In this week’s episode, Reid and Dan Isbell sit down with Nashville’s breakout artist Wyatt Flores. Together, they dive into Wyatt’s journey over the past 18 months—from life on the road to running a cattle ranch funded through his merch sales. Wyatt shares candid stories about his connection to fishing, the impact of his grandfather’s passing, and the mental toll of balancing music and life. In this heart-to-heart, Reid, Dan, and Wyatt discuss resilience, connection, and the unique challenges of making a life in the music world.
God's Country on Instagram
MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips
Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube
Shop God's Country Merch
Shop MeatEater Merch
More from MeatEater
You're off in God's Country with Reeds and Dan Isbel also known as The Brothers Hunt, where we take a weekly drive to the intersection of country music and the great outdoors, those things that go together, like Oklahoma.
And cattle ranches. Yeah, they're everywhere. Those things go together out there, like red dirt country and being from Texas. Brought to you by Meat Eater and iHeart Podcasts.
There's a Southwestern theme in those. In that intro right there, little text mex And there's a reason also, I'm not gonna lie. We forgot to do this intro. Sometimes when we do these podcasts, we do them at at We usually try to do them at nine o'clock in the morning on the road here in Nashville, and sometimes we usually write at eleven, and so we kind of like overlap and we don't have time to and some days they are important rights so we don't need to be late to, which we're kind of late to all of them, but we kind of don't have time to do the intros, so we were gonna and when that happens, we come back and do them like the next day of the next podcast. Well, this one kind of slipped through the cracks, but we're here. We're doing it. Whyite Flora, Southwestern fleame fling flint from fleam in my throat. White Flora is out in God's Country. I had no idea about this kid before we sat down with him.
Making a big wave in Nashville, though, a lot of people are excited about his style and what he does and the songs he's putting out.
Yeah, he's unique man, for sure, and he's kind of like rooted in what he is and believes in who he is and what he does.
I had a bit of an awakening lately as far as like who he is as an artist who he wants to be selling his Nationhville House, headed back and back, headed back to Oklahoma.
And starting a cattle ranch, cattle operation. Pretty cool stuff. We think you'll dig it. We hope you'll dig it. We know you'll dig it. Listen to it, share it, send it, post it, follow us, follow it. Thanks for hanging out. We love y'all. Enjoy White Flora. See Welcome to another edition off of the Gods Country Podcast. So sorry, I'm going to turn this. It's just if you need to leave the see you later. You got Thanks Sneaky Flores.
Well, I guess I'll take a free phone and put it as a personal what.
Uh, so you've got to You've got like a business phone, and then you've got your personal phone.
Yeah, you got like a side piece phone and a friend phone.
This is what's funny, though your girlfriend did everyone enough. This is actually a great story. This happened like two weeks ago. I was in my hometown because Apple just gave me the brand new phone, and so I was trying to go get my phone, switched over my work phone, the old phone, I guess switched over to the new phone. And then I seen a line of like fifteen people and I was like, I'm not sticking around for this. I guess you got to schedule stuff out. I should know that by now. And then I went down to the T mobile because my other phone that's by a team mobile, I threw it in the sand in the middle of making the only thing Missing as You music video, and I just threw it on the sand in LA And now I can't plug my phone in and it won't sit right. So I was like, well, I'll see if they can clean it out or something go in there, and then started asking her about that, and then I was like, hey, you got any phone cases and stuff for like the brand new phone that came out, and she goes, oh, yeah, the fifteen and I was like, no, no, no, the sixteen. And she's like, yeah, but Cheers is at fifteen and I was like, yeah, I know, but I need for the sixteen. She goes, you got two phones, and I was like, well, technically I kind of got three, and then I pulled out the third and she just got so confused and the story just kept on unfolding inside of her head, and she's like, who are you?
And uh, you gotta be somebody have three. You gotta have something going on well that you don't need somebody else figuring out.
I tried to Yeah, dude, I think she called me a trapper. She called you a trapper trapped. I don't know what that is.
I mean, is that somebody that traps animals? Like like, well, trapping, I mean, that's the only trapper I know.
I don't know. It's twenty twenty four. There's a lot of you could say.
Yeah, I'm sure there's got to be another term somewhere down the line that I.
Don't think he's a fir trapper. Maybe I'm not saying you couldn't a trap phone. It's like people in a trap used to trap. Yeah, yeah, you come in with three you know, I well actually have three phones. I'd be like, this guy's sus famous or trop dealer.
Well, probably the T Mobile phone. I was like, yeah, T Mobile gave me this phone, and then Apple just gave me this one. She's like, you're not making any sense. They looked up my account. They were like, let me see your phone number and uh and we'll figure out what your account is. And they looked it up and it said it was restricted and they couldn't even get into it. I was like, that was a cool, cool moment for me too. I was like, this is some gosh.
So you have a T Mobile phone and like some an Apple phone.
Are they all Apple?
Well they're all Apple. Yeah, they're all all Mobile. No one's team Mobile and then one I have. I didn't realize that I don't have to go into the store at at and T like switch on my information over. I'm not that tech savvy. Yeah, it turns out you can just put them together. I guess. Yeah. Yeah, my generation is leaving me behind so quickly. They like, I'm just twenty three.
Young, and are they like different colors? Do you so you know which one's different? How do you know which one? Everybody?
Do you know which one? Well, I haven't started using like that third phone yet, so it's just kind of been in.
My body like this guy around.
Well, I haven't like downloaded everything from the old phone to the new one. It's just been running around with me. But one's green and I think the other one's gray.
If you don't know who's who's talking on the other end of the mic, We've got hot country artists.
He always puts a commo between the hot and the country. Hot country artist.
No, it's a.
Hot you're a hot country artist, said Wake surfing seem to listen up Artist Fishing, Rolling Stone's twenty five Future of Music Art Future of Music, Top Dud, that's a big one. Guitar Our, Slang and Singer open for LC Turnpike, Troubadours, Charles Weston Godland most recently played The Gorge with LC. Right you were out there? Why Flora is out in?
God for it? Thank you for having me?
Maybe chilling what Snora is?
If you didn't sleep?
Twenty three? How late were you staying up at twenty three.
Really, I'm still trying to do better about it these days.
You seem like an old soul, like like you seem like.
Like I'll stay up because I'll get excited. But for the most part, Yeah, no, I've been trying to go to bed as early as I can. I mean, it depends if I'm on the road earliest one thirty.
Yeah.
If I'm not on the road, then early would be like eleven.
Okay, so two hours after me, you're nine o'clocker. Hell yeah.
Like I sleep at night like I'm winding down. And what time do your kids go to bed? Seven forty five eight? Between seven forty five and eight thirty? God, you don't need like an hour and a half or two hours.
Just to hell yeah, I need it, but I ain't got time.
I ain't got time for it, dude.
I'm just saying, I exhausted, Bro, My life is exhausting, exhausted right now. It's not yeah, I know it. I know it's I'm just living. You just live exhausted when you have kids.
So did they wake you up usually?
Yeah?
Hell yeah, dude, five thirty they're ready to rock, dude.
Ah yeah, you gotta think.
Man, they're going to bed like seven thirty eight o'clock, so they they get like fourteen hours.
Like I'm terrible. I'm not.
I'm not really a mathematician over here, but like they get a lot of hours to sleep, you know what I mean.
Gosh, dang, Yeah, it's a whole I say this.
Every time, like make sure you want them, you know.
Yeah, because my two year old ran into the room this morning, and uh, we've had to We've had I had to switch. We might get can I wellm I gonna get canceled for saying this on we had to switch. I switched the door knob around her room, so now we lock her in there so like you probly, because she'll come if the if the lock was inside, she would just unlock it and walk out like a two years. So I swapped it around where I can lock it on the outside. So much so that my wife, that's my wife, by the way, she has locked herself in there and had to crawl like put foot group into sleep and then like tiptoed over to the window, open the window, crawl out the window onto yeah, on our back deck. And then then it's on the second story. So she's like, if she falls, dude, she falls into my john boat right there and it's screwed. But anyway, my two year old came in this morning. I heard Jordan get her up and she was, you know, running, and it was like real loud, and she was like, look, I got shoes on, and Jordan's like, well, don't get in bed with shoes. About that time, she jumped in and she kicked me with those shoes and it's like a pair of like they got like card sole shoes and she caught me like not square where it didn't hurt, sideways where she would like like clip me like this, like I pulled the skin and hair off. I was like, I was like seven fifteen already. I was like, mother, dude. She's she's like, I watch Blue. I'm like, yes, yes, we can watch Blue. Kids. Man, they are a lot.
