Jason Aldean

Summary

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Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard — Jason Aldean

Release Date: September 1, 2025
Host: Dax Shepard with co-host Monica Padman
Guest: Jason Aldean

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Episode Overview

In this intimate and wide-ranging discussion, Dax Shepard and Monica Padman sit down with Grammy-nominated country superstar Jason Aldean. Set in Nashville, the conversation traverses Aldean's small-town Georgia roots, his start in music and long road to mainstream success, the realities of touring, balancing fame and family life, the trauma of the Las Vegas shooting, handling public controversy, and the evolving world of country music. Aldean is candid, self-deprecating, and honest about the highs and lows, offering insights into perseverance, authenticity, and finding one's place within changing cultural tides.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Early Life & Influences

• Georgia Upbringing and Family Dynamics
  • Aldean grew up in Macon, Georgia, a region steeped in SEC college football culture. "Kind of a religion down in Georgia. College football," Aldean jokes (03:10).
  • His father was an Air Force weapons mechanic. His parents divorced when Jason was three, leading to frequent moves and time split between Georgia and Florida (06:45–07:23).
  • Frequent school changes (“never went to the same school for more than two years until eighth grade”) fostered adaptability and “chameleon” tendencies that later helped him as a touring musician and performer (13:24–13:51).
• Early Love of Music
  • His earliest musical influence was the band Alabama. “Alabama was just the band for me that I always kind of gravitated towards. It was like country, but still cool. It had some rock and roll, Southern rock..." (06:08).
  • Learning guitar with his dad's help: “He basically drew it out on notebook paper... That’s a G chord. He would go to work and I’d just grab his old Fender guitar and mess around.” (08:18)
• Baseball Dreams
  • Aldean was “always thinking sports, baseball especially,” and played multiple teams until high school, nearly pursuing a college baseball career before music won out (09:48–10:38).

Starting Out in Bars: Adolescence to Nashville

• Early Gigs & Mother’s Support
  • Aldean started performing in bars at age 14; his mother “cooked dinner, went to the bar, and she’d sit there with me at 1 am, then come home” (20:15–20:30).
  • Playing bars as a teen not only exposed him to adult world dynamics—fights, relationships, drinking—but also to unique life lessons about “what’s normal” (20:32–21:41).
• High School Social Life
  • Contrary to expectations, playing in bars didn’t make him cool at school — “It was almost kind of like... maybe even a little nerdy... Sports mitigated that” (21:41–21:55).

Chasing the Nashville Dream

• Humbling Experience & Struggles
  • Moved to Nashville at 21, after local success in Georgia and Florida. “All of a sudden I get the call to the big leagues… I think I’m gonna show up, we’re just gonna pick up where we left off. And it was just not even close” (24:48–25:08).
  • "Being in the studio, you start hearing all your flaws and all the things you don't really hear live." (25:09)
• Persistence in the Face of Setbacks
  • Multiple deals that fell through — signed and dropped by major labels before Broken Bow Records finally signed him for good in 2003 (23:50–24:12).
  • Described those years as “losing confidence. You come into town with plenty of confidence…then you realize there’s a lot of people here a lot better than you…” (30:12–30:21).
  • Fundamental lesson: “If I want to fail, I don’t want to put the blame on anybody else” (26:17).

Breakthrough & Major Success

• First Album and Hits
  • Debut album released in 2005. “Hicktown came out. It was a top 10 hit for us... all of a sudden that thing hits, man. We’re selling out clubs again.” (36:00)
  • “We got a top ten with Hicktown, that’s great, but what’s next? You gotta stack them.” (36:49)
• Imposter Syndrome and Success Fears
  • “I was always like, this is too good to be true. I don’t want this to end and I’m scared of that. I’m not even enjoying the success for worrying about it ending.” (36:37; also 36:49)
  • Early financial anxiety: “I just remember thinking, man, if I could just make enough money to pay off this house, it cost me $105,000. All my problems will go away” (37:01).

The Touring Life: Realities & Adjustments

• Life on the Road
  • Rigorous touring schedule (“first few years you’re doing 200 [shows]... now we’re probably about 55. It’s great. Gives me time to hang with family.” (39:45–40:07)
  • Evolution: From band of 10 jammed on one bus, to a system that accommodates his family, wife, and kids (40:39–41:27).
  • The emotional rollercoaster: “It’s usually groovy for me for about two months… after three months, you gotta go, you’re ready to go.” (41:29–41:48)
• The Extrovert/Introvert Paradox
  • Describes shifting from "rock star" mode onstage to "switching it off" with family immediately afterward, rarely staying in hotels and treating the bus as a second home (15:11–15:56).

Fame, Authenticity, and Boundaries

• Public Persona vs. Private Self
  • “If I’m at dinner with my family... man, at least wait till I’m done. But you don’t want to seem like an ungrateful asshole. It’s situational for me.” (17:41)
  • “They associate singers with being on stage or your highlight reels... It’s kind of party music.” (18:31)
• Fan Loyalty and Country Community
  • "Country music fans for sure, are some of the most loyal... that's their family member and they follow that artist unless they do something really stupid." (52:19–52:35)
  • Discussion of Nashville musician camaraderie: Though touring keeps them from hanging out a lot, "we're all kind of based out of here..." (63:49)

Coping with Trauma: Las Vegas Route 91 Shooting

• Personal Account and Aftermath
  • Aldean was on stage during the 2017 mass shooting: “We finally got out of there the next afternoon, getting home... just glad to be home. Mom’s crying...” (44:53)
  • Guilt and Processing: Recalls “survivor’s guilt,” intense emotional fallout but also the importance of support from band and family. “All of us had our little inner circle to talk about it with... I have a hard time talking to people about my things being vulnerable” (49:50).
  • On playing SNL days later: “If you’ll let us play whatever I want to play... I don’t want you guys writing shit for me to say... They let me do it.” (45:34)
• Long-term Effects
  • “You have to have PTSD from it...Car backfires, you know, it sounds like a shotgun went off... I think they’ll always be there.” (49:01)
• Therapy and Masculinity
  • “I never will. And here’s the ironic thing. We funded a ton of therapy for the crews and everybody else... obviously I didn’t go.” (49:33)

Navigating Controversy & Standing Firm

• “Try That in a Small Town” & Public Backlash
  • Aldean reacts to controversy over his song and video (especially allegations of racial dog-whistling): “Did I think it would go to the extent it did and turn out to be such a national news headline? No.” (56:05)
  • On responding to critics and media: “We put out a press release and said, this is our stance on it. ...I’m not going to keep defending myself... If I know I’m not wrong, you’re not going to guilt me into it.” (57:02–57:23)
  • On being polarizing: “You want everyone to see my intentions, that I’m good... But also, if you don’t like me, you’re never going to buy a ticket to a show, so at that point, I don’t really care.” (57:38–57:59)
• Art, Authenticity, and Controversy
  • “I think you have to be true to that. It comes out in a song… That’s part of my art. Not everybody’s probably going to like that.” (58:00)

The Craft & Country Music Evolution

• Writing & Selection Process
  • "I just didn’t want people picking songs for me... If I want to fail, I don’t want to put the blame on anybody else." (26:16-26:17)
  • On musical style: credits producer Michael Knox as “my mentor, my guy,” who “taught me a ton about being in the studio and how to capture all that stuff." (29:07–29:38)
  • Evolving subject matter: "At some point, you're going to have to have some songs that have a little meat on the bone. Now we're writing songs about retirement communities..." (59:08)
• Country & Hip-Hop Parallels
  • Dax notes, “I love rap... and I think those are the two most related music... hearing stories about communities and cultures. They're not meant to appeal to everyone... real talk. [Country's] very much that too” (50:18–51:02).
  • Aldean: “Everybody wants to say, but everybody's scared to say it until somebody says it once. Then they all start saying it.” (51:37)
• Changing Sound of Country
  • Discusses influence of rock, pop, and blues. "Stapleton’s bluesy as shit" (53:19), and “Morgan [Wallen] is on a global level now. Brings in a lot of different listeners” (53:24–53:33).

Family and Generational Perspective

• Raising Kids in Different Contexts
  • Aldean reflects on parenting his older and younger children: “I know the way my kids are raised is not normal... You want them to appreciate it and know not everybody gets to have it. So, yeah, very different upbringings...” (43:10–43:34)
  • “My wife... she posts all our lives on Instagram. I don’t... She makes up for it!” (42:29–42:31)
• Maintaining Normalcy and Gratitude
  • Shares story about his son breaking his iPad: “I'm not taking it to have it fixed. You dropped it. So I made him play with it broken for a couple weeks.” (43:45)

Longevity, Diversification, and Legacy

• Restaurants and Residencies
  • Aldean operates four "Jason Aldean Kitchen + Rooftop Bar" venues, including Nashville, Gatlinburg, Pittsburgh, and Las Vegas. “First one opened here, Nashville... it’s become a staple.” (62:38)
• Thoughts on Retirement
  • “I still enjoy it too much to not do it. We just finished an album... I still love that side of it.” (59:40–59:51)
  • On Vegas residencies: “I think that’s probably in our future...” (60:04)
• Pride in Accomplishments
  • “Thirty number ones... 20 million albums sold, 20 billion streams... It's been a good run.” (64:11–64:26)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Music Business:
  • "Everybody comes to the shows to have fun and hang out, and then you get home and all your friends... haven't seen you, and they're like, let's go watch Monday Night Football. So you're at it again." (08:06)
• On Touring Burnout:
  • "Monday never comes when you're touring." (08:04)
• On Insecurity and Perseverance:
  • "For our little family, our little crew, we got so lucky. Not one injury... and you're happy about that, but then you feel guilty... survivor’s guilt. It sucks." (48:15)
• On the Contradictions of Fame:
  • “There's times where I know what I'm getting into when I go somewhere... then there's also times where I feel like sometimes it gets a little inappropriate. Like if I'm at dinner with my family and... at some point, as an entertainer, you gotta shut that off and give your family your undivided attention.” (17:41)
• On Public Backlash:
  • “You're just not going to guilt me into something... I can accept it if I feel like I'm in the wrong... But if I'm not, you ain't gonna get it out of me ever.” (57:02–57:23)
• On Authenticity in Country:
  • “It’s all in what they associate you with, I think... They associate singers with being on stage or your highlight reels...” (18:31)

