This this Winston Losses with Clay Trevis, play talks with the most entertaining people in sports, entertainment and business. Now here's Clay Trevis. Welcome into Wins and Losses. I am Clay Travis. You're fearless host. This is a podcast we do weekly. I hope you guys are enjoying them. About to talk with Bobby Bones, who is an incredibly successful radio show host in his own right. So you will hear two radio show hosts talking, which will maybe drive you insane or maybe you will love it. Yes. Uh And if you enjoyed this one, I guarantee you that you will probably enjoy some of the other conversations we've had. Goal is to find people who are interesting in sports, media, politics, business and beyond and talk to them about how they ended up where they are now. So, without further ado, you already heard him. He's Bobby Bones on Twitter at Bobby Bones. No, I couldn't you get it. I try to buy Bobby Bones from that Bobby of the show. It's at Mr Bobby Bones. But the guy who has it has like a hundred followers. I don't even want to say at Bobby Bones because you're gonna go check it out. I tried to buy the Instagram. I tried to buy the Twitter, and the guy's like, I don't want to sell it. It It means too much to me. You don't tweet. If you tweet it every day, I would understand. Or if you were like a dog food company or something, and the money it's went up. He's been He's not even squatting like it means something to him. What is his name really, Bobby Bones? I don't know. He won't talk to me other than say no. It's like girls they don't talk to you other than say no. It's very similar. It's funny. I started out kicked the coverage, and then pretty soon I was like, damn, I need to buy OutKick right like I need to have OutKick dot com in the event that somebody tries to go find me at OutKick dot com. And it was like a German uh, Like, I don't even know what it means in German. I'm probably in trouble for that already. But it was some sort of German company. And so I tracked him down and I tried to send him an email, and I was like, hey, you know, I've got this website. I'll kick the coverage in English, right, I mean, I have no idea if they can read it, and I sent it to him, I don't hear anything. And then fortunately for me, that company goes bankrupt and uh and the site goes into auction and for like five grand or whatever it was, I bought out kick dot Com. But I would have probably paid ten right if they had just responded to my email just to have out kick dot com. I didn't have that opportunity. But it is funny, like I'm may be fortunate somewhat and that at Clay Travis, nobody else is out there that's I'm looking at it. Six followers is protected well. And you know what's funny is I bet a bunch of his followers are people that are your fans, probably because if it's protected, they probably and it's probably cute girls. And he's like, oh, I'll let them follow me. Mr Bobby Bones. I'm I'm a real treat over there. So uh, Mr Bobby Bones. So you, for people out there who don't know you do a daily radio show country music stations all over the country from like how many hours a day are you guys on We're on for five, So, uh, we work Central time or so we're on five to ten Central, but we gotta be on A five, so we could be on a six Eastern. Yeah, so you're somewhat familiar, like we've met each other really because we initially were doing the Fox Sports radio show like right next door to you guys here. And we're also up insanely early in the morning, and there's like nobody else in Nashville who's up at our hours. The traffic is not bad whenever you have to drive in a four yet that's the only benefit. And I go to bed at eight every night, try eight thirty unless I'm tolding the way you do that because I see your Twitter feed and you're regularly tweeting after that. My goal I discipline myself, at least by setting goals, is to be in bed by eight if I'm here in the Central time zone. Yeah, and how often do you do that? Three nights a week? That's pretty good? Yeah. Do you actually fall asleep quickly or you like, Yeah, I watched The Office probably four or five episodes a night. You just hop on Netflix and is it the greatest most funny television show of all time? And I can't understand why I can keep watching it over and over. I can't understand why I continue to be moved by the same thing. I was watching the episode last night where Jim and Pam get married. Yeah, I cried. I've seen it think thirteen times, like I I can quote it all back, yet I still got emotional by it. But and I wake up with three fifteen every morning, Um, just naturally, Nope, No, I hate waking up the morning. I'm not a morning per eight mornings to which is ironic that we both do morning radio. Like but in your ideal life, you would be a night person like you for most of your life, where you like I wake up at eleven probably yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, that would be it for me. But you wake up early in the morning unless I'm touring, which is my schedule. Flip flop. So I'll do wake up at three every morning until Saturday, you know, Saturday and Sunday. Yeah, because I'm on the road, or if I'm out in California, if I'm doing television and I have to wake up at one in the morning, that's brutal. We're gonna get into that in a little bit. But so I like to start on these shows with like where you grew up? And I know where you grew up. I know a lot about your history because I read your first book. I haven't read the second book yet, but I think it's called Bare Bones. Uh. And it's a fabulous book. I mean, really really good. I I read it texted you after I finished it, and I was like, dude, this book is legitimately really really good. So I know a lot of your background, so I can ask you leading questions here. You grew up in small town Arkansas. For people who don't know what your background was, like, how would you describe it? Well, I thought it was pretty normal when you're surrounded by other people that are also living in poverty. Yeah, you know, I never thought a rural rural liked seventy two people in the town. There's a sawmill that's been closed down. Um this The town is still very segregated. There's a railroad track that runs down the middle, and there's the white quarters in the black quarters still today, which is wild. Um. So yeah, and there's not that many people in either the white or the black quarters. And you know there's one store now which is like like we used to go to town. When you got town, you go to Walmart and you would go and tell everybody near you, this sound like little house in the prairie. Now I's like, get older, it's it's it's just nutty. But you go, hey, we're going to Walmart. And that was twenty minutes away into Hot Springs, and that was a big deal. I get to go to Walmart. It was a big deal because you went about once a week and you get to walk through and it's like there's all this stuff to see you, right, I mean like it's a like for people out there who are regularly surrounded by stores and everything else, Like it's I feel like we'll get into I don't know if you've watched all the Stranger Things yet, but I feel like, uh, you know, it's it's crazy to me, was watching Stranger Things set in I think this most recent version. They're my producer Jason Martin over there saying they're closer to World War two almost than they are to present day. I saw your tweet about that. That blow your mind too. Like when you sit around, you're like, holy cow, Like it's it's crazy that we're it's almost equidistant between the two and I think for me, my all might happened in the nineties and now it feels like we're just getting so old. We're getting so old. My coast and I needed both talks about fourhead today that we are. We had one traffic No, we had no traffic lights when you were growing up. Yeah, and we only got a cell phone tower a year ago, so you could still like it was like you're driving back in time when you go back to your years ago. You had no cell service when you went into my hometown. Yeah, that's it's a pretty poor town. We once the saw mills shut down, it kind of all went south. Yes, So but again I grew up in the middle of that, and I really didn't know until I started to get older to go, wow, I'm a food stamp kid. Not everybody in the world's a food stamp kid. Or you know, we were on welfare. We did um. You know you had to wait for food on Sunday's uh if when the church was passing it out. That was normal until I realized later on it really wasn't that normal. Because you're your kid, you think whatever surround you was perfectly normal. That's what you see is what you know, you really aren't. And and again our education was not good, so it wasn't like, you know, we had teachers coming in to teach us about the culture of France, you know that we didn't learn about all these uh nutty places or big cities like Little Rock. Uh. So it was fine. It was actually a pretty good childhood as far as where I grew up. Now, my mom was a drug addict, and so we really didn't have a relationship. She ended up dying in her forties. Yeah, And and she was champion when she was fifteen, right right in fifteen sixteen, so she had a struggle, you know, and she had a top of My dad left when I was six years old. Um, so I went into the hospital. I fell off a house and kind of ruptured some of my organs inside, and when I went to the hospital, he pieced out. So I never saw him again until like two years ago when I chased him down. Um. Which is the first part of the first chapter of my second book where I actually tell that story. So you know, I didn't grow up really with strong parental units. My grandmother stepped in and adopt me for a while. My mom disappeared. My grandmother stepped in and became a legal guardian for years. UM. So it was a lot of bouncing back and forth, um, moving from places, getting evicted. But again I say that, and you know, I'm grateful for all of my misstepts, which is what this podcast is about, you know, the losses. I'm so grateful and I have some big ones to share with you, but I'm so grateful for all of that because like, I'm tough, I'm resilient, and like there's nothing that I feel now that I can't take on and eventually like nothing that I can't take on to win. So, uh, you said you you your mom, you had shed drug issues, your dad, you had limited relationship with what was and he was living minutes away for a lot a lot of it. Still nothing never saw So I'm once in a store and that was it. I remember read that's in the book, right, the first book. I haven't read the second book yet. So what was your grandmother like? She was great, She had a bunch of kids. Her husband had died while they were young married, so she raised five kids on her own. Basically she was for years what I thought a mom should be, very loving. Um, just they're at present, which is the biggest thing that you can be with someone is just especially a kid. Yeah, so she was present, and I think, you know, as I get older and look back, you know, she is really probably the biggest influence on my early life. So you don't have a strong mother presence, you don't have a strong father presence. But in your book, I know, uh, television was big for you, Like you would watch a lot of difference, So for like, how did you spend your time? Like, well, I with TV was such an important part of my life because I never had a bedroom that we were in a tiny house and I slept on a couch and my closet was underneath the couch. So the four T shirts I had, her pair of pants I had, we just put on the couch and everything was always in the living room. So the TV always stayed on, and so why I always watched television. So for me, I think that's how I kind of fell into David Letterman being the guy that I looked to as really my first and you know, one of my only mentors, even though I never met him. There wasn't like I had the resources to reach out to anyone that wanted to do what I did. No one did any sort of communications or comedy where I came from. And I saw David Letterman, who was a weird looking guy, had a weird looking delivery, and I thought, Man, if he can do it, then why can't I. And I just kind of studied and emulated that through my early years. And you also said, I remember reading in your book that you had, like there's a set of encyclopedias, and you would just read, you know, like any because you were curious and still are an intellectually curious guy, right, so, and you would just read straight through and learn. Well, what I would do is I would mow yards and rape leaves and save money. And the two things that I bought were school