There's something but the kids shows. In my opinion, there will never be anything better than the old movies that they made nowadays. There's just nothing really there.
Sing Sings good. Sing Sing one and two are good, and then the Frozen movies are good.
Frozen's good.
But dude, yeah, you watched why would you watch Frozen.
Well, I it came out when I was in middle school and my choir teacher also like dog, I don't know. I still can't actually yeah, yeah, not like super Child because I was still getting that to that age where it was like not that cool.
Frozen has been a minute though, I mean, yeah, you know what, Tom, It's everything's a blur to me. Yeah, dude, you're ancient. Yeah I guess so.
I'm forty. Dude, forty would you have thought that?
Now? Who's old? Or do you think? I think it's you got it? Yeah, we already. You already dropped the forty bomb. So yes, he kind of had that. Everybody says me for some reason, really last time he gets it. Yeah, everybody says me, he's the great.
Mat And I just found my first gray hair. I couldn't be mad about that. Yeah, I found out yesterday. I think it was right here. Congrats. Yeah, no, that was that was an odd moment in time for me. I was like just watching Frozen. Yeah, now I got great hair.
We do this? What you mad? Just tell us what it is?
What you mad?
Is it?
You in lost? Kids might be your boss.
Man or your neighbors. Can't just tell us. What you mad? And that is great, that's great.
But yeah, that was that was a good one. Let me let me start because I'm mad. Yeah, yeah, keep going. I'm mad and I know you'll you'll feel me on this. You're mad. I'm mad at your my wife's dreams.
Oh you mean not like life dreams, you mean like my wife's dreams. Yeah. We were laying in bed for the night, middle of the night, just piggyback. Yes, uh, I'm laying in bed to the night. Why And.
Jordan didn't she didn't wake me up, but she, I mean she did something to w you want a wife before you have Yeah, I actually just don't get married. You can tell it's the best thing in life. It's great thing you'll ever do. Three thirty in the morning, three in the morning, I wake up and Jordan's wide awake. She's thirty three thirty in the morning, She's wide awake. She she goes, hey, what's the past word to the cameras? And I was like what, She's like, what's the past word of the cameras? And I was like, I don't know why. She goes, I just heard somebody ripping duct tape in our house and I was like what. I was like, well, would they be whether it be duct tape my dog's mouth shut, that sleep downstairs in case anybody tries to break in, or they like dunct taping a door handled so they couldn't come out, you know what I'm saying. Like she was like, I just I'm freaked out. I know what duct tape sounds like. And yeah, you know, she's like somebody somebody's in our house duct tape and stuff. And I was like, holy, So of course I look on the cameras, I go walk around nothing, everything's good. I don't fall asleep until six thirty and sleep for another hour, and I'm waking up in a terrible mood. I'm exhausted all day and it's because of her wild ass. So it was you don't even remember doing it. I remember doing it. I freaked her out. Was like, our our gun is in the safe beside the bed. He's going to have time to get the gun. Just first of all, just no no faith in me at all. He went like, how they would get to the kids before they get to me. But I can't get the camera and I don't want to.
So what if the dreams have to do this sounds like she was completely coherent.
Well, I'm just saying I think she dreamed it. Oh there wasn't somebody in my house taking stuff.
Well at least she didn't talk in her sleep like my wife does. That's what I was terrifying. So I'm piggybacking this what you're mad at. It hasn't been as bad lately. But am I how this story? That embarrassed? But it's really funny. So and our we're not We weren't at the house we live at now, in our old house. She she was just randomly like I have such a hard time explaining it because it'll be in the form of a sentence, but the words won't make like I always had to do this, so I'll look around the room, give me two seconds. It would sound like this, you're dead asleep, and then you would hear flag, deer, tree, hardwood under.
The camera and you're like.
What and then it like creating's clear water uh tar tar yesterday, like not coherent.
You know what I'm saying.
It's hard to do because you had to almost like look at something and then just Rder's side.
Not enough.
Myself wanted myself welcome to the planes, you know what I mean. It's like that kind of a sense, like it doesn't make sense with what it was just and it would it would freak me out because I've been trying to understand what she's saying, right, and I'm a light sleeper.
Anyway.
The best one was she was sitting there and she went, are.
They still in the bathroom?
And I was like, this is where we were living in Franklin, and like not next to the yellow next to it? And I was like who She was like, they got a light in there? And it's two thirty in the morning, dude, And I look and sure enough, there's like a light in the bathroom. But it was it was the the freaking what's it called outside light? Yeah, outside light coming through the blinds. So dude, I grabbed the strap, man, I pop one in the chamber. I'm Cholie's angeling through the house, dude, looking for whoever's in the bathroom. And then I come back in. I was like, who in the bathroom? She's snoring. So I sit there till seven am.
I'm saying, oh man, what.
I sat here with a pistol for the past four and a half hours and now I've got to go to work, so at least.
She ain't talking to her sleep. Yeah, she doesn't talk in her sleep.
I got a real bad problem, and not as bad anymore, mostly just because no one's really sleeping with me or sharing a bed with me anymore, so no one really tells me. But back in the day, I'd be dreaming about the run of show and I'd be yelling in my sleep about set list. Oh for real, Oh for real. Like, I'm pretty sure Brad knows over there. Me and him have had to share hotel rooms and airbnbs and and he's like, dude, you're racking up a storm over there about the set list. And I was like, dude, I have no idea what you're talking about. And he goes, dude, you're pissed off about something on the set, but uh.
Had anything youthing?
I mean, man, I kind of want to piggyback off of the dream thing. But I think I'm just mad just because uh, apparently you can't smoke, uh and and and take ben adrill at the same time and then expect a peaceful dream.
Oh wow, I was like having a cocktail for some wild stuff.
Huh.
Well, I don't ever remember my dreams. But I was just mad because all of a sudden it went like real peaceful, and then all of a sudden just started flipping over and turning into the dream like cartoonish and then but it was like a nightmare at the same time because it was bringing up like this old house I used to live in and it hasn't happened. This was last week.
Oh wow, if you're remembering a dream from last week, it was serious.
Oh dude. I woke and I was like, that's trippy.
What That's one of those where you like in your dream you're like, all right, I gotta wake up, or it's about yeah, about get weird.
Do you have any dreams that you were like not maries that you remember from like years back.
Dude, I was traumatized by what. Thats why I hate clowns. If a clown walked in here right now, I would I would either try to run or I would take that wooden boat paddle right there. But I swear swear of my life. Yeah, I had this, like noted, I had not terror I guess, And it was like a thing where I would dream this clown was chasing our family through our house and on Papa Street, the blue House. Yeah, and like one year Dad tried to fight it and he got beat and then you tried to fight it and got definitely didn't and then it was my turn. And honestly like save the week for the last. That's the yeah, that that clown dream.
Yeah, we're dream in the house about that house like it was. I remember it was like I was looking up the stairs and it was like red lit up up on the four year upstairs, and I was like, oh, I gotta go up.
My dream had to do it.
And as I kept getting closer to the top, it kept getting it was hotter, and it was red light. You're going to hell, and so I well, I was going up so paradox. So I get up there and I went into the and I went into our room on the left, you know, and when I did, You remember that bed spread we had that was like all those Aztecian kind of colors.
Purple and green.
There was something under the covers and that's where that red light was coming from, and it was moving like this under the covers.
It's pretty true. And I remember that.
One, yeah, that one a little haunt chest.
Yeah, and I woke up and I was like, you know, and yeah, I still that's one of the few. I mean the in the course of forty years of my life, I probably have three dreams I can remember, and that's one of them.
Dreams are crazy, dang crazy.
Yeah, I know they're wild.
What does that mean? I don't know, Flores tell us you're weird.
Well I'm weird, but like, I remember the last time I ever wet the bed, dude, And I was never a bed way.
So two weeks ago, no, yeah, no.
Three, I was. I remember.
I was you don't have to tell a story.
No, no, no, no, no. It was funny as hell, dude. I thought. I was like, you got to be shipping me. No no, no, I wasn no. I was like ten maybe, and uh you got with your ten No no, no, no, no, well.
Probably I was just thirteen years ago.
True, I was your age.
Let's see, I was. I was dreaming about working cattle with my dad. And then we had drove him back over to the next pasture, and then we were taking him out of the trailer and then he was like, all right, let's go home. And I was like, hold on, I got a pee, and then I just started peeing by the trailer. And then I woke up and I was peeing, and I was like, the hell's going on around here?
I mean, okay, what's the last time you pet the bed?
Hell?
