Ep. 10: Luke Combs on Livermush and Singing at The GRAMMYs with Tracy Chapman

Published Mar 19, 2024, 9:00 AM

Luke Combs, two-time Country Music Awards Entertainer of the Year, joins the show this week and advocates hard for a livermush rebrand. He discusses his first job running the go-kart track at Fun Depot, his mom's role in helping him pursue his love of music, and the surreal experience of performing at the GRAMMYs with Tracy Chapman. Dan, Reid, and Luke close with a rendition of their favorite Vince Gill song, guaranteed to give you chills! 

Steve's Turkey Apple Sausage Recipe

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M h.

What do you know?

God's Country with Reed also known as The Brothers. So we take a weekly drive to the intersection of country music and the outdoors, two things that go together like Liver mush in North Carolina, Up Mortals.

Or forty HP and Flash by the Mittle Boots produced by Meat in Our Heart.

Podcast, We're gonna sit down with LC mister Luke.

Coombe Luke Liver Mush Comb.

And it's gonna be I'm not really sure how it's gonna.

Go because I think it's gonna be annoying.

We we can be annoying when us three get together.

Just the rabbit holes get so deep with this guy, you know what I'm saying. We do.

We just like to talk, man, and when we when we get off on something, we just it's a tangent and we we just go and go and go.

And so he's accomplished a whole lot in his life.

Yeah, there ain't no introduction for that cab the game.

He's got kids that are cool, his wife's cool.

He's a line on the mic. Dude, he's a he's a vocal monster. He's our good buddy. You know, one of our best friends in town. I think I think we'll really enjoy talking to him sitting down. It's gonna be a different environment than than what we're used.

To, and you really enjoy listening to it. And if you don't, we're real sorry about that. You can cut it off. That's right, stick with us. You're in God's country, baby, stick around.

I got a brother.

This is like, this is more than a family pod today, this is a brother pod.

Yeah, for sure, we got our boy, Luke.

We're gonna work real hard. I'm not telling them much of the same.

Yeah, Dan's got Dan makes nicknames on the show, so.

Luke, Liver, mush Combs, Zero actually puts them in the This Morning the Barro.

You should you should have brought him. No, I know you got the niece's hat on Jordans.

Literally liverdude, let's got that just sounds disgusting.

I stepped out of my comfort zone and tried that.

Jordan went to how many grocery stores? She went to four grocery stores just today looking for it around. Can't get it, That's what I thought.

I can't get it. Man. It's North Carolina only to.

North Carolina only. It's not like, uh, it's the region. It's like state specific.

Here's what we're gonna do, right quick. We were gonna do like a hot plate and then cook some livermash while we were potting.

You should have told me I could have brought some. Is the surprise? I got bricks at the house. Bricks hell? Yeah, freezing dude.

What is liver pudding? It's okay, I've had liver much. I had liver much with liver liver pudding very very similar. One has a bit more corn meal, one has a bit less corn meal. Which do you like better?

But which has which tell us.

That liver pudding has more liver than corn meal. Okay, it's listen.

I thought there wasn't a grosser word than liver.

I can't believe that you were gonna have liver mush because I just wore this hat.

Because I just wear this hat. Liver pudding is a grosser combination.

But I'll tell you about this. You don't like it, and that's fine. Those people don't look at it. It just like it's fine. It's like kind of like it's kind of similar to a saut. It has a it has a marketing problem. Okay, yeah, I agree. If it was called breakfast delight, you'd be like, that sounds pretty. I would try that.

I like breakfast delight, that sounds good.

Even trying some liver mush, They're.

Like they already don't want it out. They already already already.

Shouts out to if your liver mush out there, holler at your boyfriend name.

Let's talk about what be a good name. What would Yeah, let's without breakfast delight is to it's weird. It's weird.

I got to go. I feel like even liver has got to be out, no doubt deliver all right.

So let's what what's another word for? Let's let's co write this, like, give me some of the name of words for liver. I feel like loaf is out, loafs out the like because I was.

Thinking, like, skill it loaf. Skill its not bad. Skill it's getting there. Skill it does it crisp at all?

Yes, okay, crispy skill it skill it crisp skill it crisp is getting.

It's getting But you got to know what you have no clue what a skill?

It crisp is, right, and not until you define what it is.

But you won't go. You're not going to the being like, hey man, can I ask you a question?

You wouldn't need it?

If sausage what's called butt fat, you wouldn't just which is which is what? It? Lips and butt fat?

This stuff that was too gross to go on hot dogs. If it was called that intestinal fat. I've never et intestinal grease fat. You would never eat butt fat, never will.

If you eat Timmy sausage. That's exactly what you had. That's the stuff that fell on the floor. So skill it crisp, skill it criss a great alternative. Skill it crisp nieces skill it crisp. That's that's fried up. Give me a biscuits and gravy and.

Put that little skill it crisps like a good morning.

Yeah, good breakfast sandwich even like cornmeal mash would sound a lot better.

Is better? Like only one letter away from bush, only one letter, but but the one likely different content.

It's it's and and butt in the song can make a whole difference, you say and instead of butt or butt and.

For sure, So you get started on skill it crisp.

On skill crisp. I grew up in North Carolina.

I mean it it is breakfast? Right is breakfast?

Is that like part of your Like when I think of my childhood breakfast, I think that that is that is something that is on your plate every morning.

There's a town in North Carolina. I don't want to speak, but there's a town in Carolina that has a that has a liver Mush festival.

It's that popular. Why have we not been to that?

I don't know.

That sounds like why am I not headlining it?

Who does?

Well? I know who.

Headlines that thing? They have they can't affordsh.

Dude, I don't know.

If there's like a mascot, you should be Skillet Crisp festival. They need a mascot. Just you know. I have a hat I almost wore that. It's it's an old.

Country I know them all.

George Jones country style sausage. So what you're saying is we need to Luke comb skill It Crisp.

I will buy into half of that company.

I think you just go with liver Mush at that point. No, liver Mush that sounds way better than Luke Combs skill It Crisp.

Yeah, but you don't want to eat I don't want to eat liver much. I want to eat skillet Crisp.

And liver mash doesn't sound good either.

That's just that's out. It's the visual rn the mashing of the liver.

What about eris is just sausage? Are you familiar with with scrapple?

No? You told me about this here?

Anybody scrap is that the drink? Snapple? That Snapple scrapple is very scrappley?

What is? It's a it's very similar to Can I just say what it is? What it sounds like to me? The scraps left over from the butcher of sound? Ain't that?

I know?

The sausage sounds clean. What if you call it liver sausage? Better than it feels blood sausage that already exists. Yeah, I didn't want to eat that because it's gas. I know where we have that England. Yeah, it's good. It is good Kingdom. It's a little rich rich. You can't just like I can knock sausage back. Dude, give me three.

That saus that your neighbor makes is Timmy sausage, elite, shout out Timmy, Dude.

Yeah, that sausage is gas.

You had Benton's Minton's bacon.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe I'm a right skuy.

Yeah, it's hard to be connect, Like, connecta.

Sausage, connecta sauce.

It is fire. It is so far.

That's a South Alabama.

That's some of the best sausage.

Lesson.

It's like, but it's in grocery stores up here, and it is some of If I'm grabbing a link style sausage from the grocery store, connect every time.

I'm grilling burgers, steaks or something and I passed by.

That, it's a little pree there.

You're getting it hot and spicy. There's got a hot and spicy, which is like a smaller Lincoln. Then they got their original, which is the big one.

Here's this is a tangent off of what you just said.

We're already tanged.

There is no hot and spicy sausage that exists in a grocery store that's hot.

And spicy enough.

Like when I buy hot sausage, I taste them like, this isn't.

Hot, Okay, Timmy sausage is the hot, the hottest. It's the hot version of the sausage they make. But it tastes like regulars just taste any of it.

Any hot sausage to me, I'm like.

Who is this hot for yeah, babies hot. They don't have a palate, do There's like.

One red pepper flake in the whole pound.

Yeah, when you get that piece, it's like there's a little taste.

Of Speaking of sausage, we're coming up on turkey season, you're gonna make some turkey apple sausage. I have to that is it's so good. My favorite thing. I think that you because you genuinely like make that. Oh yeah, yeah. Ude.

For all of you that don't know, Luke is a Luke's close to being a chef.

Yeah, I don't know about that.

You can you can whip it up.

Probably. I'm like an eighth eight of maybe a tenth.

Michelin's tenth of a Michelin star.

All Right, while we're on the sausage game, walk us through a little what what what it takes to do a little turkey apple sausage?

Okay, and where.

Did you find out how to do it?

It was a yeah, it was a Ranella meat eater.

Deal gets more excited about, no doubt, acquiring turkey meat than he does the actual of the turkey. That's a reason to do it right, should it should be?

You know what I don't get and people are gonna hate me for this. Sport fishing, dude, don't get.

It what we're talking Like what kind of sport fishing you're talking about, like salt water sports.

I catch it and I got to put it back.

I don't want it. I feel that I don't want I do feel that.

Why do I want to do it? Even bass fishing. I like bass fishing, but you can keep a bass, no doubt. Also, don't have to ride forty miles into the ocean, time knocking, walk into my yard.

Completely this and I like it a whole lot. You're saying you don't understand a long trip out of the ocean to catch something to literally turn around and put it right back. Yes, I don't either. Don't get it. I don't necessarily fun.

It's fun.

It's fun, but.

It's not at the top of my list of outdoor activities.

Agreed. Matter of fact, it's at the very.

Any outdoor hunting fishing thing is high on my list. But and you guys are at this point now where you have the opportunity to any hunting and fishing thing you want.

To do, you can do it.

You have access to s so ultimately, with anything in life, there is something that is at the bottom of the list, that's the bottom of the greed for me, and I still really like it. But with the limited amount of free time that I have. Obviously y'all have kids, and you understand, like you have this going on, you writing songs, You're doing a million other things. You got to put your energy when you're prioritized. Okay, do I want to go on this trip to go deep sea fishing? Probably not, not because it's not fun, but it's not as fun as something else that I could do with that time agreed to me, which we I mean, we do have friends that people are crazy about it, dude.

I mean like, I mean, we have friends that are that are die hard turkey hunters that would rather go Neil Neil Neil Hayes would rather go catch a try to catch a marlin than he would turkey. And he is the die hard, the one of the most diehard turkey I can understand.

I can understand it because it's like you're trying to find you're hunting those it's the same reason. Yeah, Neil and those boys love hunting the turkeys down there in the swamps.

Yeah, there's so elusive, dude.

There's not many of them, and they're so hard to find. I think that's the joy that they find in that is it's the same deal.

You've got to go out in the ocean.

I mean, it covers seventy percent of the planet and find what fish.

Step I love a good stuff.

Seventy percent of the planet's covered in the ocean, dude, and you gotta find You're going to find not just any fish, one of the most elusive fish that exists.

Yeah. I get it.

