I remember making the track listing and the where I started like I got I must have changed the track listing eight bajillion times but it's like you know you eventually have to have something right and what I would start was like I saw I got 18 right so like I knew I wanted to do the part is the end you know and I wasn't sure what I wanted to start with really and then I was like well I'll do growing I'm getting old because that's the bridge right of the two I think and then in the middle I wanted to do a song was born and my song will never die as the middle thing and there's not necessarily a thematic thing I do and those songs aren't related in any way shape or form you look at them and you're like huh but but that's kind of how I ended up coming to that conclusion is like well this is at least a jumping-off point of like you know there's some sort of someone will read that like man that guy's real smart but I'm not. I think you're pretty smart. The first time you sent me that double list I was like that makes so much sense now. It was cool we ended up working out. Growing up and getting old. The idea of growing up and getting older I think was really born out of being like so many songs that we couldn't get to right on like on growing up that it was like well these songs are a lot of I mean most of the songs on getting old I really would argue that I like a lot more than the stuff on growing up and but it was like they just didn't fit on that and then it was like what I can't you know it because they're all to me in my mind they're all from the same right time frame like they're all the same record in my mind like the same era of like working on an album but it ended up being two different albums. Hannaford Road. I was driving from where we live into town I've driven that way a million times and I just saw this road sign that said Hannaford Road and it looked country as *** and I thought it was really cool really didn't have any idea of what that would be about like there's no I have no history with that road or anything honestly I just thought it was a super unique name and ended up writing it in starting it I guess in the with Jamie it's just me and you. Coyote Joe's. Coyote Joe's parking lot sure Rob was there the hottest show of all time for sure I was like eight million degrees it's a pretty hot show but it was really hot but we started was it that wasn't after the show it was like before the night before the night before I don't know if the band was I don't even know if you guys were there yet and we started riffing around I think you actually came up with a little guitar thing and we kind of put that together kind of started coming up with the melody kind of chorusy melody verse melody thing I don't know how far we made it that night because we weren't sure what what it was gonna be about at the time I don't think and then maybe finished it in Bangor, Maine. Maine? Oh yeah. And that was like one of those I think we finished Bangor. Write a Bangor, do Bangor in Bangor you know. It was the first day. But yeah we yeah we finished it then. By then we had an idea of like what we were trying to do or the story we were trying to do I guess yeah like the forbidden romance kind of thing or something I don't know what you say it was but but we kind of had a story to to go by so we were it was a little more processed by the time we started there I guess. Yeah I would say that's the song we had the most trouble trying to record. Yeah we did too. Oh we had watched a song die a horrible death in the studio and we didn't want it to happen again. That's right. Thank you. All I could see was Buddy's face. You remember calling me about that? No we knew because you were strong about it. You wanted it right. We knew you wanted it. Yeah I knew I loved the song but it was just we were doing like the Allman Brothers version when it should have been a little more rocky country and we played that thing and everybody was like whew here we go. Yeah right. It's tough sometimes. It's how it goes. I mean we've done that with several songs. Yeah. What song died in there? Nothing. Great song. Yeah great song. Great song. Back 40 Back. I would say Back 40 Back was probably written. I mean we wrote it a long time ago. Right I mean when Prayer After All was written around that same time so that would have been. Yeah. I mean deluxe of I mean we were cutting those vocals for the deluxe of when you see what you get in my study at my house. Right. You'd come and like taped all that stuff in there. Yeah. I don't think I cut vocals in a studio until growing up. Yeah. Like literally final vocals for an album were always cut in like a bedroom or like a closet or like I'm not sure I'm not sure why to be honest at this point but. And we had just gotten the barn. We built that studio. Totally dialed in finally. It flooded that first week. Yes. That was unbelievable. Oh yeah that's right. It destroyed all the carpet. And I was coming out of COVID and then you're like yeah the studio flooded and we got to set it up in the man bar. And I was like. Yeah you were like dying. I was dying and stuff dude. It was brutal times. Cause you had to build. You went and bought. You and Nudie went and bought 2x4s and built. Built a vocal booth. A vocal booth with comforters from Walmart in the in the pole barn. Yeah. Because the studio flooded out. Yeah. But we wrote that at my house. Yeah I mean I think that was probably my first time writing with Jeff. I think it was yeah. I think so. No. What about Driver? I know me and Rob had written with Jeff on. We wrote a song called Hush Puppies actually. I remember this song. Dude I've heard that song. Pretty cool. I've heard that song. Pretty great song. Writing with Jeff is just so different because he's you know he's all he ain't he probably don't own a guitar in standard tuning first off. Got that gut string. Gut string thing. Yeah that was really hard to that was hard to emulate what he did. Definitely. I mean it's like a lot of times I feel like when he's playing even on a work tape it sounds like two people are playing. He's an he's an artist in that playing too which is like guys like Travis Meadows and Tony Lang. They have that. Jonathan Singleton has that. It's a unique thing right. It's a distinguishable thing. I feel like that song also was part of a few songs that sort of contributed to you doing the getting up and growing old idea because we were working on that first half of the album and there was too many good songs that we weren't going to put on there and you didn't think you were going to do a deluxe and Back 40 Back for me was probably my favorite of that bunch that wasn't going to make it. It was on and off and on and off and on and off. Yeah and so then you kind of went hey I'm just going to do this and I was like wow that's pretty cool. You found yours. We were literally sitting in a hunting blind had been all week. Unlevel very unlevel. Very unlevel wobbly. He's saying put the brakes. Dude he just pulls this knife out and was like check this out man my uncle made me this. First off I don't think I knew