This Past Weekend with Theo Von - E483 Billy Strings

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00:00:56.320 for planned features and network management details today's guest is that blue-eyed bluegrass bad

00:01:03.440 boy you know it uh he's a grammy award winner um he has a new album renewal that is out now wherever

00:01:10.720 you stream music uh he's the pride of michigan he just got back from the grammys so i'm looking forward

00:01:17.200 to uh just to getting to uh just to get in it know him today's guest is mr billy strings

00:01:35.360 yeah thanks for coming in bro no problem appreciate it man thanks for all the wild music dude

00:01:55.760 no problem man that's my pleasure um how was the grammys you went to the grammys yeah no it was

00:02:03.760 great um i brought my mom and dad out there no and did you get to take them last time i know you've

00:02:08.400 been before yeah um no the last time i didn't bring my parents but this time the record that i was

00:02:15.760 nominated for was actually well i was nominated for three things but the main one for me was this record

00:02:22.480 that i made called me and dad which is exactly what it sounds like it's a record that i made with

00:02:27.520 my dad and he's the one that taught me how to play and taught me all about bluegrass and stuff and

00:02:32.560 taught me how to wipe my ass and tie my shoes and everything so to kind of grow up and make a record

00:02:38.400 with him was just a big deal man it was it was something that i've it was like a bucket list thing

00:02:43.760 for me for a long time you know um like it had been weighing on you a little bit even oh exactly

00:02:50.160 yeah because i've been on tour like when i was 19 i hit the road and haven't stopped and you know

00:02:55.440 i'm like 31 now and um you know it was like man time just is slipping by and my dad's getting older

00:03:03.040 and i need to make this record and then gigs just keep getting booked and it's like well when am i even

00:03:07.760 gonna make it and so eventually i just went to my manager and said yo let's block off time i need

00:03:13.600 to make a record with my dad like he's getting older i'm getting old you know it's time like we

00:03:18.800 gotta do this so we did it and it was awesome you know we got nominated for a grammy brought my folks

00:03:23.680 out there and you know had them posted up at the sunset marquee and just like showed them a great

00:03:30.080 time you know yeah and um that had to feel pretty amazing just because i think a lot of people want

00:03:36.080 to have that moment where they kind of pay homage to the to the a family member some somebody who's

00:03:42.480 gotten them emotionally there sometimes you know it's everything to me my dad is just

00:03:49.040 i wouldn't you know i wouldn't know anything about bluegrass music and doc watson and all the

00:03:54.080 stuff that i cut my teeth on and is the reason why i have a good life today and you know a career and

00:04:00.720 everything it's all because of when i was a little kid he was so inspiring you know he's just sitting

00:04:05.920 around picking and he was like everybody's kind of like we'd have parties and stuff and everybody would

00:04:13.120 just be sitting around vibing and smoking a couple joints having a few beers and my dad would be

00:04:17.680 playing until he's like red in the face and everybody's singing along and just i was a little

00:04:22.320 kid being like damn my dad's fucking cool as hell you know what i mean and i want to be like that when

00:04:27.120 i grow up and so it was i was a little shit already wanting to be a bluegrass musician so it's like well

00:04:34.800 what i've always wanted to do so it's you know it's all because of him and bringing him out there and

00:04:39.440 like walking on the red carpet with him and shit you know he's he's small town old country folk like

00:04:46.000 you know it was it was hilarious we were doing this interview for like billboard or some shit and

00:04:52.080 and the guy's like oh my god you guys look fabulous who are you wearing and my dad's like well

00:04:57.680 these are uh Levi's and uh my son bought me this shirt and i got my jacket at a western store and i was

00:05:03.920 just like this is fucking the best thing ever yeah what are you wearing uh hand me up who are you

00:05:10.800 wearing it's like uh Levi's and you know and this is my cousins you know yeah the guy asked us too

00:05:19.280 is like asked my dad like who if you could meet anybody here at the you know grammys who would you

00:05:25.200 want to meet and he said tommy emmanuel which is so awesome he's just like a amazing guitar player

00:05:31.840 and tommy emmanuel was yeah well he is you know oh sorry bring him up yeah and then he um

00:05:39.040 you know he ended up meeting tommy that day so it's just yeah it's crazy and who does tommy play

00:05:44.400 for wow he's just the man himself man he he plays solo and oh i'm not even familiar with him oh man he's

00:05:51.360 a killer yeah he's a monster and he's an australian yeah i'm going to australia in just a week or so

00:05:58.240 yeah wow yeah tommy emmanuel he's like you know grew up kind of he's sort of from like that chet

00:06:07.120 atkins school real he knows a lot of i mean he can flat pick he can play finger style he can do

00:06:12.240 everything but he's a motherfucker on the guitar man there's a lot of good guitar players i think

00:06:16.960 i don't know if tommy lives around here but there's this other guy jack pearson that lives here in town

00:06:21.520 too that's like sort of i don't know i feel like a lot of people don't really know about him

00:06:29.120 uh-huh but he's like the best guitar player i've ever seen in my life i think jack pearson jack

00:06:34.320 pearson let's get a look at him man oh yeah he's literally the guitar player's guitar player he's

00:06:42.480 he's the man jack pearson yeah man he looks like an adventurous guy what makes you say that what

00:06:50.880 makes you like admire somebody so much on the guitar well i feel like when jack pearson touches

00:06:58.320 the guitar it's kind of like effortless you know for me it's hard it takes a lot of work and you know

00:07:05.200 i think people that are when you see a true master sit down at their instrument like at the piano or on

00:07:11.120 their guitar whatever it is it's just like breathing for them you know i mean watching

00:07:17.680 jack pearson's fingers go over the fretboard is just like water you know it's just so smooth it's

00:07:24.800 and i'm just like how is that even possible um wow for you to say how is that even possible it's just

00:07:30.720 it's it's interesting to hear like somebody who a lot of people would consider amazing at something

00:07:36.000 how they then see somebody that's amazing at something you know i'm like i'm a player and

00:07:40.640 i've always been a player but i'm not a master you know i'm not a jedi yet you know there are people

00:07:46.640 that are jedis on their instruments bro wow that's crazy and then i they stick me in the room with them

00:07:55.280 and say go play and i'm like oh fuck i don't belong here i recently just did this thing with chris

00:07:59.840 chris thiele and cory henry who are chris thiele is a like literally macarthur grant award-winning

00:08:12.000 genius like the best in the world at his instrument and um yeah what does he play mandolin oh the mandolin

00:08:24.240 yeah man there's a famous song mandolin rain right mandolin rain uh

00:08:33.680 my friend josh kelly plays the mandolin he

00:08:38.160 yeah it was originally by hornsby and range bruce hornsby oh and then i think he re

00:08:44.400 what is it called when you read like a remix or read redo it remastered us or redid a song yeah

00:08:50.400 yeah covered yeah he covered it mandolin rain yeah so were you so you're sitting there at the

00:08:56.080 grammys with your parents yeah and you're nominated wow bro so that energy when you're sitting there

00:09:03.440 because i've never been there right so like when you're sitting there is it like and you know like

00:09:08.080 how long do you know that your award is coming up next or something like how much yeah i mean to be

00:09:14.320 honest we were kind of sitting there and and like waiting for ours to come and i would kind of go

00:09:21.280 out and you know get a little i got some nachos and shitting out chill and i'd come back and are we up yet

00:09:27.200 you know kind of thing and um it was great then the performances were great and and we were having a good

00:09:32.640 time uh just like i have a hard time sometimes being in loud environments because i like my ears ring

00:09:41.440 constantly and i'm super sensitive to like like if i'm in a restaurant and somebody scratches their

00:09:47.120 fork on their plate or something like dude i'll snap dude i will i will literally call the

00:09:53.440 fucking police on somebody who bangs or several against their plate too loudly like i don't know what

00:10:00.160 it is i know what it is it's unbelievable somebody would do that if there's a business that has chairs

00:10:08.000 that when people pull them out they make the most insane screeching sound and ruin the experience and

00:10:15.200 i will never go back to there i will google review there um but i will never return there's a coffee

00:10:24.880 place nearby somebody pulled a chair out the other day i used to love that place i will not even drive

00:10:31.200 by there in the daytime anymore it's ov i will go around because i don't even want to bring my energy

00:10:36.960 over there where people are scraping stuff on the floor i think yeah yeah so i so do you guys get like

00:10:45.360 burnt like like you said your ears ring is that a common thing amongst um like i guess musicians i

00:10:51.840 never even thought about that yeah i mean some people get it it's called like tinnitus or tinnitus uh oh

00:10:58.640 yeah i've heard of tinnitus um wait well how does it say that it's pronounced because this is

00:11:05.120 the actual audiologist lady when i went there and they the doctor lady she calls it tinnitus

00:11:11.040 but i'm like i don't get fucking arthritis yeah i don't yeah i don't get it's called tinnitus right

00:11:16.480 yeah yeah i'm not in like a um yeah i don't get like uh shingillicus or whatever

00:11:23.360 or like in a wheelchair tinnitus no way tinnitus tinnitus tinnitus that's what it says tinnitus

00:11:32.000 oh tinnitus i think is something you get in memphis probably it's a little bit more

00:11:36.960 tinnitus yeah but that lady's the same lady in my car that lady is not i don't trust that lady yeah

00:11:42.720 she can't even tell like when i play a song she can't even recognize it on the fucking phone so she

00:11:48.560 can't recognize a my sister's name okay i can't call my sister anymore because that lady won't let

00:11:53.840 me and um and she can't even get me to murfreesboro so yeah i'm out um do you know in advance at the

00:12:02.480 grams if you're gonna win or not or you don't know no we have no idea um and you know it was just

00:12:11.040 to me it was like all about bringing my folks there and having of course having that experience

00:12:16.960 you know we went the last time it's just an honor to be nominated and to be even spoken in the same

00:12:23.840 sentences the other nominees like molly tuttle and sam bush and um willie nelson was in that category

00:12:31.120 and you know it's just for me it's like to even be in the a classmate of these people is like cool

00:12:42.240 i'm in the same class at least i'm good that's enough honor for me like all i've ever wanted in

00:12:48.080 my life is just to be like a respected musician and that's you know i guess like what it really is

00:12:56.000 the grammys and stuff is just being recognized by your peers you know and and so it's it's a great

00:13:03.120 honor you know but it's really nice to win like i i won one and it's it's cool but um it's not why

00:13:10.880 we do it you know oh yeah i would have loved to get gotten my dad won yeah but molly tuttle's record

00:13:17.680 and her band and what she's been doing um she's been working her ass off i gotta tune into her yeah

00:13:24.240 she's i'm so glad you're gonna say some of these names because i it's i i start thinking how i got

00:13:28.640 to get into more new music and i'm just not getting enough of it man there's a lot of great bluegrass

00:13:32.560 happening and and i think there's like something happening right now where people are like getting

00:13:37.440 back into bluegrass again or like you know banjo music and kind of hillbilly music well i think people

00:13:43.360 are generally i think there's a general feeling in the universe for me anyway i know it is that i want

00:13:48.480 to get back to something that feels like uh less industrialized i want to get something back to

00:13:56.240 something that feels a little bit more connected to something human inside of me man i think that

00:14:02.720 it like goes in circles almost um if you think about i mean back in the day like let's say

00:14:11.680 in the 50s and early 60s and stuff there was a time where blue moon of kentucky was like the biggest

00:14:20.080 song out wow it was like uh you know one of morgan wallen's songs or something it was like the biggest

00:14:28.480 hit it was like miley cyrus flowers blue moon of kentucky keep on shining there was a time where bill

00:14:34.480 monroe's song was like the biggest song out you know elvis covered it that was on the b-side to one of elvis's

00:14:41.040 first you know i didn't know that releases yeah but and then it's kind of like rock and roll came out

00:14:51.120 you know and and and stuff started getting really electric drums you know all this stuff started

00:14:58.160 happening and then in the 60s there was like this sort of whole barefoot sort of hippie movement where

00:15:03.040 people wanted to get organic and back to the earth again and play acoustic instruments and feel their

00:15:08.000 feet on the grass and you know and then the 70s happened which was just

00:15:13.040 fucking in my opinion just one of the best eras of music really and in everything man i feel like

00:15:20.800 people were just making kick-ass records then i feel like the record sounded good the way they were

00:15:25.440 recorded was just like the gear at that time was just killer and i don't know there's something about

00:15:30.080 all when i go through my collection the records from the 70s like stand out as like for one thing people were

00:15:36.880 you know when they were in the studio they were like working hard maybe they just had really

00:15:42.640 good cocaine or something yeah oh they probably did i mean we can't even it's sad our kids can't

00:15:47.600 even get good cocaine in this country anymore it's kind of fucked oh it's unbelievable it was a decent

00:15:52.480 upper i mean you'd have a trucker would get there yeah he could get his load done and get home to see

00:15:57.200 his family and now he can't even do it because he's on you know he's he's overdosed somewhere he's

00:16:02.560 yeah he's on those gas station uppers which don't do anything yeah or he's stopping every five

00:16:07.680 minutes to do a bump because this ain't anything and he can't even make his haul you know it's like

00:16:14.560 that that disco shit used to make the whole trip man you feel like a dentist you just got back from

00:16:19.200 the fucking dentist after that shit you know your whole body felt like you got a molar pulled out

00:16:25.440 like they pulled a molar out of your brain man yes that stuff was probably so good i bet one little line

00:16:31.280 would get you like guaranteed to get you to atlanta i'd write an entire album i'd write an album

00:16:37.360 i'd fucking yeah man i'd be like well let's triple this guitar part let's have three drummers i need

00:16:43.680 more didgeridoos you know and let's record it all to tape and it's gonna sound incredible i need a

00:16:50.320 tambourine yeah but now dude i'll do a yeah i mean or i'm sober now but i would do a couple of grams or

00:16:57.520 whatever and it's the shit's got so much sherwin williams back end on it it's like just don't it's

