Cledus T Judd - Addictions & Redemption, and a Country Music Journey :: Ep 53 Try That in a Small Town Podcast
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and connect. Ready to elevate your business? Book a tour today at eSpaces.com. The biggest show I ever performed in front of my entire career was I ended up being good enough to compete in the World Championships of Hairdressing in Dusseldorf, West Germany. And Whitney Houston was down on one end singing One Moment in Time, and there was like 100,000 people in this big house cutting hair. Oh my God.

I just went into a realm sleep, you know, just dozed off on that Ambien, you know, eyes out. And all of a sudden, whoop, whoop, intruder. Brenda seven, whoop, whoop, door eight. Looking in a mirror, as ugly, morbid as I'd ever looked in my life. And I thought, you son of a bitch. All you've ever wanted was a kid.

All you wanted to be was a daddy because you didn't have one. And you're going to come in here in this bathroom and do what you're fixing to do. You don't deserve that kid. The Try That in a Small Town Podcast begins now.

Alright, welcome back to the Try That in a Small Town podcast here at the Patriot Mobile Studios. Okay, low, thrash, we got TK. Tonight's gonna be fun, y'all. We got a country music legend in his own right. Oh, come on, dude. Two to one with money, too. Listen, two million records.

All along the way, making fun of some of our best artists like Tim McGraw, Shania Twain, Toby Keith. We got Cletus. I chased a lot of those people off along the way. Welcome to the club. Man, you know, I only had one person in my entire career when I was doing those at the high level, you know. And you'll never guess who the one guy out of all the people that we know came up to me and said, hey, I got a problem with this. I don't know.

This is great. Get right to it. Garth Brooks. Of course. I was at Hermitage Golf Course, and I just had some kind of tournament out there, and I walked into the parking lot, and he's like, hey, are you Cletus? And I said, yeah. And he said, well, I'm not a fan. And I said, well, get in line. And he laughed a little bit or whatever, and he said, look, I know you got this song. They had did, him and Trish did a song called In Another's Eyes. Remember that one? And I did You Need Another Size.

And Gar said, man, that thing's up for a Grammy. We don't want anything to compete going up. And when he said compete, my chest bowled out, you know. And he said, so we'd appreciate it if you just –

hold off till after the awards. I said, are you kidding me? You've sold more records than the Beatles, and you're worrying about some lowly comedian keeping you from winning the Grammy? Sony didn't give me near enough advance money if I got that kind of power. And I did the song anyway, and he won the Grammy. So it all worked out. It all worked out. How did that relationship start?

It's really good. Oh, really? Paul McCartney told me to never name drop, but I'm going to do it here. He's been really good to me any time. I interviewed him a couple of years ago when he got on the phone. I said, man, look, I'm trying to buy a truck down here in Ashland City. Could you co-sign? I mean, I just need a little help. Out of the blue, you said? I just asked him. He said, what?

Where are you on the H at? I'll help you out. I'm just kidding. But he was going to do it. I think he was going to do it anyway. He's got plenty of money. You've heard a lot of interesting and fun stories, but I've heard a lot of stuff like that as well. We've got a great car story. We'll have to tell on a different episode. Thank you all for having me, dude. I appreciate it very much. Thank you. We're pumped to have you. And I was kind of curious, like when you moved to town, so did you –

come to be a parody artist? Did you know anything about that? No. Man, my journey here, and I'll just go ahead and preface this up front, it's very rarely that I can ever get through any podcast that we talk about that at some point I'll cry like Chris Cagle, so I'm just going to let you know. Oh my gosh. Because it's, you know, man, my journey wasn't easy. Nobody's is. You know, when you come up here, it's tough. I didn't have no TV show. I had been

involved for years. You know, I was a full blown drug addict. You know, I played college basketball for a while, you know, went into the hairdressing business. I still got my barber license. The biggest show I ever performed in front of my entire career was I ended up being good enough to compete in the World Championships of Hairdressing in Dusseldorf, West Germany.

and Whitney Houston was down on one end singing one moment in time. And there was like a hundred thousand people in this big house cutting hair. And man, it's just a surreal moment. That was in 1987 when that was. And, um, right after that, man, I, I, I found something that I, I, you know, I, I wished I'd have never found in that world. And, uh,

I became a full-blown drug addict and ended up losing everything I had. I'd had cars and money at the time, and what I thought was money, you know, was nothing compared to, by the grace of God, what came later on. But I think he kind of prepared me for that at that moment, you know, because it got really bad to the point where I was living...

I'd lost everything I had. I was living in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. I didn't even play golf at the time down there at Sawgrass. You did not play Sawgrass. No, I did not. I didn't even have enough money to buy a golf ball. And I was living with this dude. He would book me classes, and I would go out into the field and do haircutting seminars. And I'll never forget it, man. I called him the refrigerator Nazi because every day he would come home. He's like, looks like you ate one of my chicken pot pies. I'm like, damn, dude, I'm starving.

I ain't got no money. Don't dun me for the podcast.

for the pot pie, okay? And man, I'd had enough. You know, life had about got me. I was embarrassed. I wanted to be somebody. How old were you at this time? Well, that was in 1990, so I would have been, I was born in 64. Neil, what was that? Okay, who's good at math? You're a tick older than me. Go ahead. And I found myself, and you might have saw this on TL's podcast, but I found myself in

on a bridge in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida for about six hours one afternoon on a Friday you know contemplating and I always say if you want to do it you will it was more of a cry for help on my end you know

And I never yet, while I was on that bridge, man, I kept thinking, you know, this is the weird side of me. I'm thinking, if I do this, I'm going to back traffic up. And if I go here, I'm going to, it's just all the, every reason in the world to not do it, you know, and by the grace of God, I didn't. And a friend of mine, they got me down off there and a friend of mine flew me home. I left my car down there. It wouldn't run. He was a Honda Prelude. And,

And believe it or not, man, that's when my journey started to get here. And I was sitting in a double wide trailer, my mom's house, 477 Crow Springs Road. And I was sitting in shag carpet that was, you could make snow angels in it. It was so thick, you know, and the CMA Awards came on. And Vince had won a Song of the Year for When I Call Your Name.

and i turned around and i knew nothing knew nothing about that world our world we live in now or whatever and i turned around my mother was crying and i said mom man why are you crying and she said i i don't know son i would just give anything in the world to meet me that man i think he's the most beautiful human being i've ever seen and i said you want to meet vince gill and she said oh boy would i and i said i can make that happen and she said

"Son, you've done a lot, but you can't, you don't know, you can't sing Silent Night, you know, so you probably ain't gonna be able to make that happen." I said, "Let me figure it out." And a few weeks later,

I went down to the Buck Board Country Music Showcase, and I did an amateur night. And the same night I did it, another Hall of Fame member, Opry member was on there, Mark Wills, was on the same. I beat Mark that night. And I say, he's a member of the Grand Ole Opry, and I'm a member of Sam's Club. Yeah.

But that started my journey. And for the next four or five months, man, I went down there and did amateur nights, wrote horrible rap songs. I didn't know what I was doing. And my mother gave me $600 and a T. Graham Brown and Bruce Burch. If y'all remember Bruce, Bruce had watched me a few times. He said, man, you got to come to Nashville. You got to come to Nashville. And so mom bought me an old pickup truck, a Toyota Love truck.

And I took off to right here where we sit. And, you know, it had the speakers in the doors with a sheet metal. There was no speakers, no air, no heat, no anything. And for three years, man, I drove that truck and I'd get on a Greyhound bus and my mom would pick me up in Chattanooga. And I said, I don't want nobody to see me. I won't go home and see my buddies until I make it. I don't want nobody to see me.

And I'd go home, sit in a double-wide trailer with my mom, and I'd go back. And finally, I'd sleep in a walk-in closet. If y'all remember Vern Dan. I don't know if y'all remember Vern. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Vern has it and some other things with Bruce. And Vern had a walk-in closet. And he said, man, you got no bedroom, but you're welcome to a closet. And I put me a big Budweiser headboard in that closet, a blow-up mattress, and I stayed in there. When I didn't stay there, if you remember where Ruby Tuesday's was, out on Donaldson Pike by the airport. Oh, yeah.

They had these big old lights in that plaza, and they were massive. I'll never forget them, man, as long as I live. And I would take that truck, and I'd park under those lights because I wasn't afraid. You know, the light was shining. I felt safe there, you know, and I'd cover up under my clothes that I had, and I'd go to the YMCA the next morning. I'd take a shower, and then I'd go to Music Row, and I'd beat it up, try to meet somebody, and do the best I could. Well, finally, if y'all remember, in 1994,

the ice storm came through. It was a really bad ice storm. And, uh, I was living with the late, uh, Darren Norwood. If y'all remember, uh, great singer. And, and he helped me get to, get to Nashville as well. And,

I was driving home in that old truck, and I didn't have no defrost in it. I was coming down 440, going to White Bridge Road, and I'll never forget, dude, as long as I live, I had a CD jewel case, and I was scraping the windshield going down the highway, and I'll never forget looking through that windshield, and it was a Mark Chestnut CD, and the single was too cold at home. I thought, it's a hell of a lot colder than this truck is at home, I tell you, Mark.

And when I got to Darren's house a few days later, I got frostbite on these three fingers. And I went to a med. I didn't have insurance, of course. And I went to a med first or whatever. And the doctor said, man, I lost these three fingernails. The doctor says, there's a chance you may lose a couple of fingers. It was bad. Frostbite was really bad. And so I had it all wrapped up. And on a Sunday night, man, I called mom. Collect. If you remember, collect calls. And I said, mom.

I can't do it. I said, you got to come get me. And she said, are you sure? I said, I ain't never been more sure in my life. I said, I'm hungry. My clothes are filthy. I ain't got no transportation. I tried. It's time to come and get me.

