sometimes you just meet people and you feel like you already know them 100% GL you feel that way too I just literally had that experience like I got Goosebump so I was like I feel like I know you I [Music] know and I know to some degree that's because you're an honest songwriter yeah and you put your heart into your music and we go through life finding artists that we love and appreciate and we
embrace them and we all feel that way it's why we queue up to go see play live and wear the t-shirts and all those things but still I felt like I know you well back at you Kindred Spirits indeed it's lovely to meet you at L properly um we're here to talk about this new album and everything in between oh we got a lot to talk about we got a lot to talk about yeah well well where do you want to start because I mean I you know what
I'm I'm going to I'm going to ask you a question I think I've ever asked anybody I think it's fitting all right because I I know how you see life through the lens in your music but how do your friends see you what how would your friends describe you really if you the real ride or dies where are the qualities that that they really appreciate about you yeah I honestly think that it's probably some of the qualities that you can
actually hear through my music because I write what I live I write what I know I think probably a lot of them um think that I'm a hard worker um that I don't take no for an answer um and even on this record I get to show my funny side I'm not going to lie I'm pretty funny I'm pretty funny okay like I don't get to show that side a lot it's one of my favorite traits in anybody who has who can say and I do the
same thing you know I'm funny I am funny I and my friends would say that I'm funny I'm crazy and you can even hear that in the record but do you like people do you mind if people laugh at you as long as long as with you cuz I'm totally fine if you laugh at me oh if you're not laughing at me and with me I feel like something's wrong that's my thing as long as you're laughing and if I can't give you hell about things yeah
yeah yeah I feel like oh gosh I don't know if I can feel comfortable around this person I got to be able to mess with you you got be able to mess with me you got to be able to snap with each other man you got to be able to snap with each other and go for it that's the point that's it you know the the hardworking thing is an interesting thing to to bring into that into that and thank you for answering in into that
sort of reflective space of like what how do my relationships relate to each other like myself to my friends to my family and I think we've we've acknowledged that you like many of your peers work hard you have to that's right it's of the most courageous things that you can do is to back yourself in any Walk of Life and being an artist is 100% backing yourself oh that's it if you don't believe it why would it anybody
else yeah yeah and and by the way if you let somebody else back you before you back yourself it always ends terribly uh hit the nail on the head and actually somebody the other day asked me they said can you believe it can you believe like everything that's happening and I said yeah because I've always believed it and sometimes you know it's not that you're like pretending to be something
that you're not but sometimes you kind of even as a child I had to pretend to be what I knew that I could always become you got to put yourself there you got to put yourself into the shoes of what you knew it is that you could always be people sometimes refer to that as using your imagination which is a fair observation but I actually think sometimes it's about distraction it's about putting finding an environment
that you can believe anything is possible and that you have a place in because the reality is the opposite and that is a powerful manifestation tool it is it is I don't I don't know what I would have done um as a child without songwriting I mean like that that's what I I would go play basketball and cheer and ride horses and do guitar lessons and this like I I did everything but this was my way of communicating and um
it's funny because my manager and I were best friends we've been working together for about nine years and before we even decided to work together she just wholeheartedly believed in me as my friend and uh she told me one time she was like you're one of the worst communicators I know but one of the best songwriters and that kind of sums it up I'm like let me just tell you how I feel in a song you know it's uh I'm I'm
getting a lot better at it but what do you like on texts yeah no heart straight to the point straight to the point I'm not a I'm not a big textor I don't really enjoy talking on the phone a lot but I love like deep meaningful conversations and the first time I got to speak to you for just a few minutes I know I was like oh we going to talk about we're going to talk about some stuff I felt the same way so let me ask
you then as a as a as a form of release as a form of escapism as a form of communication how did music help you as a kid and and answer as as openly and honestly as you feel comfortable what was child like for you and how did music help oh my gosh well I think you know I've of course I I dealt with things that all kids deal with uh Mean Girls We End I'm so glad bullying is a real conversation topic now because
when you were when I was and I'm much older than you when I was young it was just like sort of deal with it and deal with what deal with going to school and being terrified for 8 hours a day right that's right um and I don't even I don't even know if I would say they like they like bullied me you know I've seen kids like get bullied um but it was hard you know I mean when you're 13 14 years old and
disappointments at your fingertips at that age that's right that's right um but you come home and you like find this outlet that just kind of helps you get through all the emotions um of course like dealing with stuff at home behind closed doors and um I just I feel like there's it's been a songwriting has been a thing for me me too like I'll I'll observe other people and I will be able to uh become become more like
empathetic towards people i' I'm able to kind of like take some of their pain on which is one of my worst qualities and my best qualities but I can write from somebody else's perspective and I think just songwriting in general has has made me a better person it's so funny I'm glad that fine line between embracing somebody's feelings and emotions and being able to translate them to help others and versus what I used to do in
