John Rich: Holding On To Your Hat & Your Values

Country superstar John Rich joins Arroyo Grande for a powerful conversation on resilience, faith, and the power of music. From early struggles to chart-topping success, John shares how he rebuilt his life after setbacks, the lessons he learned from his father, and why staying true to your values is more important than ever. He opens up about the Mandalay Bay shooting, the inspiration behind his song Revelation, and why standing up for what’s right can come at a cost. Plus, a look at the moment George Harvey refused to change his name and ditch his cowboy hat—and how that decision shaped country music history.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The first line of the song, better get your attention,
I mean, right out of the gate, you better say
something bank, gotcha. You're never truly free until you can
say no. If I had a record deal that song
does not get hurt. When everything is out out of
your control, find the one thing you can still control,
and control it well.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm raving an arroyo. Welcome to Arroyo Grande, where we
dive into the wild currents of this culture and talk
to some of the most incredible culture makers and thought
leaders anywhere. I'm so glad to hear Country superstar John
Rich is my guest today. And for anyone who is lost,
or you've hit a dead end, or just feeling rejected,

(00:50):
does Jean Rich have some advice for you? Powerful stuff?
Stay tuned for that. First a little free flow. I
was getting on a plane the other day and they're
coming down the aisle was a couple. The woman had pajamas,
her hair in some kind of bag, and slippers and
the man with her sported pajama bottoms, a T shirt

(01:11):
and flip flops. Now bear in mind these people probably
paid four hundred and fifty bucks between them to fly,
but they went out of the house into the car
and through tsay in their sleepwear. Couldn't they at least
put jeans on? As I watched them come down the
aisle at me, I thought, here in shambling stark relief
is American manners in one image, I should have snapped

(01:34):
a picture slobs at home, slobs in the world. Surveys differ,
but it's estimated that Americans spend roughly fifteen one hundred
dollars a year on clothing. Did they have to blow
it all on pajamas and flip flops to cop and
distort Dolly Parton's line, I guess it's expensive to look
that horrible. It's hard to believe that there was a

(01:56):
time when Americans didn't leave the house without a hab
on their heads and women actually wore gloves. I hate
the fact that Americans have abandoned all sense of self
respect and insist on advertising it to the rest of us.
Try dressing up for a change, you might feel good
about yourself. Look, I've made it a habit in recent

(02:16):
days to wear a hat when I go out. I'll
tell you why in a minute, but I think it's
a good idea. It's one of the reasons I love
going to Texas and Nashville. People still wear hats, nice hats.
It bespeaks self respect. Gentlemen. Every man in America once
wore a hat. It was principally to shield them from

(02:37):
the sun as they walked about. If I guess there
was any one thing that killed hat wearing or ran
over it, it was probably the car. The low ceilings
of cars made hat wearing difficult, and since you weren't
walking around outside too much, you didn't really need a hat,
so they fell out of fashion. But I think we
need to revive hat wearing, and not just baseball cap apps, Stetson's, dobs, Borsolinos,

(03:03):
and Mazers. Elegant hats with brims. You know why, because
you can't wear a fedora with pajamas. As the fish
rots from the head down, the clothing improves in the
same order. The hat kind of dictates the rest of
the outfit. You'll notice at the end of each show,
I put a hat on as a head outside. That,

(03:24):
by the way, is good manners. Unless you're a lady.
You should never wear hats indoors. There for outdoor use.
And all you guys eating with your baseball caps on
take them off. It's a sign of respect the dinner table. Rather,
it is not your personal ballgame. Wearing a hat could
be a corrective for the sartorial sins all around us.
It's a sign of respect and dignity. People look at

(03:47):
you differently. Strangers will compliment you. I promise when you
wear a hat, you know why, because elegance is a rarity,
and I think we need self respect in the way
we carry ourselves dress because that leads to better behavior
in public. Think about wearing a hat as a start
show the world you are a human being and not

(04:10):
a slumber party escape. Now let's go into the deep
for our conversation with a man who is leading the
way on the hat front. John Rich is a multi
platinum country artist half of the country duo Big and Rich.
John has penned some of the best known country songs
not only for himself but for other artists. He also

(04:32):
discusses here the setbacks he faced, how he recovered and
found his groove, the faith that animates him, and the
terrible day he was caught in the crossfire of the
Mandalay based shooters attack on a festival he was headlining.
Here's John Rich John, Thank you so much for inviting

(04:53):
me to your town. It's nice to being here.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Welcome to Music City.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Well, I knew you'd have the hat, so I brought
my hat at and put it on link. I'm going
to build up to the hat. Tell me about your father, Jim,
who was a pastor, but he spread the gospel in
an interesting way. I read he had always had a
guitar with him. Yeah, tell me how that marked you,
what you learned from him.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yeah, he's a singer songwriter. Actually went to college on
a vocal scholarship. You know, he's a real singer. And
at nineteen he said, I was called to go preach
at nineteen and so he said, So that's why I
started doing. He started on college campuses where he was
going to school, and then when he got out of there,

(05:35):
he started going. He went to the Democrat National Convention
right after that, and then he started going to places
like Marty Grass, the Indianapolis five hundred, all kinds of
major events around the US. And he would go out
in the streets and take his guitar and take a
speaker and on a client's cart, stand it next to

(05:57):
him and start singing. And I asked him why. I mean,
I understand the point of why you're doing that. What
a great thing to do. But man, you're such a
charismatic guy, You're such a great minister. You could have
been preaching at a massive church and where he goes, Yeah,
because the people I was told to preach to will

(06:17):
never walk into one of those churches. The people I
was told to preach to, so prisons, Yeah, Marty Grass
like go where the people are who are never never
going to walk in the front door of a church building.
They're the ones that need to hear what I have
to see.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
You feel that calling on your life? Now? I think
you're it in your music now, John.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, I think to a large degree. You know, an
audience that I've been able to build up with his
help since the mid nineties with the band Lone Storing,
then Big and Rich and then solo and combinations of
those things. You know, they get used to hearing you
singing hit country songs and they go, I love you music,
I love you music. I love your music. Well, now

(07:00):
when they come up to me, they go, I love
what you stand for. Uh, I like your music. I
really love what you stand for. So I guess with
the skill set and audience I've built over all these years,
I'm now able to write songs that mean something other
than just a check or an award or a plaque
on the wall, like you can put into gear. A

(07:22):
piece of music that in three minutes can communicate more
to people, get them to think more, think more deeply
than if you talk to them for three weeks than
any speech anybody could ever get. You're a musician, you
know the power of music. It disarms people, It opens
up a different part of their mind. I believe a
different part of their spirit as well. So they're so

(07:44):
and when they hear something that's real, that's truth, and
it's wrapped in music. It's a really powerful thing.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
And the guitar. You all, you and your father shared
guitar lessons when yeah young.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, that's how I learned how to play my dad.
You know, you don't get real rich preaching and Marty Grass.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
I mean you get reach in different ways John rich Well, of.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Course, absolutely, but not monetarily. And so he had a
lot of different jobs. My dad slapped hogs at a
barn on the weekends. He was the night watchman at
Amberland National Bank, where I'm from, he sold cars and
he gave guitar lessons. And so when I was a
little kid, probably five, my dad goes, he's walking out
the door and he goes, you want to go with

(08:26):
me to the music store and do guitar lessons. I
was like, yeah, let's go. You know, I'll get to
go with dad.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
And so I go in there and there's this whole
like semicircle of adults that got their guitars out. He
pulls up a little chair for me, golees here, just
sit right behind me and hands me like a little
cheapy guitar. Just follow along, follow along. Well, after a
few weeks of tagging along, I'm sitting at the house
playing better than the adults were playing. And he went,
he picked that up pretty fast, didn't you? Aon went?

