Getting Real with John Morgan: A Country Star with a Story Dreams Are Made Of.

John Morgan’s journey to country stardom is the stuff of movies are made of. While chasing his dreams from small-town Sylva, North Carolina, a chance connection through an Uber driver led his music to Jason Aldean. Not long after, John got a life-changing call—Aldean himself offering him a record and publishing deal. Now, with his debut album Carolina Blue out, John shares deeply personal stories through his songs. One standout, “Kid Myself,” reflects on the painful choice to leave behind everything he knew—his family, family business, his hometown and hometown love, plus the comfort of small-town life—for the unknown in Nashville. Today, he’s married with three kids under three and living a life that once felt like a dream. His story is proof that taking a leap of faith can lead to something truly incredible.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Ada carryl Lyne. She's a queen and talking and so
she's getting really not afraid to feed its episode soul.
Just let it flow. No one can do were quiet,

(00:24):
cary Line, it's time for Caroline.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
All right. I'm pretty excited to have John Morgan in
the house.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
It's good to be here.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
What's going on?

Speaker 3 (00:37):
A lot? A lot, A lot's going on?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
I mean a lot for you?

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah, a lot of flying lately?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
You like flying a lot?

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Sure? Yeah, it's uh, there's perks for sure. I like
not having a drive through the middle of the night
when we're doing late runs. That's nice.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Are you bussing it these days? Are you banning it?

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Vannye?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Okay, So you're making some money then, actually or trying to?

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Yeah, because if you're in.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
A bus, there's like it's pretty much like there's no
money in a bus. I know, what do you think.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
About just to have a chance at making money? We'll
put it that way.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Isn't it crazy though? All the work that you have
to do, all the travel, all the energy, all the
people that are coming with you, all the energy exhausted,
and still you barely make money, especially someone like you
as like a number one with Jason Aldan Crickets, like
huge song on the radio, like you're blowing up, but

(01:36):
it's still like people think, oh, you must be like
rolling in the dough.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, there is that conception. Yeah, I think I don't know,
you know, started out riding and been a rider for
like the last three or four years predominantly, and that's
kind of kept us afloat on the road over the
last couple of years. So it definitely helps, but it
doesn't stick around very long the time. You know, there's

(02:01):
a lot going on on the back end of things
that you know, if you're not in it, you probably
wouldn't think about it, you know, so it adds up.
But it's been good. We've been We've been all over
the country. We just got back from Cali, So I
don't know what time's on I'm in right now, but
I'm here Central. Since you're back.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Are you living in Nashville?

Speaker 3 (02:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Okay, yeah, And you just had a third baby?

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:26):
How old are you?

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well? I didn't have it, but.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Your wife, your wife is a rockster. She like you'
allre kind of back to back to.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Back, right, Yeah? Yeah. How my daughter, my oldest daughter
just turned three. My son's going to be two in
October and then they got a four month old.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, I'll make my days off count, I really do.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
So you just decided you're just gonna have the most
jam packed years of your life, Like you're gonna have
this magical moment where you get discovered from an uber
and Jason Audie becomes your best friend and then you
write like sixteen songs for him or something. Yeah, and
then you decide to put your own song out as
a duet with him, and then have three babies on
top of it and tour NonStop. Yeah, did you get

(03:12):
married in there?

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Sounds like a good plan, right?

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Did you get married in all that time? Or have
you been married before? Like when did you Hale not.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
Been married before? When did you clarify?

Speaker 2 (03:21):
When did you and your wife?

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Let's see three years ago? Three years and so.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Okay, so you'll just gone right to babies.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, just just don't worry about the math on that.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
You know who's doing everything in order, not.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
Me, That's for sure. It's been great man, We've you know,
I feel like if you do plan certain things in
your life, they probably never happen, you know, And it's
like you just plan, plan, plan, and then you know,
keep putting it off for whatever reason. And not to

(03:58):
say that my way was the best way, but sometimes
you know, yeah, you get blessings in the skies and
you just kind of you know, appreciate them after the fact,
and then when you're in it, you're like, wow, I
needed this, you know, like this was good for me.
So that's kind of that's kind of where I'm at.
But yeah, it's been Uh, it's been fun. Trying to sleep,

(04:19):
it's been fun. Not too much time for that, but yeah,
back to the airplanes. I do sleep pretty good on
an airplane now, So that's good. That's good. Yeah, especially
six hour flight back from Sacramento. Okay, Yeah, that's that's
where I slept.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
So Okay, so you have a couple. You're kind of
a surprise guy, so like pregnancy, a little bit of surprise,
like Jason Idine calling you on the phone, changing your life,
a little bit of sixprise surprise. You're kind of like
a blessed guy. I guess, so you get like big blessings.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, I'm extremely blessed. I like I said, I just
I feel like I just kind of take take it
as it comes, and me and Ruby are just vibing.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
So Ruby's in love.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
She's just like animal.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
She came here, she threw herself on you. She's like,
I am born to love. Yeah, you're a big dog guy,
I can tell.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah, I got I get to myself. I had I've
had a laboratory remixed since she was like five weeks old,
and I couldn't when I moved to Nashville, I couldn't
bring her with me. So she lived at my parents'
house for like three years, and then I finally got
to get to bring her back down. So she's she's back.

(05:32):
But I love dogs.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Okay. So you grew up in North Carolina in a
really small town. Yeah, okay, how many people?

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Uh, I'm not sure what the population is now. I
think when I was coming up there is probably it's
probably like twenty five hundred, which is okay.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
So you definitely knew everybody. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, what's
that light? Growing up in a town like that.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
I loved it, honestly. I felt like, I mean, it
obviously depends on the community you're in, right, Like I
feel like you're in a rough community that's not ideal.
But thankfully I kind of came up just a small
little mountain town up and up in the Blue Ridge,
uh Parkway area and the Smokies, and I don't know,

(06:21):
just good people there. Yeah. I feel like probably the
reason for that, it's just very deeply rooted, Like there's
a lot of a lot of my mom's side of
the families live there. Forever. I grew up in the
same house my mom grew up in.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
You know that kind of way.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, it goes back pretty far. But
I enjoyed my time in North Carolina, and especially coming
up there was you know, forced you to be outside.
There wasn't like a lot going on like there is,
you know downtown in a big city where you can
go and do things. You kind of gotta you know,

(06:55):
make up things to do, so big imagination. Yeah yeah, uh,
not really anything smart came out of that.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
I would escapades when you were growing up.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Uh, we just honestly, we'd like to go on a
lot of my buddies had like jeeps and stuff, so
we would go out and just you know, find a
place to get stuck and then try to pull each
other out.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
What is that with guys? I do not understand that
in the slightest we're just.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
Waiting for something to break. You know, this is somebody
can pull their toolbox out. I don't know, it's just
killing time. And you know, being out in the woods,
that was my biggest thing. I just like being out,
you know, and nature and like doing a lot of
you should do a lot of backpacking. And we would
go hike up a place called Seiler's Ball back home
and you know it would just go camp for a

(07:46):
couple of nights and enjoy, uh, enjoy that part of
the country. It's a beautiful place to grow up and
you don't really acknowledge it until you leave and come back.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Honestly, I know when you grow up in a small town,
you kind of feel like do you feel like maybe
like you want to ever like escape, possibly want to
see a bigger city and want to see what's out there.
And then once you get out there, you're like, man,
how do I get back here? I can't get back
here fast enough.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
Yeah, that was kind of me with with Nashville. I
was just kind of like, thankfully I knew what I
wanted to do when I moved here, so it definitely helped,
you know, on that end, of things, like I knew
why I was moving here, but I was also excited about,
you know, just being in a different place for a
minute and kind of being, uh, you know, on my own.
I'd lived on my own for a while, but you know,

(08:30):
it's just different when you're in a different place and
you have three friends as opposed to knowing everybody right
like we were talking about. So, yeah, it was a
lot of fun. And I feel like Nashville is a
good city to live in too. It's not like too
overwhelmingly big, but you know, it's still kind of got
a small town feel, especially if you're in the music industry.

