The Answer is Anarchy (with Amanda Shires)

Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Sunday next level interview. I’m your host Tim Miller on this week’s pod. I have the Great Amanda Shires outlaw Country songwriter, Better half of fellow rocker, Jason Isabelle. She’s featured in a recent New Yorker story about how our polarized politics have infected country music, We talk about the Jason Aldeen saga. Have a really heartfelt discussion about abortion and raising our kids in red states, before getting to some fun music chatter.

I really adore Amanda, and I hope you’ll give this one a go. But we take the interview on Monday before the third indictment a former president Donald Trump. So I wanted to provide some reactions I have in a few hours after watching this. I still can’t believe this shit is real. These images of a former president arriving in DC to be arraigned for four felony counts in response to the conspiracy he orchestrated against our country.

As I watched it all still in disbelief that this is really our world, all these years later, I got a little rasped, as you might imagine, but a few things, but one of them was this column David Brooks from earlier this week was titled, what if were the bad guys here? In the article, Brooks argues that the, quote, educated laptop class and their meritocratic system of exclusion made trumpism inevitable. He goes on, with the predictable laments about flat necks and cancel culture and elite colleges and some of the stuff I agree with. But towards the end it gets at something like this. It’s easy to understand why people in less educated classes would conclude that they are under economic, political, cultural, and moral assault and why they’ve rallied around Trump as the best warrior against the educated class.

This is such effing bullshit. It’s condescending bullshit. There are people who don’t know fancy cheeses and nearly what as well as David that still have the capacity to identify a fraud when they see one. For starters, you don’t see a lot of working class black folks onboard the trump train. They’re from, quote, less educated class.

But somehow people of color are totally absent from Brooks analysis. I want you to imagine a counterfactual, an alternate universe. Where an overwhelmingly Bulwark Democratic electorate nominates a corrupt racist buffoon to be their party leader. And then some New York Times columnists argues that this is defensible because of systemic racism and white privilege If that happened? The very same assholes that make excuses for Trump voters now would call that argument woke trash.

In that one instance for once in their life, they’d be right because that’s all the excuse making for Trump supporters is at this point. Trash. Post hoc trash. Donald Trump fucked over working class people for decades. From Trump University to his ACN pyramid scheme to the contractors he’s stiffed.

They’re working class people who are dead now because of vaccine conspiracies, some are in prison because they believed his election lies. His entire life has been a fraud at the less educated class’s expense. He is not their best warrior. He is a selfish pig. Getting propped up by other selfish cuckolds.

Also, it’s not just the rubes that are for Trump? The people making an ass of themselves this week defending him? It’s Ivy Leagueers, and ambitious politicians, and billionaires. And other members of the meritocratic elite. Hi, Tom Cotton.

And by the way, you can’t buy a boat and take it on a parade on an hourly wage. What Donald Trump has done is criminal and it’s treasonous and he’s a disgrace And all of those actions were meant only to help himself, not regular Joe’s from the less educated class. And there’s nobody in the laptop class that can fart out any white identity critical theory to justify it. Sorry, David. Up next, I got a Red State Living Woman who understands all that better than most.

It’s the great Amanda Shires I hope you enjoy our discussion half as much as I did. She’s the best. But first, our friends at Acetunk

Hello.

And welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I am here today with Amanda Shire. She’s a singer and songwriter. She has a new record out with Bobby Nelson. She’s a founder of the High Women, the much better half of Jason Isbell, a Fiddler extraordinaire, she has a New Yorker profile about some outlaw progressive country selling riders, including Amanda that’s out recently, and she’s coming at us from the barn of internal wondering Amanda Shires.

This is the

dream come true. Thank you for doing this with us.

And the dreams are all on this side of the microphone.

I’m jealous. I wanna just rent out that barn for my next book and, like, just spend a week in the barn of internal wondering while you’re on tour or something.

That’d be great. You don’t even have to rent it. You could just do it.

People on the YouTube can see in the background. It’s gorgeous. Okay. For people who don’t know you, I just wanna start with your origin story. Teenage Amanda as best as I can tell was part of the Texas playboys of the Bob wills group, you, like, jumped on stage with Billy Joe Shaver at some point.

What gave teenage Amanda this kind of confidence to, you know, become a fiddler out on the road with these epic Texas legends so early in life. How did this come to pass?

Well, I got the fiddle. I didn’t even know really much about it, and my dad got it for me. And then my mom entered me into school orchestra and lessons, but I think as cheesy or whatever it may sound, I get all of my gumption, I think, from my mom, just watching her work as a single mom and just make stuff happen my whole life, you know, take us from trailers to section eight housing to rental houses to Bulwark in hard and try in hard and still taking all the risks and then also not backing down.

So Given that background, how did you get access to these kind of country legends and, you know, sort of what was the kind of beginnings of your kind of love of music and feeling that you could kinda get out there and do that.

