Ep. 26: Tracy Lawrence on the 90's, Mission Possible, and Backcountry Elk Hunting

This week Dan and Reid Isbell host the legendary Tracy Lawrence out in God's Country. The guys kick off the episode with Dan fan-girling over meeting Tracy and their hilarious new segment, "What ya mad at?", where Reid explains how Dogecoin is slowly ruining his life. Tracy shares some epic stories from his rise to fame in the 1990's and this music row legend shares advice that any up-and-coming artist should hear. The guys dive in on hunting and conservation, and Tracy talks about harvesting an elk in the backcountry. The episode ends with Tracy covering one of the greatest George Strait songs of all time.

Catch Dan and Reid playing live as The Brothers Hunt @ Chiefs in Nashville on July 19th: Get Tickets

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
What's up, y'all. You're out in God's Country with Read
and dan Is Boy, also known as the Brothers Hunt,
where we take a weekly drive to the intersection of
country music. I know right at two things that go together,
like singing a TL tune and karaoke.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, Golden Mullets and Golden nineties country music produced by
Meat Eater in Our Heart.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Podcast, Iconic Day for the Boys and the GCP God's
Country Podcast. Man Legend on the Couch, Legendary TL songs
are bulletproof, Tracy freaking Lawrence and He's.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Still cool man. His little Earian was glistening, looking cool.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
He's cool man, Dude that he was cool. He's very cool.
Thirty years in the game, still cranking out music. It's
got a new EP out called out Here in it Too.
Got him to sing a little bit.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, I had to drop the quill a little bit,
but he's still murdered it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
First time I've ever met in the nineties decade of
country music was so influential in mind and Dan's life.
It's the first time I've ever been able to sit
down with an artist from that from that time period
and really pick his brain. Man just a. He's a legend, dude,
super cool, he still got it. He's a legend doing
a lot with his charity for Nashville. Man, what a
great day for the podcast and a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Hey, be sure and smash that following white button.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Smash the follow light button. We're on Instagram, We're on Facebook,
We're on TikTok, we're on YouTube. What else?

Speaker 2 (01:29):
We're we on other things?

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Everything that y'all are on, we're probably on there. So
smash the follow button, Smash the subscribe button. Be sure
to ring that bell notification. Don't even know what that means.
Hit the light button, and don't send us your lyrics.
Don't send us lyrics or songs.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
We love y'all.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Thanks for hanging out in God's Country. There's a long
haired new guy behind the computer today. We're all good.
He's saying we're all good.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
And we're not good. New guy Jordan's gonnahead.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Dude, damn is geeking y'all.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Geeking man, dude, I mean.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Fangirling me on the way.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
I'm sorry. I haven't even drinking cup coff yet. I know.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
I'm surprised you we met everybody before you saw the Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
He's not coming this way every day.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well, I was cool guy.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
He was trying to cool.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
It was cool girl. I couldn't just a meet walking.
I was a cool girl. But like trying to Mississippi.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Coach, try to do I'm gonna try to do it now.
Thirteen million. Album sold eighteen number one singles, including Time
Marches on Alibi, Teamme of Birmingham, Texas, Tornado, to name
a few. Decorated c M A winner, Grammy nominated. We
got damn Tracy Lawrence on the Crawd Around a.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Fall, Let's Go clap smiled, best intro. I've had a year.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Somebody, and I already said this, but somebody asked me yesterday.
They were like, man, how's the podcast going on? I right,
and I was like it's great. And they're like, who's
your favorite guest you've had on I was like, ask
me tomorrow because it's gonna be Tracy Lawrence. Yeah, after
after tomorrow. Already know we've had great guests. We've had
best friends on here, We've had superstars. Yes, you're the man,
for sure, the man.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I'll tell you this. I've I've paid homage in little
ways across the course of my career. I don't know
if you know, being reader like munch best songwriters, what's
all we've done for the past probably fifteen years and
so one I'm just gonna I'm gonna kind of show
some respect right here. Put some respect on his name
is in uh one too Many, a song that I

(03:43):
wrote with Luke Combs Me and Yeah and something down
to a TL two. I put t L in this
right and listen nobody in Nate, I mean Luke immediately
he knew.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
I heard it the first time that I heard it
on the radio. No, what I did? I heard it.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
I was like, hereayoke to now.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
Actually we use that as walk in music. We put
it in our walk in playlist.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
What you're saying, dude, I gotta pay arm, which I
was like, I said, I'm not sure if anybody like
well understand what I'm saying. And it was like, I
don't give a ship. That's what we're doing. We're putting
TL right there. I was like, yes, we are. That's
my dog. So I was listening today. I was brushing up, right,
you we always brush up. You got a new art,
you got a new artist, you got a brand new
artist stone and uh you kind of want to sniff

(04:34):
up on their music to make sure that you're you know,
and I was an all idea was just I listened
to the new stuff, which I kind of already know
just from following you, and I was just rolling back
through what I consider like cornerstone songs in my basically.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Structure as a song what's your number one.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Man's I was trying to decide if it was sticks
and Stones or good Die Young, because that was so.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
So as a songwriter, what are the things that make
you like those?

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Honestly?

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Podcast host on you?

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Well, honestly, I can put this is this is kind
of reverse psychology here, but I can listen to those
songs without being a songwriter. And the reason is because
when I was knowing those songs, I wasn't necessarily a songwriter. Right,
I'm ten eleven years old. So there were true elements
of what you did.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
You just got a feeling from. So it wasn't you.
You weren't Michael, you weren't picking them apart. I didn't
even listening to the production.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Drum unbiased opinion.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
As a matter of fact, there were the words in
there that I didn't even know. I didn't even know
the one.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
That's one of the things that I love about people
that are passionate about lyrics. I remember listening to songs
when I was, you know, six seven years old, because
my earliest memories of country music were Glenn Campbell and Pride.
Did Glenn Campbell variety show that was on? I was
singing Charlie Pride songs and Kenny Rogers stuff, And I
remember there was a song called She Believes in Me
by Kenny Rodgers, and I would cry when I hear

(06:01):
that song because the emotion of it, even as as
a child you didn't understand what love and a relationship
with a partner any of that stuff was. It's sober,
just but you feel the emotion of this song, and
it moved me. And so those are my early memories
of what songwriting did music and moved me.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Well, you were mine because I listened to a good
Die Young this morning on my way in and I'm like, now,
as a songwriter who's been in it for fifteen years,
I can look at that and go, oh, I get win.
I relate with that because the first verse of that
song is about you playing in a mudhole as a kid,
and I was literally doing that at the time. I
hear this at the time the song came out.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
And you never know what kind of things like that
are going to strike a court of kids. Texas Tornado
was not. I wasn't blown away by that song when
the demo was pitched to me, and it was kind
of a thing that I worked out with a label.
They they let me produce Renegade, Rebels and Roads. That
gave me a bone. I agreed to cut the song.
But that song hit the kids. I mean that it

(07:00):
was I'm a chord with kids because I didn't think
about Flap from the Black. What you think about it, Mama,
You look Tornados hit your clean your room, I mean
all the phones. So I mean, but but you never
know what kind of chord of the song like that's
going to strike with somebody.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
I'm telling you, man, all all of them. I mean,
there are so many mega hits, and like I was
even like, no, I'm a I'm an old school TL fan,
like don't give me no pay me a Burningham, But
then pay me a Burman came came home and when
the key change came, I was literally trapping and I
went pay me.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
It's like a rock anthem. Man, we added this great
guitar electric guitar solo right before the mods, so it
just powers right into that modulation and we've got on
our screens and stuff of the back. It shows everybody
holding up their phone lights and everything to see them
freaking arenas live because that's my that's my closing number.
I'm closed with a freaking ballot at the end of

(07:54):
the night. And it just freaking brings the roof off
the place. Man, that's awesome to see. I still get excited.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Oh you should.