you had an uncle. Is it your uncle? Yeah so it's my dad's sister's husband. Okay and he was like yeah man he made me this knife check it out. Now I pulled it out of the case and was looking at it and I was like man this is pretty sick and I flipped it over and so on a knife you have the blade section and then the back end is what's called the tang and that's what solidifies the knife in the wooden handle and so on the top spine of the tang when I flipped it over it just said you found yours right there and I said dang man this is cool. He said I had never seen it. Had you never seen it? Nope. I've had that knife for I don't know it's going on 10 years. Yeah he goes I've had this knife for 10 years. It's been in my hunting bag I mean ever since I've had it. I know this is this might be getting a little too deep but it's like things like that let me know that there's there's a god you know what I mean because it was out of nowhere out of no contrived hey maybe you should go for this kind of sound on your record it was just there and we saw it and we instantly knew what the song was like whether it be about your girl and then also he's like oh your home or your this or a dog. Well because both of our wives were pregnant at that time. Yeah yeah and we were it was like purpose. That's what we were talking about in the blind we were having that conversation and then I pulled the knife out to show it to him. It was just like well that's what that song's going to be about for sure and then we we went to the keys and we started in the keys. No we we wrote it all that day. We were just kind of all in that moment that song just kind of fell out honestly. But that song though I remember writing that and we were trying to find a groove and you had a really cool just tempo groove to it and it just pushed it it was another one of those story songs that we were able to get some tempo on it and I think that's what makes it just really cool. And then I begged to get those O's in there and finally. Oh he did he wanted some woes. I was like Jonathan don't want these woes. No it was me. I don't mind woes. I was like these bars are going away. He hates when mandolins do the thing and he hates woes and I was like this this woe is I can't because we listened to that work tape over and over and over did we not? Yeah we did. Like uh that was the section I think Massey was sending us all of those things. Yeah. And I love the woe. For the record James pushed those woes through. James is the woe guy though man. He's the woe guy. The live show you dissuade. We'll put you right up front for the live show. You'll understand woes from here on out. I like woes. Yeah I like the woes. I thought it was great. That last uh verse though with the blue pan and little feet coming up there that one. Yeah. That don't get you. I was like those guys just put that line in there to get it cut. No I put that. Actually I put that knife in his bag to get cut. He actually inscribed that on there. He thinks his uncle made that knife. The beer, the band, and the barstool. That was on the first session for anything of growing up and getting old. Yeah right. Because that was from. I don't remember. Yeah it was all the way at the very first and I had just gotten the first roughs like board mixes out for Beer Man and Barstool. And I was so excited to play it for Rob because I love that song. We hated it. No dude. It's like that's what you want though. A hundred percent. Right. It's like you want somebody to go. Be honest about it. To want it to be the best. Yeah I wanted it. It's like because he believed in that song so much and like we played it and I played it for him in the car and he's like he's like God just he's like I just want it to be cooler than this. Yeah. My dumb ass got in there when they first cut it and said this ain't good. That was you? Yeah. I was there too. I was saying this is the best thing I've ever heard in my life. Yeah I always lamented that. I'm like what was the difference? Do you remember? Was it more like up and up? There was no angst in the track. It felt good. It was syncopated. It had a really cool texture. It never went anywhere from the verse to the chorus. It never like yeah it never changed in like dynamically speaking. And also the lyric is kind of tragic in a way anyway and it wasn't a tragic track. I wanted it to be darker I think. But that's one of those titles I always joke with Luke about that song because man you had that title 2016 maybe? Yeah. I mean we were in like it was before Radio Tour. We were in hotels. Cappy was driving around the van and something got brought up about the book, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. And I'm like I don't remember. I just remember we were in a ***ty hotel room and Luke was like man it'd be cool to do like the beer, the van, and the barstool. And so ever since then I've always been like dude I'm so glad I had that idea. I didn't even know that. I just got chills because we were sitting on that Porsche and boom. Yeah. And we were scrolling through. We were doing the idea thing like we had we'd thrown something out and nothing was and it was late that night. And I think that was the first day you got there. And we had maybe had that fire going out there on that porch and just scrolling. I love the crickets in that work. I was yeah same dude. And you said you said man you said Luke you're like what about this one? And you kind of said that you're like you had this we started this thing or had this thought just that a while back and said it. And man same thing that as soon as you said that thing it just does a long right too. We were like yeah like long into the night. That place was sick. Like hearing the song for the first time the recorded version I've lived with that work tape for because you know sometimes we'll write songs and we'll go immediately get them demoed and that's the version you listen to until something happens or nothing happens. But with this one we just we just work tape it right there on that picnic table and you can hear it starts off with the crickets in the background and like and you can just hear like boom North Carolina and the thing and the work tape. And then being able to hear Luke play me he's like dude you haven't even heard beer band barstool yet. And hearing that for the first time was super cool you know to hear it you know produced out. I've always loved that song was super super proud of that one to make the record. Yeah I'm glad we got it right. Yeah we had to listen to the lyric more when we were recutting so that it kind of matched it sort of felt like you could picture this guy in this situation. I thought that was the biggest thing that missed in the first track to me. Yeah it was like didn't Luke say too that he was like no man this is like an old country song. Yeah right. Oh okay. Why didn't you say that in the first place? Yeah. Still we uh that was your like idea thing you brought down there right? I don't know I had some I had some music and some melody for the for the chorus but I think it was a shared title we had so we came up