Transcript of Jason Aldean

Wndri Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free right now. Join WNDRI Plus in the WNDRI app or on Apple podcast, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcast. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Sheppard, and I'm joined by Monica Lily Padman. Hi. And in the Shadows, Wabi Wab. Today is our second guest we had in Nashville, but he was actually our first guest in Nashville. So delighted he said yes and came and was a guinea pig of sorts. Yeah, he was. Jason Aldeen. Jason Aldean is a Grammy nominated and Multi-Platinum entertainer. Albums include Highway Desperado, My Kind of Party, Night Train, Wide Open, Relentless. And he's on tour now, The Full Throttled Tour. If anyone wants to go see him play, everyone agrees he's so radical in concert. Go to www. Jasonaldeen. Com and go check out The Full Throttled Tour. Please enjoy Jason Aldeen.

I'm Jon Robbins, and on my podcast, I sit down with incredible people to ask the very simple question, How do you cope? From confronting grief and mental health struggles to finding strength in failure. Every episode is a raw and honest exploration of what it means to be human. It's not always easy, but it's always real. Whether you're looking for inspiration, comfort, or just a reminder that you're not alone in life's messier moments, join me on How Do You Cope. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts or listen to episodes early and ad free on WNDYRI Plus. How Do You Cope is brought to you by Audible, who make it easy to embark on a wellness journey that fits your life with thousands of audiobooks, guided meditations, and motivational series. Hello, I'm Jon Robbins, comedian and host of WNDYRI's How Do You Cope podcast. I'm also, Plot Twist, an alcoholic. I've written a book, Thirst: 12 Drinks That Change My Life, published by Penguin. Thirst is a book about alcohol. It's mystery, it's terror, it's havoc, it's strange meditations. But, John, I hear you cry. Isn't that a rather odd book to write for a sober man who more than anything wants to stop thinking about alcohol?

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You're from Maken?

Maken, Georgia, yeah.

Imanee is from DeLuxe. Oh, yeah. We were talking about it. Oh, you already covered that. And you know, he's a huge Bulldogs fan.

Well, yeah, we were He was saying his sister went there.

Kind of a religion down in Georgia, college football. It really is.

My fast pass to piss Monica off. If ever I want to wake her up, I just say roll tide. Now, I have no allegiance to that school.

My wife graduated from Alabama, so she- Oh, boy. That was really unfortunate.

A house divided. Yeah.

And does she watch all the games? How into it is she?

No, I feel like she duped me a little bit because when we first met, she's like, Oh, I love college football. I love watching the games. I'm like, Oh, it's perfect. I found the perfect girl.

Yeah.

And then a couple of seasons in, she's like, Just tell me if they won or lost. She doesn't really watch the game.

It's more about going to the games.

It's more about dressing up in your gear for her, at least.

A lot of people don't understand that in the South. You dress up for games. You wear dresses, you wear heels. Or like, formal. Not like a long dress. Normally, it's like a cute boutique dress.

Very preppy at the SEC schools.

Interesting.

It's a whole thing. It's so fun.

Now, let me ask you this, Monty, when you were doing your tailgate parties before these games. When it was time to go into the game, we were like, Fuck, we got to go into the game. Yeah, of course.

Yeah, that's fun. Especially back then, they didn't sell any alcohol inside. Exactly. So you're like, You have to go inside, you're done drinking. You're like, Well, tailgate party is over. Cowboy boots are always a good thing for that. Cowboy boots, then you shove it down in the boot.

Shove it right down. Even if they pat you down, probably they're not picking up a pint.

I'm not going to pat you down on your ankles, really.

Okay, I wonder how you'll feel about this. We went to a Texas game last year with Matthew McConaher. We were his guests. It was very nice that he invited us.

You must have met him, right?

I've met him over the years, briefly, backstage at award shows, those things. But I haven't really spent a ton of time with him, but he's like Mr. Texas, Mr. College football.

He's like, if You're in Austin with Matthew McConaher, it's like being at Disneyland with Mickey Mouse. Yeah, it really is.

He is the Mickey Mouse of Austin. His jacket and that hat are going to go in the College Football Hall of Fame at some point, I'm pretty sure. It's like a staple now.

Yeah. So we went as his guests, but they were playing Georgia.

I don't think that ended too well for Texas.

It sure did not.

Remember, we are guests of his in his box.

I was like, What do I do? I have to root for Georgia. I'm not going to go. Of course. Yeah, right? I wore a Bulldog shirt and a red sweater. I didn't go all out.

Just enough to be annoying to him. Exactly.

Just a thorn in the side.

Thank God he wasn't there. He was on the field. So we didn't ever- He was coaching the game. Exactly. We didn't have to make contact. But this was a little bit of a point of contention because I'm there. Dax is really trying to fit in.

Austin is my spiritual headquarters.

It's a cool town, man. It's the coolest. It's a really cool town.

But still, my allegiance.

Well, yeah, you can't flip flop.

Yeah, but A, we were his guests, B, I love Austin, and I wish I had gone. So, yeah, I was rooting for the Longhorns, and it almost ended our friendship.

Yeah, this was a big friendship issue.

College football has a way of doing that sometimes. It's almost my marriage a couple of times.

Kind of ironic that you married a girl that went to Alabama in your favorite band's, Alabama.

Yeah, I grew up a huge Alabama fan. It was like my first memories of music from my dad and having a record collection and sitting down and playing those. Like the big vinyls, just learned where the little marks were where you put the needle and I had a big set of headphones with a quarter-inch cable, and I would sit there and play those records over and over and over. Alabama was just the band for me that I always gravitated towards. It was country, but still cool. It had some rock and roll, Southern rock. They were a club band that started in the bars and made it into Nashville, got a deal, became one of the biggest bands around in the early '80s, and so they were just always my Beatles.

Yeah, what did dad do in Maken?

Well, my dad was in the Air Force. My parents met when they were in high school. Dad joined the Air Force right after that. And my mom got married. He got stationed in Germany. Then they came back. They were living in Valdosta, which is a little south of Maken. He was stationed at Moody Air Force Base. I was born. Then we moved to Homestead Air Force Base, which is between Miami and the Keys. He was a weapons mechanic on fighter planes. As a kid, I was running around the Air Force Base, climbing in planes, which was cool. But then they got divorced when I was three. My mom moved back to Maken, where her family was from. My dad stayed in Florida pretty much until I was 18 or 19, and then moved back to Georgia, and now lives about 10 minutes from me here.

My mom and dad also got divorced at three. I'm two years older than you, so I think we got all the same references. Fifty?

Have you hit fifty yet?

I've hit fifty in January.

Happy fifty, man. That's a big deal. It is. Something I never thought I'd see. You probably, too, right?

Yeah, it didn't look good for many You had that thought?

Yeah.

When you're young, and especially in this business, 28, all of a sudden, got some hits and go on the road and you're living the dream.

You've been preparing for this.

I don't really know that you can prepare for it. I think in your mind, you think you know what it's like. Then once it starts, you're like, it's not really like that at all. It becomes every day. I mean, you're on the road playing 200 shows a year, and so you're on the road 250 days a year, and things get a little off the rails sometimes. Sure.

Monday never comes when you're touring.

No. Everybody comes to the shows to have fun and hang out, and then you get home and all your friends at home haven't seen you, and they're like, Let's go watch Monday night football. So you're at it again. Took me a while to adjust.

Dad was in the Air Force, but he also played guitar himself, yeah?

He knew the basics, and I would just be at his house. My sister's seven years younger than me, so we didn't really have a lot in common at that time. I started wanting to play guitar, and he basically drew it out on notebook paper. I was like, Here's the frets. Here's where your fingers go. That's a G-cord. He would go to work, and I'd just grab his old Fender guitar and sit in there and mess around. He had a little band that would come sit at It was like a living room garage band, three of them, four of them, maybe. They would come play old Merrill Hager stuff. After a while, I started playing with them and singing all the songs. That was how it started. He started... It's like music theory, I guess. You start figuring out, Oh, these cords go with those cords, and those don't go with those. Then you start figuring out how to put songs together and you find a song like, Turn the Page. I mean, it's an E minor, so you're like, Well, I know that D goes with the E minor and what chords to go with that.

You go, Oh, once you know where it starts, you can figure it out from there. That's how I learned to play guitar. Even now, if we're learning a new song or something, and I'm like, What key is that in? B flat. I'm like, What the hell is a B flat? And then my guitar player will be, It's this one. I'm like, Okay, I know that chord. I play it all the time. I just don't know what it is. That's how I learn to play even piano. If there's a song I need to learn, I don't know what it's in. I just put the keyboard in middle C and I just figure it out. I couldn't go in a piano bar and sit there and play, but if you give me a day or two, I'll figure it out. It was like that with guitar, too.

I do want to see you in a dueling piano bar now, though. Yeah.

I turned into an acapella bar, trust me.

Were you always self-motivated like that across the board, or was it just solely music?

Sports was always my thing before, baseball, especially. From the time I could remember, baseball being a huge thing. Played every year, a lot of times on two or three different teams. I played school ball, rec ball, and then you'd have all-star teams that would become a travel team or American Legion team once I got to high school.

What position?

Well, I played first base in high school, but I was not going to play first base in college because I hit lead off and switch hitter with zero power. So I was going to have to make the switch. When I was going to go to college and play, they wanted me to play either short, second, or center field. I had already done that in summer league. I knew that I wasn't going to go to college as a first baseman and be a big power hitter. So I'd already started making the move to short and second. But yeah, I just always thought that's what I was going to do in some capacity. And the music was a hobby. In high school, I start playing in bars at 14 or 15 years old.

I definitely I want to get into that because when we interviewed Shania Twain, she, too, was in bars from a very, very young age in Northern Canada, which if you think it can get hickey in the South, if you go up to Northern Canada, they can rival.

I was just in Saskatchewan.

Yeah, It was going down in the '80s in those bars for sure. But I'm curious really quick. When mom and dad split, my version of it is I had lots of friends whose parents got divorced at 8 or 10 or 12, and they pined for them to get back together. I was three, so I didn't really have that fantasy. Same. But do you know with any stepdads?

Yeah, had some. Some not so good, some were great. My mom, probably a lot of times, was trying to make things better for us.

Especially a single mom when they have boys. My mom had two boys. She's like, I'm supposed to get a man in the mix, I think.

Or just married for the wrong reasons, not because they're in love with somebody, but because you're struggling as a single parent. You think that's going to fix the issue, and it just doesn't. I have a stepdad now who's great, David. They've been together for 15 years or something. Then my dad got remarried to my stepmom, Vivi. They've been married for 40 years. But yeah, I was like you, man. I mean, they got divorced at three, and them ever getting back together was never... I don't remember them being together at all anyway. I mean, I would be with my mom in Georgia, and then every year I'd go to Florida, spend my summers at the beach with my dad. End ended up moving to Titusville, Florida, which is right there around Cape Canavera, where they launched their shuttles and stuff. And so the beach was a 10-minute drive.

Back to the stepdads, because I know there's something there.

