00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is the meat-eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwear-less. 00:00:15 Speaker 2: We hunt the meat-eater podcast. You can't predict anything. 00:00:20 Speaker 1: Brought to you by First Light. When I'm hunting, I need gear that won't quit. First Light builds no-compromise gear that keeps me in the field longer. No shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at firstlight.com. That's F-I-R-S-T.com. L-I-T-E dot com. Hot damn, man. We're joined today by Craig Morgan. This dude's too many things to name them all. Soldier Hunter. You got to explain what this means. I see this all the time, but I don't get what it means. A Grand Ole Opry member. 00:00:56 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:00:58 Speaker 1: At some point. Just tell me right now. 00:01:00 Speaker 2: Well, the Grand Ole Opry is one of the most heritage and prestigious organizations within the country music industry. There have been more people climb Mount Everest than there have been made members of the Grand Ole Opry. 00:01:11 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:01:12 Speaker 2: It's an organization that recognizes not only current successes, but the potential for future and growth, longevity within our industry. Generally, people who are members of the Grand Ole Opry have very long careers. And there's a larger percentage of the people that have been made members of the Grand Ole Opry that become members of the Country Music Hall of Fame than there are any other organization or any other groups. 00:01:41 Speaker 1: Got it. I see that. So how long have you been that? How long have you been a member of the Grand Ole Opry? 00:01:48 Speaker 2: I was made a member in 2008. Okay. 00:01:50 Speaker 1: So a long time now. 00:01:51 Speaker 2: Long time, yeah. 00:01:53 Speaker 1: He's charted more than 25 billboard songs, hosts an outdoor TV show, just named USO Global Ambassador. Welcome. This is our Veterans Day episode, so you're the man we need to talk to here. 00:02:06 Speaker 3: Oh. 00:02:07 Speaker 1: When you were growing up, all the things you do now and things you're known for, when you were a little kid, what was the first thing that clicked with you? Meaning, were you a little kid and you're like, man, I want to be a hunter, or I want to be a soldier, I want to join the army, or man, I want to be a musician? What was the... What was stirring around in your head at the earliest age you can remember? I grew. 00:02:38 Speaker 2: Up in a very low-income family. We were born in Middle Tennessee. We hunted for food. When we went hunting, it wasn't for sport. Not that I didn't enjoy it. I absolutely loved it. But I grew up hunting and fishing because we did it for food. 00:02:56 Speaker 1: Got it. What did your old man do for a living? 00:02:59 Speaker 2: He was a cabinetmaker and a musician. Oh, really? Yeah. So that's the reason. Growing up, I didn't think that I wanted to be a musician because I always told myself I didn't want to have a job that required me to have another job to be able to do that job, if that makes any sense. 00:03:14 Speaker 1: Back up again. Oh. 00:03:16 Speaker 2: I didn't want to have a job that required me to have another job or a, per se, real job in order to do that job. 00:03:24 Speaker 1: Like the whole passion day job path. 00:03:26 Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And in the music industry, that's kind of the– Especially in the beginning, for me, it was the norm. You had a real job until you were successful enough in the music that you didn't require that real job to pay bills. 00:03:41 Speaker 1: Got it. But your old man never made it there? 00:03:44 Speaker 2: No. I mean, he could have. They had an opportunity with a record deal, and they were doing really well, but they all had families. He was one of six brothers, and the band was four of those brothers. Oh, wow. And they all had families. 00:03:57 Speaker 1: Uh-huh. 00:03:58 Speaker 2: And so they opted to do other things in order to ensure, you know, I just recently seen another artist. And he was talking about it when he came to Nashville. Someone gave him the advice to have a backup plan. He said, you know, fuck that. I don't want a backup plan. Because if you have a backup plan, that means you're preparing for not being successful. I approached it completely differently. I approached it from the perspective, and a lot of that was that military mindset, have a backup plan. But my backup plan was not one that would afford me the opportunity to not do the music. I had a backup plan in order that I could continue to do the music in an attempt to achieve the success that I wanted. I didn't get in the music business to be famous. I didn't do the outdoor show to be famous. I did the outdoor show for other reasons. I did the music for other reasons. It wasn't just for fame. It was to be successful financially. I mean, I'm just being honest. So for me, I always had a backup plan. And I'm not sure if I got away from your question. 00:05:09 Speaker 1: No, no, no, you didn't. I gave a commencement address, not this last spring, but the spring before that at University of Montana. And you know what my speech was about? Never make a plan B, man. It was basically like no backup plan. 00:05:28 Speaker 2: See, a lot of people will have that philosophy. But I would argue you all day long, you would fail miserably in the military. You would fail miserably in combat if you don't have a backup plan. Because you have to be able to shoot, move, and communicate. You have to be able to modify. And if you have a sole direction and you don't have a modification from that direction, I would tell you the same thing when you go hunting. To say, I'm going to go right where that bull is and I'm going to shoot that bull, you're going to fail. 00:05:58 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:05:58 Speaker 2: So why would you focus solely on that only bull knowing that you can't get to it? 00:06:03 Speaker 1: Because if it comes to being a musician, see here I am talking to you, you became a musician, so sure. 00:06:08 Speaker 2: But my plan was never, my backup plan, this is why I want to clarify. My plan was never one that would steer me away from the music. It steered me towards my ultimate goal. So you have to have a plan, and then you should have multiple plans to achieve that goal. If this doesn't work, if that door is closed, what? You don't have a backup plan? You don't go to the next door? 00:06:33 Speaker 1: No. 00:06:33 Speaker 2: You go to the next door. You have a plan. 00:06:35 Speaker 1: Okay. Now I need to defend my position. I want to tell you what the gist of what I was trying to get at was. Yeah. What I was trying to get at. 00:06:44 Speaker 2: Excuse me. 00:06:45 Speaker 1: I wanted to be a writer, okay? And what I would see, I would see all these talented writers, right? like me, mid twenties, age, mid twenties, I would see all these talented writers that would be, well, I want to be a writer, but if that don't work, I'm going to do. And then they have these little plans. And at a point you get sick of being broke and you get sick of, you get sick of the uncertainty. And the next thing you know, you're just doing the, the backup plan. 00:07:18 Speaker 2: But you are a writer. 00:07:20 Speaker 1: I know because I never had a plan B. 00:07:23 Speaker 2: Are you the writer that you set out to be? Yeah. When you moved to those writer towns, what were you wanting to write? 00:07:34 Speaker 1: It's so different now because of the internet. I wanted to be a magazine writer. I wanted to write outdoor stuff for big magazines. I wanted to do books, which is exactly what I did. And the reason I did it is I never had a seductive backup plan. 00:07:54 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's the definition of the backup plan. I think that's where I have issues sometimes because I think people assume that by having a backup plan that it steers you away from your goal. 00:08:07 Speaker 1: Yes. 00:08:08 Speaker 2: And I think you should have plans to achieve your goal. And sometimes your initial plan doesn't work. So you need a backup plan in order to achieve that goal. And you might not have known it, but what you initially set out to do by moving to that particular town, it might not have worked that way, but you achieved your goal by doing something different at some point. 00:08:29 Speaker 1: Yeah. You had to modify. I don't want to keep talking about it. I think you need to be, until you accidentally or on purpose have a child, I think you need to be that I'm going to do what I want to do or I'll die. Right. Yes. All that goes out the window. Once you have a kid, once you have a kid, amen. Yeah. Once you have a kid, you're done. You're not done, but all of a sudden you got a thing you need to be doing. 00:08:57 Speaker 2: But, but I can attest to the fact that, and I agree with you a hundred percent, but again, you need to, you'd need to have multiple routes to that goal. Um, And again, I equate it to a military mission. Okay. And a Navy SEAL would tell you, no, we're going through the freaking door no matter what the hell. But it's not true. It's not true. There's always alternate routes. And we need to be able to shoot, move, and communicate. We need to be able to modify to achieve the ultimate goal or whatever our mission is. And for me, it was becoming successful in the music business. 00:09:35 Speaker 1: But at what age was that on your mind? 00:09:38 Speaker 2: It wasn't until later in my years, I'll be honest with you. My initial dream or goal or whatever you want to call it, I thought that I would graduate from college, go to work in some small town, work my way up to sheriff and retire in law enforcement. I loved that. And I joined the military as a way to expedite that process. I thought by going into the military, I would gain more experience quicker than I could in a small town. 00:10:11 Speaker 1: So that wasn't a backup plan. That was part of the plan. 00:10:13 Speaker 2: It was part of the initial plan. But then when I went into the military, I fell in love with it. And so I ended up staying in. And my plan changed. God had, you know, that's another thing. I'm a very spiritual guy. Not a good Christian. Don't claim to be a great Christian. But I do believe in God and I believe that God has a plan for us. And sometimes we need to pay more attention to what God has intended for us. Because it might take us longer to get where he wants us based on our own desires. And I think I'm where God wanted me to be. I think I'd have been there a lot sooner if I'd have been paying more attention to what God wanted me to do instead of focusing on what I thought I wanted to do. 00:10:53 Speaker 1: I do believe that as well. I want to follow up on that. Before we drift too far away from when you were a little, little kid. Yeah. You mentioned you guys hunted fish and you were hunting for the pan and the pot, right? 00:11:09 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:11:10 Speaker 1: Like what kind of stuff would you guys do? Like, what would be some of the things you, you guys, you and your old man or whatever would go out and catch or hunt? Uh, whitetail. 00:11:19 Speaker 2: I mean, that was a big thing in middle Tennessee. And my first deer hunt was with my mother, not my dad. 00:11:24 Speaker 1: Was that right? 00:11:25 Speaker 2: That's a fact. Yeah. Uh, my mom hunted as well. Um, and it was, my mom knew how to, you know, clean skin gut process. Uh, and I learned from her, those things, my dad was working. Um, But my dad did it as well. My dad did it more of, it was more of the buddy-brother camp kind of thing. I'll never forget, my dad and a couple of his brothers had an old bus, an old school bus that they modified. It had a wood stove in it. 00:11:55 Speaker 1: A chimney coming out of the top of the bus. 00:11:59 Speaker 2: But they did it. That's where I learned, from my dad, I learned the camaraderie that takes place in a hunting camp. Uh, that's where I experienced that was through him and that, and them and his buddies and his brothers and, and my cousins and the family. Uh, but my mom is where I learned how to process the deer, uh, how to, how to cook it. 00:12:22 Speaker 1: You know, if, if, if your old man was, if your dad was, he was in this band, he had three siblings in that band. Correct. So you grew up, you grew up around a lot of family. 00:12:34 Speaker 2: A hundred percent. Our friends were our family for the most part. I was in public school, so I had friends at school, but my summer vacation or summertime off was spent with my cousins. We all lived in Middle Tennessee together, and I would go stay a week with my cousin here, and they would come and stay a week with us. My grandfather was on a big farm. On Sundays, we went to my grandparents' house, and there were six kids who all had four kids, and I was one of those four Uh, and that's what we did. We, you know, we spent our, our Sundays after church with family. 00:13:13 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:13:14 Speaker 2: Um, every now and then we'd bring a friend from school, you know, and include them into the cult. 00:13:19 Speaker 1: Yeah. There was a whole big pack of cousins. 00:13:21 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:13:22 Speaker 1: But you, you talk about being poor, like what kind of poor man, like, you know, when I was little, I thought, I don't know, man, I didn't, my perception of what we had is different than what we had. Cause when you're a little kid, but I just knew if we wanted, something cool we can never have it do you know i mean like if you wanted a certain kind of shoes or certain kind of pants or like a certain thing in your lunch box like you couldn't have it so my perception was we were my perception is we were real broke but but then later looking at it from an adult perspective i was like no we were you know we were like like very middle class family in line with people around us but i always thought like why did they all have you know, why do they all have new bikes or why do they all have whatever? And I don't. And so I had this sense of things that wasn't really accurate. You follow me? Yeah. 00:14:14 Speaker 2: I had the same thing. I think I would, we were, what I would say, we were probably lower middle class. Uh, Christmas was always a big time and birthdays were a big time. Cause that was when you got something. 