Bryan Andrews on Leaving Christianity, Being a Liberal Country Singer & More

0:00I got the best opening question ever. Okay, let's hear it. When you go in the gas station, what water do you buy? No jumper. What is water in the world? Okay, well, say they were out of that. Yeah. Hard to imagine, but. I'm definitely just your average Aquafina dude. In my small town, they ain't got all kinds of fancy ass water. They ain't got Fiji? Yeah, they got Fiji, and I'm probably going to smart water most of the time, too. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. It just kind of makes you feel like you're doing something good for yourself. Yeah, that I'm not a complete dumbass right now. Yeah, I mean, okay, do you hear people talk about Arrowhead?

0:32Oh, but that's not really on the East Coast that much. Like Arrowhead water? Yeah. Do you guys have Arrowhead? I've never heard of that in my life. Really? That's like a huge water out here, and I feel like people trash it so much. But whenever I have it, I don't really understand why. No, I just, the sunny smoke is like all I know about as far as water bottles. It's like if you see somebody with a Fiji, they're really trying to tell you. Like, I'm a billionaire. in there especially in my hometown yeah where we're from yeah if somebody's getting some bougie ass water it's like you get a lot of ooze and ahs oh yeah down there oh yeah yeah yeah that's funny yeah i still live in my hometown so yeah yeah so you you i heard you uh proudly say that you pay taxes there yeah in my in my hometown you know i mean i think that's like the whole point for me to be able to say things i have to say is because i'm still living where i'm from you know and see, you know, people that don't necessarily agree with everything I'm talking about, you know, every single day and have to, you know, be friends and interact with these people and stuff like that.

1:33Definitely. You think it would just kill you to live in L.A.? No. No, I don't think so. I think, like, well, I don't know. I don't know if I could live here. When I think about it, like, if I'd have to spend the majority of my time here, I don't know if I could do that because it's traffic, dude. And, like, I think I could drive here if I practiced it for a little bit. but yeah dude i'm from a town that's got one stoplight so yeah it's okay like if you live in the valley and you have a house and a dog and you got a pool in the backyard and like you go to restaurants you go to work like that life is probably pretty similar to the life that you live down south you know but it's like if you're kind of like a younger person and you're really going to bars and you're going to events and you're kind of like outside experiencing the culture a little bit more that's when like the differences would probably like really start to get magnified that like you're going to the weird bar where you can tell everybody's doing coke in the bathroom and they're listening to some goth music that you find kind of scary versus like you're probably not gonna find too many like country bars around here you know yeah i i have yet to find one i've been here like four or five times and you know haven't haven't really found any uh country ass dive bars or anything i bet you you could find one you might have to go a little bit outside the city center or something because i remember one time going on a date with a girl on tinder i'm talking 15 years ago and she just turns out to be a huge country music fan and we go takes me to a bar where they're playing country and i just kind of had to act like i was way more down than i actually was you know because it's like i'm on the tinder date like i gotta this is not about being yourself yeah this is about putting forward the best version of yourself to get what you're trying to get going right here you know and uh yeah that's but but now i'm kind of getting a little bit more familiar because my wife has kind of hit that like mid-30s part of her life where like country just is like the thing that like makes sense to her as like a mom you know yeah yeah i think like that's that's kind of the whole vibe of a small town anyways you know it's like people move or not move but i guess people stay in places like that because they want to be away from it all you know what i mean and and want to be away from like the big city hustle and everything like that so i mean which is understandable and then like that's why i still live there i still drink beer with my hometown buddies that i graduated high school with and everything like that but it's uh you know since i started doing the political thing it's a little bit different yeah yeah so okay i guess there's certainly people who are probably watching this that don't really know where you're coming from so i guess maybe we should rewind a little bit and kind of do this in order so you're from carolton yep missouri yep and what tell us a little bit about your childhood what was growing up like yeah i was actually born in boise idaho and then i lived there till i was about seven and we moved back to my dad's hometown in missouri they lived they wanted to live in the mountains for you know a period of time or whatever so they moved out kind of there and then uh uh both my parents are music teachers high school educators and my dad just retired after 37 years so it's pretty dope but so was there a high level of like music discussion and listening going on in your home would you say yeah to be honest with you like even after we moved back to missouri and everything we really didn't have a whole lot of country music playing except for like you know my grandpa was a big alan jackson fan and stuff like that so you know george straight and all them guys were playing you know when i was with him and stuff like that But both my folks were big, like, into 80s music and stuff like that.

5:06They were huge Rush fans and Foreigner and bands like that. But when I got in high – I mean, I always say you can't outrun country music in a small town. Like, everybody you know listens to it. Their parents listen to it and shit like that. So you're listening to country music whether you like it or not in places like that. And I'm grateful for it, you know, because I love country music, and it played a huge role in, like, the artist I am and even the person I am, you know. would you say your parents were like exposing you to a wide variety of music as well yeah yeah i mean there was like both my folks are definitely interested in like classical music too and so you know we went we would go to the i remember going to the opera when i was like 12 or 13 years old for the first time and i was like this ain't for me but you know we and watch the kansas symphony and stuff like that so right we were only about an hour and a half away from kc so I mean, like nothing could be more offensive to your sense of what is right about the world as a young kid than opera.

