#690 - Brothers Osborne on the Scary Future of Country Music, Chris Stapleton's Dad Advice & Why They Wouldn't Make It Today

0:06 How would you tell someone to make it now.

0:09 We wouldn't make it now all we knew to do was like show up be professional be as good as you can be with whatever you got and now it's like so you're telling me i'm gonna be a personality on top of all that the whole reason i wanted to play guitar is because i didn't have a personality i was terrified.

0:27 All right, we're going to talk with John and TJ Osborne, brothers Osborne. They've become one of country music's biggest duos, mixing traditional country, rock and roll. You'd know them from songs like Stay a Little Longer, It Ain't My Fault, 21 Summer. They've racked up a Grammy, seven CMA Awards, seven ACM Awards. And now they're celebrating 10 years of their Pawn Shop album, Hittin' the Road, ready to release their new album, Watertown, that comes out October 23rd. So if you're watching this and it's fresh, it's coming out this week. If you're not, it's already out. I hope you check it out. And they're out on the road as well. So here they are, two of my friends.

1:02 Although it's been a while, so we've been in the same room. Brothers Osborne. Social media is weird because I don't feel like it's been a long time since we've actually been in the presence of each other. But it has. I think it's been a few years now.

1:13 Yeah.

1:14 But it doesn't. actually feel like that. I have a parasocial relationship and an actual relationship with you guys. It's like both because I do really enjoy both of you. So in the past few years, like what new has happened in each one of your lives since we've actually touched each other? You go first, John.

1:31 I had kids. Lucy and I had twins. So I don't think we've seen each other since then. They're three and a half. You and Lucy? Yeah, exactly. Me and Lucy.

1:40 Yeah.

1:40 Oh my God. That would be a bomb. Yeah. Bobby's trying to get the headlines over here. Yeah, I know. We crawl into bed, and we're like, so how have you been today? Two prisoners coming back from war. No, it's been awesome. I'm exhausted. How old? They're three and a half. Literally, I went to grab some lunch, and I noticed I had a little bit of time before I got over here, and I took a 10-minute nap in my truck. I was like, exhausted. Wow. It don't quit, but it's awesome. Like, I miss them. I can't wait to get home and see them. So that's the biggest highlight without a doubt in my life. The nap. Yeah, the nap.

2:15 All right, give me something.

2:17 I mean, God, it's pretty lame. I feel like it's been a lot of the same, but things have been good.

2:23 The family's good.

2:24 You know, our dad had some health issues that he's working through, and he's doing a lot better. And I think for me, it's not necessarily these big life-changing moments, but just kind of As that happened and just appreciating my time with the family and trying to enjoy the small stuff, which has actually been very enjoyable.

2:42 A-plus haircut.

2:43 Thank you.

2:44 I don't know if that's new.

2:46 I've had it for a while. I was actually just thinking I needed it cut on the way over here.

2:50 So thanks, Bobby.

2:50 A-plus haircut.

2:51 Thank you.

2:53 I had a baby.

2:54 Oh, congratulations. Yes, we know.

2:56 Seven months ago.

2:57 How do you feel? Shh.

2:59 Before you guys got here, I took a nine-minute nap in my car.

3:02 Did you actually? Wait, did you really?

3:04 No. No, but she's not 30, so you have twins and threes. So I gave you the extra minute in the joke.

3:11 Thank you. I appreciate that. That's good. No, isn't it the best? It is the best. You can't deny it. But it kicks your ass.

3:19 For me, yes.

3:22 For all.

3:22 But for me, I've lived in such a heliocentric world where I'm the sun.

3:27 Yeah, yeah, yeah. For my whole life, right?

3:28 Even before I got married, I was 39 when I met my wife. And so I did my own thing for so long. And I was talking to a friend of mine who's about to have a baby for the first time. And he's also around 40 years old. So we're definitely older having babies than people in my hometown where they were having it at 22.

3:43 Yeah, same.

3:43 Right?

3:43 Because we're from small rural towns, all of us. And he was like, what's it like? I said, hey, I never thought that something could suck the ego out of me, ever. Because I had to survive just doing me. And my wife, a little bit. The baby completely. More than I ever thought something could. And I know it's even going to, I don't mean get worse as in bad, but the ego, it's just not about me. I never thought that would be a thing.

4:10 It's weird, isn't it?

4:11 That's actually like one of the things, so I would love to have children at some point in time, but that's actually one of the things that intrigues me about it. I feel like I've achieved a lot of the things I've wanted to do in life. And of course, you know, I find doing, I want to do more things, but I'm like, well, yeah, I do have this feeling of what's, what's next for me. And I do feel like there is like this, like a ultimate selflessness and, and having children that I love to see.

4:33 And there's suddenly like, John used to have this huge ego. I did.

4:37 I was such a jerk. No, but I just, you know, being a lead singer, I'm like, I could definitely be taken.

4:41 Down a couple of notches. So I just, it's just every decision you make is not about you anymore. You know what I mean? Yeah, it is to a degree, but it's like, the ramifications are so much more important. You know, it's a little more than like, Oh God, I forgot to feed the cat. Yeah, exactly. Or it's like, you know, I mean, I can, you know, when we moved here, we were broke. We had no money. I'm like, I could go back to having no money, but I don't want my kids to have no money. Cause we had that and that sucked. So, and again, you don't want to spoil them, but at the same time it becomes more about them, but it's beautiful. It's awesome. It's awesome to have that sense of purpose. Is it stressful? Yeah.

5:16 Is it tiring? Yeah. But it's just, it's so amazing. I feel so lucky to have it.

5:20 It's, The most intense version of two things can be true at the same time.

5:24 Yes.

5:24 Where it's awesome, but Yeah, stressful is a word that it's starting to hit me a little bit, but I thought I would have all these existential thoughts of like life and baby and wow, I made that and my wife and us coming together. I'm tired. I don't have time for existential thoughts. Like I finish work and I go right in to help her.

5:42 Yes.

5:43 And so there's no time sitting around with a quill writing my thoughts in ink in a journal. So, but that, but yeah, it's all of that and I'm tired, but yeah. I think there have been a lot of people tired before me that have done just fine.

5:58 Yeah. I would say Stapleton, who's got, you know, they have a lot of kids and they had had twins as well. And they knew we were having twins and they were just like, if like you want to talk to Chris about anything, it's about fatherhood. It's his favorite thing in the world. And he's like, I'll tell you something that someone told me one time that made me feel so much better. It was for hundreds of thousands of years, people way dumber than us have been successfully raising kids. And I laughed. He goes, I'm actually being dead serious. And the more I thought about it, I was like, yeah, I guess you're right. I started thinking about some of the people that I know. I'm like, I guess if they can do it, if we survive

6:30 this long, we'll be fine. And it took all, it definitely took the sting out of it. It took the pressure off of it. And it gets, so seven months in, it's like, it becomes way more fun.

6:41 It gets so fun. Now it's starting to be fun because, She's doing stuff.

6:44 Yeah.

6:44 She knows it's me.

6:45 Once that personality comes out, oh, it's awesome.

6:47 She's happy when I'm there or she's cranky or there's, yeah, it's cool.

6:51 You're starting to see the person. Yeah, it's awesome. It gets way, way, way more fun.

