Ep. 38: Brother Episode feat. Charles and Josh Kelley

Published Sep 3, 2024, 9:00 AM

This week Reid and Dan host Josh Kelley and Charles Kelley, of Lady A. The episode is a full blown riot of brother wars, harmonies, and storytelling that had the guys laughing for an hour straight. All of them compare upbringings and their musical journeys that led them to Nashville, which are eerily similar. Charles reveals their first brother band name and Josh relives losing the junior masters, from shooting an 8 on the last hole, when he was 10. The episode ends with them all on fire covering Bruce Springsteen.

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What's Up.

You're off in God's Country with Reeds and dan Is Boy, also known as The Brother's Home, where we take a weekly drive to the intersection of country music and the great outdoors. Two things that go together, like a rule that says you can't punch in the face, a brother rule that says you can't punch in the face, and the little brother punching the older brother in the face.

Yeah, those things go together. Or Augusta and golf. This podcast is brought to you by Meat Eater and iHeart podcasts.

We've done a lot of these, a lot of them, and this is might be my most fun one.

It was wacky, I mean so much.

It was so wacky and from the contact we went red and then they just went nuts and it was so fun. They were so entertaining, great stories, unbelievable singers, good golfers.

We had a whole we had a whole list of things. Questions. I don't think I did it, It's just I was hanging on for dear life.

Yeah, you're gonna love this one.

Man.

We we had Charles and Josh Kelly, the Kelly Bros. The incredible musicians, incredible golfers, incredible storytellers. The cats are so talented and we just brother died this whole thing through through the whole pod.

It's a little long, longer than our other ones, but what we're supposed to do. Hit the brakes on them.

I think we I think you really enjoy it. So thanks to them for coming on, and thanks to y'all to watching and listening. We love you, we appreciate you. We're digging this new vibe in this room.

Y'all are two.

Yeah, follow us on the follow stuff and uh, we'll check you out next time.

And god.

Bro Pod, Brother Brother Pod. We've already had a podcast.

We already had before we even turned the mics and everything on broadcast.

Yeah, uh, you guys were so down. Tall dude, you guys are talls is a giant. I remember when he had this like gross spurt and Mom kept having Tom put him in like like warm bathwater because he was screaming. He was you could watch him. Oh really, you know what's funny. Ward had had that too, like really, and we were wondering and we got kind of freaked out because we were like les, We're like, you know, the worst thing you could do when anything's wrong with your kid is going freaking Google. Yeah, and we go indeed and we were like, they're always dying always. It was like, oh, it could be early sign of like some kids cancer things and all like we went daughters like it's probably just gross, Burt, you know, and I was like, oh yeah, because I don't I don't remember anything. Josh remembers everything, and like, I don't remember ever doing that. I don't know why I'm a steel trap man. I can remember, I remember everything, and I don't remember. My wife can't remember yesterday, but she remember remember the future, baby saying let's go. I'm just not living, definitely not living because we're not younger bros. We're Yeah, this is young squad over here, just over here, young squad. It's all good. It's dark here versus whatever y'all are.

We've got, we've got a couple of musical geniuses, some singers, golf ball smashing George Bros. Josh and Charles Kelly out God about that.

That was really good professional.

This is the second pod we've done in our new room.

Yeah, this is the new we did. I love it. Yeah, we did. That is one thing man, we've I don't know if I'd ever have the patience to go sit out there, stand and do that respect it you do.

There's there's there's different there's different types. Like if you want to you can do that. You kind of you can kind of do whatever you want to do in that spectrum. Like if you want to go sit out and just wait and and not talk to anybody, zero social at all, go hunt one of those for a week in Illinois. But if you want to like run around calling response, talk with your buddy, go home with your buddy, go on a turkey.

I know. Well, it's so funny. I've been invited like so many times, like t R what wanted to be going down on this thing? And I was like, if I've got two three days, I don't want to, you know, and he was like, got get all this gear, wake up, go it's morning. And I was like, I don't go play golf. But like it's funny. We grew up, you know, in Augusta, and then my dad had this, uh you know, all this cattle and farm up in North Georgia Mountain. So it was like a little bit of like but it was like work. It was like we're kind of country, was it? Like, yeah, go hunt play country. It wasn't play country. Yeah. I actually remember because when I went to college, you spent one summer there working on dad's ranch, and you you were like and said, I never want to. It was he was weedy defence line. He made me do the whole time, like his ass was sitting on there on a freaking bush hog, enjoyed it and cruise it around. He's gonna look. I was like deep in here having it, changed the string every five seconds on this weed eater. I was like, And I remember too, I had this girlfriend, had a little picture on the truck, and I was just like, I gotta get hold, get me out of here. The next thing, you know, I think I got like a job that you know, even it was like Dad's paid me five dollars an hour. I got one for six dollars working in the back room, you know, at the club. I was like, I'm gonna do that, but that at least you're in the a C. You're not out there sweating. Yeah, I know, I agree.

I had Our dad was like that too. We talk about all the yards we mode. He would we couldn't even drive. He would drive us around and just drop us in the mowers and the and the stuff off, and then.

He'd go like he's just gone.

He called it, we caught it the grind. And we would wake up on a Saturday and be like, damn, be like you ready for the grind?

And I'm like, I didn't want to go. What we want to do is play golf. And what he had is doing is his little side hobby was restoring old homes, and we were the labor little Yeah, well, what's fun now we enttry child. So my dad, like literally what he grew up in North George Mountains sold bibles door to door, one of these crazy little stories of the record, sold bible's door to door to pay his way through medical school. So you had this like dichotomy of hum me and he's like, you know this like doctor. And then he was like you know, but he'd never stopped working. He was just he would work. I mean, I really think though in a great way it taught us about the value of hard work. But the weekends you're like, yeah, oh, buddy, is gonna do this. He's like, well, I can't do that till we do this first, And next thing you know, we're up there like knocking out asbestos walls. Just calming down, He'll be all right, I feel close your mouth.

So our dad is a uh, well, now it would be it would be considered a marketplace a halic like he and I probably talked.

Have I talked about this a thousand times? Okay? What I want to hear it?

Well, so he's like addicted to buying things on marketplace. He doesn't even care what the item.

Is, just a deal, It's just a chase heart. So check this out.

So when we this is what phillis relo to what you're saying, we were probably and I was probably in high school where he was in middle school. And our dad calls, and this is before marketplace even existed. I mean he's been doing this for literally.

His entire life. Tennessee Florida game.

Halftime in the Tennessee Florida game, he calls and he goes, hey, man, you and Reed I need y'all get the truck and trailer and meet me over here in Shiloh. I bought something that is half time, like the third quarter is about to start, like it was also fall cool, crisp, like awesome Saturday, right, And so he's like, uh, yeah, grab.

The trailer and meet me over And I'm like, God, all right, dude. So we love the trailer.

We're as we're first off, it's a thirty five minute drive. As we're pulling up into this driveway in the middle of god knows where.

He's on the back.

He's on the he's standing next to like sixty giant cardboard boxes just I mean literally like thirty foot of just stacked cardboard boxing and he's counting money like this he's at it was an auction, counting money. And when we pull up with the trailer and we're like, Dad, what what is this? And he goes bought a library. Boys, and I've already doubled my money.

He was selling the books out of the library that he had just bought at the auction and had already doubled his money.

But now we're like, we got to load these.

Freaking boxes, loaded the whole library, loading these boxes, and I guarantee you they're still in that Backshit.

We're like, what are you gonna do with My mom was like, Randy, what do you do?

They're just like santamon A Bay. Yeah that I'm the same way, man, I haven't gone I haven't had my morning bathroom ritual without being on either Craigslist, KSL or Facebook market place probably fifteen years. CASSL maybe more. KSL is like, so you tall, Wyoming and Idaho have their own thing and it's where they sell everything. So if you want to find something where people who have no idea what the value actually really is KSL. So I'm on it every morning. I mean I found a nineteen fifty B three organ with a Leslie cabinet for I think like a thousand dollars. I can sell it here for like that, what did we do when we took a dump without ourselves? I have no idea? What do we do? I have no idea? Magazines, yeah, magazine. Speaking of that, I had a buddy we talked about that Slid as a buddy of mine. I mean his dad's button up guy, amazing guy. And I remember always going to his house and in in in like their their you know, bedroom, and in the in the in the bathroom, he had a stack of like playboys in his bathroom with his wife, and I was like, like, with the wife in there, I was like, it just seems like something you kind of seeking. So of course we would always go to his house and.

Room again those gorgeous like where's Charles?

Yeah, just like sitting there on the pot and going, I'm feeling really sexy, just like you know, delicious dreads or maybe reading articles. I mean maybe sometimes, I mean maybe they were good articles. I never just like on this, I believe we made it to.

The first We do a segment called what You're mad at? There's anything that's bugging you if you want a little and when.

You sing about it to his what he's written. We got a little song that we saw. We start off with.

Calm down, what mad?

Just tell us what it is?

What you're mad?

Is it?

You in Lost Kids?

Might be your boss man or your neighbors?

Can just tell us what you mad?

I told you it was coming?

Might be my uh, what you're mad? I can't just tell us what it is?

What you're mad?

Is it?

You in Lost Kids?

Might be your.