(08:51):
I feel like everybody knows everybody.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
So it's getting bigger though, I mean definitely, yeah, yeah
for sure. Did you have any encounters in the woods
when you're growing up with anything crazy, like.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
A big foot encounter or something with Yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Feel like if you're camping out there all the time,
I just want to know, like, did anything crazy happen
out there when you're sleeping in the woods.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
Uh, I'm trying to think I've had I've had some
sketchy people come up on me through the because like
where I grew up, part of the the app Trail
cuts through there, so you can kind of hop on
part of the app Trail. You can honestly hike it
as long as you want and then kind of get
off at different locations. So there's always some interesting folks

(09:32):
coming through there that have like been in the woods
for a month, you know, and there's like extremely rural
and uh yeah, no, it's I've had a few of
those encounters, but not anything. I think I've had a
bear come up on me one time, but bears are not.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Like what do you do when a bear comes up
on you?

Speaker 3 (09:48):
Honestly, I don't know how they are anywhere else really,
but back home they're pretty skittish because they're just like
we just have to notinly have black bears. So if
you like make a loud noise or move quick, they
just run off most of the time. But definitely don't
pet them. I saw that trend happening where people are
like petting bears and stuff, and like.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
It's a terrible trend.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
Yeah, don't do that. No, that's that's that's a little
over the.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
Line, I would say.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
So, yeah, maybe throw a rock or something first. Yeah,
that was I've been seeing videos I don't know why
people think that's something to do.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Dumb.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
You said it, not me, you said it.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Okay. So you're growing up in North Carolina two hundred
and fifty twenty five hundred people knowing everybody. You're singing
with your family. So your mom's a singer and dad
not my dad?

Speaker 3 (10:43):
No?

Speaker 2 (10:43):
Okay, so you're just singing with your mom. Are your
parents married?

Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (10:46):
Okay, your dad's not a singer.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
No. My dad was the He was the guy that
could tell you, like any band in the seventies, he
could tell you. He could tell you like what show
he saw Matt back the time. Yeah, he was. He's
he's like the CREWDS guy. Like he was, you know,
always looking at you know, the binders and sin who

(11:10):
who produced it when it was you know, cut and
release and all that stuff. So he's like kind of
the more database kind of guy. But my mom's kind
of more of the musician like singers. She played piano
and stuff. So that's where I learned to like sing
and sing harmonies and stuff like that was from her.
But yeah, I wish I wish I would have paid

(11:30):
attention to my dad a little more now because it
was you know, uh, you know interesting now it's like
a big part of what I do. People ask me
those questions all the time. I'm like, I should probably
know that, but yeah I should. You would definitely be entertained.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
What's he like of.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
I don't know how to describe him in a short
way now. He's just a funny guy. He just uh,
just old school. That's probably the best way to describe him.
But yeah, he's he's very knowledgeable and in the in
the music, like terminology and knowing different bands and stuff

(12:12):
that I would never have otherwise known existed, especially in
the seventies because there was like a million underground bands
back in the day that people were vibing on. And
he was just I don't know why he knows him,
but yeah, that's kind of I grew up with that
side of things. And then my mom is like I
grew up singing in church with my mom and like
doing all that stuff too, So kind of had a

(12:35):
cool upbringing as far as like music influence. You know.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Do you have siblings.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, I've got an older sister who lives in Columbia, Missouri,
and then I've got a younger brother who's he's in Atlanta, now,
were they singing with you or is it just you
and your mom? No, So my mom really was the
one who just kind of taught me, you know, how
to hear notes and like harmonies and stuff. And then

(13:01):
my two cousins they started playing instruments and taking lessons
about the same time I did, OK, And so we
just kind of fell into this like band. We were
like a little family band, you know, when we were young,
and it snowballed into us like doing one hundred and
fifty two hundred dates a year, like through middle school

(13:21):
through high schools. Yeah, we were going like every weekend. Yeah,
you're like getting booked, Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
Making money, yeah, like decent money.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
I bought my first two cards with music money cash.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
Yeah, it was. It was good. It was a good gig,
especially for you know at that age, is you're doing
something you love doing, You're getting to see the country
a little bit, and then you know, I think it
was a good a good foundation for me, like knowing
the road life that I know now, just in the
sense of like you know, you got in it to

(14:00):
be out there, you gotta love doing it to can't make.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
It if you don't like it. No, it's too hard
and grueling.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
Yeah, it's a grind, and I feel like you, especially
Sprinter life is not too enticing to a lot of
people for whatever reason.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Why do you think, I.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
Don't know, I can't figure it out.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
I've been there for hours on end. Yeah, like six
other dudes.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
Yeah, a lot of good smells in that van. No,
it's just I don't know. I'm thankful for honestly, for
that time, because it did, you know, prepare me for this,
and I knew what I was getting into when I
signed up for it, so I had to give a
break from it. Out of high school, I kind of
I left the band, started doing my own thing. That's

(14:45):
when I fell in love with songwriting. I was like,
this is cool. You know that whole world kind of
opened up to me about, you know, songwriters in town.
And you know, I started noticing certain writers on certain
songs with certain artists, and I was like, okay, that
started putting two and two together, and that's when I
kind of caught that bug. Was just I just wanted

(15:06):
to write my own stuff. So getting to do that
now and back on the road. So life is good.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
So are you like a manifestor like, were you like
a big Jason audienfan or something like did you like
manifest that? Like yeah, were you like listening to all
his albums and like knowing all his songs and like
I'm gonna, like, I'm going to write so many songs
for him, Like he's going to be one of my friends. Yeah,
were you like putting that out there because y'all's story
is insane to me?

