0:00

I welcome to episode one oh three, and

0:02

this is one of my favorites in a long time. You meet

0:05

somebody and you can just tell they're way, way, way smarter

0:07

than you. That's what happened with this because

0:09

Dave Haywood came over to the house. And I've

0:13

never met Dave in any

0:15

personal way many times with the

0:17

band, but Dave's always a quiet one and

0:19

we talked about that in the podcast. But I hope

0:21

you enjoyed this one as much as I did, and I

0:23

kind of want to be Dave's best friend now, and

0:26

I think that's where i'll leave it. I do want to say

0:28

before we get started that you should check out Jake Owen's podcast.

0:31

It's called Good Company with Jake Owen. He

0:34

just did one with his dad, so search that Christian

0:36

Bush has one called Geeking Out, and

0:39

the Whiskey Riff guys have Whiskey Riff

0:41

Raff. There basically a big country music fans

0:43

and they talked about it from that perspective. So all

0:46

that being said, like for a new podcasts, check those shows

0:48

out. But I think now we'll go into

0:51

Dave Heywood from Lady Annabellum.

0:53

The fun fact is I don't think we get mentioned. We're talking

0:56

about its hight right in the interview. Dave

0:58

six too, so he's ad a bit taller

1:00

than I am. But if you look at a picture of

1:03

Lady Annabellum, he's tiny.

1:05

He looks like he's five five because Charles Kelly six

1:07

foot seven. So Dave Heywood, here

1:09

we go. Thanks for listening to the Bobby Cast. All

1:12

right, welcome to the episode

1:14

with Dave Heywood. From Lady annabelle Um, You're

1:17

like the unicorn man, like

1:19

the magical unicorn. I've never had

1:22

a one on one interaction with You're

1:24

the only one of the

1:27

three of you. Guys. Are you nervous? Well

1:29

a bit. I was a little anxious

1:31

before you came over because I was talking to Mike.

1:34

He said, Hey, Mike, who produces

1:36

this? He said, Hey, you're gonna get Lady. I

1:38

said, I want to get Dave. Look at that man.

1:40

I appreciate that because I've

1:43

worked a small but mighty fan club of us out

1:45

there. I don't know if I'm in it yet, That's

1:47

what so I've worked with Charles,

1:49

but all we did some of his the shot together

1:52

that that golf show. I mean obviously. I

1:54

know you guys from the superficial.

1:56

Hey, come in, give you

1:58

a half a hug and talk about whatever project. You

2:00

know that that whole part of it. I know Hillary

2:03

when she was doing her solo stuff and um, we

2:05

did some stuff, never of you and I

2:07

just been The conversation you and I

2:09

just had was the only one on one conversation

2:11

we've been read. It's nice again,

2:13

you're the unicorn. This is my first podcast ever.

2:16

Oh is it? Yeah? Oh, you'll enjoy it because you get

2:18

to stretch out a bit. Yeah, I know, I like it. I was

2:20

telling my wife, I was like, it's gonna be nice to just kind of chat

2:22

and not know you only have two minutes,

2:25

you know, and you've got a role. Even for me doing

2:27

the radio thing, it's and I get it, talk

2:29

longer than most shows have a little

2:31

room because my audience, uh, they

2:33

know what to expect. But even then, it's seven

2:36

minutes. Point

2:39

out, make a funny joke, get in, Let

2:41

Charles say something. I'm notxious, all right, hillaryshing

2:43

sweet. Then David says something really smart,

2:45

and you know, did you just move on because you don't really

2:48

know what he just said? Because it's too musical. So

2:51

I'm glad you came in. Thank you for

2:53

having me. Uh So I went

2:55

to the dentist today, okay, and I bring this up

2:57

to you because your dad basically been a teeth

2:59

white essentially. Okay. I

3:02

went to the dentist day, and so when

3:04

I started to be somewhat successful,

3:06

I got new teeth because I never

3:08

had braces and I couldn't afford braces as a

3:10

kid, and so I got these

3:13

four and five on the bottom, really crooked.

3:15

I went today, right and I broke

3:18

one of them and

3:20

they replaced It was the wrong color. They

3:22

gave me the wrong color tooth, like

3:24

the wrong shade of white. Yeah, it was like

3:26

gray. And so I went in. They

3:28

took the temporary off, put the new one

3:30

on didn't match, took it back off, put the temper

3:33

back, and sent me home. What. Yeah,

3:35

an hour and a half and

3:37

there's a little pain. And nothing happened today except

3:40

they said we put the wrong color. What do you think

3:42

about that? I don't

3:44

They did, they did when it was in my mouth, but

3:46

they called the lab to try to get fixed the same day,

3:48

and that didn't. Then you did you get to approve

3:50

it or not Normally, they show you the color yea

3:53

to make sure that you can see it until I approve it. The

3:55

hygenas said, you're not gonna like this. She said

3:57

they sent the wrong color. Oh no, wow,

4:01

So your thoughts as an expert tooth person.

4:03

I don't know if I'm an expert tooth person. My

4:05

dad wanted me to be a dentist growing up. Was

4:07

that the thing? But I don't,

4:09

you know, it's funny. I just didn't

4:12

like hands in mouth and it's just kind

4:14

of a gross area to me. But

4:16

um, how have you liked it?

4:18

How's it worked out for you? Which part of it excellent?

4:22

Yeah? Yeah, I've had

4:24

a lot of oral issues because I'd never I never

4:26

went to the dentist to my twenties period. So

4:29

I love them. And I went to do you know

4:32

Caroline cut Berth. Yeah,

4:34

yeah, her dad is in Waco, Texas

4:36

and his oh my dad knows her dad, so

4:38

yes, So I went to him because I trusted

4:41

him. I'm so scared of the mouth and

4:43

so I love them actually, and they look

4:45

great. Thanks, I'm really proudly And you don't have

4:48

to whiten them. My dad did the teeth whitening. So that

4:50

was his kind of thing. So he helped. So

4:52

he helped write the first article on teeth

4:54

whitening in the early eighties. Um,

4:57

he was doing a research grant at un C,

5:00

North Carolina and Chapel Hill where we used to

5:02

live. Um, which I

5:04

always leave out the story because I was mostly in Augusta,

5:06

Georgia for most of my life. But and you and

5:08

see, my dad was doing a research grant and researching

5:10

teeth whitening and wrote the first article in the world

5:13

about This is just nerd talk, but

5:15

um, the good

5:18

alright, good. So my dad wrote the first article

5:20

in the world on using carbon

5:22

my peroxide which you put in the tray and

5:25

you sleep in at night, um, to

5:27

try to whiten your teeth. So he wrote the first article

5:29

on that in the world in the early eighties. And so people kind

5:31

of coined him like the grandfather of teeth whitening.

5:34

Uh. And so he speaks on it all around the world.

5:36

Um. A lot of the rest of the world is a lot farther

5:39

behind and didental work than America is. So he speaks

5:41

a lot. A majority of his time is around the world,

5:45

all over the place. I mean through Russia

5:47

and Australia and Japan. Yeah, I mean he's

5:49

he like travels more than we do in the band.

5:53

Your dad teaches school, so he teaches.

5:56

Yeah, he teaches um like

5:58

sophomores and juniors because he loves

6:00

teaching. And in college yeah,

6:02

um in the dental program

6:04

in dental school, so after college for their masters

6:07

in dynastry and stuff. So he teaches and then

6:09

he does research on teeth whitening and speaks, and

6:12

then he also sees some general patients.

6:14

Would he have liked you to be a dentist. He

6:16

wanted me to be. He wanted me to be I

6:19

mean he you know, he would bring home little exercises

6:21

that his students would do when I was young, where you

6:23

have to work with chalk and work with your hands and

6:25

like form things. And I

6:28

tried it a few times. I just wasn't any good

6:30

at it. But it's just kind of gross to me.

6:33

But my dad, I will say, so to give that a credit.

6:35

The reason he loves dynastry is

6:37

because this sounds cheesy, but he does love to

6:39

make people happy and make people smile. So at

6:41

the core of it, he does it because he loves

6:44

making other people happy. And when you know, when you

6:46

go in you get everything done, then you like look

6:48

in the mirror for the first time you feel great

6:50

about yourself. So yeah,

6:52

it's my confidence level. Yeah, is

6:55

two points hired because I my teeth

6:57

are better, right, And that's what he believes

6:59

in. I mean, he really is like as gross

7:01

as being in the dental chair is and always

7:04

you know, somebody's over you trying to talk and all

7:06

that stuff. He loves it because he walked. When

7:08

people walk out, they smile and they're happy and they

7:10

their confidence level goes through the roof.

7:12

So so he's academic. Yeah,

7:15

do you think a bit genetically that's

7:17

why you are your academic musically?

7:20

I think so. Yeah, you see that same

7:23

trait where he associates himself with that

7:25

that you're doing music. Yeah, I think that's a good

7:27

point. Yeah, has anyone ever made that point?

7:31

Yes, we have a

7:33

breakthrough. Had I had a coming

7:35

over here. I was like, is this gonna be like my counseling sessions

7:37

were like, you know, people have cried in that chair and

7:40

they didn't think they were going to you

7:42

know, with you know Robert Eaton

7:45

of course. Yeah, Yeah,

7:47

he's a heartfelt guy. He you

7:49

know, again, it's a great point. It's

7:51

a good point point, Bobby. I mean people that really come

7:53

from that place of like, I want to do something that matters.

7:56

And even though you wouldn't think like it's just dentistry,

7:58

it's just teeth. To my dad, it matters

8:01

because it does give people confidence. And I

8:03

know Robert shares so much of that. He's

8:05

really passionate, you know, like he's always

8:08

moving and shaking for the TV shows and the yard shows

8:10

and the festivals that he's doing. But man, at

8:12

the core of it, he is just I mean

8:14

that carry Underwood moment that that you know happened

8:16

at the c M as all these things were just

8:18

I mean, that's what he lives for, is

8:21

to make people feel great in that.

8:23

So when were you starting to go, I

8:25

think I'm pretty good at music then, I

8:27

mean growing up, I mean probably aged ten

8:30

twelve. Quickly, I

8:32

mean, the guitar came really easy. And

8:34

again my dad always explained to me, he's like, you know what

8:36

a talent is, right, I was like, no, He's like, when

8:38

it actually comes to you really easily. And

8:40

I was like, but it doesn't feel like a talent because it's easy.

8:43

And he's like, well, that means you're talented at it. I was like, oh,

8:45

I guess I'm talented at guitar. It just came naturally

8:49

and easy, UM and coming up

8:51

with chord progressions and coming up with UM.

8:54

I would just use some basic recording software,

8:57

which was a cassette tape that had multi

8:59

tracks on it, and I would record like four

9:02

track instrumental little

9:04

jams and I just play him in the kitchen for my mom

9:06

all the time. With drums.