00:17:03.280 just not worth it next thing i'm applying to do drywall it's like it's just not worth it anymore and

00:17:10.400 yeah i mean i think i like held out for like the last couple years i was like okay someday i'm gonna

00:17:15.680 come across something good yeah but it just never happened i was like okay it's actually over like

00:17:20.880 just it's not worth it anymore especially with all the fentanyl and

00:17:23.920 shit like people are dying from just you know i i know people that have just

00:17:30.080 gone out to just you know have a like harmless little party yeah you know and ended up dead

00:17:37.040 because they did like a line or something it's really it's horrible yeah oh that that's unbelievable

00:17:42.320 and the fact that that family never got prosecuted that started that opioid epidemic that didn't help

00:17:47.040 anything either sorry the sackler yeah like oh man that's dude i wake up i think half of america

00:17:54.320 wakes up furious about that every day that that family got off the hook i mean i grew up in a small

00:17:59.200 town um a lot of my homies were at that time like it was you had people stealing from their grandmas and

00:18:07.040 shit stealing their you know tvs and shit to sell to get money to buy oxys and shit you know and i

00:18:16.000 remember doing that shit a little bit i'd do it like because it was just around i mean like i said i

00:18:20.640 grew up in a small town i just never really had any rules just where were you at well i grew up in this

00:18:28.640 little town called muir muir population 666 last time i checked which is yeah hilarious yeah one

00:18:38.720 john muir no i don't know just muir and it's right outside of this town called ionia

00:18:44.720 in michigan ionia maybe i've heard of it yeah well you look up the population of muir michigan

00:18:50.240 and ionia was probably a slave town i'm guessing just by the name of it it's a prison town it is

00:18:54.960 there's like i mean when i was living there there was like uh there's like seven prisons there

00:19:01.920 like most people either work at the prisons or like or in them yeah are getting hauled off to them

00:19:08.480 there we go i told you dude 666 people it's a small ass town and and ionia was like you know the town

00:19:18.080 like where i went to school and all that why are we talking about ionia again we're just saying what

00:19:22.480 was it like like oh yeah oxys people getting oxys man when i was in school and i was a terrible

00:19:29.520 student i you know i had a handful of teachers like my home life was like kind of colorful at the time

00:19:38.480 it was in this you had your dad was the music guy you spoke about yeah my parents you know are both just

00:19:45.680 like really awesome uh they they're kind of old hippies and and but they're like hippies and red

00:19:54.960 and half hippies and half redneck in a way and it's like it's they're just kick-ass they taught me

00:20:00.080 about so much good music you know my mom and shit taught me about like everything from hendrix to the

00:20:05.360 beatles and zeppelin and my dad taught me about bill monroe and and doc watson and flat and scruggs and about

00:20:12.400 fishing and you know uh it's just like they're they were different parents you know and during the

00:20:22.160 time i mean like when i was in middle school and high school and stuff like i said it was stuff was

00:20:27.920 kind of crazy you know at home you mean at the house yeah and you know we're all like you know my

00:20:33.680 parents are recovering addicts you know oh yeah aren't we all yeah i am yeah i was at a meeting

00:20:41.600 two hours ago so yeah well good that's awesome man um yeah no no judgment at all half our audience is

00:20:48.560 no and and man they're doing so great these days and and we all are too it's like we've all sort of

00:20:53.840 made it through some crazy shit and we made it out the other side and we went holy shit how the hell do we

00:20:58.880 do that but that is all that is to say that i'm super proud of my parents you know yeah these days

00:21:05.120 there and and i'm proud of myself you know we all made it out of that shit yeah it was crazy i mean

00:21:09.760 or did you struggle too sometimes i i don't want to say like that i never struggled because i mean

00:21:19.280 i i was never like an act like a hardcore addict to anything i mean i i haven't drank in seven years

00:21:28.000 but i don't even then i it's not like i i guess i'm an alcoholic i would just i don't know when to

00:21:32.960 stop like every once in a while it's like it's not like i even drank all the time or anything but

00:21:39.120 every once in a while it's like man we had a good gig i remember the last night i drank was like

00:21:45.600 june 16 2016 and we had this killer gig and it was crowd was ape shit and we sold a bunch of merch and

00:21:53.600 it's like yes man like let's go to the bar like drinks on me yeah you know and we had we were all

00:21:58.240 drinking i mean i i did coke that night i was drinking wine beer and liquor and it was just a

00:22:06.080 i didn't eat anything like for a day and a half and it was just crazy so i woke up the next morning and

00:22:13.280 i had the worst hangover ever and i was like oh and we got in the van we had to drive like five hours

00:22:19.840 to make it to the next gig to get there by three so we could load in soundcheck and play our gig

00:22:25.920 but i thought i was good to go and then when i got in the van i go oh hold up and i went and puked by

00:22:30.720 the bushes or whatever got back in the van um 10 minutes later i'm going off fuck pull over you know

00:22:37.840 and then every 10 minutes for you know it took us seven hours to drive the five-hour drive because i had

00:22:43.680 to stop and puke we were late for loading and soundcheck we had to set up our gear in front of

00:22:49.200 the audience all just hung over it was like embarrassing it was all because i was so drunk

00:22:53.760 the night before and i was like i'm never doing this again and i haven't drank since well they're

00:22:57.760 probably weighed on something yeah sometimes when there's a moment i feel like for me anyway i know

00:23:01.760 and it just sounds like it like if there's a moment where you can get enough reflection where like

00:23:06.480 like it costs you something that means something to you like in a moment my career was just i could

00:23:13.200 see it it's like man if i don't fuck this up this i could actually turn this into something maybe it

00:23:18.000 was like at the point where it's like i shouldn't blow this you know dude that's crazy because that

00:23:23.920 kind of moment doesn't happen to a lot of people you know where you just have that perfect thing where

00:23:27.680 you're on stage you're loading in you're like fuck we're late it's because of me and it started as

00:23:33.280 like okay i'm not drinking at least for the rest of the weekend yeah and then and then yeah you know

00:23:40.640 shout out to everybody that's ever said that you know what i mean it's like i'm not okay at least

00:23:48.080 till next weekend or whatever like till this baby's two yeah yeah and then so that turned into well i'm

00:23:55.840 not drinking for the rest of the week and that turned into two weeks months two years seven years

00:24:03.280 yeah wow it's like now i you know what a big moment for me was when i realized how many times i had

00:24:11.760 slept in the hotel room with them little mini bottles in my fridge and i never even fucking

00:24:15.520 thought about it yeah one one day i was in there and i reached reach in there to grab a coke or something

00:24:22.000 and i realized that i was reaching right past a bottle of jack daniels and then i realized how many

00:24:26.480 other times i had done that before and then i never even fucking thought about well i'm all alone in my

00:24:32.160 hotel room right now i could just fucking nobody would know just you know and and i've never even

00:24:38.800 like thought about it it's like wow it's really kind of out of the back of my mind that's so good you

00:24:44.880 know yeah and i think um i think people people have started to evolve i was looking at a chart the other day

00:24:52.320 that drinking has gone it's not as big on college campuses um that it's just that drinking is good

00:25:01.680 kind of it started to like dissipate or whatever the desire for you did you go to college yeah i went

00:25:07.680 to lsu and we were drinking over there i think i was kind of like you i didn't love i didn't love

00:25:13.120 getting all wasted but oh i fucking loved it you did oh yeah i mean that's the thing is like

00:25:18.800 like when it was going down right and it was like wait a minute man like it was the celebration thing

00:25:25.200 it's like man you get a couple in you it's like all of a sudden it's tasting good even the more i

00:25:29.680 drink the better it tastes and and that's the other thing too is like i never drink for you know people

00:25:35.920 drink wine and they drink these heady beers these hoppy beers and and everything and all and it's like

00:25:41.200 whispering hooker man i'm drinking fifths of mcmasters and captain morgan and shit we didn't

00:25:47.200 i never gave a fuck about what it tastes like it's like i just want to get blacked out that's

00:25:50.880 the goal that pirate syrup baby that shit will get you bro yeah young adults in us drinking less

00:25:58.160 than in prior decades i feel that man let me see what it says here it says 62 of adults under age 35

00:26:04.480 say they drink down from 72 two decades ago how does that correlate to teen pregnancy

00:26:11.600 that's a great question i don't know but they i think they should put um birth control in in some

00:26:21.040 of this uh white claws yeah i'll do that yeah dude i was gonna say probably i wish meth had like a

00:26:32.000 birth control aspect to it oh man but i would go white claw i think it does i think when you smoke meth

00:26:37.280 just everything dries up yeah you know yeah maybe that's true i never smoked i always wanted to

00:26:42.400 smoke crack i never got to smoke crack um it's um did you ever smoke it oh yeah really oh fuck yeah

00:26:50.960 no way damn bro ever tried to break a bad habit and felt like you were uh climbing mount everest in

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00:27:35.840 expect with fume but it um at first it was a little it took a bit of getting used to but then it just

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00:28:09.760 you fume you know i i wish that when i was in college i knew that banking i i had to build my

00:28:15.680 credit i didn't know i didn't think about it i didn't pay phone bills i didn't care i didn't i

00:28:21.040 didn't know anything about credit and my bank didn't they weren't helpful they didn't they weren't helpful

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00:29:47.600 for more information did you ever smoke it oh yeah really oh fuck yeah no way damn bro dude

00:29:56.640 i'm telling i mean oh i didn't know that you smoked crap i didn't i wasn't like on it all the time yeah

00:30:02.240 i wish yeah i grew up in a town where there was nothing to fucking do man i skateboarded a little

00:30:06.720 bit i play guitar but it was like a dead end it felt like there was nothing to do so everybody did drugs i

00:30:12.640 mean and it was like it was just i mean i was six times sixteen the first time i ripped a crack rock

00:30:18.000 and it was fucking right god i want that and you want to know what else is i like it was i've always

00:30:25.760 considered myself to have a pretty strong will like i said i've been around meth and heroin and and and

00:30:31.040 shit growing up all my you know crack and lots of coke and whatever all growing up and i never got

00:30:38.240 addicted to any of it i've been around a lot of tweakers and shit i've seen some crazy shit bro i'm

00:30:43.760 saying i used to live in a house where they were sleeping on my couch and shit fucking toothless

00:30:49.360 sores on their face fucking cigarette butts on the floor fucking tweak tweakerville man tweakerville and

00:30:56.640 just taking apart stuff oh yeah motorcycles in the house no i'm saying spieve bikes yeah there used

00:31:04.400 to be this guy named spieve bro he he lived in this old uh farmhouse out on charles road and uh you

00:31:12.000 walk in it was an old farmhouse it was like a barn that was just falling down in the backyard you walk

00:31:17.040 in and there's like tvs like stacked on top of each other and there's like you can see one's like a camera

00:31:24.000 on the front porch one's just like static you know and homie's got a motorcycle ripped apart

00:31:30.160 in his living room with like folger coffee cans with nuts and bolts everywhere and he's like

00:31:36.960 ripping out of a light bulb we used to get him a box it's called getting a box what we used to do is

00:31:42.560 you get a box of sudafed and you bring it to him or something he's the cook he'd give you a quarter

00:31:47.120 gram or something so because they were running out of people that could get sudafed because all them

00:31:52.480 tweakers were on the list at rite aid and shit and in walgreens and shit and saying don't you know this

00:31:58.080 this guy's been in here he bought 13 boxes of sudafed last week you know so don't sell any more

00:32:03.360 sudafed to this guy so the cooks got to the point where they would give you a quarter gram or so for

00:32:10.400 a box you know yeah and is a quarter gram a lot of that's enough for a good weekend right there it is

00:32:17.200 yeah oh yeah i mean to me it's like whenever i hit that shit i was up for two days straight there was a

00:32:23.440 time where i played guitar for 48 hours straight and i didn't put it down no i swear to god and i

00:32:29.920 played pretty much the same riff the entire time it was like i was just playing holding my guitar and

00:32:35.520 my fingers were just going and i was just like wow and it was like an orchestra was coming out it was

00:32:40.880 like i was writing shit that i never could have imagined it was like uh a beautiful mind type situation

00:32:47.040 oh my gosh bro and so is that just so that that like and you feel like that was drug fueled or oh

00:32:54.400 yeah absolutely i mean so much so that i can't even sit here and say that i'll never smoke meth again

00:33:00.720 because i might want to do it in a controlled environment as a creative experiment yeah you

00:33:06.800 know what i mean oh yeah because dude i swear to god i think i could write an album in three days

00:33:11.040 that's like the craziest shit ever i don't you know obviously i'm not like condoning it you know

00:33:17.600 like it's fucking terrible don't do it but i i am saying that that those 48 hours when i was playing

00:33:24.480 guitar straight it was like i i worked some cobwebs out in my brain that was kind of crazy and dude this

00:33:29.600 was crazy so i'm sitting up stairs and this was the first time i ever smoked meth and i was 16 and um

00:33:37.840 i was upstairs i lived on main street i was in the band my drummer carl shout out carl but um and

00:33:46.000 jordan oh man these are my homies from these are my homies from back home you know but like

00:33:54.800 uh and they passed away no no they're still around okay yeah my bad then

00:34:01.040 i mean jordan almost passed away he needs to keep his nose clean god damn it

00:34:06.000 yeah amen and so does everybody yeah but no i lived in this house bro on main on main street

00:34:12.320 in ionia which is it's a tiny little town and and there was this um we were renting this place

00:34:18.000 right but there was renovations happening and i'm like man why is this guy coming over at

00:34:22.080 fucking seven o'clock in the morning start banging on shit it's fucking seven sun's not even barely up

00:34:26.800 yet so you know one of my buddies comes over who's tweaker and figures out that this guy the handyman

00:34:35.600 who's working on this house that we're renting is holding and is like you know and i'm like well if

00:34:41.200 you guys are going to smoke here at my house like i want in so because i was just curious about

00:34:47.600 what was you know yeah what is it well it was like my parents were into it at the time and i was like