clothes and encyclopedias. It's amazing and at the at the food for less. But this is way before the Internet people, because there's people listening to us right now, they're like, what is an encyclopedia? Yeah, like it used to It used to be a huge deal to be hava Wikipedia on paper. It used to be a huge deal to have access to Encyclopedia's right, you would go to the library and for me, you had to do a school assignment or something you look it up and information right, and I would go and I would buy encyclopedias with the money that I had saved. And I would go and I remember on the front side of the grocery store they had encyclopedias. You could buy them one at a time, and I'd freaking save up and for you know, seven dollars, I would buy eight, you know, a L and then I would go and get a L to a So how many did you end up buying? The well, the whole set, which my uh step grandfather later in life ended up building a bookcase for them. So they were probably you know, forty or so you read those? I probably read them all. Yeah, at that point I probably read through all of them because it was really the only books that I owned, where the encyclopedias, and also bought them with my own money and anything I bought my own money that I was so proud of. Why do you think you were so attracted to the idea of the encyclopedia? Have you psychoanalyzed yourself? Um? I think that that was my road out, and I don't know if I gave you a larger world. I just thought if I could educate myself, I could go to the places that we're seeing on TV. Like I just I knew if I needed to make it, I had to get to the places I could see on TV, if that was New York or Los Angeles or wherever. You know. I thought, for me to do what I want to do, I need to be where the people are they're doing what I want to do, and the way to do that is to read books. And I knew I wouldn't be able to afford college. So how do you get to college? You get good grades that you get great, good grade you learned. So I think it was just me even going through the steps backward at seven years old. So how were your schools? Meaning the education wasn't the best because there were small schools. Are the teachers? Again, you can ask about any school and not great and me I went to a poor public school. Um, I love my teachers looking back, because they really did some extra for me because of my socio economic situation, Like some of them really sucked our next out for me at the times, helped. So in that way, they were great. But my education wasn't good unless I got got a good education from myself, which comes back to reading the encyclopedia, which is reading and studying. I'm Clay Travis is the Winds and Lost his podcast We're talking with Bobby Bones. Bobby Bones show uh at Mr Bobby Bones on Twitter because he can't get the guy who has the Bobby Bones Twitter handle too to allow him to get it. So, um, you also had some crazy injuries as you were growing up. You mentioned that when you were six years old you had a significant injury and that was the last time you saw your dad also had an eye injury. What happened, like growing up, you just had some wacky things happened to you, Like talking to doctors now because there's a a lot more, a lot more is known medically now about what we went through then. Yeah, and so in my brain, which I thought was an injury, but my right eye doesn't work. It gets eight percent vision, almost no vision of your entire life, my entire life. What they think happened now is that when I was, you know, inside of my mom, she was doing drugs basically, and so a lot of me didn't develop. So my eye just didn't develop. It's in my brain. They can't fix my eye, so it's it's and they gave you a patch, right, they thought they got the crap beat out, and it was terrible, like you were a pirate, like a kid, they they and then you just said the patch you're not gonna work. If you had warned the patch, which your eyesight have helped her, probably not. It was like a defeated purpose anyway. Yeah, but I was doing what they thought I should do. Then can they do anything? Now? Nothing. I've been to so many specialists and they go, if you get stem cell, you know, we probably do something, But no laser because it's not in my eye, it's in my brain, so in my brain it doesn't work down to my right eye. So that happened. I lived with that. But again, it would be like if I had three and you had two eyes, and I'm like, I can't believe you don't have a third eye. I don't know what it's like to have both working eyes. And I was still a pretty good ball player two with one eye. So you just you learn. And uh, for me, I also fell off a house and ruptured a bunch of my organs and have my spleen taken out. So but again, you know, I I I was so young, it was just kind of what I was handed and it was kind of normal. It was normal for me. Be sure to catch live editions about Kicked the coverage with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern, three am Pacific. When you are growing up, like I've read, also you study mentioned sports like you idolized your high school football coach. I think it was right. I depended on him. Yeah, for a lot of things. I think he has instilled a lot of the discipline that I still have in me today. His name was coach big Gandoff, and with him it was they're just there aren't excuses, Like they don't exist because they do nothing for you. And if you're working, if anything setting you back, you shouldn't let it exist, Like, don't let anything pull you back. So it was I don't live with excuses ever, even if they're real, legitimate excuses, they just don't count with me and my show, with my environment, like what can we do to move forward instead of talking about why we moved back? So he put that mindset into me early, and I think I'm a pretty hard worker because I have a lot of the values he had still to me too. You mentioned watching David Letterman, you also were big sports fan. What do you remember growing up in Arkansas? I know Razorbacks. We we recently went to go watch the World Series game in Omaha. I know you're a huge Arkansas Razorbacks fan. What did they mean to you? And how much sports did you watch growing up? It was all that we have in Arkansas is all that we had, still all that we have. Um So, Arkansas is a big deal to anyone that comes from the state because you know, in Arkansas we have no professional teams that's are you know, those are our Dallas Cowboys. So I watched everything. Umt of those guys Razorback basketball years were I mean, I was young, so I don't think I really appreciated it how I should because I was like, oh, this is awesome. Will be there every year, you know, we go to the championship, we we win the championship, It's like Nolan Richardson's gonna be here forever. Forty mints of hell is always gonna work. So but then we hit a dry spell of almost forever. Uh So I listen, I'm die hard everything Arkansas and basketball. And we had a couple of good runs in football under Houston Nut. You know, the big her with us was Tennessee and start bumbling the full its one of the beds, one of the last good memory Tennessee football fans have. Trust me, I know I am one. And then ninety nine we beat you guys, but it didn't matter, like but then it mattered to Tennessee because they might have been in the title game if they had no loss. That Petrino got us close. Yeah, we were a game away. We were playing L s U undefeated. Do you remember where you were when you heard the Bobby Petrino, you know, like wrecked his motory motorcycle scandal story. No, because it wasn't that much of a shot to me. Too many friends up there that told you that a little bit of happening. Yeah, so I was like, I don't remember where I was because I was like, well, something was gonna happen. This is what they're saying. Would you have kept Petrino? Yeah, of course, just because I just want to win, man. I think that's how most Arkansas fans are, right. If you're not doing anything illegal, you're not hurting kids, do not hurt animals. Just win me games. Yeah, it didn't affect me to win games. It's always like to ask, um, what would Nick Saban have to do for Alabama to fire him? And people are like, well, you have to commit murder. And I'm like, actually, if it wasn't on tape, Alabama fans would be like, you know, this is just Auburn fans trying to frame the probably like it was totally made up, right, Like we live in this tribal era, and I'm kind of comfortable with it in some ways, be because I've made my living writing and talking initially about SEC football and then it's kind of it's expanded in the sports universe before that, but it's the most tribal universe there is. So people are like, oh, Republicans only believe Republicans now and Democrats only believe are Democrats now? And I'm like, you ever seen Alabama Aubert? You ever watched any SEC football rivalry, if you've done sports in the South, That's just what SEC football has always been like, right, Like there's always conspiracy theories, there's always arguments like you'll justify anything that your side does the other side. You know, it's total heathens, right, And so I hope we get out of that. In the political realm, at some point because to me, it's basically just like the sec football ization of the country right now. Will Um. But it is wild to to follow along. So you go to uh high school. You said you kind of have the sense that you needed to have good grades in order to get into college. Were you a good high school student? Oh, that was great, I ad one being typing um. School wasn't that hard. So it's one of those things too where school is not that hard. How much how are you gonna work out? So I did what I did in school, but I also had to work full time all the time and pay car payment and work maintenance at a golf course, which was very early. I worked at a marina, I worked a hobby lobby. I waited tables. I mean I started a dishwasher. I went to dis diswasher bus boy waited tables. What place did you wait tables at. It's called the Disoto Club in the Hossprings village and it was at tuxedo every night. So you talked about how you weren't cognizant of, you know, like not having very much at that point, I was, yeah, you could, like there's a lot of rich people who were coming in and I'm having to wait tables on them. How did they treat you? I was really good at being a waiter, so you treated me already well. And also I was in a tuxedo. He now somebody in tuxedo. You gave me fancier than a guy in a tuxedo. Did you ever spill anybody or have any disaster? I had one in particular. I think it was like a six top and I had it all put on one tray, which wasn't aggressive move. Maybe in retrospect, yeah, probably wasn't the best idea. I've done it before. But I walked and I dropped the entire tray on the table. Want a guy on the dad of the group, and so it was a dad and his kids. It was a dad, his two kids, his wife, and then probably one of their set of parents. And so I dropped the whole tray on him. And this sits with me still today as I'm like, oh my god, I'm wiping him down and I'm the whole the whole food, it's everything, everything, it's everything on the table on him. And I was like, I'm done, and I continued to wait on and I was like, I'm so sorry. And he left, and he left me maybe the biggest tip that I've ever received. And he just a note that said, hey man, this happens to all of us, Like stay in it, and like I remember that you were held at seventeen years old. And I mean for people out there listening, it would have been easy for that guy to go off on you getting pissed. Wanted a free meal, none of it. He sat. I think they gave him a T shirt, chain shirts. He ate his meal, um, and then left a note that was like, hey man, this happens to all of us. It's not about out you know, if it happens, It's about when it happens and how you react to it. And I remember that exact feeling, going huh, all right. I probably remember this for a long time, and I still do my thirties now, and I can still remember looking at the note. So you have all these jobs and you're saving up money to try to think like I couldn't have money. I was broke, dude, So I was buying insurance and car payment and study. What I did pay for though, was um a CT prep course because I knew is as quickly as I could retain information as good. I was it just remembering things for these tests, and I was. I was good. I was captain of the quiz Bowl team in seventh grade, of the twelfth grade quiz Bowl team. Yeah, like I was. I was in it and I was quick. But still I knew that there was a bit of a formula to these tests. So I I saved