In this episode of The Bobbycast, Tony Randall and Kris Rochester (@TonyandKrissShow) join Bobby Bones to take a look at their decades-long career in radio. Tony and Kris began their nearly 31-year career at WHMA in Anniston, Alabama in 1991. After only a 10-month run, they were offered their dream job at KSON in San Diego where they spent 16 years before they moved their show to Nashville for 8 years of syndication. Now, after briefly retiring, they are back to continue doing radio and media. They take a look back on some of their favorite interviews they've done with artists and share why Kenny Rogers was like a father figure to them. They also recall when they interviewed Garth Brooks before he was famous. Tony & Kris also explain how they got paid for 18 months to do nothing, how they are building their brand now, what's next for them and more!
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Our agent just said, just go in, do the weather, the calls, and play solitaire all morning and cash those checks.
So in the meantime all worked to get you out of this, and he eventually did and they had to pass eighteen months to do nothing, which was great.
So I saw these guys on social media and a message to them, going, hey, why don't you come over to the house and let's just talk about music.
Man.
They had some great stories about Garth Brooks. You're going to hear all of that. But as a radio show, they were really successful and they still do a lot of really cool content now. But Tony and Chris, Tony and Chris began, they did thirty three years together. They started back in Alabama in ninety one. They were in San Diego for nearly sixteen years. They moved to Nashville to syndicate. They went to Knoxville. It's just the fact that they had been together so long and they had so many good stories, and I really respect their story at being in this weird industry.
You know.
I thought it was a really fun interview, and if I'm being extremely honest, I think we were flying out right after this. I was going or I was going somewhere right after this, and I was pretty exhausted, and I was very happy that it was Tony and Chris because as tired as I was, I have to focus even harder. But they were so great I didn't have to worry about that. I had so many stories, this story after story. They banned sugar Land from coming on their show once, which I saw on their TikTok. I did see that one, and they're sharing music and pop culture facts on their TikTok. So check it out at Tony and Chris Show. I think you'll like this because there's a lot of country music. There's a lot of like inside Radio and their career, my career, Tony and Chris here, episode four sixty four on the Bobby Cast. So I was on TikTok and I came across you guys page, and so then I just sent Mike a message and said, Hey, let's get Tony and Chris on because it'd be fun to come and talk to them about the similar things that we do. This is Eddie, by the way, Eddie's Hey, ed, He's my best friend. Eddie's on the morning show. And so I was just watching a lot of the stories that you guys were telling and I was super entertained by it. But I was like, man, I would like to ask them questions about their experiences with some of the same people, because you know, everybody's got a story. And I could tell you there have been people, an artists that really didn't like and then I spent more time with them or they matured and then I liked And they probably can said the same about me.
So we had experiences where we would meet an artist and we were like, that was a total jackass, and then people wou tell us there's that's impossible, there's no way he was that way it was, and then after some time you're like, oh, just he gets had a bad day.
He's human being.
That's the thing I don't think most people understand is everybody has bad days.
And I didn't either, if I'm being honest, like I would just think, well, what a douche. But I also was very immature. But then I would have somebody like see me at a restaurant and not say hi, and then post something like, man, he was a real real dick. I was like, nobody said hi to me, and I'm very quiet when I and that's not fair, and I think having that done to me and that's how I had to learn, was me going, I mean, I shouldn't do that to folks. I should really at least give him a pass or two because I get sick sometimes I'm no, you know, ball and glory. When I'm sick, I'm tired sometimes so and I think one of them for me was was Carrie and that she's so shy Carrie Underwood when she's not on meaning not talking to a microphone. I thought she hated me the first two or three. Yes, it's good, thank you.
Work.
I thought Carrie hated my guts because she was just quiet and I was like, man, she But then fourth or fifth time, sixth when we lived pretty close to each other two at the time. I love Carrie now, but it took me a few times to go, oh, some people are just really great on camera and on microphone and in person. But unfairly I'm the sameish way.
Well, you got to remember two things too, And this is a knock on our industry. There's a lot of radio douchebags out there, and a lot of times when an artist knows they're going to be around radio, are like I'm gonna have to deal with that used car salesman like, hey, yeah, very so once they learned, hey, you're normal, you're cool, then they can kind of lose.
There's a surprising number, and I've become one of these. I didn't used to be this way, but there's a surprising number of introverted people who have a very social job, artists included.
I mean, when they're not on you know, they love it. It's there. You're one of those.
That's what I'm saying that I'm the same way. If I'm not on camera, I'm not doing what we're doing.
I'm quiet.
I don't necessarily love to be in a group of people. Now that didn't used to be the case.
I don't know. That's something I've developed as I got older, but I.
Get it, and so I definitely give these guys an opportunity to not prove themselves. But so well, I'm gonna wait a couple more times before I decide, Okay, he's definitely a dick.
I think Caine Brown and I'm now I would say I'm friend friends with Kane, like not just buddies, but friends. Caine was very quiet, very guarded. Caine kind of came out of obscurity and then it was like boom, social media boom. And Caine wasn't. He wasn't demonstrative in his movements. He didn't have a lot to say. But that same exact Cane Brown is exactly the same way now. But he now that I know him, he might be one of the top three kindest guys as far as if you hear somebody has something going on, like Kine jumps to help people misjudge Kane like crazy. And I can say that now because I've spent enough time with him and I've been able to kind of develop that relationship. Eddie Kane was tough.
Right, Oh he was because he's short. All his answers are sho no, no, no, his answers are short. You know the appearance too. You see a guy with a bunch of tattoo is the kind of good looking guy you automatically think like, Okay, he thinks he's just too cool. But no, We've spent a lot of time with Kane and he's awesome.
Yeah, and Kan would like show like Amy my co host has a black son, and Caine would like hear his stories and know he didn't have a lot of black friends Amy's son, but camould like show up in like his birthday, give him a PlayStation like out of nowhere like And that was just like the beginning of what I learned about Cane. But then as I became friends with him, like I can push back on him, right, I can like bust his balls, which I would never have done early.
But you feel like you just have to be very careful with which artist you do that with, because I've got some artists I consider friends, not friendly with, but friends.
But I still am like it depends on his mood today.
That's a great point too, I would say, Jake. Oh, and who again, My wife and I are super close to Jake and his fiance, and you know, Jake's one of our best guests pound for pound, I would say best guests because if he's in a good mood, I can let him have it. But you're right, if he's in if he's not in a good space, can we got to kinda be careful to go.
To that older Jake thing.
Yeah, we gotta kind of be careful.
You two butt heads though a lot, because can you guys are so real with each other that they just butt heads so.
That's what you want. I think ultimately everybody wants that. The listener wants to hear some real You want some real he wants he just wants an interaction that's not telling me about the new album. So that all works, and I think it's all a win when you have just like that who are willing to play. We certainly have found it over the years. I mean the people we've talked to, the ones who will let you play, were at the end of the thing, you're going, oh, god man, we forgot to talk about the album, and they're like, I don't even care.
That's what I wanted. I just wanted somebody to be real.
Who would you say pound for Pound is? Because again I'm gonna put Jake as number one in ours, Like, look what I say, Garth's awesome, but we only talked to Garth every four or five or six months or whatever. Who's pound for pound? You guys think your most consistent interview that you know it's gonna be awesome.
Well, I mean in the day it was Kenny Roger Kenny Rodgers, but really only ever had him once and he was older, so I didn't get to experience that.
What was he like, oh my.
God, he's I still today. It's almost like he was a father.
He was a father for sure.
Ad buy some stuff and we'd be like, I'm managing an artist now, and all I do is give him like this.
Is what Kenny Rodgers did.
