Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hey man, can you hear me? Okay? What's up with you?
Bubba? I can hear you?Good? How are you? I'm all
right? Jelly? Can I callyou Jelly? Yeah? For my mama
calls me. Well, I'm notyour mama. Hey man, I gotta
tell you. I think it waslast year, maybe maybe the year before,
(00:22):
during the pandemic. I think itwas the ending days of the pandemic.
You started coming into my feed onInstagram. I started seeing you singing
songs, country tunes. I startedsinging hip hop and they were like,
this guy can do it all.He's the amazing, amazing mister, please
please himself. And I was like, oh my god, this dude can
(00:43):
sing. And then I heard youdo simple man. I don't know were
you doing it with the shine downor was that just you in the studio?
Now that's what that was. AndI was like, that dude's got
an incredible voice. I mean,and then your story is even more credible
than your voice. And not everybody. There are people living underneath the rock,
(01:04):
my friend that don't know about JellyRoll, And I want to go
back and want you to just Iknow you. You're a busy man today.
You got a lot going on.We're gonna talk about the new record,
I promise. I know you've beentalking about your upbringing and how things
were you know, for you beforeall this happened, and I want to
hear it again because I want mylisteners to be exposed to it. No,
(01:26):
I'd love to share it, man. So I My name is Jason
jelly Roll d Ford. I grewup in Antioch, Tennessee, which is
a middle class, lower class suburbright south of Nashville, still in Nashville,
but its own area. And Ifell in love with music at an
early age because my mother loved music. And my mother was a woman who
struggled with a lot of mental healthstuff and addictive stuff, but music was
(01:49):
a real thing that kind of Iwatched her get out of her hole with
it, you know. And Iwent on and makes a series of bad
decisions from fourteen to twenty four thatwould lead to me spending about eight of
those ten years incarcerated. When Iwould come home at about twenty five years
old, I would have a daughterthat was almost two who's now fifteen,
and I have full custody of her. Finding out that she was being born
(02:13):
when I was in jail. Themoment that completely changed my life forever.
It was the moment where I wantedto turn it around forever, you know.
And and now to this day,me and her like best friend.
She's gone to church camp this week, or she'd be with me. She's
normally and told well, and youmet a beautiful woman that helped Jill on
the way as well. I did. Man behind, every man who changes
(02:36):
his life is normally a woman whowas cracking a whip. And this is
her, Bunny Is I met Bunnyand you know, we were talking about
this morning. We are fixing tocelebrate our seventh anniversary together wow here this
month. So it's it's been quitea journey. Man. She came into
my life. I was homeless,living in a van, doing shows for
(02:58):
two hundred dollars in a pack ofcigarette anything for the music. Yeah,
I feel like I was on TommyBoyle. I was living in a band
down by the river so bad.And she came in to help me get
custody, that little girl, man, and it changed everything. Was it
(03:20):
your voice? Was she just blownaway when she walked in and heard you
sing. I didn't even know Icould sing back then. I was rapping.
I was scared to sing. Ithought it was a bad thing.
I was a shower singer at best. Weren't you in a country bar when
you met her? Well, yeah, but I was doing a show there.
You were doing a hip hop ina country bar in Vegas. Yeah,
a country bar in Vegas on OldVegas on Freemont hip hop rap show.