6:06Yeah, dude. Like that is just the number one thing that makes you just want to just get the out of here, bro. Opera. I was like, yeah, dude, when you're like a kid and it's cool to see like different cultures and art and stuff like that. As adults, we can see this. Yes, but as a kid, when you're sitting in a balcony of an opera house and you're like, I have no idea what they're saying, no idea what they're saying, dude, and all this shit sounds boring as hell. I mean, I was sleeping most of the time. Yeah, oh, yeah. I was fighting that a lot. But, okay, so what kind of kid would you say that you were as a young boy?

6:41I mean, just regular kid. Grew up in a small town, white picket fence and all that kind of shit. I mean, we didn't have a white picket fence, but that kind of vibe. like every it's very community based in a small town so i'm always hanging out i was always hanging out with my buddies and stuff growing up and you know as soon as we got old enough to get into trouble and shit was out drinking beer and stuff like that but um i've always been kind of you know i'd just say left-leaning because my parents are you know and they're more liberal my grandfather was a liberal i mean he was a union forklift driver for general motors for 30 years so So it was just, and my other, my great grandfather was a union farmer.

7:21So, I mean, it was, or not union, but he was a blue voting farmer. So I don't know. It's just kind of one of them things that like, there's more, there's more left leaning people than people think in small towns, you know? And it was always the running joke, you know, funny. It was like funny, like growing up, everybody would be like, oh yeah, he's the town Democrat or whatever, you know? And now all of a sudden, since I'm talking about this on a very public level, It's like, right. You know, it's not a joke. No, different level of emphasis. But how old are you? I'm 29. You're only 29. Damn. All right.

7:54Yeah. But I mean, I feel like I have strong memories of being a young kid and like my parents who are like hardcore Democrats, like worked in local politics and stuff like that to a certain extent that they had like Republican friends that they would have lively conversations and arguments with around the house. And like, I just grew up in an environment where it was perfectly okay to coexist. Yeah. Oh yeah. Even though my parents were also like really emphasizing like on an issue like abortion, this is something that we feel extremely strong about. We think that these people protesting this are wrong, et cetera.

8:30But then we're also able to, you know, have common ground with these people. And I feel like, you know, that, that probably still exists to a certain extent, but once you're like a public figure, it really becomes a lot more difficult, you know? Yeah, man. And I think especially with like the way social media is and stuff and how like people from areas like MindView kind of social media and stuff, you know, like when they see someone, you know, on a very public platform that they know personally, it's a little bit different because they aren't used to that. Right. But I also think politics now is much different than it was, you know, when I was a kid even.

9:04So thank you, Donald. Yeah, exactly. There's a few other people who deserve credit, but it really takes the cake, you know. It's just crazy, dude, when you look at how just and I mean, I'm not saying that I'm not divisive in some capacities because I definitely am. I think a lot of that you see it and you support it. I think it's pretty, you know what I mean? And I'm pretty vocal about it. So. Right. Right. But so would you say that was there any moment that stands out to you as a young kid or whatever, where you realized how much of a gulf there was in terms of how you and your parents were looking at the world and how some of the kids that you were going to school with were viewing?

9:46Yeah, I think it was, you know, like as you get older and you start viewing like social programs. Right. Mostly because in small towns, like it's very blue collar. Right. So like everybody is basically if you're too lazy to work, then you don't deserve to eat type of mindset. And for me, I was like, I mean, I don't know. A lot of these people are kids, you know, and like especially growing up and taking a look back at it in my adult years, like with social programs and everything. There's a lot of people in small towns in rural areas that I'm like where I'm from that don't have jobs or and they have children and they need these programs to be able to feed their kids and stuff like that.

10:27And like, I think most people just assume, you know, every single person on welfare or food stamps is using it for drugs or something like that. And the vast majority of them actually have jobs. Right. You know, and like they're just trying to get by. I think in small towns, that's the kind of the disconnect is like, for me, I'm voicing my opinion about these things and stand tall on these things because I've seen people in my hometown not be able to afford groceries because they can't get a job that pays them enough in that town to be able to support a family. Right. You know, or like be able to pay for daycare because they have to work two jobs just to be able to afford to put gas in their car now that we started war in Iran.

11:02You know what I'm saying? So I don't know. A lot of I think people are like, oh, you sold out or turn your back on where you came from. And it's like, dude, I'm the way I am because of where I came from. You know. So what is you start to like really get into music and realize that being a singer is pretty much where your life is going? Yeah, I started working on the road when I was 21, 20, 21. and I started writing songs in my hotel rooms after work and stuff like that. Working on the road? Yeah, I was a pipe welder for different companies and stuff, building like ethanol plants and stuff like that.

11:37Okay. Did a lot of like marathon terminals and stuff like that, or gas terminals. But yeah, I started working on the road and then writing songs in my hotel room because the only other thing to do was go to the bar, and I got tired of doing that. So, you know, started writing songs and then people started posting them online and people started kind of, you know, picking up traction that way and with TikTok and everything like that. And then I really wasn't, I was going to stay away from politics. I'm not going to lie. When I was, and I've said this publicly before, but. I mean, most people in your position do.

12:12Yeah. Because I mean, dude, I'm a left-leaning person. I've been from a small town my whole life. So I know what people who listen to country music think about people on the left side of politics, especially since like Donald Trump has came into the forefront of politics. Right. So I knew, you know, just don't talk about it. And then I would kind of talk about some things here and there where, you know, it didn't feel so controversial and I knew I wouldn't alienate anybody. But then when the election happened and then I started seeing a bunch of stuff with ICE and everything like that, that's when I was like, OK, I'm going to start talking about it.