He was incredible and his stories would always be like, we had jingles made for him at our stay. I told this story a little while ago, but we had jingles made for him that it was It's the Kenny Rodgers show. And whenever he would show up in San Diego, we had just turned the show over to him and start telling stories. And he'd be like, well, I was at Quincy Jones' house and Prince shows up, you know that kind of stuff.
I mean, he was in the early two thousands.
He was already telling us some of those behind the scenes of the Weird of the World, you know the.
Nets in the documentary, and told those stories.
He told us the story about you know, Don Henley and Shiloh giving them their start and helping the Eagles get their publishing and all this crazy story.
And he was just always on.
But his kindness where he would go out of his way to tell stuff like I remember one time I said something, and he just goes, Chris, remember everybody's three people, who you think you are, who they think you are, and who you really are. And the closer you make all three of those, the better your career.
In life's going to go.
And he goes, I used to wear leather pants and have my shirt un button down to my belly button. And he goes, that wasn't me, and he goes, I finally one day said I'm a suit guy. I put on a suit, started being myself, and my career exploded.
And I just thought that was great.
Yeah, Kenny was good for us, but he was older.
Our last interview with him, it was tough and we almost killed him.
I mean we we almost pulled the old pulled the chair out and under That's all we needed endo our career. I was like, Ken, you don't wait, we might move that chair hang on because he was about to sit back down, So no.
No chair, It slid out of his way.
Yeah, what about because Dolly's always awesome? And I guess I think a dolliecause a Kenny, but also Dolly. I've had a great relationship with Dolly. You guys have experience of Dolly.
Yes, have.
They always been wonderful because she's so professional. And I mean that in the most in the best way.
And let me tell you how stupid we are before we can get to that. We've never take a while. Okay, we'll just do the top one here. We've never been the guys like we need to get an autograph, we need to get the picture. But we have all the pictures and stuff. The only people we do not have pictures with that we've interviewed are Willie Dolly. And there was one other one that we were like, ah, we don't want to bug him with.
Him the really thing.
He was making us a sandwich on his bus and I was like, this would be in the days of if those were cell phone days, and like no, just picture that's just cool didn't exist. So that's just a mo with that lives in our heart.
You know. It's a great memory that we'll have when he's got on.
But Dolly, just I mean, and this is going back to Kenny Rogers. Kenny said, Dolly can tell the most off color jokes and embarrass you. He goes, I only tell off color jokes. If I'm I know everybody in the room. She will blow in and just unload and I and she's never done that around us, but she's always what you see on TV is what you get. Kind of like how we describe Blake Shelton. You know, when everybody says, oh, I love him on the voice, and that's Blake. Yeah, he's not being anybody else, and that's accurate. That's that's very much Blake. What's your guys the story? Howd you meet Tender?
No?
I'm just just you know, sheer luck.
We were in a very small town in Alabama and I in college. My first paying radio job was in country, although at the time that was not music that I enjoyed, but I was like, hey, I need beer money, so this is good.
This is good. Worked there for a few years.
What town was that?
That was? I lived in Gadston, Alabama.
This station was Anniston, Alabama at that time, WHMA one hundred thousand, wats in big station?
Who had the Bama played on the truck out? There is that here right here?
He's born and raised?
Okay, go ahead, yeah, And so anyway, worked there for a while and then when I had my first kid, really young, unexpectedly, I say, closer to home. It seems like Gadsden. Anderston seems so far apart back then because it was such a small town, like, oh, it's forty minutes now, Like we lived in San Diego. I drove to work an hour every day one way, but got a job at a rock station. He was like, Hey, it's closer to your house. And he just said that baby, it's a little more money, and I said, man, that'd be great. And then they hired Chris and he and I met became friends first, which I think is super important to our story and why we have been able to keep it going for so long without any blow ups.
Without any problems.
We were just we knew we liked each other going in, and then we got lucky and that we also happened to have great chemistry, you know, on the air. We both had a similar mindset of what we wanted to accomplish, how we wanted to do it, who we wanted to be, you know, and you know.
We went from there. We worked together for a very short time before we really got our big brain.
And what you just said, Tony, I wanted to ask you about because I do think had we not our story of how we got to San Diego's crazy but how you surround yourself with good people, make sure everybody's got the same goal, because you know as well as us how hard it is. There's always somebody trying to do their own thing or not following the path. And I think if we had not had John Demmick, Mike Shephard, Steve Renols, we're Steve Reynold's guys. He's a great consultant in our life, we'd probably be selling cars and I wouldn't.
Be selling anything. I'm a terrible salesperson.
I can't even sell myself. I'm not the worst, So I don't know what i'd be doing, but it would be.
That very similarly. Again, mylepath has been odd, as in nowhere I went, did they ever say we trust and believe in you, And here's a bunch of money or any money to hire anybody, So such as hire all my friends because they would work for free or cheap. And what was a curse actually turned out to be the best thing for me. Is sure, we all made no money for a long time, but I was able to hire my friends and I trusted them, not only trusted them to be with me, but they made me feel better. So I was better right, like they would put me in a place where I thought comfortable. And you know, if you're comfortable, you perform so much better. It doesn't matter what you're doing, if I'm doing stand up, or if I'm doing or Eddie and or do music or we're doing the radio show. If you just feel better and loose and free, you perform better. So much like what you guys found. But what were you Tony? What what shift were you doing at the rock station mid days? And what Chris, what were you doing when you came in?
I was doing swing shift weekends. I started in radio when I was fourteen and was at a competitive, competing station across town.
So you guys were in the same town, but you came to the same station that he was for like weekends. And is there like a potluck or something? Because I worked at a very small station and we almost never saw each other unless you were there at the shift when the switch off happened.
I was one of those guys.
When I was fourteen, I decided I was going to get into radio because I listened to Mark and Bryan and wanted to.
Be them in La.
Yeah, they were in Birmingham, and I wanted to be. They were in birminghaming in Alabama. That's where we worshiped them. We were like, and we want to be those guys.
Wow.
And I was at the station and I would win everything they gave away and given that guy, they finally just said, will you quit win and everything? I said, give me a tour of the state and I'll stop. And they gave me a tour and I said, I'm going to work here, and they said, well, go to college. I said, I'm not going to college. I hate school.
And a year later.
I was just there all the time. If DJ needed his car washed, I washed his car, if I did whatever. And someone didn't show up for a shift one night and I was like, I can do it, and they were like really. And that's how I got started. So then when we met, we did much the same thing. We were like, let's just get some chemistry. Whenever one of us have a remote, the other one will come for free, and we'll just do the breaks together to start talking together.
We did remote breaks together.
And just to get a feel for me together. Ye yes, it's not as easy as people. If you're good at it, it sounds super easy, but you know it isn't.
And then the crazy thing is when we got our first morning gig, which Tony tells that story better than me, but talking about kindness, we didn't have an aircheck and June Jam was going on in Fort Payne, Alabama, and my old PD called and said, Hey, I've got a friend we just hired from our pop station to be on the country station, and he's the PD. He needs to stay somewhere in Fort Payne for this June Jam a concert.
Oh yeah, it was like a festal back to do that in Fort Payne.
I mean, it's a good name. I didn't know if it was like a woman that made suit like June Jam. You know where she lived down on Third Street.
I apologize, got it? No, no, no, Alabama did that for years. I think they brought it back just a couple of years ago and been doing it. But it was the thing. And we were like, dude, there's not a hotel room within one hundred three hotels in pain and we were like, but we're renting a place if he wants to sleep on the couch. And so he came and he hung out for two or three days with us and walked around and at the end of the ice. It had to be divine intervention or something, because he goes, do you all have a tape of your show?
And we said no.
Did you have a show though? Yes at that time? So you started doing a show together?
But how did that have?
I know you're doing breaks, but who believed in you? And did you do like weekend stuff first? Or what happened to you even get on the air together as a formal show.
