#2212 - Jelly Roll

23:48It was just going to be a private bar. But then along the way, we'd said, you know what? It doesn't hurt to have it open to the general public up until certain time. And then from that time out, have it everybody after the shows are over. Because that's when everybody really wants to hang. And that was like the best blending of both worlds. But it was that old bar in Hollywood was, it had her bar from her home that they had moved and put there. So the actual bar that you put drinks on was from her home. Yeah. So it's like that there was like a piece I heard there with us all the time. So when we decided to do this place, I'm like, we got to have a bar just for Mitzie.

24:27Just the same kind of vibe, you know. No, I mean, it touched my soul in such a way that I wanted to do it for my father. That's awesome. You know what I mean? So I just want you to know that the Mitzie legacy is went even further in the what you all have created there is spreading on to. You know, it's got me emotional talking about a woman I never met. I just know she did so much for you. She did so much for everybody. Yeah. She's the most important person in the history of comedy that's on a comedian. And Paulie shared some really cool stories with me about her. And it's just mad. It's just unreal.

24:58I got to spend a little time with Paulie because I went to that back bar there. The cool thing is because of y 'all I've now found y 'all's community embraces me everywhere now. So I'm safe. If I'm in a city now, if I'm in LA, I'm like, where's the comedy club? Right. I bet they got a back bar. Call Adam Ray. You know what I'm saying? Adam Ray is like, hey, I'm at the back bar at the store. Come on. I'm like, yes. Yeah. On the way. Yeah. It's a fun group of people. Contrary to popular belief. Yeah. Popular belief is a comedian's are all like miserable. No, dude. It's actually the funnest. The greatest storytellers ever.

25:31I could listen to guys like Bert talk all night. Yeah. I could listen to Joey Diaz talk all night. I've known Joey for 30 years. He still tells me new stories. Yeah. It's crazy. No, dude. It's crazy, man. It's crazy. It's crazy, dude. Because what Joey could go to the store to day and have a story. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? And just be talking one of the best stories ever. I think we're all in the storytelling business, right? That's what I do, too. Sure. I'm telling stories. I'm not doing it in a comedic way, but I'm still telling a story. You know what I mean? Like, it's all that kind of story.

26:01I'm attracted to storytellers. You know. I think we all are. I mean, that's why he loves a good movie. That's why he loves a good book. Yeah. Especially one that somebody that can tell a story that can capture you in a certain way. I think it was probably the oldest form of entertainment, right? Once people, when they first started learning language, about the oldest form of entertainment was probably recreating a thing they saw. Right. Yeah. I had to be, right? Yeah, for sure. But think about the old, let's sit around the campfire, reach stories. I mean, that sure. I'm sure there were telling tales.

26:31Tall tales is what they used to call them. Think about how long we've been here and these kind of stories, and people just telling stories. Also, back then, that was the only time in your day that you got to relax. When you're sitting around the campfire, that was the only time. It was dark out. There was nothing to do. You found all the food you're going to find, and you're going to get up in the morning and go right back out all day long again, and then eventually find your way back to the campfire. So the campfire was like the time where people would sit around and entertain each other. Wow.

26:58And prehistory. Yeah. That's deep, because you're thinking about it like from a hunting perspective too. They had to go out all day and find the food. Yeah. If you only do that when the sun was out. You could only do it when the sun was out. And the nighttime, it's fucking dangerous, because there's predators out there. So the fire is the best thing to keep off the predators. You know, fire, and everybody gathers around the fire, because the predators don't want to come to the fire. Fuck, man. And that's where people learn how to tell stories. That's why we're so attracted to it. So they were doing fucking drugs back then too.

27:26I'm sure they were smoking pot and doing all kind of things. They were doing all sorts of things. Somebody had already figured out that cow shit mushrooms could make you feel great. Yeah. 100%. 100%. They tried everything. They were starving. They tried a little bit of eating everything, and they figured out what you can eat and what kills you. Imagine going through mushrooms, trying to figure out which ones kill you and which ones get you to see God. Yeah. They had to figure that out, trial and error. How many times they had to go through it and go back and go listen, y 'all, I've done this a few times, and I'm pretty confident that there is this thing that goes into the mouth.

27:54It makes me feel fucking like God. Yeah. I'm saying it's crazy. Somebody had to be that guy. Did you ever hear about John Marco Allegro in the book, The Sacred Mushroom and the Scrolls? Mm -hmm. It's Sacred Mushroom, what is known? It's a Sacred Mushroom and the Christian myth. And what was there's two different, Sacred Mushroom and the Dead Sea Scrolls, I think, is one of them. What is the titles of his book? Sacred Mushroom and the Cross. And then there is another one. There's another one that he released after the Catholic Church allegedly bought out all the copies of the first one to get rid of it.

28:28Wow. And something in the Christian myth. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian myth. I read the Dead Sea Scrolls. So this guy thinks that all of religion is stories about mushrooms. He thinks that the entire Christian religion was about psychedelic mushrooms and fertility rituals. Mm -hmm. He thinks that what they were doing was they would have these stories, especially when they're conquered by the Romans. They'd have these stories, so they would hide the truth and stories and, you know, allegories and all these different tales. But he thinks that the entire Christian religion was based on the consumption of psychedelic mushrooms.

29:04I can tell you this on brand. I mean, I'm a man of faith, but on brand with that is Jesus told stories and thought he taught in stories. Mm -hmm. Jesus never gave a direct direction. He always was just like, well, and then he'd tell a story and you would have to figure out, you know what I mean? It was like, okay, the story would show the, it was always in story form too. And maybe they knew that was the best way to ensure that people would tell it the same way every time. Ooh. You know, because if you have a story and the story, Noah has an arc and he brings the animals in the arc and God tells him he's going to do this and he's going to do that and he does it.

29:38And then, you know, if you have a story, then that information keeps getting told essentially the same way over and over and over again. Like, we can read the Epic of Gilgamesh today. That's a 6 ,000 year old story. Something like that, 5 ,000. We can read that today. That's nuts. That's right. That's crazy. Because it's a story. But if it was just people talking about what you should do or what happened and you know, like when it's history, man, we can't trust history from the 60s. History from the 60s, we're finding out new shit every day about the Kennedy assassination. That was fucking 63, man.

30:1763. That's what it's been one fucking years ago. No, that's insane. We're still trying to figure out what the fuck happened. And this is like with modern, like they had television, they had printing press, they had all these different things. They had accountability, they had elected officials, they had democracy, still can't figure out what the fuck happened. And that's 63. So imagine trying to figure out what the fuck happened 5 ,000 years ago. You know, it's like, who knows who's telling the truth? Who knows that you've got to like sort through the rubble and figure out what the fucking the facts show?

30:50But if you have a story, even if it's like there's something hidden in that story. Right. And he thinks that that's what the this episode is brought to you by Buffalo Trace Distillery. Actually, I have some Buffalo Trace cigars here they just sent me. One of the world's most award -winning distilleries that's been making whiskey the same way for more than 200 years, made as a tribute to the rugged free spirited pioneers who blaze their own trail to new frontiers. It embodies the perfectly untamed spirit of independence. It defines what an award -winning bourbon should be. Age nearly twice as long as competitors in new charred white oak barrels and bottled at 90 proof, Buffalo Trace is the perfect bourbon to be enjoyed in any way, anywhere, and the taste, it's damn good.

31:46It's bold and sophisticated yet incredibly smooth, finishing long and deep. It's authentically American representing uncompromising quality for the rugged, the powerful, and the passionate. Tap the banner to learn more or visit BuffaloTraceDistillery .com. That's BuffaloTraceDistillery .com. Distilled, aged, and bottled by Buffalo Trace Distillery, 90 proof, Franklin County, Kentucky, Buffalo Trace, American, family -owned, independent, and perfectly untamed. The apple was in the Garden of Eden. That's the, all that, all that was in story. You think about stories too, as they said, I've never been in the pyramids, but they said that all that stuff on the inside of it is just a story, right?

32:34It's all telling a story to be great. The whole of the book is from like telling stories or when they have the guys chasing these things with the spears, they're like trying to show a story. It's all trying to tell a story, man. A lot of mushrooms too. Yeah. There's a lot of images then with mushrooms. I might do mushrooms today. It's my album release today. I'm thinking about it. I don't know if I want to do much. God, they should be legal. I know, right? God, they should be legal. They should be legal and regulated and people should figure out what the fuck they do. They should do a lot of research.

33:02Figure out what this says. It's might be the thing that gets us out of there. Just a micro -dosing nation that connects together. I know every time I've went deep, it was life -changer for me. Like, I'll do a lot of mushrooms every now and then just like, you know, whoo, let's get it. But anytime I was like, let's go, it was a life -changer experience. It's funny that people want to reject that. It's not being important. What's really important is to keep people from like losing their mind and losing their ambition and becoming like the hippies were in the 1960s following Timothy Leary. That's what everybody's worried about.

33:33Everybody's worried about like this collapse of society because people, they give up on capitalism. They tune in and drop out, you know, that whole thing. I don't think that's real. I don't think we're worried about that. I think those people are always going to want to drop out. The people that are, they want to fuck off or always going to want to fuck off. And if you give them an excuse, yeah, they're going to do it. But that's just a style of person. That's not going to affect most people. Most people would benefit, especially if they're not crazy. They don't have like mental health problems.

34:07You'll probably get something out of it. Yeah, I mean, it's helped me in some of my most depressed moments. If I'm really in a dark, dark spot and can't get out of it, my wife will encourage me to go trip. She'd be like, why don't you go, we got to call the Buffalo River back in Tennessee. It's outside of a little town called Hohenwall, Tennessee. Look, old country river, man. I mean, look, country creek river. I mean, it's a river, but it's kind of shallow. You can see the bottom of it. And we'll go, it's called floating the buffalo. We'll go out there and just float the buffalo. And every now and about twice a year, me and the buddies will go out there and we'll just take six or seven.

34:39Damn, I just float the buffalo. So if I haven't got to do it in a year because of the schedule, my wife will feel that on me and be like, no, you might go to the buffalo. You know what I'm saying? She'll say it really cool. She'll be like, when's the last time you floated the buffalo? And I'll be like, man, it's been a year ahead. And it should be like, I think you and scary Larry is one of my best friends. And we met each other in juvenile hall. He's a just wild character. So he goes, you and scary should go float the buffalo. So it's like, encourage me. She knows I'm going to come back a way better husband, a way better father.

35:09You know what the wildest theory I've ever heard about cell sobbing is? Is that it came from outer space. That it's an organism from another planet. And the reason for this is that they know that spores can survive in the vacuum of space. And there's a thing called pansepermia. When pansepermia is the idea of that like an asteroid slams into a planet. And it takes amino acids and biological organisms that can survive in space and a bunch of different elements from that planet and then introduces those new elements to another planet by way of an asteroid. And that's a real thing that we know for sure happens.

35:49And they know that that's how we get a ridium. There's a lot of a ridium on earth like in places where there's been an impact because it's really rare on earth but really common in space. So we know that some shit gets to us. And apparently, I'm too stupid to understand this, but the way botanists describe it and see if you can find any information on this. There's something very unusual about the compound psilocybin and psilocybin mushrooms, psilocybin Cubensis mushrooms. They're very weird. And they're not really connected to a lot of the other fungus that's here in some strange way. Like the way they work is like also very tied into human neurochemistry.

36:27It's really close to like dimethyltriptamine, which is a part of human neurochemistry. And so the craziest theories that it's come from space. Living spores have been found and collected in every level of earth's atmosphere. Mushroom spores are electron dense and can survive in the vacuum of space. Additionally, their outer layer is actually metallic and of a purple hue which naturally allows the sport to deflect ultraviolet light. And as if all this wasn't unique enough, the outer shell of the spore is the hardest organic compound to exist in nature. So this is one of the weird theories. So this is, was this Terence McKenna's theory?

37:05Our mushrooms from outer space is the path. It brings in my body enough is officially his theory, but... The late ethno -botnist Terence McKenna suggests that mushrooms are responsible for human intelligence. Yeah, yeah, a theory. It's called a stone ape theory. Yeah, I heard about that on your part. His theory hypothesized that mushroom spores possess all the necessary requirements to travel on space currents. Furthermore, they could have settled in the brain matter of primitive hominoids and following the lines of modern day hallucinogenic mushrooms directly contributed to our modern day intelligence and self -awareness.

37:37Yeah. It's fucking wild. Yeah, his theory is, that's why, I mean, if you can see it there, click on that back again, you can see where it was talking about his theory. So his theory is very, very bizarre. So we went on to theorize that mushrooms are the reason there's human life on earth. Yeah, so it may seem like material from space, from a science fiction novel rather, there is no avoiding the fact that mushrooms possess many traits that are unique to their kingdom alone. Fun guy builds cell walls of... I don't know how to say that word, chitin. Chitin. Chitin. The same material that makes up the hard outer shell of insects and other author pods.

