#2027 - Oliver Anthony
2023-08-30 02:35:58
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Do you ever find yourself with the desire to welcome the Crocs into your life?
Yeah, I've got some genuine Realtree Crocs for when I'm out in the stand, you know?
I know guys who use those as camp shoes. They like to walk around camping them because you're wearing heavy boots in the mountains.
Yeah, they're nice to kind of keep with you as a spare. You know, if you soak your boots or you're just trying to go on out of the house real quick.
Brian Simpson now has Crocs and stage Crocs. So before Brian Simpson goes on stage, he takes off his walk-around Crocs and he puts on his pristine stage Crocs. It's hilarious. It's so funny. He used to do it with sneakers.
He used to walk around with Crocs and then he'd wear sneakers on stage. And then he went from Crocs to stage Crocs.
Yeah, well, maybe I'll look into it. I need to get some new boots. My boots are like, these are the ones I always wear. We were walking through the airport yesterday and they're like literally, one of the soles is falling off. I'm like, I got to figure out something.
You got to get them resold, man. They're authentic.
Yeah, these are my genuine. You earned them.
You know, people pay for those.
I thought about it. I was joking with my buddy. the other day. I went and changed my oil at his house before we drove to North Carolina. I left the dirty oil sitting in his garage and I was like, I'll get it, whatever.
He said, no, man. He said, I'm selling that on eBay. That's Oliver Anthony's authentic used motor oil out of his truck.
You'd probably get $20 for that. Yeah, there's a lot of people that definitely would buy that. But what I mean, people buy used clothes because they want to wear clothes that look like they have character. It drives me crazy. When I see people with pants that are shredded all over the place, like your knees are exposed.
The pro tip I have for that is just go to Goodwill. You can get real used clothes.
For real used clothes. But that's extra hipster, authentic. if you go to a real used clothes store. What do they call those? Vintage.
The vintage. look, yeah.
Oh yeah, if you could buy some holey t-shirts at some dirty hippie ward or a Rolling Stones concert in the 1970s, you can get that now, that's worth a lot of money. You know, if he died of a heroin overdose and he kept the fucking t-shirt at his mom's house, she decided to sell it, that's worth a lot of money.
I've tried to hold on to things that I think I could sell down the road. I've still got the strings that I recorded Richmond, with the Richmond on my guitar. I almost threw them away. I was like, oh, hold on a second. You could definitely sell those.
In hard times.
Yeah, you could definitely sell those. But that would be like an honest sale. People can't say, oh, he's a sellout.
Yeah, I'm just selling junk. I have. Actually, I'm considering selling my truck. I don't know. I think we talked about this once before.
It's worthless to me. It's got 325,000 miles on it and a salvage title. I still daily drive it. But I thought, man, if I could sell this and somebody pay 50 grand for it or whatever and send it towards a charity, it would be pretty slick to do.
It has a salvage title?
It does, yeah.
What happened? Did you buy it when it was already wrecked?
No, well, it's a 2007 Suburban. I paid a couple grand for it years ago. And then, just here recently, I had to have it towed. It broke down and the rollback driver, I guess, I don't know, if he was under the influence or something or what, but he unhooked all the chains off and then tilted the bed back. So the whole truck rolled right off the back of the rollback.
Oh, no.
And it totaled the truck out. It bent a bunch of stuff under the driveshaft and the front of the frame and all. And, of course, I'm sitting there trying to figure out what to do with my truck, and here comes all the police. And they're like, oh, is that really you? So here I am.
I'm on the phone with my insurance company, and then all these guys are coming up trying to take selfies with me and stuff. That's hilarious. I guess this is the world I live in now.
So can the truck be fixed?
It's drivable. Yeah, I'm driving it. It just rides kind of like a covered wagon now.
Is the frame bent? Is the suspension bent?
Yeah, the driveshaft in the back is bent. I think it's what's causing it to shake.
Oh, so you've got like a wobble in your driveshaft.
It went straight. Yeah, I mean it went Dukes of Hazzard style off the back of the truck.
As an adult, that show drives me nuts, watching those cars land. What are you doing to those cars?
Well, hey, this one can do it. Yeah, sort of. Maybe I'll donate it to Whistle and Diesel and just let him kill it. I don't know. It would be pretty slick.
Well, you could do that. Or, if someone is listening to this, and they want to do something cool, and they've got the Cheddar, buy it from you, and then send it to Roadster Shop, and have them put like a badass suspension in it, and make it a real sleeper. They could do shit like that. That would be pretty slick. Because we have to get all that replaced anyway.
Why not replace it with better shit?
It'd be cool for somebody to have it. It would have a cool story behind it.
This company called Roadster Shop, they've been on my podcast before. One of the things they do is they do like a sleeper series. I think they call it the Legend Series.
I'm actually not sure what they call it. But what they do is they'll take an old car. So the outside looks like shit. The outside is patina and rust and all that stuff. And then they'll just completely redo everything underneath it with, like a crazy engine, insane brakes, insane handling and suspension.
But it still looks like a 72 GMC pickup truck. But underneath it, it's just a monster.
It's got all the modern amenities. Because new cars are so much more efficient. You don't realize when you….
So they do stuff like this. Is that it? But they have different kinds of builds.
No, so these are all just like the different ones that they did. Survivor Series, that's what it is. The Survivor Series. I think. the Survivor Series, that's what it is.
They leave the outside.
It's interesting to me that older vehicles had so much more character. I don't know if it's just that it's….
People are doing drugs, bro. That's what it is. We nailed it with them. We sat down with them, and they introduced me to all these people that were the designers back in GM in the day. This guy was a freak.
He was wearing like crazy red suits. This guy was probably definitely on acid. And these are the people that created these insane shapes. And then, when the sweeping psychedelics drug act of 1970 came along, they made everything a Schedule I drug.
Yeah, and that is when cars went downhill. It is when cars went downhill. It was early 70s, yes.
You can get a 71 Barracuda, and it's still sick. But you get into like 72, 73.. Those cars look like shit. 75, they're garbage. 79, they're done.
Everyone's on coke. Everyone thinks everything they do is amazing. You get the movie Showgirls.
Everything lost its art, and it became focused more on algorithms of what's going to sell and what's more efficient and what's better to produce.
Sort of, but back then I don't even think they had data. they were going on. They were going on past success. So if you go to, like the 1980s, some of the worst movies that were ever made, like the Cocaine Years, I really strongly feel like those people were going on reputations of sales, and the studio would put a lot of money behind someone who had a great reputation, and this guy's fucking partying and doing lines and writing crazy shit in these scripts. Some of them are good, and some of them aren't so good, but they're all kind of clunky.
They're all kind of disconnected, that like a true masterpiece of a movie, isn't, you know, like Taxi Driver. Like you go back and watch Taxi Driver, that's a masterpiece of a movie. It's so connected. You're connected to all the action. It's like you're on the edge of your seat.
It's wild. The acting's insane. Even Jodie Foster, as a kid, is insane in it. It's so good. But cocaine movies in the 80s, they were nuts, man.
They didn't go on algorithms. I think they just went on what they thought people wanted. They probably took polls, but who the fuck's answering polls? Polls are the worst way to get information, because you're only getting information from people dumb enough to answer polls. Like that's such a small group of people.
How many people answer polls when they call you up? How many of my fucking people with a life have time for a poll? Do you think Jordan Peterson's ever answered a poll?
Yeah, like I always get those calls and immediately hang up.
Yeah, just shut the fuck up. I'm sorry, I have to do this to you, but bye. No, don't hang up. Someone will beg. Please.
They can't get anybody to do it.
Yeah, it's fascinating to see throughout history, times when people were able to really connect with other humans like on that, like whether it's the movie or film, or cars, or whatever, it's like. maybe it was the psychedelics or whatever. I don't know, but there was a huge disconnect. It seemed like after the 70s, with all that, things kind of went off. And it's interesting even now.
Like I see a lot of the new movies coming out. They're all just sort of remakes. They're like a re-conceptualization of something that's happened 15 years ago. There's not a lot of new stuff out there for people to connect with.
Yeah, Matt Damon did this conversation about why it's so much more difficult to make movies now. There's no DVD sales anymore. And it was very interesting, and it kind of makes sense. I think it's just really hard to finance those fucking things. And you want a guaranteed success.
What's a guaranteed success? You need a superhero. People like superheroes. And if your superhero is trans, even better. You can figure out a way to make it every ethnicity inside the group of superheroes that are there.