my life which was almost emotionally mug people for Value cuz I would be like I'm I can help let me help let me help tell me what's wrong let me help let me help because I felt like I needed to be a fixer of something and and that's just like that ain't good for anybody cuz you know you you're not letting people inhibit their own their own their own structure and their own strength and you
really can't actually keep any of that no you can't sustain it and I'm learning how to like even in meet and greet lines I mean like things come in small increments meaning somebody might be getting engaged yeah in front of me and then 15 seconds later somebody's telling me like a a traumatic story like you know there was a a little girl who came through my line this past week um who had a brain injury and um the mama told
me she was like I I put my phone next to her bed when she was in a coma for however long and I I left your song Heart Like a truck on repeat and that's what she listened to the entire time and she ended up waking up and it kind of throws me for a loop because when I tell you I have like deep connections with my fans um I don't know if everybody gets to experience that but I feel like I could pick all of them out
from a lineup I feel like I could I could look at them and be like I met you at this and you told me this about your sister and um it's uh it's hard to take on a lot of those emotions and I've learned how to like feel it and kind of like I guess just like be proud that they're willing to share sh these things with me and that they feel comfortable enough to share it with me but I also at times just have to be like okay you can't
carry it around everywhere you go and I even do this this thing like yeah yeah where you kind of like this you're like you actually you almost physically like allow the energy to to release itself that's crazy I do that as well I have to like be very aware of that because I breathe it out to Big breath do sometimes you just sit down and just take a big deep sometimes I do it at
dinners and people think I'm crazy we literally be having dinner I'll go and it almost stops conversation I'm like you should no like I'm just it's good I got to get rid of some stuff real quick it's good you should try it everybody do it just breathe a little bit the truth is we're not really taught how to breathe we breathe short all the time like we don't even know how to breathe we are short dumping on our own
Shoreline all the time I know breaking our own necks all the time you know I can imagine that when it's time for you to sit down and make a new record that you're only going to set the the bar for yourself to improve on the last record to find some new learnings for yourself write better songs go for it lots of ways to do that I love that you did it with your friends and I love that you did it with your band I didn't even know
it was a thing but I've spoken to friends of mine who come from the country music environment the community who were like no there are session musicians and live musicians yeah and the road doesn't always match uh-uh but man you can hear it on this record everyone is showing up and it's just everyone's just supporting the songs well and I will I'll tell you I'm so proud of my band yeah like these are the
guys that not long ago we were riding around in a flatbed F450 truck with our equipment strapped down to the back they right or die they are right or die I mean these guys are the ones that ate dirt with me and I I think it's really important to keep the people close that you ate dirt with they know you they know how bad you want it they want it just as bad they love you for you they would they s acfic so much to be out
there on the road with you and I mean when you've played a thousand shows together the chemistry and just the unspoken language of playing has just got to be I mean I and this I have to be careful here cuz I know how good this person is they walking in the room hearing your direction and giving you what you want they work their lifetime to get there and they session for a reason oh 100% And so taking nothing off that but but
that but but there is some magic too and and we even brought in some session players too with my band cuz we had double drums because I wanted that extra thump on this record which I think we found but every single one of my band members is influenced from something different we got Punk Funk rock blues Jazz you name it and you put this voice on top of anything and it's going to be country you know what I'm saying like
let's just go ahead and talk about the elephant in the room I love that's such a good observation because you know you are so wonderfully proud of where you're from and where you stand and I mean you know just b b rout you know like there's Louisiana roots and I feel like you you can plant them anywhere but you also acknowledge that you know Nashville and this home of country music and what it
means to the world yes requires a real reverence and I and I feel like the community loves you cuz you love the community well thank you for saying that because that's how I feel I don't know if if everybody in this industry gets to feel like the genuine love and support that I feel um I mean of course you're going to have some people that like just hate you cuz other people love you yeah
right of course of course it's adrenal that's a get a good Adrenaline Rush that isn't it's a nice little endorphin kick when can be the one in the bar who says I don't get it that's right but no I feel like there's so many people who who want us to win and they don't even have a dog in the race you know like even publishing companies and that like they're not even they don't even have a songwriter on this record um they just
like support us and and love us and like genuinely mean it and um I think it's because I've spent 13 years in Nashville developing my relationships with people I was going to ask you for the people out there that are in a hurry and trust me if there's one thing we know about the world we live in right now we've enabled ourselves to be in a hurry M so every generation growing up in it wants it quicker than the last generation
attained it and so for the people who are moving quick what alongside the relationship building which is key page one material have you learned in in the journey cuz didn't happen fast for you but it's happening for the right reasons so what did you learn was important having being on the flatbed truck to the point where you're the Entertainer of the Year it was uh all always you of course even when I moved