I mean, I wonder too sometimes about how and why opportunities present themselves And, I think about that a lot, and I think about trying to understand, you know, trying to go back and think about myself that young is hard because, you know, we didn’t do a lot of thinking about intentions and what our goals were and, you know, none of this stuff really, but, it happened organically very, and I wouldn’t call serendipity because there’s a lot of of things that have to take place for that to even work. But anyway, I think it’s because I was truly into the music I played orchestra. I was getting bored, and I owe some of it too to a great teacher, my violin, private teacher that I got from you know, getting grants and scholarships, saw that I was getting bored and introduced me to a project that he was working on, which was transcribing early pre Bob Will’s fiddle tunes from a guy named Frankie McQuarter, who was in the Texas playboys, and Frankie McQuarter learned from the first recorded fiddle player, Eric Robertson. So it truly an oral tradition, and my teacher, Lenny Field was going and learning these songs and, writing them out in finale for those folks that read music stuff like that.

But he showed me a tune, a Bob Will’s tune called, Spanish two step, and I was in from there. And I think I got in the car, my mom’s car after the lesson, and said, I’m a fiddle player now. And she was like, you can play fiddle, but you’re gonna still do your orchestra. And I was like, damn. So I had to do both.

And, what I liked about Fiddle is that I got to, improvise and having had no frontal you know, complete frontal lobe development or any kind of vocabulary for expressing my feelings and improvisation ruled my life for a minute. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted and I knew you could do it and swing all while at the same time maintaining my knowledge of music because I love it so much in the popular culture because you can’t just go to school and get beat up with your fiddle and also not know that, Mia has a song right now that’s really good, or the Thong song is out. You will definitely get in worship.

So you could fiddle the Thong song. You learned how to do that.

Can do it all. I could even I mean, I could play bow down the West Side Connection song on my fiddle.

We’ll have to do that in the post game. So I’m jealous I don’t think I had your talent. So maybe that was one of my limitations, but I also didn’t have that teacher. I just can’t remember being in jazz band and, you know, being given, you know, these you know, the standards to play. I’m a little gay trumpet.

And, I just and, you know, eventually, I just, like, no, this isn’t fun. I’m gonna go hang out with my friends. Stead. So I’m jealous.

Did you know that Jason’s first instrument was trumpet and he still plays it?

I did not know that. Did he never breaks it out on tour?

No. He brought it out on his new record, but you can, when you do come here to write, you could play our little gay troubles.

Okay. I’m sure he’s much so he’s much better. I I gave up on a post braces. I wanna fast forward. At the end, I wanna dork out about you and Jason’s music, but for some of the folks who who may are as familiar.

And so just fast forward through. You have a brilliant career, a couple albums I really love to the sunset taking like a man, but you did this all women super group called the high women. And I think folks probably heard of some of your coauthors on that, co performers, Aaron Morris, Brandy Carlisle, Natalie Henry. Talk about, like, what the origin of was that. And and, like, why did you decide to start the high woman and how does that

connect with your story?

In two thousand and sixteen, my daughter was about nine months old or so. And, I was leaving to go on a tour, and I was still touring in a van and, dealing with, you know, going away and coming back and what am I doing and all that? And, on that trip in twenty sixteen, all of my I mean, you know, the vans don’t have Bluetooth. So when aux cable’s broke, and so I was forced to listen to the radio, and there was only two choices, sports ball or top forty country when I was driving through the mountains, and I just started noticing that in twenty two songs, I saved I saved everything I wrote while in the van too while I was taking notes. There was not a voice that I heard that sounded like it resonated with me or my own story.

And then I called the radio station and was asking, and then, you know, got into all kinds of circle talk and snaking its own tail stuff. Well, you’ve got to request one on Facebook And I was like, how do I know how to who to request if I don’t know one to request? And then they’re like, we’ll do our best. And then, you know, they played an Old Carrie Underwood song, and then a song by a group that had, a couple of women in it, and that was in fifty songs. And then I started thinking, And this this, I started doing as this whole trip progressed.

And, I was like, wow. How come I never noticed this before? And then driving more and driving more, I was like, Well, that’s not really my lane. I do this thing that I do, Amanda Shire’s music. It’s different.

It’s, you know, it’s dark and

Little rock and rolly.

Yeah. Yeah. A little rock and roll. A rock and roll. And, I was like, well, that’s fine.

And I was like, the same time thinking that, you know, mercy is going around humming and playing a kazoo and, not really at at either one. I was thinking, well, if mercy went into music, she, you know, I love the life. There’s, you know, made a lot of good friends and all what would be the worst, then usually you hear what would be the worst. It would be folks say that your kids will do the opposite of what you do. Yeah.

And so in that moment, I was like, oh, god. She’s gonna go into forty country. That’ll be the worst. She’ll be a lone island. Do you know if she’s gonna get nowhere?

What are what are we gonna do? Thinking on it. I thought, you know, this is over a couple of weeks. I was like, I am gonna make a band called high women because Weyland Jennings was fucking cool. And, yeah, I thought on it for a while, and I made notes because of I’m a nonlinear kind of presenter with ideas.

It’s a it’s a it’s not my strong suit. But to go out of notes, and then finally got the nerve to tell Dave Cobb that I had this idea. And it was the high women, and I told them, like, you know, kind of our my idea for it. And, luckily, he didn’t kill my dream in that instant. He said, this is a great idea.