And my mother said, are you sure twice? I'll never forget it. And she'd only said it once. I wouldn't be sitting here, but she said it twice. And in that meantime, in my right ear, I heard on a little transistor radio sitting on a desk, I heard Tim McGraw doing an Indian outlaw. And by the grace of God, the first notes out of my mouth were there my Indian in-laws came to visit me and my squaw been here for a month. Y'all, I'm about to lose my mind. And I went...

That's pretty good. I said, Mom, I got to call you back. And she said, Am I coming to get you? And I said, I'll let you know in a month. And I hung up, and T. Graham and Larry locked me, and me and Jody Jackson and Bruce finished writing Indian Outlaws, Indian In-Laws. And I sat at Bruce's house with dual cassettes.

Remember that you had a master on one and then the other? For days, making Indian in-law cassettes, and I'd put them in an envelope, and I'd mail them out to all these radio stations, and 195 or six of them started playing it. And the next thing you know, man, my career took off.

I did If Shani Was Mine. And this is leading up to my mom. But when I did If Shani Was Mine, I'd already lost, sent one video to them at CMT, said, this is awful. Don't send back. We're not interested. And me and my buddy Chris Clark wrote If Shani Was Mine. We recorded it. I did a video for it. David Ball was in the video with me. That's back when David was hot on a firecracker. And we sent it to CMT.

And I don't know if y'all remember Tracy Rogers. She was head of programming there. And on a Friday, they used to sit and take, you know, in a big room like this, and they would watch all the videos and go, okay, that sucked. He's not in. You know, we're going to add Jason or whatever next thing you know. And so they got to mine. Everybody said, oh, hell no, that ain't happening. Done. Out of here. So my manager called me. I was living on Edmondson Pike. I was laying sideways on the couch. Nothing like this. And he called and he said, it ain't happening.

They said no. And I never got rolled off the couch and just started bawling because I knew it was over at that point. The record company won't give me no more money. I didn't have no more other options. And you talking about defining moments in a man's career. Tracy Rogers took that damn VHS tape.

And took it back in her office that afternoon on a Friday afternoon when everybody's ready to go home. And she put that thing in a cassette in the VHS and watched it again. Called a meeting of the higher ups at CMT back in that office like this right here and said, I've never done this, but I'm going to overrule the committee. I'm going to play this kid. I think he's got I think there's something there.

And she put that thing in Jammin' Country the next weekend. It was the longest-running video that CMT had ever put out at that point, and my life changed. Because then I followed up with Buck Bigger than the Beatles, and Cletus went down to Florida, and I started selling records. And, man, you know, I mean, it was unbelievable. So fast forward to the Hermitage Golf Course, where I know we've all played.

I came in off the road. I was doing shows and things were good. And I got a phone call from a girl, a lady at the ACMs that said, we need one more celebrity to play in the golf tournament at Hermitage. Will you do it? And I said, no. I done got cocky by this point. I'm not.

money. I thought I would go my way and say no to a golf tournament. She said, if you'll come and do the golf tournament, fill out the last four, some or five, we'll give you a spot at the ACMs. We'll let you present at the ACMs. I said, done. I'll do it. I go out to the Hermitage on Monday and I'm looking. I put my bag down. You know how they got all them boards, hole one, two, three, four. I go all the way down to 16A. I'll never forget it, 16A. It had

so-and-so, so-and-so, Cletus T. Judd, Vince Gill. And I went, oh my God.

Now's my chance. And one guy that was in the group said, well, I'm riding with Vince. I said, okay, yeah, you go ahead. I'll beat you with this four iron. I got into cart with Vince and I spent the whole day with him. And I told him about my mom's, the whole thing. And I said, man, would you, would you do a video with me? And he said, buddy, consider it done. And so about five years after I walked out of that double wide trailer, uh,

in an old beat-up Toyota pickup truck. I sent a limo to home, to Georgia, to pick my mother up and brought her and my relatives, Myrna, Wyatt, and Bobby Terry. Not Bobby Terry, but Bobby. I think her last name was Terry. And I brought them all up to a video shoot, and the whole crew knew what was happening. They knew the story, and there was a knock on the door saying,

And the whole crew stopped. And John Lloyd Miller, who was my video director, he said, Moselle, why don't you grab that door? And she said, why? And he said, just grab it.

And, man, I hope Alzheimer's never gets me because I remember watching my mama's footsteps. She had on house shoes walking across that floor, man. And with every step she took, you know, I thought, man, I've done it. You know, I literally am fixing to change my mother's life in about 15 more steps. I come up here and beat the piss out of this place for this one moment.

moment in time. Isn't that good? And for a moment, man, my world stood still. It was a surreal moment. And my mother opened up that door and there stood Vince. I said, I told you.

and she jumped up in Vince's arms. She tried to stick her tongue down his mouth. He turned his head, but, and, you know, it's like, that was just a moment of, you know, I can't believe I pulled this off, you know, I mean, and it was by far, out of everything I've ever done in my entire life, you know, it was by far the biggest monumental moment. You know, there's always defining moments in people's lives as artists, but that was, and Vince is still a very close friend of mine to this day, so. Yeah.

Good night. Was that a good lead off question? I got to tell you this. I said something really, really strange happened. And I'm a firm believer that nothing happens by accident. Can you rewind a few minutes and you're talking about scraping your windshield with the Mark Chestnut CD. That's one of my favorite records, country records. I love that album.

I had no idea about that story, by the way. No idea. Thanks. So weird. This morning, early this morning, alarm goes off, eyes open. This is really weird. I woke up singing that song, Too Cold a Home, in my head this morning. Oh, my God. I'm not kidding you. Wow. And I haven't thought about that song in years. Really weird.

I mean, really strange. It's embedded. No, I mean, I get it. No, it's like the odds of that, though, like you're... It's embedded in my, you know, we were talking. Why didn't you scrape your windshield with a Garth Brooks record? I scraped something else with that. No, I'm kidding. Man. You know, man, it's...

I don't know how that happened, but I just know that I was on a mission, and that's what drove me was to do that because it's hard up here, man. Y'all know what you did. Is that emotion that you just had and moved us all? I mean, that was amazing. That's what's missing in today's Nashville to me. That's what's missing. The stories, the sacrifice, the true appreciation, man.

For it. That was a great, that was a great moment. There's so many of those that I've, I've made it a point later on in life and then y'all can ask me whatever, but I, I, there's stories that, that need to be told that will never get told unless I tell them because I was there just like you were there and you were there with Brad and Jason and everybody. And man, there there's people in this town that,

that have done so much for somebody with so little talent that, you know, didn't have the looks. If you, if Neil Thrasher pulled out a million dollars out of his account and said, sing a harmony part right now and I'll give you this. Me can't do it. Cause I can't hear it. You know, I can, I can't sing in key, but I can sing in key funny. If I, if I character it, I can, I can get closer anyway. Not good, but,

But, you know, from the friends, there's times when I get alone and Neil and I were talking when it gets quiet is when I have to be real careful. People say you shouldn't live in the past, but I do because it was it was a great time in my past in that in this in this world because it was hard. It was rewarding and people helped me, you know, Billy Ray Cyrus, you know.

I can't describe. My dad, I was on number two at Old Hickory. Not Old Hickory, but the golf course. Nashville Village. I was on that par three, and the ranger came down there and said, man, Cleet, I got to get you in the car. I said, what?

he said, got to get you in the car. And I said, man, my mom, all right. He said, mom's fine. I said, my dad. All right. And he said, I got to get you in the car. And I knew then, and now I lost it. I laid on the number two green, Ashboro village, just kicking, screaming, crying. And they got me the clubhouse. And the first person I called was Billy Ray Cyrus. I don't know why, you know, you become a friend and, uh,

And I called Billy, and you know what he said? I said, Billy, man, my dad's died. I'm over here at a damn golf course. I can't get home. My mom's home by herself. I don't know what to do. I was hysterical. And Billy Ray, just as calm, said, I can't get you no airplane ticket, buddy, but I can get you a damn airplane. I can get you home real quick.

And I thought, man, here's a guy. He couldn't get me a $125 airplane ticket. He'd get me a jet and never flinched. I didn't take him up on it. But just for somebody to think enough of you that quick, you know, to just say, I can't get the plane ticket, but I hook you up with an airplane real quick. And he did the same thing for me in Tampa, Florida. When I moved to Tampa in 2005, I could feel the demise of my career kind of happening, you know, and...

I went to Tampa, and I was knocking down some money, but I was away from my kid. She lived in West Virginia, and it was brutal. I used to call the ceiling a big-screen TV because I'd lay there at night and watch life leave. I'd sit there and go, God, look, I've got a couple hundred grand in the bank. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll take it to the YMCA, and I'll give it to the homeless shelter if you can make sure that I don't miss that daddy-daughter dance coming up this weekend. And I learned in Tampa that...

Once a memory is gone, you can't buy it back no matter how much money you have. It was unattainable at that point. And I was down there, and I interviewed Billy Ray down there. And after the interview, this was in 2006, I think, Billy had his hand in his pocket. And the interview was over, and we were standing up in the control room. And I kept hearing him fiddle with keys and stuff, you know, and stuff.

he was asking about caitlin you know and he's like well where do you stay with her when you go home to flatwoods you know because that's where he's from flat west where i was living you know or where caitlin was living

And I kept saying, yeah, you know, hotels. I go get her and drive back home to take her to my mom's. And the whole time, he's in his pockets. I'm thinking, damn, what the hell is going on? It was loud. And then he's still talking to me. He pulls out this big, like an old service station key chain with like 50 keys and a rabbit's foot. And I'm looking at it. I don't know what's going on. He's asking me all these questions.