Speaker 1 (08:00):
I feel like as a songwriter and as an artist,
you think about these like you know, these monumental songs
that you're gonna sing for the rest of your life
and time marks his own.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
Just the lick.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Forever. In country music, people will know what that song is.
But you have from the.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
Multiple of those no doubt, like okay, all right, hey bro,
we don't there's no There were literally three minutes in
and we're already a.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
Couple of minutes behind. We have a legend on the couch.
There's no chill out there.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
Sure, what's up with you? Man? What's up you do anything?
Deer hunting? What are you doing anything?

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Anything? Dear wish I was deer hunt for season. They're starting.
I have been like I've been itching to get to
get in the woods and get cameras up because they're
starting to. They're starting to but and you're starting to
see what they can be.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
I saw a little buck run across the road from
me going to the house yesterday afternoon. That was in
full villain Yep. Yeah, they're they're velvet up right, man.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
The ones in my backyard are still nobby and and
I playing a clover like two years ago. Nothing for
two years, I've had nothing. We get all this rain
this year, Bro, all of that clover has bud it.
It is me that's awesome, it's they're killing it.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
I don't really I used to hunt around my property.
I've got quite a bit of land about thirty minutes
outside of Nashville, to the east of town. But I've
got the whole area like for I'd say it probably
at least thirty forty miles around. There's a genetic deformity
that really have so I mean, I've seen them where
you'd have like two or three up on one side.
I've seen them coming out from behind the ear like

(09:30):
Darth Brooks, Mike. So it's totally unbalanced. And when I
I mean just crazy stuff. And so when I when
I bought that property out there in the early nineties,
and I went for years that I would put food
plots and mental blocks and stuff out there. You just
can't get any mass on them about the base that's
about that big. They're just genetically there and you can't

(09:51):
you can't call them enough. So we've got a lot
of pretty deer in the front yard. I'll leave it
at that. Yeah, man, kids loved it.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
But it changes. It changes, man, when you when you're
on in the the ground and you're you're I got
a little four year old little girl and she uh,
she loves seeing them in the afternoons. They see Dad
south feet a little bit.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
But you can love all of those except that guy
back there. He's there's always you know, there's a genetic
for me. But you know they're late at night. I've
seen there's a big one that'll come through every now
hanging out. But he's they're they're so nocturnal. Man, man,
sometimes things make us mad.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Man good to get him out in the mornings.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
What you mad at? Just tell us what it is
what you're mad at? Is it you in lost kids?
Might be your boss, man of your neighbors.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
Cat, Just tes what mad.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Dude? You know what I'm mad at?

Speaker 1 (10:42):
Tell me what you're mad at.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
The signs on the side of the two lane that
tells you your speed when you're speeding, so it'll be
like thirty five, but it'll be like you're going forty two.
I'm like, well, what you gonna do about robot? Wait
holding to pop out and give me a ticket. You're
not going to do that, That's what I'm.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Oh, you're not talking about the speed limit sign.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
No, brother, there's an electronic sign on Carter's Creek right
now that says you're going forty four miles an hour.
What do you do that?

Speaker 1 (11:09):
In like your wife's voice?

Speaker 2 (11:10):
You know what I do it because I feel like
that's what those stupid machines talk like, Hey my.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
Wife, you're going forty five miles. Now you can slow
your boy.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
So careful. Six months from now, it could be an
AI car that just pulls right up.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Is that gonna have or they're just gonna say.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
They'll just take a picture of your digital tickets?

Speaker 2 (11:31):
You mean what you mean? Tell what I do though,
when it's like speed limit thirty, you're going forty two.
I speed up is like the speed up flashing. It
doesn't that one is. This one doesn't have that. But
I'm right, and dude, I got mad respect for law
off and the law, but I'm like, why just put
like a fake cop that, like, just go ahead and
get get me. You know what I'm saying, Like, is

(11:52):
that supposed to slow me down? I don't know where
are you mad at.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
I'm mad at dang Dodge coin. Dude, those coin. I'm
mad at myself for thinking that it's ever going to
go to a dollar. And I'm mad for crypto bro
Tra and I'm mad for it. And I'm mad I bailed.
I pulled out on it, and I had enough money
in the account to go buy some brand new golf
clubs already talk to my wife about it. And then

(12:17):
I read a little thing where they were like, dude,
if you pull up, you're pulling out the wrong time.
Put all of it back in, drop checked it this morning, dude,
falling out dog. I'm mad at it, dude, I'm mad
at myself.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
Are you mad at your money?

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Loss of it?

Speaker 1 (12:33):
It's dwindling. That's why I'm mad at it.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
Tell you mad at anything.

Speaker 3 (12:37):
Dude, I'm mad at a lot of things. Where should
I start an election interference? I'm mad at the political
system we're in. I'm mad at our judicial system. I mean,
can I just run down the hole?

Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (12:49):
Just sick of all of it. I'm sick of people.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
I'm just What I always think about is that saying.
The more I get to know people, the more I
love my dog.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
Love my dog. Man. I got a bunch of dogs
and I just had We got a pair of Great
Danes and had they were they were brothers, and about
two weeks ago, the bigger one just had a massive
heart attime, friend, they would be eight years old in
a couple of weeks. Sorry, it's just a man, It's
just really dogs got uh. Well, now we have one

(13:23):
four we have four and my daughter has a golden
doodle that goes back and forth with herd in college.
And we have four cats. Nice all in the house. Cat.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
I mean, I think I'm out on cat.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
I love my cat.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Cats. I know what I'm saying. This is my last runt,
like when they kick out.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
I think you see the commercial where the guy is
sitting up on the balcony throwing the little treats and
the cats jumping up. Get some of those, get the
ones with cat nipping them and give them to them
at night. They're absolutely amazing. The skits all over the
place irates my wife. I like to put a whole
bunch of mount in the bathroom floor and then they
get all jacked up and then they skits out all night.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Do they live inside all the time?

Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (13:58):
They never let them out.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
No, they never. They've been people hate this, my wife
declawed them.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
Oh I got you got to keep him in. Yeah, yeah,
we kick ours out. Uh they well they want to
go out, honestly, so we let them. Just my dog, man,
I take real, real, real, real crazy care of my
dog and my cats.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
I'm like, yeah, good.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
Now, I do. I do.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
I love my dogs, man, They'll be all right.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Yeah, I love it. I got two dogs.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
I got a I've got a redbone coon hound names
Maybell As she's six. And then we got Merle, who's
a chocolate lab. He's four and uh, dudes, wild now man,
I'm taking them to the beach next week.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
I don't know if that's a good that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
You know how you have like favorites and kids, which
kid is your favorite?

Speaker 1 (14:46):
I mean, I've got two kids and I don't have
a favorite.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Sure you don't. Well, it's kind of the same way
with dogs for me, and like our family, where's at
the bottom right now? I love him. I love him
just because he barks. I think it's the shriek of
the bark.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
Got raised still young Minie Australian shepherd and she's got
that pitchy ye yeap. My favorites from my Pickanese and
my ships. They were rescue as they came from a
puppy mill and the kids picked them out. They went
and donated their time and bathe and they like two
hundred animals out of this thing through new leash on
life up and eleven and so we got this little
Pickanese and shit so and they had been living in

(15:22):
chicken wire cages, stacked on top of each other. Their
feet had never been on grass, and it broke my
heart when I got them. They were awful and I
just fell in love with them. They're my babies. They
followed me everywhere I go. They travel on the bus
with me. They're me with a little yap yap. Yeah.
I've always been a big dog guy. But I fell
in love with him, and it broke my heart.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
My wife called me and was like, hey, there's this
dog where I want to rescue. I was like, Babe,
we barely have enough money to feed our This is
nine years ago. I was like, I don't know. I
don't think it's a great time, you know. And I
was like and she was like, oh, it's the mama
was apparently like picking them up and killing some of
them by picking them up their pit bulls.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
She knew the economy was really in bad shape.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yeah, no doubt.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
She could feed them.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yeah, she probably couldn't, right, gosh, So she.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
Dry, I'm dry.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Left. She sends me a picture and this this little
blue brindle pit bull, and I was like, all right,
bring it home for a night. She j't missed the
night in our bed nine years dude.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
That little joker when it was little, going turkey outing
with us, and we literally took that pit bull everywhere.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
I had to. There was nothing, I mean, we couldn't
afford to take it anywhere else. It just had to ride.
It just had to eat dollar cheeseburgers in the back.
Seat with the rest of us. You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
I like dollar to.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
Three dollars and forty nine cents now the dog.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah, where are you originally from?