Perfect. Now we're good. Now we need CGI. We need aliens. This episode is brought to you by Experian.
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My mind's already long gone within the first 30 minutes doing something else, but Star Wars was really partial to me growing up, and I don't think they'll ever touch the original series, even though, yeah, like, you can tell some of it, like, even with some of, like, the renovations they've done on the newer versions of it, like, to make, adding CGI into the old films, it's like just the story of the originals, to me, meant a lot more than the newer stuff, just because of the, you don't believe it looking at it with your eyes as much, but you believe it more with your mind, like, listening to what it has to tell you, you know?
I think that Star Wars is, like, generational wealth. Like, the original guy who started the company was a bad motherfucker. That guy was out there grinding, he was selling soap out of the back of a wagon in 1890.. But the folks who inherited the company three, four, and five generations in, they're kind of flat. There's not, it's different.
You know, when I watch Star Wars now, it's like a bunch of stuff happening. It's still fun, they're still good, I enjoy them. But Star Wars won in the context of whatever year it was. What was it, 77 or something like that?
Hey, there you go. Just take a pop.
What do you think it is? Who was first Star Wars, if you had to guess?
Yeah, probably late 70s, I'd say.
Yeah, I want to say, like, 77..
In my unprofessional opinion.
Am I right, 77?? Yay! Look at that. That movie, at that time, was fucking groundbreaking. It was amazing.
Rick Baker did the special effects. That was when I was a serious special effects, nerd. Like, I wanted to do, when I was a little kid, I wanted to do special effects for the movies. That's how I became a giant fan of Rick Baker. That's why we have that American Werewolf in London in the lobby.
Oh, okay.
That's what that's from. Gotcha, yeah, yeah.
It's this guy named Pat McGee. It's funny, because that's our second one. We have another one. that's in the pool hall. And the reason why is that?
Pat McGee, who is this amazing special effects guy, he was also on the podcast back in the day. He made an American Werewolf in London. you could buy online. And I'm like, that would be the sickest thing for the studio ever. And then Rick Baker came and was a guest.
And Rick Baker said, the proportions are off. Like, the arms weren't as long. It was, like, short. It was like this and that. So Pat McGee listened.
And he was like, shit, I've got to make a better one. And so he made an even better one. And the new one is all hair. There's no synthetic hair. So it's all, like, I think it's yak hair that they use.
So it's, like, individual hairs are put in all over this wolf. And it looks fucking amazing.
It does look sick. Yeah, that's the first thing that catches your eye walking in here, I'd say, out of everything.
Yeah, that thing's sick.
You're not going to find one of those in any other place.
That was my 100% my favorite horror movie. I love that movie, because it's funny. It's terrifying. It has to do with the werewolf theme. to me is so amazing.
You take some person who's, like, a good person. They're a friendly, nice guy. And you're like, hey, man, you have to lock yourself in a cage. You're going to become a monster. It's like, what the fuck are you saying?
That doesn't make any sense. And they never want to believe. And you know it's going to happen. And in that one, that was the first time in one of those movies where you got to see, like, the advancements of special effects. Like, what year was American Werewolf in London?
Let's guess that. I want to say 82?.
I'm going to say 82, 84..
81.. I should have stuck with 82.. Back then, when, you know, you had special effects, it was like kind of like they didn't move that good. Like, they couldn't get their faces to move that good. But he had figured out a way to get your hands to grow.
Like, rawr! And he had to figure out a way to get things in his cheeks where his cheeks were bubbling. Yeah, awesome. And it's all real. None of it is CGI.
And there's something about that uncanny valley. When you're watching a CGI transformation, your brain knows it's bullshit. For whatever reason, you're better off having it look fake but be a real thing, like John Carpenter's The Thing. You're better off with that than you are with CGI. For whatever reason, CGI just...
Yeah, I mean, I think we just have seen... There. it is. There it is.
This is behind-the-scenes footage I was going to show you. Oh, wow. That was pretty cool because it still moves in a very interesting way. Yeah, but that's a physical thing moving. It's not a CGI.
That does look exactly like the wolf in the lobby, doesn't it? But back then, they couldn't even get the thing to close its mouth. Look how sick that is. That's awesome. Imagine if you're in a subway and you see that fucking thing turning a corner.
Oh, my God. That scene was amazing. Where the poor guy was stuck in the subway and he was running from it. And then you see it at the bottom of the escalator stairs. That's like just those quick glimpses of a thing like that.
It's so much more terrifying than some long CGI'd up monster killing someone scene. The American Horror Film London was just a masterpiece. Landis just nailed it. It was the perfect horror movie. And it was funny.
There's funny moments in it.
Yeah, that's cool when you can get humor in there, too. Yeah, that kind of reminds me of my dog when I don't give him table scraps. He's got that terrible face like that.
That thing was amazing. Yeah. But it's just the difference between digital and real. And you're going to have to deal with that soon. Because I guarantee you there's going to be some people that are making some CGI AR.
Oh, there already are. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. What is that?
I'm sure there are.
Yeah, I haven't kept up with a lot just because I'm doing anything social media related. right now. Any internet presence I have right now is coming from me off the phone, just before everything blew up. So I haven't invested the time to look at everything circulating. But friends and family have sent me stuff.
And some of it's pretty funny. But they've got all these different AI remixes of the song with different voices and overlayed, different faces and all. And it's funny to see where it's going to go.
That is funny. Yeah, you're going to have to deal with that. My daughter sent me some advertisement. She goes, did you do this advertisement? I'm like, nope.
Nope, that's not really my voice. I mean, it is my voice.
Yeah, like the day after things blew up, one of the towing companies had an ad on Facebook that had, it wasn't really me, but it was a red beard and, like, the side profile of sunglasses looking out the window. I'm like, okay. How dare you? I guess I've made it anyway. That's when I realized, like, people are already ripping things off.
And what's crazy is, like, every shirt that I've worn anywhere in public, there's a organization that I've, I'm not, like, officially related to or in any way have done anything with, but it's a friend of a friend in the neighborhood. It's called Nets with Vets, and they take out veterans with PTSD and let them go deep sea fishing. And so he asked me last minute just to wear his shirt at one of the concerts. And, you know, now there's, like, 1,500 listings online for counterfeit Nets with Vets shirts. And so the organization reached out, like, hey, are you, like, making shirts, ripping us off?
It's like, it's not me. So it's like, it's a weird thing. I've already experienced a lot of that stuff. Not so much on the AI side, but just, I don't know, the Internet's just such a rowdy place, you know?
Oh, it's so rowdy. The world's a rowdy place. It is.
And maybe people bring their best and their worst on the Internet. Like, I've always tried to stay off social media as much as possible. But I've learned very quickly that, like, Twitter and Facebook and stuff like you, you see comments and feedback from people, both overwhelmingly positive that maybe you wouldn't get in a personal conversation, but also, like, overwhelmingly negative, too, you know? People just use that as a vent. They just take whatever seething hatred they have inside of them.
They're like, oh, I'm getting that guy with it, you know?
If you had a song just about love that resonated like that, it would be almost impossible to hate you. But you have a song where you're talking about how people are fed up with shit. And it obviously resonated. I mean, I've seen songs go viral. But that's pretty banana, son.
Your shit went to the moon right away. And, God, I'm not sure who sent it to me. I'll have to find out who sent it to me. Because it's one of those things where, like, once one person sent it to me, then it was like dozens of people were sending it to me.
It's funny, because originally that song wasn't in my – it wasn't really even in my top five. Like, it's not normally the type of song. I've written songs with similar messages. But as far as that sort of, like, I guess anthem format is what people are calling it. It's like an anthem.
Like, that's not something I would normally write.
But it's an unlikely anthem. You know, insane times. It would be an unlikely anthem.
Yeah, I had no idea that that song would react the way it did.
Well, you're a smart guy. And it's representative of how a lot of people feel. And it's also – there's something about the way certain people sing. And I don't know what it is because I can't sing. But there's a tone – there's an authentic sound.
And I know when they're faking it. And it's not that they're not faking it in a beautiful way. Like, there's a lot of people – the faking is probably a bad term. But they're sounding perfect and they're singing a song. There's something missing.
I don't know what it is. Yeah. But some people – like, Janis Joplin is, like, one of my greatest examples. There's an – take a little piece of my heart. There's an authenticity in that voice that, god damn, man.