Speaker 3 (15:32):
Yeah, it is wild. It is wild. I wasn't. I
didn't like manifest any of the stuff that's probably happened
in the last couple of years. But I did kind of,
you know, tried to manifest the successful part of it
and being like, I am gonna make money doing music.
That was my goal. I just wanted to do something

(15:54):
you know, that was music related and be able to
make a living off of it. And so I knew that,
you know, publishing deal was was that ideal situation for me.
So that was kind of what I was in full
full pursuit of when I moved here and just really
buckled down. I mean I was twenty four twenty three
when I moved here, so I was a little bit

(16:18):
older than probably most people when they you know, decided
to come to Nashville. But I'm glad because I knew
what I wanted to do, right, So I wasn't I
didn't come out here and waste time. Definitely burnt through
a lot of money just because of the you know,
difference in rent. I went from paying like three point
fifty in rent to like twelve hundred, So that was

(16:39):
a fun adjustment. But uh huh, yeah, I mean it's
national has been very good to me. I have no complaints.
I've made a lot of really good friends here now.
And the friends that I had here initially all successful guys.
Now it's cool to see them kind of get their
dues and you know, kind of do it together. It's

(16:59):
a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
So I'm sure you are kind of getting tired of
telling the story, but you have to tell your story
because it's like this is what dreams were made up,
Like people think, not that you hadn't put in the
years ahead of time, but like the actual moment is
so bizarre to me that this is how like your
moment happened. Because you're like writing in an uber right, yeah,
just like with a random uber driver. Yeah, and then

(17:31):
you see him again a year later.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
Yeah, yeah, it was. It was twenty nineteen when I
started like making trips down to Nashville and I was
crashing on Buddy's couch and just writing with whoever would
write with me. Right, And during that time period, I
had never really seen Nashville, like the city part of it.
And so we went out to eat one night and

(17:57):
got an Uber and we're like, you know, just chatting
with this guy. Nice dude. He starts telling us about
how he'd been in town for like twenty years writing
songs and I had had some cuts with a few different
artists over you know, the years and all this, and
we kind of take it with a grain of sault.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
In Nashville, You're like, is everybody's a songwriter?

Speaker 3 (18:15):
Yeah, You're like, you're driving Uber, come along.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
But now you understand it's like you've got to be
driving Uber to.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
Actually make money, right, exactly exactly, But yeah, I kind
of took it with a grain of salt and just
you know, chatted for a while, dropped us off, pieced out.
I never thought i'd see him again, you know, went
on our own way. Well, like you said, fast forward
a year from that, I finally moved to town. I

(18:41):
was living here. I got a part time gig over
at Opry Mills, working at Lucky Brand. If you can
imagine that, you did, I did. Yeah, love that did
seventy five percent discount sold me. I was like, all right, I.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Mean, Lucky jeans were all the rage. What do you
mean we're are currently still? I mean you're wearing him now? No,
I'm not, but I can make that your signature style,
you know.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah, I mean I'm all ears if they they want
to reach out. I'm pretty sure I'm still employed there.
I don't think I actually quit. I might still, I
might still be employed, but no, I was just working
one day and, like I said, a year after that
Uber drive right, and I'm working and this dude walks in.

(19:24):
I'm like, I know this guy from somewhere.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
That's crazy. You actually remembered him.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Yeah, I mean you just you know, how do you
see somebody's face and you're like, I know, I feel
like we've met and.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Y'all had like a pretty in depth conversation.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
It sounds like, yeah, I mean for the time that
we had, Yeah, I felt like we got to know
each other pretty well. But yeah, I just kind of
you know, we just kind of hit it off again
and I realized that he was my uber driver from
a year earlier, and we started chatting. He was like, dude,
some of me because I told him. I was like, man,
I'm just kind of grinding and writing songs and you know,

(19:58):
making demos in my bed room and uh, you know,
whatever I can do to to get my foot in
the door. And he was like, well, I'd love to
try to write some stuff if you're down. And so
this was like all during COVID, right, so it was
kind of a weird time just in general. But we
ended up getting on Zoom when we wrote I think
three songs just he and I and we started like

(20:21):
probably two other ideas and he hit me up a
couple of days after we wrote the second or third song,
was like, man, I'd love to pull some of my
buddies in on these on these other two ideas if
you're cool with it, just to help us, you know,
get them get them done. I'm like sure, and uh
so he ended up pulling in. Uh Jason al Dean's

(20:44):
bandmates Kurt Allison Untilie Kennedy, and they had been writing
together for ten years just for for Al Dean's stuff
and and whatnot. So we ended up finishing I think
two songs all together, all four of us, and they
sent those songs to Jason as a pitch like were

(21:06):
them Yeah, I was singing the demo and so they
sent him to Jason and he was like, songs are cool?
Like who is this kid? I've never heard of this
guy in my life, So yeah, it was probably I
would say two weeks after that, I was cut my
grass one day and get a phone call and thankfully

(21:29):
answered it, and he was like, hey, man, this is Jason.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
Now Dean, what do you what in the world? Yeah, like,
what do you do when you get that call?

Speaker 3 (21:39):
I mean I was. I was sprinting inside to find
my roommate because I'm like, if this is real, I
need a witness. You know, this is not a prank call.
But yeah, he was just super cool. He was just like, man,
you know I heard some of your stuff, and you know,
I just wanted to chat with these Like we started.
I started to publishing company and a record label a

(22:01):
couple of years ago, and we've been kind of waiting
for the right time and the right person to come
along to sign and kind of be the flagship.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
Have you never even met you? Did he know? Had
he seen a picture of you or anything?

Speaker 3 (22:15):
I don't. I like to think not.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
He just heard your voice. It was like that guy
like that is wild.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
So I forgot this. So it was probably before he
called me till one of his bandmate said text me.
I was like, hey, man, can you just real quick,
like throw down an acoustic version of you, like singing
one of the songs we just wrote just you and
a guitar or whatever. So I'm like sure, Yeah, literally

(22:44):
had grass all over me like this. I think it
was just might've been the same day, and I like,
I just remember being covered in grass. I'm like sweaty,
you know, and I put my phone up and I'm
like playing this song down, play it, get it done,
send it off, don't think anything else of it. Right, Okay,
apparently that video got sent to him. Yeah, that was

(23:05):
my showcase.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Honestly, that's perfect. It's not all done up. You're a
real person.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
Yeah. I think that's kind of what they were going for,
like let's just see what it is we're all, you know,
because that's a good place to start. But apparently I
was did good enough past my exam, and yeah, it
was really cool. He's just he's been such a cool
guy to have in my corner in a lot of ways. Yeah,

(23:31):
it's just very knowledgeable about the industry and knowledgeable about songs,
and he's got a great year for songs. So it's
been cool to have that to bounce some things off
of and say, hey, I like, what would you do
here in this situation.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
You can just chat him and talk to him any
time for advice. Is he like your mentor kind of
if you need it if you have a question when
you just holler.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
At him, Yeah, I mean I try to be respectful
of his time, you know. I know how it is now,
you know, trying to have time for family and all
that stuff. But yeah, if I have a question, he's
always down to hop on a call or you know,
text back and forth. We text quite a bit, just

(24:14):
stuff like that, especially with you know now, it's been cool.
The interesting part is seeing him put on like a
cool label head hat, you know, where he's like he's like,
it's like, hey man, you gotta help. You gotta make
some decisions here, you know. And he's been so cool
about like just being really involved in my stuff. And
you know, really having a voice and stating his opinion.