12:45Right. you know and uh like at that point did it feel like there was some mass exodus of fans or was it more positive than it was negative uh there's definitely like at the at the very front of it when i first started it it felt like some of the fan base that i had created felt at least abandoned or alienated in some way but i don't know i think about this a lot because i was talking to my dad about it one time and i was he was like well would you rather you know people you know leave you because your music sucks or they just don't like it or whatever people leave you because you said something they just weren't ready to hear yet and i was like well yeah obviously the latter i don't give a anymore you know and i always think of it this way too i heard somebody say this once but um you know if somebody like you see somebody hating on you or whatever or a particular fan or whatever doesn't like what you're doing you know when you're speaking your true authentic self they were never going to be your fan anyways right at the end of the day so you you know i don't care plus i want you to know exactly who i am before you put money in my pocket right you know what i mean yeah i don't want nobody to spend money buying my listening to my records coming to my shows without knowing exactly who they're supporting right so yeah because i mean if you were to like neuter that part of your uh mindset and your belief system and instead you were to make your music much more general and vague and make it so that you could sort of interpret it to mean anything or whatever then you would just be like literally like everybody else and the reason why i mean personally you know whenever i listen to country like one of the biggest uh reactions i have is like god damn this is homogenous like this is just so similar across the board so if you risk being taken and you know hey granted like you would have the exact same uh reaction if you were to listen to like a lot of the rap that we listen to as well but you know like i i think you can't help but think that like i mean because there's very few people who've had the gall to like kind of take on the mission that you've taken on and you're right dude like there is a lot of like it's it's just i felt this way forever but even people who listen to country music feel this way right they'll be like you know how many times can you write the same song over and over or how many times can nashville write the same exact thing right and it's true there's it's just to some extent there that's there's truth in that because you know everybody knew that's what was selling everybody always thinks too that's like you know i think labels play a role in like pushing direction of where artists go but when they're sitting there in the rooms you know they're writing the song they want to write that day and most of the time those writers or that artist whatever just wanted to write the next radio hit so they just did what they knew worked already and i don't know for me i knew i was never going to get on radio anyways yeah so right yeah you really feel like that though i feel like i mean the door's probably still open to that i mean it's kind of like a fine line with you because you have to be authentically yourself but you also like just don't want to make everybody hate you yeah you just don't want to be like hated because you're this like detestable like liberal that is just so annoying that like everybody like it would be easy for you to make every single person in country know who you are exactly by just being a really cringe asshole you know like like you could you could do that but then like what do you do with that level of notoriety then at that point you know it's hard to monetize that or the the shelf life of that is not great you know yeah i think that's why i like doing stuff like this you know and like getting to show different sides of other than just you know like a yelling video on social media that i do or whatever the you know it's it's a nice feel to actually have a conversation and stuff like that and so people can actually see you know who i am as a person and everything but yeah i mean to some extent there's like we're still making commercial music right you know so i mean like a lot of this i mean i've just put out a song called yeehaw and it's the tagline is yeehaw the law and then you know I mean, I think there was some group of people that was like, well, him, you know, you know, the whole blue lives matter movement crowd, you know, was like this guy.

16:59But I got that saying from my small town. Right. Like people said that in the country long before I ever heard it in some left wing echo room. You know what I'm saying? So I don't know. I think there's people don't realize there's a lot more similarities between small town rural folk and people in neighborhoods that are underfunded and things like that. than people think there are right they both feel like the cops kind of got their foot on their neck to a certain extent and it's crazy because like you know you'd be able to find like johnny cash saying like basically you know the cops or whatever yeah but it's like now with the social media and everything it's like we just have positions carved out for each side and if you are going to go against those in any meaningful way you will just be kind of shunned from your tribe and something like that is like you know when i think about like me being a kid it's like saying like the cops was like a universal sentiment between every single kid that i know and really like a lot of adults as well yeah and the fact that like you can't just kind of because even saying the law is not like as explicit as saying like you know the police i i get how that that's offensive but like you know even the police will acknowledge that there's a few too many laws and that they can be obnoxious.

18:19And it's not like the cops are enforcing every single law in the books at all times. You know, like, man, I totally agree. I think there's also like, you know, when I was growing up, there are certain things that I've like gotten more left on. Right. You know, or my worldview has been opened up on. Right. So, I mean, like when I was a kid, you know, 15, 16 years old, and like some of these cases of police brutality were going on, everybody in my hometown, you know, you look around to people that you see in your everyday life and they're all saying, well, you know, you shouldn't disobey the cops or whatever.