Well we his hormones really are to think he was.
It was Saturday and my old country station was across the street at a pool store doing a remote and they had a girl out there at the at the hot tub in a bikini or whatever I do.
I was getting off. He was getting on. You go over there and finding who that is? Get her number?
Man?
I said, first of all, Nut your pimp, and I'm not going.
To do this.
I'm not going out to get you. I'm scooring chicks for you, so please men, just okay. So I go over and in the process of this.
Which there was no social media, it was battle conditions and let me let me and let me skip to the end.
I never got her number because I got sidetracked. My old boss was there and I said, hey, how you doing, you know, catching up, and he's like, oh, you know, we're looking for a morning show. I said, what a coincidence, we're trying to be a morning show. Could we don't He said, you have a table, said, we don't have anything. We're brand new. And the tape we made was this fake tape thinking we were going to be rot Guy. So it was a much different kind of tape that we sent out, you know, to everybody, thinking well, those offers are going to come rolling in now, which it was terrible. So he said, hey, yeah, man, that'd be great. He says, you could come over to the station. You could just make one right in our studio.
Great.
So it's the day we're supposed to do this and the weather went crazy. Tornadoes are coming through like nobody's business. But we're not going to miss this up opportunity. So we jumped in my little colt and off we went, drove through a tornado, literally drove through a tornado to get to the radio station to make this audition tape.
For whatever reason, he liked it and he gave us the job, and it was I think we agreed to twelve thousand a year each. Well, we made no money. I don't think it was the tape. We made no money.
Yeah, it was cheap, but it was crazy because they you know, he puts us in the room and he says, all right, you'll be on Monday morning.
We have no clock.
He gave us no notes, he gave us no information. We had never done a morning show together.
We didn't, so all we knew was, Okay, we think we're pretty funny. Is it something Mark and Brian would have done?
This is a bit Mark and Brian would do, So let's just steal it and we'll just do that. And we made a name and we showed up in Birmingham's ratings and it was crazy and.
Like a little bit.
Wasn't that a blessing that you didn't know what to do so you didn't do it like anything? Because I felt like that way about me because I just kind of raw dogged about ten years in my career. I knew nothing, didn't know anybody had nobody. I even knew that it was in radio. But again, it was the best thing that ever happened to me because I made my own style of you know what, was like, wow, look at this new No. I just didn't know what I was doing, but that allowed me to figure out what I was best at. Like do you look back at that and go, man, that was really beneficial to.
And and it's crazy too because you know, you first start out, we'd never done an interview, so the first few interviews are terrible, but that ended up being the best thing we do over time. You know, when people talked about training artists, there is that he can we bring him in and let you guys do an interview because we think that would be.
Great for them. Yeah, one hundred percent.
But the gig was you know, it was it was crazy and it was and then you know, you fast forward a little bit. I think we got that job in maybe October of ninety one, and then June and this guy is staying with.
Us, and then the tape thing. Oh yeah, that June Jam and she was awesome.
By the way, June Jam really I loved her.
I loved her as our friend that we were introduced to had stayed with us all weekend.
He just goes, do you have a tape of your show?
We were like, Noah, And right then, I mean, as he's the words are coming out of his mouth. RPD walks up and goes, guys, I made a CMA entry, it's all you guys, and hands us the tape and.
He basically an audition tape that he had.
I was Dave Kelly, who ended up working for Big Loud all those years and everything, and it was just like, wow, if we had been mean to him or snotty and just said don't know what to tell you, there's no rooms left, and what's great is who knows where we'd be.
This was happening unbeknownst to us.
We gave him that tape to thinking, Okay, great, he'll listen to the tape and that it'll be that. Behind the scenes, we were hoping our big five year plan was to get a job in Birmingham. We can get to Birmingham.
That'd be great.
That was literroc to me. But yeah, you're Birmingham was my literarrock. Yeah, so that was our thing.
And then we find out that Dave has given that tape to a consultant, Phil Hunt, who was Rusty Walker's partner, legendary consultant back in the day, and he was going to get us a job in Charlotte. And we found they told us say, hey, I think they're going to offer you this job in Charlotte, and.
We were pissing our pants. We're like, they've got a they've got a basketball team. There's that's like a real city, man. I mean it was. It was too It was just crazy.
And then Rusty Walker said, no, I got to I think I got a better place for these boys.
And we didn't know this was happening.
He sent the tape to Mike Shepard in San Diego and said, I want you to listen to this. He said, well, they're super green, but he said, there's something there. Then, there's a chemistry there. There's a I don't want to say magic, it feels weird to say about yourself, but there was something there, he thought. So you moved from where to Wear from Aniston, Alabama to San Diego, California.
That's quite the jump.
The leave of the century radio.
Yeah, the media culture shock there.
That had to have happened the first remote, the last remote we did in Aniston, I had taken a shoelace out of my shoe and tied around the PVC pipe we were using on the mic stand to hold the marty and we're tying it up and.
Like, okay, we're serving the pizza.
First remote in San Diego, Tony and I start helping break everything down at the end and everybody's like wha, wha, what are you doing? And we're like, well, we're just helping pack stuff up and they're like, no, you go go away, don't do that.
Oh oh this is pretty cool. Yeah, it was definitely big.
Did you and I'm assuming the answers yes, But even like the guests that would give you the time of day.
Oh oh yeah, people would.
The only thing we had going for us in Alabama is that we became friends with Randy Owen, there's a lead singer aout Labama, and went to his house a lot and to his family.
I mean, we were friends, and Randy gave us a little you know, a little whatever you want to call it.
Talk well, not not even, but he gave us I can't think of the word of credibility, thank you. He gave us credibility to say, okay, well, he likes these guys for some reason.
He sent a letter without us knowing it to San Diego. We told him, hey, we might end up in San Diego, and he sent a letter to them, said, these are great guys.
You need to sign them.
The opposite, they're terrible, just so that you'd stay with him.
I love not hire.
These guys as far away as possible for my family. Please hire them.
It was it was pretty wild, and so we would get the NASCAR guys, we would get you know, Randy or any friends of Randy. We have to go to the June jam golf tournament, which is where we first met. That's probably our first time meeting several country stars at once, and it was all pretty wild.
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor, Wow, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaking of Randy, obviously he spent a bunch of his career working close with Saint Jude, which we I think we all do in this room. But I was listening to you guys tell the story about Chris Cagel. So it's the Saint Jude thing. Did I never knew Chris Cagle. I missed Chris Kagel, but I heard he was kind of a wild guy. Yeah, I'm trying to think.
Of Chris Gaggle. Couldn't get out of his own way, So.
And that was kind of the story and I'd let you guys tell it, but he just would stop talking on stage.
Oh that was a great story. Yeah, that was fantastic. We were doing a radio thign Trace Atkins. You may not know, we'll speak his mind.
I do know ya.
And it was just one of those days that you want to tell this one. Do you remember the story too about Kegel where he's doing that?
You know who I am?
The lady had the season. You tell this one, then I'll tell the seizure.
Okay, So this, I mean, it's very simple. It's a guitar poll. But Chris really wanted to be Garth. And you know, Garth was a great storyteller, and Garth would talk a lot and he would hold the room.
Chris didn't. I mean, he was good, he had chrisma, but he wasn't Garth.
And he's up there and he's trying just leading into this song and it goes on and finally Trace just leans over and goes, hey, man, just shut up and play the damn song and he immediately does. And then the best part of that story though, is that later in la it was overheard he's on the phone, so I guess.
Was at the hotel. They were all checking.
They all rode one bus down from LA and did our show in San Diego.
Wee time that the golf.
Tournament near the ACMs when it was in Los Angeles and somebody wanted and they only heard Chris kgel side of the conversations.