with it. It's one of them that just kind of like we like worked into the title somehow. Like we never I don't even know if any of us had that on like our phone. Right. Just when I was just like this feels like it should say this. Like the thing you were playing should go here. I had a bluegrass you know chord progression kind of Chucky train beat thing going on just to try to do something you know. Yeah that work tape is still I'm still. Oh yeah it's like yeah yeah. You know I still wanted it to have that feel to it but obviously you didn't want it to be like a you know traditionally leaning bluegrass thing to fit on this record so it's like we had to kind of blend it. Marry the two. Yeah. Ideas. It felt like. I think it's my favorite solo on the album. That's what I was about to say. It felt like Jerry Rowe and Rob McNally they were super thoughtful to maneuver that. Yeah. To not make it that and it. It was kind of the mando and the acoustic that helped to pull it back. Yeah. The ups and the mando and. Right. Did y'all recut that? Because that was on the same session. That was on that very. That was on the very first recut. We didn't recut it. So y'all took. I feel like we kind of got it right the first time. It was really straddling both. It was it had the bluegrass elements but it was. So yeah. Is it Charlie Worsham? Is that Charlie? I think it is Charlie. Yeah it is. Yeah. That was a tough one to sing for you too. Yeah because we had like you didn't have feel like you had the vocal you needed and when we that was one of the last vocals. Well I waited intentionally. Yeah I think I waited because. Because like we you gave me. We had taken a couple shots. And it just wasn't met like you know you're going and singing growing up and getting old is not the same thing as singing still. Right. On a vocal day for me like my voice is weird. Well you needed to be in that sweet spot where you were warmed up but you weren't burnt yet. Like that's where you needed to be. Which is tough. Like for what you're looking for for an album is such a at least for me you know. And I've learned this more from working with you doing vocals. It's like there's three different places that my voice. That's right. Yeah honestly. And it's like whatever it is that day we got to go. That's what I've learned about comping you is because it's like you're so good I think oh we'll get three or four passes and that'll be it. But then you start going through him like oh wait he's three different people as he warms up. Pushing hard in the middle. Yes. And not pushing. Yeah. So the way you cut us all that time out of your schedule when we came to the keys where you literally just came and hung for the day and you'd sing a little and then break. And then sing a little and break. And then just slowly get warmed up. Those days are tough too. But we got a lot of good work done. In between. Oh a lot of good work done. Lots. Lots. I mean just horrible. Just do it again I guess. Not good enough. We get them done but it is hard man. You know like because you really think like I mean at least I think I'm like hey how can we not have it? How can we not have it? I know. But it always I mean you got I mean unfortunately you guys are always right on that. I mean as much as I hate to admit that. See Me Now. Backstory of See Me Now. We Kenton and I wrote one day and it was we didn't have long. We had like an hour and we were kind of going through ideas. And I had this I remember having this idea because it had come to me the last week. I was with my family and was around my aunt. But so my mom's dad died when she was two. So I've never she don't know him. I never got to meet him. But throughout my whole life like even when I was a teenager on my grandma would stop me all the time be like God the way you walk the way you talk is like reminding me of his name is Oren. And so as I got to learn more about him he was a fiddle player in the Strawberry Pickers which is a. Sick band. Yeah so they were a bluegrass band that followed around like the governor of Alabama back in long time ago. What a gig. What a gig. So they like he would go and do a campaign anywhere around Alabama. They would be there like open the show kind of thing. And so nobody from him till me like did anything music at all like played the radio. That was it. So so once I started doing music and I moved to Nashville and everything my my aunt who is my mom's oldest sister would every time she saw me she'd be like gosh I wish your grand you know your granddad could see you now. And so she said that to me 10 times probably. And I remember I just saw her and she said that again and I was like write that down. You know see me so you see me now. And so we had sort of the bones there but it was like the lyric and the melodies that we got when we were together in Montana was what kind of took it to that next level. Yeah the thing that struck me about that song was I remember my my dad's dad he passed away in 2000 and oh I guess it was probably 15. Whenever we went out at the zoo remember what the day was the infamous hungover zoo story. But we were there and my my dad's dad had not been doing very well and he got to hear this one's for you. It was before I had even signed with Sony but the record was already done. And so I got to like go down there and like play it for him and stuff. And he had always told me when I had started doing music a few years before and he was like man if he's like if you stick with this man like you're gonna be you're gonna make it you know. And I was like at the time I was like this guy's losing it you know like what is he talking about you know. And but it was weird like he said it with such conviction that I almost kind of believed him you know what I mean. And that moment stuck with me forever and then so getting to go down there and finally play him the record and that was the last time I saw him. And then we went on this five week tour is the first tour we had ever been on and it was like first weekend wasn't it? Like it was like second day or something we were at the the zoo. And my dad called me my dad like never calls me like especially not he was still working at that time. He called me in the middle of the day and I just knew you know. And I didn't I wasn't able to go back to to his funeral and stuff. And so when you play and that was really tough on me and because he was a huge part of my life. And so when you played me that song I just thought back to that moment of him telling me like you're gonna make it you know. And that just resonated with me a lot. And I think we got to kind of kind of tell that story a little bit in that song you know. I got to kind of tell him some stuff that he never got to to see happen you know. So that was that was cool man. That was really cool. Joe. That was a tune that it was kind of like Eric Dillon had sent me that. And him and James Slater had written that song. And it was it was an Eric like work tape. Eric Dillon work tape. And I always just loved that song. And I thought it was like so great you know. And I was like man it's just gonna be