you're good you ah thank you you're good you you are too I like the sound effects I got to use those yeah you don't get those oh come on steal them doesn't mind you can have the songs by the sound effect you win [Music] what a journey what a life so much incredible music you've recorded the gift it's given you it's given all of us it's put you on this pathway of Life only you could experience and enjoy and make the most of and you've certainly
done that right thank you you know finding the the spirit and the inspiration to make a new album um as you move through life and and life gets confusing you know we search for Simplicity but it's not always at our
fingertips the order we get yeah trying to sort of clear a pathway to be able to find the purity of the voice that made you want to write songs in the first place get harder or easier as you get older you know I'm always searching to get better you
know so it I don't I don't know that it's harder or easier that's a that's a difficult sort of navigation for me I I'm there are times when it feels difficult and there are times where it feels easy um but to me it's always about finding the song
whether I'm writing the song or listening to songs coming from other songwriters who are friends of mine it's just about finding finding a song that has some meaning to it and some heart and some soul to it and you know without
the song you have nothing and I always say that everything good in my life has come from country music and it's given me everything in my life and and I I sort of worship at the altar of songs Ah that's one of my favorite phrases I've
used that as long as I've been talking about music Someone said that to me very on in my journey that the mission is to worship at the altar of the song and I've always referred to that it's been a North star for me that's true it's on
without that you don't have anything it's everything and when we were recording this time we started recording this album during the pandemic because I had released my last album here on Earth and it came out smack dab in the middle
of the pandemic we spoke for the first time on a video conference exactly one of my favorite chats of the Year oh thank you and and I didn't you know we didn't get a chance to really go out and play any of that music you know like
like we wanted to because we couldn't tour so I started working on the album during that you know and looking at the world as the world was at that time and what we were all going through so I was searching for songs my process is always
I have these ideas of what I want to say and the kinds of songs I want to say and sonically what I want the record feeling is it a phrase is it something you've seen that you can't shake from your sort of cerebral cortex or is it something
deep down you can't explain it's all it's all of it and it's also the world paying attention to the world and what's going on around you and and life in general I mean I think artists have a keen sense not me I'm an artist in general have sort of a keen sense of what the world feels like to them and how they interpret the world yeah and then how they translate what's going on that's the point from the world through them in how it translates
through them and I was trying to find songs that are inspiring and songs that were life-affirming it's very inspiring album thank you and songs that were about you know we all make mistakes and we're going to make mistakes and we're going to do bad
stuff and you all you can do is try to get up the next day and be the best you you can be that day and know you're going to screw up again later down the road and you got to figure out how to put that behind you and I'm lucky
because music is cathartic and it's for me it's my therapy so to be able to go in the studio and have these great songs and sort of work out your emotional baggage through these songs is is a blessing you know you've been through a
lot in your life um and you live your life through the principle of forgiveness and I want to talk about that in a minute because I think it's fascinating and inspiring that you've been able to come to terms with that term in its truest sense given what
you've been through which required a lot of forgiveness have you actually turned to therapy in your life to help you process things or has it literally just been the Arts it's been the Arts mostly I mean I've tried therapy a few times
I'm not very good at it probably the only D ever made in my life is in therapy you have a very judgmental therapist by the way you just need to see a different therapist I know right I mean forgiveness is easy for someone
else it's hard to give away you really were today wasting my time I did get that a few times um but you know it is a it's a through line on this album it's been a through line in your life it's right there in your in the timeline of your life and
what you've been through on a personal level um right down to the most core relationship that allows you to establish a foundation of trust that with the parents that that bring you into this life um you kept the last
name you've found forgiveness you maintained and built to maintained a friend of a relationship a modern relationship with your father through it all not to get too deep too early but your life fascinates me Tim and I'm going to
make the most of the hour that we have um how did you are you any closer to understanding what the voice sounded like in you that allowed you to best process forgiveness and begin that Journey because a lot of people can't
well I it's pretty simple actually um you know the circumstances I grew up in and you know thank God for my mom who was a solid rock um but she went through a couple bad marriages and relationships and and they weren't the it wasn't the best
environment to grow up in and for me when I found out who my father was because I didn't I thought my first step dad was my father and I found my birth certificate and found all that out to me a light bulb sort of went off in my head
that um if he can do that if that's my in my blood because he was a professional athlete very successful if that's in my blood then I can do something with my life and so that's where the forgiveness for me came is it was inspiring to me to know that I had something in me that I didn't know I had and I I'm not sure had I not found that out that I would have been able to have the courage and the confidence to pursue this career and try something
do you think looking back on that moment that really essential Moment In The Human Experience where forgiveness occurs in a new day begins which requires both sides to understand their role in this that you were able to teach
your father what it was to be forgiven and therefore allow him to let go of some of the because really when you when you don't feel like you can be forgiven it's because I think you feel like you shouldn't forgive yourself well
that's what I was saying a little earlier I think we were talking over each other a little bit but um the easy part is to forgive someone else the hardest part is to forgive yourself and when you look in the mirror you all
you see is the worst and I've discovered that having kids till you get your catch yourself putting your thumb on your kids sometimes and trying to squeeze stuff out of them and I came to the realization I guess all my daughters were teenagers when I would