It's I get I get the pursuit, but it's just I would like to go do it. I want to grow up on the water, you know. And and I'm sure there's a lot of people that love.

It that didn't.

But there's just something inherently like uneasy in me about I can't see the land.

Man.

It's I start freaking out a little bit.

Yeah, I mean, I know that I've been out there with you and I've seen you.

Not freaking out, but I'm just you're never like one hundred percent comfortable with what's going on.

The people that sail across the world by themselves.

What's happen with those people on here, dude?

Or or swim it.

We got turkey, Like it's Steve. Call it's one of those guys, Steve.

That's what I thought coming through the door.

That's what I.

You'd call him, dude, But you can't call them because they're saying around the world. Yeah they don't have service.

Get in touch with them, dude. How do you know they're alive? Man, it's like plus one nine plus plus minus six eight and.

Like they're gonna be like, oh, wait a second, this guy's going about a podcast.

Let me answer this answers. I got time over there six years when I fa back to the United States.

Dude, from wherever.

They do something nobody's ever done before. Let me get back to you. Yeah, you know it's been done. Now now why are we doing it? Yeah?

Okay, I guess there isn't a guy. There is a guy probably just jumped in a volcano.

Probably probably we just didn't know. We just didn't know about it.

But they go there's no one.

That goes okay they God, I get why someone at some point would have wanted to sell the whole ocean by themselves, because no one has ever done it.

Now that someone's.

Done it, you're not even the first guy anymore?

What are you doing? What are you doing? How lonely do you want to be? Dude? How lonely do you want to be?

Swim it swim it be the first. You gotta swim around. You gotta saw because you can't swim the whole thing. But also apple sausage. Don't don't lose the main. Oh, this thing is going to be a mess. This is why they were like, dude, you get everybody's like, come on, do the thing.

We were not like it. I know you weren't.

Were It's not people are going to be like, what is wrong with these people?

By the way, this is what happened. This is just recorded. We literally have cameras and microphones in front of our faces. But this is what happens. If we were deer camp at Turkey Camp.

We were being secretly recorded in a co write, it would be.

Exactly what's happened. Well, there would be some there'ld be some other things. Well, don't be exactly maybe those would you would cuss more? I would? I think we would all cuss a lot more.

Well, y'all would I think you would? You're a cusser, bro. I think mom the other day, was like, why does Dan cuss so much on the podcast?

She wasn't so much.

It's a problem. I'm meaning to talk to her.

I don't mean.

That's Randy Rand right here, the Rand upstairs.

What are we talking about? Apple sausage? So how do you make it? I love this. You acquire the turkey, acquire.

Turkey meat, which is done very The turkey actually just volunteers for.

It, tribute. They go here.

It regrows the meat, of course. So the turkey gobbles up to you and it hands you. It's like, I'll do it, turkey tribute.

Breast opens up, grows years like crabs. Yep.

Because we're not about the hunting and killing of animals. Here take your badcast. Essentially, what it is is turkey breast. One whole turkey breast. Not you know there's two obviously one.

Yeah, not two, just one lace. But you flay them both out, yep.

And you take one of those, cut it into a little, you know, grindable pieces. And I just cut up and one pack of bacon is the fat. A lot of people, you know, when they make sausage, they're using beef fat or pork fat or whatever. So I'm just using bacon. I do that with with deer sausage, same thing, deer breakfast sausage. Just cut it with a pound of bacon. So I just you know, slice the bacon up into little pieces whatever. Everything has to be cold. If you know anything about grinding sausage, everything just yeah, it just gets to it already gums up when it's cold.

I can't imagine.

But so you cut up an onion, maybe two apples.

See that the apple is was you know, a little apple and breakfast sausages. That's a pretty common deal. Apple with bacon, Apple with smoke, bacon, turkey, chicken, apples, literally putting apple in it. That's the first time I've had apple in a sauce.

You know, when you buy it from a store, there's not piece of apple because it would go, you go bad, I would imagine, right, But like, okay, what kind of apple? Like, are you honey crisp in it?

Are you not?

Like it was green?

I remember I've done Granny Smith's out there, which is a little tart tasting. Yeah, I do a whole onion too. Apples, and then I saw te those in the skill at.

First, so they're cooked. The apples apples, and we.

Cooked before you grind them, so you got to do that. You gotta cool that back down, so you kind of put it on a sheet pan or whatever and it cools. You don't want it to go in there hot because I don't warm up all the meat and stuff. I just mix everything together, right, and there's some various seasonings.

This recipe is somewhere on the meat eater. Yeah, I'm sure it's in existence.

It's in a book or I think there might actually be a video of Steve making this somewhere old video. But I just take all that stuff. Do you just grind it together? I believe. Actually the media to recipe says to double grind it. I prefer the single grind.

Actually, you don't want it blended too much, yeah, because then it gets the sheet almost turns into like a paste turkey mush.

It doesn't have that, like it almost has more of a consistency of like when you get your you know, if you get your venison processed at it at a game place, it's more there's more pieces in a sense. It's not just like it's literally paste. It's such a gross word.

Liver paste, liver paste, breast paste, you know, turkey breast past sausage is a good word.

Do you link it?

Do you do you think back? Do you think in the eighteen hundreds or the twelve hundreds, whenever sausage was invented, they were going when pigs were just a gross word.

Might have sausage and said, I don't think so, because that's back then. Dude, you're eating whatever the hell you had to, and sausage probably a delicacy at that point. Yeah, there was no true I mean, they were making sausage out of necessity, right, any food I think that stayed around that you know, is enjoyed by a lot of folks. It not only made the cup, but it was I would say, liver mush. It only existed because people were poor.

Mm hmm.

Because because they went, wow, this is a delicacy. They went totally, I'm not throwing that liver out, and I got this extra corn meal.

And it's edible, and we put it together.

It'll it'll be palatable. And then over generations, you know, my grandma's grandma made it out of you know, they would butcher a hog or whatever and make it. And then my grandma and then when she got older, she remembered, well, we used to eat that because we had to. And then when she got older, maybe she got a good job, and she she goes, it's a taste in my childhood, and she starts making it, and her kids start eating it. And then now my mom would eat it, and that fed it to me, and now I eat it, and my son loves it.

He's not two years old, he was.

It's his favorite thing.

Dude.

I mean that's awesome.

Yeah, man, he gets so excited when I make it. Dude. So at least we know that you're like living the living much legacy, you.

Know, carrying it on, passing it on the generations of generation.

If I do anything like that food wise with my kids, I mean, I.

Mean, you probably don't even know you're doing it.

You're doing it.

You're just cooking. When you're making biscuits and gravy. They're gonna when they're older, they're gonna be like, man, my dad made the.

Best biscuits and gravy. I want that.

Oh dude, I do it right now.

Grandmother, if you could go childhood meals that, I'll take you immediately. I eat it.

I mean every time I go to Dad's I eat it. He eats it way too much.

But but it's it's me Moll's butter milk biscuits, buttermilk biscuits, her saw milk gravy and just sausage and bacon and scrambled eggs. And then what I do is I take the buttermilk biscuits. Been doing this since he was, I mean as long as as long as I can remember. I tear pieces of the biscuit off, put them into a plate in the middle, and then I'll do I'll do eggs, chop them up, scrambled eggs, put them on top, get bacon, crush the bacon. It goes on top, and then I will dump way too much saw mill gravy on top of that and kind of kind of do sausage on the side and make like a little breakfast salad type thing, breakfast salad, sausage gravy, I mean dressing.

If you called it breakfast salad, nobody would eat it. It's liver mush.

That would be breakfast salads.

Like hey man, if you pulled up in the hearties sausage salad, breakfast salad, they'd be like, no one ever come at me, don't knock it till you trying to at me if you don't think that's Here's what I'm saying is that it is delicious. I know it would be delicious, but it comes back to liver. It's a marketing issue. Okay, what can you call it? Gravy? Biscuits and gravy, that's what it's called.

It's already, but it's like it's it's an upgrade of that though. It's not just gravy on biscuit. It's the eggs in there.

And can you stop this?

Wait, if you're getting crazy, you can throw a little jelly on top. Okay, yeah, I mixed that into jelly.

Don't do that.

Folks at home, don't see I'm late.

I was late on the I know you're I already know how you're gonna What are you gonna say when I say this, I was late on the gravy train. And what I mean about that, I've always been a large human. I'm not saying I was late to beat to that because I know that's where you're heading.

I was.

I didn't always eat gravy.

No, I don't remember you eating gray like I was.

Just keep my stuff. I want my sausage crispy. I want my biscuits done. Well, you're a weird eater.

Anyways, we all know that.

You know what I think about all the time that you said about me. That's so true. I think it enters my head every day.

I hate when someone says this because I just know this is that you don't even know.

I know I said them. Probably this wasn't.

Dude, you know what you said this one time? I'm like, oh, no, I don't.

I don't.

I probably do, but.

I don't remember it now. No, this wasn't a derogatory towards me. You just said you're a very particular guy. True, you said, oh, so true. But I don't think that I noticed how particular I was until you said he's in New Zealand. When we were doing the vege of my versus. You were like, no, Dan's particular, and I was like, what, No, I'm not. Then I was like, yes, I am. So ever since that day, I recognize how particular I am about everything. It's very true, but it's not.

Freedom telling you stuff all your life. You know you're stupid, bro, You don't.

Yeah, that's different.

That's what you say to me when I give you.

Well, you are stupid, you called Jeff Steve.

I did. I'm not stupid. That's not stupid, that's that's yeah.

Death. Anyway, it was said not in like you're very particular about things. It was like, no, he's not going to do that because he's particular, he said, Just like he was like I would say, his name is Luke, Like he was just.

Saying, yeah, just no, just what I'm just looking out for you, dude.

It kind of felt lookouty yeah a little bit. I mean I just know. It's just I just don't think I knew that that was a like a trade of mine and it is.

I think it's all about owning it, right, I mean, you know what forty dude?

Right?

Yeah, So like so what good dude, it's being what you are is good. I said, it was good. Find out who you are the rest of your life.

I'm not saying that you did. Just kind of gave you a compliment for telling you the truth.

Grace told us we talked about sausage for a forty.

Something, so just inside jokes about sausage and breakfast.

She's hedging though on that because I got a timer right here.

It says thirty. It's you. That's true. There's a clock.

There's an honesty time right here. Break.

And it was said breakfast bowl is way better than breakfast Sound. If you showed up to somewhere and said, I want to break, don't start. We're getting close to Turkey season, I like it.

You gotta go, you gotta just clean.

Yeah, yep, bro, there's still a bird out at your place, right, that's kind of kind of got you.

Yeah.

Man, I missed my first Turkey this year, and I missed my first year this year.

It was a it was a no deer this year.

I wasn't trying to drag that, no, no, I was just no. It's I think I finally feel part of the club.

Yeah, real life.

Yeah, absolutely, Yeah. It had been kind of a fever dream in a good way for a while. And then yeah, it would have been my first would have been my first Turkey. I got completely by myself too.