And he takes that key, and he's got one key in his hand. He puts it back in his pocket, and he says, don't ever keep that key in the motel room again. I got too many houses. And he had that schoolhouse out there. And he said, that's the key to the schoolhouse. Call Mickey. Mickey will give you the code. You don't ever sleep in the motel room with that daughter again. You understand me? Who does that? Who does that to offer something like that up to just some old guy?

Like me, trying to give me a place to keep my daughter out of it. I'll tell you one thing in that story, which is great. My thought went to when he couldn't get you a plane ticket, but he gets you a plane ticket.

His assistant must have absolutely sucked. I mean, who couldn't get a plane ticket? He's got a plane. He's got employees. He has employees. He has to, you know, that was all, that was all Billy Ray just saying, I'm going to get you there quick. Yeah. And these are great stories. Like this is what I love most about this town, uh,

And the stories that not everyone gets to hear, everybody makes opinions of people, you know, they don't, they don't know anybody, but these, these stories and these are real natural stories, the way that it was. It happened. It happened. Toby was, uh, you know, God, God rest his soul. You know, man, I, I met Toby and, um,

I did the, how do you milk a cow? I wrote when he did, how do you like me now? And I did that, took it over to TK's office. And TK said, well, there's a good chance he's going to sue you. And I said, well, I got a cutlass with a T-top missing. He's welcome to have it. Before you finished, did you have to get permission in those days to parody a song? Oh, okay. So it was, ask forgiveness? Like, you know, the way it works is if I do a Kelly song or Neil, somebody's song, if I sold a million copies, I'm going to have to do a T-top.

They got all the money. I got nothing. The writers. And that was fine because it helped me to do live dates. The only person, believe it or not, not throwing anybody under the bus, the only person that ever came to me and said, I'll give you some publishing on that song. It's funny. Funnier than hell. And you'll never, ain't no way you could ever guess who it was. The legend. The legend, Tom T. Hall.

I did, uh, itty bitty, you know, and I did Mindy McCready, uh, God rest her soul. And Tom T said, man, that's funny shit I've ever heard. Hell, I'll give you the publishing on all of it, you know, just do it. And, uh, sorry for interrupting. I'm sorry about Toby. No, I mean, I, uh, that was a cool thing, but, uh, you know, on the Toby thing, I, and Toby and I did a CMT thing together. I'd never met him before, you know, and, uh,

the next thing you know, we, we came a little bit of friends and then, and that's when the Brooks and Dunn, the first year of the neon circus, 2001, it was, and I'll tell you how I got on that tour. I, I was afraid to fly. I didn't fly on airplanes. I was in a real bad air flying incident, broke my nose, ribs and stuff. And, uh,

when I was out with Kenny Chesney and flying into Orlando. And so I was really afraid to fly. I was on an Amtrak train going to California. Listen to me. Is that how you went gig to gig? I left out of Memphis going. I look like Catherine Hepburn when I got there. I was like,

Yeah, just shaking and bobbing. And you should have saw me. I had no computers. That was in 2001. I had no computer. You should have saw me writing a letter to Ronnie Duggan. It was like when you do a lie detector test. And I wrote this note to Ronnie and Kix, and I said, you don't know me probably,

But I got a song out, and I'm selling some records. And, man, if you'll put me out on that Brooks and Dunn tour, I'll host that thing for you, and I'll emcee it. And you don't have to pay me nothing. I'll go for free. You don't have to pay me nothing. I faxed it from New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico. When we stopped, I faxed it to Clarence. Oh, yeah. And I sent it to Clarence. And when I got to L.A., San Francisco, I forgot where we were going.

The people downstairs said, we have a fax here waiting on you if you'd like to come down and get it. I never put the two together. I went down, got the fax, took it to my room, opened the envelope. It's from Ronnie Dunn. Ronnie said, my friend, if you think enough about what we're doing on this tour to work for free, then I think enough of you to pay you. Oh, wow. Wow. And I tell you what, that's amazing. And also, like, Clarence Spaulding, like,

Yeah. And Jason's my best friends and one of my mentors, you know, I love him. And Ronnie and they're all such a good. I don't know what happened to that letter because, you know, I didn't I didn't keep it or whatever. Didn't think nothing about it. But what inspired what transpired that that summer was the best four months of my life ever. And I've done I've been.

I've been an alcoholic. I've been a drug addict. I've been a star at some point for whatever word that encapsulates or whatever. But what transpired that summer was something that I can't remember a lot of. But the best part of that is I became, and Goose will tell you back there, me and Toby Keith was inseparable for a long time. I don't know why. I fell in love with him. I think he fell in love with my humor because I made him laugh.

And I'm going to give you two things that that man did for me. He was good to my mother. He like he would call my mom and talk to her. And we we spent a lot. He bought a Versace. Him and Tricia bought a Versace rocking chair for my daughter when she was born, which probably cost more than what it was to deliver her. You know, it was a very expensive rocking chair. And.

When we were out on that tour, my mother had a heart attack when we were in Bakersfield, California. I was as far away from Georgia as you can get, you know, and Toby knew I didn't fly. And so I was bawling my eyes out in my bunk and no eagle I had out there, you know. And Toby came on to the bus and pretty much got in the bunk with me.

And he said, look here, Hoss, and you can hear him say it. I got this envelope here. He said, I know you don't like to fly, but he said, what I've done is I've bought you plane vouchers all the way back home. If your mom gets sick in Albuquerque, you can fly out of Albuquerque. If she gets sick in Phoenix, you can fly out of Phoenix. If you make it to Dallas,

You get in Dallas, go to Love Field. If you go to Little Rock, you can go fly on. He had this whole thing, him and David Milo, y'all know David, mapped out the whole way. And, man, I just bawled my eyes out. Well, here I got on that bus at O'Eagle, and we drove all the way across the country, three and a half days, three days, I think, you know, to get home. And the Sunday, I missed the last weekend of the tour. Now, you got to understand, that was the best weekend.

four months of my life. And here I am in Georgia on the last night of the tour when O'Connell and everybody's out, you know, and doing, doing their thing. I was so hurt. I was sad, man. And I went and got everybody's CD that was on that tour. And Alan Jackson had sold me a yellow Corvette while I was out on that tour. And he said, I'm going to sell it to you at a good price. Just don't sell it. Keep it. Cause someday, you know, just, just keep it. I did the pop-top video with him.

so I bought it. I said, well, you signed the visor? And he said, by God, he signed the visor. I sold that son of a gun in three weeks. I made a fortune. I made a fortune. Time's tough. You know, I didn't save all my money like I should. No, it's amazing. So, I,

I was in the Corvette that Allen gave me, or I bought from Allen. And I rode around that whole Sunday, and I put in Eddie and Troy. I listened to Montgomery Gentry. I take it out, put in Keith Urban, listened to it. Put in Kix Ronnie, listened to it. Everybody, Toby, listened to it. Well, about 6.30 that evening, my phone rings, and it was Joey Floyd. Y'all remember Joey? Joey was Toby's acoustic player, right-hand man. I thought, man, why is Joey calling me? He should be on stage right now.

I answered the phone. It was just loud. And I said, hello. And Joey said, shut up and hang on. I thought, what the hell? And the next thing I heard in the background, the late Toby Keith on that microphone saying, it was in Virginia Beach or I think it was Virginia Beach. And he said, hey, everybody. About 15,000 there probably. We're missing a member of the show tonight. I'll try to get through this best I can. He said, okay.

Cletus T. Judd hosted this entire tour, and he was not able to be here tonight. His mom's sick, and he's in Georgia. And I was just wondering if all 15,000 of y'all could give me a little Cletus chant just for a minute. And, man, what I heard on that phone was, Cletus, Cletus, Cletus, from 15,000 people. And Joey handed Toby the phone. Toby said, love you, pal. See you later. And, man, you know what?

Who does that for somebody? It takes that time in front of... Toby was making $50,000 a night on that tour at that time. I know exactly what he was making. But Toby was a bigger-than-life figure. And he did that for me. He knew. And we remained super close for a lot of years. Now towards the end, we didn't spend as much time out of sight, out of mind. The story with...

The one you heard on TL's podcast, me and Toby and Scotty Emmerich was out one night in TK. This was in 2003 or 2004, I think. We was eating steaks downtown. What's the name? Yeah, Morton's.

Toby was paying because hell I couldn't pay too much Scotty was there you know he's so tired he squeaks so he sure wasn't going to pay so we were all sitting there some dude come over to the table and was like let me have your autograph talking to Toby Toby said I'd be glad to sign your autograph after we get done eating he said thank you too good Toby said nope just letting you know I'll sign it after we eat the guys know where to be found you know me and Toby and Scotty go somewhere else TK goes home

We're at another bar downtown, drinking a little more hammered at that time. Here comes that guy again. He goes up to Toby. He says something to Toby. I don't know what it was, but Toby said no, and the guy left. So about 1 o'clock in the morning, Brenner's Alley. Where's that place flat starting? Oh, yeah. Fiddling Steel. Fiddling Steel. Well, nobody left but me and Toby, last two men standing.

And we was sitting at a round table, and there was about eight people in there. T.K. says Eric Church was in there, but I don't remember. He'd just get started if that's the case. But me and Toby was at a table away from the bar. I was in a chair, and he was in the other chair. We were just talking, just friends, you know, just hammered in the time of our life.

Here that guy comes. I thought this ain't going to be good. We all hammered. He's hammered. It ain't going to be good. This guy wasn't five foot nothing. He comes up to the table and says, uh,

How much you and your buddy there talking about, man, how much y'all pay to get y'all's hair bleached out like a couple of wrestlers on the NWA? Oh, no. I thought it was funny. Toby didn't. And Toby got up, and he got that guy in the offless position I've ever seen. Like when you carry a 12-pack of beer out of the convenience store, he had him by that guy's belt loop, and that guy was just kicking, you know, and Toby was walking him out, and Toby dropped him.