always say oh don't do that or don't do this what I'm really doing is I'm seeing the things I don't like about myself show up in them and so you're trying to squeeze yourself out of them because you don't want them to be like you I'm not
sure I've dropped a parental bomb lately but it is their job to reject you yeah well that's what they do but but they come back around they come back around but they have to because to form an identity that is uniquely their own they have to
reject the thing that they love the most absolutely and we and you know as parents we tend to forget you you think that oh we made them so they're just like us your house they're but they're 90 their own personal 100 yeah 100 you
know you sounded up so beautifully not to begin at the end but in letter from heaven um you talk you touch on being a parent your own experience through the lens of being a child and seeing the flaws of your own parents particularly
your father and then the strength that your mother had even to leave you a letter I'm not sure how true to form this actual narrative in the song is and if you did find a letter after the film well I didn't write that and but but it
touched me I touched you in a beautiful way and felt I felt it deeply Lori McKenna wrote that song it's incredible who's among the most incredible songwriters poets in the world it's so unbelievable that someone can tap into
something that's so true to your life did she write that for you yeah I think so yeah yeah I think so yeah yeah she she's got a connection with me with about songs and about thoughts and about life that we really connect on on all sorts of levels and we wrote there's a song on the album called uh Nashville California La Tennessee I love that that we wrote together with my acoustic players been with me for 31 years so we the three of us wrote that
song and it came out of a story I guess 2018 I uh have a like 19 year old Cadillac Escalade that I can't get rid of because it's got so many memories in it they're calling kids to football games and basketball games and baseball you know
softball games all that stuff and a car full of cheerleaders and all you know all kinds of things it's like it's I can't bear to get rid of it but anyway I ripped all the seats out of the back and packed all of my oldest daughter's stuff
in and we did a road trip to move her out here to LA and so we spent about four days driving out and staying at cool places and hanging out and doing carpool karaoke and we had a had a great time well he's singing I think we she she loves show tunes a lot but we did uh I think we did one thing I think it was on she posted it on Instagram or something but it was a her and I singing uh Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb song together yeah it was
pretty cool and she's a great singer but so we got we got all the way out to LA we drove we had a great time we got here and it was late at night and I started unloading the van moving all of her stuff in and she was by that time ready to get
rid of me you know she was she's free she's in L.A she wanted she wanted me to go and I'm lingering you know just trying to unpack boxes and she's dad I got it Dad I got it so I'm like all right so I'm standing around not wanting
to leave and then I start doing it Dad you need to go and so I gave her a big hug and then of course I fell apart yeah when he gave her a hug and I went to the hotel room and cried myself to sleep and yeah woke up the next morning got in the car and deadheaded it back home and on the way home I called Bob my guitar player and and he's got grown kids and grandkids now and we were talking about life and the changes in life and and when your
kids are growing up and they're moving out and all the emotions that you go through so that song was born out of that conversation and we were both crying on the phone and talking about it it's heavy I mean I started that process
at the beginning of the year myself a 17 year old will very soon be going to college and doing what he wants to go do and you know if you know me and you you'll get to know me over time Tim I tend to try to get ahead of change and I
get taught very quickly that you can't you're always one step behind her you're always behind you right right and so you know my therapist was like man you need to invest in this change because the only way it's going to get you through
but it's it's tough what was that drive back like it was lonely it was lonely I mean I enjoyed it because it was a good time to to think and to process it gave me time to do that before I got home so I wouldn't fall apart in front of my
wife because I knew she was you know it's always harder on moms 100 because they're the ones that really do all the work oh look we had the supporting we had a supporting character at the start and we had the supporting character at
the change and the supporting character had various important points in life absolutely we're there to just do what they tell us to do and try to be the best best you know rock that we can be when we're needed yeah it's amazing to
me that you can hear these songs and make them feel like your own and that's the mark of a great performer someone who emotes through their art that doesn't um even translate you absorb and you make it your own I think about a song like standing room only your voice sounds so like young oh well thank you no but let me let me frame that because that on the surface that could feel like I'm trying to your voice has history to it it you've
earned that history you've sung these songs you've made them your own they belong to you and your voice but this sounds like almost the first song you ever sang and I listened to it a song like uh the the ideas of it I want a life I want this I want to project what my life will be and I actually wonder whether it was conscious that you even thought like you know what if I'm going to take myself back to the beginning of something that's unpromised
to me and unfulfilled with the promise of what can occur can I find the Purity in my voice to deliver this in a way that doesn't sound like me having lived the life yeah I mean that's that's the the process you go through you know
when I record I you know I try to just get behind the microphone and step into the song and I try to make every every song sort of a cinematic experience these little movies and I put myself in the movie and therefore I'm telling you the story
but if you're doing it right you allow other people to put themselves in the movie so they can find the lead character and they can be the lead character and find a part of their life that matches up with the song and they
can walk through that scene themselves and if you can do that then you really got something special and and I love being in the studio and just you know lights off just get lost in the song and just try not to try not to sing the song try to
let the song sing you yeah I mean that's why when we hear you sing these songs they belong to us immediately because you narrate for us and it may become attached it's the power of great performance I mean a lyric like does it
surprise you sometimes when you're reading the lyrics or you're processing what you're going to sing again how it just seems to be so dialed into your life like I think of a lyric like I want to take my grudges and my old regrets and let them go it's not like
