On this episode of the BobbyCast, Bobby sits down with singer/songwriter, Marcus King. Marcus discusses his worst drug experience, why he quit doing cocaine, and meeting his wife post-drug use. Plus, Marcus and Bobby talked about meeting his heroes in the industry and who turned out to be jerks, and why a death of someone important to him at age 13 led to him to start writing songs and singing.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
When I was thirteen, the girl I had a crush
on died in a car accident, and I had all
these abandonment issues anyway, and they all just kind of
like came to a head, and I was really not
able to find a way to comfort myself. That's when
I decided to start writing and start singing.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Episode fourty four with Marcus King. I'm a fan mostly
popped up on my algorithm on TikTok, and I knew
him from seeing them around like a ward shows and stuff.
But like, man, the guy just plays and it's got
like a blues rock soul voice that is this insane.
He's got an album called Mood Swings. It came out
(00:47):
in April. He did a song with Brooks and Dunna
on Reboot two Rock My World Little Country Girls opening
for Stapleton at twenty twenty five. And I'm going to
say this because I think Stapleton's greatest, but Stapleton is
stremely secure to put Marcus King in front of him,
because that would be like a dude. It was like
when Zach Brown was playing in front of Chesney and
(01:08):
I was like, there's no way I put Zach Brown
in front of me. I don't care if Chesney or not.
Like Stapleton is the greatest, and that's how secure he
is because Marcus King is like that dude. So I
mean not country, but like he grew up in the country.
How would you what he's like soul blues count.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Americano makes you feel like it's acoustic, but man, he
goes hard. Born in Greenville, South Carolina, musical family. His
dad Devin blues guitarist and songwriter, his grandpa he talks about.
I watch him on TikTok all the time, playing a
bunch of tour dates. So go check out an intimate
acoustic evening featuring it's Marcus King, also Drew Smithers. So
(01:54):
he's playing acoustic, he's playing with Stapleton, He's all of
it is up. Go follow on Instagram at real Marcus King.
And I will say this, I did not know Marcus
in anyway, and this is one of those that I
was a little I won't say apprehensive or I won't
say nervous, but I will say I had no idea
(02:14):
how this would go, just because in country music there's
a bit of a culture on how this works. New
artists will come in and they're like, oh, this is exciting.
I get to be on this podcast which does really well,
and they're talking to me, and I've been around long
enough now that they're like, oh, this might be kind
of cool. But he's so removed and I didn't know
if he was like super cool guy. But I feel
(02:36):
like in a boxing match, it takes the first couple
of rounds you kind of circle each other and feel
each other out, and then like round three and four,
you figured it out and you go Yeah, by the
end of this, you guys, dude, we were like best
friends forever. No microphones around would have been the same thing,
same thing. Yeah, love him. Marcus King enjoyed the interview.
Go search him Up'll put all the stuff in the
notes that we just mentioned, and if you do like it,
(02:56):
please let me know. That's it. Here we go, Marcus,
good to see you, man, Thanks for coming over.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Hey man, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
So how long have you lived in Nashville.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
I've been here since twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
So what are we in twenty twenty four? Oh so
it's like home ish now to me, like five years
to feel kind of like home.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, five years just long enough to see something you
like and then it inevitably get torn down bench. Once
that happens, you're kind of a local.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
How often are you in town though, because I would
imagine you don't tour, like if I tour, do and
stand up, it's just Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I'm back home.
Our country artists Friday Saturday. Do you you're out longer
than that? Right?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah? We we we kind of do the rock and
roll touring and we go out and sometimes we'll be
out with country artists, but they do Thursday through Sunday
at the most, and we'll stay out. We go out.
We just I just came home last Thursday off of
a ten week run. Oh my god. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
That's like silver Chair, Good Charlotte the Eagles, Like, that's
what that touring is. You just go away for a
long time and come back and hope somebody motor your yard.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
You come back a different person, yeah, and you hope
that your lawn was mode.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
When you leave. Do you come back with I don't know,
thirty three percent different wardrobe because you've had to buy
enough on the road, like it just just to get by,
or you lose some as you.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Go sometimes I do. Yeah, I come home to the wardrobe, though.
I get a lot of my stuff off at eBay.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
See order while you're on the bus, yeah, or s
and then it's here when you run.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, that's my treat to myself, is you know, I
get on eBay. I don't. I wouldn't say I have
social anxiety, per se. I don't really like when I'm
home or on the road, I'm usually kind of recluse.
So I get on eBay and I go to all
the local thrifting off of eBay.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
So local you mean local and local cities.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Well, not local to the cities I'm in, but just
like local thrift stores will.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Have like small places around the country. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's cool. I buy a bunch of baseball cards off eBay.
Did you start buying stuff like when you kind of
started to get popular make a little money, because I did.
I couldn't afford anything until I made money, so then
I started buying everything I ever wanted, right.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, I think that's that's a pretty natural thing.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Like guitars, Did you buy a bunch of guitars, like
really old ones once you started to like be able
to afford it?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, you know, I started, I started having a little
retail therapy, and you know, I think we all do
it to a degree. And there was there were some
guitars I got and I thought necessary. But you know,
vintage wardrobe, you find like old like lipstitch, leather jackets
and stuff that I couldn't afford before. That kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Talk to me about an old instrument I was watching.
I think it's probably been a couple of weeks. And
forget me for not knowing the exact name, but you
were playing a guitar and there was a date on
the TikTok was a guy's named Cannonball.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Oh yeah, the Texas can Bowl Freddy King.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Okay, pardon my ignorance on this, but what I remember
thinking while watching the video, because I think there were
a few different videos of you playing either that get
his guitar or maybe his songs. But the guitar was
so old. What makes an old guitar sound good? Because
like when I play pickleball with an old man, that
ain't fine. It's like it's slow and he didn't work.
(06:23):
Like what old guitars they they have a distinct sound
about them or is it a charm? Of just they
existed at that point.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Right, And I think you know, to your point that
old man off the pickleball court would probably be maybe
a little bit more interesting. He'd be a lot more weathered,
he'd have a little bit more self awareness, and he'd
have a little bit more of a vibe because he's
been around the block a few times. And I think
that's kind of the story with guitarist is like that
(06:54):
guitar of Freddy Kings is a sixty seven, yes, three
fifty five that Gibson made, And there's a lot of
story with the guitar because that one was stolen actually,
and they were able to trace it down and relocate it.
And that particular model isn't a very sought after year
for that guitar, but because it was owned by Freddy,
(07:17):
it really gives it a vibe and it gives it
a lot of you know, mojo. But it's similar to
like my grandfather's guitar is a sought after model, but
it's you know, just a paramount, you know, figure in
the stable because it was my grandfather's.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Is there like rules with old guitars that we have
an old Bronco it's like a seventy one and everyone's like,
leave it original, But leaving it original drove like crap.
And I'm not really a Bronco guy. I like it.
It's cool, but I don't know much about Broncos. So
we switched a bunch of stuff out so it's pretty
comfortable now. And I think traditionalists would be upset that
(07:58):
we took an old Bronco and switch it out with
a lot of new stuff. With guitars, like an old
guitar like that or any old guitar, can you change
out pieces or is that kind of you don't do
that because it's old.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Well, it kind of depends on the collector. And if
you are a collector, like I have friends in town
who collect them, and they really appreciate value, just like
getting old watches and stuff. They play them though if
they're old, like, well, yeah, some of them, you know,
like Joe Bonamassa is a really great example of somebody
who buys these like priceless artifacts of guitars and he
(08:32):
plays them live and he puts life into him. But
like for me, if I'm gonna find like a I mean,
there's some guitars I've played there, like you know, half
a million dollars, but they've been under somebody's bed for
fifty years and they don't have any stories to tell,
you know what I mean, nobody's ever put any love
(08:53):
into them. And I really believe in the energy of it.
And there's something about the wood, and the wood really
does expand after years of cigarette smoke and years of
you know, just the sonics involved of it, and the
wood grain really truly expands and there's a different sound
to it. But it's also there's a lot to do
with the way that the wood was sourced back then
(09:16):
and like you know, that Brazilian rose would you can't
get that anymore, so they're not making guitars with that anymore.
What else, like the pickups, the way they were wound,
it was all really a lot more handmade.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
But if it sounded so good, why do they do
that now?
Speaker 1 (09:35):
That's a good question.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah, I feel like it if you just wanted a
quality sounding guitar, and maybe they do. I think it's.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Probably just because of, you know, just the cost the
cost of doing business, because there are there are certain
companies like you know, shout out to like the Murphy Lab,
like Murphy over at Gibson. He's making like Murphy A
Gibson guitars that like I have a couple, and you
(10:05):
put them next to like the original model that it's
based off of, and I mean, you could really have
trouble telling the difference. But because there's so much attention
to detail and so much craftsmanship put into that, it's
it's gonna cost you. And I think the importance of
that is coming back and people are paying for what
(10:27):
they get now.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah, one of my favorite guitar things that I've ever seen.
It Again, I'm not a player at all, like I have,
I do comedies, all play some you know, I know,
like twelve chords, right, so it's all I need to
do to do funny stuff. But one of my favorite
guitar things ever that I've watched is the old Austin
City limits of Stevie Ray Vaughan, which I've seen many
times and I've watched on YouTube probably every year and
a half or so because I'm a massive music fan.
(10:51):
And when he tunes his he restrings his guitar as
he's playing it, string breaks pop, He's still doing what
he does. The guy runs out to give him a
straight it's being retuned. As he's playing the solo, it's
back on. It looks like he never missed a beat.
Is that something really prolific players can do.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yeah. Well, I mean he's a great example of somebody
who the instrument was just an extension of his being.
And that's something that I've learned from my grandfather and
my dad. It's just it's your best friend, and it's
really just another part of yourself. It's an extension of
who you are, and it's the best way to get
your thoughts across. And Stevie's a great example of that.
(11:37):
And being so comfortable with the instrument. It's just like
going to a good old mechanic and he can kind
of listen to your car and hear a rattle and
it be like, oh, yeah, we got to do this,
this and this. You know, it's kind of the same thing.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Have you ever seen that video I'm talking about specifically?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
I have many times.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
What did you think of that as somebody who is
a prolific guitar player, Like, do you look at it
and go, that's exactly what I would have done.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Well, you know, I look at that video and I
think there's somebody vibrating at just the right frequency, and
he is so in the mode, and he is so
just doing it for the love that he has for it,
and he's not worried about outwardly how people are receiving it.
And that's something that's really important to me, and that
(12:22):
I mean, that's how I look at it now. I
don't know how my childhood self probably watched that and
just thought, this is you know, like seeing you know,
Peter walk on water.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, so Picasso paint or just whomever the greatest doing
the greatest.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, I like I was trying to think of like
some vivid like what if I just think of guitar memories,
like what popshead? That's the first one that comes to
my mind. Obviously, it's could you play the teeth ever?
Do that?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I used to when I was a kid.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I was like, Dennis would love it, but I'd be
bad for like like the dental bill.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, I don't know if my dentist would love that.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
You got go to them. You gotta pay him, That's
what I'm saying. Like Dennis loves it because you got
to go and pay the dental bills.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah yeah, yeah, maybe so see.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
You can probably play with your teeth if you had to. Yeah,
And what are you trying to do when you play
with your teeth? Because I feel like I can strum
are you just strumming across it as you hold the chord?
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Well, when I did it when I was a kid,
like I used my tongue. You know, I've always had
which I mean, I don't know what kind of podcast
this is, you know what I mean, But I've always
had a really strong tongue. So I've always done this
like this noise.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Like that god dang.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
So like I think a lot of that strength in
my tongue came from, like, you know, playing guitar with
my tongue. And uh, you know I'm a really happily
married man.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Or she's a really happily married Yeah. What about the
classic behind the head thing? You ever do that? Like
you see it and do that?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I did? Yeah, I mean for me, like I started
playing out when I was like eight years old, and
I I did all that kind of and I think
gimmicky is gimmick is such a you know, derogatory word almost,
But I did all that stuff, and you know, I
was always just kind of considered like the young guitar player,
(14:09):
And this is something that I just kind of shed.
You know, I'm almost thirty years old, so and I'm
just now able to grow facial hair. So I think
people have stopped calling me the young guitar player. But
did I used to do all that kind of stuff
because I really felt it. And once it started to
feel like I was I was doing it for any
(14:30):
other reason than just I enjoyed it, I stopped doing it.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
I'm always anxious to hear what second, third, fourth generation,
It doesn't matter what. But some a family that's at
your grandfather, obviously your dad and now you. I think
it's somebody like Tiger Woods, who you know, his dad
was a golfer, really pushed him. Tiger never really burned
out that we know of. And you have lived in
(14:55):
it your entire life. I mean your dad lived in
it cause your grandfather. Did you ever reach point where
you were like, man, this is all I've ever done.
I don't know if I want to do this anymore.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Well, not on the stage. I've never had that feeling
on stage. I've had that feeling, you know, maybe on
travel days, but that's a that's a fleeting moment, you know,
it's it's just like anything else. You're like, God, I
don't know if I want to if I want to
do this. It's like, I don't know if it's almost
(15:27):
Christmas time. If you get a real tree every year,
you're like, this is a real pain in the ass.
I'm gonna get a fake tree next year. As soon
as it's set up and you smell it and it's
really nice and you're like, okay, But that's how I feel.
When I get on the stage, it's like, oh, yeah,
that's why I do this. And this morning, you know,
I had to get up early to go to a
session with the Carter family. I don't know if I
(15:47):
can say that or not, but I'm sure they wouldn't mind.
But just sitting and playing with those guys and just
legends of Nashville. I was like, I told him as
I was leaving, it's really nice to do something and
remind yourself of like why you're doing this. But I mean,
I'm sure you're probably the same as far as like
travel days and just like.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Or waking up in the morning, because I did wake
up until the morning radio show. Oh yeah, it's awful.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Yeah, and you gotta be on too, even.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
When you're not. Yeah, it's like being on stage, right.
