429. - Jason Isbell & Will Welch

All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Stateside with Kai and Carter, a new podcast from The Guardian. And they are using this podcast to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions that we all have about what's happening in the world. And they do it three times a week, Jason. Does that sound familiar to you? We don't really talk about, you know, a lot of international global news items and climates and cultures and sports and things like that. We do talk about fashion and wellness, but for everything else, Kai and Carter are a great place. All right, so who couldn't use more news? Listen wherever you get your podcast. or watch on YouTube. How long gone is here? a rare monday pod because of i don't know why but luckily that's great i'm still riding high off the season two finale of white lotus we just kind of talk about that now on the show what's up with you chris yeah that's kind of we've shifted we've shifted to a vulture style recap where that's all we talk about is tv shows that's what people want more unfortunately no uh yeah we we had to do this on monday because our our guests are high profile and obviously you know we're we're at the We work for them scheduling-wise, but it works out just fine. It gives Jason a little more time to craft. I'm in the middle of crafting a blog house set right now, so I don't really need the extra work on top of my normal influencing, so it's a tough Monday so far. Yeah, no, I know you're slammed, and it's not even sunny out, so it's extra hard, but I wanted to talk about the fact that after all of my hemming and hawing, I was not against my will, but I was somewhat forced to endure the one hour and 21 minute finale of White Lotus last night. Yeah, I think you were less begrudgingly watching it and more begrudgingly having to be a team player. Arriving at Oberg's house, hat in hand.

You didn't want to do it, but you knew that it was a better thing to do for the whole. It was better for the whole game. Luckily, it was in a beautiful house in the Hollywood Hills on a fantastic couch preceded by a home-cooked meal, of course. So I felt like it was the right setting. Could have been worse. But then after spending an hour and 21 minutes on that beautiful couch scrolling on my phone. uh, half paying attention to this program that you guys literally jerk off to. Um, and I have to say, uh, I, I know I didn't get the other six episodes to build up, but like, this is really it. Like, this is the, this is the greatest television show ever made. Like, are we really like, Did you like the finale or were you like, this is mid, but I have to like it because I put in so much time? I did like it. I don't think, I think a lot of people did not like it. They wanted more, like season one, they liked a little bit more. People wanted more loose ends tied up and everything. And I think that this one, it was a little more, you kind of have to maybe figure it out or it's a little choose your own adventure. Maybe the answers to. What ended up happening could be a little bit more open to the viewer's interpretation, which a lot of people don't like now because they're lazy. But I think that gives you more fun things to talk about when you go to the coffee shop, when you go to Monk's afterwards to dissect what you had just seen. I hate going to a movie and you're like, dude, the movie was so good. And they're like, I know, right? It was so good. Remember that one time that they did this? This is dope. You're like, all right, have a good night. See you later. Remember that one time. But, yeah, I was forced to endure, and I made it out on the other side. But I will say it didn't. Seeing that final episode, the hotly anticipated final episode, it did not compel me to go back and watch the previous six. I will say that. I don't think nobody thought that it would. What did I say? My recap of the episode is.

Nobody does prostitution like the Italians. That's great. They're a master of their craft. They do wine pretty well. Yeah. Pasta sometimes is good. But the prostitution. The prostitution. It's an al dente prostitution that not a lot of other countries or regions of planet Earth. has been able to do with such a je ne sais quoi, not to use a French word. Italy's throwback style nature and approach to life compared to America makes prostitution feel noble in ways and sophisticated. I guess I didn't, I never thought of Italian, Italy itself being throwback vibes, but I think that is maybe a big reason why people like to travel there. It's definitely throwback vibes. Like old, like vintage. I think, I think. I think sex work and prostitution in America, not only has it been demonized and shit on by the Christian right, but it's also been taken online. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, yeah, here, DM me. DM me your rates. Let's work. Yeah, exactly. It's much cooler to not fully understand what's going on and then wake up in the morning and your Rolex and wallet are gone after you left $1,000 on the table for one night of passion. That's how it's supposed to be. That's how God intended. Some things do not need to be modernized, and I think sex work is one of them. God intended all sex workers to be proficient in piano playing as well. It's just a nice added bonus. In general, piano playing is something that I find... quite cool and attractive um no matter who's tickling the keys especially now that holiday season parties are in full swing a little silver bells on the on the ivories what kind of what kind of christmas songs do you know on the piano anything anything i know rocking around the christmas tree okay

You're saying you can play that on the piano, not on the Stratocaster, not on... Both, bitch. Oh, wow. Okay, okay. I can play all four notes of that. Okay. Look, that's better than I can do, so I'm slightly impressed. But are you mentally prepared for our big trip to Seattle? No. Okay, you're not. No, but since we're going to go show up a day early and I'll walk the mean streets of... of sea town and really get a feel for it different streets to make fun of different people to make fun of different i think it's finally time for us to get the video of you catching a fish down at the wharf down at the wharf yeah i'll i'll pull up a couple steelhead from my friends over at sweet green oh god did you see that yeah we saw i think we talked about this last night we saw a um there's a there's a viral photo going around of been a fleck and his beautiful bride, Jennifer Lopez, and Ben is clearly sipping on a Trinta-sized Starbucks. Not a Trinta. No, it's not a Trinta. It's just a classic Venti Starbucks. It looks to be a Frappuccino with full whip. And I just can't imagine. This is our Boston Tea Party. This is our Boston Tea Party. We're going to go. I'm sure the Boston residents are throwing Starbucks into the water right now to protest. But Ben, do you think Ben is so transfixed by J-Lo's bubble butt that he followed her into Starbucks and didn't even know? He just kind of floated into Starbucks. then uh didn't realize the paparazzi would be waiting on him to see him kind of cheating on his spouse on unprecedented move i don't think anybody had that on their 2022 bingo card for for ben to be sipping down a nice starbies i i think that there's something bigger at play you know like an endorsement deal or something going on we see a brand partnership on the horizon i mean you know what's coming up next month

Or maybe a month or two from now, Super Bowl. The Ben Affleck Starbucks where he dumps out the Dunkin' in the dumpster and switches sides. Oh, you thought J-Lo broke the internet. Wait until Ben Affleck starts drinking a different shitty coffee. I mean, it's crazy to think about, because we know Ben Affleck, he doesn't need the money. Like, we're sure of that. Ben Affleck is... No, nobody needs the money. Ben Affleck has plenty of fucking money. But do you think that maybe it's just the influence of J-Lo and it's just an overall? I don't think it's an overall. I think the reptile overlords that manage his career after the blood oath that him and his partner took, these are certain things that, you know, like, it's like the mafia or whatever, the familia, if you will. You know, I'm going to do you a thing at a certain moment in time. You might get a phone call and you have to do a thing. If you don't do the thing, you know, I don't know. It might not be great for you. It might not be great for you. Yeah, I mean, if you guys have seen that picture, it also looks extremely staged, so I don't know. I think that's maybe he just... has a certain look when he's with the paparazzi, his friends in the paparazzi. He always looks guilty. He always looks like he's being caught doing something. He's giving Gone Girl. He's giving big Gone Girl. That's because he's probably just smoked 14 cigarettes and they saw him and it only took 10 minutes. I think that's maybe part of it. Yeah, it wasn't the fact that they caught him smoking a cigarette. They knew exactly how many packs that he could put down in one hour. Not cigarettes, packs. He went through two packs of Hestias, no problem, while J-Lo was buckling the kids in the back of the fucking G-Wagon. Where's my cotton? Where's my cotton? I told you I need a cotton. Do you want to talk to our guests about Elon getting booed for 10 minutes? Or is that... There's not much to whittle on that wood. I would actually, I would like to do that because these are guys that are in the public spotlight and have probably both been booed before. Just basing that on numbers alone. It's a numbers game, yeah. Yeah, it's a numbers game. But yeah, today we are hosting a friend of the show and former guest, Will Welch. You know him as the global editor-in-chief of Gentleman's Quarterly.