One of mine was a Vietnam vet who had some issues with that.

Addiction stuff?

Not really, just more he was a dickhead. Seventh grade or something and wants to bow up to me. I was this much taller than me.

And a man who's been to war.

Yeah. Oh, you're a badass. Yeah.

And then what would happen in school?

I always knew anybody that did that or any man that's bowing up to a kid like, You're a fucking idiot. Getting to school, that stuff never carried over to me. I got to school, I got along with everybody. I changed schools a bunch. I never went to the same school for more than two years in a row until I was in eighth, ninth grade. Sports was my end. Or whatever started. Even if I didn't know everybody or PE class, they'd figure out you could play sports, and all of a sudden, you get in with the guys, and it's cool. That was how it always was for me. I didn't get into a lot of stuff at school. You got along with everyone. I was sneaky. I wanted to do stuff and not get in trouble, not get caught. Yeah, same thing. I got really good at that.

I moved a ton as well. I got to start over a bunch. I showed up at one junior house. I was full-blown punk rock, Mohawk, let's go. I got to try on these identities pretty quickly because I was moving. I do think it weirdly helped me go to California, get into comedy, starting so many times at these schools, helped me buy into a persona that I would be selling right away. I just wonder if you think musically, maybe that all helped.

When you're constantly having to meet new people like that and bouncing around, and you can never get comfortable. My kids have friends they went to kindergarten with. They've been friends since they were little kids. I was like, Man, I didn't really have that. We were bouncing around so much that you just learn to be a little bit of a chameleon and figure it out as you go. I think I went to school one time dressed like Zack Morris. Coming back from Florida, blonde in my hair, looked like a total idiot. It couldn't be further from me.

Couldn't be further from you now, but if you had grown up like that, maybe that would have been you.

I just think when you're younger, you're just trying to figure it out. You're trying to figure out who you are.

You're going to get the most amount of girls.

Yeah. When the chics think you're going to be cool and bouncing around so much, help me in the music business and just talk talking to people and just meeting people and being comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. So I think that it taught me a lot about how to deal with those things.

We've interviewed a bunch of musicians, and I do find that musicians tend to have this weird split personality. I guess they'd be ambiverts, which is you have some extrovert in you because you want to be on stage. But learning music and getting good at music is such a solitary, isolated, introvert's pursuit.

I did that. Eventually, my dad bought me a guitar of my own. I was sitting around in my room with my tape deck and stuff I wanted to play. I would play it and stop it and back it up.

Did you have a four track?

No, I just had a dual cassette deck. My buddy that was in my band, he had a four track.

In high school, that was the fucking chalice.

That was ProTools back then. Back Then you could buy the music books, and they would have the cords mapped out. I would just sit there and figure it out and play. But you're right, you sit in your room a lot trying to get decent at it before you ever join a band and you interact with other players. I think there's a lot of that for me. I go on stage and do the show, and then as soon as I come off stage, it's like you hit the light switch.

I don't think there's a more stark transition on planet Earth than going from a stage to a hotel room in a foreign city.

I've had friends before that never seen a show in the early days. And guys that I've been friends with, and they finally come out and they're like, What just happened? That is not you off stage. For me, it's just there to put on a show. And I love that two hours. I get to put on my suit and tie and go to work. You get to be this rock star for a couple of hours. As soon as I come off stage, I turn the switch off and I go back to being dad. I got my kids running around backstage.

But how do you transition into the hotel room?

I don't. I stay on the bus, probably 99% of the time. And that helps? It's just my other house. So my kids are out there, my wife's out there.

Well, you're five feet from mine. You don't have to tell me about the bus.

With the Whalen logo on the back, it's awesome.

I'm so glad you saw that. I did. I had that put on there.

Was that actually Whalen's or did you put that on there?

I put that on there.

That was so cool.

But occasionally, I'm driving down the interstate and someone will speed up, and I think they think they're going to see shooter or somebody. I think they do think that somehow the ghost of Whaling is going to be driving the bus.

I don't know. It's funny to see that on a bus. Somebody I played a show for not too long ago had one of Willie Nelson's old busses. Oh, really? And they had it at their house. It was like a Lakehouse. They had it sitting out there, and it was basically like an Airbnb. You could come rent it out and sleep there. It's like one of their properties on the lake.

Does it reek in there, like weed still?

I don't know. I told the guy, I said, I think I was in this bus back in '97 when I still lived in Georgia, open it for Willy. I haven't I've been able to smell in 10 years, so I don't know.

Did you have an incident or just died?

No, it just died. No, it just nasal polyp. I'm supposed to be having surgery on this, but it hasn't happened yet.

Are you afraid that will affect your voice?

A little bit. I know it's going to probably sound different, and it's also just time. They're like, Yeah, it's going to feel like you got the worst flu for two weeks. I'm like, That doesn't sound like something I want to jump on. It just doesn't sound like fun. So I haven't had it done yet.

Maybe you go CPAP during the recoveries.

That thing seems annoying. I need one that just goes right here. The strap, it wakes up. I actually I tried it, I woke up and it's sitting on my eye.

It's a learning curve. My childhood best friend's on. A CPAP. Yeah, I constantly see him in different states of it all. He looks like a fire pilot, though, as he goes to sleep. I wish him luck on his mission.

I have a question. So since you do go on stage and you become a different version of yourself, do you feel like when you're out in the world, if you're at a restaurant or something and people come up to you or they're excited to see you, you have to code switch into that? Do you feel the pressure to be something for people?

Yeah. How big is the between Jason, the man, and Jason, the performer?

It depends on the situation. There's times where I know what I'm getting into when I go somewhere and you know that you're going to deal with it. Then there's also times where I feel like sometimes it gets a little inappropriate, if I'm at dinner with my family. It's like, Man, at least wait till I'm done. But it's hard because you don't want to seem like an ungrateful asshole. It's not that. I'm very thankful for everything. It's just like at some point as an entertainer, you got to be able to shut that off and give your family your undivided attention because they I don't really get it a lot. It's situational for me. If I know that I'm getting into it, I can prepare for it a little bit.

I can see it being harder as a country star, though, because I feel like people do expect a type of camaraderie.

I think it's similar to a comedian.

Yeah, probably.

When people see Leonardo DiCapri at a restaurant, they're like, Oh, my God. If they see Will Ferrell, they're like, Fuck, my bro's here. I'm going to go tell him how much fun I had. Exactly.

It's all in what they associate you with. I think they associate singers with being on stage or your highlight reels of your life.

And a party. It's party music. It's what you put on to have a good time.

For them, though, that's a moment they're going to remember forever. They're like, I got to take it.

That's the struggle. I understand that part of it, too.

I'm also a fan. I remember moving to LA, and you moved to Nashville when you were a kid. I remember being so excited. I saw Nicolas Cage at a gas station filling up his Porsche. I could have stayed there all day watching them fucking fill up that.

I've never seen a guy fill up a car like, How much deals is that tank?

Okay, so at 14, mom figures out how to get you a gig at the VFW Hall. And so that's your first performance. And does it immediately feel right? Are you terrifying or do you go like, Okay, yeah, this is what I'm going to do?

My mom and my aunt used to go play Bingo. If one of them hit it at Bingo, they got a little extra cash. It was a big deal. So there was a little lounge there that had a band, and so they talked to them about me coming in and singing. So I went up and did a couple of songs. I think I did Silver Wings by Merle Hager and Tracy Lawrence or John Anderson song or something. And I just remember at the time going, Man, I was just trying to play guitar and sing at the same time. Remember the words, remember the cords, remember where the solos were.

Were you a better singer or guitar player at that point?

Probably neither. Probably equally bad at both. I did that off and on. I remember singing a little bit with karaoke tapes. I started getting this house gig, I was winning these talent contests at our local bar and making one of the clubs just said, Hey, you want to come be a featured artist, play with our house band on the weekends and play four or five songs a set. And so at 14, 15 years old, I started doing that.

Did your mom have any fear about you going and spending four hours on the weekends in a bar?

Not really, because they had to be with me in the beginning. My mom would go to work, I'd go to school, and then after school, I'd have baseball practice. I'd get home, she'd cook dinner, go to the bar, and she'd sit there at the bar with me until one o'clock in the morning and then come home, and we'd do that two or three nights a week.

What bar was it?

I guess. Let's start there. It was called National South. It was a country bar.

How often were you seeing fights?

I mean, you're usually good for a couple of weekend.

There's stuff happening with women you're seeing that's new. All of it. Are you loving it? Are you feeling overwhelmed? Like, Oh, this is intense.

When I first started seeing it, it was like, Man, this is awesome. It just becomes second nature. After a while, you start seeing it and you're like, All right, you guys move. We're trying to fit.

You get desensitized and you know how to navigate it.

You don't even break stride after a while.

When she was talking about it, as I recall, what was interesting is she's a young girl, and she's seeing adults enter in one state of mind, and this is Northern Canada. And then a few hours later, everyone's acting completely different, and they're acting pretty different to her. So I imagine it's probably less scary when you're a dude in that situation. But also, I went to work at 15 at a race team in Detroit, and these guys were making jokes about butt-fucking me and stuff. And I was like, Oh, my God. This is way too much for me at 50. I just dropped into a 30-year-old mechanic lifestyle.

When the hell have I gotten into?

Yeah, I think it can distort your version of normal. When you're young and that's what's happening, I guess this is normal.

This is what happens in a bar. It's the way I took it.

By the way, did that make you cool at high school at all? Not really.

It didn't? It was almost like Jason's going to be a country singer. It was almost like maybe even a little nerdy. That's where the sports mitigated that. I would just sit outside on my guitar on the tailgate of my truck, playing. All my friends would come by, hawking and be like, What the fuck are you doing?

This guy thinks he's going to be Garth Brux. Exactly. Joke's on you, motherfucker. Yeah, right.

But I did that, and then I met these guys. They fired the whole house band at this bar I was playing. They brought in another band, and it was a bunch of young guys that were my age. Most of them were a year younger than me. I was probably 18 or 19 at the time. I met these guys. It was the first time I'd been around other musicians that were my age. And so we started playing, and that's where I started really figuring it out and getting to be a better guitar player, learning to play with the band, and being the frontman of a band that was playing our sets instead of getting up playing four or five songs. All cover Junk's Justin Weaver, a guy that was in the band who lives here in Nashville now, who I've been friends with forever. He and I would write a few things, but for the most part, it was-That's what people want to hear. Yeah, you're playing the top 40 country songs at the bar. They want to hear Achy-breaky heart. They're waiting all night to hear those things. That was where I started really having fun.

We started traveling with that band, and we were all the same age.

Now you're having the community that you would have on a sports team with peers. When you're with these older dudes, I'm sure they're being nice to you.

But you're not part of the This was my first band where I felt like it was my crew. We went out, and my dad managed us at the time. He would go out and make sure we got paid because club owners love to rip you off. It was a cool deal. I got to spend a lot of time with my dad when I graduated because he had lived in Florida, had just moved to Georgia when I graduated. Now I got to go on the road, spend a bunch of time with him.