(24:37):
You don't ever have to wonder what he's thinking. He's
one of those kind of guys. Yeah, I love it.
I love it. He's very honest with me. It tells
me straight up. So we connected pretty early on because
of that. I was just like, man, I'm kind of
the same way. I don't I'm not trying to be
us anybody. I don't have time for that, like you know.
So he keeps it real with me, and it's been cool,

(24:59):
kind of uh, watching our friendship and work relationship developed,
it's cool.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
So you start off as a writer. So after you
got that phone call and you major, you know, your
pitch video, and did you get signed right away? Was
it pretty fast?

Speaker 3 (25:14):
It was pretty fast. Yeah, I would say a couple
of months.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
He got signed straight to his publishing company. Yeah and
label or just publishing company? No?

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Both?

Speaker 3 (25:22):
Yeah, both.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
He signed you as an artist and a writer right away. Yeah,
Holy cow, John, I'm sorry, that is incredible.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
It really is. Looking back on it, I mean it's
just you know, I think, you know, like I said,
was weird in a lot of ways. But I think
for me, the blessing for me was that he wasn't
on the road as much as he would have been
probably had that not been the case. And so I
think he was kind of looking for a reason to

(25:55):
invest more time into this thing that he had started, right.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
And maybe he hadn't had the time to do it yet,
you said, right, Yeah, so this was kind of his
moment where he's like, Okay, let me really focus on
my publishing company, record label.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yeah, and it takes a lot of time, Yeah, it
really does. So yeah, it was a blessing for me
in that regard. But yeah, it's it's been fun. I've
really enjoyed, you know, Like back to something you mentioned earlier,
like I never manifested I was going to write all
these songs.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
For him, right, sixteen sixteen is that right?

Speaker 3 (26:29):
I guess sixteen cuts I believe so far.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, you've had hits with them too, A couple of
number ones maybe like the Carrie Underwood.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
Do at Yep, that was my first cut. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Are you like, what is life or did you always
just know this was going to come?

Speaker 3 (26:44):
No? What is life? For sure?

Speaker 2 (26:48):
No?

Speaker 3 (26:49):
You know you always like I feel like you have
to believe in yourself to an extent. Right, because why
would you move down here, Why would you take a
chance on selling and leaving everything, you know, if you
really don't believe in yourself enough to do it and
make it right. So I think that's always kind of
been there. But then, you know, I guess expectations get exceeded.

(27:11):
When something like that happens. You're like, WHOA, I did
not see that coming, Like now, you know, like for
me being an artist, like was the ingle dream, Like
I always wanted to write my own stuff and be
able to perform it. I knew that writing would probably
make that more acquireable a lot faster, and so that's

(27:36):
what really made me kind of shift gears and be like, Okay,
I'm seeing a tram with some guys who are like
starting off as songwriters before they're like putting out their
debut record or like doing these things that artists do,
and it's it's seemingly like to me, I was just like,
it makes the most sense, right, because not only are you,

(27:59):
you know, getting some of that financial help that does
allow you, like we were talking about earlier, to support
you on the road, but it's also like helping you
find your sound too.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah, it's very true and find.

Speaker 3 (28:12):
Your voice, Like, what do you want to say? As
an artist? You know, I feel I was always like
under the impression I didn't put out any music on
my own before I moved to Nashville.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Because so you didn't have anything out there, no, nothing,
even with your former band.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
I did, but that got to take that up.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
What were y'all called? Please? Was your name?

Speaker 3 (28:30):
That's a story for another time.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
Is it still out there?

Speaker 3 (28:34):
We'll see if you find it. You're on your own? No,
I there are some there's some stuff out there, but
nothing under my name, you know, nothing like that was
me as a solo artist. So I was just always
like very critical about what I was writing because you know,
that was one of the early lessons I learned and

(28:56):
moved to Nashville, was like you get here, you start
writing with guess like signed writers, hit writers, whatever it
may be, and you're like, the process isn't that much
different than what I was doing back home before I
knew any of the industry lingo or like platforms or
layouts for songs like bridges, and like, before I knew

(29:17):
any of that stuff, I was still at the core
doing what these guys are doing, which is coming up
with an idea and like trying to write to that
idea as much as you can and like hopefully it
has a flip on the hook or whatever. Like I
didn't know what any of that stuff was, but I
was still trying to do it. And that was a
cool thing. When I started writing with guys here that
were signed and had stuff going on, it was like, Okay,

(29:41):
I can do this because my ideas from North Carolina,
like before I moved here, they weren't bad ideas. I
just wasn't hitting them on the head, you know what
I mean, And I didn't know how to get them there.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
And so totally, but honestly, I think the hardest part
about songwriting and having songs that really connect or having
real ideas which I feel like you obviously connect with
like truth, because I mean, Jason fell in love with
all your songs. Your album is awesome, Like it's so
good kid myself, that one hits me so hard. I'm like, man,

(30:13):
that song is so good, thank you and you just
put it out Carolina Blue. Yeah, but all your songs,
I feel I can feel your story through them, Like
it doesn't feel like you just came to Nashville. And
you just like got in a room with hit songwriters
and you're just like writing a song trying to chase radio. Yeah,
which I feel like is exhausting. You know when you
hear a new artist and it's like, oh my god, Okay,
anybody could sing this song. You know, I actually feel

(30:36):
like these are your stories.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
That's cool to hear.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
I mean, I think the other part of that and
why that it probably is is because I had four
or five years to like prep for this debut project.
Right I was writing songs predominantly. I just had a
pitch first mindset, like, oh, let's see if we can
get so and so to cut this or whatever. I
was trying to work those angles like first and foremost.

(31:02):
But then when we would write something where I was like, oh, like,
for instance, when we wrote Carolina Blue, it's probably it's
probably close to five years old now. When we wrote
that song, I was like, if I ever put out
a project, this will be the title track.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
How did you know that?

Speaker 3 (31:19):
It was just I don't know. I just knew that
it was just a light bulb moment.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
I guess how you like Miss Carolina?

Speaker 3 (31:28):
Yeah, it was just it represented me really well. I
feel like in that moment, it was probably the most
it's probably the best representation of me at that time.
So I was like, I'm gonna hang on to that one.
I knew it probably just because of the song format,
like probably wouldn't be a radio single, but I was like,
I'm gonna cut that song, you know. And so this

(31:50):
album is just a culmination of all those songs that
hit me that way when we were writing them, and
I was just like, I like that, that's something I
would say as an artist, you know. It was the
same way. It was like that would be fun in
our live set, you know. So we cut it and
put it out and then obviously ended up reworking it
with al Dean and kind of revisiting that whole thing.

(32:10):
But yeah, it's just it's it's been a lot of
fun to to do that. I had a lot of
fun on the production side of it because I got
to co produce this whole project.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
That's awesome.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
Yeah, with my buddy Brent Anderson. And shout out to
my label for being very cool and letting me be
his hands on.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Broken Bow is a Leader and letting artists be artists. Yeah,
we were talking about with your publicist and manager earlier,
and it's like I feel that way, like Broken Bow
really lets artists be themselves, which they should. That's the
whole reason why you're unique and special and people want
to hear what you have to say. Anyway.