you haven't been on the receiving end of some bullshittery I mean you know you're probably the one of the first if not the only artists who seem to have extricated himself from a record deal the only one from Netflix yeah yeah and that was that was a tough that was probably well I know it was um not personally well personally as well it was one of the toughest parts of times in my life was going through that order what was the feeling at the time
can you remember um the feeling was I don't know that I can regain my career after this because it was tried it tried to get squashed out that to me is almost a realization but the feeling surely exists more in a sense of hurt and just
mistrust and a feeling of like how could I be treated this way that had been that had gone on for a while and I don't want to get too personal and attack anybody because what's got done is done and look and look I had a lot of success there
and I wouldn't be at this point in my career without having that with that being said it was a it was a three four year process of um to the to the point where I had managers and everybody telling me let's just stay here you know I've been there I've been in that situation with someone who's on my team has gone dude at this point I think it's just better if you just cut your losses and get on with the job right the soccer is it not going to be
worth it and I'll tell you what I said and I'm sure you'll be able to elaborate and make it far more um you know in line with the story but I said I I can't go back no I've done like the only way forward is through yeah I knew that if I
if I would have stayed and not tried to move forward with my career no matter what happened in my career I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't progress any further as an artist now my career either it was going to grow or be stagnant or be
non-existent but it certainly wasn't going to live it could but it was going to live at curb and I wasn't going to be as good as I thought I could be and it really it was one of those moments in my life when I really realized something
about about the human experience that I couldn't understand like I couldn't piece it together which was How could somebody I knew so well assume something that was so out of my concept of reality that I was just going
to show up to work on Monday like it's all good yeah I was like Wow sometimes we really don't understand each other as a species no I mean you know you could never ever get into someone else's head I mean you just can't I mean and no
matter how well you know someone you just your best friend your wife that's getting marriage will teach you that yeah you just you just can't get in somebody's head and you can't know that every all the thought processes that
everyone's going through and and the things that they're dealing with and um yeah it's you just have to move forward you just have to keep moving forward and try to be better and try to do better and and try to find your path man I mean
if you if you can't find your way if you can't find your way nothing's going to get accomplished you know I was thinking it back to the beginning because we've never had a conversation face to face like this and and I always relish the opportunity to
talk to someone who's had you know a near 30-year career and I've never had a chance to really kick it with you you know it's like awesome like I'm just gonna dive into this I love it it's like I'm the only person in the room there's
a cake and I'm like I'll start on any angle absolutely um and I think back to your self-titled debut album and the fact that it's the only one that hasn't been successful at the time yeah we like to say it went wood it went wood
what is at least useful all right I'm just kidding I had to you bro I had to have one I had to have one now we are free you got it now we're down with it now you understand the Kiwi sense of humor if you kick yourself I'll jump I'll jump right in there I love it it's for one good one um and I think about what that must have felt like not that it wasn't successful at the beginning because I knew you were in it for the work but that it was your
name yeah yeah you know it was it was really the first time I'd ever been in a student or a proper Studio to really record anything and I didn't know what I was doing um I had you know some great producers around me James trial Byron Gallimore
um I was just learning how to find I still think there were great songs on that album but I was still you know probably getting songs from the B drawer from Publishers and stuff and but I had enough success I had one top 40 off of
that record enough to work so I was out playing Club bigger clubs and better gigs um and then it so it didn't do very well so the label sort of just forgot about me and so I started collecting songs for my next album although I don't think
they were going to give me a next album but I started collecting all these songs and I didn't play the songs for the label I didn't play the songs for my management I didn't tell anybody and I just called my producer and told him to
book a studio and didn't tell the label about it this is exactly what I was going trying to get to it and I'm glad you you're going there please continue the idea of what changed for you from that not connecting to getting to the album that did and because it was clearly you that took control of that scenario well that's what happened I was scared to death in the studio the first time scared to speak up you know didn't you know I had Indian
Outlaw for the first album but they wouldn't let me record it and so and I'd been playing it in clubs we were having to play it two or three times a night in clubs because people wanted to hear it so you knew it was connecting I knew it was connecting and um so that I took all these songs and went in the studio and and I'm a pretty reserved guy most the time and not super talkative but I went in and it took all the courage I had to
stand up in front of all these fantastic musicians and these seasoned producers and say we're cutting this album the label doesn't know we're making this record and I'm gonna do it my way I'm going to cut the songs I want to cut and
we're going to cut them the way I want to cut them and we're gonna seek or Swim and that was not a moment too soon album and that was the one that kicked kicked the world open for me it's so funny you know it's um then you get inside the the
real mindset of of and again great people in the music industry who have helped to facilitate and create and to support visions of artists for many many decades in it those are the great people in the music business that support the
vision of the artist 100 the other one who basically ultimately it comes through fear like if I if I don't have some control over this then what what is my job what's my job exactly or or um I really don't know if it's good or not yeah and then when
you have those people that just don't know they won't like I don't know what do you think kind of thing yeah they wait for somebody else's opinion then they tell you they like it or not if somebody says they don't like it then
they don't like it if somebody says they like it then they like it and I've done I better not I probably shouldn't say this but I've done things like way past that mate I've done things like you'll play a mix for for somebody uh like a