Like, be honest, I don't remember. I don't remember really peeing the bed. I mean, so it had to be so young that I didn't really it didn't really think I was like, I mean, I think I was.
Like maybe like boo boo the bed. I think I was out of college. I think I think he's the bed after out of college. I know I peed the better sugar ridge. Yeah, and I was an adult. I'm not ashamed of that. Okay, I still have like, like I still have those dreams where I'm peeing in my dream. I'll wake up thinking.
You're right now, God, Yeah, you know it.
Well. I mean I've had buddies that have come over and stayed to night after drinking too much and they piss in the laundry.
Now that's a different qualification. Yeah, that's probably happened.
Well, he had to slow down after that shut down talk with them and they're like, hey, brother, be going a little harder to paint for a while.
A first first question for you, why is maybe we'll do a little like competition, see who wins this. But what's the When was the last time you caught a fish? And what was it?
Gosh, dang, it seems every single time I've gone fish, and I've just so many people with me that I give everyone a pole except myself.
It was the last time you got fishing? That's a good? Uh?
Shoot? Was that? It must have been around harvest three months ago? Okay, I think where I was in Oklahoma, and it wasn't a very big bass. They're the little tiny ones palm fish.
Yeah.
Well, usually we do really good there, but the moss has been so bad and I don't have the keys to the actual thing. We get the prop down and everything else. And we're only there for about two days. So I was like, I ain't even gonna worry about it. I'll catch moss all day. I'm just happy to be here.
Yeah. God, I hadn't been fishing a minute. It's been a minute for me too. Man. We didn't really get to fish the summer much, no, I know, and I have I've lived in a community where there's a private lake in the back and oh heck, yeah, it's so much fun. It's awesome. What does like, I know you love fish? What is that you love to fish?
Oh? I do? Okay, I'm not competitive at it.
Yeah, if that makes sense?
Sing with golf?
Where did that? Where did that love come from? And what does it do for you? Oh?
Man, I guess it was when I was a kid, I just always loved going fishing. And my dad he worked at the o Gene power plant, so there was really good fishing on the actual deal, but no one can really get there because.
You have to be a worker.
Well now it's all different because different people are running it. But yeah, we'd all be kids and we'd throw a little hot dogs on and then I'd sit there and watch the fish and I was like, this is the coolest thing ever. I think that's where it really started. And then yeah, as I got older, when like COVID hit, we were all getting into fishing. Like years previous of just buddies stealing a boat from somewhere and then going on farm ponds. But when COVID hit, that was.
All we did.
Like our day started off with getting up, finding beer somewhere, then going and finding a pond, then fish all day and then we'd get home before the sun would go down, we'd cut a whole bunch of cedar trees down, and then we'd light fires all night. And that was literally all we did for about a solid month and a half before all of us were sitting there going our pockets are getting a little empty and we might want to go find a job.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
So you ran your dad how much we have a long cattle?
Ah, No, that that's the fun part of all this is I'm starting my own cattle company and through my line of March, which is super cool because everything that comes into that well, like all the profit, it goes straight back into the farm because our numbers used to be fairly decent. And then about twenty eleven twenty twelve, we had some really bad droughts to where it just had to start selling. And then also my uncle he had to move to Florida so he could be with his kids, so they weren't half the herd because they ran him together. So everything's just been decreasing. Now my dad's retired and oh he's big chilling, Like it's cracking me up, how much he's chilling. Because he used to yell at us kids. Like, He's like, we're running out of daylight. We're running out of daylight all the time. Christmas, we'd still be out there fixing fence. And now he's just he's playing on TikTok at ten in the morning and I'm like, are we yeah, sneaking onto the bus too.
He was just off l Yeah, tell you what.
I got another video of him the other day where he's checking out the generator.
Oh yeah, that's.
Yeah, And he's over there and just peeking in and he's been over and I was like, good lord, he's still learning.
Dude. Dads are crazy.
Oh yeah, we have the same dad, believe it or not. And uh man, ours is just he's he's so awesome.
But it's so funny to him.
I'm like, what, you know, It's like I never saw him cry ever in his life up until you know, my grandad passed away and stuff like that, and then now he's so soft, dude, like my kids make you cry. Songs we write make him cry. It's the weirdest. I'd be like, hey, man, what are you doing and he'd like you were.
Saying I just listened to back. Man. You know, it's pretty funny. Man, do they just change.
I feel that though, because the first time I ever seen him cry was for his father and yeah, and then it wasn't until recent years where it's like, like his birthday, he was just happy to have me my sister home because my sister runs merch, and and he's like, I don't care about gifts, and I think y'all know that. I was just this is the best birthday ever, just having my two kids at home. And I was like, Jesus Christ Man got you a little bit.
Yeah, yeah, so your sister runs merch for you.
Yep, that's cool.
I called her up, I think it was it was probably January December, and I just joked around with her and you ready to call your boss and tell him you're done and hit the road. And I was just joking with her, and she was like, well, I've actually been doing a lot of thinking. If you want me to come out on the road, yeah, I'm ready.
And I was like.
What She older, younger, older, older by four years, and she's more like a brother, I guess, even though she's a sister. We hated each other for so many years and then she got keys. You know, sixteen came around and I was like.
You have a game. Yeah.
I was like, you have freedom, freedom friend, and mom and dad need me to go with you on all your days.
Due.
It was awesome.
Where'd you grow up?
Still Water, Oklahoma?
Gotcha? Yeah, we've been through that.
Isn't that do we is Black Kettle over there?
That's in Hyenne So. I think still Water's kind of still water like central.
Uh yeah, Okay, So it's north of okay See about an hour and then back towards the west of Tulsa about an hour.
We've done some We've done some hunting in South Oklahoma and then some hunting in South Oklahoma, and then a bunch of turkey hunt in west western Oklahoma. Heck yeah, Dusty out there.
Dude, Ah yeah, that's where.
I mean.
We were like on our turkey hunt. I remember, we had no idea where were going. We were just trying to get out of the state of Tennessee. And so we found some public out there and we went all the way out there, and it was it would have been April or May, early May, late April, and man, it would be like forties at night and then nineties during the day. Already out there. It was so you remember that how crazy the weather was and we were tending you know, we were in the middle of the Ayway. It was Uh, that was my first introduction to Oklahoma, and I swear I still have stuff that has that red dust like if you if you popped it hard enough of dust.
Cloud we were taking. Have we talked about this, I don't think so. We were taking middle of the day baths and like a cattle, like a cattle trough. Oh yeah, Like they were just pumping water in and we were just sleep take our clothes off, and like cattle would come and drink like cattle trying to cover Have I told the Friu of the Loom story on this.
Gosh, I don't think so. But there's a little there's some. Really I'm just gonna I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna go. I think why I will appreciate that. Okay, we were in Oklahoma, Uh, same trip. Listen, man, we were so broke. I mean so, I don't even know how we afforded to get out there.
Like literally, I think we just saved drove a Volvo, we drove a but we saved all There was a handy.
Down, a hand me down, volvo out there that our sister came to read, and so we just drove it out there and camped and just ate like hot dogs for a week. When I sold that volvo fifteen years later, there was red dust still in fifteen years.
It's fifteen years later. Now you said last week, No, no, that's not that's whatever. It doesn't matter anyway. We turkey hunting. We roost these birds. Dan's a pretty good bit ahead of me. So I'm sitting in the back, I'm shooting. He's calling. He's trying to get the birds off this roost to come down into this like little field edge. And I see him calling. I hear the birds, and I see him start moving back towards me, and he's like, I think they're gonna come. I think they're gonna go. I was like, okay, so I'm getting ready. Well about that time, he gets in the cedar thicket, which is probably twenty yards from me, and I hear like, and I'm like, what is he doing? Why is he moving so much? And then all of a sudden I hear and I was like, he's telling the story, right man. I was like what, And I looked over and Dan is call is going while holding on to a branch while doing his business.
That's Multitaska popcorn hot dogs.
And I was like, I was laughing. I was mad because these turkeys were gonna come. This whole thing went down. So we get done, We get to the middle of the day, bath at the kind of thing. We go over to the cattle and start taking off, you know, like I can't wait to get in this cottle thing to watch.
The water was actually real cold and clear. It was hot as hell that day. I don't I guess it just comes out of the ground or somewhere. Does it come from with the windmill.
They usually have wells or yeah, that's what it was.
It was a windmill and it would just drip into this giant trough.
Oh yeah, we're really out there and yeah the system, Yeah yeah, that's it's a fun place to be at. Honestly, you got to watch out for a lot of rattlers.
