#852: Tim McGraw — Starting Late with a $20 Guitar, Selling 100M+ Records, and 30+ Years of Creative Longevity

To tease out what you can use, what you can apply in your own lives and we have a very

“tactical, very detail rich. Interview ahead, and my guest is Tim McGraw. To say Tim McGraw is a Grammy award winning singer is an absurd”

Understatement. He's had 49 number one singles and 19 number one albums making him one of the most played country artists of all time, but Colleama country artist is also too small of category. He's been named Neil sin BDS radio's most played artist of the decade for all music genres and also had the most played song of the decade for all Music genres. He's written four New York Times best-selling books and you've also seen him in Friday night lights the blind side in Yellowstone Not to mention his three-time Emmy nominated 1883 in which he stars alongside his wife Faith Hill and Sam Elliott

You can find tickets for his upcoming pawn shop guitar tour at Tim McGraw.com. That's Tim Tiam McGraw MCGRAW.com. Check it out. I will certainly be aiming to attend and without further ado, please enjoy a very very wide-ranging Very very detailed. Very fun. Conversation with the one and only Tim McGraw. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mind-me-former hand-start shake.

I know I don't see the person question. Now it is sitting in front and coming in. I must have a netty bucket isn't living this show with metal and pistol scorer. Tim is so nice to finally meet in person. You as well too. Really fantastic. Absolutely. Big fan. Likewise and I've not been to Nashville. It's so long and it's just lovely around here.

It's incredible and it changes every day. I mean, I get lost anytime I come downtown.

I get lost because everything looks so different. Franklin looks like it's just had Facelift after Facelift after Facelift. I know and when I first moved here in 89 all of that cool springs, all that stuff was still all countryside and I remember land being not very expensive out there and I didn't have two nickels of ruby or something. Man, if I could just buy some land out here and build me a little cabin, find me a club gig. You know, I really

would be great and cut two years later and it's just everything's through the roof. I mean, it's just going crazy and then it doesn't seem to be slowing down at all.

“You just offered me the perfect segue because well, that's what I'm here for. Thank you. You know,”

I appreciate this tango that we're we're getting started here. I was looking back. You were kind enough to answer some questions for tribe of mentors. Yeah, your book my last book and I was going back to reread it and I looked at your bio and at the time it read Tim McGraw is sold more than

50 million records dot dot dot and all these amazing accolades and then I looked at the more recent

and it's more than 106 million records worldwide. Your longevity is mind boggling on a number of different levels. It's just me too. My body would have been stupid but not with me. And I'm wondering how have you thought about or how has your creative process changed over the years? What is remained the same? What has changed? Because there's so many ingredients that you have to get right for you to not just last but succeed over the decades that you have. Well, one thing that doesn't

change is great songs. That's the first check. It should be the first check on any artist list. I mean, I write, I write for every project and I've been lucky enough to have some success with

some of the things all right. But for me, the song always has to win. Wherever the song comes from,

“that's what it's going to be. And I listen to songs constantly. I'm constantly writing,”

constantly listening. I'm hard on my own songs. It's probably why I haven't cut as many. But my process is pretty much the same. I think materialized I look for different kinds of music than I used to. I still like fun songs and I find the right fun song I'll do it. But it's tougher out of certain age to sing about, you know, daisy dukes and tailgates all the time. You know, it just doesn't, doesn't quite ring true to me. But you know, every now and then something comes

along that's fun and you just do it because you're an artist and you're telling a story and you do it. But I gravitate more towards songs now that not only have meaning to me, but I think have people can find a deeper meaning in in their own situation and their own life. I would love for you

the genesis, but also what do you do when the muse goes a little quiet? Because you can't just

as a work musician, they're like, well, I'm going to wait a year for lightning to strike. There's probably some process behind it. And I am not a musician, but I'm deeply interested in it. One of my favorite albums of all time is Grace Land by Paul Simon. Oh God, yes. And I was listening to his backstory as he explained how a number of those songs came together and I was just mesmerized.

“So could you tell the story of any song that comes to mind and how the genesis?”

You don't probably live like you were dying when you were a good place to start because that song came to me. It was right after my dad was diagnosed with brain cancer, glioblastoma. And Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman sent that song to me. They wrote it about my

dad when they found out that that was happening and sent it to me. And I never played it for my dad.

He was sick at the time. I just felt that it was not appropriate to play a song about dying to your dad who was dying. Although I'm sure he would have loved the idea of having a song that was about him or inspired by him. I didn't play it for him. I had the song and in his last days he was at our farm and the cabin at our farm that's where he wanted to be for his last days and spent a lot of time with him. And I think it was right around two weeks, two to three weeks after he passed away that we

went to the studio to record and recorded an upstate New York at a place. Right outside of Woodstock at a place called O'Lare Studios. You know, it's beautiful. It's an old Dutch farm house and barn

up on top of the mountain. Beautiful. We had like three foot of snow. We were there for three weeks. We

sent two semi trucks full of Persian rugs and furniture and just decked the place out for the band and myself for three weeks where we were cutting. And my dad's older brother Hank, I invited him to come hang with us because you know, Tugga just died and I know he wasn't doing very well. So I invited him to come hang with us while we were recording. And it was probably six or seven days into the recording process and we would start late and we would go to three or four in the morning recording.

“And I remember it was about one in the morning and I had this glass booth built in the middle of”

the studio so I could see everybody. And there was fireplaces at each end and the fireplaces were roaring. I had my glass booth in the middle. We were cutting us on my Uncle Hank was smoking a joy. If you know, Uncle Hank, he's passed away to pass away last year now, but he was all American athlete, three sports, played pro baseball for 13 years. Greatest guy in the world, just like Sam Elliott, but was a pothead from from day one. So I watched him and he was sitting over there and I just

got to think and I thought, you know, this might be a good time. I could live like you were dying. So we just finished a song we were doing some overdubes. I gathered everybody around and I gathered Hank around and I asked everybody what their opinion was. They felt like tackling that song. So about two in the morning we cranked it up before the sun came up. We had that song done. And it was so tough because I'm sitting in the booth and the glass booth recording the song,

you know, directing the band, you know, getting the parts right. And I can't help it watch Michael Hank the entire time that we're doing it. And he's just in a puddle over in the corner and then he's laughing. And then then he starts telling stories about tug after things. So we recorded the song, we got finished probably about four, five in the morning and then we just sat and listen Uncle Hank tell stories about tug for the rest of the night. And I have to believe that

all that magic of that night of Hank being there, tug it only been gone for a couple of weeks. And then Hank telling the stories afterwards, I have to believe that all that went into that record. Yeah, there's there's so many different aspects to that each of what you could unpack. When you mentioned it seemed like a good time or it might be a good time. Why did it seem like a good time was it a feeling? It was a sound of you as you looked at your uncle. As I looked at my

uncle, I just felt like that I was being told to cut this song. Everything, the vibes coming off

“of him and what I was feeling at the time, and I think we would hit just cut something really”

up tempo and pretty rocking. And I don't know, it was the mood, the snow outside, the fire places by Uncle sitting there being so late at night, maybe. There was the melancholy that sort of struck at that time. I'm sure there were some other factors that might have been involved that struck

that moment. And we wanted to capture it. We always like to say, you know, you can have the greatest

song in the world, greatest band in the world, greatest singer in the world, which I am not, but you can have all those factors and it's still not work. We always say sometimes God just walks through the room. All right, I want to pick up on that thread and then we're going to go back to some of your family history because I mean, millions of millions. No, you're music,

“but I think fewer know the origin story. So we will get to that. But I also want to ask,”

when is the first time when you felt God walked through the door with one of your songs? We were like, oh, oh, okay. I think maybe we have some lightning in the bottle here. I would like to say it was it don't take the girl, but I didn't feel that way after we recorded it because I never felt like

I captured exactly what I wanted on that record until we finally finished and we finally finished

stuff like we had it. But in the process of it, I felt like a struggle on that song. But Indian Outlaw, because I had that song from my first album and nobody liked it. The label didn't like it. James Stroud didn't like it. Fire and liked it. But I couldn't talk James and it let me record it. And I couldn't talk the label and the label with reasons they gave you. They just said it was too controversial and it was a bad song. It wasn't country music. It won't work on radio. All the

things that they were right about. I heard that song the first night I moved in national. I got to National it. One or two in the morning on a greyhound bus walked down to the Hall of Fame lounge and hotel were ended up staying for a couple of weeks. Walked into the bar and everybody was closing down. The band was packing up and Tommy Barnes and Max D. Barnes were sitting at the bar. Thanks Max D. Barnes. He's sitting at the bar. The bar is closing down. So I walk in and

just ordered a beer and she said we just had to ask of it. I'll give you a beer. I sat down. So I started talking to these two guys. So Tommy says, do you got room? I said, yeah, so let's go play some music. So me Tommy and Max Barnes went up and started playing music and stepping off. I was stepping off the bus and Tommy played Indian Outlaw and I don't want to be there in the morning when she wakes up and finds me going, which ended up coming both of those. Have three more songs

of his out of her that first thought that I'm going to cut eventually. But Indian Outlaw heard that first night and I started playing it immediately. Learned it, started playing it and all the clubs around town, the hockey talks around town. When we would go travel and play clubs all over the country, I was playing that song and we didn't have to play it two or three times a night, four times a night, because people loved it so much. And I kept telling the label and I was going

into coming up for a record. This was before I had a record. I knew it. I knew it worked and I didn't have any say so in the first album. So when I cut the second album, that's where we're cutting period. And when we cut it, I felt like this is either going to work in a huge way or it's going

“to ruin my career forever. Luckily it worked and it worked. I think the fortunate thing”

it worked. And I think that what kept me from being just sort of a novelty act that had this sort of funky weird song that made some noise was being able to come right behind it, but don't take the girl. I'll forever believe that what combination of those two songs is what set my career in motion and gave me momentum that I probably couldn't have gotten any other way. How would you describe both of those songs as a one-two punch? The first one for people who don't know why

was a potentially controversial or different. And I understood why it was controversial because it was stereotypical. It was sort of a play on Native American stereotypes. And there was a lot of controversy around it and I understood the controversy and I wasn't upset about the controversy. In fact, I met with several Native American leaders. Some liked the song, some didn't like the song. And my answer was, look, I understand what your concerns are. The song is not meant to be that way.

