TRACY LAWRENCE: Country music LEGEND, Tracy Lawrence, shares his journey of fame and wild success!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Cary Line. She's a queen and talking and you the song.
You know, she's getting really not afraid to feel as
episode and so just let it flow. No one can do.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
We quiet cary Line is sound of Caroline. Okay, great, han,
We are here with the living legend, the incredible Tracy Lawrence. Hello,
and I just started this without recording it, so I'm
glad to just check that out. But now I was saying, though,
how does it feel to be the person when they

(00:43):
come up to you, they're like, man, you're the reason
that I love country music.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
I think, as I've gotten older after all these years
in it, and you look back and reflect over it,
there's so much you take for granted as a young person,
especially when when the machine.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Starts, did it start for you right away?

Speaker 1 (01:01):
You know, I have probably one of the most unique stories.
They finished this thought when I'll come back to that
as I look back over all those years, you take
a lot for granted as you're younger, and then you
realize that you know, you have a string of hits,
and then you're like on this machine and everything you're
cracking it out, and now year and you're dropping four singles,
and then you realize that that's really not normal. And

(01:24):
then you go through some dark periods, you know, a
couple of divorces and some problems in your career and
all these things. And then as you get to a
later stage in life and you've kind of stuck it
out through the hard times, and you really understand how
especially the whole thing is and how few people actually
get to enjoy that ride, and I think you start
to appreciate the fans more. At least that's the place
that I got to where I really do actually love it,

(01:46):
you know, get burned out like everything else, but I
don't take it for granted like I used to. I
really do appreciate a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Did you know that you're so profound and had so
much wisdom about life? When you saying time arches on?
Did you already know that?

Speaker 1 (01:58):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:58):
That's like the song for like you just basically said
what that song kind of says, you know, And I.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Think that is probably the best lyric that I ever recorded.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
That's like a perfect song.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
But you know, there was one reason that I recorded
it was just for the shock factor, because it smokes
a lot of dope, and I knew that that was
either going to strike a quartering play because you got
to understand the mentality of radio. Back then, I had
stations in the country that would not play if the
world had a front porch because I said the word cuss.
I didn't say a cuss word. I said the word.

(02:28):
That would have been ninety three ninety four, that was
the album before Time Marches. But I realized too that that,
you know, Hank Junior had a huge career, and I
don't think he ever had a number one record. You know,
Jimmy jim what Jimmy Buffett's done. Uh, The only number
one one record he ever had was to do it
with Alan Jackson, and he has a massive career. So
I realized that that sometimes there's something fine about shock

(02:51):
factor or having a novelty or something that works in
your favor, uh, and just kind of roll with it.
You know, it's a it's it's a journey.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Did you know it was that? So you didn't even
know how profound that song was.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
I knew the lyric was great, but I appreciated the
rest of it. But you know, the craftsmanship of a
guy like Bobby Braddock, who is truly an American poet. Yeah,
wrote it by hisself, you know, to say that mould
much about multiple generations of a family in a three
minute song was absolutely amazing. And to build a vividly
paint those pictures with words.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Where everyone can understand that such.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
A skill set, you know. But think about this though,
that was my dad's least favorite song. That he hated
this song. And I never thought about this, and we
talked about it right before he died. He people's mindset,
if you think about it, they think that the songs
that I sung on the radio when my career was
really hot were very personal and that was my life
and that was what was going on. So I talked
about my daddy having a girlfriend in another town and

(03:46):
he had to live with that for years.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Oh, deeply true, But he was it.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Deeply affected his life, and.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
He was everyone's going to think this is about him
because he was in.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Our little town. I mean, he was a vice president
of the little bank and kind of nine hundred people
where I grew up.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Did you have to go and tell everybody it's not
about him? No?

Speaker 1 (04:03):
I mean I never understood why he didn't like it
until right before he passed away. How did you finally
understand he and I had a long conversation clearly that.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
I told you, why didn't.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
He was just a very guarded internally person, So he.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Was just internal So he struggled with your career accidentally. Yeah,
and he was trying.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
And I would have never thought about it when I
picked songs like that. I never thought the ramifications that
that something like that could have happened on my family
and people that I loved.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
WHOA, what did you think about when you were picking songs?

Speaker 1 (04:33):
You know? I Uh, I had this really crazy method
of the way that I went through picking songs back
in the day, because we would get mail boxes from
Atlantic They and our department would collect thousands and thousands
songs and I and I would do a lot of
my own an R work too, but I listened to everything.
So I got this system where I would start with
a box of cassettes basically it's what everything came on

(04:55):
back then, and I had a cassette player that had
a vso so I could control the speed. I could
speed it up, slow it down. And I would spend
each day when I was listening through records, I would
go through everything in that basket, anything that I liked
i'd mark it and put it aside. If I didn't
like it, if something was redundant about an opening line,
or I got bored before it even got to the course,
I scrapped it, moved on. At the end of the day,

(05:17):
I would go through and when I would work out
a rough sequence and I would make a comp tape
of all those with the speed that I thought I
wanted it, and then I would listen over and over and
over and over to the burn factor. And then the
next box I would go through, I would do the
same thing. When I would burn things, burn out on songs,
I'd kick them out and by the time I got
down to where I was ready to cut that album,
I would have about fifteen to twenty songs. I would

(05:38):
have the record sequenced. I would know the tempos I
wanted the songs in, and if I didn't hook something,
I had something else to back it up. I would
go in as completely prepared by that time I got
the studio.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
How long did that process take?

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Oh, it would take months, but I would I would
work on.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
That burn factor factor, I mean burns you out.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yep. See how long it took me to burn out
on the song Okay, So I'd listen to that comp
tape over and over and over now, which.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Was burned out fast on. But what if it was
a big hit that just burned you off fasted? You
never had that, And that's why your song's never burn out.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
You never had that burnt me. I tried to burn
me out.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Of them for an aha moment. That's why your songs
are classics and timeless because you don't burn out of
your songs.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Holy shit. Even with my own writing, I did my
own writing in same way. It had to fit the
pictray and I don't know anybody that had that particular system.
That was just my own creative process.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
So you had to love it, You had to feel.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
It, and I had to live with it for a while,
and you.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
Had to be able to live with it for a while,
not burnt out of it.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
And I still enjoy singing sticks and stones every night
after thirty something years.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
What do you love? Is just the way it feels?
Or is it different?

