[SPEAKER_06]: Hey y'all, it's Bree Baggo with your only Vans Bree cap and in this very special live episode from Music Fests 40th Anniversary in Steamboat, Colorado, by the way, thanks again, John Dixon and crew.
[SPEAKER_06]: I chit chat with my friend Josh Ward, who I've known for ever.
[SPEAKER_06]: As much as we try to talk about how much I love his new record, we veer off topic quite frequently, although we do end up giving so much needed love to the album's same old cowboy different rodeo.
[SPEAKER_06]: Along with all the great musicians involved and of course shout out the amazing Rosewood Studios in Tyler, Texas.
[SPEAKER_06]: We discussed the talk back mic, which in case you don't know that's a microphone on stage where the singer or band can talk to the rest of the band without the audience hearing them.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's a very honest and real conversation because Josh is very honest and real.
[SPEAKER_06]: It has been a true friend of me throughout the years by treating me as an equal and telling me to toughen up when I need to do it.
[SPEAKER_06]: If there's one person who knows toughness, it's Josh Ward.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm so proud of everything he's done and proud we're both still at it after playing a barbecue joint together on Wednesdays for three hours back in 2010.
[SPEAKER_06]: We got to overachother a little bit but that's because we've been through the trenches together this whole time.
[SPEAKER_06]: Anyway, head to Joshwordmusic.com for tour dates, merch, and music, and if you can watch the video of this episode, please do because his body language and our facial expressions just make me so happy.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thanks, Josh.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're the best.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have had those hard talks on the monitor whistle.
[SPEAKER_00]: The worst somebody goes over there and goes, hey, fix your face.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, you're like, like, you fix your face.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, could you imagine if one of my band members told me to fix my face?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, she didn't tell me in the words.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, hey everybody, this is Free Bagwell, and this is my podcast, I believe it is.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're talking about friends.
[SPEAKER_06]: Check one, two, how are we doing out there?
[SPEAKER_06]: Thanks for coming.
[SPEAKER_06]: You guys are the only people that are not choosing exact top and we appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's also like 16 degrees out there.
[SPEAKER_06]: So to me, this is a better choice.
[SPEAKER_06]: But and also one of my favorite country singers is here talking to me today and one of my good friends.
[SPEAKER_06]: And
[SPEAKER_06]: I think I need to tell a little bit more of a background about this podcast because yesterday people didn't really know if you have not listened to my podcast, it's mostly chit chatting, it's mostly, you know, banter between two friends and I was thinking about this podcast today and what I was going to say and
[SPEAKER_06]: doing this podcast is one of the easiest things that I ever do, and it's really a joy of my life, mostly, because my producer Kyle does all the work.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I don't really have to do anything except talk and get my friends to me on the podcast.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I was like, oh my gosh, dashboard, I have all these things to talk about, and we immediately started talking about our history, and then I said, we kind of stop, we got to save it for the podcast, because I don't want to spoil it even for myself, because revisiting my history as a singer,
[SPEAKER_06]: how I've come to be where I am now, I've been surrounded by amazing people my whole life and I've been very, very, very lucky that one of those people was Josh Ward.
[SPEAKER_06]: From the day that I started playing music, we started playing shows together.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I don't want to run too much about it, but
[SPEAKER_06]: The, the last thing I want to say about this man is I think of him often because I sleep in my eyelashes when I'm too lazy to wipe them off and some days I wake up with when I lash on this eyebrow and I look like a country singer that's been through a car wash like it's not a good thing but I always when I go in the mirror go watching you wake up with last night's makeup
[SPEAKER_06]: And I do it all the time, and he doesn't even know.
[SPEAKER_06]: I've never even told him that story.
[SPEAKER_06]: So would you make a warm welcome for one of my favorite people in the world, Mr. Josh Ward is here joining me today on the Only Vans Podcast?
[SPEAKER_06]: Hi!
[SPEAKER_00]: Whew!
[SPEAKER_00]: Good to have you back on this good, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you?
[SPEAKER_06]: Uh, wait, wait.
[SPEAKER_06]: How much starch?
[SPEAKER_06]: What, when you drop them off, are you like a medium-starred
[SPEAKER_00]: That way, they last you about a week.
[SPEAKER_06]: How many days can you...
[SPEAKER_00]: They start getting comfortable around four.
[SPEAKER_06]: These are things that girls don't have to do with.
[SPEAKER_06]: I've never, ever starched anything in my life, but how much do your eyelashes cost?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I don't get my done.
[SPEAKER_06]: You'd have really nice eyelashes, so I'll show her now that I'm complimenting you for the first time about your eyelashes.
[SPEAKER_06]: And 15 years that we've been friends, Joshua and I used to play a barbeque restaurant in Montgomery, Texas for three hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, three hours, it's three hours.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's three hours.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's so funny to hear people be like, I'm not playing three hours.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's crazy.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm like, oh, me and Josh Ward played three hours.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I'm like, what?
[SPEAKER_06]: I said, every Wednesday.
[SPEAKER_06]: We played three hours at Kirby's barbecue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kirby's barbecue in Montgomery.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we might have played that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think maybe, 10, 10 hours.
[SPEAKER_06]: We kind of tried to outmural haggard one another and that's one of my favorite stories that I tell all the time is that we were on this book in agency together and our book in agent Nick, who I don't know if he's here, he was probably going to be at some point, but he wanted us all to bond and so he was like, you all go play songs together, so it was like me, Josh Ward, Cody Johnson, Jody Booth, and we're all sitting in a circle and Josh Ward was like, we're going to play multi or hurl and I was like, what's that?
[SPEAKER_06]: And I was like, that sounds fun.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's where you play what you want to tell them what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is all I got to say is Breach and sing more.
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard better than anybody.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's not the only pass out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we showed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We said, hey girl, we're going to play Murlty Hurl.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, all right, sounds fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, she started singing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And me and the boys were like, oh, that's good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we've got to follow that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, Murrell, to your hero is where you play moral-hackered songs in a circle till someone throws up.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's why it has the name that it does.
[SPEAKER_06]: And well, there's also, you play songs and you drink whiskey in a circle until someone.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I tell that story all the time, and it was, you know, we were very lucky to have that group of people
[SPEAKER_06]: that we did have in our first book in agency, and Jodie Booth is one of our best mutual friends, and I remember him telling me about how he called you, he made you sing for the first seven public.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's at least his story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, man, Jodie, we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't grow up together, you know, we were brothers, you know, but we didn't grow up together.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was playing a little bar up there on Alaska Texas, I don't know if y'all know where that's at, but a little place called the Anchor Club.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's where he had to.
