Episode 587 - Drake White || Hunting Is Healing

Summary

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The Origins Foundation Podcast

Episode 587: Drake White || Hunting Is Healing
Release Date: August 26, 2025

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Overview

In this profoundly moving episode, country music artist and avid outdoorsman Drake White joins the Origins Foundation Podcast for an intimate conversation about resilience, healing, and the deeper significance of hunting. Drake shares the story of his catastrophic stroke in 2019, his remarkable recovery, and how reconnecting with hunting—especially the pursuit of a mysterious, near-mythical buck—played a key role in both his physical and spiritual healing. This conversation weaves together threads of music, nature, vulnerability, and masculinity into a powerful narrative illustrated by Drake's new documentary, Ladder To The Sky: A Hunts The Healing Documentary.

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Key Discussion Points & Timeline

1. Drake White’s Background & Musical Journey

Timestamps: 02:12 – 41:39

• Roots in Alabama & Early Influences

  • Echoes of the Appalachian foothills and family hunting trips especially with his preacher grandfather, shape much of Drake's musical and personal identity.

  “Being out in nature, that is music. That is music to me. And that’s where I talk to God.” (11:50 – Drake White)

• Path to Music and Nashville

  • From singing at beauty pageants in high school, unexpected bar gigs, college parties at Auburn, to moving to Nashville for a construction job that quietly evolved into a music career.
  • “Nashville is the songwriter’s town. The most concentrated population of [songwriters], for sure.” (31:56 – Drake White)
  • Emphasis on the city's "ten-year town" reputation: "They say Nashville's a ten-year town. There's a lot of truth to that." (32:29 – Drake White)

• Career Breakthroughs & Setbacks

  • Opening for big names (Willie Nelson, Zac Brown Band, Eric Church, etc.), but facing industry trends and label drops (“a lot of questioning, a lot of learning,” 36:11).
  • Navigating the tide of country radio favoring the Florida Georgia Line "Cruise" sound—while maintaining his distinct musical style.
  • Persevering through layoffs, label changes, and an identity forged by challenge and independent spirit.
  • “I’ve been dropped from two different record labels… now I’m an independent guy… and I think that’s what the hunter is, the musician is; it’s that rebellious nature.” (37:30 – Drake White)

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2. The 2019 Stroke: Trauma, Faith, and Recovery

Timestamps: 42:24 – 58:06

• Stroke On Stage & Immediate Aftermath

  • During a show in Roanoke, Virginia, Drake experiences a stroke caused by a congenital brain malformation (“felt my hand start to tingle, felt my left foot, felt like a bowling ball…forgot the words... then heard a gunshot go off in my head.” 48:41 – Drake White)
  • Rushed to hospital, survives due to rapid intervention; left side of his body paralyzed.

• Near-Death, Spiritual Visions & The “Angels”

  • Recalls a vivid vision amid excruciating pain:

    “I saw these four figures in the corner of the room. I knew everything was going to be alright if I could just keep breathing… later, I would figure out they were angels.” (51:14 – Drake White)

  • His wife’s prayers seem to coincide with his vision, bringing peace during intense struggle.
  • Profound church dream and sense of being instructed by God to “stand up”—a spiritual moment that triggers the first attempt at physical movement post-stroke.

• Hitting Rock Bottom: The Challenge of Recovery

  • From initial survival to the “rock bottom had a basement” realization on not being able to move, personal identity in question, and family rallying around him.

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3. Hunting as a Catalyst for Healing

Timestamps: 59:55 – 74:59

• The “Primal Flip”: A Game Camera, A Buck, and Purpose

  • Drake’s brother-in-law encourages him to set up a game camera despite his paralysis; soon, he spots an enormous, almost mythical buck behind his house.
  • “It flipped a primal switch in my body. I had to hunt that deer.” (62:25 – Drake White)
  • The sighting becomes his singular focus—shifting recovery from passive to purposeful. (“This gave me a purpose. This gave me something to pursue.” 65:39 – Drake White)

• Rehabilitation Tied to the Hunt

  • Motivation to hunt inspires Drake to push through physical therapy (“I gotta learn how to climb a ladder”), resulting in rapid progress even surprising his neurologist, Dr. Miracle.

• Documenting the Journey: ‘Ladder to the Sky’

  • The healing journey—learning to walk, climb, and ultimately re-engage deeply with life—is captured in the upcoming documentary (premieres September 1st at Raleigh Green’s Duck Line, then on Realtree’s YouTube).

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4. Community, Ego, and True Masculinity in Hunting

Timestamps: 75:00 – 82:12

• Breaking Down Barriers and Accepting Help

  • Initial resistance to joining friends at the famed Honey Brake lodge due to fear of being a “hindrance,” pride, and ego.

  “All they see is a guy that can’t get his waders on…the whole reason I didn’t want to go was because I didn’t want to show my cards of weakness.” (77:09 – Drake White)

  • Vulnerability leads to newfound bonds and breaking toxic notions of masculinity:

    “It broke the egotistical masculinity thing that I had... and it welded this friendship.” (79:11 – Drake White)

  • Hunting camp becomes a place of compassion and deep connection, reinforcing the theme of communal healing.