“I understand your concerns. My opinion, if you need to go after me in order to raise the tension”

and awareness to your calls, by all means use my song for that. So if you like it or don't like it, if you could have made something good happen from it, then by all means I'm not going to be offended.

And now when I play Native American casinos, I always when I meet with the elders or the

cheese before the show, I always say, you know, I have Indian outlaw on my set, but I'm happy to take it out if it's offensive and invariably 99.9% of the time, that's why we hired you. It's the same as so. So they love it. So it's been really good to me. And what about the follow-up straight, the one-two? Oh, but don't take the girl exactly. That song was just so powerful and such a great. So it was the epitome of what country music is all about. A great story. It gets right to the heart of

about what happened. But to this day singing that song, there are times where it chokes me up still every

time. And that song was one of my first dances as an artist to where I wasn't sure if I was doing

the right thing or not, but it was my first opportunity to perform on the CMAs after don't take the girl came out. And Walter was the guy he used to run the CMAs. You remember Walter? They wanted me to do don't take the girl, but they only gave me three minutes and the song's five minutes. And I was trying to explain to him that there's no way to sing the song without telling the complete story or it wouldn't make sense. So I actually turned down my first opportunity to perform on the CMAs. That's

because I couldn't do the whole song. Was that an obvious choice or did you second guess that choice

“after you turned it down the next day or the next hour or were you like, I think it was an obvious”

choice. Yeah, and I wasn't too worried because the song was doing so well. And I just thought there's no upside here to do a part of the song. There's nothing to do anything for me. It's not going to do anything for anybody else. Just a quick thanks to our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. What many of you may not know is that I actually run two private invite-only communities for some of my projects. The notebook, which eventually will come out after god knows how long and

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So, a few things come to mind for me. The first is that in a digital world, or we perceive to be

that and the other thing. But still, if you can get front of live audiences to test your material,

whether you are a musician, a comedian, even in my case, as a writer, my first book was turned down

30 plus times by publishers, not an exaggeration. But because I had taught the material in front of classes for years and years and years, I knew that it worked. You knew it worked. I knew it worked. That is the only reason. You had a practical sense that it worked. Yeah, I could see it and I honed it and I'd taken out the equivalent of jokes that didn't work. And double down on the ones it did. And that still is just so incredibly valuable. I haven't had real time feedback, especially when

you're playing multiple times a night. So, when you're processed when you're writing a book, and you're talking about trauma, tear it out. People, do you have an idea or a nugget of what you

“want to do, and then you just start riffing on it around people, just to sort of get feedback?”

I do. I would say that these days, I will often test on the podcast to see, like segments or parts. Exactly. I see what resonates or doesn't resonate. So, for instance, I'm considering

doing a huge collection of case studies from the first book. Because of course, people here at the

four hour work week, and they're like, "Bull of shit! That guy is a liar!" And I get it, I get it. It's a controversial title and deliberately so, but there are hundreds and thousands of case studies. And so, for every, every reason someone might have, why they object to the title, "I'm a single mom. I've got five kids. I have this. I have that on 60 and not 20." I have an example that has walked the walk in their shoes. So, that said,

"A book is a huge commitment. I still find writing so difficult." And I know you've had experience with this. So, I will put together a few episodes on the podcast where I'm basically testing different sets of questions with case studies. And I'm going to say, "All right, look, I enjoy doing this, but how does the audience respond?" At the same time, I would say, for me,

“I think it's very dangerous to ask your audience or really anyone if you have developed a creative”

muscle and you value it. What should I do? Because then you can get shaped by the masses in a way that really leads you down. I think a lost path. In my case, I might have two or three things I'm excited about. Then it's a question which of these three. And I will feel good about any of these three. Then it's okay. So, I test that. I still think to this day and I've thought about potentially approaching UT Austin. To do a class, it's because the feedback is so fast. They can't fake it. Even if they

say they like it, if you look at their face and they're spacing out, checking their phone, you're like, "It's not working. It's not working. It's not working." Like you said, you tried things up musicians, comedians, writers. I do the same thing. If I run across a new song that I really like, I would have the band work it up. So let's play a couple of times live and see what their reaction is. Now, there's a caveat to that because when I've been doing this for 35 years now,

so when you have songs, people expect to hear and then you throw a new one in on them. Sometimes you get the reactions and not exactly what you want it to be, but it's not necessarily the reaction that you're going to get if they know the song. So, you know, there's a little bit of a

“balance curve that you have to put on when you're doing it. Back again, also do not letting the”

audience determine what you do. That's really true because, like you said, you can get lost. If you start chasing what you think people want to hear, then you're, I think you're here and troubled. Then I think you got to chase what you want to hear. And what you want to play and look, my taste is not going to match up with everybody's taste and probably less and less people's taste is that they go forward, who knows? It may grow more. I don't know, but I have to

cut stuff that speaks to me. If it doesn't speak to me, especially if I didn't write it, if it doesn't speak to me, and I can interpret it in a way that speaks from my heart and

speaks to someone else. If it doesn't speak to me first, there's no way I'm going to make it

speak to somebody else. Yeah, it turns into a guessing game. Yeah. When people can spot that a mile away, whether they realize it or not, they can't. It just strikes me how, how similar if you're pursuing creative expression and longevity, by the way, in so many disciplines, it's the same thing. It is just the same thing. Whether it's podcasts, whether it's music, whether it's writing, Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite writers, Larry Eskatt, Breakfast of Champions, etc. People can

pick up any of his books. They're really fun to read and he used to say, along lines, I'm paraphrasing

flu. Basically, if you're trying the flu, if you're trying to open up flu, if you're trying to

“appeal to everybody, you're lost. You're lost. And at least you know, you have an audience of”

one if it's resonating with you. And the personal can be so universal. Well, again, we're so lucky as artists, writers, musicians, whatever you are as an artist, because that's therapy. You have your own built-in therapeutic machine. Yeah. So there's the aspect of creative longevity. How many years have you been doing this again? 35, I guess. It's going around there. 35. Yeah, it's 35 years. So you have creative longevity. How do you continue to follow the right central, which is very personal,

and not get lost because there's going to be a lot of temptation, a lot of external forces, expectations, right? So there's that, which we've spoken to a bit, physically. I know a lot of people are going to want me to talk about this. I want to talk about it. How do you think about physically being capable to do what you do? I mean, you are still performing. That is intensely

physical. I have never performed as a musician on stage, but I know a few. Even when you're not

running around as physical. Yeah. So there's an energy there. And in my case, I can't sit still

“when I'm performing. Yeah. I'm all over the place. But yeah, focus is the biggest word. I think”

in my vocabulary when it comes to what I do for a living. Because the times where I'm not focused or the times things aren't working. I tell you that last three years have been tough to focus with what I've gone with with surgeries. With the surgeries I've had four back surgeries and doubled knee replacements. And tried to work through all of it and did work through all of it. But there was a moment and time back in the spring this year after my third back surgery,

I was a last year. All the years were going to go. Anyway, after my third back surgery when it is just in work that I thought that I was going to really be looking at, not being able to do this anymore. Because I can't imagine not doing it the way that I do it. There's no way that I'm going to go out there and sit on a stool and sing for an hour and a half. This physically impossible for me to do. And I don't know that anybody wants to see that for me. So if I can't go do the shows,

the way I do shows. In the way that I have fun doing shows, then I'm not going to give everybody what they're paying for. And I'm not going to get satisfaction out of it. So there was a time where until the last back surgery that actually worked, it's not good that I didn't think I was going to be able to make it back. And not make it back the way I wanted to make it back. Now, my focus is back, my body's back, my brain fogs clearing up from all the anesthesia. So I'm feeling

like I'm back on a good path. I'm actually feeling like I've got a second wind now and something

to prove, which is good for me because I need that. I want to be the underdog. I want to be the the guy that buys expects to fork to work. You know, I want to be that guy. Make yourself a little hungry. Yeah, absolutely. It's like a metaphorically. And literally when I work and I like to be hungry, I don't like to eat before I go to the stage because I like to be hungry for that reason. Because metaphorically it works for me. I just had my first real experience with falconry and

oh, the falconer was very clear. He's like, you need that bird to be hungry if you want it to hunt. Yeah, it will not perform. If you're saved otherwise, if you're saved it, you're not going to do much. And actually fed up with someone is an expression taken from falconry because if the bird is

“fed up, it won't listen to you. Ah, that up with. It's from falconry. So remember, that's also a good”

little piece of knowledge. Yeah, a little bit of detail. They're all these little words from falconry. Hood winked also and they put the hood on also from falconry. So focusing in tribe mentors you mentioned. My gym is how I get refocused. That's my meditation. And you talked about this five rounds of 12 exercise with the bar complex, kind of adding weight and then going back down. Yeah. Do you still do that or has your training changed over time? You also

mentioned a pool workout. I'm not sure if you still do that. But what is the training regimen? What has it looked like and what does it look like now? Well, maybe it's changed. It's changed a little bit. I have to be a lot more deliberate and a lot more careful. I'm sure that my workout routine, my three workouts a day and that's from workout today. That's what I did for a long time now, especially on the road touring. Was that just like the four

breakfast before lunch before dinner? Yeah. Really? Yeah. And they were distinctly different exercises and the afternoon exercise was sort of an outdoor crossfit thing with the whole band. So that was like an hour and a half that I would do my two hour workout in the morning, which was mostly weights, mostly weights in subcardio. And then before lunch would be running the arena or stadium

something. So you run all the stairs and then you take a break and eat, take an app or whatever.

And then at two, two, three, we go out for an hour and a half and do the outside stuff. A border

“column. Yeah. You need to work and so it's got to run. That being said, I'm sure that I've”

hastened all of my injuries. But I remember specifically when it happened, it was 1883, who shot 1883. That was pretty physically demanding. That wore us out pretty good. That was six months, six days a week, 16 hours a day pretty much solid. And at the time I was doing shows while we were doing, because I had to show his book. So I would work to film until seven, run and jump on a plane, go do a show, get back at three in the morning or two in the morning, get up at four,

try to get to work out in and then be in the make-up trade or go to the next day. Can't imagine why it wears self out. Not only was a tired dog strangely uncomfortable on stage during that, because I had this big beard on and people didn't know what I was doing because we were filming a show that wasn't out yet. So people didn't know what I was doing and I'd put on about seeing things. No, I tried to a couple of times, but you know what I was doing. And I'd put on about ten

“pounds of weight, because there's just protein everywhere. I mean, what fatter anything, but”

it was working out at a steady work, but they always had steak and stuff. So I was in fact,

the people who haven't seen the series. I mean, that hotel scene with, uh, I guess, like kind of like the pajamas or whatever it is. You're a fuck off. I know what I was going to fuck off. You do not look fat, but, but I'm standing on stage and I got this big, dyed black beard. I don't think these people are thinking that I'm dying my beard to look young because my beard's gray. I mean, my beard's snow white and I had this big black beard on. So I was just so uncomfortable on stage and worn

out and tired of it. Were you uncomfortable because it didn't feel right to you or because that you knew the audience was a little off-kilter. It didn't feel right to me. And I could tell that they were trying to figure out what the hell was going on too. So it was just, it was uncomfortable. But we got through and it wore us out. And I tweaked myself a little bit a few times with my knee. And I had some knee trouble before at 20. I had a meniscus done on the scope of my left knee.