Speaker 1 (06:42):
You know? And I've had drummers. It's frustrating to me.
Everything had to be something you could dance to. For
me because I grew up a bar a bar guy,
and the whole thing with bar bands is you got
to keep people on the dance floor. If they don't dance,
they don't drink beer. They don't drink beer, you don't
come back. And I found a lot of those. So
but as I go back through my repertoire, you listen
to a lot of things on that Sticks and Stones record.

(07:04):
They were influenced by a lot of the stuff that
I was cover, songs that I was playing as I
was developing my sound when I was a kid.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Wow, how old were you when you got into this
whole thing? And how did it happen for you?

Speaker 1 (07:16):
You know, when I came to Nashville. This is I've
told the story, but people are shocked. They really don't
believe how fast this happened. I moved to Nashville in
the fall of nineteen ninety. It was first of September.
I've never been here before. I had a beat up
O car. I played my last club, gigg in Louisiana,
and they took a collection at the door. I had
seven hundred.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Dollars in my pocket, so that was it.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
I came with nothing, with no desire to ever go back.
I'm coming to say I've dreamed about being here my
entire life.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
You just knew this was your dream.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
September. First week of September, I got to Nashville. I
started going to every club that had an open mot
night where they had songwriters and rose musicians. There was
a hand about about five or six of them around,
and they had weekly contests where if you won, you
went one hundred bucks, but then you couldn't be you
could win that one for another four five weeks. So
I'd make the rounds and I'd make enough to pay
the bills and gas money. By December of ninety I

(08:06):
wound up at a supper club over in Kentucky called
Live at Libby's in Daysville, Kentucky. WBVR in Kentucky broadcasts
back into on Saturday night back in the Nashville, and
it was like an opry style show. So they'd have
a house band and then all the young kids would
get up and do a couple of songs, and then
they had their headliners after the intermission, and they had
their George Jones impersonator and their Johnny Cash impersonator, and

(08:28):
you'd get the whole thing. And I was there in December.
Some executives from Atlantic, and the guys that eventually became
my managers came to see somebody else that was on
the show, uh huh, and like me better. In January
I went to the Bluebird and did my first showcase
for Atlantic. They agreed to sign me. In May of
ninety one. I signed the contract the day I walked

(08:49):
in the studio to cut Sticks and Stones. It was
seven months.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
And I didn't knock it right out the gate.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Number one, right out of the box.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
What was your first time one? Six sounds? Was your
first number one?

Speaker 1 (08:58):
And then right after that came out, I had Sticks
and Stones had three number ones on top five off
that record.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Okay, what were they?

Speaker 1 (09:04):
What was the order us Sticks and Stones, Today's Lonely Fool,
somebody paints walls top five and then run behind was
the fourth, and it was number one, and then came
behind it with Alibis with four number one records. Oh,
seven months from the time I rolled it in town.
I never knocked on a door, never went to it,
never did demos, never sung demos, and didn't do any
of that shit.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Okay, So I need to talk to you about this
because everybody has different theories about everything. I think everything
has to do with an energy field that you're in.
Like I think that like stuff happens based on like
some sort of energy field. So like what energy field
were you in? What mindset were you in? Were you intimidated?
Were you confident? Did you know when you came to
town that like you were, it was awesome?

Speaker 1 (09:46):
It was destiny?

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Did you know this was all?

Speaker 1 (09:48):
I believed with everything in my being, that this was
what God put me here?

Speaker 2 (09:52):
How did you know that? What does that feel like?
How'd you have the confidence to like go all out?

Speaker 1 (09:56):
I don't know. I just always and I basically had
this my entire I remember feeling this way when I
was ten eleven years old.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
You weren't scared to get up and sing in front
of people because you knew this.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
One was singing in church and stuff. When I was
four or five years old, I remember in kindergarten when
my mother remarried, my stepdad raised me. The guy we
were talking about earlier. I remember we were in kindergarten.
There were three little kindergarten classes, and at Christmas time
they had put several little bulletin boards around, probably four
or five or whatever, and each one of them was
a Christmas theme, and so she broke the class up

(10:25):
in different little groups where there's three or four kids
in each one. I was in every group because I
could carry a tune and I could sing. I was
the face of every single group when I was five.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
What was your personality like?

Speaker 1 (10:38):
Oh, very outgoing, very rambunctious. I think I got a
whipping every day in kindergarten. I think I was in
the hall every day.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Were you nervous about life or anything?

Speaker 1 (10:46):
You know? I did have, You know, there was that's
a whole deep rabbit hole. You know. My mom and
biological father divorced when I was very young, and I
had no contact with him. I never saw him or
anything until I was like nineteen, so there was some infusion.
There were some issues like we all you know, we
all feel you. I think trying to prove that I

(11:09):
was had worth to my stepfather, and there's a long
story in there that that led to getting to that point.
I always felt like I was you know, he looked
like I wouldn't as good as his kids were. And
I did use that as fire. I used it as
feeling gas tank because I was determined that I was
going to prove them all wrong.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
I think that that is a good way to use
those feelings.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
And I and that's what's that frustrates me so much
about what I see in society nowadays. I could have
blamed everybody else for anything. You know, we all have
we all have bad things happen to us in our life.
But if you can find a way to use it
to motivate you, Yes, take the bad and make something
good out of it, and don't let anybody deter you.
And you can achieve anything you want in this world.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
And don't get like, Okay, So how do you when
you're stuck? Because I'm sure you've had some moments where
you've had some hides and then there's always a dip
after a big long string. So when you hit the
dip and when it does feel like things aren't in
your favor and it does feel like things aren't fair
or whatever, what do you do to what mindset do
you get into? And how do you get crawl out
of it? Because I can get stuck at holes and

(12:13):
then I have to actually use some tools to get
myself out of there. How do you know that time
is going to march on? So I keep coming back
to it, but believing that it's going to work out.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
It's gotten easier as I've gotten older, you know, because
as you get older, you realize that everything's just a season.
But when you're a teenage kid or you're a young person,
everything is just so overwhelming. Right now, it's like, you know,
it's like I just don't think I'm gonna make it.
And I remember feeling that way at times, are feeling
like I just didn't have direction and didn't know where
I wanted to go prior to coming to Nashville. But