Speaker 3 (16:57):
Where were you?

Speaker 1 (16:58):
Where'd you grow up?

Speaker 3 (16:58):
I was born and at Atlanta, Texas, and my mom
remarried when I was four and I moved to southwest Arkansas.
Grew up in a little town called Forman that was
right in the very southernmost part corner of the state
of Arkansas. Bordered Oklahoma to the west, and Red River
was the border between US and Texas. It was right there.
It's close to Interstate thirty. Yeah, about three and a

(17:19):
half hours out of Dallas. Got you.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
He came in strutting us. Yeah, I Hadikansas.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
You know, I don't know if y'all do this, but
I have to match my cap and my und saw
more when I left. Yeah, so I had a aduption zone,
you know, kind of. I see you got your shrimp
boots on.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yeah, yeah, these are just boots. Yeah yeah. I think
we may be sponsored by these.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
I think so you and Justin more y'all can act
on some Arkansas stuff we.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
Do, and we've toured together a little bit. I like justin.
I don't get to see him very much anymore. He's
a good guy. Yeah, yeah, he's a little bit more
obsessed than I am. Is my tour manager and I
grew up together. He was Tommy McDonald will. He was
the first person that I spent the night with that
wasn't a family member when I was in the first grade.
So I'm known in my whole life.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
So he's went.

Speaker 3 (18:02):
To work for me selling T shirts when this whole
thing got it rolling in the early nineties, and now
he's been doing my tour managering for the last several years.
Don't pay roll and keeping books and all that stuff.
So we've been together a long time. He can go
back and tell you who won the national championship, not
only when it comes to SEC stuff. I mean, he
is very very He's one of those savant guys who
knows plays from games from twenty years ago, and I

(18:24):
mean he's it's like, I don't have the brain capacity
to retain all that, nor do I care about it
that much.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
He's still in your camp work.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
I found being in town now and buddies with some artists.
That man. You guys like to surround yourself with good buddies.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
Yeah, and I've had my heart broke by a couple
of long way guys that I was real close to.
That that kind of took advantage of the situation and
destroyed some relationships. And it's happened with some family members too.
But that's that's part of this whole journey. But you know,
you have a few that survive, make it through. Yeah.
I hope he stays to the end. We've been together
a long time.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
That's awesome. You kind of had a quick I mean,
according to the stat sheet, it was like a pretty
quick time as far as getting here. Yeah, playing a
little music and then boom, He's not scooped.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
Probably the quickest of any I've ever heard of. So
when I've been living in Louisiana playing in a little
circuit band, we had a little area of about five
we always thought about called Phoenix.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah, decent name.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
The band was Phoenix. My drummer's wife. Her sister was
Tray Sakins's wife that shot him in the chest. Who Yeah,
so I knew Trace before I ever left. So the
last gig that I played, I think I played hold.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
On break Down from the War Time who's wife.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
Tray Sakins shot that shot him is the sister of
my drummer in Phoenix.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Okay, yeah, okay, okay, way.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
Back think because the last of the place in one
of the clubs that we played was called Bill's New
Country in spring Hill, Louisiana. Traces from right up the
road Sirepta. That whole area rut there. So the last
place that I played was Bill's New Country. That took
up a collection of seven hundred dollars for me. I
had canceled all the rest of the dates. That was
the last weekend of August. I came home and saw
my family, and I remember because it was Rodeo weekend.

(20:13):
So I came home for Rodeo weekend. I packed everything
up in my car, and I came to Nashville. I've
never been to Nashville before. So I got to Nashville
the first part of September in nineteen ninety so September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April, May.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
So it was like, what was it ninety one?

Speaker 3 (20:30):
So I signed my record deal in May. The day
I walked into the studio to cut sticks and stones. Wow,
and so that's the timeframe. So I got in town
in September and I went to any place that would
let me get on stage in Singe, just any juke
joint bar. They had a bunch of contests around, so
I kind of lived off those for a little bit.

(20:52):
I wound up over at a supper club called Live
at Libby's in Daysville, Kentucky, and they broadcast on WBVR
out of Kentucky. Back in Nashville. Every Saturday night was
kind of an opera show. They had their their their
their George Jones impersonator and their Johnny Cash impersonator and
all that stuff, and they had a house band, so
I'd go up and do my couple of songs. So
I wound up on that show in December, like the

(21:14):
second or third weekend that I was on that show,
some executives from Atlantic came up to see somebody else
that was on the show and liked me better. I
did a showcase in January at the Bluebird Cafe for
Rick Blackburn at Atlantic, and I walked in the studio
in Man, Cut Sticks and Stones.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
That's three number one representative come on that song Man
that that was ninety one.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
Ninety ninety one. Isn't that crazy crazy? I never knocked
on a door, I never went to a label, and
never did any of that.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
It was just once they heard you, man, I mean,
you haven't iconic voices in the genre.

Speaker 3 (21:47):
I was real focused then, too, I was. I was
very focused. To me. Of course I wouldn't. I wouldn't
do anything because I couldn't afford to buy eve beer
at halftime. You know, I was just struggling to survive,
you know, Crystal Burders.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
I almost thought about, like, uh, getting on Amazon and
finding like a gold mullet and you have the Christius
mullet behind that.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
Cowboys called it akermullets.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
Neil McCoy one time. So this is getting way deep.
But my my sister used to run a show for
Daryl Worley. He's from our hometown, Savannah. We're from Savannah
where Darryl's from. And and he came up.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Played whiskey jam last night.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
He did. Yeah, I saw him in the airport the
other day.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
He's back.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Let me tell you something that's a singing right now.
He is a killer.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
Yeah. So anyway, he's his arms as big as me.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
He's a giant. I was thinking when you were talking
about trace Ackeints, that's the only guy I've ever seen
that I thought, Man, he's actually legitimately bigger than Darryl.
That dude's a.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
Huge is a huge man.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
This story you're telling him was on there. It's like
there too. I don't know. It wasn't called this, but
it was like two huge guy tour. It's like, you know,
it was like the Mountain, there's something. Yeah, it was
some giants and country. So my sister would hire us
to set the stage up. We were we were still
in high school. So we build the stage up. We