uh conde nast's mr man of the year mr man of the year m-o-t-y is what we call him and one of his best friends and a um four-time grammy award-winning musician uh jason isbell who you guys probably know from his uh music with the drive-by truckers his solo albums he's also uh he's also a member of the sober community so chris and him will have different i mean i think his uh his poison was a little more bottle of jack and A little less Sackler family, but... Yeah, well, it's still a common... It's a shared thread. Yeah. But they're actually... So the reason they're coming on the show together is because they're doing an evening of conversation and song together at the beautiful, historic Fox Theater on Peachtree Street in my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, on December 17th. The theater that Joe Rogan built. That's where we saw Rogies do his stand-up in Atlanta, and we walked out 11 minutes after. Exactly. Look, I mean, if these guys are doing the same, if Will Welch is doing the same venue as Rogan, he's more than Mr. Mottie. He's more than just a Mottie Dottie. He's putting butts in seats. And also, I was wondering, because, Chris, I know you're a Southern boy, and there's different ways with different drawls and slangs how you folks talk. I had a feeling when you said Jason Isbell that it might be something a little bit more like where the E in L is silent, like Jason Isbell. Isbell. Yeah, like the way that my parents say, like, we're going to Nashville. Exactly, exactly, which I would have expected that you had a little more twang flavor. He has a lot of insight that he could lend on the southern dialect and pronunciation and maybe teach you a few things about how to really speak. next time you're in line for barbecue. Our Danish listeners will love that segment. Well, look, we'll learn from them, hopefully. It's all about learning. This here is a global podcast. I have a global audience. All right, let's give these two fellas a jingle and see what's cracking. Oh, this is huge for me, personally. This episode of How I'm Gone is brought to you by TaskRabbit. Oh, baby, let me tell you something. This is not a joke. I use TaskRabbit a lot.

because I can't do anything. You need some art hung? TaskRabbit. You need something put together? A cabinet? Got to reach that cheese grater on the top shelf? TaskRabbit. Anything you need, TaskRabbit can take care of it for you. How it works, TaskRabbit connects you with skilled taskers in your area. They can help you move. They can assemble furniture, repairs, yard work, mounting, and more. You can search for a tasker based on cost, skill set, availability, and past client reviews so you know exactly who's showing up and can have confidence that they know what they're doing because taskers have assembled over 3.4 million pieces of furniture, completed 700,000 home repairs. handled 1.5 million moves, and the numbers are just going up, Jason. Yeah, throw a little money at the problem. It's not so expensive, and that job that you really don't want to do is something that another person out in the world is very good at doing and would gladly do it in exchange for a little bit of money. So when life happens, your to-do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get $15 off your first task at TaskRabbit.com or grab the TaskRabbit app using promo code how long taskers book up faster, especially for same day tasks. So book trusted home help today. That is $15 off your first task using promo code how long with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by a new podcast from The Guardian stateside with Kai and Carter. This is covering a lot of our bases, Jason. It's trying to slow down. The news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what's happening in the world. And I know you particularly have quite a lot of questions. A lot of questions. But how often? Because we do this podcast three times a week and that's a sweet spot. How many times do they do? Three times a week. And I have a feeling just based on the platform and these talking points that they're maybe going to be covering different stuff than we do. That's just a guess. The Guardian is not some billionaire owned.

They're not afraid to say what they want to say, brother. Yeah, Rupert ain't sniffing around in what journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman are up to over there at Stateside. But yeah, listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch it on YouTube. It's three times a week. And who couldn't use more news? You know, especially when it's not, you know, from here, let's say. Give it a listen. Give it a listen. All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Quince. Jason, the temps are warming up. It's getting hot out there. Summer always changes how I get dressed. I need pieces that feel lighter, more breathable, and they're just easy but still put together. I don't want to look like a slob. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high-quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Breathable linen and soft organic cottons. Well-made basics but without the luxury markups. That rare balance where everything feels elevated. but still effortless. Yeah, Chris, linen season is here. I wore a linen blazer to dinner a few nights ago in the warm California sun. But, you know, you got that Italy trip coming up this summer and quality European linen pants and shirts. Upgrade that look starting at just $34. You know, if you get a nice linen suit, a little t-shirt underneath it, some chill shoes, you're looking good, but you're staying cool. The inside of your special areas are nice and dry as you turn up with your besties. So elevate that summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash how long for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns, even on a nice holiday now available in Canada. That is Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash how long. That'll get you free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince punto com slash how long. Pete Wentz is a listener, by the way, Jason, if you want to give him a shout out. Good. Fantastic. Hello, Pete Wentz. Will, what's going on, bro? How are you? I'm just trying to get my headphones working. I'm good. Tell your assistant to go down to the mall and grab a pair of Beats real quick. Down to the mall. Go down to the mall. Fucking at the pier. Go down to the Chelsea pier and get me a pair of headphones in the next 40 minutes.

What does that actually do? What does the finger in one ear do? You can hear it better with that ear when you stick your finger in your ear. Okay. It's mostly just to signal to your audience that you're about to hit a high note. Exactly. That's what I took it to mean. I took it to mean, like, I'm about to go off. Well, before noise-canceling mode on AirPods existed, this is what you had to do back in the day. That's noise-canceling. Back in my day, you had to stick your fingers in your ear if you didn't want to hear something. When shit was real. Yeah, when shit was real. When harmonies were real. Young people know this. Exactly. Well, look, thank you guys both for joining us. Jason, are you coming to us from beautiful Tennessee? Yes, I'm in Franklin. For our listeners at home, Franklin is located just outside of Nashville, correct? Yeah, just a little south of Nashville. But you can get a little more space, which I'm sure you need. Yeah, we don't go into town too terribly often. And I get mad in traffic, so we live a little bit outside of town. Okay, because I don't go to Nashville very much either. probably for the same reasons which is interesting because you live right there um you don't go maybe to have dinner or you just you can't deal with the city folk anymore well it's not the fault exactly it's like that it's the tourists have overtaken nashville and i'm not i don't have a problem the bachelorettes It is Bachelorette Central. It is. I like the city to grow rather than to atrophy. I just don't want to be there in the middle of it. Sure, sure. I want you guys to succeed. I don't need to be a part of that succeed. When you get angry in traffic, Jason, who do you take it out on? Steering wheel, usually. I try not to take it out on my past because my wife won't put up with any bullshit. I can't yell at her. I can't call somebody and yell at them because I'm a recovered addict so I would have to apologize later and do all that fucking step nine bullshit. You can't just be an asshole. It's a lot of red tape. You've got to do that step nine again. The idea of you getting into a road rage altercation having to call your sponsor to walk through step nine again before you call the cops.