00:14:25 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:14:26 Speaker 2: Like if you wanted a bicycle and, and usually the bike that I got was a refurbished that my dad, mom, you know, bought new hand grips for new chain and new tires. And they made me a new bike out of something that someone that they had bought a refurbished bike or whatever, you know? 00:14:45 Speaker 1: Um, but you were raised knowing what stuff costs, man. 00:14:48 Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, a hundred percent, but, but, but, but, but to that, I didn't really, I didn't think we were poor. I knew that I didn't have things that other people have. When I got into high school, I was driving a used car when a lot of, you know, my friends were driving brand new car, but my, my used car was, it meant the same to me. And I think probably it, it gave me a greater sense of gratitude when I did get that very first new car. I remember it in a way that I see people now, um, that I grew up with. I don't know that they truly understood it or appreciated the same. And I can't, I can't speak for everybody, but But I didn't realize how poor we were until I got older. And even then, it didn't matter because we had food on the table. I had the bicycle. It wasn't the best, and it wasn't brand new, but I had one. And so the neighbors down the street, we were all equal regardless of the newness of one thing or another. And there was no envy or jealousy or all of those things that I see in our society now. We didn't experience that. We didn't have that. 00:15:59 Speaker 1: I remember my old man. He was old when he had me, so he was Depression era born, born in 1924. I remember him making, he did this a couple times. I remember him saying he had this sort of family, like a household guarantee where he would say, you'll never, sitting at the dinner table, he said, you'll never leave this table hungry. He said, it might not be what you want, but you'll never leave this table hungry. It was sort of like a guarantee he was making to you. 00:16:28 Speaker 2: I love that. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. 00:16:31 Speaker 1: But again, it might not be what you want, man. 00:16:33 Speaker 2: Well, it was the same at our house. And, you know, it was one of those, when I grew up as a kid, I always thought it was fascinating because I'd come in after school and look in the cabinets and go, shit, there's nothing to eat. And my mom would come home from work and she worked most of the time and she would come in and we'd have this meal and I'd be like, you know, where did this shit come from? 00:16:51 Speaker 1: You know? Yeah. 00:16:53 Speaker 2: So, It was kind of the same thing. But you ate what was put on the table. And if it wasn't your favorite, it didn't matter. When did you start playing instruments, even though you were going to be a cop and a soldier? I started playing an instrument in high school. I played the guitar. And I wasn't really good. I'm still not great. But I did it because it was cool. And I knew that I had something that somehow certain people found it attractive or it got a little attention. 00:17:29 Speaker 1: Was it like, was music like rebellion or was it, was it conformity? Cause your dad was a musician or was it, or was it rebellion? 00:17:36 Speaker 2: It was neither. Uh, I, I was neither rebelling. Uh, my dad was a musician and I, I can remember as a kid, When my dad would play in Tennessee, the place called the Jingo Jamboree, it was a big deal. And he would bring me up on stage as a kid to sing raindrops keep falling on my head. But you were performing? 00:17:56 Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. 00:17:56 Speaker 2: Little Jimmy Dickens said it best. You know, there's two things you can't beat. That's a midget with a doll and kids. Dude, no one talks about little Jimmy Dickens anymore. We have a boy named Jimmy, and that's what we always called him, little Jimmy Dickens. I don't think he has any idea what we're talking about. Little Jimmy was one of my favorite people in the whole world. I learned a couple great things from that man as far as entertaining. Little Jimmy, another artist whose name I won't mention, we had a big dinner one night on a hunt. We do an annual hunt every year. We call it the Opry Duck Hunt. We don't really hunt much duck. We do some deer hunting and some duck hunting, but it's really about the dinners that we have and the conversations. And I'll never forget this particular artist, a younger artist, was complaining about doing a show and there was only so many people there. And I'll never forget little Jimmy got up from the table and he walked around and everybody had a few drinks and he stood like this close and he was standing up and this guy was sitting down and he was still staring him straight in his face. And he looked at him and he said, young man, We don't do shows for the people that ain't there. We do shows for the people that are. 00:19:01 Speaker 1: And I'll never forget that. Man, that's some good advice, man. 00:19:04 Speaker 2: It's great advice. And it's hung with me. And the second thing he said that I live with to this day was he said, if you have to ask the audience if they're having a good time, then you're not doing their job. 00:19:19 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:19:20 Speaker 2: And I'll never forget that because all artists, we run out there and go, are you guys having a good time? 00:19:23 Speaker 1: I can't hear you. 00:19:25 Speaker 2: Like that next show after Jimmy said that to me, I went out there and are you guys ready for a party? You know, I refuse to say that anymore because he's right. 00:19:36 Speaker 1: Man, that first bit of advice is good advice, man. Because you get like, yeah, you're there for the people that are there. 00:19:43 Speaker 2: We're there for them. We're not there for us. I've been very fortunate. because I started the music industry later in my years. A lot of people start, even though it was a part of my life when I was a kid, I didn't get into the music industry until after I'd been in the army for 10 years. I'd already had a life. 00:20:05 Speaker 1: So you were what? 00:20:06 Speaker 2: I'd already been in combat. 00:20:07 Speaker 1: You were late 20s, early 30s? 00:20:08 Speaker 2: Yeah, I was in my late 20s. 00:20:09 Speaker 1: What age were you when you wrote your first song? 00:20:12 Speaker 2: I'm sorry? 00:20:12 Speaker 1: Like how old would you have been when you wrote your first song? 00:20:15 Speaker 2: I was 15, 16 years old. 00:20:16 Speaker 1: I did that. 00:20:17 Speaker 2: I was writing songs or I thought I was writing songs early on in my life. 00:20:23 Speaker 1: And what was it like when you did that? I did it because the girls thought it was cool. That's what I said earlier. 00:20:29 Speaker 2: It wasn't because it wasn't out of rebellion. 00:20:32 Speaker 1: Uh, I just knew. Were you intending, were you, were you thinking in your head, in addition to all this other stuff I got going on, um, I'm going to cut an album. I'm going to like make a little extra money. Were you just writing it just to, just to, just to get it just as an expression, like as an artistic expression? I, I wished I could say it was an artistic expression as well, but I just did it. Uh, uh, you didn't know what you're doing. 00:20:58 Speaker 2: I didn't even know what I was doing. I was just doing it cause it was fun. Yeah. It was, it was something that I felt like I was, I did it. I could do it. Uh, even though it, looking back, that first song especially wasn't great, but it was just something to do in the same way that you might go outside and ride your bicycle. I was, I'm very ADD. Uh, I'm very ADHD. I'm very OCD. So I can't do a lot of anything at one point. Very long before I got to do something else, you know? 00:21:30 Speaker 1: I understand. 00:21:31 Speaker 2: Um, songwriting was just an outlet. It was just something to do again. Uh, and I started it very young, uh, and it, and it kind of went away for a while, kind of got away from it because life happened. Yeah. College, uh, wasn't real good at that. Did that for a year and then joined the army. You did one year of college. I did a year of college. And then once I got into the army, uh, now I finished up college while I was in the army, but once I got in the army, I was really good at that shit. 00:21:59 Speaker 1: You liked it. 00:21:59 Speaker 2: I loved it. 00:22:00 Speaker 1: Yeah. Tell me, tell me about that. Like one day you walked down to the recruiter office or how's that go down? Yeah. 00:22:05 Speaker 2: Just one day said, I want to be, I seen that commercial be all you can be. I'm like, that shit's for me. 00:22:11 Speaker 1: Did you tell your parents you're going to do it? 00:22:13 Speaker 2: Uh, no, I was, I was already, I was in college. Yeah. So I was already kind of away from home. 00:22:18 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:22:19 Speaker 2: Uh, and that was a time in my life and both of my, uh, my parents were going through a separation. 00:22:22 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:22:23 Speaker 2: Uh, so like, it didn't matter. I don't know that it was super relevant that I went and talked to them and told them. 00:22:28 Speaker 1: What would they, but would they have been, not would they have been, were they glad, disappointed? Even if they didn't have any say in it and you didn't have any obligation to tell them. Yeah. 00:22:39 Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut you out there. I think they were like proud, but at the same time, very nervous. My dad, I think he seen something in me musically that I did not see at the time. He knew something that I didn't. 00:22:55 Speaker 1: Um, he didn't want you to waste talent. 00:22:57 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:22:58 Speaker 2: And I think, I think he felt that, uh, but he was also proud. 00:23:01 Speaker 1: I think they were, he felt that it was going to pull you away from this trajectory that he would have respected a lot because he liked music. 00:23:09 Speaker 2: And he, I think he's seen something in me musically that I didn't even see in myself or care for. It wasn't an ambition for me at that time. Yeah. Being a musician was not a goal for me at the time. It was not anything that I even foreseen me doing in the future. Uh, and that was a point in your life. I mean, I'll be honest here when you're 20, 19, 20 years old, you don't really know what the hell you're doing. I don't care what anybody says. No, I don't care what they say. 00:23:36 Speaker 1: No, you can't even conceptualize death when you're 19, you know? 00:23:42 Speaker 2: Um, so I was trying to figure it out. And so going in the army was probably one of the greatest things that I ever did, uh, for me as a human being and as a person. 00:23:53 Speaker 1: And, uh, Tell me more about your Army experience in those early years. Because you did a lot of specialized training. 00:24:04 Speaker 2: Yes, and it taught me things that I tell people all the time. There is no occupation in the world. There's no corporation. There is absolutely nothing that you can do in your life that will afford you the opportunity to excel in life like the military. Hmm. because not only are you receiving all of this education and not just, um, not just education in, in, in, uh, in the, um, in the, in the book sense, but you're receiving a life education. Like for example, I equate the life education to people who live in Alaska, um, who live off grid. They, their livelihood is living. 00:24:48 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:24:48 Speaker 2: I understand. You know what I'm talking about? Um, The fact that you have to, your thinking process is completely different than someone who lives in a societal embarkment. Just because you're thinking about shit that you got to do just to stay alive. 00:25:05 Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand. 00:25:06 Speaker 2: You know, the military is that same thing. You have a lot of those same philosophies that you're learning that prepare you in a way that there's no formal education that can prepare you for that. In fact, I think our formal education got so far away from that that it taught opposite. It taught you to become dependent. So I was learning that. I gained a lot of that, but I was also gaining a very special skill set that, again, cannot be attained under such constricted time restraints, and that's leadership skill sets, communication skill sets that take place that as a young E4 or a young corporal, a young sergeant, four years into the ball game, you're doing stuff that corporate executives take 10, 12, 15 years to learn. 00:25:56 Speaker 1: Yeah, I got you. And you became a paratrooper. 00:25:59 Speaker 2: Yeah, that was one of the first things. I went straight from basic training right into what they call, I was under the OSIP program, One Station Unit Training, into my advanced individual training, what we call AIT. And that's your field of expertise, whether you're a 11 Bravo, infantryman, a 13 Fox, which is what I was, a Ford Observer. or a PAC clerk or a nurse or whatever your occupation is going to be in the Army, you gain that through your advanced individual training. I went under the OSIP program. So I was at Fort Sill, Oklahoma for basic training and my advanced individual training. I finished that, immediately went straight to airborne school, straight from airborne school to the Ranger Indoctrination Program, from the Ranger Indoctrination Program straight into the Ranger Battalion. So I was in school for a very long time, gaining a lot of education and skill sets, again, that take years to gain otherwise. And then. 00:26:59 Speaker 1: You were in the Panama invasion, right? Yes. 00:27:01 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:27:02 Speaker 1: Tell about that. 00:27:03 Speaker 2: I was stationed in Panama in 1989 for the invasion and for the ousting of Manuel Antonio Noriega. 