(23:12):
just kind of standing around.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
We didn't.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah, everybody else built it.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
Were you still around? So uh, Nilcoy's out there, he's
doing his thing and then he wants he has pink
cross it's his practice or is uh rehearsal warm ups.
We're out there washing. He has eat bright hot pink crocs.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Now he don't care.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
He literally is singing like, oh she's gotta do it's
just give me that away. And he looks over and yeah,
I got pink crocs on and I don't give it.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
That's when he turned around there people, he goes, let
me see somebody fritch, get somebody.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Making out.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
He don't care, man, he don't care, don't care. You
gotta love him.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
He's uh he had some gems too, man.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yeah, that whole era was is awesome. That What was
that like when that you had a record deal eight
months being into town Sticks of Stones takes all your.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
Top five You said top five record that's only go.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
On one Sticks and Stone one number one.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Rocket that was a rocket ship. What did that feel like?
Just moving from a kid from Arkansas and Texas like
you moved to national boom. Your career is going.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah, dude, it's it's overwhelming. You know. You you can't
imagine just how there's so much excitement because it's like
everything that's happened is life changing. But you go from
riding in a beat up old car that you know,
I didn't have insurance or legal tags or anything yeup
to all of a sudden, Uh, you got one hundred

(24:41):
dollars bills in your pocket and people are giving you
brand new pickup trucks for endorsements, and they're putting clothes
on you and boots on you. And you know, when
you when you don't have anything, nobody give you anything.
When you all of a sudden you're making money, they
want to give you everything, and then all of a sudden,
it's just overwhelming. It's like you get the you kind
of get stuck in this orbit. You get all these

(25:03):
people around you that are protecting you. So you just
kind of come invincible, you know, you can kind of
just things start happening, and everybody looks at you as
as the golden goose. They all got to protect you,
so you just feel like you can get away with anything.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
As a golden bullet.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
It's it takes a while una mentally adjust to it.
There's because it's there's nothing about it that's normal. And
riding around on a tube and you know, back then,
when the bus pulled up into the hotel parking lot,
girls would start circling. It's like a spaceship chicken landed.
It was that insane. Uh, It's just it was. It

(25:45):
was a crazy time. Man.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
Everybody thinks from the outside looking in that like, oh
he's got it made. You're you live in your dreams,
you like, And I'm sure there was there was great times,
but there was also a lot of a lot of
struggle with that too.

Speaker 3 (25:58):
There's you go. It's all excited at first, then all
of a sudden, the walls start closing in, and then
you know, you're I mean there was times that I
would have killed just to freaking be able to take
a six pack and go drivel around on a gravel road,
you know. But yeah, dot Coch yeah, well back yeah,
back then. But you just get overwhelmed by everything. I mean,

(26:20):
you can't go to the grocery store anymore. You know,
you're limited to what you can do. I literally bought
a lot of property so I could get my little
jeep side by side and go ride around on my trails,
and my buddies would come over and we'd ride around
on the pastor on height through the trails that I'd
cut through and everything that was my release that kept
me from getting in trouble and getting out on the
highway and stuff. I mean, you have to find ways

(26:43):
to kind of compensate for it. So I see, you know,
Morgan going through the stupid things that are that are happening,
and you kind of my my career never got to
the place that was as massive as what is is,
but you still have to deal with all the same craziness.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Man, the pressure is John to be I mean honestly
kind of kind of exhausting. I mean just just in
the sense movie Like I said, we're best buddies with
you can see in that media work rise and and
just him have to figure out how to live. It's
like you said, he always talks about going to the
grocery store. It's crazy that you said that right then,

(27:20):
because he's like, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
We asked him what the best and worst thing about
being famously and he was like, the best thing, he said,
I can go if there's if I want to go
to super Bowl, I can go to super Bowl. I
can do anything I want to do.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
Family.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
That was absolutely and he said he's the worst thing.
He's like, I can't take my wife to dinner.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
Oh, can't go out to dinner and go to a movie. Yeah,
I mean those are things that you just so you
build these compounds with all the things that you need
to suffice for all that. Now, what I found as
at what I've realized, you know, I had. I've had
basically a twenty year commercial career. My last big commercial
hit was Finding Who Your Friends Are? And it was
the late you know, two thousand and seven eight. So

(27:57):
I had. I had a good, you know, almost a
twenty year run commercially, and have released a lot of
stuff since then. But I've I've gotten to the place
that once the radio career is over and people don't
see you as much, and it's kind of you know,
I can go to my favorite places or Lows Tractors Supply.
Those are the places that I frequent on depot gay

(28:19):
Well Low's is closer, but and I do go to
the dump on Monday, usually take care of the dogs
of the vets. I'm gonna have my little things that
I do on my day off on Monday. But for
the most part, you know, I've I've found a way
after the radio career to be able to turn it
off when I when I want to be recognized and
put the cowboy hat on a walk out, and I
can turn that persona on. Other than that, I'm just

(28:40):
a normal guy and I don't I don't care that
baggage around me all the time. But but I you know,
McGraw and I are still friends. McGraw is still in
a situation where he's he's in it. Yeah, you know,
he's still in it. And I'm glad that I've been
able to find that ballance in life. It's just let
me raise my kids, just let me have a normal
family life. And my wife and we went the movies
the other night, you know, which is.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
Almost like you get to fall in love again with
norm normality a little bit after you've seen you've had
the spotlight on you for twenty years.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
And I've and I appreciate all the things that came
with that fame and success. But I like where I'm
out a whole lot. Then, Yeah, I'm in a much
better mental space and I'm not stressed out, and I'm
not chasing anything. I don't feel like I have anything
left to prove. I'm just kind of in a good
spot and I'm being creative again, and I'm enjoying touring,
and so I'm in a good place.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
You're still rocking, Man on the Roller And we just
got off the road in Riley and played.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
What we no we did. We did twenty eight shows
with Riley. But I think I've got ninety six dates
on the books. I'm probably gonna gonna pull a few.
It's just more than I want to do. But my,
I mean, we we're looking at stuff for next year.
My my schedule is slammed all the way through the
end of the year. I'm completely packed, and it's you know,
I'm turning down work that I've got more than I

(30:02):
want to do. And we're looking at I mean, we've
got several people that are courting us to go back
out on big arenaturs and stuff.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Now, I mean, with that atalogue of just absolute monsters, monsters,
you can play forever. Honestly, you are always in the past.
I mean, even guys like younger than us are Tracy
Lawrence fans, and we're not. We're not in those Spring
Chickens dud. But like, and I grew up with you.

Speaker 3 (30:25):
I see I see it out there, these young kids,
and it's it's fascinating to me seeing twelve thirteen, fourteen
year old kids actually singing the worst of sticks and
stones because they're there and they're they're coming back around,
and you know, you go through that generation where where
it's the kids of the mothers and the dads that
came and see me during my heyday, and now this
is another generation behind that. Yeah, but you know, I'm

(30:47):
still engaged in what's going on. The podcast has been
very important and all that stuff reconnecting with younger artists
and crossing those those bridges and reaching across the aisle
and making new fans. My radio show has been a
real big part of that thing. I just you know,
the Internet has had so much to do with reaching
that younger generation because once they find a Birmingham, then
they go back through and they listen to the whole

(31:08):
the whole catalog, they find stuff I make, and then
you then you start having people come out and requesting
songs that that you haven't thought about in twenty or
thirty years.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
Okay, like what tell me?

Speaker 3 (31:18):
Oh like April's fool. Yeah, are the Cards? I would
know the card The Cards was a song on Uh,
what's it? I sait now? Maybe I think it was
I see it now? It was on I See It
Now it was. It was a pretty pretty stout song.
And I like to go back and see record. Yeah,

(31:39):
I see some of those things that are my favorites
that kind of slid through the cracks that didn't make
it the radio. There's a few of them that should
have been really massive records.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
Nice talk to me about cutting outside songs. I saw
that you've written some and then you cut them outside.
How do you because you know some of these some
of these artists have a new artist. I have like
a little bit of like an issue with just cutting
an outside song. How were they pitched to you? What? What?
What made you think, Man, this is something that I

(32:07):
want to record release.

