words.
You're like, holy shit, that's a, iI want to say that, you know, like a
passive, like that's my stump speech.

(01:17:56):
That's a combination of words I wanna rollout at the bar 'cause that that's got aura
points or whatever the fuck the kids say.
but he said, I'm a changedman, was the root of the idea.
And kick's contribution waswhat about brand new man?
And it very subtle change, but likeadditive creativity, the, you know, the

(01:18:17):
chemistry of a moment like that, thatsounds like a really small thing on
paper going from change to brand new.
But that shit's also amazing.
It, this wouldn't have been anumber one song in the country
if it was, I'm a Change man.
small but powerful.
So like, this is, if there is a place tolike go deep about the lyrics, just the
art of country music, songwriting, andthe hard to make it look easy bit and

(01:18:39):
the distilling to the fewest possiblewords, the easiest to remember and
repeat amount of words isn't art form.
And, yes Cliff, you've hit onsomething that a lot of people
have mistaken the art form for.
Like, I can paint by numbers, youknow, beer truck, Friday painted jeans.
That's so much of what it is now isjust the signaling without any of

(01:19:03):
the context or cleverness or beauty.
but like I would defy anyone to try totake some of the subject matter and turn
it into something clever and timeless.
It's hard as shit.
it's very easy to write an okaycountry song that people will
remember for a month or a year.
It's much harder to write a timelesssong about a timeless sentiment

(01:19:23):
that people will remember foreverand they do it so well here.
There's so much making itlook easy on this album.

Cliff (01:19:29):
I'd say one that slices it a little differently than
going back up the track list.
Cool.
Drink of water is, to me agood example of the underlying
musicianship carrying a song.
So I would even say on this recordmaybe that, maybe I'm actually
branching into more criticism than Iusually do, but I would say on this

(01:19:50):
record, there are like a plus tracks.
There are, I know you shared that youdidn't feel there were like C tracks.
There were like A and B tracks.
I would kind of classify them aslike super good ones, the ones
that we keep talking about now.
and then on the other hand, there's theone that we just sort of talked about
just now where it's like, hmm, thatdidn't quite connect, but the strength

(01:20:12):
of this whole album is incredible.
Cool.
Drink of Water to me is an exampleof one that could have ended up like
still in love with you, but doesn'tspecifically because the guitar,
the verses and transitions from theguitar on the song are themselves
masterpieces of little guitar playingand then it has a solo with the piano.

(01:20:35):
So similarly to how we mentioned like the.
pedal steel will trade off with guitarand piano interplays with fiddle.
Like on this one, you've got astraight up solo with a piano.
Like People do notboogie like this anymore.
Like it's awesome.
and it brings forward some of the coolthings you were just mentioning, even
about like boogie piano and stuff, andbrings that forward into all this really

(01:20:59):
tasteful blues and country guitar playing.
you know, I'll, I'll talk about somemore as well maybe before we close
out about, Brent Mason's particularapproach and sound and all that.
But like, again, this is anotherone where, to me, you can go right
in and like actually listen to justthe underlying instruments and get a
really cool experience from the song.
I mean, it would, it would be acool instrumental song in my view.

Kyle (01:21:21):
Well, this song is the one where I'm like, damn, is there a
better guitar than a Telecaster?
You know?
I don't always think about Tellies,but when I do, I'm like, that's
one of the best things ever made.
And there's a video that I shared withyou on YouTube about Brett Mason's
67 telly, and they called it likethe guitar that changed Nashville.

(01:21:42):
what is it about a telly scientifically,physically that makes it so distinctive
and like, why does it work in this genre?
Because I know I love 'em andI know they appear most here.
And you own a tele, it was 69.

Cliff (01:21:58):
Mm-hmm.

Kyle (01:21:59):
that's a choice.
It's very differentfrom your other guitars.

Cliff (01:22:02):
Yep.
Because of what you're pointingout, because it doesn't sound like
any of the other guitars and noneof the other guitars sound like it.

Kyle (01:22:08):
yeah.
So I, I, grandpa, if you wouldn'tmind, I'd just like to sit by the fire
with you for a moment and you tellme about the majesty of this thing.
'cause we've never talked about a telly.

Cliff (01:22:19):
I would love to, I today sent someone, the Simpson's grandpa, sitting
on a stump explaining shit to kids meme.
So here we are.
I I get to do it.
Now also what is cool is we havea standing, pretty important
rule about not doing conjecture.
So what's cool is I'm not about to justshoot off the hip about why think it

(01:22:41):
There are like lore reasons and ideasthat I'll mention, but Fender themselves
tells you how you can understand thedifference between their main guitars.
And then I, we can also talkabout the difference between
Fender guitars and others.
It's the combination of thosethings that makes a tele distinct.

(01:23:02):
So specifically the scalelength of fender guitars.
So, 25 and a half inches islonger than like a Gibson.
So Gibsons are, have shorter necks.
This again, shit that willnever, ever occur to you, unless
you start to care about it.
So the length of a guitar's neck changesthe tonality of the guitar itself because

(01:23:24):
it changes the actual string tensionthat it takes to achieve the same note.
So one the exact same note on aGibson and on a fender even if they
had all of the same things and onlyhad a difference of scale, length
would itself sound different.
Every time.

Kyle (01:23:42):
Hmm.

