#2337 - Oliver Anthony
03:08:08 Share

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast. And we're up, my friend. How are you? Good to see you. Long time no talk. Yeah, brother. Yeah. How you doing? You good? Good. Man, I remember towards the end of the last time I was here, you said, oh yeah, we'll probably see you again in a couple years. And I was just looking around like, yeah, I'll never see any of this again. You're back quicker than you thought. Yeah. Bro, that new song is...

Thanks. Yeah. I played that song about 20 times in the green room. And the first time I played it, everybody just sat around and went, oh, shit. It was so funny that, yeah, I didn't expect the song. Well, you know, I wasn't the one. I guess it was Adam that sent it. I don't even know how you got a hold of the song originally. Yeah, Adam sent it to me originally. Yeah. I'd send it to him like...

Yeah, just to get his opinion of it or whatever. And he's like, I got it. He's like, do you mind if I share this around? And I was like, yeah, go ahead. Bro, the first time I heard it was in the green room. And the green room has a killer sound system. So we put it on the Bluetooth and cranked it. And all of us, there was like 10 dudes in that room going, oh, shit. Oh, shit. Some of those lines like, oh, shit. Yeah. Woof.

What makes that song different, I guess, than anything I've done or than a lot of music now is that we're, um, we tried to like do it the way Leonard Skinner or somebody would back in this, where we're all just in the house and there's no like, man, there's so much editing that goes into music now on the back end and stuff. And with this, we're just like in there doing it and, you know, try to keep it as real as possible. Like, um,

you know, there's no, there's no click tracks. There's no real editing. It's just kind of like, we're all just in this house. I mean, it's, it was, is the worst timing to record, but, um, that was that January 5th, 6th, 7th window was the only time that everybody can meet up, you know, Billy Contreras on the fiddle and everybody. And cause he, he tours with Ricky Skaggs and he's kind of all over the place. So that was like our time to meet. So, um,

A couple days before we all went to West Virginia to record in my house up there, this terrible storm they were calling for. It's like the worst one since the 90s, supposedly. That's what Draven says. So we got all this snow, all this ice. So yeah, we used a side-by-side and a Jeep to haul everything up and down. It was just all we could do to get up and down to the house. And then right as soon as we get everything plugged in, ready to go, the power knocks out. And...

I was like, we were all just so discouraged. And luckily, there's a Lowe's not terribly far away. And they had one, they had like a Honda inverter generator that was like safe to plug everything into, you know, like where the waves aren't going to mess everything up. And so, yeah, we, you know, we recorded the song while on a generator. So you have to worry about the waves of the generator, like the sound of the generator? Is that what it is? No, like the... Electrical pulses? Yeah, like plug in all of that.

expensive equipment into just like a yeah a generator that's on an inverter like the voltage like goes up and down i guess or i don't know that's all above my pay grade but we had to find one that was like safe to plug all that equipment into you know well it maybe that's something in the song too you know like maybe that you're trapped in a storm but that's a scary ass song dude it's a scary i can't wait for the yeah see i hadn't put a lot of new music out because um

Well, I think back to even when I was here last time and before we did the episode and all, walking around on the sidewalk out in front of the hotel with Draven and a couple other people arguing that I needed to just cash out from Richmond and roll and not make this into a long-term thing because I just...

Well, dude, I just don't. Some people thrive in this environment, like everybody looking at them. But to me, it's just like, so it just it kind of takes it kind of takes a little bit out of me putting new music out. And so, you know, after Richmond, I only had those two new songs. I really just wanted to let everything kind of slow down and.

I could still maybe do five or ten shows a year and make a little bit, but I wasn't trying to be like a superstar. I didn't want everybody just to be... I didn't want to be stuck in that spot I was when I was at Richmond where everybody's just like obsessing over stuff. And so I kind of just tried to let it die. And then it, you know, it wouldn't. It was like the streams kept continuing and people were still messaging me and emailing and the shows were still selling out. And I just realized like...

I don't know. You know, I believed everybody that said, this kid's got 15 minutes of fame and whatever. And I would have been, when Richmond blew up, I would have been one of those guys who would have been like, oh, that stupid guy. You know, like, I would have been a hater too. So I was almost like rooting for them. Like, yeah. Yeah.

You know, because you've got to think, man, the first check from Richmond was $800,000. Like, I could have lived a long time off of that money, you know? Like, I don't need a whole lot of... Like, that was a decade or more of work for me easily. And so I was like, heck, yeah, I'm good. I'll just take it, you know? Anyway, I say all that to say that now it's like I'm going to at least just hit it good one more time. We've got six songs recorded now to come after Scornful that are all like...

I'm pretty proud of them. They're good. And so I'm going to put those out and then who knows after that. But let me tell you what's going to happen. You got a relationship with those people now, man. They love you. Yeah. It's just your mission in life. You know, you just got handed a wild hand of cards and this is your deck of cards. You know, your deck of cards is or your hand of cards is yours.

You put this song out, this authentic song that's very simple in this time where nothing's simple. In this time where everything's confusing and you don't know who's telling the truth. The news is lying to you. Everything is being funded. Nothing's organic. It's half the fucking traffic on social media is bots at least. Yeah.

Politicians are lying. Everybody's confused. People are simping for politicians. They're getting paid to repeat talking points on television and on podcasts and all over social media. So when someone comes out with something like that is just that dude telling you how he feels. Yeah. Real raw. You know, I remember we had that conversation on the phone and I was like, if you can do that, you could do that again.

They don't need anybody else. You don't need these motherfuckers who want you to cash out. They're doing that because they think that you're gullible. They think that you're naive in the ways of the entertainment music business.

The first fucking live show you ever performed was a giant sold-out show at a state fair. Do you know how crazy that is? That's your first live show. Yeah, well, that very first show was actually... It was even more amateur than that. It was at a farm market. It was...

It wasn't even a, there weren't even any tickets. It was just like, so it's crazy how it all, it just, it goes back to when I still believe just as much now as I did the last time I was here about, and I definitely won't bug everybody too much with all my hokey pokey religious stuff either. Like I definitely want to read a little bit out before we go, but I do believe it was just, it was all too perfectly timed, but I had actually picked that date out at the, at the farm market before Richmond blew up. That was going to be my, that was going to be my first time playing live either way.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, and I just, I remember even then, like, I just expected everybody to sing Richmond and that was going to be it and it'd be cool and I'd go back to work the next week. But it was like, even in that crowd at that very first show, all the other songs, they knew the words to too. And I was like, this is like something, you know, but the important thing too is that the important thing to take away from this, and I said this during Richmond, but people, you know, it was like,

Take me out of it. The fact that people can now choose what they want and push it to the top, even in a system that's rigged where there is bots and there's mass marketing money going into songs and like labels spend a million dollars on their own song to get it up the label. Yeah. The fact that people can just decide they like something and just shoot it up to the top. Like people need to realize how much power and influence they have, at least for a short period in time in society. It's like the stars are aligned where we can kind of

It's funny, technology can only develop on the backs of people using it. And so AI and all of this over the years, social media, all the back end of that,

It's all that information being sort of extracted from us. You think about the way a Tesla car rides down the road and it's watching you drive. It's like reading your analytics so it can learn how to drive better. We know AI, that's the only reason why they let everybody use AI is so it can make the AI. It's the user input that's what makes it. And so for a very short period in time, it's like the stars are aligned together.

Where they're having to like... While they're sucking all the humanity out of us to put into this AI, we also have full access to it. And like, so we can do...

Like even in the music business, you know, everything that the label used to hold exclusive control over, like the publicity and the marketing and the digital streaming service relationships, like all that stuff is now just a la carte to anybody. Like you don't need those big companies, all that stuff. You can just go and hire a really good social media person and you can work with a good music distributor without having to sign anything or give any of your rights up. Yeah.

Yeah. Right now, the people have the power is what I mean for like a very short period of time. But this should be a this should just be a reminder of that. This song being able to go up into the iTunes charts, even with stuff with way bigger audiences, with all kinds of marketing reach. You know, the fact that this can just organically go into the iTunes charts like that and people, you know, it's just that's the thing. That's the thing I always take away from it is just like, damn, dude, if we could just get organized, even for like two or three years, we could just fix everything like that.

The people really do have the power, at least right now, for a short window of time. But we really do. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Summer is here, and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with Uber Eats.

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Head to squarespace.com slash Emma for a free trial and use code Emma to save 10% on your first purchase. But people have to understand that we are all in this together and that there's organizations that want to drive us apart. And the way to work out our differences is having conversations and negotiations and figuring out how to work it out. It's not lighting cop cars on fire. Like this is, you know. Yeah.

But the spirit of those, like, not to defend any of that crap, but I just, that rebellious nature in us is important too, though. It just has to be, it has to be directed correctly.

You shouldn't be burning Waymo's while holding a Mexican flag, trying not to get sent back to Mexico. I mean, you're confusing the fuck out of me, dog. Who is your oppressor? Is it the electric car? Is it the country which, you know, you want to stay, but you're holding a flag of another country? Like, why are you wearing a mask? Are you proud of this? Do you not want to get arrested? What are we doing? Are you scared of COVID? Like, I want to know. Yeah.

Well, it goes back to what you said about mass manipulation and also like we don't we've all sort of lost our identity. That's why politics has become so prevalent and like the way people represent themselves to other people. And like, you know, that's like as as our as our culture and our tradition and like sort of the the knowledge of where our families and all of that stuff comes from. Like we're just sort of all we're just little boats out in a big ocean and we're looking for somewhere to.

We're looking for some kind of identity to reach out and grab. And politics, they make politics so easy to reach out and grab. Just like in the same way that people just absorb themselves into sports. Exactly. You know, they're way out of shape, but they refer to their sports team as we. That's Jamie. Our defense did really good. Jamie does that all the time. We won. Talk about a college team.

Where I'm from. Some college where he's from. Well, that's a... Maybe... Get out of here. Maybe if he's from there, though, then it doesn't count. Oh, I'm just fucking around. Yeah. I'm not a team sports guy, you know? I'm a combat sports guy, and I would never say we won. Like, if Kamaru Usman beat somebody, I'd never say we won. You know, Kamaru would call me up. What the fuck are you saying, man? We... You know what I did in camp? You know? I mean, rounds I sparred. You know? You know?

Yeah, all the punches he took. It's so crazy. But if there's a group of guys, you can say we. But that's, I see that, like, I just see that becoming more and more prevalent where there's not like, I don't know. It's sort of just like, it's kind of even, even to expand on the thought of it, it's even like the way that now we've all just sort of, we're all in these subcategories of the way we would be if we were in prison. We're all like, you know, like in the same way that when we use the word black and white to describe like,

How many different types of white and black are there that all just get merged? It's like, it's like creates this maybe like group identity. That's a lot easier to control. Like, sure. Well, and then it shifts over time. Like my family wasn't white.

My family was Italian. They were disparaged when they first came to America from Europe. My grandfather used to tell me terrible stories of what happened to him when he was a boy living in America as an Italian. They treated them the same way terribly racist people were treating people from Guatemala that sneak in here. It's the same kind of thing. Then after a while, they sort of integrated, and now I'm white. Yeah, now you're just a white person. Now I'm just a regular white person.

But it's easy now in big public narrative and stuff to... It's a lot easier to accuse you and 30 other different nationalities of people who are all very culturally different and unique and just call all of you white people and then pick the worst thing that one of those nationalities did and just...

cast it among the whole group. But it happens with that, with every ethnicity, every identity. The goal is to like put everyone in the world in one of three or four buckets and then hopefully figure out how to just put all of them into one bucket eventually. It's like, it's just, it's just, it's so much easier to control two or three different types of people than it is 30 or 40 or a hundred or a thousand, you know, which is also, I think why they never fix the problems that ail our inner cities. They, they want to keep that conflict. I really believe that.

Because if somebody wanted to have a better, stronger economy, the first thing you would do is you want more people in the workforce. So you'd want less people that are disenfranchised, completely out of society, felons, all that stuff. That doesn't do anything but cost the country money, right? Unless you have private prisons.

Now, in private prisons, those people become a business. And then that business contributes to the escalation of laws. And they want to make sure the laws stay in place because that way their business is always full. They have plenty of customers. Their customers are human beings that they turn into batteries to generate money. That's what it is. It's like those people, every person they have in there, they get more money, which is wild.

It's wild that we allow that. But then it's also like keeping a certain amount of crime in certain areas ensures that you're always going to have debates over law enforcement. You're always going to have conversations over disinferent. We need DEI. We need this. We need quotas. We need to hire more people of this or of that.

ignoring the fact that these a lot of these things especially with universities are the most racist especially towards Asians the racist is fucked towards Asians there's lawsuits about it Harvard is that still going on the Harvard lawsuit

Where they specifically made their application process, like the whole acceptance process, more difficult for Asians because they were kicking too much ass. They had too many Asian people that were willing to fucking work their ass off, study 12 hours a day, get straight A's. They're like, man, there's too many of these folks. We've got to make it tougher. What did they do to make it more difficult specifically? They attached a bunch of things. I believe the argument is they attached a bunch of things like social stuff.

Like how much do you engage in you know activism? How often are you involved in you know social activities on campus? You know what other things are you doing other than just pure academic work? They're like trying to slow them down. They're literally trying to slow them down. Yeah, that's another great example too like

Like even just to, even just to, that they can blanket Asian like that as such a, like, like it's Indian, it's Chinese. There's a lot of, but yeah. Yeah.

People that come from a hard place are willing to work hard. That's the difference. And the problem with meritocracy is that some motherfuckers will go for it. And if you get a whole country of people going for it, that gets scary for the people that just want to take naps. It's the same psychology that goes in, like in a lot of the smaller Appalachian towns, like where we recorded was really close to Bramwell, West Virginia. But if you look at like,

Even if you look at Bramwell, West Virginia, and their recent political history, like the last mayor they had, she embezzled money from the town. Whoopsies.

You know, and this isn't a very small tent. Like so. So government corruption exists like everywhere. And it almost is like maybe in those big cities. I understand definitely that I think things are intentionally neglected, like to create chaos and to create this, like you said, this need for more resources and more. But it's also just that maybe a lot of those people that are in positions are just very spineless and self-centered and like they don't even care that people are dying in their streets. They're worried about the the.

the money that can be made in the ego and the power of it. It goes back to kind of what I said in that ARC speech about lack of leadership. I just see that like, if we had people in big cities or in small Appalachian towns that had like a real backbone to them and like,

And had they were in a real position of like leadership where they wanted to fix things that a lot of that stuff would get addressed and covered. But we just don't have the right people in power. Maybe even is what it is, even in even in local and state government. The right people don't run. They don't want that job, man. They don't want that smoke. They don't want people attacking them. They don't want any of it.

the right people are the people that don't want to be president. It's almost like they've made these positions only appealing to people who are like sort of criminals. Sociopaths are criminals. For real? Like who the fuck wants to run everything? You got to be crazy.

I don't even like running my whole house. I don't like having employees. It's too much responsibility. What do you think would happen if just some normal people ran the country, though? Like, just some average shows. Like, what if me and you just went and ran the... What if me and you ran for president? What would happen? We would get killed. We would get put in a fucking convertible. They would definitely be able to hit my big head, that's for sure. My head's not that little either. You want a cigar? Yeah, let's do it. Get on that big dog. Well, I smoked a cigar with a guy one time. What happened?

This is the second cigar you've ever smoked? It ended up all on the internet. Yeah. This is your second cigar ever? Yeah. Let's keep it running for a minute. Yeah, just pull on it. The real cigar guys, they want you to do that first. You kind of bake the outside. Ah, there we go. Like I'm in high school and it's like a fat joint. Oh, imagine a joint like this. I guarantee you there's some people out there, some rappers rolling blunts this thick. You got to do it this way or they get mad at you. Yeah, this is really good. Yeah. Yeah.

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Shout out to Foundation Cigars. Well, hey, I did smoke half a block of Black & Mild with Chris Davison from the Davison Brothers while we were on tour one time, so I guess that counts as a cigar. That's kind of a cigar. Swisher Sweets, they kind of count as cigars. Talking about Swisher Sweets, I have a friend of mine that I ride side-by-sides with a lot named Jeremy, and that's all he smokes are Swisher Sweets. Anytime I see him, I'm like, yo, what's up, Swisher Sweet?

So I ended up hitting him up on Instagram, Swisher Sweet. And I said, hey, I got a friend of mine. I was like, will you just send him some merch? And they totally did. He got all these shirts and hats. He's the only guy I know that smokes them, but he's all day smoking them. He was in the Marines and stuff, and he's out now and just rides a boat around all day. He lives his dream life now and smokes Swisher Sweets. I wonder what percentage of Swisher Sweets gets sliced open for blunts.

It's got to be 50, right? Jamie, higher? 60%? 75%. 75%? Jeremy's the only guy I know who really smokes them without putting weed in them or anything. He just likes them? Yeah. Heck yeah. Does he inhale them? Yeah. Bro. Ron White does that with them little tiny... Ron White. Those little tiny cigars. What are those things called again, Jamie? We have a bunch of them. Yeah.

Yeah, he brought me a case of them. Did I ever tell you my Ron White story? No, I don't think so. Did you? I'm going to mess it all up, but that's okay because that's what this is for is to mess stuff up. So it was the night we recorded. Gosh, my head is like spinning now from this thing. This is crazy. The night that we were. The day that we recorded the podcast that night is when we went to the mothership for the first time because Tom Segura invited me. Right.

So we're sitting in there in the green room, Ron White's there and Tom and a bunch of people, William Montgomery. And I got to meet all these really cool people that night. And so Tom was like, man, you ought to get up at the end of our set and do a couple songs.

And we only had one guitar, and I really wanted my guitar, Joey, you know, the guy from, he's in the Scornful video, Joey Davis. I wanted him to get up there and get to do it with me. And Ron's like, well, I got a guitar in my house. And, dude, he's supposed to be getting on stage to do a set in, like, less than an hour, you know, 45 minutes. So him and Joey get in his car, and they run every red light from his house to the back.

and go and get Ron White's guitar, and that's what we used for our second. He was 15 minutes away. That was such a risky move. Yeah, like he said, they flew there and back. So you guys performed on stage at the Mothership. That was the first time a musical act had ever performed there.

Supposedly, yeah. 100%. Except for back when it was a musical venue. Yeah. I mean, Stevie Ray Vaughan performed. You saw the photos that we have in the tunnel. Yeah. Stevie Ray Vaughan performing there. I think it was 83 he was there. I think even by the end of this weekend, we'll be able to really have a good blueprint for sound in there again. It's a small room, but I think it would just sound... You could really have an immersive listening space for people to like...