Speaker 3 (32:09):
I had a really unique way of going through my
whole song search process. So I would write a bunch
and I had I still have my core group of
people that I write with, UH, and then all those
songs what we demoed would have to kind of hold up.
I would make sure that so as I went through
and found outside songs. Here here's my process. I had

(32:30):
a I had a cassette player on the bus that
would record cassette cassette UH, and it had very speeds
on it, so I could speed it up and slow
it down if I if I wanted to see how
it felt a little bit quicker, I could get my
tempo right. So I would go. I would get when
when songs came in from Atlantic, they and our department
would collect stuff in mailboxes. So I'd get a mailbox

(32:50):
and I'd go to the house or I'd sit on
the bus and I would go through everything in that
particular box at one time. Anything that I wanted to hold,
i'd put in the key pile. I'd market if it
was on, I can set with ten songs whatever. Usually
you know you're not going to find Merriamnie and I
prefer people that just send one or two songs at
a time to two the truth.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
But I would go through that.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
So when I would get through, I would go through
that whole basket. When I was done, I would go
through and I would sequence those things, and I would
put them on a comp tape and I would adjust
the speeds on it. As I would listen through that
comp tape over and over and over and over again,
i'd pull things out and i'd remove them. By the
time I got to the end of that process, I
would go through, sometimes a couple of thousand songs shit

(33:30):
prepared for a record, and I would mix my things in.
By the time I got to the studio, after I
had condensed and condensed and condensed and gone through that
burn process, I would go in with about fifteen songs,
and by the time I got in the studio, I
knew the sequence of the record. I knew the tempall
one that the songs cut out and I had gone
through the burn process, because in my mind, if I

(33:51):
got tired of them pretty quick, then somebody else is
gonna get tired of them too. So I really had
that meticulous process of just beating it into the ground.
So by the time they got out the people, I
mean theoretically, in my mind, the way it worked, if
I'd gone through that process and they held up well,
and I think they have through all this time.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
For sure, that ain't no question to me. I mean,
like I said, you have me raised my hands in
traffic this morning.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Now you're working on a brand new EP.

Speaker 3 (34:20):
EP drops here, and just I think it's dropped.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
By the time.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
I really I've never done an EP. I've always done
full records. But I was trying to get some stuff
done before the Riley tour, and I had just been
on a writer's funk and I hadn't been writing. It's like, okay,
I went for all outside songs and I called some
people I got called my buddy Ernest dray Lewis, I mean,
just people that I knew and found some songs and
I and and kind of went through a similar process,

(34:47):
just a much more condensed version. But I was really
after This is the first project that I've done in
over three years. The last project that I did was
my thirtieth anniversary package, and it was a three disc compilation.
Every new song on that basically I wrote, and I
really kind of got to the place that I wrote
myself into a hole and I got kind of fried,

(35:08):
and it's like I got to stop for a while,
and I really have had trouble digging back out of
that writer's block. But I really felt like when I
cut this new stuff, I needed to kind of be
a little bit more contemporary, but not straight too far.
So I wanted to kind of find some things that
I haven't temple wise, things with a groove that I
hadn't done before, things that were a little bit fresh
for me. But I didn't want to stray too far

(35:30):
away from my core. So I think I balanced.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
It and you didn't, because I mean, when I listened
to the project, it felt like a Tracy Lawrence record,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
And first one, I can't remember the name it gave me,
the first one on the EP, it was a funky thing.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
It was almost like pretty dang good.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
Yeah, dude, Yeah, that's.

Speaker 3 (35:48):
Different than anything I've done, yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
I know. But your stuff though, even in that, it's
like you have a a like a bluesy way about you.
Oh yeah, there is some R and B in your stuff.
And even in that toune I remember hearing and being like,
dude's there's some funk in this that that that's that

(36:11):
says Tracy Ar.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Yeah, you learned how to sing and that you cut
your teeth in the church right a little bit.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
You know, I learned how to play guitar from a
church camp handbook from Camp Tannaco. But you know, I
grew up. I mean, my early influences are all traditional
country music. We talked early on about Glenn Campbell and
Jolie Pride and Kenny Rodgers and all that stuff, uh.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
Yesterday.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
But I go back. The first music product that I bought,
which was an eight track and I'm trying to remember
it was probably seventy seven, was Hank Weeam Junior Whiskey
b Hill Down. So, I mean, and and Hank had
a lot of blues to him. And if you go
back and you listen to God like Charlie Rich, John Conney,

(36:57):
John Colly's got a real soulful voice and So those
people really influenced me heavily too, because they did have
that soul this to them as well. So I'm still
getting a lot of that stuff. But I freaking love
Joe Cocker. I mean I grew up with all this.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, man, Carmichael. Carmichael was talking about you the other
day and he he played U blues Man. He played
in the same blues Man and you just you can
hear that influence on on a lot of junior stuff. Man.
He was he is a He's a soul guy.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
Oh, absolutely, with out of doubt.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
I think that's my favorite genre of music. Yeah, I
mean right outside of country is like.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
Steve Ravaughn, all that stuff. I grew up loving all
that stuff. I mean, but I got into all the
hair bands and stuff in high school too, the Van
Halen's and big Zeppelin fan. But it's you know, as
far as a singer and what I do, I was,
I was more. I gravitated more towards the George Straight
field than a lot of those.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
So when you when you get in your truck at
home today, what do you pop on home to listen
to on the way back?

Speaker 3 (38:05):
You know, I'm really into a lot of YouTube, podcast stuff,
follow a lot of political stuff, so I'm kind of
deeper into other things. Now.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
You ain't even listen to music.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
I don't listen to radio ver much. I don't either,
and I and you know, when I start writing, I
prefer that because I don't get pulled into getting on
top of something else. I mean, I don't really listen
to a lot outside music much anymore.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Talk to us about the drive to continue to make music,
because because I have conversations with with guys that man,
once they once they're done, they want to be done,
you know, and you have, you've had, you had a
twenty year commercial career, and now you're still we're twenty
twenty four, man, but you're still pumping out Tracy Lawrence tunes,
Like what's where is that coming from? What's the what's
the love? You know? Where is that based out of?

Speaker 3 (38:48):
I think it's just a love of the creativity and
and and that's same with the podcasts and the other
things that I do. I just think there's something inside
you that that has to come out. And and I
like it when I get into songwriting mode because it's
better than a two hundred dollars an hour therapist, because
you get in a room with a couple of guys
that you trust and you're throwing out ideas and you're

(39:09):
talking about life and you're just putting your cards out
on the table. Man, there's something about that purging of
whatever's going on in your life, even if you don't
write about it that day. There's something about that collaboration
with co writes that I find very special to me.
I do, man, I feel like I purged all of it.
And I've written some very deep songs. I mean, me
and Carson and Martin Nesler have written some things that

(39:32):
There's a song I wrote about my daughter called Struggle Struggle.
You know. It's just things that just freaking move you,
that you know, And I've learned as a songwriter too.
I used to think when I came to town that
if you have an idea from my personal experience, that
you have to write it just it's got to be
exactly the way that memory or that relationship or whatever
that was. But I've learned over the years that the

(39:54):
song deserves better than just what that situation was. You
want to make it as colorful as us and as
vivid the imagery and all of that stuff as you
possibly can, and sometimes the story in your mind is
not as vivid as you thought it was when you
start diving down into it, and as a songwriter, you
got a massage your way past that. So a lot
of songs that come from a personal experience are not
always one hundred percent accurate.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Yeah to the detail, absolutely, and if they are, sometimes
it's not as uh commercial.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
And that's another reason that you got to separate it too.
As a songwriter. How many times you get your feelings
hurt because somebody shot it down a song that you
really wrote from a personal place. This is so special,
they've got to hear, and then you just get your
heart cut out of You got to separate yourself from that.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
For sure, you do. You got to you honestly, I
feel like you only learn that over time, absolutely and
doing it because I'm with you. There was a time
where I felt like if it wasn't what was going
on in my life to a t, then I didn't
know how to do it, you know. But it through
co writing and through like you're talking about trusting your

(40:58):
co writers in the room. I think that was important
thing that you said. It's like you get to a
place where you realize you can put that story out
there and trust those people to enhance or maybe even
put their personal input on it. And before you know it,
you've built this strong, you know story.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
That you can close your eyes and you know you
can you can see the tapes tree on the wall,
you can smell the smells that you're projecting, you can
see the colors. I mean, and that's what you want
to do. You want to be able to visualize it.
It's a pretty special to be able to have that
skill set to create that thing. I think it's an
amazing thing. So back to the original question, and why

(41:35):
do you continue to create music because of that?