Yeah, no doubt. I looked over. Dan takes his gilli suit off, takes his pants off, and all he's got is a fruit of the loom waistband on like a hula hoop dog and that's what he ripped his underwear up to watch.
Oh my gosh, it's just the wasistband.
It's just like a fruit of the waste.
I just got undressed and he started laughing, and I was like, what is he laughing at? And then I realized that my underwear had been pieced apart. Where I mean, there's rough times back then. Couldn't afford no dude wives or nothing back then.
And you got to keep your socks.
So you're raised on a cattle farm. It seems like just like just like peeping up your Instagram and and kind of seeing like what you're about. It seems like the outdoors is a has always been an escape for you, and I can't imagine how important it is to you now being in the rat race that you're in it.
It's uh, It's one of those weird things where like even in this album, like I'm just wanting to go home, and I keep thinking about all the things about home. But like when I grew up, like the only gaming devices we had was a Wei and a PlayStation two, and we still have both of them. I don't think any of my guitar here with three Legend of Rock disc or they might work. They might I've tried a long time ago.
It was a great game.
But like, we weren't much into gaming growing up, and if we were, it was because it was it's a tornado season.
That's what we do.
We had like three storm shelters our house, and so everyone would come over and we'd make parties out of them. Not like we're partying for tornadoes because sorry, anyone out there. Yeah, I mean it's a cool feeling whenever a tornado comes through. But like, my entire childhood was always spent outside. So all my life we were building trails for our dirt bikes and anything anything we can get into. Even when harvest would come around, me and Kyle would be swimming in the in the back of the semi trailer going through wheat. I don't I don't know what the hell we were doing that. I got asthma, dude, I was practically dying in there, but.
I hit it every now and then.
I need to get one.
If you got asthma, don't have an in tiler gets your may know that, man.
But yeah, my entire childhood has been in the outdoors and and hunting. I was I was never patient enough. Still not working on it, uh, but yeah, if it was bran. It was down, Like, I mean, I shot some weird I think my last year that I ever shot. It had the weirdest, weirdest rack on him, Like it didn't go out, it just went straight up and then back down. But I was like, man, that looks like a big one.
Yeah.
Yeah, I was terrible when it can. That's why I love dove hunting. Dove Hunting's like so much fun because yeah, like I can be quiet and I can be still and sitting in the cold, but it's been so long since I've done it, so anytime that I do get to go home, I'm like, let's just go shoot some guns because I haven't done that in forever.
Nice you talk about dirt bikes, you four stroking it or you two stroke four stroke? Ok.
I can't stand the sound of a two stroke.
And which one is like the get up faster.
That's the two stroke. But the four strokes are starting to get that way, so they're starting to like the four strokes. They're starting to tune them. In my opinion, my buddy's got like a twenty nineteen two fifty Honda Yea racing and it's got like three tunes on it.
But four stroke.
Yeah, but it doesn't have like a the band or whatever. Well it kind of does really like it's like they're starting to tune him that way. And I'm like, I don't like it because you can't terrifying.
It's a little you kill yourself.
You can't ease into it now like it's just one little hare and then it's.
Hauling about died. I about died on a two stroke, say damn too. I drove the two stroke down and about died and Dan was like, dude, let me have it. I watched him flip over the front of the hand of ours by like he gusted and goosed it and then the breaked it. Yeah yeah, and I was I was whiskey going down a trail through the woods. The four stroke was fun, oh yeah. Before me and my wife man, I lived in a little like a double wide on fifty acres and we cut trails and had a four stroke and two stroke me in my roommate and it was fun. Man, but that two stroke. But I saw you, dude, you're doing like wheelies and ship Oh you're on a real one.
No no, no, no, like I can it's been so long. I just grabbed my buddy's bike. That was his. Because the producer was like, you got a dirt bike, and I was like, not really mine, but I know, yeah I can find Yeah, I can get one real quick. But yeah, we used to be really into it. That's all we ever did.
How you start riding?
Oh shoot, I must have been in the fifth grade, so I probably was twelve.
Because I'm on that line.
My kids are, uh, we're still real young, five two and three months and uh but man, I want to get them on motorized stuff as good as I can.
Man, Wills, don't. Don't do motorcycles. The little kids rolling around a little motorcycles. This guy's rocking.
I'm doing all right. I've been ran over a couple of times.
It happened. Character building.
I always thought of it this way. I was like, would you rather have something that you can push off of you when it's on top?
It's solid, solid thought, no doubt.
Also, do you want them to learn balance?
I do?
Oh my kids learn balance that they can do that on bicycle.
Bro, Well, yeah, get them on a BMX back first, show them a few things just like a like a.
But we don't have any concrete where I'm at I it's like, you know, it's I would assume it would be harder.
To learn how to ride a bike and gravel and dirt.
Oh yeah, I've seen those. Yeah, you're gonna have to pick rocks out of their hands for sure, though.
But they little they make little motorcycles that have like training wheels on them, that little electric ones, and you can they figured out that way then take the bos path.
I think you know what I really want to do though, for like tour life, I really want to take one of those power wheels that they have for kids, a little yeah, and then just run a couple of batteries and series soup that thing up. That way, I can put it in the like the base. But if I want to go into town.
Boom hot wheel.
Have you seen the have you seen the like the things you can get like for like, for instance, my little daughter has a black jeep and it's jacked up, and I put a new battery on it, But I haven't done like the kit to put like a like a forty vault those things.
Oh that's exactly bro, That's what I'm saying. Keep we're on the same page here. But they do make kits for then I always wanted to get into it, get.
Into but you know they I mean, at this point, they have electric motorcycles that are like pretty legit.
Oh yeah, like I think I think a grown man can like just.
I see him all the time in California when I'm really yeah. Yeah, they'll they'll be peddling for one second and then all of a sudden, the hill will come and they'll just.
Why are you the literal dirt like jumping dirt box.
Oh yeah, I think it's KTMS. That's the ones that are making them. If you just like hearing the motor though I can't.
I can't do electrical thing faky, not real.
It's not like a thing for me. I just like knowing what the injurine's telling me. I guess uh. And I don't like the feeling of just being like, I don't know if this thing's on or not.
If you had one day to do anything in your life, like go back home, go to Australia, whatever it would be. If you had one day, what's your perfect what's your perfect day? Escape day outside of the shows?
Yeah, I would wake up in a hammock, slightly still hungover from the night before of playing until three in the morning, drinking whiskey and singing songs. And then after that I'd get up, we had a delicious breakfast. I'd be sitting on a camp site somewhere right next to a lake, and then roughly around noon, I'd be on a boat, and then I'd be sitting in the sun for most of it, and then towards the evening i would either surf or wakeboard and and try not to bust out my knees into the sunset, and then I'd restarted all again.
That's a great a very poetic already. Yeah, I feel like you thought about that before.
I dreamed about that. One who.
Like New York City is Yeah, what is that delicious breakfast for you?
Man?
Man? Oh that depends. Breakfast is my favorite meal. And usually you want to make sure that you get the good sausage. In my opinion where I come from, it's blue and gold sausage. Really, yeah, way better than Jimmy Dean.
Or blue and gold. What you're calling it blue and gold?
And yeah, it's it's it's something that we always did for fundraisers for FFA. But yeah, that's like the best stuff that you can get, so blue and gold sausage, blue and gold bacon. It's the best.
Your eggs lay eggs.
Usually we get them. Well, it used to be my best friend. They had so many chickens growing up, so they'd always just give us eggs. But now it's our other friends Stetton Tracy. Yeah, we just get farm eggs. I used to be a big time scrambler, but nowadays I'm all about having an over easy fried egg.
Interesting, but I do feel like that changes you get older. I'm kind of over easy, got myself the taste. Yeah, biscuit your biscuit guy.
Oh yeah, softer hard biscuit, man.
I like, I know this is unpopular opinion, but we've had some really great biscuit makers in our lineage. Dude, I'm it's hard to beat the can biscuit for me. Dude, I like, I like a good flaky camb biscuits.
You take a can biscuit over the homemade fluffy biscuit.
Depends on who's making them, moms or memes. No, Dad's maybe he knows he's a flat biscuit.
I take. I'll take that biscuit. It's flat, but it's good to like laying on a piece of sausage, and you don't get like you get the sausage taste, inte the biscuit taste, you know, like you get a little bit of that bready because they're so flake like a fluffy bready ass. But I like a flo I like a fluff in the middle, crunch on the outside. Yes that is Yeah, that's perking. Biscuits don't have to be square. I really care what it looks like. Yeah, cattheads, but but I don't care if it's like shaped right like, I just want the if it's got a crunchy outside, fluffy mital it's a perfect differ.