6:55 I'm praying she looks like her mom.

6:58 Really?

6:59 Like that's what I'm worried about.

7:00 Well, I mean, she's beautiful, but I think she'll be fine. I think you're beautiful.

7:02 And the baby is too.

7:03 Yes.

7:04 Did you mean my wife?

7:06 I was referring to your wife. Oh, thank you.

7:10 Not that my opinion is all that weighted. We'll blur this.

7:16 I'm not laughing at that. That's the baby.

7:18 Oh, my goodness. Oh, my God, that hair. Cute. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I was going to ask you?

7:22 Born with a lot of, it's a girl.

7:23 A girl? Billy, though. Billy? Oh, that's so sweet.

7:25 Yeah, born with a lot of hair.

7:27 That is a head of hair. I mean, my daughter's three has barely more hair than that. Yeah. No, that's a wig. Oh, right on.

7:34 I know.

7:35 Beauty standards they have to live up to.

7:40 Okay, let's do this. I got some stuff.

7:43 Okay. I love stuff.

7:45 What's a lyric that you find yourself quoting that's not yours in everyday life?

7:51 Oh, God.

7:51 I've really been tackling these existential musical questions, so pardon this for a second.

7:56 Well, I mean, this is going to sound like a shameless plug, but it is true. So on our most recent album.

8:03 Oh, come on.

8:03 No, hold on. This is true, Bob. You asked me. We're going to get to the promotion. No, but it's true.

8:06 We've already promoted it before you came. We're going to get to the promotion.

8:09 But here, hold on. There's two sides to this. Because.

8:13 There's a song called Bottle It Up, and I didn't realize how– and we didn't write the song. But I didn't realize how much I said it. And the comical thing of it all is that when I say it, like, God, I want to bottle this up, I feel now like I am always promoting myself when I say it.

8:29 But it is– yeah, it is a feeling. I think like any other songs, I don't.

8:34 I'll vamp.

8:34 Yeah. I've got one that's one of my favorite lyrics of all time. Daryl Scott, second time that I've referenced him today. One of my favorite songwriters. humans on earth but he's got a song called it starts out i was born and raised in my father's house a can catching rain in the kitchen that line's so sick so um um he said a good song never comes to those who chase it comes to those who listen i'm like that is it for me yeah and as a songwriter you're like it's just it allows you to sit back and observe the world and i just love that line.

9:07 I like, I get knocked down, but I get up again. You're never going to keep me down. And then pissing the night away.

9:13 Pissing the night away.

9:14 Yeah.

9:14 That's where it got you.

9:15 It's a little anarchist band called Chumawamba.

9:17 I love that song. It's basically like three or four choruses on repeat. Yeah.

9:21 Then the craziest part of that is they were literally an anarchist band that kind of messed with the system, made a pop song, and got in. And then tried to just create mayhem.

9:30 All right.

9:30 That's why they never had another song.

9:31 All right. They don't need another song.

9:33 No.

9:33 No. I don't know. They got older.

9:35 I think you kind of liked some other songs at that point.

9:38 The bills start coming in.

9:40 I feel like anarchy works for the young.

9:42 It does.

9:43 Once you start to get older, it's a little harder to live a life of anarchy.

9:46 Once you have bat problems, it's like, all right, fine. A little bit of government's fine, I guess. No, whatever.

9:52 I was just talking to somebody. You got to remind me, because this is not in my notes. You just produced their album. They were just in here. Oh.

10:00 Let's see. A couple of Ashley Monroe, Cassidy Daniels, Ashley McBride.

10:07 It's Ashley McBride.

10:08 Ashley, yeah. Ashley McBride.

10:09 It's funny you just start listing people. You're producing a lot of music too?

10:12 I don't know why I'm doing this. I started this whole interview off explaining how little time I have and how tired I am. It's all starting to make sense. Yeah, I do love it. I love it. Yeah, I bought a house just about five doors down from where I live. And I stay very close. So our nanny's done at 5 o'clock. I leave the studio at 4.59. I'm right at home at 5 o'clock. So I'm with my kids.

10:38 I do really enjoy it. It's the most fun part of the process, I think. You'd probably agree. It's like sitting there and creating music from nothing. It is so awesome. The rest of it is fun, but it's just so much work and it's arduous. The first part of creation is always the most fun. So I enjoy it.

10:53 Do you ever use... household items as instruments?

10:56 Sometimes. On Rum, this is, I mean, we're going way, way back, but we actually produced... Can we talk about our music?

11:01 Old music's fine right now because we've all lived it together.

11:04 Okay, all right, all right, all right. So Rum, he... If you listen to the very beginning of Rum, that's one of the songs that we produced earlier, earlier before we started working with Jay Joyce. So there's a chit, chit, chit, chit, chit thing happening in the background. I was just doing the demo in our living room. We were living together at the time. And he just took some drumsticks and was hitting the side of a futon.

11:25 Most people, it sounds like a beer bottle, but it's just an armrest of a futon.

11:28 Yeah, so I just pulled the mic over there. I was like, that sounds cool. And I looped it. And I recorded the demo to it. And when we got around to putting the song out, we were recording the song, we couldn't recreate the magic that that had. So it's the armchair of a futon.

11:42 How many times will you sing a song all the way through?

11:45 Before we get a keeper vocal? I like to sing it a lot. I mean, the thing is, especially after we start performing the songs live, there's so many songs after I've sung it a hundred times, I'm like, God, I wish I could do it now. I might change the melody a little bit. But yeah, I actually like to sing a lot when I'm in the studio. I don't know that we have any first take stuff. I think I'm too insecure for that, but.

12:08 Is it to give you options later or is it because you keep going, I don't think that was that good?

12:14 I mean, it's probably like similar to like.

12:16 If you– I mean, at this point, you're probably so good at just reading a teleprompter or something. But when you're not used to that, you just sound so robotic. It's a little like that in the studio if I'm looking at lyrics and I feel like I'm thinking about it and I'm feeling it. And then I get to a part where it just starts to kind of more come from the heart instead of the mind. And that's usually what it is for me.

12:36 Do you guys ever get into flow state, either live shows or even studio where you're just in?

12:41 I rarely get there in the studio because it's so– you're in your head because you're analyzing a lot, which is the worst place you can be, but it's kind of– it's hard to get out of that. But live, yes. Yes, absolutely. There's a couple, though.

12:55 I would say, like, Love the Lonely Out of You is a song that's a really, really deep gut for us. It wasn't on any record, but that was live, and I felt like that– it's when I listen to it now, there's a lot of– imperfections in it it just was a live recording and that's why people like it there is but there was a moment of just kind of being lost in it when we were doing it and the other um when we did our port st show record was um um uh what's this song i've got i can't remember my own songs oh is it the one we did shoot me straight was like we recorded it and it sounded all right and then jay really late at night after we had had some drinks and some other things and He was like, play it now.

13:32 We just went and were jamming late at night. That felt like performing live. I think that's why that performance turned out good.

13:40 Yeah, flow states, everything.

13:42 Yeah, you just can't predict it.

13:44 No, but you have to be very relaxed.

