In the Weeds: Bobby Fires Back at Internet Haters & Ranks Country Music's Rising Stars

Hey everybody, first, I want to talk about therapy yesterday.

I was in therapy and we.

Talked a lot about restraint and mostly from me, I was talking to my therapist about how I'm in my own algorithm, something I've talked about here before. So not even clips that I do or content that I do, but content that other people do about me. always pops up into my algorithm. And I would rather not see it because then I just want to fight everybody. In my life, I've been pretty good about keeping negative things just.

Out of reach, out of sight.

If I can't see them, if I can't touch them, they can't hurt me for the most part.

Same with sugar, especially. I love sweets.

I don't keep cookies in the house. If I do decide to buy cookies, it'll be an order of maybe six cookies. Obviously, they have to be dairy-free because of my allergy. And I'll have the six. I'll eat them on a Friday, Saturday, and then I'm done again. But I can't keep boxes of cookies in the house because I'll always eat them. Same with people. If there are people that I know and feel are toxic or make me just not feel good, I tend to not have them around.

It can be professionally or personally.

And what I was talking about in therapy was I would like to be able to keep me out of my algorithm, but instead I will see clips of people talking about me, sometimes trying to goad me into fighting them back. And I have full awareness of why it's happening. And it's probably happened four or five times over the past couple of weeks. And It happens a decent amount because what I think, my theory is that people would love for me to comment back or fight back and then platform them because now they are legitimate.

If someone says some.

Things about me and then I fire back and I talk about it on my platform, which is bigger than theirs, well, now they have all these brand new eyeballs to look at them and that lifts them up. And even though I have that awareness, it doesn't mean it makes me feel good. It would actually feel really good to melt them.

There's one guy that I saw. He does like a rock morning show. I don't know the show. Never heard of the show. But I think they're syndicated in a few markets. I saw him commenting on An article that the Hollywood Reporter wrote about me, which was a pretty nice article.

And he called me an industry plant.

Now, this is somebody in a bit of the same business that I work in calling me an industry plant. There is nothing I would love more than to be an industry plant.

That'd be awesome.

To not have to kill myself, to not having to have killed myself for the past 20, 25 years, risking everything well, I'd say all my money, but I had no money at the beginning. But any money I had, like building my own syndication company, learning the technology, hiring people on the show, paying them with my own money, moving across the country, being the first nationally syndicated country show, having no markets at first, building them out, even from like touring, doing standup or television shows or writing books.

And my company was never warmed to that. They never wanted me to do that because they felt like they, that it would get in the way. And I totally understood where they were coming from. And what's been great is as I've proven that me touring, me writing books, me doing television, it's actually built something that everybody can benefit from. And now they do because there are certain sponsors that want to come on because they know me from things other than just the radio show or the podcast.

So when I see this guy and he's like industry plant, I'm not hurt by that because I'm secure in that. I would love to be planted into some industry. But I see people that I've never met, have never had any connection to, I've never talked with in any way whatsoever, ever DMed with coming after me at times. And I would love to take a bazooka to their pocket knife fight because that's what I feel like I can do.

I do feel like I'm way smarter than they are.

And when I'm mean or vindictive, Or just simply cutting, like I'm real good, but I'm not proud of it. So it'd feel good to burn the village down right there immediately. But later it doesn't feel good for a couple of reasons. After I do it, it doesn't feel good a week later when I go, man, I wish I wouldn't have platformed them. Or I wish I would have never even acknowledged them. Remember this, hate always comes from below. Generally speaking in life, The hate ain't coming from above because above ain't worried about you. Heck, they're looking to help you. Hate always comes from below. And I say that to myself a lot because especially professionally, it's true. Another situation, some guy popped up in my

algorithm going hard at me. I think he is a fired radio guy from Detroit or somewhere in Michigan that does a podcast.

And they talked about me for 10 minutes. Never met the guy.

Watched about two minutes of their YouTube video and thought this would just be too easy.

Did I want to burn it down? Absolutely. Could I have?

Yes.

And I'm triggered for a while when something like this happens.

Because I'm wildly insecure in the same way the 10 or 11-year-old kid was insecure in Whenever I would get picked on. But I couldn't do anything back. Now it's the same feeling. Except now I can do something back. And it's not even fight fire with fire. Because my feeling is.

That it's. Using a blowtorch to fight a little bit lighter. And I have the blowtorch. And there is.

A bit of responsibility that I think I should have. Because I have a blowtorch. There's another instance.

Just um. Reality guy was coming after me pretty hard. And I get it.

He wants me to fight back because with that comes attention. And so I have to look at it strategically and go, I don't want to actually give someone a gift that is being nasty to me.