[SPEAKER_00]: The roaches would help you load in your equipment and then you fought your way back down the stairs that night, especially if you played into glass.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Jody was doing a acoustic show there in I was standing at the bar and singing that shit's Jesse, it was on the deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was, man, he's sing pretty good.
[SPEAKER_00]: You wouldn't get up and sing along?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I sang a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got a third play that's just Jesse and Jerry's like, I hate you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was that was way back, you know, well before that guy, I started my own band.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was, I think I was playing with Ron DeHinterson and Robert Stock in a band called Southern Breeze.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they fired me, I told you that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a youngest guy in the band and, you know, we went around, we played Merrill-Hacker George Jones, you know, and we played all the VFW halls, the Elk's Lodge, and, man, I thought I was doing good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was getting sang Merrill-Hacker George Jones, ever not.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that came to me one day, and this is Sunday, and we go have to fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, well, why?
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, you two damn good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you need to go somewhere else and start your own thing?
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know how to take that at first.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, well, I'm having fun, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm getting it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Running it down road, you guys, and saying the songs that I love.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're like, no, you got something else.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I did, I quit, and made the plunge about a month later.
[SPEAKER_00]: I quit a good old-filled job.
[SPEAKER_00]: and dove head first off in the playing music for 11 and that was 20 years ago.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was going to say what year was that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like a year after 2000, I think it was 2000.
[SPEAKER_06]: Also, I can't stop thinking about if I had a band called Southern Breeze.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that was, I feel like that's a good name for Brebag Wellman.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like a Southern Breeze, like a Southern version of me.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, that's my blues band, Southern Breeze.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: Uh, I love that, but did you not grow up singing?
[SPEAKER_06]: I feel bad I don't know anything about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I grew up singing in church choir.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, about four years old, my grandmother put me in the choir.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was raised in the church house.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of these twice, the Wednesdays too, prayer meeting, the name of the house showed up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think they thought it was cute because they dressed the set and these little Christmas outfits and they just get a very saying, just okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a sponge from a very young age of music and I don't know why, I honestly gotta don't, but I related to a lot of the country songs, man, that was in a young age, I couldn't say or relate to it, but there was something that I felt.
[SPEAKER_00]: when I heard those songs.
[SPEAKER_00]: They moved me music is powerful, no matter if you're 16 years old, standing in front of your mirror, trying to imitate Tracy Lawrence, sticks and stone directors, because that's what was hot there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Going to bed, every night with a lot of one's own.
[SPEAKER_00]: I soaked it up, every bit of it that I could.
[SPEAKER_00]: You never thought that music would ever be anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would play my guitar rodeos whenever we were on a road and, you know, high school, I brought it to school every once in a while and played it outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, I didn't know that music was going to take me where it has.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yes, very young age, I think music chose me.
[SPEAKER_06]: I agree with that.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I also, my parents weren't, every time I'd play or sing, they weren't like, wow, this is special.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, sometimes you meet parents with their kids like, listen, she's playing and singing and it's like, everyone in my family kind of just did it.
[SPEAKER_06]: So it wasn't, it wasn't that they didn't think I was good or anything.
[SPEAKER_06]: It just everyone just kind of, everyone played and I wouldn't sing and it was just how it was.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that, um,
[SPEAKER_06]: That is such a weird place to be when there's these young girls coming up I think in their mom is like really forcing that I was never forced to do it and sometimes I'm kind of like I don't do that because I think there's so much beauty in coming into music at your own time when you're like ready to do it or when when Jodie booth makes you
[SPEAKER_06]: or your band fires you because you're too good of a singer.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, like letting it happen at its own time is, and I agree with that.
[SPEAKER_06]: I listen to all those old, and I would just play my cassettes and play, and I had a little vinyl player, and I would just over and over and like, you love it from a young age, and there's so many people here that, um, as fans, they just love music, and they don't get the opportunity to do it like we do,
[SPEAKER_06]: I can't even imagine, you and I, having, getting to do what we do is such a beautiful and hard thing, and that is, these kinds of festivals are such a reminder of how people can be such big music fans, but they never get to do it professionally, but they're still here supporting it, I don't know, it's a weird,
[SPEAKER_06]: thing, we are very, very lucky.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's a very hard life, you and I both know, you tour so much, I tour so much.
[SPEAKER_06]: Turing is hard, but it's a beautiful life, but I love talking to you because you're a road dog and man, it really looks glamorous on the outside.
[SPEAKER_06]: You have a big old, you have a big tour bus, I don't have one of those, but I'm getting closer, I got an RV now, I gotta, I
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll tell you, like Kevin Valor told me years ago, when I rest at Kevin, I just got to get a bus.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, stay out of the bus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I'm that guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say, and stay out of the bus as long as you can.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's expensive.
[SPEAKER_06]: How much is that transmission repair versus my transmission?
[SPEAKER_06]: I just paid like 2300 bucks from my RV, like one of the repairs.
[SPEAKER_06]: And they were like, I'm sorry, and I'm like,
[SPEAKER_06]: That was nothing compared to my sprinter van.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I can't imagine what it is compared to a bus.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's another zero.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's triple zeroes on the back end of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you blow a motor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's 30.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's 15 on the transmission.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you got the pro set right out here, Mr. Roy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He drives for Roger Craig and the boy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he knows all about those breakdowns.
[SPEAKER_06]: Ha, before COVID,
[SPEAKER_06]: There was a guy named James Cove, and he was my buddy, and he had, you guys know James, and he had a bus that he would rent to us.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so, Randall King and I were splitting the bus time.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yep, and it was Taylor Swift's first bus, and it was so much fun, because he just wanted to drive in his words.
[SPEAKER_06]: He wanted to just drive for someone who didn't party all night, and was a nice person, and then that was apparently me.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm like, yeah, I'm boring.
[SPEAKER_06]: I want to go to bed and maybe watch Netflix and, you know, we're not throwing big parties on the bus.
[SPEAKER_06]: So he was driving just around for, I mean, really just cost and it was the most delightful time of my life except that I will say, when you have a bus, there's no curfew.
[SPEAKER_06]: You could just stay up all night.
[SPEAKER_06]: I felt like I was getting less sleep because I was like, well, we're driving all night to Midland and I'm like, I don't unlimited alcohol in the cold fridge.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, a bus is not really the best place for a baby baggle to be.