And at 30, I had a meniscus on my right knee. But they hadn't bothered me. I think my problem is

“I have really had pain tolerance. So I remember specifically, we were in Montreal and I think it was”

three weeks into the tour maybe four weeks into the tour. We were in Montreal. And my knees were hurting. My back was hurting. Things were starting to fall apart. And I remember turning just a normal turn and felt both my knees just felt like they exploded. And I went to bed that night and I woke up next morning and from my hips to my ankles my legs were twice the size that they were before I went to sleep, swollen. It's terrifying. Yeah. And so I got up and went to the gym. So I spent

two years in a gym just on the treadmill doing anything I could to try to stay in shape where I had to lean over the treadmill to walk because I couldn't stand up straight just to walk in and riddle. And then doing the show, we finished out the tour where they literally had to carry me backstage. I'd get on stage, fake it through the show without acting like I was leavened too badly. And then they'd carry me back to the bus after the show. And then right after that tour I had to

spend a month just sort of prep in myself or surgery and then I went straight in and had the double neighbor placements. And then another back surgery after that. You know, I don't want to turn this into a Tim Ferris confessional, but the pain tolerance you mentioned having high pain tolerance, like blessing and occurs. This occurs because I've had multiple just at Elbow Surgery a few months ago, which I should have had probably 15 years ago. I've had one. I just get, I just

get, like, I walk it off. It's fine. And, you know, shoulder reconstruction and I won't turn this into like my litany of complaints about things. But I just did. But the ball, the back in particular, you know, I've had crippling back issues for the last three to five years, which were precipitated

by this crazy accident long ago where I basically caught a huge dresser falling off the loading

bay of a shipping truck because I want to prevent it from shattering on the ground and it twisted my body around and basically, like tore my lap off of my body or flying accident. But I suppose looking back, because I've wondered this, I have a friend, his name is Kevin Kelly, founding editor of Wired Magazine, great guy. I would say for his entire life has basically done no fence Kevin. No exercise except for lots of walking. That's it. Lots of walking. He has

as far as I can tell. No aches and pants. But walking gives the best idea. He's in his got to be early to mid 70s now. And so I look back and I'm like, I wonder what I would have done because I had a lot of intense training back in the days to compete in judo and all these various things

done differently? I think there's certain things I would have toned down. Probably would have given a

“slightly different prescription. Would have still been pretty aggressive because I don't know if I”

would be where I am now. Otherwise, without that. So looking back during the just advice, I mean, over the decades, right? What would you have changed about your training in retrospect? If anything. I would have been smarter about it probably. Yeah. In what way? Well, I would train the last, for sure, and paid more attention to small aches and pains. Instead of waiting until they were debilitating big aches and things, I would have waited for that. Although, as you said, I honestly

believe that if I hadn't decided that I was just going to get myself back in shape. Because I

don't always stay in shape, but I, you know, after having kids and stuff, you know, you hear,

you're eating chicken nuggets all the time. And you know, so I sort of let myself go for a long. And then I did a movie called four Christmases, which I've never seen. Still haven't seen to this day. Why is that? Because I was, I think I wait two, fifteen when we shot that movie. How was she in now? Right now, one, seventy. We went to see another movie and I'd taken my kids and they were small. And completely not even thinking about my movie. And of course, the very first trailer

that pops up is four Christmases, the movie that I just done, and my face pops on the screen.

“And my daughter looked at the screen and looked at me. She said, "Jesus, you need to do something."”

Because it looked like you could stick up pin in me. And I wanted to just flew across the room. And that's what I decided to give back in shape. But I do think that and people will argue with me about this, but I believe it's my core. That it had I not done that and decided to change my lifestyle, it changed my workout routine the way I looked and took care of myself, that I don't think my career would have lasted this long. And when was that?

Early 40, like 42, 43. How old are you now? 58. Yeah, I mean, that's insane, man. You hear this I'm sure from lots of people, but you are in great. I mean, you look like you're in great shape. And not hitting on you. But that's okay. Yeah. But what has your work out looked like? And I won't be late with this too much longer, but it's I feel like mine, body, brand. These are all the same thing. They're all a super organism. Absolutely. And the exercise is a fundamental pillar of all of it

for me. And for you, I suspect. So what does your exercise regimen look like for the last, let's call it year? Year. Well, there was about six weeks where I didn't do anything at all, which is almost impossible for me to do. And that's probably why some of my back surgery didn't work as well as they should have, because I tried to go back to soon and get back in shape. That's sad story of my right, Manuscus, too. I've tried to cut it down to two hours a day, but that includes

usually walk an hour, 30 minutes to warm up for my knees to get going on the back. So walking

is always my start out, whether it's 30 minutes or an hour, just to walk, loosen everything up,

and do a lot of body weight, stuff in a lot of stretching. I've never lived heavy weights. I don't do heavy weights at all. I try not to do dead lifts anymore because of my back, although the doctor says I can do them live, but I'm still scared of them. So I do a lot of body weight stuff, and a lot of circuit training. And then just try to do everything I do with intent and purpose and discipline, and make sure everything's lined up properly when before I never would do that.

I knew what I was doing. I've had some good trainers in my life, and knew what I was doing, but you know, you're getting a hurry and you fall back and start doing the same old stuff, and you don't think you don't put your head into what you're doing. I just had to be a lot more conscious about how I'm moving what I do. And are those two hours all in the morning? In the morning, yeah, if I don't do it in the morning, it's tough for me to do it.

And then it also includes the older you get in a special with injuries. You've got to really try to every advantage you could get. So I do a lot of red light therapy, red light hot therapy, steam, cold plunges. So I do a lot of that. So that's, you know, that's a good 30 minutes at the end of the workout. So you get all that stuff. I do circuit, you know, multiple circuits of that.

“That's what we have similar recipe. And two or three of the smartest athletes and trainers I know”

who used to be absolute monsters in the gym. I mean, they are power cleaning 300, 400 pounds. I mean, just monsters front squatting 400, 500 pounds. And now they do lighter weights. These are guys now. I would say the kind of late 40s, early 50s. They do lighter weights. They use blood flow restriction, coughs. And they are in fantastic shape. They've lost a little bit of muscle mass because they're not eating like 12 chickens a day. Yeah. But that's fine.

Really good for your longevity too. For sure. And my goal when I work is I never want to be big.

You know what I mean? Yeah, the whole big muscle thing. I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't like a fall into the two skinny for that anyway. Yeah. I think there's a point where probably as a musician just raises more eye rather than more distracting than the default. Yeah. Let's go way way back as promised. My delayed gratification for the audience. Sorry. I took one of this long guys. But the exercise for me is so present every single day.

Mm-hmm. And would love to talk. Maybe after our recording, we could talk more. But for the deadlift, for instance, like the zircher deadlifts, the zircher squads where you're holding the barbell in front. Mm-hmm. Really has protected my back in an interesting way for a lot of good reasons. But we'll see if we come back to that. Okay. If we go way way back, oh, I would, I mean not to, like, when the delivery of that I can remember. Yeah, back. Oh,

“you'll remember. No, remember. So, could you tell the story of finding your birth certificate?”

Oh, God, yeah. Wow. I'd gotten home from school. And mom told me that that was 11. And mom had

kept in her closet like a crown royal bag that had full of coins. But she always put it

different places. Because when I was going, you know, you had the concession stand at school. For a quarter, you could get a candy bar back then or like 10 cents, you could get a code. Yeah, just so people can put you in space where we're at the time. In Louisiana, a little town start Louisiana, where I grew up in a little farming community. I mean, it's just a caution like a cotton gin. That's where I grew up. So I was in her looking for

the little bag trying to find some quarters or something to go by a candy bar at the store or something. I found the bag and there was a box right next to it, open the box and right on top

“was my birth certificate. And I didn't think much of it. I started looking at it. And”

I saw him a growl where he had a line had been drawn through it. And right above it, written by hand, and pencil was Smith, which was my stepdad's name. And then it said dad's occupation professional baseball player. And of course, it'd be 11 years old and growing up, we were quite low, low, middle class. And you know, didn't have any money and seeing something like that. It was just so hard to register. It didn't seem real and oddly enough, I had three baseball cards on

my wall in my room. His was one of them. He was one of my favorite players. So I instantly called my mom and I could tell that it hit her like a ton of bricks. She was at work. And I'm like,

"Mom, what is this? My first gift? What does this mean?" And then she was like, "Oh, my God."

That's all she said. And she said, "I'll be right home." And then she came home and we looked

“for a ride. And she told me the whole story. What was the story? Her junior, summer, and high school,”

her mom had just left her dad by grandpa. And they were staying in a motel that had to put a pool without door, you know, like a motor court motel. They were stating. And it just so happened that my grandmother and my mom were staying there. But just so happened that the minor league team Jacksonville sons, minor league team for the meds, all the ball players were staying in that hotel as well. So tug of my mom met at the pool and sort of dated over the

summer. And when he left, he got called up or whatever. He left. She found out she was pregnant. My mom was a dancer and she had just gotten invited to try out for where the action is by Dick Clark, which was like his first show, the precursor of American pants and all of a sudden. So my mom had just gotten a letter invite her audition for it. And she had just found out she was

pregnant with me. And then I have her senior portrait that she took that they always take at the

beginning of the senior year. And she had just found out two days before the senior portrait she was pregnant with me. And every time I look at that portrait, I can see it in her eyes. I can see that her whole future had just disappeared in front of her. She told me the whole story and said that she hadn't talked to him since. And hasn't heard from me. And I said what I'd like to meeting, you know. So she got in touch with his lawyer somehow, his agent, somehow. He was still

playing at the time. And they arranged somehow mom borrowed a car from her boss and some money from her boss. He said he would leave tickets for us and have lunch with us. We drove there. He met us for lunch. We talked for a little while. And he just said, you know, I'm not your dad. I don't think I'm your dad, but we can be friends. Kind of deal. Went to the game. I had a Pete Rose magazine where Pete Rose was about to break the hitting record that I brought

with me. And he took me in the clubhouse and Pete Rose signed that. I got to meet Pete Rose.

got me a McGraw shirt made and a Philly's hat and all that stuff. She had me all decked out.