13:46 And you really can only reflect on it because if you're in it and you start thinking about it, you're not in it anymore. I was thinking about you guys' record, Watertown. I was actually on Facebook. I'm never on Facebook. But I have a page that is mine that I don't have any followers. I just keep up with everything in Mountain Pine. Sister, high school football team. And it's the only time I get on Facebook. And there was a woman who was griping about, yeah, we suck at football, but you guys should still come to the game. She's calling out people individually who aren't coming to the football games.

14:16 And there was a picture of the bleachers. There were like nine people there. And I just thought it was funny. And it's such a small town thing, Mountain Pine, Arkansas, a picture of the stands on a Friday night and a woman who Lives in the town complaining and calling people out for not coming to games.

14:30 I love that.

14:30 That's Mount Pine, Arkansas.

14:31 I love that. Yeah.

14:33 What's you guys' hometown like?

14:34 So it's 3,500, 4,000 people. 772 is that's... That's small, boy. But 4,000 is quite small, too. And our high school was like four different towns put together. Otherwise, it would be too small. Like mine. It would look like that, basically. And, yeah, same. Our poor football team has never been too great. We had more than nine. We had maybe 15. Not a lot of people in the stands. But our culture where we grew up, and we talk about this a lot where it's like, We had to explain. We probably even talked to you about this at some point. Like, how did you get into country music being from Maryland? And it's a question we have to answer less, but we still have to answer sometimes. It is not too dissimilar

15:19 from maybe where you grew up or like Georgia, which is like the country music state now. It's just we don't have as many farms. We have tons of farms. But our big feature is the water. So whereas people would go out like on a farm and, you know– raise a ruckus, we would go on the end of a jetty or like hide away in a duck blind at the jetty. And that's where we like drink our first beer and stuff like that. Very, very similar. It's an interesting culture too, because of where Maryland is located.

15:48 It's like if people from New York think that we're hick ass Southerners, people from Tennessee think that we're like Yankees and we're like, no one, we are the redheaded stepchild of America. But because of that, it has created this really awesome purple culture that To where it's like, Dio in particular, there are some very progressive people hanging out with some very right-wing conservative people and just getting hammered together at the bar and having the best time and busting each other's balls. That's what we knew growing up.

16:16 And it's awesome. And I think that bleeds into our music. I think the other thing, too, just with the people that get on Facebook. John and I have heard many times it's.

16:26 Actually one of the greatest things that we hear is that we haven't changed much since we've... since we've had success. And I do think it's largely true. But I think having a big family is one. But we do come from a town that is extremely proud of us. But they'd be the first people to be on Facebook being like, I ran into TJ and he's.

16:43 Not the same.

16:44 Watertown sucks. Yeah, Watertown sucks. These boys ain't it.

16:46 I miss the old buddy.

16:47 Yeah, literally. Exactly.

16:50 And I love that about them. They're so proud of us. But at the same time, they're like, don't cross us.

16:55 I feel now that I've been around the country a lot, just touring and mostly doing stand-up, that I would at one point in my life go, Illinois? How's our country music in Illinois?

17:05 Maryland? New York?

17:06 But once you go into Rochester and you go into New York, that's as rural as Mountain Pine. When you go into where you're from, when you're going to certain pockets in Illinois.

17:15 You go an hour out of any city, you could be anywhere. Especially when you go up to Massachusetts. You think Massachusetts is New England, Boston, that whole area, all the mass holes up there are awesome. But that feels northeast. You go an hour west and you could be in Arkansas.

17:34 And I feel too that... Most people associate country music with farms. I didn't grow up on a farm. I grew up in a trailer park. And that's a different kind of country music. It's country music, but there's cowboys.

17:44 Yeah, yeah.

17:45 And then there's... hillbillies yeah and and the venn diagram covers both but they're.

17:50 Not exactly the same yeah they're not.

17:52 The same like i was more white trash country than than cowboy country because i didn't wear a cowboy hat yeah i've never when i moved to this town it was you don't wear a cowboy hat or have a big belt buckle right and it was yeah because i i'm not a cowboy.

18:05 It's back it's back hey man everything's in vogue eventually yeah i call it i call them corolla cowboys just like you know these uh kind of you know put.

18:14 It on and Festival Cowboys, too.

18:16 That's what I mean, basically. Although, nothing wrong with it, whatever floats your boat. But I'm with you there. I think we grew up in a very just blue-collar, or dad was a plumber, mom was a hairdresser, and it was that way, that kind of rural, tough upbringing. I think that's kind of why our music sounds the way it does. It's country, but there is kind of this, I don't know, tougher rocker thing to it that I think is just a part of being in the Northeast, but also Just coming up with humble means. And I think that's what is great about country is it is very relatable to everyday life.

18:51 What's the texture on this record? The sonic texture? That's a hell of a question, Bobby. Well, first off, it's real instruments. I know we have to say that now. It's 2026.

19:04 Man, I'm a huge fan of AI, too. I'm really disappointed.

19:07 Don't even start it, bro. It's only a matter of time. And it's going to come after you too, brother.

19:14 I'm not even here right now.

19:15 Yeah, he's not here right now.

19:16 Yeah, I know. I've got my avatar.

19:19 None of us are. None of us. It's real instruments. It's just us. I think if you press play, it sounds. It's funny talking about we've never changed. I don't think we can. And I listen to our music. I'm like, we do sound different. And even, like, it's not for lack of trying to sound like something else. We just have a thumbprint. And a lot of it has to do with, obviously, TJ's voice, a really big baritone. But also with a lot of range in his vocal as well.

19:44 Our music is just gritty. No matter how hard we try to make it not gritty, it just is that way. But that's how... we were. We used to crawl under houses with our dads when we were 12, 13 years old, helping them do plumbing and digging trenches when we were 14. And our friends were playing sports. We were working. And that's just kind of what our music sounds like. It sounds just rough. It sounds calloused.

20:07 Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor. And we're back on the Bobby cast.

20:22 What is on this record? Cause I feel like on every record you guys have done, because I've been a fan of all of them, unless it's like the ones that I never had option to me. Like, I'm sure you guys made some Ford, Ford track tracks.

20:34 CDs back in the day that.

20:35 Hardcore fans are like, you don't got the Kermit album? And I'm like, no, man, I didn't get that. So other than that, I've been a fan of every one of your records. And there's always something on it that's a bit different. I mean, if it's a seven-hour guitar solo, if it's a live version, what does this record have that's a little different?

20:55 Yeah, I mean, we've attempted to do that. I mean, that's not only for our fans, but for us. I mean, we don't want to do the same thing over and over again. But I think I would say it was probably a lot more conceptual than any of our other records. We've always, for whatever reason, I feel like there's just songs that show up and then you're like, ah, that's where we're going to springboard from or anchor from. And Watertown was the title track. It just seemed like, okay, this is kind of a moment for us to get back to our roots in the sense of how we sound, the things we talk about, who we are, where we're from.

21:32 And I think a lot of people have just always been very confused, like, we're from Maryland. What is that even like? I don't know what even comes to someone's mind when they think of Maryland, but it certainly is not where we come from. And for the longest time, we would tell people, oh, we're from Annapolis, because no one knew where our... And speaking of the Facebook thing, no one knows where Deal is. And we did that one time, and everyone was like, you're not from Annapolis.