[SPEAKER_06]: I need like a curfew.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even now, you know, years later being in one and you know, having that, having that freedom Oh man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm driving.
[SPEAKER_00]: We got a couple of years in here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'd say up to Midland, you know what I mean, then you can get there, you know, cry.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm tired.
[SPEAKER_00]: The bus driver's looking at you like you could have laid down, you know, but then he's like, thanks for keeping you here.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could have slept.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, we still do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we catch ourselves just conversating and riding these days.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the party and all that stuff, that was...
[SPEAKER_00]: That was back then.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, Joshua and I, we, we saw plenty of sun rises together, party, and I don't, but James my bus driver, I, I just love him so much, and he would say he loved Saturn and I breathe, because I'd always have to try and save my voice, I was my voice was easy.
[SPEAKER_06]: So Thursday I go to bed, Friday I go to bed, Saturday night.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was sitting up there, I would sit up there next to him while he drove the bus, and he would open that window, and he'd smoke cigarettes, and I'd put my feet up there, and I would just talk, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah
[SPEAKER_06]: Anyway, I'm sound checking, it's 4 p.m. And the bar owner comes up with a shot, and he gives me a shot at 4 p.m. and I said, hey, I'm not, you know, not really drinking it 4 p.m. anymore, and he goes, well, Josh Ward was here last night.
[SPEAKER_06]: He said, you could drink me under the table.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I'm proving it, and I'm not like, so I take the Josh Ward, I'm like, please stop telling people I can drink them under the table.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you kidding?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you good then?
[SPEAKER_00]: I could, I used to, I used to could.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't,
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't trade any of it, man.
[SPEAKER_06]: Same.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, uh, it's who makes us who we are today.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and there was no Snapchat back then.
[SPEAKER_06]: We could get crazy and nobody even knew about it.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I never had makeup on.
[SPEAKER_06]: And none of y'all ever cared.
[SPEAKER_06]: And we were just playing songs for the sick of songs.
[SPEAKER_06]: And last night I was back there watching your show.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you are just, um,
[SPEAKER_06]: You're just so good, and I forget, I forget, I don't forget that you're good.
[SPEAKER_06]: That was really bad.
[SPEAKER_06]: I forgot, and you were so good.
[SPEAKER_06]: No, I'd never forget that you're a good, but you really are, you're a freaking showman, but in a really cool way, in a really classy way, in a really country way.
[SPEAKER_06]: And everyone was kind of a really chitchatting back there.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, Tim, and I was back there trying to listen to people were like,
[SPEAKER_06]: I think with that, and you go, hey, how you guys doing in the back, y'all paying attention?
[SPEAKER_06]: And I was like, that's my dad.
[SPEAKER_06]: He's like, because you have to shut up, but you do it in a way that's not offensive.
[SPEAKER_06]: But you have a commanding presence, like.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I learned a long time ago from a grandpa.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can, you can be delivered, you know, you can be blunt and what you're asking.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just got to ask it in a certain tone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I am, I ain't, I ain't that guy that's gonna be like, how you y'all get out of here or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shut the F off or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not that guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never have been, but I'll call you out on it in a good way.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's my favorite thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: I had a guy come to a show and he says something really bad to my face and I don't like it.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then he said it again, and I had forgot about this.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was with Rachel, my old tour manager today.
[SPEAKER_06]: She reminded me of the story.
[SPEAKER_06]: And this guy said it again, and Josh Ward said, because I was opening for you at Silver Sloan and Terrell.
[SPEAKER_06]: And Josh Ward was like,
[SPEAKER_06]: kick him out and I was like, what, here comes security and you got him kicked out for me.
[SPEAKER_06]: That was like the nicest thing but it wasn't like, I'm gonna beat him up and do it but you were like, hey, get him out of here and you just kicked this disrespectful man out of a show for me and I was like, I can do anything now.
[SPEAKER_06]: That was, it was, it was, do you remember that?
[SPEAKER_06]: This is the person, but also how many times have I called you where you're like, you don't feel sorry for me as much as you're not like, oh, porky, you tell me, pull your?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I never treated you like a girl.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, and I say that, you know, she was.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was only that good female and a bunch of dudes that you had to hold your own.
[SPEAKER_00]: And,
[SPEAKER_00]: I told you, when you say that, it's because you see something in somebody.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see that drive.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want this.
[SPEAKER_05]: I want this more than you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there were times where you were like, I want it, but I'm struggling.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, bring just tough enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the only way that you're gonna get through this.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're fighting a battle against everyone in this industry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and let's go get this shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: and she does, every night she steps on stage whether it's with a rander, right here.
[SPEAKER_00]: She steps up and she pulls him up and she shows you the rebag well, yes.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, well, I want too much on my cry now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, we talked about 30 seconds, that was longer than 30 seconds.
[SPEAKER_06]: Today, Josh was at my radio interview with Eric Reigns, and he said, now that you're an interviewer, what do you think about interviews?
[SPEAKER_06]: And I said, Cag, I really frustrated when you ask a question that you think is going to be a long-bandering conversation.
[SPEAKER_06]: And they answer it in less than 30 seconds.
[SPEAKER_06]: So Josh said, I'm he's going to pull out his timer.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, well, it's going to be.
[SPEAKER_06]: B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, which actually would kind of like from you.
[SPEAKER_06]: It would maybe go over really well if I could just ask that I know that I'm going to answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was.
[SPEAKER_06]: No, you know, but why I appreciate you've been going over 30 seconds for all of your answers and now I ought to pivot before I start crying because that was that one.
[SPEAKER_06]: Nearly got me.
[SPEAKER_06]: One more champagne I would have been solving up here.
[SPEAKER_06]: But we gotta talk about your new record because it's so very much Josh Ward.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think this is such a Josh Ward record.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I don't know, I mean, I just feel because I know you that you're very involved in the sound of your records and the songs and everything.
[SPEAKER_06]: But like, you have to be very proud of this last one, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: Don't do you love it as much as we all love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This one was a long time coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of things happened within that record.
[SPEAKER_00]: The time frame of putting that record out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I tell everybody that record, it almost didn't come out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I shouldn't be setting here on the stool with you today.
[SPEAKER_06]: What, what does it, what does it mean?
[SPEAKER_06]: You don't have to say what you mean, but... Well, I just say, what do you mean?
[SPEAKER_06]: You don't have to say what you mean, but what do you mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Just more years ago, I got in a pretty bad wreck.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the doctor told me that he was like, man, I don't know because I was重 at the bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: The day after they pulled me out of surgery, I was like, when can I get back on the road?
