Michael Knox - From 40 Rejected Showcases to Artist of the Decade :: Ep 52 Try That in a Small Town Podcast
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So I brought it in there and we played Hicktown. We're sitting there listening to the first verse and chorus. You know, you're excited. You're playing your first thing to the label and you want them, you know, to love what you do. So it hadn't registered yet that something's wrong with the playback. I'm noticing the electric guitar is not in because his left speakers are out. And

And John's like, "This is amazing." So all they're hearing is the fiddle and the drums and the bass. And they're like, "This is amazing!" And Jason looked at me and I said, "Don't say anything." The whole plan with Jason is to be the most commercial, to be Tim McGraw's nightmare, to be the replacement of that generation. And you can't do that if you don't walk in the room and cover all the bases.

which is, I can tear your head off, I can steal your girl, I can make you cry. You did it all, man. And I can be this. Y'all did it all. But Jason's voice does that. You know, we bust a lot of balls in the talkback, Mike. It's a tough room. Yes. I got news for you. You could have worked with us on a Dean record. It's funny, because nobody would ever think of that. It's a tough room. You better...

You better have thick skin. Yeah. No room for feelings in that room. And that's the magic of it, though, because I think that's part of the psychology of it is to push everybody's buttons to say, oh, yeah, well, I'll show you, man. Your shit sucks. The Try That in a Small Town podcast begins now. And with that, welcome back.

There's another episode of the Try That in a Small Town podcast coming to you from the Patriot Mobile Studios. We got K-Lo. We got Thrash. We got TK. I'm Kurt. Tonight, this is going to be super awesome, guys. I didn't want him on. You didn't? Well, Neil boycotted, but Tully and I convinced him.

We got some music. I mean, really, music royalty here. President, Peer Music Nashville. I'd say super producer. I got to get these stats right. 60 million singles, 30 million albums. How rude. Wow. How arrogant. Did he send you that, by the way? Is this Ashley Goyer? I just put,

Google, it must be true. He's done everybody. Wow, that sounded weird. He's produced everybody from Thomas Rhett, Trace Atkins, and of course, our most beloved Jason Aldean. We got Michael Knox in the house. Let's go. What? What? What? What?

You got a better intro than Hulk Hogan. Wow, that intro. That intro is good. That was the best one. And we do a lot of people. Yes. Well, you got to to get where you are. I was going to pull this up, but it seems like Google can't keep up. How many number one singles are you on? I'm at 29. Hopefully, Whiskey Drink will be 30. He answered that way too fast. Well, I have one more than Jason. That's why he's...

This John Morgan went up the chart so he can tell me. I got it right. But no, we, you know, most of my stuff is with him by choice. But I mean, like I said, I mean, Thomas Rhett before kind of blew up, right? Yeah. Yeah. Rhett. Yeah. You know, Rhett called me and, you know, Scott, Scott Bruchetta called me and then Rhett said, Hey man, I want you to, you know, look at my son. And I'd never met him before. So we went downtown and watched him play. And,

And then Scott sent me 10 songs. I picked four of them, and we cut them and got real lucky. It goes like this. Yeah, massive song. Yeah. I mean, that was my first thing outside of Jason. It was the first kind of experience of doing something not including him, which I've made it a point not to do that because I didn't want to share our sound with anybody. The people we said no to was...

I'm not going to talk about them here because it's insulting. Quite a list, though. But I turned down a lot of Platinum Axe at the time that were calling us to kind of imitate our sound. Well, back to us. That's why we're all here.

We all love Thomas. But back to us. Yeah, back to us. But y'all played on pretty much everything I've done, you know, unless an artist says, hey, I don't want Tully. Well, that's on them. And then when they say that, it affects Kurt and it affects Rich. Because I can't just hire one of y'all. That's a really good thing I want to talk about later and maybe on another podcast if you guys ever played on anything separately.

Well, yeah. It's kind of like Bert and Ernie, though. You can't really separate them. You can't. I mean, we've talked about it, and not to make it about us, but I mean, we did at a time, and Michael knows this, I mean, we were a team. It's like, that's kind of how we did it. Let's talk about how we met, Michael. Totally, it was through your uncle, right? Yeah. I mean, I met Michael the second day I moved to Nashville, 96. You were...

Working at Warner Chapel. Yeah, at Warner Chapel by the studio. Yeah. And people always ask me, that was for me, I mean, Lord sent you down a path for a certain reason. And that for sure, even today sitting here, I love looking back and knowing I was laid on that path to see Michael. It really, that's how I feel. Michael, neither of us knew Jason then, obviously. Yeah.

I was 21 years old. I didn't know anybody. Michael immediately started plugging me in to some of the artists that he was working with at that time and developing. It just kind of got me in the system of meeting people and around the building where I felt like I at least had one foot near the door of the music business. Yeah, but the first time I met you...

were working you were fixing to leave to go work on like this love boat well that was I don't know if it's called the love boat that was before the music industry that was like a let's talk it out talk it out this is great thank you Michael this is great that was a year after though I met you so I you know ended up

Yeah, because you were hanging out in my office for a while, and then you went away for... I went to work for Disney playing an R&B band. Yeah, yeah. Which was a tough decision at the time, but even before then, I remember you would call me about things, and you had artists you were working with, and you'd send me stuff to learn, and maybe they might be looking for a bass player. Yeah, yeah. At that point, when you're 21, and you're looking for anything, and that was a great...

thing for me. Oh my God. At that point. Yeah, but you got to remember it was great for me. I was brought into a company I didn't know anybody. A lot of older writers. A lot of people had been there for 10 years. There weren't a lot of younger guys. I just met Marv Green too and he was a brand new writer at Warner Chapel. What company was that? This Warner Chapel. So when I meet young guys my age or a little bit younger or whatever, I jump on that because I want to feed off that too. And Roy was great at that time. Roy was...

one of my new songwriters. I was in love with his stuff, you know, and then meeting Tully was great, and I met all you guys through Tully. Well, and so just backpedal a little bit. So let's go, because I'm sure everybody, they always ask the origin of the story with Jason and us, but even before that...

You had gone to Georgia for a talent contest, right? And it just happened to be Jason there. Give people that backstory. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was at Warner Chapel. Before Warner Chapel, I started the first song plugging company in Nashville back in 91 called Hit Pluggers. I was working with Dobie Gray, Drift Away, Bruce Birch, my mentor who just passed away, which I miss him.

And, you know, and then I moved in and opened this place called Hit Pluggers, which was the first song plug in company in town. So I started charging people 250 bucks to plug their songs. So I took out a press release. I was an ad marketing major in college. So I learned how to do that. And all these old 50s acts who knew my dad.

hitting me up. I had Don Everly. I had Freddie Weller. I had Vip Vipperman. I had Dobie Gray. I had all these 50s acts would come to me and these music sales corporations out of New York, they all knew my dad's name and they all wanted Buddy Knox's kid to plug their songs. So,

I started there, and I was only there for about a year. And we had won number one, 10 cuts, and then Gary Overton brought me into Warner Chapel. So to get to there. So I was there for a few years, and I'm trying to find a write-off to go see my grandmother, a tax, you know, where I could put it on my expense account. And I found this, you know, showcase at the Buck Board. Wow.

you know, in 98. So I went down to the buckboard, saw my grandmother during the day, went to the buckboard at night and then 10 acts played. So I went to go see my grandmother the next day, went Saturday night. And it was the night of the Warner Brothers assassins, you know, where they went in and fired everybody at Warner Brothers. You know, they fired the whole staff. So all the Warner Brothers staff left. So I'm sitting there watching 10 more acts. And Jason was 18. And

So 18 acts, 10 acts went, eight went, and he came up at about 11 o'clock at night. And him and Justin Weaver was his band leader on stage. So he went up there and played, and I went up to him and talked to him and said, I got to see you, man. So-

I left, he gave me a CD. I went out to his truck to kind of, you know, give him, you know, get some CDs from him and, um, saw on his seat on his truck seat or whatever he was in that night. He had like Lionel Richie. He had Merle Haggard. He had Alabama. He had guns and roses. I was like, this is amazing. You know, cause everything he's saying live, you could tell he wanted to get somewhere and just couldn't get there. Just couldn't get there, but he wanted to go somewhere. So, um,

I went home, called him, went back down and saw him. It was worse. Went back down and saw him a third time, and it was getting worse each time. So after the third time, I just said, man, come back to Nashville with me. I want to sign you because it's getting worse. When you say getting worse, what do you mean? Oh, man, the shows were bad.

They were forgetting words. Nobody could play anymore. Like Jason was? Everybody. Like Jason was getting worse? Yeah, Jason wasn't remembering. I would send him songs, and he wasn't, you know, he was new, man. At that time, I had authority. I was powerful, you know. He was stressed around me, you know. He wasn't learning words or nothing, man. So I just said, man, you know, that first night I saw you was amazing. I said, I just want to forget everything I've seen the past few months and just come to Nashville, and I want to sign you off that first night.

So I signed him, brought him to town and I just said, we got to get it better. So that's what I did. I brought him to town and, and, and, you know, just started working with him. You know, he, he looked like, you know, Tracy Lawrence, you know, Clay Walker had the cowboy hat, the big belt buckle tucked in shirts, you

you know, iron jeans. Everything you need. Yes. Well, I don't know. I don't know. When he came in, I remember the first month he was there, he would come into the office dressed like that, like his stage gear. And I remember asking him, I said, dude, is that what you wear when you go out on Friday nights? Is that what you wear? And he goes, no, man, it's my stage gear. And I said, well, come in tomorrow with how you dress. Come in tomorrow with what you wear on a date.

And he came in the next morning in a ball cap, earrings, thumb rings, chains. You know, he didn't have cowboy boots. He had something else. He had those other boots y'all wear. And no belt buckle, untucked, you know. And I said, dude, that's it. That's what you need to do. Every day, that's what you need to do. Just put the cowboy hat on stage. And that's it.

And I'm sure he was going to get there himself, but I just pushed it a little faster is all. I mean, it was an interesting journey when he got to town. And then, you know, I don't know if we want to fast forward to when Tully and I met him and Rich and all that. But, you know, we joke about this now, but we did...

Somebody want to tell me the amount of showcases we did for labels? We got to do it on our 40th showcase. Was it really 40? But before y'all. Oh, Lord. Yeah, but before all that, we did, you know, 98 to 2004, we lost four record deals. Oh, yeah. And Jeff Stevens at one time was a part of it and left us because he was like, I'm not seeing it anymore. So we...