(08:51):
I said, it's really fun, you know. And so then
he said, you want to sit behind me in the
poolpit sometimes when I go preach at these places and
back me up. I said, yeah. So that's where I
got into playing the guitar, was wanting to play with
my dad.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
What did your dad teach you about spiritual warfare and
the power of music and the gospel to counter evil.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
My dad priests alon on that still does that Basically,
everything you see happening in the flesh has already happened
in the spiritual side. It plays out down here amongst
all of us, and that it's always really important to
remember that when you meet an individual that seems vile, well,

(09:36):
that seems violent, angry, way out of whack. He said,
look at that person and realize that is not how
they were born. They were not created to become that.
They started out as an innocent little baby. Okay, they
weren't like that. At some point in their life the
other side got a hold of them and ripped their

(09:57):
life to shreds. And this is how they are are now.
And you know, when you look at presidents, for instance,
my dad and I had a conversation about that before
this last election, and he says, well, if Trump wins,
it'll be an act of God, and if Trump loses,
it'll be an act of God.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
I want to talk about your origin story. You leave home,
graduate high school, you go to Opry Land, right, why
Opry Lad, Why what had you gone there? And said Land,
I went as a kid multiple tire. You go, yes,
we love it.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, So Oppyland, for people that don't know, is a
big theme park in Nashville for a very long time
live country music, bluegrass, gospel, and they had roller coasters
and log rides and everything else. And so as I
was a senior in high school, a friend of mine says, uh,
oh look at this back when we had a newspapers, Oh,
look at this. Oppyland's having auditions. I went, oh, that's cool. Yeah,

(10:50):
been there one hundred times. He goes, you should audition
for that.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
I said, they're not going to hire me. He goes,
why not? I said, because you got to dance and
do all this stuff. I said. He goes, well, you know,
going to be a bunch of good looking girls there.
I said, well, no, that is true. That's a good point,
because you should just go down there. I'll go down
there with you. I said, okay, fine, So drove my
nineteen seventy one Dodge Dark Swinger, which I still own,
by the way, drove it down there and I auditioned.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
And I got the call back with your guitar.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
Just me and a guitar. That didn't make me dance
or anything. I just sang. Got the call back, came
back sang again, and they said, can you dance? And
I said I can two step. I'm from Texas. I
said I can do that, but that's about it. They go,
could you learn some stuff? I said maybe, I don't know.
They said, well, it doesn't matter, because you're hired. You're in.
So I knew halfway through my senior year I would

(11:38):
be working at Apeland. So that's the first time I
ever got real, a real check. I think it was
three hundred and thirty dollars a week to do Opuland,
which is where I met the guys that started the
band Lone Star.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Right Deep Dean Sean Sam Sam's how did you meet?

Speaker 1 (11:51):
Well, he worked at Appyland what he had been there
several years, and I wound up on a show with
him and he heard how high I sang. I was
first tenor. I was really high, first tenor. And he said, hey,
we're putting a band together, a bunch of guys from Texas.
You're from Texas. He said, man, your voice is so high.
We need somebody that can hit those high notes. We're
going to covering modern day country music. Because at that

(12:14):
point he still had a lot of harmony. Rest his
heart in Alabama and all that. I said, that's cool.
He goes, you play bass, right, I said, I mean, yeah,
I can play a bass. I'm thinking, how hard can
it be? It's only got four strings? How how could
it be? The answer was no, I was not a
bass player. So he goes, great, learn these songs and
he hands me a cassette tape of the top twenty

(12:34):
I think the first twenty out of the top forty
country songs of that week. So we're we're going to
have a little get together this weekend. So I called
a friend of mine who was a pro bass player.
I said, can you show me how to play bass
on all these songs this week? And by the way,
can I borrow a bass and a cable and an amp?
He goes, sure, I can show you how to do it.
So he goes, here's the technique, and here's it. So

(12:56):
I spent eight nine hours a day leading up to
that little rehearsal with my thumb you're supposed to play it,
I play it like this now, doing this, trying to
find all the notes. And went to the rehearsal and
they said, okay, you can stay in the band because
you can sing higher than Richie McDonald, which was the
lead singer. But you got to get better at the base.
You can't stay in the band. I said, you got it.

(13:16):
And that's what really made me not go to college,
because the guys called up and said, hey, we got
a booking agent that can put us on a road
for about two hundred dates this year. I said, I'm
supposed to go to college. I said, I've got a
full ride scholarship to Belmont University on a vocal scholarship.
They go, well, you're gonna have to pick. And I
went to my dad and I said, I don't think
I'm going to go to college this year. He went,

(13:38):
do what I said? He said, what are you going
to do? Instead of that? I said, I'm going to
get in a van pulling a trailer with a bunch
of guys who are ten and fifteen years older than me,
and we're going to go play holiday in lounges, rodeos
and casinos. This is the dad who preaches at Marty Grass.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
So this is this world.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
But you have signs now. I can't even imagine the
pit in his that must have given him. But he said,
what's your ultimate goal? I said, MultiMate goal is I
want to write hit songs beyond country radio and play
the grand O Library. I don't know how going to
college is going to do that. He goes, it won't
I said, So he goes, that's what you think you
need to do. You're grown man. I was eighteen. You're

(14:17):
grown man. So that's what I did. I took off
on the road and never look back.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
And you have a number one hit. Of course not
long thereafter.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, come crying to me hit number one? That's my
first number one?

Speaker 2 (14:29):
How did that come to be?

Speaker 1 (14:31):
So in Nashville, when you get a record deal back
then you would get a de facto publishing deal. Because
you have a record deal, you get a default publishing deal.
And when that happens, they'll take these greenhorn songwriters like
me and sit you in the room with Hall of famers,
I mean, like the greatest country songwriter minds that have
ever existed. And you're sitting in the room with them,

(14:54):
and they're trying to write songs to get on your
new record. That's the point. And they figured if one
of the guys in the band is a writer on
to he'll vouch for the song. We got a better show,
shoot into the album, right, So I got to sit
in the room with all these guys, and I guess
by just really watching them in Osmosis, I started getting
a lot better. And so Come Crying to Me was

(15:14):
actually a co write. It was a three way, right,
so it was me and two established songwriters, but it
was my title and I had the thing going. I
was always walking with an idea started and they go,
that's a really good idea, that's write that. Why not
being my first number one?

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Wow? What did you learn from them that you didn't
know before sitting in that room because you always picked great.
I mean, when you're working with people at the top
of the game. I always tell my kids, you really
want to know how this works. Go find the best
people in this gameit next to them, clean their their
toilets or offices, do whatever you need to do to
be near them.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Yes, do not hang out with people that are at
your level. If you can keep from it. You know,
you can say all day, well, I'm really good compared
to this one, this one and that one and that one. Yeah,
but are you pretty good compared to Johnny Cash? Right? No,
and you never will, but you're pretty good compared to
George Jones. No, okay, then keep their faces on the
wall when you're writing, which is what I have at

(16:06):
my house. What you learn from pro country songwriters is
which is what I know now and how I do it.
And if you listen to my songs, you'll hear this
play out. The first line of the song better get
your attention. I mean, right out of the gate, you
better say something bang, gotcha. That way they'll hear the
second line and the third, and really you want every
line in the song to be a standalone thought. I'm

(16:30):
I'm a still picture songwriter. So some people saw all
different styles. But some people like to write, you know,
some chronological story and that's fine too. I love those songs.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
For me, ninety percent of what I write would be
I'm sitting here with you. I take a mental picture
of this room, and I write what's happening in that room,
so you could literally watch the picture and listen to
the song and be in the picture. I write in pictures,
I try to put you in the spot, make you
smell it, feel it, taste it. I want you to
feel what's going on in this situation of the lyrics,

(17:04):
so almost voyeuristic to a degree. I've been able to
write songs for other people. Faith Hill said, I wish
you'd write me a song. Said, I'd love to write
your song. Faith, What do you want to sing about?

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Mississippi? Being for Mississippi?

