#454 - Darius Rucker on the Pain from His Biological Father

Darius Rucker (@DariusRucker) stops by to talk about the process of writing his new book Life’s Too Short: A Memoir by Darius Rucker which is out now. He tells the untold story of the formation of Hootie and the Blowfish, how he started singing at a young age encouraged by his late mother and the pain left behind from his biological father (bring a tissue!). Darius also talks about how he shifted from rock to country and the asinine statements said from people who said it would never work. Darius also gets candid about the dark side of the road, misinterpreted songs and the coolest moment of his career getting to perform with one of his musical heroes. 

Get your copy of Life’s Too Short: A Memoir by Darius Rucker by clicking HERE. 

Signed copies on Barnes & Noble: HERE

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Give my phone number and go on the road for
a couple of days. I get back to my house
and I check my answer machine and he's on my
answer machine. And the first message he left me in
my whole life, I haven't talked him in fifteen years.
He asked me for fifty thousand dollars. I was like,
are you kidding me?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Episode four fifty four with Darius Rucker. He's got a
new book called Live's Too Short, a memoir by Darius Rucker.
It's out today, so get it. I've read little snippets
of it. I will read the book. I love Darius.
You may have heard my first interview ever. Darius and
I are friends. You know what this book, which again,
I have read the whole thing, so I'm gonna be

(00:47):
honest about it. I was waiting till the full book
came out because mostly when they send out the books
that are I won't call them sample, but like early versions,
the punctuation's not right. It's basically just hey, read this
if you see anything wrong with it. Edison one of
those out to it, and there's a lot of stuff
wrong with it. Hey, my book had errors after it
was all the way out, but so I read parts
of Darius's book, and I think I start this interview

(01:09):
if I remember, because we did a few weeks ago
before he left to go overseas. I got started by going,
like what drugs.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Are the best?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Because people don't really associate Hoodie with like doing anything wrong,
not really. They went hard, and so I just wanted
to know. I wanted to set the tone like we're
gonna talk about a lot of stuff here, but like
what's the best drug? Because I don't know. I only
he was expecting that question, which is why I asked him.
That's why I led with that. So I'll read you

(01:37):
a little bit about the book, a raw, heartfelt memoir
from three time Grammy Award winning, multi diamond selling lead
singer of Hoody and the Blowfish. And he is also
on my book imprint, not even just my book company,
but the specific imprint. We're on the same one. Yeah,
So Darius talks the story about his dad, and you'll
hear it. I thought about this, that story for a month,

(02:01):
because we did this leading up so we could put
this out at the time. His dad's showing up in
the restaurant. That's a tough one. Holy crap, The book
is at Darius Rutger dot com. It's also in the
podcast Notes or Amazon. You can get signed copies on
Barnes and Noble. He's got a single called Southern Comfort,
which you can check out his album, which came out
last year's Caroline's Boy. But here we Go. It's Darius

(02:22):
Rutger got a new books. This is a good one.
I mean I think we both like started crying at
some one point. Okay, I think this is a record
for the amount of you and the Yeah, I never
really know him and like when he's getting emotional makes
me emotional. All right, enjoy here we I'm going right now,
Darius Rutger, Episode four fifty four. This is first time
that we've ever done this for like this long.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, we've never done a full length interview.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, we've done lots of like we've we've hung out
a bunch, yeah, but never like And here's why this
is exciting to me. I would never ask you some
of like the geek out questions that I would want
to ask you in person were like hanging out and I
want to be like, so when you met Mark, you
knows a different environment. But when I saw that you

(03:08):
were writing a book which I don't have. Nobody said
it to me. I was supposed to pre read it. Yeah, no,
I never got it.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
I don't know. I would to say, you have told me.
I would have said it to you.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Oh no, No, I didn't know if I missed it,
because I would have read it. Instead of lying about
read it like I do sometimes, I would have actually
read it. But then I'll just ask questions and you
can tell me if it's in the book or not.
What's going to do?

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Like that?

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Life's Too Short? A memoir by Darius Rutger. Why I
write a book?

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Now? Oh? They've been asking I've been asked for years
to do it, and I just kept saying no. I
kept saying no, And I would say if I ever did,
it was going to be my kids are grown, when
they're adults, because because you know, if I was going
to write it, I was going to tell the story.
And if you tell the true story, you know it's
it's not a little more than PG.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, and I.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Just figured it was time. It just seemed like a
good time to do.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
It without getting any any stories yet? Did you like
pre warn them about stories or are you just gonna
let them experience some of the stuff they don't know.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Oh, I pre warned them. The funny thing is, you know,
I've been pretty open with them about, you know, the
life I've lived since they've grown up, and you know,
so I don't think it's anything's going to surprise them,
but some of the stories will. Probably they'll be taken back.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Man, if I say something wrong, stop me. I'm going
to make a lot of assumptions here based on simple
conversations that we've had. But to me, I was a
massive fan of Hoodie in The Blowfish, both Hoody and
The Blowfish, and to me, it seemed like you guys
because they would show you like singing in choir at

(04:53):
South Carolina. There was this image of you guys that
was wholesome as crap. Yes, everything about you guys was
like down the massive songs, you're playing a pop radio
down the middle. You look clean, you look nice, but
probably a lot of alcohol, a lot of drugs, yes,

(05:13):
more than we would ever think because of the image
that we had of you.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
I think there are some stories in the book that
are going to surprise people. I mean, if if it
wasn't us, it wasn't like if the story was Nirvana
or the story, it wouldn't be why.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, that's why because what we thought us.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
It's surprised but uh yeah we we we went hard
and there's no and then I don't pull any punches
in the book. I tell the stories and the the
funny stories and the crazy stories. But uh, I think
that's gonna be something at first that people because you're right,
we were the clean cut you know, boys next door.
You know that that that everybody. That's how everybody saw

(05:51):
us because our music was that way too. And uh
but I think there was some people would be not surprised,
but the book will make you go, oh that that happened.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Uh. A personal question that I have, what's the best
drug I never tried? I want to try? Oh my god,
you're asking me that, Like I want to know because
I want to try them all. I've not tried any
of them. I don't even drink alcohol. I would love
to have it all. I love to just have like
a week, and I know that I would not be
if you said, like a Godchaid, Bobby, you have one week,

(06:24):
you can do every drum pretty good and you will
not be addicted like your family. What's the best?

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Oh goodness, I can't believe you're going to be to
answer this question. Ah, extacy is the best?

Speaker 2 (06:39):
And did you take a pillow under the tongue or
does that work?

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Both?

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Even the name of it, I mean, twenty years is
the name of it? Sounds like it should be.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
That's that's that's That's what I always say about that
particularly drug. They explain it to you, what it is
by the.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Day, is that the one where you get really dehydrated.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
You do get most of you get dehydrated, but yeah,
you get really dehydrated, but you just get really happy.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Can you get addicted to ecstasy? I don't like they
say you can't me they say you can't get addicted
to weed?

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Probably, man, that one sounds awesome. I wouldn't even put
that on my list because I don't. But that's my
list of drugs with the best names that I think
I want to be addicted to. It's do you just
want to like have sex with everything?