I mean, people paid whatever I'm out for a ticket, huh,
and this is gonna be their only opportunity to see you,
and they kind of don't care if you're not feeling good, yeah,
because they've been waiting X amount of weeks or months.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
It's the Yelp society too, So I'm like, I am
just very acutely aware that everyone out there is and
will be a critic of your performance, especially if it's bad.
A lot of people won't go out of their way
to say what a great performance it was, but they
will tell you if they had a bad time. And
I go out there every night, and actually, you know,
(16:51):
to quote bottom also again, who's a friend of mine.
I heard him in an interview once and I really
liked it. He said, I may not be able to
give you one hundred percent, but I can give you
one hundred percent of what I have. You know that
means if I'm vibrating at sixty percent, you're gonna get
all one hundred percent of it, and I'm gonna be
a useless meat sack afterwards, but you're gonna get all
(17:13):
of me. Because I would to myself and to my
band and to the to the fans. But you're right, man,
it even if it's Monday, and you know, Tucson, it's
Saturday night for them and they got a babysitter, and
you know, if my voice isn't feeling great, maybe there's
a few more instrumentals in the set, but you're gonna
(17:34):
get all of me for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Do you feel like to the I know I do.
There will be shows I finish and I'm like, man,
that sucked. I feel like not good about it. Then
I go look at comments and everybody had a great time.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Dude, every time.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
I mean, I like, I'll really feel bad about And
after I gave it to my all and my intention
was to go and I'm like, man, nothing hit.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I've put holes in drywall because I'm like, you stupid mother,
Yeah you want here. I'm like, man, you just totally
beefed it. And you know, I mean, I couldn't imagine comedy.
I have a lot of comedian friends. I'm like, I
cannot imagine being up there by myself. You know, I've
got five or six other guys with me, and I
(18:19):
can kind of commiserate with them after the fact. But
I mean I remember this one particular time in London
a few years ago. We played and we were all
really just exhausted and like my guitar like quit working.
It was just like everything that could go wrong went wrong.
I was like, man, I don't know if they'll ever
(18:40):
want us back in London. And then the next morning
somebody I think, I think they brought me a physical
copy or sent me, you know, a review from the
London Sun. It was like five out of five best
concert we've been to this year. I was like, man,
my standards are higher. Their standards are low.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
I wonder why that was. I had a similar experience.
I was playing the Opry and I don't always take
my guitar to play music at the Opry, but I'll
do a couple of funny songs, and I thought, I'm
just gonna walk out and do a couple of funny songs,
get rid of the guitar. Finished the set right, and
that was the idea. I walk out and like the
pickup falls out, it starts falling apart on stage, and
so you know, I've got fourteen minutes of but my
(19:24):
guitar now doesn't plug in, and I didn't ask for
a second mic to just mike up the guitar, and
so everything in my act is timed. It has to be.
One it's fourteen minutes and two I'm telling jokes and
it's timing. And I've done it. This is gonna sound funny,
but I think you'll understand it. I've done it wrong
so many times. I don't just freak. I don't freak
out like I've done. I've bombed as bad as you
can bomb that. I know whatever I'm gonna do is
(19:45):
not gonna be the word. I'm gonna get through it. Yeah,
But like I start to not feel comfortable because everything
now is out of whag. My guitar is not working
that I was gonna come out of the second song
and go into a different part of my material, and
so so I just start to say stuff and try
to patch it together and put it and I come
off stage after fourteen minutes. I hold my guitar the
(20:07):
whole time, never played the thing because it was broken.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, And I.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Felt terrible, and I was like, that was really one
of the worst. And what was funny was I got
to call the next day by a friend who's an
artist who was back there and he came side stage
and watch and he was like, I had no idea
you were that funny. And I'm thinking to myself, I
don't remember the set because I felt so out of
whack because everything was wrong. My guitar was off, my brain,
I was freaking out so much. But yeah, it ended
(20:30):
up being what I've heard. I won't go watch it back.
I can't. I can't go watch it back. I'm the
same because I know what I was feeling. But it
ended up being, I guess, pretty good when I thought
it was the worst. But then I worry that if
I felt like I'm killing it, then maybe I'm sucking
You ever did.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
That all the time, I do it all the time,
and I always liken it too. You know, I grew
up in church, as I'm sure a lot of us did.
And you know, Peter got out of the boat and
walked alongside Jesus Christ on the water, but as soon
as he took his eyes off, he sunk like a stone.
And that's whenever I'm on stage and I'm like this
(21:04):
is actually going pretty good. Everything's like false to shit,
and I'm like, all right, don't don't have that pride
and don't have that, you know, humorous about yourself or whatever.
But I think, you know, that's a good example what
you did. And it happens to me a lot is
like you kind of fight or flight, and you got
to go into just your natural ability to get out
(21:27):
of a situation. And I think a lot of us,
you know, maybe it's the way we were brought up
or whatever, but when you're really good at what you do,
you can fight your way out of it. Because someone
inexperienced the pick up falls out, they would have just
like ah and ran off the stage, you know, or
like you know, like hold out off the stage, like
(21:49):
I always you see that that clip from sn L
years ago, and like I saw somebody talking about that recently.
She was she was so new in her music were
and like she just she truly didn't know what to do.
And it's just God, that clip just makes me feel
so much empathy and just hurts my spirit to watch,
(22:10):
because you know, inexperience will really, you know, fuck you up.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor, Wow,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
In a really counterteitive way because I'm listening to what
you're saying. I think a situation like that when I
survive it, and then I believe it has to be
the people that I believe telling me it's good, because
I won't believe just anybody saying something was good, because
anybody will say anything right. But if it's somebody at trust, like, hey,
that wow, that was really good, it gives me confidence
(22:52):
again to know that even in the worst of times,
my instincts are usually good enough not just to survive,
but I won't say to thrive, but to actually like
keep me in the game and keep people satisfied they
came to watch something. So in a weird way, like
a situation like that makes me feel better about what
I do and that I've been through it and done
it wrong so many times and I can get through
(23:13):
it if everything else goes wrong, which again is just
a confidence builder in general. Yeah, like I've been through
the bad to I've been I don't know if you
ever had this. I've done a show and I'm like,
this is not going good. I'm thirty eight minutes into it.
I feel like and I'm like, it's fine these jokes,
and then I look down. I'm only twelve minutes in
I feel like I'm forty in yeah, and can I
keep a timer because I need And I'm like, this
(23:33):
show's got to be over and it's like twelve minutes
and I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
I think a lot of that's off the energy of
the crowd too. I've had that many times where I'm like, well,
they're hating this so.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
And they're not, and you know it's we're separated from it,
they're not.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
But yes, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Do you ever watch faces?
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I try not to sometimes, like because I can't see
very good at all, and I wear my glasses on stage,
and it actually it was jarring when I was able
to see people's faces for the first time, and I
was like, I don't like this, so you'll see me.
I take my glasses off when I play, because the
(24:14):
only time I have my glasses on is if I
have to read lyrics that night, if we're throwing something
in the set and I don't know the lyrics all
the way. But seeing faces is God, you see somebody
yawn or you see somebody just like so miserable, and
like I actually saw it just the other night, and
(24:35):
one of my bandmates saw it too, Like it was
actually the reverse of what usually happens. We saw a
young lady who was enjoying the show, whose husband or
boyfriend whatever was not having a good time, and like,
we do a three song encore, so when we got
into that third song of the encore, he was like,
oh my god, and she was like pomped and like
(24:57):
slapped him on the arm. And I saw that. I
was like, all right, we did not win him over.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Today, I've had to do a bit of internal and
even external therapy with not assigning my emotions with other
people's perceived emotions. Yep, because I'll see somebody like h
and then if I happen to see them the men,
you go like, that's sure, it was great, And I'm like, no, no,
you look like you were having a miserable time. But
(25:24):
that's the face I would have had if I was
having a miserable time. But that doesn't mean that's everybody's miserable.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
It's it's it's it's really important work that you're doing.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Man, I just turned the lights off. Now it's not
even working. My work has been just turned every light off,
and see's not a single face. Yeah, but yeah, yeah,
do you have that issue where you're like, Okay, that's sad.
Face must be sad. Turns out they probably weren't sad.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah. I signed that on to people all the time,
and like, I mean, you know, you go out and
you meet people like I mean, even like last night recently,
I met someone an artist who I really respect, an
it Meyer. I was like, oh, she'd never want to
talk to me, and I was, and then we ended
up at the same party and I was like, really
loving music that you say, really, oh my gosh, thanks
(26:03):
a lot, and then it was like really kind and
really sweet. So I try to make the effort to
go out of my way, out of my comfort zone,
to you know, tell people. I mean, I've just I've
met my heroes before and they've been kind of lousy
to me. But I try not to let that, you know,
(26:24):
get to me. Now, why do you think why do
you think that is? Do you think it's specific to
your industry, like or the art that you create? And
are is it because your heroes are really old? Like
that is that part of it? I mean, honestly, is
that part of it too? Yeah? I mean every time
I meet a contemporary who's roughly my same age, they're
always really kind. But there was a time growing up
(26:48):
where maybe it is because they were really.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Old, different time then, and also they probably like arthritis
and stuff, you know.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, they're just in a shit mood.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, because they're old. Because I will be too.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
When i'm old, I'll probably be cry.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
I'm a different world back then, too, right, Like you
didn't have to be nice. Yeah, I mean, no one's
gonna write on TikTok or Twitter or Instagram that they
met I won't even say. But his name Frank Wilson,
and he was a real dick. That didn't happen then.
So they if they weren't, they weren't.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah, I mean where.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Now, if you don't tip somebody, you're gonna get rid,
You're gonna get railroaded. Yeah, it's gonna be everywhere. So
you have to be nice.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Yeah, And I mean I just kind of I was
raised to be that way anyway, which I think is
kind of nice. Like people have to be nice.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Now, give me a hero of yours that was cool, a.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Hero of mine that was cool. I mean there's been
a lot, you know, I'd say Jackson Brown was one
of the top shelf, just just most humble and just like,
you know, I met him and he was very kind.
And then the next time I saw him, I was
(27:59):
actually in Australia and I knew a lot of his
band members who were just incredible. I knew like his
whole band just from like work that I'd done. And
when he came over to say hello on the side
of the stage before he went on for his set,
he was like, hey, Marcus Jackson, remember me? And I
was like, yeah, I do, I really do. I remember you.
(28:22):
You're one of my all time heroes. And he's just
so sweet and so humble, and like when you see
people like that who, like, you know, even the things
that people aren't aware that he did is so groundbreaking breaking,
like you know, producing Warren Zevon and stuff like that,
and he's he can he can be kind and he
(28:43):
can be gentle and humble. You know, I think everybody can.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
You know, what about the new age version of that?
And maybe hero is not the word, but who has
followed you on social media and you're like that's legit?
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Oh man, uh let me think I think the post
Malone followed me, I was like doing something right, that's cool.
And he wears my wife's hat a lot to a
little bird trucking hat that she makes, and he just
we haven't had the opportunity to work together and meet,
but he just seems like a really genuine cat.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
I always wondered the protocol because I often don't follow
the correct protocol a bit awkward just in general, Like
I'm just oh and a couple of days ago, and
I don't know if you remember the comedian Tom Green
way back in the day on MTV, like he had
his groundbreaking what he was doing right his tea talk
(29:40):
show and he'd have songs my bum is on your Head,
And so he followed me on Instagram, and I'm like, well,
now what do I do, Like is the move to
go follow him back? I don't even know he was
on Instagram. I don't know he know he was like
back doing stuff, and so I follow him back and
then I'm like, do I need to go like to
second base? And so then I message it, but all
(30:02):
of us follow me and it might even be an
accidental follow too. So then I'm like, oh God, and
I'm like going through all the steps in my head
like a So I messaged Tom Green and I'm like,
hey man, big fan I hope you're well, and then
I just wait. I keep checking to see that scent
when scent turns to red. And so I'm doing this
like I'm fifteen trying to ask a girl to go
on a date. You know I'm doing dude.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
It's so funny you bring that up, because I have
felt like a fifteen year old girl. It's so many
recent cases with people who have reached out to me
on Instagram and I won't say their names or anything,
but they've reached out to me and they're like, oh man,
I really love what you do. I'd love to work together.
And then I'm like, all right, yeah, let's get together.
I'd love to And it's crickets and it's having like
(30:43):
two or three times, and I'm like, what am I
doing wrong? And I just I'm being left on red
and I'm like, this is how those poor girls must feel.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
And I do the same thing. But it's funny when
you talk about it. I have all the answers. Just
like if I were to tell you would have great advice,
because it's not you. You would say to me something
like hey Tom, great like a normal dude, like just
say what up? And maybe you guys will like be
and so I did. I said what up? And he's like,
I'm coming to Nashville and so on and so on,
and he's like, let's get together. And I'm like, just
freaking crazy.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Now, if that were to happen to us on your situation,
and if you don't ask a question back, because there
may be wondering like, oh he said this, but does
he mean it? He didn't ask me a question back.
He wasn't like what, how, when? Where? So I mean
they could possibly be feeling the same thing about you,
you responded, But unless you've given some sort of like
indicator or an opening of arms to like, hey, let's furt,
(31:35):
they may be doing the exact same thing.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Yeah, I mean I take I take cues from people
like I mean, it's funny, like it actually happened. On
my way here. I ran into somebody that I knew
and I was like, man, we should get together, and
they're like, what are you doing tomorrow? I was like,
I was not expecting that. Nothing. Let's get together.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
And wasn't that You're right jarring? But awesome, yes, because
it actually fell legitimate because everybody does let's get together.
Smoothie one o'clock. What kind of smooth you have there?
Speaker 1 (32:05):
What is it? Wow?