38:15I'm so country -wide, I said, chitin. Chitin could be chitin. Chitin. Like chitlins. These cell walls contain similar chemicals found in butterfly and beetle wings as well as the plumage of some colorful bird such as peacocks, living spores. Okay, so we've read that, but what is it, there was something about his theory. Where's explaining his theory of how it would have worked? That's it. Well, essentially his theory was that they experimented with mushrooms and it made them better hunters and it made them more creative and it made them figure out language. And he thinks it's responsible for just like this weird mystery of the human brain size, it doubled over a period of two million years.

38:56And there's no real solid explanation. It's a very strange thing. And apparently the biggest mystery in all the fossil record when it comes to animals and evolution. Yeah, I have the human brain double over two million years. Oh, dude, Adam and Silas, I have. Probably had a part of it or aliens. Right. Maybe aliens. Yeah. Maybe both. Maybe they are aliens. You know, maybe they are aliens. Maybe we're just looking the wrong way. Maybe we're fucking aliens, right? I think we probably are. I think we probably are. We doesn't seem like we belong here. You know what, I tell somebody all the time, my new theory is because my life turned out in such a way I never dreamed that this is a simulation.

39:35And that there is an overweight nerdy alien that plays me. And that during my time, I think about this all the time when I'm high. And that my sleeping hours are like when he's doing his normal stuff and my waking hours are his two hours a day. And I just imagine this like kid that's looking back like mom, you won't believe what I've done with that fat dude the last nine months. It's fucking crazy. He's one of the most famous artists in the world. And she's like, you got to get off. He's like, put his going to the Grammys. He's like a super high version of red dead redemption. But my dude's telling people like, y 'all remember that dude we thought wasn't going to do it.

40:13He did it. It's like a finger to the out. If it's a simulation, it's a really good one. We're in a good timeline, brother. Oh, it couldn't be. We're in a really good episode. We got a good group of writers. It couldn't again. It ain't equal. It's like if you're on the show and you got writers like this, fuck these writers are amazing. This fucking show is always entertaining. Every day there's a drama. Yeah. Oh, especially right now. We're in the middle of the drama. Oh my goodness. There's so much. There's so much you can get overwhelmed just looking at the fucking news every day. It's a great time for me to be in the middle of a tour.

40:46Because I've missed it all. I'm doing five shows a week and I'm so in the vortex of touring. Yeah, good. We do that old school rock and roll shit. So we really do play five shows a week for 12, 13 weeks, you know. That's amazing. It's awesome, dude. But again, that's why you're so comfortable up there. You're so just, yeah. It wreaks of a man has done a thousand shows. You know what I mean? It's like when you see a comedian up there really comfortable. It's like when I watched the tell at the comedy seller when he leaned back on the wall. Yeah, I was like, oh, he's fitting to kill. But he just walked straight up and leaned back.

41:17And then he calls Ian up and Ian's just going, you know, just shit at him. And he's just lightening it on fire. It was just so good, man. Yeah, they, they're, that's a good hammer and nail. Two of those together, two. He picked out of the club here. Yeah, two. I feel like it's, it reminds me of like the early phases of like a bumping likes thing, like a new version of that, right? Which, because when him and Jeff Ross are together, it's like when David Lucas and Tony are firing on each other. I feel the exact same way when Jeff Ross and David tell each other. Yeah. I get that same excited feeling of like, oh, some shit's been a pop off.

41:48You know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, when David and Tony go after each other, there's like hours on the internet of just David and Tony shit on each other. I think it's a hundred thousand ways David can call Tony gay. Yeah, and he's called the David a hundred thousand ways to be fat. It's just, it's also the way they laugh at each other doing it. Like if this is a simulation, man, we picked a really good one. Yeah, it's getting colder and colder. Elon believes it's a simulation. He's a lot smarter than me. Yeah. He thinks that the odds that it's not a simulation are in the billions. Really? Yeah, in the billions, he said.

42:23Wow. I'm telling you, dude, there's a little dude that's nobody believes that he's going to school every day. Like, my mind craft dude is killing it. Do you get that imposter syndrome thing ever? Oh, man, so much I'm somewhere between feeling extremely uncomfortable where I'm out of my career right now or overly comfortable where I'm out of my career. So I'm either having to catch myself and go, whoa, big fella. Right. Come on now, dog. You were just in jail, didn't you? Well, people that knew you six years ago hate you still. And it's like, you know, and then I have situations where I'm like, I don't belong here.

43:01I'm having that moment right now. This is, um, this is my first album, Joe, that is going to be in a fight for the number one album in the world. Never dreamed. Now, this is like, what the fuck am I doing here? You know what I mean? Like, do you think that's a different world? Do you think that's maybe something that you shouldn't even think about? Because like, your music's amazing. You're amazing. Maybe all that just let it just exist. No, that's what I've been. And that's why. Because it's so big now. It's almost like if you pay attention to it, you're going to go blind. Oh, you know what I'm saying?

43:35Like, you're kind of staring at the sun. Yeah. You're kind of staring at the sun. Like, it used to be you had a little campfire and you're warming your hands because it's cold outside. Right. But now you're kind of staring at the sun. And maybe just be jelly roll. That's what I'm saying. But what's getting, being jelly roll got me to the point that they're now saying I might have a number one album. You probably know what I'm saying. And then you're in place where you're like, holy fuck. And that's where the imposter syndrome comes in. Because you're like, yo, I wasn't even. That's where friends are born.

44:02Yeah. Yeah. I didn't have a Billboard Hot 100 song. Right. Until 20, 36 months ago. You know what I mean? You exploded. Yeah. But you handle it beautifully. You really do. Because you feel like genuine gratitude. Genuine gratitude comes off of you. Yeah. Thank you. It's real. I am true. You feel it. I mean, you know me. I can't believe this is happening. I know you can't believe this. It's fucking on the screen. It's the fucking on the screen. I'm saying every day. Every time we deserve it. I was just with our boy, Brigham, doing some blood work and getting some, getting some, some shit to make my feel.

44:37But I broke my, broke my heel. And we were talking about that of like, living in the gratitude of it to the, in realizing, even you saying that, we're such a special simulation. Yeah. This, the time of this, I know I keep going back to the same point, but it's where my heart is right now. It's watching me and a bunch of guys that were all at this kind of same thing at the same time three or four years ago, that you could feel the teapot bubbling. Uh -huh. And all of us being like a little left of center. You know what I mean? Like I wasn't supposed to be in country music the way that they've embraced me.

45:16Outside looking in you to never guess. Right. Outside looking in you could have never said that Kill Tony would be the number one live podcast on the internet. You know what I mean? Or that Schultz's podcast would be, or that, um, me and, uh, Bazzak Brian would have this similar, of course he wasn't being way bigger than me, but just like similar kind of, we're writing songs our whole life that nobody really heard. And then all of a sudden they got this just, it's probably the craziest synergies that could have ever happened in any scenario for me in any way. And it's inspired me to get healthy.

45:54It's like gave me purpose and I've never felt more loved. I've never felt more warmed or welcomed. I spent so much time feeling the opposite of love, you know, um, even walking in here and playing with Carl. There was a time in my life where I would have walked in here and that dog would have let you all know I was not a good person. You know what I'm saying? You would have just looked up and like why is Carl acting weird with this big guy? You know what I mean? Yeah, just what's up with kids were the same way. Dude, kids would look at me and squal. You know what I mean? And it's really inspired me to start focusing on my health too.

46:25Dude, I'm down a hundred pounds now. Officially down a hundred fucking pounds. That's amazing. Congratulations. That's really huge. That's a massive accomplishment. Thank you, brother. It's been all food. I'm working out. I'm walking. But what I've learned is as I'm losing the weight, it's inspiring me to just keep going. By nature, I want to go walking, do more stuff because I'm fucking number lighter. I feel better. So when the army's like, you want to go play basketball? We're playing basketball three days a week now. Wow. You want to hear the coolest act of love, Joe? I'll try not to get emotional talking about this, but my whole band has watched me fight.

47:02Cocaine addiction. They watch me get off coke. They watch me get off lean. They've watched me figure my life out slowly. And they knew that the last mountain for me was food. So we started putting a real structure around a higher, a real nutritionist. He's out here with me now. I'm only eating his food. I'm just like super with it. We're getting anything that could, you know, out of the green room for just a... So I'm working out every day, walking around the arenas. And one day they have a basketball court because we're fucking playing in a... This is insane, by the way, that I'm playing fucking NBA arenas.

47:33And like, I'm playing where the fucking Orlando man... I'm on Orlando Magic Court. Like, what the fuck? I'm talking fucking fat check. But, um, so the first day it's just like me and like three or four dudes. The crew heard, do the next day 30. The whole crew showed up for me. And then, you know, these dudes are just there because they know it's helping me kind of. So now three days a week we're in basketball courts and having full blown fucking tournaments. And it's been so good for me because it's like reconnecting to my childhood in this really weird way of like... I grew up in a community where there were basketball courts and we would all go play.

48:07You know what I mean? It's like, it's been really like... It's been the best experience ever. And I'm getting to do it in like back to that weird shit. Not only experiencing this with your friends and people you love and then you're doing it at the San Antonio Spurs Court. And the San Antonio Spurs coach is out there giving you pointers and fucking being the referee. And you're the Sacramento Kings coach is fucking shooting with you. You know what I mean? Yeah, Elon's right. This isn't real life. No, it can't be. It's unreal, dude. Leaving nationwide arena but I was also telling Brigham talking about the humility too is that I'm still nervous walking in here and we're friends.

48:43And you know what you tell us all the times, what you told Brigham? You know what he's gonna tell you? We're just two friends talking. I was like, I know with 20 million motherfuckers listening dog. I'm not falling for that. We're just two buddies talking. I can't see it. Don't look at the sun. That's it. You're right. The same thing. You know how much I needed to hear that? Yeah. Especially like, because I don't get in my head about stuff but just this week was the first time the label called and said, hey, we don't want to. We want to put this on your radar because it might make you want to promote the record.

49:08You might have a number one album. And I was like, whoa, dude, this shit wasn't even in my mind. When I had a number five album last year, you couldn't have told me I didn't have a number one album. You know what I'm saying? I was like, fuck you. Crazy. What I'm saying is this, what's in that water? This is coffee. That's water. Okay. Yeah, it's a wild experience, man. And if it's not real, boy, we picked a really good simulation. It's been great, though, man. It's been great to hear that you're on this positive track because it's all now just about momentum. It's just about staying on the course.

49:39That's what's hard for people is getting the good momentum. Yeah. I'm building the momentum. I had a moment the other day. I was telling Shultz this. It was a really small win but for a food, lifelong food added. Joe, I was up to 550 some pounds. I was having to weigh myself at meat places. You know, and I was telling him that I used to walk in and like a drug addict. I would scan the room and make a count of everything I could eat. You know what I mean? Like if you had like the little baby snickers and a little thing or do it as a like. The other day I was in my green room and somebody was in the green room and they picked up a piece of candy and said, did you, you want one of these?

50:16Because we just got hit a dab or something. I didn't even know the candy was in there. Because normally they get the candy. They don't put you like that in my room. And that was the first time I was like, oh, I'm on to something. Like I'm fucking winning right now. Like I didn't even notice that. I could have been eating for five hours. I didn't know. I wouldn't eat them all. I didn't even scan for candy. It wasn't even, it's not even a thought now when I walk into places. It's as there are candy dish here. You know what I mean? That used to be literally one of the first things I would look for.

50:43You know, as they're candy dish here, I've had to make so many different small habit changes. But it's been the fucking, I was just telling them, the bubble out there and I was telling Bruce on the way in here. I feel this good just losing a hundred pounds, Joe. And I'm still, I've never told my weight, but I'm gonna tell it here. Because I want some accountability from people. I'm 420 something now, 420. And imagine I'm talking, I'm walking around different. Talking different. Sure. My shoulders are setting different. I'm fucking my wife different. I'm just kind of, you know, I'm moving different.

51:16But you probably have crazy powerful legs. Dude, it's crazy, Joe. I'm gonna put you a massive leg muscle. I've been going to the gym now. I'd listen, dude, what as much as you can fit on that thing, I'm throwing. Of course. Throwing. Think about it, man. You've been carrying around 500 pounds. Yeah, 500 plus legs must be sturdy as fuck. No, dude, it's... And if you could lose weight now, you're gonna have like super legs. You should really keep going. No, Joe, man, my goal is when I come back and do this next year, it's gonna be fucking insane. Like, I've never been more dialed in. I've never cared more about it.

51:48I've never been happier. What do you eat? Like, what does he got you eating? Oh, dude, man, he's here. He's, um, he's actually been really killing it for me. So, I had, I'm from eating bad for so many years. My gut has just been fucked. So we've just been focusing on slowing down the gut. I'm only twice a day, I'm eating a fruit snack in between. You ever do any fasting? Yeah. I'm trying to fast one day a week now, just to work on like the atophagy, so somebody's skin cells, so I won't be as... I don't want to be saggy. You know what I mean? Something new is that kind of thing. Yeah, I know that story about that one dude that went on nothing but a vitamin IV drip for a year.