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Important Timestamps

• 03:01 – Aldean’s Georgia childhood; football culture
• 06:08 – Father’s influence and musical roots; Alabama as inspiration
• 08:18 – Teaching himself guitar, learning by ear
• 09:48 – Early baseball dreams vs. music
• 14:34 – Introvert/extrovert split of musicianship
• 20:15 – First bar gigs at 14 and mother’s dedication
• 23:44 – Move to Nashville and early setbacks
• 25:09 – Learning to record and humbling experiences
• 30:12 – Losing confidence, perseverance, and Michael Knox’s mentorship
• 36:00 – Initial breakthrough and first album
• 39:45 – Touring realities and adapting to family
• 44:24 – Las Vegas shooting: personal onstage account
• 45:34 – Saturday Night Live appearance post-shooting
• 51:02 – Dax on parallels between rap and country music
• 55:46 – “Try That in a Small Town” and handling controversy
• 59:08 – Evolution of song themes with age
• 62:38 – Expansion into restaurants and business
• 64:11 – Achievements and accolades
• Throughout – Reflections on family, fatherhood, community, and personal resilience

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Tone, Language, and Vibe

The conversation blends warmth, humor, and vulnerability—Shepard’s signature disarming style draws out Aldean’s true voice: open, self-effacing, grateful, and unsparingly honest, especially around pain, pressure, and public scrutiny. Monica Padman provides thoughtful questions about family dynamics and female perspectives. The tone shifts fluidly from light banter to deep introspection, mirroring the “messiness of being human” that Dax evangelizes.

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For Further Listening

• Jason Aldean’s new music (album dropping September, title TBA)
• Attend a "Full Throttle Tour" show or visit an Aldean Kitchen location
• Past Armchair Expert interviews with musicians (e.g., Shania Twain)

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Summary prepared for listeners seeking an insightful, entertaining, and human look behind the country music stardom of Jason Aldean, highlighting the perseverance, challenges, and contradictions along the way.

Transcript

[Dax Shepard]

Wondry plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan shepherd and I'm joined by Monica, Lilly, Padman.

[Monica Padman]

Hi.

[Dax Shepard]

And in the shadows. Wobby Wob. Today is our second guest we had in Nashville, but he was actually our first guest in Nashville. So delighted he said yes and came and was a guinea pig of sorts.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, he was.

[Dax Shepard]

Jason Aldean. Jason Aldean is a Grammy nominated and multi platinum entertainer. Albums include Highway Desperado, My Kind of Party, Night Train, Wide Open, Relentless. And he's on tour now, the Full Throttle Tour. And if anyone wants to go see him play, everyone agrees he's so radical in concert. Go to www.jasonaldean.com and go check out the Full Throttle Tour. Please enjoy Jason Aldean. We are supported by JCPenney.

[Monica Padman]

Guys, do not sleep on JCPenney. They've got stylish clothes for everyone in your life. Yourself, obviously, your parents, your kids, your friend's new baby. There's something for every age. Everybody and every budget.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, the budget part is huge because scoring a great deal is one of the last socially acceptable forms of bragging.

[Monica Padman]

So, so true. Why does it feel so good when someone gives you an outfit compliment and then you drop that you paid less than they think? It's just really satisfying.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And then you tell them where you got it. It's from JCPenney. Yes, JCPenney. It's so good. I just got a second pair of Levi's that are just blowing my mind. They had a wash on there I couldn't find anywhere else. And boy, God, I look, I just. I'm approaching Beckham status with these slacks.

[Monica Padman]

Nice. So if you've been sleeping on JCPenney, wake up and check it out. They've got fashion worth bragging about.

[Dax Shepard]

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[Monica Padman]

He's an armchair expert.

[Dax Shepard]

He's an armchair. You're from Macon?

[Jason Aldean]

Macon, Georgia. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Imani's from Duluth.

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah, we were talking about.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, you already covered that. And, you know, he's a huge Bulldogs fan.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Jason Aldean]

Kind of a religion down in Georgia. College football.

[Dax Shepard]

It really is my fast pass to piss Monica off. If ever I want to wake her up, I just say, Roll Tide. Now, I have no allegiance to that.

[Jason Aldean]

My wife graduated from Alabama.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, boy.

[Jason Aldean]

It was really, really unfortunate.

[Monica Padman]

A house divided.

[Dax Shepard]

And did she watch all the games? Like, how into it is she?

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jason Aldean]

And then a couple seasons in, she's like, just tell me if they won or lost. Like, she doesn't really watch the game, you know?

[Monica Padman]

So it's more about going to the games.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Monica Padman]

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

[Jason Aldean]

Very preppy at the SEC schools.

[Dax Shepard]

Interesting.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's a whole thing. It's so fun.

[Dax Shepard]

Now, let me ask you this, Moni. When you were doing your tailgate parties before these games.

[Monica Padman]

Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

When it was time to go into the game, we were like, fuck, we gotta go into the game.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, of course.

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because especially back then, they didn't sell any alcohol inside. So you're like, you have to go inside. You're done drinking. You're like, well, tell me. Party's over. Cowboy boots are always a good thing for that, cowboy boots. Then you shove it down in the boot.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

Patting you down on your ankles. Really?

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

You must have met him, right?

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

He's like, if you're in Austin with Matthew McConaughey, it's like being at Disneyland with Mickey Mouse.

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

I mean, Mickey Mouse of all.

[Jason Aldean]

His jacket and that hat are gonna go in the College Football hall of Fame at some point. I'm pretty sure it's like a staple now.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Monica Padman]

It sure did not.

[Dax Shepard]

Remember, we are guests of his in his box.

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And I was like, what do I do? I have to. To root for Georgia. I'm not going to go. Yeah, right. So I wore a bulldog shirt and a red sweater. I didn't go all out.

[Jason Aldean]

Just enough to be annoying to him.

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Just a thorn in the side.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Austin's my spiritual headquarters.

[Jason Aldean]

It's a cool town, man.

[Monica Padman]

It's really cool town, but still my allegiance.

[Jason Aldean]

Well, yeah. I mean, you can't flip flop.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

Yeah. This was a big friendship issue.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. What did dad do in Macon?

[Jason Aldean]

Well, my dad was in the Air Force. My parents met when they were in high school. Dad joined the Air Force right after that, and my mom got married. He got stationed in Germany, and then they came back. They were living in Valdosta, which is a little south of Macon. He was stationed at Moody Air Force Base. I was born. Then we moved to Homestead Air Force Base, which is between Miami and the Keys. He was a weapons mechanic on fighter planes. And as a kid, I was running around the Air Force base climbing in planes, which was cool. But then they got divorced when I was 3. My mom kind of moved back to Macon, where her family was from, and my dad stayed in Florida pretty much till I was 18 or 19, and then moved back to Georgia and Now lives about 10 minutes from me here.

[Dax Shepard]

So my mom and dad also got divorced at 3. I'm two years older than you, so I think we got all the same references.

[Jason Aldean]

50. Have you hit 50 yet?

[Dax Shepard]

I've hit 50 in January.

[Jason Aldean]

Happy 50, man. That's a big deal. It is something I never thought I'd see. You probably, too, right?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah. It didn't look good for many years.

[Monica Padman]

You had that thought.

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah. You know, when you're young and especially in this business, 28, all of a sudden it got some hits and go on the road, and you're living the dre.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, God.

[Dax Shepard]

You've been preparing for this, and I.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Monday never comes when you're touring. No.

[Jason Aldean]

You know, everybody comes to the shows to have fun and hang out, and then you get home and all your friends at home haven't seen you, and they're like, let's go watch Monday Night Football. So you're at it again. Took me a while to adjust.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah, he kind of knew the basics, and I would just be at his house. You know, my sister's seven years younger than me, so we didn't really have a lot in common at that time. I started kind of wanting to play guitar, and he basically drew it out on notebook paper, was like, here's the frets. Here's where your fingers go. That's a G chord. He would go to work and I'd just grab his old Fender guitar and sit in there and mess around. He had a little band that would come sit at our. It was kind of like a living room garage band. Three of them, four of them maybe. And they would come play old Merle Haggard stuff. And after a while I started playing with them and singing all the songs. And that was kind of how it started. You start kind of like music theory, I guess. You start figuring out, oh, these chords go with those chords and those don't go with those. And then you start figuring out how to put songs together. And you find a song like Turn the Page. I mean, it's an E minor. So you're like, well, I know that D goes with E minor and what chords go with that? You go, oh, well, once you know where it starts, you can figure it out from there. And that's kind of how I learned to play guitar. Even now if we're learning a new song or something and I'm like, what key's that in? B flat. I'm like, what the hell's a B flat? And then my guitar player will be, it's this one. I'm like, oh, okay, I know that chord. I play it all the time. I just don't know what it is.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, right.

[Jason Aldean]

So that's how I learned to play. Even piano. If there's a song I need to learn, I don't know what it's in. I just put the keyboard in middle C and I just figure it out. And I couldn't go in a piano bar and sit there and play. But if you give me a day or two, I'll figure it out. It was like that with guitar too.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah, it'll turn into an acapella bar, trust me.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

What position?

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

That was just in Saskatchewan.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Shit was going down in the 80s in those bars for sure.

[Jason Aldean]

Oh yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

But I'm curious really quick. When mom and dad split, my version of it is I had lots of friends whose parents got divorced at 8 or 10 or 12, and they pined for them to get back together. I was three, so I didn't really have that fantasy.

[Jason Aldean]

Same.

[Dax Shepard]

But you know, with any stepdads.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Minute drive back to the stepdads because I know there's something there.

[Jason Aldean]

One of mine was a Vietnam vet who had some issues with that addiction stuff. Not really. Just more. He was a dickhead seventh grade or something and wants to like bow up to me. Like, I was like this much taller.