Well, then he yelled at me. He told me to play the damn song. It's quiet because he's seven feet tall. That's why, you know.
It was just he was wlinding to somebody. But it was just such a great story. I felt kind of bad for him it. At the same time, Trace was right, shut up and play the damn song.
At the same time was talking about it.
No out of the way we were.
He stayed at our hotel one time we were here when we'd come out and he parked his vet or whatever his car was right in front of the front door and took the keys with him and the valet and everybody's my ad. They're all like, we can't get in here. So those are the kind of things he did to get not get out of his own way. Yeah, but uh, theory and I it's been so long and I may it's at the Bridge bar during CRS. So my memory may be foggy, but a lady had had a seizure and everybody was jumped down trying to help her, and Cagel jumps in and is like out of the way, out of the way, pulls everybody back, and we're thinking he must know exactly great, and he grabs her and looks at her as she's kind of coming to and says, do you know who I am? I'm Chris Cagle. I sing a song called Beautiful Day and we're all like, this is this the time to promo?
Nobody knew what to do. We're all like, okay, that's just one way to go. What's your favorite Garth story?
Oh? God, man, that guy.
When we were going to be jerks to him, that was my favorite. Like we were like, we're not going to fall for this. It was the Fresh Horses tour, you know, he was for his first interview.
By the way, Arthur was my first interview. I was still working in Aniston.
Really horses and that's like sixth album, fifth album, right, yeah, ninety six.
It was He sold out like three or four nights at the Sports Arena and it was before country was cool too, because like Michael Bolton was there the next night and all three TV stations are out there with the helicopters. Gar sells out three nights nothing. But we we're not going to be We're not going to buy into him working us. And we go to that backstage and we've got like eight winners with us and we're not in the usual place where you do the meet and greets, and we realize we're in his dressing room and we walk in and I'm like, where's his no guy, because you know, everybody's got the no guide to lot of us move things along, and it's just Garth. And he looks at me and goes, hey, you bought a hat and I'm like, yeah, you know you got to do it. And I got a book from my neighbor here and he's oh okay, and he leads out the door, comes back, hands me my money and says, oh, dude, you play my records. I don't need your merch money. And I'm like, look at him trying to work us. And then and then it just kept. We decide to take over things because it's been twenty minutes. He's calling people on cell phones. He's talking to these you know, listeners and hanging out with and just being over the top getting them drinks, and I'm like, okay, we got to end this.
This has been too long.
Even we were feeling uncomfortable, like this is too nice, and we're like Garth, we're sorry, We're gonna move on out now everybody, and Garth slats sit down on the show. I ain't gonna start without me, don't worry, and we're like okay, and then he does, I'll let Tony tell the part that we're twenty something years later, we're still going.
Well, that's it.
I mean, that's the genius I think of him and an artist like him, they do something that impacts your life in a way that you tell the story every chance you get. So, yeah, my wife at the time had just had our third child, and so she wanted to come to the show.
Couldn't come to the show.
I mean, she was baby was brand new, she had just come home. And he's like, oh, man, so he said, can I call her? Of course, So he calls my wife. Sorry and he's on the phone. I have no idea what's going to be said, and he's like, well, hey, I'm sorry you couldn't make it tonight.
Man.
It says, could you if we set something up for you backstage, if you could maybe get a I'm trying to remem if if she had just had the baby, or she hadn't had the baby, had the baby, Okay, she had me. This is terrible memory of my own children. The same way at the concept s Yes, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, so she said, we'll send it a nextage. You can come back and do whatever you need to do if you want to get out of the crowd. She said, yes, of course, he's great. So he told me, he said, hey, you guys are going to come to the show tomorrow night. We at that moment, his guy said, hey, we.
Got to go.
It's time to go. He start putting his headset on, putting his head set on, and he does not speak really to anyone else. We walk with him to he said, walk with me to the stage. We walk into the stage.
He walks up on the stage and starts the show, and I'm like, that's the last all over here about that.
I mean, it was a nice gesture. But next day we do the show.
At ten oh one, my phone rings and it's the guy and he said, hey, I'm calling on behf of Garth, and he said, we were supposed to set this up. Yeahda YadA YadA, And I said okay. And we go to the show that night and somewhere there's a picture of my ex wife standing. He's holding the towel. He's about to jump in the shower, but he gets a picture with her, and he sends a guy basically into the audience with us. We have really great seats and he stands back about three rows and if she fidgeted or he popped down, okay, did everything all right?
You want to go backstage? You want? I mean he was just there as her you know, her Man Friday or whatever.
It was crazy, and you know, it's just one of those above and beyond moments. Again, what artist says, hey, we'll set something up. You can go backstage and hang out if it gets too much to be in the crowd. It was a great moment, and our plan to not fall get them to his charms stories did not work.
He's the most consistent, extremely gracious and kind major artists that I've ever met. When I keep waiting for him not to be exactly because it doesn't seem you can't believe it. You can't and at this point, I've given up on doubting him, probably the same way you have, because it's been so consistent. And some people will say to me, and it can be Guarth or it could be Taylor or whomever. When they have really great people that work around them too, they're like, well, but they hire good people. And my response is, but they have to hire good people to do and like represent their sensibilities, right, You shouldn't punish people because they're also hiring great people to make sure that things are followed. And so Garth was so cool. It was the same way. I just kept waiting for him to crack, and now he's just not gonna crack.
I think what blew me away.
Going back to him being my first interview, it was my first day I just got and moved to afternoons in this country station. It was a pretty big deal for me because I was a still kid and he comes in, Hey, there's new guys coming in.
He's got a song out. You gonna interview?
And I was like, I'm just my first shift on afternoons. I'm already nervous. Now I gotta interview somebody I've never even done an interview. Okay, and he.
Gives me the press pack and Garth Brooks and I read through it. I'm like, Okay.
He comes in, he's you wouldn't know the difference, same guy, same way. He sang the John Deere jingle that he that he's saying back in the day when he was still singing jingles and doing that kind of stuff.
He was kind.
And then he had that show that there's a place called the Alabama Show Palace and it was a pretty big place for that small town. It held like a thousand pe people and that night, you know, they thought it was gonna be big.
And he's told this story on the Tonight Show. Another place. He goes, man, we were so rocking.
We were this is gonna be huge, guys, and said we ran out on the stage and we opened it up and there were seven people in the end, nobody came because nobody knew who he was.
And I was there.
I was one of them, and I was always proud to be one of the Anniston seven, which is what he calls us. But then, you know, we interviewed him in San Diego years later after he blew up and I told him, I said, man, said, you were my first interview, and I have to get pay you with the compliment that you are as kind and generous with your time now when you are a superstar as you were when you were really.
Nobody, you were just starting. I said, it's pretty amazing.
Chris, who was your first interview?
First interview? Wow, I couldn't tell you.
I'm trying to think of It's probably with us, probably Randy o One.
Maybe we hung up on him the first time he called.
Yeah, it's like you don't know who you lost your virginity to right now. You understand that right like you should know that's.
That's dicey with me too. Just to be completely frank, he was an elementary school. You can't expect him to remember that bar exackly.
Darius was mine. I was working in the pop station and I interviewed him with a little handheld. I was nervous as crap. I was seventeen, eighteen years old at Magic Springs. And it's pretty cool because our careers have kind of paralleled each other, and Darius and I are still super cool, and but I just remember being so nervous and him being like, hey, I got you good, and whod He was huge at the time. Whod he was massive.
At least another one. He's always just excellent.
Yeah, he's great.
I always said I wanted to be. He's always happy.
Like I went through a phase in my life where I just was angry at everybody, and then I decided, you know, like I'm just going to change that I want to be. And I would say, I want to be more like Darius because I never see him not smiling except for his mug SHOT's right, that's the one.