Speaker 3 (32:48):
Yeah, well I signed something to change it.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
You know, it makes no sense.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
Yeah, I agree, it's That was one of the big
you know, that was one of the big selling points
for me with the with the label was just like
early on they made it kind of known that if
you're doing it and it sounds good and it's up
to par with everything else, you can have some creative freedom.

(33:13):
And that was very encouraging because I was like, with
this specific project, I just wanted it to be as
authentic to me as it could be.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
And this is going to set the tone for the
rest of your career exactly, you know, and like you're
the amount of control you have personally and the amount
of stay you have, like you know, you standing your
ground and like being such an integral part of the
production and picking the songs and how it sounds like
that sets the tone for the rest of your career. Yeah,

(33:42):
and if you turn it all over now, then you're
going to get lost in the whole system.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
Which is happens very often.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
It's a sad story to.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
Say it is it is. Yeah, no, I agree with you.
I think you know. It's just it all starts with
the song too. Like if you don't have the songs,
good luck, you.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
Know, totally, but you can't make I mean, you can't
really turn what do you turn anything into? You know,
you're trying to pull magic out of a hat. Yeah,
you can have like the look and a voice, but
it's like the songs are who the artist is, you know,
that's actually the soul behind it all.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
Yeah, that's what fans connect to, my opinion, is the song.
They they're able to take a song like Carolina Blue
that talks about Carolina very specifically and hopefully translate it
into their own life and like relate to it in
that way. And that's that's the fun part about songwriting
to me, is like writing something like you said, that's

(34:36):
something I'm I either lived out or was very close to,
saw happened or whatever, and then leaving it just vague
enough for people to put themselves in your shoes, you know,
and and hopefully connect with it on that level. But Yeah,
I just had so much fun. It reminded me when
I got to produce this whole thing. It was reminded

(34:57):
me why I moved here, you know, I got I
got here. I was here for, like I said, a
handful of years focusing on this and that, and then
you kind of get in that grind where you're just
like you got to zoom out for a minute and
be like, Okay, I'm about to do my debut out,
my first full length album, Like I want to do
it right. I want to do it the way I
would have wanted to done it five years ago before

(35:20):
I moved here, you know. And so it was just
so much fun and like a creative release way of
just like getting the block off like a month and
a half, two months of whatever, touring and everything to
just get in the studio and like woodshed like just
actually getting the weeds on stuff. And we just basically

(35:43):
like created a bed for all the tracks in Brent's
basement studio and just like beat her head against the
wall until we got it where we wanted it, and
then went over to Farmland Studios, did overdubs there and
had drums and bay and steel and that was kind
of our process. So it was very h low stress

(36:05):
on that end of things and gave us a lot
of control on the front end.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
So when are you having time to fall in love
in all this process? Are you breaking hearts? Are you
the heartbreaker? Are you the breaking You have some songs
on this album She'll Always Be Kid Myself, which I
personally that's when I keep coming back to to listen to.
I'm like, man, that song is just hypnotic. It's so good.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
But it feels like maybe you might have been a heartbreaker.
Are there some women? One woman?

Speaker 3 (36:48):
Some women? All right, let's pause for a second, no plural.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Because you had like one relationship that was pretty big.
I need to know.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
I think I need my attorney here for this. I'm
just kidding. No, I mean it was pretty normal. I
had a few relationships, you know, back home, but you know,
it's like some are more serious than others, right, and
those are kind of the ones that you remember more.
But yeah, that was that was about a specific one

(37:21):
that I was in before, like I had decided to
move to Nashville, and so.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
I left that relationship back home.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
Yeah, it was, Uh, I'm feel.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Like breaking up with your hometown in every aspect almost.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
Oh, yeah, it was. It was a clean, like cold cut,
which looking back was you know, I didn't realize that
it was that at the time, but it definitely was
in a lot of ways. But yeah, it was just
bad timing. You know. I felt like it wasn't necessarily
like two people that just would never get along. It
was just I was in a headspace of like, like

(37:59):
I'm happy in a lot of ways, like I'm making
good money, I'm you know, I was about to take
my dad's business over, like trying to do all these
different things.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
Bought a piece of property in your hometown. Yeah, what's
your dad's business.

Speaker 3 (38:12):
He had a property management business, So.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
You were getting ready to plant some roots in your hometown. Yeah,
and then you had like a crisis moment and you
just like bolted, Well, thank.

Speaker 3 (38:24):
You for putting that in such a good light.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
Now, trying to find your trauma.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, hey, John, I don't know that I had as
much trauma, but it was I just knew that, you know.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
But you were literally like you're buying land, going to
take over your dad's business. You're probably like in your
early twenties. This is right before we live to Nashville. Yeah,
did you and your dad have have issues? Did he
get mad at you for not taking it over?

Speaker 3 (38:49):
You know what? No, my dad's, like I said, he's
very old school. But he's always been supportive of me
doing music. That's the one thing I've always been thankful
for both of my parents. I mean, you know, my mom,
you know, didn't like a lot of the stuff that
I was writing about per se and in the beginning,

(39:10):
but you know, they've always been supportive of me doing
this because I knew I loved it. You know, they
knew it was something that I was passionate about. And
I spent so many hours and days and late nights
done in my dad's woodworking shop, like literally just one

(39:30):
one piece of equipment at a time. I would slowly
move out because at that time he wasn't he had
added on this section to his shop right to do
all this woodworking, and he had all these tools, but
it was a hobby thing for him and he didn't
really have a lot of time to do it at
that time, and so I would just slowly move things
out until I made it into a music room, and

(39:51):
so I would, you know, basically live down there was
like a little studio apartment. I would just I finished
the finished it out, put flooring in, panted it like,
you know, put all my music stuff in there. So
it was it was like a time of life where
I hadn't done I'd been out of music for like
two years at that point too.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Okay, so you was over. Yeah, you were kind of
at that spot where it's like, Okay, I kind of
probably need to figure something out, make a move here,
and so your your choice is the probably the right choice,
felt like, to take your dad's business over, Yeah, to
probably marry your girl that you're with, to settle down
by this land. And then you start the process and

(40:33):
you have a freaking panic attack, don't you. I've had
a couple of panic attacks in my life that I've
done some majorly crazy things, because when you're starting to
embark on the wrong course, even though it's not like
your dad's business is wrong and this woman's wrong, but
it's like, you know, that's not where you're supposed to be. Yeah,
oh my god, you had that moment.

Speaker 3 (40:55):
Yeah, I feel like most people probably have right. Yeah,
that it's like pisser, get off the pot, right, what
woes to you?