So I don't. Would it feel good?

Yes.

Would it feel bad later? Yeah, it would.

Because one, I wouldn't be proud of it. And two, I don't want to platform them. But that's what we talked about in therapy. I don't always do a lot of professional talk in therapy, but I don't feel like that's professional talk. I feel like that's personal insecurity, my awareness of it, and me not using the tools and the weapons that I've built against people just because they maybe get under my skin a little bit.

I have very thick skin.

I also have a lot of awareness whenever something affects me. And I have to be honest, there can be certain days where I'm feeling good and nothing affects me.

But if I'm hungry, if.

I'm a little tired, like my hormones are a little off for some reason, didn't get enough sleep, you know what it's like.

And something hits you just the wrong way. You just want to melt it all. But I am showing restraint. Restraint.

And I'm happy with myself because of that. And that's what I left my therapy session thinking, is that I'm happy because of that. It was an interesting situation a couple of weeks ago. You probably saw the Shane Gillis stuff, the controversy from that. What's crazy about that is whenever I made a video that went pretty viral, I made the video before the controversy even started. And it popped off and even page six was commenting on what I was saying and the internet was just hitting me hard, hitting me hard, hitting me hard. I'm not someone that really is going to apologize for anything on the internet.

If nobody got hurt, like physically hurt or illegal or anything, I'm just going to kind of let it pass because I've done this game before on the internet where if you just shut up for a minute, everything washes over and goes away. So I definitely wasn't going to say anything about it. And then page six, Again, hit. And all these big outlets were writing stories about me and what I had said. And regardless of context, I really felt like this is nothing. I'm just going to let it go over me. And then I remembered a chapter I wrote in one of my books. Because I do feel this way, but I just haven't used a strategy in a long time. In the chapter I wrote, If you do something that doesn't physically hurt anyone, that isn't illegal,

and it gets pressed because of people's perception of what it is, positive or negative, that press comes. And if it's not like terrible press, it comes and that's a hit, right? It can be positive or negative, but it's still a hit. It's still a lifter.

A lot of people.

I heard my name for the first time once those people were doing those stories about me. But if you apologize for it, you get a second hit. And I talked about in my book how I like to have those instances where I can apologize and get the second flare of press. Because I waited a while and I was going through in one of the rooms in our house, I have a bunch of books that the book company sent me, I should have given most of them away.

And I saw that chapter as I was flipping through and it was like, apologize if you would like more press because apologies are never bad. Nobody looks at anyone apologizing and goes, bad dude for apologizing.

It's a win-win. And so, yeah, I did a half apology video. I made the news again.

So it was funny to, I don't think things just fall into your life for specific reasons. But it was funny that I had that book and that chapter that I wrote about that tactic of me just apologizing for press, even if it was about nothing that I happened to see that when I'd already decided, and I never apologized for anything on the internet if it's stupid.

And so that's what I did.

And so I, this is the weirdest thing because once Matthew McConaughey at an award show said like his inspiration is him in a few years, My inspiration was me in a chapter I had written in a book like seven years ago. So big shout out to me for giving me that little tidbit. So I posted that apology. I also deleted that apology. But if you look at it, it wasn't really an apology. It was a little bit of verbal gymnastics. But yeah, that's what's up. The internet was hitting me pretty hard. I had two people reach out to me. The first was Matt Still. And he said, hey, are you getting hit up a lot about all these articles coming out about you? And I really wasn't. Not a lot of people were reaching out to me because, again,

I think most people perceived it as something negative and they didn't want to reach out if something negative was happening.

Matt Steele didn't care. He was like, what's up?

I took a screenshot of all the texts that I had had in the last 15, 20, 30 minutes, and it was literally just normal, everyday stuff.

I said, no, just you. You're the first one to hit me up about it. He's like, dang.

All right, good luck.

Kind of funny. The other one was Danae Hayes. the comedian.

And she hit me up and it was a pretty nice message. It was something like, hey, sometimes the internet sucks. And I thought that was really just to reach out and say something nice. I thought that was pretty cool of her. Actually, I want to quote her right in case she didn't say that. And maybe she sent me a mean message.

Let's see. D Hey, dude, the internet is hard some days. I felt that.

Some days the internet is hard. And that's why when internet is hard, I get off. The internet can't reach out and punch you if you're not on it. There have been times where I think the internet has tried to cancel me about five times. About nothing crazy. But sometimes the internet just goes internet and people realize they can get a bunch of clicks online If they just talk about you, and that happens to me sometimes, and, you know, cancel them, cancel them. It's never been anything actually cancelable, at least not so far. So I was counting, I think it's six times. And I wrote that in my header on Instagram. The internet tried to cancel me six times. And I thought, let me wait a minute.