up and I went to this a CT prep class at Fountain Like High School and I went every day for two weeks and so, um, this is probably eight or ninth grade when I did this. But I took the test in eighth grade and I I gotta score high fin a grade to have a full scholarship anywhere. Um, But I knew just a scholarship was gonna do it for me. I needed to get room, I need to get food and get books. And so by the time I finished and twelfth grade, I had it all. I had taken the test five times and it crushed it. Yeah. So then you go to college, layer, I went, well, I was going to Arkansas, UM, and I needed a job, And about two weeks before I was to move, the radio station in my hometown hired me. Had you been a radio fan? Yeah? I used to call the radio station at thirteen years old and begged to be put on the air to talk about any and everything. I just to introduced songs. My name was Bobby the Barbarian, and I would watch wrestling and the Barbarians, like one of my favorite wrestlers was Bobby the Stinger. So you would listen. In addition to watching television all the time, you listen to a lot of radio. Yeah. I just wanted to be the person. It wasn't ever about the music. It still isn't really about the music to me. Um, But I wanted to be the guy that if someone was sitting in their car, so I could be like, oh man, this isn't so terrible. Like I wanted to entertain. And I had started, you know, watching a lot of stand up comedians at the library too. So I'd go to the library and do the Old Machine and much old at Sullivan Tapes and Jack bar Um. So you know, I was doing a lot of that, and I would call the radio station every night during the countdown and try to get on. I just knew I wanted to be on in all these different ways, and so um, I got a job at the radio station right before I was to move off to college, and so I switched really quickly to a liberal arts school in South Arkansas, Henderson State University, which was about an hour and a half away, So I would drive that hour and a half every day. What do you think at the time, I want to work in radio? Was that your outlet to get out of the city, Like, how tough was that You're an Arkansas fan to not go to Faytable. I loved radio, and I love the idea of the rest of my life more than I loved anything else. So it wasn't that tough. It sucked because I always wanted to go to Arkansas, However, more so I wanted to be an entertainment so it really wasn't a hard decision for me. So I packed up with to Henderson State and I started in radio. And it was never about just being in radio. It was just that's just the quickest thing I could do. They weren't hiring me to be on television when I was seventeen years old, so I could get into radio. Later on. I know, I enterned a TV stations while doing radio and realized this blows, you know, doing TV news. I had no interest in that. So radio was the quickest thing, and it was also I got the most responsibility the earliest. Yeah, you just show up. So how many hours are you working in radio while you're going to school? I was taking in school about nineteen to twenty hours a semester, and I was working full time every night an hour and a half away. So I was probably working forty five hours a week at the radio station. It was I had no life. It's not like I have a life now. I know you're listening to fancy Bobby's probably doing all the funt listen. I got no live now. I work a lot. I work a lot. You work all the time. It's inside of me. I'm the same person, you know. I think the guts remained the same, and I've been wired a certain way to always feel like I'm in survival mode. I don't have to survive anymore. Like things are going pretty good for me right now, but I still feel like every morning I wake up, I still feel that way, like I'm just surviving. And so how long to take you to graduate the first time? Like two and a half years. So you're graduating, you got the job, and you're working towards you think working full time at the radio station. What's your first job when you graduate? Well, I was working full time at the radio station. I was, you know, eighteen years old. I was doing nights full time. Um, and I had taken some college classes in high school and then I was just crushing as much as I could when every times in college. Yeah, but then I had signed a new contract at my station, so I got another degree. Uh, finished there, and I moved to Little Rock, which was about another hour away, and I worked at Q one hundred doing nights, and I was there for about six months. How did you get the job at Q one begged? It was just like, hey, guys, like, I'm down in Hot Springs. I don't know. I know, you don't know who I am. But my dream was to live in a big city. And for me, I was like, are you kidding? I get to go where they have tall buildings and freaking ned Permy, the the Channel seven weather man. That was the coolest thing to me. So I go to Little Rock for about six months, and that's really where I had my first major career set back and got into a lot of trouble. And and that would happen, you know, four or five months into my stay in Little Rock. Okay, So, uh, you go to Little Rock, what do you do to get to get you any trouble? Well, we were up against another top four radio station, and it's weird that people now just consider me the country guy, which I am now and I love it and I've chosen to come over in this format. But for most of my career I did hip hop and pop because that was just the first place that would accept me. And I also knew that people didn't care about what kind of music like there there's not such thing as a format in people's minds. So I was like, just put me somewhere, you know, I'll be good wherever you put me. So I go over and I'm doing a pop station against another pop station and they can rock Arkansas radio battles, which if you which is which is the big deal? Then? Man, for people out there who are listening, they may think, oh, this is crazy. But if you're in radio like radio rating competitions is a big deal in those markets rights where advertising dollars come in. It's what whether or not you're a success, Like you get defined by the ratings book no matter what city you're in based on who you're competing against right now you live and die by can I get a four and a half share in Irock? And so we were up against station called Alice, one of seven point seven, and my stunt guy, my guy that I would send out to the streets, would go and they put stickers all over our van. Was like, that's not cool. So I called my guy back and I said, Hey, we're gonna go over. We're gonna burn the place down. And he's like, what do you mean. I said, well, just hang out because after our show we're going over that to that building. And so we got off the air. Yeah, against the other night. So I got off there at ten PM, and I knew that night show didn't get off the year until eleven. So they had a brand new country station they had turned on. So I dressed out. My son got like a cowboy, and I drove him over and I said, hey, you're to go up to the beat on the window and say hey, you're new to the country station. He dressed like a cowboy. How are they gonna say no and tell them that you need to be letting the year? By the way, this would have been Wright two thousand two, Justin Guarini and Kelly Clarkson were fighting it out in the finale of American Idols right around that time. So he goes up to the to the window and beats on it and they they I see him talking outside my car, and he goes, okay. They let him in, and I'm like, oh boy, it's about to be on. And so what I had done is I had trained him in my studio and how to run aboard based on the pictures of their control room that was up on their website. So we looked at all the pictures of the st and this is how you turn the phone up. I gave him a class and how to run their board because they had posted basically the blueprints of their radio station on their website. So he gets into the building and he goes and he stands on a toilet for uh probably forty five minutes or the hours, so no one sees extra feet in the building. He hangs out and he goes, all right, everybody's gone. I watched the night guy that whose team would come out, hits me, hey man man, all right, cool. So the night guy drives out. There's only no one left in the building. So I showed him. He goes, I'm going in. He walks into the studio and they're playing like I remember the song that was on. It was a freaking Celine Dion song. And he calls me from the cell phone from the actually he calls my cell phone from the inside of the studio and I see the alice one of seven point seven request line pop up my phone. I'm like, oh my god, we're in and we're so far in. I'm about to be fired from all the radio or be the king dangling of radio. One of the two is about to have it. And so I picked up the phone like hey, he goes, a man, it's Gill again. I'm in. And so I showed him how to turn the phone up over the air and how to pull the music down halfway, because if you pull it out all the way, an engineering alarm will go off and they'll go we're off the air, and the engineers will come up. So he turns it down about halfway and he turns my phone up and he goes, all right, you're on. And I waited for him to walk out of the building and get in the car locked the studio door on the way out, so no one could get in, and we drove around little broadcasting on their station for probably thirty minutes, and I remember grabbing the phone and going, all right, you want to mess with me, this is Bobby Bones. This is the last time you will ever mess with me. And we went for a while until someone unlocked the studio got in and shut it down, and we thought we were then we were gonna be legends in radio, and we went. I remember going to a waffle house that night. We're having a little celebration like f them. And I got a call at eight o'clock the next morning and it was my general managers. I need to see you immediately. No one calls the night guy at eight in the morning to go to bed until three. So I get up and I walked into the room and he says, okay, And I remember the sales office was right by all of excuse yeah, the sales officer was next to the general manager office. And he calls me into his room and he leaves the door open. He's screaming at me, spits coming out of his mouth, and he's like, that's the dumbest thing. That's an FCC violation. Uh, I should fire you, right now, and I remember thinking, God, everyone can hear this because he left the door open, and he says shut the door, and I'm like, holy cow, if he's gonna do this with the door open, what's he about to do to me with the door shut? And he shuts the door and he takes his right arm and sticks out and goes, dude, that was awesome. He goes, if you ever do that again, I have to fire you. But I've never heard of anything like that before. So all the trade magazines and radio start to write about this twenty two year old kid who had done guerilla radio. Austin, Texas calls me and goes, you should come do nights here. And so I'd never been to Austin, packed out my car and six months after he started, six months and packed up my car and just drove down. So, uh, where'd you come up with the idea? I don't think. It wasn't anything. When I sat down in went beautiful mind, it was just how can I get back at him? Um? When you when you got the call of eight, did you think you were getting fired? I was just no, I was like, what is that? I didn't I didn't know what was going on. It was so early in the morning. No, I actually thought that no one knew. I guess I thought that somewhere there's a tape. Yeah, I haven't heard it, but there are a couple of tapes I'm searching for. We used to prank call in college one or three seven the Buzzs the sports station, and there was like seven of us and we would get back to back to back. Our goal was to go four deep and they shut down. They shut down taking calls for like a week one time, which Frank like, what would your when you call it sports stalk radio. Well, we'd see howny times. We can say penis sometimes. So we would get on and it'd be like, hey, I just want to say, uh man, can you believe I can't believe Danny Tardable isn't regarded it's one of the p and so we'd really string them along and finally once they remember Randy Rainwater, who's still on the air there. I think I'm one or three seven the buzz he uh, he said, we're not taking calls anymore. The only way we'll take your calls if we call you back. And one of my buddies who just had all the all the nerve in the world. He said, Okay, we need your number. We're gonna call you back and make sure