And I thought, okay, I got two choices. I can sit here and watch Toby just brawl this guy because he's got it under control. Or I can go over there and get me one good lick in just so Toby knows that I got his back. Because he can't get to me. Toby won't let him.

So I ran over there, dude, and I draw back, and I come up under, and I mean, I hit. You could have heard the loudest splatter. My hand exploded, blood went everywhere. Toby's like, don't kill him. They'll put us in prison. They're going to put us in for homicide. And I said, I got him, Toby. I got him. And Toby walked him out of there, and he comes back. I'm at the table. The waitress over there wrapping my hand up, blood all over my clothes. And Toby said, what'd you do that for, fool? I said, I wanted you to know.

that for all you've done for me, that tonight I had your back.

And he said, man, that means a lot. And I never had the chance to tell him that I hit the damn concrete floor. I never let a hand on that dude. I mean, I just buried it in the floor. And I never for 20 years. Hey, it was a thought that counts. Yeah, I just let it rise. God, before we go to break, because we're going to do that just a little bit and then come back. I'm sorry, I probably talked too much. No, no, you're good. But the Toby Keith thing is great. And we've had the...

ultimate pleasure knowing Toby a little and then we had the wonderful honor of seeing him not too long before he passed he came out to a show and we spent the night with him it was unbelievable but the remake and the rewrite you did in honoring him you want to talk about that because that was fantastic going with the old man I was in a hotel room in Elizabethtown Kentucky I was coming to town to write to record do a demo or something I don't know what it was some little silly song and

it was the day after Toby had passed away and, and it really, really felt like all of us, you know what I mean? It, it bothered me a lot. I mean, it was just horrible. And, uh, I thought, you know what, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do something for Toby. I'm gonna, I'm gonna rewrite, you know, most of my parodies have always been funny, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna sit here. I'm gonna call a buddy of mine up and I'm gonna, I'm gonna write it over the phone with, uh, I think I called, uh,

I forgot who Chase Smith, some friends of mine, you know, and Neil wouldn't answer. And you know what? And all of a sudden I thought, no, no, I'll write it by myself. Cause Toby would, Toby wrote his by his self. I got, I got a man up, see if I can do it.

So I wrote it that night and rewrote it, wrote it, rewrote it. You know how it goes, and it may not sound like it, but I went in the next day and cut it over at Larry Baird's place, you know, and it was probably the most, one of the biggest videos that I'd ever done, you know, and like I say, I'm not a good singer or anything, but I felt just some kind of tribute, you know, to somebody that,

again, man, when I, when it gets quiet on me, all of these things, you know, come back. And I think how, how, well, that was beautiful. My brother, seriously, that was, that was an incredible song. And I appreciate that. Um,

This is a great conversation. We're here with Cletus T. Judd. Hold on. We've got to get a couple words from our sponsor. We've got to pay those bills, man. Oh, yeah. Where do I pick my check up? There you go. We'll let you know in the break. I just want a round of golf. It's coming. It's coming. Yeah, Clarence has it. That's easy. That's the easy part. Stay with us. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

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All right. Welcome back to the Try That in a Small Town podcast. We're here in the Patriot Mobile Studios. K-Lo, Thrash, TK, and, of course, Cletus T. Judd. We had to wipe our eyes. We're all good. We refreshed our makeup. You should be in this brain all the time. Chase Brooks told me I could be up for duo and group of the year. I had so many personalities. I'll tell you how bad it got. Listen to this. This is going to kill you right here. Yeah.

some people know this story. There's a dude sitting behind me back here. It's been one of my best friends for 25 years. He works for Morgan Wallen now, but we've been running together for a long time and right in the middle of my heyday when I was knocking it down,

I went and bought a big, massive A-frame house out in Temple Hills. Right around Susie Boggess. She was my neighbor behind me. It's big. And I went in and redone it. You know, I've been known to, I mean, I remodeled them things. I turned them into the most unbelievable pimp pads you've ever seen. But there was a problem with that. My mentality would not allow me for years. I'm not talking about just at this point. For years, I

to sleep in a house or be anywhere by myself. I've told you all along, you know, when it's quiet, it's really loud for me. Much louder back then. I've found ways to quiet some of that. But when I lived in Tampa, I lived in an apartment, a post apartment, which is very exclusive, gated, and I literally would put a pot in

underneath the door knob and would put a spoon on the door knob in case somebody ever tried to turn my door knob, it'd land in the pot and I'd wake up. So it was a two bedroom apartment. I'd sleep on this end for about an hour and a half. And I'd walk down the hall and sleep. I would make sure there wasn't nobody coming in, you know, through the windows. I would never say I was paranoid because I wasn't doing drugs at this point. But I was just really afraid my whole life, my entire life,

I've always been afraid to stay by myself. It is what it is. It's better now. But I bought this house in Temple Hills. I remodeled it, and I never spent a night in it. Never. And I was getting really tired, and I called Goose back here, and I said, Goose, man, you come stay with me. I said, I really want to spend a night in my own house.

if you could. He understood. He knows me better than anybody in the world. He said, absolutely. I'm in. I said, you know, I got this really nice house. I overlooked the golf course, you know, and I had a security system, that thing, that Dan Bongino would like to have. Yeah, you couldn't get in it. I'm just telling you right now, it was rock solid. I mean, that thing had buttons.

buttons and I was connected to the police, the fire department, the CIA. And so me and Goose hung out. We went downtown, got about half hammered and come back to the house and we hung out for a while, had a few drinks and then Goose went to his bedroom and I went to mine. Big old, big, big...

I just went into a realm sleep, you know, just dozed off on that Ambien, you know, eyes out. And all of a sudden, whoop, intruder. Brenda seven, whoop, door eight. Dude, I'm telling you, I come up out.

bed, ran to that keypad. I could see where they was coming in at you. I hit the number, the 911 number. I literally rolled across my bed like Hutch did. I rolled across my bed and I always left my window. I was up real high. It was an A-frame. I was up high. I always left my window cracked about that much.

so I could get out that son of a bitch if I had to. Oh my God. And I raised that window up all the way and I jumped out that window and I was screaming, Goose, get out!

Get out. Get out. They're in here. They're in here. And I landed in shrubs and tore my legs. I was bleeding like a stuck hog. And I raised up, and it was that fool, went out the door trying to go see his girlfriend and snuck out the front door. And I cussed him. I said, I've called the law, the police. He said, I'm a grown man, and if I want to leave this house, I'll leave it. I'm never coming back.

and he left and guess what i did i went to a motel oh my god still never i was gonna say did you ever spend another night there one night i don't know if y'all know mike or not yeah yeah it might be your account i don't know yeah he is mike called me and he said hey sell it motel bills more than a mortgage and i sold it i never spent the night in then i moved from there to the governor's club because i felt

You know, got a couple of gates there. Joe Don's right down front. You know, I literally, that's the first time I ever looked down on Joe Don. Fred Miller, you know, from the Titans there. Man, I had all, I was safe. First night. You're going to ask who? First night, couldn't do it.

Where do you think that's from? I don't know, but I called, if you remember, if y'all are associated with the flats and I remember Larry Jones. Flats? Who's that? Oh, well, they're a group they try and start up. Larry was Gary's bus driver, you know, for years. I was out with him at the time when I bought the house. I said, Larry, man, if you'll move in with me.

I'll let you live for free. I got a big old spread over there. You don't ever pay a nickel. Just be there for me. And one night, man, I heard something. I thought somebody coming in again. And I ran out in the big old living room, and I looked up on that catwalk, and Larry was walking up back and forth the catwalk with a gun in his hand. Said, I ain't letting that happen to you, boss. I got two guns.

Two gates in front of me that there ain't no way you can get to me. And Larry's walking the cat walking the guns in. Ain't nothing going to happen to us in here. But guess what? Sold it. Oh, my gosh. Sold it. It got better. It got better. I don't know. The addiction, by this point, the addiction thing...

had gotten, I'm sure that had something to do with it. Although it had dissipated to some degree, you know, it wasn't near as bad cause it would, it was really dangerous for me to make money and had, had been an ad. So you were using through the early stages of the career. Up until what I'm going to tell you. Okay. Um, I was married to, if y'all remember her, a great singer up here, one, one of the best, I think Julie Reeves back in the day, Julie and I became great friends, got married. And, um,

got divorced soon after. It didn't last long. Three or four months and

I actually went up to the, uh, to Ashland, to the Paramount and surprised her. We were still friends, you know, and, and, uh, I went up there and watched her sing one night and surprised her. And she's like, well, where are you staying at? And I said, well, over at the Ashland Plaza. And she said, well, I'll just come and hang. We'll catch you up. And that $189 hotel room cost me 250,000 in child support. Cause that's what I paid. Um, but yeah, Julie got pregnant, which was all great. Best thing that ever happened to me. But, um,

September 11, 2004, Julie went into labor, and we went to Vanderbilt, and Caitlin was born in the wee hours of September the 11th. And standing in that hospital room, I had $1,500 in cash in one pocket, and I had a half ounce of cocaine in the other pocket. And after Caitlin was born, I said, you know what, I'm going to go to the hospital.

I got to go use, you know, I got to calm down. It was a big event, you know, whatever. So I went on, I think it was the sixth floor of Vanderbilt. And it was 3, 4 in the morning. And I went into this bathroom at Vanderbilt. And it was, and y'all know the kind. It was old tile floors, the chrome mirror and the doors. And nobody was in there. And I took the bag of cocaine out. And I had a quarter in my pocket.