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Because I like all fruit, thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
This one is mostly protein I get so. Yeah, this
is the liquid lunch, so I do. That's what I
do for lunch every day, is a protein shot for you.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
I do like candy worms and nerds. If it's not
that I have nothing to do with it, I needed
to be full candy. But yeah, when someone does that,
when someone's hey, if it's like get together, it feels
very very formula for this town. Yeah, where it's like
a placeholder just in case.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
We call it church top. Yeah, it's like, oh, we
gotta get together. We got to have dinner.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Sometimes ninety numbers in the time every Sunday, nothing ever happens. Right. However,
when someone goes, yeah, how about tomorrow Tuesday, you're like, whoa, yeah, okay,
And even if you can't, you know, they were at
least serious about it. Yeah, and you go to the
next thing. That's pretty cool and you want to send tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah yeah anyway, Yeah, man, you want to see a movie?
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, you want to go up? Okay, look I got
a couple of things.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
The Bobby cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
First of all, I was watching you play in Europe.
Is there a different vibe there?
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I feel like there's a gratefulness from that play. Just
watching your show specifically, I feel like there's a different
energy in those European audiences. Why do I feel that way?
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I think there totally is. There's a I think there's
maybe a deeper appreciation because it's almost like playing Nashville
really because this being my home market. Like when you
do play here, people know it's special and they know
like or like playing at the Bluebird, They're like, I
mean there's only a limited amount of seats, and like
in Europe, it's kind of the same thing. They're like,
(33:59):
it's a long ass fly. You know, you had to
go through customs to be here, and you had to
deal with a lot of you know, backline gear that
didn't work, and we appreciate it. So there's a deeper
appreciation and they're listening more intently. But like we were
talking about earlier, I'm like, they are not having a
good time, but they really are, and they're very sweet
(34:19):
after the fact.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, there was a bunch a bunch of like tiktoks
that you had posted it, and I watch a lot
of your stuff anyway, I'm like, I'm a legitimate fan,
and well thanks. When I was watching those European videos,
not that I didn't see it before, but I just
never had noticed. It just seemed like a density of
like love. Yeah, and a lot of my friends that
(34:43):
will tour Europe the places they play there, But I
think generally it's more compact there anyway, right are those places,
Are those venues they're a little Are you playing the
same size venues or are you being introduced there at
a different stage and level than you are here.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
We felt a shift this time around. We felt like,
you know, something's caught on over here. We're not sure what,
but people are showing up and it felt like, you know,
next time we go, it'll be considerably larger rooms, because
you're right, I mean, it is a little bit more compact.
(35:19):
Everything is. I mean, you know, you'll be hard pressed
to find a commode that you fit on properly, you know,
being an American, but you know a lot of these
venues and it kind of varied from town to town too,
which I thought was interesting because we go from like
you know, in Belgium, we played like this massive place
(35:40):
and it was beautiful, and then like the next night
it's like five hundred people and there's no dressing room,
and we're like, all right, well we got to break
this market.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
What was your house like South Carolina? Like, what was it? Well,
I don't know the physically, what was the house like
a couple of bedrooms.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah. So I initially grew up in a ranch, three bedroom,
one bathroom house with a side room where I had
my drums set and my guitar, and I would just
spend hours in there, either playing drums. My grandfather taught
me how to play a train beat, and he'd play
along with me.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
What's the train beat? Can you oh like it got
it gotta get out. I hear the train coming. That's
what I think when you do that. H yeah. Yeah,
maybe just because we're trains in it and I'm very slow.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Yeah no, no, no, I mean that that's the train be
that's the quintessential. And he taught me, you know, because
it's all about the timing and like not letting it drag,
not letting it rush, just keeping it right there. And
I started on drums actually, so I just I spent
a lot of time alone. But it was you know,
next door was my grandparents house, and I just hang
(36:48):
out with them while my dad was at work and
just play guitar all day or drums to sing.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
We'll just call it the blues before your voice hits puberty?
Speaker 1 (37:02):
What do you I don't know, man, And.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
How bluesy can you be with a high pitch voice?
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Well, I mean you'd have to ask, Like like Tina Turner,
I mean that was that was the and like Aretha Franklin,
Like I liked soul singers. I feel like, you know,
even like bb King after like sixty eight sixty nine
Bibe was putting out like soul records.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
But did it change for at some point where you
were singing but your voice had hit puberty and then
after it.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Was Well, I started singing when I was when I
was thirteen, So I think that's why I made before
that naw, Wow, I just played guitar. I was too
bashful to sing.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Wow. Yeah, first time singing. Then then why in public?
Why what got you there?
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Well, you know I had always kind of expressed my
you know, drama or whatever it was just through the guitar.
And you know, when I was thirteen the girl I
had a crush on died in a car accident, and
it really fucked my head up. And I had I
had all these abandonment issues anyway, and they all just
(38:12):
kind of like came to a head, and I was
really not able to, you know, find a way to
comfort myself, you know. And we didn't have the distractions
like we have now, you know, so I wasn't on
an iPad or anything to like fully escape and immerse
myself in something else. So that's when I decided to
(38:33):
start writing and start singing, you know, just so I
had two more vessels to put my pain through. And
I think the first time I sang publicly, I sang
not my Cross to Bearer by the Alman Brothers band.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Well that's not an easy one. It's not an easy
so you decided to just go. Yeah, I mean it's
I'm a little teapot.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
That's how I learned to swim, you know, I'll just
get thrown into the deep end.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
I spent a lot of time in therapy. I got
some crazy abandonment issues myself. Dad left when I was
five or six. Mom died drugs in her forties, and
so you know, mine are to the point where they're
built in, like they're cooked in. But I can acknowledge them,
and I can see them, and I can see it
affect and I can feel it affected me. But I
(39:24):
can ignowl it. Right like forever I didn't even know. Yeah,
I don't know why. I was just wanted to be
by myself or you know, everything told me I loved
them tomorrow about my wife a few years ago. But
I was just always like, this is who I am,
is who I am, this way am But that's that
was like what mine were rooted in. What was yours
a parent thing? Was yours a home type thing?
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Yeah, my mom left when I was very young, and
that was really hard for me, and that was it's
still something that I really struggle with.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
You know, is she alive now?
Speaker 1 (39:55):
She's still alive. Her health's not very good, but we
you know, we've as things up and we're a lot
closer now.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
You know that you're a better man than I am.
Like my real dad's still alive. I don't talk to him.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yeah, I mean it's it's challenging.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
You know, how old were you?
Speaker 1 (40:11):
I was like five, so like that age is really
really tough because you know, I'd go to school every day.
I'd get sent home from kindergarten every day because I'd
cry so hard that I'd throw up. And this was
a daily thing because you don't know where her mother's at.
It's you know, just as a as a mammal, a living,
(40:31):
breathing mammal, You're just instinctively you're gonna need your mother's
affection and love and attention. And I didn't have it.
And I have my grandmother, who was, you know, really
like my mother.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
My grandma adopted me. We might be the same person. Yeah,
we're except for that smoothie. That's too much I need again,
I need lots of sugar. Yeah. Yeah, So your grandma
was very instrumental and your your upbringing, huh.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
And she was, you know, just a really sassy German
woman and was very loving, very affectionate, and it almost,
you know, kind of balanced it out. How affectionate she was,
you know, made up for the fact that my mother
had left. But you know, I still I love my
mother and I try to take care of her the
(41:16):
best I can. It's funny, like what you said. Like
my friend Dan Soder is a great comedian and he
he's another guy who's like, he's very similar to us
upbringing and everything. He's like, in one of his specialty
he said, you don't think I'm out here seeking strangers
approvals every night because things went well in my childhood,
(41:39):
and that really resonated with me. I'm like, every night,
I'm like, please love.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Me, that dude. That's what I say about why I
even do what I do. Yeah, it is literally for love.
If it's on a microphone, if it's on a stage,
I didn't get it. Therefore I search for it and
I think, and I still do. I still do every day.
The weirdest part for me, I think where it would
punch me in the gut was, let's say I would
go when I would do a theater and it was
(42:03):
a good night. I would, you know, do a few
thousand people in the theater. Tickets ain't cheap in the theater,
so it was a great night. I was on. I'm
feeling the highest of high and I'm feeling that love right,
that love. But it's it's so temporary because then you
go back to your room and you're just buy your
freaking self. And it is the juxtaposition of like even
thirty minutes and that's when I started to kind of
(42:24):
one of the best things was to get because I
wasn't sad about it. Forever it would just be like, man,
I guess this was going to be. When I started
to get sad about it was when I had done
a lot, a lot of therapy and I realized, you
know what what's valuable is if I actually do find
like some real love. I still don't, don't get me wrong,
I still I go to the stage for love. But
like meeting my wife.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
That was a.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
I was thirty eight, we've married a few years, maybe
thirty either night. But again, no one ever said, no
one used the love word growing up for me, no
one was around, right, it's just what. It wasn't that
nobody loved me. It was just you know, other things
hat like you gotta eat, right, you know, I got
grandparents raising me.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
It's more important things.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah, it's a it's a. But when I met her,
everything kind of shifted a bit to where I just
actually wanted to be a more full, like humane being,
like have human How did how did how does your
wife affect? Like who you are as a person?
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Dude? Same thing she made me want to uh, because
I always say like, I treated my body like an
outhouse for a long time. I didn't expect to live
to thirty. So it's like, why would I worry?
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Why would you say that? Though?
Speaker 1 (43:35):
I don't know, man, you just thought that there was
just something in me that was like, you know, I'm
gonna go hard and burn out. I don't know why.
I felt like that's all I deserved, I guess, And
in meeting her. I met her the day after I
quit doing cocaine. And I quit doing cocaine because I
ran out of cocaine, which I think is an important clarification. Uh,
(44:00):
it's not like I wouldn't have kept going.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Did you not have any more money?
Speaker 1 (44:03):
No, I was just out of town and my guy
was here, so I was like, well, I guess i'll
just stop.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
So you met her in the middle of between you
stopping and going back more than after you quit. I
never went back, right, But she may have been a
reason that you didn't.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
She was yeah, I'd say that, you know, at the time,
she was the only reason. And that was the first
time I had felt incapable of putting on a show
worthy of my standards because of how I felt, because
of how I was treating my body. And the second
show of that tour, she you know, came back and
(44:42):
I met her, and just in meeting her, I was like, Oh,
I just want to make this woman proud of me,
you know, man?
Speaker 2 (44:53):
That is it. We were watching a show the other
night and I think it's weird for my wife because
I mean, you're saying so many things that are like
needle pokema, because I resonate so hard, and like the
do you watch the show from have you ever seen from?
Speaker 1 (45:10):
No?
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Okay, a whole different topic, but there was one point
where the wife told the husband in season one, She's like,
I'm so proud of you, and I remember thinking like,
I can be told, I can be given awards, be
given money, I can be given. But the one thing,
because she does not throw it around, it's not meaningless
when she says that. When my wife says that, dude,
(45:32):
that's that's one hundred gold bars, yeah, because she doesn't
she doesn't throw it around. She doesn't say it if
she doesn't mean it. But when she means it, she
really means it. And she's also the hardest person to
impress in the best way.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
So when she says something like that, I think those
are like the only her words are like the ones
I value.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Yeah, sounds very, very identical, similar to my wife in
my situation, because I remember that, you know, with her,
she was the first one to be like what, No,
don't mine too, because I was like, hop on the
bus come to DC with us. She was like I
have a job. No, and she said, no, you're crazy.
(46:13):
Get your shit together and we'll talk.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
That's awesome. Okay, I'm gonna ask a really dumb question,
and I'm not asking it for any reason other than
I'm genuinely curious. And I only am comfortable enough to
ask this because now I feel like we're like the same.
I've never had a drink of alcohol because I've everybody dead,
a bunch of addicts. I would love to I'd love
to drink. I'd love to do all the drugs. Never
(46:36):
done a drug. It would be awesome. I have such
anxiety and they don't sleep well, but I would love
to do drugs. It sounds awesome like it does because
I don't know how to relax. I don't know I
can't relax based in again, a lot of the stuff
that's manifested itself over the years, and I am afraid
to do it because I think I will be addicted
because my mom died of drug overdose. All family. What
(46:59):
is cocaine like, I mean, it's pretty great, and that's
what I hear. Yeah, that's what I hear.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
It's pretty great. But it's it's not something that I
would I have terrible anxiety. It's it's really strange that I,
you know, enjoyed this drug so much. But I think
it's because I liked drinking so much, and at a
certain point you can't. You just can't drink anymore. But
if you have a performance en answer and you take
that and you feel great, you're your fork and you
(47:28):
can keep drinking. I mean, that's that's it for me.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
I don't like viazine in my eyes. I don't think
I like anything of my nose though. I mean, you
get used to it, and I'm not. I'm not glorifying
it at all. I just have I have genuine questions
because I've never had one drink of alcohol. I would
love to be drunk. I'd love you drunk right now.
I'll be awesome.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Yeah, I mean, you know, like, yeah, like that's just weird.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Like you get pretty. If I get water on my nose,
I'm over. Like I'm over it. Like two days to
bounce back from just getting water on I jump in
a hold of my nose. I don't like stuff on
my nose. Uh. When you get anxiety, where do you
feel it physically?
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I feel it here in my temples and I rub
my temples. But when I get it, I I just
started to get inside my head and I get really manic,
and like, you know, I just know I need to
get out of that situation.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
And I don't know how where did awareness come from?
Because again you're talking like somebody who's been who has
learned about himself.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Yeah, you got you gotta do that. I mean, the
awareness came from just a lot of reflection, a lot
of meditation, a lot of therapy, you know, and also
just you know, cutting out the drugs that numbed all
those feelings and those emotions, stopped running from it and
just accepting it. Also, like you know, if you want
(48:49):
to do drugs.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
I would I'm not going to do drugs.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
I would say that my producing psilocybin mushrooms I think
is probably the best.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
How do you microdose a mushroom, take a small into
your tongue. Yeah, well you can't like inject.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Now, so you so you you grind them up basically,
and they make capsules and they have some that are
you know, legal because they're not psychotropic like lions Maine
that kind of thing. Because mushrooms, you know, really are
just like they're very healing. And there's even like the
stoned ape theory about like, you know, Neanderthals taking mushrooms
(49:24):
and kind of like learning how to evolve as like
a like as a civilization and all this. Mushrooms are
a very powerful thing. And I actually microdosed for the
first time when we were recording a portion of our
new record, and it really helped me get out of
that anxious hole that I was in because I couldn't
reckon it for a minute. And I really attribute a
(49:47):
lot of it to that. And it was also a
really self reflective time. But you know, you're gonna think
I'm crazy. You know where I get that when I
get they laughing gas of the dentist.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Yeah, I have the greatest There are two places where
I get most creative. In the shower. Yeah, I'm just
buttoning acking hot waters on me, and I can't go anywhere.