If that doesn't bring you to your knees, play that. Play that. We need to hear, that. We got time. This fucking song.
Every time. This is one of those songs that, every time I hear it, it just takes me in my mind to what it must have been like to be alive in 1968. Or whenever it was that this came out.
And this hippie chick, who's 27 years old, has a voice from the heaven.
God damn, son. Listen to that.
Oof.
Give me some volume.
Yeah, it's timeless, too. Come on, come on, come on, come on and take it.
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby.
She was a magical person. Magical person. That's a magical person.
Yeah, but she's really singing with everything in her. Everything.
I think, at least in my case, I think the one thing that's helped me, too, is that my singing isn't the best, but I've never had any vocal lessons or anything. So the way I sing is just the way I sing. And so I think even the same way with her and other people. It's maybe rough around the edges. It could be a little pitchy.
Or you're not using the right part of your face when you project and whatever. And so on paper, things aren't quite right. But I guess to another human, it sounds right. Because it is what it is.
It's authentic. Yeah, I don't think there's any right way to do anything. I mean, you see it in everything. There's a person who violates the rules, and they're the best at it.
And then the rules almost morph into whatever. that is. It's funny with music. Music has, country in particular, but music in general has gotten way too wrapped up in this algorithm of how many beats per minute it needs to have, and how many verses, and how they need to be layered. And it's like they've almost created this industry standard OSHA rule book of how music needs to be performed.
And so you can only do that so many thousands of times before people are like, okay, what else is there?
Well, people like that too. That's the thing. There's a lot of damn people. There's a lot of people. The problem, I think, with a lot of people is they want you to like what they like.
And if you don't like what they like, what you like sucks.
It's funny like that, man. We're so tribal. We are tribal with our cell phones. We're an Android or PC.
Android. people have to stick together.
It's like we're so weird. We're so weird. But we're like that with our musical tastes. We're like that with our cultural sensitivities or cultural sensibilities, rather, like the way we feel about life and how life should be. We want everybody to kind of think along the ways that we think.
It's very strange. And when a person like yourself gets labeled a right-wing, left-wing fanatic, like right out of the gate.
Both in like a week and a half. And, yeah, at least I know I'm doing something right. Like to me.
Yeah, they're looking for your Biden campaign contributions. now. They're going through your fucking taxes. The whole thing is so bonkers, man. Like.
can't they just accept that you made a great song and people enjoy it? Yeah. Why do people have to attack?
Well, I think it's just for whatever reason. I'm the subject matter. the last couple weeks. And, you know, in everyone's defense, I probably haven't. I've waited for this opportunity, I guess, to really have a real conversation with somebody about whatever it is I am.
So people are just trying to find who's this Oliver Anthony guy and what is he and where does he work and who did he vote for, and what's his family like. Because they want to sort of build this image of whatever it is that the person behind the song represents, for better or for worse. The people who agree with it want to, you know, I don't know. It's really funny to watch on my end, because obviously I know what's true and what's not. And so like just even what I've skimmed through of people sending me like.
singing at the Super Bowl, like. how many people have formed an opinion about whether or not I should be paid to sing at the Super Bowl. Like I'm not singing at the Super Bowl. That's just somebody made up. But, you know, there's been hundreds of hours of people's time wasted, probably talking about all these little like things that don't even exist.
It's just somebody made them up and put them on the internet. So I'm just letting them ride. I think it's great. It's wild. I just think it's great.
like that, at least the last couple weeks I've been able to entertain everyone and get everyone's mind off, like all the other horrible stuff that's going on in the world right now. Like at least everybody can have a good laugh, you know.
Well, I mean, it's a subject of discussion. So, like everybody is getting involved. And somehow or another it became cultural. And then there was Dwight from The Office.
Oh, yeah.
He chimed in that if he was going to write a cultural anthem, what did he say? Something like he wouldn't write about overweight people on welfare. He would write about billionaires and their taxes. Yeah. There is nothing funnier than millionaires talking shit about billionaires.
There is nothing funny, funnier about millionaires pretending these billionaires are out of touch. Oh, yeah. And then, you know, take Dwight from The Office down to West Virginia. You know, take him through those coal mining countries. Take him through those places in Appalachia where people have extreme poverty.
And pills have ravished those areas. Take him through there.
And it's everywhere. Yeah, the sad thing is, it's everywhere now. It's not. You know, it's funny. People right off the get-go, I guess because it was Radio WV that posted the original video.
But like, I've never once advertised myself as being necessarily from the mountains. My grandfather grew up in western part of Virginia, in the mountains. But I'm from Farmville, which is technically Piedmont. But even throughout rural Virginia, that poverty is a big issue and drugs are a big issue. I mean, it's not just even in the rural areas.
You go into downtown Richmond or any downtown, anywhere, for that matter. It's almost like, yeah, these problems exist everywhere now. And I think, I mean, obviously they are, because that's why the song resonated the way it did. They exist in other countries. In other countries, yeah.
Well, people are tired of being fucked with. And it seems like people in power are always fucking with people. And I think it's a natural inclination that human beings have. And I think the founding fathers of this country recognized that when they set up our government. They set up our government to protect it against tyranny.
And they did it by having all these different branches of government. And they're all coordinated. And there's a lot of fucking, a lot of stuff that keeps people from just running it the way they want to run it like a king.
Well, I mean, I'm certainly no professional historian. But my understanding is that the federal government was never intended to be the size that it is today. Like, it's just, we're very top-heavy in the way we're structured. You know, our federal government is enormous and out of control and almost impossible to manage. But then, like, on our community level and in our state government, things are, especially local government, things are just very neglected and weak and disconnected.
And so, like, that's why you see a lot of the problems. Like, we shouldn't have to rely on the federal government to fix things out in the street in small-town America. Like, the communities and the local government should be the ones fixing that. And that's the way I see things. Like, even before the, even before our current form of government, I remember reading about, like, Articles of Confederation.
And that was just an even smaller version of federal government. But it needed to have a little more structure than that. But even from day one, it seems like the federal government's never supposed to be the size that it's gotten to. Like, that's really.
That's a good argument if the country didn't get to the size that it got. The problem is, you can't have, like, 30 people running 300 billion people.
But I think you could have more issues. So, like, I, just, I think it's almost impossible.
It's almost impossible for states to be able to have the control to make the right decisions for the people in their areas when the federal government limits them in so many different ways.
I don't know anything about this, so I'm going to be talking out of my ass. But I would imagine. Hey, look, I am, too. They're probably low on funding, too. There's probably a lot of issues, especially in places that are poor, because they rely on taxes from those people.
It's all very complicated. But the idea of taxing the rich being the way to fix all this. No, you're just going to give more money than the government. And they're not really good at doing stuff. I mean, would it be nice if rich people donated to fixing streets and schools and stuff like that?
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it would be. Good call. Also, fat people shouldn't be buying fucking fudge rounds with food stamps. Also, that's not good.
Yeah, and that's a funny –.
But also –.
That's a conversation that sort of got blown multiple ways. And really, I like to let a song be left up to interpretation of the listener. But even with that, it's like, yeah, I would love to write a song about – I always thought it was funny when GM got bailed out of the recession. after they made all these terrible decisions. I never understood why we – I've never understood corporate welfare either, to much of an extent.
So I do understand the people making that argument.
Well, the corporate welfare argument is you're going to lose a shitload of jobs. You can preserve those jobs, give those people a loan, they build back up, then they repay the loan. That's what they did, though. Yeah. So there's actually some benefit to that.
So it keeps American jobs, and it also keeps one of the most iconic American car manufacturers in business. It's good for everybody. Yeah. I think.
It's a good conversation to have.
It is. Like what gets bailed out and what doesn't, and why.
Yeah, but ultimately, yeah, I do see a lot of people that aren't taken care of.
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The porn business. The porn business got wrecked. They got wrecked because they used to rely on DVD sales, and then internet pirating came along and they lost everything. And meanwhile, these politicians are probably whacking off every day to them.
That's a big industry even today. For sure. For sure. Well, hey, for whatever they lost during the recession, they made it back during COVID, because that's my understanding. Everyone was doing that then.
I don't know how that works. Like, who's getting paid? I don't know how that works. I'm sure there's a lot of money in that business. There's obviously a lot of eyeballs in that business.
I believe it's one-third of internet traffic worldwide, or something bonkers like that. Yeah. Isn't it something like that? It should be more. I don't know.