And I dug the quarter down into the bag and I got about right here. And I thought, oh, somebody's watching me. I'm busted. I'm busted. This is it. And you'll never guess who was standing there. Chris Cagle. Me. Looking in a mirror. Yeah. As ugly, morbid as I'd ever looked in my life. And I thought, you son of a bitch. All you've ever wanted was a kid.

All you wanted to be was a daddy because you didn't have one. And you're going to come in here in this bathroom and do what you're fixing to do. You don't deserve that kid. And I took that cocaine. I slung it against the wall in the stall. I slung it up against the wall. And a half ounce of cocaine is a lot. And it went everywhere, everywhere. And I got down on my knees. Here I have sold millions of records. No people like y'all.

You people like Paisley and Toby and done things that I never imagined. And here I am in a bathroom on my hands and knees with my hands in the toilet, throwing water up on a wall to hide the evidence. 15 years of addiction. And I was throwing the water on the wall. I thought, you know, while I'm down here, I might need to fix this.

And on my hands and knees in the bathroom at Vanderbilt Hospital, I said, God, I appreciate it, man, if you help a brother out. Because, man, I just want to be a dad. I just want to be a good dad. And I stood up out of that floor, and I dropped that quarter. For some reason, I'll never know. Maybe y'all will write it one day. I'll never know the significance. I dropped the quarter in the floor, and I leaned up against the sink, and I watched that quarter drop.

On its side, you know, just where it hit, it was just going round and round in a circle. And the circle got smaller and smaller. And I said, when that quarter stops, so do I. The quarter stopped. I picked it up, put it in my wallet where it sits today since 2004, and I never used again, ever. No relapse, no uh-ohs.

No, nothing. See, my love for my kid was stronger than the love for the drug, but that's not the case much anymore. You know, so many people I work in recovery, some to help other addicts, you know, to have some kind of life and let them know that they matter. You know, Lawrence County Recovery up in Ohio where I live at in Lawrence.

I was a lucky one. You know, she saved my life, man. My daughter saved my life and gave me a chance to be a dad because, like I said, I grew up with – didn't have much of one. So I try to be a decent one now. Oh, my God. So are you working – did you say you're working with –

addicts or recovering? I do. A couple of days a week, I do a podcast called My Road to Recovery where myself and Kathy Ross and Donna, we interview addicts and we let them tell their story, how long they've been clean. Let me tell you something, dude. My story, I shut up because it fails in comparison to what those people have been through. We don't have enough time. We have to do two episodes. But I give them the outlet of

to let them know, look here, if this hood right here can do it. And I know that's so cliche and people use it. Oh, if I can do it, you can do it. But, man, I got to be some kind of beacon of hope for these people because they're the forgotten ones. They're swept on the rug. They're left to die. And if I can just make sure that maybe one of them, one of them gets a day or two clean, you know, my story, you know,

When they did my Inside Fame on CMT, remember the Inside Fames? I was actually out on my first year with Brooks and Dunn. And I watched that Inside Fame, my story, with Brian O'Connell, with Kix, Ronnie, Toby, Keith Urban, Troy, and Eddie, on one bus watching my fat ass on this big old television. There wasn't no flat screen at that point. And, you know, the weirdest thing was we watched the whole thing.

none of them ever said a word. They didn't know what to say when they heard the stories, you know, and this before I was, I wasn't even clean by this point. And I came home to remember showing his in down to Mumbra Hall of Fame behind it. I was in the Hall of Fame lounge and,

And a girl come up to me and she said, oh, my God, are you Cletus? I said, yeah, she's young, you know, 20s, whatever. She said, my name is so-and-so. That's going to get you. She said, my name is whatever it was. And she said, I'm a songwriter from Seattle, Washington. I moved here about two years ago. She said, I've done everything I know to do. She said, I finally just said I can't do it.

So last Saturday, I was packing up all my boxes and I called my mother and my dad and I said, just bring the U-Haul. It's going to take you a few days to get here. And she said, I was packing my boxes and I had CMT on. And she said, I was watching your Inside Fame. And she said, after every commercial break, I was unpacking them boxes. She said, I went from packing the boxes to go home to unpacking them to say, I can do this. If he can do it,

I can do it. I don't know what ever happened to the girl, but maybe, just maybe, whoever she was, she might have stayed around an extra year or two to give it a shot.

So, yeah, it's worth it. All the heartache, the craziness, the whatever you, the mentality, all that, it's worth it 100%. I'd do it again just exactly like I did it the first time to help somebody not have to go through what I went through. Take one for the team. Amen. Jesus did. I can do it too. Amen.

So, there you go. You look fantastic. Feel all right. You know, I would say I'm getting a little older. I love golf. Man, you know, with a passion. What's your handicap? What's your handicap? Uh-oh. No handicap. Scratch. We got a couple. Four? Six from the back tees. We could use him on our team against Neil. We could. We could use you on our team. Neil would be better than me. I love to play with a passion. You know, man, if it weren't, we were talking off there, if it weren't for golf, man, I'd

I don't know what I would do. I was the oldest guy in the state of Kentucky in 2018 to qualify for the Kentucky State Amp. And all my buddies were like, why do you do that? Why are you going to go waste a couple of days knowing damn good and well you can't do it? I said, man, you're talking to the wrong dude. That's a fact. Yeah, you're talking to the wrong – because what I think is, man, the minute I try, the minute I stick the T in the ground, first T, nerves, jitter, and all that, I won. I won because I made the effort. Yeah.

I made the effort. I made, I made the cut last year. I finished second in the West Virginia senior open. Uh, I love to play. And we were talking about Rory yesterday, you know, watching the masters and man, I could so relate to Roy when he hit them knees, man, I bawled. Like I told my wife, I said, that's what I feel like when I lose a, a hole with Gary LaBox right there. So I, I,

I felt for Rory because like you said, man, that's a lot of years of trying. And then when you finally do something worthwhile, man, when you finally go, man, God, like my mom, it's like I get the emotion. I get it. It's just unfortunate a lot of people won't show it, you know.

I don't know if I want to play you now. Oh, yeah, you got me. You know, I play with Joe Don a lot. I think you're lying when you say four. Your handicap's four. I'll show you on the map there. I think it's a lie. You haven't been turning scores. I turn them every one. You want to. I was trying to think who the best golfer in our – I can tell you, we were talking about, I can tell you who the worst texters are in our business if we want to go down that route. And number one on the list is your buddy,

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Single head. I hope you're watching. My will was made out to Gary when Caitlin was born. You know, that's how much I loved him. Love him now to this day. Because I knew if I died, Caitlin wouldn't have to get on the pole. You know, Gary would step in and take care of her. But now the problem is my wife getting to him to say, hey, Caitlin hung it. You know, Barry died yesterday.

His will's mad. Because he won't return the text. You've got to understand, he doesn't return his brother's text. I know! It's unbelievable. His only full brother, he will not return his text. He doesn't return my text. He's on his own deal. Here's a conversation text-wise. I've known him for 25 years, so you know as well as I do. It's unbelievable. Now, here is a text. We can call him out right now. This is good. This is really good. Here's a group text with

With the flats. I'm going to tell you how it goes. Okay. Put them all on there. I'm lucky to have their numbers, just like y'all are. Hey, guys. What's going on? Jay. Doing great, man.

Joe Don, yeah, man, we've got to play some golf. Gary, yeah, man, you know, Tara, Brittany, Brooklyn, everybody's good. Awesome. Hey, great show last night. I saw the new video, you know, Fast Cars and Freak. Yeah, man, it was great. Jay, you killed it. Yeah, thanks a lot, man. That's wonderful. Joe Don, oh, yeah, we've got to get on that golf course. Next text. Hey, guys, that song we wrote last week, any shot at...

Crickets. Crickets. Y'all there? No, we didn't. Hey, hey. And then two years later, Joe and I will go, nah. I don't know what man he's referring to. That was two years ago when I asked him a question. Cletus, I learned that lesson a long time ago. You never ask an artist about a song that you pitched to them or wrote with them. Oh, I know.

You never do it because they cannot stand. They hate telling you bad news. Well, buddy, they don't hate telling me. I wrote a hundred with them. I finally got, you know, here's the thing. I wrote this thing with all three of the guys one time. It's called The Way. And Gary Conn said, yeah, man, it's on the record. We've already cut it. Jay produced it. Man, I was living in Tampa. I called every friend I had, told them it was on the record. I know y'all probably all had one on there. I go to the store to get it.

bonus track. Oh, bonus track. Exclusive bonus track. Cocker barrel special. Oh, it just made me want to throw up. It was a great song. I was glad to have it. Right. But then when Gary did his solo thing, you know, I wrote a thing with him working on Sunday, you know, and he got that. Oh, that's a good one.

Brantley, you know, I can't say or tell y'all compared to what all y'all have had cut. But Brantley, he cut a thing called Three Feet of Water. I wrote my book. I've already got like 14 song titles tonight. You know that, right? Man, I hope. That's the hardest thing I've ever done in the business. No question. Joe Don signed me to a published deal in 2008.

2008 or nine, he called me and said, man, there's more, more to you than what you're doing. And he said, I want to, I want you to write for me at Sony and Troy, you know, Troy was over there at the time and they signed me and I stayed there for three or four years and, and didn't have a lot of success. Um, wrote a lot, you know, a lot of funny stuff. Then I went to Warner chapel, Alicia and those guys. And, and, um, man, when, when I, when I got baptized, um,

several years ago. I never had a lot of success on writing, you know, by whatever reason. Maybe I just suck. I don't know. But right before I get ready to get baptized, man, I was standing there. Caitlin was only seven or eight years old. Man, right before I was getting ready to go in the water,

I had this Quentin Tarantino moment of every bad thing that I'd ever done in my life. The abuse, what I went through as a kid, my dad with guns and the money and the drugs and every negative thing a man could relive in his life. And it was the damnedest thing. It was all in black and white. It was just all black and white. And then all of a sudden, man, it's like,

I'm going to leave all that in that three feet of water right there. Fix it, set it down. I'm going to go in this water one way, I'm going to come out another way. And I went in, came out, and two days later I had that idea called Bussy, Jace Hine, and Brantley, and we wrote it, and it was really the first, you know, gold record that I ever got for writing, you know.