You have a great relationship with him, it sounds like.

I do. I think a lot of things. It's probably been a little up and down over the years, different times, but he's great and super great granddad to my kids. They probably love being at his house more than they love being at our house, honestly. But no, I have a great relationship with both parents.

Okay, so then you moved to Nashville at 21. You get signed and dropped quickly, a couple of times. A couple of times, yeah. Then you end up with broken bow records in 2000?

2003, I think, is when they signed me.

Okay, so this is where you and I have almost an identical journey. I moved to LA, and I'm in LA trying for eight years, and at some point going like, When we quit? And then pretty much start working at 28.

That's when it hit for me.

So for me in that eight years, A, I had a blast. My life was great. I had a good time. I was broke. I was drunk.

But you don't know any different. I didn't know any different.

But what was really hard on me was my friends and peers were working. And the people I performed with at the Groundings, they're all in commercials and they have apartments. Just watching people around me for eight years succeed or have agents or this and that was fucking brutal. I would have already been an addict, but definitely super that because I was just scared. You're like a boy, wanted to be working at a bar at 15 and then have your own band at 18. What were those eight years like?

When I moved to Nashville, I felt like, man, I'd been building this thing down in Georgia and Florida. We were selling out big bars down in Georgia and Florida and making a name for ourselves. And then all of a sudden, I get the call to the big leads to come up here and write songs for Warner Brothers. So that's how I got my foot in the door. I think I'm going to show up. We're just going to pick up where we left off, and it was just not even close. It's humbling. I realized that the live part of everything was what I had been working on that I had down. But what I didn't have was being in the studio and learning how to capture that on tape and being a better singer in the studio. And really, when you're in the studio, you start hearing all your flaws and all the things that you don't really hear live. We started working on that part of it a lot. But yeah, I just think it was getting better at that stuff. And that seven years of being in town going, Oh, we want to sign you.

And then I was signed to Capital Records for a year, and they kept going, Oh, we're going to let you go in and cut four sides. And then a couple of weeks out, they go, I don't think we got the songs. And they would cancel it. I did that for a year and a half.

And when you're in that situation and you're new, are they telling you what songs they want you to sing? Or are they saying, Hey, here's some great writers we know, meet with them. How does that work?

They're bringing in songs. You're trying to find songs, and then you collectively sit down and go, Man, we think this is the best. And that was always a big thing for me is that I just didn't want people picking songs from me. I feel like that happened a little bit early on in my career When it did happen, it didn't go well. I'm a stubborn dude, especially when it comes to that. If I want to fail, I don't want to put the blame on anybody else. Fail with your idea. Yes, I can at least accept that. So at this point, even making records and stuff, now we go make the album When we're done, it's like, Here's your record, and here's the singles, and that constant chirping in your ear of, I like this song. Well, this is my favorite song. Everybody's got an opinion. I'm like, I just don't want to hear all that noise. I just want to go make my record and go, This is what I think is cool. That's how we are now, but obviously, it took a while to get there, too.

This is such a basic question, but I don't really understand. When you sit down with someone who's written a song, they're a songwriter, you meet with them, and they play you a demo of them maybe doing it?

They'll do a demo. They'll get a singer or somebody, or maybe they sing it.

Great. Now, when you hear that, and let's say you respond to it, you're like, Oh, there's something there, whether it's this hook I like or it's this piece of it, how do you put your fingerprint on it? Then are you looking for a way that's like, Okay, great. That's a great suggestion. Now, how do I make it mine?

I think that's the easy part. To me, it's fine in the song. If the song says something the way that I would say it, melodically, it's something that I think is cool. A lot of the tongue and cheek lyrics, I stay away from that. But if it's something I feel like, man, that's my song, it's as simple as just my band cuts everything in the studio, so we go in and we've done it enough now to have the system down. We find the key that it's in and let them do their thing. We'll dial it in a little bit. But for whatever reason, you get all of us in a room and you start recording and it just comes out the way it does. There's not a magic button that happens. It's just that's the way everybody plays. It's the way I sing, and that's the way we hear it coming out.

That's the recipe.

And your producer who you've done all these with, Michael Knox, when does he come in the picture and how does he help create that magic that you get in there and it always comes out this way?

Yes. We're talking about the young band that I had. There was a club in Atlanta called the Buckboard. It was up in Cobb County, somewhere up there, right next to a strip club. It was awesome. Boomers, and then you had-One-stop shop.

Yeah.

Everything-stumble out of the bar and go to a strip club.

Sure. What a night.

But they had a house band there, and sometimes that house band would have bigger shows around town. They'd play a festival or something that was going on. The guy, John Galatio, who owned it, would call and be like, Hey, can you guys fill in for my band that's out? It started like that. He would do a showcase where he'd bring people in from Nashville and showcase the best bands in the area to try and help them get a deal. At the end of the day, he probably got a little kickback off of that. We were all paying like 500 bucks to get into this thing. So Michael Knox was there, saw me playing a couple of songs we had written that night, and that started that journey. He flew down to see me play some shows in Florida and then brought me to Nashville, went in the studio, cut a couple of songs.

Okay, now back to the stepdad thing, it's like a strange dude enters the picture. You show promise to him, but you guys got to start working together, and you have to be receptive, I imagine, to what he brings to the table, whatever his genius is. And is that hard for you or easy?

It was just new to me. I don't this guy, but he's interested in what I'm doing. Maybe this is an opportunity in your business, in my business. You just need a break. You need somebody to give you a shot. That's the biggest thing. Maybe this is it. I learned a lot from him. He's like my mentor, my guy that taught me a ton about being in the studio and how to capture all that stuff. He's the guy that goes home and obsesses with all this stuff and making sure levels are right, and this guitar cuts through like it's supposed to. He's that guy.

Did he have an approach that you think worked particularly well with you He's like a big brother to me.

He's from Maken, Georgia. He's from my hometown and just happened to be the vice president at Warner Chapel here. His dad was Buddy Knox, who was a '50s singer with Buddy Holly and those guys. He's just been around it.

Back when one in Five Musicians was named Buddy.

Yes, clearly.

You respected him, it sounds like. Yeah.

That's a huge piece. He was like a big brother that was in the business. He was a VP of a major company in town. For whatever reason, this guy took me under his wing and wanted to help me, even when I would get record deals and lose them and those things. Yeah.

How are you staying resilient in that period?

I think definitely losing confidence. You come into town with plenty of confidence. That's too much. A little too much confidence. It's like, Oh, they're waiting on me to get here.

Big fish syndrome.

You realize, man, there's a lot of people here that are a lot better singers than you and have a lot more going on than you have. Like you were saying, you're watching your friends get deals and go on to have success, and you're just like, Shit, maybe it's not going to happen for us. Maybe I'm going to end up working at Pepsi again. You don't know. Having somebody like him to be your side and go, Hey, give me gift cards to be able to go eat dinner at Applebee's or Applebee's gift cards or whatever. If not for him, I probably would have ended up back in Georgia and reevaluating my life, probably.

You might be in rehab right now. Probably.

Very likely, actually.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, If You Dare.

The town of Agde in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex. But lately, life on the Coast has taken a strange turn. The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption. His wife claims he's been bewished. Breached by a beautiful clairvoyant. Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting.

I am the Archangel Michael.

The whole town has been thrown into chaos.

Monsieur le Maire.

As the mayor is unable to carry carry out his duties, I would like to address you all.

Legal proceedings have been initiated.

Join me, Anna Richardson, and journalist Leo Chic for The Mystic and the Mayor, as we investigate a story of power, corruption, and magic. Binge all episodes of The Mystic and the Mayor exclusively and ad-free right now on WNDYRY Plus. Start your free trial in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the WNDYRY app.

Okay, so 2005, Jason Aldeen, your first album comes out, and Hictown is first out. And then why is your first number one hit? So how do we adjust to eight years of desert dwelling to pretty radical success right out of the gates.

Once we finally got a chance to have a hit, so Hictown came out. It was a top 10 hit for us on the charts for what seemed like a year. All of a sudden, that thing hits, man. We're selling out clubs again. We're starting to do the stuff I was doing down in Georgia and Florida, but now we got a major hit, songs on the radio, and we had a damn blast. I was always that person of like, Man, that's great. We got a top 10 with Hictown, but what's next? We can only tour off of that for about a year. Then what? You got to stack them. And then Y came out and it was the number one. And then Amorela Sky was a top five. Great song. And so all of a sudden, we're stacking these songs.

Do you have a hard time believing it?

That it's happening? Yeah. I was always like, This is too good to be true. I I don't want this to end, and I'm scared of that. I'm not even enjoying the success for worrying about it ending. Exactly. That was probably something I still do, actually, even this far into it. I remember having a 1,500 square foot house. Sorry.

You've been rich too long. Yeah.

You got how many zeros goes at the end.

This was like a house I had bought that I was hoping my record deal would do well, but I didn't have any money yet. I just remember thinking, Man, if I could just make enough money to pay off this house. It cost me $105,000. All my problems will go away. Yes. Then all of a sudden, a couple of years later, my accountant's like, Man, you got to sell that house and get a bigger one for tax purposes. I'm like, What the hell? Then you start getting into that and you're like, This is too good to be true. I don't know when this is going to end, but surely this can't keep going on the way it is. Then you turn around and you're 20 years into it. Still waiting on something bad to happen. Yeah.

Well, when you have eight years of getting your ass kicked, you get pretty used to that's how it Oh, yeah.

And more than that, you also grew up in an environment where you were moving all the time. Nothing was stable for that long. This year did drop a lot. Yeah. There's a lot of evidence for that.

I was never in a situation where you were financially stable, even though it's not everything. It helps. My oldest daughter was born, I was 25. By the time I hit, I had a three-year-old at home and wasn't making any money. I'm going, Oh, this is working. I'm out here on the road partying and playing shows, not making any money. It's hard to validate that.

Well, now, here's where booze and drugs works. I couldn't really enjoy it because I was so afraid it was going to go away. But when I was fucked up, I could.

Yeah, that's what you had the most fun.

Yes, because that's what coke gave me is optimism.

I never went down that path. Well, good.

You think your nose is fucked up now? Yeah.

Maybe it'll clear it up. When I was drinking, though, man, I probably drink enough to float a damn bear cracker.

It's fun. It's a fun hobby.

It is. You start getting in that lifestyle, and then probably four doesn't really do it for you anymore. So you just of up in the ante. The drug side of it was never something I really got into, but still love to drink and have fun and do my thing. I just got a way better grip on it now than I once did.

Yeah. How about this? The people I was obsessed with growing up was Charles Bukowski, Whalen, all guys who their art was so significant that they were allowed to behave like fucking animals, and everyone forgave it.

Yeah, but I think that's it. Whether people want to believe it or not, sometimes those things create. You know, genius comes out of putting your head in a different place. There's a reason that rock stars, some of the best songs ever written for coming out of a place of pain or despair or you trying to cover up something with drugs or alcohol.

How many whaling songs are about cheating? A third of them are about cheating, one way or another.

It was probably coming from a place that was very legit.

