#1987 - Jelly Roll
2023-05-17 03:05:11
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
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Have a cool conversation and nobody's gonna put a fuck in your ear. We're all misfits. Yeah, we're all fucked up. I can say fucked up shit. You'll say fucked up shit. We'll joke about it, you know, it's like, where if I go on fucking like, do a billboard interview?
You know what I mean, I gotta be like, super like, you know? Yeah? This was a g to a d chord, and I thought really hard about that song. You know where I can be like, Yo, he's in there, fucking off and got drunk and wrote it, you know?
But there's something interesting about that, too. Like, if you're talking to, like, a legit musician, I would imagine as a musician, it's fascinating just to have those kind of conversations too. But like, for me, like, if I have a choice, I want to talk to comics.
My favorite pods of yours are when you're with the homies.
Mine too, yeah.
I feel like that's when I get real inside and I feel like I'm watching y'all's green room. Like when I watch you and a couple comedians you really are, do a pod. I'm like, Yo, I bet this is what's happening in the fucking green room.
Oh, a hundred percent. Well, you can go to the Green room tonight, I'll show you. Yeah, I'll do it. It's essentially the same thing.
It's exactly the same.
Yo went to Mitzi's finally.
It's beautiful, right?
God dude, and what an ode to her man. how fucking gangster. just cool, you know what I mean?
And the bar, it was like I was, I told Tony this last night, drunk 10 times. It was this thing that was like, I wish musicians would. I took a page from y'all, so I bought 200 Yonder bags, right? And now on tour. My deal is if you come back before the show, we'll take pictures, we'll do whatever you want to do.
If you come hang out after the show, we're locking everybody's phone up.
Nice.
Yep, cause I just want to fucking be present and I want to be able to smoke a joint, I just want to be able to be us. And that's all I seen in there last night was just a bunch of dudes being dudes, yeah.
But about what they do, you know?
Well, you know, the thing is about everybody that hangs on Mitzi's. They don't even their phones are in their hands, and they don't use them. They were so used to just putting them down. The hang is so fun and it's there's a a sort of a philosophy through the whole room that gets. It gets enhanced by the fact that the audience has their phones in the back, like you don't see phones everywhere.
You don't see people just constantly on their phones, so people could just hang right? And then you're also talking to interesting people, which is more interesting than the shit you're looking at on Tik Tok.
Yep, it's fun, and we're all present.
Yeah, we're all present.
No, it was awesome.
It's just weird that we have. Like, one of the things that I've realized about podcasts is I've spent so many times, so many hours talking to people, just having a conversation. And the only way is because I never look at my phone, cause it's locked up, like, it's, it's, it's off, it's off to the side, you're right there.
We're, we're, we're sitting here with headphones on, so we're hearing each other's voices. It's like you got to, almost like, put yourself in that sort of an environment, to have conversations like this, to really be able to hang out and really be present.
Exactly, and I love this too, cause your podcast has done wonders for, especially artists. Because we don't have platforms to really do this, to really come sit down. Like the first time I got to hear Stapleton talk for more than three minutes, was on your podcast, right?
I'd only heard radio soundbites from Stapleton ever, right? you know what I mean? and so it was cool to, like, actually dig into who Stapleton was, you know what I mean? So that was like, shit like, that is like everybody you've had on this podcast. Music wise, as a musician. We only get these little soundbite excerpts that a fucking publicist kind of rehearsed them and said, This is what we're looking for in this interview, you know?
Yeah, no, I, I.
Is this the Joey Diaz? Are we smoking the cocoa?
That's the cocoa, that's laughing gas.
I love you Uncle Joey.
God damn, you got to meet Uncle Joey. you and Uncle Joey together would be like two black holes.
God, dude, he brought me on his podcast earlier this year and it was the fucking best, oh.
That's awesome.
Listen, he called me one day out of the blue, Joe, just to hype me up, really. Just to be like, Yo fucking jelly. I just called to tell you I was just listening to your shit and you're the fucking god. Damn it.
You're fucking jelly man, hello, you just fucking squeeze them ass cheeks together, baby, and you keep fucking singing and God damn it.
You're taking over, you'll be in arenas in six months, Jelly, yo six months, Jelly.
Jesus Christ.
I was just like, Dude, I'm sitting in a parking lot, like, I can't believe Uncle Joey's on the phone right now, and I'm just gas dude. I called the label afterwards like, God, damn it.
Where the fuck I mean I was fucking, I should have recorded.
He's the ultimate hype man. Yeah, the ultimate hype man.
He don't want nothing but to lift you up.
He wants to lift everybody. No fucking. That's why we hit in the green room. We have this quote in neon. It says, Get it together, bitch, as a Joey would tell everybody right before you go on stage, Get it together, bitch.
Let's go.
Right, let's go.
Fuck these motherfuckers up, let's go, let's go Joe Rogan. He'd get fired up and you get fired up too.
And it was cool last night in the green room, so I went to kill Tony. Yeah, first of all, what a fuck.
I've seen it on YouTube a thousand times, but in person, I'm fucking real.
It's such a great show.
It's hard. It's like, you know, it's really not scripted, yeah, but it feels like it, cause it gets so fucking out of hand at times.
You're like, there's no way this wasn't rehearsed.
I'm telling you.
You're watching it unfold.
Every week, every week, it happens like that. Tony's the master.
He is so sharp.
He's so sharp, he's so good at being a host of one of those shows. I mean, that's a hard gig, oh.
And the best part was they had a couple of dudes come up just eat absolute shit, and that was the funniest part. Oh, dude, cause the banter that came from that was like, fucking insane. And then him and David Lucas. I watched the show down there just for that.
Since it came to all.
When him and David Lucas go after each other, I laugh harder than at any other time in life.
No, they're so quick. No, it's like.
Do you think they grew up together? Yeah, well, they basically did doing comedy together, but they're so mean to each other. And they both laugh. Like, like, when David gets Tony, Tony laughs, when Tony gets David, David laughs.
Like?
No, it's so genuine.
And then afterwards, they'll, they'll do a play by play in the fucking green room. I heard about it when you said this to me.
Like, yeah.
I thought you were going to say this, but I that was the good. It was everything. We did that last night. I went in last night, I told Tony what I thought his best. I was just drunk enough to act like a coach.
I was like, this was the five best parts. This was my like drunk enough to give Tony a review of his fucking show. What a douche bag.