18:52And so for a long time, I'm thinking, well, yeah, I mean, obviously if you don't like, you know, if you just do what they tell you, then you won't get hurt. But then in my mind, I'm like, or I grew up and grew out of that and saw like, oh, a lot of these people have their hands up and also not for nothing, but you're not supposed to shoot guilty people either. You know what I mean? So, I mean, as soon as I'm going to as i had that shift change of of that mindset when i was you know 16 17 years old of you know the a police officer is not the judge no matter if it's a police officer ice agent whatever the it is irs agent any kind of law enforcement officer is not the judge jury or executioner right as soon as i realize that then it's like okay yes there is definitely some problems with police brutality and things like that right well i mean like if a person's disposition is that they think that the cops are mostly in the right about things you know when something goes wrong that they usually tend to assume that the cops are in the right like i i get that i totally get that but like we're in a different frontier now where like when you see uh the the renee good shooting as well as like uh the the couple of the other ones that just happened in maine dude yeah and it's like we now have a a situation in which like the police are killing an american citizen is like the things are so politicized that a lot of people on the right just instinctively and it's basically like endorsed by the the president and his cronies in office is to say this actually was totally fine and actually the person who did it was a terrorist and like actually uh you shouldn't believe what you're seeing on camera right now and actually we're not going to investigate this at all because it's totally clear to us that this is fine and then to have people just blindly get on board with being lied to like that like i can i can respect you if you're a republican or a trans reporter whatever like like we still could have some common ground but that right there to me is so disgusting you are such a moron for falling for that yeah and i just like i i just as much as you support the police instinctively you just cannot be so far gone that you allow yourself to just fall in line with that bullshit fascism yeah yes it's insane i totally agree that's why i would say like the the people that i grew up around saying you know waving the don't tread on me flags and like that are real quiet lately you know right so i mean i and that's what i've been trying to get across in my music so So, and to be honest with you, I think a lot of it is like people just vote the way they vote in small towns because they grew up, you know, thinking like that's just what you do.

21:41I mean, you listen to, you know, a person in Trump's cabinet, Paula White, the White House faith office leader or whatever the, you know, she was on the campaign trail saying vote against Trump is a vote against God. and it's like are you kidding me dude and this is why I've like just deconstructed so much from Christianity because I mean you don't really notice it because I would have before probably two months ago or three months ago I would have considered myself a Christian still and I don't call myself that anymore really so what happened yeah that's very interesting so what changed in your mind that kind of led you in that direction man I just think it's like we watch how colonialized religion is especially the christian faith and like how much the faith is used for power and control i mean you just watch the texas state board of education make it mandatory for kids in public schools to read the bible or parts of the bible right if you and in my mind here's what it is if you need to force feed children your religion then you never gave a f**k about christianity itself at all it was only about fearing control for you so and i mean to me i think hopefully that makes children who are growing up reading it question it more it's like why am i being forced to do this versus you know why didn't i not come to it you know through my family or through my own volition or, you know, spiritual journey or whatever the f*** it is.

23:25Like, that's my thing. I don't give a f*** if you're a Christian. I give a f*** that you call yourself a Christian and then go vote for people or advocate for people that continuously vote to underfund things that Jesus would have supported. but would you say that your issue is like commentary on the state of the christian movement in america or is it your fundamental belief in christianity like has that been shaken at a certain point like your actual yeah i think so the nature of the universe and whatnot yeah i think some for sure because i think and i think i would have shied away from that like like i said two or three months ago because part of me still felt like if i said that i wasn't a christian in any capacity then i was going to lose the christians because in a small town i mean not even in a small town but anywhere you talk to christians probably and at least for me you talk to other christians about faith and things like that or about religion just objectively having a conversation about it and if they think you're a non-believer they don't give a what you have to say yeah i mean it doesn't matter you could make all the sense in the world doesn't matter because you're not a christian right like i think america like the number one excluding factor for like a presidential candidate is atheism like if they're an atheist that basically would would cause i think it's like 75 of americans to automatically not vote for him and there's like no other excluding like you'd be like a murderer and they'd be more likely to elect you than if you're an atheist which is why it's like i would really kind of if somebody wants a future in politics i would probably suggest that they find some other sort of language to describe their religious beliefs they're just saying i'm an atheist and i say that as a lifelong atheist but it's just the world has sort of yet to catch up to the fact that not believing in god is doesn't mean that you're an immoral person you're like actively trying to destroy society right dude and i think like that's for me, like, I think at least how I view it in this moment right now, I think that like there might be something out there, but I don't know it.

25:39And I think Jesus was probably a real dude that had some dope ass morals. And I think that for me, I would love, you know, to live my life closely or as close as I can to those morals and, you know, like feed the poor, heal the sick and things like that but um as far as like you know a jesus that came down here and died for my sins and rose from the tomb three days later and things like that it's i don't yeah you know and i'm not trying to be disrespectful no no no and one thing i've really kind of learned is that like a huge percentage i think almost like the majority of biblical scholars actually like don't really think that the crucifixion happened the way that it's presented in the Bible, which is kind of crazy because those are the people that are like the most educated about this.

26:30And then meanwhile, if you were to have a conversation with the average person down at the bar and you were to say like, I don't think that the whole crucifixion thing took place the way that you're saying, they would pretty much think that that was enough to eliminate you from being considered a Christian. Yeah, exactly. And they totally cut off the conversation. It's not that they cut off the conversation. I think some of those people hold space for it still, but they totally shut their brain off to being open to anything that you're saying after that point. Right. You know, so but I think for me, it's like I just kind of have stopped caring about that as much because I think that, you know, we live in a world where, especially in the United States, where it's the American thing to do to express that you do have a freedom of religion and not just of religion from religion.

27:18You know what I mean? I think that's where a lot of people get it get it wrong. And, you know, I don't know if people say that I'm wrong about that, but I'm just saying, I mean, it's the freedom from religion. So that way. Religion should not play a role in government, you know, or in policy. Right. You know, and our belief in how those sorts of part aspects of our government should be structured, should be more important than our religious beliefs, you know, and that's that's the definition of what it is to be principled. And it's crazy to see people like, you know, Republicans who have power and basically decide, like, let's just completely go against that in order to sort of signal boost to our audience that, hey, if we get enough power, we're going to basically force our religion on as many people as possible.