9:08

I had a drum machine and bass and guitars and

9:10

mandolin and I just kind of make these little instrumental

9:13

things. And that was

9:16

fun and that was easy, and I felt like I came alive

9:18

in that process. So I love. That's when I got really into

9:20

recording playing guitar. I mean that was probably

9:22

twelve thirteen years old. Put all that in front

9:24

of you, because someone had to say, here's a guitar, here's how to

9:26

run a four track. Yeah, my dad gave me the

9:29

first guitar, and he plays banjo and guitar.

9:32

My mom plays piano, and I really

9:34

learned it was a lot from them. We had a music room just like

9:36

a room, you know, kind of like this, but all instruments

9:39

lining the walls, and once it

9:41

was in front of me, I just I

9:43

loved learning instruments, and again it just came

9:45

naturally, and it was fun to figure out.

9:47

When I figured out the mandolin, you know, and

9:50

and figured out the bass

9:52

and all these things. My dad taught me the core of guitar,

9:54

and my mom taught me the core of piano, but

9:57

kind of it's branched off into a lot of different instruments.

9:59

And then recording. I just fell in love with the

10:02

cassette tape recording, adding something

10:04

on top, adding something else. I

10:06

mean, nowadays the software is insane,

10:08

you can do that a million times, but back then you really

10:10

had to work hard to kind of navigate recording

10:13

multiple tracks. So did you want

10:16

to be on a stage or did you want

10:18

to create from behind? I didn't want

10:20

to be on a stage, honestly, I

10:22

would say when I when

10:25

I set out, it was the love of

10:27

creating music the studio and

10:30

song or I would say I hang my hat on songwriting

10:32

and producing or being creative

10:34

in the studio. Did you find the formula songwriting

10:37

would come to you pretty easy to Yeah,

10:40

I mean it just made sense in like

10:42

a way that's it's

10:44

hard to describe. I mean, it's hard to describe what

10:47

I hear when I have an

10:49

idea. I guess, you know, like if

10:51

somebody were to say, we

10:53

need a song for I mean, when we wrote

10:55

Love Don't Live Here, actually nobody probably ever

10:57

knows this, which we can get deep. I guess when

11:00

we wrote Love Don't Live Here, we had heard that um

11:03

Harley Davidson was looking for a theme song,

11:06

and so, uh, Josh, Kelly,

11:09

Charles's brother, told us he's like, dude, Harley

11:11

Davidson looking for a riff for their theme

11:13

song. And I was like, oh,

11:15

I know, I got some great ideas. I bet I can come

11:17

up with a riff for something. And we went through a bunch

11:19

of riffs, and then the riff that we settled

11:22

on ended up being something we kept

11:24

for ourselves, which was Love Don't Live Here, the

11:26

very opening guitar riff of Love Don't Live Here, which

11:28

is the first song we ever put out as Lady in a Bellum.

11:31

But I don't know, I don't know when I hear songwriting to

11:33

me, I feel like if you give

11:35

me an idea or say, man, we need a let's

11:37

let's write about this. Let's write about this mood.

11:39

Let's write about this fine forgive

11:50

very first song? Uhte Harley

11:53

and kept for yourself. That's right. But

11:56

yeah, that guitar riff done and nona no

11:59

no note coming up with that. I mean that, just

12:01

that and that brings back good memories. That's

12:04

the old Paul Paul Worly days. Man, he's such a

12:06

cat in studio. I

12:08

haven't heard that in a while. Do you think

12:10

of guys whenever you were coming up and think of them in the studio?

12:12

Are you talking about Paul Warley? How

12:15

much of him did you watch and study? Because

12:17

that's what you were really into. Yeah, so

12:19

that was what I was really into. So Dan Huff Paul Whorley,

12:22

we had Dan Huff on one of these mind

12:24

blown the whole thing. I was just staring at him.

12:27

It's so you should if you ever go back and listen to

12:29

podcast, listen to the Dan Huff one. All

12:31

it is me fan growing for our here's

12:33

here's me. Every question. You did that

12:35

too, He's

12:39

got a resume. But that production I

12:42

mean Mark Bright, so Mark Bright, I mean

12:44

the first Carry record was sick, but

12:46

Dan Huff, Mark bright Um,

12:49

Paul Whorley, and even Ed Cash. I

12:51

don't know if you know Ed Cash. He produced Dave

12:53

Barnes a lot of his records. But so

12:56

yeah, those guys are kind of to

12:58

me my unsung heroes. And you would watch

13:00

and I would read all the liner notes. I would do

13:02

everything you could to understand what

13:05

in the world is Paul Worley doing on that Dixie Chicks

13:07

record? Like how does he get that? Like

13:09

who came up with that? Who came up with the fiddle on

13:12

Cowboy Take Me Away? Who came up with that? You know? That

13:15

was what blew my mind, was the production, the

13:17

musicians, and of course the

13:19

songwriting. So I mean to go back to your original

13:21

question, did I moved to Nashville

13:24

to be under the bright lights and be

13:26

in the middle of the stage. It's a great, amazing

13:28

perk of what we get to do. But I would say what I

13:30

cut my teeth on in my core and

13:33

my love, absolutely love. I can

13:35

stay up all night long sitting in the studio

13:37

working on stuff. The

13:40

dynamic of the group works

13:42

because of that. Charles

13:45

is big and loud, of course, and he

13:47

is a made frontman. Yeah, Hillary,

13:51

not as being alloud, but see great

13:53

singer heart, Yes,

13:56

passionate, passionate. The would have made it themselves

13:59

equally if they If you guys never formed,

14:02

another front man wouldn't have worked. I

14:04

hope that's fair to say, No fair to say for sure

14:06

what I would I've come to find out over the years.

14:09

Um, I've recently been diving into the angeogram

14:11

and podcasts. If you've heard of

14:13

that personality test. But there's a beautiful

14:16

way that our personalities mix and match. I

14:18

mean it's really beautiful. I mean there's no other

14:21

way you could have orchestrated it. I mean, you

14:23

know the way me and Charles started, the way we met her,

14:26

and we are three completely different personalities,

14:29

but it just works. To be fair, I would say

14:31

you are the frontman in the studio, I'd say, it's

14:33

a different it's like a triangle. Well, we each have

14:35

our roles. We The way we say

14:37

it a lot is we each have our roles, I think.

14:40

And Charles is so

14:42

great live, I mean so great live. I mean when

14:44

we were in middle school, he'd we'd be sitting

14:46

I mean I played guitar in

14:49

a band, and so Charles would like come

14:51

up on stage like he does now, you know, when he's

14:53

always like, dude, lit me come up on stage and thing. So

14:55

he come up on stage in middle school and do the same thing, and

14:57

we played Mustang Sally or play a

14:59

James Brown's song, and he would just light

15:01

the room up. And he's eleven years old, Like

15:03

how do you do that? You know, because I'd be back

15:05

there playing all the parts and doing stuff. And

15:08

he's amazing live. And I think Hillary, like you said,

15:10

it's such an amazing passionate, heartfelt

15:13

person and where's her heart on her sleeve?

15:15

And people connect with it and they connect with her

15:17

so much. And then what I lose my

15:19

what I will take to my grave

15:22

is I just am obsessed with songwriting

15:24

and production and so it's

15:27

just this beautiful kind of triangle of the way things

15:29

that are married in our group. What's going of

15:32

the group? I mean, I would say they look to

15:34

me for like, hey, what do you think we should do? Um?

15:38

I mean, there's always a producer there too, But

15:41

what I really I know us and I know what we'll

15:43

do. Really, the producer is helpful

15:46

to kind of push us. But

15:48

I think at the end of the day, I'm like, man, we you

15:51

know, we really we should add strings to this.

15:53

I really don't think we should. That guitar

15:55

risk just too cheesy for us. We wouldn't do that.

15:57

Let me try coming up with something myself. I

16:00

think they look to me musically for where we go

16:02

and dynamically, and I just know

16:05

what I can hear that we're talking

16:07

about. You know a lot of times you kind

16:09

of have banter of like, man, it just doesn't feel right, just

16:11

doesn't feel right, Dave, what are we trying

16:14

to articulate here? It's like, dynamically,

16:16

this isn't happening. How do we make this happen

16:18

in the studio? Is that getting really

16:20

deep into nerdy No? I think it's actually

16:23

not nerdy enough here. Let me let me talk

16:26

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16:28

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17:35

I remember the first time I heard I heard of you, guys. I was doing pop

17:37

radio and yeah,

17:40

you guys had come through Austin and

17:42

you just when did you guys sign a deal

17:45

when you signed with Capital?

17:47

So I was I was building. I was syndicating

17:49

A Paul. That was what I was doing at the time. I started to build this

17:51

syndication company. And I remember you guys coming

17:53

through, and I remember the name Lady Annabellum, which

17:55

was a weird name the

17:57

first time you here, and I thought Lady must be a bunch

18:00

of girls. So what

18:02

was the process in naming the band because

18:04

it's a very feminine name, and

18:07

was Hillary thought of since it's Lady Annabelle

18:09

and that people are gonna assume that she's Annabellum? Was that

18:11

a thing where everyone kept to this day

18:13

we will walk in the venue. I mean literally

18:15

to this day. I mean we were just

18:17

on an arena tour. Right backstage

18:20

at Bridge Bridge Stone. I heard a security

18:22

guard say, well, what time does the lady get

18:24

here? And I was like, wow,

18:27

you know, it's just it really it's it's it's great humble

18:29

pie, but um, but yeah, I mean

18:31

the process of us coming up

18:33

with it, it was just it

18:36

was so small and it didn't feel like it would be anything

18:39

that stuck because we were just trying

18:41

to come up with something weird enough to get people's attention,

18:44

because that was back in the MySpace days and

18:46

you know, people are probably tuning out what is my

18:48

space? But you know, we had all of our music up on my

18:50

Space, and we were trying to just come up with kind

18:52

of a wacky name, like his clickbait,

18:55

you know, like where somebody's that come there? Like what in the world

18:57

is that lady in a mountain? So that was kind

18:59

of the goal, was to come up with something so weird people will click

19:01

on it. And um, I

19:03

mean we came up with it taking pictures in front of some old

19:05

homes in Franklin. We drove out a little

19:08

bit past Cool Springs where we were and and took

19:10

some photos in front of these old kind

19:12

of mansions and stuff out there, beautiful

19:15

Antebellum homes. Um,

19:21

but yeah, beautiful Annabellum homes. We were talking

19:23

about how man, these homes are really neat and

19:25

there's such cool Annabellum homes and

19:27

we're like, well, that could be a band named Annabellum.

19:30

And then Charles was like, what about the

19:32

ghost of the Lady Annabellum, like

19:34

there's a lady that lives in the house, in

19:37

the Antebellum home, the lady

19:39

of Antebellum. And we were like,

19:41

man, it's so what was the bandily reference?