You should meet Brandy Carlisle. Then we get going and meet Brandy Charlie Sykes meet, not only him be, we bring Aaron on board, and we form the band, make the record, and think it was, like, two thousand eighteen, we put the record out.

Yeah. And it was huge success and we’re gonna play a little bit of the high women for people that haven’t heard it when it listened to it.

I was healer. I was gifted as a girl. I laid hands upon no someone saw me sleeping naked in the noob sun. I heard of which in the whispers, and I knew my time had come. The bastard’s hung me at the sale of me.

So that’s good, but it’s still isn’t quite top forty pop country.

No. But we did hit number one, so I got a tattoo.

Oh, nice. I only got to number two on the New York Times list. I’ve that’s not quite tattoo where

the I don’t have any tattoos.

I don’t have any tattoos. So I don’t know. Number two would be a little kind sad tattoo. You earned that number one heart.

No. Anytime you’re on the in went to your your set you can just go ahead and make a tick and then you can keep adding ticks.

Oh, there you go. A little chick tattoo. That’s something to think about. But the pop country stuff, fossible has only gotten worse since since you had, like, acknowledged that problem.

You were so right. It started out thirteen percent representation back when I was thinking about it and to date. On some months, it’s as good as fifteen, sometimes sixteen, and sometimes regresses as far back as eleven percent.

And so we’ve had Recently, the big, Jason Aldine controversy, one of our pop country favorites, who, as a tribe rat in a small town song out there that kind of went into my political world. Everybody has to have a take on it. The governor of Iowa tweeting about it and, you know, things of this nature. What was your kind of thought on that? I just like to kind of put a quarter in the machine and

It’s a shitty song. It’s just terrible. Like, just listening to it even if you’re not thinking about ticks is a human. I mean, it doesn’t even sound like, like, when I turn it on, it doesn’t it’s not a bop.

No. It’s not a bop. That’s your

Like, firstly, it’s not a good song. Secondly, like, it trumps this. This subject matter. It’s bullshit. And, yeah, it’s just it’s bad all the way around.

Bad song, bad song writing, bad idea. Bad video.

With the high women, you know, you look back at Weyland Jennings and all these outlaw guys. And, like, their music wasn’t about. You know, screwing over marginalized. Yeah. It was the opposite.

Right? It wasn’t about like, they got popularity in in that outlaw country vein, not really doing conservative culture wars shit. You know, despite the fact that they were popular in that in small towns in Red America. And, you know, that is kind of the direction that the country world is gone. Like, what do you attribute that to?

It’s a white dude supporting his white agenda and it sucks. He’s not, like, thinking very hard. Yeah. You know?

You know, and that that New York article

I referenced was kind of about how this Nashville has this split now.

Right? Like, maybe a little bit more of a monoculture in the past with with country, and there are different kind of styles, country, and swing, and more rocky, and more less. But do you feel that way that, like, our partisan politics is, like, infecting the music scene. People are, like, dividing themselves over that, or is that over simplified?

I mean, I think that we’ve come to a point in the road where we’re allowed to talk and say things where we weren’t before. You know, we’re allowed to point things out and notice things. You know, a lot of subjects in we just kinda, like, you’re not allowed to say that or do that or whatever. And now everybody’s like, well, fuck it. And then politics seems it’s always been rough in country.

Because you have to be, like, shrouded in the flag guy. And if you are, then the old gatekeepers, they help you sell your shit. Spend money on you, whatever. Go to the golf course. But because so many of us don’t get any play on that small number of radio channels really does talk to a whole lot of people.

But we don’t get any play on those so we can get on the internet and say what we want, and, you know, we still can sell music on iTunes and make no money it, but people can find things and and decide things. I think when I think about the Dixie chicks, I think about if a dude would have done that, they wouldn’t have had problem, but I also think the only radio stations like K Triple L and Lubbock, all they would do was to say were burdened their CDs. There was no hearing from the other side. And I think with technology, we’re able to hear from the other sides rather than be kind of led to the mass culture of what masses are thinking,

I guess.

I don’t know if that made any

I’m just trying to think about

the Dick teacher closing master with us, but to show the blind nature of of all of that, right, and just how, like, knee jerk the culture is. Right? What stuff that the Dixie chicks were saying about the Iraq War back in the aunts, Like, it’s kind of indistinguishable from what Trump’s position is on that now. There’s been no self reflection. It’s not like the people that have, like, moved along with that.

Are they the gatekeepers, right, the big names they haven’t been like, oh, wait. We should rehabilitate the Dixie checks. You know, you don’t see the and you do among certain quarters, but, like, you know, the blue the tight blue jeans metro sexual top forty country guy, you know, isn’t there’s been no reflection about that. It’s just whatever the culture where the moment is is all. It’s shallow.

Yeah. It’s I don’t know. What sucks is that you you get a bunch of ding dongs out there and then they A bunch of idiots just not thinking about anybody but themselves. I wanna

talk to you about Nashville. The two kind of elements of it, you can take whichever side you want first just curious about the scene. Like, in my world, there’s now that it been this huge, like, conservative media world are adopting Nashville. Right? Like, they’re moving to town.