[Dax Shepard]

Than me and a man who's been to war. Yeah.

[Jason Aldean]

Oh, you're a badass.

[Dax Shepard]

And then what would happen in school?

[Jason Aldean]

I always knew anybody that did that or any man that's like bowing up to a kid like, you're fucking idiot. And so getting to school, that stuff never carried over to me. I got to school, I got along with everybody. I changed schools a bunch. I never went to the same school for more than two years in a row until I was in 8th, 9th grade. And sports was kind of my end. Baseball or whatever started. And even if I didn't know everybody or PE class, they figure out you could play sports and all of a sudden you kind of in with the guys and it's cool. And that was how it always was for me. So I didn't get into a lot of stuff at school.

[Dax Shepard]

You got along with it.

[Jason Aldean]

I was kind of sneaky. I wanted to do stuff and not get in trouble, not get caught. Yeah, yeah. You know, I was. I got really good at that.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

Constantly having to meet new people like that and bouncing around and you can never get comfortable. Like, my kids have friends they went to kindergarten with. They've been friends since they were little kids. I'm like, man, I didn't really have that. We were bouncing around so much that you just kind of learned to be a little bit of a chameleon and figure it out as you go. I think I went to school one time dressed like Zack Morris, you know, coming back from Florida, blonde in my hair, look like a total idiot, you know, like, couldn't be further from me.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

You are, get the most amount of girls.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

I mean, I did that eventually. My dad bought me a guitar of my own. I would sit in the room with my tape deck and if stuff I wanted to play, I would play it and stop it and back it up.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you have a four track?

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

School that was like the fucking pro Tools back then.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

But how do you transition into the hotel room?

[Jason Aldean]

I don't. I stay on the bus probably 99%.

[Dax Shepard]

Of the time and that helps.

[Jason Aldean]

It's just my other house, so my kids are out there, my wife's out there.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

With the Whelan logo on the back. It's awesome.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm so glad you saw that.

[Jason Aldean]

I did.

[Dax Shepard]

I had that.

[Jason Aldean]

Is that actually Waylons, or did you.

[Dax Shepard]

Put that on there?

[Jason Aldean]

That was so cool.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Does it rake in there, like, weed still?

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Did you have an incident or just.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Are you afraid that'll affect your voice a little bit?

[Jason Aldean]

I know it's gonna probably sound different. And it's also just time, and they're like, yeah, it's gonna feel like you got the worst flu for, like, two weeks. And I'm like, that doesn't sound like something I want to jump on. This doesn't sound like fun. So I haven't had it done yet.

[Dax Shepard]

Maybe go CPAP during the recoveries.

[Jason Aldean]

That thing seems annoying.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Jason Aldean]

I need. I need one that just goes right here. The strap. It wakes up. I actually tried it. It woke up, and it's, like, sitting.

[Dax Shepard]

On my learning curve. My childhood best friend's on a cpap. Yeah. I constantly see him in different states of it all wrapped around. He looks like a fire pilot, though.

[Jason Aldean]

As he goes to sleep.

[Dax Shepard]

I always wish him luck on his mission.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. How big is the gap between Jason the Man and Jason the Performer?

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

I think it's similar to a comedian.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, probably.

[Dax Shepard]

Like, I think when people see Leonardo DiCaprio at a restaurant, they're like, oh, my God.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

They say Will Ferrell. They're like, my bro's here. I'm going to go tell him how much fun I have.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Life and a party. It's kind of party music. It's what you put on. To have good time for them, though.

[Monica Padman]

That'S a moment they're going to remember forever. So they're like, I got to take it.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

I'm also a fan. Like, I remember moving to LA and you moved to Nashville when you're a kid. Like, I remember being so excited. Saw Nicholas Cage at a gas station filling up his Porsche. I could have stayed there all day watching him fill up that G. I've.

[Jason Aldean]

Never seen a guy fill up a car.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Were you a better singer or guitar player?

[Jason Aldean]

At neither.

[Dax Shepard]

Equally bad at both.

[Jason Aldean]

And I did that off and on. I remember seeing it a little bit with, like, karaoke tapes. I started getting this house gig. I was winning these talent contests at our local bar. And Macon, one of the clubs, just said, hey, you know, you want to come be a featured artist? Play with our house band on the weekends and play four or five songs a set. And so at 14, 15 years old, I started doing that.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

Not really, because they had to be with me in the beginning. My mom would go to work, I go to school, and then after school, I'd have baseball practice. I get home, she cooked dinner, go to the bar, and she'd sit there at the bar with me until 1 o' clock in the morning and then come home and we'd do that two or three nights a week.

[Dax Shepard]

What kind of bar was it? I guess let's start there.

[Jason Aldean]

It was called Nashville South. It was a country bar.

[Dax Shepard]

How often were you seeing fights?

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

There's stuff happening with women you're seeing that's kind of new, all of it. And are you loving it or are you feeling overwhelmed? Like, oh, this is intense.

[Jason Aldean]

You know, when I first started seeing it, it was like, man, this is awesome. It kind of just becomes second nature after a while. You start seeing it and you're like, all right, you guys move. We're trying to fit.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, it's not real. You get desensitized and you know how to navigate it.

[Jason Aldean]

You know, you break strat after a while.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

What the hell have I gotten into here?

[Monica Padman]

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

[Jason Aldean]

This is what happens in a bar is kind of the way I took.

[Dax Shepard]

It, by the way. Did that make you cool at high school, all that?

[Jason Aldean]

Not really.

[Dax Shepard]

It didn't.

[Jason Aldean]

It was almost like, Jason's gonna be a country singer. It was almost kind of like maybe even a little nerdy. That's where the sports kind of, you know, mitigated that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. Yeah.

[Jason Aldean]

So I would just sit outside my guitar on the tailgate of my truck playing. All my friends would come by honking and be like, what the fuck are you doing?

[Dax Shepard]

This guy thinks he's gonna be Garth Brooks.

[Jason Aldean]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah. Jokes on, you motherfucker.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, right.

[Jason Aldean]

But I did that. And then I met these guys. They fired the whole house band at this bar I was playing. They brought in another band, and it was a bunch of young guys that were my age. Most of them were a year younger than me. And I was probably 18 or 19 at the time. So I met these guys. It was the first time I'd been around other musicians that were my age. And so we started playing. And that's kind of where I started really figuring it out and getting to be a better guitar player, learning to play with the band and being the front man of a band that was playing our sets instead of going up playing all covers. Justin Weaver, a guy that was in the band who lives here in Nashville now, who I've been friends with forever. He and I would write a few things, you know, but for the most part, it was.

[Dax Shepard]

That's what people want to hear.

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah, you're playing the top 40 country songs at the bar. You know, they want to hear Achy Breaky Heart. They're waiting all night to hear those things. That was where I started really having fun. We started traveling with that band and we were all the same age.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, and now you're having the community that you would have on a sports team with peers.

[Jason Aldean]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

When you're with these older dudes, I'm sure they're being nice to you, but.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

You have a great relationship with him at some point?

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so then you move to Nashville at 21, you get signed and dropped quickly a couple times.

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And then you end up with Broken bow Records in 2000.

[Jason Aldean]

2003, I think is when they signed me.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

That's when it hit for me.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

But you don't know any different. That's.

[Dax Shepard]

I didn't know any different. But what was really hard on me was my friends and peers were working and the people I performed with at the Groundlings, they're all in commercials and they have apartments. Just watching people around me for eight years succeed or have agents or this, and that was fucking brutal. I would already been an addict, but definitely supercharged that because I was just scared. You're kind of like a boy wondered to be working at a bar at 15 and then have your own band at 18. What were those eight years like when.

[Jason Aldean]

I moved to Nashville, I felt like, man, I'd kind of been building this thing down in Georgia and Florida. We were selling out big bars down in Georgia and Florida and, like, making a name for ourself. And then all of a sudden, I get the call to the big leagues to come up here and write songs for Warner Brothers. So that's kind of how I got my foot in the door. So I think I'm gonna show up. We're just gonna pick up where we left off. And it was just not even close.

[Dax Shepard]

It's humbling.

[Jason Aldean]

And I realized that the live was what I had been working on, that I had down. But what I didn't have was being in the studio and learning how to capture that on tape and being a better singer in the studio. And really, when you're in the studio, you start hearing all your flaws and all the things that you don't really hear live. We started working on that part of it a lot. But, yeah, you know, I just think it was getting better at that stuff and that seven years of being in town going, oh, we want to sign you. And then I was signed to Capitol Records for a year, and they kept going, oh, we're going to let you go in and cut four sides. And then a couple weeks out, they go, I don't think we got the songs. And they would cancel it. I did that for like a year and a half.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

They're bringing in songs, you're trying to find songs, and then you collectively kind of sit down and go, man, we think this is the best. And that was always a big thing for me, is that I just didn't want people picking songs for me. I feel like that happened a little bit early on in my career, and when it did happen, it didn't go well. I'm a stubborn dude, especially when it comes to that. If I want to fail, I don't want to put the blame on anybody else.

[Dax Shepard]

Fail with your idea.

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah, I can at least accept that. So at this point, I mean, even making records and stuff, now we go make the album and when we're done, it's like, here's your record and here's the singles. And that constant chirping in your ear of, I like this song, and, well, this is my favorite song. And, you know, everybody's got an opinion. I'm like, I just don't want to hear all that noise. I just want to go make my record and go, this is what I think is cool. And that's kind of how we are now. But obviously took a while to get there, too.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

So now when you hear that and let's say you respond to it right, you're like, oh, there's something there. Whether it's this hook I like or it's this piece of it. How do you put your fingerprint on it? And then are you looking for a way that's like, okay, great. So that's a great suggestion. Now, how do I make it mine?

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Monica Padman]

That's the recipe.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

Yes. We're talking about the young band that I had. There was a club in Atlanta called the Buck Boys. It was up in Cobb county somewhere up there, right next to a strip club. It was awesome boomers.