So the next shirt said we met never saw him after the game or anything. Never heard from him again.

So of course, I was obsessed as an 11-year-old kid would be about something like that. Just a quick thanks to our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. Back in the day, 2001, I started my first e-commerce business. And it was a mess. You had to cobble together all these different tools that didn't want to talk to one another. It was a giant headache. And since then, over the years and sometimes very quietly, I've

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“admiration? What was the, I think, sure of emotions that you felt? I think at the time,”

I don't think there was an anger. I think there were some affirmation in it. We grew up in a very dysfunctional life. The guy who I thought was my dad growing up was an alcoholic and very abusive

to my mom and to me. And then the second step dad was worse than the first one. So we grew up in

really, you know, the commercially seen out when footsteps are coming home. Kids are scared. That's the way our house was when you'd hear the truck drive up. So for me, there was an affirmation of why I felt like I'd end the law. But that guy. So it wasn't a confusion. I don't think I was young enough to register confusion. I think I was more certainly, it was more about the excitement of finding out that your dad's a professional baseball player. It's certainly in the circus

dances that our group was growing up in. So for me, it was sort of a array of lie in a lot of ways. So the next year they were playing in Houston again and asked Mom if I could go see the game again. She got attached to the age and again said he would leave two tickets, but he's not going to see us. So he left two tickets. It was in Houston, which was the only time I'd send you to the first time I saw a play. He came in and gave up a grand slam. The first time I saw a play. The bullpin is right

along right by the stands. I mean, the stands are to that desk where the bullpin is 10 12 feet away. Yeah, you're right there. He didn't see us for the game or anything. So he was warm up and bullpin in my mom says why don't you go down and say hi to him. He's warm up in the bullpin. So I walked down to where he was warm up. And I was as close to me and you, as you are to him. He's warm up some yelling at him. So I'll get still and talk to him. Then he wouldn't look at me. He wouldn't

look at me or knowledge me. And so I just sort of dropped it for that. Went back home. I didn't use my girl. You smith. Just sort of forgot about it. Didn't forget about it. But not even only a handful of my friends even knew about it. I didn't tell very many people about it. Sort of then I got embarrassed

“I think after after that. Then I was just sort of thrown away. What happened? What changed?”

Well, when I was 18 graduate in high school, we didn't have any more for college. I was count on sports scholarships. And I had a few, but I was smart graduate high school. It was five, ten barely in 140 pounds, getting football scholarships and basketball scholarships. They

about paying for college, if she could see if he would pay for college. This is a long story. She's a seafood pay for college. So I was staying out of it. I was too busy with my life.

“And then I remember the last high school football game. I'm getting ready. I'm down on the field”

and getting ready for the game to start. We'd already ran through the banner and done a lot of stuff. And some of my taps were on the shoulder. And it was my mom. I'm on the sidelines getting ready to go. I'm playing like, mom, what are you doing here? You know, about to play a game, you can't be down here on the sidelines. She goes, "Well, I heard from Tugs lawyer today." And that's okay, mom. Can we wait till after the game, we get home to talk about this. Play the game,

got home, and we talked a little bit about it. And then we talked about the next morning. And the deal was they sent a contract and they said that he would pay $300 a year towards my college.

And that I would never be able to contact him again. And if I did, the money would stay. Anyway,

$300 a year for college, then you can't contact me anymore. And that, to me, was enough to say, you know what? Fine. My only request is, I don't even need the money. $300 a month. I could do anything. I don't need the money. Don't need anything. I'm my only request is that he has to meet me with me one last time. And then if he wants me to sign a contract, delete him alone, I'll do whatever. So we flew to Houston or drove to Houston, drove to Houston, he had a retired at this point.

And I just graduated high school. So I was tall as him. And we walked into the hotel and mom said, "Well, there's Tugs standing." Checking in over there and he had somebody with him, who was his lawyer, his last agent. So I walked over to him and attacked him on the shoulder, and he turned around and looked at me and said, "I took him to him." Because he hadn't seen me since I was 11. And I entered just myself to the gas station next to him. And the gas station next to him

turned completely white. Because I looked just like him. So he knew that the gig was, well, yeah, I guess so. So we sort of spent the day together hanging out a little bit. And then we went to dinner that night, he mom and I. There was a point during dinner, a small talk where I asked mom, if she could leave us alone and let us talk for a minute. And of course, mom didn't want to do that. And I assured her that I had this, this was fine. And since she left, I just looked at Tugs,

says, "Look, I'll sign your contract. I'll never talk to you again. I won't bother you.

I just have one question for you." And I asked him, "Do you think you're my dad?"

“He says, "Yes, I believe I am." And he said, "We'll tear the contract up." And then I didn't”

hear from him for a year after that. But after that, we ended up starting to see more of each other. And me going mom's in college, I would drive up the filly and visit and got to know my little brother, Mark, and my little sister, Carrie, which was great to come out of that. But I always, this is what I'll get back to. At the end of the day, I get asked a lot. And you said it right a lot of people now don't know the story. They knew it at the beginning of my career, but a lot of people that

know my career now that know who my dad was. I think that I grew up in that world. And I didn't. So I'm glad we're talking about this because a lot of people can understand now that I didn't grow up in that world. But the longest short of it is when people ask, "How could you have anything to do with your dad? How could you have not hated him? How could you have just not turned your

back on him?" My answer always is, "He gave me something that was so precious." And that was hope.

Whether he meant to, and he didn't, or knew it, or any of those things. He gave me a reason to think that I can get out of the situation that I was in, that if he can do that, then I have an in me to do something. And so for that reason alone, I couldn't hate him. Oh, and that is just, it's a better honor for everything else. If everything else is going, if you've got hope, you've still got a chance. We're talking to a friend of mine. He's got

a couple of kids now, now mostly grown. I think bang is all grown. I think about it. I mean, it's the older I get. Younger people seem, they're adults. And he said, and we were for a hike at one point. And he's just a really sweet, very smart guy. And I asked him, "All right, what would your advice be to inspiring parents?" I don't yet have any kids, but really looking forward to that building family. And he said, "It's really simple."

Your job is to love your kids. They don't owe you anything. It's not their job to love you.

“Number two, you have to teach them to be optimistic. Yes. That's it. Those two things make”

perfect sense. Yeah. Yeah. Your vision of their life and your expectations of their life don't let it cloud your love and guidance for them. I have lots of questions about family because it's

up on the way here. Yo, yo, my famous cello player picked up cello. Probably got handed a cello. That age four. Well, all right. My understanding is you did not do that. No. It guitars. No. So how did this music thing come about? Well, the music thing came about because my mom's love

from music. Because from my earliest memory, the timemaker. Remember, mom was always singing and

playing records around the house. It always had the radio wide open. So I knew every song on the radio. And she would encourage me to sing. She always wanted me to sing along with her. So I knew every song on the radio with sing with my mom all the time. We'd walk around the house singing and singing and church. I mean, my friend just gave me shit all the time playing baseball. He's always a played shortstop in the whole time. I'm out there. I'm singing sounds and playing around.

“Because I was always singing to the point of more my sisters are always like, should I?”

Stop singing. And I still do it to this day. Somebody can say a word. And I'll sing a song and let's get that word. And it just, it's just, I mean, I can't give it out. So it was always something. But I was in the same category that you were thinking that, you know, the guys you are on the radio are guys that have been doing this since they were three or four years old. They're trained musicians. They're guys that Jackson five. Yeah, this is just, this is something you can't just

do unless you're trained to do it since you were a little kid. So I got into college. That's when I realized when I got into college and I went out for the first football sort of round up and see everybody when I looked around and thought, all right. I'm going to get killed. I'm going to be

meat on the breakfast squad, never see the field and get the hell beat out of me and spend all of my time

here. So I ended up not playing ball, joined a fraternity, pond my high school ring and bought a guitar

“for 20 bucks. Why did you decide to get the guitar? Because I thought, I love music, I love singing,”

chicks might dig it if I got a guitar and learn to play if you saw it. Okay, so it wasn't so far ahead as to like, no, it wasn't a career moving in that. It wasn't a career move. This was, this was a move, but it was a career move. And I thought, you know, I could play some clubs around town and be fun to do. I even thought, look, my big stream I could have here is going to house gigs somewhere. We're making money every week and playing music. Remind me where were you? I was in Louisiana,

Monroe, Louisiana. North East Louisiana, which is ULM now, but back then it was North East Louisiana University. So I bought the guitar and all of my friends had moved away for the summer. It's my freshman summer college. I had a job where I worked four hours a day to plant nursery in the mornings, just moving stuff. And I'd come home and just I'd watch CMT and watch where their fingers were only guitars. Early YouTube. Yeah, early YouTube. And then out on music sheets, you, they had these

little guitar fret things where it was show you where your fingers went. So I spent a lot of years where my fingers are in their own position, but I would still make the chord. In my buddy, my roommates would hide my guitar for the longest time because I was so bad. But then when I started getting pretty good at it, they would hide it. I couldn't find it, but when chicks would come over to the house. They would grab my guitar and bring it to me. And we'll get to start playing.

Stan's monkey dance. Yeah, exactly. So over that summer, I learned about 50 songs and I just started playing just me in a guitar. This little catfish house called Cock of the Wall. And that was

“my first gig. And that's how I paid my rent for a while. What was the first? By the way, yeah,”

I am still a terrible guitar player. I got to play well enough to write my songs and play

it to work for you. When was the first inkling or the first sign feeling, maybe? Where you're like,

okay, I think this could be a thing. First off, the encourage when I got from my friends and college my fraternity buddies, which that could go either way. When you're trying to play guitar and sing songs from your buddies and their fraternity deck could go either wrong way. But when it didn't, when they were encouraging me and they were giving me credit and telling me how good I was, to me that was, I was a big deal for a bunch of guys to tell your friends to say that when you're

just trying to figure it out and you don't even know anything about it, really, for them to tell you that you're good and they want to hear you do it and they ask you to sing all the time. So when I started playing clubs and stuff, I would get good reaction from the crowds and then the owners would come over and say, hey, would you want to come back and you know, you guys are the best band we've had, you know, stuff like that. And then I took a military science class.