21:56 You're from Deal, Maryland.

21:57 And I was like, you know what? That's actually... I love the sense of pride there. And I think for this was.

22:01 um, a record that felt like, uh, something that we wanted to say, but more of kind of like, Hey guys, like this is our record. Like this is a tribute to you, you all and to the town is it is such a huge part of who we are. Um, and I, you know, we got to go back and do a little, we did a little pop up there for everybody and just to do a little free show to come out, kind of promote the record, but also give a free show to the people who have been there since the beginning.

22:26 And, It was such a weird experience. We arrived by boat, which was so cool. We come in and jump onto the pier. We're walking up, and the whole town is just roaring for us. And there was this weird feeling. I've had this feeling before that I've made it, but it really felt the most punctuated version of that.

22:48 I thought to myself, we haven't played in this town since we left it.

22:53 And who I was.

22:55 not only musically, but as a person when I left here is very different. And it just was like, it was almost hard to even perform. I was so overwhelmed with emotion from it. And it was this beautiful thing because it felt like, one, it felt like we made it, but it felt like we did this.

23:12 We all did this.

23:13 And that was like, it was such a euphoric feeling. And that's what this record to me just feels like, you know, honoring that.

23:21 If you guys went to town, That's what we would say. We'd go to town. That's where the Walmart was. Or if you went to a concert, I'm assuming that people didn't come through deal to play shows. So where would you go?

23:33 Annapolis probably. I mean, the thing is, there's nothing. We don't even have a Walmart near us. Our town is like the quintessential small business. I mean, it's everything you need, small grocery store, small gym.

23:47 There's nothing.

23:47 At the moment, anytime something tries to come in that's corporate, everyone's like, get the hell out of here. And so to do that, like to go to the movies or something, we would probably go up to Annapolis, which is like 30 minutes north of us. But the thing is, people in that town, because it's all kind of everything you really want and need, a lot of people just don't leave.

24:04 I mean, you just kind of have everything there. So, you know, that's why it's just– We consume.

24:09 A lot of beer there. Yeah. Well, D.C. is like an hour east or west, and Baltimore is an hour north. So it's this kind of weird pocket. The closer you get to D.C., it becomes very metropolitan, same as Baltimore. But where we are, it's just right on the water, so it's kind of untouched by that metropolitan sprawl. So if you wanted to go see a show, you could go to D.C., you could go to Baltimore. For smaller stuff, you would go to Annapolis. But the deal, I mean, if you're playing— one of our three bars for 20 people.

24:42 You probably don't have to be touring through there. No.

24:44 And that was another thing doing that show there. I was like, there's probably, I mean, there's a bunch of people that I don't know if they've ever even been to DC in their life, even though it's only an hour or 15 minutes, one hour away. And they just like, you know, it's like a garlic to a vampire to them.

24:58 They're just like, they just can't do it. And so we're like, okay, well, we'll jump back here and do that. But yeah, it's, it's an unusual town.

25:04 It is. It's very, very, very cool.

25:06 And that's another reason why we wanted to kind of, You know, give people a little bird's eye view into what.

25:09 That's like there.

25:10 Where I learned the rurality of that area was playing Jiffy Lube Live.

25:15 Oh, yeah.

25:15 And that's in Northern Virginia, obviously. But they'd be like, you're playing in D.C. And I'd be like, this ain't D.C.

25:20 I know. It's rural.

25:21 Yeah, it's rural.

25:22 And it's out there.

25:25 It's so the juxtaposition of that versus that whole area.

25:29 Yeah.

25:29 Like that's like normal where normal people live.

25:31 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, a lot of amphitheaters are like that though, are a bit out of town, but they claim the nearest city or the nearest city claims it. But yeah, I mean, that is just very rural. You know, there are a lot of, there are a lot of farmlands up there, a lot of equine sports, a lot of equine training and stuff like that. That happens up there.

25:49 It's really funny, man. It's just a, it's an eclectic group of people. Cause there's a lot of money. Up in that area. Because, you know, the closer to D.C. you get, lobbyists, corruption, all that junk. But you get a lot of people that work for the government. And then there's a lot of, like, equine stuff where it's like, this guy's training on my $ 40 million horse or whatever.

26:08 And then you go where we're from, and you're like, everyone here is just, like, scraping by. But we're all kind of coexisting together. It's really interesting. But have everything you want all at the same time. Yeah.

26:17 I was talking with a friend yesterday who is an artist, and we were talking about just what music's like now. And we feel like we were lucky to get into just being creative when we did because we're around the same age, around 40 years old, both of us. I'm a little more than that. He's right at it. And that we got to experience a bit of monoculture before it all went away because it doesn't exist now. There's nothing that everybody's involved in anymore. And he would say people will hit him up and say, hey, can you have lunch and talk to me about how you made it as an artist? And he's like, there's no. there's no plan anymore. You can have the exact blueprint, and that's not the blueprint because that happened to just work

26:56 for that one person. How would you tell someone to make it now?

27:01 I wouldn't have a plan. We actually say all the time, we wouldn't make it now. I mean, us was just kind of sheer work. I mean, we had skill, but we went out and, you know, there was a lot of things in Nashville at the time. You can go out and perform your songs and just kind of almost like working comedy bits in these small clubs.

27:17 It felt that way here. You could have small songwriter rounds. kind of just see what was working or not. And I don't know that that even exists at all anymore. I mean, the networking thing is certainly there. And as we see AI come into the fold of how that's integrated in the way things are. I mean, I will say, I mean, it's always been tough. I thought it was nearly impossible when we did it. The other big problem now is how expensive it is to do it and to get out and make fans on the road. It's such a massive money loser. to go out and do it that I don't know. That's the thing that I hate for the people who are really good and aren't going to do the look at me stuff that gets you noticed on social media. And quite frankly, in my opinion,

27:59 the most talented ones are the ones who don't do that. They're so good because they're introverts who sit in their room and work on their lyrics and that's what they do to get it out. And those people, I don't know. I don't know how you can do it because it's not economically viable anymore.

28:20 And the formula seems tough for an artist to have real staying power in that it's very much shots on goal right now. If you're a new artist, you've got to make 500 videos to hopefully get one to do anything. And so you're spending all your time making this content. You're doing your music, making this content. All your time is that. And if one of them hits, it's like, okay, you're ready to go. But you haven't spent any time actually getting ready to go. You've just spent time shot on goal, shot on goal, shot on goal. So it's not conducive to long success because it's, well, let's sign you to a deal. You had a song go viral, but you haven't had the time to get good because you've spent all that time just doing that one thing

28:57 and making them videos.

28:58 And I don't like... I hate on anyone for doing it that way. I mean, that's just kind of how it is done now. I don't like he said, we probably wouldn't make it. He's not wrong. I don't know. Like at the time, all we knew to do was like, show up, be professional. Be as good as you can be with whatever you got and work really, really, really hard.

29:17 That's just kind of how we were raised. And it worked for us. And now it's like, yeah, do all those things, but learn how to make video content. So it's like, so you're telling me I've got to be a personality on top of all that? The whole reason I wanted to play guitar is because I didn't have a personality. I was terrified. I was never the guy that was like, look at me. So today, guys, we're going to be doing this thing. It was like... I want to go to my room as soon as humanly possible.

