#2489 - Ryan Bingham

[00:00] - Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. - The Joe Rogan experience. - Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. [00:12] - What's happening, man? Good to see ya. - Yeah, good to see ya, man. - Hold up to that microphone, sir. - All right. [00:18] Um... [00:20] You were fucking great at that McConaughey thing last year. I really enjoyed that. That was my first time seeing you perform live. It was really cool. Thank you. It was very cool. You're so relaxed up there, man. It was like you brought everybody into a nice, comfortable, chill vibe. It was cool. I'm glad you guys felt that way. Sometimes it takes me a minute to get into the groove. Yeah, but it felt like that. It felt like you were in it. It brought the whole crowd into it, too. [00:50] The one, the singer-songwriter one, and then the other one with the auction and everything. They're so cool. Such good events. Yeah, they're good people, too. You know, it's a... [01:00] I've really grown to just appreciate the community around here in Austin and the Hill Country area and all of that stuff. I definitely... [01:07] Wouldn't have the career, I don't think, but it wouldn't have been for the community around here. Just supporting songwriters and music in the way that they do, it's pretty incredible. When they get behind anything, it just feels so good to see that many people come together and have that support. It's a really good place, man. Austin is a really good community. It really is. A very positive place. [01:28] In a lot of ways. Yeah. I mean, nothing's perfect. There's no perfect places, but it's really good. Yeah. I like it so much better than when I was living in California. It just feels like real people. I miss it, man. I mean, I'm in the process of moving back to Texas as well. Where are you at right now? Outside of Dallas, Texas, out by Tyler. Okay. I've been in Topanga Canyon in L.A. for years. Oh, Jesus. You know, so I've been in the middle of it. Doing that Hollywood thing.

[01:58] state line, it's just like that weight comes off. And you're like, oh, man, I'm home, you know. [02:04] Dude, you had the coolest fucking character on Yellowstone. It must be so fun to play. It was so much fun, man. I laugh. I always talk about it. I felt like I had one of the easiest jobs there, you know. [02:18] The character was kind of a smaller role. Most of the time I'd work like one or two days a week, and then the rest of the time I'd just be like fly fishing and get lost in the mountains and just disappear out there. Yeah, it was awesome. God, Montana's awesome. That show made so many people move out there, though. I know. You're going to take your license plate off your car before you go. Right. You better not have a California plate. Better not. They will fucking write things on your hood. Run you off the road. Yeah, they get upset. It's very interesting. They're very proud to be from Montana. Yeah. [02:48] to keep it to themselves like let it go motherfucker we're all americans all right if you got a good spot you should be happy that people from california figure it out yeah don't be a dick like you're american bitch you're not it's not the united states of montana shut the fuck up i guess it's kind of anywhere right you know not that much here yeah here's pretty inviting i've never had that [03:10] experience here. Not really. Texas is a pretty friendly place. Yeah. [03:15] And there's so many different walks of life that have been here for so long. You know, I think up there in Montana and stuff, man, if you were tough enough to survive those winters and stake a claim up there back in the day, you had to fight for it. And they're still fighting for it now, you know. That does make sense. I mean, and that's also one of the things that's highlighted by the whole series, all the different Yellowstone series, the older ones with Harrison Ford. And, you know, they really do explain a lot. I mean, it's kind of a...

[03:42] cool chunk of history to see like how this all got started. How the kind of people that had to survive out there when [03:50] All you got is a fireplace. That's it. You got a fireplace. I love all those mountain men stories. Jim Bridger and all that stuff. It's just like, man. There is something. You get up there in those mountains, it gets in... [04:03] Mountain's getting to your bones, it gets into your blood, and it's a different thing, man. [04:08] It's a spiritual place. It is. And it's also – it's like – [04:12] the most potent art like it's it's nature's art and you don't think of it as art but god it's so beautiful it's like stunt like sometimes when you're up there you just have to stop and look like god this is gorgeous and it's overwhelming if you have it has a it gives you a feeling there's like it's a almost like a drug that hits you because of the beauty of it all like you take it in with the blue sky you see the clouds in the mountain and maybe there's a lake below you in the [04:42] God, this is gorgeous. It's like you feel it in your DNA, man. It's like your body knows this is a fertile, beautiful place that's filled with life. And this should excite you. So all your natural human reward instincts are all like, this is the place I should be. Like, look at the sky. Look at the lake. Look at the mountains. This is fertile. This is like life-giving. Yeah.

[05:12] up there like a hunting guy and uh [05:17] It was a whole pack squad. Part of it, I grew up cowboying and ranching, but I've never really been up there in those mountains like that. And my dad would always fantasize about that. We'd talk, you know, one day we're going to go on like a pack trip up in Montana. And, you know, we'd watch all those movies like Lonesome Dove and all of that stuff. So it was always just kind of a daydream. Yeah. [05:36] Years ago, I was just kind of overwhelmed with music stuff and all that and didn't know what I was going to do. And I ended up – I just wanted to go up there for a trip, you know, maybe go on a pack trip. And I started looking up places, and I found this place called Royaltyne Outfitters. And they're like, yeah, you know, we come up, and you can take – [05:52] take you on a packed trip, but we also have like this six week, [05:55] School. [05:56] you know, that you can train to be a guide. It's all a mule pack and all kinds of stuff, you know? And so I was like, man, I'm going to sign up for that, you know? And it was, [06:05] Life-changing. There was only six of us in the class and spent weeks back in the backcountry packing mules and horses. Oh, wow. We'd just tie a rope between two trees with a tarp for sleeping at night and always post up a couple of guys to watch over the horses at night. [06:22] And I remember one morning I woke up and it was in June, you know, but we were way back in there and, uh, [06:27] I woke up and the snow was coming down and I just kind of raised my head up and I was looking out at the horses and the snow was just falling down on their backs. [06:36] And there was that moment in me, I was like, [06:38] I don't know if I'm ever going back. [06:40] You know, this is right where this is where where I need to be. Right. It was it was tough to come back to civilization after that. I think we're doing something with ourselves to ourselves with civilization that we can't really fully appreciate because we're wrapped in it. And it's not until you get to nature where all that weight just gets lifted off of you and you feel more normal. And you're like, oh, this is where people are supposed to be.

[07:10] There's no nothing, no distractions. And it's just like you, all your senses heightened, your eyesight, your hearing, your sense of smell, like all of that stuff. And, you know, I remember going into it, you know, I didn't know what to expect, really. [07:24] I've done some camping and things like that and grew up ranching and all that. This was a way different deal. I remember I just had this backpack full of gear. By the time I got out of there... [07:35] I just felt like all I needed was a pair of scissors and some way to start some fire. And that was about it. [07:44] Yeah, I follow this one dude. I'm trying to remember his name. Clay... [07:50] Let me pull it up because I really enjoy his videos. But this dude, he lives – I believe he lives in Alaska, but he does a lot of trips in America, like all over America in the lower 48. And he – [08:05] goes and... [08:07] like lives by himself in some kind of harsh environment. Like he's done it in the swamps, [08:14] Clay Hayes. That's it. Does he, like, take his kid out there? The kids with him? I believe he has. He's taking his dog. But a lot of times he just goes entirely by himself. Mm-hmm. [08:25] And they're very, very interesting. Like he starts his own fire. He'll figure out how to get food. He figures out how to purify water. He's taken salt water and made his own thing that kind of distills it into fresh water and removes the salt. Like very slowly by using a piece of bamboo and fire and boiling the water in the bamboo so that like the water evaporates and then drips down and it doesn't have salt in it apparently. I love that stuff.

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[10:37] I buy one, the Farmer's Dog. I use it for both my dogs. They love it. They eat it up quick. It smells good to them. It smells good to me. It's human-grade food. The Farmer's Dog makes fresh food for dogs, and my dogs love it. Their recipes are made with real meat and fresh vegetables that are gently cooked to retain vital nutrients. They also portion out the meals to your dog's nutritional needs, which helps avoid overfeeding and makes weight management easier and isn't getting more time with our four-legged [11:07] best friend something every dog owner wants the answer to that is yes obviously so try the farmer's dog today and get 50 off your first box of fresh healthy food [11:20] Plus, get free shipping. Just go to thefarmersdog.com slash rogan. This offer is for new customers only. I love it. Just to have those skills, just to know how to do it, like whether you'll ever need it or not, just to know how to do that. It's just so cool. I remember – [11:38] in that guide school. There's a lot of different parts to it, which was so cool. It was like, we did a whole week of, like, backcountry, like, [11:46] wilderness first aid. You know, he had a guy had a paramedic come in and teach us all this stuff. And then there was a whole week of just like leather work. There was a whole week of shoeing horses. There was... [11:55] fly fishing and entomology and all these kind of little skills, but one thing that [12:00] Really stuck with me with a fire building kind of drill. When we started, it was kind of right when we first got there. And it was pretty wet and it had been snowing. And there's only six of us, you know, and we're guys from kind of all over the country. And I grew up in New Mexico and West Texas where it's pretty dry, you know, and you kind of build a fire. You can kind of just take some little small twigs and get a little fire going, you know. So he goes, all right, you've got two minutes to build a fire and you need to have, you know, like a flame to be three or four feet high.

[12:30] We're out grabbing like little sticks and twigs and I'm just, we have a lighter too, you know, I'm just struggling. It's just smoking and can't get it going. I look over and there's a kid from Alaska in the class and he just runs over to this big dead pine tree. [12:45] And just breaks off the biggest branch of dead, you know, pine needles and takes his lighter and just within like five seconds has this massive fire going. I was like, okay, that's how you do that, you know. And it was so just the littlest things, you know, to have that knowledge, you know. And part of it was, you know, he was explaining to us, the instructor. He's like, yeah, you know, if you're out here with your guidance, somebody that's hunting, maybe he's an elderly guy or somebody gets hurt and you get caught back in the mountains and it's snowing. [13:15] warm real quick you know so it was always a you know a reason and a purpose behind it which was really cool and um i'll never those are some some of the things i'll never forget did they teach how to start fires with like a piece of metal and like a flint like you know what is that a striking rod yeah we did some flint stuff and with um like the pitch wood from some of the old pine trees you know you can find that pitch wood and uh we did some bow and wood drills so if not a whole lot

[13:45] I did that in the Boy Scouts, and it took like hours to start a fire. You have to fucking keep sawing. And if you're doing it with your hand, you're going to blow your hands up. You better get a bow. Get your technique down. You've got to practice it. You've got to have the stick on the top and the stick that goes all the way to the base thing, and you cut a little hole in the base thing so that all the little embers can fall into your kindling, and you've got to saw the shit out of that fucker. And imagine trying to do that in the snow or when it's wet. [14:15] Right. It's like, man, that's just incredible. Very, very unlikely. You know what's really good for kindling? [14:21] Fritos. [14:22] really those chips yeah yeah yeah yeah it's kind of shocking yeah we were in alaska and it was raining all the time and there was one day where it stopped i was with uh my friend steve rinella took me up there with my friend brian callan and ryan callan and all these guys so we went up there and when we got one day like a 10 hour stretch where it was not raining we're like we got to start a fucking fire because it was it was raining every day for like five days in a row and we [14:52] It was tough hunting. Yeah. So this one day, and we were trying to figure out things to light on fire because everything's soaking wet. And so we got some pieces of wood from, like, underneath the bottom of trees and shit and dead trees that were covered by other things that were kind of sort of a little bit dry. And we used Fritos. And Fritos, when you light them, man –

[15:15] It's crazy how much oil is in those things. They just – and they stay lit for a long time like a candle. Yeah. And so we started like piling little things. And when we got that fire, I was like the happiest I've ever been in my life. Oh, I bet. Soaking wet. Just cannot – once you get that kind of cold too, it's just like there's almost nothing to get you wet. It wasn't that bad cold-wise. It was like in the 50s or 60s. Yeah, it was just the wetness. The wetness was impossible to get away from. [15:45] You get in your sleeping bag, you'd be dry. But I had to take a piss in the middle of the night, and I had to turn on my headlamp in the tent. And when I did, it was all just mist. Yeah. Everywhere. It was moisture. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm never going to be dry. I had to just accept, like, there's no drying here. How long were you guys back in there? About six days. We had to leave. We were supposed to be there for seven, but we had to leave on the sixth day because the storm was coming in. I was like, I could get stuck. Because you can get stuck up there. Yeah. We were on, I guess, Prince Edwards. Is that what the island is? [16:16] Yeah, you get stuck up there. And I was like, I got to get back home. I got to work. Did y'all get to fly in like on a puddle jumper? On a little bush plane? Yeah, we landed in the pond. So they had certain windows to get you in and out of there, huh? Yeah, exactly. And you could drink right out of the pond. Like the pond was all rainwater and it was too high for beavers. So you didn't have to worry about Giardia or anything in the water. You could just drink right out of the pond. Like this is crazy. Yeah, it's the best. I've never been. I've been to Alaska only like in the winter on a skiing thing.

[16:45] hunting fish. The people are extraordinary. [16:48] Those are rugged people. Yeah. Like when I did a gig with my friend Ari in Anchorage, and one of the things – and it was weird because you get there, it's 11 p.m., it's bright out. Like this is weird. One of the things that we talked about after was like those people were fucking cool. Like there's something about living up there like where you could die going outside like a good six months out of the year. There's fucking bears everywhere. [17:18] parking lot. You better have your shit together. [17:22] There's bald eagles everywhere. The salmon are as big as your thigh. I mean... [17:29] The people there, they work together. They're very friendly, but they're very rugged. But they're also like... [17:38] they realize you need each other. Like there's a sense of like community and coolness. Yeah. You need each other. If your fucking car breaks down the side of the road, you could die. Like someone's not going to let you die. They're going to pull over. In California, they're like, someone will get them. They just keep driving. So you just lose this sense of community. Yeah, you're not calling, you're not, that's who you're calling for help in times of need is your neighbor. Exactly. I mean, even if like the bridge washes out, it's like here comes your neighbor with the backhoe and the tractor. Right. You just do it yourself. [18:08] makes a cool friendship when your friend helps you out or when you help your friend out. I thought I miss about living in Texas too, you know, it's just like

[18:16] Just some of the small things or whatever, like even up at my place in Topanga, you know, you want to build some fence or whatever. I do – I feel lucky. I've got a couple of really good friends up there and neighbors that, you know, love to come, you know, work with their hands or get their hands dirty and we'll build stuff. But, like, man, in Texas, you want to, like, weld something or you need something with a tractor, some heavy equipment thing, you know. Like, you're not getting that done in California. Right. [18:46] up to your house to help you move some dirt around, you know, but here in Texas, it's like, oh man, just call Frank down the road. [18:59] It's a real place. I grew up like that, too. [19:04] People cutting hay and stuff like that, especially when you're young. Man, we would go stack hay for everybody around. That was the summer job. [19:14] Let's just go. [19:15] That makes a strong person. [19:17] People that throw hay around. [19:19] Those are strong, like that term, like farmer strength, that shit's real. Yeah, you better say that. I was always a little guy, too, so I had to learn how to use leverage real quick. Yeah, roll those bells up on your knee. One of the last times I did that, I remember, I was going to school in Stephenville, Texas, and had a good friend over in Glen Rose, and it was the middle of July, and he's an older man, and asked us to come help him stack hay in his barn, and we're stacking it in the barn, you know, and it's just like you're inside the barn. It's just hot.

[19:49] degrees in there you know and we're talking hundreds of bales of hay and it was just all we could do and of course we're hung over we're you know in college we're trying we're stacking hay and i was like i think i think this is my last hay hauling job right now yeah those jobs those are good for letting you know that this is not the life you want yeah like get a good rugged manual labor job it'll knock some fucking sense of deal so i got the guitar man i learned pretty quick that the guitar felt a lot better in my hands in that shovel dude yeah i know that [20:19] I spent one summer doing insulation in an attic. It was all that fiberglass insulation. I had it in all my skin. In your nose and your eyes. Yeah, you're sweating because it's hot and it's the summer, so it's getting into your pores. And you're always itchy. You feel like it's on you all the time. Also, it's got to be terrible to be breathing that shit in. Oh, the worst. Yeah. And I don't even think we were using equipment. I don't think we used any safety equipment. Heck no. You didn't have a mask on or anything. [20:49] I think we just installed it, just unrolled that shit, stuffed it into the... [20:54] Into the rafters. Using paint with lead in it. [21:00] And then back then the gasoline had lead too. So drinking out of the water hose. Right. Oh, yeah. I think it makes a resilient person to drink out of water hose. Heck, yeah. You get tough or die. You get extra minerals from the fucking copper on the faucet. [21:19] Yeah, it's – those jobs are really important, like, for a young person to figure out what they don't want to do. Teaches you work ethic. Teaches you, like, hey, like, this is – you can get some satisfaction out of a hard day's work and a hard week. Like, you did it. You put it in. Feel good about yourself. Yeah.