Military science, like strategy, strategy, strategy, strategy, yeah. And I got to know the instructor Captain Whitehead business name. He was an army guy and head of the rot scene, everything there. And all the guys in the class were rottsy guys, ROTC. Anyway, we took the class and it was tactics and

you know, all the controls, all the great course. And at the end of the course, everybody was asked to vote who was our pertoon leader. Well, I got voted by all the rottsy guys as the pertoon leader for the class for the year. So I was the top student in the class and so Captain Whitehead took a big interest. But he thought I should be a Marine. So he kept taking me to the Marine recruiting office. So I visited the Marine recruiting office quite a bit, filled out all my paperwork.

And one night I decided I had everything packed, I sold everything I had, sold my car, water skis, shotguns, sold everything I had. I think I ended up with about $3,000. I had my guitar, one suitcase, and my Marine paperwork, sitting on my dresser. And I said, "What I wake up in the morning, I'll decide whether I'm going to move to Nashville or join the Marines." And I fell asleep, woke up the next morning, looked over, got up, picked up the Marine paper, tore it up,

put it in the garbage, and went and bought a gray-hand bus ticket. It ended up in Nashville.

“That was so many questions. So why did Captain Whitehead think you should be a Marine?”

I don't know, I guess because I did well in the class and he liked, we got along well. He kept coming to our fraternity house and hanging out with us. We just got along well and he liked me. As a matter fact, we played, it had done been 15 years later after I was had a lot of success. We played the base in San Diego, a military base in San Diego, and it was huge. It was packed. And I'm singing and playing. I'm standing in front of the station. I looked down and Captain Whitehead tried the front of

the stage. And I got to say hi to him and talk to him a little bit afterwards. He just always,

he just said, "You would have been a good Marine." He missed the boat son. I'm getting the platoon leader piece is interesting to me. What do you think, even if you had to speculate? Why did that happen? Why did they vote you platoon leader? I don't know. I mean, if you just enjoyed, I think you did. What do you think? Right? Because there were a few, once you guys in the class, there were a bunch of people in the class. I think there were a few obstacles that I figured was

able to figure out and like moving stuff and how to build a bridge across, you know, just little things that I was able to figure out or if I wasn't able to figure out, just acted like I did and took charge of it and got it done. But I don't know. It's one of those things I was really interesting to me. It made sense to me. And when you step into something, you don't know anything about it. And all of a sudden it clicks and makes sense. It just made sense. And it really

sparked my interest in the bid in the military because I thought, "Wow, if I can be around all these guys who want to do this and this works out, maybe this is a career path for me." Thank God. So what was it? What would I have so much respect for? I mean, it was my sister, was in the arm of shoes army intelligence, cousin's uncle. So I've got a long history military family. What was it that morning? As a long time ago, of course, but it seems like such a sliding door

“moment, such an important fork in the road. What was it that led you to tear up the paperwork?”

I thought that I could always go back to that and I can't always go back to the music.

'Cause there come a point where that's passed. But the hardest part was having to call my mom. Because my mom was really intent on me making something out of myself. Because, you know, how hard our life was growing up and how hard her life was. And she worked three jobs and went to work with black eyes and busted lips. And you know, just all the struggles that a single used mom, well, not single, but a used mom has to do. She's pretty single for all intent and purpose.

But I had to call her. I was in pre-law. My joke now is that I have paid more lawyers in my life than I would have ever made as well. That is probably true. So I had to call my mom and I was scared of death because I knew how badly she wanted me to complete school and go to law school. I know how badly she wanted that for me. And for her because of the sacrifices that she had made. 'Cause, you know, people who wanted her to give me up for adoption, all sorts of stuff. And she,

she was 17-year-old girl that hung onto a kid. But I called her and told her what my plan was embraced myself. I fully expect my little Italian mom to give me a good wearing out. Because she can do that. And what she said, it's going to make me cry what she said. But she said, "Son, I'm surprised you haven't done it already. And if you don't,

“you'll never know." So you should go. And it was so shocking and unexpected that it gave me all the”

confidence in the world that I needed. And then when I first moved here, back to where you think

And that's how they become famous. When I first moved here and started going to clubs and sitting

then I was like, "Wait a minute, I can hang with these guys. I can hang with these guys. I can find my niche here." And how many shows do you think? How many gigs did you play it up to the point that you got on that Graham bus? A year or two gigs? I don't know. A hundred, maybe. It clubs. Mostly just me in a guitar. Some little band. I actually went to Jacksonville for about six months. Because my mom had moved to Jacksonville after I started college because she just went through another

divorce and it was terrible divorce. She moved the Jacksonville which was where she grew up. So Jackson ville, Junior College, had just won the Junior College World Series. Coach heard about me a couple years ago back in high school. He knew my mom somehow. Anyway, invited me to come to play baseball

at Florida Junior College. So I thought, "All right, this is getting old here. I'm playing music.

I'm not really going to class like I should. Maybe I should go out there and try to play baseball. See what happens." So I moved to Florida. Same thing showed up. It was going to play baseball hung around for a little while, realized that I really didn't want to do that. Because I was playing clubs at night there too. And just decided to do a full-time start playing clubs in Florida. And did that? And I moved back to Monroe played for about three months and then moved to Nashville.

I'm curious what Nashville did for you because it makes me think of Bob Dylan, before he was

“Bob Dylan, but like we went from Minnesota to I think it was Greenwich Village, right? Moose to”

the epicenter. It's like, "I'm going to find Guthrie and I don't know how I'm going to make it work, but I'm going to figure it out." And I'm going to the center of the action. And that story was really laid out from me in detail by this very, very impressive investor and fascinating human bill girly, who is in Austin, but he has a book coming out soon called "Running Down a Dream," which is about sort of pursuing passion and then finding that lightning in a bottle for yourself. But one of his

sections is on going to the epicenter, like going to where the action is. And I would love for you to describe what what effect Nashville had. I mean, in a sense, you already showed some of what can happen. By the fact that you get off the bus, you go have a beer after last call. And then butter

bang butter boom. And it's your great song. Right? Yeah, it's always it end up making my career.

“I think instantly it just lit a fire under me. When you jump into a pool of people who are like”

minded and who are all chasing the same thing, there's just such an energy that you get from everybody, this doesn't, like, you know, Tracy Lawrence, Kenny Chessney, and I were best friends. And we ran around together everywhere. None of us had record deals. And we would compete. You know, all these clubs, like you could get up and sing and you could win 50 bucks, who had got the most hand applause. So we were always competing to get, that's cool. That's cool.

Try to outdo, he tries to usually always want it because he was the best singer out of all of at the time. But just running around being involved every night being at some ice apartment, playing music, writing songs every day, out every night singing in all these clubs. It was just an immersion experience of art. You learn so much. You learn from different singers. You hear somebody sing and you think, well, how do they do that? How can I imitate people? You figure things

out. You see what somebody's doing on stage. You see how somebody's singing you sound. So my son alright, it just becomes this sort of gumbo of all his magic that you find and it starts to get just comes in every pore of your body and you just open yourself up to it and just try to learn as much as can. It can be heartbreaking too at the same time, you know. And then also recognizing

“where you're getting to help that, where you start realizing and you need to put more aspirational”

people around you as opposed to people are just being happy doing what they're doing. And I try to tell them my daughter's all the time. That sounds like it could be very difficult. It can be difficult because it's not about dropping friends, but it's about gathering friends that people that you want to be like, they have traits that you want to, that you want to emulate. Can you describe an instance of when that happened and how you navigated it? I don't know if I can

describe it in instance. Or just why that even occurred to you, I guess, and how you went about finding because I needed to learn from one thing, because I knew nothing about the music business, how to make a record, I didn't know nothing about anything except for how to sing along to the radio. And then, you know, placing songs I learned in the guitar was an amateur period at everything. So I just wanted to be around people who knew what they were doing and people who could teach me

things and people that were who were willing to teach me stuff. And people that if I wanted to compete,

then I'm not going to compete with the guys who have record labels and the major ones and the

“records. So how did you find those people to learn from? I think it's just a matter of just being”

out and being around people and just learning who the people are who are going to be aspirational to you and inspirational to you and who the people are going to hold you in place. Do any people

stand out in those, I don't know, first like five years, let's just say. Mike more shadow stands out.

Mike more shadows who signed me to my first record record record record records. And he was somebody who I walked off the street had a demo of a few songs. He tried to kick me out of his office and I'm maybe listening to the song. How did you get into his office in the first place? The way I got into his office is because oddly enough he was because of tug. Because the guy named Bruce Lindell was a friend of Mike more shadows and he happened to be a friend of tug. So tug was talking to Bruce Lindell

one day and Bruce says, I know guy named Mike more shadow and a national maybe I can get him a meeting too. And that was it. So I got his phone number and it's all they gave me. So I kept trying and trying