Boss man or your neighbors cat just tell us what those were all things I was kind of mad at when I wrote that. Dan says, mad is that a real? That's a that's a great song. Thank you man, you should cut it man. You guys's on hold right now for Keith Urban.

I know that's a lot.

I'm gonna cry, guys, you mad, you mad at something? I'll tell you what I'm mean. This is the segment. Is what's supposed to talk. The next time I come here, I'm going to drive here. I'm going to bring my tools and we're gonna make you a an area to put your guitar that's much closer to your That's what i'd a right now.

That's that's on my wolf over there. He's supposed to bring me a You know it's all catered here.

I'm just kidding. You're mad at my driver? Man, I got to play Pine Valley this last weekend. I thought, you bet like the guy who drove you.

That's a lot of in the back of coffee on me.

I was like, did you cut took the left?

When I said no, my freaking actual driver, Josh, we might go out there and play to play tomorrow. Josh has always been the best driver of golf. Pall I. Josh is a great I should be able to beat the absolutely messide of the ball. But man, it's messing a game up, dude. In the fairway. I got the new the new Smoke Calloway smoke and this like the Camo came. It is hot. Yeah, but it's hot into the rough and every other way. Wow, you're you a fader? You draw the ball? What you did? See? That's problem. I don't know which one's coming that day. One day it's the fade, one day it's the draw. Let me ask you this, have you gotten? Have you gone and gotten fitted? That's from my iron, is not my driver? You gotta do it. It's just like fly fishing when you're trying to load a rod. If if the kick point and for your swing and your swing speed is wrong, if it's kicking before it comes to the ball, it's got to be that. That's what it is. It's the club. It's the shaft. The shaft so much more important than the driver head. The shaft is way more expensive too. Yeah.

I was the same way, bro. I could not find a fairway for years, and the driver was part. Irons were fine, wedge game was fine. Always been a really good putter.

Well we got got a little thing we might do.

Always like a great put I could read good green reader, all that, but I couldnt find a fair way. And golf gets really hard when you can't. When you don't play for it's like, oh.

It's putt. Like listen, playing there, chipping out of the you know, every hole you know, chipping back into play one.

It is literally hard, like digging it out of some of the especially Pine Valley, which I'm sure that office.

That the bunkers there. I was like, literally, if you ever got to play it, it is insane if you're in that bunker, but you cannot. It's considered one of the best courses in there. It's unbelievable. You can't advance it like you can't if you're in a if you're in one of those bunkers are so deep that you're just getting it back out. So every hole, I just like, I just bog get that course to death. It was brutal.

I just went last year, went and got fitted for Woods and they put me in an extra stiff with a plan the stealth too, I think, and dude, I've never driven the ball better and and I cannot wait to tee the ball up and hit it off. The everything's matching up and my club face is squaring up. And that's that's the problem. I mean, And that's the thing what people don't know about golf is like if your club face is a degree open, an impact just two degrees open it it's the the forty yards.

It's insane. Yeah, it's so important. It's worth going out and getting fitted, especially for yourversion rate. It makes the biggest difference. Yeah, absolutely, And what you were saying about, when you're hitting the driver wrong, your confidence is gone for the rest of the day and then you're getting your head and you're thinking about it getting on a tea box big time.

So well, you're creatives. It's kind of what we do. You know, we live in there.

Man. You can't shut that stuff off.

Even with golf. It's like you try to. For me, I mean hunting, fishing, I can kind of cut it off. And it seems like I've said this before, but it seems like the better song ideas come through when it's when I'm kind of off and when I'm constantly trying to think of hooks and melodies and phrases. But with golf, for me, I got kind of obsessed this year. It's really just been kind of fun for me, just kind of but I was having trouble. I was hitting everything, Remember I was hitting everything one thirty five five iron one thirty five didn't matter, and I was swinging hard.

I couldn't figure out what was going on.

And then I went to Florida and I rented some clubs and played, and it was they were regular shaft dude changed everything. But I was just swinging. I've always swung his old.

Clubs, which were always extra stiff. Dude. My swing speed as an amateur is not what is this? You know what I mean? I'm an amateur too. I don't well a beautiful speed. Nobody course speed. Yeah, nobody calls you. They call you what Tor speed? Nobody calls you at all. But the guy that got fitted was like, oh Tor speed man. Nobody did. I love golf? I want to be I like, awf a lot. I'm on. I want to I'm on the road to I want to be a scratch offer man. Oh yeah, I never have been.

I've shot under par a few times, did at one time this year, But like, I want to, I want to shoot. I want to go knowing that I can shoot around.

Even No one realizes when you get into golf, like it's easy to go from. I shouldn't say it's easy. It's way easier to go from a twenty handicap to like an eight, no doubt. But when you start trying to go from like six, and that's even a five's to a zero, it is it's everything. Its chipping, it's it's it's keeping it in play. I'm I'm kind of forever stuck in my handicaps forever, like a three, two of five. And you know, and.

Those of you that know anything about golf, that's incredible.

Dude. We've been growing up, grow in Augusta. I mean, yeah, you have to play golf, but you have no friends. And I don't think. I don't think I'll ever get jump the hoop unless I completely change all my fundamentals, which you know, because I've got some habits that have just developed over years and like and I mean, I've gotten lessons in The guy was like, I mean, You've got so much going on, and then he was like, you have to be willing to play really really shitty golf for two years, and I was like, I can't do it. Yeah, I'd rather just scoot around. I will say in two thousand and nine, when I joined Lake Side back in the day, I got to scratch for the first time. I mean, d one college golfer by I careered in a j G A tournament. I had no business planning D one and Charles knows it. But I got really good at golf again in two thousand and nine, and I was writing the shittiest songs of my and I was like, okaying, literally, it's either you spend all your time on that to get to this goal which is going to make you no money, or or you I'm really happy balance. Let's be honest too, what's what's the first thing that gives when you played a lot of golf? Probably your marriage. Yeah. The one the one of the main reasons I had to stop drinking was because of golf. I was like, I come home and and and it was just like, well everybody was doing it. I was like, what am I supposed to do? I hammered, it's one o'clock. I was like, well, I mean, you know Tommy's for you know.

The strong one of those things that I like a golf course all the time.

Transfusion my old master's uh Gustin National, our older brother talks about all the time. Well yeah, it's like it's like great or I don't know, it's low calorie, it's a little bit of a little bit of great great, a little bit of ginger. Yeah, you're right.

My new thing is John Daly's the Sweet Tea Vodka. It's like a like a Arnold Palmer was listening. Did you ever hear she is a great thing.

I haven't drinking. There's a great story, I think Arnold Palmer. They were like they were like, uh, I can't remember what it was. Somebody had ordered uh an Arnold Palmer, you know, put vodka in it. And he goes aay, he doesn't want to John Daly and uh, And I guess Arnold Palmer some story where he was like, no, that's that's an Arnold Palmer with vodka. That's not a Johnt. He was offended.

I kind of like, actually, I kind of feel bad for collinhim John Days now.

N Palmer story. Years ago, I was playing in Arnold Palmer's like pro am tournament, and I was so excited to play with him. And at thet and we only everybody got to play one hole with Arnold Palmer, And at the very end of the hole, I was like, hey, man, do you have any advice that you can give me? And he looked at me and he goes, shave that off your face. Had a bigger bear, dad, but it didn't matter what it was. He just goes shaved that off your face and.

He walked away.

That's old school, though their old school, the old school. They want you clean. That'll mess around, man.

I think that's one of the attractions to golf too, is that it is what you're saying.

It's it's one of the only things.

Left that that you don't A lot of the new generation is not respecting, but a lot of the old generation that grew up with it wants to continue to respect and and it'd be a gentleman's game.

Yeah, and tradition. Tradition as being a gentleman. You know, when people know that you play golf here, all of a sudden, you're like synonymous with being an honest person. You know, a patient supposed to be patient. You're so, you know what, honest. When I signed my first deal, I remember when Bob Caballa I should bought Cabal's hand and he turned my hand over and he could feel all the calusies and he goes, you're a golfer. I was like, yes, I am, and I don't already been hanging out my buddy's place in his in his bathroom. I had to go there with he is a big fan of that. What do you think that I made of leather? Do you think there's same paper down there? Like six hundred grip? So, dude, you and Dad have the I did not get that gene. We have oven. Mit, well, just really strong hands. Like a few times Josh and I have gotten into it. He'll hold I mean, well, there's one time in high school. Yeah, Josh was bad about like Josh never cleaned his Josh so like he never like had clean clothes. How how far an year and a half. He's grovy, but he like came in. He would always come in. You know, it's like taking my best shirt. That's my best shirt, dude. And we got this big old argument and I come downstairs.

I'm like, stop wearing my clothes. And I said something and we I had been I've never been a tough guy. But you were practicing boxing.

If you've noticed something. But were you always We're not a tough guy. Were you always a big guy?

Uh?

