Transcript

Chris Stapleton | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

From Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 2 h 21 min · 29,950 words · 874 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Chris Stapleton | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard", an episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard published January 19, 2026 (2 h 21 min, about 29,950 words). It mentions 11 people, works and ideas, including Traveler whiskey, TurboTax, All-American Road Show, Allstate, Steel Drivers.

What this episode is about

Chris Stapleton, an accomplished Grammy-winning singer and songwriter, discusses his music career, including his notable albums and current tour, the All-American Road Show, as well as his integrity in marketing his whiskey brand, Traveler. The conversation captures his modest approach to self-promotion and insights into his life as an artist based in Nashville.

Key takeaways

  • Chris Stapleton's humility shines—he'd rather let the whiskey speak for itself than self-promote.
  • In a world drowning in noise, Stapleton finds clarity in silence—an unexpected muse for creativity.
  • Five kids? Silence is a siren call for parental chaos, hinting at potential mischief or misadventure.
  • When legends like Aldean and Combs hail Stapleton's talent, it’s not just flattery—it's a rare consensus.
  • Stapleton’s roots in coal mining remind us: the deep, rich artistry often emerges from gritty beginnings.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 15:00: Traveler whiskey, All-American Road Show, Pappy Van Winkle
  2. – 30:00: Allstate, Steel Drivers
  3. – 45:00: Steel Drivers
  4. – 1:00:00: Super Bowl
  5. – 1:15:00: Traveler whiskey
  6. – 1:30:00: The Academy of Country Music Awards
  7. – 1:45:00: Steel Drivers, Super Bowl, Letterman, The Ryman Auditorium
  8. – 2:00:00: Traveler whiskey
  9. – 2:20:52: Steel Drivers

Notable quotes from "Chris Stapleton | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard"

  • And lastly, you should drink some of his Traveler whiskey, which he was reticent to promote, which he should, cuz it's a magical whiskey. It makes no Maybe he was reticent because you're sober. But.
    about Traveler whiskey · at
  • Yeah. He did get to see me. I was in a band, a bluegrass band that the Steel Drivers.
    about Steel Drivers · at
  • We are supported by All State. Checking All State first could save you hundreds on car insurance. That's smart. Not checking your phone's battery before heading out. That'll get you every time.
    about Allstate · at
  • [ __ ] feeling emotion. I think that's the unique gift you're giving to a lot of men. You're singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl and they [ __ ] cut over and the…
    about Super Bowl · at
  • No. And we won a bunch of like awards and things that night that were just kind of like we weren't supposed to win any of those things.
    about The Academy of Country Music Awards · at
  • I that was special because it was, and I played when the Letterman show was going off the air.
    about Letterman · at
  • And I used to say this about playing the Ryman Auditorium. My dream used to be to play the Ryman Auditorium and sell it out. And then we very early after the Timberlake moment, we played it three.
    about The Ryman Auditorium · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

Products & tech

  • Traveler whiskey — Product · Secondary_owned · 3 mentions · first at
    Chris Stapleton's whiskey brand mentioned as a product he should promote more.
  • TurboTax — Product · Explicit_sponsor · 2 mentions
    Mentioned as a sponsor of the podcast with a promotional segment.
  • All-American Road Show — Product · Secondary_owned · 1 mention · first at
    Chris Stapleton's current tour mentioned in the introduction.
    He's got his tour right now, the All-American Road Show.
  • Allstate — Product · Explicit_sponsor · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a sponsor of the podcast with a promotional segment.
  • Steel Drivers — Product · Incidental · 5 mentions · first at
    Chris Stapleton's former bluegrass band mentioned in passing.
  • Pappy Van Winkle — Product · Incidental · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a premium whiskey brand in a casual conversation.

Places & events

Media & podcasts

  • Letterman — Media · Incidental · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a show Chris Stapleton has appeared on.
  • Conan — Media · Incidental · 1 mention
    Mentioned as a show Chris Stapleton has appeared on.

Full transcript with timestamps

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by the miniaturest mouse in America.

Hi, it's me, Ding, Ding, Ding. We've been working on this one for a while. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. We've been begging and working and it happened. Hustling. Yeah. Down in Nashville, too. Right where it should happen.

That's right. We were in the barn in Nashville. And we have Chris Stapleton today. Chris Stapleton is a Grammy award-winning singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His albums are Traveler, From a Room, Starting Over Higher. He's got his tour right now, the All-American Road Show, and you can get tickets for that at www.risstapleton.com/tour. He also has a uh his own show on Sirius, which you should check out.

Check it out. And lastly, you should drink some of his Traveler whiskey, which he was reticent to promote, which he should, cuz it's a magical whiskey. It makes no Maybe he was reticent because you're sober. But

no, he's just a guy with so much integrity. He doesn't want to self-promote. Oh, well, he definitely should have. And he should have brought us some because I wanted it.

Yeah. It's uh from the the the the brew masters. You don't call him brew masters in whiskey. You call him some other masters. I don't know what the hell. Whiskey Masters from Papies.

Yeah. Yeah. Big deal. Big deal. Uh so drink his whiskey, listen to his music, go see him on tour and listen to him on Sirius. Please enjoy Chris Stapleton. Is it lost?

Yeah. Where did I [ __ ] put that down? What you looking for? My notes for you.

You don't have it memorized. You're born April 15th, 1978. That's pretty good. I got that.

That's really good. It's better than I could do. Yeah, we're going to test you at the end.

I don't even know when I'm born. Birthday. Your home birthday. Did you have a nice holiday? I did.

I'm from Georgia, so I was just at my family's house since it was a nice It was easy.

Duth, right? Yeah, Duth. Oh my god. Done your homework? No, you just said it on one of I did I did listen to a few things. I didn't do that much homework.

Well, I don't like to go into things doing too much homework sometimes. I think

I agree. Actually, I like to see what happens. You got him. I think it would have been fun if you couldn't find him and we just went.

I know. Well, that's that's basically what the interview will be. Those are just a safety net. Where where were they?

On the counter inside. Oh, okay. I didn't even bring them out. I got to start by saying we had last summer we got to interview a people couple people here. Jason Aldine and Luke Combmes.

Yeah. I got to catch my breath. Oh my. I ran. You ran? My bad. Oh no. He did sprints yesterday, so now he broke his body.

I told him not to do that. New resolution every day. So I don't you know I was like after the age 35 you shouldn't be sprinting anymore.

I don't know that that's true. I think I think it's really true. I think that's clinically accurate. I think that's medically true. Um yeah. So we had both Jason and Luke and both of them independently during the middle of the interview both just went on these crazy tirades about you. Like

the degree of well nobody can sing like Chris. That's just that and his songwriting just you know he's on another level that no one can really touch and both these guys the way they gushed about you

and they're very different people too so incredibly different people that was a throughine yeah

then I just went like oh this is cool like I have loved your music but it's very interesting to hear people on the inside talk about it I found that um very intriguing

well I appreciate kind words yeah it's not my world so it's you know if You were hanging out with a bunch of actors and they were like, "You know what the best actor is is Walter Walton Gogggins."

We're just talking about You were? Yeah. Because I listened to some of that episode that you guys just did with him.

Oh, okay. And the goggles and the whole thing. Gogggins goggles. Yeah. The alliteration and the

Do you listen to podcasts? Not really. Yeah. No, I you know, uh people ask me what I listen to a lot and uh I look for silence a lot,

you know, and that's kind of a weird thing to say and I've said that before in other interviews. I'm not.

Yeah. Maybe. But I I do like silence because I am looking for something outside of something to come down through the antenna, you know, like

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Right. Silence is where you'll kind of receive Sure. some kind of

song. Well, or just or just a thought about what I need to do today, you know, like it doesn't have to be grand. And with five kids, silence is not

Yeah. Silence is golden in that hard to come by. But also, you know, it can be disconcerting, you know, like when you're so used to that much chaos.

Yeah. It's a little scary. Yeah. You're just like, "Oh, what do I do with this?" You know?

Yeah. Also, if you have five kids and you hear silence, this is a pretty good indication something's going really wrong.

Yeah. You go check on people at that point. So, you're you're from Kentucky. Staffordsville, Kentucky. Yes, sir.

How big of a town is that? I don't know that there's actually like a population. It's more of a suburb of of Paceville, Kentucky. And I don't even know what that population is. It's It's small.

Like in the 5,000 10,000 range. Yeah, somewhere in there. I wouldn't know what the actual population is today.

Fact check. And dad was an engineer in the coal mines. Is that accurate? Uh he was a coal miner. Yes. And he he had an engineering degree.

Okay. He was an electrical engineer by by degree. But but what did he physically do at work? Uh well he he was an independent operator uh underground mining.

Was he operating machinery? He kind of ran it. It was his deal you know that he kind of started you know just small business kind of person but he did all the things you know. Yeah.

Did he like own a mine? Yes. Yeah. Wow. How does one go about owning a buy property and start digging for gold? Well, I mean, it's a lot of um my very basic I never really got into it, but

but uh you know, he uh you know, you acquire mineral rights from different landholders and

uh you carry your pistol with you a lot and Uh-huh. And did he do well? No, I mean it's that's an industry dominated uh you know by large energy companies,

right? And please large energy companies don't come after me for saying these things, but uh you know they control markets and things like that. they'll lose money on purpose to put other people out of business to buy their rights and

these kind of things. And uh it's very kind of it's very volatile. There's the opportunity to make money in that business as a small operator, but

uh it's so volatile. My dad, you know, he my dad, you know, at some points in my life had to go to Cincinnati to work just to because that the business got so bad there was no more. He shut down.

Yeah. What would he do when he went to Cincinnati? He worked for a company called Pirelli that tires. Tire. Well, they he they have a cabling side, too. He worked for the industrial cable side

because it's coated in the rubber that Pirelli makes or something. Yes. I don't know.

Yeah. That's a weird It was weird. And then mom worked for the health department or

for the health department. Yeah. And um what kind of what kind of guy was dad? I mean, he was a hardworking guy. He left before the sun was up and came home after the sun was down. You know, kind of guy.

Did you feel his stress? Like was he someone who came home? Oh, I had a, you know, felt very safe and maybe secure.

That's good. That's my whole life. That feels right. Very, he was a very hard man, though. Like, he was a fair man, but a hard man. Stern, uh, very black and white about things that he

believed in. Yeah. You know, and unyielding. Uhhuh. In those ways to a fault, you know.

Yeah. How much older is Herbert than you, your brother? My brother Herb is uh he's three years older than me.

So, I'm I'm five years younger brother. Okay. And I'm a total little brother. Well, I was until, you know, my sister's 12 years younger than me. So, she's 12 years younger.

Yeah. So, I was the I was the little brother for that amount of time and then I had to adjust.

Yeah. And I'm 6 years older than my little sister. Yeah. But that doesn't count.

It doesn't count. No. Why does it not count? Well, cuz he has little brother energy and that's because the older brother you I'm not counting Carly, his little sister, in the mix.

You're not. because I also have very middle childy syndrome. Well, that's true.

But she'll be using little brother as a pjorative and I'll be using it as a positive because I think you get a lot of skills as a little brother and I'm wondering if you relate.

What skills do you believe that you get as a little brother? Okay, I'll hit you with them

and I'll tell you if I have them. Okay, great. And I also think it's it's definitely like what your personality type is. So, this wouldn't be the same for all little brothers, but like I see it with my kids for sure is we we were both pretty alpha. We both wanted, you know, we knew what we wanted, each of us independently, but he's 5 years older, so he was stronger and cooler and I was um constantly trying to be older. Like I just the the the worst thing I could be as a baby, I wanted to get along with his friends. And what I found that that I've the skill it kind of gave me is I've been able to be around pretty alpha dudes that I might normally butt heads with, but I know the role very well.

like I know the role of still advocating for myself but knowing what position to keep myself in a little bit

and I'm mostly curious for you if that showed itself when you started writing with with these musicians who are in essence big brothers they have the status they have the power you you got obviously be able to work with them

I I had an experience with with a writer very long early on uh where I came in the room and and the first thing he said to me. He he was an established writer and he goes, "Man, you must have a pretty big ego."

And I and I'm just like, I didn't know what that meant. I was like, "Why do you think that?" He's like, "Well, you just think you can walk in here and write songs." But those of us, you know, those been your do I was like,

"I don't look at it that way, but let's write a song and we'll find out." You know like

Yeah. I never felt less than or unequal to those tasks and I'll sit in a room with anybody and write a song. I did hang out, you know, to your point of the little brothers. I did hang out with my brother's friends, but we also played sports together. I played

sports with them, you know, like it was not like and my brother is is not as tall as I am. Not as he was he was a free safety and I was linebacker kind of thing, you know, like we weren't necessarily competitive with with each other, but we were, you know,

but he was very protective. I have a very protective big brother and he he just retired from the FBI. He was in the FBI. So that carried in, you know, into his career. He was

Yeah. Uh he's a protector, you know. very protective of me and I don't know we didn't didn't butt heads in that way where I was you know trying to

show him up or something like that you know I don't know that I was trying to show my brother up as much as I just wanted his respect

I think I always felt like I had that with my brother you know I don't think I had

well but also I can have it you know like that's my point I think the thing you can get as a little brother is you learn how to hang cuz you're kind of in a situation where you're a guest and you be easily kicked out of the situation And I think you kind of get good at the hang

well and and you know to your point of knowing your role or what you can contribute to a scenario you know even this right now I have to sit here and assess what I can contribute to this conversation. You guys have done this a lot. I've done it very little you know.

Yeah. How do you like press in general? Um it's not it's not my uh comfort zone necessarily. I don't I don't mind doing it.

Uh you guys are in really in luck today because I have absolutely nothing to promote or talk about. I know. That's our favorite.

That is our favorite. Our favorite is like trying to figure out like, well, who's the guy behind all the stuff or who's the the woman behind?

When we started this show, it was not to help promote people's projects at all. It was this. It's like, let's just have pe cool people who we want to get to know. And then over time when it got bigger, then people would would say like, hey, our client has a movie. Can they come on and promote the movie? And it's like at the end for 5 minutes, but we're here to do something else,

right? But you guys are a big enough thing that you're part of that wheel where people people approach you with that and so you have to kind of sort that out.

But we've been hunting you. We we were begging for you. Yeah. Because you you and Luke have the same publicist maybe. Is that who it is?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And when she was here, we were like, "Okay, so we we just we love we really love Chris." I first saw you you did a 60 Minutes profile probably what three or four years ago. That was my first kind of glimpse. That was it. I mean, I'd heard your music, but that was like, "Oh, here's this guy who at that point on the outside, I don't know what it felt like on the inside. I was like, "Oh, there's a phenom on the scene." That's and that was the essence of the 60 Minutes interview kind of. And it was just a great profile. I also [ __ ] love 60 Minutes. But like, how is that?

Is that majorly uncomfortable? Because that's days, right? I I've been real fortunate that people understand maybe my discomfort with some of it and and uh I don't know I've been real lucky and that everybody's really nice and

easy to work with. You're crazy likable. Just I don't I don't know that I've had an experience where like man that was uncomfortable or

Yeah. you know the first time I ever went on Stern I was I was uncomfortable about going on Stern cuz it's scary. It was like a wild card thing like I don't know what's what he's going to ask or how uncomfortable he's going to try to make me if he can if he wants to but that was a remarkably wonderful experience you and so and he was so kind.