I can't get on my phone. And when I am
on laughing gas and crank it up, it's like I'm
floating in space. And I remember once going like, you know, man,
it felt like I was like Bob Marley or something.
(50:17):
I remember thinking, man, it's just all about love. Everything's
about love. I came out of the dentist oh t
though it was it's just all about love. It's like,
what are you talking about. I was like, I had
a vision. Man, I had a vision. But I think
I don't get there unless I'm totally relaxed. And I
don't relax. I don't really and I and no one
people listen to this know me. Which, by the way,
(50:40):
I think they should legalize weed. I think there's a
lot of natural things that are opening that we run
from because of whatever the consequences, what they say the
consequences are, which the government has created these consequences in
many ways sixty seventy years ago. I mean, it's prohibition
(51:03):
alcohol but not weed, you know, And there's the whole
story of why it was one and not the other.
And you know, they wanted the hemp. It's a whole
thing right, Like everything is selected, and so I think
people take it a little weird for me when I'm like,
I never touched anything, but I think it should be
legal because I think there's a Steve Jobs LSD. Yeah,
they talk about that it opened them up in ways
(51:25):
that he had never been opened before. I have friends
that do that. Do have friends that maybe do is
the word ketamine? Yeah, dude, They're like it it opens
their mind their creators. They're like, if I do I
don't even know how you say I do ketamine. But
if they take ketamine that for like three weeks, it's
(51:45):
like the walls have been moved back five feet in
every part of the room, right.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
I Mean, my my experience with ketamine was very different
because it was it was not under the supervision of
a professional, and it because you can get it in
a white powder and I thought it was something else,
and it took me a whole different direction. I was
on a cruise. I was on a jam cruise and
(52:11):
I was about to go sitting with some friends of
mine from New Orleans. It's a band called Naughty Professor
and there's some of the most just just impressive musicians
that I've ever known. And earlier in that day, we'd
gone snorkeling and I just I just raw dogged it,
just a mask and swimming trunks, and I was just
like drunk on rum and snorkeling with my girlfriend at
(52:36):
the time and the bass player from let Us whose
name is Jesus, and we were just snorkeling. And then
when we finally came up, they were tripping on acid.
We realized that we had drifted like a mile from
the boat, so we were just in open water and
they were still partying. They didn't realize we were missing.
And basically, you know, we were treading water and like
storm rolled in and then the waves were crashing over
(52:58):
us and we were dying and I couldn't tread water anymore.
And finally like they swam out and there was like
a whole rescue effort. It was a whole thing. So
when we came back to shore, needless to say, we
were celebrating our survival. So we started, you know, drinking hurricanes.
And this was in like the Grand Caymans, Cayman Islands,
(53:19):
and we got back on the boat. Anyway, I was
supposed to sit in with Naughty Professor, and I'm like well,
I'm wasted, and these guys are some of the most
impressive musicians I've ever heard in my life. So I
don't want to go up there and sound stupid. I
better do drugs, right, this is the rationale. So it
was like it was literally like cheech and Chong because
(53:40):
this guy's like, well, cause who as you go?
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Here?
Speaker 1 (53:42):
You go man on a big spoon and it was
like I was like more and it was like a
small mountain, you know, and I just like toutored it
and then my whole face was like burning, and I
was like, what did you just give me? And he
was like, oh, it was just a little too man,
just a little blow. I was like, no, it wasn't.
And then he was like no it was. And I
(54:03):
like grabbed him by the shirt and I was.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
Like, what the fuck did you give me, you stupid hippie.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
And he's like oh no, and he's like, hey, which
bag did you give me too?
Speaker 2 (54:12):
It's like, oh my god, now he's asking that's the guy.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Which bag was that that you gave me? He was
like the blue one. He was like oh shit. I
was like, what was it, motherfucker? And he's like it's
kidd of me, and I was like, oh boy, And
I was like, as soon as I ask it, I
just like like I became part of the boat. Like
my feet felt like they were in the boat.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
It was like heavy. Everything felt heavy. Oh yeah, wow, yeah, see,
I don't know, it feels pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (54:42):
I mean it sounds pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (54:44):
That's not pretty good. I mean all the stuff leading
up to it sucked every bit of it.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
It was a bad day. It was a bad time.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
Yeah for me.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
I mean I really acted out in a big way
because I just I just felt like, you know, I
don't know, I just felt like I didn't deserve any
better and nobody would really care. So I feel a
lot better about it now.
Speaker 2 (55:04):
Yeah, I can tell. That's why I feel comfortable asking
you about it. Yeah. Uh, do you ever feel did
you ever feel like once you started to be on
we'll just call it wellness, do you ever feel like
you were going to lose some of your creative edge
if you got too right?
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Hell? Yeah. And I realized only in retrospect I was
able to realize I have the clarity to write about
those feelings, and a clarity I didn't have in the moment,
And I thought I did. But even if I went
back and told myself me my time traveled and went
back and told myself myself, then I still wouldn't have
(55:40):
been able to receive it. You know. It's only something
that I could me personally, could have learned with experience.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
Yeah, because I struggle with this. I struggled with going
to therapy and like really getting into my brain because
I thought, well, I'm so messed up, but that's my
superpower and if I lose that, then I will not
have a superpower anymore. Scared scared of death of it. Right.
But yeah, it took me doing it to realize maybe
(56:10):
being messed up in a way it was holding some
of me back that there was some stuff that I
could unlock. And then also, it's pretty cool to have
empathy because you don't get empathy for free. Yeah, Like
you gotta go through crap come out the other side,
and empathy is one of the tools that you can't
(56:34):
just go by. They have to develop. And I feel
like when I can actually use that with somebody I
care about, like that's extremely valuable. Like that's what I'm
proud of, I think the most. Because I was very
worried about it. If I go get right, whatever that means,
there's no right. But I say that if I go
get right, everything I've ever done is because I haven't
been right. And I feel like if I were the
same thing, if I were like or it's like Kurt Cobain, right,
(56:58):
it would use cliches ample like he's created all this
on drugs. What what's he gonna do? How's he going
to create a not on drugs? You know that, Yeah,
that would be a concern. But I've found if anybody's
listened to this, that it's actually unlocked things that I
did not even know were in there. Yeah, and I
can still be messed up, Like I still hold on
to that if I need it.
Speaker 1 (57:18):
I mean, yeah, there's there's arguments to be made. I think,
you know, there's certain acoustic versions of songs from the
nineties after someone's gotten sober that don't really compare to
the drug addult versions that they did. Yes, maybe thirty
years prior. I would agree, but I don't know. I
(57:40):
mean it's hard to say. I mean, a lot of
the a lot of the creative, Like in the late sixties,
people were designing cars, you know, just on LSD. Like
you said, like Steve Jobs.
Speaker 2 (57:54):
You know, I keep something on my phone and I's
got a couple more questions for you, And then I
appreciate you coming to do this again just because I'm
a big fan. This is exciting for me. I get
to talk to people all the time, but not really
people i'm a fan of, So really, thank you and
thanks for being so generous and open and forever. I
did not think that I had or could experience anxiety
(58:16):
because I never had in the daytime, meaning I would
I just go right. And I think a lot of
that just me going is in a sense running from
everything I did not want to face, but on a
daily level, like it was just if I work myself,
and first of all, I'm successful, I won't be in
poverty anymore. That'd be cool. I want to go back
to that. Secondly, if I work really hard and I
(58:39):
keep going, people are I'm celebrated for that. Loot me.
You're the guy that works hard. And the other one
is I have no time to worry or to have
any sort of introspective time. I don't have to deal
with it. So what happens is now when I go
to sleep, I wake up. I sleep like two hours
and I wake up not purposefully my neck and my hands.
(58:59):
That's where mynxiety comes. Neck in hands. Yeah, I have
like two hours. I wake up and I'm just like, oh,
it's been tough for the last few years. But I
have this that I keep it on my phone and
it says your anxiety will scale proportionally to your ambition.
And the whole point of this is the anxiety sucks.
(59:20):
But you know why you have it because you either
want to get out of a bad situation to something
good or you want to get from a good situation
to something great. Like you have huge dreams, and people
that don't have huge dreams don't have huge anxiety.
Speaker 1 (59:30):
Yeah, I love that, man. Yeah, you'll have to send
me that so I can hold on to it. I mean,
it's it's really crazy. I mean I've only heard a
few people speak about it the same way. But like,
even before the show, the thing about my anxiety is like,
it's such a liar. It takes me and it's like,
(59:51):
you're very tired, you probably shouldn't go on.
Speaker 2 (59:53):
Do you have any the sick one? Does it? Ever?
Till you're sick, It's.
Speaker 1 (59:56):
Like you gotta go to the bathroom. You know you're
going to piss yourself right now, you're very sleepy. Drink
three red bulls. So I drink three red bulls. I'm like, Okay,
I did it, and I'm still very tired. But then
I get up there and then after the gig, I'm like,
there they are. They hit me, and you know, I
don't want to be alone at all. I'm the same
(01:00:17):
way like I usually just I usually try to fall asleep,
like while the rest of the band's watching a movie.
You know, I don't like to have any time just alone.
And like you got to face that. You know, that's
crazy to have something going on. Like, you know, I
didn't pitch it as an idea, but I even told
(01:00:38):
my bandmates. I was like, you know, I really see
how people could get into the group shower thing, you
know what I mean, because like we're playing these arenas
and they got like a like a hockey team, like
showers all the way around. I'm like, I really get
it because the camaraderie is still carrying over. We're just
getting clean. But we're talking about how the gig went.
You know, I'm like, I still want the conversation to
(01:00:58):
be going. I don't want to be alone in the.
Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
Two Birds One Stone. You gotta get clean. I'm saying,
might as well live and.
Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Maybe I should pitch this yeah, you know as.
Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
A web series soon, you know, while you're out, I
get the content. One thing I wanted to bring up
where your acoustics shows. Yeah, when you talk about, hey,
you got to be up on stage, I usually have
your guys. This is just you and one dude, So
I mean this is that you have your instruments, of course,
but but you've got to now communicate with the audience.
If you're doing an acoustics show, you can't just get
up there and jam.
Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
I know it's it's scary, but it's really exciting. Man.
It's gonna be the first time that I can sit
and talk about what the songs are about, you know,
Like Goodbye Carolina is a good example of a song
that I wrote about a friend of mine that committed suicide,
and you know, I felt like it was a letter
that he left through me, you know, because he was
(01:01:49):
a songwriter, and a lot of people just think it's
about you know, moving from South Carolina, and it's not
at all. So it's an opportunity for me to speak
with the audience and give a better description of what
the songs are about and where I was when I
wrote them.
Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
It's gonna be self fulfilling. I'm excited about it, Yeah,
because they'll be hanging on every single word, I hope
as much as they are lyric solo. Yeah, that'd be awesome.
And we talked about the tour before you came in.
So but uh so two final questions, Brooks and Dunn.
You're you did the song with those guys?
Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Man, love those guys, big friends of both of them,
love them. How did that come You did rock my World?
I rob my Little country Girl? What happened there? How'd
that come together?
Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
So? So, that's a Kicks tune and they and they
sent it. They asked me Kicks wanted me to do
that one, which meant a lot to me that he
he specifically requested that I do that song, and you know,
I was. I was really excited to bring my band
in and do it as a unit. And they were
just really so kind and so welcoming.
Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
And they give you any like, hey, this is how
we want you to do it, or they go like
you just do you.
Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
They just said go for it. That's awesome, and I
felt really empowered by that. I mean, they obviously offered
me direction and the producer was really great, but they
were like, just go, just just go. And you know,
I look back on that now, it's like a time
when I was really struggling with my weight, and so
(01:03:27):
I can't even enjoy because we recorded that like a
year ago. I can't even enjoy like the promo of
it because I'm like, you know, because of my self
image issues. But listening to the track is really special
for me because I'm really excited with how it turned out.
Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
Yeah. Last thing, the Experience Hendricks show that we were
also talking about a little before you got here. So
I mean, it's a lot of a lot of excellent musicians,
a lot of them I've seen too, which is super cool.
But how did you get involved in this?
Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
Man? My uh my manager who's here pretty hit me
up and was like, do you want to entertaining I
did doing this Experience Hendrick thing, and I really jumped
at the chance because I mean, just like anybody who's
a guitar freak or fanatic like myself is, you know,
just enamored by Hendrix at an early age, and Hendrix
(01:04:25):
is just one of the all time greats and just
to be you know, mentioned alongside him in any ways
as an honor. So it also maybe gives me an
opportunity to uh have an excuse to buy a new
strat or an old strat that's new to me.
Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
Do you have anything he ever had?
Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
I played a couple of things he had, and that's
always really how'd.
Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
You do that? Because he played left handed but flipped right?
Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
Mm hmm. Yeah, I've had somebody in Japan brought me
one of his strats.
Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
How could you do you? Well, they just brought it
cause I'm like tande, they strung it normal. Oh they
did for me. Well that makes a lot of sense.
Then that's you could have just stopped me like five
seconds ago when I'm like bending my arm trying to
figure it out. Uh, Marcus, thanks for coming over, man,
this is uh man.
Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
It's cool that you're cool, and I mean that in
the best way, because, like I'm a fan. Sometimes you
don't want to meet people you're a fan of because
you're you know, like you said, you don't know, but
maybe you just have to be nice and I'll accept
that too. Yeah yeah uh. You guys follow Marcus Real
Marcus King on Instagram, on TikTok at Marcus King. There's
so because I follow you on TikTok. There's so much
great live footage and your dogs, he's the man. Yeah yeah,
(01:05:36):
your dog. Thanks Marcus.