We would get a deal with Keith Stegall. We'd go, man, I want to sign you. And then he got fired Monday. We were getting presidents of labels fired. Not, you know, every time they would offer Jason a deal. Yeah.

A week away, they would get fired. Keith Stegall, Tony Brown, Larry Willoughby, Mark Wright. They would all lose their jobs like a month later. So it was a monster like curse, let down, everything. So that thing at the Wild Horse that night that Benny, not Benny, but the consortium group showed up, those guys from Broken Bow,

To see us, we were supposed to play for Universal, and Universal didn't show up. So we put $2,500 in this thing that y'all played at, as you know, I think. I think y'all were at that showcase, correct? Yeah. Because I know y'all played the Exit End Showcase. Oh, we played so many showcases. And had the opportunity to go to Rushlow at that time. But that last showcase, we were at the Wild Horse, and they went there to see Locash play.

do line dancing and sing a song during line dancing. And we were to play six to seven and they were to teach line dancing right after or right before or right after. And they said, oh my God, we want to meet this guy. So the next week Benny came and gave him a record deal. We spent probably 250 grand developing this project with y'all and Jason. I remember the capital deal and thinking that we had made it.

Because Capital signed him. He was there for two years. Dungan kept coming in going, can you do another showcase? He's not smiling enough. And then it would be another one. Yeah, do one more. He's just not smiling enough. And we'd have managers there, you know, and they would all walk out just saying this kid ain't country. Oh, no, we brought that up. Yeah. Don't I remember you leaving during... Yes. I'm pretty sure maybe...

We were probably playing Wire, one of those songs at that point. No, you were playing Evidence. Oh, Evidence. Wow. But, you know, we've said this before. I know you have. I mean, during those showcases, we were playing Evidence.

We were playing Emerald Sky. We were playing Why. We were playing Johnny Cash. We were playing Hicktown, which, by the way, the 20th anniversary of the release just came up. You're the love I want to be in. You're the love I want to be in. I mean, all songs that were on the first record or two that were big hits. Left Till We Cried? But what people don't get is...

get in there baby but what people don't remember is that is that a lot of the showcases were at SR yeah where like Tony Brown would come in and I love Tony don't get me wrong he'd come in and he would leave during the intro of like the first song absolutely

I got to tell you. No, no. I had this whole $500 spread of La Paz. I had him a beautiful chair, couch. We had the room set up and it was great. And Jason kicks into the first song and Tony Brown's sitting there. I mean, we ain't even out of the verse. And he goes, man, I just think it's from me. And I go, dude, we're not out of the first verse. And then we get in and he leaves. And

And it was and but we had a few of those, you know, I don't want to spotlight Tony. We had a few of those. I mean, we would go to conference rooms and and we would play for these people at RCA and these, you know, companies and they would go, man, we're just not seeing the energy. And I'm like, well, we're in a conference room.

Can you come to the show? We're playing every, I had him at Wild Horse every Monday night at 6, 7 o'clock. Just come. Come to the show. But back then in the 90s, I was a song plugger then, but you couldn't get A&R out past 6 o'clock. You just couldn't get them out. They would come to S.A.R.,

What I remember most about SAR is we lived there. It was room two, three, four. And if you're lucky, you get into the big room. So we did numerous... Three was our room. Yeah, three was our room. And we would spend a lot of time in these rooms. And I remember Michael goes, okay, we got a big showcase. We're going to the big room down the hall. So we go to the big room down the hall. I think it's the one that Tony Brown was coming to. And we rehearsed for two days. We're in the big room, which is a big room.

And they're all... We start playing and they're all lined up. Against the back wall. This is a football field. Against the back wall. It's huge. So it's, you know... And we got through half of the first song and I remember looking up and half...

They're gone. They're gone. And we got four or five songs to go. Well, what was the one on Music Row where they got the pizza joint? Castle Door. Yeah, the Castle Door. Oh, the Castle Door. That's the one that a supposed manager said he wasn't there. But I remember sitting in the back and I had Smoothie King come and cater it. Where?

We were trying anything different we could do because we've done had La Paz. We've done had catering. We've done had, you know, if I give you money, will you sign us? You know, to everything. And then I said, let's do Smoothie King. So we did Smoothie King and everybody showed up. We played all these things and then everybody left. It was so sad too because of that, the Castle Door showcase is the one that my mom flew down. And Aldine's mom was there. And so both our moms are at one of the front tables.

in the beginning of the show, they're excited. And by the last song, I swear to God, they're, they're, they're saying like, what are these boys going to do?

They got to go get a job back at Pepsi. They got to go back to Pepsi. Something's got to happen. But the Exit End show was the one that stunned me because everybody at the label came to me and said we had never seen anything that great before. Remember all the kids I drove up from the college y'all were playing down in South Georgia? And man, y'all killed it. You killed it. And that was the night Rush Low came back there and was like, oh my God, I got to steal his band. And...

And that was, I mean, but we killed it, you know, and even Mark and Clay Bradley at the time was in A&R there. And they were like, oh my God, what do y'all, y'all got to keep playing or these kids are going to tear this place down. And we still couldn't get a deal. And then we got the deal at, you know, Larry Willoughby brought him over to Capitol when he got signed there. And we sat over there for three years and then Dungan came and made a showcase three times and then he dropped him and

And I remember that day. It was, you know, we wanted to get out of the deal, but when it happens, man, you hate it. You know, you're like, crap, you know. And then Paul Worley was over at Warner Brothers. I hate dropping names, but it's funny. That's what we do here. That's what we do. But Paul Worley was at Warner Brothers when he was there, and I remember sitting there with him and Jim Head.

And he came to Jason's showcase at that thing we did in East Nashville. What was that place in East Nashville? Oh, yeah, the Woodshed. Yeah. Woodshed. And that's the one Q Stegall came to, too. And he offered us a deal and got let go a week later.

And then Paul Worley and them were there, too. And they called us upstairs. And I'm like, man, we're going to get this. And Tim's like, yeah, man, we're going to get this. And we go up there and Paul goes, you know, man, I just don't know. I think we want to focus on I mean, you know, we're signing Rick Trevino again. We're bringing him back and we want to focus on that.

And we're like, nothing against Rick Trevino, but he had already had a deal, lost it, come back. And we're just like, God, man, what do you do now? What do we do? And then luckily, the Wild Horse. I just kept y'all busy at Wild Horse. I wanted y'all to have money. So I kept booking y'all rehearsals so you could have money. And I'd buy Jason gift cards to restaurants because...

You know, him and his wife at the time didn't have a lot of money, and I was buying them gift cards to go eat food and go, you know, have things during Christmas. So I book a lot of rehearsals during Christmas for y'all. Dude, we talked about this a lot. So y'all can get that $100 a pop. Hey, that's really nice. And free food. Oh, yeah. And Whipperman and all them, everybody at Warner Chappell would be like, man, you got to let them go this year. Yeah.

It's like seven years, guys. You got to let them go this year. And I'm going, no. I said, I can't let something go I love this much. And look what happened. I got fired. I got let go. They let me go. That's how you know you're doing something right. They let me go. But it takes guys like you, though, I mean, to believe in an act. I mean, our listeners don't get to hear stories, backstories this deep.

And to see how long it took you guys. It took a long time. It took a lot of stress. It took more hard times than people can imagine and more rejection. I don't think people understand. They all see us now, but I don't think they understand the depression, the rejection, the

depression of just not you know just not being heard you know and i and i hate that for the kids today because they get it once and they're they're they're destroyed and i'm going y'all have no idea yeah you know the 90s were tough too much a lot more competition a lot more

out there, man. And it was, man, no, no, no, no. He ain't good enough. Why are you wasting your time with him? It was tough. And who knew? I mean, at the time at Warner Chapel, I was signing John Rich to write songs for Jason. I mean, I was signing...

around him. That was the whole point of this and getting y'all back in the studio to let y'all get good at the studio. So I created a crazy job for y'all to be the showcase band for Warner Chapel so I could keep y'all working and getting better. So when this opportunity came, we would all be prepared and then I would go live in the studio trying to cut demos and learn how to do that myself. It was a long process, you know, of and basically

But very deliberate. It was always your vision. I tell everyone this. What they see up there when we go on tour was always your vision. I hear y'all say that. But it was, though. Because taking the band in the studio, which wasn't done then.

It just wasn't done yet. Especially an unexperienced studio band. Like, I hadn't played in a studio before. But the funny thing is, but watching you with your dad at the disco parties, and then Redmond chimed in one year. And I remember when y'all introduced me to him at SR, and I'm like, I already met him. He played CRS with y'all one time. And pulling that together...

was my job. It was y'all's job to perform. It was my job to just be the circus. You know, let's create the circus because nobody, nobody's doing the Brian Adams, the rock and roll thing. Nobody. So,

So we got McGraw doing it. You got Garth running around the stage wanting to be Kiss. You got McGraw wanting to be the cowboy guy. But nobody was doing in your face, let's just guitar slinger this thing and drums. And, you know, that's why I went on the search for Peter Coleman. It took me two years to find that guy to make my record sound like Journey. Well, you know, I heard Tully talking about your vision, and I 100% agree with him completely.

I know totally remembers the very first demo that we played on for Jason. And you guys will get a kick out of this because I don't think we've said this before. But do you remember what it is? Yeah, I have it. You do? Yeah, I remember you.

Skid Row. Yeah. I remember you. And the only reason we did that is because I had him at the beach. Jason. I had him at the beach. We were on a retreat at Warner Chapel. Yeah. And Jason and we were going through songs and I played Michael. What was that? Bluer than blue. Michael Johnson. Is that right?

Oh, yeah. And Jason's like, I've never heard that song. I really like that song. And then I played Always Something There to remind me. And he was like, yeah, I like that song, you know, and blah, blah, blah. And then he goes, do you know Skid Row's I Remember You? And I'm like, yeah, man, it's great, man. So I played that. I had a cassette of it or something in my car. So he... What key did he do it in? Probably... It was at least five steps lower. Probably a whole...