Big guy? But like, so is this when you were practicing boxing? And I bought this? Like is this when you were practicing boxing in the boxing boxing. I was doing it for cardios gone, just in case maybe I needed needed to defend my said, you weren't a tough guy. You were practicing boxing in the ground. It was I probably fifteen or whatever. And so to figure this out, so we bought yeah, well this like you know one the little thing hanging hanging it from the the garage, you know, the deal and hanging. And so every night I'll be out there and I'll be boxing it, and I mean it felt it felt good. I felt like I was getting somewhere. And he was trigger happy and I was trigger happy, and Josh square it up to me. I don't know what got me, because you always had a rule, like we wrestled you, yeah you can. I mean, Josh used to just do this, you know, hold me down and just yeah. But this was one of those times we kind of square up and my instincts kick instincts kicking, and I give him this little this little left job, right it was, but he didn't like. He just went, you hit me in the face, you know a rule, And I, like a freaking child, ran upstairs and like locked myself in the bathroom and he comes up and like we you know, and I'm like terrified because Josh. It's to the time kid got really big. He was on creating probably Royds for sure, Royds Josh. When Josh was something, he goes like all in like like randomly. One year was like you know, he's like golfing all this stuff, and he's like I want to join the wrestling team. And then like next year's like I'm joining the rowing team, like random, just like I don't know where that gets into. But he got really big and and uh man, We're sitting there and I know this day very well. I still remember all we come out then I don't remember how much, but I remember this I can thing and we like at the end of it started just like crying and we can I tell you the taild up leading up to that. So he ran into his room. He locked one door and then and then I picked that lock, and then he the double doors that didn't have a lock, and I was like, and then he was bathroom and when were you going to murder him or were you just trying to get I was afraid he would again, I was making weedy. I can't hurt my little brother. It's my buddy. And so what I did is like we sat down the couch and I was like, I have to hit you for one leg and I went, I went again and then and then we both cried. We cried, we have I have to hit you. We have we have the same exact story. We have.

We have.

John is this size? When I was like, yeah, you look like a bike, like a Viking. Yeah. That was always man. I was always like, like, my my nickname was Cricket. Like they called me cricket a little video. That's a great nickname. Cricket. Sophomore you kind of started growing sophomore callings. You need to watch Big City Greens if you have a cartoon with your kids. They got the Cricket. That's one of the best cartoon. Great show. I literally watch it by myself. That's so funny with that. So I come home one day He's playing.

It might have actually been punched out or something, and I was like, I was like, hey, man, like I'm playing, and I was a good I was. I was sweetie too. Honestly, I was like I was a nice big heart. Yeah, big big hearted for sure, big big pants, big husky, husky boy. Yeah, it's all right, I ain't mad at it.

So I come upstairs.

He's playing the game. I was like, hey, I'm playing. He was like, well, let me finish this episode or episode. We finished this level level and I was like, nah, grabbed him, kind of chunked him into the closet.

He he would always like pick me up, and like he would open the closet doors and all the clothes were there and throw me in, just like.

Throw me into it, hits the closet, big clothes and just fall down a soft throw, right, So he hits the clothes, they fall. He's like, whatever happening is in there? And he and I'm like, you know whatever, And all.

Of a sudden, I just feel like spot, he just caught me. I'm talking about west ankle from the floor. Probably got I probably got him at that point by one hundred and fifty pounds.

Wow.

And so I've been throwing in the closet to me like I was sitting, I was sitting the bottom of the close.

I was like, okay, manka, and keep in mind, I have whipped a bunch of asses that even looked at him wrong, not like nobody.

I protected Charles too the same way. So I jump on him.

I put both of his arms across his chest with one hand and I read back and I was like, hey, man, I could you see the size of my fist.

But he was like, you know, we don't punch in the face, so you know, we don't punch the face. And I could kill you. I could kill you if I punched you in the face. He's going, oh no, damn, I know. I'm sorry.

I'll never do anything.

I should not have done that. I'm sorry. I don't know why I did that.

I was like, all right, man, I'm gonna let you up, but like, we don't punch the face. He's like, okay, So I let him up and I was on my knees after just let him going, I cannot believe. And again, and this time it was like and it was black. I mean, he blacked me out. He gave me right there, and it was kind of temply it's kind of template.

I had to get him. There's there's a time to like establish like, yeah, I ain't a kid.

That's when it happened because I was like, oh, I'm fixing the murder this guy.

And when I turned around, the door was it was swinging. I could hear him and so, and I thought I was like, man, maybe for those two weeks, I was just being a jerk big brother, and I shouldn't do that anymore. But it leveled, it leveled it out. You established yourself like new sheriff and get it where you know, Yeah, I'm new constable in town. Yeah they Cily sheriff. Yeah. Well, I have a question for you guys. I'm sorry that I just want to know because I don't know what I will know. I want to know thing. Want to know because the similarities are like it's it's eerie. How did you guys find music? Like when how did you? How did you? One days go? Like I think I'm pretty good at writing and making music. Well, you want to go because I know how we started. My thing was I always like to ask.

Our dad's a Baptist preacher and it's still to this day, a Baptist preacher in south of Nashville. And so I found music by just as long as far back as I can remember, I was singing, and we were singing like I was singing specials. And we would sit in the second row behind the and the choir and everything was right here, and it was me, Dan and my sisters, and we were just singing harmonies and singing park were there's.

So much and we got so bored and so tired of hearing our dad speaking.

There's also like an hour and a half worth of music on Sunday morn and an hour and a half worth of music and Sunday night, and there's probably forty five minutes on.

Wednesday, so and we had to be there. So as we're hearing this.

Stuff, like we start learning the soprano parts, the alto parts, the baritone parts, and the bass parts, and we start swapping because we're there so much. The melody just kind of got boring. So we learned harmony and singing through that. As far as like writing, I was always kind of a extroverted writing.

Kind of guy.

Like I always wrote similar even as like first I remember first grade that I had a notebook that I was writing about girls and all this stuff, and I was so embarrassed about it, you know.

And so even through middle.

School, I started loving like just loving music, country music, gospel music, just loving music. And I actually learned guitar to put just to put my words. Like I didn't learn guitar because I wanted to be a guitar player. I learned a guitar player because I wanted. I realized that it wasn't effeminate to write. Poe was at the time, I was playing football, so I was like, I can't be the football player that writes poems, but I can be the football player that writes songs.

Because she loved that.

So that that kind of projected me into the like writing thing. And it was still really really really uncomfortable, if you want to know the truth, just because it's like it was a different It's not the tough guy persona when you're in ninth grade, you know what I mean, You're like the weird kid that that plays the red strap, you know.

And and it was it was, it was that's kind of how it developed for me.

And before I knew it, it was I've been in I have been in bands long, I mean for more than half of my life, just kind of popping from different things, a different thing. And then I was in a country band where we did the kind of a funk country thing.

Got looks up here, you know what.

Interestingly enough, that's funny I'm saying this. My first hold in town was on lady A and I thought I had.

I thought I was. The song was, Oh dude, I don't even remember. I mean it was.

It was a song I wrote with Singleton. We had it was like he was our guy that kind of helped us get to town.

So he's unreal.

He from West Tennessee and so we kind of all his band was like our big brother band, and so we came up with him and he would occasionally just like chunk me or riot once six months, which dude, and he was busy. No offense, I mean taking it all to any of that.

It's just how it goes.

And I said this literally last episode, but he was like, hey, guys, I can open the door for what y'all want to do, but you've got to kick it down. And that's kind of how we got into town.

That's how you did. And I'll be completely honest and a little vulnerable here.

I think that's that's the reason, like his musical journey into Nashville is a reason I deal with imposter syentrum so bad, like like in this town, like not feeling like I belong here because because being honest, is it because I'm so much better or what?

No you're not, but.

This something writing songs, and and my dream was to always from a young age, was to be on stage and and and and be the artist and and and sing in front.

Of crowds and so like your voice is.

So I moved here with the intention of that and fell in love with writing songs and hated the road so much that I just quit going on the road and decide to write songs.

But like songwriting.

This is crazy to say, but like it wasn't my dream, you know, like what I'm saying, And it was just something I think a little brother it was just something that he was doing, and I moved here and was good enough and fell in love with it to figure out how.

To do it and make a career of it, you know.

So, and I feel like, I don't know, I feel a little I've always felt a little like I shouldn't say that.

But it's kind of the it's kind of the truck.

It's not it's not how you know what I'm saying, Well, apparently it's how you drive.

What's y'all? What's y'all thing? What y'all say is very similar. Like I would not have gotten in the business for what absolutely I seemed the pipe dream and when I saw him doing it, I was like, I mean, you know, it's that natural things like I'm jealous. I want to be on that ride with them, you know, and it was like whoa. But it was actually, oh, it's not this is actually something that is attainable, you know. And so he was hugely encouraging because, like you, I mean, we grew up since middle school playing in bands together. I was, I say, we started music together. Josh played do you remember your band names? I love inside or School? I was, I was one of the worst ones I've heard. Yeah, I was. It was the was the Spoon. I was like, oh yeah, I immediately went to forking or spoon was sorry, uh turkey gobbled words. No, but we Josh started playing guitar and I was like shoot, and I you know, I paid. I was like, this is this is like that it might as well be a Rubek's cube. And so exactly what happened. And so I started playing drums and uh my mom had this whole snare drum and so we would literally like pull in pots. One of the most I thought, one of the most brilliant mentions was I grabbed one of those popcorn tins that has like the three different popcorns, three different tones. The Christmas the Christmas was saying, so you take all that out. And I got the plastic off a trapper keeper. Remember like there's things you could slide the paper in thember keeper told the plastic off of it, put it over tape, and I made up tom and so I had my mom's snare. And then we got these plastic there's little plastic like plates and I stacked a couple of them together and that was my high hat. And so I was like we were rocking. And so then like and then my mom like saw that, and no, she rented her house out for the Masters. She rented her house out every year. She took it up and we would all have to leave. She and I think she she took it apart or threw it away. And then when we got back home, we started we were we started crying. We were like devastating, and she goes and she just disbanded and she's like, get in the car. We're going to music store. And she bought me a set of drums Josh electric guitar, and I mean, you still got the drums to this day I still had the drums. Are yeah, amazing that they that's a great story man old old yeah, yeah yeah and so but yeah we had spork and so I remember told booth Willie one day, that's a good one. Inside Blue was the third. One day I wore the sport necklace. It was the KFC sports yep and you put a hole in it or the necklace, and I got my fun. I was like, no, we were the sports necklace because we played. We played like an assembly in like middle school, like we all. We played like we will. It was we didn't do we Will. His name was Will and Will and we were trying to get Will LETTI will rock you to come on, We're trying to get Will.