[21:36] You know it was difficult to do, but don't keep doing that. [21:40] Yeah. Figure out a way out of this. You got to understand it. You got to feel for it. You know what hard labor is. [21:50] Don't ruin your life. Yeah, I feel real grateful. My granddad was always a real hard worker, and even when I was 12 and 13, you know, in the summers, I spent a lot of time living with him. And he always had a job lined up for me. You know, it's like, hey, you're going to go over here and we're going to. [22:06] mow so-and-so's lawn this morning and we're gonna go over here we're gonna send you out to Ken's and you're gonna build some fence this weekend and [22:14] I always enjoyed it though. I enjoyed those guys. I was around and [22:18] You know, I'd work all day and then we'd sit around and they drink beer in the afternoon, tell me stories. And, you know, and even now, like I'm on my own place, you know, it's like I don't want to be building somebody else's fence, but I'm glad I know how to build my own. Right. Or things like that. And how this goes, I still love working around the house and doing little projects and things like that. I meet a lot of younger guys and kids that. [22:42] Sometimes I I [22:44] I guess I have an expectation that they know how to do that kind of stuff, you know? Right. They want to come over to the house and, [22:50] Help us in projects and stuff and I'm like, oh, yeah, cool. It'll just you know, I dug those holes and set up a string line and we'll set these posts and they're like, okay, and then after about a half hour, I look over and they're just kind of looking at the ground. I'm like, what are we doing here? You know, they're like, I don't have a clue what you want me to do. You know, that's hilarious. That's hilarious. But, uh.

[23:14] Yeah, it's wild. It's changed, man. Kids ain't out there mowing lawns no more, that's for sure. No, no. [23:21] Well, there's something about that kind of work, like putting in fences and [23:25] All the stuff that [23:26] you see the cowboys doing on Yellowstone and then hanging out together afterwards. That's so like viscerally appealing to people. There's something about watching that life. Like it's, [23:39] You would say it's like a simple, difficult life. [23:42] Maybe. I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, it's so appealing. So many people wanted to be cowboys after they watched your show. I think it's something that goes to you. Like you were talking about that guy living off the land and stuff like that. It's just – [23:58] Something that's been ingrained in us over thousands of years of survival. And we all have that in us still today. And we just, unfortunately... [24:07] Lose in touch with it because we're not doing it as much. And so when you get the opportunity to even just go plant a garden or something like that, I think that's it. It's in us, you know, and it's a it wakes up something within that's just been a little bit dormant for a while, you know, and I think you're right. You know, I think that's exactly what it is. [24:25] I think it is like it's in our memory, like the memory of our genes that this is like a pleasing life. This is a satisfying life. It's like that mama bear energy, you know, kids come. It's just like, oh, man, you know. [24:38] Yeah, yeah. It's there, you know? It's just like... [24:43] I realized that having kids, it's just like, oh man, it wakes something up within you that's always...

[24:48] been there, you know, that you were born to have, you know, that survival instinct and all of those things. [24:56] I still, that's what I still love about it. Like I even at home being on the road and being in big cities all the time and you're just surrounded with information and screens, man, as soon as I get home or get outside or get into nature, it just, it wakes that stuff back up in me and it. [25:11] I feel like it puts that spark back in my eye, you know. Yeah. I try to stay in tune with that as much as I can. [25:18] Well, it's clearly so appealing to people that don't experience it. I mean, how many people that are watching shows like Yellowstone never go into those areas, but they watch it like, oh, I want to live like that. We see the like prices of horses just skyrocketing. Like five grand and now you're like 50,000 bucks for it. [25:41] for a trail horse, you know, which is cool. You know, I hope people are enjoying that and getting something out of it. You know, I still... [25:49] I mean, I'm not running a bunch of cows these days, but I keep a few horses around, and especially for the kids, you know, and whether they want anything to do with them or not. Like, we enjoy so much in the afternoons, go up and feed them some carrots or brushing their tails and just being around that energy. My youngest little boy, he's just got some kind of mojo with animals, you know, and I've got this old mule here. [26:10] And her name's Honey, and she's got these big ears, and she's massive, you know. And I remember when he was like, [26:15] three or four I'd be looking around for him in the backyard and I'd look out in the pasture and he'd be out there with that mule and she'd have her head down and he's just out there petting her ears you know and just like his connection with those animals and then you know getting kids up to the house or from the city that aren't around those animals their first time around horses or maybe even dogs and stuff like that and you can see their

[26:39] They're so anxious and, you know, not maybe so scared, but they're just nervous, you know. These are big animals and stuff. And within, like, 20 minutes of just sitting them on their back or petting them, and you see them relax. And you see that energy kind of slow down. And I love that. You know, I think it's so magical to watch. Yeah, that's another relationship that's, like, primal, the relationship between people and horses. They do that with addicts. [27:09] depression they have them hang out with horses i think even me i still do i mean i i have get depressed and stuff like that or now and then and i love being around them i can walk out to the barn and just being around them and laying on their backs and it's just like ah yeah all right here we go just touching their head makes you feel better like hey yeah how are you honey what's happening they look at me yeah connect you know i get eye contact with them i think it's looking [27:39] and we took care of them it's like this ancient relationship and then when you're around them [27:45] that connection like immediately rebonds reestablishes i think it's in our dna i mean just think about like how many generations of humans had to survive on horseback before anybody invented anything else it's like if you wanted to travel faster than you could run it had to be a fucking horse yeah so that was probably thousands and thousands and thousands of years just cooked into our dna [28:08] And when you're around him, it's like, "Oh, my friend. This is my friend." It's waking it back up. Yeah, it's weird. It's there, yeah. It's weird that stuff is in you. That nature stuff is in you. I mean, that's why we like watching shows like this Clay Guy. I love that too. I love that Steve Rinella show, "Meat Eater." I like watching that with my kids. Aren't you friends with Remy Warren? Oh yeah, real good friends. He ended up being my neighbor when I was in Montana working on Yellowstone. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's crazy.

[28:36] You know, what I really liked up there was where they filmed the show. You know, it was kind of way out there southwestern Montana. A lot of folks that were working on the show would go back to Missoula in the cities. But I was like, man, I want to go get as far away out there as I can. And so I kind of went down this West Fork area that's on the... [28:55] Right on the edge of the most massive wilderness areas out there that goes into Idaho. [29:00] And the road I was on, you know, it was paved dirt. Then it dead-ended and it turned into a dirt road. And then I got this cabin. It was just way back up and there was no Wi-Fi, no nothing, you know. And I just... [29:12] just disappeared out there. [29:15] and [29:16] Ended up meeting some folks, and Remy was just right down the road going towards Sula. And so I got the chance to just go over there and hang out with him and go stomp around the mountains with him. He's such a cool dude. Remy's the best. Just, you know, like you're talking about going to Alaska. You know, I love going into those places, but, like, you want somebody like that with you when you go. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, he knows how to get around. Yeah. And he used to have a great show. [29:46] much more difficult than just hunting. He would carry tripods with him and shit and set it up and make sure the camera's on the animal before he would shoot it and then film himself. [29:57] Filming himself moving up to there, set up different cameras so they could show him executing the shot. I'm like, God, that's so complicated. He's a beast, man. Just trying to keep up with him, you know, just walking around the mountains with that guy. I'm like, oh, man, wait up. I'm coming. Yeah, they get that mountain cardio. Yeah, he's like a mountain goat.

[30:16] Well, you know, he hunts probably 200-plus days a year. Yeah. And on top of that, he does a lot of guiding. And when he's doing guiding, he's, like, always in the mountains, always hiking. It's like you just get conditioned to it. Yeah, he's fit. I went to Hawaii with him and did an axis hunt over there. Cool. One of the coolest things I ever did. And I got this buck, and we would load him up in the truck and all that. And he was like, man, I'll meet you guys back at camp. You know, and it was dark already. [30:46] And we're just steep mountains up and down. And I said, you're just going to meet us back? He's like, yeah, I'll meet you back. And he just put on his backpack and just took off running. And we drove down this mountain road to go back. And he beat us there about like a half an hour. And that was his workout. He's like, yeah, it's part of my workout. I'll meet you guys back there. I was like, oh, you're an animal. That's funny. Axis deer in Hawaii is very interesting. [31:10] Because they were given... [31:13] to King Kamehameha, [31:15] in like, [31:16] I don't remember what year it was. Find out what year they got introduced there, but they're everywhere now. I've gone to Lanai a bunch of times. That's where we went. Yeah, it was wild. There were thousands of them everywhere. You're trying to sneak up on a group of 10 and then you don't even realize there's like 100 right here laying down that you didn't even see. And then they get up and spook the rest and stand. Well, you know, you've been there. Okay, it was in the 1800s. A gift to Kim Kamehameha. [31:45] from India.

[31:47] And there's 30,000 of them in Lanai and only 3,000 people. [31:52] I mean, it's crazy. We're laughing. It's the only place where you can go hunting, bow hunting, and you stay at the Four Seasons. Right? I think Riffy said he got kicked out of there, though, because he was hunting so much. And, you know, all that red clay there, you know, on your boots and stuff. He said, so the whole hotel was just like red clay everywhere. The fridge is just full of meat, you know, like blood dripping out. They kicked him out of there? Oh, I don't know if they kicked him out. Oh, that's hilarious. He's like, well, maybe we ought to go find somewhere else to stay, you know. Well, just take off your boots before you come inside. [32:22] That's all it is. But yeah, it's that weird red clay. And it all used to be part of the Dole pineapple plantation. So when you're around there, one of the things you notice is like there's layers of dirt. But then there's like almost looks like plastic bag underneath it, like a like a hefty bag from all the farming. Yeah. So I guess they had a layer of like that kind of. [32:44] Whatever the fuck a... [32:46] hefty bag is made out of whatever that plastic is and then the dirt was on top of that somehow and then the pineapples would grow up through it i said to keep moisture and stuff like that in the ground yeah i would imagine but it's it's it's disconcerting because it doesn't feel like nature it feels weird it's like it does weird there's plastic everywhere in the ground yeah [33:04] Then you get in the mountains and those old World War II turrets and stuff that are up there. Did you come across any of that? I mean, it's just like, first of all, hunting Axis deer in Lanai. You get up on the top and you're surrounded by the ocean. I mean, what a trip. I know. Just seeing that and then coming across all those old relics and just all the history there. It's just something to take into. We are laughing because obviously they're trying to control the population of the Axis deer there.

[33:34] Just get a couple of Bengal tigers out here. Exactly. That'll thin out the population. Thin out the population of people, too, unfortunately. Yeah. The thing about them is that they did evolve around tigers. That's why they're so fast. Like, they'll jump a string faster than any animal I've ever seen in my life. I have a video of me shooting at an axis deer at 80 yards, and we have a slow-mo of the arrow. That's a long shot, yeah. So as the arrow's coming, it's a perfect shot within... [34:02] Ten yards of him, he hears it and he's gone. [34:09] It's the craziest thing. Like you look at it, you're like, how the fuck did he move that fast? This thing's going at least from the actual like leaving the bow, it's going 275 feet per second. [34:21] Yeah. And he can get out of there within 10 yards. Within 10 yards, he's hearing it coming. [34:27] And he's like, see ya. And nowhere near him. He was a foot in front of, the arrow landed a foot behind his ass. [34:35] That's how fast they move. Yeah. It's crazy. [34:38] How long did you go there for a while or just kind of like a few times trips? Yeah. We found that the best time to hunt is actually in the afternoon because in the afternoon, it's really windy. And when it's really windy, it covers your sound a little bit. Okay. The morning's rough. Yeah. The morning's rough. Like the morning, I got a couple of them in the morning, a couple of times morning hunting, I got a deer. [35:01] A lot of blown stalks. You've got to walk super slow. You've got to be real cautious. And, again, there's a lot of high brush, and you don't know where the fuck they're hiding. Yeah. You've got to kind of find a pinch point. Yeah, you jump one, and then the rest of them sound off. The way they bark and all of that's pretty crazy, too. Yeah, it's weird. It's a weird noise. What you've got to kind of do is find where they're going to be and just wait. Because they travel so much. They do so much moving.

[35:31] You're almost better off just staying put. Just staying put and wait for them because they're moving all over the place. There's so fucking many of them. It's crazy. [35:41] It's amazing how unsuccessful people are bow hunting them. Rifle, it's a... [35:47] done deal. If you want meat, and it's the best meat in the world, it's so delicious. For the people that live there, it's incredible. I mean, they have access to the best meat in the world. 100% they're going to get a deer. And so, if you have a... But if you have a boat... [36:01] We went there and then, so I went with Remy, I went with John Dudley, Cam Haynes, and Adam Greentree. All seasoned bow hunters. Yeah. Everybody got a deer and we made a podcast about it. We had a good old time. They had 150 people go over the next year and one was successful with a bow. Yeah. That's crazy. You take your chances, yeah. That's how hard it is. [36:27] Because it's like these fuckers are dialed in, man. And they move. A lot of people chasing them, too. They know the game, right? 365 days a year they get hunted. There's no season. And then they have snipers that are after them at night because they use it for meat for the restaurants and meat for people. And they just have to control the population. There's so many of them. And no predators. Yeah. And still can't thin them out, right? I know. It's crazy. I think they got a good head start. They eradicated them from the big island. [36:56] Oh, did they? Yeah. Somebody tried to reintroduce them or introduce, I should say, to the Big Island. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We know where this is going. He's going to destroy people's crops and destroy people's gardens. Take over. And they already have plenty of wild pigs on the Big Island, so they just whacked them all, unfortunately.

[37:15] It's kind of like the pigs here in Texas, right? Crazy. And it got wild. I don't know. Growing up here when I was younger, I'd never remember them being like how they are now. This episode is brought to you by Dodge. The new Dodge Charger scat pack is built for people who still believe driving should be exciting. You want to talk about performance? Let's start with a twin-turbo six-pack gas engine. [37:45] and a top speed of 177 miles an hour. Woo! Unlike vehicles that make you choose between traction and attitude, the Dodge Charger Scat Pack comes with standard all-wheel drive and a selectable rear-wheel drive mode so you can get confident handling when you want it and the freedom to still be able to do burnouts. Available in both two-door and four-door models, [38:15] It's loud. It's fast. It's powerful and unapologetically Dodge. Learn more at Dodge.com. Dodge is a registered trademark of FCA US LLC. This episode is brought to you by SimpliSafe. One thing you probably don't think about when you're planning the perfect summer getaway is protecting your home. But if disaster strikes, you want to be prepared. Even better, if it can be stopped before it happens. So check out SimpliSafe.

[38:45] when it comes to home security because their systems help prevent and stop crime in real time before it starts. There's also no long-term contracts and no technician appointments. You can get a custom system and set it up in one afternoon by yourself or even sooner. It's one of many reasons why millions of people continue to trust and use SimpliSafe. [39:15] discount. Right now, you can get 50% off your new system by visiting simplisafe.com slash Rogan. That's half off at simplisafe.com slash Rogan. There's no safe like SimpliSafe. They don't stop. They have three or four litters a year, and each litter has, I think they can have as many as six piglets. That's crazy. They just, and they can get pregnant six months old. At six months old, [39:45] Tearing shit up. Yeah. We have a lease out here for hunting land, me and some of my friends. And the amount of pigs is disturbing. It's like you hear them everywhere. You hear them in the bushes. They're all over the fucking place. It's like most of Texas probably that's not like city has wild pigs in it. Mm-hmm. [40:08] It's just like fucking taking over, man. And it all came over on boats. Yeah. That's how it all got here. Is that how they all got? Yeah. Yeah. It's important to men. Yeah, guys from Europe, they brought boats in the boats. Some of them brought pigs, and then they let them loose. It's crazy, man.

