Ep. 97: Mom Life, Cult Stories, and Mama Ain’t Jesus with Naomi Johnson

00:00:06
Speaker 1: What is up? You are off in God’s country. Indeed you are with your boys. Read and Dan is Visible also known as the Brothers Hunt, where we take a weekly drive to the intersection of country music in the great outdoors every Tuesday morning. You can hear it at your podcast listening station and YouTube. Two things that go together like uh cults and people on horseback with flags riding around in circles, singing around a fire, chance or peanut butter and rats brought to you by meat Eater and your favorite time of the show.

00:00:46
Speaker 2: H to covis got my giving us.

00:00:53
Speaker 1: Still sponsor shown now you baby, Thank you to co still sponsor shown now baby, go ahead, gonna get you.

00:01:02
Speaker 2: Some You ain’t gonna regret it. They look good on you if you’re blonde.

00:01:06
Speaker 1: Brown, already headed cuss co sponsor Really shut up man.

00:01:15
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah? To cover what’s the dealer? Really? You ain’t got time to remix anything or anything. You drop a beat, ray, drop a beat, right to find a beat, to drop a real quick find a beat to.

00:01:30
Speaker 1: Us to coat us he did drave beat there a rap le’ see if you still got your game do it rap? I got the cobs on my feet looking pretty good. I’m looking pretty neat at twelve o’clock and I’m a little bit hungry.

00:01:44
Speaker 2: What you say, I ain’t got no money pots on my feet. They looking real good. I can’t understood that they’re brown and they look real fly. I’m off to my game high. I’m damn wow. That was awful. Right, that was terrible. I thought I was flowing.

00:02:01
Speaker 1: You used under the one whole line was just the word understood was at the end.

00:02:07
Speaker 2: I don’t have to rhyme. God, that was bad. I got a cold man. We’ll listen up.

00:02:13
Speaker 1: Wild at story. I think wild I think wildest growing up story Top three on this podcast. Yeah too, maybe I’ve ever heard Yeah.

00:02:24
Speaker 2: Just Naomi cook Man. Absolutely Johnson an absolute inspiring human.

00:02:32
Speaker 1: Keep talking. Well, the crazy thing about it was that it was like I didn’t know how.

00:02:41
Speaker 2: Much she wanted to talk about all that.

00:02:42
Speaker 1: Obviously, I knew it was like a thing about her that she had had this weird upbringing and there was like some cold stuff and blah blah blah, But I didn’t know how deep she was going to go. Bro she deepened that stuff? Yeah, absolutely, man, it was very honest and open about it. Yeah, it was crazy. It’s cracky even imagine the things we didn’t talk about. Yeah, Josh, Josha told me, like, have you ever heard her story? Josh Kelly, who’s producing this new music from first is like, dude, you gotta you know she’ll tell you about it, but you got to hear her story, whether it’s on the podcast or not, Like you need to hear her story. And thank god that she Yeah, that she opened up about it and is comfortable with talking about it, because man, it’s a ride and and just to see like how you know, strong of a human beings she is, and and a mother and an artist and a songwriter.

00:03:28
Speaker 2: And jos as she is, man, she’s proud of it.

00:03:31
Speaker 1: And uh, when she said she’s never been in a classroom never ever, has never sat in a desk with a teacher in front of her smart cat too, it’s like it’s not she used some words that I didn’t even know.

00:03:41
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I’m sure she did, but that kind of happens on a daily base with you.

00:03:46
Speaker 1: I went to school and I’m done us that will be Johnson man, She’s she’s are we are we roasted cut that off ray, agreed.

00:04:01
Speaker 2: I ain’t microwaving nothing. I’m about to go get me some food. I’m starving. She’s talking about rats. I was getting.

00:04:07
Speaker 1: New music. She’s got a new song out, real life, real life, growing up. This new music she’s working on. They don’t know when it’s gonna come out. She’s about halfway done with the record. But we got a little sneak peek. It is some good raw stuff. Man, there was something. Yeah, it’s yeah, she’s there. She’s got some Cherokee blood in her and and you can you can tell she’s kind of leaning into it.

00:04:27
Speaker 2: You should. It’s awesome. May we cooks great? Maybe we cook Johnson is great? Is that right? That’s it? Right? Nao John Johnson with Johnson. That’s awesome. You’re gonna love this interview. Man.

00:04:38
Speaker 1: We just went I don’t even know how long it’s gonna be. We just talked and let let her talk. And but you’re gonna enjoy it because it’s insane.

00:04:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, Thanks for listening. Follow us on all the socials.

00:04:49
Speaker 1: The socials beat five star reviews, leave them, that’s right, or get out of here, ur g tfo, or we will get out of here if we don’t have five star reviews from you.

00:04:58
Speaker 2: We’re getting out of here right now. See you, hey man, thanks for listening to us here on God’s Country Podcast. We appreciate you popping in cool Duck Hall. Yeah. Uh, we just want to kind of address the elephant in the room.

00:05:16
Speaker 1: Yesterday was a very yeah, as of this recording, yesterday was a very dark day in America period. Charlie Kirk was assassinated on the freaking petest. I mean he was having a conversation at u Utah Valley.

00:05:34
Speaker 2: Is that where it was. Yeah, So I was sitting there with my kids last night and I was I was putting them to bed, and we have a little tiny house that we live in right now that we’re we’re building, but we were standing in this eleven hundred square foot house that we bought seven eight years ago. So my daughter and son are sleeping in the same room, sharing the same bed. So they both want me to hold their hands, and it’s kind of hard for me to. And once again, I’m not trying to dramaticize this and make you feel a certain way. I just this is personally how I felt about the situation after it happened. I was just trying to trying to shield them from what you.

00:06:06
Speaker 1: Can and also kind of, you know, deal with your own feelings at the same time. So I’m laying there and I’ve weighd my hand as far as I could to the left, and my little girl grabs these two fingers, and my little boy grabs these two And while I was kind of just like just kind of sorry, dude, I’m not trying to do that, like I said, not trying to dramaticize it, but this is reality, right. And as I’m kind of just like just kind of rubbing her hands, it occurred to me that my daughter, who is six, her hand is kind of slendered out a little bit, but my three year old’s hand is still real fat. And I was just kind of feeling and I was thinking, man, as I felt convicted about what happened to Charlie for basically just taking a stand and doing it in a way that was respectful to everyone. Everyone he had a conversation with, open conversation with. I never felt like he was the.

00:07:00
Speaker 2: Meeting or belittling.

00:07:02
Speaker 1: He just had the conversation, right, it occurred to me that he was not going to be able to do that tonight. He’s not going to be but and more than that, his kids aren’t going to be able to feel him hold their hands as he goes to sleep and as they go to sleep, and.

00:07:17
Speaker 2: It just it just angered me. I was sad, I was angry.

00:07:21
Speaker 1: And I just went to the only source that I know to get actual information from and I just prayed a little bit and said, hey man, I don’t really understand all this.

00:07:32
Speaker 2: I don’t feel good about this. Is this where we’re at as a country. And it was almost kind of like I felt like God said, hey man, as long as you take a stand for anything, you’ll never get along with everyone. Yeah. And essentially that’s what was happening, because we’re consistently dealing with what I believe is spiritual war for fair good and evil. As long as we’re in this world, there will be good and evil. Bible says devil comes to steal, kill and destroy, and yesterday he did and it affected a lot of people. But I just want to encourage the listener that that wasn’t it for Charlie Kirk. He on this earth, yes, but but I do believe that that he’s in heaven with Jesus and and and probably doing okay today.

00:08:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think people’s people like that, their work continues to get louder. You know when when when you try to silence someone like that in that way, Because.

00:08:34
Speaker 2: That’s what that was. Yeah, No, I mean it.

00:08:36
Speaker 3: I the fact that we live in an America right now where someone lost their life because someone didn’t agree with what they said. I mean, this is this isn’t an mm A fighter or something like that that like you know someone you know really f someone up one time and they found him later, Like this is someone who they do not agree with what he says. That is what this country is built on, is we’re allowed to say what we want and not have the fear of losing our life, our jobs, our community. And I was so full of sorrow to see that type of a figure. He’s so young, he has children, and it was it felt so.

00:09:22
Speaker 2: Man.

00:09:23
Speaker 3: I love this country so much and she’s hurting right now. Yeah, And we have a few people that are brave enough to like say things and uhs just taken out so far.

00:09:34
Speaker 2: We shouldn’t kill them, regardless of what side you stand on, because no, if you’re a Republican, you need the Democrats. If you’re the Democrat, you need the request I think we.

00:09:46
Speaker 1: Refine and sharpened each other moving forward to a better America.

00:09:50
Speaker 2: That’s what we’re supposed to do. Well, There’s always.

00:09:52
Speaker 3: Been guest speakers on college campuses. It’s to provoke critical thinking. That is what they that’s a college experience. They always bring someone and I mean colleges have been doing that since college like started, Like they bring people there.

00:10:05
Speaker 1: You debate the point of it, yeah, and shocking, Yeah, and I think absolutely political assassination. Absolutely, somebody didn’t agree with what he was saying. But I think the bigger picture and the bigger problem that has always been here since the fall of Man, is that like, this is a broken world, full of broken people and always going to be, always going to be.

00:10:25
Speaker 2: It’s it was created that way. So we need.

00:10:28
Speaker 1: Jesus and like and everybody, and we do, you know, and and and probably now you know, probably today more than ever because of something like that.

00:10:38
Speaker 2: So uh yeah, man, our hearts.

00:10:40
Speaker 1: Break for My heart breaks for for Erica, his wife, my heart breaks for his kids, my heart breaks for his country. My heart doesn’t break for him because uh, I mean even even he said it, you know, on a tweet or something, but it’s like all death can do to a believer is deliver him to Jesus. And I think I think Charlie was delivered to Jesus yesterday was and and I think he was celebrated. I think he was, you know, welcomed with a hug and and uh. He was a soul and a person and a and a really good man that that was making, that was trying to turn people towards the light. And he was and I think he did. But I think he continued, will will continue. I think his his uh, you know, because of the Internet, Charlie Kirk will live on forever.

00:11:26
Speaker 2: And his message will live on forever.

00:11:27
Speaker 1: And and his message was the gospel and and in a greater America. And uh and and he was he was killed for it. He was killed for that message. And uh but that I mean, you know, yeah, it’s just it’s a it sucks, man, it’s a sucky situation. But I think God will last. He does, he will, he will, he will work good into into it.

00:11:50
Speaker 2: Probably probably already is R I P Charlie Kirk, and uh, life well lived, absolutely all right.