(12:46):
once those wheels started turning, I mean, it was so
fast that I just got consumed by this other world.
But you know, as you go through life, I feel
like I've been able to navigate those waters after thirty
something years in the business, and still you'll be able
to put the cowboy hat on and go be the
people that think Tracy Lawrence on the records and on
the videos and all that stuff was, you know, because

(13:07):
they still see this guy with long hair. But I
can dress down, and I can go anywhere anywhere. I
travel alone. I fly alone, nobody bothers me. I turn
the switch off. I know how to turn it on,
and I know how to turn it.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Off, so you're not just stuck in your successful I.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
Don't I talk about myself in third person.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Even when you walked in. You walked in this house
just so nonchalantly, just like a regular old guy, just
like walking in the house, just being norm But you don't.
You're like, you're such a presence, and you're so talented,
and you've changed country music. And like I said, people
are like, you're the reason I love country music, But
that's not I don't feel like that is what you
fully hang your hat on.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Oh no, no, no, you know, And and for a
long time, it really was. It was everything that I
was about, and I thought, you know, I've got to
cut songs that are reflective of what's going on in
my personal life. And you know, I see, you know,
Morgan Evans and Kelsey and Kelsey going through the whole thing.
So they're airing their laundry with their songs and their writing.

(14:09):
I was kind of guilty of some of that too.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
How do you feel about that? What do you feel
about airing your laundry and your divorce?

Speaker 1 (14:14):
You know, I don't have the right to say anything
of judgmental about them, but just identified. I don't. I
don't have to do that anymore because it's not all
of who I am.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Which songs were directly related to, like.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Oh the heartbreak songs and things, And it seemed like
sometimes I would even create drama just to fit the
narrative of the song. I mean, it caused me a
lot of problems in my personal relationships. You know, it
was really but you got to realize I was the
guy growing up that would answer your question with the
lyric from a song. I was that wrapped up in
it all the time. It's all I thought about.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
How would you consider your persona like when you're all
when you were wrapped up in it? How would you
describe yourself?

Speaker 1 (14:52):
Oh? Cocky? You know, don't You kind of have to
be though to a degree. But there's there's a bad
cocky and there's a good cocky.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
You know, when did you learn the different?

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Oh, divorce will do that to you when you get
knocked down and the industry kind of turned on me
for a while and having to climb back out of that.
You know, you make some poor decisions, but you know
it's just part of the process. And I still am
close with some of my peers from that timeframe, and
you know, I still see some of them trying to
come out of it because some of the guys have

(15:21):
never had to go through really bad problems or any
diversity in their careers, and they seem to still be
holding on of that bravado and they and so most
of the times, I feel like they've forgotten where they
come from a little bit.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
So do you kind of think that it's maybe not
a bad thing to get knocked down?

Speaker 1 (15:38):
I don't think it is. It's not It's not the fall,
it's the getting back up.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
How do you get back up? Because I feel like
I've been through a few of those. Now I'm turning
forty this year, and it's like I feel like now
it's like I can feel it when I'm on a high.
I can feel it when I'm in low and when
I'm gonna lowe, I'm like, oh, shisters, here we go again.
I gotta get back out of this. How do you
get out of it?

Speaker 1 (15:58):
Alcohol? Yeah, yeah, I don't know. It's different every time.
It depends on the circumstance. You know.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
I wouldn't say like whenever your first knock in your
career came, what was the first knock in your career.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
So I'll even I'll even get really personal with you.
We've had some obviously, raising kids as a challenge, and
I've made a lot of mistakes, and sometimes you fall
back on what you knew as a child and how
you were raised. And obviously we live in a different
day and age, and and I've been guilty of responding

(16:32):
to my children like my stepfather.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Responded to me because it's what you knew, what I knew, and.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
It's it's caused some problems with my kids. And instead
of me seeing myself and now, I haven't dealt with
it very well because I just I didn't. I didn't
have the maturity to understand it. And I'll let my
anger get the best of me. And I actually went
to a treatment facility not too often long ago. It's
spent a couple of weeks and I went through the
whole purging process of really trying to get down and

(16:59):
let some things go that I didn't even realize I
was holding on to. That was very freaking liberating. It was.
It was painful, and I fought it, but but you realize,
you go back and you realize that there's a lot
of stuff that you've developed in your personality and things
that have happened to you that in a man's world,
you just just push it down, Just push it down,
just push it down and go on. And I really

(17:22):
learned and not take all that stuff so seriously.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
But it took our bodies too.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
Oh. It affects everything that you do. It does your
sleep patterns, the way you eat, your your motivations, your
your consciousness, just the way you're able to focus on
things and multitask. It affects everything.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Way did it go?

Speaker 1 (17:42):
It sucked?

Speaker 2 (17:43):
It sucks to get healthy. It's a pain in the ass.
Like I've done so much work on myself and gone
to so much therapy and done so.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
Many like but there's no shame in that.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
And I, you know what exhausting. I'm like, when is
it ever gonna stop?

Speaker 1 (17:56):
You know, it's but there's there's Yeah, I going through
traumatic experiences and oh, you hear so many people throwing
PTSD around like it's a bag M and MS these days.
And and we didn't even have those terms, you know,
thirty years ago. Uh, and going through a mugging and
a lot of stuff that I went through back then.
I never got mugged. I never got the mental health

(18:16):
that I needed. I didn't. I just shoved it down
out yet, Oh you didn't know that. The night that
I finished the background vocals on Sticks and Stones, I
got mugged on music ground, got shot four times.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
You got shot four times where.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
Through the knee and the hip and the hand where
I hit the guy in the mouth and grab the gun.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
You hit the guy in the mouth and graying to
take somebody to go rapel girls with me? Are you
kidding me? And what? How did this was?