it's acceptable put you on the air, because I guess that they thought if they had your number, it's not illegal to prank caller anything. And so my buddys like, all right, here's my number, gives him the number. He calls him back and they're like, all right, let's go to Chris. Chris, what do you want to say, Penis? We thought that was the most baller move. He gave them their number and still got Penis on the air. But there's that tape exists somewhere too. Those are the two tapes that that's somewhere inside of my my collection of of sound that that I gotta find and I don't want to lose. So you Little Rock was the big city? What what did Austin feel like? I drove down the first day and saw the capital and was like, holy crap, this is double the size a little Rock. It. I couldn't comprehend. Really, there are a million people to live there. It was just like, this is nutty. And I moved that there to do nights, and I only did nights for six months before almost got fired again. We did a bit where I said, Hey, I'm about to come on the air and look for backup dancers for justin timber Lake, but it's not gonna be real, so if you guys can play along with it, that be cool. I was just very transparent about what I was doing pre but I know that ten minutes later a lot of people are gonna be listening that weren't listening then, So it really wasn't even that good of a bit. But girls lined The whole point was girls, girls lined up around the building trying to be in this justin Timberlake video, and then we put them all up online and we just said and then we got sued. I got sued. What was the end result? Um? We ended up settling for like a thousand dollars? Yeah? Why what was the lawsuit based on that? We put the girls picture on the internet without permission? But they were lined up thinking they were going to be in a video with justin timber Lake where everybody's watching them. The whole thing was down. They were down, I was down. The whole thing was done. So six did you get my trouble for that? I got in trouble of hey, if you do anything else again, we have to fire you if you get to get a sued like this. But right after that, I got an offer to go to Seattle and New Nights and I was like, hey, I need to go. I don't have a contract here in Austin. I love it here, but I just got here and they were like, well, what can we do to keep you? And I said well, and I was twenty two three. I was like, wow, I would love to do mornings because I believe just shoot for the freaking stars. And I thought they'd come back and go, we'll give you more money, but we can't give you mornings. But the station was doing so bad they said, okay, sure, we'll give you mornings. And they offered me fifty thousand allars a year. And I was like, I'm the richest human ever in the history of life, because you're thinking that I've been in that scenario. When I started practicing law, I was making sixty three thousand dollars and I was like, this is more than my parents ever made. I was like, I do with dollars. I didn't know what to do with all my money. I had so much money and I had a dirt ball apartment and I paid it. It was just life was great, and I was doing mornings about about myself. Um and I ended up hiring you know people, because I didn't they didn't give any money for the show, so I hired a bunch of friends and we kind of started out. I was twenty three years old doing mornings in Austin, Texas. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart Radio app. Search f s R to listen live talking to Bobby Bones. I'm Clay Traviss the Wins and Losses podcast. How how many hours they were you on in Austin? Five? I was on five to ten, five ten, A lot of music though, um so, I was probably playing seven right songs an hour then. And I was doing it by myself, and they were giving me no support, no money, but they weren't supposed to. They never promised me anything. I just kind of had to figure it out. Um but but I knew that this was my thing. And how long how long did you do mornings in Austin? Oh, twelve years? And you're and but as As the show grows, you add a lot more people and it turns into I mean, you have a dominant radio show in Austin, right, Well, yes, So what happened was I had been on for a couple of years and I found Amy my coast at the Culver's just randomly found Lunchbox. He was delivering sandwiches at Jason's Delhi. I had no money, so I had to go and I would have hired radio people. I think I get a lot of credit for coming up with this new approach to radi people from outside of the world and expense. I just had no money or I would have hired radio people. They gave me nothing, so Lunchbox don't have a microphone. For the first year he worked on the show, and we were on and we were struggling for about a year or so until Lunchbox got put in jail, which was really here. What happened there there was I was watching PBS and this guy had panty hose on his head and he was going up to ladies like good. It was like a black and white movie, and I thought, that's funny. Panty Hose over the face are never not funny. If I see somebody with an how I laugh, And so I said, lunchbox into a store and he went with panty hose on his head and they just bought some gum and left. That was it. And I was like, let's just see how they react. Well how they reacted was the guy hit the alarm under the tables. He thought he was being robbed, and the cops held him at gunpoint, put him on the ground. Um, it's just live on the radio that you had him in going to do panty hose on it was on the air. Yeah, And I remember lest I was going, probably not the smartest thing, and I'm like, trust me, I'm the radio profession I'm making a year. And so he went to jail and I remember, I'm calling me from jail. They tried to arrest me, but then they went, well we don't have anything we get you on. So they all the cops showed up at the station. I was suspended for weeks with no pay, and never know long. I think in the end, like two and a half weeks. How long did that seem to you at that time, like two and a a half years. And I thought, up there, you thought your careers over. I'm done I'm like, this is the third time. I'm done, Like, I mean, lives does this cat get so? But we came back, and we came back. We were number one. We never stopped being number one. And you think it was because of that the newspaper, the media, like the new the local news. Everybody's covering it, right, everyone's covering and every other radio show we're like, we told you these guys sucked and this like and they were talking about because they thought we weren't coming back. And when we came back, everyone was dialed in to see one what we'd say to what were we doing? What did you say? What was the first thing you said when you came back on? I came on and they really made me say nothing. They made me say nothing because legally, and they charged him a terroristic threatening It was the whole thing. He couldn't fly for a bit without this was like what year two thousand four, I mean he had that's actually really making terroristic threats and everything else is ugly. We had to hire George W. Bush's attorney because were lost and it was a whole it's a mess. And then it seemed like the end of the world. But I came on and I was like, hey, listen, I'm all right the person who worked at the counter because he probably thinks about to get shot, Like, I'm I didn't mean to do that, um, And I was like, I made a brially bone head decision, but we're back, and I hope you'll let us, you know, be your morning show. And I probably should have been a little more apologetic than I was, but I didn't really know what I did wrong. And also, let's talk about your age a right, when I was younger years old and twenty four year old, guys running a six million dollar radio stations are not known for their like intelligent long range decision making, right. I was just trying to get to the ratings next month. That was my goal every month was how good can I make these ratings next month? Right? I never saw it past thirty days, So twelve years and you eventually end up your number one for those twelve years after that stunt? Um, How tough is it then, because because I've had to make some of these decisions too, I still live in Nashville. But it's a good look for you out there who don't know. It's a damn good living to have a really successful local radio show in a city you love. I mean, there's a reason why some people will do that for like thirty or forty years. Right, They've become institutions, almost like local news. I'm assuming it's kind of the same way. Like you mentioned that local weather man for a little rock. There's a lot of people in Nashville. I'm born and raised here who've been doing what local news here my entire life. Like Bob Mueller, he looks the exact same now that he did when I was five, right, and I'm forty now. So I mean, some of these guys become institutions. You could have continued, had a great life, lived in Austin for the rest of your life. What is it about that that, after twelve years of ratings dominance there, you're like, I need something new. Well, when I was I think twenty six years old, I started to get the itch of spreading my show, and I knew that no one would take a show from Austin because you gotta be in l a in New York probably not even Chicago doesn't do it that often, right, And so I went and I bought this thing called a comrax that really wasn't used for long form transmission at the time, and I thought, well, if this will work for seven miles, why won't it work for three d And so I bought one and I saw, okay, well if I do like three stacked on each other, I can really make this thing go. So I begged the station in which Talk Kansas to take me as their only affiliate. They're only there only this morning show. They're only my only affiliate, and so we went number one there in a year. I was twenty years old. I was like, oh, I can do this. Now, I'm on an Austin, I'm winning. I'm on a which Tom winning how because they just fired their morning show. I was watching the news and I actually went after seven or eight stations and talk to general managers like I will pay for everything. I was making fifty a year and I was paying for phone lines, which are about five grand. I was brought in the producer, I was paying his paying about twenty grand. I was probably making about nine thousand dollars a year after all are out. So but you were thinking bigger, like hey, this is eventually like I want to get my audience as big as possible station and Amarillo took me, station Lubbock took me, and I was like, I'm on three stations. I was then breaking even and Rod Phillips, who now runs on Her Country, came and said, hey, we think you're pretty good and you're on a four stations. We don't even know, so let's start pushing you around to other stations. So I built my own syndication company while in Austin, and I was probably twenty seven or something. That happened. And so as the show continue to grow in Austin, I was hustling affiliates, flying all over the places, begging people to put me on their stations. How did uh? So you said you just would look and see when there was availability. Because your show for people out there who don't understand the business, the idea is they get your local show. Uh. They don't have to pay anything for it. They can sell ads against it if you rate decently, because a lot of people don't understand the business of how we do what we do. But you, already, even at a young age, were sophisticated enough to understand the business that you were in and to be thinking about replicating what worked in Austin into other markets. And I knew not to keep it super local while still being local at the times I needed to be. You know, it was a lot of that. And yeah, they got the show for free, so that was the benefit, Like, I will cover everything that you need to be to save money in your bottom line, just sell it and we'll do a privit share. And so I was making a pretty good money back into the morning show. So I think we have filiates and I was running it all myself. We had a room full of just these stupid boxes and they would break down. We have three affiliates go down sometimes too. We get calls going, hey, we're we're down in St. Louis and so. But we managed and eventually Clear Channel, which is now I our radio, was like, hey, we just let us just buy most of your show back from you and you can run on the satellite. And that happened to Pop, and so I signed a new deal over a Pop and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna live in Austin for the rest of my life and just