Will Will.

You're already. We were so good. I know, were you writing songs? Were you were? We did we wrote not sport but for instally Yeah, and that was early so like well, but it was pretty soon though. Then at fourteen we got really good though when we were like fifteen and fourteen. Fourteen fourteen is when I is when we did. We did a little five song ep. It was some guy that was associated with like James Brown's world. He had the only studio in town, and so we paid him. You know, I can't who knows what it was. Couldn't have been more than two grand, Like I wasn't even that. I think it was like a thousand. Borrowed some money, you know, dad, and all the parents like chipped in five hundred bucks. So we record these songs and it was suppointed. I was like playing and you know, singing, and I realized I was a really mediocre drummer, and you were good. You have a good average. But and then like all of a sudden, so anyways, all this happens, we kind of go in and out of playing some some bands in high school, and then Josh goes a little miss and all of a sudden, now nowhere he's like writing songs and he's like sending me these songs. Oh that's right. But then I'm like, oh good, no beef here. But like he never sings. I was a singer, and I was like, when did you learn how to sing? Like this is amazing, because I think he was. Also it was like it was weird. Josha is a bit of a docomic too, where it's like he was like knowing him now, you would not have believed that he was kind of introverted in like high school, and like he just never de said he was gonna sing. All of a sudden, he goes to college and it's like singing and I'm like, and he gets a record deal, and I'm like, well, it took one girl to tell me I had a nice voice, that's all. It took game over one girl. I think my freshman year. I think she was on the girls golf team and I was like driving, was driving us both to practice, and she was like, I think I was singing like a boyis to men song or something, and she was like, you ever really uh together at the end of the road. Is that wait that yeah? Yeah so good? Yes, great man, such a good one. But that's all it takes sometimes just one person giving you that confidence. And I remember going I was like, I'm glowing. I can sing. And then so I left back and I was like, I think I'm going to start singing more. And I had a little four track task cam tape deck that I took with me to college, so I just started moving around all the time. And then next thing you know, I come back to Augusta and I was writing. I was like making songs with somebody else who was recording on a computer, and I was like, what you can record on a computer? Yeah, I was like I figured it out. I was like I basically like extracted all his knowledge and all all his tools that he was using, and I just put it together when I went back to Old Miss and then it was just game over. That's all golf, like golf out. Yeah, oh man, it's music. Well, he would send me songs to and you know, you're like you can tell like you're like, oh, it's great man. Yeah, and then he sent me amazing yeah, which you know, and I was like, you know that. I just love that, like songs like you never know. And that's why I'm a big believer in just doing it right, right right, because you the minute you think you know, it's like you don't know what what's going to capture the you know, the world's attention. And man, he sent me that song. And I remember I was in college and because you were were you, I was at Georgia and I was a freshman and I was like, this is unbelievable. And I played it for like a buddy and like he was like, holy crap, So how did that Explode was getting the songs by the way he was getting them because I would tell him I would put him on Napster, and that's how he and his buddes are getting Because I couldn't like email a song back then, I was putting it on Napster and I would just I would call Charles because there was no text either, and I'd be like, dude, get on Napster and look up this one song, and he would look it up and then he w W. And that's how that's how I was sending my music to all my friends. Wow, it's like Napster, man. I was in the heat of I was stealing all stuff like, oh God, Absol, trust me. This is I mean, I was having a conversation with something the other day. The same thing is going to happen with AI. It's not going anywhere, cats out of the backs. How do we find a way songwriters to monetize it in a way way to where because they're taking essentially all of our catalogs of songs in creating algorithms to do this, and and it's not going away. We can fight it and try to do it, just like ladies try to fight napster cas out of back. It's just how can we actually find a way now to actually monetize it so we don't get into the same thing that's happening with Spotify and all that, like, you know, as songwriters. But it was very interesting. It was a scary conversation though. I was like, I literally the next day wrote a song about AI. I was like, this is just silly. I just got it out. Well, it's basically I was like, I want to see a I create this kind of kind of memory, you know, like like us actually speaking, and are we ever going to be able to connect knowing that it's not from human being, even if it's as good to ye it was, But it was like that, but it but it freaked me out so much. But I was like, I mean, it really is a it's an interesting thing. If we don't instead of fight, if we don't find some way to at least control it into uh temperate, it's going to get out of control.

We talked about that we uh on who we talk to you. I think it's just us on this little just Me and You podcast. But like it feels like in the music industry where we're at right now is kind of a wild West, you.

Know what I'm saying, because you don't.

We're kind of in between radio and streaming and getting paid at one place but not getting paid at the other. And but the one place is kind of going away, and it's kind of all going this way where there's where nobody's getting paid. So it's like to continue songwriters, to continue to make a living, and and like it's something has to change, something.

Is going to Darius. I remember Darius Record told me he was like, you know, we used to tour to promote our record. Now we put out a record purely to promote our tour. That's and so it's like, well that's great. Us as artists, sure we're gonna we're gonna find a way to get money because people still want to see the live experience. But as a songwriter, which is when I move this town, that's all I wanted to do.

Really.

It's like, you know, back of the day too, like you could have one cut on a you know, a Clint Black record, and you were, you were great, you probably make you know, a good a good chunk chunk, you know, And now you get a cut on a you know, a la a record. Hey, man, I'm lucky. You're lucky if you're if you you know, if you're paying a month's rent on that for sure, And that's sad. It's just like you know, it's just not Yeah.

It's terrifying to be honest with you, because like I we we always we use the phrase a lunch pale rider, which is what me and reader. We have no desire to put out music or to get a record deal. I mean, we literally solely come to this town to write songs for other people to sing, you know. And so when you start talking about a I've had the same conversation. I was with a dude the other day, matter of fact, and we were talking about a particular pitch that we were gonna, you know, go with the tune, and I said, well, man, whose voice would sound better on it? He's like, it doesn't matter, he said, I'm like, AI, this artist's voice in immediately when we're done recording the vocal, so he's not gonna know that it's you or me anyway.

And I was like, are you serious? And he said, Dude, the artist that we were sending to, I actually already know it. I already know and when I will say it, But so what about you? I found about you?

If somebody goes, oh, this is a lady a pitch and they ai all the voices that would be I would.

Be a little freaked out. Yeah, really be honest with you, yeah, like but noted Yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah, don't that Yeah, I mean we I mean I would say seventy percent of you know, our songs on each record, you know even more. I mean like what if I Never Get over You was a song that Ryan heard, you know, and I immediately like heard, you know, my voice and Ryan's, and then I was like, oh, we could make it a duet. And so to me like, I don't know, I think I don't. I don't want to hear like I want to, And I also want to hear the inflections that the other song whole song, because there's certain like movies I wouldn't have done if I wrote that. I think you gravitate towards the soul of it more than yeah, more than the production. I think a really great song can can live if you recorded it on your iPhone or a tape deck or a really you know, billion dollar studio. I think they're all still a great song. But it's interesting. I mean, there's no telling where it's where it's going to go. I just I just pray that we get ahead of it as an as an industry before the same thing just happens, because you know, I mean, obviously you got to protect like you don't want all of a sudden like you know, Elvis's voice singing on a rap song. You know what I mean. It's like, yeah, but soulless. Yeah, AI is soulless. That's the only thing we have going for ourselves. Tell us your theory. I want to hear your theory. Well, here's my theory. It's like we as as writers, I think that that we need to change our algorithm and our structure to how we write songs. We've been we've been stuck in this little, this little world where it's like verse pre course course, verse pre course course, bridge and then breakdown of course. And it's like, let's get away from that. And I started, and I started trying recently with a song. I have a song coming out called hard Hat, and it is by Are. It doesn't live in any structure. It's like a I don't even know what you call it. It's like a it's like a Broadway. I don't know what it is, it's a movement and it made me, well, no, it changed my brain. I think. I think it's one of those things. It's like that I needed to get out of the algorithm that I was using every single day because it wasn't inspiring me anymore. And also my friends are sending me AI songs that like they would type in like their Hatred of Mayonnaise and send me a song that a I wrote about manaise and it was brilliant but it sounded really cool, but which is terrifying. But it's also soulless. And I think that I think we as humans can tell when something doesn't have a soul. I can just feel it, you know what I mean. It's like you, you know, you have that little gut feeling for a reason, and hardly anybody ever trust it, but we should probably trust it, like immediately all the time. I could just tell when something is AI because it just feels soulless. I think we have a job to be better.