He likes it, he likes it, bro, he loves you and he's very happy that you were there.
He, I was on the phone with him on the way over here, he was telling me how cool you are.
I was joking with him, I was like three drinks away from being like, Tony. The biggest podcast of my life is in like, 13 hours. Dog, you're just sitting in here. He's like, he's going to give you something to talk about. I was like, Motherfucker, I'm three shots away from making you come to.
I thought I was going to walk in and sneak in and like, sneak out and just see the show. And then Dave was like, come to the green room, let's have a shot, and that's where it all went south.
It all goes south with those guys, it goes south all the time. I have to have nights where I'm only drinking water I have to like. Otherwise, you know, you're going to prematurely die.
Yeah, no, dude.
It was, it's, wow, listen, and a Carrie. is that her name? Yeah, oh, my carrying diamond dog, you talking about him.
I'm talking, yeah.
They give you a healthy poor.
I call that the poor of the Lord. It was a I'm touched every time she I was like, God damn Carrie sweet, please, man, I got shit to do.
She's a veteran.
No, she is, oh.
She knows how to dose you up properly.
No, for sure, and they know how to hydrate. She'd always came with a water, right? I was like, look at this, and it was so nostalgic.
People are just in there, smoking cigarettes, like an old speakeasy.
You know what the move is? After you do a night like that, get yourself a vitamin IV.
I did, I got two this morning, that's why I'm over here, sweating. yeah, sweating like a Hebrew.
That's the porn out of him, yeah.
But God, it was so much fun, dude.
Yeah, it's a great place, it's a lot of fun, it's beautiful, it really is.
It's like we were talking, that's what we were talking about on the phone today. Tony and I talk about it like three times a week. I can't even believe it's real.
Oh, dude, y'all, the culture, it's a culture, it's a real scene. I promise you. Tony said this and I didn't realize until he said it.
Afterwards, when we were leaving, he was like, nobody was in that room talking about bitches. Nobody was in that room talking about money. They were in there talking about comedy. Yeah, they were all in there, just like, kind of ragging on the show and reliving it.
It was just cool, man, yeah, it is cool. The only other time I ever seen that that was cool was Josh Wolf. Used to do this weekly thing at Zany's in Nashville and I would swing by all the time. That's a great club.
Dude, first of all, I love Dorfman to death.
He's a great guy, both him and his brother.
The Dorfman's are awesome.
They're great. Shout out to the Dorfman's, Yeah.
Shout out to the Dorfman's baby.
I worked for those guys for, like, fucking 25 years.
Or something crazy, dude, they're fucking salt of the earth.
That club is so good, it's such a fun club, it's perfect. It's like a perfect size club. it's a perfect club, dude.
It really is, it can't get better.
The way, the side door to the little green room, straight up the steps, it's just it was awesome.
And all those headshots.
Those old headshots, some of the old ones that are all signed to Zanies.
Richard Jenny.
Yes.
I saw a Richard Jenny one, I'm like, God damn.
Look at that one.
It's like, fucking 85 or some shit.
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't watch Josh up there, right? Josh Wolf would. That weed is fucking fire.
That's real shit.
And I brought some weed, and that's some weed.
Joey's not playing games.
Yeah, I'm like, Jesus Christ.
Joey D is going to put his name on it, it's going to put you in orbit.
He kept telling me he's like, Joe, I got to get you some of this. I was just like, Yo, I'm eating, man.
Joey showed up with duffel bags.
Jesus Christ.
He did right, I'm not exaggerating. They were Duffel bags. It's an animal.
I got to go see him. We missed each other in Jersey last time, but I'll be up there again this year.
He was here, it was the most glorious 24 hours. God, that's awesome, just being around him again. It's just he's the best. I've never laughed, not a single human being has ever done standup that made me laugh harder.
Than that guy.
Y'all roped him into moving down here, yet, not yet.
He loves New Jersey, he's the king of New Jersey, right? We went to New Jersey and we went to this beautiful Italian restaurant in his neighborhood. And all the people that work there are yelling his name out, and all the bar staff, the people are talking Spanish. To him. I'm like, he's never moving.
He's the king of New Jersey. It's like, if that guy moves into your neighborhood, you know how happy he'd be. Jesus Christ, God. He's basically, and his daughter loves it there and he's got a great community. But we want to just fly him out here anytime he wants.
I'm like, Joey, just tell me, tell me on Wednesday you want to come here. on Thursday. We'll set that shit up. We'll do whatever the fuck you want, you can call me.
You get picked up at the airport, we'll take care of you. Yeah, anytime you get a fucking wild hair across your ass. I'll have someone pick you up at your house in a truck, drive you to the airport and we'll take care of you every step of the way. Just want to make it easy?
You make a phone call, I'll take care of the rest.
I keep saying, man, I need to quit hitting this weed dude, I'm going to start getting goofy in here.
Then we'll bust out the fungus.
Let's go.
Yeah, let's go, where is that? yeah.
Oh, shit.
Uh-oh.
Oh, danger, what do you got?
Is it tequila?
What is that? Okay? Is it a chocolate bar? I don't fuck with chocolate bars because I don't know the dude who made them.
I'm worried about that, too. Just get me.
In Straight, I have done the edibles before and they are inconsistent, you know, the edibles that we used to get in California in the early days when it was medical. Oh yeah, they'd be some hippie making it in his bathtub.
Oh, for sure, you have no idea how strong these things are, it's just a guess.
50 milligrams, 500 milligrams, oh dude. That's the same problem we had with DABs initially.
When I first started dabbing, we didn't understand the propane game or the butane or any of that shit I think about. When I first started dabbing, I didn't realize you had to let the nail cool down. The redder it was, I was like, it's ready, I was scorching myself.
I was just throwing dabs on a fucking scorching red.
I thought that I was coughing because it was so good, I was fucking killing myself. Joe. I was like, This is the shit.
He's smoking a forest fire.
It was horrible for me, dude.
He's smoking, fucking pine cones.
And shit, I didn't fucking know we were all the way in Tennessee, nobody hipped us and had shit.
But the dab thing is too much, and the pill thing is too much, these fucking kids on the THC pills. There was a dude that I used to be friends with that was a jiu-jitsu guy. He was fucking too smart for his own good. And he figured out how to convert THC into a pill form.