Same that. This is literally my dream is just to get better at cooking again because I've taken so much time away from it. Like I just now cooked this Monday. I cooked breakfast and I was like, oh my god, it does something You done it? Oh yeah, well, I mean we just we used to do it all the time. We brought our blackstone and we put it inside of our trailer when we were still vanning it and uh and that was the funnest thing of all of us, just sitting around the blackstone cooking.
Cool. Yeah, that is a good time.
Dude, what's the we just uh wait, I want to hang on cooking and everybody change gears.
Okay, go for it.
So to me, man, the thing with cooking is it's kind of like writing a song that people enjoy. You can you get to create something and watch other people enjoy it. I think it's very it's a very parallel to it is. It's creative, right, I mean, am I.
It's got to be, I think so.
I hope they love it, and ye sure if they do or not, but well they do. It's a great feeling there you go. It's not you want to do it better? Yep. It always is for me. But yeah, I know what you're saying.
It always is what always They always enjoy it, whether it's qual whether it's songs or.
Definitely what some of us are better at music, you know, yeah, some of us are better at sports, yeah, and other things. Hey, dude, what has the what has the last two years of your life been? Like? Man, just just walk us through a little bit like the little snip shot snapshot of snip shot, snapshot, sniphot, A little snip shot of how your life has changed in two years? In two years? All right?
For starting in January twenty twenty two. I do math, right, I don't know, I'm real good at that. We'll do twenty twenty three.
You know what, you just pick a time. It doesn't really have to just pick a time before you you got into this wild thing and then now that you're where you're at.
So at that time, I was living here in Nashville, and I was sleeping on an air mattress with my now manager and my guitar player.
And we're all all three of you, all three same air mattresses.
All three air mattresses sharing the same room.
Okay, what the same No, no, no, no, okay.
It was real cute.
They got cold, but not that cold, you know.
Uh.
But yeah, that's that's when like the police don't go started taking off, and then everything started happening. And then all of a sudden, I was like, well, why are there are people wanting to give me a label deal? I never like came to town looking for that because I didn't think anyone would want to sign me. So I was like, I'm just going to write and learn and uh. And then the next thing, you know, phone strong phone calls start coming in and I'm sitting around going what is happening? And We're trying to catch up on music because I'm like, well, now we have all this traction, but I only got I think six songs out at that time, so we were trying to put more singles out and just then we started thinking about an album, and then pretty much that turned into the project Life Lessons. Signed my label deal in June with Island Records, and then man started touring and like, I've done a whole bunch of shows by myself, but I'd never done actual touring, full band, hitting the road full time, and and uh, and that was like one of those things where I was like, oh, this is getting wild in a.
Hurry, and find did you have a band?
I stole most of my band from Caitlyn Killian, which was another artist that was signed with me on the old management and and uh, yeah, pretty much took her half her band, or actually her whole band now I think about it. Yeah, And then I'm I was writing songs. Thanks, yeah, thanks Caitlyn. And then uh, Cole Miracle. I wrote with him so many times. He was like one of the first writers here in town that I wrote with. And uh, and then he was I said I need a fiddle player and he goes, well, my wife plays fiddle, and you know, around this time, you go, is she a good fiddle player? Yeah? And then one gig and I'm like, she's good at fiddle, and uh yeah, so she hopped on and uh. Then Bill Peters, Uh he was just a feeling, but I uh, Clint was already wanting to play keys. He used to be my bass player, and uh he plays keys, mandolin, harmonica, and uh yeah. Bill was just phenomenal on base and then his just entire demeanor. I was like, I want that and uh and then yeah, uh, later on we just gained the new drummer, Jake Jake Lynn, who used to drum for Jason Boland. But he's freaking phenomenal. But yeah, from that time period, the band has kind of evolved, but for the most part just stayed the same. But yeah, hitting the road and everything like that, Like I had no idea what I was World Whirlwind, yeah, because then all of a sudden, it was just show show shows, and I really didn't think I was touring that hard. Even this year. I was like, well, are we really hitting the road, like, you know, because I don't what I want to be called a road dog. Hell yeah, I dud yeah. And then I just didn't think that I was quite cut out for it there for a little bit, because I was like, man, like, everyone's like so strong at this and I'm sitting over here just homesick, is all get out. And then I was like, oh, no mind, no, we're torn heavy. Yeah, And then I was like, yeah, this is gonna happen.
And then we'll probably all feeling that, whether they show in or not, they were probably all feeling the same way. It was probably just hidden how many shows were you playing averaging.
How many did we play last year? Geez? And then this year it'll be like.
And that's what we talk about too, is like when you hear those when you hear one fifteen how many shows you've been playing with fifteen and one twenty five, people are thinking, oh, one hundred twenty five days. There's three hundred and fifty days of the year. That's not too bad. Yeah, But then that's just the show like that, that's not travel. That's not travel, which that's what that's what you're getting paid for, right, Like the show is the best part of the thing. The other is what brings on the anxiety and the pressure and the board on the loneliness.
That's where that's the job totally going on stage now, that's just what I do for sure. But yeah, that was definitely like a hard time for me because that I mean, I had a lot of great things, like I'm so blessed to be in in the place that I am, and and uh, and I don't know how I got this lucky, but like there was a lot of a lot of things that happened. Shoot, I lost my grandfather to suicide in August, and then that next following week, I fired the management team that I thought that I could really trust, and I found out a whole lot of things and then just decided I was going to keep my head down and grind through it and never processed any thing. And then you get into this this year and and then I finally had to take a break from everything because I never stopped because I did life lessons in November, then that twenty three, then December, I'm ending being on the road, but I'm still writing, Like I start writing for this album and then I'm also recording at the same time. Well, I thought this was what everyone does, but it turns out there's actually a little bit of a ye, yeah, there's a process too, and uh yeah, I was just thrown in this weird loop that I was trying to get out of and finally like that that's where we are now. But like coming into that, it was life lessons. Next thing, you know, of writing and recording, uh half life, but writing for the album, and then go into the next year, keep writing, then you start touring again, and then finally I had to be like, okay, I gotta I got to come off the road, which wasn't even my choice. I'm lucky enough that my managers now were the ones that took me off the road. I would have kept going. I would have just been like, well, you know.
You got to have people like that in your life, man, just to kind of go, hey, man, you're going way too hard at this and if you don't, and you know, ultimately it's it's for the betterment of the music. Oh yeah, you know, to get your wits about you. And man, that that must have been really hard, losing your granddad and and and having to jump right into fire and people you thought you could.
I mean, I can't imagine what that feels like.
Yeah, it was. It was an odd feeling.
How'd you deal with it?
Man?
How did you process? Where are you at now? You know?
I didn't process it right the first go around. I literally just told myself I was I was like, I'll come back through it. I was like, I'm just gonna proof something. You didn't even know what. So I just I worked through the entire thing, just kept playing shows like crazy. I was drinking and partying heavy is all get out, and just trying to hide all the other things that were deep down in my heart. Because how weird is it to write songs about mental health and then struggle with yourself, well, struggle with it yourself, but then also find out that your grandpa sure like that. That's like a That was a weird moment in time. But when I took a break, I went to on site and I went through a lot of things, and I learned through others as well, because it's like group therapy, which honestly, I'm so happy I did it because most of the people that were there, they're like sixty or seventy. So I'm sitting there going I better do this now so that way I'm not like them, and then go why have I not been happy my entire life? And so, I mean, I highly suggest it to everyone just go work on the things that you need to and sure keep on going and enjoy life. Because as much as this year has been stressful with putting out another project and then recording and then hitting the road again and then putting out an album, and this thing has been the hardest thing I've had to do and I've been scared of it and I've had to apologize my team because I have been scared shitless by all of this.
And clean that up for me. So you're saying, what are you? What have you been? What exactly have you been?
Like dropping this big album, going on these big tours, like this is my fourth godlining.
Tour, tons of pressure.
And it's I mean, I didn't start my first headlining tour until August of last year, and it's just been it feels like the same tour a different name.
Wow, but like like a little bit of imposter syndrome, a little bit oh yeah, I can't do this. I'm not supposed to be here exactly.
And then finally it's just been slowly unraveling and honestly, right now in present day, I don't. I don't. I'm happy good, I'm like it's out. And but now I'm feeling all this like freedom of like oh, now I can fully go back to step one and start over and create again.
I am identifying with every single thing you're saying. And I think it's.
Hard for a majority of people who aren't creatives to kind of understand because they look at us and they go and I say us, I mean songwriters.
Me and Reed never wanted to do what you're doing.