19:43

Like saving Jane, you know, like kind of a feminine

19:45

leaning name, but with like two bearded Harry guys,

19:49

you know, and you know, dueling lead vocals and different

19:51

styles musically, it just was all

19:53

I don't know what happened really organically. Was it

19:55

always thought of as dueling lead vocals with

19:57

us from the from the very beginning. So the

19:59

first song we wrote ever

20:02

was a song called All We'd Ever Need um,

20:04

which was not a single, but I

20:07

remember we wrote it um. We were trying to get on Hillary's

20:09

bandwagon. So speaking of Hillary being able

20:11

to make it on her own, Charles and I were like, you know what,

20:13

we're riding her coattails all the way to

20:16

the bank and to the We were like, she's

20:18

gonna make it, man, She's huge. Her

20:20

voice was insane, and so we

20:22

were trying to write songs for her. And

20:25

the first song we wrote was called All We'd Ever Need and

20:27

it was off Hillary singing the lead vocal,

20:30

and we were writing it, and she was like, God,

20:32

I just think Charles, you should sing. You've got a great

20:34

voice. I think you should sing lead on

20:37

the second verse and kind of enter is like the

20:39

second you know, the male partner, uh,

20:42

from a story writing perspective,

20:44

And so once we had the both vocals

20:46

in there, it was like, well, this feels

20:48

really cool and different. Um,

20:52

but we're like we you can't have two vocalists.

20:54

You can't have to vocalists in the band, so it's

20:57

not gonna work. But this is really interesting. Maybe we'll

20:59

pitch Garth and Tricia or Sham and

21:01

Faith or somebody doing a duets

21:03

record. But sure enough we started writing

21:05

more duets and then more kind of

21:08

Hillary leads, Charles lead, and of course a lot

21:10

of three part harmony all over the place. So it

21:12

was very again organic,

21:14

and the way it all evolved and happened

21:18

naturally, I mean early on radio, I mean they told

21:20

us to our face, They're like,

21:23

you know, we like you guys, but it's not gonna work. You

21:25

can't have two singers. You can't have two lead

21:27

singers. Nobody. Everyone's gonna get

21:29

confused. And we would reference you

21:31

know, Fleetwood, Mac and the Eagles. I

21:33

mean all these bands that had multiple people singing leading

21:37

all of them. Yeah, I mean Timothy

21:39

B. Schmidt is my favorite Eagles member. Uh

21:42

just with his voice, you know, but uh

21:45

yeah, I mean it's you know, people said like, man,

21:47

I don't think it's gonna work, and you

21:49

know, we were like we we stuck to our guns. It felt

21:51

organic, and it felt that's who we were.

21:54

It's crazy to the organic nous of just

21:56

you and Charles actually knowing each other

21:58

for that long, much less having working

22:01

relationship with friendship. Because you

22:04

brought up the fact that, you know, in the middle school, to

22:07

have two people that are that talented though even in a small

22:09

town, yeah, just as weird. It's

22:11

almost the outlier effect. You

22:13

had two people that were the same

22:16

thing, whose personalities happened to

22:18

work compatible, incompatible. What

22:20

then you came to that

22:23

is the odds of that happening are crazy,

22:25

it is. I mean, and and Charles

22:28

was like the only person. That's funny. You bring that up,

22:30

You bring up good points. I mean, I just remember

22:32

being in Augusta thinking I hear

22:34

music so different. I

22:36

just when I hear the radio and I hear songs,

22:38

I hear production. I can't even articulate

22:41

what goes on in my head. There's a bazillion things

22:43

for every track I hear. And I was like, I

22:45

just don't No one else understands that. But then when I

22:47

met Charles and we started

22:49

to kind of do some writing and played

22:52

in bands and did I was like, he

22:54

gets it, man, Like I think he here and

22:56

we when when we started writing together in college

22:58

at University of Georgia, I was like, Okay,

23:01

we're on the same wavelength and and it is

23:03

rare. I mean, to both come out of the same

23:05

town. Um, it's

23:07

a weird The creative brain is

23:10

just a it's a weird thing to explain, you know. I

23:12

know people are always like, how do you write songs? How do you come

23:14

up with ideas? How do you do stuff? And it's it's

23:17

hard thinking like asking how do you run fast?

23:20

Which I can't do right? Well,

23:23

I don't know if I actually run, but it's for

23:25

me, you know, how do you

23:27

think quick? Yeah? Like I've got

23:30

his gifted me with a talent, and I've learned how to take

23:32

this talent and put it into

23:34

the tunnel and drill it down.

23:37

But I think we all have something that

23:39

we're right naturally

23:42

good at. Yeah, and then that's the beauty of a talent.

23:44

Again, like my dad told me, I didn't get what

23:46

a talent was. I didn't see it because it came

23:48

easy to me. I I figured a talent

23:51

was like something you really had to like. Hope

23:53

this doesn't sound backwards, but you know,

23:55

like something you had to work really hard. Like I

23:57

wanted to play sports. I just was not good

23:59

at sports, any of them

24:01

really. Uh, And I wanted so

24:03

bad to be talented at sports, but I just wasn't.

24:06

But music was just easy. I was like, well, that's

24:08

easy. I know exactly what a song come

24:10

on the radio. I can mostly tell you what key

24:12

gets in. You can hear the

24:14

key. Yeah, pretty much. That

24:17

came off more. That sounded really pretentious

24:19

as I said it, But knowing guitar

24:21

so well, I just know what chords are playing. The

24:23

thing about podcast, most listeners are potentious.

24:26

We're all good, We're all the same potentious room together. Anyone's

24:30

listening to this as elite. If they made it the thirty

24:32

minutes in already, then this is there even more

24:35

elite. So you say you and jokingly

24:37

said that you and Charles, We're gonna write

24:39

Hillary's coattails and I don't use

24:41

the same term. But when you and Charles came to town, did

24:44

you just want to write for Charles and play for

24:46

Charles? I did so. When

24:48

we got to town, we were doing pop music. Um,

24:51

you moved to Nashville to pop music. I moved to Nashville

24:53

to write music. This

24:56

is I love it going back. Man. We moved

24:58

to Nashville because to Josh

25:00

Kelly. So Charles has Charles has an older brother, Josh

25:02

Kelly, who had a big pop song called Amazing Um

25:05

which was huge in two thousand three,

25:07

I think. And so he bought a house in Cool Springs

25:09

and said, dude, you guys man, he's

25:12

so nice. He's so kind. He said, y'all kind

25:14

of Nashville man, you guys have the talent like come

25:16

and just try to write music. So me and Charles moved

25:18

into his house and Cool Springs together under

25:21

the goal of just writing

25:23

songs. We wanted to be songwriters. Once

25:25

we got there, Charles and

25:27

I started to write songs together a lot and

25:30

made a CD under his name to CDs

25:33

under his name at UM

25:35

at the home studio there and so yeah,

25:37

I mean we were doing pop stuff under Charles name,

25:39

and we travel all around and play coffee

25:41

shops and really

25:44

small, really small places.

25:46

In your class of moving to Nashville, because it seems

25:48

everybody has a class. They all moved at the same time,

25:50

and they were My ours was around Luke Um,

25:53

I remember, because we were from Georgia. So I remember a bunch

25:55

of my friends from Georgia Southern you know, we

25:57

were going to move to Nashville, and they're like, dude, there's

25:59

this country guy. You know, Luke

26:01

Brian. Keep an out for him. He got a record deal

26:04

about a year before Um

26:06

we did, I believe, And I remember he

26:08

was in that development deal and record deal

26:10

around the same time. So kind of the Luke Brian

26:13

era. A couple of those people, I mean Miranda was before

26:16

us, um,

26:18

but yeah, I mean Luke was would be probably our

26:20

closest, like, both at the same record

26:22

label, both from Georgia, new mutual friends and

26:24

stuff moved to Nashville. You and Charles

26:27

and one and I get to

26:29

this in a minute, and you talk about my Space and how

26:31

it was such a big part, but you don't even have a

26:33

Twitter page like social media

26:36

was such a big part of you guys a story, yet

26:39

you don't have a Twitter page and just got on Instagram.

26:42

Personally, yes, Dave Heywood, personally, I know

26:44

you didn't. But again, there's

26:46

a little bit of beauty to the irony

26:48

of social media being is such a big part of the story

26:51

of your life and career and now you just aren't

26:53

on it. Yeah. I can

26:55

talk about this for hours. You could do a whole another podcast

26:59

on social media. For me, I know

27:02

computer programming all up really well. That was my major

27:04

in college was um Information Systems

27:07

Technology. That sounds really nerdy for

27:09

all the listeners out there, but I was an m

27:11

I s TA major at U g A and

27:14

so study computer programming. So I know backwards

27:16

and forwards Facebook when

27:18

it came out, and social media and what it does

27:20

and how it operates, and I love For

27:23

a time, I loved being on it, and our band

27:25

started doing so much on my Space and

27:28

we did these webisodes once a week. UM.

27:31

I feel like we were on the first people to really have a

27:33

camera out a lot and capture a lot of webisodes

27:35

early on in country music, UM,

27:37

and so that was our main thing. But for me

27:39

now I just kind of kind

27:42

of pulled back. I mean, just

27:44

there's kind of this thing that happens with me where

27:47

my personality type um

27:49

aniagram nine. For all the Instagram listeners

27:51

out there, my personality type just doesn't

27:53

do well with tons and tons

27:56

of exposure and critique

27:58

with my personal stuff, you know. So

28:01

for me, UM, just to be completely

28:03

honest with you, there's just boundaries I

28:05

have. UM They're healthy boundaries

28:07

that I've worked through that are best

28:09

for me. UM. I'll

28:11

share once every few weeks what I'm kind of doing

28:13

with my family. But for me, I

28:15

have to kind of pull back and I

28:18

have to have those boundaries about things that are private

28:20

between you know, stuff with our kids

28:22

and stuff with my wife. I don't

28:24

know, I there's a beauty and and letting people

28:26

walk through a journey with you. I really

28:29

think there's a beauty in that. UM.

28:31

But for me, there's parts of personal

28:33

life that I just have some boundaries

28:36

with. Personally, I don't document

28:38

every day what I do. UM,

28:41

I just kind of enjoy I

28:44

feel pressure. My personality type

28:46

feels the pressure to perform.

28:48

UM If I have to know that every

28:50

single day, I've got an instant story Instagram,

28:52

Twitter, Facebook, and know what I'm doing

28:54

is really really awesome every

28:56

day. My personality type doesn't

28:58

do well with that kind of performance

29:01

and pressure on a day to day basis, So for

29:03

me, I do better kind of pulling back

29:05

and then popping in with like hey check this out,

29:07

we had a baby, or you know, hey,

29:10

we're doing this in the studio. But for me, I just

29:12

kind of enjoy Um,

29:15

I enjoy that boundary. Is that okay

29:17

to say? I think any boundary

29:19

that you set up front is a fair boundary.

