This week Reid and Dan Isbell host hit songwriter, Rob Hatch, out in God's Country. Rob has co-penned several songs you love including "I Don't Dance" and "If Heaven Wasn't So Far Away". The guys cover all things deer season prep, dad life, and songwriting in this week's episode. Rob shares some epic stories about the "Traler Park" boys he's come up in town with, and where they've drawn inspiration from over the years. He explains why he's currently mad at Black Angus cattle and shockingly Dan isn't mad at anything this week!
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What's Up.
You're off in God's Country with three and Dan As was also known as the Brothers Hunt, where we take a weekly drive to the intersection of the country and music and the great outdoors.
You're my asthma.
Wheezy going to do two things they go together, like the second week in November and being in the deer stand in the Midwest there ain't nothing better or.
The suckond wind on the side of a mountain and being from Tennessee. This podcast is brought to you by Meat Eater and i Heeart Podcasts.
One of our favorite dudes in Nashville songwriter, a giant boat hunter. I mean he lives and breathes it, goes out west every year to Illinois and hunts big deer, goes out to Colorado, hunts big up with his bow every year.
Does it by himself.
Been in the biz for a minute, dude.
Yeah, man, just one of the best cats that you'll ever meet.
Yeah, supportive, totally and totally just uh excited about your journey and to help you along with your journey and do not really want anything from you. It's kind of selfless. Cat.
Rob Hatch was out with us in God's Country today. He was a part of a group from about two thousand and one to twenty twelve, thirteen, fourteen fifteen dominant.
Dominated the industry. Like there ain't no telling the number of hits that came from their six group, Guy Trailer Park.
And the beautiful thing is that it was a very organic up uprising, right, Like totally came no tricks, no tricks, no scammy, no money, just talent and good dudes and doing man absolutely and they came up together. It's a pretty cool story. You're going to enjoy hearing that.
Yeap, So check that out. Rob Hatch is with us.
Thank y'all for the support, Thank you for the love, thank you for the followers, thank you for the smashies, thank you for the what's a smashy smashy that follow button?
Oh that's so hip, dude. You know what I'm saying.
Yeah, I'm tiktoky bro. Yeah, cap, I'm pop locky tip tcky.
That's enough.
Thanks for handing out guys country See later, man.
I am so excited, dude, we go back, bro.
I was trying to think, like how we met Rob and was it through was it through Southwest?
I believe it.
I believe it was Abram. Did y'all come up with Abram? It was before that y'all came up with Paul Jenkins.
I can't remember who invited us, Like I was trying to remember who invited us.
I remember the both of you and Megan. I remember the three of you coming up. Meghan Patrick and three of y'all came up to home.
Was there?
Yeah, but we were doing it, I mean before that, yeah, man, like I designed the website.
Yeah, like we were just starting it.
Literally was just been you. I mean you might I think I feel like you might have just maybe me and you ran into each other somewhere or something, and I was like, can't you a big deer song? And He's like, you had to come up? We got this thuny.
I couldn't remember.
We're talking about Southern Illinois Whitetail Connection, the spot in Illinois, Fairfield, Illinois that Rob's a part of, and we had some good This this deer right here actually came from from that spot.
It's my first that's my first ever bow kill with with.
That was a great day.
Man.
I lost my pub I lost my swear so hard. I was canceled days. I never got days with the artist, and I was getting them. I was canceled on Sunday.
Go you saw in the stand with the two of you that story. I told that story a thousand times, trying to tell it like you seeing the monster deer through the woods with the head turning, and tell it.
Well, I was. I mean, I know where I was hunting, but it was, if I'm remembering correctly, a jeep or something had come around the block of woods that I was in and I'd been sitting there forever and to the point where I was like, man, I ain't no dere out here, you know what I mean, I've been there that we spent that much time up there because that was pre kids, so we had like, oh, dude and bro, I spent two way too much time over that. And I hadn't thought about that deer in a minute. But now that you say that, I remember seeing the gray skin saggy like his brisket was like when he was running. You know how you see a dude that's like lost a ton of weight running on the side of the road and have his shirt on and skins like kind of That's exactly what this deer was doing coming through the woods and I was like, I was trying to get to my bowman he was and he was doing and he was like angring his head to not.
And I was like, he said, it sounded like little olle sluggers hitting trees.
Its just popping trees and cracking and going. And I was just like, that's by far the biggest dear I've ever since. Remember that morning I saw two shooters in the same morning.
That's right, And and bro, that's like that's coming from.
It's no bigger than this freaking That was kind.
Of like maybe our introduction to Midwest London.
Woke me up to like the cat that you're y'all's place for sure woke me up to the cow like understanding the caliber of deer up there versus what the entire my entire life. Well, and at that time I was brand new.
Yeah, we were just starting.
I was learning it like you guys were, you know. And I saw your.
Face when you came down from the stand and I'm like, well, I didn't see anything.
You're like some cheep chunky was mudding up on the on the hedge row and I was like, man, this so bitch is rood of my dude, I'm telling you it was. It's it's like, you know, man, when you see that when you go to college for the first time, okay, and that girl comes out and you're like, they do not build them like this is that's different? Is that's different awakening here and I am not worthy of that. Like That's exactly how I felt about that deer when he was coming through that. I was like, oh, man, I mean, I'm gonna try to sling an arrow, but I'm shook.
Okay, here's a question. Now that you had killed a monster deer, what do you score that deer at and you're the only one saw it?
Minimum one ninety minimal? Yeah, minimal, honestly kind of the same, you know what, man? I mean it was it was pretty quick, but I think the deer I saw in Illinois had more mass It was a massier, but it was that same white, like bone white. I mean, do you see a deer with Mega twos and like just megaging twos and you're immediately like, hits you in your guns. But that deer particularly had Mega twos Mega three. When you see that whole thing going on and there's not a whole lot of loss and timely and the mass is just it's it changes thing, it'll shake the most seasoned got it together, huh. And it did me. It put me in a spot where I couldn't even see straight.
And we never and we never killed that deer. We never got him on camera. I mean I land blasted that place with cameras after.
You saw that, I know what I saw, man, And I tell you the other deer that shakes me. Man. You remember in that lodge, there's those two eight points locked up that Yeah, the bro.
That's just Steve's dad fan, granddad fan.
That's right? Or no, that remember the trail camp picture we had of that eight and the same Halloween that Halloween. But do you remember, dude, I mean he looks ill sleep over that Brian.
Roman Roman nose.
Yeah, the mass at the basis was just so Yeah.
That was the first year we'd kind of land blasted cameras and we got to really look at some of those because they had some of them had been shot with cameras on those properties before.
So we got a lot of pit y'all saw all of them.
I mean we were all like, how old is this deer that bottom?
How can you not find that something that big. I mean, yeah, you know, it's like, dude, that's a really good point, especially when everything's cut like we were talking about, like you're talking about I mean, arguably, I don't know what you are to do. Jos deer go with the three eighty do I now? How is that way?
Oh gosh, that not.
What I mean. The real big ones might get that high their mid twies.
Probably, But man, I remember just being like, this is a different this is not like it's it's almost like we were playing high school ball.
It's the big leagues from the rut.
When a lot of them are getting killed, they've lost a lot of weight at said time. So I mean, if you could weigh them, if you killed them in October right at the beginning, you'd be interesting to what they weighed in. We don't kill a lot of big deer early. It's it's yeah November on usually, well they you know, you'll what are your seasons up there? Tell October first, it'll it'll come in right.
But then you tried like everyone's like that, I'm gonna kill them right away.
I'm gonna go ahead of my pattern. I'm gonna go.
Ahead and came over that changed, Well, they could start cutting corn the same time.
Sure, So remember the one behind the camp where I saw I had two one hundred and sixty inch deer together. Still right at the beginning of the season, they were coming four days in a row to the same opening in the gate. Perfect wind. I'm like, I got it. So I slide back there with my boat and I slide up the stand and they do exactly. They come out of cornfield. I'm watching them come out of the corn transition into the woods at twenty yards broadside. Now they came out twenty minutes early, so I can only see the outline of them right, and I probably could have stuck one, but out of the poor I couldn't tell which one was with that's how dark it was. Sure, So I'm like, perfect win, perfect win. Tomorrow I'll let them deer go and tomorrow go back to the camp. Decided not to hunt the morning, hunt somewhere else in the morning, come back the afternoon. Corn was gone. They had skin the whole change with the hole, Well, they just want there. They're not sleeping in the corner transitioning to the woods.