00:34:53.920 i want to know like what the hell's going on oh yeah do some yeah that makes sense if something

00:34:58.000 i mean that's why i had to my my biological father died from a heroin overdose when i was two years old

00:35:04.000 that's why i had to do heroin i was like i had to i was like what it was so good that took my dad from

00:35:08.880 me oh man so i had to figure it out and i met the green reaper and shit he tapped me on the shoulder

00:35:14.640 and was like dude it was like man we're jumping stories i got so many of them but i didn't know this

00:35:20.160 man hey i'm sorry to hear that dude well it makes me it kind of breaks my heart yeah it's all good

00:35:25.200 but it's interesting that you uh i i'm curious about wanting to try yeah let me just finish the

00:35:30.640 tweaking for 48 hours yeah let's start there dude finish that i was upstairs yeah a lot of people here

00:35:36.640 do home renovations yeah so this dude was he was working at all hours of the night and

00:35:42.240 shit i'm like what the fuck so you know my body figured i was tweaking and like you know and and

00:35:47.760 and they showed me how to they're like you got a light bulb and i'm like yeah and so they showed

00:35:51.840 me how to take the little silver thing off the bulb and you can take it out and then you put some warm

00:35:58.160 salt water in there and swish it around you get all that white shit off the bulb then you got a nice

00:36:01.920 clear bulb so then you kind of just tap some shit down in there and you can burn it and smoke it so

00:36:06.560 whatever i i hit the shit whoa all of a sudden where's my guitar i want to play guitar so bad so for two

00:36:12.800 days i sat there and playing two fucking days i don't i didn't eat i don't even think i pissed

00:36:18.960 yeah it was insane and then so two days later somebody finally snaps me out of it by knocking

00:36:25.520 on my door it was my friend brendan brendan lower and um i hear the knock on the slider door and i'm

00:36:31.840 like oh fucking i put my guitar down on that i'll be right back like don't like i i hate to leave you

00:36:36.880 like oh you know i wanted that guitar so bad still after two days straight of playing it and i all go

00:36:43.200 open the door and my friend brendan's there he's like what the fuck's all over your face and i'm

00:36:48.080 like what and i go in the bathroom and i look in the mirror and my face is all green and i'm like

00:36:53.360 oh fuck like i thought it was like from the meth or something it was like oh no my skin's turning green

00:36:58.720 and it was from like the i was playing my guitar for so long that the bronze on my strings had like gone

00:37:04.640 to my fingers and i had touched my face and so i had green shit on my face from my guitar strings

00:37:09.360 and i was so twacked out you know i didn't know what the fuck was going on oh but and i wonder if

00:37:15.200 that gets like and do have you heard any other stories if people are like that do they do are

00:37:19.760 they doing sex are they doing like uh man i think when you're tweaking you just like what do you like

00:37:26.240 to do like with your hands or anything do you like to string beads do you like to paint do you like

00:37:30.960 to i mean besides just like crank one out you know yeah and that's over quickly and then you're

00:37:36.560 just sitting there well maybe on speed i don't know it might take a while oh yeah huh and you have

00:37:41.680 to work for it and then it's like even better yeah well that's probably like coke yeah i think like

00:37:47.360 if i was all sped up i would just look out the windows make a lot of promises to myself look out the

00:37:54.480 windows make sure those silhouettes aren't real organize things whatever that the vaguest term

00:38:00.560 ever yeah i'm gonna organize things that was always a term that i would use dude that's a yeah

00:38:05.360 that's one thing people do too i was at this crack house one time that was

00:38:09.120 fucking spotless yeah it was insane and and and me and my friend uh went over there just to

00:38:15.600 you know we were gonna smoke or whatever and i had this homie that knew all the man he was just like

00:38:22.640 connected somehow with like he would just go into a new city and all of a sudden he would be like oh

00:38:27.440 there's our guy like just how do you know that that random man on the bicycle is the guy he's holding

00:38:33.680 yeah he's good yeah some people are just they get they get that fucking uh that drug dog and they're

00:38:38.960 street smart yeah they're german shepherds yeah man and so i had a buddy that was like that and so

00:38:43.920 i ended up you know it was like there was one night i smoked crack with a fully pregnant lady

00:38:48.480 ooh and it was like that's how shitty that stuff is is like really i mean dude crack is the worst

00:38:55.600 fucking thing in the world to me it's like it's instantly addictive like that first night i did it

00:39:01.120 like i was telling you when i was 16 yeah i've always considered myself to have a pretty strong will

00:39:06.480 and like i was saying i've been around shit forever and and but when i hit i was like when i hit crack

00:39:12.400 i was like all right i know this shit's pretty crazy i'm gonna take one hit and that's it and

00:39:17.920 then so i took a hit and then it was like boom i was like oh holy shit it was like

00:39:24.960 incredible crazy what does it feel like does it feel like uh it felt like i hit in the head with a

00:39:30.240 frying pan body life orgasm wow it was like bam and it was like just euphoric like

00:39:39.360 like all of a sudden i just i don't know it was man i i shouldn't be on here describing it

00:39:46.400 because it's gonna seem like i'm like uh you know but well tell us the downside of it the downside of

00:39:52.640 it was so that people know that so if anybody right now is trying to u-turn to go get some crack or

00:39:57.120 whatever no no no no don't do it because it's oh man it's like i i was like i'm just gonna take one

00:40:04.960 hit and that's it and i'm like i said i got a strong will i can do this i take one hit that

00:40:10.240 pipe didn't make it around the circle before i was like man i hope there's enough you know till

00:40:14.720 i can get another one yeah and it was i was really nervous i was like it was like man i hope there's

00:40:20.880 enough and so then it was like how do i have any more money it was like how much money do i got we

00:40:25.200 could we get some more right immediately without you even thinking 50 seconds right so it hijacks your

00:40:31.040 thoughts even immediately i was ready to sell shit oh you know just whatever i you know it

00:40:37.680 takes everything and and then the next day i go to school right and i got this little rock left over

00:40:44.000 sitting on my on my desk and i go to school the next morning and i didn't make it 40 minutes into

00:40:49.200 fucking first hour before i i'm sick miss julie i gotta go home i signed myself out went home smoked that

00:40:55.040 rock because i couldn't fucking stand the thought of it sitting there on my nightstand at home

00:40:59.280 and i'm sitting in school and i'm going fuck i know right at home there's that rock and i could

00:41:04.320 go smoke it sitting there yeah it's way it's just just looking for you wearing a fucking probably

00:41:08.800 see-through bra dude yeah it was it was terrible yeah you know god so i just i you know i couldn't

00:41:16.960 handle it i mean i couldn't handle it mate i'll tell you why billy because i remember i would get

00:41:23.680 even if i got some cocaine right i would get some cocaine and then i would go home it's just me and

00:41:28.480 my cocaine that is uh this is the relationship i'm in at the that's not good it was bad and i

00:41:34.160 would do a little bit of cocaine and then i would be like all right my some of my friends hit me up

00:41:39.280 like let's go do something like all right and then i would do some more and then i would start walking

00:41:45.680 out the door and i'm like let me go back in and just make sure i did some it was like what is that

00:41:51.840 even like that was a real thought in my head like that's not even a legitimate let me make

00:41:57.440 sure i did some i'm still pulling it out of my nose from the and i'm like hey bro you should go

00:42:02.160 make sure you did some what the fuck dude that's not so interesting just to even think about how it

00:42:09.680 hijacks our thoughts man and if you can't even if you because your thoughts come out of nowhere so it's

00:42:15.200 like if it gets it above those it's a fucking that's just it just shows the power of it so oh

00:42:22.400 man i just want to yeah i think i think to say that kind of stuff is important but it's how'd you

00:42:27.120 get out of it then well like i said it was like it was never a i would do it for a night and i'll be

00:42:33.120 like okay never again for at least six months or something whether it was math or crack or heroin or

00:42:39.920 whatever i would do it and then i would be like okay it's like i know that i can't do it more than

00:42:45.520 one day in a row where speed if you do it you know i would smoke one little bit and i'm good

00:42:51.680 for the weekend it's like i'd be up for two days off a couple hits or whatever wow um dude that

00:42:56.960 shit's really crazy too like what you were talking about looking out the window and seeing silhouettes

00:43:01.440 and shit there was one time where i went over to muir to to hang and me and my buddy jake were like

00:43:08.240 we tweaked from thursday to monday and by like the third or fourth day of like being awake

00:43:18.240 and getting no sleep it was like my friend jake who i know well and and and i'm sitting right there

00:43:25.120 next to him but i'm looking at him and it's like it's not his face on his face it's like somebody like

00:43:30.960 some guy named brandon or something he looks like a different guy and i'm like jake and he's like yeah

00:43:35.120 and i'm like you're not jake though like the fuck i'm looking right at you and you start to really

00:43:41.680 get after being awake for a couple days like i remember looking out my window and seeing

00:43:46.240 silhouettes of like people standing by the tree and like yeah behind the car and like stuff and

00:43:50.560 you think people are watching you and shit like paranoia has got to be one of the worst

00:43:56.320 fucking things that can happen yeah there's a comedian uh shane moss and he he was wanted to do

00:44:04.880 a documentary i think and i'm paraphrasing uh an amazing comedian great guy uh go see him if you get

00:44:11.200 a chance and he um he was on here once and he was talking about he was trying to make a documentary

00:44:17.200 about doing i want to say it was mushrooms right but he got so like deep into it he started getting

00:44:25.120 uh paranoid and he started thinking the documentary crew that he had hired to shoot the documentary of

00:44:33.920 him um were that they were uh like ops like they were like government like like he started to go down

00:44:46.800 a real rabbit hole really no that's and then he started to give clues to the camera so that when

00:44:53.680 they he watched whoever watched it would know that he knew like he was getting deep bro i think there's

00:45:00.800 a level to it because psychedelics is another thing that i've dabbled in and i think um i think psychedelics

00:45:09.200 is a very positive thing yeah i am an advocate for psychedelics i'm not an advocate for meth crack

00:45:16.800 uh oxycontin uh cocaine any any of those things little mushrooms i think it's you know take a hit

00:45:26.560 of acid and and if you're brave like a hit of dmt or something um but it's not for everybody i don't

00:45:34.800 think psychedelics are for everyone but i think it can help a lot of people i think a lot of people would

00:45:40.000 benefit from eating a mushroom stem and going and sitting down by the riverbank uh pitching a tent

00:45:47.200 you know making a fire and hanging out with some friends and looking up at the trees and you know

00:45:52.400 staring at a bug and realizing why you know it's like i've hung out with like um like whenever you're

00:45:59.280 around like the grateful dead camp you know um bob weir and bill kreutzman and some of those cats like

00:46:05.520 like like for instance when i was out in hawaii hanging out with bill kreutzman and those guys a

00:46:10.960 lot of like the people that are just around the friend group they're all like and i noticed this

00:46:18.080 while i was there because these people are doctors and you know intellects and and you know there's

00:46:24.560 they're they're all adults who are still children but they're not immature and it's like you see this

00:46:32.560 45 year old woman who has many degrees sitting there staring at an aunt and being like wow you

00:46:38.960 know almost like a child and i think it's just a a great thing to not lose that maybe some people get

00:46:47.600 it without drugs i know uh my banjo player billy failing he might take a hit of weed like every once

00:46:55.360 in a while but he he's pretty doesn't do anything and i'm like talking to him about that like man when

00:47:02.320 i take some mushrooms or whatever i just feel like you know i feel like psychedelics can make

00:47:07.280 me feel like one with nature and and stuff like that yeah and and he's like man well i get the

00:47:13.120 same thing when i go on a a three-day long hike and sleep on the ground um because him and his wife

00:47:19.040 go on these outdoor you know um long hikes and stuff for like weeks at a time and they sleep on the

00:47:24.880 ground and they you know grand canyon or we're you know out oh national parks and shit yeah and being

00:47:30.880 lost but it's like organized you know go and shit in a hole for a week you get one with nature pretty

00:47:35.840 quick oh yeah without drugs yeah but taking some shrooms or acid or something can really get you there

00:47:42.640 a lot quicker it's like um well shrooms are a connector i think and even fungus itself is like a

00:47:49.520 expansatory type of thing you know it's like a it's that thing that fills in the space you know like

00:47:56.160 like so um it's like a caulk almost in a way so i yeah i definitely i i think that mushrooms are

00:48:04.000 great i've always thought that yeah you can get a little crazy and then your buddy's fucking somebody's

00:48:08.800 doing the heimlich maneuver on him at a damn waffle house or something and the guy's hitting on your

00:48:14.000 friend or something he's a kid or whatever but the problem the biggest problem i think is uh

00:48:19.520 is you just run the risk of people not being able to do it in um modern in some sort of control or

00:48:26.640 moderation i was just gonna say the moderation that's the key with everything but we're getting

00:48:32.320 more to the point now you're seeing like i have people that hit me up that i say hey man you should

00:48:35.760 work with this therapist they do uh like mushroom guided therapy right like and you see a lot more

00:48:41.360 like ketamine guided therapy right and um ayahuasca adventures like you're seeing things where i think

00:48:47.920 people are getting away from the idea of like just i just want to poison myself like with alcohol which

00:48:53.600 is a fun poison i'm not saying it's bad i'm not condemning anybody that drinks like i would be

00:48:58.480 drinking if i didn't go buy cocaine and end up trying to you know yeah no if i was a responsible

00:49:04.000 adult i would drink too but i'm not right i'm just yeah it's it you know um yeah i'm not responsible so

00:49:12.640 anyway but yeah i think i just think we're seeing like a kind of a a stray from that a little bit

00:49:17.920 um this is yours man yeah you brought this for me man yes sir this is mine i brought you a couple

00:49:24.240 cases of it no really yeah but this can is great man it's made by shorts brewing company which is a

00:49:30.160 place where i celebrated my 21st birthday party actually and and i used to play gigs there all