[40:25] Thank you. [40:26] Tearing stuff up. Yeah, I don't ever remember them being as bad as they were in the last 15 years or so. It's actually bad in California, too. And California has them from William Randolph Hearst. Didn't they eradicate them off the Channel Islands out there? I think so. I think the islands, and they had mule deer on some of the islands out there, too, right? [40:47] I forget which island had mule deer. [40:50] But apparently they had like a... [40:52] You could go hunt. [40:54] on one of these islands. Yeah, I think you might still be able to, like, on Catalina or a couple, but maybe not Santa Cruz. Do they really allow us to? They did, because I know my... [41:04] My buddy Matt, he did it like maybe the last year or the year before, but I think they're trying to put a stop to it and kind of stop it. Those Channel Islands are pretty interesting. I remember first moving out there, even just going out there 15 years ago and – [41:19] seeing the islands out there, you know, and I'd ask people all around. I was like, man, what's the deal with these islands out there? And half the people that I would talk to be like, what are you talking about? Islands. And I'm like, that island right out there, they're like, oh, I thought that was Long Beach, you know? I'm like, really? I was like, have you looked at a map, you know? I love maps. So I started, you know, doing some research and figuring out all about it. And they're really cool. And over the years, I've met some really cool guys go out [41:49] to go out there to him and [41:50] Besides Catalina, like Santa Cruz and San Miguel, they're all nature preserves and protected. So it's like going back in time when you get out there. And I love it out there. It's such a cool spot. Are they trying to eradicate deer from Catalina?

[42:07] I think I've read something about that. [42:10] See if that's true. [42:12] I think they're trying to remove the deer because they said the deer were non-native to the island. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's what they did with the hogs, and I don't know. There's like a specific island fox out there. Yeah, here it is. As of early 2026, California officials have approved a controversial plan to fully eradicate the non-native mule deer population on Santa Catalina Island to restore the ecosystem. [42:42] ground-based hunters to protect native biodiversity. [42:46] Come on. [42:49] That sounds crazy. How about just let people hunt them? [42:52] What the fuck's wrong with you? So the issue is Catalina Island Conservancy considers the mule deer an invasive species that disrupts the ecosystem as they consume native plants and seedlings while spreading fire-prone invasive grasses. [43:09] Really? Really? [43:11] I just always worry about... [43:15] conservancies and their [43:16] their judgments on things like that because there's a lot of they want to eradicate all the pigs from texas or the uh from california rather they think of them as non-native and they want them out too but [43:29] You're not going to. They want to eradicate D. There's like... [43:33] elk in California that are Yellowstone elk that were brought there in the 1950s. They want to eradicate them. Like the Thule elk? No, they're actually Rocky Mountain elk. Oh, okay. They're a larger breed of Rocky Mountain elk. They're called Yellow, apparently. Like in the Sierras? Or down along the coast? Tachapi. Tachapi, yeah. Up in that area, in those mountains. Big fucking elk. 400 inch elk.

[44:03] those elk out there that are in the front that's what they're from there's that's that's there those are massive yeah that's from tahon ranch okay yeah and oh yeah it's like going up over the grapevine exactly that's where you got those uh-huh wow i had no idea that they were that big out there it's all it's the biggest private ranch in california it's like 270 000 acres i've heard of the ranch but i didn't know that they had elk like that up there yeah yeah one of the rare places gorgeous fucking place [44:30] But they also go up. It's kind of funny. They go up to, there's a golfing community higher up in Tatchpe. And... [44:39] the elk just hang out on the golf course. I just turned it up. Giant elk, like 400-inch elk, just chilling, hanging out together on the golf course. And dudes are playing golf. [44:50] That's wild. While they're lying down next to them like 20 yards away. It's crazy. I saw some one time I was driving up the coast. I think I was going up to San Francisco to play a gig. Maybe they're the tule elk. I'm not sure what they were, but I was along the coast there and I looked over in the field and it was like, [45:07] 30 head of them just laying down over there. I'm like, oh man, I didn't even know there were elk down here. It's just, I love seeing wildlife that in unexpected places, you know? Yeah. They recently just found a wolf in Los Angeles. Or unexpected for me anyway. [45:22] Oh, really? Yeah. See if you can find the story about that wolf that they just discovered in Los Angeles. There's a mama bear, black bear, with three cubs running around in Topanga. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of those. A lot of lions running around.

[45:37] there's a lot of bears. I've seen them in Pasadena in people's pools. I knew there was a bunch out in Pasadena in Glendale. Wolf detected in Los Angeles County for the first time in more than a century. [45:51] crazy. [45:54] Isn't that nuts? Yeah. Those guys can fucking travel. I had a lady on who was a wolf biologist, and she was talking about, like, the... [46:04] They would collar some of these wolves, and they would track them. They would go 500 miles. Yeah. [46:09] Like... [46:09] It's kind of insane. I didn't know that. Yeah. That's incredible. Well, that's how they learned about them. It's really the only way to tell is to put a collar on them and track them by GPS. [46:20] You know, they mean... [46:21] They're extraordinary animals. Where were they originating from in... [46:26] Montana, Wyoming, and where were they going, the ones that they were tracking? I think the ones that they were tracking were the part of the group that was brought in. [46:34] you know, in the 1990s, you know, so there was that pack and the subsequent packs that came after that. There were all the reintroduced wolves. [46:43] dart and collar, some of them. And when they would do that, they would just track their motion. They're like, Jesus. Covering some ground. [46:53] They're covering some ground. It's interesting, too, that they actually make mountain lions kill more deer. [47:00] Good competing with them. Yeah, because the mountain lions kill a deer and then the wolves will steal it. [47:05] Oh, okay. So they'll come up on the mountain lion and they'll surround them. And the mountain lion will go, fuck this, I'm out of here. And he'll just go kill another deer. So he doesn't even get a chance to eat his deer because the wolves keep stealing his deer. They keep tracking the lions, probably just following them around. They're smart, man. Let them do the dirty work, yeah. They do. They let them do the dirty work and then they steal their food. Work smarter, not harder, huh? What does it say? The wolf that they found? Yeah, this is from February when they first spotted it. So the wolf was born in 2023, Plumas County's, where's Plumas County?

[47:35] more than 370 miles. Wow. [47:38] including crossing State Route 59 near Tachapi. There you go. They had one up in Tachapi, too, that a buddy of mine, it was actually closer to the city that's down there. What's that fucking city? Bakersfield? Bakersfield, exactly. Wildlife officials now estimate at least 60 wolves live in the state. Wow. One crossed over in... [48:02] 2011. Wow. From California, from Oregon. So, uh... [48:08] So they find him in the Tatshiki Mountains. [48:10] Interesting. [48:12] Biologists told newspapers that she could encounter a mate in the nearby region such as Tatchpe Mountains, potentially forming a new pack, or continue to roam. What was that picture you just had of the elk? Yeah, that's that golf course. Look at that. [48:26] Giant fucking elk chilling on the golf course. On the flag. Yeah, look how beautiful that is. God, it's so pretty out there. Massive elk. Oak Tree Country Club. Perfect sanctuary for them, right? Oh, yeah, man. [48:42] the coolness of playing golf. I mean, you're playing golf around giant, beautiful animals. I bet those greenskeepers love them though. They probably fuck up all kinds of things out there. Yeah. The wolf thing is interesting because they just brought them back to Aspen, and they did a really stupid thing. They brought them into an area where it has a lot of livestock, and they brought them in from a place in Oregon where these...

[49:09] wolves had all been captured because they were killing agriculture. Yeah. So what did they do? They captured them and they... [49:16] Dropped them off in Colorado where they started killing cows again. In the National Park. They just do it. Well, it's on people's – my friend's ranch. One of them, they dropped three wolves off on my friend's ranch. That's tough, man. I've heard that even with the bears and stuff. You know, you get some problem bears or whatever, and then they go drop them out where – [49:33] Farmers and rancids are living inside man. How's that gonna work? [49:37] Well, it's the people in charge of these things and making these decisions. They don't understand what they're doing. They're monkeying around with. [49:44] wildlife [49:45] nature, biology, and you don't know what you're doing. You have no idea. Also, how the fuck are you in good conscience take a wolf that's used to killing cows and put them around other people's cows? Yeah, it's already programmed. The dinner bell is ringing. It knows exactly how to do it. It knows it's easy. They're all fenced in. [50:05] They taste delicious. Why would it stop? Or why would it go chase? [50:10] Chase tougher prey, right? So now these poor ranchers have to have people monitoring their cows 24-7. They have to have cowboys up all night that are wandering around and on horseback and just looking for wolves. [50:25] I mean, it's a disaster. It's tough. They've killed dozens of cows. And these are folks that, you know, have been... [50:30] like we said surviving on this land for generations and dealing with that and you know [50:36] Have a history with managing that stuff. You know, it would probably be the folks I'd want to ask. Yeah. Of how to handle it, you know. Well, they would certainly tell you, don't let the wolves in. And if you do, kill them. You know, but now it's gotten to the point where I think they're going to have to do something about them. Will they put a hunting limit on them, you think?

[50:59] That would... [51:00] Probably do something, but really what you should do is hire someone to recapture them. [51:05] And don't drop them off there. Don't drop them off in fucking Aspen, you idiot. Because they're going to eat people's poodles too. They don't give a shit. If they run out of cows, if somehow or another ranchers scare them away from the cows and they make it into the town of Aspen, you don't think they're going to eat your golden retriever? They're going to eat all kinds of dogs. They eat dogs in Alaska all the time. Yeah. [51:26] Yeah, I hear a lot of the lions and stuff, man, coming after your kids. Yeah. There's been stuff at Malibu Creek Park. I've heard a couple of incidents there hit. It's like, man, they're going to go eat something. Especially when they're old. Yeah. When they get old. They can't catch a deer anymore. They're hungry and they haven't eaten in a few days. Then they see a kid hanging around a little too close to the outside of the woods. I got a big one that comes right by my house. [51:56] I got a little fountain right in the front. It doesn't come around when I'm there because we got the dogs, you know, a lot. But whenever I'm out of town for weeks at a time, I'll come back and that sucker's just laying on my front porch. Whoa. Just massive. And then the other day, a friend of mine was taking the trash out and it was just like... [52:14] around lunchtime and it jumped over the fence into the driveway and had a dead rabbits in it, dead rabbit in its mouth, just looking at her, you know, and she's like, [52:22] holy shit they're there you know so every time i'm even walking around by myself or with the dogs you're just like man sucker just be in a tree looking at me right now yeah you're just living with monsters yeah

[52:33] Whoo! You're there. [52:35] California spent more than $100 million trying to make a bridge. [52:41] over, I forget which freeway it is. [52:44] I think it's the 101. Is it the 101? I think you're right. [52:48] So they spent over $100 million and it's still not done. Oh, my gosh. For a bridge. A bridge for the mountain lions. Like, you fucking dorks. Fuck. [52:59] It's like this idea of like it's going to be a bridge, but it's going to have dirt and grass on it. So it will encourage them to walk across so they don't have to go over the highway and die. It's a bit nicer than the roads we're driving on. Yeah. Well, $110 million is crazy. And it's still not even done. [53:18] It's so crazy. [53:20] So that's what it... [53:21] Early 2026. That's like going up to Ventura, right? Yeah. So they want to have this big dirt mound and this bridge so the animals can get across the highway. [53:33] But it's just like, it's so goofy. [53:36] And they never want people to do anything about the population of mountain lions. Regardless of how out of control they are, they don't do anything about it. They have to hire people. The state has to hire people to go and get the bad mountain lions, the ones that are problems. Yeah. And when they capture them, one of the things they find out is they actually kill them, right? So one of the things they find out when they examine their diet, it's like 50% pets. Yeah. [53:59] 50% dogs and cats. That's what your mountain lions are eating. That's crazy.

[54:03] Yeah. [54:05] And they spend money, like a lot of money, [54:07] going after these mountain lions. [54:10] And instead, they could make money by letting people hunt these mountain lions and giving them tags and control the numbers. In that place, Tejon Ranch, one of my buddies works there. And they have a trail camera set up on a pond. And they found 16 different cats that were drinking out of that pond. Oh, my gosh. That's insane. I was like when I first started going out there, too, the coyotes, you know, and even around like in Hollywood and stuff. [54:40] down the street with a pair of sunglasses on and a gold chain. Eating better than any of us. When I went there in 94, that was the first time I ever saw a coyote. I couldn't believe it. I was staying at the, you know they have those furnished apartments, the Oakwood furnished apartments? Oh, no, not really. It's like temporary. Like for people that are like, [55:00] Don't have a house yet, and you've got to move to California quick. They have this place called Oakwoods, and you go in there. It's already got a couch. It's already got a TV. It's already got a bed. You're like, okay. Like an Airbnb type of thing? Yeah, almost like you just move in. And I was driving up to the entrance to the place, and I see these little dogs on the street. I was like, what the fuck is going on? These dogs. [55:20] That ain't no dog. I was like, oh, my God, they're coyotes. Like, this is weird. And so this is like 94. I had never seen a fucking coyote. I never heard of a coyote being out just wandering in the street. I just couldn't believe it that they just wander around on the concrete.

[55:39] Man, they're everywhere. I feel like I've seen more there than anywhere. You see them more in town than you do anywhere else. Yeah. Well, they have large populations of them in downtown where they know where they den up. They den up in certain warehouse buildings. Okay. Like abandoned buildings and under bridges and freeways and stuff. Yeah. They live there. They probably keep the rat population. Nature will take back over one day, won't it? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. [56:05] I think they probably keep the rat population in check, though. Yeah? [56:09] If you think about it. Yeah. [56:10] I keep a lot of other things in check, too. Right. Cats. Well, there's a terrible video from Woodland Hills a few years back where a guy was unloading his car and his toddler was out there in the grass. I saw that. And the coyote grabbed his toddler and tried to run away with his kid. Yeah, I saw that, man. [56:32] I'm always watching around for stuff. [56:34] with my our kiddos or just people around the neighborhood and stuff. You got to remind, remind yourself, you know, they're, they're there and they're not scared of you. You know, they're not afraid. I remember one of the first times I went up to Ojai, just north of LA, there, you know, I just wanted to go up there and go hike around and check out the area. [56:53] an archery shop up there. And I had this old guy, kind of looked like Charlie Daniels, just big overalls, big old beard, you know. And I walked in there and just to check out the shop and also just ask him about, you know, some areas to go stomp around in. [57:07] And I had a... [57:08] uh, Australian shepherd dog at the time. And, uh,

[57:12] Just ask him where, you know, good places go stomp around. He said, yeah, you know, you go up there. He goes, but I wouldn't take your dog with you. [57:18] I was like, really? Why? He's like, man, those lions are a real deal up here. You know? [57:22] And he's like, you, he goes, you won't see them, you know, until they're on you. You know? And I just, you know, I knew they're lying and stuff like that. But hearing it from, from that guy, you know, maybe he's trying to scare me a little bit, but you know, there's, it's a, it's a real deal. It's real. It's real. And they try to downplay it because the, all the wildlife lovers, all the greenies, they don't want you like setting the alarm and killing them. Yeah. [57:52] Their goal is to have all the animals just balance each other out. [57:56] So [57:57] I think it'll happen. You can't. Not with humans in the mix. No. The humans have interrupted that whole idea, right? So if you've got a city and then you've got – [58:06] wild giant predators, like 170-pound cats that are killing dogs. And they're like, you've got to control them. Can't manage one without managing the other, right? No. [58:17] And so the first thing they did to stop people from doing it is they banned hunting with dogs. So if you ban hunting with dogs, guess what? You basically – you're killing most of the hunting because the reality of mountain lions is you can't find them. They're really hard to find, really hard to catch, really hard to find. And the best way to control their population is to tree them and you get dogs to – because that way you know if it's a tom or if it's a female. You know if it's mature. You know what size it is. You have a really accurate –

[58:47] estimation, you can look up at it, oh, that's a mature tom, that's what we're looking to kill. And then you can control their population. That's the only way. Same with bears. It's a great way to control bears. Yeah, see what it is and decide if it needs to go or if it needs to stay, right? Yeah. [59:01] But they do little things to stop... [59:04] the effective hunting first. So California [59:08] You can still hunt for black bears, but you can't use dogs anymore. So as soon as they stopped the use of dogs, the amount of black bears they harvested went way down. So the amount of bears in the population went way up. Yeah, I don't think they've – I mean I know they've been around in Pasadena a lot, but I don't think there's been one in Topanga for a while. I mean I've been up there – [59:26] shoot almost 15 years and hadn't heard of one this is the first time that one's kind of made it over and into that that area that i know of anyway maybe up you know around the uh [59:37] Malibu Creek and those state parks. And depending on there's probably people feeding them. [59:41] Oh, 100%. I've got berries for you, my friend. Come. Giving them weed. [59:50] Some berries. [59:53] The bang is great, but it always catches me out if a fire catches. Oh, man. We got hit hard last year, as you know, the Palisades stuff. And, man, I didn't. [1:00:03] That was kind of it for me, too. I was like, I'm out. It's terrifying. I've evacuated out of there several times over the years, but I've got horses up there now and stuff like that. Luckily, I always keep a big truck and a trailer just in case. I've got some friends down in Burbank that have some stables that I'll have as a backup plan. But this was just a different deal. As a crow flies, I could see the smoke from the Palisades a mile away.