to Nashville I was like man I'm going to get me a record deal and I'm going to like start playing shows and that's it I'm going to be on the radio and like we made it and then I realized really quick that like all right that's not how it's going to be um and then I was 10 years into a 10year town is what they say and um so and that that term refers to that's how long it kind of takes to get
your feet that's what they say and of course just like you said I mean times are definitely changing I remember me and mandoline my manager last night we were talking about like remember when we cracked 10,000 Instagram followers and we were like oh we about to have a party you know what I'm saying like like and we didn't even buy them you know yeah yeah yeah and then we didn't even buy we even B like take that and I get to jop
over that yeah yeah yeah we didn't even buy him it's brilliant so uh We've realized that it has truly just been like Brick by Brick and I think it's just been like coming up to like a roadblock cuz there's millions of them and you just figure out okay what can I do to get around this roadblock do I go right do I go left but always choosing to uh to treat people right and also I mean do what you think is right
for you and and sometimes that does mean making people mad well that's why it takes longer most of the time is because you are willing to trust the inner voice that's it I cannot wake up 30 years from now and not be proud of like how I handled things and I've just I've wanted it to be like lay that Foundation Brick by Brick cuz I I don't want to be a flash in the pan I want to have longevity I want to be able to L it's
too late for that you know you can't be it's way too late for that thank you you know that flash in the pan both Flash and pan are long gone okay okay you know we're in a different place now all right I'm going to say you said it oh dude I am in a very large chorus the music has led you to this beautiful place in your life and this album um is a is a is the latest and in my opinion the greatest example of what you can do with your you
know with your friends so what did you learn about yourself and as a writer making this record where did you go I'm learning how to like just trust myself um not that I haven't like trusted myself in the past but I've also learned that like go different places I mean this year we've already toured Australia UK Europe and I get to meet many different types of people from all over and the more I do that the more I
realize that we all actually have a lot more in common than you think and um I think I've learned to just like to lean into to those things and um not be scared to like you know stay true to myself of course stay true to my story and my roots but not be scared to color outside of the lines I don't want to I don't want to play things safe like I I don't think that you should um I think you should show that you're growing and
changing and I think for the most part with this record um we do kind of have that constant thing that has like worked for us yeah but I think we just leveled up oh yeah you did and also just even the the aura around some of these songs the way that you um this this space in in these songs like a some of them are very direct and and hit you where you want them to other ones I find quite
ethereal in in places and there's a lot of space kind of moving throughout them yes and I I really appreciated that about listening to it like I think about a song like even middle of it which I love which I know obviously we've heard these Calles before but but a million times no no no no no but it's like it's like I'm going St by know I him that that kind of thing right look at you I'm just like put him in the
bank boys you got to lose your job no way your boys are so good but when you hear those chords right when you hear those chords right which is just such a lovely the open strings are begging to be played everything is just very like a motive just tell us a story about that song cuz I love that song and I I love those chords you know what this song I was we had actually just got nominated for Entertainer of the Year
for the CMAs and I had not been at my house in Nashville any and I didn't have furniture in my house for months standing musicians dilemma like we don't need a couch we're not here so um my friends the heart Wranglers came over and they just said like let's let's do a a heart check you know and they're like what's going on where you at how you feel where's your on the floor you just sat on the floor I sat on the floor and
um I just said I feel like I am just smack dab in the middle of it I don't like it's a blur to me like where it started where it's going to end up I just can't hardly tell and then we just kind of started talking about how like that's really kind of what all this is about anyway that's the beauty of it the beauty of it that's the beauty of it exactly the same when you're on a flatbed truck that's it that's the
beauty of it you have no clue and and that like naiveness and that just uh that hunger and and drive just like keeps you going but I thought that this song would be one that I just like you know played for a few of my team members played for my mom and daddy and um that was it I didn't know that it would really serve a purpose for other people it had plans it had other plans sometimes you think you
know what you're writing about and turns out you had no clue yeah that's I love it right Bob D say that all the time right he would always refer to the fact that everyone will pour over his words and he's like I don't know ask me in a 100 years words change meanings change I don't know what it means they do they do and um I'm very very proud of this and too just like the reason that we ended up wanting to name the record Whirlwind
is because of moments like that because I was just I felt like I was my life was changing um at 190 MI hour and I was just trying to keep one foot on the ground um but I think those 10 years of nothing happening for me prepared me for my life changing super fast without a question of a doubt and the thing is the other thing is you can't actually plan it that way no no one in their right
mind is going to be like I'm going to take 10 years deliberately before anyone cares and no one says okay it's going to happen in 10 months you know all you can do is hope I think I think it's important first of all I think it's important you got good people around you because I have got good people around me people who keep me humble not that I wouldn't be anyway but like even my NE easy job yeah it's so funny like the
