Ep. 51: Terri Clark - From Tootsie's to the Mother Church

Published Nov 19, 2024, 10:00 AM

This week Reid and Dan Isbell host Grand Ole Opry Member and Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame Member, Terri Clark, out in God's Country. Dan immediately dives in on the hot take of how terrible it is to host a kid's birthday party during deer season, even though he's guilty of doing it in September. Terri shares her love of northern pike fishing, bass fishing, and how much more fun touring is when there is a good lake near the venue. They all discuss the current landscape of country music, specific to females on the charts and how much different it was when Terri was coming up in the industry. She harmonizes with the guys singing one of her massive hits and we're still crying with her over her "One That Got Away."

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What You're out in God's Country with Reed and Dan, also known as the Brothers Song, where we take a weekly drive to the intersection of country music and the out doors, two things that go together like a whopper plopper and top water fishing.

In twenty twenty four, it's a New Crave or.

Good old country music and the Rhyman. This podcast is brought to you by Meat Eater and iHeart Podcasts.

Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Grand Old pp Remember Cowboy hat Fishing. We got Terry freaking.

Clark, genuine, genuine country icon star legend. She's a legend.

She apparently is a legend at catching large mouth on Lake Erie too. We'll talk about it, dreams about it, thinks about it all the.

Time, Northern Hike and almost She's got some hits.

She may sing the chorus of one I don't know, probably will, but she's awesome. Podcast is awesome. Thanks for hanging out with us, y'all. Go follow us on the social media, Go subscribe to whatever you need to subscribe to.

We love y'all. Thanks for your support. You got anything to say to say? On the Tech Talks peace out, Thanks.

Well that you're lucky I'm even wearing woman Yes, is just decided I didn't want to put anyone's eye out this early this morning.

Hey, thanks for hanging out with you. Thanks for thanks. This is a hell of an intro, I know.

Okay, okay, we're doing something a little different this morning. We uh we have we've got headphones on. If are all right, you probably as a listener can't tell, but you don't tear.

You don't have to worry about you.

I can. I'm I'm an old pro at how to work around. I can do that.

She's been on radio tours before. You really don't have to have them on. Okay, they kind of looks like a new football helmet thing.

I wasn't wearing the uniforms.

But we're trying out headphones, so I'm gonna go one air on, one air off, and uh.

We have a Tennessee like talk over each other and get loud, and.

People in the comments or people in the comments are like, this would be a great podcast if you could hear it.

So and if that one guy would shut the hell up. Yeah, talking about you. You talk too much. Man.

We have a country artist who sold over five million albums, a cowboy hat wearing as you can tell grand old opry member. Might I say only Canadian female member shout congrats North Pike catching big bass catching Canadian Music Hall of Fame and Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame inductee. We've got the legendary Terry Clark. H it's out in God's Country.

Oh that was quite a nice intro. Thank you.

It's all very true. It's all very true.

Come on, I'm a little I'm gonna be honest, like a little star strugger right now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's a big one. I a big one. Grew up on your music. I mean like jamming your music, man, for real, you know.

What you know, it's I appreciate that. It's so weird to me too. I feel like there's a got in a time machine and went to the future. It's like, it doesn't seem like it's possible that there's been so much time. Go buy that. A fully bearded man is telling me.

Well, for the record, I've been bearded since like thirteen.

Yeah, my dad says, you've bearded sixth grade.

My dad always talks about Dan. He said, Dan came out. Well, you got to you got to.

Say the first time he had my sister, my sister, I have an older we have an older sister and or brother.

Well, heads up, yes, I figured, unfortunately, Terry unfortunately.

So yeah, yeah, my older sister came out and he said. She was all sweet, you know, and just like a little nose and all cute, and she said, he said, And then four years later we had to hand and that someone came out looking for sandwich and needing to shave, you know, a totally different deal. But yeah, so I don't.

Don't you're going to say your sister came out with a beer.

She didn't, Thank God.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but thanks for hanging out with us, Thank.

You for having Thanks for we've been trying to get this scheduled for you have we the homies have the homies.

I like the homies.

Back then, before we started to went on the air, you came up with you started calling, you know, the management the homies.

I'm just saying, it's just talking the homies, that's right, man. Uh, It's just further confirmation that I'm okay, I like to I like to do this.

If there was.

An Olympics for something that you could meddle at.

What I tell you what I tell you, he's gonna he's gonna set up a segment for himself to tell something.

I'm just saying, do you feel like, what's something you would like?

For example, mon would be.

Probably given out names that would I could meddle in giving out I think I could be top three percent in the world and giving out nicknames.

Uh.

And what's Reid would be growing like a trailer park beard. You know what I mean, he'd be top three percent at that.

You get the duck dynasties.

It's just the spaces of the space. Yeah. See he loves natural not awo mimson.

So what what's something you feel like you could meddle at if it were happened to be an Olympics sport?

Oh gosh, probably.

Like maybe catching northern pine.

Well, I can catch fish, but I also can I'm really good at visualizing a space and redesigning houses, doing renovations, building houses, stuff like that. Like I've been told, I don't like to brag.

No, this is a.

Talking about I can see that you're you're obviously good at all.

I told I could have another job, I chose to change.

Okay, what what's your what's your when? You walked in this room which me and Dan and my wife Jordan jumps. Let's Dan likes to call her designed.

How do you feel about it? Give it a right out of ten?

The right up there with bass pro shops.

That's what I'm talking about. It's very nice, That's what I'm talking about.

Can you point me to the to the gortexile please.

Cold weather us up there. We like to start the show with a segment we call what You're mad at? Or do you have a song? Yeah? Or what's You're glad at?

You know what I'm mad at? I supposed to tell.

You what you mad Just tell us what it is?

What you mean?

Is it you in lost? Kids?

Might be your boss man, all your neighbors cat, just tell us what you man.

One of the better ones we've done. That's really great, Thanks Terry.

I wrote it on the way you got her.

On that one. Sure is funny.

That's like a real laugh that that's a real that's not I'm going on.

About four hours sleep. In the last like five or six days, you're getting me in prime. You've been rocking No, just like I had bus issues on my last run. We were out west for two weeks. And so we didn't get a lot of sleep.

Where were you?

Where wasn't I? Well, I was in Arizona, California, Texas a bunch of shows out there. Yeah, so it's not like a weekend.

So what do you do when, like when your bus goes down? You do you just?

I mean, is it wasn't middle of the middle of the day. You go to the hotel? Are you just sleeping on that?

It's like, it's just little things that hamper your ability to to uh you know, yeh at capacity level, clanking around, going on no no air, things like that. You know, it's just it's okay, it's all right, We're good. Things happen.

So you're not mad at that.

I'm I was a little mad at that. That's one thing I've been very very mad at this week. I've been mad about that. And the other thing I'm I'm really mad about right now is politics. I just don't I want it. I just want I want it all over with.

Let's go viral, say, let's go viral, say something.

We're about to about to break the internet right now.

No, I just I'm just I'm so tired of every time you turn on the TV there's an ad of something going on, and I'm tired of talking about it. I'm tired of everybody talking about it. I'm tired of seeing it everywhere the signs. I don't care what sign it is. I just want it to I'll be glad when it's over. So I'm mad about politics, and I'll be glad when it's over.

I can look what you do rather there mad when yeah? Mad, that's going on? To be glad when it's over.

I was, And I was also mad at my bus.

Oh yeah, you were mad at that. I don't blame me though I've been on those hot buses.

Is tough, and you know what, these are all first world problems and they're all people with way worse problems.

That's what Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

I'm very grateful and I have to live a very charmed blessing. Sad we all, you know, it's all relative. Every time a little bit they get pissed off about, just irritated, totally.

Yeah you want to go.

Sure, I'm mad at parents whose schedule birthday parties on Saturdays during deer season.

Yeah, like yours, like like your like your daughters the other day. I'm not excluding a lot.

Of birthday and it interfered with your deer hunting.

Terry, how much do you think I had to do with the scheduling of my five year old's ELSA party?

Zero? How many kids you think, Terry, I've got in deer season? How many? How many birthdays you think my kids having dear seasons? How many? None? Because I plan it. You plan because because I know what I'm because I know what I'm doing. Yeah, I'm sure it was up to you know what I'm saying.

That's timing.

Yeah, how much I love hunting and that's.

Some serious fertility in your family.

She's a rock star, just.

Now a child bearing vessel on a time now.