Speaker 4 (01:05:38):
Thanks, thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production
When I was thirteen, the girl I had a crush
on died in a car accident, and I had all
these abandonment issues anyway, and they all just kind of
like came to a head, and I was really not
able to find a way to comfort myself. That's when
I decided to start writing and start singing.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Episode fourty four with Marcus King. I'm a fan mostly
popped up on my algorithm on TikTok, and I knew
him from seeing them around like a ward shows and stuff.
But like, man, the guy just plays and it's got
like a blues rock soul voice that is this insane.
He's got an album called Mood Swings. It came out
(00:47):
in April. He did a song with Brooks and Dunna
on Reboot two Rock My World Little Country Girls opening
for Stapleton at twenty twenty five. And I'm going to
say this because I think Stapleton's greatest, but Stapleton is
stremely secure to put Marcus King in front of him,
because that would be like a dude. It was like
when Zach Brown was playing in front of Chesney and
(01:08):
I was like, there's no way I put Zach Brown
in front of me. I don't care if Chesney or not.
Like Stapleton is the greatest, and that's how secure he
is because Marcus King is like that dude. So I
mean not country, but like he grew up in the country.
How would you what he's like soul blues count.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Americano makes you feel like it's acoustic, but man, he
goes hard. Born in Greenville, South Carolina, musical family. His
dad Devin blues guitarist and songwriter, his grandpa he talks about.
I watch him on TikTok all the time, playing a
bunch of tour dates. So go check out an intimate
acoustic evening featuring it's Marcus King, also Drew Smithers. So
(01:54):
he's playing acoustic, he's playing with Stapleton, He's all of
it is up. Go follow on Instagram at real Marcus King.
And I will say this, I did not know Marcus
in anyway, and this is one of those that I
was a little I won't say apprehensive or I won't
say nervous, but I will say I had no idea
(02:14):
how this would go, just because in country music there's
a bit of a culture on how this works. New
artists will come in and they're like, oh, this is exciting.
I get to be on this podcast which does really well,
and they're talking to me, and I've been around long
enough now that they're like, oh, this might be kind
of cool. But he's so removed and I didn't know
if he was like super cool guy. But I feel
(02:36):
like in a boxing match, it takes the first couple
of rounds you kind of circle each other and feel
each other out, and then like round three and four,
you figured it out and you go Yeah, by the
end of this, you guys, dude, we were like best
friends forever. No microphones around would have been the same thing,
same thing. Yeah, love him. Marcus King enjoyed the interview.
Go search him Up'll put all the stuff in the
notes that we just mentioned, and if you do like it,
(02:56):
please let me know. That's it. Here we go, Marcus,
good to see you, man, Thanks for coming over.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Hey man, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
So how long have you lived in Nashville.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
I've been here since twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
So what are we in twenty twenty four? Oh so
it's like home ish now to me, like five years
to feel kind of like home.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, five years just long enough to see something you
like and then it inevitably get torn down bench. Once
that happens, you're kind of a local.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
How often are you in town though, because I would
imagine you don't tour, like if I tour, do and
stand up, it's just Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I'm back home.
Our country artists Friday Saturday. Do you you're out longer
than that? Right?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah? We we we kind of do the rock and
roll touring and we go out and sometimes we'll be
out with country artists, but they do Thursday through Sunday
at the most, and we'll stay out. We go out.
We just I just came home last Thursday off of
a ten week run. Oh my god. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
That's like silver Chair, Good Charlotte the Eagles, Like, that's
what that touring is. You just go away for a
long time and come back and hope somebody motor your yard.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
You come back a different person, yeah, and you hope
that your lawn was mode.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
When you leave. Do you come back with I don't know,
thirty three percent different wardrobe because you've had to buy
enough on the road, like it just just to get by,
or you lose some as you.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Go sometimes I do. Yeah, I come home to the wardrobe, though.
I get a lot of my stuff off at eBay.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
See order while you're on the bus, yeah, or s
and then it's here when you run.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, that's my treat to myself, is you know, I
get on eBay. I don't. I wouldn't say I have
social anxiety, per se. I don't really like when I'm
home or on the road, I'm usually kind of recluse.
So I get on eBay and I go to all
the local thrifting off of eBay.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
So local you mean local and local cities.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Well, not local to the cities I'm in, but just
like local thrift stores will.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Have like small places around the country. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's cool. I buy a bunch of baseball cards off eBay.
Did you start buying stuff like when you kind of
started to get popular make a little money, because I did.
I couldn't afford anything until I made money, so then
I started buying everything I ever wanted, right.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, I think that's that's a pretty natural thing.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Like guitars, Did you buy a bunch of guitars, like
really old ones once you started to like be able
to afford it?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, you know, I started, I started having a little
retail therapy, and you know, I think we all do
it to a degree. And there was there were some
guitars I got and I thought necessary. But you know,
vintage wardrobe, you find like old like lipstitch, leather jackets
and stuff that I couldn't afford before. That kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Talk to me about an old instrument I was watching.
I think it's probably been a couple of weeks. And
forget me for not knowing the exact name, but you
were playing a guitar and there was a date on
the TikTok was a guy's named Cannonball.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Oh yeah, the Texas can Bowl Freddy King.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Okay, pardon my ignorance on this, but what I remember
thinking while watching the video, because I think there were
a few different videos of you playing either that get
his guitar or maybe his songs. But the guitar was
so old. What makes an old guitar sound good? Because
like when I play pickleball with an old man, that
ain't fine. It's like it's slow and he didn't work.
(06:23):
Like what old guitars they they have a distinct sound
about them or is it a charm? Of just they
existed at that point.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Right, And I think you know, to your point that
old man off the pickleball court would probably be maybe
a little bit more interesting. He'd be a lot more weathered,
he'd have a little bit more self awareness, and he'd
have a little bit more of a vibe because he's
been around the block a few times. And I think
that's kind of the story with guitarist is like that
(06:54):
guitar of Freddy Kings is a sixty seven, yes, three
fifty five that Gibson made, And there's a lot of
story with the guitar because that one was stolen actually,
and they were able to trace it down and relocate it.
And that particular model isn't a very sought after year
for that guitar, but because it was owned by Freddy,
(07:17):
it really gives it a vibe and it gives it
a lot of you know, mojo. But it's similar to
like my grandfather's guitar is a sought after model, but
it's you know, just a paramount, you know, figure in
the stable because it was my grandfather's.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Is there like rules with old guitars that we have
an old Bronco it's like a seventy one and everyone's like,
leave it original, But leaving it original drove like crap.
And I'm not really a Bronco guy. I like it.
It's cool, but I don't know much about Broncos. So
we switched a bunch of stuff out so it's pretty
comfortable now. And I think traditionalists would be upset that
(07:58):
we took an old Bronco and switch it out with
a lot of new stuff. With guitars, like an old
guitar like that or any old guitar, can you change
out pieces or is that kind of you don't do
that because it's old.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Well, it kind of depends on the collector. And if
you are a collector, like I have friends in town
who collect them, and they really appreciate value, just like
getting old watches and stuff. They play them though if
they're old, like, well, yeah, some of them, you know,
like Joe Bonamassa is a really great example of somebody
who buys these like priceless artifacts of guitars and he
(08:32):
plays them live and he puts life into him. But
like for me, if I'm gonna find like a I mean,
there's some guitars I've played there, like you know, half
a million dollars, but they've been under somebody's bed for
fifty years and they don't have any stories to tell,
you know what I mean, nobody's ever put any love
(08:53):
into them. And I really believe in the energy of it.
And there's something about the wood, and the wood really
does expand after years of cigarette smoke and years of
you know, just the sonics involved of it, and the
wood grain really truly expands and there's a different sound
to it. But it's also there's a lot to do
with the way that the wood was sourced back then
(09:16):
and like you know, that Brazilian rose would you can't
get that anymore, so they're not making guitars with that anymore.
What else, like the pickups, the way they were wound,
it was all really a lot more handmade.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
But if it sounded so good, why do they do
that now?
Speaker 1 (09:35):
That's a good question.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah, I feel like it if you just wanted a
quality sounding guitar, and maybe they do. I think it's.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Probably just because of, you know, just the cost the
cost of doing business, because there are there are certain
companies like you know, shout out to like the Murphy Lab,
like Murphy over at Gibson. He's making like Murphy A
Gibson guitars that like I have a couple, and you
(10:05):
put them next to like the original model that it's
based off of, and I mean, you could really have
trouble telling the difference. But because there's so much attention
to detail and so much craftsmanship put into that, it's
it's gonna cost you. And I think the importance of
that is coming back and people are paying for what
(10:27):
they get now.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah, one of my favorite guitar things that I've ever seen.
It Again, I'm not a player at all, like I have,
I do comedies, all play some you know, I know,
like twelve chords, right, so it's all I need to
do to do funny stuff. But one of my favorite
guitar things ever that I've watched is the old Austin
City limits of Stevie Ray Vaughan, which I've seen many
times and I've watched on YouTube probably every year and
a half or so because I'm a massive music fan.
(10:51):
And when he tunes his he restrings his guitar as
he's playing it, string breaks pop, He's still doing what
he does. The guy runs out to give him a
straight it's being retuned. As he's playing the solo, it's
back on. It looks like he never missed a beat.
Is that something really prolific players can do.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yeah. Well, I mean he's a great example of somebody
who the instrument was just an extension of his being.
And that's something that I've learned from my grandfather and
my dad. It's just it's your best friend, and it's
really just another part of yourself. It's an extension of
who you are, and it's the best way to get
your thoughts across. And Stevie's a great example of that.
(11:37):
And being so comfortable with the instrument. It's just like
going to a good old mechanic and he can kind
of listen to your car and hear a rattle and
it be like, oh, yeah, we got to do this,
this and this. You know, it's kind of the same thing.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Have you ever seen that video I'm talking about specifically?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
I have many times.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
What did you think of that as somebody who is
a prolific guitar player, Like, do you look at it
and go, that's exactly what I would have done.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Well, you know, I look at that video and I
think there's somebody vibrating at just the right frequency, and
he is so in the mode, and he is so
just doing it for the love that he has for it,
and he's not worried about outwardly how people are receiving it.
And that's something that's really important to me, and that
(12:22):
I mean, that's how I look at it now. I
don't know how my childhood self probably watched that and
just thought, this is you know, like seeing you know,
Peter walk on water.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, so Picasso paint or just whomever the greatest doing
the greatest.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah, I like I was trying to think of like
some vivid like what if I just think of guitar memories,
like what popshead? That's the first one that comes to
my mind. Obviously, it's could you play the teeth ever?
Do that?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I used to when I was a kid.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I was like, Dennis would love it, but I'd be
bad for like like the dental bill.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, I don't know if my dentist would love that.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
You got go to them. You gotta pay him, That's
what I'm saying. Like Dennis loves it because you got
to go and pay the dental bills.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yeah yeah, yeah, maybe so see.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
You can probably play with your teeth if you had to. Yeah,
And what are you trying to do when you play
with your teeth? Because I feel like I can strum
are you just strumming across it as you hold the chord?
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Well, when I did it when I was a kid,
like I used my tongue. You know, I've always had
which I mean, I don't know what kind of podcast
this is, you know what I mean, But I've always
had a really strong tongue. So I've always done this
like this noise.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Like that god dang.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
So like I think a lot of that strength in
my tongue came from, like, you know, playing guitar with
my tongue. And uh, you know I'm a really happily
married man.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Or she's a really happily married Yeah. What about the
classic behind the head thing? You ever do that? Like
you see it and do that?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
I did? Yeah, I mean for me, like I started
playing out when I was like eight years old, and
I I did all that kind of and I think
gimmicky is gimmick is such a you know, derogatory word almost,
But I did all that stuff, and you know, I
was always just kind of considered like the young guitar player,
(14:09):
And this is something that I just kind of shed.
You know, I'm almost thirty years old, so and I'm
just now able to grow facial hair. So I think
people have stopped calling me the young guitar player. But
did I used to do all that kind of stuff
because I really felt it. And once it started to
feel like I was I was doing it for any
(14:30):
other reason than just I enjoyed it, I stopped doing it.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
I'm always anxious to hear what second, third, fourth generation,
It doesn't matter what. But some a family that's at
your grandfather, obviously your dad and now you. I think
it's somebody like Tiger Woods, who you know, his dad
was a golfer, really pushed him. Tiger never really burned
out that we know of. And you have lived in
(14:55):
it your entire life. I mean your dad lived in
it cause your grandfather. Did you ever reach point where
you were like, man, this is all I've ever done.
I don't know if I want to do this anymore.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Well, not on the stage. I've never had that feeling
on stage. I've had that feeling, you know, maybe on
travel days, but that's a that's a fleeting moment, you know,
it's it's just like anything else. You're like, God, I
don't know if I want to if I want to
do this. It's like, I don't know if it's almost
(15:27):
Christmas time. If you get a real tree every year,
you're like, this is a real pain in the ass.
I'm gonna get a fake tree next year. As soon
as it's set up and you smell it and it's
really nice and you're like, okay, But that's how I feel.
When I get on the stage, it's like, oh, yeah,
that's why I do this. And this morning, you know,
I had to get up early to go to a
session with the Carter family. I don't know if I
(15:47):
can say that or not, but I'm sure they wouldn't mind.
But just sitting and playing with those guys and just
legends of Nashville. I was like, I told him as
I was leaving, it's really nice to do something and
remind yourself of like why you're doing this. But I mean,
I'm sure you're probably the same as far as like
travel days and just like.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Or waking up in the morning, because I did wake
up until the morning radio show. Oh yeah, it's awful.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Yeah, and you gotta be on too, even.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
When you're not. Yeah, it's like being on stage, right.
I mean, people paid whatever I'm out for a ticket, huh,
and this is gonna be their only opportunity to see you,
and they kind of don't care if you're not feeling good, yeah,
because they've been waiting X amount of weeks or months.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
It's the Yelp society too, So I'm like, I am
just very acutely aware that everyone out there is and
will be a critic of your performance, especially if it's bad.