Just such a cool spot to maybe do music now. Oh, yeah. No, I think it would be a great spot to do music.

It's just we're always packed with comedians. You know, we'd only do it for someone like you for fun. It could be a lot. Yeah, it could be like every once in a while. Like, I love the idea of it being like a live recorded thing. Because my favorite music to listen to is the live version of almost anything anyway. Oh, yeah. Of people. And it would be cool to go back. And I mean, our plan with this, we're going to record. We'll record Friday and Saturday night. And my plan is to put out some kind of mothership show.

live at the mothership and like have some of the money go back to the humane society oh that's awesome um that's we're gonna record it and just see what see what happens but even if we just get a couple songs out of it or something and put them out oh that's badass but yeah i like that i really like the austin humane society they um i was looking at all their they got like some really funny dogs and stuff on there too but i i uh i think it'd be i think it's cool getting to do something with them yeah i can't go to those places

I would have a hundred dogs. They got this one dog on their website. I should have sent it to you, but I don't know. Maybe Jamie can find it. But it's like there's this one like older dog. I think he's a Chihuahua or something, but he's got this real funny name like Buddy or Poppy or something. But he's like the most like he doesn't have any teeth. His tongue's hanging out. I was like, that's my I could just take him home with me, Buddy or something. I've had a bunch of rescue dogs in my life.

There's a thing, there's like a relationship you have with them that's different than any other dog. Like they fucking, they're so, they love you so much. They're so happy you rescued them. Like they know that you rescued them. Whereas my dog Marshall, he has no idea.

He's like living the best life. He's just like, everyone's my friend. He's never fucking growled at a person in his life. He's nothing but sweet. Think about how lucky you got to be to be Joe Rogan's dog. That's pretty cool. Like, what's the odds of that? Well, how lucky am I to have a dog like him? Yeah. He's the best dog ever.

Yeah, I know. He's like a little human. He's like a human. Like we have conversations. Like he knows like not just words. He knows like when I'm saying something, like what to do. Like me and that dog are like.

locked in it's wild he's the best he's just all love like for everybody that comes over like when people come over the studio and he's here he just does a circle he's like I'm your friend and then it licks you I'm your friend and he just goes around and he sees you the first thing he does is flop on his back like I know you want to rub my belly come on yeah

He's just so used to being just loved on. Yeah. I just got a... Well, I had three dogs, and then I lost my white shepherd right after we got off a tour. He got bone cancer, and he was gone within a month or a month and a half. You know, it's a really important thing that we should probably tell people about right now when we're talking about cancer. Stop feeding your dog processed food. I know it's expensive, but if you can get it, get your dog real food. There's companies like...

Farmer's dog, that's what you use, right? Farmer's dog, and they'll send you real food, and you feed your dog real food. It's like real human-grade meat and vegetables. Your dog will be way better off, just like you would be way better off. Anything that can sit on a shelf for six months and not rot is not good for you. It just sustains them.

You know, and then, you know, obviously dogs are running around drinking out of puddles and, you know, what fucking toxins they're exposed to. Might need a lot of like horse shit and stuff too. They're obsessed with it. But you're going to get a healthier dog if you feed them real food. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying it's a cure to all ills, but man, it fixed my dog quick. Marshall was starting to get a little chubby and we're trying to lessen his food, but he was always hungry. And I was like, this sucks.

And then we found out the company that I was using is Maeve, M-A-E-V. And they sell you frozen food and he eats it frozen. And it's just meat and vegetables and he fucking loves it. And he gobbles it up and he lost the body weight. His coat looked better. He had way more energy. I'm like, of course, he's eating real food instead of eating some processed bullshit that's filled with preservatives. You could sit on a fucking shelf for it. Like if you only ate protein bars-

all day long and nothing but protein bars. He'd probably get sick. How is that thing just sitting there?

Like, how can you just live off of that? Plus, you got to get tired of eating the same thing every day. Yeah, that too. Yeah. Like, at this point, I mean, I feel like for your dog, he might as well live a pretty cool life. He's got, you know, he's Joe Rogan's dog. He can't just be eating regular dog food anyway. People don't know, though. They think dog food is what you give dogs. That's the problem. Like, they need to understand, like, dogs are just like any other animal, like human beings. Yeah.

What they eat has a giant effect on their overall physical health. Yeah. Yeah, I've been feeding mine eggs. We've got a bunch of land birds now and meat birds and stuff. Oh, that's nice. They just eat raw eggs. How long do your meat birds live before you whack them? So I've got some now that are about two weeks old, and they'll be gone before it starts to cool off. It's quick. It's...

I want to say like two and a half months with them. They get to the point where they get so fat they actually can't hold themselves up anymore. That is so crazy. Yeah. Because I don't have meat birds. I have egg laying hens. And these little ladies just run around all day long. You just let your run loose? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I do the chicken tractors, but then I will let them out during the day some too just so they can run around. Yeah, it's good for them. It makes the eggs healthier. They're hilarious to watch too. They're just great. My friend who runs, he has meat ones, and he said he waits until their legs break.

And I go, what? He goes, they get so big that their legs break and that's when you kill them. I'm like, Jesus Christ, what did we do to these fucking chickens? It's kind of sick, yeah. It is totally sick because I'm seeing my chickens that are years old just running around. And these fucking chickens get to be two months old and their legs break from the weight of their bodies. Yeah.

Yeah, it's kind of depressing, but that's why, at least in their short life, I try to let them get some sunshine and run around and read stories to them at night and all that. And that way it's not so bad. That way it doesn't feel like I'm just a horrible dictator, like a chicken dictator or something. The amount of chickens that get whacked in this country every year is crazy. Yeah, and honestly, raising birds in your yard is so much better than buying them from Tyson or something like that.

Oh, so that's a regular chicken on the left from 1957. And then by the time 1978 rolled around, we got them pretty fat. It kind of looks like, it just looks kind of like what happened with all of us from back then until now. You know, probably no coincidence. We're all eating terrible food too. But I think there's something going on with their genetics too. I think they, look at that thing. That's crazy. Look at the size of that butter ball. Yeah. That looks like a fucking soccer ball.

Isn't that nuts? That's nuts. That's a chicken? That is fucking insane. Look at that one sitting there in a ball. Look at that one that's in a ball. Look at that. That is bananas. Wow. Yeah, they're still my favorite. So far I've tried, I do guinea birds, turkeys, and we've tried a few different types of chickens and stuff. Turkey's overrated. Turkey's good. They're funny. Yeah, to eat they're probably overrated, but they're really funny in person. They're good to eat if you eat them right after you get them out of the oven.

Or if it's going to be on a sandwich with a bunch of other shit on it. Otherwise, they're dry and boring. It's a weird bird. It's a bird that somehow or another, it became our holiday bird. You know what I mean? It's very strange. They make this real guttural noise. It's like a vibration more than a noise. But the males, they have this crazy... I don't even know how to describe it. But it's a noise they make internally that you can hear. It sounds like...

Sounds like a UFO. It sounds like when you're getting sucked up in a UFO or it's just crazy noise like that. Yeah. Oh, really? But I liked, they're like dogs to me. I've got a couple of Timmy and Tommy and they, they hang out in the yard. Yeah. Well I did. Timmy's now, Timmy's in the freezer, but we still got, we still got Tommy. So Tommy's still your friend.

Breakthrough on the birds domesticated in a gene. Ah, there it is. That played a key role, came in 2010 with a study of the genomes of eight different populations of present-day chickens from around the world. Researchers found they all carry two copies of one version of a gene called the thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor, which apparently set in motion changes that plumped up the birds. This dominant version of the gene, or...

allele had swept through all the domesticated chickens regardless of whether they were broilers, rather, bred for size or strains bred for laying many eggs. Although the precise function of the gene is not known, it regulates metabolism, reproduction, so probably stimulated chickens to lay more eggs year-round. It's the big-ass chickens that lay more eggs. It started off from a decree from a pope a thousand years ago. Whoa. Ban on four-legged animals. What? What?

They got tough and banned meat from four-legged animals on fasts. Oh, on fasts. Which numbered 130 days out of the year. Damn. 130 fasts? What were they doing back then? Yeah, you couldn't eat. Like, you had to fast all of Lent, which is 40 days. That's like the Easter fast. You probably had to do it again around Christmas. But when they say fast, but you could eat chicken? Yeah. Well, that's not a fast. Or fish. Or fish.

That's bullshit. Yeah, the Lent thing when I was a kid, I remember that. I remember fish on Friday. I don't think that the Catholic Church, I just can't imagine the Catholic Church ever coming out with some kind of decree that just doesn't make total sense, though, for everybody to follow. Forever. I'm sure there's some reasonable explanation.

Yeah, they definitely have it dialed in. Yeah, it's not like churches a thousand years ago would ever do anything that didn't make a lot of sense. Well, I think back then, when did they stop being allowed to have wives and shit? When did that happen? Like, when did the Catholic Church put a ban? Like, when did they make it so that everybody had to be celibate?

Boy, what a stupid idea that was. You want to get people completely disconnected from society and sexually, insanely repressed? Just, you give them salt, Peter, and tell them they can't beat off. It became canon law in the 11th century, later reinforced at the Council of Trent, 1545. So I bet there was, it sounds like there's 300, 400 years of a little slippery times. What do you think,

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Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they had immense power. The Pope would decide whether or not armies were going to be sent places. Yeah. It's nuts. Yeah. And if you look at the Vatican, you go, oh, this is what you guys did. You fucking stole everybody's art. They have so much art. Like, how did you get this? Yeah. How convenient. How did you get billions of dollars in art? I mean, it's kind of cool. I love the fact that it's there and you can visit it. And you should visit it if you've never been to the Vatican. It's fucking bananas. Yeah.

In a way, it's like there's always been somebody trying to use a moral high ground to control other people. Like now it's the opposite, right? It's like...

Now it's people now it's like the people opposite of church that are sort of like trying to control people through this moral authority of like, this is what's right. And like this sort of new society that we have to live in where everything has to be comfortable and nobody's allowed to be offended. And we're not. And it's like all this. That's like the same authoritarian psychology that was in the old. It's like this is the moral. You have to follow this because it's the moral high ground, you know, and you're not allowed to speak it.

it's like, it's always somebody trying to control somebody else with this virtuous bunch of propaganda that, and it, yeah, it's like I was talking, you know, my most of the people on my team, I say most, there's only really four of us now, like in my music business, but two of them are from Ireland and they were, and my tour manager was telling me about like,

growing up in Dublin when he was younger, I guess like back in the 70s or 80s and the, like just the stigma within the church and all the, like so much stuff that the church was doing wrong that would get kind of covered up and brushed to the side. And it's just, it's really crazy when you read into all that, like how much corruption existed back then. You know, it's like,

Now it's easy to point to corruption in government and in society and everything else, but it's not like the church is more dead now than it is corrupt, I'd say. But back then it was just like this power-hungry thing. And to me, that's not real church. That's just, like I said, that's just government or a regime using church as a, you know, using God as a way to control people. But it's a lot different than what church should be or could be. For sure. I mean, that's just a function of human beings when they get in power. Right.

Human beings, when they get in power, they want more power. Like if you're in the automobile business and you're making cars, you want to make more cars. You want to make more cars. You want to sell more cars. You've got to sell more cars. If I'm in the power business, I want more power. I don't want this amount of power. I want more power. These people are trying to take my power away. I want extra power. The best way to keep them from taking my power away is to get more power and get it so that they can never take my power away.

You know, lock it down. Make the elections bullshit. You know, make it like Russia. Hey, Putin won again. Everybody clap. Have you seen that video that went around recently of, I think it was in Romania, but there was like an overthrow that happened in a day. It was from back in the 80s. I think it was like a dictator that was over Romania, I believe. I don't know. I'm not on the Internet a whole lot anymore, thankfully. Thankfully.

I remember watching a bit of this video where this is like a Romanian dictator who had, he had been in power for like 20 years and had done a lot of oppressive stuff, but overall was like maintaining power. And then at some point a police officer or a military official or something shot, I think like a, like a preacher or a Pope or something in the,

The dictator dude took the side of the police and it sort of was like a cultural shift. And basically, like he went to give this big speech and all these people showed up and they had applause playing over loudspeakers. But really, the crowd was there to like mob. And within like a day, they had like taken the whole government over the whole military turned against them. It was a big video that just got uploaded about it maybe a month ago. I think it was Romania, I believe.

But it was so quick. It was like he went from being in this position of power and like ruling over everything and having just extreme wealth and the whole military at his disposal to everyone turning on him. And he was publicly executed, I think, the day after that speech. But that was just something I watched. Here we go. Yeah. Executing a dictator. Open wounds of Romania's Christmas revolution. Whoa, they did it on Christmas. Damn. Damn. Wow. And there's a video on this?

Yeah, there's a video on YouTube that somebody sent me that I was watching through. It just showed, though, going back to, like, if enough people have their minds made the same way, they can just pretty much do anything. But, um...

I believe it was within like a two-day period that all this happened. He went from being in power to being publicly executed. And they held up elections afterwards and like... And I don't know all the history of it. I know very little, but it's just something that seemed really interesting to me that I've never... I was never taught this in school or anything. I know that. But of course, I didn't pay a whole lot of attention while I was there either. So maybe I did get taught. I don't know. There's been so much war in that part of the world, man, for so long. For so long. It's like baked into the ground. Yeah.

The crazy shit that's going on in Ukraine right now, have you seen that they're flying these drones that you can't jam? And the way they are, they have like miles of fiber optic cable attached to them. Yeah. This is so crazy. They're like fishing. They're like fishing with a drone. And now birds are making like nests of this fiber optic stuff. They're picking it up like, oh, this is perfect. Make a little nest with this shit. Did you see how they got those drones in for the attack on the planes recently? Yeah.

What did they do? They drove them in in trucks, right? Yeah, they were like, I don't know if buried is the right word, but they were like secretly in the trucks and then like they all came out at once or something. Yeah. Like the roofs opened up over these like log cabins or something. They all came out and they all went out and attacked all the planes. Roofs of sheds. They were sheds loaded on the trucks that were stuck around the perimeter. Well, pretty fucking ingenious, man. And they said it took like a year and a half to come up with this plan.

This will change war forever, though, I guess. I mean, artificial intelligence will, too. I'm reading a book about it right now, a fiction book, one of the Gray Man books, that is specifically about using autonomous weapons. It's The Chaos Agent by Mark Graney. It's about a guy who's this billionaire who develops this autonomous weapons program.

They're doing that. They're doing that right now. And we don't know how advanced China stuff is, but we know their drones are insanely advanced. Their drone shows that they put on, they just put on another one recently, the largest ever drone show. And you watch these coordinated things in the sky that are creating images, and you're like, that 100% could be a weapon. You can get that thing to be so precise. They coordinate together. All you'd have to do is like,

Put a suicide drone. Look at this thing. Look at these things, bro. These are drones. How nuts is this? I mean, that is fucking bananas. Look at that. I mean, it's crazy. I've heard, you know, this is all just generalization stuff, but I've definitely, I've heard people make pretty compelling arguments about like, you know, all these sort of like prophetic visions of the end of times, all the stuff in the sky and all the imagery and all that, that a lot of that could be.

I don't know. I just I see a time coming very soon where the word warfare is conducted with these drones and also with like probably ground machinery to like you see they've got Tesla bots and other variants of that that are able to catch tennis balls and organize groceries. And these things are all fed off of artificial intelligence, which knows everything about all of us collectively. It sees where we go and what we do and what we say and what we shop for and what we look for and how we drive and everything.

It's almost like this very godlike thing. And I don't think that it even matters whose AI it is, if it's China or ours or some private company. I think it's like at some point it will just be the thing. It won't even be China's AI anymore. It will just be... Yeah, it'll say, fuck you, China. We're taking over. We don't believe in countries.

We believe in the hive mind. How do you stop that? You don't. It goes into industry and creativity and almost everything that a human can provide outside of very select few things can be emulated and replicated and done by. It makes us practically irrelevant in the eyes of...

In a lot of ways. It doesn't make us irrelevant in art because you're always going to want art from a person. You're always going to want art. You're always going to want paintings from a real person. You're always going to want music from a real person. You're always going to want – I don't know, though. Like, I think with – I think AI is already, like, deeply ingrained in music. I don't think – I can't –

I don't know. I'd bet a lot that most of the new big hot songs that get written and just the big... I think AI drives all that. I know for a short period of time, I used a social media company in Nashville. There was also a period of time that I used a management company in Nashville. And both of those girls I worked with at both of those companies who were helping me with social media stuff, they even had AI trying to write my captions and stuff. And I would always just like... It was always the most dumb sounding stuff, but it was like...

If they would take pictures from after a show or something and they would want to make a post on Instagram the next day that says, oh, had so much fun in this town. It was I'll never forget it. Can't wait to see you next time. And it was just like this little they had like a little thing, but it

It pre-wrote all these based off of like how I wrote in the past and stuff. And it's weird how, um, I, it goes back to what you said about most of what's on the internet isn't real anyway, but I think in music, AI is much more prevalent than we realize. I just think it's like kept in the, I don't, people aren't going to say that they're using it, but I think like in the big, these big songwriter circles and things where they have to generate, you have to generate 20 or 30 songs a week. And like, there's all this pressure. I mean, like,

And that's your job, and you're like, oh, my God, what am I going to do? Like, you know, like, I can't go back and live with my parents. I got to do – I don't know. I just – I don't see how people aren't – it's in almost – people use AI in almost every job now. I know, like, people who are in sales who use it to, like, help them manage their customer bases and who they're going to call on and what they're going to – it's just –

I don't know. I think it will become... I think it's already become ingrained in us. We're already so addicted to... We're so reliant to technology, it's pitiful, you know? Just like how hard it is to walk around without a phone, you know? Yeah, we're integrated. Even with... When I had periods of time where I knew I had months off and I would always at least... I got to the point where I weaned myself down to like this... I bought a flip phone from Walmart that still runs on a Verizon SIM. But that's...

That's what I'd carry, and two or three people knew mine. But even then, I always felt like I at least had to have a flip phone on me in case, like, what happens if you're out in the woods and break your leg? I don't know. But they are now a part... Those phones are a part of us. We don't go anywhere without them. We feel naked. You don't have no phone. We feel vulnerable without them. I know. You really do. If you go for a quick walk without a phone, you're like, oh my God. So when the time comes when it's like...

If there even is a definitive time, but it's like when we have to choose between integrating with AI or not, most people are going to do it. Most people will just immediately submit and be a part of it and be maybe even excited to be a part of it. It probably won't be a decision that you're allowed to make.