There's fan in the flames. And then there's just begging. Then there's just begging and pouring lighter fluid on yourself. So I'll probably put that up in my bio at some point. But yeah, big shout out to Danae Hayes and Matt Stell who reached out. They didn't know how I was feeling. They didn't know I'd been through this many times before and they were just reaching out to be like, hey, here if you need to talk. So I appreciated that. There was another clip that I had put up. We had done a Bobbycast and I was talking about literally creepy dudes and how creepy dudes in my industry they'll get a female artist and they'll take a picture and they won't do normal. They'll like use that as an opportunity to put their hand like on

the bottom part of the waist and like grab them by the waist.

I was like, guys, stop doing that. Like, unless that's like your person.

That looks and feels a little creepy, especially if it's a female artist, 15 years younger than you and you're, you're pulling her tight. And so I said that and that triggered some folks. I would compare it to a sweatshirt that I had on once at an airport that said, stop being racist. And the people that got mad at me in the comments I knew were racists. The people, they got triggered by me saying, stop grabbing younger women tightly by the waist when they're taking a picture with you because you feel like you can.

And they wrote me a mean message. They were creepy.

I did have a comment back from somebody They definitely had a blank avatar, like a cartoon character or something. And they were like, yeah, this is great coming from the ultimate creep.

Here's the thing. There's a lot of things about me that maybe aren't the most desirable. The one thing I'm.

Not is a creep. The one thing I'm not is too touchy or too weird. As a matter of fact, I have the reputation of being the opposite. Possibly a bit cold. Because I would rather not risk it and be perceived as 1% creep. I would rather come off as a bit cold than like the flirty, creepy guy. None of me is creepy. Again, there's eight other things that you can say, and trust me, people say it.

And that's okay. But there is no ultimate creep here. I do the Bobbycast on Netflix, and hopefully you guys watch that sometimes. And I finally was, you know how you leave it on the screensaver? It pops up like a whole show and gives you three little words that describe that show, like descriptive words. And so my face popped up as the whole screensaver. It's the first time I'd ever seen that, and I thought that was cool.

And the three words were music, career, and celebs.

Pretty benign. We do talk a lot of music. We do have celebrities on. Career is interesting.

But I did like it that they featured that. And do I think they're showing that to everybody? No. Obviously, I've turned it on. And I mean, only a couple times. I don't watch myself. But I've turned it on to make sure that the show was playing right or loaded right. But I thought it was pretty cool that I made one of those images. Oh, by the way, this cowboy hat.

As you know, I don't wear cowboy hats. This is the only cowboy hat possibly that I've ever bought. I think I've been given a couple. But I saw this on a sports website. It's got a razor back on the front of it for those that are just listening to the podcast. And so I bought this because I had to buy it. Had I got off the page and not bought it, I think my credit card would have just cut itself up. So I am wearing a cowboy hat. I know I'm not a cowboy. It's got a big fat razor back on the front of it.

This is the most legit cowboy hat ever. So I'm wearing this in the YouTube video if you guys are just listening to the podcast. You know, I came on Last week, and I was doing this show, which is in the weeds, where I just talk about really inside things that I don't think people would really care about unless they wanted to get a level deeper with me.

And I think we recorded the last one on possibly Friday of last week. What happened on that Friday? I can't do that again. And I kind of made a deal with myself not to do that again. Because last Friday, I woke up and did the radio show. And so by the radio show, right, that takes us a bit of time through the morning. And then we record another hour after the radio show of a second podcast. And why we do that, two reasons. One, I just want to give more content. And if you consume it, that's awesome.

If you don't, that's okay too.

But two, I feel like just the podcast.

Version of what we do is better for some people. Some people enjoy podcasts more. And that is definitely....

There's definitely a little more air in that.

When we're on the radio and it's broadcast, what I'm doing is dictated so much by time and what I got to get in and I got to move fast and no dead time and we got to get out and we got to get to a song. And that works. And that's usually part one of the podcast. Part two is very different because we can just sit here and talk.

Part one, the broadcast of the show, there are people that are just passive listening. So I'm trying to make them listen a little harder. It might just be on somewhere where someone's listening. So I'm trying to make them not be bored and leave. If you come to listen to the podcast for what we provide on part two, that's not passive. You have chosen to come to us. Therefore, you're going to give us a little leeway, especially if we're just like talking about small things. Sometimes really funny big things come from really small things. On the radio show, we don't really have the room for that. that to develop.

On the podcast, we do. And that's why I do too, because I just want to make sure people that come over and check out the podcast, they get a podcast version of hopefully what they like and who they like.

Hang tight.