29:42 And I don't want to come out until I have to, because that's all I wanted to do. And maybe one day I can play music on a stage where I'm around a bunch of people, but I'm far enough away that I don't have to make a fool out of myself trying to talk to them. I don't know if I would be able to do it now. I truly don't.

29:59 I think the other thing, too, is I say this all the time to people that want some input on what to do is to write songs, write your own music. It's way easier to find good singers than it is to find great songs. There just aren't a lot of them. And when people have them, they cling on to them for dear life. I mean, you could spend your whole career and only have a couple of them that you're known for. And, you know, now that is the other thing I worry about. You kind of touched on this a little bit with what you said, is these people are having to spend so much time on content that has nothing to do with music that they don't have the time or the bandwidth to create. And I feel like that is potentially an advantage for someone who is

30:38 focusing on that. But I do think of all of it, that's the hardest thing to come by. I mean, you could name a ton of singers who aren't great, who have huge songs that everyone adores, and you could say the opposite. So I think that is always number one is just creating the music. But now, I mean, again, between being disincentivized with the way AI is and just a litany of other things, it's just I'm really curious to see what's going to happen. I also am like more concerned with the way AI is in the sense that it is only a matter of time, even for us creators and being like, we don't want anything to do with this, that there is a song that is so good and undeniable that it's everywhere. And then that's

31:17 what happens from there is kind of my biggest fear. Yeah.

31:22 Okay.

31:22 Existential question. You hear a song. It really brings out the emotion in you. You later find out it's AI.

31:31 What do you do? That is okay. I don't know because it has not happened yet. However, if something makes you feel something, okay, you shouldn't deny yourself the gift of feeling anything ever. And if you find out that it's AI, it might break your heart because you have some sort of emotional attachment to this thing. But if it means something to you, let it mean something to you.

32:02 I mean, at the end of the day... It's like art really is just the reflection. It's like art is like a mirror. You know, you look at something and now that makes me feel something. I listen to something that makes me feel something. It's a reflection on what you feel. Art only does half the job. Like a painting is just paint on a canvas. It's not a big deal. The person that is viewing the paint, now that he's doing, they are doing the other half of the job and they're feeling something from it. If you hear a song, you're like, I hate this song. It makes me want to rip my hair out. Well, that's how it makes you feel. You're experiencing art. So I don't know if you could take it away from it that much. I don't even have an issue really with it.

32:44 Like I've listened to some AI stuff before. of like funny country songs or funny music. And I laugh hysterically because it's funny. And it's meant to be funny. My only gripe with all of it is that like, it is like the thing that makes us so human. That is our experience in this world as we get to create art. Don't take the humanity away from us. Then we just become an inanimate object as far as I'm concerned.

33:10 That is our way to experience and celebrate this little window of time that we have on this earth. Don't take that from us. Yeah.

33:17 And the other thing I will say is like with, I do feel like, and I would love for you to chime in on this, is I do feel like that there is, and a lot of people have been saying this, and I feel it's already happening. It actually has already happened before AI has gotten the way it has now. It's just people really putting a premium on things that are authentic. And I do think there are music lovers who just really, even before this happened, if it was auto-tuned vocals or over-edited music, they were already starting to kind of reject that anyway. And you see a lot of really massive artists now who have just been really real and raw. And I think that is going to become more and more of a thing. And

33:57 it's inevitable that there's going to be AI artists that are successful. But the other thing too, is there already is very little money to make in the songs that used to be, you know, in the heyday, it was all about the songs. And I would love for their to be something that changed that. But, you know, for most artists where you make your money for now, I feel like everything's trying to strip this away from the last little pillar for us is touring live. And that experience, I feel like, is just irreplaceable. We noticed through the pandemic when we'd get on the computer and do these little pop-up shows that no one really cared. You know, it was like they weren't able to have this experience together.

34:36 And that is the one thing that I just feel like is just irreplaceable.

34:40 I feel like throughout modern history, when something is taken away, something inadvertently becomes more valuable, right? It's just the nature of the pendulum.

34:48 Yeah, totally.

34:49 And to what you're saying, let's say some of the bandwidth that people have to have all these songs in their life, and some of them are AI, and it takes up some of the space. I think when that happens, what's going to become more valuable is live, in-person, real.

35:09 Totally.

35:10 And so it's already valuable, right? Because there's a reason that 50,000 people go to a music festival, 10,000 go to a concert. People love it already. I think the value is going to be in live performances. And I think that's going to become more valuable because there's going to be, again, filling the space, all these songs and all these artists, real artists, mid artists, fake artists, all of that, but they all can't do live what a live entertainer can do.

35:37 Yeah.

35:37 I would even say like, At an award show recently I was at, there was a lot of live performances happening, and I thought, wow, this is really cool. A lot of times for just time's sake, they're having people play the tracks simply from a production standpoint. But this, everyone was playing live. I thought it was great. And there was a couple of artists, one in particular, who was totally canned. And it was really, to me, not that they don't have the ability not to do that. It just really rang as disingenuous in the room, and you could just feel it.

36:07 It was so weird. You could really truly feel it. Like there was no, it wasn't better or worse. It's just the energy wasn't there. The spirit, whatever that X factor is, it just wasn't in the room. It was so strange. And I think, you know, it's inevitable.

36:22 Again, I think it's a matter of time before there's this big AI artist or song that's just going to happen. And at least for me, I just, how I've always been when I get too caught up on what's going on is just focus on myself. Like what can I control? What can I create? And that's all I can have done from the beginning anyway. And so just still not to be distracted by that, keep making the best music I can.

36:43 I think the fear for me is whenever something hits, and it could be in my space, the podcasting space, the creator space, whenever something AI hits and it is accepted because it's so successful, it hits like critical mass, it then allows others to come in.

37:02 Yeah.

37:03 I can go back to when Cher did Believe and Auto-Tune was really popped on that song, but it was popped on purposefully.

37:08 Yeah, right.

37:08 And then it kind of allowed other songs to pop it on purposefully. So then you had all these people using Auto-Tune either outwardly or inwardly. But because it was done at a big level, it was a little more okay to do that. And that's happened for a long time, not to where you don't even think about it now.

37:23 You just use Auto-Tune.

37:25 Well, to use the pendulum, there is a part– I always think of disco. When you think of BG, he's one of the greatest bands ever. it was, you know, everyone thought it was over, that it was just disco only for the rest of time. And so many people did it that everyone even started to hate the Bee Gees. And I think there is that thing that there will be a tension there, a point of break for people.

37:44 But most people don't really know or care.

37:47 Or care. I think that's it. You're right. And they just want to hear a good song.

37:50 Yeah, make them feel.

37:51 Yeah, make them feel something. And so it will happen.

37:53 But Again, I think there's a lot of people that do, and we'll be there for them.

38:00 But I also think that it's important to understand that the artist now has become more important and that it's not a computer. It's not a program. It's not this AI-generated image with this AI song. It's live. Like, how do I connect this person? I mean, I've always been very good at trying to separate the art from the artist.