Change immediately.
So you know the beginning of.
The season and and it changes what he plants first to what he cuts first. Sure, so I haven't been able to go, Okay, he's gonna cut this property the first end.
Of the first week of October. Do you feel what those farmers are on like a year as far as year to year are tied to that schedule or do you think it's kind of weather dependent and kind of what's going I.
Think I'm not smart enough to be in the farming business, and I learned to stay out.
Of it, Like I don't I let the far.
I'm gonna be the farming And if he chose to pick or plant at a certain order or time, you just go.
He just he had his reasons for doing it.
He doesn't have to blame me what he did. You know, I can go by the rule of the He'll transition from corn to beans like whatever's gorn one year will be next year.
Every time it is a rule.
He's playing some canola this time and stuff and know what it'll do?
Yeah, what did you do with We have no idea. We'll find out. But it's just a new thing.
They're trying to Crop hunting in the Midwest is something that that this is rob hatchball. No, No, we're gonna yeah, Yeah, we're gonna We're gonna give that.
Yeah, it's gonna be one of those podcasts. Man, this is our boy. We're just gonna hang out to that.
But Midwest hunting like figuring out that and figuring out like how to hunt huge bag and and and the cut schedule and and and and so, oh my goodness. It's it's different than just like in the South, where like you just find a good trail and you put a stand on it and hunt a good wind.
That ain't that ain't the case.
You get a better idea of betting food.
Man. The whole picture just kind of get to watch deer be deer as opposed to like in the South, where it's.
Like everything everything's betting.
Everything's in the acorn flat everything, and everything's covered, I.
Mean right, and they're like said, the deer in the fields like when the crops are there, the deer in the corner that beans, that's where they're.
At and milo they are living in there.
It makes a lot of sense to when you think about it. If they've got water, they've got covered, they've got food.
Right, I mean every field we got has got a pond in the middle of it at some point, so there's water right there.
They're laying in the food. They just don't have to go very far. How big I mean, like I'm trying to remember. I mean those those fields and Kansas are I mean, they're the same size as the fields of Illinois, Like, yeah, a couple of hundred acres, yeah, I acre fields, giant act.
Four hundred to six hundreds probably you.
Know, a block, a lot of.
Cons yeah, I mean, and we got I mean, we are super fortunate to get to look at a lot of property. Yeah, I mean, you know he's playing you know, ten eleven thousand acres.
Yeah, so it's just a lot, and it's all it's not consecutive, it's pieces, man. And we were talking about that a couple of podcasts ago. That that to me, I mean, look, if you have the luxury to do it, I get it. Ground stuff to come by these days, but I had almost rather have instead of one giant continuous which is great, but it's kind of nice to have fantastic multiple things because things going on over here that aren't going over well, you don't.
Drive through people's spot, you don't bust spots like in our case, it is if you pick a stand, you picked a property, so there's nobody else on your.
You picked, you got your own herd right in.
Every property we tried to set up to word, it's our best spot, and you know, so it's like, you know, they all have parking spots on each side, and they all have north and south wind stands, and.
You know, here's wasn't that set up last time? We were like, oh, just be careful about that ditch. But once you you can get across it, just part out there. But you see what reads started. You see here it's a podcast.
Terrible time to bring an app up, but started well, me started talking about ways to put apps and stuff together to not have to have guides, and so we just.
Slipped into the camera.
Everything this is my ask.
You can pause on you too. Everything purple is our property.
So each one is set up to where here's the parking, here's the X, and here's the wind, here's what's you know, corn, here's what's beans, here's what's greens. Here's so just trying to do what we would all do.
And doing that year after year after year.
Man, you know those spots in those places and eventually you kind of know those deer sure, like the back of your hand.
A little bit. We started to learn tricks. You know, Jake's looking watching them all the time, shout out Jake.
Yeah, absolutely, you know.
It's uh, you know, running lots of cameras and staying away from them. Like we've learned to. You know, we don't go in after beginning of August. Like, none of our properties get touched by anything. It's not a tractor, No putting upstands, no putting in other cameras.
No giving them a few couple of months of nothing.
Those deers they'll find it. They'll find whatever's not getting messed with. That's right, as I do. That is absolutely right.
And you know we've said this before, but like because kids kind of made us do that, they made us slow down, even though we did not want to slow down. Sure, honestly, the movement on our properties has been better since we're not just sure hunting the hell of us.
You do a lot of mental hunting, planning and strategy and and how how can I get to this spot in the right wind? How can he not get on me? How can I set it up with every favor in my advantage and him still comfortable.
The dear naturally doing in that moment. Is it pre rush right? Is it post rut? Is it dry? Changes weekly? A lot of rain food plots doing good? Are they dirt and not doing anything?
We like ilinoy. You get a good rain, get it a good rain, a two inch rain. You have to really consider whether you can get to the stamp. Really, you to depend on what it's Is it a load spot? It's spot. You know that punch y'all used to hunt. You went pack load to get to that past.
I remember a couple of people got the early morning Sunday was about thirty degrees.
They dumping in ditches. That waste time coming out frozing like it's flat, it'll be easy to bow everything.
What was that little red you remember that little red Polarius? Yeah, I still got the first model ever made that things maybe was an eight or so read. We're stuffed in that thing driving to that probably like two footballs and it's a monitor and a church saw man. We were like, I was hanging out at the side driving that thing.
Man.
The money gave me that for doing a show.
That's going.
At it.
We got to the point I was like, man, is this youth? I appreciated that.
I can't put my backpack. It was one of their little sport.
Small. Yeah, we were hauling.
Man.
I don't know, as a hunter, if there is a better feeling then getting to about that two thirty spot in the afternoon, when when it's in November and you're gearing up to get ready to go to the stand and driving to that afternoon that is one of the best. And in that polarious man just mind going crazy because out.
There, bro, you never know.
Man, everybody a.
Cod front.
Bro, it is the best dear moving front coming in. Hey.
Man, we've got multi hit song right sixteen, including I Don't Dance by Lee Brice, If Everyone So Far Away by Justin Moore, big deer killing, big bass wrangling man, one of our favorite people in Nashville.
We got robbed and guy, you.
Guys refer to him that man, he's such a a thread in the fabric of our hunting and music and friends and mentorship. And not to make you old, but you really did.
You had some not young, yase you ain't either.
Now that's still ringing my head occasionally, I'm like, yeah, Rob said that, well, I'm really proud of you guys. Man.
Y'all, y'all have just grown and thrived in every way man, and the music and your your home lives and your careers, and I'm just really proud of you guys. I knew you were going to man, y'all were y'all were well on your way. Many see the lis you could see that we couldn't.
That's kind of been the the I feel like the best part of this of God's Country, man, is like the relationships we've had from the beginning of town, where Dude, you don't know what's gonna happen. You're not gonna know if you're gonna be here in five years, you don't know where anybody's gonna be, what anybody's gonna be doing to sit here and and and kind of reminisce on the good, good and bad from everybody's journey in this town, man. This crazy freaking ride that we all do, Like, that's kind of been the most rewarding part of God's Country for us.
It was like America when it works, ain't no doubt, man, ain't no doubt.
Come on, look at that. That got me because that is exactly these thighs. Bro, these chickens.
Way have you lost dude? What are you talking about?
Honestly, dude, I just am not eating ship anymore. I had to, man, I had to choose.
You lost a small child, dude, Yeah, I mean I.
Mean maybe my five or six year old due, it's just a child. Just well, I got two really small.
Not you at five years old, but it lies five years old.
Want me at five years old.
For everybody trying to lose weight out there, if you lose lots of weight, God will give you a two hundred inch year, I guess.
So motivation, it was like, babies bring number ones. Losing weight brings to.