00:49:37.280 the time and they're just my homies from back home and since i don't drink you know we wanted to

00:49:41.760 do a collab anyways but we made this sparkling it's like a hop water bro it's good it is good

00:49:47.520 i love it and it's just that this is the name of thirst mutilator wow you want to hear a dmt story

00:49:56.800 or two yeah i'll and then i'll trade you one and then um and then we'll get back into your music

00:50:01.840 wait you yeah we're not to get back in anything but i don't want people to forget that you're a

00:50:06.640 musician yeah psychonaut billy strings psychonaut that's what shane moss was a psycho nice but yeah

00:50:13.920 let's go down a dmt story well because i feel like you know since i'm talking about all the other

00:50:20.880 bad bullshit that i've done i need to kind of uh clear my name here and and tell you about some

00:50:27.920 of the better stuff that has happened to me because of my experiments yeah it's important um like

00:50:37.200 like when i was living in traverse city there's this man my buddy seth he's gone now too this sucks

00:50:44.560 because he you know i'm fucking opiates man got his ass but he was my buddy who always had whatever

00:50:53.840 he was like into the edm scene and shit yeah and he would like just have a backpack which oh yeah i got

00:51:00.160 whatever bro so he would come over and whatever one time he had this dmt he's like let me get a

00:51:06.080 little bit you know so you know

00:51:13.840 let me get a little bit i'll buy some off you right so he hooks me up with a little bag

00:51:18.240 and that bag sat on top of my dresser for fucking i don't even know six months yeah because that's

00:51:25.280 the other thing about psychedelics that i'll say is like it's not something to play around with yeah

00:51:30.720 if you're not in the head space for it don't do it you know it's like it's kind of and i've learned

00:51:36.800 that lesson from psychedelics it's almost like dipping your toe in the pool or something and and

00:51:43.200 and it's like don't do that just you know if you want to go swimming or not do you or don't you

00:51:48.480 right do you want to stay dry or do you want to get wet right okay yeah and if you're wearing something

00:51:52.880 that can't get wet then fucking don't yeah then just chill yeah like if your attitude is an attitude

00:51:59.280 that can't get wet right now yeah then just stay on the bank yeah exactly but so i was you know it

00:52:06.960 took me six months to gain up the courage to to hit this dmt and one day i came home from work and

00:52:16.160 there was nobody home my roommates were gone i knew they weren't going to be back because they were

00:52:19.360 downstate and i had the house to myself the sun was shining oh yeah i was like you know what i'm

00:52:24.800 feeling pretty good today it's like i'm happy the sun's out fuck it nobody's home like i'm just

00:52:30.720 gonna rip this dmt let's try it amen so i and i was also ignorant at the time about what it even

00:52:36.160 really was and i didn't know what to expect so i wasn't really scared of it now i haven't done it

00:52:41.440 in years even though it's been so enlightening and helpful i'm i haven't done it in years because of

00:52:45.840 how intense it is um but this at this time i was like 21 or something just like man i'm just gonna

00:52:53.280 rip this dmt and so i sat on the couch and like took a big hit of this and and i was listening to

00:53:04.880 this um it was actually the oh brother where art thou soundtrack oh yeah i'll fly away with killian

00:53:10.080 welch and emmy lou and ellison krauss and mike compton and you know all these instruments and

00:53:15.840 stuff and i hit this and all of a sudden i'm kind of floating and the instruments are surrounding me

00:53:19.520 and it's all this beautiful kind of shit happening and i start to see this blue light and i'm like

00:53:25.920 whoa what's that it's like this blue light way up ahead in the distance and it's getting closer and

00:53:29.760 closer to me and all of a sudden it's like whoa it's a chick and i'm like i can see this lady and she's

00:53:36.880 swirling and dancing and she starts murmuring this ancient language that is brand new something that

00:53:45.600 this language has only been used right now for this particular occasion but it's ancient and

00:53:51.120 i understood every word somehow some you know she's telling me this information as she's spinning

00:53:57.280 and twirling and dancing for me and she's wearing this skirt and every time she twirls her skirt kind of

00:54:04.000 twirls like that and and it's made of like eyeballs and then she does a 360 and it's made of ears and

00:54:09.840 then teeth and then hair noses and pupils and just all these different facial features her skirt was

00:54:16.000 like made up of like thousands of them as every time she turned it would change and she gets she's

00:54:22.480 getting closer and closer to me and then she got close enough to me and she kind of like caressed me in

00:54:28.640 a way like put her arms around me and was like are you good i'm like i'm good and then we went

00:54:34.880 like shot me out of the atmosphere out of you know outer space like through this placenta

00:54:43.520 where we kind of broke through and then it was like we were on this beautiful pink

00:54:48.000 mountain top overlooking this vast everything damn and and she was kind of standing me on top

00:54:54.160 of the mountain pointing and looking and showing me everything these are all the universes notice

00:54:59.360 how they're spinning and working together like a gear like a watch like a clock like a movement

00:55:05.440 and then she zapped us down super zillow or something it was like all the universes spinning and then she

00:55:10.800 took me down to our universe and showed me all the galaxies doing that same thing and then she took

00:55:16.080 me to our galaxy showed me all the planets doing it then to our planet and showed me the wind and water

00:55:22.160 and currents and and then to a grain of sand it was like a fractal out from everything and everything

00:55:29.040 is spinning and working together yeah doing the dance yeah what you do affects your neighbor you

00:55:35.440 know and and and basically she told me it was like you need to be strong in yourself you need to work on

00:55:44.080 yourself work on your mental health work on you know she didn't say all this shit but

00:55:48.000 you caught it from that's what i got is like you need to work on yourself we're all a link we're all

00:55:53.200 links in a chain we're all together me and you are the same bud and we need to be the strongest links

00:55:59.840 that we can be for everything for not just not just humanity but all of everything you know and what

00:56:06.800 that is to be a strong link you got to work on yourself and basically just not be a dick you know and

00:56:12.080 deep dive down inside of yourself and figure out what it is why are you an asshole yeah you know

00:56:19.280 or why how can you change to be better how could you be a kinder better person to your neighbor to

00:56:24.160 mother nature to yourself to yourself especially that's how you do it right that's how you find the

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00:57:09.280 dot com slash theo for 50 off the last website you'll ever need yeah man it's i mean it's fascinating

00:57:18.000 yeah thanks for sharing that that experience man um yeah well it's it's just interesting the relationship

00:57:24.880 that we have with ourselves it's like like we've outsourced our own responsibility a lot of times

00:57:32.800 it feels like like it's like i need it's almost like i look entirely at medicine or at other people

00:57:39.440 for my responsibility to for me to be okay right which i'm not saying that we don't need other people

00:57:45.040 we need help and we do need help we do need like therapy we need communication and sometimes we need

00:57:51.680 medicine yeah but i think that we can fall into a trap or i know that i have that's what i should

00:57:56.720 just say i've fallen into a trap at times where i've completely outsourced if i'm going to be okay

00:58:04.880 onto other people and things like i i haven't that the relationship that i have with myself is so

00:58:12.960 it's not even there a lot of times or it hasn't been that i'm reliant completely on if other things

00:58:18.480 are going to make me okay as opposed to like i think there was a time probably a long time ago

00:58:24.400 maybe and i may romanticize the past sometimes but where i felt like people had a bit more like

00:58:30.080 agency or something that's called with themselves where they had more of a relationship with themselves

00:58:35.120 you know and they reflected on themselves more and reflected on experiences and behaviors and and just

00:58:40.720 like uh just had a little bit more probably um say in how they were doing you know or how they were

00:58:48.880 feeling or what was going on with them and i don't even think we've done it on purpose i just think a

00:58:52.880 lot of it's the way our society has kind of shaped things well nowadays you just look down at your uh

00:58:57.360 fitbit or whatever oh yeah my heart's beating uh things good yeah my buddy has a fat bit my buddy

00:59:02.880 burt kreischer it just he looks at it and just tells him he's fat oh man god bro you gotta yeah we need to get

00:59:09.680 him yeah we need to get him like a mechanical watch yeah we need something but we need to get him a

00:59:14.320 meth addict to take that thing apart first of all yeah put it back together yeah so when people were

00:59:20.480 on methamphetamines if they take that stuff apart what are they then looking to do with it is it uh

00:59:25.760 why do people take that kind of stuff apart is it i don't know i think maybe to put it back together

00:59:31.760 better but what i was saying is like whatever you do if you did speed i feel like that's what you do it's

00:59:36.720 like people i knew they would string beads oh yeah i'm making necklaces making jewelry or they would

00:59:43.360 you know draw pictures or write lyrics or poetry or you know it's just you know it's kind of like

00:59:48.320 whatever you do if you have like a little thing that you like to do right i feel like that's a great

00:59:52.640 activity oh dude okay check this out so there was this place barkis park where i grew up and um

00:59:59.520 barkis it's for dogs but well b-a-r-k-u-s barkis park barkis park in lions michigan and um

01:00:09.440 so it was a campground my buddy brad brad lasco owned it uh he was like my uncle brad he was my

01:00:15.200 dad's best friend he played the banjo oh wow and he was like our yeah barkis campground

01:00:20.640 so this place when i was growing up dude yeah there we are right there there's a little bradley

01:00:25.200 picking man that's where i grew up man that's the vibe that's my dad right there above him

01:00:29.360 no way bro that's the damn google images on this park yeah so um i think it's just a yard bro

01:00:37.520 dude that's that's how i grew up right there bro sitting on that campground picking just like that

01:00:42.480 that's my childhood and dude that's so cool it was epic man there's stony creeks right there the

01:00:48.480 salmon run every year in the fall we were like spearing salmon back then yeah i won't tell anybody it

01:00:53.280 it was crazy but um this dude brad lasco on it there we go that's what i was just gonna say they

01:00:59.520 found out so my childhood there was great but as i got a little older 10 12 years old all that meth

01:01:06.960 moved in and fucked everything up and everybody up yeah including barkis park and they while everybody

01:01:14.480 was tweaking on meth found out that there was gold in the creek no way oh my god can you imagine a better

01:01:21.600 activity for meth head than panning for gold nah i can at all dude i mean it's like pan at all

01:01:27.920 literally sifting through every grain of sand in the fucking creek to find specks of gold like that's

01:01:34.000 how could you do that and not be a meth head dude why every meth recovery center isn't currently

01:01:40.640 located along a river or stream in this country i will never understand we have got to organize

01:01:49.600 meth users and get this gold yeah seriously because we could get some big bucks dude um i that's

01:01:58.240 unbelievable bro i do you have you written a song about that i'm not about paying for gold i wrote

01:02:02.640 one called dust in the baggie for yes that's about brad lasco man that's is it yeah he just passed away

01:02:08.320 a couple years ago too man that me and dad record you know we dedicated it to brad oh that's him no

01:02:14.960 that's uh this is the video for it well yeah dust in a baggie that's a video for it okay i wouldn't

01:02:21.520 play it but no that's a famous video uh now because of that guy in the background barefoot ben we were

01:02:28.560 all on mushrooms that night we were sitting in uh my buddy uh well my friend gina's uh basement and

01:02:35.520 we're all picking songs and there was a big party upstairs and everybody was drunk but we were all

01:02:39.920 tripping so we wanted to go downstairs and be quiet and get away from all the drunks so we were sitting

01:02:44.080 down there in that basement and um just picking tunes and then yeah barefoot ben there man he was

01:02:49.440 he was like the only hippie like in ionia that you know what i mean it was like i mean i guess there

01:02:55.280 was a couple like skater kids or whatever but he was like barefoot at every party he was like wearing

01:02:59.760 tie-dye he like people call him barefoot ben or hippie and yeah like like i said he was like the only

01:03:06.640 hippie around but he was at every party he lived it he was at every party and he was like how'd you get

01:03:12.880 here like who do you know here like he was just every party he was there and in in this video

01:03:19.040 he's literally like we're tripping and i'm just playing these songs and he's smoking an unlit

01:03:22.880 cigarette and he keeps hitting it like it's like i don't think he does it but if you look at the

01:03:27.760 comments on that shit it's hilarious like they're talking about ben like this dude looks like he's

01:03:32.720 standing there giving out side quests and shit oh yeah no shout out ben hope you're doing good

01:03:40.080 buddy very for ben amen brother yeah um man they just found a huge golden nugget do you can you

01:03:46.560 look that up for me where there we go biggest gold nugget ever found that weighed as much as a

01:03:53.440 person would be worth an insane amount today the biggest nugget the golden world weighed as much as

01:03:59.440 as an adult man millions john decent and richard oates hits the jackpot oh this is in 1869 when they

01:04:09.120 so a little bit australia when they found they discovered the monster nugget while digging in

01:04:14.560 australia yeah weighing in at 11 stones or uh 72 kilograms still no idea how much that is i think

01:04:22.240 gets 220 pounds 11 stone it was weighted a london charter bank and they were paid just under ten

01:04:29.440 thousand dollars for the massive chunk in 1869 yeah what do you think you'd do if you got that thing

01:04:35.120 brother if you're on math and let's say this let's go down a road all right that doesn't exist but um

01:04:41.360 but we have zoning rights in this space oh yeah if we we find a we find a we find a

01:04:47.280 we find a chunk of gold the size of a man and people are on math do you tell other people you

01:04:51.760 have it or do you like our math people keep can they keep a secret or is it not a secret area

01:05:00.960 that's a good question i don't know i feel like some people can some people can't

01:05:06.000 you know i feel

01:05:09.360 yeah we would just pawn that it would just go with pawn shop yeah i mean it would go to the

01:05:13.120 closest pawn shop i would probably give it away for two racks bro yeah dude i mean

01:05:17.840 fucking two racks how many boxes can i get with that right we just got to drive all over michigan

01:05:23.280 to go suda fed central i remember when they started locking up the suda fed man oh yeah yeah you got to

01:05:28.960 show your id and shit for it i was like i have a fucking runny nose that used to be your id to get