an executive or something you'll play a mix and they'll go you know this really sounds great but I think if you tweaked it right here and you tweaked it right there and you get a few little tweaks on the mix it would be it'd be really good
and I'd go okay so I go away and two or three days later I come back with the same mix and say we we tweaked it we did took your suggestions and I'll play it and they'll go hot damn that's exactly what it needed now it sounds great
the placebo effect on a record executive it's priceless I love it I mean those are the moments I think that it's as playful as they are and as much as we can laugh because we all get suckered in I mean I'm sure our kids have totally played that gag on us absolutely I've been snowed so many times so many times right but at the end of the day what they really do if you want to sort of give them some gravity is they just they they serve to to um
reinforce confidence in your own judgment well that's what but you also need somebody to tell you when something sucks if you really trust their opinion so who is that for you oh gosh well my wife yeah so how brutal is she she's
pretty brutal yeah but she's honest and and what she's well she's one to me I think she's one of the greatest artists of all time one of the greatest singers of all time yeah and and we're different types of artists you know we we
like different kinds of music I mean we like a lot of the same stuff but we like different kinds of music and and I'm always playing her the songs that I want to record and playing her mixes as I go along and there's times we don't agree
there's times where she goes I don't like the way that sounds and well I do and that's the way it's going to stay I love it and the same thing when she's making recorders like I think this should be your signal she goes no I
don't like that song this is going to be the single all right she's usually right she's right about her stuff and I'm usually right about my stuff but most of the time we agree it's really beautiful though I mean obviously
congratulations we're coming up on what 26 27 years of marriage coming up on 27. yeah me and my wife are 24 this year thank you same to you that's like 92 in Showbiz years it really is but I think it's one it's one of those really
amazing and inspirational stories because you've been able to build such a strong Foundation um and Family Foundation and built around that and unapologetically and unashamedly stood by that it's not like you know you we don't talk about this
like no no I'm proud of my family absolutely but you've also been able to maintain your own identity and there's a great Jack White song I love Jack if I do too genius genius it's a great Jack White and white stripe song shout out to
Meg which is I'm slowly turning into you which is one of my favorite songs which is the idea of that like I'm absorbing your traits to the degree that perhaps I'm losing a little bit of my own identity in the process is that a good
thing and you two seem to have been able to maintain your identity which in the in the in the artistic field is very unique has it helped that you've had your careers simultaneously going on with family that allows you to continue
to stand your ground even when someone says I'm not sure about that song as an example well yeah because we have a confidence in our life we have a confidence in our foundation and all of this could go away and we're perfectly
happy with five O's I mean we are we we are a really tight family I mean we have a my youngest daughter is 21 and when she was in high school she started a family text that we would all say goodnight to each other now it's turned into 50 60 texts a
day from all five of us sending videos and saying I love you I got one right here yes and it's just what's your score do you have a name for yours it's just a Spam how's this how's this called the rulers the rulers we ruled
there's nothing like it I mean that's that's your foundation and that'll when you have a a great Foundation a Family Foundation that allows you to soar I mean it allows you all kinds of freedom and I think faith and I the lucky thing
for us when we decided to get married we knew we wanted a family and we knew we wanted our family to come first and we were 29 when we got married not just that both of you were like you were having the kind of success early on in life that people only focus on that and because they're terrified of losing to diversify your time into something as important as a union at that moment in your careers I can imagine there must have been a
little bit of a an eyebrow that went up within certain teams of like you sure you want to do that Tim you're busy yeah I think it was her team more than mine that was like I don't know if you ought to be doing this especially with me
because I was pretty wild at the time but um but what it it did and that's what I was getting to is we were both successful and so when we got married and decided to have a family we had had enough success at that time that we could
pick and choose when we wanted to work and how we wanted to work so we built our whole schedules around our family life and our kids traveled with us until school started when the school started we didn't work and let when school was
going on for the most part every now and then there was something that came along for the most part we didn't work with schools I coached softball I coached basketball we did tailgate parties for the cheerleaders at all the football
games I mean we we were living memories you just could never know we lived our life just like everybody else I mean we were you know Mr Miss McGraw everything showing up we you know we had 15 teenage girls at our house all the time we're
cooking for them and they're singing and playing music and hanging out by the pool and it's just um we just had we've had a wonderful Foundation a Wonderful Life and and that's given us I think it gave us confidence to know that that we
were if we're strong enough to do this then we were strong enough to do anything you know what else it does is it breaks the spell that the psychology of being in the Arts having an artistic spirit that requires some form of validation in order to feel like you're being heard it creates this spell I think that we all fall into which is if I don't feed the beast I'm going to lose the chance to do what I love I can imagine that when you and
Faith made the decision together which is much stronger to walk away and Define the flow the way you wanted it to be that you broke that spell yeah I mean it did and and as a result of it it made things better or both of our careers even
exploded more after we got married because he let go of it because we let go a bit and we just sort of found happiness and relaxed a little bit about what we were doing and found some confidence in what we were doing and as
you were saying earlier that being an artist is sort of a dichotomy because on one hand you're totally insecure and you're totally think you're going to fail every time you do something and on the other hand your goal is to be the
biggest artist ever in the world so you're fighting that battle within yourself the whole time and I I don't think one works without the other and it pushes you and it drives you and um and then to have another person just like that that's your that's your