[Dax Shepard]

And then you had, you know, one stop shop everything, stumble out of the bar and go to the strip club.

[Monica Padman]

What a night.

[Jason Aldean]

But they had a house band there, and sometimes that house band would have bigger shows, like around town. They play a festival or something that was going on. And so the guy, John Galatio, who owned it, would call and be like, hey, can you guys fill in for my band that's out? So it kind of started like that. Yeah, he would do, like, a showcase where he'd bring people in from Nashville and kind of showcase the best bands in the area to try and help him get a deal. At the end of the day, he probably got a little kickback off of that. You know, we were all paying him, like, 500 bucks to get into this thing. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Jason Aldean]

So Michael Knox was there, saw me playing a couple Songs we had written that night, and that kind of started that journey. He flew down to see me play some shows in Florida and then brought me to Nashville. Went in the studio, cut a couple songs.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Did he have an approach that you think worked particularly well with you?

[Jason Aldean]

He's like a big brother to me. He's from Macon, Georgia. He's from my hometown and just happened to be the vice president at Warner Chapel here. His dad was Buddy Knox, who was a 50s singer with Buddy Holly and those kind of guys. So he's just kind of been around it.

[Dax Shepard]

Back when one in five musicians was named Buddy.

[Jason Aldean]

Yes.

[Monica Padman]

Clearly you respected him, it sounds like.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Jason Aldean]

And he was like a big brother that was in the business. He was a VP of a major company in town. And for whatever reason, this guy took me under his wing and wanted to help me even when I would get record deals and lose them and those kind of things.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. How are you staying resilient in that period?

[Jason Aldean]

I think Definitely losing confidence. You know, you come into town with plenty of confidence. It's like, oh, they've been waiting on me to get here.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, big fish syndrome.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, he might be in rehab right now. Probably.

[Jason Aldean]

Very likely actually.

[Dax Shepard]

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert if you dare. We are supported by Audible Searching for a romantic summer getaway escape with Rich Girl Summer, the new Audible original from Lily Chiu. The exquisitely talented Philippa sue, known for Hamilton and Dr. Odyssey, returns to narrate her fifth Lily Chiu title. Set in Toronto's wealthy cottage country, a.k.a. the Hamptons of Canada, Rich Girl Summer follows the story of Valerie, a down on her luck event planner posing as a socialite's long lost daugh while piecing together the secrets surrounding mysterious family and falling deeper and deeper in love with the impossibly hard to read and infuriatingly handsome family assistant Nico. Caught between pretending to belong and unexpectedly finding where she truly fits in, Valerie learns her summer is about to get far more complicated than she ever planned.

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This sounds up my alley. This sounds like a great summer. Listen, she needs to fit in and she's falling in love and it's a hot boy.

[Dax Shepard]

But the family assistant.

[Monica Padman]

Oh this is exciting.

[Dax Shepard]

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[Monica Padman]

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[Dax Shepard]

Look no further. Quince has closet staples you'll want to reach for over and over. Like cozy cashmere and cotton sweaters from just $50, breathable flow knit polos and comfortable lightweight pants that somehow work for both weekend hangs and dressed up dinners. And everything you're going to order from Quince is half the cost of similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quint gives you luxury pieces without the markup. Keep it classic and cool with long lasting staples from quince. Go to quince.comdax for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I-n c e.comdax to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comdax okay, so 2005, Jason L. Dean, your first album comes out out and Hicktown is first out and then Y is your first number one hit. So how do we adjust to eight years of desert dwelling to like pretty radical success right out of the gates.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Do you have a hard time believing it?

[Jason Aldean]

That it's happening?

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Jason Aldean]

I was always like, this is too good to be true. I don't want this to end and I'm scared of that. I'm not even enjoying the success for worrying about it ending.

[Dax Shepard]

Exactly.

[Jason Aldean]

And that was probably something I still do actually.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Jason Aldean]

Even this far into it, I remember having a 15,000 square or 1500 square foot house.

[Dax Shepard]

Sorry, you've been rich too long.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, 1500 at the end.

[Jason Aldean]

And this was like a house I had bought that I was hoping my record deal would do well, but I didn't have any money yet. I just remember thinking, man, if I could just make enough money to pay off this house, it cost me $105,000. All my problems will go away.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Jason Aldean]

And then all of a sudden, a couple years later, my accountant's like, man, you got to sell that house and get a bigger one for tax purposes. I'm like, what the hell? So then you start getting into that and you're like, this is too good to be true. I don't know when this is going to end, but surely this can't keep going on the way it is. And then you turn around and you're 20 years into it, still waiting on something bad to happen.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, well, when you have eight years of getting your ass kicked, you get pretty used to that's how it is.

[Jason Aldean]

Oh yeah.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Well, now here's where booze and drugs works. So I couldn't really enjoy it. So. So free. It was going to go away, but when I was fucked up, I could.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

I never went down well. Good.

[Dax Shepard]

You think your nose is fucked up now?

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah. Maybe it'll clear it out. Mine was drinking, though, man. I probably drank enough to float a damn aircraft.

[Monica Padman]

It's a fun hobby.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah. But I think that's it. Whether people want to believe it or not, Sometimes those things kind of create, you know, Genius comes out of putting your head in a different place. There's a reason that Rockstar is some of the best songs ever written for coming out of, like, place of pain or despair or you trying to cover up something with drugs or alcohol.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

And it was probably coming from a place that was very legit, you know, so.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Is it the same with us? Like, when they were little, it was no problem. We just took them everywhere we were working. And then they get to an age where you really can't do that, and then you have to really Figure out like, well then do I really want to work?

[Jason Aldean]

For us, it's school.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you have an eight year old boy?

[Jason Aldean]

We have a six year old girl, seven year old boy, he'll be eight in December. And then older children, 22 and 17 girls. Yes.

[Dax Shepard]

I would imagine you have to kind of learn how to tour so that it's tenable that you can continue to do it. So like, what things did you start figuring out along the way?

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Now do you get depressed when you're at home?

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

You gotta go to Cincinnati.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Monica Padman]

You're like, damn, you need your purpose back. Yes, I have a Tricky question, but I have to ask. Cause I wonder. You have these older kids and then you have younger kids. Do you ever think about the fact that those two sets have had such different experiences?

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

You have a much more manageable schedule now.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Monica Padman]

Probably pros and cons to both, for sure.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Know any different because it is normal to them.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

It's all trade off. How bad do you want to say to your kids, like, guys, get your fucking head out of your ass? We didn't go out to eat, but once every two months. We didn't have a fucking car with air. What are you talking about?

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

And I'm not an exploitative type of person.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Well, Jason was performing in Vegas during the shooting.

[Monica Padman]

Oh.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

It had to be very confusing at first.

[Jason Aldean]

Confusing. But, yeah, you know, it happened. Obviously. It was horrible. Deal. We finally got out of there the next afternoon, getting home. And you're just glad to be home. Show up. My mom's crying. You know, my kids are thinking. My oldest daughter was in school, freaking out, thinking that somebody was trying to shoot us. All the details were still kind of coming out.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, it's one of the most horrific national events we've had. And you were literally on her stage.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

The shooting was the first, and Saturday night was a seven.

[Jason Aldean]

The shooting was on Sunday. I believe we got home Monday. And then I got this call, like, Thursday for Saturday. For Saturday.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah. That must be a really complicated offer.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

And we were shell shocked, too.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

You forget 860, 69 people were injured.

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah, it was pretty crazy. And so then a week after that, we were right back on tour, going to play, and we had maybe another month of shows and then we finally got to go home for a few months. My son was born during that time. So the shooting happened on October 1st. He was born December 1st.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Jason Aldean]

All of a sudden at home, we kind of had something else to focus on versus watching that on the news every day.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

And you love your fans. Like I'm imagining, if arm Jerry's got injured at a show, it would fucking devastate me.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

How much does it enter your mind going forward?

[Jason Aldean]

Occasionally kind of situational, you have to.

[Dax Shepard]

Have PTSD from it, is what I'm saying.

[Jason Aldean]

Basically, we played a show and there was a parking garage, you know, where there's, like, open things, like in those kind of things.

[Dax Shepard]

And you're on an alert now?

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah, we were in Canada just a couple days ago, playing a show up there. And we're in downtown, in the city, walking to our hotel, probably midnight, and a car backfires. You know, it sounds like a shotgun went off. And, I mean, you're right on my cruise with me that we're all in that, too. And so we're all like, what the fuck? So you still have those moments. I think they'll always be there.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

I guess too Southern. I never will. And here's the ironic thing. We funded a ton of therapy for therapy for all the crews and everybody else. And then, you know, obviously I didn't go. So my therapy was me, my wife, my band, all of us that were kind of there. We all talked about it amongst each other.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

All of us had kind of our little inner circle to talk about it with, and that was what we did. But I have a hard time talking to people about my things being vulnerable. I just have a Hard time opening up to people that don't know me or like, haven't been in the same situation.

[Dax Shepard]

You're on the wrong show, my friend.

[Jason Aldean]

I listen to you and pit talk. So, yeah, I mean, it's fun. I don't have any problem talking about. I'm just not going to voluntarily go and do it.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

There's also, like a brave freedom to, you know, I get stoned and play all day long. I like to sit on the fucking porch with my blue tickets.

[Jason Aldean]

Oh, yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

There's a lot of owning the shit that people are judgmental of.

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah. Owning things that most people wouldn't say.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

Everybody wants to say, but everybody's kind of scared to say until somebody says it once. And then they're like, yeah. And then they all start saying it, you know?

[Dax Shepard]

Yes.

[Jason Aldean]

But yeah, it raps like that.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

Dog, the me, just attitude. It's real. It's unapologetic.

[Monica Padman]

Authentic.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

The fan bases are similar, too. Music album sales dropped out. The last two to remain the most robust are rap and country.

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Live shows also. Great audience for attending. I think when people hear their story, story, they're really loyal to that.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

You can do a lot, though.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Is he the current God?