acms this past year my little nephew Knox he's 5 years old and uh when we won Entertainer of the Year he he ran to his bedroom and grabbed his trophy and said what's the big deal I got a trophy too and I'm like you little turd yeah I love that but I'm like those are the things right there they're like ain't L he's not even cool not even cool well yeah yeah but 5-year-olds will never let you know they'll never let you
know um so when the success started to happen when you recognized okay all this work that I've I've put in with my friends in the band and my team around me and we've been driving for this moment it's starting to happen What surprised you about that feeling obviously there's going to be nights where it's euphoric and there's going to be moments when you feel like wow we achieved something and the the
champagne's flowing and it's a good night right but with the with their feelings you had the next day or one that surprised you perspectives or different context 100% I think I mean even when you think about when you were 16 and you're like man if I could just get a car man if I could just get my license if I could just get a boyfriend if I could just you know graduate college if I could just get a a song cut if I could
just get a publishing deal if I could just get a record deal if I could just get on a tour if I could just have a number one at Radio if I could just win an award it's just like it's beautiful it goes on and on and on and on what I realized is like that that don't stop um and we've gotten here and we've like showed up and we have um had a lot of wins in the past few years not from us even trying to be like okay this
record is going to win some awards what I've realized is like the journey don't end here just cuz like you've arrived um it's got to keep going you got to keep telling uh the rest of the story and so we're the story is just kind of writing itself as we go can I read you this quote last night I was watching watching no direction home I'm in a very obsessive Bob Dylan pH like kind of freaking out like kind of watching his
songwriting at 22 and just freaking the out like I'm just at home watching it with my wife just going it's I'm I said to her I'm amazed any of us are still here in this industry at all cuz it's like the guy just kind of did it like in two years he just did it like I'm surprised everyone just didn't cash up but okay so it says here an artist has got to be careful never really to arrive at a place where he thinks he's at
somewhere you always have to realize that you're constantly in the state of becoming you know and as long as you can stay in that realm you'll sort of be all right I'm going to need you to send me that I will it's so good it's so true it is so true I never want to feel like all right we did it we made it what's it I don't even know I guess I kind of thought I did and I'm like what does that mean such a good job of defining it
like we go all right a billion streams that's it boom right Entertainer of the Year that's it boom right oh you just played so far boom and all those things are great and but they're just moments like everything else right they're just moments I love that this is when I tell you like I'm I I'll be able to cancel my therapy session later cuz this is like doing the job brother same same I love
therapy isn't it the best it is everybody needs a little therapy you can afford it and you can make time for it and you can get out of your own way I highly recommend you if everyone listening you just create a little space to fill it with some good things that's right right just clear a little space to put good what was the song on this album on these 14 brilliant songs that you felt cleared the space for you what was
the one that you felt like helped you release something that had been tucked away that even you weren't sure where to find o that's hard that's so hard I mean I'm not going to just give you those softball questions here what hard I know I know I know um I feel like writing whiskey color crayon um was a super like just an experience for me I always I always go into a songwriting session and I'm like okay I want to I want to
learn something about myself I want to learn something about other people and I learn something about my co-writers and I just want to feel like I've left here even if this song never sees a light a day I want to feel like um I got something today you know like I was fed that song actually came from a word exercise that my co-writer did and he I'll probably getting this wrong but like every morning before he writes
songs he writes like a list of of things and like say the the first list that he wrote was things that I hate and maybe it's lettuce or turn greens or whiskey or whatever and then he writes a list of random things like things that you can use to cre eight and maybe it's a number two pencil maybe it's a a colored crayon a Sharpie whatever and he literally was mix and matching oh my God words this is
crazy you're saying this yes because last night back to Dylan he goes to this Cafe in London or in the UK when he's touring and everyone hates him because he's playing electric he's playing Rolling Stone and stuff like that like a rolling stone and and there's this Cafe there and it's like it's fascinated by it CU it's like we will we will take your animals clean them and curate full curation we sell cigarettes and alcohol
we also accept pets and siblings or something like there a mad list on the side of the store and so he's reading this list he reads it in order and then he goes and and it was like we will and we will sell we buy and sell alcohol and cigarettes he goes we will curate your cigarettes buy your alcohol bathe your curation no we will bathe your pets buy curate your cigarettes and he just takes
the whole list and rearranges it on camera until he gets it so good he's laughing so hard and then he's like I just did it like and he just looked at the list all of us would walk by and never even look think twice and he rearranged every single thing until it was like so sell back my cigarettes curate my ba my my pets bathe my conscience do this thing he took every word and made a s like I was like oh
that's why you're that just in another Stratosphere just took every single thing and arranged it until he he made it like a Dylan song like do that so when you make these lists and you do that that's that's like a similar thing you're like okay I took a number two pencil yes right and I drew and I put a message in the Bible and then I and then I went and picked my lettuce out the garden and he's like Bible pencil lettuce like it's nuts I