00:27:08 Speaker 1: Yeah. What all kind of walked me through those years or that, I guess, those minutes or whatever? 00:27:14 Speaker 2: Yeah. It was a year. It was more. I was very fortunate. I was stationed there. I wasn't assigned to the 82nd Airborne. I was on site when the coup attempt was happening, when the stuff that everybody can go back and watch in the news and see, I was actually on site. I had just gotten into country just prior to the coup attempt. I was actually at the reception station and a platoon sergeant at the time, at the unit I was stationed in, or assigned to, excuse me, I had not even made it to my unit. I was still at the reception station, and this E7 shows up and says, Sergeant Greer, come with me. You're going to be issued an issue. You're going on a mission right now. And this is your RTO, your radio telephone operator. This is your RTO. Nice to meet you, Sedang. The two of you are going to go on an aircraft. We're going to drop you off at this particular location, and you're going to send SID reps on everything that you're seeing out there. I hadn't been in country before. Uh, 72 hours yet. 00:28:16 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:28:17 Speaker 2: And I was already involved in what was going on. 00:28:21 Speaker 1: Um, and what, what did you do? 00:28:22 Speaker 2: I sat on a golf course and watched the coup attempt and the everything take place and sent situation reports up to higher headquarters. 00:28:31 Speaker 1: Like hiding on a golf course. 00:28:33 Speaker 2: I mean, you can call it hiding, but we weren't really hiding. We had a Panamanian kid bringing us, uh, bringing us food and shit every day. Did you like. 00:28:42 Speaker 1: Did you have a good, there's this great quote that, Nate, look this quote up for me. It's like, war is how Americans learn geography. You know? What's that quote? What was your awareness? You know what I'm saying? Like, you're growing up in Tennessee, you know? 00:29:03 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:29:03 Speaker 1: Out hunting and whatnot. 00:29:04 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a great quote. Who quoted that? 00:29:17 Speaker 1: Everything, it's like Shakespeare, Twain, they just assign these quotes. 00:29:21 Speaker 2: I think it's a great observation, though, because outside of that, only those people who are avid outdoorsmen are ones that truly appreciate geography. Yeah. 00:29:30 Speaker 1: But what was your awareness of Panama? You know what I mean? 00:29:33 Speaker 2: I was 72 hours in country. Yeah. I knew nothing when I first got orders for Panama. 00:29:39 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:29:40 Speaker 2: It was supposed to be in an accompanied tour. I was stoked. I was going to be able to take my wife. We were going to a foreign country. We were going to experience this culture. And then like three or four weeks before, I had already shipped my vehicle even. So the one vehicle that my wife and I had, it was on its way to Panama because we were going to be there together. So I had to buy another vehicle. 00:30:02 Speaker 1: It would have been called a what? 00:30:05 Speaker 2: An accompanied tour. So my wife would have been able to accompany me on the tour. Three weeks prior to us deploying and us leaving and going over there, they had something happen. They said, oh, no more dependents. And so I'd already shipped my vehicle. So I had to buy my wife a vehicle. 00:30:27 Speaker 1: So you were fixing to go down there like totally unrelated to like the ousting of Noriega. 00:30:32 Speaker 2: 100%. We were going on a tour as part of the American personnel that were stationed there. 00:30:38 Speaker 1: Yeah, I got it. 00:30:39 Speaker 2: Yeah, we were just like someone would go to Germany or like someone would go to Fort Campbell. We happened to be stationed at Fort Campbell at the time. Um, and so like, you know, I'm an, I'm a young brand new E6, you know, staff sergeant. Uh, I don't make a lot of money and I gotta buy her a vehicle or come up with her a car of some sort. And so, uh, you know, I show up and like I said, within 72 hours, I'm sitting on a golf course watching the coup attempt take place, watching people, you know, and. 00:31:12 Speaker 1: You're reporting like, Give me an example. The report would be how many vehicles you're seeing. 00:31:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, Foxtrot 06. This is Foxtrot 25. I have 17 personnel on a bus with small arms. I mean, that's literally what I did. And we would write this stuff down at this location. 00:31:32 Speaker 1: And there's dudes like you scattered all over. 00:31:34 Speaker 2: We were in one spot telling them everything that we've seen from our spot. 00:31:37 Speaker 1: But I mean, 10 miles away is some other guy. All feeding information. 00:31:42 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:31:43 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:31:44 Speaker 2: Correct. 00:31:44 Speaker 1: From various points. That's what your training was as a forward observer. Right. 00:31:49 Speaker 2: Well, my job actually as a forward observer was to call fire on them. So as a forward observer, we got and direct any weapon system that puts a bullet on the battlefield from something other than a direct fire weapon. So if you're shooting your weapon like a gun. From a shoulder. That's a direct fire weapon system. If you're firing a mortar and you can see the target, it's considered direct fire. But if that mortar or artillery or close air support, A-10, F-16, naval gunfire, the guys that shoot the thousand pound bullets, they don't know what they're shooting at. Somebody has to be on the ground to tell them where to shoot it. That's what we did. And it was the coolest job in the Army, in my opinion. 00:32:30 Speaker 1: How long did you do that for? 00:32:32 Speaker 2: Uh, almost 17 years. 00:32:35 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:32:36 Speaker 2: 16 years. 00:32:36 Speaker 1: And what all countries did you wind up in? 00:32:39 Speaker 2: I can't name them all. Some don't exist. 00:32:42 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:32:43 Speaker 2: Dozens. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I, I did that job in at least a dozen different countries. 00:32:50 Speaker 1: Got it. 00:32:51 Speaker 2: Huh? No, not all of them were in combat environments. 00:32:54 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:32:55 Speaker 2: You know, when that particular situation took place, we weren't in combat. We weren't considered. It wasn't considered a conflict at that moment. It wasn't until the official invasion took place that it was considered a combat environment. 00:33:08 Speaker 1: And that first time in the military, what year were you there through? In Panama? 00:33:14 Speaker 2: No, no, no. 00:33:15 Speaker 1: I'm saying how long? 00:33:17 Speaker 2: From 1985 until 1996. Okay. As an active duty. 00:33:22 Speaker 1: Got it. So you were out before all the chaos of September 11th? 00:33:26 Speaker 2: No, then I was in the reserves until 2003. Okay. Yeah. 00:33:30 Speaker 1: So did you get, did you get deployed around, did you get deployed around the war on terror? 00:33:35 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:33:36 Speaker 1: And where'd you get sent for that? 00:33:37 Speaker 2: But it was a completely different capacity for me then. Okay. Uh, I served all over the world. Uh, I mean, you know, we were in Iraq, we were in Afghanistan from 2000 until 2000 and whatever. Uh, when we just recently pulled out, you know, that terrible fiasco. Uh, but yeah. 00:33:58 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:33:59 Speaker 2: And I wasn't a 13 Fox in all of those capacities in all of those countries. 00:34:03 Speaker 1: Got it. 00:34:04 Speaker 2: But I did serve as a 13 Fox in other countries as well, but not in conflict, not in combat. 00:34:12 Speaker 1: Got it. Got it. So explain them, explain how the music came back into all this. Cause I mean, you're like heavy duty into service. 00:34:25 Speaker 2: Loved it. 00:34:26 Speaker 1: You know, And I'm assuming you're going periods of months, if not years, where you're not picking up an instrument. 00:34:34 Speaker 2: Months, for sure. 00:34:35 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:34:36 Speaker 2: And music was always a part of my life, just like it's part of everybody's life. That's what's fascinating to me, regardless of the genre, the format. But in everyone's life, in some way, music creeps in, whether it be even if they don't listen. I've heard people say, I don't listen to any music at all. Do you watch television? Oh, I love movies. than you're listening to music. 00:34:56 Speaker 1: Try one without any music. 00:34:57 Speaker 2: Try one without music. 00:34:59 Speaker 1: Yeah. Tell me what you think about that. 00:35:00 Speaker 2: So it's there. And it has such an impactful social impact, even psychological impact, music does. I can play a melody that can make you just, oh, man. It makes you drone down. Makes your heart feel something. And then I can change that melody and make you smile and upbeat. That's what music does. Music was always a part of my life, having grown up as a child, standing on a stage where my dad made me come up and sing, all the way to where now I'm entertaining. 00:35:35 Speaker 1: In that time. 00:35:37 Speaker 2: In my life, it was when I was not training, when I was not working, either sitting in the barracks or at home with my family. And it changed throughout my military life. You know what I'm saying? When I was in Panama after the war, we sat around the barracks and played guitar. I just recently found a VHS tape that I had filmed and sent to my wife showing her the stuff in my barracks, the stuff that I had bought. It was so funny because I was like, hey, here's the TV I bought. I know we didn't have much money, and I've only got two more payments, and it's paid off. 00:36:15 Speaker 1: You're like buying TVs on payments. 00:36:18 Speaker 2: It just blew my mind. Now we buy a TV, they're disposable, you know, but I had that TV and I want you to know, I had that TV, that very exact same freaking TV until we moved into the house we live in now. 00:36:28 Speaker 1: Is that right? Yeah. 00:36:31 Speaker 2: But the thing is, I also sat down and played some songs that I had written on that tape. 00:36:38 Speaker 1: Really? Yeah. 00:36:39 Speaker 2: And I was listening to him going, this is shitty. It's terrible. But that was in 1990. Yeah. I was writing songs in 1990. 00:36:48 Speaker 1: Would you sit and play with other guys, other army guys? 00:36:50 Speaker 2: Yeah. One of which was in my platoon, one of my forward observers or one of our forward observers. Uh, I was one of the senior guys in the platoon. Uh, And his name is Tim Paris, and to this day, he still talks about that, how we sat down and played guitar together and stuff. 00:37:06 Speaker 1: And what would you guys play? You guys would play stuff you knew from the radio? 00:37:09 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess probably more covers, but I didn't do a lot of covers. That was another thing. I may be the only guy in my industry that didn't start his life playing cover songs in a bar. I never really played in a bar that much until I had a record deal. 00:37:24 Speaker 1: Really? 00:37:24 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, to this day, I don't do a lot of covers. 00:37:26 Speaker 1: I should say you skipped that part, but you went around that part. 00:37:29 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I listened to it. I grew up listening to guys like John Conley. I can sing most every song he ever sang. There was a guy whose songwriting and music was so impacting on me. It was songs that made me think about writing songs, and he never knew it. We even tried to write together one time. 00:37:46 Speaker 1: What's his name? 00:37:46 Speaker 2: He's since come back in, a guy named Skip Ewing. 00:37:49 Speaker 1: Oh, man, I don't know those names. 00:37:50 Speaker 2: Oh, my God, he's a great, great writer. I love his music. He has since, he disappeared for a long time. He kind of got away from the business. And now because of what we have through social media and stuff, I've seen him. He's starting to write again. He's promoting his music. Great writer, great singer. In that video where I was driving around Panama videotaping, showing my wife what had happened during the invasion. And we're videotaping the Balboa Denny's station. that we took. We're videotaping, uh, uh, sitcom heel, all of these different things that we did during the invasion. I'm videotaping this. His music was playing in the background. 00:38:32 Speaker 1: Really? That's great. 00:38:34 Speaker 2: Impacting. Yeah. 00:38:36 Speaker 1: So then at some point though, at some point you thought that you're going to, right. At some point you thought Wong, I'm, like maybe the music. Yeah. Like, like, I don't know if you probably didn't use the word business, but you thought I'm going to do it. 00:38:50 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:38:50 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:38:51 Speaker 2: That's when I went into the reserves. 00:38:52 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:38:52 Speaker 2: I left active duty, uh, in 1996 and went into the reserves. Um, I went into the reserves cause it's one week in a month, two weeks a year. Okay. And so most people have a normal, normal job. And then they do the reserve thing. I did it so that I could maintain my, my affiliation with the, with the service. I knew that the retirement would be different. It would change to some degree, but I still at some point, I did see far enough down the road a glimpse of the idea that I would have a letter hanging on my wall that said I retired from service. to my nation. I wanted that. 00:39:32 Speaker 1: When you say that retirement would be a little different, you mean if you got to be where you had your 20 years? 00:39:38 Speaker 2: Yeah. So if you stay active duty for 20 years, when you retire, you get your retirement. If you go in the reserves, when you retire from the reserves, you don't get to draw your retirement until you're 60. It's different. 