(03:46):
There were doing a rap show there. Nobody showed up and she wasn't
there because we were there. Shedidn't know nobody was there. It's just
the blood. It was so bad, like worst case scenario was like a
soft ticket thing. Nobody knew us. We're doing original so it's bombing and
then waltch your your your future wife. I bet that you know a show
(04:09):
you would like to forget now youcan't. Yeah, but I'll think about
that show forever. Remember the timewe met, but nobody was there and
I was bombing on Fremont Street.Let's talk about that, your journey to
to to country and rock music.Like you just told us that you didn't
think you were much of a singer, that you were a shower singer at
(04:30):
best. When did the light comeon for you? Because you made several
hip hop records. I mean,you've been making music. I guess you've
been putting it out since twenty elevenor so. So I mean, when
did you decide that that you weremore than just a shower singer. Well,
I went out drinking one night andwe did karaoke, and I always
(04:54):
sing Bob Singer when I do karaoke. He's like my go to guy,
you know. Yeah. Um.Then when I came off a producer at
the time, I said, man, I don't know why you're not doing
more than that. And I said, more of what I said, more
of that stuff singing like that,I said, because I can't sing,
so I can't tell I sound likeyou've sing to me. And sure enough
(05:16):
that I started doing Bob Seeker duringmy shows and people were thrown away into
it. And then I realized I'vebeen trying to sing my whole life.
I was just scared to try.Wow. And then you know, you
start to, you know, gettingrecognized by the country community, and then
you're making you know, you're you'reyou're like helping to resurrect Southern rock and
(05:38):
I don't even think you meant to. Yeah. No, And if my
whole life is. I'm Joe Dirt. None of this was by design.
I didn't try to do any ofthis. You know, my story didn't
get out till I was in mythirties and carrying around the ball of shit
(05:58):
and I'm totally Joe. Yeah,but it's a it's a great story,
and it's all because you made thatchoice that that time in prison. You
didn't want you you weren't going togo down that path. And you're like,
well, what can I do withmy life? I damp sure don't
want to, you know, workfor a living. And then you find
out that I wasn't physically able towork this gracious, could you imagine me
(06:21):
with a job rest case scenario,I could have cooked at waffle House and
they had already sued me, soI had to take their name off a
record. And I think that they'dwant that sort of publicity. Yeah,
I'm telling you, dude, Ithink they should do a partnership now with
me to make it right at leastbunch of the tour. Hey, listen,
kid rocks inspire and remember he hada big debaccle with waffle House.
(06:44):
If he still rocks it, well, that's that's the part of waffle House.
That that makes it so enduring isthat that everybody has a debacle at
waffle house at one time in theirlife or another. Right, Yeah,
I've seemed I've seen some crazy stuffgo down in waffle houses, especially in
the South Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri. It's like fighting night. Yeah.
(07:12):
No, listen two o'clock, threeo'clock in the morning. Yeah, and
watch it like a TV show.It's like water Burger in Texas. Oh,
we used to go to waffle houseto people watch. For sure.
It was two, three o'clock inthe morning. We were still up.
We just go hang out. Wego sit in the corner and grab a
cup of coffee and just watch thefights. You know. And you think
that that waffle house would promote,you know something, a guy like you,
(07:34):
maybe even you know, get involvedwith the UFC. The waffle house
brings you fighting night. You know, we should partner. We should do
fighting nights at the waffle house,Joel, the UFC for waitresses, fight
patrons, fight security officers. I'mtelling you, you're an idea man.
(07:55):
You're an idea man that puts itin, that implements it. Uh,
you know, you're you see yourselfhobnobbing with these um you know, hobnob
but but now you're collaborating. That'sthe word I'm looking for with these uh,
with these country music stars and umand some of these rockers now and
they're everyone's paying attention to you ifyou don't know. Uh. Jellyroll won
(08:18):
the Mail Video of the Year,Mail Breakthrough Video of the Year, and
Digital First Performance of the which Idon't know what that is for Son of
a Center, which is a greatsong, and uh, we're playing me
to favor. That's what you're hearingon rock radio off of whits It Chapel,
which came out I think at thebeginning of the year, and now
this song is starting to take offon rock radio. You've single handedly,
(08:41):
like I said earlier, resurrected Southernrocking this song. I almost cried.
And you know what I didn't.I didn't even see the girl. I
didn't even see that part of thevideo. I just knew something bad was
going to happen. That dude walksinto the beginning of the song. I
was like, oh my god,it is about to go down, and
then the lyrics started tearing me down, and uh, it's an impressive song.
(09:03):
Man, it pulled my strings rightoff. You're talking about Southern rock.