[Monica Padman]

He's great.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Monica Padman]

He's crossed all the boundaries.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

This song being controversial was, I mean.

[Dax Shepard]

A shocker to you that it was.

[Jason Aldean]

As big as it was? Yes. It was a song that I felt like was probably gonna raise a few eyebrows and hopefully make people look in the mirror and go, yeah, that probably wasn't a good look. And when we put the video out, it's like, I'm not recreating this. This is what was happening. Like, look at it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jason Aldean]

When that happened, everything kind of became focused on the BLM movements. And then this church that we had shot it in Spring Hill, where I live, not a church, but a courthouse. They started digging into this courthouse and found where somebody had been hung there. And then that became a thing about it. And so it just kind of became this making something out of nothing to me.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, politicizing to the nth degree as much as we can. That person's on that side. This courthouse had to lynch it.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

How do you weather those events? Events.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

I'm with you on that.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

So it doesn't bother you?

[Jason Aldean]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

Well, you want everybody to. Obviously.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

Same. But it's also like, if you don't like me, you don't like my music, you don't like what I stand for, you're never gonna buy a ticket to a show, you're never gonna come see me, I'm never gonna make a fan out of you. So at that point, I don't really care. You're. You already convinced yourself that you don't like what I'm about.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Jason Aldean]

So I'm not gonna waste any time worrying about it. I just can't do that. Like we were talking earlier, authentic. I think you have to be true to that. And I'm not gonna go get on A TV show or something, and just go and speak my mind for an hour and tell everybody how I feel about the state of the world or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It comes out in a song like that. That's part of my art. That's what I do. And not everybody's probably gonna like that.

[Monica Padman]

And they don't have to.

[Jason Aldean]

They don't have to. I don't care.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, look, name a comedy like, I love Chappelle.

[Jason Aldean]

Same.

[Dax Shepard]

Some people hate him.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

I think he's fair.

[Dax Shepard]

Everyone gets blasted.

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah. Nobody's safe. I think that's fun. Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

That can be hard to evaluate.

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah, Hicktown. I mean, it came out. I was 28. She's country, you know, those kind of things. It's great, but, like, at some point, you're going to have to have some songs that have a little meat on the bone. Now we're writing songs, songs about retirement communities. Yes. Things like family members going through things like dementia, but still having the things that people expect from us on a record, too. So it's just kind of that weird new era for us.

[Dax Shepard]

What are your thoughts about retirement or when you back off? And what's that mental gymnastics for you?

[Jason Aldean]

I don't think I'm there yet. For me, I still enjoy it too much to not not do it.

[Dax Shepard]

And you've pared it down enough that it's manageable, made it to where it works. For me, 55 versus 200 is a big difference.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Have you been to some shows there?

[Jason Aldean]

No, but Chesney just did his out there. And Sean Silva, who is our video director, Too. Did all the content for that and seen a ton of stuff. I think Backstreet Boys just did one. Killer. I think that's probably in our future to hit Vegas, do some residencies, but me to just stop touring. And even doing it the way we do it, this is what I've wanted to do from the time I can remember. I've gotten to do it for the last 20 years and they still let me do it. It works out for me, though, because I take half the year off and I work half the year, and so that half the year I'm off, it's like we're traveling. I just got back from Europe.

[Dax Shepard]

Where'd you go?

[Jason Aldean]

Went to London. Went to see the band Oasis, went to see their reunion.

[Dax Shepard]

Did they get in a. No.

[Jason Aldean]

I was hoping they would, though.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, of course. That's what you buy a ticket for.

[Jason Aldean]

It was awesome. We saw their first show in Cardiff. It was on July 4th, so. First show after 16 years and it was killer.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

75,000 people in the stadium. Sold it out two nights in a row, and they're doing like five or six nights at Wembley. That holds like 90,000. Whoa. They're huge over there. But it was so fun, man.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

The single is going to come out somewhere around first part of September. Doesn't have a title yet. I literally just turned it into the label a couple weeks ago. So if you got any cool titles, just text me, I'll hit you with some.

[Dax Shepard]

I might need to hear a track or two. So that's not completely disconnected, but you kind of mentioned it. So I'm presuming the dementia's family situations in the upcoming album.

[Jason Aldean]

My uncle just passed away, Lewy Body dementia, like, in the last year and got another family member that's dealing with that kind of thing. And so, you know, we got some songs we wrote. Kind of talk about that.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

You kind of hit on that common denominator that everybody can relate to, but.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

And then you have Jason Aldean kitchen and rooftop bar. You have four of those.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

And Kristen hosted the CMT's together?

[Jason Aldean]

We did. I was gonna bring that up.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jason Aldean]

It's the only time I've ever hosted a show. Ever was with her. She was my co host.

[Dax Shepard]

And how'd you like that? She's about as good of a co host as you can have.

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Monica Padman]

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

[Jason Aldean]

I love it. Hey, take what you can get. Any press is good. Press Institute.

[Monica Padman]

What, like all these things he had?

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, they were all in the bars.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, the bars. Yeah.

[Jason Aldean]

Well, Nashville's become such a tourist.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

A lot of us, I mean, we're touring and stuff, so when we come home off the road, we all kind of scatter and go do our own thing. But, you know, a lot of us, like Luke, I can call him and go play golf or go fish. He's in LA a bunch because he's doing, I don't know, big TV star like you you know, big TV star, but yeah, you got your crew that you hang out with and that you kind of see occasionally. But we're all kind of based out of here for the most part.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

It's been a good run.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

Congratulations.

[Jason Aldean]

Thank you.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, truly, truly.

[Jason Aldean]

Like I said, I was just trying to pay for that 1500 square foot house, man, you know? Here we are.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

New Zealand. Australia, I think in February next year. But we actually go on the road this week to really kick off the tour.

[Dax Shepard]

We're in Tulsa.

[Jason Aldean]

Tulsa, little rock, and St. Louis, I think is the first run, so. And then we head out west for a little bit.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Jason Aldean]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I gotta stop at your many, many restaurants. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare. We are supported by Hill's Pet Nutrition. Something we celebrate here on Armchair Expert is that we all have juggles, struggles, faults and flaws because we're human. Those of us with pets know this all too well. We are their whole world, and that can be a lot of pressure. Things are just going to go wrong sometimes, and we can only plan for so much pet. Parent guilt is unavoidable.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, like when you left one of your dogs when you went traveling, you probably had guilt.

[Dax Shepard]

I did. Whiskey wasn't fit to make the trip, but I was relieved that he's having such a great time with Peggy at home. But, yeah, because you're only human. There's Hills. Science does more. Find the right food at Hills. We are supported by Kodiak Cakes. Kodiak Cakes. Kodiak fuels big days with protein, whole grains and other real ingredients. Because when you've got a day on the books, whether that's a big meeting or A family outing or an outdoor adventure, the last thing you need is an energy crash. Kodiak knows that combining 100% whole grains with protein helps keep you feeling fuller, longer without weighing you down. It's the perfect combo for activities. It holds up to help you go the distance. They're delicious.

[Monica Padman]

They taste so good and they're protein packed.

[Dax Shepard]

And they're robust.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, they are robust.

[Dax Shepard]

I love Kodiak cakes. And yeah, Kodiak cakes have amazing breakfast options like oatmeal and waffles that take just minutes to make. But it's not just breakfast. They have snack bars, too. Their chewy bars are a family favorite, perfect for packing in lunches and camp care packages. Head to kodiakcakes.comdax and enter code DAX to get 15% off your first order. That's Kodiak Cake cakes.comdax promo code DAX or your local grocery store. They're the ones with the bear on the box.

[Jason Aldean]

ARR.

[Dax Shepard]

We are supported by BetterHelp. You know when you're struggling and you go online and start searching with symptoms and trying to figure out what's going on? It can be pretty darn daunting.

[Monica Padman]

So overwhelming. Way too much information.

[Dax Shepard]

Too much information. These days, it feels like there's advice for everything. Cold plunges, gratitude journals, screen detoxes. I'm two of those three. But how do you know what actually works for you? Using trusted resources and talking to live therapists can get you personalized recommendations and help you break through the noise. Well, therapy on BetterHelp is a great place to start. With an app store rating of 4.9 out of 5 based on over 1.7 million client reviews.

[Monica Padman]

Therapy's so important to get ahead of things. People think you go once something bad has already happened, but ounce of prevention is exactly. It's huge.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, better. BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Talk it out with BetterHelp. Armchairs get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com Dax that's BetterHelpH. E L-P.com Dax stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, I have an update.

[Dax Shepard]

You have an update?

[Monica Padman]

Mm.

[Dax Shepard]

What is it?

[Monica Padman]

I was right again.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, wow.

[Jason Aldean]

Great.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

It feels so good to be right, doesn't it?

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

And I was right the whole time.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

The day I said is the day, which is today.

[Dax Shepard]

Congratulations.

[Monica Padman]

Thank you. It came.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

That's still a big question.

[Monica Padman]

The original mystery remains.

[Dax Shepard]

My mom liked being right so much, she made up a song, and you'd hear singing it occasionally throughout the house. And it was. It's such a good feeling to know that you're right.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. There were more lyrics, but that's the. I guess the chorus. What I remember.

[Monica Padman]

Take away. Do you think you really like. Because you grew up hearing that. You really embodied it.

[Dax Shepard]

I just know it feels great to be right.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

And I guess it's good to tell other people when they're right. Like I do.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Even though you were wrong.

[Dax Shepard]

I was wrong. Yeah. You know, this was just a topic last night in a. In a 12 step meeting, which was in the book. It said something about big shotism. You know, like, what's it say? You know, just like that. We have to avoid big shotism.

[Monica Padman]

Don't be a big shot.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Increase our bust we must. We must.

[Monica Padman]

We don't have to do that. Everyone's gray.

[Dax Shepard]

I'm trying to increase my bus pretty regularly. I'm doing bench press, which is for the pectorals.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

But it is from Greece.