love that I do too I'm geeking out right now that is like so sick that is so sick and this guy Josh Kier who I've written uh I wrote my song Watermelon moonshine with he uh he's just he is a mad scientist I guess you could say but he like mix matched these words and he was like well I've got this you know like whiskey color crayon and we were just like you know they we got to thinking about like the storyline of this and
they came up with okay let's think about like a a young student like the colored crayon part you know okay and like how how could we tell a story about a little boy who goes through some things at home that most people don't know about but teachers serve such an important I mean they're they're so important in kids lives my mama was a teacher my daddy at time like for like six months all of my
aunts my grandma I was even majoring in elementary education at one point and I was like man I'd really kind of like to have like a teacher appre appreciation type song too because just shining a light on them cuz I don't know I think they kind of get the into the stick at times but we created the story and for me again putting myself into the shoes of of somebody else takes me out of my mess for a minute and gives me like a a fresh
and new perspective of like okay but like you might be having a hard day today but like what about this little boy and the things that he has to deal with and I left that songwriting session after we told this story just feeling feeling grateful feeling like you know I I feel like everything that's happening in my life is great but just like everybody I still got my struggles got my dark days um you got to go there too
to be able to perform a song like that regardless of the fact that you've been able to create an recreate an experience that no doubt is going on and give it this beautiful imagery for you to believe it you're going somewhere inside and something out that connects to that story right it may not be your mama and a smile with the church dress on but there something you can recognize there oh my gosh and too I think I think back
to like myself as a child but I also think back to like some of my friends that had similar experiences and even like all the little kids that come through my Mee and greet lines and at times I'm just like they seem like it's one of the happiest days of their life to you know to meet us and like you know they're that's their very first concert but at times I'm still like we all put our pants on the same
way one leg at a time mhm and and you know what we want after that more cowbell yep you better more cowbell uh that's what I want that's right I'm a cowbell right here right here that's right you just had that full circle experience in in in your own way last night um you know you got a chance to pay tribute to somebody who I think we considered to be eternally young but man as she lived a full life so so Miley
Cyrus and I've met her many times now and and we've had some beautiful conversations on and off the Record so I I really really appreciate Miley and she knows this MH because see I hate the term old soul and I tell you why cuz he gets kicked around at young people and I think it's an excuse to to dump your on young people are you're such an old soul wow let me tell you about my life and I'm like I'm
nine you doing wow right so I that's that's my experience with that term even though I do think we we go around the block and I think Miley carries with her that sense of like man she had to live a life at a young age she did she did and wow as she come through the other side of it like man it's it's amazing and just watching her on stage last night and how she just like you can tell everything that is coming out of her
mouth she means it yeah and she is just like she's real and she's had to just like she's lived a lot of life in a short amount of time and that right there is hard on anybody and it's just she was an inspiration then and she's still an inspiration to me now and kind of incredible as well that a lot of times you meet your Heroes like when Janelle Monet told me she met Stevie Wonder but there's like this Gap age Gap
so it's like there's reverences there but in a lot of ways you and mile were contemporaries it's just that she was over here in this machine yeah and you were figuring out where you fit yeah but similar kind of time frame so it must be really nice to be able to to share a moment like you did last night by for sure I mean and and she she don't even realize how actually how much that she
taught me meaning I mean from 8th grade to 12th grade I impersonated Hannah Montana I mean I had the wig the portable sound system y'all I would do like three or four parties a weekend oh like literally out there doing that like an Excell not just for friends like a an hsing no like my eighth grade teacher was like Hey if I buy you a Hannah Montana wig will you put it on and come to my little girl's birthday party and
I'm crazy as hell so I went and bought the karaoke track and I already had a portable sound system this is amazing and so I did it for five years five years I did it for five years and I that's a job job that's it so I like it taught me that like this ain't going to be easy so like even when I moved to Nashville in 2011 I had been touring since yeah the eighth grade grade like I mean I was sorry Mom
and Daddy but there were times when I was 14 15 I was driving around without a license to get to the birthday party you know what I'm saying wild okay and also the fact that you have to cut your teeth being the best version of somebody else so you have to park your own identity work for a while yes you can't you don't even have the space to go out there and go well here's one I wrote and I'd like to see what you think well I will tell
you there were times when I would open up the show oh my God supported you supported Hannah Montana I know so I was like well I would call the the mama of the birthday party and I'm like hey Hannah Montana's GNA be there I was acting like I was the booking agent Hannah Montana's G to be there at uh at six o'clock hey is it okay if if Laney opens the show and they're like well who's Laney I'm like the person you hire
to be Hannah Montana and they're like no no no no we just want Miley or we want Hannah Montana and uh but then there were times where they were like sure that's fine and said I'd run behind a tree or wherever it was at the park and put on my Hannah Montana dress and come out and do like a hour and a half show and load up and go to the next one I mean I was doing like I would go to a