Were you shy as a kid? I don't know that I was particularly No. No. But uh I found that maybe I am more as an adult.

Fame can have this very bizarre effect kind of counterintuitive effect. It certainly had it on me which is like I'm a huge extrovert all growing up. I'm such an extrovert, not shy. But when you meet people who already know you, for me, I want to deliver like I want to make sure that this experience for them is like that they enjoyed it and that when they leave they're like, "Oh, I'm glad I met him." So, I enter in with a little anxiety like I don't hope I'm you know, like I it's changed for me. It's kind of made me less of an extrovert

because you feel like you have to be on in a different Yeah. I just want to like before I was just a piece of [ __ ] I'd meet someone at 7-Eleven. either phony or wasn't who gave a [ __ ] and then they drove away. But now I'm like, okay, I got

because it feels like some kind of pressure. Yeah. Yeah. To deliver. Yeah. Like, oh, here's someone who's telling me they love me and they love my stuff. I want to make sure that they I

give them what they kind of don't let them down. That's what it is. I have the pressure of like I don't want to let someone down who has expressed that they like me.

Yes, I I get that. But also, you know, at some point you're just a human being and

Yeah. And you just got to go, I don't have it today, man. But but thank you. You know,

I don't have the I can't be the dancing thing. My wife yelled at me for 20 minutes on the way to this airport that you're seeing me at. So, you know, keep that in mind in this interaction.

We're you know, there's there's human experiences that you bring into everything that uh you know, people aren't necessarily seeing that in you in those moments. You know, sometimes

they're not assuming you might have had a really crazy terrible morning. No. And you know, for the most part, I don't. You know, you know, I I I'm feel very fortunate.

They're right for the most part. But that's also little that is little brother energy.

Is that is wanting approval? Yeah. I'm on approval. Listen, I want approval. I stand up on stage and want to hear people do this. Like

I'm a junkie. I'm a junkie. Yeah. Yeah. But you do for your work. But do you as you like like I think Dax and and me

probably maybe a little bit lesser because I'm a older sister. Um you you want people to approve of you, not your work necessarily.

Like you as a person. Yeah. We're probably opposite in that way. I guess you think Well, I'll tell you why. And and and you you'll you'll easily understand. When I just was acting and people giving me compliments, they they did not feel like mine. It's like, well, the director, you know, that was a great director. The script was great. My co-stars were better than me, you know, whatever. There's a lot of

that can be true of all situations in life, you know, like we're all products of the sum of the people around us, you know.

That's true. But if someone loves uh, you know, one of your songs, you wrote it, you sang it, you played it. I feel that way about the podcast. Like if people like me for the podcast, I I'm able more to be proud of like the work.

Sure. I was shocked and I don't know why that you were validictorian. Congratulations.

Yeah, that's awesome. Now, I don't want to insult you, but what was the pool of people they were selecting from? Is this thousands of people?

There were two of us. That's big. That's a big deal. [ __ ] yeah. I don't think we've ever interviewed a a validictorian. We've interviewed

Yes, you have. I don't tell you. Bill Gates was the validator. Nobody wants to talk about being their I mean, I'm 47. We're talking 30 years ago, you know, like why are we talking about

actually that's interesting being the valadictorian because that early on you were like you had a moment of I'm number one.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that does something to people I think. You think? Yeah. I think it I think it it teaches you you can be number one.

It's a possibility. Yeah, sure. How did it work? First of all, how many kids were in your graduating class?

250. That's impressive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Does the principal call you in? No. No.

Well, because you probably had to make a speech at graduation, right? I actually just sang a song.

Oh, you did? I did. Oh. What song did you sing? I wrote one. Was it called Veadictorian?

It was absolutely. It's really on the nose. Early work. Early work. It was called 4.0.

Yeah. Not to minimize uh but there were, you know, it was like a shared thing like there were I don't know there were four or five of us.

Okay. We were all tied. Still great. Okay. Yes. So the two things that me right away is like validictorian and then football.

Mhm. I think that surprised me too. Why? because you exude this like really uh kind soulfulness, gentleness,

tenderness, tenderness, sensitive, like all the things that are magic about your music, that's what you exude. And those are [ __ ] awesome things to exude.

So if you find out he was a football player and then a brainiac, you're like, "Oh, this is just not, you know, it's a little out of the pattern." No, I think it's okay to have parts, you know, like,

you know, football games an organized street fight, you know, where you get to get some aggression out between the whistles, you know, I think that's healthy and good. And I love football, you know, I I enjoyed it. And if I had been good enough, I'd still be playing. I would I would have played football over

playing music. What? Thank god you weren't good enough. I would have raced cars over anything I ended up doing.

You know, everybody kind of has something like that where they're like, "If I was good enough,

I'd be doing that." I'm glad that I'm not doing that, you know. Well, you would have been brought in on a wheelchair probably at 47

CTE or something like that, you know. I worry about those kind of things for people. I worry about those things just from how I played when I was in high school, you know, like

we were taught to use our heads as weapons and you know, like Yeah. And we did.

Son, God gave you a weapon. It's on your shoulder. So, I want you to swing it around.

Yeah. Um, okay. So, what when did you start playing guitar? Maybe 12. My dad had bought a guitar with the thought of uh teaching himself getting him learning how to play, you know, like and it just sat around and so

uh that's that's so I picked up that guitar. And selftaught or did you ever take lessons?

I took one lesson and the guy quit teaching lessons the next day. Oh. And so I had one lesson and that was it.

Did he have a health issue or was you were you the reason? Did you force him into retirement?

Pretty much. I I assume. I I don't know. I really don't know. I went to my cousin's house and me and my cousin, this guy was some local cat that you know put in the paper or something. He taught I don't know where we found him. My mom found him or something and

he came over to my cousin's house and we took one guitar lesson. Wow. I don't even know that we learned anything

and that was the end. And he retired. Yeah, that was it. What if he was like, I can't there's nothing more I can do.

I have nothing more to teach you. Yeah. Yeah, that's what probably say he was my only guitar.

Exactly. That's really Yeah, that is cool. Um, what kind of kid were you in high school?

Pretty good kid. I was busy. I did all the stuff. Getting the good grades. Yeah. Well, but you know, if there was an activity to do, I would do it.

Were you popular? I don't know. Maybe maybe in my own mind. I don't know. I'm sure you were

popular among my people who are my peers, you know, like I I don't know. I don't know. I don't have any real concept of that. I think I was, but I don't know.

Okay. Did girls like you? Yeah. I hope you would know that you had a girlfriend. Okay, that's good. A lot of guys didn't have those. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, a lot of guys never got one of those in high school. We were just talking about popular in the car the other day where I think now popular is different than what you think of it as.

Tell me how. We were talking to some kids and they they were like, "Popular isn't like that." Now it's just you're in your groups, but there's no there's no top group. But do you think that's that's kids in private schools in LA where they've kind of maybe

Yeah, I think so. I think so. Because I hear it too. Like we have friends who go to these really nice schools and no one's getting picked on. No one got their ass kicked in the parking lot. I'm like this is this is an Eden. It sounds like

Yeah. Nobody's trying to sell bags of oregano and pass them off as marijuana. Right.

That's true. Yeah. You weren't set on music, right, in high school? No, I did. I mean, I played a little music outside of school, but I did more sportsoriented things in high school.

And when you went to Vanderbilt, you went for engineering, biomed engineering, and then switched to business.

Mhm. I hated all that, by the way. You hated all those classes and everything. Yeah.

It couldn't have been an accident you picked Vanderbilt, right? Do you think in the back of your mind you're like, let's get over to Nashville?

I just like Nashville. Yeah. And I had been to a a football camp uh at Vanderbilt and I like the coaches. I was going to try to walk on because you know you're 18, you think you can do anything. Once again, you think you can be number one.

Yeah. And you you know and then you get in the in the real world and you're like, "Oh, that guy's 270 and runs at 46.

Maybe I can't do this." Also, you may not know this since you're not from the South, but Vanderbilt is the Ivy of the South.

Is it? Yeah, that's what they call it. They used to call themselves the Harvard of the South.

Exactly. Harvard. Yeah. So I grew up hearing that as well. So if you were validictorian, it would make sense if you were staying.

You're supposed to go there. Yeah. So you got here, you hated all those classes. You kept changing your major. And then as legend goes, you meet a dude who is a salaried

songwriter. Yeah. But I lived in Kentucky at the time. Oh, you did? Yeah. So wait, you dropped out and then moved back to Kentucky.

Well, I went to UK for two years. What's UK? University of Kentucky. Okay. Where is that? Lexington.

Lexington, Kentucky. Okay, this didn't make it to your Wikipedia page. This is like the This is the lost years.

It also says on the Wikipedia page that I was in a Travis Trek cover band, which is not true. That's gone.

Is it gone? Damn it. I always liked it that it was on there so I could mess with people.

We'll get it back. Yeah. Someone had put in mind that my birth name was Daximus and that live that lived there for years. I was like, that's pretty great. Like I I hope

I like it when they're fake [ __ ] on the internet. When people ask you about it, you're like, "No, that's fake. That's fake."

Okay. So, wait. You you you went you went up to Kentucky. You did two years there. And what were you majoring in there?

It was business there. Oh, that's where the business was. But why did you leave Vanderbilt? I I want to know.

I hated it. What? You hated just the scene a little bit. And I just wasn't good at I wasn't prepared

for what? For the intensity of it of the academics. Yeah. Uhhuh. For the Harvard of the South,

right? I wasn't prepared. Interesting. Cuz it came easy to you before. So then Yeah, that makes sense.

Where did your dad go to college? He went to WVU, West Virginia University. Is he from West Virginia?

He is. He died in 13. That sounds right. My dad died in 2012. Al too young. 62. My dad

66 was my dad. Yeah. Was it coal related? No, it wasn't. He he was diabetic and had renal failure and congestive heart failure and a number of a number of uh

systemic collapse of organs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So if he died in 2013, he did he missed quite a bit of stuff. Yeah. Most of the solo all of the solo career.

Yeah. Does that bum you out or is are you fine with that? Well, it probably wouldn't exist. I I wrote I made that first record. I tried to make a record that I thought he would like, you know, and that was what the first record was.

That was Traveler. Yeah. He did get to see me. I mean, I was in a band, a bluegrass band that

the Steel Drivers. Steel Drivers. That was And he really loved that band. He was really bummed out when I was no longer in that band, you know.

Uh, the Steel Drivers were [ __ ] great. That's what I've been listening to the last two days.

Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's some good first [ __ ] for the first band. Um, okay. So, how do you end up leaving Kentucky and then getting to Nashville?

I met this guy named Steve Lesley who was a sound songwriter at EMI at the time uh through um a mutual acquaint. He went to Morehead State University which is where I lived in a town called Morehead and I was just working odd jobs and lived with a guy named Jesse Wells who plays for Tower Childers now. He's he's a multi instrumentalist that I grew up with. Played little league with him. You know, we've known each other a long time. So,

kind of lived in the house with him. Jesse met Steve. Uhhuh. And in just in passing comment, I don't even know if it was a real comment, my Steve told my friend, he's like, "Hey, if you know anybody that writes songs around here, I would love to help somebody out." Oh wow.

And gave him his telephone number. So, you know, I was back and forth from there. And I think I was probably back at home with my parents, you know, helping out there doing something. I don't know what I was doing. I I floated a lot in my early 20s.

Mhm. So, I just called this guy up. I said, "Hey, I write songs." He's like, "Cool. Uh, send me a few things." I I said, "Okay, well, here you go." And I just sang some things. Didn't think anything of it.

Yeah. And a couple weeks went by and he listened to it and and he called back and my mom always liked to tell the story that he called and I was I was fishing and Steve always likes to tell the story that he called and my mom told him, "Well, he's fishing. He'll he'll have to call you back."

He's gone fishing. Yeah, he's literally gone fishing. But I called him back and he said, "Hey man, this stuff's pretty good. Maybe you want to come down and hang out and write, you know?" And so I came down for a couple back and forth for a couple months and met a few people and uh it seemed like a good thing to do. And I had zero money so I bombed a little bit of money off my uncle.

Mhm. And uh got down to Nashville and had about maybe maybe a month's worth of living expenses off off what I bombed off of my uncle.

How soon before Seale? I had a publishing deal in seven days, which is not Seven days,

which is not anybody's story, but that's mine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. How does it work? Like so you've submitted some songs to Steve.

He he introduced me to people to Frank Rogers and um who uh and Chris Duby who ran this publishing company called Segale Music which was an EMI co-enture at the time and u and then I met Liz O Sullivan who was a plugger there. That's the person that kind of pitches songs around you. I don't know how much you know about.

I don't know. That's the Yeah. Yeah. But Liz was a big big uh advocate of mine. And then there were there were a few couple other people that I met. Um, guy named Pat Finch who was uh he ran another another publishing company. And those guys kind of all got interested in me and and Liz Sullivan would call me every night. Hey, you just got to come over here. Just come over here. And it was a co-venture. So there was no opportunity to really own any of your

catalog. So like it was at some other places maybe. It was less it was less money. you know, you couldn't the piece of the pie, Frank, for you. There was no ownership really, but it was more important to me to be working with somebody that believed in what I was doing.

Yeah. Yeah. And I said, well, all that other stuff will work it out itself out. So, I wasn't worried about the money.

Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. We are supported by All State. Checking All State first could save you hundreds on car insurance. That's smart. Not checking your phone's battery before heading out. That'll get you every time. Of course, your phone dies on the way to meet someone, leaving you wandering around quietly panicking about being in the wrong spot. Yeah, checking first is smart. So, check All State first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with All State. Potential savings vary subject to terms, conditions, and availability. All State North America Insurance Co. and affiliates, North Brook, Illinois. We are supported by Into It Turbo Tax. You know that feeling when you drop your taxes off with someone and then nothing?

You're just sitting there wondering if they've even started, if there's a problem, if you're getting everything you're owed. It's like sending your car to the shop and never getting an update. That's what I appreciate about Turboax. With Turboax Expert Full Service, they've completely transformed that experience. You get matched with a dedicated tax expert who actually does your taxes for you. And here's the part that changes everything. You can get realtime updates on your expert's progress from start to finish. You can literally see when they're working on your return. No more guessing, no more waiting by the phone. And if you have questions, you get unlimited help from your expert at no extra cost, even nights and weekends during tax season.

They're focused on getting you the best possible outcome and every dollar you deserve.

My dad loves Turboax and he's a meticulous man. He doesn't cut corners. If you're not going to trust me, trust a sh.

That's right. Visit turboax.com to get matched with a Turboax full service expert today. That's turboax.com. Only available with Turboax full service experts. Realtime updates only on iOS mobile app. So they go, "Okay, we're hiring you. You're under contract with us and we want you to what do they like deploy you like go meet with this musician?"

Well, and Liz, you know, orchestrated that too. She's setting up these veteran guys that you were talking about that I would get in the room with.

Yeah. Were because of her, you know, she knew these people and uh they'd give some no-name young guy a shot, you know, get in the room, see what you got, you know.

Yeah. What is the protocol when you're once you're in that room and and for and how are you supposed to know how it goes? That's my question. Like you've written by yourself.