I'm gonna give a quick rundown, super quick, as fast as I can at the progression as a hunter. Right.

We just spent thirty minutes of a living much. We're good.

Yeah, I'm just gonna hit this is fast. Hunted a little bit as a kid growing up with some randoms. God, Nashville was starting to get serious about it. As he was coming into Nashville. We all fell in love, started hunting together all over the world, all over the planet. It got awesome. You learned a lot of things. I'm not saying we tall you necessarily you turned into a woodsman, and now you were full fledged like you you have been for probably the past three years, kind of a four years. Yeah. Yeah, But what I'm saying is you can do it on like you don't need nobody said with nothing, whether it be guns or land management or food plots or uh anyway. The whole point what I'm trying to say is within the last three or four years you have become your own legitimate hunter.

And talk about like how cool it was to watch you get eat up with it, Like, dude, that was so much fun to see you, to see you grinding on your own, to learn about more about the woods, more about hunting, and more about the outdoor.

Dude, that was.

Quenched. Yet I still think are consistently trying to more stuff.

Oh definitely, man, so much more than I want to do. You know, I'm like I said, I'm still gonna get my first turkey by myself.

So tell us the story. I mean, I already know this. How does this teaching you?

So I've got The way my property works is it's there's you know, the Tennessee Hills, and I'm sure a lot of folks are familiar with.

That, so I may not be.

But there's a lot of mountains is the wrong word, but profoundly steep steep hills, little mountains, little tiny mountains, and lots of them. Right, These big pronounced ridges and stuff kind of set set amongst these.

Uh, these valley floors.

Right, So my property is kind of this one big valley floor that is kind of sandwiched by these two big major ridges, major lines. And so the way that works is, you know, that kind of funnels these turkeys down into into this bottom come spring. I just got my first turkey pictures on my trail cameras this week. Hadn't seen any I mean, they.

Disappeared, dude.

I don't know where the hell they go. I mean they're gone, and I've got again, I got running twenty trail cams or something. Dude, I mean they're gone. And then all of a sudden, there and there's twenty of them. It's not like there's one.

Here where they mixed up already. Like we're getting pictures of birds strutting with like.

I hadn't had any strutting pictures yet. But so, the way it works, or it seems to work, at least it worked last year, was that I had all these birds, four or five toms and you know, a gaggle of hens, dude. And as the season started, I started seeing all the toms were on my neighbor's place and I'm like, well, it's not hunting pressure because nobody's hunting yet, same season yet, right, So as the season comes closer and closer, and every morning I would drive out there they are four or five of them blowed up in my neighbors spot.

I'm like, damn what.

And he's like, this guy's not a hunter. He don't have any food plots out, he's not doing anything. His land is not that much different than mine. Why are they there?

Sure? Right?

Well, I realized that I got the guy is on my place, yeah, and he has kicked all these times off onto my neighbors.

He's the guy, the head.

The head hauncho cat is my place is his place, and he's the bird, and I realized that that was what I began to piece together, you know, I'm like, well, that's what's going on. He's bullied all these other times out of my place.

Once again, just a sign. That's a sign of learning of what's going on.

Yeah, And there's no way you understand that or know that until you actually see it going down in front of you. And that's what was going down and definitely going on.

So then in my mind, I'm going and another to your point I think, is I go, Okay, well I've got to get this bird out of here in order to have more in order to have more times at my place, I gotta I gotta shoot this true, you know what I mean, I gotta get I mean, he's probably you know, he's probably peeking, dude, Yeah.

Years whooping everybody down. Yeah.

And so my whole Turkey season last year was spent trying to get this this particular bird. Yeah, that's awesome. The bad way that it was like going after a mature deer. Yeah, sure, it really felt that way in a lot of ways. And so I would you know, I had some friends coming, I was I was decently busy during during turkey season last year. But I did have a bunch of time to go out in the mornings and stuff and chase this guy. And I had one instance where I go, okay, I had a friend of mine who had never hunted turkeys before and wanted had never killed a turkey, and wanted to really bad. And I was like, all right, man, come over.

He came up. It Drew Parker.

He came over with Ray and you know Raisman hunting turkeys forever and me. You know, me and Ray are close. We've hunted a bunch of turkeys together. So they come over one morning and I said, here's what's going to happen. I said, We're going to go out to my yall been to my place? So where that that creek that were run of runs through that pasture there, we crossed it and so I had him gobbling back in this holler back on the right.

Side of box. Collin's like going mouth calling.

No, we're going out, We're out. I'm doing alocols.

Oh is he roofed in the same area kind of back.

Yeah.

But that morning I was like, I'm hitting the alcohol and I'm like I hear him, dude, that's him. He's back in this I know exactly where he's at and he's back deep in this thing. And I said, we're going to cross this creek to get on the right side of the creek where he is. Pop this hind decoy right in the middle of this cut cornfield right yep.

Popping in there.

Sit down then to start, you know, soft calling with my mouth call, you know, and he's hammering, hammering, and he starts just he's hammering. He's in the trees just a I'm like, I'm gonna do it like Drew's gonna get his first hurt. It's gonna happen and stuff. And I was like, Drew, here's what's gonna happen, dude. He's gonna fly out. And we're sitting thirty forty yards from the steacoy and I said, he's gonna land right here, dude, and just blow up right here, and we're just gonna be awesome, like perfect hunt. It just felt like it's perfect. Weather's perfect. He's hammering, and I'm so proud of like I've already in my mind this bird's already on the ground. This is the first Oh yeah, dude, And I'm just gonna be like, you know.

I'm basically a hunt guy at this.

Yeah, you know what I mean, I'm like super excited about it, and you know, get my buddies, a good friend of mine's first turkey and stuff on my place, and yeah, for sure, we talked about it all the time, Like you're here now seeing somebody else get something.

I feel like I've already reached that.

It's a dad thing. But anyways, I said, this bird's gonna he's just gonna soar in man out of this little holler and just pop right here.

And here he comes, you see him?

Sorry, yeah, off the ridge.

Oh yeah.

And then you're just like the he is he goes like this, and he's just goes and just right over our heads and the lands on the other side of the creek, Like you are kidding me, You've gotten to be kidding. And he just stays out there and he's skirting this tree line, and I mean he's seventy yards from us. Okay, So now I mean, obviously we're shooting tss so.

But.

A guy that's never shot a turkey is gonna shoot this bird. So I'm like, we have to, like, and he's just chilling on the tree.

Line behind him. Yeah, the thing doing the thing.

And then here comes through four hens down. It's not from the same harbor, from a different part of my property, and land on him.

They land on him, not your oh.

Not on not on my hand. They land on him somebody. He's the guy, bro, this is the guy, you know what I mean? And so turn around, crawl, We crawl down the end of the creek, go across, crawl up the bank, and Drew's there. Drew's the only guy that comes up like smart able to shoot. I'm like, heyn just tell me what's going on. Like he's like, he's just not coming any closer. He's not coming any closer.

And I said, get how much ground of y'all gained on him? There is none, hard.

Because he's kind of going he's skirting the tree line out into the bigger as the field opens up, he's wanting to get out into the spot, and you're just kind of watching it go down. He kind of in a smaller bottleneck of the field and then it goes to open up, and I'm like, well, dream in, I said, just I mean, if you're confident in the shot, take it.

But I was like, it's far.

It can be done. But I also don't want you to have a bad experience. So if you're not comfortable, don't, like, don't try to impress me, or we're going to be more impressed. If you don't shoot this bird because you don't feel confident in it. Then if you shooting and miss, or if you feel uncomfortable or wounded or whatever it is.

Which is another like point in the maturity of a hunter.

Man.

Yeah, I mean, like most people are like, dude, shoot that bird.

Try.

Yeah, And so that day I'm thinking, man like, if that's me out there, like I'm putting this bird down, I can put this bird down if that's me by myself, you know. And but it was so cool, I mean, it was so cool to get to go with Drew, and you know, we continued to kind of you know, try to find another bird whatever. And we heard some a god will deeper into my place, and so we try to do that in.

The same area is the you know, if.

Well there was one deeper he was waiting, he wouldn't have dared come out into that field, right, Yeah, you're gonna go to find the woods. And that's what there was another one way back, you know, in the back, ain't nobody getting it.

And I see brock Lesner eating a sandwich. I'm not going to try to take it from him, you know what I'm saying. For sure he's got he's got a sandwich.

Yeah, Bronck Closer take us hunting in Saskatchewan, I think so. I don't know Bronck Closer, never met him. I would love to.

He loves this podcast, so we're good.

I would love to come shoot awesome deer in Saskatchewan too. Yeah, that's kind of like so if you like, maybe if you overway guys and one not overweight guys and you know, holler at.

Us for that, that'd be a lot of fun. Matter of fact, anybody that lives in the sketches really preferably broncks, but would settle for any kind of famous just and we'll ride up there with you.

Not really even if you just got a nice.

Or maybe if you just mega rich and have a lot of land.

Or not, or you just have land, you just have a lot of land.

Yeah, we can figure there.

Preferably crop with some beding kind of on the edge or anyways. Yeah, so long story, long is we finished this thing. I appreciate the laugh on that, and we're like, Okay, it didn't happen. So probably the next two days I decided to go out and I knew I kind of figured out where he had been.

Landing. Two three days after this kind.

Of continuously once you cross the creek, I have the other corn on the left there right, well, he had been hammering this field. He'd started last st yes, yeah, and so he's been going in this field. So I get I'm like, I get up, get dressed, babblah, get out there, try to beat him to the spot and get out there. And by myself, I get out there, and I've got my trustee eight seventy, you know, killed a bunch of birds with And I get out and it's kind of this hill you got to go up once you come through the creek before you can really see what's out in that field. And so as I start to go up, I just see him and he's already there on the ground.

I'm like out, I'm like, he's here, My commy, he's here.

And so I'm like I don't have this really great cover anywhere, so I kind of just like as he's you know, he's struck around and when he gets his back to me, I just kind of creep back down and get a little bit closer, and I come up just you and him. There's nobody around. It's me and the guy. It's rumbling the dru in the box, you know what I mean? Yea, yeah, yeah, I'm Ali Boo and this cat dogging dude and there's people behind the chair and move on, you know, And uh, I got my mouth called me. I taught myself had a mouth call last year.

Metaphorically, we were all cheering in spirit, we were we all knew about this turkey.

Yeah this is my this is my my Ted talks on, you know. And I taught myself how to mouth call last year because I'd always that is my biggest gap. I feel like that I had to bridge to be able to to for that moment to happen.

Was that.

Okay, I love a slate call more than anybody love a box call. But you can't do that thing that I was about to do with either of those things. That's a great point. You can't if you want to. I'm not saying it can't be done, but if you need to get that turkey to take the twenty yards in close.

To you, you feel like mouth calls away. You have to how old are you going to do it? Because what are you going to.

Put your call down when he's thirty yards from you and pick your gun up?