“to get a meeting with him. I couldn't get a meeting with him. I couldn't get a meeting with him. So it was”

during fanfare one year. What is fanfare? Now it's what the big thing they have at the stadium every

year where everybody plays. But back then fanfare was when you would just sit and stand in a booth for three to east and sign autographs for thousands and thousands of people that would come through. So this was going on when you're, of course, I wasn't sending autographs. I didn't have a record loop. So I decided I'm going to go back for records and see if Mike more shadows in his office. And I'd had a demo of these three have not returning in. I have to back up just a little bit

because there was this little place called Poboydans and Tolulu, Louisiana. That was in the middle of a cotton field. And it was just a little wood frame shack. But it was like a convenient store slash deer butcher shop, slash crawfish bull kind of place. And in the back of the store, they had a bunch of stops and an old wood stove and there were a bunch of guys all in their 70s and 60s. They were all playing country music. And I happened to go, well, be out that area when they was in middle of

nowhere. And so I stopped in and sat down and started playing guitar with these guys so they kept and vibe me to come back. So ended up being, it was about 30 miles from school. So every Thursday night it ended up being like five or six cars of my fraternity brothers. We had all go to this little hole in the wall, places with all these 70 year old guys. And they would give us free beer and crawfish as long as I sit back there and sing with them. And it ended up, that place would be

coming packed and packed and packed to where there were just people there every Thursday night. And it just became a really fun thing. So when I moved to Nashville, Poboydans who owned that and it was a farmer too and you owned all the farmland around and just he played the bass and anything and his his store and he just really loved me and loved here me saying. So I needed a demo. I didn't have a demo. I didn't have any money for a demo. So I called him and he sent me $3,000 to

record a demo. So I recorded a demo and that's the demo I played for Mike. We're sure I want to walk into his office. Anyway, I sit down. He said, we'll leave the CD with me. So you're just knocking out. But I walked past the secretary because I saw he was in his office and I walked past the secretary. She goes, excuse me. So I'm just going to say how to Mike. I walked in and I said, how Mike, how you doing? So who are you? That told me my name is. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's

coming next week and we'll meet. And I said, well, I have my demo here like for you, listen, he goes, we'll leave it on the desk and I'll listen to this as well. Can you listen to it now? Because now I'm headed out to fanfare. I got to go. I said, well, can you just listen to part of a song? Because all right, I'll listen to this song. So he put the song in and halfway

“through the first. And he goes, you got to record your kid. Wow. And that's how I got to record”

him. Half way through the first song. Yeah, first half was the first song all the demo. Yeah, first song of the demo. Yeah. And then it was convoluted after that. But I got a record deal. So I got my foot in the door. So, you know, it started from there. But he was somebody that when a guy who runs a record label and you know nothing about how that works and it's the first record label I went to sets down and listens to half of your demo, which you're not even

sure is any good. And it says you have a record deal. Well, I think you could get exponentially better in that instant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you're given wings in a way. Absolutely. Yeah. The mustard seed. Yeah. So we're going to hop around a little bit because we could go

million different directions. I mean, we could spend 20 hours talking about your career and still

not run out of material. I believe it might have been in parade. It could have been in a different interview. But, correct me for wrong. But I think you've said that your wife saved your life.

back in the day. What does that mean? Well, I was drinking a lot, which that didn't stop after that period. But she beat it out of me after a while. But, you know, I was just doing everything.

I was a kid in the candy store, you know, especially after I got successful and never had any

money before. Never been around any of that stuff before. And then all of a sudden, it became a tool that was useful till it was. When faith came along, I was burning it wide open when we met.

“And she started tapping the brakes for me. How did she do that in a way that didn't repel you?”

Well, look at her. Well, I'm right. Yeah. I mean, she's got a lot on offer. This is for sure. But, like, I would imagine, we don't know each other well, but that strong-world guy, high gear, high intensity, high velocity, kidney candy store, like faith is incredible on the million different levels. And you also have a lot of options around. So what allowed her to dial some of those things back, which ended up being really important long-term for you and for

both of you without scaring you off in a sense. Well, A, I knew that I was at a point where I needed to slow down. Got it. So you had this, this self-awareness. I had to self-awareness that I needed to slow down at the time. B, when we met, we were 28 years old. So we were a little older. We both had success.

“And then, see, once I met her, I knew I was a loser. I just knew I was a loser. What was it about here?”

She's just magic. She's magic. She's not just her senior in her looks and all that's then. Of course, that's all about us. But as a person, she's just magic. She just lights up a room and she lit me up and still does. And I wouldn't be the same artist. Had I not met her. I certainly wouldn't have the career that I've had. Had I not met her. Certainly wouldn't have lasted as long. I wouldn't have lasted as long. I would have burned out really quickly a thing, especially if I had lost her.

After I found her, if I had lost her, because of not sort of bringing myself around a little bit. Then, a definitely would have been in a downward spot. See, he has met a 28. When did you change the drinking? It took a while. I certainly calmed it down quite a bit. And it fluctuated. You know, it would be times where it was not bad. Then times where it was bad. And then it just got to where it was just got out of control. That's when she set me down. Well, actually, she'd set me

out a few times. But actually, there was one morning in particular where I woke up and realized that it was seven in the morning. I was going to take the kids to school soon. And I realized I had a bottle of whiskey in my hand. That's seven in the morning. And I had the bottle of my hand. I walked straight back to the bedroom and told her that I need help. She goes, all right, let's do it. I'm with you. And she's stuck by me the whole time. And look, it's not been a linear path.

As anybody knows, it's ever gone through that kind of thing. It's not a linear path. There's always

pitfalls and steps backwards and steps forward. But um, she's a rock. She's a rock. You know, this is just a random thought. But at some point, if you haven't met Laird Hamilton and his wife Gabby, Laird Hamilton's. I know Laird is, yeah. Yeah. And in any case, a lot of parallels.

“Yeah. In your lives. And I think also Gabby Gabby Rhys, who used to be professional.”

One won't wear it. And in any case, there's a lot of parallels. I mean, in intensity, right, high gear. And it's very common, at least among my friends, certainly, and even in my case way back in the day. It's like that type of intensity can also get misapplied or

reapplied to something like alcohol. Absolutely. Yeah. It's not always a selective intensity. No.

It's not a selective intensity. And then when it becomes a physical dependency, then your trouble, then your trouble. How is fatherhood changed you? Well, when you certainly see what different eyes and it changes what your definition of love is. More so than even getting married. Think when you have children. Because it's, there's such a responsibility in a weight that comes with all the brightness and the light and the love that causes you to realize that that's your true

eternal life as your children. And how they carry their perception of you forward.

You just hope you do 30% of it, right? And you just show up. I think the thing that it changed

“more than anything. And I think anybody would tell you this. And it's pretty simple. It takes a lot”

of the selfishness out of you. And you know, part of you has to have that, I guess, in order to succeed and to push forward. But boy, it takes a lot of selfishness out of you and puts a lot of drive and passion and responsibility and thinking of the future in your path, which provides more structure for you. And what I've also found out too is as the kids grow up and faith in I both have found out that structure was so good because you had to be on the ball. You had to get

up every morning at six. You had to break breakfast. You had to take your kids at school. You had to help with homework. You had to go to practice. You had to coach soft like all those things that keep you in a good balance routine. So when the kids start leaving the house, all of a sudden you started, what am I going to do with the rest of my day? Now I've got, I don't have to get up at six. It can take away some of your focus and it can take away some of your routine and it can take away

a little bit of drive once the kids are out of the house. It comes back. But at first, you're sort of

lost and sort of figuring out, what do I do with my time here? I've got a few chapters to get through before I get there. And then after about six or eight months a year, then you realize you're doing your wife, you realize you're home alone. Then the fun begins. How did you decide to be a father in the sense? Like, how did you set rules for yourself or goals, hopes without

“necessarily a model for it? So part of the reason I think that I've delayed building a family”

for as long as I have is that a god bless my dad in certain ways, but I want to do things different if I did it at all very differently. And since I felt like I had no role model, I felt like I had no confidence and I would be a good father. And so I was like, well, fundamentally, if I'm bringing, helping bring some life into the world, if they didn't ask for it necessarily, I mean, we could debate, get some deep philosophical territory and religious territory quickly, but I wouldn't

want to do a bad job for more harm than good. And so I've waited and waited and waited and were you going to do a bad job? Yeah. It's just, everybody does a bad job. Yeah. There's no training man, but I was in the same boat. I didn't know if I was going to be a good dad or bad. I didn't know what kind of dad would be. I knew that I wanted to be a dad and I wanted to be a good dad. And I knew that I didn't want my children's life to be like mine was. So I think in a lot of ways,

maybe that the life that I had grown up prepared me to be a better dad, because of what I knew I didn't want to do. And I found this business just really made me find out that learning what you don't want to do and what doesn't work for you is better than knowing what does. All right. So I'm going to grab that and run with it because there's an expression in Japanese. I went to Japan as an exchange student called Hamin Koshi. Hamin Koshi is like opposite

teacher. It's basically like an anti-roll model, and they show you what not to do. So I'm wondering if they're professionally, have been any experiences, a tour, how you made a song, or even shows a song in the first place that really taught you what not to do. Like an event, a song, performance, a commitment, a partnership, anything where you're like, hmm, okay. A lot of putting myself in plenty of positions that I wish I had. I don't know if I could specifically say

what not to do. I can say be prepared. All the time is always a good thing. But I can tell you my

“most embarrassing moment in the music business. It might be the best way to go. Bruce Springsteen,”

who I'm a huge fan of, and he's a friend and of knowing for a long time, one of the greatest guys in the world, sweetheart. Music cares. You know what music cares is? It's where they do a big concert the night before the Grammys to raise money, and it honors a specific artist. And other artists come in and do their songs. So Bruce was being honored. So he called and asked if faith and I would do tougher than the rest together as part of the thing. Of course, we said,

yes, we would love to do it. So everybody's doing their songs and they're seeing, you know, there's all the big guys playing Bruce's songs. So we do tougher than the rest and we do a great job on it. Everything turned out good and we're sitting at Bruce's table and we're talking and Bruce is like, man, you know, at the end of this, you know, we're going to do glory days. He says,

in faith that we're going to come up and do that? And I'm just sure, we'll come up and do the course

“sing along with course of glory days. So we're up there, we're on stage. We're all singing along.”

