BobbycastIn this special episode, Bobby takes you through the top BobbyCast interviews of the year! In Part 2, we're sharing the top 5 episodes. You'll year stories from Koe Wetzel, Granger Smith, Darius Rucker, Zac Brown of Zac Brown Band and Riley Green.
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This is the Bobby Cast.
Welcome back to the ten Best Bobby Cast of twenty twenty four. We're doing the top five this week. If you missed the first part, I counted ten to six. One of them was stone Cold Steve Boston. Go back and listen to that. Let's kick it off with number five now, it's Co Wetzel from episode four forty eight. I was not sure how much we'd have in common, because you know, we like to drink and get in fights and I don't like either one of those things.
But we did. We hit it off. Really liked the guy, cool guy.
I've seen him out now in real life and this is a number five unexpected for me. Here's Co Wetzel from the Best Bobby Cast of the year.
Do you feel that your lyrics are so raw and real?
And I'm gonna talk out this question after I say it to you that sometimes you don't even relate to it more because in a different part of your life, your raw and real lyrics were.
True to you then.
But you've gotten older a bit, You've learned things where you can listen back to be like, man, that's so raw and real, but I don't even relate to that anymore.
Yeah, well it's kind of like the February twenty eighth and stuff, and that's became just blown out of proportion, you know, stuff like that. But I mean, I wrote that song whenever I was twenty two, twenty three years old, and now that I'm thirty one, looking back at it, it's like every night it's like, damn, we gonna sing this song again. But people come to the show for that song, you know, a lot of people come just to hear that song. So, but songs like that, you know, it's Yeah, I've grown up a little bit, and I've gotten a little bit wiser, i'd say, And the songs that I wrote in college and how I was living my life back then are completely different than how I'm living my life now.
So yeah, absolutely, like it's i don't know.
Still raw and real and true to who that was. Absolutely got to be a little weirdo to sing stuff that you don't feel absolutely anymore.
It is you your new record, though? What is it?
When?
Tell me about that? So, what's what's that? And how has that changed?
It's getting into more relationship like more raw and rail about relationships and and uh just life as you know, pretty much from what I just said, from growing up and in the scene and doing that kind of stuff and and uh making that type of music to now what I'm making, you know, and how my life has changed from that.
Any of these songs where they borderline, I don't know if I want to share that much.
I don't know if I want to. I don't know if I feel like saying it right now.
Is there any of that where it's not you listen, You're gonna say it if you feel it, but maybe you're like, maybe the time isn't right now.
Yeah, we held back on all a little bit of it. There was a couple of lines and songs that we had wrote and it was like, we really want to go there, and then we would record them, and then we would come back to them like let's do them for a couple of days, like maybe not, Let's let's hold off on it and just see how everybody takes this kind of newer sound that we're putting out.
And I think that makes you know, less raw and real.
But if there are other things that are so important to the record and that could distract from the things that you feel are the most important. Absolutely understand going maybe it's a time to, you know, admit I love the Pound puppies and have a fetish, you know, because that would be what people would attach to and not the message of the real message of a lot of the body of work. And that's even pretty mature to say that as an answer a question, because a lot of people go like, oh man, we give it to you straight, but you did give it straight.
But there's sometimes that you want the straight, but now you're weird Jesus.
Yeah, wow, what's the what's the weirdest thing about having money?
Oh?
Man, I don't know.
Amazon, probably just get whatever you want quick. Yeah, pretty much. I don't know. I don't know people will. I think people were, I don't know.
It's weird. That's a that's a good question as that before. I paid my phone bill last last week, so I mean, I don't have a ship ton of money, so I still got enough to live on.
Now.
I'm not going to play that game because I'm not saying you're Bill Gates, but yeah, no, success now feels to me.
It's at a level that you haven't had yet.
Your experience, and I went, I was a trailer park kid, right. So when I started to make money is what I didn't have anybody I could talk to about money. And then once I started making a lot of money, I didn't have any talk to about money on this level.
And then I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing with it.
So there were times where I was like, I don't know what to do and it's a weird nobody feel sorry for you.
Oh you got money now.
It's could to be able to take care of like you no family members and stuff like that. You know, Like I was talking last night with a publicist and we were kind of just going over just older things and getting ready for the new record and release and stuff, and we got talking about the house that I grew up in and there's a picture for it, and she was like, is that really is? Like yeah, And I grew up that there was one hundred and acres. My grandparents were about to have a a lot of back taxes on the bank was about to take it. So I'm being able to come in and buy the family of land that's been in our name.
For over one hundred years.
That really really cool.
You know so uh yeah, I mean being able to do stuff like that is really awesome. You know, if if anybody needs something, it's good to be able to, you know, holler at the account and be like yo, yeah.
When people will ask me a similar question, we're like, what's the first thing you did?
I bought my mama trailer and a few acres of land.
We didn't have that, and I wanted to like remove that that fear of her losing it constantly. And for you to be able to do that at home, like that's like the it was like it almost doesn't matter what else happens that and things could be having you get ten planes, but still like that that moment yea relatively.