I'm going to learn. Okay. But I don't say that going in. I I know how to write a song by myself, right? And that's where you have to sit back and see what role you can play. Where where am I valuable in this? This person is a better guitar player than me or this person's a better singer than me or this person is obviously a better writer than me. What can I bring to this? What what is my role? Maybe I can go make the coffee and that's my role.

Uhhuh. You know, that's that's how that works. You did this for 10 years. You wrote a thousand songs in these 10 years.

Oh my god. You wrote six number one hits for huge musicians. So, it all worked out obviously, but when you walk into a session with, let's just say, Luke Bryan or any one of these guys you had hit, do you come in with a song?

I'm not necessarily always writing with artists. They're, you know, Nashville's unique and that we have it's a songwriter community more than maybe not as much as it used to be. I'm not in that down there every day mix like I used to be. It's probably more LA track guys now or something. But you go in a room and it could be just two guys that write songs and be like, "What do you got today?"

Right. Not pointing at anything. You're It's a It's a clean slate and you just kind of see what comes.

So, you haven't come in with anything. I would rarely come in with anything. Okay. Yeah. That's a I don't know. Like I don't know if you're supposed to come in like I am.

Listen, I have endless blabbering in my phone. Voice memos and typing [ __ ] down that I don't know what it means.

Yeah. And it's most of it's useless and but maybe 5 years from now go oh that I can use that for this.

Yeah. Yeah. Well I was kind of blown away to learn that um higher which ended up on your album.

I want to say 2023 that that that was 21 years earlier you had written that song.

I wrote that song probably the first year I was in Nashville. So maybe than that. I moved to Nashville in 2001. So, um, yeah, 20 at this point, 24, five, five years old.

Yeah, I think sometimes it's better if they're old. Yeah, because if you still like it and it's that old, it's probably pretty good.

And then this is nosy, but I'm just again, I know nothing about it. I'm so curious when you're working with like uh uh C Gail.

Yeah, C Gail. Are you just on a monthly stipen? Are you getting paid per session?

Salary. You get you get paid a salary basically, you know, and that's a recoupable salary, you know, against royalties,

anything you end up making in the future. Yeah. So, you know, and and you're also a contract worker. You're not like an employee. You're like,

you don't get health insurance. It's it's, you know, you're a contract worker and it's a year-to-year thing whether or not they pick up options.

When did the leverage switch and you started getting like ownership or or some part of

Well, you just negotiate those things when you contracts come up. It's like it's contract negotiation.

Okay. And I always like term terms better than money, you know, like terms are always better than money.

Terms are better than money. What does that mean? The ownership things or uh reversions or you know like better than you know some guys want pay me as much money as you can. You can keep it all

upfront. Yeah. Roger. Roger. When it moved so fast it was like seven days and then you have this. Were you shocked or were you like yeah I am really good at this?

No. You just feel lucky cuz you know that that's not everybody else's story. Like you can

you can walk around in Nashville and there's 50,000 guys trying to do that. Uh and it might take somebody five or six years or more to to get a first publishing deal somewhere.

Yeah. And now that's based off of social media some way. They pick up some Tik Tok person or whatever. But

yeah. Yeah. It's a little different. But yeah. Yeah. One great song and then we hope that they've written another hundred or so or can write another hundred or so.

Who knows? of Kenny Chzn, Josh Turner, George Strait, Luke Bryan. These are all these are all guys that you worked with and ended up writing number one singles with. How did those sessions vary?

Well, a lot of the songs you're naming again worked like the way that I described it. I wrote them with some other dude.

Yeah. And they heard the song and they recorded it. I didn't know those guys necessarily.

Okay, great. So, there's it can go to them done. Yeah. Without you meeting them.

Yeah. I can imagine this being a very frustrating job for me. For me, I would be I would have a hard time writing the thing, then that person gets it and it's number one and everyone is giving them accolades and it's like, but I wrote it. Is it hard credit?

I mean, not when the check shows up in the mailbox, it's just fine. You know, that is the opposite of ego. When I found out that you could have a job where you could sit in a room and make up things on a guitar, I thought that's the greatest job I ever heard of.

Well, I and I think I know the distinction between why it's different is he wasn't trying to be yet the the star of the movie.

I know. He's like, I'm a writer. It's not like the writers in Hollywood are pissed that Tom Cruz is getting action. They're like, yeah, I'm a writer who writes scripts and this movie got made.

You wrote the Tom Cruz movie. You're [ __ ] as a writer, you're still alive and you're just a music writer and so you're writing hit songs like you're doing the exact thing you were hoping to do.

Yeah, you're winning. It's good. And so when you start Steel Driver in '07, so I guess you've been here at this point for 6 years, what is the motivation to do that?

Well, one of the guys that I wrote songs with was a guy named Mike Mike Henderson. Um, veteran guy, you know, and uh great blues player. He was in a band called Mike Henderson, the Blue Bloods, if you ever want to check that out. are also king snakes, but he's a he's a guitar slinger, session musician.

Uhhuh. Just killer like incredible guitar. Incredible. Yeah. Yeah. And he's he's passed away now. But um but I wrote probably more songs with him than I did anybody else. And he and I both really liked bluegrass and he and as he would would have put it, we had these perfectly good songs sitting around going to waste. But there were a bunch of like bluegrass murder ballads and things like you know we're not like going to sing. We're not pitching those to like

commercial country radio, you know. Yeah. Well, it started with he wanted to get a gig at like VFWs or something and just a weekly gig.

Yeah. That we could have a band and have fun. Yeah. Just for fun. Yeah. And that's I think all good bands start that way. It's just for fun, you know.

And and it turned into when we were we started playing standard songs, but then then the came the well, we have these other songs that we can play this way.

Yeah. And then we started playing that way. We got a few more gigs and we wound up having a deal on Rounder Records which was a pretty good acoustic label. Um,

and they did really well. Like the steel drivers did great. Yeah, they did did really well and um, yeah, it was a good time. I think that made me a better writer doing that. I learned a lot from the PE the guys in and the lady in that band. They were all session people and and you know, great pros.

Pros. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I learned how to be in a band in that band, you know, but I also took a pretty big hit in songwriting income because I was touring, you know, in that band.

Right. You were losing money doing I was losing money playing that. Yeah. Yeah. That's tricky.

But I do feel like it made me better on at both of those things. So, um, it felt important and it felt like something to do. It was stressful for my wife.

I guess there's two ways this could have happened to you, right? Like we interviewed Ted Dansen and his his analogy which I love was in his life he feels like he's been sitting in the back of a pickup truck. He's not looking forward. He's just kind of like things are happening and the environment surrounding him and these opportunities are coming but he's not really in his mind he wasn't like steering the wheel. And I I'm curious did you just accidentally end up a lead man?

100%. I moved to Nashville to be a songwriter. That's what I moved to Nashville to do. So, at no point did you go, "Okay, we're switching gears. I'm only writing for me and I'm going to" It just It just happened.

I probably won't do that. You still I don't write a lot anymore, you know. And I do get calls from people to write with them for things, which inevitably winds up being,

"Hey, will you also come sing on this thing?" You know, I'm like, "Okay, well, okay."

But I really love the role of getting in a room with somebody and writing for their thing.

Yeah. You know, I enjoy that. And I enjoy just the exercise of um walking in a room with somebody and going, "What are we going to do today?"

Yeah. What are we going to pull that out? What are we going to pull that out of the sky? You know, like

we put the antenna up and see what happens. Yeah. Does it get you kind of um charged? Like is there a fear that's also present? Like

I don't have any fear of that. Oh, none. Okay. Zero. Oh, wow. That it won't come. I'd be so scared of that.

He's Bill Murray of country. Wow. He knows it's going to happen. Just take a deep breath.

I don't know that I know it's going to happen. I just feel very um able. Yeah. You're competent.

This is what you [ __ ] do. Yeah. I mean, more than anything else, I know if I can't do anything else and I can't do a lot of other things very well, I there's a lot of holes that come with being able to do

a few things pretty good. Yeah. There's some blind spots. There's a lot of blind spots in your personality that come with that.

I'm kind of interested in the blind spots. What are your blind spots personalitywise, would you say?

Personalitywise? Yeah. Uh, I don't like deadlines. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

I'm terrible with deadlines. I just don't almost don't believe in them. Well, sure. If you have a song that comes out 21 years after you wrote it, then you've um deadlines are who we

I used to say there there's no such thing as a country music emergency. Ah, you know, and there's not we're not we're not

performing brain surgery or no hearts on ice. Yeah. There's nothing that people can get really elevated about things that we do like

and certainly I did have someone say to me one time that we have a a healing component in what we do for music and that's important, you know, and that and I took that to heart.

But it's not an emergency like there's not any real emergencies. Yeah. The song doesn't come out in August.

No one's dying. It's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I I'm not great at deadlines in that way. Um because I I I prefer something to be right over it being done.

Yeah. Or what I what I believe to be right. You know, do you feel a little bit like a psychologist? Like when you cuz you're you you you sit down with a virtual stranger, I'm imagine a lot of the times, and you're like trying to get a read on their personality. We want to help fill in what they're lacking and then lean on whatever they're strong. Like is there there's is there like a feeling out period where you're trying to figure out what's how what's the best approach to work with this person?

I don't know, man. I just kind of show up. Show up. That's half a life. Yeah. Well, I do think that I think half of life is just, you know, or at least the way that I have gotten to live is is showing up. Must be present to win. And I used to say, you know,

yeah, I think Nashville is a much more special place than people broadly know. I think it's a really supportive place.

We're all rooting for each other. If your buddy got a number one, you're like, "That's great, man."

Broadway and that the Broadway people are so kind to each other and supportive and comedians are not. We're the worst. You know, [ __ ] stand-ups are all hate each other and they're jealous of each other. So, like when I see these creative places where people are genuinely rooting for each other, it's I think it's special. I don't think it's everywhere.

Yeah. Well, maybe not. But it it works a lot better, you know, like the rising tide raises all ships, you know, that kind of thing.

What prompted you to leave Steel Driver? One of the guys in the band uh developed a uh a fear of flying.

Oh, fear of flying. Wow. And I didn't see that coming. I'm waiting for addiction. That's generally what brings a band down.

And and I had an opinion uh about what we needed to do. And everybody else in the band had a different opinion.

Okay. And uh so they got somebody else. Oh wow. Wait, wait, hold on a second. For a fear of flying fear that wasn't even yours.

Were you fired? Is that what you're saying? Were you kicked out of the band? Technically, yes.

Technically. Oh, no. That How did you read that in Wikipedia? Well, that's not I probably shouldn't be saying that on here, but that's technically that's technically the truth.

Wow. How does Did Were you hurt? Well, sure, but I also didn't believe that we were

setting the right course, right? Yeah. And so I was like, "Okay, well, yeah, I'll do something else."

Then you you form another band, the Johnson Brothers. Yeah. What's this thing where you don't capitalize the T in your bands? Are you an EE Cummings fan? What is that? Why aren't we capitalizing the T in these bands?

There's no There's no Steel drivers. The the the It's the Steel Drivers, right?

Man, you've already thought about it more than I have. Yeah. The the the T is not capitalized.

Interesting. But the S and the DR. They are. And guess what? The T is not capitalized in the Johnson brothers either, but Johnson and brothers is capitalized.

Wow. That is You have no awareness of this. Chris, how could you not notice that your T's are not capitalized?

You think it's a typo? I think maybe it is. I don't know. It wasn't intentional. There was not a lot that was intentional for me in a lot of what I've done.

You seem very peaceful. Yeah. Boy, I wish that were all the way true, but um I try to be.

You seem very content. I don't Yeah, I content might be elusive. What are you wrestling with? What was Did you do New Year's resolutions?

Trying to think. Well, my New Year's resolution was to simplify. I have a tendency to be complicated about everything.

What version of complicated? You're overthinking everything or definitely that.

Uhhuh. I weigh out things very deliberately and in long and arduous ways that annoy my wife who's very impulsive

and can very quickly make decisions. Okay. So, you have some indecisive. I prefer the word thoughtful.

Yeah. Okay. Meticulous. That Well, what are we trying to head off? What what what fear is like uh driving some of this overplanning and overthinking?

Making mistakes. You know, I don't like to make mistakes. Okay. I hate to be an armchair psychologist, but is this from the stern dad?

I'm sure it is. It could be. I mean, validictorian, all of these things. No, you're like an overachiever.

But at the center of that could be bunch of different things, right? It could you're an overachiever because you don't think you're worthy of love. If you're spectacular, that's kind of my thing. You could be an overachiever also because the the the pain the you got punished for failing. Like there's could be a lot of different motivations.

I don't know if I ever got punished for failing. Um not by anyone but myself. Do you beat the [ __ ] out of yourself?

Sure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a good hobby, right? Is it? I mean, it's time consuming. Keep you busy.

Definitely takes up a lot of time. You must acknowledge that anyone who's going to sit in a room by themselves and solitary and focus and do that repetitively like it's a personality type. You know, a lot of people can't sit by themselves and dedicate that amount of time.

No, a lot of people are uncomfortable with that. Yeah. I think it's it's unique and it's really common among, you know, musicians, I think. And it's really counterintuitive because you're seeing these people that are like they're playing in front of 90,000 people. you think they're kind of an extrovert that that's what's presenting, but you realize like what gets you there is actually sitting by yourself in a room a lot. It's almost like opposite

what the result is. But you're sitting by yourself in the room for the 90,000 people. That's me.

Yeah. Throwing that out here right now. Yeah. Do you think you have any isms, any conditions?

Sure. I'm I'm not a doctor, so I can diagnose any of those. Well, perfectionism, it sounds like, is For sure. If you can't make mistakes,

I mean, I can make mistakes and I do make many, many, many mistakes and that's okay.

Painful for you. Absolutely. I don't like to. I don't enjoy it. You can't leave here without a diagnosis.

Okay. What is do you think that I have? Well, I don't know. You're not giving me a lot to make my theories.

It's part of my charm. Let's acknowledge. How about I think it is part of your charm.

Do you have a hard time opening up? Oh, maybe that's an ism. An ism. Non-oping up isism.

I think so. A vulnerable. Maybe it's like a lack. Well, it's OB. You're obviously vulnerable because your songs are so deep and meaningful.

I think that's why. Yeah. Control. We're getting there. Getting somewhere. We love control.

We all Everyone here in this room loves control. Well, it's there's some safety in in the space of a song.

Yeah. Because I'm not having to explain it to anybody. And you can apply yourself to it in whatever way you want to.

And I think that you should. That's what songs are for. Yeah. And we don't have to talk about it. I can make this thing and you can take it and it can be yours and part of your life if you want it to be.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not going to defend it. It is what it is, right? And I just wonder where all this the depth of your music and the range of it and just how much of it there is

if you know there's pain driving that or no maybe there's not. Sure. I think a lot of it can be observation uh of the human condition in general. You know like

you can see you can walk outside and we can walk out Should I pass a homeless dude on the bridge on the way over here? You

Yeah. You know, you can you can see that it's not hard to find. Yeah. Uh whether it's yours or um somebody else's.

Do you feel like you take on other people's pain? Um no. No feelings. Okay. But I also feel like I am not unaware of it.