Like, you have Ben Shapiro, little guy in his cowboy hat, candice islands and stuff like this. And and so the Nashville culture is evolving, in certain ways, probably ways that are appealing. But I think there’s probably other things about living there. Obviously, you guys have chosen to

live there. You love, there’s some elements of it that

you love. And I just kinda wonder how you think about balancing all that. I recently moved to New Orleans. Which the city I love, and there’s a lot of things I love about it. But I’ve I’ve been getting some shit from some of our listeners and some other progressive people that are

like, why would you move to

the Red State with these laws and this stuff happening, and I’m like, that there are elements of it that I love. I don’t wanna exceed that.

There’s been a lot of times when I think about moving because it’s not a place that serves me in any way great as a woman or many of my friends. And and it’s oftentimes, you know, ugly. But you think about that, and then you think, oh, but I have fans here. You know, you feel like you feel like you need to stay because there needs to be somebody that believes you around to help you, you know, fight another day, I guess, show up at the protests, help spread the word, you know, and it’s it seems It seems a lot of times like you’re not doing shit, but, sometimes I get good messages, and I’m like, well, I’ll proceed another day. Worrying for my bodily autonomy.

And so there’s the

the musical Alvin is still there. But do you feel somehow separate from that. This is not my world. So I

know nothing about, like, when people say Nashville is the country music center of the world. Like, you know, I mean, you guys are playing thrive in into these classic venues, but then there’s the other set. Does it feel like, oh, you can’t sit with us element of about living in Nashville between the two Nashvilles? Or how does that work?

Well, we have some friends in the other scenes that we like really well and we, you know, share the same beliefs. And as far as I know, the same politics and And those folks we’re friendly with, and, you know, we talk to, we hang out with on occasion. And then there’s a whole other side that we don’t participate in. We don’t participate in in any of any of the the the bullshit that doesn’t, you know, I’m not gonna go somewhere and be the only one like me in that disgusting room and listen to discussing things all day because I don’t set myself up for, daily beatings and, What’s that word? Like You

know Vasicus?

Yeah. That. There we go. Maybe in private. I don’t know.

This is a Secret Podcast. No. Not really. Actually, love. So did you feel comfortable?

Like, I think about Nashville, like, as, you know, the bachelor up gals with the penis hats and stuff going to the bars, like, there’s somebody, you know, playing some country tunes. Do you feel comfortable in that setting? Like, do you get a kick out of that? Or is that just, like, ugh, I stay out here. In East Nashville with my people.

I don’t live in East Nashville.

Whoever, I’m sorry. I don’t want a a dog too.

You know, I moved here in two thousand and four, and I I was hung out in East Nashville. I lived in Tus School and Donaldson and hermitage and all kinds of stuff. I live in the country now. But all that to say that I like going. And if I hear artists, I like, and the music’s good.

I like it. And if I wander into a place where they’re they’re playing Toby Keith, I’m walking the fuck out. You know, and, that’s fine. But most of those people on that side are scared of us, and I don’t know why. It’s good to be.

It’s because we say what we think.

I

think it was in the New

York article where you were just, like, maybe we just need anarchy. Like, there was, like, some discussion of, like, oh, you know, we should be we should be organizing or and I just wonder how you process all that. I mean, you know, we had Gloria Johnson on the podcast. It looks like she’s gonna probably run against Marshall Blackburn, and she like an awesome woman. She’s one of the Tennessee three who spoke out about gun control after the shooting.

But I just kind of wonder how you think about all that Tendency’s always been a conservative state, but it it really does feel much more acute lately.

Yeah. It does. In

the way that they’re, you know, operationalizing that maybe.

Like, you know, a couple of years ago, I used to think, oh, we can turn this around. We can make people not make people. We can have conversations with people. And lately, I just get mad and I do you get to the point where you’re almost like, yeah, I do wanna get in a fist fight, but I can’t because I’m a forty one year old mom, and I can’t go to jail right now. But I get really angry.

And right now, I’m just to increase.

So you have done some in your art, some at the unpolitical stuff, sometimes more explicit than others. One really blessed one was you guys did a song called The Problem. It’s about a young couple kind of trying to decide what to do about the pregnancy. And I just wanna kind of just put out there right off. I’d come from a like, basically a pro life background that word makes you that phrase makes you feel uncomfortable right now because I’d always kind of self identified as pro life.

Mhmm. And I’d always thought about it really from the thesis perspective, if that makes sense. Like, mostly from a fetus perspective, we have an adopted kid. Then in in rooms with with women that are kind of a deciding to this, and you see the you know, you look at the the image on there, and I I just I’ve always been moved by that side of the argument. But I’ve been reflecting on that lately over for two reasons.

Like, one is the people that said that they were pro life that I thought were on my side are like acting very unpro life lately. Like, in a lot of these laws are very draconian and Like, what I thought meant for a life meant was that, like, five week ban, and you have to carry your rapist child, like, all this extreme stuff. Other thing that I think is making me reflect all of this is that I’m like learning stuff about the mother’s perspective that maybe as a gay, as a privilege gay man who went to all boys high school, hadn’t thought as much about when the defendant’s perspective is maybe I should have. And one of those things, like I’m learning about things, and you tweeted that an ectopic pregnancy yet?