52:22And lost 200 some pounds. I think he lost 300 pounds. Yeah, I've watched that story. Did you lose like 300 pounds? Something crazy like that. Dude, he had no food for you just... And his fat shrunk, but his skin shrunk too. Yeah, that's what happens. It's called... Somebody told me, and I could have the name wrong here, y 'all, but it's called atophagy. Have you heard of this? I think atophagy is... Is that where the skin cells... I think your body gets rid of all bad cells. This is like something that comes with fasting. Bad cells is definitely a scientific version of it. But I think... I think the way they explain it to me is that it has something to do with the elixir.

52:57Elixir... how do you say... Elasticity of the skin. And that is what helps. So that's why one day a week, at least every other week, I'm just taking a full 24 hours. But I'm only eating probably eight or nine hours a day now anyway, so I'm kind of intermittent anyway. That's the real bummer when people lose a lot of weight, is that you got all this extra skin. Like, Ethan Supri, he had to have all that cut and stitched up. I've listened to that podcast with him twice in the last 90 days. He was full, three hour podcast as far as the... Just to kind of... I love the way he thinks. Yeah. It's just, you know...

53:29It's a great guy. Yeah, I love... for me, I'm always looking for inspiration. As a songwriter, we're always writing a song. You know, as a comedian, you're always looking for a joke. You know what I mean? So that kind of... I'm always looking for that. So when I found that part, I was like, oh, it's dude. And he kind of did what I would... How he looks now is a dream scenario for me. He didn't get like, crazy big, but he doesn't look like saggy sick. Because sometimes when you go from being as big as we've gotten, you get down to 300 pounds and people start looking at you like, are you okay? And you're like, I'm fucking better than I've ever been.

54:05You know what I mean? They're worried. Yeah, they're worried, you know, because they just couldn't imagine. You know what I mean? Even when I just told, always forget his name, but your guy out there, the archer guy, worked at the archery store, great guy. But I was just telling him that I... Yeah, same thing. Same concept. Yeah, if you just keep going, you know, it'll become normal for you to not eat candy. It'll be normal for you to eat healthy food. It'll be what you crave. Lots of protein, lots of bone broth kind of potatoes. Anything that we're doing in a rather drier bone broth, we're not doing a lot of it, but when we do it, we're soaking it in bone broth, keeping it really clean, protein style, kind of going low on fats, kind of getting...

54:48Let my liver kind of reset from just years of eating foods, fatty foods, and shitty greases, you know what I mean? Yeah. So just been kind of taking a slow man. I'm enjoying it though. The cool thing is, he did Balal, Muhammad's weight cut, he's worked with DC, this guy, I found him from that world. So he really gets it, and... That's a complicated science. Yeah. You can get those guys like Balal's way over 170. I don't know what he weighs, but I gotta guess he's close to 200 pounds, and he cuts down to 170. Yeah. Perfectly. Yeah, Ian does it every time. It said it's pretty effortless, man. Ian says that out of everybody that Balal is just insanely disciplined.

55:25Yeah. When he goes into camp, he's like a different dude. Well, that dude does, he's done camping Ramadan, and you know, you can't eat or drink anything during the day like hours at Ramadan. Yeah. So he would have to get up in the morning while he was dark out, have a morning breakfast, go to training, not eat anything. Do it too, it's too much. And no water. Yeah. And you're training. And then at the end of the day, then you get to eat. No, he's a machine. That dude is completely... That Leon Edwards fight was crazy. I get to see him tomorrow. He's a great guy, man. He's a great guy. He really is.

55:58And you know, the fact that he's the... That devout a Muslim that he, you know, prays five times a day, like he doesn't fuck around. Like he's really by the book. He doesn't even swear. No, he says fudge. Yeah. What's your name, bud? Jelly, jelly, jelly. What the fudge are you doing? Yeah. When are you coming to fudge in Chicago? It's ridiculous. He's like this assassin. And he, you know... I'm going to get to see the two champs tomorrow. Or I'll get to see him, and I'll get to see the Venezuelan bixon. They're both coming. So him and Juliana are coming out to the show. Chicago? Yeah, absolutely.

56:28For excited, man. Out and release night Chicago, United Center, first time with the United Center. Nice. Big big deal for me. Chicago's always a great fucking down. It's such... What's the comedy club down there? Well, they have a few. They have... What do they have, Zany's in Chicago? They have another one in Rosemont. The doors... The doors, the doors, the brothers don't have nothing to do with that one though, do they? I don't know. I don't know. They never know. That doesn't make sense if they don't. Did you hear what they did to the Nashville Zanies? So, you know, Brian and them own that building.

56:58And through the back bar, so, you know, Zany's door is here, the front door. Not the door we go through the front door. Whatever that place was right here, he's turned that into a place called the lab now. And it's like a 50 person smaller. It would be like the little boy. You know what I'm saying? He's like the little boy. So he calls it the lab at Zany's now. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, super. It's really, really cool. They used to have a really good room at the improv in Hollywood. They called the lab. And that's where Ari started. This is not happening, which became that Comedy Central show. You know, the storyteller show.

57:33That all started in that lab. There was Ari's little baby that he created. The old way the improv rather used to be set up was amazing. You have the big room. And then you have this tucked away small room in the back with a very small bar. But then they expanded it and made the bar bigger. And made the stage by the door. They fucked the whole thing up. The whole thing's fucked now. It used to be the stage was in the back. There wasn't a lot of noise in the room. And then they turned it into a bar and fucked it up. But at that time, that was what it was called. It was called the lab. Yeah, no, this place, they called the lab.

58:07It's beautiful. Speaking of that show, God, I'd love to see that show back. That show was so good. Yeah, you know what happened with that? You know how it all went down? Ari got an offer from Netflix to do a special. You know, he actually filmed his special and Comedy Central wanted it. Because he was on Comedy Central. But Netflix was better for him. And they were pissed that he was going to do the special on Netflix. So they fired him. And he's like stuck to his guns. And then Roy Wood took over and he did it for a while. And that was the end of it. But that's why it was because Ari wouldn't listen to that.

58:45They were trying to force him into doing his special and Comedy Central. Wow. Yeah. And he's like, no. Like, I don't have a contract that I have to do it on Comedy Central. This is crazy. Like, you guys are for you, man. They used the show. They did use the show. They fired. They fired him. They fired him. And not to say, and not to say, Roy Wood didn't do great with the show. But. Oh, Roy Wood's is great. I mean, Ari was happy that Roy Wood took over. Because first of all, Roy Salaris is great comic. But also that meant all the people that were working on the show got to work. Ari was going to take out a loan and he was going to pay all the people that all the camera people, all the crew.

59:22He's going to pay everybody their salary. Hmm. Just because he felt bad. He felt bad. And it was like, this is not, I, this is not what I want. This is not my fault. But they're forcing me into it. And by principle, I have, I can't just give in and say, okay, I'm going to do this at Comedy Central. But just for just for just us having fun today purposes. Imagine if that show came back right now with Ari. It could. It could come in the explosion that's happening right now. Well, Ari should do the show on Netflix. Yeah. It's his show. I would. He called it now. He calls it Ari. It's your fear is renamed Storyteller show.

59:54Yeah. I think that's what he calls it. He still does it. But he should. It's on Netflix now. No, no, no, I said he should do it on Netflix. But he'll still do live ones every now and then does live Storyteller show. No, he should do it, man. I think about guys like Brian. I would cry laughing to hear whatever his story was. I think about the Joey Diaz, the mother Mary story. You know, going to that, you know, like there are stories on there that. Yeah. Everybody's got good stories too. People have stories of some fucking nutty thing that happened on the road or what have you. No, it's crazy. I'd love to start seeing people in my genre try stuff like that more.

1:00:29They ever did it. Just try to like, I'd love to hear, you know, Jason Aldean tell a story. You know what I mean? If he really, if he got with somebody backstage, like one of the homies, you know what I'm saying? Like if Rose Bud was back there with him, it was like, all right, tell me your best story and I'll punch it up. You know what I'm saying? Jason Aldean would at least kill a six minute story. You know what I'm saying? Everybody's got at least one good story. One that you could concoct. Yeah, one together. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that's probably the really is probably the oldest former junior entertainment.

1:01:00It's funny how I love when I love when anything you talk about has a theme. And this one has been storytelling. And that's, it's all I ever wanted to do. Before I was writing songs, because I knew that music could be written that way, I would just write these kind of stories for my mother. You know what I mean? I would just try to, you know, the story we've talked about a lot, but I was a way to connect with her even before music. And then when I found out music was her shit, I was like, oh, this is the double connection. Like, oh, this is, I'm doubling down on this. And I still to this day think I'm writing for my mama.

1:01:34Like to this day, I'm still like, when I'm really finishing a song, I'm thinking to myself, I wonder what my mama would think about this. You know, in this really weird way. Like, first thought, like, I wonder mama like this, you know, or does this represent. And then the second thought is, why does this song exist? That's always my second following thought. First of all, it's like, when my mama dig it, and then the second is, you know what I mean? And the second is like, why does this exist though? You know what I mean? What could it do? What purpose could it actually serve? And if it's a, it could be anything as much as it's just, you know, it just makes me happy.

1:02:09Or it could make people happy or it could make people move. There's enough of a reason. Out of these 100 plus songs, he's written recently, how many of them you think you'll ever record? I recorded probably 30 something of them. Wow. I'm going to put out probably 28. And I think four or five will probably end up circulating next year through other artists that'll just cut some of the songs. Because sometimes I'll write a song show, but I'm just not the vessel. Right. And I know it when I'm writing it. You know what I mean? Right. Do you hear it in a different voice? Like, sometimes, sometimes, but sometimes you just know that it's like, I couldn't sing this with a certain amount of conviction.

1:02:48You know, like for me personally, you know, it's not that I couldn't, you know, I don't know if this is a good comparison, but it'd be like, I could write a song about hating my wife, but I could never sing it. Because I don't really hate my wife. Right. I could never sing it with conviction. Now, as a songwriter, do I have the skill set to write a song about hating my wife? For sure. But would I ever sing one and represent myself that way? And it's just not, I couldn't sing it with conviction. But there might be a guy in Nashville who just got his heart broke. Well, you know, culture walls, Kate McCannon.

1:03:23That's the mother of all, I hate my wife, so it's insane. Oh, yeah. That's a crazy song. When the fact, and the fact that that dude was 21 when he sang that, you're like, what? It sounds like he's 58. I believe in reincarnation. I'm telling you, man. There's no other way. It doesn't make sense. And if his story couldn't get any cooler, it's that he just doesn't give a fuck. Don't give a fuck. Won't do podcasts. For sure. I tried so hard. It's crazy. It's crazy dude. He told Post Malone. Post Malone hit him up. And Post was like, hey man, I'd love to work. And pretty much he was like, yeah, if you ever want to come to the ranch, we can maybe write something.

1:03:59He's like, Post is like, if you want to fly out of the middle of Canada, we can write it so. But if you think I'm getting off this ranch to write with you, fuck no. Yeah, he really works on a ranch. Yeah. That's how Cody Johnson is too, though. Cody Johnson flies out on the, he's a, I joke with him all the time. I'm like, you're a cowboy that plays a country music singer on the weekends. You like, because you know, I mean, he plays music for real, but he literally goes home and ranches Monday through Thursday. You'll FaceTime this dude and he'll be out just in his ranch somewhere tag and cattle.

1:04:27That's amazing. You know what I mean? And then Friday night, he'll fly and go sell out, you know, two nights at the Staples Center. I have not experienced any of that, but I swear to God, it's so, it resonates with you when you watch it on Yellowstone. You're right. You're like, I wouldn't live like that. So bad. I want to hang out with the horses. Seems like a good time. Seems like everybody's all peaceful and shit. Well, so they have watched the rodeo late at night, because PBR plays on, you know, TV or whatever. And I watch that stuff. I don't know much about it, but I just can't quit watching.

1:04:57I think it's the wildest shit ever. Yeah, I watch it for bursts, but then my knowledge of orthopedic surgeries that these people are going to be receiving and injuries and concussions. They just like, you're like, I gotta stop watching this. I love watching stuff that doesn't seem real, right? Have you seen the, is it JB Mooney? Is that how you say it? Yeah. That was a mooney. I think it's a mooney. Is it mooney or mooney? You got me thinking now. Yeah, me too, but that's... He owns the cow that retired him. It's crazy. How cool is that? Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah, but we're talking about a dude that, you know, would enter no helmet, cigarette lit in his mouth.

1:05:31Animal. Like, oh, just when you look, it's animal. Those dudes riding bulls with no helmet on is the craziest fucking American thing that anyone's ever done. That is so dumb and so amazing at the same time. No, it is. What the fuck are you doing? It is so American, dude. And especially when you had the cigarette, you're just like this. It almost looked like it was out of a movie. Like somebody overcooked it. And at the end, those guys are always broken. Yeah. Just everything's broken. We had to do it on Fear Factor that was a bull rider. And one of his arms, his shoulder had like just giant scars all over the place.

1:06:04City had like five or six shoulder reconstructions. It pops out sometimes. He has to pop it back in. That is. She's sick. It's crazy. All from riding a giant 2 ,000 pound animal that doesn't want you right. Of course. Yeah. And when it gets you off of it, it wants to hurt you. It wants to stomp you. It's pissed off. Yeah, man. Fuck all that noise. Yeah. I can't quit watching them. No, I don't know why I'm just so a trap. I've always been a trap. I loved songs about rodeos. Those are what did we talk about before too? There was 90s music. Had all these like old school really cool rodeo records.