any day now somebody's gonna record this song. It's so great. And the thing the only thing that really really like bugged me about it was that the chorus never went anywhere like melodically speaking. And so I had Eric come over to my house and we sat down with it and we kind of rewrote a little bit of the second verse. And this kind of extended the second verse and added a bridge. And then we we sat around for an hour trying to figure out melodically how to how to make it have this that vocal kind of moment. Playing that on the Opry I guess 2020 like April maybe of 2020. You know the Opry's done a show every night for 50 years or something. It's a long time. I mean thousands of thousands of like and never missed a show right. So when COVID kind of kicked off and everything was like mega shut down. How many people were there? Nobody. Nobody. It was empty. It was wild. You know just being in there it's empty. And you're just like is this what shows are gonna be like for god knows how long. You know I don't know you know is there gonna be any shows or anything. And I would just finish that song with with Eric maybe that week or the week before that or something. There's a story behind that song. Well there's there's been a decent amount of folks in my family that have kind of you know struggled with you know alcoholism and stuff like that. And so you know and I have you know a couple buddies who don't really drink anymore either. And so it's like I think it was like man we're out and we're doing this big show and the whole show is kind of like I mean all genres kind of built around like have a drink or like you know let's get let's get hammered or whatever. And it's like you think about like man what's the the five guys in this 60,000 person place that aren't drinking like what's their experience like you know. It's like they can't do it anymore. They don't allow themselves to do it anymore. And it's like that was always something that I was kind of intrigued by. And when I heard that song I was like that might mean just as much in total to those five people as that other song means to everybody else collectively. You know what I mean? I think the same guy that enjoys the beer song enjoys that song too because you kind of know. Everybody's teetered on that line you know. Yeah and I feel like everybody has you know folks in their lives that they know that are pursuing that that thing or has someone in their family that's been affected by that in some way. And so I just I thought that song was was really important to and I do think that instead of calling it The Bottle and calling it Joe it's like I really wanted people to be like what the *** is this about instead of well if it's called The Bottle you kind of know what's going on. You know where it's going right? And if you were to just have never heard it and what's Joe about you don't know and you're more inclined maybe to listen to the story as opposed to you're just like oh I know where this is going you know. Which is the best first line of a song on the whole thing. You know what I mean? It's like oh *** okay yeah I know I kind of know what we're doing now. Yeah yeah. A song was born. I remember hearing that Haggard story that he which is really cool man he rented a boat. A houseboat. Yeah a houseboat and he's out on Lake Shasta and he was just like belligerently drinking and he hadn't really written anything and they were like man we got to get him off that boat he's going to kill himself and he when they I guess I don't know if they called I don't even know if you could call them but they were like hey man like you got to come back in. He was like I think I'll I think I'll stay I'll just stay here and drink instead of going back in and so he had started that song on on a houseboat on Lake Shasta and I thought man that's super cool nobody's going to care about that right other than like songwriters. So me and Bethard sat down and we were and and there was a really bad first verse I hate to say that because if he watches this he's gonna be like well I gotta give up it was like every rose has a thorn has its thorn was like the first the first song in the thing. I know it was pretty cringe man so I was like oh man. I love that Casey Bethard's the bad songwriter in this story. And not here to defend himself. Anyway so we I was like hey man we need to chill on this I was like I just I'd like to just let Luke hear we didn't even have a chorus I don't think and so we went to Montana with that idea. That was the first song we we worked on we were sitting on the back porch and you like prefacing sharing this idea with Luke and talking about getting into to writing it you told the story of Haggard and as soon as you told that story Luke goes he's like he said he said well you've heard the one about Willie right and I was like wait what? So Luke tells the story about how Willie wrote On the Road Again. Oh yeah he wrote On the Road Again which he actually wrote for a movie. That's right that's right. The producer of the film I think was on the plane with him and was like hey man we really need this song for this thing and he got the like barf bag out of the seat and wrote On the Road Again on the bar. I didn't know this plan. I didn't know when he was saying that I was just hearing the money being printed as he's telling this story. I was like oh yeah. But it just it just worked out so great because I had never heard the that Merle Haggard story and y'all had never heard the Willie story. And what's cool is like don't let the truth get in the way of a good story right there's probably some elements that some of some of that is and is not but that's the the lore of the tune you know that that a song was born from that. That's a cool one. That track that's one of my favorite tracks. Yeah I love that too. Yeah didn't we we clowned on that guitar part for a long time. We did. I think yeah. Well it was kind of a Jerry Reed tongue-in-cheek kind of thing. No it is because it's the West Tennessee version of how you play all those songs so we kind of knew how you know. Yeah that thing's killing me. A song will never die. Ironically enough like you know is like Jonathan wrote that song with with Eric and Travis Meadows but like I don't. In Boone. In Boone yeah but you didn't send me that song. It was like. No I didn't. No you didn't. It was like Arturo Buenahara sent me that song like he got my email somehow like that and like was just like hey man I've never sent you anything and wouldn't ever send you anything but I know you're buddies with Jonathan because you weren't even producing me at that time. Probably not no. And and he sent it to me it was like hey man I would never spam you with stuff. He's like I just really love this song and that was when Eric was writing the Heart and Soul record. Yeah I couldn't believe he didn't cut it. I was shocked. Shocked. But I think his idea but I think Eric's idea. Yeah but I think Arturo was like kind of shocked that it didn't make the record either and I mean you know what a great publisher of him to like yeah send that ***ing song to me and