What are you going to do?

So it's like you can't sit there and go, Okay, well he's now he's thirty yards for me, so let me get my gun up. Like he's not gonna run away.

You have to.

You have to be silent if you're doing the calling thing where they're the call and response, a thing that everyone wants. Yeah, you gotta do a mouth call in my opinion, and not that my opinion matters, but in my mind that was the thing that was holding me up from ever getting my first solo turkey. I've killed a bunch of turkeys with you guys, with buddies. It's awesome. Yeah, but like, you still want to do that thing by yourself? Do you want to be able to do it? I can't teach my kids to do it if I can't do it by myself. Yeah, And so I got my mouth call in. Man, I'm so proud. I spent hours and hours anytime I was in my truck driving anywhere, mouth call on the bus, mouth call driving people Cody remember when, Yeah, I mean I'd be in the Yeah, I mean we were.

In that sub stadium. Somebody took a video of being Luke on the bus just and uh, Chris Money's over in the corner. He's just he's just like, he's like, this is horrible.

It's like hearing someone practice the violin or something like you for years.

That was a big jump for you. And see how intimidating it is because you literally haven't been taught how to blow a mouth call and you're arguably hunting with like dudes have been doing it for forever their whole whole life, and it is a challenging I would say, the thing about a mouth call is not making the sound. The challenging thing about a mouth call is knowing when to make the correct cadence at the volume you need to make, no doubt, it's not.

Just it's more subtle than.

It's not gonna work. Pretty riggy right here is at thirty You can't just hammer it. You got it. Sometimes it's just.

The when when to call is way more important on how to call.

I feel like because I feel like thee. The tone of your call is the least important thing, like making it the perfect like oh yeah, like that thing that's the least important in that whole thing. But being in the woods and hunting enough teaches you how like when to do when to not call absolutely too and when absolutely just as important as and when you just go this turkey is he's coming this way?

Anyway, Well I mess it up. So anyways, I'm there and I get into the position, I feel like it is going to be the most advantageous for me, you know. So I'm up, man, like I'm working this.

I'm going up.

Dude, he's working. I'm telling like he's gonna he's coming, this is gonna happen. And my mouth calling, he's responding. There's no hens. So he's hammering. Dude, he's obviously ready to roll and he's coming in, and I'm like, I think in that moment, I'm just kind of again, I get ahead of myself. One, I've never missed a turkey at this point in my turkey hunting career.

Very proudat for you, Very very proud that he was not scared to let it be known that he hadn't missed.

Yeah, for sure, So that's coming into factor. I'm doing the mouth call thing, and I'm also kind of intoxicated by that call and response saying that that we're having at the moment. So what happens is ultimately he plays the game exactly like I want him to, and I think I really just allowed that to go on too long. So when I made the shot on him, he was probably ten yards away, too tight, too tight. So my pell's friend was just it was still like this, and so he took off and I was like, you've got to be kidding me, this bird.

You gotta be kidding me. You call me? He faced on me.

Actually, oh yeah, I'm like, what happened?

Like, you got him?

You got him?

And he was like, bro.

But it's like that's a lesson that you can't learn unless it happens to you.

Amen.

Man.

People can tell you one hundred times. People can tell you when you have a kid. Dude, you read a book and it says, when your kids crying, do this, But until your kids crying, it don't mean And sometimes that don't work until you get you know, until you get Pete on. You don't learn to keep the diaper over him.

Until the same thing.

You'll never get pet in the face again if you if you're doing it the way you're supposed to do it correctly.

I remember him flying off and just being like, God, you are kidding me, dude. I'm like, this bird and me. I mean, I'm gonna write a kid's book called this Bird and Me.

You know.

But it's like it was just but it honestly, it felt kind of like So then I went out. I went out with a with another friend a few weeks later to try to get the same bird. And it was like a guy that doesn't even really turkey hunt and he's just kind of sitting with me, you know, and stuff, and.

Same deal.

I get this bird in, Man, I get him in the same field, same field, and he's hammering, and I'm like, oh my god, it's gonna happen. I'm getting another shot this guy. And he comes in and man, he hung up at Yeah.

He knew the game.

He hung up at seventy.

Dude, he stayed in that field.

I mean he hung up at seventy. I'm sitting there watching him just and I had corn was kind of starting to starting to kind of you know, my grass was tall and my corn was starting to come up just a little bit, so it.

Was just right, and so it's just.

Enough where he's behind it, and so he's kind of around his corner and I'm like, god, dang, like i'd seen him. He's hung up there forever. So we have and this is another. This is another like this was a year of lessons for me in the woods, from deer to turkeys, everything, and it was a year that I really needed for my own egos. That's probably my favorite year I have had hunting, in the least successful.

Year i've had. Okay, come on, man, right, it.

Really was so And so here's another story of the same thing. So birds in. My buddy's there, and I can see him. He's coming in the field and my corn's kind of up, and he goes back behind it. And so where he's at, I'm on the other side of this corner and I can't see him. He's hammering, calling, hammering, calling, and he shuts up. He doesn't do anything, and I'm like, shesh, I'm like, weird.

Man, he's hanging up. He's not here.

Well, then I hear him again and he's way up on this ridge over here, and I'm like, god, damn, because.

He hadn't made a sound for about half hour.

So I'm like, well, he's just slipped off down into this creek where I can't see him, and he's just the road that ridge up there, up to the top, and so he's hammering. And then he's back in the next holler over. I can hear me. He's still hammering. He started this is I mean, we've been sitting there an hour and a half, two hours at this point, because I'm like, working this bird, how can I get him to come in here? And he's just back and forth in this ridge, back and forth in this ridge. Okay, So eventually I'm like, all right, man, this bird's me Dude. Look, I'm not getting this bird. He's one. I mean, this hen that I am is gonna have to to him to make it happen. And that ain't happening, right. So I get up walk over. Dude, guess who's standing right there in the same spot.

Wasn't the same bird just standing in that field for an hour and a half not God, I couldn't see him, and I walked around the corner and he's just like this, and I'm like.

I'm just like it's your knees.

I was just like and it was like, so I just that field and that bird, and it's just and there. Here's the thing, there's no way to know if you'll ever get that bird. He might still be there. He's probably still there. But turkeys are all but turkeys are also similar. There's no signifyant. You know, he's not like the deer.

You can go, what's scarface? You know?

The turkeys they all kind of a lot of ways look the same.

You'll know if there's a I would better say, if there's.

Only one bird in my place, I don't know. Yeah, sure it's still him, But I've got that bird. I've got that same kind. I've got that same bird. I hunted literally all season long, same exact thing, roosted on the same ridge, flew off in the same place every day. And that was the season for me, Like you said, like probably one of my favorite turkey seasons I've ever had because I ended up last. It was like the last week of season, missed him at like fifty five yards, watched.

Him fly off.

But I learned more about turkey hunting and how to react and interact with a tom during that season. Then you could read a book and you could watching the show anything. You just just being out there and getting stumped over it. I mean, it's just like writing songs. You got to get in the room and write a bunch a bunch a bunch of bad songs to get the.

One that you read that every Tom Kelly book and if you ain't in the Woods, it don't mind her.

That's as close as it gets for Tom Kelly. Book is as close as it gets to actually do it. Yeah, but you're right, there is no substitute for doing it. Yeah, for the Woods education for sure. So me and Luke saide we're gonna go Turkey outing. Two years ago. He calls me, hey man, come spend the night the house. We've gotta be up at five. I was like, cool, fly over, spend the night, get up the next morning. Oh you mean zu bas oh, I don't know what they call.

It was like a dance class.

Don't give its so get over there and uh kind of similar. It was the end of season, so we were like. Luke was basically just like, hey man, let's just try it. Who knows. It was like cool, get up, go sit on the tree. I had warned my stuff that I had been I had sprayed my for methrone down by the way. If anybody's wondering, I had Rocky Mountain spotted fever twice and it was awful. I should just crawl through the woods and get ticks all over me. It happened all the time. But since I started spraying down with the sawyers from methron two days before season, let it sit outside on my dry I rarely pull ticks off me. Legit rarely.

I'm telling you when I when I myself is treated, I've never had one.

Top I don't know that it's a game changer, is now. Look, it may give us cancer, but it's definitely I.

Don't give you rocky amounted Spotify, don't give you a tick in your beard that gives you rockymounted spoti fever, because that's what happened.

I've never been more mad at you when you smashed that tick in my beard.

Anyway, I couldn't find tweezers. I used flyers.

He was. I was like, give me some tweezers to pull this tick on my beard. I can't do it. I'm standing there. We used to we had a house. We had a rent house and I was like, hey, man, and I told him this.

I was so, I don't even think it's like needle leg his face. It was need No, I think it was just like regularly. I think it's like wrench, like a wrench, I mean wrenched it out of there.

No flyers.

Oh, so I said, read, there's a tick in my beard. Man, I need you to not smash this tick. You're gonna put the tweets on, twist at fire, slowly pulling out. He comes back with a pair of plots and mashes it into my face. And I'm pretty sure that's the tick that gave you. If we're being honest.

Which is like just mashing one can't give it to you like it just knowsn't get on you and you get it.

It's got to be in the so like you already had it. It wasn't me that gave it to you.

Well, there's just there's an argument out there that it's actually the mashing of the tick that's debunked.

It's it's it's a it's in the it's in there like saliva is whatever.

You guys need scientists doing fact checking right now.

But here's here's here's about this. I like when there's a fact check. Here's here's a fact right here.

Only you can only get rocky amount of spotted fever from a tick that has gotten it from a deer. Like a tick, a tick that has been on a deer has to get on a deer get blood from it.

We find, well, that's it. Rocking spot fever spread at the BT of an infected tick or by contamination of the skin with tick blood or.

Feces, so it can be tick blood. I don't think that's right.

I'm pretty sure that's exactly what I said.

You have just close enough. I listened to a podcast.

All right, we're inception three stories of deep right now, So let me just get through this. So Reed gives me spot of fear because he mashes it with the plyers. Two years later, men, the turccount and I go to his house. We get out there, we're on the tree, and all my stuff has been sprayed. Right, stuff is usually spread. Yeah, one was because you just moved. Yeah, that's right.

Late season. You usually have to do it like a couple of sprays.

He was using stuff that he wasn't using, that wasn't sprayed.

He had moved to the untreated.

We're sitting the same tree, same tree. Hen flies in. Not no goblin, right, I don't think there's any goblin. It was really dead. It's really hot.

Two hens flew over us pretty late, really late.

Sums, are you up? It was just kind of a dead. Yes. Luke pulls his pants leg up like this, and when he does, there is like an army of seed ticks. It's got to be thirty at least. I'm serious. Like I was panicked. I started worrying about my future royalty chicks because I was like, this guy's gonna die. So I started picking them off my He's swapping the my like this guy can't die right now, I gotta have more cuts on it.

Look at that tight cad and the.