38:20 People are going to want to go, who is this person? And I want to attach my horse to that person and this art and stuff like that. And I think all of those things, the more human aspect of art is going to just become more important. Well, I already feel like we've noticed that even within our own stuff. Like, I mean, another thing with making this last record, we even with the pictures were like, we don't want anything edited.

38:39 We want this to be like, even if it just looks like crap, you know, like, and what we've seen with like little videos of us putting stuff up, there is a moment even where I was like, God, this looks, this looks terrible. Like I want to have some good lighting and I want to have, you know, someone on camera who knows what they're doing. And, and always those, that type of video performs way worse. When we put up the stuff, it looks like just handheld and we're wearing just whatever. And it doesn't sound that great to me.

39:06 It outperforms the other stuff like 10 times. It's crazy.

39:09 Like there's a couple, one video that our manager, I was like, please don't put this up. And I had a huge, like They had a huge I told you so moment because it was like one of our most played videos, and I thought it was terrible sounding. And I think that's the thing. People are like, wait, this is real and honest, and they feel it.

39:25 The Bobbycast. We'll be right back. This is The Bobbycast.

39:39 What song started the whole record?

39:41 So initially, we were writing for it, and there was a song called Family Business. And that seemed to be something where we were writing. It was like the center of the dartboard. The concentric circles kind of went out from there. And then I wrote the song Watertown that seemed to be even further to the center than even Family Business. Just because a lot of the songs on here are specifically Family Business and Watertown are very autobiographical songs.

40:08 You know, we didn't want to write. It's easy to go, OK, I'm a natural. I'm going to write like as wide as possible just so I cover as much ground. This time we were very specific and, you know, talked about the passing of our grandmother and putting our ashes in the water, you know, and seeing like the clouds overhead, like it raining and becoming thunderous and all of these things, this type of imagery. It is very much that. It's like where I fought a friend. I remember TJ and his best friend got into a fist fight on a pier one time. Sorry, Patrick. We're still very close friends. Yeah, Patrick's the best. But those things of learning and those formidable years, I don't know. I just wanted to be

40:50 more on the nose and more literal with the writing. So that one then became the focal piece of the album, which is why we titled it Watertown.

40:57 What do you think is the greatest crowd sung song ever and i think this question because i like when you guys do it ain't my fault but not of our own no not of you well it depends if you know how he does he always wants to make it i don't but i was just thinking about because i've been to you guys's shows a few of them and i like that yeah yeah what do you think is the greatest crowd sang song ever like.

41:20 Sounds good Oh, Dead Wind's good.

41:22 The Na Na Na part?

41:24 Sweet Caroline. Sweet Caroline. Yeah. Sweet Caroline, for sure. It's so funny.

41:28 As a performer, there's so many songs that are just like low-hanging fruit.

41:31 You don't do them. Don't stop believing. I was just somewhere this past weekend.

41:35 I was with a bunch of these old cats who were playing up on stage, having the time of their lives. And they played The Devil Went Down to Georgia, which is like– they played– Sweet Caroline. And I was out here drinking a beer, having the time of my life.

41:47 I'm like, this is amazing. I'm having so much fun. Yeah, when you forget to be cool, you enjoy life.

41:50 Yeah, you're like, this is badass. Yeah, definitely that. Or, yeah. We Will Rock You, or Bohemian Rhapsody.

42:00 Yeah, Bohemian Rhapsody.

42:01 That's a good one.

42:02 I think Don't Stop Believin' for sure. Basically, it's like whatever songs are playing down on Broadway right now. Those are the songs.

42:11 I think Free Fallin' is a good one, too.

42:12 Free Fallin' is great.

42:13 The whole crowd sings Free Fallin'. It's a strong one. I saw John Mayer was doing all those Sphere shows. Reminds me of Free Fallin' because he has that record.

42:20 Which is awesome.

42:21 I'm a big John Mayer guy.

42:22 Yeah, he does an amazing version of that.

42:24 Have you guys been to the Sphere at all?

42:26 Yes, it's insane. Dead & Co.

42:27 There.

42:29 Oh, he played that.

42:30 Yeah, exactly. Mare was there.

42:32 How's that place?

42:33 Have you ever been? No. Wow, that shocks me.

42:36 Where do I go? I don't want to go anywhere.

42:39 I'm good.

42:40 I stay in my house or I go fly and work somewhere. Go to the Sphere.

42:43 Just do the Sphere. Do the Sphere. There's only one in the world. I loved it. I thought it was great.

42:47 Now, also, I think the thing that helped is it was a bunch of Grateful Dead fans who are just fun to be around.

42:54 It is.

42:54 It is so weird to go from, like, the wind, and then you walk in the sphere, and it's all these tie-dyed shirts, and everyone's, like, just transcending out of the world, really.

43:04 And then you walk back in there, and everyone's.

43:05 Got, like, Gucci and Fendi on, and these dudes are walking around in their tie-dyes.

43:10 It's a wild experience. You should go. It's phenomenal.

43:13 Kenny has asked me to come out a few times, and it's just.

43:16 I don't know. Yeah, he asks us to come out, too, all the time. I'm kidding.

43:19 I'm sure you guys.

43:21 Kenny Rogers?

43:23 No, Kenny from South Park.

43:24 Oh, Kenny from South Park. Yeah, yeah.

43:25 But I just, I don't know. It's a long flight.

43:28 It is a long flight.

43:29 I'm also jaded.

43:30 No, just go, dude.

43:32 John Mayer, I may. I love John Mayer.

43:34 Yeah, of course. Yeah, he's amazing.

43:36 You ever played with him?

43:37 No.

43:37 Never met him. No, but God, he's amazing. He rips in that band.

43:42 You never met him?

43:43 Lord, no.

43:43 No, we don't know each other now. He's never met me, I should say.

43:47 Yeah.

43:48 I would think two guitar virtuosos would have just like– there was like an app or something. You could swipe right if you also like their guitar playing.

43:54 Oh, right.

43:55 And then you just end up playing on a stage together.

43:57 It's just he's a nerd. I'm a nerd. And I think it's like we'd be too exposed. But I know how much of a nerd you are, dude. You're cool. You're good-looking guys. Cool. He's got amazing watches. He's a nerd. He is a nerd. I'm a nerd. I know this. I can say it because I'm a nerd.

44:11 Do you notice anything about his playing that is– particularly different or elevated?

44:17 There are a few things about it, but really it's his sense of feel and time is ridiculous. I mean, it's very technical, but there are a lot more, way more technical guitar players than John Mayer. But it's his sense of time and his feel and his tone. He just sings, man. My favorite guitar player is just singing with their hands. I think with.

44:38 Him, especially playing, that I had noticed for the first time he was playing with the dad was there's a lot of guitar playing.

44:46 Oh, yeah.

44:46 And you don't really see much repetition. It's all of this, like, new, going different places. And that's really, really tough to not start to copy or do the same tricks over and over again. I mean, I really feel like him being there, to me, again, just really highlighted his, like, proficiency in guitar.

45:06 I mean, he's insane.

45:08 We had a season of friendship, about a year and a half or so, where if you came to town... He'd see me if I was in L.A. I'd see him. We hung out a few times. And I remember talking to him about playing with Dead & Co. Is that what you call it? Dead Company? Can I call it Dead & Co.