Speaker 1 (07:18):
It's not that so much. It's I always say that
if you if you if you think something's okay, you
like it a lot, you like it, you love it,
And if you love it. It's the greatest thing that's
ever hit the earth.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
What's being drunk?

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Like, you're stupid? That's really you're stupid.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
But do you know you're stupid?

Speaker 1 (07:35):
No, you don't know. You don't you wake up?

Speaker 2 (07:37):
You and I might be drunk every hour of the
day already.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, you might wake up. You know, you wake up
and somebody says you did something you don't remember it,
and you feel like a complete told jerk.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
When I I had a brief so I had some
issues where I got jumped and got pistol whipped and
and you know, attacked and whatever. The job my career
as did yours. It got to a weird place where
I started to have success. Some of the things that
are not fun about it. Yeah, out of nowhere they
kind of hit me. And so I having all these
security threats and I couldn't sleep, and I my doctor

(08:09):
was like, Okay, we're gonna try everything. I just didn't
want to have any pills doctor. So then I eventually
like our ninth thing. He was like, we're gonna do
this is an ambient type drug and tried it. Got
a bit dependent on it where I felt like I
was tethered to it. If I was going anywhere, it
was with me, just in case, and then I would

(08:30):
take it and then be like, no, I'm gonna go
and work through it for like four hours, and then
I would not remember the next day I would wake up.
I was facetiming people. I don't know what I showed
them on FaceTime. That's the only thing I can think about.
Being drunk and like blacken out. I was like, oh
my god, what did I even do?

Speaker 1 (08:45):
What did I do? What did I do? And then
you hear and you go, I did that? Yeah, yeah,
it sucks. Weh.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
I used to drive off with the gas pump in
the car. Really did it twice.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Really.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
I would go to work. I don't remember any of
the shows, but even here, and I would pump gas
and I would drive off in the gas pump would
be in the car when I like came to came
to like and I was like, man, being drunk socks
like to me, that was the only and I had
to stop doing that. It was very hard, but that
was my drunk and I didn't like it, but also
didn't get to like have fun. Like all my friends,

(09:17):
I'm the only one that doesn't drink and they look.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Like they have a fun.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
I just want to have fun.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
I mean, everything's fun until it's not fun anymore, or
everything's fun until you take it too far. You know,
like you can drink and not get really drunk and
have a great time. I couldn't.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yeah, you could, I drink everything. I would be.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
You know that. That's why you don't.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
That's why I don't do it would crush it.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Exactly When did you?

Speaker 2 (09:39):
When were you able to sing where people were like, hey,
you're actually better than other people around your age.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
Four or five? Really, we knew early. My mom would
tell me when I was five, you have your voice
is different. You've got a great voice. You was singing
those Algreen songs and sounding just like al Green, and
you have a d voice for a kid, No the
kid I had, you know, tenor like everybody else.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Really yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Actually, one of the funny stories I tell is, uh,
I was thirteen, I guess, and I was in the
house and my mom put on an Algreen record and
I started singing the al Green record and I tried
to add the high note and I couldn't hit it
because my voice was changing. And I started crying because
I realized I couldn't sing like that anymore. It's pretty disapprning.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Do you think that your mom, she's pretty supportive in general.
Very Do you think that her telling you at four
or five that you were advanced even though she believed it,
but that also made you feel like you were Therefore
you achieved more because you're believing yourself was stronger.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
Absolutely? Absolutely, I mean because she believed me so much.
And like you say, a lot of parents, because you know,
we will see idol or whatever and somebody will say, yeah,
my family said I can sing, and then they sing
and you go, your family and are been lying to
you all these years, And that happens a lot. But uh,
the reason I was so confident was because was my mom.
She was always so confident in my talent and always

(10:59):
telling me you're special. This is not a joke, You're special.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Is your mom still alive now?

Speaker 1 (11:04):
No? She? Uh eighty nine?

Speaker 2 (11:06):
You put on the one last record?

Speaker 1 (11:08):
Right? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, she died a ninety before we
ever made it.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Actually, really, where how far did you get or did
you even commit to being a band that was gonna
try while she was alive? Or are you just doing
you did.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
Yes, we was. She died in ninety one. We started
the band in eighty six, so yeah, we had we
definitely committed to. We were out playing clubs.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
What was she like as a mom and what was
she like? What would her friends say about her? Oh,
her mom?

Speaker 1 (11:34):
Her friends would say she was the funniest person. But
she was also that person you could always count on
if you had a problem, especially her work friends, your friends,
or friends or nurse friends. You know, if you had
a problem and it was an emergency and you needed
somebody to work for you, and you could always call
my mom and she'd go in for you and not
complain and not worry about it, not only because she's
helping you, but also because hell, we could use the money,

(11:57):
you know. And so she was just funny and fun
and she was that mother who worked her butt off.
She worked all the time. But you know, you'd be
so you met your football game and you know, all
you know, be the third quarter and you look up
and there she was walking in from work, you know,
tired of she could be showing up for that game
to watch just the last two quarters and you're already

(12:18):
down twenty eight. But she's yelling like you know, she's
yelling like you we were winning, and you could hear
her yellow on the sidelines and she was she was.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
That kind of money your dad, relationship with your dad.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
None. None. That was It's funny because I'm I was reading.
I was doing the uh the uh what do you
call it? Audiobook for the book, and I'd read it,
you know, I've read it a couple of times, and
I started reading the parts about my dad, and that's
the only part that I was like choking up. I
was like, really, because I didn't know how much it

(12:49):
bothered me until I wrote the book. I didn't know
how much it really just shaped my life and bothered
me my whole life until I wrote the book, and
then I was like, wow, that was that really really bothered?

Speaker 2 (13:00):
Yeah, that's real. I had those issues with writing my
first book because with a lot of stuff about my
mom before she died and her and same, I was like,
I didn't understand like how fundamentally, like even misunderstood. I
was to myself, Yeah, until I like put it out,
and then I'm like, well, I got to evaluate and
then even debating on putting it out, so putting it

(13:25):
on paper or writing it's the first set then going
do I really want to send this? And like having
that conversation of how on committing to it and then
you're right Reading it back was really hard.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
There was some that was tough with the dad. Stuff
was stuff, But there's stuff in the book where you know,
as you're writing it, you're writing it and you know
you're you're laughing or whatever, you're you're whatever, or you know,
but then when you read it back a couple of
times you go, wow, wow, crazy.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Did you have a new appreciation for the younger version
of you at times who's gotten through some real serious
crab Yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Really that was something that also happened. That's perfect saying
I got a really a lot more respect for me
and an appreciation for me because all the stuff, all
the negative stuff and the positive stuff, but all the
stuff that happens that happened when I was younger. Man,
I wouldn't gonna let anything stop me from doing what
I wanted to do.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
And if it were another kid who you saw from you,
you'd be like so proud of that freaking kid. You'd
be like, I cannot believe that kid's doing it. But
if it's us, we're like, now we're just surviving there,
We're you know, we're in the middle of it. We
don't really understand except survive absolutely, and so same for me.
I had it's weird to say an appreciation for that
kid who got through like all that crap. Absolutely, and