partner that you you have something to talk you have something really that you could talk about and explain to each other that that doesn't require an explanation we get it we understand it so when you're having days when you're
not feeling confident then she's the one that makes me feel confident when they're having AIDS when she's not feeling confident then I make her feel confident and it's just it's just worked for us and um and then we and then getting a tour
together and sing together act together I mean just do the stuff that we get the stuff that we get to do together is uh I I couldn't I guarantee you had I not gotten married to Faith at 29 years old a I probably would have ran my
career into the ground and B what I would have died or ran my career into the ground one or the other and it wouldn't it wouldn't ever have been where it's at now how long did Faith put up with the wild years before he realized that ultimately
you know there was some maturity that had to occur in order for the relationship to grow well I don't know if the maturity's occurred yet but but uh she put up with it for a while because that's pretty sneaky about it for a while but um I mean it was just you know overdoing stuff you know overdoing stuff and then when the kids I think when the kids got old enough that they could notice things is when she finally said you know you got
to figure this out one of my favorite songs on the record is hey whiskey I I just loved that I loved I loved the whole idea of having a conversation with something that's been a friend and a foe it doesn't have a personality but man it
sure puts it in you yeah it does the art takes it away from me one of the other it does most yeah um yeah that song was very personal I loved the song right off the bat a couple of my friends are two of the writers on it the Warren brothers
or good friends of mine and when they sent the song right away I knew I wanted to cut it and it was personal in a lot of ways um the cool thing about that track was we cut it I guess I want to say it 10 o'clock at night 11 o'clock at night
it was on the last song on one of the sessions we were doing which I still love going in the studio with the band I do it the old way with the full band why would you not and you're in there for like three weeks all day everything's
the hum of every instrument is on all the time so good it's so good yeah so good and the Energy's there and I have my microphone right in the set right in the um in the control room with my producer you know that I could
produce with a Byron and so I can talk to him and I can sing but that track I I knew the song because I'd had it for a while and I said let's let's do the song my voice was shredded I was hoarse I didn't think I could sing and anybody
knows anything about recording most of the time when you're doing tracking vocals you're just getting the track down you're not really paying attention to to your vocal that much you know because you go back in and sing later
yeah yeah most of the time yeah but I knew all these songs so well so most of these songs came from tracking vocals yeah because your subconscious is like don't worry about it yeah don't worry and whiskey was shredded voice the very
first run through on the song I sang it and we did a couple more run throughs to try to get the track right and then I went back in to try to re-sing the song and I couldn't I could sing it better but I couldn't sell it better but again
so we kept that very that the entire track the entire vocal is the very first run through of that night when my voice gone it's that classic thing that we're getting to grips with here in this conversation which is that you know what
the the real Tim McGraw required to find the truth inside the song is there you just have to allow the voice to come out and represent it whether it's the sound of a young person whose hopes and dreams are laid out right in front of them you know in standing room only right through to hey whiskey which is the the desperation and exhaustion of somebody who's at the end of the Rope desperate to move on yeah desperate I mean that's the key word to
desperate and you know and that's what I think the vocal has in it a little bit of death it was desperate because I was worried about it worried about singing a different kind of desperation but it translates but there's an honesty to it as well and yeah and um that's to me it's like I want to feel like I'm having a conversation with somebody when I'm singing a song and that's what I want to feel like I'm sitting just like I'm sitting here
talking to you right but that's why I feel so comfortable talking to you yeah it's just that's the way I try to sing a song you've always been fit you've always obviously had a strong you know good genes good genes that's right
that's what I count on good jeans my uncle was a pro ball player my dad was a pro ball player so yeah yeah but you've but you've definitely focused on Fitness and on and on physical well-being in recent years um you know you dedicated
that you inspire others to do it you're invested in it you have ESPN joining you on tour amongst other things I mean it's clear that Athletics and physical performance is something that you've been able to turn your attention to in
light of living other habits for the most part behind how important has that been it's so important it's therapy for me and you know I I try not to miss a day I mean I'll take a day off every now and then I try not to miss a day it's
just it clears my head and I actually get a lot of ideas musical ideas stage ideas professional ideas family ideas when I'm working out and and when we're on the road it's even more intense because we work out pretty much all day
when we're on the road and the band does it with me and what that turns into is sort of a therapy session for all of us because we we're working out and we're talking we're talking about our issues and our problems we're having with
family you know things we need to deal with and we also talk about our show and so it's a it becomes more of a team building exercise as much as anything when we're when we're out there until until about three hours into it when you
see guys when I'm when I turn my back to do something I turn back around I see somebody sneaking off and getting on the bus and or EJ my security guy pretending like he's on the phone talking that so he can't do a workout yeah
and you're slim but they but they but they they hang in there pretty good but it's uh but we always say too that if on the days that we can't work out and we can't get a workout in we don't feel like our show's is good uh I mean I I
found it later in life I struggle with it on and off I would do it and I'll do it do it not do it in the end I just need to find what I wanted to do yeah that inspired me you know I mean the boxing for me is like there you go get
that yeah that's fun and uh and I I hate it man if I miss a day you're right I think we think it's about improving the body I've always found the better success comes when you realize that the Mind Is Telling the body what to do you
got to get the Mind Right absolutely and that to me they're one in this they work symbiotically for me as far as workouts go I mean it's it's it's it's good for me I'll put it that way I spoke live on the radio show this morning as of taping