29:21

I think where people get in trouble is if they're

29:24

posting lots of things, and we'll talk about

29:26

social media specifically, they post and they

29:28

put and then all of a sudden they demand, no,

29:30

this is my personal life. Yeah, it's

29:33

you have to condition people to be conditioned,

29:37

and so if you're set in the boundary,

29:39

you can live within it. It's really talking about and we won't

29:41

see who we're talking about. Somebody in

29:43

the media earlier, and we My

29:46

point about them was they're always consistent. I enjoy

29:48

that, regardless of if I agree with them or

29:50

not. I just enjoy consistency in

29:53

humans in media. I

29:56

try to give it sometimes I'm consistently inconsistent,

29:58

and that's even a sort of consistent to see right

30:01

right right where. That took me a

30:03

second. So with social media,

30:05

that the answer for me is if

30:07

that's your rule, don't we all play by

30:09

it. Now. If it's

30:12

your rule, but you change it up and then you demand

30:14

other people follow your then it gets a little squishy,

30:16

right. I think that's completely fair. I just saw the irony

30:19

and my Space was a big

30:21

part of Lady and a Bellum. I can't find you on Twitter.

30:24

I can't go at Dave Heywood have hashtag Dave

30:26

Heywood. Just it's like at Charles Kelly

30:28

l A and then hashtag

30:31

Dave Heywood because he doesn't exist. I'm

30:33

in the minority here. I understand that.

30:35

Me uh me not

30:37

being on on all social media. I'm in the

30:39

minority. I get that. And I know I probably

30:42

sound really old school and people are going to roll their eyes

30:44

at it. But for me, again, my

30:46

personality type just

30:48

has to have time for me to retreat, for

30:50

me to process things and to live my best

30:52

life. I have to pull back and

30:55

when I go home, I have to not

30:57

share it. That um, and I'll

30:59

give you just a completly candid, completely

31:02

candid and personal experience and story

31:04

about that end of last year.

31:06

I had a little season of anxiety in my life.

31:09

Uh, some panic attacks. Everything kind

31:11

of came crashing down for a little bit. And I

31:14

said a million times for myself, if I had

31:16

the pressure every day that I would have had to post

31:18

on social media during that time, it

31:20

would have broken me down even more. Um,

31:22

it was just a season of a lot of things. And

31:24

again I have boundaries with what I even

31:26

share, but I want people to know that it's

31:28

okay to go through those things for me. I just I

31:31

didn't have I would have been so wrecked

31:34

if I was going through all this stuff personally

31:36

and I had to post today

31:39

was awesome, Today was sick. You know.

31:41

I just had the best lit breakfast

31:43

with my bros. Like I mean, I just I

31:46

wasn't. I had a little rough patch of some personal

31:48

things. So I don't know. It's for

31:50

me again, it's my really, it's my um personality

31:53

type that does the best when

31:55

I can have moments to retreat, process,

31:57

pull back and have time for me. I just have to have are

32:00

about time for me that's

32:02

not shared. If that's okay that anxiety.

32:05

I was on some crazy anxiety medicine for a long time.

32:08

I've never really seen and I

32:10

never thought it was until I actually

32:12

went through it,

32:13

and it would almost

32:16

it felt like egg coming over me that I couldn't

32:18

get out of, or like what you know, what the mind does

32:21

the hands. Yeah, it felt like that was around

32:23

me and I couldn't control it. And

32:25

then I got into medicine. I couldn't get off the

32:27

whole thing. Yeah, absolutely, And it's you

32:29

know, I never, I never fully understood

32:31

mental health. And I'll be completely honest,

32:34

and I actually I feel like I

32:36

can empathize now because I was trapped

32:38

in in some deep anxiety and panic attacks

32:41

for about three months, and man, it sucks.

32:43

It completely sucks. You feel alone, you

32:45

feel fear, nobody can

32:47

understand. You feel like nobody understands. That's how I

32:49

felt. Yeah, people

32:52

get butterflies and I get

32:54

better. But again, it's if

32:56

you take a flamethrower

32:58

of butterflies and shoot them, ripe people a hole

33:00

that into your body. That's really what it

33:02

feels like and you Yeah,

33:05

and I still have anxiety. I go to therapist

33:07

all time. I've been way too much money there you should.

33:09

Man. Counseling is so it's

33:11

life changing. It's completely that changing for

33:14

me. It lets me look at me. Yeah, that's

33:16

the whole mirror I've ever had. It's like somebody

33:18

gives you, they hold a mirror and say, well, here's

33:21

here's what you're saying. Here's where awareness

33:23

is. Self awareness it is And that's my struggle

33:26

is looking at myself in

33:28

a natural way. Right, And

33:30

it's it's hard and you don't want to do it sometimes. Yeah,

33:33

it's I'm telling you it's it's

33:36

so worth it. It's been a life changer for me.

33:38

I mean I even spent some time at this place called on Site,

33:40

which is a spiritual girl's place. You brought that

33:42

up, listen, you went, okay,

33:44

let me tell you what happened. Because she's not gonnare I mentioned

33:46

this. So she just went

33:49

two different people. Yeah, yes, before

33:52

and after and I know Miles

33:54

the CEO. So I did I did TED

33:57

Oh now we're going so

34:00

because I got so many questions and uh so

34:02

I did a TED talk and I did a TED

34:04

talk on successful people

34:07

and how losing and failure is pivotal

34:10

and success and we

34:14

and that's counterintuitive to what we see

34:16

that we think somebody just goes, hey, I'm

34:18

good at something, that they just win life, and

34:21

that's really not what happens. Even the best

34:23

people struggle, and the struggles

34:26

what makes them and separates them

34:28

from the good. So I do this Ted talk and

34:30

Miles, who runs on site, I meet

34:32

him for the first time. He does it right right before me

34:34

or after me, and I say, hey, because

34:37

I'm big into therapy. Make jokes, but I'm big into

34:39

it. It's changed my life. So

34:41

I say, you know, I have this house and

34:44

it's all right outside of Nashville. Shoul come check it out. I

34:46

don't really think anything about it. I'm in a charity event

34:48

with my co host Amy. I see

34:50

him again and I bring

34:52

it up to him and say, may I want to come out there. I just need

34:55

to get away. Did you check your phone? N't

34:57

use it? That's crazy to me, but

35:00

which was fine because I don't have social media. There's

35:02

nothing for me. I guess for me, it's just what if

35:04

something happens to my dog? Yeah? What

35:07

if something and I don't have kids or a wife. There's

35:09

emergency protocol, they'll they'll there is

35:11

Yeah, yeah, that's part of it scares me so much. Any

35:13

want to ask. You could go to a

35:15

specific place and say like, hey, I've got to check

35:17

on and they'll be like, okay, so fine. They just don't want

35:19

you to be what we all do.

35:22

You walk right out of counseling, you hot back on your email

35:24

and your text and everything. That's what I would do.

35:26

I would live. They have TV's, um

35:28

they don't. I don't know if I can. I sleep

35:30

with a TV on it. I sleep with the TV on at

35:32

night. I grew up. I never had a bedroom, so I

35:34

slep on the couch in the living room. The TV stayed on

35:37

because I lived in the living room. I

35:39

sleep with the TV on or I get so anxious

35:42

because since nine

35:45

the TV has been on when I sleep. I can't

35:47

go somewhere and sleep without a TV. Well,

35:49

maybe you could do like a white noise mission. I did. Stuff

35:51

doesn't work. I need to have King

35:54

of Queens of the Honeymooners. Yeah,

35:56

it's got to be on in the background. I had

35:58

just need like the noise, like Seinfeld happening

36:01

whatever it is. This is how messed up out of my head. I

36:04

have to have already seen the episode because

36:06

if I haven't. I want to know what's going on, right,

36:09

and I like learning and if it's something

36:11

that I think because that Wikipedia

36:13

things, just watching and

36:15

I just Wikipedia things and learned about them as a show happens.

36:18

Background actors, we're watching

36:20

The Crown right now, and that's what we're doing too. It's like, first,

36:23

that's all I did the first three episodes until I trusted it

36:26

and then I just went with it. But I fact checked

36:28

every part of The Crown. Fantastic, right, It's

36:30

great, it's great. Do you feel like you're learning because

36:32

I did? I do. I feel like I haven't learned in a long

36:34

time about history and gave zero

36:36

craft about the royal family. I'm totally invested

36:38

in. I know, we're like, well,

36:40

who's going to be the next this? And who's the next that

36:43

you know going forward? And were you amazed

36:45

that Queen Elizabeth was never supposed to be the queen

36:48

like that blow wasn't even in a line

36:50

for it and her

36:53

we're only like four episodes in, so don't well,

36:55

but that's the yeah, but I know that that that's part of

36:57

history. Yes, no, no, and that's in the first four that's

36:59

yeah. First thing her uncle was the freaking

37:02

king. He quit because he was dating a card

37:04

ashually and basically, Ah, it's

37:06

mine wherever Dave Heywood lady

37:08

in Belle, I'm talking about music. Let me talk about

37:10

this for a second. I'll talk to you about my sleep

37:12

and number bed. Yes, it's probably ten feet away

37:14

from me, probably thirty ft

37:17

away from me. And so maybe you've considered

37:19

getting new bed. You didn't know. Maybe

37:21

you thought, man, I hear about the sleep number,

37:23

and I hear about the sleep number setting, but is it for real.

37:26

I can just tell you my experience and that I've had trouble

37:28

sleeping and I still do have trouble sleeping at times,

37:30

not because of the bed. You know, my bed.

37:33

My sleep number has actually improved my quality asleep

37:35

because I went into the store and what happens

37:38

is they say, hey, lay on the bed, and you're lay

37:40

in the bed. There's a computer screen and it measures

37:42

your back, your neck. It says, okay, what if we fix

37:44

this, this this, and then they give you a sleep

37:46

number you're setting. Mine's thirty. My

37:49

sleep i Q score last night was in the nineties.

37:51

Their newest beds are so smart they sense your

37:53

moves and automatically adjust like this is

37:55

the real life bed stuff here that he's in technology

37:57

to make it sleep better. They cost about the Samish

38:00

traditional mattresses. They last twice as long nine

38:02

at a ten hours. Recommend going during the ultimate

38:04

sleep number of it and say on an ultimate

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limited edition bed plus Queen mattress Start

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now has our five stores nationwide. Find the

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one yearest you sleep number dot com slash

38:15

bones. Okay, so we

38:17

can we can reset. This is

38:19

reset and go go back to our our music.

38:22

Have a drink water, I get a little excited about

38:24

think sometimes and away we go. You

38:27

guys just went to New York for the Grammys.

38:29

I guess you and Charles did. Hillary just had the babies,

38:31

so she didn't go. Was

38:34

that timing always? Oh? This made cheat well.