28:05Yeah. And you see all those people and they'll be like, oh, I'm you know, they claim the American flag and and say that they're the most patriotic people on the planet. But if you ask any one of them who they put first, their religion or their country. Yeah. They choose their religion. And I think that's pretty patriotic considering in the first amendment or first constitutional right that you have. It's a freedom of religion and from religion. So. damn yeah um okay here's my question how much do you think that like uh you making these sort of divisive statements about uh you know your your political leanings like how much does that x you out of opportunities within the country music world like is that so serious that people are like no we're never booking him for a festival or whatever or is it the kind of thing where it's like oh okay that's cool like let's have a little bit of variety i think i think in the beginning it was pretty much like people were like oh this dude you know blah blah but now that it started getting more popular um and we're kind of getting some traction i think doors are opening at least people are holding a little bit more space for it but i also think that a lot of people within the industry you know feel similarly to me because musicians are just more empathetic you know type of people are more compassionate human beings than a lot or creatives are you know so but i do think yeah i mean i'm not going on tour with jason aldean anytime soon you know what i'm saying so i think like when you when you think about like opportunities as far as like touring and stuff like that yeah sure because even the people who may agree with me like bigger acts in country music and stuff who may agree with me and stuff like that they may not want to make any kind of political involvement so and i would assume that they would think taking me out on the road with them is a political statement which is totally fine you know i don't want any animosity towards anybody that doesn't want to be involved in the conversation at all or doesn't want to feel like i'm misrepresenting them in any way or anything like that so right but for me i don't give a fuck you know we'll do it ourselves if we got to it's interesting because like you're still on your way up still growing and it's like you still need the support of the actual country music industry so many of those opportunities are just like the the building blocks of what you're doing with your career and stuff but then hypothetically let's take like another uh country superstar who really took like sort of an alternate path to stardom by starting as a rapper which is jelly roll and the fact that like jelly roll is somebody who's like 100 known by the grammy committee and all these sort of people or whatever he's kind of like their darling boy at this point and it's like with somebody like him once you have that level of attention on you i feel like any statement that he makes that in any way shows support for liberal causes or left causes yeah i think would be you know earn him a ton of positive attention from the people that know about him and everything because he's kind of gotten to this level where so many of the eyes that are on him tend to be left-leaning so it's kind of interesting because it's like maybe at a certain point if you get to that level all of these things that have been negatives to a certain extent so far will become like more magnified in a positive way and and i i heard you say on another thing that like you had to be clear about who you were now because think about if you did that after you win a grammy you're gonna look insane you're gonna look like oh my god he's he made it there he's part of the the sex cabal he's at the ditty parties yeah i mean that that is crazy though like you had to you had to come out early exactly man and that's the whole thing of it it's like i wanted people to know early on who i was and what i believed in for for reasons exactly like that like i didn't i didn't want to get to a point of you know my career where i had built this fan base and then I said you know like I don't think ice is a good thing or whatever the any kind of polarizing statement and then people be like oh he was a he sold out a sold his soul to the Illuminati or the devil or whatever you know so like for me I also just don't give a anymore you know like it's I'm making music that I really believe in and really love and that's the most important thing to me and and how people take it when it's released is is for them you know and like that's why like we get bad reviews a lot like you know the country music spaces are not especially kind to me and everything you know when they're writing their blogs or whatever but they're entitled to their opinion i don't give a you know what i mean like they can they can talk about the record any way they want to so but for me i'm doing whatever it is that i feel like i'm believing in at the moment you know and i think it's resonating with people i mean we just announced Now it's a tour, 20-show tour in the fall.

32:58And in three weeks, eight dates are sold out. Really? Wow. And it's a club tour, you know, and everybody's like, oh, well, it's only 250 cap rooms. And I'm like, dude, that's 250 people in each city that's spending their hard-earned dollars to come see me. And in this day and age, you can't take that shit for granted. No, dude. Them fans deserve it way more than I ever will, dude. Especially when you just consider they're like, yeah, in Nashville or L.A. or whatever, you might have like a big potential market, but a lot of the smaller cities, you know, getting 250 people come out, it's pretty amazing.

33:29Yeah, exactly, man. And so that's, I'm just extremely grateful for it because those people who paid that money deserve to have a good show, you know, and, and they deserve, you know, somebody who's going to speak up about the things that they also believe in and we're building a community and things like that. And I think that's the best part of it, you know? And so I haven't, I haven't, uh, like, I don't regret anything I've said for sure I think you know there's some things that I think I probably could have gone about in a different way than you know holding my phone up and in the moment talking about something that I was really frustrated about because you must feel like now if you're going to come out with a opinion like do you feel like there's enough pressure because now you feel like there's enough attention on every time you come out and say something new that you need to do your research and like really make sure that you're not saying anything haphazardly yes which i also think is not a bad thing right i mean like i think it's good for like me to feel the the pressure not only my own community but the community that hates me and is waiting for me to slip up to be educated about the things i speak about because if not why the am i talking about them you know and um so yeah i mean i i think being able to talk about the things that i believe in and i'm also well educated about i feel is is awesome you know yeah but yeah i mean there's just and i don't to be honest with you i don't feel that much pressure when it comes to like because i care about this like i care about what a trade war or a tariff war is going to do to farmers in my hometown you know who are all we got is soybeans and corn where i'm from and a little bit of wheat yeah but soybeans are under the right now right because of tariffs yeah but do you feel like when you speak out about those things do you have people show up in your DMs who are like hey I'm a Trump supporter but I agree with you all the time right because I mean these stuff like the tariffs I mean something like abortion alright yeah that might not yeah I'm never going to get them on that one it might not apply to a huge percentage of Americans who just like aren't directly impacted by this on a regular basis but But something like the tariffs, like, really, or the gas prices even, is, like, really hitting people in their pockets.