• Hunting’s Deeper Purpose

  • Drake emphasizes the universal, ancient roots of hunting (“the concept of not hunting is way newer than hunting,” 74:25).
  • His journey transforms the act from a pursuit of game to a pursuit of personal wholeness—for himself, his family, and his peers.

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5. Healing in Many Forms – Music, Hunting, and Service

Timestamps: 83:06 – 94:58

• The Healing Power of the Hunt Expands

  • Not just about deer: hunting as foraging, fishing, seeking meaning itself.
  • Sharing parallel stories, notably veterans finding similar healing through hunting after trauma or war.

  “You’re not just observing, you are at heart of it—You are nature.” (86:49 – Interviewer)

  • Emphasizing optimism, faith, and purpose in all pursuits (“Never bait a hook without believing that fish is going to bite that hook.” 93:13 – Drake White)

• Musical Integration & Upcoming Work

  • Music—especially songs like “Ladder to the Sky” and “Hurts to Heal It”—remains entwined in Drake’s story, furthering the “rising tide floats all ships” philosophy.

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6. Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Authenticity and Social Media:

  “As soon as you just sink into that authenticity of who you actually are, it starts to work.” (05:09 – Drake White)

• On Facing Adversity:

  “I’ve always considered myself a tough guy…you’re going to face some opposition…Just welcome it now.” (38:08 – Drake White)

• On Connection & Vulnerability:

  “People are good for the most part. Nature is so unforgiving and so beautiful. And there are angels in the corner of the room if you ask them to be there… There’s deer in the woods. You just got to go look.” (94:58 – Drake White)

• On Community Healing Through Hunting:

  “It literally, scientifically, spiritually, physically, and mentally healed me to go pursue the other animal…the job of this documentary, this podcast, to uphold that right.” (80:57 – Drake White)

• On the Documentary’s Core Message:

  “It’s not about 10% hunting…it’s really the spiritual journey of what it is.” (83:07 – Drake White)

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Notable Segment Timestamps

• Drake’s Childhood & Musical Roots: 10:59 – 17:00
• Explaining Nashville’s “Guitar Pool” & Songwriting Culture: 27:52 – 32:29
• Beginning of Health Crisis: 42:50 – 51:08
• Spiritual Vision & Recovery: 51:08 – 58:06
• Discovery of the Backyard Buck: 62:25 – 66:57
• Rapid Rehabilitation Linked to Hunting: 66:41 – 67:01
• Creation of the Documentary ‘Ladder to the Sky’: 70:16 – 72:12
• Masculinity, Ego, and Asking for Help: 77:09 – 79:11
• Universal Healing Power of Hunting (Veterans, Purpose): 88:07 – 90:06

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Final Takeaways

• Hunting can be a profound source of healing—not just physically, but mentally and spiritually—providing purpose, community, and a pathway through trauma.
• Vulnerability is strength: Drake’s openness about ego, identity, and recovery models a new, constructive vision of masculinity and outdoor culture.
• Connection to nature is universal: Whether through hunting, music, family, or faith, seeking deeper engagement with the natural world can transform lives.
• Ladder To The Sky: A Hunts The Healing Documentary—coming September 1, 2025—brings these themes to the screen, reaching both hunters and non-hunters alike.

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End of Summary

Transcript

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[Podcast Host]

Hi everyone. Thanks for joining the Origins foundation podcast. We have a special treat for you today as country music recording artist Drake White is joining. Robbie Drake has had a series of top 40 hits on the top country albums chart. He has toured extensively and shared the bill with other major recording artists and has received accolades from Rolling Stone and the Grammys. But he has an even more extraordinary story. In August of 2019, Drake suffered a catastrophic stroke while he was performing on stage. Doctors told him he would likely never perform again. But after undergoing multiple surgeries and months of PT and rehabilitation, he not only has gone on to perform again, but has released two albums since then in 2022 and 2024. Drake is an avid outdoorsman, sportsman and hunter. And I think you will thoroughly enjoy this podcast.

[Blood Origins Host]

So there's a reason why I started Blood Origins. And that reason is simple, is that I wanted to convey the truth about hunting.

[Drake White]

It brings awareness to to non hunters that it's more than just killing animals.

[Podcast Host]

How do I start it?

[Drake White]

Brittany? My name. Does my hair look okay?

[Interviewer]

My name is Mike Axelrod.

[Blood Origins Host]

Start again.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah, I hated it too.

[Blood Origins Host]

Braxton, you said something in the car to me.

[Interviewer]

You said that you were living on borrowed time.

[Blood Origins Host]

There's a perception around who hunters are, what we're supposed to be. And a feminist that works for a non profit that is a hunter that has only eaten wild game from the last 20 years is likely not the.

[Interviewer]

Thing that people think about when it.

[Blood Origins Host]

Comes to a hunter.