(14:37):
that book was a real therapeutic.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
That's that's exactly what it was. And that's one of
the reasons I wrote it. And I didn't even realize
that was one of the reasons to go once again.
You started writing, you start writing it, and you're reading
it back and stuff's coming in and you read it
and you're you're going, wow, wow. You know, you're proud
of yourself, but you're also like, wow, life really through
some crowballs in there.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
Did you ever get the the stage of as you're
writing it, like, man, I'm so over me, Like I'm like,
nobody cares that much. I mean, I went through all yeah,
that's just like I was. It's all about me. I
was writing about me and me me. I'm like, God,
nobody cares.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
I called Clarence, my manager, and said, dude, why are
we doing this? I was like, no one's gonna buy
this book. Nobody cares about my life. I was like, dude,
And then you know, you're you're worried about some of
the stuff you put in You're like and you're like,
am I really gonna put that in there? And then
you put it in there and you're like, nobody's gonna
care about that, you know, like even even you know,
now you know, I've written a book, and I still like,
no one's gonna care about this.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
Same I had the same feeling, and I remember being
ashamed not of what I put in it, but ashamed
of the potential feelings I could have when people were
judging me. And so you're, yeah, that's oh my goodness.
So you're you're at the stage now where people and
it's it's so different than music though, because you're gonna
put out this book and you're gonna be like, all right,
I read it for people to tell me and take

(15:55):
us like forever to read a book. Yeah, so you
just kind of they it's a slow roll of like people.
But there was a part in my first book where
my mom was struggling and she was a bad addict,
and she had called and I started to make a
little bit of money and she was like, if you
don't give me money, I love my mom, so I'm
gonna say that. But there was a where she was like,
I'm going to do porn, and that was really heavy

(16:15):
and hard on me, but it was also a it
made me realize how awful it was for her and
like I knew, but I didn't really like yeah, but
when she called and threatened me like I'm going to
do porn if you don't send me money, I had
that where I was like, I don't know if I
should put this in the book, but because of what
I had to develop, because so I put it in

(16:37):
with the context around it, and I thought people are
going to judge me, or people are going but that's
the thing when I would go do shows that people
would be like, not the exact same story, but fairly
sa that people would be like. That's what I related
to the most, And that was the part I felt
that I was going to be the judge the most
on was that type of stuff, the really personal stuff

(16:58):
abs so the fact that you have those like, I'm
proud of you, because then that means you put it
out there.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
Oh, I put it out there for sure. This is
one thing I talked about in the book where I
don't see my dad from the time I'm like thirteen
or fourteen till I'm twenty eight. Fifteen years Nope, not
a word. Never saw his face.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
Do you know where it was?

Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yeah, fifteen minutes from a house, you know, he lived
right up the road and never saw fifteen years and
then let him and hits and things that start getting crazy.
And we're playing. We're playing out a string of clubs
and rooms that we had booked and uh so we're
playing in Charleston at the King Street Palace, which used
to be Charleston County Hall, and I'm having dinner after

(17:42):
sound check and he walks in the room. Do you
know it him? Yeah, Dean. Dean knew it was him
before I say anything, like Diana, yeah, Deana Basis. We're
sitting there eating and Dean looks up and goes, I
mean he just looked at what. Oh, that's got to
be your dad. He looks just like it like it is,
and he walks over and he talks to me and actually,
really actually, you know, we saw each other yesterday and

(18:05):
I decided I'm going to be the bigger man. And
I was like, you know, cause really, you have so
many conflicting things. I'm like, am I gonna just blow
this gulf? I'm gonna tell him, what are you doing here?
I haven't seen you in fifteen years? You know? Get away? No,
I said, all right. I decided I was going to
be the bigger man try to develop some kind of
relationship with him. So we talked for a little while,
and I give him my phone number. This before cell phones.
I give my phone number and go on the road

(18:26):
for a couple of days. And I get back to
my house and I checked my answer machine and he's
on my answer machine. And the first message he left
me in my whole life, I haven't talked to him
for fifteen years. He asked me for fifty thousand dollars.
It was shocking. I was like, are you kidding me?
And painful and expect me to give it to him? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (18:50):
And here you are hopefully investing yourself back into something.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
And the first that's I like, that hurt to my
heart because that's just that's so painful. And I can
understand being mad and like I can't believe it, but
also big time because that's your freaking Dade, and maybe
and you.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Know, and when he came with I'll never forget, like
reading ready back of course, like we were talking about,
it hurts, you know, therapeutic, and I'll never forget after
him coming and us going on the road, how I
just felt like, Okay, cool, now Dad and I have
a relationship. We'll try to have some kind of salvage
something for father and son relationship out of this. And
that was the first thing he asked. He asked me,
and I don't think we've ever really had a conversation

(19:27):
after that.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
Is he still alive?

Speaker 1 (19:29):
No, he died a few years ago.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Did you go to this funeral?

Speaker 1 (19:32):
I did it. Sat in the back.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
I often thought if I wonder if I could go
to my real dad's funeral, you know, he left when
I was six or whatever.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Sat in the back, didn't take my kids or anything. Wow,
And what was that like for you? It was amazing
to me because I'm sitting in the back and all
these people are getting up and speaking and talking about
how great this guy is, and I'm going, well, he
was great to everybody else but me obviously, which is

(20:01):
absolutely amazing.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Why do you think that he was estranged from you?

Speaker 1 (20:07):
I think he had so many kids around town that
I was another headache. And I never complained to my mom,
never complained. So you're not complaining, you know. Oh I
don't really care.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, Squeaky will Yeah that squeak was up.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
So I'm not gonna come. See you're not complaining.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
It also sucks. He was so close.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
That's the thing that bothers me so much. I can't
imagine as a father. I can't imagine my kid living
five minutes fifteen minutes from me. I literally lived fifteen
minutes from him and not seeing him for fifteen years.
I can't imagine that.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
You and I had a conversation and the last couple
of months or so when I was talking about my
fears of being a father, and you very were very
upfront and direct, and I was like, I'm scared be
a dad because I don't have a model. My dad sucked.
I don't want to be that. I feel like there
could be that inside of me, just because it was
inside of him.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
And you were like nope.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
And then you used you as an example, which is
the best example, because it's not you going why this
guy didn't have a dad? Yeah, and now look at him.
But you were like Nope, look at me. And you
talked about the love you have for your kids. Yeah,
what is that You can't explain a feeling, but explain
a feeling.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
I always say that my kids know where I am
twenty four hours a day. They can get in touch
with me twenty four hours a day. If my phone
cell phone rings, they don't get me, there's somebody in
my camp that will find me. And that is because
of my whole life. I never knew where he was
and my love for my kids. That's why I can't understand,

(21:40):
you know, dads like our dad. I just don't understand
how you can walk away from a kid like that.
Because of my love for my kids, you know, unconditional,
no matter what, I'm going to be there for them
and be supporting them. And I mean I feel I
think I feel stronger because I didn't have a dad,
because I didn't.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
Have this, because you came out on the other side
with all the tools in the strength. Yes, I bet
you wouldn't wish that on your on your on a kid,
No way.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
No way. I wouldn't wish, especially a male kid. I
wouldn't wish a female you know, female kid too, but
like a boy growing up without a dad.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
How did you do son, male things without a dad
there to teach you those things?