35:45And, you know, people are feeling that shit. And I'm sure that they aren't shy about reaching out to you. Yeah. Like I said, I mean, there's – even in my hometown, dude, like people that, you know, I've grown up around or whatever that will shoot me a DM and be like, hey, I know that, you know, a lot of people probably don't appreciate what you're saying, but, you know, I do. And, you know, even – it's really started showing up in my comments section more as of late, like with the release of some of the more, I guess, commercialized country music that we've been putting out. And also just, I think people kind of seeing what this administration is doing and also not agreeing with us.

36:23So like we find common ground there, um, even though I'm a leftist and, you know, democratic socialists and they're a Republican, I guess. I mean, I think a lot of those people I would consider probably more on the libertarian side, but I always say that like libertarians and leftists kind of meet somewhere right in the middle so I don't know I mean there's a lot of people who like pretty self admittedly like don't really give a f**k about being a republican at all they just really really resonate with Trump yeah dude like that's the majority of these people yeah I was just talking to Kelly about this earlier but it's like uh that's how you got mom donnie trump voters yeah you know what I'm saying and because people are desperate for a new kind of politics for people that are actually going to you know areas that are underfunded or whether it be rural areas or inner cities you know they're desperate for people to come actually talk to them so and and try to figure out a way forward but yeah this politics that we see now with with this administration is i mean any way you look at it objectively it's bad yeah right just the way the way politics is represented in america now it either turns people completely off of politics and makes them want nothing to do with it which is a bad thing because we need to care about the place we live and the decisions that people are making on our behalf and things like that or it makes people ultra polarized which is also negative right so your first time going viral wasn't political so much though right it was the liquor and pills yeah yeah yeah it was back in back in the day my hometown radio station that was my debut single right and they played that song on the radio and i had that video of me and my mom and you know it it did numbers um the uh that's the thing you know like music back then for me was much more about like my personal experiences in life and like you know mental health i'm still a big advocate for that and right and i loved making that kind of music and still do now yeah you know i mean when i heard that i thought that was pretty interesting because it it does feel like your sort of code that you figured out to get ahead in the game is basically like i'm gonna make a song that is like a little bit too personal or a little bit too in your face or a little bit too political more than you might feel comfortable with because you know like a mainstream country artist just probably isn't is it they'll rap about being up on drugs or something but they're not gonna say pills somehow that just like carries like a little bit of a different of weight and you kind of figured that out and i guess a lot of people relate to that because you know like pills and liquor is a pretty potent combination yeah i think that's the like exactly that's i feel like i've been kind of in people's face mostly the whole my whole career or not not necessarily in people's face but i was never scared to say anything you know or like it's at least how i feel or about my own personal experiences and i mean liquor and pills is yeah i mean that's that's what it was i was snorting xanax like it was going out of style so how did that kind of unfold like how did you expose all that i honestly just being in high school when i was in high school i tore my labrum and that's the first time i had been um exposed to like painkillers labrum my labrum yeah it's in my shoulder oh okay and you're doing sports or something yeah playing football and then i didn't want to get surgery for a long time so i was just on painkillers for like seven or eight months.

39:47And then I finally got surgery on it the summer after my senior year and ran out of painkillers. So I had to find something and I found Xanax. Right. So because it was easier to go to the doctor and say, hey, I've got anxiety. Right. And so how many years were you gone off all that? Just a couple. Okay. Yeah, it was pretty bad there towards the end. But luckily, you know, both my folks were really, really great about getting me help. And, and, uh, you had to go to rehab. I did not go to rehab. I didn't do a, uh, outpatient thing. And then I lived at home with my parents for about six months. Really?

40:22So, yeah. Was it tough to beat it? Like, were you like scratching to go out there and find more at some point? Honestly, I think part of it was I was so depressed and I knew that like, I didn't want to be, honestly, I just didn't want to be alive. But as soon as I got sober for those, you know, that week that I was in that inpatient facility, it was very clear to me that I did not want to be dead. I just wanted to do something different with my life and I wanted it to be better. You know, like you're just constantly in pain and like you can't outrun it. So for me, it was easier to be able to say like, you know, I'll go find something to cope.

41:02But then once I got sober in there and I went home and I was surrounded by my parents, you know, I didn't go out or nothing really. I was just at home with them and they were great about letting me stay home and stuff and kind of kicked it that way. But and I wasn't, you know, like it wasn't like I was for 15 years just doing pills and drinking every night and things like that. I was severely depressed. And that's the reason I was doing pills in the first place. but i know how you feel because like i have friends who like you know had their druggie section of their life and like i feel guilty even like weighing in having a conversation about it because their was so much more gnarly than yeah you know where like dudes just like off heroin for 10 years straight robbing stores and shit to get money by heroin and i'm like damn like i used to drink and do xanax for a while there and like you know when i stopped it was like not that big good deal it just kind of stops you know yeah i think for like probably the first month or two it was like this sucks you know because you feel like you're in a cage because you don't you know nobody around you trusts you to be by yourself and you don't trust yourself really so i mean figuring that out is is difficult but yeah i ended up going back to school and then um dropped out of college and then started working on the road and i think working on the road honestly i mean people drink on the road you know and i've i know a lot of guys that i've worked with on the road that they could not outrun the bottle you know what i'm saying and but like for me i had started writing songs and playing guitar and stuff and found healthier ways to you know cope with it so that's when i first started writing music it was pretty much all about working on the road and like how i would watch guys like not necessarily throw their whole life away but really throw their whole life away because they can't be with their families or you know like it's and it's just a tough life you know and when you're out there and guys are they have whole families 10 hours 12 hours 16 hours away from them and you know their wife calls them and says hey i'm at work but our daughter has a 102 degree temperature i don't know what to do i don't have anybody here to help me and you just got to be like i'm 16 hours away yeah what the am i going to do about it you know and you'd watch i'd watch that happen a lot and it would suck you know like people the road life is good you can make a lot of money out on the road but it's tough especially if you got a family like that you got to be really rock strong in your relationships and things like that because, I mean, guys just can't pack up.