00:12:00
Speaker 1: We are speed. We are speed. We’re really in the pro world is speed. We’re really excited about this one.

00:12:07
Speaker 2: We haven’t proud. We have a proud mother.

00:12:10
Speaker 1: We have a killer vocalist currently resides in probably my favorite.

00:12:14
Speaker 2: Place that right now is Utah. I mean, the place is unbelievable.

00:12:20
Speaker 1: Lived on school buses, learned to play guitar, and a colt has fish, salmon and Alaska on a boat we worked for. So I cannot wait to get into all that to pay for her way to Music City. She’s an absolute badass, unbelievably talented. We got a name, Homie John. You guys, that’s your podcast today.

00:12:40
Speaker 2: Thank you.

00:12:41
Speaker 3: I’m so excited to be hearing. I’m such a fan of this podcast. Like I cannot believe I’m sitting here right now, so so so jacked.

00:12:49
Speaker 2: I don’t know why. You already know us, You already know everything we’re going to say, and here we are. It’s a great show. Thank you man. I appreciate it. Coming in with the overalls with the shotgun was authentic. They are.

00:13:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think I got these from uh, the Army Navy. It’s like an exchange that bring some new stuff in there and some of it’s new. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s where I got these. They got they cut them off and everything.

00:13:15
Speaker 1: Shock Taylor, I do a pair of those, like a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, that’s awesome.

00:13:22
Speaker 2: Thanks, I try.

00:13:23
Speaker 1: I was trying to remember on the way in the first time we met.

00:13:26
Speaker 2: I feel like I know you. I knew you early. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Didn’t we write together? We wrote I wrote with you when you were in the band.

00:13:35
Speaker 3: Yes, but early on before that, probably because through Robin Shannon.

00:13:41
Speaker 2: That’s what it was. Yeah, Rob Hatch.

00:13:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, Rob didn’t like this, didn’t like the song enough to cut it.

00:13:47
Speaker 2: Don’t get started. Don’t I think we finished it? You know you had to leave early? Yeah, I’m sure. I’m sure I did.

00:13:55
Speaker 1: I’m sure I had a lot going on back then, had to pick Laza his one year old.

00:14:00
Speaker 2: It was. It was way before.

00:14:04
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:14:04
Speaker 2: No, did we even have a record deal yet then? I don’t think so.

00:14:08
Speaker 3: Maybe we were like in in it, like penning it early.

00:14:12
Speaker 2: Is that since then we’ve been facing our Instagram for Yeah. And your life has been crazy, dude, But I didn’t know it was crazy before. But you just like, you’re a free spirit man. You you go where you want to go and do what you want to do. And I’ve got mad respect for that.

00:14:31
Speaker 1: Thank you, because it takes a it takes a brave heart to to go trust.

00:14:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:14:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean well, I also like I had an upbringing where you had to try stuff to get through, and so that’s just.

00:14:47
Speaker 2: Kind of how I do things now the way.

00:14:51
Speaker 3: Thank you for it. Yeah, I’ve yeah, I definitely. I grew up like free spirited and and that’s just how I That’s that’s what makes me happiest. Is like when it when I feel the wind change, I do something else, and I say that it was more geographical, like a move I move around, But I’m like.

00:15:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s that’s what I noticed. Honestly, what I notice is like on Nashville for a minute, oh, in the middle of the desert, oh in some on some mountains.

00:15:18
Speaker 1: I’m like, is that is that influenced by your up ring but by the by the nomadic culture of how you were raised?

00:15:23
Speaker 2: I think so.

00:15:24
Speaker 3: I mean I I I was on the road so many years, and then it’s interesting, like you know, your life prepares you for your life, Like I I lived on a school bus with my nine brothers and sisters and my two parents, and then you know my profession, I ended up on a on a bus with.

00:15:42
Speaker 2: You know, nine people. Wow and uh and wow.

00:15:46
Speaker 3: It felt more like home to me than maybe some other people. But I’ve been way nicer bus let’s let’s be around. This is way nicer, a lot nicer bumps. But uh, but yeah, I had a realization. I was like, damn, I’m back on the bus like entice tight quarters, and I.

00:16:02
Speaker 2: Feel I feel right. That’s kind of how I feel about music.

00:16:05
Speaker 1: I store it off like a hundred times and it just eventually just kind of nudged me back into it.

00:16:11
Speaker 2: And now it’s literally how I’m alive. Yeah, we’re gonna get it all that week. Yeah, I can’t wait. Get too far down the road.

00:16:20
Speaker 1: We’re gonna do a straight up what you’re glad at today? Folks, No mad, no mad in the world where we’re a lot of man in the world. Actually, we’re gonna try to try to kill the glad.

00:16:30
Speaker 2: Woa you’re glad? Ooh you’re well?

00:16:36
Speaker 1: Oh man, I thought we were just okay what you’re glad? Just tell us what it is. What you’re glad? Is it your little cute kids, might be your best friend or your favorite cat.

00:16:48
Speaker 2: Just tell us what you’re glad? Man, You’re you did not have a perfect pitch.

00:16:57
Speaker 1: That Play it again. Play that song, bro, you just proved you have played the dick. Played the dick. I even went to the.

00:17:07
Speaker 2: No, you didn’t do that. Let the tape show. What’s I love?

00:17:13
Speaker 3: I love siblings. Nobody nobody does it?

00:17:16
Speaker 2: Can I can? I read this?

00:17:18
Speaker 1: This is what I’m glad that I saw it the other day and uh I took a picture of it so I could uh so I could read about it.

00:17:23
Speaker 2: This is this is so great man. Yeah, I read about it. Let me show you first. Let me show you.

00:17:29
Speaker 1: I’ll show I don’t know if you can see the camp the camera can see that, but check that that that hat out there, I just know that hat. Yeah, I’m ready for it, all right. So Josh Allen is the quarterback for the Buffalo Bills the NFL. The NFL m VP. Josh Allen arrived at his Sunday night game versus Baltimore. This is as of the recording. Last week was first week of so it would be a few weeks as the recording drops. But Josh Allen arrived at the Sunday night game before at versus Baltimore wearing the first of nine custom hats designed by patients at Buffalo was O Shi Children’s Hospital. After each home game, Alan will have his hat auctioned off to support the Patricia Allen Fund. This week’s hat was designed by five year old patient named Jackson.

00:18:15
Speaker 2: That’s just killer. Yeah, man, they’re amazing.

00:18:22
Speaker 1: Man, but but but but great on Josh Allen for for being the kind of guy that does that kind of stuff and doesn’t care about what they’re cool Jackson, Yeah, no doubt, I want one.

00:18:36
Speaker 2: I’m glad that is a few months back, I told a story on here about this is crazy. But a guy came in to kidnap this girl and the brother of the girl grabs his slingshot. You remember this, No, but I’m in Okay.

00:18:53
Speaker 1: So he’s literally dragging around the house and I mean you watch the interview and everything. Grabs a slingshot David’s ass drilling drills. The guy hits him in the foot. One he shot, he said, he shot two pellets. One hits him and the eye. The other hits him in in the chest so hard the guy thought he was shot. Drops the girl, the eight year old girl, and takes off running right well over the past whatever. It’s been six months since I’ve told that story. The guy lost his right eye. Good Mingo tries to sue the kid. I can’t make this up. You’ve got tries to sue the kid for eight hundred thousand dollars. You know what Judge said, g tfo, dude, we ain’t doing this. I mean’s a guy in jail. I don’t know for potential kidnapping maybe, but he yeah, tried to sue the kid. Did you remember how accurate it used to be with those slink slink shots if you went to my dad went to through the We used to Saturday morning flea market. It all okay, yeah, and snow cones and doughnuts and all the oranges and remember oranges. One time we went. Dad got us these slingshots, and I remember they had a little like wrist thing and you flipped it down and it.

00:20:14
Speaker 2: Would rest right here and you could pull that back as far and just yeah, you can kill small, small game with you.

00:20:22
Speaker 3: My dad used to go to gun shows and he’d take you know, six kids under twelve to these gun shows and we’d come back with sling shots and blowguns.

00:20:32
Speaker 1: Remember the blowguns. One you can put my eyes. I tried to shoot some squirrels with those. Yeah, yeah, well we used I used to. We used to get a dollar a rat.

00:20:43
Speaker 3: We would shoot rats in the barn from our landlord and he would give us a dollar a rat, and we got We got good at them. And our house was infested with mice too. We lived in these old farmhouses and in our pantry we would put some peanut butter at this little mouse and we’d sit there and pin under the wall, not getting you one one time, my sister, don’t one right through the eye.

00:21:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that. That’s what I’m glad. I can’t. I want to dive into that a little more eventually. But that’s what I’m glad. I’m glad that judge said, hey, man, get out of here, get out of here. No talent for idiocy, Yeah yeah, yeah anything. I’m super big, glory a little bit, get a bit of an aura.

00:21:29
Speaker 3: I’m happy because I’m having a baby around too.

00:21:36
Speaker 2: Happy. Yeah yeah, I know.

00:21:38
Speaker 3: Round two. What a what a gift cast it? You guys both have too, right? We have a million and has ye.

00:21:45
Speaker 2: All I know is when they get together, there’s a thousand. It’s just like three seems like a lot. Yeah, it’s one of though. I mean, I don’t go for go, man, keep going. We’re going to We’ve got to keep this going. You know, in the dark world. Always tell people that. I like, I’m like, you need to be a dad or a mom.

00:22:05
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I can peg him to him, like you need seven of you.

00:22:08
Speaker 1: Go on, let’s I need some more of you running around. Okay, so what tell us what you have already? You have a we have a little girl. Yeah, we have a little girl. She just turned too and she’s the best ever.

00:22:19
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.

00:22:20
Speaker 3: And it’s like like, so my husband’s an only child, gotcha? And and he was like he’d never even held a newborn, like, never even held like he had little cousins, but he kind of was around them, you know, after about a year or two old, you know, and you know, he was twenty one. Like you’re not super interested in little kids near that age if you’re not a creepy.

00:22:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that’s true. Until yeah. So but man, he is like.

00:22:49
Speaker 3: The best girl dad in the world. Oh yeah, Like it’s so funny. He’s like, you know, this this tough rock and roll guy with all these tattoos and his little girls just like they’re watching Cinderella yesterday, who you are as.

00:22:59
Speaker 1: A dude, I don’t care if you’re both of our first one, the baddest, toughest, meanest, so brouchiest, the most miserably human being. As a dude, if you have a little girl, your life changed forever.

00:23:12
Speaker 2: She changes you forever, and there ain’t no doubt. So I’m thinking about when we so.