I was probably I think I just started driving, and so I was sixteen, fifteen sixteen, and I had a hand me down a Suzi Rodeo like a ninety six or something.

What it was?

That thing was sick and the first time I got uh, I guess, I guess I picked up the Jordan cla ep and well, we're gonna do it in a second. But I remember, I just I just got Hearty's Breakfast and I pulled through and it's the first time I ever heard of Naiy Moon.

And I told you this. I pulled over in a parking spot and I was crying in a.

Hearty parking lot eating my sausage.

And cheese biscuits. I was like, I was like, this is beautiful that song. And now what Nally's sixteen about to be?

Oh?

Yeah, yeah, she was a sweet baby angel. Then due, come on, you did wild? Actually Josh hit his wildest speak at fifteen. Yeah, he's a creative. It was bro Yeah, it was. I actually told Katie about all the stuff that I was getting into when I was fourteen, and she was like, I don't think I can look at you anymore. I don't know. I was curious, Like I said, Josh goes in phases was my favorite. I had a beard when I was like thirteen, so they everybody thought I was older.

My dad always said that like my sister came out. She was so clean and beautiful and had this little nose, you know, And she said, and then Dan was born. I remember my dad say, and then Dan was born, and he come out looking for a sandwich and needing to shave.

My favorite uh song of yours was uh oh, Georgia.

Charles and I wrote that together the credits yesterday, and I was like with Lagerberg, he was, I love Clenn.

That's great, Come on, man, give us a little Only one of my friends with a fake made me in the hometown celebrity used to put her in parking a bacon a lot started with a second name. You can't believe we devil got what I can't do.

The loves there didn't love the living found night just trying to steal gets some child game.

Down ride, good old days on battle Shoe.

Just like that, Georgia Clay, you give the first verse, Oh.

Funny, how something.

Yank you back.

A year and now just faced you like.

The little dude, just time for that time.

But she.

Mane, it hits me.

It's ten years old, running owns.

It's been the whole damn summer living them that chuck come on them all.

Times to covering in all and b.

I can stay expending me and my bo there time more time when that was nothing then then just trying to.

Steal up kids on the same game out around good old days on sure way, just let that Joe claz.

All over everything, every last.

Of me come on and it's out coming back to me.

Who can I tell you about that second first though, that second versus total bullshit because we I didn't need a fake ID at all anything. I looked like I was twenty seven. Yeah, when I was like sixteen and we would go to that place and I would always have to go. I wrote with you, I was the first mona my friends. That's right, this is zact pretty mess up. Before I could drive, I was fifteen years old. I had a fake idea. I just started do it. I just started drinking at fifteen. And again I'm sober now there's a reason. But I but I had a fake idea. And what was his name Brennan something, Brennan, John Brennan or something. I still remember this day. But like I would stick, you know, you stuck a picture and it was this other guy's idea. I just stuck a picture there and I had to keep it though in a wallet with the Classic because if you pulled it out you could feel though. There was this one gas station that we all went into and they were just like, yep, looks good to me. Yeah, I mean fifteen, I remember that guy. He didn't give a ship man. He was if you walk in with confidence and you have a black beard, it's your good boons farm drinking them. Yeah, Charles was like Charles, and it would be Charles and Ryan Neville and Matt Weaver. They were all be in the car and they'd be like, is it going to be able to do it? And I was like, I can do it. Yeah, I still to all.

Yeah.

It was that was them coming back and they were like literally like kids, like glued to the window and they're like, did you get it? He's got it? Come on, come on, come on, natty light, let's go. Never nothing will ever be more fun than when you first start. I actually got to that point too. It's one of the reasons, honestly, I think it was easy for me to stop drinking because it wasn't fun anymore. Like I still like remember like how exciting the whole thing, and it kind of becomes to this thing. I was like, oh, yeah, once you can do something, it's not now, it's fun. Honestly. You know, every year Katie and I do sober October and and and every single year that we do it, I wake up in the morning, I'm like, this is how we should lift. This is how this is amazing. This is how normal people feel in the morning. They feel. Look how much energy I have. I could do anything right now. Look how clear my brain is. This is incredible, Babe, watch this. It's like, how do you do cart will?

Yeah?

Seriously, I feel like I feel so good by the way you look like you. I've lost twenty pounds. You you got you gotta notice in your face it needed to. But yeah, I redefined my nature with drinking. I mean, every now and then, you know, we'll do it. But Katie, Katie is also the same way she starts. She's like made these concoctions they're called shrubs, where she takes like fruit and you put all this sugar on top and it a masser rates all the liquid comes down to the bottom and then she adds like apple cider vinegar to it. And if you get like what a sparkling water and then you pour that disgust. You know, it's so good. You just put a little bit in and it feels like something apple side of apple side or vinegar is supposed to be like the greatest in our world. Is disgusting. But I would do like I remember getting on this like kick where I take a shot in the morning. Yeah, that's one of the most burnt. Like that's the worst taste of the entire It should for your gut microbiome. It's it. It starts to heal your microbiome. Promote like you know what I've been doing, that's saying, hang on. My son know about that? He's such you know what's really changed my life is warm plunging. Quit talking about this. Yeah this is remade. This jokes so much. Well, you just walk outside.

When you have a cool morning and you hang out there for twenty minutes, take some deep breaths in and then come in hot shower. I pop out, do revitalized, feel great man. Warm plunging, warm plunge.

I like this.

I think this is this is where we're it's the new trend. Yeah. I think cold plunging it's like Viking soaking.

Yeah, you just get like a maybe like a hot tub or maybe you use your own bathtub and if you don't, you just take a warm shower, you know, but warm plunging has really changed my line trailer parks soak.

Yeah, man, nothing wrong with that.

Yeah, hey, let's talk about Uh you've recently become obsessed with a bone of it.

Oh my god, I am so obsessed. Yes, throughout the summer, KSL I found it and I text him probably every other.

Day throughout the summer. We would he would text me pictures. He'd be like, dude, just sixty yards story.

Trad or what are we doing here? What trad bows or compounds? Compound compound? Picture? Like, bro, your form?

I was thinking, I feel like we have like a hunting handicap, Like what's your hunting you know, if you're if your golf handicap like you were saying five or whatever.

Three I'm a plus four, I'm a plus four. Then what am I a plus twenty? Now you're like a plus two?

Look at these brothers. This is so it might be a great segue into a little more competent Do we wanna do we wanna? Do we want to compare?

I mean that's from New Zealand. So you just whatever you want to do, man, Yeah, whatever, man, I mean I'm pretty sure you're pretty sure I shot that turkey and that guy.

Yeah.

I mean as far as just not going to put that here next to that, we can also just go get plaques. Well, you know what's gonna do is uh he's coming back up to Utah where about two hundred head.

He said property, he said, he about him tall trip where the drone drops you lunch into the middle.

Oh yeah, that's good because I know he knows that this time. I've got no patience. I really don't. But Josh though, it's so funny. I mean every year, every year he's got a new thing, like, you know, the leather, and I'm still show the bag to the viewers. Dude, I will post a picture of my my son's room. Josh.

Josh made us. Josh made Oak my little boy. He made him a leather that buck patch.

I get.

I go in Oaks room, I look at that and I'm I'm just like, it's amazing to me how good that thing is.

Well, thank you first of all, and also secondly, it has a value. Now I did my first art show and the uh the fox and the mountain goat sold and these are these extreme embossed things, just like if I tell people it's like one piece of leather and and I found this way of like when you get the leather wet, you can push it out from the back and then you can start making a freedomenion. This thing is incredible. The mountain goes ten grand. Now I have a value and I'm like, yeah, you can put it. Yeah, son named Buck, Okay, Like, how do I don't have a b I'll do I'll make Josh Josh. I mean like he's he's been so general. It's like someone I love the belt, and I like, literally, I've got a belt and and I think you've made something that I can't remember. It's like Darius or Darius wanted at belt and I was like and like, you know, yeah, but I love it, I mean honestly, and if you it actually keeps me from drinking at night. But I will say that's it's very helpful because you cannot like it's probably five hundred thousand individual little hits when you're tooling leather. I'd love to know how many hours you put, like how much how many hours is I don't know. I mean the saddle took a month because you know, yeah, because all the tooling, you know. But I mean I don't know. I meanely no, like you you know, a month of making one thing with my hands. I will say that. He told me. She was like, if you make another saddle, I'm divorcing it. Yeah, because because I wasn't available to go in there and watch like Love Island and all that. Have y'all seen that bullshit? No, if never I said this last night in the show, I said, if mom caught me thirty years ago watching Love Island, I would have been grounded for a month. And then thirty years later, I'm like, kids, go make some popcorn. We're gonna watch. I mean, it's like I call it Grinder Island. I'm like, what is this show? And how is it legal?

You say that?

But do you remember when we were young, like MTV spring Break? I remember was there was one year it has nothing baby suit from here. Yeah, it's like one thing and it went here and there, and I remember being like fourteen years old. It was like you know, and all of a sudden, it's like, all right, get off the tv, you two, we're ready for you know, it's like we get it, Pearl Jam, where's the spring, bring your break, Let's get When we first started writing, like singing songs together and we were obsessed with pearl Jam. John, our older brother, still has like our little like clock radio work tapes and it's like me and John playing guitar and Charles going.