45:23 I don't know. We'll allow it.

45:25 Thank you. And we were just talking about nerves. And he said that he really doesn't get nervous for a lot because he's prepared. But he was really nervous for that. Because it wasn't his.

45:37 Yeah. Oh, yeah. And those guys, like Deadheads, know that music in and out. And they don't know just the song. They know every bootleg version of that song of the past 50 years. So they are very, very intense. But you can tell John's a student. He sat down.

45:54 He said he went to his, maybe Montana or Wyoming, wherever he had a house. And he went up and he took his guitar and just went up there and just practiced for a month because he was so nervous about not playing. not just knowing it, but not fully understanding it. I think there's a difference, right? No, there isn't entirely. That's what's so impressive about him. I mean, he also is filling the shoes of Jerry. So it's like he has to kind of, I don't know if he has to, but I feel like he pays tribute to Jerry, but isn't ripping Jerry off.

46:25 It's like this fine little thread in the needle thing that he does on every song that I think is just really overlooked a lot of times.

46:31 We have people come in and they bring music that, They love, it could be something that inspired them when they were young, something that inspires them now. What vinyl do you have over there? And will you hold it up for the camera?

46:40 Yes, here we go. This is Dan Auerbach. It's called Waiting on a Song. Yeah, Waiting on a Song, yeah. But this record, I love it because I feel like it is largely overlooked. And I think it's one of my, maybe a top 10 record for me. I think every song on here I love. You can play it around anyone at any point in time. And Dan also, it was, which he still does, just went through.

47:04 Kind of took all these old session player cats who played on the most iconic records ever and it's like a weird thing in music where it feels like oh we were older now we got to use the new age people but he was getting all these guys who played on like Elvis records and everything to come in and play so there's just a lot of soul and the song's great and obviously Dan's an amazing guy I mean his.

47:24 His production elements are insane just his overall sonics are insane and.

47:29 We used to have the same manager and so I know that when you bring these here you have to leave them You have to, well, we donate them. Well, we donate them, but I also know that I can get another one of these for free.

47:38 Fair enough.

47:39 See, you brought one that you need for free.

47:41 That's not why. It genuinely is one of my favorite records.

47:43 Also, write it off.

47:45 A lot of people know Dan from the Black Keys, and it's just, that's an awesome band. I love all their music. This does not sound anything like that. It literally doesn't sound like the same guy. You can hear the timbre and the voice, but the Black Keys is so rooted in old, muddy blues music that This is very harmonically rich, beautiful melodies, counter melodies. It's almost like Wall of Sound style production. It's awesome. I think it's almost a perfect record. Yeah, and he wrote it with also the same thing with the writers. It was all these old classic writers. I'm pretty sure Dan Auerbach. I think he wrote a song with John Prine. John Prine, right.

48:21 That's what I meant to say. Obviously, he wrote songs with himself. John Prine and Pat.

48:26 Pat McLaughlin. Pat McLaughlin.

48:29 My Dan story is... So he produced one of the latest Hank Williams Jr. records. And so Hank was coming into the studio, and they were going to play one of the songs, and Dan was leading the band. He came in with Hank, and it went pretty viral. Hank got pissed and left. We yelled at each other a little bit.

48:51 I think I remember that happening. Dan or Hank? I don't remember what happened with Hank. Remind me how that went. You don't want to relive that?

48:57 Oh, no, I don't mind. It's really... hilarious.

49:00 I can look it up on the way. Yeah.

49:01 And it's all, it's a great video. You should look it up. So, you know, the backstory, I didn't even know the backstory on why he was, why Hank was pissed. All I know is that I grew up a fan cause my grandma was a fan and he was in, but he was just like so irritable and grouchy. He just, he just was, was like, can I get out of here?

49:17 And finally I was like, if you want to go, you're free to go. Well, you should ask like four times, like go, please leave. And Dan's sitting over there with the guitar. He's going to play music. And then Dan ended up doing the interview with me after Hank left. And to me, whatever. That sucks, but maybe he was in a bad— I didn't know what was going on. Later, I find out that he wanted to smoke his cigar in, like, the room, and whomever it was was like, you can't smoke in the building. It's, like, against the rules. And he was so pissed at them that he brought it in the room. I was so confused by the whole thing, but he kept talking about how he just wanted to leave, and finally I was like, didn't leave!

49:50 That's a way better story than, yeah, he just kind of did an interview. Would you have let him smoke the cigar? Before your experience with him now.

50:00 No, I enjoyed the experience. I love someone who's themselves regardless. I don't have to be their friend. I love consistency with folks.

50:09 Same.

50:10 As long as you're consistent, I don't care if you're a dick or nice.

50:12 I always say that.

50:13 Yeah, just be consistent. I love that about people. I'm probably not going to be your best friend. But I can respect that.

50:19 I know what to expect.

50:20 If I know what I'm going to get, that's awesome. And I try to be that with people. And so, no, I really enjoyed the experience because that is a moment for me that was kind of fun because, you know, I'm like a pilot. It's crazy to be up in the air, but also you do this all the time.

50:33 Yeah.

50:34 You don't get those moments.

50:35 That's a real moment. It's a real one.

50:37 And it's up and it went super viral.

50:39 Yeah.

50:40 Yeah, do I wish that it had been amazing and he'd have given some great stories?

50:44 Yes.

50:45 And would I have let him smoke the cigar?

50:47 Yeah.

50:49 He's a legend.

50:50 And there's probably.

50:51 Three people in all the music that I would allow that.

50:53 Yes, of course. Of course.

50:55 But I didn't know it was happening.

50:56 Yeah.

50:57 And so once he left and everybody left, I was like, oh, he doesn't hate me. He hates all of you.

51:02 Let him do that.

51:04 But Dan did the interview because Hank left. And I was like, so this record you guys did.

51:11 That's awesome. There aren't many people like that left. It's a generational thing, I think, you know. And also it's like, it is really important. I don't think like following those footsteps, you know, because I think it's important to show up, always be nice, be respectful, be light. But man, it is awesome to be around someone that does not give a damn about being light sometimes. And you kind of like, I don't know. I love that. I love that about him.

51:35 I loved that.

51:35 Yeah.

51:36 And people will say, dang, how did you feel weird? No, I thought it was awesome. I had a real experience with somebody that I grew up listening to.

51:42 Oh, yeah.

51:43 And he wasn't mad. Once I learned he wasn't mad at me. And then I wasn't only mad at him. It was just a moment. I got a moment with Hank Jr. It's pretty amazing.

51:50 That's right. Yes, exactly. Awesome.

51:53 Let me ask you this before you guys go. What do you hope people feel when they hear your music?

51:57 Ooh, that's a great question. I hope they feel– I certainly hope they– I feel like if someone says that they don't like country music or something like this, you hear it all the time for some reason in countries especially. I don't like country music, but I like this artist and I like this artist. And I hope that we make it in that batch. And I do feel like I know we've made music that I feel like you may not like it, but I know it's good. And I hope that people just respect that we work really hard and we are forever kind of students of the craft and we really take it seriously and.

52:36 Think it's real because it is.

52:38 What's the song? What's the single?