[Drake White]

Go in and then. Do you edit it all too artists is there?

[Interviewer]

I send it to someone.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah, yeah.

[Drake White]

Is there some AI stuff that's coming out that's helping y'?

[Interviewer/Commentator]

All?

[Drake White]

Well, not really.

[Interviewer]

Because you can't really, I don't really trust AI to.

[Drake White]

Really.

[Interviewer]

Like capture the things that we want to capture.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Sure.

[Drake White]

So not yet anyway.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, not yet anyway.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Exactly.

[Interviewer]

You know, I don't know how AI would capture, you know, if we paused this thing.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

And they would edit it or cut it or anything like that. The only thing I could see AI doing is helping with potentially like background noise or you know, amplifying somebody's voice or something like that.

[Drake White]

Well, I can tell you this. We're. We're in the process of editing this hunts the healing thing and taking it and taking like an hour long interview, putting it into chat GPT and saying hey, pick out the inspiring moments. The moments that you think put the actual movie in there.

[Interviewer]

You put.

[Drake White]

Well, the video, it transcribes it.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

It.

[Drake White]

Transcribing the words out, just pulling the words.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay. Okay.

[Drake White]

So I have not personally done that. My, you know, my.

[Interviewer]

What are you saying? You're not a video editor and an GPT?

[Drake White]

Absolutely not. Guru. No, not yet. My creative director was, was doing that. We, we kind of threw it into there and, and it did a pretty good job. But it, it's always, you know, I saw Rick Rubin, who's one of my favorite producers, he's a time read his book the creative.

[Interviewer]

The big music producer.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Alan Rogan's the big whitehead. Absolutely beded guy.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Drake White]

Jay Z to you know.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Drake White]

To, to country music, to metal music. Any. And he said, you know, I go to a concert to experience the artist that I bought the ticket for, you know, to experience their point of view.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay.

[Drake White]

He said that AI does not have a point of view. And he goes, that's the difference. And yeah, we're, they're making some songs and I mean we played around with stuff with that, but I do not have, you know, I'm not educated enough to really comment on everything. It's helping us cut some, you know, cut some videos and stuff like that and helping me. My strong point is not social media. It drives me absolutely bananas, you know, and we have to kind of be everything to, to everybody right now. Sometimes it feels like that, but as soon as you just sink into that authenticity of like who you actually are, it starts to work. It seems like that for me in, in social media, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. TikTok blows me away. Like I don't even. I. I just hired a 25 year old a girl shout out to Maddie and.

[Interviewer]

You know, I'm so cutting some of your music videos into TikTok.

[Drake White]

Yeah. I mean, we purposely, like, I have a creative director, Zach Knutson, that gets the content, but like, her as the. The.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

The.

[Drake White]

The cutter. I thought I turned this off.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

I'm sorry.

[Interviewer]

I specifically asked before we hit all the red bumpers.

[Drake White]

I mean, I literally. It says do not disturb. I'm so sorry. But I specifically, you know, Zach will get the content and capture all the stuff and then just send it off to her and she cuts it up into this like, farm top thing, you know.

[Interviewer]

Selfie for Drew Keith. Yeah, Keith.

[Drake White]

Shout out to Drew Keith.

[Interviewer]

Connecting us.

[Drake White]

Honey break. Honeybreak was a big part of this, you know, a big part of the.

[Interviewer]

You got to put the story. Drew, originally. How'd you mean?

[Drake White]

Chad. Chad Belding. Chad Belding. A while ago, I grew up in Alabama hunting wood ducks and anything that would fly into the ditch, you know.

[Interviewer]

You were hunting from a young kid?

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Drake White]

Just grew up in Alabama. So a small town called Hoax Bluff, Alabama.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay, where's that?

[Drake White]

Foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, northeast, 50 miles north of Birmingham.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Mm.

[Drake White]

So there's this really kind of old Appalachian, Appalachian, like, vibe there. The Coosa river goes up through the middle of the state of Alabama and comes down from actually Bemidji. Minnesota is where the Coosa river starts.

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[Drake White]

And yeah just had an old V bottom boat and chased ducks and turkey and anything that swam flew, you know, watail, you know, if it was brown it was down. That type of mentality, I've always been infatuated with it. You know, in the music I have this people always ask me what my, my influences are and of course my sister's two and a half years older than me and I have your typical Merle and Willie and Garth Brooks and Tupac and you know, Jay Z answers. But my the real, the thing that really influenced my music I think the most was like going on a three or four or five day hunting trip with my grandfather and listening to his sermons. He was a preacher listening to the wind, listening to that and I don't mean to get too hippie dippy on it, but like. Like being out in nature, that is music. That is music to me. And that's where I talk to God. And that's where I felt close to the creator and the creation, and that's where I heard music. Does that make sense?

[Interviewer]

Like, did you always want to be a musician?

[Drake White]

No, no. I didn't figure that out until I wanted to build houses and, you know, and start my own construction company. I played music for fun, to help people have a good time.