That was the vibe. I wantedthis song to feel like an old
Southern rock and an old tent revival. Yeah, you know, like almost
like almost like Southern rock worship musicin this weird way, you know what
I mean. It's just kind ofthe mixture of I don't know if you
know this about me or not,but I love mixing stuff together. Yeah.
(09:26):
I think it's kind of kind oftake little things together, you know
what I mean. And just thingnow, you're an amazing cocktail bro.
I'm telling you what. There's bitsand pieces of all types of genres out
there that it's in your music.It's it's pretty incredible. There's not a
(09:46):
guy like you, really. Imean, people want to throw you in
that kid rock category whatever. Youknow. I think you're a little bit
more soulful. No offense to kid, but I think you got more soul.
Yeah, for sure, I think. Um, I think that The
cool thing. I think the onlydifference between what Bob does and I do
is that I just got to watchthe other I got to watch him as
(10:09):
a part of the evolution, right. So he's not like he was drawing
inspiration from all these things, andthen I was able to draw inspiration from
him too, So all these differentguys, I was thinking about Lincoln Park,
Right, I'll just never ever forgetthe first time I heard a Lincoln
Park record and was like, Yo, I don't know what's happening, but
this might be the coolest thing I'veever heard of about Yeah, that mash
(10:30):
up, it was cool. Itwas definitely something that we hadn't heard before,
right, And that's kind of mything, is that I want I
want to create stuff that we haven'theard before but feels like we've heard of
a thousand times. I think youdid it. You achieve that goal,
especially with this track. Man,I'm telling you, I'm excited. You
(10:50):
know what's going on this summer withyou? You're doing festivals and then what
tours? Baby Big Tar, theback Row Baptism toward forty four forty five
cities, first headlining Arena Amphitheater tour. For me, it's big. I
got to go out with Shine Downlast year. Brin Smith's dear dear dear
friend of mine, whom is Zachand um I got All year they kept
(11:11):
going, You're gonna headline these placesnext year and sell them out. I
was like, whatever, dude,going out this year, we're headlining them,
Dude, we're gonna sell them out. Bikes are still available at some
select market jelly roll six one fivedot com. I'm not too prideful to
ask now on this radio station sixgeller Roll six from five dot com.
You get your tickets, indoor cityor T shirt while you're there. One
(11:33):
more time, one more time forthe folks at the parties one five dot
com. All your needs for anythingjelly Rolled Tour related indoor merchandise jelly Roll
six one five dot com. Hey, before I let you go, UM,
I know that you know a lotof people look at you UM as
inspiration. You know, I mean, you're You're there now, whether you
want it or not. You're livingproof that you can turn your laugh around.
(11:56):
Change is possible, that it doeshas happened. What do you tell
people with no hope? Because I'msure you hear it from lots of folks
that don't have hope. Man,the two worst feelings on earth are helpless
and hopeless. And I can promiseyou that no matter how you feel right
now, neither are real that whowe were is not who we are,
(12:20):
and who we are is not evena peak into who we can't be.
And I believe that with all ofmy soul, and I believed it,
which is why I'm one of thefour percent of prison population that breaks the
cycle, four percent solely on thatbelief. Four percent. Really, they
say that the recentivism rate in prisonis ninety six percent. Wow, you're
(12:46):
already winning, my friend, You'vealready won. That's what I tell people.
Everything happened in my life right nowis just with Cram and Cherry A
great brown. Oh, man,Jason, it's great talking to you,
man, and I wish you allthe best. You're you know, you
appear to be a really good humanbeing. I love your story and your
music's even um. You know,I don't want to say your music is
(13:07):
better than your story, but youknow you compliments your story for sure.
Thank you? All right? Youtaking the time today? Than Oh I'm
coming to see you now. I'mcoming to see pick a market. Baby.
Let's do it, Denver, Let'sgo Finler's Green. I'm there almost
sold out. I had better tiedto my people's Oh we got you stopped that
Hey man, can you hear me? Okay? What's up with you?