Cliff (01:23:43):
so there's a combination of that.
But then to further distinguish, soFender famously made the Telecaster
and the Stratocaster, they soundthemselves distinctly different,
but they have the same scale length.
So this is where like Fendertells you directly, basically.
So it's primarily the pickups themselves.
It feels like it would be the bodyof the instrument, the fact that

(01:24:06):
they're shaped differently, whateverthat is, that's mostly irrelevant.
now I do, like the Telecaster thatI have is, uh, a model called a
Thin Line, which makes it a semihollow body version of a Telecaster.
So that adds a distinct difference.
Um, but what we're talking abouthere are solid body telecasters, uh,
especially what Brent Mason played.

(01:24:27):
so on a Stratocaster, even ifyou're not a guitar dork, he
could probably imagine this.
Jimmy Hendrix, John Mayer, lots ofpeople you've seen them play this guitar.
The pickups are sort of likesuspended looking on the guitar.
So they are basically clamped downto plastic, which is then clamped
down onto the internals of theguitar itself, connected to the

(01:24:50):
body where it resonates, all that.
So the pickup is going throughplastic on a telecaster.
the pickups are taller and they're longer.
So there's literally then more coil ineach of the pickups for a telecaster.
So it literally has more output, whichis part of what is gonna generate the
sounds that you're noticing becauseit's literally picking up more from the

(01:25:15):
playing, which is why people who do fingerstyle or specific rhythmic moves are gonna
choose a telecaster a lot of the time.
Because the actual physical recordingof you playing that is gonna draw out
more of the rhythmic and like, kindof high tonal qualities of the rhythm
that other guitars are just like nevergoing to be able to reproduce at all.

(01:25:36):
and then, so on top of it, having moreof a pickup to begin with, it is then
instead of sitting in plastic, likeon a stratocaster, it's sitting on a
steel plate, which then is also sittingon top of the body of the guitar.
And the way that those things resonateand sound are like really distinct from

(01:25:57):
one another, just having the less ofa pickup and in plastic versus a lot
more of a pickup and sitting on a steelplate, uh, is gonna produce significantly
different sounds to begin with.
And one more thing to justlike plug in the pickups.
That were designed for, the Telecasterwere themselves based on lap steel

(01:26:19):
pickups that Fender was making.
That's why it sounds that way.
it is literally a guitar thatwas designed to be a guitar that
was an ancestor of lap steel.
so it has all these qualities to it.
It's part of I think why there area bunch of other tinier reasons.
But you know, that's also part ofwhy it's become not only famous
for like finger playing style, butlike slide guitar players use it.

(01:26:43):
ethereal guitar players who make like,who do ambient music also use it again
because it draws out other nuancesof the sound that you otherwise can't
get, from certain other guitars.
which

Kyle (01:26:54):
Do you have favorite tele players?

Cliff (01:26:57):
my favorite trick to this is Jimmy Page,
because

Kyle (01:27:03):
I'm gonna, I need to, you, you have a combo going like you've played
Wordle every day mentioning Zep inepisodes for a few straight now.
That's great.
I'm glad we kept that streak alive.
I, for, I, I forgot about that.
I like never think of him as atele player, which is crazy 'cause
like,

Cliff (01:27:19):
he used them a lot more if I recall correctly, like in studio
than live, because of the, again,led Zeppelin is probably a good
example in the way of like, uh.
Flea wood Mac of like, what we wantto do in the studio is singular
and important and separate fromthe thing that we are doing live.
and so Jimmy Page was one of the peoplewho thought very deeply about how guitars

(01:27:42):
sounded in those different settings.
And so he ended up using a telecasterin situations where the sound mattered
more, but is less fun and a little weirderto play, especially in live settings.
You know, if you're getting moreoutput from a pickup, that's also more
output to combat with feedback, uh, andall the rest of that stuff on stage.

(01:28:02):
So

Kyle (01:28:03):
Oh yeah.
You kind of gotta be didialed in a certain way.
That's why you see it more with spacedout, less loud stuff like country

Cliff (01:28:10):
yeah.
Yeah.
And, I'm generally on record, I don'tcare that much about the Rolling Stones.
I appreciate them, uh, butI don't care that much.
But Keith Richards would not soundlike Keith Richards unless he played
a Telecaster most of the time.
it did what guitar needed to do inthe Rolling Stones because he is
often doing hyper unique and sort ofindividualized sounding things that

(01:28:34):
need to stand out in a different way.
so those are some probablyolder and classic examples.
I remember in recent years, likeBrad Paisley, who was always low
key, a really, really good guitar

Kyle (01:28:45):
One of my favorite guitar players for sure.

Cliff (01:28:48):
he, he's usually rocking a
or a telly.
Yeah.

Kyle (01:28:51):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I, I think very much in thespirit of Brooks and Dunn, where he
brings together great musicality andplaying and clever lyrics, and he does
hard stuff and makes it look easy.

Cliff (01:29:06):
Hmm.

Kyle (01:29:06):
man, that song about fishing, my wife said if I go out fishing
today, she's gonna leave me.
Then it's, well, I'm gonnamiss her when I get home.

Cliff (01:29:15):
Yeah.
See, clever.
You have to do clever, right?
It either works or it doesn't.
If it doesn't, is cringe orwhatever the kids call it now, but
if it does, it makes you laugh.

Kyle (01:29:26):
yeah.
You know, who else played atell to spectacular effect?
Probably more in the vein of KeithRichards like bringing a lot of
tonality out of crazy unique movesas Prince he's probably the other
tell player that I think about.
And I wanna say a telly is whathe was playing at the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame thing, wherehe threw it up in the air, maybe

(01:29:46):
threw it up in the air andit's, it stayed there forever.
also, if you like the Telesound, Roy Buchanan is like
a go-to guy in that world.
I want to say George Harrison
played a
telly

Cliff (01:29:59):
did a lot.
Yeah.