[1:00:33] in our arena there and smoke came up and [1:00:37] I was like, shoot, let's just go. Every time I see the smoke, I don't wait. I'm just like, we'll be the first ones out and beat the mad rush of everybody that's going to decide to try to stay. Loaded up the trailer and the truck and the camper and the dogs and all that stuff. I was like, let's go. My wife and I went down to Burbank. I remember we were driving through the night and the wind was just howling like, [1:01:01] I've never seen before and power lines are snapping and it's just like trees are coming down and it just felt like the end of the world, you know, and we get to Burbank and we pull back in these stables and there's a. [1:01:13] kind of a big cinder block wall and I just got as close to that as I could because it was blocking the wind you know from hitting us and [1:01:21] The next morning I woke up and I just my throat was sore and hurt and I could hardly breathe and I opened the camper door and the Altadena fire had started and it was right there. And so it was just a mountain of black smoke coming over the top of us there. And so let's go and let's get out here. Let's like head north and had some friends in Moore Park, you know, up in that area going towards Ventura that had horses. [1:01:44] trying to find some places to go with some horses and uh they're like yeah come on up here so we went up there stayed there a night and then they cut all the power off up in that area because the winds were snapping power lines and they were worried about fires and and you know after doing that a few nights and i was like let's just head east and go to texas you know so we just there's always so so many friends you can like show up with five horses and a bunch of dogs you

[1:02:14] Let's just get out of here and head back. And you didn't know when we were going to make it back. And they closed indefinitely or whatever. I was just like, man, I'm over it. I got evacuated a bunch of times when I lived there. But the last one was 2018. And when the last one, we got out early. I came home from the comedy store and we saw fire coming over the top of this hill. And it was probably like 1 o'clock in the morning. And me and my wife were sitting there. I go, what do you think? And she's like, let's get the fuck out of here. [1:02:44] Get the fuck out of here. Let's just grab some shit and maybe it'll come this way. Maybe it won't. So it didn't burn the house down, but my neighbors, the front three neighbors all lost their house. And my next door neighbor, his roof caught on fire. But my friend who refused to leave, he stayed in the neighborhood and protected his house and guided firefighters. He brought the firefighters to that house and showed them that it just started on this guy's roof and they hosed it down. They stopped it in his tracks, but it was pretty fucking bad. [1:03:15] It's wild because you know it's going to burn. I mean, it's not a matter of... [1:03:18] You know, if, it's just when. And I mean, that's, that's canyons have been burning like that for thousands of years. And even the Chumash were setting them on fire on purpose to get ahead of it, right? And controlling all of that stuff. And now there's just so many houses and communities back up in there. It's just a, it's a tough thing. But when they, when they hit, man, it's, they just... [1:03:38] They're rolling through how fast they come through. Those Santa Ana winds are blowing like that. It's just very surreal in person. You can watch it on the news and you kind of get a feeling of it. But when you're there and you're driving down the 101 and you look at the side of the highway and you see like these hills in the distance that are just covered in fire. Hundreds of yards of fields of fire just making their way over the top of this hill and burning houses.

[1:04:08] I'll say this thing will start. You know, from our house, there's kind of a little mountain that comes up on the back. And I hiked up there and was watching it. And you could see the smoke. And then you could, like, start seeing little flickers of the flames. And then it was just like somebody dumped gasoline on this thing. And, I mean, the flames shot up. [1:04:27] hundreds of feet into the air and My wife was on the balcony, you know the house and I'm kind of up on this little mountain. I'm looking over looking in her eyes I'm like start packing up I'll go hook up the horse trailer. I'll be upset. Let's load up and just and you know the wind was blowing and [1:04:46] like offshore then you know so the fire is like on the coast you know [1:04:51] And just depending on how that wind is blowing, you know, at the beginning it was blowing offshore. [1:04:57] And then within half an hour, it just shot up the coastline and just ripped up through Malibu and burned all that coast. Like, that's the stuff that you always thought was the safest. Right. You know? Yeah. And then the next day, the wind shifts coming back on shore, and it blows it back towards Burbank, you know, going back up like the fourth up that way. And then the winds are shifting again and then coming back across, you know, so – [1:05:22] I was amazed at some of the fires that I've been through, seeing the firefighters up there. Those guys are incredible, man. Those helicopter pilots, the airplane pilots, seeing those tankers fly through there. [1:05:35] It's just incredible what those guys can do. I mean, they saved that whole canyon.

[1:05:41] Yeah, Topanga at least. It's like, man, there's so much brush in there that probably needs to burn. It's been accumulating over years and cutting those fire breaks and seeing them drop the retarded on the ridge lines and stuff and watching the wind. It's just like, man, I... [1:05:57] hats off to those guys. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, think about the amount of damage that was done in that fire and how much more would have been done if it wasn't for the firefighters. That's how crazy it is. Yeah. [1:06:10] Yeah, it is. And I met one of the helicopter pilots. I was on a flight somewhere. And we just happened to be sitting next to each other and we were talking about it and just... [1:06:20] you know, learning from him, you know, about, you know, the thermals that come up from underneath and trying to hold those, you know, [1:06:27] helicopters and you know [1:06:29] in formation and all of that stuff and how heavy they are when they're full. Right. And then as soon as you release all that water, whatever's in them, all of a sudden the power that they got, the throttle's full throttle, when they're loaded down and then they drop all that water and trying to get back a hold of it. Oh, I never even thought of that. [1:06:47] And then you got 90-mile-an-hour winds blowing. [1:06:53] And I could see them from the house. There would be like two or three helicopters that would come in, start dropping water, and then they would move out. And then the planes would come in and then helicopters back in. And then you had the guys on the ground trying to contain it as well, just the coordinated effort between them. I can imagine the conversations there. Yeah. Hey, man.

[1:07:17] that they didn't have the reservoirs ready. [1:07:19] Oh, dude, it's so sad. [1:07:21] I had Spencer Pratt on. You know, he's running for mayor now. He was explaining it, like how bad it was. Yeah. Yeah. [1:07:28] How do you fuck that up that bad? [1:07:31] It's devastating to hear that it's like... [1:07:33] You know that that stuff's coming. Yeah. You know? It's just – To not be prepared for that. It's just unacceptable. Complete incompetence. Yeah. Just complete total incompetence and yet they still are there. Yeah. Like you're definitely not good at the job. Gosh. And yet – [1:07:52] You don't take any personal responsibility. [1:07:55] And blame everybody else. And the problem... [1:08:00] It's just fucking – it's a problem that happens every few years. You're going to get fires, period. The fact that you don't have a full reservoir is crazy. It's crazy. You should dump all your resources into fixing that fucking reservoir stat. Get that shit filled up. I feel like the residents are more prepared than anybody because I think they just got to where you can't depend on it. [1:08:22] I know our neighbors and stuff have a pretty good program in place. We all all get together [1:08:28] talk about, you know, who's got fire hoses and swimming pools with access to water and where [1:08:33] you know evacuation plans or you know there's some folks that uh will have horses but they don't even have a horse trailer up there and you know i'm like okay i'll come get yours too or whatever you know you know we we need to do and um you kind of just have to have that mentality i think you know yeah definitely definitely it's you know what's really freaking me out about like the palisades is what is in the ground now

[1:08:59] How much toxic shit got melted into that ground? Because think about how many people have electric cars now. [1:09:06] Well, all those old houses, too. You know what I'm talking about? Right. The materials that they're made out of, asbestos or lead. I mean, the stuff in the air that was, even if you, you know, you were several miles away from the actual fires, the wind and blowing all the ashes and the smoke and all that stuff over. I remember going back up in there, you know, weeks and just trying to get stuff out of the house or whatever when they'd let us back up. And you could still, it would just make your throat hurt, you know, breathing that air and stuff. Right. [1:09:36] It's not just wood fire. No. No. Like chemicals. Yeah. Wood fire is hard enough, but the chemicals, burnt TVs and computers and hard drives and electronics and refrigerators. Treated lumber. Yeah. All that shit's going to get in your groundwater. Like it's on the surface. It's going to rain. It's going to seep through. [1:10:00] Like, what happens to the water? Is anybody checking the water out there? No, you've got to imagine. I doubt it. Especially like Topanga. I bet a lot of folks have wells. Yeah. [1:10:10] Don't you think? I think there's some. You know, it's definitely all, like, on septic up there, too. You know? Right. I mean, all of the building code stuff's got pretty crazy up there. I don't know. It's a mess. I would just worry about even breathing the air that has the dust of all that shit in it. Mm-hmm. Like, yeah. [1:10:28] I probably wouldn't want to live there anymore.

[1:10:30] If I was in a place where all the houses burnt to the ground and I knew there was toxic shit in the ground, I'd be like – [1:10:36] Hey, let's get the fuck out of here and sell our house to China. [1:10:41] Oh, man. Because that's the other thing Spencer said. They're the ones who are the number one land buyers. It's China. Is it going to be a golf course resort up there before we know it? [1:10:52] Who knows? Yeah. Or affordable housing. Yeah. One or the other. I don't know either. I don't know, but it's just I really – [1:11:00] Wonder what the long-term damage of all those chemicals in the ground is it has to be pretty high and [1:11:07] Gotta be. I don't know. I was talking to some friends of mine out the other day that have grown up there, lived out there their whole lives, and going over to the Channel Islands. They've got those oil... [1:11:17] platforms out there in the water and there's been oil spills obviously throughout there through history and But also like when you're surfing and stuff like that, there's oil that's been on top of the ground. It's just like so surface level It's been there for millions of years, you know, and so I [1:11:33] I don't know. It's like I'm sure all the toxic stuff that happens, how long does it take for it to dilute? There's not much rain or the wind. [1:11:43] I'm not an expert on it, but I feel like Mother Nature takes pretty good care of herself. We're the ones in trouble, right? Right. Mother Nature has sorted it out over time, but I just don't know how good it's going to be for the people that live there. It can't be the long term.

[1:12:03] He said, I think what they're going to do is take all the dirt out of their backyard and then replace the dirt. [1:12:09] And I'm like... [1:12:10] Mmm, okay. [1:12:12] I don't know if that's enough. Yeah. Because what about his dirt? What about your neighbor's dirt? What about all the toxic shit that's in his dirt that's going to get down into your ground as soon as it rains? And also the air. Along with all the roundup and everything else is coming down. Yeah. You know, it's... [1:12:28] it's just it's uh [1:12:31] It's sad, man. That's just the state of it. It seems like it's so far of a mess that even the folks that do have answers that do want to fix stuff, it just becomes impossible for... [1:12:44] for any solution, you know, it's like all the red tape and all the hoops and things and all the permits or whatever, like you can't even, you know... [1:12:53] The road's blocked. Okay, well, before we could even get somebody out here with a tractor to move the rocks, you've got to call 10 other people to get it approved and in the process. And then it's not, and it's like, that's the part. I'm just like, man, I wish I could just call Frank down the street with his bulldozer. We'll just go move this right now, you know, and it's like, you know. [1:13:12] Thank you. [1:13:12] This episode is brought to you by Blinds.com. Texas summers don't mess around with patio surfaces easily reaching 150 degrees, hot enough to make your backyard feel like a punishment. And if your windows are bare, indoor temperatures can go up 20 degrees. Get ahead of it with custom solar shades for your den and your patio from Blinds.com.

[1:13:42] but still have access to real design professionals. They'll even send free samples. Blinds.com has been doing this for 30 years, and they back everything with a 100% satisfaction guarantee so you can order with confidence. Right now, my listeners can get an exclusive 40% off when you spend $500 or more at Blinds.com and use the promo code ROGAN40. Limited time offer, Blinds.com, promo code ROGAN40. Rules and restrictions apply. [1:14:12] This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. When you're looking to hire, you consider someone's skills, experience, availability, but even more important than that is someone's enthusiasm. They should want to be there. Finding the right kind of motivation isn't as tough as you think. You just need ZipRecruiter. Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan. ZipRecruiter connects you with qualified candidates instantly, [1:14:42] latest feature puts the most interested ones at the top of your list so you can make sure you're speaking with the right people at the start use zip recruiter and find enthusiastic talent fast four out of five employers who post on zip recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day and now you can try it for free at zip recruiter.com slash rogan that's zip recruiter.com slash rogan [1:15:12] Zip Recruiter. Well, government has increased so much in California, and they just want more regulations so they can justify more government. And so they just regulate themselves to a place where people just want to leave. They just go, look, I can't fucking do this anymore. Let me get out of here. And it's expensive, man. It's so expensive to live there. Meanwhile, it's beautiful. It's such a great place. They fucked it up so hard. It's paradise. It's paradise. The mountains within, like...

[1:15:38] Two, three hours. Yeah. You can be in the Sierras. You can be in Joshua Tree National Park. You can go skiing and then swim in the ocean on the same day. It's gorgeous. Yeah. Beautiful places I've ever been. Yosemite. I mean, get out of town. You know? Incredible weather. Kern River. Yeah. Man, it's beautiful. But... [1:15:57] They got ruined. They got ruined with progressive politics and bureaucracy that just... [1:16:03] ramped up all the control they have over people to the point where you can't even buy flavored zins. [1:16:12] They banned blackjack. You can't have blackjack anymore. They just stopped blackjack in the casinos. They stopped flavored zins. They just regulated into oblivion. They're all these people that want to be the mommy of the world and tell you what to do. Like, fuck off. [1:16:33] with all your goddamn rules. You're just making your government bigger so you can justify all these fucking rules. And you need the rules for the government to sustain itself. So you just keep adding more rules and adding more government. [1:16:47] Yeah. We were reading about it the other day. Like, what was the number that California's government went up by, like, 24% and their population went up by, like, 1%? [1:16:57] I know. And now you're kind of running out of places to go. I forget what the actual numbers were that we found, but it's – [1:17:04] Yeah. I'm always looking for hideouts to kind of get away from. It's like, man, you find a spot to go to, you kind of don't want to tell nobody about it. I know, right? That's what I hear about West Texas. I think that's hard about Montana. When I first started going up there years ago...