00:23:19
Speaker 1: Ultimately, when it comes to my boys and my girls, my girl, it’s like with the boys, I’ll kind.

00:23:25
Speaker 2: Of like let them like get hurt.

00:23:28
Speaker 1: I mean not seriously hurt, but like with my girl, I’m extremely protective, like way more than I am with it.

00:23:36
Speaker 2: And even though she’s older. So it reminded me of the time when when we were sled and remember we.

00:23:41
Speaker 1: Were back, oh god, when I threw when I threw her award some barbers at my farm.

00:23:48
Speaker 2: We had this.

00:23:49
Speaker 1: It was a little float that had a rope to it, and she was right and she was just like, you know, she couldn’t do anything.

00:23:54
Speaker 2: She stuck her in it, so she she was all.

00:23:57
Speaker 1: Just sitting there and we were just like, I mean, you couldn’t even feel yourself, yeah, dragging her well read kind of popped it. It was like day two of the snow, so it already frozen fall froze back up, so it’s just ice.

00:24:09
Speaker 2: And it was a sneaky thing. If you put your kids on those, those things can flop. I mean there’s no way. But just so I don’t know, we were letting.

00:24:20
Speaker 1: One of us was where you are and we were sliding her, you know, and the other one catch her and slider back or whatever. Well, nobody was down there and Reed just kind of popped the rope and she’s like like going down this and Jordan’s like, we have it on video Dan’s video. Jordan’s like I was looking at it and I was like, I was like, she’s going to and you just see dead spring Like he runs, I dive into the barb Yeah right, did you catch her? Yeah, my shoulder up, but like like I dove into the bottom wire of the bar bar was let it Like.

00:25:02
Speaker 2: It’s like you said the other day when you made Jordan so mad when we went to Wayne County and didn’t come back, remember you, she was real mad because you told her you’d be back by a certain time and you didn’t get there. You said it always happened. Sometimes I screw things up, but I’ll fix the screw up that I screwed. Yeah.

00:25:18
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and that’s what you did, man, I feel like you and then you sacrificed yourself to.

00:25:25
Speaker 3: Say this, dude, I have these two huge scars on my thighs from barbar fence. Really yeah, ride and run into it in a bike.

00:25:32
Speaker 2: You remember where you were when you hit it?

00:25:34
Speaker 1: Uh huh?

00:25:34
Speaker 3: Yeah. We were at our farmhouse in Virginia. My sister was chasing me with a stick, and I didn’t know how to use the brake. Some I just learned how to ride this bike, didn’t know how to pedal backwards. And my dad always was like, if you think you’re gonna fall, steer to the grass, you.

00:25:47
Speaker 2: Know, like that’s just what it was. Never had we like all all of us.

00:25:51
Speaker 3: Shared one bike, you know. Yeah, And so I started steering to the grass. The bike just went right over the grass and straight into this barb wire fence. Yash my legs.

00:26:00
Speaker 2: It’ll eat it’ll eat you up, it’ll eat me up. I’ve got I’ve got plenty.

00:26:03
Speaker 1: Pretty much every all my cameo pants have rip sent them from Barbara either going over.

00:26:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, even the rusty ones, like even the ones who don’t have an edge anymore will get you, no doubt.

00:26:13
Speaker 2: That’s kind of the worst tennis. Yeah, probably just need to go get a shot.

00:26:16
Speaker 3: I’ve never gotten tetanus before. Knock on what I have been. I have stepped on rusty stuff.

00:26:22
Speaker 2: I think I’ve eaten enough. You don’t know that you’ve ever had it. No, I don’t know. I’ve never been flowing at the mouth. I think I’ve eaten enough gas station chicken wings. Cancel it all out. Yeah, it just kind of goes no, tetanus. You’re not big enough. That used to be our thing.

00:26:35
Speaker 1: If we were like if we were hurt or like you had a broken we just go eat gas station chick intil they got better, fixed it all up.

00:26:44
Speaker 2: I don’t run anything out of here. Yeah, they’re like, no, we don’t want none of this.

00:26:48
Speaker 1: Dude, My gosh, I just want to jump right into it. And and and I know you’ve talked a lot about your story and and everybody.

00:26:56
Speaker 2: I don’t feel like you have to read. Everybody knows a lot about it.

00:26:59
Speaker 1: But I just want to like from the beginning kind of that what we were talking about earlier, that that your upbringing and and your nomadic lifestyle and how you were raised in all that?

00:27:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like where were you born? Like where? Where?

00:27:14
Speaker 3: Was born in Virginia? So all of us were except for my youngest sibling was born my two younger ones. The rest of us are born in Virginia. Number five out of eleven kids.

00:27:27
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:27:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so we same mom, same day, same same parents.

00:27:33
Speaker 2: Yeah home, yeah goodness.

00:27:35
Speaker 3: Yes. So my dad was a park ranger and uh electrician at the Park a thousand Trails, and my mom was a midwife to the Amish communities in Mena Nits in Virginia.

00:27:46
Speaker 2: So we lived among the Amish and Mennonite.

00:27:48
Speaker 3: We weren’t Amish, but to to like live among them and interact with them, you kind of have to look like them and and you know, be like them. They don’t really interact with well, thesemunities didn’t really interact with the outside.

00:28:01
Speaker 2: Some of them do. So we did.

00:28:04
Speaker 3: We live.

00:28:05
Speaker 2: We lived larry plainly.

00:28:06
Speaker 3: My dad hunted for our food, We had a garden, animals, and yeah, I my and my mom was a midwife, so we we we you know, to an outsider, we probably didn’t look any different from the Amish kids, you know, were just like we didn’t have TV. Or radio or anything like that. But my parents had vehicles, so we were we were very more like Mennonites.

00:28:29
Speaker 2: I guess you can and be an electrician. I feel like, well, like I said, we weren’t on electricians. I feel like that’s a jest of position.

00:28:38
Speaker 3: He was. Yeah, he was a park ranger at the at the Thousand Trails and he would do all the electricity stuff too scary.

00:28:44
Speaker 2: I hate electricity.

00:28:45
Speaker 3: That’s why we We were outside all the time.

00:28:48
Speaker 1: And you just lived outside pretty much literally and inside lived Outah.

00:28:53
Speaker 2: Did you ever do any hunting with them? Do you ever?

00:28:55
Speaker 3: My dad was a big hunter, you we I learned how to shot a gun really young. I never hunted with him, Yeah, but my brothers did. And you know, like I was saying before, we always had blowguns and frog gigs and we were just out. I mean, we hurt each other all the time, Like someone would come back with a dart in their shoulder.

00:29:16
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:29:17
Speaker 3: I at a lot of times. A lot of times we would have like bb gun wars. And I do remember one time. So my dad is like a big outdoorsman and I’m Cherokee from his line, and he always I didn’t have a steak till I was like fifteen, we only ate venison whitefish and.

00:29:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, so.

00:29:38
Speaker 3: I remember we came back from playing down by the creek and we had shot a squirrel and it was dead, and we all came back.

00:29:47
Speaker 2: We got a squirrel, dad, and he made us clean it and eat it. Yeah.

00:29:52
Speaker 3: He was like, he’s like, you do not just kill animals for fun. That’s not what we do. That’s not respectful. He was very sportsman like like that. And yeah, yeah, so we had to we had to say a prayer of thanks over it, clean it, and eat it.

00:30:06
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:30:07
Speaker 3: And I remember, I remember distinctly remember that time because it occurred to me, oh yeah, this isn’t of course, like that’s a life, you know, I was, I was seven.

00:30:17
Speaker 2: You know, you realized this is how this works.

00:30:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don’t kill something unless you’re gonna eat it for sure.

00:30:22
Speaker 2: But besides rats, yeah, besides rats. Yeah yeah yeah.

00:30:30
Speaker 3: My dad, he he, he taught us how to shoot really young. You always said, the only dangerous gun is one you can’t use. And uh so we were all out there, you know, shooting cans and stuff really young.

00:30:39
Speaker 2: But he are you going to raise you ears like that? Huh?

00:30:42
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I carry I carry you damn right, you know. And I’m also like, he’s right.

00:30:50
Speaker 2: By the way, Yeah, he’s right. The only datish gun is one that you I mean, I’ve seen that so many times, especially with us, if we take somebody hunting, well, we used to.

00:30:59
Speaker 1: We don’t do that anymore since we have kids and we had some scary situations. But like, yeah, when people the dangerous thing about hunting with somebody with a gun, or being around somebody with guns is when they pretend to know.

00:31:10
Speaker 2: More than they actually know.

00:31:11
Speaker 1: I would much rather have somebody say, hey, I have no idea what I’m doing, as opposed to like trying to convince me that or us that they know.

00:31:21
Speaker 2: That’s the dangerous Yeah. A guy that goes walking into the woods like this.

00:31:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, or like trying to like rack around and they’re just like flying yeah.

00:31:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. But my favor, my favorite is the shotgun over the shoulder and they’ve been down to Tyler shoes and.

00:31:36
Speaker 3: Everybody dude, dude, yeah, it happens. Yeah. I mean, you know, my my brother, so we were we were allowed to like run around with twenty two’s loaded. Way too young in my opinion. Yeah, yeah, but you know, all all the Mennonite kids are doing the same thing, Like, those are the kids we hung out with. Every everyone is it has a firearm, like.

00:32:00
Speaker 2: We’d strap on our backs and.

00:32:03
Speaker 3: Yeah my brother, my brother accidentally shot our family dog with his twenty two and like and that’s My dad was like, maybe these kids are little too young to be like just in the field with like live you know, guns. He was like, yeah, yeah, but we felt so empowered and like you know, we we and we were empowered.

00:32:27
Speaker 2: We were allowed to be outside all the time.

00:32:29
Speaker 3: We loved it. We would sleep outside if we wanted to. But yeah, I really learned we we all learned our love for the outdoors from my dad. My mom’s a very earthy person, and I learned a lot of like my uh like foraging and herbal stuff from her. But she, my dad’s like was like the outdoorsman.

00:32:48
Speaker 1: But you think you go on one of these shows like uh where they just drop you off and you have.

00:32:53
Speaker 2: To Yeah, actually I think so. Yeah a couple of days look at her. Yeah, absolutely, no, I totally got.

00:33:00
Speaker 3: I did a survival course in West Tennessee a couple of years ago. Do you guys know Mary O’Neil from the Outdoor Channel. She’s got country outdoors.

00:33:10
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:33:10
Speaker 3: So she’s a friend of mine. We did this survival course together. It was in uh, it was in some Sumter Tennessee.