Cramping seriously problem at start picking ticks off right. It's like he's like, hey man, what do we do? I was like, we're doing. This is a terrible morning. Let's go. So he we go back to the house. He immediately goes straight to shower. I don't have the ticks on me, so I just changing my jim shorts, T shirt, flip flops, cross whatever. Bro, let's hit the said chifil A. Sick go to chickil A. I love eating breakfast, me too, almost as I couldn't decide if I wanted't need to run anyway. So we're coming back the house from chick fil A and low hole behind his barn in the two track, we see a turkey and he's like, dude, is that And I was like, I think so, I don't know why there's a lone gobbler at the second week of May or whenever. The last season ye at like ten thirty it was later, and I was like, dude, let's hop in the ranger and scoot down to this other thing. We'll put some Bino's on him and we can check him out. Sure enough, we do that without thinking to get our calls or our camo will be. I have on like a black T shirt and some jim shorts. He has on Zuba's. Give they were very popular in the eighties, So give us a rundown of what.

Very billowye zebra pajama style zebra print in Carolina blue, right in the colors of your favorite team. So mine were Carolina Panthers on zu bass.

So he has on zoo bas pants and some shirt I don't know what shirt he had on.

I did have a camera shirt.

I did have a camera shirt. So we hot.

We're like, I'm like, dude, this short sleeve, short sleeve cameras yeah, and tick tick time ye it is And I just had forty just had forty minutes before this.

So there's a dry creek bed that runs parallel to this field that this turkey is in, and I'm like, hey, man, it's last. It's it's fourth quarter. I'm gonna be last. Ton of like, let's just give it a shot. So he's out there, just not really godling, just kind of strutting around every now and then doing the thing himself. But all hens were nesting at this point, so.

Inters of what he can to get one out there though exactly.

So I'm like, man, I don't know if we can make this happen. You did have your gun with you, Thank goodness. I said, let's just try to parallel this bird on this creek. So get in the bed creep bed, start walking down through there, and we can't catch up to him. Right Like, every time we get twenty yards, he moves thirty. Every time we get forty yards, he moves sixty and he's just making this way northward down the valley that Luke so eloquently described he lives on. It was a great job. You did a great job. And he goes all the way back with trees hedged around it. So he's making his way north of this valley, away from the house, away from us. So last ditch effort. I'm like, oh, oh, portant important point he had. I didn't have his shoes on. He had on some crocs. So he's rolling down this creep bed. I am like, every step of my old dad feet, right, yeah, So he like dusts me like I can't keep up with it. So he's somewhere north of me. The turkey is somewhere north of him. I'm struggling to catch up. I only have socks on him. By this time. They're wet. It's gross. Everything's it's awful. It's hot. There's boves everywhere. I was like, all right, I'm gonna just with my mouth, make the closest thing I can do. A call, not a mouth call, not a mouth caull. I didn't have any calls. I reached my pocket and I was like, you gotta be kidding. I didn't have any calls, so I literally just go, yeah, he gobbles so hard. Man, it had a little chick filed chicken grease in there, so it's probably yeah, yeah, it sound like an old hen. Yep.

Yeah, So he.

He gobbles, and I'm like, now, as as a hunter, we all know this is not normal. Product this Normally that bird would have just right. For some reason, this turkey was so hot he gobbled, and I was like, this is working.

But also as a hunter, you know, if you can get a bird to gobble at you at ten o'clock in the morning, there's a good chance that bird's gonna come check it out within range of a gun.

And he was yeah, so he god was. I'm like, well, I don't necessarily know where Luke is because he's somewhere north of me in this creek, but I know the turkey is now coming to me, So I'm like, I mean, now he's he's double on triple godwin, and I'm like, I gotta see what's happening, right, So I like poke my head over this creek, and baby, when I get about right here, I can see his full fan. Dude, he's just doing this, just coming to me. And I was like man, I hope Luke knows that this is happening. And I think as an unexperienced hunter you would have you wouldn't have known what to do. But as an experience hunter, you knew that joker was on a string. Oh yeah, sure. So as I'm calling, I'm like, man, I don't know if if this is going to happen. All of a sudden, I was like, oh, snap, he's shot, and I jump up and all I can see is him running through the field and that turkey is flopping out there in the middle of panther. It was like it was wind and so we're like, I can I have no shoes on, in shorts run through the field. We're like hug turkeys fly.

And we took pictures in Zuba's iconic iconic picture.

And I was like, hey, man, I was like, listen, I know we killed this turkey the correct way, like we call that turkey in Oh yeah. Everything about it was You're in Zuba's pants and I have on shorts, like, maybe don't post it that day. He's like, got my turkey, baby, like it's just us and the zoo. He was should have been proud of it. I shouldn't even have said that it was awesome to great, But it was.

The thing that saved us was the the creek bed man. Oh, no way we could have done because he couldn't. When you get down that creek bed, you can go along that.

What is it probably six ft it's play six ft.

Of That is the perfect case scenario for that scenario for that bird being there.

Anytime there's a turkey that I can see, I'm in that creek bed.

Yeah, because you can move on.

As I can move up, I can get to them without you know what I mean. If that wasn't that would be an almost impossible field.

It would because.

There's no way to access it from anywhere else.

I say, that's the luckiest turkey murder. I've been a part of turkey murder. We have to cut that out. It's a harsh word.

I would say that that's kind.

Of the luckiest turkey hunt. I've ever had.

The word that the US marketing problem, marketing problem, You're you're a marketing Jews.

I don't know.

Was it skill it Christmas, skill it christ Let's before we get into music, Let's just talk about let's talk about.

Before you got to Nashville.

We have.

We've got a little stat sheet on you here.

And I did not know, bro, that you worked at a fun depot.

I did tell us what it was. What was that?

There's got to be something. I bet I bet you got I bet I bet my mom's probably still got the shirts.

Your mom loves our podcast, bro, Yeah, I know she does.

She called us out. She was like, y'all better get my boy on there.

I was like, she was like's my son not on there?

She reposts, she shared, Yeah, she's in due.

It's really sweet, man, She's awesome.

Fundy.

What was your job Ashville's fundy, bro?

Yeah, Ashville's fundy. What was my job? What wasn't my job? You did it all, I'd say. The only thing I probably didn't do was like front desk cashier.

Yeah, they're not putting you at the front desk. No, No, dude.

How old were you first jobs? Probably fifteen fifteen, I would say I started working.

There was that lee like just like, hey, man, go go work, go.

Yeah, yeah, you're getting a job for sure.

Yeah.

So, but I played football in high school and the coach of the the what do you call it them?

You know, they call it the Little League. I guess.

The guy that coached that for us was the GM at this place, right, it had been forever. I mean he was the pee wee coach forever, right, Tim McLoughlin. He was the GM of Ashvill's fund depot. He was the GM national depot.

But he was also yeah, he was a real job job a little bit of an official title for him.

Well, there was managers. He was the manager's manager.

How about that?

So like the owner, No, that was the general manager GM. It wasn't the owner didn't work there.

Okay, all right, all right, sorry to anyways. Tim was awesome, Yeah, sure, sure, And but he's just hoss.

Of a man, you know, like if your O line coach was the head coach of the pee wee team, you know, and so all the guys in our football program, it was like it was super easy to get.

A job there because Tim would like give you a job.

You know, do you.

Remember what you were making?

Like, I'm sure it's was probably like six seventy five, six fifty six twenty five, six fifty somewhere in that range.

Out there for a part there. That's the grind bro out there, that's the ground. So I did and at that.

Time fund Ebo was it was really new.

I like Fundy fund like it's one word, it's long.

Yeah, that didn't work.

It wasn't for a.

Long time, dude, ger. But when it was new, when I started working there, and it was like it was was smack. I mean you talked about birthday party falls. Yeah, you hit Colomn before you went.

Yeah, absolutely, fifteen years old going to the Fundy But where everybody's gonna be or you wearing yes cool.

Water no curve, curve correct the this or Adidas pack it one more. I had definitely probably curves was in the mix.

Curves. It's curves, curve, curve.

Curves is the women's workouts. Different marketing curve and curves, you know what I mean. But yeah, I was probably wearing curves. I can smell curve.

I had.

David Off cool water water water. That was what I mean, dude.

I mean there's yeah, it's like blue marketing, great market thirty years later.

I remember that joker.

You can get that joker in Walgreens right now? Yeah, for sure, I bet I could get some right now.

That makes so much money.

And you're right back at the Bundy poster. But we had blue or red polo shirts and like khaki pants was the outfit in.

Yeah, yeah, dud dude.

Policy.

Yeah, I always got in trouble because I was fat.

Dude was and still but dude at that time, dude at now even tucked in, ain't hit ain't it for me?

About go karts, climbing wall tag?

Yeah, I'll tell you what I did to the shirt in was New Year's Eve. That's the last time if to the shirt in probably, but at least you got something common. Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, jack.

But yeah I did it all. Laser tag, banning cages, climbing wall, redemption counter.

Which is where you think.

They didn't keep in there, along as that candy in there was.

Just noshing down, like the kid's been getting the candy a lot, and I ate an oil drum full.

Of tatsu ol.

Profits are down, Yeah, where is the candy going?

But there's a bunt.

So it was a big place, man, it was big. So there was a lot of employees, you know what I mean. There's probably at any time, I guess twenty kids working in there that were all kind of high school age, and then the managers were all like like actual adults.

Was the GM up in a little yes, saying looking down.

Absolutely, he's like in the stairs and he just kind of and he wore black shirt and shirt shirt intimidated. And his brother dole.

Y spell it. Yeah, I believe. I believe, Yeah, d o Yleyle.

So his real name is Doyle, but in the accident was Dole and we we always used to go get him Dold. That's what me and miser because Misser worked there.

There there, I need one of those guys. Har worked there for one day quit big. Yeah he worked there. He was like, yeah, but dude, all of us work there, dude.

And it was so funny. Missler was employee the month twice.

Of course, if he listens, lists.

May have some he may have some fun. I can see that picture of miss like so proud. But he had the you know he'd have that. We'd all had whistles because we weren't go carts too, because the go carts, the carts were their gas. The go carts.

What if some kids bumping, dude, you got to.

Hit them with no bumping, dude, bumping, no bumping dude, no bomb.

Pood nothing wrong. It was due.

It was wild, dude. The things that people will lie about to you to tell you their kid is old enough to do something that's completely unsava children is unbelievable. So like you had to be x years old and certain certain height, especially go carts to the car and when they opened the new when they opened that, so we had indoor go carts and outdoor go carts. The inside ones were electric and they ran on these like magnets. It was wild how they ran actually, But the indoor ones were super fast and could be controlled via like we had this controller so I could individually control each car and what speed they could.

Go in case you need to shut a knuckle head down, like you.

Can limit someone's speed kind of thing. But on outside ones were gas. So you're they're just kind of at the mercy of like the essentially restrictor plate.

Racing out there.

You know what I'm saying.

I don't at the restrictor plate.