You the way I said, And me and LC we've been going through this together. Man. It's like, bro, we've been eating whatever the hell we wanted probably for forty years. It was time, and you know, you get to a place, man. And when we talked about it last podcast, it seems like there's a common thread and our age folks right now, like hey, man, if I don't clean this up, I'm gonna die.
And that's kind of where I was, and I got I got more to live for right now than I ever have.
You know, when the babies pop, dude, and and uh, you know they ready to hang out and run. Man, you want I want to live for them. Many for a while I didn't. I don't really care their way. It was kind of just like, man, how do I kill big deer and write big songs and eat big hamburgers? You know, that's kind of like all we cared about. And uh, you start trapping it back and you realize that you got other people depending on you for there. And I say this all the time, but it's like Liz Boone and but dude, they didn't. They didn't pit me as their dad. Like, that's what they got and that's my responsibility. I brought them, well, God brought them, but I helped to bring them into this the vessel existence. So like, and let that be a lesson to dads out of there, dude. Like a lot of the people we surround ourselves with are good, solid dads. But there's some dudes out there that need to take some responsibility and put them and stop putting themselves first and put them kids first. Man, It's about them, dude. I mean, you know, we love to hunt. I mean we love it. We eat, sleep and breathe it.
The kids are the most family's the most important thing that's got to be handled first. And when there's time to hunt, we go hunt.
And you know, I remember, I remember some days where he was like, oh, I gotta go, I gotta go. Man. We're like, brother, the front's rolling in tomorrow, and you're like, I know, Dan, yeah, I know.
When we started the club, I had babies, I had I was like, okay, yeah, your's about where. This terrible time for me to get more time.
To get mid West Op Virginity.
You know. So you start going, you narrow it down to Okay, I'm going to take this sixth day here, and I'm going to come for this weekend and for this weekend, and I have to be cool with it because everything's too slam for me to you know, I'm gonna slide up on Thursday when the front comes in. Yeah, you'll miss the kids football.
Game on Friday night. So you just got we no, can't do that. You start going, I can't get this week. Yeah.
So it's just like, okay, please let there be a front next week.
God plet.
Please let me all lose weight like that. Please let it get.
Give me more time we all what you're mad?
Just tell us what it is. What you're mad? Is it you in lost? Kids?
Might be your boss man or your neighbors cat.
Just tell us what you mad.
You got little jingles round here?
Rob next, y'all have a button that just plays.
Y'all talk about that so I don't have to mess it up every time. Ironically, all of our songs sound the same, though.
Bro, I'll tell you what I'm mad at.
It's the style for sure.
I missed another exit this morning. I just talked to Rob and I was like, I'll be there five minutes.
What's up with you miss an exit?
I think it's Siri, man. I think serious. I think Syria needs to be checked on my phone. I think something's going on because even last night we were coming home. We played a gig north of National. Last nights was it dude, is late? Like we didn't start till seven thirty.
It wasn't late. It was now nine thirty.
I'm just saying, I'm asleep, but we're rolling down. We get done rolling down. I call my wife and my Hayes says, forty five minutes. I'll be home at forty five minutes. She's all right rolling down twenty four coming back into Nashville from Hendersonville area, we get to the twenty four to sixty five split. My GPS is like taking just go straight, it's all blue forty five minutes. As soon as the sixty five split goes this way.
All of a sudden, the thing on my truck turns completely red gridlocked, and it.
Says an hour and seven minutes.
I was like, it's like, I was like thirty minutes.
Yeah.
So anyway, this morning, same thing Wedgewood. It's like, go straight. I miss Wedgwood.
Wait, how do you not know to take Wedgewood.
I've always taken Wedgewood, but my I was trying to get here faster this morning because I was late. Anyway, told me go straight. It added like seven minutes my drive anyway, So I had to go around downtown, get up off of on a music Demumbrian, and go come up through Demumbrian right there around the circle. Bro whoever is in charge of doing construction in that part of town, right there across from uh Tin roof and all that stuff, brokes, just stop, man, just stop. Literally, it's been ten years of traffic.
Cones and.
Trucks and green, yes in the vest. Man, he's got job security because it ain't never gonna stop. Man, I'm so I'm so sick of it.
Whatever national's progressing, but like, just let us have clean streets for just a minute, man, just just a minute, dude, I'm.
So sick of it. I'm so sick of it. I'm not mad anything. I'm sorry. I tried going through my head.
Be glad of something.
Uh, I've killed a big deer recently.
Oh god, we all know. We all know my t shirts fitting for well.
Head to the beach, no doubt it.
I've got nothing, Rob pastor, Rob Black angus cows can you won't after that on a hamburger we all learned and up anyway.
You read me so mad?
I'm some mad.
Blew my l hunt, I mean, blew the whole thing for me this year, this year, A couple of weeks ago. Yeah, September.
So yeah, so we're out. I'm in Colorado. It's September, first opening day of September. Second, I guess that time you got on this. I have three days I come in. It's tight, I have three days to hunt.
Do you do this every year?
Because you you do this every year.
Okay, Buddy might even leave on mc clouds to leave by a place called Homestead Ranch, one of those beautiful ranches I've ever seen.
I hunt the park up there, but I stayed with these guys and.
So it's it's early so they're not bugling, so you almost almost spot it's opening day.
They're not bugling.
They're not they start bugling. If I'm estimating twelfth to fifteenth, probably they start talking.
I go on the second it's opening day.
Why are you picking?
You want?
You want first?
Because I'm hunting the park and I don't want to bunch yet, right you want?
It's like it's harder hunt.
It's like turkey hunt when he won't goggle.
Right, Like they're just it's see them and get in position. And because they'll cut them off, they'll come to a calcol but they won't talk to you, so you won't know they're coming, like you need to put eyes on them.
So this is day I flew out, flew out and I'm both hunting.
I I'm with LEVI.
We spot the elk at daylight up on the side of the hill in a bald.
Spot in the aspens right, so there's a clear spot in all those aspens.
We can see that el turning out.
It's just turning now.
So they like meadows like a meadow flies.
Right, it's four hundred yards up the mountain. Like we're looking with.
Spot and scopes from way back. We go to make the move on the elk. We go up the mountain. You know, I'm.
Now, So he's like, come on right. We get up to this bald spot. There is a patch of willows, probably as big as this living room right like, it's ten foot tall. I can't see through it. They can't see me.
So I'm going to get behind that patch of willows. Leela is like, I'm going to be thirty yards below you yards.
We slid up to within one hundred yards of this elk. In this bald spot there's this group of pack of patch of willows I saw up behind the willows is cover.
He drops down twenty yards away. It's gonna calcohol. I found a path like a beat down trail right now. A chance they'll come through this thing if they come home.
Right well, letting in state parks and national parks, they'll do deals and pe can run cattle on them. So there's angus cows running on this wild.
I mean running on the state park because I.
Can see some of these trails. They're going the cattle ranch.
I ain't tell the caw trail.
So I'm standing on him cal trail side this mountain. Else one hundred yards of the side. He's in the edge of the aspens of the side of these willows.
Right, you got eyes on him, LEVI does, I'm behind his willows. I need him to come down to here, which he's feeding out anyway.
Perfect.
I've set there for maybe twenty minutes.
Levi's cow call and let the sit and give him a cow can he'll let it sit. So I hear something coming below me. Now I'm looking this way. I am.
I got to sit, hold my bows. I tell this story.
So I'm like this right, I'm full camoed up. I don't have a face mask on, face painted, don't face mask on, waiting for this elk to come out behind me.
I hear movements.
So I look over my shoulder and three black angus cows are coming up the trail that I'm standing on.
They're just walking.
Now I'm full camos and they can't ain't I'm there at all, So now here's where a cow psychology. This is where I got this where I'm mad at cow because I don't know how to talk cow.
Right.
So I'm looking and I hear they are walking over there. He's gonna he's gonna come. He's coming to leave, by Joe.
He's supposed to.
So I'm looking back at this cow, the.
The cattle, not a cow, right.
But now she's five yards from me. Now she's about by that backpack. She's right there, And I'm decided.