indicate my show. I was making really good money. I was still in my twenties and I remember telling a girl I was dating, like I think I'm here and I'm good with it for the first time, and like that's when two weeks later it was Nashville and they said, we want you to come to Nashville and we want you to go country. Not really, they tricked me first. They said, we want you to pick up the Nashville affiliate for your POP show. Come out and talk to the general manager. So I came out and I noticed that like Tim mcgrawl was saying hello to me, and Lady and Abella was hanging out with me, and I was like, what is happening here. They're the nicest people to all these to us pop DJs. And they cornered me in a room. It's said, hey, UM, we're offering you like three jobs. They offered me head of Alternative UM run Country. I could have stayed and done pop, or to take UM an afternoon sports show, National sports show. So they said, here are your options, which would you like to take? And I was like, well, if there had never been a National country show, and I knew I wasn't gonna change, I didn't need to change. I was getting in trouble at Pop for putting on Dirk Spentley and Willie Nelson and a lot of these hip hop guys going, why are you putting country artists on? So for me, it was tough to kind of basically sell my company that I built. Um, but I said, okay, I'll just I'll move to Nashville. I remember calling my girlfriend at the time, going, hey, they've offered me this job. What do you think I should do? And she was like, man, you have to move. But she also knew I had to break up with her as very selfless of her. Is tough. But yeah, I moved to Nashville and they hated me. Here we're talking to Bobby Bones wins and losses. I'm Clay Travis. So that's tough, right. So for people out there, one of the things I like to focus on is when you have success, it's great, but success can also be like golden handcuffs, comfortable as the enemy because you get used to what you're doing and you think you could continue to do it for a long time. You're dominating in Austin, You've built a good business, and then they were like, hey, let's try something completely different. You come here and I'm dominating in like twenty cities. It's not even just awesome like I had a thing going. I have a real mark, and but I just saw that I could actually instead of a mark, like I just put a freaking footprint into a whole format that I used to really love. Wasn't into it then because I was so inside of my year. Uh what are we? So? You make the decision to come here, and what happens when you start? Everybody hated me? Why did they hate you? Because I stood for everything they didn't. And by that way, I didn't where a cowboy had and where cowboy boots. I didn't care. I didn't uh bow down to the radio tours, there was no I didn't meet with labels, I didn't talk to artists. I didn't go to social events like I was anti. I wasn't anti everything. I just wasn't pro the things that we're doing here. So they just saw that as someone come to buck the system. And I wasn't bucking the system. I was just doing me. I Also part of it two was I replaced a lot of poorly performing local morning shows, and people just saw me as the guy coming in to take all the local morning shows off, which I did. I didn't replace everybody if the shows weren't doing well. They put our show on UM and so it was a lot of negativity from the end. Even some of my people that aren't working in the company now weren't in on it. They didn't want me to come in. So even from inside it was a little rough at time. How long did it take? How long did that negativity last? Today? I mean how much? And how and And this is always something that fascinates me to how do you deal and cope with negativity? Because you said you've been through so much negative stuff in your childhood, Uh that you know, your skin is pretty tough, right, but it's still tough to have people ripping you. I'm resilient, but that doesn't mean I can't feel it for a second. So I have thick skin. As far as long term, I'm going to be all right. But we couldn't even look at social media for a year. I wouldn't let my show look at anything. Everyone hated as it felt like that we had terrible ratings obviously UM And I remember thinking to myself, well, I've got to do something big to flip this, which always gets me in trouble. It's never done well for me to go it has in the end, it's always been, you know, uh, a bit of an issue for my bosses. When I go, I gotta do something big. And so I remember sitting. I moved to Brentwood, which is a suburb of Nashville, and I moved down. I had so many uh like physical threats and I got jumped and about them. I got a gun to my head and little Rock, I've been death threat multiple times that in my contract, you have to be in a place that is surrounded by X amount of security, either gates or codes, because their insurance on me is super high. So I was living in Brentwood. I was there for like two weeks in a dude murders his wife and is running around in front of my house with a gun. Story which never happens by the way, like you know, five murders in the last fifty years, right yeah, And I'm like what so I'm still there going I gotta flip this around. This The whole vibe is not good for me. And I remember watching a story on A thirty for thirty for Brian Bosworth, and Brian Bosworth would would at away games sell shirts and said I hate Brian Bosworth and I was like, God, that's awesome, it's funny. And so I said, I gotta do something like that, and so I created a shell company, like a fake LLC and ran it through. I studied on the internet how to do it so you couldn't really track it, which is so easy. By the way, it's so easy to buy to buy things and not have people know who you are. Everybody's doing it. It's so I go, okay, I buy three billboards in Nashville, humongous, the biggest billboards in downtow Nashville, for almost thirteen dollars, and they just say, go away, Bobby Bones, and that's it, just black letters, go away by my show. Didn't know my work, didn't know, nobody knew. All that everyone would say was, man, who is it? Which artist hates you? Which record label hate you? Because it could have been any of them. Because it was so wide, everyone was picking their own people. Wasn't another radio company, And I just was like, I don't know. Never never, I never lied about it. I would just always go, I don't know, and I don't want to talk about it because it's affecting me. And so that was a big turning point because people either didn't know who I was and checked it out. I felt sorry for me because someone was attacking me or agreed with it and just hated and wanted to see how I was reacting. And my thing is, if I can always just get people to me, I feel like I can get them because I'm not doing anything to piss people off, not really have opinions, but you know, I don't think that your opinions wrong just because mine is right. It's I'm not that kind of guy. And so um, that was a big flip for us because about oh the News was covering it. I mean dollars and you created three thousand dollars worth of advertising easily. And until I wrote about it my first book, no one knew it was me. And I remember writing the book and sending a galley out to the Washington Post, which is a version of the book that's pretty much finished but not all the way but they can read it to review it, and that's the story they ran with, and they were like, Bobby Bones put up his own billboards, and the whole town was like what and people some people felt deceived. At that point, people kind of understood who I was and they kind of got me, and they were like ah, typical, but yeah, that was a that was a big moment for me and turning people at least to me to give me a shot, not to love me, but just to give me a shot. What about artists? Were there any artists that liked you early and started to because now you can get pretty much anybody, and I'm sure they begged to come in and be able to perform in your studio now, But early on, was there somebody that you met or a couple of people who you met that were like, I really like this guy and it started to have an impact. Brad Paisley was really cool with me outside of the show. He was like, hey, man, I'm different, You're different. People are gonna like you. It's just how it goes. You gotta you just gotta win them. Um. But a lot of artists were scared because I didn't do the interview where it's like, okay, tell me what you'd like me to ask you, which it was traditional for this format, like let me safely walk you in, ask you your influences, and play your song and then get out. Um. I was like, I'd love to have you, but I don't know what kind of mood I'm gonna be in so let's just see what happens. It'll be good for both of it. And so I think a lot of artists they didn't not like me, but they were scared of just a different environment. And it was again, it was rough for a year and a half or so until they kind of understood that I was more like them, that I was a radio announcer because I'm a writer, because I'm a comedian, because and so they're like, oh, he kind of gets the creative part of it. And now you know. We We did market research, UM, which we get all the time, and I'm not a big subscriber to everything. I don't think you take everything from research, but there are always pieces of things that you can do better. But they also evaluate things that you do well and things you don't do. And we were always told don't put interviews on the air because in the current ratings landscape they're not good and people will just turn it off. I just didn't believe that, so I put people on long form. They would play acoustically on the show, and for a national show, that was kind of a risk. But we saw through research and ratings that UM people felt like the artists treated me as more of an artist then when they went into other shows than they were being interviewed. So things start going well. Um, now, I mean they're going incredibly well. You're also on the road touring. You mentioned that we started. I'm Clay Travis is the Wins and Losses podcast. We're talking with Bobby Bones. Um when you start? When did you start going on the road regularly and performing on the weekend. Well, I really started when I was about nineteen. I would just beg to be put up at clubs and host shows. I'd be like, just let me do three minutes at the beginning, and I'll go in between comedians. Because I just thought that if I was gonna do a late night talk show or a talk show at any point, I needed to be comfortable on stage. And I wasn't particularly good at writing jokes, and I wasn't doing it enough to get good at doing stand up comedy. But I just wanted to get some sort of comfort in a really uncomfortable place. So I started doing it then. And I had this bit where I had a band I was supposed to play with me called the Raging Idiots, and they never showed up ever. In the history of my bit. They never showed up. I was like, I'm went ready for the radio. I guess they're not gonna show up. I'll just play something. And so it turned into Bobby Bones and the Raging Idiots, and so Eddie my my partner, and I would go out and do shows and I would just do stand up for twenty minutes and open. I didn't have money to pay an opener, so I would open doing stand up. So we um we did an Austin a little bit, and we got here. We thought, well, if we could raise some money for animal shelters and for St. Jude, that'd be cool, and we'll go out and see if people like what we're doing. We're just doing a dope parodies playing restaurants for fifty people. Well fifty people turned into seventy and I started to go, well, I can kind of market this thing into success and just say every show sold that it was. There were like people, but it was like you can't even get in. So by doing that, people would go, I need to get in. If you're telling me I can't get it, I need to get in. So two hundred five hundred, you know, now we we hit a million dollars, and we said, if we hit a million dollars for charity, we're gonna go and pursue a record deal for you know, get a comedy record. We had a million dollars and donate it all with charity. And we were doing the show in Nashville called the Million Dollars Show, which was to celebrate our million dollar for charity. And before we get the show and we had hit two million dollars for charity and we were like, holy crap. So um, then we just we got a record deal, put out a couple of comedy records. They did fine. I mean they went number one on the comedy chart, but who cared? It was like eleven record sold