[1:17:19] I mean, it was just such a... [1:17:21] And it still is. It's a paradise. It's just, you know, and I think that's probably what a lot of people are upset about. I lived up there. It's like, man, the secret got out a little bit, and I can understand that. I get it. I get it from that perspective. I got to let that go. Where's the next place, you know? The thing about Montana, though, or like Wyoming, another example, is that winter will thin the herd. It's like West Texas. Yeah. That's funny. Same kind of thing. Like, you know, Marfa and that area. [1:17:51] and all kinds of stuff and it was just ranches you know and you know local diners and stuff like that and um [1:17:59] you know, [1:17:59] I hear people going out there and buying houses and all that stuff. Then they go out there for like a week and they realize that the only thing open at night is the Dairy Queen. They're heading back to New York pretty quick. Yeah. You're right about Montez. Those winters will thin them out. The winter gets you. The winter is rough. It's cold. The first time I ever went hunting was with Rinella. That's where I got that mule deer that's on the table right there. [1:18:29] camping. And so we're sleeping on the ground and nine degrees. I'm like, bro, [1:18:33] how did these fucking people... And you also, you go by these old homesteads. So they were giving land out there for people. You can get a chunk of land, just start farming on it, and the government was encouraging people to move there. But it's all this, like...

[1:18:50] muddy ground like the ground is like mucky like when you hike in it after you know a while your boots are so heavy because they're just thick with this clay yeah just muck all over your boots and so it's not fertile it's not good like in the missouri breaks like that area it's not good for growing things so you find these abandoned homesteads it's really eerie yeah and you just [1:19:20] set up shop and maybe got killed by Indians. Maybe... All the way. I think about my family. I've got stories of them settling in New Mexico and... [1:19:31] you know coming out on a with on a covered wagon with maybe a steer and a pig and they're like yeah here's you a bunch of acres and you got to prove it up you know and um dig a hole in the ground is what they're living in a dugout you know and dig a hole in the ground that's where you're living and you try to build a ranch out of it and i always laugh i was talking to [1:19:51] family or my grandparents, I was like, "Why did y'all stop here?" You just thought you were so beat down, you were like, "Oh, this is the driest, flattest, [1:20:00] place, you know? But we're here, the most roughest, you know, I was like, it's only another... [1:20:06] thousand miles out to California or just keep going. They're like, nope, this is it. We're done. Yeah, I guess people didn't know what they were going to find if they kept going either. Like, you want to keep going for like another month? Oh, yeah. Just miles and miles of more desert and no water. Yeah.

[1:20:23] I mean, how long would that wagon trail take? Weeks. Even just like Missouri, Texas, and then out to – even like just going through West Texas to get to southeast New Mexico and all that. And you're – [1:20:37] That's just rough country, and people have always been tough out there to survive out there. [1:20:43] Yeah. You're a sitting duck. You're slow moving with a wagon pulling the horse. And you got all your shit in the wagon. And they're just looking at you from the hills. Yeah. [1:20:51] Yeah. [1:20:52] Wasn't glamorous. No. I know my, you know. [1:20:57] My granddad was a pretty tough old guy and as real a cowboy as you'd ever... [1:21:02] want to know or meet you know but he wasn't really one to ever brag or you know talk or fantasize or romanticize about the cowboy stuff you know because it it wasn't romantic [1:21:14] then you know it was survival and it was rough and it was work and you had no running water and i remember um [1:21:22] him having a conversation with this guy and he was like some like a tech guy you know he's been at all this [1:21:27] website shit or whatever and he's asking my granddad he said you know what's the most you know important invention of your lifetime and I think he was expecting my granddad to say like the computer or the internet and my granddad said refrigeration. [1:21:41] was the most important invention. When he was growing up, he was like, they had no way to keep their food cold. Other than like a root cellar, you kept it underground. [1:21:51] It was just a perspective, you know. I think everybody was surprised to hear it, yeah. Well, I think people are so accustomed to electricity and so accustomed to things like refrigeration. Yeah. They're just like... They're running water, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[1:22:03] I mean, when there was no refrigeration, you had to eat what you had, you know, like that day. And then the next day you had to get something else. Yeah. [1:22:12] and [1:22:13] Unless you... [1:22:15] knew a place that was an ice house, you know, that would get a giant chunk of ice and you could have an ice box and stick it in there and cool things. Like, you're fucked. Yeah. [1:22:26] You're on your own. Yeah. Well, you had to learn how to dry meat. That was a lot of it. [1:22:31] Make pemmican, dry meat, make things that will survive and last forever. [1:22:37] and [1:22:38] But that's also how market hunting almost wiped out all the deer in this country because people needed fresh meat every day. So they were just shooting everything that existed. Yeah. And then finally they started looking around and going, hey, we lost all the elk. There's no more deer left. Like, let's make some fucking regulations on this shit. And they stopped market hunting. Yeah. [1:22:59] I did not know that. Yeah. It's interesting. Beginning of the 1800s. [1:23:04] by, you know... [1:23:06] The time, I guess, when do they start doing regulations in terms of... [1:23:13] hunting regulations in this country. [1:23:15] Because obviously they wiped out [1:23:16] almost entirely the American bison. They were almost gone completely. And a lot of that was just for tongues. [1:23:24] Nah, man, that's crazy. Yeah, they would send them back east. They would pickle their tongues. Didn't Steve Rinaldo have a show on him? My buddy was telling me. He's got a great book, too. I haven't seen it yet. It's really interesting. He's talking about the history of the bison and hunting and all of that, yeah. Yeah, I think his book's called American Buffalo, but it's really good.

[1:23:43] First hunting regulations appeared in colonial laws in the 1600s, mainly as seasonal closed seasons for certain game-like deer. In terms of nationwide U.S. law, the first major federal game protection statute was the Lacey Act of 1900, which targeted commercial and market hunting and interstate trade in illegally taken wildlife. [1:24:06] Yeah, there was elk in every state. [1:24:08] And we wiped them out. And there was deer in every state. But now there's more deer than there ever has been before, which is interesting. [1:24:15] Thank you. [1:24:16] Congress passed the Lacey Act. [1:24:19] When modern regulations start, [1:24:21] So the 1900s. [1:24:23] Most states had game and fish commissions, hunting seasons, bag limits, and license requirements, all reinforced by federal laws like the Lacey Act and later Migratory Bird Protections. [1:24:35] Well... [1:24:36] It's amazing that they did that. We have an amazing system, too. [1:24:41] The fact that the United States has so much public land, there's so many different places where people can go and they can hike, they can whitewater raft, they can fish, they can hunt, they can camp. I mean we're unlike any country when it comes to that. It's like the amount of land that we have that's available to Americans that – it's public for everybody. It's fucking incredible. Being up in Montana, New Mexico is like that too and California. [1:25:11] in that wilderness area, like that little cabin that I stayed in, you know, probably didn't have much land

[1:25:16] with the cabin, but man, there's, [1:25:19] Thousands and thousands of acres of wilderness public land with dirt roads everywhere. And, man, I would... [1:25:26] On those days off that I had, I would just drive back in there for miles, man, and just see the most beautiful country. I'd haul my horse back in the way to the trailheads and just... [1:25:37] go explore stuff, you know, and you'd go over one ridge into the next, and there's a waterfall, and there's another drainage, and it's just like... [1:25:46] This is the wilderness area too. This isn't even a national park. Man, this is... [1:25:51] beautiful country as I've ever seen. Did you run in any Grizzlies? [1:25:56] I never did. I was always on my toes about it. Knowing Remy up there, he knew that area really well, so I'd ask him spots to go check out about bears and stuff. He said, "Man, there weren't too many grizzlies back in there, but you never know." Especially coming over from Idaho and stuff like that. I never did. I've run into some black bears, never into any wolves and all that. [1:26:22] I don't know, maybe being horseback too. I don't know. A lot of those places they never did. [1:26:28] I definitely had my eyes open. Yeah, that's another animal that they want to list again and make them available for hunting, particularly in Montana and Wyoming. They just have a lot of grizzlies. Yeah. They have a lot, and people don't want you to shoot them. They think of it as trophy hunting or whatever it is. It's tough, man. But, man, you live, like you say, like those folks that live back up in there. You know, all they have is their neighbors and people to depend on, you know.

[1:26:58] or something like that. That's what your experience is with them. [1:27:03] Everybody wants to keep them as pets until they're in the backyard with you. [1:27:09] They don't play by the rules. They don't play by the rules and they're 900 pounds. Good luck. [1:27:14] 900 pound giant [1:27:16] fucking wild animal that eats everything it can yeah even like that lion hanging around my house it's like man i've cool you're fine but why don't you go on down the road you know yeah i don't need you in my backyard the thing is that you can't do anything about it either in texas you could just shoot them yeah [1:27:34] Yeah, we don't have that problem. Yeah, that's how it should be. Like you shouldn't have wild monsters living in your yard. No. No. [1:27:42] You should have the right to decide that for yourself. 100%. Not only that, they're going to be fine. [1:27:48] There's still going to be plenty of them. Yeah. Okay, but it'll probably be a more healthy number if they get whacked whenever they eat someone's dog. Yeah, and have a healthy respect for coming in your backyard or coming after your animals or your kids. Yeah. They should understand that. [1:28:03] But just like we're so goofy. We make laws – [1:28:06] to protect them that don't protect us. [1:28:10] Like, help me out. Like, do you love animals more than people? Like, I love animals. But I'm on team people. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Everybody else is cool, but team people first. Yeah. You know, oh, we got monsters in our neighborhood? No, no, no, no, no, no. We got to kill the monsters so the kids can play outside. You don't have to worry about them getting eaten. Yeah, me too. I mean, growing up ranching or farming or whatever, I mean, that's your job is to take care of animals, you know? Yeah.

[1:28:40] It's, that's your job, I mean, to... [1:28:44] take care and provide for these animals to provide food for your family you know and um and the wildlife that's around it you know it's like and to take care of the land and the dirt and the water and the grasses and all of that stuff has to be supporting each other to make it all work you know and uh at the end of the day i just feel like we've just lost touch [1:29:05] It's cities. It's urban environments. It's unnatural environments that have given people this delusional idea of what our relationship is with nature. And, you know, people just think food comes from a restaurant. Yeah. And, you know, it's... [1:29:21] the ground is for streets and you drive sidewalks pave it all. It's all just this delusional perspective that comes from that sort of urban existence. [1:29:31] And I just think that's why people that live in the country and live in environments like Alaska, where you're confronted by nature, they're more interesting people. They're more robust. They're cooler. [1:29:45] Were you singing out there earlier that you rode bulls? [1:29:49] Mm-hmm. Yeah. [1:29:50] Don't. [1:29:52] How many times? Shoot, I started when I was a kid, you know, riding steers when I was like 10 in the junior rodeos. You were 10 years old and someone let you ride a fucking steer? Really? That's so crazy. It was like Little League Baseball, you know, when I grew up. [1:30:10] So a steer is a bull that doesn't have its nuts. Yeah. And so how much less do they kick when they don't have their nuts? Oh, they're pretty docile. Is this you? Oh, you found a video. How old are you here?

[1:30:22] This is, I was like 17. This is in Monterey, Mexico, actually. [1:30:27] Wow. [1:30:29] Why in Mexico? Look at you, dog. [1:30:33] Damn, that's crazy. [1:30:36] Damn, dude, you're good. [1:30:38] And you got off without getting stomped, too. Is it just knowing when to release? [1:30:43] Yeah, you got to know when to get off. That's for sure. And right there. Uh-huh. You're like, that's a wrap. [1:30:49] Yeah, he kind of bucked me off there. He kind of had me over to the side in the area, you know, but that's a good time to check out. There's like that gray zone, you know, either that or you hang on and you end up underneath them. You started out when you were 10 years old, though. How wild are your parents? Like, yeah, that's a good age. Yeah, well, they, you know, my, they ranched and grew up out there and my, my uncle rode bulls professionally and. Oh, really? Yeah. And, uh, that's kind of how I got into it, too. I looked up to him a lot and. [1:31:17] uh... [1:31:18] see pictures of him riding bulls and then it was just around and I was like I want to try that you know and and then I just got the bug for it like super young I was like just [1:31:27] ate up with it. Wow, from 10 years old, that's nuts. So how do you teach someone how to fall off of a bull without getting stomped when they're 10? [1:31:37] Well, when you're riding those little steers, a lot of times they cut bulls and turn them to steers because it makes them a lot more dosso. [1:31:44] Steers are typically like 600 pounds, 600, 700 pounds, compared to a 1,500-pound bull that's aggressive and back that wide and horns like that. They're like little steer. I remember my dad or uncle would get in the chute with me and hold their horns. They just kind of run out there and jump and kick and fall off on the side. Not too bad.

[1:32:14] and then all and then the harder they buck you know so there's kind of different levels you can progress as you as you go But it was a lot different deal back then when I was riding it was really before the PBR started You know there was no helmets. There was no vests. There was like none of that stuff. It was Just old-school rodeo, you know, but at the same time I [1:32:36] I say that, but it's evolved in such a sport now. The bulls are just so much ranker now than they were back then. It's like now they're breeding them like racehorses and the genetics where every one of those bulls bucks. You've got to go get on three or four of them in the night. Back when I was doing it, they were still kind of full rodeos with all the other events. Out of 15 or 20 bulls, there might be one or two in there that were like, [1:33:03] bad to get on that would hurt you you know the the rest of them were pretty rideable you know just to say so and [1:33:10] you know we're smoking cigarettes and drinking beer back behind the chutes so you know that kind of a thing you know we we weren't training and doing yoga and i like all these guys are today you know but i i loved it i had so much fun and i loved the road part of it you know get in the truck with your best buds and go down the road on the weekends and there's always a band playing and um you know it was just it was so much fun i loved the culture of it and [1:33:38] It's just good times. How many times do you think you've rode bulls? [1:33:43] I mean, I rode until I was about 23. From 10 to 23? Mm-hmm. Wow. That was all I ever wanted to do. Really? Yeah, I wanted to just ride bulls, yeah.

[1:33:53] and I [1:33:54] I rode in high school. I rode junior rodeos, rode bulls at high school. And then I went to Tarleton State and Stephenville. [1:34:01] and Road Bulls for Tarleton, and then I got my pro card for a couple of years. [1:34:07] And that was when, like, the PBR was, like, starting up and all of that. And... [1:34:14] Wow. It got intense. I just saw a picture of you backwards on one. What, Jamie? There's one picture I just lost. He was backwards on it. [1:34:20] Oh yeah, I was probably getting dusted. [1:34:24] Oh, no, that's not me. That's not backwards. That guy is riding backwards. It is. It is backwards. [1:34:30] I don't know if that's on purpose. [1:34:35] That seems like a ridiculous choice. He pulled it off if he did. What a terrible choice. [1:34:40] Yeah. [1:34:42] This episode is brought to you by Visible. How many of you are currently listening to this podcast on your phone? If you are chronically online, like most of us are these days, your wireless network should be too. With Visible, you get unlimited 5G and unlimited hotspot, all powered by Verizon's 5G network. The perks of big wireless for half the cost. [1:35:12] designed to keep you connected and no contract holding you back. Switch today at visible.com. Plan start at just $25 a month. Or get our premium Visible Plus Pro Plan and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code ROGAN, an exclusive offer for podcast listeners.