nursing home and even do it and then I would do like a three-year-old's birthday so I had to learn how to like speak to older people I had to learn how to speak to three-year-olds I had to learn like it was a learning experience 13 14 figuring this out you're at a point in your life where you're just trying to figure out who you are right I say this with confidence as a parent of two boys who are now through that phase
in their life 18 and 16 pretty strong identity where they want to be today yeah but those couple of years earlier than that is rough and you're out there like okay people made fun of me a dude that's another reason why I would I'd come back home and I'd write a song like if I had not been Hannah Montana and and not been hurt by some of the things that people said to me or behind my back or whatever like I don't know I would have
been inspired to write as much music it's so crazy to me that you're out there working toward a dream and a goal clearly showing that you're willing to do whatever it takes to learn and whatever shots you're going to take I'll take him and people see that even at a young age they you know what the irony is is that most of the people who are making fun of you had no clue what they were doing at that point in
their life now they asking for tickets now they asking for tickets you know I think it's okay to swear funny right worldy friends you got to be able to you got to be able to to sip the you juice every now and then you know every now and then it's it's it tastes good Every Now does it does I'm not going to lie to you I mean every now and then you get to do it right you get to say it's so important that we stop and
acknowledge that because you know you really you took a real shot on yourself at a time when kids are just looking for validation from their peers that's right that is right my whole life depends on whether I get invited to this potty well guess what I'm playing your poty I know I mean the first time I did it I was playing on a flatbed trailer the last place I did it was at St Jude in Memphis for the kids and it
is so crazy that 16 years later this past weekend I got to visit St Jude and play music as myself I was in the exact same spot emotional I kind of Imagine an emotional for you emotional for me yeah exact same place exact same place and all this kind of happened in the in the same week and then Brandy um Cyrus also put out uh a remix of my song wild wild flowers Wild Horses so it's just like all this happened in the same week it's
just cool for me yeah it's all tangible hey energy is so tangible and I think what you put out it exists and it somehow it comes back to you and if it's good energy it comes back to you and it's and it's it's multiplied and that's how you get to meet your Heroes and mhm I think also you know Miley probably hear she will hear some of herself in you because it's impossible not to yeah for sure for sure right I mean I had to
just again it's about like stepping into those shoes yeah and uh just doing what you got to do you've got such a cool group of people around you in terms of your peer group as well um artists of this generation who are great songwriters and to some degree Outlaws Outsiders outliers you to me are f fting mix of both you're someone who can stand in the room and you can absolutely speak the
language but you're also very comfortable hanging out with jelly roll who who is like such a real one oh he is and his story is so crazy and so it it must be so nice to be able to have success but also know that you can share it with people who are different and that's being celebrated that is look my mom and daddy raised me to uh to love people love yourself um lift people up encourage people um not
everybody has to look the same act the same like that's what makes the world go around you know and I'm not going to hate somebody just because they believe something different than I do like I choose to love people we need that right now and um because and I'm not going to go any further for obvious reasons we're here to talk about art and I respect that and it doesn't doesn't get enough looks these days so I take every
opportunity to talk about that that's right but um there is a there is a reality right now where the term diversity is being used as a negative term yeah and I just I'm like wait what like isn't that where we live yeah isn't that the world we live in so the fact that you talk about love at all costs is really it's important because I think love is being weapon yeah and I'm just like at the end of the
day I um like you love them then I can't love you like that's weaponizing it is so it is so weird weird is a word that that's another word being used a lot right now it is so weird just I'm like first of all some people didn't get their ass whooped as a child and it show did your mother never scold you did she just kiss and make it better did she just kiss and make it better people who comment hateful things all over the
Internet and I'm just like man you never got your ass whooped as did no one ever tell you that we're in this together did Mama never scold you did she just kiss and make it better oh like what the I know I know but my job is to make music share stories I wanted to share a story I want to continue sharing stories I want to like do things that help me like write my story and continue I want to be doing
this when I'm 95 years old then let's talk about experience and adventure and curiosity because often in conversation with people who start to achieve dreams start to come true and whatnot it can actually with the best of intentions narrow the field of curiosity because it's like okay I've got things and this is everyone goes through this I got things I could lose yeah I got work to do to hold on to things like lose hold on all
these terms come in and they're like they're not curious terms y you can't hold on to something and be really curious right you're actually fearful so to some degree so so let's talk about the capacity for adventure and like you're on top of a mountain right now and it's a weird image but it's true but there are other mountains so there are other mountains so what's your capacity for curiosity and where where
can this go where can you go I'll tell you what everything that like feels like scary has been so worth it so worth it you know I mean my my daddy and mama got me a horse when I was nine years old and um and they put me on him he had never been ridden before he was just a 2-year-old quarter horse and uh he would like start bucking and acting crazy and whatever and I just like vividly remember my parents being