Speaker 1 (17:17):
You know, you know my history? You did your homework? Well, yeah,
she says, I said, what do you want to sing about?
She goes, I don't know, write a song where it
would only make sense if I sang it. No other
girl singer could even sing it. What do you make
sense for them? I went, well, that's quite a homework assignment. Okay,
all right, let me think about it. So we're right
on tour with Tim McGraw at the time, and Faith

(17:39):
was out there. And during the day you see Faith
Hill back in the back parking lots by the tour buses,
flip flops, cut off jeans, ball cap, sipping a corona,
got her kids playing at a kiddie pool, I mean,
just mom. And then the concert hits and Faith comes
walking off the bus in an evening gown and diamond
earrings and her hair's all done and she's singing, It's
your love with him, growing kind of thirty thousand people

(18:02):
and five minutes later, she's right back in the parking
lot with her flip flops ball cap. I said, that's
what the fans don't know about Faith, because she had
been doing some Hollywood movies at that point, and a
lot of the fans said, oh, she's gone Hollywood. She's
forgot about where she came from. So I said, I'm
gonna write a song about where she comes from. So
the first line of the song, it's a long way
from Star, Mississippi, her hometown, to the big stage. I'm

(18:24):
singing on a night. So Martina can't sing that. She
and I can't sing that. Gretchen can't sing that, Riba
can't sing that because none of those people are from Star,
see what I mean. Yeah, So there's approaches that I've
taken to songs, all various approaches, but in general, it's
writing in pictures.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
Gretchen Wilson. Then you write red neck woman Forgreting right,
Wilson after the fall?

Speaker 1 (18:44):
That would know it was right before Faith. Faith came
to me because she heard you heard that one. She said,
I want a red neck woman for me. I need
my song.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
I don't blame her, she's got a good ear.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, it was it was quite a challenge.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
And I wouldn't take you back. What happened with Long Star?
They boot you out of the band?

Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yes, they did? Why because I deserved it? Why because
I was a real ass and it's hard to deal with.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
Man, Why were you so difficult? You're feeling your road?
You got number one hit right out the gate right? Yes?

Speaker 1 (19:14):
And when you grow up? So I grew up in
a double wide trailer Emerald, Texas. We didn't miss meals,
but it wasn't any extra laying around, and a lot
of people around me had said not my dad, but
others were down on me, down on me all the time.
Growing up, I was very as you can imagine, headstrong kid.

(19:38):
And when I finally broke through and made it to
the other side and had started having real big success
like that, I took success like a hammer, and anybody
that had ever messed with me, I just whack them
in ahead with it. By the way I would talk,
the way I would live, the way what I would drive,
how I would present myself, what I would say in

(19:59):
a meeting, what I would say on a microphone. I mean,
just one hundred percent totally engrossed with my own arrogance
and so. At one point the band just said, you
know what, we've had just but enough of you. Think
it's time for you to go wow, which sucked because
the very next song they put out was Amazed Yeah,
one of their biggest songs in country. And I was

(20:21):
sitting at home in my little apartment that I no
longer could pay for because I just lost my income,
lost my record deal, and lost my what publishing deal
because by the fault you get the pub deal lost
them both lost. The management lost a business manager, lost
the shows on the road, lost all of it. Boom,
just like that in a phone call. So I'm sitting
at home watching my old band except the award for Amazed.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
And so and you thought what when you watched it? Oh?

Speaker 1 (20:46):
I was viciously upset at them initially and then started realizing, well,
I would have fired me too. I would have fired me.
I deserved being fired over that. So I thought, well,
now would have I do? Maybe I can get a
solo record deal. I got one, you got one. I
got one and it flopped, put out two songs and

(21:07):
neither one of them hit. So I lost that deal.
Now I'm a two time loser. I got kicked out
of a band, my solo deal failed, and in country music,
that's a big deal. If you can't hit your radio
goes now he tried, it didn't work. Next, I mean,
it is just like that. It was at that point
I got some really good advice from a couple of
the older songwriters, and they said, listen, when everything is

(21:29):
out out of your control, find the one thing you
can still control and control it well. They said, that
could be what you're eating, how many pushups did you
do today, whatever, Find what you can still control and
control it well. Well, for me, that was a pencil
and a piece.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
Of paper, writing back to your core writing.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
So in the course of about four or five years,
I wrote around seven to eight hundred songs because you
couldn't stop me from writing, and I write on every
single day.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
All were making ends meet. What were you doing?

Speaker 1 (22:04):
There was still a little bit of money coming in
from come crying to me and a couple of other things,
but that's about it. That's about it.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
It was.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
It was burning down then. And then I meet Big Kitty,
which I know you're gonna ask about, and he was
kind of the same thing where he was just writing
every single day and misunderstood by the industry. You know,
my anglic country music was ac DC was a banjo player.
That's what it sounded like. That's what I wanted to sound.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
You know.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
I wanted to do save orts, ride a cowboy, lone Star,
wanted to do mister Mom. They want to do love
songs and family songs. I wanted to do stuff that
make the college campus. Yea. So controlling what I could
control in that time period. None of those songs got
recorded in that span of time. But the second Big
and Rich and Gretchen hit al Dean also hit, which

(22:53):
I wrote four number ones on his first record, and
then the whole city starts coming to me and goes,
you got any more songs like these? I go, yeah,
here's nine hundred. Here you go, you're giving them. So
there was just a raid on my catalog where everybody
wanted to cut those kinds of songs, and so all
the stuff I've been stockpiling now is valuable.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
So what's the lesson for people who find themselves in
those positions, those predicaments where God maybe hitting you across
the head was two by four? Yeah, just to reorient
you do what you can control.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Is that the lesson boil it down to the simplest
thing that you can still control. And it could, like
I said, it could be what you're eating every day.
It could be that you're going to call your mother
every day, it could be whatever it's going to be.
You go find a charity you're going to want to
go work with, and go do the best you can
at that you basically start rebuilding yourself. What you'll find

(23:44):
is when you get that next opportunity, which you will,
because opportunities continue to come for people that continue to
push right all that stuff that you screwed up, and
those first times come to bear again and you go,
oh yeah, not going to be that guy this time.
I'm going to be this guy. And that's a never
ending pass.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
I love that story. I mean I read about this
that you're rebuilding, but you're also you're quietly and maybe
unbeknownst to you, rebuilding the future because in that, in
the panic, in the loss, in the hurt, you found
why you were here.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
Well there's gone. When you're that upset and now you're
embarrassed in front of the whole industry and your money
is gone. Two ways to go, one drink, your face
off twenty four hours a day and wind back up
down on Broadway playing in a bar somewhere as the
guy who used to be in Lone Star. And that's
your claim to fame for the rest of your life.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
A lot of people do they make that out of
that path?

Speaker 1 (24:42):
Oh, a lot of them. The other is to drill
back down into what got you in the game of
the first place. What's your original goals? Go back to
piece of paper and a pencil. Cheapest thing in the world.
Everybody has that.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
How did you and Big Kenny meet? How did you meet?
And why did the partnership work.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
There was a girl that worked for Fender Guitars named
Cindy Simmons, and back then, Cindy's job she was an
artist rep. So her job was to find up and
coming singers that she thought might get a record deal
or might and get them early and say, oh, I
see you're playing that nothing to get your guitar, but
that's not a great guitar, and they go, that's all

(25:24):
I could afford. She goes, how about if I get
you a brand new Fender guitar and they go what
She'd go, here you go? And she tried to get
them to play fenders and then when they hopefully they'd
go hit almost like venture cap right. I can give
it to one hundred artists, three of them get deals
and they're playing fenders. So she had done that with
me and done that with Big Kenny, and we didn't
know each other. She knew the two of us separately
and had told him and told me about the other,

(25:47):
and hit me up one night and said, hey, Big
Kenny is playing a show down at Douglas Corner. I said, okay,
I'm going to be down here. Come on down here.
I want you to hear him. I said, can I
ask you a question? I said, is he big and fat?
Big and loud, big and tall. That's the dunnest thing
I've ever heard. Why is he called that? She goes,