Everybody, that makes you feel better than damn there anything else. You know that that's you're able to do that, you're financially able to do that, and that people actually give a shit and the and enough in your music and stuff for you know, that's how you got that money.
You know. Do you ever feel a bit of imposter syndrome where you're like, I'm really not as good sometimes as people are, like like you're selling out.
The cod thing all the time, Like yeah, I'm a I'm like, I'm so hard on myself about everything, Like.
Like, what specifically are you hard on yourself about? The people wouldn't even.
Well just a songwrite like songwriting.
Vocally everything, Like I'm a I'm a hard ass on myself. Like, but I grew up like that. My dad was the same way. He was usually hard on me, and nowadays, whenever you know, we talk, he's like, I was the way I was, So you wouldn't you know, have the life that.
I have, you know, I mean boy named suit type almost yeah, legit and uh and you know, I thank him for that. I'm proud that he did that.
And that's how already if I have a son or daughter, so I'm gonna raise them, you know, I'm gonna love him and you know, and and do everything I can for him. But at the same time, so I'm that you know, you know, you gotta keep gotta keep going.
It's not all roses. I'm surprised. I like you really, Yeah, damn you don't like nobody.
I mostly am indifferent. Yeah, there are people I just don't hand their people at. And I thought, I don't know, if I like Coe, like he'll probably be a dude I would probably like him. He's fine, And I didn't think I would dislike you. But I didn't expect to like you because people would have They would be like, oh, hey, co it's some people on my calendar, be like, oh, coach come up to the house, Like yeah, do you know them?
No?
But that's the bad part, Like nobody really knows knows a lot about me. Everything that they know is through social media or the Internet or stories that they've heard, and uh, I don't know.
No.
I like, like I can just like look at you aside from all the performance stuff, and even when you're talking about buying that land, like you can actually like feel like what matters, Like at the core, what matters? You ever write a song and cry because of what you what you wrote?
No.
I got a music video back the other day though, for a new song, and it made me cry.
It was it was crazy what triggered you?
Like what you don't have to say anything you don't want to, but like what about it is?
What made it music?
We shot the music video back in my hometown. It was just like shots of you know, pictures growing up and h my buddy's headstone and video. You know, I always go every time back home, I go, I sit there, I drank a beer with poor beer out for him, and I sit there and it was a shot of that and something clicked and.
I was like, oh, I started kind of yeah.
My buddy were sitting there watching TV, and he was like, what the fuck's wrong, you know, And I was like, oh, bad, dude.
I don't know.
This truly got me and and I sent it to my folks and they were like, it kind of pulls on the hard strains a little bit, you know. And but I don't think I've ever wrote a song cried, sure, drunkenly cried, and just don't remember it.
At number four is Granger Smith from episode four fifty one. Feels like it's basically an hour long therapy session and him talking about some strong I'm talking about losing his sun. I'm talking about why I decided to switch to ministry and much more. I will give a trigger warning because we did talk about a real life moment with some loss. So just to heads up here and if you want to hear the full episode again, it's episode four fifty one, But here is Granger Smith at number four. When you write and not so much like up toward the light, which we can get to. But when you write Like a River, it's very it's extremely at times personal, and you have to re refeel things and sometimes discover things that you didn't feel the first time. Yeah, or at least not fully because it was so painful that you're not you can't take it all in all at once. It's like a fire hose coming at you when you write a book like Like a River, and you have to reexperience some of the things by writing about it or even thinking about if you're going to write about it or not. Difficult was that to kind of travel back through and try to communicate properly because you've had a little distance from it. It still sucks, but now you're not just feeling. You've got to feel it and communicate it and yet still take yourself through it again so you can't communicate it.
When I first was kind of putting together the outline for it, I realized early on this is going to be more than I thought, because the first literally the first chapter is we lose River, and then I've got a bunch of I've got a bunch more chapters and it's all the aftermath, really the book is really the aftermath of losing him. And as I was doing the outline, and this is this chapter, then I'll say this, I'll say this, I'll say this, and I completed it, and I knew there was a piece I was intentionally missing because I just didn't want to go there. And it was the time when I was, you know, almost killed myself, suicide. But the story wasn't complete without it. So at some level I was like, my wife didn't know about it, no one knew about it. It's like it needs to be a chapter because this part doesn't make sense down here without the connector. And the connector was the dark night that I had, and so going there was something and then not only going there, but then I called Amber and I told her, I got to tell you. I literally waited till the book proposal was done and they're going to pitch it to publishers. And the book proposal had a chapter summaries, and as it was going out, I was like, I better call Amber and tell her that's how long I waited. And she cried and then she said, well, you better call your mom. Mom didn't know, and then Mom said you better call your brothers no one knew about this, So it was not only writing it and thinking through it as I was writing it, but then telling the world about the most embarrassing, most vulnerable moment in my life when I almost killed myself.
So if people were to read the book and you didn't put that in, they wouldn't have known it wasn't in. They still would have felt, this is impactful book, this has taught me a lesson.
They wouldn't have known that it was not in.
Yet you put it in because to you, did it not feel like you were being or you were giving the honest version of your thoughts, feelings, emotions about what happened?
Correct?
That was?
