Transcript of #469 – Oliver Anthony: Country Music, Blue-Collar America, Fame, Money, and Pain

The following is a conversation with Oliver Anthony, singer-songwriter from Virginia, who first gained worldwide fame with his viral hit "Rich Men North of Richmond." He became a voice for many who are voiceless, with his songs speaking to the struggle of the working class in modern American life. His legal name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford; Oliver Anthony was his grandfather's name, and so Chris used this name as a dedication to his grandfather and to 1930s Appalachia, where his grandfather was born and raised.

This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Christopher Lunsford, or as many of you know him as, Oliver Anthony.

Well, you were there. I'd been, I'd have been doing it too if you were out there. You'd be like, "Oh, that's Lex Fridman."

No, man. He was, uh, this big dude on a keyboard, just everything. Sweaty, long hair. You could tell, like, he was there in his own little world. I love the courage of that, of just giving it everything. I don't think he wants to be famous. I don't think he wants anything in life except to be there and to play, like, his heart out. That's why I love open mics. Like, some people still aspire to be famous when they play open mics, but some people, maybe they've given up, or maybe they never wanted to be famous. They're just there for the pure artistry of it, so.

Yeah.

And you said you started out playing open mics. What, at Shitty Bars? What was that like?

Well, yeah, real quick, before I forget too, a great example of a guy who had that same mindset and was able to maintain it really well is this mandolin player named Johnny Stats in West Virginia. To me, he's one of the best, and he's won all these awards and stuff, and he still works for UPS full-time. And, like, he could go out and tour with it, play mandolin for anybody he wanted to, but he. But man, when you meet Johnny, like, you can tell he's just got this, um, this joy in him that I don't think he would have if he.

Just embarrassment?

And I never drank in bars either. Like, I'm not a, I wasn't really a social drinker, so I was just there to try to do the mic. So it was kind of, I was a little out of place anyway. I feel kind of out of place in a bar to start with, so.

Yeah, it's back when you could smoke in bars. There's a whole vibe to it.

Yeah.

People smoking, drinking. And yeah, definitely, you know, bombing in a place like that when the audience is like, there's, there's like five people and they're bored.

Yeah, there was one like that. It was in Matoka. It wasn't that far from where I lived. The place is gone now, but, uh, it was about as big as the room we're in here. If that, you know? Like, the ceiling tiles were yellow from where everybody had smoked in it since the beginning of time.

Mm-hmm.

But, like, yeah, that was my little spot. Those little type of spots.

You did covers. What'd you play? What was your go-to?

Back then it was like, uh, I don't know, "Fishing in the Dark," "Nitty Gritty Band," or like, um, any of those old Hank, like Hank Jr. songs. Like, any of those bar type, uh, David Allan Coe, like "You Never Call Me by My Name," any of that kind of stuff. And I haven't even played any of those in forever now, but that was any of those ones where you get people singing along and stuff, that's what I'd always try to do, you know?

Yeah, that song you performed, "Take Me Home," uh, "Country Road," and "How's That Go," West Virginia.

Yeah.

It's a good song.

John Denver was just, uh, one of those guys that, it's, who knows where he would've went long-term if he wouldn't have passed, but.

You know, it's a fun song that I love. I shouldn't, but I love is, uh, what is it? Uh, like, "Thank God I'm a Country Boy."

I think that's what I liked about John Denver, was he was a little bit, like, he let himself be a little bit corny in the spirit of, like, having fun with it. Like, um, great example, there's this old, older guy that not a lot of people have heard of named Roy Clark, but, um, my farm's like a mile down the road from Roy Clark's old farm. But he, he used to be on He-Haw. I don't know if you ever heard of that old show from, like, the '60s or whatever, but crazy dude. He could pick any instrument up. Like, there's videos on YouTube of him, but he would just sit there and just pick anything up and just rip it to death.

Some people go to the fun place, some people go to the dark place.

Yeah.

It's like, you know, country can do both. You, you, you more often go to the dark place.

Yeah.

To, to the, to the pain.

Yeah, well, especially some of the new songs that are coming out, they, they'll be probably not country. I mean, I don't know what they'll be. I don't know. What is country anymore anyway? I don't know that many people who listen to the type of music that I grew up listening to probably listen to country radio anymore anyway. Like, I think there's, there's quite a lot of people who don't, who have sort of disowned that space, you know? In commercialized country, you only really get what sells, which, and a lot of what sells isn't necessarily what matters.

Well, you had that whole experience where they take what you recorded and polish it, quote-unquote, try to make it perfect, and then so doing destroy the soul of the thing. And so probably that happens with these big artists. They're so famous, it's like a machine. And so.

Yeah.

What the machine does is it over-polishes things. And so the raw, like, power of the person, the uniqueness of the person, the soul of the person is gone if you do that.

Yeah. Well, I think professionalism and, like, applying the tactic, the tactics of corporate America to anything that is.

Yeah.

Baseline artistic is not going to end well.

They're all individually brilliant, but together this corporate speak comes out.

Yeah.

Just the soul of the people dissipates. It like disappears. Why are you all pretending that, like, life is not terrible and beautiful and, like, you're both scared, shitless, and excited, and this guy's going through a divorce, this person just fell in love. Like, you're.

Yeah.

Forgetting the intensity of life.

Uh-huh.

With this corporate, like, 9 to 5, like, "Hi, John. It's great to see you today." "Oh, you too. You as well."

Yeah.

"You as well." But when I look at it, I'm like, "Why am I whining?" I feel like a Bukowski type character because, like, they're all really nice. They're all good people, but, like, something is gone when you have this corporate machine.

Well, they're, they're there to fill a role contractually, and if they, I think if they bring too many of their human elements into that, then they jeopardize losing their sense of security. And it's all just out of fear. It's out of fear of losing your job. I mean, it's the reason why all the songs say Oliver Anthony and not Christopher Lunsford on them, you know? Like, it's fear of, it's so difficult to, especially now it seems, I mean, who knows? I didn't, I was never around in the '40s or '50s to work a job. I'm sure they were probably pretty miserable back then, but, you know, they talk about now, like, how difficult it is, like, the, the impossibility of having a single-family household or anything else.

That hurts me so much. That hurts me when you just stop, when you're there, but you're not really there. That makes me so sad.

Yeah. So then they wonder, these companies just slowly kind of fall apart and disintegrate because they're so worried about structure. And, you know, like, I mean, God, man, even in, even in America today, our culture has become, because so many big corporations own and manage everything that we live under, like food, agriculture, healthcare, like social media, it's all in corporate structures that it's almost like a lot of the problems we find ourselves in now with society, I think, are like, it's just because of, it's almost like HR, corporate HR has been implemented into our whole thought process of everything, you know?

And that's, I've talked to great engineers about this. Uh, Jim Keller is a legendary engineer. Elon, Elon Musk is another example that you need that, I don't know what's a nice term for it, but you need the asshole. Because you, you want to get to the ground truth of things, to the first principle of things. Like, how do we simplify? How do we make it more efficient? How do we move faster? How do we get shit done? And that has no place for this kind of polite speak. And then, you know, other great team members swoop in and, like, repair the damage that the tornado has done.

Do you think that's, because I'm not, I'm not super well-versed about all this, so I'm probably dumb to even mention it, but, um, this guy who's been helping me with doing a documentary, uh, he's been following me around since the very first show, August of '23. He, his background was doing, um, promotional videos for Boeing, like for on their new spacecraft to pitch it to whoever. And so he was, we touched, we touched base a little bit on Boeing, and of course they're having a lot of problems now, it sounds like. And he was comparing that with SpaceX or with, you know, like, that, that I think it's that exactly what we touched on with that thought process of that sort of dehumanization within companies.

So it's not just HR, it's also, it's just this managerial class where it's like, Bob from this department has to schedule a meeting with John from this department and Debbie. Like, they have to have a meeting two and a half weeks from now, and then there's paperwork, and that, that bureaucracy that's created in the managerial class just slows everything down. And one of the things that's slowing everything down does is it really demotivates the people that are actually doing the shit.

Mm-hmm.

The people on the ground, the engineers that are building stuff, it's, again, soul-drenching to, like, be excited, show up, and now you hit this wall of paperwork. Like, you can't, you have to wait for John and Debbie and I forgot the third guy's name that I'm imagining in my head, uh, to have a meeting. It just, and then you kind of slow down and you disappear in terms of that fire, that passion that's required to create big things, so.

Yeah, because they don't believe, there's a lack of leadership. And if they don't believe in, if they don't believe in that leadership, then why the hell would they be motivated? I mean, I remember, um, a while back watching Jacko Wilnick talk about a, um, talk about that when he was in leadership, when he was leading his guys. I think he mentions it in his book is probably where I remember seeing it, um, one of his books. And he talks about, like, how important it was for the people under him in rank to believe in what he was, the actions he was giving them, even if he necessarily didn't agree with him himself.

That's why it takes, it takes unique characters to lead the way. Such unique characters are very much needed in the music industry to revolutionize everything, cut through the bureaucracy, the bullshit. It ultimately is just a machine that steals money and doesn't get any, anything done, really. Uh, we'll talk about it. By the way, all the love in the world to Jacko. He's great. I've been going through lots of ups and downs in life, lots of low points for myself over the past, uh, shit, three years really, but, um, uh, recently especially.