Damn it. Yeah, that was – Better than just move out of town. Yeah, I got to go. I got to go. Spread out. You're saving yourself. And, Will, are you coming to us from the content tower in Manhattan? I am. I'm at the very top of the content tower looking out across the domain. I'm at One World Trade Center. So we have the cameras on today, and I just want to let everybody know kind of – the two Jasons and myself look – we look like – guys that aren't going anywhere today we're not doing much yeah chris and jason are wearing a hooded sweatshirt i'm sure it's a very nice comfortable uh reverse weave of course i'm wearing the same shirt i wore last night and uh will welch is wearing i'm assuming a a tailored pinstripe suit and tie yeah what is that tom ford what is that tom ford what is that no this is uh Errol 55 of Milan, of Greater Milan. Okay. I'm familiar with Errol, but I do appreciate it. Now, is there a special event today, or is this just what – this is where you're at now as the big boss? Monday, bitch. He left the house. He left the house. Exactly, exactly, exactly. I do occasionally get people asking me why I'm so dressed up, and I'm like – I'm the editor of GQ. Yeah, exactly. I'm trying to deliver what you expect from me. Like, why are you asking me why I'm wearing a necktie? Well, maybe you need – you know how, like, a service animal will have a little thing on their harness that says, like, why they look like this, why they're wearing this contraption? You need, like, a little badge. I have this on because I am this person. I'm going to get a little window put in the arm of my suits with a business card in there. Yeah, a little window. I'm not – It just says press. I'm not just a horny British guy. I am the editor of a fashion magazine. I'm not married to one of my graduate students. I have a job. I had the worst, I had the most embarrassing underdress moment last weekend. We were doing the Kennedy Center Honors. I was there with my wife and her band.

And they were doing the state dinner beforehand the night before. But we were super tired. We're like, we're not going to go. So my wife takes a nap. I go down to the gym. And I get on the elevator with the tank top and the tiny gym shorts. And I'm headed to the gym. And all of a sudden, Hozier comes on the elevator with a tuxedo, right? Not Hozier. Hozier, the most beautiful man in the world. He gets on the elevator wearing a tuxedo, and I'm in these tiny ass shorts, and he's got a bow tie. And he's like, I don't know how to tie this bow tie. And I'm like, Andrew, let me help. So I'm trying to help. And Sean Penn walks on the elevator, also in a tuxedo. And they're like, are you going to the state dinner? And I'm like, no, no, I'm not. I have on tiny shorts. I'm not going to the – Sean Penn's like, what's your stylist's name? He seems like a cute kid. Yeah, did you pick this out for yourself? Who ended up tying Hosier's tie? You were Sean Penn. Neither one of us could figure it out. It was sad. If only Will were on that instead of you. Yeah, see? Exactly. And he can reach it too. Will's one of the top three guys I would call for something because I don't know. how to tie a bow tie. I know Sam Hine does. He just did it for someone recently, and I witnessed it. And it is, does it get easier like a regular tie, or is it harder because it's such a more special occasion moment? It gets easier, but I have to confess that recently I was hurrying out the door from the office to, I think it was the CFDA Awards. And I got really flustered and I couldn't get the bow tie right. And I was starting to like sweat through the arms of my tux. And Sam Hine was here and I came out and I was like, I know how to tie a bow tie, but I can't right now. And I'm going to sweat through this tux if I do it myself, so will you do it for me? So I stood there, and Sam crushed it. The student becomes the teacher, huh, William? The student becomes the teacher, yeah. It was that moment. I love the idea of you being like, I just can't right now. I just can't. Normally, yes. Now, no. The CFDAs get me flustered every year as well. I get it, pal. I get flustered. I was trying to tie a regular tie the other night, and sometimes I just like.

If I'm looking in the mirror, it fucks me up worse than if I just do it. And it makes no sense. And I was getting flustered. Same thing. Interesting. It's like my dog. It's like, I know this is a picture of me, but I don't know if it's a reflection. Like it's kind of reverse vibes. It throws Chris off. But I do. The problem is, Will's right. You start sweating. You start getting a little hot under the collar. And then everything goes haywire. You get in your head. You get in your own head. That's when you pull out the pill bottle and you start, you eat them and you chew the pills instead of swallowing them with your power. That's when you know. When I start chewing the Aleve muscle in back, you know it's bad for me. You know it's bad for me. That time releases me. Did you just say Powerade? The time release. Yeah, he knew this was – Jason knew this was an Atlanta-based podcast for today, so he had to drop the Powerade. He's in the wheelhouse. He had to drop the Powerade. Yeah, Jason, we will be getting into time release pill capsules for sure. There is a segment on our podcast that we ask certain guests. And you fit the description quite well. So that will be kind of on the back nine of the show. Excellent. So tell me about the Kennedy Center Honors because I feel like it's something we all know the name of, but no one knows actually what's happening or who's being honored. Yeah, it's weird. It's really weird. I think that – okay, so the president and the first lady are there. They put on this thing where they bring people from arts and letters in to give them an award. And their friends talk about them and people – if they're musicians, people play their songs and stuff. Well, my wife has this band called The High Women with Maren Morris and Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby. And Natalie Hemby, a songwriter from Nashville, her mother – has been Amy Grant's assistant for like 30 years. So Amy Grant, the famous Christian pop crossover artist, we go to the Kennedy Center to perform an Amy Grant song for Amy Grant. This is a situation I never, I was in a redneck punk band. I never thought I'm going to be in front of the fucking President of the United States playing an Amy Grant song. So you didn't grow up on Grant.

Grant Seven Inches? No, I didn't grow up on Baby Baby. I did too, Will. I did too, Will. I know every word to that song. Amy Grant Christmas was number one go-to in my house growing up. That checks out. She invented that genre. She invented it. Yeah, she invented that genre. She did. And she's cool as shit. The Amy Grant cover for the President of the United States. Yes, and my wife and her band are singing. As Amanda Shire's guitar playing plus one. Yes, as the guitar playing plus one. Which was great. You know, I had a really good time. There were some really weird moments. We got on the wrong bus. So it was just me and my wife and Garth Brooks and half of you two riding to the Oval Office. We were not supposed to be there. Garth Brooks knew that we weren't supposed to be there. And he pointed it out like he was not happy about it. And we know Garth Brooks. Man, fuck Garth Brooks. You can't be high-hacking. You're not on the right bus at all. But we got Borat was there, and he covered With or Without You for U2, who was being honored. And then he played a keytar solo with his dick at the end. Are you for reals? Yes. And when he walked on stage, I was standing on the side of the stage. I was like, man, that was really impressive. That was brave of you to do with Herbie Hancock in the audience sitting right in front of you. And he was no longer. He was not Borat anymore. He was just Sasha at that point. So he was like, holy shit, I hadn't even thought of that. It was a strange night. It was fun. You can't spell Hancock without cock. Exactly. The man plays the keytar and his name is Herbie Hancock. I have a friend who was at the show and he was like, I saw your boy Jason Isbell at the... kennedy center show and my friend manages band so he has seen seven to seventeen thousand eight hundred concerts in his life and he was like you have to tell jason nice work on plugging the guitar directly in and i was like i don't know what you're talking about so jason could you explain to us what happened during your during your performance my shit fucked up right at the floor i was supposed to come in uh