Speaker 1 (18:49):
Uh? She got away and uh they all turned on
me and emptied a couple of pistols on me.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
So And that was right when the album I was
I just finished the recording process. They weren't even done mixing.
But I never dealt with the trauma of it. I
was so focused on I gotta get back. I gotta
get back. I'm gonna lose my slot. If I don't
get healthy enough to get an album package shot and
do the things that I need to do, somebody else
is going to be in there, and I'm never gonna
get another chance. And I never never dealt with any

(19:20):
of that stuff. And it and it caused a lot
of anger, and it would resurface from time to time
when the stress would get bad, and it caused problems
in marriage and costs. It just it spirals. There's it's
just so much and and so my advice is never
not take the time to get the help that you need.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
Oh man, yeah, yep, yeah. I feel like that is
like a generation. Like I feel like like my parents
is up too. My dad always jokes, he's like, I
can't even start with therapy because if they cracked this open,
I would just die.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
That's scared me about going. It's like, I don't want
to go do this. There's some stuff done there I
don't want to remember and to open up stuff I
don't need to be opened up. But I think we
throw all that stuff around too much nowadays. People's skin
is way too thin nowadays. They get upset by way
too much stuff. It's you know, when the real stuff hits,
it's gonna be bad because nobody knows how to deal

(20:13):
with any of it.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
You Okay, so you've had over thirty Wait, how long
has your career ben?

Speaker 1 (20:20):
Well, let's see twenty two years. So first single came out.
I think that August of ninety one.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Okay, ninety one, you've eighteen number one's Gramy nominated. You've
had how many.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Albums, oh, sixteen, seventeen, sixteen, seventy and something like that.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
You probably toured everywhere with everyone in every different type
of situation you could possibly be in. I'm sure you've
met some of the most influential people in the world
and had dinner with them, drink cigars. You've done the
private jets, You've done it all. What how does it
all shake out? Like? You know, because everyone's always like
when I get there, then I just got to like,

(20:55):
you know, everyone gets on that hampsterel. I just gotta
get here, gotta do this, I gotta go go go.
What Okay, So you've had it, You're that person, done
it all, and you walk in like you're just a
regular person. So what is it? What is it like
when you get all the things you could ever dream them?
Does it answer the prayers?

Speaker 1 (21:09):
No? Not really, because that money don't buy happiness. I
would rather have money.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Without the fame, right they suck?

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, And and fame without the money would suck even worse.
Oh yeah, because you have to deal with all the
pressures and everything, but you don't have the resources to
protect yourself for.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
You kind of need the money. When you're famous, need
more money because you need bigger resources.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
I mean, for instance, it's this little Olivia Olivia Done,
this little gymnast from LSU. You know who she is, Okay, Okay,
So she's their gymnastics team. I think they just finished
fourth in nationals. They just finished up. This little girl
has like eight million TikTok followers. She's bringing down about
two and a half million dollars a year, and she's

(21:50):
got just hordes of these young boys. They had to
hire security for her at LSU to follow them to
gymnastic meets because they were so overwhelmed by all of it.
These boys were out of control. But she's getting money
with it, but it's still at a young age without
the tools of the mindset of being able to handle
all of it. So you've got all these young influence
I don't know, you got all these young influencers that

(22:10):
are out there that are having money that really don't
know how to deal with it and don't have a
support network of anybody around them to show them how
to deal with it, you know, or you know, some
of these guys are making just tons of money, but
they're just jerks, right, So where's the balance at when
it comes down to it. I think it's more important
to be a good human being and to give back

(22:32):
to society. And that doesn't mean that you're trying to
be perfect or not trying to make mistakes or trying
to forget what you learned or the stuff that you
screwed up over life. I mean, just be a genuine
person and learn from what you've gone through.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
Right.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Money can't do that, It really can't.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
And like, I feel like there's some moments where you know,
it's really fun.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
It's all. I mean, it's a lot easier to here's
another perspective. You know, everybody says, you know, I love
to have money. How many times do you see these
people when hundreds of millions of dollars in a lottery
ticket or whatever. The next thing you know, their marriage
is destroyed, they've lost everything they have, they've lost all
their money.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
So what a success? Then in that point, you.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
Know, if you don't work for it, it doesn't mean
anything because it's really not about the money and the
trus Some of the truly most successful people that they
get old and you say, why do you keep working?
You've got hundreds of millions of dollars in the bay.
Because it's not about the money. It's about the intellectual
challenge of being able to continue to be successful. It's
like moving pieces on a chess board. And that's a

(23:34):
big part of what I think true success is is
being able to continue to thrive and have a business
mind and be successful and to try different ventures and
to move forward with other things that are intellectually stimulating
to you. And I think that because I don't want
to be one of these guys that just says I
want to retire and I'm done. I'm going to go
play golfer. I'm gonna that's. There's no challenge in that.

(23:55):
There's not. I want to move on to other things.
I don't. I never stopped doing what I do, but
I want to do things that are challenging on another
level I think most people do.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Have you ever wanted to quit? Because no, never, no, never.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
Even in the worst times, never wanted to quit. It's
had its challenges. I've gone from at times from having
three or four buses and running a pack of semis
to haul back down on one bus with a band?

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Is that humbling?

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Very humbly?

Speaker 2 (24:21):
What do you do about getting humbled? Because a lot just.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
Just knuckle down. You remember why you were there in
the first place.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
And what is that?

Speaker 1 (24:27):
I just wanted to see music, ride on the bus.
That's all I ever wanted to do.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
But life is going to humble us, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, And just when you start to get a little
big for your breches, what's the things that families said
to me when I was growing up. You get a
little big for your brenches there, God will knock you down. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Oh man, I know, I know, And I feel like
I think you said it gets easier as you get older.
Is that just because you've gone through more of them.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
I just think that you're able to block out more
of the distractions. You know, you're you're not out chasing
waitresses in the bars. You've got to steady home life.
You've got so many things that are stabilized in your
life that you don't give yourself opportunity to get distracted
as much. I go to bed earlier hour, I don't
require I get up earlier. You know, there's a lot
of the things that were priority to me twenty years

(25:10):
ago that are not even a consideration. Now have more
time to focus on more creative things and business ventures
and doing other things that are interesting to me.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
What fills your bucket? So obviously you love music and
great music and singing and performing, but what are the
things that you need to have in your bucket to
be full?