1:06:38And I feel like somewhere, it's kind of like everything goes in themes. And then country music went through like, you know, the hunting and fishing error. But in the 70s, it was more of the storytelling error like the poncho and lefty style stuff. You know what I mean? But to me, the 90s cowboy music was like still some of the best country music ever made. Well, you know who's got the best rodeo song for my money? Zach Brown. Open the gate. Oh, it's one of the best rodeo songs ever written. Oh my god. 100%. Oh my god. Meanwhile, I'm listening to him going, get off that bowl. Don't go ride that bowl.

1:07:11Don't do it. Your dad's dead. Don't ride the same god damn bowl that killed your dad. Jesus Christ. You want to hear a cool rodeo story? Reba McIntyre got discovered at one. I don't know. You want to talk about a real cow girl. Reba McIntyre was like Oklahoma or somewhere and she would sing the national anthem at all the local rodeos because they knew she was the local singer, but she was a real cow boy. So one night she was, she was singing. Oh, this is back in the day when it was old school like a record exec discovered you. Wow. You know what I mean? And like flew you to Nashville and signed you to a record deal.

1:07:43That's a true story though. Reba was just like, didn't because she loved it. Like if you were singing in church, she'd just every weekend they'd have the rodeo in town and she'd go sing the national anthem for. Wow. How many people are like that out there? When you think about yourself becoming like ours of the year at 39, how many people are like that out there that are just super talented. They just never get that crack. It's cool. It's man. There's a thing that's inside some people. There's a thing that's inside some people and it's different in everybody. Like you're different. There's different culture walls, different than Reba's different.

1:08:14Different than Johnny Cash's different. Everybody's got that thing. Everybody's got it. But there's so many people out there that we never get to see that thing. Yeah. I wonder how much of it is the ones that just jumped ship early to the. They quit. Yeah. A lot of people quit. It's hard. I think about it. Doing something for 10 years to no avail. Right. It's really, really hard, man. This is what I tell people. I was a desperate delusional dreamer, Joe. And everything I regret, I did out of desperation. But I don't regret one thing I did as a delusional dreamer. You know what I mean? Because there was moments.

1:08:47We were, I did this. I went to the Juvenile yesterday in Columbus, Ohio. I went to go play cards with the kids in their units before my show. I tried to do stuff like that all the time. And we were all talking about time, energy, stuff into this and songs. And I talked about writing 170 songs last year. And I was like, do y 'all know that there was so many moments in my life where I, in hindsight, I'm glad nobody sat me down really. That I had to have looked fucking crazy. You know, that kid asked me, he said, uh, when did you feel like you made it? I was like, I think this why God kept blessing me is that me and DJ Highlight, it's my DJs from Columbus, Ohio.

1:09:26He was there with me. We did the one o 'clock slot at Rock on the Range, 12 years ago, right? The festival, you know Rock on the Range, Jamie. This is a big deal up where Jamie's from. We played the fifth stage of five stages. So we played the smallest stage there, 30 minutes after they opened the gates. Joe, we started drinking at 10 o 'clock that morning because we were rock stars in our minds. We had made it. There was, we were that delusional. We were backstage full blown shooting shots and celebrating. There was 40 people there. There was thousands of people just walking right past our stage to the stage they were going to.

1:10:02We didn't care. We had made it. You know what I mean? Like we made, we're telling me we got 1500 bucks to do this. This is insane. We have arrived and I'd go home. I'll beat up band of my whole neighborhood probably had to look at me like I was fucking nuts. You know what I'm saying? But nobody said that to me. I had to look like the crazy person kind of right. At this point, I'm in my early 30s, mid 30s, even in their like, all right, big guy. You're rock on the range. That's how I perform in there. That's how I think you're correct. Yeah, I think you should be celebrating. Yeah, you're supposed to be.

1:10:32And when I told that kid that it was cool to see his face kind of light up, he was like, man, that's perspective. You know what I mean? I was like, dude, I was, I would celebrate whenever I would get a, a clap in here when I was in juvenile. When we would have freestyle Fridays in juvenile and if I had, if I spit one line that got a, ooh, man, I went to myself, did push ups and started looking in the mirror different. You know what I'm saying? I was like, it's fucking fixing to happen. Right. Right. You know, that kind of delusional just celebrate every, every moment I had, I made a moment. What is this?

1:11:06This is the day. You look there. Yeah, this is us. This is true story.

1:11:15Rock on the range. This is 2017 probably. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This was our second time. I think we made it to the second stage by then. Yeah, this was 16. Yeah, this is the second time. It's weird doing shows when it's bright out. Yeah, it's crazy. I'm just getting used to doing shows when it's dark. I know. Show's like, bright out. I'm kind of crazy. They heard, it's a dude. It is unforgiving. Yeah. Especially when you're, you know, you're trying to, you're what you're working. You're trying to build something. You're looking out and there's a lot of people that are coming to give you a chance.

1:11:49Yeah. But they don't know anything about you. Well, the thing is if you could figure it out, right? It's people figure out everything. They figure out how to write books. They figure out how to play baseball. People figure it out, but not everybody figures it out. That's why it's so exciting when you do. That's why it's so exciting when you make it. Because you know, it's not just that a bunch of lucky things had to happen to you because they all do with all of us. There's a lot of good circumstances to happen your way. Just to keep you alive, right? You have to get lucky. But then you also have to have that thing.

1:12:21Like what is that thing inside you that you got to get out? And you could figure out a way to get the best version of it and display it for people. Or you quit. Mm hmm. A lot of people quit. Man, I tell you, there's a line in the song, Joe, that, uh, it's an old song called Just Breathe. And she goes into the song. She ends the song by going to AM and I'm still awake writing this song. Because if I get it all out on paper, it's no longer inside of me. Threatening the life it belongs to. Mm hmm. I almost get emotional when I tell people that. Because to me, that is the greatest line ever written as to how I feel.

1:12:58Yeah. You know what I mean? Like this idea that I have to get this out of me. It's like, I don't, when I write, it's not like, I'm, I have to. It's like a thing in me that's burning in me. It's like, I have to get this out of me. Whether I wake up out, I wrote, I wrote somebody saved me on a sheet of paper out of a dead sleep. Really? Notebook side of the bed. It's like, I wrote notes here with you and you'd say something about it's behind me. One of these is a song title right here right now. You said it earlier. I'll tell you off. Tell you off. Okay. You guys gotta go shit and publish it. But it's, but I wrote a song on the out.

1:13:36It didn't make the album, but Bert one night said something. He was like, yeah, man, this is where dreams go to die. And he was talking about a bar he used to go to. Everybody would talk about what they would do, but never did. So we could talk about what he's going to do. But what he don't know is I just quietly grabbed my phone and wrote dreams die here. You know what I'm saying? I went and wrote the song. It sucked. I'm going to send it to him, but I tried. You know what I'm saying? Never to maybe revisit it in the year too. Yeah. But I, I, I, I connect with that in a way that's writing is, um, it's an outlet for me.

1:14:05It always was. It was always a way to express and to tell stories around me. It's also a connection to some strange realm where ideas come from. Yeah, ideas that come to you, they just come to you out of nowhere. They just feel like gifts. They really do. Like when you're sitting in front of the computer and an idea just comes to you and you start writing it down, or when you wake up in the middle of the night, take a leak and you can't get this idea out of your head. You gotta grab a notebook. Man, those things are gifts. They're gifts from the universe. You had that happen too. Oh, all of a sudden.

1:14:34I'm at the kitchen table at 3 a .m. The worst one is I try to convince myself that I'll remember it. I don't know how to sleep in your book because I'm lazy. I'm like, you're going to remember. Don't worry about it. You'll definitely remember that. You remember it. I remember like one of them ever. That's what, but I write them down now. Yeah, I do too. I got a small legal pad beside my bed, like the little one and I got one. This is a crazy place, but I have one on top of my commote. That's a good place. So in case I'm going in there to pee or something and on the way there just, yeah. Sometimes too, I have to grab my phone and do melodies in the middle of the night because I have dreamed of melodies before.

1:15:11Like, like, stone -cold melodies in my dreams. Like, if somebody saved me, melody was in my dream. The first words, the problem was me and D. Ray joke about it. It took us two hours to write the song that would have took us 20 minutes to write because I was convinced somebody saved me was supposed to be the chorus. Interesting. I know I'm weird when I talk about stuff like this, Joe, but this is how the universe works. I don't think I was wrong. Because when Eminem ended up taking that song, you know, Eminem redid that song. You got to hear it. It's crazy. Eminem redid the song and he took the verse from somebody saved me the first verse and made it the chorus.

1:15:51So his version of it is he's rapping and then my first verse is the chorus. And then he wraps again and my first verse is the chorus again. So, maybe I was kind of right. In the room, I kept going back to like, you should tell him. Did you ever tell him that before you did that? Never even told him the story. It gets Joe. I'm fucking flipping. It gets even deeper dog. John Manila, my manager calls me and goes, he says, Paul Rosenberg just called me. That's him's manager. He says, I think Eminem wants to do something to save me. I didn't ask John Manila right then, Joe. I said, man, I hope he takes the first verse and samples it.

1:16:25That's all I said. And John said, whatever. I don't know what he wants to do with it. We just sent it over because you know, Eminem is the greatest ever. He don't send them instructions or no. It's right. The answer. You know what I'm saying? You're just like, yeah. And we didn't talk about that until we met. And he was just as whipped out too. Because the funny part about him was he was struggling with, rather than he was going to keep the original chorus and do somebody save me at the end or do somebody save me as the chorus and put the original chorus at the end. And he ended up doing somebody save me in the original chorus at the end.

1:16:53So he fought the battle, the opposite of the way I fought it. It's crazy, right? How art works that way. It is crazy. It's crazy where those things come from, the muse. You know, and you got to respect the muse. You know, and like I think when you're writing a lot like you are, like that muse is like ready to go. Like you're tuned into whatever that is that gives you those ideas for songs. You just like searching for you're in the mode of searching for it. Now I'm always like the never. Yeah, you're right. I'm in that space. I'm in my stride. I'm in my quest of I'm looking forward at every angle right now.

1:17:28Like I wrote a song. I wrote so many. It's time I storytelling again. Sorry I keep going here. It's my fucking story. Tell them by guys. I probably have four songs on this podcast that I wrote just very old school storytelling. Like the music I grew up loving. Like how Willie Nelson would tell these stories and his characters. And it has been so. Tell them about muses. I don't I wouldn't sure if I was going to tell the story, but I will. I as a part of my journey, my mental health and with things I struggle with, I will pop into when I'm home in a or a meetings, even though I still drink smoke pot.

1:18:10I don't claim to be a part of the program because I have so much respect for those who are sober. Like can really live the clean sober life by the program. But it's helped me so much not to go back to some of my demons. It's taught me about gratitude. It's just helped me a lot. And I go to, you know, a few a year, never say nothing. Just sitting back quietly. I'm just sitting there trying to learn, you know, never, never winning their thinking like an artist, just kind of just, just kind of going there thinking like an addict. So I just want to be an addict in here. That's why I don't talk. And I watched a man having a breakdown in there.

1:18:41And this happens. You know what I mean? People are coming here and just, you know, I mean, it's an A meeting, right? And he's shaken and at the end they go, does anybody want to get a 24 hour chip or a desire to change? And the guy said, I drank this morning, but I do have a desire. And he was already shaking, we had drinking five, six hours. And the guy goes old hair walks over, most gangster shit I ever seen, puts his arm around him and says, it's a high baby. None of us came in here on a winning streak. Do it. I was like, I had no intention to go into this meeting. The only reason I even went, believe it or not, wasn't because I was having a craving even.

1:19:15I had an hour to kill on the way to a writing session. And I was like, well, fuck it. I could either spend this hour scrolling on fucking TikTok and thinking about how fucking Ukraine's going to kill us or you know what I mean? Yeah. And I went into the meeting and I left and I walked in the writer's room and they was like, you know, it's fun when we write together because everybody's got an idea. I said, boys, I don't know if this is the idea, but I want to tell you what just happened to me. I just seen one of the most beautiful acts of humanity I've ever seen. Just the mucous, this guy's shaking.

1:19:49He's crying. And this dude's walk. I'm getting emotional because I'm watching it. The whole room's getting emotional. This dude just super cool. Just kind of walks over to look like a almost like I've seen this before. He was, he was the only one that the air, all of us were sad. This dude was happy. He walked over to smile like he'd seen it. He was like, I don't worry, baby. Nobody comes in here on a winning streak. And so I did some, I went back to the meeting a week later, but we started the song. The guy ended up being like 25, 30 years clean. They came in to help the other guy. So we wrote this song.

1:20:18It's called winning streak. It's fucking, I was sunken on Saturday night live. Wow. It was cool. It's not even out. It'll be on my album today. But if you didn't walk into that place, imagine if you didn't walk into that place, right? Just old church basement. How much time have you lost on your phone where you could have been walking into a place, talking to people and getting winning streak? Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like just, you know, especially as an artist that deals in, you know, to say it again, stories and just, you know, you find things out about people when you see them interact with each other and sometimes it just lights, lights a spark.