That was the hinge.
That was the pivot.
Moment in my trying to fix myself, and then that was the pivot into surrender.
I can't fix my Was that uh, dealing with addiction? Was Was it a mental emotional? Like the bottom for you? Was that the bottom that made you just made you go If I don't go up from here, it's going to be over over And that was it.
I don't know how to better define a bottom, but that's bottom as I've ever been.
Yeah, why did you choose not to commit suicide, like what was in your head?
They says, Okay, I need to fight this.
It's more than an urge. It urge is not the correct word for it. But why did you not do it?
Yeah?
I want to say, I want to tell you without sounding weird, because it kind of gets a little weird. But I'll just describe it the best I can. When I reached this in Boise, Idaho, we were playing back to back shows December of twenty nineteen. And you know, when you play back to back shows, you don't travel in between, so there's kill a lot of time the bus isn't moving. I went with the band and had a few drinks way too many. Was feeling normal again. Went back to the bus six months after losing River, feeling okay, like feeling like a human being again. Went to my back lounge and saw like all my self help books, my little marijuana pin, all the little things that I had done to create a world that to make me feel normal, instantly recognizing things aren't normal. Then I realized, well, this is probably the first time I've been drunk since I've been therapy. All this, I've put all these barriers in place to try to protect me from my slideshow, which is this PTSD idea of I would just see River in the pool, floating face down.
I would pick him up.
His face is purple, his eyes are open, just looking in all directions. His hair's messed up, his limbs are dangling like a rag doll. I'm doing CPR, wondering if I should press harder on his chest or if it might break his bones, and then thinking maybe that's the least of my worries right now, like all these ideas. Then I see the doctor walk in. He tells me no chance. I hear those ambulances screaming down that quiet road. I see my son Lincoln's hand on his brother's lightning me Queen coffin his best friend's funeral. All these things were just haunting me, not just the grief of losing a child, but the shame and the guilt that I was there and failed. All of it was culminating that night, and Boise and I had the most vivid what I called the slide show, just panic attack, crying, couldn't stop it. Hit that weed pin as hard as I could. I was already way too intoxicated, and realizing there was no hope, grabbed the nine melimeters pistol that we had in the drawer, put it in my mouth.
And this is when it gets weird.
I realized that I had I thought, a thought that my mind didn't generate. I knew it was a foreign thought, as if as if there was something else thinking for me or providing information to me. I think that's the best way I could describe it. In that moment, I realized I was not alone. Basically, something else was with me that night, and I heard in the thought was a voice that said, this is the way to rest, This is the way to peace.
Just squeeze the trigger.
And it was realizing that I was under attack the first time. It had never occurred to me in my whole life as a cultural, nominal, religious person. Had never occurred to me. But there was an enemy that I'd been stalked and and it just about killed me that night.
But to realize that there's an enemy at a time when you're realizing button isn't really working, that to separate, to be able to do and go this is not me at a time and again it's a lot of irrational thoughts are happening.
Yeah, And to have the one rational thought.
So the one rational thought caused the next thing to happen. And that's when I said, Jesus, please save me, Please Jesus say that just it was like a knee jerk. It's like an old pulling back on the old Sunday School knee jerk reaction.
But when I.
Said it, the slide show stopped. It's actually stopped. Everything stopped. That weird pain that the voice. There was just enough rest for me to drop the gun, to fold the floor, and I just cried myself asleep on the floor of the bus, saying please Jesus saved me. Because what changed was I went from shame and guilt and panic attack to all of a sudden fear of an enemy that I didn't even know.
I was surrounded by.
The fact that you can have that rational thought in the midst of that storm of complete irrationality. To be able to not do it.
Is the only reason I'm sitting in this chair right now. I would have been another statistic that you read on the show.
I don't really read a lot of those statistics on me that those statics don't make me happy, but uh yeah, to me, that is that is just wild. That again, that is a time where you've obviously at the temporarily lost control, yet you still felt something still got there's still a bit of control that got through.
That. Why it feels crazy is that.
Usually in that situation, I think a lot of people don't have the opportunity to have or find the rational thought.
I don't give myself credit for that because I know this.
No, I don't either.
I know the statistics and I know it's rare.
And that you can even recognize the difference in the two That is so.
I yeah to I would be extremely grateful, and you are, and that I think this is one of the ways that I think I could kind of that shouldn't happen. I don't know how you got a clear thought in your mind went a very non clear thought time, and I do see almost I can feel why that would change fundamentally, right mentally the reason you do what you do right.
You can't be the same person after a night like that.
Hang tight, The Bobby Cast will be right back. Wow, and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
And number three it's Darius Rucker back from episode four fifty four. I can relate to Darius in many ways more than I even knew I could. I want you to listen to this.
You know.
He talked about why he wants to be an amazing dad to his own kids. There's some deep stuff here. Darius Rutger is at number three. Did you ever get the stage of as you're writing it, like, man, I'm so over me, Like, I'm like, nobody cares that much. I mean I went through all Yeah, that's like I was, it's all about me, as writing about me, me me, I'm like, God, nobody cares.