Well.

I was very like, you know, we played a lot of cover songs, so it was like one one song. I really when I first started actually decided I want to do this as an artists. I had to find what was my voice, what was my true authentic voice, And because I like literally cover bands, it was like one second you're going all and the next one you're going jeromy. And honestly, it wasn't until I would say, like, you know, like a Bob Seger song and I was like, no, that's my voice because it didn't hurt either, and it was like, you know, you sit there like uh, you know, you know on the mad moves. I was like, Okay, that feels like me, but like, dude, I literally, I mean I was sitting there trying to do my cheesiest you know, like it just wasn't authentic.

Dude.

We remember that record we made when I when I when I bought the house in Franklin and we were making like Charles made like a like a soulful sort of maroon fibers shrip and it was really really good. I was like, Ben, But but when I came back home and also discovered when you discovered that gravel, I remember going it was loved and live here, it was I was like and I was like I was there, you know, but I but but I say that to encourage like other people, because it's like I think we all I definitely playing in cover bands fell into this thing where it's like it's cool to do cover songs, but don't try to sound like that guy. You know. He's also just like do it with your But I think you have to do it to learn. You got to do it to kind of figure out like when you got to find it, Yeah, what fits you and then like what speaks to your soul? And when you found that gravel, it actually was what you did, is you circled back to the beginning. Yeah, because you used to do because it was very mustang like, because that was the voice. You know, we're we're literally when we were inside Blue it was the voice man, I think, but but it is. It's funny because don't you think that we I actually still have the masters for that, and I found them the other day and I put them on my drop box because I'm like, Okay, now they can live forever. Yeah, it's actually Hiller wreck. It's kind of cool. We didn't really know anything about structure. James James Brown wanted to sign us, and his manager came in and then they was late Friday, and we all had to like sit there and he was like, we're gonna make you big stars. And he was like, you're gonna have your city release part of New York, have all the finest girls, and I will never forget it.

We were jazz.

We were jazzed, and all of the parents were like no, no, no. We were so mad at our parents. They were like, you're not You're not going anywhere. Those guys. I'm sorry. It was like whatever did you Well? It wasn't Friday, but I did get to talk to James and I used to play with his band, had a side project called Firstborn, and I used to tell my mom that I was going to play for Young Life and what I was really doing is going downtown. And I was the only white boy in this little band called uh yeah, first Born, and I was just playing all the chicken chickens changing changing, Oh yeah, and I learned it was like going to like like deep Pocket boot Camp. I mean those they were the sickest players I've ever seen in my life. Still, it's been a minute. You're gonna have to help me anyway, ye sorry, yeah, yeah, God he's.

Been called in my good Stone, in my Chicks and time.

Oh bad?

What is gone?

But I'm moving.

You don't.

Like you did before? Oh well, cursial.

Name still not chorus. See you think we used to do that? Yeah, yeah, this is an interesting thing. There's another verse after that, oh so well segues into something that that song. So we recorded that song and talk about not really you know, we were new to town, not really knowing the structure of a song. It was a minute and a half before the first because we had two verses, really like two long verses. And see, now I know better than to do that, but that's what makes it cool. But I'm saying, but you you have to almost like try to forget.

All that you learn.

But I remember our promotion staff was like, but like, you can't have a song where the course takes it takes too long, and and it has two choruses and then an outra, so and you have three courses. No, no bridger. In my brain, I was going, what's the court? I couldn't remember the court? Me too, me too, new guy ner too lots riding thing was fine and shows again, then back to this, the back the no, actually no, I've been doing five.

Getting love.

But it was so fast, Yeah, fun thing, I mean, I mean, that's what was so charming about It was so great. Back in the day there was there was not a whole lot of structure to a lot of their songs. It just sounded so cool. There was a feeling. And I remember when I got back to Nashville and you played me that yeah, and I was like, boys, what's a similar to what's a similar thing? Like? When you sent like amazing because I didn't know it was. I didn't know if it was as good or worse than other stuff we've been writing. But when you started getting the reaction. I remember playing it for like your band, the guys in your band, Slim who's now been with our band, playing with us forever, the guy the Braids awesome and uh but I remember them being like, whoa, there's and it was like, all right, now I got a direction, you know, and Hillary and Dave it was like we had a sound, but like you kind of have to find it. Man. It's like all these artists. That's what's so scary too about some of these artists, just like awesome, you get this like viral hit and it's like, oh, yeah, I've never performed in front of someone. It's like, oh, here go open up for freaking Morgan Wallen in front of fifty thousand people have never been on stage before, but they'll learn, you know. Most of it's like you know, yes, years remember when that happened to me. You came on that tour. Yeah, but you also though I'm saying that you had years of grinding in these you know the tool now. But I was playing like acoustics shows in front of people called the Sneaky Teky and then next thing, you know, Dave Matthews and I was like, I mean, I was like, there is a difference between a big stage. How do you cover a giants? I mean I got three people, you know, running around there, and I still feel like I'm like, oh gosh, you like a solo ars just stuff there trying to close Giant. Yeah, it was wild. That was fun though Charles came on that tour being we had the most fun. I mean, it was made me want to do it. It was crazy and also like, did amazing get you there? Did That's amazing? Was getting actually amazing wasn't hit yet. It was my producer, John Laysia had had produced all the Dave Matthew stuff and I I wore him out until he made it happen. I mean I just wore him out. I just kept calling and I was like, if you called him yet, if you called him yet, and and finally he goes, hey, man, Dave's going to give you a week whatever. And it was like two thousand and three and I went in the gorge Yeah, yeah, gorgeous, and I was Josh was like to say, this is summer. I got Charles on stage.

He did.

He would get me on stage the same one, which like it was he had a short little set and it was like the fact that you even did that, that's what brother. He did the same thing with me. But like but but what was wild during that time, like it was summer break and like I come out there and Josh like, well, you come out here, but you know you got to help out. I would go out and I would have just gotten up on stage sing a little songs and then I go creep the audi. Yeah, they were like, oh you're that guy. Those things.

Come on.

And I was supposed to be helping, like love.

Help, just literally from freaking sun up till Zundal was drinking. I had my one time to shine? How many stories can we tell? You know? Maybe I shouldn't know, don't go, don't go too dasty. I won't, but I would, but I definitely though, like it was wild time, you know, like just to watch him do this and like he's living a dream and I'm like, gosh, man, Like I remember even thinking. I was like maybe I need to start picking the drums up again. Maybe I can be his drummer, you know. Yeah. So it was just a kind of an interesting thing, but he encouraged me.

Uh.

I had graduated from Georgia and then worked for my oldest brother John of WinCE Salem and I call it Josh. One time, I was like, man, I'm just so unhappy. Yeah, I was like, something's missing, something's wrong, and he was like, you got to move to Nashville. So Josh I bought that house and I bought the house in Nashville. And when Charles said, he was like, you know, I think, I said, I'd love for you to come live with me. I want you to come out here. And we've been, we've been. We're Irish twins. We did everything together as kids, and so I missed you, you know, I wanted you to be around me, and so it was really fun. But I'd also been waiting for years for him to actually say, like, I think I want to do music. I was like, if there was anybody that I in my short time on the earth at that point who I was like should be doing music and should be singing, it was my little brother. And it always felt weird that he wasn't. And then when I think, when you came, you had a finance job or something, yeah, and so you were doing that, and then we would just like I didn't even have the job. I was going through like training where they pay you to like train for like two months, and I already had known that I was like going I was needed like two months of money yeah, baby, and like I get the other trade and I'm like, oh, by the way, I'm out, that's eerily. That's crazy, man, I'm so nuts.

I felt physics twice at ut Knoxville, and I was up there solely because of a girl thinking I was gonna be an an eye doctor. And I felt physics twice. And she called me and I was at his show in tu Plo on Main Street and uh, I.

Write that, by the way, because of a girl, that's all. Just cut that out.

We'll put that on our phones because I don't want anybody else here in that. And uh I broke up with her on the phone.

She told me I was fell physics one and I was like, She's like, what are you gonna do? You know, you get in to med school. I was like, I'm moving to Nashville and she was like, well, what does that mean for us? I was like, yeah, we're over. And he was literally mid through verse chorus of a song and I roll. I got in. I squeezed through everybody and I got to the front.

I was like, I felt physics again and he was like I was like what I was like? And I broke up with my girlfriend.

He was like cool. I was like, I'm moving to Nashville, literally, and that was to figure it out.

I moved to Nashville and here I got him. I mean I didn't get him. But it's not like there was a position that you had to apply for. But he worked for the same uh.

Movie company that I moved furniture with house for four years. We slugged it out, man for a while. And but that's it.

But it's it's the same thing, man, Like, if there was anybody I was gonna and it's been like that our whole lives man like.

But but as a as a bigger, older brother, you do have to get to a place to where you can help. And that was the thing like for me and read it was like, dude, I wasn't even proven yet, nobody cared what I had to say or or or or cared what what I thought. Yeah, you know, And so as I was like trying to spearhead this thing in, I was calling him going, hey, man, you can do this, man, Like you're the sing I'm not even the singer. You're the singer.