Oh, I didn’t say that word right.

Yeah. You are. We’re coming up to my two year anniversary of almost dying August ninth to twenty twenty one. To you.

Yeah. It’s people like you talking about that that did make a difference for me at least in starting to just reflect on how I should think about all Right? Because it was like, that was a word I’d never heard of, really, until the last two years.

Same. I’m from Texas, and we weren’t taught anything, you know, and when it turned out I had an ectopic pregnancy. I didn’t know what the fuck that was. I didn’t I’d never heard of it. And then I was like, How could I not know about my own damn body?

Yeah. It’s because people need to be in control of it anymore.

So talk about

like what that is and like how that relates to the avortion debate. Right? Because if you have a certain if you have a certain limit on weeks or you’re banning certain types of medicines, then what that means for women with an ectopic pregnancy.

Okay. Let’s start first with the fact that, people, a lot of times, first think that your period is the end of your cycle. That’s the beginning.

I’m starting to take notes now.

Yeah. Okay. And you’re ovulating. And then, you know, you can get pregnant during that time. You know, if you’re ovulating, ten days after your scheduled period, you’re not gonna know that you’re pregnant until you miss your next period your period.

Right? And sometimes that’s four to six weeks later. If you take all of the the timeline in, could be past six, could, you know, whatever. You can also become pregnant in the wrong spot. It is like a place that’s not your uterus.

That would be like your fallopian tube. I don’t know. All different kind of places that are not your uterus. And, That’s what happened to me. We became pregnant in a fallopian tube, and and then you have a group of cells growing.

You can’t see. This is, you know, eight or nine weeks. This is what when it happened, and so it exploded my fallopian tube. Then you’re internally bleeding. I have a high pain tolerance, and I was feeling weird, you know, very weird.

And I played a show And there’s a physician at the show in Austin that I’ve, you know, there was COVID Tester in that time and whatever. He’s already there for Sadler, making sure he didn’t have co COVID Jason’s guitar player. Said, you really need to come in. You don’t look okay. And I was like, I just need some sleep.

And he

was like, what’s going on with you? And I was I described, you know, some you know, pain, discomfort, what I thought might be an ovarian cyst because I’ve had those before, and they hurt when they, you know, rupture. And he’s like, you really should come in. And I was like, I’m going to sleep. And in the morning, I got up to do an interview, and my knees buckled.

And Jason said we’re going to the hospital. And I was like, there are people that need to be going to there’s already a flooded with COVID. He’s like, no. You’re going in. So I go in and internally bleeding this whole time and go into surgery.

And, by the god’s choice I get to live. There are some people that think that you should implant this into your uterus.

It’d be a surgery.

Yes. And that to me sounds like putting your penis inside of your balls. Like, how is that gonna work? Also, how are you gonna find it? So this is you know, Erin and I meets, it you can see by science and by the pictures that I made them take and give to me after that you have a string that’s basically your fallopian tube and So we’re fighting over this now.

Okay. Cool. Meanwhile, ten days later, they put some bands into effect. So now twelve women a day die from it there because you can’t get the same care that I was stopped getting into into, yeah, you know, some kind of legal thing, you know, and not to mention if you if you They have a medicine that if you discover that’s happened sooner, that you can take that’ll abort it from your fallopian tube or, you know, get it out of there. Because What sucks is I’m a married person.

He wouldn’t have had a wife or mercy wouldn’t have had a a mother or that’s really all sucks. But Secondly, if I thought that I should be able to take that and get it out of my philosophy too, comes down to trust for me. Can you trust women to make decisions for their own selves. That’s what it comes down to. You know, they’re gonna make what the decision that’s right for them might get closer to some semblance of freedom around here.

Do you trust your own wrong, you trust your own sister? Do you trust, you know?

Yeah. It sucks to say this kind of like, I’m saying this with a little bit of shame. Right? It sucks to say it’s like, I have to hear that story in order to, like, evolve an opinion about this. Right?

But, like, thinking about it that way, I think it’s important to tell that story because I think that there’s a lot of bad faith factors on the pro life side as we’ve learned over the past fucking few years. We don’t need to get into that. But if the people come at this genuine place of, like, I believe that’s a life. Right? And, like, we should be protecting it.

Right? Like, at the time of when to do that and when to and what kind of rules, like, make sense, I would think that hopefully, for some people, that would be a compelling story. Right? To be like, hey, this is an eight or nine week thing. The light you say you’re pro life, the life of the mother is at risk.

This is past the time. Well, I believe I think Tennessee, right, Texas, Florida, a bunch of handful of states. This is like past the period where a lot of states are having, you know, allow you to do the procedure.

And a lot of times when people mistake what they call the heartbeat because there’s it’s really the heartbeat of the mother or the pulsing of blood that hasn’t been truly proven at that. But if you look at the little pile of stuff they took out, there’s there’s no fetus in there. I’ve seen people have to carry fetuses that will not survive. Yeah. And then not only does that take a toll?