Yeah, birthday parties in in deer season are tough, dude. They're tough because, especially now in life, when it's so busy during the week and like pretty much the only time you got is on the weekend.

I feel like, does that sound weird all of a sudden, Yeah, it feels like it's not there, but I feel, yeah there is.

I feel like, uh, less and less time exists in my life.

The older I get. That's figuratively and literally.

Yeah, well, how old is your are your.

Kids five, two and three months.

Goodness, well that's why.

Yeah, it's a minute ago.

And you said, you know, there's just little things that keep me awake at night. I was like, yeah, I got three of them.

Yeah things one way littler than the others. Yeah.

I do have to ask, like, aren't you out in a tree stand at four am? Like isn't the party going to happen when when you would taking a nap.

I would be, But those three little things wake up at five point thirty. So there's really I can't allow my wife to just handle that, you know what I mean.

It's a lot, It's a whole lot.

Yeah, I am mad at I'm mad. The other day I was mad at my wife's dreams because that's Mullen by the.

Way, so you look good at see dude.

The other day I was mad at my wife's dreams because she woke up in the middle of the night and she thought somebody was duct taping something in our house. At three thirty in the morning, she was like, she want me, She's like, there's somebody duct.

Taping something in our lin a specific that.

Is very specific. I was like, get out of here, you know, like du taping something. Turns out that there wasn't anybody duck tape in anything in our house. And I was up till six thirty.

You have a shotgun out, I.

Have my pistol. Yeah, I have a pistol. Shotgun is probably better move though. I've got the spray. Yeah, they makes this.

You know again, what does it do?

It's a we need, we need to we need, we need to lubricate that thing.

You know, it got cleaned. I took it to the army. They cleaned it. I did a show last week where they gave me a gun as a gift.

Damn. Yeah, what kind of gun you you remember?

It's a it's a it's just a double barrel shotgun, like a Dutch hunting type thing.

That's a great gun.

Yeah, it's got a beautiful Yeah, it's nice. So now I know I have two guns? Am I supposed to? Am I allowed to talk about that?

Hey?

Yeah?

Yeah you can't.

Yeah, don't break in a Terry Clark's house, are you?

You don't want to do that? That's what Let's let them know.

You're getting sent into the wall exactly, flat back in your ass.

I love for my neighbors to know I have guns man. I like to just pop them every now, and you know I don't.

I don't think there's anything wrong with protecting yourself and you know, having something there.

Yeah, you don't want to be the one that doesn't have a gun. I'll tell you that much. So yeah, I was, Yeah, so that I was.

Mad at my But today I'm mad at my own dreams because last night I was exhausted, went to bed a little earlier, and as soon as I fell asleep, you're gonna this is gonna relate to you. I immediately in my dream, I like, close my eyes, went to sleep.

Boom. I'm in our childhood church, which is a bigger church. My dad's a badist preacher, so I was there all the time.

Anyway, it's night, it's dark there, there's no lights on in the church. You know those back hallways and courses.

Core memory for you. Though.

Something I didn't know what it was, and I was the only one there, but something. And I was at those front doors that you go in like you go up the stairs to the choir room or right to the side door. I was in the doors, not outside, in the doors, and there was something I knew. There was something in that back, but I didn't know where. It was getting scary, and in my dream, in my dream, like in real life, i'd have been like, okay, I'm good. I just turned around and walked out the door and got in my car and left. But in my dream, I couldn't get out the door until I found what was back there. So I was I went left into that hallway where Dad's office was back there, and I started there was that little printer, that creepy ass little printer right there to the right. Yeah, yeah, I like, I was looking in there, and I have not thought about that room, and tell you, that's what I had neither. That's what I'm saying. And so it was so scary that like I woke myself up out of that dream, like I was like, man, I'm not doing this, Like I don't have to do this.

I know this is a dream. I'm not doing this anymore.

I woke myself up, and then I was trying to fall like myself was trying to fall back asleep. But I wouldn't let myself go back to sleep because I knew I'd go right back to it, so I had to. I got on my phone and scrolled until like the train of thought switched, and then I felt like I could go to sleep again and not have that same dream.

So did you no, you have the same dream?

No?

I didn't, Thank god, Wait I didn't have the same dream. But did you go back to sleep? Yeah? That went okay, congratulations, you've been up for like eight hours.

But bro, I was terrified. I was terrified. I ain't gonna lie like it was. It was not merrish. So you're mad at dreams, mad at my dreams? And I'm usually not because I have great dreams, but I'm mad at my dreams me neither. Is that a song title mad at my dreams? If like, you're no dreaming of don't start writting, girl, that got away.

Terry's figuring it out. I saw the I saw the stair a.

Song called I Just Want to be Mad for a while. People like the word mad, and I like that song. They like the word mad.

They like, Uh, that's why we did watch it mad. People like a little That's why they watched thatscar. Yeah. They want to see some res hockey. You want to see a fight. We watched you know what I'm saying.

Hockey? Yeah, a lot of fighting. There's a lot of violence in hockey.

Did you play hockey up there? Hearbody from Canada plays hockey?

Ear least I would go out and play street hockey boys and stuff once in a while. No, there was ice everywhere, for sure. You just skate around in your boots.

You just played on the streets.

Yeah, exactly what part?

What where are you from? Like exactly?

Well, I was born in Montreal, Quebec.

Where Okay, so I'm sorry about my Canadian gl just American geograph.

Nobody knows topography. Do you even know that there's a country up there.

Where that's the whole country? Yeah, Ireland. I thought Ireland ended at Michigan.

What did Dan call that country the other day that was so so bad? Northeast and Norwegia Norwegia.

Yeah, seems like over there in Norwegia in the eighteen hundreds, that's what they called it.

So Quebec is eastern Canada. So if I this is how I speak America, and you know, try to describe where provinces are, and I use states as reference, so it would be above New York.

Yeah, I know exactly where that is. Yeah, I've been to Uh where is Anne of green Gables. Uh, that's up there. What's that There's an island out there in the east.

Newfoundland that would be above the ocean where.

Prince Edgard that's it.

Yeah, Homie's got her back where you're from.

Okay, how did you.

Know that she's been all over Canada school?

Yeah, I went, Yeah, there was a they played a show there and I went. We played golf and they were like, yeah, that's Anne of green Gables House.

I was like, oh, it's in pah See. I don't even know and I'm from Canada. Yeah, that's that's for Newfoundland. Yeah, but I but I saw. I was born there. And then when I was like in elementary school years, we moved to Alberta, which is above Montana.

Big deer, big deer. Alberta is big deer. Yeh, big time. Yeah, you've seen a bunch up. There's the outdoor world the deer.

Yeah, it's it's Montana basically.

Farther north that's awful.

And the farther north you go, then you can start getting into the moose.

Say, oh you.

Bag and the bears and everything.

Hey you can, and Alberta you can beg a bag buck a big you can.

Be bag, a big bag.

Alright, we're gonna get canceled from Canada, Minnesota. Yeah, we're very close with someone from Canada. And actually I was going to ask you this this morning. I woke up feeling a little very close to from Canada our nanny. Oh yeah, y'all are, but I had I took Buckleys this morning.

Do you know what that is?

It's like a cough syrup, that's.

Right, only made in Canada, the slogan for Buckleys. Do you know?

Oh I used to know it. Oh what is it again?

It tastes like but it works.

I don't think it's actually tasted, but it's taste. It tastes terrible, but it works and it does. It is the worst thing I've ever that's the slogan. That's the slogan.

And you have a cold right now?

No, what is it?

Tell me? Where's disinfectant?

Did y'all kissl the mouth? Or something?

No?

No, I'm good, I'm good. I just had you know what I'm saying. It's just their littlettle little thing, a little thing, a little flink little thing.

Yeah, just a little COVID that's all, No big deal.

So Alberta Alberta's where you grew up. Yes, was like, what was your upbringing? Was it in the outdoors where you I know? I mean you take a one scroll through your Instagram, you'll see that you're, Oh, I love fast fishing.

Yes, I love fishing. I actually grew up in a cul de sac and a very sort of very middle class, regular split level home that was built sometime in the seventies. So but before that, you know, my mom was single for a while and we lived in apartments with just me and my sister and my mom, and then she remarried and we moved to Medicine Hat, Alberta weird name for little town, but medicine Medicine Hat is the name of it. Yeah, there's there's a large native population, and there's there's a there was a whole battle that went on where the medicine man from a tribe. The tribe laid his his his hat down as an a ritual of defeat and a battle that was raging on the South Saskatchewan River, and so they named the town Medicine Hat. So cool.