I called Clarence, my manager, and said, dude, why are we doing this? I was like, no one's going to buy this book. Nobody cares about my life. I was like, dude. And then you know, you're you're worried about some of the stuff you're put in. You're like and you're like, am I really gonna put.
That in there?
And then you put it in there? And you're like, nobody's going to care about that? You know, like even even you know, now you know, I've written a book, and I still like, no one's gonna care about.
This same I had the same feeling, and I remember being ashamed not of what I put in it, but ashamed of the potential feelings I could have when people were judging me, and.
So you're, yeah, that's oh my goodness.
So you're you're at the stage now where people and it's it's so different than music though, because you're gonna put out this book and you're gonna be like, all right, I read it for people to tell me and texts like for hour to read a book. Yeah, so you just kind of they it's a slow roll of like people. But there was a part in my first book where my mom was struggling and she was a bad addict, and she had called and I started to make a little bit of money and she was like, if you don't give me money, I love my mom, so I'm gonna say that.
But there was a where she was like, I'm gonna do porn.
And that was really heavy and hard on me, but it was also it made me realize how awful it was for her, and like I knew, but I didn't really like yeah, but when she called and threatened me like I'm going to do porn if you don't send me money, I had that where I was like, I don't know if I should put this in the book, but because of what I had to develop, because so I put it in with the context around it, and I thought people are going to judge me, or people are going But that's the thing when I would go do shows that people would be like, not the exact same story, but very sick. That people would be like, That's what I related to the most. Yeah, And that was the part I felt that I was going to be the judge the most on was that.
Type of stuff, the really personal stuff.
Absolutely so the fact that you have those feelings like I'm proud of you, because then that means you put it out there.
Oh, I put it out there for sure. This is one thing I talk about in the book where I don't see my dad from the time I'm like thirteen or fourteen, twenty eight, fifteen years Nope, not a word.
Never saw his face. Do you know where it was, Yeah, fifteen minutes from my house. You know, he lived right up the road.
And never saw him fifteen years and then let him and hits and things that start getting crazy.
And we're playing.
We're playing out a string of clubs and rooms that we had booked and uh so we're playing in Charleston at the King Street Palace, which used to be Charleston County Hall, and I'm having dinner after sound check and he walks in the room.
Do you know it's him?
Yeah, Dean. Dean knew it was him before I say anything, like Diana, Yeah, Deana Bases. We're sitting there eating and Dean looks up and goes, oh, I mean he just looked at me. Oh that's gotta be your daddy. Looks just like it's like it is. And he walks over and he talks to me and acts like really, acts like you know. We saw each other yesterday, and I decided I'm gonna be the bigger man. And I was like, you know, cause really you have so many conflicting things. I'm like, am I gonna just blow this golf? I'm gonna tell him, what are you doing here? I haven't seen you in fifteen years? You know, get away? No, I said, all right, I decided I was going to be the bigger man. Try to develop some kind of relationship with him. So we talked for a little while and I give him my phone number. This before cell phones. I give my phone number and go on the road for a couple of days and I get back to my house and I check my answer machine and he's on my answer machine. And the first message he left me in my whole life, I haven't talked to him for fifteen years. He asked me for fifty thousand dollars. It was shocking. I was like, are you kidding me? And painful and expecting me to give it to him?
Yeah, And here you are, hopefully investing yourself back into something.
Yeah.
And the first that's I like, that hurt to my heart because that's just that's so painful.
And I can.
Understand being mad and like I can't believe it, but also big time because that's your freaking dad.
Yeah, and maybe and you know, and when he came, I'll never forget, like reading bread it back of course, like we were talking about it hurts, you know, therapeutic, and I'll never forget after him coming and us going on the road, how I just felt like.
Okay, cool, now, Dad and I we're going to have a relationship.
We'll try to have some kind of salvage something for father and son relationship out of this. And that was the first thing he asked. He asked me, and I don't think we've ever really had a conversation after that.
Is he still alive?
No, he died a few years ago.
Did you go to the funeral?
I did? Sat in the back.
I often thought if I wonder if I could go to my real dad's funeral. He you know, he left when I was six or whatever.
Sat in the back, didn't take my kids or anything.
Wow, and uh, what was that like for you?
It was amazing to me because.
I'm sitting in the back and all these people are getting up and speaking and talking about how great this guy is, and I'm going, well, he was great to everybody else but me obviously, which is absolutely amazing.
Why do you think that he was estranged from you?
I think he had so many kids around town that I was another headache. And I never complained, and my mom never complained. So you're not complaining, you know, Oh I don't really care.
Squeaky will.
Yeah, that Squeak was up, so I'm not gonna come. See you're not complaining.
It also sucks he was so close.
That's the thing that bothers me so much. I can't imagine as a father. I can't imagine my kid living five minutes fifteen minutes. For me, I literally lived fifteen minutes from him and not seeing them for fifteen years.
I can't imagine that.
You and I had a conversation and the last couple of months or so, and I was talking about my fears of being a father, and you were very upfront and direct, and I was like, I'm scared be a dad because I don't have a model.
My dad sucked.
I don't want to be that.
I feel like there could be that inside of me, just because it was inside of him.