(26:09):
just come see him and you'll it'll make sense when
you see a show. I said, okay, fine, So I
go down and sure enough, he walks out on stagers.
He is tall, he's about six y four, but all
his hair and he's going everybody. He's like Willie Walker,
and I was like, what is that. Hagrid didn't like
him at all. I'm like, that's a strange individual. I

(26:30):
wonder what he sings like. And then I hear about
sixty minutes of his set and I went, I don't
know what I just heard, but that was some of
the most creative things I've ever heard somebody.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Right.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
So when it was over, walked up to him, Hey man,
I'm Johnny goes, oh, hey, I've heard about you, right,
and he goes Cindy says, we ought to write a
song because what are you doing tomorrow morning? I go,
I'm not doing anything. He goes, well, you want to
come over to my house and write a song, so
she'll leave us alone. Basically, I said, yeah, I'll come over.
We wrote that next day. That was October of ninety nine.
Next day, we wrote again, next day, next day, next day,

(27:01):
and we have written hundreds and hundreds of songs. And
as a joke, people started calling us big and rich.
We'd show up at somewhere late at night to come
hang out and go, oh look it's big and rich.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Ha ha.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
That's where that came from.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
That's where it came from. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
So Kenny is Kenny and are really polar opposites on
many many things, including creatively, and so what's interesting about
that is I'll come at you with a straight line,
and he's coming at you with flowers. So, like I said,
Kenny likes to smell the flowers and I like to
mow him down. But when you lock those two together,

(27:35):
what do you get, Raymond get? You get a three
sixty view at the whole song, at the whole subject
that you're writing, whether it's a love song, party song,
whatever song. So that that locking in of the two
opposites like that have really created something.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
So I know it's hard to describe why partnership were
a creative partnership works. It's always hard. I mean I
remember talking to Jerry Lewis about why he and Dean
Martin worked right, and he knew but he didn't know.
M h, how would you why does this partnership work?

Speaker 1 (28:04):
I would take that answer. I would say, you know,
but you don't know. One of the reasons that prop
Jerry said it was love. Well, okay, I would say
on between Kenny and I, it's mass respect for the
other person's competency and ability and creative energy. I don't
have what he has and he does not have what

(28:24):
I have, and we both know that. You know, It's
like in a relationship. If you're both the same, one
of you is irrelevant. That goes for marriage to That
is exactly right, you know, it's the opposite's a track. Well,
that's a real thing. I mean, you want to be
strong where they're not, and you want them strong where
you're not. And I think even though you know, we've
disagreed over the years strongly on a lot of different things,

(28:46):
like what we've disagreed on political things, We've disagreed on
musical things, business moves. You can imagine it's a duo.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
Man, it's hard.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
Both have to agree or it does not happen. Right,
And so if you had, you know, three people, or
it's a band like lone star, majority rules. There's no
majority in a duo, yeah, right, it's one in partnership. Yeah,
but throughout Now you're looking at twenty years since our
first record came out, came out in two thousand and four.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
Amazing.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
We're still on the road doing fifty sixty cities a year.
The crowds are, I would argue, maybe bigger than they
were back in the day. You know, all our original
fans are all still there and now it's their kids
are all coming out. You got college girls hanging out
with their moms going save of Ours right again, loving it,
and then the Patriot crowd from songs like Eighth of
November Right. It's just massive at our shows. So I

(29:38):
think we're a good example of how Americans ought to
try to be. Me and Big Kenny, are you get
your first record deal? You had to be worried about
that first record coming off of what you would.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Come off of.

Speaker 1 (29:50):
Well, the whole music industry, except for one guy, said,
big and rich music is what is that? I mean,
is this a clown show? What are you guys trying
to do? I mean, first of all, John kicked out
a loan star, his solo deal totally failed. And what
is a Big Kenny? I mean really, And you've got
a big black, rapping cowboy cowboy Troy who at that

(30:11):
points working at foot locker in Dallas, Texas. They're like, guys,
it sounds like a lot of fun. Enjoy playing that
in the bars. That was everybody's answer except one guy
named Paul Whirley. And Paul Whirley is one of the
best record producers, guitar players it's ever been, highly creative guy.
He signed the Dixie chicks and a bunch of other

(30:32):
He was producer Martina McBride, and he heard about us
at a jam we were doing called the Music Mafia,
where Paul's daughter Ashley had started coming to these On
Music Mafia, seventy eighty people crammed into a room on
Tuesday nights, me and Kenny and other artists that we
knew that nobody had a record deal. We would jam
and Paul came down and saw that. He goes, you, guys,

(30:53):
want to come to my office tomorrow. I just became
the president of Warner Brothers Records last week. We went, yeah,
we'd love to come to your office. We're thinking we're
going to pitch him a song for somebody. We get
in his office, he goes, no, I want to talk
about Big and Rich. I think that's a thing. We
go to his office and he said, play me some
songs that you would play if you had your own record.
So we started playing those songs and he goes, he

(31:15):
slams his hand out on the table. He goes, boys,
I want to do this. Kenny goes, you want to
do what? He goes, I want to sign Big and
Rich to Warner Brothers Records. And I looked at Kenny,
I said, are you hearing this? He goes, are you
serious right now? And he goes, yeah, I want to
do it, And we went well, all right, and we
high fived, ho was it? And off to the races.
So he was short of him seeing that there was

(31:37):
something there. I doubt you'd have ever heard of us.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
Horse of a different colors at first time? Right. They
fought you though on Oh they including some of your
biggest hit.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
The industry hated that record. Why because it didn't sound
like anything that had ever happened. And Nashville goes through
these phases. I think it's in one right now. It
starts trying to break out where it sounds like they
all went to the school of redundant.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
See school, you mean the truck I left my truck
running school.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
I mean, same tempo, same court progressions, everybody looks the same,
the storylines are all the same. And it's kind of
gotten back into that. There's a few breakouts starting to
push out now. But at this point country music, that's
where it was at that point, and they said, you
don't fit on country radio. What are you even singing about?
I mean, really, you guys writ songs based off of

(32:25):
bumper stickers you saw, which is exactly what save worst
RD A Cowboy was, what, oh, he has a bumper sticker?

Speaker 2 (32:30):
You saw a bumper sticker.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
This friend of ours saw it, yeah, and said that'd
be a funny song.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
Right.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
We're like, yeah, it would be a funny song. Let
me go right, And it was a funny and it
is a funny song.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
But they said, no, don't do it. They said this
wouldn't This is saying to trivialize you.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
If you put this on the record, guys, nobody's going
to take you seriously. And we said, but yeah. When
we played at Music Mafia, people go nuts. They're like, okay,
we'll put it on the record. We'll just bury it
in the track out. We'll put it at track seven
or eight. It's not going to be a single though,
that's fine. Just let us put it on the record.
So we put the record out. A song called wild

(33:08):
West Show was our first single, and when that single
came out, the whole record became available, so fans started
buying a record. Next thing you know, radio stations are
getting hey, can you play track seven on the horse
of a different color record on Drive Time. On Friday, Wow,
a station in Florida played it one time. Phones exploded
and we went. The record label goes, well, I guess

(33:28):
it's going to be the single A single vout. Thank goodness,
because if we walked out and didn't play save Ors
RD a Cowboy, they'd be throwing stuff at us. You know,
how do you write?

Speaker 2 (33:37):
And where do you write?

Speaker 1 (33:40):
Well? I write for various You say, how.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
Do I write? You know, I like to be in
my room. I like quiet. I don't like a lot
of noise when I write. But I'm not writing music right,
So where do you go? Do you have to be
in a place so you write wherever you are.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
I sat next to Tom Petty one time in La
at the ASCAP Expo, which is a huge songwriters deal.
It was usher, Tom Petty and me. I'm the country
guy on the panel, and a lady asked Tom Petty
from the audience, mister Petty, how do you get your
ideas for your songs?