Let's find out what it is. What's the percentage? And everybody's like, I don't know where it's coming from. It's not me. I've never even seen one of these films.
That stuff's terrible for people.
It's terrible for some people. I gave that up.
I think it's like Adderall. Some people can handle it.
That is one thing I had to give up. Yeah, because it's, I don't know, it does disconnect you from reality in many ways. I think a lot of the weird perversion we see coming out, now at this point you read about, I mean, I even referenced some of it in the song, of course, but you read about a lot of the weird things that people are doing that maybe wouldn't have been accepted a hundred years ago. I think people go down these rabbit holes with porn and they start off with the video with the milkman. And by the end of it, it's like, where did I end?
I don't know, people have to keep, it's almost like a drug. People have to keep chasing that thrill and it takes them down very destructive rabbit holes.
It definitely can for some people.
I have no issue with anybody watching it, but I do hate, I hate to read about some of the things that it does to people. It ruins marriages and that kind of thing. It's like, I don't know.
I think a lot of things ruin people. I think they also should be legal.
Sure, yeah.
Alcohol ruins people. I like the fact that bars are legal. Shit, I own a bar. Alcohol is legal. I like it.
It's not good for everybody, though. Some people drink alcohol and they lose their fucking mind. And it's not good for them, whether it's genetically or whatever it is. They can't have a drink. I like a drink.
You know, and I support your right to do whatever you want. Like, you know, I think if cocaine was legal, the same amount of people would probably do it and it would be real. You'd get pure cocaine. It'd probably be better. We'd probably have better music.
If you're getting this fentanyl mixed shit and you're out of your fucking head, you're dying of overdoses. Yeah, well, that's the problem.
Like, yeah, I mean, gosh, yeah, look at, when the government bans something. It only makes it worse. So that's certainly not the answer.
I'm not interested in Adderall. I'm interested in trying it once. But I'm not interested in, like, doing Adderall. I am interested. I'm lying.
I'm interested because everybody loves it. But I'm scared of it. The porn stats, you're right, about 30%. But this is the only one I find to be odd. In 2020, 16.5 years was the average age of first exposure to porn in the United States.
Sixteen and a half? That's like you're a sophomore junior in high school. That's because 90-year-old people are still alive and they do it based on them. I first saw my girlie movie when I was 20.. Frank had a reel-to-reel camera in the basement.
We all got there. We had raincoats on.
That's what it is. It's like, when you factor in infant mortality to the average age, that people died during the Roman era. That's what it is.
So you expect it to be lower than 16.5?.
Yeah, it should be. Yeah, it should be. You give a kid a phone.
I know that was one thing that was interesting to me. in Virginia. They just recently changed a law where I think you have to enter your driver's license to watch porn now.
Hilarious. Now they know exactly who's watching porn. Well, that's good. if you're watching some freak shit. If you're into, you know, it's like, I don't know.
You don't want to give the government the ability to spy on you. You just don't. And you don't want to give, because the government is just humans. We like to think of the government as being some all-powerful, all-moral, all-ethical entity that controls us in a perfect and very robust and well-considered way. But that's not real.
The reality is it's human beings, like you and like me and like Jamie. People. People that get to dictate what other people can and can't do. And that's where shit gets weird.
Yeah, and a lot of people, I think, go into government with good intentions, but it's like anything else. I think you get in the mix. It's like things change, and you have to go with the flow and sort of agree on things that maybe your heart doesn't necessarily agree with. And so that's why you see politicians constantly changing narratives depending on the political climate. And so, yeah, it's kind of created this big disconnect between people like you and I and people like you and I that are in government because they're not necessarily saying what they feel or what they think.
They're like, let me keep my stripes just like everybody else's, so I don't stand out.
Yes, there's a lot of that.
There's too much money tied up in politics. Too much bribe and extortion and slap on the back deals and stuff that should never be allowed to happen. Like, yeah, that's what's really created a lot of dishonesty within it.
There's a bunch of decisions that got made a long time ago that really fucked us. And one of them was when they let drug companies advertise on television.
There's only two countries in the world that allow that. Really? The United States and New. Zealand. Yeah, and I think it was 97..
Was it 97 when they allowed that?
Yeah, well, it's funny, because, yeah, you watch the commercial and then at the end it's like, it's the best thing in the world. to get to that last 20 seconds. You're like, I don't know about that.
I know you're at a cookout. Everything looks great. Next thing, you know, your asshole is fucking spraying blood and you're suicidal.
Yeah.
Like, what?
Yeah, like, I mean.
And they say it all so fast. This is how, you know.
Yeah, big pharma, I guess.
Suicidal ideation.
Rectal bleeding.
Yeah, well, I mean, that's, like, fortunately at this point in my life, I haven't been on many medications, but I went on a run with SSRIs and I can tell you for me, it's like, it's the last 20 seconds applied more than the first two minutes of the commercial. Like, I didn't find any benefit in that. And it's, yeah, it's, I don't know. I think there's alternatives to pharmacy medicine in a lot of cases. Like, maybe, even if it's just habits, you know, like, it's okay to prescribe a medication to keep somebody on course.
Or, like, you know, for example, like, I've got a relative of mine. I won't call him out, but he won't change the way he eats at all. But he'll take whatever medications every day to keep his, you know, keep the diabetes away and keep his blood sugar, blood pressure low and all that. But it's, like, there should be more integration of, like, hey, maybe this is, like, a plan of what you should do to go along with this medicine. Ideally, eventually, it's, like, they don't want you to really get off the medicine, though.
If anything, they want you to keep taking it, right? So, like, yeah, it's weird. It is weird that it's almost advertised like it's a soda or a car or something, you know?
Well, it's weird that, you know, people are so – we're so kind of, like, dependent on other people to take care of us that we would rather go somewhere and get some medication than fix our life, than fix your lifestyle choices. And that's – and we've been programmed to sort of think that there are solutions for you out there. Go, get those solutions. That's not a solution. Like, internally, you need to reconsider, like, what you're doing to your actual physical body.
Like, what are you doing to your physical body? Like, are you giving your physical body the exercise that it deserves to be robust and healthy? If you're not, you should. Are you eating food that's nutritious? If you're not, you should.
Yeah.
Well, and how do you do – I mean, how do you do that in today's time anyway, if you don't have a lot of money? Like –?
Well, you can exercise for sure.
Nutritious food. Oh, exercise, certainly. Yeah, but, like –.
There's a way to eat nutritious food on a budget, but you have to be diligent. And the problem is fast food and food deserts. But if you have a supermarket, if there's a supermarket where you live, then you can get food. And if there's a supermarket that has food, you can get healthy food. And it's not that much more expensive.
Even people that go on a carnivore diet – I know people that go on a carnivore diet on a budget and they buy a – they go to Costco and get a big tube of ground beef. And they freeze a lot of it and they cook a bunch of it, like, in portions. Yeah.
And that's a lot better than the crap from the store. But even it's not – like, I mean, you read about – I mean, just in the part of the country I'm at, we've got a really close family of ours that farms. The father and the son have both died from cancer from what they've been – you know, from the commercial agriculture. they've been in spring and all. And all that stuff ends up in the food.
And you get – I've read about microplastics in the food. You go and buy a tub of ground beef, like, how much plastic was in the food that they – of all the bags of crap that they threw in there to feed the animals with. It's just – it is really, I think, the only way to – in this time, in the area we're in, unless you're going to go buy really expensive food out of, like, some fancy-smanchy grocery store that I can't spell the name of. It's like, you're really better off going to somebody local and buying it direct, like buying it almost straight from the farmer.
Well, certainly if you have an organic farm near you. Yeah, definitely. But, yeah, pesticides and herbicides are a real deal. Atrazine, you know, Alex Jones famously said, they're turning the frogs gay. But they are.
They're making them hermaphrodites. They're making them switch sexes. I mean, atrazine is a very potent endocrine disruptor, and it's a fertilizer. Or is it a pesticide? Pesticide.
One of those. I think it's a pesticide. Something needs to be done about it. But there's – you know, there's a lot of that shit that they spray on food. Something like 90-plus percent of people tested have glyphosate in their blood.
Yeah. That's wild. I mean, that is an herbicide that they spray on stuff.
Yeah, so to me it's like I – yeah, you can definitely eat healthy, like, but even then, like, a lot of the food today isn't very healthy just because – inherently just because of the way it's grown.