Yeah. But some people are and I can view it. Okay. And try to examine it. Yeah. Um, and I think uh that's my job as a songwriter is to try to attach to those things or at least examine those things and uh maybe help people find themselves in it. This has been my experience a little bit is like it used to be really resultsoriented because I wanted things and those things happen and they're really great and yet they're very temporary and they don't fill you up for a very long time. And I think slowly you start hopefully transitioning to like the process is the high.

Process is the high. But it's also disappointing when you get this thing when you reach the moment. Yeah.

And you're like, "Ah [ __ ] that didn't do what I thought it was going to do." Yh. you know, so and I don't take those things in very well. Like I don't take even the good moments in very well.

Yeah. And I think u I need to work on that. Yeah. You know, do you think the shoe's always going to drop?

Oh, sure. Yeah. That's a Kentucky thing, you know, like we have this innate genetic

component of we got to, you know, make hay while the sun's shining or you know, like ah something bad's going to happen. You know, it's too

I was raised largely by my two grandparents that were both from Kentucky. They both moved up.

You understand that? Yeah. What part of Kentucky they from? Hazard. Okay. Yeah, you really understand then.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you would love this. Yeah. There. My my of my grandma's five brothers, one killed another. The other one shot the other but didn't kill him. And three of them all died in prison. Like that's the clam. That's that's the honcho. The [ __ ] honcho are wild. And my I would say my our 10-year-old is clearly 12.5% on Joel cuz she can [ __ ] let it rip.

Yeah. As I said earlier, I grew up in Georgia. I was just there. You're the only artist I know that everyone in LA all our friends in LA are so excited we're talking to you and all my friends in Georgia are so excited we're talking to you. Like you you unify. You span the gambit. There. That's not the case. That is very rare.

No. people lit our almost lit our studio on fire for having Jason Eld now you know some people um court controversy that's part of their thing or some people and some people

uh want to discuss things that aren't about music or you know make that part of their thing and it's not part of my thing you know

but you're very universal like it's just there's something about your writing that people really gravitate towards regardless of their specific musical taste. Like I don't think all our friends are like super into country, right?

But they love you. Yeah. What's right about your music too is you can come to it from all these different angles. So yeah, like I have a lot of friends in LA. Our friend Charlie Curtis is just like he would [ __ ] cut off many fingers to just shake your hand. His way into you is very interesting. It's like definitely he's a very masculine man. He played football at uh Georgetown and Rice. He's a physical phenom and like you allow him somehow to be this masculine man who is [ __ ] feeling emotion. I think that's the unique gift you're giving to a lot of men. You're singing the national anthem uh at the Super Bowl and they [ __ ] cut over and the coach is balling [ __ ] Kelsey's crying. The men are crying like you're allowing these men

Yeah. to feel an emote and that's so rare and that's just a pocket of your appeal. And then my thing with you is like I hate to be repetitive of Brolan cuz he interviewed you and said ba basically the same thing. Like you're bringing back for me the only country I loved which is like outlaw country. Like when I hear your stuff I'm like mhm this guy this dude's whale and apparent like this that's what you're channeling for me and then the women are loving you for some other reason. So yeah it's kind of some other reason

unbeknownst to me. Question mark. No, you know, I you know, I don't know. Thanks.

Yeah, I know. There's nothing to say to that. It's hard. That's probably hard to

I mean, it's not on purpose. I guess that's my question. Is it Is it on purpose? Is there like are you thinking

Am I thinking about who I'm connecting to? Yeah. Or like I want to make sure I don't By the way, we think about it. We think about it on this show. We don't want to contribute to the divide. We're here to like, you know, show humanity.

I think that's an important thing to want to connect to. Yeah. But I also think uh in a musical space uh my job is to connect to the music and then put that out in the world and let people find themselves in it.

Yeah. Pray for the best. Yeah. And you know the song doesn't really mean anything. No song means anything until it goes out into the world and people hear it and attach themselves to it and find themselves in it or it marks a point in their life or that's that's it.

Yeah. that has zero meaning until that happens. You have five senses, right? Um, and this thing music is like it's in its own category of you kind of got to call it magic. It's like we have these ears that we're supposed to be listening to predators for and we're going to communicate with. And then there's this completely pointless endeavor which is making Yeah. making noises

that will be sitting somewhere and crying or laughing or partying and you're like

remembering well we have this one sense that is like open to complete nonsense. It has no there's no purpose to it. There's some magic to it.

It's meant to unify us though like it you know that is a point to it. The point to it is the magic point to me is that well and this is only is in regards to a certain type of song but um you know people like sad songs so they don't feel alone and I think maybe all songs are that way and that we we want to feel those emotions together. There's a communal thing in that even if you're driving in the car

Yeah. by yourself listening to a song and it's hitting you in a certain way, it's still that communal thing. You're like, "Oh, there's somebody else in the world that understands this other thing that I'm going through

and so I'm not alone all of a sudden." And I think that is the magic of music. It's not some mysterious thing. That is the magic of music is it helps us all be connected in ways.

Yeah. that maybe uh even a conversation or a look or touch doesn't provide. I would argue too it's like um the way that we can get emotion from my head into your head the quickest to me it's like the most succinct powerful delivery device.

Yeah. I don't think that's true for everybody though. I think I think there are people that

I've met in my life like I've never been to a concert. I don't listen to music. Yeah.

Don't do what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think that's not it's not a value in everybody's household or you know,

they're bad in bed though, those people. I think you should say to those people, "Well, you must be a terrible lover."

Well, they visual artists. They like museums. Sure. Yeah. You got to put shade on when you're a kid in your car in high school. You know, you got to let that do some of the work for you. It's also so connected to memory.

Sure. Music that and I think that's also what's so powerful about it and it it's the only thing that is capable of transporting you.

Right. Time travel. Okay. Now I want to talk about Morgan a little bit. So your wife Morgan who you've been married to for 18 years. Um you guys were working both in songwriting.

She actually had a deal on RCA. Oh, she did? Yeah. She was an artist. Okay. No, her voice is bonkers. I was listening to you guys sing Amanda. Oh, I was pretty shook by her voice. That's pretty incredible. And also, what a rad duet for you guys to do. Okay, so she bought you a 1979. She's done this a few times. I only know about two of them, but I'm I'm I'm inclined to imagine there's more. So, you loved this 79 Jeep Cherokee and she found one for you and bought it.

Well, oddly enough, I I was looking at a scout that was in Portland, Oregon. Uh-huh. And I was going to buy this thing after my dad passed away and somebody it was gone. Somebody bought it.

And and I was like, "Well, I like this Jeep in Phoenix, too. Let's go do that."

Yeah. And that whole trip was the impetus for the I wrote Traveler on that trip. You know, had that other car. If we had driven from Portland, I might have made a very different first record.

Yeah. But we drove from Phoenix across the desert, you know, and and that was uh it was a different thing.

But you're driving, the sun's coming up. I don't know if this is apocryphal, but you're driving and the sun's coming up and Morgan's sleeping and Traveler hits you. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We got It was before we got right before we got to Gallup, New Mexico. And so I wrote the whole song kind of driving

and then I had to go inside and figure out how to play it when we got to the hotel in Gallup. You're driving a 79 Cherokee. There's not a lot of uh other things you can do.

Yeah. requires your full attention. It requires your full attention with both hands on the wheel most of the time.

Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. But she bought you that. And then she also bought you have one of Whan's guitars.

I have that, too. Yeah. That's a [ __ ] nice present. If I have known you had that painted on here, I would have brought it with me.

I was pretty jealous when I saw Brolan holding that. Um, yeah. I mean, he's he's my he's my higher power.

I just can't get enough of Yeah, there's something about him. And, you know, Robbie Turner that played on our first record, played with Wayland in the in the in the the Highwayman. So, Oh, he did.

So, he has all these great Wayland stories, too. Like, yeah. Uh, and of course, Robbie passed away, too.

You're now the holder of these stories. Maybe I there's a lot better people to tell them than me, but such wonderful folklore and country is is great. Country music is great. That era in particular because the those guys were more rock and roll than the most rock and roll

guys you could talk about. But a lot of those stories don't exist in the public way because it's it's kind of this understood rule that they don't

enter the public. Yeah. In the public way about how rock and roll those guys really were and it was just nuts. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nuts nuts.

They were just nuts, nuts. You know, when I think of what I think what I like about country music, that's the era I like as well. Like it's the Outlaw, Whan and Willie, and

uh, you know, Haggard and it was dangerous. Like I said, it was dangerous. Yeah. I was a young man. I was like, "Oh, this is dangerous."

Dangerous. Yeah. Absolutely. Which is weird. You know, my dad loved all that stuff, too. But my dad was like the straightest arrow.

Oh, he was. And he loved all that stuff. I'm just like, "Why do you love this stuff? It's everything that you're not."

Yeah. And maybe that's why he loved it, you know, like but it was a real thing. Those guys were real and you know like Willie Nelson's real the real deal.

Yeah. Have you seen this um show that Mike Judge does called Tales from the Tour bus?

I watched all of them. Every one of those guys shot somebody other than I think in that first season. But the best part of that that whale and doc was when they're talking they're interviewing I think the drummer for the band at the time and he goes um he goes yeah we used to have this um routine before we go out on stage we want to make sure everyone's on the same page chemically so you know I'd ask Steve how many are you on a four okay good I'm on four too Mike what are you what are you on they're talking about meth I'm on four great hos what are you at 12 was always 4x of whatever they were on.

I mean, I not meth, but I do believe in, you know, being in the same chemical space. You can't have one guy drinking tequila and somebody else smoking weed.

You're in the same You're on different musical spectrums, you know, like, yeah, you're riding different waves.

You're riding different waves. You got to be You got to keep it the same. I do believe in that.

Have you struggled with any of of that stuff? Out of 10, what's your addiction level, do you think? Naturally.

Naturally. Yeah. I'm I'm a nine just to let you I'll go first. You're a nine. I'm a nine. You're a nine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Five. I can defin But to me, it's not like I don't ever feel like I have to do something. I just want to do something.

Sure. Yeah. It's fine. You know, and I It's never gotten away from you. No, not really. I I don't think so. I

You don't have the gene. It would have taken you See, you either But you're our age, you like you got to quit or not. I had to quit. It was untenable.

Yeah. I mean, I can I still drink. I still have a cocktail every now and then. You'll have a nice Traveler whiskey.

Absolutely. Yeah. I'm not here to advertise but but I am I'm really saddened by the fact that I can't drink whiskey cuz I would love to try Traveler cuz it sounds like exactly what I would be in the market for.

I would have brought some if I thought somebody would try to be respectful in space. Oh, no. I'm very pro drinking. I don't want everyone drinking.

Well, you know, I I think it it it's it's good for some people and it's not a great thing for others.

Yeah. And you get to see it really up close and personal in the music biz or the Sure.

Biz. Yeah. And you know who those guys are immediately. You're like, "Yeah, maybe it's not for you."

Exactly. But I, you know, I'm um I enjoy it. I do. Yeah. But I I I can certainly get obsessed with things more than I would call, you know, like nuances of, you know, vintage things or weird guitar things. I was going to say your guitar collection is the giveaway that you're

I can definitely, you know, if you want to call that an addiction, then I'm probably a 25. Uh

it's uh I definitely have lanes, you know, where I'm just like and I and I' but I I don't feel like u they've ever crossed over into a lane where it's [ __ ] my life up. I'm jealous saying like

five is the perfect number cuz it means you've let it rip a lot. Sure. Yeah. You want to let it [ __ ] rip and then not take you down. That's like the sweet spot of it.

Well, especially if you don't like making mistakes and you like control. Well, I find those things are released, too. Like, well, I was going to say that's what that you kind of should be an addict because the release of control is the joy for me of being

I don't want to celebrate being an addict in any way, but I I I do enjoy, you know, getting a buzz or

Yeah. I think I think that's fun. Yes. And I think and a relief, right? I think for some people it is a relief and it's maybe even a stress management. I'll probably get some letters about that.

You know, in a way that's like, okay, that's a reset and I'm cool. I'm good for a while, you know, like

Yeah. Yeah. I don't I don't pick it up any of those things to cope with anything necessarily, I don't think.

Yeah. Um it's more of an interest or something I enjoy. One of your hobbies. One of your hobbies.

One of a few. Yeah, martinis are one of my hobbies. So, yeah. What's your What's your martini goto?

Hendrick's martini, lemon twist, no vermouth. Okay. So, when she's over, that's what you got to serve.

Got to have all those things. Whiskey. I'll take a oldfashioned. What was your whiskey before you had your own? What's your favorite? What is it?

Well, see, the reason I got in in business with the Sazzarak Buffalo Trace people, they make all that stuff. They make the H Sailor that, you know, that travel is the same master distiller as Papy Van Winkle and uh Weller and all that awesome.

Yeah. Rare rare, you know, hard to get. There was a papy heist. Did you see this? I watched a doc on this.

Yeah. Millions of dollars. I work with those guys, you know. Yeah. So, you would know everything.

They I don't know everything, but they they talk about it. They're like, "Yeah, they were this inside job, you know, kind of

these [ __ ] guys working thing. They were draining the barrels and filling them with water and there millions of dollars of this like crazy rare.

Yeah, it's hard. It's They take it very serious. It's It's something that takes some of it takes 25 years to make, you know like

a long game kind of thing. It's very cool and it's very oldw world and u one of the closest things we have in this country to

like a this real heritage thing coming from Kentucky, you know? It's like it's culture.

Yeah. Yeah. It's It's American culture. It's American culture. Yeah. We got whiskey, we got hip-hop, we got country.

Yeah. Yeah. We got a handful of things. Yeah. Jazz blues maybe most importantly, jazz.

Um, okay. After you do Traveler, it comes out. It's wildly successful. You are at the CAMs, I think. Is that where you do the Timberlake performance?

Y. Okay. So, you And now I'm not allowed to say this out loud, but Dave Co was the other obsession of mine. I've probably seen Dave Co like 15 times ago.

To say that he's a pretty known race. He's got some rough songs. I didn't Yeah, it's probably not as bad as you wear on your slee too much. Yeah,

but boy, when I was 20 and a drunk man, I [ __ ] nothing was more fun than going to a Dave Co show.

I I went to one and I You have his book of poems? No, I need his book of poems. I mean,

I only had money to go to the show when I was uh and it was like frat Boys and Bikers. That that was the that was the crowd.

And um and I went to the show in Lexington, Kentucky. But on the merch table, he had uh David Alen Co short stories and poems.

Oh yeah. And I just look I didn't have the money to get it. And I told this story to a friend of mine that's the Texas Act and he somehow found this merch book from the or this po and he sent me a copy of it. So I have a copy of it. I don't know that I've read many of the poems but

yeah kids probably shouldn't read that book. Your kids maybe keep that up high on a shelf.

As weird of a dude as he is, he's also written some wonderful songs. Incredible.

Yeah. No, he's a [ __ ] hell of a musician. I mean, no, he's, you know, great writer. Obviously problematic.

You've heard the you've heard the Everybody's heard the awful stuff. Yeah. Everyone who knows is aware of him is aware of the other awful things. But

but you know, there are some also very wonderfully written beautiful. Anyways, he made Tennessee whiskey very famous. But he didn't write Tennessee whiskey.

No, he didn't write it. He had the He had the first cut on it and Jones George Jones had the hit on it.