I loved it and I was like well you know Jonathan's on it and I've been a huge Travis Meadows fan forever. Me and Rob have been huge fans of his for a long time and um and so I obviously would have loved the tune whoever wrote it but it was like it already had the story because you know I love church so much and you know me and Jonathan have been buddies for a long time now and I love Travis Meadows and I just the song was just so great and then I was so adamant about that drum part you remember yeah how annoying I was about that drum part. I don't even know what you would even call that drum part. The end. Was it the end? Yeah like we had kind of a double time with the backbeat in it. Yeah almost like a marching band kind of kind of drum thing going on in there. So the two parts went together so we you were like it's got to be this way and we're like okay well what if we put the other drums in and then put that one in there will that slide by and we're just like print it send it to you it's like I love it we're like oh there you go. Got it. Where the wild things are. Who else knew that song? Everybody. I think y'all just talk about that. Didn't Eric have it for a while? He did have it he almost cut it. Yeah he almost cut it and then man I was just I couldn't believe that song couldn't could land somewhere. Nashville songwriters knew that song. Yeah that was the one that all everybody was always like man have you heard yeah of course I've heard it. It was getting passed around. I'm curious why did why did somebody not cut it because it was like a death song? I mean Luke would tell you it's hard to see. It is a story song. They must have been overthinking it because I think it's hard to say right from the first time. Because Randy's demo is so good. Maybe that's why. The blueprint's already there. It is good. It's not like you have to go in and go well it's just an acoustic work tape but how do I cut it? They listen to Randy do it and they're like. I played it for Randy at the office and and before kind of stopped it in the middle. I was like hey by the way this is a lot like the demo. Isn't that the point of a demo though? It's a good demo. That's the idea of the demo. Especially when it's a story song like that. When that song was going around at least when I heard it I don't know how long it had been around before I had heard it and that was five years ago. Yeah. I mean how old is that song? It's got to be that old. It's got to be at least that old. But like at that time nobody was cutting story songs at all. Yeah. Really. I mean outside of Eric Church probably. Yeah. And I would argue that's a really tough song to sing and like figure out how you would do live. I mean we struggle with it even in the studio but I mean like that's one of those ones that we haven't I haven't even run with the band yet and I'm like good luck on those harmonies. What does that look like? What does that look like live? Like I struggle with it took us a while to figure out kind of love we make too. Yeah. Vocally speaking because it's just a challenge. Because it's fast and it's like I was mad. You remember that? What was it like Seattle or Denver? Denver. It was cold in Denver. When you were mad we wrote it too. Yeah I was like what am I gonna but I remember somebody telling me I was I think it was when me and Moffat were still doing stuff and he was like I was telling I was like well we can't do this because I'm not going to be able to sing this thing live like this and he was like dude he's like we can't dumb down the record like you'll figure it out. Yeah. Like we got to make it as good as we can and you're gonna figure it out I promise you know what I mean. So I always remembered that you know. Let the crowd sing man. Get your breath in. Yeah but I don't know I don't know why that how that song never got cut because it's an awesome awesome song. It's one of those songs too that like because we all here as songwriters like you have people all the time sending you songs or being like hey man have you heard this or you heard this one and I remember I was at my house alone and I don't know if Dan texted to me or he he showed up was like dude you got to hear this song and it like I remember where I was when I heard that song like that's how good and different almost you can say that that tune is and how it stands out among you know the rest of them that you hear over the years but that one just stuck with you. There's a few songs like that floating around town that are just like. A couple of them are on this thing you know what I mean. I always thought that was neat too because there's a you know in growing up and getting old you know when you're trying to figure those two things out but there's a Randy Montana song on there there's all our all your buddy's songs on there there's Jeff Hyde songs on there that feel like the soundtrack to that you know the things you were listening to when you were like oh man I'm gonna get better at this I'm gonna get you know what I mean I'm gonna figure out how to do better tunes on there. I thought that was really neat in going back and listening to it as a whole once I could listen to it again you know. Once I could listen to it again. Love you anyway. So I'm standing there in the crowd and Luke is on stage and he starts talking about Nicole I guess was Nicole sick? She was there but she was sick. Yeah I knew she was yeah yeah she never came out she never came off the bus and he's like I don't even know if you're out here tonight but I love you anyway or but I do anyway or something it was it came out to me as love you anyway and I was like oh man that's kind of a cool title so I wrote it down on my phone and I knew we were going to Keys what's I'm putting my vote in for Keys dude y'all can go back I'm not saying I won't go to North Carolina but I rode the back of that Suburban and nearly threw my guts up for two days getting up that hills like this. Keys suits me just fine but anyway we took that down there well I don't think we had the setup no because I was on the plane ride down there we were like we're like let's dive into a couple of these things like what is it even were they about and that one was just one where we didn't even we couldn't figure it out while we were texting right and as we're the coolest part about that is like we're sitting on that back patio or the overlooking kind of the ocean but it's just dark we were kind of throwing around ideas about this thing and what it was going to end up being and how it was a love song but also at the core this like breakup song or a heartbreak song yeah and you don't even know it's a heartbreak song until it gets right to the hook it was almost like the the verses are like poems in a way yeah yeah and they didn't make a whole lot of sense until that hook kind of kind of turned the wrench and tightened everything up I think that that song is a great example of you know a lot of times I'll tease a song on my social media and I think I put the word tape of that song and it smoked pretty immediately I don't think it did that that great it didn't I don't