I noticed I had no signal whatsoever. And we'd been arguing with them all day because they wanted me to use wireless. And I was like, I don't want to use wireless. I'm not a fucking douchebag. And it sounds bad. So we won the argument. Mr. President. You tell Mr. President. Biden's America is playing the SG wireless. And that's something that I'm just not going to say. I've always hated Biden's front of house guy. Okay, so you're about to start shredding and you got nothing. So I'm about to start playing shredding on this Amy Grant song and I got nothing. And so I just reached out and take my cable and unplug it and plug it straight into the amp. So I'm just plugged guitar directly. So you pull it out of the metal zone and then go straight into the head. Okay. Right into the backlined amp. And I played the part and it was fine and no problem. And I thought nobody noticed. But Will's friend and Edge, you may know him as The Edge. We in the business just call him Edge. Of course. Not like an edge. It's nice to take a peek behind the curtain with that. Yeah. I don't want to sound like a novice next time I'm building with my YouTube family. Okay. All right. I can do that. Yeah, because Edge uses that kind of wicka-wicka delay mostly. Yeah, he's got all kinds of stuff. So the thought of going straight into the amp probably freaks him out. Yeah, I think he got sweaty. Yeah, that probably blew his mind. I didn't know you could even do that. I didn't know that was. So that was that. And I worked out the next morning in the gym. And in the gym, it was me, C.C. Winans, I mean, B.B. Winans and Eddie Vedder. It was just the three of us in the hotel gym. uh working out spotting each other yeah spotting each other man this is good stuff i gotta say i it was i didn't it was those gym moments i was at a wedding and i had a similar i had a similar uh it was me jerry bruckheimer carly claus just kind of getting it in oh wow that's a nice trio it was a nice trio and everybody was kind of checking each other out obviously i'm the lowest lowest lowest man on that totem pole but i still felt like i was part of something you could probably deadlift more than bruckheimer though

Yeah, not Carly. I've been excited for this moment because I knew that Jason Isbell here, even though he might not be as deep of a How Long Gone listener as I am, I knew he was going to be able to thrill Chris Black with some Jim content. Jason, I imagine much like you, once you put down the bottle, you discovered the deadlift. Yeah, okay. All right, we're in a similar boat. Now, what was your first foray into exercise? Was it the outdoor jog, the working man's workout? No, hell no. It was hot Pilates, motherfucker. Yeah, I got out of that place all bar. No. My wife got me an elliptical for Father's Day one year, and I've used it ever since. It's been like 10 years now. Really? And then I started doing some push-ups and some weights and stuff, and so I just kept that going. Very subtle Father's Day present. Yeah, very. Maybe this is the elliptical you've dreamed of. We crossed those boundaries long ago. I know. I can see my wife, and I can see myself, so we don't have to lie to each other. um she's like you need to get your fucking alabama ass that's what i did i used to elliptical a lot and i would get into these weird rhythms and you kind of do some some movements you kind of look like a like a reverse roller skater like a roller derby kind of thing yeah add a little flavor to it do you have any moves or are you just a straight ahead guy i pretty much just go for it you know yeah i pretend that there's some reason to all this and i I focus on that point. Yeah, sure. That's what I do with life in general. Yeah, life, everything. Are you listening to a podcast? I have my phone. I put my phone on a show, a streaming show. I watch that show, and I try to forget that there is a reality. That's great. That's great. And I'm sure all those back episodes of drivers, dine-ins, whatever, is really taking you out of it. Maybe Santa Claus will get you an iPad Pro or something this year. You deserve a big screen. Maybe he will. I forget that I own iPads.

Like laptops and phones I will use, but if I buy an iPad... I'll use it for like three days and then I'll be like, I need an iPad. And my wife will be like, you have four iPads, you fucking idiot. That's because iPads, unfortunately, are children's toys. That's really what they are. Imagine I walk into the GQ boardroom and I see Will with a stylus and an iPad Pro. I can't take that. I can't take that seriously. The deal's off. Literally coming to you from an iPad Pro with a stylus. A stylus and a stylus. Photo editing and proof editing on the iPad Pro. No, actually, no. I think that photo editing and proof editing are probably the two best uses of it. Yeah. Damn, look at them go. The best accessory I have for the gym is this earbud holder. That's my prime accessory. All right, so guys, Jason is holding up his Prada. airpod pro holder this motherfucker that's amazing was this a christmas gift for will welch that because he probably got it free from product so he just gave it he probably he re-gifted probably just passed it on no i i bought that uh in uh france oh so it goes around you it's a necklace yeah it goes around the neck you wear it to the gym and then uh you look like a real like i'm from alabama so i like trying to do things that are like the opposite of what you would expect a man from alabama to do when he's going to lift some weights i mean if i was coming down the elevator at the bowery hotel and i saw some country boy and some short shorts balls hanging out on one side exactly who is this country boy and then you pull the prada air i'll be like okay but i can tell you've never worked out at the bowery hotel because you got to take the stairs the gym's in the basement okay that is true yeah you got to take the stairs I've had some really funny moments at that little gym. Oh, my God. That place is. Yeah. I've seen some people training for roles in karate movies and shit down there. Like. Yeah, I got introduced to Jason Momoa in that gym. It was the most embarrassing fucking 30 seconds of my life. I was like, I'm just going to go get on the elliptical and watch Oprah. Thanks a lot. You do your thing, I'll do mine, all right, Momoa? Yeah. That gym is pretty small, but you're saying there's enough room for Momoa, his trainer, and you all at the same time? No, there's just enough room for him to meet me and look around and be disgusted and leave and go to Equinox. When you meet a lot of actors in person,

They're often shorter than you would imagine, but Momoa. Not this motherfucker. Yeah, not that motherfucker. Him and Hugh Jackman are both just giant fucking robots. Everybody else is 5'9". Actually, I think that's about right. What is your relationship to Jackman? You just go to his coffee place or just for one time? We were on a late-night talk show together, and I just remember thinking, this really is a big, beautiful man. No, it's not camera. When you do some of these classic late-night performances, have you gotten called over to the couch, or are you sticking straight to the stage? Only Trevor Noah on The Daily Show ever talked to me. He didn't even get me to play a song. He just had me on a couple times just to interview me. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, I liked that. Was that because of the quality of the tweets? Maybe so, and also maybe because my publicist said he wants to actually talk. If it's based on quality of tweets, I would be hosting Saturday Night Live every week. You think so? I don't know. That doesn't track. The feral hogs were me. I was the feral hogs. I did that. You can't beat that. That was you? That was me. You've had some great material. Look, I'm familiar with your material. This isn't a competition. This is our show, but I understand. Mr. Feral Hogg himself. Yeah, yeah. Gracing us. I did it. Me and Willie McNabb from Arkansas. Now, when you discovered Twitter, did you feel like this is my medium, or did it take you a while to kind of settle in? It took me a while, because in 2011 or 2012, when I joined, no 2009 when i joined twitter i was very drunk All the time. So it was just like, hey, here's somewhere I can make a huge mistake every single fucking day. Yeah, that's right. And it was the Wild West back then on Twitter. The glory days. So when I got sober, I hired somebody to just go back and manually delete everything that I had tweeted before that. And that's when I realized this is the medium for me. This is great. This is great. I think more people, we need to normalize hiring people to clean up.