00:33:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, and okay, okay, yeah, so okay, you guys, we have a lot of.

00:33:23
Speaker 3: Stuff to get into this because that was freaking crazy. So I go I go there to do this this survival show and there’s a show. Yeah, well it turned into a show. They were filming it and stuff. So we go there and the guy who’s who’s doing is like ex military, has been a cop for thirty years like that, that kind of a guy. And so he’s teaching us survival stuff. I drive into this town and I’m like, man, this looks familiar. I like, this looks so familiar. I’m like looking around. And that night after we did the show, I’m sitting in this Mexican restaurant with Mary and I and I’m like we’re talking about it. She’s like, yeah, this town is called Sumter.

00:34:00
Speaker 1: Sumner is the Sumner Sumner County probably.

00:34:04
Speaker 3: Sumner County, but there’s a there’s a town there. That town is where we were in that cult. What yes, dude, yes, dude, I could not believe it. I haven’t been back there since I was I don’t know, nine, so.

00:34:17
Speaker 2: Much to the point you didn’t even remember the name of it.

00:34:19
Speaker 3: No, yeah, but it was it was like a weird like I experienced what I what I would assume is like a flashback kind of Oh.

00:34:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.

00:34:26
Speaker 3: I was like, yes, that had been separate life crazy. Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, ok.

00:34:34
Speaker 2: There’s a Sumner I know, there’s so County, Summer County. I think it’s Sumner. No, just look up like the county seat of Sumner County.

00:34:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, wild Yeah, that’s around Jackson, I think.

00:34:47
Speaker 2: So okay, so round Jackson.

00:34:48
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, okay, so so okay, so much going on over here?

00:34:54
Speaker 2: So okay, it’s yeah, we were a way. We’re near Jackson.

00:35:00
Speaker 3: It’s near there’s a little town and the Yeah, this colt moved there.

00:35:05
Speaker 2: That is crazy.

00:35:07
Speaker 3: They’re called the Rose Creek Village. Now, so you might be able to that might.

00:35:12
Speaker 4: Put him on blast. You’re up in Virginia. Yeah, did you go from Virginia to the to the school bus?

00:35:23
Speaker 2: Yes, Zelmer, they go so close. I almost said, do you guys know about this freaking colt? No? Dude, I don’t think wait a minute, absolutely to capture you mean that church we went to go right with your good hair and your remixes and at member for sure, he’s way too slick. Yeah. So okay, so I I loved in Virginia. Yeah, my mom, that my shot. Yeah what was it? Called?

00:36:05
Speaker 1: Rose Creek Village is a religion based, intentional community in Somer, Tennessee that it formed from twelve tribes communities and.

00:36:13
Speaker 2: Was established and we were also in that one.

00:36:15
Speaker 1: It was established in ninety six, home to about two undred members who live one hundred acres and operate several businesses, including a restaurant, painting services, which construction. Yeah, it’s probably that Mexican restaurant you went to. The community members are united by the desire to live out the teachings of Christ and support each other.

00:36:31
Speaker 2: Uh huh yeah.

00:36:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, okay, okay.

00:36:35
Speaker 3: So we leave Virginia. My mom is a midwife there to the Amish communities. Like I said, but this was man, this was in early nineties and these midwives, like having babies at home was pretty taboo. It was like really like ultra crunchy hippies and Amish people were having babies at home and my mom was practicing with aut a license. All those midwives were it wasn’t they weren’t like certified by the state and stuff.

00:37:00
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I was really little.

00:37:02
Speaker 3: A lot of the stuff I remember really vividly, and then there’s a lot of little patchy spots, but I remember her, the head midwife that was running this like midwiffery group, got uh got charged with manslaughter.

00:37:17
Speaker 2: Woman died in.

00:37:18
Speaker 3: Childbirth with her unlicensed unlicensed trouble husband husband press charges.

00:37:25
Speaker 2: You know, I don’t blame him. They probably should have took her to the hospital earlier, you know.

00:37:31
Speaker 3: And honestly, the thing is like women women do unfortunately die in the hospital too, Like like birth is risky, Like that’s what we face, you know, bringing life into the world is like you can you can die doing this. It’s but nonetheless, she got charged with manslaughter. My mom had had a complicated birth as well, where it was got a little iffy. She got scared. I was like, I’ve got I’ve got eight kids. This woman went to prison her manslaughter. She’s like, I’ve got eight kids, Like, you know, they got scared. So before I know it, everything’s being packed up, sold at the flea market, giving the goats away to friends, and we’re going on.

00:38:07
Speaker 2: The road for a while.

00:38:09
Speaker 3: So they buy a pole behind our v and we’re pulling it behind this beat up white van, you know, and we’re we are so excited.

00:38:18
Speaker 2: We’re talking about giving.

00:38:21
Speaker 3: Fifteen passenger man no a s dance inside, Like we are so excited, Like we’re going to stay in thousand trails parks and my mom’s going to do like uh, you know, child wearing seminars and herbalism and and and stuff like that.

00:38:34
Speaker 2: So the Internet. How much fun was that? Though?

00:38:37
Speaker 3: Oh it would started off so funto off started off so fun. I mean, we were so jacked. We were sleeping in the van. We’re sleeping. We would like we’d park way back into you know, one of these thousand trail parks and we’d all just like sleep on the floor on the ground outside. And yeah, we were we were block wild. We oh yeah, oh yeah. None of us had ever gone to school. It was another thing, like there was no internet, and like there was no one. We were truly off the grid because we had never we weren’t ever accounted for. We’d never been in public school, so it wasn’t like where are the Cowers kids?

00:39:10
Speaker 2: Nobody existed?

00:39:11
Speaker 1: We were.

00:39:13
Speaker 2: And so yeah, we so we did that for a while.

00:39:17
Speaker 3: Then we ended up joining this colt which this this is a long story and you know, maybe not even a long enough podcast, but yeah, we joined this cult. We ended up leaving for a lot of reasons. If you guys want to go into that, I will. We can talk about if you have questions on that, totally.

00:39:31
Speaker 2: Give me, yeah, give me.

00:39:34
Speaker 1: I just want to know, like, give me the closest story to you can’t tell.

00:39:40
Speaker 2: I want the one you can Okay, okay about the cults.

00:39:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, that you’re comfortable with, and this is this is the Selmer Tennsey right.

00:39:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we’re starting to kind of lose dude. We were fifteen minutes from you.

00:39:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, across the river, literally just across the Tennis River. You remember Adams Adamsville at all. Adamsville is just between Yeah, we’re right there. I’m going to playing baseball.

00:40:01
Speaker 2: Term was there. Yeah, we were over there all the all the time.

00:40:03
Speaker 3: So a lot of these people there had school buses and okay, there’s a couple. So so the first goal, this one is, uh, this one’s an all. Shoot, yeah it wasn’t even the first one. Yeah, this this one in some and some Selmer sorry selmer is and our members that left this Twelve Tribes cult. That okay, so we get we get approached by this guy with a bible in his back pocket and like weird clothes and long ponytail.

00:40:33
Speaker 2: My parents were like very there. They still are.

00:40:38
Speaker 3: My dad’s gone now, but my they’re very spiritually lost and very spiritually vulnerable. They both had hard home lives.

00:40:47
Speaker 2: And I was going to ask you about that actually, like psyche of someone.

00:40:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, they are the perfect perfect victims for cults.

00:40:53
Speaker 2: Like, looking back on it, yeah, there are people.

00:40:57
Speaker 3: It’s people looking for family and looking for God at the same time. And you’re just searching and a little too much, you know. And it’s honestly, it’s like you don’t got to look.

00:41:05
Speaker 2: That hard, Like you’re thinking about yourself too much.

00:41:09
Speaker 3: If you’re going if you’re doing ayahuasca thirty times and joining colts, it’s like, he’s right, it’s right there.

00:41:14
Speaker 2: It’s you don’t have to go that far.

00:41:18
Speaker 3: Absolutely, it’s it’s he’s right there. He’s like yes, and man, they my parents are just like really really naive. So so they follow this guy back to this cult. We end up staying there. But they wanted this Twelve Tribes cult wanted us to can I say the word kill on this They want us to kill our dog, our family dog, because my.

00:41:48
Speaker 2: Brother just did that two weeks. Yeah. Yeah, like no dogs in the t because dogs were not biblical, they were unclean.

00:41:57
Speaker 3: They’re freaking weird and honestly, they they if we had been playing with our dog, none of the kids would.

00:42:02
Speaker 2: Play with us.

00:42:05
Speaker 3: And my dad was like, we are out of here, like that was he was like, you know, he love we loved our dog. He’s like he was getting antsy. We’re in a city. He’s an outdoors guy.

00:42:16
Speaker 2: We all were.

00:42:17
Speaker 3: We’re like wild country kids and we were like getting cooped up. My mom was like pretty in on this place. But she’s a midwife. They don’t go to the hospital for babies. My dad has six daughters, Like we are you know, a future for them. They really rolled out the carpet for my parents.

00:42:33
Speaker 2: Oh that makes a lot of sense. Actually nice.

00:42:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, like they were like welcomed and you know, pretty valuable members, I guess, but so yeah, I mean there was some super sketchy stuff.

00:42:45
Speaker 2: A lot of child abuse goes on in those places. It’s very.

00:42:50
Speaker 3: You know, young girls are being married off. It’s just really they don’t they don’t talk. If there’s any type of like sexual abuse going on and someone you know, report it’s it, the cops come, no one will talk to them. It’s the same with Thomish. Yeah, it’s kind of like Netflix documentary stuff very much.

00:43:06
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:43:07
Speaker 3: So again, my dad has six daughters.

00:43:10
Speaker 2: There’s some.

00:43:12
Speaker 3: He’s like, yeah, he’s My dad was never fully in on those places, even though when I talked to him later in his life. There’s something that happens with cult people that have been in cults, and I’ve seen this in documentaries too, like they still have this like whimsical view of it, kind of like they wish it worked out or they wished that.

00:43:33
Speaker 2: I’ve noticed that eat sweet and prayer, keeps Sweet and pray. It was the same way.

00:43:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were talking about that, Like even the people that were out and left and admitted the abuse, we’re still like, my family’s there some.

00:43:44
Speaker 3: Type of a nails still stuck in their yach if you ask me anything.

00:43:51
Speaker 2: That has anything to do with abusing kids. Yeah, tomorrow dude.

00:43:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it’s it’s it’s heavy. It’s also it happens a lot in Amish communities.