Speaker 1 (25:28):
You know, religion is a flowing thing for me. My
wife is a prayer warrior and she tries to keep
me on task with That's an ebb and flow thing
for me. I'm a believer, but I'm a I believe
what I believe in my own way, and I believe
you can put that in a box and put across
on top of it and call it religion. That doesn't
work for me.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
I don't think we have to do it.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
I don't think we have to either. You know. I
value my old friends and I spend a lot of
time nurturing them.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
And find out how your friends are. I mean, seriously,
that's a true song, isn't.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
It It is? But sometimes just to hand full of
people from back home and a handful of buddies from college,
you know, And I've made some great friends along the way,
but those old ones you're never gonna make a kid.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
What do you like about an old friend?

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Just the fact that they know everything about you, They
know the true person that you are. They remember the
kid that they used to run around town on bicycles
with and hang the fishing pole off the handlebar or
the bicycle and go fish ponds on the weekend, play
baseball with. I remember all that stuff, you know, scrapping on.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
The playground, you know, And why is that so good
to feel that again?

Speaker 1 (26:27):
It's just it's good to have those memories. They just
it's kind of a happy thing.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
It's like innocence and I can.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
Close my eyes right now and I can go back
and remember playing a little leig ball and remember games
when I wasn't on the field, chasing fireflies out in
the outfield, you know, just just silly things like that,
you know. It's just those are comforting thoughts.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
When you're on stage doing a set, is there a
moment in a set or a song that you hit
that like you're like, oh, this is like I mean,
this is like your favorite moment or is there like
have you had some moments when something just goes all
over you and it's like beyond you.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah, you know, it's just different. Now. I wouldn't say
it's completely autopilot, but I know where I get.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
The responses, which one where.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Sticks and stones will get one. Alibis always gets a
big one, and I build those things in. I find
out who your friends are gets a big one. Paint
me at Birmingham is what I close with and it
gets a massive respect.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Okay, tell me why that one gets the biggest response.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
I don't know. I think it was just because I
had been It was after my second di vorce and
charts for a while, and I think the way that
I came back with such a massive record, I think
the fans were kind of rooting for me, But it's
the younger people that really gravitate to the Thing that
was special about that song is everybody thought I was
just singing about Birmingham. They don't realize that that it

(27:49):
could be about. You can make that anything you want,
but the song was really written about a style of house.
Paint me a Birmingham, Pat me back into that picture
of that time. It was written about a lake house
and be about that moment in time. It could be
about Burmiham, Alabama. But you can make it anything that.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
You want, big old.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
Record, whatever you wanted to be.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
Baby that feels good? Was that your biggest one? No? Okay,
So I'm from Texas and I always felt like you
were seeing Texas Tornado just about me, and I feel
like that's my personality.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
That was a big Would you believe that was the
one song that I really didn't want to cut? Why?
I just didn't. I didn't. It just didn't land well
with me. And I didn't like being forced to do things.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
You burn out on it.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
No, no, no, let me tell you what to do.
So I was wanting to start producing at the time,
and uh so I had. We'd been given an opportunity
to do a song on the Maverick soundtrack, and I
cut a song called Renegade, Rebels and Rogues, and it
was the first thing that I got to produce. And
I would have been working with James Drive for years.
And so Rick Blackburn, who was the head of Atlantic

(29:03):
at the time, brought me this Bobby Braddock song. Bradick
wrote that same guy that wrote tom Watch is on
Oh yeah, and so he brings it too many. He's
really adamant about me to recording the song, Like I
just don't rick. I don't feel it, I don't like it.
And I said, here, let me make it do with you.
You let me do three sides on this next record,
and I'll cut it for you. And I wound up
producing Texas Tornado as any fool can see, and I

(29:24):
do it with John Anderson and two of them are
number one records. But I cut a deal I had
to give to get so that was my bargaining chip
that I used to be able to start producing my
awn music.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
What's your favorite song to sing?

Speaker 1 (29:37):
Oh gosh, I love I see it now. I just
love the melody of it. It's just such a special song.
I can't some knots. I can't do it again.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
I see it and as how every woman wants their
guy to feel about them when they were done so wrong,
and it's like, finally, too late, you asshole, but like, yes,
thank god, you finally see how wonderful.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
I am rested. So Al Cooley was the hehead of
A at the time, and I was so pumped about
that song and I took it to him. He said,
I just don't understand what they're talking about. Where they're
dancing with their feet off the ground, I'm like, have
you lost your mind? What do you not understand? He
just didn't get it? He did, but you have to
deal with those people sometimes too. But it turned out
to be a massive ring.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
Are you a hopeless romantic?

Speaker 1 (30:17):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
It sound like it in your songs.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
I don't know. You know, I have my moments. Uh,
I don't know. Maybe when I was younger, I used
to love being in love. I'll put it that way.
There was something about being in love that I always liked.
I just didn't want to be in love with the
same one very long.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
What but you finally settled down? How long are you
get married? Now?

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Twenty three years? Been with her twenty five years?

Speaker 2 (30:40):
What's the secret?

Speaker 1 (30:43):
She's a strong woman.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
Yes, I believe that one is i've been married. Now
we've been married, I don't even know. I think it's thirty. No,
I think we've been together thirteen years, married nine or something.
And I'm like, man, when you've really gone through things
with someone, marriage so much more than just like, oh
my god, I have butterflies and stars and like, it's

(31:05):
like when you make it through shit with somebody.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
We're past the butterflies and stars. Crap. We are now,
we're to the place that we have a lot of
equity in this relationship and there's a lot to work for.
And it's not just the material things. It's the relationships
that you have as a couple. It's it's so many
other things around the proofal you would have to completely
rebuild your life. And I see guys that get into

(31:29):
their later years and they call it upgrading. I don't
want to upgrade and try to act like I'm thirty
years younger than I am. I want somebody that grew
up with the same music that I did, and I
want somebody that has been through the fire with me
that even when we fight and we not might not
talk much for a couple of days at a time,
I ain't going to where she ain't going to where.
That's just the way it is. Get that, yeah, But
there's there's comfort in that of knowing that that after

(31:53):
you've been together for a long time and physically things
change from time to time. You know, you see go
through seasons, love is still deep and it's still there.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
And it's something you can really be proud of it
because you had to build, like you said, equity, you
can only get it by building it and it's.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
Not always great. No, no, it's not. But people give
up too quick, you know. And I was guilty of
that when I was young too. I gave up too quick.
But you learn as you go.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
Mm hmm. Tell me why you're excited about this tour
coming up with Gary on. I mean, that's going to
be off the chart.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
You know. Gary, I've done shows with him over the
over the years, but we've never really gotten to be
close friends. We have been in contact the last few months.
I had to have some next surgery over the holidays,
I had to have some vertebrate fews together in my neck.
I was having some issues, little nerve problems, all that stuff.
And Gary had back surgery, and so we started talking