Speaker 1 (22:23):
Well, usually I didn't unless but I got lucky. I
have five guys who I grew up with, who i've known,
like four of them I have known. Sulf was like
six months. We grew up in the same neighborhood, and
their dads were great to me. Like I told, I
told this great story. And it's another moment where I'm reading,
I'm reading, you know, doing the audiobook, and I get
choked up, and I'm telling the story about uh losing

(22:46):
the championship game in our ten year old football league,
and you know, it was a great season. We should
have won it. And the last, our last game, we're
all sitting we lost, and we're sitting there and everybody's upset,
and the coach goes, well, you know, we'll see you.
We'll see every parady a week at our father's son
dinner and you know, I couldn't say anything. I didn't
want to say anything there, but I'm thinking you won't

(23:07):
see me, you know, And the day of that dinner,
David David Campbell's my one of my best friends. Dame
Squirt one of my best friends in the world and
his dad. I'm sitting just sitting in my room doing nothing,
you know, about thirty minutes for the thing's supposed to start.
I know I'm not going. I haven't even really mentioned
it to my mom. And mister cambll On he knew

(23:29):
because he's a coach on you know, on the on
the park and knock at the door and I answered
the door and he's standing there in the suit and
tie and he's like, let's go, Like where are we going?
He's going, We're going to our dinner, you know. And
he took time away from his kids to take me
to that dinner. And that's something I've never forgotten.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Yeah, that's like, uh making me cry here Now I'm
feeling the same way too, because again without like my
best friend's dad, Yeah, I would have never gone on
a vacation. Yeah, Like there were a lot of things
that he didn't have to do. And I look back
and I'm like, why would he.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Do Why would he do that? Like my other best
friend Rick Johanna is his dad. My love of golf,
you know, the you know, the real reason where the
college because he wasn't gonna let me not go. And
it was just those men realized I didn't have a
man in my life and took it upon themselves to
be that.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
Hang tight, the Bobby Cast will be right back, and
we're back on the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Any I'm gonna chalk it up to any like what
about you though, as I won't even say a man,
but like as an adult, like, how has that affected
you in you being there for folks?

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Oh? I mean always. I think all the philanthropy and
the giving back and trying to not just give money
but to give my time the things, it's all because
of stuff like that. Because there were people that went
out of their way to help me, then went out
of their way to help me and they didn't have to.
All they knew is I was friends with their kids.
You know, they knew I didn't have a dad, but

(25:10):
I was friends with their kids. They could have just
treated me like that, but they all treated me with
so much extra and wanted me to succeed and wanted
me to be And so now I just want to help,
give back and help as if any people make their
lives better than as I can.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah, And I feel like I'm trying to just get
back to even with all there was, Yeah, like all
that was like moved toward me, pushed towards me in
that like having an opportunity. Yeah, exactly, because there were
a lot of the basic things. Yeah, And I wouldn't
tell my mom. Why bother her with that? She can
do about it, There's nothing she can do.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
And she's going to want to.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
Take me or my grandma, my grandma or my grandma
my grandma.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Lived with us too, you know, or she's going to
take me and like I'm not going to father's son,
my mom, And so I just didn't even tell her.
And but you know, so many things like that that
that once again getting back to the book, you're writing
that in the book and you realize how much that
affected you. You it affected you so much.

Speaker 2 (26:03):
So you're let's say you're twelve, thirteen years old, you're
figuring out who you are, a typical family situation. When
did music happen to where that was a bit of
I won't even say it released, but like something you
could lean into and get better at and maybe see
it as a future.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
Let's start about high school. High school. I mean I
sang in like you know, the choirs in middle school
and stuff, but they weren't real. They were just you know,
Christmas concerts and stuff. And then they got to high
school and I got into a what my in my area,
the Middleton Singers. They were just the best show choir
in the state. You know, they we just that's what
And that was a job. You were at the rehearsals

(26:43):
after three or four days a week after school. It
was I mean, it was big. And when I got
into that my sophomore year, because you couldn't get in
as a freshman. I got into my sophomore year and
instantly starting getting you know, solos and stuff. The confidence
level just you know, I want this is exact exactly
what I want to do. All I want to do
is play music.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
Were you just singing or did you also think I
should play an instrument?

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Like, well, no, I didn't start playing an instrument to hoodie.
You know, I just wanted to sing. I wanted to
be I always say, until I saw a purple rain,
I wanted to be a solo artists. I didn't never
want to be in a band. I don't want to
play guitar. I wanted to be upfront with my microphone.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
You want to be upfront and sing, yeah and sing.
When did that become a reality? Because it's not like
there are a lot of people doing what you want
to do around you. Yeah, so it's kind of fairytale land.
Oh yeah, when did that become a reality that it
could happen if things go just right and let's go
and try to chase it down.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
That didn't happen to Hoodie because by the time I
got to college, I decided that I'm kids from South Carolina. Yeah,
I can sing, but no one's ever gonna find me.
I'm never gonna get discovered, you know. I got to
go do real job. So I went to school to
be a journalist and met Mark my sophomore year and

(27:55):
the first time first show we played, just me and him.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
That was like, wow, okay, expand on that. You met
Mark where and.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
In our dorm? He we're in our dorm and his
freshman year and my sophomore year, and uh, we're just
I'm in the I'm in the shower. It's ten o'clock
in the morning. I think everybody's in class. And we
got those prison showers, you know, it's got nine heads,
no shower curtain, just wide open great place to sing.
I mean, the acoustics are incredible in this place. So

(28:25):
I think everybody's in class, and I go in to
the take a shower, and I just start singing. I'm
singing Billy Joel's honest Honesty, and I'm singing it like
Billy Joel. I'm belting it out. I mean, I'm full
throttle throwing it out there in the shower. And I
finished taking my shower, and I think nobody's in the hall,

(28:45):
and I go around. I go around the corner. I
go in the corner. This kid pops and jumps out
of his room. He's like, is that you singing in there?
I was like yeah. He was like, you know, you're great.
I was like, well, thank you, and he just said
I play guitar, you know.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
I was like cool.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
He's like, let's get together and see if we know
any of the same songs. That night we got together,
and I think our first gig was a week later.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
He just in the dorm in that same floor that
you have sing it at the same time.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
Oh yeah, yeah, crazy, I mean, and the stuff that
led up to Hoody the Buffish. I always say, it's like,
if people don't believe in fate. They should hear the
Hoody story.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
That's what my question was, Do you believe it was fate?
He because again all the same floor, same time saying wait, okay,
First of.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
All, let's start. Mark wanted to go to JMU, didn't
get in, ended up at South Carolina. He ain't got
a scholarship to Elon, didn't take it. Ended up in
South Carolina. Sony who just wanted to play Division one soccer,
that's all he wanted to do. South Carolina's the only
school that gave him a scholarship. It's like, we look
at the four of us and even worse than that,

(29:46):
this is a story that that tells how fate is.
My first my freshman sebaster, my first semester freshman year,
I decided South Carolina wasn't for me. I'm transferring. I'm
out here. It's a week before exams, even before five
on exams and sitting there and this kid comes to
me and like right after we're having a hall meeting,
a week before just the hall meeting for everybody in

(30:08):
the dorm. This kid, Chris Carney comes up to me
right after the hall meeting and goes, hey, man, what
are you doing? And I'm like, I'm just going to
go study. That's all I did my freshman year was study.
I'm gonna go study and care are exams and he goes, well,
when you're done studying, come down, let's have a beer.
I went to my room, went back to his room,
and I had so much fun for that time. I

(30:29):
stayed in South Carolina. If that kid doesn't stop me
and tell me to come to his room and parties
with me the way we did, I transferred hooting the
bobshit never happens, and that kid now runs my business.
He runs my life. He's the only person in the
world I could tell me now.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
But he's still in your life.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Yeah, the only person in the world I could tell me. No,
he runs everything in my life.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
So you and Mark played that show a little coffee play.
I don't know what to a.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
Little chicken wing joint, Little chicken wing joints.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
See get a week later. You what do you what
do you play? Munch covers, Bunch.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
All covers, not one original. You know everything from Sulton's
Swing to to Take It Easy and Hank Junior and
and you know bird Dog by the Everly Brothers. It
was full of covers.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
What was he about musically?