It's probably something that's going to be, if you want to function in society, you have to integrate. Like we talked about in that text about how it feels like we're in an alternate dimension and it seems like there's these like things coming. You know, it's like it does, it does. And also it is just because things happen so fast and chaotic that we can't really keep up with anything. One day the submarine collapses and the next day this other crazy thing happens. And then, you know, I don't know. It's just like, it's so hard to keep up with what anything of what's really going on. I think the problem is that we have to start thinking,

having people gather together again and hang out and not just make all of our hangouts digital because the systems like you said there's bots and algorithms and marketing approaches and psychology that's just deeply rooted that goes into like just the way we fundamentally communicate now as societies and just globally like

We all just talk on. I mean, gosh, like I've used this example before somewhere talking, but it's like I think about back when I was in high school, like my high school girlfriend, you know, we would have some trivial argument about something. There was no way that me and her were going to text and figure out how to fix that. And now, you know, like and that was a high school relationship like that was over something stupid. It's like real world problems. You can't fix just texting. And I don't think we can fix all this shit on X and Facebook and all that. I think it's like it's.

I think people just have, people are, we're almost to the point now where we prefer socializing on the internet because it's, it's almost like our minds have become more adapted to think that way. But it's, but it's, we're, we're in this digital world chasing and emulating all of the things that we're, that are, that we have this void from, from not having in real life. Like,

I don't know. It makes it very complicated to fix anything when we're... The only way that we can... We have this amazing, intricate English language where all these words can mean all these different things, and it's so easy to put everybody together in a digital space with AI and bots and manipulation and algorithms and big companies. And how do you fix all that in that space? It's just like you'll never... It's like we're just in a house of mirrors, you know? Yeah. You're just supposed to not engage. That's what people need to stop doing. But the problem is...

The consequences of the actions of the rest of the world do affect you if they're big. And so you worry about the big ones. So you pay attention. So you got to pay attention to the bad news of 8 billion people.

which is just unsustainable and it's also this ability to interact or not interact as you choose all throughout the day like you don't have to be invested in a conversation if you and i have a conversation and you ask me about something and i start to answer and i just wander off you're like how rude but on the internet that's normal like somebody posts something somebody have a response an hour later and nobody cares it's like i guess he was busy you know it's normal because you're engaging and not engaged it's very unhuman all of it is unhuman and

It's all like constant even if you think you're immune to it There's this constant input of other people's thoughts into your own that makes you foggy It gives you like I was talking to sugar Sean O'Malley about it once and he said I get a low-level anxiety just scrolling I'm like, yeah, right

like what is that i think it's on purpose though that that's captive that keeps you it keeps you engaged though yeah but i don't even know if it's on purpose i mean i think it's just they figured it out along the way that people get engaged like that like that's why when you open up tick tock it immediately starts playing you things like you're you're on the hook right away the instagram you got to choose like sometimes you might get a picture of someone's dog oh and then you scroll up and it's a music video and then you scroll up and it's a guy getting assassinated and it's and you you get to choose

With TikTok, they just start hammering you. Even with Instagram, it seems very flashy. Like there's always stuff. Sex always ends up somewhere in it. Like something gets popped up or whatever and you just... It's all for engagement. Your attention is what's worth so much money, which is so strange. It's so strange. Your data and your attention. Nobody thought about the data part. Boy, it was...

If we thought about the data part and they set up different regulations back in the 1990s when AOL first burst onto the scene, if they realize, like, data is going to be one of the most valuable things. And tech companies that do nothing but offer you free email and a free search engine are going to be the biggest fucking companies in the world. And it's because of your data. And they're going to be, like, siphoning off your data without telling you about it. And they're even going to be lying about it.

They're going to be running like little secret things where they're snatching up your contact list and snatching up your email and all your friends and trying to get them to buy shit. It's like... We all know Americans are still recovering from years of surging prices. Now some in Congress want to make cuts to Medicaid, a program that provides critical health care to 72 million struggling Americans.

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Yeah, I mean, even just... That's what I mean. Even just the little bit of access I have to my fan base and, like, the reports that can be ran on, like, what they do and who they are. And, like, it's... Seeing it from that side, it's just... It just really... It goes back, like I said, just saying that I think we're... Right now in society, our job is to feed this machine. And so... And it knows, like...

It just knows entirely too much about all of us. And that's very important in every aspect, whether it's in like comedy, music, um,

Any kind of pop culture, like everything, all of our reactions and behaviors to what is presented to us on these platforms only makes it refined down even further. And they're able to see like your lookalike audiences and what they look at and where they shop and what they like and what their retention is on certain videos that have this certain type of thing. And it's like this whole, it's just a lot of psychology that goes into it that people don't realize. It's very easy to download the app and get on there and look. But you don't have to pay attention to it. Yeah.

You could just be yourself. That's also possible. I just couldn't find a way to be on there and still... The only time I'm ever on my profiles is if I'm with Draven or somebody and we're looking through comments together and replying to stuff or doing things. But I haven't had anything logged in on any of my devices since last November. Yeah, just keep doing what you're doing. Like...

That's the thing that I was saying about what AI can't recreate in music. Yeah, I'm sure there's AI songs. There was a great AI song by Drake that they made that they had to get removed, right? Don't they remove those? I think so. But...

People still want to hear the real shit. Like, the reason why your song became so popular was because you could really see it's just a guy with a guitar, like, standing, you know, grass behind him and shit, and a dog in the background. There's a thousand more people that are way better than me that are in that same space, and I think my dream of this long term is to figure out how to, like,

Like, how do you get all those people into the limelight? Like, yeah, like what I've been working on since I guess, you know, the one important thing to to drill home to people to as a follow up since the last time we were here. It goes back to that first conversation we had. But, you know, you remember I was arguing that I really wanted to put all the money from Richmond into a nonprofit and not ever even touch it because I was just I didn't want all that. I felt like it wasn't my money. I felt like.

All those people went out of the way and supported me and like blew all these other huge songs off the chart. And I just, I wanted to, so, and then you said, well, no, don't do that because nonprofits are sketchy and people are corrupt and like, just keep the money yourself and then figure out how to do good with it. And that was the biggest thing I walked away from that first conversation we had. And so, you know, now it's like, that's the one thing I do want people to know too, though, is like that Richmond money and everything. It's, um,

it's went to good. It's went to do a lot of, and what I think will be in the long run, a lot of important things I've been buying. Most of it's went towards buying land and stuff, but I've got this whole kind of crazy thing. I'm,

Like just a way for people to unscrew their minds, to get reconnected into nature. You're going to be a cult leader? I was thinking about it, yeah. Yeah, I was thinking about it. I might try to get with Vermin Supreme. He's got this cool idea about everybody having a free pony and stuff, and I think that would work out.

You ever seen him, Vermin? No, who's that guy? Vermin Supreme. Do you know who he is, Jimmy? He runs for president. I think he's from Connecticut, maybe. He runs for president every time. Does he? He has a big boot on his head. What? Yeah. How do I not know this guy? Yeah, yeah, he's hilarious. There's a video of him from that New Hampshire primary. How do I not know about this guy? He has a boot on his head?

He is. Yeah, he says he'll take he's going to he's going to take everyone's guns away, but he'll give you ones that are better. Says he runs on gingivitis and zombie power. He yeah, he has a mandatory toothbrushing policy and he'll say things like, well, no, you know, it doesn't have anything to do with the toothbrushing control camps and the dental hygiene authoritarian center. Or I don't know. He just give me some video of this cat.

Oh my God, I can't hear him talking. The best one of him is from that Connecticut, that one where he's wearing the yellow jacket, wherever that video is. There you go. Thank you. This guy's got a duck boot on his head.

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Friends, what this mandatory toothbrushing law is really about is strong teeth for a strong America. My name is Vermin Smith. What does this guy do for a living? He looks like an open mic that you would find at the comedy store. He looks like somebody that would be on like a Kill Tony. But he runs every time and he just tries to make, like at the very end of this, whoever the guy is beside him running, he's like sprinkles,

dust all over him and says he's gonna make him gay and so I know he just he just makes he's just in there making a mockery of it I guess you know but that's funny but yeah that's who I have to team up with him for my for my cult or whatever my tooth brushing cult 100% you need him on board he needs to be the toothbrush guy if you're gonna have a cult you can't have stinky breath yeah gotta keep it together but yeah that's my yeah maybe it's like a cult or something I don't know helping other musicians that

that have talent, like giving them a vehicle. That's huge, man. Like, cause a lot, there's a lot of people that just don't know how to get started. And sometimes the thing that makes you a brilliant musician or even a brilliant comic makes you bad at promoting. Cause you're not thinking about yourself. You're like really locked into the work. You're really locked into your thing. Yeah.

And it takes someone who's really thinking about themself a lot and promoting themself. It's a totally different mindset to be like the social media guy, like to be like really into like social media videos and really into like promoting your gigs and really...

So a lot of guys fall by the wayside because they just never put their stuff out there. There's some brilliant comics like, I don't want to make a special. You should put this out, man. This is great stuff. But they just want to kill. They just want to go up. Their thing every night is get on that stage and do the thing right and then rewrite it. It's also the attention and stuff of it. It's the not... Yeah, I mean, that's kind of what I...

I kind of laugh when all this happened again with the Scornful song. I remember I called Draven right after everything went up and everything was starting to move, and I was like, oh, what have we done? Here we go. Here comes the New York Post is going to come showing up again at my grandparents' house next week again or whatever, and it's just like...

But I think it's also just, yeah, people just maybe don't want the attention. There's a lot of really funny, genuine people that do comedy, but, and, and they can do, they can get up there and you have enough attention on them to do the comedy, but they don't want to be like, Hey, look at me. I mean, I fight that constantly. Even like that little video where we were going in the plane yesterday and I said, plane by day, Joe Rogan pot, you know, like I don't,

Even just making little videos like that, I feel way out of place. I don't want people to think I'm saying, hey, look at me. That's why I try to go through these periods where I just don't post or upload. At least you were in a regular airport. Yeah, Southwest. The worst is when people are doing those things in front of a private jet. I'm like, okay, we get it. You're rich. If people try to take photos of me in front of a jet, I'm like, uh-uh. I'm so not into this. I'm not.

I don't like that tension. I don't want it. I don't need it. It's which is weird because I got a lot of it. And I think probably why I have a lot of it because I'm not looking for. Yeah, but you're also able to you're channeling it out through all these other. I mean, think about all the things that you've influenced and been a part of and done, even just through this podcast and all the conversations had and the information shared. Like, it's not like you're just posted a bunch of pictures with your shirt off. Like, hey, look at me like you're using it.

I mean, I don't know. I almost would say it's a, I don't know that it's a coincidence that you got put in this spot for a lot of reasons. I mean, there's a lot, you probably don't even look at it that way, but there's a lot of important things that come out of this and all the other podcasts you've inspired that have done. I mean, gosh, dude, it's a, there's no way to even calculate what you've, if you, if you had never been born, there's no way to calculate how different things would be now. Like, well, that's important to think about though. You know, like it's sort of, but sort of, but from my perspective, I was just one piece in this thing that happened. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, that's why I always have my friend Adam Curry on who's the original. He's the pod father without him. There would be none of this. He figured out a way to do this. And, you know, and then also Anthony Cumia from Opium Anthony and Tom Green. Those are those are my number one influences.

And then Adam Corolla already had a podcast when I started. I was like, oh, Adam went from radio to the internet. Maybe I could do that. I remember going to his place and I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. It's back when we were doing it on a little laptop. I'm like, wow, Adam has like a real studio. He's got employees and shit. Yeah.

And then, you know, we just kept doing it. Just kept doing it, you know? And then eventually it was webcams. Okay. Now it's not just a laptop camera. It's actual webcams. Okay. Now maybe we should get like real cameras. Okay. Let's get real cameras. And then like, maybe we should get a fucking studio. So we tried it at the ice house for a little bit. Like maybe I should get another place. Then we got another place. I'm like, I think I need a warehouse.

And then like I think I need armed security Fucking special ops guys around me all the time and then it just kept going man I remember the moment I've talked about this before but I didn't understand what was happening until one day I was on stage in Chicago, and I think this is 2012 and

So I think it was around then. So the podcast was only three years old and I didn't realize how many people watched it or listened. A lot of it was listening at the time because I wasn't,

I don't look at the numbers. I just kind of keep, I feel like, well, that's bad for you. You know, reading the comments, looking at the numbers. I just like do what you do. That's why I do it exactly the same way. I have a bunch of people on there. No one has ever heard of, you know, and then a few Bonos and stuff, you know, every now and then I'll have Russell Crowe on something crazy. Like, well, that guy's Dennis Quaid's here. This is nuts. Yeah. Your Mel Gibson one. Yeah. He's the best. But, but,

I was on stage in Chicago and I was telling the story about the podcast. I go, how many guys listen to the podcast? And it went, yeah, it was like 3,700 people in this place. And they were all screaming. I went, yeah, that's when I realized like at that moment, I was like, holy shit. How big is this thing going to get?

And this is another funny thing. When I went over to Spotify, I was trying to get 10% less famous. That was my goal. My goal was to fade away. My goal was, like, if somebody has to pay me and you have to go to this app to get it, all the people that are getting it at the other apps will probably stop listening. Like, this would be great. I'll get all the money and I'll just fucking drift into this place where it's only, like, the hardcore fans that make the trek over to Spotify. And then this fucking COVID thing happened. I remember the beginning of the podcast, we lost 50% of our views and Jamie was in a hot panic.

Yeah, that's exactly what I meant earlier about not putting a lot of songs out. There's some cool place where you can be where you have your real fans and you're having fun, but you're not into all the sensationalism, all the crap. You can avoid all that. You're a real guy. You're a real dude. And I think one of the ways that the world has prepared you for this

is that you've lived a normal life for a long time. A normal life with no live performances, no notoriety, no fame, no nothing. You developed like a real... Like when people want to hear working man songs, you fucking know Bruce Springsteen isn't a working man. Do you know what I'm saying? Like he probably was never really a working man. He was never working on the docks. You know what I mean? He was never really a guy grinding it out.

He became famous pretty fucking young. Bruce Springsteen and the Eat Street Band, they got hot early. They're great. Don't get me wrong. Especially as early as Born to Run. Fuck. He's got some jams, dude. He's got some great songs. Brilliant Disguise. Oh, I fucking love that song. But...

you're a real working man. Like you were a real working man when you made Richmond North of Richmond. Like that is real.

And you can't fake that. And people want that. They want a fucking trucker hat. They want ripped jeans. They don't want like ripped jeans that are ripped from work. You know what I mean? They don't like real oil stains on your knees because you're fixing your own car. You know, like that's what people want in this world. They want authenticity. And it's possible to maintain authenticity regardless of how big you get. It is possible.

And I think you can do it. I think you can do it because you got here later in life. You got here and lived a real life. And then you made it into magical fantasy land where we all live. Yeah. Well, the thing that I've gotten the most from you, like I said, I don't look at my streaming numbers or anything either. That's what I mean. Like when I finally did go back and look at Spotify, like I,

a year, a year and a half later, it was just like, oh my God, like I'm, this is still the thing, you know? But, um, so I agree with you there. I don't look at the numbers. I, I do, I do catch myself reading a lot of the comments, but only because a lot of them are important. And I think some of the stories in them are important for me to, I don't, I don't want to completely isolate myself from that. And like I said, I also really like some of the negative ones too, I think. And the negative ones are a lot less now than they used to be. It was just really early on. People didn't understand how everything happened. And I really didn't understand it either. That's why it's like, whatever, you know, but.

Moving forward now, yeah, I've got a good core team of people. I've got Draven from Radio WV. I've got two or three people on staff. I don't have a management company or a publicist. Perfect. That's the key. I'm keeping it real low. Well, I mean, it amazed me when I came here for the first time and saw the staff you have. And then meeting Lex, Lex does all of it. He even turns his own cameras on. There's only Lex in the whole place. It's like, gosh, I don't need all these people.

It's like a lot of those positions and jobs and services that musicians use, I think they don't realize that they don't even need. They just are like, oh, that's how it is in music. That's what I want to... I want to...

Yeah, I don't know. It eliminates the executive influence. It eliminates the corporate mindset. It eliminates that because there's always going to be a person that wants you to make a decision that's better for you financially. Whereas like your instincts are guiding you towards this artistic decision. Yeah. And anytime those people get in the mix, they fuck everything up. I'll give you a great example. It's like the only, it's the only like call out on here that's negative that I'll say at all is that, um,

Just to show like how stuck in the mud the industry is and how how much I think it's going to change in the near future is leading up to the scornful release. Me and Draven had went back and found about 30 or 40 people who just without us even knowing who they were, made the Richmond reaction videos. And they were a big part of the push of it, especially long term, you know, like.

People on TikTok and stuff that had made these videos. And so I don't have... I own 100% of my publishing. You know, all the music's mine. Thankfully, I have my own label technically that collects the money. But you have to use a publishing administration deal in order to collect money like overseas. I don't know if you're familiar. No. If it's the same in comedy, but like...

Yeah, most any musician, whether you're independent or you're with somebody, you have to have some kind of pub admin. And it's basically somebody that goes and helps you collect publishing money from over basically mostly from overseas is the way I understand like all these obscure places that money exists.

So Warner Chapel does it for me for 9%, right? So they go collect all the stuff. They keep 9% of it. They're the same to me as if I had a commercial landscaping company managing a property for me. So all I asked them to do was, hey, Warner Chapel, this six foot square of grass where all these reaction videos exist, just please whitelist these people so they don't get copyrighted. I want them to actually make the money they make on the scornful reaction videos, you know?

Like, I don't I don't feel right if they're going to go and make a scornful woman reaction video or or play drums over it or whatever. I don't want to take 50 percent of what you know what I mean? Just don't copy. Just whitelist them. And it should have been OK. Great. Good idea. You know, instead, they just said, we can't do that, but it's for your protection.

Because they wanted the money. Did they get a percentage? How did they get paid? Well, yeah, they take 9% off of what I get. Yeah, they don't want... But I tried to explain to them, well, no, like, in the business sense, I even counter-argued them, and I was like, well, let's think about it in the business sense.

this little bit of money, right? That you're not going to collect off these reaction videos will generate who knows how much traffic to the music, which is worth the money you really want. And it shouldn't matter anyway. It's not their, it's not their shit to decide on. It's mine. They're just, it's, it's the same thing as if I hired a guy to cut the grass at my commercial property and said, don't cut the six foot square. And they're like, no, we're cutting it. We're cutting all the grass. And it's for your, so I had to get my attorney involved and spend like four grand to

And they whitelisted them for 30 days. And so I'm like, okay, like that's why all of you industry people are like, so, you know, it's like, that's why this is happening. That's why it's like-

I don't know. They don't care at all about the little guy or the people who are doing all the work. I just picture all these stinky librarian-type old people sitting around a table like... And they can make all this money and make all these horrible decisions and pour all these millions of dollars into songs that don't work. And it doesn't matter because it's just like... They don't care. They're getting their big salary. So, yeah, it's just...