Well, there's a lot that is. There's still a lot that is. You can certainly eat healthy. Yeah. It's not easy, but neither is being sick.
Being sick is not easy either, man. Yeah. Just the amount of money you're going to lose by having a body that's defeating you every turn. You're always tired. You have no inspiration.
You have no motivation. You can't get shit done. Yeah. You know? It's one of the reasons why I can get a lot of shit done, being healthy.
Yeah. It makes a giant difference. Yeah. You have so much more energy than regular people, who are just, like, sitting around all day because you don't demand anything of your body. If you don't demand anything of your body, it's, like, good.
We'll just fucking atrophy into a sack of bones and meat.
Yeah. Being complacent is, like, the worst thing for you.
Physically testing yourself is good, and then mentally testing yourself and spending your time working towards some sort of purpose. Like, I think that's really what was – that's really what was killing me the last few years was just – and I see this in friends and family and people, I know. But even just from a mental standpoint, not spending your day working towards whatever purpose it is that you feel like you really need to accomplish deep down inside, I think that will really kill you. over a period of time. Like, you know, you go work your 9 to 5 or whatever, you come home, and then you just start swiping, start wasting the rest of your evening.
Like, that's your time to be productive, working towards whatever passion, project or hobby or –.
Sure. As long as you don't enjoy your 9 to 5.. Some people actually enjoy their 9 to 5, and they want to go play video games. I'm not trying to shame them, folks. Maybe you should talk to your wife every now and again, but if you want to play Diablo 4 at 3 o'clock in the morning, I support your right to do that.
Yeah, if that's what you're – yeah, and I don't even mean so much video games, but just, like, that mindless scrolling that I – like, I've found myself being into, too.
Bro, I've seen more people get hit by cars over the last, like, five months on Instagram. More people get shot. More people get mauled by animals. Instagram's wild. It is wild, the shit they're allowed to show you.
Yeah. And, like, one of them was like, it's okay, he's fine. Like, that was, like, in the – like, there was a big, like, letter, you know, a big print over the video of this guy getting hit by a truck. Like, that guy is not fine. There's not a –.
I'm not a medical expert, but when you get hit by a truck and launched into the windshield of an oncoming car, I guarantee you, you're not fine.
No, I get it. Like, look, I've been that guy that sat – I've wasted at least an hour, sometimes in a row watching, like, Russian dash cam videos of, like, these logging trucks flying off the road and stuff. Like, I don't know, it's – there's something, like, that. it just gets your brain excited, you know? I don't know.
Yeah, it's not good for you.
It's very addictive.
It's not good for you to see that many people die and that many people get bit by crocodiles. I've seen more people get bit by crocodiles. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with my algorithm, but I've seen more people get bit by crocodiles over the last six months than I have in a long-ass time. But, yeah, it's mostly a waste of time. But it's also fun.
There's a lot of funny videos on there. It's just a matter of being disciplined. You just got to know when you're scrolling too much. And the way I avoid that is by doing stuff. So there's a lot of stuff I do, you know, whether it's archery or playing pool.
There's a lot of stuff that I do where I don't – there's no time – you don't – you're not spending any time on that. And so there's a complete different focus. Like, when I'm shooting a bow, when I'm shooting at a target and I'm just practicing, my mind is empty. All I'm thinking about is the shot process. All I'm thinking about is whether or not the arrow broke clean.
Did I move my shoulder a little? Why did that one go three inches left? Like, what happened there? Was it that my elbows – my elbow up high? How was my follow-through?
Okay, let's think about it and let's do it again. So that's like a mind-cleansing thing. Yoga class is like that. If you can get a – find a good, hot yoga class. Man, when you're fucking standing there, holding on to one foot and one foot is extended and you're hobbling around in one leg, bitch, you ain't thinking about jack shit, but what you're doing.
Well, that does a good job of connecting you to your body, too, which is something maybe we're not very good at either.
It's very good for people. Yoga is like one of – if I had one thing to recommend someone who's never done any exercise before, please try yoga. Don't hurt yourself. Go slow, because a lot of people do hurt themselves.
Yeah, I can't imagine me trying to do that.
One of my friends, who's a doctor, said that yoga is like one of the main people that – it's yoga and jiu-jitsu, he said, people that come in to see him for treatment. But jiu-jitsu makes sense. It's literally a sport of trying to break bodies.
Yeah, yoga, you would think – you think it would be the opposite, if anything.
Yeah, I've pulled muscles in yoga. Yeah, you're doing hard stuff. But hot yoga, I think, is a little better for that, because it really does warm your body up, like almost instantly. Like if you do the Bikram series, I know that guy was a creep, but if you do the series, it's not even – I don't believe he even invented that series of poses. I think he just popularized it.
And they're all like standard yoga poses. But that series is designed very well to get you really warmed up. So by the time you get into more complicated and challenging movements, your body's pretty warmed up. It's a good system. They're really – it's fucking hard, man.
A 90-minute hot yoga class at 105 degrees is a motherfucker.
That sounds great for the – sounds like a great walk. away from that, the feeling you get.
Oh, you feel so relaxed.
That is one thing I'm looking forward to now is like continuing to focus on mental health and that area. But also like I'm excited to get in a better shape physically. And just like the only thing I've done in the last six months at all is running. We were planning on trying to schedule a run in September that I think was like 10 miles or something. And so there's a friend of mine that I've been running with two or three days a week.
And even that just – whatever's on your mind when you start, it's gone by the time you leave. It's something good about, like getting everything connected again. But music is big for me on that too. Just getting your – playing an instrument and singing like you're just – everything's all one again. It's very easy, especially – and maybe because of social media and because of the way technology – I don't know what it is.
I'm certainly no, Dr. Phil. But it's like the world we live in today, your mind is very easily disconnected from, like your body physically. Like you can get lost, just worrying and thinking and doing. And it's good to have something like that.
I guess just have grounding is the word or whatever. I don't know. But it's good to have something like that to like get you back in the reality again.
Yeah, my belief is that all human beings need something creative. Whether that's something creative as a game that you play, that you get to like, invent moves or think about things and strategies. Or whether that game – or whether that creativity expresses itself in music or in illustrate – drawing, painting, something. I think people really get a great satisfaction out of making things and of creating things.
Sure, and everyone's good at something. That's what's – I'd say almost everyone's good at something.
I know some people.
Well, maybe they haven't figured out what it is.
That's one thing I've enjoyed over the years with, like what I've done in the past, is meeting all these different people. Even if it's like – you'd be surprised at how unique people are and what they're able to do. I don't know. Everyone seems like they have that one thing. Maybe even if it's something that they had as a kid that they lost along the way.
But, like people, are really good at shit. Sometimes you underestimate people. And people don't spend the time they need to develop the craft that is they have.
It's also. sometimes people don't find a thing early on in their life where they get into it. So if they don't have a thing ever, it's very difficult for them to gravitate towards a something. But that's why taking – that's why martial arts classes are great for that. Because all of a sudden you're learning this new thing and it's exciting.
Like, oh my god, it's Monday night. We're going to go to jiu-jitsu class. You got your little white belt on. You're tying it.
You're freaking out.
But afterwards you feel like, wow, I really did something. I really challenged my fears. I really took like a class and I'm learning some stuff and I'm doing it with other people that are learning. And I'm making new friends. Like there's something really cool about that.
And that's also a thing that people need that they don't have is like a real community. You know, like feeling of community. You know, like one of the nice things about comedians is that we all work together. So there's like this real feeling of community. We go on the road together.
We travel to different countries together. Like all the guys that I go on the road with, we're friends. Like we hang. We laugh. We're just having drinks and having dinners, places.
And just everywhere you go, you're with family. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. in that way. If you don't have that, man, if you don't have a thing that you really like, where you're really like, connected to like-minded people, it sucks.
It's not fun. You know, if, like maybe the friends that you have are all fucked up and they're going in the wrong direction, try to pull you with them.
Right. Maybe your job sucks. That happens. Like you. have to be careful who you keep in your social circle, because you'll end up just like them, you know.
Well, you have to be careful of energy vampires. There's people that are energy vampires. And they'll steal from you. They really will. They'll steal from you.
They don't want to do the work, but they want you to do the work for them. Like they want you to be involved in everything that they're doing, even though they're not making any changes. And they want to drag you in and they want it to be the focus of all the attention. And you really find out after a while that if you're around positive people, then all of a sudden you're uplifted and you have all this energy.