Bubba? I can hear you?Good? How are you? I'm all
right? Jelly? Can I callyou Jelly? Yeah? For my mama
calls me. Well, I'm notyour mama. Hey man, I gotta
tell you. I think it waslast year, maybe maybe the year before,
(00:22):
during the pandemic. I think itwas the ending days of the pandemic.
You started coming into my feed onInstagram. I started seeing you singing
songs, country tunes. I startedsinging hip hop and they were like,
this guy can do it all.He's the amazing, amazing mister, please
please himself. And I was like, oh my god, this dude can
(00:43):
sing. And then I heard youdo simple man. I don't know were
you doing it with the shine downor was that just you in the studio?
Now that's what that was. AndI was like, that dude's got
an incredible voice. I mean,and then your story is even more credible
than your voice. And not everybody. There are people living underneath the rock,
(01:04):
my friend that don't know about JellyRoll, And I want to go
back and want you to just Iknow you. You're a busy man today.
You got a lot going on.We're gonna talk about the new record,
I promise. I know you've beentalking about your upbringing and how things
were you know, for you beforeall this happened, and I want to
hear it again because I want mylisteners to be exposed to it. No,
(01:26):
I'd love to share it, man. So I My name is Jason
jelly Roll d Ford. I grewup in Antioch, Tennessee, which is
a middle class, lower class suburbright south of Nashville, still in Nashville,
but its own area. And Ifell in love with music at an
early age because my mother loved music. And my mother was a woman who
struggled with a lot of mental healthstuff and addictive stuff, but music was
(01:49):
a real thing that kind of Iwatched her get out of her hole with
it, you know. And Iwent on and makes a series of bad
decisions from fourteen to twenty four thatwould lead to me spending about eight of
those ten years incarcerated. When Iwould come home at about twenty five years
old, I would have a daughterthat was almost two who's now fifteen,
and I have full custody of her. Finding out that she was being born
(02:13):
when I was in jail. Themoment that completely changed my life forever.
It was the moment where I wantedto turn it around forever, you know.
And and now to this day,me and her like best friend.
She's gone to church camp this week, or she'd be with me. She's
normally and told well, and youmet a beautiful woman that helped Jill on
the way as well. I did. Man behind, every man who changes
(02:36):
his life is normally a woman whowas cracking a whip. And this is
her, Bunny Is I met Bunnyand you know, we were talking about
this morning. We are fixing tocelebrate our seventh anniversary together wow here this
month. So it's it's been quitea journey. Man. She came into
my life. I was homeless,living in a van, doing shows for
(02:58):
two hundred dollars in a pack ofcigarette anything for the music. Yeah,
I feel like I was on TommyBoyle. I was living in a band
down by the river so bad.And she came in to help me get
custody, that little girl, man, and it changed everything. Was it
(03:20):
your voice? Was she just blownaway when she walked in and heard you
sing. I didn't even know Icould sing back then. I was rapping.
I was scared to sing. Ithought it was a bad thing.
I was a shower singer at best. Weren't you in a country bar when
you met her? Well, yeah, but I was doing a show there.
You were doing a hip hop ina country bar in Vegas. Yeah,
a country bar in Vegas on OldVegas on Freemont hip hop rap show.