I don't know how he was, what he was doing off the weed, whether it's Keefe or whatever it was. He gave me some and I'm like, how many should I take? I forget what the number was, but I took whatever, he said. I was so high that people became two-dimensional, like you became like a billboard. I could see their soul like hiding behind, I could see their persona as like a shield that they put, that they carried around to the world.
It freaked me out, I was so high.
You have no clue how many milligrams it was.
I have no idea, he doesn't know either.
This is the bathroom special.
It was probably a thousand, plus it was very high.
I heard, and you would know the real number, but I heard anything over 500 is where it starts getting weird.
You can hallucinate 100 well, here's the thing.
That took like six, seven hundred, and I felt like I might as well have been on shrooms.
Marijuana in a isolation tank is as heavy as any drug that's out there, short of DMT marijuana in an isolation tank, edible marijuana in an isolation tank. Once you get into that 500 milligram realm where you're just like, Mike, go schizophrenic, you get in that water and you just float and you're in total darkness. And you just see things. You see the fabric of the universe, you see intertwined galaxies that look like a ball of yarn, all spinning together.
Dude, you get?
There's something and I was watching one time I was in a plane. I used to love to do edibles and get on airplanes, my favorite thing, because if I'm going to get on an airplane. My thought was always like, let's get obliterated. Me and Joey would take Stars of Death and then get on airplanes. It was so scary.
That's a different kind of de-gaffe, though. JOE Yeah, but that I'm with that wild shit, but I'm not taking no edibles before I get on a plane.
That's the way to go because you're not going anywhere, you're not going anywhere, you got to deal with it, you got to sit in that seat. I like getting drunk on planes.
I like getting drunk on planes, too, that's cool.
Because you never realize you know you're getting bubbly, but when you land, you're like, Oh no, I done, got fucked up up here.
Yeah, with comics, when we get drunk on planes, just sitting next to each other, just drinking and talking shit, it's so fun. It's basically like being at Mitzi's bar, but we're in the sky. We've done a bunch of podcasts like that, we did podcasts on a plane, really.
Yeah, yeah, we'd take an edible before the podcast and then get on the plane, and then we'd be on the plane and just bust out. An iPhone, iPhone's really good man, or any Android phone. If you get recording, the fucking microphones are pretty good, good enough. And then it's kind of fun that people know you're actually doing this on a plane, right?
Like, you know, the stewardess would come over and talk to us and we'd say, Hey, we're doing a podcast. This is back. Before the podcast was big. Nobody, you know, it wouldn't. It wasn't that entertaining to people, nobody was like staring at us, so we really got away with it. We really just hung out.
No one gave a shit. They thought we were just having a conversation because it seems like it, because you are.
It is I've always watched them because so I was telling Tony last night I don't listen to music that came out like after 1980..
Really, very much. I'll listen to know what's happening, but not enough to be influenced. Really, you know, does that make sense?
What is your main go-to shit like if you're in your car?
So I'm a mood guy, it's kind of how I write music, too. It's like, I'm a big James Taylor guy. Jim Croce, that singer-songwriter movement of the 70s, and like late 60s, early 70s, that's my shit.
Like, Seger's probably my favorite rock artist of all time, you know? So Jim Croce though, man. I mean his story, just everything he did in such a limited amount of time. He still has one of my favorite quotes. If you dig it, do it, If you really dig it, do it twice. He just had, like, he just had this too-cool-for-school, didn't-give-a-fuck kind of thing.
You know, you're familiar with Croce, I'm sure.
Don't mess around with Jim.
Oh my god, yeah, you're a pool player. Fuck yeah, you know that, right?
You don't spin into the wind, you don't pull the mask off the old long ranger.
Man, you don't mess around with Jim.
Bro, that song is the shit. I need to hear some of that right now. let me hear some of that.
Pull up some Jim Croce.
Pull up that song, yes, sir, that is a great fucking song.
Dude, he had, you know, what I loved about his writing style, Joe Watch.
Come on, baby.
Who's writing about shit like this still?
Just what a start.
Just look at him, dude you're talking about. The dude just looked like he didn't give a fuck.
He looks like he's just as high as me and you right now.
Oh my God, look at him.
Come on, what a song.
God damn, that's a jam.
Oh, because that reminded me of, like, he wrote a song, this is what I've loved about him. He wrote a song about the Roller Derby. Queen. Did you ever hear this?
Oh, wow, no, no, no.
Pull up Roller Derby Queen, right quick.
Oh, wow.
This is gonna blow your fucking mind, Joe.
I'm sure.
He wrote songs about the weirdest situations, like getting beat up and his guitar stolen from him in box number 10. Or about a pool shark or a bad drug dealer named Leroy Brown. Like he wrote these just crazy fucking, like, where do you even come up with this shit? But he had this one. It's a it's a yeah, watch now, watch how he describes this bitch.
That you won't believe, but I've been in love last Friday evening with the girl I saw on the ballroom TV screen.
Well, I was just getting ready to get my ass where she caught my eye. And I pulled it back and I ordered myself a couple of more shots and beers.
The night that I fell in love with a roller Derby queen, around and round, all round and round, meanest hunk of woman that anybody ever seen.
Down in the arenas in 5'6 215.
She's 5'6 215.
She knew how to knuckle, and she knew how to scuffle and fight.
Could you imagine 5'6 215?
He said She was built like a refrigerator. That's the shit he was writing songs about in the 70s. Dude, how fucking dope, how much dope are you smoking to be like yo? Nobody's ever wrote a song about the bitch that does roller derbies.
Well, whole lotta Rosie. Yeah right, whole lotta Rosie's about a big girl, too. Yeah, come on, give me some of that.
Give me some whole lotta rosie, that is the fucking jam that is a....
It's crazy that you know these records. Most people that bring up Jim Croce, we name my dog after one of our dogs, after Jim Croce, his name's Croce. My wife calls him Chachi, but that's how much of a Croce dude I've been.
I was such a pool fanatic that any song with pool in it got me.
Yeah, I don't know why. That's why you see me light up when I was like, Yeah, you fucking pool player fuck.
He was a pool shooting son of a gun. But also, like, that song was like, Man, I remember that song from my childhood, that was a great fucking song. There's just some certain songs. It's just like, there's just the way the person put it together and the way it just reminds you of a time, you know, like, you think about that song, like, that song brings me to that time when he was writing it, you know?
This is it.
A lot of rosie.
This is the best big girl song of all time. Come on man, because this motherfucker could sing.