Maybe one sim, one thing that we felt similarly, I'm just, I, I would imagine you way more than me is just feeling like, like, "Wow, I have the ability to influence or the ability to, to, to either bring truth or to improve people's lives or, or, you know, every word that you say sometimes matters so much." And you're just like, "Man, I'm an idiot. Like, I don't."

Yeah.

Like, I don't know, you know? Like, I would've never guessed. I mean, we were kind of talking about that before about like, I would've never guessed that it would've, that this would've turned into all this, but it's, it is a, it is a, it is a weight that you bear, whether you really even acknowledge it or not, you know? Like, um.

Yeah. And I think it's like, you know, the, the songs you've created, they, uh, speak to the human condition, to the struggle of, uh, everyday working people in a society that has the elites that try to take advantage of those working people. And you're just speaking through your music those truths of how life is. And then that has a huge impact on a lot of people. That's really positive.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So it's been, and so you get a text from Jacko, like, "You good?" Yeah. Yeah. And then I've, I mean, I have good friends. Andrew Huberman's been great. Rogan's been great.

Well, you know, you, Lex, however many years ago, was in a different place in society than Lex is now. And so it's like every conversation you have or every relationship you have is inherently different, even if you aren't any different. Friends that you had from before maybe, or even just new people you meet, your interactions with them are going to be a lot different than if this wasn't a thing. And so it's like that, that can be tricky too. When you've spent your whole life, you know, from the time you're three years old and you're starting to play with other kids and like developmentally learning like how to share and how to interact and you're on the, you're playing, you know, you're playing on the playground with kids and learning how to like set rules and boundaries and how to like basically fit in a society.

Yeah, it's been, it's been tough. I, you know, I value deep, close, long-term friendships. And yeah, but I mean, I have amazing friends, but they certainly do treat me a little different. They, they bust my balls noticeably less.

Yeah. And you need, you need that sometimes.

I need, I not sometimes, all the time. First of all, it's how dudes show love is making fun of each other, at least my friends.

Yeah.

Like, you know, when you watch, man, I'm going to get in trouble, but when you watch like women interact, they're often like really positive towards each other. Like, "Oh, you look great." Like, yeah.

Yeah.

When you watch dudes interact, like close friends, they're just like, they mean busting each other's balls nonstop, making fun of each other. Uh, and so, yes, that has been a little bit harder. I, I try, I try to break those walls, like, but that's why with the famous friends, it's a little bit easier because they can still, like, Rogan roasts me nonstop. So, so it's, uh, and it just feels good. I just sit there and get made fun of and it's great.

Yeah.

It's great.

And I still do it all the time. I just, it's just a different experience now, but I, I'm like a goodwill junkie. Like, um, most of, like most of even my clothes were from Goodwill, but like I have this, I have this like addiction with buying paintings from Goodwill.

Nice.

Like the $8 paintings where it looks like somebody was following along with like a Bob Ross video.

Yeah, yeah.

And it didn't work out quite right. Like I love, like I buy every one of those.

Yeah.

So I'll go in there and buy like 10 of them. And so just even, you know, anytime you got into public now, it's just like, you know, it's going to be a little different than it was. You know, I don't know if that makes sense or not, but.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, I, you know, I'm trying to deal with it, but all of it, when you talk to world leaders, when you step into politics a little bit and you apparently stepped into politics, even though you never meant to, you're not a political person, that, that world is like, "What the fuck?" It's very intense, especially at an intense moment in history and in an extremely divided country. So.

Yeah. Like saying that I'm not in politics, people are like, "Well, of course you're in politics." And I don't know whether I am or not, but just, um, I do think a lot of people in politics, like as far as the people who sit on the internet all day and argue about stuff on X or on whatever, you know, Facebook and all, like, I do think their heart is in it for the right reasons. They observe that there's a lot of things wrong in the world that they'd like to see different. It's just how do you get those people out of a, how do you get those people out of this four by four square and like really, like they're, they're entrapped in a, in a same kind of box that the people at Boeing might be with that struck, you know, it's too, they're, it's the tornado metaphor.

Water and fire and ice metaphor. And there would definitely be a connection to the Bible and then we will receive a three-hour lecture and it would be profound.

But it's true. But it is, it's all true. Like.

Yeah, it's all true.

It is all, it's all a hundred percent accurate. Yeah, that's the crazy thing. But it all ties into that same thing. Like you, um, yeah, in politics now, it's almost like there's a rule book that you have to follow. And if you, you can't agree with this unless you also agree with that, you know, it's like, and maybe it's like the places, the way that we receive information about what's going on in the political landscape is always so biased. And it's like the, well, it's, it's contingent upon this algorithm, this like algorithmic system that we live under where we're fed, it's like we're almost fed certain subcategories and it's, and it's easy to fall into that because you don't like hearing things you disagree with.

Well, this actually relates to one of my favorite things in your conversation with Jordan, where you're just, where you're just shooting the shit about like, uh, playing live music and he goes to Kierkegaard.

Yes.

Just like Søren Kierkegaard, the philosopher.

Yes.

I, I love Jordan so much.

I do too.

He just goes to Carl Jung and Nietzsche. Um, and there this idea from Kierkegaard that the crowd is untruth. So when you, there's elements to the crowd that loses the humanity and the honesty of it and the individual that makes up the crowd, because the default incentive of the crowd is to conform to some kind of narrative. It's like a, it's like a distributed system that arrives at a narrative and the narrative holds control over that crowd as opposed to the individual humans who are thinking for themselves and being honest with their own thoughts and realities and so on.

Mm-hmm.

So from the performer perspective, the moment you speak to the crowd, you're speaking to the lie that is the crowd according to Søren Kierkegaard. It's pretty hardcore. Kierkegaard is pretty hardcore. Jordan's pretty hardcore.

But that is true. I mean, but speci, but specifically in my case, I mean, really it applies more than it probably does in a lot of cases with crowds and music. You know, talking about Richmond, I wasn't necessarily even excited that Richmond did as well as it did. It was like, in a way, it was almost like alarming that it did so well, you know? And so those crowds that show up, like maybe they do like my music, but I also think they're there for something. There is something bigger about it.

You mean the size, the intensity?

The intensity. Like it was revolutionary almost.

Song of revolution. You know, I think of Redemption Song from Bob Marley. Like that song, it just connected with people. There's something there.

Well, and so many people identified different elements. Like I said, it goes back to when we were kind of talking when we first got here, but it was, it was crazy. I was almost like at the beginning with, along with the scrutiny and some of the other things, it was a lot of different people like almost fighting over me or fighting over it. Like, 'cause it resonated with different, it, it resonated with people who voted differently than each other, which is, which is probably a pretty terrifying thing if you're, if you're in the business of keeping people divided and angry at each other. So it, you know, it was a, it was one of the first, one of the only times that I can think where there was that, that much of a sense of unity among people who otherwise wouldn't, I mean, like, I mean, I think about 9/11 when I was a kid, I was in fourth grade, but God, man, people were just like, people just put everything aside there for a little while and it was kind of, it was kind of like there's bigger problems that just aren't in our face.

And there was enough people feeling that. I mean, people on the left feeling like the people in power are fucking over the working class. People on the right feeling the exact same with different words assigned to it. The deep state, you know, fucking over Middle America.

Yeah.

Whatever the narratives are. And they're just, when enough of that is happening, again, with the corporate polite speak, there's something about politeness that's really dangerous. I feel like there was a lot of politeness in the Soviet Union.

Yeah. Great example. Yeah.

Underneath that, it's like Chernobyl, uh, which is this nuclear power plant that melted down. Um, I feel like the bureaucracy needs politeness and civility and paperwork to function.

Mm-hmm.

And then atrocities can happen underneath that.

Mm-hmm.

So everybody, people in power with a smile on their face can just do horrific things.

Mm-hmm.

And then give propaganda that, look, you know, it's rainbows and sunshine and, and unicorns. Yeah. So people that are rude, I mean, I'm starting to awaken to this a little bit. Like you need a little, like Tom Waits says, uh, I like my Tom with a little drop of poison. You need some like, some poison, some, some swearing, some meanness, some bullshit, some like intensity to shake up a system. Because when it, uh, sort of converges towards this polite bureaucracy, the atrocities can happen in hidden away.

And what's probably the most terrifying to me is that that politeness is just theatrical, whereas it, it emulates the respect that we would normally give each other in society if we were healthy and functional.

What was the process of writing that song? I mean, it really spoke to the pain of and the anger of millions of people. So there's magic there.

Yeah.

Was a, what, how many, how many edits? How many like lines did you write? Were there any lines that you were like tormented by, haunted by, come back, should I do it this way or this way or that?

Do you, do you have a, I don't know. Do you, can you pull TikTok up on this? So if you go to my page, so if you go down.

There's some chickens.

Go, yeah, go down pre-Richmond. You can see the original version of Richmond where I put it up.

This is so cool to see the evolution.

Man, where there it is. Okay. So that's, that's, if you play that, that's.

I have too many unfinished songs.

Yeah. Play that. Click that and play it. 724.

Oh, wow.

For bullshit days. So I can sit out here, waste my life away, drag back home to drink my troubles. And if you read through this, it's so funny. Everybody's like, you're about to blow up. But that's. What the world's gotten to. People like me. That's all I had. So I had, I had just that.

You should probably finish this one. Might be real popular. That's supposed for a few days later.

That was in, that was in July.

Fuck. That's so inspiring, man.

So that's what I had.

That's so inspiring. That's what, like a couple weeks before, uh, you posted the final version.