00:39:50 Speaker 1: Got it. 00:39:51 Speaker 2: Um, so, and, and it, and it's again, what if you did like, what if you do 15 years active duty, five years, that age changes. It can, it can change based on your active duty time and your, so there's. 00:40:03 Speaker 1: There's some kind of, there's some kind of formula to it. 00:40:05 Speaker 2: There is a formula. In fact, there's like, I'm learning now there's like three, three formulas. They take the high three. They take a lot of different things that they do that the army can do. 00:40:15 Speaker 1: So like combat, non-combat. 00:40:17 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:40:17 Speaker 1: Okay. There's different things. 00:40:19 Speaker 2: Um, Um, but that's when I made the decision to pursue the music. I'd, I'd recorded some demos that my dad had helped me with. Uh, and I was literally offered a publishing deal while I was still in the army. 00:40:33 Speaker 1: Based off of what though? Off the demos. 00:40:35 Speaker 2: Off those demos that I had written. 00:40:36 Speaker 1: How'd you get them in front of who you needed to get them in front of? 00:40:39 Speaker 2: My dad had played them for a few people. Uh, and, and, and, and I, while serving active duty, when I would go home for my leave, I would go do writer's nights or do something like that and play songs. I mean, mind you, I was a, I was a hard charger. I mean, I was a, I had the short hair. I had the, I had the kill mentality. You know, I didn't give a shit about anything, but killing bad guys. That was my whole life. And so I would go play these songs and stuff and people come up, man, I love that. You sing great. Whatever. Yeah. 00:41:11 Speaker 1: Cool. 00:41:12 Speaker 2: Whatever. 00:41:12 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. 00:41:13 Speaker 2: It ain't no living. 00:41:16 Speaker 1: But you went around and you didn't do like any kind of bar playing and bar hopping and all that? 00:41:21 Speaker 2: Didn't do it. I played in the barracks with my buddies. I'm sorry? 00:41:25 Speaker 1: Do you drink booze and stuff? 00:41:26 Speaker 2: I'm not. No, I'm not. 00:41:27 Speaker 1: Were you then? 00:41:28 Speaker 2: No. I mean, I went with the guys. I got drunk in Korea and woke up in America one time. Yeah. So I've been drunk. 00:41:34 Speaker 1: But you weren't like a big party guy? I'm not a bar hopper. 00:41:38 Speaker 2: To this day, I praise God and thank him so much for people who like to go listen to music. 00:41:45 Speaker 1: Oh. 00:41:46 Speaker 2: I've still to this day am fascinated when I do a show and I walk out and I still peek around the curtain and go, God, let it be. Let there be people here. 25 years later and I go, holy shit, there's a shit ton of people here. 00:41:59 Speaker 1: And a lot of those people are drinkers. 00:42:03 Speaker 2: And they are. I'm not a big drinker. I don't drink beer. I don't drink whiskey. I do drink wine. 00:42:07 Speaker 1: Really? 00:42:09 Speaker 2: A lot. I love wine. 00:42:10 Speaker 1: Fancy guy. 00:42:12 Speaker 2: Yeah. But I'm not a beer drinker. I'm not a boozer. 00:42:16 Speaker 1: So for me, the bar scene was never my thing. But even back then, you weren't like a partier. 00:42:19 Speaker 2: No, I mean, in the Army. 00:42:20 Speaker 1: See, I always think it's funny because I have a sort of a stereotype, right? Yeah, everybody does. I have a stereotype of aspiring musicians. When I hear that, I'm like, oh, a big party guy. 00:42:32 Speaker 2: Yeah, like my guitar player, acoustic player, when he left Canada to pursue music in the States, he talks about it. He said they would stay drunk, coked up, or whatever for days on end. just so they could do the gigs and you know, that wasn't me. I never ever, like I loved writing songs. When I first got in the business, it was all about being a writer. Cause I knew that you could make money writing songs. 00:42:58 Speaker 1: Got it. 00:42:59 Speaker 2: And I had been told, everybody told me as an artist, it's really difficult. It's difficult to make money as an artist. And I, why would I give up, you know, an occupation that took care of my family for an occupation that I, that wasn't going to provide for them. Yeah. I just wasn't going to do it. So I pursued the writing, knowing that I could make money. And before I got out of the army, I had a publishing deal and it wasn't much. 00:43:23 Speaker 1: Really? 00:43:24 Speaker 2: It literally. 00:43:24 Speaker 1: So you were like calculated. Oh yeah. It's the music business. Where were you at at that time? Like when you got this publishing deal? Where were you at with your own family? I mean, not where were you at. I had a wife and two kids. You had what going on? You had a wife? I had a wife and two kids. And what was her take on this whole deal? 00:43:44 Speaker 2: Don't leave the Army. Are you kidding me? We got a great living. She cried for three months. 00:43:49 Speaker 1: She would have you out of harm's way this way, though, man. 00:43:53 Speaker 2: That didn't matter. She didn't care. She was extremely supportive of our service members of the military. Still is to this day. When I come home and tell her, hey, I got a... a USO tour that we're going to be doing in December and we're going to be in a hostile environment. She said, okay, well, we'll do Christmas early. Oh, really? 00:44:10 Speaker 1: She's all, she's very supportive. 00:44:12 Speaker 2: If you die, it's where God wanted you to die. 00:44:13 Speaker 1: Got it. 00:44:14 Speaker 2: It's that simple. And I'm the same way. Look, we're all going to die. 00:44:18 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:44:19 Speaker 2: Period. That doesn't mean that we don't do, we don't take calculated risk. That's one thing I learned in the military and working with teams and working in that community. You have to calculate. That's why I said there's, Absolutely nothing wrong with having a plan B as long as you accomplish the mission. I'm going to take whatever plan I got to take to accomplish that mission. I pursue my music. I pursue everything that I do today the same way. So those people who say they don't have a plan B, they're losers, man. Yeah. Not that you're a loser, but you will not be successful. 00:44:51 Speaker 1: Yeah, just a long time ago. Now I can handle it. 00:44:53 Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to have something. For you to say, I don't have a backup plan, I think is a farce. Because you don't, you got to say, I don't have a backup plan. Okay, they shut the door. Oh, I'm screwed. I'm done. 00:45:05 Speaker 1: No, I understand. 00:45:06 Speaker 2: No, of course you're not done. You're going to do something else to achieve that goal, to finish that mission. That's where I am, and that's where I think even people who say, I heard this artist say it just yesterday. I was watching him do this podcast, and I love the guy to death, younger guy, and he's been super successful. He said, Blake told me that. Blake said, I came to town without a backup plan. 00:45:30 Speaker 1: No. 00:45:31 Speaker 2: Whatever. 00:45:31 Speaker 1: Well, I don't want to reopen the whole backup plan deal, but you're– When I talk about a backup plan, I mean an abandoned– you're talking about I have ways I'm going to get there. My idea of a backup plan is that you abandon the concept of what it is you're trying to do. 00:45:49 Speaker 2: You're going to change your end goal. 00:45:51 Speaker 1: Yes. Meaning I'll be like, I'm going to make a living as a writer. Now, I could do it as a magazine writer. I could do it writing scripts, TV, whatever. Do you know what I'm saying? Like doctoring movie scripts and movies that have outdoor elements, and I come in and I'm like a fixer and doctor outdoor scenes to make them realistic. I would have been like, sure. 00:46:15 Speaker 2: I would say you're a much better writer today. No, I would say you're, you're a better writer today than you were then because, because of the modifications that you've had to make, you were able to think about writing in a way that you did not maybe think about when you had, when you were so singularly singularly focused. 00:46:37 Speaker 1: I don't want to, we're here to talk about songwriters are the same way. Sometimes you interview me. And I'll tell you why I don't think that's true, but I want to get back to you. I can show you the science behind it. I can show you the science behind it. And two, experience. Yeah, but there's a focus issue. There's a focus issue. Something happens when you have, we have three kids, right? 00:47:02 Speaker 2: You think you lost focus because of children? 00:47:04 Speaker 1: It was just at a time when I was at the height of my powers. And I don't mean the height of my powers to influence things outside of my own life. But I mean, like at the height of my powers as a writer, it was just that, it was just, that was the only thing that was going to happen today. I mean, it was literally like, it was the only thing of note that I would do that day. I love it. 00:47:29 Speaker 2: I love it. 00:47:30 Speaker 1: And that's not my reality anymore. I understand. 00:47:34 Speaker 2: But what happened in your reality created a thought process that that allows you to think differently than you did before. 00:47:41 Speaker 1: Sure. 00:47:43 Speaker 2: And you can write in a way now because of that influx of environment changes that you could not have done before. You can see it from a parent's perspective. Now, you couldn't do that before. 00:47:58 Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll buy that. 00:47:59 Speaker 2: That's a good point. Songwriting is the same way. When you're writing a song, I want to write a song about a camera. I'm just looking at the camera. I'll say, a camera. 00:48:10 Speaker 1: Number two. 00:48:11 Speaker 2: If I'm so focused on that camera and it's going to be a country song, if I go, and now we have an app that can do this for you, but where as a great songwriter did it before, I want this to be a rock song. So you look at it from a completely different perspective and you can do that. The same thing happens in anything that we do. If you look at it from a different visual, I mean, Gosh, think about hunting. When we go up, when you are in one observation position, looking at that animal, I have no shot. There's no way. But if I'm hunting from over here, I have the most perfect shot I've ever had in my life. A different perspective allows you. And that goes back to that mission. That goes back to that goal. That goes back to that backup plan. Yeah. From here, I cannot achieve my goal, but from here I can. Yeah, I understand. You can call that whatever you want, but it's an additional plan. 00:49:10 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:49:11 Speaker 2: It's a different maneuver. It's a different mission. Same outlook or same goal, but different perspective, different... uh visual i. 00:49:21 Speaker 1: Want to go back to the thing you said a minute ago and i hear guys from the military talk about this a little bit i had a friend that was he was an elite soldier and he was in a lot of dangerous places and he would use a term when i was spoke with him He would use a term, if I fall, okay? Which felt to me like a euphemism. Like, if I fall. And he even explained to me one time that he went to his mother and he said, if I fall in combat, you can't go to an angry place. Like, you can't go to a place of anger toward the government. You can't go to a place of anger toward the Navy. It's like, this is my thing. that I'm comfortable with and I know what I'm doing and I don't want, should that happen, I don't want your idea about this country, this nation, this military to change. And you were saying that your wife is kind of like, if she got comfortable with it. 00:50:22 Speaker 2: She bears not the burden of my decision. 00:50:26 Speaker 1: To help me understand that. 00:50:29 Speaker 2: She cannot bear the burden of the decisions that I make. 00:50:34 Speaker 1: Okay. Just like me. That's where she's arrived. 00:50:39 Speaker 2: She has to be. Okay. She has to be. And I think when, and the way we are able to do this is through our relationship with God. I focus solely on my relationship with him. Okay. I'm worshiping and loving him. And through that, everything else around me and through me and with me and about me will happen the way it's supposed to. 00:51:03 Speaker 1: I understand what you mean. 00:51:04 Speaker 2: I cannot accept the responsibility, even right here, right now. Like, we've never met, right? We meet, we talk. I walk out of here today, outside of the discussions that we've had, I cannot dictate your thoughts about me. 00:51:21 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:51:22 Speaker 2: Outside of what I've had. I'm going to. 00:51:24 Speaker 1: Have enough of a positive thoughts about you. 00:51:28 Speaker 2: I used to say this a lot, and I hear people say it. I don't care what people think about me. I don't care what people think about me. 00:51:34 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:51:35 Speaker 2: I don't believe that. 00:51:38 Speaker 1: People that say that are most likely to care. 00:51:40 Speaker 2: They're the ones that work harder. And here's what I say. I do care about what people think about me, but I can only care to the degree in which I can impact that. And so that means if I show up today and I'm a narcissistic asshole to you, that's on me. But if I show up here and I show nothing but love and kindness and you think I'm a narcissistic asshole, then that's not on me. 00:52:10 Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand. 00:52:11 Speaker 2: So I don't bear the burden of your thoughts. I can only feel the impact of your thoughts to the degree that I can impact it. Understand? So I can't dictate what you think and feel and act. beyond what I can do to impact what you can think and feel and act. And I think if we do that with a positive energy, with a good thought and a good heart, and if in your head and heart know you're doing that, then you will live a much more comfortable. The Lord talks about it in the Bible. He mentions, don't worry more than anything else. And I think when you're focusing on your- The thought and the terms, worry not, don't worry. 