[1:35:35] This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Lots of places can accidentally expose you to identity theft. Doctor's offices, online retailers, insurance companies, the list goes on. Thankfully, LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity, which is way more than anyone could do on their own. LifeLock keeps an eye on your personal information, credit applications, finances, and more. [1:36:05] suspicious, like new loans or changes to your financial accounts, they'll alert you right away, all through text, phone, email, or the LifeLock app. Even better, alerts are automatically activated the moment you become a LifeLock member. No extra work on your part. Get the alerts that could make all the difference. Don't wait. Join LifeLock now. Visit LifeLock.com slash J-R-E and [1:36:35] dot com slash J.R.E. for 30 percent off terms apply. It was cool. I loved it, man. I loved it. [1:36:44] How do you go from that to anything else? [1:36:47] How do you stop riding bulls and eventually become an actor and a singer? It was all very much kind of a natural progression. Really? Since I was a kid at the junior rodeos, there was always a dance afterward and a band playing. It was very much a family, community deal. You'd go to these towns, and the rodeo was going on, and the street dance and food and music. Growing up listening to bands play, especially in Texas,

[1:37:17] guys like Gary P. Nunn, I remember [1:37:19] he always played the dance halls and you get robert o'kean and some of the you know growing here in those bands and um i moved to laredo texas when i was [1:37:30] like 16 or 17 when my dad and my mother bought me a guitar. [1:37:34] And I didn't know how to play it much. [1:37:38] walked into this place my dad was living at and he was playing dominoes with these guys and [1:37:42] This guy saw my guitar and he's like, "Yeah, you know how to play that thing?" I said, "No." He said, "Well, let me see it." And he picked it up and he played this killer mariachi song called La Malagueña. [1:37:53] And I was just fascinated with it. I was just like, wow, like, [1:37:55] Can't believe you made that guitar sound like that. I've been dragging that thing around for a couple years. I don't even know how to tune it up. And he's like, you want to learn how to play this guitar? And I said, yeah. [1:38:05] He said, let me show you this song. He taught me the Malagania. It had a couple little parts, you know, a finger-picking part, a strumming part. And it really kind of gave me that foundation, you know, just kind of those few little tools. And then I went up to Stephenville to ride Bulls at Tarleton after that. And a couple of other friends that I'd met there that rodeoed could play the guitar a little bit. And they had bands that played every weekend in the town. There was a little bar there called City Limits where all these bands would come play,

[1:38:35] ragweed guys and Pat Green and Robert Earl King like all the Texas guys would come play you know so I was like [1:38:42] I went from being on the border... [1:38:45] kind of just mostly like the Carrillo's and Tejano bands that I would see which was really cool. But when I got up there, I was like, oh man, there's all these like, cool kind of song, you know, guys writing original music and songs and playing in bands and we'd go watch them all the time. And as I was still rodeoing, I'd [1:39:03] The only song I knew was that Malagania tune. [1:39:06] So I was like, I gotta come up with some new stuff, that's all I know how to play. I went and got a book of chords to teach myself some new chords on the guitar. [1:39:14] We'd just learn one or two at a time, and I'd start making up songs about our adventures on the weekends, you know. A lot of it was just sitting in the back of the truck and being in places where you didn't have radio signal or, you know. [1:39:25] nothing to really listen to. You're tired of listening to the same old stuff and I'd make up songs and then I [1:39:30] whatever town we would get to, my buddies would be like, "Man, play that song you were singing in the backseat." And so that's how the whole songwriting thing started. And then I ended up getting a job working for a guy named Mack Altizer. He had a rodeo company called Bag Company Rodeo in Del Rio. [1:39:48] I'd ridden bulls at some of his rodeos and knew him. My uncle knew him over the years, so I was kind of familiar with that whole thing. I started working for him on the ranch and helping with some of the rodeo stuff and still riding bulls. He found out that I could play the guitar and sing a few songs.

[1:40:07] And he always had a party at the rodeo. He was kind of notorious and famous for having just awesome parties. And he's like, man, all right, Bingham, get your guitar. You're going to play like the after party. And pull the flatbed trailer up there for the hospitality tent for all the contestants after the rodeo. And those were like the first... [1:40:23] he really encouraged me to like start playing for people and doing that and then it would just spill over into the bars afterwards after the rodeo and everybody would end up going to the bar and there was like bing and bring your guitar with you and uh i started getting gigs in the bars the bars would ask me if i wanted to come back and play and just after like [1:40:42] I feel like a few years of that is just like, [1:40:44] I was kind of a weekend warrior riding bulls. I was definitely not making a living doing it. I always had to have a day job during the week, either working on the ranch or doing something. [1:40:55] and uh [1:40:56] I started getting to where I could go to these bars and make like a hundred bucks in tips, you know? [1:41:00] within a couple of hours and get free beer and free food. And I was like, man, this is almost as much as I made all day digging holes with the shovel. It didn't take me long to figure out that that was pretty cool. And I was just like... [1:41:15] I'm going to stick with it. What an organic... [1:41:19] sort of a journey, you know, like a natural progression. [1:41:23] Yeah, and I didn't have high expectations, but I just like... [1:41:27] And I was talking about kind of community in this Austin area and in Texas in general. It's just like, man, people were so supportive then. I'm just like, if you had a song to play it, people love live music. They're like, yeah, get up and play. You know, like Mac with the rodeo company and all the guys that worked there, Dave Jennings and Casey and Smer. There's a whole crew, the Bad Company crew from those days. And they always had kind of the Bad Company house band, too, where everybody would get up and try to play a song. And it's just like, man, we don't care if it's any good or not. Just get up there and play.

[1:41:57] together and there were so many places that were like that that I don't think if I was in that environment I probably would have never pursued it. I've had so many people... [1:42:06] supporting you and encouraging you to try it. It took me a long time to work stuff out and learn because I didn't have any [1:42:15] really formal music [1:42:17] musical background or lessons or training. I really just learned it on the road and playing in bars from other musicians. Really? Yeah. So no lessons at all? No. Just kind of figuring it out along the way? Yeah. Well, the guy taught me La Malagania there, but then after that it was just... [1:42:34] you know [1:42:35] Anybody else who had a guitar and might know a song, you know, like, oh, what? How do you play that chord? You know? Oh, you play it like this, you know? [1:42:44] Wow. So how many years were you doing that? [1:42:49] Before you got Yellowstone. [1:42:50] Thank you. [1:42:52] Oh, gosh, for a while. I mean, I think my, you know... [1:42:57] I was... [1:42:58] 22 or something like that in Stephenville you know Ryan Bull's starting to play songs trying to play gigs. [1:43:08] after the, you know, ended up... [1:43:10] Moving down here to New Braunfels and the Austin area, playing music for a while, and then ended up going out to Los Angeles and playing and then hit the road with a band for, I think I had... [1:43:20] four or five albums or so, you know, out, you know, and been touring for... [1:43:25] five or six years. I think, how old was I? Like,

[1:43:30] when Yellowstone started. [1:43:32] like 36, 37. So yeah, I'd been playing, doing the music stuff for a long time. [1:43:38] And so how did you go from music to Yellowstone? Did you do any acting before that? No, I'd done a film with Jeff Bridges years ago called Crazy Heart and wrote some songs for that movie. And that was really my own thing. Oh, I remember that movie. That was a good movie. [1:43:56] It was pretty cool. You know, I was just like, Jeff Bridges plays a musician in the show, and we're like the backup band at the bowling alley for one of the scenes, you know, which was really cool. Yeah. [1:44:08] And then I've written some songs for some other films and some TV shows since then, and I met a guy named John Lentz in Los Angeles, a producer, and him and his dad, Art Lentz, and they did like Sons of Anarchy, a bunch of shows and a bunch of great movies. [1:44:27] he introduced me to Taylor and Taylor was [1:44:31] I think it was that movie Wind River, his first movie. I'd met Taylor and... [1:44:35] just kind of talk about music and stuff. And he wanted me to write a song for wind river and I'd given it a shot a couple of times, never really had anything that fit for what he wanted, but he ended up using a song that I'd already written. And, um, and we just kind of kept in touch. And then when the Yellowstone thing came up, um, [1:44:52] He got in touch again about writing some songs for the show. [1:44:55] And then he learned that I used to do all the rodeo stuff, I think, and grew up ranching. And he's like, well, shoot, you can do a lot of this stuff. I've got to find a way to get you in the show, you know. And it literally went from the conversation. He's like, well, I don't know what I'm going to do with you, but I'll find something to do with you, you know. And he literally said that. He's like.

[1:45:13] You know, if you do good, I'll, you know, you guys, if you suck, I'll kill you off. If you do good, I'll keep you on. [1:45:20] Something like that, you know, and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to go to it. So you had no formal acting, like, training or anything? No, not at all. That's what's amazing, dude. No. You're really good. Oh, I appreciate that, you know. I get to kind of play a cowboy and be a little bit of myself. Yeah, but it's, that role's got some complexity to it. It's not just a cowboy. [1:45:43] complicated scenes, you know, some emotional scenes, some deep scenes, and you're really good, man. Thank you. That's impressive. Yeah. [1:45:51] I appreciate that. I enjoyed it. I hadn't done much acting at all. I've got to give a lot of credit to the actors that are on the show, too. Those folks that have really studied it and paid their dues learning that craft. They... [1:46:06] really create the environment, you know, especially for me not [1:46:09] knowing much about it, you know, and just kind of being a part of the scene. Like, they're so good that... [1:46:14] they make you react in a certain way. Right. You know, they know how to get it out of you. Yeah. You know, Cole and Luke and all those folks, you know, like they know how to set up the scene. They know what they're doing. So they already kind of have the whole thing. [1:46:29] set up. And so when I walk into a scene and, [1:46:31] they say they're lying to me it's just like oh okay yeah I gotta answer right I like I'm just like kind of like naturally you know answering that you know right right yeah it's like if you work with a really good actor sometimes you forget they're acting like oh like oh yeah we're acting like you seem like this is really happening yeah yeah yeah for me like I think it was moments where I thought it was really happening yeah how long did it take before you got comfortable like doing that on camera

[1:46:59] Still not. Really? Yeah, still not. Yeah. Well, you play it off good. Well, thanks, you know. I think some of it comes from the riding bulls. You know, you learn how to channel that anxiety or fear into just like, oh, okay, it's go time. Let's just kind of pull it together and channel that, you know. If you could ride a bull, I think you could kind of do basically anything. Man, I – [1:47:21] That's one thing my uncle taught me when I was young. He was really quick to be like, "Man, it doesn't matter how strong you are." [1:47:28] You know, it's not about it's all mental. It's all in your mind. And it's all it's not I think I can. It's I know I can and I will. And he goes, if you don't if you don't believe that every time you go put your rope on one of those on their backs, he's like, [1:47:44] It ain't going to happen. Yeah. He says, it's not being cocky. It's just being confident. [1:47:49] you know? [1:47:50] and believing in yourself and and having that that power of mind over matter you know yeah if you could do that acting's easy and take that in anything in life yeah and i do i definitely have moments where you know i'm like whoosh okay take a deep breath right let's go time let's go you know well especially especially [1:48:10] having more than a decade of doing that with bulls, [1:48:15] Mm-hmm like that. That's so uncontrollable. I [1:48:18] Like it is like you're at the mercy of fate and how this plays out. Yeah. And you have this enormous beast and you've chosen to scare the shit out of yourself. Get off of this thing and try to ride it. You've chosen to join the dance. Yeah. If you can do that, if you can do that and be successful at that, I kind of think you can do anything.

[1:48:40] I think that... I mean, I wouldn't want my kid to do it at 10, but fuck, it's probably... If they could survive... [1:48:46] Pretty valuable. I laugh. I really picked two of the easiest professions, you know, like riding bulls and playing music. Right. Two that have the least amount of success ratio. Impossible tasks. Right. Well, did you ever get any serious injuries? [1:49:03] You know, I was fortunate, like, not serious. There was one of the worst I ever, I knocked all these teeth out. I got jerked down one night in Weatherford. [1:49:14] took my lip off and my teeth went through down here and these are all fake up here and then my lip was just hanging right there what was why it didn't knock me out which was wild though [1:49:24] I got on this bull and I remember it was in Wendipour, Texas and it's got a Butler Arena there. [1:49:32] Any of this? [1:49:33] um, [1:49:34] little Angus bull there, didn't have horns on him, little muley. And usually you can go up to the guys that own the bulls and a lot of the bulls have patterns, you know, that they, [1:49:42] that they'll do over and over. So you can kind of talk to the stock contractor, the guys that own them, and be like, "Hey, what's this bull generally do?" And he's like, "Ah, most of the time they'll take two jumps out and they spin to the left." Or they take two jumps out and they go to the right. Or they just jump, kick around and make a circle. And he goes, "Man," he goes, "I don't know." He's like, "The last two times I bucked, he hadn't been ridden, he usually jumps out there and just spins right in the gate." And he said, "Nobody's really ridden him past three or four seconds." So he goes, "I don't know what he's going to do after that." [1:50:10] and sure enough that's what happened I got on him and I jumped out and just

[1:50:16] got it on right there in the gate just spinning right there and I rode him through it like three or four rounds and after I rode him like I think the bully didn't know what to do next he got a little frustrated he just stopped and just stopped dead still just blowing and just you know just mad and you never really want to jump off of them when they're still like that because you just you'll fall right beside them you know so you want them to have a little momentum so when you [1:50:41] you know, you're checking out, you can get away from them. Right. And so I spurred him a little bit to get him to jump. [1:50:47] So when he jumped, I could jump off, but when I spurred him, it just jumped off. [1:50:52] straight up off the ground like a cat off all fours and when he came crack and when he jumped up like that i you know kind of rocked me back on back like that my hands still tied in the rope and then when he came down he just brought all that jerked me down with the fours and i came forward and he threw his head back and i just head butted him oh and and and and and and and [1:51:11] you [1:51:12] And when he did, my hand was still caught in the rope. And then he took off running around, just drug me around, and just stomped the crap out of me. [1:51:20] you know, for a bit and I finally got loose and [1:51:23] I remember running over to the fence. [1:51:25] And I just, you know, I kind of had my arms on the fence and I could see all the blood just kind of pouring down all over me. And one of the bullfighters ran up and he looks at me and goes, oh, buddy. [1:51:37] He's like, whoo. And, uh. [1:51:40] So they have to stitch your lip back on? Yeah. And the shock was just, I didn't feel anything. Wow. I was just in shock. I was like, oh, man. I remember my girlfriend was there from high school and my buddy. And we drove to the little...

[1:51:54] They're like, you want to call an ambulance? I was like, nah, I don't have health insurance. I don't have to call an ambulance. [1:52:00] Got in my buddy's car, and we drove her over to the emergency room. [1:52:03] And Weatherford, now going in the nurse, she's just like, oh man, she's like, we can't do anything for you here. You're going to have to go to like Dallas to like trauma. You're going to have to get like an oral surgeon to put you back together. And, uh, [1:52:16] She goes, "You want me to get you an ambulance there?" And I was like, "No, I think we can make it." She gave me some pain pills. She goes, "Don't take these now." She goes, "Hold on to these and then when you get to Dallas, [1:52:28] then take them because you're probably gonna have to wait you know before they can because be three or four in the morning before they can get somebody in there to see us and uh sure enough if we got to dallas and i'm just sitting there in the weight room and i had a rag and i was just holding my mouth together and uh the shock wore off man and then it's you know i was starting to feel it took those pain meds and then doctor came in and held me back and gave me a new [1:52:54] big shot in the roof of my mouth, try to numb everything and just [1:52:57] I think it took them longer to clean it all up, you know, pull all the hair and dirt out of there and sew me up. It was an ordeal, you know, for sure. [1:53:07] For months after that, getting the dental work done and all that crap. So how was the lip hanging off? It bit it. It would have came all the way off. It was just hanging on right here by side, so it was just hanging down. [1:53:20] And so they just had to stitch the lower part to the upper part and put it all together again? Yeah, just all across, right through the middle. And if I shave, I've got a big scar that kind of goes down there. Wow. And then they went through down here.

[1:53:32] So I got some stitches down there, and then most of the stitches were all in my... [1:53:36] my gums and all of that so they had to put like posts and implants and all that stuff wow yeah that shit takes forever huh kind of knocked the front four out and then it just dominoed the rest of them now this riding bulls with no health insurance is wild that's crazy man yeah [1:53:56] That's crazy. [1:53:59] Yeah, that was just life back then for me. I think going into the music stuff was like... [1:54:05] Thank you. [1:54:07] I don't know, I just wasn't really scared about it or even the expectations of making it. I mean, to me, at the time, I had a truck and a camper on it, and I was like, man, I was like... [1:54:16] I got no bills. I got no responsibilities. I'm just like go make a hundred bucks a night playing music in a bar. I was like, this is the dream. You know, I'm like, I made it. [1:54:26] Yeah. Well, I think when you've done something super, super difficult, everything else seems easier. [1:54:34] And... [1:54:35] If you've done what you did with riding bulls for that long, like the music business is like, that's the worst that could happen. Yeah. Even the travel part, you know, like, you know, in the early days of playing, when I really decided I was going to try to make a run and play, you know, and it was like, oh, what? We got to get in the van and go drive around and play in bars, you know? And I was like, we've been doing that rodeoing for years, you know, where you sleep in the back of the truck or whatever. And it was fun for us. We loved it. Yeah.