The Bobbycast will be right back. And we're back on the Bobbycast.

It's interesting because I've been podcasting since 2006.

And I'll do an interview sometimes and people will say, that's crazy. You've been podcasting for 20 years.

How did you know?

How were you ahead of the times? I was never ahead of the times. I was just young and I was consuming that at the time. I didn't have some wherewithal or I wasn't thinking in the future, this is going to be massive.

I was just listening to podcasts.

I literally bought an iPod and would go to Apple iTunes and download the podcast, Adam Carolla. There was three or four of them that I listened to all the time and listened to the podcast. And I thought, oh, I want to be this in case people are podcasting. So not to take credit away from myself, because we do a podcast that does millions and millions a month, which is really great. Like if we didn't have the radio show, if we weren't known for that, we'd be one of the bigger podcasts. But I definitely wasn't so forward thinking to know that podcasting was the future. All I knew was that I podcasted and listened. We used to have someone sit in the studio and write, like stenographer, all the notes from everything we're doing.

And then we'd post it up on the website.

So even if you couldn't listen to the radio show or get to the podcast, you could read the whole show. So you would never feel like you weren't in on something. And we did that for 15 years or so. My point is we do the show, then we do the second show, which is the part two. On Friday, then I went and did a full hour long Bobby cast.

Then I did another half hour Bobby cast that airs on Wednesdays on Netflix. Then I did a celeb on the head with Eddie.

And then I did a full voiced episode of the 90s podcast.

I did an episode on John Michael Montgomery And we'll have a 10-part series launching probably early next year, kind of like the last one that we did.

But this will be about specific people. That took an hour. I did all my commercials.

You see at one point in Celeb on the Head, I forgot even what I had asked because I was fried. Because I had done about six hours of focused content. Now, is it working at a sawmill? No. That's what my stepdad did. But I think I get worse the more fried I am. And what happened last Friday when I did the radio show, I did podcast part two. I did an hour-long bobbycast. I did the half-hour bobbycast after that, celeb on the head, voiced the episodes, did commercials. I was melted, and I could just feel it get worse and worse as the day went. And so I don't want to do that anymore. And so sometimes I need those to know that I got to slow down a little bit. because it's not just pure quantity, because you

guys are going to consume something and go, well, that's not that good. And if I'm not that good again, a second time, you might go, that's not for me anymore.

Cause you get about two chances.

And where I'm a bit hypocritical is I didn't quite do that today, but it was close. I just have all these notes and if I don't get to them, then I never get to them. And so I like doing this show where I just sit in front of the camera and talk And people will ask, how do you get your content that you talk about here? Some of it's questions for sure, but I keep in my notes app, I just write little sentences. There are no scripts.

I mean, I have a picture here I'm about to talk about. There are no scripts. I just write like a line and then I talk about it. For example, this next line says, sock person in DMs. So we took our daughter, Billy, to a Halloween gathering and They had what they called a safe family Halloween gathering this last Sunday in this neighborhood that a friend lives in.

So we go over, and they were going to do like a neighborhood trick-or-treat, and they put cones in the street so no cars could drive.

And it was basically for young kids.

So young kids could have a trick-or-treating Halloween without big kids around, and so they didn't get hit by cars. And because if you're doing that on Halloween night, not that it's dangerous, but there's definitely going to be some traffic. So we went over now we didn't do the trick or treating because Billy's seven months old, but we hung out with other friends who had kids and then we left.

So we were there for like 45 minutes or so. And so while we were there, we took a picture that you can see on my Instagram, Mr.

Bobby bones.

And in that picture, my seven month old daughter was dressed as a cow. And one woman was commenting that she had no socks on her feet and that we were bad parents for not putting socks on her feet. I don't know anybody in explanation, but But I felt like it's pretty good for content because I wanted to yell just generally at internet commenters. And I said, she had socks on her feet. She was sitting in a car seat and she keeps pulling her feet up and pulling her socks off. I've learned it's hard to keep socks on a baby's feet because they keep pulling the socks off their feet. So as soon as we pulled her out, we took the picture. Then we put the socks back on her feet. And in the picture, she

didn't have socks. So we talked about that on the show. I got this message from a lady. I totally agree with the listener. who said, put her socks on. It's 59 degrees. Did you have socks and shoes on? Did you see if her feet were cold? Just because she took them off. Who is the adult here? Put her socks on. You're a bad parent. And then I went to the page to make sure that it wasn't just a burner account. And it wasn't a burner account. It was some weird lady. And she had all her family pictures up there. She had a Bible verse inside of her.

Her header.

And it was Tuesday when I got this and I wrote this back, shut up. You're an awful person. You're what's wrong with the internet. I hope you're a better mom than you are an internet person because you're a bad person.