(32:48):
on a regular basis, checking on each other see and
how we were, and you know, talking about production and
stuff for the tour coming up. So I'm really looking
forward to spending time with him. He's been through his
own hell in life, you know, He's had some trials
and tribulations and some terrible loss. But the musically, I
think the thing that's exciting to me is that musical
styles are very different. We're still very country and I

(33:10):
still think our fans may overlap a touch, but he
draws a completely different crowd than I draw. It's going
to be absolutely and the pre sales, it looks like
the tickets are going to be tremendous for both of us.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
That's a good point because y'all both are such strong artists,
but with different crowds combining, everyone's going to appreciate both.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
That's what you look for. You know. It's like Tracy
burd and I tour together lot, but Tracy and I
draw the same crowd, okay, you know, So being able
to go out with somebody that has a completely different flare,
that that carries their own weight, that's just a stout
that I have respect for. I think we're going to
have a great time, and I'm hoping it's going to
parley into the fall. And had some dates for us,
so we kind of test the water here, but I
think we're going to do more shows together.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
Who are you really liking these days? Like who's coming
out that you're really liking?

Speaker 1 (33:51):
You know? I had a chance to work with Lanny Wilson.
We went out with her and me and Justin Moore
out right before the pandemic hit and Lanny was opening
with her, just her and acoustic guitar, and I saw
that passion and that rawness and heard her story and
you know the years of dedication and sacrifice that she
had made to get where she's at. Love seeing somebody

(34:13):
that truly has put the time in get success like
what she's having having right now. I have a lot
of respect for Holly. There's a what Jackson Deane. I
got a chance to see him at the New Faces
show this year, Curious to see what his full album
is going to sound like. He's got a really unique
eclectic sound that's very cool. I love Jelly Roll as

(34:35):
a human being. Jelly's turn very good buddy.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
And he's been on your podcast. I love your podcast.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Let's see who else there's I hadn't had a chance
to meet Parker McCallum yet, but I'm really ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
She seems like just a cool guy.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
I'm looking forward to getting a chance to meet him.
I'm really you know, I went through several years where
I was just really blocked off about It's like the
whole bro Country thing, all Dean and our friends and
Luke Bryan all us, you know, the whole bunch and
I appreciate success. There was just something that that I
just I wanted to detach from because it wasn't real
traditional country to me. And in Florida, George Line and

(35:11):
all that. You know, those guys are massive, they had
huge records, and it's nothing personally, it just wasn't it
wasn't you. It didn't resonate with me because there's only
so many songs you can get excited about. When they're
saying about the tel gave a damn pickup truck, I mean,
it just it just escaped me. I feel like right
now we're having a resurgence of what I feel like
good quality writing is. I listened to the Laney's record

(35:32):
at the gym a few weeks ago. The imagery and
the craftsmanship and the production on that record is really good.
And that's what I'm looking for now. I'm looking for
more of complete packages. Somebody that's got the vocal chops,
that is not being dictated to by a record label
about what they need to cut, but has the creativity
and the talent to back up what they have to say.

(35:53):
And so there's quite a few young artists I see
on the horizon they're going to be able to do
that now. I just hope the labels don't homogenize it again,
like what I think has happened more than once, where
everything starts to sound the same. Let artists have their
own personality. I feel like personality is coming back into
the industry.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Yes, I feel that way too. I feel that way
because I am the same. Like I just get hooked
on allis listen Tom Petty all day every day, Like
I just can't let it go because like it's just
like the melodies are so good, the lyrics are so good.
You get a life less and it's like your music too.
It's like, oh, it's just so good. But then it
feels like the season where people didn't want that, they

(36:29):
just wanted what, like, you know, something fast. Yeah, it's
like seasons.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Again, and it ebbs and flows. You know, there's still
times I want to go back and hear led Zeppelin
or Van Halen, you know, I mean there's I love
all those stuff too, or I want to go back
and just turn on some more classic Glenn Campbell and
you know, because that's all really good too.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
So what do we do about this? You know that
song it's like video kill the radio start, and then
you know it's like the next thing killed, the next
thing killed, the next thing. So it's like, and I love,
like Marina Labertt song automatic, It's like you don't want
to go back to when things weren't automatic, but things
are always progressing and always going back. And literally that's
why I keep coming back to your song time, Marge Design,

(37:10):
because it's literally how it always goes. So it's like
you are one of those people that's just like you
just stayed true to you, but you've also stayed in
it and current and like in the stream, Like how
do you do that.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
By being realistic about where you are? And you know,
nobody really talks about this, but you know I've I've
after after, you know, find out who your friends are.
Was the next was the last big record that I had,
And that was all the way back in those seven
was it?

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Kenny Chesney on that one with you.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Kenny and Tim uh and and I fought it for
the next several years.

Speaker 2 (37:43):
You went awards and everything you want, like the vocal
around the year.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
You know, I fought it because you spend the bulk
of your life. I mean that was almost twenty years
of me being a radio artist, and I understood that system.
I understood how it worked. I understood the promotion part
of it, understood the sales, and you go through this
whole thing, and all of a sudden, you're not getting
that that excitement about feeling a record go up the
charts anymore. There's a there's a there's a euphoria about it,

(38:11):
there's a there's a thing that you feel from the crowd.
You know, it feels a little bit different when it
hits top twenty, and then when it hits fifteen, then ten,
and a top five record has the intensity from the
fans start coming up, and one that peeks out number one.
It's like this roller coaster and you just go through
the ebb and flow of that. Decompressing from that and
feeling like your career is over is a very real thing.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
What was that like for you?