And you were like nope.
And then you used you as an example, which is the best example, because it's not you going why this guy didn't have a dad and now look at him?
But you were like nope, look at me. And you talked about the love you have for your kids.
Yeah, what is that?
You can't explain a feeling, but explain a feeling.
I always say that my kids know where I am twenty four hours a day, can get in touch me twenty four hours of day. If my phone cell phone rings, they don't get me, there's somebody in my camp that will find me. And that is because of my whole life. I never knew where he was and my love for my kids. That's why I can't understand, you know, dads like our dads. I just don't understand how you can walk away from a kid like that. Because my love for my kids, you know, unconditional, no matter what, I'm going to be there for them and be supporting them. And I mean I feel I think I feel stronger because I didn't have a dad, because I didn't have this.
Because you came out on the other side with all the tools in the strength. Yes, I bet you wouldn't wish that on your on your on a kid, No.
Way, no way. I wouldn't wish, especially a male kid. I wouldn't wish a female you know, female kid too. But like a boy growing up without a dad.
How did you do son, male things without a dad there to teach you those things?
Well? Usually I didn't unless but I got lucky.
You.
I have.
Five guys who I grew up with, who I've known, like four of them I've known since I was like six months. We grew up in the same neighborhood, and their dads were great to me. Like I told, I told this great story. And it's another moment where I'm reading, I'm reading, you know, doing the audiobook, and I get choked up. And I'm telling the story about UH losing the championship game in our ten year old football league, and you know, it was a great season.
We should have won it.
And the last, our last game, we're all sitting we lost, and we're sitting there and everybody's upset, and the coach goes, well, you know, we'll see you. We'll see everybody of the week at our father son dinner and you know, I couldn't say anything. I didn't want to say anything there, but I'm thinking, you won't see me, you know. And the day of that dinner, David David Campbell's my one of my best friends name Squirt, one of my best friends in the world, and his dad, I'm sitting just sitting in my room doing nothing, you know, about thirty minutes for the things supposed to start. I know I'm not going. I haven't even really mentioned it to my mom. And mister camber On he knew because he's a coach, you know, on the on the park and Uh knock at the door and I answered the door and he's standing there in a suit and tie and he's like.
Let's go, Like, where are we going?
He's going we're going to dinner, you know, and he took time away from his kids to take me to that dinner.
And that's something I've never forgotten.
Yeah, that's like, uh making me cry here.
No, I'm feeling the same way too, because again, without like my best friend's dad, I would have never gone on a vacation. Yeah, Like there were a lot of things that he didn't have to do, and I look back and like, why would he do.
Why would he do that?
Like my other best friend, Rick Johanna is his dad. My love of golf, you know, the you know the real reason I went to college because he wasn't gonna let me not go. And it was just those men realized I didn't have a man in my life and took it upon themselves.
To be that.
And number two is the lead singer of Zach band Zack Brown. He stopped by.
I talked about playing bars for years, playing Chicken Fried for ten years in a bar basically, and why it took years and years and years to finish one of their biggest songs. From episode four fifty six. Here is Zack Brown at number two.
I think as a kid, just being super creative, like I would make stuff in class out of you know, construction paper and pipe cleaners and stuff. I'd make like little weird grappling hooks and tear up the corner of the carpet and make a rope for it, and like, I don't know, I was always making things, So it's natural as my progression. And I always love to see anyone that's really amazing at doing something, somebody that's like the leather worker that I have, rom Oonne, he's unbelievable. So for Louis Vuitton for twenty years, he's when he crafts something out of leather, it's like it's perfect, you know.
And finding people like.
That that are so good at what they do and they have this level of passion that drives them to be that kind of excellent, I wanted to like provide a space for them to do what they do, just like what do you need? What tools do you need? To do this on a bigger level, so we can make things and sell them pay for your salary, but also be able to make things very bespoke things for people, or make things, you know, like my plane, the whole interior my plane, ramone handmade every piece of the plane, all the chairs, the panels, ceiling, the bathroom, every everything in it. So I've always been really attracted to people that are really amazing at something. And then what I'm at is being a pragmatic person and going, Okay, if I just give this person every tool that they need in the space and freedom to do it, what can they create?
Do you expect the same thing whenever it comes to you and your music? You want them to give you every resource to let you do your perfection?
Yeah? Absolutely, And my band is extraordinary.
I'm at like a record label or at whomever, because you you know, they have to fund things. It's not you know, there's reasons find with the label. Do you expect them to give you the same liberty that you give your creatives?
For sure?
And you know, I think if you're going to work with the label, they have to trust you as the artist. You know, I don't have A and R coming in to tell me what kind of songs to write and what it needs to sound like and be like.
And stuff like that. Like, I create what I create, and.