43:40A lot of times they're the sole provider. So they can't just pack up and go home. And even if they did, you know, would they be there in time? Like, you know, if your kid is really sick and has to go to the ER, obviously any parent would want to be home for that, right? But do you make the decision to say, I'm going home? This isn't emergency enough? Knowing that you blowing off this job is going to have massive financial consequences for your family. but then at the same time how are you going to feel if you know if the unforgivable type situation takes place with your kid if she's really sick like that i mean god what a terrible fucking situation to be in see and that's the thing too it's like you know a lot of the like stuff like that that's that's all people don't think about it but that is all political too because you think about like situations where guys are like that i grew up around they only worked those jobs because they couldn't find jobs in town that paid them enough to be able to support a family and give their family the life they wanted and things like that so they were out there all the time working those jobs and that's kind of my thing it's like dude i'm advocating so that workers can have families and in their hometowns and corporations have to pay their workers enough money to be able to feed their children right and and put them through daycare and things like that like i don't want you to have to be out here doing this if you don't want to i mean it's pretty amazing that so many workers have basically been convinced to vote against their best interests you know it's like it's it's amazing like like i can feel that my hat is off to whoever engineered that yeah dude that's impressive i've always said that imagine the propaganda it would take to make somebody vote against their best their their own best interests and it happens all the time we see that we see it mostly with workers rights but in the uh you know religious aspect of everything too but but yeah especially especially working on the road that's where i kind of um you know had had seen stuff like that well take place being on the road like that it's kind of like you've got a bunch of empty space you know you got your night time when you're in the hotel room or whatever and you can fill that with something would you say that and also like being on the road working like that it's kind of this like soul lonely mission that you know is sort of romanticized in a certain way were you able to basically take that and that same gap in time that a lot of your co-workers turned into rampant alcoholism you were able to turn that into taking the music a lot more serious yeah like put you in the proper headspace because when you're at home you got all these responsibilities all these things to do it's not really like sexy for you to you have no time to sit back with your guitar right yeah yeah for sure man i think you know if i i will always say that i i don't if i if i wouldn't have worked on the road i don't think i'd be here you know because it gave me it gave me time even though we were working 60 70 hours a week when you're off work unless you're going to the bar you don't have to do right you know so a lot of these towns we worked in were towns like my hometown or smaller yeah so there was not there wasn't to do anyways you're staying at a low rent ass hotel because you're trying to save as much of that per diem money as you possibly can and then you know for me it was just easier to go back to the room and really just write songs and you know one soul media came around it was easy to post yeah and so I just started doing that and it took off but um yeah I think working on the road is a huge part of what where I'm at why I'm here and who I am you know so definitely um you have a girlfriend I do now yeah when I was yeah that's the easier thing for me too when I was working on the road it was easy to look at other guys that I worked with and see their lives because i was single the whole time yeah so when you're missing somebody back home that makes the whole thing so much more painful exactly dude and like i miss my you know my friends and stuff like that but i wasn't missing my wife or my two-year-old the kid once put the kid in it like working on the road is like just so much more difficult to justify yeah yeah so but yeah i do have a girlfriend now and uh we've been dating for like four months going great great but i do like i mean we don't live together or anything and i'm gone a lot now so i get the you know the missing somebody part a little bit more now but but yeah i could i couldn't imagine what it what it would be like to be working a job 70 80 hours a week 16 hours away from your home and you don't like you're watching your kids grow up through a phone screen yeah And I mean, I hate to say that because I don't want to vilify the road.

48:22I think the road is a great way of life for some people. And I think it can provide a lot of things for people, you know, as far as like financially and, you know, security and things like that. And do great things for people's families and stuff. But you have to know what you're getting into. Right. Go out on the road, stack your cash, be smart with it and come home. Yeah. You know. Yeah. I mean, I know dudes in like hardcore bands that have just been torn for like 30 years straight. Yeah. They make no money. Yeah, man. And there's just this like militant commitment to it. Love of the game. I have to do this forever.

49:00And yeah, but then at some point they always like crack and just kind of realize like this is crazy. I can't keep doing this to my family. Yeah, exactly. And that's what it is right there. And I think a lot of people, a lot of guys that work on the road, they end up, you know, either divorced or, you know. Yeah. they're, they're just not in their, in their families like they would be, or like they wanted to be, you know, but, and I would say it's not, not their fault, but sometimes it is, you know, like they had, they made the choice to turn into an alcoholic. Yeah. But I think that there should be more resources, I think, for those people, you know what I'm saying?