A lot of people won't go out of their way
to say what a great performance it was, but they
will tell you if they had a bad time. And
I go out there every night, and actually, you know,
(16:51):
to quote bottom also again, who's a friend of mine.
I heard him in an interview once and I really
liked it. He said, I may not be able to
give you one hundred percent, but I can give you
one hundred percent of what I have. You know that
means if I'm vibrating at sixty percent, you're gonna get
all one hundred percent of it, and I'm gonna be
a useless meat sack afterwards, but you're gonna get all
(17:13):
of me. Because I would to myself and to my
band and to the to the fans. But you're right, man,
it even if it's Monday, and you know, Tucson, it's
Saturday night for them and they got a babysitter, and
you know, if my voice isn't feeling great, maybe there's
a few more instrumentals in the set, but you're gonna
(17:34):
get all of me for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Do you feel like to the I know I do.
There will be shows I finish and I'm like, man,
that sucked. I feel like not good about it. Then
I go look at comments and everybody had a great time.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Dude, every time.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
I mean, I like, I'll really feel bad about And
after I gave it to my all and my intention
was to go and I'm like, man, nothing hit.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
I've put holes in drywall because I'm like, you stupid mother,
Yeah you want here. I'm like, man, you just totally
beefed it. And you know, I mean, I couldn't imagine comedy.
I have a lot of comedian friends. I'm like, I
cannot imagine being up there by myself. You know, I've
got five or six other guys with me, and I
(18:19):
can kind of commiserate with them after the fact. But
I mean I remember this one particular time in London
a few years ago. We played and we were all
really just exhausted and like my guitar like quit working.
It was just like everything that could go wrong went wrong.
I was like, man, I don't know if they'll ever
(18:40):
want us back in London. And then the next morning
somebody I think, I think they brought me a physical
copy or sent me, you know, a review from the
London Sun. It was like five out of five best
concert we've been to this year. I was like, man,
my standards are higher. Their standards are low.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
I wonder why that was. I had a similar experience.
I was playing the Opry and I don't always take
my guitar to play music at the Opry, but I'll
do a couple of funny songs, and I thought, I'm
just gonna walk out and do a couple of funny songs,
get rid of the guitar. Finished the set right, and
that was the idea. I walk out and like the
pickup falls out, it starts falling apart on stage, and
so you know, I've got fourteen minutes of but my
(19:24):
guitar now doesn't plug in, and I didn't ask for
a second mic to just mike up the guitar, and
so everything in my act is timed. It has to be.
One it's fourteen minutes and two I'm telling jokes and
it's timing. And I've done it. This is gonna sound funny,
but I think you'll understand it. I've done it wrong
so many times. I don't just freak. I don't freak
out like I've done. I've bombed as bad as you
can bomb that. I know whatever I'm gonna do is
(19:45):
not gonna be the word. I'm gonna get through it. Yeah,
But like I start to not feel comfortable because everything
now is out of whag. My guitar is not working
that I was gonna come out of the second song
and go into a different part of my material, and
so so I just start to say stuff and try
to patch it together and put it and I come
off stage after fourteen minutes. I hold my guitar the
(20:07):
whole time, never played the thing because it was broken.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Yeah, And I.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Felt terrible, and I was like, that was really one
of the worst. And what was funny was I got
to call the next day by a friend who's an
artist who was back there and he came side stage
and watch and he was like, I had no idea
you were that funny. And I'm thinking to myself, I
don't remember the set because I felt so out of
whack because everything was wrong. My guitar was off, my brain,
I was freaking out so much. But yeah, it ended
(20:30):
up being what I've heard. I won't go watch it back.
I can't. I can't go watch it back. I'm the
same because I know what I was feeling. But it
ended up being, I guess, pretty good when I thought
it was the worst. But then I worry that if
I felt like I'm killing it, then maybe I'm sucking
You ever did.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
That all the time, I do it all the time,
and I always liken it too. You know, I grew
up in church, as I'm sure a lot of us did.
And you know, Peter got out of the boat and
walked alongside Jesus Christ on the water, but as soon
as he took his eyes off, he sunk like a stone.
And that's whenever I'm on stage and I'm like this
(21:04):
is actually going pretty good. Everything's like false to shit,
and I'm like, all right, don't don't have that pride
and don't have that, you know, humorous about yourself or whatever.
But I think, you know, that's a good example what
you did. And it happens to me a lot is
like you kind of fight or flight, and you got
to go into just your natural ability to get out
(21:27):
of a situation. And I think a lot of us,
you know, maybe it's the way we were brought up
or whatever, but when you're really good at what you do,
you can fight your way out of it. Because someone
inexperienced the pick up falls out, they would have just
like ah and ran off the stage, you know, or
like you know, like hold out off the stage, like
(21:49):
I always you see that that clip from sn L
years ago, and like I saw somebody talking about that recently.
She was she was so new in her music were
and like she just she truly didn't know what to do.
And it's just God, that clip just makes me feel
so much empathy and just hurts my spirit to watch,
(22:10):
because you know, inexperience will really, you know, fuck you up.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor, Wow,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
In a really counterteitive way because I'm listening to what
you're saying. I think a situation like that when I
survive it, and then I believe it has to be
the people that I believe telling me it's good, because
I won't believe just anybody saying something was good, because
anybody will say anything right. But if it's somebody at trust, like, hey,
that wow, that was really good, it gives me confidence
(22:52):
again to know that even in the worst of times,
my instincts are usually good enough not just to survive,
but I won't say to thrive, but to actually like
keep me in the game and keep people satisfied they
came to watch something. So in a weird way, like
a situation like that makes me feel better about what
I do and that I've been through it and done
it wrong so many times and I can get through
(23:13):
it if everything else goes wrong, which again is just
a confidence builder in general. Yeah, like I've been through
the bad to I've been I don't know if you
ever had this. I've done a show and I'm like,
this is not going good. I'm thirty eight minutes into it.
I feel like and I'm like, it's fine these jokes,
and then I look down. I'm only twelve minutes in
I feel like I'm forty in yeah, and can I
keep a timer because I need And I'm like, this
(23:33):
show's got to be over and it's like twelve minutes
and I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
I think a lot of that's off the energy of
the crowd too. I've had that many times where I'm like, well,
they're hating this so.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
And they're not, and you know it's we're separated from it,
they're not.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
But yes, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Do you ever watch faces?
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I try not to sometimes, like because I can't see
very good at all, and I wear my glasses on stage,
and it actually it was jarring when I was able
to see people's faces for the first time, and I
was like, I don't like this, so you'll see me.
I take my glasses off when I play, because the
(24:14):
only time I have my glasses on is if I
have to read lyrics that night, if we're throwing something
in the set and I don't know the lyrics all
the way. But seeing faces is God, you see somebody
yawn or you see somebody just like so miserable, and
like I actually saw it just the other night, and
(24:35):
one of my bandmates saw it too, Like it was
actually the reverse of what usually happens. We saw a
young lady who was enjoying the show, whose husband or
boyfriend whatever was not having a good time, and like,
we do a three song encore, so when we got
into that third song of the encore, he was like,
oh my god, and she was like pomped and like
(24:57):
slapped him on the arm. And I saw that. I
was like, all right, we did not win him over.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Today, I've had to do a bit of internal and
even external therapy with not assigning my emotions with other
people's perceived emotions. Yep, because I'll see somebody like h
and then if I happen to see them the men,
you go like, that's sure, it was great, And I'm like, no, no,
you look like you were having a miserable time. But
(25:24):
that's the face I would have had if I was
having a miserable time. But that doesn't mean that's everybody's miserable.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
It's it's it's it's really important work that you're doing.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Man, I just turned the lights off. Now it's not
even working. My work has been just turned every light off,
and see's not a single face. Yeah, but yeah, yeah,
do you have that issue where you're like, Okay, that's sad.
Face must be sad. Turns out they probably weren't sad.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Yeah. I signed that on to people all the time,
and like, I mean, you know, you go out and
you meet people like I mean, even like last night recently,
I met someone an artist who I really respect, an
it Meyer. I was like, oh, she'd never want to
talk to me, and I was, and then we ended
up at the same party and I was like, really
loving music that you say, really, oh my gosh, thanks
(26:03):
a lot, and then it was like really kind and
really sweet. So I try to make the effort to
go out of my way, out of my comfort zone,
to you know, tell people. I mean, I've just I've
met my heroes before and they've been kind of lousy
to me. But I try not to let that, you know,
(26:24):
get to me. Now, why do you think why do
you think that is? Do you think it's specific to
your industry, like or the art that you create? And
are is it because your heroes are really old? Like
that is that part of it? I mean, honestly, is
that part of it too? Yeah? I mean every time
I meet a contemporary who's roughly my same age, they're
always really kind. But there was a time growing up
(26:48):
where maybe it is because they were really.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Old, different time then, and also they probably like arthritis
and stuff, you know.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Yeah, they're just in a shit mood.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, because they're old. Because I will be too.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
When i'm old, I'll probably be cry.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
I'm a different world back then, too, right, Like you
didn't have to be nice. Yeah, I mean, no one's
gonna write on TikTok or Twitter or Instagram that they
met I won't even say. But his name Frank Wilson,
and he was a real dick. That didn't happen then.
So they if they weren't, they weren't.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yeah, I mean where.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Now, if you don't tip somebody, you're gonna get rid,
You're gonna get railroaded. Yeah, it's gonna be everywhere. So
you have to be nice.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Yeah, And I mean I just kind of I was
raised to be that way anyway, which I think is
kind of nice. Like people have to be nice.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Now, give me a hero of yours that was cool, a.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Hero of mine that was cool. I mean there's been
a lot, you know, I'd say Jackson Brown was one
of the top shelf, just just most humble and just like,
you know, I met him and he was very kind.
And then the next time I saw him, I was
(27:59):
actually in Australia and I knew a lot of his
band members who were just incredible. I knew like his
whole band just from like work that I'd done. And
when he came over to say hello on the side
of the stage before he went on for his set,
he was like, hey, Marcus Jackson, remember me? And I
was like, yeah, I do, I really do. I remember you.
(28:22):
You're one of my all time heroes. And he's just
so sweet and so humble, and like when you see
people like that who, like, you know, even the things
that people aren't aware that he did is so groundbreaking breaking,
like you know, producing Warren Zevon and stuff like that,
and he's he can he can be kind and he
(28:43):
can be gentle and humble. You know, I think everybody can.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
You know, what about the new age version of that?
And maybe hero is not the word, but who has
followed you on social media and you're like that's legit?
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Oh man, uh let me think I think the post
Malone followed me, I was like doing something right, that's cool.
And he wears my wife's hat a lot to a
little bird trucking hat that she makes, and he just
we haven't had the opportunity to work together and meet,
but he just seems like a really genuine cat.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
I always wondered the protocol because I often don't follow
the correct protocol a bit awkward just in general, Like
I'm just oh and a couple of days ago, and
I don't know if you remember the comedian Tom Green
way back in the day on MTV, like he had
his groundbreaking what he was doing right his tea talk
(29:40):
show and he'd have songs my bum is on your Head,
And so he followed me on Instagram, and I'm like, well,
now what do I do, Like is the move to
go follow him back? I don't even know he was
on Instagram. I don't know he know he was like
back doing stuff, and so I follow him back and
then I'm like, do I need to go like to
second base? And so then I message it, but all
(30:02):
of us follow me and it might even be an
accidental follow too. So then I'm like, oh God, and
I'm like going through all the steps in my head
like a So I messaged Tom Green and I'm like,
hey man, big fan I hope you're well, and then
I just wait. I keep checking to see that scent
when scent turns to red. And so I'm doing this
like I'm fifteen trying to ask a girl to go
on a date. You know I'm doing dude.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
It's so funny you bring that up, because I have
felt like a fifteen year old girl. It's so many
recent cases with people who have reached out to me
on Instagram and I won't say their names or anything,
but they've reached out to me and they're like, oh man,
I really love what you do. I'd love to work together.
And then I'm like, all right, yeah, let's get together.
I'd love to And it's crickets and it's having like
(30:43):
two or three times, and I'm like, what am I
doing wrong? And I just I'm being left on red
and I'm like, this is how those poor girls must feel.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
And I do the same thing. But it's funny when
you talk about it. I have all the answers. Just
like if I were to tell you would have great advice,
because it's not you. You would say to me something
like hey Tom, great like a normal dude, like just
say what up? And maybe you guys will like be
and so I did. I said what up? And he's like,
I'm coming to Nashville and so on and so on,
and he's like, let's get together. And I'm like, just
freaking crazy.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Now, if that were to happen to us on your situation,
and if you don't ask a question back, because there
may be wondering like, oh he said this, but does
he mean it? He didn't ask me a question back.
He wasn't like what, how, when? Where? So I mean
they could possibly be feeling the same thing about you,
you responded, But unless you've given some sort of like
indicator or an opening of arms to like, hey, let's furt,
(31:35):
they may be doing the exact same thing.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Yeah, I mean I take I take cues from people
like I mean, it's funny, like it actually happened. On
my way here. I ran into somebody that I knew
and I was like, man, we should get together, and
they're like, what are you doing tomorrow? I was like,
I was not expecting that. Nothing. Let's get together.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
And wasn't that You're right jarring? But awesome, yes, because
it actually fell legitimate because everybody does let's get together.
Smoothie one o'clock. What kind of smooth you have there?
Speaker 1 (32:05):
What is it? Wow?
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Because I like all fruit, thank you.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
This one is mostly protein I get so. Yeah, this
is the liquid lunch, so I do. That's what I
do for lunch every day, is a protein shot for you.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
I do like candy worms and nerds. If it's not
that I have nothing to do with it, I needed
to be full candy. But yeah, when someone does that,
when someone's hey, if it's like get together, it feels
very very formula for this town. Yeah, where it's like
a placeholder just in case.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
We call it church top. Yeah, it's like, oh, we
gotta get together. We got to have dinner.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Sometimes ninety numbers in the time every Sunday, nothing ever happens. Right. However,
when someone goes, yeah, how about tomorrow Tuesday, you're like, whoa, yeah, okay,
And even if you can't, you know, they were at
least serious about it. Yeah, and you go to the
next thing. That's pretty cool and you want to send tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah yeah anyway, Yeah, man, you want to see a movie?