How what do you say to a cow to make them walk away the other way? Okay, let's think about that. Okay, what is your move if a cow? How do you because you're wanting to push the cow back?
Not but not.
I'm not making any I'm not making any harsh.
So here's the three choices that came.
To mine right away. Right away, I decided I can blink.
Okay, I can head not or I can arm way all little movements.
None of them change my bow shot, None of them changed my position.
Nothing right right now, it makes sounds, you just x out sound you're not gonna go hey cow, the elk is right there, I mean sound, it's not an off. Maybe maybe I.
Wasn't smart enough to come up with that time. I get it, you know, I just I mean, and this time, at this point, I let.
The cow get five yards. He's right there, So go ahead.
What would you have done? What would you try?
I mean something like that. I think I would have done little movements, maybe like a if she's not stopping, maybe like a something like something just to get the attention. Let the cow look at me and then make subtle movements to try to nudget.
Is right here.
I think I'm ankles, okay, just to give him like man instead of like eyesight. I think maybe just like But you know what, dude, I'm thinking about that while I'm sitting on the couch after eight hours of sleep. You just hiked up a dang mountain. And I went with the double blink. Okay, I went with the double blink, double blank.
I went with trust me in cow that means run like hell. Do not say double blink if you are ever in said situation. Double blink is the wrong thing. The cow that may get that down out tiles bolts. I hear the elk bolt up.
In the ass.
Leave He's like, yeah, I go, I don't speak town okay, handside, handside, if you could go by, what would you do?
I thought about it over and over a thousand times.
Would I have just stop? What would happen if you just stayed still? I here's the deal.
She's coming up. The trail's faster than the elk is coming down. Have you ever seen so there's going to be an interact. There's going to be an alternation.
Have you ever seen cattle mess with cow like mess with elk like that?
Like if elk bother, I don't think I think anything breaking and running because they're scared.
Of if it's if you would have left the cattle just walk up, there was no way she.
Doesn't come head on too, like like I'm facing away from her, so.
She's gonna run into the trail.
Like even if she had scraped beside me, I would have fell over and she would have both. I mean, there's I was trying to think away she just yeah, maybe I should have done it earlier, when she wasn't five yards. Maybe at twenty yards, I give a hat way.
Maybe she walks then, yeah, sure, but but maybe not.
Because I got a feeling those cows out there are probably a lot wilder that's skiddish.
Yeah, dude, I mean it was just but I but back to the point is I hate black and black cows for a little while, have you loved them?
I hate hate them about I mean because there's like a recent introduction of wolves as that messed with LEVI.
They haven't said so yet. It made in the future, and I didn't talk about it. Honestly, it wasn't. I was in the woods.
I didn't want to talk about wolves. What's a recent introduction up there? They just introduced they heard and I read I'm not sure if this is for sure or not, but one of the wolves had gotten a taste for cattle and they had to actually, uh remove it. Yeah, well remove the.
Wolf?
Yeah, pack, Yeah, really, I've heard was you've heard them.
I've heard them, and I haven't seen I haven't And I mean they could coyotes probably, I mean I don't.
I don't know that I know a wolf from a coyote y, y'all. Never.
No, I've heard that. It's a lot lower.
It's like it's almost like a wean And we were yeah that was that one.
Yeah, We're like we were like pictures and then we're like.
Okay, yeah, and black mace. I don't know if they had in that park. I don't know if they have wolves introduced.
They're not. I'm sure I know Colorado, but I don't know the man.
When did when did that? And how did the elk bug get you?
My father in law took me seven years ago.
Maybe I had taken him to Alaska king salmon fishing, and he had said, Man, I want you to meet this family called the Mclouds. He goes, I want to duck some unlimited raffle twenty five years ago, and went out and of these people and we became great friends. And some of these beautiful places I've ever seen, and so he took me out there.
I don't know. As soon as I hit the mountain, it was as soon as I heard an elk, it was over for me.
I was like, okay, to figure, well, it's it's turkey hunting on steroids four.
Times and you man, you add the mountains, and you.
Add altitude and oxygen and how fast those elk move and how little room.
For messing up. There is a couple of blinks.
Man.
It is the most difficult and the most fun thing. It's very top of my list. I mean it is. I am terrible at it.
I get to hunt if I'm there three days. One of those days I get to hunt with Levi and it's like watching a master class and I'll see three times more animals than I did with me hunting by myself for two days. But just the challenge of it, I just love it. And still I love the assmen, Yeah, I love I love all of it.
Man, it's the one thing. It is the one thing. All the West is magical man hunting anything on the West. It's the one thing that we haven't done that I know as soon as we do it, it's the same thing.
So well, let's fix that problem. It's over.
Like it's it's over for us, because like I love bow hunt anyway, But like I can't imagine, and I've told.
This, but like we were.
I was walking through the Tetons in September one time a few years ago, and there were four herds of elk on either side of me, bugling their ass off, and I was standing there with my pack on and bro the feeling I felt right there.
And I told my wife that's what I told my Why I said, man, I said, it doesn't get any better than this right here. I was like, the only way it does as if I have a bowl on my back and I'm trying to figure out what's going to go after it, and I can't imagine what that feels like.
I'd be fine with a video camera. It's just breath taking and watching those animals move and how they go up and down cliffs, and it's just if there's a difficult spotting the mountain to get.
To, that's where they are.
How big a boy are you? I mean, you know you're planning your attack on I can't get there.
I'm not mad enough to do that. I don't have to find another way around.
I mean, you know it is okay.
I know y'all's hunting schedule stays very full.
Y'all hold second week of septeenth. I'm telling you right now, I lock her down week of September and let me put some things together.
A phone calls and it'll be dude, you'll be ruined. Oh, I know it is.
It's like I said, I'm gonna love of Colorado and I'm gonna love that West, the all of it, learning how to.
Do it, watching people that are really really good at it.
I mean some of the white white tail skills apply the hunting skills in general learning habits.
And I mean I've looked at wind wrong.
You know, in the in the in the you know, in the South, in the Midwest, there's you know, four winds out there.
They're looking at it three D. They're playing thermals, they're playing up and down.
So you know, at this time, the thermals are going down and at exactly nine o'clock the sun's gonna peek and warm that they're gonna shoot up, so you need to be get up by then. And like like it's just a hole they're looking at three D and it blows.
It makes my brain melt.
Yeah, when I'm I can't factor in as many angles as he can.
Yeah, I'm trying. But it's you know, you and I will talk about that in the parking lot before while read was late and uh.
It was there is in construction to stop.
There is no.
Okay, make sure I structure this sentence correctly. It's almost like there's no fast pass two becoming like a woodsman. Correct. I agree, it doesn't. It doesn't exist, and it's it's like an equalizing I don't want to call it a sport, but it's it's it's it's an equalizing activity that you can't just now, look, blind squirrel finds the not dude, I'm not gonna say that they don't. I'm saying, but man, you have to. You have to be in it and be around it and be absor ervant, like you're saying. And nobody can just tell you this stuff. No, right, you gotta shoot your bow, you gotta shoot your musloder so that and it feels stupid at the time when it's ninety eight degrees and there's a boxing out there at fifty yards, but when John Deer's in front of you and you're winded, you want to know that you know how to get that cap in and out of.
Your breach easily well eving things like you think you're quiet in the woods, think you're going slow, and you think you're moving quietly, till you see somebody.
Move slowly quietly. You're like, I'm not doing it.
I'm not flying, I'm super loud style.
Yeah right, It's like, oh yeah, man, there's so many And that's I think that's the thing. You know, you were talking about the challenge of it, and and I know you and I know you enjoy that almost as much as the hunt is the challenge of what you're trying to do. And man, there's just no fast pass to it, like you just have to you have to work through the challenge, and it makes it a whole lot sweeter. On the other side, a lot like writing songs as opposed.
To just walking in Yeah, it's just like it's just like anything else, experience. Experience is the best.
Teacher to learn.