Well, that's all I had. Yeah. That's all I had written at that point. Like that in my mind, that's where, that's the inspiration for the song was that little bit. And I wrote that just 'cause I was on job sites all day and, um, you know, going into like all these just terrible places to work, like dealing with different contractors and stuff. You were talking about wanting to go and talk to blue-collar people and all. It's like that's what I did for work basically for eight years was build long-term relationships with people in blue-collar. I was in the industrial space, so I would talk sometimes. I'd talk to 20 different people a day, you know, when you sit in a job site trailer and talk to, and talk to a group of dudes like, and you're not there with some news camera, you're just there as like a random dude.

And so you jotted down even to the details, like in a notebook, like those words.

No, it's always just on my phone. I would just keep recording the, I would just keep, you know, like, so if you were to go back to TikTok, like and look at any of those original videos, um, so like the songs that ended up charting, let's say, like the ones that were on there that charted with Richmond, like this, I've gotta get sober. So literally.

That's a good song. Yeah.

So literally what I did was this video, I took it my property, this is my carport where my camper was.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, I took this video, I went to some sketchy virus-ridden MP3 to WAV file or MP4 to WAV file transfer thing. I would rip the audio off of this video, put this on TikTok, and then put that on DistroKid. And that's the, that was the song. But basically like this would, this would've been the first time I played, I've gotta get sober all the way through. Like I would just keep writing it and working on it, writing it and record myself. And maybe I would record myself 30 times over the period of like two months. You know what I mean?

Oh, but it's, when you say writing, you mean in your head, not actually typed out or written anyway.

Right. It was just video. It was mostly just video.

Over and over, just videos.

I'm just trying to figure out how to make it. Yeah. But that's what all these, all these are like the audio file from all these videos is what's, is what ended up on Spotify and all that. You know what I mean? Like.

This is, it's cool to see these videos before you blew up. So this is a good song. You're playing out guts. So what, what is this at the end?

Yeah. Yeah. These were all.

Don't sell your soul, brother. This is the best music I've heard in a long time. That's a comment before you blew up.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I had about 10,000 followers or something.

What a fucking song. That's a good one.

And you gotta think like this was like that was my.

That was when I quit drinking. You know what I mean? Like, so.

But the troubles and the sin of the world that were in knocked me back off my feet.

So that's coming from, from, from your heart right there. And just imagine the.

God, just heart and living right.

The thousands of people you helped with that.

I don't know how it's gonna go.

Yeah.

But it ain't gonna happen tonight. So pour 'em down strong till I drown. And if I wake up tomorrow, when that sun comes back around, I'll be wishing I was sober. It's so crazy how those cicadas and stuff come in. Like I just felt like it was a god.

Yeah.

Like that's just off my phone. All that stuff's just there, you know? And the bowl, they've been saving my soul from the pain that the world's put on me. And Lord, I know that upstairs there's an old man who cares and one day he'll set me free. I'll go on to him, start hiding him.

That's a genius of a song. That's genius, brother.

That's genius. It's just crazy to think about. Yeah.

And what's this one right before? What is this? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So that's like the probably the.

And this was a nice recording. Got it.

Yeah. So this video got uploaded and then Draven from Radio WV would've gotten a hold of me in between this and that. He watched this and was like, dude, you got, he said, we gotta record that one. And that, like, so I didn't have it all, but I just had whatever was in that video is all I had written. It was, I think it was just the chorus and the first verse. Draven saw that video.

And said, we gotta do this one.

Reach out to me to record. And he's like, yeah, he's like, no, we gotta do that one. And I was like, dude, that's all I got.

Tell me about that guy, Draven.

He probably is like, yeah, he's probably like my best friend now. We, we hit it off with this and we're like, we're like brothers now, I guess. But he's.

Can you talk about like what he's doing for country, for music in general, for country music, for discovering talent, for like.

Yeah.

I mean, he's clearly sees something in people.

Yeah. He's just this, he's a little bit younger than I am and he's, he wrote music and played and he's got some of his, if you look up Draven Rife, he's gonna kill me for even saying this, but he's got some pretty, dude, he can, if he was like a pop singer, he would be like, he can write the most catchy stuff ever. Um.

Let's go.

Yeah. So click on like, I don't know, like.

Bye-bye.

There you go.

All right. That's him?

Yeah.

Where's this from? Five years ago.

I was feeling on my way. I was 10 years old, walking underneath the blanket of West Virginia snow. Then I walked right by no trespass sign. Did a grass look green across property line. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

You know, he could probably do, if he does like, he could, he could probably be real famous.

Well, he.

He's got a certain look.

That dude will sit there and he'll just like, we'll just be sitting there at like two in the morning and he'll just all of a sudden do this little thing. And he's got like the most amazing first part of this like song or we just started to co-write together like in the last few months. So I'm really excited for that. But if you go to his, this is really funny too. I'm sorry, Draven. I love you, man. So go to videos and go to oldest first. This is what's so awesome about Draven. He was originally working for this lady who was trying to develop different types of hair care products.

Mm-hmm.

But he thought the market was too saturated. So he was gonna get into beard oil. So he created Radio WV as like a fake plug page for his Burly Boy beard brand he was working with. So like click, like if you look at, um, yeah, like that very first video.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's like, it's got all his beard products. And if you look, there's a, there's multiple ones like that.

Yeah.

So he started it just to do this beard thing with. And then like, I don't know, he just kind of felt called to like keep going with it and it, and it just sort of naturally progressed from that.

Yeah. That too is inspiring. Like you start out one way and then you discover something real special. I mean, he's got a, he's got an eye for how to bring out, I don't know what it is, like the, both the audio side and the video side, how to bring out the best in person.

He says he just wants it to sound like the way he likes hearing it, which kind of makes sense, you know, like it's kind of in the same way talking about when we were talking about setting the cameras up and a professional would tell you you needed three lights. And you're like, well, I think it would work with the, he's just kind of like, well, it'll just work like this and.

And do it in a way where he likes it. Yeah. Just do it for yourself.

He does it 'cause he loves it. And that, and you can see, it shows, you know?

Yeah. You can see it in there. Um, and there's some good talent. Like you were showing me this new lady, Gabriel Holt.

Yeah. She's got it. But not a lot of people would, uh, record her doing that song, but he's like, I don't know. It just was different. I just thought people ought to hear it. But he's, man, it was a blessing that he came along when he did. It was like, um, it really changed both of our lives.

We gotta talk about that. So you posted the, the song Richmond, North of Richmond on August 8th, 2023.

I remember I was at work that day when it went up. Yeah.

So it blew the fuck up straight to number one on the charts, tens of millions of views and listens. Uh, and a few days later on August 17th, you made a post that I thought was pretty gangster. It was beautiful and gangster. Uh, so one, one of the things you said is it's been difficult as I browse through the 50,000 plus messages and emails I've received in the last week, the stories that have been shared paint a brutally honest picture: suicide, addiction, unemployment, anxiety, depression, hopelessness, and the list goes on.

It was all those messages I got. I mean, you can see it in the comment sections of a lot of the videos after everything happened, but people just like felt this spark like, like, wow, like maybe we actually have a chance to, like maybe we actually do have some kind of power, you know? Like those people put that song there, nobody else, and like gave me the opportunity to make, even without signing anything, I was still able to make millions of dollars and have financial freedom. And like I just, I just felt like I felt like if I was gonna do anything like that, that I'd be, I'd be betraying, like I would be taking those people and, and almost betraying them somehow, you know?

See, this is the really important thing is whether it was betrayal or not, we'll never know. But you felt that it was and to have the integrity to walk away from the bag of money when you felt that way. That's fucking epic.

It was also, you gotta think a couple months before this, like of course I had, you know, I had a wife and kids that I loved and like I had a lot of really important things to live for, but I didn't have a whole lot to lose. Like, like none of this was even really real. Like it, I didn't care about the, like I didn't care to lose this just as quick as I got it. Like this didn't, this was, this didn't mean anything to me. It just meant something to me that like, that I could do something for, like, you know, you, it's like even if I'm not smart enough to figure out how to fix some of my own problems in my life, the fact that I felt like I could help fix somebody else is like that meant a hell of a lot more to me than any, that's what I didn't want to lose.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And so I've just tried to make every decision around like as best as I can, like what I think the right thing is to do. And who knows what the hell the right thing is to do? But I just try to follow, you know, we all have that little voice in us like that. We all have some, what, and, and I think sometimes we mask and it's hard for us to listen to that little voice speak, whether, whether it's like, you know, whether it's our gluttony or our lust or our, or our, you know, we, we numb ourselves with medications or with alcohol or we, we scroll on YouTube for four hours a night and instead of, 'cause we don't wanna listen to our conscience, but there is this like very intelligent discerning thing inside of us that's able to tell us what's right and wrong.

I think you, I think you did a lot. I think you did a lot. I think you're an inspiration. You have helped a huge number of people and you're also an inspiration to the other side of it, which is the artists and just to humans to have integrity. I don't think people realize how much of a test of integrity, fame, money, you know, power also is, you know, uh, Rogan and I talk about this quite a bit. We get to see, I mean, Joe especially, but I haven't, I've had a bit of the same.

Yeah. That's all I got though, you know?

Yeah.