Other than that. And I always smiled, always happy. I can't blame him for that.
My new favorite Darius story that is between us, Like it's between like Darius and I in the same place. I was doing stand up and Darius had come to my show in Florida, and I saw him for like five seconds before the show, because he got there during the opening act and I was about to go out into the and he's like, I'm here. And I wasn't surprised he showed up, but I was surprisedly showed up, you know, yeah, because.
That's cool, it's a big deal.
Yes, So Darius comes up and I don't know where he is, and about five minutes in, I'm into my pretty good material that I know is going to work, and I can hear it, like in the crowd laughing, so where I can identify. And every time I told a joke, I would hear Darius laugh. And there was one point I told a joke and I didn't hear it, and I was like, everybody stop, Darius, and I think that joke is funny. Laughs so loud and cut through that I knew exactly where he was, and also all night knew what he did not think was funny because he did not laugh at those jokes.
On our show one time and we spliced sixty seconds of him laughing that's all, and we would have an intro on it like take time now to lighten up and just play it because you can't not laugh along with his laugh is infectious.
Hey, who was the first interview you did?
Probably you? I mean talk about full circle, probably you?
Yeah, but you know me as as a news reporter.
Yeah.
So what's funny is the way we met was I worked for the news station in Austin and he had his radio show and they had sent me as a as a photok reporter kind of guy go to some steam clean carpet place or whatever, because who was William Hung. William Hung was playing wow solid, see if you can get an interview with William Hung.
So I go with my camera.
And that's a quote that he's not going to be said anywhere else today, I assure you.
Yeah.
And so we're waiting for William Hung. And finally somebody comes up says William can't do it, but we have the local DJ guy, Bobby Bones if you want him, Like sure, whatever, I mean, I'm not going to go back to the station without an interview.
So I interviewed Bobby. That was how we first met fell in love.
I was going to.
Say, what a great story. Yeah, I'll be able to say, like, y'all William Hung. William Hung had shown up exactly your career.
William Hung.
He was actually kind of tough. Yeah, like he didn't want to talk to anybody, is you know.
Because he was an embarrassed or something. I don't know.
I don't know.
I think he was having his moment.
Where he was playing the carpet clean.
Moment.
I logically can see why that should he shouldn't have thought that way, but I think he was like at the peak of his fame, and so I think he was like too cool. For a minute, I think he was too cool. You guys go to San Diego. How long were you on together in San Diego?
Ninety three to two and fifteen years? Fifteen years? I think, well, that last year was just paid out.
You got paid for a whole year.
Oh more than that. It was the craziest thing.
We won't go into the radio company that did it, but before it was we were making really good money. That they had built a station across the street for us, and we went across the street and then halfway through it, we were number one, beating our old station that had never been beaten before.
Okay, let me let me for those who don't know, so across the street means a rival. So you were working at a different station and Clair Channel built a station and then they said, hey, come, so they hired you away from your old station.
Yes, got it, And we were crushing like they put a ridiculous bonus in if you could beat your old station because it was always number one, and we it in the first book and everybody was losing their mind.
And then a new Jane to clarified one quick thing.
They didn't hire us away like we just went for more money. There's a story behind it. We wanted to stay at casom oh if we were there for ten years.
We'ning aig contract negotiation and you picked them.
It was a big contract negotiation. The contract had been negotiated in principle, we just hadn't signed the contract yet.
Everything was done. They flowers for our wives. It was great.
And then the VP at the at that time, it was an insurance company that owned Caso, Lincoln Financial, she saw it the deal and she said, what what are we doing. We're not paying these guys this money. And they're like, yes, we are. This is what the market will bear, this is what the top shows are making. She says, well, we've never paid a show this much and we're not doing that. So she renegged on the deal.
Wow, she next the deal and then she sent word down when they'll either take it what they're doing for another year, one year contract so we can find someone cheaper, or they can go to another market and we'll tell everybody they ditched for more money.
And that was the Kaso and way. Because there were some big names that came out of there. Jack Diamond back in the day, Lisa Dent who went to Chicago had great success. It was a station where if you left, if you were successful on the left, you left the city. Nobody had ever stayed because there was no country station who would take him on ever. So this was right before the holidays. It was weird because we always took two weeks off at the end of the year and we're packing up our stuff. But then we basically called the buddy of ours and said, hey, can you come help us get this out.
We're going to.
Empty out the office because we knew when we left we were leaving for good. And our agent called the guy's a clear channel and said, hey, would you be interested in Tony and Chris And they were like, absolutely, but they'll never leave k soom I mean, they're killing it over there, and he was a funny.
Story and he told them what happened. They said.
The guy was like, give me a couple of days because now we're in the holidays.
Books were closed. Obviously, long story.
Short, it got done and when we left KSN before Christmas two weeks before, came back in January to a brand new radio station that had been built for us.
Was that a super stressful, intense time for you?
Guys.
Yes, that you talk about it now, it's like how hum But really at the time, it was like, oh my god, horrible. Yeah, I'm like, what am I going to do?
I've got I got kids, we've got a house.
Like even though the other station you loved everybody at the other station, and then you're coming on and it was just weird and like jealous, there's people in our seats and across the street.
How quickly did they hire someone new?
Pretty quick? They had to. Actually, I take that back, like a year.
They put in like a mid the midday guy and somebody, and they were on there for that, only it was a.
Year and they're dead man walking. It almost doesn't matter who it is.
Yeah, they knew well they and the nice thing about to their credit, they weren't hiring them to do the morning show and then get rid of them when they were done. The guy stayed on with the company for a while doing midday the things. But you know, they did what they had to do, and then they hired a show that was, in my opinion, not awesome. But it's tough because they're putting people together who weren't already a show, and that's that's risky.
What was it like at the new place?
Initially it was great and initially well with the GM when he hired us, he goes, look, our afternoon guy is a good kid. He's the PD. Will you guys kind of train him how to be a PD?
And did you know how to be a PD? Huh? Did you guys know how to be a PD? Well?
I think we knew. We knew how to be ks the best. Yeah, we knew how to be ks.
And so there we would say, like, the first thing they're going to do is say call all the record labels and say if you do anything with them, we're not going to play the records. So we said, let's get the PD or the music director at k and i X to be our music director also, so that takes away that leverage.
And you know, so we were little things like that. It was a brand new station.
We weren't reporting, but Anix was and so it was Gwynn Foster so and so that that held that they couldn't say, well, we won't play it anymore.
So well neither were Knix.
So we we crushed them and we're I mean, it was just rocking and it was great. And then the new GM come in, and the new GM the the Afternoon Jock was not the PD was not smart.
How long was your turn? Your new contract for five years? Year?
And when the new GM come in, the GM basically said I don't need a morning show's input.
I've got a PD right here. I didn't believe in country either, So it was we were out of the.
Gate fundamentally, just a bad fit.
Yeah, And then as soon as that happened, we we got cut out of the loop on everything, and the decision started being weird. Like I remember one day being at CMA the roundtable thing, and lady walked up and goes, boy, it's a tough day for you guys, and we're like what, And she goes the PD's calling all the regionals or the record reps and telling them that we don't need you anymore because they decided they're going to start leaning more old Country.
We're like what.
So we had to call and get that stopped, and then like six weeks later, without telling anybody, they flipped it to New Country.
It was just weird.
But anyhow, when we were saying the last year we just got paid out, we were calling our agent, and our agent finally just said. One day he goes, guys, Paul, you know Paul I do, and he goes, guys, you're trying to win and you will not win. They want you gone, and we're like, well, what.
Do we do?