Kyle (01:30:00):
a good amount.
The band Poco, who was like postBuffalo Springfield, one or two
dudes from the Eagles eventually.
So there, you know, there'sthat sort of country rock thing.
Poco had really good telly playing.
I wanna say the guy's name wasRusty Young, maybe was like the
really musical guy in that band.

(01:30:21):
but telly is a, you know, we say we,we talk about where do you go next,
but like the Telecaster is a, justgo chase that all over its world.
Jim Root, does Jim Root play one inSlipknot or Stone Sour maybe, or just like

Cliff (01:30:35):
man, that sounds right actually, because the, I feel like I remember a
signature model that looked pretty cool.
there was also a kind of a resurgencein the mid aughts, like hardcore bands
were using Telecasters all the time.

Kyle (01:30:50):
Which is, that's insane.

Cliff (01:30:51):
it was kind of honestly, didn't work, I don't think, as
well as people thought that it did.
but to your point though, I, ifyou want to go nerd diving and
you're going in the direction ofTelecaster, you mentioned Prince.
So comparing Prince to BrentMason on this record is a really
good idea to see the range of

(01:31:13):
Telecaster playing because what Princeis doing, let's back our way into it.
What Prince is doing, as of the phenomenalguitar player that he is, is he is
playing rock guitar on a Telecaster, soalmost all of the time, at least, right?
So he's overdr, he's playing with a pick,there's reverb, and what Brent Mason

(01:31:36):
is doing most of the time and what hebecame famous for and what you usually
hear as guitar playing especially in.
Honky tonk adjacent anythingis finger style guitar playing.
So he's got picks on allof his individual fingers.
He is, you know, doing a version ofwhat came from the blues, which, you

(01:31:56):
know, blues itself can be sort of,divided up this way between people
who are using overdrive to make thingssound bluesy versus people who are
picking it with their individual fingersand coming from, traditions like do
bro and banjo and all that stuff.
but, Brent Mason is doing finger stylein a way where, there's very little
drive on the guitar in most cases.

(01:32:18):
And.
Something that like Prince does a lot,or Jimmy Page or somebody else, right?
Like when you drop into a guitar solo, youactually will hear, like, you'll hear them
like scrape against muted guitar strings.
Like you hear this a lot morethan you would think that you do.
And it's like a really common move toadd some like rhythmic interesting bits,

(01:32:39):
uh, the solos and other parts like that.
And like, again, what Brent Masonis doing is totally different.
he is playing in a sonic vacuumand like every little note that he
touches is supposed to be heard.
And when he stops, he stops.
And there's not a lot of like the guitarproducing extra noise or sound effect.

(01:32:59):
All of that is left to the restof the instruments, the rest
of the song, whatever else.
but that's all coming from playerswho understand how to utilize the
guitar in a really particular way tomake it sound a really particular way.
and it's always fascinating to watch.
I was delighted that you mentionedthat you might want me to
mention any of this stuff today.

(01:33:20):
Like tight.
I've been sitting on this for I don'tknow how many years now, so Awesome.

Kyle (01:33:27):
guitar can be daunting.
Like, especially if you don't play tofind a lane that you find interesting.
There's all sorts of rabbit holes.
Like, okay, am I gonna be a personthat's into cheap guitars like
the Jack White, it might get loud

Cliff (01:33:41):
Yep.

Kyle (01:33:42):
metal wire, nail plywood thing.

Cliff (01:33:46):
betting I'm gonna check everything you're about to say
at different phases in my life.
Yep.

Kyle (01:33:51):
am I gonna be into Schechter seven strings, pick sweeps and stuff?
Am I going to be into resonators?
I saw sinners?
Am I gonna go be chasing after aresonator and see how few of the
original ones actually still exist?
Am I gonna get into Martin acoustics?

Cliff (01:34:12):
Or speaking of Martin, am I gonna be like Josh Martin from Little
Tybee and instead of ever using apick, I'm going to literally just
like finger the fretboard of theguitar instead and make alien noises.

Kyle (01:34:22):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Am I gonna get into Fahe or likeHayden Pedago and go in that rustic
Americana, new weird Americana direction?

Cliff (01:34:34):
Actually, this makes me laugh 'cause the other day I, you know,
someone was asking me innocently about,you know, do so, do you like music?
Are you into things?
Yeah.
and I, I don't know, I shared a little bitof something I'm interested and, and I, I
must have said something metal adjacent.
And they were like, ohso you, like Polyphia.
It was like, well, so notnecessarily, but actually the

(01:34:56):
direction that you're thinking in.
I like,

Kyle (01:34:59):
Uhhuh.
Mm-hmm.

Cliff (01:35:01):
I, I do like newly but cool sounding stuff that you have
a little trouble classifying.

Kyle (01:35:09):
to me, the through line is, we've had so many episodes now
where we've stared so directlyand gone so deep on one thing.
We've been to so many shows together.
We've listened to so many recordsriding in the car together over
the years that like, you can reallylose the forest for the trees and be
like, yeah, I'm a music appreciatorand I like this and this and this.