When you lose that, what the hell are you like? And you see it, like you see these celebrity people that just like fall off the, they fall off the, you know, they go off the deep end. It's like, it's, you gotta have, you have to have something in your life to, and to keep you centered and to keep you, um, you know, your whole perception of reality and like your just existence in reality has all contingent upon this sort of like this center that you exist in. And you have to, if you don't have that, then you're just flying through space, through space. I mean, we're all just riding on this rock that's going, who knows how fast.

Mm-hmm. You said something, uh, I think to Jaco that I really liked. Everything that has purpose behind it comes with risk. So there in that moment, I mean, you're taking a hell of a risk.

I was terrified to, I talked about this a little bit with him too, but I was terrified to even put the song out. Like I knew I was gonna be the subject of scrutiny and judgment and I knew people were gonna like, you know, I kind of knew all that was gonna happen. I was like going back to that talking about crowds, like to stand in front of thousands of people and everybody be in some sense of unity. Like a lot of times when I end the shows, I'll always, I'll always end with this statement that just says, you know, no matter what, like no matter how you feel when you go online, you know, everyone feels so small and insignificant and, and powerless.

And then that song became the rebel call against that, against the power structures that creates that.

Yeah. It's like how much fire am I willing to play with? 'Cause I know at some point I am gonna get burned from it. I just pray a lot that God, I don't have a lot of self-worth in myself anyway, so I don't really care what they say or do to me or I don't care. Like I don't even care if I die, whatever. Just don't let, just, just protect the people I love is all, that's all I ask of God. I have this dream of just creating this parallel system that sits beside all these stupid systems that we live under that are all sort of engulfed in this, this thing that we talked about at the beginning, this, this type of structure, you know, where none of us, where we're all just robots.

In all domains of life, from, from food to the music industry, honestly, to education, also to government itself, all of it. And that, you know, your music is also just the soundtrack to that spirit that makes America great of just constantly trying to revitalize itself. When the bullshit piles up a little too high, there's that revolutionary spirit that says like, we need to fix this shit.

And, and that inspiration that created this country was from years of people living under tyranny. Like we forget the story of the people who really created this country. Like it's funny, I, one of the statements I made at the very beginning that got taken way out of context, but I wasn't in a position to like even begin to have a conversation about, as I made this comment early on at one of the shows about, about how, about how our diversity is a strength. But that term has been hijacked now to mean something a lot different than what it really means.

Mm-hmm.

But it's like, think about how many different people came together just at the founding of this country. Like people who spoke different languages, different cultures, religions, ways of thinking. So many different people came together to even create this place now. And like we've just forgotten about all that. They didn't all come here because they wanted to ride on some miserable boat ride and risk their whole lives to go to live in some crazy jungle, essentially, that had no structure, like no infrastructure, no medicine, no, like they didn't come here for like some glorified camping trip. It's because they were tired of like generations of being persecuted and living under tyranny and not being allowed to practice their, you know, it's not like they wanted freedom of religion and they didn't want separation of church and state because they were a bunch of goody two shoes and they loved going to church every Sunday.

Yeah. I mean, it's, uh, multinational corporations, it's nation-states that, uh, are deeply corrupt and are authoritarian and ultimately abuse power and yes, create, uh, elements of tyranny. And from that, the, the human spirit rises, uh, like I said, with, with, with, with songs like the ones you write or at the founding of this country, you know, that's why all these diverse outcasts come together and write something as crazy as all men are created equal.

That's like a gigantic fuck you to the past. Taking that leap forward really took a lot in an age and a time when, when it probably sounded correct. And it's not like they just made a statement and put it on Twitter. Like they, they like think about how much, just think about the insanity. Like I can't even conceptualize the insanity of what took place from the time that, like even from the Revolutionary War until now to try to preserve that idea, you know? So like, so much has happened and so much sacrifice has been made and just so many hours of labor and thought and intensity.

Even the 20th century's got two world wars and, uh, you know, especially in the Second World War, the United States played a very crucial role. And there was a lot of ideological, like battle of ideas going on at that time.

Yeah.

Of the role of war and peace, of the role of the United States as the, as the center place for the ideal of human freedom and human rights. Yeah. And we continue to innovate. So I'd love to get back to talking to Blue-Collar people you mentioned. Um, those are some of my favorite people. So it was actually really cool to find out that for many years of your life, basically the way you made a living is talking to Blue-Collar people and getting their story.

Mm-hmm.

So, uh, I wanted to take a road trip across the United States for several months. And one of the things I wanted to do is to just to, to talk to, to people in, in small towns in Middle America. I don't know what words to put on it, but to talk to the very people that you talked about that, that, uh, you know, construction workers, plumbers, waitresses, oil rig workers, just people that do something real, people that are real, that don't make much money, that struggle, but have, uh, as you talked about, have like a richness to them.

Mm-hmm.

That's not often revealed. That's not often talked about. So maybe can you speak to that, to your, to your time with Blue-Collar folk.

When I got all those messages at the, we were talking about early on, earlier in this, like so many of 'em. And even now, it's even since I, even like in the last couple days, I've gotten some where they start with, "Hey, I'm a nobody," but like that's how a lot of those start, you know, like the nobodies of the world, if you want to call 'em. Like that's, it's, it's frustrating that the, the people who literally have, have, have built and preserve and maintain the structure of society that we all comfortably live in, those people have the least amount of representation.

Mm-hmm.

And it was this commercial air conditioning factory, which is, I think, closed now, but they didn't pay very well. And so everyone they hired was either people that had criminal backgrounds who couldn't get jobs elsewhere or idiots who dropped out of high school and couldn't work elsewhere like me. And so I was 18 years old working in this place with people who are mostly in their fifties and sixties. But you wanna talk about being exposed to just a whole nother world of people, like, and just the stories and the, just those people are far more interesting than, than many of the people that we consider to be celebrities.

Mm-hmm.

Like the people, the accents, the culture. And so I feel driven in the same way. Like I would love to, I would love to find a way to, to try to bridge that cultural gap, to make those people relevant and to make, because they are like some of the most, and like, and it's funny because we emulate a lot of those pe like, you know, modern country music is a bunch of people emulating those people.

Right.

You know?

And there's also like, uh, I love people that have a skill and become masters of that skill also. So that element is also there. Even if it's like insanely difficult work, like being a miner, like there's skill to that. There's stories there. There's like.

Yeah.

What it takes to do that. That's why, I mean, some of my favorite humans are engineers and all they do is solve really hard problems and they develop, I mean, it's a pain in the ass job.

Yeah.

Anything in the factory is, is extremely difficult, but you learn so much about what it takes to solve intricate, like nuanced problems in the physical world. So coal mining, oil rigs, like you mentioned, welding, that's a fascinating line of work.

And, and those are trades that are in many cases dying because we, we don't, because they aren't popular in culture anymore. For everything from agricultural to plumbing and electrical, it's like those are all areas that I think if you were to go out and talk to some of those people and shed light on it, it would, you, like you could change the, you could change the entire landscape in America of how, of how it's perceived and like, and make it cool, you know?

Yeah. So thank you. What you're doing on that front, I, I want to say I wrote it down. Please, if you know people that would be willing to talk, reach out to me. A good way to do that is lexfridman.com/contact.

This was another one of the things early on that I had an idea about and I thought was getting done and it wasn't that I, I've gotta go back and try to figure out is doing prison shows and, uh, doing rehab shows and all that. But I am really intrigued with like going into those places and trying to immerse myself in just the, the mental state that those people are in. And like it's not talked about a whole lot, but.

Also people who get out, ex-convicts, I mean, that, that's a hard life. That's just a hard life to try to reintegrate back into society.

Yeah. And a lot of those people at Perfect Air that I worked with, they almost all were in some form of legal trouble. Like there was a lady that worked on the assembly line beside me named Denise, and, uh, her and her husband had been manufacturing methamphetamine and he took the fall for most of it. She only had to go on probation. He was still in prison. But man, like Denise was a very sweet lady and like aside from the meth manufacturing, like she was like great, you know?

Yeah.

Like, and just such a character, like in such a good way. And so it's like, yeah, just.

Denise, lexfridman.com/contact. Let's talk. I mean, yeah, you know, like both, both sort of the plumbers and the coal miners and, uh, Denise with the, the old meth habits. I mean, they're walking the line of like, you know, surviving is hard.

Yeah.

So you have to do a real hard job and then you also have to live life, which is in general hard. You know, divorce, kids, people die, you lose like the medical issues and that, that can destroy you completely. All of a sudden something happens, you can't afford it. The, the, the insurance system destroys people, all of that. So you have to somehow navigate life while working your ass off in a real hard job. And those people, they have stories.

Yeah. It doesn't have to be that. We don't all have to be that decentralized either. Like if all, if there is that much commonality among people, which I do believe there is, like in just innately in suffering and in, and in, yeah, like there's a guy, there's a guy in West Virginia that I talked to that he's got a piece of property beside a mine that he was interested in selling. But the reason he's, he's got this dream of opening a, uh, like putting some cabins there and renting 'em out for people to come Airbnb. He works at Lowe's full-time, but he's, his son's got this, his son's like 19 and he's got this heart surgery he's gotta have.

To some people, at least religion does a little bit. It gives, uh, it's at least a foundation of community, a foundation of hope for people and when they're really struggling.

Yeah.

You got thousands of messages like you talked about from people. You gotten to talk to thousands of people about their pain through your work, through your music. You've been an inspiration to those people to find a way out of the pain. Can you tell the full story of your own lowest point before, before all of this, before the, before the music, before you blew up? Uh, can you take me through the story of the depression, the drinking, and just the roughest times in your life?