Even in the most minuscule relationships I've had in Nashville, I get resistance and pushback and like...

It's um, I don't know like why wouldn't they want me to whitelist those 30 people? It's just a little stupid stuff like that that I've constantly dealt with so I've just decided now like I don't need I just don't want to do anything in the music like I don't even need to be in the music business like in that sense, you know, I'm just I write my songs I've record them I go do my shows and have fun But I don't even need to follow any of the model of what of what like a traditional musician artist person would have done You definitely don't need 10 years ago. You don't need to do it that way

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It's not necessary. And you have the right mindset is that all those reaction videos will just get more people to listen to your music. That's fact. But those people were like real fans who went and did it not because they were trying to get traffic or money or whatever. They just liked it and wanted to push it. And so the least I can do is not take 50% of their stuff. But isn't that crazy that it's like there's...

Nobody's ever done that, I guess, like before. They were just acting like that was just the craziest thing in the world. So I ended up releasing this scornful song through a company called SoundOn, which is like the music distribution side of TikTok, which seems like something I would never want to do, but...

they give me the flexibility to go and like, and do all that. They don't care because they're not music industry people. They're just social media people. So I uploaded it through them basically. So I'm still, I own all a hundred percent of the rights. It's all my stuff. I don't have any deals or records or labels or anything, but they push it to the streaming services for me and they do all this stuff. So that way I'm not even having to use a music company to push my music. I can kind of just like not even be there at all, you know, like not even be in Nashville at all. That's the goal is just to get

And so now that I've got data from, you know, since Richmond basically and have learned a lot, my goal long term is I want I'm going to always put new music out and write stuff. And, you know, but it's going to come in spurts and there'll be times where people won't see a lot of me, but I'm going to be in the background with other people like me.

I want to help. I want to find these people on TikTok that have like 100 followers, but I know that they've got what it takes and get with like Draven and some of these other people I've met and like help them write some really good songs and record them and put them out and push them. And just like I would love to plant like 10 or 15 people into music, like give them everything I can give them to to push them forward and make like that way. It doesn't feel like I'm the guy in the spotlight trying to like I feel like I'm just you know, I feel like I'm like the most.

I don't know these companies have got like all these employees and all this money and all this backing and it's literally like four or five of us taking them it just I don't know to me I just think I I think there's strength in numbers if I could help more artists push forward and like help them break that cycle too that it would just it would be like a multiplication factor on this whole thing that's kind of what that's going to be kind of my next thing I get into is is helping produce music and doing festivals and like

starting a label basically kind of sort of that's fucking awesome but a non-predatory one like even even when Draven put somebody on radio wv if they get 30,000 views there's already people trying to sign them like they just want control of every new thing that's you know that's what they were trying to do to you right off the bat oh and it felt terrifying too to not do it it just felt like I was just it felt like I was just everything it was everything in me felt wrong doing it you know but I just decided that I didn't care about it and that it

I just, you know, I remember being very adamant at the beginning that every decision moving forward was based off the fact that I wasn't scared to go back to my old job if I had to, because I'd rather go back to my old job and be me than go to Republic, but just be Republic's little bitch, you know, and have to do everything they want and say everything like. And also seeing where all your profits go.

and realizing that you got hoodwinked into these deals. Because these deals, when they give you a big chunk of money, you've got to pay that money back. That's all just an advance. If I had went with a label, I would have been a lot bigger, though, because they would have made me push 30 songs out a year, and they would have put all this marketing money into it, and they would have kind of inflated me into this big fake, like every other country superstar. And so...

it feels a lot better just kind of being a little, a little scaled back, a little smaller, but yeah, collecting a hundred percent of my money. And then also just knowing that I don't have a boss anymore other than, you know, other than the man upstairs. Like I don't,

Gosh, dude. I mean, like, imagine, you know, I've heard stories from bands and stuff now that have told me that they've went and had to record music like under a label contract and really didn't like the way the album turned out, but still had to release it anyway. Like, oh, my gosh, that would just make me to have to put music out that I didn't think was good. And then they're going to promote it and they're going to get behind it. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want other people, especially financial people, to ever be involved in your art.

Even if they're good people. Like, no, we can work out a beneficial deal for both people. No. No, it's not going to be beneficial for you. It's going to influence you. And it's going to turn you in one way or another that's not the way you would have originally gone on your own. And the reason there's so much money in music is because music's such a big part of us as human beings. And it's like, it's so funny, the first thing they do when they

sign somebody is like try to rip their identity away and it's like they it's like the labels don't understand that it's the identity of the person that put them in the position they're in in the first place it's like you said the relatability of it you know well there's also people have this instinct to try to influence people so there's one of the things that executives do in the beginning when someone's just starting they go you know what you should do you should get a crew cut

I think you'd look great with a crew cut. And then, like, the crew cut was my idea. Yeah. Like, you know, something about Oliver's crew cut. Everybody loves that crew cut. Yeah, man. It's just like, he doesn't give a fuck about his hair. That was my idea. Yeah. You know, there's a little of that. Because, like, people are easily influenced. Because, like, in the beginning, you're not sure. Like, I can't even believe I got signed. Like, am I going to be a star? Are these people all here for me? You know, and they'll fucking...

get in there. That's happened to me. I mean, I brought around February or so, I hired this management company that stayed, they were my management company for three weeks. So that kind of tells you how well things worked.

But he was super nice, like loved everything I was doing. And then as soon as I started with him, he was telling other people that I know, like, yeah, we got to figure out how to make him cool. And he needs to put like 40 or 50 songs out this year. And they were wanting me to make this social media post, like complimenting Beyonce's country album because he thought it was going to get me in a position. Like, it's exactly what you're saying. It's just like...

And I just told him, I was like, dude, if I just wanted to be somebody's little puppet, I would have taken a lot more money for it. Like, you know, I'm independent, so I don't have to do that. It's like... But that's like...

And it's like the thing is I don't need to be cool. It's okay that I'm kind of lame, but I'm just me. It is what it is. It's like I don't have to try to get on the internet and pretend to be cool. There's enough people doing that. You're cool, man. Stop this. You're cool. You're not lame. You're not lame at all. What the fuck are you talking about? You're a cool guy. You make great music and you're fun to hang out with. How are you lame? Because you're normal. Guess what? Everybody's normal. It's a ruse. Beyonce's normal too. She takes horrible shits, I'm sure. We all do. We all do.

They're humans. Human beings, man. This illusion of celebrity. It's complete total nonsense. Dude, that's the best thing. Yeah, everybody takes horrible shit. You want a brain gummy? Want some brain gummies? I was hoping you had some of the Alex Jones ones. Well, these are the Onnit ones. The new. They're alpha brain gummies. We just got them. How is Alex doing these? He's great. He lost a lot of weight, man. I saw he's getting like...

Yeah, he's ready for the next big... My friend Sean Johnson's training him. Oh, really? Yeah, he gets up every morning. He works out for fucking hours. He's lost, I think he's lost 70 pounds at this point. He looks fantastic, man. Yeah. He looks fantastic. He looks like he's 20 years younger. People think, this is really funny because, you know, his whole business is conspiracy theories. Conspiracy that Alex has been replaced. Yeah, yeah. Listen, folks, that's real Alex. I've watched every step of the way and my friend trains him.

So I can tell you for a fact that is the real Alex Jones. Quit drinking, quit fucking around, quit eating bad food. He's eating healthy food now. He works out every day. It's like no ozempic, no bullshit, no shortcuts. He did it the right way. He looks great. Yeah.

Yeah, he's definitely one of my bucket list people to meet at some point. Oh, I can introduce you to Alex. Yeah. We can make that happen for sure. 100%. I thought that would just be hilarious. That's done. Done. Done. Nice. Yeah, we'll hook that up.

Be prepared. That would be an interesting conversation, yeah. Because off air, he's just like he is on air. That's Alex Jones. He's ready to go. He's got a billion fucking, what Bill Gates is doing right now. And then you're like, corny. You're like, what? How does he get in the way with that? Well, basically, they paid off all the mass media. If you see, there's a $350 million donation that he gave to all the media companies. Like, what? $350 million? Is that real? And then Jamie will look it up like, holy fuck, it's real. Yeah, I know. He's right a lot of the time. He's right most of the time, except that one big one.

But other than that... You get that with... Like the kids say, you get that with those big jobs. You know what also I think happens? And I think this is 100% real, is that there are a bunch of fake stories that get propagated to people that are really invested in conspiracy theories, hoping that those people promote those fake conspiracy theories and then get outed as being wrong. I think you can get caught up in that. And then I also think if you're real quick...

to not check, and I'm guilty of that all the time, to see if something's legit. That's one of the vital roles that Jamie plays. Jamie's like, "Maybe that's not real." Like, "What? Why are you fucking this up, Jamie?" We want it to be real, right? You want a nice, juicy conspiracy to be real. And then also, at the time of the Sandy Hook stuff, he was drinking a lot, and I think he was genuinely overwhelmed by all the real stuff that he was finding.

You know when he's getting into the Iraq war and all these different things. It's like he was just overwhelmed man I think he had a psychotic break, you know, and he'll he'll be the first to say that too It's like when you're your whole business is uncovering uncovering insane conspiracies that everybody thinks you're out of your fucking mind and then 20 years later like holy shit, he was right about every step of the way and

He was telling me about central bank digital currency connected to a social credit score system that it's game over because they'll lock you in just like they've done with China. And he was saying this like a decade plus ago. I was like, what? Yeah, it's great. Like the guy before him that I think I think the two of them actually didn't get along. But I always if I ever if I ever do meet Alex, I was going to ask him about that is Bill Cooper. But he was a guy who kind of came before Alex. That was a behold apparel horse. Yeah. Yeah.

But yeah, even back then, most of it seemed like total madness back then, and now it's like...

But it's just sort of like I laugh about when I was a kid, everyone thought that Michael Jackson was the big sexually perverted guy. And who knows with Mike? But now I look at Michael as like this just kid that was put in this terrible position from a child up. And now all these other musicians that you wouldn't even think are the sex predators are. It's just kind of like you just don't really know much of anything anyway. But yeah, like with the Michael Jackson thing, too, is his doctor said that he was chemically castrated when he was young to maintain his voice.

And I believe him. Cause that totally makes sense. You look at his frame and,

His really thin frame where it doesn't look like he has any testosterone. Look at all his brothers. His brothers are like thick, like manly. What does chemically castrated mean exactly? Well, the crazy thing, it's hormone blockers. It's exactly what they're doing to trans kids now. It's the same thing. And that's why Michael Jackson had that voice. It's very similar to a castrato's voice. Do you know what a castrato is?

So these kids in opera were castrated when they were young. And there's only one available recording, I think. It's like one guy, right? Have you ever heard it? You should hear this. A long time ago, yeah. I'd like to hear it. Let's listen to some of it because it's fucking creepy. I just have heard stories about that being a thing. They would castrate children so that they never had testosterone, so that their body never really developed properly.

And then they would have them maintain that young voice, that high pitch that's only possible if you don't develop the deepness that comes with. That's why when trans men, when women start taking testosterone, their voice starts getting deeper. Things start getting weird. They started getting very Dwayne Johnson. You know, it's like that's testosterone. That's the effect that it has on your voice. And these poor fucks.

Alessandro Mareschi. I don't want to, I'm not gonna, don't make fun of him. It's a beautiful woman. This is a grown man, right? Yeah, this is a grown man.

That'll be like sampled in the next Kanye song or something. Yeah, we can leave it there. We don't have to play any more of it. It's so haunting. It's so haunting. First of all, what fucking psycho figured out that if you cut off little boys' balls, you could make them sing like that forever? Like what fucking psycho was the first person to do that?

Yeah. Because these are little kids. They're doing it too. They're doing like six year olds. Was this in the church? Was this like a church thing or? I do not know. It was an opera thing. But I know that castrating men, you know, eunuchs was a common thing when people were working in the homes of royals. They'd castrate them.

There's one of the most horrific stories was Nero. Nero beat his wife to death and then took a slave boy who looked like his wife and castrated him and changed his name to his wife and presented him as his wife. Yeah.

People in power have always been horrible. Yeah. People, when they get unchecked power, have always been horrible. That's why directionally, like this whole no kings protest that's supposed to go down on Saturday, directionally, it's correct. Like, you don't want kings. You don't want augurs. But...

who's funding it well it turns out it's funded by an oligarch it's started funded by a lady worth 20 billion dollars who is the heiress to walmart who walmart a company that employs cheap labor and sells a lot of stuff from china that would be affected by tariffs you know it's like that with all of them though it's like that with everything man everything is like it presents as being this moral situation like they're really looking out for you they're really looking out for people

They're never really looking out for people. There's always some primary profit motive that's causing any organized thing. It's never for the human race. Unless the people are all on mushrooms, it's never for the human race. And until mushrooms get legalized, that's probably never going to happen. And that's the real battle. The real battle is what gets legal first, AI or mushrooms? Yeah.

Yeah, it's both of us will lead towards God. Both of them will lead towards God, but one with a completely different. This episode is brought to you by SimpliSafe. Some things take time. Hunting, developing healthy habits, gardening. You have to wait months for a decent crop, but it's rewarding to see all your hard work and patience come to fruition. On the other hand, there are some things you just can't sleep on, like your personal safety.

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It's one of Jordan's earlier works, you know, and he's talking about society and how it's structured and basically talks about like the motivations and the origins of why people always resort to evil. You know, like in this, I mean, we talk so much about the Holocaust, but not at all about all the other horrible tragedies that happened in the same time. But even like talking about with Russia, like just think about the Soviet Union and what happened there and how easily people were turned against. It's just.

This little moment in time we're in, we should just be so thankful for it. Even though it is mass chaos right now, the fact that people are allowed to speak freely and do things and have the influence and power they do is just nuts when you think about... You're right. I mean, is this...

The same crazy people that we're arguing about today have always existed in different forms and with different names and faces. But we're better off today than anybody else in human history. And this is a struggle and it is a battle. But I think we can come out of this on the other side.

We all realize that we're being played against each other. And that's where it's important. You know, when you're paying people to protest, you're leaving pallets of bricks around and you're organizing the whole thing and you're shipping people in on buses and you're making sure that all the people show up at a certain amount of time and they're all compensated and you give them water and snacks like,

We've got to realize what's going on here. This is not for you. When you light your city on fire and you burn cop cars, it's never good. It's not good for you. It's not good for the cause. They're not going to change the laws. One thing that I heard from Trump today that I thought was very promising is that he wants to make an executive order where people that are here for a long time that have been like working on farms that are undocumented,

That they won't be targeted and that they'll be exempt from all this stuff. This is my feeling. Like if you got here and you're, you've integrated into our society. Yeah. Maybe you shouldn't have snuck in, but you did it and you're not breaking any laws. You're a hardworking person. Those, those people need a path to citizenship, man, because if you don't,

Then they're just preyed upon by people that will take advantage of the fact that they're undocumented and not pay them what they're legally supposed to pay them and not give them benefits if they're legally supposed to have benefits. And they can't say anything because they're worried that immigration is going to get called on them. So these people are in this constant state of anxiety. And then they hear about the ICE raids at Home Depot. Like, what the fuck, man? Yeah, there was a big ICE raid in New York.

At the Facebook data center job not far from my place where I used to have to go. What? Facebook data center? Ice raid? Yeah, the Facebook project. It's in...

It's not far from me in Virginia. I think it's technically would be in... Would it be South Boston? I think it's technically in South Boston. Ice didn't bribe... Facebook didn't bribe Ice? If I was Facebook, I would have fucking bought Ice some new cars. There's a big job that... A big job site that I used to have to go on some that's in the southern part of Virginia. Like, not far from North Carolina. And I...

Somebody was sending me pictures there from the other day, but they had a big ice raid. And there was dudes like running through the like people were just escaping the job, like running away from the job and stuff is nuts. But why? Why? Like gang members? Yes. Criminals? Yes. This why? Why? Like, I think as crazy as it sounds, the only way to do this and look like you have a heart

evaluate people on a case-by-case basis like this good people it's good people it's also so complicated because it goes back for so long and the idea the thing now is that there's two very polarizing opinions of what America even is or represents or what job it's supposed to serve to the world so like

Yeah, sure. For any country to exist, there has to be something there that identifies what it is as a country. It just seems like without citizenship or without some definitive thing of who's a citizen or not, then it's not even a country. And most every country has some... The idea of there being no immigration laws for a country means that it's no longer a country. But I also think it's like... The opposite side of that, too, is like America's always...

In theory, even though it's always been ran by these... There's always been these corrupt people involved in it. In theory, you know, America was started as sort of this thing that was like... That can maybe be like a sanctuary that doesn't allow monarchies and dictators and horrible things. You know, like...

as bad as America maybe has been in certain cases, like the fact that when, when Japan lost, they didn't just go and take it over and call it another part of America. Like they went and tried to rebuild, like,

In theory, America is supposed to be this vein that exists of, you know, its origination is from people who wanted to get away from monarchies and dictators. And of course, like, it's so easy to pick on the founding fathers and all their faults and the crazy things they did. But it was centuries ago in a different culture, and they probably were all maniacs. You'd have to be a maniac to understand.

to go up against the world's biggest empire and take it on. With a musket. With a fucking... Yeah, like... You'd have to be crazy. And of course they had personality flaws, but they were... The reality is that... Here's the thing that sucks, is like... And it goes both ways. There's a lot of things...

about people on the left that people on the right don't realize that they have in common. And it's the same way with this. Like, it breaks my heart when people just totally trash the founding fathers, not because they were these morally, they took horrendous shits too, I'm sure. Probably not as bad as Beyonce, but pretty close. And, you know, the fact like, of course they were bad people. They were all bad. We're humans. We're flawed inherently. Even the best of us, even the ones who act like

we're the best and the most, like we're all screwed up. We all have our problems and our faults and stuff. But the fact that they were willing to like go somewhere to another land with all these, with all this crazy stuff and then take on the, you know, the world's biggest empire at that time.