[Monica Padman]

No wonder I hate it.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah, that's right. You don't like Greece.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

The only person in the world. Because I don't like musicals. And even I'm like, it's.

[Monica Padman]

It's fun, really.

[Dax Shepard]

We made out under the dark.

[Monica Padman]

Please stop.

[Dax Shepard]

Is that song in particular one you hate?

[Monica Padman]

I don't like any of the songs. You know, my brother, when he was just a young baby boy, he would be crying in the car. Cause he was a baby. And my mom put the Grease soundtrack on and he.

[Dax Shepard]

To soothe him.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. And it worked. And especially this one song. And so we. I had to listen to it on repeat to keep him from crying.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

It's separate. No, I already hated it.

[Dax Shepard]

What's going on?

[Monica Padman]

I already hated it. You know, it's so funny when you think back, like, my brother also was obsessed with the backstory. Street boys.

[Dax Shepard]

Interesting.

[Monica Padman]

As a little boy.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, that's cute.

[Monica Padman]

It's so cute. And I'm sure I was mean to him about it.

[Dax Shepard]

Of course you were. Does he want to go to the Sphere? Aren't they?

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

Have you?

[Monica Padman]

I'm trying to think. I mean, I just liked so much top 40 that I'm sure. I mean, it's hard to say now. If I heard it. I'm associating it with that time, so of course I'll like it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, but.

[Monica Padman]

But do I like it? Probably not.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

Putting hats on.

[Dax Shepard]

There's one worse than that. Where it really is like, it's. It. Oh, I'm like, oh, my God.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Yes, it's musical.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

If I hear it accidentally, I have to.

[Monica Padman]

And which one is it again?

[Dax Shepard]

Stepdad used to play this song, like, at full volume. And it was like. Again, it's associated with, like, maximum chaos, my brother and him fighting. And that song was always playing. And I just got it in my head that, like, if I heard it once, I had bad luck. And then I had to hear it again, but I was not allowed to touch his record player, and he had the album, so I had no connection control over it. The song is Jump by Van Halen.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Jump.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So I was in Nashville, and because I'm in my old cars and they don't have any way to play my phone through some of them, I was listening to the radio a ton.

[Monica Padman]

Oh.

[Dax Shepard]

So I was driving down the road by myself, and all of a sudden, Jump came on.

[Monica Padman]

Did you slam?

[Dax Shepard]

My first thought. Well, my trick is, if I hear it on the radio, I know this is a total workaround that everyone will call bullshit on, but I'll turn the channel to another channel, then turn it back. And I try to count that. That as a second.

[Monica Padman]

Oh.

[Dax Shepard]

Which is. We both know that's. But that's the best I can do.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, listen. There's no rules, because it's all made off.

[Dax Shepard]

It's all asinine. Yes. Yes. I don't know why, but this song came on when I was in Nashville, and I go, we're done with this.

[Monica Padman]

Good job.

[Dax Shepard]

We're done with this.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And I'm not going to try to listen to it twice. And then I go, and, in fact, I'm adding it to my liked songs. So now it is in my liked songs, which I listen to all the time. And it comes on once, and I'm like, it's a great fucking song. And you're going to get over it, and you're going to love immersion therapy. You're going to enjoy it. So I've been listening to it one time randomly, a lot.

[Monica Padman]

And does your nose slowly bleed when you listen? Only once.

[Dax Shepard]

No. My eyes tear black like Wednesdays.

[Monica Padman]

And have you had any bad luck since you started this?

[Dax Shepard]

No. Nothing discernible. No. In fact, I feel like I'm on good luck. I'm on a good luck wave. I. I've discovered this documentary, the Cowboys documentary, not the cheerleading one, which is also great, right. But a history of Jerry Jones buying the Cowboys. Are you watching it, Rob? I am not, buddy. I don't. I haven't liked to doc this much since Last Dance.

[Monica Padman]

You don't what? You just asked Rob because he's a boy. Uh huh.

[Dax Shepard]

Because he loves football. That makes sense, right? If there was a doc on the row, I go, monica, have you seen the dock doc on the row.

[Monica Padman]

But I love Last dance, you know that.

[Dax Shepard]

I know you do. Have you seen it?

[Monica Padman]

Monica, can you, can you admit that you could have just asked everyone?

[Dax Shepard]

I could have, but I would. If there was a road documentary. I wouldn't ask Rob.

[Monica Padman]

Rob does like football. That's fine.

[Dax Shepard]

He loves football.

[Monica Padman]

So he might love to watch Doc on the Road. It's probably great. It's probably going to be great. I'm going to make it and produce it.

[Dax Shepard]

I had a really strong feeling you hadn't watched the Cowboys Duck documentary. Unfortunately, I was correct. The America's Team.

[Jason Aldean]

The Gambler and his Cowboys.

[Dax Shepard]

The Gambler and his Cowboys.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

It's awesome. I do think you should watch it. This was all to encourage you to watch it. I'm not leaving you out. I just wanted to see if I could get a two way encouragement to you to give it a shot.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Because you do not need to.

[Monica Padman]

But you know I don't like peer pressure.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, so you don't want me.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. So just be regular.

[Dax Shepard]

You wanted me to ask if you've watched it and then no, not recommended.

[Monica Padman]

That's not what happened. I just didn't want you to specifically ask the male in the room about a dog. The football when you just equated it to Last Dance. So we know it's not just for I don't like basketball.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't like basketball. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And I. And the Last Dance is basically my favorite show that's ever happened.

[Dax Shepard]

I know. It's a great one, honey Ho.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

It's incredible. Okay, what characters? Jerry Jones is such a character. Can I just give you a taste of what happens? So he is a very young guy and he is, I guess a wildcat they call him. Maybe that's not the right term. But he is buying oil fields hoping to strike oil. He is so over leveraged, he's like $50 million in debt as a young man and he just keeps gambling. And when he describes the oil well, he hits the noises it was making and when. And it just started gushing. And then that one oil well made him $100 million.

[Jason Aldean]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

And then he immediately took that money and bought the Cowboys.

[Monica Padman]

Wow.

[Dax Shepard]

And the Cowboys are the most valuable sports team in the world.

[Monica Padman]

Yes. I knew that every sport included like.

[Dax Shepard]

A $13 billion value of that team.

[Monica Padman]

Wild.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

It's because he has two Js.

[Dax Shepard]

It makes it really great that the alliterations there.

[Monica Padman]

But like he has two Js, so he's like the only people I can hire. It's like a small pool. Cuz it has to have two Js.

[Dax Shepard]

They were on a championship college football team together and they knew each other forever. And did you ever watch the U? The.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, the 30 for third.

[Dax Shepard]

You did?

[Monica Padman]

Yes, I did.

[Dax Shepard]

So he was the coach that was like, yeah, you grinded you. I didn't not. No.

[Monica Padman]

Well, well, well, look at that.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

Right?

[Dax Shepard]

He's cool.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, he is cool.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. And those two, the owner and him, you know, Tough to share glory.

[Monica Padman]

It's tough to share glory.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

That's fine. I love when there's a show like that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

That was too much for me. The show. Too much on Netflix.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh. I did start it per your recommendation. And I love it.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

It's great.

[Monica Padman]

It's so.

[Dax Shepard]

It does give me anxiety.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, tell me.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

I don't know how far you're in, but it's interesting the way they.

[Dax Shepard]

I love him. He's so hot. He's so hot.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It's very tumultuous.

[Dax Shepard]

Making some really wild.

[Monica Padman]

Isn't she so funny.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, she's. She's incredible.

[Monica Padman]

Oh my God, she's incredible.

[Dax Shepard]

And Lena's great when she's on. Yeah, it's.

[Monica Padman]

It's. It's a really good show, but really great cast.

[Dax Shepard]

Really great station.

[Monica Padman]

Well, that's when I was rewatching Girls and I was seeing all these people that she. That they cast for. I was like, God, yeah. Some people just really have that knack. They have the eye like Mike White.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, Mike White.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

He is a genius.

[Monica Padman]

Anyway, Cowboys, you love them. I'm gonna watch.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

Now I am coming off of some good luck as well.

[Dax Shepard]

You are? Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Because it's birthday luck still. I still have birthday luck. And people who listen will remember. Remember that at the Bowery, I got a tassel. 11. 11 the room. This is incredible.

[Dax Shepard]

Yep.

[Monica Padman]

Wow. Big story. Tassel. For my birthday, we went to the Four Seasons and went to the pool. I had to get a room for that y. So guess what my room number was. You already know. 11.

[Dax Shepard]

11. 12.

[Monica Padman]

12. 1111 again.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God. Gosh. This should be your first tattoo.

[Monica Padman]

I actually thought that.

[Dax Shepard]

I bet you did.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Do a lot of people have 11?

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Might be that you could get Xixi. It wouldn't be so obvious.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

It's just like.

[Dax Shepard]

It's basic.

[Monica Padman]

It's not.

[Dax Shepard]

For me, it is basic.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

Wait, is this real? I think so. Okay, so for the listener, Rob just put up a photo of Jennifer Aniston. Jen Aniston. And. And seemingly she has 11. 11 tattooed on her wrist.

[Monica Padman]

Oh. Or maybe. Oh, my God.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, my God. Yeah. Now you can't. Because if she. If we ever interview her and you have the same tattoo as her, but.

[Monica Padman]

Now I have to.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, that tipped it.

[Monica Padman]

It was always meant to be.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

My God. Should I get one, like. Cause I. Since I don't really want anyone to see, you think I could just get a really tiny one in between my big toe and my second second toe?

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

We'll have to ask. Have you ever gotten one in here? That would mean.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, I guess that skin's. It's hard for the tattoo to stay there for whatever reason. I don't know why. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you you dare. We are supported by Skims.

[Monica Padman]

Okay. So, you know, I love skims so much, and it has a ton of different products. It has apparel, it has swim, it has menswear, which I know you like, and I raved about a lot of the different product lines in these ads we get to do. But Skims is best known for their incredible intimates, and that makes total sense. The quality of their bras and underwear is true. Truly unmatched. It's luxe. It's comfortable fabrics, it fits that feel good and look good under clothes, which is hugely important, and it's really everything you could want. Like, it is very, very, very hard to find comfortable underwear. That's also cute.