It's sometimes it's not even, you know, it, it's funny, but it's almost not even where you're at in life. It's where you perceive yourself at in life and what your, what your goals are moving forward. And I think like, you know, I was, I dropped out of high school at 17, basically ran away from home. I just, I couldn't, I have always had this authority problem. And so I just didn't want to listen to my parents. I didn't want to go to college. I just wanted to go move into the mountains. I was running away from responsibility, I guess is what I was doing, you know?

You face the reality of it.

Yeah. And the pressure and the fear of failure. Like I think maybe even my own fear of failure is what drove, is what drove me and, uh, but yeah, you just, and you, you think negatively about yourself for so many days and weeks and months and you like, you don't even have a real self-awareness of like what you're doing or how destructive you've become, but you always have that, that discernment in you, that like, that conscious, you know, that little voice in your, in your spirit that is letting you know you're messing up, you know?

Mm-hmm.

I was almost like, you know, I was wrestling with myself, you know? And so I don't know, I just got to a point where it's just like, I. Yeah. Just a, just a very, just a very overwhelming sense of numbness. Like, like it don't, like nothing really, nothing that mattered before really matters anymore. Like I guess that's, that's probably to me the definition of depression is when all the things you love and care about are just meaningless and you can't find, you really can't find meaning or purpose or excitement in anything, you know?

Yeah.

I think that's probably where, that's probably where a lot of people go and that's probably where I was, was just like, you know.

Yeah. I mean, there is the, it's not just responsibility, it's the immensity of it, the mountain. And I think you're accurately describing how it happens, which is gradually.

Yeah.

Seeing yourself in a negative light over time slowly suffocates you. And then the burden of the responsibility that piles up. And unfortunately, of course, one of the ways out is to pull the trigger. And the other way out is the Jordan Peterson, back to Jordan, sort of one gradual step at a time, like make your bed.

Mm-hmm.

It's like start climbing out, like the responsibilities before you want at a time, every single day, just climbing out and have faith that it will work out.

That was what was so powerful for me about just beginning to open my mind back up to reading just a little bit of stuff, like a little bit of stuff from the New Testament that Jesus said and some different perspectives and teachings. But like, you know, an apostle would be in prison, like basically being tortured and facing death, but like just overjoyed and writing about talking about, it's all about your perspective of things. Like I said, like that's why I never could understand why, you know, like celebrities or professional, I mean, giving one example of many, like a Kurt Cobain type scenario where you have a guy that's just immensely talented, just will always be loved by plenty of people.

There's a ocean of quiet suffering in, uh, in a lot of, and I think it is disproportionately in men, in a lot of men, and they hide it well.

That's why blue-collar workers have such a high suicide rate and all too, and why it is so important to talk to those people and.

Yeah. It's in the, you could see it in the eyes and there, there, there is, there is a lot of pain there.

Without like trying to get, without like trying to open up too many doors. I think that's probably the best way I would describe it is just a series of really. Just a series of negligent decisions and also just misperceptions, you know? Like I think this was an Andrew Huberman thing where he talks about medications and how it's a lot more likely for somebody to keep their dog on their medication schedule, but not themselves. You know, you love your dog and your dog, like it's just this great little thing and you just, you don't see the flaws and the faults and the sin and the disgust in your dog that you do yourself.

Yeah.

Very rarely are people posting on Facebook talking about, you know, how could you even, it's like all you see is the best of people, but I don't think we realize that we're all going through a lot of the same things anyway, you know, the low points and stuff.

Guess what happens when you either lose your job or can't quite figure out a good job and you're not making that much money or you're basically broke and you have a girlfriend that's not happy about you being broke, she's gonna leave you. Or if it's a wife that could face divorce and like the breakups and divorce can break a lot of people even when they're doing well.

Yeah.

And now when they're not doing well, that's a rough one. And that basically your support system for a lot of people is the relationship is the, is the wife and the, and so like that's taking the support system from underneath you and.

I've had good friends of mine I've seen get in destructive relationships and like they'll start to date a girl and then like within a year they're just like a shell of what they were. Because sometimes I do think it's, I do think you have to be careful with like your self-validation and the way you perceive yourself and making sure that it's you giving yourself that and not somebody else. 'Cause I do think too, it's like, yeah, like you're, you know, how are you supposed to, if you can't even, if you can't even keep a woman around to love you right, like how are you supposed to love yourself?

Yeah. Ultimately, I think maybe dark to say, but there is, there is a base layer at which we're, we're alone in this world. Like you need to be strong by yourself first and foremost. 'Cause sometimes there'll be times in life where everybody leaves you.

Yeah.

The wife leaves you, the job leaves you. And for some people might even people you thought are friends will backstab you. And even then you have to have the strength to find your footing again. Like that, that ultimately comes from you, right?

I mean, man, of course, like I said, in all the experiences I've been through, just I can't, I'd be a fool to deny it, but like I do think there is God there that, that's always there if you're, but you certainly can self-isolate yourself too, even from that.

If you can find faith in yourself, I've seen it do wonderful things for human beings. You and God, faith in something bigger than you. Yeah. That can give strength to a lot of people. But, uh, allowing yourself to derive strength solely from other people can be a dangerous thing.

Mm-hmm.

'Cause people are complicated and they can betray, they can, uh, just like they can fill your life with love, they can also destroy you. That's also the beautiful thing about life.

Yeah, it is.

You make yourself vulnerable to other people. You form deep relationships. That means they can also destroy you. So that's life.

Yeah.

That's, that's what makes this whole thing. That's what, and then you write really great heartbreak songs.

Yeah.

You know, people, you know, there's something valuable about people fucking you over and, and hardship and all that kind of stuff.

Even the best of us have terrible parts of us. Like we are all flawed inherently because we're human. And so there, there'll never be a, there'll never be another Garden of Eden on earth, like figuratively where, where we all just live harmoniously and everything's great and happy and wonderful. But it is, it's those basic principles that you talk about, like love and our, and those relationships and those connections that we have that, that make it all. 'Cause think about it, I mean, like in a lot of cases, it's like what even, that's the position you get in when you get too, when you get so depressed and you get so low, it's like, what's the point in even doing all this?

Yeah. I've seen that with, uh, just seeing the effects of war on a people and basically war strips away everything. You lose your home, you, you lose, you lose everything. And, uh, you get to see what's actually really important. And that's the other people in your life, uh, friends, family. It's almost cliché to say, but it's, uh, it's the people you love in your life that make up the essence of what makes life worth living.

Hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. It's important to remember a lot of us, especially in the United States under a capitalist system, are chasing money.

Yeah.

It's, it's important like to remember what you're doing it all for. I gotta talk to you about your, um, your writing process. You've written just, uh, a bunch of really incredible, uh, songs. You say you're not good at, you're not a good musician, which is hilarious.

Dude, I have no, I have like zero self-confidence about any, I mean, just about anything, but I ju, when I say that, I'm not being funny. Like I'm like.

You get nervous when you like get on stage?

Oh yeah. Yeah. Like I can think about shows coming up and my hands will sweat thinking about 'em.

Yeah. You told me that you like haven't really played the songs for like a couple months, like old songs.

Since September. Yeah.

Since September.

Well dude, like think about how hard, like, you know, I can, I'm not gonna just sit around and play. I've gotta get sober for fun. Like, and like, you know.

So you feel, you feel the songs when you play them.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that's rough. That's, that's rough.

A lot of musicians talk about that kind of thing though, right? Like about this, I don't know, I've heard about that with people, like about hating to play songs 'cause of the, that side of it, but.

Well, yeah. I've, uh, I've become close friends with the Dan Reynolds, who's, uh, the lead singer for Imagine Dragons.

Yeah.

And he says every time he performs a song, I mean, he has songs that have depression in them and all that kind of stuff. And he says like the only real way to do it is to feel it. You, you, you have to, you can't just fake it. You have to like be in it. You have to like really feel the song as if you're singing it, as if you're writing it for the first time. So as a performer that, that he says that that's his duty. He has to, to the, to the audience, but then that takes a toll. That's not easy to do. That's, that, uh, especially with the songs you write.

Yeah. And I do have some, I do have some lighter hearted ones too that I, that I, you know, I mean, I, the thing is, it's like I've only put out, I, I'm a little funny about like really, like, God, I don't know how many songs I have written that I will probably never do anything with. Like, I mean, probably at least 20 or 30 of 'em that are just like, they're just not, I just don't know why I don't wanna put 'em out, but just.

What does it look like? What do you have like a notebook with ideas or do you mean you have like literal videos of half-baked songs?

Yeah, I've got my old phone. Like even just that old phone that I recorded all the stuff for TikTok and all on, it's got loads of like little, just like the way that Richmond one was where it was like in the bathroom facing the, and I had like that, you know, that's all that, even that one I showed you on there, it had been sitting on my phone probably a couple months before it. That's why I said I have too many unfinished songs. It's exactly what I meant. I've got all these little snippets of things, like.

Yeah.

A little blip here or there, but the writing process is, well, it's a lot different than I thought most people write. 'Cause like in the, there's a lot of people that do these writing rooms and stuff and they'll have, or you know, these co-writes where they'll have people sit down and they like sit on the couch and smoke a joint and they're like, all right, let's write this song. And they just like start plugging away and they, to me, that's like, I can't do that. I have to just, it's like almost the op, it's like the, a lot of times the songs come when I'm not prepared for 'em.