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to get back on the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: My band needs to eat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their family's got to eat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to eat, like, let's go back to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he goes, dude, like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Who are you and I'm like I play music for living and that's all that I wanted to do and he said I don't know if you're going to go back to play I don't know if you're ever going to swing your leg over back of the horse again And now what laying there in the hospital bed looking at this doctor going I'm not not get to go back and do what I love and
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of it kind of wants to fire underneath you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember telling that doctor, Dr. Evan, he was a big old tall guy, A&M graduate, co-host doctor, I've ever met brought me stuff in the hospital room.
[SPEAKER_05]: That is illegal.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was a good doctor.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I remember telling
[SPEAKER_00]: I said thanks for telling me everything and I'm not about I can't I won't I don't know how to I'm not that I'm not built that way So I got a good full of gravel and we went back on them a row two months later With that record being said all of those things
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, no, I'm so glad and that it's interesting to hear you say things like that because a lot of the time I think that that's what this podcast about is talking about, you know, my identity is being on the road.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know anything else to do.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so I took three weeks off in November, like on purpose.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I, hey, it wasn't making any money, which is like no fun at all.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then B, I was like, I don't know who I am if I'm not the person on the road.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm trying to tour a little bit less, take a little bit, you know, make more work less.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's the dream, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: And, but when I'm home, all I know about being home is that I'm unpacking, repacking.
[SPEAKER_06]: and fixing to do the next thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: So if I'm not doing that and that's terrifying for me to think about what if I don't do this anymore, I don't know who I am as a person, which is crazy because I can't be on the road forever and I definitely can't be at the pace we were all going.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's definitely so down since COVID.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're not doing what we were.
[SPEAKER_06]: I used to guarantee my band 12 full band chosen month and we were always hitting 15.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean that's crazy like and that was just how it was and then now that we're so down I'm like, well I like being home mostly because I like my boyfriend in my house.
[SPEAKER_06]: Um, yeah, I'm that lazy.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, isn't it nice when you like your first and you like you're like, oh, this isn't so bad being home.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I really, well, I like her too.
[SPEAKER_06]: She's crying, she's crying out there, no, you make me cry, shut your mouth.
[SPEAKER_06]: But it is a different thing, like have you noticed that shift in you at all, because but I still, I want to be home, but then the second I'm home, I'm like, who am I?
[SPEAKER_06]: Nobody wants me, nobody wants me, nobody wants to book a show for me.
[SPEAKER_06]: Am I agents like you purposefully walk the fuck?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know the struggles of
[SPEAKER_00]: home in business, she and I both are in the industry, she's on the road with me all every week, and it just doesn't stop there, you know, businesses at home too, and she does them get job doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you've got to find that
[SPEAKER_00]: that part of you that you've got to separate from the business just from a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not bad business.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just getting your head right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially with that one you understand, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's a lot of dynamics that go in to have in a relationship and the music industry is anything but I'm lucky I get to work with my
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but yes, I do find myself at home.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got a big old brand new Trigger barbecue pit.
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you have a trigger?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I got forced into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did it before But when you get home, it's go go go go go go play the road play the show play the show You get home and you go
[SPEAKER_00]: In a pack your bag, you wash your clothes on the second day.
[SPEAKER_00]: You repack your bag on the fourth day and climb back on the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: But somewhere in between that, you got to find time to go, today is my day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I'm not getting the numbers that I want on the bookings.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not getting this, I'm not getting this, we can look at all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to step away from it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's gonna be there when you come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I promise you it's gonna be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But find one day, find that balance.
[SPEAKER_06]: Hmm, yeah, Paul's better at it than me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, one of one of you will be that, and I haven't figured out one snack here.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a little sad.
[SPEAKER_06]: It was a little sad.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I was like, I'm gonna be the trade girl, trade girl, and I'm gonna do all these recipes whenever they already have a trade girl.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so, but that was like my dream.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was gonna be the girl that grills.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then, you know, I can like, oh, come on, it matters.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm just casually grilling.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, I thought that would be the coolest.
[SPEAKER_06]: Anyway, I do have a trade girl that I have not mastered.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so you need to help me because we have one, but it just kind of suits the world.
[SPEAKER_06]: We live in the same town.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are only 20 minutes from each other, so yeah, we need to make that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Where do you hang out new brunfels and why do I never see you?
[SPEAKER_06]: How did my house?
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, that's why I don't see you.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to be whenever I'm not playing as in a bar.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I don't say that ugly, but...
[SPEAKER_00]: That gumma been in them for 20 years, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's nice to be at home.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's nice to grill on your grill.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's nice to take your kids' face and go on and or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: But to go to a bar,
[SPEAKER_06]: I love that Paul and I, especially Paul, we make fun of ourselves because when we go somewhere, and it's like, live music tonight, we're like,
[SPEAKER_06]: noise and music and people being loud, but that's very funny because it's what we do.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I totally fill you on that and I love how you make it work because a lot of times, you know, people talk about you need someone that's your opposite or whatever, it's, to me I found dating someone who does what I do.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now it's worked out, but it hasn't worked out.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, you kind of date who you're around, and then if you find somebody that gets what you do, Paul has never jealous, if I'm like, if me and you are drinking whiskey till 3 a.m., he'll be like, that's badass.
[SPEAKER_06]: I love Josh Tomhye, I give him a high five.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, he's not gonna be like, who's Josh Ward?
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know, I'm like, I know, you're like, and that's so freeing for me.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's like, when you have someone who supports what you do, it makes me a better person.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm like, I don't want to lose.
[SPEAKER_06]: I would never do anything wrong to that man, because he trust me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's what I figured out.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you hit the nail on the head when you said that.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you have someone that you have that trust in and you have that, they get you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's your person.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's made a lot easier for me on the business side of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though she's mean to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, she's... She's... Hey, that's a hard-nosed song going right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm that way too, but when you get that one that's just like that passion, just like you are, giving it back to you, it's either you're going to get it done or you're going to move out of the way, and I choose to stay.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, did you put that in a song?
[SPEAKER_06]: If not, that's our first.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, we just weren't, and I have never written a song.
[SPEAKER_06]: We've threatened to write a song for 10 years.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, some day, well, there it is.
[SPEAKER_06]: But this is the song that we're going to write.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I firmly believe that.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you know what, even when I fight with Paul,
[SPEAKER_06]: I still am like, he's right.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm never like, he's an idiot.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm like, I'm really mad at him, but...