Whatever you play it in, the whole step down. That's it. Yeah, that's it. I have the demo. You can do it in G, I can tell you that. No, no, no. But they all went in the back studio with Pat Hutchinson, and we all, I just said, let's cut it. Let's just cut it. So they went back there and we cut it, because I knew if we could get in the ballpark of that...

then that is my, that was a vision I had. I was like, then this thing might can work. And all y'all went back there and we all, we all did a great B effort and it was awesome. I would say that I would say that studio at the old workshop. Yeah. I would say that's where we actually started to figure out how to

what that would be like. Yeah. Sure. You know, in its most early stages. Yeah. But I threw them into some horrible situations. We would have writer, we would have writer retreats. So I would make them go in there and be the band for the writer retreats. You have jewel, you'll have all these big stars from Warner chapel, pop LA or whatever. So I would have them go in there and these guys would horribly, horribly, horribly insult these guys. Oh,

You got him, you got Tully, Kurt, and Redmond sitting in there just getting slayed by these guys. Yo, Mr. Guitar Guy. Yo, Mr. Oh, it was Jude. Oh, Jude Cole. And got all these people just horribly disrespecting them. And at the beginning, I was getting upset. I would pull these guys aside going, hey, man, these are my guys. You don't have to be an ass. You know, and

And then y'all would go play the showcases. Then you would go play the things. And then it started getting really good. But all you guys were great musicians anyway. But y'all were all like indie rock cover band guys. So now we were getting into being a unit, being this thing. And it took about two years. It took about two and a half years. There were some good times. And let's get to the first record you mentioned. Let's get to the first record.

You're talking about depressed. I'm getting over here. Before you get through that, I mean, it's interesting and somewhat, you know...

I hate that we've waited 50 episodes to find out the truth behind Jason Aldean and everything else. Thank God for Michael Knox. I appreciate it. That's pretty amazing. Because I think Tully said, didn't you say you discovered Aldean? Yeah, it was me. I think it was episode three. I think we've all discovered a different Aldean for each of us. Good point.

But I was going to say, of course, we were alluding to earlier Hicktown, the 20-year release date. And you mentioned John Rich, who we've got a future episode coming on with him as well. Hicktown, and you kind of talked about it, people weren't hearing that at the time. It was, like you said, Tracy Lawrence, Clint Black.

That was a major risk. Yeah. Like a big time risk. That was heavy. Yeah. So what made you hear that song for one and go, hey, this is you. This is what we got to do. Well, it all started with, you know, building that team around Jason. We couldn't find the songs. You know, he was writing a lot with Jeff Stevens, Steve Bogart, and they were all writing George Strait songs. You know, with Jason singing George Strait songs. Yeah. And it was great.

But there was no, there was nothing there, you know, bigger. You know, it's like it had to be something that would scare the crap out of you, make you nervous or make you worry about this. It was too perfect. It was too nice. I had Terry McBride in there writing for Jason. I had, and then I signed John Rich, who then I signed Gretchen Wilson. And then I signed some...

other cats and then this other energy was coming into building so then picking wildflowers came out and then boondocks and all these guys were were floating around our building before then you know little big town so i was hearing i mean i was hearing all that crap too and i was like man there's fixing to there's fixing to be a big shift there's fixing to be a big shift so i want to be ahead of that so john was turning in these crazy songs you know as he does you know like things that

that he was writing for if him and Big Kenny got a deal at that time, which they hadn't at that time. So I pulled all these songs aside, and I told Jason, I said, man, this is the energy. Can you sing these words? And Hicktown was not a lyric for us, but we both knew musically that would set the bar. It would push us to that place that we wanted to be. So that's why Hicktown came in there. We usually don't say those kind of lyrics, you know, like,

you know, Hicktown. Yeah, butt crack, all those things. But it was very important at the time to scare the crap out of people to make wine, Amarillo Sky, and these other things work. You know, because we had Johnny Cash already. John pitched it out from Undress on the first record to Tay Bay Auto and Tracy and...

Tracy Bird. Tracy Bird. Yeah. So we had all, and Y was getting pitched out from under us. All these, John was desperate too. He was wanting to succeed. He just got bumped out of Lone Star. You know, he had no place to go. He was creating his world too. So there was a lot of stress and friction going on to make this happen, you know, but luckily it worked out in our favor, man. We're

Terry McBride and the Ride did not have a hit with Amarillo Sky. And Big and Rich did not cut Hicktown. And Shannon Brown did not have a hit single. And Taye Bay and Tracy Bird, both their careers were over that year. So we got all them songs. And all them cuts that you hear on the record are our demos.

We just upgraded. All that crap was the stuff we cut in the demos, you know. And I remember, I can say it now because we're 100 years later, but I remember them being like, hey, man, you need to go in and re-sing that. Okay. And we'd go, will you like this? And we didn't do nothing. And they're like, yeah. That's a lot better. And we didn't change anything. There you go. Now you got it.

I mean, because me and Jason are looking at each other like, well, I mean, I didn't, I wasn't the producer, the education I am now. I'm like going, I don't know how to do it again. I just know how to do it that one time. You know, I don't know how to make this better. My name is Glenn Story. I'm the founder and CEO of Patriot Mobile. And then we have four principals.

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what feels good, you know what sounds good. You've always been the best song guy I've ever known. I appreciate it. Well, I mean, just 100%. You can pick out a great song for your artist. You can pick out a great song for another artist. But as a producer, more than anybody I've ever seen or met, and totally has likened you to Rick Rubin, which I think is a great comparison. Well, I appreciate that. No, seriously. You know what feels good, and you know what sounds good. And to that point, you're like...

This is good. Yeah. Why would we mess that up? Well, I'll tell you a funny story about John Loeb. And...

He'll probably hate this. He doesn't watch his podcast. He's not on our side. What are they going to do? They've tried that podcast. They've tried for seven albums. We brought Hicktown in. I don't know if Jason remembers this. And they were in Cummins Station. Yeah. So I brought it in there and we played Hicktown.

and we're sitting there listening to the first verse in chorus. You know, you're excited. You're playing your first thing to the label, and you want them to love what you do. So it hadn't registered yet that something's wrong with the playback. So come the first verse, I'm noticing the electric guitar is not in because his left speakers are out.

So I'm sitting there and I finally figured out and I look at Jason and Jason looks at me and I said, and John's like, this is amazing. So all they're hearing is the fiddle and the drums and the bass. And they're like, this is amazing. And Jason looked at me and I said, don't say anything.

They love it. They love it. And I remember when the song came out, I remember Loba asking me when the song went to radio that, hey, man, did y'all do overdubs after we heard it in the office that day? I don't remember. I don't remember maybe hearing that aggressive. I've never heard this. So the whole time they were cranking it in the office, the left speaker was out and we had things. We only had the one guitar, you know, which was that guitar. Yeah. And.

And that's the fiddle. Everything else was in the right and up the middle. So the left speaker wasn't on. So all they heard was everything else but the electric guitar. And we love it. Yes. So it makes me wonder what would have happened if they heard the electric guitar. That's amazing. All these years I didn't know. No, I never knew that story. Jack Sizemore played the original guitar that we took out. Yeah.

Jack played on the first record. Yeah, and Adam Schoenfeld was sitting in the studio and had to leave, and he played the demo. And I said, hey, man, can you just play what you played on the demo so we can know what to play? And that whole hick town was his one pass rushed trying to leave to go to another gig. Yeah. And we just left it alone. I completely forgot. Well, I want to pick up on what Kurt said about you being a great song guy. Yeah.

And I want to, I want to, no, I want to, I want to show my appreciation because, because you were a song plugger, which is back in the day for people listening. That's somebody goes and actually plays songs for artists and managers and, you know, things like that. This ain't time. It didn't happen as much, you know, we'll send it, we'll text it, you know, whatever. But, but I'd had maybe two or three hits and you guys were already rocking with, with Aldine. And I was at EMI, Gary Overton was running it. And, and,

And I got called in to pitch to you for Aldine. And I thought, I have never done that before. Then it wasn't normal. You went by yourself? You went over there and took your songs? Yeah, but it wasn't normal for writers to pitch to producers and things like that. I was like,

wow, it must be a pretty big deal. And so I thought, oh man, I've got 25 songs I can pitch for Aldine. And this was like a month ahead. And so I started going through the list, taking my time. And after, I said, I got 28 songs. And then three weeks in, I had 20. Two weeks in, I had 11. And by the time I got to you that morning, I cut it down to one song.

Because I thought I was really something. I thought I had something for Aldine. Yeah. And the more I studied, the more respect I had, I was thinking, I only got one thing that won't embarrass me.

And all I wanted, I didn't even want to cut on Aldine. I wanted to get another meeting with you to play for Aldine when I had the right thing. Do you remember what you played? I don't remember it. You liked it. You didn't record it, but you liked it. And you said, I really like that, so I'll keep that. You said, do you got something else? I said, nope, that's all I got. And you were so surprised because most people try to play four or five, six songs. Well, that was a plugger's trick. That was my trick. Yeah, yeah.

That was my trick to bring one song. Yeah. And so, so that's, that's what it is. So, so the writers out there, do you, you think you've got all these hits and everything? You think you got them until it comes down to it and then you really start paying attention thinking, okay, the things I thought are great. They're not great. They're just kind of okay. Well, the thing that I learned from being a, going from plugger to production is, you know, plugging, man, I loved it. I was, I felt like I was really good at it. I, I,

I was on 180 million records in my years at Warner Chapel. I remember every cut I've ever had. I loved every second of it. I loved walking in there and knocking those home runs. And, and, um, but the thing that I remember the most is when I would go like play stuff for, um, Garth Fundus or go play it for who was Randy Travis's producer, um,

Kyle Lenning. Kyle Lenning. Kyle Lenning was tough, man. You know, I'd play something, he'd pass on it in the intro. And I would always be like, ah, man, that's, you know, man, you need to get to it. You need to get to it. And now that I'm producing on that other side, I get that 100%. I can hear something in 10, 15, 20 seconds and go, man, that just ain't what we're looking for. So it's definitely a different ear, you know, to learn. You know, and I respect all them guys now, you know, that I'd before...

was would dog them, insult them because they'd cut my stuff off early. But when you know, it's such an awesome feeling to be in a room with a producer that knows what they're looking for. Instead of like some of them would just go, bring me a hit,

You know, hit anybody can sing. And I'm like, well, that's horrible. Yeah. You know, that would be a horrible thing. I can't believe K-Lo actually came and played songs. Yeah. Because I couldn't do that. I was scared to death. Yeah, I know. They're going to reject me when he's in your face. I loved meeting with songwriters over at Pluggers anyway. The Pluggers had a car salesman thing about them.