If they like it, then they're gonna you know, support it, and they'll listen through everything that we made and say this might be the best one for this and being able to kind of trust your team with that. But it's very important to me. I've been fanatically rebellious since I was a child, to where I someone tries to tell me what I should be, how I should act, to what I should I didn't get a record deal for ten years because people came in and we're like, Okay, we're gonna get you a cowboy hat and some boots and we're gonna put you up. And that was the end of the conversation for me because I knew who I was and I was brave enough to say that's not who I am. And I remember one time we were selling out like five six thousand seats at places before we had a record deal. I mean we played every night. I had to create a business model. So I would go to bars, sports bars. They didn't have a lot of music, and I'd say, I'm gonna play here every Friday night. I'm gonna come set up and all I want is the door, give me a tab, give me some food or whatever, you know, give me a couple hundred bucks in a tab for me in mist in Georgia, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. So my first ten years of touring, I did that, and I played house gigs at the same place every the same night of the week for ten years. But after a little bit of time, on a Wednesday night at as Sidelines in Kinnesau, we'd have three hundred people come in pay a door charge, and I'd make, you know, twelve hundred bucks at the door, and then they're stoked. Because if I've owned restaurants too, so you lose your ass in a restaurant Monday through Thursday, Friday Saturdays.
You make up for the rest of the whole week.
But making a business, making a night of business for somebody on a Wednesday, that's like a Friday Saturday, is like a gold mine.
That's that's but I would show up and play.
We'd play four hours a night, and we'd set up I mean, at first it was six hours a night we'd play, but we created a business model. And if I had been in Nashville here trying to go hunt a gig for sixty bucks a night, you know, hustling like that. There's a lot of people, there's so many incredible players and things around here, but it's so saturated it there's not a business that we created a business model. So we would play those places every single week and we'd bring in tons of people, and that's how I could test my songs that I was writing. I would know I'd play it out like I was playing Chicken Fried in bars for years before we put.
It on an album.
But I knew after playing that in front of three hundred people a night on a Wednesday in a sports bar that it would work. I could tell by the reaction of what the people were doing. So they were the litmus test of like what's working and what's not. So six nights a week for ten years, bro just grinding my ass off, sleeping against the window of a truck, you know, hired a dude to drive me and pull my you know, covered trailer around with our shits on sticks in it and our PA.
System and.
Doing that. So I didn't know how other people did it. I didn't know there were rules or how it works or anything like that. So it was always interesting to me when I come to Nashville and the way people write songs and I was writing just you know, late at night, up after the shows that somebody's random living room, you know. So I didn't know that people sit and write like they'll take four sessions a day and come in to write and do things. So I never knew the way business should work or how it should work. All I knew was I'm just playing and I was cutting my teeth. And it gave me the best like resilience, and it also gave me this incredible appreciation for every single person. Sometimes the dude cleaning up the bar was the only person that was listening to me. And so my connection to people, to I don't know, this is not a derogatory thing, but like to common people, being out there with people. So I learned to love all kinds of people of all different abilities because you never know how. And I can still go in the back in the kitchen and Dixie Tavern right now and see Fernando, the guy that was always cooking in the back of the kitchen, and give him a hug and hang out with him because that was my family back then.
Yeah, I don't think it's a derogatory term if you're also one of them.
I am absolutely one of the people, and.
I don't think it. Man, what take this that if you're like common people. But if it's like if I were to call somebody hillbilly. That's okay. I come from freaking Mountaine, Arkansas, so I can do that. But if somebody from it's not a hillbilly for sure calls me hillbilly.
But you have this weird.
Stew of of perfectionist.
And creative.
Those don't often go together. What's what's the tug on that? And who wins? Because again, the creative and the perfectionist that doesn't mix well a lot of the times.
Man, you know, I got a tattoo of Teddy Roosevelt on my on my left arm.
I think.
The people who go do the deeds, who actually do the things and show up and aren't afraid to fail.
So like the arena is what you're talking about, man in the arena.
Yeah, So every I come back to that every time I hear some failed New York some got some author or writer in New York that writes something derogatory about my album when he had a failed band and just the only way he found a job was to write and you know.
Critique other people's music. I go back to that.
Speech to the man in the arena, to Teddy, but I wasn't afraid to fail, and that's that's the thing.
I just you have to.
I think perseverance is the most extraordinary thing that we can possibly have, because if you're willing to put in the work and grind and hustle and in an artist, talent comes pretty cheap.
You can find talent to people all day long.
But the people that have the grit to persevere and fucking get out and grind and like get on the horse and hear a thousand people tell them that you can't do this and don't give a shit and just do it anyway, and just fucking keep going, keep going, keep going, because you don't start great.
You start where you are and you work.
On it, and the more hours you do it, the more great you become, and the more hours like so, I think that that resilience for me and getting to I didn't know where I was going.
I just knew I wasn't gonna stop.
But when you're creating, it could be then or now versus when you want it to be exactly right, you're not going to put where does that fall? At some point you've got to have a point where I'm just I just got to put it down and stop spending all this time worrying if it's perfect, or the other way where it's like, man, I am not putting anything out until it's exactly right.
Yeah, I've said on lyrics to songs like Goodbye in Our Eyes as an example, we have a song. It took ten years to find the bridge for that song because I knew it was great, but I wouldn't compromise and just put some lines in that rhyme.
So if you.