and um I I played um your song and I um I tried to remember me well and I I tried to put into context how I feel about the way you and Faith live your life through the music and into the conversation and I want to commend you I think that you know I think the way I put it was there are people who who step out and people who stand up and you have consistently stepped up oh thank you I you know I think the the moment that I feel like
I'm not improving and learning and getting better every time I go in the studio getting better with how sonically I want things to sound how I want to sing the songs that I want to record if I get to the point where I think that
I'm not improving that's going to be the time to stop doing it because I never want to be the guy that's just doing the same thing over and over and over again but do you do you understand that you and Faith represent something beyond the
quality of consistency of the art that you've shared with us that has been very important to the growth in evolution of the way country music shows up in the conversation that your bravery and ability to be able to say go on stage and show
um inclusion and diversity and openness Choose Love and not hate absolutely these have been really important steps towards allowing others to step in and do that even at the expense I think of some audience yeah we probably on but I
tell you it's worth it and if you can make one person think just a little bit when they hear something like humble and kind or something like standing room only if you can make one person think about how they can you know take that go
huh you know maybe I should change the way I think a little bit about something then if you can do that then it's worth it all just one person you know it's concentric circles you know you first you gotta look in the mirror yeah
yeah and then you got to teach your kids to have humility and kindness and then they go out and they show that to their friends and then their friends show that to their friends and it just eventually it gets out into the world we live in a
time now where you you can't run from conversation and you can't run from progress um one way or the other you're going to be in drawn into a discourse whether it's with a family member a friend on social media on stage it
doesn't matter and and quarantine really brought it and importantly and rightfully so brought a lot of that to the surface and it was like all right look we're all on the same planet and I really felt again like you stood up and
you really you expressed how you felt in a very honest and true way um I know from speaking to other artists I have the saying when it comes to artists who contribute to the conversation or show up politically sociopolitically or any or on any kind
of level that I don't expect it but I respect it when you do yeah but I don't want to expect it of you because your job is to write and create art that moves me so I don't want you to feel a responsibility sure and you know I think people that's I mean people get so caught up into what people's politics are and what they think especially when you're musicians or athletes and they instantly want to say I'll just shut up and sing or that's why
I just shut up and play ball or whatever and it's like well I have an opinion too I mean I'm a I'm a human being but first and foremost before I'm an Entertainer you know I have kids that I want to see raised in a world that I want to my kids
to be raised in and um so yeah I mean you you you you're going to lose either way sometimes but you got to feel good about yourself and feel good about who you are and what you stand for yeah it's funny because I I read those comments
and that's what I was getting that as well is that the artists I know who get told listen play your position do what we pay you to do yeah and it's like hang on a minute I don't work for you yeah I create something of value and your
investment allows me to continue to create it thank you thank you so much for it yes but but I want you to but I want you to have memories and things you'll always remember and a shared experience right enjoy the music it's a
fair trade yeah enjoy the music yeah let me be me and enjoy the music you sang a song on the album called small town King to me it perfectly sums up um what it is to be somebody who grew up in a community in an environment that's
proud of where they live that ultimately stands by the things that they grew up observing maintaining them building on the legacy of family friendship showing up for people community there's a pride involved in that song which is really
actually very um it's compelling it draws you in it makes you really interested in the story that's that's what I like about you know even the uh you especially when you brought that one up because the up to even the uptempo stuff has a good message to it and
that's what's sometimes the most difficult thing to find is an up-tempo song that really has a message to it yeah you know usually they're all about fun and games and tailgates and all that kind of stuff and those are fun and I
and I've done a few of those and probably will but a song like that that has a deep meaningful message and tells like he says tells a story but it still rocks out it's pretty rare to find it it's fun to find in in the small town
that I grew up in I I mean I I probably grew up in the smallest town you can imagine we had a caution lightning a cotton gin and maybe maybe 200 people lived lived around there and that's where I grew up and I grew up in a
community in a small town that was very inclusive very open very nurturing I didn't grow up around people being racist I didn't grow up around people being mean to people I grew up in a community that was I mean my if there
was any hint of any of that my coach who was my mentor growing up my coach would knock that down in a heartbeat he would he would he would slap the out of you if he heard you say anything racist well that's why I loved this song so
much because it's a really important reminder that great things come out of small towns and yet and I'm not asking you to go on the record about one thing or another but I do have to say that does it hurt your heart I have to ask
you does it hurt your heart to see something like a small town being ultimately politicized through one voice or another right now what's going on is is very hard to hear yeah he's a music fan I I honestly I know what you're referring to
and I can honestly say I haven't heard the song or seen the video yeah but I do know from my experience that the small town I grew up in was a great place and it was full of great people and it was of all Races I mean
and everyone got along and I don't remember like I said I don't remember anything that was negative in that light from the small town I grew up in I grew up in that's all I can speak to I can't of course I can't intelligence speak to to somebody else's
music I can I can speak to that's especially when I haven't heard it but I but I can speak to what I know and then I'll let the type of music that I record and the types of messages that I try to put out speak for themselves I I love
music so much and I understand that it plays a role in many many conversations in many people's lives and everyone has a right to be able to express themselves I have a right to not listen to it well that's the key that's the thing an