The governor on the head, you know, govern.

That.

And Dole was the he was the mechanic for like of course, but you would, dude, these parents would come in and they're like, no, dude, he's old enough, he's talk and I'm like, no, he's not, dude, And they're like, yeah, no he is. And I'm like, okay, dude, he's old enough. And then when they get hurt, dude, don't come to me about it.

You were that guy.

Yeah, I'm like, well you're going to you're really crazy child's life so they can ride go karts today, not six months from them. Wow, you're willing for your child to be in a gasoline powered vehicle with other with teenagers. There's teenagers out here and your kids seven, and you're gonna put them out here because you're telling me that they're twelve. Wow, that's worth it to you.

Wild To me, it's crazy. Parents are crazy.

I mean, dude, and I mean and that line for go caurts you work on Saturday, dude, there'll be three of us working go karts, so there's two guys on the essentially on the tray act. And you know you got up at the wind the gates and let the gate and then you have to every race.

Ship to do safety brief. How does it go? I don't know if I could even remember. Just kind of crank it up a little bit, just see what happens.

Okay, guys, when you get on the track, you're gonna get you're gonna get seven minutes out there. Whatever the mountain, you can get seven minutes out there. Absolutely no bumping.

Keep your hands and we can't bump. I'm trying to don't boo go.

So do the no bumping thing. Dude, you absolutely happened.

But why is there a bumper on the corner? Now?

You can bump if you want to.

You said we can't bump, right.

If you do, I'm gonna kick you off.

It usually shuts it down, shut it down.

Right. And it's like, if you see me or one of my co workers on the track, that means we're stopping right now.

Stop if there's.

A past the starting point, can I go? When you keep going around.

When you make it to the rank, you need to stop right, okay, And you'll know when you need to stop. We'll make it overtly clear when you.

Need to stop. Why do you have whistles because you're an out?

Yeah, but it was a lot of like it. You know, the first couple of weeks you worked there, you're like, you're trying to be really nice, and then you realize that all people are terrible. Right, it's your first experience out the window. Quick yea, each a job that only cares about themselves.

Buddy, Ain't that ain't worth it? Yeah? Out there, dude, go ahead, dude, yeah, go to it.

But a lot of times, I mean there was obviously times where it was overtly obvious. I'm like, dude, your kid is not this kid is not this kid is not thirteen. D like, this kid's seven. Because what I would do is I would it's the same way when you try to buy beer when you were a kid, right, but.

Say there's no.

Id required to write go cards? Right sure, because obviously the kids can be young. I think it was twelve, I don't remember. You don't have a driver's lost the tween.

I would go.

The parents would be like, oh, he's you know, he's thirteen or whatever, and I'd be like, all right, man, what year were you born in?

And they'd be like that you're out out. Yeah.

It's if there's anything a little kid knows, it's their birthday, oh the thousands, because that's the best day of the year besides Christmas December eighteenth, right, yeah, they know the year like that, what year were you born? And if they're like trying to do the master, do.

You know what year your wife was born?

Yeah, nineteen ninety two, nineteen ninety one, is that right?

Maybe?

What I'm three years older than you, thirteen ninety nineteen ninety, nineteen years.

So it's weird because like it's close to other years.

Good year, Good year. I was March ninety okay, shutout.

Birthday coming up for me?

Yeah?

For the boys, twenty one thirty.

Four were gross.

Yeah, that's gross.

We're going to app state you. And did you meet Adam there when I did? Yeah, And that's kind of like you and Adam started doing the thing, right I met. I didn't meet him though, till I was probably twenty one, okay, So that would have been my probably the start of my what would have been my senior year is when I met Adam. Is that the start of kind of your musical journey?

Yeah?

So I guess it started in my the summer after my junior year of college. So okay. So to run back to the fund deep of thing, I had that job in high school. It's my first job, right, Okay, So once I left college, or once I left high school, I didn't have that job anymore, okay, And I worked there for you don't know, three years, maybe two three years for like sophomore, junior, senior.

Years high school.

That was my job that I had because it was like easy. My buddies worked there, you know kind of thing. And so my junior year, after my junior year of college, this was kind of the thing that kicked the whole music deal off, right, is I come back to Ashville. Well without kind of consulting my buddies. It was kind of the unspoken all my buddies. You guys know, me and my buddies were all tight. There's like nine or ten of us that still talk every day pretty much. Yes, it's been going on for twelve years. So unbeknownst to me, it was kind of an this unspoken thing that because every summer up to that point we had all come back to Ashville. Well that summer everyone else stayed in their perspective college towns. You came and I came home. Great title, don't right it without me?

Cut that? Yeah? Uh yeah, cut that.

Gout let it three yeah, just but just leaving break Top and then next time I'm on here, we'll tell the story of that being a number one. So I love that I moved back to Asheville you know, I'm twenty one years old.

I drink, go out whatever.

But I'm living with my parents in the house I grew up in. And I'm like, well, my all my people that were my bosses at fond Depot are still working there. I don't think Tim was there anymore, but my my my favorite manager, Nick was working there.

You probably know Nick.

You probably knew Nick, but anyways, he was like he was my dog, dude, you know, especially especially there, and he was still working there. So I was like, hey, man, I'm home for the summer and need a gig. And he's like, yeah, dude, He's like, I'll hurry back.

We're go karts whatever.

Well, then I'm the old guy that works there.

Okay.

It was all high school kids when I worked there, and it was still all high school kids when I worked there when I was twenty one, So it was like and I remember it just being like soul crushing, you know. And I remember thinking like it was not looking good already for me to finish college at that point, and I remember thinking like this might be what the future looks like for me, you know, like this like if I don't get myself together, that hurts you know, like this could be I could be the thirty four year old guy that's works it's working go carts.

You know what I mean.

And not that I'm sure there's people that are that specialize in There's so many jobs that people specialize in, but that's the job they want to do. Yeah, that wouldn't have been something that I wanted to do, so you had to do. So it was just my moment of like, man, but that wasn't like I should do music to get out of this. It was it was just this moment of man, I really need to get it's I'm real life is rapidly approaching me. Yeah, okay, cause I'm gonna go to app I'm not doing great. I'm skipping class. I'm not I'm not doing what I should be. I'm essentially playing rugby and going to class a couple of days a week, you know, not doing it. I'm really just up there partying is what I was doing.

You know.

Well, it's had a tough time learning anything that I don't want to learn same, It's always been really difficult for me, and so I'm up there at home that summer and I'm just kind of sulking around. Man, I'm like, all my buddies are gone, don't really have anybody to hang out with, working the same job I had when I was fifteen, not doing great in school, but I'm gonna be going back to school. But I'm thinking like, man, like if I can't get it together, dude, like what does my life look like? It was essentially having this moment. Sure this summer, which is you would think would be the funnest summer ever because you're twenty one. You're like, you can go out to the bars now whatever. Cool, Well there's nobody to go to the bars with, you know what I mean? Right, And I'm in the town. It's like Asheville is an amazing town, but anybody that grows up in an amazing place, it's not amazing to them. It's the place that they grew up, right, And so I remember sitting there. I was sitting on my little side the carpoard at my parents' house, and my mom came out and she was like, what is wrong? Like what is going on? I was like, I was like, I hate friends here and I'm working this job, and it's like, you know, I'm just giving her the woe is Me story, you know, and she said, to have told the story main time, so forgive me if you've heard it, which I'm super Yeah. So she comes out and she says, well, and I've been singing forever. I just liked it, like to do it, was good at it, enjoyed it whatever. Never in any way was going to pursue that. It's just something that I enjoyed, joyed hobby that I really enjoyed. And maybe you know my middle class upbringing, you know, it wasn't exactly you know, my parents always told me you can do whatever you want. You know, you can be anything you want to be, no matter what. My parents always told me that. But I think inherently there's this belief from whatever my upbringing was. And my parents worked very normal jobs, hard working you know it, could but could never get ahead kind of folks. Yeah, I think there's this inherent thing that hangs over you that's like, well, why shoot for the stars if you.

Can never reach them.

I completely agree, And my parents always told me you can do anything, you can be whatever you want. My parents were the most encouraging people of ever, dude, and I don't appreciate that.

But there's a part of you of any guy that a or any person god realism, they start setting in. It's like, if I don't get moving like yesterday, there's a good chance I'm gonna be forty and my parents' basement working in funds one with Tim and Dole, for sure. And it's not necessarily that you can't go do anything, but you've got to get started at it. And when you're that in this spot, you don't even know how to get started for sure.

But that wasn't even that. But I'm saying until my mom walked out on the on the car port, that moment hadn't even happened yet. I was just going, my god, my life's going to be terrible.

What do I do?

Yeah, I'm just stuck here, I'm still And that was, Yeah.

I'm stuck.

What am I gonna do? Like I'm not probably not going to finish school like I'm you know, I'm just piling student debt on top of oh.

Yeah, debt.

You know what I mean that I can't afford and ultimately I'm going to walk away with nothing and I'm going to be sixty thousand dollars in debt working nothing minimum Way's job. That was where my brain was at that time, yep, And so my mom walks out. She goes, they had bought me a guitar and in seventh grade in middle school, so to twelve or twelve, yeah, thirteen, seventh grade, twelve, and.

She walked out. She was like, whoa.

You know, moms are always trying to why don't you go, yeah, you know, play with some chalk and the driveway, you know what I mean. Like they're always like.

Trying to board. What do you you've got?

You could go running in the woods or you know what I mean, like everywhere?

Rights, why don't you go ride your bicycle?

You know what I mean. Like, So she comes out and she's like, why don't you go play that guitar that's in your closet? And I was like what is It was one of those Oh yeah, mom, I'm like, what are we talking about? Like that's gonna be like I don't even know how to play guitar. And she's like, well, Kenny Chesney and Tim McGrath they didn't learn how to play guitar till they were twenty one. And I was like, well damn. I was like that's I was like, that's what if true? I don't even know if that's true. By the way, I would love I can't wait for you. I've told the story infinity times, and I can't wait to know if that's even true. I kind of hope it's not.

I hope it's not because I hope she got you off that car port one hundred with that story.

So I went in my tid, I went in my closet. I was like, you know what, I got nothing better going on? Really one I went in there, I got it, sat on the carpoard out there, and I'm like getting my got my cell phone out, and I'm like learning how to play a G chord or whatever.

I'm like so terrible, yeah, so hard.

But I just like, I loved singing so much. And I was like, well, I mean I loved, you know, country music a ton. I'd rediscovered it maybe two years before this moment, so I was really really deeply invested into at this time because I grew up listening to it and then I got out of it. So it was so cool for me to, like at nineteen or nineteen probably to rediscover my love for my first favorite music and then have a decade's worth of music to listen to that I.

Never heard before.