01:05:33.600 suda fed and now everything had changed yeah um and yeah not condoning drugs but just sharing

01:05:39.760 experiences people get that it's kind of like the shit that i've been through and the stuff that

01:05:45.360 i've seen and all that is the reason that i can do what i do today i kind of got it out of my system

01:05:52.480 in a way wow uh but it's i don't want to go back right that's the thing i don't want to go back to

01:06:00.160 why because it sucks it's a miserable life it you know i mean who wants to be sitting in a tweaker pad

01:06:06.560 with no food and uh start i mean it might feel good for a couple hours but it real quick it gets

01:06:14.160 real bad and man it ruins people's lives it ruins families it's it you know yeah it's um yeah look

01:06:21.840 that's it look that's just what i want you said it better than i could have thought a way to say it

01:06:25.280 that's that's the truth um there's a message you did this is almost a decade ago i think we were

01:06:30.880 looking online obviously we were looking up things about you online and we found this post that you

01:06:38.400 put up this is like almost 11 years ago now yeah i remember that day it was because man i was working

01:06:44.720 at this uh you were in acme michigan i'm just going to read it is that okay billy yeah it says uh i put

01:06:49.440 in my two weeks notice today at work i decided to pursue music as a career maybe i'm going out on a

01:06:54.240 limb by doing this but i don't care i am ambition and i am ambitious and passionate enough to try it

01:07:00.640 working eight hours and then gigging all the time is physically and mentally stressful and leaves me

01:07:04.720 no time at all for creative output i'm going to work very hard practice and write music every day

01:07:09.920 besides there has been nights that i've made more money in one hour playing music and i'm making two

01:07:14.240 weeks at work i want to thank all of you for the support without you i would not be able to make this

01:07:19.360 decision yeah man that's cool man it's just a cool thing to put into the universe um what was

01:07:25.680 that feeling like so at that point i guess you're you decided what you wanted to do that was at a point

01:07:30.960 where i was i was working at this hotel uh the grand traverse resort and i just you know i would

01:07:38.480 i was partying and i was working and i was playing lots of gigs and the gigs were starting to

01:07:44.960 you know i was like saving up money for guitars and stuff and i had this little pile of money in my

01:07:49.120 top dresser drawer yeah so i could finally get this guitar that was worth like 2500 bucks that i

01:07:54.000 always wanted and yes you know and i was realizing as i'm saving up money i was going well i used to

01:08:00.160 just live off the hotel check i used to not have the gigs which what i made from the hotel was like

01:08:05.680 i don't know like 800 bucks every fucking two weeks or something you know but it was enough to

01:08:10.000 like pay my rent and get gas back and forth to work and stay alive yeah but then i started playing

01:08:16.960 gigs too and um i would be out playing a gig until you know i'd play a gig until 11 or so but then

01:08:28.000 there'd be a party afterwards so afterwards i'd go to the party and i'd be up till five in the morning

01:08:33.040 and then i'd get an hour and a half of sleep and then i'd go into work hungover and then uh work all

01:08:39.520 day and hate it and then go back and then six o'clock would come around and i'd be back on stage

01:08:46.080 somewhere yeah and i was burning the candle at both ends and i could just feel it closing in on me

01:08:50.480 it's like well you got to choose one or the other and it was like what like i said i used to make only

01:08:55.280 like 800 bucks at work now i'm making 1200 bucks from music i don't need but i mean it was nice to

01:09:01.600 have both the check and the music but i used to just live off this and was fine yeah so okay

01:09:07.040 fuck the job i'm just gonna live off the music yeah you know and basically have the same amount

01:09:11.760 of bread or whatever so i just started putting all my energy into it and um and what did that

01:09:17.840 look like when you say putting all your energy into it because i think that's kind of interesting

01:09:20.640 to think about you know like is it just well for one you made it your focus point you kind of told

01:09:25.520 the universe hey this is going to be what i'm gonna do you know you put that out there so that's

01:09:29.920 interesting because i think the universe does listen to us you know i don't think we talk to it enough

01:09:34.720 but i think it listens to us yeah but then so then what what started happening there musically

01:09:40.880 well i was already playing gigs um like we had like a weekly gig at this place called little

01:09:45.680 bohemia in traverse city and we were playing like shorts and you know like all these different places

01:09:51.120 like we played breweries coffee houses stuff like that for tips and for whatever you know and i was

01:09:56.560 like a a weekend warrior and just just a working musician i'd play at the steakhouse i'd play at the

01:10:03.120 fucking brewery you know whatever but it just you know once i kind of got the job out of there then

01:10:12.720 it was like okay and what i meant in that post is like i'm not fucking around like i'm gonna practice

01:10:19.360 i'm gonna write songs i'm gonna take this very seriously because of the folks that were out there

01:10:24.640 coming to my little weekly gigs and stuff and making it to where i could pay my rent just with

01:10:30.800 music i i felt like i had a duty to basically give back to those folks that supported me and say look

01:10:39.120 if you continue to support me i'm not gonna fucking i'm not fucking around like i'm really i will really

01:10:44.800 work hard if you guys will still support me you know yeah and um so i just that's what i decided to

01:10:51.600 do man and that was like around the time i was like 18 and well let's let's see i'm 31 that was

01:10:56.320 2010 anybody good at math it's 11 years ago so i think i'm guessing i might go to math no yeah it's

01:11:04.960 11 years oh it is good so what's that i was was i 21 20 20 20 or 21 yeah so at that point i had already

01:11:12.640 been on tour and shit i had like oh you know when i was 19 i had been on tour by the time i was 19 i was

01:11:19.040 playing 200 gigs a year oh my god and i did that up until just a couple years ago do you think what

01:11:25.360 do you think are the things i know that you had to like some viral moments online what do you think

01:11:29.760 are the things that really like cementy cemented you in with people um like do you think it's a way

01:11:37.760 that you play do you think it's um because i think artists start to see this some artists are great

01:11:44.480 performers some artists are they're captivating um they can make a unique sound or do something new or

01:11:52.480 novel um some you go for the songs and you don't even know anything about the artist or care about

01:11:59.200 the artist at all right do you does that make any sense to you no that's a really um interesting

01:12:06.480 thing that i've i kind of learned that the first time that i went to the grammys because i'm a guitar

01:12:10.880 player i'm a bluegrass musician i grew up singing on the campfire there's no computers there's no

01:12:17.120 auto-tune there's no backup dancers you know and i i went i went to the grammys and i saw all this

01:12:23.200 shit and i was like whoa you know like the k-pop group like bts and yeah and i was just they're

01:12:29.120 like i was like okay well none of them are singing they're all this is all pre-recorded tracks but

01:12:35.280 they're dancing their asses off i was like oh they're dancers they're not musicians that like

01:12:41.520 they're not a musician like me like i stand there in blue jeans on stage and strum the guitar and sing

01:12:46.720 songs that's what i do lady gaga can direct an entire fucking orchestra to you know she can sing

01:12:55.200 act dance she's a comedian you know like there's just some people have the whole umbrella over them

01:13:01.680 mm-hmm you know i'm just like a musician and and so going to the grammys and seeing like

01:13:08.880 you know somebody with like all the backup dancers doing all the moves and stuff and i was like i like

01:13:13.840 like i said i grew up going to bluegrass festivals i never seen that shit yeah i was like whoa this is

01:13:20.560 they're not actually singing but still cool because i guess they're dancers but you know i've

01:13:26.160 always been sort of like a like a grass hole you know that's what you call it it's like

01:13:29.760 oh you know auto-tune or anything like that it's like oh that's what you're saying yeah yeah it's

01:13:34.240 like you know i worked my ass off my whole life to learn how to sing and play and then there's folks

01:13:38.000 out there that are just pressing a button on a computer and and they're and singing through

01:13:41.920 auto-tune and shit and they're selling millions of records it's like that's not fucking fair yeah you

01:13:46.240 know yeah you know at the but it's a different style it's a different you know okay this person's not

01:13:52.080 a bluegrass musician they're a dancer or they're a you know a rapper or whatever that auto-tune sound is a

01:13:57.920 stylistic it's a part of the sound you know it's like a banjo is to bluegrass you know right they're

01:14:04.880 almost like new new orchestra yeah it's like it used to be this guy was the guy who was like

01:14:10.000 the dj you know nobody ever gives that guy any credit yeah you know for being the first

01:14:14.800 fucking zed or whatever conductor yeah yeah the conductor nobody's like oh look at that there's

01:14:19.440 cascade you know they're just like oh look at this penguin fucking guy with the two sticks you

01:14:23.600 know this guy's obviously a dork yeah yeah but truly that guy was the that guy was the cascade

01:14:30.160 that guy was he was the g man he was um the chain smokers you know it was just a different time

01:14:36.560 um and then now people use more auto-tune they just had an article the other day it was about like

01:14:41.680 t-pain did you see i remember like hearing him talk about i don't remember what show it was on or

01:14:47.680 something but he was talking about how usher or somebody told him that he like ruined music by

01:14:53.120 introducing all that auto-tune shit and he he said he got like really depressed about it oh wow like

01:14:59.120 i'm on a boat well i don't i don't know i'm on a boat wasn't he didn't he make that song i think so

01:15:05.120 but either way like i feel like that was his sound was the real auto-tune yeah and um and i think

01:15:12.080 somebody who he really looked up to told him that he was like yeah usher told him that he ruined music

01:15:19.280 that usher telling him he ruined music led to a four-year depression but i guess and then you see

01:15:23.600 t-pain coming out singing these chris stapleton songs and shit and it's like this motherfucker can

01:15:28.640 sing yeah it's like if anybody he was the last person that should have been pressing the button

01:15:34.240 right but i mean that's what i'm saying is like it's a stylistic choice it's like it's not like the

01:15:38.480 guy can't fucking sing oh i see what you're saying so you're saying that yes sometimes in in the

01:15:43.120 instance it's an instance of somebody just trying something new trying a different style seeing what else is

01:15:48.160 going on as opposed to somebody just well not having a certain skill set like check this out

01:15:53.680 man like post malone for instance like that's my dog and he you know he uses a lot of auto-tune on his

01:16:00.320 like rap music and and what i mean whatever music i can't how do you even classify his music it's just

01:16:06.720 like posty music well he's a concierge of joy oh yeah honestly how would how i would i've only hung

01:16:13.520 out with him once but he is a concierge he's the fucking best dude ever he's a concierge of sheer

01:16:18.320 joy the first time i really met him he's a fucking care bear i love him yeah but the first time i met

01:16:23.200 him um he invited me over to his place or whatever and we fucking sat there and sang

01:16:32.160 johnny cash hank williams fucking he knows more old country songs than i do i think and he can play

01:16:38.640 him on guitar and sing him like a fucking angel and it's like i'm sitting in a room with him watching

01:16:44.080 this like okay like dude's talented like i'm fucking impressed he knows the the words to more

01:16:50.240 hank williams songs than me i'm like holy shit i mean it's like the same thing with like luke combs

01:16:54.800 when i was in a room with him for the first time and he opened his mouth and started singing i'm just

01:16:58.960 like wow okay great voice man yeah you know like motherfucker can sing right and i'm just like

01:17:06.160 honored to be around any of these these guys i mean and especially more than even those cats who

01:17:12.320 are big celebrities i'm the jack pearsons and and more of the guys who are in my scene the

01:17:17.840 the baila flecks the brian sutton's the you know stewart duncan's the jerry douglas's the

01:17:25.040 when i like go to the grammys or something like that those are the cats that i'm really

01:17:30.160 i love seeing the big celebrity and stuff but i'm looking past them and seeing who's in the band

01:17:34.640 yeah like oh that bass player who's backing up justin bieber right now justin bieber's drummer

01:17:40.960 holy fuck who's that guy yeah you know that's what i'm looking at is like the cats yeah you know cats

01:17:47.600 yeah dude what a phenomenal that would be so neat if they had billy strings and the cats and it was

01:17:52.720 just a tour that you did sorry i know i hate when people give me ideas but i'm gonna be that all ears

01:17:58.000 brother and you just featured like yeah because it's so it's so the spinning wheel of luck and

01:18:05.520 fortune sometimes that some voices get heard louder than others you know um and then some

01:18:10.880 people don't want to be the center of attention also as well you know i had a i still have a hard

01:18:16.800 time with success i grew up the opposite i grew up poor i grew up you know going to stay the night

01:18:26.400 at friends houses just so i could have some dinner yeah you know like i i grew up fucking sleeping in

01:18:31.840 my winter coat you know with a pit bull that had fleas because she was warm you know and yeah waking

01:18:37.920 up in the middle of the night and fucking you can see your breath in your bedroom and shit so i have a

01:18:42.480 a hard time with success because all my people are still living that you know back home i have

01:18:47.840 people that are still going to prison still addicted still dying from ods you know it and i'm sitting

01:18:54.400 over here shitting on a heated toilet at the sunset marquee and it's like well why me i have a survivor's

01:19:00.400 guilt oh interesting you know what i mean and wow yeah that's interesting man it's like so i've talked

01:19:07.600 to my therapist about this a bunch you know and i'm going okay well i go stand on stage and

01:19:12.400 play guitar now granted i've worked i've played guitar since i was four years old and i've worked

01:19:17.760 very hard at it you know i mean this is 25 years of fucking playing every day you know trying to get

01:19:23.760 better and really wanting to be a musician since i was in kindergarten you know like since i was a baby

01:19:31.360 and but still when i'm at my house and we like are doing some renovations or something and i see some

01:19:40.560 like mexican dude out and working on laying the asphalt or something and i'm going he's out in

01:19:48.160 the hot sun and i'm going this is cockeyed as fuck he's out there doing actual hard fucking work in the

01:19:55.840 sun and i play guitar and like he's the one making my driveway this is fucked yeah and i'm like i really

01:20:04.480 feel like shit sometimes about like this is what the fuck happened you know like how why is the guy

01:20:10.880 who is doing harder work being paid shit yeah you know and it's like there's my i told this to my