It's like, I learned enough, I mean from going out there and I said seven times, but after this time, I'm like, Okay, I need to start working on a month earlier thought I was in shape. I'm not six eight miles a day on top of those ridges. It's not and me running in my tennis shoes that ain't gonna work. I need running in boots because I'm gonna have blisters on the sides of my heill smoking.
On the mountains and that's a huge So it's not flat terrain.
Yeah, so you jogging on flat terrain, you get on side of the mountains and that the boots don't fit.
The same time, Man, where did your love for the outdoors come from?
Where?
Where did it start?
From my father. I grew up.
My dad hunted and fished, and you know, I grew up in North Florida on a ranch, cattle ranch down there, and outdoors is the only thing to do that.
Sports and outdoors that especially all there was. So I don't remember not being of the woods with my dad. I mean he and we ran dogs.
We did.
It was not still hunting, not bowl hunting. It was rifles and you know, everybody hauling ass around the woods with trucks fulls of dogs and it was a blast. But you know, the being outside is good for my soul. Like I don't know, I'd be really hard to deal with if I didn't get outside.
If it's hell with anybody, I get it me too.
I mean, if I don't have that, I can't if you know, like going to Colorado and going to Illinois and going duck hunting and going dub hunting and getting go bass fishing, those are like the next.
Thing I really look forward to, right totally.
It's like the Okay, we got a month worth of killing ourselves, but we're going fishing three weeks, four weeks from now.
You know, it's the you know, it's where you you know, and it's what we write about. It's totally you know, it's working play for us. How did you That's a great segue into like I kind of I kind of know the story after your group of guys got together, because I can remember riding.
Home, Oh my gosh, man, from you those some of my favorite Those are some of my favorite.
Two and a half ide something like that, three and a half, and I can remember you being like, all right, boys, settle in. Yeah, this is and obviously we can't tell that whole story, but like, dude, I remember you remember we got out of the truck and I felt like I had just like watched a movie or was in a dream and was like, yeah, man, that's one of the most amazing, like well thought out tales I've ever heard in my life. Man, about so many people and so much influence that all happened to pop at the same time. And as well, y'all were very much there.
Yeah I could, like I said, I can smell it on y'all stuff y'all were doing, and you said it.
I say I say this all the time, storry interrupt but you said yeah to us, and look, there's so many people that their entire intention was to get on the train with us, and they would say and do and we didn't even know we were on the train. We even know we were on the train, but there were so many people that would say things and you look back and like, oh, man, that guy was just trying to get a co ride to get to Luke or whatever. And bro, she was so honest and said, hey, man, I've had this run that you're about to have and the next five to ten years of your life are going to be incredible, amazing, And it was and that was it.
There was no it is a cool if I got a co ride. It's just like and you said, hold on.
Your time, and meanwhile we're driving back to our rental house and we're like, man, but as long as keep showing up down and the battle, no, I just appreciate that. And it's so it was so true and I didn't even understand it at the time, but it it's it has been so true.
I've learned. I've not even knowing that I was learning in the time, but I learned how to.
To communicate with in our circle of friends and with our artist buddies like better because of watching you with with Dallas and you with Lee and Jamie and and and Luke and all those cats.
Man that that like your group.
Man, I learned how to and honestly from you and those those rides home like deal with a lot of the ship that we've been through in town since then, and you know, and having no clue and that's man like having no clue that that's going on in that truck when we're driving home, but it coming into practice, you know, five years later.
That's pretty cool.
Man. Well, y'all were just mean. Y'all were well on your way.
Y'all, y'all had the y'all had a great kindred group of brothers who were in it together.
Sure, y'all were all had the same goals.
People were starting to get deals and and and and I had heard your songs really good.
And I really liked you guys.
I mean, y'all have the podcast made y'all. Y'all were so funny together.
You know. It was like I said, we miss you guys being up there. Y'all got to come home definitely.
Will.
Can you walk me through your your first like interaction? How did you bump into all your homies in Nashville? All the My first I was a singer.
I was uh.
I wanted to write songs for other people. So I never planned on playing and singing songs. I just wanted to write for a great singers.
That's my story.
First guy, I met Nashville's guy named Jared Nemon. We lived together for five and a half years. He basically taught me. I knew nothing.
I didn't know what a post deal was and what a record deal was. You just move up to try it, dude.
I had written five songs by myself to try to get score ladies, and I didn't even.
Know it was a thing. I just didn't know it was a job.
We had.
You don't want this whole story, but I had go for some great stuff in there.
So Jared and I lived together five and a half years.
He basically taught me the business. We were out one night and around heard five guys playing what year is this? Sorry? Two thousand and one to three? Probably right in there.
I'd left University of Florida and moved up here quick school, A couple of classes left to UH to UH side.
Business's familiar classic.
MISSI state me those my mom would love it. You know.
In those first three years, we all became buddies with these different guys uh Randy Hauser and Jamie Johnson, Jared Neemon, Lee Brice Dallas, David All I got him Wade Battles. We were all writing songs together all the time.
We ended up getting an office together.
I was bartend at the Wild Horse and Jamis laden sheet Rock and he was starting to get a you know, record interests. We got a little office in u a tower that was the cheap this place on Music Road.
They selling drugs and filming pouring out of there, so.
Nobody wanted to previous if they would have offered boys.
They never served it direct.
So we go to we go to get this little office and we go downstairs the LEAs an agent to sign the agreement, me and Jared Neemon and Jamie Johnson. They said, what y'all want to call the place, and we said, we just put put our names on all six of us, and they go, no, don't have room, queen the.
Elevators, and Jamie said, just call it the trailer park. So the guy goes in there and he writes. The guy can't spell for ship, so he writes down t R A L E R P A R k on the Liason agreement, which is what they put on the door. Traider Park spelled wrong.
So I was embarrassed. Man, I was so mad.
I quit college to be a writer, trying their heart. But if you look on the side of Jamie's Airplanes and the bus says and all that, it's still Trader Park.
Come on, man, then we all still.
Do charity shows. You we didn't show this past weekend in Savannah.
I saw that, man, Thank you had a cancer.
That so we still still We're brothers.
Our kids call each other uncle, and we all have business together.
Beautiful.
So in that in that process, what was what was like the first song to get you get you going in that in that thing.
The first songs the song Me and Dallas and Brett Jones Road, a song called if Heaven's Far Away forgot him justin Moore.
That was my first.
That was my first hit.
That was the first. Can you just I'm trying to I'm calming this story through my brain as much as I can. I'm filtering the story as much I can't, and I don't think there's anything.
Be careful now, listen, man, we have a lot of truck rides, which one.
We didn't.
We didn't do that.
We didn't talk about this before the podcast.
Just bring that back up.
This is stuck with me, dude. Can you at least tell the Music Row Show story with Jamie or no, with the with the towel. No, okay, that was the one.
You're gonna bring up to.
It is the one that's stuck in mind. I've told that story a million times, but never on air. There's a few things you would just be basically.
Bragging on Jamie.
But that's gonna work.
He'll show up here.
People take guitar play if one you do it, you play better than I do.
Let's see.
Yeah, y'all play together? Did this song from the start of it?
Man? Is that step a good standard?
Do you?
I'm he's a full step down.
Okay you came down to me. Okay, Well I'm gonna go up. Hear me? He that one.
Every day high drive the word to cross Flint River Bridge one hundred yards front spot where me and grand Paw fished.
There's a piece of his.
Old fruit stand on the side of Sawmill Road. He'd be there peeling peaches phyllis.
Twenty years ago.
Oh what I wouldn't get to ride around that old with him. Heaven wasn't so fun. Way back up for cleansing. Go for the deck who introduces to their grandpa and watch them laugh at the wings he talk find mine arm lost cousin John, won't we laugh back at being now? Show him a picture of his daughter Now she's a doctor and he'd be praying.
Tell him we be back in a couple of days. In the review maryand we all watch and we're losing them. Wouldn't be so hot?
Take if Heaven wasn't so far away?
Chile?
Whose idea was that?
I think it was a Dallas idea. Yeah, I don't remember, but it was a long time agot it man. We were we didn't even have publishing deals back then. We were Dallas not neither one had a publishing deal.