00:43:58
Speaker 1: To seems like in in my experience with those things are a lack of experience. But but researching those things, there always kind of seems to be a guy that’s like deistic in the in those things that is essentially just satisfying whatever it is that he wants.

00:44:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, they always there’s always a leader. Is grossh it’s gross man. Yeah.

00:44:20
Speaker 3: So we we we left that place in the middle of the night, and I remember like some men from this group like running out and trying to pull the propane tanks off of our camper.

00:44:31
Speaker 2: My dad’s like just driving, you know, getting that We’re getting that tweet dollars that mom was so upset.

00:44:37
Speaker 3: She did not want to leave. She wanted to get baptized. She like she checked herself into a mental hospital. She had such she was fighting so hard. Wow, and she she was having a nervous breakdown because my dad was making her leave.

00:44:49
Speaker 2: At this point, what’s the house, what’s the oldest child? My sister was fourteen? Yes, so she feeling like this is a weird existence at this point.

00:44:59
Speaker 3: Yes, And like so we were in uh this for some reason. We were in Saint Joseph, Missouri, and we’re like in yeah, and it was like this big Victorian house and about like fifty people give or take kids, men, women and children all live in this house.

00:45:17
Speaker 2: Is this the cult too? This is the cult?

00:45:19
Speaker 3: And talk about So we leave this, We leave this and we go to the Sumner the Selmer, Tennessee one. Okay, because my parents are so we leave. We’re staying in state parks.

00:45:29
Speaker 2: Again.

00:45:30
Speaker 3: My dad’s kind of we’re kind of no money, no prospects, nothing. You give everything to them. That way, you can’t leave. But they tell you if you the more you give, the more high standing you have in this community, the more dedicated you are to God. But that is how they take your freedom. You can’t leave. After that, they hear about some people that had left that started this other community and it was on a big farm, and they’re way more liberal, so to speak. They’re not as rigid. It’s like way more spirit filled. And my mom really wants to spirits spirits on that. And just like there’s a farm. My dad’s like, Okay, there’s room to run, let’s just go check it out. We end up staying there. That’s where after we leave that one after a year. Guys, some crazy crazy that one in the silmer one. You want to hear a story, Okay, this is one that I will never forget.

00:46:21
Speaker 2: We’re probably dude.

00:46:23
Speaker 3: This is this is insane. So this guy, there’s a couple in there. They’re really young. They have three three children, little girls like under five, like one to five. The wife looking back, she was probably twenty six or twenty seven. The wife drops dead, just dies out of thin air, like in the middle of cooking. Dies boom and like no warning, nothing, no stroke, nothing, just dies in the kitchen.

00:46:53
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, how are you remembering this? You remember this?

00:46:57
Speaker 3: I will never forget this. I see, No, I didn’t see her die in the kitchen, but like it, you know, yes, I know.

00:47:05
Speaker 2: Everyone buried.

00:47:06
Speaker 3: They bury her in this back pasture where they used to have these well wild gatherings, like I’m talking like horseback, like standing up on horses.

00:47:13
Speaker 2: They had flags.

00:47:14
Speaker 3: They were very like, very self indulgent, tons of music, like just very wild, and they bury her in the pasture. So about a like right around the time that we left, they get evicted from this farm and I don’t know if the owners just get sick of the rumors or they just want to they just want this cold out of there.

00:47:33
Speaker 2: And it’s gro It’s about two hundred people.

00:47:35
Speaker 3: And so they buy a new piece of property in some in some selmer and they move everyone there. Well, they want to bring this woman with them. They dig her up with spade shovels, like six dudes, put her body in a tarp and put it in a pickup truck and they start driving, just driving her like no more tissue, no nothing.

00:48:02
Speaker 2: Just riding down the road in the back of a truck. They stopped to get gas, okay.

00:48:08
Speaker 1: And probably the raceway probably, yeah sixty four.

00:48:13
Speaker 2: Pretty good trick.

00:48:14
Speaker 4: I know.

00:48:14
Speaker 1: It’s the cheapest, is the chepest gus potato are five, it’s the cheapest gas around the fire Yeah.

00:48:21
Speaker 2: Okay, good.

00:48:23
Speaker 3: And some concerned citizen smells this dead body, of course, goes over to the truck and sees a freaking tarp with a body in it.

00:48:31
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, and calls the police. IMA, be honest. Part of me feels like I remember, I believe dude, it’s a small town. Kind of feel like I remember somebody saying you hear about that dead body they found the back of the truck. As a kid, how old are you? Forty one?

00:48:49
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, I would have been. You’d have been like, I don’t know, twelve or something.

00:48:53
Speaker 2: That’s what I mean. I almost kind of remember. I mean that that I was in the naties. I was a kid.

00:49:00
Speaker 3: Fifteen, Yeah, yeah, that’s that is a story that would have got around a town like like summer. Okay, all the guys get arrested, all of them, like of course they get taken in, you know, upon further investigation of crime has been committed, and they let him go. But even when I was a kid, I remember going, dude, the the out of touch with reality that these people have been living in their own little like bubble and their world, and they they have all these weird names they rename each other, and they’re so out of touch that they dug up a body, put it and pulled into and just like either were untouchable by their God or whatever it was. But I was even as a kid, I was like, this is nuts.

00:49:51
Speaker 1: I mean, it might as well been a cat to like, I mean, it was, it was important to them, but it was like there was no significance of yes.

00:49:57
Speaker 3: So shortly after that, shortly after we we were on that property not very long, and my dad was like, we’re out of here like this, yes, And my mom very much was like was like you know the but my dad once he was like, he was like done.

00:50:13
Speaker 2: So we left that.

00:50:14
Speaker 3: We went to go live with some people who had left that community to way back in the woods in Tennessee.

00:50:19
Speaker 2: And that’s when that’s when.

00:50:23
Speaker 3: My dad bought a bus and revent and and started to clear it all out and we started living in that but we lived in their garage. We lived in these people’s garage for months.

00:50:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the woods.

00:50:33
Speaker 3: I honestly I remember living outside like I remember living outside and yeah, so that was that was crazy because we were off the grid there and I remember somewhere, I really remember exactly where we were living with a family. They had nine kids. They had left that but they had left that group.

00:50:51
Speaker 2: They had nine.

00:50:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a bunch of we’re buck wild. You guys are like wild. But I remember that was that was where so two black SUVs pull up one morning into this like we’re living way out, Like we don’t have a phone, we don’t have a dress, no one knows where we are. We’re truly off the grid. And it’s the FBI and they were looking for our family and they had a suspect for a string of bank robberies that had happened in Virginia and it was my brother. Oh wow, yeah, seventeen, he rubbed thirteen banks and the FBI found found my parents. They were like, we had he’s one of the suspects, and they show, you know, they have some footage of him. They didn’t have him yet, but my parents were like, that’s our kid. You could tell, you know, the way he walks or whatever.

00:51:44
Speaker 2: So there were few that had left enough.

00:51:47
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:51:47
Speaker 3: So well, my oldest brother never went with us on the travels. He stayed with our some family friends back in Virginia and.

00:51:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he was wild.

00:51:56
Speaker 3: He ran away from home at fourteen and like joined the Christian cowboys camp and started. Yeah, he passed away. Yeah, he so he went to prison. That was crazy that my parents. That ruined their marriage. So my mom wanted him to take the money and run and my dad wanted to turn himself in, and he ended up turned himself in and it.

00:52:20
Speaker 2: Just man, that was the beginning of the end.

00:52:23
Speaker 3: Of their marriage was just like I don’t think they could really get past that one. And uh, he went to prison for five years and then he got out of prison and he died ten months later.

00:52:35
Speaker 2: It’s really tragic, but man, he was wild. Dude.

00:52:37
Speaker 3: He robbed one one of one of the banks he robbed twice.

00:52:43
Speaker 2: He robbed the same bank twice.

00:52:45
Speaker 3: I think that’s so funny.

00:52:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, at least like get out of the county, same bag. You didn’t even get a different doble. Jeez man, Oh dude, I love it. I love rebellion back in the day. I mean you didn’t not. I mean, this is crazy to say, but like not every bank had hogh tech cameras. That’s not too long ago.

00:53:13
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, I mean stuff got robbed a lot. Yeah, I can’t do nothing anymore, right, Like everything’s video.

00:53:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I worked at a bank for a while, which is ironic and and the only way to really steal money is to walk in and take it.

00:53:29
Speaker 2: And there’s a lot of people that do that and get away with it. Wow.

00:53:34
Speaker 3: But yeah, the crazy thing is is that so my dad, my dad was a big outdoorsman hunter all that, and uh, and he he lost his right to bare arms because he ended up robbing.

00:53:46
Speaker 2: A bank too twenty years later.

00:53:49
Speaker 3: If you stay yeah, don’t don’t commit a felony. But it really really really broke his heart. I think it broke his spirit. He couldn’t hunt anymore. But uh yeah that Yeah, my brother and father are both convicted fellon bank robbers.

00:54:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s the dismantling of the bus family.

00:54:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s what starts. So where what happens to you guys? Where do y’all go? Where does the thousand kids go?

00:54:17
Speaker 3: So we so there’s a lot of talk of Alaska, going to Alaska, of course, because yeah, that’s well you can get free land. If you’re a homestead, you get dividends and and and stuff. So my parents were just grasping at straws at this point of like where we’re going to go, We’re gonna do And so we started heading to Alaska and we started traveling like down the Southwest, and we only made it to Arizona. And my dad had like crippling depression and my mom is severely, severely bipolar, and a lot going on. Yeah, and then one of my siblings was born on the bus, which is crazy, and so yeah, so we were just like that’s where so I learned how to play my guitar and a cult in one of the cults from a kid, but that’s.

00:55:12
Speaker 2: Where my musical journey.

00:55:14
Speaker 3: They had beautiful music and I learned how to play guitar, and I was like eight from another girl for a little girl in the in the call. Yeah, they wrote their own music and stuff, but I took off with it, like I just loved it. So my mom bought a guitar from a pawn shop. They were pawning stuff to make get some gas money. Bought a guitar for us to share, and I was the only one that played it. So anyway we started, we start getting like along along the way in Arizona and we are completely stranded and I start playing my guitar on the street corner for gas money. Yeah, and and that’s where I caught the bug. Like I would get I put tip, you know, five gallon bucket, and I’d sit there for hours and play and people would give me tips and we’d yeah yeah wow, So that’s yeah. So we ended up there and then and then we ended up back in Tennessee. Some friends gave us some money to move back there, and we ended up in Woodbury, Tennessee, and uh some you know, dilapidated. We were all we were either in the bus or in like super old condemned homes like old farmhouses yea.