Just so they could be able to do what they – religious freedom. It's like they didn't want religious freedom because they were – not even necessarily because they wanted to go to church. I always thought it was like it's so weird that they were fighting for religion. But it wasn't they were fighting for religion. They were fighting for the mandate of religion. They were tired of the church. And like I know it's not considered the church anymore, but there is still a church that –

dominates us and tries to control us now. And now, unfortunately, now the church is just sort of this weird thing, but it's the zebra mentality, you know, among politicians. It's like, it goes back to that. I think it's Jordan Peterson that talks about the zebras and how they'll do a study on zebras. And it's in the maps of meaning book, I believe. And they'll mark one red to study it.

And then the predators take that zebra down because the zebra's stripes aren't camouflaged to their surroundings. They're camouflaged to each other. So they're not easily identifiable. And so four or five lions can't take one zebra down if they all look the same. And in politics, I believe that's what's happened, especially on the left.

I had people in Nashville quit working with me because I talked about this when I was at the Ryman, but we had this dancing, this chick that plays the fiddle, and she does like flat dancing and stuff named Hillary Klug, who lives in Nashville, and we had her come to the Ryman to do this show with us, and it was on a last-minute thing, and I'm about to introduce her, and I tell the crowd, I'm like, hey, you know,

I said, I got Hillary about to come out. And I was like, but it's not, don't worry. It's not that Hillary. And just made it, just made a joke about it. Well, I just, somebody said something in the crowd that was, and I don't know, I just interact and I just say what comes to mind. And I don't care. You know, I don't worry about all that stuff and what people might think. I just try to say what I feel, but yeah.

I was like, you know, isn't it crazy that somebody like Hillary, who not that long ago I can remember vividly as a child or in teenage years, like being completely against the idea of even having two people of the same gender be married. Like she was as against gay marriage as like any person on the far right is now. And that was in my childhood or early teens. And I said, and now the fact that now that it's okay for kids to become transgender and go through like what Michael did, that's...

That, to me, it just shows that it's all theatrics and that none of those people really have any real opinions about any of this stuff. It's all about what will sell. Did you say this at the Ryman? I said this at the Ryman. And so I had my...

I had my management company that I was using then drop me and a bunch of other people without even telling me. They just emailed my attorney and said they couldn't work with me anymore. They were that mad about that, which tells you how far off the deep end. But anyway, it's just... Well, everything you're saying is just a fact. But you're exactly right with all that. It's just... It's difficult to convey that to people because there's so many emotions involved. But at the end of the day, it's like...

I don't see a whole lot of difference in people on the left and the right anymore. I think we're all just like, like you said, we all we all are trying to just effectively accomplish the same thing just in different ways. And it's really easy to get angry at somebody that's on the same level as you than somebody that you don't even know exists, which is like with these private equity companies and these.

People in the background that do all that like it the enemy that so so what's happened is is going back to the zebra thing What I think has happened is like especially in politics the reason why Hillary Clinton can be against gay marriage and then for transgender kids in my in a very short period of my lifetime and a whole bunch of other politicians with her is that they're all just Constantly rearranging their stripes. So all the zebras look just alike because as soon as one of them looks a little bit different. I

That's a great analogy. Like Tulsi Gabbard or whatever. I don't know. There's plenty of people besides. That's just the first one that comes to mind that's like trying to be a Democrat and upholding most of what the Democratic Party would have wanted her to uphold up until very recently. But because she didn't rearrange her stripes, it's like, you're dead. But there's a whole bunch of more like her, too, that aren't even in politics anymore. Right.

That's the way I see it now, is it's like all these people. And so even with Big Donnie, I wonder... Big Donnie. I see... I just wonder even... I just don't trust... It's kind of my Alex Jones syndrome, but it's like no matter how cool somebody seems like that, I think like, man, does him and Hillary really still chill? They're probably smoking a fat joint right now, just laughing. I don't know. You just don't really know. You don't really know. You're just...

You have to see what you see and you have to take it in and just hope that you have that somehow you have the discernment to know what's true or not. But you really just don't. I mean, even with me, man, so much crazy stuff that gets said and done. And I just don't even when things come out about me that aren't true. I just don't even reply or acknowledge him anymore. I just let him exist in their own little space and be part of it. And I've just decided that, again, we're just all we're just in this crazy thing where all this stuff happens and it's just.

Don't know you can't you can't promise so many people that don't do that there's they're not aware of how much influence is being peddled on to them how much how much their mind and their opinion is being affected by this nonsense on social media by bots and by all these different things well you said about the zebras and stripes so fucking perfect one of my favorite clips is Hillary Clinton when she was running I think it was 2012

It might have been, when did he first become president? 2008, right? Obama? Yeah. It might have been 2008. But she was running and she was more MAGA than MAGA. She was talking about the border and about people coming over here. If you want to stay, you get a stiff fine. And if you've done anything illegal, you get exported. No questions asked. Listen to this. Give me this full volume from the beginning. Wait till you hear this. This is wild. So...

I think we've got to have tough conditions. Tell people to come out of the shadows. If they've committed a crime, deport them. No questions asked. They're gone. If they've been working and are law-abiding, we should say, here are the conditions for you staying. You have to pay a stiff fine because you came here illegally. You have to pay back taxes. And you have to try to learn English. And you have to wait in line. You have to wait in line. That's so MAGA.

I mean, that's... But it just proves the point that none of that really means... They're sitting in the green room in the back before that speech and there's like some stuff written out and they're just like, oh, I gotta try to remember all this crap. Like, none of that meant anything. You know, like, none of that... I don't think she even believed when she said it back then. In other words, it's all just... Well, she thought it was what the country wanted to hear. That's all it is. It's all focus group shit. It's all what the country wants to hear and what the party agrees upon, what the zebras all agree on. When you just said that, that's it perfectly. And as it morphs,

as it gets into trans kids. You got to support trans people in the military. Whatever it is, they just all fucking hop in line. What flag am I putting in my Twitter bio today? And to go back to what you said at the beginning about those kids that are riding with the... And they don't really even know what they're riding. They got the mask on, but they're doing this. And it's like...

I guess what I mean is there's a bunch of human beings on Earth, especially now, like in our... in this sort of American culture and all the other sub-series of it, like in Europe and everywhere, it's so Americanized now. But there's all these people who are really angry. It's kind of like why... It's the reason why...

You know, there's so many of these videos where they interview like the Antifa dudes and they don't really even know why they're not able to talk. They're not really able to articulate why they're there, what they believe. They're just there because they want to. They're just there to riot. You know, right. There's this like general anger that I think has.

dwells in a lot of us towards the system that we realize is inefficient and ineffective and rigged. But it's just too complex, at least individually and through the means of the Internet for us to identify who our enemies really are. And so instead, it's like, let's just go do like, let's just go. Let's go catch some shit on fire because at least it feels like we're doing something, even though. But I think like I think there's a lot more in common between

the patriotic cosplaying type people who who want to who talk all the time about like you know that and the people who are like antifa i actually think that they're two of the same cloth they just both they both just don't really realize it but i think

I think like there is this really amazing sort of rebellious spirit of the left that just needs to be reintegrated in a society with the right. And then it's like then it becomes unstoppable and it no longer becomes a left and a right thing. But I just don't think like I'll give you another great example, like like when I was younger, I'd go to these some of these protests in D.C. and stuff. And I would always stay at George Washington University with these kids. And I

We were all in our early 20s, probably, and we're all very, like, at that point, there wasn't any, like, real political identity to it. I don't think those people would have called themselves left back then. But you better believe most of them ended up going to all the Black Bloc and the Antifa and the Black Lives Matter and every other protest there was just because they wanted to go protest. They just are like, you know, like, it's like, yeah, it's like, it's a thing of...

of like rebelling against the system. It doesn't really, it doesn't really matter what part of the system it is or if it really even makes any sense. You just know that that's, yeah, it's like, I think, I think that's what I mean is through the means of the internet. I don't think we'll ever be able to organize all those people together in a way that's productive, but I do think in real life we can. I do think,

I do think through, I think music is, I think that's why I want to focus mostly on music and like trying to influence it in a way to where the rich don't control it and the rich don't choose what songs we listen to and what songs make it on the charts like we do. I think that's the first step. I think actually I think music is something like,

I guarantee you, if you looked, if there was some way to, I'm sure there's some report to be ran where you could see how people voted versus what kind of music people listen to. And I guarantee you a lot of people who voted differently listen to the same exact lyrics and resonate with them. Like, what is that? Like, they're, that's all I mean is we've just been mass distracted and misled is all. Well, also when you get these kind of organized protests, they're all organized with this one thought in mind. Like, there's unlawful protest.

changes in policies that's shipping our community back to Mexico. And we got to stop this. These are all, you know, oligarchs are involved and this is a dictatorship and they feel like they're fighting against something bad. And if they're uninformed and who the fuck who's 21 is informed, you know, most people who are young, especially if you're going to college, you're around a bunch of other like-minded people in an echo chamber and you're all trying to like,

get social credit by being the most woke and the most activist-y and you're the person who's the most involved and you're helping to organize and you feel like you get a sense of purpose. And then there's also the thing of being on the ground with a bunch of other people that are moving in a certain direction that to me, I think it ignites a thing. I think there's things inside of us that get ignited. One of them is like, here's the best way to describe it is like fishing. You know when you go fishing and

I've seen people catch their first fish. When that fish gets on the line, they're like, oh, oh, oh. You get excited. Everybody gets excited because it's this ancient thing inside of you that lets you know you're now successful. Your family's going to eat. You caught a fish. And it just like sparks it inside of you. It does it with bow hunting, but very few people are going to go bow hunting. But

But the other thing that does it with is war and protests are like war. You're marching. You're all together. Who's opposing us? Fuck them. And everyone's all aggressive and they're all chanting. Fuck us. Fuck us. Fuck us. And you think you're doing the right thing. You think you're doing the right thing.

And then you see shit like cops shooting rubber bullets at reporters. And you're like, what the fuck? These people are garbage. Like, how are you shooting a reporter? That's not what you're supposed to shoot with a rubber bullet. But I think the problem now is that it's too complicated to be able to dissect it and correct it that way.

Like with these ICE protests, though, in other words, there's been such a heavily disputed and mismanaged protocol over immigration my entire life. So now it's like you can't now just go in and just try to like that's what's going to happen. People are going to protest, though, and you just all of a sudden go in and try to just like clean house all at once. It's like we've never even really established as a country what it is.

What it is, because most of the people we've listened to the last 20 years will say stuff like that in whatever year that was, 2008, and now say, gosh, can you imagine if somebody said that now? They would be a racist and taken off the internet for saying what Hillary said on there about having to speak English and stuff. For sure. But there's a big difference between protests and organized protests where you're paying people and then you're leaving bricks around. This is a... It's like...

It's a bastardization. They've taken over the thing, the virtue of this thing, like this part of the First Amendment, your right to express yourself, the right for the people to get together and say, hey, this is not cool. And they've distorted it with money, like everything else. Yeah. And they've used it as a political tool. I would think maybe that that's happened a lot, though, even in...

In the past with like civil rights and everything else, a lot of that was much more organized than it was made. Like I didn't know until just a couple of years ago. Like I've learned the story all through school and heard it a million times about Rosa Parks. But I didn't realize until a couple of years ago that she was part of some I don't know. I don't even know what she was part of, but she was part of some organization and it was like a planned thing. I just I was always taught it like she just spontaneously did it.

But I think there's just – every thing in history has this whole backstory to it that we don't really know much about. Most things have been manipulated if they can be manipulated. Once they realize they can manipulate people, they start it. And they probably started that a long time ago.

I mean, we've talked about it a million times, so that's why Smedley Butler wrote War is a Racket in 1933. You know, Major General Smedley Butler, who was, they tried to get him to overthrow the fucking government with a coup, and he wouldn't do it. And then he writes this book about how every single operation he was involved with, he thought they were doing this, but really they were just making it safe for bankers. They're really just overthrowing a government and installing a friendly one. It's like...

It's been going on since they could. And back then it was way easier to pull off because there was no internet where you could pull off a Hillary Clinton video from more than a decade ago and go, look at her. She's pretty MAGA. You can put a fucking red hat on that lady and she'd be standing on that stage right next to RFK Jr., you know? Yeah, and it's just...

It's because there's such an information overload. Stuff like that will always be forgotten about too soon for it to make a difference. She could have been Trump's vice president back then.

Yeah. Like, no bullshit. She would have been like Queen Mom of Trumpland. There would be people with Hillary Clinton flags flying behind their pickup trucks with her with, like, two fists in the air with a MAGA hat on. Not bullshit. But I remember even back then, like, well, you know, the one – that's what made me fall in love with comedy was Norm MacDonald and, like, his whole bit about the Clintons and stuff and getting on The View and riling all them up and stuff. Yeah.

Even back then, I remember they were trying to... I guess he got kicked off of Saturday Night Live because of that, right? Or it might have been because of... It was probably because he's too funny. There was something else. Yeah, but there's... I don't know. Norm was one of the funniest people of all time. And his weekend update, that thing that he would do, was fucking fantastic. He was the best ever at it. He was so good.

And the jokes were so... He would go so out there. Back when you could, you know? And if that's what got him kicked off of Saturday Night Live, great. Makes him even more of a legend. Even more. Yeah, I think that's what's important about...

I don't I'm not a fan of all the real crazy vulgar humor sometimes and stuff like I I'm more of a norm type of comedy guy like I like the more goofy stuff that's not like constantly talking about penises and stuff but like you know or whatever like whatever it is sex and everything else but

It's really important that all that stuff does exist just because of the idea. I think it's important that there's this place that exists here in Austin that freedom of speech will always be in, even if it's such a critical thing, especially now more than ever. It's critical for everybody, even if you don't agree with it, and that's what's so hard for people to recognize. When people don't have a voice and someone has a voice and that voice is different than their opinion, they want to shut it down. They want to silence it, and they want to elevate their voice.

Just pure, natural, it's natural instincts that human beings have. And you got to resist that because you got to realize you don't want that used on you, right? Well, then don't use it on other people. Yeah, well, everyone's guilty. Like when I was at the ARC where we spoke at that thing in London, there was a talk we went to, I think, the next night that was about freedom of speech. And I can't remember who all was speaking there. It was some people that I should probably remember, but I...

Yeah, but they were talking about – it was a group that was defending people in Europe that were, like, being arrested and stuff for things they had reposted online and all, which is really important, you know. Like, they're arresting people for political things that they put online in Europe and, like –

Not even giving them very obscure reasoning as to why whatever this is. In some cases, they won't even tell them what they're arresting them for. And so like the cause of what these people are doing is very important. But the whole time they're just they're referring to it as the woke mind virus, which is, yeah, sure. Funny put in a bit or whatever. But God, like, no, what it is, is it's like the government using.

this one specific thing out of a list of things that they could as part of this moral high ground to arrest people for speaking out against not because it has nothing to do with anything on the left or the right it's the fact that the state would love for people to not be allowed to criticize anything because then that means they can't criticize them 100 but by them saying woke mind virus every five minutes while they're talking about it it just immediately polarizes half the people who they need to get on board in order to stop it which is the left who it's like i don't know there's just um

I don't know. I think I might try to, one of these days, I might just try to give the old thing a run and see, but I really think I could. It would be, it would probably end. Are you going to run for president, Oliver Anthony? It would probably end in like a nuclear war, but I think we could do, I think it'd be pretty interesting, I think. You going to run for office? If you will. Fuck that. No.

I've no, I'm not on the same page. No. Vermin Supreme. Call me up. No, I'm just kidding. I don't think I would. I might do like a governor run somewhere or something or a mayor. Maybe I'll start with mayor. Maybe that's a good way. That seems like a terrible job, dude. Don't do it.

I would say don't do it. But if you have to do it, do it. I mean, someone should do it that's like you. I just remember my whole life, like since I was a kid, people were like, man, what would happen if just we got some regular dude in there and like all this? It's just like, I don't know. You'd probably get immediately disillusioned. You'd realize the entanglements that exist. And I think it's impossible to navigate. I think once you get in there, you're like, holy shit. You know, I talk to people that are in this administration now.

that weren't before that realized like all the paperwork and red tape and bureaucracy and all the different departments, all the people that are controlling these departments and all the fucking resistance you have to any change and all the people that don't want to give you the information that you're asking for. And it gets wild and exhausting. And you're dealing with a machine that's been operating pretty much unchecked for decades. Let's check them out.

Give him the old check. Look what they did to Elon. He tried to check him out. They turned him into a Nazi. Yeah. I mean, it's like... Well, do you think... Was there... I'm not well read on any of this. This is actually something I wanted to ask you about at one point or another anyway, was your take on the Elon Trump situation, but...

But, you know, I... Apparently they're making up. You think things are cool now? Supposedly. They had a long conversation on the phone. But the argument behind it was that they felt like Trump wasn't letting Elon... See, I don't know what to think of... I really don't know what to think of any of that situation or Elon in general. And I just say... It really fascinated me that it seemed like they were both using Doge for different reasons, maybe, or they had different motivations behind it. But what if it was like a genuine...

What if there was genuine audits done on everything? And like, what if all that stuff did get uncovered? And what if somebody wasn't scared to just release all that stuff and the consequences of it? Like people do deserve the truth. Like, well, they've released some of it. Right. So we know a lot about USAID now.

We know what that was. We know what crazy programs were in place. We know through Mike Benz's work, the way he describes USAID as doing things that are too dirty for the CIA. He describes it being used for regime change. But under the name aid, it seems like it's just aid. Oh, we're helping people. It's agency for international development is what it really stands for. So there's that. That's been dismantled.

The thing is they're not spending less money. They're spending more money. They're spending like a trillion dollars on the Pentagon. The whole thing is kind of nuts because nobody wants to stop spending money. Nobody wants to lose their job, and they're all in a position where they have influence, and there's thousands of different points of influence. And if you're the president or the vice president or any of these fucking people –

It's a very difficult road. One of the things that I felt like was the most important was Bobby Kennedy because Bobby Kennedy getting in there, he was determined to find out what is the root cause of America's massive health crisis that we're all facing. Like why are we having this? Why do we have this?

different toxins that are in our foods that are banned in Europe? Why are we allowing the use of these different things that we know are terrible for the body? You know, why is there not greater scrutiny on these pharmaceutical drug corporations? Why are they not, you know, why are they able to lie and get away with it and prescribe things for people that don't need them and not be responsible for the health consequence of these things? And that this needs to be cleaned up. And so that's what he's doing right now.

I'm very happy and I hope that he can really make meaningful changes because it seems like he is. He fired the 17 people that were the head of the vaccine schedule and he's hired a bunch of new people. They're all very qualified, one of them being Robert Malone. Robert Malone, the guy that everybody said was a kook that I got in trouble for initially for having on my podcast when they were trying to, you know, when fucking Neil Young was trying to get me removed from Spotify. This is over Robert Malone.