like hold on you better hold on I was crying I'm like put me down like I want to get down and I think back to moments like that in my childhood when I feel like I'm about to get bucked off but eventually he became the best horse I will ever have he's almost 30 years old now what's his name Tex and I think I just wrote him probably for the last time in November because he's he's getting old and um but
yeah sometimes the scariest things are the best things that's what I realized so I'm going to keep I'm going to continue doing things that are scary and that might that comes with stress that comes with anxiety yeah it does it does and that's you know ah man cortisol is so fascinating right like it just flows through us all times we have to do things to keep it at a low level otherwise it's such a motivating factor
it's such a trigger of like you can do it step up and sometimes you need that to get it done that's right how how good are you at turning it down when it's over I'm getting better I will tell you even just after shows for me it takes me hours to come down if we get off the stage at 11:00 at night yeah yeah I'll lay there till 2 or three in the morning yeah that's pretty pretty standard I think yep two or three just cuz I just I
don't know like my mind is is still going all over the place and um it's just that adrenaline I guess but I'm learning how like when I'm off like just trying to be like really off I'm learning how to um can you sit with yourself okay yeah I try to like do my prayer time do my devotionals uh listen to like podcasts anything that I possibly can do just to like um just Center myself get grounded and
focused and that way I can cancel out the other noise cuz there's a lot of Racket it's thrashy it is it's a thrashy world right now and especially like you say if the highest point of your day is performing in front of tens of thousands of people under very bright lights and rooms at Echo with sound systems that allow to reach the people and to be immersive and the energy a lot of lover is coming your way he combination
beautiful chemistry man addictive why would you want to do anything else but you're right it's like you got to you got to find that space where and and yeah devotional is a beautiful way to put it I totally sit on my thoughts and I guess to some degree I could refer to that as prayer 100% I sit on my thoughts I reflect I project sometimes what I'm looking for and the hope that something the universe or someone or something
hears it that's right um when is that at its most powerful for you when when when do you really feel heard in that environment when you're sitting in your thoughts looking for when I'm at my house in Nashville with nobody there you can't hear a thing I'm out in the country um you can hear my dog snorting next to me I got a little French Bulldog and that's about it but um when I'm alone like really alone and
I don't have that that time enough but I will and and I try to just like force it even if that means I'm in the back of the bus you know um just it takes me it even takes takes me a minute to get there even if I am trying to pray you know it's like sometimes my mind is still just going 190 M an hour and it's going to take me 10 minutes to even like actually say a prayer and mean it and you know what I'm saying like it's hard
it's hard for me because I'm I mean I'm pretty add you know yeah listen I'm OCD add man I mean it's like I'm ocj and I'm adj um you know as as as a guy I knew once wrote a song which had a really good chorus that went uh M OCD and you are ad it's really good that's me I need to cover that one it's a really really good song it's funny though how we um as we get older we acknowledge some of these wirings some
of these unique wirings and I can't honestly say I don't do what I do what I love to do without that like it drives me into the Curiosity of conversation and and and wanting to get to know people and what drives the artistic spirit and if I didn't have the things at times have driven me crazy I wouldn't necessarily have the appetite to do the things that I love it's a double-edged sword it is it truly is and you got to
make sure that you're filling your cup like truly filling your cup because even if you're just doing like a little something and your cup is about 50% if you keep pouring out and pouring out and pouring out like if you're not filling it up all the way eventually it's gonna be run the hell dry speaking of which throughout your music you know you you have certain imagery that is very um
it's very uh elicits a response it's beautiful the way that you paint pictures is brilliant and you know the idea of distraction by some form of mild or extreme self-destruction is there as well this idea of like well I'm just going to sit at the bar until I don't feel a damn thing um and so that that has been present throughout the throughout storytelling in particular within the country music space for a long time and
I think that you're the person I'd love to talk to about that and what it is about this relationship with alcohol that is love and hate and I love it when I hate you and I hate it cuz I love you but I love it cuz I love you yeah you need to write that down make it up off the SP you know what I'm saying like that's how I feel about it you know oh 100% um but the funny thing is about my songw writing is even when I was 10
years old um I think I was writing like my third song I had ever written and I was writing about tequila and cigarettes and my parents didn't even smoke and they definitely didn't have tequila at the house you know they were like how do you even know what tequila is I'm like I don't it just sounded good it rolled off the tongue it rolled off the tongue something must have got in you that understood that it's a medicine
yes that really shouldn't be prescribed when it's most needed well yeah and you know my like alcoholism has ran in my family and so like that's why there was not drinks at my house growing up like they my parents try to steer clear of it because they knew that their family members had like struggled with it and they're like Over My Dead Body will I have the same problem that is incredible
Parenting by the way I know I know so the first time I saw my mama drink wine I was like oh she's going to H that's yeah yeah yeah yeah you know I was like I didn't know you drank um they just tried to make it very clear that like you don't you don't use that to you know cope and these things but a lot the voices I heard on the radio um country radio because where I'm from I'm from a town of 180 something people and like