00:56:27
Speaker 2: And I never had heating and air or anything like that.

00:56:30
Speaker 3: So we would sleep outside when it got hot, and I yeah, it fostered my love for the outdoors.

00:56:36
Speaker 1: So when were you like, arm out out of the I’m going to pursue.

00:56:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so I was.

00:56:44
Speaker 3: We we left school. No, I’ve never been in a classroom ever that I maybe have a sixth grade education, Like maybe.

00:56:55
Speaker 2: You’re real smart. Well, thank you, yeah, thank you somewhere along the way you got it. Yeah you get smart.

00:57:02
Speaker 3: Yeah right, yeah yeah.

00:57:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. I grew up fast, you know.

00:57:09
Speaker 3: And I had a lot of responsibility have I had six siblings below me, and yeah, I couldn’t go to school, like by the time I could work and bring money in that’s what I was doing, and and and school sort of felt a little bit like small potatoes to me. Then I felt like, you know, I’m keeping my family together. And then I did want to go to school, but I also was like, man if I if I go to high school, Like, I’m not gonna be able to play any sports. I’m not gonna be able to, you know, do anything. We’re so poor, like we don’t even have electricity right now, and I’m gonna probably be made fun of. And then I started getting a chip on my shoulders, like out in school, you know, I’m doing bigger things.

00:57:49
Speaker 2: So I started gigging.

00:57:50
Speaker 3: I started playing music with my guitar, like in some bars and restaurants in Florida.

00:57:56
Speaker 2: Do you remember what kind of guitar it was? Yeah? It was uh, it was uh innovation, they go cheap ovasion plastic back. Yeah.

00:58:05
Speaker 3: Yeah. And so I did that and I did odd jobs. And then we also had like a greenhouse garden center, like like a nursery that we did.

00:58:14
Speaker 2: But I left.

00:58:15
Speaker 3: So I went to Alaska and I took I took this fishing job. I took a job as a deckhand on sam fishing boat in Alaska. And that’s where I got a little grip of cash to move to Nashville.

00:58:24
Speaker 1: Got you, Yeah, was that the that was the plan, going to going to Alaska make enough money to.

00:58:29
Speaker 2: Go to this room. Yeah?

00:58:30
Speaker 3: I felt like Alaska is a bit of a hale to go make some cash.

00:58:36
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:58:36
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I had a friend that had done that, had done it. She worked at the canneries where the fish come ashore and you put you know, the fish, and you can them up. And so I’d been trying to get a job at one of those, but they fill up so fast.

00:58:49
Speaker 2: We got a deckhand. You can do that, Yeah, and so I had to some wild stories from that being on the boat.

00:58:56
Speaker 3: Dude, that was hands down one of the one of the gnarliest things I have ever done my life.

00:59:01
Speaker 2: How long were you own them?

00:59:02
Speaker 3: I was on this boat for five weeks, never got off of it. Yeah, it’s crazy, but it was awesome. It was like, so, you know, I knew I was about to embark on this adventure, you know, And I was nineteen, and I’m all about it. I am down, and I’m like, I’m in good shape. I’d been clam farming with my brothers and.

00:59:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s probably nothing like scary for you because at that point you yeah, yeah really.

00:59:26
Speaker 3: And and my stepdad was working on this boat I was going to so I had I had some type of an anchor. My mom remarried, my parents got divorced after my brother was killed in a car accident and their marriage just didn’t survive this, and and so my mom remarried. And that guy was a fisherman, uh oysterman like all all of that. And he’d been going to Alaska every season. So their deckhand fell into a fishole and broke his ankle, and he called home and he was like, we need someone now, and I was like I’ll go yeah. And he was like, are you sure, and I’m just like I flew. I was like, yeah, I’m sure. He was like, You’re gonna be treated like a man here, and I was like, okay.

01:00:07
Speaker 2: I was like I’m good. I’m totally good.

01:00:09
Speaker 3: You know, dude, I had no idea what I First of all, I’ve never seen water like that ever, Like i’d been, you know, in the Gulf of Mexico, which is a lake, you know, and so the water is insane. It’s freezing cold, the waves get massive. It’s usually like we were in a bay, so it’s not like wildest like deadliest catch big, but dude, I mean there’s swells like nine feet swells I’ve never seen.

01:00:35
Speaker 2: I’ve never seen anything like.

01:00:36
Speaker 3: I got seasick as a as a mother for three days.

01:00:41
Speaker 2: Do you get used to that or do you just kind of stay sick.

01:00:44
Speaker 3: No, I had to get medicine because it’s it’s in your head.

01:00:47
Speaker 2: You don’t have a virus.

01:00:48
Speaker 3: It’s like, that’s why people that’s why I see people people throw themselves over boats with seasickness and stuff because it’s never going away. You’re not gonna after a week, it past, druns its course, like it’s in your head.

01:01:01
Speaker 2: Wow, you medicine.

01:01:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, people will kill themselves over it. And you could I could see the shoreline, so there was like by day three, I was like, I’m thinking about swimming over there. Like I started to come into my head, like get off the boat.

01:01:15
Speaker 2: I got so sick one time back when I had no money. I told that, I told this is this is really messed up. But we were at Luke’s uh when he got married, and they went we went out and it was like five foot swells and we were supposed to be snorkeling. Oh everybody there were forty of them.

01:01:33
Speaker 1: Thirty eight of us were sick, and the other two people swam around the back of If everybody was on.

01:01:40
Speaker 2: The boat, we could have left. But the other two people swam were those people you know exactly who, so they know who they are. I literally said to the guy, I was like, hey, man, I will write you a thousand dollars check the second we get on them. And I had no money at the time, but I felt that bad. I’ll right you a bad check.

01:02:02
Speaker 1: If you will take me back, if you will take us back to everybody was sick, everybody was destroyed.

01:02:09
Speaker 3: Well, it took me a while to get used to the bus once I got back onto a tour bus because the motion sickness, like it’s just once you get seasick, you can’t you always do. But yeah, anyway, I was out there for five and a half weeks, never never got off the boat, and it was it was all gill netting, and it was really really hard work. It was quite the adventure. And there’s a ton of Russian so like Russia. You can pretty much see Russia from where we were, and so yeah, so they come over during the fishing season and it’s what makes it so intense is the state of Alaska. So you’re only allowed to fish at certain times, like very specific time windows so that this enough salmon can get up into the rivers. So if your nets are not out on the minute. I mean Alaska, they’ve got they’ve got fishing game. Helicopters like watching everyone. They’ve got telescopes are watching you. And uh and so if your nets are not out, like out of time, like you, you’ll lose your whole season money, Like they’ll find you so.

01:03:08
Speaker 2: Hard and uh. So it was like you have to be like.

01:03:12
Speaker 3: Pulling it out. But at the same time, you also got to get enough fish to make.

01:03:15
Speaker 2: That worth it. Yeah, so you you’re working.

01:03:18
Speaker 3: We were, We would work twenty one hours around the clock and take shifts.

01:03:21
Speaker 2: You just don’t. You don’t sleep. You don’t sleep. And but the fish is so good.

01:03:28
Speaker 3: It’s like when you’re pulling it right out of the net, it’s like it tastes like candy. It’s all red and like warm, and it’s so it’s like any other salmon. It doesn’t even taste like salmon.

01:03:40
Speaker 2: I did for a long time.

01:03:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, I still won’t buy it out of season when this season h June, like middle late June to late July, soaky salmon, king salmon only, I only.

01:03:53
Speaker 2: Buy it then. Wow.

01:03:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, that’s why the farm stuff is disgusting. It’s disgusting. It’s riddled with disease and like it’s not even fish.

01:04:02
Speaker 2: Don’t do it past cool. I’ve been passing. But yeah, that was that was a wild adventure.

01:04:08
Speaker 3: I got a little grip of money and and I bought this, Like I bought a Chevy Blazer, and I drove to Nashville two hundred no from from Florida. I came back to Florida, Florida.

01:04:21
Speaker 2: Bought some Nashville. Yeah, I’m gonna try. Yeah, started working at Tootsies.

01:04:26
Speaker 3: Wow, dude, when when it was sketchy downtown back then, Yeah, like sketch. Yeah, I’m sure like like we’d you know, I’d play four hour shifts at do you remember honky Tonk Central and Rippies? Okay, so it was it was Tutsi’s, honky Tonk Central and Rippy’s. And that’s where I learned how to play with the band and like work a big crowd, and you know, we leave at midnight with like a wad of cash and people started getting attacked in the parking garages for their cash, like pushed down the stairwells and stuff.

01:04:56
Speaker 2: And like it was sketchy down there. It was like it was not Disney like it is now. At all? What was your what was you?

01:05:03
Speaker 1: Because I mean growing up in cults and no electricity, you’re not listening. You listen to the radio.

01:05:06
Speaker 2: Like what was your introduce into country music? Like who did you?

01:05:10
Speaker 3: Alison Kraus was my first like country music singer. And then when I heard her voice, I was like I was I was like, what is this? And a friend of ours had given me that c D. It was oh it was uh, it was a CD and it was the soundtrack to a brother Arty and Alison It’s Union.

01:05:36
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:05:37
Speaker 3: It was like gillion yeah yeah, And so that was my My mom was like listening to like hippie rock, like she liked like Fleetwood, Mac and Crosby Stills now yeah yeah, stereo te.

01:05:53
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:05:54
Speaker 3: My dad liked the Almond brothers and Brookes and stuff like that. And uh and so that’s Brooks and Dunn, Shanaia and and Alison Cross were like my my my country intro.

01:06:06
Speaker 2: Man, those are three. Yeah, and I.

01:06:08
Speaker 3: Love Shania because like at the time, it was when you looked around, it was a lot of like it was a lot of like blonde hair, blue eyed girls.

01:06:15
Speaker 2: It was like Faith.

01:06:16
Speaker 3: Hill and uh Carter, Yeah, Diana Carter day. It was a lot of like blondes. And when I discovered Shanaia kind of looked like me. And I was like what And I love the music.

01:06:28
Speaker 2: There was a lot of blonds. Was there a lot.

01:06:32
Speaker 3: Of blonde girls?

01:06:33
Speaker 2: Tucker, Yeah, yeah, all those kids. That’s wold. I never thought about that. Yeah.

01:06:39
Speaker 3: And then Shanna came home and I came on, busted makes makes you want to run through a wall.

01:06:46
Speaker 1: I’m gonna tell you something, nothing nothing called my attention as a fifteen year old male.

01:06:54
Speaker 2: Like horse there a little shirt jacket thing, oh it was it was perfect.