You know, I never expected this. I was just wanting to learn how to write songs.
And that's what we got into it.
But man, the ebbs and flows of the creativity versus the pressure of fans wanting to listen to what you do, it's such pressure, man, and I can't imagine trying to balance. It's you almost have to compartmentalize your creativity, your personal life, your road life, the expectations of your fans, and your professional life. Because while you're dealing with all this, your dad's getting older, you know what I mean. And like for me, when I was I was on the road loot last year. My kids were having birthday parties and taking vacations and doing things, and I'm eating a turkey sandwich in freaking Norwegia whatever that place is, you know what I mean, Like.
Yeah, I don't even know what's happened. I don't even know. I'm real bad at geology. Where's Norwegian? There is no.
I mean a turkey sandwich yet deck or bus watching my kids blow out candles on their cupcase twenty four hours away, and you have to you have to analyze, like, man, is is it worth it?
Yeah? You know, and you're not to that point. You're twenty three.
But I've questioned it, but not to that point, just because I don't have that pressure as well, because when you have kids, it's a different deal. Yeah, unless you don't want to be a dad, then it's easy. Yeah you can just walk right out.
But we say that all the time. Yeah, it's tough to be a good one, you know.
Yeah, you have kind of accountability and responsibilities and it's but you're watching life go by, and I'm sure that's eating you up.
Oh yeah, because everyone looks in my life from like and they're like, well, you're just doing the craziest thing easy, And I'm like, when I go out there, I watch everyone else live a life, and mine goes on pause and it's been on pause, that's right. And when I come back home, I struggle with being with friends and family because I'm like, how do I How do I act? Now? What do I like? I just walk around. I don't like having security or anything. I just walk around town, do my thing and say how to folks and and just try to act normal. But at the same time, I'm still like working on it. So I'm hoping that when I get to go home this next time, I can kind of figure out and come back down to solid ground and just but like just because I don't want to lose that. No, shoot, if I lose that, then I lose your so yeah, and then there goes everything.
Yeah. But dude, props on you man for for bro, you're twenty three, Like you're recognizing this that, like you said, man, it's like like if you can, because a lot of the struggles that come along with it town and along with like like what you're talking about, mental stress, it usually hits you later in life, you know, and so like for you to get ahead of it and realize that that's what's going on and not trying to hide it. Anymore and admirably talking about it and being open about it and writing songs about it and writing projects about it and try to help people out that that are listening to you, and like, dude, good on you, man, because like like you're you're setting yourself up for success later in life, not only me and not only musically, but living. You know what I'm saying, Like like you've got the best years of your life coming down the road, and you're going to be in a better headspace to go after them than you are if you didn't do this stuff. Man.
And I think I've just been going through phases faster than I guess some people do, or at least catching on to things road years like, yeah, they're different. Well, man, I did that part in my life where I had lived the rock style, rock rock life. I don't know, rock star life. Yeah, even though I didn't look as ingestic because I'm in a van, sure, but yeah, we partied hard, we did all that crazy ship and then all of a sudden I was like this isn't right. And then all of a sudden it just flipped, and then I'm just in this stage where I'm like, Okay, we're here now. But where I want to be and who do I want to be? And who am I? And so it's like trying to figure it all out. But I'm hoping that I just figure it out because as much as I do love writing about my life and the things that I go through, what really comes down to it as you have a mixture of that and then you also have a mixture of actual living. And quite frankly that like, I'm grateful that I got most of these songs out on this album because like I haven't, I've just been daydreaming about another life and uh, and that's where like little Town comes from. Like I watched the movie Cars and then the next day, Right, little Town of just day dreams.
Is a good one. That's one of those. That's one of those. It's fast, two and three, they're all good. Yeah.
That was definitely like me sitting in a really bad time in January and December, like I was pressed as hell, and then all of a sudden it just ends up being me writing about happier days like daydreaming about them. Wow. Man, that's weird shit though, yes, I should have wrote the saddest things in the world.
But it's an escape, right, yeah, it almost like you're Sacki's not letting you like it like that. Your creativity is pulling you out of the rut that you're stuck in for sure.
And I'm I'm glad because it's so easy to write sad songs. But it's so easy. It's so hard to write good sad songs. But I love song or anything that's happy. I haven't figured that out yet. This is this is me attempting for the first time. I was like, good lord, I don't know how people do it well.
I feel like you have to get to a place where you feel okay doing it, you know what I mean, Because sometimes it feels like I mean, and we and we do it a lot as as staff songwriters kind of trying to mold to whatever is in the room and help, you know, guys yourself say what it is that you want to get out. But man, if it doesn't come from a pure place, it's hard to convey. And it's also tough to trick the listener. I mean, you've got fans that have been listening to you since you were young young, you know, and.
They think people read a lot better these days, they do, so I can't go up on stage and be like, they'll be like yeah, yeah, they sniff it out.
Yeah, and they'll call you out for it too. Yeah, they won't be they won't be into it.
It's cool though, that your creativity is also an outlet, you know, to to helping you feel better. It's crazy that that that cars inspired that I have.
We got Drunker in the house and yeah, I had a movie night. God it was so much fun.
And then h yeah.
That next day, I was like, man, there's got to be something to be said about little Towns. But I couldn't of any other title. I didn't want to call it little town.
Yeah.
I was like, there's got to be something because I like making my titles weird, and that one I was just like, yeah, there it is.
Where does because you're only twenty three and that's young, Like where does I mean? And listening to like listening down to Welcome to the Planes, like you're writing about some heavy stuff in there, man, Like and like, where where do those day dreams come from? Like how is there so much because you're writing about so much life in these tunes, but yet you're only twenty three, Like where does that inspiration come from?
For you. I don't know. Growing up, when I was like learning how to play guitar, I just sat around campfires and listen to old cowboys just tell stories. So I think that's where a lot of it comes up. And Scott Lester plays a huge role because I watched him make up stories right in front of our eyes and make it almost seem believable crazy. And that's before even playing a song that he goes when maybe mine it may not be, you know, like you do stuff like that, and I was always fascinated by the way that he did it. But listening to their stories and then listening to my family stories, I always paid close attention. When I guess some kids woun't I guess if that makes sense, and I hold on to things. My memories were really weird. I can I can remember the most random things and like dates and everything else, but I can't remember what I did last week, But all of a sudden, it'll come back to me later on, and then I can go through like a whole like memory log of everything, which is I don't know if that's supposed to be normal or if that is normal, but yeah, I guess it's my normal. But yeah, the daydream and stuff is just thinking about old stories and then also going through other people's but at the same time making it relatable to me. They don't like telling other people's stories and like taking I don't, no, I like making it personal. But yeah, it's always been a thing where I've latched onto things. And like, Forget your Voice is actually written about my grandparents. We had to move them up from sam Manito, Texas to still Water so we could take care of them because both of them got dementia, And so I watched that play out and you know, going with my sister and taking care of them when mom and dad were both working. They didn't remember who we were. So we're just walking into their house and they're asking us who we are and started learning bits of Spanish. But like that's where Forget your Voice comes from, because I was like, how does it feel to be in their shoes, not having cell phones or anything else, and you're holding on to what's left, what's already been taken away from you, which is everything in your memory and you have the one true love of your life? Can you even remember their voice? And it made me think about like, okay, think of an old friend that you haven't seen in a really long time. Uh, and you can't see them, could you still remember their voice? That having to pull it up on a video or a voicemail.
How they sounded.
Yeah, And I don't know, just some real stuff, like it's a real catchy song, but like the deeper meaning behind it is like, well, dementia sick. Yeah, skips a generation, is what I've been told, and I might be screwed. So I'm extremely grateful for the time being that i still have this memory.
Yeah, I mean, he even speaks, you know, you even speak like an old soul.
It's I think.
I think when you go through some of those things young, it turns you into you know who you are as an adult. And and I did the I mean I went through some of the same things with my grandparents. There were times I was I was in a school where I went to school, just having to be real close to where my grandparents lived. And I remember thinking, Man, I'm gonna have I wanna have no regrets when he goes. So I'm gonna if he needs me for anything, I'm just doing I'm just dropping and doing it, you know. So I'll take him to the hospital and and through like putting myself through that some of that hard stuff. I learned more about it, you know, and I got to talk to him like a human and really log a lot of that conversation and personality into who I am, and that translates through some of the songs that I write.
You know.
Uh, those people are important, man, Your grandparents.
And and uh, those old elderly folks in your life they matter, man, They still matter. They're not just absolutely people in the corner.