up messes like that that's a great that's a great that's a great use of money and it's more affordable than people think you don't have you there's people non-grammy winners can afford that too i want people to know that totally yeah people will hit people will delete for like like minimum wage you can yeah you can find a guy on fiverr in indonesia he'll knock it out 50 cents an hour no problem yeah you could totally do that that's not what i did but you i've seen other people talking about it yeah Yeah, I've heard about that happen. Will, the last time we saw you was at the Moddy Potty in Los Angeles. Is that correct? That is correct. Yeah, that was a good night. Thank you guys for coming. Thank you. Yeah, just an excuse to put a bunch of people together that aren't normally in the same room. That's kind of what we're going for. Something awesome happened. Yeah, I mean, we were in the line to go on the red carpet, and it was like some people from White Lotus, me. 5e0 foreign and the cast of abbott elementary but it was cool i wanted to thank you guys exactly thank you guys for giving me the only person who had the access to the red carpet and chris did not i yeah it's an interesting twist onto the carpet as the leader and face of this podcast i had to kind of be jason's plus one and i was like don't make me text will he's busy and they they were giving me a little static but luckily i took the high road and it worked and we got our little pictures off they had to write his name on the piece of paper uh in the moment with the sharpie whereas mine was already printed out and i just wanted to say thank you so much for that One of the two of you had red carpet privileges and one did not. Yeah. Both invited into the party for the drinks and the music. Yeah, Chris could come into the after party, but he just couldn't walk. Did you guys chop it up with Fivey and or Quinta Brunson or the other members of the Abbott cast? Fivey is trying to, he's kind of angling to be third Mike on this program. That's not a joke. He said, I love these guys because we had him on the show and then he came to the J. Crew party as well.

That's right. To see the yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw him there. Which was also interesting. He's the only celebrity that wants to talk to us in the world, basically. Exactly. We're very in with him. I don't know why. He hasn't offered us a ride in the Bulletproof Suburban yet, but I think next time we're going to get there. You guys can broadcast live from the Bulletproof Suburban. Exactly. That's a great idea. I'm sure it's nice sound in there, too. Actually, speaking of the Bulletproof Suburban, Jason, when you got that first big check, walk me through the first truck purchase. What was the trim package, four-door, leather, V8? What's going on? Me? You're talking about me? Yeah. Oh, I don't think there was a first big check. I'm still waiting on that. The first big check went to legal fees. You don't have the 350 Dually out front? No, I like guitars, man. I have an M5 because I like fast cars that I can put. I can put a car seat in a fast car. I was going to say, I'm not here to fact check Jason Isbell, but the idea that there haven't been any big checks when you have a song on the dam. What's that soundtrack? The Bradley Cooper Gaga soundtrack? Star is Born. Yeah, we don't know how bad it's gotten. That's true. We don't know how bad it's gotten. Well, we don't know all of his legal fees, okay? I didn't have a lot. I didn't have a lot of legal fees. But, no, I have guitars. I have really ridiculous guitars. That's the thing that I like to have. Like Prince's guitar from 79? Yeah, like Willie Nelson. Not really like celebrity attached guitars, but very rare, really collectible. You know, like really, really cool guitar. Like I got one in Europe recently. I'll show you. I have it right here, actually. Yeah, I like when people use their expensive purchases. You know, that's important. So this, this is a 1960 Les Paul Custom. Gibson Les Paul Custom. Golly. Yeah, 1960, all original. But the funny thing about this is it's red. And they were all black except for six. And they were made for one music store in Sweden.

that liked this color red, so they ordered six red ones from Gibson in 1959 and 1960, and this one had never been out of Europe. I bought it in Germany and brought it home a couple months ago. Okay, so like you're saying, you got a day off in Stuttgart, and you're like, you know what, I'm going to walk around and try to drop ten bands on this guitar, and then do you put it in the lineup, or do you ship it home? Ten bands would be the case. Okay, okay, okay. So that thing retailed in 59 for what, 100 bucks probably? This was the highest end model in 1960. It was probably like around $300, $290. Now it's worth probably, you know, 150, 170 grand. Okay, well, I was, yeah, I was, okay. That's a lot of M5s, brother. It is, it is. I live in, you know, guys that buy a lot of clothes, they like to sell last season sometimes to get the new stuff. Are you unloading any of your collection on grailed Les Paul section? No, no. You know, there's a huge market for that kind of stuff, of course. No, I'm bad about it. I tried to tell my business manager that it was an investment, and she was like, yeah, if you ever sell any of them, they're an investment, but not if you keep them all. Otherwise, it doesn't really work like that. Not if you die clutching them. Exactly. If you're buried with them. So guitars are your NFTs is what we're saying, Jason. Yeah, exactly. Except they're very fungible. They're highly fungible. And you can't get laid with a board ape. I can take a guitar. and arouse someone with it. You can't do that. There's one guy one time who got laid with a board ape. One dude. There's a lot of guys that got laid, but it was just them in the room with the board ape. You get laid by the board ape. With my board ape body pillow. Board ape body pillow. You're saying that you could serenade someone with this, so it's investment on all fronts. I use it for my job. There are people who will come

see you know there are dudes who like uh old guitars who buy a ticket to come see me play old guitars because they're not you know in a museum or some shit somewhere oh oh i see i see because like you're you're playing stuff that some people might be like this is too rare this is too precious but you actually play it on stage yeah yeah yeah and then people want to go see it and hear it and stuff all the all the gear slots in the front row exactly looking at your pedal board like What's he got on there? What's he got on there? So does that mean that you consider yourself to be one of these gear sluts, or do you think it's just like a hazard of the job? I think when you actually use them for your job, you don't have to feel like I'm a... I'm a gear whore. I don't think so. If you actually use them pretty regularly for work, then it's different. But yeah, I'm as bad as anybody about it. I'll sit and talk to people who don't give a shit. It's like if I was still on cocaine. It's like I would go forever. Like the fucking what's inside the client centaur shit. Nobody cares. Nobody. You're right. I'm here to tell you that. I'm here to tell you that. But I think that the you know, it's it's clearly a passion of yours. So if I had to hear about it from anyone, I would like it to be an expert. Self-proclaimed, of course. Yeah. Self-proclaimed. That's the only kind. Yeah. If it suited your listeners, the three of us could just kind of go off screen and Jason could just soliloquy on guitars, pedals and amps. For the rest of the podcast. Let me tell you all. Solo 30 minutes of him talking about pedals. What do I think about the big muff settings? That's a great question. I'm glad you asked. Yeah. Will, we were talking about Powerade briefly. I heard, Jason, that you used to enjoy the cocktail mixology guy known as Gatorade and Everclear. That was one of your faves? Yeah. I used to drink that. Yeah, I wrote a bunch of songs on drinking that Gatorade and Everclear. My first batch of songs that anybody ever really heard or cared about, I wrote during one long feverish evening drinking Gatorade and Everclear. Oh, okay. I just read a quote that band Cap'n Jazz, the singer, wrote almost all the lyrics of his first album, taking mushrooms, sitting by a campfire. Just knocked them all out in one day.