If you like the people that you're writing with and you're creating with, which is a big thing for me now I've just started writing with this guy in the last year that I just love in every two or three hours, another great song pops out, And so when you can find the energy and synergy around that, when you don't, I just thought it for ten years, though, have you had it, you'd have the bridge. I had it, but I knew that I didn't have it yet. It just wasn't there. But I hear songs on the radio all the time that I'm like, they're just making that shit rhyme, Like if you care about every line of the song, if a song is your baby, it's like the to me, songwriting is like the last like real American form of poetry and trying to you know, and some songs are are this poetic, amazing thing that's like, you know, based on family or relationships or whatever. Some of them you right to just be absurd and to have fun. So it depends on what you're going for. But if you're looking, if you're looking for that poetry and you're seeking it out and you're trying to find the best line, I mean the genius in songs for me, like simple songs like Willie Nelson was a genius songwriter because he could say something so simple and you could any layman person could listen to it and go, that's great. But if you listen to how perfectly simple that it was, there's genius in how you do that, like boiling it down to something so simple.
The Bobby Cast will be right back. Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.
We've made it to the number one Bobby Cast of twenty twenty four according to your likes and your interactions and your engagement, and it is Riley Green from episode four thirty eight, one of the most downloaded, one of the most streamed of all of our episodes from the year Everybody Loves Him but we talked about creativity, We talked about him hunting, we talked about him almost not recording the song I Wish Grandpa's Never died. In this clip, he shares what makes him nervous about his career again. You can listen to the whole episode. It's four thirty eight, but here's our number one. It's Riley Green. If I were to ask your coach from back then today, if I were to see him, like, what kind of work ethic did Riley have?
I don't know.
I think that I was always very mindful that I wasn't the best. So I think maybe because of that, I tried to outwork people in some ways. I think that that definitely carried over into my music career, is being very mindful that there were things that I wasn't as good as other people at, but.
I was always.
I was always very I had a lot in my head about what other people thought, being like my dad or my grandparents or whoever. It was coming to my games and growing up in a small town. I always say, you're very much abled accountable for how you do anything, how you treat people, how you drive down the street. You know, if you cut off somebody's grandmother. You're going to see their aunt and one Dixie and they're gonna you know, so like that. To me, the small town made me want to be a hard worker in sports and in writing music and you know, building houses for a living. That's how you get work as your reputation, you know. I think that that's where I got a lot of that.
Do you get any sort of flak for how old are you know, thirty five or six? I got married a couple of years ago, but I was thirty nine when I got married, and everybody back home was like, you're broken or gay because you're not married? Is everybody where I was from was you got married at nineteen twenty?
I mean not you.
Oh yeah, no, everybody's parents and yeah, they were convinced the thing that I was off, like like it intellectually or that I just they were like, it's okay if you're gay.
I'm like, I'm like gay, and if I was, I would tell you.
But I've been called a lot of things.
But it's like I was thirty nine and you're thirty five.
Yeah, I think that now it's probably it.
At least everybody that knows me personally has seen what my lifestyle is like in the sense of how much I'm gone.
I mean, I don't have regular relationships with my.
Friends, But what about it at home?
Are they like Riley, well, you know, well you're not married, because at home they don't see probably what your travel life.
My mom didn't sue my travel life was.
Like, yeah my mom. My mom has my calendar.
Oh yeah, my mom has been really great about that. It's like maybe early on, I'm sure she had a little bit of that and was worried about me.
You know, finding somebody whatever.
But now I think she just knows that this is such a timely point in my career. I've obviously been very blessed and I have accomplished things I never thought I would, But there's also a lot of.
Opportunity that comes with that.
And I just kind of had in my head when I was going to sign a record deal to just put my nose down and grind it out and do everything they asked me to do anything I could for a couple of years, which that stretched into five now. But I think they get that, and I don't see a lot of pressure. I think that my lifestyle is going to have to change to where I go from playing you know, one hundred and twenty shows a year to sixty.
But what's going to make that happen?
Though?
Oh, what's what's a fact?
That's a great question because I because it's you know, as you well know, it's up to me.
Yep.
I mean I could turn down anything I want to. Uh, I don't know.
I hope it's just something clicks and we get to a place where I can say, this is the budget for the year, this.
Is how many shows we can go do it.
I'm happy with making this much and this is the career I'm going to have from this.
Uh.
And maybe that's from you know, a lot of opportunities not being available that are right now. I don't know, it's it's a probably one of the more scary things about it is knowing that with this type of travel schedule and lifestyle, I don't really have much chance of beating somebody, and how much things are gonna have to slow down for me to get to that place.
You know.
It's also a momentum based industry very much.
It's such a battle to stay relevant right probably now more than ever because of all the avenues of new music and a new artists discovery or whatever that is.
So it feels like if you let up up by letting something else in, regardless of what it is, if it's you want to go away for three months to hunt, or if you want to have a serious relationship, Like He's like, well, if I have dedicated this is the struggle that I went through. If I dedicate my time to this, then this is going to suffer. And so I was never going to get married just I was just like, you know what, I'm never gonna have time for it because I also I feel like I am I have a huge imposter syndrome, and like, if I don't keep going, I'm never going to get back to this level. And then I met my wife and it was like she kind of boss me out of it, and for the first time ever, I let her because I was happy that I met a person that as much as I was annoyed by it, I was more annoyed by the fact that maybe she wouldn't be there. And it was the only time and I dated, But I mean it was you know, I'd had my move to Nashville. Holy crap, I never got girls, and I got all the girls at once. That it was so it was wild, and then it was but this is weird. And then I was like, I'm never getting married.