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Right there?

Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, that's what it's about. It.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
That's beautiful, it really is.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
I agree. You know, I read a quote that says
the only the only proof I need that God exists
is music because it's pulled out of nowhere. And I mean,
you just create this thing from nothing, has to be
given from God, right absolutely.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
And it's and it's been in me since I was
just a little kid. Man, I've known it always been there.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
Same, same of us, same I mean read was singing
specials in our church and making old ladies pass out
when he was like six.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Things right and see it again and again another one
fall on the Florida Hey telling him, tell him telling
me t L story.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
Oh no, completely forgot. So what I mean I've said before,
You've been an influenceive of mine since the jump. But
I my my best buddy Jamie Davis, who now plays
guitar for Luke, and we had a band for ten
years that toured all of Southeast sold gravy. We just
so g We were a funk country band man and

(42:37):
covered some of your stuff. And anyway, so we were
playing this place one time. It was this, Uh, I
probably shouldn't say the place, okay. We were playing Studio
fifty five in Grenade of Mississippi one night and it
was a relatively rough joint at times, not all the time,
this particular night it might have been. And uh, you know,

(42:59):
playing shows occasionally you get a guy that is amen
come out to the parking lot with me. Men, Oh guy,
he's gonna he's gonna rob us. So I was like, Jamie, dude,
I'm not going by myself like you if I'm going
here going He's like, all right, let's go, man, let's
see it. He wouldn't leave us alone, you know. So
he's like music, Oh guy, he's gonna rob us, gonna

(43:22):
kill us, thro us in the back of this truck
and take us into the swamp, you know. And he said,
I got two things for you, all right. First one
is this, and he held out his hand and I
was like, oh gosh, I put my hand out. He
dropped like eight pills in my hand. Right. I didn't
know what any of them were. It was just a
bunch of random.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
Well you can't tell him to you take one.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
So I'm like, oh, man, thanks for these pills. Man. Yeah,
we had like a four hour drive.

Speaker 3 (43:56):
Take this one before this one. You have to take
this one after this one. So this put these together,
but not till after midnight.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
So not to disrespect the guy, I just like I
didn't throw him over my shoulder. I just like put
him in my parking, you know. And he was like
the next thing is this, And he reads back in
the strut and I was like, oh, this is where
it rots, you know. And so he turns around and
he has a burnt c D in a plastic vinyl
case and it and on the top it said, you

(44:26):
know when people used to burn cit and they ride
on with the shower topas said Tracy, the r a
c y at the bottom it said Lawrence, but it
said spelled Lance with an R. He's like, they can
pales pop out and you'll have a hell of a
ride Homey Tracy l Tracy Larynce just Lance with an R.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
What is what is the old guy YouTube? What's his name? Uh? God?
He does? He dances to all these songs. He danced
to Tom marches On. What is his name? Joey Uh,
Joey Broke, Joey bro Okay, Joey bro bro like Louisiana
b r e A U. Check out Joey bro and

(45:11):
see his rendition of time marches On. It's kind of creepy.
There's some weird ship on there now. But I can
in my mind I visualized that guy looking like, oh, I.

Speaker 2 (45:22):
Can tell you you've seen this guy before. So we
go home. We obviously don't take the pills. We did
jam the CD, even though we already know all the songs.
We get back. We were staying at my brother in
law's house in Jackson because we had another show in
Memphis the next night. We drove up to Jackson to see.
My brother in law was a doctor and I and
I woke up the next morning, put my jeans on.
I reached my pocket and I felt all those pills,

(45:42):
you know, And I was like, hey man, I said,
by the way, some I'm redneck gave us. Give me
a handful of pills. I said, tell me what these are.
He was like, that's two extra strengths tiling on. That's
a vica and he was like that's a muscle relaxer,
and that's half of a what's the viagra? He said,
that's half a viagra. I was like, God, this guy

(46:04):
did want us to have a good's headache. Wow.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
Well that's definitely a skill set your friend has. I
was like, okay, man, there's usually one of those guys
on every bus. If you have questions, what's this? They
know what it is, they know what it is.

Speaker 4 (46:21):
Well, he's a doctor, so I guess he.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
Hey man, I've seen some videos of you elk coming.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
Yeah, dang, I didn't know this.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
You know that?

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Were you on the Outdoor Channel?

Speaker 3 (46:39):
You on the TV show did the Outdoor Channel, Biggest
Biggest Man, biggest time, I'm alive ever? Hearsted man. I
got this massive elk. We were in a uh cascade, Wyoming,
and uh, it was really cool. We did like a
three day hunt and we'd go out in the mornings
and get up in the morning and we'd go with
our guide and we'd go set up the base of
the mountains and we'd glass and kind of watch where

(47:01):
the herd was, and then we'd wait there until we'd
see which direction they were going up. The year is this, Uh,
this would be October, September, October or something like that.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Pretty good.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
Oh yeah, I mean you could see them, I mean
massive herds of hundreds of the amount of time. So so
we'd see which way they were going up. Then we'd
come back and have breakfast, kind of peel around, go
the shooting range and stuff. So the first day I
went out, I mean, you're you're coming back about two
o'clock in the afternoon. You're putting on a pack, and
you're you're all your gear and everything, and you're going

(47:32):
and uh, it'll kick your butt. I'm talking about I'm
following my guide around. He's like a freaking mountain goat,
and I'm just trying to keep up hyperventilating. And I've
been had really tried to get prepared for it, but
it kicked my tail. So uh, we went up on
a grassy plane the first day and he popped out
this less whole steam cow thing. So we're crawling around

(47:55):
the grass. I missed a shot that day at about
two hundred and fifty yards. I missed a shot. So
we come back down. Nobody else got a shot that day.
Next day we went back up, didn't get a shot,
went to the same thing. So the third day, it's
the last day we're there, so we did went and
glass that morning, came back, I had breakfast, went up
that afternoon, so we hike for a good two hours

(48:15):
and we came upon this place. There's this huge ravine
and I'm telling you, there was like a rock shelf.
And we came upon this bluff and we're we're in
the remote part of nowhere, man. So there's Indian era
heads everywhere. I mean, you could tell that they've been
hunting from this spot for years and years and years
and years. I mean this that's I mean, few people

(48:37):
have ever seen it. And so we crawl up and
we look over this little shelf and down below there's hundreds,
hundreds of elks. I mean and there, but there is
about a three hundred yard shot, so he glasses it.
I pick out the one on one. I mean, it's
this massive freaking bull and I can't hit him right
in the hearty like three hundred and fifty y longest

(48:58):
shot I've ever made. It took nine of us. It's
about six and a half hours to keepe him and
quarter him and get him back down. We had to
pack it out, so everybody kind of got back to you.
I was the only one. Then the whole hunt for
three days, it got a got a harvest.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Oh wow, I was the only one.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
So he's hanging in my poolhouse. Massive, every bit of that.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
They're good.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
Free love helped me absolutely amazing. But that was the
most physical hunt that I've ever done, and probably I
had just had ankle surgery last year in December. I'm
just still struggling to get over it. But I don't
think I'll physically ever be able to do that kind
of hunt again. I think I think that was my
one and done for that because it was just it.
It kicked. What happened to the ankle, torn ligaments, ripped