And I knew that because I was a plugger. So when I met with songwriters, I felt like I was getting a personal moment. I felt like you were pitching me something as a fan, what you wished he would sing. And I had more success with that. I had a lot more success with that, getting songs that way. I got more cuts from the songwriters than I ever did the pluggers.

Well, and you'll still email us back. You know, like even if it's something that you're not looking for, you'll still tell me to this day, email us back, you know, just say, Hey, for a writer, it doesn't matter who it is. If we think it's from you, it doesn't matter. It's just enough. But, but just say, Hey, cool song, not what we're looking for right now. And I'm thinking,

Hey, they listened to it. And then you're happy, you know? Well, that's the busboy in me too. It's like when you go to the restaurants now, you over tip because I was a busboy. I get it. I know what they're doing. And I was a plugger. So I'm like, man, the only thing I hated is to know, did you really listen to it? Have you listened to what I sent you? I hated to not know. So I always want people to know when I'm listening.

So, you know, but I try to listen to everything I get, even to today. I do. I mean, it's just amazing. And, you know, what I love is kind of the push and pull relationship you and Jason have and with songs. And speaking to what you were saying before, it's like, yeah, there might a song might be a hit, but it just might not be for Aldine. Yeah. One of my most vivid memories of you going to bat for a song is

that Aldine wasn't sure on, and I'll be in this boat as well, and you had to convince him on was Big Green Tractor. Yeah. I got on another band's tour bus and drove up to play it to them one more time and drove 400 frigging miles to that jamboree in the hills or something. I remember West Virginia. Yeah, well, wherever it was, I don't know. I just remember getting on a bus, and we were cutting the next week.

And some guys I knew were riding up there. And I said, well, man, that was the days I was young. I could get on a bus. I'm like, yeah, let me go up there. And I remember walking in and he looked at me and goes, what do we do? What are you doing here? What did we do? And I just had that one song and I played it. And y'all were sitting there on the couch. I remember it was, if I'm not mistaken, you wrote up they were crossing Dixon. Yes. It was a brand new band. They have such an incredible memory. It was a festival in New York.

That's when you did it. And thank God you did. For me to get on that bus too, because it wasn't a good bus. That's another podcast. I don't know if there was a good bus. So for me to get on that bus and ride up there and play this big green tractor. But I kept sending it to him and he wouldn't respond, you know, or something, or he would pass on it. Yeah.

I can't remember how the routine worked, but I just remember going, man, we got to. And this was one of those Hicktown lyrics where it ain't really what we do. Yeah. But it was a pivotal moment for us to kind of say, OK, it seemed with Dirt Road Anthem, man, we're sitting at that that restaurant right there off the exit at Cool Springs right in front of them. What is that Outback Steakhouse restaurant?

We're just sitting there in the parking lot, and I bring up Dirt Road Anthem. I said, man, I know you don't want to cut this last record. And I said, man, let's revisit this one. Because I had just cut it on Brantley Gilbert, and Brantley walked away from his record deal. I cut that one and a couple other songs. So I pitched that one to him and my kind of party at the same time. And we had had it before. We just never really went there.

And I'm sure it was because Brantley was hot, local. He was a Georgia boy, Jason, Georgia boy. Sure, he was being respectful to Brantley's, you know, thunder, you know, that he was having with it. But it was just one of those moments like Big Green Tractor where it's not something we do. But it's funny how those, She's Country, Big Green Tractor, Hicktown, you know, Dirt Road Anthem, these things, burning it down. These things were everything. Everything.

people at the label told me were going to be career ending. Yeah. Where our career, where our career moving songs. And I mean, they would say career ending.

I mean, I'm talking burning it down. Oh, my God, you're not going to put out a rap song. And I said, dude, I made it a point to cut every instrument analog so there would be no drum loops. Well, that was the beauty of that to me. They can't not play it. Yeah. Because Redmond sat in there all day and played everything. I made it a point to do that. Do you remember the day that I came over to the studio? Because I had a couple of songs on that record. Mm-hmm.

A couple? I don't remember. That was on my party record. You had a few. You talking about Buried Down or Dirt Road Anthem? Dirt Road Anthem. Dirt Road Anthem. And he took me out to the truck.

and played me Dirt Road Anthem. He didn't play me anything they'd tracked on mine. He wanted me to hear that one. And do you remember what I said to you? I said, I was sitting there and I go, I just want to be on the album that that song's on. Yeah. Because I heard it. When you played Dirt Road Anthem, I was like, that's going to be freaking huge. I just want to be on the record. But you ended up being the last two singles on that, which was what, Fly Over States and Tattoos? Yeah. Tattoos.

My favorite Jason Aldean cut, my favorite song I've ever cut, my favorite production, my favorite video, my favorite recording, my favorite song I've ever cut on Jason. Okay, why? You're welcome. Just everything. Exactly. You don't have to say that, by the way. To me, that's just... I'm thanking you guys for it. But that's just a perfect song, a perfect...

for him. You're walking in. Everything was perfect about that. The video was perfect. Everything was perfect and I love that song. That guitar lick at the intro. I knew when I heard the demo, I'm like, okay, I can beat this demo. What?

And then when I heard the song, I was like... That's what you got to do with Knox is just do a substandard demo on a good song that he can beat. No, I love... I love... Because y'all's demos are insane anyway. You, Wendell, David Lee Murphy, these things, man. When we get these kind of songs, man, they're so...

All we're trying to do is not to mess it up. And something clicked that day where that intro lick, the band, the feel, the open track, how the delays are just falling, and it's just this moment. It was just a great moment. I've got to say, though, I remember the first time I heard, and I can't remember what single it was, when y'all started getting edgy, and it was...

There wasn't a lot there. There wasn't a bunch of static. It wasn't a wall of sound. It was just edgy. And I remember the first time I heard it, I remember going, I want to be a part of that. Well, you were. I brought you in on... That's what I'm talking about. I'm like, I'm going to be a part of that. She's country. I couldn't get anybody to hit the high harmony.

And I brought in girls. I brought in everything. And I said, who's the one girl that can hit this? And it was Neil. Neil hit that, you know. And it made the song. It kept it so red on top. And it kept it so aggressive on top. And She's Country, the demo was all drum loop. So we had to cut that completely different. And I remember playing that and Carson at the label was like,

Carson and Lee was like, are you going to keep all them guitars? And I said, this is the cut. This is it. What are you talking about? This is it. Why do they hate the guitars? Because it's just not familiar to them. Yeah, exactly. Well, nowadays, that's what's so funny. We're catching up. It's like, why do you think you can have all those guitars on your stuff? Yes. You have to go back and look at it. Moments of that wide open album.

like big green tractor for one like the first time we played big green tractor the very first time was the night we shot the wide open live dvd yeah we'd never yeah not played that right it was in yeah knoxville yeah and i remember playing that and literally like the place went crazy and those days like it was great because no one heard anything yeah

Until you did. Until it was on the album. So that was a big moment. And same thing with She's Country. CMA Awards played that thing. I remember hearing She's Country and I'm like, I can't wait to sing this. I can't wait to sing on this. They did an amazing background on that award show. That whole presentation. He walked out in the white t-shirt, jeans, and then they did that whole checkered board thing behind y'all.

You know, it was everything but rebel flags. You know, it was insane. And that's what blew us up. After She's Country, it was like on, it was done. We were the next thing, period. It was, though, because like in those days, which people, again, don't understand, like you're playing award shows. You know, everybody's in their black suit. The band's in the shadows. Everybody's in their black suits. The artist is, you know.

We came out, I remember, you know, we had white t-shirts and jeans and Mikey Fry, who at the time was our spare guitar player, had a quarter top cut off. He was wearing a halter top. He was like, I'm Jody Messina. You could really smell us coming off the bus. And I remember playing that thing and looking at, you know, because the great thing about award shows for us still to this day is about the first...

10, 15 rows. You know, all the artists are there and they're dressed up and they're stiff. I remember specifically making a point that they felt this, you know, and I could feel, okay, this might be our moment. Yeah. To your point. Yes. Maybe this is going to be our next little run. It needed to happen. Yeah.

Oh, I was at home watching it. I made it a point because whenever he plays, I keep myself in such the fan zone. I love being at home watching it. That's why I don't really go on the road that much. But I like watching it like the fans watch it. I'll go stand out by the board, back there in the stands behind the board or something or whatever. I love watching those things, man. And after that,

after that show that night, it was ours to mess up. Wide open record was such a shock. What album was Laughed Until We Cried on? The second one. It was relentless. I'm just saying. That was my introduction to... No, I mean, you rock, you blow everybody's balls off and their hats off, and then all of a sudden he comes out and does your song, Laughed Until We Cried, and he pulls that off like...

Like it was his song. Yeah, but that was why. We have one of those on every record, Laughing Till You Cry. Should have been a bigger hit than it was. And the video was perfect for what that was. And that whole moment was just us...

fighting that sophomore thing that was coming. Relentless, I thought Relentless was a horrible choice for our single at that time. Even though I loved the track, I loved everything. I wanted it to be Do You Wish It Was Me. Which was a cool thing. I remember you saying that. That record, I actually feel like making that album, Michael, I don't know. We never talked about this. Oh, here it comes. So since I got you here. No, I remember the first record,

What I loved about that record was you can, to this day, you can hear the desperation in it. Yeah. Yes. No, you can. You can feel like this might be it. And I remember like half the songs on the album have a never-ending fade out. Yes. Because we don't know how to end them. Yes. So we're like, wait a minute, how's this going to end and who's going to do it? When we got to the second record, I remember making it thinking, boy, this feels like we've

like we've gone up a step. The sounds were good. Like we're, it was playing good. Everybody rose up. It didn't connect commercially, but I

I felt like we grew. And I felt like the record actually is an underrated album. What songs weren't relentless? Johnny Cash was our first single, which was the first song we ever cut five years earlier. And that was the demo. I just upgraded the demo. And that was actually the demo. Jason singing the demo four years earlier and everything. So it was that one. It was Relentless. And you're... K-Lo's song. But there were some great songs in that. I mean...

on that album I just think like the sophomore slump thing there were other songs that could have went with singles you know Kalo had a great song but it was one of my favorites too but what's interesting about that song though is like I remember even thinking then like this is a really great song great song what we were doing though it was tough to do Hicktown

Yeah. Then why? And we had developed this thing. I know it. It was tough to like, it felt like we were sliding into someone else's lane when we did. Yeah.

as great as it is i remember thinking this feels doesn't feel like our lane right now it did maybe a couple years ago but now we've got this kind of roots rock country thing yeah you know yeah anyway it's just crazy how it all how it all works i know kevin o'neill loved it it was one of his favorite songs which one kevin o'neill like we were at his house tell them michael will appreciate that story when you were introducing me to say remember he said today kevin uh kill it you know kayla wrote uh

Laughed until we cried. And we're at his house. We just played golf and having drinks and stuff like that. It was a great day. And Neil's being nice, just trying to bring me in the circle. I didn't know anybody. I know him as Hobgood now, but I know now. Yeah, Kevin O'Neal. That's his music industry now. Yeah, and he was fixing a drink or whatever. He said, I hated that song. I hate that song. I've always hated that song. And Kale's standing there.