Yeah. So Everclear is your mushrooms. Well, not anymore. Was. Yeah, now like granola is my mushrooms. But yeah, at one point, Everclear was my mushrooms, and then mushrooms were my mushrooms, and then everything was my mushrooms. I wrote this whole new album off that cottage cheese. Yeah, where does it end? So you're saying the Everclear, what flavor of Gatorade were you? A classic orange, lemon, lime, or like a newfangled flavor? No, it's great. I lived in Memphis, Tennessee. It was great. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yeah, and I smoked Newports at that time as well. Okay. Damn, bro. And you would open them from the bottom of the pack so you could put them in your pocket. And if somebody tried to bum one, you could say, no, I just bought this pack for my friend. I haven't opened it. Holy shit. That's the most amazing tip I've ever heard in my life. Memphis has the real life hack. I can tell. Did you live there? Have you lived there since or was this a short stint? I was there when I went to college. I was there from like 97 to 2001. You graduated college? This was right in the 3-6 Mafia zone. It was. Yeah, it was. They were around. I did not graduate college. Okay, good. I walked out. I was sitting in human fitness and wellness. And they were talking about the amount of calories in a fucking bran muffin, and I just left. I just thought, I don't have to be here anymore. All right, so that's good to know. So Will is the only man on this Zoom right now that has a college diploma. So that's good. That feels right. You can tell by the way we're dressed. I know. I'm saying. I'm wearing my diploma. I know. I know. I've heard a lot about Memphis. It's weird. I've never – because I grew up in Atlanta like Will, and I've never been to Memphis, but I'm hearing a lot about it lately, actually, from – Kevin Morby. He really wants to like, he like really is selling it to me. And I'm like, I just, I've just never been like, what is there to do? But it seems just like a city with the history. So people fucking love it. Yeah. Yeah. There's plenty, like there's plenty to do as far as, um, you know, if you'd like to drink or if you'd like to learn things, you know, it's a good town for both of those. All right. Well, I'm out. I'm out. That's, that's all I got. You can learn different drinks to have. Yeah. If you're sober and you're done learning, don't go to Memphis.

But, yeah, it's kind of just all culture, you know. I mean, it is, and it's unique. People from Memphis are different from anybody else that I know of anywhere. No, no, definitely that. And, you know, did you grow up in Muscle Shoals? Yeah, I did. I've actually been there before a couple times, actually, and I do think it has that kind of. history that you just can't really put a finger on it's there's nothing to draw people there we don't have like a national championship football team and there's not there aren't any major businesses or i mean pretty much all they got is like the tourism industry and the music scene so they haven't really fucked it up they're actually kind of doing a pretty good job with it down there that's impressive because that's hard to do it's hard it's hard to turn down the the you know the papa john's money it's hard to manage a shoal in 2022 yeah yeah exactly yeah It is, really, much less many of them. Especially the muscular ones. Well, let's talk about you guys. You guys are doing a live event. We were talking about it in the intro, Fox Theater down there in Atlanta. The two of you will be in conversation, and then it will be followed by some musical performances as well. What's the convo vibe like, and why are you kind of taking our live show Thunder and making it your own with your star power behind it? Jason, I know you've been on a few stages in your time, but we're kind of here to offer some advice on this music plus talk scenario because we kind of perfected it. We did come on here today for your advice and pointers. Although we have introduced a new innovation to the format, which is the conversation and the song are going to be interwoven rather than separated out into blocks. So Jason and I might be talking about a topic or a shared part of our history around the time of which a song he wrote or recorded, and then he can play that song, and then the conversation will continue.

It's not a copy-paste, is what I'm saying. Okay, okay. We're going VH1 Storytellers mode on this motherfucker. Very Storytellers. Yeah, pop-up video. And it goes a little something like this. That reminds me of the song I wrote right there. That's crazy, man. That brings me back a lot of that. Ladies and gentlemen, The Edge. Funny you should just say the name of one of my songs. I think I'll go perform it now. Jason owns a very famous guitar that he plugs directly into a really powerful amp and treads in his closet, which I have experienced. So I requested that that guitar and that amp make their way to the show so people can feel the full brunt. The closet. Okay. So Jason's going to be coming out of the closet and going on stage. Out of the closet, onto the stage. After all these years. Finally. This guitar is so famous, it has a name. It has a name. So the people must hear it in Atlanta. Okay. What's the deal with this guitar? I have it here. I'll show you this one. What's the deal? Give us a preview. I can tell Will's kind of practicing the setups. Like, actually, the guitar has a name. Yeah. You know what? Actually, I think we have it right over here. Binning, binning, binning. Six, seven, eight. This is the red eye Les Paul. 1959 Gibson Les Paul. And it's very clean. It's in really good shape. It's almost like a brand-new guitar. She's cherry. Yeah, but it belonged to Ed King from Leonard Skinner, who did Sweet Home Alabama. It was his. Oh, okay. When he died, I bought it from his family, and I've had it for a few years. And this is my prize. prized possession. This is a true southern relic here. This is no joke. It would be insane not to play this in Atlanta. You have to use it in Atlanta. But also, you know, it's like it's just a crazy artifact. It wasn't made to be a piece of art. People just worked 9 to 5 and made guitars in Kalamazoo, Michigan in the 50s and they stumbled upon something that aged

really well better than it should have now when you're going to travel down to atlanta or any show where you're bringing one of these crazy expensive rare guitars do you have it do you like to sit on your lap on the airplane like how do you travel with it gets it it gets a seat it gets a seat next to me on the plane i don't know if you're joking or not you know both are believable you're not joking yeah i'm not I'm not joking. The way I have it insured, it has to get a seat on the airplane. I hope Will didn't have to come out of pocket for these two Delta One seats. No, no, no. No, Will didn't. Usually I'll put the guitar back in coach and just go back and check on it every once in a while. Do you want my cookie? I'm not getting it. Yeah, it's not getting to use my bathroom up front. Are you fucking kidding me? You're sneaking glasses of champagne back to her? That's sweet of you. So I thought I was coming on this. podcast for on-stage tips, but I actually need to clean up some of the accounting. Thank you, Chris. I'm an eye-opening episode. I'm a businessman first. I think that the one piece of advice that we could bless you with, and Jason, my illustrious co-host, is the architect of this in our zone, but the set list... You know, you think a set list is just songs, but a set list for talking points is also kind of a necessary thing. So you can glance down by your pedal board, Will, and you can kind of see the next prompt to keep the convo moving at a nice click. But actually, that reminds me of a good question. Whenever, like, we'll write down bullet point notes for our live shows and, like, don't forget to talk about this, this, and this. But I've always thought that when you never have to look at your notes, that means the episode is going well. The less you have to look at it, the better the convo is going. Does that translate for set lists as well with your band, Jason? If you're just flowing and you never even have to look at the set list, does that ever happen? No. Didn't think so. I always have to look at the set list. I know. I mean, unless it's like a fish kind of situation where you guys are just organically grooving in this like different mindset. Yeah. You haven't achieved that yet. I used to not make set lists at all for like the first, I don't know, 10 years of my career or whatever. And then we got a lighting guy.

And if you have a lighting guy, the quickest way to get him to quit and go the fuck home is not make a set list because he needs to know what's coming next. They have to program it all. So now I make a set list. And also I switch guitars almost every song during my regular set because I don't like to tune. So I just get the guitar in tune. I play it. I give it back to my guy. So your guitar tech is the hardest working guy? in town is what it sounds like he he's he's he is very hard-working guy and and uh and does a fantastic job he also built the whole like rig that i have from scratch i love seeing those guitar tech rigs where it's like the whole crazy thing and they got the lights and the whole build out it's it's like a it's like the van life kind of guys you know yeah this is we we you know i traveled with one that i put together forever that was just a big massive duct tape and and nine volt batteries but but this one now is like I can't turn it on. If he just brings it to my house and drops it off, I don't know how to turn it on. You could land a plane with that. This is Guitar Tech Michael as a deadhead, so I usually stand on the side of the stage and talk about the Grateful Dead. That's what we need is Will and his fandom fucking up your set. Something comes back out of tune and it's like... I'm just happy we went 45 minutes without hearing about the dead. We made it a long time. We did. Because usually with Will, it's 10, 13 minutes. I can't be mad. I've learned this in my old age that whatever I want to make fun of other people for, I'm obviously doing myself. So it's like we went 45 minutes without talking about the Lemonheads. That's a victory for Jason. It's the same. We all have that thing. Are you a Lemonheads guy, Jason? Well, I like them, but Chris is a huge fan. But that was more of a comment that he talks about. I'm a dando. I'm dando pills. We ran into Evan a couple months ago at a show. We played at a festival in Louisville, and he came out.