Won't tell you a story about a woman I know.
Who the fuck has a voice like that?
It's all in his tone.
I mean, he's talking, he's just talking. This is like rap.
Oh yeah.
Come on, baby.
That's how we should have started this fucking podcast, Joe.
Yeah, baby.
Curing my hangover.
Never had a woman like you.
Doing all the things, doing all the things you do.
Ain't no beard, it's no hair.
Ain't no skin and bones.
What do you get out of all you got? Well, it ain't.
19 stone 19 stone that's 13 pounds times 19..
A whole lot of woman.
A whole lot of roses.
A whole lot of roses.
I loved how sloppy it was back then. Oh fuck yeah, raw, raw music just had like a slop to it. Just the way he talked, you know?
Oh yeah, that's all tone, man.
That's what I love. Don't tell you a story.
It's just exactly it's right about a woman I know, you know, just right there.
When it comes to loving.
That's probably how loud he really sang, Yeah.
What a motherfucker.
That guy was.
God damn, he was a motherfucker. That is a powerful. What is 19 stone? Is that 260 pounds? She was bigger.
Yeah, she was bigger than the Roller Derby Queen. I want to see her and the Roller Derby Queen have a celebrity. Death fight. 266..
She was 266, bro.
He said she was 49, though, didn't he?
I don't know what the fuck he said, he was just yelling out numbers, he was yelling out dimensions.
425956.
What are you saying?
Isn't there no shooting at anything?
Is that like 30?
What was that like? There was a thing back in the day, it was like 342236 or something like that. It was like the perfect.
Proportions of a 1.
What is that? he says? 423956..
She's just making up numbers.
What is he saying? He was freestyling?
He was freestyling.
He was feeling it, he was doing some fucking black key shit, he was working a bit out, he was just jazzing it.
He was working a bit out of kill Tony. He's like, I'll figure it out.
Dude, I love a good song story. Jamie turned me on the culture wall. Jamie said. You gotta hear this song, he goes. This is like you, you gotta hear this song.
This is like your kind of song. Kate McKinnon, he played Kate McKinnon. That fucking guy is so oddly talented, the fact that he was 21 when he wrote that song, played that fucking song.
The fact that this cat is 21 years old and he's got this kind of. There's like, a How many lives did you live before this one? Because this is not 21 years of Earth? That gives now, give me the real one, don't give me the. Because he does it differently in the acoustic, I really like the version that's on the album.
It's one of those. The album version is better than the acoustic. Yeah, well.
The acoustic's great, but the album one is perfect.
It's got a darker tone.
Like, I would love to hear it acoustically, but this is the shit. 21 years old.
The raven is a wicked bird, his wings are black as sin.
And he floats outside my prison window, mocking those with their.
And he sings to me, real low hell to where you go.
For you to murder Kate McKinnon?
Come on, man, it's Johnny cash vibes.
Yeah, for sure.
It's like Johnny Cash Western.
It's like he absorbed it all. I mean, I want to know he doesn't do podcasts. But I would love to sit down with that dude and go, Where'd you get all that? Where's all that coming from? Are you just? is this life? are you just a fucking freak for that old shit where you just absorbed it all?
Did you listen to every Waylon Jennings record that's ever been made? Did you listen to Merle Haggard from the time you were two? Where the fuck are you getting this?
And the crazy thing is, it's so nostalgic of that. But with this obvious Western Texas twist to it, I love that distinct Texas sound of that old Western music. I think that's what makes Zach Bryan so polarizing. his music's so incredible, but it's so raw, it's so western.
It's so fucking just, it's just so it just sits right in front of you.
Is he polarizing? In what way?
I think he's polarizing in the fact of, like, he just did his first awards show. And he was the second biggest streamed artist in country music the last two years. He's kind of like Colter, like a dude, you know what I mean, like, this dude's literally doing whatever the fuck he wants. He was selling out amphitheaters, Joe pulling up in a 12 passenger van with his homies and putting up a backdrop and just playing.
He didn't bring a light. You know what I'm saying? He just showed up like, he didn't know like him, and his boys were just out fucking making music. He tried to. I don't remember what I think. I don't know if he was a marine or whatever branch of the military he was in. He was doing. Had like 700 million streams Joe, and was still in the military.
Like, they had to come, sit him down and go, Hey man, this is a conflict. You know what I mean? Like, you're fucking like, you're like, one of the biggest artists on earth, you've gotta fucking, you gotta go.
You know what I'm saying? It was like, he's fucking, you know, I've never talked to the guy, but I'm fucking a huge fan of his.
He's super genuine, he's a really nice guy. I talked to him on the phone and then I went to see him.
Oh, no, I've seen you on stage with him, yeah.
He played up there, he tried to get me to sing No.
My favorite clip? He walked over and said, Do you want to sing? and you were like, Fuck, no.
I love that song too. His, his, his concert was amazing.
No, it's incredible.
He's so genuine, it's like there's something about people that are genuine, that it just comes out in their music. And you can't fake that. And you have that. Yeah, thank you, you have that.
Thank you brother. I say it's real music for real people with real problems.
The first song I ever heard of yours was Need a favor, and I was like, Holy shit.
God, thank you.
Holy shit, dude, that's a fucking song.
Man.
That's a song.
It was like it was funny, man, when we were. When we were working on the record. I saw the album I'm Fixing to drop called Wits at Chapel. And I think it comes out June 2nd. Shameless plug on the biggest podcast on earth, but, um, the record need a favor.
I was like, So can I tell you this story? It's a bit of a story, but it's fun to tell. So, I had wrote like a hundred songs last year and I didn't feel great about any of them, to be honest. Um, the label liked a few and was trying to pick radio singles, but I just didn't have no conviction about it. Joe and my daughter, at the same time, had found her way into this little back road church in the middle of nowhere. About a country where we live.
She kept asking me to come, and, you know, I have a tumulus relationship with the Lord. So I wasn't, you know, sure how I'd show up, but I was like, you know what, I'll go? And I went. There was a hundred people, a little back road church, you know? 20 of them were kids that went to high school with her. And around the same time, I caught this little motherfucker smoking pot, right?
She's 15.
She's doing 15 year old kids stuff and I was like, baby, you won't believe it about your age. I started making these same decisions and I was going to this little bitty church in Antioch. I tell her the story of this church, she don't believe it, so I take her to this old church. It's still there.