Speaker 1 (31:15):
Oh? Aria? That was the thing that the first day
we sat down, we were both all about Ario. We
both had discovered the band that changed our lives. And
like when we started playing songs together, we're like, wow,
you know, yeah, you know Arim no I love Ario.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
When you finished the show, was it a wow, We've
got to do this more type thing?

Speaker 1 (31:35):
It was a we gotta do this again. It was
like first first show, like we got to do this again.
And actually we finished the show and Pappy, who owned
the bar, this old scraggly bald marine with the handle
handlebar mustache, walks up it didn't want us to play,
gave it let us play because we went there so much,
and walked up and said, all right, that was good,
come back next week.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
And what do you get paid for your second gig?
Twenty bucks for.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
First gig we got first gig, we asked for fifty bucks.
He yelled at us, said he wasn't going to pay
us anything, and after the gig he gave us fifty bucks.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
Really, when did the other guys come about, like Dean
and Sony and how.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Probably it was the next semester like Mark and I.
I guess that probably happened, I don't know, late late
in the fall. And then we went we went away
for went away for Christmas break and came back and
started the band. Did you do it? Hey?

Speaker 2 (32:30):
We're looking for a bass player and a drummer.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
The funny thing is when we decided to get to
start the band, Mark and met the drummer, Brandley Smith,
who was our first drummer. They were in a class
together and he said that you know that Dean kid
upstairs because Dean lived on the sixth floor and Market
Dean had known each other their whole lives. Their dads
are best friends growing up. And uh, he said, Dean played.
Dean's a great bass player. He got a scholarship to Elon.

(32:54):
I was like to play base. He was like yeah.
I was like, I'll ask him. Well, let's ask him
he wants to play, and Deed said no eight million
times because he.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Was too smart to be in a band.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
He had played. He'd played in the band with Mark
before in high school and Mark was Marks very intense
and he was like, I just don't want to deal
with that anymore. And his parents told him, if you
don't take the scholarship to go play bass of Elon.
Don't you go down to South Carolina start think you're
gonna play in a band like he was. He didn't.
Even they wouldn't le him take a bass. We had
to borrow basis for our first gigs because they wouldn't

(33:23):
let him take the base.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
Well. What finally convinced him to do it?

Speaker 1 (33:27):
What finally convinced it? He said he'd played I find
we after him and I partied and we talked. We
asked him a hundred times. Finally he said, I will
do it for one I'll do it for the gig
at Pappy's and maybe another gig, but you guys need
to find a new bass player.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
What changed his mind?

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Success? Yeah, I mean, you know, we still joke. We
always said, Dean, we're still looking for a bass player,
you know, with success even I mean, I tell the
story about like we just didn't tell his parents for
the first year and a half two years. An, Yeah,
it was And it was funny because finally we start
playing out he has to tell him because we're playing

(34:04):
and we're playing this bar in DC he called the
Bayou and the Bayou who used to be the Bar
and DC. It was the band Born DC and we're
playing there and his dad, his parents live right outside
of d C. And they're driving. We're driving in to
the gig and his dad's still against it. His dad's
still mad that he's in a band, but they're gonna
come see us play. And we pull up to the

(34:26):
gig and the line is down the street, around the
block and then around another block, and we're driving up
and mister Freilver he goes, what are all these people
doing here? Dean goes, Dad, I think they're here to
see us. He was like, And we go and we
park and we walk in and whens. Soon as you
walk in, you realize none of those people are getting in.

(34:48):
This place is packed. And we're walking and he looks
around and we're behind him. We're behind him and his
wife and he's walking. He looks around and he finally
he just turns around and goes, Okay, y'all can do this.
And that was.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
The box. I'm okay with it now.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, he was like, all right, y'all can do this.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
What about Sony.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
Sony was in from the time on he came and
we were looking for our trumber, Brandley, who was great.
He played like Stuart Copeland. He great drummer, but real religious,
like real Baptist, real religious, and rock and roll was
not in his future. He was playing with us because
he loved music, but rock and roll wasn't in his future,
and so he quit the band and we were looking

(35:28):
for a new drummer. We were having auditions. One day
had a bunch of drummers come over to our apartment
to play with us, and Sony was one of them.
He was in a bunch of local bands. And I'll
tell this to I'll give you the reader's digestive version
of this story. I see his name on the list
that he's coming, and I say to the band, no,
I'm not playing with that guy. They're like, why aren't
you playing with Sony? And I tell this story about

(35:48):
my freshman year in college. I meet this girl in
Carolina Alive, and you know, I really like her a lot,
and I'm thinking, I'm thinking things are going okay, but
nothing's happening for a while. And so one day she
calls me up and says, come to my house, come
to my room. I want to show you something. Yes, yes,
So I get I get dressed and her rooms. Her

(36:11):
dorm is all the way across campus, and I go
all the way across campus to her dorm and I
get there and as soon as we get there, we
run outside. She grabs me. Ran outside and she says,
take a picture. Stay here. I'm on the bridge. She say,
stay here and take a picture of me. She runs
down to the sand volleyball courts and she had written
in the sand volleyball courts I love Sony and she
called me over to take the picture. And so I

(36:35):
hated Sony. He was not going to be in our.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Band, and yet he still got in the band.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yeah. Well, he came to over rehearsals and he was
a great drummer. And then we said, well, you know,
we're going straight originals and he was like, yeah, that's
what I want to do. I want to be in
an original band. And he was like, I got a song.
We were like, yeah, right, okay, you got a song.
Play as your song. He played hold my Hand and
we were like, yeah, you're in the band.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
What was that version of hold my Hand? Like?