01:07:06
Speaker 3: Man laying at his crusher.

01:07:12
Speaker 1: That and that was mass and now was mass Millia.

01:07:19
Speaker 3: And I also like at that time, I was like I didn’t want to be I didn’t know that I wanted to be a singer. I just knew I could sing and I loved it, you know, and I I I’ve been singing. So I was really little and I could play guitar and stuff. But I had a little bit of trauma mixed with the guitar thing because the family it was like we were literally like no food, are you still rolling on.

01:07:38
Speaker 2: The ovation or have you bought something new? I don’t even know where that happened, saying when you when you moved here, what were you guitar with this one?

01:07:45
Speaker 3: When I moved here, I had a tailor bought Yeah, I bought a Taylor nice and yeah. But I was like I didn’t know that, like kids like me got to be singers.

01:07:56
Speaker 2: You know. I didn’t know anyone in music, you know, we were so poor. I thought, like, you know.

01:08:03
Speaker 3: People like Shania they get music lessons and they you know, I just thought that I didn’t even go to school.

01:08:07
Speaker 2: I didn’t know anything.

01:08:10
Speaker 3: So but then when I when you actually like start to learn about these people like Shania has an insane story. Yeah, you know, Dolly has twelve siblings. You grew up with a dirt floor. Yeah, yeah, it was it was like when I started to learn, because that’s really what I think I did. I figured out what my heroes did and I just studied them and I was like, I’ll just do that. That’s great kind of and then it takes you on your own. You end up doing your own journey.

01:08:38
Speaker 2: Sure, but it.

01:08:39
Speaker 1: Seems feasible when when you see somebody come from that and do it.

01:08:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeas too, especially especially if that’s what you’re national.

01:08:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Shania like she took care of three of her siblings.

01:08:49
Speaker 2: She was twenty one.

01:08:50
Speaker 3: Both her parents were killed in a car accident, and she like, you know, worked at a casino or something like that. It just felt like, whoa, Okay, that’s the similarity similar to me, you know, I could do this. And then I met Rob Hatch him in Florida. He’s from he’s from that area that I was living in. Yeah, okay, and yeah, they they’ve been my mentors and they’ve just been in my corner the whole time, the whole time.

01:09:17
Speaker 2: That’s how I remember him either talking about you or as meeting through that or something. That’s that’s definitely what yeh Yeah, yeah.

01:09:24
Speaker 3: Dude, he’s he’s man like. He has been rooting for me. I was their nanny. I used to clean their house.

01:09:30
Speaker 2: That’s what it was. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.

01:09:33
Speaker 3: And I was cleaning houses in the Governor’s Club and and and gigging down at Tootsi’s and stuff.

01:09:38
Speaker 2: When when I got my record deal.

01:09:39
Speaker 3: Awesome, so and taking care of my two siblings who moved in with me, was like.

01:09:45
Speaker 2: There’s everybody, now, where’s all the siblings? You keep everybody’s in Nashville. Yeah everybody.

01:09:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, except for me. I’m in Utah now yeah.

01:09:55
Speaker 2: Yeah that’s right. Yeah, you moved out. I moved out.

01:09:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, I just I love I love wide open spaces and then the mountains are are magical and I love being outside, you know, and it’s it’s it’s amazing. Also, the recreation is insane. The weather is great. You can literally camp all year. You can’t do that here.

01:10:15
Speaker 1: You know.

01:10:15
Speaker 2: It’s an amazing place to raise a family kids. Yeah.

01:10:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, every time I go out there, I say this all the time. Every time I go out there, I never talk about home, like, but when I’m here, I always talk about that there.

01:10:29
Speaker 2: Interesting like just look at her fill, the pool fill. Have you guys hunted out there yet? You have? Okay, okay, so I haven’t been more November out there. Yeah, there’s there.

01:10:44
Speaker 3: Well, there’s a lot of I mean there there are herds of elk that will just like go through our neighborhood. There’s literally a mother moose with two babies that come down to drink out of our creek like a couple of times a week, two babies. We’re in Park City, so you are in part yeah, yeah, and that when first of all, just to see a moose, so Native American culture, when you see an animal you’re meant to it’s a message.

01:11:08
Speaker 2: It’s like a.

01:11:11
Speaker 3: It’s you’re being told something. And so moose are strength and courage and moving forward and you know all that type of a thing. But to see a mother with babies means new life, tenderness, youthful like. It makes you like you should be starting to kind of, uh be more childlike. And so I’ve seen a moose before, I’ve seen a baby moose.

01:11:36
Speaker 2: I’ve never seen twins.

01:11:37
Speaker 3: It is amazing watching walk around.

01:11:40
Speaker 2: No no, no, no, no no, but it’s awesome.

01:11:44
Speaker 3: It’s like those those animals are dude, have you guys seen seen a moose.

01:11:48
Speaker 2: In your life? They are enormous. They’re huge.

01:11:52
Speaker 3: They’re the size of a horse. But it’s exciting. Yeah, some bigger transfer.

01:11:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:11:58
Speaker 1: We were.

01:11:59
Speaker 3: We were on a hike and uh and we rounded we rounded one of the switchbacks and there was a male moose with a huge rack just like chomping on a bush. And I mean it was it was, I mean the size of the first dangerous. Don’t no, it’s it’s it’s exciting. Being out there, there’s so much there’s so much spirit in that in that area of the country. And I just mean, I think, I think this country is so beautiful. I’ve seen so many, so many.

01:12:32
Speaker 2: Parts of it.

01:12:36
Speaker 3: I’ve been to every state. I love this country. Like I’m I’m an all American girls. It gets you know, like even with my Cherokee heritage, like I you know, my heritage goes back nine generations in East Tennessee with Cherokee. But I’m like, I love it here. I love this country and I’ve seen I’ve seen it in every stage, you know, every every piece of it, like the good, the bad, and the ugly.

01:13:01
Speaker 2: And I just I love it.

01:13:05
Speaker 1: When you look back on how you’re brought up, and obviously that has a lot to do with the way you live your life.

01:13:11
Speaker 2: Now, would you redo it?

01:13:14
Speaker 3: And that’s a good that’s a good question, you know. I’m apt to say no, because man, I I really like the challenges that I’ve had to go through specifically have really made me really really smart and sharp and and and I’ve been through so much adversity that I’m just like, there’s not much that can hit me that makes me flinch, you know, And like, man, this is a this is a tough world to live in, to to to get hit, you know, So, yes, I mean I think I wish my parents would have been more protective over us. I think they were so naive They put us in so many dangerous situations.

01:14:01
Speaker 2: That as a parent.

01:14:03
Speaker 3: Now when when you asked me that question, it probably would have been different before I was a parent, But now I look back and I’m like, man, we were put in so many dangerous situations really really yeah, and should have And it literally we were protected by angels.

01:14:18
Speaker 2: We were like, we were like, there’s no other thing.

01:14:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, so many bad things, so many other worst things could have happened to us and should have, you know. And I say that, you know, my brother lost his life. But you know, when you look at a family our size and the the intense poverty I grew up in, a lot more people would have ended up on drugs or teen pregnancy or whatever whatever. The you know, things happen like that. Somehow we just didn’t. Like, we just pushed through. We helped each other. And I think if I didn’t have all these younger siblings to look after and like to keep straight for maybe in my life would look different.

01:15:00
Speaker 2: Wow.

01:15:00
Speaker 1: Man, what an incredible story.

01:15:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, you being awesome and having Yeah, I want to ask about about this new music and thank you. So you’ve been through the Nashville.

01:15:17
Speaker 1: Gauntlet, right, like you’ve had the record deals and been in the bands and and written the songs and been in the rooms and all that stuff. Now you’re in Utah making a record out there with one of my favorite dudes on this planet, Josh Kelly.

01:15:29
Speaker 2: I love I love him. What talent. It’s incredible, man, But there’s incredible.

01:15:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, he’s in the next level and we we got to listen to the song. I got to listen to some of the songs this morning driving in. God, it just feels so real. It feels so authentic, and it.

01:15:47
Speaker 2: Even feels more authentic now, Yes, it fel then.

01:15:52
Speaker 1: It’s so different due and like knowing about your your Cherokee heritage is like it almost feels like like some of the songs was like, you know, they’re to your mom and and sentimental and about your story, but like there’s some like warcraft stuff on there. Yeah, you know, and like it just feels like you’re at a point in your life in your music career and you’re making music in this stage of your life. That’s just like you can’t make it any other way than that. It feels like like.

01:16:18
Speaker 2: That feels like that’s the only only songs you can be writing right now. Thank you? Yeah, you nailed it.

01:16:24
Speaker 3: I I uh.

01:16:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, man.

01:16:27
Speaker 3: I Once I had my so I almost died giving birth to my daughter, and.

01:16:35
Speaker 2: I had a realization.

01:16:36
Speaker 3: I’d put out a couple of songs before that, and it was very much like I was doing like a Shania Twain thing, and which is authentic to me.

01:16:43
Speaker 2: I’ve been touring a ton. I love to perform.

01:16:46
Speaker 3: I just wanted to like and kick the walls down and and and and you know, perform songs in an arena. I was just like, bring it on. So I was putting out like very bombastic kind of like bon Jovi meets Shania Twain songs. When I had my daughter and I had this realization, I was like, you know, if I had died and she went, which women die given birth sometimes, like.

01:17:10
Speaker 2: I could have you know, she wanted to go and listen to my music.

01:17:14
Speaker 3: She would have heard these kind of like you know, like selling T shirts and beer songs, and she would never know anything about me. Ever, she never know you know, who I am as a mother, a wife, a friend, a daughter. You know, she would She’s blonde hair and blue eyed. She cannot look in the mirror and see her Cherokee heritage like I can. Ye. And it just became so important to me that I not be afraid to talk to tell my story through music. And I didn’t really think I had the skill the songwriting chops yet either, you know, to write about my brother, you know, being a bank robber, and to write about you know, my mom’s alcoholism and mental illness and how that has generational effects and you know a verse if you will. I think there’s a dark spirit over it, and you know it’s come from generations behind me. There’s a lot of witchcraft and Native American culture too. I think that you know that that lurks around it lurks, you know, and so I I it became really important. Like it was always fun knowing that we were that we were Indians, and we were kids. It’s wild and we love being outside and we could feel it in a way, but it’s just a fun thing. It was not important to me to bring it into my life and my identity and my music like it is now.

01:18:33
Speaker 2: You’re ready to leave something, yeah, and then when you go, Okay, what do I want to leave them with?

01:18:38
Speaker 3: You?