Appreciate that.

You.

I know, the only reason I know that history is because they wrote a song during the centennial when Medicine Hat turned one hundred years old. My best friend in high school's dad was a country music songwriter. He's from the Nashville all the time and bring me back T shirts and stuff, and he wrote the theme song for the centennial, and me and his daughter, Shanna were best friends, and she played piano when I sang we went to all the all the places locally during that centennial year and sang that song.

Can a little bit of it?

Eighteen eighty three, the Blackfoot thought the cree in a legend living on on the south to scatche in a ritual love defeat. The medicine man fell to the.

Ground and he ladies feathered headdressed down and as a legend for our time, and we sing hats off to one hundred. Yet, Madison Hat, let's see lebrate on this centennial.

And we say sorry, set up one hundred. Ye. Now there's a big false set on the medicine had we love you one hundred? Yeah. I can't believe I remember that the whole verse and chorus. That's it. Wow, my song. You didn't need to hear this morning, but I wanted.

I wanted that that changed the course of my day, Terry Clark, I can't for the better.

Well, well whatever, but we we sang it.

Well whatever whatever, but we sang it.

We sang that at every spring tea and Dutch Society reunion and a legion.

I bet medicine hat Alberta love that song. They're tuning in for that.

Yeah, who got you into fishing?

Who's who kind who kind of love for that? Come from?

Well, this goes way back to I bought a I bought a lake house on Lake Erie on the Canadian side in Ontario, Canada about I bought it in twenty ten, so I've had it for fourteen years now and it's water access right into the inner bay of Lake Erie, which is some of the best freshwater fishing on the planet. Come there are twenty two freshwater species in that lake.

Nice.

So I started off with a little tin boat with a tiller motor and going out and trying to fish. And I was really pretty heavy on the road at the time too, in the summertime, so I would get out whenever I could and do a little fishing. And I just I didn't really have it letely figured out. And I had a neighbor who was really passionate about bass fishing. His name was Digger, that was his nickname. And he would take me out fishing in his range.

Gave him.

Bigger and he since passed away, which which which is awful. But anyway, he taught me how to bass fish. He he would take me out and his he had a ranger, a really great bass boat that went, you know, eight hundred miles an hour, and you know, we'd go out and we'd fish in these spots, and he showed me some great spots and I just you know, I could catch fish with him. And then I started going out on my own and catching bass. But and then I graduated, My boat got bigger, and I can catch You can catch small mouths, so but I mainly target large mouth because they're closer to the shoreline and in the weeds. There are so many great weeds and reeds and weed beds in that lake. They're just high.

I like catching small mouth, small mouth, but like, I don't feel like there's anything better than throwing it into some lily pads or something, some brush filling that bite.

Yeah, yeah, large coming out and jumping there, and I.

Just came to life. You're just kidding for you. Thank you.

I love that you can't have it.

But oh man, well, so so I've got. I had a couple of neighbors up there that that were avid anglers, and the other one his name is George and he's he's eighty four years old. I went to him during COVID, you know, and I said, listen, I would like to learn how to catch pike, you know, because they those are pretty big fish. And he he gave me the lowdown, He gave me the he told me. He taught me the knots, the double uni knots, and the heavy leader and the line and everything to use. And I went out with him a few times. He helped me target some weed beds and I've marked him on my GPS, and I started to go out myself and then I started to just and you fish right a lot, a lot. Some of it's just instinctual, almost just you get this sixth sense about start thinking about them a little bit. And once I started doing that, and then I started watching YouTube videos and gear and all of this stuff. So I just went did a deep dive. And once I started catching a lot of fish just going out myself by myself or with my other friends, you know, it just became really addicted to it and I love it. And I started tagging some of the fishing companies that I their gear that I used, and now Fenwick and Abu, Garcia and Minkota and Berkeley. I'm getting everything pretty much, you know, from from these companies to go out and fish. And I'm so grateful for that. It's just like Christmas when it's it's just been great. And a PR company actually reached out to me, Gunpowder PR and said, we've noticed your fishing videos and we represent a lot of fishing brands and would like to hook you up. So it's.

That's awesome.

Yeah, and so it's it's been really fun and and I just, uh, I dream that's what I dream about. I feel that I dream about catching big fish.

If you had one, if you had one day to fish, what are you targeting? You're going to go large mouth?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's it's just pike fishing is great, but bass fishing is more civilized. Like when I pike fish, it's just they they they're really big, strong, predatorial fish. It's yeah, it's it's fun reeling them in and getting them in, but they have really sharp teeth, and I use like a double trouble hook crank bait, so it's harder to get it out and and you're got to be really careful about not hurting them or not hurting yourself and then getting them back in the water. And it's just it's a little less civilized. They're slimy, and they smell really bad. So large mouth, one little hook. It's like, okay, pie.

So you're doing a lot of that by yourself.

Have you had any like sketchy moments out there where, like maybe your motor quit or like.

Anything.

I'm so careful. I have a Garmin, a GPS satellite thing that it's big.

Yeah, you got to watch out, yeah, and you gotta watch out for Bessie.

Yes, Oh, it's a big thing out there.

Watch for Bessie.

I'll tell you about her later.

I don't believe it.

I checked the wind. I have an app called wind Finder, and I check check it religiously, and people make fun of me because I'm always seeing when I can go fishing, and I will not go if there's anything coming in. I check radar wind finder for wind because wind is brutal out there, and you can be in four foot waves before you know it. And and a seventeen and a half foot aluminum boat you want to be careful.

About that ain't worth it?

Yeah, but I got a deep V so it handles that. Yeah, for water, I would not on the bass boat there. It's a lund.

Yeah, yeah, only an old lund.

It just sits on the sea wall and I don't care.

Yeah. Nice.

The only Northern pocket call was on a toy story rod and uh, a toy story South Dakota. It wasn't a big one, thank goodness because that wasn't but like it's the only one that they had in the boat, and so I just I rigged it up and threw a little drop shot out there.

And what's your favorite thing to catch?

Barsmow?

Where do you go around here?

Well, ryl.

If you just google lakes and Nashville, no, we I've done.

I've been to the lakes in Nashville and I'm spoiled up there. I don't I don't love it.

Yeah, we Uh the numbers are. We grew up on Pickwick Lake, so in West keep it down back there, guys. Geez, this is a we got a professional. We got legend out of here.

Geez. Sorry about that, Terry, he's fired fired.

No.

We we grew up on Pickwick and we were actually close to our hometown the other day driving through.

Uh.

We played a gig in Memphis and we've got a gig coming up in Pickwick. And uh, that's one thing, like like, I like my hometown. I appreciate my hometown. I don't really miss it too much. But one thing I do like, The biggest thing I miss about it is Pickwick Lake. And my dad fished all those he did the tournament trails around there and loved it. Yeah, I knew that lake like the back of his hand. So we catch fish all year long and go target you know, try to catch five, six, sevens and really try to catch big fish. So that was like, I mean, it's the best memories I have with my dad are on a bass boater and on in of deer's down. So it's always been a thing for us to like catch, you know, bass has just been it goes back. You know, we're best friends with it almost. We just we've done it in our whole lives. So when me and my wife met, we were looking for a place to live, and this is totally a god thing. But there was five minutes from where I was already living, which is ten minutes east of him and north ten minutes north of my parents, a house came up for sale.

I went over there to look at it. I didn't even know this.

I drove in the back of the community and there's a twenty acre private lake back there, and.

The lord let us we were able to buy that house.

And now, seriously, the only ones who fished that twenty acre lake or me, him and my dad.

Pretty much, you.

Have to be you must tell me where this twenty eight is. Come on, you have to dying to find somewhere to fish, or have.

To live in the community or be with somebody to fish it.

Yeah, but now you know you yeah, yeah, you need to tell My dad called. My dad called a couple sevens out there last year. And it's not a place where you can just go. It's not like Luke Bryan's stocked, you know, shout out, Luke Brian. I'm not talking trash.

I know I see these. I'm the same way with him. I'm like, okay, oh whatever, Luke.

Yeah, yeah, he's catching he's catching a sem pounder in this and then over here he throws.

That video.

Go on Lake Erie and do that.

Never mind, I don't have to say that's exactly what I mean. Fishing big lights like that is a lot different than fishing stock pond.