Oh, okay. George Jones made it, but I knew it from Co. That's I knew it. Yeah, I I only know that Dave Cover. But anyways, you you sing Tennessee Whiskey with Timberlake.

Um, was that pairing Did you already know him? Did that pairing seem crazy to you at first?

Well, I mean, I called him to do it. Oh, you did? Yeah. Uh, I had met him somehow. He saw me on a YouTube video or something.

Uhhuh. And it was the first time I actually met him. It was his birthday and his wife called and said, "Hey, it's hard for me to find thing experiences that my husband hasn't had. Would you fly to Montana and play for his birthday party?" I'm like, "Wow."

I'm like, "I all of a sudden I'm the experience that your I mean all and I was like, "Okay."

And so we flew to Montana. His birthday's in January and it's like uh end of January.

And your wife's too, right? Uh 25th. 25th. Yeah. Dax's birthday was yesterday. Yeah,

he told me 51 or his daughters told me it is 51. I flew up there and it was so cold. I I I couldn't believe how cold it was in Montana in January. Have you been in Montana in January?

Not in January, but but I've been to Wyoming and Yeah. It's like I mean inside by a fire with battery powered socks and every stitch of clothing own on my bones hurt. That's how cold it is, you know. I'm just not I'm not your climate.

I'm not built for it. those. It's got to be different for you. Don't let the beard fool you. This is no Grizzly Adams here.

Well, I mean, make sure you're used to it. I don't know. But I Anyway, so we we're there for like a day and my wife's with me. We're like, what are we doing here? Yeah.

Kind of kind of odd. It was it was there must have been tons of stars at his birthday party.

Well, this is we get to so I think I'm going to play for this party, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

And so it's time to go do the the party and we get on this horsedrawn like Santa Claus sleigh. Oh, wow. And we go up a mountain

to and I'm thinking like there's grizzly bears up here. Who knows what we're going to run into.

And uh we go to this cabin with no electricity. What? Zero electricity. And we go in, there's one guy cooking on like a uh like an 1800s

pot stove or something. Okay, that's what's happening. He really wanted an experience he had never had.

Okay. Well, listen. the room not much bigger than where we're sitting right now

and just a small table. I'm like, "What is happen?" I I felt like I was getting, you know,

getting this and he was the most famous punk person ever. He finally shows up and it's him and like his best friend and a couple maybe his cousin or something like it's like

his bro. Six, seven people. Oh wow. And I'm play I play you know a little bit of music.

Really quick, does that make you nervous? Like the smaller the group, the more nervous or less. You kind of already say you don't get nervous.

Uh you can say bizarre. You say bizarre and you don't want to offend anyone. It is strange.

It's crazy bizarre but cool. Absolutely. Uh and so I I played and then he's like, "Hey man, sit down." And and so I wound up just sitting down and we hung out that night and

and some whiskey. Friendly. And we went back to his house and I Yeah, we had definitely had some whiskey and uh had some papy that night in fact

and got papy. There was a cake there and I want to beat a piece I cut a piece of this cake because I'd had a few issues. I went, "What are you doing cutting this cake and it was I looked at the tag and like Alicia Keys had sent him the cake and I'm like, "Oh." He was like, "No, man. It's cool. Eat the cake." And he was like, "Okay."

We were eating cake and and that was kind of it. And we kind of knew each other from then on and we had talked a little about, you know, about music and we talked about doing things together and um we're friendly, you know, we went out to dinner a few times and we're just kind of friendly after that. We had this record and the CMAs were coming up. We got nominated for a few things and they were going to offer me a slot to play.

Yeah. And Morg was like, "You got to call him. You got to call him and ask him to do it." That's the way you do it.

And really quick, so that's my most hated thing in the world is ask someone for a favor. How easy does that come?

But I also knew that she was correct. I said, "If there's ever a time we got to,

you know, get over this. He's going to say he's going to say no." I'm just like, "Yeah,

let's" I was like, "Hey, man. you would you want to come do this? He like absolutely. So we got on the phone with the producer and uh and you know about television time on those things like time on television is like so precious to these guys making these shows.

Yes. And Justin with a straight face on the telephone uh you know the producers like how much time are you guys going to need? He's like we need eight and a half minutes

which is an eternity. Which is an eternity on television. Yeah. Yeah. And had he not been on that phone call, that would have been an immediate absolutely not.

But it was just kind of like, yeah, you guys can have eight and a half minutes. So we we got eight and a half minutes.

Yeah. For what was essentially uh my first appearance on that show? Yes. Now, did you get nervous for that? No, because we rehearsed two days before and we dug in and we really we had it dialed

and I knew that we were gonna, you know, it was the best possible possible version of whatever we could have done

and I knew that, you know, he's so pro and so and his band and everybody, we all we all dug in and we were prepared.

I do something. a few people. We had um Anna Kendrick on and she was talking about having to do those troll movies and she went in one time and she had like a really bad cold

and Justin's just like here's what we're gonna do. I'm going to do this blah blah blah. She was just talking about like to your point what a [ __ ] pro the dude is. I mean he's he's been doing it since his child and he took it seriously

100%. Yeah. He's a and he intuitively knows what to do all the time. All the time.

Spooky. And then this prick is the best SNL guest host of all time. [ __ ] sky. You're not supposed to be good on SNL on top of all this other stuff and dance like that and be good on SNL. But, you know, the power of those performances is a pretty staggering because also I mean that that's the Luke Col story too. Like Luke Combmes has this performance with Tracy Chapman, but that really that that is a big turning point. Yeah. For you professionally, that performance.

Well, it's certainly u I tell people a lot of times we we spent a long time building the fire, but that threw a match on it.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, you know, and you know, we had some shows booked on the West Coast and you know, thousand seat Theaters and things like that. We never played on the West Coast at that point and they were gone like that very quickly escalated from that point.

Yeah. It's funny how many people have this similar story where it's like it feels overnight on the outside, but for you it's like, you know, you're 15 years into it or 12 years into it and you've had a really substantial writing career. So for you it is incremental but from the outside it's like oh wow this is like a light switch.

Yeah. Well and that's that yeah that is definitely the view to people to the pastor on the television.

Do you think because you had had little tastes of success along the way that by the time this thing came around you had a little practice

like were you able to take in that moment in the ways that you would like to have?

No. No. And we won a bunch of like awards and things that night that were just kind of like we weren't supposed to win any of those things.

Album sold 2 million. Like it's on fire. Everything's [ __ ] on fire at that moment.

Yeah. And it was it was very quickly just a different ball game. Yeah. Yeah. And but in the moment I there was a lot of celebratory thing like backstage doing thing like

uh it was a very surreal moment for me and everybody that had worked with us and um yeah, it's an unforgettable one of those I don't know. I think everybody who makes a jump somewhere in their career can pinpoint moments and that's definitely one for us. You know,

some people handle it well and some people don't handle it well. I don't think I would have handled it well

had you not been like married and stable and had some Yeah. I was 38 or something.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Imagine giving yourself that whole experience at 21 years old or any of the ones I had. I would Yeah. burn that whole place down the weekend.

No, and some people aren't meant to handle that and I, you know, the universe was looking out for me in that way, you know.

Yeah. But also, I'm, you know, I appreciate it in different ways than somebody might that was 19.

But yeah, again, like you, you already made a good living. It's not like you're going to experience money for the first time. You're going to experience a lot more money, but it's like you've already you got to practice with some of the stuff

a little bit. Yeah, a little bit. Uh what I didn't get to practice for um was you know people driving up to your house or

Yeah. tour bus coming by or and that that was very hard for me. I was going to say you don't strike me as someone that would love the fame aspect of all this.

No. Yeah. Yeah. I don't enjoy that. I don't enjoy it for myself. Do you feel like you should have done the Kiss version?

Kiss version. Full paint. Those guys had something figured out and you know that those those guys were marketing geniuses. Well, what you do have going for you is you have this easy top thing, which is you could probably shave your beard at some point and go back to anonymous.

That's my retirement plan. Yeah, I think that's a solid one. Do you think you're trying to be invisible with all

Do I think I'm trying to be invisible? Yeah, with your beard and your hair and your hair.

I mean, I've had the beard and hair a long time and I'm sure there is some some shield aspect. Yeah. Some hiding

to it. Had a grill blow up on me and it was protective in that way. So, it protected me from fire. Wait, you had a a barbecue explode?

Wait, did it catch the hair on fire? Oh, yeah. Like it it took hair off here and all the hair all the way off this armies

and for I had a gap in my beard for a minute. Were you lighting it and the gas had built up in it? What? How on earth did this and it was a gr was a rental house

and you know I just I thought I had lit it and I turned them all on. I was like, "Oh [ __ ] I didn't light it." And I

It just filled that [ __ ] up. Yeah. Oh boy. Loud explosion. Yeah, it was dumb.

And then you got to come in and say to your wife like, "Look what I just did." Yeah.

Yeah. Now you got to worry about me grilling. Well, then you feel the skin peeling off your face and all that kind of stuff. You're like, "Oh [ __ ] I just made a mistake."

I wrongly was like, you know, he's got this beard. Anytime someone has a beard,

you're like, "Oh, they're probably covering up stuff." I'm certainly covering up stuff. But I saw p I saw pictures of him without the beard.

[ __ ] strong chin. He doesn't need a beard. Like, I need it. This bastard's like he's just sitting on a great chin.

Okay. Well, even more reason to me than I think it's an emotional beard. You think it's an emotion?

I mean, I'm sure it probably is. I'm going to go ahead and say it is. Um, did you have any anxiety after Traveler came out and it was so [ __ ] successful and you had such a a swell. Did you have any anxiety about like the next album?

Uh, no. But I did have an anxiety around just the amount of attention. See, my goal in making that record was to get to make another record,

right? And my goal was always like I had this very indie mentality of like I sell 20 25,000 records, I can keep playing.

Yeah. And I play pretty good shows and the world will be all right. Thousand theaters, you're golden.

I I mean, I have to, you know, people will never say this about corporate entities, but I have to say this about Universal. I had failed singles. I had a failed single before Traveler that wasn't on Traveler. And so I just came to uh Sandy May and I said, "Hey, I I took her to lunch or we went to lunch and I said, "Hey, can I just make a record? I just want to make a record and put it out and go play,

right? That's how I know how to do it." Yeah. And she was like, "Okay." And that was allowed. And that's not normal.

Yeah. Yeah. process for it's usually like have a hit single and then you can make a record and you know

and in the signal that didn't do well it was expected to do well right it's not just that it it also was expected to do well

well I mean you have to understand I I signed a record deal and it was a different head of the company I made a whole other record

previous to that Yeah and uh the head of the label came in to listen to it and he's like listened to the whole thing. Sat there listened to the whole thing. Then he turned around

like, "Man, I I love it, but I'm not going to be here next week." Oh boy. Capital and and uh Universal kind of merge.

Why'd he even listen to it? Because he signed me. He was Yeah, he wanted a music.

Yeah, Luke Lewis is a music guy. Yeah, that was a dumb question. But if you you're getting fired, it's almost like Yeah. Yeah.

I thought it was a really classy move even though it was disappointing. Yeah. Now that I've thought it through, that was the right move. Yeah. You know, when the murder all happened, it was kind of nine months of radio silence for me, which usually when those things happen, you're like, "All right, I'm a goner. I'm going to go back to writing songs." And I was pushing 40. I I had promised myself I wouldn't tour anymore if I was 40 and not really making a dent.

Right. And so the new uh Mike Dugen, the new record label head, comes in, listens to the record, and he's like, "I don't hear it."

Oh, boy. And I was just kind of like, "All right." Do you agree with him now? That record exists somewhere.

It does. It's not out, right? I can't like get it. Do you think it's much different in quality than your other albums?

I made it in a very different way. I'm I'm It was a very built record more than a live record. I'm I'm I'm playing all the stuff on it. It was a different record. It was where I was at at the time. And I don't know that it was bad. I mean, I I'm not embarrassed of anything on it.

Did it Did it dent your confidence at all or No, I mean, I disagreed. Oh, right. Right. Okay. Good.

Yeah. Yeah, that's the preferred outcome. I'm also aware that his job was to run the business the best way that he knows how to run a business,

right? And if if that meant it wasn't for him, I I missed the mark. So, what happened when you played Traveler? Does he come in and sit and listen to Traveler? Do you get to have like a round two?

For some reason, he was out. I did. He would say I kind of went around him. Okay.

And we're cool now. Like, it's all good. Yeah. This [ __ ] is the same in movies. Like, I directed a movie at Warner Brothers. Right before it comes out, they fire the president. They bring in a new president. The new president is not incentivized for the old president [ __ ] to work,

right? He's incentivized for his new [ __ ] that he green lit, right? And you're like, "Oh, [ __ ] I'm just [ __ ] They're not going to promote this movie,

right? It's disappointing." There's a lot of great things that get kind of uh squashed in regime changes sometimes, and that's just the way it There's more business happening than people realize,

right? And and the timing of things like um um there's a great Chris Knight record u that came out um long time ago that Franklin Liddell produced that I love, but it

that record came out and then like that the whole record label shut down, you know like oh it got kind of squashed, but that was a great record, you know, and it just was unfortunate

business timing. It was, you know, yeah, things like that happen all the time, I think. and a lot of great

back to your luck thing. I mean, again, half the game is luck. Maybe more than half, you know. I think it's probably 90% luck, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The better comp is really I can't imagine. Are you in Formula 1 at all?

Well, I I did do a song for that movie. Oh, yes, you did. That's right. Yeah. You have a song in F1?

And I got scared to death. I went to uh the race in Las Vegas. Uhhuh. Why humans want to go that fast? I don't I don't understand it.

Okay, I agree. Right up on the fence and you're just like, "This doesn't feel safe even for me to watch."

No, it doesn't feel like physics would allow for this thing to happen, right? That's what's cool about it,

right? The car can't go around a turn at 190 mph, right? No, it just I guess it did.

Have you ever gotten a car from with one of those guys or something? Uh, yeah. I hosted this show, Top Gear, for a couple years. Um, I raced uh

I know you raced. I've been Yeah. So, I've gotten Would you drive something like that?

I've never been in a Formula 1 car, but I have ridden with several Formula 1 drivers in cars and yeah, this stuff, you know, oh, he's going into turn one. You're like, well, he he ate the farm on this one. Like, we're not making it through this turn. And then all of a sudden, you're exiting the turn. You're like, I I again, I don't think that can happen. Physics wouldn't allow.

Yeah. Yeah. They're on another. But the reason I think the analogy is good is like the car unfortunately is 90% of it,

right? But that's not to say it doesn't matter if you're Max for Stappen. It [ __ ] matters. Like he's head and shoulders above. But but he needs that 90%. I think the same is for your thing and my thing which is like you got to be Max for Stappen, but [ __ ] you need the right car. You need the 90% of luck in friendships and all this other [ __ ]

Right. Yeah. And the right people around you. I can't I can't say that enough. You You've said it a lot. I really really like it. Yeah, I like it too.

I know we were sitting here talking about the individual thing, but I do feel like a lot, you know, of what I do might put my name on a marquee or on something else, but you know, you're talking about, oh, but you wrote the songs and all you're saying all these things, but I didn't record the things like I went in the studio and Vance is sitting there pressing the button. I, you know, Dave and my wife are telling me when they thought the tape was right. I mean, I'm not making things without Dave.