Who cares?
And then I met my wife and I was like, man, I really don't want to slow down. But worse than that, I don't want to like lose her. That's whomever I don't even know. You're you're you never married, right, never married? No, you're not gonna ever go. I only want to make this much money this year.
Yeah, I just uh, you know, it's a really funny thing to say, probably to my buddies back home from the outside looking in, because they're like, oh, man, rather meet some but where do you really meet a girl at?
You know, I mean, where do you get to invest time in a human exactly?
Yeah? Yeah.
And and you know, social media is probably whereas some people would use that to meet people, it's the opposite for me because how do you really use that, you know, with what I do for a living. So it's it's an interesting thing. Like I said, I've uh, I mean.
I used it, but it wasn't for good Yeah, Like I used it, but it.
Wasn't for meeting somebody to marry, right, It wasn't like long term investing. The girls I've met on Instagram probably watched wrestling, and their mom probably let them watch wrestling, so it would never work, or they were wrestlers. Uh, but no, I've I've had a couple of years we've said, man, let's take off November and and and let me, you know, go hunt, just kind of disconnect and write whatever. And we've never taken one off. So it'll it'll it'll be that. I think that I've I've guaranteed myself a career that's.
More than I've ever thought I would have.
Uh.
But at the same time, there's just so much opportunity, and I think the only thing that makes me nervous about my career is not making the absolute most of it, you know, not getting every opportunity that I can.
And but you're never gonna get every opportunity can You're never gonna be able to get to every opportunity I had to. I don't know if you if you go to therapy at all, but god, dang, I thought this was I know that's.
What I think. It's probably what this is. They because I.
Go to like I have, we go to a couple's counselor and I go to my own and he was like, because I was, I would say that. And I'm a little older than you, so I would be like, if I don't take advantage of everything, and he's like, you'll never be able to take advantage of everything, it doesn't matter. You're you're running on a hamster wheel that you can never get to go fast enough to actually matter.
Yeah, I think that it's little bit of an overthinking type thing. I will say, I'm mindful that there's nothing that I feel like I'm gonna miss if that makes sense, Like, if my career panned out right now and it is what it is, I can go play shows for the next fifteen years. I would still be very excited about that. So it's not like I'm gonna be leaving something on the table. I just know there's an opportunity right now. And it's almost like, I'm sure you were the same way. When I'm sitting around, I'm thinking, man, what could I be doing nothing?
That's pretty tough to explain to a girl.
Let's say you've gone on a couple of days with and she wants to know why you have a day off and you want to go right or you want to go do this or that, you know, and for me it was hunting. That was a really hard thing to explain, Like why would you want to go sit in the woods by yourself after being on the road for eighty days this year And I haven't found the answer to that.
You'll get kicked in the nights by a girl and she won't care that much about you, and it'll it'll like maybe two kicks on the nights.
And then so my grandmother, little Jeane tells me all the time, I'll meet a girl that will care less.
Than me, and I never believed it.
I was like, this is old old wives tell if you stop trying, then you'll find it.
And I was like, that's whatever. I'm just never gonna get married. I'm gona work. I'm be king dingling to work, and it's it happened.
And I still am like, really, so that's what that's what i'm'd be And now I'm gonna laugh too.
It's gonna be awesome.
Yeah.
Well, I mean to your point, I think maybe if you met somebody in your early twenties or me, I wouldn't be where I am.
So absolutely if i'd have knocked up some check at twenty three years old, some random and trust me, don't go and a sext me anyway.
So it didn't happen like twice. But and I don't mean almost knocking someone up. I mean anybody having.
Sex with me.
But it'd all been different, Everything would have all been different. And so I'm glad I was a complete loser. You don't have to agree with that because you weren't.
That's okay.
You're cool, you're a big athlete, you play guitar with the grand grandpa.
That's cool.
A lot how many kids aren't either, So that's what I'm saying.
But I'm going through an agree there.
I'm going through the kids thing now that you're going through with the relationship part, where it's like I don't and with kids, I'm.
Like, if I have a kid, I can't, I can't. I gotta get off the road. I can't go shoot my sports show. I can't go. But it's the same cycle over and over.
A kiss thing, which is is probably a backer's way to think about it, because you should probably look at the girl the same way as the kid. But I wouldn't want to have a kid right now. I mean not that I don't want children. It's just that I know how gone I'm gonna have to tell Abs and I would have to be and you know, I mean, I would want to be able to have awhat normal.
Never gonna happen, you know, with you? But what's normal? There's no normal? And there you have it.
The top ten Bobby Cast of twenty twenty four. Next week a new episode and if there's anyone you would like us to have on the show, just hit us with the DM on Instagram at the Bobby Cast. Thanks, have a happy new year. We'll see you guys in twenty twenty five.
Thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.