[1:55:05] playing in a band, playing music. I was like, let's go. [1:55:11] And getting a guaranteed paycheck every night. Right. The gratitude you must have. The riding bulls. I mean, after time, you walked away with nothing. Right. A busted lip. Yeah. And no health insurance. And you're risking your life. And there's not a bunch of people that love you. No. [1:55:29] Yeah. Yeah. [1:55:31] Well, it's a great base to start out from, you know, I mean it sounds like it's almost like you [1:55:38] the universe engineered this path for you to go down. Like if you wanted to pick a path that would bring you to where you are right now, it is the perfect set of circumstances. [1:55:48] I [1:55:50] I look at it all the time, you know, just from an outside perspective, I guess. I'm just like, wow, how in the world did all this come together? And just a lot of luck and perseverance or whatever. And I wouldn't say I haven't worked hard at it. You know, I feel like I have and all that. But there's a lot of luck out there and a lot of good people, too. Yeah. A lot of good people helped me out along the way and gave me gas money and gave me a place to sleep or a place to eat and helped us get other gigs. [1:56:20] the next and not having gas money to get to the next and having no plan other than like let's just head west or head east and you know you'd go play at a bar and sure enough there'd be somebody there that were they like oh man y'all should come back to my house we'll have

[1:56:35] Bonfire and play some songs and he's like all my brothers got a bar in Phoenix and you know he's like call them on your way out You know we'd go there and and we'd always like chop firewood or wash dishes or wouldn't mow your lawn or wash your car on the way to Like to get gas money and keep on going, you know Wow, so I [1:56:52] That was just kind of how I always – I felt like I learned earlier. If you were willing to help yourself, people would help you all day long. [1:56:59] I think... [1:57:01] Luck. [1:57:02] is a factor, but it's only a factor if you've already had all those other experiences. [1:57:09] Think about it. If you hadn't ridden bulls, you hadn't gone through all the ranching, all the hard labor, all the different things... [1:57:16] then you probably wouldn't have capitalized on that luck the same way. No, not at all. Your character wouldn't be the same. No. It's like part of who you are is the character that you've developed from what you've done. It kind of conditioned me to do it in a big way. And it seems like it's your life. It's almost like it's engineered for this to happen the way it happened. It's kind of crazy. It's been cool, man. [1:57:43] Very storybook. You know? Yeah. Very like movie. Yeah. Like a plot in a movie. Guy was a cowboy, bull rider, starts singing songs. People are like, hey, you should probably do this for a living. And then someone's like, hey, man, you should be on TV. You know? Yeah. And the next thing you know, you're on one of the biggest hits in the world. I feel like that's that song. One day they're going to put me in the movie. Yeah. I was like, how am I living this thing right now? You know? It's like, I know I meet people all the time.

[1:58:13] . [1:58:13] You know, they can't really believe where I'm from or whatever. They just think it's some like made up story. All right, man. You know, well, it seems like a story that someone would make up if they wanted to pretend to be a cowboy. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of people have. I bet. Right. I bet. Yeah. And a lot of people still do. Yeah. Isn't that funny? Uh huh. That's funny. That's like stolen valor almost. Yeah. You know what I mean? I think like in all kinds of stuff, you know, professions or whatever. Yeah. [1:58:43] pretend to be what it is. Would you mind if I went to the restroom? Oh, no, no, no, no. Not at all. I totally understand. I want to keep talking about I don't want to stop this. Let's pause, take a leak. We'll be right back, folks. And we're back. [1:58:58] Yeah, it's... [1:59:00] It's kind of funny that people would want to fake the life that you've lived, but that is – [1:59:04] such a romantic story. [1:59:06] Like, it's such a movie. [1:59:09] that it makes sense that people want to fake it. It's got to be weird walking around, like having lived a life that people would want to fake and pretend that they lived. [1:59:19] It is sometimes, you know, and it's like... [1:59:23] I remember when I really started playing music and stuff, I wore a cowboy hat all the time. I rode bulls and it was very much my identity. Cowboy stuff wasn't really cool then. I feel like in the... [1:59:39] Early 2000s and all of that, you know, and there wasn't a lot of big there wasn't a big mayor Americana scene or you know any of that kind of stuff, you know and Definitely going to New York or going to Los Angeles and touring around like I'd be the only one wearing a cowboy hat, you know?

[1:59:57] I remember the first time or one time I was in LA we were out on the Santa Monica Pier and [2:00:03] And there was a guy that had like the one-man band thing, you know, out there. And there's all these tourists on the pier. And I'm just like out there checking out the scenery and just minding my own business. And this guy gets on the microphone and he just points over at me and goes, oh, Brokeback Mountain. [2:00:20] And everybody on the pier turned around and looked at me. They're just pointing at me and laughing at me. And I'm just like, ah, okay, you know. So I was like that was the association with the cowboy hat at the time. That's hilarious. [2:00:33] a while now's a whole new ball game you're a whole new monkey wrench into that that legend but you know now playing and man i'm so stoked to see all these new bands out there and like so many young folks playing actual instruments you know i felt like for a long time they were so electronic and djs and all right stuff you know and well there's a giant country comeback that's [2:01:03] Ryan song? Yeah. That's such a great bull riding song. Man, they got some great tunes, man. Yeah. That's a great bull riding song. [2:01:10] But there's so many great musicians out there now and also who've lived like different but very – like Charlie Crockett. What a fascinating dude that guy is. [2:01:21] just kind of performing on the streets and yeah you know just being kind of a vagabond traveling around and then finally catches and people are like damn this music is fucking great man yeah like wearing it on their sleeves you know and having the confidence to i think people have always been i think there has been plenty of folks out there you know writing from the heart and so to speak and all that and you know having a certain integrity to the things that they're saying and

[2:01:52] The truth in their speaking into their songs and things like that. Yeah. There's a lot more of a platform to support them. And people are like, oh, wow, there's a bunch of this stuff out there. There's also an appreciation for it because I think we're all – [2:02:06] fearful that people like you won't exist in the future. [2:02:11] Because it seems like a guy like you, you know, bull riding, living on a ranch, like singing songs in bars, like that almost is like a thing of the past. Oh, very much. But it's so romantic to people that like when we meet a guy like you in real life, you're like, oh, keep him around. You want to make sure that people like you still exist. It's a very exciting thing for people to have a person who's lived an authentically interesting life. [2:02:40] And... [2:02:41] authentically out of the box life. It's not a normal life. Like you're if you meet a million people, the odds of you meeting one guy who used to bull ride and then started singing in bars with his friends and was happy living on the road. Now all of a sudden he's on a fucking gigantic television show. [2:03:02] It's not even one in a million. It's strange because sometimes I – [2:03:06] I meet people, and I'm like, oh, yeah, I grew up just like you. And then I realize, like, I don't think I did. [2:03:17] I kind of had to think about it myself. No, you definitely didn't. You rode a bull when you were fucking 10, dude. Most people, when they're 10, they're playing with G.I. Joes. They're not riding bulls. That's a very unusual setup for the rest of your life.

[2:03:36] You get accustomed to anxiety and nerves and... [2:03:41] The thing that [2:03:43] I mean, that is like the mark of a man. Like a man is his ability to be in a very high stress situation and keep his shit together. [2:03:51] And to have gone through a lot of that when you're very young, like riding a bull at 10 is crazy. To have gone through that when you're very young, it just develops the kind of character that allows you to kind of do anything in life. And I think – [2:04:07] Most men see that and they wish they were like that. [2:04:11] I remember a moment. [2:04:13] you know... [2:04:14] it was really when I was, you know, riding steers, and then I made that transition to the big bulls, you know, and it wasn't like, oh, here's this, like, this little steer, and then there's an in-between, and then there's the big, it was, like, this little steer, and then this big bull, you know, and I went to, it was a junior rodeo in Odessa, Texas, and it was my first year to ride junior bulls, and, um, [2:04:35] I entered the... [2:04:36] The bull riding, my uncle was there with me, and they started running the bulls up into the chutes, and they were big. They were, like, backs that wide and horns sticking outside of the chutes, you know. And they were big, but they didn't buck that hard, you know. They just kind of jumped, kicked down, but they were still big, you know. And, like, I remember, like, scared. Yeah. [2:04:54] and like in tears you know kind of I was scared and uh my uncle you know was super cool about it he wasn't like you have to do this or you have to he's like man whatever you want to do you know you want to pack it up we'll we'll get out of here right now it's like this is either for you or it's not for you you know and uh I remember just

[2:05:14] him telling me, "You want to take like [2:05:15] 20, 30 minutes and just kind of think about it and whatever you want to do will make happen, you know. [2:05:20] And I did. I kind of walked around there for a bit and... [2:05:25] I just had this some kind of like... [2:05:27] I knew I would regret it if I didn't do it, didn't try it. There was something in me. I slept it. I dreamt about it. I loved it. I was like, "Nah, I'm going to do this." I put my rope on him and had all the sport there that I needed in that moment. They opened the gate and this big old high horn bullion, he just turned and kind of jumped out there, real docile. I think I rode him two or three jumps and fell off. It was just like, "I'm [2:05:55] King of the world. [2:05:58] I was like, I'm a bull rider now. I'm not just the steer rider kid. I kind of made that level. And I remember after that, [2:06:05] i just uh... now i described it tonight [2:06:09] Just the higher they jump, the faster they spin, the better. I like it. Really? Oh, just yeah. Just dirty rank. Just run them in there. Let's go. And when I was, when I was little, I, [2:06:21] i mean when i was like 14 or 15 you know the guys were starting to breed the bulls for like the pbr like they full-on started these like breeding programs you know used to you could go to a practice pen and you know be an old farmer that had two or three old bulls that you could get on and practice and they just jump around and just you know nothing that was really gonna hurt you bad you know and then they started breeding these young bulls man you go to the

[2:06:44] the practice pen there'd be 10 or 15 of these like yearlings that bucked and they needed somebody to get on them you know like test pilot and I was the test pilot there was a guy named Bradley Raspberry I believe kind of out in Brownwood I remember going to his house and [2:07:00] I could ride. I was pretty sticky. I could ride a lot better when I was younger than I was when I got older. For some reason, I just had that no fear or whatever that was. And I'd get on 10 or 15 a day. They just kept running on them in there, man. They'd be trying to flip over in the shoes. They're young, green bulls that were half wild. And they're just trying to figure out which ones bucked and which ones didn't. And they'd get rid of the ones that didn't buck and keep the ones that did. [2:07:30] just be like [2:07:31] The wilder they got in the shoot, like... [2:07:34] The more aggressive I got, I just like, OK, that's what we're going to do. Come on. Let's go. Let's do this. You know, I was nuts. You know, that's so crazy. Yeah. That's such a crazy way to live your life. [2:07:49] You know, wild bulls, and you say wild, like the ones that are out there in the wild, they're some of the most dangerous animals that you could ever encounter. Right. [2:07:56] They call them scrub bulls. [2:07:59] Like my buddy Adam, he lives in Australia, or he's moving to America. Yeah. When he lived in Australia, he said that they would encounter these scrub bulls, which is like wild domestic bulls that got out and started breeding. And then many generations later, they're now completely wild. They're like deer out there. Yeah, and they will run after you. I knew these three guys from Australia that – or several Australian guys that came over and lived in Stephenville.

[2:08:29] it was so central and it was kind of [2:08:31] cowboy capital there and uh his name was lance kelly had some brothers and they were from up there north queensland somewhere and one summer he went back to work and then when he came back he wanted he'd tell me about where he was from all the time you know i'm i was young curious i was always fascinated like wow you're from australia you know i've only seen movies you know like uh uh what's the the [2:08:54] Thank you. [2:08:54] Oh, gosh. Crocodile Dundee? No, a man from Snowy River, which was anyway. But I was fascinated with Australia and him and his brothers. And so he went home and he videotaped a VHS. You know, you didn't have phones back then, but it was like the old cam VHS tape recorder. And he duct taped it around his body while he was walking around working on the ranch. And he'd have his four-wheeler in there chasing these wild cattle and rounding them up, him and his brother. [2:09:25] brothers and he would just like chase them on a four-wheeler as long as you know keep them running until they got so tired they couldn't go anymore and then he had this piece of pipe on there he could run up behind him and kind of knock them down and then he'd jump off and tie their legs together and they would catch a bunch of them like that and then his brother would come by you know later with a truck and a winch and winch them up into the trailer and they would catch all these wild cows like that and to be able to see that footage and stuff and have him tell me how they

[2:09:55] world i want to go when can i go you know australia is such a crazy place man it's i mean it's [2:10:02] bigger than the United States. [2:10:04] or the size of the United States, roughly. And it has less people than Los Angeles. And everything will kill you. Everything will kill you. Every snake, spider. Every snake, crocodiles. [2:10:16] They have saltwater crocodiles and giant fucking great white sharks. And hearty people, man. Yeah. Hearty motherfuckers come from that place. I feel like Texas and a lot of folks in Australia are a bit kindred spirits. Yes. I think so, too. My buddy James McCann was on the podcast yesterday. He's a comic out of Australia. And he's from there, and he spends time here. He was living here for a while, but he had to move back because he had another kid. But now he's coming back and forth and trying to figure. [2:10:46] He's really talented. Coming to Austin? Yeah. He was living in Austin for a couple of years and living in America for a couple of years, living in Austin for about a year. But, you know, his wife's about to have another kid and they just decided to go back to Australia where she's got support. But, man, he fucking misses it. He was here. He's like, mate, I miss it so much. Yeah. I miss it so much. Like, yeah. [2:11:07] I don't think there's any place like this place. It's pretty awesome. But Australia, it's the same kind of thing. It's a rugged place, and the kind of people that live there, they're fun. They're fun, kind of... [2:11:21] Got him. [2:11:22] super fucked up oppressive government, unfortunately. I think it's a lot about what you say, too. You know, when you survive certain things in your life and...

[2:11:31] Thank you. [2:11:32] It puts things in perspective of what you're taking seriously or what's an emergency. [2:11:38] Right. Oh, is this life or death or is it not? Yeah. And to be able to laugh at stuff. [2:11:47] I love comedians. It's just like, man, to be able to just joke and cut stuff about the most serious things or whatever it is. God, we need that so much. It's an important service. It doesn't seem like it is to people because it seems stupid. They're like, oh, you're just telling jokes. For me, when I go and watch a good comedy show, I feel better. It's medicine. And I think it also puts life into perspective. With a sense of humor, you can kind of look at things through a different lens and go, [2:12:17] I get a feeling like, you know, I think a lot of folks have this idea that songwriters are where, you know, have a bunch of sad songs or whatever to go to that deep place and you live through stuff that you write about. But, man, I find in comics, man, I feel like there's some of the heaviest stuff in the world that those – [2:12:36] folks have experienced to be able to [2:12:39] you know, come up and tell these kinds of jokes and stories and the educational part of it with it. You know, it's so much. I don't know. For me, it seems like so much more than just a joke. It is with some. I mean, some people just do jokes. It really depends on your style. But I mean, if you go back to like Richard Pryor, his whole thing was like explaining life and telling stories. Yeah. But with an amazing sense of humor and that you would leave that. And everybody feels like more united. They feel better. Yeah.