Yeah. Okay, so how do you take to the road? It sounds like well, but your life starting in '05, I'm imagining You've just been touring almost without exception. How many shows have you played since 2005?

I don't know. First few years were doing 200. For us, we backed it down to 150 and stayed there for a while, and then 125, then 175. Now we're probably about 55. That's where we live right now. It's great. It gives me time to hang out with my family for five or six months and spend some time with them and then get on the road and go work for five or six months.

Is it the same with us? When they were little, it was no problem. We just took them everywhere we were working. Then they get to an age where you really can't do that. Then you have to really figure out, do I really want to work?

For us, it's school.

Because you have an eight-year-old boy?

We have a six-year-old girl, seven-year-old boy. He'll be eight in December.

Then older children?

22 and 17.

Girls? Yes. I would imagine you have to learn how to tour so that it's tenable, that you can continue to do it. What things did you start figuring out along the way?

When I first started, it was 10 of us on a bus. It was me, my band, my tour manager, my merch guy. We're on one bus, we're rolling out. Again, we're not making money, so I'm trying to save money, cramming us all on a bus. It finally got to a point where started doing well, and I got my own bus. Met my wife not long after that. When we started having our kids, two weeks after they were born, they were getting thrown on the bus and just have their bins for their toys. They go out to the shows. Now they're old enough. We put a pass on them. They walk around backstage. Everybody around there lets them feel like they're helping, they're working. That's the thing, too. I got a great crew out there that helps watch them. We've dialed it in over the years, but when we first got out there, it was me and all the guys. No family, no kids, no any of that. We're playing shows, being gone for a couple of months at a time, and the dynamics change now.

Do you get depressed when you're at home?

It's usually groovy for me for about two months. I'm good with taking a little time because it also gives me a chance to go and work in the studio a little bit or not try to cram that in when you're on the road. I like a little bit of time home, but after two, three months of it, it's like, all right. And my wife even knows now.

She's like, you got to go. You got to go to Cincinnati.

I mean, you can only travel so much. Real life sets in. You're like, all right, well, now I'm home, and she works from home and does her thing. So we're home. She's pretty busy doing her deal. I have nothing to do. I'm like playing golf. You can only do that so much.

You're like, damn. You need your purpose back.

Yes.

I have a tricky question, but I have to ask because I wonder, you have these older kids and then you have younger kids. Do you ever think about the fact that those two sets have had such different experiences?

Yes, absolutely. My older girls, they were little when things were taking off. As they were growing up, my career was going with it. And then the little ones, as they've been born, everything was already established.

And you have a much more manageable schedule now.

Yeah, but from the time they've come into the world, they've been on Instagram and people have watched them grow up and stuff. So they even come up to them out and about, oh, Memphis. They start talking to them and they're like, Who the fuck is this person? So they've been around that, too. My wife, she posts all of our lives on Instagram. I don't hardly post ever. She bakes up for it. You know what I mean? It's cool. People have watched our kids grow up over the years, so I think their upbringing is very different as far as that goes.

There's probably pros and cons to both.

For sure. When you're in this business, it's like you feel guilty sometimes for some things. And then I know that the way my kids are raised is not normal. They don't know that because they don't know any different.

Because it is normal to them.

As parents, you want to give them things you didn't have and make it better for them. It's like that fine line of you just want them to appreciate it and know that not everybody gets to have it. Yeah, so hard. Yeah, very different upbringings between the two. I'm super proud the way the older ones turned out, the young ones. I feel like they handle it pretty well, considering their age and stuff right now. You learn it as you go. You know what I mean?

It's all trade offs. How bad do you want to say to your kids, Guys, get your fucking head out of your We didn't go out to Ebo once every two months. We didn't have a fucking car with Eric. What are you talking about?

My son broke his iPad the other day, and he was just losing his mind because it was cracked. And I was like, I'm not taking it to have it fixed. You dropped it. So I made him play with it broken for a couple of weeks. Until he started bleeding, then I took it out of fix.

So I've been told you don't like to talk about it, and I fully want to respect that. But I'm also quite curious, not about the incident itself, but Mostly about going to Saturday Night Live a week later. I'm quite curious about that. But be dead honest with me, if you'd rather never talk about that again.

No, I don't want to talk about it at all.

I'm not an exploitative type of person.

I don't even know what anyone's talking about, to be fair.

Jason was performing in Vegas during the shooting.

Oh, oh, oh. So Route 91, it was a festival like we've done a million times. It started, it was just obviously something that we weren't prepared for.

It had to be very confusing at first.

Very confusing. But yeah, it happened. Obviously, it was a horrible deal. We finally got out of there the next afternoon, getting home, and you're just glad to be home. Show up, my mom's crying. My kids were thinking my oldest daughter was in school freaking out, thinking that somebody was trying to shoot us. All the details were still coming out.

Yeah, it was one of the most horrific national events we've had, and you were literally center stage.

Yeah, it was wild. I was just glad to be home. We were still in the middle of the tour, so I was like, Man, I don't know if we're going to finish the tour. We didn't really know what was going to happen yet. I was home for a couple of days, and I got a call from my manager, Clarence Spaulding, and he just goes, Hey, Lorne Michael's just called and wants you to come play. This is on Thursday. I want you to play Saturday Night Live.

The shooting was the first, and Saturday Night Live was the seventh.

The shooting was on Sunday, I believe. We got home Monday, and then I got this call Thursday. For Saturday. For Saturday. Yeah, for Saturday. Wow. Yeah.

That must be a really complicated offer.

It was. Obviously, Saturday Night Live is something I've always wanted to play. That's one of those things, as as an artist or actor. It's just an iconic show. What a stage. And so I hated that it was like that. And so part of me was like, Fuck, I don't want to do it like that.

Because you maybe are worried it feels exploitative or something. Yeah.

And we were shell shocked, too.

Guarantee, at this point, you haven't even begun to process what the fuck you just did.

No. And so Tom Petty had just died that Monday. We got the news he had died on the flight back to Nashville. And so I just said, Man, if you'll let us play whatever I want to play. And they wanted us to do cold open. So I was like, I don't want you guys writing for me to say. Me and my publicist sat on the phone in a room and hotel and wrote out what we were going to say, and they'd let me do it. I called my band, rallied everybody. And Sunday morning, I was on a flight going back to Las Vegas to go to the hospital and see all the victims. That was tough. People hadn't recovered from their wounds yet.

You forget, 869 people were injured.

Yeah, it was pretty crazy. Then a week after that, we were right back on tour, going to play. We had maybe another month of shows. Then we finally got to go home for a few months. My son was born during that time, so the shooting happened on October first. He was born December first. Wow. All of a sudden at home, we had something else to focus on versus watching that on the news every day.

I could imagine just moving so quickly through everything and saying yes and wanting to do everything I can. And then, I don't know, some period later, waking up and going, Oh, my God, so much shit happened, but I was so busy during it and so much was happening, and I really haven't computed that. I'm just curious, did that day come?

Yeah, I think for me, I had a breakdown at my house one day. It was after my son was born and just all that heaviness of everything just getting laid on you. It's easier to talk about now. At the time, it wasn't because you're still trying to comprehend what had just happened. My bass player, my best friend for the last 25 years, his bass had a bullet lodged in it that he was wearing when we were on stage. For our little family, our little crew, we got so lucky. Not one injury to any of our guys, and you're happy about that, but then you're like-You feel guilty that you're happy about that. There's this guilt-ridden thing. Survivor's guilt. It sucks. Just one of those things that will forever connect us to that city. At some point, you can either run from it or accept it and try and make something good out of it. That's what we tried to do. I ended up having a moment at my house where I broke down thinking about just all the people that I could have lost, all the people that we did lose as far as fans.

But my inner circle of people and my wife was there eight months pregnant with my son and all these things that could have happened.

And you love your fans. I'm imagining if armcherries got injured at a show, it would fucking devastate me. Yeah, well, that's the thing.

It's like those people are there to see you. It just happens. There's this guilt. It's heavy. It's just heavy. It's a lot of shit to put on somebody's plate, especially when you're not expecting that. If you're an army ranger and you train for that shit, something like that happens when you're armed with a guitar, ain't much you can do.

Back to expectations. You're talking about showing A lot of places you go, you're like, I know I'm going to be on. I'm leaving my house. I've gone there for a reason. I'm going to be nice. Army ranger has those expectations. They jump out of the fucking helicopter with a parachute. They know shit's it in the fan when they land.

If you're on stage or somewhere and gunshots start popping off, you're diving just trying to get somewhere.

How much does that enter your mind going forward?

Occasionally, situational.

You have to have PTSD from it is what I'm saying, basically.

We played a show and there was a parking garage where there's open things, in those things when you see that.

You're on alert now.

Yeah. We were in Canada just a couple of days ago playing a show up there, and we're in downtown in the city walking to our hotel, probably midnight, and a car backfires. It sounds like a shotgun went off.

You're right back.

All my crews with me that we're all in that, too. We're all like, what the fuck? You still have those moments. I think they'll always be there.

Have you ever gone to therapy for it, or are you too Southern?

I guess too Southern. I never went. No. Here's the ironic thing.

We funded- A ton of therapy for a day.

A ton of That's amazing. My therapy for all the crews and everybody else. Obviously, I didn't go. My therapy was me, my wife, my band, all of us that were there. We all talked about it amongst each other. Yeah, that's good.

You weren't alone in it, and that's helpful.

All of us had our little inner circle to talk about it with. That was what we did. But I have a hard time talking to people about my things.

Being vulnerable?

I just have a hard time opening up to people that don't know me or haven't been in the same situation.

You're on the wrong show, my friend. Oh, I I listen to you and Pitt talk.

I mean, it's fine. I don't have any problem talking about. I'm just not going to voluntarily go and do it.

Yeah. Okay, this is a fun question. I wonder if you agree with this or not. I mostly love Outlaw Country. That's my zone. Then I love rap. I think those are the two most related music on planet Earth is rap and country. I like them for the same reason, especially in the '80s and '90s. You're hearing these stories about these communities and cultures, Compton, and it's their fucking It's not meant to appeal to everyone. It's their authentic life story. They're telling you without any frills, no apologies, no shame. I think country is very much that, too. It's the music of disenfranchized folks who are engaged in real talk in a sense. I just think they're very similar in that way. Do you see that parallel at all?

I can see that.

They're all storytelling.

Well, I think that with country music, it's always been the driving force. It starts with the song. And the storytelling, I think that's what everybody loves about country music is it's not bunch of noise. There's a point to the song, and I can see that in hip hop and stuff, too.

There's also a brave freedom to, I get stoned and play all day long. I like to sit on the fucking porch with my Blue Tick hound. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of owning the shit that people are judgmental of. Yeah.

Owning things that most people wouldn't say.

You're not going to shame us. This is our story. We're proud of it. We made music out of it. That's the essence that I see in both rap and country that I love.

That's the thing that everybody wants to say, but everybody's scared to say until somebody says it once, and then they're like, yeah, and then they all start saying it. But yeah, it raps like that.