I mean, this whole shit also takes a toll on your mental health going through all this. Because then you don’t know what’s going on because you haven’t been taught that. Then you have the recovery time, which is a bitch, because you can’t lift anything over twenty five pounds. And that little girl that likes to be picked up.

Sure.

Sure. You know, there’s a lot of things happening. Then I’m out of work because this happened and you know.

Thank you for sure. Honestly, I appreciate you sharing that. I know that that’s not necessarily easy and those fun thing to talk about on a Monday morning, but,

I’m happy to talk about it. I’m actually just wanna celebrate the fact that I do I usually, like, turn into a big tear bag when that happens. Usually, I have to go into two

Thank you, brother. Alright.

I wanna do one again to music. I wanna do one more

with the about the daughter. Like, sorry. Kids are about signature. Mercy’s a little older than my daughter. And, obviously, you had this shooting recently in Tennessee, and I just wonder how you’re kinda thinking about that.

Like, you’ve got it all you guys are on a tour a lot. You got seven year old, and man, like, being a parent who’s there and also being in a state where all this crazy shit is happening, and and I’m looking for some wisdom from you on the parenting side of this.

What I do is when there are questions, I answer the questions as far as the interest is, as long as she’s interested. So she asks a question I answer it. And if she wants to go further, we do, I stop where her interest stops. And that seems to work for me right now. I don’t have an, child older than seven.

So I’m still learning, but back to the hot topic of of I just wanna swing back to this for a second, of the right to choose what you do with your body. You can look at nature and see that a bird has that freedom to kick an egg out of its nest when it deems it, you know, unviable or notices it or notices that, oh, there’s too many eggs or whatever the reason. If a bird can do that, then why can’t a person or any other

A lot of songs about birds. Sarah Bert or

I mean, they co parent, they they do all kinds of cool shit. I can I can see a better, a world if I was only b born a bird? New pronoun to bird.

Are you allowed to do that in Tennessee? Change your pronoun to bird now? I don’t know what the popo might be at your door. When you get out of this,

You could change your pronouns where whatever you want. You just, like, people just don’t understand how simple it is. Here, they’re just like, what does that mean? What does that mean?

Okay. I already entered the music stuff. So Jason, wrote a song called cover me up about him battling alcoholism

and how and you, you know, helping save Emily, but there’s a lot of personal stuff that happens, some ugly stuff that happens, I walked down the aisle to that song, not because of ugly stuff, but because of the,

line that, but home was a dream one that I’ve never seen till you came along. I felt that resonated with me with my

They’re all the light and have equal enough. Yes. That does resonate

with my husband to have come in and say hello to you before we got So now you can see why I felt that way, about him. But, Morgan Wallen now plays this song. I don’t know, one day I was in my feelings, and I was on TikTok, and I was like, I wanna, like, watch some of you guys doing cover me up. Like, when I go, like, season live videos of it or something, and, like, I search for it. And I because I don’t fucking do pop country, so I didn’t know.

I didn’t even know who Morgan Wallen was. And so I thought, like, they were all that, like, all and and it’s like these huge stadiums. And people are screaming, that’s gotta be weird for you to have all these strangers singing about this deeply personal story.

It it does it’s not my story if Jason’s not singing it. But also, that that’s not weird. I guess that other people cover songs. It’s like, been doing going on forever, and then we just redirect the money to a cost, and people like to get all our internets and say that we’re making so much money. I don’t know.

This all go into, double a c p and shit.

All of your stuff is just so personal. It’s about your marriage. You need a recent record. Take it like a man. You know, has a song called fault line, about, you know, the fault lines in your guy’s marriage and kind of navigating all that.

There’s one line I wanted to ask you about because it’s so brutal. You’re the star Jason has a a song called flagship. I don’t know. It might be the flagship or flag up, and you have a line of the song that says in the character you wrote yourself out to be the flag ship all part of my fooling. I mean, that is, like, a pretty brutal.

Like, why? And I’ve just been, like, you guys, when you’re on stage, and because you you play with each other. And, like, when you’re seeing that, and there’s gotta be sometimes that you’re, like, looking at each other. And is it breaking up back? Like, two minutes, you getting mad out on stage when he’s singing flagship and you’re over there?

I don’t know. I just I I’ve been dying to ask that.

The way I explain it is it There’s two different worlds of the music. And we both sit down and write songs as a way to explain the world better to ourselves. In that time, I was writing that song, and I needed a place to put my feelings and understand them. And I also wanted to write a song that he would listen to and maybe help him, and I get to some kind of ground where we could talk because we’re existing, but we’re not existing together, just opposite little music boxes twirling in different directions. Of course, I wrote it and I sent it to him and when we write songs, we know that it doesn’t have to leave this room or whatever room we write it in.

We know that if we need to write a song just to get it out. We can do that, and nobody ever has to hear it. I never think about what if somebody hears it because I make those decisions much later, like, when I get a big pile of them. My big idea here was I’m gonna explain my feelings to myself. We had a bad fight, and then I’m gonna send it to him.

Since I can’t talk and he won’t listen to me, I’ll send it to him. And he didn’t listen to it. And I was so mad. I was like and I sent it to my friend Lawrence. I was like, listen to this song.