Speaker 2 (34:15):
I didn't ask you that one. I know, bumper sticker.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
He's leaning back in his chair. He goes, well, I
just stick my antenna there as far as it'll go
and wait for a song to drift across it. Then
he just stopped talking. The whole place went Okay, start laughing,
yay Tom. And I heard that answer, I went, that
is not far off from exactly how it is. I
don't know what it is in a songwriter's brain, but

(34:41):
you don't just walk around thinking about songs all the time.
But there is a spot that if you give me
three or four minutes, it's almost like you can turn
a key and it opens up. I always point to
this down in my head. It feels like they come
out of here for some reason, but all of a
sudden it opens up and you as a songwriter, I
will hear melodies, rhythms, lyrics, all kinds of stuff. It's

(35:02):
almost like a faucet. Turn it on and turn it off,
turn it on. Every now and then one will hit
me so hard that I wasn't in the frame of
mind to write a song, and it will literally just
come into my head like as loud as you can imagine.
And that doesn't happen very often. It happened with a
song called Revelation. That's when you grab a guitar off

(35:23):
the wall and tell everybody, Okay, I'm going off in
another room. I need an hour and get your pencil
out and you get to going out.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
But you write Alonge, you like quiet when you write,
when you're working the song.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
I'm working now, I gotta be by myself.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, yeah, what I figured.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, because you're you're wrestling with your own thoughts.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
You know, is it harder writing for others when you
write woman or easier? I mean you're a for Taylor
Swift as well.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah, easier writing for somebody else because you can see
the whole person. I think for you, you can't see me.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
It's harder writing I can see you.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
You want me to write a song about you and
about this podcast on I can do that for you
in about ten minutes. I can have you a song
ready to go, a new royal ground think so I
can see you, I can hear you. I know what
you're about. I know what the point of this is.
But if you're writing it from your own perspective, man,
that's a deep spot to go to because you're there's
nobody to bounce it off of and you're just you're
wrestling with your own thoughts. What am I feeling about

(36:20):
this subject that I need to get on the paper
as strongly as possible.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
We'll return to John Rich in a second. When John
agreed to join us, it got me thinking about another
singer who stuck to his guns. This story has its
own lessons, and wait until you hear how it ends.
George Harvey loved ranching in his native Texas, but when
he joined the army, his whole life changed. In nineteen

(36:44):
seventy one, he was sent to a base in Hawaii
and an army general put together a country band to
entertain the troops. He cast George as the lead singer.
It was the first time he had ever sung country music,
and he thought it of suited him. In college, George
Harvey assembled his own band, Stony Ridge. They were called

(37:06):
and kept singing, and he had from the start dressed
like a cowboy on stage, complete with his hat and jeans,
at a time when it had fallen out of style. Well.
When George finally broke down and headed to Nashville, he
was signed by MCA Records, but there was a producer
there who had two demands for the singer. He needed

(37:29):
to change his name and lose the cowboy hat. George
had a fateful decision to make. Wait until you hear
how it ends, and this is how it ends. George Harvey,
after years of playing rodeos and honky tonks, had finally
made it to Nashville and he was signed by MCA Records.

(37:51):
But his producer wanted George to dress up, lose the
cowboy hat he had always worn on stage, and replace
his jeans with slacks. George would have none of it.
He was determined to keep his hat and his jeans.
His manager told the MCA executive, you don't understand where
he's from. That is dressing up. Georgia's decision inspired many

(38:17):
acts that would follow him. Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks, Toby Keith,
even Lady Wilson would don their stetson's on stage following
George's example. He was just a Texas boy being true
to his roots. But to these performers, the hat was
part of George's mystique. The MCA executive also suggested that

(38:40):
he change his name to Cain Cooper. Thank goodness for us,
George Harvey strait kept his birth name and write this down.
When you're true to who you are, others will inevitably
figure it out and follow your lead in time. George
Strait has had eighty six singles on the Billboard Country Charts,

(39:03):
and in twenty twenty four, he became the first artist
to hold the largest concert in the United States, breaking
all attendance records. And he's still wearing his hat. Now
you know how it ends. Here's the rest of my
conversation with John Rich, who is also wearing his hat.
Why have you gone more political in recent years? Is

(39:26):
that just where you feel God taking you, the times
taking you and your music.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
I think after my two sons were born and started
to get old enough to realize dad is part of
this industry here, and they would watch me get upset
at the television screen like we all do, and say,
be talking to my wife about something going on in

(39:55):
the music industry that I didn't like. But then turn
right around, cowboy up, walk out the door, hit the
red carpet, go play Patty Cake with all these people
I was just yelling about is hypocritical. That's being a
hypocrite in front of your own two sons. And one
day that hit me really hard. I said, I am
being a hypocrite. Not only am I upset that they're

(40:17):
watching me do that, I'm upset that I'm watching me
do that. How long am I going to keep this up?
Because the record labels in the industries are telling me
at this point, do not do that interview with Raymond,
do not go on that network, Do not talk about
this on social media? No, no, no, no no. They
would have meetings about it. I'd make a comment something,

(40:38):
you know, something they didn't want me talking about, and
they'd have a full blown meeting with the press they're
press people at the record label and bring me in
and say you got to stop doing that. You're going
to blow your career up. And I listened to that
for quite a while. I'd go, Okay, well, I don't
want to blow my career up, and I don't want
to cost Kenny his career, and you got a band
and crew and bus drivers and yeah, wife and kids,

(40:58):
and okay, okay, I'll back up. But after a while, man,
it got to the point where I said, yeah, that's
being a hypocrite. And so if it means that I
got to say exactly what I know needs to be
said and do it like it needs to be done,
I run the risk of losing this industry that has
put more plaques on my walls than I can count.

(41:18):
They will be done with me if I ever go
to this point. But can I live with myself if
I keep playing this stupid game with these people? And
the answer was no, you can't. And by the way,
your sons are watching you, and what are they going
to do when they grow up and get out of
the house, They'll go, well, yeah, I really don't like
how this is going. But you know what Dad did.
Dad just yelled at the TV, rolled over and took

(41:38):
the check, kept going. Which is the problem with a
lot of Americans and Christians that they'll just roll over
and get along, get along and stay in a nice, easy,
comfortable spot instead of taking the harder route and punching
through it.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
It's a good time to talk about revelation. You mentioned
it a moment ago, which is this incredible soult you
wrote this year, and you said, I'm gonna quote it
felt like a hammer hit me in the back of
the head. Was it physical? Was it a jolt? No?

Speaker 1 (42:10):
I mean no, not like a physical hammer. But it
was if you could take a thought and pound it
into your head, as if you hit yourself with a hammer.
That's what it felt like. It was mine in my
own business, and I mean out of nowhere Boom. I
could hear the melody, I could hear the lyrics. I'm
seeing that Revelation. This is when you know, there's been

(42:33):
so much intensity placed upon our country and so many
things going on that I have read about in the
Bible my entire life, and I've heard it preach my
entire life, and not until recently have many of those
things even been possible to be carried out. You know,
most of Revelation and Daniel and Second Thessalonians and places

(42:53):
that talk about the end times seem like science fiction
to people, including my own father. He goes, We never
could understand and how these things could be possible, he says,
until recently, and now it's really easy to track everybody
on the face of the earth. It's really easy to
control how you spend your money and what you're allowed
to buy and sell, which is what the mark of

(43:14):
the Beast is about, he said. With the advent of tech,
where we are in the world today, the globalization of
everyone that is new, that's new that allows for these
things to now take place. It doesn't mean they're going
to take place tomorrow or even in my lifetime. But
it's now possible and we're looking at it. So I've
been thinking about that and really scrutinizing things and watching

(43:36):
and that's when that song came and I realized, Raymond,
nobody had written this song. I started going back through
gospel bands, Christian artists, contre artists. I could not find
anybody that literally wrote what the book says in the Book.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
Of Revelation, and and Saint Michael the Archangel and the
battle with Lucifer. I mean, the whole thing is in there.
All of that is there, all of in the song.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
Yeah, And it's throughout the bios the song. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
The video.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
The goal of the video was can we show what
spiritual warfare would look like if it came into the physical.
I remember telling my video director, Doc Abbott, who lives
here in Nashville. He goes, how do you think how
do we do that? I go, probably CGI. I said,
I've got a great guy that works with Tom McDonald,

(44:23):
who's probably my favorite rapper, alive out in California and
he has a lot of CGI in his videos. I
called Tom told him the idea. He goes, oh, yeah,
you need to work with Jareded. Jared's up in Washington State.
So I sent it to Jared. He goes, that's going
to be difficult, but I'm definitely capable of making that happen.
I said, I want the Devil and Michael the Archangel
to have a battle, with me standing in between them.