(49:41):
the tendon, just but stuff pro part of it was prolonged,
and then I put it off too long. Then the
tendon tore on me.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
Just kicking one of them dogs.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
Now racing my wife. I rolled my ankle several times.
We used to love no cut that so when I
roll it bad. The last time, we had gone to
Memphis with several couple of friends. Were hanging out on
Bell Street. So we're staying at a hotel in downtown.
So when we get up on the elevator, the elevators
opened like this. In our room was like dead center
back here. So every time the elevator's door opened, we

(50:13):
race for like two days. The last yeah, we'd race
to our room and I kicked her butt every time.
And then that last time, we were playing in Tunica
the next day, so we were we've been down on
Bell Street. You know, you go all the way then
the pad O's and you start off with a hurricane,
then you work your way back, you know, the deal.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
Feeling pretty good, pretty good.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
So so I came out of the elevator and I
rounded that corner and my ankle rolled and I crashed
into the wall. I mean it swelled up like a
freaking candilo. So I know that's when I tore the ligaments.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:42):
So, I mean it's in and I've rolled it many times. Yeah,
she said she won, but I said, there's an asterisk
by that you did not win. I mean I went down.
I mean it's it was bad. I had to go
to the emergency room the next morning because I really
thought I'd broke it. I mean it swelled up. It
was huge.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
So that those self injuries ankle rolls they like when you.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
Were Nothing's like no, you know, I used to jump
off the top of the house, but I used to
bounce when I hit back down. I don't bounce anymore.
It's like break yeah with a thud. Now over.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
Yeah, you said, uh, you said earlier that if you know,
you back in your heyday, you were torn and going crazy.
If you just had a day to to to decompress you,
you wanted to hop in the jeep or the truck
and ride some back rows with some dyck coke?

Speaker 2 (51:29):
Is that?

Speaker 1 (51:30):
What is that? What hunt and fishing does for you?
And being being in the outdoors does it? Does it
give you a mental break that you don't get anywhere else.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
It does? And uh, like I said, I don't hunt
around the house anymore. But I've got a I've got
a place in West Texas with some friends that I
bird hunt with in September October every year, and then
another high fence place down in the same area, uh,
with several thousand acres that we go to and hunt
usually in December every year. There's lots of white tail
and breeding stuff, and a lot of exotics like black
buck and axis and fallow and all that kind of stuff.

(51:59):
So it's it's pretty awesome. Birds q quail and peesn't
I mean quail and dove tons dove. So the place
we hunt down there, there's tons of sunflower fields, so
it's dove When when they come off the roost in
the morning, when you're sitting in that dove field, it's
like a wave. It's just unbelievable how many thousands of
freaking birds are coming in. I mean, it's unbelievable. You

(52:20):
can't even fathom. It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
Yeah, it's been a long time, so I've been on
a real good dove hunt. I wanted a good one.
They're fun.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
I want to do that. Y'all heard about the Argentine stuff.
Whether you have a guy just they have to swap
guns out of your mouth. The Barrett gun barrel down.
They load, you give you a gun. Yeah, they load,
you give you a gun, and you just shoot till
you can't shoot no more.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
Dang right. They take our buddy from West Tennessee went
and he they gave him when he left. It was
a booklet of like and it was pictures of him
shooting and you know, you get the steak dinner in
the can and stuff. They had his statistics, so like
they're sitting there counting how many shots you shot and
if you hit the burden, he's got percentage of on
how many he shot fourteen hundred times and he hit

(53:04):
eleven hundred times, so it gives you your percentages of school. Yeah,
it's pretty cool for awesome, but I mean literally you
you can shoot. I mean you take breaks because you do.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
It's a plane now here. Let's hop it real quick.
Go shoot Argentina, write a few songs. Come back tonight. Dude,
wife's happy.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
Everybody's could get to like a plan.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
Get your jet dow Hey, let's talk about mission possible.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
Man.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
You're doing some great work for for on your charity,
have been for a while, just hosted a golf tournament
over at Old Hickory, right and raised a bunch of money.
Tell us a little bit about that and show us
your heart and for that, for that charity.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
So mission possible. We just finished our eighteenth year frying turkeys.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (53:47):
So we started eighteen years ago with just the vision
of wanting to get back. It was me and a
handful of friends, and all we really wanted to do
was drive awareness to the Nastionville Rescue Mission. I had
made some relationships there because of a family member that
was struggling with some addiction and homelessness and all that stuff.
So there was a whole thing that kind of led
us into that. So, you know, just wanted to put

(54:09):
the National Rescue Mission in a better light. So the
first year we went down there, I think we bought
one hundred turkeys or whatever and just Bard brought our
on personal fryers. And so after that first year it
grew into this thing where we would take donations. We
started cooking between five and six hundred turkeys and we.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
Got sponsors six hundred turtle.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
Yeah, so we we did that, but most of that
was just going to the National Rescue Mission. So we
were doing in the parking lot of the rescue mission.
Three years ago, we felt like we had the opportunity
to grow. And as I've gone through this journey, I've
realized that there's so many things outside of the rescue Mission.
They have their their rules about people that they let in,
and there's a lot of people that don't want to

(54:48):
adhere to that, but that don't mean they don't need
compassion and they've got to eat and things. So we
started finding all these other little peripheral organizations. People that
are you know, street preachers, and people that are feeding
at different days of the week, and people that provide
temporary housing or people that provide showers or launder clothes
or whatever it is that they need. So we started
reaching out to other organizations like that. So we moved

(55:11):
to the fair grounds three years ago, and that first
year we got hooked up with the Cardial company in
the National Turkey Federation. They gave us twelve hundred turkeys,
So we went from five hundred or so to do
in twelve hundred, and then last year we did fourteen hundred.
I know we did twelve hundred.

Speaker 2 (55:29):
The first year there got to be some fires.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
No never had a fire we'd do one hundred and
twenty fryars and you have.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
Fried fourteen hundred turkeys and there were in one year
and there were no fires, no grease.

Speaker 3 (55:41):
But everything was structured. We set everything up in pits
of pits like with ten or twelve friars. Every pit
has a pit boss that knows how to watch over everything.
Fire extinguishers, we have. The fire Marshal comes signs off
on it every morning. Everything goes through its system. It
goes to the drying rack. When it's done, my wife
and lady's package stuff up. A lot of it's going

(56:01):
to surrounding counties all around Tennessee with say for trucks
out the next day with box mills with the turkey
and sides and everything that are going to pick up
locations for families with kids to pick up. So it's
just grown. The golf tournament was added three years ago
and it's it's become the cash driver for pretty much everything.
That's where we make the bulk of the money. But
we've been doing this thing going on and beat our

(56:21):
nineteenth year this year. Over all, good you pretty cool
work man.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
I appreciate your heart of that.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
Man.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
It's it's that's.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
Especially a lot of suffering out there there.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
Is and if we can, if we can help in
any way of that, absolutely, you know, let us let
us know. I would love to come and beat everybody.