It's called Whitsett Chapel Baptist Church. And that night, riding home with her, I didn't tell nobody. But in my mind, I thought, that's the album I'm writing. Like, Fuck, every song I wrote, I'm writing this album. I called Zach Crowell. He produced every Sam Hunt song ever, you know, one of the biggest producers in town I've known in my whole life.
He's here with me right now and I said, Dude, I want to write an album called Going to Church. And I just kind of want to write this kind of journey and just kind of a to z it and write a real project. And Zach was like, I'm in. He's like, Well, why don't you just call it Whitsett Chapel?
So that's how we ended up doing. Whitsett Chapel. So when need a favor came into the fold. I was like, what's worship music for sinners sound like? Like, what does a motherfucker like me, you know? Cause, you know, when you're in church, it's Holy, holy, you are great. I was like, I don't necessarily feel that way, so how do I feel?
You know what I mean? And then it was like, only talk to God when I need a favor, you know? And I was like, we got to build it with a choir and big production. I want that old stomp clap, you know, that old church feel, and I want to bring like that vibe of that church, you know, into the. And the whole thing is, the whole album is built on that vibe of like, there's fire and brimstone.
There's everything you go through in a Sunday morning worship service. Have you ever been to a Sunday in the South worship service? They're going to, you're going to convince you you're a horrible human, at some point, you're going to hell. And then at the end, they'll hit a major key instead of a minor one.
Finally, and go. But there's hope.
You know what I'm saying?
So I was like, How do I? I was like, How do I write that, you know, man?
Well, I've always been a fan of those preachers. I love the way they captivate an audience, even if they're crazy, even if they're talking nonsense. There's something exciting about watching some dude preach the word and just yell it out.
And then fire on fire.
So I got a I got. I'm going to send you a link to the album, but I got a preacher throughout the whole album doing that. Ooh.
The tie.
The record together, Oh so you read like the album starts with this dude, like in, By the grace of God, we were saved, and it just drops the first song.
It's cool, man, that's amazing.
I got nerdy, dude, I went like old school, I went like back to the nineties, I was in the studio, like we were just getting high and coming up with shit.
Beautiful, Yeah, it was so much fun. It's probably the most fun I've ever had writing an album because it's the first time I've sat down a long time and wrote an album. Instead of just writing a bunch of songs and then picking an album, you know what I mean? I was like, No, I'm right.
Like, we're gonna sit down and write an album.
So that just came out of the blue, inspirationally.
Yeah, just I just wasn't.
Just felt like something.
And I'm gonna get, like, all the way real. I didn't understand what was. I had commercial success for the first time in my life and I didn't know how to deal with that. So you do what everybody does in that moment.
I'm sure you may or may not have been there in your career early. Where you like, you chase it. Then you're like, Oh my God, hold on, I can be, yeah. And I realized that the songs wouldn't sound like jelly roll no more, you know? And I was like, No, I'm doing the thing that people do where they fuck their career up.
I was like, I'm not doing that, man.
So you think that that's just a normal trap that happens to everybody that gets success and they don't want to fuck up that success. So they try to make a formula for what they think the people liked about their early shit, yes.
Yes, 100. Or they chase whatever the poppy record was, or whatever the record that did the most. So it's like, how do I write another song like that? So I was coming off of a hit that I the one I gave you the plaque for Son of a Sinner was my first radio hit like hit hit. And I was like, I didn't know how to come out of it. Because I didn't write the song for radio, I wrote the song like I wrote every other song.
But then you start thinking, Oh, I can write songs for radio, and I had fucking 70 radio songs like, Fuck, I'm not, you know. It's like, No man, I just need to, I need to do what got me to radio. I didn't do what Jelly Roll does, and I was like, I know what it is.
I'm gonna get back in my foxhole and write me a fucking album, dude, you know what I'm saying?
That's beautiful.
I took it off Music Row. We went back to some little old back ass studio in the Backwoods. And we wrote it kind of like, you know, like we wrote all my early shit.
I feel like it's like every level of success that you get. You're presented with a unique problem that you haven't seen before. And it's up to you to just figure it out, just figure it out, what are you doing this for? And I think that applies to everything.
I know it applies to comedy, it definitely seems to apply to music, I think it probably applies to everything. Figure out what you're doing it for. why do you like to do? I know you have to make a living, but once all that's taken care of, like, what are you doing it for?
You should be doing it for the love of this thing, whatever this thing is that you do. You are a love spreading machine as a human being, whether it's your love of carpentry, whether it's your love of electronics. What is it? What's your thing, man, right?
Everybody's got a thing, but not everybody finds their fucking thing. That's the problem with this world, so people get trapped in something that's not their thing, and that's what they are now. And they don't ever get to express themselves in a way that would make them feel good.
Well, for me, I always call it the why, and it's like, what you said, even with the music. And that's what happened with those 70 songs. When the why comes down to, Oh, this is catchy, or this is a good song. I'm past the point of like, if this, I want to help people. Joe, like, my music has always been therapeutic.
My music has always been for people. What got me into music was my mother. So my mother was a woman who struggled with extreme mental health issues and drug addiction, and she would never come out of her room, Joe.
And she would.
She would come downstairs.
And she'd throw a record on, and she'd light a cigarette at the table, and, dude, I would watch the house change.
Like brothers.
Sisters.
Cousins coming from across the street, we live in a little tight neighborhood, poor people, you know, neighbors coming over. Her friends start flooding the house, and she held court.
Joe I would watch our kitchen turn into a nightclub and she'd start telling stories and listen. We didn't have Google, we had to believe the bitch back then, right?
You know what I'm saying?
You know what I'm saying?
So she would be like.
James Taylor wrote this about his drug addicted mother You know what I'm saying? Or something that played fire and rain, right? Or she'd be like, Bette Midler wrote The Rose about.
And we're just like all captivated. And then she'd play the Rose and we're all crying in the kitchen together. And it's like, And I didn't understand because I'm a kid, right? But something changed in her when the record went on.
Is how I looked at it. I didn't know anything about drug addiction, anything about schizophrenia or bipolar, or any of this stuff she was dealing with, or manic depression. Back then, what they called it. I didn't know any of this, I just knew that this lady never fucking leaves that room.
And when she does, it seems like the music does it. So I spent my whole life writing songs for her. I was like, I kind of indirectly was like, writing these songs for the addicted and the broken. You know what I mean, yeah.