(44:46):
That's what I'm looking for. He goes, okay, and so
we shot it, and that's what the video is.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
Have you ever seen a video like that? No, I've
never seen a video like that. I never heard a
song like that either. Yeah, it's a pathetic song in
many ways. Do you think of it that way?

Speaker 1 (45:02):
No, because the song is not really even a song.
It's me saying what the pages of the book say.
I just made them rhyme. Those are not my words,
those are John's words.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
Well, but those are prophetic. It's a prophetic yesterday and.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Today spoken by the prophet John as he was exiled
to Patmos. He's writing what he's seeing and hearing, and
that becomes a book of revelation. And two thousand plus
years later, we're standing in situations that look an awful
lot like what he was talking about. And so here's
your lone songwriter who think God doesn't have a record deal,

(45:34):
publishing deal, or any company that can tell me I
can't put that song because you would have been not
in a million years never, you would have never heard
a song if I had a record deal. That song
does not get heart.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
You've got a new song that I just heard. Yeah,
it has read it, but I've been reading about it.
And tell me about this song.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
Well, if you can say you're inspired by by Sean Combes.
I saw a video a couple of weeks ago of
that monster looking right into the microphone bright lights on
a stage. He looks in the camera and he goes,
I own your soul. I own it. I determine what

(46:17):
your kids wear. I determine what your kids listen to.
I determined all these things about your life, about your
kid's lives. And he's got that look in his face,
just look like looking straight at the devil. And I said,
look at this guy walking out here in broad daylight,
saying he owns us and owns the souls of our children.

(46:38):
Reminded me of Goliath walking out, mister hih and mighty,
mister powerful, biggest guy on the block walking out when
Glath called out the Israelis and he's just mocking them incessantly,
and they all stood back, like, what are we going
to do? He's too powerful, he's too big. And then
David walks up and hits him with a rock, which
didn't kill him, oh so helped him down. He takes

(47:01):
a gliass On sword and cuts his head off. So
I go, okay, okay, Sean Combs. So your weapon of
choice is music? Correct? Mine? Too nice to meet you,
So I thought, you know what, nobody's written a song
about these devils. Nobody's written that.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
So well, it's really not about the devils. It's about
the defiant reaction to the devil.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
Correct. We are not supposed to, as Christians, be weak.
The people that wrote the books and the Bibles were
not weak people. Jesus was not a weak. Jesus was
so strong he allowed human beings to torture him to death.
He allowed them to do that. It says in the

(47:50):
Bible that we are supposed to be weapons in the
hands of God to tear down the thresholds of Hell. Itself,
a weapon cannot itself. An axe cannot cut down a
tree by itself. It takes an operator to pick that
axe up. Now, you hope when you pick it up.
That it is heavy, and it is sharp, and it
has cut trees down before. And when you start wailing

(48:12):
away at that tree, chunks of wood are going to
go flying. You hope that tool is ready when you're
ready to pick it up. So I look at myself
and I look at other Christians in this country, that
we better be preparing ourselves to be the tool He
created you to be. Maybe one guy's an axe, one
guy's a screwdriver, one guy's this, one guy's that they
do this. Everybody's got their job. But be prepared for

(48:36):
him to use you and the way he wants to
use you to bring it to these people, Raymond. The
most egregious sin I believe a person can commit is
to harm children. And the reason I believe that is
because Jesus Christ himself said in the New Testament, you'd
be better off to have a millstone tied around your
neck and cast into the sea than to ever cause

(48:58):
one of these little ones to stumble. He didn't say
to kill them or hurt them or abuse them. He
said to mess with them at all, to mess with
their innocence at all. He'd be better off dead than
ever being that person. So we know how Son of
God felt about it. And now we look around our
country and Tom Holman's going, there's three hundred to five
hundred thousand missing kids that we know about that have

(49:19):
come across the border. That's not even taking into account
all the other ones they didn't come across.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
The American citizen bingo.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
And we're allowing this to go forward. And then you've
got people like Sean Combe standing there on television telling
us that he owns our souls and owns our kids' lives.
How long are we going to sit around and just
let them keep talking to us like that, because it
ain't just talk. They're doing it. So that's what set
you off to all the same time, can you tell?
Can you tell? Oh?

Speaker 2 (49:45):
Yeah, I can. I could feel it in the lyrics.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Face is getting hot talking about it.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
Tell people about this song. About the lyrics, I mean,
it's basically go and repent now, brother, while I go
get my gun. This is not I'm gonna go pray
for you.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
At point is song is you come after my kids.
Horrible things are going to happen to you. You will
not survive what happens to you if you come after
my kids. You will not survive. You think you're tough,
try it one time. Come on, come on up my road,
Come on up and try to get my kid one time.
Try to take one of my sons and see what

(50:20):
I do to you. Is what the song is all about.
It and it talks about because we fight with the
sword of the Heavenly Father and we ain't afraid to die.
Are you afraid to die for your kids? Me either?
I would stand right in front of whatever I had
to gladly, happily. That song is going to to keep them,

(50:41):
you know, to keep these demons off my kids.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
That song is going to be a huge hit, not
because you wrote it to be a big hit, but
because it resonates.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
I wrote it out of sheer anger towards these people,
and I want most of them. Probably won't hear this song.
I don't even know when I'm going to put it out,
probably pretty soon. It doesn't matter if they don't hear it.
I want parents to hear it. I want parents, moms
and dads to realize we do not have to put

(51:08):
up with these people and listen to them and give
no rebut back to them. Because they're so powerful, they
have no power their power comes from the Father lies
and we all know what happens to him. He gets
utterly destroyed in the end. You see what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
I do, And John, I love that you're writing. This
is the path of every artist, whether it's Irving Berlin
or the great novelists of the eighteenth century. They're writing
about their time and they're using their art to speak
to that moment. Correct, And that makes it like the
Book of Revelation. It's true in the moment it was written,

(51:44):
it's true for all time. In the case Revelation, it's
going to happen in the future too. So it's the
alpha and the omega, it's all of it. Art has
that same power, though in some ways Do you feel
a part of that and has that and why aren't
others speak to that same country? Music always reflected the
heart of the people in a powerful direct way, and

(52:07):
we're still singing he stopped Loving Her today and we're
still singing those songs. Yeah, because they were so true
in the moment they were written. Do you feel this
is a part of that tradition?

Speaker 1 (52:20):
Yeah, I just feel that the age were in currently
in the world and in our country. Sometimes I wonder
if Johnny Cash was alive in twenty twenty four, what
would he say if Charlie Daniels, who was a good
friend of mine, if he was still around he died
in twenty twenty, right before it all got crazy, what

(52:42):
would he say?

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Now?

Speaker 1 (52:44):
These are old men, and I have to think there's
a big advantage to being an old man, being in
your eighties that you just don't care anymore. Well, I'm
not an old man. I'm fifty, so I'm not a
young guy. But I'm not an old guy and I
don't care. As a matter of fact, it worries me more.
If something is laid on me to go say and

(53:05):
I don't say it. That is more dangerous than saying it,
because guess who you just upset?

Speaker 2 (53:12):
The boss.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
I put that on you and you did not follow
through with it. So guess what. I ain't sending you
any more of those or whatever else he might decide
to do. I think he opens doors for people who
have enough nerve to run through them. I don't think
he opens doors for everybody. I think he opens especially
the dangerous doors, the doors he goes. I need this
to be said. I need this. I need people to

(53:36):
hear this message song, whatever it might be, and so
I'm going to put it in that kid's brain and
see if he's got enough, you know what, to carry
through with it. And I'll be honest, it is unnerving
to talk about those things, those subjects.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
What do your colleagues say to you?