(01:35:32):
That it's nice to just get back to yourroots and think about the simple things
that got you into it in the first place.
And just the majesty of the guitar,like that, the guitar exists at all.
That we went from caveman with fireto building an instrument like this.
And like we talked about, what a miraclethe sitar is on the Ravi episode and

(01:35:55):
just what a pinnacle of human engineeringachievement that is, but like a six string
guitar and just what it allows, what itunlocks in human expression is what, you
know, people make that their life's workto study that in practice and in theory.
But if you're down on the world andif you're down on music in general,

(01:36:16):
I would urge you, like desperatelywith a, with a yearning from the
bottom of my feet to just not takethe miracle of guitar for granted.
You know, like guitars are so sick andthere's such a specific thing happening
with guitar all over this record becauseof Brent Mason, and I didn't think

(01:36:37):
we'd emphasize guitar as much as we do.
I, I like, I almost feel likewe make a conscious effort.
Lately for a long time lately inthe podcast to not overemphasize
it because we're, guitar dudes fromGet in a Room with guitars and amps
bands, and obviously we love thatshit and maybe not everyone else does.
So like we've been challengingourselves to go out more and more.

(01:36:59):
But nothing beats a guitar in aroom in front of your face, man.
It's magic for a reason.
And people have been doing itfor a hundred years that way.
Making it louder and playingit as well as they can.
Let's talk about Neon Moon.
let, let's just take a few minutes.
Like we've, we've said best songever, best song ever, but I wanna
know why Vital Telly is so special.

(01:37:19):
why in your estimation, cliff isthe song so magical and evocative?
What do you hear when you listen to it?

Cliff (01:37:26):
"Watch your broken dreams dance in and out of the beams
of a neon moon" is the bestsentence that's ever been written.
So that's part of it.
Just this is like it alwaysmakes, the more I pay attention
to why I get so excited by thelyrics as a lyric hating person.
it immediately also takes me back towhen we talked about the Fiona a Apple

(01:37:50):
album and she had this line, the Shadesand Shadows undulate in my perception.
And it was like, what thefuck are you thinking?
And how did that work that way?
And like, How did you go from, thisdoesn't exist in a song to, I'm gonna put
in exactly this box it's like watchingthe most satisfying gifs ever on Reddit,

(01:38:12):
where it's like everything perfectlyfits into a box or something before
it moves on and starts to loop again.
And as much as I cartoonize my hatredof lyrics here for fun, it's mostly
that like I have a really high standard

Kyle (01:38:26):
They can be this good and most people never get anywhere close.

Cliff (01:38:30):
yes.
They spend all this time writingsongs and it's like, but every now
and then we get one of these and it'slike, mm, maybe we should write fewer
songs and see if we could get closerto this 'cause, like, It has so much.
Not only does it have that as sort oflike a, a centralized, memorable thing to
sort of bank on everything about like thesoft, recognizable intro to the thing, the

(01:38:57):
way, like it somehow, it's not that uniqueof a sounding song at the beginning,
and yet I can't think of anythingelse I would confuse Neon Moon with.
And like it kicks up, you sortof immediately get into it.
And on top of it, a joke Ihave wanted to make this entire
episode, which I will now make.
They do make very good use onthis record of right before

(01:39:19):
every chorus going, well, yeah.
Well, yeah.

Kyle (01:39:24):
The Kurt, Kurt Cobain stepping

Cliff (01:39:26):
yep,

Kyle (01:39:27):
to, to crank it out.
Yeah.
They just do it with their mouths.

Cliff (01:39:30):
yep.

Kyle (01:39:32):
Yeah.

Cliff (01:39:33):
I make fun of it.
It's mostly used, a decent effect.
I get it.
It's fun.
But this one in particular, thissong begs you to sing with it, which
is, to me, maybe the thing thatmakes it so interesting because it's
effectively a song about not feelinglike singing, and sort of like not

Kyle (01:39:53):
a person alone in a
bar like ref, reflecting to himself.
it's a song about being lonely.

Cliff (01:40:00):
Yep.
But it captures so well themoment I'm sure everyone's had
'em in different places or times.
I don't usually have mine in bars, butI understand the equivalent of sometimes
you can get quiet and you sit alone andyou're not happy, you're not sad or upset.

(01:40:20):
You just sort of are existingand almost witnessing your
own experience for the moment.
And like, well you're the one person Ican say this to, but I don't know how
everyone else listening to this will feel.
but like to me, returning to base,returning to neutral is inherently sad.
There's a lot about our existence,the sad, even in like meditation,

(01:40:41):
like I can be contented and at peace.
And in that peace I still witness andobserve a lot of upsetting and sad things.
and to me, this song inparticular captures that moment
of like, dichotomy in ourselves.
We're sitting, we're quiet,things are not great.

(01:41:02):
But actually I don't have alot to complain about either.
I know that the rest of my life, nomatter how great it is, will also
include deep sadness, like deep sadnessand disappointment, and this idea of
being able to, and, and maybe it'sthe sort of tactical, almost like

(01:41:22):
geographic nature of this song wherelike I can feel myself positioned
sitting in that seat in the bar.
And like I can kind of feel beingin that corner and I can feel what
it feels like to just be quiet for amoment and not try to do anything else.
And like anytime a song starts triggeringthoughts like I just expressed,

(01:41:44):
man, I'm on, I'm on something else.
And this song has felt that way.
Like I was four or somethingwhen this song came out.
Five,

Kyle (01:41:53):
Yep.