Yeah. Not really. I've also watched you guys talk to each other and there's definitely some spooky [ __ ] going on.

Well, we understand each other a lot in a lot weirdo and you know we we're brothers in in a lot of ways, you know, and and so and so JT and Derek, you know, the guys have been in my band

um from day one, played on the records from day one, you know, like that's those things are important and those things make what we do a lot more special than just my name being on it or whatever I bring to it. there. The specialness of all those people involved um is important.

Do you have some guilt about being the name on the marquee? No. Somebody's got to do it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good. I'm not trying to act like I'm unworthy here or something like that.

What I have a lot of is survivors guilt, which is like I over the last 30 years worked with so many [ __ ] brilliant people that didn't get lucky or didn't know the right person on the right day. I just I was exposed to how many people moved to LA and were talented and worked their asses off and I have that guilt personally where it's like I don't know, man. There were four other guys in my comedy troop that were better than me and I don't know why they're not rich and it's not fair.

It's not. No, it's deeply unfair. You know, the world is not fair. Yeah. And not that I think that that's right,

right? But but you know, um I'll take it. Yeah. I'm not sure if they're going to give it to someone. I I volunteer.

I'd like it to be me. Yeah. I'm sure I do have some guilt. I'm sure I do have some guilt about that.

Yeah. I don't have imposter syndrome. I just have a like I can recognize that these people are as every bit as good as me and some better.

Yeah. And it didn't happen. And it's like it's heartbreaking. I don't that hurts my soul a little bit. Well, but you know, it's that whole timing thing that I keep talking about like and that's luck and that's I'm I'm whatever it is that I do or you do or anybody does that gets lucky and successful, we happen to be filling some need,

right, for consumers or for the world at large, you know, and that's important, too. And that's um you can feel gratitude for that and maybe guilt that somebody else didn't get to fill it, but you know that was our

that's the way it shook out you know and that's and that's okay. Yeah. Yeah. We don't I don't think we have to still feel too bad about it.

No, I don't feel bad about it. You shouldn't and I shouldn't. But I do. It's that simple.

I run into dudes that are struggling. Sure. And I'm like, [ __ ] dude. This is not fair. Like you shouldn't be struggling at all. Just two more careery questions. One is um I think it's interesting that you've gone in and you've worked with Taylor and Adele and you're on both their albums singing. Uh what is that experience like?

Well, a lot of these some of these collaboration things were things that happened in in co

Oh, yeah. kind of era of time. So, it's that they're me on the other side of an iPhone screen,

you know, doing the thing and like that. Cool. Okay, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, you get honored to when you get asked to be on anybody's record. It was such a compliment um from anybody, but particularly people who are as u well-loved as those those two ladies, you know.

Did you watch um the dock the Taylor doc that just came out? I have not seen I did go to that show. I took my kids to that show. Me, too. But

some show eras. Oh, man. It was crazy. Every song was the production budget of most people's whole show.

Mine included, you know. That's what's so cool about the doc is you really get into the nitty-gritty about the show and how they did it and it is so it doesn't matter if you like her music or don't like her music if you don't respect her after watching that like go away like you

there's no way it's an insane amount of work and energy to expend on something uh and uh to delegate and to trust and to manage

and I It's unfathomable and only a handful of people can, you know, pull that whole thing off.

Pull that off. And she's one of them. The leadership to me was such a huge um it's like what you you've been saying about all the people, how many people it takes. Like it was she really highlighted that in this. It wasn't it was about her, but it wasn't about her. It was about the dancers and the the you know the guy running the thing. It just it was it was so cool

cuz none of it happens without all those people. Yeah. You know, I was blown away with the stamina.

Well, I'm like like she can [ __ ] go. We talked to her briefly after the show and she was like, "Yeah, I had to run. I would sing the show and run for three hours on a treadmill. Get ready for this."

Like, I don't run for three hours on a treadmill just to get, you know, save my life.

Wow. I know. It's wild. Um, and I just want to thank you. Our whole summer was a song to sing on the boat. I got videos posted of Kristen dancing to that song. What a song. I think you know what I love about it, too, is like I I think I was in the dark about what a badass um Miranda is. I didn't like that.

Oh, she's amazing. Yeah, I just was in the dark. She's so great. We've been friends for a long time and and she's filled in a few times when Morgan had to go do other things and sang on award shows with me and we've always written songs together and she when I first moved to town as a songwriter,

she she cut one of the songs I moved to town with, you know, she cut a song I wrote when I was 18.

Oh wow. Nobody's fool. So, we've known each other a long time and she's always been really good to me and a great friend and

so it was cool to get to do something like that with her, you know. Yeah, it's a very full circle if she write, you know, she sings one of your songs you wrote when you're 18 and then you get to do a song with her

again like those things are are more pure and I feel like better because they're real things. It's not cuz somebody threw us together or

right some master producer didn't think this up, right? It's not some something somebody dreamed of. And sometimes those things work out too.

Okay. Your chair. This is the cutest thing. Your mom and dad had a dinette set.

Yeah. And then there's a chair that you loved. Mhm. And you have taken this chair with you your whole life.

Yeah. That chair moved to town with me. I had a chair and like an army sack full of clothes, you know, like

Yeah. Just imagine like Army Navy for packing up the car, making room. This chair is really comical.

Well, it just fit in the back seat in the Is it a wooden chair? No, it's it's got like a loose side back and it's like chrome. And when I was a kid, the the seat was like yellow vinyl, like canary yellow vinyl, but my mom recovered it in like the 80s and it's very like

multicolored tweed or something. It almost looks Mason, but not. Okay. It was your chair.

Well, it is now. Okay. It was just one. There are three other chairs somewhere. I don't know where all

I got to get my hands on one of these [ __ ] God knows what they're going to be in the Smithsonian. Maybe one. I don't know. But you brought this chair and you've written most of the songs you've written.

I've recorded in the studio with that chair. That chair comes every time I'm in the studio.

A Yeah, the chair's everywhere. That's so sweet. And so, first of all, it's just very, very sweet. But then

I started thinking, are you superstitious? Because you also have you're playing the Gibson guitar you bought for $400. You're still playing that.

I don't know if I'm superstitious as much as I'm a creature of habit. It's control, right? It's like all the things I can't control are what they are and the things I can control I'm going to control.

It's a controlled environment thing for sure. Yeah. I sit in this chair. I play this control.

I mean, I built, you know, one of the first stages when I had enough of a production budget, I built a giant diffuser to try to control sound on stage

and I could hear it, right? Yeah. So, we could and I have a we have like a patent on it. It's like this. Wow.

If you ever look it up, it looks like the you know, like some kind of MadMax Thunderdome thing. crazy to build. All these pieces are like 1,200 pounds a piece and it's a it's a diffuser that that we carried around on stage like and it was so stupid to build but uh I had to hear it. I had to see if it would work. Yeah.

And because I was trying to control environments because most environments, live environments aren't sonically pleasant

and I don't use any ears. I use floor monitors and I'm always trying to control the environment in a way that, you know, maybe I shouldn't.

Uhhuh. But I I gave up on that and I tried to I had a different thing that had all these moving motors. That didn't work.

I just I I'm all the time drawing [ __ ] on napkins and making people who know how to do stuff try to figure it out,

see if it's possible. Will this work? I love also you have This was fun. People should watch this. This is like your essential things that you care about. This is a video I watched. And your dad's knife collection in this knife roll.

Yeah. Is so special. I got like very nostalgic seeing that. Yeah. What was it about the knives that you wanted? What was

uh Well, growing up, uh where I grew up, uh and maybe some in Georgia, I don't know if they do this in Georgia as well. Um, people would give you a knife as a sign of respect like and and my dad had received a bunch of these knives over the years.

They're pocket knives, you know. Pocket knives. Little pocket knives. Oh, yeah. See, get a visual.

I was sad when I learned this that I didn't have time to go out and get a cool pocket knife to give. But I, you know, I carry things like this.

Yeah. And, you know, I'll rub the back of them. It's almost like a fidget toy. It's a fidget toy for me.

Yeah. There's a comfort in it. There's a connection to my And I have some that belong to my grandfather as well. My mom's dad.

You're the dream dad. I got lucky. My dad collected elephants. Elephants. Elephants.

Like actual elephants. Real elephants. No. No. No. Figurines. [ __ ] statues. I don't know. And probably and now in retrospect, I don't even know if he liked them that much, but we we all believed he liked them.

So every Father's Day, every He got an elephant. You knew what to do. He's like, I got to go to the mall and find me an elephant. And the trunk had to be up. Pete, that was good luck.

Where did that come from for him? I don't know. Like, by the time I'm conscious, I already know my father likes elephants. And there's already 10 figurines in the house of these elephants.

But you never asked why he liked it. He just said that he learned they were good luck if the trunk was up.

Cuz I grew up, my mom had this porcelain elephant that was Oh, he would have wanted to get his hands on that.

It looked like, you know, like a really nice china. Painting green all over it. It was like a a side table. Had like a table on it.

Oh, it was functional. Yeah, it was a functional elephant. [ __ ] I I would have made his year if I could have got my hands on that thing.

That thing's in a storage unit. Hopefully, I can find it. But anyways, your boys are blessed because you have four boys and they know you're going to get a knocket knife.

Yeah. Knives and cars and guitars. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. of the venues you've played, Super Bowls, SNL twice, talk shows, is there a favorite kind of live experience you've had that you're like, "Oh, [ __ ] That's that was special."

Favorite live Well, I mean, like Super Bowl was a Super Bowl. That that was one of those times I felt nervous and I don't often feel nervous

cuz that's a scary song, right? Scary song. Yeah. And no control. Scary. Well, I controlled what I could.

Yeah. There's a lot of moving parts to that. Well, I made it the least amount of moving parts I could. I played it with just me and a guitar.

I didn't get the band. I didn't do a pre-tape. I didn't do any of that kind of stuff.

And I wanted to go out there and see if I could just do it. Yeah. And that's nerve-wracking for

that level of television show to go live live like that. Yeah. It's rare you can [ __ ] up in front of 40 million people.

You can though. I've done it. But yeah, I that that was special because it was, you know, and I I played when the Letterman show was going off the air.

Oh, you got to play Letterman. I got to play Letterman and that was one of the last and when I was in Steel Drivers got to play on Conan. That was a favorite show of mine, you know.

Yeah. Okay. Now, I'm going to hit you with the weirdest um thought I've had through all this reading about you and watching interviews. Okay. And listening to your voice a lot. Do you know how the old mining happened like hydro mining where they would uh the way they mined in like the 1800s? You start with a huge diameter pipe. Let's say it's 4 feet and you're running water through it. And then you reduce that to 2 feet and that builds pressure. And then you reduce that to a foot. And then you reduce it to 6 in. And by the time it's coming out spraying at the side of the hill, it's [ __ ] you know a bazillion pounds of pressure.

I know nothing about that. Okay. But you get the concept. I was looking at your nose. I'm like, um, Chris has the cutest little nose for what a big guy he is. He has this tiny little nose.

I did not. And he's got this he's got this big chest and he's like this big guy and it's all starting down here in the [ __ ] diaphragm. And by the time you work all that up and send it through this tiny little button nose, I think that's your magic sound.

Interest. That's a wild. It's a huge setup to ask. Have you observed? Go ahead. Go ahead and respond to this theory.

I don't have one. Keep keep going. Keep going with your Yeah, my theory theory.

Okay. So, I think you're like you're you're you're like you're hydraulic mining. That's what you are as a musician

over these 25 years of sitting with musicians and working with musicians. Have you observed patterns? Like, have you noticed weird things like, oh, people with this physicality tend to sound this way or that? Like, have you have you picked up these just from doing it so much? I don't know if if physicality I've picked that up. I certainly where people are from I think probably plays into how they play. Like people from New Orleans have have a thing.

Sure. People from Memphis have a thing. People from Florida have a thing, you know, like betting those guys, you know, like

there's a rock and roll thing that happens there. And I you can't put your finger on them like

they work their way into your DNA a little bit sometime. Yeah. But you can't say like this. They definitively have this thing. Yeah. But they definitely come with a different slant. Whether it's the pocket that they play with or the the way they hear things or the way they pronounce things when they sing or

where they sing things, you know, maybe that's a pedestrian evaluation of music.

It's interesting you say I'm reading a book right now and um it's talking about cities and the magic of cities and it was using as an example like they have tried to start tech companies in New York. They're well financed. They don't work. They work in Silicon Valley. Finance works in New York. We don't really know why. Other places have tried it. But there's all these these cities who have like signature industries that become their DNA. And they kind of can't be done elsewhere.

I can't explain that. It's just a thing that's very similar to this like Yeah. If you're a musician, you're also a product of something,

right? Yeah. And it can't be replicated. Um Okay. I just my last thing I want to say is um what is the current fuel you're burning for creativity? Because I imagine it has to evolve dramatically from arriving here hungry and ambitious and fearful and all these things. You have to evolve as the thing starts working out. There's all these like very dramatic youthful things that create art.

Sure. And as your life stabilizes what you're trying to get it to do, uh what drives the creativity? I think it's I'm probably at a bit of a crossroads and that um I don't know when I'm going to make another record or write another song.

Yeah. Not I'm I'm probably not really in the mood, right? And that's okay with me, you know.

It is probably not okay with managers and Yeah. labels and people like that, but that's okay with me.

Yeah. I don't know how much longer I'll even go play. I don't know. Yeah. Um, well, I think he and I are the same age. Like, I'm also like really just contemplating what a spectacular life I've had. What do I want the rest of it to be? I want to I want to have made a really thoughtful decision.

Yeah. I want to make a thoughtful decision about what I do with the rest of the time that I have on the earth.

Yeah. And you got little babies. That's how they feel. I got babies. I got, you know, some that are almost out of the house, you know.

Yeah. And they gave up a lot for me to be sitting here with you. and um doing things. So, I owe them some things. I think

Yeah. some time in particular. Um I I've done more than I ever set out to do. Yeah. Same.

How about that? Same. And I used to say this about playing the Ryman Auditorium. My dream used to be to play the Ryman Auditorium and sell it out. And then we very early after the Timberlake moment, we played it three nights in a row and sold it out. And

and I used to say, "Well, now I have to get a new dream." Yeah. And so what's the new dream face?

What's the new dream? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I and I do think it's important to find that. And I think so I think

for me fuel is the search. So I'm going to have to search for something and I'm going to have to hunt for something. U I don't know what that is or where it's going to come from.

Well, look, I'm in the market for rich friends in their 50s who want to retire and have fun. So I know very few people going to do.

Yes. And I think we're virtually neighbors. I'm not in my 50s yet. Thank you very much. You'll be there in two [ __ ] seconds, my friend.

I'm not hanging up my spurs. I'm not saying I'm hanging up my spurs. I'm just saying I'm looking for the fire.

Yeah. Yeah. I need the fire. Yeah. Yeah. And I want the fire to to to lead. Yeah.

And that's sometimes that take that's more elusive now than it used to be. Are you on testosterone?

No. Do you do I need I'm on testosterone. How much, man? You're pretty pretty a little bit.