[Interviewer]

And did you do the typical. Go to the bar. You're the guy sitting in the corner on a stool. Go, bar tab.

[Drake White]

Oh, yeah, yeah. This will probably be interesting. We'll just do this.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

There we go.

[Interviewer]

And just move her back.

[Drake White]

Perfect. I did, man. I mean, I went the. My. My path was playing around campfires. Here are in Hoax Bluff, Alabama, and getting the nerve to sing she talks to angels because the lead singer of the high school band Geppetto was sick or something and then walked in on a guy. And I was a big ag guy, you know, big fruit cell FFA guy.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

You know.

[Drake White]

And Hoax Pluff is just such a cool town for that. I still. I love this town. A lot of my friends are there, and the Hoax Pluff Eagles, man, and we. It was just. It's just one of those dream tales that you could write a, you know, a Lifetime movie about. And so we grew up in that FFA type thing. And I saw Tyler Elliott playing an Edward McCain song, I'll be your crying shoulder. I'll be that song. And he went to the high note and he was struggling with it, and he's like, man, I gotta say, I'm like, what are you doing, bro? He's like, I gotta sing this for the beauty pageant tonight. Well, I'm just kidding around. Fruit sale. There's, you know, stuff. Oranges and stuff everywhere. And I just kick into it, start singing it, and he's like, dude, you got to sing this with me.

[Interviewer]

To cover up the fact that he couldn't hit the note.

[Drake White]

Well, I think. I think he probably could have hit the note, but it was just better suited for my voice, you know? And so I was like. It scared me, you know, that. That scared me was like, oh, the beauty pageant. Like, I mean, this is your typical high school auditorium. Lunchroom turned into gym, turned into auditorium, and intermission of the beauty pageant. I go in and I got my creased car hearts on, my tucked in polo shirt on, and I kicked into Edwin McCain. And I thought it was just easy. Everything was. Everything that I'd done in life, I had to work so hard for, Whether it be batting practice or, you know, running sprints, extra sprints for football, just to be able to compete. This was easy to me. And everybody's jaw, you know, seemed to. It seemed to work out. You know, people were.

[Interviewer]

Got the reaction. You got a good reaction.

[Drake White]

Got a good reaction and was like, oh, I like that. I like that reaction. So it started there, and then I started really getting into the guitar, GC&D and moving my capo around and learning some country music. And then I went to Auburn and started playing in a cul de sac, actually, with a buddy that didn't have any money. Convinced me to buy two guitars and a pa. We sit up in a cul de sac. Got the cops caught on us. Cop was cute. She came up and was like, my buddy owns the Wings to go and.

[Interviewer]

We gotta play there versus playing and.

[Drake White]

Getting in the cold.

[Interviewer]

The cops being called on.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yep.

[Drake White]

So Saturday night, he had a band cancel. Nothing happens on coincidence, Right. Like, the band cancels. We go in and play every Saturday at Wings to go for two or three years.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Wow.

[Drake White]

And crowds grew, got. Got a good reaction, got popular. Had. Had your typical SEC college experience. Not typical. It was very atypical, like, because it was just this fun. Didn't have to pay for drinks much. And I just realized I was like.

[Interviewer]

Man, got a name, got recognition.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yep, yep.

[Drake White]

Got a degree. My mom's an educator, so she asked me to finish my degree. So got the building science degree, kind of engineering side of it was very hard for me. That was extremely hard. But got it. Did it. Got the asset. I'll just move to Nashville and get a real construction job. And so I moved to Nashville.

[Interviewer]

So did you move to Nashville specifically because you were like, man, I think I want to continue doing music, or just like, that's the place to go to build some. To do some construction.

[Drake White]

There was no. Think there was. Absolutely.

[Interviewer]

You could have chosen Mobile, Alabama. No, because you're there. Auburn's right there. Or you could have chosen Atlanta or Birmingham.

[Drake White]

There's no Huntsville. There's no music scene like Nashville.

[Interviewer]

So it was. It was due to the music.

[Drake White]

Absolutely.

[Interviewer]

There was still a thing about finishing the sec. And you were like, okay, I'm not going to do this. What I studied for.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Right.

[Interviewer]

I'm going to try for music.

[Drake White]

Well, that's part of the story. I'm going to do what I studied for and get the big boy job with the tie. And you know, I mean, my first job was a 18,000 square foot addition on the Brentwood Baptist. I mean it was a $13 million job with American Constructors. And I was out there with a, A tie, shave face, you know, hair product in my hair.

[Interviewer]

Project manager.

[Drake White]

Project manager.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Drake White]

Running, running, running the deal and highly stressed for job. And I was going to Losers and which is a bar in midtown. And on Monday nights I would play with John party from 10 to 2 and Bobby Johnson and we would play that set. And I realized two years into this, like I'd gained 20 pounds and I was kind of half assing two things. I was half assing the concrete pours at 5:30 in the morning and I was half assing the music at 1:30 in the morning because those two are not conducive. Right. Concrete pours. And I know how to do both. But which, which is the one that I didn't have to work at. I didn't have to work at singing or performing, you know, so that's, that's the way the Lord you know, kind of pushed me. I just kind of took a hint. I was like, but you, it's, it's.