Brett was he was a pro, right, he'd already a bunch of hits, but we were green as green green. So did you maintain the publishing for that entire number one?
Well?
That song center for seven years? So that really?
Yeah, Yeah, we wrote that song and got named red Achins had a record dealt with Time for that was.
Doing the obviously was a great writer already he had signed.
A record deal with I think it was Joe Galani. I believe at the time Red had cut that song to put out for his record labels. Things got changed all around with the label. That thing didn't come to fluition. It was probably seven years later. Jeremy Stover calls me at I don't know, ten o'clock at night. He said, Hatch, He goes, did you write the Heavy One's far Away song?
I go, yep, I go.
He goes, well, we love it for just more. He goes, don't play it for anybody else.
I go, it's seven years old, everybody, anybody else.
He was going through YouTube and found the version of Rihtt doing come On in a video just of htt doing the song come On, and.
They went back in for justin record.
I don't know right after that beautiful, but no.
That song's enter for a long time. That it was a giant. That was a giant. Look, if you can't tell that one story, finally you can tell You've got some stories. I'm mad. I want to hear that one again.
Does in the park a lot?
Let's see what one you want to hear? Just giving one that that that uh gives shows a little bit of the personality of you boys.
Being young and okay, we do a we did a this is a let me sit do.
That's the one I want as close as we can get to the line.
So we're back at u A Tower. We had the Trader Park going on a music Row magazine. I don't know if it was Music Row magazine, but it was a magazine back then had asked us to do a show in the parking lot of that place right right.
So we put it together. Jamie put it together.
Head, Hey guys, will y'all come play?
We'd always played the alls together, you know. So they set the stage up.
We showed up an hour early for the show to get stuff ready, and nobody's there. I mean, there's nobody there, and we're like, dude. He's like they told me that, you know. We're like, man, So we just proceeded to go to red door and we start doing shots.
Yeah, just went after the other right, So how much time is there before the show starts? An hour?
An hour, so about forty five minutes walk we walked, Oh yeah, we walked right there. So we're like, let's just let's just hell boys, gonna get our stuff.
And will be done with this.
Now we can barely make it back up the street.
And we get up the street, there's probably two hundred people.
Like to show up stage, and we let each other like, somebody better figure something out real quick.
This is gonna be pretty bad.
So we all end up on stage all together, and it's a fiasco of epic proportions, and you know, somebody's one of them is playing leading the wrong no one, I think. I think I think dal did. Country Boy can survived by.
The lower country Boy he did twice.
I think somebody fell off the stage and somebody broke and broke. I left my guitar and parking lot that night, found it the next morning.
It was it was it was not our That sounds very park with the trailer part man, Yeah it was.
It was pretty wild back then. It was the good old that's awesome. Brett Uh Brit Cobbins on here and was was talking some really really funny things about Jamie Uh, one of the funniest guys ever. Yeah, what I mean, what is it about him that makes him? And look, I've heard recently he's super clean. Is just signed a new just signed a new deal, right, and we've been working on stuff on his record, and that's all I mean for me, Man, that guy might be number one vocalist.
He's one most talented human sin and color is is iconic, his iconic.
I'm the first one. I heard that my parking lot at my house and a word tape, and I like to have passed.
That's another level.
That's the best song I've heard five years.
That is the one. Yeah, he wasn't cut it at the time. Yeah, so, uh, how how was how did y'all wrangle him on? Sober?
Like?
How did you?
Was there any rain? I don't think we were trying to do any wrangling. I mean we were, we were spurring each other on back then. We weren't helping like we were daring it.
You know what I mean.
It was more of a you know, how much how much can we get in? How much can we start?
Let's see what these guys will do?
Like if I do this, what will they do?
You know?
I mean it's that game, the challenge the way I mean, the whole crowd, so many stories about them, the whole crowd. Man, it's it was a really good time. It's still a good time together, but it's uh, it was it's a lot. How does it clean? Pity a lot? And ship? Now you know, well, we just.
Can't go as hard as we used to could.
I mean, you can't. You got to handle business. So it's more being around each other and spending time together.
And you know we're you know, they're my buddy, so you were just it's easy and fun. And like when I started with riving, those guys and stuff like, I didn't play, I didn't sing, I do any of those things.
And I'm like, I'm never doing that.
And it's those guys going, go ahead, dude, and you can do it.
Sing it.
I'll sing with you. I'll play with you through that. You just the kind of they kind of you know they were who taught me and who showed me. You know, your peers w teach you here class.
It's important, man, And I tell everybody that too. That's like, man, what's you know?
If I come to town?
What I'm like, man, find a find a core group and like come up together like your friends, bet on bet on yourself and bet on your friends, man, because like I have learned more yes by sitting in rooms with vets and and hit songwriters and and and just shutting the hell up and just learning.
That day gifts.
You're like, if I can learn anything, they know that I'll take it, you know, you know, and they you know, they teach you and they don't have to.
And it's and it's fun getting in the room and kind of together with with those cats and not knowing what you're doing and just literally figuring it out, man, just just going off of your love for the genre of music.
And you're really really smart, so you just don't know what they'll do, you know what I mean, it's what what those big brains.
Do when you give it a twist totally and see what happens. Tell us about that guy. Dude is one of the most talented humans in the world.
Like, like, we can play this guitar and it sounds one way when he plays this guitar, almost.
Like that guy on the mountain with the elk. It's like it's a different deal. Yes, that's exactly right. Where Where does his soul come from?
Man?
Where is Sippy really? Yeah? Man, he's he is that he is that thing.
Man, he is Like I used to you know, I used to sit and listen to that dude play anything, Like I mean, he said, experted all of it. So, I mean, when he's doing music, it's.
Like, well that's not fair, you know, you know, that's not all he knows what that other instrument is doing.
He you know, you know, teaching our guys how to you know, how to lead bands and how to this is what they're going to do, and this is what they need to do, and this what you know. He's he's played in bars and Hoky Town longer than anyone that I know.
Did you did you hear it on his tongue.
It's so good the control and the power, the control to control the power for it. But very few people have the power to be able to control it. Is a whole difference.
Did you know back then, like you were, you were in the group with with that kind of caliber, that caliber of talent and writers and what all what all of y'all have done across the genre of country music and for the I mean, dude, there was a decade of hits that y'all.
Man, you know, I knew they were. I knew.
I thought they were the most talented. I knew like like dudes that like I'd ever seen it, like like ever in the world I have seen these guys do some magic tricks that you're just.
Like, did you see that? Like who can do that?
Like is that a you know, so they all have a lot of we all have a lot of faith in each other, right, so you know, like Jamie loves to throw us into situations and see what will happen. They'll have a basic game plan like Okay, we're gonna have the full band on stage. Everybody's gonna do three songs each, and then we're gonna do four or five together.
Ready to go.
Yeah, you're like, yeah, which one are you gonna do?
You know, in those moments, man, magic.
Happens well with these guys.
Like I would panic, like that's my five comfort zone at all.
But with these guys, you know, with Lee and Jerry and Jamie and Randy and you know in Dallas.
And these you just go it'll be fine.
Yeah, really fine. It'll it'll work out, you know. And we've been like I said, we've raised a lot of money for charity over the past. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate the heart of those fellas too.
Man.
It's it's a it's a pretty transit, you know, pretty interesting transition to go from like hell raisers to like charity money raisers. Yeah, that's a very good point. I don't think that honestly. It's it's it's a it's a fun thing to see and probably a fun thing to be a part of. It's beautiful. Man.
I love those guys.
I really don't know what Nashville looks like for me without them to you know what I mean, Like that's where it's always been.
I mean, Mark, Yes, you know when you have kids there at the hospital and when you have birthdays there.
You know what I mean there?
I mean ours is like you have kids and then and they have kids.
We all have kids together.
Like Randy's son and my son are born at the same time, and their best friends and when they you know, it's all our kids are all playing together. My kids go to play with Leaves kids at the barn and they've talked them this morning and it's all, you know, it's just very First of all, we're lucky to be alive. Second of all, we're lucky that everyone is still working.