[Dax Shepard]

Yes. That's the big challenge. But you're endlessly recommending this to friends.

[Monica Padman]

I am. I have multiple of their bras. They all fit great. They work well under all clothes. Clothes. And I recently tried the Fits Everybody lace tanga. It's made with this, like, really, really, really soft Fits Everybody fabric. I'm obsessed with it. It has this lace trim, so it adds a little bit of sexiness, but it's also comfortable. It's the most comfortable underwear I own, and it makes me feel amazing every time I wear it.

[Dax Shepard]

Shop Monica's favorite bras and [e-mail] after you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you select podcast in the survey and be sure to select our show in the dropdown menu. Skims.com. do you want to hear my maximum sim event of my entire life? Other than when I guess the song you were you had made up Xanthum gum. Yeah, that still is, like, that can't have happened.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

Xanthum gum Gum. Okay, so I wrote this script called Send Lawyers Guns and Money, right? And it was about my last week of drinking in Kauai.

[Monica Padman]

Uhhuh.

[Dax Shepard]

And while I was writing it, I'm just, like, swimming in the Warren Zon song Send Lawyers Guns and Money. Do you know that song?

[Monica Padman]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay, I'll cover my face and say it to you. I took home the bar made like I always do. How was I to know she was with the Russian twos?

[Jason Aldean]

Hey.

[Dax Shepard]

And it's Send Lawyers Guns and Money. The shit has hit the fan. So as I'm writing this script and it's about my last week in Hawaii of using. I decide I should learn to play that guitar. I should learn to play that song on the guitar. So I go on YouTube and I'm trying to find some footage of him playing that so I can look at the chords. And I find this video of him in a small venue, and he's talking to the crowd, and he says, I wrote this song. And after. Oh, I gotta add. My last week of drinking in Hawaii was. I was taking a vacation between movies. Cause I was exhausted and I needed a break.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

It didn't turn out to be a replenishing trip, as you can imagine.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So he goes, yeah, I wrote this song after a couple years of hard work, and I decided to take a trip down to the islands of Hawaii. And after a week of improbable danger and something. I decided I shouldn't take vacations. I took home the barmaid, and I was sitting at the computer going, what the fuck? This song is about his week in Hawaii.

[Monica Padman]

That's wild.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

My dad was helping your sim even before we met.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

Exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Because even for you, that was the best year of your life.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

So, like, it's all really stinks. It's stinky.

[Dax Shepard]

Stinky.

[Monica Padman]

Really stinky in here. Anyway, so birthday luck is continuing.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Birthday week weekend was really nice. Ended up at the. Oh, I wanted to check something. Maybe another sim moment.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Can I look up when War Dogs was. I'm gonna. I already did. 2016. Dang.

[Jason Aldean]

Oops.

[Monica Padman]

One year off. Okay. Because in 2016, it was my birthday, and Kristen planned.

[Dax Shepard]

You were turning 29, I guess. No. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

It's also a textbook bell.

[Monica Padman]

It is.

[Dax Shepard]

This is kind of her move.

[Monica Padman]

It happens.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

So, you know, it was like, what are we gonna do now? And we pivoted plans. It was your idea. You said, let's go to the Chateau and have some dinner, have Bolognese. I had never been there, and I've been trying to go for a long time.

[Dax Shepard]

Sure.

[Monica Padman]

And it was really exciting. And fun. Then we saw war dogs. That was like a big birthday. I remember. And it was a good pivot. And the bolognese was so good. And it was very exciting. And on my birthday, it was a lazy day. I stayed at the Four Seasons. So then I like woke up and I was just lazy. Callie told me I should order a milkshake in my robe. Room service. I didn't.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, okay.

[Monica Padman]

But I.

[Dax Shepard]

It's a rough way to start your day.

[Monica Padman]

That's why I was like, it's too early.

[Dax Shepard]

Downhill for me.

[Monica Padman]

But it also sounded nice. But. Yeah. Anyway. And then I went to Sunset Tower. Oh. I went shopping. I got myself a cute outfit and I went to Sunset Tower. And then Sunset Tower turned into the Chateau where I had bolognese for dinner.

[Dax Shepard]

You did?

[Monica Padman]

I did. And I thought, oh, gosh, my.

[Dax Shepard]

Did you see anyone?

[Monica Padman]

No, I don't think so. I don't really.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't see very well.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Right.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. It's still great.

[Monica Padman]

Still great.

[Dax Shepard]

Great day. That's a fun tradition.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

You want to ask Monica out?

[Monica Padman]

Oh, yeah. Speaking of this.

[Jason Aldean]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

I probably shouldn't do it like this. With this, like long. This like long face.

[Dax Shepard]

No. It sounds like bad news is coming.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, right. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And everyone is happy. And I'm so happy. She seems so happy. It makes me feel really fuzzy. Like she got. Got it all and she deserves it. And I. I love it. And it's hopeful.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. Great.

[Monica Padman]

You know, Lincoln said that they like announced it. They either announced it or like a teacher. The teacher came like into the classroom and told everyone.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, really? Yeah.

[Jason Aldean]

The all girls school.

[Monica Padman]

All girls school. This is incredible. Anyway, but I. I forgot that the whole reason they're together is their podcast, New Heights. He. So he went to the concert to try to get. Give her phone number. Yes. And. But he didn't. He couldn't see her. So then on the show, his brother asked, how was the concert? He said, well, kind of butt hurt because I really wanted to talk to her, but she doesn't talk to people before or after shows. I wanted to give her my bracelet. Has my phone number on it.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Okay.

[Dax Shepard]

That's cute. Oh, did he put his phone number in the bracelet?

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, that's adorable.

[Monica Padman]

It's adorable. And look, that got him a wife.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

And here we are, one of the.

[Dax Shepard]

More coveted wives out there. Wives of all time.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

So what she did is she heard that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And then she reached out and he said yes.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

There's a lot of people in the comments that are saying you're hot and they want to meet you, but see you.

[Monica Padman]

Go ahead.

[Dax Shepard]

You have said many times you don't.

[Monica Padman]

Want to date a listener unless they're Taylor Swift. Okay. Okay. Also, she wasn't a listener. Just got back to her. Okay, okay. So who. Like. I mean, I could on here. You know what's unfair? I. I would look crazy, and he didn't look crazy, and that's.

[Dax Shepard]

Well, he had a lot going on.

[Monica Padman]

No, I have a lot going for me. What do you mean?

[Dax Shepard]

No, it's inherently adorable that this enormous football player, this gruff bone crusher, made a Taylor Swift bracelet.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

So you have to do something as completely out of the box as that. That's what made that so adorable. It's like, oh, wow, that guy made a bracelet with his number for Taylor Swift. There's a lot of. Of the product. You know, it's.

[Monica Padman]

What am I supposed to do? Like, go beat someone up? Well, we gotta have scars on and like, talk about that.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I mean, get good with a butterfly knife and pull a butterfly knife. Like, you gotta. You gotta put the same effort he put into it.

[Monica Padman]

It takes, like, four minutes to make a friendship bracelet.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

Okay, you're. Yes, that is all true. This is all correct. But. And I'm kidding, and I do think maybe I'm wrong, but I want to be honest, feeling didn't know that.

[Dax Shepard]

You're right.

[Monica Padman]

I want to be honest. I think if a girl did that. Did that exact thing. He did.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Went to Chris Martin's show, wanted to give him a thing. Didn't get to. Went on her podcast and was like. Like, I didn't get to give him my phone number. I'm sad about that. I don't think people would think it was as cute as what happened.

[Dax Shepard]

Again, you're trying to frame it as female. Male.

[Monica Padman]

I'm just asking. I'm not Trying to say it's sexist, but I'm really trying. Like, I'm being honest.

[Dax Shepard]

You said if a girl did that. Yeah, yeah. So you are framing it as there's a double standard between men and women.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

Okay, so then that's. So if that'd be like you going.

[Dax Shepard]

To find some grungy punk rock dude and you come and bring him flowers or something, you know, that's.

[Monica Padman]

That's just not my type.

[Dax Shepard]

Right, but that's why that's not a story. But it's not cuz you're a woman. It's because it's not this crazy. First time you've ever heard this?

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

I think he's a swifty. Well, now he knows to make the bracelet.

[Monica Padman]

Now he's a swifty.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Mostly women are swifties? I've been to a show. It's 90 plus percent female.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, I guess it's.

[Dax Shepard]

It's very female.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

So if you were like. If there was like some punk band that only dudes liked. Megadeth.

[Monica Padman]

Ew.

[Dax Shepard]

See this?

[Monica Padman]

I don't even know what that is, but I'm never gonna date a death guy. Pro death. Not even pro masculine.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God, Dad. That guy kind of looks like you on the right.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, boy. That's not flattering.

[Monica Padman]

No, different hair. What do you mean he's not. He's not unattractive?

[Dax Shepard]

That's a story. That. That's my Point is, you showing up at that show. Is it? You showing up at a SL show and you're in love with the drummer is hilarious. This is them now. So they're maybe a little older for, you know. Yeah. You gotta find the equivalent of Megadeth or Metallica of this era. And people go like, oh, that super cute liberal little podcast host. Loved that crazy maniac rocker. That's a story.

[Monica Padman]

But I'm gonna push back on that. Like, it's not, it's not crazy for any man to like Taylor Swift. She's a. She's a very cute, blonde, pretty girl with a. With a talent.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

Versus wanted to. To go on a date with her.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I'm saying Swifty.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

When I heard is like this guy knows about the Bracelets. He Bracelet. He's a Swifty.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, can we can't. You're saying it so like, you know 100% and we don't. Cuz he went there. He said he went there because he was a Swifty.

[Dax Shepard]

He's in love with her and he wanted to give her a number.

[Monica Padman]

He. He, he wanted. Yeah, he wanted to give her.

[Dax Shepard]

You're saying he just wanted to her.