[Interviewer]

Going to be tough. Like I've always thought about. And the analogy I use is there's certain professions out there that in the beginning you can't live. You have to do something else. My wife is an author. If I didn't have a good job, she would never have been, she would never be able to pursue being an author because she would have to have a job because the writing pays $3,000 a year.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Same with music. Like going to, it's not going to pay the bills. If you're deciding I want to be a musician, you have to be pouring concrete at 44530 in the morning.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Drake White]

There's the art.

[Interviewer]

And if you, if you're married. Were you married at the time yet? But if you got married and you had kids and whatnot, that's even harder.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Right.

[Interviewer]

How do you even, how you even break into that world that you're like, that's the world I really want to be in.

[Drake White]

But physically impossible does make sense. You have to have a little help. I think you have to have a, you know, it's the, the picture of the feather coming down in Forrest Gump. You know, it's like there has to be some kind of little magical thing that happens that pushes you in that direction. And sometimes that thing is uncomfortable. Sometimes it's A death in the family. Sometimes it's some homeless guy that gets in your truck and says, you know, and inspires you to go the music route, you know, but for me, you.

[Interviewer]

Have a homeless guy get in your truck and.

[Drake White]

No.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Drake White]

What? Yeah, that. That music always called to me.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

I.

[Drake White]

It always would come back. I'd push it down. Because you're making great money. All the guys I graduated building science are making great money now. And you know what I want to do? Do I want to take this chance and do I want to roll the dice on this music? Which is an incredible risk. But it always seemed like that's the way that the spirit was pushing me. That's the way the wind was blowing. That's the way the thing. I always was pushed in the music. And so you're. You're exactly right. You have to have somebody help you or something has to help you. But, you know, that was mowing grass. You know, I would mow grass. I would, you know, build a little bit. I would work. That construction job at 2008 happened. The economy went to shit. And, you know, they basically made a bunch of. They dropped a bunch of people, and I went to my boss and said, hey, drop me. I came here to play music, you know, so basically got let go from that job, but I got a severance pay of, I think it was 2800 bucks or 3200 bucks, something like that. And my gut has always been my go to is like, mowing grass and saving money and doing the smart thing with money. I've always felt like I was good with money. That's just something I've always told myself. Yeah, something was pulling me. I'd seen Lord of the Rings. I know I'm jumping around, but, like, I'd seen Lord of the Rings when I was 13, and I was like, I'm a nomadic soul. I love a bus. I love a road. I love, you know, what's around the corner. And I told myself at 13, if I ever get the opportunity, I'm going to where they film that Lord of the Rings. Well, that's New Zealand. That's the south island in New Zealand.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Drake White]

So long story short, knew a guy that worked at an avocado farm that knew a guy from a Bible study that actually knew a guy that worked with a Christian organization that was working at an avocado farm in Taranga, New Zealand, and literally took that severance package. And I was like, I was struggling as a songwriter. I was struggling to understand how to make it work. Be a writer, pour concrete, make ends meet. I didn't have any money. I had some money that I kind of saved up or whatever, but everything in the safe part of me said, take that 3200 bucks and save it. Buy something that can make you money. You know, buy a dump truck, buy a skid steer, show him something. And then there's that thing in me.

[Interviewer]

That said, I'm gonna buy a two thousand dollar ticket to New Zealand.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yep.

[Drake White]

And so I did. I stayed for three months. I hitchhiked around both north and south islands. I met people from all over the world. I played my guitar in different spots. I saw more stars than I could count. I saw beautiful trout. I ate.

[Interviewer]

Saw the southern lights.

[Drake White]

Amazing southern lights. I saw the sunlight from 2010, the new year of 2010. I saw the sunlight. I was the first person in the world to see the new sunlight from the new year. That's what I say anyway, because that's the first people that see the new light, the new day. So 2010, New Year's Eve. I was on the southern tipper. Stewart Island.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yep, yep.

[Interviewer]

We're.

[Drake White]

The Whitetailer is on the southern tip. I was on the southern tip of the southern tip of Stewart Stewart island. And I watched the sun come up. And that was like. For me, it's like you made the right decision coming here. And let me tell you something. I had struggled for four years to get people's attention. In Nashville, everybody's a singer.

[Interviewer]

I can. I can't imagine the competition.

[Drake White]

I disappear. I love that saying. Dare to disappear. I disappear. I come back and I realize nobody knew I was gone. And I was like, oh, you're not that important. People don't care, just in a good way. So going out there, I had these life experiences and I was truly living, you know, I was, man, I was so fulfilled. I was truly in the moment of what I was doing. And I came back, I got a publishing deal, I got three record deal offers. And in the year after a publishing.

[Interviewer]

Deal, like a writing deal, songwriting deal.