So I've got a decades worth of new music. It was like New Music Friday or whatever, and it was a decade's worth of stuff to listen, you know. So I listened to everything. Everything's new to me, dude, all this all the Chesney stuff, dude, all the Dirk Spinley stuff, all that stuff was new Paisley, like, cause I got us. You know, when Chesney's probably getting in the game is when I was getting out of listening. You know, I'm Vince Gill Brooks and Nuns, Travis Tripp Mayonnie Travis. And then by the time I'm eight years eight or nine years old, I'm out, you know. And then I'm not back in until nineteen. So all that music I missed it, and so at that time I'm really obsessed with it. Eric Church's Carolina record came out my freshman year app Caroline, so that Summer Chief came out. Okay, So then I'm sitting around and dude, I blow through this, getting like getting these chords down, like I'm getting like, I'm like, I can play a G, I can play a D can play E minor. Everyone should start with any minor. The easiest chord to play. Everyone should and everyone should bar.

The A chord with one finger.

Also dead don't try to go three.

Yeah yeah.

So yeah, so then I well, well, I know what I'm going to do for the summer to not be bored is to do this right. And then as I start doing that, you know, Chief record comes out. You know, Springsteen's just blowing my mind. You know that Record's blowing my mind, you know, all that stuff is, and I'm just like, man, like, you know, I had known that Eric went to app State right already. He was the hometown guy, you know, like especially everybody was bumping him at that time up there, you know, especially because it was like he's from me, he went to school here, like it's kind of the college guy to that. Yeah, he was playing that circuit at that time as well, right, And so man, I just started learning songs and songs and songs. And by I mean twenty two, so this would have been summer of two thousand and eleven. So by summer of twenty two, I'm living at my grandmother's house in Charlotte, going to every open mic night in Charlotte the week. I mean, I was going all an hour drive to go anywhere to play every night, going going up to Mooresville, trying.

To get me.

I'm trying to get gigs, dude.

Yeah, and I've been playing guitar for a year by yourself.

You're just trying to play solo.

I'm not trying to get gigs, dude.

Like, because I'm like I at this time, I'm dialed in, like this is what I'm gonna do. Within a year, oh within I would say, by the end of that summer, I was like, this is what I'm gonna do. Cool, because it was just like life had almost not really made sense to me up until that point.

M Like, I was like, how.

Does anybody go to college and like get a business degree and go I can't wait to do this forever? And then I realized, Oh, it's because that's.

They have to do that.

Anybody that really enjoys it is really great at what they do.

That's what they wanted, they wanted.

And then I was like, oh, this is the thing that I've discovered, the thing that I want to do. That's oh man, it was it. It was a monumental shift, I mean. And then by twenty two, Yeah, summer twenty two I'm living my grandmother. I'm back up an app for which would what would be my fifth year? You know, Victory Lap kind of year. And then I start getting gigs in boone up there and it's and then it's yeah. At twenty two, I had met Adam Church, and so originally how I came upon him is I'm on I would go on YouTube. So if I was looking up tabs for a song to try to play this, right, I would go, Okay, well, if there's no good tab, I'll go watch someone else the cover video of it and just figure out what he's playing and try to figure out what he's playing. You found him through YouTube, Okay. I had watched his videos and he a lot of times. I'd be like, okay, well he was playing a lot of stuff I wanted to play, which was early Brantley stuff, Yeah, Eric Church stuff like the al Dean stuff, Luke Bryant stuff, Blake Shelton stuff, that stuff that was popular. Then he was liking all that same stuff. And so I'm trying to get cover gigs and I'm like, well, I need to learn whenning out of Moonlight by Randy Hauser, that's what people are wanting to hear or whatever.

Smash all that stuff kind.

And so his videos would kind of constantly come up. Well, about the fifth or sixth video of his that I saw, he comes out in.

A whoa, like what is going on? Is this guy? Like?

So I just fired him a message off and I was like, hey, man, are you like, do you like go to app or like whatever? You know, like I've been seeing your stuff or whatever any big time.

He didn't reach out to me. You know, God Big Tommy, for sure.

He did.

He hit me back, and I was like, dude, he's like, I go to APP now, he said, but I used to go to when I made those videos.

I was going to East Tennessee State playing baseball.

But I'm from Boone. I went to high school. We talk high school, and now I'm back and now I'm a student that app.

If Adam Church got to Michael Jackson's status in like music popularity, he would still right back every human that hit him upon the world. Yep, that is the nicest guy.

And I mean I would say for sure if I if I hadn't met ADM.

Church, I wouldn't be here. Well for sure, that's awesome man.

I mean I wouldn't have been able to do the things that I've done without him, Like especially early on.

And those tough times.

It was like, because you know, when I was going to get when I was getting gigs, it was like, hey, three hour gig, and I'm like, I can't play three hours worth the covers, Dude, I can half, and he can play and a half, you know. And so we went and we just gigged and gigged and gigged for i mean every three nights a week, you know. Sometimes we'd have this place was every other Tuesday, and this place was every Wednesday, and this place was every other Thursday, and there's another place that was on the other Thursdays. And then every Sunday we were here, and then Friday and Saturday we'd try to get down to Charlotte. And what it was like, so like I'm essentially trying to book all this stuff, you know, and and Adam had some already had some standing stuff that he let me get in on, you know, and it was like and then I'm like quickly and I'm making you know, enough money to pay way beyond pay my rent that can be comfortable absolutely, And I'm like, dang man, like, what if this keeps going? What if I could scale this thing into something bigger across the world. It's freaking wild, it really.

Is, man, it's so nuts.

Were you writing songs during that where you and Adams had just started?

I started, probably wrote my first song at twenty two.

I would say, what was it?

It's called day Drinking, And then I realized, but there was a good the song was awful, Okay, But then a year or two later, Little Big Town has a number one song with dayda Drinking.

So you're like, hey, I'm on the I go, hey, we'll do this. I'm on the trail, dude, like that. At least the idea was good.

Yeah, the execution is not there, but at least I'm coming up with ideas.

Comes the time, hunt man, my mouth calling it I can Yeah, I'm.

Like, I'm that's at least was a commercially viable idea or successful hit song idea. The execution wasn't there, but the idea was there, and so that gave me a lot of you know, I was like, well.

Just keep going and keep going and keep going.

And first I mean hit I had it was a song called Let the Moonshine and I wrote that not dissimilar from mississip sipp Moonshine, which is interesting. But I went and shot of the you know, by that time, I mean, we had played so many gigs and it turned into such a thing.

I mean, is the video still on YouTube. I'm sure it is somewhere. I'm sure it is.

Yeah, but we I mean by the end of my time there, like when I was getting ready to move to Nashville in twenty fourteen, I mean, we were crawling in the window of places just to get in.

Yeah.

I mean there were so many people that we had to open the window where the stage was literally in the stage literally because there were so many people in there trying to get in there see us. That's awesome.

It's still that way. It's crazy. It's still that way. Man. I know you're not going to brag on it yourself.

But I didn't think it would ever get, you know, to where it is now. And then let's fast forward. Yeah, what twelve years?

What is that?

Twenty twelve to twenty twenty four and yeah, bro, you just had one of the most iconic Grammy moments.

Of all time, of all time.

Crazy dude, Yeah, can you talk about how that happened. Yeah, that moment kind of it felt like it was crazy. Mean, it really was crazy.

Yeah.

So yeah, it started you know when I went to cut Fast Car. That was when I was making my last record and Jonathan tried to talk.

Me out and cutting and that's this is you wanted to cut this song because it's one of the first songs.

Yeah, it's one of my first favorite songs, one of my first memories with music. Yeah, probably my first favorite song. I would think kind of just show it an ode to it, right for sure, and really just I had done a cover of it in my man cave thing during over COVID and I had played been playing that song.

For playing that lag song.

Forever, right, And so get in the studio. It's one of these things where we have an extra you know, we're cutting three songs and we have an extra hour and a half and I'm like, man, let's do this, And Jonathan's like, dude, why would we do that?

You know, I was like, well, I'm not.

Doing it like for anyone else, Like I'm not doing it because I think it's going to be a hit or anything, like I just want to do it, Like I just like that song. It's old for me as an artist, just for I just think it'd be cool to do a cover of it, you know, and that song has been covered literally thousands of times literally and get in there, cut it, do it, record comes out. I got a single out at the time, which I think you were on love you anyway right, shut out. It could have been kind of lovely making, which I was, yeah, any you know, but so and people started, I mean it starts, people start sharing that cover and it went insane. It went insane, and the country radio started playing it. You know, we weren't servicing it, you know, because I was never like, man, I'm going to try to put this out as a single, And that was like never the goal, you know. But sometimes when things just you know, when a ball gets rolled down the hill, sometimes you can't stop it or.

And I'm so glad that it did.

But I never wanted to. I wanted to treat that song and Tracy with as much reverence as I thought that the song and she deserved, right like. I didn't want it to look like, oh, well, you know, I recorded this song so that I could you know, make money off of it, or so that you know, that was I can say, you know, I did this or I did that about that, right, It's just about loving a song that meant a lot to you, you know, And maybe that's what resonated in recording or something.

That's why I felt You're. It felt you're instead of gimmicky or hokey. And and and luckily, because it was authentic all the way through, it never got to a point there was a couple of haters in there that try to but the truth always wins out right, and and coming from a pure heart with that song, I think is what what resonated. And it's why ultimately she wanted to pair up with you and do it on the Grammys because she understood that as well.

Yeah, and I think, you know, so we everyone asked me, you know that was going on the way you guys talked, and I'm like, no, we haven't. We haven't talked. I was like, haven't heard from her, don't have to get in touch with her, And so I started hearing whispers. I guess it was probably late, I don't know, maybe late summer, early fall that maybe the Grammys was thinking about wanting to do it and and gonna try to get her to be on there, and but I remember I was like, man, that's dude, you.

Know what I mean.

She's hard to get in touch with for a reason. You know, she doesn't want to be touching you know what I mean. I can't speak for but that's what I That's what I would think. And so I don't even think she like has a manager or anything like any kind of any of that, like traditional channels.

Right.

So anyways, end up, you know, getting the official word from the from the Grammys that they are going to want to do this and try to pursue it. And I was like, man, that'd be awesome. But I'm still like that everyone happened, you know what I mean, like just trying to be again comes back to the upbringing of you're just being realistic about it. You try to be really right and so as respectful, you don't You're not gonna don't want to do something she doesn't want to do because I don't want to do stuff I don't want to do. I'm shocked, I'm here, you know, no, So I and then I start getting that so my publicist is the person that eventually gets in touch with or knows someone that she's still in touch with And that's kind of how the connection because our go between was my publicist is coming to me. I was going back to her. She's going back to this guy. He's going back to Tracy. And that's how it's going. I've learned that now.

That's how it was going. You know.

At the time, I didn't know really what was happening, you know, and so they're like, well, we think, you know, it's looking like she's gonna call you. I was in the deer stand in my house. It's looking like she's gonna call you this evening in around seven or whatever.

And I was like, okay, cool.