00:52:58 Speaker 1: Oh, I got you. 00:52:59 Speaker 2: He says that more than anything else. He says that more than he says love. And he says that because he tells you, don't worry, I've got you. And when you're focusing on that, then you separate yourself from the people saying and thinking things about you that you can't control. 00:53:18 Speaker 1: Yeah. I like that point you're making that It's an interesting perspective that you're saying if you focus on serving God the way you feel that you need to do that, that everything stacks underneath that. 00:53:36 Speaker 2: 100%. 00:53:37 Speaker 1: Like if you're doing that, that means you're serving your family. That means you're serving your fellow man. That means you're, right? 00:53:45 Speaker 2: A hundred percent. 00:53:46 Speaker 1: It gives you like a singular focus and then everything's like umbrella. Everything's under that umbrella. 00:53:51 Speaker 2: A hundred percent. 00:53:51 Speaker 1: It's a cool concept. 00:53:52 Speaker 2: It's exactly like the umbrella. That's an analogy that I heard a priest use. You know, you have the pinnacle of the umbrella, that's God. And then you have all of those little tentacles that come out and that's all the different parts of our life. And as long as they're rooted and anchored in that pinnacle, all of these will keep the water and they'll keep the bad stuff at bay. Now that doesn't mean that we're not going to experience hardship. In fact, he's made that very clear. In his name, we will experience hardship. But when you're focused on your relationship with him, the other things will happen the way that they're supposed to. And I accept that. I mean, if anybody can know his hardship, I know hardship. I lost a son who was 16 years old. And I've heard people say, oh, you know, parents, children aren't supposed to die before their parents. Like, show me where it says that. Show me. You're not going to find it. There ain't a book. And it's nowhere in the Bible. In fact- In the Bible, numerous people. The Lord himself gave up his only, he gave up his son. He came to earth in the flesh. That's a hardship that only a parent losing a child can understand. But I don't believe for one second that that was God punishing me or my wife or my family or even my son. I don't believe that. 00:55:06 Speaker 1: So how many kids do you have total? 00:55:08 Speaker 2: Five. Okay. Yeah. 00:55:11 Speaker 1: And the boy you lost, where was he in the order? 00:55:14 Speaker 2: He was in the middle. 00:55:15 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:55:16 Speaker 2: He was one of the middle children. 00:55:17 Speaker 1: What was his name? 00:55:18 Speaker 2: Jerry. 00:55:19 Speaker 1: You miss him? 00:55:20 Speaker 2: No. Yeah, like every day. Yeah. 00:55:23 Speaker 1: I can't picture that it would get out of your mind. 00:55:25 Speaker 2: No, it's every day. I see something, hear something, sometimes smell something that generates an emotion. I had a very dear friend, a close friend who lost a child as well, told me one time, or actually told me, about three days after we realized what was going on and knew Jerry was gone. Three days after he passed, I asked him, I was like, how do you do this? I mean, I don't know how I'm going to function. In my head, I can remember years past sitting on my bus and I had a friend who had a child who died. And I remember sitting on the bus thinking, if I lost one of my children, I would have to go back overseas because I would have so much anger that the only way that I felt that I could relieve that anger would be to hurt bad people. I don't want to just hurt anybody, but I, I do, I don't take pleasure in hurting people, but there is some comfort in knowing that a bad player no longer exists. 00:56:32 Speaker 1: That'd be your outlet, your anger outlet. That would be my outlet. 00:56:35 Speaker 2: Yeah. Uh, the day my son died, I had a completely different revelation. I didn't feel that. And I asked him how he did it, and he said, man, first thing you need to do is just breathe. 00:56:49 Speaker 1: Honey, you're asking him this before you lost a son? 00:56:52 Speaker 2: No, after he died. 00:56:53 Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, I thought you were having like a weird premonition. In my head, prior to that. 00:56:56 Speaker 2: When my buddy, another friend lost a child, completely different person. He had a child, and I'm like, God, man, if that happened to me, I'd have to quit doing this for a while and go get that shit out of my system. 00:57:07 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:57:07 Speaker 2: I'd have to go kill bad guys. But you were thinking that just- Before anything happened. 00:57:12 Speaker 1: Yeah. You were just pondering a thing that ended up happening to you. 00:57:16 Speaker 2: Because I was experiencing it through a friend. 00:57:17 Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand. I understand. 00:57:19 Speaker 2: Fast forward, I lose a child. I have a child die. And I just don't, and that thought didn't come to my head immediately. Got it. 00:57:27 Speaker 1: Like I thought- The thought you thought would happen didn't happen. 00:57:30 Speaker 2: What I thought years prior wasn't happening. 00:57:32 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:57:33 Speaker 2: I had this weird sense of not knowing what to do and- So this other friend who had lost a child, we actually met him through hunting. Okay. He owned property, he and his family, big, huge Catholic family that I'd known through another friend who hunted their land through an outfitter. And they basically quit using the outfitter and they started doing it themselves, the family. And because I'd hunted with them, they called me and said, hey, if you ever want to hunt here, you can hunt. 00:58:02 Speaker 1: Got it. 00:58:03 Speaker 2: It's a family thing. And so I hunted with them. And in doing so, found out they had lost a child. Then my son dies. They came to my house that night. And the next day or two, I was talking to him and I said, you know, I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm in a weird phase, haze. I don't even know what's going on, you know? And he said, you just need to breathe. He said, just breathe right now. You're going to catch yourself. You'll hold your breath. And it was true. You just sit there and you He can't even breathe, you know. And he said, then it's just, it's second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. One day you're going to wake up and you will realize that day, the day prior, you missed that child who's no longer here the same amount that you missed your children that are here. And I've lived with that. And I'm waiting for that day. For me, that day hasn't come yet. I still miss him more than I miss my children who are here. And it doesn't mean that they're less important. It's just because he's not present. I have emotions, energies, and thoughts and memories more so than I do about my children who are here. And my son who is here, my boys who are, my daughters who are, they say the same thing. They think about him more than they think about their other siblings. 00:59:32 Speaker 1: Got it. 00:59:33 Speaker 2: Because he's not here. 00:59:34 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:59:34 Speaker 2: But there will come a time when that peace will grow that much stronger. 00:59:40 Speaker 1: Is your dad still alive? 00:59:41 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:59:41 Speaker 1: Yeah. You should do an exit interview with him because mine's not. I wish I had, like, if I could compile a list of questions. We did it. And send it to him. 00:59:59 Speaker 2: We've done it. Yeah. Yeah. 01:00:00 Speaker 1: When you lose a child. Your list. 01:00:02 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:00:03 Speaker 1: You're old enough where your list would be good. But the thing I would ask on my list, my dad lost a son. And man, he may be buried deep, but it's like, it just, it's almost like a, I don't want to say it wasn't a thing. My biggest awareness is, My biggest awareness that he lost his son is he lost his son on a motorcycle. His boy, I can't remember if it was, I can't remember, I was so little. He'd gotten out of the, I think he'd gotten out of the Navy. This is an older half-brother of mine. He'd gotten out of the Navy. My dad helped him get a Harley Davidson. He got killed on that Harley Davidson by a drunk kid in a car. The biggest way I knew is I wasn't allowed to be on a motorcycle. I could be on a three-wheeler. I could be on a quad runner. 01:01:01 Speaker 2: But not a motorcycle. 01:01:03 Speaker 1: Not a motorcycle. And one day I knew this kid, your boy's named Jerry. This kid actually coincidentally was named Jerry. A friend of mine from high school named Jerry drove his dad's Harley over and pulled it into our driveway. And my old man made him move that Harley. And like, that was sort of like, that was how I knew that this meant a thing. Do you follow me? 01:01:23 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:01:23 Speaker 1: But it just wasn't like. 01:01:27 Speaker 2: It didn't seem like what you're talking about. It's every day for us and our children. It's so weird. We have a family funeral plot on our property. We're those people. So my son is buried within 200 yards of my house. Really? My wife can look out her kitchen window and see his tombstone. I built a big, huge new barn and I had to put glass garage doors on it and these gigantic, extremely expensive glass doors. just so she could see through it so that every morning when she got up and went to that kitchen sink, she could see her son's tombstone. 01:02:00 Speaker 1: Got it. Got it. 01:02:01 Speaker 2: So he's there. 01:02:04 Speaker 1: Um, I want, I want to return it back to your dad's statement. Oh, go ahead. 01:02:07 Speaker 2: I think that you're, I love that you said that and that's important, but when you lose a child, you have a completely different perspective on those things. Um, stuff that used to seem like you used to want to know, it don't matter. It don't matter. 01:02:23 Speaker 1: What do you, what do you mean by that? 01:02:24 Speaker 2: I mean, like, you know, I've heard a lot of people say, Oh, when you get to heaven, you'll find, you'll find out like you'll, you'll learn why Jerry died. Oh, I understand. No, you know why I get to heaven. It won't matter. 01:02:38 Speaker 1: Got it. 01:02:38 Speaker 2: I don't care. All I know is that he's not here. And I know that God must love me enough to know that I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna abandon my relationship with him because of that. 01:02:51 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:02:52 Speaker 2: Um, Like, me and my dad, for me, the biggest thing is the past. Like, I don't, because I've had so many head injuries, my memory. Like, a lot of people can tell you stuff that happened to them when they were six years old, and they have these great, fond memories. And they can talk about, like, multiple things that happened when they were six. I can't. I don't have all that. 01:03:19 Speaker 1: You think it got banged out of your head? 01:03:20 Speaker 2: Yeah, just, yeah. And there was, I think because of my ADD, ADHD and all of that, I do like a dump. Like even for me, I can even equate it to come way fast forward songs. Like I've gotten songs that I've written, literally been sitting in songwriting listening sessions where I'm doing a new project and someone's playing me songs and they play me a song and go, and that sounds familiar. And then my, producer would be sitting and he goes, we wrote that song. Me and you wrote that song. Really? Oh, yeah. That's why. Yeah. Completely gone. Man. 01:03:58 Speaker 1: Really? 01:03:59 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And I can, that same thing can happen to me stuff five years ago. 01:04:04 Speaker 1: Is that right? 01:04:05 Speaker 2: I've got guys that I served with a short of my whole platoon in Panama because of the impact of that, that particular operation had outside of that emissions going forward. Like, I worked with the, I worked with the agency. Uh, I couldn't tell you the name of the agent that I worked with in Iraq. Okay. Uh, I know I can remember a female agents, her name, but it wasn't her real name. I knew her real name. I couldn't tell you what it is today. 01:04:38 Speaker 1: Got it. 01:04:39 Speaker 2: I barely remember her name fast. I did a mission with her in 1990. Fast forward to Iraq, uh, as I'm an entertainer going over doing a show. I put this in my book too. And I ran into that same agent. I had no idea who the woman was. 01:04:54 Speaker 1: Really? 01:04:55 Speaker 2: Couldn't remember. 01:04:56 Speaker 1: Did she recognize, did she know you? Did she remember you? Because the context is so different now. Oh, absolutely she remembered. She came up to me. 01:05:02 Speaker 2: She called me by my rank and my name in the army, not Craig Morgan. And I'm like, do I know you? She said, you should. We did an operation together in 1990. 01:05:12 Speaker 1: Really? 01:05:13 Speaker 2: And I'm like, wow, I know the operation, but I couldn't tell you. 100% of the operation footnote for footnote. Oddly enough, I know my running password. I remember the running password that I had to remember. When we went on that operation, back then we didn't have the technologies that we have now. We didn't have all this digital technology. We had to memorize our call signs, our frequencies, and our passwords. And they changed every day. So I had to remember seven days worth of that shit. Well, how big would a password be? Like there were running passwords. Like a running password was if you're running from gunfire and you're coming back into a friendly, they would say something like shotgun and you had to spider. But you had to remember seven days worth of that. Frequencies, you know, 360.210. Seven days worth of those. Got it. And you could do that. I could do that then. I can do it now. 01:06:16 Speaker 1: I can do it now. So if someone says you have to remember this, you got a pocket for it. But if it's like a nice to know thing, it maybe slips. 