[Drake White]

Okay, so songwriting deal, they give you a. Give you a salary to go in and write songs so then I could write every day. And I got a bush hogging company and started bush hogging all these towers around because I had the landscaping experience and the construction experience. So I pieced it together, man, and I wrote my first record basically on the back of a tractor with a publishing deal and worked to get a record deal. And Luke Lewis signed me to Universal Records, you know, so.

[Interviewer]

And when was this 20, 2012.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay.

[Drake White]

Yeah. So, I mean, we're talking. I moved to town in 2007. Three or four years of that kind of living is hard.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[Drake White]

You know, it's. It's really hard. But, you know, I bought a house somehow got a mat. Oh, I know how I got my mortgage because I had a real job.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Finally you could prove to the bank.

[Drake White]

That I had a real job.

[Interviewer]

Person with responsibilities.

[Drake White]

Yep. So once I got fired from that real job, or whatever you want to call it, laid off, I got a roommate. Well, the roommate basically played paid the note, and then I saw this little mom in law suite in the back of the garage. I painted it. Put lipstick on the pig, as they say, and put carpet on the floor. Got another renter in the back. So I had two renters that paid the mortgage. So I had a place to stay. I had a guitar. And then I could go. I could go as I please. I started playing with this guy named Wayne Mills. He's no longer with us, but he's kind of the king of Alabama and kind of did a lot of the bar circuit around there and just cut my teeth on that. Cut my teeth on playing every place in Georgia and Alabama that, that I could. And then playing every writer's round in Nashville. A mortgage was being paid. I didn't have to pour concrete anymore at 5 in the morning. I could sleep till 10 or 11 and go bush hog some. And then I could go and get my salary from the publishing company and then I could get my. My rent for my guys if I could get them to pay me. And that's it.

[Interviewer]

At the same time, you're obviously building, Building recognition, reputation with playing music and whatnot.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Sure.

[Interviewer]

And you're elevating. Right. Things are slowly elevating. You're playing. Would you say you're playing bigger shows? You're playing bigger venues, interacting with different people? What does that look like?

[Drake White]

Definitely interacting with different people. But I wasn't playing bigger shows yet. And I was opening up for Wayne Mills.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay.

[Drake White]

And. But I was playing every night here in Nashville. Would it be a writer's run? I would play anything.

[Interviewer]

What's a writer's round?

[Drake White]

A writer's round. A guitar pool historically came from. The reason it's called a guitar pool is because. And I may botch this so somebody can. The reason I. How I understand it is that country music is based on low income families, people that only had money to buy one instrument.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay.

[Drake White]

So that they. They would pull a guitar around.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay.

[Drake White]

And play the songs, you know, so one of the most magical things that happens, things that happen in Nashville is getting a group of writers together and having a guitar pull. This is our new music. This is the music I was working on today. It is kind of an old historical thing, but so you have one.

[Interviewer]

You have a musician who's going to play the music that somebody wrote that.

[Drake White]

Day or that week that they wrote, or somebody.

[Interviewer]

Is it open to the public?

[Drake White]

Well, they don't have to write it that day. They could have wrote it, but they.

[Interviewer]

Write as round where your writer's open to the public. Is it in a bar or restaurant or something like that?

[Drake White]

Most of the time it is.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay.

[Drake White]

That's a very special thing here in Nashville that. That I would highly recommend. Everybody can come down here and go to Broadway and watch all the bachelorettes get drunk. That's cool.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Do it. Do it.

[Drake White]

If you want to get more power to you. But you go to. You go to a place like the Bluebird, or you go to just a dive, you know, like losers or when you know. Or I'm trying to think the listening room or, you know, any of these great places to listen to. Riders that are. That are writing songs at a high level come together and play a batch of songs is pretty. So the. Well of the.

[Interviewer]

Right. Again, super curious. The writers themselves are playing.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So they are musicians themselves more often than not, right?

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay. I would say so, yes. Okay.

[Interviewer]

So they'll get up on stage, they'll write something. Hey, I wrote this yesterday.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Let me see what you think about it.

[Drake White]

Yeah, I mean, I wrote this a year ago. I read this two years ago.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Drake White]

And they'll go, you know, and you'll.

[Trophy Ridge Representative]

Hear.

[Drake White]

These songs this. That are like, you know, blue eyes, crying in the rain, like your.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Your.

[Drake White]

Your songs are on the radio. You'll hear, and you'll be like, man, I didn't know he wrote that. That's the coolest thing about Nashville to me.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Are you.

[Drake White]

This place is like the Athens of the South. Like, there's so much palpability in. In. In a bunch of writers and a bunch of creators coming together. Songs built this town, and it's having this boom thing happening right now where everybody's coming, but we can never lose the fact that it is a song that is the. That. That this town is successful. It starts with a song. It all starts with a song. And I think this town does a good job at paying homage to that. Like, it's not about the high rise Development, although there's way too many. There's a lot of cranes going on. There's a lot of development going on. It should be Nashville, but it's, it's still ground level. The song is the most important thing. The songwriter is the most important thing. And I love this town for that. It truly is a melting pot. And when you put that much frequency and that much energy in creation, you can't help but feel that. And that's why I said that I love Texas. You know, I thought about moving to Austin because it was weird and cool and I like that style of music. And I, I wasn't just playing country, I was playing Sublime and playing reggae and funk and soul, and I still play a lot of that stuff. But, you know, I looked at New York, I looked at la, but this place is three hours north of my hometown and Nashville. And maybe you can argue with me as much as you want, but I think I'll win the argument. Nashville is the songwriter's town. That's where the best songwriters in the world are. The most concentrated population of men, for sure. Nashville, Tennessee.