01:18:39
Speaker 2: I want to leave them with my story. That way they have a better understanding of who they are. Yes. Yeah, I think you’re very brave in a lot of different ways. And I’m so proud. We are so proud of of who you’ve beca through all of that stuff. And your music is so great, and the record’s great, and it feels it’s inspired, inspired, and I think it’s a great story. I want you to continue to tell your story because I feel like it’s important to have that view that lends of things. You know.

01:19:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, it’s definitely it’s an autobiographical record. And I you know, there was something about when I started making it out there. I started writing with Josh because he’s my neighbor, yeah, and.

01:19:22
Speaker 2: Which he’s kind of spirit.

01:19:26
Speaker 3: Totally is and I need I needed that at the time. I needed to kind of get out in Nashville and like the music that I make you not to sound anyway, but it really doesn’t sound like anything sort of and I needed to find that without being influenced, like we’re all influenced all the time, you know, by each other, by all.

01:19:45
Speaker 2: The music we hear, and.

01:19:48
Speaker 3: Josh is he’s a wild man, like there’s nothing he won’t try, and he’s not slammed with seventeen.

01:19:54
Speaker 2: TikTok artists that he’s just like draining his creativity, and so his creative he is wide open to.

01:20:01
Speaker 1: He writes songs when we play golf all the time, and then they send me a snippet of a master that he did.

01:20:07
Speaker 2: Right, He’s a He’s just a wild man. He just does what he feels and I’m co producing it with him. Combination. I mean, that makes total thank you. Yeah, he’s he’s so good.

01:20:17
Speaker 3: I’m so so grateful to have him and like being able to make music in the foothills of those mountains city.

01:20:25
Speaker 2: In your freaking city, so so fulfilling crazy. Yeah.

01:20:29
Speaker 1: Do you feel comfortable? Could you play like a verse chorus of something off the record?

01:20:33
Speaker 3: If not, you don’t have to, but I could, but I play in this open tuning, Okay, don’t don’t don’t worry about it is going to be a little bit of a.

01:20:41
Speaker 2: It would be. Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it.

01:20:45
Speaker 3: Yes I can, but it’s an open tuning thing. You I would probably play Mom and Jesus, so thank.

01:20:55
Speaker 2: You, thank you. I wrote that with with some cats here and.

01:20:59
Speaker 3: Uh oh gosh, uh Clawson, Brad Clawson, love that guy. What a smart songwriter’s and Brandon Powers got you. Yeah, I think that’s Brendan Day.

01:21:15
Speaker 1: Thank you.

01:21:15
Speaker 2: Why to say powers? He’s powerful?

01:21:20
Speaker 3: So Mom and Jesus is uh man, that’s my That’s a little glimpse into me as a mother. I I often think about, like you see moms out grocery shopping, you know, or or somewhere somewhere out in the wild, and they like they look so vulnerable sometimes with their kids, and they’re distracted and and just kind of looks like you could you know, someone could hurt that really easily, but like the mistake that you would make is just just under that distracted shopper. Vulnerable mother is a vicious one woman assassin, you know, who will kill, especially if you mess with they’re young. Yeah, And I felt that come alive in me when I when I became a mom, and you know, I carry, and I’m very proud of that. I’m very proud of my right to carry and never leave yet and I do I keep I I I want to teach my child to to do the right things, but like you know, I’ve I’ve lied, and I’ve started fights before, I’ve stolen things.

01:22:23
Speaker 2: You know, I’ve done it. And it’s weird to teach your.

01:22:26
Speaker 3: Child to like not do that, knowing that one day she’ll she’s going to find out that I’m flawed. But what she’ll know forever is that like I will kill, I will cut someone’s head off. And I do I keep, I keep my I keep my nine loaded for a reason. I will kill someone for her absolutely fast, no question. I feel like I mean, I feel like.

01:22:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, because mother, you’re supposed to feel like that.

01:22:49
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:22:49
Speaker 2: And if you don’t feel like that, I check it out. Yeah yeah, yeah.

01:22:55
Speaker 1: I saw a recent post about that they asked mothers if they would be willing to kill for the protection of their daughters, and it was about sixty forty no, no, yeah, nuts, they said, I mean I could do it. Yeah, they say that, And in the moment, let something happen and see see what internal takes over.

01:23:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I’m not even I’m talking, not even in the moment. If I hear about something that happen.

01:23:16
Speaker 2: Oh, no, totally, absolutely absolutely. I don’t even got to see it go down. I’m ready, ready, got good thing only dog. Yeah try me.

01:23:28
Speaker 1: I say that all the time we guns around our house. She’s like her neighbors are hearing to shoot guns. I’m like, here, yeah they are. They know I got them up here, So come see me.

01:23:36
Speaker 2: That’s what freedom sounds like. Amen, Yeah, we we.

01:23:41
Speaker 3: So I’ve been back to Alaska because we did a couple we did a couple of things for the military bases up there, and this I’ll never forget this. So we’re at the We’re at the air Force base called Fort Wayne Wright Air Air Force Army, and it was it’s a there’s a ton of cloud coverage. Alaska can get pretty cloudy, and and we’re just hearing these huge airplanes just flying, I mean all these like like overhead. It sounds like there’s a war going on up in the sky. And uh so the uh, the sergeant major came in to greet us and he’s like his you know, his uh, his flight gear and a cowboy hat.

01:24:18
Speaker 2: Avy it looks like he stepped out of the movie Tough.

01:24:21
Speaker 3: He comes in to greet us and we’re like, what is this has been what’s going on up there? You know kind of he’s like because it was obviously training, and he goes, girls that there’s freedom sounds, no doubt.

01:24:33
Speaker 2: It’s like, you got so tough, that’s.

01:24:38
Speaker 3: What freedom sounds.

01:24:39
Speaker 2: Last loved that, hook man. Yeah, you would have. He would have Nailmi. You are unreal man, for real.

01:24:54
Speaker 1: It was so much fun to hear about all of that, to to kind of just live it for a second with you and inspiring keep on doing your things.

01:25:04
Speaker 2: Thank you.

01:25:05
Speaker 1: The music is so good. Thank you, The music so good. When’s it come out?

01:25:09
Speaker 2: New song?

01:25:09
Speaker 3: A little halfway done with the record right now, but I have a new song coming out Friday, which is.

01:25:16
Speaker 2: Already recording this now. Yeah, it’ll be it’ll it will be out by the time you guys hear that. Yeah, yeah, what is it? How they go? Oh yeah, I’ll listen to that. We’re going fast? Awesome? Thank you. Yeah, I’m said that that’s over. I know we can sit here for another three hours. Man, will you come back come back? Yeah, dude, I’d love to come back. It was a blast.

01:25:35
Speaker 3: You guys are so like thanks for listening and like having me here.

01:25:39
Speaker 1: Thanks so thanks for being vulnerable enough to talk about care. Let you get out of here without singing something?

01:25:43
Speaker 2: What you want to do?

01:25:45
Speaker 3: Dang, dude, I like nineties country, not because it’s trendy.

01:25:51
Speaker 2: But because we were raised on it.

01:25:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, man, I I’ve been listening to Brooks and Done Again a lot, and they’re like, what’s that face?

01:26:01
Speaker 2: You don’t like Brooks and Killers? But I love dude, I love it that one hell situal swing z. Let’s do let’s do a little faith. Hell, baby, tell me where where do I? Sorry? All right, don’t baby? Tell me where you ever learn to fight without saying.

01:26:50
Speaker 3: So?

01:26:50
Speaker 2: Tell me how far it is? How can you love like this? I’m not sure that I ca when we don’t talk, when we don’t.

01:27:05
Speaker 3: Talk, when it doesn’t feel like weary and love.

01:27:12
Speaker 2: In manners’s to me? When I don’t want to say, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know when to really even manners to you? I can I make you see? Oh it matter? Take matter? Yeah Dan? How do you know so many songs? Yeah? You’re so good at that.

01:27:49
Speaker 1: Hell, you’re gonna walk juice one day. I’ll let my secrets out, but not today. So much so Killer? That was killer we have a to COVID since your present.

01:28:03
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you’re coming.

01:28:04
Speaker 1: On the show. Jobs was jealous of these. There’s a show checking out there you go. It’s kind of the only reason most people come on the show.

01:28:14
Speaker 2: But yeah, I didn’t actually really need a new pair of boot there you go. What’s that shoe? Are you look at? Two?

01:28:21
Speaker 3: Are?

01:28:21
Speaker 2: What are those?

01:28:22
Speaker 1: I couldn’t give I couldn’t get my big toe in those things. Yeah. Absolutely, thanks for coming on, Betful, Thanks for being awesome story.

01:28:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, congratulations Edi you What are you feeling? What are the spirits telling me? What are they telling you? They’re telling me a bunch of stuff? What are these animals? They’re looking down on you right now? They got things to say? What do you think?

01:28:47
Speaker 3: You know, some people are weird about taxing on me, but I think it’s dignifying. Yeah, you know, they’re like, oh, people hanging their trophies. I’m like, well, you know, if you’re going to eat an animal, give them some dignity.

01:28:58
Speaker 1: If I’m not up there, I always tell people it’s a it’s a way to honor it for the rest of us.

01:29:03
Speaker 2: Alf I think of every I know exactly.

01:29:06
Speaker 1: Where every one of these were taken and the stories behind them and and the memories that we have.

01:29:11
Speaker 3: They’re honored in my opinion for you guys are real sportsmen and hunters, and I I mean, I think I think just a discard of a beautiful animal like that is a shame.

01:29:18
Speaker 2: It is. I agree, Yeah, I agree. If you ain’t gonna if you it, don’t kill it.

01:29:23
Speaker 3: YEAHSI throw him out to the cat.

01:29:29
Speaker 2: Something’s going to eat him though, isn’t that That’s something? He is going to eat him. They’re not going to lay there if we don’t get out of her. What you want to?

01:29:35
Speaker 3: I got to say, I saw a dead cat on the side of the road, uh a couple of weeks ago, and nothing touched that cat, And I’m.

01:29:42
Speaker 2: Like, what’s going But.

01:29:44
Speaker 3: That’s that’s a sign something was wrong with that cat. Otherwise something like no crows, nothing weird.

01:29:50
Speaker 2: The sort of spirit spirit implications could have been a skinwalker. Next time.

01:29:59
Speaker 1: You ch out the new song grew Up Fast out Now record Growing Up Growing Up Sorry what she did? She grew up fast, grewed up, growing growing Up Fast out Now. New new music coming. Thank you so much, You’re awesome, Thank you for thanks. All Right, we’ll check out next time see it,