artist is an artist and their artists can should be able to do what they want but they but they but they you know you live with what you do yeah I just it just it just hurts my heart when I hear music being used as a
tool to divide yeah I I don't I don't like it's so magical to me yeah music should not do that it is Magic too yeah it took it real it's real magic actual it's actually what magic is absolutely I mean it's real from nowhere and ever and
it goes everywhere yeah we like to say when you're in a studio and something really works we like to say God just walked through the room that's exactly what it is yeah and I just don't believe that's God's word yeah well I'm with you
yeah I'm with you breaks my heart man um this album from beginning to end sounds so uh hopeful you talked about it before you talked about like the optimism and the sense of Yearning the desire to achieve to just go get it
there's moments in there that really kind of sum up this bit of Bruce Hornsby in there for me yes absolutely would you do is that fair yeah that was that was a name check during the session when I was talking to the piano player so I want
some Bruce Hornsby on this record which I love standing room only that's right yeah which I love that we talked a little bit about the journey influencing as well yeah Journey on the uh some songs change the world I want to Journey
guitars at the end give me some Neil Shawn yes thank you he needs his props does um was that all wrapped up in the feeling you were trying to create that the idea of the music but building this hope the sense of like it's all out
there waiting for you if you have the courage to go get it yes it was part of the whole thing life affirming you know get up go do it enjoy life and and and and learn how to process and enjoy the down moments because you learn more from
those moments than you do from the happier and content ones you know when you have yeah when you have troubled times I mean you have to acknowledge that those and pay attention to those as well because I think that's where most the life lessons come from so what does life look like for you now let's just put it into a framework that is like I'm not trying to like put your life in a nutshell but you know you begin you know in this very unique
position of finding not only your own identity but your actual identity at a point when you're cognitively able to process that you discovered it and this is this is I was 11. 11 years old and it puts you on this process this journey
which you somehow turn into fuel if it's fire for you it did I mean that's like I said earlier it flipped the switch on in me it made because like I said the situation that I grew up in wasn't great so when I found that birth certificate it it
it just little it made me better at everything instantly you know there's a there's probably a little a little part of me that wonders where there's a small part of that which is is not that there's an element of that which is like
I gotta prove myself I gotta prove who I truly am to myself because my identity is all up and to him yeah like yeah so I've got to find a way to get his attention and show him that I true that truly works that to me is in line
really with where some of the drinking and the other things kick in because you still need a distraction from the trauma sure you know it's hard to process that you've got to find a way to just numb yourself and the older you get the
more it gets in your kitchen oh yeah yeah because your kids yeah that's the mirror of Life yeah absolutely you don't want to shine that back so fast forwarding to now you've made an incredible album an album that should have been your second or third album
thank you man thank you you know and and it's got the most incredible songs on it your kids are grown up yeah they're all out they're going over 26 almost 25 and 21. yeah you and Faith now are staring at a whole new era in life right where it's like okay for the most part we've done our job up to this point we're always on the clock and we're always we're always in the company yeah we're here we're investors yeah right yeah we're here but you can
run the office now it's your office you've built it it's yours the kids right yeah I mean they're they're solid they're solid congratulations you did a great job thank you thank you we're so proud of our girls they're they're strong-willed independent and
Fierce and good and that's what we wanted and they have the tools they have their own opinions about everything yeah and and we we encourage them to express them like you know my daughters will post something sometimes and somebody
will say why'd you let her do that I'm like what do you mean let her do that I mean she's a grown woman yeah yeah no you're out of a job there but um you know you now get to sit down with faith and figure it out and you've got again
you've still got your own careers going on but it must have kind of it must be exciting to be able to look at each other and go all right what is our 3.0 look like we figured it out up [Music] with the first six months was a little
rough when they all were going when our youngest daughter finally moved out yeah the first six months we're rough and it's always rougher on Mom of course yeah but uh after about six months it was like turn the music on and write some candles and because we got the thing and we were talking you know we got married and you know I'm not gonna do the math but we had a kid pretty quickly after we got married and so we didn't really have a lot of
time to know each other you know we we don't even together for you know nine months or so yeah you know dating and we got married had a baby and now it's like we're kind of like on our second honeymoon well we never
really had a honeymoon to start with but no honeymoon not really but so we're we're just we're enjoying it now when the kids come home it's like if they're there for five days or so we're like you know So It All Leads to this what is the
secret of a long-lasting lifelong friendship gosh I don't I wish I knew the answer to that um but I I think honestly early on we knew it was going to be tough I mean both of us being she right off the bat stepped back and
said you know I'm going to raise my kids so she she gave up a lot a huge part of her career for a long time to just raise kids and and that's why our kids are has turned out as well as they've turned out because of her I give her all the
credit and she's the same on my side she's the best um we we feel like um I feel like I've got a lot more ahead of me and and we're looking forward to I mean gosh I can't wait for grandkids I mean hopefully not soon
but I can't wait for a couple of trips to the Maldives before that yeah I know we got some trips to do but but yeah I mean I it's life looks looks great ahead I mean for both of us um you know I'd love to I'd love for Faith to go back in
the studio and record a record is she excited to do that do you think so I think she's getting the edge for it yeah I think she is because I mean we need her voice out there yeah I mean she's just one of the best ever is there a
song on the album that somebody wrote for and with you that reminds you the most about her uh well Cowboy junkie probably is in there than her the song hers is straight up about faith yeah for sure and but you know you always find a piece of your