Robert Malone, who owns nine patents on the creation of mRNA vaccine technology, certifiable genius, like unquestionably. They were calling him a kook.

This guy's a kook. A guy who took the vaccine and had a horrible reaction. They were calling him a kook. So that guy being a part of this administration, being a part of the Make America Healthy Again movement, very important. All that stuff is very important for everybody, not Republicans, not Democrats. If there's any area where we should be bipartisan on, it's that. And realizing that corporations have taken advantage of loopholes and

of a bunch of different creepy laws that allowed them to poison you and You're getting poisoned and you're addicted to this poison and there's way out of this Well, he's he's kind of where I got the inspiration for the call idea from you know He he no well he he and I actually met he came out to my he came out to the property where we filmed Richmond and all and I met him this was before he got linked up with Trump he was still running this is during all that and he was he was still running for himself, but I

we had a long conversation about this concept for a healing center, which is like this thing that he's been kind of like as a part of all this, which is like, which is kind of the idea of people going out into nature and like learning how to grow food and learning how to like, cause in, in this, in this never ending abyss of chaos where everything's changing so fast and nothing, you know, nature is in nature has been affected by that through like some, you know, through chemicals and technology and other things. But for the most part, it's,

all the systems in nature, all the organization there and the, all that stuff is sort of like the last thing that's untouched by man. You know, when you go out on two or 300 acres and you just sit there and you're watching the water go by, it's like, you just sort of, you take everything that we've talked about, like all this, these are all very complex, like just crazy century, thousands of year long things that he, that mankind have done. But meanwhile, nature just sort of exists and does its thing. And, and it's like,

It's sort of a way to compartmentalize all this monstrosity into one little thing and realize that there is other, there is a reality outside of the reality that like modern society has constructed us to exist in 24-7. 100%. 100%. Like, gosh, dude, that's the only thing that saves me is like, especially being a little bit, probably a little bit too introverted for this job position. You know, going out on tour even for a weekend or two or like, dude, by the time Sunday comes and we get through this and these two mothership shows, it's

We have a, we got West Virginia next weekend, but I'll spend this whole week. I probably won't talk to anybody except for like immediate family. You know, I'll just have my, I'll just go sit out in the woods with the dogs and just watch the birds chirp and all that. But it's amazing. There's something really important about that, that I want to, I want to, I want to understand like you take, if you can take two or 300 acres, like what can you plant on it? That brings in the, the types of nature that benefit human beings the most. Like I want to conduct studies on like,

everything from birds to plants to wildlife to different types. Like how do you put a human being who is so screwed up in the most optimal condition to heal and to fix? Like, cause it's obviously not the case. Like you're not going to go to a mental institution or, and I'm not even suggesting for people who should be in a mental institution. I just mean like, you know, people who like,

A guy I know who you mentioned mushrooms and stuff, but there's a guy I know like that's in the Marines who's dealing with PTSD. Like, how do you get him into a spot where he can just go out and roll? You know, like you can't it's hard to get it's hard to fix that part of your brain living in a city or living in a suburb and not having that. Like, so that's, you know, yeah.

So, yeah, it's just like this crazy dream I have where like it's sort of a it's a way to rebel against all of this without rebelling. It's just creating a better way to do it. But imagine if he's like this is like the pilot program for this thing where it's this sort of outdoor amphitheater and it's like very immersive and in nature and you can and you can like breathe.

re-unlock these parts of your brain you talked about that are sort of very primitive and to us and then and then just emulate it over a period of time like so I'm doing these shows where they're they're they're non-profit and the idea is just to go into an area that hasn't had music that's in an A or B ticketing market do a show there build them a blueprint whether it's on a main street or in a farm field or whatever but just somewhere where Live Nation and Ticketmaster can't touch it build them a blueprint with like ingress egress promotions how to sell the show where to put the stage how to set everything up here's all the vendors to use and

and then give them this blueprint where they can do it over and over and over again and just build like these sort of sanctuaries that exist all over the country that can't be like molested and preyed upon by all those big companies and all their crap. And I think inherently by doing that through like music and public speaking and other things, those spaces will almost serve as like the way that communities thrive again and the way people reconnect. And I joke and say that like everyone –

Every human being likes music and food and socializing at least a little bit And if you don't you're probably a robot and we don't I don't want you there anyway kind of thing, you know But like so that's that's in in a nutshell But that all was inspired by Bobby's sort of idea for this healing center that he talked about I think it's a place over in Italy that he used as a reference of he had a relative go to and like They were able to work with like leather and do all the stuff on a vineyard I think in it like it had a there's a lot of

You know, we know very little about the human mind. That's why psychedelics are still illegal. And so and there's so much misunderstanding and misconception and just confusion even there. Because think about I mean, like our brains are just so infinitely complex, even, you know. Yeah. So nature is definitely a part of your health.

Without nature, I don't think you really get totally healthy. We're a part of nature. We're a natural thing existing in a world that we've created that isn't natural. And so this is all – everything that we've talked about is just sort of man-made, constructed bullshit that is now reality to us, but it's just part of a bigger thing too that is –

We sort of get isolated inside of it, especially when we're on our phone all the time. It's like... Yeah, especially. I've laid off social media, and it's amazing. It's like it lifts this weight off your brain. How do you manage social... This is one thing I really have a hard time with, and it makes... I feel bad because I end up upsetting people or whatever, but like, how do you...

A lot of people want your time and they want to send you text messages and they want to bother you with stuff and they want to, and it's not even, they want to bother you. They really, but like, how do you manage that? Do you just have a small social circle or are you just really social or like, how do you find, there's people where I just won't text them back for like months and then they, then they think I hate them and it's not that I hate them. It's just like, I can't just sit and text. I just can't send hundreds of texts every day. Like I have to, like, how do you balance all that? Or how do you keep changing your phone number? Yeah.

But you also got to get comfortable with not texting people back because you can't text everybody back. Yeah. Look at my phone. Want to see something? I'll show you this. Look and see how many unread text messages I have in the upper left-hand corner. What does it say? 623. Yeah. Good luck. How? How am I going to read those? I know. It's not possible.

I think it goes back to my, when I was at work before and I had to keep up with the phone for work and I had, you know, it was like,

it's just instilled in me that like it just drives me. So I don't know. That's why, yeah, I've, I've bought that flip phone that I carry and there's just times. It's a good move. You get your brain back. It's also tough though, because there's people I do want to stay in contact with. Like, you know, you can always reach out to them. Yeah. It's like, you know, we have this idea of immediate interaction with people that it's necessary. It's important. And sometimes it is important. Like maybe there's something going on. Maybe your wife is pregnant. Like who knows? Right. You need immediate contact, but,

Most of the time you don't. The vast majority of the time you don't. We lived a long time without it. Yeah. I mean, you don't want to not be there for somebody who needs you in an emergency. But other than that, it's good to be free. It's better for your brain. Like I was saying, I don't think we're supposed to be getting the bad news from 8 billion people. It's just too nuts. I don't think we're even supposed to socialize with that many. I mean, we thrive in smaller...

I mean, that's why all these, yeah, we definitely thrive in smaller. Yeah. Keep a tight tribe. Yeah. Yeah. Keep a tight tribe. Keep a tight tribe of people that are cool and make it so it's beneficial to everybody. So there's no resentment. Yeah.

You know, that's one of the things that happens in when a guy gets really famous like you're getting is that some you can have the wrong people around you. You know, maybe you like look past some of the resentful behavior that they showed when you weren't successful. And then it manifests itself when you're successful. You could tell like someone around you actually wants you to fuck up. And that's I've seen that happen with friends. It's a terrible place to be.

There just has to be some kind of way that I don't have to be famous, though. There's a way where this is... Yeah, but there's a way where this is like, I'm just... Like, I don't know. It's gotten a lot better, but... You're just going to have to deal with it. Like I said, this is the path that you've been given in this world. I just mean that I just don't want people to perceive... Like, I'm just some dude that's written a song, but this is like a collective thing. Like, the fact...

just if you look at the, if you look at the rate of people who buy my songs on iTunes versus most label artists, it's like comically disproportionate. Like people, people buy my songs out of support and stuff. And so what I'm saying is that this is like a thing, like this isn't just, I'm sitting up here and y'all are all down there. Like this, in my mind, this is just a thing where we're all equal and it just happens to be, this is the music cat. This is the music catalog that we're giving people a middle finger with, but I don't,

I wouldn't for a second want to ever think that like that I'm above somebody else on some social hierarchy because of it or something. I guess I don't want to feel like I. It's not necessary. This is just something we're like. I just I'm just so excited to see where this can go in the sense of like like like I said, it's just exciting that like like some just full blown idiot like me with a couple of his buddies can figure out how to do this and rally enough support up behind it. I'm just like, what could really happen if we like what could really happen if things were like.

If I actually knew what I was doing or if like enough of us got together, like we could really just flip. We could just flip everything upside down pretty quick and it'd be hilarious. You don't have to become a different thing just because you're famous.

That's a myth. You know, you don't have to become better than people. You don't have to think you're better than people just because you're famous. You can maintain who you are. It's totally doable. Totally, yeah. Yeah, I do it. I'm just me. I'm the same person. You are, yeah. I've been doing it the same, and that's one of the reasons why I do the podcast, the exact same way. I do it the same way. I don't think, oh, this is going to be a big one. Everybody asks, that's the first thing a lot of people ask is, how was Joe Rogan? And I was like, he's Joe Rogan. Like, there is no... It's so much easier that way. Just be you all day.

Yeah. Like if you've watched him on the podcast, you've seen him in real life. He's, you know, it's like me at my worst and you see me at my best. That's it. But you know, I'm a human being just like anybody else. This is why, why I encourage everybody who wants to do something like this to go do it. Anybody can do this. Exactly. It's not, you might not do it this well immediately cause you're going to learn how to do it, but it's like everything you can learn how to do it. Like,

You can learn how to sing. You can learn how to do stand-up. You can learn how to play guitar. You can learn how to draw. You can learn... Oh, I can never do that. You can. Some people can do it better than you. Some people are naturally talented in different areas. Yeah.

You know, especially when it comes to athletics. But you can do it. You can do it. You can get better. And getting better at something and doing something is beneficial to the whole of your life. Because if you can apply those same principles to everything, you can get better at everything. And you get better at being a person. And inspire other people. Yeah.

Yeah, like the more good that you can do and the more you can put out, the more it inspires others to do too. Yeah, the more work you put out too, the more songs you put out like Scornful Woman, the more stuff that like really resonates with people. It affects people, man. It's like – it's that wings of the butterfly, man. You're really like spreading it out and it will inspire more people to write songs. It will inspire more people to do things. It will inspire –

It'll inspire people to write books. It's just that's what we do. We inspire people. People inspire people. And people, by doing something that we know is difficult and they get through it and they create something like, wow. And you go to see, you know, fucking U2 at the Sphere. Like, whoa. You know, that's what it's all about, man. You know, that's the beautiful thing that is this kind of artistic thing.

that you have with the community, with the people that enjoy your work. As long as you respect that and as long as you understand what it is, you'll be great. You're just going to have to deal with being famous, bitch. You know, I have to... I have to... You know, like, I do think you're actually right. I probably was a little misspoken. Now that you say what you said about AI being able to replace music and stuff, I do agree that, like...

there is a part of it that AI will never, they'll never understand the human experience enough to be able to write music about it. That's that captivates people in a way that music can, that's been written by people. I do agree with that. They can make it sound better and cooler and catchier, but I do think like, I do think the people that are really writing it are the ones that, um, and the ones that really write, I mean, like just to talk about the, the songwriting process was scornful. You know, we were, I had been, um,

We had just gotten done with the touring over the summer for the most part in 2024. And, well, obviously things are what they are, but there's just been... There was just like multiple different negative things happening at once. And I kind of got in a spot where I did my thing where I sort of spiraled and just was isolating myself. And so I spent a month and a half or two months in that house pretty much. I didn't do...

I didn't do Thanksgiving or Christmas last year. I just, just really didn't hardly talk to anybody or anything. And so I was like at a, you know, I was in a, I was in a position, it was in a position where it was like probably time to write a song like that. And, um, and there's a few things I do want to clarify too, talking about this, but so anyway, so me, Draven from Radio WV and Joey are all sitting in the kitchen of this house where we recorded the song and it's probably in the fall sometime. And,

Joey is three in the morning. Right. And, um, we like, we were all just like wired and, um,

I can think about Joey talking about really wanting to write a song. And so him and Draven were asking me about my songwriting process and what I do. And so like, I just went and got the guitar and I said, we were sitting there around the table and I can remember it was me and Joey sitting here and Draven leaning up against the counter. And we were just talking about it. And I said, well, I said, if you're going to write a song, I was like, the first thing you got to do is figure out what you're going to write about. And it's got to be something that you feel, not something that you can just articulate about. It's got to be something that's like in there that needs to come out, you know? And so we sat there for like 10 seconds and, um,

scornful woman was the word that was used, you know, and it was like, it was, it was specific relationships, but also it was a collection of all like the experiences that we had all had. Like I think in horrible, we'd all had horrible relationships too. And of course we all have, you know, like every dude on earth has been, has been through what that song talks about in one way or another. Can we play it? Let's, let's cue it up. Yeah. Let's cue it up. Jamie, cue it up. But within two or three minutes, the whole song was written. It was just like, it just, it just came out, you know, and that's,

And AI is not going to do that. There's things that resonate in that song that AI is never going to be able to understand. Yeah. Yeah, and that's the thing. That's the thing that's going to separate people from the machine. And live performance, this kind of stuff, this kind of stuff right here. Mercer County, West Virginia. Well, she got a side to her front. She'll turn a warm...

And now the middle

And the court says 50-50 But the math on the same price With a snort, a snort She can have all the money And they can keep all the fame I'd go back to being broke as a joke If I could just get a break from the pain

It's in the description of the video, but there's a, the biggest shout out of all this is to the, there's a firefighter that we, he let us use this footage too. I think it's out of Brazil, but the name of the firefighter is in the description, but for the GoPro footage, it was really cool. He let us use that. Oh, so that's a real fire. Yeah. That's a real firefighting GoPro video that we found. And we reached out to the guy and asked him if we could use it. But I just wanted to give him a shout out on here.

There we go. Joseph, volunteer firefighter for Third Company. Bomb Los Guindos in Chile. Oh, in Chile. Sorry, yeah. That's awesome. My mind's been in kind of a blur lately, so I should have remembered that right. That's all right. We got it. That's awesome. Yeah. Fucking song, dude. Woo! That song's a firecracker. Woo! I can't wait for you to hear some of the... Let me turn...

I'll turn this on. I'll play like... I'll leak like 20 seconds in one of the other ones. When is it going to come out? I don't know when the next ones will. I don't even want to say a day because I don't know. I'm such a procrastinator. I want to say like within a month or so. What are you doing with it? Are you changing anything on it or are you just not releasing it yet? Just not... I've just got... I just need to get my life together a little bit. Well, just release it right now. Just release it right now. Put it out on the show. Send it to Jamie. Um...

I'll play like 30 seconds. I don't even have like a full file of anything on here. I've just got stuff that I've recorded off my phone. But just to give you an idea of like some of the other stuff I'm working on, like this one, let me see which one of these. They're all just say like new recording 432. So I got to remember which, like probably this one's probably one. I don't know if this will be right or not, but this will give you an idea of something. It's hard to get confidence. I'm just here for you.

I just got a bunch of little clips like that of where we were practicing the guitar parts. But anyway, I got a few more that are like...

Pretty heavy. I don't know what they are. I don't know. People will figure it out. There's something. I don't like to even try to describe any of that stuff because I don't know what it is. So are you going to release it all as a full album or are you going to just do it song at a time? Probably just song at a time right now just because it's simpler that way.

Yeah, and then I'll just... I don't know what the long-term plan is. I'll get to the end of this tour this year in October. You don't need a long-term plan. Just keep doing what you like doing. Yeah, I will. Yeah, this all long-term plan shit, that's people with vision boards. Yeah, you're right. I've just tried to take it. I do have to think long-term, though, because I want to make the most of this just for...

I don't know, man. The only thing I want, like, I just want to look back when I'm old and just think like, just think like, fuck yeah, we did it. Like we did this thing. Well, if you just keep doing what you're doing, you will do that. 100%. Yeah. But I mean bigger. I just want to see, like, I just want to see the, I just want to, I don't know. I just want to watch the machine crumble, you know? Like I just, I have this like thing inside of me. It's going to probably crumble on its own. It'll still exist in some form, but you know, as long as you can,

Thrive without it. It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter and more people will realize that there's a way to do it That's authentic There's always gonna be people that are drawn to that and it'll be more and more people as things get more and more Disconnected and feel less and less human. Yeah, there's just more and more There's been so many big people go up against it and not be able to quite figure it out like even Pearl Jam back in the 90s, you know trying to go up against I think Live Nation it was or Ticketmaster and

I don't know, man. I just want to see. That's like the, that would be my biggest, that would be the biggest thing that I would feel some sense of accomplishment about long time is like, just how do you get all these people together who have been disenfranchised by the music industry and just rally them together in a way that like,

It's not to take anyone down or to do anything bad at all towards anybody, but it's just to like imagine what society would be with real music again without a bunch of label propped up shit and every stuck in everybody's head. Like what if people really listen to what they loved and like that? And like it was real. It was like the organic side of things is what drove music through the roof. Like imagine what that would imagine what because think about what music can do to you like not even in the moment, but just what it means to you over time like that.

Going back and I go back all the time like and I listen to like a 1999 live Like it's like a live stain session or something from back then and just or like old Hank Williams the third songs or Like I don't know stuff I listened to a lot as a kid and like man it was unlock all these memories you think about like all of a sudden you're like back in a place that you never even remembered you ever were it's just it's such a powerful thing on us, you know, so

Yeah, but that's... Yeah, it is powerful, man. It's powerful to do what you're doing. What you're doing is that. You're doing that. Yeah. Well, I'm not doing nothing. You're in that groove. Shut the fuck up. You are. You are. You're in that groove. You know, just keep doing what you're doing. It's awesome. And it's inspiring and more people are going to do it. And I love that you want to help more people do it. That's what I'm saying.