And then I sent it and then I went back and deleted it. Just kidding.

I didn't, I left it. People are awfully brave. Also, we did nothing wrong. I have made my new artist power rankings. So what I have here are my top five new artists right now. All I did was look at the last 18 months and I have created five, four, three, two, one, my new artist power rankings. At number five, Carter Faith.

Carter Faith from North Carolina. She has kind of a dreamy throwback country sound. She has a debut album, Cherry Valley, came out now about a year ago, October of 2025. It got an ACM Album of the Year nomination. It landed on all the cool lists, Billboard, NPR, Rolling Stone. So I have her at five because she has established her sound. She is getting the recognition from the press and the critics. Now it's turning that into a bigger audience.

I'm a fan.

I took her out to open some shows for me on the road when I was doing stand-up. If you're wanting to check her out, check out the songs Grudge or Sex, Drugs, and Country Music. And number five, Carter Faith. And number four, Zach John King. He was on a recent Bobbycast. I didn't know the guy until I got to know the guy.

Loved him. Really smart.

Don't let the overalls fool you. By the way, people that wear overalls are also pretty smart. But some people just judge overalls and go, not a smart person. First of all, don't do that. Some of the smartest people I knew in life wore overalls. Secondly, he wears overalls and really intelligent guy. Grew up in Fayetteville, Georgia, loved country music, then did the indie rock thing. Now he kind of mixes that together back in country music. And so he opened for Morgan Wall and he talked about on the Bobby cast how People accused him of paying for that spot, which he did not do. He's about to have a number one song, his first ever number one song. I have a number four, Zach John King.

And number three, I have Hudson Westbrook. He's from Stephenville, Texas. And he's a Texas Tech kid who left school because his music career kind of blew up. He's got an album called Texas Forever. All that to say, it's a lot of Texas.

With this guy. So he still lives in Texas. Respect. He knows who he is.

So it was a top 10 country album, but he has this song called House Again that went number one. That's really a cool song, especially if you like that indie acoustic type country, which I do.

So he's got a.

New record coming out, but Hudson Westbrook is at number three on my power rankings of new artist. At number two, Tucker Wetmore. At this point, it's kind of hard to call him new, but yeah, he's still pretty new. He's from Washington. He's been on the show. We talked about an injury he had when he was playing college football that got him really focused on music.

He moved to Nashville in 2020.

Wind Up Missing You, 321, Brunette, So he had three number ones in a row. So he's killing it. I saw him open for Brooks and Dunn probably a month or so ago. He's been on my show and he's played on my show, but I saw him open for Brooks and Dunn. And I didn't know he could play the piano like that. Mostly because he has, I don't know, 73 abs. And you don't think somebody with that many abs actually can play music more than a few chords on a guitar.

Pretty musical, man.

An athlete, all the abs. can play piano, guitar, sing. Jeez, does he have a pet down in a basement that he's torturing or something? How come he gets it all? At number two, Tucker Wetmore. At number one, Stella Lefty. Boston's jam. It is. And I'm finally seeing people come around to the fact that she's not a nepo baby.

Just because her dad was very successful in a different business does not mean there's nepotism in this business.

The fact that people couldn't associate nepotism.

He's just a rich dude. And she is a really good singer. And I really like her. And there's no nepotism there. Listen, do rich people have it a little easier in some ways?

For sure.

But he sold Groupons. Is there a Groupon for a successful career? You pay half price and you get a full successful career? Of course not. But I have her at number one. She's kind of killing it. She has a bunch of bangers on her album too. I don't know what to say except people are haters. When someone comes out of nowhere and just smacks you in the face with something that a lot of people love, all the other people get jealous. So Stella Lefty, number one, I'm a new artist, Power Rankings. And now my Dancing with the Stars, Power Rankings. Goodbye to The Bachelor and goodbye to the Savannah Banana. I thought Jackson would make it a little farther.

He did not.

Tyler made it about as far as I thought he would, but they were both kicked off Halloween week. That would suck to have to dress up and get kicked off in your costume and makeup. That'd be a tough one. So two eliminations. Let's move now. There are eight remaining contestants on Dancing with the Stars. At number eight in my power rankings, Tatiana Ali. Last week, a 28 out of 40. So she needs a breakthrough performance now or she's very vulnerable. She is likable. but I have her last this week. At number seven, Julia Stiles. Only a 26 out of 40 for her tango. People like her.