Nobody says that in front of a writer. There's 20 people in the room. I know no one except for Neil. And I was like, hey, thanks, guys. We'll see you later. Thank you. Well, I'll end you on a good one. When we played the record to the staff, Keith Stegall had just come in, and he was going to head the A&R. John Loba left and went to...

big machine for two years. And I think it was around that time John was leaving. We came, you know, Keith Stegall came in and we were at Keith's house and we were playing him the record with the host staff there. And that song popped up. And I remember Keith going, that's going to be a monster. That's going to be a monster.

That's going to be a monster. And Jason looked at me and goes, that's money. That's money. And they hadn't heard the mixes yet. So that song should have been bigger than it was. It was just where Jason was in his career. We were in a sophomore weird place coming off of Relentless and...

I think the town loves to root against it, and I think that they were wanting him to go away, and then She's Country made that not happen. Well, plus we were touring hard. Remember, I mean, Relentless, when that album came out, we had the whole Hicktown album before that, right? So we've been on the road, living on the road for decades.

290 days a year sleeping in airports maybe maybe more than that and every radio station in the country had been out to our shows and they're they were heavy shows i the song was great i just feel like the timing that weird sophomore thing right yeah we had johnny cash then we had that one and then we because we didn't have a number one on that whole record and we we barely had a number one on why i didn't you know because we got jumped on why

you know, somebody jumped us and almost kept us out of number one with why. And so we didn't even have a number one during that whole record. And it was Johnny, you know, Johnny Cash, your song, and then Relentless. There were some sad, lonely nights on the bus during the Relentless album. There was some sad, I remember it was just like a year earlier. We were like, it was like hell on wheels down the highway. On the Relentless album, we could feel

a little dip and we were like, Oh no, this is it. 15 minutes is up. Oh no, this is happening. It's happening. But you know what? If it wasn't, if it wasn't for the relentless album, um, um, that made us more aggressive, made us jump off the cliff, you know, and that's what made us go head over heels with wide open. And you, you came into the picture. Then you got to remember, man, I was building the writers around every, every two or three albums. I would have different groups of writers come in and Neil came in during the wide open record and,

And, you know, Night Train is my favorite album, period. You know, and you got the majority of them songs on there. So Night Train is, I think that was the pinnacle of what we do. It's a decent song. It's a decent song. Yeah.

but an amazing record great title of an album and a decent song great hats you had other songs on there that i thought were better mike you had other songs on that album that i felt were better than night train me too i'm just 100 with you yes that we didn't get to 100 with you hey i thought one of my favorite songs talk yeah talk yeah i love

that was more of a duet

That was a duet with you and Jason. That was me dueting with myself. Dueting with Jason? Yes, absolutely. I can't believe I had a solo part on that song. No, but Feel That Again is probably my favorite song on the record. Oh, Michael. I've said this before. That was the one that got away after me. Yeah, Feel That Again was it. And the first one on the record, what was that, Town? Nothing Town. Nothing Town. Nothing Town should have been a single. It was 48 on the charts just being played.

And the label would not go to... Did Jason listen to this podcast? It'd be cool to have another hit with Towne in it. Yeah. Right? He needs another one of those. Well, luckily, we had 1994 to save us all, so... And let me tell you something. This is no secret, so no one has to... No one has to get me started. No one has to be... We are very vocal. I remember we were playing LSU, the football stadium, on a festival...

And Aldine goes, man, we're going to cut this thing. And he played it for me and Kurt. And we're like the demo of it. And it was oddly enough, it was a song that Thomas Rhett wrote. Yeah. I remember saying to him, the demo, I'm like, dude, we should not cut this. Oh man, it's just going to be an album piece. I'm like, if we cut this, I guarantee you, they're going to think it's like the next dirt road anthem. That's why they're going to do it. They're going to make you put out. No, no, they're not. Me and Kurt, like, please don't make us cut. We cut it. And what happened?

Well, it's almost to your point before. It's like if they hate it or they think it's going to ruin country music, it's a hit. If you got all the old guys going, oh, this is a hit. Yeah. You know it probably. Well, the problem with that. Well, the problem with that, too, is that I remember the day we heard it. Luke Laird came in and played it to us. We loved it. Yeah. And Jason loves Joe Diffie. Yeah.

So we were like, yeah, man, we're going to cut it and just have fun with it. There were parts of it that I got to admit that I liked. Yeah, we thought that after my kind of party that we would have some authority to say no. And it didn't work that way. I remember them coming to me going, man, this is another Dirt Road Anthem. And I remember specifically in the office going, this is not Dirt Road Anthem. This is a novelty. I said, let's just do a video and just put it out.

No, no, no. This is dirt road anthem. That's the thing I hate about labels. Sometimes they try to repeat what they've done before. But what they did to us on that song though, what they did to us was bigger than a, than a piss poor decision. Cause they don't see what happens is they're not out there every night in the road. Yeah. We are living with our fans. We are living with them. Especially, especially up to the night train record, because now we've established really we're confident in what we're doing.

we're confident in what we're doing, what we think, what we know we are, right? As a band and musically, they pulled the rug out from under us in that song because it wasn't us. Even though that could have been maybe a moment in time, say you do a video or say maybe for another artist. But for what we were doing, my kind of party and night train. It was a little more album, a little more grit. But it is what it is.

It's a stain. It's a stain. You know what? I look at it. All of those things were meant to be. They were meant to happen. I agree. It makes you go. It's like learning lessons, and we all go through it. Thankfully, you learn through it. You're right, though. But I will let you know, every time they failed on getting something up the charts that they went to bat for pretty hard, we got more authority. Yeah.

for the next few singles. You know, every time that happened, we got more. You know, so Night Train wouldn't have happened. The Truth wouldn't have happened. Yeah, right. We wouldn't have had The Truth if we didn't let them have, you know, Crazy Town.

We had to give them Crazy Town to get to the truth. And Jason was like, well, can we do the truth and then Crazy Town? No, if you do the Crazy Town, then you can have the truth. So it was always something we had to do. Now, you know, behind closed doors, we knew what we wanted to be singles, and we didn't mind. But we just had a different rhythm of how we wanted them to fall. Crazy Town is interesting. You brought that up because I remember cutting that song.

remember having fun cutting i remember never liking the song really as you know it's one of those things that we didn't look now what's funny about that song is like it's more sticky now than it was then like if you if you go to our show even playing it now it's like it's evolved and it feels bigger now than it ever did when it was out for some reason well you gotta remember yeah but you weren't in fan mode

You were in, man, this is kind of quirky. He was in hair mode. Yeah. Well, this is quirky. I don't want to say this. We're so cool. Why are we doing this? But fan mode, that would have been a song. Well, I did pitch it. That would have been a song I would have pitched, saying, no, no, this is what I want to hear y'all sing. Because everything can't be...

cuts like a knife you got to give them some other things you got to give a laugh to be cried to keep them on you got to give them a laugh thank you yeah you got to give them some meat but the whole plan with jason is but the whole plan the whole plan with jason is to be the most commercial to be tim mcgraw's nightmare to be the replacement of that generation and you can't do that if you don't if you don't walk in the room and cover all the bases which

which is, I can tear your head off, I can steal your girl, I can make you cry. You did it all, man. Y'all did it all. But Jason's voice does that. That's why he can sing your songs, he can sing Rodney Clawson, he can sing Wendell Mobley, and he can sing David Murphy. And he would cut my songs, he would sing, I would send you songs, and the key that I would do it if I was doing a record. They're like up here. Yeah.

And he would hear through all that just because of the song. And take it down two whole steps. Yeah, but he heard through all that. Well, he loved, you've got to remember, that's the smooth rock side and even the ballads of Lionel Richie, kind of really just sweet, slick sides of what he does. But I mean, you know,

He's my life in music. All these other things, my whole purpose of producing was to create this artist of the decade. It's always been my plan. So

When that happened, it was something really, you know, you're hitting yourself on the shoulder. So are you taking credit for the whole career? I'm taking 100% credit. Well, you should. No, no, no. But I just mean that that was always the plan. Yeah. You know, so in order to do that, you had to go through these hurdles and these fights and these things that we did. Well, speaking of hurdles and fights and all that, you know, kind of.

Kind of the impetus for this podcast is obviously the song, Try That in a Small Town. Yes. So let's get your take on it. Did you ever even see the song as controversial or a risk, or how did you see it when it came in? I can't wait to hear this. What's that? I can't wait to hear this. No, I never saw it controversial because that's what we do. Yeah.

It's not as a small town song. Yeah, you're asking somebody brought up in Ashland City. You're asking somebody brought up in Macon, Georgia. You're asking somebody brought up in a small town. So when you hear songs like that, to me, that's nothing we haven't done before. That is a small town lifestyle vision, and this is what we do. This is our target audience. This is who we are. So to me, that was... When all the controversy came, I was just excited. I was like, oh man, this is going to be bigger than we thought it was going to be. You know, so...

to me, I love the song from day one. I wanted to cut it. It was in there. And I never saw what everybody else saw in it. I never saw it being controversial. I saw it being our lifestyle. And, you know, so that's my opinion of it. Now, when it grew and did what it did, it started getting real personal. And you were like, hey, man, we don't think like that. We don't do that. We don't go, you

you know, do history reports on local areas. You know where that song came from, right? You know where the idea came from? It was from a songwriter named Kalo, Walking, Power Walking in Tights. We don't need to talk about it, Neil. It is a good story, but it was... Walking in Tights. I didn't know, since you produced the record, I didn't know if you actually knew where it was born. No, no.