And so we went and said, if you don't want us here, let us out, and they were like, oh, no, we want you here, but we need you to sign this. And it was a list of you will not crazy ask stuff. You will not talk more than twenty seconds of break. You will never say your name, you will run no imaging with your name.
If traffic's more than sixty seconds out of this window. I mean, all these crazy reasons.
They can find out where was this coming from? Like what you actually have some clarity from it now because you're far removed. But really, what was happening? What was the goal in.
Well, we found out because of an email. Basically they wanted to save the money.
Did they were paying you guys the GM They were trying to get us for cause because it was an ironclad contract, and.
That's why they were giving you all these stipulations. They were ready for you to break one because they were so hard to maintain.
Just take the checks in our building to chat.
Remember when the craze happened where everybody was buying everybody. Yes, we had Jeff and jer Dave Shelley, and Chainsaw us AJ. The four biggest morning shows in San Diego were all in one hallway and that was a lot of money, a lot of money back then. And they just the new GM come in and goes, I don't want that, Like they replaced our show when we left with two part timers who at one of which had never been in a radio station six weeks before.
It's kind of like when George gets fired from the Yankees and they're like, who's doing your job now?
An intern? He comes in on Mondays, you know, it's like out hurt.
So that GM came in with a completely different agenda and he was trying to put the pieces together to eliminate a lot of cash being paid out to talent. Didn't believe in talent basically.
Yeah, I mean it was it was probably the beginning of the end for talent in San Diego anyway at that time.
So for a year we just our agent just said just go in, get do the weather, the calls, and play solitaire all morning and cash those checks.
So in the meantime, all work to get you out of this, and he eventually did. And they had to pass eighteen months to do nothing, which was great.
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the Bobby Cast.
So wait, was the do nothing the solitaire? And I consider waking up in the morning something at the hours we have to wake up.
Well, we left the building like they take us out for eighteen months, and we.
Just slept in for eighteen months to got paid.
Yeah.
And then that time that was when we first started, you know, our little syndication idea. We're like, oh, because we would have to do it for country, because country hadn't been done at that time. Sure you didn't exist at that point.
As far as we were, you cracked the code. We were never able to do that. Yeah, yeah, but anyway, so it was it was an interesting time, stressful.
But the eighteen months even for like that, as amazing as it sounds, to get paid and not work, I would not like that.
Well, that's why it took us that long to get the syndication set up. We were traveling the country because everybody we talked to at that time said syndication won't work in country. And I kept saying, I feel like that's a cop out from pds that are scared for their job, because it's like, oh, it won't work in country. It's like, I don't know people that wake up and go I'll listen to Howard Stern because it's rock, but I will not listen to a country DJ that's syndicated.
I just don't. It's funny.
Mike mcvay's most recent an article about how to win with syndication, and I just was reading the comment I didn't read the article because I don't care.
I love it.
I was reading the comments because I always I'm speaking honest, man. But I'm reading the comments because I'm always curious to see how people and I'm watching people quote things that we said about syndication ten years ago. I'm like, where were you guys when we needed we have We had this idea, man, But it was funny, Oh, if you do this and you do this, And I was like, yeah, that's true, that's accurate. They knew a lot about it because they all had lived it on one side or the other of that world.
Did you when you guys were getting paid, because again, I would be so stressed out and again I think on the surface, like, well, eighteen months, you get paid, but you guys are working building something else while you're getting paid. But I would just feel like I'm looking at a clock ticking. It was.
It was very much like that, And when you got down to the end of the eighteen months, it still took longer.
After that.
It wasn't like we timed it out perfectly. Hey, all right, this is great.
You know it was. I had a wife and three kids.
Our marriage was already on the rock, so I was so stressed out by my personal life being such a mess, and then we're trying to figure out now we got to move to Nashville. Just going to Nashville for a week to find a place to live was the greatest time in my life.
I get out of that for a second.
And I, you know, not to get all into this, but I should have told her then, I said we shouldn't do this.
I should have ended it before we moved to Nashville, because then it just got worse.
Did you guys ever think about splitting up you two us. No, it was never a conversation, never really had an argument.
It's what I think it's because I know this sounds crazy, but I swear when we decided to put the tape together, we said we're going to be fifty to fifty partners because we knew other morning shows and it was always like, well, he makes three thousand dollars more year because he runs the board and you know, or he does production or whatever. And we were like, we're gonna be if they want just you because I have more of an accent, because back then they were like Tony sounds so he you know, he doesn't have the accent like the Hicco.
Which is that just didn't sound like I was born and raised in Alabama.
But we were like, it doesn't matter. You pay one of us, you pay both of us. And we fought for that.
We had DJ.
I mean, one of our pds told us he just goes. I'm told to drive a wedge between you two so I can get you for separate remotes, and we were like, that's not fine, as long as.
We both get paid.
It's had the cast of friends, man, I like that, just not a million bucks in episodes.
It was funny because we had he had started as an intern for us, and then he was a promo sist and he's very successful now in Pensacola.
I don't even know what name he goes. He's got so many different names.
Brent Lane, Brent Lane, I thinks is on your name and super nice guy and he worked really hard and he has He has developed a very successful show. He married Pensacola and made it and he's killing it. But he called us when we were still in San Diego. I said, gonna ask you guys some advice. Is what do you do when you're having when you fight about something? My new partner were not getting along, and I was like, honestly, man, I would love to give you some great nugget that you could Ah, he fixed everything. I don't know, because we've never had a fight. We just it's never gotten to that point. That's not to say we've never disagreed.
Oh yeah, we've.
Disagreed, and ultimately we both know that we're so evil that study and it would.
End horribly if we ever got in a fight.
So it's just it's always been one of those things where if he's passionate about something that I wasn't, I was like, I don't think this is great, but he's clearly passionate. When we did it said if it works, great, Hey I was wrong. If it doesn't work, I get to go ha exactly, and vice versa. And then and when things got you know, when things got hard in San Diego, we knew we weren't done yet. We still had things we wanted to do. We felt we still had something to give. So it was never even a question of ending it at that point. And even when we i mean we retired for seventeen days, you know, six years ago after we hit twenty five years. We've been doing syndication for seven or eight years, and we're.
Like, it wasn't fun for us.
We just weren't having fills, you know, the you know, the pds that set it and forget it.
That's all we had.
All of our stations were you haven't asked for liners in.
Over a year.
We still deal with that familiar Yes, so they would complain about the numbers, but you're not doing anything.
This is a partnership. You're supposed to be working too.
So anyway, we just said, this seems like a good time maybe to stop this and we'll see what happens next. We both had some things we wanted to do and we did. And then we got that call from Noxville, which I wish we had never taken it.
I wish we had never taken That was not a good situation.
It was horrible. I don't want to sound negative. I don't sound like everything we had. Let me tell you another thing that sucks about radio. It's not like that at all. We have an incredible to the negative our yeah, no, incredible career, and we have ninety percent awesome, fun stories that we could tell over and over again, and then there's that ten percent. But it was such that ten percent is so horribly bad it doesn't leave a little mark.
On your soul.
What happened in Oxville. I remember you guys going to Knoxville and and you know, basing from we were number one every book.
Yeah, I mean we came in and they thought it was going to drop because we thought it would have dropped because the morning show before us had in there for twenty years, legendary station.
It was funny because it was the second time we took over for a show that had been there a long time.
We did going Frankly, the market manager there is insane, and I mean allegedly, yeah, allegedly allegedly told us racist statements. I mean, just not a good person.
The building is full of bad people. There's a few gems, but it's mostly we.
Got called into his office one day.