Because that's what I was seeing, yeah, so it's like I found purpose in the music. And like, I tell people, if I was gonna do it for money, like any sane fucking comedian or musician, I'd have quit 10 years ago because, fuck, I didn't make any for 15 years.
You know, if I was doing it for money, I'd have quit forever ago and went and got a job. I just knew that it was always helping people, you know what? I mean? It's like the music was all because I seen how it helped my mother and I knew the power of music.
And to this day, like when you first bring up music, I'm like, I'm a mood guy. It's like, you know how I feel about what I gotta go listen to. Yeah, to this day, if I'm going through something in life, I'll grab a joint and go hop in a pickup truck and tell my wife I'll be back because she knows what I'm doing.
I'm just going to go listen to music for an hour and smoke a joint and I'm going to come back and sort through this shit. But it was something about that that made me want to write songs for purpose. You know what I mean? It's like real music to just try to get. I understood the power of it, you know, funerals like how many. I probably lost my first friend when I was like 11..
I remember every song they played at the funeral that day, you know, does that make sense? These are the moments in my life that stuck out to me, was like the impact of music. And then I went on to write. Save me, which I've been told by multiple funeral homes, is their most requested song of the last decade.
You know what I mean, which is really sad. It hurts me, but it makes me feel so good that that's there to help somebody in that moment. Yeah, so for me, if I'm listening to a record, Joe, back to your why?
That's how it started, right? It's like, if I'm listening to a song or I wrote a song and the why is like, it's just cool. Fuck that song, man. Like, who is this? Exist for? You know what I mean?
Like, What am I doing now? Sometimes the answer is just as simple as, like, Yo, we just need a party record. That's cool, too. But just make sure you have a why, and if the why is money, you got the wrong why. And this song will never fucking work anyway.
You know what I mean, and that's how it's always worked for me. Which is like, I was telling you out there, I want to tell you the story about how my music changed. I was doing DMT, we were up in Iowa.
And I had done no. We were in Nebraska, we were at a KOA truck stop, I'm in a camper, we're driving one of the big campers, right? We just toured with ICP.
I've been on like, Oh, oh, dude, I did three tours with ICP there, fucking awesome it was. Listen, I played at the Gathering of the Juggalos one time. Joe Listen. And from stage, I seen a girl getting her back, blown out on the fence, getting fucked. I'm in the middle of a set.
There are people to this day. I'm on Good Morning America and they're like, What's the wildest? Talking to the people from Good Morning America? On the phone, they're like, What's the wildest thing you've ever seen in a show? I was like a girl getting fucked at the gathering of the Juggalos, I was on stage and she was just getting their brains beat out.
They were over there, filming and whooping and cheering it on to the music. It was fucking incredible. So I'm doing DMT up in fucking this camper and I start tripping mushrooms and I'm coming out of my DMT thing, and I'm in that afterglow state. And in that moment, I went, the music's being packaged wrong. It was this weird moment where I was like, I'm writing these super dark songs. But then I'm putting a cartoon picture of myself on the cover and I'm shooting.
You know what I mean, like it just, it just hit me. I was like, I'm writing the right songs, I'm just writing them over the wrong chord progressions, and I'm dressing it up the wrong way. Chainsaw man.
Wow.
So what was it about the trip that made that apparent to you?
I wish I, dude, I don't know what it was. We wasn't even listening to music, I was just sitting at that Koa, staring up at the stars. You know, I'm getting 60 bucks a night or something, or a hundred bucks a night. I mean, I'm playing, you know, I do.
I mean, it's 10 of us, I mean, it's, you know, we've all been there. So we were like, struggle, buzzing. And I was just having one of them vulnerable moments in life where I was like, Am I fucking doing the right thing here? Like, am I tripping? How much longer am I going to try to push this square through this circle, you know?
And I looked up and I was like, God, what am I doing wrong? I know my heart's right, I know that my only other choice in life is criminal. That's all I've ever done. Joe is music and crime. That's the only two things I've ever known.
You know, so I'm like, I don't have any qualifications to do anything, you know? I was like, What am I doing wrong here? I know the music's right, and it was just all. It was almost like it was that easy.
From years of trying to figure it out, it was like, you're just writing over the wrong chord progressions, you're writing the right songs, you're just writing them wrong.
Wow.
What do you think that is what is happening?
I wish I did. I was hoping you were going to give me the answers. I've been wanting to talk about this for years.
I think if I had the answer, you should walk out and never trust me again, yeah.
Well, because I learned about DMT on this show. Whoops, right. Well, they changed my fucking life.
They're doing legitimate studies now in the UK, where they're doing a drip, so they're doing an IV drip with a long release of DMT. So it stays in your bloodstream for hours. And these people are having these experiences that are repeatable, they're going to similar places.
They're going to the same place, they're reporting these contacts with entities, they're reporting these experiences that are. It's odd, it's very odd, because no one does it in long doses.
You do it in this 10 to 15 minute dose, and it's so overwhelming that the moment you get a chance to.
It's so hard to relax in the middle of all of it and just accept it and just be empty and let them show you things. It's so hard that you, a lot of people wind up with this like tense conflict, where you're in conflict with the overwhelming nature of the experience. So you're trying to control it in some sort of way, or you're trying to deal with it, and you just got to be able to....
Ah.
You just got to be able to do that, and if you can't do that, it's going to be a fucked up ride. But these people are going through all that and then they're getting to, ah, and they're staying there for.
Hours, and.
Hours, What is that? I mean? I don't know if that's a hallucination, that's the simplistic, reductionist view. If I was a person who was a cynical academic who's never fucked around with drugs, I would look at that and I'd go, well, this is really simple.
It's interacting with your visual cortex, it's some sort of a hallucination, your imagination is producing these results. But, man, it doesn't feel like that. And I really wish people would have more of an open mind about what this is.
Because I have a feeling it's the root of humanity, I have a feeling it's the root of all religious experiences, I have a feeling that it's the root of compassion and love. I think it separates us from the more primal aspects of our beings, and it does it in a very tangible way.
And it did it with me, and I'm sure it did it with you. And it does it with a lot of people that go and have either ayahuasca experiences or DMT experiences. These things that you should probably call ceremonies, even though ceremony is a ridiculous word, but it is kind of like you're in a religious experience.