Yeah, and it's funny how that works. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. All that stuff kind of goes on behind the scenes and you don't really think about it. Yeah.
One thing that really benefited me, like, even in my early 20s on, a lot of my friends seem to be older. One of my best friends, he's in his—he's probably—I'm 31.. He's probably in his mid-40s. And then everyone above them is like—my best drinking buddy for years, he's like 65, 66.. I love hanging out with older people, though, because they're just—they're a lot wiser.
Some of them.
Well, you have to— There's some old dummies. Yeah.
There's some old dummies.
Well, I'm a dummy too, so it's okay if I'm hanging out with dummies. But yeah, I like hanging out with older people. Like they just—and you hear—it reconnects you back to like—I don't know. They've just experienced so much more than you ever could in that extra 20 years or whatever, 10 years. It's like those are the kind of people you want to surround yourself with.
They're people that are going to—that are more experienced than you, more wise. People that you can aim toward being. Certainly, not people that are immature or on a bad streak. Or even like now, like I'm trying—I'm cutting out the drinking. Like I said, I haven't gotten high in almost—I guess almost two months now, a month and a half or two months.
That was your problem, huh? It was the weed?
Yeah.
Well, the problem for me was I knew that I needed to do this. Like I knew I needed to—I procrastinated with music a long time. I mean, I'm 31.. I've been playing guitar and singing on and off since I was a kid. Like my grandma was in a band years ago.
And so I remember as a little kid, what got me interested in all of it was Dukes of Hazzard. when I was a kid. I was like five. And we'd sit and watch Dukes of Hazzard and watch Waylon Jennings pick that guitar. Of course, I had no idea who Waylon Jennings was, but that just like—I just fell in love with that.
And so I grew up listening to, like that 70s country, and she loved all the old stuff like the 50s and 60s. And even in the 70s, even, you know, Janis and all that. And so, like she really introduced me a lot into music when I was a little kid. And so, like I just kind of held on to it, but never pursued it the way I should. And then I'd play at a bonfire party or I'd play at whatever.
It's a friend's house. And everybody's like, man, you got to do something with this. You're, you know, you don't want to waste this talent you've got and whatever. And that would almost make me feel even shittier, because I'm like, oh man, I suck. Like I'm such a piece of crap for not doing something with this.
And so, yeah, like when I was outside of work, it's like I would just, I would just, I'd drink. I'd get just absolutely stoned. And I would just sit around and try to think about anything. but what it was that I really needed to be doing, which was like. And so it's kind of like funny, but that's ended up with kind of sparked me into like writing all these songs and doing all this stuff.
Because it's like, I don't know, just like with you, probably with some, what you do, jujitsu or whatever. It's like for me, songwriting is, it gets my head, like you said, getting your head clear, you know, because that's all you can. And songwriting is interesting for different people. But now that I've been in it, I guess I've been in the industry for two weeks and I've talked to like.
Now that you've been in the industry, you've conquered it.
Now that I'm an industry expert, it's like some of the other musicians I've talked to, like the people I've looked up to over the years, they experience this too. But certain people, when you songwrite, it's a very, it's a, it's dramatic. Like.
Do you write all your own songs?
Yeah. But it's, it's.
Have you been accused of not writing your own songs?
Very early on. Yeah. Because since my state, I guess it's not even my stage name, it's Oliver Anthony music. And so it's supposed to represent music from, you know, Oliver Anthony music is my, my grandfather. And so he grew up in the thirties in the mountains and used to tell all these wild stories about how life was back then.
But the music's just sort of a characterization of like that period in time and those people, you know, and that's. So, yeah. When, when.
So your real name is not Oliver.
Yeah. Christopher, Christopher, Anthony Lunsford is my real legal name. And so that's what's on like, like, if you look up the songwriting.
Why did you decide to sing as Oliver Anthony? Just in.
Well, like I said, I have it. I just had the, the YouTube channel listed as Oliver Anthony music. Just because, like, that's sort of, that's sort of the demeanor or the, like, I said, the character. I was like that older Virginia style music. Like if you, if you look, if you go on YouTube and you look up that type of music from back, then, like there's old recordings of people like that's, that's what I just love, that type of stuff.
Do you think you're going to keep that name?
Yeah. I mean, I mean, a lot of people still call me Chris and I've posted on social media, call me whatever. I mean, I've been called a lot worse than either of those things. But yeah, it'll, it'll stay Oliver Anthony. music indefinitely.
Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a special name. and it's a special name to me, not only because it was my grandfather's name, but it's, it's sort of like, to me, it reminds me of how much, how different things were back then. But he was born Oliver Anthony, but everybody called him Anthony, growing up. And so, like, he always thought his name was Anthony Oliver and last name Engle.
And so, like, it wasn't. until he was in his sixties and going to retire. He realized that his name didn't match his birth certificates. He had to actually change his legal name when he was in the sixties. But it's because back then.
He thought his name was Anthony Oliver?
Yeah. His whole life? But his legal name was, and so it's, yeah, his, his parents named him. So it's just like, but all, but all the paperwork back then was so scattered up because a lot of people were illiterate. And of course, documents weren't tracked as well as they are now, you know?
And so it's like, there's people in the family that have a different spelling and it's the same last name, but a few letters are different and stuff. But it's just kind of cool. Like, but he just, he just thought that was crazy. He had to change his name when he was 65 so he could draw his retirement now because his social security and everything was under a totally different name. But that's crazy.
It's just special to me. He was, he's like the only other one in the family, like me. Most of our family's like. average height, six feet and under. But he and I were both, you know, 6'6", redheaded, left-handed.
Like, I just, I don't know. In a lot of ways, I just, I thought it was special to kind of respect him. He passed away in 2019.. And that's kind of when I, I guess that's when I first kind of adapted the name for the music. I didn't really get serious with anything until probably.
Two weeks ago?
Yeah. Until a couple weeks ago. Probably until, I think I uploaded the first original. Like, like when I was, when I decided I was in it to win it and I really wanted to make this thing happen. It was probably about, yeah, probably May of last year when I uploaded Ain't Got a Dollar.
Or it might have been Rich Man's Goal was the first one I uploaded on YouTube. But that's when I decided like, all right, I'm, I'm doing this thing. But yeah.
So you were just smoking too much weed, drinking too much and just procrastinating.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
And so that, and you know, like anxiety is, is definitely something that's underestimated. You know, I used to laugh about, not laugh about, but I used to just not really understand when people talked about mental health and anxiety. Because everyone gets stressed out over stuff. And so you think of anxiety as being just like this normal phenomenon everyone deals with. But your, your mind can really put you in a dark place, to where that thing is, just like, it just holds on to you like a, you know, and it just makes it very difficult for you to do anything.
And so, yeah, I spent at least two years of my life almost constantly just having what felt like just a knot right here. Just, just wrenching at me.
Well, that's especially true for people that are pursuing a non-traditional life, you know, with, that doesn't have any guarantees. It's, it's a wild life to try to be an entertainer. Like to just to choose, to try to make it in this wild world of people that are singing and making songs. And you want people to pay attention to you. Like, do you know how many fucking people are singing?
How many people can sing? How many people are recording things? And now, with YouTube and the like, how many people are putting stuff up on the internet for other people to enjoy? It's a lot. The idea that you're going to stand out.
So that you're filled with anxiety just because of that. Because you're, this future's uncertain.
Yeah, I think for me, a lot of it, a lot of the anxiety came from me just feeling like I was running out of time. Like I knew that, I knew that I had an ability to pursue this and kind of take this adventure on. And I just had kept, like I said, for 10 years or more, I just, I'd pick the thing up for a few months and then I'd put it down. And just always doubting myself, you know. Yeah.
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Automatic shut off and real-time alert capabilities will operate when the device is configured with the proper settings. I mean, the universe, in some weird way, always sort of finds... Like, for people that become very successful, especially like yourself, it's almost like that's the best way to do it. Like, I've never met anybody where I was like, your way to do it is the wrong way to do it. Like, everybody that I meet, that becomes successful, especially like overnight people, it's like, oh, I see all these...
Well, that's why you're good. That's why you're good. You're good because you had a real life, like a real tortured, regular life, like regular people. If you're in the fucking Mickey Mouse Club when you're 14 and then all of a sudden you're famous... I mean, I love Miley Cyrus to death and she's fucking insanely talented.