Speaker 3 (56:36):
It's pretty fascinating to see to pull up in that
pavilion and see just rows of friars and all. I mean,
we have two hundred and fifty volunteers, man, people that
have been coming back every year, and so you know,
it's it's pretty it's pretty cool to see.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
I'm sure it makes them feel good man to see
to see your heart and your passion for helping people
out in those situations. You know, that's that's probably a
pretty addicting feeling to to want to be a part
of and help drive that thing.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
I know, if I don't, I know, if I don't
ask this, I'm gonna regret not asking this. Can you
just give me one or two of your favorite road
stories that just live at up of like of being
in a band or or whatever it is. Just just
give me some insight on something. Oh so far, the
funniest thing you said is the Garth Brooks mic Oh dear,

(57:23):
that is hysterical and it's logged into my brain to repeat.
But I'll always cite you, and I'll give you the
credit for that.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
Oh funny road stories, man. I remember a couple of
iconic moments to me, and one of them was Alibias
was speaking all of charge my first big tour, you know,
after that first year of my when things kicked off
in ninety one. I went through that first year and
doing a lot of clubs and stuff around, and then
I wound up out on the George Jones Tour, the
Red Man Crown Roll Tour in ninety two and ninety three.

(57:53):
So I spent a lot of time with Jones out
on the road.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
Greatest country voice of all time.

Speaker 3 (57:57):
Oh Haggard's, Haggard's Haggard me too, Haggard's my guy. Now,
I love George. I spent a lot more time with
George than I did with Haggard. Uh, And I love George.
George and I got real close he was. He was
very cool to me and I learned a lot from him.
But I remember we were in Greenville, South Carolina, playing
at the Arena there and Alibi's was peeking out. So
this would have been ninety three. This was been after

(58:19):
we'd had sticks and Stones Momentum. Alibis was the first
single off of that off of that album, and so
it was peeking out. And I remember when I finished
singing Alibis in that arena that was back before cell phones.
Everybody had their freaking cigarette lighters up in there, and
I literally they wouldn't stop yell. And I remember standing
in front of the state of freaking just boo hood wow,
just freaking crying man, just so overwhelmed by all of it.

(58:41):
I mean, it was it was that powerful back then,
you know, crazy stuff. I mean, I remember one night,
I ain't gonna mention who al was with me, but
we back back before the NKED people were at the
roundabout down here, you know that used to be there
was just a fountain there, right, and so we were
all rolling when music Row was still just a small
town in the middle of a big city. We put

(59:03):
dawn in that thing about two o'clock in the morning
and it foamed up everything. I mean, I feel there was.
There was dishwashing foam going all over music Row. Was
running up the streets. It was a beautiful thing back
when you could do fun stuff like I didn't throw

(59:25):
a cheer.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Respect the world has changed. Nashville has changed a lot,
even even in even in the thirty years.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
Yeah, everything's changed. Man. The whole world is different now.
It's just it's a different time we live in.

Speaker 1 (59:42):
If you had if you had any advice for for
a young pup, up and coming artist or a songwriter
moving to Nashville wanted to chase the dream, what would uh?
What would the legendary T L tell him?

Speaker 3 (59:54):
You know, I think, more than anything else, don't give
your soul away. That's a very important thing that you
kind of need, whether you realize it or not. I
think you have to learn to bend a little bit
when you first. You know, I told you earlier that
that that Texas Tornado was a bartering tool for me
to get to other things where I can start producing

(01:00:15):
my own things. Sometimes you got to bend, and sometimes
even after you you have success, you got to crawl
again after you walk. You've got to realize that you
need good people around you that have your best interests
at herd, because a label does not. You need people
that you can trust, that are going to tell you
the truth and and and you know, just try to

(01:00:35):
be a decent person as much as you can it's
it's a tough world to survive in without being a
little bit cutthroat, but you have to. You have to
kind of find ballance, keep your soul intact.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
I like that a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
Great stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
I like that a lot is the term.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Oh yeah, that was very important what you just said.
But I'm sorry I have to I'm sure that was
important that we're trying to say, but it's that part
of show. For the One that got we do a

(01:01:13):
thing on the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
I didn't put the one.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
It's all good, guy, josh Us, not far.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
I'm supposed to do that. Guy.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
If this podcast is not, We're killing you, go you
are fired. We do a thing called the One that
Got Away on God's Country Podcast. And it could be
a deer, it could be a fish, it could be
a song. You're married, so probably not a girl. It
could be a hamburger. Dan likes to say, does does
anything come to mind when you ask you? Tracy Lawrence?

Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
So I'm trying to remember it was. It was probably
about I think it was eight or nine. I bought
a raush Ford Mustang Cobra convertible black on red interior
four hundred and fifty four horse power double turbo charge.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
I can hear it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:07):
And we decided that it wasn't practical, and I sold
that car in about a year after I had it,
and I wish that I had not let that car go.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Would you be alive? Would you be here to do
the made it?

Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
Made it back from Knoxville in an hour and a half. Yeah,
I'm telling you. I came down that mountain with the
ears laid back on it, and the fast you went,
the harder it sucked down on the ground. I mean
that's a jail over that one. Yeah, that sucker would fly.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
I bet that was fun. Yeah, I bet that was fun.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
Well, i'mnna have a sheriff weight on me and cars
creak anyways, for talking smack about the they're going for me.
That's all right. I like them dudes.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
We also do favorite country song, which is the greatest
slash favorite. So I don't have to be country, you can.
I guess it could be anything you wanted to be, but.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
Just just cornerstone song in your life. Yeah, just of
course something.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
And it could be the first time, but it could
be one of yours.

Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
Brof you know, you know, it's really hard for me
to narrow it down to one. But I'll kind of
tell you this. When when I got to Nashville, you know,
I'd been just consumed with George Straight. I mean it
was George Straight. I mean, so when I cut Sticks
and Stones, if you will listen to that and you
think about the songs are on that, like running behind

(01:03:25):
sticks and Stones, somebody paints the wall. There's several mid tempos.
There's a couple of waltzes. I tried to go through,
and I tried to put an album together that, in
my mind, if I closed my eyes, was a collection
of my favorite George Strait songs. So that was my
theme when I was searching for songs. When I put
that first record together, I didn't know any other way

(01:03:46):
to go about it. So it's really hard for me
to narrow it down. I can't say it's Amarilla by Morning.
Maybe it's you know, the chair. But you know, all
those things kind of fit into that time and place
for me because they were so important for them musical
development of who I became as an artist. I remember
when un Wound came out. I was so born out
when I became a George Straight fan from that very

(01:04:07):
first single man give me a bottle. I think it's
a text to name you give me a bottle too. Yeah,
that's too early in the morning. We save me a bottle,
your very best. I got a problem. I want to

(01:04:29):
drink off my cheese.

Speaker 1 (01:04:31):
It goab be a top five moment for me in
that you want to.

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
Spell the night getting down I had on the night
I had wrapped around my finger, just come on round.

Speaker 5 (01:04:46):
And I am wrapped around my feet just to come
on wound. She get me out of the house, and
tonight I'm a whiskey around.

Speaker 6 (01:04:58):
I'm gonna be the drunkest fool in town. Lad on
the night I had her after around my thing and
just come home.

Speaker 3 (01:05:09):
Wow, that's hard to beat that one.

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
Hard to beat that one one.

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
I told George Strait I was at the a c
MS man. It's probably my first time meeting wound up
in an elevator with him, and I'm like, you know,
my favorite song was Unwound. That song.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Why that's a gam man, I mean eternal that's on
the lift forever.

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
Absolutely well, I tell you what, man, it's gonna be
hard to beat this podcast. Man, this was a blast.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
Brother.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Thank you for coming on and hang out with us.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
Man, Dude, we appreciate your voice, we appreciate your music,
we appreciate your heart for the town that we live in.

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
Everything you've done for this, for this community.

Speaker 3 (01:05:51):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
Proud to know you now.

Speaker 3 (01:05:52):
It's a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
Absolutely come hang out with us.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
New EP's out out here, in it, go spend it,
and go stream it. Yeah. Man, this was This was
iconic for me.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
Dude, I'm thinking that all day.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
Dude, Tracy Lawns everybody God's Country. Thanks for hanging out
with us. Uh, We'll see you next time.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
Also, thanks