And that might be what God is, that experience, there might be layers and layers to that until you eventually get to God. And I don't know what these people are doing, they're doing this long-term IV drip thing. But you literally might be opening up some sort of a wormhole to heaven, as bonkers as that sounds.
I know you're going to be one of the first people that will figure it out, and when you do, please let me tag along.
I will not figure it out, but I will talk to whoever figures it out, That's what I'll do.
But if you find the drips, let me know, save me a seat for the drips.
100 bro, we're going to travel together.
Yeah, we did a bunch of that on that tour. And to this day, if I'm really dealing with something I can't figure out my own, I'll take some shrooms and go to the lake. To this day, I just kind of count on that stuff to kind of recalibrate me and set me back, especially artistically. Sometimes, or when life's getting overwhelming, there's such a humility and humbling that comes with that.
You just realize how much you don't fucking matter, it's not even that you realize shit don't matter, you realize you don't matter.
It's also when your ego gets squashed. You realize your ego is the source of almost all the fear and anxiety, almost all of it once your ego gets squashed. Which is what the trip does initially, especially, it's like you don't even exist anymore. You're just like, Oh, and then you can see things, what they really are like. Oh my God, we're a part of this insane soup of molecules that literally goes on forever.
And no one understands it, no one understands even the parameters of it. It's all guesswork. It's all these legal pads where these psycho smart dudes are writing down computations. And they're looking at these images that are billions of light years away. I mean, it's all even what our limited ability to observe the known universe.
But just the capacity of the knowledge that had to be moved all together in synchronicity to create these fucking telescopes. All this shit is insane and that is just.
Scratching the surface.
There's so much out there.
I've went through so many of those worm holes recently. I finally got to watch on the bus the other night that Graham Hancock the Netflix doc.
Oh, it's amazing.
It was insane. I never really scratched it and I just knew his name. I'd seen clips and I was like, Fuck it, we're sitting on the bus, stone.
That's the coolest thing about the bus, we'll sit there and catch up on all that shit.
Graham Hancock is the man he was one of the first real guests I ever had on the podcast. Yeah, he flew in, we ate pizza and then we did a podcast.
He had just flown in, he came right to my house. This is when I used to do it in my house, when I had it in one of my spare bedrooms. It was me and Duncan and Graham Hancock. I read his first book, Fingerprints of the Gods, in the 90s.
Sometimes, and everybody was like, that's nonsense, you're into that pseudo-history shit. And I was like, this guy's got really good points, I think he might be onto something.
And his whole journey, from being this guy who was maligned to being a guy who has a Netflix series. And all these archaeologists are complaining, but hey, look what he's doing, he's showing you archaeological evidence, you psychos. There's something to this.
It's like the dude that comes in and crushes it because he crushes it so much. You realize how much other people wasn't doing their job. Like, when you hire a new tour tech or something and he comes in and kills you, you're like, Damn, that other dude sucks.
That's why they're mad at him, They're like, Oh fuck, we've been blowing it.
Exactly, yeah. They're all kind of humiliated by this guy who's not an archaeologist who's discovered this very clear and distinct pattern. And this pattern seems to indicate that civilization is far older than we think it is. And there's likely been some interruptions. We were knocked into the stone age and then when he got together with Randall Carlson. And all of the archaeological evidence lines up with all the evidence of the impacts.
Is Randall the guy that was with him, that has the beard? Yes, always has the laptop? Randall's amazing, He's the best.
He's the best. I met that dude in Georgia. I was in Atlanta and I was doing, Was it the funny bone or the punch line? the punch line in Atlanta? right? Yeah, it was the punch line.
So I was doing the punch line. And after the show, this dude came up to me and he was talking to me about asteroid impacts and sacred geometry. I'm like, What the fuck do you do? Me and him had this conversation and he started talking to me about asteroid impacts. And he was telling me that he thinks that that's what resets civilization. I was like, What?
How long ago was this?
Long time ago, This was a long time ago.
I love the idea of you just being in a bar after a show and a guy's just waving you about.
Fucking Asteroids was like, 2005 or some shit. Yeah, it was a long ass time ago. I think I'm pretty sure it was pre-podcast when I first met him. That's me and him.
What is that? Oh, that's like 2007, then it says 9, it says 9??
2009 Yeah.
Is that the first time I met him? God, am I off by that many years?
Well, you also, you know how this shit works, though they might have uploaded this.
No, I think that's correct, though. It looks right because of my beard, because I grew a beard when Evan Tanner died.
It's still 2008.
2008.
That's right, okay, yeah, there's a dude named Evan Tanner, he was a UFC champion and he was a very interesting guy.
Very interesting guy. And he would do these things, he would go on a walkabout, you know, to try to find himself, just to just go alone in the woods. And he did one in Death Valley. And heat stroke apparently affects your ability to literally you can't think straight. So he couldn't figure out where the water was.
He just couldn't figure out where it was. Because, like, I don't know, I've never had heat stroke. But the way it's described is like it doesn't matter how tough you are. Like your brain doesn't work right, like your memories aren't good, you can't walk right, like you're about to die. And then he died.
And Death Valley is, I think it's the hottest spot on earth, right?
Yeah.
What does it get to?
It's right outside of Vegas, right?
Yeah, yeah, the hottest recorded, I think we hit was like, 130 something, yeah.
So Evan, you know, just a very interesting guy, very, very tough guy too, and a great fighter, and we all loved him.
So that was like.
Right around that time, that's how you remember it from the beard.
Yeah, man, he was an interesting dude. When an interesting dude winds up dying in a way that's unfortunate and preventable, like, that's like, Fuck, man. He would have been cool to have around. He had like a very different take on why he was a fighter and like, he was like trying to find himself through this, you know? And there's certain guys that it's like, there's authenticity that comes through in music, and it fucking comes through in everything, man, it comes through in fighting, too.
It comes through the certain humans that are just so authentic that when they're out there, you just want the best for them. You want to see them fight, you know, and when you see people like that in life, that's the one of the beautiful things about today is that you get exposed to so many more inspirational and fascinating people. To be a young person right now and to have all these different stories. You got your culture walls out there, you got you, you got Zach Bryant.
You got all these different human beings, you got all this music from the 60s and the 70s and the 80s. And there's so much to influence you and so many things.
So it's at the tap of A. It's in our hand.
Anytime you want why go to sleep, your parents aren't paying attention. Stay on YouTube, you'll be on YouTube till four o'clock in the morning.
You got to get up at six, these kids don't give.