Same thing with her and Tatiana Ali. She's only this low because of a score more so than if she's likable. Same with Tatiana Ali. They're both very likable. Their scores are not good. And if one of the other is way down, You're vulnerable. Julia Stiles is now at seven. At number six, Mara Higgins. Man, she's been up at the top. She got a 32 out of 40. She has the presence. She can sell a performance. But I felt like this last week, she lost ground to the leaders.

I have her sixth. I think the potential is there, but she needs a stronger, cleaner dance to move back into that top group. And time is running out. At number five, the biggest jump of the week is Connor Wood. He is the biggest mover. He scored a 37 out of 40. It is great. It was exactly what he needed because this dude is likable. He just hadn't danced.

He hadn't had that breakthrough performance. Where it is on the street, he saw my video last week saying, you got to have a breakthrough performance.

And then he broke through. So he did what he had to do. He's at five. If he can hit another big week, he can make the semis. Right now, finals?

I don't know.

They're eight.

Those four right now are the four that I don't feel can win the show. We're now at the four that I feel can win the show. At number four, Jenna Dewan, former professional dancer. She scored a 37 out of 40. She did the zombie Argentine tango. So if you combine all of her scores over the past couple of weeks, she was tied for second.

That is good.

There's also a strong argument for her to be higher, but she also has the most dance experience. But I have her fourth because I'm predicting the entire competition, including the audience connection, which honestly is even bigger than the dance part. On dancing and scores, she's in the class that can win the show. She's in the bottom of that class right now. And number three, Amber Glenn. I predicted Amber would win the thing from the very beginning.

She's a three now. She got 36 out of 40. She got a 38 the week before that. She's real good. Her figure skating background, it allows her to naturally be musical in her movements.

It's pretty cool.

She's always super competitive and I think she is one killer routine away from being back in that number one or number two spot. I like her and she's really good. And USA, USA, don't forget that, USA. Number two, with a jump this week, Harry Shum Jr. The first perfect dance, 40 out of 40. Shout out Harry Shum Jr. He did the Saul one during Halloween week. It was the strongest statement of the week. He's second because of his total momentum right now. He wasn't in the top three last week. He's a former professional dancer. He needed this.

If he keeps delivering, he could take over number one. But at number one, still Ezra. He's the guy to beat. You ever see dog racing and they throw that rabbit out and then all the hounds run and try to chase the rabbit? He's the rabbit right now. The hounds are pretty fast. But he's the rabbit. By the way, it's not a real rabbit. It's kind of like a stuffed little plushy thing that rolls on the side rail.

If you guys have never been to dog races, man, you're missing out. I do love dogs, though, so I don't want to be canceled for the seventh time.

Ezra's awesome. Ezra remains the general pick to win the whole thing.

I can't take credit for picking him because I only take credit for who I picked at the very, very, very beginning before it all started. But it's been Ezra's to lose for a while. He is very competitive. And his journey as a Paralympic champion allows people to, one, know him from something at the start, but then get to know him for something totally different. He's just an athlete.

He just looks like a dude also that you'd want to hang out with. He's just like a guy that you want to root for and walk alongside. He has all of the ingredients. that you would need to win that show. Ezra is my number one right now. He was my number one last week. To be fair though, I did pick Amber at the very beginning. So my heart is still there with Amber, but that's the power rankings.

I think there are three or so weeks left. It's getting good.

It's a four person race though. Okay. Those are the weeds. Thank you all for watching. Hope you enjoy the weeds. Stay weedy. Please keep commenting down in the comments. Stay weedy. Hopefully it helps like lift the videos up.

If you do care about that kind of stuff, you can write questions down there and I'll always look at them and, and we'll bring them up. We should just do a full Q and a at some point with a lot of the questions because I, I get all my notes and I grab a couple of questions and then I don't look back.

So that's on me.

That's on me.

Hand up.

But I put questions down in the comments. And yeah, stay down there and hopefully we'll see you guys soon.

Thank you. And goodbye, everybody.

Hang tight. The Bobby cast will be right back. And we're back on the Bobby cast.

All right. Drew Baldrige here on Get Real with Caroline Hobby. He sings She's Somebody's Daughter. And this is Drew talking with Caroline about his independent career and that path and him getting dropped by his record label and his tour schedule. And I think you'll like this. I like this guy a lot. And if you like it, go check out Caroline's podcast. Get real with Caroline Hobby. Here she is with Drew Baldrige.

Are you the one behind booking all these shows or someone else driving? Like who's driving this Drew Baldrige ship? Because it's rocking.

I think, you know. We had some, you know, a couple years ago, She's Somebody's Daughter did its thing and it was such a blessing.

Okay, let's not just like whiz past that. You made that do its thing because She's Somebody's Daughter is such an amazing song.

Thank you for saying that.