Oh my god, it's like for sure. I mean, even Pickwick is huge. But Lake Erie, Almo, it's like an ocean.

It's yeah, it's like an ocean.

And but you gotta know what you're doing.

You got to find your go to the points, and you've got to find the right kinds of weeds where they might be hiding. But the great thing about it is if you know what you're doing, you're always going to catch fish. Like I can go out and there's a certain spot I go to and in four hours, my friend and I will catch forty fish between gee. Yeah, and I would say twenty five to thirty percent of them are probably you know, three and a half to five pounds.

Forget pick We want to go with you.

Good water, the water that'll get you hooked, that'll get you addicted to it pretty quick.

It's fun.

Did you just hit the light?

Yeah, tearing it up.

Sorry, Terry put him on a leash, she said earlier.

I love far Wait, tell me about it. Tell me about Dan. You don't know about Bessie. He do, Yeah, okay Bessie then that doesn't exist. Yeah, you know about Bessie? Have you would you have a story about Bessie?

No?

Oh, I thought you said?

No, no, I are you talking about the fish that is this the one that got away segment of your.

Oh no, no, no, no no, I was talking about the she lives on it. She don't even know what there's only some big.

Monster in Lake Eries.

I think there's there.

It is.

It's total, it's total. I can get in on this right. She was looking at your hand, like do you have a Like I couldn't see it because.

Like, what's he doing? What's he gonna do?

We need to get some hand? Can we get some hand? Sanitize?

You're the guy, You're the guy onble No, there's old Michigan folk lore.

Is that Bessie is like the lock Ness monster like lake.

Yeah, I've heard that. I didn't know what's called Bessie.

Named her Bessie. What's the what's the bigges fish you've ever caught out of there? Well, what's the biggest large mouth? Will start with that.

The biggest large mouth has been six pounds, and I think that I can't get into some of the spots where I think I could catch something bigger than that with my trolling motor. It will just die on me because it's full of weeds. So I might I might have to just take up the kayak thing. I watched this girl on Instagram and she's in a kayak. What's her name, Chryst something something. You know, she's not fly fishing, she's a tournament fisher woman. She's it's unbelievable that I love her videos.

You know what you could do, Let's put your kayak on your boat, go as far as you can back in there.

I could totally do that, and I might. You know, I've thought about it. I've thought of all of these things. This is what keeps me up at night, thinking of how to catch a bigger.

Fish, not terrifying old chart stories.

The biggest fish I caught, the biggest pike I've caught, was sixteen pounds.

And I'm interested in this because I have literally never love it. Hooked a pipe are you are you like bottom fishing? Are you kind of movement?

It's flashy, flashy crank baits that and I use like the what I use is a spro auruku shad. It's like an eighty five that big uh. They sink. They're heavy there there are they're heavier lures. They rattle, have the rattles in them.

Catch them in what water colum like? You catching them shallow, you're catching them.

I'm usually they're everywhere. It just depends on where they are because they're cold water fish, so a lot of times they want to go into deeper water when it's really warm. In the summer, you're not going to catch them. But in the fall and in the spring, they're in the inner bay and the shallower water. And there's a weed bed that runs all through the inner bay and that is literally like a stone's throw from my place. So I can go out and I troll this weed bed and I'd say the water is probably twelve eleven or twelve feet and I just troll along the weed bed and they just so much fun. Sometimes I have two rods in and that's yeah, So that's I usually troll for them. But if you're casting and you catch one, that's fun too. It's just trolling helps you find where they are. And and usually if you're trolling along and we'd bet every time you catch one in the same spot, you should probably stop and cast.

For a while. Yeah, cover a lot more water.

Yeah, exactly.

Do you find that fishing, especially because you say you're on the road a lot. Do you find that like going back home and fishing in Canada and on Lake Erie and in your spot?

Like, what does that do for you? Mentally?

It's the only place and time that I feel like I can shut my very busy brain off. I'm a you know, just like constantly it's a ticker up there. So it's the only time when I'm doing something that that's all I'm thinking about doing. I'm a horrible meditator, Like I've tried that, and you know, it's just I could tend to be thoughts all over the place, but when I'm fishing, it's the only thing I'm thinking about doing. I fly fished a few times and started to kind of try to take that up a bit. But just when I'm doing something that is almost automatic and feels like a it feels like a cadence, you know, and trying to outsmart nature. That's what fishing is trying to It's trickery it's about tricking these little things, you know, and it's it's fun. And even when I'm not fishing, I'm I'm watching videos or seeing somebody catching something on YouTube and I'm like, well, what's he using and then trying to Yeah, it's kind of bad. It's pretty bad.

Do you eat anything you catch?

If I catch a walleye, which sometimes if i'm pitching, if i'm fishing for pike, I'll catch a walleye because they'll eat the same lures. Largemouth basketball too, I've caught them when I'm just trolling for pike because they all hide in weed beds. So yeah, and small mouth, but yeah, I'll eat a walleye. And uh, you know the perch on lake here, he is delicious. I don't fish for it because they're that big and it's not it's not as interesting to me. But my neighbor George, who taught me to pike fish, catches everything from rainbow trout to perch, and he's got plenty, so he brings it over to me and nice, Yeah, perch fil ats are delicious. They're just really really flaky, late sweet.

You know, their perch is different than our perch. He's talked. She's talking about the big yellow yellow. See, we don't have those guys.

I mean, I'm sure there's somewhere that does down here, but they're not a very prominent fish down here. It's we are little guys that we eat are brim.

Okay, sunfish, fish, sunfish.

But y'all those I've never I don't know that I've actually ever just like eaten a mess of perch.

But it's really good. Number one, a little meteor. Yeah.

See I'm walleye till I died, till I die. That is the best fresh water fish.

I think it's really good that exists.

Well, it's the same thing, right, it's a cold water fish, so it never has I mean, it's just we have the cousin to a walleye in the South, it's called the sauger.

Okay, same the same premise.

And you really like we catch them like late December, early January to February and really cold fishing. But you're just drifting a chance and just bob in the bottom with a with a jig.

Really that's it.

And when they sock it, it feels it almost feels like you got hung up on something.

I mean, you're fishing forty fifty feet down.

Yeah, jig fishing seems more popular in the South. Like, I used a lot of Like I can't believe we're talking so much about fishing. We're boring the homies.

Over there, sorry, homies about them.

I mean personally, I use a lot more like crank baits and mostly like worms and yeah, stuff like that. Plastics are plastics, like craws and worms and tube.

Craws and baby brushog is my jam.

Yeah that's if you got if you ain't got nothing, if you had one lure to go catch a fish on that lake behind my house, take a brushog and you're gonna get.

Into the See, I'm punkin sea lizard. I want a green lizard.

Yeah, I use a june bug a lot up there. They go crazy over the june a june bug wacky rig, oh my god. And I know also whatever, but it.

Can just wacky.

Yeah, it's kind of a newer that's kind of newer technique. But yeah, but yeah, it's it's just a.

It's almost no, it's that's the color. That's the color I use on a lot of debates out there.

And those wackyings are kind of like like sincosenko.

And and it's a worm that just kind of floats to the bottom. And I've got this little ring I put around.

The center ring hook in the middle.

Yeah, so when you when you pull up on it, the sinco's flat, but when you when you tug it, it bands.

Like if you're not catching fish, put that on. That should be your last resort like that that will. Yeah, that's the that's the go to for if.

It's I want to catch the northern pip now real bad, you should.

Yeah, maybe we're going to be talking about fishing. I would have brought you one of my lures. We could have done a show and tell. I could have shaken it.

Maybe when you're in Nashville, can come down catch some fish with us. And maybe we're in Canada, which is never we can come up and catch the northern pipe. Right.

I would love to take you fishing. I would love anybody who wants to come up there. I can't tell you where it is because we're on the thing that's right. Yeah, it's it's pretty awesome. I drive there in a day, you know, it's awesome. That's part of the that was part of the allure because my main residence is here in Nashville, but that's that's the secondary home. But I can get there in twelve hours, not far.

How often are you there and then we'll get to music.

Well, this past summer, my gosh, I drove up there, like up and back four or five times because I had a you know, a busier summer and it's just I got dogs and want to take them. But I I it just depends on the year, you know, and how much I'm working, how busy I am here. But this this summer, I'm going to be there as much as possible.

I have to slide up.

Yeah, come on, yeah, So how many shows you used toll A are you playing these days?