Speaker 1 (37:03):
Pretty close to what we do. It didn't have the
answer backs and a couple other things that I wrote in,
but uh, it's pretty much exactly the way we play it.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
When you say answer backs, you know, hold my hand.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
I'll want you to hold my hand all that, you know,
just when the chorus is big and the lead singer
is riffing back and stuff like that. I wrote that stuff.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
Yeah, you guys starting a van, a couple of cars, or.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
If we started cars. But by the time Sony came along.
When Sony came along, we bought a van for like
two thousand dollars and it had two seats and nothing
else in the back. And we would stack our would
stack our equipment, and everybody else would just basically lay
on the floor. And I'm telling you, ten times somebody
hit the brakes and all of us almost di.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
Did you have to learn to be a mechanic of
it too? Yep, because if you didn't, you weren't going
to pay. I mean there's no money.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
We couldn't afford to get it fixed. If we couldn't
fix it ourselves.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
Yeah, you're driving around you playing Monday Tuesday. Pay every
day that we could play, you know.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
Actually, when Sony joined the band, we were pretty much
everybody was out of school, almost out of school, like well,
I think Mark and Dean had another semester or something,
but it was we were going to go on the road.
That was the only play.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
Who was the first person that wasn't somebody from home
South Carolina even super regional, to go, hey man, there's
something here with you. Guys like that that didn't get
bred to enjoy what you're doing, had no interest in you,
except for they thought they saw something in you that
can make everybody more some money.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
The first person that mattered that really changed us was
this guy Dick Hodgen, who's a manager and producer in
North Carolina, and he came and saw us somewhere and
he ended up producing our first EPs that got us
a deal. But he was the one who said, y'all
aren't like anybody else, and nobody else has this singer,

(38:56):
so I think y'all could do something.

Speaker 4 (38:58):
The Bobby Cast be right back. This is the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
When did you start to be able to afford like
a bus?

Speaker 1 (39:17):
Not till Cracked Review came out? When where Cracked Review
came out? We got our first bus, really yeah, it
took that.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
And again bus is expensive.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
Buses are expensive, yeah, and you know, I mean we
were making money. Don't get me like the year before
we all before we signed a record deal. I think
we each made like fifty sixty grand each. We were
making more than our friends who had real jobs out
of college, you know, just playing clubs. But we were
making that money because we you know, we were frugal.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
We're saving that money. Yeah, yeah, save money, made money exactly.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
So you.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
Whenever you sign a record deal, it's so different than
it would be today. But it's been different every every decade.
It's basic record deals are completely different. So do they
give you a big recoup up what do they give you?

Speaker 1 (40:06):
They didn't give us to anything. I think our upfront
money for us was forty grand so we could have
ten each, and then they paid for our studio and
that was it.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Well, where'd you record?

Speaker 1 (40:17):
Recorded in La? I don't remember the name of the
studio right now, but we recorded in La with Don
Gamon and it was it was a magical three weeks
in La. It was just awesome.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
When you finished that record, crack review, what did you
think the song was going to be?

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Not? What was it?

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Because different arguments. Obviously, I thought.

Speaker 1 (40:39):
Letter Cry was going to beat a big hit. I
thought if we if any song on this record breaks
us a letter cry is going to beat the song.
I just thought that song was the way we played it,
Everything about that song. I just thought, this one's gonna
be it.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
Do they have rolls back down like it's a ballad,
We're not going to lead with it.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
Yep. That's why we le would hold My Hand, which
is also another ballad, but you know they thought it
was a little more upbeat.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
A couple more drums.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
So yeah, exactly exactly.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
If I were to say with hooting the Blowfish, what's
the highlight professionally and what it's kind of the low
light because I kind of want to wrap whody up
and move to a different part of your career. But
what's the highlight where you're like, god, dang, you can't
believe it, this is it? And then what's kind of like, man,
I don't know what we're gonna be able to do

(41:27):
this anymore.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
Oh, I think the highlight was for me. I'm sure
for each member has their different highlight. But the highlight
for me was when we played the Billboard Music Awards
with Al Green. That was.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
Kilby who you sang as a kid?

Speaker 1 (41:46):
Yes, who was one of those moments we had played
every every award show, and they want us to play
the Billboard Music Awards and we just didn't want to
play it. We played every show, and Billboards is different.
You know who's going to win. You know, it's not
like the politics of having to play something else, so
you could get a win. You know who's gonna win.
And so we weren't going to play it. And they

(42:06):
say to us, if you play it, we'll get Al
Green to play with you. And I was like, yeah, right,
They're like, no, if you play it, we'll get All
Green to play with you. I was like, when you
get Al Green to play with us, we'll say yes.
And sure enough they got. I don't know what they
did or how much they paid him, but he said yes,
and that performance I start like every now and then.
That's one of the few things I still watch it
from us.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
Can you remember it vividly from doing it?

Speaker 1 (42:28):
I remember, like I'm standing on stage right now, like
when Dean hit that baseline to take me to the
river and Al walked out. You could first of all,
you could have shot the crowd the face because nobody
expected it. And second of all, he went off, Bobby,
you can look at you're in TV. You do this.
We're a living we're playing over our time. We're supposed

(42:48):
to play because AL won't stop. And as long as
AL jammin, we're jamming, so AL won't stop. They go
to the announcer to go to commercial, and we are
killing it so hard. They changed their mind and going
back to the stage.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
That never happened. It could it cost money, never happened.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
It was awesome.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
Okay, dang, that's crazy. Yeah, just I mean, I'm thinking
of the TV part of it, not even your career.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
I'm like, yeah, it was crazy.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
They they go to Bardow up in their corner like, well,
let's go back. That never happened.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
I know, it was crazy. Probably the low point was
probably right after I Quick partying and we were getting
to the point where we were putting, you know, eight
thousand people in the fourteen thousand seater. That was just
not fun that we were. We were working. We were

(43:39):
out on the road too much every summer, doing the
same things, the same buildings. We we just we weren't.
We weren't who died the Bluefisher. We weren't friends anymore.
We weren't. We just play music.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
So whenever you cause again, you guys. You guys are
like to the random fan, you're cool again. Everything is cyclical. Yeah,
it's crazy, right, because there was a time where no, no, we're.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
Not cool again. We're cool for the first time.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
But there was there was a time where like pop
culture like Hoody and the Blowfish was not a nice thing.
And cyclically it's the opposite now like people that loved
you then and probably gave up our back and new
people love you. But again, if we go to the

(44:27):
version of your music career now, because I don't and
I wasn't in country music when you came to country music,
but I was always a massive fan. Did you just
make music? Did you go I've always loved country music.
Let me just kind of shift how I'm doing, let
me make my music, Like, how did that initially happen?

Speaker 1 (44:45):
I've always like, I've talked about making country record since
the eighties when Raddy, when Foster and Lloyd came out.
That was really I'll be honest with you that I've
always liked country music. I thought it was great, but
I never thought about playing it because first of all,
there was nobody that looked like me, and and second
of all, you know, I'm a rocker. I'm a rocker,
you know, rim you know the police and stuff like that.
And when Foster and Lloyd came out, all I wanted

(45:07):
to do was in country music. I mean, it really
changed where I heard music. I used to tell the
band all the time, let's make a country record, let's
do something the country, and you know, they just weren't interested.
So we never did it. And when we decided it
was time for us to stop just being out on
the road and playing anymore than my first thought was
I'm gonna go to Nashville and make a record. Didn't

(45:27):
expect anything, but I was gonna go make a record.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
When you say go to Nashville make a record, was
it make a record, get a record deal, do that,
or just go and because you know they're great studios people,
great producers, and just go see what happens.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
I was just gonna come. I didn't think I could
get a record deal.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
I mean, because you were from hooting the Blowfish, or
because you're a black guy.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
Both. I thought I had two of the biggest strikes
against me. First of all, I'm coming from a pop band,
which they hate over here, and I'm the black guy,
and I'm not gonna say they hate us, but they
ain't putt none of us on the radio, you know,
And I wouldn't. I mean, I really hadn't told Doc
I'm a manager at the time, that I wanted a
record deal. I just told him I'm going to go
get some buddies, go to Nashville and make a record.