You like to be alone?

Well, alone in my head, I could be out and I could be anywhere in it.

Right.

You know, some of 'em I'll just be in the shower and they'll just like, and I'm like scrambled. 'Cause the thing is, is like, hmm, it's a certain part of your brain, I guess, that creates that stuff or picks it up or does whatever, but they come just, they come and go, they go just as quick as they come. It's like when you wake up, it's, it's exactly like when you wake up, you've had this crazy vivid dream in your head and you wake up and it's all right there. And then you stop thinking about it for like half a second and then it all goes away and you'll never remember it again. You know, like you can't remember your dreams like that.

Well, the words or the music or the melody, like what, what pops into your head?

The, the emotion, I guess. The words, sometimes it's a phrase like, um, like one thing I will do is like, especially out in the country, people say the craziest, people say the craziest things. And so sometimes I'll like jot down a little bit of some, like I will sometimes on my phone take a little note if somebody says something real crazy that I've never heard before. And then maybe one day it'll just pop in my head like, oh, you know, I don't know. It's very random though. Like I don't sit and just try to write songs. That's why I haven't put out, like, that's why I haven't just been dumping out, even though I have been writing a lot of songs, I haven't just been like dumping out all this crazy music.

Do you have any truck beer girl songs? 'Cause that, that would be an interesting.

Yeah. I've got this silly one about this guy in West Virginia that, um, he's like the most, he's the most laid back. 'Cause I always get in my head and get over analytical about stuff and get real serious sometimes about things. And he's like, buddy, you just gotta take a drag off this thing. And he'll, you know, he was the one, he'd always like, like peer pressure me into taking a hit off a joint or something and like just try to cheer. And he just didn't take life so seriously. So I've written this song about, it's called Dr. Dan and it's about, you know, he's a doctor, but he's not like a conven he's not like a conventional doctor.

That's good.

Um, I have a couple funny ones that I'll, that I'll never, ever, ever probably play to the public, but I did, I played 'em at the mothership, um, only 'cause nobody has their phones in there. But, uh, when I, after, right after we did Rogan, I had, I got a chance, I got, somehow I got connected with Tom Segura right after Rogan and we went over to the mothership and I got to meet him and I love Adam Maguette, you know, he, he was on the thing with Norm MacDonald is how I got introduced to him, that show Norm MacDonald had. But he's just, he's an awesome dude. And so we, we ended up at the mothership, uh, I think it was the evening after the Rogan podcast.

Yeah.

What is this? Like, what is this crazy reality I'm in? But I do have some funny, I used to, 'cause a lot of, when I wasn't playing the open mics, you know, the, well, like, you know, Brian that you met, a lot of my guitar playing was spent at places like his house and we were all heavy drinkers and we were just sitting around at a party playing or whatever, you know? And so I definitely like the silly stuff too, but I was really in my head when we were talking about being low and what I would suggest people to do if they're in that point. But if I was just to like, not to flip this, but just, it just popped in my head, but probably what I would tell anybody to do if they're like suicidal and thinking about, like if they're to that point is just to go find some, go find somewhere outside, like in nature and go.

Yeah.

That's what, you know, that's, I kind of missed this step when we were talking about things, but like selling my house and buying that property and putting a camper on it and trying to go into this whole off-grid thing. Really? Like, I don't know. It, it does a lot of good for you being reconnected to nature 'cause we are a part of it, but.

Oh yeah, that's, I've been to the jungle, uh, I went to the jungle for that reason. Yeah. Being out of nature in every way is just, it's beautiful. I saw you got some, maybe, maybe that's what I need to do is get some goats. You got, I saw.

I got two. I can give you.

You got, I have more questions. Why are you giving them so easily? Are there, are there issues I need to know about?

Well, they're goats. Yeah.

There's no, there's no free lunch, man. I, what, how many you got goats? You got, you got all kinds of animals. What's the, so what's the story of you out in the woods? What are you doing out there?

Uh, no comment. I'm just kidding. Just trying to escape this dystopian nightmare that we're all living under. Like.

Yeah.

Just, it was just a form of escapism, I guess. But you know, my, well, yeah, I think in such a short period of time, my grandfather grew up like, you know, they were in a survivalist state, like trying to make enough money to pay the tax on their land, growing tobacco. And then here I am like in this digital world two generations later, and I'm just like, something's not, you know, I just felt, just felt called to try to figure out, figure all that out and how to get back into that. There's just a, there's such a purity to, man, if you raise an animal and kill it and eat it, like, and I'm not talking about like, like Ted Nugent style, but just like, you know, raising meat birds and pigs and stuff and being, having the ability to put those in the freezer and cook 'em for dinner.

Oh yeah.

They taste so much better, but it's just, it feels, it's just, I don't know how to describe it, but it just brings me joy. Um, being able to grow stuff and even just flowers and everything else, just watching stuff that's alive like that is just such a, you know, my, what we're doing now is I've bought this permaculture farm that hadn't been operational in like six or seven years. And, um, they did a lot of herbs. They had a big orchard, blueberries, you know? But, um, my dream there is to create this space that, um, that's like the optimal place for humans to go to fix their mind.

What do you, uh, what do you find out there in nature that you can't find anywhere else? I can't find in the, in the, uh, quote civilized world.

Mm-hmm. Well, everything in civilization seems so like everything we've talked about, it seems so like there's such a level of despair and unorganization and chaos and just like, and all, and all these like terrible parts of life that seem like so unstructured and just so uncertain. But in nature, everything is certain. Everything has a system. Like even on the microbial level of soil, there's this like intricate system and, you know, soil, soil fixes it, like the bacteria fixes the soil and like, and you can grow certain types of plants to restore certain types of nutrients and then that can grow certain types of trees and then that can bring in certain types of birds.

I've gotten a chance to spend, uh, a day and a night alone in, deep in the Amazon jungle.

Mm. That's like my dream, man.

Yeah. And you basically take the woods and the, and the creek and the quiet. Let's put that like a three on a scale of one to ten. The Amazon jungle's like an 11.

Yeah.

Because you're not just listening to the creek, you're listening to like a lot of different species of animal having sex or, or trying to kill each other. And you're just like birds, monkeys, just everything. And the, the, the, the floor full of insects.

Yeah.

Bigger kinds of ants murdering smaller kinds of ants. It's an orchestra of.

Mm.

Of insects, but there, it's quiet in the sense that there's no machinery. The, the really dark thing about the Amazon rainforest that sometimes, depending on where you are, you'll sometimes hear in the distance the sound of a chainsaw. You'll hear like.

Yeah.

It just, and it pierces.

Yep.

The day because like there's just no machinery anywhere around. But once you hear it, it's in, you know, it is like this undeniable symbol of, uh, what human civilization does.

Mm-hmm.

To nature.

It pains me seeing woods getting knocked down and residential, residential subdivisions taking their place. Like this, like the monkey part of my brain wants to just go burn it all down. Like it's just like not good. Like, I don't know. I just instinctually observe it as being not good. And I don't know exactly how to describe it, but I'm with you. Like I, um, that was, like I said, that's why I felt so compelled. I mean, we had, I had this little house that I had maybe a little bit of equity in and I, it was in 2019 and the housing market was up and I was like, I sold our little house and got that, I was able to find 92 acres for like 1,100 an acre.

And you're just doom scrolling and it, it, it does something to your mind. It just completely takes the humanity away.

Yeah.

It's, it's, it's, it's really horrible. Like that dopamine thing does something to my mind that I hate, which really is the opposite of nature. Like the feeling I remember being out in nature and not just a hike, hike is good, but like for prolonged periods of time, several days away from the internet, away from all of that.

Yeah.

What is that? I don't know what that is, but I don't like what X, Twitter are doing. I don't like what Instagram is doing. Whatever that is, I don't think that's good for the soul.

Yeah. It's, it's emulating things that we need to be healthy humans, but it's just like feeding it visually and, and audibly to us, but it's not giving us the, it's giving us the instant gratification of it, but it's not giving us the long-term pleasure or fulfillment of it. Like I said, like, and the beauty is we're in this weird period in time, like it's a breath of time that we're in where, where we are able to conceptualize and observe what life was like in that transition point that's got us up till now.

Yeah. I mean, it's a transitionary state and I want, one of the responsibilities I take very seriously, 'cause I agree with you, is I tried to pierce the bubble that is San Francisco, that is the Silicon Valley, that is the people that build these technologies. They, they often live a bit in a bubble.

Yeah.

That said, the people that criticize tech folks also live in a bubble.

Yeah.

And to sort of, first of all, piercing bubbles in general is, is good for people to, to get along, to understand each other. Because, uh, people that say all technology is evil, unfortunately, technology, even if that's true, which I don't think it is, uh, you, it's coming, uh, it's going to be built.

Mm-hmm.

And so you have to figure out how to do it in a way that preserves our humanity, that, that doesn't drag us into this black hole of like just maximizing engagement, maximizing this dopamine thing where.

Mm-hmm.

Where instead of reading Dostoevsky, which I should be doing, I'm looking at some girl doing, shaking her ass on Instagram and then feeling horrible about myself five minutes later.

Yeah.

Uh, that at scale is what seems to be happening. And so like reminding ourselves that this is not the way to steer human civilization to progress, to flourishing.