Well, it's it varies from year to year, and I've i've kind of I think we've hit a good stride with because for years I was with William Morris for years and they were booking me, and I remember my agent at the time going, you work more than any other female in this form, and I was out constantly. I was just really working a lot. But now I really love and enjoy what I do still, but I want to also not just be about that all the time and constantly out on the road. So this year I think I did. What do we have eighty five shows this year?

Geez? That's a lot of shows though.

Does that count the opuland Christmas thing? It counts the opuland Christmas series that I'm doing here, which is seventeen of those. So but the other ones were, you know, all on the road and doing shows, fly dates and mostly on the bus.

Let me ask you this, do you like because you've been You've been in the game, right, Like, do you look back at the time that you spend I have to preface this because nobody ever knows people of this podcast are probably hearing this, but I went out on the road that combs last year the whole year like a guitar tech. But all I really did was play golf and hunt and fish.

So yeah, thank goodness.

They relieved me of that job, thank god. And anyway I found it to be. I had a band way back. We toured and did stuff like that, and the drive was different. But now that I'm forty and out there, the sitting kind of killed me.

Man. I call it the.

Big sit because you said the big sit, because you sit well because you sound check at eleven am and then there is nothing until showtime at nine thirty. Man, Like, how when you look back, I mean even if I look back on that year and I'm like, geez, I sat like there was so much time. Do you look back on the year on all the years that you've traveled and toured and go, Man, I wish I had that time back or do you feel like that was you? You loved every second of it.

It's part of it. And I always found things to do. And what I do wish is that I was into fishing, then I would have found guides everywhere. I mean the places that I was that I didn't. I'm just like ah or golf or something. You know, I didn't have a hobby. My hobby was being just I was so passionate about country music and being an artist and doing those that that's that was all I was thinking about. I didn't my hobby became my career. Serve you well, well, thank you, and yes it has. I'm very lucky. But I didn't have the extra curricular hobbies that I have now that I wish I had then because I would have had more to do during the day, for sure. Like we were out for two weeks and I went out with two guides in the last two weeks, just one in Arizona, one in Texas, which went fishing. We caught.

Well.

In Austin, I went on Lake Travis and we caught a few there. It wasn't like crazy, but nothing huge. And then in Arizona, where bass fishing is pretty tough. In Arizona we were there are three of us. We each caught one. I caught the one. I'm just not I'm not saying that, but I did.

No, of course you did. Out of put a thousand bucks on you.

Was it over? You should just call this the gods fish Fision podcast.

No, I'm listen.

And we're not done because I still have a story. I need to tell you.

Here's the deal. Here's here's here's the honest truth.

Like like we we obviously we host this thing and have these artists on and we are we have we all the time. Are like being told, hey, we got to push music, we got to talk about music because most of the artists we get on here, you know, like yourself, like you do these interviews, you have these conversations and you talk about music all the time, and you never get to talk about fishion.

Really and I want to talk about this.

That's what I'm saying. And so like, literally we had Hardy on on one of the first episodes. It was an hour and forty seven minutes long. The podcast was and uh and we got done. We're like, man, that was awesome, and they're like, yeah, that was great. You talked about music for seven minutes seven.

But I think everybody's more interested in what you're more interested in. I'm not not disan interested in music.

I just feel that.

I just feel I feel that. Okay, now we got that. Way's talk about music some more.

Okay, let's talk about music. Yes, we do have.

Your grandparents were Canadian country musicians, right, Yes they were. Was that your inspiration? Did they Did they push you into this career?

Did they? Did they kind of pave the way for you? How did they plan to your Oh?

I wouldn't say they pushed me into the career. It was more like my musical family. My mom played guitar and sang folks songs and sang saying me to sleep instead of reading me bedtime.

Stories and what she's singing?

You do you remember me and Bobby McGee, Oh, Daddy, Frank, you know Haggard. She's sang Janice Joplin, Joan.

Bias, not Jesus Loves Me.

My mother was awesome, and so when I was about nine, I asked her to teach me three chords on the guitar. So she had this old Harmony sovereign that she got when she was sixteen, big guitar.

It is.

Yeah, it's a big guitar, and her parents gave it to her, my grandparents, who were musicians in the club scene around Montreal, when she was sixteen or fifteen, for her birthday. So I learned on that same guitar she got for her fifteenth birthday. She was a very young mother, so you know, I'm, you know, nine years old picking up this big guitar, and every time she would go to look for it would be in my bedroom because I had it. So I became really interested in guitar. And then I saw Barbara Mandrel and a Vandrell sisters on TV. And having grown up around my grandparents always playing instruments and having jam sessions, and my grandpa was a fiddle player, and they were always singing country music around the house. It was just sort of already planted. The seed was already planted, and I took a real interest in it. And then I discovered Ricky Skaggs and Highways and Heartaches and Riba McIntyre and her early stuff, and then the juds came out, and oh my god, that was just it. And then I was off to the races. And then I did the deep dive in the Patsy cl Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Tavy, went atte Merle Haggard, all the real classics, you know, And this is nineteen eighty two, eighty three, eighty four when I'm a young teenager, and that was the classic. You know. Now nineties country seems to be the new classic country. But to me, that was Patsy Klein, and yeah, I was. I knew songs that no fifteen year old kid would have known, Like I could sing you a web piercer or whatever. You know. I really did a deep dive in. I've read a lot of biographies and autobiographies and read up on the history country music. And Loretta Lynn's coal Miner's Daughter, I read that and I just I mean, I read about Tootsy's Orchid Lounge in this place called Nashville was almost like the land of Oz to me being up there in medicine hat Alberta in the tundra.

Yeah, I mean it was that way with us two hours away. I can't imagine being in a different country. How how that felt?

Yeah, a different country.

No, it's just it's a state, but they yeah, it's kind of Norwegia.

I was fascinated though, Yeah, I was fascinated with Nashville. I would the CMA Awards would come on TV, and everybody at school I would just be so excited I couldn't focus, and all my friends would tease me and call me cow Patty and I'd be like, well, whatever.

That's a pretty coat.

Did you park your horrorse I would wear the buckle because Reba wore the buckle and I was, yeah, in her fan club and everything. So I was quite obsessed with that. If you notice, I go whole hog into whatever it is. I'm into it. Yeah, I don't really do need to.

So what was your first trip to Nashville? Were you like, oh, my goodness, this place is magic.

Well, my very first trip to Nashville was actually not when I moved here. My dad in Ontario. I was visiting him. He brought me down for a weekend. We drove down on a Friday and back up on like a Monday because I loved it. And we wound up at the Nashville Palace and I got up to play with the house put my band on a list for people to get up and sing. Oh I think I sang Mule Skinner Blues and singing the Blues or a Lauretta Lynn song. But they didn't get me up till midnight. And I remember we had driven twelve hours and I was falling asleep because I was last on the list. And then I got up to sing at midnight. There was literally nobody in there but the band leaders. NIM was Rick Rick L. D Wayne. He eventually I think he was Randy Travis's guitar player as Randy started at the Nashville Palace. Anyway, he came over to the table and sat down next to my dad and he said, what's your story? And while we're just here visiting, And he looked across the table and he said, you need to be living here. Come on, He said, I can't believe we waited till midnight to get you up, but you need to be you need to You looked at my dad, you said, after I saying oh wow. Yeah. So I had a bit of a confirmation in that. We went back and then I started working on the plan to you know, get down here and move to Nashville. And my mom brought me down I would say it was maybe six or eight months later, in Honda Civic with one of her best life lifelong friends named Pat who's a total character. I'm pretty sure she had pot coming across the border. But anyway, thank you. Sorry that was back then. Don't you'll come for pass statute of limentations and anyway, No, but no, she she was awesome, and we were still very close, and they brought me down and and we just you know, had no idea what was going to happen. I didn't have a I didn't have a green card or.

Didn't think about it anyway.