[Monica Padman]

No, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying he liked her. Like, he was like, I want to date that girl. That girl seems awesome. She's pretty, she's talented, she's cool. I want to date her. Like a lot of men think about Taylor. I will say, and I don't know about the Megadeth community, but my guess is great backstory.

[Dax Shepard]

Dave Mustang was in Metallica and left. He got kicked out of the band and then started that band which became their big rival.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, right. Rob.

[Dax Shepard]

Is that the show that's. He's in the dock talking about how it haunted him even though he sold 15 million records still.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow.

[Dax Shepard]

Still thought about getting.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Like, yeah, you don't want to. And I. I don't know.

[Monica Padman]

I met them, so maybe I'd love them.

[Dax Shepard]

They're also way older.

[Monica Padman]

I don't care.

[Dax Shepard]

Again, I'm saying the equivalent of Megadeth.

[Monica Padman]

I know, but I'm just saying I think that's like a real choice. And I think dating Taylor is. Is like dating Bradley or like Timmy or like someone huge in the popular zeitgeist. Not niche.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay. They're enormous. They sold 50 million.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, great.

[Dax Shepard]

They're not Metallica's. Not niche at all. Metallica.

[Monica Padman]

I know my.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

But no, it's still niche to date.

[Dax Shepard]

What? I think we have a different opinion. I think what was charming about the entire Travis Taylor story is that this big NFL player was a sweetie at heart because he was a swiftie.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, he's a sweetie.

[Dax Shepard]

And I think an equally big story would be that this sweetie liberal little girl is into this crazy off the chain band. That's the story that I'm seeing. Other people would also find that. That charming. And the members would be the guys, the women that came to shows. I've been to these shows. The ones that came that were attracted to Megadeth, they looked like they were in Megadeth.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, exactly.

[Dax Shepard]

You don't. If you showed up in the row with flowers, that's a story.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, but I just like no one think you're crazy.

[Dax Shepard]

They'd be so charmed by how unexpected this obsession is of yours.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

What do you mean?

[Dax Shepard]

You don't like Metallica?

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Right? Yes.

[Monica Padman]

So this is the problem is my point.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, you'd have.

[Monica Padman]

So I'm not going to be able to.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

Should I say it? That it's Josh o'? Connor?

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

He's dating someone.

[Dax Shepard]

He's not always going to be dating someone.

[Monica Padman]

Maybe he is and I wish them well. If that's true, Josh o' Connor is extremely attractive and I find him very cute and endearing and fashion. And he is exactly expected for who I would like.

[Dax Shepard]

That's right.

[Monica Padman]

So it's not going to come as a shock, but I guess I'm calling it in. But I'm not. Because that's actually rude because he's dating someone.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

That wouldn't be a good match. I need someone to have someone. Death talk, you know?

[Dax Shepard]

That's true. That's true. Should we do some facts?

[Monica Padman]

Sure.

[Dax Shepard]

You should date the singer of Ghost. That's. That's some equivalent. Or if Monica hit on one of the. Oh, I was gonna say Gwar Guar. Like, if Monica tried to date one of the Guar. Guys. I think they're older. Show a picture of Gwar. I know they're too old, but that guy doesn't look terribly young either.

[Monica Padman]

Creeps.

[Dax Shepard]

Rob, where'd you see Gwar? Yeah.

[Jason Aldean]

I gotta get a good one.

[Dax Shepard]

Truly, you'd stop the whole show if you got up on stage during Gwar and presented one of them with, like, an axe? Like a custom engraved ax.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, my God. I'm gonna have nightmares about that, people.

[Dax Shepard]

That would make national news.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

They, like, shoot blood out of their guitars.

[Monica Padman]

Oh.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, yeah.

[Jason Aldean]

They have, like. Here, wait, I got one more spikes on.

[Dax Shepard]

Show the whole band. That one's a little intense. This guy, you. His penis is out. Oh, he's got several penises.

[Monica Padman]

Penis is out.

[Dax Shepard]

He's got several. I mean, it's not.

[Jason Aldean]

Not as real.

[Dax Shepard]

No, the prosthetics shoot like blood.

[Jason Aldean]

Yeah.

[Dax Shepard]

And he's got two of them, you guys. Oh, there's the whole gang.

[Monica Padman]

This is so unfair. I have to date Gwar.

[Dax Shepard]

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying you have to date Guar. I'm saying if you want it to be this same story.

[Monica Padman]

But it's so.

[Dax Shepard]

It's gotta be that crazy where people go, like, I can't believe Monica likes Gwar.

[Monica Padman]

I don't think it's gonna work out with me and Gwar.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, let's put it another way. Now he's turned a corner, but there was a period where Marilyn Manson could have been the thing because he right after bullying Colin Bind and all we really knew is like, wow, this guy's way smarter and more thoughtful than we knew. And you were super into it. And you came this little good girl from a podcast and you approached him.

[Monica Padman]

Good girl.

[Dax Shepard]

It would, it would. He. It would catch his attention.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, so it's not going to happen anyway.

[Monica Padman]

Guar. Call me, I guess.

[Dax Shepard]

Hit me on Instagram. Gwar.

[Monica Padman]

Okay, so he's. He has nasal polyps, unfortunately.

[Dax Shepard]

Jason. Yeah, that sounds rough.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Do you think I have nasal polyps? I thought I had allergies, but maybe I have some. I doubt I have polyps because I get the screen all time the. The time. The. The butt exam colonoscopy, and they've never found a palp, so I don't think I'm pal.

[Monica Padman]

Are they looking in your nose?

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

I don't want to make that connection.

[Dax Shepard]

Everyone get a colonoscopy. That. Those are all my symptoms?

[Monica Padman]

No, you have a. You can smell things.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Scary.

[Monica Padman]

Very scary.

[Dax Shepard]

And when you're. That's your career.

[Monica Padman]

I know.

[Dax Shepard]

Getting in there and messing around, monkeying around.

[Monica Padman]

Although, you know, it's funny, speaking of surgeries and people getting plastic surgery.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

You know, it is like people are really willy nilly with their. Their face. And their face is what got them there in the first place.

[Dax Shepard]

The moneymaker.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, it's tricky.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. I keep hearing they're very common. Are you hearing a lot of people?

[Monica Padman]

Apparently, yes.

[Dax Shepard]

Apparently have them.

[Monica Padman]

I have.

[Dax Shepard]

You had one?

[Monica Padman]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

No.

[Dax Shepard]

But then I would love one. But when could I do it? When would I be able to recover? We're on camera every day of the year. Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

I don't think you should get it.

[Dax Shepard]

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

[Monica Padman]

Okay. But Dax, that's also because.

[Dax Shepard]

Is that accurate?

[Monica Padman]

No, it's not. But I did watch the video and I was like, why is he holding it like that?

[Dax Shepard]

You thought it looked like a scrotum too?

[Monica Padman]

I did not think that, but I did think he. He is putting zero effort into, like, making himself look how he actually looks like it was, like, held it kind of a weird angle.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah. You know why?

[Monica Padman]

And then you're, like, rubbing your eyes.

[Dax Shepard]

You know why?

[Monica Padman]

Why?

[Dax Shepard]

I was on the couch and I'm like, I gotta address this. It's so frustrating that people think we just didn't put an episode out.

[Monica Padman]

Right.

[Dax Shepard]

And then I'm in my house and my kids are running around and, like, I'm not trying to show too much of my internal personal space, so I'm like trying to find an angle where you. No kids are running by. Yeah. You know, and so I think it was a. It was a function over fashion.

[Monica Padman]

I understand.

[Dax Shepard]

Decision.

[Monica Padman]

I understand.

[Dax Shepard]

But the problem's been fixing it. It's down now. Anyway.

[Monica Padman]

The episode. Oh, you took the.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, because it no longer was relevant.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

You were a little disappointed with the angle. Well, I was like, he's really gotten reckless.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Something anyway, because people find everything like, what's funny is. So I kept seeing in the comments, like, yeah, shut the door. The AC's on. And then I immediately get defensive, and I'm like, the door was open. They think that we had the door open. The AC was on. No, they're talking about a little piece of paper that says on the door. Shut the door. The AC's on that. They're reading backwards. That's not lit.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow.

[Dax Shepard]

I had to dig in this video to see what the hell they were talking about.

[Monica Padman]

Oh, wow.

[Dax Shepard]

And that's what it was. That's why, like, I had to hold it. We're just. You know, you can't.

[Monica Padman]

You should have just come in here and done it. This space is already exposed. Like, so just, like, check. You know, Know, just maybe check in with me. I have a lot of.

[Dax Shepard]

A lot of thoughts about.

[Monica Padman]

I have a lot of experience in PR. Okay. Broken Bow Records. We said he joined in 2003-2003-2003-2005. 2005. According to the Internet.

[Dax Shepard]

Okay.

[Monica Padman]

Did Waylon Jennings have a history of cheating? Yes. He had a reputation for infidelity during his marriage to Jess J. Culture while they were a couple known for their strong partnership in love, both in life and music. Jennings also struggled with substance abuse and infidelity, which was openly discussed in Jesse Coulter's autobiography.

[Dax Shepard]

Oh, I should read that.

[Monica Padman]

Yeah, you should. Okay. The Vegas shooting. I was really grateful that he talked about it.

[Dax Shepard]

Me too.

[Monica Padman]

Because that's a really vulnerable, hard thing to talk about. And I was happy that he did. Impressed that he did.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

It was in 2017. It was really bad. Deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in American history.

[Dax Shepard]

Horrendous.

[Monica Padman]

Horrendous. And I can't imagine being at the show.

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah.

[Monica Padman]

Being the person that has all these people here.

[Dax Shepard]

You know, if that happened at our Alive event, the guilt I'd have over.

[Monica Padman]

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

[Dax Shepard]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Monica Padman]

So. Oh, and it was. Gal Gadot was the host. Okay. Well, that is that.

[Dax Shepard]

That's it. All right. Love you, love. Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short [e-mail] survey.