[2:13:09] Yeah, it was everybody's thinking, afraid to say, and also he would look at things from a very wise perspective that was also hilarious. So you walked out of there feeling better. Yeah. It felt like you were better. [2:13:22] It felt like there's... [2:13:24] Bringing some hope. Yeah. Yeah, there's hope in humor. Yeah. For sure. But there's hope in music, too. Yeah. You know, I don't have any musical talent at all, but I always think of music as almost like a drug. Because music... [2:13:37] When a good song hits, you're like, fuck. If you're in the car and a good tune comes on, especially back when I used to listen to the radio, you know, and you didn't expect what was coming on. You can't rewind it. Yeah, all of a sudden it's Radar Love by Golden Earring. You're like, fuck yeah, let's go. You feel different. It changes your mood. You hear Freebird. You're flipping through the channels and the fucking guitar solo for Freebird comes on. You're like, yes! [2:14:07] You feel better. It excites all these parts of your senses, your consciousness, your feelings. It's a drug. I mean, it's an amazing thing. It's always been real therapeutic for me at the very beginning. Like I said, I didn't have high expectations, but I... [2:14:24] I knew when I kind of wrote some of the first songs that I wrote and I like got some of that stuff off my chest like it changed me you know. [2:14:32] Yeah? [2:14:33] it like [2:14:34] it became a tool that all of a sudden I had access to this thing that like,

[2:14:40] was helping me heal in a way like I could get stuff off my chest like the things that I was uncomfortable talking about [2:14:47] in conversation with folks like I could put them into a song and like [2:14:50] sing them to the wall and i was just like getting that stuff out like there wasn't anybody in the room and i was just like [2:14:56] you know, [2:14:57] But I was getting this stuff out of me, you know. And it's also a way for people to hear it where it's not annoying. Did you know about one in three people with plaque psoriasis may also develop psoriatic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness and swelling? [2:15:12] Does this sound like you? [2:15:16] Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. [2:15:25] Trimphia, Gucelcomab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriatic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. [2:15:46] Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. [2:15:51] Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphia. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimphia, including important safety information. [2:16:04] This podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Selling your car should feel like one less thing on your list, not one more. With Carvana, it is. Just go to Carvana.com, enter your license plate or VIN, and get a real offer down to the penny. No back and forth, no surprises, just an experience you can trust. Like your offer? Accept it. Schedule a pickup, and we'll come to you with a check in hand. Your car, your timeline, your terms. Visit Carvana.com to sell your car today. Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.

[2:16:34] You know what I mean? Like, if you just tell some sad story about your life, people are like, oh, geez. Here we go. [2:16:41] Crown me a river, kid. Everybody's got a story. But if you have a sad story in a song, it's like fucking, it's beautiful. Like, I love a good sad song. [2:16:52] You know, a song that has, like, real emotion in it, whether it's a real story or whether... [2:16:57] like one of my favorite [2:16:59] Coulter Wall songs is Kate McKinnon. Yeah. [2:17:02] Jamie turned me on to that song. He said it to me. Man, Coulter's a gem. He was fucking 21 when he made that song, which is... [2:17:11] Yeah. You listen to that song, that sounds like a 58-year-old man who's been smoking cigarettes his whole life. Yeah. [2:17:18] And that dude is interesting, too, because he still works on a ranch. Yeah. Yeah. He's a great guy. He's one of my favorites of the younger guys that have come up and been doing this. He's just... [2:17:29] Same way when I first heard those first songs, I was like, who the fuck is this? You know? Then I saw like a picture of him. I'm like, oh man, he's a kid, you know? Crazy. And I just... [2:17:40] fabulous songwriter, guitar player. Raven is a wicked bird. You hear that, you're like, what is this? Yeah. [2:17:49] Who is this guy? I couldn't believe he was 21. I'm like, that makes zero sense. Yeah. [2:17:56] He's got it though, man, and there's a bunch of them out there now that I'm hearing - there's just like I'm like man how cool Yeah, how cool? I'm so glad that they're getting a shot at it or just getting the support I don't know if it's saying getting a shot at it, but it's like getting the love and support that they deserve for the it's good music man Yeah, it's great. It's great music and there's a thing now with the internet where it's so easy to share something and

[2:18:19] You know, like someone's got a good song and it's on YouTube or Spotify and then you just send a link to your buddy. Yeah. You go, bro, check this out. Like, I got to say, like, half the songs I find out about my friends just send me. [2:18:31] And then all of a sudden I'm like, oh, shit. Yeah. [2:18:35] And then I'll add it to my playlist. Yeah. It's like it's easy to share things now where you don't have to go to the record store and pick up the record. Now it's just like within seconds of you getting it in your phone, you're listening to it. And it's easier to record the stuff too. Oh, yeah. It's like you don't need a half a million bucks in a studio and all that stuff. It's like, man, half the stuff you can record on your phone. Well, look at Oliver Anthony. [2:18:59] Yeah. [2:19:00] One fucking song. Yeah. [2:19:02] One song, and the first show he ever does is like 18,000 people. That is the first show that dude ever performed at. Yeah, I feel for him. I would never have been able to do that when I started, you know. I was not prepared for anything. And, you know, I don't know, maybe they're not, but that's a lot to carry. He settled in there. He settled in pretty easy. He figured it out. He's a smart cat. Yeah. He's a really smart dude, and he settled in really easy. I guess they have to, you know. [2:19:32] I always think, gosh, it's changed so much since I started out. I mean, we didn't even have, like, if you wanted to learn how to play a song, you kind of had to go listen to the record and just try to figure it out and rewind it. Now it's like, oh, here's a guy that'll just show you every note and this and that. Yeah, there's a guy on YouTube that'll show you exactly where to place your fingers. Exactly how to do it. And that took me years to figure out. And maybe that is like today, these guys, it's –

[2:20:00] they're learning how to do it at such a quicker rate. And they know how to handle the crowds and do all the stuff. And it's just like, boom, there you go. Well, that's with everything today. Yeah. [2:20:09] I think that's also why in martial arts and UFC is the reason why the guys are so much better today. And it's because they get to see everything that everybody's ever done, and then they practice it and improve upon it. And they get it at an early age. You can essentially just on your phone watch every fight that's ever taken place ever in human history that's been recorded. I did that on the road a few years ago. I mean, I've always been a pretty rudimentary guitar player. [2:20:39] that stuff and um [2:20:42] I think it was like 2019. I put out a record and I was going on a tour and my friend Charlie Sexton produced the album. He's a wonderful guitar player. Charlie Sexton, the guy from the 80s, Beat So Lonely? From Austin, yeah. Played with Dylan, played Archangel. He was like really young when Beat So Lonely came out, right? Oh man, he's, yeah, legend. [2:21:03] And I remember calling him though, I was like, man, I really want to get better at the guitar, you know? And he's like, well, just listen to all the stuff that you really like, you know? He's like, don't try to play it all note for note. He's like, just keep listening to it and like you'll... [2:21:15] start eventually finding those places and develop your style. And, but it was, when I got on the road as well, man, I had access on, [2:21:23] YouTube. Right. All of my favorite musicians and guitar players. And I just kind of made a point of sitting down. And I even found this guy that was just breaking down and giving simple blues guitar lessons for kids. I was like, man, this is great. Never done anything like this. And just like went through. I went back, you know. Right. I got to memorize all the notes on the fretboard. And I needed, you know, and it was just it was so I had so much fun doing it.

[2:21:46] And, you know, and also give confidence to get up and jam with other musicians and play and kind of know what key you're in, what you're doing. [2:21:55] I went years without having any kind of lessons or training, and then I'm just like within – [2:22:00] three weeks of being on tour and watching youtube videos of it just stepped it up so much like how'd you learn how to do it i just went about 20 years later in my career i decided to learn how to play the guitar on youtube it is amazing i mean that's the positive part of the internet you know if you can avoid the negative parts there's a lot of great positive stuff in the internet and the access to stuff like that is amazing yeah if we all could just avoid the negative of everything right right well unfortunately there's a lot of people that [2:22:30] And they do have a lot of extra time because they're not really investing in their own life. So they just spread the negativity online. Yeah. And it's just human nature. Wild world. It is. It's a wild world, but it's also a wildly positive world, too. Just what you just said about the guitar stuff or with the Oliver Anthony stuff. Yeah. This guy standing there with a guitar in front of a field with no production value at all, but has a song they sing and from the heart. [2:23:00] does that shit have on YouTube? [2:23:03] It's got to be like... [2:23:05] 100 million views or something nuts. [2:23:08] Man, that song was fucking gigantic. Yeah. Rich Men North. I remember my wife playing it for me for the first time. I was like, what is that? She's like, oh, man, check this out.

[2:23:20] that's so fucking rad yeah i got a chance to see him perform live too with his band they're fucking fantastic and he's settled he's completely settled into being famous now he's he's full he's cool with it yeah he's still the same dude i met him real early on and i actually talked to him on the phone how much was the guy that 236 million holy shit yeah [2:23:43] Wow. When you say he settled you, I didn't know. Was he having a hard time with it? He was freaking out at the beginning. And I contacted him early on and he said, hey, can I ask you some advice? And we talked on the phone. I said, yeah, sure. So I called him up and he was just telling me that he was getting hit up by all these different people that were trying to give him money to sign a contract. And then I go, hey, hey, hey, don't sign nothing. I go, you don't need nobody. You don't need to be locked up in any contracts with nobody. [2:24:13] while the iron's hot, I'm like, fuck them. I go, you got talent, dude. Talent is the number one thing. You already have that. You're going to be fine. You just keep making songs like that, you can't fucking lose. But what you don't want to do is be tied with some legal contract to some assholes just sucking you like a vampire. And they're going to be stuck with you for years, and then you're going to have to go to court to get out of that shit. And you're stuck with them. Exactly. Yeah, and you have the opportunity, like I said, man, you're writing good songs, you're [2:24:43] stuff and you have a way to give it to the people but he's getting more you need seven million dollars to sign this i'm like don't do it i know it sounds like but that seven million dollars they're giving you that because they're going to make 14 there's not a chance in hell and you don't need them yeah you don't need you should get all the money you should get all you shouldn't give any money to anybody else yeah you don't need it you can make your own records you can put it all together yourself you don't need nobody i guess you always got to remember they're they're gonna buy for one

[2:25:13] Exactly. There's no way they're going to give you that money unless they're going to make a lot more. And then you're going to get stuck with them. Don't do it. And he's like, they're all telling me I've got to do it now. Because if I miss this opportunity, I'm like, you ain't missing shit. There's not a chance you're going to miss it. Especially when you're that young. Yeah, and good. And just fucking good. Who knows what they're going to be writing in the next 10 years. Have you heard that song, Woman Scorned? [2:25:38] I haven't, no. Is that one of his new ones? [2:25:42] He wrote that one after a breakup, and it's just, woo! You hear that, fucker. It just gets you right in the bone marrow. Yeah, I get you. Yeah, it's fantastic. It's so good. [2:25:53] That it's just like... [2:25:54] You know, it's a beautiful story. And I love a story like that. He was selling heavy equipment. [2:26:02] He was a salesman, just like fucking machinery and shit. And then writing songs, and he gets fed up one day, and he puts this song, let's make a video of this fucking song. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, boom. Man, people ask me all the time. They're like, man, who do you think is the best young songwriter out there, musician or guitar player? I'm like, man, I don't know. It's probably some 16-year-old kid in the garage that nobody's heard of. That's probably the best guy out there. And he's ready to jump off. Yeah. [2:26:32] ... [2:26:33] you know crushes you yeah they're out there mmm it's just but that's the thing that I was saying about guys like you that people look at guys like you and it's such a romantic story they worry that

[2:26:45] there's not going to be any more of you. You know what I mean? Like this weird digital world and AI and – [2:26:53] Just... [2:26:54] this strange fucking life that we're all living right now that are not, I want to say simple cause it's not simple, but it's unencumbered by all the bullshit of, [2:27:05] the the world that we think is fake and unfortunate yeah like to to have this pure life and this wild romantic story when people meet a guy like you they're like oh man there probably ain't gonna be many more of them oh no man i mean look at this guy you know the guys are kind i feel so fortunate too like when i did come to austin like in my you know mid-20s you know i met guys like [2:27:35] these little Steve Earl legendary kind of guys that I looked up to and I remember being young then I'm like [2:27:41] oh man, these are the last guys left. [2:27:46] you know I [2:27:47] I don't know. There's so many of these young folks out there that are doing it that I think – [2:27:52] uh crave it and they're that's what they're interested in they want to play that music you know they want to feel that stuff so i'm optimistic about it but i can i can it definitely is a different world out there these days and i you know even for myself you know just going with the flow and like well where are we going tomorrow you know how's this like i have no idea how so much of this social media stuff is working or what you know and how you put out an album or songs and

[2:28:22] Just keep writing. Just keep writing. Keep making it. Just be undeniable. And at the end of the day, if all of that stuff disappears, you can always go... [2:28:34] sit on the sidewalk and put your tip jar out there and play a song for people who are walking down the street and I guarantee you there's gonna be somebody that's gonna stop and appreciate it. You know? Well that's what got Charlie Crockett started out. Yeah. I've had plenty of gigs where like you know you go into some bar and you know my wife always says go where you're celebrated not where you're tolerated. You go into some bar and they kind of you can tell they don't really want you know they're not excited about you playing or whatever like you know shit I'll just go. [2:29:01] I'll go park in the parking lot across the street and sit on the tailgate of my truck and play. We'll have a party over there. Yeah. [2:29:08] That is the crazy thing about music. Yeah. You can just kind of set up anywhere. You don't need all that stuff. You're talking about signing contracts and deals. It's like, man, you got that guitar in your hand. You got your song. [2:29:20] You know? [2:29:21] Hold on to it. And protect it. That's something that's special to you. I think when I talk about the therapy of songwriting, I hold on and protect that ruthlessly. [2:29:34] I'm not just giving that away. That part of it's way more important than... [2:29:41] selling an album or a concert ticket or going on the road touring and all that, man. What I get out of music is when I'm sitting at home in a room all by myself, [2:29:52] and letting that stuff pour out of me and I'm just...

[2:29:55] just singing it to the wall. Like, [2:29:57] That's what saved my life. That's awesome. And any of the rest of it. [2:30:02] I'm glad that you articulated it that way, too, because I think there's young people [2:30:07] aspiring songwriters and singers out there that are listening to this right now that are feeling this and they just can't wait to get to a pad right now and start writing. Pick up their guitar and start writing. Because it's like stories like yours and the way you express it, it inspires you. [2:30:22] people to get [2:30:23] excited about it, inspires people to really dig in. [2:30:27] I hope so. You know, I definitely had folks that mentored me like that and, you know, [2:30:33] steered me in the right direction in a lot of ways uh terry allen the guy definitely i'm just like man just keep writing keep you know and whatever it whatever that's making you want to do that in the first place you know like that like hold on to that you know and protect it and and the rest will all be always be around and always come and it'll change and a good song will survive and [2:30:55] find its way, just like, you know. [2:30:58] That song you just played me, like you said, 200 million people in it just... [2:31:03] They'll find its way, you know. Yeah. It'll find its way into people's hearts, you know. [2:31:07] Yeah, and like I said, it's important for people like you to tell your story. It really is. Thank you. It's fuel for people. [2:31:16] Thanks. [2:31:17] Thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. And tell everybody they want to. [2:31:24] find you performing anywhere, where they can catch you? You got a website that shows where you're going to be at? All over the interwebs. Yeah, it's all out there.

[2:31:32] Do you have your own personal website? I do. It's probably just ryanbingham.com or binghammusic.com, something like that. All the dates are up there. Do you use social media at all? [2:31:44] Yeah, we're on all this stuff. Do you pay attention to it or do you got somebody who does it for you? Both. Yeah? Me both, yeah. Mostly on Instagram, I pay attention to that one and check in and stuff like that. There's so much of it these days. It's like I can't keep up with all of it. It'll rob your time. Yeah. I'm trying to go get away where all that stuff's turned off. That's where I'm going to find me. Beautiful. All right. Thanks, brother. Appreciate it. It was a lot of fun. Thank you. I appreciate it. Bye, everybody. [2:32:14] Thank you. [2:32:26] This episode is brought to you by the Farmer's Dog. Here's a fun fact. Research shows that dogs who maintain a healthy weight can live up to two and a half years longer on average than dogs who are overweight. Isn't that wild and also kind of obvious at the same time? So why is feeding vague scoops of ultra-processed kibble still the status quo for most dog owners? Healthy alternatives exist and trust me, I know. [2:32:51] I buy one, the Farmer's Dog. I use it for both my dogs. They love it. They eat it up quick. It smells good to them. It smells good to me. It's human-grade food. The Farmer's Dog makes fresh food for dogs, and my dogs love it. Their recipes are made with real meat and fresh vegetables that are gently cooked to retain vital nutrients. They also portion out the meals to your dog's nutritional needs, which helps avoid overfeeding and makes weight management easier and isn't getting more time with our four-legged

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