And you start digging in the family history and the stories that come along with it. When you start asking, you start finding out more and more. Yeah, oh dude, it's so cool. Yeah, And to me, I'm like a huge history there, and you start peeling back the layers and you're.
Like, oh, yeah he did what, Yeah, married who where?
Yeah, there's there's some crazy things that I can't even say on this podcas. I'm pretty sure my aunt Velma would kill me.
She probably didn't listen, dude.
There's like there's some weep history that goes back in our family that.
Yeah.
I actually did write a song about it, and it's called the Family Tree. But it was talking about how there's bodies buried underneath it, and uh, there's some old stories that were dug up by my other cousin and then my my his mom told him Mike Field right now, and he was like, oh oh really, Oh yeah, yeah, I had a shut down that project. But uh, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. The one thing that I always learned is like a songwriter, I guess even though I don't shut up and I all day long, is uh, they always said just listen. I think it's what someone gave me advice was just listen, and then you start picking away people's conversations and totally I'm adhd as hell, so I latch onto weird ship all.
But I think that.
Helps is a run Oh yeah, I've always said that. I'm I don't think that hurts as a right because what it did for me was go, Okay, we're stuck at this spot. Well, instead of just ramming that square peg round hole, you can go, what about from this angle or this angle or this angle or this angle? And I think that's important. And being kind of like a what do they call it, like a utility tool songwriter, you know, where you can just kind of come from any direction.
I think it helps it does instead of just being stuck there and looking at each other across the room like you've got anything. It's not fun.
I do feel like that's.
Where songwriter, Real songwriters are born in those moments, but it is. It's tough, especially when you do it through four days in a row.
Oh yeah, man, but it just keeps happening and you're like, is it me?
Yeah, I'm the worst. I wants to discuss time.
Oh man, I've had I've had those where i just sit down and I'm like, oh no, it's one of those. Yeah, it's one of those days. And then I just look at them and I'm like, how are you feeling? And He's like you want to get out of here? And I'm like, yeah, we should definitely get gone.
Has he been doing a lot of co writing.
I've done a whole bunch of co writing, oh man. David Deval, Aaron ra Tier, She really those two were the ones that really taught me a whole bunch. Cole Miracle was another one. He's one of He's He's taught me so many little things.
Uh.
And his word economy is so great, which I'm trying not to nerd out for those of you all that, But yeah, David Devall has been one of my favorite artists that I've always looked up to and and but to get the chance to write with him was like the coolest thing ever. But I always loved his song lay Me Down, but she never released. The other writer did and I can't remember his name, and I've always wanted to cover it. But their first song together was Orange Bottles, and just wrote it like it was and then our next what was the next song after that? I mean, shoot, we wrote Devil and Wildcat in the same day and that was also thirty minutes. It took fifteen minutes to writ the first one, earned twenty minutes to write Devil, then ten minutes strike Wildcat. Well, Wildcat was almost completely written. But yeah, we knocked those two out. And then Astronaut was another one that Andrew ended up joining us in because he had just actually gotten dumped and lost his fiance wild Trip. But even though on this album, I went home, but I brought him to my home and he hung out with all my friends. We made him work cattle. We did a whole bunch of other beside song right. But then when we did sit down and write, I think we wrote four songs and that was when I died, O Susanna be right here with You and another one that didn't make it. But me and him have always just been like, I don't know, locked and if we're not locked on some thing, we'll just start over on something else.
When's your what's your what's your favorite time to write? Do you have like a specific mean of the day or like no, just in life? Do you like to ride on the road Do you like to write at your home in Nashville where.
I can't do it on the road as much? On the road has been really difficult to write, and if and I had a better it's weird. I have the bus now, but like there's so much going on with that inside of my head of being on tour. But like when I was in the van and I was still doing all those shows in the van, I actually did better about writing. I'd sit there and just write a song before I even put melody or word or or chords to it. I just sit there and write the entire thing. And uh, and I've done that quite a few times. But I like seeing like the word structure, I guess of everything before I actually put chords to it. Either that or I find chords. I like the way that it makes me feel, and then I go search for something.
In my memories. Cool.
I don't know, I'm a weird writer. I don't have like one of those things where it's like, all right, first thing's first, we got to make sure the coffee is right. Yeah, Like, I don't know. I usually do get jacked up on coffee before, right though, really like, yeah, if you give me about five cups, five cups, that's like a whole pot. Well, it'll it'll either be one of those things where it's like, are we just going to keep trying the same thing and just hope that it works one of these times? Or scatter scatter them and then all of a sudden it'll.
Just Yeah, dude, Welcome to the Planes is awesome. Oh, Susannah's one of my favorite on there? Is it is it? Don't Say Goodbye or don't say good night?
I don't want to say good night.
Don't want to say a Night's a great tune. That might be my favorite one off the record.
That one was ill. I mean, that one's so much fun to play.
Yeah, it's gotta it's got it it's gotta Yeah.
I finally got like the drive going. All my stuff has been like super folky, which is nothing wrong, but I was like, man, I really just want to pedal. Yeah.
Those hit live different. Oh yeah, I hit hit different for sure.
Man. It was so funny this past weekend in Raleigh.
Uh.
I got the crowd clapping uh to the beat before I even start the song. But I was playing electric and it was my first time playing electric. But I forgot that I had it a half step, so I put the capo on wrong, and I I haven't had a train wreck on stage in two years.
That's the recipe for a train wreck.
I honestly wish that I could just show you all the So.
The band kicks in your half step, well.
So I started off, Oh you started off?
Come in.
Yeah, they figured it out, and everyone's talking to the talkbacks and they're like a flat a flatt and I don't even remember what they were said because there's so many, so many things going on. But I was trying to tell my bass player. I was like, all right, you're gonna situation. You're going to put us back in the right key when I go up to sing. Since it's only you playing. I was like, just move it up. He didn't hear that because Clym was also just like what care we which one are we choosing?
That gets whacky. Wreck.
That was the first time that we've all been jumping, like running around looking for a talk back, being like what are we doing? And that was the busiest that it ever been on the line. Usually we're just yelling at each other.
So how did the wreck happen? Oh?
Man? So the intro is so hard to listen to. I could I honestly kind of want to find the I kind of want to find the door tape. Yeah, oh yeah, Oh it's it's horrendous. But what happened was we go through the intro, we do it twice instead of one time on the album, trying to do something. Yeah, and we're trying to figure it out. We drop into the verse and I'm off key. Turns out I didn't have enough of my bass player and I don't know where he's at. You're singing a half step lower than what he's playing. I think I'm singing higher. I think I was singing it in the original and he's lower.
This is gonna be one of the things like this will be twenty years now. Really bad. Have y'all heard that? Why Flora's board taking.
Well, then it goes to the chorus and no one ever picked a key because it's a different keys, So they're they're trying to figure out if they should follow Bill or if they should follow my vocals. And I'm also sitting there playing with my capo while still singing, going what can am I?
Even at that point there is is yeah, million miles an hour.
The chorus was the most funniest part, dude, Like things are flying in and you hear guitar go whoo no, and fiddle comes in and she's like, Nope, that ain't it, and it just I finally said okay, everyone.
Stopped and then just stopped it.
Dude. I had to.
It was that bad.
It was. It was a train wreck that I have not experienced in so long, and that there is pure embarrassment. I needed that. That humbled me.
Reque it.
But yeah, I just started it back up with I don't want to say good night and got us all back and then all of a sudden it was tight. Is all good?
I see.
I personally think people like you, no doubt, because that's the difference between.
Live music and like a bunch of things.
Oh yeah, if you're playing live and your players are players and you're trying to entertain and you're trying to be this guy on stage's gonna happen. We don't think it's endearing. I think I think it's appreciate that.
I think fans like to see that kind of behind the scenes. Oh yeah, and appreciate it like it's it's vulnerable, but when it is happening is not screciot.
Yeah, so I chills down my spine.
Dad would always start whenever I was out with him.
I was quote unquote guitar tek.
Really all we did was play golf and hunt, but it would start up.
He would start. Oh, he would start like it was the last song isself Monday Man, Well the song before it though it was here. Uh so he's so you do it really because you can do it? So this is the key. Okay, get your mic. What am I singing Monday? Okay? Okay, right, okay, okay, okay, watch ready to go start Monday morning, little going fighting man? Shoot, how bad that is? And so that song and it's like all this momentum is powering to it.
Oh yeah, and he goes and it's so I bring it out Jordany all at this show and I do this, was it not.
It?
Oh yeah, that was Nashville. I didn't let it die for the record.
Where you popped out. It's not my.
Sorry dude, that's happening in front of eighty thousand people now and they're looking at look and Luke's looking at me like bitch, what did you do? And so I I hear in my talk back like Jame wasn't wrong?