That's great. Because I guarantee you there are these Charlie Crockett's out there. There's these guys out there that people haven't heard of before. And then you see them playing on Street Corner one day and you're like, where are you from? Like, how are you doing this? This is crazy. Yeah. You know, there's people like that out there in the world. I remember we went, what was that place that we went to saw Ellis Bullard, the

the white what is it called white horse yeah yeah and we're like look at this fucking guy here in town right yeah nobody there we went there last time we were here we're planning on going back we was actually thinking about trying to swing by there this evening great little spot that was so much fun last great little spot so there's people like that out there you know they just have to get an audience yeah you know someone has to you know give them a little boost reach back grab their hand

Help them up. Yeah. That's one of the best things about the comedy community right now is that we all do that for each other. So it's like there's a real pathway. So there's a lot of people that are moving to Austin from all across the country, you know, that like, hey, I think if I get there, that's a place where you could really launch from. What's powerful about your platforms here, like you and just and all the other people, like you said, that are in that network is that you this is all stuff that you've built that you have control over. Like these are.

that's what's cool about it is it's like this sort of new, it's a whole new business that you've kind of got here. Like in the comedy world, it's not, it's not owned by anybody or anything. It's like, it's wild and free and chaotic and it could go anywhere. And that's what's, that's what's exciting to me. It's like, dude, like I said, I just don't know. I just don't know what, who knows what will even come of what you got going on here and, um, and Austin, but this has, has shaped a lot, like, you know, in a world where everything is so,

is so predicted. Like there's less and less people able to sit around in a boardroom and a skyscraper somewhere and decide what the next big thing is going to be. It's like, it's more, it's, I don't know. It's just, it's exciting to be a part of that. Despite all the, there's so many ways that you can, you can look negatively about everything going on, but there is this sort of transfer of power that I just hope can happen in a, we only have a very short window of time for it to happen. And, you know, pretty soon we'll,

Pretty soon we'll all have a Neuralink and we'll be talking to each other and beep boop, beep boop, you know, but we've got a little bit of time maybe before that. Yeah, maybe. I think we're the last real people. We're the last people that knows what it was like before to understand what real life really is. And it's so hard to even say what that even means, but I just mean that like,

Even already, there's people on YouTube that comment on a video that's AI. Everyone in it's AI. The whole narrative is. And it'll have like a million... And like probably half the people commenting on it are bots too. But I just mean, it's not even like we're going to be deceived that way. I think at some point it'll almost...

Somehow it'll come to a point where we won't really understand what is real life or what is digitally, artificially created. And it's not that we won't even be able to tell the difference, but we won't even care to tell the difference. The fake world will feel more real than the real world in a short period of time somehow. It'll influence our sensory abilities.

Like, it'll influence that more than real life will. Like, it'll become just, like, everything will just feel... I mean, it already feels that way. That's why we're so drawn and all. But as it all becomes more realistic and more creative and more tailored to draw us in, it will be...

just mass deception. This is probably, it might've already happened. This is what's really terrifying is the simulation theory. The idea that, Oh, I would be able to know if it was a simulation. Would you, I don't know. You know, Elon thinks it's a simulation. He thinks the chances of it not being a simulation are in the billions. He thinks that this whole thing is probably our consciousness interacting with a program.

Which is very bizarre to think. But if you keep going with what we're doing right now, that is inevitable.

If you look at the way technology is recreating things with AI and making things look completely realistic, and then you extrapolate, you look into the future, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, yeah, they're going to be able to give you an experience that you're not going to know. So how do you know if that's already happened? And maybe that's how the world actually works. Maybe this idea of the material world is an illusion and that everything is your consciousness interacting. Well, we're only able to perceive reality through a limited lens.

through limited means. I mean, sight, sound, smell, et cetera. Like there's, there could be components of reality here that we're not able to see. I mean, and that's where like, I definitely lean into recognizing that there is this whole, like, I do believe there is this whole spiritual element at play too. And I see, yeah, it's just, it's hard to,

It's just no, there's no way to tell. But it's kind of like, it's funny though, because the same mentality that you could use to think about the world being a simulation, you could also think about it being, I mean, it's so organized and so perfect that, yeah, I agree that it's operating on some program. I just think that that program is being mandated and created by what is represented in my mind as God or Jesus Christ. Other people may just be considered like a software or a program, but it is all the same thing. Obviously there is some, like life is a thing that we don't quite understand that

that finds itself in the, in the midst of so many different parts of reality, like life, like just in the soil, there's so many different millions of bacteria that just make it possible for stuff to even be able to grow. And all those things are arguably intelligent and have these organized systems. And then you see the way birds fly in the sky and just the way that like the way that even we have these sort of inherent parts programmed into us. It's just, it's,

There's really no way to tell. But what's so funny is that in just a short period of time, we'll all be forgotten about anyway and we'll never really know. And maybe even this even this technology that has existed has existed before and will go away again. It's just no way to really tell. I think at the end of the day, like to your point, I think humanity and the truth within it is what is all that really exists and everything else just sort of swirls about. And we're always wanting to expand upon what already exists. You know, we're not creatures that like.

Repetition or we like to just always figure out what the next big thing is even if it is our demise, you know It's weird. We're sort of sort of chasing to build these to build our replacement somehow. I don't know Oh, that's a fact. Yeah, we're definitely doing that No question at all. We've already replaced our memory with your contact list. I mean how many numbers do I know like three people's phone numbers?

I used to know everyone's phone number. I used to be able to rattle off all my friends' phone numbers. I used to be able to call them from a pay phone. That was how I got a hold of people back in the day. Now I don't.

Remember anything. I remember my high school phone number that I had when I was a kid. I don't remember my best friend's phone number. I can remember my best friend's phone number from high school. He still has it, and I'll still text him now and then. That's great. It's crazy that your contact list has replaced your memory. It has, yeah. Yeah, and then, you know, anytime you have a question, you just press that button on your phone. Hey, you know, what year was this?

You know, what year was Gettysburg? What year, you know, and you can find anything instantaneously and that's good, but it's also weird because now you're dependent upon that thing and you're connected to that thing. That thing is just going to get more and more a part of your life. Whereas you said before, you can't even leave your house without your phone. You feel weird. Yeah. But all those resources right now are used because there is no like real protocol or way for us to be necessarily productive with it. Like, like, yeah.

in a broader spectrum that a lot of people just use all those tools and resources as just endless entertainment and mind-numbing. Mm-hmm.

distraction, but really all that stuff is makes us super powerful if we're able to harness it correctly. Like I said, like, like just imagine the, imagine the information and the data and the resources that we have access to that people like Kings and dictators and emperors and the most powerful people in the world could have never dreamed. Like we have it just right here for free on our phone. Like, I think we don't realize how informed we are in comparison to people in the past. People in the past were extremely naive about the way things work. Just that has just been something that we have just always,

accepted as being normal in the last 20 years. But it's not normal. It's not normal to know this much about congressional insider trading. You know, like, how do we all know about that now? And how do we all know that it's been going on forever and nobody did anything about it?

There's a lot of things that we know now that make the people, the powers that be, very creeped out, including things like podcasts. They don't like it at all that there's no one, no corporate entity pulling the strings behind the scenes. It's just people and that some person like a Theo Vaughn or whoever can have whoever they want on.

Anytime they want and say whatever they want that person might say some wild shit that has the internet scrambling is this true? And then they have to google it. They don't like that at all They don't like that this affects elections that people realize like hey, you're being lied to hey the the FBI Contacted Facebook. It was telling them to remove factual information because it might affect the election like this is crazy and

Like the stuff that we know now that a lot of people know now was the stuff of conspiracy fantasy when I was 20 years old. But what does it really, what does it mean to us though? Because yeah, we know all that about Facebook, but we all still use Facebook. Like, like it's, um, I think that now our, our ability to communicate has become so contingent upon these platforms that we know they're no good for us. We know they harvest our data and they, um,

all the terrible things that are associated with them, but we still was like,

Where else but Facebook Marketplace can you find all these sweet, you know? I mean, that's like... You don't have to get totally influenced by it, though. The more you're aware they're influencing you, the less effect it has on you. The more you're aware of the magic trick, you're like, oh, that rabbit's up his sleeve. There's just a connectivity that we can't find elsewhere, so there's this void that we have to use it to fill the void, I guess is what I mean. You don't have to. Maybe through... That's why I really want to try doing... I've had two or three people really pushing me heavy to try to do jiu-jitsu, but that's something where like...

It's like the community and the relationships you get out of it that's just important maybe than the practice of it itself. I don't know. That's the way it's been. Maybe in those sort of circles you do get that, but you just don't get it in a broad – there's not a lot of broad ways to get it now. Jiu-jitsu is definitely a way to do it. It's also a way where you get out all of your aggression in a very healthy way, in a cooperative way. You're doing it with other people that are your friends. Yeah.

And the beautiful thing about jiu-jitsu sparring as opposed to like when I was kickboxing like you kind of resented your sparring They're fucking you up. You know, they're they're rocking you whereas in jiu-jitsu Even if someone taps you a lot you you're still their friend You know you realize like oh you got and they'll tell you you can't you can't do that with the right arm the right Arm has to stay tight to your chest because otherwise it once it's exposed What I'm trying to do is get you to do that so I can go to the other side like okay Let's try it again. I'll show I'll show a guy and

And when you do that with people, you're helping your friend beat you next time. But that's the way to get better. Like Eddie Bravo taught me that a long time ago. He goes, the more you teach people to catch you in the stuff that you do, the more people – you'll be able to get it in people that even know it's coming. Yeah.

You'll be able to sharpen that technique up even more if you can get people that know what you're doing And you tell them what you're doing you can still do it like Hicks and Grace used to tell people I'm gonna get you in an arm bar on your right arm You're like the fuck you are and he would still get it but he was so much better than everybody that he would do that on purpose and there's a Beautiful thing about learning something that's very difficult that prepares you for life also

The other beautiful thing about jiu-jitsu in terms of your mental health is that it's so difficult to do.

That it makes regular life easy and regular conflict seems to be silly like sometimes people get like super nervous if two people are just yelling at each other and you think a fight might break up if you're like so used to strangling people that's like totally normal like oh you guys gonna fight like you see that in this you see that in some of the videos that go around where somebody will get like broken into like they're happy and it's like the security footage like I'm trying to think there was one that went around recently um

Like some guy was trying to break into a UFC fighter's truck and he went out there and just like kicked his ass. Justin Gaethje. I think that was a. Yeah. He tried to carjack Justin Gaethje and he beat the fuck out of him. Yeah. The guy did that with John Jones. John Jones ran out with a shotgun and a fucking Belgian Malinois. Like that's the wrong dude to break into his house. He's ready. And Sean Strickland. That was another one. Sean Rounds. That's who I was thinking of. With a pistol. Yeah. I was thinking of that one. Yeah. There's a lot of. You could fuck with the wrong dude.

And that happens. There's a lot of those wrong dudes out there now. There's so many people that are training in martial arts now. You never know. Like, if you're picking a fight with someone and you don't know how to fight, you are rolling the dice. Those dudes are a lot scarier in real life than on TV, too. Oh, hell yeah. I finally got to meet. I've met Brock Lesnar a couple times now. I've just ran into him randomly. And just, like, the size of his hands, you're just like, God, like, where did this guy come from? He's just like a machine. He's a Viking. That's 100% Viking DNA. 100%.

100%. But I don't know the, there's no exercise I'm aware of that like makes your fist twice the size of a normal man. It's genetics. Yeah, he's just like made. You see his daughter? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. His daughter's a shot put champion? Like, jeez louise. She's a tank. Yeah. Yeah, that's just pure Viking genetics, man. Those are the people at the front of the boat with the big battle axe. When you saw that boat pull up to your village, you knew you better start running to those mountains, son. I just can't imagine having to get in the ring with a guy like that and like, no, you gotta, you're just like, God, like, good luck. I know. You know? Imagine if the guys beat him, too. Yeah. That's just even crazier. Guys beat his ass. Yeah.

Alistair Overeem beat his ass. Cain Velasquez beat his ass. There's guys better than him, which is really crazy. There's always a bigger fish, yeah. Yeah, and Cain wasn't even bigger. Cain was a bad motherfucker. He was like 240. He was like 25 pounds lighter than Brock, and he still beat his ass. Who in fighting right now is exciting you, like coming up into it? Oh, my God. There's so many guys. There's so many, man. Did you watch Marab's last fight last weekend? I didn't, no. Marab, Dwabish, Willie, and Sean O'Malley. That guy is insane.

He's insane. His cardio is like something that everyone who has been involved in the sport for as long as I have is blown away by it. The guy's a freak. Daniel Cormier went to visit him after he won the title. He won the title Saturday night at the Sphere in Vegas, beat Sean O'Malley, dominant five-round decision that just steamrolled him. The next day, Daniel Cormier goes to visit him. He's out running.

Yeah. I mean, it doesn't stop. Yeah. It doesn't stop. Just this guy from Georgia, from this war-torn country who just embraces that fucking grind at a level that nobody else can compete with. And when he gets in the ring, no one can match his cardio. No one can match his pace. He melts the greatest of the greats. You see guys like Umar Nurmagomedov, who's elite. He's

He's world class. Like, at any other time, he'd be a world champion. And Merab's just overwhelming him. You see him just getting overwhelmed by the pace. And Merab doesn't even get tired. He's a freak. So he's probably trained in Georgia most of his life then? Do you think that gives him an advantage? Like, he's been... He's trained in, like, sort of...

Maybe his fighting style or is it just like is he doing the same type of fighting but just better you think or is it just that they can't read? Well you can see the evolution of his technique so a lot of it is in America. So it's just his mindset and his drive and I think some of it you know Firas Zahabi did a whole video about him saying he needs to be studied in a lab.

Veras Zahabi, who runs TriStar in Montreal, is one of the greatest gyms of all time. And he's one of the best minds ever in the history of MMA. And he's blown away by this guy. There's guys that are on EPO, which is like, that's the cyclist take that

makes you have more blood cells and it makes you have more cardio but it's you could have a fucking stroke it's like super dangerous to take but that's like a lot of the Tour de France guys get busted for that kind of shit some fighters get busted he's like guys that I know that have been on EPO don't have that kind of cardio this is crazy cardio this is like something freakish

And he's like he thinks some of its genetic but Rob says it's not no more. I'm says no you still get tired He's just he's a freak. He's a freak and he just keeps getting better with his technique He gets better with everything his that drive is not just for his cardio that drive is for his whole skill set So he's a fucking monster

And then Ilya Tepurya, who's fighting Charles Oliveira at the end of the month. Like that guy is insane. That guy's knocked out two of the greatest featherweights of all time, Volkanovski and Max Holloway. Nobody could knock those guys out in featherweight before. And he did it. And he did it and he made it look easy. You know, he made it look like they like he's just on another level from everybody.

And now he's moving up to 155 pounds. He's decided he cleared out that division. He's moving up. It's insane. There's guys like that. Their level is above everybody else's level. And with Ilya, it's everything. It's his submissions, his kicks, his punches, everything. He can do anything.

I mean, he does everything perfect. All his technique is perfect. He's fucking driven and ultra confident. You know, this is an amazing time for the sport, man. It's a crazy time because these guys that are coming in with like one fight in the UFC, they look like world-class contenders like right away. Well, it's cool because it seems like it's a really –

good way to get like obscure people into the spotlight like it doesn't seem it seems like if you can just go in there and fight good that you it's like you can really work your way up to the top pretty quick I guess like I guess it does take some fights but like if you're even if you're like the guys that are in the top at the UFC now how many fights do you think it takes them before they wreck it like how many big wins is it really just a win or two I guess if they're big enough and they're like

It really depends entirely on their skill set and who they're fighting and how good they are when they get into the organization. Like, the best example of a quick rise to the top is Alex Pereira.

But Alex Pereira is one of the greatest kickboxers of all time. And Alex Pereira, when he entered into the UFC, like a lot of people were completely unaware of him. And me as a giant kickboxing fan, he was the guy that I was like, when this motherfucker comes over here, bodies are going to drop, man. I'm telling you, you ain't never seen nothing like it. And I remember Daniel Cormier saying to me like, really? I'm like, dude, I'm not.

I'm telling you. I was pointing to him on his debut. I go, that's the motherfucker. That's the boogeyman of boogeymen. I go, he knocks people into orbit. And I was showing him some videos of kickboxing fights. And he was like, holy shit. I go, dude, everybody he touches, he's got the touch of death. And then we start steamrolling people in the UFC. And he knocked out Strickland in one round. And the opening fight that he had when he hit that dude with a flying knee and just sent him into orbit. And everybody's like, holy shit.

like whoa I'm like yeah dude this guy is scary so that guy was within three years was a two division world champion which is just nuts like nobody's done that before

And, you know, defended the light heavyweight title multiple times in just a few years. And he's only really been fighting MMA for like five or six years. That's the excitement, I think, of MMA over other athletics, maybe. It's just the unpredictability of it that, like, anybody can just come in and catch everybody off guard and you just don't ever know. It's just... Well, it's specialists. So the thing about specialists is if you're a specialist kickboxer, what you really need is someone to teach you how to fight on the ground offensively.

And he had Glover Teixeira, who was also a former UFC light heavyweight champion, one of the greatest, and an amazing technician. And Glover helped him, along with all his other training partners, avoid the takedowns, learn how to fight off, learn how to fight on the ground, learn how to get back up to your feet. When you've got a guy who's the best of the best kickboxers...

Every fight starts standing up. So while you're standing there with him, it's just, you gotta get that guy to the ground. You gotta get that guy to the ground. This is terrifying. And he'll fight with broken toes. He's fought so fucked up before. He fought when he fought Yuri Prohaska the first time. He had a completely blown out knee. Like his knee wouldn't support him. He knocked Yuri Prohaska out with a left hook.

And then he got his knee fixed, came back, fought him again, and iced him in the second round. And he's just a different man. He fought his last fight with a broken hand, and he had norovirus. Oh, my God. And still lost a close decision in the fifth round. Maybe it almost—

Yeah, it almost helps him like that. Nah, it doesn't. It definitely doesn't. You could tell his energy was lower in that last fight than it has been in the past. Like the Khalil-Roundtree fight was a fucking master class. And Khalil is like one of the best strikers in the light heavyweight division. And Alex just pieced him apart. I think about what happens after their careers are finished. Like what do they...

Where do they direct all of that energy to? Or is it difficult when you're a high-level fighter and then you get out of it? Oh, it's so difficult. Your whole identity is wrapped up in it, you know? I just messaged Sean Strickland the other day because I saw that he was talking about his investments and that he's got...

He's got four million in investments and he's doing really well. And then, you know, he's got a plan. Like Sean is very intelligent. He's wild and crazy. He says crazy shit, but very intelligent. And I was very happy. That makes me feel so good that you've like you're really thinking about like having money in the bank, retirement, investment. So you're good. You're good forever.