Speaker 1 (53:54):
Most of them that are my actual friends. Thank you
for saying that. Ah, I wish I could say that.
I get that a lot.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
I'll bet I'll have some.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
Of the biggest country artists out there, even some of
the new ones that are massive right now back channel
and direct message of me on X. Hey, I heard
that interview you did with so and so, keep it up.
Wish I could say that. I could show you those
over and over and over that say that, and I go, well,
that's I wish they would say it, but I understand
why they don't. They're right in the middle of what's
going on. I know what's at stake. So maybe my job,

(54:27):
Raymond is right now is to keep your mind standing
wide open and he hits you with something that he
wants to be said, write it down, do it the
best you can, and unapologetically slam it out there.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
I forgot you were at the Mandolay Day shooting. Right
you were performing with Jason Alden. What did you think
when that hill of gunfires started falling on these poor people?
It almost hit you. You were there, what forty minutes before?

Speaker 1 (54:54):
I was there forty five minutes before the bullets started
flying through the drum risers on the stage. So big.
And we opened for Aldean that night, and so as
soon as we got through playing, we left on the bus.
Actually had a Rednick Riviera kind of satellite little bar
over there, and I we'll go over there and hang
out with the local band and you know, get ready
to leave town. We get over there and we're up

(55:16):
there singing a little bit. The security man comes up
to me and he says, he go stop the music.
Stop the music. I'm like, what are you talking about?
He goes, stop the music. They pulled the plug, killed
the pa. I'm like, what is going on? And they say,
there's a mass shooting happening at where you guys just
were at the concert.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
I'm went what?

Speaker 1 (55:32):
So everybody got quiet. We turned on the local news.
We had, you know, we had TVs everywhere, and the
local news is reporting if you were anywhere near Mandalay Bay,
Bellagio or Caesar's Palace. Get away from the windows. Well,
we were looking right at Blagio. We're looking at the
fountains and all that. I'm like, everybody, get away from

(55:53):
the glass. So you go get off in the corner.
And I remember looking down you can hear all this
racket going on. We're kind of up high. We're looking
down and you could see police squads moving through the
streets down below. I'm like, okay, so somebody's on the
loose through the town. So I said, somebody needs a
whole point on this front door. And I asked, has

(56:14):
anybody got a weapon in here? And everybody went, h
I know, well I did the only one. I had
a Colt forty five in my belt, so I pulled
it out start walking to the front door. We got
a glass door and this big old cop officer brown
flops his badge out and I looked at him. I thought, oh,
I'm in trouble because I have a firearms. First thing
I thought, he goes, I'm a police officer Minneapolis Police Department.

(56:37):
I'm here with my wife on our honeymoon. Can I
have that and let me protect the door? I said, yes, sir,
and I turned the gun around. I said it's not chambered,
and he grabbed it, went it is now, and he
racked it, got down on one knee and put his
elbow up on the T shirt table there and just
held point on that door because for all we knew,
somebody was coming straight through the door. Got back home

(56:59):
after all that had happened, and going through my suitcase,
and I found the hotel key because we were staying
at the MGM. Found the hotel key, and I'm watching
the news, and I'm looking at the room number on
my hotel key, and I'm looking at the news, going,
hang on a minute. My ceiling of my room was
the floor of that guy that was lobbing those bullets
shouter all day. I'd been up in that room just

(57:21):
waiting for the show to start. He was literally right
there all day long.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
Are you satisfied with the answers that we've gotten about
this guy?

Speaker 1 (57:29):
What answer?

Speaker 2 (57:29):
This old man running back and forth between how you
know how long? That's sweet? Was?

Speaker 1 (57:34):
What answer? There are more cameras per square inch in
Las Vegas, Nevada than probably any city on the earth.
There are cameras everywhere everywhere, can't find any camera footage
the cameras we don't have cameras. Reminds me of other
things I've heard since then. And then you start thinking about, well,
how in the world can one guy sit in a
hotel room like that, because my hotel room would have
been exactly like his and fire thousands and thousands of

(57:57):
rounds and not choked to death. That's the first thing
I thought, I'm a shooter. I'm like, man, if you
fire enough rounds outside, you can serve. Okay, clearly are
he's inside a hotel room doing this? And then you
think about what the local news said, get away from
these hotels and get away. And then national news took it.
And I remember seeing the big FBI guy leaning over
that sheriff while the sheriff hands are just shaking like

(58:19):
a leaf, trying to read the statement. There's the FBI.
I'm going, what is going? What happened? What really happened here?
Anybody that was there, anybody that was around that situation.
None of us believe a word that we were told.
And I'm hoping in this new administration that is one
of the things. There's many, but I hope they tell
us what that actually was, what actually went down to

(58:43):
a lot of people, that over fifty people got killed
at that concert.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
Your fans, yeah, your fans. You had met with some
of these people who were victims of this right before
the concert.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
Died. Yeah, that died. A young young man came through
with his wife and the meet and greet, big fan
took pictures with him. And I got word that when
the bullets came in, he turned his back to where
the bullets were coming, shielding his wife, and he took
several rounds in the back and he died. And you know,
they deserve answers. We deserve answers. And pardon me for

(59:13):
being so skeptical when you go through something like that
and you go back and look at it and go,
that is not true. That is not true what they're
telling us. And America knows that a lot of things
have happened in our country that America knows is not
the truth.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
We need answers particularly for that. I mean, that is
a that well the shooting here in Nashville too, that's
school shooting here not sufficient answer now, and we're talking
about babies, and.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
You, Valdi, why are their cops standing in a hallway
for an hour while this guy's executing kids, and they're
all got bullet proof vest rifles, everything they need to
walk in that room and take that guy out, and
they just stand there for an hour as the shots
keep popping and killing these kids. Yeah, America is sick
and tired of it. Honestly, that's one reason why Trump
won it. It is the gravity that is that finally

(01:00:04):
got together of all these things, put all into one
big package and drop it in your lap and go Trump,
fix this. Tell us the truth, tell us what's going on.
I have a feeling if we all know the real
truth about everything, it would change America's future for probably
a century, because it'd be real hard to trick us
in anything again for a long time.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
Tell me about Rednick Riviera. I've loved the Rednick Riviera
because I know the origins of that. But I'll bet
a lot of people, yeah, the Gulf Coast. Tell people
where that title came from. Why you had to call
it Redknick Era.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
As a as a songwriter, it's one of my favorite
phrases because it's funny. First of all, I like funny stuff,
but it's basically back in the sixties, people living on
limited income, which is still the way it is today,
couldn't afford to go to the French rivi era. So
where would they go. We've got to go to the
Rednick Rivier. So that's like destin Florida golf shores as

(01:00:56):
small city beach, and the beaches are pristine, and the
food is great, and there's music everywhere, and you can
drive there, you can afford to stay there for a week,
and your family have a good time. Yeah, And so
I always thought, man, what a great phrase. Growing up
blue collar myself, I thought, Yeah, I remember calling it
Rednick Rivera when I was a kid. First time I
ever got stung by jellyfish was in Panama City Beach.

(01:01:17):
My dad drove us down there in the station wagon.
And so I thought that should be a brand into itself.
So I wanted to step out and build all American,
one hundred percent made in the USA brand that reflected
my life. Like basically, I grew up blue collar. My
brain still works that way. But you go to a

(01:01:38):
place you can afford because it's truly nice, and you
make memories with the family. And can we get back
to veterans to a brand which we have to fold.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
How many tuitions have you paid?