A guy in tights, power walking. Tell me, Caleb, give him the quick version. No, I wasn't. Were you walking in tights saying, try this in a small town? No, it was... Yeah, try this in a small town. The quick version is, it was a prayer walk. So before my workout, I was doing a little prayer walk. And sometimes you pray for a couple minutes, sometimes 15 minutes.

Anyway, this is a short prayer day, and the sun was out. It was a beautiful day. And I said, in Jesus' name, amen. I was in a happy mood and everything. Then I started thinking about the news that I was watching right before I came out, and they did this montage of city violence. And this little lady with her mask on getting punched in the face and knocked out, and they went to the next frame. And another stranger, different city sidewalk came.

Somebody snuck up behind him with an aluminum baseball bat, full-on hip turn, hit him in the back of the head and knocked him out. I started walking faster and faster and getting madder and madder and said out loud, try that in a small town. I just got so pissed and said, oh, Lord, I'm sorry. You followed it up with MFR. Yeah, but my mom watches this podcast. I asked forgiveness right away, but nonetheless, I said,

all right, that's something right there. And then I called Neil. I just wanted the producer of the record to know where the song was born. Yeah, well, it had to come from something aggressive like that in your belief, you know, because of the things you say and how personal, you know, the lyric is. And that's probably what made people...

like it is because it was, the more personal you get in a song, it's funny how people really draw a line to how they like it or they don't like it. And try that in a small town. It never hit me as controversial, but like I said, I stay in fan zone. I really do. I stay in fan zone. And when I hear the song, I'm like, man, we got to cut that one. That's great. We got to cut that one. So I never thought twice about it.

The only thing I wanted to do is make sure the second verse doesn't choke and make sure the guitar solos are cool and make sure when it hits that airway, man, there's something that resembles my kind of party is what I wanted to give it. And that guitar tone, I wanted it to be a ballad, aggressive song. It's cool for our listeners to hear how our producers' brain works.

When you hear a song. Yeah. And you automatically think about stuff like that. Yeah. It takes me about a minute to know if I like the song. I love music. I listen to it all the time. I wake up with it, go to bed with it. So you know a song you like immediately. So that was one that I don't even have to listen to all the words because I know who wrote it. I know it's going to be right. So by the second verse was coming, I was already thinking about how to cut it.

Which was great. But there are those. And then there's some that are a lot more effort. That you've got to make sound like us. Or make us fit into another mold like burning it down or something. You've got to make us fit somewhere. Burn it down was a wild departure. Try that in a small town. Amazing. It was funny how radio, if people pay attention, man, radio was giving up on that.

And thank God for those people who hated it because it made them put it back on the plate.

And we were fixing to get that whole type of music pushed away. And thank God for those haters because it made that song come back into play. It made 20 people follow it. It made all these writers start writing it again. And so, you know, thanks to them. You know, that would have been the first people I thought at the number one, global number one party is thanks to haters because this song was negative spins, had lost its bullet the week the video came out.

And thank you. Well, thank God I didn't see that week of the church. I thought it was doing fine. It was, but it was going slow. It was a very slow song. But thank God for that because that brought that whole generation of what we see now without those things being pushed, we wouldn't have had that.

you know so that yeah so thanks to them but i'm sorry no no yeah i mean that was that was great i was i was just saying it burn it down i mentioned that remember that song was the first time that we'd we had used like something loop heavy yeah heavy loops and so redmond sitting there in the room i remember i'm thinking this is a departure you know yeah no drums until the very end yeah the last course yeah you know chorus

but it ended up fitting right in. Wait, you're talking about it ended up Billboard Song of the Year? Yeah, just... And we won Album of the Year at Billboard. We were tracking it. That's the last time the awards lacked us. I don't know. We did good with Carrie. We got some good Carrie stuff. We got the Carrie Underwood song. It was obviously great. I want to make sure that we don't...

Dismissed-ness Because I think it's really cool And it's a great story And you kind of Brushed by it earlier But your dad Yeah Is Buddy Knox Yeah He had a Number one song Party Doll In the 50s Yeah He If I'm not mistaken He was the first Artist To write songs

His own number one song. Yeah, yeah. Is that right? He's the first artist in the history of rock and roll to write and sing his own number one hit. Still not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Still not in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. I got to sit around and watch LL Cool J get in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and my dad died when a bagel torn the world because that's all he knew to do. So those things are tough. And I even...

And I hate to bring this up, but I even talked to the board. I even talked to the head of the Hall of Fame. And they were like, you know, man, it's just your dad's already passed away. It's not really relevant. It's not this. It's not this. And I remember a year and a half ago, I told him, I said, I'm going to tell you this.

Who's the guy singing, what lift goes up where we belong? What's that? Joe Cocker. I said, oh, so you're telling me Joe Cocker's never going to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? He's dead. And she goes, well, it's hard to get people who have passed away in the Hall of Fame, and your dad's not relevant, so it'd be hard to find advertisers. And I said, well, number one, Joe Cocker's going to be in the Hall of Fame, and he's dead. And number two, we don't want a show. I just want my dad in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You can just do it tomorrow, and we don't need a show.

I said, this isn't, you don't have to perform for us. My dad belongs in there with his Gretsch guitar sitting in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame being the first guy to sing and write his own number one hit. And a year and a half later, Joe Cocker's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and dad's still sitting there just because he didn't die in a plane crash with Buddy Holly, just because something didn't happen drastic to him.

They let this one hit wonder that was the first to do something go away. And that's horrible. I hate that. I hate that for him. And I hate the Songwriters Hall of Fame don't recognize that either. That's horrible. I hate it for you and your whole family because that's BS. Yeah. Just straight up BS. You said he died in Winnebago. So did...

Is this kind of like the 50s where you have like a colonel, you know, taking all the money? Yeah, no, my dad was, he died in 99.

But he was a tour. He tried to make a living. He did all this his whole life, and he lived on the road. He finally, cancer caught up with him. He lived in clubs. But yeah, he was signed to Roulette Records, the mafia. Mafia never paid him. They used to put Polaroids in our mailbox of my mom and big brother Wayne playing in the front yard and just say, you got a great family, buddy. Just Polaroid and put it in there so dad would never go sue them.

for the royalties and then when Morris Levy died in the 70s and you know so dad started getting some money but he had already sold 20 million records so 20 million well Party Doll sold 20 probably about 20 million to this day unbelievable 20 million singles to this day but you gotta remember that's 1957 he was on the American Graffiti soundtrack he's been he's been played on every he was the the 13th

biggest song in the 50s. It was all these things. Dad just, he'll lose traction every now and then because somebody might pass away. Elvis gets a lot of attention. These things. But I got Polaroids and

eight millimeters of my dad, Elvis hanging out in the military, everything, you know, Paul Anka slept in my dad's bathtub before he sang Diana. I mean, I mean, there's, he drove buddy Holly to meet Norm Petty, you know, he was supposed to sing that'll be the day. And oh boy, you know, so it's a lot of personal things like that, where you're like going, God, man, just cause he's a nice guy and didn't scream and yell or didn't die or, or didn't, or didn't, you know, he, you know, Steve Miller put the,

The Joker has Lovey Dovey in it. You know, my dad had the hit with Lovey Dovey. I really love your peaches. Let me shake your tree, Lovey Dovey. But it was a blues hit too, but dad had the commercial hit. So, you know, he had things, you know, he had three gold records. One of them sold probably 15, 18 million copies. That's unbelievable. That's so cool. Wow.

this is one of those conversations I feel I could go on for hours and hours. Oh, it could go on forever. That's one more thing. You got it, go. It's a terrible transition, so maybe, Jim, you could put this somewhere else. It may not make the podcast, but I think, you know, my father-in-law, Andy Kerr, and you mentioned Cross and Dixon early on. Yeah. And you guys play pranks, you know, and all the artists play pranks and things like this. So he was telling me, actually, he told me a few months ago, and I hit him up today, and I said, hey, what was that Cross and Dixon story you had about Knox and

And he said, well, it really wasn't about crossing Dixon. They were out there on the road and they're at some festival and Aldine was out there and Knox says, Andy, you still got any of that liquid ass?

He said, I want to play a prank on Hal Dean. And Andy said, well, not on me. I mean, I got some in the office. So he went back. He said, would you go get it? And he went and got it. So apparently you sprayed it. And he told you, he said, don't spray much. And apparently you sprayed too much. Can you tell that story? Do I remember this? Do I remember? Did you not do it? Is this one of my road things I overhandle? Too many demons? He said you did it, and they had to evacuate the bus. That was the story. That sounds like me. Yeah.

I mean, again. Was that an early version of you? That was probably the Hicktown version of me. But I got off the road a lot when Lawrence Mathis got on the road. You know, which is a whole other name. It's like Bealejuice. You can't really say his name. But, but.

But that don't mean anything. Dude, I'm ADD. If I do something to spur the moment, I don't remember half that stuff. But that sounds a lot like me, and it sounds very familiar. Because I used to do that to like Shoney's. I would go in Shoney's and get that stuff you'd buy at Spencer's and put it in the ashtrays and watch everybody leave. Yeah.

I was like eight years, you know, 12 years old. What is that stuff? Just the same stuff. Oh, you know, you know, it was just same stuff, but I, you know, so that sounds like something I would do. Okay. Yeah. You know what I love? I think people also, they, they might like this and I don't know. I think it's cool from you go back to the nineties and we were working at the same studio. We cut all the albums in today. Yeah. Same studio. Yeah. I'm engineer, same guys. Like every time I go in there, um,

It's just like, it's going back in time. Yeah. It's crazy. Like it's, it's such a familiar, like, I think a lot of people, you know, think we're, you know, people maybe cut records in different places. Every other record. It's like, we're in the same place in the same place. This whole, I mean, seriously, you'll grab a, you'll grab a coffee cup.

And it'll be your same cup you've had. It's the same cup I probably used when we were doing the Hicktown record. Yeah, but the people you're mentioning that go to all these different studios and stuff, you can say that they're experimenting with sounds and stuff. They probably have multiple producers. They probably didn't invent something. When you invent something, I don't care what anybody says, when Jason came out, everybody after him was bro country.