Speaker 2 (41:04):
Honestly, I'm just saying, like I have had we have
a closer right now who's going through divorce with a
kid because the wife figured out the moment too late,
you know. So like I know, like the heartbreak up
front sucks and like doing that in the beginning, but
I admire you for doing that before you bring kids
into the world. Not that you can't repair any of it,

(41:25):
like anybody can move on from anything, but like for
having the gusto to just go ahead and like pull
the band aid off right when you start to realize
it instead of let it get a deeper, deeper deeper
into it. It just gets harder the longer you drag
it out. How did you know that you had to go?
Like how did you know? And like how did you tell? Everybody?

Speaker 3 (41:46):
Uh? Kind of irish good by a lot of people,
I'll be honest with you.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah, basically by like woke up and you just weren't there.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
Well, you know it's hard to tell people, you know.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
Like, yeah, it's the absolutely it's the worse.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah, So I just avoided that.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
You're deeply committed relationships and taking over businesses, talking about marriage.
That's that's difficult.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
No, it was I think. I mean, you said you
have the moment where you're like, because I just remember,
there's a specific moment because I so I went to
college for a little bit too, right in between quitting
the band, and then I was like, oh, I'm going
to go down to college for I had no idea
what I wanted to do, so it didn't last long.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
You knew you wanted to do music, Yeah, exactly, just
trying to figure something off because music might have felt
like too far off or something it did.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
Yeah, it was. It was kind of an unachievable like
pipe dream for sure, that you're going.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
To try to be reasonable and try to get a
real job, get some skills. Not that you didn't have
like skills just from growing up where you did, but
like I had skills, I know. I mean y'all have
skills when you grew up in the backwards North Carolina.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
I would not not not as many as I'd like
to have. But yeah, you definitely. I was just kind
of in that spot where I'm like, Okay, I tried this,
I did this. I'm happy enough, but am I like
truly happy?

Speaker 2 (43:07):
But you knew it because like that inner, that inner
calling was calling hard. But yeah, it's a hard one
to answer, very.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
Much so, and I'm you know, I'm a homebody. Anyways,
I love North Carolina. I'd probably still live there if
I didn't do all this. Yeah, yeah, I mean seriously,
it's just a great spot to live. And yeah, I
don't know.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
I just remember, Okay, so you tried college, and now
you have a moment and you're like coming back home,
you're settling down, You're gonna commit to this life.

Speaker 3 (43:38):
Yeah, and then yeah, and then I don't know, I
just really I was just like I'm not happy, you know,
I gotta, I gotta. And I knew music had been
out of my out of my life, like I said,
for a year or two years.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
At that point, and you had really missed it.

Speaker 3 (43:54):
Yeah, I didn't realize it, but I was like I
was just not in a good headspace. It was just
kind of I wasn't like it takes a lot for
me to like flip a switch, but I wasn't necessarily
in that mode. It was just more of like kind
of lethargic about things that I should have probably been,
you know, more focused on. And so that definitely hurt

(44:18):
that relationship. If you can believe that. But yeah, it
was just bad timing. I mean, that's that's kind of
what that song kid myself is all kind of self
explanatory about.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
That, like an apology almost, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
It is, and honestly to myself a little bit too.
You know, it's like, you know, it's the truth. Yeah,
it just is.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
I mean, it's the truth. When you're in your early
twenties and you're like trying to be the man that
you think you're supposed to be stepping into, but your
soul is calling you to be something else and you
no one quite understands what you're calling is but you,
and you don't really even understand your calling. Yeah, and
then you finally decide to go for it. But yet
you have to leave this past life and all these

(45:00):
people who love you, who want you here. I mean,
how can you make a perfectly clean break. It's gonna
be messy, it's gonna be hurtful, and it's gonna you
don't have the tools or even you don't know what
you're doing, you know, because you've barely even been alive
enough to have a clear idea on how to do
any of this correctly. You don't even know where you're
going or what you're trying to.

Speaker 3 (45:20):
Get to exactly.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
You just know you're not where you're supposed to be.
So it's definitely going to be a mess.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
Yeah. And as you've learned, I'm very much a planner
not uh so you know factor that in No. I
just it was. It was just a moment where I
just remember being home, not happy, knew that I wasn't
where I needed to be, and I was just like

(45:46):
my friend who's actually my drummer and now he he
would text me. Moved about a year before I did,
from North Carolina to.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Right Nice, so you had somebody, yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
And he was like, man, he would hit me up
every weekend. Come you gotta come down, You gotta come
you moving, like, come on, come on. And I was
just like, you know, that was kind of the back
of my brain too a little bit at the end
that moment, and I'm like, man, if I'm gonna do it,
i gotta go now. It's like you said, I gotta.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
I got gotta go now because if you start playing
the roots, it's gonna be so hard to get out yep.
And and it's so hurtful to everybody because it's aready
gonna hurt now, but I it's gonna really hurt later.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
Yeah for sure. So I yeah, just irish goodbye to everybody,
and here I am.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
Maybe that's why I like kid myself so much, because
like I feel your turmoil in that song. Yeah, like
I actually feel it. Like I'm like I feel all
your songs like they're so great, but like when I
feel that one, I'm like, man, you really you really
went through it with that one, Like it feels so real,
Like that felt felt like a moment in your life
that was like a pivotal turning point.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
Yeah, that's that's a good way to put it.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
Was just to change everything for you. Really.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
Yeah, I wouldn't be doing this had I not made
that decision.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
You know.

Speaker 3 (46:56):
I think I get asked out a lot. What would
you tell, you know, somebody who's wanting to move to Nashville.
I'm like, the biggest hump I think is just actually
getting here. It's taking taking that leap of faith. True, Yeah,
because you're not You're not relevant. If you're not here,
if people don't see your face, there's a thousand other

(47:18):
guys standing in line to take that slot. So why
would they pick you, they don't remember that if you're
not relevant in their mind every week.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Showing up for it, showing that you're willing to show
up and like get here and like be here. Something
about that, even if it's like subconscious, that goes a
long way.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
It does. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
So when you did he'llbilly slip irish could bye and
get here? Did you were you excited? Like how did
you feel when you finally landed in Nashville. I'm guessing
you moved in with your drummer or like stayed with him.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
I did stay with him for a little while and then.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
You freaking out? Are you like, oh my god, I'm
so relieved?

Speaker 3 (47:52):
A little bit of both, but also like what if
I die? Yeah? Yeah? Also, how am I going to
pay rent?

Speaker 2 (47:58):
Did your parents get on board right away? Was it
a little bit of like you had to finesse that
for a little while to get back to good graces?

Speaker 3 (48:07):
I think once? I think once my dad and I
kind of made peace with like, hey man, this is
not my calling, Like you know, I love doing this
and working for.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
You, and you love you.

Speaker 3 (48:22):
Yeah exactly, but it's just, you know, this is what
I feel like I should do. And like I said,
very supportive. There was never an issue about that. It
just I think they knew a little bit more about
what I was getting into than I might have at
the time, and so there's probably that fear of just

(48:42):
like it not working out and being like, oh they gamble.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Yeah, so and then your dad probably needed to move
on and get someone else to help him, and yeah,
so it was like a window. It was just a
window for everything.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
Yeah, it was, you know. And then it's like you
look back and thinks fell into place like they should
have so.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
With you and everyone, or like when you look back,
like I mean, I don't know if you want to
talk about this, but like, do you feel like it
all worked out for everybody for the better? Like all
because you've posted something, you're like when you walk back
into your hometown, all the versions you could have been
or something, Yeah, looking at do you feel like everybody
ended up where they needed to be?