[Interviewer]

So you're on this journey of getting more and more recognition. What's the timeline? Is it a 2 year, 4 year, 5 year, 10 year timeline to you?

[Drake White]

Like, okay, man, I'm like, yeah, I'm proper now. Have you heard of a tenure town?

[Interviewer]

No, I have not.

[Drake White]

So they say Nashville's a ten year town. There's a lot of, there's a lot of truth to that. Okay, you know, so you move here in 2008. 10 years is 2018.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay.

[Drake White]

2012. The guy walks into a bar, Jeremy Stober. Here's me playing a song. Me and my buddy Leon, Great Hunter started singing 50 Years Too Late, everybody. The song was called 50 Years Too Late. Oh, yo, see, I knew you didn't understand that. Like, okay, so we. He introduced me to everybody in town. This is right after New Zealand. This is right. And I think all that energy, all that positive energy of I went out and lived instead of been stuck to my phone or whatever it was. And social media wasn't what it is now in 2008, 2000. So this, sorry, the timeline is. This is 2012, 1112. He walks in right after I get back from New Zealand. Jeremy Stover walks in, introduces me to everybody. My booking agent walks in on October 28, 2010 and says, do you want to go play with Willie Nelson? And I was like, well, yeah, can I get a beer first? Like, you know, you're full of crap. Man, there's no way. He's still my booking agent to this day. And, you know, we went out and did the Throwdown Tour with Brent Cobb and with Jamie Johnson, with Willie Nelson, with Brantley Gilbert, Lucas Nelson, Craig Campbell, Randy Houser, Lee Bryce. I mean, wow. Big deal.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Wow.

[Drake White]

And I went out there. Names, big names. And that was 2011. And that kind of got me into a different level, got me signed, got me in this boat of, like, just a different thing with all these names.

[Interviewer]

You're in the boat now.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yep.

[Drake White]

So 2008, 2007, moved to Nashville. 2011, this starts happening, but I haven't made it. Haven't done anything yet. You know, soon after my first single drops in 2013, this band who. I love these guys, but they. Florida Georgia Line, came out with a song called Cruise. Okay, well, that's a Sonic complete. You know, that's not what I was doing. I was not playing Cruise Mountain. Favorite stuff was Jamie Johnson's In Color, you know, But Cruise dropped in, I think, around 2014. That's the first 2013. And that is the first single that I dropped to Universal. It was called Simple Lot that I still play today. And it was fiddles. Two fiddles were playing, you know, so it sounded nothing like what, you know, Cruise sound. Cruise sounded like. Well, Cruise sonically took over the airways for, you know, that sound took over the airways for at least five, seven, maybe eight years.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Wow.

[Drake White]

It was. It was so. And there was some room for some other stuff, but it was.

[Interviewer]

So is this the sound that country music wants?

[Drake White]

Is the sound that the radio wanted?

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Oh, sure.

[Drake White]

It's a sound that happened, and I'm not down in it. Like I said, these guys just took that, and that's not what I was doing. So basically, that single got to, like, you know, 29 or 30 and. And failed and got out. So.

[Interviewer]

Okay, so it got to the 29.

[Drake White]

So your single got a 29, which is not. It's not where you want. It didn't necessarily work because it was fiddles and it was country music, and it was like an older school country music or whatever. So, yeah, a lot of. A lot of questioning, a lot of, like, learning about, like, how do you. And I got dropped. I got dropped from Universal, you know, basically got dropped, got picked back up. I said all that to say this. I can skip over all that stuff because, like, I've been dropped from two different record labels. I've been going out here doing this. I've got. Now I'm an independent guy that Works with some great. I've got a great team with some distribution and management, and everything's a major type thing. But as far as your major labels go, this is kind of the Wild west in 2025, that there's a lot of stuff that you can get out there and work and be and have your freedom. And I think a lot of people say, you know, they wave the independent flag, and I love the independent flag. I've got it. But I think a lot of people wave it passionately because they've never had an opportunity to get a record deal or they never would have an opportunity to get a record deal. But it is those people that go about it like, you know, the independent nature is what the hunter is. It's what the musician is. It's that rebellious nature that says, I'm going to defy all the odds, leave this little town, go to New Zealand, go to. It's the same kid that saw Lord of the Rings. It's like, yep, I'm gonna go see what's around that corner.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Drake White]

And the unknown for me has always been that. And that's why I've always loved hunting. That's why I've always loved music. And that's why I have always said, I always considered myself a tough guy. At least I said it was. You know what I mean? And I think you, if you say you are and you've been through some stuff, like you. I've always thought I was just a tough dude that was built for. Built for things. And like, you're going to face some opposition, you know, in the music industry, just like any industry, and a deer or duck that's trying to stay alive, you're going to face opposition in the hunting industry, and you're going to face opposition with hunting and pursuing wild game because they want to stay alive. I just welcome it now, you know, it's not comfortable and it's not the things that are comfortable that has helped me get to where I'm at and. But that's kind of the timeline I've jumped around on you.