[SPEAKER_06]: I just, I hope he's not here anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna go out and draw a draw now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you stay in there because you're right, and I'm right, and I need a minute.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're severed like me, Joshua, right in front of me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I'm severed in you, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it took me a minute to go, just stop because she is right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dang it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's your pride aside.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, set it aside and listen to her.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a great idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or it's, you don't need to do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_04]: I create a lot of extra work for her.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why all my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But.
[SPEAKER_00]: It helps.
[SPEAKER_06]: It doesn't mean that it's right just because we've always done in that way.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I mean, I think a lot of my stubbornness is probably a lot like your stubbornness, which is we grew up loving the certain type of music and the certain type of way.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then, you know, you think about the people that were the outlaws, the willy, the aliens that like, national didn't like them, and then that's why they were considered outlaws.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then they became
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, these big mainstream hits where it's like, you know, that's how I feel about the music industry right now.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's like, I'm still going to do things my way.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm digging my heels in and then hopefully that works out for me in the way we've better worked out for my heroes.
[SPEAKER_06]: But if not, at least I'm still doing what I want to be doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, now you, you're a cornerstone in this industry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you are, Eric said it this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a couple of girls in town that was playing music and then went off to Nashville.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you did the same thing, you were doing the deal in Nashville, but you always came back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you did it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You did it good.
[SPEAKER_06]: This was supposed to be about you doing things your way.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that's what I mean about the sauce record is that you really are very true to your sound.
[SPEAKER_06]: And when you go see a Joshua show, your band is always great.
[SPEAKER_06]: your band is always top-notch, you always put on a hunky-tunk show, you hold everyone on your team to a very high standard and it shows and I think I'm like that too or this morning I was like, I always want better, I want everyone to be better, I'm always like pushing everyone and sometimes, you know, my band will be like, are we never good enough for you and I'm like, no, nothing's ever good enough, but at the same time I want to not be that person and I want to just be like, no, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: I've gotten better over the years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't kick trash can over any more than that kind of deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I am that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll come in there and look, guys, we can do so much better.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know my guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I come back and tell them, come, I can't, come, I can't, dad, deterge your butt up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, man, I love you, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: like let's get it together and I got to go back in there and apologize to him at least I didn't mean to be a, you know, all that I was trying to get across is we're better than this set ourselves to a high standard set that bar and stay there and make everybody come meet it every night, not some nights every single night, but I also have band members, Chris Lorne, Kayle Bacon that's in the in the in the scene with me to whenever I start
[SPEAKER_00]: kind of complacency maybe.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're the ones that do the same thing back to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: They push me.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't push me to the point of overwork or you need to go do this or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're supportive.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a difference in that.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to go, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, let's go.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're they're in very encouraging and I don't do it a lot But yes, there are times that I'm like tech.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, just everything's going wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go in here and play this show And they remind me really really quick of the things that I have said over the years the things that I preached about These people waited a week.
[SPEAKER_00]: They waited a month.
[SPEAKER_00]: They made it a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: They might have waited 10 years to see you
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you being this way right now?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's coming from them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And not so many words, but it's coming from them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Going, Josh, you stand up on this pedestal and you preach this every night, listen to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And why, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're right, thanks.
[SPEAKER_00]: It takes that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that's beautiful.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was doing that with Kyle today, because sometimes, I mean, I think it was just, you know, one of the shows here that didn't save our,
[SPEAKER_06]: you're seeing, they gave us packs where they didn't say of our scene.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I got up on stage and I was like, really frustrated.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I'm, you know, you work your whole life to have this amazing team around you and to have this amazing band and when everything goes wrong, it's like, and then, but when I see young people complaining about it, I'm like, oh, no, this isn't matter.
[SPEAKER_06]: This isn't matter.
[SPEAKER_06]: People are here, they were having a great time.
[SPEAKER_06]: You sounded amazing, you looked amazing, your band was great.
[SPEAKER_06]: Don't worry about this, but then I'm the first person to be like, I'm the first person to be like, and I told Kyle today, I've had great crowds, I've had great shows, and I want to be super, like, what a great...
[SPEAKER_06]: But I'm still like, what can we do better?
[SPEAKER_06]: Why is our show feel like it's dipping in the middle?
[SPEAKER_06]: Why do you know why am I looking out?
[SPEAKER_06]: And then I'm going to watch, I just watch the show outside.
[SPEAKER_06]: People aren't clapping anymore for anybody.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're just not, they're not in the business of cheering really loud the whole show.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're not in the business of like, you have to make them be loud.
[SPEAKER_06]: Whether you're down here, whether you're up here.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's not that they're not having a great time.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's just a different, but that's what I think it is.
[SPEAKER_06]: We had the career that spans an interesting point of time.
[SPEAKER_06]: So when you were starting out before social media and then now you have social media and we had COVID and we had like, there's just been so many things that have happened.
[SPEAKER_06]: The audiences that we're playing for now are not the audiences we used to play for and I'm still like struggling with like letting that go.
[SPEAKER_06]: Because it's not like they're not having a great time, they are having a great time.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I just feel like if people aren't jumping up and standing ovation and falling over and passing out and fainting from me like I'm Elvis, then I'm not good enough.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that's stupid.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's so dumb.
[SPEAKER_06]: People are having a really great time at our shows.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I just need to look at my rant, look at my rant.
[SPEAKER_06]: Just happened.
[SPEAKER_06]: Anyway, I have to say these things out loud because I'm actually processing how I'm feeling in real time.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's nice to know that, you know, I'm not the only guy that gets in my own head, you know, monitor mix is wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something's going on and it's like, hey man, don't shake it off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shake it off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't think about you right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about these people out in front of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have had those hard talks on the monitor whistle.
[SPEAKER_00]: like you like my face like could you imagine if one of my band members told me to fix my face well she didn't she didn't tell me and in the world she walked over to the monitor console and I see her and I'm struggling up there guys I mean I'm it's just not right and I see her here she comes and I was like hmm she gets over there to front house and I see him go like this
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm watching hand signals, and he goes, she goes, be lines it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: To the monitor console.
[SPEAKER_00]: She gets up there to call in, and she goes, he can see him chattering on him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And call and he does the same thing, he goes, she walks out, and she goes, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the best.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I went, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, in the microphone, I said, what?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: Can we make that ear next, T-shirt?
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you very much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never, in my, what I ever thought somebody walked up and said,
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we're alive right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to say exactly what she said.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm not saying your mouth move.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, wow, it obviously they see it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's written all over our face.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've all been there before, but it's these conversations here that we're having that makes us go, I'm really going to think about this next time that I'm in that.