Speaker 1 (38:33):
I mean, it's awful because I kept trying to fight it.
It's like, I'm on an independent label now and I
had I had a number one record on my own
imprint right out of the box. We got to figured
it out. But do you know how expensive that is
to compete against a major label by yourself nobody You
can't do it. It's virtually impossible. But what I have
found on the back side of it is that once

(38:55):
you get comfortable with yourself and you realize that you
don't have to play that game anymore, it's almost like
you have a resurgence in your career. I felt like
my my fan my Herd ticket sales have doubled, merch
numbers have gone through the roof. It's like people want
to hear. Though I don't know if it's the time
and the passion about the resurgence of the nineties country
music that's going on. But but you know, the great

(39:18):
thing about country is you can do this for a
long time. And I've got a body of work to
do that with, and I don't have to chase anything anymore.
I don't have to do it anymore. And when you
can finally get to that realization that you stop, then
you're able to have peace with what you've done and
realize that that that's done and I can let that
go and move on. Then you can really just find
happiness and where you're at. And it does find its

(39:40):
new path.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
It does, it's just not the path that you were on,
but maybe a pivot isn't a bad thing. We always
think that, Like, I.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Mean, Rolling Stones don't put new stuff out, man, Joey
don't put new stuff out.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Leonard only just one album ever.

Speaker 1 (39:54):
I mean, and there's nobody in that band that was
even on the planet.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
I know, because this is all they need to do.
It's like, you don't have to do the same thing
that everybody else does. And that's what I'm finally realizing.
It's like nobody's plan is the same, nobody's path is
the same, and it's like the main thing. What is success? Success?
I feel like, And I would love to hear what
you think it is, but to me, it's like I
feel like success is like identifying your passion, pursuing your passion,

(40:19):
having it play out to where you feel fulfilled with it,
but then also having other parts of your life too,
like not sacrificing your mental health, your emotional health, your
family health, your physical health, like your spiritual health. It's
like all those things are just as important to having
a successful.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
Life, absolutely, and without those what do you really have?
Without your health, you don't have anything. Yeah, I mean
you can't. I see my friend Johnny Lee, and I
love him dearly. And John getting where he can hardly
get around. But he still goes out there and tries
to sing you songs because he still loves to get
out there and get leaks. Give it a try. You
know what I think about Willie at least ninety years old,

(40:59):
ninety just love it. It just is, you know. And
I say this, My wife don't like to hear me
say this. I hope I die in the back of
the bus. I mean, that's where Haggard went. I want
to do on the bus. I do there, and it's
not a romantic thing. It's just it's where I've spent
the bulk of my dole life.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
Comfortable.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
It is, that's where I live, you know. It's you know,
I go home and I love my home, and I
love being with my family, and I like having my
dogs and all that stuff. But the bus is my world.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
You love the bus? What do you love about bus life?

Speaker 1 (41:28):
It's it always had this thing to it. I mean
when I dreamed about being successful, I don't think I
really dreamed about the marquee or playing in front of
the stadiums. You hear everybody talking about I want to
fill arenas up. I want to go play Nissan Stadium.
I just want to be on the bus. I don't
know what it was about, you know, the whole thing,
you know, with everybody partying and drinking and just the

(41:49):
mystique of what was going on in the bus, and
it was just a strange thing. That's always been my
little weird deal.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
Has it lived up to your dreams?

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Yeah? And more waste than yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
So it's like a little magic time machine. Anything happens
on the bus, but nobody knows about except for the
little people in the world.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Well, well, not many people get on the bus Anymore's
to me cell phones.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
You know, I know, I know. It's a different day.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Back in the nineties. Yeah, nineties were a good time
for everybody.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
These were a good time. These were like a golden era.
They were, and you were like the king of the nineties.
Who was a king with who were who were on top?
It was you.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
There are people that wouldn't tour with me, that were
terrified of me. I was wild, you were, Oh yeah,
you let me tell you one of my favorite stories.
We were just that. I've been doing some real estate
stuff and we were down in Orlando recently meeting with
some engineers and stuff for a project that I'm working on,
and we'd gone down to Church Street and I haven't
been there in years. They used to have a show

(42:45):
called Church Street Station and I was on the show
with not with Radney Foster. This was like probably ninety
two ninety three, and so I don't even know what
hotel it was right there down in Orlando where we were,
but we had a group of us had gone back
up to the hotel and we had a card game,
a bunch of the producers and guys from the set.
We had a big card game going on. And my

(43:06):
tour manager's room was right next to me. We were
on the seventh floor and it was right directly off
the swimming pool. Okay, so the TV in my room
for some reason did not work. So we decided we
were going to throw TV out the window in the pool.
I said, well, if I'm gonna pay for a TV,
I'm not gonna throw the one that don't work, because
they're gonna have to play anybody, let's throw his out
the window. We threw that TV off the seventh story

(43:27):
balcony right into the middle of the swimming pool. Anybody
in there, No, there's gonna be just mid twelve o'clock
in the morning, and when it hit it landed screen up,
and I remember it landed and it popped the screen
out and it just went. It was awesome.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
Tell me what you loved about that feeling? Just like
it was so rock and roll it Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
And then you think you hear all those stories about
Joe Wsts carrying his tread chainsaw around in the flight
case and stuff and cutting holes between rooms because they
couldn't get connecting rooms, you hear, whatever you want, whatever
you want to. You can't do that anymore.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
But you could do whatever you wanted to, and it
was fine. It was cool that.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
I think I paid two hundred dollars for the TV.
They didn't care. I just paid for the te Now
nowadays they'd prosecute you.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
But now but probably then they probably roped off the room.
You can pay extra stay in the Tracy Lawrence destroyed
TV room, rock rock and rolls. I love that. That's amazing, gosh,
fun times. Okay, So, if you're gonna sum it up,
how do you be a successful legendary country artist and
keep it all so in perspective and truly find happiness

(44:34):
like you have like, how do you what are your
steps to all the people out there? Like, what are
some of the train stops?

Speaker 1 (44:41):
Wow, I don't piece of paper out them? Have to
write something now, I think. I think you have to
have a tremendous amount of passion and a little bit
of talent. I don't. I wonder sometimes how important talent
really is because I've seen people that had tremendous amounts
of talent that never make it and people that are
just OK that become huge success storrs.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
What's the difference there?

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Because passion and dedication and determination not to quit, not
to give into what anybody else is.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
So like, if you have the passion and dedication and
you play that out and let that out, that's gonna
win over talent.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
I think in some situations just and not if you're
an athlete or whatever. But I think in the music business, yeah,
I think you have to have some talent. But there's
some people that have been very successful in this business.
I mean like Nicky six. He can't even play the
bass guitar. I mean, come on now, I mean they
taught him how to play in the studio.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
He can't even play, but he's got it.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
But he's got it, but he's not a musician, and
he will tell you that.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
What is it?