I mean, this business is crazy. We're talking about people who we used to write. On the way home yesterday we wrote and we're driving home. We're driving somewhere We're talking about so many cats that like popped into town, had immediate heat. Got to get it to ay with them, you write a song with them. You're like, man, I don't know if this guy's got it. And dude, six months later, never hear about it. It's a vicious brutal there there. It's it's what have you done for me lately? And for the next new thing? And I mean, like I said, we you know, we get to make music for thev We have the best job in the.
World when it's working. Man, it's the best job.
I told you, That's what I said. That's not to somebody. I was like, it's the best job in the world.
If you successfully getting canceled on four times, your civic hatchbacks and it's cold out there and your suites just froze up. That jobs.
It's pretty tough waiting on your wife's checks.
Shut up, girl friends, you know it.
You know, like I said, it's a it's a tough business.
But but.
Yeah, that's and it is beautiful, man, that's what. That's what Nashville and the love of music has brought all of us.
Right.
It's like a chance to chase a dream and then along the way, that path of chasing your dream. You get to run alongside your best friends and watch them catch dreams. And that's that's crazy man.
I mean we always sitting there.
We'd love to be successful a music man.
If we could write some hit songs, get some shows, maybe we could go hunt some nice places. Many go kill big deer, the scrub, but.
Get out of this guard hole practicing bigger than a six point six months.
Uh, tell us about inner song, Inner song.
So it's which I need talking to you, both of you guys. So Jared Demon and I started a year year or two ago. It's hit songwriters doing private shows is basically the deal. So it was, you know, we took on the the uh goal of trying to teach people that had never been to Nashville what this was.
Right. So, if you've been to Nashville and saw writers.
Around while you're in love with it, you think it's amazing, but it't been to Nashville. So it was, how do we put together a team of people to teach people what it is where we can go to other places and.
Do given the experience in Nashville.
Wow.
So we've put together a team of them a hit songwriters. I think we're on one hundred and twenty probably.
Right now, twenty two.
Yeah, and uh, you know, putting on festivals and finding private shows and it's been it's been an awesome journey.
How can how can people get to get in touch with it?
They can just called innersong dot com.
We have both sides.
They can see everything about inner Song.
If they want private shows anywhere, you know, from we're putting on festivals.
And wow, you know series they don't care that much about songwriters.
They're starting to. It's funny what people care about the songs.
Sure, and they care.
About the stories behind those songs because those songs are personal to them. It's not your song anymore, it's their song. You know, you write a hit song and somebody come that tells you about it. They're telling you.
About what that song did in their life.
They're saying, that song is about my dad, that song is about my kid. That's what this is about. Realize, what you wrote it about isn't what it's about to them. It's they're telling you what it's about. Wow, it's beautiful, So you know it's a you know, it's a beautiful thing. Yeah, that songs connect with people in their own way and do their own thing.
And I also think it's nice to, you know, have an extra source of income, especially when like streaming is so trash, right, I mean, songwriters used to have I remember we were playing golf with Neil Thrasher and he was like, yeah, man, back in the day, if you had four or five cuts on the record and one single off of it, like you could retire. And we were like, what, Yeah, those are the days.
When I moved to town, I was in.
I got to do part of both.
Like I've seen that transition and how brutal that I'm a very we were very blessed absolute right now correct, we are not laying shingle and and no hate on folks to do it's but I'm just saying it.
The revenue has definitely chased as far as like I think we're in and everybody kind of knows that we're in that transition period of trying to figure out what's next, what's next and how how do we how do we get paid term? Because I got fifteen years of not making good money back there. That hurt hurt.
Son. I feel it, and you know, I feel like people are are in the fight to win it, right, Like, I feel like we're heading in the right direction.
Right.
Eventually there will be a rate for digital play. All those numbers will come up and the world will be a little more right. How long that will take, I don't know how long that will take, but you know, being optimistic about it, the numbers that we can reach digitally.
So far outweigh what we could have done with with you know, regular then you know, how do you not?
You know, look at you know, hip hop artists with fifty million followers on the Spotify string and go that's how did yeah, how did that happen?
Yeah? I feel good about the genre. I feel good about about country music as a whole. You know, you know, everything changes into bolves right right.
I mean, it's going to be different than when I was a kid and you could afford, you know, a record a month, so you didn't stretch at all. I'm gonna get George Frady January.
And that's already thirty.
You got it, You got it planned out.
So we weren't trying new things. We were listening to new music that we didn't know.
Now, if I'm on Spotify or Pandora, or whatever, and I own the whole music store. I own every genre. I have access to all of them. Well, they're getting exposed to way broader amount. People that have never listened to country music before are totally which that gives us a.
Chance to grow.
So if we write good enough songs, if we're good enough boys, if we give them good enough stuff, it will grow because the opportunity for the people to find us is there.
Yeah. I like that optimism.
Give give, give a dream or some advice. Man, give a give a kid in lower Alabama right now. I'm not sure if he wants to move to national songs in his pocket. Yeah, man, not sure if they're any good. But it's middle school girls.
Like, just believe in your truth, man, your your Your truth is the thing.
So you know, most people come to town to be writers or artists and they have an idea of what they think they want to do, and then they get exposed to massive amounts of information and all of these talented people and all of these professionals feeding them here's what I think you should do, here's what we should do, and here what you should do. And ninety percent of the time you come back to a realization of your.
Truth was probably right to begin with.
Now you have to unlearn all of this and relearn all of this new stuff to be able to make your truth happen.
Because you wasn't good enough before.
You did believe it before, that's right, But your.
Truth is probably it's probably right. Yeah, that's good.
So right about what you know, about what you feel.
Don't fake it because everybody will. Man, don't get caught in the trap of chasing what's what's already hot, because by the time you do that, the wheel is turning and you're already too fast, and you'll always stay behind if you don't just stay true, just playing ketchup, yeah, ketchup.
The only the only unique thing about what you do is what you do, you know what I'm saying.
So there's this massive ocean of songs that all kind of sound the same because they're all in the same progression, right, like we're all we're all okay. For example, Florida, Georgia line Pomps in twenty ten. Right, Well, then the next slew of songs that got poured into these publishers all sounded like that ship. Dude, Sure well, they owned it. They were already doing that good luck on hookings of the Caboosa, that thing moving through the town. Well it's you know, it's which. By the way, did you have a song with them?
Yeahrak Jesus he did. He's like I was only somebody else.
Don't try it. You can't. You can't possibly catch up. You know.
You have to do what you know how to do and what you think is right and what feels right to you, and it'll catch up to you kind of, you know what I mean. It's like nobody was writing a song like Oliver Anthony, right, and then it comes out of nowhere and it's huge. Well, then a lot of people are.
Trying to do it. Yeah, it's like that.
Look now he got it.
He was doing it when nobody was doing it. It's like, who would have thought an audience would go crazy about a bluegrass feeling someone?
Now we know it's bad ass, true, but with.
The general public know that, but I'm sure to the ain't given them enough credit.
Hold on a minute, Yeah, that's right.
I'm watching my kids and the music they're listening to, and they're coming and that you know, Daddy, if you heard a C d C.
You're like, yes, I know this.
New band, this new band Guns and Roses sick, you know.
But you go, okay, their taste is solid.
Man. They're like, okay, some of my kids introduced me to. I'm like, play me, play me what you like?
Rude?
Play me up the new and you're like, okay, I did that, all right, I see what's up?
What are they listening to? Oh goodness?
Uh you know Sizza.
One of the girls, the Taylor and yeah, they on this Poston stuff.
Oh yeah, they Well, my daughter she's mainly it's mainly girls stuff. But the Morgan Walla stuff, she's all about that.
Yeah, so is mim.
Everybody, I mean, everybody is you know.
I mean that stuff just goes down. But you just go, you know what. I kind of like what she likes.
I kind of there. Yep, they're pretty.
My kid, you know.
So it's you know, if if we're smart enough to figure out the truth and give it to them, they'll hear it.
That's good stuff. That's good stuff. Give me, give me. I feel like we've talked about your your buddies and how awesome they are, but we mentioned Lee Brice. Let's talk about wille Bryce. I know you'll go on brother special connection.