So we did the tourist thing I had. My mom had a you know, my brother was five years old and he was still back home in medicine hat so she had to go back. After a week. We got me a place to live down at the end of Nolansville Road and Bell Road in Tuscle Them. I rented a room in a condo from a woman who was She was twenty three years old, which seems so young to me now. She had a young toddler, her husband and her just separated, and she needed somebody to watch Rory was her son's name, in the middle of the night, basically while she was working the the factory Wow. So she said, I'll give you a break on rent in exchange for some babysittings. What store babysat him? And then before my mom left, we walked into Tootsy's Orchid Lounge just as tourists and I wound up singing. Sitting in there was a guy singing, just doing a solo thing with a guitar. He handed meeting his guitar. My mom and Pat prompted me to ask him if I could sit in, so I did, and they hired me there to play. And you know, the locals were Lower Broadway was a completely go back then, like not in the way it is now. It was just seedy and dangerous and you weren't supposed to go down there Wow at night, especially if you're an eighteen year old girl. I got a bus pass and I played there three days a week, ten am to two pm. So I didn't make a lot of money. It's not exactly the hopping hour. It wasn't back then. And you know, it was a lot of boarded up buildings, pawnshops, peep shows, and I had to ask my mother what a peep show was.

I had no idea, what conversation, Yeah, what's a peach show?

Peep through a hole and see something.

Showy had no idea peep show makes sense?

Yeah, something dirty and you know, adult bookstores. It was just a different vibe down there, and there was a heavier police presence because there were there was just a lot going on down there, drug deals and like there was bloodstains on the sidewalk down there. So I was only going yeah, daylight hours was I didn't go down there at night.

Now there's puke and pee down there. Yeah, and shoey all over the pool stays down there. It's all right, it's good.

What was the scene like for a female artist then in the in the late eighties going into the nineties, because compared to the to today, I mean, as we're recording this, there's there's only like four females on the top fifty charts right now, So like it's a struggle now for female artists, it's still a battle to try to break through.

Was it the same then? Did you feel that then?

Did you know that coming in or did you just kind of come in saying, hey, I got these songs, I got this dream, and I'm gonna check it til I catch it.

Well, that was what I said, definitely. You know, I didn't put a lot of thought into or have a chip on my shoulder about being a woman or it's going to be harder for me. By my grandmother gave me some stories about just her, you know, coming up and playing in bars and stuff, and how it was it was hard for women, you know, playing bars and and and for that reason, I really I wanted to kind of avoid getting into the bar scene too much. I did play tutsis, which is every bit of bar, but as far as just becoming too much of a just doing bars bars bars, so but but as far as the country music scene, I feel like there was just a there was just more room on the charts for women then, for whatever reason, I don't know, I don't know what that reason is. Late late eighties and early nineties, I mean you're looking at you've got the Juds. You got Pam Tillis, You've got Susie Bogas, You've got Mary Chape and Carpenter, You've got Ribau, I mean, Lacy J. Dalton and Mindy McCready. And then you come into the nineties, and then then there's Faith Hill, and there's Shanai and Leanne right all the Leans and Me and like everybody, Jody and every It just you can't tell me that kind of that kind of chart space is being occupied today by women.

It's it's not it's not. No.

I mean when I think back on like heavy influence because our parents, it was real weird. They would let us listen to like country songs about cheating and drinking, but we couldn't listen to pop music.

So we were just I can I can remember.

Unless you run up to your unless you run upstairs and turn t r L on, Yeah, thirty five.

It would be fuzzy, but you could just put the speaker. We would record. We would take a little tape recorder, and fuzzy channels was something different. I don't know what you know. They would no, I don't know what you try. They had a block. You couldn't see the channels. I remember it's Channel thirty. Anyway, we just watched tn N all the time.

Oh yeah, and uh man, I can remember seeing videos of you and like you're all the people you just named, and like Susie Bougus and Pam Tillis and Outbound playing and almost Shake the Sugar Tree and all these and man, honestly, it felt one to one as far as like god and girl, what was what was being played?

I'd say so, and look, there was still some great dudes back then.

I'm not just completely hating on it, but it's like it wasn't even it didn't even feel like a thing.

I guess as a listener. Now.

Look, I'm probably ten years old while that's going down, But I mean it was great music, you know, and I think that there's plenty of females out there still making great music and would love to see.

That come back.

I don't know where the shift happened and why all of a sudden it just didn't be cool to be a woman in this format. I don't know what happened.

Like, I feel like it's trying to come back.

Yeah it's trying, but it's still is it ever going to be what it was?

Like, it's a good question. It's a good question. I don't know.

I don't know, and I'm just so grateful that I'm so great. I got a record deal in nineteen ninety four, not twenty twenty four. Yeah, yeah, no joke, man, I mean, I don't know that we would have some of the I don't know, would we have the Rebo, would we have the Judge, would we have some of the legends that are females that are role models for so many that are trying to make it now, If it was like that, then I mean, would they have been shut out? Like it's not that it's being shut out, it's just that's a harsh way of putting it. It's just thank god it was wide opened because look at look what we got. We got Dolly Parton, we got Lorettelin, we got Rebo, we got all of this because it seemed But I think it's always been harder for women, even in other ways though, Like I don't think women's wallets get lined the same way men's back then. I don't know that. As if you took a successful male artist and a female artist who had as many hits as the male artist, I think the male artist is going to get paid more to go do a show?

Why is the male artist?

And that goes all the way up to the superstar level. Wow, I believe that's true.

Do you believe it's I mean, would you think it's because of consumption or just because it's a dude.

I think it's a dude. I think for whatever reason, I feel like women love to watch men play shows and men love to watch men do shows. And I think it's not that. I don't. I think there's just something for whatever reason, it translates ticket sales, for whatever reason, translate more.

Yeah, what was your first Uh? You said you got your record deal in ninety four? What was your first hit?

Better things to do?

Don't maybe?

Oh, I just got I just set them up for a Here we go.

You don't have to sing.

Homie's got a funny look on her face.

You don't have to. You ain't got to sing. I don't know the first bird, give me to give it to me one two, three, four.

Wash my car in the bang, change my dude, guitar, strange Mooney argest sing as I did yesterday. I don't need to waste matter, cried you get.

Them putting it in that key this morning, I got better? Thanks? Do I should just sing it in that key all the time.

We didn't try to. We didn't try to set you up for that.

Oh no, that's okay, I that was That was the nine am key.

Hey man, I try to like a crime. You didn't there? Okay?

That that was ninety five.

I want a smash smash.

We knew when we wrote it, that's a smash to be like. We were pretty happy when we werote that's awesome.

How did you write it?

There's just two of you, right, not three of us, Tom Shapiro and Chris Waters, who Chris also co produced the first record. It was so funny because they came in with the idea better things to do with my time? And and then I said, what if we just shortened it to I've got better things to do? And and then we were off and running. And I remember when we came back from lunch, we pressed the tape recorder to hear what we had done before we took our lunch break, because that was the routine, and go down to the long Horner Max diner and come back, press the tape recorder. And it was the first verse in the first chorus and Tom stands up and he's like, what's that I smell? I'm like, what is he doing? Goes Oh, cashable checks?

Yeah that sounds like that sounds like a house payment right there. Sounds like a new truck.

That's awesome.

So you just you just recently did a remake of some of your biggest songs.

Yes, the two take right, I Take to you?

Like, yeah, a lot more things.

Keeping it. How was that? How was that experience for you?

Like recording those songs thirty years later, twenty years later?

Where'd y'all do it at?

Oh? We did most of the recording at Starstruck Studios, and then I've got a great engineer. His name is Aaron Shimuluski. I know, don't try and spell it exactly. Bless you and uh, you know we we did a lot of the vocals at his house, some of them back at Starstruck. But it was just a really great experience.

Would you have on Who'd you Have with You?

On the album? Ashley McBride saying a duet with me on Better Things.

To you's a killer?

Oh she's just so it's her challenge is ridiculous. She was the first one I actually called because I'm closest to her out of all the artists I asked, and I know her the best. And you know, it was kind of by design that if we got Ashley, then everybody else would say, yes.

Yeah, play the game a little bit. And that's how this podcast, that's how you showed up.

And Ashley actually helped me get Carly Pearce because she already had a relationship with her, and I knew Carly and asked her directly, but you know, I texted Carly and talked to her.

About what She's a killer vocalist.

We saw her open or practicing one day and I was probably trying to pretend like I was a guitar tech while this is happening, and I heard her vocal and I was like, who is that?

Shouldn't see? You know? She can go, she can go. That's a real life singer.

Yeah, she is great. And and Landy Wilson we she came and did poor pitiful me, poor, poor, poor pitiful me.

Always don't let me do it, me do it. I'll play watch that.

You guys do your homework.

Thank you for saying that.