think it did that great compared to what I've always kind of like what I usually put out and then all of a sudden we put up the recorded version and it's like people are losing their mind but if you think about it in the in the stuff that you were putting out at the time that doesn't really doesn't necessarily fit what I was doing at that time it's more of a it's more of a getting old than it's growing up you know true true that track is is uh so pulled back too yeah we laid it down and went with and it's literally kind of fiddle and lyric you know oh yeah I played it for you yeah yeah that's on your iphone wasn't it squeezed out oh was it really no no it's fake but I think it's in I think it's in the nord to be honest you got me dude I mean I had to like ride all those most time I can sniff those out that was a good one yeah yeah take you with me I had this one idea take you with me my phone but it was a completely different concept from any you know to where it turned into so we called Rob up and Rob was out and he's like yeah come out write a song and I remember we started the verse and a little bit of the chorus like before that we didn't get like really any chorus stuff that we liked though but we loved the verse I had forgotten about the storm because we had gotten to Ohio State early because it was a stadium show and like we had done all the prep work and that day of show it was like everything that they had set up I remember getting up and looking outside the bus and like tents are just flying by oh it was like insane it was like middle of Kansas kind of I'm like are we in a tornado in Ohio what's happening and so that kind of died down and you guys I didn't even know y'all had gone to the golf course hit me up I walked over your bus got on there and I wasn't on there long and you said I got this idea to take you with me but it very quickly it reminded me of the nostalgia of like when your dad says as a kid your dad saying that he's going to take you to do anything is a big ***ing deal thing ever yeah and like just those words of like how do we get that emotion and I remember we started writing that verse and and the turtle and the rabbit line happened and I saw Luke get emotional oh and that made me emotional and I was like we've got to keep that because that's the whole idea of the song and man that will always be we've had special songs man that one will be uh always be a special song when you listen to it it's really the the singer of the song is the kid in the song right like having the experience with your dad and and you know him taking you to do stuff and um I think that was made it a little bit easier for me to write honestly to not be the dad in the song right and then when we finished it in the keys we got the chorus you know and the chorus is like this big kind of like Vince Gill melody thing that we really wanted to do and couldn't quite figure out that first day and and then in the the last verse it kind of you kind of just break the whole perspective of the song is just kind of like gone like it turns into like me singing directly about my experience right which is not in the song at all up to that point um and I thought that was that was pretty neat and and maybe something that I hadn't done before and but just really kind of saying exactly what was going on to in my life at the time which is just saying you know hey I'm I'm thinking about my son while I'm writing this song you know he's not even old enough to understand you know what this song is about or anything or the emotions that I'm going through while writing this song you know it's like um it was pretty it was like pretty cathartic experience for me to be able to write that song because I hadn't like processed any of the emotions of like being a dad like a new dad yet at that time and it was definitely one of my favorites man I love the production of it too I think really nails the the feel of what I wanted that song to to be you know it was hard to work on at times just because you're focused on everything but the lyric and then sometimes that lyric jumps out and gets ***s you right yeah creates an imagery song either so that made it harder he hates that one kept bringing it up he always told me yeah yeah I hate this one I can't believe this one maybe you thought you know fast car I've had a million favorite songs you know from the time I was born until now you know at any given time but that was one of the first like oh that's like my favorite song right now you know and my dad had this old pickup truck that had a cassette player in it and and I have the actual cassette that me and my dad used to listen to like the exact one of that album and that song just always I mean stuck out to me and that was probably one of my first experiences subconsciously even knowing what like a hit song was because I mean I didn't know at the time that that was a hit song right like I was I mean I was when I first heard it I was probably three or that song had been out probably five years already at that time I think that came out 88 or 89 or something and but I remember hearing it and being like man I like this song I mean I liked every song on that album but that song for whatever reason really just stuck out to me and I didn't really know why or anything so I listened to it my whole life you know I always come back to it and and then when I started teaching myself to play it was the first song that wasn't just like this thing that I taught myself to play it took me a long time to learn how to play that song anyone that's ever it is your guitar if you pick up a guitar that's what I'm playing there's no doubt no doubt back in the neon days when we'd sound check there'd be like three or four songs he would always *** the guitar and play the solo from what I got yeah every time yeah and then um avid brother song called murder in the city I always play that one and then tracy chapman fast car for sure um and that's still that's the only three songs I know on guitar to this day um but no I just took me a really long time because I was really like that song was way more advanced on guitar than I was when I learned it right like I feel like I'm just now really like proficient enough to play that song well enough to do it on stage like just at this point but I could play that song 10 years ago because I just sat there and played it it took me months to be able to play it and then to be able to play it and sing it took even more time you know um and I so I always would just kind of cover that at my bar gigs and people just loved it as much as I loved it you know and you know you hear a song like Chris Stapleton do Tennessee Whiskey is like how many people's only impression of that song is Chris Stapleton doing that song not to mention that George Jones has cut it and David Allen Coe's cut it and you know all these people have cut this song it's been around for generations of country music fans and has even been a single for other people too and then when Chris did it just you know it got this whole new life and and uh I think that's what I think that's what