1:20:51It's just, man, you, um, yeah, anytime I see anything that makes me feel something, I feel the need to try to write it. Whether it makes me happy or sad or, you know what I mean? If you really think about like old school rock and roll, I think a little like classic rock. There's great songs, but then there's these story songs, you know, like shooting star, that bad company song, you know, Johnny was a schoolboy when he heard his first Beatles song. That's one of those songs that like everybody listens to the words, you know, you just get caught up in the story. There's a difference between that and, you know, just fun, fun songs.

1:21:34There's fun songs back in black, you know, fun. It's not like a story that like an emotional story that gets you. There's some of those songs, you know, American pie, American pie. Oh my God. Oh my God. I listen to it once a week in the cold plunge because the original version is like seven minutes. Yeah. So if I start it while I'm getting into my skibbies, songs over, I get out of the cold plunge. Yeah. But it's that song, um, talk about dude, how about James Taylor? I've seen fire and I've seen rain. The greatest song ever written Joe. The greatest song ever. Don't listen to that song where you're sad.

1:22:14Dog, you look, I'll cry if I'm happy, Bob. Bro, that song will get you every time that song gets you. And that's a story too. And that motherfucker had a voice. Maybe I'll voice what a special voice. And it was so effortless, Joe. Yeah. He, um, when he opened his mouth, it was almost like he was just talking to you, like me and you, but he was singing like an angel. And you know, he was self -talk guitar. So he plays like shapes and chords that don't really technically exist. Really? He literally, because he self taught himself, they'd be like, well, that's kind of a, I, it looks like a G, but you're doing this.

1:22:48Not that it's like it was crazy. He's authentic. My father, um, but what I named buddies after in my bar was, uh, we were driving down to the gold shores of Alabama one time. And, uh, I was a kid and we started listening to a fire and right. And he starts, my family would tell these stories about music. I don't know what it was, but before they would play a song, it was like, they would take, and I'm like this to this day, I would take great pride in being like, oh, I'm fixing to show you something. So I'd give you the setup, you know? So my dad goes, I'm not going to set this song up. I'm going to tell you about it afterwards.

1:23:27Listen to it again. They're here it goes. Give me it from the beginning, Jamie. This might the fuck her.

1:23:39So look at him. I'll just long hair. That was before you want to ball. When you bought, when ball, you said, fuck it. Yeah. That was Hey, Mr. Duke box. James, um, Oh, bro, that guy could not have a fly swatter big enough to swap those panties. That was fine. What he could not just whack at every corner of the Oh my God. And listen, voice like an angel, sensitive and hot take. He was married to a woman that is arguably a better songwriter than him. Carly Simon. Carly Simon was so beautiful. God, when she was young, she's like one of those beautiful women that's ever lived.

1:24:25I love that none of that matter to him that watch this. I always thought that I'd see you. So my dad tells me this story, Joe. And we are riding down I 65. I've only seen my father cry three times. And we were, and we are crying. We are going down I 65 and we are squalting. I mean, like two children, Joe. I just authentic. You know what I mean? There's no bullshit in this song. The third verse when he goes, uh, yeah, you got to let this rip then. It's a core memory I'll have forever though. I've seen sunny days that I thought would never been. I've seen the only times when I could not find a friend.

1:25:23But I always thought that I'd see you. When I watch this, to me, this is some of the best, the whole song, but right here. I've been walking my mind to an easy time with my back turned towards the sun. Oh, so simple, but real.

1:25:45I was a time on a telephone line to talk about things to come. Sweet dreams and time machines and pieces on the ground. Well, now I've seen fire and I've seen rain. I've seen sunny days that I thought would never be. Now watch and take it up right here. I've seen the only times when I could not find a friend. But I always thought that I'd see you somehow one more time.

1:26:28I've seen you one more time again. There's just a few things coming my way this time around. Oh, now I thought I'd see you. I thought I'd see you fire and rain. Oh.

1:26:54Damn. Oh, good. This crazy. What a team him and Carly's hunt. What about that? What was, um, bro, you're so vain. Oh, my goodness. Pull that shit up. Give me a, you're so, and seeing her sing it with that face. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. What was it, Kale? He tore with Carol Cain forever, right? Do they ever have a relationship? Hopefully. Right? Did you talk about another great songwriter? God, dude. Here we go.

1:27:30Here we go. Watch she's playing the piano, son. With her hair blowed so 80s in the wind. Yes. Oh.

1:27:51Oh. This pre -chorus is crazy.

1:28:12Hold on, hold on, because the song was about him. He's right. Yeah, right? For sure. You know, Warren Beatty is listening to that song going, I think this song is about me. Yeah. I knew I was him.

1:28:27And that's live back when they were like, you know, that was live, live. That might be one of the first diss songs. You're right. That's the first diss song. Hold on. When was the song put out? It's not officially about Warren Beatty. I thought rumors that it was about James Taylor too. Oh, really? I thought it's unfurmed to it's written about James Taylor. He was talking about King that way. You know what, man? It wouldn't shock you, right? If you found out that the guy was like the sweet heart super nice guy was actually a fucking psycho. Dude, I've had, tell my James Taylor, I've had fans come up to me and they would be crying.

1:28:58And they go, I'm so sorry, I'm crying. And every time I tell them the same thing, I say, don't worry, I've ever meet James Taylor, I'm going to cry. For sure. I know it. So I'd, like, 100 percent, I'm going to cry. Ever since the singer released her accusatory track in 1936, 1772, the identity of you is remained one of the greatest mysteries in music history. But she did date Warren Beatty, right? And you're like, it came out in 1772? Well, here's a guy. I'll give you a, when does sweet home Alabama come out? I'll give you a possibility. Warren Beatty, Dave Michael Criden, Jack Nicholson, Kat Stevens, James Taylor, or John Travolta, even rumored Flings with Sean Connery.

1:29:34Marvin Gaye. Marvin Gaye, Jack Hawke. Big Jagger, possibility of Mick Jagger. I bet Marvin Gaye is some different with that lady. Oh, round. She got around with all the talented motherfuckers. She got around. I bet Marvin Gaye was a monster. Oh, my God. I'm just fucking. When did sweet home Alabama come out? So you know, sweet home Alabama was a clapback track. Yeah. So it was in the, it was in the dis world too. So I think right around that early 70 era too. No. 24. Oh, so it was after that. You're so vain, come out before it. Yeah. But when did Southern man come out? Probably the same time, right?

1:30:11It was just a year before. So that was 1970. Yeah. Oh, no, so a few years before. So they wrote it about Southern man. Is that what they wrote it about? Yeah. Yeah. The idea was that Neil Young was speaking a lot about what was happening down there in the South at the time. And Ronnie's position was just simply like, hey man, we stay the fuck out of your business. They out of ours. Yeah. You know, a Southern man don't need them around anyhow. Yeah. You know, it's how that kind of how he came back. What a banger of a song. What a dis. Banger. You're talking about it. That is a sweet home. Give me some of that.

1:30:46Yeah. Please. Damn, that's a good song. I mean, all respect to Neil Young. It's better than anything. He's ever done this. No, no, no. Neil Young apologized later. It's really cool. He owned it. He publicly said Ronnie was right. But he knows something. Yeah. Neil Young, his name checked. And dist. Yeah, I don't think they thought about it that way back then. It reached number eight in the Billboard Hot One. Give me some sweet home Alabama. That's a song that you hear in the bar in the first couple of chords playing. Oh, yeah. You just immediately stand up. You're like, I'll work in the party.

1:31:16Oh, babe. And I hate to be this guy. But I immediately look around. I'm like, everybody in here who doesn't know this song. I don't know that we can be friends. How do you think? You can't at least sing the chorus. Or if you don't go down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. This might be one of the most recognizable songs ever. What? Is it gonna be a live video, too? You just maybe go for the live one, especially this one. Yeah. I love it.

1:31:46Once again, look at these bad motherfuckers. Oh, they were so fun. You want to talk about people that couldn't get the pussy away from them. And they're from Florida. No. Yeah. Yeah.

1:32:07That's 77. So that's Ronnie. Oh, no, that's Johnny.

1:32:22Once again, how great Gary Rosington was. To me, he's the greatest guitarist that ever lived. Up there with Hendrickson, he's on Mount Russmore guitars, because I can't name another guitars, clapping, of course, that has more riffs that you want to go, you want to hum. Right, because like, down, down, down. Down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. You know, the free solos. Down, down, down, down, down, down, down. Down, down, down, down, down, down, down. Dude, I'm excited! Dude, look at that. Think of, give me three steps. Yeah. Burnin' in, her, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. You're like, you can, there has not been that sense.

1:33:05If you ask me, you know what I mean? Like, him, Clapton, Hendrix, like, they had those kind of guitars, but this was different because it was Riffs. It wasn't like a solo. They were singing over these Riffs. Right. And the Riffs were bigger than the Melody sometimes. They captured you. If you tell somebody right now, like, if you ever heard the song Sweet Home Alabama and they go, how's it go? You wouldn't go sweet, you'd go, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. Yeah. It's crazy. That's how good Gary was, man. That's solo in Free Bird. He's insane. Oh, it is, it's the best solo ever.

1:33:37Ever. It's hard to say because of Hendrix and Steve Ray Vaughan and a bunch of other people, Eddie Van Halen, but that solo was the same every time they did it. Oh, the story about Sweet Home Alabama. Um, they're sitting at a sound check and it's just Ronnie and Gary. Gary's holding the electric and he goes, man, I got this. I just don't know what to do with it. It's bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And Ronnie goes, well, he'll just keep playing it. Let me fuck with it. So they just looped that. And that's how they wrote this song. Just them two. Yeah, dude, I'm such a, I have like, Skinner to me is like Jesus.

1:34:14I'm a giant Skinner fan. And you know what I love about Skinner too? They came out of Florida. Like who would have saw that? Who would have saw that? Straight out of Jacksonville. What? Jacksonville's like a man in amazing bands. Dude. How does this band come out of Jacksonville? And every song is about running away from girls. Everyone. I gotta go, ladies. I gotta be free. I'm gonna have to do steps. I love you, but I gotta go. It's crazy, you know what I'm saying? I gotta go. I gotta go. No, dude, they were the best man. When Gary's family gave me that guitar after he passed away, it still is up there with like my top, probably 10 possessions that I've ever been gifted.

1:34:48You know what I mean? I have it in my studio now. And I hung it in a case with the note that his family wrote me with the picture that we took the night he played the guitar. And I put a lock on the case. Instead of just casing it forever, I put a lock on it so I can still play it. So when we do the album, there's a couple of tracks that we played at Gary Rossington guitar. Oh, wow. You know what I mean? Because it was a Gary Rossington played guitar. Wow. And his family gave it to me right after he passed away. Does it sound different? It's got, well, it's an old Les Paul. And it's older, so it's got a different pickup on it.

1:35:19So it's got some different tunes and textures to it. What's the difference in the older pickups and the newer ones? I don't know. I'm not as educated in it as most like real guitarist. I'm a campfire guitarist. But it's over the years, they always found different ways to make them. So they were, as they were improving them, but the sounds and textures were getting different. So, but I forgot exactly what he does because he takes a pickup from another guitar and puts it into, I think, in a most of his guitar. Because there's a lot of real guitarists that'll like, they'll want to play this guitar, but they'll want to put this from this guitar on this guitar.

1:35:49Because they like the way, well, I like to pick up on this or I like this in this or I like the way this, you know, whatever. Makes sense. And then they'll have a kind of a hodgepodge like that. But, you know, something else when Gary survived that plane crash, let's think about him playing guitar, he had a rod that went from right here, Joe, to his elbow. Oh my God. And still played the guitar that way. So if you ever watch Gary play the guitar, he always kind of played it high like Charlie Crockett. But it was down here like this because he couldn't, he couldn't full blown, get full extension on the wrist.

1:36:23Yeah. So he was playing all those from 70, whatever the 70, what, when was the plane crash? Jamie, you know, I figured you might know off the top. How many people died in the crash? I know Ronnie did for sure. I think it was two or three. Wasn't Ronnie standing up? Wasn't seven. So that video you just so might have been one of Ronnie's last performance. He was standing up when the plane crashed, right? He went and sat down. He was drinking. Yeah, they were just partying. They were just littered, skinned and dead. So I was saying that if he sat down, I put a seatbelt on. He might be still be here.

1:36:54It's crazy, dude. It is, it is crazy, man. God damn. Was it, you said it was 77? Three days after their fifth album was released. Yeah. Street survivors. Wow. Just totally different, man. I've, I've gotten so far into there, we've been covering skinned on the road for years and years, anyway, it's just, I've probably not a skinned song. I can't play. You know, right, if we were to go to a bar tonight, you could probably just randomly pick a skinned song and I'd go up there and be able to just kill. Just love skinned dude. Dude, I mean, he just, they were awesome, man. They were gone too quick.