Speaker 3 (49:22):
I think so, yeah. I mean I think it was good,
you know, the business side of it, like it was
it was. It would have been a grind for me
doing that too. I mean I would have been running
a crew and doing a lot of back and forth.
His business was like an hour away up in Cashiers,

(49:44):
North Carolina, so it would have been it has just
been a lot on that end of things. But you know,
he ended up finding finding a buyer for the business
that bought him out, and so there's little things like
that that were like good confirmation things where I'm like, wow,
it was that's cool to see, you know. But yeah,
I would say, I mean, I hope, I hope it

(50:06):
worked out in the best way for everyone. It definitely
I feel like it did for me, so selfishly, I'm
you know, grateful, but it.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
Kind of like the whole Jason Alden story falling out
of the sky, it's almost like that feels like confirmation too. Yeah,
you know, because I do feel like for every action
there's an equal, equal and opposite reaction. It's like Newton's
law physics. So it's like you made this huge action step,
like you made a huge decision to like go a
different way, you know, and like put everything into it.
So like you put all that energy into this decision.

(50:38):
So it's like it's that's kind of like karmically circle
back around and find you. So now it kind of
makes sense why this like big thing feels like it
fell out of the sky. But it's like you made
that big energy push, you know, so it kind of matches,
kind of matches up.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
Yeah, it does. It's like you said, you gotta have
you gotta make that decision.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
You have to and it's risky and it's scary, and
it's like you have to go straight into the freaking
forest with all the trees and thorns and bears and
like just like grey' any of them, just like keep walking.

(51:22):
So how did you meet your wife?

Speaker 3 (51:25):
We actually met at a birthday party when we've both
been in town for like not very long. Neither one
of us had a lot of friends, and yeah, we
ended up meeting at her Let's see, it was her
her best friend from back home had moved down here
for work too, and she was dating a guy that

(51:47):
I was friends with at the time.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
Best friend was dating you were friends with?

Speaker 3 (51:51):
Yeah, okay, And I didn't know any of them, but
he was like, hey, he was a new friend in town,
and he was like, I'm having a birthday party, you
should come. So, like by the end of the night,
she gave me her cupcake and I was like, I
like her.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
Yeah, did you all start dating right away?

Speaker 3 (52:09):
Uh no, no, no, we Uh he was kind of
off and on for a little while. I was like
hyper focused on like getting signed.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
I was just like, you hadn't had all this stuff
happening when you met her.

Speaker 3 (52:26):
Uh No, I was still mixing demos in my bedroom,
working at Lucky, working at Lucky a lot more than
I wanted to be. Yeah, it was definitely not this.
It was. It was a lot, a lot more of
a grind in a different way. You know, you're trying

(52:46):
to make a name for yourself, You're trying to get noticed,
You're trying to, you know, let people see you as
a legit artist or a legit writer, and like keep
that pressure on yourself to be consistent and any opportunity
you got to be in a room like you gotta
gotta be on right. So yeah, it was just a
lot of that. So I was like not even close

(53:06):
to being in that headspace.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
But when did the timing circle background.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
Uh, it really quizzed me on this time and stuff.
I'm trying to think it was not too much longer,
maybe a year after we met initially, probably. Yeah, Honestly,
it's that whole era of my life is kind of

(53:32):
a blur in a lot of ways because we literally,
like I found out we were having Willie and I
was like immediately going on tour. So it's like, this
is amazing, I'll see you in a month, you know.
Uh so it was. It was a fun time. But yeah, again,
it's just like same kind of thing. You have little

(53:53):
little things along the way that are confirmation that you
know it's gonna be good, it's gonna be all right.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
How has fatherhood chained?

Speaker 3 (54:01):
Uh, It's changed my perspective on a lot of things
for sure. Uh. You know, just you know the phase
of life we're talking about just now, it's like you
have all these dreams and aspirations for yourself, right, I
want to do this, I want to achieve this, I
want to do that. Now it's like I have a

(54:23):
whole different mindset, right, I'm not nothing is about me anymore.
It can't be right. And that's I needed that as
a human being needed that. Oh yeah, yeah it was.
I'm not. I would never say I was like, you know,
obsessed with myself kind.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
Of person driven.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
Yeah, you are subconsciously in a lot of ways where
you're just like focused on me and me. What am
I gonna do and this, how is this going to
work for me? And you know, and then your whole
world gets rocked when when you get a little girl coming.
And definitely definitely gave me a lot of perspective changes,
but also like you know, uh, you're grinding for different

(55:06):
reasons now too. You know, it's like to give them
a better life to you know, make sure they're covered
on all ends and make sure they're taking care of
I mean, that's the majority of my drive now is
like doing that. So yeah, it definitely has changed me
in a lot of ways. You know, made me a
better person in a lot of ways too, just in

(55:28):
the general you know sense of that. But it's it's
so much fun. That's the thing that you know, I
didn't realize what happened. I like I knew, I always
knew I wanted to be a dad, right. I was like,
messed a lot of things up in my life. I'm
not going to be a screw up dad. That was
the one time I made myself that promise. And you know,

(55:50):
so it was like I knew I was I knew
I was going to do all the stuff right, check
all the boxes. But I didn't realize how much fun
it was going to be, like just having you know,
a little three year old daughter that can like speak
more intelligently than me. Sometimes I'm like, where did that
even come? How do you? Yeah, it's it's so funny,

(56:12):
just like watching them develop and personalities and all that
stuff is it's very fun. And it goes way faster
when you're on the road, so you have to like
absorb it when you get a chance. But it's it's
so much fun. I love it.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
I actually didn't know I could love as deeply as
I could. Like it, Like I've never felt a love
that hurts, you know, Yeah, it like hurts your existence.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
It does.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
It's painful in the best way, in the best way.
It's just like it literally it's like the most painfully
beautiful love because it's so much bigger than yourself, Like
you're saying, yeah, like because like I was the same way,
so motivated, so self motivated for so long and then
have a daughter and it's like, oh my god, holy cow,
like nothing I could. I don't even know what I
was dreaming before. Like I really don't even care. I

(56:57):
know I do, but not at all, like I do saying.

Speaker 3 (57:01):
That's one of the funny questions that people have asked
me and last year's like, so what do you do
for fun? And I'm like, I honestly don't remember. I
don't even remember what hobbies are, you know. I'm like,
I just when I'm home. I'm home now, and I
just like hanging out with them and trying to, you know,

(57:22):
spend time there. But yeah, it's it is funny, Like
thinking about that, it's like, what did I used to do?
I mean, like obviously nothing too uh too productive, I guess,
But yeah, it's it's amazing. There's nothing like it, you know.
I feel like, again, you can plan something to death,

(57:43):
but at the end of the day, it's it's like
some some things are better, uh when they come out
of left field, you know.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
Hm, Well, John Morgan, this has been so fun your soul.