There's a deer.
It's hard hard bote.
Remember Ernie's, Remember that property, Ernie's. He bought eight acres of Ernie's.
Love in the west side.
That's a hell of a farm.
Oh, it's still one of my favorite farms.
Man.
That stripped right down the middle, that cuts the cornfields all around ditch. I know, and there's a crease that runs down the middle of side.
Uh you know, we moved the salt side line out of there, but it's how we learned how wind didn't affect down there. Like the soft side blinds, all of those were gone in a year. Really well, the winds up there in the winter are just I just ripped them apart, just tear them apart. That salt sideline in that ditch six years, it's set there and looked exactly like there's no wind in that channel. It completely blocks the wind off. So when it's really windy and rough, all those deer dropped down in the interest because it's safe and there's corner on both sides and water blocking that ditch is blocking.
The wind off.
It's deep kiss four stories deep in the bottom of that ditch.
Oh, it's deep.
Man, if you're up on the field, like you're up in the field looking down in the woods of the ditch.
It's deep, man. So it's just like a little hole in there ledge that goes.
I mean, it's so I'm sorry, real cool. No, he's one of my brothers from another mother. That's I don't you know. We've written a lot of songs together.
We hunt together.
We have record digital record label together, Comphouse Records.
We uh, you know, he's my kids play together. I don't know it's coming to be. I started at.
Dallas's house, uh in a swimming pool with Lee playing a guitar over his head. He's literally playing like just yeah, he stud We started Dallas's house and we went to uh my house the next day to finish it. Lee said he wanted a song about he was gonna get married. Right. He decided he wanted a song to dance with his wife at his wedding. He was wanting to be the song he wanted, So we came up with I Don't Dance. We wrote the verse and the chorus first.
Immediately.
That's great, great, thanks brother.
We you know, we wrote the verse in the chorus and Lee called it right then he said, there it is.
There's the title track.
There's first single, That's why There, which was you know bullshit, we can train wrecked the second verse.
But I hate when he's right. But he nailed that.
I'm a step dance.
I can't sing like y'all gotta.
Love the song.
Well, I don't know, said.
Meloy, So dude, that's.
What I anwaytop.
I'm not that kind of man, just a skin me.
He won't.
Why don't d but here I.
Spinning you around and.
Circles.
It ain't my style. I don't care high any thing. And you win.
Yes, you got me.
Paul your hand because I don't name God. I talk so good, dude, Bill on town. Now that's me and dall And what did he rot? Uh? Bill? Hard to Love? How to Love?
Oh so.
Ashley as the ones I ain't yeah, shut y'all the same way.
You know what, nobody.
I could do this for four hours much fun. We've already been here for an hour and twenty minutes. Man, let's uh, let's.
Get to uh when he got away?
Yeah, yeah, we have some is that the morning huh time was apart that thing.
Let's see it's the barn show that guy, we got a way okay, two years ago.
I'm honey, do you remember the Alives property? I don't know if you remember that. If if the Ernie's property is here, it's two properties a way, bro, so it's quarterbock.
We had seen a really big before the record. Yes, before we get in this. Are we good? Do we need to cut out these property names or are you fine with it? I don't care. They're they're they're the name of the farmer that owns the place. It's not just making sure nobody's like that's where they were. No, they don't know.
We got left nags.
Good luck. We had seen a big deer at this property.
Somebody had saw him that day with a leg on this field they like to bed on.
It's it's a it's a big hill. The c r P all over like.
Correct. They had seen him during the rut, so it seemed in the middle of the day. It was a shotgun weekend, so in shot and in Illinois you can they have qualifications.
Of guns that you can shoot during shot weekend.
Right, So at that point a black three ound of blackout was a legal thing. This was only three years that's not anymore.
Well, no, none of ur platforms.
But the anyway I was, I'm a I'm a boat hunter mainly, you know. So I had this gun that was set up to be able to shoot during the shotgun season. I go to hunt this property. I see a deer moving in the head of woods. As I'm leaving the truck, I grab my sticks and throw my sticks in the middle of the field and throw that gun on those sticks.
You have just left the truck.
I've jumped twenty yards out of the truck, headed to the head of woods that this deer is in, and the deer sees me. And when the deer sees me, he breaks to go across the field. He takes maybe two steps into the field.
And turns and looks at me.
And I went click click click click, and the gun wouldn't go off, and the breaks and runs off, and I ejected the shell out and you can see where it hit them hit the pen, and I had left it in the truck and then the temp drop and it froze it up and it didn't get all the way until the bullet, so it was They still have the I still have the cartridge with the giant not biggest, not big as his one, I'd say one sixties problem.
It's a big deer, that's a big mature.
But that was the very last time I ever took a rifle into a field ever again. I'll shoot shotguns at birds just of of course, but I both exclusive. Really, I've never I'll never shoot another. I'll shoot the most later most later season, but I'll never shoot another center fire.
Wow. Interesting, I'm done. Right then, I was like, I'm a bow hunter. I would have killed that deer dead is a wedge wo. I mean he's sixty yards, you know. He just do you shoot all year long?
Or do you shoot just to your I mean, but for me, it's it's it's more of a meditation thing. For me, it's like if I get super stressed out or I got a business call, if we're talking on a zoom a business call, I'm probably slinging errows. Like I'm probably in my yard and the.
Phones hung up on my hangar and I'm slinging arrows.
And what it does for you mentally, yeah, just focus.
For me, it's you know, when you got all these things you're trying to figure out, and it's like, no, put the pin on the.
Dot and you.
Control that, right, I can go through my process of anchor, relax, breathe, drop down, you know what I mean, I can, I can in a minute, I go, what was I talking about?
Yeah? So what isthew?
You like it?
I love it? It is I should saying extreme for a long time.
Twenty seven or thirty one said, Okay, we got the thirty one, and I.
Like the twenty seven though. I like the said it was a little hotter, but honestly, as like, I don't care about having the honest bowl anymore. I just want something smooth.
I killed, I killed all my LP.
With that boat. Really yeah. And then I went to this like, hopefully I'm not smoked.
Some details with it this year, sure, but yeah I like this from all I mean that bow could send it.
Yeah, there ain't no doubt. I love those f threes man. And then it was light man, So about west Walk you know, yeah that's good. Yeah, you wait till we go next year.
I'm telling you already, speaking in existence, I tell you.
Right now about time we're gonna go.
What is it from? Because I'm gonna go from the mouths of babes, the ears of our Lord speaking existing man said, well, like I said, we'll wait.
Song all right, what's uh, what's your favorite song that's greatest slash favorite tune kind of cornerstone tune, and you're like just.
Any song that's easy on Williams, good good old boys like men. Man's kidding.
I say, when I was a kid, Uncle Rims put me back.
With a picture of stone.
Wall Jackson above mine head, and Daddy come in kiss his little man, with Jim on his breath, hand a Bible in his hand. He talked about on earn things I should know. Then he stagger a little as he went out the door. I can still hear the soft Southern winds and the live old tree and those Williams boys that they still mean a lie to me.
Hank in Tennessee. I guess, I guess we're all gonna be gonna be.
So what he do with good old boys, Dog Williams, Don Williams the smoothest cat out.
There, all those bobb big deal songs with the bomb man. Yeah. Yeah, when I think about that, like era of singers, I mean outside of like Rose Coke Glasses, Uh Johnny and uh jeez, who's the Pine guy? Those are some smooth cast them.
Dogs man, Yeah, I'm com way dude.
I mean, I mean, are there that silky smooth singers? Are there? Those are those guys in our genre right now? What a better title for for for an artist?
This a song's best friend? Man, that's like, it's like, what.
Let me say it. I'm more like a.
Rob.
Love you guys, We love you like a brother.
I appreciate y'all. Let me come on morning. Absolutely, it was so fun. Thanks for coming, Jill being old there and send Uspicious.
And you know I will and we'll have to tell them about ELK that.
I can't wait to get in the woods Man.
Seriously, I love you guys, Rob Hatch, everybody. Thanks for hanging up guys, Country'll see all next time.