But your Compton to me is country boy can't survive. I live in the woods. You see the woman, the kids, the dog, and me.

Just attitude. It's real. It's unapologetic. Authentic. Authentic. I think that's why those songs work, and hip hop even. I mean, that's why that genre is as big as it is. I mean, it's no bullshit. This is the way it is.

The fan bases are similar, too. Music album sales dropped out. The last two to remain the robust are rap and country. Live shows, also great audience for attending. I think when people hear their story, they're really loyal to that.

Country music fans, for sure, are some of the most loyal from a standpoint of They latch on to an artist early on in their career. That's their family member. And they follow that artist unless they just do something really stupid.

You can do a lot, though.

Trust me, I know. I've toed the line a few times over the But they will follow and they will support. I mean, it is a lifelong thing for them, for that artist and for that fan. And that doesn't happen in all genres of music.

I would say country has the misleading illusion of being simple. And that's why people get into it and think they can do it. And that's why a lot of it's shit and generic because they think it's easy.

I think it used to be a lot more simple than it is. You hear people say three chords in the truth. Three cords, you can play a million country songs, Which there is some truth to that. Over the years, it's gotten a little bit more complex and different influences coming into our genre. Rock influence, pop influence, hip hop, Stapleton's bluesy as shit.

Is he the current God?

He's great. He's the best male vocalist in our genre to me right now. Morgan's a great vocalist, too. Morgan's just like a global level now.

He's crossed all the boundaries.

And that's awesome, too. We get a guy like that that really brings in a lot of different listeners in our format because he's getting people listening his stuff that wouldn't typically listen to country and those things. I mean, it's all good for all of us.

Let me ask you, how has the transition felt? And I'll start because we have it in our sight. So, of course, Hollywood's super liberal. And then when you have the handful of actors that are outspokenly conservative. It's not like the liberals are all that excited about that. Vince Vawn will have some opinions and people are like, How has it been watching this transition? Where definitely country has gotten a lot more stars that are outspokenly liberal in what's been a very conservative music history.

Listen, I think everybody feel how you want to feel. You do your homework and you make your own opinions, and that's fun. I don't think we all have to agree. When it comes to anything, it's like, I don't think anybody wants things shoved down their throat. Just because you believe this doesn't mean this is wrong. And unfortunately, it gets a little muddy.

You have a million different opinions, but these are the ones that you can no longer be friends over.

You start planting your flag in the ground on those things. I mean, I'm always He's open for discussion. Enlighten me. That's my thing. Please tell me something I don't know. If you can make it make sense, then that's cool. But I'm pretty firm in how I believe, and it's going to take a lot to change that.

Well, you're not unique in that you're a product of your context. I'm a product of in that context. Everyone that thinks they came to their big worldview independently is ignoring. We're all pretty predictable in some sense.

I feel like I'm open-minded, but you got to make it make sense to me. It's like anything. I'm not always going to agree 100% over here or over there. I can know that that doesn't make sense, and that does to me, at least.

Okay, so try that in a small town became controversial, but that led immediately to it being your first number one on billboard. I'm interested, personally. We have had very few, but We've had some episodes that are controversial. You're trying to wonder what's your tolerance and appetite for that discomfort of controversy. And yet if it somehow works, you have to bring that into your analysis. There's sometimes direct relationship to the amount of controversy something's getting to the amount of people that are going to hear the thing. And how do you evaluate that cost-benefit?

This song being controversial was...

A shocker to you?

That it was as big as it was, yes. It was a song that I felt like was probably going to raise a few eyebrows and hopefully make people look in the mirror and go, Yeah, that probably wasn't a good look. When we put the video out, it's like, I'm not recreating this. This is what was happening. Like, look at it. When that happened, everything became focused on the BLM movements. Then this church that we had shot it in Spring Hill, where I live, not a church, but a courthouse. They started digging into this courthouse and found where somebody had been hung there, and then that became a thing about it. It just became this making something out of nothing to me.

Well, politicizing to the nth degree as much as we can. The person's on that side, this courthouse had a lynching.

The song was essentially saying, look at what we're doing to our country as a whole. This is not right. To put a song like that out and go, Hey, as a community, where I'm from, you band you look after each other. To take that and turn it into this very politicizing song, I knew it would start a little bit of a conversation that way, just because I know how things are these days with social media. Did I think it would go to the extent it did and turn out to be such a national news headline for the next whatever. No.

How do you weather those events?

You're just not going to guilt me into something. We put that song out when everything started to happen. We put out a press release and said, This is our stance on it. I'm going to talk about it once. Here's your press release. Anything else you got to say is just speculation between you guys. I'm not going to keep going out defending myself, defending the song, letting you guys regurgitate a bunch of news. It's not going to happen.

I'm with you on that.

If I know that I'm not wrong, you're not going to guilt me into it. I can accept it. If I feel like I'm in the wrong, it's like, I can see that. But if I'm not, you ain't going to get it out of me ever.

So it doesn't bother you?

No.

Even when I believe in what I did, it bothers me.

But you want everybody to obviously like you.

I want everyone to like me. I want everyone to see my intentions. And I want everyone to see that I'm good.

Same. But it's also like, if you don't like me, you don't like my music, you don't like what I stand for, you're never going to buy a ticket to a show, you're never going to come see me. I'm never going to make a fan out of you So at that point, I don't really care. You've already convinced yourself that you don't like what I'm about. So I'm not going to waste any time worrying about it. I just can't do that. We were talking earlier, authentic. I think you have to be true to that. I'm not going to go get on a TV show or something and just go and speak my for an hour and tell everybody how I feel about the state of the world or whatever. It comes out in a song like that. That's part of my art. That's what I do. And not everybody's probably going to like that.

And they don't have to.

They don't have to. I don't care. Well, look, name a comedian. I love Chapelle.

Same.

Some people hate him.

He's inappropriate as shit, but he's funny, and he was a comedian, so he gets away with it as he should.

And I think I have a sense of his spirit and his intention.

And I think he's fair.

Everyone gets Yeah, nobody's safe.

I think that's fun.

Yeah. We're about the same age. Is it harder for you to do songs and make albums the longer you've been at this? Was it easier when you were younger?

I think I'm better at it now. There are certain songs and subject matter that don't make sense for me to sing anymore. Now, it's like you're trying to have songs with a little more meat on the bone and things that are going to make sense for me to sing when I'm in my 50s.

That can be hard to evaluate.

Yeah, I mean, it came out, I was 28. She's country, those things. It's great. But at some point, you're going to have to have some songs of a little meat on the bone. Now, we're writing songs about- Retirement communities.

Yes.

Things like family members going through things like dementia, but still having the things that people expect from us on a record, too. It's just that weird new era for us.

What are your thoughts about retirement or when you back off? What's that mental gymnastics for I don't think I'm there yet.

For me, I still enjoy it too much to not do it.

You've pared it down enough that it's manageable.

I've made it to where it works for me.

55 versus 200 is a big difference.

Some years, maybe 50, some years, maybe 60. I still enjoy it too much, man. We just finished an album, so I still love that side of it. I look at things that are going on now, like the Sphere out in Las Vegas, going and doing some residency.

Have you been to some shows there?

No, but Chesney just did his out there. Sean Silva, who is our video director, too, did all the for that and seen a ton of stuff. I think Backstreet Boys just did one. It's killer. I think that's probably in our future to hit Vegas, do some residencies. But me to just stop touring and even doing it the way we do it. This is what I wanted to do from the time I can remember. I've gotten to do it for the last 20 years, and they still let me do it. It works out for me, though, because I take half the year off and I work half the year. That half the year I'm off. It's like, we're traveling. I just got back from Europe. Where'd you go? Went to London, went to see the Band Oasis.

Oh, did they get in a fight on stage?

No, I was hoping they would, though.

Yeah, of course.

That's where you buy a ticket for. Was it great? It was awesome. We saw their first show in Cardiff. It was on July fourth. First show after 16 years. It was killer.

You're buying a ticket to Oasis is like going to a hockey game. You're going to see a fight.

Seventy-five thousand people in the stadium sold it out two nights in a row. Wow. They're doing five or six nights at Wembley that holds 90,000. They're huge over there. But it was so fun, man.

That's awesome. Okay, so on the topic of the new album, does it have title yet? It's going to come out in August or September?

The single is going to come out somewhere around first part of September. It doesn't have a title yet. I literally just turned it into the label a couple of weeks ago. If you got any cool titles, just text me.

I'll hit you with some. I might need to hear a track or two, so that's not Completely disconnected with the material. But you mentioned it, so I'm presuming the dementia's family situations in the upcoming album?

My uncle just passed away in Lewy Body Dementia in the last year, and got another family member that's dealing with that thing. We got some songs we wrote, talk about that.

I don't want to get too lofty here, but you talk about these political differences, and then you really talk about, do you have a family member that's dealt with addiction? We all have. Do you have a family member dealing with dementia or Alzheimer's? Yeah, I think we all have. These real things, we're all doing the same shit.

You hit on that common denominator that everybody can relate to.

But no one leads with that anymore. Everyone's leading with the thing that is going to be problematic.

That's the of making albums and stuff these days is song-wise, you go down whatever road you want to. As you get older, the subject matter gets a little more mature and you deal with shit that you maybe didn't deal with early on or didn't pay attention to early on in your life. Now it's a real thing. But yeah, new single coming out, I think, in September with new music, new album, all that stuff to follow. I'm excited for people to hear it.

Then you have Jason Aldeen Kitchen and Rooftop Bar. You have four of those?

Yeah, the first one opened here, Nashville, downtown on Broadway. That thing's become a staple here in downtown Nashville. Then we opened one in Gatlinburg, one in Pittsburgh, and then just opened one in Las Vegas last year.

You and Kristin hosted the CMTs together?

We did. I was going to bring that up. It's the only time I've ever hosted a show ever was with her. She was my co-host.

How did you like that? It was great. She's about as good of a co-host as you can have.

She was awesome. I think we had some teleprompters that went out that night. She was on it. She saved me. So thank you, Kristin.

They're promoting your institutions at the airport, just so you know. When I was waiting for my bag, I saw you were on the carousel.

I love it. Take what you can get. Any press is good. What's the institution?

Like all these things he had.

Oh, they were all in the- Like the bars. Yeah, the bars.

When Nashville has become such a tourist destination.

Do you hate this or not that we're all here? You can be honest. No.

When I first moved here in '98, it was still dumpy. You had a bunch of old bars, not really nice restaurants. It's become like a hot spot, and obviously it's great for the city.

Do you guys have the community we would fantasize about? Most of you all, musicians, do live down here. Do you guys get to see each other?

A lot of us, we're touring and stuff. When we come home off the road, we all scatter and go do our own thing. But a lot of us, like Luke, I can call him and go play golf or go fish. He's in LA a bunch because he's doing, I don't know, a big TV star.

You know, a big TV star.

But yeah, you got your crew that you hang out with and some that you see occasionally. But we're all based out here for the most part. Yeah.