(46:06):
And Doc doesn't do anything that way, thank goodness, and
just called me up one night and said I got
your record deal with with Capital And I really because
he called me up and he goes, I think I
got your record deal. And I said to them, I
was like, Doc, if it's some independent label, I want
to do it myself. I just don't want to be
beholding to some of the independent label and I could
pay for it myself. And he was like, no, I

(46:26):
got your record deal with Capitol Records. I was like, yeah, right,
and he puts Mike Dungan on the telephone, who says
who says, I never got that hootie thing. But I
boys thought you were a country singer and gave me
a record deal.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
I was a part and maybe you were too. But
my grandma was big Charlie pride Fance. Why I was
too and so I was part of the documentary, the
Charlie Ulementary. Yeah, I thought so, yeah, And so I
think they thought it was a little weird that I
was at the time. It was like thirty eight, and
I was like, I'm massive. They came to me like
what do you know? I was like a lot, like
let me tell you. And so I was just kind
of laying out and they're like, would you be a
part of this documentary? And I remember talking about because

(47:05):
they wanted a version of somebody who would work, who
works in radio, about what he had to go through,
and when they would send out his music, they would
put no picture on it. I know, I know for
a long time after he had hits still because it
wasn't like the Internet where you could like if you
investigated hard enough, I get, but again, people were just

(47:25):
looking to play. They just wanted to hear music, so
they they didn't because they didn't want people to say
no just because it was a black guy. Yes, and
so let's remove the hoodie part of it, the hosh
and so here you are. Did you feel after it
was known that you had signed a record deal. Was
it a big announcement in the trades?

Speaker 1 (47:46):
It was, and it was. I mean, I think the
label took a bunch of backlash because of who do
you because because of the black guy. Yeah, and probably
probably more, probably more I.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
Bet whody outwardly, but but but but well, we all
knew it was that exactly.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
You know, they'd say it was Kazudi. But it be
like there were people that said, you know, the funny
thing is I heard we heard the same thing about
Cracked the review. So it makes me laugh. But there's
people who said that Capitol would be the laughing stock
of country music if they signed me, and it was
deja vu because everybody, you know, there were some people

(48:22):
at Atlantic Records that said they'd be the laughing stock
if they didn't put out Correcter, if they put Cracked
Review out. And so it's like I just laughed at it.
And the thing that was for me, the thing that
I had that made it okay, I wasn't expecting any success.

Speaker 2 (48:37):
I mean, there's plenty of money then, so I was.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
I didn't have plenty of money. I mean, trust me,
country music, but the very good to me. But I
didn't have plenty of money. But I was okay.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
But I guess, did you need money, I need, I need.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
I couldn't have lived off what I had for the
rest of my life. No, not to live not the
lifestyle I wanted to live.

Speaker 2 (48:55):
So you're okay, let's say that never works out.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
What do you do?

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Let's say you never make a country.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
I bet if I didn't make a country music, who
need the blow? Should be back out, going every going
out every year.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Again the first song you cut as now it's just
weird to think of you as rock or to me
you're South Carolina, which is a bit of both. Yeah,
I mean it really is. So we'll just say the
timeline you're now a country artist, because now I still

(49:25):
consider you to be both. It'd be weird, like if
someone's like, Darius is a country artist or Darius is
a rock I'd be like, I could argue both. I'd
be like, well, it's not just rock. Well, so let's
just say the country timeline part of this. You go
into the studio. It wasn't the first thing you cut,
do you know, Uh, the first song we cut and
did it feel weird? No, The first song we kind

(49:46):
of think was all.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
I Want, which is a big, big country song on
the on the first record, that Brad Paisley plays guitar
on And the second we started cutting that song, I
was I knew that was exactly where I wanted to be.
Oh goodness yea. And cause you know, I still do
it when I get in front of a microphone and
it's a country song, I'm just trying to be Radney Foster.
I'm trying to sound exactly like him. And so for me,

(50:10):
it was just like, let's go do this.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
Whenever you are. Did you cut a whole album first?
They put a couple songs first. We were cutting the.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Records yet the record, Yeah, we were cut the record.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
First single ever was don't Think.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
I don't think about it.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
I don't think, I don't think. Was that your choice?

Speaker 1 (50:28):
No, I don't do singles. I don't I love. If
I didn't like the song enough for it to be
a single, I wouldn't put on the record. So I
don't do radio. You guys know radio. Tell me what
you can get on the radio. That's how I do it.

Speaker 5 (50:40):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor.
Welcome back to the Bobby Cast.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Probably different versions of the story now from many different people,
But that song goes out of the single. I'm assuming
it wasn't just uniformly added on stations all.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
No, it was.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
I'm sure now they act like it was, though.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
Yeah it was not. I went to one hundred and
ten radio stations.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
You did a radio tour, or did a radio tour one.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
Hundred and ten radio stations. So it's funny because when
I said I would do a radio tour, hey, a
capital reacted exactly like you just did. They were like,
you do a radio tour. I was like, yeah, I
want to be the new guy. All the stuff the
new guy has to do, I want to do. And
it's it was tough five days a week for months,
going to two and three radio stations a day, you know,
being away from me young kids at the time, and

(51:33):
but I wanted it. I just wanted to And the
only way I was going to have success, I thought,
me sitting across from somebody and them getting to know me,
I had a better chance of getting to play than
somebody somebody doesn't know me, just saying play this record.
So we went and did it.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
When did you start to think this might actually work?

Speaker 1 (51:53):
Very first radio station, hooting the blowfishes, finishing up our run,
and we got to go to to San Antonio the
play off corporate show, and so they just decide Capital
Size are gonna send me to the to the station
in San Antonio. So we're having a meeting about this
and Mike Dungan walks into the meeting and he sees

(52:14):
on the list that San Antonio is the first stop
and he goes off. He's mad at everybody because they're
sending me to Texas. You know, Texas is not gonna
play him till they have to play him. You know.
It's like it's gonna be a bad situation for him,
and he's not gonna want to do the radio tour.
Why are you sending him there? And they were like,
he's already gonna be there, he mustn't go buy. He
finally said, Okay, go there. And I go there and

(52:36):
George King was the music director. I'll never forget this.
We sit down and we have lunch with George and
he's really cool and really nice and we tell him,
you know, we played the song for him and he
falls in love with it. He just falls in love
with it. He loves a song. He loved hanging out
with me. We were great and he said, uh, I'm
gonna add it, which shocked everybody, and we said, well,

(52:57):
we're going for a really big ad weekn about two weeks.
Can you wait for two weeks? He was like, okay,
I'll wait for two weeks. And we get in the
car and we're driving away and he plays the song
and we call him and go, hey, man, we thought
you were going to wait. He's like, nope, I'm man
at tomorrow. That's what I knew this song might actually work.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
Why would you name the book Life too Short?