Speaker 1 (45:39):
I don't know. But you can see it. You can
see it across the room. You can see it when
somebody has it, you know it, when some kid walks
in and they have it. You can see that presence
on stage.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
And you've always had it? You have I.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Think you have. I guess yeah, I've always had something.
I've always had some kind of aura around me. I
really always have. I've always held it that alive. Oh yeah,
you have to nurture it. And you know, like like
they say, if you don't use it, you'll lose it.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
Oh really, you think your talent if someone's given a
talent and it's not like what break that in a
little bit.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Well, if you have a god given talent but you
don't really have the passion, God's not going to continue
to nurture that talent if it's not something that you
really feel in here, I'll let you move on something else.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
And that's okay because.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Because you I mean, you can only have I mean,
how much can you really have?

Speaker 2 (46:30):
I mean, so like you think that like it's not
a bad thing. It's like okay, you were given this passion,
but if that's not really what you want to or
this talent, but if that's not really what you want
to put your passion on, something else will pop up
and it's all fine.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
My baby sister when I was fourteen years old, she's
six years younger than me, and I played the County
Fair and Talent Show and I played my guitar and
I sang a song that I wrote, and she used
a piano accompaniment and she sang the Rose by Bette
Midler and she beat me. It's very talented, always was,
but she didn't care about doing this. It's never in

(47:02):
her heart, you know. If she had the.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
Talent, that's amazing. Well, I just can't thank you enough
for joining me, Tracy, Like you're so inspiring. It's really
kind of phenomenal. You're just sitting here in my house
like hanging out. Thank you for doing that. It I
enjoyed it. I always wrap up with one question, which
is leave your light. And basically, after all of this

(47:26):
that you've been on, this journey, this amazing ride that
you're still very much on, what do you want people
to know?

Speaker 1 (47:34):
Oh my gosh, m I think the most important stuff
for me, for people to know about me now is
that I'm very passionate about other people. And hopefully I'm.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
Going to leave it to talk about your charity a.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Little bit better place than I found it. I want
to leave it a little bit better than I found it,
and that I can continue to do things that have
more substance to them that will be around long after
I'm gone.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Like Mission Possible, your charity, you've raised like two million
dollars for homelessness and you just started that because you
felt called to do it.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
There were things in the family that were kind of
pushing us in that direction. And it started off just
a very innocent thing with a handful of friends, and
it's turned into this big, massive, extremely unique thing that's
still growing.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
That's incredible. Okay, I'm going to ask more questions of that,
because I think this is an important one. How do
you know when you're supposed to be doing something? And
how do you know when you're not? Like what's your
guidance system? Like starting that, you didn't like have a
big plan for it. You started it, it felt right,
it was on your heart, But like, how do you
know when you're supposed to be doing it? And when
you're not when the door's open, when the door's closed.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
You know, I didn't really know what it was that
we were starting. I just wanted to be able to
try to drive awareness to a situation that I had
that was touching my heart. Didn't really know what it
meant or where it was going to go. But there
have been a couple of times over the years when
I've kind of got burnt out that I felt like
I was being taken advantage of, or there were people

(48:57):
in certain things that we were working with that really
didn't appreciate what we were doing. And I've almost walked
away from it a couple of times. But as we've
made it through a couple of those bumps in the
road and really kind of got more control of it
where I have my hands on what's happening around me,
I feel much more comfortable about it. But you never know,

(49:18):
I mean, sometimes you just just get burned out on things. Yeah,
it's just part of it, I mean, and the shelf
life of a charity organization sometimes ten to fifteen years,
it can run it out and run its course, you know,
June jam ran its course. But look at the legacy
Randio had left behind because of all that and the
partnership that he created with Saint Jude's from what he did.

(49:38):
I mean, that's a tremendous legacy, using.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
Your talent, your platform to like have that kind of treat,
that kind of opportunity and that awareness, and that's really cool.
It's really cool. It takes a lot of energy. I
know that takes a lot of energy.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
Well, hopefully there will be another artist in the very
near future, and we're actively looking for who that person
might be that will have the passion that I do
about it because I'm not going to be able to
do it. And definitely I can pass the torch.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
That's awesome and move it on.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
That's what we hope.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
That's awesome. That's so awesome. Thank you so much for
joining me. I enjoyed every second of this and also
give A new album just came out.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Uh No, I had my thirtieth anniversary album. We dropped
three records a couple of years ago. I haven't been
I'm trying to get back into writing songs.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
I don't think you ever have to write another songs.
You don't want to, You've.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
Covered done it, but I need to for my own
creativet right now. I got a real estate development, I
got a podcast, I got a radio show. I'm touring
one hundred days a year, i got graduations coming up,
I got things going on, and for me to start
writing songs again, I have to stop doing some other
things because I have to focus on being creative again,
and I have to shut some things down, and I'm
just I don't have the luxury of being able to
do that right now, and so I'm just kind of

(50:40):
riding it out.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
Hey, I love your podcast. Thank you, I love it.
Are you loving doing that?

Speaker 1 (50:45):
I do?

Speaker 2 (50:45):
You just go on the road and people who are
in the road with you.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
We're doing some of it on the road, but I'm
also doing it right there at the house. I have
a bus pad and everything where I keep my coaches,
and I'm able to set because I have to set
up everything every time we do it, so I've got
multiple cameras and I'm mixing disk and audio disc and
all that stuff, so I have to set it up.
So it's easier to do it at home where I
can set it up and we can do two days
back to back and bring several artists in and then

(51:09):
tear it down and box it all up. When I'm
on the road. Uh, sometimes you might get one artist
if you're at a festival or something, but it's very limiting. Yeah,
but we're trying to schedule more stuff in town. The
Bible of the front Line is very cool.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
It's so good. It charm, it's so good. Thank you
so much, Tracy. This is awesome. Truly enjoyed it every second.
I really appreciate you and all that you've done for
all of us with your music.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
Bye.

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Host

Caroline Hobby

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}TRACY LAWRENCE: Country music LEGEND, Tracy Lawrence, shares his journey of fame and wild success!