And that was a songwriting is really hard, you know, so hard. I got so much respect for people that do it on the level that y'all, you know, y'all have been able to do it on. And it's hard. And I never I still love it with a passion. I love the creative part. I love to be around people that are creative and don't think for a minute. And I'll tell you when it's written.

It'll get pitched. I'm going to tell you right now, I'm the best damn song plugger in the world. I'll call them up at midnight. Hey, you know how many song ideas me and Kalo have gotten on the golf course? Oh, yeah. There ain't no telling. That means we're going to have to play a lot of golf together. I think you're full of great ideas and great titles. I don't know. Are you writing –

So is it mostly like original songs right now or is it still some parody? So a few weeks ago and you know, on, on lucky man, you know, I wrote it, uh, me and my buddy Chris and man, I did a video on that snuck in and went covert in Bucky's and right outside of Lexington with an iPhone and, uh, and had ear pods in, I was, you know, acting like I was shopping and we shot the video for $300 and that thing as of yesterday, I think it's got a million, 800,000 views, you know, and,

But I will tell you this, and I'm going to tell you straight up, it does not. I've done it so long and had so, man, I was on Sony and Warner Brothers and Curb. And, I mean, I've been so fortunate to have record deals. Man, it's unbelievable. Here again, can't sing a damn lick. Nothing. Yeah, I was in, if y'all remember Luke Lewis, I know y'all know Luke. Yeah, yeah. Man, when I got dropped at Sony, I called Luke. I wrote a thing, called the chicks, did it.

and i called luke you know luke was had them and i said man can i you know i'm selling some records he said yeah come on over here man i'd love to talk to you come on over i've been that big old office i think it was at the music mill or somewhere down there uh wherever mercury was that glass building you know right there with all that glass here right there on the left on on uh i guess that's 17 yeah and i played it for luke and he listened till we talked for a minute he

Halfway through it, he hit that button, pulled that CD out, and broke it in half. Bam, broke it. Don't you bring this horse in here to me. What do you think I am? I got these girls under contract. Make amends, you idiot. Don't you ever. I said, Luke, I'm just trying to get a deal. I wasn't trying to get no fight. Nothing. He said, but here's what I will do. I'll give you $100,000 out of my bank account. You go cut your record. You sell it. Do it on your own. We'll split the profit. How's that? Ask him.

sitting right there in his office. What kind of man does that for me? I'd blow 100 grand in no time. I'd be down at the strip club with that. But Louis literally said, I won't give you your record deal, but I will give you 100 grand out of my bank account. You go do the record, sell it, and recoup my money, let's profit. I didn't know what to do. I didn't take it. I didn't know how to do no record. I didn't know how to do it.

but that was that was cool him to do that you know i was talking about that and i just started thinking about when you first did the indian in-laws and then what should i have the second song the the way it went was um indian laws was first and then i did a thing called gone funky on alan jackson that's the one cmt sent back immediately and then i got a record deal at razor and ty

And they gave me $13,000. I still got the contract. They gave me $13,000 to do the record. I spent $7,800 of it and sent the rest back. I didn't know I could keep it. I was starving to death. What are you doing? What are you doing? Send it back. Send it back. Send it back to them. That record sold. I had a $7,500 budget. It sold, I think, right at $900,000. My favorite title, though. I remember laughing when I saw this. You have to tell me what year it was.

Did I shave my back for this? Oh, I got the best Dana Carter story. That's it. And I love Dana. Dana's so sweet. She was great, too. What year was that? Because when I saw that, I remember laughing so hard. I was like, this is amazing. 2000. I think it was right in 2000. I was on Sony. Yeah, Dana did the video with me. And Dana knows the story, so I'll tell it anyway. I love Dana Carter with a passion. She's a dear friend.

I had to hodge for Dina. Well, who didn't? I know. But, you know, I'm heavier, Sam. You know, I didn't have much of a chance like some of them did. But I talked to Dina on the phone, you know, and we would talk. And so I asked her, I said, hey, you know, ladies music row golf tournament's coming up this weekend, you know, or Monday. You know, what do you think about me and you, Sam?

riding out there together you know and she's like well i'd love that that'd be great that'd be great that's how she said i thought oh me and goose talking about this coming over here i thought well i'm taking dina carter on a date i better go buy a porsche so i went sean petty i think it was sean it's time yeah i bought a 911 no way porsche i swear to god bought a 911 picked up dina in it

Going down the road, I reached over and put my hand on her hand. She put her hand on top of mine. I thought, I'm in. I

I'm in. I'm strawberry, wine, liquor, whatever. I'm in. Because she touched my hand. I was like, this is unbelievable. 9-11, we get to that ladies' museum, I'm like, I'll see you afterwards. Enjoy your day. I'll go do my thing. Meet up back here. I'm thinking the whole day, where am I going to take her? About 5-30. Anybody seen Dana? Yeah.

No, I ain't saw Dina. I think I know whose bus, where Dina was at. She says she wasn't, but I sold the Porsche the next day. I lost $15,000. Did you tell her you bought the Porsche? Oh, yeah. Strictly for that date? Absolutely. Really? Absolutely. You could have rented it. Yeah. I know. I didn't know. I was mad. I was fixing to pick up Dina Carter. Yeah.

And I literally bought it from Sean, kept it for three or four days, and then sold it somewhere. I think I lost $50,000. So the feeling of...

We all know that feeling of victory when she put her hand on top of yours. I'll never forget it. I'm thinking about it now. That makes me think of his other record called Cletus Envy. Yeah, that was a fun one. That was a good one. Cletus Envy, then I did Bipolar and Proud. But the chain of events were like If Shaddaa Was Mine,

But bigger than the Beatles, I wrote with Billy Lawson. If y'all know Billy, I wrote it in the Shoney's parking lot in that old truck. Cletus went down to Florida, Mindy McCready. And then after that, man, I left from Razor and Tide, which was in New York. And then Alan Butler and Mike Kraske signed me at Sony. They gave me a $125,000 advance and said, welcome to Sony. And they kept me for two years.

Did okay. You know, great day to be a guy. The Christmas record I did at Sony's, the best record I ever done, ever. I put it up against. Yeah, Clee Dust, Navidad. Yeah, it was the best record I ever done. Funniest record I think I'd ever done. I left there, ended up going to Koch.

That's what I did. I love NASCAR and that one got mom out of the trailer there. Yeah. That was a good one. That charted good. Yeah, it did. It did. So when did, but when did it like end? Did McGraw, what was the point that it became like a badge of honor to these artists to be buried? I thought when I did Every Light in the House is Blown. Yeah.

That's the best one. Which is great. Trace did an interview and said, hey, when Cletus does one of your songs, you know you've made it. Yeah, so did McGraw reach out or was that too early in the game? I became friends. Again, man, those songs were my lottery tickets. You know what? I'm pissed that you never did one of mine. I can pick one off the wall and do it. I'm really, really pissed. But now I've done it for so long, I almost published it.

I'm kidding. You're not. We were something else. We were never too late. But yeah, you know, McGraw. But if you think about it, when I went to Curb and I did that Ray Stevens tribute album,

For three months leading up to the recording of that record, they told me that it would never happen. They said, what you're envisioning, we'll give you the budget, but it'll never happen. I did it on Koch, which was not a big label at the time. Bob Frank and those guys, Chuck Rose, my dear friend.

And I listened to nothing for three months, nothing in my car ever, nothing other than Ray Stevens records, every one of them. I mean, I had his inflections down. I mean, I had as close as one can get to his idol because Ray was my idol. You know, he was my he was my somebody that I him and Weird Al, you know, is who I looked up to. And so I went in the studio with this vision of, you know, I wonder if I could get one on him.

I wonder if Winona would come and sing, you know, On Everything's Beautiful. I wonder if I get Michael English. I love Michael English. I wonder if Michael would come and sing On Everything's Beautiful. I wonder if I could maybe Trace, you know, might drop by and sing on. And I wonder if I could get Joe Diffie to sing With Jesus Wearing a Rolex. Oh, no, Joe won't do that. Well, I wonder if Vince Gill and Sonia Isaacs might sing Misty, you know. The next thing you know, man.

Every single one of them people walked into that studio. The flats sang on everything. It was beautiful. It was overwhelming. And then the last song I did was The Streak. And Ray Stevens walked in.

I told my buddy Chris Clark, who helped produce, I said, shit, I'm going outside, dude. I can't do this. I can't watch it. I can't do it. And Ray, somebody, you know, as a kid, man, you know, Ray Stevens is in a vocal booth on some tracks that me and my buddy Chris cut and is going, here he comes, boogie-dad, boogie-dad. And I thought, man.

defining moment in a man's life. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. Sometimes I get that record out and listen to all Darryl Worley sang on it, Trace and Vince. That version of Vince and Sonja Isaacs did a Misty I thought was Grammy award winning. They nailed it. What's the Brad Paisley story? The auto fool. I just want to know because Kalo's here and

They have a huge, huge history. You're known to pull a prank. Oh, the prank. Okay, I thought you were talking about the Dixie Chick song. No, no, no. I want to hear about the prank. The prank was when we were out there on the Brooks and Dunn tour last night, the tour, and, you know, all them buses, about 15 or 16 or 20 of them lined up down through there. We all ready to go. It was the last year I was out there. Who all was on that tour, Kev? Do you remember? I don't know. Brad and the Flats, I think, were –

I can't remember, but I know Brad was on it. And we all got ready to leave. They all wanted us to go at the same time. We all pulled out of the venue at the same time. Last night, everybody ready to go home. I'm on my bus, kicks Ronnie, everybody all. Oh, don't tell me the bus ain't going to crank. Kicks his bus. Ronnie, come pace his bus ride. Down the side of them leaves.