Also, they were delusional a little bit over there because they still believe it's nineteen eighty five, and they I swear. One day I got called into a meeting, a creative meeting for the bar. There. There's twenty people in this meeting, and I'm going around the room going twenty bucks an hour, thirty bucks an hour, ten bucks an hour. You know, this is a three thousand dollars meeting, and they were trying to Basically, they settled on an American Idol version for this Cotton Eye Joe, which is a bar, and they want it to be like a ten week promotion. I'm like, is there enough talent in Knoxville for a ten week talent search? And the market manager goes us, when Nashville hears the WIVK is doing this, the bands and artists and labels are going to be driving bands over here for this, And I said for three hundred dollars in a YETI cooler.
He was serious.
I mean he meant that, but yeah, it was It was not good. We got called into the office the second week there and he played a sweeper and we had taken one of the first callers that called in and said, you guys are really funny, and he goes, we didn't get that off the air.
We're like wine. He goes, that's disrespectful to the previous morning show.
Oh wow, it was crazy. Do you have a relationship with the previous morning show? Why was He said that you just can't change anything. Everything has to be right.
I've never seen a building more afraid of change. And when we were even in San Diego years ago, we'd see them always showup number one of the ratings with these crazy numbers and we're like, man, that must be a killer radio station. And we realized no. Once we got there, we heard the stories. The dude who owned it back then just bought everybody off. He just if you tried to go up against him, he just paid you money not to. So they were the only game in town. So that's how they built those numbers. And then they wanted to live off those numbers and live off that legacy in current times and it just you can't do that. But they get away with it to a point because it's not a super competitive market.
You know, how long were you there?
Five horrible years?
Five years?
Yeah?
Wow, I didn't realize it was that long.
Yeah, five years of my life. I'll never get back.
Walk me through. What time do you wake up? Now? Walk me through a day for you guys. Now, I'm a night though. I mean, I am me too, man, I am completely me too, And I.
Get to live that life now. It was fantastic. So I go to bed midnight or one during the weeks.
That's awesome, it is.
It kicks ass. I'm like, I'm finally getting to be my true self.
It took me a while to get adjusted to not going to bed at eight o'clock or whatever, get up at two in the morning or three in the morning. But I go to bed about eleven eleven thirty now and get up at six in the morning to a workout, get some stuff done. It's I gotta say, I look younger, I feel younger. It's amazing what rest will do for you.
Yeah, sleep is nice. Yeah. My wife works.
She's in a corporate world as a senior payroll manager for Phillips North America. Excuse me, So she has a real job and you know, and she worked for Williams and Noman for many years before that, but she worked remotely for them because she came from San Francisco to live with me in Nashville.
And so now.
She's you know, she's kind of she's been spoiled by that. She used to go in the office a couple of days a week now and it's like, oh man, but I'm home. I get up, you know, I usually get it when she gets up because we have three dogs and we have some backyard chickens, and everything's got to be taken care of, you know.
So I'm the house husband right now.
Just do you guys live close to here?
I used to go part of the street. I live in East Nashville right now, do but I used to live right over the old side. Agree.
He looks like an East Nashville guy does.
It's a little hipsterside there.
Even when I watch him on TikTok this Billboard song number one, and his hair is like perfectly like it's.
Like this crazy. My my haircut was scheduled for tomorrow and I was like, ah, but.
It's like the hipster blonde grayish cool color. It's awesome.
Do you find that you get this too, because it annoys me because he puts all this work into it, and I'll look at the comments in the first comment is just to dig a him, like who's the creep with the hair?
The comments on kind of my favorite that these are funny though, because I'm like, this person is clearly just trying to be an asshole, and I'm down with that because I'm the same way.
But I'm not a troll.
You know, you guys, when you are doing content, now, how often do you get together to do that?
It depends really, right, we wed the story the radio stories thing we're doing now, we get together about once a month and knock out just a bunch of stories and then he does his that music minute.
Yeah, that work is kind of like we scheduled our radio staff.
We knew if we're going to be doing this, let's get as much of that part done early, and then the contents just sitting there and we can go back and so we mean, I think we record thirty.
Or forty of those radio stories at a time. Really, I take them home and then I.
Go I just and it's they're super easy to add it. I put them together and stick them.
Up and we set there and go, well, we don't have any stories, and then we'll either look through some old archives of interviews and go, oh, remember what we learned from that or what happened there. And then now we got people calling us going, hey, have you told the Oh no, I forgot about that.
Yeah, I mean they're just it's you know, thirty years is a long time, a lot of stories, and we drank a lot heavier back than we do now. So some of the stories you have to have somebody remind you that you did something and go, oh, that was pretty funny. I wish I remembered it.
Do you think that you have you thought about doing like a long form podcast?
When we started doing the digital stuff, we we began that way, and we did it exclusively on videos. We went we wanted to make YouTube kind of our thing, and it was slow going, but it built a little bit and we and we got into that three and four thousand subscriber range, which you know, starting from scratch, two guys in their fifties for as we were sure.
We were happy with that.
But uh, and then it's funny how one viral thing I did one of my Billboard stories on Sheriff when I'm.
With You, and it went viral.
Waituh, Sheriff when I'm with You one hit wonders, how does it get it?
You know, no, I don't know. That was okay, yeah, to look it up. It's a great story.
I don't want to tell you yet. Now.
As about the song, the song not like him, but he's got a crazy high give me the melody. Well, the chorus is a big course. He comes up with this really high voice. Baby, I get chills when with you whoa.
And at the end of cheese at it's but at the end of it he was just note. That's like he holds it forever for a while. It was the Guinness World Record for the longest note.
And I found out researching that story he only did it because he didn't know the song was over, Like nobody told him to cut, so he just hit.
The note and just kept going.
That's funny.
It was like Bugs Bunny and that cartoon.
I love that way.
I love that way it goes. It makes the sandwich and gloves still doing it that.
You know that blew up And so now you know, almost fourteen thousand subscriber one story, and there's one sixty second short of them, and it's a million people next thing, you.
Know, I'm annoyed. But what he can also sing?
I mean good looking, it's so dumb. I mean yeah, yeah, hawk too.
It's hilarious that happened here.
I know. Yeah, and I'm I'm there for a father, Oh my god. And then see I think it's hilarious.
My daughter, Oh my god. I don't ever see something like that, just that poor dad right now. And I just saw a thing that she made, like sixty five thousand and signing merchandise she.
Was in hiding for a while. The weirdest thing to go really viral. But also that sucks.
Yeah, oh it's sometimes and it's also awful. That's the one thing that united our nation.
Yeah.
True.
They will take anything for a little piece.
I'll take it. Man.
Let's see this song. And we found workarounds to play music on podcasts because it's I legal. We just played from our phone, blow to the microphone.
If it's ambient noise.
Yeah, the good to know.
Yeah.
Well, I'm not saying don't take my legal. Yeah, I'm just saying it happened. You can't really play it on demand because that's the big fight here, so we play a little bit. I don't think I know that.
I don't know it either.
It's a one hit wonder. What's crazy? Is this guy? Freddy King's last name Percy. He is.
He has the distinction of being the lead singer of two different bands that are one hit wonders.
What's the other band? That's the end of the song.
Alias is the band and the song is more than words can say. It was another late eighties early nineties. We played that at Kicks. It's They basically said, let's make a second when I'm with you.
It's Kicks in the rock station.
Kicks was a rock station. That was the name of the rock station.
Yeah, So that song, they released it and they were really trying to make it and it didn't go anywhere, and so they were like, damn, I guess they will break up. It's not going to work. So they broke up. Years later, I want to say five six years later, some PD said, man, that song, that song deserves a second chance, and he played it and that was I want to say, in Atlanta, and then somebody in Minneapolis said, all right, kt kt W.
Or yeah pop stations.
Yeah, they said, hey, that is a good song. They started playing next thing, you know what kind of takes off nineteen eighty nine.
I think it hit number one for one week, one glorious week.