And I heard her new album is her best ever. Everybody's raving about it. But I feel bad for people that become famous when they're young. I just feel like that's a heavy burden for you to have to carry and you didn't ask for it. You can't ask for it.
You don't know what it is. It's like getting a face tattoo when you're five. It's like, I want to get a heart tattoo to my forehead. Let everybody know I'm full of love. Like, okay, Billy, let's take you to the tattoo parlor.
Like, I want to be famous, so everybody knows me. Okay, Billy, let's get you in front of TV.
Yeah, and it's tough because then everyone's perception of everything is different anyway, based off the way they were brought up. Like, you know, the way you and I look at something, we both look at something a certain way. And it's our way of looking at into us, that's reality. But everyone's perception is just different, just inherently, just based off the way we were raised. And maybe even our genetics and the way our things we've experienced or the way our parents taught us things.
And so, like, yeah, it is tough if you get thrown into that at such an early age. Because this is just such a – I feel bad for anybody that gets thrown into all this anyway. Like, the things I've seen and heard and witnessed.
Just in a couple of weeks. You need to do this, and you've got to do that.
Yeah, but that's just people pulling on your strings. It's like this almost crazy sense of urgency everyone's sort of thrown on me to do something with this. And it's like I don't – yeah, at the end of the day, I've got to remember who I was, you know, a month ago. And I've got to make sure that I – you know, and it's okay to evolve from that and change. And, like, I don't want to always be stuck being that guy.
But I don't want to, like, leave him behind either, you know.
Listen, man, just be yourself. You're going to be fine. This is like this conversation that we had over the phone. I said, fuck all those urgent people. You have talent.
You have talent. You don't need anything else but talent. Talent and authenticity. You've got both of those things. This urgency thing.
What the fuck are they talking about? You've literally had the number one song, like, instantly. Well, you can't do that again? How the fuck do you know? You don't know jack shit.
These people are crazy. They don't understand what's going on. And they don't understand what it's like to be famous. You are in a weird spot right now. What you need to do right now is just keep being you.
And don't let anybody control you. And don't let anybody – and certainly don't let anybody put you on some crazy publicity campaign to try to capitalize on this great moment. And immediately get some large record machine behind you and mass produce.
Yeah, because that really goes against the whole message that I wanted to get out in the first place. And so, yeah, what would it benefit me? to sign a big deal or have some – like, I don't know, as busy as things get, I don't know that I'd ever let anybody even manage my social media and stuff. Like, that's just something that I'd like to have the hand on.
I do mine. I do all mine. I don't let anybody do my shit.
That's ridiculous. Like we talked about earlier, your show in general, the reason people watch it isn't – you could add more people in and have more special effects and lights. And, figuratively speaking, like you could make this into something bigger than what it already is, but it would just take away. Like sometimes, the more you add, the more you take away. It's the fact that you have conversations with people that you're genuinely interested in.
Like, we don't have enough real conversation anyway in the world.
We have very little.
I had never had a Twitter account, and I made one a couple weeks ago to like, start uploading. Everybody was like, oh, you've got to get on X and upload all this stuff. And within like a week, I'm like, okay, I get it.
I'm tapping out. Yeah, I don't read any of my stuff on Twitter. I do post occasionally. What I do like to do is repost things that I think are interesting. I do like that.
Yeah, well, thanks.
I appreciate it.
Well, that's Instagram. I put that up on. Okay, yeah. Yeah, but yeah, a lot of people liked it. I think on my account alone, it had more than, let me see, I'll tell you how many views it had.
I want to say it's somewhere around 11 million views. I was explaining to someone the other day. I was like, do you know how insane that is? Yeah. Like, you could put something up that this guy just made 12.8 million views.
Wow.
That's bonkers, dude. That's bonkers. That's a lot of fucking human beings. That's a lot of human beings.
Yeah, so I've had to ask myself, like, why that happened the way it did. And look, I'm not – I have said this a hundred times already, but like, I'm certainly no preacher. Like people have made comments about, like, oh, well, why does he – he reads scripture or whatever and talks about God, but then he does other things. Like. I do have some foul language, and I do sing some songs that I've written about, whatever, you know, getting high and hanging out in the woods.
Like it's just what I am. Like. I'm not here to say that I'm anybody better than anybody else by any means.
Well, didn't God invent the woods and weed?
Yeah, well, there you go.
I don't believe anybody that tells you that God doesn't want you to have weed.
I do want to use – if there's anything I would like to capitalize on with my opportunity, it's just like – because, for me, just being in the position that I've been in the last two years and just the trash I've had in my head is – I tell you like I don't care who – Look, I haven't been in a church in 10 years, and I'm not saying I'd ever go back into one again. I don't know about all that, but there's a lot of things in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes that make sense and are timeless to today. Like, if people just could find – if people could just have enough open-mindedness to just read a little bit of Proverbs and just see what it has to say, I think like it would make the world a better place. There's a lot of truth in those words. They don't just talk about – it's real life advice that I work toward every day, applying in my own life.
So was there like a moment with you – because I've read the legend story, but I wanted to ask you this live in person. Was there a moment when you had like a literal come-to-Jesus moment, where you realized you were at rock bottom?
Yeah, I mean –.
What was going on?
Yeah, I was at a point where I was having – man, I don't even think I'd call it panic attacks. It was just like I was so – everything was just so screwed up. I was getting like – I was getting chest pains and shooting pains all down into my – like I was having, like almost cardiovascular symptoms that are just – I guess. now I realize they're stress and anxiety related, but I thought – I really thought I was going to die. Holy shit.
This is why you're drinking a lot?
Yeah, well, I think maybe the weed was even causing some of that. Like I was slamming down – you know, we can grow it in Virginia now. So I grew, you know, a lot of – I grew a lot of pounds of weed last year. And so, like I've got – and I don't even know what I'm going to do with it all now.
You can sell that on eBay. I've got – yeah.
Sell it in your truck. You can buy a Suburban.
I'll save it. Yeah, I'll save it for hard times.
If you come to Virginia, the back of the Suburban, where it's legal, the back of the Suburban will be packed with as much weed that is legal to sell you.
Yeah, I had grown some crazy stuff and was smoking it.
Oliver Anthony weed. brand. We're in.
I think it's like – Yeah, let's go.
Hulk Hogan's got his own weed brand. Why don't you?
We'll talk about all that, the growing, because I am intrigued with the growing. But yeah, to your point, it was like I, just almost disconnected from reality. I don't want to say I was having like – I was never psychotic or having like –.
You're freaking out.
I was very disassociated from, like my reality. Like I can remember, just being around really close friends, having dinner one night. You know, like you get warm and fuzzy feelings being around people you care about. And everything was just ice cold. Like I just tried.
It was almost like I just tried to feel something other than what I was feeling.
What were you thinking during these times?
I was thinking that –.
Like what was the state of your life?
I was thinking like that I was going to – I was thinking like – See, I don't know. Suicide is a weird thing because – and I can't speak for everybody. But for me, like it wasn't that I ever wanted to kill myself. Like I knew I wanted to keep trying to fight and get out of whatever it is I was in. But it was almost like at some point I thought I was going to do it almost as a fight or flight response.
Like that, I couldn't escape whatever it is that I was in. And like that was going to eventually be my only way out. And so it's sad and it's whatever. Like, I hate even talking about this, but I feel like I should talk about it. I mean where else to talk about it, but on Joe Rogan.
But it's like. that was one of the things that compelled me to throw a lot of these videos up just off my phone. Like it's funny. when I had those songs – and maybe I still do. I haven't looked at the charts in a week or whatever.
But I had stuff on iTunes that was like in the top two or three spots, other songs. Those were just recorded off my Android phone, uploaded on YouTube. I ripped the WAV file off the YouTube video and then just uploaded it through DistroKid. And so, like people were buying – like the number two song on iTunes. at one point, I think it was Ain't Got a Dollar.
And that's just the audio from the YouTube video. But I wanted to get all those – I had a lot of these songs sitting around.
So it's from a microphone, from the phone, standard microphone?
From my Android – from my front camera on my Android phone, yeah. Wow. It sounds pretty good. I wanted to get all that up, though, because I didn't – I really didn't know – like I didn't know if I was going to be around to do it.
Can you pause that for a second? Let's listen to that. I want to hear that if you don't get freaked out and uncomfortable listening to your own voice.
That's okay, no. Okay, good. No, I like it.
Let's listen, because I want to hear what that sounds like.