relationship in every song when you're singing it I mean gosh Cowboy junkie probably the closest thing to it just because it's just really talk it sounds like a cheeky sort of song but it but it's really about somebody like that's
taking care of you he's got your back yeah yeah we started um with a song on the record called some songs change the world I kind of want to I want to finish our conversation this time around there and wonder what the songs were that you can
really think about that that have the most memories attached to them that connect you to really essential moments in your life I have them I wonder what yours are I have a few um early on of course you know I love
music growing up and for you know in church at first you know listening to gospel choirs and stuff in church was part of it um I have a specific memory of we grew up right on a bayou in Louisiana I mean from here to that sign back there there
was a bayou and I was fishing on it all the time but I remember laying on the dock gators gators they're all Gators everywhere Gators everywhere just like what's up Bob yeah we would swim water skiing the Bayou and you sitting there
getting ready to water ski and you look over and there's a gator floating and you go all right hit it I'll tell you my shark stories about spearfishing but uh but uh I got in some hairy situations with that but anyway I
remember laying on the dock doing math homework and I had a little transistor radio and there's a song called I'm Not Lisa by Jesse Colter who's married to Waylon Jennings and I remember with trying to do math homework but falling asleep and
being in and out of sleep and I have a very specific memory of hearing that song dreamy dreamily in my head so that every time I hear that song it puts me right back in that moment and then there's another song Somebody by Santana
and my uncle who's Old Hippie Napa Valley ex-ball player looks just like Sam Elliott I mean good looking guy 80 years old yeah hangs out on this some people just age difference you're one of them well I don't know about that yeah I'm hanging on hanging on oh man whatever he sits on his porch and smokes weed all day and and listens to music he's won yeah he won the game yeah he's going to pay officially you know he's in the Hall of Fame he did it
but uh he told me early on in my career before I was married before I met Faith he said samapapati you know you know that song I said yeah I know I know that song Some instrumental and I said I know and he says let me tell you something
never make love to a woman with that song playing unless you intend on marrying her so I didn't until I did and then I did so that's one and then the other the other song that I'll I'll throw in there that that was life-changing in a lot of
ways was It's Your Love because faith and I were really new in our relationships the very first song we recorded turned out to be a big hit and um it just sort of it just sort of brought us even closer together and that song will always be
special to us and and when we shot the video we shot it here in La Faith was pregnant with Gracie when we shot the video I mean very pregnant like eight months pregnant with Gracie and you can look at the video and you'll spot it she
had this I forget Taff not Taft a silk yeah dress on yeah and she had her you know pregnant belly out there and she kept wanting milkshakes all day while we were shooting the video so she's right before it takes she's drinking her
milkshake and then it spills all over her silt down so every now and you can see a milkshake stain on her so I have a barbecue Cinema white T-shirt she's got a milkshake stain on herself down in the video it's adorable dude uh all right last
question for you before we say goodbye for now and I hope we can continue talking because it may have come a little bit later on than I would have liked but um you know I I've been looking forward to spending time with you face to face I'm a fan bro oh thank you man me too I'm a fan of yours and we'll do it again for sure my last question what's the shark Story the Sharks oh gosh I uh we had a place in the Bahamas for a long time our kids
pretty much grew up down there everywhere in the Bahamas uh they're everywhere they're everywhere they're everywhere um and when you Spearfish down there and I spent 20 years spearfishing uh I'm addicted to it I love it I haven't done
it in a couple years because we sold our place and had me back down there but um it's for all free diving and you have to use an old-fashioned pole Spear and there's like you say there's shark ever but there's also great fish everywhere
and the way we do it is pure National Geographic I mean we're out in the wild water and we're we're free diving 40 50 feet and shooting you know 25 pound Hogs facing on this as well well she'll swim across the top and much in fact she was
swimming across the top watch in a Spearfish one day and I'd gone down and got a fish and came up and put it on the boat and I'm watching her and I noticed a fin pop up behind her and her eyes got bigger she then she she didn't notice it
at first so I started swimming towards her and the shark was coming right behind her and then when she realized the shark was there she started turned over and started screaming and kicking and doing the back pedaling so I had to
swim right over top of her and poke the shark in the nose with a spear to get it to go away yeah and then I've had yeah I've had short I've come up with a fish and had shark take the fish right off the right off the spear and then the
scariest moment I've had I mean you get used to it and you you know you learn nah you learn how to nah you learn how to read because you can feel the electricity in the water when they get pissed off as a great philosopher once
said no nope not me nope I had a lot of friends that felt that way at first but once I got them used to it they were all right yeah so you see you can feel it you can because they're so full of energy they're just like if they start
getting pissed you can feel you can feel it but the scariest moment I have was I'd killed this hogfish the chocolate Hogfish is about 50 feet down and it was gassed like and my spirit got stuck and he got stuck up under a reef I got scars all over my shoulders from coral reefs from digging under there trying to get the fish out but um I can't bleeding I'm bleeding I'm going down trying to dig this fish out and I don't know how many more Dives I
have left in me and there's some shark around you know because there's blood in the water so there's some reef shark around a couple bull sharks some reason I think that that's like 101 done well my my the guy was running the boat says
I don't think you should go back down I said well give me one more shot at it give me one more shot at it I'm gonna go get this fish so I got down there and I was pulling I had my Fins Up On The Reef I'm trying to pull the pull the fish out
and I finally got it out and I had no air left whatsoever I'll look up and I said that's a long way so I'm kicking and kicking and kicking and right before I get to the top it felt like a submarine came by me and
it blew my mask off and it was a 14-foot tiger shark just blew right by me and thank God he didn't just turn a little bit I thought for sure I was done but that's when I got out of the water yeah tiger shark shows up yeah it's time to go okay [Music]