Wow, and they The singer was working as a courier at the time, and he walked into an office and it was playing on the radio and he goes, that's me, and the girl didn't believe him. He goes, no, I'm telling you that's I sang that song. She goes yeah, sure. He calls the rest of the band says, do you guys want to get back together? We have this heat now we have a song that's number one, and they're like Nahin the other main guy, the guitarist, started a new band.
I guess that's really I can tell you so many bands right now. I wish would not get back together. Yeah, really big in Canada. So he said, all right, well I'm going to go start a different band. Then, so he took the other guys from the band and made Alias. They had that one big hit and they drifted off. You have music nerds, it's like it's like dinner with Casey case It's awesome. So you're managing somebody, Yes, what the what in the world. I tried everything to not do that.
Who is it?
Styles? Is his name?
Styles?
Yes?
Yeah, I wrote I wrote her song with him? Yes, and Harry Random And that's why we're dropping the last name.
But see, that's also why I took the right. I thought it was.
My wife during COVID.
My wife is a songwriter, and she came upstairs from a zoom right and said, I just wrote with someone that I haven't felt this way about having the it factor since Luke and.
I used to write, which Luke Brian she.
Wrote good directions with him?
Oh really?
Yeah it was a billy so yeah, so she's she wrote like, that's crazy.
Was right AROUNDO directions.
Oh yeah, and.
So she uh, she was like, this guy has got it. She goes, I want to write with him again. I was like awesome. So she comes back to me a couple months later and says, would you mind, And I've got three or four artists she's done this with where she's like, would you talk to him and just give them what you think they should do? Because you know, we all know those artists that show up every year with a new demo and they go, what do I need to do now? And you tell them what to do, and then they come to you a year later and ask the same question, and it's like, we haven't done anything we suggested. And so I talked to him and I gave him like I mean, he was kind of all over the place, and I was like, look, Styles, here's the deal. You need to do this, this, this, this and this. And the next morning I get a call and he's like, okay, I did all that last night. I was up till five thirty and then he we just kept talking and eventually he goes, I need you to manage me, and I was like, I don't know how to manage. So I called Keith Gale, I called Clarence Spalding, and I called Enzo. I called every manager I knew, and every one of them are like, you can do this, Go do it. We'll help you. If you need any help, you just call. And I was like, okay. So I went back and said I'm gonna.
Try it, and so spell his name.
Styles, I'm from Alabama. You're asking me to spell yes, that's why did the paper writing that come through.
You're not supposed to ask him to spell anything anything. Education. That's part of the deal. S T. Y l e Yes.
The last name is weird though it's h a u r y.
So it's just styles And how long have you been doing that?
About two years?
And he's a songwriter as an artist too.
Yeah, he wrote country on Luke Bryant. But he's got two Tim grawl holds right now. A Blake Shelton hold, a John Party hold. We feel he's about to pop and we haven't.
That's all the writing, the published, yeah, but what about the singing.
Well, he's got a new album dropping real soon and we're doing a co venture with someone that we haven't announced it yet, but you're very good friends with the person's company.
I'll say that styles p. He's a rapper s t y l e Yes.
So he did lose the last name.
We're working on that right now. That's and it's completely screwed up the distro. So that's the media been in the past two days.
And what's it? Styles? What again?
S h a u r y h.
Hey, he's a big hunter.
Oh my god.
That's Oh that is not what I thought he would look like tough. I just had like British.
We have visions of him, you know, be it selling out like Morgan walling in two years from now. I mean we've built to that point to where like everybody's going this is he's about to pop. And I told my wife, I said, we will live within two miles of his house because when armageddon comes, he'll feed us.
He is a real hunter. I mean he does it all.
He just got the state record for killing the largest moose in Maine with a bow and arrow or a crossbow or something.
Yeah, he's a man's man.
He sounds like a whim to me. I don't hey, I'd hire someone to do that. He was in the background, by the way, he sus Tony's.
I get it.
Tony's attorney hits me up later, Hey, you were playing music.
On the podcast.
Well how about like I've really enjoyed this and I'm super happy you guys said yes, because I just I just ind a message over its like, do you guys want to come over and talk?
I hope your fill in guys when you get ditched on, you just say, hey, come back over here and tell stupid stories.
Well, I was gonna say.
We should in three months or so come do this again, and let's just then.
I also can tell you a menu here's here are twenty stories I have. I think the ones you like that most of them will.
Do we should do something like that. And also, you know, I also see it. I don't have to lead the whole time, which I'm used to doing, which also feels good.
You want us to come interview you, No, no, Barbara Walter, Now we will crush you.
But I think let's let's do it again like three months or so, if you guys are cool. Because I really enjoyed this. It's also fun to just kind of sit back and feel like you're not having.
To there's no pressure here.
Wait. And because it's as you know, if I ever do one, and I do this every week, one I want with somebody. It's just us two. It's exhausting and the best way. I have to listen so intently because I'm usually asking a question based on what they just said. I don't really have a list of questions. I do have the knowledge, hopefully, like I've read enough and understand enough. But it gets to be pretty exhausting, like focusing so hard. It's like going on a road trip where you think, you know, I'm not that I shouldn't be that tired. All I did was dry for seven hours. But you're subconscious, and even your conscious times has to constantly be scanning, looking, watching.
And that's one of the things.
Another thing I loved about our career together is we knew in those moments and those.
Kind of interviews.
I usually, I mean, I'm the straight guy, so I would ask the questions that need to be asked, but he's always.
There to take that levity, and you know, and then we'd go off.
But you knew you had somebody else paying attention, and I knew I was paying attention because he often would be doing this.
To your point though, about having to scan and constantly, you also in a split second have to go that joke's too obvious, that questions too stupid. That's you have to filter everything and know to make yourself elevate above everyone else that does interviews.
You do that bon No, I don't know. I usually let's to go under it.
You know, I want to get to the other side, and I'm happy to go under the bar.
That same market manager were talking about used to give us notes like you know you you missed an obvious joke, and it would.
Be no, no, we didn't miss it.
No. The first thing we thought of, and we were like, if he can think of it, anybody think of anybody?
Wow, your TikTok is uh at Tony and Tony christ Show. Okay, yeah, follow that, thank you? Check out styles?
Oh yeah, thank you for that.
No, yeah, no, for sure styles. How do you say it? Harry Howary?
Just styles?
They're getting read?
Hold on, I hear you. But this is why I say that because right now if you just yeah, I doesn't pop up to stream. So h A U r y but soon forget that. But right now, like the moment.
And throw one in for my wife while we're doing it. Rachel Thibodeaux music.
Okay, thou, why do you always have people with weird spellings? We get?
This is what I do Alabama.
Uxor yeah, like t h I b i o U x x X there's no X.
Really, she's from Minnesota, X from Minnesota.
Give it a loss of that spell MV.
So if I were spelling it out my own t I B, it's not t t h i b okay, that's worse than the AX. I would never have gotten there.
T h I b oh b e au you can't spell. I'm just say my wife would have busted through this door in about two seconds.
The name is Risk and Easy.
Well, thank you guys, really appreciating. Been super fun for me. Eddie. Eddie's only here, if I'm being honest with you. Eddie is my best friend and we do the show together and we we play music together, comedy music bus. Yeah. Well, he was only over here because he wanted my printer to pronounce it's it's honestly, nothing's like I want to go be a part of this interview. He was like, hey, can I use the printer for eBay because I have one of those heat printers. And I was like, yeah, we're doing it. So he just sits down and hops in.
My kids.
My kids sell sports cards, so like I'm going to printed thing out and he's like, hey, I'm doing a podcast.
Yeah sure, I'm leading. You guys are awesome.
Man.
I love the story.
Thank you, and then we'll see you guys. So thanks guys, thank you for pleasure
Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.