Well, I just want to read your accolades before you go. 30 number ones. You're in a group now with George Strait and Merle Hager, Chesney and Alan Jackson, Ariba. It's so mega. 20 million albums sold, 20 billion streams.

It's been a good run.

It's been a good run. 48. You're not even 50 yet.

Congratulations.

Yeah, truly. Like I said, I was just trying to pay for that 1,500-square-foot house, man. And here we are.

Well, Jason, it's been awesome meeting you, man. I I really appreciate you being the first person we interviewed in Nashville. It seems like a really lucky get for us. You're on tour now, so people, I'm sure they're already sold out, but people should be going to the full throttle tour. You're also going to Australia and New Zealand.

New Zealand, Australia, I think in February next year. But we actually go on the road this week to really kick off the tour. We're in-Tulsa? Tulsa, Little Rock, and St. Louis, I think, is the first run. Then we head out West for a little bit.

Well, Jason, this has been so awesome. Everyone, check out Full Throttled Tour. All right, brother, be well. I hope that I bump into you now.

Absolutely. Hit me up anytime. And I got a couple of restaurants to go check out.

Oh, yeah, I got to stop at your mini, mini restaurant. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong.

Okay. I have an update.

You have an update? Mm-hmm. What is it?

I was right again.

Oh, wow. Great. It feels so good to be right, doesn't it?

Yes. So remember when I said you were right about my period and I gave you a whole thing about that? You were wrong.

Oh, okay. So it was a bad day for me and a good day for you.

And I was right the whole time. The day I said is the day, which is today. Congratulations. Thank you. It came.

So now we still don't know why you had your clothes on backwards. Yeah.

That's still a big question. The original mystery remains.

My mom liked being right so much. She made up a song, and you'd hear her singing it occasionally throughout the house, and it was, It's such a good feeling to know that you're right. Wow. Yeah. There were more lyrics, but that's, I guess, the chorus. That was the main takeaway. That's what I remember.

Do you think you really like... Because you grew up hearing that, you really embodied it.

I just know it feels great to be right.

Yeah, but it's like, do you know because of the song or do you know?

I heard the funniest thing once from an editor, a film editor who had cut some a couple of movies from an actor, and he said, Yeah, his thing is if he has his way, his character's arc is that he'll find out he was right the whole time instead of learning a lesson. Yeah. He's like, then he'll find out. He'll find out he was right the entire time.

That's really funny. It does feel good to be right.

It does. It's just important not to gloat. I guess that's all you can do.

I guess it's good to tell other people when they're right like I do, even though you were wrong.

I was wrong, yeah. This was just a topic last night in a twelve-step meeting, which was in the book, it said something about big-shotism.

What's it say?

Just like that we have to avoid big shot.

Don't be a big shot.

I was thinking maybe the best you can do is you just don't say anything. You're going to think things. I don't You know that you can control whether you think something. It's just like the thought pops into your head. And really, again, the space between your thought and your actions, therein lies peace or whatever the saying is. Freedom. Therein lies freedom. So I was thinking like, no, I still have some pretty grotesque thoughts. I've just gotten good at not saying them. And I feel like that's all I'm capable of, and I'm proud enough of that.

Yeah. I mean, yes, I don't think we can control our thoughts, but we can control everything else. After the thought. So we must.

Yeah, increase our bust.

We must, we must. We don't have to do that.

Everyone's boots are great. I'm trying to increase my bust pretty regularly. I'm doing bench press, which is for the pectorals.

Yeah, but you don't have to increase. No one has to increase their bust. No, it's not a must. No.

It's a choice. But it is from Greece.

No wonder I hate it.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

You don't like Greece. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that.

I'm the only person in the world that does it because I don't like musicals, and even I'm like, It's fun.

Really?

Yeah. We made out Under the Dark.

Please stop.

Is that song in particular one you hate?

I don't like any of the songs. My brother, when he was just a young baby boy, he would be crying in the car because he was a baby, and my mom put the grease soundtrack on. To sue them? Yes, and it worked. And especially this one song And so I had to listen to it on repeat to keep him from crying.

I got it. You've associated it with your brother's annoying behavior.

It's separate. No, that's what's going on. I already hated it. You know, it's so funny when you think back, my brother also was obsessed with the Backstreet Boys. Interesting. As a little boy. Oh, that's cute. It's so cute. And I'm sure I was mean to him about it.

Of course you were. Does he want to go to the Sphere? No.

Exactly. I thought about it recently. I was like, oh, he should go to that. That's his favorite band.

When he was six. I still like everything I liked when I was six, musically. I never came to hate anything that I once loved, musically.

Right.

Have you?

I'm trying to think. I mean, I just liked so much top 40 that I'm sure... I mean, it's hard to say. Now, if I heard it, I'm associating it with that time. So of course, I'll like it. Yeah. But do I like it? Probably not.

Well, this brings up an update for me. So my deepest superstition, as you already know, what's my deepest superstition?

Putting hats on- There's one worse than that, where it really is like...

I'm like, oh, my God.

Can you give me a hint? Because I do want to guess.

It's musical.

Oh, you have to listen to a song. There's a certain song you have to listen to twice.

If I hear it accidentally, I have to... And which one is it again? So my stepdad used to play this song at full volume, and it was like, again, it's associated with Maximum Chaos, my brother and him fighting. And that song was always playing. And I just got it in my head that if I heard it once, I had bad luck, and then I had to hear it again. But I was not allowed to touch his record player, and he had the album, so I had no control over it. The song is Jump by Van Halen. Well, jump. Yeah. So I was in Nashville, and because I'm in my old cars, and they don't have any way to play my phone through some of them. I was listening to the radio a ton. So I was driving down the road by myself, and all of a sudden, JMP came on.

Did you slam?

My first thought... Well, my trick is if I hear it on the radio, I know this is a total workaround that everyone will call bullshit on, but I'll turn the channel to another channel, then turn it back, and I try to count that as a second, which is we both know that's bullshit, but that's the best I can do.

Okay, listen, there's no rules because it's all made up in your head. It's all assonine, yes.

I don't know why, but this song came on when I was in Nashville, and I go, We're done with this. Good job. We're done with this. I'm not going to try to listen to it twice. And then I go, And in fact, I'm adding it to my liked songs. So now it is in my liked songs, which I listen to all the time. And it comes on once. And I'm like, it's a great fucking song. And you're going to get over it and you're going to love to- Immersion therapy. You're going to enjoy it. So I've been listening to it one time, randomly, a lot lately.

And does your nose slowly bleed when you listen only once?

No, my eyes tear black, like Wednesdays.

And have you You've had any bad luck since you started this.

No, nothing discernible. No, in fact, I feel like I'm on good luck. I'm on a good luck wave. I've discovered this documentary, The Cowboys Document, not the cheerleading one, which is also great. But a history of Jerry Jones buying the Cowboys. Are you watching it, Rob?

I am not.

Buddy, I haven't liked the doc this much since Last Dance.

You just asked Rob because he's a boy.

Because he loves football.

Because he loves football, not because he's a boy.

If there was a Doc on the Row, I go, Monica, have you seen the Doc on the Row?

But I love Last Dance. You know that.

I know you do.

Have you seen it, Monica? Can you admit that you could have just asked every Anyone?

I could have, but if there was a row documentary, I wouldn't ask Rob.

Rob does like football. That's fine. He loves football. Also, he might love to watch Doc on the Row. It's probably great. It's probably going to be great. I'm going to make it and produce it.

I had I have a really strong feeling you hadn't watched the Cowboys documentary. Unfortunately, I was correct. Is it America's Team, the Gambler and his Cowboys? The Gambler and his Cowboys. Okay. It's awesome. I do think you should watch it. This was all to encourage you to watch it. I'm not leaving you out. I just wanted to see if I could get a two-way encouragement to you to give it a shot.

Yeah.

Because you do not need to care about football.

But you know I don't like peer pressure.

Okay, so you don't want me to- Okay, so just be regular? You wanted me to ask if you've watched it and then No, not recommend it.

No, that's not what happened. I just didn't want you to specifically ask the male in the room about a doc- The football when you just equated it to last dance. So we know it's not just for, I don't like basketball.

You don't like basketball. Yeah.

And The Last Dance is basically my favorite show that has ever happened.

I know. It's a great one.

Anywho, okay, so you want me to watch it, or you think everyone should watch it?

It's Incredible.

Okay.

What characters. Jerry Jones is such a character. Can I just give you a taste of what happens? So he is a very young guy, and he is, I guess, a wild cat, they call him. Maybe that's not the right term, but he is buying oil fields hoping to strike oil.

Okay.

He is so over leveraged. He's like $50 million in debt as a young man, and he just keeps gambling. And when he describes the oil well he hits, the noises it was making, and when it just started gushing, and then that one oil well made him $100 million. And then he immediately took that money and bought the Cowboys. And the Cowboys are the most valuable sports team in the world.

Yes, I knew that.

Every sport included. Like a $13 billion value of that team.

Wild.

Yeah. And then he grabs this coach out of college Jimmy Johnson. And it's just a great story.

Do you think it's because he has two Js?

It makes it really great that the alliteration is there.

But he has two Js. He's like, The only people I can hire, it's a small pool because it has to have two Js.

They were on a Championship College football team together, and they knew each other forever. Did you ever watch the You?

Yeah, the 30 for 30. You did? Yes, I did.

He was the coach that was like, Yeah, you guys- Ron, did you? I did not, no.

Well, well, well. Look at that.

If you remember, Jimmy Johnson was the one that was like, Yeah, be black. Don't listen to this bullshit that you're a thug.

He's cool. Yeah, he is cool. Yeah.

Those two, the owner and him. It's tough. It's tough to share glory.

It's tough to share glory.

It's tough to share glory. I'm not done with it. I don't ever want it to end.

That's fine. I love when there's a show like that. That was too much for me, the show Too Much on Netflix. Books.

Oh, I did start it for your recommendation, and I love it.

Right?

It's great. It's so cool. It does give me anxiety.

Okay, tell me.

Because she's so fragile. Anything She could unravel over almost anything. And so it does trigger my like, oh, my God, if I was around someone who was always... I don't know if they're going to unravel at this moment. It's very stressful to me.

I don't know how far you're in. But it's interesting the way they- I love him.

He's so hot. He's so hot.

So hot. I listened to this one thing on it that I thought broke it down really, really well, where they were like, This show does such a good job of highlighting the highest or the most manic parts of a relationship, the beginning and the end, because she has this other relationship she has come out of, and it's very tumultuous.

She's making some really wild- Isn't she?

She's She's so funny.

She's incredible.

Oh, my God.

She's incredible. Anyway- Lena is great when she's on. Yeah.

It's a really good show. Really great cast.

Really great station.

Well, that's when I was rewatching Girls, and I was seeing all these people that they cast before. Launched on that. I was like, God, yes. Some people just really have that neck. They have that eye. Like Mike White.

Yeah, Mike White.

Mike White had Will Sharp and Megan Fahee on the same season of White Lotus, which means he's a genius.

He is a genius.

Anyway, Cowboys, you love him. I'm going to watch.

It's so good. It's so good.