01:20:19.760 therapist and she she's like i understand you know but she also said she told me about this pyramid of

01:20:27.440 competence it's like as a musician goes well how many guitar players do you know how many do you

01:20:34.000 know that can play and sing at the same time how many do you know that play sing at the same time

01:20:39.920 and write their own songs how many do you know that play sing at the same time write their own songs and

01:20:46.080 have good business sense how many do you know that play sing write their own songs have good business

01:20:51.520 sense and are willing to tour 200 days or more a year it's it starts getting narrowed down and i'm

01:20:58.460 just the crazy motherfucker that will die for this shit i'll never go back to where i was i play for

01:21:04.480 my life like i'm not it's not a job it's not a this is my fucking survival you know and this is

01:21:12.720 it's literally everything to me so well i think even going back to the fact that when you were

01:21:18.780 high on a drug you reach for your guitar i've always reached for my i know that but it's

01:21:25.380 saying it's a survive like it just i'm just thinking of that i'm not trying to like link

01:21:28.620 this shit no it's just my guitar has always been my best friend and my my coping mechanism through

01:21:32.980 everything right and here's what's crazy though billy is people are gonna do all have to do jobs

01:21:39.160 i remember working at a pizza place and i would listen to uh the second the boss would leave i

01:21:43.100 would turn up fucking guns and roses and i would fucking hell right oh dude i would fucking cry in

01:21:49.840 there listen to november rain and fucking threaten other people that worked at the place and i would

01:21:54.800 and i would drink beer back there i would open up the deep fryers dude and i would put pudding in

01:22:00.900 there i put pepper i put anything you could i would fucking fry it and eat it and drink beer

01:22:05.020 and uh and but what i'm saying is sometimes that person is listening to your music and it's what's

01:22:12.960 making the shift a little bit shorter it's what's keeping there so it's like we all i think are part

01:22:17.900 of some process where it's like you know i remember working on a farm for a couple summers and having to

01:22:23.340 do 14 hour days and oh my god but i would listen to things bailing hay or what were you doing no i was

01:22:29.460 running fertilizer running uh just help cleaning like the frogs on the planters like they let me

01:22:36.280 plant after a while i broke some shit i probably still need a hard work man gotta resent or gonna

01:22:41.820 ask for an amends but um yeah but it was i just did whatever needed to be done but i would park i

01:22:47.800 remember this i would park that tractor sometimes um i would just park it because i'd be in like 300

01:22:53.580 acres would be nobody around i'd park that tractor i'd stand out on the fucking hood of that thing

01:22:58.600 and i would play like um i would play the just the top 10 country it didn't get that they even had

01:23:06.120 an old radio and they didn't even you couldn't even see but you knew when you hit the channel

01:23:09.420 and i would just sing the fucking songs it was like the one moment i had during the day that made

01:23:16.300 me feel good or not that made me feel good but that just fucking let it all out right and somebody

01:23:21.160 who would probably play those songs had probably had maybe done a job that i'd done i remember i worked

01:23:25.440 at a pipe at a pipe fitter's place over there in new warlands over in destrahan or something

01:23:29.800 and we would play uh that song uh i just wanna fly remember that song put you on and it was just

01:23:38.660 kind of a groove it was one of those songs that hung around for so long in the ether they kind of

01:23:42.220 overplayed it and shit for sure and they started playing it at cvs and people wanted to kill themselves

01:23:46.680 and shit but um but for the first the younger guys who were like the guys who would just go sit

01:23:53.820 out in the sun and we would paint the the the uh the glue onto the pipe so they could fit the rubber

01:23:59.320 in there so that the the hold wouldn't like crack the pipe and stuff um whenever that song came on we

01:24:05.800 had to go in and dance for the other guys who've been working there for a long time these welders dude

01:24:09.720 and they fucking hated it but we go in and it was this one fun moment we had during the day

01:24:14.640 that was just ours nobody knew about it in the universe and these fuck it the first day none of

01:24:20.200 them even look up from their uh like welding and shit but by the third day they were like these

01:24:24.400 motherfuckers yeah and it was kind of like it was almost like us like uh hazing ourselves in order to

01:24:30.560 be accepted by the other group oh that's great but i think it's just because of music um we wouldn't

01:24:36.300 if that song never comes on and it's just we never would have done it you know it's just like um

01:24:41.460 there's certain things that it that it does help so i see what you're saying man there's times i like

01:24:46.680 get off stage and i'm walking past like the people um the employees that are helped cleaning up the

01:24:51.720 stands yeah and i feel bad for everybody dude always is it that you and i want to think about this with

01:24:58.320 you right now man is do you think it's that you that you feel bad or do you feel well i just feel

01:25:04.440 like why do why should i have it better than anybody else ever for anything right why should there be

01:25:10.900 anybody out there who's struggling who's sad who doesn't have a roof over their heads and i do

01:25:16.040 yeah it's just like we're all the same you know i'm not better than anybody else right i think it's

01:25:22.420 that you got chosen to be a some semblance of and we all get chosen at certain moments i think to be

01:25:27.700 some semblance of hope that's what i think because that's the thing i hear your story man i think about

01:25:33.880 like it reminds me of certain things in my own life it reminds you of people that i know um and then

01:25:39.760 when i hear your music i'm like man this makes me believe that something could be different for me

01:25:45.500 that something could be different for my son for my daughter for uh uh uh an in-law it gives me hope

01:25:54.380 and so but i think it is hard to hard to accept that that that you're gonna be a beacon of hope in

01:26:02.240 some way but i think we're all beacons of hope in different moments for each other you know like i'll

01:26:07.540 have some people call into the podcast sometime and tell me a guy called in the other day and he

01:26:11.020 said that he's like hey man a few years ago i called in and i was going through a divorce

01:26:15.300 and i was heartbroken he goes and i just want to call today it's three years later and uh my new

01:26:21.020 wife and i are expecting our first born child and it just like turned around for him and in that

01:26:27.660 moment dude that guy was my fucking hero that guy was my tom brady when i listened to that totally

01:26:32.320 man it was like so i think there's all like i don't know am i sounding too preachy man no yeah

01:26:38.440 i just think that yeah i think that like you just never we're all just taking turns i think we're all

01:26:43.680 just taking turns um and you worked so hard at the fucking music you know you worked hard at it

01:26:49.000 yeah and it's the best reward that i could ever receive is somebody saying hey man your song helped

01:26:55.120 me through a tough time or something and i've got that a bunch and it's just the best thing ever

01:27:00.900 better better than any accolade better than any you know anything like that it's just

01:27:06.520 the fact that you know and my songs have some of them have helped me i've written songs that

01:27:13.620 like i wrote the song and i thought i was writing it for other people to hear and that i feel like

01:27:19.920 what they need then i sing it for a couple months on stage and one night on stage i'm singing the

01:27:24.120 words and i'm going oh my god i wrote this for me like i'm the one that needs to hear this message

01:27:29.780 wow you know it's just like holy shit that's crazy yeah i think we're all like instruments of a

01:27:37.540 higher power you know and i do i just yeah we just don't know how we're being used it's funny man i'll

01:27:43.900 get home and i'll be tired or whatever i mean everybody's fucking tired and shit and but i'll go

01:27:49.380 to the airport now and sometimes the airport you still see somebody waiting for their kid to come

01:27:53.000 home from the military or waiting for a boyfriend or girlfriend or you'll still you'll see a guy out

01:27:57.260 there with flowers waiting to see his wife and that guy or person or family is my like they are

01:28:03.820 my damn frederick douglas you know like they fucking that's the like they're my whatever they

01:28:11.580 you know i don't even know their name and they are like my mozart for the month just seeing that

01:28:17.920 there's like pieces of excitement and hope yeah um anyway uh but what do you think do you think

01:28:26.360 there's something do you think there's like a illness in america or in our culture that

01:28:31.960 because we go through a lot of cities and towns and it's like they you start to feel like there's

01:28:38.120 an energy missing from the culture do you feel that at all or do you think that's just

01:28:42.040 i don't know what it is man i mean i don't know shit i just yeah i mean i know none of us do we can

01:28:49.200 just sit here and bullshit about it but i don't i don't know i feel like

01:28:52.100 people are just cruel to each other you know and not but it's also not in real life like online

01:29:00.440 they are oh yeah online is crazy but i'm just saying like at the height of the you know political

01:29:07.480 tensions and stuff like that like a couple years ago with trump and everything it's like you just

01:29:11.840 go online and you see everybody just you know talking shit to each other but then you look up from

01:29:18.700 your phone and you're in the airport and nobody's doing that and it's like well wait a minute like

01:29:23.140 are you guys actually enemies or are you guys just doing this online because you're all here in the

01:29:28.380 same airport and nobody's saying shit so what the fuck you know it's like i feel like the internet

01:29:34.260 just spews and and breeds like hatred like that you know the okay not the internet maybe like social

01:29:40.660 media or whatever but um i just feel like it's just some it's great for some things and it's not so

01:29:48.740 good for other things you know i wouldn't say something maybe to your face that i would say

01:29:55.160 online or whatever you know yeah oh def yeah i think there's things you can comment like um

01:30:02.120 that it's easier but is it different to hear you know it let's say i wouldn't stare you in the eyes

01:30:08.180 and say you're a fucking piece of shit you know yeah but if i said that online and you receive it

01:30:12.980 is it any different than me actually saying it to you wow it's interesting because when you read it

01:30:18.520 you're still okay this person thinks i'm a piece of shit what the fuck yeah yeah that's interesting

01:30:25.780 i think it's definitely not good i'm amazed that we allow it to happen to our culture like or that we

01:30:32.640 like you would think there would be a governing entity and maybe i don't understand government

01:30:39.040 sometimes or something that would say hey this isn't good for us we'll allow it during you know

01:30:45.140 maybe you allow it during certain hours of the day you know what i'm saying or i would it's the same

01:30:49.460 like with the opiates it's like hey a company that is fucking killing people that is people selling

01:30:55.300 their grandmothers in like third generation egg beater to cop a pill uh hey you're not good for

01:31:03.440 us you know like it would just think like they're good for the economy man right but it's like at what

01:31:08.860 point does that even have any because people are sick i don't even think we're sick on the outside i

01:31:13.660 feel like our souls are sick and we're out here having to like take care of them that's why people

01:31:18.480 need to listen to more bluegrass there we go you know that's probably the truth it really is man

01:31:24.080 well look the power of music man the power of me dude if i had to work all day and listen to no

01:31:29.980 music i mean when when in slave times they sang they made beautiful fucking music to get them through

01:31:36.440 um yeah and the prison lines too them guys out there hammering away and shit them songs man

01:31:42.540 um oh yeah i saw this here's this is this is pretty captivating uh a dying mom blown away after

01:31:50.140 she creates final song for her son and it makes the billboard charts this is really cool this is

01:31:55.260 cat janice i think yeah 31 year old cat janice noticed a lump on her neck in 2021 that doctor

01:32:00.660 is diagnosed as sarcoma a rare type of tumor that collects within the bone and tissue and is also

01:32:09.040 no joke i went to school with a girl named sarcoma jackson growing up we had fucking william

01:32:13.980 pitcher junior high school um move on though what else did it say about her on that article

01:32:18.000 uh cat was declared cancer free after undergoing treatment but the cancer sadly returned in june

01:32:25.240 2023 this time in her lungs uh one of the ways in which cat coped with diagnosis is through music

01:32:32.260 uh in a video she valiantly shared to social media after finding about her most recent diagnosis

01:32:37.920 she said i'm going to go back into treatment i'm going to be really strong about it um the mother

01:32:44.540 posted an update to her health back in january to her followers january 10th 2024 the tumor has

01:32:50.100 basically tripled overnight oh she's in hospice now um oh she said she's going to make she told

01:32:57.040 the publication that she signed her entire discography over to her son and added she wanted to release one

01:33:00.900 final track and this is the track i guess that's been blowing up wow it's cool man i have to check it

01:33:07.080 out um actually you can probably play play like a play a little bit of it you might be able to put

01:33:12.200 these on you throw these on for a second so when you hear this cat janice

01:33:18.480 you

01:33:45.940 let's go cat janice baby i like it bro i do that's exciting man that's and what a neat thing

01:34:12.140 just to be able to have it i can't believe it's interesting you know i think that shows you

01:34:15.660 people want to like support things that make them feel something you know people know she's making

01:34:21.500 that song she has a son they think about it you know i can't imagine you're in hospice and that

01:34:28.140 happens it's gotta just keep you well it's like what i was talking about earlier um you know how

01:34:35.500 the music was like rock and roll and then hippies wanted acoustic music and then it got back into

01:34:41.620 like some heavy stuff in the 70s and then disco happened yeah and then eventually people were

01:34:48.620 like okay enough of disco like let's and then grunge and then you know like nine yesterday you know yeah

01:34:57.140 and then uh and then now it's been kind of like electronic music and hip-hop has been sort of like

01:35:03.580 reigning supreme and i think people are just

01:35:06.040 they like to hear a guy strumming a guitar again or playing drums you know or sitting there

01:35:13.260 playing an instrument and singing i don't know we want something real yeah i want something real

01:35:18.920 i think that's i just i want to see i want to fucking see something that means something to somebody

01:35:23.860 i don't want something that feels like it's you know i don't know contrived for yeah yes you know

01:35:31.120 i'm just i think part of me is tired of feeling tricked yeah i mean it's kind of like and addicted

01:35:38.300 to the tricks well you know when you take away all the stuff that i mean i i want to use all of the

01:35:46.820 technology i can to make music at least that my peers are it seems like every time we get into a

01:35:51.200 studio with a producer or something because we're a bluegrass band they go oh man we're gonna record you

01:35:57.740 straight to tape and it's gonna you know super old school like it's the 50s or something i'm going

01:36:02.160 well fuck man all my peers are using auto-tune and shit this ain't fair like right so it's like we kind