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, you want to go up? Okay, look I got
a couple of things.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
The Bobby cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
First of all, I was watching you play in Europe.
Is there a different vibe there?
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I feel like there's a gratefulness from that play. Just
watching your show specifically, I feel like there's a different
energy in those European audiences. Why do I feel that way?
Speaker 1 (33:37):
I think there totally is. There's a I think there's
maybe a deeper appreciation because it's almost like playing Nashville
really because this being my home market. Like when you
do play here, people know it's special and they know
like or like playing at the Bluebird, They're like, I
mean there's only a limited amount of seats, and like
in Europe, it's kind of the same thing. They're like,
(33:59):
it's a long ass fly. You know, you had to
go through customs to be here, and you had to
deal with a lot of you know, backline gear that
didn't work, and we appreciate it. So there's a deeper
appreciation and they're listening more intently. But like we were
talking about earlier, I'm like, they are not having a
good time, but they really are, and they're very sweet
(34:19):
after the fact.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, there was a bunch a bunch of like tiktoks
that you had posted it, and I watch a lot
of your stuff anyway, I'm like, I'm a legitimate fan,
and well thanks. When I was watching those European videos,
not that I didn't see it before, but I just
never had noticed. It just seemed like a density of
like love. Yeah, and a lot of my friends that
(34:43):
will tour Europe the places they play there, But I
think generally it's more compact there anyway, right are those places,
Are those venues they're a little Are you playing the
same size venues or are you being introduced there at
a different stage and level than you are here.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
We felt a shift this time around. We felt like,
you know, something's caught on over here. We're not sure what,
but people are showing up and it felt like, you know,
next time we go, it'll be considerably larger rooms, because
you're right, I mean, it is a little bit more compact.
(35:19):
Everything is. I mean, you know, you'll be hard pressed
to find a commode that you fit on properly, you know,
being an American, but you know a lot of these
venues and it kind of varied from town to town too,
which I thought was interesting because we go from like
you know, in Belgium, we played like this massive place
(35:40):
and it was beautiful, and then like the next night
it's like five hundred people and there's no dressing room,
and we're like, all right, well we got to break
this market.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
What was your house like South Carolina? Like, what was it? Well,
I don't know the physically, what was the house like
a couple of bedrooms.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah. So I initially grew up in a ranch, three bedroom,
one bathroom house with a side room where I had
my drums set and my guitar, and I would just
spend hours in there, either playing drums. My grandfather taught
me how to play a train beat, and he'd play
along with me.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
What's the train beat? Can you oh like it got
it gotta get out. I hear the train coming. That's
what I think when you do that. H yeah. Yeah,
maybe just because we're trains in it and I'm very slow.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Yeah no, no, no, I mean that that's the train be
that's the quintessential. And he taught me, you know, because
it's all about the timing and like not letting it drag,
not letting it rush, just keeping it right there. And
I started on drums actually, so I just I spent
a lot of time alone. But it was you know,
next door was my grandparents house, and I just hang
(36:48):
out with them while my dad was at work and
just play guitar all day or drums to sing.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
We'll just call it the blues before your voice hits puberty?
Speaker 1 (37:02):
What do you I don't know, man, And.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
How bluesy can you be with a high pitch voice?
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Well, I mean you'd have to ask, Like like Tina Turner,
I mean that was that was the and like Aretha Franklin,
Like I liked soul singers. I feel like, you know,
even like bb King after like sixty eight sixty nine
Bibe was putting out like soul records.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
But did it change for at some point where you
were singing but your voice had hit puberty and then
after it.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Was Well, I started singing when I was when I
was thirteen, So I think that's why I made before
that naw, Wow, I just played guitar. I was too
bashful to sing.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Wow. Yeah, first time singing. Then then why in public?
Why what got you there?
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Well, you know I had always kind of expressed my
you know, drama or whatever it was just through the guitar.
And you know, when I was thirteen the girl I
had a crush on died in a car accident, and
it really fucked my head up. And I had I
had all these abandonment issues anyway, and they all just
(38:12):
kind of like came to a head, and I was
really not able to, you know, find a way to
comfort myself, you know. And we didn't have the distractions
like we have now, you know, so I wasn't on
an iPad or anything to like fully escape and immerse
myself in something else. So that's when I decided to
(38:33):
start writing and start singing, you know, just so I
had two more vessels to put my pain through. And
I think the first time I sang publicly, I sang
not my Cross to Bearer by the Alman Brothers band.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Well that's not an easy one. It's not an easy
so you decided to just go. Yeah, I mean it's
I'm a little teapot.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
That's how I learned to swim, you know, I'll just
get thrown into the deep end.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
I spent a lot of time in therapy. I got
some crazy abandonment issues myself. Dad left when I was
five or six. Mom died drugs in her forties, and
so you know, mine are to the point where they're
built in, like they're cooked in. But I can acknowledge them,
and I can see them, and I can see it
affect and I can feel it affected me. But I
(39:24):
can ignowl it. Right like forever I didn't even know. Yeah,
I don't know why. I was just wanted to be
by myself or you know, everything told me I loved
them tomorrow about my wife a few years ago. But
I was just always like, this is who I am,
is who I am, this way am But that's that
was like what mine were rooted in. What was yours
a parent thing? Was yours a home type thing?
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Yeah, my mom left when I was very young, and
that was really hard for me, and that was it's
still something that I really struggle with.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
You know, is she alive now?
Speaker 1 (39:55):
She's still alive. Her health's not very good, but we
you know, we've as things up and we're a lot
closer now.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
You know that you're a better man than I am.
Like my real dad's still alive. I don't talk to him.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yeah, I mean it's it's challenging.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
You know, how old were you?
Speaker 1 (40:11):
I was like five, so like that age is really
really tough because you know, I'd go to school every day.
I'd get sent home from kindergarten every day because I'd
cry so hard that I'd throw up. And this was
a daily thing because you don't know where her mother's at.
It's you know, just as a as a mammal, a living,
(40:31):
breathing mammal, You're just instinctively you're gonna need your mother's
affection and love and attention. And I didn't have it.
And I have my grandmother, who was, you know, really
like my mother.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
My grandma adopted me. We might be the same person. Yeah,
we're except for that smoothie. That's too much I need again,
I need lots of sugar. Yeah. Yeah, So your grandma
was very instrumental and your your upbringing, huh.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
And she was, you know, just a really sassy German
woman and was very loving, very affectionate, and it almost,
you know, kind of balanced it out. How affectionate she was,
you know, made up for the fact that my mother
had left. But you know, I still I love my
mother and I try to take care of her the
(41:16):
best I can. It's funny, like what you said. Like
my friend Dan Soder is a great comedian and he
he's another guy who's like, he's very similar to us
upbringing and everything. He's like, in one of his specialty
he said, you don't think I'm out here seeking strangers
approvals every night because things went well in my childhood,
(41:39):
and that really resonated with me. I'm like, every night,
I'm like, please love.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Me, that dude. That's what I say about why I
even do what I do. Yeah, it is literally for love.
If it's on a microphone, if it's on a stage,
I didn't get it. Therefore I search for it and
I think, and I still do. I still do every day.
The weirdest part for me, I think where it would
punch me in the gut was, let's say I would
go when I would do a theater and it was
(42:03):
a good night. I would, you know, do a few
thousand people in the theater. Tickets ain't cheap in the theater,
so it was a great night. I was on. I'm
feeling the highest of high and I'm feeling that love right,
that love. But it's it's so temporary because then you
go back to your room and you're just buy your
freaking self. And it is the juxtaposition of like even
thirty minutes and that's when I started to kind of
(42:24):
one of the best things was to get because I
wasn't sad about it. Forever it would just be like, man,
I guess this was going to be. When I started
to get sad about it was when I had done
a lot, a lot of therapy and I realized, you
know what what's valuable is if I actually do find
like some real love. I still don't, don't get me wrong,
I still I go to the stage for love. But
like meeting my wife.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
That was a.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
I was thirty eight, we've married a few years, maybe
thirty either night. But again, no one ever said, no
one used the love word growing up for me, no
one was around, right, it's just what. It wasn't that
nobody loved me. It was just you know, other things
hat like you gotta eat, right, you know, I got
grandparents raising me.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
It's more important things.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah, it's a it's a. But when I met her,
everything kind of shifted a bit to where I just
actually wanted to be a more full, like humane being,
like have human How did how did how does your
wife affect? Like who you are as a person?
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Dude? Same thing she made me want to uh, because
I always say like, I treated my body like an
outhouse for a long time. I didn't expect to live
to thirty. So it's like, why would I worry?
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Why would you say that? Though?
Speaker 1 (43:35):
I don't know, man, you just thought that there was
just something in me that was like, you know, I'm
gonna go hard and burn out. I don't know why.
I felt like that's all I deserved, I guess, And
in meeting her. I met her the day after I
quit doing cocaine. And I quit doing cocaine because I
ran out of cocaine, which I think is an important clarification. Uh,
(44:00):
it's not like I wouldn't have kept going.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Did you not have any more money?
Speaker 1 (44:03):
No, I was just out of town and my guy
was here, so I was like, well, I guess i'll
just stop.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
So you met her in the middle of between you
stopping and going back more than after you quit. I
never went back, right, But she may have been a
reason that you didn't.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
She was yeah, I'd say that, you know, at the time,
she was the only reason. And that was the first
time I had felt incapable of putting on a show
worthy of my standards because of how I felt, because
of how I was treating my body. And the second
show of that tour, she you know, came back and
(44:42):
I met her, and just in meeting her, I was like, Oh,
I just want to make this woman proud of me,
you know, man?
Speaker 2 (44:53):
That is it. We were watching a show the other
night and I think it's weird for my wife because
I mean, you're saying so many things that are like
needle pokema, because I resonate so hard, and like the
do you watch the show from have you ever seen from?
Speaker 1 (45:10):
No?
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Okay, a whole different topic, but there was one point
where the wife told the husband in season one, She's like,
I'm so proud of you, and I remember thinking like,
I can be told, I can be given awards, be
given money, I can be given. But the one thing,
because she does not throw it around, it's not meaningless
when she says that. When my wife says that, dude,
(45:32):
that's that's one hundred gold bars, yeah, because she doesn't
she doesn't throw it around. She doesn't say it if
she doesn't mean it. But when she means it, she
really means it. And she's also the hardest person to
impress in the best way.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
So when she says something like that, I think those
are like the only her words are like the ones
I value.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Yeah, sounds very, very identical, similar to my wife in
my situation, because I remember that, you know, with her,
she was the first one to be like what, No,
don't mine too, because I was like, hop on the
bus come to DC with us. She was like I
have a job. No, and she said, no, you're crazy.
(46:13):
Get your shit together and we'll talk.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
That's awesome. Okay, I'm gonna ask a really dumb question,
and I'm not asking it for any reason other than
I'm genuinely curious. And I only am comfortable enough to
ask this because now I feel like we're like the same.
I've never had a drink of alcohol because I've everybody dead,
a bunch of addicts. I would love to I'd love
to drink. I'd love to do all the drugs. Never
(46:36):
done a drug. It would be awesome. I have such
anxiety and they don't sleep well, but I would love
to do drugs. It sounds awesome like it does because
I don't know how to relax. I don't know I
can't relax based in again, a lot of the stuff
that's manifested itself over the years, and I am afraid
to do it because I think I will be addicted
because my mom died of drug overdose. All family. What
(46:59):
is cocaine like, I mean, it's pretty great, and that's
what I hear. Yeah, that's what I hear.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
It's pretty great. But it's it's not something that I
would I have terrible anxiety. It's it's really strange that I,
you know, enjoyed this drug so much. But I think
it's because I liked drinking so much, and at a
certain point you can't. You just can't drink anymore. But
if you have a performance en answer and you take
that and you feel great, you're your fork and you
(47:28):
can keep drinking. I mean, that's that's it for me.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
I don't like viazine in my eyes. I don't think
I like anything of my nose though. I mean, you
get used to it, and I'm not. I'm not glorifying
it at all. I just have I have genuine questions
because I've never had one drink of alcohol. I would
love to be drunk. I'd love you drunk right now.
I'll be awesome.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Yeah, I mean, you know, like, yeah, like that's just weird.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Like you get pretty. If I get water on my nose,
I'm over. Like I'm over it. Like two days to
bounce back from just getting water on I jump in
a hold of my nose. I don't like stuff on
my nose. Uh. When you get anxiety, where do you
feel it physically?
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I feel it here in my temples and I rub
my temples. But when I get it, I I just
started to get inside my head and I get really manic,
and like, you know, I just know I need to
get out of that situation.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
And I don't know how where did awareness come from?
Because again you're talking like somebody who's been who has
learned about himself.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Yeah, you got you gotta do that. I mean, the
awareness came from just a lot of reflection, a lot
of meditation, a lot of therapy, you know, and also
just you know, cutting out the drugs that numbed all
those feelings and those emotions, stopped running from it and
just accepting it. Also, like you know, if you want
(48:49):
to do drugs.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
I would I'm not going to do drugs.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
I would say that my producing psilocybin mushrooms I think
is probably the best.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
How do you microdose a mushroom, take a small into
your tongue. Yeah, well you can't like inject.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Now, so you so you you grind them up basically,
and they make capsules and they have some that are
you know, legal because they're not psychotropic like lions Maine
that kind of thing. Because mushrooms, you know, really are
just like they're very healing. And there's even like the
stoned ape theory about like, you know, Neanderthals taking mushrooms
(49:24):
and kind of like learning how to evolve as like
a like as a civilization and all this. Mushrooms are
a very powerful thing. And I actually microdosed for the
first time when we were recording a portion of our
new record, and it really helped me get out of
that anxious hole that I was in because I couldn't
reckon it for a minute. And I really attribute a
(49:47):
lot of it to that. And it was also a
really self reflective time. But you know, you're gonna think
I'm crazy. You know where I get that when I
get they laughing gas of the dentist.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Yeah, I have the greatest There are two places where
I get most creative. In the shower. Yeah, I'm just
buttoning acking hot waters on me, and I can't go anywhere.