to get nuber one the comedy chart. Uh. So then I just started doing stand up all the time. And he's got kids, um, and so he was like, I don't know, I tore anymore. But now we're we're back at it and it's a comedy music show. So like you're playing the opera tonight, Yeah, I'm playing the operation time. Have you ever done the opery before? Yeah? I think it's my eleventh time. Okay, I didn't know that, but that's pretty crazy. So what's the reception to you that you get in the Opery. Sometimes and it's not good because it's just a different crops your audience. Right, Yeah, sometimes it's great and they're not expecting comedy, so you kind of have to break them a little bit. And now I kind of I love my grandmother and I listen to the Opery twice a week as a kid, so to me, the Opery super special. To be able to play the first time, I don't even remember it really. I was just kind of blacked out and you don't see people and you're like, I hope I don't screw this up. But now I really enjoy it because it meant so much to my grandmother, UM. And I remember once UM, I went up and did her favorite joke. And you don't cover jokes as a comedian, but when I up and covered a joke and I was like, this is Jerry Cloward joke and I told everyone and I did it, and I think it's my second time up in the crowd roared and I was like, man, I think this is gonna be so I go back and I can play that. I can play the crowd. They're a little older, um, but For me, it's really one of the more special things that I get to do. You don't get paid, it's like a hundred bucks or something, but it's never about that there um, But I'm playing tonight for the eleventh time and it's it's a it's a cool thing for me to get to go and play the grand old opera. I was on the freaking billboard I was driving in. It was like playing the opera tonight, Bobby Bones. So how many songs will you do? Well? They give everybody's Tonight's Friday night. Everybody gets nine minutes on a Friday night. So I'll go up and I'll do I'll do stand up and then I'll do like a minute and a half song and do more stand up. And I have my Eddie with me, and so he kind of sits out the comedy part. He just sits over there, and so we kind of weave it in and out of and the opera has a superstory tradition of comedy. And I think they like it that I'll come up and do something other than to just play songs. So how many cities will you do? Like how many touring shows? In addition to you the fact that you do the radio show, oh and uh and American Idol and everything else, which we'll get into here in a second. But how many weekends a year will you be on the road actually doing a show. I'll probably doing it on thirty cities theaters. Yeah, and you're selling out big theaters now, right, Like I mean, yeah, most of them are selling That's not always Like we played Denver last week and it wasn't a sell out, but the theater was a little bigger than I was used to. Um, so we did thousands of tickets. I can't believe people come. And the show is getting better. We've gotten better because they keep allowing us to do it, and the show is good now. It wasn't always at the beginning. But yeah, we're doing you know, two or three thousand tickets and most of the shows are all top See. Here's the thing. Like when we finished today, I'm gonna go downtown and I've got you know, a partial small ownership steak in a bar that's on Broadway right and we're gonna have people, hopefully who show up for that. But I hate having to show up and not knowing if people are going to be there even now, and I'll tell you why, because I'm the first book that I wrote. And I think anybody who's ever done a performance like this, I bet you have to. You show up and no one's there, and like that will stick with you for or ever. So a part of me is always like our people actually gonna be there, and so having to produce crowds is something that stresses me out, Like I just don't enjoy it. I don't enjoy having to promote it and everything else. You had to get past that, right. But I bet also you've been times where there's been nobody there. When I was twelve, I saved up twenty five dollars and I rented out the old gym in Mountain Pine. It was this gym was built like the fifties. It was where they used play half court basketball, like the women's basketball team only played half courts where they played their high school basketball. And I've been sitting there and you can rent it for twenty five dollars, and I rented it, and I paid the five extra dollars for the roller skates, and I thought, we're gonna have a freaking birthday party. I'm gonna buy all my friends and we're gonna play volleyball, roller skating hockey with brooms, and nobody showed out one person. One person can on birthday party. And that is what it feels like every time a non sale happens, because we announced and put a tour at all at once, and so you you have to get over it, but you don't. I look at ticket accounts every three days just to see if I can tell you every city I'm going into and where we are in tickets and what percentage we're at every single city, because and again, I'm still that kid that people didn't come to his birthday party. So I feel like, man, are they still gonna come to these shows? Yeah, that's the way I feel for all these public events. I mean, I think there's a lot. Maybe there's some people who get over that. I don't think I'll ever get over it. And success creates confidence. Um, and I've had some success and I'm still waiting for that confidence. I used to look at it every day. I mean, if anything it's a move in the right direction, I maybe like every three days now, But I it's tough it and I think that's why it does. It pays pretty well, Like we're now making money for ourselves on the road because we're just spending so much time out there. There's a charitable component to everything that we do. Merch Um, we had a part of every ticket goes to musicians on Call, which I'm on the national board for. But if I were to say we're not making money now, I'll be lying because I just spent so much time like working on my craft and taking it out. Um. But yeah, you you you always wonder how tired? Are you? Pretty tired right now? It's Friday. I'm pretty tired right now. I'm always My thing has always been, You're always I'm gonna be tired. But can I make mine when I'm feeling the worst better? Because if I can make when I'm feeling the most tired, if I can produce better, then then when I'm feeling great, it it automatically is gonna rise. When I was doing Dancing with the Stars, I've never been so tired because I would train for twelve hours, do the radio show for five or six, sleep for three or four, and be back at it. I was exhausted, but I got so good at doing that show tired that when I'm not tired, I feel like I'm freaking Chris Rock. I'm so freaking funny right now. I'm all right. I'm like a stick level comedian, you know in Paduca. But I'm good if I can be my worst better. It's like golf, if you can limit your bad shots. It's not about your great shots. You'll just get lucky and hit a great shot occasionally. But if you can make your bad shots less, then your score will go up more so than if you make your great shots better. Be sure to catch live editions if iut kicked the coverage with Clay Travis week days at six am Eastern, three am Pacific. I'm Clay Travis. This is Wins and Losses. We're talking with Bobby Bones. All of the professional direction we've gone. Now you're still single? Yeah, listen, it's my fault though. How old are you? Thirty nine years? Also never been engaged. What's the longest relationship you've been in? Out of four and a happier relationship you think you were gonna get married to her? So you're thirty nine? What is your dating life like now? Because of let me come, let me cut you off? You ever seconcause there's a lot of guys out there that are gonna be listening right now. I'm forty, I've got three kids who got an eleven and eight and a four year old, and and in August I will have been married fifteen years, so we're around the same age. You have lived through a crazy trajectory, right, Like I was out with a buddy a few years ago and he saw Tender for the first time, and he was like, I swear to God, dead pan, I would have never gotten married if I knew Tender was coming, right, Because you're in entertainment a little bit. But if you're got tough to meet girls, right, if you if you advance in careers and everything else, now you're a little bit different because you could go out to things for entertainment related re But what would how would you describe your life? Now? Let me peel back and give a little look behind the cart. In the conversation with you and I had we were flying up to Omaha, yes, and to go watch Arkansas play in the College World Series, and I was asking you about kids because I think I want to have kids one day, and we were like, it's the greatest thing. Yeah, I've got three boys. They're the greatest part of my life. And I came back and talked about it, and I was like, yeah, Clay, it was like, it's the greatest thing to have kids. And I wanted to have kids anyway, but to see you be like, man, it's like I want that eventually. Yeah. Um, now, when they're babies and they're not sleeping through the night and everything else, you're gonna be like, fuck, Clay Travis. He was totally lying to me. But once they get to like, you know, the age where they can start giving you something back, which might be you know, six eight months and on up. Like I think my boys are at perfect ages right now. I would hit pause on my life, Like if I could hold them where they are right now. They're happy, they're healthy, they still enjoy being around my wife and I. Generally speaking, I don't know what it's gonna be like when they get to be teenagers and they go off and start to spin off in their own direction. But I love coaching Little League Baseball, like waking up every day and my kids being there and even breakfast with them and everything else. So that's that's right now. But there certainly are a lot of people who are listening right now, like my kids are really young. I never sleep. They drive me insane. So there are parts of that time as you're saying, I got you a good time for that, look, I mean I think and also my wife is is fantastic. I think who your partner is matters a great deal in that. But it's like, I can't imagine what I would be doing without kids right now and if I were forty and single. And that same conversation, I showed you this dating and I was like, oh, that's awesome called Ria and you have to be accepted on it, and it's kind of uh, it's an exclusive dating app. Yeah, it's the lure of Riah. It's hard to invest in it now. By the way, are you an investor in it? Because you're you're naming it now. It was an r y A r A y A r A y a okay, And so it's like the famous person app. There's more than that, Like most of the dudes are famous, most of the chicks are is a hot, really good looking. Yeah, and so I was I was kind of showing showing you something. So there's all it's solid talent on the app. So I mean, that's my life now. Is a mix of that, like getting on the dating app and not really having trouble, but also like what it's not gratcha Marks would say, don't want to be part of any club that would have me. It's like, why don't want to date any girl that want to date me? Especially because if she wants to date you because of the success that you've had, right, because super scared of that. So what super hot chick would want to date me if it weren't for the success that I had. And I know that I'm that It's not lost on me that I'm you know, you're a normal looking guy, Ryan Gosling, right right. You know I'm not terribly good looking or terribly funny. I'm just a normal dude that's been pretty successful at what I do here. Uh So I often get in a relationship with girls that are way hotter than me and go, Okay, this isn't going right, she's too hot. There's something up um, and it would go out a few times. What's your range now? Probably twenty seven to eight? No, it's like it's like twenties seven to thirty four. So, like, I still want to have kids, and I still want to have a few years before I have kids or maybe a couple, and so that's probably, but I would break that. What would be your ideal age to get married right now? If I told you right now you're thirty nine, you're not going to be married, you'd be upset by that. Uh yeah, I mean I would. I'd be irritated. But at this point I thought i'd be married twice now, like I I really think my second wife is gonna be the one. I stick with that. But I'm also