Now, I am coming off of some good luck as well. You are? Okay. Because it's birthday luck still. I still have birthday luck. People who listen will remember that at the Bowery, I got a tassel, 11: 11, the room, this is incredible. Wow, big story, tassel. For my birthday, we went to the Four Seasons and went to the pool. I had to get a room for that. Yeah. So guess what my room number was? You already know 1111.

1212.

1111. Eleven again.

Oh, my gosh. This should be your first tattoo. I actually thought that. I bet you did.

I already thought it, which is why I can't get it because I guess it's a cliché.

Do a lot of people have an 1111?

No, but it's like if you thought it, and I thought, we all thought it.

Or it's just so on brand for you. I don't know.

I don't know. I'm not going to get any tattoos. But if I was, I think it might be that.

You could get X-I, X-I. It wouldn't be so obvious.

I know, but I'm not really into Roman numerals.

Roman numerals. That's pretty basic stuff. It's not even...

It's just like- It's basic. It's not for me.

It is basic.

Oh, my God.

Wait, is this real? I think so. Okay, so for the listener, Rob just put up a photo of Jennifer Anaston, Jen Anaston, and seemingly she has 1111 tattooed on her wrist.

Oh, or maybe... Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Yeah. Now you can't because if we ever interview her and you have the same tattoo as her- But now I have to. Oh, that tipped it.

It was always meant to be. Yeah. My God. Should Could I get one? Because since I don't really want anyone to see, do you think I could just get a really tiny one in between my big toe and my second toe?

Toes are rough. The skin rubs off a lot. Fingers, digits, they can be tough. My bell's not holding up like the rest of my tattoos.

Well, how bad? Have you ever gotten one in here? That's what I mean. It's hard.

Yeah, I guess that skin's... It's hard for the tattoo to stay there for whatever reason. I don't know why. So Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. Do you want to hear my maximum sim event of my entire life? Other than when I guess the song you had made up Xanthum Gum, that still is like, that can't have happened. I know. Xanthum Gum, Xanthum Gum. Okay, so I wrote this script called Send Lawyers, Guns and Money. Right. And it was about my last week of drinking in Kauai. And while I was writing it, I'm just swimming in the Warren Zeevon song, Send Lawyers, Guns and Money. Do you know that song? No. Okay, I'll cover my face and sing it to you. I took home the barmaid, like I always do. How was I to know she was with the rushing to Hey. And it's, Send lawyer's guns and money. The shit has hit the fan. So as I'm writing this script, and it's about my last week in Hawaii of using, I decide I should learn to play that guitar. I should learn to play that song on the guitar. So I go on YouTube, and I'm trying to find some footage of him playing that so I can look at the cords.

And I find this video of him in a small venue, and he's talking to the crowd, and he says, I wrote this song after... Oh, I got to add. My last week of drinking in Hawaii was I was taking a vacation between movies because I was exhausted and I needed a break. Okay. It didn't turn out to be a replenishing trip, as you can imagine. Yeah. So he goes, Yeah, I wrote this song after a couple of years of hard work, and I decided to take a trip down to the islands of Hawaii. And after a week of improbable danger in something, I I decided I shouldn't take vacations. I took home the barmaid, and I was sitting at the computer going, What the fuck? This song is about his week in Hawaii?

That's wild.

I thought it was going to evaporate into the clouds at that point.

My dad was helping your sim even before we met.

Well, it's all been orchestrated. From 1987, we don't even know if I existed before 1987.

Exactly. Because even for you, that was the best your life. Yeah. So it's all really- Stinks. It's stanky.

It's fucking stanky.

Really stanky in here. Anyway, so birthday luck is continuing. Yeah. Birthday Weekend was really nice. Ended up at the... Oh, I wanted to check something. Maybe another sim moment.

Okay.

Can I look up when War Dogs was? I'm going to. I already did. 2018. Dang. One year off. Okay, because in 2016, it was my birthday. And Kristin planned- You were turning 29? I guess.

No.

Yeah. Yeah, I was turning 29. And Kristin planned an escape room party for me and her and you and a group of people. It was really exciting. We get there, go inside, we're ready to escape, and she had accidentally booked it for the wrong day, which was fine. It was like, what are we going to do now?

It's also textbook, Belle. It is. This is her move. It happens.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was like, what are we going to do now? We pivoted plans. It was your idea. You said, Let's go to the Chateau and have some bolognese. And have some bolognese. And have dinner, have bolognese. I had never been there, and I'd been trying to go for a long time. Sure. It was really exciting and fun. Then we saw War Dogs. That was a big birthday, I remember, and it was a good pivot, and the bolognese was so good, and it was very exciting. And on my birthday, it was a lazy day. I stayed at the Four Seasons, so then I woke up and I was just lazy. Calleigh told me I should order a milkshake in my robe room service. I didn't. Oh, okay.

That's a rough way to start your day.

That's why. I was like, it's too early. It's going to be downhill from there. But it also sounded nice, but Anyway, and then I went to Sunset Tower. Oh, I went shopping. I got myself a cute outfit, and I went to Sunset Tower. And then Sunset Tower turned into the Chateau where I had Bolognese for dinner. You did? I did. And I thought, oh my gosh. Did you see any one? No, I don't think so.

I don't really- You don't see very well.

Yeah, I don't have good eyes. And I thought it was its 10-year anniversary, but I guess it was its nine-year anniversary.

Right.

So that is not as sim as I wanted it to be. Okay.

It's still great.

Still great.

That's a fun tradition.

It is a fun tradition. Maybe that'll be a new tradition.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You want to ask Mamanica out?

Oh, yeah. Speaking of this.

Okay.

I probably shouldn't do it like this with this long face.

It sounds like bad news is coming.

It's not bad news. It's great news. It's great news for the world. Travis and Taylor are engaged.

Oh, right.

Yeah. And everyone is happy, and I'm so happy. She seems so happy. It makes me feel really fuzzy. She got it all, and she deserves it, and I love it, and it's hopeful. Yeah, great. Lincoln said that they announced it. They either announced it or a teacher, the teacher came into the classroom and told everything. Oh, really?

It's all girls' school.

I was like, All girls' school. This is incredible. Anyway, But I forgot that the whole reason they're together is their podcast, New Heights. So he went to the concert to try to give her his phone number. Oh, some bracelets. Yes. But he didn't. He I didn't see her. So then on the show, his brother asked, How was the concert? He said, Well, I'm butt hurt because I really wanted to talk to her, but she doesn't talk to people before or after shows. I wanted to give her my bracelet. It has my phone number on it. Yeah. Okay?

Oh, did he put his phone number in the bracelet? Yeah. Oh, that's adorable. It's adorable.

Yeah. And look, that got him a wife.

Yeah. And here we are. One of the more coveted wives of all time. Wives of all time.

Yes. And here we are, almost eight years in to this show, and I have zero husbands.

Yeah, but... Okay?

So I don't mean to complain.

So what she did is she heard that, and And she reached out and he said, yes.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. There's a lot of people in the comments that are saying you're hot, they want to meet you. But see, you- Go ahead. You have said many times you don't want to date a listener.

Unless they're Taylor Swift. Okay. Also, she wasn't a listener. Just got back to her.

Okay.

Okay. So I could on here. You know what's unfair? I would look crazy, and he didn't look crazy.

And that's sexism. Well, he had a lot going for him. No, it's not.

I have a lot going for me. What do you mean?

No, it's inherently adorable that this enormous football player, this gruff bone crusher, made a Taylor Swift bracelet. So you have to do something as completely out of the box as that. That's what made that so adorable. It's like, Oh, wow, that guy made a bracelet with his number for Taylor Swift. It was really There's a lot to the product.

What am I supposed to do? Like, go beat someone up? Well, we got to- And then have scars on and talk about that?

Get good with a butterfly knife and pull a butterfly knife. You got to put the same effort he put into it.

It takes like four minutes to make a friendship bracelet.

You have to start by pursuing someone, which he did. So, yeah, you're going to have to pursue like he did, and then he got the woman of his dreams.

Okay. Yes, that is all true. This is all to correct. It's just a good feeling. I'm kidding. I do think, maybe I'm wrong, but I want to be honest. It's such a good feeling to know that you're right. I want to be honest. I think if a girl did that, did that exactly act thing he did. Went to Chris Martin's show, wanted to give him a thing, didn't get to, went on her podcast and was like, I didn't get to give him my phone number. I'm sad about that. I don't think people would think it was as cute as what happened.

Again, you're trying to frame it as female/male. I'm just asking.

I'm not trying to say it's sexist, but I'm really trying. I'm being honest in that.

Well, you said if a girl did that.

Yeah.

Yeah. So you are framing it as if there's a double standard between men and women.

But I'm not trying to make it. I'm just being honest about the fact that I think I even would be like, That's not cute.

If he had gone to a Shania Twain concert hoping to bump into her and give her a number, that's not what it was. You You're really ignoring the fact that it was a huge NFL player that was a Swift. That's such a unique thing. That's what's happening there. It's not that he's male or female. It's that here's the last guy you expect to be a Swift is a Swift.

Well, then, okay. So then that's- That'd be like you going to find some grungey punk rock dude, and you come and bring them flowers or something. That's- That's just not my type.

Right. But that's why that's not a story. But it's not because you're a woman. It's because it's not this crazy first time you've ever heard this.

Yeah. Was he a swifty or was he just wanting to date her?

I think he's a swifty. He knows to make the bracelet.

Now he's a swifty.

I bet he's a swifty. Andrew Schultz is a huge swifty.

I know. So then if a lot of people are swifties, then why would it be- Mostly women are swifties.

I've been to a show. It's 90 plus % female.

Yeah, I guess. That might be an exaggeration.

It's very female.

Okay, well, whatever. I guess this is getting twisted.

So if there was some punk band that only dudes liked, Megadeath. Eew. See?

I don't even know what that is, but I'm never going to date a death guy. Pro-death? Not even pro.

We're trying to make this apples to apples. So you would have to have entered into the most masculine scene. And people go like, oh, my God, this cute little girl likes these headbangers.

Oh, my God, Dax. That guy looks like you on the right.

Oh, boy, that's not flattering.

No, different hair.

What do you mean? He's not unattractive.

That's a story. That's my point. Is you showing up at that show, is you showing up at a Slayer show and you're in love with the drummer is hilarious. This is them now, so they may be a little older for it. Yeah, you got to find the equivalent of Megadeath or Metallica of this era. People go like, Oh, that super cute liberal little podcast host loved that crazy maniac rocker. That's a story.

But I'm going to push on feedback on that. It's not crazy for any man to like Taylor Swift. She's a very cute blonde pretty girl with a talent.

I think it's crazy, and the reaction would substantiate that, that one of the most gruesome NFL players was a Swiftie. That's why it was so contagious.

Well, a Swift versus wanted to go on a date with her.

Yeah, I'm saying Swiftie. When I heard it, it was like, this guy knows about the bracelets. He made her a bracelet. He's a Swift. Okay.