We need to back it off a little bit. Whatever they got. Uh I was a nine on the addict scale. No, my numbers are really responsible actually. But I will say I was having this really crisis eight years ago. I had like directed a movie. It didn't work out. Blah blah blah. I'm like, I don't know, man. I don't know. Maybe I did enough. Maybe I did enough. I was really like, maybe I did enough. Maybe.

Well, I do think that I've done enough. And I'm I do think I've done enough. And it's not about doing something else. It's about for me wanting to do something else.

And I and I I I think I owe it to the people who might listen to what I do or come see me play live. Yeah.

Or any of those things that they get 100% of whatever I've got left in me if they're paying money for a ticket or a record or whatever it is.

Yeah. I I I feel very, you know, resolute in that and and if I don't think that I can deliver on that,

I I have to evaluate that, too. You know, I'm going to start you on four mill 4 milliters. Your passion now your passion is going to like shoot back alive.

Make six records in here. We don't need manufactur passion. It'll it'll show itself. It'll show itself.

But you don't even want it for the results. You just want the feeling of I want to devour something. I want to conquer something. I want to take something on. Like that's just a good feeling. Forget the outcome of it. It's like I like feeling feel like you can.

Yeah. You know, I think I'm I stopped I started feeling like I couldn't. I'm like, I don't know. You

have a little of that. Like, you know, I don't know if I care is what I was just like, I don't know if I care.

You just need a second. It's okay to take a break. Testosterone. I'm going to give you your first shot.

You got some Give me some of that. I always roll back up. Um Chris, again, truly, we get to talk to a ton of people. I was just very very excited to get to sit with you of all your stuff. It's just your spirit to me screams out when you perform and and it's just so beautiful. I'm really grateful I get to cross-pollinate.

Thank you for having me and thank you for taking the time. Yeah, this was really lovely. Thank you.

Yeah. Um I want you to have peace and contentment and I also want you to make a 10 or so more albums. So, however you you accomplish however you accomplish both that. All right. Be well everyone. Go today and and buy as much Traveler whiskey as you can

and [ __ ] I sure will. Let it rip. You're thinking about quitting, take your tour bus out to the desert with a with a case of Traveler Whiskey and it'll set you straight.

Uh Chris, thank you so much for coming and I look forward to our retirement together.

Yeah, man. Sounds good. Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong. How you feeling?

Good. Are you tore up? Um, as in like tired? Tired? Hung over? I'm not hung over at all. No,

no, no, I'm not hung over. As far as my consumption, I had a teeny at the awards and then I got one at the Netflix party, but I only had one sip because it wasn't the way I liked it.

And then what was wrong with it? I'm particular. I'm particular. What has it got to be?

It's a Hrix martini. Oh, lemon twist. Okay. No, vermouth. Extra bruised. If I can get that. I have to see. I have to see what kind of the environment is. If someone can take that.

What's extra bruised? Like shaken. A little icy. Oh, like chunky. Just some ice shards.

Oh, ice shards. Like just some little shards. I like it really cold. Oh, wow. Oh, there's so much to it. How long does it take them to make this when they do it, right?

No, if they do it if they know their stuff. Yeah. 8 to 10 minutes. I'm just kidding.

12, 13, I don't know. I order one at 8 and it arrives at like 8:40 to the table. So, I

I don't know what they're doing. They do it right. Yeah. No, it's fast. But so, there was a really cute little martini bar thing right next to where we were standing sitting

at the Netflix bar. Okay. And I was like, "Oh, I'll I'll get one of those." And I I was like, "Do you have Hendricks?" And he was like, "Oh, no. They're pre-batched." And immediately I was like, and he said, "But

the version of like a microwave." Is that like the equivalent? Since I'm out of the scene,

it's okay. Pre-batch is, you know, they they make it ahead of time in a big th container

thermos where you put your spaghettiio and and then they pour it into glasses for you. A lot of places do pre-batch. That's not for me.

You just gave me the best blast from the past memory. Kids used Well, I never had that set up, but other kids did whose mothers were at home.

Yeah. And boy, and they I swear sometimes they'd pop that lid and there was still steam coming out. It held the heat. And I was like, "This son of a [ __ ] is having a hot spaghetti dinner next to me." I know.

And the thermos. And did you have like the halfsiz thermos? There's havesies. Yeah. I I'm I'm I'm only saying this because my mom will be mad if I don't say it cuz you just protected your mom as you should. And now I have to protect my mom.

Okay. Cuz she also worked. So she would be like, "Hey, I wasn't I worked too cuz you didn't have it either."

No, I had it but not all the time, but I had it every now and then. Okay. You know, my mom was making me lunch.

And your mother really she also had another person helping her make some money and stuff, you know.

Oh, money. Yes. So, I was like, he didn't help with lunch. Um, as you know, my mom's sick. It was just Subway every day.

Yeah. My mom was the overtime queen. I know. I'm not I just wanted to be clear cuz you said, you know,

now I just got offending my mother like round two. She never made those cycle here. Yeah. Nor did she even buy that. Oh, no. That's not true. We would get some I think when we go grocery shopping, there were a couple splurges. David and I could both pick out one 2 liter of soda occasionally.

Oh, that's nice. And then the other thing could be like I could pick out two cans of Chef Boy Ardin.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Ravioli all the way. I love the ravioli. I would put it in my mouth and I'd like deconstruct it with my teeth and tongue so that I could like I would scoop out the little ball of meat with my tongue. Like I really was a psychopath with the way I consumed it and I loved it.

Yeah. So you could have picked spaghettias but you went ravioli. We we were mainly a ravioli chef boy our d house too. Well, raviolis, I believe, are Franco American.

I thought they were Chef Buardi. They had one, but I don't think it was called Spaghettiios. I think the trademark Rob

Spaghettiios is trademark Franco American. Spaghettiio. Uhoh. Campbell. Campbell. It's Campbell.

But I think maybe Campbell bought Franco American since the 80s. Remember it as Campbell? Yeah, it was Franco American in

1965 introduction. Okay. When did it when did it dissolve or get absorbed by Campbell Soup?

Ringshaped canned pasta was introduced in 1965 by the Campbell Soup Company under the Franco American brand.

Perfect. So it was it was it was a subsidiary. Yeah. Yeah. It was under the umbrella.

The Campbell umbrella. Oh my god. Wow. Anyway, so um the batched martini. So he said I was like, "Do you have Hendricks?" And he said, "Oh, no. They're pre-batched." And I was like, "Oh, maybe I'll" and he was like, "But they're really really good." So, you know, he had a lot of investment and pride. And so I was like, "Sure, I'll do it."

Yeah. And then you couldn't get through it. Only I drank one sip. That's okay. Um

why don't you switch it to wine or something? I know, but then I was like, I don't want to walk all the way to the bar. It felt

Yeah. Tris is really doing it was it's like there's a lot of people, you know. Was there a lot of people? Where was it at?

Spago. Spago. Do they have canned spaghetti? Is that Italian? They did. They had some like big batched

puff pre-made like the martinis. Uh-huh. I didn't get any, but Rob got some. It was good.

It was good. Yeah, Spago was good. We went to an event and I was reminded, you know, we went to a party. We all went to a party on Friday night. Amazon by Vanity Fair.

And Vanity Fair. And um yeah, I I keep going to get reminded I'm not a big party person.

I know. It's fun to be invited. Like it is I It's an honor to be invited. It's flattering. And I think it's nice to get cute.

Yeah. Wear cute outfits. But then when you get there and it's just so loud and so crowded,

very crowded and packed and packed. And then really you just end up like you because of the environment you want to just be with people you know.

That's right. So yeah eventful week. Yes. And then the big day. Big day. Your designer came through.

H I was so happy. I was so happy with my dress. Shout out brand. I saw your post and they put your name on the inside of it. A

stitch my name in there. It's so sweet. Um, it was really cute, too, because a few people who were there, uh, who listened to the pod.

Uhhuh. Were chatting and where the party or No, at the show. Golden Glosses. Dakota.

Oh, yeah. Dakota. Yeah. We were talking and she was like, "Is that the Brandon Maxwell?" Cuz she listened so like they knew Mila also.

Oh, she was on it. Yeah. So, that was cute. My most flattering moment you witnessed.

You almost passed out. I did. Lincoln. I mean, she screamed at the top of her lungs when I told her this.

This is a big deal. Hilarious. Jacob Lordy. Yes. Um I turned and I You know, this son of a [ __ ] is like 65. He's so gorgeous.

He's so gorgeous and so tall. You cannot miss him. He towered over you. Yeah. Yeah. And so I just looked at him and I I said, "Um, look at this tall, handsome son of a bitch." Not thinking he was going to know me. And then he said what was it's at both times the most flattering and humbling thing ever.

Yeah. He said, "Oh my god, dude. I've been a huge fan of you my whole life." Yeah.

I was like, "Yeah, I bet I've been working since you were born." Or damn near. How old is he?

1997 he was born. 28. Okay. So he was six when I got on the screen. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a nice memories are starting to form. I'm his first me. So for him, yeah, his whole life cuz that's when your memories kind of start imprinting. Um so but I I took it very well. And then second highlight was I was seated next to Jenna Ortega.

Oh, that's nice. So I got a whole another two hours to annoy her. That's funny.

She was with her mom and it was so cute. Yeah. So, I got to know mom really, really well.

Nice. And I asked her a bazillion questions and it was really fun. Fun. Yeah. And then we won.

And then we won. Some people don't Some people might think Amy Polar won and not have read that they did call later and said they missed.

There's a mistake. It was like Moonlight when Moonlight did. Yeah, it's very similar to Moonlight.

It was similar to that. No, we did not win. Um, and that's and we they just didn't want to embarrass Snoop, you know, for reading the wrong Yeah, you read the wrong name. Actually, we did an interview with him on the carpet and I said, "Well, regardless of what it says, are you just going to say armchair expert?" He said, "Yes."

I know. And I said, "I have cage." I know. I was willing to pay. You were willing to pay.

Yeah. And then for the record, I just uh if if I I and I told Babers, I was like, right from their announcement, if if we had to get beat by someone, I couldn't be happier that it was

Babers. I went up to her and I said, "How dare you? How dare you?" And she was so cute. She's so cute. I just love her so much.

And then Nikki Crush. What a job. She did so well. She did so well. I love her. I have such an affinity for her. I went to her party after the Netflix party. I wanted to show up for her. Um and uh she was so cute. I said the podcast package was so funny and her monologue was so good. I thought

Yeah. Oh my god. Yeah. It was so good. Uhhuh. I was very fatigued though by the time we got to the show because we had done a lot of press which a I haven't done in a while and b we were navigating this endless share question.

Yeah. Which requires like that you're nimble. You have to be really what I want to say is like guys it was funny and a joke. Why the [ __ ] would we post it if we didn't think that? That's what you want to say and you're not allowed to say that.

You're not allowed to say that Dax and you didn't. Yeah. And I was glad. Yeah. No, that question came up a lot.

Every single interview we Yeah. Yeah. We thought it might. We thought it might. I thought I was like, we'll get hit with that once or twice. But every single one we did,

sometimes I'm just You can almost feel them waiting to drop it like I'm going to do three nice things and then I'm going to

It's funny because, you know, this is where my um PR background comes into play.

Uhhuh. Your expert training. Just the anticipated like, okay, when is it coming?

Yeah, exactly. That was nice. That was nice. When where when's it coming? It's like waiting to get shoved in the back. Like when you're in high school and you're a dude and you you know someone wants to kick your ass

and you know they'll people will tell you like Mike's looking for you. Yeah. And you kind of just walk around waiting to just shoved in the back.

And that's kind of just a simmering feeling. Yeah. I know. Also, who cares? No. Boohoo. Just Yeah. Yeah. No. But yeah. No, I mean speaking of high school, the whole thing is extremely high school on crack. The from beginning to end, it's immediately popular kids versus not popular kids. Who belongs here versus who doesn't belong here. Um the

seating arrangement. Oh my god. The arrival stuff. Oh my god. Okay, so they changed the whole thing this year

that there was stairs. It wasn't tented. Like we had slots. Yeah. And you have to arrive during that time.

Yeah. Yeah. To to do the carpet and then and even that is a whole thing. It's like only nominees are allowed to go on the carpet and and your your name has to be there, you know. Yes.

And no publicists are allowed on the carpet, right? Yeah. Our thought was really early, but you were going with Kristen, so you were going a little later.

Yeah. I was really caught. Yeah. In the middle there. Rob and I went early. It took so long to get We're We're in eyesight. Like this is just was all so funny. These are things you don't know when you're watching. I think it's funny. Like we're at a hotel that is in ey line to the Beverly Hills.

Where we were staying versus the venue is a nine iron away if you golf. Yes. Exactly.

But you have to go three miles. Yes. I think more you got to go all the way to [ __ ] West LA and make a bootleg on the wheelchair. It's insane.

This whole specific way that the cars have to go and then what I did really even though it was like frustrating maybe for people cuz it stop it slowed everything down. I did like there was like extreme security.

Oh yeah. I love that part and I was so happy. Me too. So that was great. But then yeah, so the whole thing takes so long then to get there. Then you get there and then you have to stand in line for the carpet. So by the time doesn't matter what time you leave unless you leave at 10:00 a.m.

By the time you get there, you're not in your slot. So we finally we get to the front of the line and it's me and our wonder publicist and Adam

Kersh Kersh our publicist and Rob and me. And so we're like going up the line and they're ready to like drop me off, right? And then they have to go this other way. So we get there and she's like to to our publicist, she was like, "Are you in the right time slot?"

Mhm. And she kind of just says, "Yeah." And then like is going and then she was like,

"No, what? Let me see it." Mhm. And she was like, "Well, we're not." And she was like, "Well, then you guys need to go over there." And I was like, "Wait, wait, wait, over there." And she was like, "Yeah, there's photo opportunities over there." And I was like, "But that's not the carpet." I was like, "I just spent my entire I'm not like,"No."

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And And she was like, "Yeah." And she just kept saying there's photo opportunities over there. And I was like,

"Um, I'm going to go this way." And and she was like, she was like, "Well, how many of you is it?" And I was like, "It's just me." And she was like, "Okay, if it's just you, that's fine." And I was like,

I mean, and then then you are in such a weird headsp space. Sure. Cuz it's like

you're very insecure. You know, they didn't say that Demma Stone. Uh, exact. Okay. Well, and and and as he should, Stellin Scarsgard's in front of me. He walks right in and is fine and no one's stopping him. Adam and Leighton are next to me. No one's, you know, and I was like,

yeah, it starts immediately where you're just like, oh my god. And then you feel like you want to be like, I'm not I'm not just here.

I'm supposed to be here. Um, yeah. So, that whole thing is so interesting. And then you're that's in your head right before you have to go do these pictures in front of all these people. It is really it's really it's in I just find it very interesting and I feel like there's a there's a story in here. There's a book in here and then you know you you go down the stairs and sometimes people it's like 85 people are taking pictures of someone and then for you know for me it's like one person and you're like oh it's just like ego hit after ego hit and and at the same time you're like and I'm here.