01:36:07.920 of want one thing but then we also want to we want to use the things that can help us yeah for sure so

01:36:13.480 i'm just like you know what do you do but when you kind of take all that stuff away and just hear a

01:36:22.340 song that's just like a guy strumming a guitar and singing something that means something i think

01:36:28.160 it's just i don't know it's more pure or something yeah pull up that one where you and a posty were

01:36:34.420 doing that yeah and why he's not our inner our ambassador united nations or whatever i know he's

01:36:43.620 literally the kindest guy he's unbelievable the vietnamese love him everybody loves this guy

01:36:49.480 he like even he was he had a sig and he was like can i put it out like

01:36:55.880 oh he's just the nicest guy ever let's get yeah can we listen a little bit can you just play it for

01:37:01.740 us if we put these back on yeah i want to hear a little bit of this man

01:37:04.600 dude that's cool man it just looks fun yeah he just hit me up and was like man come out and then

01:37:13.300 when we were just hanging i was like you want to come sing one he's like fuck yeah wow that's cool

01:37:17.860 let's do that johnny cash song we did at your house how fun is it when a like a special guest

01:37:23.480 gets on a concert is it really just it can be fun it can it just depends you know yeah this was

01:37:29.840 really fun see he asked me if he could drop his cigarette on my stage what a gentleman i'll respect

01:37:36.540 that it's like when you're a comedy and somebody puts their feet up on the stage in the front

01:37:42.060 dude where the fuck did that shirt go god yeah i lost that shirt i don't know where the fuck it went

01:37:50.780 there you go billy boy that's so cool man

01:38:05.400 that's awesome man that's good dude i think it's just i think well that's the thing it's like i

01:38:21.840 think one reason people love musicians it's just you can make something that makes

01:38:26.160 people feel good pretty quick you're like a drug you know you're a drug it's a damn drug dude

01:38:34.100 you know when i was uh getting my wisdom tooth pulled out i was all i don't know if

01:38:42.380 no i wasn't nitrous either i think they knocked me out and when i came back too i was all kind of

01:38:47.860 loopy or something but either way i was like getting super sentimental and like emotional about

01:38:53.460 there was this this woman this endodontist or whatever she you know and i was like oh my god

01:39:00.660 you've literally for one thing i fucking hated school you went to more school yeah so that you

01:39:08.280 could help people

01:39:09.220 that is so noble yeah you literally went to more school which is like the worst fucking shit in the

01:39:20.080 world just so that you could help people in their life and help people with their face and their teeth

01:39:26.360 like oh my god thank you you know

01:39:30.920 yeah no look that's true dude yeah sometimes our perspective i just gotta have a good perspective

01:39:39.940 it's like thank you for i mean you put in the work a doctor or something like that i mean a musician

01:39:46.000 too a chef fuck this motherfucker spent all this time learning how to brew this beer that tastes so good

01:39:53.140 now or whatever it's like thank you yeah i wouldn't think of a chef as somebody making beer

01:39:57.520 immediately but i respect well no a brewer a brewer a chef an artist yes a fucking you know like if

01:40:03.900 you or you're going to you're going to like a five-star restaurant man you made this beer

01:40:08.280 and the steak's good too man god damn yeah i like a medium pale ale yeah medium rare for me

01:40:17.160 keep mine a little bloody um but no it's like no you're right man respecting the artistry that

01:40:24.800 people put into things yeah and even as a thing like a chef i think they're you know because some

01:40:30.640 chefs they love being chefs man i talked to my buddy brad last night he's a chef in uh

01:40:34.540 nashville he loves being a chef he's talking about he's just excited about it and

01:40:39.420 yeah you find that thing you love man respecting the artistry of things respect for the craft yeah

01:40:45.420 yeah my buddy cory wong was telling me that he was on tour somewhere over and i don't know but

01:40:51.940 they met this cheesemaker this fucking guy who was all about cheese oh yeah and so they were trying

01:40:57.160 all these different cheeses and shit and at the end of it they were like okay well we want to take

01:41:02.820 something to go and they were like trying to figure out where to how to package it and cory's like well

01:41:07.360 we can just all put it in one bag and the cheesemaker was like nah like respect for the craft dog we

01:41:13.160 ain't putting mixing up the cheeses yeah they all go in their own container yeah gorgonzola first of

01:41:18.180 all has been in solitary confinement for a couple weeks yeah we're nice yeah i mean he's not allowed

01:41:23.660 to be around the other inmates already so yeah no it's a good point respecting the craft of things

01:41:30.500 well and i think that goes back to some things in amer in our in our society bro and i talk about this

01:41:35.600 kind of stuff a lot because i think it's been i'm wondering why there's so much addiction and stuff

01:41:40.160 in the world and why people are sick or what is sick inside of us and i think one thing that people

01:41:46.420 need to have is purpose and i think people used to feel more purpose when they had like you knew who

01:41:52.940 the guy in your town was that was like owned the wood shop and was the woodworker or you know or you

01:41:57.880 knew who um was the cheesemaker who made the best pastries when life was like mayberry when it was

01:42:04.220 just a little bit more like unindustrial like on uh mass where just where everything wasn't a crispy

01:42:12.400 cream yeah and yeah it's not a exactly because then it was like i got to go i know the baker dude i can

01:42:18.720 learn from the baker and the baker felt value in the town because he can share information and it came

01:42:23.600 from his grandparents and so then your grandparents had value and there was lineage and like i think that

01:42:28.840 things like that were important and now you go through a lot of cities and and towns in america

01:42:34.360 and there's there's not a lot of that i think that's you know not to just tie everything to

01:42:40.620 bluegrass music but i think that's part of the reason why people love bluegrass music is it's almost a

01:42:46.480 a tap back into that world before all of the industrialization like when people were sitting on

01:42:53.360 their porch picking and you knew the neighbor and they came down for dinner and you know floyd

01:42:58.740 cut everybody's hair and andy griffith was the sheriff and you know it was like a simpler times

01:43:05.240 really yeah dude our bus driver gave everybody same cut dude r.i.p ray uh i don't know what his name was

01:43:14.260 deceased ray i guess they call him now or whatever but he was our bus driver and also had the barber

01:43:20.300 shop in town and it was like the red and white barber pole and everybody went in there yeah and

01:43:25.280 you'd wait you have to go if you knew if you didn't get there early it was like three three 25 or

01:43:29.520 something but on the bus days once a month he would cut on the bus and so he would cut everybody's hair

01:43:35.580 it was like two dollars bro everybody got same haircut man woman down center whatever you had

01:43:42.480 everybody got the same exact cut on that bitch you roll dude we all had the same cut in town

01:43:48.060 you knew yeah so it's kind of those are the echelons if you went and got it cut actually at

01:43:53.220 the shop or if you got one of those bus cuts dude ray would just rattle people off bro yeah got the

01:43:59.040 old bus cut yeah it was a different time right dude you've gotten to do so much with music man

01:44:04.560 yeah i think what i was asking about was sitting there with the uh with your parents was just that

01:44:09.960 energy when you're sitting there waiting to get called that's almost the most exciting thing whether

01:44:14.020 you win or not it's just that that's really that's the coolest is just being in that moment where

01:44:21.900 there's possibility well there is possibility i mean today's the day you can wake up and decide that

01:44:28.380 today is the day that i'm gonna just you know it's not all gonna happen overnight but it's like we can

01:44:35.320 start chipping away at it we can start doing whatever it is to uh be better work harder or whatever it is

01:44:42.840 that you feel like you need to do i like to set goals for myself write them down really like yeah

01:44:47.340 just like what do i want to do you know like i have this little journal where it's just like

01:44:52.480 what do i what do i want what do i want in life like i want happiness i guess or also like goals for

01:44:59.800 myself like what you know i want to like i smoke like mad amounts of weed like to the point where

01:45:06.680 it's like okay i should probably at least cut back like i mean it just for the you know

01:45:15.040 oh is this you smoking weed that's a big old joint that's a real joint yeah that's oh my god bro that

01:45:22.880 is a that's just like tuesday morning bro that's a prosthetic limb yeah oh my god bro you're smoking

01:45:31.420 out of somebody's damn that's like a four-year-old's tibia bro that thing should have an ankle on the

01:45:39.480 end of it hell yeah bro yeah hold it up like simba but um no it's like you know i'm trying to like

01:45:47.620 just eat little edibles and and just vape more and stuff because one of my doctors told me he just

01:45:53.280 gave me this list of things like to survive and it was just like you know just don't eat sugar like

01:45:58.740 don't smoke anything ever like you know have a lot of sex like get exercise go fishing that's all

01:46:05.440 good stuff for you to you know i don't know it almost it almost seems like it would be like

01:46:11.400 self-explanatory or something just like okay like do things that make me happy and don't eat and

01:46:17.780 ingest things that are bad for me it's like but how hard is that to do to like go out like i eat a lot

01:46:23.480 of sugar like candy and it's good i love fucking coca-cola dude on ice oh my god so fucking good

01:46:30.500 and then you're drinking it you're just thinking man i'm just drinking like sugar right now i'm just

01:46:34.560 drinking pure misery for my body my doctor told me any white powders are bad pretty much oh yeah

01:46:40.220 yeah even flour they say is not that good for you yeah that's one of them they said

01:46:46.140 i like flour i guess i don't even know you don't even see it anymore i feel like you used to always

01:46:51.960 see flour when i was a kid martha white self-rising flour god my mother get that fucking flower out

01:46:58.000 and then she would beat us yes and then the way it just clouds everywhere when oh yeah during a

01:47:04.260 beating oh that's great nothing like it like baby powder doesn't do the same doesn't have the same

01:47:10.380 effect yeah it can't it just yeah you can't hide a child beating behind some yeah you need

01:47:14.620 that real martha white self-rising flour yeah yeah my grandma used to try to beat me with these um

01:47:23.360 she used to try it was funny because it didn't hurt but it was like those little thin little balsa

01:47:30.700 wood things you stir paint with oh and me and my brother we used to pretend like it really hurt just

01:47:36.260 to not hurt grandma's feelings she'd be like all right i'm gonna give you a beating

01:47:39.500 she'd hit us and we'd be all and then we'd walk around the corner and he'd be like did that hurt

01:47:44.740 i'd be like no yeah it didn't hurt we literally pretended like it hurt just to not hurt her

01:47:49.600 feelings yeah that's interesting man that's just empathy at a young level yeah we see that my dad

01:47:55.260 my dad was so old and he would my mom would make him go beat us or spank us or whatever but

01:48:00.000 and we would just be like screaming even though it didn't hurt he was like 80 years old hitting us with

01:48:05.800 his belt um what uh they can't do that anymore can you i don't i mean i think if you don't i don't

01:48:15.040 have kids but like i feel like if your kid doesn't have social media you can i feel like yeah

01:48:19.600 yeah well i mean there's a difference between reprimanding your child

01:48:26.200 but it's just great it's like i don't know we just i don't know i got spankings when i was younger

01:48:33.780 i mean yeah but it wasn't long after that that i just kind of had no rules you know and yeah but

01:48:38.880 when i was young young yeah i got a couple lickings it wasn't anything terrible it was i think it made

01:48:43.920 me a better person you know i mean it was like i don't know i guess there's a line that's drawn

01:48:49.960 i was never abused physically like you know but i had to go a couple good lickings yeah and them

01:48:57.840 old the time old timers i heard stories from it was like oh man they used to do that in school

01:49:02.840 well i had it happen to be in school did you they whip you bill brady i think was his name or

01:49:09.080 and he might have changed his name because he whooped a lot of kids in our town but

01:49:12.420 he uh but i'll say this man i saw him not too long ago a friend of mine what now motherfucker

01:49:18.760 yeah a friend of mine passed away no no and honestly he was the coolest fucking dude me now

01:49:25.280 bro he was the coolest dude bro and i totally was like this dude i would bro i give the dude

01:49:30.780 eleven dollars to freaking beat me now for no reason yeah just for fun yeah just have it yeah

01:49:35.500 bro he was the coolest guy bro a friend of mine yeah passed my friend will passed from addiction

01:49:41.100 man and um and that's where i saw him at was at his funeral oh damn and uh he whooped you and

01:49:47.800 he probably he probably yeah i mean we buff i'm sure we i i deserved it i know i i should still

01:49:54.160 roll over and just let him beat me for a half hour i still sounds like you kind of want him to do that

01:49:58.680 yeah i mean look it's kind of like some deep-seated shit yeah look dude after you get older it's hard

01:50:04.240 to find things that really make you feel something you know so um gotta go back to that childhood

01:50:08.900 shit that really it's like really gases you up yeah yeah but then you're like whoa this is kind

01:50:15.300 of fucked up like why why would i like this yeah huh start thinking about yourself yeah thinking about

01:50:23.040 yourself and it's sometimes it's a trap thinking about yourself too much um just let it happen right

01:50:27.340 what else do we want to talk about anything else uh we got your water i know i wanted to

01:50:34.200 say that this is good man yeah and this is are they all seltzer or not yeah yeah they're all there's

01:50:41.480 none of them have like booze in them or anything this is the only flavor we're actually doing a grape

01:50:46.120 one next like grape drink it's good and then um oh that reminds me mattress mac just came out he was

01:50:53.540 sipping lean you know who that is he bet on the houston astros to win the world series and if every

01:50:58.640 if they won then like every like mixed couple got a mattress or whatever in houston that's him

01:51:04.540 that's him right there damn he looks hard as fuck he's g'd out

01:51:08.800 dude he's sipping no way yeah

01:51:13.240 with the jolly ranchers

01:51:17.400 you know we say nothing on doors

01:51:30.400 gang bro dude that's my boy that's where it's at now i think it's like hey you want to pull up

01:51:59.060 cop this ottoman you know you want to pull up you know and uh and we'll serve you you know we'll

01:52:08.560 break you off with this lazy boy yeah that's where we're at yeah it's just hey uh speaking of gang

01:52:18.080 gang what's the rat king thing the rat king do you know what a rat king is i've heard about this before