You're saying it so like, 100% and we don't. Because he went there. He said he went there- Because he was a Swift, and He was in love with her.

He wanted to give her a number.

Yeah, he wanted to give her- You're saying he just wanted to fuck her? No, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying he liked her. He was like, I want to date that girl. That girl seems awesome. She's pretty, she's talented, she's cool. I want to date her. I think a lot of men think about Taylor. I will say, and I don't know about the Megadeath community, but my guess is- Great backstory.

Dave Mustang was in Metallica and left. He got kicked out of the band and then started that band, which became their big rival. Oh. Right, Rob? Is that the story? Yeah. He's in the dock talking about how it haunted him, even though he still drove 15 million records still. Oh, wow. Still thought about getting kicked out in Metallica.

Rebellious. Yeah. Well, I'm sure a lot of women want to date and marry them. Marrying Megadeath, I'm going to just say as a whole, is a real choice.

Yeah, you don't want to. And I totally- Well, I don't know.

I've never met them, so maybe I'd love them.

They're also way older.

I don't care.

Again, I'm saying the equivalent of Megadeath. I know.

But I'm just saying, I think that's a real choice. And I think dating Taylor is dating Bradley or Timmy or someone huge in the popular zeitgeist, not niche.

Okay. They're enormous. They sold 50 million dollars. Okay, great. I'm proud of them. Metallica is not niche at all.

No, I know Metallica. Yeah. But no, it's still niche to date.

What I think, we have a different opinion. I think what was charming about the entire Travis Taylor story is that this big NFL player was a sweetie at heart because he was a swifty. Yeah, he's a sweet boy. I think an equally big story would be that this sweetie liberal little girl is into this crazy off-the-chain band. That's the story that I'm seeing. People would also find that charming. The members would be... The women that came to shows, I've been to these shows, the ones that came that were attracted to Megadef, they looked like they were in Megadeath.

Yeah, exactly.

You don't. If you showed up in the row with flowers, that's a story. Yeah, but I just don't like that music very much. No one think you're crazy. They'd be so charmed by how unexpected this obsession is of yours.

Right. I guess you're right. There's an element of unexpected. I'm just the problem is I'm not unexpected.

Yes, you are in areas that you don't have any interest in.

What do you mean?

You don't like Metallica.

That's what I'm saying. That's expected. I'm saying the problem is I'm not unexpected. The things I like are expected.

Right.

This is the problem. It's my point. Yeah. You'd have to- I'm not going to be able to go to Megadeck.

Because you're going to give flowers to the same guy every girl likes already.

Should I say it that it's Josh O'Connor?

Say it. I don't know why we're holding back.

But he is dating someone.

He's not always going to be dating someone.

Maybe he is. I wish them well, if that's true. Josh O'Connor is extremely attractive, and I find him very cute and endearing in fashion. He is exactly expected for who I would like. That's right. It's not going to come as a shock, but I guess I'm calling it in But I'm not because that's actually rude because he's dating someone.

If you tried to date Ben Shapiro- Dax. I'm saying if you tried to date Ben Shapiro- You're putting me in a tough situation. He would absolutely notice that happen. He'd be like, You're kidding me. She wrote me a letter and likes me? If another right wing, it wouldn't break through the clutter.

Yeah, that's fine. I can't go against my values. I don't think Travis went against his values. And I don't think me, it wouldn't be going against my values for mega death either, because I don't know. Well, unless... Again, I'm not really pro-death, so maybe it is against my values.

But I- You think about it a lot, and so do they. So that's a good match made in heaven. They're just more mega of what you already are.

That wouldn't be a good match.

I need someone to temper the death talk. That's true. Should we do some facts? Sure. You should date the singer of Ghost. That's the equivalent. Or if Monica hit on one of them. I was going to say Guar. Guar was on there. If Monica tried to date one of the Guar guys. I think they're older. I think they're older. Show a picture of Guar. I know they're too old, but that guy doesn't look terribly young either.

This is creeps, Rob.

Where did you see Guar? Yeah. I got to get a good one. Truly, you'd stop the whole show. If you got up on stage during Guar and presented one of them with an ax, a custom engraved ax. Oh, my God.

I'm going to have nightmares about that.

People, that would make national news.

Oh, my God. I take that down. That is truly scary.

They shoot blood on their guitars.

What's on his penis? Oh.

Oh, yeah. They have like... Here, wait, I got one more.

He has spikes on his penis.

Show the whole band. That one was a little intense. This guy, his penis is out. Oh, he's got several penises. Ew, his penis is out. He's got several. I mean, it's not his real penis. No, they're prostetics. They shoot like blood. Yeah, and he's got two of them. You guys-Oh, there's the whole gang.

This is so unfair. I have to date Guar.

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying you have to date Guar. I'm saying if you want it to be the same story. But it's so unfair. It's got to be that crazy where people go like, I can't believe Monica likes Guar.

I don't think it's going to out with me and Guar.

Oh, let's put it another way. Now, he's turned a corner. But there was a period where Marilyn Manson could have been the thing because right after Bowen, Colley and Vine, and all we really knew was like, wow, this guy's way fucking smarter and more thoughtful than we knew. And you were super into it. And you came this little good girl from a podcast, and you approached him. I'm not a good girl. It would catch his attention.

I am not interested in people who like to scare other people.

Okay? Yeah. So it's not going to happen.

Anyway, Gwar, call me.

I guess. Hit me on Instagram, Gwar.

Okay, so he has nasal polyp, unfortunately.

Jason?

Yeah.

That sounds rough.

Nasal polyp are soft, painless, non-cancerous growth that develop in the lining of the nose or sinuses. They are often associated with chronic inflammation and can cause nasal congestion, a runny nose, and impaired sense of smell.

Do you think I have nasal polyp? I thought I had allergies, but maybe I have some... I doubt I have polyp because I get the screen all the time, the butt exam, colonoscopy, and they've never found a polyp.

So I don't think I'm polyp prone. Are they looking in your nose?

No, but I'm thinking if you're a polyp person, you're a palopy person.

I don't want to make that connection.

Everyone get a colonoscopy. Wow, though. You can smell, though. Those are all my symptoms.

No, you can smell things.

I don't know. Remember, I smelled your shirt the other day, and I couldn't smell anything.

No, you walked in and you were like, something smells funny that no one else smelt. And then I assumed it was my vintage shirt.

Maybe I was smelling my polyps. Maybe they smell musty.

Well, that's possible. While anyone can get them, they're more common in adults, particularly those with conditions like asthma or allergies. Treatment options range from medications to surgery depending on the size and severity of the polyps. So he needs surgery, but he doesn't want to get it.

Scary.

Very scary.

That's your career. I know. Getting in there and messing around, bumping around.

Although, you know what's funny? Speaking of surgeries and people getting plastic surgery.

Yeah.

It is like people are really willy-nilly with their face, and their face is what got them there in the first place.

It's the moneymaker. Yeah.

It's tricky.

I think facelifts have evolved. I think they, too, have gone through the same radical progress all medicine has. I think they're different than in the '70s when Burt Reynolds was getting them.

Yeah. More people are getting them. That's for sure.

I think that they're different now, too. I think There's different versions that you can get that aren't just the Burt Reynolds kind.

I don't know. I think it's still an intense surgery, I think. But yeah, you got to be careful.

Yeah. I keep hearing they're very common.

Are you hearing this, too? A lot of people, apparently- Yes, apparently. Have them.

Have you had one?

No. Okay. No.

But then- I would love one, but when could I do it? When would I be able to recover? We're on camera every day of the year. There's downtime.

I don't think you should get it. I know.

I'm not good-looking enough. That's not my brand. If I was a pretty boy or gorgeous, I'd have to. That's my thing. And I'm just like, someone wrote In a comment. Oh, because I talked to camera to explain why the episode wasn't up, and a guy wrote, your face looks like a scrotum.

Okay, but Dax, that's also because- Is that accurate? No, it's not. But I did watch the video and I was like, why is he holding it like that?

You thought it looked like a scrotum, too.

I did not think that, but I did think he is putting zero effort into making himself look how he actually looks. It was held at a weird angle. Yeah, you know why? And then you're rubbing your eyes.

Yeah, you know why? Why? Because it was like, A, I was on the couch, and I'm like, I got to address this. It's so frustrating that people think we just didn't put an episode out. Right. And then I'm in my house and my kids are running around, and I'm not trying to show too much of my internal personal space. So I'm trying to find an angle where no kids are running by. So I think it was a function over fashion.

I understand.

Decision. I understand. But the problem has been fixed, and it's down now.

Anyway. The episode... Oh, you took the post down?

Yeah, because it no longer was relevant.

Oh, wow. Well, then no one can see what we're talking about.

You were a little disappointed with the angle.

Well, I was like...

He's really gotten reckless.

I wish he could have talked to me about this before he did it. And then also we could have held the camera a little different or something. Anyway.

Because people find everything. What's funny is I kept seeing in the comments like, Yeah, shut the door. The AC is on. And then I immediately to get defensive. And I'm like, The door was open. They think that we had the door open, the AC was on. No, they're talking about a little piece of paper that says on the door, Shut the door, the AC's on, that they're reading backwards. It's not lit. I had to dig in this video to see what the hell they were talking about. And that's what it was. That's why I had to hold it where just you can't see anything.

You should have just come in here and done it. This space is already exposed. Okay. That feels very formal. Just check. Just maybe check in with me.

I have a lot I have a lot of- You have a lot of thoughts about it.

I have a lot of experience in PR. Okay, broken Bo Records. We said he joined in 2003. 2003.

2003?

2005.

2005.

According to the internet. Okay. Did Whalen Jennings have a history of cheating? Yes. He had a reputation for infidelity during his marriage to Jessie Colter. While they were couple known for their strong partnership in love, both in life and music, Jennings also struggled with substance abuse and infidelity, which was openly discussed in Jessie Colter's autobiography.

I should read that.

Yeah, you should. Okay, the Vegas shooting. I was really grateful that he talked about it. Me too. Because that's a really vulnerable, hard thing to talk about. I was happy that he did, impressed that he did. It was in 2017. It was really bad. Deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in American history.

Horrendous.

Horrendous. I can't imagine being- At this show. Being the person that has all these people here.

That happened at a live event. Oh my God. The guilt I have over- Oh my God.

But then we talked about him doing SNL, and then he was saying that he wrote his He was like, I'm not having anyone write anything for me for that. So he wrote with his people, I guess. And he said this, I'm Jason Aldeen. This week, we witnessed one of the worst tragedies in American history. Like everyone, I'm struggling to understand what happened that night, how to pick up the pieces and start to heal. So many people are hurting. There are children, parents, brothers, sisters, friends, and they are all part of our family. So I want to say to them, We hurt for you and we hurt with you. You can be sure that we're going to walk through these tough times together every step of the way, because when America is at its best, our bond and our spirit are unbreakable. And then he played Tom Petty's I won't back down because he had just passed away. Yeah. A lot happened.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, and it was Gal Gadot.

Was the host. Mm-hmm.

Okay, well, that's it.

That's it? All right. Love you.

Love you.

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