And, Morris is like, that is incredibly sad. We should make a record. I said, I’m not making a record. I’m just writing right now. And I don’t know that that song will ever hear or b c or, you know, see the light of day.

And, later on, in the discussions of the song after deciding to record it at it came off the record. It was on, off and on, off. It was off forever. And then then I finally was like talking to Jason. I was like, the problem with putting songs like this on here is that I’m probably have to talk about them.

And he said, you can decide not to. You don’t have to. You can, and then if you want to as you go, you can. And I was like, okay. I said, what about that flagship line?

And he was like, if it’s true, leave it, and I said, okay. But when we get on stage and do it, we’ve already had these conversations.

So he’s not giving you stink eye while he’s thinking flagship. Like, now I wanna go back and, like, look at him close well.

No. But, like, when we, sometimes we laugh because it’s different when you’re in a good place. Yeah. Because you’re like, oh, past self. You should have known better, but no.

Because once you’ve been there, you’ve been there. But, when we get on stage, that’s different. We’re playing the song and sometimes on stage, those songs are difficult for me to sing. And, what I do is I just try to imagine hey, maybe somebody else feels this way and doesn’t know how to say it. So you’re helping somebody.

You’re not in that same spot right now. I have to, like, type itself up into it, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I tell him, like, you leave it all on stage, like, separate on stage.

Yeah. When you’re doing the writing to that,

and so you’re writing these songs, and so when you say you’re sending in behalf or sending it to your friend Lawrence or whoever, like, does that mean you’re sending the lyrics just, or or you have a tune, a simple version of the tune, or you have it done, basically, and you’re sending it to them. Like, what what point in the process?

I made a demo and, sent it over there. A demo with just a basic mic. Usually, like, this sure mic, something like this. And, you know, just real basic, whatever gets the job done, because usually by the end of songwriting, you just wanna escape the whole scene you were in and just take a watch.

Your songwriting is so meticulous. And, I I got the biggest laugh. I don’t know if you did. Out of There’s the HBM doc recently about you guys, I guess, Chase’s case and technically, but there’s a running with our eyes closed. But, there was a lyric that he said, and it was Like, the usage was quite right.

You’re you’re saying a phrase that was not accurate.

Mhmm.

And it got a little it got

a little snippy. Right? Cause you’re like, well, that doesn’t doesn’t mean what you’re saying that it means. And so I I get that you wanna that it sounds nice or whatever, but I get you like this, and then I went back and looked at some of your lyrics. And you’re you are Like, I feel like I want you to be an editor for me

a little bit. Like, do

you feel like you could be an editor in another life? You are very meticulous in your songwriting more though

than I think maybe other writers, is that true?

Yeah. I’d be much fair. I am, but when we’re dealing with feelings, and they’re so hard to explain already. It’s, let’s get the words right as best we can. And if we’re speaking from a character voice, then that’s different.

But, I, you know, Jason and I will share our songs and, with each other in reunions, and he waited till the last minute. So it had to be done there. But, then on this next record, I I stayed out of it for the most art, except for on two. But I just couldn’t hold the line he wanted me to hold it. And that’s fine.

But, I had to tell him. But anyway, So it’s What

do you have to tell him? Just that it was inaccurate or that it wasn’t was he had a plural wrong or what well, what? You said he had the word meaningless?

It was bigger than that. It was bigger than that. It was avoiding the topic. And, he says part of that he loves about me because I’m not scared of him. And I’m only trying to serve the art.

I’m not trying to gain anything in his songwriting. I don’t you know what I mean? I’m just we do that for each other, removing ourselves from it. He can be more competitive than me and and likes being competitive. So I I try to be sometimes, but not.

Anyway, so, it’s about serving the art and and if if if you say you are serving the art, then you should, you know, you know, do it. Right. And if you’ve decided that you wanted me to help say something sometimes, and I should because I said I would, and I do what I say I’m gonna do. And,

You took a master’s in writing or something. Right? Like, I mean, you’ve really focused on making a Oh, yeah.

I got an MFA

from Solani. MFA from Soleani.

Well, you’re and maybe that’s why you’re militaristic in the ways that the verses come out?

I’m free in my own space. It’s the outside world. I don’t get to be, so I exercise it. As if, you know, I’m a man running around my house.

Okay. We’re running out of time. I’ve got a few fun rapid fire on Street in the end, but I have to ask you, you just did a record with Bobby Nelson, Lily Nelson’s sister. Like, and I just I don’t really have a question, except for that. That’s gotta be really cool and, like, tell us about it.

I just wanted to celebrate her as, she passed away, but our original plan was to make a record because started out. We really had a good time together, and we wanted to go shopping, and we wanted to play shows together these songs that we grew up playing, and that we loved. And, turned out to to that we for touring, we’d we’d need to have a record. And then we made a record and, have a beautiful collection of songs and, celebrate the, you know, the music. And then she passed away, and it it’s now become celebration of and I was already celebrating her.