1:37:29You know, I know they toured after, but he died and it was supposed to be the same. Yeah. You know, they're, they still toured. One thing I don't, as a dowhard fan, I don't object to it a lot. Now that Gary's gone, it's a little rougher because he was the last living one. But Johnny Van Zant, who, how are him and Ronnie can always confuse it? They're cousins, right? Are they brothers? Because remember the three Van Zant, do you want to talk about a family, Joe? Johnny, Ronnie Van Zant created Leonard Skinner, was the first lead singer. Johnny Van Zant took his plot when he died and the other Van Zant brothers, the lead singer of 38, special.

1:38:02Crazy. Yeah, it's the younger brother. So his younger brother took right over. And like I tell people is, there's the average Leonard Skinner fan that's not like me and you like obsessed with him to a degree. They don't know anybody other than him to be their singer. Because he's been their singer for four years longer than Ronnie was. That band was only been out for four years when Ronnie died. Right. So it's like an ACDC type thing. Exactly. You know what I mean? So it's like, and the fact that it's a true Van Zant and Johnny's still the lead man to this day. So when I go see him, I still feel like I'm watching Ronnie a little bit.

1:38:39Looks just like I'm still got the same long hair. Johnny Van Zant, did you know what I mean? Well, he was a fucking psycho though. No, he was, that's the difference. Johnny's like a really, really calm, cool man. A guy, he's also older. Now, you know, these dudes are all Ricky Medlocking them. He was with the original group too, pretty much. He's still there. Them dudes are all in their 70s. Yeah, and then nuts too. Because when we were kids, we never thought the rock stars would be touring in their 70s. They're gonna come out from our Jacksonville show. They came in the sun with the last time.

1:39:06Yep. Johnny and Ricky always come out and sing, man, they're fun. That's awesome. Yeah, dude, it never gets any better. Dude, look at you, you're living the life. It's fucking weird. You're living the life. It's the shabby group listening to him. I'm saying it's like, I don't know, man. It's weird when you meet people that you, that were real famous when you were a kid. That to me is always gonna be the weirdest one. It's the one. Steven Tyler, that meeting that dude, meeting people like that. It's just like, you just feel weirded out. I met Tarantino's like, oh dude. This is weird. Yeah, especially people you watched back in your childhood.

1:39:38Yeah. Out of all the comedians, I met the only one I've probably ever been made and asked myself to is Ron White. Because I literally have watched him since I was a teenager. Because he was such a voice for, I don't want this to come off disrespectful, but being from the south of my household, we thought Jeff Foxworthy was incredibly funny. We liked his books more than his comedy though. Because we felt like his comedy almost felt a little forced to us as Southern people that just didn't sit right, you know, in my household. And what way? In this way of like, there's, you might be a redneck. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:40:13Yeah, you know what I mean? If your family tree does not fork. It was hilarious, but we know all the books we religiously, but when we're watching the blue collar special as a family, and I know this wasn't the way to watch it in hindsight, we're all waiting around. You know what I mean? Because like, he's the voice of our household, but I'm also in a household full of drunks by the way. My father's a raging alcoholic. My mother does drugs. All my brothers do drugs. But it was like, you know, we loved, we loved Jeff. We love, we love Bill, Larry the cable guy, but man, when we just Ron was arguing, you know, he just spoke to what our household was doing.

1:40:48You know what I mean? So when I met him, it was kind of like, man, I gotta tell him, I'm hugging Mama. Well, he first started hanging out the store, but I guess it was about 10 years ago. He never had like a club like that before, or it was like a home base. You know, he was always a successful touring comedian, so he'd bring guys to open up for him on the road, but it was basically the Ron White Show. Then he started hanging out with us at the store. And he was like, man, this is what I've been missing. You know, been missing like a real camaraderie, like the base, the home base where everybody goes and just hangs out, makes all the difference in the world.

1:41:23It is, no, well, Aaron Sharpen's Iron, too. Yeah. When you're in Nashville, too, I mean, think about how many different amazing artists there are that you can go see live in Nashville, just fucking around on a regular night. For sure. Derek Bentley goes and plays this like, with his bluegrass band, like a 200 person bar every week. That's amazing. You know, like his little subversion of a bluegrass band, it's a, it's how I feel about our songwriting community, too. I've wrote an LA and I've had big songs come out of LA, but Nashville is just managed to kill her. You know what I mean is the dudes that are just, the dudes and girls down there that are in those rooms every day are snipers.

1:42:04They've been doing it forever. That's the same thing like you do in all those shows. That's the same thing like them, right? You just get real good at your fucking job. For sure. And you get to know how to pivot. You know what I mean? Like that's something else that comes with being on that stage of much is like the more you do it, the more circumstances you've been up against, nothing starts to scare you no more. Right. Like even if I walk out to a crowd, like if I'm opening for somebody still and I walk out and I'm like, I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to really work for this one. I'm not panicked.

1:42:30All right. I've done it enough. Now I'll even watch some guys in my band get a little panic. We'll be on the second song and you'll see them going like, why are they not just so excited? We're here. I'm like just relax. It's okay. We're gonna get there. You know what I'm saying? Let's just have fun. The hardest spot is opening on a comedy show. It's brutal. I tell every community that opens for me, this is like running what waits on you. Talk about like the one of three, not the feature slot, the number one. First guy on stage. That's the hardest gig. And it's the gig for the guys that are the youngest, that are the learners.

1:42:57They're learning it. They don't really know how to do it yet. And you're kind of responsible for getting the first laugh of the night. You are 100 % responsible for it. That's a man. You gotta break the room. Yeah. That's why Hans Kim was like our best opener because Hans Kim has structure. All those jokes have structure. So he puts you in this mode of laughing at ridiculous shit. And he puts you in this like, it's like a very structured set. So he gets people into like the hypnosis of comedy. He get locked into laughing and then boom. Next comedian goes up and the bar is already set. You're already loose and everybody's running.

1:43:31But that first spot man, you gotta like... Yeah, same with us. If you're one of three, Alexander Kay is doing on this tour and she's killing it. But it is a rough one because you've got your fans that knew you were one of three and they showed up early. So that's the only thing you have to advantage. The rest of it is people literally walking in with popcorn and beer in their hand. Wondering why the show's already started. You know what I mean? Right. Exactly. You know, I've had, I tell people all the time, you're not gonna be a good performer until you performed in a place where people looked at you like you were interrupting them.

1:44:04Right. You know what I mean? You've ever been in a place where you're like, hey, I'm sorry, I'm bothering you all about playing loud music up here. You fucking knew you were coming to a bar, bitch. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But those are the funnest, too though. I got to open up for Morgan Wall in this year a few times and it was really fun because... In the last few years, we've just been headline. We haven't got to really go out and do something that was so much dramatically bigger than us than it made sense for us to do it. And I love Morgan. So I was like, I'm in. And we went out there and it was cool because you feel it immediately.

1:44:33You're like, even with the hits I have, you know, there's 70 ,000 people here that bought a ticket to see Morgan Wall and for they knew my name was on the bill. You know, so there's a lot of people here that are with me, but I'm still having to tell you, I'm still up here like, oh, okay tonight. You know, I see there's three scenarios in my business. I don't know if this is probably different for y 'alls, but in mine, my three scenarios are this. One is that you're welcome we're here, right? Which is the simple like, thank y 'all. We thank each other. You came to see me. I'm gonna give you a great show.

1:45:03Thank you. It's the easy one, right? The other one is the thank you for listening. I appreciate that you gave me enough respect that you sat here and listened to me. And the third one is the one that makes me in. It's the hey motherfucker I'm singing. Yeah. And you have to go through a couple hundred of those before you get good. You know what I mean? Like I don't care. And that's what's been so about like the TikTok explosion is you have these kids that will have this big hit joke and they'll have five or six hits in a row and they can start selling two thousand seats at a theater overnight. It's kind of like the podcasters that have a quick flip and they go to the comedy clubs on a Friday.

1:45:39But can't make nobody laugh or stay. These kids go straight into two thousand seat rooms and then stand up there like, I've never done a fucking show. I've never stood in front of anybody. Oh my god. Imagine getting a big TikTok hit joke. Never doing a show in your life. And show enough, you know what I mean? Or imagine it's even worse, they put you on an opening tour for somebody. They're like, we got an amp at the theater act that'll let you be two or four. This will be great. And you're going out there looking at six thousand people. Oh my god. You've never stood up in a bar. I'm watching it happen to people all the time.

1:46:07I'm having to grab these kids and kind of mentor them now. And it's the flip side of it where like booking agents are dragging them to the slaughter. Of course. Cause you know what I mean, money. They don't give a fuck. And here's the problem. Imagine your kid, you're 20 years old, 22 years old, you've got a big successful record and you're going to meet booking agents. You're excited. I've been there. You know, and the first one's like, we're going to push you right in two thousand seat rooms. You're going to get $22 ,000 a night. You're like, woo, what a night. And we're going to do it three nights every weekend.

1:46:36Oh my god. I'm rich. I'm buying a quarter of that. Immediately. And then you go to the next book and agent or like, now hear me out. My plan is for you to go play these 200 cap rooms like the high fine Indianapolis, the Indian Nashville. We're going to go do that for six months. We're going to get like 40 shows under your belt. You get like 1300 bucks a night, 1200 bucks a night. And they're like, fuck you. The other guy just said, I'm getting $25 ,000 a night. Immediately. Yeah, but this guy actually knows what he's doing. Yeah, that's the one. You know what I mean? This guy actually is doing it right.

1:47:07But he always go, they go back to the money. Yeah. And then they end up having a circle back and they got to refigure it out anyway. You can, I tell people all the time, you might be able to skip the line a little bit, but you can't cheat the game. You know what I mean? You got to put them hours in one way or the other, Bob. The same thing with fighters. Mm. You know, I see fighters that come out and they compete in the UFC and like their first fight. They look fantastic and they're fast tracked. And sometimes guys get broken because they meet top flight competition before they're really ready.

1:47:35They're really like an up and coming fighter honing their skills and they run into a widely veteran who's like a top 15 guy and they get fucked up. And they're kind of never the same. Yeah. Because they really shouldn't have been fighting that guy. Whereas boxing is a lot more clever. If they have a guy who's like a Terrence Crawford or someone who's a really good fighter, they'll match him up correctly until they can make the big money and until their skills are at a very, very high level and then they start challenging for a world title. But they prepare him. They get him, they put him, the thing about the UFC is sometimes you just get thrown right to the wolves.

1:48:07And if you're John Jones, that's fine. You know, John Jones wins the title at 22. But most guys are not John Jones. And most guys could be a, like an elite fighter but the circumstances just derail them before they ever get there. It burned them too early, man. Yeah, they burned them too early. You know, it's like the perfect example of this in the USC to me is one guy could be Sugar Shot who went on to be that guy immediately. I know he just had his loss but I mean, he still looks like Sugar to me. You know, it kids tough. And the other one could be that kid that we all love but I always confused it was a Hooper hopper.

1:48:45The 19 year old kid, he had a Sugar Shot kind of thing going. It was a, it was a contender series guy too. Chase Hooper. That was cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And to me, that's kind of the tale of the same kid. You know what I mean? Where it's like for Sugar, it kind of work. But he's, I tell, this is what I tell my people. Chase still doesn't shot. He's still super talented. He just had to really get better at striking. Yeah, he's just young and has to get certain about it. But he got a lot better. He got a lot better at everything. He's really good on the ground. Yeah, no, the kid, the kid's great.

1:49:10He also went up to 55, which I think was big because he was, he was killing himself. Good. Yeah, now you can tell it was a big way because especially for such a kid, his frame's up. They're, they're kids. I think we still haven't seen what Sean's real man body is going to look like yet completely. He's just not 30. Is he 30 now? Okay, so we see him but what they say is 25 or 26 now before you actually see a full development. Well, you definitely see some of these guys that are coming in that are 22 that are still growing. They're still getting bigger. Like, grow old, roast us junior. He's 19 years old.

1:49:39And that kid's still growing. Every time you see him, it looks more muscular, more jacked, you know, he's still in his prime. I mean, not even close to his prime. He's just still growing up. Yeah, there's still, that's a, yeah, that's a, that's a, there's a growing thing that's, yeah, I guess it's different too, man. I'm thinking about that kid like Chase is that getting put into that national spotlight at the biggest fighting organization in the world at 19. You know what I mean? And you're like, Tavondri sweat is the defensive end for the Tennessee Titan. I mean, huge Titans fan. He was our first round pick this year defensive end.

1:50:16I went to go hang out with him because I just think he's great. I think he's going to be a superstar. He's 22 years old. He's probably 65, 300 some pounds. And he can't grow a full beer jet. You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying? Like he, it's still, it's patchy. You know what it is when you're in your early 20s? It's still patchy. And I'm looking like, and I'm looking at Jeffrey Simmons who's our veteran defensive end who's 66 just cut like a, and I was like, oh, that's where you're going to be at. In four years, three years. You know what I mean? Cause we picked up Jeffrey Simmons as a rookie too.

1:50:50It's like even at 22 years old, they haven't fully developed in yet. Right. You know, that dude, I'm looking at Tavondri sweat right now. And I'm like, you still got a baby face. Like you still got a, you know what I mean? Look at baby, look at baby face sweat. You know what I mean? Look at, but you see this face, the pin right here? That's all you need to know about his personality. At big face, who he is as a human. He's the sweetest dude ever. But you can still tell by the look of his face. You know what I mean? That face is going to slim down and get a little more, you know? That's the craziest job.