Cliff (01:41:54):
loved this song, my whole conscious life.
it, is

Kyle (01:41:57):
it, activates, the trauma that has been stored in your body trauma.
Like, I, I don't know, I don't want to usenegative language, like it makes me sad
or it activates my generational trauma.
'cause it's more like when I'm reallypresent in the moment, the older I get, I

(01:42:18):
get one of those German or Japanese words,feelings where it feels like sadness
because I just, it's like an ache because.
I'm at once.
So in this moment and grateful toget to be experiencing this, and I
start thinking about the miracle, theinfinite isal amount of things that had
to happen for me to get to this point.
my own life, in my family's life, inthe history of the world, you know,

(01:42:42):
how many people never lived to be30 so that they could learn to build
a house and invent central plumbingso that people could live longer.
And what, you know, and you juststart to think about like, I better
not dare take this moment for grantedhappy or sad because literally
millions of people died so that Icould experience the joy of this.

(01:43:05):
And it makes every Miller high lifethat I ever drank, the greatest fucking
drink that I've ever had in my life.
And I'm just like, God, how luckyam I that I get to be alive having a
Miller High life talking to my friendCliff at this dark bar right now.
You know?
and it just fills you withthe feeling of every memory.
You know, Dewey Cox has to think abouthis whole life before he performs.

(01:43:28):
Like I, I sort of get that at amoment's notice and maybe it's
more easily triggered by thepsychedelic misadventures of our
youth, that I'm just able to access.
Flatten all of time and spaceinto a dossier that gets put
right in front of my face anytimeI start thinking too presently.
but this song really does that.
This is like real cosmic cowboyshit that I'm so broken hearted,

(01:43:52):
but better to have loved and lostthan never have loved at all.
and like this song is really personal tome because this was, you know, you, you
see those videos on the internet of onlya very specific song will make my kid
stop crying when they're a little baby.
And you know, it's like slayers rainin blood for some parents or whatever.
This was the song that did it.

(01:44:13):
We played it and slow dance toit when my daughter was in the
womb and this was the song.
This was like her first favoritesong we always talked about.
And so it takes on new import whenthere's a verse like, I think of two
young lovers running wild and free.
I close my eyes and I sometimes see youin the shadows of this smoke-filled room.

(01:44:36):
And it's like, Lord of mercy.
it's not just those lyrics,it's broken up so masterfully.
The intonation risesand falls so perfectly.
Like there's not a move or a nuance onthis that I would change even a little.
and even though the reboot versionis great, to your point about the
contrast for study's sake, CaseyMusgraves is on this and she's

(01:44:59):
awesome and she brings new life toit, but this song is a, perfect thing.
the way he breaks up you in the shadowsand then a little bit of fiddle comes,
like, just enough fiddle comes in of thissmoke-filled room and it trails off like
a sentence that you would say in a bar.
and you're right, I love that it'scosmic feelings in a very physical place.

(01:45:19):
I think that's what makes ittranscendent is like, I probably
have to be in this space.
Like I'm a tough cowboy.
I have to be in this spaceto process feelings that I
don't really have words for.
But also I think the musicalityof the song reflects the
physicality of the space.
Like I've always thought that introthat you mentioned, the keys on

(01:45:39):
it, uh, John Barlow, Jarvis is the,the keys player on this record.
So not only does he do the Boogie Woogiepiano, but he does the little, key
sound, That to me sounds like bokeh.
Like the flicker of the neoncoming in and out of focus.
That and the really tasteful sort ofdescending single note pedal steel.

(01:46:05):
Remind me of those the icicle stringlights that you can get at Christmas.
Like they'd be hanging in a dive barand like all those lights are kind of
flickering I can feel real atmosphere.
I can feel the sweat of the room andthe vibe of the lights, creating mood.
it just seems like it all, I'm applyingintent where there may or may not have

(01:46:26):
been, but it just seems like the vibeof the instrumental that they had in
the subject matter of the lyrics wereall really meant to work together.
Whereas in some cases it's justlike, we got a cool vibe, let's
maybe do this kind of thing, andit's just kinda like grip and rip.
I don't know, man.
This is just a, it'sa perfect magic thing.

Cliff (01:46:45):
totally.
I'm so glad you mentioned the partabout the fiddle in the verses.
because I, I would submit thatthat what the fiddle is doing
is a complimentary almost.
Now I am gonna do conjecturefor just this one time.
It's gonna be cool, but thisis how I think about it.
And I think musically this can makesense in the same way that jazz can

(01:47:07):
be improvised and then maybe explainedin reverse, the fiddle is occupying
an emotional space that this person inthe song is not comfortable expressing.
They are sitting still, likemaintaining to your point.
Like everything is sort of pitch perfect.
The tonality is exactly right.
It's a very like balanced feeling deliveryof all of these lyrics and builds in

(01:47:33):
inappropriate way towards the end, but insort of like a, almost a despairing way.
And that fiddle so many times in theverses is like occupying a slightly
different mentality musically inresponse to what's being said.
Like it, ugh, this song is so good.
10 times through for amillion different reasons,

Kyle (01:47:56):
Are there other songs?
Do you have a short list of perfectsongs in your mind like this that
like, I don't care who you are,every human alive should hear this?

Cliff (01:48:07):
not at the ready.

Kyle (01:48:08):
The only other one that I can think of is "At Last" by Etta James.

Cliff (01:48:15):
Yeah.

Kyle (01:48:15):
So that's an exercise that you can do, you know, shifting gears
into like, where do we go from here?
Think about perfect songs.
And it's very subjective, obviously,but, given those two, I'm sure the
easiest path to get there is tothink about somebody sing something
beautiful and timeless and hope inducing
about love.