52:41 Born and Raised Hell. Cody. Cody Johnson.

52:44 Tell me a story about that because I'll just play it.

52:45 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, Born and Raised Hell. Wrote that with Kindle Marvel and Lee Thomas Miller. Those two probably had the most cuts on our records. Love those guys. And obviously it was very much like a Kindle Marvel title and it's so good. But I had mentioned to them that we were writing more towards our hometown. Very hometown focused.

53:05 And we wrote the song. Turned out well enough to where we cut it and then T.J. had mentioned getting Cody on it, who's been a buddy of ours for a long time. And we were going to text him in that same day. It was actually the day before I was going to reach out to him. He asked us to sing on his record. I was like, well, oddly enough, we were going to ask you to sing on our record. He said, I don't care. Let's just do it. We'll do both. There's no rules. So he kindly came and sang on this record with us. And it starts off the whole album. It's Born and Raised Hell, which we want to put people right in Deal, Maryland, where we were born and raised hell. Here it is.

53:40 We can't be more direct with that. And it just talks about being out on the water and going out to the jetty and Rockhold Creek, the creek that we grew up on. But that's the lead single, and Cody absolutely knocked it out of the park. Yeah, he's unbelievable.

53:55 Whenever we play Stay a little longer, I love that song.

53:59 Thank you.

54:00 Thank you.

54:01 I also like the emotional you guys. I like emo. I like emo brothers.

54:08 Emo bros.

54:09 Tell me a story about that song.

54:11 About with Stay?

54:12 Yeah.

54:13 We wrote with Shane McAnally. The one thing I thought was with that song is we had recorded that song previously with a guy named Brad Hill, would be like some of the early stuff you're talking about. We did release. And there was a moment we went out and we were touring a bunch and our sound just kind of changed.

54:29 And it takes so long to get a single out that we were like, we don't really sound like that anymore. And we went in and re-recorded it. And so many people actually hated the version that we re-recorded because they were so used to the old one. And so that wasn't like a song where we just had to kind of take a leap of faith. The radio was like, hey, give us a blessing on the original version. that we kind of switched it up. And that song is really interesting, too, because the verses don't really say anything. They're just kind of these long, whole notes, something like a strong wind's coming over me, feeling, thinking something.

55:02 Shouldn't be or really shouldn't be. They were kind of fillered for us to write the verses later.

55:05 And then there just was like, and Shane's so amazing at just going with a feeling, but it's like a classic thing where there's just something in it that is saying more than what the words are, and we tried to change it, and it just wasn't working. And then the other thing I will say with that song is we re-recorded it with Jay Joyce, and that was the first time we worked with him. And at the time, we were kind of a greenhorn band going in there.

55:29 I mean, we knew what we were doing, but at this point, it was kind of a clash of two minds. And John is playing the solo, and Jay is being brutal. He's like, we're playing live. Our band's up on the stage. And he's like, man, why couldn't you play it the way you just did in sound check?

55:48 And he's like, what do you mean? I'm playing it the same way. He's like, no, you're not. And they're going back and forth. And he's like, you're rushing it.

55:54 You're dragging.

55:55 You're dragging. Stop. You're rushing.

55:57 And he's like, every take, he's like hammering John. And John finally gets really pissed. And to this point, John's like sweating. He's like angry. He's like, everyone shut the hell up. Except for I was replaced with the F word. I don't know what you can or can't say on this show. Everyone shut the hell up. Hit record, and then John just threw this like fire fury of being pissed and like, just rips the shit out of the guitar.

56:20 And then Jay was like, perfect.

56:21 You can say that word though. Just not the other one.

56:22 Yeah. I feel like that's better.

56:24 You can say whatever you want. I just wonder you're choosing of which bad word.

56:27 Well, I feel like the F is worse than the S. No, no. Yeah.

56:29 But I just didn't know where the, like the threshold was.

56:33 I'll say S around. I'll throw an S around.

56:38 And then, uh, and then when that was done, I do love that song. Cause it was, it was, it was, there was passion and John was like, You know, John always uses a Billy Gibbons quote. He said, every guitar solo should sound like a drowning man trying to make it to shore. And that's like what it felt like when we were done. And then Jay was like, perfect, we got it. And that's the solo.

56:54 Yeah, it wasn't fun, but I was very angry.

56:57 When you play that solo, because it's an extended.

57:00 Yeah.

57:00 It goes for a while.

57:01 It goes on.

57:02 How long, actually?

57:02 I don't know. It's probably three minutes or so. The solo itself.

57:06 Did you have that mapped out or did you play that?

57:08 Yes and no. The funny thing about that solo in particular, I remember when we first recorded it, it was right around the corner over at, the first recording was done over at.

57:18 Don't say way around the corner. People can't find me.

57:21 Over on the corner, Epcot Center. Okay, good, good, good. Yeah.

57:24 You're going to dox me through your story?

57:27 Exactly. Like, that's a corner. The recording studio at Epcot Center. And anyway, but I recorded it, and I thought to myself, honestly, this is such a fun opportunity. We're signed. This might be our first and only record. I want to have my Freebird, Hotel California moment. And I was like, let's just keep repeating the end, and I'll just play a solo.

57:48 And I just built something there. And I was like, that was cool. I might never have that opportunity again. But I got to put my stake in the ground for maybe for someone down the road to maybe hear this song. I didn't know what our career was going to turn into. But through that and then playing it live, I eventually kind of molded this concept. But it was never, it was definitely never something where it was like, it's got to be this note every time. I always left a little bit of room to mess with it. I still do. The other thing, Jay wanted to change the melody.

58:18 So the, I guess I tell myself when I'm not. He wanted it to be just a straight melody.

58:24 I tell myself I'm not in love, but one more time is not enough.

58:28 And when the version came back, I was actually like, I actually do really like this. But I'm like, man, we're already re-recording a version that people like anyways. This is a complete melody change.

58:39 And part of me, it is one of those things, if I could go back and be like, and just have two parallel universes to see which one would have done better. But Jay was, he responded, sorry Jay, we love you, but He was like, well, at this point, he had a bunch of hit records, and we didn't have a hit to our name.

58:55 And he goes, well, what do I know? And I'm like, oh, God. He did it. So I said, Jay. He said the thing. He did.

59:00 I said, Jay.

59:00 He said the thing.

59:01 I'm like, look, you're going to go on. You'll never hear this song for the rest of your life. You'll go on to producing other records. And I have to play this for the.

59:06 Rest of my life.

59:07 So this is how it's going.

59:08 Do you guys ever watch Dark Mad? that show that splits off?

59:11 No, it's good.

59:11 Yeah, it was a good book. But you mentioned Timelines. I'm a nerd for all that.

59:15 I love that stuff. Yeah, me too. All right, everybody.

59:19 Support the record. Listen to the record. And if you like it, listen to it twice.

59:22 Yes. Love you guys. Love you, buddy.

59:23 Always good to see you.

59:25 I feel I've been wanting to do this show with you for a long time. I've been watching and watching it. Thanks for having us.

59:30 Thanks. We just did over and you served your hour. You served your hour. It's like a prison sentence. You served your hour. There they are. The Great Brothers Osborne.

59:40 Thanks for listening to a Bobbycast production.