So Bruce is in the second chorus and he looks over one artist. Yeah. He's like, hey, like, come sing this at your ears and they are. He's like, hmm, no, so he looks at another artist. Like, I'm saying this thing at verse and that artist is like, hmm, no, no, no, no, no. See, on the microphone, he goes, hey, cowboy hat, come sing this second verse and in my mind, I'm thinking, all right, it's glory days. I know it, but I don't think I've ever sung it. And Bruce is phrasing is some of the

hardest phrasing in the world the way he writes. And I'm thought, all right, I can get through the second verse of this. I can figure it out. The words are up there. So I step up and I have no idea where to come in. I don't know the phrasing. I don't know anything. And everybody who is anybody in the music business is out there. And I'm standing there with that when your mom just caught you doing something or your wife, just caught you doing something really bad. Yeah. And we're all the blood rushes out of

your body and you're gut punch. So I couldn't sing this song. I'm just like, and Bruce comes up a song. He's like, I like that. And then he starts singing this song. So then I step back beside faith. I'm going to stand up. Yeah. I step back beside faith. There is. And I step back

beside him. This is what they do. Step away from me. Luckily, they shot it in a way because it's always

recorded and released and everything. So they shot it in a way that I could go back and fix the vocal where it didn't look like I screwed it all up. But boy, that was, I didn't have fun that night at the hotel. Do you get a lot of ballbusting after that? I did. I did. But none worse than mine, what I did to myself. Because it was really the most embarrassing moment. There are a few moments where you feel like you're over your head sometimes. And it usually works out well. But what I

take, performing on the Oscars was one of those moments where everything just seems to your body defies you. You think you got it under control when you start. Everything goes it worked out. Everything was fine. I did a good job. But in the moment you're feeling like it's falling apart on me right here in front of everybody. So I would love to you flesh out the humanizing of Tim McGraw a little bit, right? Because for people who may not know your career,

they might be like, man, this guy gets off the Greyhound bus and then it's like, he's in a double and a triple and a home run and it's just end this home run, right? Green lights the whole way. And I'm curious if there are any favorite failures, things that didn't work that ended up teaching you something important or laying the seeds for something later, or if there was ever a

“period of feeling plateau or stuckness and how you dealt with it. Both of those, I think failure”

that I learned a lot from was my first album, which we always say went wood. I think we had

one song that we made it to 38 of the album. So no hits on it. So the label just sort of forgot about me after that. And so I was slowly gathering songs. But I learned a lot. I learned what I didn't want to do. But the way to make music, I learned what I didn't want to sound like. So I slowly started gathering songs from songwriter friends. I'm not really big songwriters, friends of mine who are songwriters. Slowly sort of collected songs. The label never even called

me after the album came out because it didn't do anything. Didn't talk to it all. So I collected these songs and I went to buy her and I said, all right, I'm ready to go record these songs. I was buying it. My producer buying down a more that we produced together. I said, I'm ready to cut these songs and he goes, "Well, this curb heard them or they proved us as no, we're just going book session and go cut the album." And so we booked a session. So it was like an album on spec.

Yes, we build curb. We build curb for the whole thing and cut the album. Did all the art work had the CD ready? With the artwork done and turned it into them. And of course, they hit the roof. Because we'd spent a bunch of money making an album that we weren't approved of. And then they listened and it was the not a moment you shouldn't have them. Then they listened to the album. Then they were all on board. And the good thing about that is the first one didn't

work. The second one, I said, I want to do this my way and do this and had ending out long. I'm going to do the songs I want to do. I'm picking all the songs. I'm going to the songs I want to do. Don't cut them the way I want to cut them. And if it fails, it fails on my terms this time.

“And luckily it worked. So that's why you didn't reach out for approval.”

Yeah, I don't want some album by committee. No, I don't. It never works. Not for me. I'm

sure it works for other artists. But anytime I've done that, anytime that I've let somebody

that I knew wasn't right for me. It's never worked. And there's been tons of times where

people didn't like the song at all. And it worked. So how did you decide or when you say you knew what you didn't want it to sound like? Who's saying more about that? Well, you can go and listen to my first album and you can figure it out. I just knew that there were three songs on the first album that they sort of let me run loose with. But well, they're also like what other people here and then there's what you hear means to you. Absolutely. And you also realize

quickly in this business that, you know, you think when you move to town, you find your producer, you find you get a record label, you get all those things and everybody knows what they're doing. That's not necessarily the case. It sounds like book publishing. Yeah, most of the time the artist does what they're doing and then everybody sort of follows what the artist that gets successful and starts doing what they're doing. But there are great people like Boy, for that Byron Gowlmore,

I wouldn't know by right hand from out of left. He's my partner in the studio and I would kind of imagine making a record without him. But you find out very quickly, if you don't have an idea about what you want and how you want to make your music and how you want it to sound and how you want your career to go and if you don't get into control of that and you don't do it the way you want to do it, it might work, but it's not going to work for a while. And there have

been times in my career where I've set back inside it. I am a let this float and let other people make the decisions, everything's fine for now. And sure enough, if I don't get involved, it doesn't go the way I wanted to go. Now, I've got people around me now that's been around me for 20, 30 years that I trust, but even still, if they don't get regular input for me, nobody knows what's in your head. Nobody knows exactly what you picture, even though you might think they do. They don't.

“I mean, they get close, but you have to stay involved. I'm learning that more and you know,”

these last few years have been tough for me to be involved as much as I want to be because I've been battling just trying to get about health back. And I'm fortunate that I have the right people around me that helps me through those periods. When your focus is on and you're paying attention to what you're doing and you know what the path is, it makes it easier for everybody around you. What about the periods of stuckness, outside of the most recent injury period, obviously,

multiple surgeries? Well, the biggest period of stuckness and the biggest period where I thought besides this period where I thought it was might be overs when I went through a whole legal battle with career records. That was a very dark period in my career. They kept extending my contract by putting greatest hits albums. So every time I would turn down an album that would be the final album for my contract, it would drop a greatest hits, which didn't count against the contract.

So I think they ended up putting like 10 greatest hits out. They have to keep me from dropping my album.

So finally, I decided I either had to bite the bullet and try to go to court,

then get out or be stuck with them. Either way, I'm taking a chance on my career. We battled for a couple of years and I had to pretty much rebuild my career after that. That was a scary time. Because momentum's a tough thing and I heard a quote to the other day, it's actually a landman. I was watching it and it's a great show. Great show and Sam Elliott was talking to Billy Bobby's says, "You know that monkey at rodeos that rides on the back of the border collie

and the border collie just runs, runs and runs around and the monkey's just hanging on for their life." He can't let it go because he'll die. So he's got a hold on. He looked at Billy said, "You're that monkey." And I looked at Faitre's, "Jesus Christ, I'm that monkey." So I feel like I'm that monkey. But I don't know that if it's intentional

“if it's innately in you, but there's something about even when you know you need to take a break”

or even when you know you need to slow down. When things are rolling, there's this sixth sense in your body that knows you can't let the momentum stop because it's so hard to restart. Even if consciously you're not thinking that, there's something in you that keeps it driving because you don't want the bottle stop rolling because you're scared. Because you're scared

if the bottle stops rolling, you'll never get a rolling again. Sure. So that was a time when

that was happening to me and I thought, "Well, it's going to be hard to restart the momentum." Yeah. And then after these surgeries, there's another one of those stuff. Legal battles. This is just exhaustion upon exhaustion. It's just crazy. And sometimes you can't avoid it, but if you can't avoid it, that don't want to be involved in legal battles unless it's just absolutely. But that was at a point. My career there. If I didn't do something, my career was going

to be over. Now, if I did do something, that was a chance. There was still a risk. What were some of the

“most important things in retrospect that you did to rebuild your career regain that momentum afterwards?”

But choosing the right partner for one thing, which was Scott Borsheta, who happens to be the son of Mike Borsheta who signed me to my first deal. Just a small world. I know who I signed with

but I was also recording the best album I think I'd ever recorded in my life while all this was going on. Well, once I was cleared to record. And so I had an album ready to go. By the time everything all the dust was settled. I had an album ready to go and Scott Borsheta was ready and the album worked and the juice was back. A lot of that was my team kept fighting for me the entire time. When I went to Scott to his label, he knew what what had happened and he

fought really hard. He didn't like what had happened either. What imagine that also injected a helpful amount of piss and vinegar to demonstrate to really relaunch. It turned me up to 12 after that. I mean, it kicked me into high gear for sure. And that's the way I feel now. After all of this and worrying about being able to come back and worrying about if I did come back, what's my show is going to be like how I was going to be able to perform? Was I going to be able

to be me again? Now I feel like that same way I felt after coming out of curb and starting with a big machine and getting the ball rolling again. I feel like that we're out on the edge of just

“tipping that boulder over the hill and let it go again. I am so curious because you must get approached”

all the time one way or another from musicians at different stages in their careers. Maybe it's the son of a friend or the daughter of a film the black or it could be someone who's just coming up, maybe they're trying to be an opener for you who knows. Someone who is earlier in their career, I imagine the advice you might give them has changed over time. But if they want to be more than a flash in the pan, take charge. Really last. Yeah, what advice do you give them?

Take charge. All right. Take charge of your career. Take charge of your career. Take charge of what you do. Be confident in your decisions. Listen, of course you want to listen to people. Listen to

people. No, what they're doing. But ultimately you have to make the decisions. You have to make

your choices and you have to make the right choices for you and nobody can do that by yourself. And if you just coast, you might have a career for a little while but if you want a long career, you're going to have to take charge and ownership of it and you're going to have to guide it. And you're going to have to be have your finger on the button all the time and you're going to have to say yes or you're going to have to say no. And you're going to have to use your skills to

manage people. You're going to have to use your skills to be managed and both of those things

“can happen simultaneously and they have to happen simultaneously. You have to listen to smart people.”

But if you don't have a vision about what you want to do, if you don't have a plan about what you want to do, if you don't act on it every day, it's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. And you can do all those things and it's still not happening. Right. But if you do all this

things and it doesn't happen, back to your second album, right, as you're taking the risk that

you fail on your own terms, as opposed to gambling on something that doesn't resonate for you. Absolutely. It's someone's talked you into it. So that seems to be a piece of it. There is, as you said, having your finger on the button being willing to say yes and no, we're not going to say no is a big deal. Why do you think people are bad at that? Let's say no. Sure. Because people want to please people. You know, they want people to like them.