He done unhooked everybody's jumper cables, and none of the buses would crank. He wanted to go and get out first, and he got out first. And we all sat there with dead batteries on our tour buses. So thanks, Brad, if you're watching.

Yeah, thanks, Brad. Kelly, you didn't have nothing to do with that, did you? I did not. You know, Kelly wrote a song that I cut, I guess, how long ago? Three or four or five months ago. Did you do a parody of one of his? No. I'm sure I did. Yeah, a bunch of them. They were already parodies. No.

They're kind of worried. Big-ass parodies. I had to do some of y'all's along the way. I'm sure I did. But I was in Tampa going down to do a show, and I heard a song on Sunday. Brad was singing it, and I thought, man, it was playing on this guy who does a Christian show, you know, and it was Brad's song. I thought, let's do about a verse and a chorus. And I thought, hell, Brad's an atheist.

I mean, I didn't ever knew that Brad could not be a Christian, me listening to this song. And then I thought, now I know Brad Paisley well enough to know there's going to be some kind of hook in here that's going to get me saved, you know. And...

I listened to it, and it moved me to tears. It's called Those Crazy Christians that they wrote. Wow. Look at this. He was ready for this story. I thought it might come up. I wasn't going to bring it up myself. You know, I may ask you to sing this. I don't know how to sing it. It's an old song. Yeah.

I like how you got two pages, but only three lines on page two. Well, it's because I was in a hurry and I didn't reduce the font. I was doing good on the song until it got to, and I'm glad you pulled this out, when it got to, because it was the first time I ever heard it, so I didn't know where it was going. I just knew that there was something fixing up. Yeah. Make me pull over. Y'all know how I am. It's going to be the M. Night Shyamalan moment. When it got to the part where it said,

And every now and then they made up, I can't do it. Yeah, you do. You got to. Well, and while you regather, you got to read it. The reason we wrote that is, and we did write it from the perspective of a guy who's not a believer.

Right. And so he's irritated about all the church groups. And I waited tables, you know, with all the church crowd and church crowd didn't tip anything, you know, sort of like started there. And so you wrote it from a nonbeliever perspective. And that's why you thought, oh, he's an atheist, which, of course, he's not. Oh, no. So you're just doing it to build it all the way down. And I knew, you know, knowing because I looked who wrote it and and and I knew that it was going to.

get me before it was over, but the chorus where it says, and every now and then they meet a poor lost soul like me who's not quite sure just who or what or how he ought to be. They march him down the aisle and the next thing you know,

They dunk him in the water, and here comes up another one of those crazy Christians. J-Lo. How good is that? That's pretty strong. I hate your guts. That's pretty strong, brother. That's so good. Every line of that. And I'm thinking, and I text Kelly and ask if I do it, text Brad. He's about like the flats. He got back to me. I didn't do a song. I didn't do a song he was talking about. You know, I had to go back to my text and look. But that's...

I mean, if we had lyric sheets on the stuff y'all wrote, man, it's sick. That's what country music's all about right there. It's unbelievable. When it cuts your soul in half like that, that's what it's all about. And he cut a record on it. He just did. I want to do a video on it, but man, if I could sing better, I would have more confidence in doing, because I didn't want to do anybody any injustice in doing that, but it's such a

a powerful song, you know, and so well written. And, um, they'll, they'll, I'll eventually try to do a video on it and do my, my perspective on it. If, if possible, job well done, my friend. Thank you. My honor that you cut it. Oh, Lord. That's awesome. So good. Yep. So good. Ooh.

This is one of those nights that you feel like we could do two or three. I'll get on a tangent. No, brother. This has been. Do we. Somebody got anything before we. I just want to know when we're going to play golf. Okay, let's get to that. Let's lighten this up and talk about money here.

I need to know. You're going to need to give me some shots. No, no, no, no. If you're truly a four, then I got to give you two aside. Oh, you're a two? Oh, you're a scratch? Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no, no. I'm calling bullshit on your. No.

I love you like a brother, but I put in every score. You don't have to show me. I believe you. Okay, you're going to hell if you're lying. It's a three. It's a three. Oh, look at that. You're now a three, so I give you a shot and a half aside. That'd be four before I say you again. I may be retired.

I may be up. We're actually doing a – I'm playing the three of these guys, and we're going to video it. All right, I'll tell you what we'll do. No, no, no, no, no. I want to play with these three. Come on. Against you.

Straight up? That's not even fair. I know. That's great. It's completely fair. That's better than what we had because it was just us three against them, so this is a lot more fair, I think. Yeah, you've got to be fair to these people. I'll never win. I'll never win. I'll let you play with them. You can't get a stroke. No strokes. All right. Zero strokes. Oh, I love this idea. Is it a low ball or a scramble? No, no, no, no. It's me against – it's straight up. I hate a low ball. No, it's straight up. It sucks.

Straight up. Toad's going to look fantastic. No, I'm really bad. He's going to look good. The only question I got on all this is I'll have to do it in –

I got to wait and see when my royalty checks come because I know it's higher than hell out here where you – No, I got you on the – Done deal. That's free. Next week. Done deal. They got to pay their way, but I got yours. Hold on. What just happened? That's awful. What just happened? Man, I just want to say in the end, first, thank y'all so much. Thank you, brother. I watched the podcast. Thank you.

All the time. I watched one Gary was on. All these people that we talk about, you know, man, I love them dearly. They are dear friends of mine. I can't describe enough how much I love them. All of them that's ever been kind to me, even the ones that hadn't. People like y'all that I have so much respect for.

uh, for what y'all do, for what y'all do as musicians. And, uh, man, I, I appreciate y'all. Let me jump on here. What a night. We're going to have you back on. I want to hear the rest of the story. Oh man. There's so, there's so, I, the only one I'll have to tell you about, and you,

Can I tell it? Yeah, tell it, please. Last story. Last story. We got 45 minutes. Last story. I was telling you when Caitlin was born, I just want to be a good dad, you know, just because my dad was never, never a dad. God rest his soul. And there's a moral to the end of this. But man, as a young kid, he was...

non-existent, you know, alcoholic the whole night. I'd go down at Christmas and he would slide money under the door, wouldn't let me in the door. When I was 18, he called me and he said, hey, look, I know I've been a horrible dad. I get it. I get it. But he said, I went and got you a Corvette.

at day Chevrolet. I paid for it out of my retirement money from Lockheed. He said, I know it ain't going to make up for all the years of disaster that I've caused for you. He said, but it's just a little token of my way to say, Hey, I'm trying to do a little better.

And I called my buddy Michael Crumley, who's a Navy SEAL, retired Navy SEAL now. I said, Mike, I can't believe, man, my dad got me a Corvette. Will you drive me down there to pick it up? Mike's like, yeah, man, let's go. We got in Mike's old Thunderbird, drove down to Ackworth, Georgia, pulled in the parking lot, my dad's old lake house, and no car, no Corvette, no mention, no mention of it. And I looked at Mike, and Mike said, well, what do we do? I said, we go home. Nothing new to me.

And went back home. So I hated him. That will make you hate somebody. And I didn't speak to him for several, several years. And when we did, it was awful. And so when I was in Tampa doing radio in 2008 or 2008, I think, my mom called and said, hey, I'm just going to give you a heads up. Your dad has cancer. I said, well, I'm going to call him.

She said, I probably wouldn't if I was you. And I called him and he answered. And I said, why didn't you tell me? He said, you wouldn't have answered anyway. And I said, well, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to have my engineer at the radio station load up my gear and I'm going to come home to Georgia and I'm going to do what you didn't do. I'm going to take care of you. And he said, no. And I said, no, you don't have a say so. I'm a grown man now. I'm coming home and I'm going to take care of my daddy.

So I went home. My engineer, they set up me a studio in his basement for the next three months. I bathed him. I held his hand. He's mean and ornery. And one Monday night, it's in the evening, about 530 or 6 o'clock in Georgia, he lived in a ranch over a basement house. I was in the basement, and I heard some footsteps up there. And I thought, oh, man, I got to go up there and see what's going on.

I walk up the steps and just down a hallway and there was one dim light, just an old 1980s light in the hallway with probably a 40-watt bulb in it. And my dad, his bedroom was in the back left and there was nobody in the house but me and my dad. And he walked out of the bedroom and he turned towards me. And I looked down and he had a pistol in his hand. And I said, these three things can happen in this hallway. He's going to shoot me, he's going to shoot himself, or he's going to shoot both of us.

And I said, Daddy, why do you have that gun? And he starts walking towards me. And I said, I didn't back down, didn't move. I said, why do you have that gun? And he said, you know why I have this gun. And I said, no, I don't. Why do you have it? And he said, as a boy, I had to watch your grandmother die of cancer. As a grown man, I had to watch your granddaddy, my daddy, die of cancer.