Cliff (01:48:36):
Yep.
Man,

Kyle (01:48:37):
Maybe
maybe I'd add Sleepwalk by Santo andJohnny you know, and I'd put it in a
different category than like, best songlike your, your, your Pia Aside is a
good one because I think there's a lotof people that would go into the, like,
what's a perfectly constructed song?
Technically speaking, I thinkwhat I'm getting at with Neon

Cliff (01:48:56):
Wide open wound by nails.

Kyle (01:49:01):
oh my God, yes.

Cliff (01:49:03):
Uh, I will, I will continue along this, this thought idea, now
that you've planted the seed, but Iwould immediately add good vibrations

Kyle (01:49:10):
Oh yeah,

Cliff (01:49:11):
as just like one that's like oh, oh, oh.

Kyle (01:49:14):
Definitely A Beach Boys song I would probably do, wouldn't it be nice
before I would do good vibrations?

Cliff (01:49:22):
Sure.

Kyle (01:49:23):
cause pet sounds just feels like Brian Wilson at his peak.
Rest in peace.
Brian Wilson.
My god, what another oceanic talent?
yeah, good vibrationsis a really good one.
But again, Beach Boys and Brooks andDunn, there's a spiritual connection I
wanna say between the two of, it's hardto make it look as easy as they did.
And there's a deceptive amount ofmastery and complexity in arrangement

(01:49:46):
and performance in those as well.
And you're almost mad at 'em formaking it as easy as they did.
' cause they flatten it into the vibe, youknow, where, where one is a honky tonk and
the other is the beaches of California.
but that again, appreciate all thetrillions of cosmic things that had
to happen for somebody to be formedinto a human body and consciousness

(01:50:08):
that allowed them to be an artist thattransmuted so much feeling and distilling
it into a three or four minute thing.
It's like, fuck man, wedon't deserve artists.

Cliff (01:50:16):
Nope.
You too can get emotionally overwhelmedby every piece of music you listen to.
If you only follow us,
it's great.

Kyle (01:50:23):
I am sorry we, because you talked about U2 at the beginning of the episode.
I thought you were saying theband U2 can get overwhelmed.
Yeah, I know they can.

Cliff (01:50:35):
to lighten the load of where to go next, do like the direction we
were just heading, although it feelslike that conversation is for like a
six hour live stream that we have inour future in some sort of like mystery
science, theater esque situation.
so instead of starting with perfectsongs that capitalize on the existence
of the human experience down one level,how can we connect with the people

(01:50:59):
that we, I specifically tried to likepoint at a few times through this
episode, you know, Brooks and Dunn.
Maybe you even know this record.
Maybe you like this record a lot.
Okay?
You're still into country.
That is like a thing that you're into.
You enjoy being a part of country.
The people around you listen to country.
Cool.
Okay.
You are gonna have to like the hitsto some degree, but let's give these

(01:51:21):
folks some ideas that they may not havehad lately about how to, like, okay.
If that's gonna be the center point ofyour palate, let's at least try to get
you spread out a little bit from there.
I've got some ideas, but I'm curiousif, if you have places to start already.

Kyle (01:51:37):
Yeah, your prompt is better than the general stuff.
I think I was gonna try to say,so I wanna hear yours first
and let's see what it leads to.

Cliff (01:51:46):
Okay.
I've got a few different ideasabout where you could take it.
So one is if you don't feel intimatelyfamiliar with early nineties country
and the way that we've expressed that,even we are a, maybe you are just a
different age, or your family did notlisten to any of that or whatever.
Cool.
I'm telling you, you need to goback and discover the joy that

(01:52:09):
was all of this stuff exploding.
so I mean, we mentioned a fewthings around this exact timeframe.
So like if you wanna sort ofexplore it almost historically,
and watch people turn the corner.
We mentioned Diamond Rio's meet in themiddle, um, this record and then like Alan
Jackson and like don't rock the jukeboxand all that even as we were talking and

(01:52:30):
you mentioned Alan Jackson earlier and youmentioned, uh, don't Rock the Jukebox, uh,
on top of a lot of other songs, it stillcracked me up because at this moment in
time, lyrically country artists were beinglike, we are country, not rock and roll.
Even inside of that Alan Jackson song.
It's just, it is literally a songabout please play George Jones.
Now the Rolling Stones.

(01:52:51):
it was a intended cultural shiftthat people were making, but I will
just slice this little bit off.
It wasn't condescending towardspeople who weren't country.
It wasn't like a I'm this and you aren't.
It's a, we can be this if you want, wecan boot Scoop Boogie and Watermelon Crawl

(01:53:15):
and whatever else it is that we wanna do.
so

Kyle (01:53:19):
shoot the jukebox.
But not, not 'cause we hate thestuff that's not on there just
'cause we're sad about our woman

Cliff (01:53:27):
Uhhuh, and so just a, a couple of things I would mention then to
that end around a similar timeframe,and please people who, in my opinion,
take you in some different directions,I mean, we mentioned Garth Brooks.
I mean, there's, there's a whole bunchof people you could sort of go in through
the popularity charts to get to but to
underappreciated people.

Kyle (01:53:46):
low places might not be a perfect song, but definitely
a song I wish I'd written

Cliff (01:53:53):
some deep cliff lore.
I am in a Garth Brooks live concertvideo from the early nineties.
I am
in it.
I am in it.
The camera goes to me, I am in it.
It's fantastic.

Kyle (01:54:05):
Do you own it on

Cliff (01:54:08):
Yeah, my folks do.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Kyle (01:54:10):
Okay.

Cliff (01:54:12):
Because they didn't know until they saw it.