01:52:25.080 it's a group of rats it's like a group of rats that are all their tails are all tangled up it's the most fucked up thing ever

01:52:30.720 this guy my friend said i look like this guy from teenage mutant and turtles a rat

01:52:34.840 and so it's just a dude who's not doing well

01:52:38.420 who has a couple of rats with him okay so

01:52:42.940 all right i get it now so you

01:52:46.100 kind of are like the ringleader of the rats and shit

01:52:49.200 i'm just a fucking guy who's just trying to get get a little bit of cheese man and make it through

01:52:56.520 that monterey jet oh yeah i'm trying to not monterey jack off anymore either dude i'm trying to lay off the old hand uh

01:53:04.260 the old body uh spout you know you're doing the uh retention thing

01:53:09.200 no i'm not doing that and just saving it up for somebody unless they're gonna pay for it or something you know

01:53:13.420 i know yeah what the hell any like uh artist collabs you've done you've done some amazing ones so far

01:53:20.020 man um you're a grammy winner you got to sit there with your parents and go to the red carpet and go to

01:53:25.200 the grammys take them from michigan over there that's so fascinating yeah they came from ionia

01:53:31.820 down there to the were they just fascinated yeah i mean they're just proud of me and i'm proud of them

01:53:36.840 and and we're all just like really happy you know and and uh my brother's got two young kids my

01:53:45.200 niece and nephew jimmy and bill and they're just like really awesome and i don't know my family is

01:53:49.740 just doing so good these days and it's that's all i've ever wanted you know it's like we've had some

01:53:55.020 rough patches as every family does and stuff but um man we've kind of i don't know everybody's just

01:54:01.840 doing pretty good these days and it just makes me so happy because that's what i've always really

01:54:05.520 wanted is just for everybody to be okay you know yeah and um i think a lot of people can relate to

01:54:11.740 that man you know i think a lot of people can relate to that yes it was cool bringing them out

01:54:15.920 there and my dad's that's as far west as he's ever gone he's only been on an airplane twice

01:54:20.260 wow he's a 55 he's yeah born in 1955 only been on an airplane two times and this was in the last like

01:54:29.660 year wow first time in la yeah oh that's crazy experience what a that's such a such a ride yeah

01:54:37.180 and to get to be at the grames and see all those other musicians and stuff and for my mom too like

01:54:41.840 i remember growing up she would watch like the e channel and stuff and she's like into the fashion

01:54:47.240 she's into all that shit like she used to watch like the red carpet shit so it was cool to be able

01:54:52.380 to bring her and for her to see all them crazy outfits and shit like that you know she's all into

01:54:56.980 that shit so it was it was kind of neat but i just love my dad's like that one guy was like who are

01:55:02.220 you wearing and he's like i got levi's he's like my son bought me this shirt and this came from i got

01:55:06.900 it at a western store this is like it's you know it's not no uh gucci or nothing it's just no it's

01:55:13.000 perfect got it at a western store yeah um what music are you listening to right now billy people ask

01:55:20.080 you all the time let's see if i pull up my spotify what what it pops up let's see

01:55:26.960 i'll go on on repeat okay i'm just gonna read them down yeah on repeat number one the grudge tool

01:55:35.200 that's only on there because i had to learn that because i put i sat in with tool and i had to

01:55:39.080 listen to that song about 300 fucking times that day paris suicide boys number two suicide boys

01:55:45.260 yep no way bro they're gonna come on in uh in april are they yeah bro i just texted ruby and scrim last

01:55:51.700 night that's crazy dude that's crazy you said them oh my god i fuck with them hard bro now check

01:55:58.660 this out we got tool we got suicide boys directly to james king the old swinging bridge

01:56:05.060 oh yeah oh yeah god and then we got pike county breakdown

01:56:19.620 uh low down hank three yeah you fuck with hank three at all um i don't listen to it that much i

01:56:34.940 should though uh i got riding the danville pike blue highway donna lee charlie parker

01:56:41.740 concerning hobbits howard shore this is on my on repeat

01:56:46.860 so i love that man oh yeah you guys probably can't play that shit on my bad that's okay um still

01:57:00.160 on the audio version we can the flower and the corpse flesh and blood robot the game blue highway

01:57:06.940 harbor of love stanley brothers stratosphere boogie jimmy bryant um cold virginia night ronnie

01:57:13.980 bowman sos west montgomery scapegoat blues jimmy herring uh whale bud powell something in the way

01:57:22.720 nirvana uh more ronnie bowman uh more suicide boys hank three gang uh long tall sally little rich

01:57:34.060 yeah dude i used to love uh chuck berry bro oh fuck yeah man i used to listen to so much chuck

01:57:42.980 berry he's the shit what have i been listening to stephen wilson jr um is there anything else that

01:57:51.980 you want to share billy or anything else you were thinking about well you want to play anything are you

01:57:55.420 cool you don't have i'm not saying you have to at all and i just saw you i could i could play

01:58:00.200 something you brought an instrument yeah let me rock a piss or something i could pick a little bit

01:58:04.040 yeah um yeah i'd love to dude um oh one question i had when you're oh is there something on your mind

01:58:10.500 well no i was just saying uh you know i've just been working on a record like the last

01:58:15.540 couple weeks we started um out in la working at this studio and

01:58:22.040 it's just like i'm kind of at the point in my career right now where i

01:58:27.060 i just don't feel like i need to go into like a big studio and and have all that like so the last

01:58:34.860 year and a half i've been sort of building a studio at my house and we just started cutting there

01:58:42.160 um we've done two sessions so far like we we were there for like a week and then we were there for

01:58:47.640 like five days so i got like 21 song new songs in the can wow that i recorded at home and it's so

01:58:56.740 awesome because like you know the vibe is so killer there we have the whole house and then the studio

01:59:03.920 is just like one little section so whenever you're not in the studio you have a whole house plus i sort

01:59:09.320 of live out in the country and like we can like ride bikes and stuff while we're at the studio and

01:59:13.600 like go outside and just you know it's just like such a killer vibe so that's what i've been doing

01:59:19.120 the last couple weeks is working at home and um making a record and it's pretty badass man i'm loving

01:59:26.160 like having my own studio to work at yeah oh yeah i mean that's yeah and it's one reason why i like

01:59:34.140 having my job here at home you know it's nice to be able to just have your job at home um oh yeah do

01:59:39.500 you have a uh do you have a family at home or no i have a wife oh you do and i have a cat okay that's

01:59:46.160 a family yeah oh in some cultures yeah in japan that's considered i think a large family right

01:59:53.500 yeah um cool man uh yeah well let me rock a piston i'll pick a tune for you yeah will you yeah that'd be

02:00:05.040 sweet of you man thank you so much wow this guitar right here is like it's my pride and joy this is

02:00:12.320 a 1940 martin d28 praise god baby dang yeah man wow who gave it to you uh i did

02:00:22.040 let's see you recording in there well since we were talking about all that

02:00:35.240 all them powders and such

02:00:42.200 gotta give you guys this little cautionary tale okay okay amen brother

02:00:50.500 gotta get her in tune first

02:00:55.460 all right here goes the old cocaine blues or wait some people call it tell it to me

02:01:18.860 well sniffing that cocaine all over town honey don't let my deal go down hey hey but let the

02:01:42.380 cocaine be it was meant for horses not for men doctor said he'd kill you but he didn't know when

02:01:48.380 hey hey but he let the cocaine be yeah tell it to me tell it to me drink corn liquor let the cocaine be

02:01:55.900 hey hey but let the cocaine be yeah tell it to me tell it to me drink corn liquor let the cocaine be

02:02:03.580 hey hey hey buddy let the cocaine be

02:02:13.580 wow

02:02:17.580 yeah tell it to me

02:02:33.580 uh

02:02:49.580 but let the cocaine be

02:03:02.780 come on

02:03:06.140 well i don't know what i'm gonna do it's killed my friends it's gonna kill me too hey hey but let the

02:03:11.580 cocaine be some of your people you think you're tough sniffing that cocaine just like snuff hey

02:03:17.900 Hey, hey, buddy, let the cocaine be

02:03:19.960 Well, tell it to me, tell it to me

02:03:23.320 Drink corn liquor, let the cocaine be

02:03:25.220 Hey, hey, buddy, let the cocaine be

02:03:27.540 Yeah, tell it to me, tell it to me

02:03:30.940 Drink corn liquor, let the cocaine be

02:03:32.780 Hey, hey, buddy, let the cocaine be

02:03:36.240 Wow!

02:03:42.040 Hell yeah, man

02:03:45.080 Bro, that's so cool

02:03:47.580 Wow, man

02:03:51.260 We got one more for you

02:03:57.600 All right

02:03:58.360 This one's from the late, great Blaise Foley

02:04:01.620 I wanna go home with an armadillo

02:04:08.960 Spread her little legs

02:04:10.960 And really try to thrill her

02:04:13.100 To her very soul

02:04:15.240 With my cowboy pole

02:04:19.420 Old scaly skin around my face

02:04:24.880 Lord, I'll be her saving grace

02:04:28.740 I wanna go home with an armadillo

02:04:32.460 My cowboy pole

02:04:34.540 Wake up in the morning with my head on my pillow

02:04:40.080 My finger in her ass

02:04:42.020 You know I'll thrill her

02:04:43.900 I wanna go home with an armadillo

02:04:48.080 On my cowboy pole

02:04:50.080 Amen

02:04:52.080 I wanna go home with an armadillo

02:04:55.540 I wanna go home with an armadillo on my cowboy pole

02:04:59.720 I wanna go home with an armadillo on my cowboy pole

02:05:03.900 I wanna go home with an armadillo on my cowboy pole

02:05:10.080 I wanna go home with an armadillo on my cowboy pole

02:05:14.080 I wanna go home with an armadillo on my cowboy pole

02:05:25.260 I wanna go home with an armadillo on my cowboy pole

02:05:30.260 I wanna go home with an armadillo on my cowboy pole

02:05:34.440 I wanna go home with an armadillo on my cowboy pole

02:05:38.440 Bro, that's so cool, man

02:05:39.620 The old armadillo son

02:05:40.780 Hey, bro, look

02:05:41.980 Everybody wants to catch a stray, man

02:05:44.320 That's for damn sure

02:05:45.480 God, yeah

02:05:46.660 Because sometimes you just lay in there after you hit them

02:05:48.360 And you're like, now what do we do?

02:05:50.620 What the hell?

02:05:52.620 Billy Strings, dude

02:05:54.620 Thank you so much, man

02:05:56.760 What is that feeling you have

02:05:58.580 Whenever you lock in on a

02:06:00.640 You know, there's videos

02:06:02.300 Are you just in there?

02:06:04.040 Is it a video to keep going?

02:06:05.860 Are you just

02:06:06.280 Are you still knowing where you're placing stuff?

02:06:08.940 Or is it

02:06:09.440 Just like a second language?

02:06:11.500 What is it like?

02:06:12.360 I just get inside of there and try to

02:06:14.160 You know, trying to pay attention

02:06:16.200 I don't know

02:06:16.740 Like

02:06:17.020 Almost feels like stuff goes

02:06:19.400 Everything else goes away sometimes

02:06:20.940 Like when I'm on stage and I'm really getting focused

02:06:22.860 It's kind of like playing basketball, I imagine

02:06:25.220 It's like you gotta pay attention

02:06:26.920 If somebody passes you the ball

02:06:28.420 And you're not ready to catch it

02:06:29.740 You know what I mean?

02:06:30.700 With me and my band

02:06:31.560 It's like we're just in there

02:06:33.020 We're super focused

02:06:33.900 We're playing

02:06:34.460 And it's like we're passing the ball around

02:06:35.720 It's like

02:06:36.120 I imagine it's kind of like playing ball, you know?

02:06:39.220 It's like you gotta be in the fucking focus

02:06:41.100 Yeah

02:06:41.460 Wow, it's fascinating, man

02:06:43.920 Dude, thanks so much, bro

02:06:44.980 You made me

02:06:45.500 Dude, you just

02:06:46.360 Thank you, brother

02:06:47.660 I think I was just kind of having a day, too

02:06:49.660 And just like

02:06:50.300 It just

02:06:51.520 This was just like about like

02:06:52.880 It just made me feel like

02:06:54.580 What's important?

02:06:55.220 Just talking about stuff with people

02:06:56.460 It's important

02:06:57.280 Yeah

02:06:57.840 You know?

02:07:00.300 Yeah, man

02:07:00.820 Thank you so much

02:07:01.420 Billy Strings

02:07:01.940 Check him out wherever he is

02:07:02.980 Where will people be?

02:07:04.880 I mean

02:07:05.160 You'll just be touring again sometime

02:07:06.760 It's so funny

02:07:07.460 I was just saying

02:07:08.040 Because I've been going to places

02:07:09.080 Where you have played

02:07:09.880 And everybody's like

02:07:10.720 That motherfucker's crazy

02:07:13.700 That's what they say everywhere, bro

02:07:15.620 That's awesome

02:07:16.320 It's awesome

02:07:17.080 Well, man

02:07:17.380 If you ever want to come out to a show

02:07:18.520 Just let me know

02:07:19.040 I'll put you on the list and stuff

02:07:20.620 You're always welcome

02:07:21.360 I appreciate it, man

02:07:22.380 Same, bro

02:07:23.000 Thank you so much

02:07:23.600 Billy Strings

02:07:24.300 Thanks

02:07:24.920 Now I'm just floating on the breeze

02:07:28.480 And I feel I'm falling like these leaves

02:07:31.440 I must be cornerstone

02:07:34.760 Oh, but when I reach that ground

02:07:39.340 I'll share this peace of mind

02:07:41.480 I found I can feel it

02:07:43.520 In my bones

02:07:45.660 But it's gonna take

02:07:48.620 And I feel like these leaves

02:07:50.760 And just לה

This Past Weekend with Theo Von - February 16, 2024

E483 Billy Strings

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