01:06:25 Speaker 2: No, it's just like you have to know it for that time. After that time, it's gone. So I have the ability. I do movies and some TV shows and stuff, scripts and stuff. I don't study my scripts until about two or three days before. And I can go in and memorize my scripts. A week later, ask me three words of that script. I can't tell you what it is. 01:06:47 Speaker 1: Got it. 01:06:48 Speaker 2: Got it. I understand. I dump it. And I don't even know how I do it. I write songs. I've got songs on my album. I've got a single out right now that it took me months and months to learn the lyric. 01:07:01 Speaker 1: Are you one of those musicians that now and then has to have your lyrics up? 01:07:05 Speaker 3: No. 01:07:05 Speaker 1: No. Once you do it, you got it. 01:07:07 Speaker 2: Once I get it, I've got it. 01:07:08 Speaker 1: Yeah. But. 01:07:10 Speaker 2: Three years from now, if I'm not doing that song every day, I'll completely forget it. 01:07:15 Speaker 1: That always surprised me now and then when you see someone, you're like, but dude, you wrote the song. You need to have the lyrics. 01:07:20 Speaker 2: But I've written thousands of songs. 01:07:21 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a problem. 01:07:22 Speaker 2: That's a problem. 01:07:23 Speaker 1: Now you've got five songs. 01:07:24 Speaker 2: And I've recorded maybe 15 albums, 16 albums worth of songs, at least 10 each. So you think that's 150, 180 songs that, you know. 01:07:35 Speaker 1: Somewhere from decades ago. 01:07:36 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, 25 years. And, you know, the singles, like, Almost home, it's a no-brainer. We're doing it every night. We're going to do it every night for the rest of our career. But other songs, I hate the taste of whiskey. It was a big song when we did it, but I don't do it all the time anymore. 01:07:54 Speaker 1: It's not one of those ones the crowd's going to be pissed if you don't do it. Hey, I want to ask you a question about your wife. 01:08:04 Speaker 2: How.... 01:08:09 Speaker 1: All of a sudden, you get famous. 01:08:11 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:08:13 Speaker 1: What's her take on that? She don't care. 01:08:16 Speaker 2: She could give two shits about my fame. She still expects me to come home and do husband-dad stuff. I think she even, and she may disagree... She gets real upset when I say stuff to her like, you don't understand. She would rather me say a lot of other things. When I say, you don't understand, I might as well have said, kiss my butt. She gets so aggravated at that. 01:08:44 Speaker 1: But the reality is- Because she feels like you're pulling rank on her or something. 01:08:48 Speaker 2: Yeah, or not even pulling rank as much as though she thinks that I might not appreciate her understanding. But it's hard for her to grasp it. for example, when we go out to eat or something, she can get more frustrated quicker when people come up than I do. 01:09:12 Speaker 1: She does. 01:09:12 Speaker 2: She does. 01:09:13 Speaker 1: Okay. 01:09:13 Speaker 2: Because she doesn't understand how they can't respect us having our own time eating dinner. 01:09:19 Speaker 3: Oh. 01:09:20 Speaker 2: But I can't convey to her, even though she knows where I'm at and my stature and who I am and those things, she still, she doesn't do it. So she expects everyone else not to do it. Got it. 01:09:34 Speaker 1: See what I'm saying? 01:09:35 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:09:36 Speaker 1: I have a flipped dynamic on that. 01:09:40 Speaker 2: For me, I completely understand it. I appreciate it. For them, it's the one time. It's the one moment that they have that opportunity to say, I love your music. I appreciate what you do. Whatever it is they say. And I'm humbled and grateful for that. And she is too. But she don't see me enough that when she does see me and we're in a– a public environment, she feels like people should respect that. 01:10:06 Speaker 1: Got it. 01:10:09 Speaker 2: And it doesn't mean she's not grateful. She's also lost a son. I've had people come up to her, and she is one of the most effective communicators. 01:10:15 Speaker 1: Oh, because they know this. They know this. Strangers know this. 01:10:19 Speaker 2: And if a woman comes up to her and says, I lost a daughter, and the way y'all present yourself and carry yourself has been inspiring to me, something like that, My wife will spend an hour with the woman. Really? She'll pray for her. 01:10:33 Speaker 1: So she don't feel like invaded upon. 01:10:35 Speaker 2: No. A lot of it has to do with approach. You know what I think? Yeah. You know. 01:10:40 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:10:41 Speaker 2: For me, it's my life. Approach is a big deal. It is my life. If I don't want to be around people, I make a choice to not be around people and I be in a place where I'm not, I don't have to, or I'm around people that I know don't care about who Craig Morgan is. You know what I'm saying? 01:10:56 Speaker 1: How quick did all that hit? Like you did a publishing deal. 01:10:59 Speaker 2: Like, like, like, It was slow for me. 01:11:01 Speaker 1: Okay. 01:11:02 Speaker 2: There were people who knew my music. In fact, as an artist, and if you look at it from a management's perspective, publicist, and all of these things, I think they wished it had been different because they would much rather me receive the notoriety over the success. I was the opposite. 01:11:24 Speaker 1: I don't understand what you mean. 01:11:26 Speaker 2: Notoriety does not always come with success. I had songs that were number one songs on the radio and I could walk to an airport and people didn't know who I was. 01:11:32 Speaker 1: Oh, okay. 01:11:33 Speaker 2: I grew up in a different society. 01:11:35 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could be a movie producer and have tons of success, but you have limited notoriety. 01:11:41 Speaker 2: You can be an actor and not be recognized. If you're not the Tom Cruise. You know, I was not the George Strait, but I was having number one songs on the radio. They knew the music. 01:11:54 Speaker 1: But they didn't know you. 01:11:54 Speaker 2: But they didn't know me. I didn't care. As long as they knew the music. You know why I didn't care? No. What did I say earlier? I'm going to go back to that very first comment. It's the music business. I got in there to make money and make a living for my family. Now, I also learned to appreciate that notoriety was a big part of that success, and it enhanced that. and extended the life of the business. 01:12:24 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. 01:12:26 Speaker 2: But for me, it just happened slow, and it wasn't. Certain things would happen, and I attribute it to God. I give God all the glory because— I think sometimes it happens too fast for people. It's a difficult thing for me. I was very fortunate. I had already had a life, a career in the army. 01:12:42 Speaker 1: You had success in something. 01:12:44 Speaker 2: I had success to some degree in that arena. So I just translated it to this, but I needed them. I wanted to be financially stable. Um, and to be able to do that without all the notoriety was kind of cool. I could go to the airport. I could walk through lows, you know, then things started happening. Uh, TV, movies. I did a huge TV show. I'll never forget, you know, the one woman who was not as appreciative of the success. And by that, I mean, she wanted people to respect, you know, privacy to some degree, especially if our kids were with us. My wife was an anti-taking pictures of our kids' people. She just didn't like that. So when I would do an interview with Country Weekly or CMT or anything like that, and they would come and film us, she was very hesitant. She did not like it. because she knew that by doing that, people knew who our kids were. And she was super protective. And so that was what it was. But I'll never forget the same woman who felt that way when I was walking through an airport eight, 10 years ago, when it was like all of a sudden the notoriety caught up with the success. And I wished I knew what it was. I don't really know because I work with new artists now and try to help them. But it happened. And I remember walking through the airport and I looked at my wife like, freaking everybody's staring. And she goes, yeah, you're Craig Morgan, you idiot. 01:14:06 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:14:07 Speaker 2: You know, you're who you are. And it's like, that was the reality for me. It's like, oh, it is real. 01:14:12 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:14:13 Speaker 2: And that was just like eight years ago for me. 01:14:16 Speaker 1: Got it. 01:14:17 Speaker 2: I had all the success and didn't have to feel all the pressure. 01:14:22 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:14:23 Speaker 2: You know. 01:14:25 Speaker 1: You become hyper aware, you know, like you get where. 01:14:30 Speaker 2: The camera's always on. 01:14:32 Speaker 1: You can't be having an argument with your wife at the airport or something. 01:14:35 Speaker 2: No, no. But I will tell you, without sounding, I don't want to sound boastful or prideful, but I pride myself on not allowing my occupation interfere with who I am and the way I live my life. It's like politics. 01:14:54 Speaker 1: But I don't think you can beat that kind of stuff out of people, man. 01:14:59 Speaker 2: What's that? 01:15:00 Speaker 1: Like, I think you're going to be kind of foundationally who you are. Like, let's say you're looking at a problem, like, you know, you're having a problem with something in your house or something, right? If you're the kind of person who's always kind of addressed that stuff and you deal with it, Amen. I think you're probably going to continue to look at it that way. Then you might step outside of that and also be like, hey, you know what? I don't even need to do that. I'm going to call somebody to do that. But your instinct is in you. I was reading this thing not long ago. It's interesting. I was reading this thing not long ago. It was talking about different ways that people measure social class. And there's these theories that you can't Your social class, I shouldn't have even gotten into this, but now here I am. You're more a marker of your parents' education level than you are of where you're at. 01:16:04 Speaker 2: I believe that. 01:16:05 Speaker 1: Right? Like, you're a marker of your parents' education. Like, that's baked into you. And it'll be like, whatever goes on in your life, that, like, your die is cast. Do you follow me? 01:16:19 Speaker 2: Yes. 01:16:20 Speaker 1: And I don't think it's universal, but I think there's something that happens there. 01:16:23 Speaker 2: I think there is something to that. 01:16:24 Speaker 1: Something happens there. 01:16:25 Speaker 2: And then that equates, and you could generationally follow that too, even on that. Like my children would be, play the same way towards me. Yes. I think there is something to that. I will say though, I think the stronger the individual, and for me, I would equate it, the stronger my relationship with God is. the more ability I have to separate myself from those generational molds. You have the ability to create a thought process and to allow yourself to think, using the term, outside of the box, to move beyond what stigmatizes us. 01:17:08 Speaker 1: Yes. 01:17:10 Speaker 2: But I think one of the few ways to do that is through a relationship with God. That's just me. And I'm not, you know, I have a friend. He's a tour manager. Grew up without a dad. He will never be the kind of dad that the daddy didn't have was. 01:17:30 Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. 01:17:32 Speaker 2: He forced himself to go beyond what that generational would have done. So he is one of these guys when people say, oh, well, it's kind of, you know, it's where I grew up. Sorry. but not sorry. You have the ability and you can go beyond that. But it requires a lot. It requires work, energy, resources. And a lot of times what we find and what I have found through my experiences is people aren't willing to make those sacrifices that are necessary to separate themselves from those gaps. 01:18:11 Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a lot of people never even occurs to them. 01:18:14 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:18:14 Speaker 1: And some people, it occurs to them, but they don't break it out. Yeah. 01:18:17 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:18:18 Speaker 1: Hey, what was the longest you ever gone in your life without going hunting? 01:18:24 Speaker 2: Just as of recent, really. Really? 01:18:26 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:18:27 Speaker 2: Yeah. I've never been so busy in my career, in my life, as I am right now. 01:18:35 Speaker 1: But now is when you got stuff interrupted? You would think I would. 01:18:38 Speaker 2: Be slowing down. My music career has expanded in the last three years. We've gotten busier than I want to be. And I went back in the Army. 01:18:50 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:18:50 Speaker 2: So I re-enlisted back into the Army Reserve so I could finish my commitment. 01:18:54 Speaker 1: But did you ever miss a fall? 01:18:56 Speaker 2: I'm sorry? 01:18:57 Speaker 1: Were you ever miss a whole fall of hunting? 01:18:59 Speaker 2: No. I won't miss a whole fall. 01:19:02 Speaker 1: And do you ever miss a whole spring of turkey hunting? 01:19:04 Speaker 2: No. Now, that's one thing I won't miss. 01:19:06 Speaker 1: I won't miss turkey hunting. Yeah. I'm always in the game, you know? 01:19:11 Speaker 2: That's the great thing about turkey hunting. I book shows during the spring to turkey hunt around the shows. I literally do. 01:19:18 Speaker 1: That's got to frustrate people when you're like, they're talking about like late April. You're like, well, there's a little kind of a deal I need to talk about. 01:19:26 Speaker 2: Let a manager come and go, hey, we've got a show. In March in Maine, it's a $ 150, 000 show. I'm like, no, I'm doing that club in Florida. Yeah. so that I can turkey hunt, you know, opening week down there. 01:19:51 Speaker 1: Yeah, or if some dude's like, great show on November 5th. Yeah. 01:19:55 Speaker 2: So I do that. I used to do it a whole lot more when I had All Access Outdoors on the Outdoor Channel. 