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
The folds and on it a lot, It'd be hard
to say how many tuitions we've The brand has generated
one point six million dollars since twenty eighteen. That's a
lot for any brand, much less privately owned, small upstart brand.
But I look at that as you know, the only
reason guys with high school diplomas who grew up in

(01:02:09):
a double wide in Texas and nothing fancy get to
go out here and just shoot at the moon, literally
just go all the way as hard as you want
to go and chase the American dream. It's because of
the United States Military. Short of those men and women,
you don't get to sit here and be on TV.
I don't get to go make music. Nobody gets to
do what they want to do short of life liberty

(01:02:31):
and pursuit of happiness being kept in tact by the
US military, And so Folds of Honor puts kids and
spouses through college who lost their mom or dad, or
who have a family members one hundred percent disabled. That
was the income earner. And so there's people all of
the US right now going to college partially subsidized by
redneck Riviera.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
Love that I love it, and you got and you
have the club here in Nashville, which is a great
place to one place if you want to come to
if you're coming to Nashville, you should go to the
Redneck Revere. It's a lot fun. It's a great bar,
there's live music. And you were one of the first
country artists really to start. I mean everybody followed John
Rich's lead on this way.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
Everybody Alan Jackson had to play. There was a couple
of the big dogs. Yeah, they had couple places, not
like it is now. Everybody and the dog's trying to
get a place. It brought you out, I mean it truly.
I think every building down there has a country artist's
name on it at this point. But we try to
make the bar really be its own thing, and it
really is. When you walk in the front door, we
call it the Heroes Bar, and that's where if you're

(01:03:31):
a vet, active duty or a first responder you get
the seat and the first drinks on the house and
the walls are covered in patches and military coins. Probably
the proudest moment I've had seeing that place operate was
a bunch of rowdy guys were down there having a
batchlor party. That's the Rednick Riviera, And I mean they're
getting you know, you could imagine you're having a big time.

(01:03:52):
And these two old Vietnam vets come walking in with
their Vietnam Veteran ball caps on. They come walking in.
It's six deep at the bar. You can't get up
to the bar. And I watched these bachelor party guys
see those old men and got up out of their
chairs and moved people out of the way and said
take much hair, come on, take much here and sat

(01:04:14):
the old man down at their chairs and then they
got up and that was the coveted spot to sit
and respected those old men for their service. So that's
really the culture of that kind of encapsulates the whole brand.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Really well, and what the country should be.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
The hope we get back to that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
I think we're getting there. I want to ask you
quickly before I get to I have a list of questions.
I ask everybody. Give me the state of country music
through John Richard's eyes. Now you've said there couldn't be
a Loretta Lynd today, there couldn't be a Johnny Cash today.
Why not, especially when you hear those young artists reaching
out to you privately and saying thank you for saying that.

(01:04:51):
Clearly that's where they are still.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
Yeah, So the talent of a Loretta Lynn or the
talent of a Johnny Cash can ex to Nashville and
does there there are people with unbelievable talent in Nashville
that are that are coming up through the ranks. The
part that's different is is the record label's stranglehold on creativity.

(01:05:16):
Back in the day, Johnny Cash could sing you know,
I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die,
and they would let him put that out and let
the fans decide if they like a song like that
or if Johnny Cash is too crazy. I don't want
to ever hear that again. That's really not how it
is now. And I know that for a fact because

(01:05:36):
I was in it. And then now all these artists
that come to me and go, I'm gonna play at me.
I'm gonna send you a song I just wrote. The
label's not gonnaver let me put it out, but I
wanted you to hear it. Anyway. They'll send me a
song and it'll be it'll be making some kind of
a cultural statement or something, and they won't even bother
turning it in to the record label. It's almost like
it's not censorship, because nobody ever puts it forward to

(01:05:58):
even be.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
Some self censorship. It's else. They get what they understand,
what's going to make a no go?

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
So why don't even try? And that's not healthy?

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
No? Okay, I gotta put my hat on. Can you
throw that hat to me for a second? I gotta
put my hair.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
I didn't know. I think that's my hand I got
it almost looks like a look at that. Look at you.

Speaker 2 (01:06:17):
That's a big one.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
All right, one tip, pull it down a little bit lower.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
There you go. That's it. That's quite. That guy's ready
for the grand ole up.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
Really all right?

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
Here we go, ladies, And they won't let me on
the opery. That'll bring down the stage forever. Okay. These
are my royal grande questionnaire questions I asked everybody. He's
a rapid fire, but they're important. Who is the person
you most admire my dad? Why?

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
Because he is unyielding and relentless.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
You took the lesson? Well, my friend, who's the person
you most despise.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
Right now? Sean Combs and anybody like him?

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
What is your best feature loyalty, ah, and your worst.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
Hm? Which one should I pick?

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Pick a card? Any card?

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
I would say, h rushing to judgment.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
The last great book you read? And your favorite book?
I think I know the answer to this one.

Speaker 1 (01:07:32):
Well, I mean discounting the Bible, not counting the not
counting the Bible. Hill Billy Elogy is one of my
town favorite books. To be honest with the book. Yeah,
it reminds me of where I grew up, my people.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
The American people.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
What do you fear, John, something happening to my kids?

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
We all fear that, all of us. The greatest virtue
is what.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
Patience.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
I think we have a shared lack of that. If
it gets out what the word you could not live without? Idiot?

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
I say that word a lot every day. Look at
this idiot. Sometimes I'm looking in the mirror and go
look at this he Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:08:20):
No, you shouldn't do that. If you could live anywhere,
where would you live?

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
Probably just outside of Yellowstone?

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
Wow? Except in the winter.

Speaker 1 (01:08:32):
No, in the winter too.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
Gets a little deeper.

Speaker 1 (01:08:34):
That's why with me. Wow. Yeah, I like it out there.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Beautiful country, good air, beautiful country. What is your biggest regret?

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
John? Not jumping that train and getting the hell out
of this interview.

Speaker 2 (01:08:49):
We're almost done. Your biggest regret, John, besides jumping the train, biggest.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
Regret probably disrespecting my father and my youth. H I've
apologized since then, but still I regret it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:03):
The best piece of advice you ever got was.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
What You're never truly free until you can say no.
Who gave it to you, Larry Gatlin?

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
Wow, You're never truly free until you can say no.
I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:18):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
If you could not do what you're doing now, you
weren't a singer and a songwriter, what would you be?
What would you like to do? What else were you
called to do? Do you think.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
Something where I can inspire people? Whatever that would be.
I've always thought if I'd ever gone into the military,
I would have been a guy that would have really
probably enjoyed that and excelled at it, being around other
really competent people, younger ones, especially bringing them up. I
don't know that it would have been military, but something
that would have put me in a spot where I
can communicate, Like.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
That final question, what happens when this life is over?

Speaker 1 (01:09:55):
When this life is over, every single human being that's
ever lived stands directly in front of the Son of God,
and he will either say come on in or he'll
say depart from me. I never knew you one or
the other. And the only way you get into heaven
is by submitting your entire life and will to Jesus Christ.
Going to church will not get you in. Academia about

(01:10:15):
the Bible will not get you in. All of your
philosophy will not get you in. Doing good deeds will
not get you in. If that was the case, the
thief on the cross would have never gone into heaven.
That's what happens when you die.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
No, you're on your way there, my friend God, bless you.
Great John.

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
Yes see you next time looks good.

Speaker 2 (01:10:34):
I've never taken it off. Now here's the least in town.

Speaker 1 (01:10:36):
Give me one of these.

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
There you go, Thank you John. Okay, here's the hole.
You know. This one idea that always sticks in my
mind after an interview. I loved what John Rich shared there,
when everything is out of your control, find the one
thing you still can control, and control it, do the

(01:10:58):
one right thing you're capable of, and build from there.
The other thing that I think is so good is
that God opens doors for those who run to him. Oh,
and keep your hat on. I'll carry a lot of
those things with me. I hope you'll carry them with you.
Why live a dry, narrow, constricted life when if you
fill it with good things, it can flow into a broad,

(01:11:21):
thriving Arroyo Grande. I'm raining at Arroyo. Make sure you
like and subscribe to this episode. Thank you for diving in,
and we'll see you next time. Arroyo Grande is produced
in partnership with iHeart Podcasts and is available on the
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