49:37Like to not turn to alcoholism and like give them better opportunities where they're from or you know whatever and that's why i'm such a big advocate for like workers owning the means of production and like that and i would consider myself a democratic socialist because of that and you know i just think that i don't know it sucks because like i i can think of so many people off the top of my head that i've watched their families just kind of break apart because of because of the road you know and like working those blue collar jobs and they're tough jobs you're out in the sun all day or you're out in the you know negative temps all day long yeah and i mean you're out there busting your ass and sometimes life happens and you know you have arguments i mean i always said like the women who are with these men that are out there on the road are just just as strong it doesn't just impact you know the man who's gone the women the women that stay home and they're basically you know turn into single moms other than you know monetarily yeah but they're still getting kids to daycare somehow by themselves or you know handling kids sicknesses by themselves or especially ones that are you know not very family oriented and don't have a whole village of people and you know back home and stuff like that they're just kind of doing it themselves and yeah especially if they're working you know yeah yeah no i see that with like because my uh my wife is like armenian and so like she has a huge family out here and there's just like so much support and that you know obviously she didn't have a kid until she was like you know old enough to like really be able to handle the responsibility and everything but i just like realized that if you were somebody who had a baby when you were like 18 or whatever in this sort of environment it would be way less difficult because there are so many people that would be able to pick up the slack and help like take care of you whereas if you're really isolated which it feels like a lot of people are these days uh you know and you don't have that sort of family safety net it's got to be so much more pressure yeah dude it's it's definitely definitely difficult for all those people so you know i always always will always have a special place in my heart for for the road and the friends and relationships that i made out there and everything like that i think i wouldn't be i wouldn't be who i am without them so right Do you ever have issues dealing with the fame aspect of it, especially being that you're famous in kind of a unique, short form sort of way where kind of a lot of people probably recognize you and then they're scratching their head and they're like, you're that guy.

52:11Yeah, it's definitely weird. I mean, especially being from where I'm from, you don't ever expect to be where I'm at. Not a lot of TikTok stars down there. Yeah, exactly. out here in LA we got we got a few too many yeah see that's the that's the thing like this guy the culture around here is a little bit different because you know people are actually being influencers or artists or creatives or whatever um but where I'm from you know nobody does that so um it's definitely different but I don't know there was a point I can remember um I had like 3 ,000 followers on TikTok at one point and I was like oh I gotta go home and make content we were all uh day drinking out of the pond or whatever and one of my buddies was like you really think that's going to go anywhere like why are you doing that you know just stay here drink beer and i'm like no i'm gonna go i'm gonna go do this or whatever because i always thought to myself like oh if i could just get to like 10 000 followers i could i could really do something with this you know or at least play music for fun and make a little bit of money doing it and stuff but um yeah now it's turned into what it's turned into so yeah so no i remember that like when i was you know like 29 maybe like there was a time period where i really like had this sort of epiphany where i was like if i keep going to the bar and drinking and trying to meet chicks every night because you know at a certain point i was just doing that like you know five nights out of the week and then at a certain point i'm like bro like if i just do that every night for the next like 10 years i'm not gonna get anywhere but if i like stay home and like focus like that that was like very much the time period where i was really like figuring out youtube and podcasts and like it was a time period in my life where I could easily stay up until five in the morning, just watching videos online and sort of like realizing what was out there because this was kind of like the very early days of YouTube.

54:01And I feel like me blowing off opportunities to go out drinking was like, you know, the, the number one thing that helped me to like be early on YouTube and podcasting and stuff like that. But I remember having friends who would just be shaming me beyond belief for not being willing to go out drinking with them and you know would just be on my ass about it and just realizing like there is always going to be people trying to drag you down and and make you stoop to their level when you go out of your way to start trying to better yourself yeah i think some and like i don't hold it against any of those friends or anything like that because it's just different from where we're from but um yeah i mean it's the same thing your your your closest friends will be your i don't want to say biggest naysayers but they'll be you know kind of doubtful just because they know you better than anyone else and and also like they can't they don't do it so you know they don't see how you would be able to do it especially when you're hanging out in the same spaces and things like that yeah if you're gonna if we're buddies and we're on the same level and you have this dream of becoming a music superstar and i have no such dream it's pretty understandable that i'm gonna kind of you know maybe not consciously but i'm gonna be a little bit offended by the notion that you think that you could be a millionaire off music and that i i don't even have before you even accomplish the goal the fact that i don't even have the ability to conceive of doing something like that with my life it's understandable that somebody would be resistant to that you know yeah dude i think that's that's the biggest part of it It's just their, you know, lack of understanding.

55:40But I don't hold that against them because why would you understand it? You know what I mean? Especially where I'm from, you know. But I think once it started catching on, most of my friends were really supportive. And even now, you know, like a lot of my friends in my hometown don't necessarily agree with everything that I say. But we can have candid conversations, one. And two, they support me, like, through everything I do, you know. And so I think it's really a big part of why I stayed in my hometown. And I also think that there's some people on the left side of politics. There's something that frustrates me about the left is that a lot of times people will be like, well, how do you still hang out with these people?

56:20Or how have you not cut these people out of your life? And it's like, did you ever think that maybe you from suburban America next to some city or something like that may not be the best spokesperson to talk to these people about these issues? you know like don't you want them to be able to be on the same page and like where we can collectively fight for each other right you know so i think for me this is this is my job you know what i'm saying it's not it's not uh the leftist from you know la county's job to speak to people in rural america about why they should vote for democrats because they're a farmer not in spite of it.