Was wrongs by?
And Luke's like, hey, Dan, something's shacked up up here. And I'm like, and you know you've been on the Looke stage. I'm like spraading out there. I run out there and I snapped that thing off.
You know.
And he plays and it's fine, and dude, I felt, I mean, it's it's just when you're the one responsible, so one and I'll shout out Ed's and I think, so he say his last name.
He walked up to me that they can make it through the song and everything's fine.
They start, he walks off, he comes back out to do the Arencore and I'm still just just like over there, like, oh yeah, you know, and Ed comes up and he puts his arm around me, and dude, there is no secrets about this job.
Like I'm not a guitar taker.
And never did I ever claim to be. Luke just wanted me to come hang out for a year and you know, do the thing. And but there are professionals that I'm working along, working alongside. And man, he came up and he put his arm around me, and he was like, hey, man, out of the seventy five thousand people in this stadium, you're the only one still thinking about that mess up.
Like nobody, it's not it's not.
Even anybody else's realm, and you're over here sweating it. Oh yeah, dude, it's live music.
Life goes on. Nobody.
It's not going to be a forever YouTube clip that people go back to and point.
Figure this guy, yeah guitar.
Yeah.
I think it's I think it's nice. I think it's nice to know that it's not all mechanical and it's not all lined out and a bunch of saked.
Up Oh yeah, you know, bullshit. We can't do tracks, and I can't. I could not have something telling me of course in three.
Two people do that with tracks.
Some do really, dude, tracks are wilds bizarre.
I couldn't do it either, that's too much going on.
No, I'd just rather just play Gosh tang. Yeah, but that was definitely a train wreck that I was. Yeah, I was sweating bullets and then I walked off stage and I was like, well, screwed the potre on that one, didn't I Gosh.
Nobody cares. Man, It's awesome. Uh So what's next? Man?
What's next for White Flora's Man? That's the question I'm asking myself. I think think at this time in my life, I'm going to enjoy the rest of this tour and just have fun working with the band. I feel like a lot of pressure is off right now and I'm really getting a chance to start over.
Good for you.
So really, I'm just going to finish out this tour ends on the thirty first. The our last show will also end in Tulsa Cane's Ballroom, so super excited about that. Then I get two months off and I hate the winner, but I don't know what I'm gonna do, and I'm alright with that, and I think I'm just gonna enjoy writing again and finding love for it and getting lost in the music by myself.
More than anything. And you're going to stay up here, You're going to stay down here. Yeah.
I moved all my stuff back in June, so I guess I'm gonna go finish a barn to Minium. I don't know.
It sounds awesome, Yeah, yeah, sounds awesome.
If you want to go duck on the deer hunting hollered seriously, Yeah, if you if you're serious about it, bro, we want to tell we'd love to take you.
It's been I think it's been like five years since I've gone duck.
I think we make that hack. Yeah, maybe try to make it happen close to you.
You don't have to come and shape I might know.
John Jumpson's on it. John got your dog. Yeah, let's do it.
That'd be fun. That's awesome, we'll do Thanks for hanging out with us, well, thanks for having me minutes. It's been an hour and twenty. Yeah, that's wild. Yeah. We do a couple of things at the end of the show. Part sorry, which one? Which one? Is it mixed up? Yes, you sing this one. I'm shooting that that thing you had to say, but it's.
A Bard show.
Yeah, I wrote that on the way. Hell, yeah, nice, the one that got away?
Man, it could be anything fish, a deer, a Hamburger, a fifty dollars, No, it's fifty sixty thousand, sixty thousand dollars gift card.
That let expire, Yeah, to like some resort. It's real. We we make a huge at some point. It's gonna be a million. Yeah's not what Gosh, if we get renewed for him that second season, who knows. But what's for you?
Man?
When you think about one that got away?
What is it? I don't know why this still bothers me to this day, but I think it. I think it's the reason why I try and shoot my shot at everything that I possibly can. Now, I was traveling, I was at airports. This is not that cool of a story, but for me, it was like one of those magical moments and I was like wow. Either way, I was in Houston, I think it was the Houston Airport, and I don't remember where I was flying from or too, but I ended up being in this long ass line at Waterburger and and this girl her card wasn't working or whatever, and I was like, don't worry, I'll pay for it and just went over and paid for it and uh. And then she was like, well, that's very nice of Yeah.
And she was.
A twelve out of ten. Oh my good lord. Yeah. I think she just came back from like Mexico.
Uh.
Either way, we ended up having lunch together in that airport. She was cool as all get out and uh yeah, and I never even asked her name. Wow, and we just went our separate ways.
Did you have a girlfriend? I do know the dude.
I think we should though, with the guys. Three the bros out there need to know to shoot the shot and ask the name. Bro. Don't mess up like me, dude, water Burgers.
Never let me out now, No, I can't use that. I don't give you so much trouble with his gal.
Dude.
I think he knows his gal better than you do.
I well, honestly, I mean I don't know now that I think about it. What's she be pissed? Probably not, I say a lot of stupid shit.
Anyway, we can take that out.
I think she can handle that one. That one happened like four years ago. Wait, before she was in there.
You're in a way better spot than you would have ever ended up with that chicken watburger anyway, right.
Yes, yes, absolutely.
The other thing is gravy. You explained that gravorite song greatest slash favorite, just a kind of an iconic song.
For you that you think of in your life. Yeah, man, man uh sho, there's so many.
Yeah, I know, that's why we're trying to put too much pressure.
Yeah, it'd either be like Jason Isabel if we're vampires, or like Turnpike trud Doers seven and seven. Those are like some early ones for me where everything kind of just blossomed.
His live is something man and is.
Yeah, the song with the r blew my mom.
Yeah, I didn't realize how much player he is. He is a great player.
Yeah, that's what I didn't realize either until I found out and someone told me. He was like, yeah, that's him solloing and I was like you shouldn't me And then the slide parts too, I'm.
Like, yep, they talk about a guy too that you know, especially for you being a young guy, that's that's that's writing your list story to look up to somebody like that that's written. I mean some of his stuff like is insane.
That's where all my music changed, uh, because I was kind of in this folky thing, like even starting out with Traveling Kid and and uh, but I was raised in red dirt and that's what I thought I was going to go into, like super heavily. But then that influence changed everything when someone finally showed me and it was Last of My Kind and it was off the live album at the Rhymen and I was in college and I just would listen to that song over and over again.
I think I was at that taping. I think I was the last time I know that that taping they did that Cody had two, like both nights, and we went both nights and watched them. Took me yeah, okay, well maybe yeah, yeah, he's he's the biggest Jason little fan I know. But that's yeah, dude. Those songs man. I remember being in college when I was probably twenty twenty one years old. I was just about to get out and trying to figure out my national journey.
And uh, mine was.
The Boy Who The Boy Who Wouldn't O Corn and it was played by Allison Kraus and Union Station and I sat there and listened to that song probably for three hours straight. And for some reason just the way that Jerry Douglas was playing the doughbro and that tune. For some reason, it switched something in my mind that I was like, I want to do whatever, Like if it's playing, if it's singing, I just want to do something in this realm for the rest of my life. And now I'm a commercial song. Nothing to do with bluegrass or anything like that, but like musically that that moment in my life, I think about that when the turning point of getting.
Me, it'll get you though.
That's weird.
I was just sitting in the parking lot of the place, not wanting to go into my dorm, and I'm just cranking this thing and I'm like, what is this And then all of a sudden it just changes your whole mentality on music.
Yeah, yeah, it does.
Dude.
Listen, what you're doing is important, man. Your songs are important. Your voice is important. That we appreciate just you coming on and being honest about it and and the way that you're using your life experiences and your creativity to help folks man, and to give it out because what you're doing and I think we lose sight of this as creative sometimes is uh is offering, you know, some relief and some hope through your songs for people that can't do that. There's a lot the majority of the population can't express how they feel about a certain situation.
Yeah, so thanks for doing that man, and dude, you're doing it at like we said earlier, at such a young age, like there's you're gonna help people for the rest of your life. That's what I'm doing. What you're doing now, you know, and going to whether you're going to or not, I agree. We thank you probably way beyond your when you're even gone and and you know you're you're this is gonna live for people to listen to for.
The rest of their that's the goal. But thank you guys for having me and thanks for coming on. This has been fun as hell.
Yeah yeah, we'll figure it out. Y'all got dogs, not dug dogs, but we got we know some guys. Heck yeah, White Flora is that God's touch everybody.
Thanks for hanging out and we'll check out next time.