[SPEAKER_05]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That position, you know, like what you said, we've given these younger kids growing an assay kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're young.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're younger than we are, you know, and that little bit of advice is that first thing, it doesn't, I told him, it don't make it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't what's going on in a parallel next stage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, just give it to him.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, we got to do that, too.
[SPEAKER_06]: Do you're totally right though that's the pullears pull yourself up by your bootstraps put on your big girl pants That's what Joshua is I was told me and you're only big girl pants Yeah, okay, there was paintings of a pants for the audience for you in the head and when and right in there That was the white band they did right all right break him old Yeah, yeah, and you're right though, and you know people like Cody Jinks Cody Jinks is like you had to put on the same show every night, whether there's people there or not in the five thousand.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, and I try
[SPEAKER_06]: Boy, that is a piece of advice that I wish I could just really take, and, you know, the other night I had just an amazing full listening room of people that care about me, and I cried three times.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I was like, crying, and I was like, I was like, this is why I do it though, but so, you know, I always get mad on people are talking.
[SPEAKER_06]: So last night, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like, you know, I was like,
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't think, oh, here you didn't get it yet.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, thank you.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's a hair.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_06]: No, you could, you could probably sell that to creepy fan for a lot of money.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, the feet fan.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, has anyone ever asked you for feet pictures, Joshua?
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_06]: What's the creepiest fan thing you have ever had to do with?
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm just kidding, you don't have to.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had one of them come in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shut her hover around right down in the middle of the dance floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lava Cantina, she said, I ain't leaving until I see my man and I was like, what?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going on here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously it was a fan.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I don't even know what to call it.
[SPEAKER_00]: She shows up and she said, I'm not sure what's wrong with her.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know who this woman is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Kayla's trying to be, you know, cordial cordial, yes, ma'am.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she said, he needs to come out here and need to see him, you know, he's, that's my man.
[SPEAKER_00]: She goes, I'm sorry, ma'am, but he's mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: We almost had to call the law the other way, we did call the law that night, and that was the third time she's done it, and so she locked that hover around down right down in the middle of that dance floor and said, I ain't going nowhere until I see my man.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that was, oh no, that's wow, I had a guy tell the front desk of a hotel that he was my dad and the hotel gave him a room key to my room and he
[SPEAKER_06]: when and somebody went, we both know.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a pig ass, I'm chillin' that's what I'd call it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gave him with tea to you.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you know who this person is.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I'll tell you after this podcast is over.
[SPEAKER_06]: But he was like, I need to just, you know, get in that's my daughter and they made him a copy of my hotel room key.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I have never lost my mind at a hotel front desk more than that, I told him I was like, I shouldn't've looking back, I should've sued him.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, exactly.
[SPEAKER_06]: I could have been murdered.
[SPEAKER_06]: You just gave this, but we didn't even have the same last name, at least you could have done as tech as ID and make sure like me at the same last name, but the things that people do that I'm always just appalled at the things that people say, and we just decided that we're gonna get merch t-shirts that say, looking tired since 2010, bring back well because everybody in my merch line is always like, you look so tired.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, I get a lot of you look tired.
[SPEAKER_06]: almost every single night, so I'm just gonna embrace it and be like, tired since 2010, pretty bad, well.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, because that's what people say, the craziest things.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I feel like if people say anything offensive to you, you kind of look like you're gonna kick their ass.
[SPEAKER_06]: So like they probably do they say weird things to you or do you get?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I don't get too much of it.
[SPEAKER_06]: I just need to look like Josh Warren.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I've been told I look mad, but it's not, I mean, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not just me, you mean, I'm happy on the answer.
[SPEAKER_06]: Do you go to merch at the end of the show?
[SPEAKER_00]: Every night.
[SPEAKER_06]: You do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Every night.
[SPEAKER_06]: And stay to the last person?
[SPEAKER_00]: I stay until the last person's gone, even if it's people that's wanting to run you out of this establishment.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, great.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we fixed that problem too.
[SPEAKER_05]: How?
[SPEAKER_00]: I told him I wouldn't go nowhere until I got finished with all my people.
[SPEAKER_06]: And they were like, you know, green hall, they get really, like you got to get out of the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, the last one was eight bouncers.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you told him all?
[SPEAKER_06]: This person was like, kick him out.
[SPEAKER_06]: If everyone listens, if I say it, I'm the crazy person, maybe I think I need a arms cross, I need to mad in my face, pull my hat down a little and be like, hmm, get him out.
[SPEAKER_06]: Is it working?
[SPEAKER_06]: I could have been just warning my whole life.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, we're going to start talking about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You do it your own way.
[SPEAKER_00]: You just don't realize it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, if you can move, well, just trust me.
[SPEAKER_06]: If you're a girl, you're crazy or you're a b-word if you ain't, if you're not being a b-word, and I've seen it work.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can get a whole lot more done than I can.
[SPEAKER_00]: A, n, n. I'll say it, I'll say it again.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's only said something about your kids' more flies with honey.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have no honey.
[SPEAKER_00]: But she does.
[SPEAKER_06]: You have A honey.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and see if tell me all the time, I'm like, I'll go ham and she's like, no, that's why I'm your tour manager.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, well, I'm still go ham and she's like, no, this is not what you did.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't handle things anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: You climb on the stage and you're saying, you come home to me, you go deer hunting, you come back home to me, and you climb back on stage and you go play music again.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what you're allowed to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm thankful for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got a great life, I really do.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in the same sense, being that it's mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is my business, that's my person, that's my employee, that's my people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Automatically, when something goes down like that, I'm the one that won't stand on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's my face at the end of the day, but when it's your face at the end of the day that lines up in the headlines,
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, bad publicity is good publicity to you.
[SPEAKER_06]: I just think it all trickles down, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, it all trickles down.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, your employees are your representative of yourself.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_06]: I do want to say that I do love me some Chris Loring.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that dude has been with you for how long now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, no, he's right there.
[SPEAKER_06]: I forgot you were sitting right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Four years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then before that,
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, 2008, 2008's when he and I met when you were playing with Scooter Rounds.
[SPEAKER_00]: Scooter Brown, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Matter of fact, I mean, we met it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We all met it, touch.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we all did.
[SPEAKER_00]: We play open, midnight, every Thursday, night in Conro.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Chris was there, you know, he was a player of the bunch.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was the only one that actually could play.