Dude, get up here and do this. Man, you can do this. You just got to make it just makes sense. You know, when you know someone is for sure good it's singing, and you you also have to have a personality about you, you know, like but but I mean it just made sense and I was I was like, I just knew it was going to work. Actually, I feel really bad for the people. Remember around was pitching Lady A and I had a little folder and I've done a photo shoot for you guys, and I was pitching them to like different management companies. Man, I wonder how terrible it was right now. I mean, I mean I did have one of them come up to me like years and years ago and be like, you mean the guys that yeah, the guys that said that like the pass on it, and they were like they literally were like, think, I like everything for reason. I mean if it wasn't for us getting you know, we had Gary Boorman who was who is still is Keith Urban's you know manager, and and they you know, they had they and then they you know obviously was with capital. So it's like everything has for reason, And I mean, thank god that you are. You didn't know what Yeah, well you never know. I mean maybe would have maybe it wouldn't. But like I feel like everything kind of falls into place how it should. But I think all the time, like if I had never convinced Dave somehow moving down to Nashville, he was He was the big missing piece for me too, because Josh was so busy. Josh was gone, and I think if Josh wasn't so busy, who knows, we might have been doing something to this day, like you know, and it's something would have you know? And then I ran into Hillary and she was it was like, you're probably have the best female tone I've ever heard, and it was like everything happened so cute. But you never know. I mean, maybe I would have it might have taken a lot longer. Maybe I would have grinded out song right. There's just you never people know that Dave was and went to high school with us, to people know that we grew up. He was in the jazz band with me. Yeah, we used to skip lunch and we would like wolf lunch down and we would go jam. He played for that. He played for the Young Life that you skipped to go play with James Brown. Yeah. No, I still would play for the Young Life every now and then because they were take you on really cool ski trips. Now you had to do it like totally. You didn't have to sing, you just had to play the songs. And I would just look, I've just flipped the chord charts over. But but yeah, yeah, Dave was we were to He's so talented, and yeah, that's awesome surrounded by talents. Why because I'm always like, I've had all these years where I'm like, I should get better guitar, i should I should learn to play pan and I'm like, yeah, but I'm surrounded by one of the best musicians, and Josh is one of the best music No. I will tell you this though I don't know if people know this that I need you now. Is is a song because you because you had taught me the way you play guitar.

And so he know that.

I just like he was just peddling these chords, and so what's cool about it is that you know, like what it really is more and and that would have never been the same song if you if you had not been played the way you played. He had taught me a couple because I knew some of the basic ones, and he had taught me, you know, a couple of little things, and I had all I had was and I walked in that day. I was like, picture, but man, he's got it around the floor.

And I wonder if I ever called your mind?

And then that was really all I had, but then I passed it, but I'll do it.

That was Josh.

That was Josh here right there. I love that guy. I write a lot with him. Man wrote with him yesterday. He's one of the best. Amazing. Yeah, we know if he was back from his summer heatus, he is. Yeah, We've been like chasing all kinds of fun stuff. We're like, I mean just I don't know, almost like you were saying, just trying to get out of the formula. And I was like, man, I grew up being obsessed with like eighties, I said, Brian out, I said, can we just start writing? Brian and Richard Marks to freaking like, give me some weird chords. Yeah, d Richard Bark story he came to art. We did a Vegas residency at the Palms and he came and I mean unbelievable, and he sang that song and I got this picture that I got on my wall of me and I just thought it was funny. And I out on the floor and I did well he was thinking, right, he still has. I wrote with him back in like like two thousand and four and it was surreal, and went to his house and he writes like two big old number ones for Keith Urban. Oh right, I didn't know that. He's amazing man. Yeah, that's wild. What a wildlife? What does life look like for for you? Now? Are y'all y'all on the road? Are you writing more? We're we're working on a you know, I'm kind of been working on Lady a record and even kind of like toying with maybe sometime because like it's been about eight years since I've done a solo record, The Driver that we were about twenty sixteen, but to go and so, you know, it's uh, I don't know. I feel like there's might maybe if it comes out of Mount Lady is always gonna be my main focus is you all got family? You need to do this eighties record. I'm definitely kind of like toying with. I don't know what it's going to be. I need to find the hero songs. But like, so that's been fun. I mean I feel like we're at a spot now. We've been a ban now seventeen eighteen years it's like, you know, we know we're not ever going to be the new hot, big thing. We've had that moment, and like for me now it's about really enjoying the process and not so much the outcommon but you know, knowing we still have got a great fan base. We go to these shows and you know, I still there's something my gut that still wants another big, big, a big a big song, a big moment yeah for the band, And you know, from a personal like if I did a solo record, be more just like feed the soul man, and if it if it somehow gets some ears, that's awesome. But I don't I don't demand it like I used to demand it. Sure, Like I used to would be like if something was a success, oh it must have not been good enough, and it's like, well no, some something's sometimes it's time and it's all these different things. But I don't know if it's just growing up and you you know, priorities changed. But I don't know. I feel like too, man, I've been in a place where, like especially going through this sobriety, that I've been a good sounding board for a lot of other artists, especially a lot of younger artists. Yeah, and you know I got artists too that that are kind of going through that. I would call it the mid level career, Yeah, trying to figure it out, just being like, you know, that like crisis of like gosh, we're not the new you know, you know, and it's like that's what it happens, and everyone's hitting it now, they're gonna go like it. I've seen it for the past eighteen years, Like a sound comes in, takes over, and then it's on something else, and it's like you're constantly, you know, absolutely just chasing something. And I'm like, man, the minute you can just step back and enjoy and appreciate too that we're getting to do this. Yeah. So that's really been a big part of where I'm at. It's just enjoying it and balance. Man, trying to you know, be more present with my wife, be way more present with my boy, my friend's family. But but man, there that workaholic thing though, is still deep in me. Man. I'm still you know, I try to like put it in person. I can't stop. I still like there's a song out there I'm freaking chasing, sure, and there's something out there that my wife asked me that the other day she goes what motivates you and was like, that's a really tough question. But I was like, I'm so fearful of not finding a song that's just waiting for me if I don't go chase it. Well, you know what my mother in law says all the time, She says, the winds of grace are all around you. All you have to do is lift your sales. And what you're doing is you're constantly lifting your sales to catch that. Because I think, I think ideas and things are all around us all the time, bro and energy and whatever, you know, And I think that if you know, if you're not open to it or then you're not going to get it. That's why I'm like, it's have you ever seen that thing where some of the most influential inventions ever are the same one? No, the same ones have been filed the same day on theosite sides of the world. Absolutely, And that crazy, literally the same day, same exact invention gone a file for patent on the on the exact same day from the other end of the world. And and I think that that that tells me everything. You know that I think that I think inspiration and ideas. You know, I don't know if they all come from here. I think they the world. Have you ever read the World of Art? No, that's what he says.

He said, He said he believes that that the ideas, and he's talking about creative ideas and inspirations are are like a ticker that are going above you and it's.

Just it's whatever. It's whatever.

When you get in that creative moment, when you're when you're having those inspirations, it's you're what you're grabbing right here, you know, and bringing that down and and Mozart grabbed you know, like that piece that.

I mean, I have songs that I have have I had no business writing. I don't even know where they came from. Even the chords. I'm like, I never played those chords in my life, like busy making busy making memories that thing, and it's it's not my best song in the world, but it it came out of nowhere, and it is not a melody that I've ever sang or chord structure I've ever sang. And I'm like, where did that? Where did that come from? I wrote it wrote itself in like a day, So I think sometimes I think that is the truth. You know, we got new music coming out, some songs you're always grounded. I know, I just love it too much. I just put out like a like a almost like a yacht rock slash. It's like yacht rock. We're both kind of go like chasing down our roots a little bit. Well, I wanted to. I was. I was making basically this like singer songwriter kind of country record which is in the can. And then one day while I was mixing, I just went, man, I just I just need to like create something, and I created this. I was like, I just want to make something fun, and I just went to the piano, came with some chords, and all of a sudden, the song body Talk happens and I was like, and it's our inner Michael McDonald. I was just channeling that. And and once that one happened, I loved it so much. And Charles are out the same when we like, when we like a song. We listened to it like five thousand times, and I listened to it over and over again. I went, I'm inspired. And so the next day I was like, I literally pushed the country record of the side and I was like, this is project. So that and then I'm producing Naomi Cook right now some of the stuffy you sent me of her. It's unbelievable that she is boring her heart out.

Man.

She's talking about her childhood, she's talking about her Cherokee heritage, and I mean we've had moments where you know, she's cried on the mic and these lyrics are deep crazy childhood. I won't go. I don't know if she would allow me to go into it. So I want family. Was that was the lead singer of her Husband's a killer producer man, a writer, Yeah, Mars Johnson, Yeah it was. He was in Boys Like Girls, Yeah, with they did just have baby. And I think that's what makes this, this this solo project. She's doing so great because we're you know, we're talking about her being a new mother. You know, they live half the year out there in Utah, so it's really low hanging fruit. You know. He just drives over the studio. You know, there's no hours there, there's no picking clock, you know or anything like That's just we just relax and do whatever, you know happens. She's a great Singer's let's talk about your Kelly Bros. Golf tournament. Oh yeah, what the what the heart is behind that and giving back to Charles. Charles is an idea we've we've you know, had I think for a long long time and really just about August has been so meant so much to our family, you know, over the years, and so much support, especially you know Josh was starting out as an artist, but even before that, my father, my brother John lives down there and and they've you know, hugely supportive when we were starting our band, and so yeah, we just wanted to do something than that. One we could have a fun event, play golf, but also raise some money for some local charities. And so my dad, my father's got they've got an adowment and endowment under his name of the hospital. We've got a lot of local charities, some of the and you know some some children's charities and stuff are part of it. And just getting a lot of our great artist buddies too, like we've had Darius Thomas Rhet came last year. I feel like we're gonna have to put Darius name on the tournament. But I mean he's so sweet, you know, Randy Hows just oh even had even had a different collective soul came and I thought we were rocket but then all of a sudden, he goes, you know, you're like that this your yeah, tell me what human juke box? Yeah?