It's like do you remember in Indiana Jones when they're going through the thing and the darts are coming out the wall like the blow darts. I know. I know. And And it is really But then you're also at like one of the biggest parties in the world. You're invited there and like, you know,

and wild people are walking by. Sean Penn's walking by. Bonitio Delto is walking by

and that's all amazing and so cool. Um and I also I think I said this also when we were talking to someone. Um

it's fun for me. Rob and I were talking about this. Like everyone coming down these stairs is someone we've had on this show

like so many and that was cool. It's like we've created something where all these

these people have come and chatted with us. Yeah. So so it's just wild and Yeah. where the seating is and where the seat and obviously we had to deal with a little bit like where are you going to sit?

Yes. I was supposed to be at the podcast table. Yeah. With me. I'm not not sitting with my wife.

Mhm. during also this other added layer of everyone's scrutinizing us. Yeah, I know.

So, now I'm not at her table. That looks [ __ ] I would never normally have to think about.

I know. But but we did some moving around. You can't category and and Anna was next to me most of the time. So, we had tons of fun.

So, yeah. But it's it's all it was really it was really it was fun. It was a cool.

You'll never forget that dear love. It was really fun. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. The biggest event is Lincoln requested that we go back to the go-kart track.

Yeah. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, she's got she's been bit." Okay, so we went we just got back. Uh we did four races. First race, eight adults. Last time it was mostly her and I and then a couple stragglers, but today was, you know, there was track full.

She [ __ ] passing people. Could took a turn, collided into somebody, didn't give a [ __ ] kept it going, finished fourth,

beat her time from last week, brought it down every single session. so great. Someone passed her and spun her out and she was livid for 45 minutes. She wouldn't take her helmet off between sessions and she wanted to get back. I'm going to sp and I'm like, "Wow, this is incredible." Cuz when I watched her play soccer, I was like,

"Girl, attack collide. You got to you got to get over this fear of colliding." Well, it's here.

Like within her second time, she was like Max going for every pass. Fearless. Oh, it's so fun.

Very fun. Yeah. I saw and she was showing me her her print outs. Yeah. Really cute.

She has she got into the 26s. She's so excited. She wants it. She got to get into the 25s now.

What if she gets in the ones then? So, I was coasting. First two races, of course, I got the fastest lap time.

Of course. Of course. That's my move over there. And I'm paying attention mostly to Lincoln. Then the third session and I hadn't been in the same spot of the track. I just told I get out and I see the print out. I was not first.

Well, what the [ __ ] Who's this Patrick dude? Oh, well, it turns out this dude worked there.

He also races Formula 4. Oh, cool. And I was like, okay, good. I got to I got a goal now, too.

So, you lost two days in a row. I guess I did. Wow. And again, Max didn't win this year, and he's the best. So, just look at him. It is funny when like you know when you lose which I don't have all that much experience with.

Yeah. I'm going to have to guide you through this experience. Yeah. Um it is it's funny when you look around and you're like look at all these other people who also did not win. Like

Leonardo DiCaprio didn't win. It's like how can you really be upset? You're like oh my god these people didn't win too.

Yes. And then you just see one less people in the Yeah. Yeah. And like Adam Scott sitting so close to us and he didn't win. And of course, but it's not because I'm not saying the person who won shouldn't have won. It's just like, oh yeah, everyone's [ __ ] amazing here.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that is when they're like, you know, when people say it's an honor to be nominated, when you're on the outside, you kind of think that's just something you say, but it is real.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very real. Yeah. So, was cool. Very cool. Oh, no. Should I tell people about something disgusting about me?

Oh, sure. We love discussing stuff. God, this is probably why we lost. I think Eric put a curse on me.

Okay. When he asked me like or when he said, "You're lucky you don't have dandruff cuz your hair is so black."

Oh, and you've been experiencing a little dander. I hate it. Okay. Okay. Okay. It doesn't really match with what I'm going for in this life. Um, and I really it's like starting to make me feel insane. But I am using a new product. Rose, shout out Rose for real.

Also, I keep spit. Uhoh. Uhoh. Uhoh. I also keep spitting because I bit my lip and it and it's so big and it hurts and now I'm talking bad and I'm spitting and I have dandruff. Who will date me?

Everyone. Everyone will date you. You let them. Um anyway, so yeah. So this new product is like an exfoliant scrub, so it helps.

Yeah, cuz one day I was like, "What?" Like I was like, "What's happening?" I didn't I did I couldn't even realize it was coming from my head. That's how bad it was.

Oh wow. And then I hated my I have beard dander so I can relate. That's just I was say that's just skin.

Yeah. Same same old same. All skin. I think it's per menopause. No. No. Did I just dander? Okay. One thing I also went to a thing Saturday morning. We went to a little event.

Oh, we did. Yeah. And I went solo. First of all, I was supposed to overlap you and I was writing in the morning and I happened to get on one of those rare things where I was like couldn't stop. I was in the bubble.

Yeah. I went to take a dump, see a text from you. Where the [ __ ] are you? And I'm like, "Oh my god, that's right now."

Yeah. It was 11 and it when I read that text and I'm sitting on the toilet and I'm like, "Oh my god." So I got down there in like 12 minutes.

Yeah. Good. hung with the people I needed to hang with and then I was leaving and this needs to be explained. There are fans of which I have endless time for. Then there are dudes who when they see you going to place, they go into a printer in the back of their van. They print out posters and then they ask you to sign them so they can sell them. I don't care about those dudes, right? Uh

that's fair. And so I um I was leaving and I was going to walk to my motorcycle really close to the front door of this place and there's you know these dudes with posters and um and I kind of walk by him and I only get like halfway by him and then there's there's all these TMZ people or TMZ like people there

and immediately one guy starts screaming Sher signs autographs you [ __ ] sign swearing at me Sher signs autographs which first of all no I don't think that's true. Uh, secondly, he's screaming that and then this woman, she's got a camera filming and she starts going, "You still gonna make your 11year-old daughter freeze her eggs?" And I'm like, "What is going on right now?"

I was saying it was as if the internet came alive for a second. Like you only really deal with that in writing from strangers on the internet. Dude, it was like straight internet chatter. The worst comments just blasting as I got on my com on my motorcycle.

And you're like, I dropped my glove. Oh, [ __ ] I'm on camera. I drop my, you know, from my MOTORCYCLE GLOVES.

AND I got to bend over and I'm like, I just want to like get out of there. I'm being filmed and they're screaming just toxic things at me. E that's

I got to bend over get my glove and then I just stopped and I had a big giggle on the motorcycle. That's good.

I'm like share autographs. Like it really got me. I'm like what is this guy even? He's like trying nose that's bait share. But then an autograph thing happens. So he's like he's he's tying these two messages together and this girl's yelling about getting my 11. And I wanted it. So, you can't say anything, but I wanted to go. I just want to ask you, do you do you think they freeze 11year-olds eggs? No, she doesn't. Do you think the question you asked me is a possibility on planet Earth?

She does. She doesn't. That's the whole thing. They know they know the reality. They're there to make you mad.

Yeah. That is that is literally the point of that. Yeah. And they just attack you. I'm going to even rewind. Thank God, by the way. So earlier I had had this other experience where someone a friend of mine I look at my DMs and I it appears they've sent me a video. So I open up this video and it is this comedian lady making a video about Sher saying the thing and she's talking about how [ __ ] ugly I am and what a stupid name I have and it's just she's letting it rip. I mean, this woman hates my guts.

And so I immediately I'm like, why the [ __ ] did my friend send this to me, right?

And then I realized because the comments that are first under a post are the people, you know, right? They So I see, oh, my friend actually defended me.

He's showing you he defended you. No, just I He wasn't even showing me, but he tagged me. I don't think he realized it was going to go to my DMs.

Oh, I see. I'm like, but now I saw this [ __ ] lady spending all this time doing this. And then

so I preemptively sent my family a a very nice text. All the all my family that loves me and I know will defend me if they see something. And I said, "Hey gang, there's a lot of stuff being written about me and I just want you to know it doesn't bother me and you don't need to defend me and it'll only give oxygen to the thing. So I'm not saying anyone did anything, just preemptively blah blah blah."

Yeah. So then I had a chat with my mom like later that day and she goes, "I didn't really know what that text was about." So So I looked you up and it was like, "You know what? I got to say I'm [ __ ] proud of you. That's my son."

And I'm like, "What is she talking?" I literally I'm like, "The share?" Yeah. And I go, "You're you're proud of me?" And she goes,

"Yeah, that's such a feminist move. You're going to get your daughter's eggs freeze if they wanted to so that they can be on their own timeline." And I go, "Hold on a second. That's a story which I didn't even know.

Wait, that Yeah, that's a huge story. You know that? I I saw it once. I didn't know that.

But I wasn't The thing I saw didn't say 11year-old. It It said the real thing, which is Yeah.

Okay. So, my mom stumbled upon that stuff. Weirdly, thank God she told me about that thing because if I didn't know that and this stranger just randomly talked about my daughter.

Oh, the crazier thing I think I dodged a real bull is I was going to take Delta to that party.

I know. I know. But I left so late. I knew I was going to ride my motorcycle so fast. I didn't want her on back. So, I didn't take her and she was sad about and I was sad.

Yeah. Um, but [ __ ] thank god if I was walking out with her and they were doing that [ __ ] to her. I do. They're [ __ ] shameless. Yeah.

Um, oh my god. I don't I can't predict what I would do. Like you can't talk in front of my 11-year-old.

I know. I know. But I know. But I just I'm so lucky. I I'm so lucky that dodged. Yeah.

It was like I'm now universe. Like, thank God I was late so that I didn't take Delta cuz if that one would have been saying that [ __ ] in front of Delta,

I just I don't know if I could have kept my cool. Yeah. And then there would have been another [ __ ] headline that I have my daughters on my motorcycle. Then that would have been the next thing. He rides with his children on his motorcycle.

Yeah. There's a there's an endless, you know, you got to Yeah. But I want to say the thing that I said to my family and then I I want everyone to know that I it it doesn't bother me because it is a gift of things having worked out for me.

Yeah. The more it works out for you, the more that's going to happen. And I just remind myself like this is just a symbol of like you got [ __ ] lucky things have worked out for you. Look, in the past I haven't had a great healthy attitude about this kind of stuff, but I currently h have a lot of peace with it, which is uh I'm grateful for.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, we're going to do some This is for Chris Stapleton. Great. So exciting. Huge get.

Now would be a great time to say that I cannot stop listening. He's the best to Steel Drivers, his first band.

Uh Heavensent, what a [ __ ] song. He's so good. He's just so good. Yeah. Um really lucky that we got to interview him. We've been trying for a while.

I know. So, it was very exciting. Um, not very many facts. Okay. Just a few. What is the population of Staffordsville Kentucky?

Yeah. Small. 2,625 people. Okay. So, kind of Milford size where I grew up. Really small.

Small stuff. Okay. What is the industrial cable side of the Pirelli company? The one his dad worked for. In 2005, Pirelli sold its cable division to Goldman Sachs, changing the new group's name to Prismian. Prismian.

Don't recognize it. P R Y S M I A N. Wouldn't even try to say it out loud. That's tough. I'm going to go with Prismian.

Yeah. I don't know if that was the right name to go with. Yeah, maybe it was someone's last name.

Maybe that's a well-known term within cabling. Oh, maybe. Oh, speaking of today, which you posted, but today connections was exciting.

Wina, wina, we love you. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. It is a phrase a phrase, so it could it could also be just cheeky as a phrase. It might not be about us,

Monica. We're making some assumptions. Oh, I feel very I don't even feel cocky about saying that.

I I don't know. Oh, I wish you would tell us. Maybe next the next clue will be you are right.

Monica's wrong. Dax is right. Trying to put Dax in one of these. You can't There's no

They can make it about group anything. Oh, that's right. Or the German stock exchange maybe.

Or like the D's are replaced with X's and these four words. It could be for facts. Oh. Oh.

Like types of machines, but the first letters changed that. I don't know if it was real or not real. I don't know if it was for us or not for us, but regardless, we took it as a big win.

I'm taking it as the consolation prize for sure. Yeah, that it was exciting. Oh, how old was Chris when he wrote the song Higher? He wrote it 23 years ago. 20 years before the album came out in 2023. He's currently 47, so he would have written it at 24.

24. great age. I was really hitting my stride as a party animal at 24. 24. Yeah. I was like developing, you know, I had like I knew what boozes I liked and what drugs I was partaking in. You know, really was working.

You knew your cocktail like I know mine. My Do you remember it? Yes. Your Hrix martini bruised.

Lemon Twizz. Lemon Tweez. Yeah. Cuz I don't like olive. Okay. I love them. I want to like them.

Yeah, they look good, don't they? Yeah, they're on my top foods that I wish I liked, but I don't.

Do you try? Cuz I I do. I keep trying. You do? Okay, great. Cuz I've had a lot of things flip.

Yeah. Cottage cheese. Yeah. Always look so good. I know. I would take a bite. This is terrible.

I know. Then I took a bite one day, like, [ __ ] this is good. Coffee. Coffee. You're like, gh shit's bitter. And one day, you're like, this stuff's delicious.

I know. You're right. But I keep trying and every now and then I'll just eat it.

Now, I'll be specific. I like the purple ones. The purple and dark ones. I'm not wild about the green ones. So, have you [ __ ] with the purple ones?

They get put on They get put on stuff. Do you know my gateway was? I remember the day and place before it turned.

Okay. Which is I hate olives. I hate olives. I hate olives. I was with my mother doing leg work at the Builtmore Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona or Scottsdale.

Uhhuh. And we went out to eat with the client for lunch and they put an olive tamponade on the table.

Uhhuh. And I sampled that olive tamponade and I was like, "Hold up a second. What is this goulash? This slurry

and I fell in love with then led to me being able to eat them in the raw." I know I'm probably not saying it right. No, you are. I think maybe. Yeah. Okay. No, I was just

So try olive tampon. Okay. That might get you. That's what got me. Do you like black olives?

I like the purple ones. That's what's generally in a top. But what about if you order a pizza and it has olives? That's normally black.

Yeah. I would never order pizza with olives. Okay. I would just eat the purple ones raw or eat a top and I have a gallon of top. And you know, u my own favorite restaurant, RIP Tropical.

Oh, Tropicalia. Tropicalia. They made a tapina. That'll I wonder if I ever that tapa. I'm going to go find myself a top nod tonight.

You should and I'll report back. They're they vary a lot in their quality. I'll say

it doesn't really make sense because I love salt. Yeah. And it's and it's baked in, you know, not baked, but it's it's um soaked and marinated in olive oil, which I love.

I love olive oil, which is also makes no sense. I love olive oil. I like capers, which are basically olives.

I like capers, but why? I don't know. All right. Well, may I hope this will be your gateway.

Okay. 2026, the year of the tough nod. Okay. Love you. Love you.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Chris Stapleton | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard"?

Dax Shepard (Host), Chris Stapleton (Guest).

What is "Chris Stapleton | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard" about?

Chris Stapleton, an accomplished Grammy-winning singer and songwriter, discusses his music career, including his notable albums and current tour, the All-American Road Show, as well as his integrity in marketing his whiskey brand, Traveler. The conversation captures his modest approach to self-promotion and insights into his life as an artist based in Nashville.

What is mentioned in this Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard episode?

11 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Traveler whiskey, TurboTax, All-American Road Show, Allstate, Steel Drivers, Super Bowl. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Chris Stapleton | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard"?

The episode runs 2 h 21 min; the transcript is about 29,950 words in 874 timestamped sections.

More from Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.