at the point now where I got it. I have a prenup, Like that's not even a thought, because you're just nervous enough about the success that you've had, and why the woman would be with you, nervous enough she could talk you out of it. Now. And I don't know anything about money, And I have money now and I don't anything about it. Like I grew I have no money mentors. We were all broke where I grew up. Nothing. You're gonna be like Adrian Peterson. And I was watching your on Twitter last night where you were like, he spent twenty five dollars a day. How is that possible? Um No, I'm the opposite of that. I don't even spend I have a nice house, in a nice car, and I eat decent food. But other than that, like, I'm not someone who spends money. I'm scared of death. That because until three three, two years ago, so I still I was paying my bills over because I was like, because you just needn't know when they were going to be. I was like, man, if I lose my job, I need to have a couple of months buffer and my business manager, which I have to have now. I was like, you gotta stop doing that, Like, you'll be all right, Like if you get fired today, you can afford your cell phone bill. You're good for a few years. Like and so where you come when you come from where I come from, that's really not a thing. So I'm dealing with those. It's a great problem to have, by the way, not no woe is me, um, But I also feel like that's why eventually I'll get into politics too, because I'll be able to afford it. So yeah, so that that's something you've talked about too. But I want to go to television. I'm gonna jump to politics. So uh, you've done you want? Um dancing with the Stars. Yeah, I'm I'm a great dancer. Um, you have now been on American Idol. Yeah for two seasons. Um, you're getting to do a lot of television. I get asked all the time, and I think it's intriguing. I went from writing to radio to TV, and they're all different disciplines. You've written a great book, you have obviously had a very successful and have a very successful New York. Um, you've got the UM, the radio show what you're doing really well, and the television shows. I mean, fine, which if you had to give up one of those three or two of those three for the rest of your career, what do you love the most? I would never write another book. You're done. No, I'm not done. But if I had to give one up, yeah, it's a lot of work. I'm just not what I'm good at. Yeah, And I really had to work hard at it at both of them, and even the concepts of them were tough. So as I say that, I'm actually working on the third book now because I just whenever I go, I don't know if I can do that. That That that's what motivates me. Whenever I start going, I don't know if I can. I have a lot of self motivation to prove myself right or wrong. Um, I would give up writing books and I wouldn't tour. I don't have to tour. I don't know. The touring to me is I'm just working a muscle until I can actually use it. And I've and I got to use it. When Ryan Seacrest went down, he got sick for the first time ever in seventeen years, our seventeen seasons of Idol. Five minutes for the show started. They pulled me over to the side and they go, hey, uh, Ryan's sick for the first time ever. We need someone to host the show. And I thought, oh, wow, what are you gonna get And they said, no, no, if we need you to host it, I was like right now, like yeah, we're on. We have Union guys cameras. I think they were like seven or eight minutes away, and I was like okay. And now there wasn't a part of me that jumped like, oh, I can't do this. I said, okay, Well, the only thing I'm really gonna need a stage direction because I'm good on a prompter, because I have the television skills, I'm good on a stage improv, I have the comedy skills, and I knew all the people because I've been working on Idol. I said, just tell me what struction to walk like on and off camera, because all that matters, and I'll be good. And I went out and I did a solid B plus with seven minutes prep um. Big benefit been at that too, was I didn't have time to freak out that a day before, I've been like, oh, this is it. But I went out and did a good job. But I I firmly believe part of that was because I've just been on stages on literal, so you're comfortable with the in front of crowds. I felt for the first time. I was going, oh, I'm finally ready for this, and I'm out underneath the American Idol letters and that show is not for me to host. That's Ryan's show forever. But I thought, wow, this is for me, Like this is not too big. I've been working the right muscles. I got lucky, which is just I was ready for it when it happened, and you know, I did good, So it's it's pretty cool it and that will that's led to other opportunities and television like you just did Bear Grills, but do you think it which which is an awesome story. I'm sure, And I don't think you can talk about it yet because it hasn't aired. But you were just up in like the middle of nowhere with him, right, Yeah, we went up. Yeah, I don't think I can say yet, but we went somewhere really far. Took a whole day to get there. But it was so you know, Idol Dancing with the Stars and Idol and did Miss America most in c M a fest which is lead to bear grills. Everything's kind of jumped onto something else. So where does it lead? Where? Where's the end result? Where you would be like, hey, that's what I've you talked about it, and I think this is fascinating. Even when you were a kid, you were like, logically, I need to be smart in order to be able to get into college, in order to be able to move outside of the seven person town that grew up that you grew up in. Where is the end? Destination? Politics maybe the destination, but an entertainment, where is the destination? I think I know myself well enough now to know there isn't an end that I'll drive myself crazy wherever I am, But I think that being self aware is my end, meaning I know that if I get a talk show on on Amazon or ABC, that that's cool for a minute until I'm wanting to eat my kid needs because i need higher ratings or more streams. So I'm self aware to know that there isn't an end. And I would like to have a show here in Nashville so I don't have to travel so much. I'll be here. I just can't see me moving to Los Angeles. Um, So I think that's the in for now. I think that's what it is in for now. I'm building towards I don't want to be a guy hit man that goes out and does a couple of shows in l A and comes back. Yeah. I love doing Idol because they really have trust to me when they didn't need to have no reason to put me on Idol and and just be like, Okay, you're the guy all year and we're gonna give you a ton of money and let's rock. And it is interesting as a guy who was born and raised in Nashville and has been here, Nashville can be a destination point now and and it's fascinating. I think you certainly have been a big part of that. I think there are a lot of talented people in this city right now. But early when I was doing radio, when I was doing writing, I would get asked, Hey, are you gonna go to New York? Do you want to go to l an Like you need to move right And now I hear a lot of people saying, Hey, you know the things we can do with you in Nashville, And I bet you're starting to get that now. And I think that's the cachet of Nashville. But I think it's also on the entertainment level, really kind of popped in a good way, and per capita. There's many celebrities who live in Nashville now as live in almost anywhere else in the world. Yeah, I would agree. I think I agree in that if you create good content, people will watch it more so than getting big guests. I struggle at times at getting guests, not any in the country music world. So I've got a time at right. People aren't coming here like there are New York and Los Angeles because television, movie premiers. People just living there because the work is there. Like I have a friend named Charletmagne, the god who does the hip Hop show, one of my best friends, and he gets freaking Kathy Griffin, Drew carry hip hop stars because everybody's in New York or I'm getting a lot of country artists and occasionally John Mayer, who will come by because he's kind of a fan of the show. Occasionally. There was a problem with Pickler and Ben. They were a talk show based here in Nashville. As they did a good job as a morning daytime talk show, but they just couldn't get enough guests for every day. They couldn't get enough guests. And so for me, I've tried to lean away from basing any sort of success on the guests that I can get and put all mine on what can I do and what can I create with my people here. Yeah, and so I do think that you can be anyone to be successful now if you just create good content. I mean, I think if you want to be in Kansas City and create your content, dude, you can make a living off of Instagram now, off of YouTube videos. Um. And you know in my radio show, which radio to me is anything that comes off the phone, like this is radio, any audio, anything audio basically, And so we've you know, when I saw my last contract, part of my deal was I want a fully functional multimedia studio because if I'm not up for people can see it at three pm, or can listen to it eleven PM, or can listen to it live. Like it's just not gonna matter anymore. You've gotta be everywhere eyeballs and ears are at all times and so and I think you've done a great job of that too, um and then that's that's what you have to do now in the media and so and I use I've been lucky that ABC trusted me and put me on all these shows, because it's also widened my umbrella a bit too. I get in a lot of rooms that would have never let me in, and a lot of people give me second looks now that would have never given me a second look. And people will even come by the show now because I'm not the guy in the radio, but oh, you're the guy in American Idol, you're the guy the one dancing with the stars, or you're so and so. So that's really been a big benefit to me in the show. Fox Sports Dio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Fox sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart Radio app search f s R. To listen live. Alright, so you mentioned it you might want to do politics one day, and moving back, I will do politics one day. It just been what what where I get in? How old you think you'll be? Well? I got a call. I mean, listen, by the way before you enter that. I'm Clay Travis. This is Wins and Losses. You're listening to Bobby Bones. He's at Mr Bobby Bones on Twitter because the real Bobby bones is has been fighting with him for what how many years? Yeah, it's been a decade You've been trying to get that one. Uh so politics, I could see it happening low percentage next in the next four years, low percentage like eight or nine meeting between like now. Probably not. You'd want to run for governor of Arkansas? Yeah, and I should probably. I don't have the skill set right now to do it, but I would do it. Yeah. Um, Like I was with you, we talked about going to the Arkansas College World Series and you talked to the Razorback alumni group there and you told them, Hey, one day I'm gonna run for governor in your state. I think maybe in probably in twelve years. Again, it's so much timing too. Yeah, you know, you gotta be in the right place at the right year, in the right environment. Maybe I would listen. I would love to do in the forties because I'm already going in the forties. I could be the president of the fifties. That's just one step. Um. I do feel like I come from a place to where people are looking for someone to represent them. I think a lot of politicians, not all, but most come from an economic privilege background which allows them to either get the education which allows them to be a politician. I have a real job, um, but I've kind of been through it, and so you know, I come and I think I can represent a lot of folks that basically just go a poor don't have an education, and aren't getting the right education. Just because I know that. That being said, the Republican Party of Arkansas reached out like, hey, are you consent and run in the next four years. They don't even know what what what I am, but I guess they just assume I'm Republican, And good for them for assuming that everybody can assume whatever they want. It is interesting I remember this story like the first family in Nashville is huge, right, and Bill Frist ended up he was a you know, surgeon, neurosurgeon I think, or whatever he was, and he's from the h c A family. And when he decided he want to be a politician, this is amazing story, the