And then.

I don't know you're then and then the chorus and then I talk about it.

Shine down.

Shine, I mean just like at the charity event as a character of the world, and he absolutely brought the roof. It was sick. I mean it really was. And he's he's the nicest guy ever. I actually was on tour with them for years back in like two thousand and six and and all that, and they were so kind to me. But he is a freaking star. I can remember that music video really, yeah, I can remember them being on a roof. Something was a jam that was that like a Christian song that were there a Christian man for what I think they were a little bit and I don't know into that corporational world yea like switch. But yeah, we get we get a lot of great artists. I'll tell you who really blows the roof off the place too, though, is our older brother John led Zeppelin covering dog d a w G. That guy can sing well. Speaking of having like you know, like bringing up, your your your brother, like, you know, we did big show out there for the first tea that they have and and you know, lady A and I'm like it staving here, I'm like, can my brother come up at the encourt and saying and you know it's you know, and and they didn't realize how good he was. And he comes up there, you know, khaki pants and polo shirt and shirt a solo cup in it, and he's like and people are like, no, no, you're just not out of you know, it's business looking guy. And he just you know, it was It's awesome. So since then I think it inspired him he he uh he and some some buddies there. In Augusta started a band called Black Dog and cover song They're really good too. I mean, they got it down. Just love music. I mean, honestly, that y'all are freaking is actually really the one who got us into it. If if we're what's what's funny though, too, is like that was kind of if I mean honest probably was going to be my like thing. I just was like, I'm going to be a you know, have a have a job, business guy and like on the weekends if I'm at a wedding. I'll go up whispering like hey, you guys know y'all know lone of Richie and like you know, and then hop up and sing a song and it's like, oh cool, you know. And so nah, I don't think I wasn't in the cards, Big brother wasn't never gonna let that happen. Look at you remember that.

It's wow, it.

Good, use it like son and morn. Wow, he's it like sound and.

Mom oh man, I don't want to I don't want to him.

Man.

I want to cast my right and do this all that. We gotta get to two things, do we We had like we had Olympics planned, We had all this stuff. But that's so we're still gonna have a put off. We'll just do it.

Let's talk about the one that got away. Uh we we we say it could be a fish, it could be a deer. There's a you know, we say hamburger or whatever.

That sure was anything you had to say that it is a part of show.

For the one that got second. Uh does anything come to mind? For the songs, there's a bunch of songs American kids. I remember we were like that Kenny Chesney and that made a big hit. It was kind of right at that point in our career. We really could have used American Kids Bump and I remember being like, god, this song is a hit, and we kind of talked about it, were like, I don't know, it feels like we got American Honey already, you know. And I remember, like I loved America literally silly like excuses why we didn't cut it. So that's one, like from a song perspective. We also better dig two. I remember got sent to us and I was like, damn, that's really cool, and it was like maybe it's a little too dark for we were going in. Of course Van Parry cut that was huge. I mean, there's always those little things, but it's always worked. It's also worked the other side too, where like Randa Lambert had to Downtown on on hold and someone pitched us and is that a HERD song? Not Downtown? Yeah it was, I know it was Natalie Hemby and but anyways, like she was cool enough to be like, oh, they're going in earlier, like which is we bring that up all the time, Like I think that's why I loved Best Town. There was no like it was like oh, y'a are going to cut. Oh the lady loved it. You cut it, and so Rain is so cool. Yeah she is. But initially, but the first thing I thought about though, and maybe it was glad that it happened, was you know where I went back to golf, the one that got away. I was going to go to golf to that tournament where I was I would have been. I was like fifteen years old, so this was like my final, Like hererah, I'm done with trying to be like go play college golf. I was fifteen or sixteen years old. It was fifteen playing in this tournament. Tournament gets like sixteen seventeen to eighteen year olds, and I was like one under park going into the last two holes. I would have been in like second or third and would have been big. Probably would have helped me, you know, maybe maybe some looks and we after this. Maybe it would have kept me in the game. So I was seventeen old, I'm just like, oh man, part five, I'm like, oh, I'm getting on this thing in two but driver out of bounce, yeah, out of bounce. Another ball down stays in bounce. Well, now I got to make up for it, right, You know, I'm like two out of bounds guy hit with three with big old cut around this tree, out of bounce rough one cup in this thing I made a I made a fifteen foot putt for a fourteen yeah. Uh and uh end up shooting like eighty one and uh so like shell shocks where I never played golf ever again. And really that was like the end of me trying to be you know because like both my brothers, you know, well eventually Josh plays college golf with like baldest brother. John was like, you know, one of the one of the best you know golfers in Georgia play awake for us on the team and so you know, I was like, well, all right, and that that just it shows you that'll have very good resilience. That was out. That was it. But ceriously, when things don't come easy to me, I'm done, like a target committee eased me, like I am not like a grinder like Josh will like baby baby, I mean, it's better come back what you're good at your freaking Yeah, I'm one trick pony, but that's not true. That's not true. Trick pony minus mine is actually very similar. I got two things. I got one that that got away, and then I got one that I'm glad got away. The first thing is Future Masters. I was fourteen and I was leading going into eighteen, and I made an eight, and I really wanted a future trophy because Charles got one. Charles wanted when he was eleven, ten he wanted when he was ten Pinehurst when he was eleven. And I really wanted that elusive future massive trophy and I had it in my grasps. How I just fell off? No, I hit, I hit a really good drive and then I don't know if you remember that hole, but then I hit I hit my my my approach shot in the bunker and I just couldn't get out of the bunker. And then my hands started shaking, and then it was over and I made an eight, and I cried all the way from both in Alabama back to Augussa, Georgia. But here, now this one's better, though, the one I'm glad got away. Now. I am not an actor, and there was one time when my manager wanted me to audition for this role. And if this tape, if this tape ever gets out, if I am ruined, I mean I'm roue in. How would someone start the process. You want to find out, do you have the time. I'm sure that those people that were in that room, those two ladies I have have really tried hard to make sure they forget it. So I'm supposed to be auditioned for this role. And when I get the script the night before, it's about a kid with down syndrome No, and I am, first of all, let's let's let's tell you got a part. Dave Matthews he got in the role. So I go into this audition. I have no idea how to act. I'm awful at it. And I go in and I went full I can't, you can't. It was like that, I can't't? You know? The movie a full yeah brattle. And to this day when I think I think about it, I literally go like that. I go like that, I go like it'll pop up my head and I'm like hyperventilate. Act know I was. I'm always wondering if I could act. You could act? Don't act you as you know you can easily act. I just dude that let me know that I can't reading. How about this reading science? With Katie when we first started dating and and she was like, you're awful at this. I was like, yeah, I'm like shaking right now just reading this with you. I hate this and yeah, that looks like you could use a hand that dude. I mean, I'm not even gonna do it. I do anything. I was gonna say, we bought already, block say something else. Read fast.

Let's move on to Gravy that that in the bus shake and we can go Gravorite favorite song. That's the greatest slash favorite tune. If anything comes.

Look it's a country that can be It's for me. It's I'm on Fire. I don't know why. I love that song so I always have. But I sang a show last night. Did my voice is like we can always cratchy and can we talk about the lyrics on fire? I know little little girl is your daddy home. It's like, yeah, a little girl. I didn't think of a daughter. And then I was like, yeah, I know it's a it's a little creep city. It's like, but that sounds what it is. It's a vibe. Everything that man does is a vibal. This is a vibe. Well, we'll see if I can do it right. So when when I was covering it, I wanted to oh good. I wanted to do it kind of like Johnny Cash style and like making my own. So I was doing like a.

Oh yeah, little girl is your daddy? Then you go away and leave you all alone.

I got a bad desire.

She's eighteen, by the way.

Why I'm on fire?

Tell me, pretty mummy?

Is he good to you?

Can he do to you things that I do? I can take you higher? Why I'm on fire? Sometimes it's like someone took a knife baby Edgy and Dot and cut a six inch valloy.

Through the middle of my soul.

And night a wake up with.

A sheet soaking wed and a freight train running through the middle of my head.

Only you can cool my desires.

Why I'm on fire?

I thought y'all really harmies on this.

I'm just this is just.

Freaking thoughts. I just don't never but your guitar playing you never miss him. M I usually do this higher. I'm all gonna have mood wool Charles Woo woo as good as I can do. My voice is so gone right now, man, the Kelly Bros. Yeah this is awesome. Thanks for hanging out. God's Country. I feel come buzza. Yeah, we'll see I'll later so far h

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God's Country

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