01:20:01 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:20:02 Speaker 2: That was great because I was obligated because of the show. I had a requirement that I needed to meet. 01:20:11 Speaker 1: You'd be like, I got a work thing that day. Yeah. 01:20:13 Speaker 2: I would literally go hunt. Uh-huh. Like I would go deer hunt in the morning and then come back, get back just in time to do a show and get up the next day, get off the bus and go do the same thing. I did that for years and it just, it absolutely beat me to death. It did. So I loved it when I. Yeah. 01:20:32 Speaker 1: I never thought about the legit. I remember, you know, I know, I remember you doing that. I can never thought about the logistics of it. And we were doing a hundred shows a year. That the time slots are very hard to do. Cause you're like, can we do this show in the middle of the day? 01:20:43 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would have an 8 o'clock showtime and run until 10, 11 midnight, get up the next morning at 4, go sit in a tree stand, come back, take a nap, do the same thing for days on end. Yeah. 01:20:56 Speaker 1: Yeah. That's a grind, man. 01:20:59 Speaker 2: But it was also a blessing. 01:21:01 Speaker 1: You know, it gave. 01:21:03 Speaker 2: Me a great deal of appreciation of both lifestyles and everything that was going on. The people that I met. You know, I mean, and I was a guy that during Turkey season, when we were touring, we'd be driving the bus and I'd see a Turkey on the side of the road, stop the bus. And we would literally go knock on the door. Excuse me. Is that y'all's field? And they would say, yeah, uh, I got a show tonight. We're about an hour from here. Is it possible for us to hunt? 01:21:27 Speaker 4: Yeah. 01:21:27 Speaker 1: You can tell by the bus that this won't be a regular thing. 01:21:31 Speaker 2: And I would go on the bus, get my crap, change clothes. And we would go hunt that Turkey. Sometimes we would get lucky. Sometimes we wouldn't. I mean, I did that a lot. Yeah. You know? 01:21:40 Speaker 1: Tell me about going back into the army. I know it was a totally different circumstance, but how did it even come up? 01:21:51 Speaker 2: I had made a comment to, let me back up. After I got out, the way for me to maintain my relationship was through my music. Relationship with what? With the military. Okay. And so by doing that, I was one of the first guys to volunteer. I was the first guy that did a show in Afghanistan after we took Afghanistan. 01:22:12 Speaker 1: Is that right? 01:22:12 Speaker 2: I was the very first artist to go over there and do that. I was the first guy to play the U S embassy. 01:22:18 Speaker 1: You knew enough. You probably knew enough where you could conceptualize like the safety and all that. 01:22:22 Speaker 2: Right. 01:22:22 Speaker 1: Like you just, you understood what it meant. 01:22:25 Speaker 2: And again, I didn't care. And I'm going to tell you, and when I say I didn't care, uh, make every safety precaution you can. But ultimately, if I die, it's where God wants me to die. I still take that perspective at everything I do today. You know, if I'm going to go jump, if I'm going to make a parachute jump off of a cliff, I'm going to make every safety precaution. I'm going to go through all the process and do everything I can. I'm still going to do the jump. 01:22:51 Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand. 01:22:52 Speaker 2: You know, if I'm going to ride a motorcycle, I'm going to wear a helmet. I'm going to do the things. I'm going to wear the pads if I'm jumping jumps. I'm going to conceptualize. 01:22:58 Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not reckless. 01:23:00 Speaker 2: I'm not reckless. Yeah. I don't think I am. There are people in my business that think I'm absolutely insane. 01:23:09 Speaker 1: You're going to do things that people regard as dangerous, but you're not going to do them foolishly. Correct. 01:23:15 Speaker 2: I'm 62 years old. I still jump off a tailgate of a truck, but I don't do it without having work. I'm smart. And by smart, I mean I try to do things. I take good care of myself. I stay in good shape. I still can pass the Army PT test. And I passed it at an age much younger than I am. And I do that intentionally so that I'm not privileged in the sense that I get to do what I do. I do it because I can. I went back in because I had been doing a lot for the military, doing a lot of shows. I do a lot of benefits for various military organizations. 01:23:50 Speaker 1: This is through USO, right? 01:23:52 Speaker 2: USO and various other organizations at the time. But also, like I would do charitable shows. We do a lot for the veterans, various veterans organizations. 01:24:00 Speaker 3: Okay. 01:24:03 Speaker 2: And not all were free. I'll be transparent. We got paid to do some of those shows. And I still get paid. I don't make any money, but I got a company of people that have to get paid. So there's still some shows that we do where I might not make any money, but they're still paying some money to make the show happen. 01:24:20 Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand. 01:24:21 Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. I just don't want people to think that we're out there doing this 100% free. Because that's not always the case. There are some where they are. Moving on. I had a gentleman come up to me who worked for a senator and he said, man, you are always doing so much for the military. Is there anything that the military, I'm sorry, anything the military can do for you? I said, man, I had 17 years. I would love to finish out my three years so that I have a letter that says I'm retired. 01:24:49 Speaker 1: You talked about this earlier. 01:24:50 Speaker 2: Two weeks later, the guy called me and say, hey, did you mean what you said? And I said, what did I say? And he told me our conversation. I said, absolutely. I'm in it. He said, well, would you like to go back in? I said, are you kidding me? 01:25:02 Speaker 1: Really? 01:25:02 Speaker 2: He said, if you can pass the physical. 01:25:04 Speaker 1: That's how that happened? 01:25:05 Speaker 2: That's how it happened. He said, if you can pass the physical and you can pass the PT test, there's someone who wants you to come back in. And I said, I can do it. No questions asked. He said, go do a physical. I went and did the physical. 01:25:20 Speaker 1: You're how old at this point? 01:25:22 Speaker 2: 60, 59. He said, you have to do it before you turn 60 or you can't do it. 01:25:29 Speaker 1: Oh, they caught you right at the right moment. 01:25:30 Speaker 2: Yeah. He said, they can get a waiver for your age, but they can't get a waiver after you're 60. I said, done. So I went and took the physical. I had to have a waiver, not only for my age, but I had to have a waiver for my hearing. But they do that every day anyway. They give waivers for everything. I mean, we have guys that have prosthetics that are back in the military because they can do the job that they're asked to do with their prosthetics. So they get a waiver. And so I got a waiver, those two waivers and everything else I passed, you know, doesn't mean that I'm not, you know, I got metal in me and just like a lot of guys, but I can still do my job. 01:26:09 Speaker 1: And so what was it? What was your mandate though? 01:26:11 Speaker 2: Right. My mandate came back in. 01:26:15 Speaker 1: Like what's, what is the official job description when you came back? 01:26:18 Speaker 2: So it's, it's called an MOS military occupational skillset. 01:26:22 Speaker 1: Okay. 01:26:23 Speaker 2: So your MOS at mind you, I spent, almost 17 years as a 13 Fox and a combat MOS as a forward observer. So I assumed when I come back in, because I did that for so long, that's what I would be doing. When I came back in, they said, no, you're going to be a band leader. You're going to be in the army band. And I thought, no, I'm not. So the general officer that had said, you can come back in, who was the force comm commander at the time, And I just assumed, again, because he's the force comm commander, I'll be working for force comm. He said, no, you're going to come back in as a band guy, and you're going to go through the warrant officer program because warrant officers are the experts in their field. And you're an expert musician. Let's just be honest. And I said, airborne. That's what you want me to do? That's what I'll do. And I'll do it with honor, and I'm proud to do it. What's really funny is the whole time this stuff was happening, all throughout my military career, I thought band guys were 13 Foxes, 11 Bravos, 96 Yankees, whatever, MOS jobs. And they were good at being in a band. They put them in a band for a while. And then afterwards, they went back and did their job. I didn't realize it was an actual MOS. It's an actual job. In fact, it's the only occupation in the Army that you have to audition for. Oh, most of the people who are in the army bands, these people are coming from the school of Juilliard. They have doctrines in music masters. I mean, so they're experts. 01:28:01 Speaker 1: There's people coming out of Juilliard going. 01:28:04 Speaker 2: Into the army band program. That is a fact. And they get their rank quicker. They're they brought in as an E five, you know, whereas me going into 35 started as a private worked my way up to E seven. 01:28:17 Speaker 1: So when you went back in, what were you? 01:28:19 Speaker 2: I was a warrant officer. I had to go back through. Actually, I went back in initially. 01:28:23 Speaker 1: The whole E thing goes away? 01:28:25 Speaker 2: No, I went back in as an E6, a staff sergeant. So they took one rank from me because it's such a long time of extended between service times. So they took one rank from me. I went back as an E6 and immediately went into the warrant officer. Candidate Program. So then I became what we call a WOC, Warrant Officer Candidate. So I wore this WOC. It's like this, like you're like a, you know, abused child. Went through the Warrant Officer Candidate School Program and then I received W1 and then A year later, I'm promoted to W-2. 01:29:02 Speaker 1: But they're not telling you where to live or anything. 01:29:07 Speaker 2: They don't do that to anybody in the reserves. You could be in the Army Reserves and be assigned to a unit in Utah, but you have to get yourself to there. They don't pay for you to get to that unit. 01:29:20 Speaker 1: But are they still enforcing the rules on you? 01:29:24 Speaker 2: Absolutely. I adhere to the same exact rules as every other reserve and active duty soldier for that matter. I have to pass the PT test just like they do. I have to meet the minimum height and weight standards. 01:29:35 Speaker 1: So if you were to pass that, even as much as you're like, like you said, like you're like Craig Morgan, dude. 01:29:40 Speaker 2: Means absolutely nothing. 01:29:41 Speaker 1: If you were to pass that PT test, they would have said, nevermind. 01:29:43 Speaker 2: It's a fact. They would have said, hey, we want to help you here, but you know, you got to do this. Just like anybody else. We're taking doctors, lawyers, people in professions and bringing them into the military. But if they can't pass the standard, they can't come in. And I love that. And I will say we've achieved that under this current guidance like never before. 01:30:09 Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm reading about that all the time. 01:30:10 Speaker 2: And there's a reason our enlistment is higher than it's ever been since the Army's. We've never met our quota for enlistment. As early as we have right now. Since the inception of the Army. Really? Fact. 01:30:24 Speaker 1: So as much as Secretary Hegseth talks about raising the standard, recruitment is, that's helping recruitment. 01:30:34 Speaker 2: It's helping. 01:30:35 Speaker 1: Huh. 01:30:36 Speaker 2: It's helping. Really? Yeah. 01:30:39 Speaker 1: Because it just, what is it, instilling people, like it's like a challenge? Pride. Challenge accepted kind of thing? Honor. 01:30:47 Speaker 2: The things that we should have and should carry. Look, man, when you have a guy who's standing. 01:30:52 Speaker 1: On the front. This isn't like an area I read about, but that, I don't want to say shocks me. That surprises me. 01:30:58 Speaker 2: Yeah. Army enlistment, all enlistment across all branches. 01:31:01 Speaker 1: Because you'd think it'd spook people off. 01:31:03 Speaker 2: Listen, when I joined the Army three years ago, enlistment was lower than it had ever been since the inception of the Army. Three years later, the Army is higher. than it's ever been since the inception of the Army. 01:31:16 Speaker 1: No kidding. 01:31:16 Speaker 2: We did not meet our quotas three years ago. We weren't meeting them. We couldn't. We couldn't get enough people to join. Now we're turning them away. 01:31:26 Speaker 1: No kidding. 01:31:26 Speaker 2: Fact. It's an absolute fact. Really? Blows people's minds. 01:31:32 Speaker 1: Tell me more about attribution for that. 01:31:37 Speaker 2: Because when a soldier comes in, they know that there are standards and that they have to meet them. 01:31:41 Speaker 1: Okay. 01:31:42 Speaker 2: And they want to meet them. And we're not accepting people who can't meet the standards. So the guy or gal who is busting their rump to be all they can be and to meet the standard and even go as far as to exceed the standard, they know that that other person who before would be promoted with them, even though they weren't meeting and exceeding the standard, no longer exists. 01:32:07 Speaker 1: Got it. So their competition is the same. 01:32:11 Speaker 2: Yeah. It's not this... one shoe fits all thing. Look, man, when I first went back in, I had to go through their media program because I was Craig Morgan. And they were like, we're an all-inclusive military. I'm like, no, we're not. How can you say that? There's no way a guy who can't run the two miles can be an 11 Bravo. He can't be an infantryman because he can't adhere to the standard. So we can't include him or her. 01:32:43 Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're having a definitional argument with the idea. Which is why we say, I don't care if you're— There's a baked-in meritocracy. 