Kyle (01:54:15):
I'm gonna need you to find that and either rip the
video or send me a still because

Cliff (01:54:22):
So I've, yeah.
I've

Kyle (01:54:24):
we're we, you and I are in a music video together, but
nothing, nothing on the scale ofa Garth Brooks live concert film.

Cliff (01:54:32):
Yep.
All right.
Well, we'll see if wecan hunt down baby Cliff.
so
I would,

Kyle (01:54:38):
Don't ever tell me you're not country again.
You're, you're automatically more countrythan me being in a Garth Brooks thing.

Cliff (01:54:44):
uh, yeah, I can, yes.
I cannot debate.
I used to soothe myself to SteveWarner's, Linda, so I'll, yeah.
I, you can't take it away from me,

Kyle (01:54:53):
I mean, you used to wear sleeveless shirts and drive a Camaro or whatever,
like you smoke maverick one hundreds.

Cliff (01:55:00):
All of these things that are literally true about me,

Kyle (01:55:03):
you are deep in your heart.
One of the rednecks motherfuckers I know

Cliff (01:55:08):
Uhhuh Uhhuh.
Yes.
Uh, this is why I say thatI'm not now so loudly.
That makes sense.
I then, lemme pull whatever credibilityI have from when I was a child.
There are two different directionsI'd tell you to go in that are
just not necessarily the mostpopular artists for fun reasons.

(01:55:28):
One, I think Kyle, me and youhave talked about him before.
Dwight Yoakum.
Go fucking check out Dwight Yoakum.
Like
a truly like weird dude who wasdoing unusual stuff, who had a really
interesting take on bringing forwardtraditional aspects of country music, and
who had a like distinct performance style.

(01:55:50):
That was really cool.

Kyle (01:55:51):
And he, he's proved there are rednecks everywhere.
'cause the Bakersfield sound,being California, Southern
California desert is so cool.
And scratches an itch for me as aredneck from the South who also loves
Queens of the Stone Age and shit.
There's something, I always lovedDwight Yoakum because he has a voice
like Ronnie Dunn that has that sortof rich timber that, that like kind of

(01:56:13):
full whiskey timber and it's so unique.
Like the second you hear Dwightstart singing, you know, it's Dwight.
really clever turn of phrase.
You know, I'm a thousandmiles from nowhere and there's
no place I'd rather be.
yeah, Dwight's one ofthe all time greats, man.
I love it and I love that he'sa point of intersection for us.

Cliff (01:56:29):
Yep.
So yeah, so finally we, wewill make our own Dwight Yoko
mentioned meme or whatever.
Uh, and this will be the first one.
another, another quick one I'd mentionfor specific reasons, Tanya Tucker.
Um, so like, and for a bunch of reasons,but specifically because, all right, so
now I'm gonna draw a really straight line.

(01:56:50):
I'm not teaching Kyle anything in thismoment necessarily, but like Tanya Tucker
was also a nineties country star, andwhen I say also, I mean because she was
also a country star before that she likehad a comeback and was a child country
music star and then had a career and thencame back and then had another career.

(01:57:11):
Her stuff is cool, but specificallylike she is very literally a person
who identified as a seventiescountry outlaw, who then moved
on to create modern country.
and that is not a thing that we getto experience from a lot of people.
We talk a lot about on theSturgill episode, about the
connections to outlaw country.

(01:57:32):
But Sturgill Simpson was not himself anoutlaw from the seventies, whereas Tanya
Tucker literally was, and can give you areally cool connection point to whatever
Waylon Jennings and everything else thatyou might wanna get interested in that
you should be required by law to knowabout, to consider yourself a country fan.

Kyle (01:57:52):
There's also deeper cut people.
That just kind of toiled away.
It seems like it nevergot quite as much of a do.
When I think about the nineties, Ialso think about like John Anderson
and I think about Keith Whitley.
certainly Keith Whitley beinga huge influence on Sturgill.
and like I, I want to tread lightlyinvoking sturgill here, especially

(01:58:15):
like with the direction that he's gonein and he gets the, like savior tag,
all the heaviness and intensity, thesort of smoldering thing that Sturgill
has around country as an identity.
Like none of that's
here.
I like, I I I love that we're focusingmostly on people that are fun and

(01:58:36):
I think what we're trying to getout is other people from that time
period that evoke the simple beauty

Cliff (01:58:42):
Yeah.

Kyle (01:58:43):
of
life.

Cliff (01:58:44):
fucking twain.
Get
in there.

Kyle (01:58:46):
fucking twain, man.
I feel like a woman

Cliff (01:58:52):
Yeah.
Another example of singable melodies, I.

Kyle (01:58:55):
I knew.
One of the early things that made meknow that I loved Caralee and that
she was my person was when she said, Ihave an idea for an all girl hardcore
band that dresses like cowgirls.
And they do, man, I feel like awoman, and "let's go girls" is
the pit call for the breakdown.
Like, girl, what are youdoing the rest of your life?

Cliff (01:59:16):
It would

Kyle (01:59:17):
another, it would go off.
another one who's not aged well.
so don't worry about thatpart, but, uh, Travis Trit,

Cliff (01:59:26):
Yeah.

Kyle (01:59:27):
a quarter call someone who cares, which now you have to have a whole
technical explanation for a young personfor what the fuck that even means.
And I love that.
but it's a song that works on its own.
Also trouble, if you ever forget how tospell the word trouble, he's got one.

Cliff (01:59:43):
I smell it.