Democrats pitched him on, hey, you should be a Democrat, and the Republicans pitched him on, hey you should be a Republican because he just wasn't that into politics, right, he was working so hard on being a surgeon. They thought, hey, this guy is gonna be an incredible candidate. He's obviously got a lot of money. And they both made their pitch and then he's like, actually, you know what, I'm a Republican. And but he hadn't even really set down and ever contemplated what political views he had until he decided he wanted to get into politics. Always think that's interesting that that might be the situation that you would have and you got the party's pitching. I think that's what they're doing now. And I think you kind of invest early in someone with people with stocks the businesses. Yeah, And so I think I'm feeling that a bit now. You know, I started toying with the idea two years ago and the current governor said, hey, would not do that because you're getting too much press. Um. And I and I think Govin Hudgins awesome and Arkansas. UM. So yeah, we'll kind of see where it goes. Like I'm the typical, Like socially I'm pretty liberal, but fiscally I'm not. So it's kind of like, you know, I get you don't fit. You're a little bit like me, Like I get a lot of I don't fit down one line, but I don't think most people do, except for the tribes they've been assigned to and right. And that's why I would argue that even the people who were in those tribes, if you get them out and pull them out on individual issues, they're like, oh, I actually don't fit in that party everywhere, which is me. Like with gun control, I had guns in my whole life. You're talking to a guy from the South. Well, yeah, same thing here. Like I was six years old and they had me shooting at you know, targets, right. Um, I grew up in Nashville and that was very common. You're not gonna hear me rail against guns because I see people that use guns as tools, literal tools. We had to eat. Yeah, I gotta. I got a four ten when I was nine in a four ten turned into a twenty gage, turned into a twelve, turned to thirty six. So you're not gonna tell me that guns are just bad when we didn't get to eat food unless we had them. So you would hear me talking about this and go, oh, he's a Republican. But then I'm so gay rights, like as much as you could possibly be, and be like, oh for so yeah, I think we'll just kind of see where the party's fall, because they will shift. They've always shifted. Where I grew up in Arkansas, Bill Clinton was a Democrat, and at the time, the Democrats were for the poor people and the Republicans for the rich people. Now it's shifted a bit where it's like Republicans are for the image alicals and the Democrats. So like Trump will dominate in Arkansas and a lot of the poor people will be voting for Trump, and a lot of the poor people would have voted for for Clinton back in the eighties, in the early nineties when he had his political career. So mostly it'll be where the where the party is stamped. When I decided to run, because again, I just talked to the two main issues where if you heard me talking about one you would go, oh he's one way or oh he's the other. So I am Clay Traviss the Wins and Lost his podcast with Bobby Bones. I know you're insanely busy. I appreciate you making this time, uh and with the concept just kind of wins and losses. And at the end, I like to ask people to give advice, right like if you were Let's pretend like you and I were young and there's a young version of Bobby Bones that is out there listening to you right now and he's like, Hey, I want to end up doing what that guy does one day. What would you tell him or her that you really don't have to be that talented to be that successful. It's a lot of work and grit. It's it's showing up on time every time, Like that's the key, Like there are other other elements as well. You gotta make some good decisions and you're gonna make some bad and when you make the bad ones, you have to learn from the bad. Like you really got to get something from when you do screw up. But for me, again, I just don't consider myself just supremely talented. I do consider myself one of the hardest, working, grittiest people that I know. I do I even know. I don't know if I know myself or not, but um, yeah, just it's just showing up on time every time, and also finding people that will champion you, because I've often went to people and said, hey, like you you we help me if you got me like I got you, And so that's been a big deal for me as being having loyalty and being loyal to people too. But but but it's mostly if I've just showing up. It's the most basic concept. It's the building blocks of If you don't show up and do the little things right, why in the world would I trust you do the big things right. You don't get a chance to do the big things that you can't do the little things. I own some gems here in town, and before I got into the business with my business partner. Now, I would just go and look at the trash cans and see, all right, let's see if the little things are being done right. Before I attached my name and my money to to this person in this and I would look at the trash cans and I I woul look at the bathrooms. I didn't look at how many people were showing up to class. I'll look at that in a minute, Like those are the big things, but let me see if we're getting the little things right. And he was crushing it with the little things. And I know if you're taking care of the small details, the big details are are easy if you're doing the little things. So that's what I would say. I would say, just show up and and do the little things, because you will naturally train yourself to do the big things. Yeah. And that's what I honestly spend a lot of time on with my kids is we live in a society where we reward results, and so much of results, in my mind is effort. And so what I try to get involved in is praising grit, praising tenacity, praising effort more than results, because I think if you put the time in, by and large, you'll get the results. And by the way, you are really really talented. But what I have come to admire value is your work ethic right, because there are a lot of talented people in the world. And I tell my kids this all the time too, And this is for everybody out there. Listening. Most talented people won't work hard. Right, The more talent you have, to a certain extent, maybe the less hard you'll work. Now, sometimes you end up with the most talented people who work the hardest and obviously they're they're ceiling is the stratosphere. But the one recipe that can't be eliminated, I think is that tenacity and that drive. My last book is called fail until you Don't, and I didn't have the title till the very end. I'd written the whole thing. And what I did was not only did I wanted to highlight didn't want to have my my failures and mess ups, and also kind of give my theory on anybody can be a success if you just do the small things right. It was I grabbed a lot of folks like Chris Stapleton, the current governor of Arkansas, UM Charles Eston, who plays it was an actor, and I said, hey, I want to I want you to tell me your story right right in my book for me, but just tell me. I don't want to know anything cool. You did give me your biggest failure, because I want people to see that even the great people are really great as sucking too. But you just don't see it and so it doesn't get anywhere. And that's what they did. That's what my book is. That's what my second book is. It's me. It's called fail until you Don't Fight, Grind, repeat, and it's me going, Okay, this is where I screwed up, but this is how you have to learn from those experiences. And it's all those guys that have millions of dollars super famous, going oh, yeah, I screwed up massively, But it's not that I screwed up. It's what I could learn from these times that I screwed up. And I just got back up, and I just continued to get back up. And that's what I do. I just continue to get back up. I'll probably screw up here soon. Um, you know, you had the fcct A one million dollar fine. I think it's been three years ago now, but that is that the biggest screw up that you've had on your current station in terms, So yeah, I got bind a million dollars, like what I'm that's it And that's about as bad as you can do. I thought I might be fired, and you played for people out there who don't know the emergency like kind of this is what happened. I'm on the I'm in Dallas, I'm touring, and I'm doing a client event, and so I'm working out of a small studio there and in d C the local cable network or the local affiliate. We're playing the World Series. Someone hits a home run and as the balls leaving the park, the E A S Test goes off, so they didn't see the home run that won the game. And I'm going, Wow, what a weird time to have an E S like nine o'clock during the World Series. And if you know that's gonna happen, maybe you give everybody heads up just in case because you're watching the World Series. And I said that would be like, and I was talking about this story lead. I was telling some roalle dramatic story in my life, and right before I got to the ending, I hit the that I just took off a YouTube. Turn turns out the year before that was like the Obama button that Ebola was eating America. I didn't know that it was on YouTube. I didn't go and so I didn't type what should I not press? I just played and so it's it locked up cities all over America and we were gonna be fine, far more than one million dollars. And what happened was, thank god, there was a station in California who took a piece of tone and put it in a promo and they find this station like ten grand and the wonderful attorn. They were like, you're gonna okay, let's look at people that are listening. You have signed, you find them ten grand, Let's look at this. You can't find us more than a million dollars. And so I had to talk to a turn. It was a brutal time. I've been through a few of those brutals. That was the most brutal because I thought I was going to watamo. I was like, well, you realize immediately how bad of it I think it was gonna be. How long did it take? I gotta call that ten minutes later, going hey, um, we've shut off in about seven cities, and we have cities you're not even on that are doing the same thing. I was like, weird because apparently one station is the key and when everybody else hears it, it's like a tone and it reacts. So not only were radio stations locked up and almost full cities locked up, but a t tu verse locked up. So what it does, and I don't have a t tu verse, but what it does is it goes turn to the channel five and it locks on a channel and it says you you'll have your message coming up soon. Well, I didn't play the whole tone because I wasn't playing the whole tone and the end of the tone is the release. So I locked it and then left it. So it just sat and TV speakers were busting all over America because it's going. It was. It was a mess, and I didn't know, and I gotta call going. We gotta shut down the satellite because this hasn't even air in the West coast yet, so they shut down the left side of the country up from my show, like there are a lot of cities that just it locked up, multiple radio stations. It was not a pretty time. I was getting deposed. It is not it is not nice. But I got through it. And I remember when my my the owner of our company who I'm close with a now Bob Pittman, we call me and goes, hey, man, would you not do that again? And when he kind of joked about it, I was like, all right, I'm good. But it was hanging over your head for a while. Still, I was hanging over my head. That's really the one thing where people go, what's your biggest regret. I don't have a lot of regrets because I've learned from stupid decisions. That's the one that I go. I learned nothing, and it was really I just I didn't know that was what I was doing. Though this is an accident. I really hate to that happen. He's Bobby Bones. I'm Clay Travis. This has been wins and losses. If you enjoy it, give us a rating, go or follow Bobby at Mr Bobby Bones. Right, I didn't screw that up. I'm Clay Travis at Clay Travis. Give us feedback. If you enjoyed it, check out his show. You can check out my show. If you like this, you'll probably like some of the others that we have done. They have to help to pass the time on great long drive sitting by the beach, need a good, informative and hopefully entertaining and helpful conversation. This has been one of them. Thanks my man. I'm pressed by you and hope we can do this again sometimes. Thanks a lot, man,