38:36

To be honest, I'll have to

38:38

walk you through it because it was, um

38:40

just crazy the way had happened. I mean, we were on the red carpet,

38:43

me and Charles went up to New York with our wives

38:45

to the Grammys and we have a four week old little

38:47

girl at home, and so we had to leave her for the

38:49

day, which we did. Okay, but really, Mr,

38:52

but um, we got up there, we're on the red carpet,

38:54

we're doing interviews and stuff, and we were kind

38:56

of joking because it's been kind of

38:57

a the timeline of when she's supposed to have

39:00

When you have twins, you having a little early. Um,

39:02

that's just what happens with twins, because there's twice

39:04

the fun in there. So you have twins early, then

39:07

what your schedule due date is? Um for

39:09

space reasons. Uh So, anyways,

39:12

we knew it was gonna be sometime soon. But

39:14

we literally we get off the red carpet or

39:16

we get done with the show and we go

39:18

have dinner and we're just group texting. We group

39:20

text met Charles and Hillary. We like group text all the

39:22

time, just like oh my gosh, you know, how

39:24

are you feeling? What's going on? Just silly stuff,

39:27

animated jifts, the whole nine yards, just

39:29

fun group text. And we were texting at

39:31

ten thirty or eleven, and then we all went to bed at

39:33

midnight or something and I woke up

39:35

at six to go to the airport and

39:38

had like ten miss texts. You know, when you wake up and you have

39:40

like all these mis texts, You're like, oh god,

39:43

what's going on. Sure enough, She's like, we

39:45

went to the hospital, blah blah blah, we

39:47

had the babies. I'm like, what we

39:49

were texting at ten o'clock last night and everything.

39:52

She I thought she was like joking about, like,

39:54

you guys are making me laugh with this cardboard

39:56

cutout that we brought to the grand us of Hillary. Y'all

39:59

are making me have intractions and laugh. And I thought

40:01

I thought she was joking. I was like, are you serious? You must

40:03

have been serious about contractions.

40:06

But sure enough, so literally the night of

40:08

the Grannies she had the twin girls

40:10

and so, um, I haven't met him yet.

40:12

Uh, they've just a few days ago, and so

40:15

it's it's awesome. We've been getting some beautiful photos

40:17

from her in texts and stuff. So um,

40:19

but I'm throwed for him. That's awesome. How

40:21

what was the dynamic with because hillary

40:24

husband who I know? So I'm talking about people like I don't

40:26

know them, but who I know, Like her husband's a drummer.

40:30

How was that whole thing with the band? And there's

40:32

now there's another influence that's kind of on the inside

40:35

of the band without actually being the band, Like that

40:37

dynamic also has to change things up a bit right

40:40

of having her husband. And

40:43

he's again he's on the inside because

40:45

he's with Hillary, but he's not really part of the band. No

40:49

one else could do it with him. He's

40:51

a he is such a he's

40:54

such a team player and such a great I

40:56

mean, he's a badass drummer.

40:58

Let me just go ahead and leave with that. Uh,

41:00

lead with that. He is in

41:02

our band because he is one of the best drummers there

41:05

is. He really is from a technical standpoint,

41:08

his power, his intuitiveness

41:10

for where we go on a live show. Um,

41:13

again, it works great.

41:16

I mean really, it's not like a there's

41:18

never been any kind of like a dissension of

41:20

like, um, you know, I handle a lot of

41:22

the band stuff, UM, and so

41:24

I reach out to him all the time independently of like, hey,

41:27

we gotta go do this rehearsal or

41:30

um our our keyboard players technically our band

41:32

leader. But UM, I kind of enjoy doing

41:34

all that stuff and organizing that. UM.

41:37

I like I enjoy working with like the TV shows,

41:39

like when we performed on the A c M S last year. UM,

41:42

I really enjoyed like working with Rack and

41:45

working with the producers and U and LV and the

41:47

horn section and thanks.

41:50

That was that was a really cool looking man, thank you,

41:53

And it kind of everybody's eyes got real big. Yeah,

41:56

it's very loud. God, you should heard it backstage

41:58

in the locker room. It's like annoyingly

42:00

loud. But it was a great moment. But I love doing

42:02

that stuff that. But I mean, Chris has been such a

42:04

amazing piece to our

42:06

whole lady A world. It really, I mean,

42:09

it all just works. I'm not trying to be I'm

42:12

not trying to like just always blow smoke. And

42:14

I think we've said that plenty of times. I mean it

42:16

genuinely works between all of us, really really

42:18

well. So you

42:22

can play guitar, you play mandelin, I don't

42:24

think things I've seen you play on piano and guitar.

42:26

I'd Sara my man main two that you

42:28

still play? Are

42:30

you do you practice? Do you

42:32

still have to practice or is it mostly up there? Um?

42:35

I don't practice. I mean I kind of play

42:38

for fun. But I don't you ever just grab it

42:40

at home and play oh God all the time. So you still

42:42

enjoy oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I have a

42:44

studio room upstairs. Um,

42:47

much like this room just a great kind of home studio

42:49

room with a full pro tools rig and then about

42:51

twenty guitars and stuff. So um

42:54

bazooki, which is like a bigger mandolin, Irish

42:56

mandelin, and um,

42:59

I can keep it decent. Yeah, I

43:01

can keep beat decent. I mean a lot of the stuff you

43:03

do now is programmed, so you like use a

43:05

little keyboard pad just to like get

43:07

a kick and snare and the wake up a mill

43:09

of the the night and go have an idea. You

43:12

you have to go get it out of your head. Yeah, I have to go

43:14

put it down. Um. And

43:16

a lot of minor musical you know. Um,

43:19

I normally start musically, so for me, it's a lot

43:21

of like don't you know here a chord progression

43:23

or um here a kind of

43:25

groove or I don't know, I

43:27

need you now open you know, don't

43:29

don't don't what done? What?

43:32

What did that come from? My Grosjas came

43:34

up with that piano part. I have to give

43:37

him a hundred percent of the credit. Um.

43:39

But we wrote that with Josh kere Um

43:41

early in our career and it kind of

43:44

went in the back pocket for a while. I mean we wrote it

43:46

after our first record, which had don't

43:48

live here um and

43:50

looking for a good time and uh, I

43:52

run to You were our first three singles, and let me have some

43:54

of this here here, here's like I'm just

43:57

looking for I

44:05

run to you just said you've run to It was on the first

44:07

record again, just

44:11

one test well still gets play a lot, yeah,

44:14

even though it was from the first record, and listen to those

44:17

lyrics. Society Tom

44:20

Douglas.

44:22

Tom Douglas sat in that chair and did he come

44:24

here? Yeah, he

44:26

talked about you guys really yeah, and gathering

44:29

around the piano. Yeah, he's

44:31

got a beautiful little farm and our beautiful

44:33

home mountain, you know, Franklin or whatever, and just

44:36

an old piano. And he's such a poet.

44:38

It is just so artistic. I'm like, I like

44:40

want to be him. I would fangirl him just even

44:43

though we've written with him a dozen times. Like, I would

44:45

fangirl him just about everything. Yeah,

44:47

I've been lucky enough to sit next to some really

44:50

mind blowing, lee awesome people that

44:52

I only appreciate way later

44:55

because in the moment, And that's got to be like

44:57

that with you at times. So you're doing this big and

44:59

then moment you're just trying to get through it and not

45:02

suck back at it and

45:04

go, Yeah, that was awesome. It was so

45:06

cool. That was a poem which we told that story,

45:09

but our bass player jokes us about

45:11

that a lot, but it was it was a poem time had

45:13

written called I Run to You, and it was

45:15

just all these things that he runs from, pessimists and prejudice.

45:19

He was like, he was like actually running I think maybe

45:21

the Music City Marathon, but he had all these visions of

45:23

things that you run from. I mean, how

45:25

deep is that? You know? Like I

45:29

mean it's like, like, why can't I think of that kind of

45:31

stuff. He's just that kind of guy and has

45:33

lived a lot of great life and and

45:35

had you know, his ups and downs that he writes and

45:37

shares about. But yeah, that started with a poem

45:39

and we basically took his poem and kind of put music

45:41

to it um and then we got

45:43

into it so right. And for the next record, we

45:46

had a writing compointment with Josh Kire and we never written

45:48

with him before, but he had written

45:50

before he cheats for Cary Underwood, and

45:53

uh, we went in there and wrote

45:55

one song first

45:58

for about an hour, and it was kind of quick, and I

46:00

just it didn't feel like a good song. Um,

46:03

that's a quick right. It was a quick right. He had

46:05

had Um, he had had like half of it done.

46:08

It was a song called young Love, and it

46:10

just didn't feel like us. It didn't feel like us.

46:12

And we finished it and I was like, man,

46:15

and then it was like one of those things. Charles

46:17

was like, why aren't we just staying write another song? And I was

46:19

like, I mean, we're all single and nothing

46:21

to do. I was like, sounds great, I'm

46:23

here. So we started writing another song, and um,

46:26

Charles had some melodies on the guitar. He had just started

46:28

playing guitar actually and learned a few

46:30

chords on the acoustics, so he came up with some of the

46:33

melody on the verse D D D

46:35

D no no um.

46:38

And then we kind of just sailed off from there and

46:42

you know, we wrote it really quick.

46:44

I'd say in an hour as well. Needs

46:47

You Now happened fast. Some of the some songs take like

46:49

six hours or a few

46:51

days or a couple of writing sessions. Needs You Now

46:53

was quick. I Run to you was pretty quick.

46:56

You finished Needs You Now? And it's

46:58

just a song. It's just a song. I didn't

47:00

think it would Um.

47:02

We sat on it for probably eight months, just

47:05

sitting in our iTunes playlist and

47:07

our very last label meeting to cut

47:10

with Paul Worley for that Needs You Now record,

47:12

which it was not obviously titled inn Um.

47:15

I remember, and again it's just a beautiful testament.

47:18

I think Charles and his memory

47:20

and his passion and ear from music, He

47:22

was like, what about that? Remember that song we wrote Josh

47:24

here that day. You know, it's kind of like

47:27

it sounds just like it'd be a cool album track, you

47:29

know, kind of one of those like kind of insider

47:32

songs that like people just love the vibe, you know, it's

47:34

it could probably have like a cool vibe. Um,

47:37

what if we you know, in the the acoustic demo,

47:39

I want to play you some of that. I mean, the acoustic demo

47:42

is just we're fumbling all

47:44

over the melody, you know, it's like he messes

47:46

up a lyric and it was

47:48

just all over the place. The acoustic demo was really just

47:50

it was just a voice in the moe from our phone, and so

47:53

it sounded really rough. But we were like

47:55

a couple of the people in the room Autumn House, Mike

47:58

Dungan, Um, they all kind of perked up there like

48:00

that could be kind of cool. Why don't you guys try that? And so

48:02

still we didn't know what was happening. We got

48:04

in the studio and recorded it, and

48:06

I think once we got in there and Paul Worley got his hands

48:08

on it, he made so the piano

48:11

part, Mike Rojas was tinkering

48:13

around, you know when you're warming up in the studio,

48:15

and he started to kind of do that on the outro of

48:17

the song, and we

48:19

were like, man, do that on the intro. That's like a hook.