The problem is, is I think we're wasting a lot of our, our bandwidth, like a lot of the, like we only have so many minutes in a day to even use our brains and our brains can only do but so much in a day anyway. And when we're wasting any of it on just that, it's like the pro, it's like I, I see it in my own professional opinion as the world is becoming just a little more in the last decade or two, as the world becomes a little more dreary and dark and more problems happen and city streets become more littered and jobs are like all these kind of problems that we've, that we all argue about all the time.

Yeah. I've been trying to figure it all out. I, I just did a super long podcast with, uh, Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Epic Games, who created Fortnite, created Unreal Engine, a lot of interesting video games, like revolutionary video games. So I don't know if you know, but Fortnite is this gigantic video game where people go into, uh, into an online world and they shoot stuff. It's fun. It's, it's not like Call of Duty, intense militaristic, like raw real kind of shooting. It's more fun shooting at each other.

Yeah.

And you get to hear each other's voice and you just talk and talk shit about each other together. It's basically a phone call, honestly, with some visuals.

Mm-hmm.

You're not, it's not about the visuals, it's about the phone call. And it just makes it a little more convenient to connect regularly.

Yeah.

But I think you do need to remember that all of that only works if you're consistently returning to physical reality. You know, uh, in this case, like taking the quote unquote, uh, guy trip, not the Brokeback Mountain style, but just friends, you know, just friends trip out in nature together, like, like dudes on a hunting trip or, or just fishing or just hanging out in physical reality together. It's really a fun, like we should not forget the importance of that.

You talked earlier about loneliness. I think that got brought up at some point, but I do think that's like a big, that's a problem that's caused a lot of our symptoms is that we are all like very lonely. Even though we are all, we all seem to be so well connected digitally, we are all so lonely. You gotta think, I mean, Modern Warfare two was a big thing. I was, I was supposed to be in class of 2010. So you can think like when I was in whatever grade, eighth grade or whatever, Call of Duty was like the thing, you know, I, I've certainly like, trust me, I'm not saying that I, I'm right in this space of digital immersion with anybody else.

Yeah. Fuck the division that the internet creates. Honestly, like the left and the right is, is, it's been, it's been, it's been kind of a nightmare for me just to watch. 'Cause I see the, the very simple reality that we're in it together and that there's a lot more commonality between people. It seems cliché to say, but it's like now that needs to be said more than ever. 'Cause it, when you look on X, it feels like everybody's divided, but we're not.

Well, and people are always gonna think differently too. Like just in our structure and the way we, you know, again, it's like that, it goes back to that Jordan Peterson lecture about, I think in Maps of Meaning where he talks about people who think more conservatively or more liberally about things like it's been applied to politics, but it is more, it's based more in psychology than anything. Like some people are gonna have, some people are gonna think more inside the box and some people are gonna think more outside the box. But we have to have both in order to have a healthy society. Like.

Oh, and also the, the thing that bothers me, your song Richmond, North of Richmond, a lot of people, so I've pretty even split people on the left and the right in terms of, uh, friends of mine. And sadly they've drifted to towards the extremes a bit. Uh, those on the left definitely have developed a case of, uh, Trump derangement syndrome. Uh, those on the right seem to think that every person on the left is a kind of radical leftist.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

It's, it's, it's like hilarious to listen to, to people talk. It's like everybody's lost their mind, it feels like. But also on top of that, people on the right see Trump as, uh, as this savior, as this figure who is, who could do no wrong, who's going to restore freedom in America and all, you know, continue, you can do a full list of really positive things. And to me, he's yet another Richmond, North of Richmond, Biden, Trump, it's all the same thing.

Yeah.

Like, like, and, and honestly, like just do anything for his family. And this, the same is true for Trump. And that just reminds you that they're human beings. And yeah, all that to say is like we need to see the humanity in each of us. Uh, and to some degree always distrust the people in power.

The power that people have only exists because we allow it, whether willingly or just through our own negligence. But I think that's the important thing is like, like I said, there's always more of us than there will be of them. There's always more, there's always more nobodies than there ever will be people at the top.

Fucking hell.

And we just have to figure out what to do with that and how to, and I think this is, like I said, a short window of time to, to where we can still figure that out, you know?

I gotta ask you about something before I forget. I think I saw on Instagram, you talked about a three-legged cat. Is that a real thing?

Yeah.

What's the story behind the three-legged cat? And the reason I want to ask you that, first of all, I want to hear the story. And second of all, I want to read to you, uh, one of my favorite Bukowski poems afterwards.

Nice. Okay.

About another cat. All right. What's the story?

I had this cat lady neighbor who's a real sweet lady, but, um, older lady lives in a trailer, single wide trailer. Has probably got, I don't know, 30 or 40 cats.

Nice.

That she feeds at her house.

Nice.

It was a rainy Saturday morning. It was pouring down rain. It was gonna be like, it was like eight o'clock in the morning on Saturday. It was gonna be a great day. I was gonna.

Yeah.

And then I hear this lady yelling. There's this cat stuck in my car. And she's all freaking out and don't know what to do. And like I said, my wife's a veterinary technician or whatever, so she's got a little bit more sense about animals than any of us. But we go over there and the lady's tried to start her car and there's this kitten that is, was up under the hood and she started the car and the cat basically it ripped, it, it basically almost ripped its whole front leg off already. There was just a little bit still attached, like some tendon or whatever, but the, the leg was like wrapped up under the water pump, like the pulley of the water pump.

Yeah.

Knocked the bell off. There was no way to get, there was no way to save this leg on this guy. It was like, and, but the cat was like pinned upside down. And so we ended up grabbing a, we asked the lady if she had like a knife in the house. So she gave us this like terrible looking knife, but it's all that we had. You know, I was like, we were trying to get this done. So yeah, my wife was the one that did it, but we like got the rest of the stuff cut and got the cat out. And I'm, and I don't know, I just like to spend like, have her, I was like over a grand we spent giving, like getting this cat's, like getting it properly sutured or whatever to where the cat could have a healthy recovery and all.

Yeah.

The lady, you know? So yeah, it's my, I named her Hop. So that's my little cat and it hops around and, but it was one of those things where, uh, yeah, I don't know. I just, great example with animals though. I guess it's the same way with people. I just always see the best and I just couldn't.

Yeah. I mean, that's one of the most amazing things about humans. It's, it's irrational to spend that much money on this cat, right? Because there's so many other cats that are suffering and dying and so on. But that's what makes humans really special. We see that the, the, the, the, the, the person or the creature suffering in front of us and the, we're, we're willing to move mountains to save that person.

Yeah.

Like it's irrational. Maybe it doesn't make sense because the allocation of money and effort might not be correct, whatever. Uh, we just don't give a shit.

The reason that we're willing to do it for a cat, like I said, it's just like the thing with the dogs about giving the dogs your medication, but not yourself. So we see all the flaws and all the problems and the, all the disagreements and all the anger we have with each other. Just like you said, your friends on the right and the left and stuff. And like we could show that kind of compassion and we do, I mean, humanity does from time to time show that kind of compassion, but we could show that kind of like just undeserved, just, just love, you know?

Mm-hmm.

To each other too. Like, and love is like, it's funny, you know, you talked about how both of those presidents, you could say they at least love their family, but love is like, I think everyone's capable of love. It's probably the most powerful thing there is, even beyond hate, I think is, you know, like, but it is crazy with animals. It's so easy, it comes out of us so easily with animals because they to, to us, they're in, they're, there's these innocent little lives. We don't have anything against them, you know?

Mm-hmm.

Like they don't have, they don't, they don't, they don't talk, they don't have political views, they don't, they're just little creatures. But the reality is, is we're all just, we're all just creatures like that, you know?

Yeah. We do that with human children.

Yeah.

But we don't do it enough with adults who are also kinds of children. They're still, we're still like, we're still fucking lost in this world. Uh, so I gotta ask, I gotta read you, I gotta read you this.

Nice.

It's gotta be one of my favorite poems. It's called The History of One Tough Motherfucker by Charles Bukowski. And people should go look at videos. Well, there's videos of Bukowski doing interviews with a cat by his side. And that's the cat he's talking about. All right. It goes like this. He came to the door one night, wet, thin, beaten, and terrorized. A white cross-eyed tailless cat. I took him in and fed him and he stayed.

About that.

The three-legged cat, there you go. And I, I, I think of your music and your life story in that same way. There's just been through some shit. Just like Bukowski. Neither of you two have been through what that cat's been through. But you know, that's kind of life. That's what it's all about. Uh, I was wondering if you could, uh, play a couple songs for me.

Sure. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, cool. Do you wanna take a break or no?

Um, no, I'm good. Am I, we might have to take a break just, just really get this figured out, but.

Uh, bathroom break real quick.

Of course. Yeah.

Where's, where is the guitar? Like where, no, like positionally?

I think, yeah, I think this will be fine.

Oh, so giddo.

Call Draven and be like, who? Well, if you, I guess I'll do, um, if I was gonna do anything on here from the older songs that, that was related both to everything we've talked about, it, it'd probably be I Wanna Go Home.

Sounds good. Well, if it won't for my old dogs and the good Lord, they'd have me strung up in the side cord. 'Cause every day living in this new world is one too many days to me, son.

That's probably one of the first, I don't know, it's not the first song I wrote, but one of them.

What a song, man. What a song. What a song. What's the story of that guitar?

Well, the guy who made this like saved my butt. 'Cause everything blew up and I was playing that little Gretsch resonator that's in all the original videos.