I love that song so much and I think it's such a great song that it deserves to be heard by a whole generation of people that haven't haven't heard it before and and so to be able to like have an opportunity to do that especially with a song that's meant so much to me and and my love of music from as far back as I can remember is is super unique. Tattoo on a sunburn. I'm married but I don't wear a wedding ring because I'm mega weird about my hands I can't have like markings or stamps or any of that drives me nuts so loves chicken wings a lot of napkins and Ray was like hey Dan why don't you wear a wedding ring and I was like well you know I gave him the whole spiel I said I'm gonna eventually have to get a tattoo right and he said well you should get one while you're down here and I was and at the time uh my hands were literally sunburned because it was like middle of February or something and we were out there so my pasty ass was down there and all of a sudden it's like you know everything on me was sunburned right so I said man I ain't getting this I ain't getting a tattoo on this hot dog man it's sunburned right now that you know how bad that would hurt just said it in passing and I was like hmm tattooing a sunburn that's kind of a cool idea and they were like we're going to play Madden and so they went in and started playing Madden and I started working on this song and then I went in and said hey I think this is kind of cool it's a little out of pocket but it's kind of a weird idea I'll play it for them and like it's like I feel like it just hurts too much sounds like it hurts I don't know if I'm into it and I was like okay Ray's like I'll finish it with you so we're like sick so Ray comes out we work on a little bit we didn't really put a whole lot into it though did we just have verse bones of course yeah not a not a huge thing and so we've come back and we're like hey Luke you sure you don't like this he's like yeah I'm positive and so we're like okay let's see let's see if anybody else does right because that's what we do is Music Row songwriters so we were like man we got this day with Ben Hayslip we should finish this thing out and just see if anybody cares so we finished it out with Hayslip our version of it I think I had maybe said something to you about it and then you went to his house and the day that the day well no I just so the day that it was supposed to get cut I was just we're just hanging out like going to his house to hang out and he was like what song is it I was like it's just I said when I started down the keys it's called Tattoo on a Sunburn he's like I don't remember much about it will you play it and so then I just played the whole song in its entirety and at that time but didn't you literally play you didn't know I sat down with the guitar and played yeah I remember him being like that's pretty cool and like just kind of sits back we don't really say anything else about it I had told you that Ray played it for me and you were like yeah I got the the demo and you played me the demo for it that night and then I was like oh I was like cool man like I was like well I like this but I just there's some things I don't like about it you know like where certain things are and how they fall and and you put my favorite line in there now which I know that seems like something I would say in order to get a song cut but it's already cut so it doesn't matter but it was the it was the due west Arkansas yeah I was jealous of that too yeah because that made it come from the Carolinas instead of because we wrote it about down 65 you know in in Panama City or whatever but his perspective was from the right of murder how this wine and road like led to what it was and if you take any of those parts out the song never ends up the way it finished up yeah pretty sick yeah that one turned out good five leaf clover it was over covid I wrote that song um and man just kind of like I guess probably tail end where like things were about to start like maybe we were talking about going back out you know and like those plans were being discussed what that looks like and you know but still I mean been at the house for a year and a half not doing anything except you know doing stuff really like this in my garage or whatever it was and driving around and ended up in I have this clover plot up on this hill at our house and um me and me and nudie were up there um just your eyes driving around like something to do you know there's nothing to do and we got out and you know we're just like looking for four leaf clovers right because there's literally just nothing to do you know and we're like I found one and I was like man that's sick I finally found one and then nudie found a five leaf clover he really did actually found one I have the picture on my phone I took a picture and I was like man like how lucky you gotta be to like find a five leaf clover and I wrote that title down on my phone five leaf clover and I had to write um a couple weeks later uh with jesse alexander and and chase mcgill and we couldn't really think of anything to write honestly it was one of those days where you're just struggling you know like you're this idea don't like it we're going through we're trying to come up with stuff and can't find anything and you know it's one of those titles that it didn't really at the time jump off the page to me like you know I wasn't like man this is such a great idea or anything like that it was just another idea in my phone you know and and I started playing this you know kind of irishy sounding thing on my phone or like I mean on on the guitar and and then I was like I was like man well I got this idea called five leaf clover and they were like *** we love that I love that idea especially with this guitar thing you're like and really kind of song kind of just really wrote itself I mean we wrote it really fast that day and uh again another song I had started kind of playing on the road um like a during the acoustic section the solo section of the show and I think I played it at a festival or something first and um didn't really again another one that didn't really take off really from the jump and then as it kind of got posted a few times throughout that year people really started you know globbing on to it for whatever reason and saying when's this song coming out when are you going to put the song out and and then we went to work to record it and and really kind of wanted to like key in on that irish kind of like celtic vibe that the you know acoustic was taking and the way I was playing it um and you know adding that fiddle in there I think was was huge I think for that song. I played a bunch of times that John Mayer song the age of worry song I played that song a bunch of times for everybody and trying to get it and then you know country world and then it's like you you whisper something to somebody and it changes as you go as it goes down the line you know and then because like oh okay no yeah I love that I love that which is how it kind of ended up I think Rob and those guys were passing that thing off and then