1:51:17Yeah. Being a pro football player is the craziest job. Cause you're literally in a car wreck every day. Especially guys for their position. They're in a car wreck every play. Yeah. I think about this offensive lineman defensive lineman, guaranteed full contact every snap. 100 % every time we snap the ball, cause like the ride receivers, they're going to hand fight, backfield, they're going to be some action, but not full contact every play. Right. Every single play as soon as they say, what? This two linemen are fucking collision course and trying. And they're both hitting each other with the intention to try to knock the other one down first, right?

1:51:55They're going, it's like if I could hit you and knock you down and go right past you, after that, I just got to fight my one. And they're all 300 plus pounds of solid muscle. Huge. Full blown athletes, their whole life and plans since they were eight. You know what I'm saying? I'm sliding with each other. And that's the American sport. Yeah. It's a totally a full, I mean, in full speed. Any kind of crazy that that is the American sport? I mean, what other countries have been played other than Canada? Who else plays football? Like American style football? They don't even play it overseas. They don't even touch it.

1:52:23That was when Nate, when Nate Bargasi hosted Saturday Night Live, not this time, but last year he did that, that skit joke about it coming from the UK and he was like, and we will have a sport named football. And they were like, oh, were you kick a ball? They'll go, no. And they'll go, so you never kick the ball. They go sometimes. And it's, it's so funny about trying to explain football to somebody not from here. It's bizarre that we didn't call it a different thing. They would call it football and it was soccer. And we just said, no, we're going to change the name of that. We're going to call it soccer.

1:52:57Yeah. And this is football now. What are you talking about? It's the American way, dude. Yeah. It's like, hey, we don't care how y 'all do temperature everywhere else. Yeah, exactly. What's with you? We go with degrees. Fahrenheit bitch. Yeah, fuck, we're to create one. Fuck your metric system. Metrics system is so much more efficient. We're like, nah, you know, like, you'll love that Nate's get there because that's what he does. He just kind of goes through trash and all these ideas. The best part is Kenan looks at him at the new skid and goes, what about my people? Will the slaves be freed after the war?

1:53:28He said they will be freed after a war. But not this one. That's just fucking battle. That was a good skid, man. It was really funny outside of the line. He's a funny dude. Another Nashville guy. Love him, man. Big, big. Have you seen Theo thinking of Nashville? Speaking of Nashville guys, he's seen Theo do his impression to you. Oh, yeah. It's the fucking bad. It's my favorite thing ever. Jelly boy, I'm so glad every excepted speech. See you again, Friday, J .I. I want to thank the concrete lady.

1:54:02He did it with him and Joey D. He's like, it's up there. And he's like, I just want to thank right now or somebody's stuck under. There's somebody out there who got a son of 11 foot in a size 8, 10, a share. I went on a matred day at a macaroni grand. I'm a grapial man. What's up with you? I don't know how you to keep it. It's a simulation, Joe. Yeah. I think it might be. I couldn't, I just couldn't believe that I'd be in a place where Theo Vaughan would want to be my buddy. He came to my L .A. show. It just made me so happy. I almost cried when I see him. I was so excited. But then to have him, you know, just fucking dude, I was, I said this a lot.

1:54:51There's a dream for an artist. There's nothing more pop culture than being brought up in a comedy special. Like if you was an artist back in the old days and you got brought up on an HBO special, you were on fucking fire. You could not be bigger. You know what I'm saying? So it's like I have those, that's to me is like those unreal moments when you watch a guy like Theo with his platform impersonating me to do a T and we're friends too and it's just like, I would have never even, I never thought I'd win an award to give a speech or more or less that the speech would be so viral that a comedian would have an impression of it.

1:55:26You know what I mean? It's like, I don't know. It's the greatest, that's the greatest compliment you can be paid in pop culture is if a comedian will burn on you a little bit. That's hilarious. That one was perfect. I'm still like, that's my, like the first time I get dropped in a special, I'm going to lose my shit. It's going to remind me of a little me watching HBO specials. You know what someone's listening is right now. Some comics are probably going to write a bit, put you in there. Don't be mean, not just be funny. Just for fun. Yeah. Maybe it's Theo. Yeah, right. Maybe Theo will do that in a special.

1:55:57Theo, Theo's such a, I'm out. I'm trying to steal him from Nashville. God, I'm trying to steal him. Well listen, for what it's worth, I don't, I think the white guy is going to be a life and I are on the way to really? You know my wife, my wife was born in Houston. Oh, okay. She's always had Texas in her heart. I went out on the river over here and it's just, I'm coming. I'm coming. I love it. I just love the city. I love the space. Before I got here last night, just the few people that knew I was coming, I'd already got texts from my friends down here, from Carrie to Bruce to people that do, you know, just, even my wife was like, you love it there.

1:56:34I was like, she loves Texas anyway. So she's all in. We're talking about it. That's beautiful. Yeah. Well, always be back and forth because Nashville's always Nashville to me. Are you friends at Gary Clark? Yes. I love Gary Clark, part of what? He's a wizard. He's a wizard. It's something else I was talking to his, his manager's name, Scooter. You're a Met Scooter? Yeah. Scooter's the best. And I was like, I think if I came down there, we would get, you know, if I brought the culture the way I approach songwriting in Nashville here, I think we could have a little paradigm shift down here too. Why not?

1:57:04You know what I mean? That's God. That's what you feel me for. That's what I mean. Let's go. Joe Wagen. A musical mother shift. Hey, let's go. I've told you this before, drunk and I'm in it then and I mean it now. I'm going to come to you one day and you're, I'm not going to surprise you. I hope and I'm going to, with a concept about doing the mother, you just giving me the right to call it the, the music mother ship in Nashville. I'll give you the right right now. All right, cool for it. I got a plan, man, because what y 'all do for comedy? We have singers. Have you ever been to a writer's round?

1:57:32No. Joe, when you come to Nashville, please, please come a little early. Let me take you to a writer's round. Okay. You will have a ball. So what happens is the songwriters who are writing all these big hit records in town, come and, they go to these bars and they do writers rounds. They'll set up three or four bar stools. And every songwriter will have a guitar and they'll sing a song they wrote and tell you the story about the song. And it's the coolest, it's the coolest thing ever because it's a dude, don't, not be in funny, but a dude that looks like me if I wasn't me or a dude that looks like young Jamie.

1:58:02And then he sings live like I'm dying by Tim McGrawl. And he tells the most heartfelt story about where he was at in his life when he wrote the song and how he came up with the concept for it. Oh, wow. And it's this beautiful thing. And there's only one place in town that's really famous for it. It's called the Bluebird Cafe. They happen everywhere. And the first time I left the mother ship, I was like, I'm doing this for me to do it. I'm going to create this same culture for our songwriters because what happens is if you can create a place where people feel safe, they show up. So what happens is because like, I don't go to the Bluebird Cafe a lot because it's a pain in the ass to get in and out of.

1:58:39So if one of my friends calls like, hey, I'm at the Bluebird, it's a legendary spot and I love it. It's like, we come sing something with me. It's like, you know what I mean? There's no structure. It was, you built your club for comedy. You knew that if the comedians were happy, they would show the fuck up. And then if you did everything you could to cater it to the comedians first, that they would come and bring their best and the best comedians would be there, which means that people are going to come see the best art, right? Same concept I'm going to try to do with music. It's my next move, dude.

1:59:07Let me open my bar first, Bob. And now I'm going to circle back about this. I just want your right to call it. I don't want no 100%. No, do it. I just want to call it the music mother ship. It's a great idea. And we'll talk about the logo because I want to kind of do a music. I want to be like a guitar version of the alien. You know what I'm saying? Do it. Do it up. Do it up. Imagine you're a little alien with a guitar. You know what I'm saying? It's called the music mother ship. Well, the idea behind it, you could definitely apply to music. Yeah, for sure. Take the phone so we can, you know what else would happen to I thought about this.

1:59:34If I take the phones like y 'all do, then it becomes a laboratory. Yeah. Right? Because then it goes from like not only will I sing you the hit I just wrote, how about I got a song more than Walensfin to put out next month that nobody's heard. Ooh. Ooh. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. And it's a safe place. Morgan shows up to sing it. Nobody's video and nobody's picture. People know it's a laboratory too. And that's another exciting thing about it. Like when you go to the mother ship, you go to that bottom of the barrel show. That's a full laboratory show. My favorite show I've seen there.

2:00:05Nobody knows what the fuck it's going to be about. Just reaching into a barrel and pulling out suggestions. Yeah, that a bunch of people that are mothership fans wrote on paper. Yeah. It gets wild immediately. They're fucking not. There wasn't a warm up question. It's automatically to the blind sense and it's so good at about what? Yeah, well, it's his show. But the reason why it's so good is because it's like a premise factory. Like you just get ignited by this thought that you didn't think of before that. Like in that moment someone says something about fire trucks and then you like, you know about fire truck and then all of a sudden there's a bit.

2:00:39Right. Like all of a sudden because of necessity because you're forced into the situation where you're trying to like it's literally like you're calling on the mues on the stage. And yeah, a lot of times it's nothing like seven out of 10 times. You think I shit for that bit. But every now and then you catch fire and that becomes like a bit. Oh, have you ever had one birth into a bit? A bunch of them. I'll tell you which ones off stage. Okay. Or off camera, but a bunch of them. A bunch of them. Yeah, a bunch of them because it's just like that. That that little room too is like so like you can't bullshit anybody in that little room.

2:01:11No, I like it feels like we're all sitting in the install again. Yeah, there's only a hundred people in there. And 110 I think is when it's fully packed. Dave was the first person to go on stage there. Really? Well, actually Shane first, Shane open for Gillis open for Chappelle. We didn't even tell the audience who was going on stage. We just said it's a special intimate show show sold out like that. Nobody knew who it was. And then Gillis goes on stage, does 15 minutes and he brings up Dave and Dave is like an hour and a half. And he just fully writes on stage. Like he had just done a special.

2:01:42He fully writes on stage. Like he has ideas and he just like let's him breathe. Just fucks around on stage gets a little tipsy. Just just fucks around on stage. Can I tell that you can cut this if you don't want to be tell it, but my favorite story I tell about you is my time at the comedy club with you was one of the first times I did this part. I think you had shows at night. I went to both of them. And the first one was killer. But the second one you had gotten a little slippery and it was fun. It was it was like because I'm right for you walked out there. You even looked at me. That's the word you said.

2:02:17I fell a little slippery. It's just a little loose. You had your cup in your hand. And I just seen a twinkle in you. I was like, oh, I'm staying because I was going to leave. I've already seen the show, you know, and you did two shows. I'm like, oh, I got to see this. I think this is going to be a little different. It was the fun ones. Yeah, it was fun, man, because I got to watch the same set. But you fuck around a little more and kind of get lost in it. Sometimes just having fun with it. Yeah. You know, like you could tell you were like, you did the first one. Like this is what I know I got.

2:02:42And the second one you had a couple cocktails, like I'm going to riff on this point a little bit. Just fuck off. Sometimes you do that. You have the best part of the joke. And that's when you'll find probably the shit that closes it out. Mm hmm. Sometimes like tag lines just come to you in the moment. And you're like, wow, I never even thought of that one before. Do you get straight off stage and write them down? No, I record all my sets. Oh, wow. So then after I'm done, I'll listen to the recording and I'll write. Yeah. Sit down from the laptop and just actually sit down and put them out. Does it help you to see your ideas like that?

2:03:10It helps me to expand on them because it takes longer to type a thought than it does to think it. Right? So I've been thinking of coffee cup. I'm thinking of it instantly, but it takes a couple of seconds for me to write it. And that gives me chances to like explore left, right, down, up all these different ways you can go with an idea. So and then I'll usually like try to write it out like a essay form. So if I have an idea and it's funny and it does really well on like bottom of the barrel or a riff out of nowhere, then I take that idea. And I just write out like an essay just I'm not even trying to be funny.

2:03:44I just try to think about all the different angles of this idea. And then I'll extract like little pieces of it and try these little pieces on stage. Wow. And then you go and test them and chew the meat and spit the fat kind of. And then sometimes in the middle of it, like this sounds wrong, this sounds disingenuous. I'll take a totally different approach. Sometimes I contradict myself like in the middle of it, I'll go, but what the fuck do I, why would I think that I know the answer to that? And then that becomes the bit. Right. Then it turns into a turn. Yeah, you never know, man. In the whole thing is just numbers.

2:04:15You just got to put a lot of numbers in. A lot of numbers in front of the computer, numbers on stage. It's just like this constant process of like building a mountain one layer of paint at a time. Yeah, just constant time under pressure. Yeah. Me and my daughter, she wants to write songs. She's already so much better than I was at 16. But she would come to me a couple of years ago and she'd be like, I want to put some of this stuff out. I've been writing all this stuff. And I was torn because I was like, well, you should have to write to put out whatever you want. That's the freedom that exists.