country music is life it's more than a genre what's the name of your town Basin what's what's growing up in Basin like it's a lot of corn fields we don't even have a stop light we have a caution light um they're about to name the highway after me which is crazy are you serious which is cool oh no that is yeah so cool which is so cool but it's it's just good people um like I always say they're there when you
need them and they're there when you don't when you go home they're still there they're still there and they like they're not trying to stop by my house because I'm like Laney Wilson now yeah they're trying to stop by my house to see me because Laney's home yeah yeah and I know that there's a difference between pride and Fascination right pride is something that you can share with people and it's an open experience
for all that's Fascination can be bit much that's right you know it's B like oh I'm fascinated by what your success nah but what does that mean that's right I'm they're very very proud of me and I am who I am because of them because of that town because of it's not just like where it's at it's it's the people that were in the town I'm talking about just the people who would give you the shirt off their back and um show up and it
makes me emotional because I am so I'm very proud of of of where I'm from it doesn't have anything to offer me now except for my family and my people um those roots are everything to some degree right but you can still like be proud of where you're from and know that you're not supposed to be there but you're a traveler and and it was clear from the stories we've even heard today in our conversation that from a young
age you were searching for adventure yeah you know the fact that you wrote songs about things you never experienced because they sounded great and you know it's all make believe at that point in life right yeah through to the point where you like were booking your own shows and going out and pretending to be someone else CU that's what it took to entertain people at that point that's right getting on the flatbe
truck you'd still be doing that right now even if nashy hadn't come knocking right even if even if the CMAs were like a like a glimmer of hope in the long distance you and your band would still be on that truck oh we would I don't I don't know any better I don't know any different um I knew that like I was going to chase this thing no matter what even if still nothing was happening I'd still be chasing it I didn't know
exactly what it was going to look like and um I had a feeling at a very early age that like I I was going to be in this industry I was like going to tell stories I got bit by the storytelling bug from like my parents sitting around the kitchen table and telling stories from their childhood about an alligator this or whatever it was and me and my sister would be like tell us that story again and every single time we would
hear it it's like I would hear something new about it that I didn't before I'd laugh in a certain place that I didn't uh the time before and I just loved storytelling that's the Bob Dylan thing where you're taking the meaning of the words and reversing it like oh this's a part of the story I didn't even realize I actually found funnier than the last part of the story yes see that's the in
that's in between the spaces that great songwriters live in between the things that seem obvious to us because we're just trying to move through the Matrix you see things that are just different that's why you can write a song like will and it's not a normal love song Mmm I can't write a normal love song yeah I can't really hard too by the way I mean to just say I love you in a song I mean that's why Billy andine is just to me
the moment that I heard I love you that song is just like I don't want to but I still do like I know you're like to like how did you where did that come from like crazy I mean I love you has been said in a million different ways and we're all just trying to find ways to say it different but I don't think I'll ever be the the um love song writer that's like like super mushy gushy yeah so what is willwin then what
are you saying I finally found a guy that kind of gives me a run for my money and he's my biggest cheerleader he's uh he's just a good person and he knows how important like chasing down a dream is because even when he was a little boy he uh football was his life oh and you want to know how competitive that is I asked a professional baseball player once what what the percentage of people that go from the kids who all
want to play SPS cuz that's what you do through the actually making money of it in the professional leagues it's like 0.1 2% someone crazy about that and he he did it and he he tried out for the Steelers and uh and made the team and like so he like achieved what he set out to do and so he knows we met at a time where he was still playing with them um but then it all kind of like changed so
it was weird was like his life was changing as my life was changing and we were kind of going different you know directions what a great test yeah it was it was wild you would think that somebody couldn't handle that no it's a great test and that's what great relationships are is is to realize you can pass the tests that life give to you and it's better when you figure out the answer together that's like what it is
that's right so yeah life for us is a whirlwind I mean it's it's not normal we don't get to see each other as as often as some couples do but we also know that like that what we have is very special and um um so yeah for the most part it's it's it's hard but it's easy I'm happy for you thank you you know when you find someone in your life that you know um like I said just it's it's worth sticking it out
for it it it simplifies things in such an amazing way because they'll be there for the moments when you're celebrating together but they'll also be there to help each other out when it gets rough yes and I have a lot of people in my life like that yeah I do thank God this album is um it's a gift and we don't take music for granted here at Apple music I certainly have never taken it for granted you know when you show up
and you bring an album like this L you put your heart and soul into it I love it thank you um from keeping up with Jones all the way through to Whiskey color can crayon you've you've delivered for fans and above and beyond I really enjoyed talking with you today oh my gosh I can do this keep it rolling I'm playing I'm playing thank you so much so we'll do it again 100% all right my thank you thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] w