to the festival um but it was kind it was not it was not a good scene he was he's not doing it's not he's not doing good we saw him we saw him we saw him in la and it was like i honestly wanted to leave it like made me i i didn't feel good but he's playing new york with juliana hatfield like soon like in a couple good good yeah i mean i'm glad he's still doing gigs and stuff he's just you know he's not in a good spot no he's not but the i mean that record it's a classic it's my grateful dead um but yeah you know they have a smaller catalog it's a tighter edit as they say yeah you know it's much tighter it's still something speaking of dan we have a segment on the show where our some of our guests will name their top three prescription pills dead or alive okay They can be for fun or not for fun. It could be as simple as an Advil or as complex as a Dilaudin. It's really up to you. Okay. The greatest prescription medication ever is Xanax. That's the greatest of all time. I think I agree with that. That's the best ever. That's probably number one across the board on this program. That's the goat. Xanax is goat, and the tolerance level can go up real high. There's a lot of wiggle room to play around with. You can fit a lot of them in your stomach. That's right. I also like the slang personally, like the football and the ladder. You know what I mean? Yeah, ladders. Ladder is cool to say, and it also kind of makes sense when you're thinking about it. Yeah, when I was getting fucked up, I would take like two ladders and drink like four or five glasses of whiskey, and that was the best that you could feel as an addict. Yeah, no, that's true. Yeah, I mean, because I'm a big man. If I had that right now, I would be, you know, I would be asleep somewhere in a ditch. That was always my experience with Xanax. I just couldn't handle it way too much for me. Well, I can handle it, but when you put a few glasses of whiskey on top of it, that's when you go blackout mode so quickly. I was always drinking when I took it already. Oh, damn, Will, you're cooler than we thought you were. Yeah, I woke up in jail after one of those nights one time, and I remember thinking,

I remember thinking, why is my dad trying to wake me up? It's not a school day. And then I remember thinking, I'm 28 years old. And then I remember thinking, that's a policeman. And I was so high. They were supposed to let me go at noon, and they made me stay for a few more hours because I just could not get out of the bed in the jail cell to walk. Your legs don't work. All right. What's number two? Ambien. Just because it's fucking chaos. Okay, and you're talking about using Ambien, not abusing Ambien in the Vice magazine way where you take a bunch of them and stay awake and you go psychotic? No, I'm talking about abusing all of these. These are all terrible things. Got it. Okay. Just let me be clear. We're just talking about what makes shit happen. What makes the world more interesting? Okay, so how do you abuse Ambien? I don't. I never took Ambien. Or I mean did. I don't. I never really took Ambien, but my wife did. One night, she got up and she started toasting some napkins because she thought they were red. Of course, there was a huge fire. This was really good. She and her ex-boyfriend, before she and I were together, he was a little bit older than her. She took an Ambien on a plane one time. When the plane landed, they couldn't get her. awake and get her off of the plane and she couldn't communicate so they thought he was human trafficking her and they took him and interrogated him for like 12 fucking hours Because they thought he had kidnapped her. Ambien is fucking chaos. What'd you give her, you son of a bitch? Yes, it's amazing, that drug. Wow, that's tough. That's a tough story. Damn. Okay, so I'm getting a Downers theme so far. Yeah. Which I'm in the same boat as well. And then what do they call the stuff in Mexico? You can get it in liquid form now, but it's basically a Quaalude. Mandrax? Mandrax?

That stuff you could – I'm not even familiar with the Mexican marketplace. That's a little outside of my jurisdiction. You had me a Mexican quaalude. Yeah, Jason's writing it down for his next trip to Tulum. I think it's seriously doing mandrax. Mandrax. Yeah, and it's a Mexican quaalude, and that was as close as we could get to quaaludes 20 years ago when I was doing drugs. Yeah, methaqualone. It's a hypnotic sedative. Say less, Google. Yeah, well, that's all I need. What more do you need? No, what more do you need? I learned something today. Well, continuing the trend of our... Well, it sounds like Will wants to play this game, too. Yeah, Will. No further questions, Your Honor. Yeah. Well said. I'll be... No, no, no. The other thing we talk to musicians about is syncs. So, like, you know, not syncs like in your bathroom, but syncs that you got paid. uh a nice amount of money for someone using your song or maybe you turned one down and you regret doing yeah you know we have a classic story of regret do you have any that come to mind uh negative or positive um positive you know i i had a song in star is born the song that uh uh uh bradley cooper's character sang that was his hit like i wrote that song and wrote that you wrote that for him well Sort of. I mean, now that I didn't get an Oscar, I can tell you I had already written the song. And it didn't make the cut for my record that I was working on. So then when the producer was like, I'm working on this movie. Do you have anything? I was like, no, I don't have time for that. My wife said, you're a fucking idiot. Go get this. That's right. And that's that's what happened. So that I think people it's interesting because I think people don't realize how that goes down. But it's basically like a producer is a fan and it's like this would make sense. His style of writing, his style of music would make sense for Brad's character. So they just call you and like, what do you got? Yeah. Yeah. And and that happened. And then, you know, like Gaga called one night. My wife was working on her thesis when she was master's studies. She was working on a thesis. She's like, no matter what happens, do not knock on my door. I have to finish this thesis. And so our daughter is like a year old and I'm feeding her. She's in the high chair.

And Gaga called. I never met Gaga before. She just called. And I was like, hello. And she's like, hi, it's Stephanie. And I was like, Stephanie. And she's like, Gaga. And I was like, Stephanie, Gaga, what? And she was like, we're recording your song, and it's amazing. It's going to go great in a movie. I just want to call you and tell you. And she's like, what are you up to tonight? And I was like, I'm feeding my daughter peanut butter with a spoon. uh and my wife is working on her thesis and i was like you know you should talk to my daughter she'll i can tell her when she's a teenager that she talked to gaga on the phone so i just gave my baby the phone and and of course she could say gaga so it worked out it was cute but um but then i have had some bad like uh like i had this song that uh called cover me up that was that was my it's probably my biggest song but it was on a record like 10 years ago And then a couple of years ago, country singer Morgan Wallen recorded it and put it on his album. uh which was the biggest selling album of the year in any genre yeah it was a big it was a big sold everything but then all of a sudden this guy just turns out to be a fucking buffoon and there's a video of him yelling the n-word and the street at his friends and everything just went nuts yeah and it's it's like it's the it's what we say is you can't have nothing you just can't have nothing and you know so i took After he came in where thing happened, a bunch of the redneck country people started buying his record more because of that, like because they're trying to cancel him or whatever. So I waited a few weeks and let them do that, and then I took all that money and donated it to the NAACP, and then I was like, hey, thanks. Oh, wow. Thanks, racists. Dude, that's amazing. I have to say that's very impressive, and I want to think I would do the same thing, but that is a very tough thing to do. Yeah, well, it still rolls in, and I haven't donated all of what I've made. I've kept quite a bit of money. Yeah, sure, sure, sure.