Speaker 1 (53:19):
That's one of my songs, and life is too short?
I mean it really is. That was another thing reading
the book. It seems like a long time, but everything
seems like yesterday. Everything that I talked about seems like yesterday,
and it's not. And you know, life's just too short.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
I read a book once at the recommendation of my
therapist called I'm Okay, You're Okay, and it's about brain
and when you hear music for a split second, it
feels like you're in that place, even less than a second,
but it's almost like that taste, that feeling just for
a yes, very brief, and that's our brain producing the
chemical that it happened to produce back then it triggers

(53:56):
it by hearing a sound or a smell. And so
in the introduction there was a whole thing you wrote
about it. You look back at your life into the past,
everything together seems blurry, but then you hear something a melody, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So why open with a line like that, Why start

(54:16):
the book with that sentiment?

Speaker 1 (54:18):
Because you know, for me, when we were writing the book,
we write the book, music kept coming up. Songs that
are important to me kept coming up. And that's why
every chapter is the name of a song that mattered
to me. And for me, music has been my best friend.
Music has been my savior. Music has been the shoulder

(54:41):
that I cry on. It's been the you know, the
partners stood next to me when I was happy. Music
has been so much for me that there was just
no other way to do it.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
I didn't think, and I don't want you to say
it here, but is there a song that people are
so wrong about what you wrote it about that there like, oh,
for sure, I wrote this about his favorite ice cream,
but really it's about you know, a lot of times
people just won't reveal let them the.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
Song that I didn't write it but I think the
song that most people don't really get is hold My Hand,
Hold My Hands, a protest song, and most people think
it's just happy, go lucky, come hold my Hand, you know,
but it's really a song against the evils of racism
and evils of of of just disliking people for you know,
because you know algab because their algab eq or you know.

(55:30):
It's it's a song about we should all just love
each other instead of all this hate. And people don't
get that, and they just think it's some pop fluff fluff,
but be really listen to the words, so they read
a pretty good song there.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
When I was a kid, I get just a few
minutes left, and I have a couple of stories that
I think about when I think about you, because I
think about you every night, just in different just in
a different way.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
We're dating.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
When I used to there were songs that I was
a kid that was like, oh, it's the deepest thing
I ever heard, you know, And as you get older,
you hear them different. But time, why do you punish me?
Like I used to listen to that song and be like,
this is the greatest, most encompassing song ever. And I

(56:11):
still hear to fill the set. It's one of those
rare ones that even as I got older in my mind,
I still hear that song back because I still listen
to I got my wife on cractor because she's nice. Yeah,
and she was like, my wife loves you, and she
was like, I don't know any of the old Darius stuff.
And I'm like, you referred to them a Hoody and
the low Fish. They are a unit.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
We are that we are, we're the band's band and so.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
But we would get on some stuff and I would
hear time again and I'd be like, dang, this song
still holds up.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
It does? I play it every day and then when
Hoody plays it or like it comes on the radio
or something, that song is another song, you know, you know,
here's here's this little band from South Carolina, this little
pop band from South Carolina. It was singing about the
crips and blood feud, you know what what what is?
What is this? You know?

Speaker 2 (56:56):
Dying for the color of yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
You know, and it was just everything. That's the song
that accomplasses everything that was going on in the news
at the time. A lot of life was just a
little crazy and time. That's one of my favorite songs
I've ever done.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
I love that song, burnt that tape out and my
two favorite stories that I have with you at number
at number two, Uh, there was a song that I
listened to. It never was a single and ban yeah,
and so while look at Gift to Us in the Mouth,
you know, I love set. I would listen to that

(57:31):
song every day. And I remember you and I were
at Andy Roddick's charity event and we'd been you always
have it seems like you have golf on somewhey. We
were up in a room and there was golf on,
and I was like, dude, that was my song, and
you got you got the band to learn it and
you played it that night at any of the event.
You're like, I haven't played the song of forever. But
like that moment, that was like a really like special

(57:52):
moment for me because I'd always loved that song. I
never heard that song. I just mentioned you. I loved
you got that you worked it up and then you
played it and I was like, man, like, I feel
like there's like he kind of values a little bit
of our friendship.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
Oh I do, I do?

Speaker 2 (58:08):
All of that was so that still is really really
special to me.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
I value our friendship a lot. You came into this
genre and freaking took over. I'm gonna say this as
honest as I could say it. You know, I was
your first interview when when I was his first interview
at seventeen, and I'm so proud of what you're doing
and it's got nothing to do with me. And I
am so proud of what you're doing because not only
are you blowing up and taking over, taking over you know,

(58:35):
morning radio, you're also you give back so much. You
do so much. Then you also do you know, your
band shows and all that stuff, and I've seen I
just think, man, I'm proud of Bobby Boom.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
I appreciate that, and like you've always been the guy
that I felt like even though I didn't know you.
But yeah, you're right. First interview ever day, that's my
number one story. And we've told it a bunch, but
I was scared to death and first interview I ever
did at an hour just remember shaking, and you had
done ten thousand. But you don't. You don't give a crap,
none of you guys. When you do something so many times,

(59:05):
it just becomes you're just going in to do it,
get it over with, go through sound check, get to
the show, and I remember just being so nervous and
you were just like, yo, I got you. He's like
took the microphone and you would never remember this, but
I remember it so vividly that it like it's still
a like that still affects me to like if somebody's

(59:26):
like struggling a little bit and I like, yeah, I
may not remember it because it's not maybe not that
important to me, but the fact that you did that
to me, I remember that, like you remember Al Green.

Speaker 1 (59:36):
Yeah, you know. It's funny, like you said, when somebody
when you're struggling a little bit and somebody goes out
of their way to help you, you always remember that. Always. Always.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
I'm like, I'm massive fan, but aside from a fan,
like I feel like if I was like, yo, dude,
I need ten thousand dollars, I'm not even kidding, I
feel like you would be like yeah, and or I
just whatever it is, Like I do feel I could
call you at any time, even if we don't talk
for a couple of months.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
Yeah. We we've become those kinds of we've become those
friends though we don't have to talk for a couple
of months and put us in the room. It's like
we saw euch of yesterday.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
I love you, man, I love you too.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
I'm super pumped about the book, which again I'm heard
I haven't read nobody give to.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
Me to you and your email today.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
The book is out. It is called Life's Too Short,
a memoir by Darius Rutger. And the fact that you
also read the book that signifies the extra you didn't
have to read your own book. I did too. It's hard,
but a lot of freaks, a lot of work, dude,
it's a lot of somebody's on the line going can
you say the word are again? And I'm like, it's
how I say it. I'm not going to change how

(01:00:41):
I'm saying it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
That's what happened to me too, because I'm so Southern
and they're trying to get me to say words like peripheral.
Come on, man, we don't.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
Say that word. Get the book. Are you guys doing
any more hooty stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
All summer? You are?

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
I've never seen a hoot of the b dude show.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
We're playing Bridgestone this summer.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
If you don't come, I should come to for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
If you don't come and meet everybody and come backstage,
I will be very angry.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
I've met Mark once, I met Sony's brother once.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
As far as you gotta come backstage take a picture
of us.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
That's exciting, all right, Darius Rutger, Yeah, I get the book.
Life's too short, Darius, appreciate your time, man.

Speaker 4 (01:01:19):
Thank you man, thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production.