01:32:52 Speaker 2: There's a base. 01:32:53 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:32:54 Speaker 2: And I don't care if you're male or female. If you want to be an Army Ranger, you must be able to do this. And your standard is no different as a female than it is a male. Yeah. Because we're all one. If you're an airborne paratrooper, you have to be, whether you're male or female, you have to be able to do these things. And it has to be at this level. We're not going to say because you're a female, you don't have to carry as much weight. No, you got to carry the same weight. 01:33:19 Speaker 1: Yeah, I got it. 01:33:20 Speaker 2: There's a standard. And that's where we're at. And we are meeting that standard. And they're meeting it with pride. That's good to hear. 01:33:31 Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about this, but I just would have guessed it. I would have guessed... I kind of half said this a minute ago, but I would have guessed... You would think that he's scaring people away. Yeah, that's what I was saying earlier. I was like, the people would be spooked off. They'd be like, well, shit, man, that seems hard now. 01:33:48 Speaker 2: It's the opposite. 01:33:50 Speaker 1: No, that's cool. That's good to hear. Yeah, it's the opposite. 01:33:54 Speaker 2: And it's wonderful. I just got back. I went over to Jordan. I just did a show, a USO tour in Jordan. And the mentality of these young men and women was so, for me... heartwarming and they're heroic in their desire. Dude, I don't want to say that they, like, it's like the song, I just recorded American Soldier, the Toby Keith song. Only second time I've ever covered a song in my career. Is that right? 01:34:25 Speaker 1: Two times? 01:34:26 Speaker 2: Two times. And both of them were military oriented songs. First one was Soldier, Gavin DeGraw's song. I've never cut a song, and I've always refused to. Just two in my entire career. Yeah. And I covered American soldier. And there's a line in there. It says, I don't want to die for you. But if Diane's asked to me, I'll face that cross with honor because freedom don't come free. 01:34:47 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:34:48 Speaker 2: I could see that lyric in the eyes of every soldier I met in Jordan. Like they don't want to die, but by God, they're willing to run up there and take it. They won't. 01:35:01 Speaker 1: They're in a heightened state of alarm right now too. Cause the, Drone strikes and yeah. It's happening every day. Yeah. 01:35:07 Speaker 2: My point is they know that and they're ready and prepared and willing with honor. 01:35:14 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:35:16 Speaker 2: And they're held to a standard that gives me comfort because I know that they're more physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually ready than we were two years ago. No questions asked. Yeah. No questions. 01:35:28 Speaker 1: I know now it's a hard question to answer a little bit because these things, these two lives you have and i know you don't think of this way but these two lives you have of intersected but if. 01:35:44 Speaker 3: You like if you had to choose that's not it's easy that's easy question okay go ahead the army really 100 bro yeah i've achieved more than 99 of the people in the music industry that get into this business to try. 01:35:59 Speaker 2: To do it and i'm humbled every day when i said i peek around the curtain 25 years later i still peek around the curtain to see if they're going to show up. 01:36:09 Speaker 1: Got it. 01:36:09 Speaker 2: And I'm grateful for it. I'm a member of the Grand Ole Opry. I've had number ones. In fact, I don't even know half the crap that's happened in my music career until I'm being introduced sometimes as a speaker when I'm speaking. 01:36:28 Speaker 1: When you hear someone say it all. 01:36:29 Speaker 2: And they're saying it all. And I literally go back and go, man, we've really had 2.5 billion streams. And they go, well, that was last year. We're up now. 01:36:38 Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you, like, your numbers on Spotify are the kind of numbers where you got to look at it for a couple minutes, not a couple minutes, but you got to look at it to go like, hold on, what's that number? 01:36:50 Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, I mean, I still do. There's a lot of commas. I still do. I can't believe it. 01:36:54 Speaker 1: You're like, whoa, that's, what is that number? 01:36:56 Speaker 2: And I'll come back to something that I want to talk about, which is a testament to that and to God. But, The choice is without question because I've achieved everything and so much more than I ever thought that I could in that industry. I'm riding the wave right now. I'm in a wagon that I still get to steer, but it's running downhill. I'm not having to pull and work as hard anymore in that industry. In the Army, there is but one goal, and that is to finish. Now, I will retire in a year or two. But even then, if they called me and said, we need you and we want you to go here, I would go, knowing that I might not come back with such pride and humility and grace and gratefulness. Because in my opinion, there is no greater honor whatsoever They could tell me they want to put me in the Country Music Hall of Fame, or I could leave tomorrow and get on a helicopter and probably die trying to do something for my country in another country. I would get on that aircraft every minute, every time. 01:38:14 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:38:15 Speaker 2: Every time. And I'm not saying it. I'm not saying it. You asked the question. It's not something that we advertise. I'm not waving a flag saying, you know, I want to be that guy. I'm just saying that I would. And with. pride. And I know that my family would be proud. I know my friends would be proud. Guys that might not have the opportunity, they would take pride in that. And I live my life every day in both occupations. to the magnitude that I can because of those guys that don't get. 01:38:56 Speaker 1: To, you know, you know, can I ask you one last question? 01:38:59 Speaker 2: Yeah. 01:39:00 Speaker 1: Hit me with, uh, hit me with some marriage advice, man. 01:39:05 Speaker 2: I had a great friend tell me one time, just say yes, because you're going to in the end anyway, I'm, I'm a little more bullheaded than that. Uh, I seen something on one of the socials a while back and it's, it has stuck with me and I, and I've, I've been married to the same woman for 38 years. 01:39:26 Speaker 1: That's why I'm here asking, man. We've had five children. If you had like five wives, I wouldn't be asking you for no marriage advice. 01:39:34 Speaker 2: I'm not married to the same woman now that I married 38 years ago. 01:39:38 Speaker 1: Okay. 01:39:39 Speaker 2: Be willing to grow. Be willing to allow them to grow. Yeah. Experiment and put God first and them second. And then family and friends on down the line. One day. 01:39:58 Speaker 1: Hold on a minute. Do you mean you're like. My wife comes before my children. 01:40:03 Speaker 2: Really? Because my children aren't there now. They were for a long time. But one day your children are going to be gone. And it's just going to be you and her again. 01:40:11 Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you something terrible. But we had this conversation in a joking way. 01:40:17 Speaker 2: Okay. 01:40:17 Speaker 1: I don't want you to get it wrong. We had this conversation in a joking way. But basically it was like. Me and my kids are all lined up on a cliff, you know, and someone's got to go over. 01:40:29 Speaker 4: We have this conversation. My wife's like, make no mistake. You're going, that's you. We say the same thing. No questions asked. My wife has said it. It's her and my daughter or my girls. She's like, you don't have to make that choice. I'm making that choice for you. 01:40:46 Speaker 1: Okay. 01:40:47 Speaker 2: Yeah. And we're the same way. I understand. 01:40:49 Speaker 1: What I mean is- I don't like the- My wife, we've never done it where my wife's on the cliff. 01:40:53 Speaker 2: No, when the children are there, as long as the children are there, it's both our life. But here's something. Your children, you will have in your relationship, how many kids you have? Two, right? Three. Three. You have three kids. 01:41:04 Speaker 3: Yeah. 01:41:05 Speaker 1: Your relationship with each one of those children is different. Yeah, sure. 01:41:08 Speaker 2: One day you love this one here. You think this is going to be my favorite. Next day, this one's your favorite. But there's no real favorite, but there's favorites about each of them. 01:41:15 Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand. 01:41:17 Speaker 2: That is what you nurture and you rest on that. But no one, no one, not even your children will understand those relationships better than your wife. Yeah. Because you're in that together. And one day those children are going to be gone. 01:41:32 Speaker 1: See, my wife and I talked about this the other night, man, where she was like, because we joke about that. We've joked about that cliff thing, right? Just as a joke, like a true joke. But she was explaining the other night, she's like, we need to do better that it's like that we're not sitting on either side of the kids. Like, imagine a lineup. It's like me, kid, kid, kid, her, right? 01:42:00 Speaker 2: It's you, kid, her, kid. 01:42:02 Speaker 1: It's like we bracket. This wasn't her words, but it's not that we bracket them. 01:42:06 Speaker 2: Well, you're making my argument for me, bro. 01:42:07 Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? It's like we should be over, like, have it more that we're glued together, not that, like, you're. 01:42:13 Speaker 2: Amen. 01:42:14 Speaker 1: You know, like, you picture people like the devil and the angel on your shoulders, you know? But, like, it's coming at them from more unit. 01:42:21 Speaker 3: 100%. 01:42:22 Speaker 1: And not, like, giving them these, like. different sort of options to sit off to the side. 01:42:27 Speaker 2: Have multiple plans. I'm going to leave you on that note. Have multiple plans with your children. That cliff analogy has been used so many times, and you'll see it. In fact, it's probably going to pop up on our phone as soon as we walk out of here. I don't see that as one image. I see multiple images, and at various times throughout your life. At some point, you're no longer holding your children. You're taught your children to hold on for themselves. So that cliff, that image on that cliff changes throughout your relationship. But what doesn't change is your relationship with the woman on the other side or the woman between them, holding their hands, teaching them. And one day those children are going to climb up off the cliff and it's just you and her hanging there together. That's that relationship. Yeah. Yeah. 01:43:19 Speaker 1: That's a scary one. We're there now. 01:43:21 Speaker 2: It's awesome because now we can run around the house naked. We can do all kinds of weird stuff that we couldn't do when they were there. 01:43:28 Speaker 1: We worry about that now because now we can see it. 01:43:35 Speaker 2: How old are the children? 01:43:37 Speaker 1: Our youngest is 11, but our oldest is 16. It's possible to picture now. It's possible to picture. 01:43:44 Speaker 2: Wait until they have kids. I have kids that have kids. And I love them. I love my children, but I tell people as much as I love my kids, I don't even care about them anymore. It's the grandkids. And it ain't that, you know, people. 01:43:56 Speaker 1: Say, oh, that's because- So the cliff is like, the grandkids are staying out on the cliff. 01:43:59 Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I don't even hold it. My kids are on their own. I'm making sure the grandkids are, you know. And it's not that I don't care about them. And everybody says, oh, it's, you know, because your grandkids- You can play with them, do whatever you want, and then give them back. It ain't that. It ain't that. I've already experienced all the hurt and hardship of trying to raise them. That's on them now. My job is to do nothing but create this wonderful human being with love and without the hurt. The hurt's on them. That's what they have to do. And I don't mean that in a negative sense. I don't want them to hurt. But they're the ones that have to deal with the discipline and feel bad about it. I don't have to feel bad about the discipline. And I do get the discipline of my grandchildren. Nope, don't do that. I don't feel bad about it now, though, because I've already been through that feeling bad part. You know? Yeah, it's a wonderful thing. But to all of that, again, back to that relationship. If you're doing this and you're focused on him, I studied a program. I'm going to leave you. I really will quit on this note. I did a program as a Protestant Christian called Experiencing God, and it taught me more about my relationship with Christ than anything. And what it taught me was everybody is Christians. We all are out there to do God's work. This program taught me that I cannot. There ain't a Christian walking the face of this earth, not one. Even the disciples themselves could not do God's work. Only God can do God's work. When you focus on your relationship with him, he will do his work through you, whether you like it or not. 01:45:47 Speaker 1: Got it. 01:45:48 Speaker 2: And that's exactly what happens. And when you're focused on him, your relationship with your spouse, your children, your friends, your occupation, your employers, your employees, everything will filter through that filter and it will be blessed. 01:46:05 Speaker 1: Craig Morgan, thanks for coming on the show. 01:46:06 Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, buddy. Appreciate it. Good to finally sit down with you. 01:46:09 Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you, man. 01:46:10 Speaker 2: Love what you're doing. 01:46:11 Speaker 1: Thank you, sir. 01:46:12 Speaker 2: Keep doing it. 01:46:12 Speaker 1: Appreciate it.