You were on a label. You thought you were going to go in and have this really profound meeting where they're really about to invest in you and give you the push that you always knew was coming. Instead, you got dropped.

I got dropped, 100%. Yeah, dropped.

Brutal.

It was so brutal. Brutal. And it was like, where do I go from here?

Where do you go from there?

And it was like, do I just move home?

Did you feel desperate?

Desperate. I felt defeated. Betrayed? I felt defeated.

Defeated.

And, like, betrayed a little bit by the town. And I just felt like I was making music that was just as good as my peers. And I had this song that was obviously doing very well.

So it was doing well.

And luckily for me and my wife, like, that was the best, you know, money-wise we've ever done because we were seeing it. But for me, I didn't. get into this for money. Like, don't get me wrong. Like I love being able to provide for my family.

We need the money, but that's not why you got in for it.

Yeah. I just, I love playing music and I love being in front of people and I want my music to mean something and I want my music to be heard by people that need it. And I felt like She's Somebody's Daughter was such that song to, for girls, you know, and for guys. Like, you know, I have two little boys now and to know that this song will one day be theirs. Like I can pass it down to them. It's about their mom and hey, how to treat a woman.

And I think, Which is kind of a big theme with you.

Yeah, it is.

You're doing another song out right now about that.

Yes, we do. And I think, you know, for me, that's the kind of messages that I want to put out in the world. And so when we got dropped, I felt defeated that our music wasn't going to be able to be heard by the people that it deserved to be heard by. And so when we started our own thing, you know, I never dreamed it would turn into all this. But you started it, too.

You were doing backyard shows, which I... freaking admire and commend you for because you were like, let's get creative. How are we going to do this? So how did you do that? You just like would, how did you people even know to hire you for their backyard parties? But that turned into a thing, right?

It really did. It turned into a huge thing for us.

I'm so impressed with that.

It actually came, you know, 2019, 2020 hit. I had this song called senior year and I wrote it in 20. It came out, I think in 2019 and the hooks had never thought it would disappear senior year. And I just meant, At the time I wrote, I was like, live it up. It's going to go by fast. And well, 2020 hit all these kids, his senior year did disappear.

And that's when TikTok really started becoming a thing. So these kids started using it in their videos.

So it kind of went viral.

And I just decided to post and said, Hey, I'll do zoom concerts for every class of 2020. And so I was doing like seven or eight zoom concerts a day from my living room. And then that turned into, Hey, will you come play our drive through graduation? Our drive-thru, I forgot about that. Our drive-thru graduation. And so I went and I played through the drive-thru graduations and I started doing more, like some other schools started asking and like in a crazy way, it'd be like a graduation on August 18th in New York somewhere. And I would look up what other schools had graduations around there and I would just cold call their front office. And I'd just be like, hey, I see your graduation's August 17th.

I got this song. I'll come play it.

Would they pay you?

No.

No one paid you.

They would be like, hey, we'll cover your expense. A lot of people would be like, you're a creep. Hang up on them. Honestly, a lot of them would be like, don't call back to the school with our kids. Hang up. But some of them would be like, oh my goodness, this is actually our class song this year. And so please come. We'll cover your flight here.

And give you a room. Were you just trying to build momentum and keep it going?

Yeah, I was just trying to keep it going. And that's what really started the backyard conversation when I got back. And at that time, me and my wife, we were just engaged. And She was like, this is really cool, but we need to make money somehow.

We can't just volunteer for the rest of our lives.

Yeah, you can't just volunteer yourself for the rest of your life.

Don't you feel like as a musician, sometimes you're like, I'm literally volunteering my whole life away. Yeah. And you're giving everything you have, and it's so grueling and exhausting.

It is.

It breaks your spirit, but yet you're signing up for free.

Here I am. Sign me up for free, and I think— you know, everybody, every musician should go through that a little bit because this is not forever, not forever. But I think it really, when I went and did these, when I did that school thing, yes, it was very difficult, but my cup was so full because I was, it was actually, you're impacting. It was, I was impacting and, and I saw it in people's eyes and I could see it in these kids and I could give commencement speeches.

And it was felt like why I was built, felt like why I was making music. It wasn't just for trying to make a single for Nashville. It wasn't just like making something that sounded like the radio.

It was actually like really affecting people's lives.

It was really affecting people's lives. And when I got back home, you know, at that time, my fiance, now my wife, she was like, that's cool. You need to make money. She's like, what if we just took this and went to backyards? Like what you're doing on social media and doing Zooms? What if you just posted and said, Hey, I don't have a record deal, an agent anymore. Everybody dropped me. Like maybe these people would want you to play in their backyards and just go do what they'll pay you. Like, just go do it. And, and so I posted and it went like, like 20,000 messages. Like it just went crazy, like crazy, crazy.