(03:46):
There were doing a rap show there. Nobody showed up and she wasn't
there because we were there. Shedidn't know nobody was there. It's just
the blood. It was so bad, like worst case scenario was like a
soft ticket thing. Nobody knew us. We're doing original so it's bombing and
then waltch your your your future wife. I bet that you know a show
(04:09):
you would like to forget now youcan't. Yeah, but I'll think about
that show forever. Remember the timewe met, but nobody was there and
I was bombing on Fremont Street.Let's talk about that, your journey to
to to country and rock music.Like you just told us that you didn't
think you were much of a singer, that you were a shower singer at
(04:30):
best. When did the light comeon for you? Because you made several
hip hop records. I mean,you've been making music. I guess you've
been putting it out since twenty elevenor so. So I mean, when
did you decide that that you weremore than just a shower singer. Well,
I went out drinking one night andwe did karaoke, and I always
(04:54):
sing Bob Singer when I do karaoke. He's like my go to guy,
you know. Yeah. Um.Then when I came off a producer at
the time, I said, man, I don't know why you're not doing
more than that. And I said, more of what I said, more
of that stuff singing like that,I said, because I can't sing,
so I can't tell I sound likeyou've sing to me. And sure enough
(05:16):
that I started doing Bob Seeker duringmy shows and people were thrown away into
it. And then I realized I'vebeen trying to sing my whole life.
I was just scared to try.Wow. And then you know, you
start to, you know, gettingrecognized by the country community, and then
you're making you know, you're you'reyou're like helping to resurrect Southern rock and
(05:38):
I don't even think you meant to. Yeah. No, And if my
whole life is. I'm Joe Dirt. None of this was by design.
I didn't try to do any ofthis. You know, my story didn't
get out till I was in mythirties and carrying around the ball of shit
(05:58):
and I'm totally Joe. Yeah,but it's a it's a great story,
and it's all because you made thatchoice that that time in prison. You
didn't want you you weren't going togo down that path. And you're like,
well, what can I do withmy life? I damp sure don't
want to, you know, workfor a living. And then you find
out that I wasn't physically able towork this gracious, could you imagine me
(06:21):
with a job rest case scenario,I could have cooked at waffle House and
they had already sued me, soI had to take their name off a
record. And I think that they'dwant that sort of publicity. Yeah,
I'm telling you, dude, Ithink they should do a partnership now with
me to make it right at leastbunch of the tour. Hey, listen,
kid rocks inspire and remember he hada big debaccle with waffle House.
(06:44):
If he still rocks it, well, that's that's the part of waffle House.
That that makes it so enduring isthat that everybody has a debacle at
waffle house at one time in theirlife or another. Right, Yeah,
I've seemed I've seen some crazy stuffgo down in waffle houses, especially in
the South Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri. It's like fighting night. Yeah.
(07:12):
No, listen two o'clock, threeo'clock in the morning. Yeah, and
watch it like a TV show.It's like water Burger in Texas. Oh,
we used to go to waffle houseto people watch. For sure.
It was two, three o'clock inthe morning. We were still up.
We just go hang out. Wego sit in the corner and grab a
cup of coffee and just watch thefights. You know. And you think
that that waffle house would promote,you know something, a guy like you,
(07:34):
maybe even you know, get involvedwith the UFC. The waffle house
brings you fighting night. You know, we should partner. We should do
fighting nights at the waffle house,Joel, the UFC for waitresses, fight
patrons, fight security officers. I'mtelling you, you're an idea man.
(07:55):
You're an idea man that puts itin, that implements it. Uh,
you know, you're you see yourselfhobnobbing with these um you know, hobnob
but but now you're collaborating. That'sthe word I'm looking for with these uh,
with these country music stars and umand some of these rockers now and
they're everyone's paying attention to you ifyou don't know. Uh. Jellyroll won
(08:18):
the Mail Video of the Year,Mail Breakthrough Video of the Year, and
Digital First Performance of the which Idon't know what that is for Son of
a Center, which is a greatsong, and uh, we're playing me
to favor. That's what you're hearingon rock radio off of whits It Chapel,
which came out I think at thebeginning of the year, and now
this song is starting to take offon rock radio. You've single handedly,
(08:41):
like I said earlier, resurrected Southernrocking this song. I almost cried.
And you know what I didn't.I didn't even see the girl. I
didn't even see that part of thevideo. I just knew something bad was
going to happen. That dude walksinto the beginning of the song. I
was like, oh my god,it is about to go down, and
then the lyrics started tearing me down, and uh, it's an impressive song.
(09:03):
Man, it pulled my strings rightoff. You're talking about Southern rock.