Kyle (01:59:44):
I smell T-R-O-U-B-L-E and then, and then 10 Feet Tall And
Bulletproof was another one.
I feel like he's got a couple of more.
Travis Tritt was a, another killer one.
Also in the country rock vein.
He was my introduction to LittleFeet 'cause he had Little Feet
because on a song on the record,
um, that Here's a quarter is onalso the Grundy County auction song.

(02:00:09):
Is that, John Michael Montgomery?
I wanna say, Hey littlelady, don't you gimme a sign.
Da da da da.
Mine.
Oh, mine going once, going twice.

Cliff (02:00:17):
You

Kyle (02:00:18):
sold

Cliff (02:00:18):
word.
Yeah.

Kyle (02:00:19):
in the second row.
Yeah.

Cliff (02:00:21):
Yeah, see you, you're really getting glimpses.
I had that whole song memorized and familymembers would ask me to perform it on

Kyle (02:00:29):
hell yeah.
Like when I'm drunk and people put bombsover Baghdad on the jukebox, same thing.

Cliff (02:00:35):
it do be like that.
Yeah.

Kyle (02:00:37):
do me like that.
I'm not gonna do it.
I'm not gonna do it.
did it.

Cliff (02:00:43):
I'll give two other very quick things and very opposite directions
from a historical perspective.
It is interesting to listento Merle Haggard after this
because you will hear probably at leastwhere Ronnie Dunn has inherited something

(02:01:04):
that works for country music in his voice.
Um, there's a lot ofconnection point to it.
I am not necessarily a huge moral Haggardfan for some reasons, but that doesn't
keep him from being important, uh, andfrom having a really distinctive voice,
uh, that's I think, interesting to listento and to, I mean, you can literally

(02:01:24):
hear his voice through country musicand through the, through the decades
in a totally different, I mean, totallydifferent timeframe, everything but
connected through the distinctive voices.
Orville Peck is another
place that you can go if you're ready toget fucking cool with your country, man.
And I can tell you with certainty,an Orville Peck show is cool,

(02:01:47):
like that's the closest thing I'vegone to that's country in a while.
And the vibes were pristine.
I really enjoyed it, and it madeno qualms as he does about, being
basically a modern form of honky tonk.
Uh, which, we get the added enjoymentof this being a South African person.

(02:02:08):
Uh, so, I don't know if Orville Peck andElon cancel each other out at this point.
Yeah.

Kyle (02:02:14):
the price.
The price of oral pack is Peter Thiel,

Cliff (02:02:18):
I'm prepared to pay it.
but to me, again, like opposite MerlHaggard going back and trying to trace
the roots of the thing that went throughthis record, Orville Peck goes, you know,
way through this and on into, you know,sort of other modern frontiers where
people can find expressions of countrywestern music that, Goes back to that

(02:02:40):
big tent thing that we talked about, thatit feels like Brooks and Dunn does here.
Country is not exclusivelyfor people who fit this mold.
It's for everybody.
And in order to be able to do that,we're gonna do all sorts of interesting
things with country music to makethis point to you and to get the right
people in the room and all that stuff.

(02:03:01):
and I think both of those are directionsyou can go in to stretch yourself a
little wider than f**king Morgan Wallen.
Dude, come on.
You can do it.
We can get you there.

Kyle (02:03:13):
Morgan Wallen and Drake are becoming best friends, and that should tell
you everything that you need to know.
He's got Drake wearing a Canadian tuxedo.
He is got that man wearing all denim.
we're days away fromDrake wearing the Red Hat.
but to your point on a positive note, aOrville Peck live, his voice is literally
breathtaking when he does acapella stuff.

(02:03:35):
You're like, that should not be possible.
man, he's so good and heattracts so much positivity.
And you're right.
Country at its best is a big tent.
But not because you haveto set your politics aside.
You know, I like, I'm glad we're really,really deep into this show, this creative
exercise as friends and we've, youknow, established motifs and themes of

(02:03:58):
conversation and things we, things wereflect on before we got to something that
was like so core to our essence as people.
' cause.
One of the core most important thingswe've had to grapple with on this show
is imperfect people making beautifulthings and the age-old art versus
artist bit, and, and trying to grapplewith it a little less theoretically
and a little more practically thanthat hypothetical, about Marvin Gaye

(02:04:23):
or about Prince or people that areproblematic, or do we cancel them or,
you know, what do we, what do we notthat's here for artist and, audience too.
It's like, okay, I like OrvillePecs politics, but he might
be kind of a piece of shit.
Or he might be annoying,he might be a bad texter.
You know what I mean?
Like, one of the things that I loveabout country music is it's all

(02:04:46):
there and you gotta take it all.
And everybody, like, you're allgonna be in the same gas station
going to the beach one day, andfiguring out how to deal with it.
Doesn't mean that you gotta like it, thatyou don't get chippy with each other.
you should still continue to confront theugliness and the weirdness or whatever.
But like we've all lost our one andonly at some point, there's always

(02:05:09):
room here for the lonely and we've allbeen lonely and, I don't know, maybe.
Maybe the point in all this for me, assomebody who's always loved these songs
and the art of country music is everybodykind of sucks and you kind of suck
too, but we're all stuck here together.
So buy somebody a shot and talkyour s**t and figure it out.
Boot scoot together.

(02:05:29):
When all else fails, you can just,you can be like, you know what?
I hate your guts, but let's goline dance for a minute first.

Cliff (02:05:35):
Baby meet me out back.
We're gonna boogie.

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Episode 67: Brooks & Dunn's "Brand New Man"

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