It's just one of those things where like it was super exciting for like five minutes, you know, and then all of a sudden, you know, it's like it just everything just went to shit, you know. But. That was a really weird, that was a really weird experience. That's a very strange, did he, is that the kind of thing where he's calling you and being like, I love this fucking song, like artist to artist, or is it strictly like he records it, his publisher calls your publisher and they figure it out? They figure out the business thing, but he and I had talked about it before. You had a conversation, yeah, that's what I was saying. Yeah, and he was a big fan of my songwriting and stuff, you know, so I knew that, but then after all that shit happened. I was like, yeah, fuck this guy. You've got to be like, fuck this guy. It's Nashville. You would think that that would go without saying, but in Nashville, that does not. No, it does not. A lot of people are like, fuck this guy. I was like, fuck this guy. In Morgan's not fuck this guy defense, I believe it's because he's making all these people a lot of money. That's true. It's probably why they're not really trying to back away too quick. That is true. Also, because the conversation... He's not the point. Like some drunk kid is not the point of the issue. It's a much broader, much bigger issue. I didn't want to just keep arguing with people about this one drunk kid that distracted from what the problem actually is. The bigger issue, sure. That's a smart way to look at it. It turned out to be a pretty big-time pain in the ass, but it could have been a lot worse. I could have been one of the people who never got to be a fucking songwriter or singer for whatever reason. That's a good way to look at it. That's a better way to look at it. That's two pretty good ends of the spectrum, I would say, as far as syncs go. Yeah, it was. Did you get to link with Gaga? Bradley came out. Gaga didn't because she was touring and doing Gaga stuff. But Bradley came out to a show and hung out. It was super nice. We got along real well and kind of kept in touch for a while after that. And that was pretty cool. He did a great job with that movie.

Oh, I love that movie. I love songs. I love the movie. I love the whole thing. It was great. I feel like once a week, Chris talks about crushing a pill with a boot. The boot pill. The boot pill crush is the most triggering thing you can possibly. I've never been there. I'm not a big boot guy. Really? No offense to Nashville. But, you know, so you can't take off like a Samba and crush the pill in the same way. Right, right. It doesn't work. It doesn't work the same way. The Yeezys are too squishy in my past history. Yeah, exactly. The Gucci trick, you'll get the pill lost in the... in the bottom of the shoe. It's in the soul somewhere. I think that that movie was so good. I've presented this theory on how long gone before, but I will present it again in the presence of greatness. I think that Gaga's more country-leaning album, if that would have come out after the movie, it would have been her biggest record of all time. I think you're right. i did joanne yeah i think you're right about that um because it's so great record it's a very good record yeah yeah and and it's also like i think every songwriter and gaga is a songwriter every every person who writes their own songs even if they're like a big pop star You can't be a songwriter and be serious without having some kind of attraction toward country music. You're going to wind up with Hank Williams and Merle Haggard and Jimmy Webb. You're going to wind up with Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. It's going to get into your blood some way or another. As long as you're doing it right, you can't skip over some of those. country greats yeah if you're studying songwriting you're you're gonna run into those songwriters real quick you know um you mentioned earlier growing up playing in kind of punk bands and stuff like that what uh are anything that we would know about what what were your influences what you know how crusty were you back then we we were bad crusty will remembers that crustiness we were a bunch of feral motherfuckers but it was like

it was a weird thing because it was a punk band but we were making records about southern rock music so the band and i was in the drive by truckers we had this album they made right before i joined called the southern rock opera which was like a concept album about leonard skyndard basically and and the plane crash and all that kind of stuff and about the racial issues and you know about george wallace and about alabama in general and all that stuff but we were you know very very drunk all the time and we had just three guitars bass and drums and we were playing at arena volumes at the fucking larimer lounge and the mercury lounge and you know brownies and new york and shit and and uh so it was a painful uh harrowing fucking knife's edge experience for for six or seven years there you know um but it was great because i figured out at that point I think my favorite thing about the punk ethos is the idea that nobody can make you stop. There's no making it. I don't mean just make you stop getting fucked up and being an idiot, but I mean make you stop making music. It doesn't matter what level of skill you have or ability or what kind of shape you're in. Mike Watt and duct tape your pants to your ankles so you can shit yourself on stage in the middle of the set. You just keep fucking going no matter what. That helped. That helped later on. I'm sure. I didn't realize you guys... How far do you guys go back, you and Will? I didn't realize it was like drive-by truckers era. That's where I met, yeah. Okay, I got you. And this was just a social call, or was this like a work thing and you guys hit it off? He was writing for the Fader. Yeah, tell him. Yeah, I went to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to write about the drive-by truckers when they had gone. They were based out of Athens, but most of them were, including Jason, although he was a generation younger. had grown up or been born and grown up in the Muscle Shoals area. And they were going back to this place where they had all this history. And Patterson Hood, the founder of the Drive-By Truckers, his dad was the bass player in the Swamper. So he was part of the Muscle Shoals sound that, you know, played on all those great soul records that made the music from that area famous. So there was this interesting moment of these like punk kids who had always.

resisted everything about the history of that era and kind of got chased out of town for being assholes set up in athens goes back to where they're from to record this album the dirty south and i went down i was working at the fader magazine and went down to write a story about all that and that's where jason and i met we met at a meet and three what was the name of that meet and three the hollywood inn the hollywood inn the hollywood and soul food and we were being i remember we were being such dickheads to danny clinch all morning because he's trying to take pictures of us and then we're sitting there having lunch and danny just sets a book down uh next to him and doesn't say anything and we start passing around it's all these pictures are like tupac and and radio head and fucking outcast and all this shit and we're like wait a minute did you take these pictures and he was like yeah we're like oh dude i'm so they always send such shitheads to photograph us we didn't we didn't realize you were really a photographer you know yeah he just kind of sat it down on the lunch table next to him until somebody grabbed it and people And now Danny Clinch has been shooting Jason and the rest of that band for 20 years as well. Yeah, I love when that kind of stuff happens. I think it's like getting more and more rare. You know what I mean? Because there's so many people in between, you know, the artist and the writer in a lot of ways. But I'm glad to see that you guys have been able to maintain this relationship for so long. Because I think of you guys as friends. I know that. You know what I mean? So it's nice to see that that's where it started. Yeah, and then we would both be at South by Southwest. I think the next time we hung out after me doing that story was at South by Southwest, and then they would come through New York, and I would go to the shows, and we'd hang out after, and just kind of kept it going. You had Fader Fort. Yeah. Yeah, that was a big party. We've all been to the Fader Fort, for better or worse. Isn't it so great that you don't have to go to South by Southwest every year now? It's awesome.

That's the best outcome of success. All right, guys, is your show in Atlanta? Is it going to be sold out, or do we still have some tickets to move? Depends how big your audience is, guys. We've got to sell tickets. Okay, great. We do pretty well in Atlanta. So it's December 17th at the fabulous Fox Theater, correct? Oh, yeah, so that's this weekend. Okay, and they can get tickets wherever tickets are sold. Yeah, Fox Theater website. JasonIsbell.com, WillWelch.com for tour dates. Yeah. My web administrator is still working on my tour page. See if it's up by next Saturday. Supply chain issues, I get it, man. Those two pages are tough to put together. But no, we thank you guys both for joining us. This was a pleasure. And if you're in the Atlanta or even the general, you know, southeast. December 17th at the Fox. You know where to get tickets. JasonIsbell.com. Or if you need to do a points run for the end of the year, it's a great Delta hub. That's great. We're thinking about it. We're thinking about it. Thank you both. Thank y'all.