A fuck at all. And the thing about it is it changed our business on its head, like on our head, and everybody was so against it at first.
Napster.
Yeah, they were so, but they were so like, I never forget having a conversation with a distributor that said, Well, let me say this. First of all, I would like to say, though I don't want to breeze over, I'd like to take a moment. Because I know it means a lot to his family. I'm sure to say, rest in peace, Evan Tanner.
I'm sure you bringing that up means so much to their, to that family alone, and that's awesome, then that alone. His story will live forever because of this. And that's also what's cool about the era we're in, right?
You know what I mean is that forever? We'll have that clip of Joe Rogan getting emotional talking about his friend Evan Tanner. Because you've seen a picture of you with a beard. That makes me want to cry with you, Joe. Because that's that fucking awesome. I don't want to, I don't want to breeze past that because that's cool as fuck.
There's, well, there's something about, like, commentating on fighters where you have this, uh?
This crazy, uh, connection with them, where you want them to to do good in life, you want them to. You've seen their soul, you when you when you see two dudes going to war inside the octagon, there's. They're exposing their soul, they're exposing every fiber of their being. Especially if it's a tough fight, all the quit and you shows up, all the excuses show up, all.
Everything shows up, the the the, the will, the courage, everything, whoever you are, it shows up. And you get to know these people and you get to know them as a fan too. And I think it's one of the things that people love about fighters. So you get to see, you know, you see the actual whole human being. There's no place to hide.
I think we relate to things we we can relate to. Things that we either relate to, or things that are so like around us that we could never understand it. Yeah, so for me, for a fighter, it's like, I respect the fact that I could never imagine getting down into a diaper. Getting into a ring with a pair of oven mitts, a pair of oven mitts. Joe and fucking trying to kill another man for north of 15 minutes. At times, you know, like that just concept for me is fucking insane, you know what I'm saying?
It's like I just could never wrap my head around that I was talking to Tony last night about. I filled up about comedians like me. And the musicians were in the green room shooting the shit with Tony, and I was like, we got something you don't, Tony. We can bail each other out or we're going to bomb together. I've bombed before and look back at the band and just smile.
Like, Well, we're bombing, it's happening, it fucking sucks.
But when y'all bomb, oh, you could hear a fucking mosquito fart. I could have heard a mouse piss on Cotton last night a couple of times after a dude just threw up an egg.
Well, those those are hard sets, those kill tony sets, because those guys are going up. They have one minute and you got one minute and you didn't even know you're about to go up until like, 10 seconds. Yeah, they pull your name out of the hat, like Mike Wilson, Oh shit.
That's me, oh my god.
And then you're up.
There and you're like.
You're talking too fast, your heart's beating too quick. You thought it was 60?
Seconds, but it was 20.
Yeah, and then your joke, you forget one of the punchlines, like, fuck.
Yeah, yeah, it was fucking awesome.
But but Tony so good at, like, making fun of those moments. And I've seen people bomb and then come back and do well, I have seen that, I have seen that.
I've seen a guy last, I'm sure Tony said. I could talk about it. I seen a guy last night bomb and then Tony punch his shit up in real time. And it was the funniest thing I've ever seen in Human. I pissed myself a little bit, I tinkled myself.
I was sitting, I was.
I was the obnoxious dude on the balcony, laughing so hard that the balcony kept laughing because I was still laughing. Everybody had moved on in the club. But me and I just couldn't get over fucking him, going up and just being like, listen. And he would tap on the I don't want to blow his whole shit because it's coming out on YouTube.
I want to watch that one, I'll watch that one, but this one's worth.
Watching, it's fucking great.
They're all worth watching, man, it's the best show. I fucking love that.
Show we watch them on.
The bus pretty religiously, I come in on Monday nights, when I'm free, I come in and check it out and watch. It's just to sit down and watch, it's so fun.
No dude, it's a hang.
It's such a weirdo extravaganza, too, the weird energy from all those open micers on the stage.
They had a kid with down syndrome. Get up last night, Joe and kill. And then the guy that came behind him did not. And it was the funniest thing I've ever seen.
Was it Jared Cleaver?
I don't remember his name.
Jared Nathan Rather, Who's Jared Cleaver? Jared Nathan? Jared Nathan is the guy that's always on Ahsan's thing. him and Ahsan always do those Instagram clips together.
Yeah, Jared Nathan's hilarious.
We're huge comedy people on the bus, man. We watch all the specials, all the pods. Because I don't listen to music when I'm in album cycle mode, Joe.
Unless it's like 70s music, because I'm already drawing so much from that shit anyways. You know what I mean, do you have a?
Playlist that you listen to before you perform, do you ever listen to? I got that from Cat Williams. He said that once he was doing this interview, he said I have a playlist of music that I listen to before I go on stage.
I was like, Ooh, that's a good idea.
It is, Anthony Smith told me. He's got one for his pre-fight, too. He's got the same playlist, he said. He puts his headphones on, it's the same playlist.
Because I had a song in it, that was the correlation, how we met.
Which was super.
Cool, he explained. I listen to the same playlist for the last four or five fights. I create new playlists. whenever there's a new energy shift, it's what I listen to. a full playlist. That's crazy.
We'll listen to outlaw country music. I was a kid, my mama played this for me. This is when I knew I'd end up doing country music. The first time I heard looking for trouble and I found a son right down the barrel of an old man's gun.
I was like, This is a fucking country song. I was like, Ain't living long like this, ain't living long like this. Oh, my baby. I was like, Holy shit, this is gangster.
Outlaw Country was the original gangster rap.
Oh, for sure, one hundred percent. Listen, hot, take.
Subterranean Blues by Bob Dylan was the first rap song ever. You ready for that argument? Listen to this.
What's Subterranean Blues? Which one is that?
You pull it up right quick. I'm in a basement mixing up the betterment, I'm on a pavement thinking about the government.
Oh yeah.
Tell me to say rap.
Oh, that's the one with the signs, Yeah, yeah.
John is in a.
Basement mixing up the medicine I'm on a.
Pavement thinking about the.
Government.
A man in a trenchcoat badge.
Laid off, says he's.
Got a bad cough, wants to get it paid off. Look out kid, this time you did God knows when, but you're doing it again. You played a duck down the alleyway looking for a new friend. A man in a coon skin cap in a pig pen wants eleven dollar bills.
Do you?
Want to get ten?
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