2:04:46But I know something you don't know that you just wrote your first 30 songs. And they're incredible for your first 30 songs. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, you go, go write 100. And let's see if we can find five that are worth rewriting. Rework and re -figure now. You know what I mean? And I was cool. It taught me a lot about her personality because she was like, I get it. She got it immediately. I wouldn't get it at 15. You know what I mean? She got it. She was like, cool, no problem. She probably sees what you do. You know, and that's the beautiful thing about having an example, whether it's your peers or for her, your dad.

2:05:21You get to see an example of how someone does a process. Because if you don't around anybody that's trying to get good at something, you don't really know how to do it. Right. That's one of the cool things about a conversation like this. Because there's people out there that are listening that don't have anybody around them that's doing cool shit. Right. And they think it's impossible. And they hear about this dude that was in jail for half his fucking life. And you know, this other dude who's a cage fighting comm... cage fighting commentator and stand up comedian. Like, these fucking guys are not...

2:05:49They're not normal either. Like, maybe I'm not normal. Maybe like this... Maybe there is something out there for me. Yes. But I don't hear it from anybody in my neighborhood. I don't hear it from my parents. I don't hear it from my teachers. I don't hear it from my boss. Right. And I'm fucking lost. You know? And then they hear people talk about like the love of writing songs that you have, the passion you have for creating a thing. How you piece... How you jump up and write down the premise. You write down an idea for a lyric. And then in their head, they're like, I can do that with something.

2:06:23I can do that with something. I just have to find a thing. I said, just find a thing, man. Just... There was... My daddy... I sat down with him at a bar called the Ten Roof on the Mum and Restory one night, Joe. And I looked my dad and I, and I said, I'm done. I said, I've done everything I can. I remember I was probably 29 years old. It was probably a decade ago. And I said, Dad, I've been out of jail five years or four years, whatever. I've done everything I can in this business. You know how hard I've worked. Do you think our brother, Roger, will give me a job on a meat truck? Because my father sold meat.

2:06:55Sort of my brother. He said, I know your brother will give you a job on a meat truck, but I want to give you some perspective. I said, I'm open for a healthy dose of that. He said, You've only been out here trying this. It's hard as you possibly can for five years. Just five, four years, four in a five years. I said, Dad, that's five years. He said, If you went to Vanderbilt, you still wouldn't have your bachelor's degree. Joe. It's true. Right? It's so true. It covered me. And he said, Jason, if you're working as hard as you really, I know you are. If you're really writing every day, if you're doing shows every week, and I was opening up 50 bucks a night, I mean, you know, my story is that old school getting a van and go do a thousand shows for fucking gas money.

2:07:43You know what I mean? He's like, if you're really doing that, there's no way it's not going to work. If you're really doing it, not you're faking it, not you're half -assinative. If you're really, this is all that matters to you. If you were going to Vanderbilt right now, and you did it for another five years, you'd finally be a brain surgeon. He said, If I was you, I'd wait and see if I was a brain surgeon. You know what I'm saying? I swear, Dad. I'll never forget. And I'll never forget calling him crying. The first time I moved into a neighborhood of surgeon. You know what I mean? You know, when you called, like you were a fucking believe, I just met my neighbor.

2:08:18Guess what he does. Wow. It's a fucking plastic surgeon. You know what I'm saying?

2:08:25That's crazy. Yeah, that old man knew something though. But he just knew that the law of work would never work against us. You know what I mean? Yeah, if you keep going, that's the thing that you were talking about before about people bailing out. Yeah, that's hard. You just got to sit, man. You just got to sit, man. You just got to sit. You also got to recognize when you're making the right moves or the wrong moves, you know, what's what you're doing. And sometimes people don't want a course correct. They don't want a course correct. And... Then it could be a bad relationship. Ooh, that one's tanked more guys than anything.

2:08:53Yeah, I've seen it. And Gals. I've seen it. The bad relationship won. That'll tank you. Yeah, become everything in your life is that thing. And then you have very little resources for your art. Yeah. Because your life is just a storm. It's just a storm of confusion and chaos and fucking emotions every day. And then trying to block it out to make the art. Exactly. Yeah. If you can't allow it to be the muse for it, for me it was a little different because it became the muse. The chaos that was happening around me just became... I had a moment where... And this is such a cool epiphany I had, Joe.

2:09:26For the longest time, I thought I was special because I was from anti -activity and I grew up in a certain kind of way around certain kind of people and that I was special because that was... That I hung onto that like I'm different. And then I realized what was happening was I was just like everybody else. That's what the superpower really was is that every fucking neighborhood in America is like anyok almost. You know what I mean? So it was like a totally different thing. So I started realizing, oh this isn't... This is the muse. I'm speaking for every man when I'm writing just the chaos that's happening around me right now.

2:10:02This is the every man story. Isn't it crazy that everybody wants to be special? Mm. But every special person wants to be in every man? Woo! Yeah. I like being in every man. That's what I like being. Me too. Yeah. But when you're kid, you want to be different. You want to pretend that you're different than other people because that'll make success more attainable. Exactly. You want to pretend that you have some special quality and ability that other people don't possess. So that's why you can get to this bizarre position that everybody wants, where everybody in our business wants. It can be successful and famous.

2:10:38So you have to be bizarre. And then once you get there, you're like, oh shit, I'm everybody's just the same. Everybody's the same. I got to make sure that I keep that. Yeah. Make sure that I keep we're all the same. That's it. But it was in my song writing, I'm going to say 2015, 16 -ish. I realized that I was trying to tell special stories and that God had put me in a situation. He was screaming at me to tell a story of a group of people that had never had their story told. But I was just going out of my way to try to come up with a special story. You know what I mean? And then when I started being like, you know what?

2:11:13No, I'm just going to write about my neighbor who's struggling with drug addiction. I'm just going to write a song about my baby mother because I'm infuriated that she left our daughter high and dry like this because of drugs. You know what I mean? I just started writing from that perspective. And then I realized that it was connecting with people because it was a every man story. You know what I mean? I almost called this album Cinderella Man. Right? And I'll tell you why I didn't. But I thought I watched the movie and I was like, I had a moment in that movie where when he's walking, you've seen the movie, right?

2:11:45Y 'all lost in movies. He's walking in a, for those who haven't, it's about an old boxer who in the depression it kind of was on a losing street kind of long in the tooth. They called him a James Prattick. They would call him a journeyman is what we call him now. Just did look like it never going to work out for him. Working couldn't get a job on a low and doc almost. Family could family split and bread. One of the greatest movies ever. Russell Crowe, right? Yep. And he comes out and towards the end, he ends up fighting his championship fight and it's a crazy mood to watch. But when he's running, he goes by the old doc and they're all cheering for him.

2:12:14And I relate to this because this happened to me and he didn't understand it. So he looks at his manager. You remember this saying? This is the scene that I related to the most. He looks at his manager goes, why are you cheering for me? He goes because you're them.

2:12:29I was like, I'm the fucking Cinderella man. That's why this worked for me at 40. You know what I mean? But I ended up calling it beautifully broken because as I started really writing, because that was my idea going into the project, I'm going to write the Cinderella man story. And all I could think about was other people. Every time I'd pick up a pen, I would think about this young lady at a show who told me that saved me helped her because she was raped by her uncle. So I'm like, what do I write for her?

2:13:06I see winning streak. I watched this moment. I got to write that for you. You know, now I might write some of them from first perspective, but it changed everything. And all of a sudden I was like, this is how I'm in about me. You know what I mean? This is how I'm about finding beauty and broken things. You know? And instantly it was like, once again how God works, as soon as I took me out of it, the album blossomed. Immediately. I wrote 80 songs that sucked. Just couldn't find my way to what story I was trying to tell. You know? And just as soon as I was like, let's go back to where's the muse coming from?

2:13:47What are my writing for? I say I'm the voice of the voice. That's when I had the opportunity to go talk about fentanyl down at Capitol Hill. I didn't hesitate. I knew I was going to talk for a bunch of people that couldn't talk. You know what I mean? It's like, who am I writing this for? And dude, it changed that whole writing style, dog. Then I got lost and wrote another 80. But it's now I'm having fun. I got a direction. I feel like I've heard from God. I'm Moses. You know what I'm saying? The burning bush is spoke. I know what I'm supposed to be writing about. You know? It took me 16 months to get there.

2:14:16But that's just how it works. You're saying too about taking yourself out of it? As soon as I took me out of it. You know what I mean? As soon as I took me out of it. Was that easy? I snapped that fast. It's almost like a trap. It's the your so veins on. It's like a trap. Like that trap of thinking about yourself. You waste so much of your resources. So much of your resources. Like thinking about how you want to come off. How you want people to react to it. How you want to get out there and kill it in front of everybody. And you miss all the beautiful magic. All the magic. It's right there. Now, you know, and you're just missing.

2:14:54And when you get lost in the heart. And when you're at your best, you are them. You are one of them. You're like singing for them. You know? When I'm at my best, it's when I didn't know they were cheering. I didn't know they were even cheering for me. Right. It's because I'm one of them. You know what I mean? It's kind of like the, um, yeah, it's that same con. Yeah. This album was the most fun I've ever had getting to an album. I learned so much about myself. I think that's one of the things that people really dislike about stars. Like famous people. Like people that you think of as stars. That they somehow and other think they're better than everybody else.

2:15:25That's the thing that people like dislike the most. Like, oh, they think they're better than us. They live in Beverly Hills. They think they're better than us because they're a star. You ain't better than us. It's like when someone can do what you do and stay the same person and stay them. Just a better version of who you used to be. But stay. Stay normal. Yeah. And actually getting better every day because I'm doing the work. Trying to be better. You know what I mean? I was telling the Titan when I went and talked to him at the game. I was like, I focus and I don't focus on winning anything but life.

2:15:56Like, I know that everything else is going to be good as long as I'm focused on being a good father. Like priority number one is like, am I good husband? What I've learned is if I'm winning as a husband and I'm winning as a father, I am fucking kicking ass in business. Yeah, the last one is a home drama. Yeah, you don't want no home drama. No, it's crazy. But it's also that's something we talk about things that distracted people. I was in so many bad relationships early. Or even times in my life I was single, courting multiple women. And that's such a distraction. Like when I got with my wife and fell up like to the point of being like, I don't want to spend time with any woman but you when I have the time I have to spend, I want to spend it with you.

2:16:35And all my, it's like in my whole world suddenly went from feeling like it was this big, to this big. And when it got that small, I was like, oh man, this is it. We're in a fox hole. And then I just started kicking ass outside of that. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, my wife just starts winning. And I'm like, oh dude, this is because I'm fucking winning at home. It's also what you're saying to about your resources. Like you have so much more to give. You know, and everything's positive. A happy home life like feeds off your happy business life and your happy performing life. That's what we all want.

2:17:07You know, we all want a beautiful community of people that are like enjoying life and experiencing life together. Your family and your friends and the people you fuck around with. You just want a beautiful community of people having a good time. That's possible. But it's hard. And that's why it's so wonderful when you get it. Because you know that there's a lot of people out there that are never going to get it. Man, that's deep. It's probably the hardest part. It's a lot of work towards it too though, man. A lot of work. It's a lot of work on yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of work to work. That's a, that's work in relationships though.

2:17:42Just think about the arc that you've gone through from being a kid getting arrested as a kid spending all our time in juvenile and jail and then getting free and then figuring out that you're talented and then pursuing this crazy impossible dream. You know, to where you are now. It's nuts. It's a little biggest podcast in the world. It's an amazing story. I mean, it's an amazing, if it was in a movie, you had how a hard time believe it. Like that? Time movies. Nuts. Yeah, for sure. I'm telling you dude, that little fat nerdy alien playing me on the game every day is fucking killing it. He's killing it.

2:18:16My brother, I appreciate you very much. Yeah, I love you. I love you very much. I got to put Jamie on blast for we go though. Oh, that's right. Jamie, we got to deal. Me and Jamie had some cocktails one night. I look at Jamie and we had a deal that if I ever played Ohio Stadium, Joe Rogan, the Jamie was going to come out and play the guitar. Jamie, you got any video of you playing guitar? Yeah. Yeah, I used to be in a band and played music on stage and stuff. Sure. He definitely knew I had a dog. Do you have any video of you playing guitar that we can sweat right now? No, it's not. No, it's like you would know it was me.

2:18:47It's a little heavy metal music. Yeah, well, you pull up a buck out country festins so you can show everybody the flyer of the concert you're going to be playing next year.

2:18:58Oh my god. There it is, baby. I'll see you there, Jamie. Jamie, June 21st, 2025. Ohio Stadium Columbus, Ohio. Let's fucking go. Yeah, fuck, Jelly Roll. Y 'all come to see young Jamie play that guitar. I love that Megan Moroni chick, too. She's, listen, man, she's awesome. Awesome, dude. Yeah, my daughter took me onto her. Yeah, she's, she's, she is bad ass, man. When she made her opera debut, she wore a Jelly Roll jacket and it tickled me so pink. It made me like the cool dad for my daughter because my daughter loves her, too. That's amazing. Really cool. I love you, Joe, man. I love you, too.

2:19:32Thank you for your time, brother. Beautifully broken available now. Available now. Go get it. Live very fast.