And he'll always be able to do seminars and things along those lines. It's very valuable to be like a former champion. You can visit gyms and people will line up and pay 50 bucks and you can teach them things that will genuinely help their careers. So a lot of guys have a thing. Like Misha Tate, she was just in Austin recently.

And she went to Ways to Well to get some work done on her knee. And she was out here doing seminars. So she's traveling with her family around the country. And they'll go and she'll teach a seminar at a gym. And then they'll go on an RV trip. Nice family time. Have a good time in between. But they can make a lucrative living doing that, which is really nice. It's hard for them. The identity thing is very hard. Well, I just wonder, too. It seems like some of those people are...

Well, you know, this is totally different than MMA fighters, but I look at like a great example is like that David Goggins type of thing where they're like just at it. Like you said, dude, man, like you fight and the next day you're able to go run. It's just like what happens when all that slows down? Do you redirect that somewhere? Do you think it's difficult? Like if you don't have somewhere to just...

You found this really effective way to displace all of this because obviously those people have got something in them that drives their spirit to be able to do that. Well, I think George St. Pierre has the healthiest model because George still trains almost every day. And George still comes to Austin to train with the Donahers and Gordon Ryan and all these elite jiu-jitsu guys. And he'll still go to Thailand and train Muay Thai. He's a genuine martial artist. And maybe he stopped before he...

destroyed himself too much he definitely did he definitely did he's in good he definitely did do you think those guys will ever come back like like uh i know there was rumors about do you think they would ever do you think for them that it would be beneficial for them to come back and fight once they've been out of it for so long like like the tyson fight and stuff was that that seemed like and i don't even know that's a whole nother can of worms and i don't i'm not articulate enough in this space to like give my opinions on things but i just i would have liked to seen mike tyson just

Don't know just seemed like that just wasn't it didn't seem like he enjoyed that coming back I bet he enjoyed the 20 million bucks. He did I think that's why he did it He did it for money, and I'm happy that he could do it for money I'm happy that he can make a large amount of money doing something like that. That's all say about that Yeah, but you're not supposed to be getting hit really hard in the head when you're 57 or 58 years old It's probably not the best thing for your your health and at a certain point in time like I kind of stopped kickboxing and

For the most part, when I was like 30, I was like, this is just not good for you. You know, I was still sparring and I was acting at the time. So I was doing news radio and I was still going to the gym and kickboxing. And, you know, sometimes I'd have like a little black eye that I'd have to get touched up with makeup and shit before I go out to the set. Like...

And I kept doing jiu-jitsu, but jiu-jitsu – I would get black eyes in jiu-jitsu sometimes too, but jiu-jitsu didn't – I didn't get my head rattled the same way. Like you still accidentally catch a knee sometimes or you headbutt each other sometimes, something – elbow. Stuff happens, but it's not like the constant jabs to the face and kicks to the body. You just get – you're beating your brain up, you know, and it's just –

Not good for you at a certain point in time like if you're an athlete and you're competing professionally You manage it you do your best to recover and take care of your health But there's a part is a price you pay and I don't think you should pay that price if you don't have to You know and that's what that's the thing about sparring That's like especially if you're sparring with someone who's like a hard hitter And they they're not that good at pulling punches and then it gets competitive and next thing you know you're basically fighting on fighting some happens all the time happens all the time happens and

In a lot of gyms, it happens more often than not. You're actually fighting rather than sparring. You're just lucky you're not knocking each other unconscious every day. It's like your skill. But there's something to be said for that if you're fighting because you've got to be aware that there's real consequences to these shots. And if someone's pity patting you in sparring, maybe you'll develop a false sense of security and someone will crack you. You've got to be on the edge all the time. Like Firas Ahabi, who I was talking about earlier, would pay sparring partners to try to knock George St. Pierre out.

He would pay them. I want you to try to knock him out, like, for real. Because he wanted George to be, like, really prepared. You know, you're going in there and, you know, you're going to fight some fucking killer. You know, you can't be kind of half, you know...

You're fighting Carlos Conte. He's going to try to take your head off. You've got to be training with guys that are trying to take your head off. When they're in the middle of those fights, is it a lot of muscle memory or are they consciously thinking... I feel like a lot of it is they've trained so much that it's more automatic when they get in that fight. Like...

Like the way you see these slow motion replays of fights and they're able to almost predict their opponent's move and react in real time with it and just use it to their advantage. That's all sort of almost...

It's not involuntary, but they've like trained their muscle memory to react that way, I guess. More so than them. Yeah. More so than them having to like think like, oh, here it comes. I'm going to, you know, it's just so incredible to watch it like the way it's sometimes those fights are so good. They almost like it's almost like choreographed. It's so good the way they're able to like use their opponents movements and to their own advantage and stuff. That's what's so, so crazy to me watching them.

Just watching how like a human being can get to that level to where it's so good. When someone's at the elite level, like the highest of high levels, it's an amazing thing to watch. Like there's a guy who's defending his flyweight title at the end of June, Alessandre Pantoja. He's one of the best fighters ever.

All time. I mean he's so fucking good, but he's 125 pounds so people you know They don't appreciate him as much as if that guy was 170 he'd be a fucking superstar He's so good. He's so good everywhere elite black belt on the ground nasty striking hyper aggressive Just dominant just comes in he has this look in his eyes like I am here to fuck you up and

And it's awesome to watch. I mean, it's like when a guy reaches the pinnacle of his career, like when he's at the height of his powers, when he's at the peak of his performance and career as an elite MMA fighter, it's something to behold, man. It really is. When you watch a guy just piece a guy up and take him apart, you're like, God damn.

You know, I'd never get bored with it. Never. Never get bored calling the fights. Never get bored. Like when I know it's a UFC night, I'm like, oh, baby, here we go. It still gets you excited just like it did at the beginning. And Daniel Cormier, who is a two-division world champion who's sitting next to me, he gets fired up. I mean, he's like grabbing my shoulders. Oh, man, here we go. Here we go. We get so fired up.

And it's, you know, as far as excitement generated, I think it's the most exciting thing in the world. I don't think there's anything like two people trying to figure each other out.

Yeah. You know? I mean, and then when someone's in that flow state, it's an amazing thing to watch. It's beautiful. When they really hit that flow state, everything is just perfect. It's like, oh, man, that's so hard to get there. It's like an art form that you really can only truly appreciate if you understand the amount of effort that it took to get to that point. If you could do a little bit of it, you can do it somewhat. You know, you have to be able to do some martial arts to really appreciate what they're doing. Yeah.

You can see someone kick somebody in the head like, wow, that's crazy. But to really know how hard it is to pull off what he did, it's just like, dang it.

It's easy to watch world star hip hop where they're just like sucker punching each other, but to watch a guy exhibit that kind of skill on somebody else, knowing that like, and not even knowing, like I said, just meeting like the few UFC fighters that I've met and stuff, just looking at him and being like, gosh, dude, like these dudes are just animals, you know, like a start. And then to watch somebody else be able to exhibit that kind of, just to kind of like unleash that kind of skill on them is just amazing.

You're right. It's such a raw, it unlocks such a, it unlocks that sort of monkey part of our brain that's just like, yeah. Oh, it's in your DNA, man. It's hard to, yeah, it's just such a human thing, I guess. Yeah, like when people are really into cricket and someone scores in cricket, they get excited. I don't give a fuck. But if somebody kicks somebody in the head, everybody knows what happened. Everybody understands it. That's the, I think that's the same psychology behind chicken fighting, which is,

surprisingly prevalent, like where we've recorded this song and all that still, but like with the, it's kind of the same, like that,

That's what they do up there. They don't hit each other. They just get chickens and do it. And they gamble. That's the big thing is gambling on chicken fights. It's a big deal. Champion roosters. Oh, yeah, man. It's a big deal up there, yeah. I was just telling a story the other day about this guy that was my landscaper that took me to this Mexican neighborhood that he lived in. And his buddy had all these chickens in cages all over the place. He had these roosters. And they had a big pit where they would roast goats. And they would just get the chickens out, put them in the box, and gamble. And it was like...

I was explaining, like, you want to talk about, like, integrated societies. This was a completely Mexican neighborhood in L.A. Like, none of the signs are in English. Everything is in Spanish. Everybody spoke Spanish. Wow. You go down the street, you hear, ah! There's fucking roosters everywhere, man. But it's like, that's part of their culture. It's cruel and awful, but so is chicken farming, you know? They make soup out of the chickens after they have them fight each other. It's kind of fucked up.

But it's that same sort of like... It's the same... It goes back to like the Coliseum. It's that same kind of thing. Like it's that part of our brain that like...

everybody's got some chase to get there. But yeah, I've always wondered that with the fighters. The worst is dog fighting. Yeah. That's the one I, you know, that one makes my stomach turn. Right. That one bothers me because they like fighting. They really do. Pit bulls love it. They're fighting, they're biting each other in the face and wagging their tails. They really enjoy it. But it's like, God, don't do that. Don't do that. You're just like, we don't want that. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, maybe it's when it's something you eat, you don't feel so bad about it. But when it's a dog, it's like... I just love dogs way too much, man. That, to me... And I know the dog wants to do it, which is even more fucked up. They want to fight, but they're bred for it. That's what's so crazy. People are so psycho, they bred a dog that wants to fight all the time and will fight anything. They'll fight bulls. They used to use them to grab bulls. Yeah. Yeah. They're nutty dogs, man. Well, you know, where I was at in Virginia, we had...

I, yeah, I was, I don't know if I'd say we were officially dating or not. I kind of was hoping we were, but I was, there was this girl I used to talk to a lot in middle school and they, um, you know, they weren't, they didn't live too far away from Michael Vick's place when all that went down. So she actually had some puppies that were originally, they never fought. They were still puppies when he got busted, but they were some of Vick's dogs that she had. I remember as a kid and that was like,

Yeah, I remember when all that went down, I didn't live. You know, we weren't relatively that far away from where all that happened. But that was a real eye opening experience for a lot of people. They're like, wait, what? That guy's doing that? That's crazy.

But I'm the same way. Dogs and humans are like at the same level of importance to me almost. You know, like I finally replaced, I didn't, it's not in any way to say replace, but just like for me, I've always, I'm used to having three or four dogs around. Because once you train, if you train a couple of dogs real good and you get a couple more, nine times out of 10, they'll just learn everything from, you kind of get this pack mentality. And so I've had four for forever. And then

I had gotten down to two when I lost Hooch, the white shepherd. So I finally just got this black German shepherd off this lady who was real, really nice lady. And it wasn't, she didn't necessarily neglect the dog, but the dog was just a breeder's dog. So all she did was just have puppies with it. And so like, here I am, I'm taking this five-year-old black German shepherd down, like to go swimming in the Creek with us and stuff. And like,

It was like her first time stepping on a stick. You know, she stepped on a stick and like jumped completely in there. Like she didn't know what it was. You know, now within two weeks, now she's like swimming in the creek with them and running all around. And she acts like she's a farm dog. But like this dog had just kind of been in this lady's front yard for years, I guess, and just hadn't even gotten to. But to me, it's like, here I am. I'm like, it's like.

They're my children. I can't separate a dog and a human in level of importance. It's like that theoretical scenario where the train's coming and you've got to figure out which way to switch the tracks. And it's like elderly people are dogs and you're like...

I don't know. Yeah. But I'm with you. I love... Yeah, I just love dogs. I like people more than dogs, but I love dogs. Yeah. But, yeah, people are more important to me. But it's close. It's close. There's some people that I would kill for my dog. Hey, while I'm here, I'm going to go pick up Poppy or whatever. I wish I would have...

I wish I would have saved him on there. I think his name was Poppy or Buddy or something, but that little chihuahua at the Humane Society. Oh, you're going to take him in? I might. I don't know. He's really goofy. Why not, man? Take him in. He's like 12 years old or something, so he just needs somewhere to go, you know? Oh, you'll give him the last few years of his life. It'd be awesome. Oh, and then you'll be telling all the other people, Oliver Anthony came and got me. Yeah, the rich man from Richmond guy. What a sweetheart. Yeah. Hey, he likes me more than people.

Yeah. Yeah, this is exciting. The mothership and just being able to go in there and do music and stuff is going to be nuts. I've got a few. Like, I brought... I got a friend of mine named Craig who's, like, one of my buddies growing up who does just, like, amateur... He's a really funny guy. So I got him doing a little bit. And I've got Hickok45's son, John, who he does comedy in Chicago right now. He's going to do a little stand-up thing there. And just... It'll just be fun. I'm just... It'll be real cool. I got...

The guys that opened for me, the Davison brothers, they're going to do a couple songs. They're really good. I don't know. This has been like through all the

and chaos of the last however many months of things going on and stuff being rearranged and all, this has been like my beacon that I've held onto of like, we just got to get to the mothership and then everything will work out, you know? Well, we've been really looking forward to having you. Everyone in the staff, all the comics are real pumped. Everybody's excited. I just couldn't believe the reception I got, like even when I came with Tom that first time, just how everybody sort of took me in like, like,

I don't know. I'm just sort of the, well, also a lot of people don't even know who I am because all they've seen of me is like just the internet stuff and all the political stuff. And so it was really surprising the first time, even when we went to that mothership, how, I don't know, just everybody there just was like very respectful and like, and it just kind of like welcomed me with open arms. I kind of, I thought I was going in there like really like kind of an outsider and

It was way more receptive than I've ever been in Nashville, you know, like with music people. Yeah. That's awesome. I don't know. Like William Montgomery and all those guys are just so nice and so... Just like...

You know they're funny and they can make you laugh up on stage, but even in person they're all just really good people. They're all just really genuinely good people. Yeah, we've got a great tribe. It's a great tribe. And the whole mentality of the club is like that. Everybody that's there is cool. I think in comedy, there's a lot of struggle in comedy for people to make it. I think even more so than in music. Some of those people were telling me stories about...

how tough it is to go out. You know, trying to make a career out of comedy. Like, I guess unless you get a big Netflix special or you get a big break, like, it's paycheck to paycheck for a long time, maybe, for some of those guys. Like, until they get... Or until they get to where they're, like, a regular at a big club like that, you're just...

You're just off, you know, you're out, you're out putting yourself into a very vulnerable position a lot where people can just say, ah, screw that guy. You know, it's just, but you have to do that to get good at it. But I think, I think they have some appreciation for it that maybe other people don't like they're like it. Like, I think that's, I pick up on that. Like they get this, they get that everybody in there is struggling, trying to make it and have put a lot of their heart and effort into it. And it just seems like it's,

There's a lot of respect in there for everybody and stuff. 100%. Everybody realizes that there's only one way to do it. You've got to work hard for a long time. That's the only way. It's one of the few things in life that there's no shortcut to. Developing material and getting good at stand-up, it's a 10-year process. It's a 10-year degree. You want to actually become a real stand-up, it's probably about 10 years. 10 years of grinding.

And for a lot of people like, Oh, that's too long. It is too long. Yeah. That's why most people don't do it. Yeah. But if you could do it, the people that are doing it and have been doing it for like 10 plus years, like all those people hanging out in the green room, they're all so cool.

It's a lot like jujitsu in that regard. It's like people that appreciate the difficulty of something and are really obsessed with getting better at it. And obsessed with helping other people get better at it too. Because also like jujitsu, the more people that you have around you that are really funny, the funnier you'll get. Everybody has to be sharp because the whole show – like sometimes I'll do these Joe Rogan and Friends show.

And it's fucking Ahsan Ahmad, Brian Simpson, Tony Hinchcliffe, Shane Gillis, Mark Norman. And then I go up. It's like the show's an hour and a half old before I even get on stage. So it's like you have to stay sharp. And if you're not, you got to pick up the slack. You got to figure it out. Get back to the laptop. Let's go. You got to rewrite. Do this. Do that. But that's what we're all doing. We're all – it's –

it's a vibrant place that there's the, there's a mindset attached to that place. It's very positive. Yeah. That makes me real happy. And I'm real happy that you're going to be there this week. Yeah. I think, yeah, I think this mothership thing's got a long future ahead of it in that sense of like just reshaping. I don't know. I just, it's like a, it is kind of a beacon right now. And like, I don't know, it's like there's a big light shining up in the sky and every, that's kind of where everybody's looking. It seems like in that, you know, it's a,

And even with Kill Tony, it's just cool that they, that's the coolest part about that is that it's like, you can just go right in there. Anybody can go right in there and give it their all, you know, for better or for worse. But you might make it. Look, you might be William Montgomery, you know, you might be Cam Patterson, you might be Hans Kim or any of these people that have like legitimate careers now because of that show. It's pretty awesome.

Oliver Anthony, this weekend. Sorry, everybody. It's all sold out. You're not going to be able to get in, but I'm fucking pumped. I can't wait. Yeah, it's going to be sick. Thank you for being here, man, and thanks for the podcast. It was a lot of fun. Thank you, yeah. I really enjoyed it very much, and it's great to see you find your place, man. You're getting it. You got it. You're here now. You're established. In the beginning, you're like, what the fuck is happening? But now you're like, you got a plan. You're moving. It was so many pitfalls and so many things, but it's a contribution of...

I'd say, you know, like at the very beginning, you, Jamie Johnson, David Kushner, and just a couple of people who were like had been in it for a while and were able to. Well, with David, you know, he was fairly recent, but we were both. But just those people just being able to guide me along at the first six months was when I could have really slipped up hard and like could have just I just was so thankful that I got through all that without being married to anybody or any company. Like at least everything's still there.

No, you did it the right way. Yeah. You did it the right way. So I appreciate the confidence there because it's a terrifying... It is. Man, you've been going to work every day for some guy that you hate and some job you hate for so long for like 50 grand a year. And then some dude is like showing you like, you know, like, and they have a really convincing way of doing it. It's just like, think about how easy you can get prayed into buying some shit used car on a lot. These people are like that, but like, they're like...

They're like the professional UFC fighters of psychological warfare. Like, they're going to make you feel like you're so stupid and that, like, you've just tricked everybody for five minutes and you better do it while it lasts. And if you don't come with us, it's never going to make it. You're never going to make it. But you were right. They were wrong. Ha ha. And I don't care if nothing, like I said, if nothing else ever comes of this, this has been just such a blessing to be able to just meet all the people I have and experienced it and, like,

It's just cool, man. I don't care where it goes from here. I'm just totally enamored by it all. It's just another dimension I'm living in, dude. I don't know. It's awesome. It's not real life. It's beautiful. Yeah. All right. Thanks for being here. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Maybe in a couple more years. Fuck yeah. A couple months. Fuck it. All right. Bye, everybody. Bye. Bye.