[SPEAKER_00]: We, we were hacks, you know, Chris showed up and he's like, he can just jam, you know, yeah, it's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's our player.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, years later, I mean, through multiple bands, you know what I'm about, I mean, we've always stayed in contact over the years and
[SPEAKER_00]: One day he just came to work with me, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_06]: And then he never left.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how it all kind of went down, but I'm thankful for him every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every night that I step on stage, I get stepping on it with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's been a few times that I had to go do stuff by myself which I don't mind doing, but it's different.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's different when you don't get to do it with the one that you're used to doing it with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll always put Chris way up there.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, except you didn't have a capel last night.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I just kidding.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a joke.
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard that it got turned over to Vinnie or somebody.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it didn't get back to Paul or something.
[SPEAKER_06]: He knows it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, I was just going to say that too because like, my, I didn't know you were here.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now I might not say it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, okay, I would just say that my guitar player is one of the reasons that I am still doing the band thing on the road.
[SPEAKER_06]: One person can be the reason that you are having a great time.
[SPEAKER_06]: The person that has a good attitude, the person that's telling you you do a good job, the person that brings donuts, even when you're trying to die it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like that person can really make a difference.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I've had a really, really great band before that I didn't
[SPEAKER_06]: And even though we were really great, I would dread going on the road.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I was like, if this is how I feel, I need to quit.
[SPEAKER_06]: Because there's nothing more fun than when you're driving with your band and you're having a great time.
[SPEAKER_06]: But do you do this?
[SPEAKER_06]: Because I do this.
[SPEAKER_06]: I want them to be the same every night.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, I want my show to be like clockwork every single night.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so my value in a band is like, I want you to be on time have a good attitude, play the same things and like, pet my dog.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like other than that.
[SPEAKER_06]: we're good to go and I feel a lot of people thrive on being able to be different or change a set or be real fluid or change the tempo.
[SPEAKER_06]: Those are like, go faster and slower and I'm like, nope, I want this, this, this and this and that's it for me.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like,
[SPEAKER_06]: And I feel a little crazy, I'm asking for validity, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're perfectly fine with everything that you're saying with his, I mean, I'm that way too.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm critical with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like to have a good time.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, with the fans to have a good time, but also this is what we do.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're rehearsed.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, our peers might be standing out in the crowd.
[SPEAKER_00]: You better play, like, be good at what you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's be tight, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: But those guys, they've heard it over the top back mic for years, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll get in there and go, hey, let's tighten it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like,
[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't good enough for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not, not me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's picking him up, picking this one up, push him, push him because I'm not gonna ask you to do something.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that you're capable of doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna ask for greatness out of you every single night because I've seen it before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Show it to me again.
[SPEAKER_06]: put it on loop.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's my new alarm clock.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm just going to record you saying it and then I'll put it in the talk back mic.
[SPEAKER_06]: So when I, when I tell him to tighten up, it's not my voice, it's Josh work on tighten up.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's because you're capable of doing it.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's a bad job of an accident.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm sorry, you need to do it right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure it's yours, I'm not sure that's on the board segment.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, I would love, I've always thought how fun it would be to do like a TikTok of just talk back mic things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh god, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, yes, it would sell.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that you could sell and you would kill it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's our private time.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's true that if you're getting any of my talks back for your new project, you might want to work on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to have to go through that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I had one where my wireless mic was cutting out.
[SPEAKER_06]: They had to run hard-line, just they had to just run into Mike.
[SPEAKER_06]: And the band was just playing while they did it.
[SPEAKER_06]: And it was like six minutes.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, it was just, and it went back to the talk back.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I didn't realize that my drummer had his camera there.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I was like, how long does it take to run an effing hard-line?
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was just like, yeah, that is.
[SPEAKER_06]: And he had them forever, and he would, anytime the band would have tension or whatever he would just sin the video of me losing my mind and the talk back, Mike.
[SPEAKER_06]: But you know what, I think that's partly why it's there, is for us to like, get.
[SPEAKER_06]: out what we don't, we don't want the audience to see.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I've also heard a lot of bands like talk about like girls in the front row and stuff like there ain't none of that going on in my band like if you're going in the talk back mic to like chit chat, you're fired.
[SPEAKER_06]: We are not chit chatting in the talk back mic.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're not talking about hot girls.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're not well, my old bass player, I don't know, you know Justin, this is the only reason that this is okay.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't even want to say it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Every time I would bend over, he would go to the talkfek, and I can be like, it was very funny, yes.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I would just be like, on stage, just every time I had a red shake someone's hand and he would just make, that's kind of funny.
[SPEAKER_06]: But that's the only reason you can use the talkfek Mike Besides, complaining.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we had a deal, and it was like, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody's using the, like, the talk backs getting used too much and, you know, people brought up some points of, you know, the only time, the only time that that thing should be used is when Josh has had a problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh
[SPEAKER_00]: something important.
[SPEAKER_06]: And at the right time, if someone's talking and the talk back, Mike, while I'm speaking, my brain goes, this is a, and I start to like glitch like this in front of the audience.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, I can't talk and listen at the same time, but apparently they were saying there's a new one that the drummers have where, or where I can have it, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: I can have it in my mic.
[SPEAKER_06]: where it goes separate so I can talk to my band and it can just go only the band or the drummer can go only to the band and not to me like everyone can have their own little things now we don't have enough channels for that with my current board but I was like that's pretty great because if my drummer can talk to the band and I don't have to hear it like not he doesn't talk them he doesn't talk unnecessarily but like you know if there is a moment that they want to do that I love how this is turned into a talk back my podcast
[SPEAKER_06]: The audiences, they're falling asleep to behave this podcast, that's stupid.
[SPEAKER_06]: But actually, the people that listen to this are a lot of artists, and so it's good to have these conversations.
[SPEAKER_06]: And now, like, times almost up, and we didn't even talk about your new record.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, the whole point is to promote this new record.
[SPEAKER_06]: Actually, that's not the point of this podcast, has no point in that.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a friend hanging out that ain't changing each other in a while and getting to talk about road life.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
[SPEAKER_06]: And the new record is really great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Say a little cowboy a different rodeo.
[SPEAKER_06]: And as a producer, where do you record that up?
[SPEAKER_00]: Recorder that it rosewood.
[SPEAKER_06]: You do all your stuff still.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of my stuff has been it rosewood.