Yeah you do? And uh well and then Okay, So what might be my favorite track out of all of them is the Cody Johnson. I just want to be mad. And I didn't know Cody, and we tracked him down and management got me in touch with him, and we started texting back and forth about what song to do, and I was kind of secretly hoping he would come back around to that one because I could just hear this conversation going on in my head if we split up the lyric more.

Yeah, it works.

It really worked really well, and the track is completely different than the original. So I love how different that one is. And I loved getting to know him. He talk about a talent, oh my god, his next level, and he's just such a great singer, and he's got such infectious energy like he's got he's so on, Like.

His tone is just Yeah, he's going to be a around a while. Oh for sure to be one of the ones.

He's kind of like, you know, the new George Straight in a way with with you know, I just think his voice is just incredible, and he's got great song since and all of it.

And show great.

He's like an amalgamation of a bunch of those classic guys all in one.

You know, So we went to Australia with him. He was well, I went to Australia with Luke and he was on the tour. And while he was over there, he entered a rodeo and won a buckle for real, for real.

Wow, we were like the jury stuff right there.

Johnson Robbie and you know what, I hire a fishing guy.

He wins a buckle and he didn't like, he didn't a basket fishing tournament and he didn't like blow it up like he went low key won the buckle.

And then the story got out and there, you know, some people were asking and he was like, yeah, he had the buckle on and I was like, that's dirty, dang man.

Like cool, he was wearing one that he he won when he came in the studio and that was the He was like, look the buck I got.

He's not a giant guy, you know, he's got this big buck along. I'm like, damn, I guy's real cool.

Yeah, he's really cool. I really really liked him a lot.

He's really cool and he sounds good. Uh yes, how was that? And how cool is that?

The Rymen was an amazing experience. It was It was the show of my you know they say, what what is the what's what's the whatever of your lifetime? That was the show of my life. Really yeah.

Yeah. The most recent one or the first.

Ran the Rhymand that I did in August, was like, if I had to pick one show that I've done in my entire lot, into my entire career, that that if somebody said, when you're on your deathbed, you're only going to get get to remember one show you.

Did give me that, that's that one.

I just I walked out and got a standing ovation before I ever sang a note. That was it just got off to the I was like, what's happening. I've got such a dedicated, loyal, wonderful fan base all over that have been with me from the beginning and knew what a big moment this was for me. And they flew in from other places special and I didn't even do a meet and greet. They weren't getting a photo op or a picture and an autograph out of it this time. They just flew there to be there. And I'm tearing up talking about this because that was really special, and I'm sleepless, so I'm more.

Emotionable go ahead and get it in space.

So that really really affected me in a deeply profound way. And you know, I had friends there that I've known my whole life, well since I've been in Nashville. My whole team was there and you know, management and everybody, and it was just, I don't know, there was just something really magical about it. And then having Ashley mcbiden and Tricia Yearwood coming out and doing a song with me. Tricia came and did poor Poor Pito for me. Ashley did and we had a three piece horn section. Everything was just perfect about it.

Yeah, good for you.

I can't I will not watch the Veeps video of the show.

I saw that one.

I won't watch it because I want that memory to be from my perspective looking out, not looking at me through a camera lens. I don't want it. I want it to just be the what it was.

I spoken. True artists, Yeah, I mean you have to.

You have to like understand how special that's got to be for an artist that has just been so great for so long. And then it probably felt and not that you're in any form of fashion done or slowing down or nothing.

I mean, you just played eighty five shows.

I'm just saying it had to feel like a culmination of a career with the people that were the most special to you, and just kind of like a celebration instead of a show.

It felt that way. Yeah, And it also just being at the Rhyme and you know, yeah, I what a special place, just having started across the and playing for fifteen dollars a day and sometimes leaving with seventeen dollars because I was playing during a time that nobody came in there except the grand Greyhound bus full of you know, the old folks home that tour had stopped and doing the downtown tour. I just, yeah, it was just a full circle moment. I used to go in there and take the tour, you know, pay the three dollars and fifty cents, and just walk around for inspiration when I was really down and really felt alone and homesick, and just as a reminder of why I was there and not to give up and go back to Canada and give up on my dream. I would just go into the Rhyme and walk around and just sit in that pew and just stare at the stage and let it speak to me. Because that building's full of country music spirit and energy that's still there long after a lot of the people are gone that stood on the stage. So to be able to stand there and feel that kind of reception in that building, it was like, oh, yeah, that's just wish my mom had been there to see it. You know.

Well, I'll tell you this just from a lifetime a listener fan of country music period as well as a fan of yours.

I think I think someone needs to say to you.

That you are a foundational part of that and it's not and you're not just viewing the rhymen as an outside source of inspiration. Like your spirit of part your music speaks to others through that. So thank you for what you've given to music and what you've given.

To this town, and I hope you continue to do that. It's a very special thing. You're a very special person with a very special gift, and we appreciate you sharing it with.

Us for all these Absolutely, well, that means so much. No, I mean it's the truth. Yeah, it's the truth. Yeah. Not just buttering you up because I want to come catch.

I'm just saying you really, I mean really, it's uh, you you're you're you're I mean, from an outsider looking in, you're a an absolute thread in the rope of country music in Nashville, and we appreciate it.

I appreciate that very much.

What's next? What's what's next for Terry Clark?

Well, I got a whole bunch of Christmas shows I'm gonna be doing.

We might have to catch one of those.

Yes, please, do we have to come and check that out?

Yeah? You need to.

You need to come. It's gonna be fun.

You know.

I made my whole Christmas record with the Time Jumpers. They were the band.

The entire record, all right. Yeah, so we don't know the time.

Or just Western swing. It's got a very Western swing vibe about it.

Dance play on it.

No he didn't. Yeah he's he's saying on Silent Night though, So I have every Time Jumper on the record. But he just didn't play guitar on it. But no, the show's got it's gonna be fun. They played on the whole record. So my bands, you know, my my bass players actually learned to play upright for this and cool we've got Yeah, it's it's I've got a great band and we have a lot of fun and we're throwing in a couple other things that aren't on the record that I love them. I'd like I do the River Joni Mitchell solo with like an E three thirty five electric and just do that by myself.

And there are some moments.

Oh yeah, they sound they're so rich.

I wanted it one thirty five, but the three thirty five is that body?

Yeah, yeah, really nice.

Sorry, we're talking guitars.

Now, we're talking guitars, sorr. But you know, we'll do a few of the hits to But yeah, you guys should come. But so I've got that the rest of this year. Next year, I've got some you know, Take two took. Take two took up a lot of my time in the last you know year and a half getting the record made. I produced it myself. So we were, you know, working out schedules with other artists and Homie over here with the illegal and.

That's name, that's your name.

Try working out eight eight record deals with eight artists that are you know, I have major label deals and everything. That was fun. So and scheduling and and you know, hiring band and getting in to do vocals and getting every studio days. So that was that was a project, but that came out in May and and I've been touring around that and and doing a lot of shows this summer. So next year is not going to be as much on the on that on the side of making records as much as it's going to be a slower year.

I think more fishing.

I'm going to do some fishing next summer. I'm probably going to lay low next summer on the touring front. But I've had shows January, February, March, and then in April I'm going I'm doing a river cruise in Europe.

Sick.

I'm playing an acoustic show on Scenic river Cruises in April.

Have you googled like fishing in Europe.

There.

I torture everybody in my life around fishing enough. I'm not going to take up a vacation doing that.

So that'll be fun.

Yeah, So that'll be fun. And then then we're going to stay over there and go to Scotland and Ireland with my sister and brother in law and do a little vacationing and then laylow in the summer and some fishing and do a big tour in the fall. But I can't talk about that.

Yeah, that's fine. You got something to say that I can interrupt. Well, thank you for coming on.

He didn't ask me about the One that got Away. I'm dying to tell you.

It was important that thing you had to say the show for the one that girl.

Wit first time.

Yeah, Terry, we do a thing called the One that Got Away.

It could be a fish, which I have a feeling it might be.

It could be a deer, it could be a song, it could be anything.

What's your fishing story, and you know it's really recent, which I'm so glad you're asking me, because I will tell anybody who even has a glimmer of wanting to possibly hear this story, I will tell them the story.

And that's us. Yeah right now.