I want people to like me. But if you don't learn to say no, not in a mean way or not in a bad way, we just say no, that's not right for me. And that's back to knowing what's right for you and what isn't right for you. There could be something that on the surface everybody that works for you says this is the perfect thing. But you've got to know whether it is or not. And sometimes you don't, you know,

“it can get it right all the time. There's plenty of times you get it wrong. But I think if you go with your”

gut, there's a caveat to all of this too. Because there are plenty of artists who succeed, who don't pick their songs. Don't have any involvement in a production. Really don't have any involvement in our management. Don't have any involvement in our stage design. And they just show

them do their thing. There's plenty of artists who do that in our successful. So there's always

exceptions to the rule. But I think for the most part, the artists who have been around for a long time, the artists I know have been around for a long time, they take control of their careers. I interviewed quite a long time ago. He's since sadly passed away, but Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks from the UK. Large religious figure. There's your Lord Rabbi. You got to be a big religious. He's a big deal. And very good at conflict resolution, incredibly open-hearted man.

effectively like one of the most important things in life is to be able to distinguish from an

opportunity to be seized in a temptation to be resistant. Does it can look awful? They can look very similar. And what I've seen over and over again with like all the startups I've involved with when I'm talking to authors who were just getting started, especially if they have a flicker of something that might ignite, is that as soon as there is a certain velocity of success, there are a lot of temptations that can pull you away from the thing that you spent so much time

getting good at, they brought you to that point. And I'm wondering if there are any categories of things. So for me, for instance, after about a year or two of getting very distracted, speaking engagements,

we wanted this thing. I was like, I'm just going to end up on the road, doing speaking engagements,

talking about the same thing every day for the rest of my life. If I actually continue to say yes to this, and it's very seductive because they pay really well. Yeah. And I was like, all right, so I'm going to say no for a year. That's it. So that I can focus on these creative projects writing. Are there any things along those lines at a point where like, okay, I need to say no to this, that or the other thing? Yeah, there have been times where I probably should have said no

I didn't. I mean, there's been times where I've got myself in too much work. But I've gotten pretty good. I think it's saying no. I think the older I get, I don't know about wiser, but the older I get, the more I have to, I'm to say no, mainly because you get to a point where I don't care to be more famous. Yeah, I think there's a point in diminishing terms. So you look at things that under those lenses, like, all right, this will give you higher visibility. All right, I've got when

“it visibility, I don't need to do that. You know, the only thing that it gets into is, is all right,”

you got to sell tickets to you. You think there's some things that you probably say no to that you'll say yes to. She had to pay everybody. So there's some compromises that you have to make to your, not principles, but to what you're willing to do to work was. But um, yeah, the older you get to more, it's easier to say no because you know more about what the outcome's going to be. And whether the outcome's going to be beneficial enough for the time or it's not. So let's talk about

putting people in seats and tours. You have the upcoming pawn shop guitar tour. Yeah, this summer. You've got new music in the works in the middle of working on the album right now. But next week, I'm in the studio again. Oh, could you talk about this tell us more about both? Okay. And then you've got family, you've got obviously have your lovely wife, you have still have a lot going on.

“So I'd love to know and I'm sure the audience would more about both of these, right?”

I'm working they learn more when can they expect things? And then also how you actually schedule your time structure your time? Well, album wise, we're in, like I said, we're in the middle of the album. And the album's going to be called pawn shop guitar as well. It's a song I wrote

back to the story I told you when I got my first guitar or I pond my high school ring, my freshman

year college in Baltic guitar. Luckily for me, my grandfather found out about it went back and got my ring for me. Although I don't know where it's at, they my wife has the summer. So I wrote the whole song around that story. And we were looking for tour titles. You know, trying to find the right tour title. I don't pot shop guitar was good. We all thought it was good just because of the story that it told and it conjures up some good imagery. So we start that tour. I think it starts in July.

“The tour starts in July. I think we're doing three four stadiums and sheds. The chicks will be out on”

the stadium tours with us. And I'm a huge fan of those guys. We did a short straight tour together years ago and then they opened for me in one of my tours years ago and just a huge fan of their music and excited to get out with those guys. And then we're doing sheds for the summer and then we'll do a little bit more shows as well. We'll be doing some fairs and festivals. It's going to be a busy year. I've made a lot and there's a couple of movie and TV projects and it works. And then my

oldest daughter's working on a Broadway. She's a Broadway actress in singer. So she's working on some stuff. My youngest daughter's a singer. She then actor. She's in landman. She just, I know, can you just, the tour opened for Brande Carl Allen or European tour last summer. My middle daughter works for earthly international big nonprofit. She sings as well that she, she's more the brainier, she wants Stanford, got her master's degree from Stanford, worked in Congress for a

long time. So it also seems like seems like this, this is like fathering thing. You've done pretty well. I mean they're doing a good mom. And then my nephew Timothy Wayne is out there doing well too.

Why do it? Now that my sound like a strange question. Why do what? Turing. It's so

“grueling. I have to imagine, right? Very demanding. It is. It's physically demanding. It's”

psychologically demanding. Is it something you feel on stage? Is it a quickening? They just can't

get any other way. What is it? You can't get on that way. That's for sure. They're always good.

But every third show or so you have that one show. That's like this is why I do it. This is why I do it. And you're right. Turing is more grueling. Turing is more expensive. You pay for everything. You know you're doing three nights in a row. But it's your stage. Your design. Your idea is the way you want it to look. All those things. That's the fun in it for me is the building the stage and putting a show together. And that's also a hardest part's putting a set list together because, you know,

after 35 years and a ton of records, you're never going to get everybody's favorite song in. You know, you're, somebody's always going to miss a song that they wanted to hear because you can only do 22, 23 songs in a show at the most. And you've got, you know, 70 or 80 singles. And, you know, punch a number once, you can't get them all in. Yeah, you can't. So you just try to create a ride and an emotion and an experience. And that's the fun part for me is try to create a movie for everybody

to see. What on those magic nights? Just a few more questions and then I'll land the plane. But what does that feel like? I'm so curious, except I've played sports. I've had flow states

in various contexts. But I've never experienced anything with that type of environment.

“Well, that's what it reminds me of. It's sports. Certainly reminds me of football before the games.”

And it reminds me of locker room. It reminds me of the, just when you get your uniform on, you feel like you're ten foot tall and a little proof. It's when I put the cowboy held just like Superman's cape. You know, you put the cowboy head on, you're ready to go. But there's a symbiotic relationship that happens. And to me, art is magic. That's real magic, yes, is art. Any kind of art. And the magic happens when you're up there in everything's going great for you. And you can

tell everything's going great for the audience. And you have this symbiotic electrical relationship

where you're all in this group together. And you're all sort of insuspended animation for a while.

Where you leave the world outside. And all of a sudden, we're all in this fantasy world that we create that we're all living in for this hour and a half. And when that happens, when the whole world just sort of shuts down. And you're in this make believe world that all of a sudden becomes the real world that you're in. We're now in a half, two hours. We're nothing else existing, except for that world. Then you're in a movie. Then you're in this alternate universe

that there's nothing but joy. It's like a utopia that you are able to create. Yes. Yes. On the good night. On the good night. And in y'all, sometimes you think it's not a good night because your ears don't sound great or your voice isn't doing what you wanted to do. And sometimes it's

“turned out to be the best night. I mean, about best basketball game I ever had, I think a score”

52 points. And I had the flu and it kept trying to get the coast to take me out of the game, because I thought I was hurting the team. I thought I was playing terribly, then he showed me the book. If you could have a billboard metaphorically speaking, put anything on it for millions, billions of people to see. Could be a quote, could be a mantra, could be scripture, could be anything. Could be an image. Anything non-commercial. Humbling kind. Humbling kind.

Tell me more about that. Because that song to me represents so much. The video too. So much of what the world needs and what we don't have right now is humility and kindness. And of course love should be in that as well. But without humility and kindness, we're lost. And we seem to be lost right now. So that song to me as a beacon, a lot of ways. I'm that when I live like you're dying to me or songs that don't belong to me or just happen to be lucky

enough to be able to sing them for people. They belong to everybody. Here here. Humbling kind. Tim, we're going to link to everything related to Tim aground the show notes. You've got plenty of things. No. We'll leave out your only fans page. We have, you know, acts since the Grand Facebook TikTok YouTube and you're not hard for people to find. But is there anything else you'd like to point people to anything you'd like to say, closing comments, public complaints? Anything.

All right, please stand with complaints, but I'm not gonna air. Stand up comedy, raw material,

Absolutely. Allow me to be a part of your book. I pledge. One of your book. Thank you. And enjoy listening to you. And hoping to do it again. Absolutely. It's been such a pleasure. I've wanted to connect in person for years. So much fun. Yeah. And I hope it's not the last time. I love Nashville. So I'll be back. Good. Well, and when you're back, we'll talk again. Yeah. Absolutely. Oh, I'll cook dinner for you one night. I'm in. Or I'm in. Or I'll have faith. Faith cook dinner for you.

Do better. Although I'm pretty good cook. That is a deal for sure. And everybody listening, we will put links to anything and everything we can find. Obviously, all the ways to find what you're up to, the tour, the music when it's ready. And there is one new song for dinner up to you that people can find. We put on streaming or anything. You can only find it on my socials,

“but it's something called different that I think people should be listening to. All right. We will find”

different. And we will link in the show notes at Tim Dublog slash podcast for folks. And as always,

until next time, this is how I close almost every episode. A bit kinder than it's necessary. Not just other people, but also do yourself. If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. This jack corn field is said. And also as always, thanks for tuning in, guys. See you next time. Thank you, too. Thank you. Adios. Adios. Hey, guys. This is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off. And that is five bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email

for me? Every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend. Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up. Easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's

“kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles on reading, book some reading,”

albums, perhaps gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on. They get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast. Guess. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field. And then I test them. And then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off with a weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.log/fryney. Type that into your browser,

tim.log/fryney. Drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening. Back in the day, this was 2004 maybe. I had someone approached me in a coffee shop and said, "Good night, mate!" and introduced himself. Who was that? It turned out to be founder, I hate you one. Believe it or not, way back in the day. And people often ask me, "What has survived after 20 plus years of testing every supplement under the sun?" Just about. What actually has stayed

in the rotation in the toolbox? This episode's sponsor, AG1, is at the top of that very, very short list. I started using it close to 15 years ago, and it was still called athletic greens. I put it in the for our body, didn't get paid to put it in there. And it's outlasted almost everything else that I've tried. One scoop covers your nutritional bases, right? It fills the gaps, you want to eat good food of course, but 75 plus ingredients include probiotics,

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one.com/tim to check it out. One more time, that's drinkag1.com/tim. What many of you may not know is that I actually run two private invite-only communities for some of my projects. The notebook, which eventually will come out after God knows how long and coyote the card game. And the

feedback from those groups has been absolutely valuable moreover, perhaps most important,

the connections that members have made and the interactions have been just a joy to behold. It's been so much fun. And I generally view communities as headache after headache after headache. Way back in the day with like people, a tenant, whatever and not to slam those guys. But man,

“oh man, running communities can be a pain in the ass. And in this case, it's been easy. Why?”

Well, both of them are built on circle. This episode sponsor. And before committing to using circle I did so much homework, I asked you all in social media, talked to dozens of creators, pressure tested alternatives, talked to all sorts of people on the phone. And circle is where I

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“We're moving from content businesses to connection businesses. People want connection. They want to know”

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