This would be the – yeah, the Ain't Got a Dollar, the original version is a good example.
Recording off of Android phones might be the new thing.
You can tell it's very mono.
The new authentic recording off of Android phones.
I've got a little spot in the country where I spend all of my time. When the sun goes down on this itty bitty town, we can light up the boat and pass it around. I ain't got a dollar, but I don't need a dime.
Listen, man, you don't got to listen to nobody. Tell them all to eat shit. Shut the fuck up. You can do whatever you want, man. You just keep doing that.
You just keep doing that and do concerts.
That's what got me uploading the songs. originally. I was like, I'll just go ahead and get something out there. I mean, man, I was taking aspirin every day thinking I was going to have a heart attack. I was having all this crap.
When you were recording these things and releasing them, what was the hope? The hope was that people would enjoy them?
Yeah, I was just trying to leave them out for the world in case like—.
In case you died?
Yeah, I guess in case either I died from a heart attack or like—.
Do you know how huge these songs would be if you died?
I think that's like the most horrible rumor about Jimi Hendrix is that his manager, it was like a gangster, had him killed. His manager had him killed because he was going to leave and he owned the music while Jimi was alive. And if Jimi died, he would get the music and they killed him.
Yeah, maybe I thought like—I figured that was the only thing I had that was worth anything. And so if I was going to be a shitty enough person to leave a kid behind, and whatever, my family and whatever else, it's like, at least there would be something there for them to be able to capitalize on.
Was your bad feelings come from—did they come from a lack of hope for your future? Did you have like a sense of what would make you happy, what you were missing in your life?
No, no, like it's—.
Or was it just overwhelming?
The mind is—well, and for like—I guess I'm a creative person, I guess you'd say. And so like. for creative people in general, life is very imaginative anyway. So, like again, it's like you and I could go to the same restaurant, sit down, order the same meal, have the same waitress, identical everything, right, in a parallel time. And you and I would walk out of that restaurant noticing different things, experiencing it completely different.
Like the mind perceives things individually, right? And so like. when you get into a bad headspace like that, your perception of what would otherwise be good things can become very bad. And I don't know the best way to explain it, because I'm not well-versed on psychology or anything like that, but that's the best way I can explain. it is like you don't understand sometimes what people are going through, even from the outside.
in. You know, you look at people who are not living life right, and you're like, I just wish he'd just get his shit together. I don't understand why he's doing that. And it's like because maybe in his head what he's looking at is totally different than what you're looking at. And the mind's very complicated, you know.
And we—my understanding is even now, with all the studies we've done and the technology. we have, like we understand the mind very little, but there's so much that goes into it. And, like so much, of our thoughts come from our gut, biome and all. Like. there's just—there's millions of living things within us that, I think, influence the way we think and what we do.
And it's—you know, it's a very complicated thing. So, yeah, it's easy for people to get off track. And, you know, it's hard to get back on the track when you get off. Like it really took—that's why I say like I was really just—even though I—on paper. things were great, right?
Like I was married. Things were—like I have a great marriage. I had a good job. Like I worked my ass off, but I made good money.
What were you doing for work?
So the last six years I've been in industrial sales. So I worked outside sales for—because I was in the industry like working factory work when I was younger. Had a bad accident. Couldn't go back to that job. And then, during that recovery period, I went to work.
I don't—can I say—I don't know if I can say the place or not.
You don't have to say the place. Okay. What was the accident?
I fell and hit my head. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, I had internal—I had like an internal fracture. I remember riding in the ambulance on the way. I'd had seizures and all and passed out at the—I was—it's weird, because I can remember laying there.
I remember the ambulance and the EMT, people coming in and everybody around me talking to me. But like I could hear them, but I was just kind of in a dream. And I do remember waking up in the ambulance on the ride. I had like—I had—I remember I had blood coming out of my ear and maybe out of my mouth or my nose. But I remember I had blood on my—I went and reached and I had blood on my face.
I was clean shaven then, but—and I asked the guy in the back with me in the ambulance. I'm like, man, I was like, is everything—am I going to be all right or what? And he's like, buddy, we're doing the best we can. I'm like, oh, shit. Oh, shit.
And that messed me up pretty bad. I was in the hospital. I was in the hospital for two or three days. But even like for the next year after that, my memory was trash. I had really bad balance issues.
Like it was difficult for me. It just kind of jacked everything up. I had a lot of inflammation and stuff in my brain. But that kind of—and I question whether or not that had a lot to do with my mental health issues. Like, I've talked—I've met a lot of people, just even at the—I've done four shows so far.
And they've all been like intimate settings. And so like I've taken hours after each one to talk to everybody—to give everybody a chance to talk. And I've talked to another guy who had a bad head injury and has dealt with something really similar to me. But I almost wonder if that didn't affect—that that kind of knocked a few screws loose upstairs with, like everything else that's went on. But I tell you, like the thing—.
So you got depressed after that?
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Before then, I was totally fine.
One hundred percent. they're connected. Yeah. Yeah. One hundred percent.
I mean it might not be the only factor that led you down that road, but one hundred percent. That's a major symptom of fighters. When fighters get knocked out, when football players get knocked out, depression, major symptom. Major symptom. That's one of the real dangers of head trauma.
There's a lot of people who have had severe head trauma that go to take their own lives afterwards.
Yeah. And looking back, I think that could be a big part of it, because I look back into my 20s and a lot of it was very dark.
And that's after that?
For sure, yeah.
Yeah. I guarantee you they're connected. Yeah. I guarantee you. And I guarantee you like, if you got your system—like if you had really good health care, they could find some issues with your endocrine system.
A lot of times with people that have really bad head injuries, their pituitary gland gets damaged and your body's not producing hormones correctly anymore. And you're just all fucked up. Your cortisol levels are all fucked up.
Yeah. Because I would say that was the thing. It was almost like my brain was stuck in, like this fight or flight type of thing. And maybe that's what the writing helped. because the writing helped like—it helped emphasize that more creative part of my brain to get me out of that head space.
But I loved my job. I did because I was still in the field. So I was still on job sites and industrial plants and hospitals. And so like I've—I guess the reason that I've—the reason I feel like other than just really divine influence, again, based off of just the experience I've had the last 60 days with my faith and stuff, which is just—and I'd love to touch on that some too. But I've had so many conversations with people the last six or seven years because it was my job to go—almost kind of like how you talk to people in here every day.
I was going around and talking to Joe Schmoe and Billy on job sites all day and every walk of life, not just blue collar.
Like—and so, like those are some just very authentic conversations you have with people, because you're just a guy and they're just a guy and you're just talking. And so—.
You can still have those.
The same—.
You can still have those. The same— You can get famous.
The same message kept coming across, which is really what I guess I resonated in this song. But they're just—people are just so tired. Yeah.
So yeah, I think being in that position sort of gave me this unfair advantage to look into the world, maybe on the inside.
I don't think it's unfair at all. I think it's probably—I mean, if you wanted to believe in fate—you know, I don't believe in fate, but I should. If anybody should, I should believe in fate. I've had a pretty lucky life.
Yeah, you have.
I don't necessarily think it's real, though. But I also think, if you believe it's real—I think there's a lot of things, if you believe—a lot of what's going on with human beings is the way the mind perceives things. And it's kind of the software you're running. That's why we seek out people who are inspirational. Like if you watch a David Goggins video, you will go work out.
You will go work out. It will get you off your couch.
It's funny just because—.
I guarantee you.
When we were running, we were joking. We were saying David Goggins quotes while you're running about carrying the boats and all that. Who's going to carry the boats?
David's the fucking man. And there's another guy, Jocko Willink.
I love him, too.
Jocko has a video. Find Jocko, Good. Find that video. There's a video that I 100% legitimately play in my mind. when I'm tired.
I say, good. I say it to myself. I was in the cold plunge the other day, and I was being a bitch at like 2 minutes and 30 seconds. And I was like, good. Listen to this video.
Have you ever heard this? It's amazing. I don't think I have.
Direct subordinates, one of my guys that worked for me. He would call me up or pull me aside with some major problem, some issue that was going on. And he'd say, boss, we got this and that, the other thing. And I'd look at him and I'd say, good. And finally, one day he was telling me about some issue, that he was having, some problem.
And he said, I already know what you're going to say. And I said, well, what am I going to say? He said, you're going to say good.
I said, that's what you always say. When something is wrong and going bad, you always just look at me and say good.
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