48:22

That sounds like one of those big hooks. The baseline,

48:24

this guy named Craig Young play that Paul Worley

48:26

got. I could geek out on these guys names

48:28

for for for hours. But um,

48:31

some of the bass playing, piano, playing guitar,

48:34

I mean me and Paul played about acoustic

48:36

guitars on that song. So when

48:39

it gets to the chorus on

48:41

the song, acoustics. So this is an old

48:43

Um, I won't go down this

48:45

tangent forever. This is an old Crosby steals in Nash

48:47

and Young trick that Paul worley knew

48:49

where you kind of if you have like up to

48:52

twenty to thirty acoustics, it makes

48:54

it feel like the whole song chugs

48:56

along really like it's like a wall

48:58

of sound. Right. So if you notice

49:00

on the course there's just this jinging, jinginginging,

49:03

straight kind of thing, And that's about acoustics

49:06

in the background. I mean, it's

49:08

not the same. If you want to to

49:12

in today's world, you could just duplicate him, yeah,

49:14

but to have different guitars with different woods

49:16

and different strings from different eras in different times,

49:18

all surrounding in stereo,

49:22

different guitars all

49:24

playing. And you know, Paul plays a little different than I play,

49:26

and I play a little different and finger some of the chords

49:28

differently with different voicings. But just those

49:30

little nuances on the track. When Paul

49:32

Worlely got and and dug

49:34

in with that song, I mean, I gotta

49:36

give it to micro Haas. The piano stuff is amazing

49:39

on that song, and I gotta give it to Paul worly Man. He

49:41

is such a champion for great

49:44

art and he takes his time with it, and

49:47

that can be hard with patients and studio

49:49

because We all want to just pump out a track in one day,

49:51

but Paul will sit on it and work

49:53

on it and work on it, and then two months later

49:56

you're like, wow, this thing sounds

49:58

timeless. So you write it, you think it's

50:00

a song. Then it's sitting there and you

50:02

think this is a song. Cut it.

50:05

When do you realize that it could be special?

50:09

Um? Once we cut it and we started

50:11

showing it to people, so we recorded it and

50:13

we started playing it for you know, our

50:15

friends. UM. I mean

50:17

I wasn't married at the time. I wouldn't

50:19

say my wife, but friends and people

50:21

the label and management, and they're

50:24

like, man, that's like that could be really a

50:27

crazy cool kind of first single. Um.

50:29

And we're like, no, we need to have a tempo. Isn't

50:31

that what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to have like the rocking tempo

50:34

is your first song. And they were like, man,

50:36

it just this feels like a piece of art. It feels

50:38

like art. And we were all about it. We just thought

50:40

it would be the album track, but we

50:42

were all about it. I mean it was it was all of our

50:44

favorite song that we had recorded

50:47

for the needs you now for that record so

50:49

you have the song and it goes

50:51

to country radio first and

50:54

it splashes, Yeah it does. At

50:57

what point do you realize that the splash is bigger than

50:59

what we expect did it to be? So we started

51:01

getting calls.

51:03

I mean, to this day, nothing will ever

51:06

happen like this ever again. It just won't the stars

51:08

aligned. I mean we started getting

51:10

calls from every format

51:13

um, and then all around the world. I

51:16

mean literally, I'd have to pull up the

51:18

emails. I remember emails from

51:20

like, hey, there's just you know, the people

51:22

in Italy heard it, people in Romania

51:25

heard it, people in Russian and Australia and Japan,

51:27

all these people all around the world want to start spinning

51:30

the song. And I was like what,

51:33

like, how did you know? I mean it

51:35

it literally spread like wildfire. I mean country

51:37

radio. It went to number one for four or five

51:39

weeks um, and stay

51:42

there for four or five weeks, and then we

51:44

sent it to pop radio, um,

51:46

you know, which we caught a little flak four people.

51:48

Do you know when you kind of crossover or send

51:51

a song out to a different format and stuff. So I

51:53

get that, but it went huge.

51:55

It just went massive. I

51:57

remember when the song came and that's

52:00

when I remember when that band with the crazy

52:02

name was the band of the song that we're playing a

52:04

pop At what point did

52:07

it feel like where did this is a whole new ball game.

52:09

It's a whole new ball I mean the international stuff

52:11

Canada and Europe. It took off in

52:14

Canada and Europe and we

52:17

started getting request to, you know, play

52:19

in London, and play in Toronto, and

52:21

go play in Australia. I mean that

52:24

was like for me, we felt like the little

52:26

kids from the country who get to go play in the big

52:28

cities all around the world. Um,

52:31

did you get lost in that? Was it so much

52:33

in a quick beat? Or did you actually we're

52:36

able to dissect it a bit and enjoy

52:38

it. That's a tough one. That's

52:40

a really tough question. There's definitely parts that

52:42

we didn't dissect. I mean, we

52:45

didn't have anything to gauge it off of, so

52:48

it was all happening for the first time. You

52:50

know. It's like whenever if anything

52:53

ever happens and something takes off,

52:55

you don't know what to gauge it against. This

52:57

it never happened before. Uh,

53:00

did you reach out to anyone who had crossed over

53:02

inside the That's always what I wonder, because there are a few

53:04

that it crossed over inside the format that you said, Hey,

53:07

I'm going into the pop world, in the hot A C world.

53:09

You know, what are the things that

53:11

happened to you that I don't expect? Did you mean we

53:14

didn't have anybody? I guess. I mean our manager, Gary

53:16

Borman did a great job. Um,

53:18

at the time, we were with Gary Borman, and he did a great

53:21

job of having a lot of experience

53:23

with a lot of pop acts and also Keith Urban. He represents

53:25

Keith Urban, and Keith had a lot He has

53:27

a lot of music that really goes around the world. I don't

53:29

know if people really realize how big he is in Europe,

53:31

in Canada and Australian stuff. So

53:34

he had some experience with with Keith with

53:36

a lot of international success. But

53:39

it was just the three of us kind of strapping

53:42

on from holding on for dear life. I mean, it was a

53:44

wild, crazy ride. Um,

53:47

it's so hard. You know. I watched people

53:49

on TV now that go through these things, you know, when we were at

53:51

the Grammys two, I'm watching Alicia

53:54

Carra and all the new artists and you know

53:56

when Sam Hunt was taken off, and then you

53:58

know, you watch all these since Stapleton

54:00

what he's going through, and whoa,

54:03

it's crazy. I mean, it's insane are

54:05

as, it's all the time,

54:08

and you kind of lose yourself in that because you think you're supposed

54:10

to say yes to everything, and you do say yes to everything.

54:13

And I mean, I remember a vivid

54:15

moment. Taylor Swift was about

54:17

a year ahead of us in country music. She won New Artist

54:19

of the Year at the A c m S and the c M A. She was

54:21

kind of like a year ahead of us, winning a lot of the new

54:24

new stuff when she was coming out in country

54:26

and I just remember watching her in her

54:28

trajectory and how much

54:31

she just killed it and kept going and kept going. And

54:34

I think we hit a point. So we after the night

54:36

of the Grammys and oh nine or two thousand

54:38

ten, I forget the year where we won

54:41

for record and solid the year on five

54:43

in one night Needs

54:45

for Needs You now, I mean song

54:47

of the Year and um

54:50

single was single one of the Grant No. There

54:53

there were a few country ones and then a few of the

54:57

and then the two all genres. Yeah,

55:00

I mean like Um, I mean it

55:02

was crazy. Dude, Live Your Life by Rhanna was

55:04

in that category. You know. New York New York

55:06

by Jay Z was in the category. Were you getting

55:08

people in the spectrum of not country

55:10

going, Hey, I love that to

55:12

you? Was like, whoa you even know who we are? Yeah?

55:15

I mean like Lady Gaga came up that year,

55:17

and um, some of the guys

55:19

from a couple of the other

55:21

big bands, but yeah, you get some of the like hip

55:23

hop artist John Mayor. We met John Mayor for the first

55:25

time. Um, I loved your interview of

55:28

his by the way, really

55:30

cool because I grew up in Georgia. I loved

55:32

his history at in Atlanta with Clay

55:34

Cook and stuff. Um, which is the whole

55:36

Clay cooking is crazy. It's crazy. Yeah, the whole for

55:38

those are Clays now with Zach Brown, Clay

55:41

is awesome. But him and John were

55:43

together. I love Christian Bush was

55:45

in a few days ago. There's one that just went up. You know, Christian

55:47

was on the John and of course Christian

55:51

was the first band to ever play at his attic and that's where John

55:54

kind of came up. But again we're nerding

55:56

on something. Was there a part of

55:58

and again, I'm just jumping out. Let me finish that

56:00

thought real quick, just because I was gonna say we

56:03

as a band, I think made a conscious I didn't mean to cut you

56:05

off with that felt, but we as a

56:07

band. I remember after we won all those Grammys,

56:10

everything came in, go play around

56:12

the world, do everything. I remember thinking,

56:14

the three of us discussing because you know, we're

56:17

like, I just don't I don't want

56:19

to lose myself. I don't want to. I

56:21

don't want to work that much. You know, we

56:23

kind of hit this point in our career where we said we

56:26

could work three hundred and sixty five days a year

56:28

because there's enough stuff that's coming in right now that

56:30

we could. But I

56:32

don't want to. Um, you know, I want

56:34

to. I want to work and play hundred

56:37

fifty two hundred shows, you know,

56:39

do radio, do some great

56:41

fun things, and record, But I don't want

56:43

to work every day of the year. And so everything

56:45

came in where we could have lost ourselves

56:47

in it. But I would say between

56:49

the three of us and the perks of being in a group, you're able

56:52

to have conversation with each other and work

56:54

through things together. And we kind of said, you

56:56

know what, this is amazing the success. Let's keep it going

56:58

with with as much as we can in but not

57:00

at the sacrifice of ourselves. So

57:03

where my mind goes you're telling the story is that

57:06

instead of thinking how amazing this is,

57:09

is that something great happens,

57:11

how in the world do you follow it up? Because nothing's ever

57:13

going to follow that up? Nothing, nothing,

57:16

It was a perfect storm. So you

57:18

know, what do you put out after

57:20

when it doesn't do the same? Do you feel

57:23

like a failure even though it's doing amazing relatively

57:25

to everything else except that one lightning in a

57:27

bottle? I mean, I can't

57:30

ever use the word failure. I mean everything that we've

57:32

done in music, I just feel lucky

57:34

that we get to do music. Honestly. Um

57:37

So, that was just beyond

57:39

any wildest expectation, and it was

57:41

just a rare moment. I mean, you know, because it's also the first

57:43

time somebody hears about it. Let me imagine

57:45

the first time you hear about a band too. There's kind of

57:48

that you can't get enough of it. I

57:50

mean the first time I heard about you

57:52

know him this, you know pop trio, I

57:54

was like, oh my god, I watched every YouTube you could

57:56

possibly watch, which I love them and obsessed with them.