As a, sideman and mother and woman, because her life was beautiful, but, you know, harrowing. And So we celebrate this woman who who, you know, got our kids taken away for playing in bars, got them back, lost two sons within six months of each other, and still found joy in music and maintained a place for music in her life. And, people like her that have done the the work before that afford us the, the space that we have now no matter how small that space feels sometimes.

Is there a particular track from the record that resonated from you? I would like to just play a little bit for, but cast listeners.

I mean, Summertime gets me just just in the fact that they, you know, they were orphaned. And, you know, all all the stuff that happened with her family and and her kids and everything, and this kind of, summertime and the Living Easy. It’s kinda it can be seen as, like, an idyllic romanticized version of summertime, and your mother and dad, you know, being there for you. But it to me, in in her spin, it’s darker. It kinda shades and paints differently.

And I think that, We both think it’s a beautiful song. I think it it says more and is more multilayered as far as as her story and many are.

Summer time.

And the

living is easy. Fish are jumping. The cotton is high. Oh, your daddy’s rich.

Yeah. Your mama’s good looking. Speaking with Lucy Lard, I lied. More question. The the headlessrack, you’ll have

a strike to take it like a man. That is also like that. Right? This it has it has one kind of meaning at face value, but I don’t think that’s one you mean. So just just maybe talk about that a little bit.

You know, the the title is what it is. It’s about taking it like a man. It’s about the about really what it’s about is there’s actually more strength than being vulnerable. And there’s, when you make choices in in in your life with with love or with anything. You know, there’s gonna be consequences.

And, yeah, you can take it like a man or not.

A lot of young men aren’t getting that message that

the the

new man is being vulnerable. I don’t think a lot of it. I think a lot of young men

are learning the wrong message and, from the tight blue jeans and you know, pick up truck trips.

Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. I mean

So, hopefully, we can have

the ticket, like, I’m in

the, a message. Ron DeSantis start to resonate with a few more folks. Okay.

I have

a rapid fire. It’s just gonna be fun. Are you ready? Sure.

I’m closing it out.

I love a rapid rapid fire.

My favorite lyric from this record, just because, oh, hey. Maybe I’m sorry. It was from the to the the pre record, to, to the sunset. Just because it’s so brutal and hilarious. Is, about a x of yours, I think.

It was, I rock and roll, and you’re golf. So I’m looking for you from you for either a favorite lyric of your own that you want to share or just a little riff on why you hate golf.

Golf is just full of people that have nothing in common with you in general. I mean, Willie Nelson does play some golf. I don’t know that he actually plays golf, but probably smokes weed. I used to be uncomfortable about trying to identify things that I liked about my Bulwark, but, I’m kinda I’m alright with it. I’m I’m kinda happy with, the online.

I need more words for blue because it’s so true. There’s not enough words for it. I’m okay with with some of my lines.

I’m glad you’re getting comfortable, you know, all this success. You should finally be listening.

It just feels weird to be like, oh, like It

does feel a little weird. Okay. I saw you red rocks. When you open for Jason, such I’m from Denver, so I grew up. And so that was very memorable, my favorite venue, but do you have a favorite venue?

A favorite like spot of god, this was so awesome to do this, something that felt especially magic

After COVID and after I almost died, I am grateful to be anywhere. It could be just in the local restaurant, like, singing karaoke. Happy about all that. And that’s not a joke. That’s serious.

Like, I’m grateful. We don’t know what’s gonna happen tomorrow. But, Red Rock is amazing. I’m a big fan of indoor shows, though.

Same.

I like the outdoor ones. They’re great, but I like indoor. I like I like the, The rhyming’s great. There’s a place in Brooklyn, the King’s theater. I like that place a lot.

I I tend I tend to like the indoor ones because, I feel like you can control the environment more.

Your husband’s Twitter habit in one sentence or less.

His Twitter habit is jokes. I got off Twitter, but, he’s really good at it. It’s like, I paint for fun. He does Twitter for fun.

This is why I think that resonates with me, best. And I’m addicted to it. He can’t help I feel about myself, and it’s not I don’t think that’s healthy, actually. But I can’t help myself. He’ll be out there.

He was out there dunking on Paul’s chief of staff this week. And I’m like, what are you doing, man? Like, Why are you doing that?

When he’s on the road, like he is now, he has more time for it because much of the day is spent waiting, either riding on the bus or waiting in line or in a plane or something. So he has When he’s at home, you’ll see, like, a decline of tweets.

I feel start to feel really bad when I’m, like, playing Candy Land with Luce, and then I’m also sending tweets. I’m, like, I need to be a little more present for this. Moment. Okay. You’re so people just talking about your mother.

So my final rapid fire question for you is just a piece of advice from your mother and her life that you carry with you.

It’s better to be green and growing ripe and rotten. Or if you aren’t green and growing, you’re ripe and rotten.

Are we still green and growing? Are we starting to ripen?

I think it’s the purpose of life. I mean, we all came from these little seeds, and we grow much like a flower, and then we start to decline into our wilt.

I mean, the Shire’s this has just been a delight. We back in your record all week of my husband, has been forcing me to to do it for prep, and I’ve just been enjoying every minute of it.

So thank you so much for your wisdom and for your music. And, hope to see you out on the road.

Thank you.