And you know, I'm giving my son a bath and put him down and my wife's doing the baby and stuff. And she calls me, you know, and sitting in my kitchen by myself, my wife's in there doing the baby and stuff, and I mean we talked for forty minutes probably, and.

I think that that was the like for her, it was the like, am I going to do this? You know?

I'm like, who's this guy see really about? You know what I mean? At least I think that's maybe what it was. I mean, you know, and it was just really easy man, we just talked, just talked about music, talked about that song. You know, I fangirled for sure, but ask her about how do you make this record? And what why'd you decide to do this? And it was like, which is awesome to get to have that. You know, you hardly ever get to have those conversations with the people that you admire, and so that was really cool, man, and I felk. We just connected on that call, and then she agreed to do it. A few weeks later, she agreed to do it, flew out to Los Angeles on Tuesday. Obviously the show was on Sunday, and we rehearsed for a couple of days.

Dude, just that just to get it right, get it perfect.

It was perfect, and she hadn't she hadn't performed in a long long time, man, so she really wanted to make sure it was right and make sure it felt authentic. And so, I mean it could have felt more authentic.

I think it just hit the watcher, which is what we were, you know what I mean, just watch that like not as our buddy, but just like just watching it go down. It just felt extremely respectful and it didn't feel disingenuine to me because I know you, right, I could see that same excitedness while you were playing and singing with her that I saw when you shot that Turkey and r zubas. You know what I'm saying, Like, it's the same. I know you, I know your body quote. You know what I'm saying, that's your face, like I could tell you, you know really anyway, I'm just saying I'm making a joke about that, but I'm just saying, I mean you you, I could tell you were really enjoying that moment. That was That's fun to see because I feel like you're so for like a better term, overstimulated to giant, awesome things all the time. And so seeing that like be genuine on you, it was nice. Man.

Yeah, And look, not only like the moment you could see you having that moment, but you could also watch her having that moment. Sure that she never I mean you think about it, she she probably never thought she would ever stay footback on a Grammy stage, you know.

And then I can't.

Say that I blame If I had had a meteoric rise and absolutely thing off of it, I probably would just want to disappoint hell I wanted to dispair now, but.

It was just it was so cool to see that like you could have been you could have been selfish in that thing and and and made that about you and your your time in there. But like, dude, that that whole thing man was it was it was Tracy spotlight man, and and you were there that that was so cool for for everybody to watch me.

Yeah, and that's what you kind of wanted to be.

You know, look at this.

I'm sure it was you good. I'm sure that was important. It was important what you were trying to say.

But it's that part of the show. For the one that got.

That little theme song like that.

I love that I forgot we dabble.

I love a theme moment for the one got away, buddy, Time for the one that got away.

The one that got away. I mean no doubt it's the deer from the trip this year, Deer from from the West Point, MASSI Oak Trip. Travis just just just travesty all around.

It's just horrible. First year I've ever missed, for sure, shooting a meat eater. Brandon weatherb first.

First, Steve, I told Steve, Steve came over recently taught me how to trap.

It's awesome. Talk about the trapped.

Till the dime, Steve. I'm up to a bobcat and trying to pop four codys and two raccoons by the way in the short by a month.

Dude, I need some lessons, man, I gotta get real cad. We can do it. We can do it.

So you guys know my trusty three eight that I always well, I got some suppressors and stuff now, and you know been going that process is so long to get to get those, and so I was really excited.

We got that six five.

Three hundred, whether it be that meteor gun when we shot the episode, mean mean gun, awesome, awesome gun.

And so it's got to throw a barrel on it.

So I got this, you know, Primal just dead air Primal suppressor, got the adapter for it to fit on them. Like, stoked about it, right, get down there. This is the first time hunting deer, hunting with this gun. You know we shot the antelope with it and stuff. But bring it down. Super excited about I'm shooting Suppressed. I'm all in, like I want.

To shoot Suppressed. It's gonna be sick. I'm super excited about it.

You know, everybody said, you don't want you start, you don't ever go back kind of thing.

I'm gear boys going back, dude, you're going back.

I'm going back. I'm done really on everything. I mean, not on everything like hunting. Yeah, I don't think I'm out, man, I mean I probably just suck at.

It or whatever. No, you know you don't. I've seen you shoot and I'm not.

I'll give it another shot, but like, I really just want to go back, you know, anyways, because you know it's another and another story. But so get in there, man. We sit. I'm sat with Ray because Ray killed up.

It's a very well documented story on Instagram.

Yeah story, yeah, but Ray kills awesome deer first afternoon.

Yeah, pilmated one sixty nuts deer. So the rest of the trip he's like, I'm good, So I'll just come sit with you to, you know, till you get something. And we sat in the same field.

Every day, every set, every day, every set, every day, every set.

And about the third day, this awesome, awesome, super tall easy comes eight eight hammer eight comes out. I mean, old dude, nabby stuff going on, and I'm so excited.

Man, there's all these dough out in.

This field and he comes out, man and he guy, he stops. I'm looking at him in my scope and I'm like, gods, like, I'm about to hammer this thing's broadside, just standing there, you know, like dah, you know, and I can't really tell, you know, with the gun to get kind of jumping and stuff.

I didn't tell if I hit him in.

Ray didn't have his knocks up because he has one binocular. But anyways, I'm like, I don't know if I hit it or not. I felt good about the shot, like hundred pcent confident in my placement, you know, about my shooting and stuff.

For sure, it's all of it. I feel really good about it.

That's all I've had to have hit him, dude, because they all kind of take off and stuff and we get down there no blood anywhere. That don't really mean nothing. It doesn't mean really anything. And ultimately we find out, you know, it ain't he ain't he's not down got away.

I'm like, sheesh, that stinks.

Next day we go down, I'm like, well, maybe we just try to check the rifle, see if it's fourteen inches off. The scope was fourteen inches off, okay, so way off shout. I'm feeling way better about this. So then we're dialing in.

We're hitting bottle caps at three hundred yards.

You know, he's got us dial on these things, and so I feel really good about it. So I go sit. Two more days of sitting in there, last freaking sip comes, last sit and there's rain.

Set up for an amazing triumph, set up for just the best. Dude.

It's about to rain, and I'm leaving that night. It's starting to get it's probably probably thirty.

Minutes a light left, you know, big deer time. It's big deer time. Here he comes out.

It's the same scene. Man, the does are out there, and I'm like, yes, like I'm getting my shot, Like I'm no doubt I'm knocking this deer down, dude, you know, I'm so excited about it. And he comes out. He gets broadside again, but there's a there's like kind of a there's probably yearling in front of him, dough blocking his all his vitals and stuff.

And I'm like, well, dad, Jim, that stings, you.

Know, like, but he's gonna walk, you know, he'll move or whatever. He starts walking. You know, I'm down in the scope or whatever. And as I'm down in there watching him, I realized that he's reached he's walked out because that field's playing it in clover or some winter weed or something. It's super green, super green field, but on the edges of the field it's really that just kind of dead grass. You know, it's mowed down and stuff, but it's dead grass. And then it's woods. So in my scope I can see him standing at the transition from the green to the brown, and he's not stopping at all, and he's probably tearing fifty yards away at this point, and he's maybe quartering towards me just a little bit, not much, but just a little bit. And he's not walking very fast. I mean, he's not on a mission or nothing. He's just kind of slowly strolling. But I realized that this is this deer is walking in the woods and coming back out. He's walked out to check these dose or whatever.

It's last night, This is it. This is a shot.

No, he's not gonna stop, you know, And and Ray's like, oh you you know in that moment, and Ray was saying, do you want me to stop him?

But I'm like, waitin't gonna stop me. He's turning fifty yards away. He's not gonna stop.

He's not gonna go, you know, like he ain't even gonna hear it, you know what I mean. You had to scream even look at you.

You know.

So I decide, you know, I'm gonna take the shot. I feel good about it, you know. I just put it a little bit in front of his shoulder kind of thing, hoping it will kind of walk into it, you know, and I just missed. Man, I don't know what happened. I was still really confident in the shot, and obviously the gun was dialed at this point.

Have they seen that deer? Said that? I don't know.

I mean, that was right kind of the end of the season. But remember it started, so we go out to look and it starts raining. Well, now, now I'll tell you this. We got out there, I probably had five minutes to look for blood for started raining.

And there wasn't any. The other wasn't.

I ain't making no excuses. I mean, I'm flat I missed the steer. There's no we knew exactly where that deer was. And I'm like, and so you know, everybody went out and looked the next morning because I had to leave and stuff, and they're like, man, we're.

Really confident that this deeer ain't down.

You know, so I'd love why when they got away?

Man, And I mean, you have hunted long enough now to know that, which freebody knows. Man, there's time that if you're going to miss him, and it was time, you know, it was time for that to happen.

And hopefully he'll you know, hopefully it'll be around next year. It'll be love to I'm you know, love, I'd love to see him again.

Maybe that maybe the story is not over.

I thought you're one got away it was going to be the two hundred and thirty something and that you still think about that all right? Now it is time for gavorite country song Gravorite in your brain.

We already explained it. Mm hmm, gosh, what a hard It is hard, But you can't get too wrapped up in the greatest. Think more faith than greatest.

I mean, Lightning Eric Church is up there for me. Yeah, I was gonna say, I thought of it. It's either Lightning Eric Church or go rest high on that mountain fence.

Can that's high?

I mean that song is high Yeah, that's probably the right key, I would imagine. I mean, that's even higher.

Go, that's even higher to go to the days like.

God wrist get it, son your word.

Conner dumb go to hay.

Show before the fun other rain.

Sorry, yeah, that is probably one of the greatest.

I know you own owner earths true only could know pa.

Mm hmm s faces you know, strange.

To the rain do one, of course, go Reston.

And sign your work.

Cone the.

Go to hay.

Man.

We all did it before the fun Yeah, those Vent's melodies or something else.

Man.

Yeah, Hey, you got what you got comed at twenty four man got new music, you've been in the studio.

We got a tour coming up.

I don't know if I got new music going.

Maybe there's a chance, you know, there's a chance of that. But really uncertain, honestly on that. That's probably the worst answer you could have. But really uncertain on that. Obviously, tours happening, you know, some students, some stadium shows this year, one or two festival shows.

That's it. It's not.

It's my lightest year touring one, it's in a long time. But most tickets ever, it's crazy that happens.

Well, you know what you say it forever, talk to you forever. We love you. Yeah, thanks.

Man, it's pretty sick. I didn't change any lives. Man, Hope you get there appreciate that. It's fun. It's fun doing life with you. We got two kids. We got two kids. What I'm gonna say about that? And we're kind of like we're all in this boat, you know.

Together, different size boats, but yeah, yeah, yeah man, we just hammered out for two hours.

Sis is gonna kill me. He's been texting me the whole time. But you coming today.

Thank you' all for listening, Thank you for supporting God's Country. Thank you Elsie for for coming on. We love y'all and we'll catch you next time. Thanks guys, you all stick with us.

Don't know where you get here.

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