You couldn't get to the show fast enough.

I couldn't keep, and it was just DMS. Like I would just say, DM me or comment. And then I would pick out a Saturday in Virginia and then I would go through every message.

Were you making good money kind of?

And I was by the end of it, you know, I think we were doing like 2k a night is what we needed to come.

That's great.

But we would bring our people, you know, we'd bring a tour manager and the sound system ourself. And I think the best thing was, was, uh, we made, we called it the Baldrige and Bonfire tour. And so we made shirts that said Baldrige and Bonfire and all these little towns had their own name on a shirt. And so that was cool, like selling the merch and being able to sign it. And for me, I mean, there were some nights we started out like, Hey, do whatever, like, well, 750 bucks. And there'd be like the little girl's birthday.

And that was her birthday present. And she really wanted an iPad and be like, okay, Hey, here, take some money back, go get this little girl, her iPad or iPod or whatever. And And so we were, yeah, it was just like, we wanted to, I felt like so excited that we got to be in these yards and feel like I was doing what I was meant to do and kind of rejuvenated me in music. Cause I was, I was in Nashville at that time for 10 years.

And as you know, I mean, you have a husband in this too. I mean, it can beat you up and you can feel like, what am I doing?

True.

My spirit's so broken. I don't even know where it is anymore.

Just kidding. No, you know what I meant?

I surrendered it fully to God.

Amen, sister.

It'll break you so far down. You got nothing left to do, but pray about it.

Pray about it.

And so I just think for me, when I was there in their backyards and I was seeing it and I was watching them, how happy it made them. And I wasn't pulling up to a club where every other artist has played in the last 20 years. And the club person's.

Mad at you because.

Nobody really cares. They might've bought tickets, but, but this, we were pulling up and they'd have signs and they'd be like, you know, the little kids would be like, Drew's in our yard. Like, thanks for coming. And it just made like a whole difference in my heart and my character. And it gave me a purpose to be there.

And so as much as these people felt like Drew's doing this for us, it was really they were doing it for me and filling my cup and made me realize like, Hey, that's the win-win.

That's when you're in that sweet, magical spot of music when you feel it.

Yes, you feel it. And that really catapulted us into, you know, starting our own thing, sending daughter to radio. And now, you know, we've been touring so heavy the last two years. Cause you know, you feel like you have this window that you don't want to lose the momentum and you want to also capitalize on the momentum that daughter had. And, and, uh, That's where we're at right now is capitalizing on that, playing fairs and festivals.

And we're so blessed. But what we decided to do, and I'm sure you saw it, but like the album's called Farm Faith Family. And so we're taking it back to these private, intimate backyard. Wait, you're going back to the backyard? Going back.

Stop it!

Yes, I'm going back. How did you decide to go back to the backyard? Because I always wanted to do it again.

This is your thing.

I love it. I love it so much. I love it so much, Drew. And so what we did... You love chatting.

With the people too, don't you? I love it. It's my favorite thing.

I can feel this in your bones. You need to be with the people.

I love it.

You need to feel that.

It drives my wife nuts. She's like, you're relaxing is being around other people.

And just feeling their hearts and connecting through the music.

Yeah. Okay.

And I want to hear their stories.

And then you light up. That's how you light up.

Yes, I light up and being able to speak into them. And so I think what we decided was I was talking to my manager and I was like, how do we do this? And It makes sense where it's not just like going backwards. Like, hey, we're playing Backyards again. So what we decided for Farm, Faith, Family.

And when does that album come out soon?

Comes out the 18th of September.

Oh, my gosh.

Are we excited? Yeah, under a month. I am so excited.

Okay, so we're taking it back for the album release.

Yeah, we're taking it back for the album release. What I decided is I'm going to play three farms for Farm. I'm going to play three churches for Faith. And I'm going to play three weddings for Family. And so we're just giving them away. People can just post.

Oh, you can do like giveaways?

Yeah.

Yeah, 100% free. We're just going to go.

And let people try to win it?

Yeah, they just sign up. They can go to the link in my bio, and you can sign up, and we're just going to go.

Oh, my gosh.

We're going to pick three of each of these, and while we're out on tour, just stop in and play these for people, which I'm just so excited about. It's been the coolest experience of my touring life. Now, don't get me wrong. Playing some big shows with Luke Bryan was amazing. That's somebody I really looked up to.

And y'all are kind of like friends, right?

Yeah, I mean, everybody thinks we're brothers. Kind of remind me of each other. Everybody thinks we're like, I could go out and do his meet and greets, you know? You're really good. But he's so cool, man.

I know.

It has been such a blessing to open for him.

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