So May fourth, twenty twenty five, big one, A big one, approximately eight oh four pm. All I was tired approximately, but who's counting. At At four pm I was out trolling for Pike for about two hours. I decided I wasn't going to go fishing that night. Last minute, I'm like, oh, to help with it. At six thirty, I'm like, I've only got an hour and a half. I'll go try. Yeah, I'm all over the bay I'm in this weed bed that we'd bed. I'm trolling. I'm like, just no pike, nothing, nothing is biting zero. It's really calm, and that's not the best condition anyway. I just thought i'd go try. So I start to head back and I'm headed back along the weed bed that goes back into the channel where my cottage is, and I thought, oh, why not. I just threw the line out, stuck it. I stuck it in the scottie, you know, broad holder, keeping my eye on it. And I'm just trolling back and I'm looking back every now and then I look back and it's going like that, like over. So I stopped the boat. I grab the rod and I'm like, I'm caught on something. No, I've caught there are no logs in this lake. It's a sandy bottom. I've caught something.

Like.

It's not moving. It feels like I'm dragging in a dead body. I'm thinking I'm dragging in a dead body or something. Right, So I'm dragging it in. It gets it gets closer. I'm like, what it's this, you know? I'm like, what is this? You know? And it gets closer and it starts moving, and that's when I realize a bloody musky on this There's no way. It's not acting like a pike. It's not acting like anything. It's it's huge. So I'm dragging it in. I'm dragging it and I finally get it to the boat and it's a musky. Es. I have a net. My net's probably not that enough that that big. I start to try and net it, and I'm hyperventilating. I'm almost in tears, crying, laughing, screaming. Nobody's around, there's nobody. I'm by myself. Not a soul insight.

So you have an idea like a big pot, you know, inchwa what do you?

What are you guessing? This thing at lank Cuisse.

It was probably like it had to have been ft three feet geez, and that big around. I tried to net it four times and it kept flopping out, I mean, and it was amazing, right, yeah, right. I caught a sixteen pound pike and needed it in this net, same net, so I couldn't get this thing in there. Jeez. So I'm thinking I'm thinking this this it was huge. I touched it, it was right there by my boat, and it spit the lure out after I tried to net it three times and swam off, and I literally sat there and wept like a big old baby. I could not believe it didn't get a photo. I was like, I can't. And you know they call a musky it's the fish of ten thousand casts. No, oh really, that's how hard it is to catch one.

Wow. Damn.

Yeah, I don't want to talk about it anymore. Can we stop talking?

Yeah? We can stop talking about Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, to me, you pretty much caught it. I know that you didn't get it in the boat if you touched it, if you touched it, but you The cool thing is is that like you had that experience and nobody else did, you know, like like nobody knows that exception.

Yeah, yeah, that's that's fine, trust go away.

Yeah I know. And then I'm telling my neighbors and they're like, oh, yeah, I'm like, I'm not kidding you. I could not get it. It would not if it's flopping out of a big net. It's a it's a twenty five thirty pounds fish.

Easy, absolutely, you know.

And I just it was so unexpected because I hadn't caught anything at all. Yeah, and I was just it was just my my first time out for the season. First time out was May fourth, that might. I just put the boat in the water and I caught that. Wow.

So you know, fish of ten thousand.

Yeah, that's it's a tough one to get.

Grats kind of thank you. Yeah, and I don't mean to bring it.

Yeah, thank you exactly. That's how I felt. Congratulation record. It can be done. It can be done.

If it makes you feel any better. My dad caught the biggest fish of his life in Lake Gunnersville. It was a We were fishing for three days, none of us caught a thing zero fish. Last hour before we're going to pack it up and head home, we go over a pea gravel bank.

It's early.

Dad throws a rappler in there, starts dragging it on the pea gravel and just rips this twelve pounder. I'm talking about the biggest fishes. My dad's caught a ten like eleven, ten eleven and in a tournament that's huge, and it was.

It was huge.

But this fish like to coke. He came up, shook, came out of the water. It was a big o'sal on the bed.

God we Uh, it's so fun.

We he got it to the boat and uh, I went to Netta and I punched the I punched it's right in the mouth. I hit it right in the mid and the loure went flying and the fish was out of the water. So like, from me to you, I believe the rapper goes this way and the fish is just like that.

Here's the crazy. I'm sitting there. I was like ten years old.

I'm standing there and I go, oh, my god, read you just knocked the fish for a lifetime off Dad's lower and he goes. Daddy goes, no, he didn't. I was like, yeah he did. I saw him knock it out.

I saw him knock it out. He was like, I did not.

And so he lived in the nile of that for like years, and I would I would, I would live in.

The Finally recently he was like, I knocked that out. Yeah I know. I was there. I plushed around the mouth, biggest fish life. So that makes you feel better. I work in that same boat.

Okay, in the same boat with the fish lake Gunnersville. I want to go fishing there that far. I'm going to hire a guide. I've got the name of a guide and when I have time, I'm going to go down there and spend the day.

On the lake to do it.

You know what another one should do is chickamau check. They're saying, that's the next, like the next world record is going to come out of their large mouth.

It's it's a big bass lake. It is a big It's.

Three and a half hours away though in Gunnersville. How how far is that two and a half Yeah.

No, it's right down the road. Day Yeah, it would, it would cheek them all.

Was closer than gunners Ball it is, Yes, yeah, I mean we can google that if we need to. Homie she's saying yes, she's saying, yes, Chatahoo is right on the road. Guners was a stretch.

Maybe have a mix.

You also need to go Okachoby. I've never been, but it's in January.

They sing songs about that lake, they sure do.

They sing songs about the big fish they catch out of that lake. Too.

Well, I gotta find some places that are within driving distance because I'm having trouble. I'm like starting to get I'm starting to twitch and go into like withdrawals, Like by.

Now I watched this poor, poor, pitiful.

See what you did there. I knew, I knew, I knew.

All Right, one more thing we do a favorite song? We did we we started doing like greatest song for You or slash her favorite, but then it got a little mixed up and people got a little weird about it, so we meshed them together. So it's not the greatest song of all time. It's just whatever song matters to you and your life. Yeah, enjoying songs.

Okay, So to me, two of the greatest songwriters in country music, well, I'd say three, Bob McDill, Bobby Braddock, and Dennis Lindy, and they've probably written through my favorite country songs. So I'd have to go with Bob McDill on good Old Boys like Me. I think that that is Southern poetry. Oh god, it's one of There's something about that song that puts me in a It paints a picture. You're just right there. It's perfect songs and Don Don Williams performance of that is just unreal. When Bob McDill was inducted into the Hall of Fame last year, I got to uh, I got to watch everybody singing his songs. I believe Jamie Johnson did that one, and it was just like, oh God, he's he's just he's just an unbelievable writer. So that song is really important as far as Bobby Braddock's songs, like he's written he stopped loving her today, which obviously, but I mean time March is all to me is my favorite Bobby Braddock songs. I think it's just so well written.

Yeah, that's a good one.

Everything that Glitters, Bob McDill that there, Dan Seals that's another one that that really hits me in the fields. But those three songs are just to me heavy hitters.

Yeah they are. Well you're awesome.

Yeah, you're awesome too.

I had a great time.

We got to go fishing. I'm not kidding this pond situation.

Come on, where is it. It is thirty five minutes. We're going to cut all the mics off.

No, it's it's thirty five minutes south. We'll exchange numbers and you can come catch them. You can come catch bass out of any time you want to right now. Fall fishing is great out there. You just throw look like like a top water like a really early born popper wapper pop.

Will do the thing.

Make sure it's black, do it, do a dark color, do a dark color out there, you can you can catch them. You can catch them on a lot of things. But I love going out there and fishing top water because that you know, thurnal climbs up water on top.

So it was more spring thing though, right, No, in.

The fall, the lake will will do what they call it turnover, so so it'll get colder on the surface than is in the bottom, but the thermal clin comes up.

I just I want to know how I can go live in this place.

You can buy you can you can buy my house for a number that's right.

But no, you're welcome me toime. Thanks for hanging out. You're freaking great. Thanks, thanks having me, Thanks for everything you've done for for country music, and uh yeah, your stories are awesome and continuing to do and continuing.

To do well.

It was a lot of fun. I'm so glad I came to do this with you guys. Sorry it took so long to get We.

Don't even know. We don't even know that it.

We can do it again because there will be more fhist stories to tell after we continue fishing. For you know, in a couple of years, I'll have another one that got away for you.

That's right. Uh yeah, thanks for hanging out Terry Clark.

Everybody, well, uh we'll catch on time.

Thanks for having out one.

He's

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God's Country

“God’s Country” with brothers Dan and Reid Isbell is a rollicking weekly podcast that sits at the in 
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