I can't get on my phone. And when I am
on laughing gas and crank it up, it's like I'm
floating in space. And I remember once going like, you know, man,
it felt like I was like Bob Marley or something.
(50:17):
I remember thinking, man, it's just all about love. Everything's
about love. I came out of the dentist oh t
though it was it's just all about love. It's like,
what are you talking about. I was like, I had
a vision. Man, I had a vision. But I think
I don't get there unless I'm totally relaxed. And I
don't relax. I don't really and I and no one
people listen to this know me. Which, by the way,
(50:40):
I think they should legalize weed. I think there's a
lot of natural things that are opening that we run
from because of whatever the consequences, what they say the
consequences are, which the government has created these consequences in
many ways sixty seventy years ago. I mean, it's prohibition
(51:03):
alcohol but not weed, you know, And there's the whole
story of why it was one and not the other.
And you know, they wanted the hemp. It's a whole
thing right, Like everything is selected, and so I think
people take it a little weird for me when I'm like,
I never touched anything, but I think it should be
legal because I think there's a Steve Jobs LSD. Yeah,
they talk about that it opened them up in ways
(51:25):
that he had never been opened before. I have friends
that do that. Do have friends that maybe do is
the word ketamine? Yeah, dude, They're like it it opens
their mind their creators. They're like, if I do I
don't even know how you say I do ketamine. But
if they take ketamine that for like three weeks, it's
(51:45):
like the walls have been moved back five feet in
every part of the room, right.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
I Mean, my my experience with ketamine was very different
because it was it was not under the supervision of
a professional, and it because you can get it in
a white powder and I thought it was something else,
and it took me a whole different direction. I was
on a cruise. I was on a jam cruise and
(52:11):
I was about to go sitting with some friends of
mine from New Orleans. It's a band called Naughty Professor
and there's some of the most just just impressive musicians
that I've ever known. And earlier in that day, we'd
gone snorkeling and I just I just raw dogged it,
just a mask and swimming trunks, and I was just
like drunk on rum and snorkeling with my girlfriend at
(52:36):
the time and the bass player from let Us whose
name is Jesus, and we were just snorkeling. And then
when we finally came up, they were tripping on acid.
We realized that we had drifted like a mile from
the boat, so we were just in open water and
they were still partying. They didn't realize we were missing.
And basically, you know, we were treading water and like
storm rolled in and then the waves were crashing over
(52:58):
us and we were dying and I couldn't tread water anymore.
And finally like they swam out and there was like
a whole rescue effort. It was a whole thing. So
when we came back to shore, needless to say, we
were celebrating our survival. So we started, you know, drinking hurricanes.
And this was in like the Grand Caymans, Cayman Islands,
(53:19):
and we got back on the boat. Anyway, I was
supposed to sit in with Naughty Professor, and I'm like well,
I'm wasted, and these guys are some of the most
impressive musicians I've ever heard in my life. So I
don't want to go up there and sound stupid. I
better do drugs, right, this is the rationale. So it
was like it was literally like cheech and Chong because
(53:40):
this guy's like, well, cause who as you go?
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Here?
Speaker 1 (53:42):
You go man on a big spoon and it was
like I was like more and it was like a
small mountain, you know, and I just like toutored it
and then my whole face was like burning, and I
was like, what did you just give me? And he
was like, oh, it was just a little too man,
just a little blow. I was like, no, it wasn't.
And then he was like no it was. And I
(54:03):
like grabbed him by the shirt and I was.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
Like, what the fuck did you give me, you stupid hippie.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
And he's like oh no, and he's like, hey, which
bag did you give me too?
Speaker 2 (54:12):
It's like, oh my god, now he's asking that's the guy.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Which bag was that that you gave me? He was
like the blue one. He was like oh shit. I
was like, what was it, motherfucker? And he's like it's
kidd of me, and I was like, oh boy, And
I was like, as soon as I ask it, I
just like like I became part of the boat. Like
my feet felt like they were in the boat.
Speaker 2 (54:35):
It was like heavy. Everything felt heavy. Oh yeah, wow, yeah, see,
I don't know, it feels pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (54:42):
I mean it sounds pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (54:44):
That's not pretty good. I mean all the stuff leading
up to it sucked every bit of it.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
It was a bad day. It was a bad time.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
Yeah for me.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
I mean I really acted out in a big way
because I just I just felt like, you know, I
don't know, I just felt like I didn't deserve any
better and nobody would really care. So I feel a
lot better about it now.
Speaker 2 (55:04):
Yeah, I can tell. That's why I feel comfortable asking
you about it. Yeah. Uh, do you ever feel did
you ever feel like once you started to be on
we'll just call it wellness, do you ever feel like
you were going to lose some of your creative edge
if you got too right?
Speaker 1 (55:18):
Hell? Yeah. And I realized only in retrospect I was
able to realize I have the clarity to write about
those feelings, and a clarity I didn't have in the moment,
And I thought I did. But even if I went
back and told myself me my time traveled and went
back and told myself myself, then I still wouldn't have
(55:40):
been able to receive it. You know. It's only something
that I could me personally, could have learned with experience.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
Yeah, because I struggle with this. I struggled with going
to therapy and like really getting into my brain because
I thought, well, I'm so messed up, but that's my
superpower and if I lose that, then I will not
have a superpower anymore. Scared scared of death of it. Right.
But yeah, it took me doing it to realize maybe
(56:10):
being messed up in a way it was holding some
of me back that there was some stuff that I
could unlock. And then also, it's pretty cool to have
empathy because you don't get empathy for free. Yeah, Like
you gotta go through crap come out the other side,
and empathy is one of the tools that you can't
(56:34):
just go by. They have to develop. And I feel
like when I can actually use that with somebody I
care about, like that's extremely valuable. Like that's what I'm
proud of, I think the most. Because I was very
worried about it. If I go get right, whatever that means,
there's no right. But I say that if I go
get right, everything I've ever done is because I haven't
been right. And I feel like if I were the
same thing, if I were like or it's like Kurt Cobain, right,
(56:58):
it would use cliches ample like he's created all this
on drugs. What what's he gonna do? How's he going
to create a not on drugs? You know that, Yeah,
that would be a concern. But I've found if anybody's
listened to this, that it's actually unlocked things that I
did not even know were in there. Yeah, and I
can still be messed up, Like I still hold on
to that if I need it.
Speaker 1 (57:18):
I mean, yeah, there's there's arguments to be made. I think,
you know, there's certain acoustic versions of songs from the
nineties after someone's gotten sober that don't really compare to
the drug addult versions that they did. Yes, maybe thirty
years prior. I would agree, but I don't know. I
(57:40):
mean it's hard to say. I mean, a lot of
the a lot of the creative, Like in the late sixties,
people were designing cars, you know, just on LSD. Like
you said, like Steve Jobs.
Speaker 2 (57:54):
You know, I keep something on my phone and I's
got a couple more questions for you, And then I
appreciate you coming to do this again just because I'm
a big fan. This is exciting for me. I get
to talk to people all the time, but not really
people i'm a fan of, So really, thank you and
thanks for being so generous and open and forever. I
did not think that I had or could experience anxiety
(58:16):
because I never had in the daytime, meaning I would
I just go right. And I think a lot of
that just me going is in a sense running from
everything I did not want to face, but on a
daily level, like it was just if I work myself,
and first of all, I'm successful, I won't be in
poverty anymore. That'd be cool. I want to go back
to that. Secondly, if I work really hard and I
(58:39):
keep going, people are I'm celebrated for that. Loot me.
You're the guy that works hard. And the other one
is I have no time to worry or to have
any sort of introspective time. I don't have to deal
with it. So what happens is now when I go
to sleep, I wake up. I sleep like two hours
and I wake up not purposefully my neck and my hands.
(58:59):
That's where mynxiety comes. Neck in hands. Yeah, I have
like two hours. I wake up and I'm just like, oh,
it's been tough for the last few years. But I
have this that I keep it on my phone and
it says your anxiety will scale proportionally to your ambition.
And the whole point of this is the anxiety sucks.
(59:20):
But you know why you have it because you either
want to get out of a bad situation to something
good or you want to get from a good situation
to something great. Like you have huge dreams, and people
that don't have huge dreams don't have huge anxiety.
Speaker 1 (59:30):
Yeah, I love that, man. Yeah, you'll have to send
me that so I can hold on to it. I mean,
it's it's really crazy. I mean I've only heard a
few people speak about it the same way. But like,
even before the show, the thing about my anxiety is like,
it's such a liar. It takes me and it's like,
(59:51):
you're very tired, you probably shouldn't go on.
Speaker 2 (59:53):
Do you have any the sick one? Does it? Ever?
Till you're sick, It's.
Speaker 1 (59:56):
Like you gotta go to the bathroom. You know you're
going to piss yourself right now, you're very sleepy. Drink
three red bulls. So I drink three red bulls. I'm like, Okay,
I did it, and I'm still very tired. But then
I get up there and then after the gig, I'm like,
there they are. They hit me, and you know, I
don't want to be alone at all. I'm the same
(01:00:17):
way like I usually just I usually try to fall asleep,
like while the rest of the band's watching a movie.
You know, I don't like to have any time just alone.
And like you got to face that. You know, that's
crazy to have something going on. Like, you know, I
didn't pitch it as an idea, but I even told
(01:00:38):
my bandmates. I was like, you know, I really see
how people could get into the group shower thing, you
know what I mean, because like we're playing these arenas
and they got like a like a hockey team, like
showers all the way around. I'm like, I really get
it because the camaraderie is still carrying over. We're just
getting clean. But we're talking about how the gig went.
You know, I'm like, I still want the conversation to
(01:00:58):
be going. I don't want to be alone in the.
Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
Two Birds One Stone. You gotta get clean. I'm saying,
might as well live and.
Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Maybe I should pitch this yeah, you know as.
Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
A web series soon, you know, while you're out, I
get the content. One thing I wanted to bring up
where your acoustics shows. Yeah, when you talk about, hey,
you got to be up on stage, I usually have
your guys. This is just you and one dude, So
I mean this is that you have your instruments, of course,
but but you've got to now communicate with the audience.
If you're doing an acoustics show, you can't just get
up there and jam.
Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
I know it's it's scary, but it's really exciting. Man.
It's gonna be the first time that I can sit
and talk about what the songs are about, you know,
Like Goodbye Carolina is a good example of a song
that I wrote about a friend of mine that committed suicide,
and you know, I felt like it was a letter
that he left through me, you know, because he was
(01:01:49):
a songwriter, and a lot of people just think it's
about you know, moving from South Carolina, and it's not
at all. So it's an opportunity for me to speak
with the audience and give a better description of what
the songs are about and where I was when I
wrote them.
Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
It's gonna be self fulfilling. I'm excited about it, Yeah,
because they'll be hanging on every single word, I hope
as much as they are lyric solo. Yeah, that'd be awesome.
And we talked about the tour before you came in.
So but uh so two final questions, Brooks and Dunn.
You're you did the song with those guys?
Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Man, love those guys, big friends of both of them,
love them. How did that come You did rock my World?
I rob my Little country Girl? What happened there? How'd
that come together?
Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
So? So, that's a Kicks tune and they and they
sent it. They asked me Kicks wanted me to do
that one, which meant a lot to me that he
he specifically requested that I do that song, and you know,
I was. I was really excited to bring my band
in and do it as a unit. And they were
just really so kind and so welcoming.
Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
And they give you any like, hey, this is how
we want you to do it, or they go like
you just do you.
Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
They just said go for it. That's awesome, and I
felt really empowered by that. I mean, they obviously offered
me direction and the producer was really great, but they
were like, just go, just just go. And you know,
I look back on that now, it's like a time
when I was really struggling with my weight, and so
(01:03:27):
I can't even enjoy because we recorded that like a
year ago. I can't even enjoy like the promo of
it because I'm like, you know, because of my self
image issues. But listening to the track is really special
for me because I'm really excited with how it turned out.
Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
Yeah. Last thing, the Experience Hendricks show that we were
also talking about a little before you got here. So
I mean, it's a lot of a lot of excellent musicians,
a lot of them I've seen too, which is super cool.
But how did you get involved in this?
Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
Man? My uh my manager who's here pretty hit me
up and was like, do you want to entertaining I
did doing this Experience Hendrick thing, and I really jumped
at the chance because I mean, just like anybody who's
a guitar freak or fanatic like myself is, you know,
just enamored by Hendrix at an early age, and Hendrix
(01:04:25):
is just one of the all time greats and just
to be you know, mentioned alongside him in any ways
as an honor. So it also maybe gives me an
opportunity to uh have an excuse to buy a new
strat or an old strat that's new to me.
Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
Do you have anything he ever had?
Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
I played a couple of things he had, and that's
always really how'd.
Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
You do that? Because he played left handed but flipped right?
Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
Mm hmm. Yeah, I've had somebody in Japan brought me
one of his strats.
Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
How could you do you? Well, they just brought it
cause I'm like tande, they strung it normal. Oh they
did for me. Well that makes a lot of sense.
Then that's you could have just stopped me like five
seconds ago when I'm like bending my arm trying to
figure it out. Uh, Marcus, thanks for coming over, man,
this is uh man.
Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
It's cool that you're cool, and I mean that in
the best way, because, like I'm a fan. Sometimes you
don't want to meet people you're a fan of because
you're you know, like you said, you don't know, but
maybe you just have to be nice and I'll accept
that too. Yeah yeah uh. You guys follow Marcus Real
Marcus King on Instagram, on TikTok at Marcus King. There's
so because I follow you on TikTok. There's so much
great live footage and your dogs, he's the man. Yeah yeah,
(01:05:36):
your dog. Thanks Marcus.
Speaker 4 (01:05:38):
Thanks, thanks for listening to a Bobby Cast production
Host
Bobby Bones
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