That was bro country, not the inventor. That's right. You know, so that, you know, so when you're there and you're inventing something, my goal is,

You know, we don't need to travel. We don't chase what these other people sound like. We stay true to who we are and what we do. We might experiment with one or two songs on a record, but we don't go and say, OK, let's go cut over here to sound like this. Let's go cut over here to sound like this. We don't want to sound like anybody but what we've invented. And if and if and if what we did wasn't so unique, then we wouldn't be going back to the hole.

And that's important for people to understand because that was the whole point of me saying no to platinum artists. People on tour with Jason would hit me up and say, I want you to cut the next record. I want that. And I'm like going, no, man, I can't do that now. I did it with Thomas Rhett because it was only going to be two songs and

And I never wanted to cut just two songs, but all these other platinum acts that were asking me to cut stuff, it was a true discipline to say no and save that, you know, save that sound for us. That's what, I didn't want to be Dan Huff and I didn't want, I wasn't good at that. I wasn't good at producing things just to produce it. I had to A&R it. I had to control it. I had to be a part of it. I had to feed off group of people that I believe in. So if I did, I did that, that one year with y'all, if you remember, we, I cut six, seven albums. Yeah.

Worst year of my life. Worst year of my life going in there trying to be in love with six different artists, cutting 60 songs. I'm like, I don't love 60 songs. There's no way. So I hated that process. I hated asking you for songs for the other artists I was working with. I hated pulling my crew that I thought was my crew. I know y'all had other crews, but you're my fucking crew. This is what I do.

You know, this is what we do. And I hated pulling those favors with all them other acts. And and that's when you started seeing me experiment with other artists, other people to find people who could fit into our world. So if it didn't work, it didn't affect us. And that was a discipline. It was a tough discipline. And but, you know, my goal was not to be the greatest producer in the world. My goal was to make to help Jason become artist of the decade.

Yeah, you did it. That was the goal. Well, we did it. Yeah, I know. We did it. It's cool to sit over here and be a part of what you did, what Tully did, what Kurt did. And Kalo bringing, try that in a small town, just to be a part of the Aldine ride is one of the coolest things of my career. One of the biggest things of my career.

So I thank all of you guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But to go back, when you were leaving your deal and came over to Pierre. Can't be talking about my old deals. Your old deals. And you were leaving and you were coming to Pierre. That was a planned situation after coming off of wide open. I'm saying, okay, man, this is...

I got to build these next group of songwriters around. So it was you, it was, it was, you know, uh, uh, you know, David Lee Murphy was coming present a little more, you know, and all these, you know, this whole thing was coming a little more present. Rodney Clawson was slipping away. Uh,

John Rich was slipping away a little bit. There was writers that we were doing. I never thought we'd get Flyover States cut. Oh, yeah. Me and Delaney would just sit and bitch and whine and just like, okay, he's got the song. They got the song. But we had a few of those. I was like, when are they going to cut it? Are they going to cut this? Drowns of Whiskey was seven years old. Flyover States was seven, eight, ten years old. So all those things. We had more first-time...

songwriters on our albums than probably anybody. One album, what was after, I think My Kind of Party had like nine first-time cuts. Oh, really? Really. Yeah. Jaron Boyer, Thomas Rhett. Oh, yeah, Michael Tyler. Michael, no, no, Michael wasn't there yet. Oh, really? I brought all them in after Night Train. They were trying, I was grooming them to be this next group of guys. And then y'all came in, Current.

y'all are the two albums ago this is your album to peak this is this is what we're working for is this album

And that's why this album will be better than the last album. And that's why it's clicking so much easier. That's why you can't say no to certain songs. And that's why we have so many songs on this record because you're in a zone and it takes two albums to get there. And that's why night train was so special for you because you were flying by the seat of your pants and wide open. I never thought that song would get cut. And then, and then night train came and you were just ticking them off. It was, you know, and then, you know, so,

it's all a plan for me. Every three or four albums, you're bringing in a new group of writers and Jason brought y'all in this time. And, and that was great. You know, we all wanted to do it together anyway. So it, you know, so that, that's where we are right now. This next album, y'all will probably have your best Aldine cuts, you know, and you know, and then Kayla, it's your turn. Yeah. To come back, to make a comeback. Yeah. Great. I like this plan. Yeah.

Well, I don't mean that in any way. No, no, no. It's just... You're welcome. Do you ever think... You know, we talk about this a lot, and I think we're all guilty of it. I know I'm very guilty of this. We're just... You get your head down so much, and you're working, making a record, and you're... We were in the studio, and this last time, for some reason, you know, I got very, almost a little emotional in the studio with you and with all the guys on the floor, Peter, thinking to myself, you know...

From making the demos of Johnny Cash and why burning all of your... You make a record, you tour. You make a record, you tour. It's like I really took stock of everybody, like all you guys, in the process. It was like we don't stop enough to take it in. Yeah. Which I want to try to do that better. But when we're making an album and hearing the...

We bust a lot of balls in the talk bag. Mike, it's a tough room. Yes. I got news for you. If you could work with us on a Bean record. It's funny because nobody would ever think of that. It's a tough room. You better. You better have thick skin. Yeah. No room for feelings in that room. And that's the magic of it, though, because I think that's

I know it's for me, like I want to, I want to hold up my end of the bargain. Yeah. And I know everyone on that floor, I wish someone, I mean, I don't know, they have recorded it, but the, all the ball busting. But that's part of the psychology of it. No, I think, that's what I mean. Part of the psychology of it is, yeah, is to, is to,

push everybody's buttons to say, oh yeah, well I'll show you, man, your shit sucks. My stuff is great. So we dog, I get dogged, everybody, I mean, what did Redmond yell one time? You know, well yeah, I mean, we're just going to play like the demo. You know, like I had no purpose in the room. You know, and,

But we all do this. I mean, we all lay into each other. But it's nice, man. One day, Kurt, you said something to me one day. One day you walked in and goes, man, good job on them guitars.

And you're the player. So that made me feel like, hey, man, I pushed him to a place that they weren't thinking about it. You know, and those are the moments you live for in the studio when you're cutting stuff that is so easy to cut. It's easy to cut a Neil song. It's easy to cut a hit song. But it's hard to make that hit song sound like Jason.

And that's what people don't understand the transition is because it's so good with Neil singing it. We're just trying to make it in the ballpark of your demo. Now, if nobody's ever heard your demo, we're frigging great. Yeah.

We have cut a masterpiece. But you hate that the world don't get to hear those things. I got a record coming out. But that's all we're going to produce. It's called Midnight Train. Well, maybe I'll get some cuts again. It's called Midnight Train. But that's the truth. You've got to remember, look at the people we get songs from. We get songs from...

David Lee Murphy, Morgan Wallen, Neil Thrasher, Wendell Mobley. I mean, real singer-songwriter guys, guys that are elite in what they do. And y'all are a big part of Jason's direction and sound. It's like Alan Jackson. Alan Jackson, if he doesn't write the song, he defines his direction.

George Strait does not define his direction. So we relied on you guys to write Jason's life. And that's why Tully and Kurt and them are hitting so well with y'all is because they kind of know what Jason would say and wouldn't say. Because they've lived with it for 25 years, 30 years. But that's so important in the process of making Jason like a song is having that process. And I'm a big process guy. Everything to me is a process.

you know it is such a crazy thing in there you know sitting in the same spot we've made all these albums in the same chair in the same looking at the same view like i wouldn't know what to do if i was sitting where kurt was and looking at you through the glass you should change it up sometime when they okay i'll try next time as a matter of fact we see what happens as a matter of fact i wouldn't change it up i make them when i pull in the studio i make somebody was parked in my spot and

And he was in the other studio. Who would do that? He was in the other studio and knew nothing about us. It comes down to that. Everybody parks in the same spot every album. That is my tradition is, hey, I pull up by the door and I sit there and make them move. I'll sit out in the car and we won't even start until they move their frigging car. I can't tell you walking in, even in the control room. And it ain't an ego thing. No, I get it. It's a tradition. It's almost, it has to be a certain way like,

if walking in that studio it's the same furniture nothing's this is not an updated place like no this place was already burnt down once i mean like i said i mean they're not restored yeah it's it's it's a it's beautiful it's like in that in that sense like man this is like what a rare thing to be

a part of when you start rolling down the road and you start, it just becomes part of life when you look at it outside for one second.

It's really unique. It's like going back to your hometown, and it's a piece of shit, but you feel awesome. You're like going, oh my God, man, this place is run down, but can I just stay here? This makes me feel awesome. The whole place, we cut the Relentless record.

And we had the safeties and the master sitting on the board and we were going to start mixing the next day. I go in the next day and the whole building's burnt down, but the control room and the tracking room, everything's burnt down. The doors melted shut. You know, I'm going to take from Trump.

God saved our masters that day. Amazing. The doors melted shut. The glass didn't break. It should have melted and went in and smoked up and destroyed everything. That whole control room and the other room, but everything else burnt down. So while they're mixing the album, I'm coming in every day. Peter and them are having to change shirts two or three times a day. They're in the control room mixing everything.

The doors are melted. I'm walking through burnt wood everywhere and there's black smoke coming in the air conditioner vents and they're mixing the whole. So that's probably what happened to the Relentless record. Everybody was high as a kite on burnt smoke, you know. Yeah, that's what it was. We'll blame it on that. That sounds good. We'll blame it on that. I feel like the relationship that we have and that we all have, I honestly feel like

this will never be duplicated. Yeah. The way it happened, how it's happened. And we didn't even touch like you kind of did when you first met Jason. I mean, you were, like you said, you were giving him gift cards. You were taking him to movies. You were taking him to go carts. You did that with us too. Not only were you the producer, you were our mentor. It has been an amazing ride. And the fact that you've included us on it and we were a part of it is just unbelievable.

We're really appreciative. But you can get this on air or off air. Yeah, let's do it on air. Don't expect much. The people listening won't be able to see this, but we have a little gift for Knox today. They can hear it when he opens it. I don't know how you're going to. That ain't going to pull. Maybe we need to. There you go. Do it. There we go. It's fragile. It's fragile.

It's what? Fragile. Fragile. From France. Let's see what this says. Fragile. Or Italian or whatever it says. It says, Knox, thanks for always making us sore. Is that what it says? Well, how do you spell sore? How do you spell sore? No, no. It says, thanks for making us all sound good. And it says you rock.