57:59

Um female pop

58:01

group that everybody

58:04

wants to spell it. But yeah, I don't know

58:06

if I said it right. That's how I don't either. And when

58:08

you said this, I know you're smart. When you said,

58:10

Jeff, that's how people that really know say it.

58:12

But the rest of us say gift, and so

58:15

all the term now with

58:17

the normals, not you us,

58:19

the normals the down below. Everybody says a gift.

58:22

But when someone says Jeff, you know they really

58:24

know what. Yeah,

58:26

I didn't just come to play today. This is

58:29

real? So

58:31

need you now? Crushes it? What's The next

58:33

single was the American

58:35

Honey, which was

58:38

But was there a bit of huh? I

58:40

wonder if this one cross over because it

58:42

was so big the time before. Yeah, of course,

58:44

of course, I mean absolutely. I

58:48

mean it's hard, it's

58:50

really tough. You put all this pressure on

58:52

yourself. I don't driving myself crazy? Yeah, did you telling the

58:54

story? I'm going, Oh, I'm insane like that

58:56

way through the ride because I'm going the next ride.

58:58

I gotta start building. If I knew what how about

59:00

my personality type and everything I've learned about myself

59:03

in the last six months at you know,

59:05

counseling and on site and everything. Oh my gosh,

59:07

I would have it would have been It would

59:09

have been helpful to know that much about myself. But maybe

59:11

I'm grateful I didn't know as much about

59:13

myself and I just we kept our foot

59:15

on the gas and just kept going. But yeah, I mean,

59:17

you we ran into that for the next record, I

59:19

think for the following record. But those

59:22

songs did well at country. UM,

59:24

we had Just a Kiss and we Own the Night, which

59:27

came out on our third record. But I

59:29

don't know, then we started asking. I think we hit a point

59:31

where we started second guessing ourselves,

59:34

you know, which is all let into I mean, you know, if anybody

59:37

knows our evolution and our journey,

59:39

you know, leading into a UM. You know, we had

59:41

some songs. Maybe people don't know about them because they

59:43

didn't work, But we had a few singles at radio that

59:45

didn't do anything. Um,

59:48

Goodbye Town was a struggle for us. UM

59:51

Freestyle didn't really work. Hello World

59:53

was really a struggle. UM. And why

59:55

do you think those were a struggle? What?

59:58

What moved well at that point in time?

1:00:01

I think some lady and a belle, and

1:00:03

fatigue began. I really do. I

1:00:06

think there's too much lady A, too much,

1:00:08

you know, and and it's

1:00:10

just a natural cycle. I get it

1:00:12

with anything. Sports teams that always win.

1:00:15

I mean we had, we had, we had won a lot, and our songs

1:00:17

have been all number ones for a while,

1:00:19

and then you know, you get to a point

1:00:21

where if the song isn't maybe

1:00:24

as special, it's like, well we've

1:00:26

heard, We've already heard that style from them.

1:00:28

We get what they do. So there were a

1:00:30

couple of mrs for us. I mean that kind of led

1:00:32

into I think some second guessing for us

1:00:35

as lady A. We kind of started

1:00:37

to lean more on the business side of like, well we

1:00:39

gotta get some hits again, guys. And

1:00:41

then we just like what happened to

1:00:43

us when we made music that we didn't care

1:00:45

about where we lived in Josh Kelly's house and

1:00:48

we wrote I Run to You, and we wrote

1:00:50

love Don't live Here, and we wrote needs You Now?

1:00:52

I mean, what happened to that? You know? How did we get

1:00:54

that? And and those songs

1:00:56

came about because we weren't thinking. And

1:00:58

then we went into a period of our career where we

1:01:01

started thinking too much. I think and

1:01:03

and I think anybody that probably

1:01:05

hits seven years, ten years, fifteen years,

1:01:08

and there's been a lot of great people in this seat

1:01:10

on your podcast that probably would say the same thing. There's

1:01:12

just ebbs and flows, and you do you get to that

1:01:14

point where you you lose a little bit of what got you

1:01:16

where where you are. Do you feel like you've got some

1:01:18

of that back or all of that back, or a different

1:01:21

back. For Heartbreak, I think we got I

1:01:23

think we got it back. I really think we got it back.

1:01:26

Um. I think we said that we got

1:01:28

it back on some earlier records. Um.

1:01:31

But you know, we obviously had a break, had some time

1:01:33

away, different projects were out, time

1:01:35

to just kind of reconnect

1:01:38

with who we are. Uh.

1:01:41

And and I think for Heartbreak, living

1:01:43

together was just such a fun experience

1:01:46

making the record that kind of that helped

1:01:48

us get it back. I mean to like wake up

1:01:50

and you know, laugh and

1:01:52

make coffee and you know, I mean living

1:01:54

together. You're a part of every little facet of

1:01:56

each other's lives. And it it made us

1:01:58

laugh again and made us feel young and made us I

1:02:01

think right innocent music again. I

1:02:03

want to play something here and you'll know it. But

1:02:05

it's something I pulled out all right, deepens.

1:02:13

So this is Never Alone Jim Brickman.

1:02:16

And this is the first time that you guys were on something

1:02:18

together. So this was this

1:02:20

song actually was on the Hot Day C chart, right if I'm

1:02:22

right, it did. It did pretty well. It's i mean, really

1:02:25

impactful, weird and moving song too. So

1:02:29

tell people who Jim Brickman is. Yeah, Jim

1:02:31

Brickman is an instrumentalist, piano player. Um.

1:02:35

And we were writing a lot with Victoria Shaw

1:02:37

early on, and him and Victoria Shaw we're

1:02:39

good friends. And uh, they said,

1:02:41

Jim's looking for a featured vocalist for

1:02:44

this song Never Alone and Hillary

1:02:47

when we killed the song. It's a perfect fit for

1:02:49

her. She's so believable in the song. It

1:02:53

was the first time Lady and Bellum was recognized

1:02:55

as Lady and bell Um. It was before we

1:02:57

had a record deal, before

1:03:00

Surround. So what do you do

1:03:02

on this song? I just sing some harmonies,

1:03:05

Charles just sing some harmonies. Um.

1:03:07

It was mostly Hillary, mostly Hillary

1:03:10

singing lead. She wrote the song. Hillary

1:03:12

wrote that she wrote the lyrics. Yeah. Hillary

1:03:15

wrote that with Victoria Shaw and maybe

1:03:17

somebody else. Please forgive me somebody

1:03:19

else if you hear this. And I can't

1:03:21

remember who it was, but yeah, so Jim Braakman was looking for a feature

1:03:23

vocalist. That's kind of be cool to see your name

1:03:25

on something. It was, you're a real entity whenever you're

1:03:28

on Lady to

1:03:30

see, uh, you know, when it's dark

1:03:32

at night and you're in your car and the you know the radio

1:03:35

letters, you know, they light up scrolling across.

1:03:37

I mean to see like you know, when it goes

1:03:39

across Jim Brickman featuring parentheses

1:03:42

or whatever. Lady in a Bellum. I mean, I'll

1:03:44

never forget it. I mean that was. That was before we had

1:03:46

a record deal to Victoria. Victoria Shaw

1:03:48

really was a huge champion um

1:03:51

for that song and our She was a producer

1:03:53

on our first record, and that was a big moment for us. You

1:03:55

talk about being a songwriter aside from

1:03:57

any of the Lady A stuff to

1:04:04

meet Charles and Luke Crazy.

1:04:06

We had no fun that day. It

1:04:09

sounds like it sounds like a terrible day.

1:04:11

So and I

1:04:14

with songwriters, and I've gotten to know a lot of them on

1:04:16

a much closer level because of doing this. This has been a great

1:04:18

environment for me to get to know people, and they get to ask questions

1:04:20

I would never ask in my life. And I've

1:04:23

also learned that with some songwriters,

1:04:25

when they tell stories about their big songs, they have

1:04:27

to almost have revisionist history because they write

1:04:29

so many songs and they don't remember,

1:04:32

but they have to have a story because someone goes, tell

1:04:34

me when you wrote the house that built me, And

1:04:36

if you don't have a story, it kind of lets people

1:04:38

down. So when I say,

1:04:41

do I do you remember the day? Of course,

1:04:44

that was the first time we had written with Luke Um.

1:04:47

We had we had known Luke Brian and we

1:04:49

had talked about writing. I mean, we were all like on

1:04:51

our first record and stuff, and

1:04:54

uh, you know, he called us out to his house. He's

1:04:56

like, dude, if you guys want to come over and write, and

1:04:59

he's a really awesome and

1:05:01

chaotic guy, and I just remember it being so like,

1:05:04

you know, there's just so much going on in his world and he's

1:05:06

got such a awesome, crazy family

1:05:08

that's all over the place. And we show up and

1:05:10

so it was loud inside and so we came out onto the

1:05:12

front porch and we sat on Luke's front porch. I

1:05:14

mean it feels like like one of those classic like country

1:05:17

moments um, you know, but

1:05:19

like we sat on Luke Brian's front porch and had

1:05:21

two guitars and and wrote this song.

1:05:23

We wrote another one, but this one was definitely

1:05:25

like an amazing one and what what what

1:05:28

We wrote it with him and he

1:05:30

had some of the verse stuff going and

1:05:32

we really, I mean, Luke had I was. I

1:05:34

have to give Luke credit. He had a lot of this

1:05:36

song in pieces like a puzzle

1:05:39

like I've got this melody man, you know, I've got this kind

1:05:41

of thing, this idea. You know, I

1:05:43

just think the lyric is brilliant. He had some

1:05:46

of the lyric um and we really find Me and Charles

1:05:48

helped him finish the song. So any

1:05:50

songwriter would tell you there's always kind

1:05:52

of like and it's different like some right

1:05:54

I'll be there and I'll be like, dude, I got this whole track

1:05:57

and I got this title and then

1:05:59

we you know, in you know, some there's always

1:06:01

like somebody that has a little bit more, and Luke had

1:06:03

a lot of this kind of ready to go and so me and Charles

1:06:05

were there to help him, finish it, come up with the bridge, finished

1:06:07

them the lyrics, and I

1:06:10

mean we we loved it because it was the first time. It

1:06:12

was his first number one, his very first number

1:06:14

one. It was the first time I'd really heard him on a ballad

1:06:17

that was moving. It felt

1:06:19

really moving to hear Luke, you know, because

1:06:21

he's such a lot of his tracks are big party songs,

1:06:23

but I like the ballads he does. I mean,

1:06:25

drink a beer, you know for Luke. I

1:06:27

love I'm I love ballads kind of more than

1:06:29

anything because that you feel

1:06:32

them. We record so many ballads. We've

1:06:34

always talked about should we just do an album of like the

1:06:36

ballads? I mean, we just love. Do

1:06:39

you remember the commercial when we were younger, because

1:06:41

we're the same age relatively, where you'd

1:06:43

wake up at one of the morning and it was like now

1:06:45

for love songs

1:06:48

and it was how am I supposed to live

1:06:50

with thatch you? And it would go Richard

1:06:52

Marks and Luther Vantage the

1:06:55

whole time, and then the one that they were singing would be

1:06:57

in white highlight and then it would change those

1:07:00

God, we got stuff on the bus last year. I think

1:07:02

we've had a couple of whiskeys but we

1:07:04

were all just like this is the greatest, and I think

1:07:06

somebody in the band called and ordered it, you know, like

1:07:09

there's such great little collections of music. But

1:07:11

yeah, I mean I would I would sit and watch those

1:07:13

things broll and they're like thirty minutes or infommercials,

1:07:16

you know, so they would just go on and on and on. I caught

1:07:18

myself in a rabbit hole of watching YouTube videos

1:07:20

of nineties commercials and yeah,

1:07:23

I know, and that was when I watched I think

1:07:25

four different commercials of that serious time

1:07:27

life, the time Life. Okay, I

1:07:29

forgot about the songs of the nineties. I'm

1:07:31

live Wow and again I just

1:07:33

remember, Man tell me how most

1:07:36

supposed to live at

1:07:38

the piano just killing it? Man, Well,

1:07:41

you guys ever not play needs you now?