putting the fiddle on it with that thing it does such a cool line. I had texts Chase back and forth during that thing he's asked me how everything was going and I was like man this thing's killing it just feels so good. Fox in the hen house. That one was another idea that y'all come down with. No we literally had we wrote we had Fox's killing our chickens that oh that's right we were both going through Fox's eating the hell out of our chickens and let me tell you something that does not work well for a wife that names your chickens. No it didn't go well but no I mean that one really just kind of fell out honestly I mean it really did I mean it was just like yeah to me that one's like pretty self-explanatory I mean it's just a big vocal and then it to me the the biggest part of that tune is like how we ended up cutting it right which is like almost like a Black Crow's yeah yeah it's cool. It's mean, it's just mean. Yeah well I remember that these two had the chicken thing going on and Dan's telling me on the phone we're trying to get prepped to go to to go write the thing at the Keys and he's like I got this title I think are we me and Luke's got this thing we got we got Fox's literally killing chickens like Fox in the hen house and I was like what the am I supposed to do with it? It was a bluegrass record. We thought we were writing a bluegrass record. We did, we did, it was a bluegrass title but I was just like I thought y'all were professional songwriters. Oh yeah I was like give me I mean like give me the ***ing hardest one you got that's the one I want you know but it was like you literally gave me the hardest one you had I think I was like Fox. But you know the way he sings it you couldn't cut it bluegrass because his vocal just dominated everything it's like it needed that edgy ballsy track. Well we were trying to be up underneath him. Don't try to talk your track up like oh the tracks were made so good. No no I'm saying I'm not writing that first chip. We were like trying to do like a Steel Drivers thing you know what I mean like something like that was what I was thinking on the thing was like a Steel Drivers something right you know that kind of thing but we were intentionally writing the bluegrass thing but I remember we did the the big long Fox in the hen house. Yeah we knew it was on. It was like all right when we got this and then when he lit into it that day was like yeah okay I get it I get it. I'm just singing that one like it like he meant it. Well dude once we started we were like literally writing about foxes getting chickens. But once we turned into but once we got into it there were so many different ways that you could see the story going like you were like well god is this guy like is this a thief ***bing some *** is it like a dude sneaking on somebody's old lady is it like somebody stabbing somebody in the back I mean it was like all these different things but we're literally writing lyrics like a fox is killing chickens at the house you know but but it started being all this stuff and I was getting fired up because I was like man okay I mean I like I get it. The part. That one was one that I distinctly remember it was Kent and I started it and I was he remembers these days well but uh uh 2017 I went through a terrible breakup with this girl from back home and kind of Luke's not the only one that remembers. I'm not going there. I'm not going there but so uh I called Kent and I was like dude I don't feel like writing today or whatever he's like why and I was like I don't want to talk about it he's like well just come over here and drink some espresso or whatever because he's got this little espresso machine I was like this dude's not going to shut up till I go over there so I went over there he won't and then uh he was like you know I was like dude I don't I don't feel like writing he was like well just let's talk or whatever I go well I was like you don't when you move to Nashville you don't think about days like this like nobody tells you about these days when you move to Nashville and he goes well let's write that and so as I had been kind of reflecting on the reasons why and stuff it just it made sense kind of as we started the song and we kind of finished an iteration of it and then Luke tell me if I'm wrong but I heard it somehow on the bus but you were had been gone a long time and were missing Nicole and so Luke called me I was like what did like what is this song what and I kind of told him the story and he was like come over the house this was this ended up being like a few days before Christmas went over his house and then we went kind of line by line and just made it um you know kind of put a lot of your story into it but really just like pulling the curtain behind what everybody sees and like yeah sometimes it's it's not always that and right even nobody films the ***ty parts yeah right and the ups and downs we go through and so it never felt complete to me until we kind of finished it and then from that day on it's been my favorite song yeah and I really wanted to to do it you know and I think you know it's a song that wouldn't have have you know been able to be on some of my other albums just because it's like you're not you know you're just not ready to say those kind of things or you don't feel like you're established enough to say those kind of things but like it can be related to a lot of different jobs or different lifestyles or career paths but you know it's like the things that really people don't talk about a lot you know nobody comes to town and says hey man you're gonna have these days that are like and there's this weird juxtaposition I think of like sometimes you can be having like you know some of the worst like mental health days that you've ever had while doing and achieving some of the biggest things that you've ever achieved you know and I'm sure that a lot of you guys have been through that stuff too and your brain does that with everything too then right on the way home you're like oh man my chest kind of hurts yeah it's not that story is the one we stop on too I'm dying I'm dead yeah the worst story you're like god that's the that's the most realistic definitely what's happening yeah come to the ending there is no other way to go yeah I guess I'm dying yeah when in reality you ate wings for lunch yeah yeah yeah I think that song speaks to that a lot so I love that one for that reason as you probably heard if you watch all of this thing it's like it's really just guys that really like to write songs that get along really well and I think that's what this has always been about so I think I hope that you kind of got to feel that in the conversations that we had today that it's just like these songs are just these like moment in time you know when we sit down and write them and then you know through a lot of a lot of time and work they become what you guys love and I think I really just wanted you guys to know that it's like you know it is a you know it's a it's a process that we all love and that we love being a part of and so I hope that kind of came across in this