Sorry about that. I didn't see nothing on there. Oh, there we go. Oh, there it is. This is awesome. Yeah, this is awesome. This is incredible. So for the people that are just listening, we ended up. Neil, did you handwrite those lyrics? I did. That's awesome. That's my ability. That's what I was about to ask. This is awesome. This is a man cave thing. Well, this is great. Yeah, and this song saved us.

You know, saved us like she's country saved us. Well, like I said, you know, we feel like it was meant to be for a lot of reasons. It kind of gave us a reason to have a voice here as well. And it meant a lot that you were a believer in it because I think the believers in this song are around this table and Jason and you. We were on an island alone with this a little bit, and we appreciate you, you know, being the...

Steering the ship. We do. And I appreciate all that, but y'all don't understand. I love all the compliments. I love all the Don Waz. I love all those things. But all I am is a contractor. The only talent I have is putting teams together. And that's how I look at it. I can't sing. I don't play. I'm tone deaf. I don't know when things are...

I don't know what's wrong with it. I just know it don't sound right. So I always say, Hey man, let's keep going until it feels good. So I always rely on how it feels, not on what, how technically good it is. You always say though, I got, I gotta make sure I get this in there. I remember you say this a lot and you're like, man, if it feels good, it is good. Yeah. And that, that, that to me is, is a lost art today. Like the feel good.

I think the rest of the world agrees. Well, that's what I learned from you guys is to stay in my zone and my lane of what I bring to the table. And, you know, it just happens to be in the producer role, you know. But you guys bring in the attitude. You guys bring in the songs, right?

You guys bring in the emotions, and y'all bring in the... What we're chasing is to kill the live show. And I know record labels, the last thing they want to hear is, man, this will be great in the show. Labels hate to hear that, and I don't know why. I have no idea... Because they don't spend any time on the road. Yeah, and they're listening to somebody at radio telling them...

what they'll play and then we'll give them what they asked for. And it dies at 15, you know? So it's, I don't want their job either, you know, because, you know, you know, A&R in the nineties is a lot different than A&R today. A&R today is, is struggling. A&R today don't know artist development. They don't know, they don't know artist development.

Well, artist development today is done by TikTok and YouTube. Well, it's not artist development. It's artist research, and it's artists, you know, they think it's something. So now we've got a group of novelties. We've got a bunch of people that can get a lot of clicks for something that maybe not is long-lasting. You know, something that, you know, when you develop a talent and you build something, and when they fall down, they can pick back up. You know, it's very athletic. It's very...

It's very aggressive like that. Where today's world, it's like, you know, man, you know, it's real easy to invest in this because I don't care to get above a B anymore. I just want to be a B, but B can make me money. B can break even. But we have no superstars. You know, we have no 10 year plans right now. And I know we got some stars. I know we got some great singers, but, but, you know, there's always going to be a couple that will rise. But man, the nineties and early two thousands were a whole lot different, you know,

And it was the independents that did it, and their independents will do it again. Well, plus you could develop it, though. You were great at that. You developed the whole sound over a period of time. People don't have the patience for that now to actually see what comes out of it or what it could be. Well, that was funny, man, but the whole Warner Chapel productions, all that came from us developing Jason. Yeah.

I signed Gretchen. They took points off her. They took points off Jason, Emily West. Started that whole process of the Warner Chapel division, and then people don't invest in that anymore. They don't invest in... Publishing develops talent. Record labels don't anymore. Record labels are getting rid of radio teams. It's still funny. People with number one hits sells out stadiums. I tell everyone this. You can still...

there's no denying the feel. If you're a young artist, okay, if you've got, if you're streaming well, great. Can you sell out a club? I don't know. You get a top 10. Yeah. Tops one, even you start going out there, you start seeing the difference. Okay. All of a sudden you're filling up a club. So it does matter in this, in this format, especially. Yeah. But I'm not going to throw any artists under the bus because they all have, have done it the way that they, that they feel they can do it. But there's a lot of new artists out there right now that are,

that are really big on TikTok or something, but you see them singing and you see them blowing their voice. You see them not having any kind of long-term stability in what they're doing. And you're just like, wow, man, well, they're really big right now, but it's such a gimmick. Is there anybody in A&R where that can help them evolve into something else? Because going back to, are there any people who can get out of a sophomore slump? That's a big one.

That would be the best way to say it. We got out of it because we knew how not to give up. We did 40 fucking showcases. We played in front of people. We played in front of people walking out the door before our first course. We played 40 showcases to people that did not want to be there and

So we had that. These people today don't play that. They don't suffer like that. They don't do that. No, it's an amazing point. And Gary LaVox was on here and he said the same thing. And I thought it was a brilliant point. It isn't like what you can do to win a crowd over. What are you going to do when you fail? How do you know what to do then? And that's exactly what you're saying. I think it's amazing. But they're not doing the showcase. They're not playing the bars. They didn't grow up doing it.

They're not failing. They're not doing the 40 showcases or one showcase. They're just showing up on tour for someone and they don't know how to do it or how to handle it. And it's just a crazy time looking out like that. Well, going back to where we are right now, talking about this song and the idea, how you got the idea and everything. We're in a world now where people aren't allowed to think that or write that.

So just to have that idea and say, you know, man, I'm going to throw this up to guys in the room. I'm going to write this. You have no idea how much that's jumping off a cliff when we were sitting through a COVID where they said, no more, no more, no more of this.

No more patriot people. Hey, man, forget this. We want this and this and this. So just to bring that idea in, number one, and to say, hey, I'm going to write this. I know you know these people, but it's still a big deal to throw words out there, to throw a song out there, to throw an idea like that. It was almost not written. Yes, I'm sure. I'm sure it was. It was probably almost not singled. I bet if Jason wasn't Jason.

Oh, it wouldn't have been single. We talk about this all the time. The only people that were for the song are at this table and Jason. That's it. Like everyone else, you know, and I guess that's what will always bother me is like the believers are at this table and Jason is not here, but obviously if he was here, but you know, the people that were pushing so hard against it and, and to this day are probably, you won't say they loved it.

They had no problem benefiting from it. Yeah. Yeah, no. And that's the thing that, that's what really will always bother me about it. Like, if you don't support it, well, you support it enough to benefit from it. Yeah, I know. You're right. You know what? At this stage in my career, I'm good with it. Y'all can take credit if you want to. Whatever. Well, just like, because I knew it was going to come anyway. The naysayers, like,

Now they're saying they knew it all the time. No, you didn't. No, you didn't. And that's okay. Whatever. One of the reasons we were so excited to have you on the podcast is because without you all those years ago and your gifts, and you're super humble saying, I'm not this, this, this. You're a lot of things. At the time, you were the label. You were the manager. You were the producer. You were

You're the booking agent. You're doing everything. You're finding the right sound, the right guys, and believing in Aldine like that. Because if you wouldn't have done that, try that in small town, we might have wrote it, but Aldine wouldn't have been here to record it. So it would have just been sitting in your computer somewhere, and nobody would have ever heard it. And one thing we never spoke about is putting the band together.

I know SIR I know all them other musicians that came in and was trying out I know who's the one dude running around the room Mark Easterling I don't know if you're out there but yeah oh he was great too he was just he just wasn't the poser he just ran around the room so we got a guitar player though uh

He's not here right now, but he's going to be here in two hours. I'm in St. Louis. I'll be there in two hours. And we're like going, St. Louis is a lot more than two hours away. Well, that was my first day. I told Aldine and Knox, I said, I've got the guy. I've got the guitar player. He's going to be, it's like 930. I said, just talk to him.

he's going to be here in two hours. I talked to Kurt. I said, hey, where are you, man? He goes, I'm in St. Louis. I said, well, how are you going to be here in two hours? We've had this conversation. It's been debunked. That's right. But seriously, though, it's like maybe another segment, but it's a whole... I still remember the first big show we did. You came in in white leather pants. Yeah.

That's right. And I asked Kurt, I said, man, where does a dude find white leather pants? And he goes, they're chick pants. I definitely can't deny that. There has to be pictures somewhere. Oh, there are unfortunately a lot of pictures. Yeah, it is a journey. I remember the whole process of like...

I remember being a band and starving and Michael creating showcases that you know no one would come to. But just to give us a couple of rehearsals where we could make $100 to rehearse and maybe some free pizza or something. We'd had La Paz. Yeah. I mean, it's... But I don't know. It's just cool how one act, Al Dean brought all of us together. That's what I'm saying. That's why this...

This will never be duplicated. I just believe that for a fact because... Not today. No, because business is not run this way. No, it should be. Yeah. They need to quit bringing people outside of Nashville into our record labels telling us, you know...

what we should be hearing and who we are. They need to be investing in, in the town. The town in the nineties was all creative. All the people at the record labels were Tony Brown, Tim Dubois, Mark Wright. You know, they were, these were all creative people with Bruce Hinton's who stayed out of their way or, you know, Dungans who stayed out of Tim's way. You know, it was a generation of creative people running the show. And, um, you know, and then that, when that changed, uh,

And you had people coming in here going, no, no, y'all should be doing it. You should be listening to this. You should cut this. You should be that. We need to sign this person because they didn't make it out here. But they would be great here because these people are idiots. You know, so. But so I hate that. I hate where the town is right now because they're not investing in us. They're investing in something else. Yeah, they're not investing in people or the, you know, the town, which is really unfortunate. Yeah.

Anybody got anything else? I mean, we do, but... We can go on forever. We can totally go on forever. We can keep Knox here all night. Yeah, we're going to definitely have to... We have to come back and do another part two because it's...

Yeah, there's so much we didn't even get to. We do need to tell people, if you're watching on YouTube, leave us a comment. This is a pretty awesome episode. I know Ed's going to leave us some comments. Leave us those five-star reviews. Download. We obviously want to thank our sponsors. We want to thank Patriot Mobile. We want to thank Original Glory, eSpaces, and...

Tonight has been special for us, really. Thank you, Michael, for being here. It's been special for me, too. Thank you, Michael. Appreciate you. It's been awesome. Thank you, bro. Thank you, guys. This is the Try That in a Small Town podcast. See you next time. Make sure to follow along, subscribe, share, rate the show, and check out our merch at trythatinasmalltown.com.