That was the vibe. I wantedthis song to feel like an old
Southern rock and an old tent revival. Yeah, you know, like almost
like almost like Southern rock worship musicin this weird way, you know what
I mean. It's just kind ofthe mixture of I don't know if you
know this about me or not,but I love mixing stuff together. Yeah.
(09:26):
I think it's kind of kind oftake little things together, you know
what I mean. And just thingnow, you're an amazing cocktail bro.
I'm telling you what. There's bitsand pieces of all types of genres out
there that it's in your music.It's it's pretty incredible. There's not a
(09:46):
guy like you, really. Imean, people want to throw you in
that kid rock category whatever. Youknow. I think you're a little bit
more soulful. No offense to kid, but I think you got more soul.
Yeah, for sure, I think. Um, I think that The
cool thing. I think the onlydifference between what Bob does and I do
is that I just got to watchthe other I got to watch him as
(10:09):
a part of the evolution, right. So he's not like he was drawing
inspiration from all these things, andthen I was able to draw inspiration from
him too, So all these differentguys, I was thinking about Lincoln Park,
Right, I'll just never ever forgetthe first time I heard a Lincoln
Park record and was like, Yo, I don't know what's happening, but
this might be the coolest thing I'veever heard of about Yeah, that mash
(10:30):
up, it was cool. Itwas definitely something that we hadn't heard before,
right, And that's kind of mything, is that I want I
want to create stuff that we haven'theard before but feels like we've heard of
a thousand times. I think youdid it. You achieve that goal,
especially with this track. Man,I'm telling you, I'm excited. You
(10:50):
know what's going on this summer withyou? You're doing festivals and then what
tours? Baby Big Tar, theback Row Baptism toward forty four forty five
cities, first headlining Arena Amphitheater tour. For me, it's big. I
got to go out with Shine Downlast year. Brin Smith's dear dear dear
friend of mine, whom is Zachand um I got All year they kept
(11:11):
going, You're gonna headline these placesnext year and sell them out. I
was like, whatever, dude,going out this year, we're headlining them,
Dude, we're gonna sell them out. Bikes are still available at some
select market jelly roll six one fivedot com. I'm not too prideful to
ask now on this radio station sixgeller Roll six from five dot com.
You get your tickets, indoor cityor T shirt while you're there. One
(11:33):
more time, one more time forthe folks at the parties one five dot
com. All your needs for anythingjelly Rolled Tour related indoor merchandise jelly Roll
six one five dot com. Hey, before I let you go, UM,
I know that you know a lotof people look at you UM as
inspiration. You know, I mean, you're You're there now, whether you
want it or not. You're livingproof that you can turn your laugh around.
(11:56):
Change is possible, that it doeshas happened. What do you tell
people with no hope? Because I'msure you hear it from lots of folks
that don't have hope. Man,the two worst feelings on earth are helpless
and hopeless. And I can promiseyou that no matter how you feel right
now, neither are real that whowe were is not who we are,
(12:20):
and who we are is not evena peak into who we can't be.
And I believe that with all ofmy soul, and I believed it,
which is why I'm one of thefour percent of prison population that breaks the
cycle, four percent solely on thatbelief. Four percent. Really, they
say that the recentivism rate in prisonis ninety six percent. Wow, you're
(12:46):
already winning, my friend, You'vealready won. That's what I tell people.
Everything happened in my life right nowis just with Cram and Cherry A
great brown. Oh, man,Jason, it's great talking to you,
man, and I wish you allthe best. You're you know, you
appear to be a really good humanbeing. I love your story and your
music's even um. You know,I don't want to say your music is
(13:07):
better than your story, but youknow you compliments your story for sure.
Thank you? All right? Youtaking the time today? Than Oh I'm
coming to see you now. I'mcoming to see pick a market. Baby.
Let's do it, Denver, Let'sgo Finler's Green. I'm there almost
sold out. I had better tiedto my people's Oh we got you stopped that
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