Yeah.

And my, my wife had got me that off of Amazon, I think, or something for like three or 400 bucks. It's like a, just a entry level, like import little Gretsch. And the pickup never would work right in it. So this string would, wouldn't work when you plugged it in.

Mm-hmm.

So here we are, everything happens all at once and we're trying to do these shows and like, you know, I think the biggest one I did, so basically what I ended up having to do was go, I bought one of these suction cup rigs that sticks right here and the mic goes down under here to pick that string up.

Okay.

And I played like, we played like a, I think the biggest show I did with it was like 10,000 people, but it was enough to where I couldn't be doing a $300 guitar with a, with a rigged up thing on it anymore. It just wasn't gonna work. So this guy reached out and, um, Gretsch wouldn't help me with my Gretch. Like, you know, there's no way to really get ahold of 'em 'cause they're such a big company at the, I, I finally did get ahold of Diane Gretsch and she's like really nice. And so it's nothing personal against Gretsch. It's just at the time I couldn't get ahold of 'em. I figured I would've been able to 'cause like everywhere sold out of those, that Gretsch model when the song blew up, you know?

Mm-hmm.

Like it was a real pop, but that couldn't get ahold of 'em. So this guy beard guitar, Paul Beard in Maryland, he reached out, fixed my Gretsch and then, um, gave me one of these and made it with the, but it's all handmade and all, it's like. Yeah, you can like whack somebody over the head with it pretty good.

Yeah, it's nice and heavy.

But yeah, he makes 'em all by hand. Uh.

Nice.

Little family owned place and.

I know nothing about resonator guitars. Is that like, uh, do you play regular acoustic?

Yeah, it's just basically a regular acoustic. It's just a full step down is the only difference. I've just got it tuned all the way down.

Is that it? 'Cause there's also like the, this whole vibe to it.

Oh, oh yeah. Well, the body's different. So you can see it's got like a, it's got like a solid, you know, instead of it being a hollow body, like an acoustic, it's got that, it almost looks like a hubcap, that black.

And like all the cord, that's all the same.

Mm-hmm.

It's just a step down.

Yeah, it's just the same. Yeah. I, I wouldn't be smart enough to play anything special. Like it's just a regular old guitar.

I don't know. There's a different vibe to it.

Yeah. Well, I like that.

It's somehow cooler.

Well, the old, I'm real, I'm real fond of like the older music. Like, um, so like where all my family's from, so my dad was adopted, so I don't have any family, like Lunsford's not really even a real last name to me. They're all just, it was just my grandparents that adopted my dad. So all of my family's Ingle is like I-N-G-L-E. That's like my real, that's all my mom's side of my family. And, um, they're all from this place about 20 miles from where like the Carter family was from.

Mm-hmm.

So all that old Virginia, like kind of bluegrass folk music and stuff. And so I, I was just always attracted to that. And so that's, I, I like the, I like the resonator a full step down 'cause it kind, to me, it kind of gives it that old sound. Like, um, you know, a lot of the instruments back then had like bad, dull strings and they were older and they were out of tune a little bit and stuff. And I just.

Yeah.

I listened to a lot of that type of music. So I like, I like the strings being a little out of tune and dull and not everything. And just that. Yeah. That's why I was so attracted to it. Plus like some of the old blues players, like, you know, playing the do bro and stuff. But that was my, that's why I wanted to get the resonator was just 'cause of that old, I mean, every, that's even why like, you know, I had to use my grandpa's name as an alias, but that Oliver Anthony music is really supposed to represent like old music from like 1930s Virginia or something like, you know, like it's kind of got that type of feel to it, or at least in the.

Yeah.

In its core, you know?

It feels like from another time, but it also feels timeless.

It's also that my music catalog is so limited, like of what I listen to, that a lot of what's in my head, like, 'cause you think about when you're writing songs and like coming up with chord progressions and stuff, you real, whether you realize it or not, it's all being influenced off of other songs. So when you only have a lot of older music and like some, a little bit of metal and stuff in there, it's like there's not really a whole lot. It's like that, you know, it's kind of gonna sound that way, I guess, just in any way, 'cause that's what's in your head already. But.

So you're gonna go out there a little bit this year. Wow. What are, what are some things you're looking forward to? You're gonna travel a bit? You're gonna play a bit?

The idea is, is to go to a town, like let's just use Iowa as an example. Instead of, instead of the big city in Iowa playing at the venue where everybody books, let's find a farm field 45 minutes outside of that big city, figure out the ingress, egress, the security, find a good promoter that can like a show organizer basically that has experience to where it's still a, it's still professional and it's done correctly.

Yeah.

But establish like a new venue space that can't be, that can't be put under contract by a monopoly, that any artist can go play like without, like if, if all these musicians are sick of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, then let's just, let's just start playing in fields and on main streets and set these venues up and establish them correctly and professionally to where they exist as their own space. And then, and then imagine the economic impact that would provide to a town that otherwise would never ha like, and imagine what it, you, you wanna talk about trying to give blue collar people like some hope or give 'em some relatability or do anything for 'em.

Yeah, I'm gonna see, uh, I'm gonna see some world leaders. Hopefully not end up in prison anywhere. Um, part, part of that, honestly, I'm excited, you know, like India to see the same humans, but in very different parts of the world.

Mm.

I'm not a travel guy, but I love seeing humans, that there's like a lot of us humans all over the place and they're very different and they have funny accents and just funny way of being, you know? So I'm excited to take it all in 'cause I fundamentally love people.

Yeah, man. Like I, I, uh, I would definitely say if you're ever up, if you're ever over towards Virginia or West Virginia, either one there, like, yeah, it'd be cool to spend a couple days out in the woods or a day out in the woods and do, I, I haven't really, I was, I'm really new to the whole psilocybin thing, but I have tried a few smaller doses of it actually to help with being up on stage and all. And, um, it's an interesting thing, but.

It's great.

Yeah, the dog, definitely the dogs and the woods part, I got you on that.

Oh, I would love to join in. I mean, I've, I've, I've taken mushrooms a few times and listen, I usually just love everything anyway, but with mushrooms you just love it a little bit more. Like especially out in nature, when I'm look out in nature, I'm just in awe of how incredibly beautiful it is. And just I could stare at a tree for hours. And then you take mushrooms and like that tree starts like having some more dynamism to it. So it's just a little boost, but like.

Yeah, I don't know.

I get into this crazy.

Like I said, it's only been a handful of times 'cause I've, I don't know. It's one of those things where it's, I'm, it's still a little unfamiliar to me, but like, like talking about trees and psilocybin, you know, you think about, you start to look in those trees and you think like in their relative perspective of time, you know, 'cause they're constantly moving around and growing and doing all these things. And you think about like in their perspective, maybe we're just, we're just moving way faster than their perception and they're, they're moving at just a normal speed.

100%, man. I mean, like maybe that's the history of, uh, life. I mean, humans will have some chance of destroying 95, 99% of the population with nuclear weapons and the trees will remain and they will reconstruct the environment of Earth and help the, the few humans that remain to survive. And it'll be the fucking trees that we'd be grateful for. They're actual deep ancient, uh, wisdom. So maybe they're the intelligent ones.

When you're out in nature like that and just reading about, just looking at and studying the way all those systems work with soil and trees and animals and how it all just integrates in together so perfectly, it does give you some sense of peace that maybe there is some, there is some system at place that's out of our hands that can just help us with our fault, our faults and our repercussions. And again, like for me, just, um, yeah, I think just being out there, especially now that now looking at it through the lens of, of God, of their, you know, of, of God, it helps.

I'm 100% will and visit. Um, see, like feeling peaceful out in Virginia in the woods is easy. Try doing it in the Amazon jungle when a giant ant comes.

Oh, I love dude.

And just bites you.

Dude, I would do anything to go to the Amazon.

All of the peace is, is, is gone. You're like, motherfucker, what are you do? What is, and then like a second one joins in, kills the first one and bites you again. And then you're like, okay, nature is not all.

Yeah, it's not.

I mean, there is, uh, there is harmony to it, but part of the harmony is the violence.

Yeah.

It's just the reality of it. It's, it's, um, sex and violence.

Like, I guess that's the thing about it though, is like it has all the same components of humanity, just almost, you know, like almost to a comical level.

I mean, the real comedy is the monkeys up in the trees. They're just, it's like, it's like little humans and they're arguing and screaming at each other, throwing stuff, getting into fights. It's like, it's like reality TV, but like more pure, more real, more distilled down to his fundamentals. Like we, we are that, you know?

Yeah.

We, we put on clothes these days and have fancy words that we say to each other and look all sexy on Instagram, but we're the same monkeys, apes.

It's like the old lobsters, you know? But it really is true.

Yeah.

Like, like, uh, we all, we all, yeah, we're all on that same kind of same operating system in a way.

Brother, this was a huge honor. I can't, I don't have the words to describe how incredible this was. And I think, uh, it was just fun. It was really fun talking to you.

Total honor to be able to come on here for me as well. And, um, especially just to get to meet you in real life and see like, you know, you are what I, you are what I expected you to be, like in a good way. Like, you know, you just don't ever like, yeah, you're just, you're a good dude. So I appreciate what you're doing.

I gotta show you the sex dungeon downstairs.

Nice.

Where, where I, where I keep sex slaves. It's very different. No. Yeah, man. All right, time to wake up. Let's go back to reality. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Oliver Anthony. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from George Orwell. Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.