And he said, now you're a grown man having to watch your daddy die of cancer. And he said, I have suffered long enough. And he raised the gun up with a trigger pull and he said, kill me. I said, dad, I can't, I can't kill you. He said, I don't deserve to live. And I said, give me the gun. And he, that's when he, he, he took the thumb on the trigger and he let off the hammer. And he said, if you won't kill me,

will you do me a favor and i said man whatever you want he said i never get as long as i live he said would you do you mind sitting down at the dinner table with me because he said never done it before and i said yes sir i'll be glad to and me and my daddy at 40 at 48 or nine years old sat down at a dinner table and i can uh cartersville georgia for the first time in my entire life and he looked at me and he said

Would you do me a favor? And he said, you don't have to do it. I didn't know what he was talking about. I said, yeah, whatever. And he said, thank you. He said it just like I'm going to tell y'all sitting here. He said, reckon, reckon you could find it in your heart to forgive me. And it was all that I had ever wanted to hear. My whole life was just something of forgiveness without an agenda. Not, I'm sorry. I got drunk last night. Forgive me. He just looked at me and said,

Would you forgive me? And man, you talking about songs like this. And, you know, I came up out of the water, you know, raise my hands up to the father. I'm telling you right now, it was the most easiest I'd ever done in my life to say forgiven. And he said, thank you. He reached in his pocket and I thought this somebody's going to shoot me after all.

He reached in his pocket and he pulled out a $100 bill. And he said, go get me and you a steak at Texas Roadhouse and stop by the beer store and get me a beer. I'd like to have dinner with my son. And I ate dinner with my dad for the first time in my life. And he died immediately.

A few weeks later. But what a gift. And that was a gift, dude. Are you kidding me? That was a gift from God. It's also a testament to you that

I mean, I'm sure you did have resentment built up. Oh, if he would have died without that conversation in that hallway, oh, my life would have been awful. I'd have to live with that the rest of my life. But at that moment, you're right. It was a gift from God. And you got to experience that moment. Yeah. Because a lot of people don't get that. Yeah. Yeah. It could have went either way, you know. But those are, you know, sorry. No. Are you kidding me? Wow. All right. All right.

No, but also, last question. Because it's all emotional and it's overwhelming to a point, but when you were talking to your mom, you had the frostbitten fingers, right? And that moment clicked and you heard Indian Outlaw on the radio. What happens to Cletus T. Jeter? You might be James Berry or whatever at that point if you don't hear that song. I don't know. I don't know. Sometimes I wonder...

humor humor saved my life you know because but the problem with the humor is I can make Neil laugh like Tully laugh like y'all laugh but I had a hard time to this day as my friend sitting here at this table I have a really difficult time making me laugh there were times that I would walk off the stage laughing

in front of thousands. And who's to tell you, I'd go to my bunk, close my curtain, cry like a, cause I was hurt, just hurt. I don't know. I don't know where it comes, comes from, you know, but I've tried to turn that hurt into help, you know, let me hurt. I'll deal with it. You know, I had premeditated my suicide as a young boy and,

premeditated that when my mother died, I die. If I'm six, eight, 10, 18, whenever she goes, I go because I would not be able, I knew that I would not be able to live without her. And God gave me Caitlin and took that away. So that's, that's never been an issue. My mother ended up getting Alzheimer's, um,

Later on in life, and my mother was, you know, as we've told the story, meant everything to me. And when she got Alzheimer's, I would go down to the nursing home where my grandfather and my grandmother both died in Cartersville. And I would sit there for weekends and weekends, and I would try to talk to her. It got to the point where she didn't know me anymore. And I promise we'll stop after this, but it got to the point where she didn't know me anymore. And then I would go down there, and she started talking to me as...

As if I was her uncle, you know, well, you know, Uncle Dole, where have you been? I didn't know. And she would talk to me as all these different people, but she never knew me. And I thought, OK, I got two choices. I can let this kill me.

I'm going to become the best damn actor that's ever lived. And I'm going to be Uncle Dole. I'm going to be her daddy. I'm going to be whoever she thinks I am at that time. I'm going to play that part better than Denzel Washington ever played a role. And I did. And for months, man, I'd sit there and I'd be Brent Matheson, my best friend. She would have all these visions of different people, but she never knew me.

And so six months after I had been doing all that, I went down there, stayed for a weekend. And one Sunday evening, I was getting ready to go home and mom was in the bed and I was over washing my hands in the sink, you know, and my glasses were on top of my head and they fell off into the sink. I thought, oh, my God, I woke her up, you know, and I didn't want to startle her. And I looked over and she raised her head up at me and I looked dead at her as I'm looking at Neil right now, looked at her.

And she looked at me and she said, and it's in the book, she said, God, is that you? And I thought, how do I play that part? How do I play the part of the Almighty? And another one of them moments where I just had so much peace and I just felt like God would have said, yeah, let her know. Let her know. And I said, yes, ma'am, it's me. And she said, God, as I'm sitting here as my witness, she said, so I made it, didn't I?

And I said, yes, ma'am, Ms. Rutledge, you made it. And you know, my mother never once, who was my best friend ever, I'd leave out, she never opened her mouth again ever again.

And I'd leave out of that nursing home, and I'd cuss. I cussed the good Lord. I cussed everybody. I was hurt, man. And I done gave my mom a house. I wrote cards to my mom. I took care of my mom. And God, you say you're a powerful God, but yet you won't let my mama talk to me again? What are you, Lord? You ain't no God. I don't believe in God anymore. I mean, I was very hurt. And they called me.

On a Sunday night and said, hey, you might want to come home because time is up. And I went down there on a Monday, sat with her all day Monday, Monday night. She never opened her mouth Tuesday, Tuesday night, Wednesday, Wednesday night, Thursday night, around midnight. My back, dude, I'm telling you, it was broke from sitting in those hospital chairs. And I went over, I pulled the chain light on. Mom was laying there, had her eyes wide open. I said, I know you can't hear me.

I get it. But I said, I got to go take a shower. I'm going to go over to my buddy Bert's house. I'm going to take a shower. And I promise I'll be back here in an hour. I said, whatever you do, don't you die on me until I get back. And I said, I love you so much, Mama. And she looked at me and said, well, I love you too, son. As plain as I'm looking at y'all, I'm telling you, it's God Almighty is my witness right

said, I'm not talking about in a whisper, a struggling, dying, she said, like, why are you being so desperate? I love you too, son. And I looked around the room and I thought, did anybody, and I knew that nobody heard it. That was a moment between me and my mother. And when I went to walk out of that room, I felt like it was God saying, for the times you didn't believe,

For all the things you've done, for the relationship you had with your mother, for all the good, the bad, the indifferent, and the ugly, and even for you not believing in my ability, I wanted to give you that last gift to show you how powerful I am. Because tomorrow, you're going to come home and be with me.

And she died the next morning. And I was standing over my mother in closing. It's a great way to close it. I'm standing over, and I'll never forget. If y'all been buried a loved one, my tears were coming out of my eyes. There was nobody in the room, and they looked like slow motion. It's just a surreal moment. I just lost my whole life, you know, and I could watch the tears, and they would go real slow, and then they would hit her cheeks, and they would just...

it's like blow up you know they're just exploding and then all of a sudden and y'all will probably laugh or giggle but so help me god in my hand on the bible if you had one i heard morgan wallen i mean morgan freeman say so is the life of francis moselle rutledge promise you god is my witness if he takes me out going down these steps

I heard it. Now, I've never met Morgan Freeman. I don't know Morgan Freeman, but I heard it in my head. Maybe I'm... And I called Winona the next day, and I said, why, you ain't going to believe this, because she's like my sister. I said, here's what happened. And I said, and then Morgan Freeman...

She said, you are a Judd because you're crazy as hell. But I promise you, on my life, and I heard Morgan Freeman say, so is the life of Frances Moselle Rutledge. Again, what a great gift. What a great gift. Just when I thought it was all over, never going to get another shot, mad at the world, she said, I got you. I got you. I got you. I'm going to give you this little gift right here.

All right, I'm leaving. I'm leaving. I tell you, it wouldn't surprise me, though, if God used Morgan Freeman as a vessel for that because I always say, that voice. Oh, unbelievable. I mean, I thought the same thing. If I ever meet him, I'm going to say, man, would you have happened to be at that nursing home? Over in room 316 because I swear I heard you say something. That makes complete sense to me. It was so funny. I thought she was going to be real. And she said, yep, you're a Judd.

because you're crazy as hell. Cletus, I thought we were going to have you on. We'd be laughing all night. I know, right? This is so good. No, no, no. It's amazing. That was absolutely powerful. Absolutely powerful. Thank you. I've never met you before, but I can tell you right here, I love you, brother. I love you, too.

I do, and I'm very appreciative. I wish I could do that. Make sure you overdub. I just want Aldine tickets if y'all want them. That's what this is all about. I gave him a shotgun a couple of years ago on the bus, you know, thinking he'd give me an all-backstage

Chipper Jones, he's a good friend of mine. He gave me a shotgun. I think Travis Tree had had it one time that he gave me a shotgun and said, hey, give this to the next Georgia guy and we'll pass it along. And I gave it to Aldean. Blah, blah, blah. Don't ever mind Georgia. Yeah, whatever. We have enough Georgia on here. Me and Aldean, yeah.

I don't think he gave it to anybody else. I think he still got it. Oh, he probably kept it. That's one thing we have in common, Shipper, though. I know Aldine loves Chipper. You do the socials? Can people find you on the socials? Yeah, it's all just Cletus stuff. Just go on there. Cletus DJ. Jump on, follow along. Follow him everywhere. Watch the madness. There you go. And if you're watching us on YouTube, this is a five-star one, right? It better be. It better be.

You got to be a police car. Just like when I cut bad songs, he'd call me off. You know, we've been thinking, this ain't working out. But please leave comments, review, download, do all the stuff. Follow us at Try That Podcast. For Kalo.

Somebody said you got a free putter with the SI. Hey, take your pick, bro. Take your pick. None of them work. I hope they do. I don't either. Ain't that fun? None of them work. Take your pick. All right, I love y'all. Kevin, thank you for the hookup. Thank you so much, man. From the Patriot Mobile Studios, this is Try That in a Small Town podcast. Thanks, guys. Make sure to follow along, subscribe, share, rate the show, and check out our merch at trythatinasmalltown.com.