1:07:43

Okay, So that's that's

1:07:45

it. It's so fun to play. It still is fun.

1:07:48

Um. I would imagine one day

1:07:50

you get tired of it, but when the

1:07:52

crowd responds that way, it's it's

1:07:54

fun. I asked him, because we had a

1:07:56

show at the Rheman my band or

1:07:59

my goofie band played the run and we added about people

1:08:01

to come out and we had we flew Hanson into

1:08:03

play. It was a charity thing, right, we do it for

1:08:05

Saint Jude every year. So it's the Raging Idiots, a

1:08:07

million dollars show, and all we asked him without

1:08:09

Dirk's everybody comes played,

1:08:11

So I brought Hanson in and

1:08:14

they just really only playing Humbob. But I don't

1:08:16

know. Both times I had

1:08:19

to say because they're very

1:08:21

nice. They couldn't have been

1:08:23

nicer. But I remember Taylor coming

1:08:25

up saying, hey, listen what we'd really

1:08:27

love to do because everybody's doing two songs you know. Wait,

1:08:29

wait, Darius was out, Derek's came

1:08:32

out, um and never known two songs,

1:08:34

and I said, hey, we'd like to do this song instead. I said,

1:08:36

great, wan't you do three songs? And you have to

1:08:38

do umbob like the people want,

1:08:41

that's what they want, and the people went crazy.

1:08:44

I was watching thirty year old women climbed

1:08:47

the side of stairs backstage to get a picture,

1:08:49

and then they came up on the show and they didn't want to play it,

1:08:52

and so I said, hey, would you guys just mind playing a verse in

1:08:54

a chorus? I mean, I guess that song

1:08:56

for them though happened at a much younger

1:09:00

Maybe you know, intersection in

1:09:02

their lives and maybe they're just that

1:09:05

was a weird time for them maybe, But I

1:09:07

mean we're all like, you know, older,

1:09:09

and I mean weren't they like teenagers really

1:09:11

young, you know, I think the drummer maybe like nine,

1:09:14

yeah, something like that. Yeah. So

1:09:16

anyways, I don't know. Darius does it really well

1:09:18

too. I mean, I think he's a great champion

1:09:20

for always playing hold my hand, let her cry,

1:09:22

I want to be with you. You know. In

1:09:24

addition, all the number ones that country think he's

1:09:27

a good word. And we're torm with him the summer, which is fun

1:09:29

because we're going to kind of collaborate

1:09:32

some and come in and out and you know,

1:09:34

I mean, I love playing on those songs. I

1:09:36

want to play on that's my favorite. Darius. My

1:09:38

first ever radio interview when I was seventeen, it

1:09:41

was actually Darius, and so we've come

1:09:43

up without the band or just I

1:09:45

got they. I was again

1:09:47

my first ever interview as a teenager about

1:09:50

to start freshman year college and I was

1:09:53

a huge Hoody fan. So I drove an hour and a half. I

1:09:55

don't know if they were gonna be Sony Dean. I had no idea,

1:09:57

right and I was scared. Crap list and they said

1:10:00

you get Darius, and I was like, holy crap, and I

1:10:02

go and I was shaking, and he took the microphone

1:10:04

and just held it and led me through the interview.

1:10:06

And so we've kind of come up parallel and

1:10:09

we've both shifted formats naturally

1:10:12

both got kicked back from it. Then finally people

1:10:14

said, Okay, we believe you. And

1:10:16

so he's we've always been close and

1:10:19

he's been just a great friend to me. Yeah,

1:10:21

more than he's ever needed. But he's coming to flowing on

1:10:23

charity events. He drove in from Charleston to do

1:10:25

the Ryman Show. Yeah, he's so kind man,

1:10:28

he really is. He's got some party stories too,

1:10:30

and I will always let him tell the party story. I never want

1:10:32

to tell the but man, the

1:10:34

hoodie party stories. And he says,

1:10:37

and he said on the air before when when he finally writes

1:10:39

the book, people are gonna go, dang, we

1:10:41

heard that. You know the who used the party? Wait

1:10:44

till you know those got anybody in that era, uh,

1:10:47

you know, to preface it, I don't party a lot, but

1:10:49

anybody in those eras, like you didn't have social

1:10:51

media, so you could just kind of party and go

1:10:53

crazy and there was like no repercussions.

1:10:56

I guess, you know, like when he played

1:10:58

the show, I got him. He came

1:11:00

out during one but we were doing Purple Rain and

1:11:02

he came out and scared us, and we know he's coming.

1:11:04

It's like, I do this song. He just jumped on stage started singing. I

1:11:06

said, okay, cool, but we're gonna make you do an extra song. And

1:11:08

so I was a geek for Cracked Review and

1:11:11

then I said, hey, let's do hold my

1:11:13

hand and so we played it together, him

1:11:15

and I up front, and it was that and better

1:11:17

than Ezra had. Kevin come out from better than we did

1:11:19

good and desperately wanting yes, total

1:11:21

selfish. Yeah. I remember running

1:11:23

through the wet grass fall in and I was

1:11:25

like, I'm in heaven. I mean heaven to

1:11:27

me, those are the songs when you're a kid, and

1:11:29

the artist from when you were a kid, I mean, more

1:11:32

than a superstar. The nineties stuff

1:11:34

too, man, that nineties rock,

1:11:36

I mean who didn't love that stuff? Now? The Pearl jam

1:11:39

that was going on Cracked Review, I mean

1:11:41

that was I was obsessed, so

1:11:43

obsessed with Craig Review. There was an

1:11:45

album cut on that called Running from

1:11:47

an Angel, and it was

1:11:49

running from an Angel, running to the

1:11:52

Devil Deva and and I

1:11:54

was talking Darius in Austin. He came into a cherry Ban said,

1:11:56

Hey, dude, I haven't heard that

1:11:58

song of forever. That was my Janie got Hig school for all practice.

1:12:00

And he goes, man, he goes, I've played

1:12:02

that song in ten years. And we're at

1:12:05

the event and he goes, I got this for you. They worked it

1:12:07

out and they played the all song. Oh man, I think

1:12:09

I got an direction. It was amazing.

1:12:12

Toner a

1:12:14

musical, a toner, that's what they call it. Pitch perfect.

1:12:16

So you guys are going out with Darius. They

1:12:21

the third one is coming out to pitch Perfect three.

1:12:24

Maybe I should just at least leave my disclaimer that my

1:12:26

wife is obsessed and so I kind of been the lunchbox.

1:12:28

Just want the whole thing about high loves pitch perfect. Kind of

1:12:30

good though, that's what he said to I mean, Anna Kendrick's

1:12:33

fun to watch, dude. She's a great singer. So you

1:12:35

guys are out with Darius all

1:12:37

summer, all summer. Yeah, she'll

1:12:39

be rocking, man. I mean, she was really I'll give it

1:12:41

to Hillary. She was, you know, like,

1:12:43

guys, I'm ready to go back out. Let's let's playing

1:12:46

another tour, another big amphitheater

1:12:48

tour. So um, it'll be fun. We've

1:12:50

never like really done like um. It

1:12:52

just kind of this co headlining thing back and forth, so

1:12:54

it's gonna be cool. Well, I gotta say I

1:12:57

was looking forward to this because you

1:12:59

should be the lead talker. No man,

1:13:03

like this is if you have like an hour, I

1:13:05

can I can do like this

1:13:07

is. I'm just fantastic. I didn't know what

1:13:09

to expect because Charles has such a big

1:13:12

personality and he's also the front man

1:13:14

talker to right and again,

1:13:16

I like Charles and I get along with great with Charles.

1:13:19

But you know, you come in and you know you you take

1:13:22

your role and you go, yeah, when you need me, I'm here.

1:13:24

Well, I just I don't feel like I can

1:13:26

like I'm hard and like in a one to

1:13:28

two minutes setting. It's just hard for

1:13:30

me to get deep because I think I'm always thinking,

1:13:33

you know, really deep, and so it's hard for me to like fully

1:13:36

get there in a minute or two at radio. So

1:13:38

I hope you feel like you got there. I

1:13:40

totally feel like this was enjoyable. Thank you my

1:13:43

first podcast. I get that guy over here.

1:13:45

Look at this guy, Dave Haywood, the

1:13:47

unicorn, never by

1:13:49

himself out. I've never had a conversation until

1:13:53

you came over to the house. And thanks for coming up

1:13:55

to hill, Thanks coming over the house. Thanks for having me. Seriously,

1:13:57

we've done an hour in hour in ten minutes

1:13:59

or it goes like that. Uh, that's

1:14:02

awesome, man. Thanks for having me twice you went huh.

1:14:04

I've never have been as said, oh that. Those are

1:14:06

the rewards for me when someone goes, you

1:14:09

know what. I didn't thought about it that way. So I

1:14:12

feel like it's been a good conversation. I learned

1:14:14

a lot. Thank get this guy genius

1:14:16

over here. Mike, you think you want to add Yeah,

1:14:18

me too, man, I'm completely satisfied.

1:14:21

All right, Dave Heywood, go watch him

1:14:23

and uh Charles and Hillary, Ladiana

1:14:25

Bellham and Darius throughout the summer and Heartbreak you may

1:14:27

listen to a year from now because podcasts Live Forever. Their

1:14:30

newest album after Heartbreak, it's called insert

1:14:32

here is amazing. I love

1:14:34

it. It's probably my favorite new record. When you agree

1:14:36

with a lot of hard in this one. You really found yourself

1:14:38

in debating yes, yes, yes, all right, we'll

1:14:40

see you guys next time.