[SPEAKER_06]: Tyler Texas, East Texas, rosewood is a really great studio.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, they've had them all through there from Joe Nichols to Soundtracks that were cut for Sylvester Stallone's Interfer Lopez, Fern Gully, I mean, all of that stuff was right there in the little Tyler Texas in the center block building.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and you wouldn't even know the studios there like it it's literally a center block build and no one does and You walk in there and I mean, it's been it's been a great experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean you got you got guys like Joe Nichols and a lot of the lot of the Tyler Q.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you know Kobe Cooper?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going up cutting a bunch of stuff so Paul Colton and he just released his new record from Rosewood
[SPEAKER_00]: They're doing great, man, I mean Greg, Greg Hunt was my producer for many, many years until we lost him and he groomed Drew Hall very well into a fine engineer and you know when we lost Greg, I was like, man, what am I going to do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Drew was like, I know that we could put this record out, like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's swing for the fences.
[SPEAKER_00]: I trust you, you were, you were groomed by the best.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were a intern when I first started recording here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I watched you grow into an engineer I watched you grow into a producer now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, heck yeah, let's swing for the fences.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had more in this record as far as my input, my musical input, usually write the songs
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, ALIS band, you know, you got the 18 in there where he, here it is, and we charted out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bam, bam, bam.
[SPEAKER_00]: We start playing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, this one, I was just, I hit stop on those guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, can we do this?
[SPEAKER_00]: What about this?
[SPEAKER_00]: These ideas just started coming out of nowhere and I'm like, look at the drill and I said, I know it's my money, I know it's my record, I can have all the say that I want to, but I don't want to step on the producer's toes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to get in the way, I don't want to get in my own way up.
[SPEAKER_00]: He goes, no, this record, you need, I want you to give me that information.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's on your mind and my involvement
[SPEAKER_00]: with that was the best experience on the record I've ever done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just because I was involved, that month in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've thought about dablin' in the producer side of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that it's kind of what some artists do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once they hit a certain point in their career, but I've had a few guys talk to me and I'm like, man, I love the way this record sounded right here.
[SPEAKER_00]: How did y'all get that sound and I'm like,
[SPEAKER_00]: It was my idea like that's and they're like well, that's what we won't we won't we won't you to come for this this record Yeah, but it's learning.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean you're exactly how I am and that first I had no idea what anything was and what and now I know what you know compressors are or even like what sounds get from different amps Or like if I can say hey, you know, I remember like let's try this in half time.
[SPEAKER_06]: Let's
[SPEAKER_06]: Move it up, let's try this whole difference.
[SPEAKER_06]: I, or even if you can just talk to a group of musicians like this last song I did, I said, I want this to sound like Zoro was writing into the desert and they were like, got it and they were like ringing bells and it was like, darn, it's like, like, it was like, they got it because you know how to talk to a group of musicians now.
[SPEAKER_06]: And it's not that you're at first you're intimidated.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm still intimidated, but are you okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're okay, you're great.
[SPEAKER_06]: And first of all, we're like out of time.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're out of time, but also, it's like, first you're intimidated, I'm still intimidated, but I know that I know what I'm talking about now, and I'm confident in that I know what I want, and people want to share what I want.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Being confident in what you want, what you want, your record just sounds like, because you wrote them.
[SPEAKER_06]: And they want to give that to you.
[SPEAKER_06]: Good musicians want to do what you want to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're not trying to fight you.
[SPEAKER_06]: Good musicians are never arguing with you either.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're like, great.
[SPEAKER_06]: Let's do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if it doesn't stick, hey, man, we tried it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that whole, what you said will go was the involvement.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the record.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you have something to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole Zorodil.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I did it on this last record.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were cutting and walking in my boot.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, gosh, that's my favorite one on the record.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like, that is such a great, like, that needs to be my new, like, if I was a baseball player, well, will you just put it as our current walk on?
[SPEAKER_06]: The band's like, you do have a walk-on sign.
[SPEAKER_06]: Anyway, continue.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I wrote that song about Jason, my son.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a total of them, I was like, what I want this to sound like is imagine being saddled up and just blasting out across the past year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just...
[SPEAKER_00]: wind blowing your hair wide open on the horse.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does that sound like to you?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's when they come back to da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da
[SPEAKER_00]: They just got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I don't know any other way to say it, but they just got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: When it clicked, they started playing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And literally we hit record.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they just played.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was nothing structured about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was let's go in here and just jam this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we kept that.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's incredible, that makes me even happier because I do love that one, that's my the one that I wrote down.
[SPEAKER_06]: I haven't even looked at my notes, but that is the one that I wrote down that was- We don't need notes on this.
[SPEAKER_06]: We don't need notes on this.
[SPEAKER_06]: We don't need notes.
[SPEAKER_06]: And Joshua's pep talks throughout my career have really been a reason that I kept going.
[SPEAKER_06]: I want to thank you for being my friend.
[SPEAKER_06]: And last night I got to be, I just sat back there as a fan of your show.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I,
[SPEAKER_06]: I am just such a fan, I think you have such a gift, and you're writing and you're singing your delivery.
[SPEAKER_06]: You as a freaking human being, I'm so proud of you, and I really, we could have done this any time, but I thank you for doing, you know, I know it's a busy day today, and so thanks for taking your time out of your, like you have a show right after this.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay, yeah, come back 550 and all the things Josh Ward keep up and if you haven't seen the life show you would you will never be disappointed in a live Josh Ward show and if you need someone to get kicked out of your show for calling you a whore then Josh Ward will do it for you and that's how he said he said I looked like a hooker because I had on red lipstick and it offended me and then you were like get him out of here.
[SPEAKER_06]: He also was a little touchy feeling and Joshua kicked him out of my show and I'm going to put that on my my uh, like when I die it's going to be one of the top 10 highlights of my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like Oh, Captain Carl said it best.
[SPEAKER_00]: I won't tolerate rude behavior in a man and Yeah, I mean that that was a movie that that came off of but that's the way that I was raised.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean I don't know any other way and when it comes to that
[SPEAKER_06]: That's a good way to end this podcast.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thank you guys for being here.
[SPEAKER_06]: Everyone, Josh Ward, you're my hero.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, one of one of my biggest ones.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't tolerate no rude behavior from no man.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a one out of a coin.
[SPEAKER_02]: From one to many good nights It's an advantage mode Driving all night kind of life It's a baby I meet you But I gotta go Same old cowboy
[SPEAKER_01]: Give them a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a
[SPEAKER_01]: I know the place in time, I know the tip of my hand Do the nits all in life, so you won't care more Give a roll, we go