Speaker 3 (57:55):
Yeah, yeah, you get a lot out of me.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
I was like, I'm going to find that spot. I
was like, I'm gonna get to it. I'm gonna find
that treasure trip. I Okay, before we wrap up, though,
where can everyone find yourself? Carolina Blue is out debut
album You got to single out with Jason al Dean.
Did just go number one?

Speaker 1 (58:13):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (58:13):
A couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
How fun is that?

Speaker 3 (58:15):
It's pretty fun?

Speaker 2 (58:16):
That feels pretty great. Friends like that. Crickets was out
before that.

Speaker 3 (58:20):
Yep, great.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
And then is, uh, is a kid myself gonna be
your next single?

Speaker 3 (58:26):
I hope so I believe so yeah, yeah, got a date.
I think I can say that.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
I mean, I'm just saying I hope it's your next single.
Whatever y'all decided is great. Your whole team's like, yeah,
maybe we haven't data.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
I like that song is so good. Yeah, I'm glad
that's your next single. I was just calling it. I
don't even know anything about your team or what you
have planned, but like I just personally was calling that
for the next It's amazing.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
That's a little confirmation. Appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
That was the one that was like oof, this one, Yeah,
this one's good. This is like this is real, real, real, Yeah,
thank you, thank you home and it is also like
the melody is so hypnotic.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
Well, Tyler Hibbard had a huge hand in. That was
really with Tyler. The first time I met him, first
time we wrote, I was really nervous about it and.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
I bet yeah Georgia line.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
Yeah, well you have this perception of like who somebody's
gonna be, and you're like, I hope he's cool and
so cool, Yeah, so cool, great writer. I stayed up
all night the night before, like trying to get an
idea that was worth.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Anything, and didn't write any of them.

Speaker 3 (59:30):
No, well, we actually it was it was like the
one time that was a confirmation thing for me in
the writing sense, because I'd kind of been focusing a
lot on artists stuff and it was like, get this
big right, and I'm like, Okay, I gotta get back
into this mindset. And so I was like going through
phone titles on my phone the night before and I

(59:50):
came across the kid myself. I was like, that's interesting,
and then I like found an old guitar riff that
I had just laid down for whatever and kind of
marry the two and then literally wrote like a full
scratch course just to get myself there and got the
hook as teed up as I could get it, and

(01:00:10):
I went in the next morning and pitched him another
idea and we chased it for like two and a
half hours, and we just hit a wall and I
was like, oh, my god, of course this happens.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
My nightmare.

Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
Yeah, and it was just one of those moments where
you're like like, I don't even know if I can
get through this now. So I was like, hey, yeah,
I was like, hey, I've got this other idea called
kid myself and whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
When you hit a wall and there's just no coming
back from it, like you can't force it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
No, you can't, especially when everybody hits it and you're
just you feel it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
I'm really going to try to wrap this thing up
and die or can we just like move on?

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
I probably whipped that one out in like no time.

Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
Right, Yeah, probably two hours. It was wild and you
just kind of fell out and yeah, Tyler was had
a huge hand and getting it where it needed to be.
So it was a lot of fun. It's one of
the new it's probably the newest songs album, which is cool.
But yeah, I'm super super grateful to have this project
out and love the response we're hearing back on it

(01:01:09):
so far, and yeah, I'm just excited to get to
play some of these new songs out live too. It's
can be a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
I mean, I think you're just a testament to everyone listening.
I always like to like drop some good advice, but
like just follow your truth, you know, like you literally
have like followed your truth and you're living your truth,
and like things are coming to you when you're in
your truth. Yeah, and I think that that's like the
whole secret to life really. Yeah, And it takes a
lot of bravery to do that oftentimes.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
Yeah, it takes a work ethic too. You gotta have
you gotta be willing to put in the time doing
all the stuff you don't want to do to get
to do the one thing you do want to do.
And that's right. Yeah, my life, you know, in a
nutshell since being in Nashville is like I didn't sign
up to be a you know, a freaking comedian on

(01:01:59):
social media, but as part of the gig, right, you
got to get good at that. You gotta get good
at all these things that you didn't don't necessarily love
or like the stuff you have to do that come
with it to get to go do the big stuff
that you did you know, move here to do. So yeah,
it's it's a lot of fun, man. Yeah, you're right.
Just just step out and know if you know what,

(01:02:21):
if you know what you're trying to get to, then
you know, take it, take.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
That step I would drop up with leave your light
and it's just dropped some inspiration. What do you want
people to know, just to drop them a little inspiration?

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
Oh, just in general or yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
Just like a little piece of inspiration to inspire anyone listening.
It's on your own life.

Speaker 3 (01:02:40):
Yeah, I mean I try to. My life is music, right,
so like can't get out of that headspace. But there
was actually a girl that asked me this the other day,
like it's kind of a similar question what we were
talking about. Like, but if I'm if I moved to Nashville,
what's the first thing that I should do? I feel like,

(01:03:02):
if you are in that spot and there's a lot
of people you know that are you know, just for
one note, know who you are as a songwriter, like
write songs. It doesn't even if you're not the best,
you know, songwriter, like you'll be able to figure out
what your sound is or isn't. You know. That was
one thing that in the last five years, I didn't

(01:03:25):
necessarily know what my lane was sonically, but I figured
out what it wasn't for writing with other people. So
I'm like, this is really cool, And you know, if
so and so cuts this, then I'm gonna love chasing
that for them. But if if I were to do
it and I was the one cutting it, I might
do it a little bit differently. So I don't know,
I guess you know, And it's industry talk, probably not

(01:03:47):
what you were wanting. But like, if you are in
that spot and you're, you know, thinking about moving to
town or moving somewhere for a music gig, just like
buckle down and focus on what are you at the where, Like,
what are your strong suits, what are your weaknesses? Figure
those out very soon, because you know, you don't have
to be some well old machine when you get put

(01:04:10):
in a room with a hit songwriter or somebody that's
lined like you just gotta you gotta contribute in whatever
way the table. Yeah, be a chameleon, adapt to if
you've got a great lyricist in the room, focus on
the melody, focus on something else that you know is
in correlation with what they do. And I think it's
going to help you just all the way around us

(01:04:32):
as far as like having tools in your bag, you know,
when you do get in those situations, you can kind
of contribute no matter what the situation is. You know,
so yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
On Morgan, your story is so inspiring. Thank you, so
can I can we do like a tiny little you
answer like four questions and answer them and then I
have to wrap up to my daughter's graduating for preschool,
so this will be very fast. Thank you so much
for joining me. Your story was amazing, awesome John Morgan,
y'all get his album Carolina Blue. It's out everywhere and

(01:05:04):
it's so inspiring and I'm excited about kidding myself next.
I'm just happy that I called it. I still got it. Okay,
you're the best. Okay. Bye,