[Interviewer]

No, no, what I was trying to build to is because I felt like based on your story, you were building.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

You, you were, you, you know, you.

[Interviewer]

Had all these successes. Obviously, the Florida Georgia Line dropped you back down. And then you're like, well, screwed. I'm going to climb back up.

[Drake White]

And you started climbing back up. Yep.

[Interviewer]

Right?

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yep.

[Interviewer]

And you had this amazing opportunity. You're like, yep, I'm going to be now opening for who you're going to Open for.

[Drake White]

Yeah. So we, we got. Zach Brown was a big one. Eric Church was a big one.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yep.

[Drake White]

Dirks Bentley was a big one. But we're talking to that now. This is 2011-2012-2013-2014, 2015, all those guys that I just said. And so it's building in my, my kind of reluctance, see, to go into the, to the, the main.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

The, the.

[Drake White]

The Sonics that everybody was hearing on the radio. It was kind of working in my favor now, you know what I mean? And I was getting on some tours and getting on some things. In 2016, I go out and play 60 plus shows probably with Zach Brown and just went and played, you know, places like Fenway park and stuff like that in front of 30,000 people a night like. And we released Spark, my record. And that's kind of where I was. I had a career. I felt like I had a career then that that was going to last.

[Interviewer]

And we're talking 14, 15 years now to get to this point for sure.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer]

From two.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Drake White]

Well, 2007 to 2016.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay. Okay.

[Interviewer]

Just on the two years.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Drake White]

So it's a ten year town. Right. You know, I didn't ever think, I didn't ever in my head I was just like, you know, so we do all the stuff with Zach. It's great, it's rocking. 2016 happens, 17 happens. I get dropped from Big Machine, my label that I was actually Dot Records folded and which was under the umbrella of Big Machine. And I was very surprised at that. You know, stung a little bit because in my head I was just like, right, right here.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Drake White]

You know, but I hadn't had that number one yet. I hadn't had that thing that like put me over the, the P L mark for, for my. You know what I mean? For the label to go, yeah, he's making money, he's doing it. So I'm like, I'm pretty, pretty shattered, you know, in 2014, change my, my manager of seven, eight years and went. Ended up firing him and getting. Finding another manager. So it just had all this unknown and then got dropped by my label. And so now I'm independent and it's 2000, you know, now we're talking about 2017, 18.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Mm.

[Drake White]

And Zach being Zach Brown was like.

[Interviewer]

Well, come on, screw it.

[Drake White]

Let's come out with me.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Just.

[Drake White]

So we got 12, 13, 14 shows lined up with him. We're about to go to Australia. We got all this stuff going on. 2018 turns to 19 and I'm running a lot. I'm getting in really good shape.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Just.

[Drake White]

I just felt, you know, at that. I'm like, in my mid-30s. I'm 35, so I'm like, dude, I'm gonna get in great shape. I'm gonna go out here and hammer this and prove everybody wrong. I'm. I'm out there with a chip on my shoulder. I've just been dropped. I've got new management. I've got. You win. We're going. I've got this new wind in yourselves. I got the Zach Brown show again. An excrucian. Excruciating headache at a. After I worked out that morning. And then I went to a lunch meeting with my managers and got a really, really debilitating headache. And I don't agree. I'd never had a migraine, but I couldn't see.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay.

[Drake White]

I was seeing spots, and it was my, you know, that real shrill. It was just like a ringing. And I couldn't see. I couldn't think, I couldn't. I had to go home. I barely got, you know, could drive home. Finally got home. My wife's not here. Turned all the lights off, shut all the shutters. And we're talking one o' clock in the afternoon.

[Interviewer]

And you're here locally, ho. You know, on the other road.

[Drake White]

Yeah, I'm right downstairs.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay.

[Drake White]

And we're in my house, by the way, and I go to sleep. And Alex, my wife, was like, you got to go get mri. I go get an mri. The MRI showed a massive. A wad of bangs and arteries in the back right side of my brain. It was the size of a lyme. Scared the crap out of me. And it was with this. I call. It was called an avm, an arterial venous malformation.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay.

[Drake White]

Maybe one in a hundred thousand people.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Drake White]

Great. What does this mean? I go. The neurologist. A neurologist comes in at this. You know, when he gave us the nail. So we were like, oh, no, this headache's still going on. And he goes, yeah, we're gonna have to go up through your femoral artery, go up into the back of your brain. We're gonna have to squeeze it full of stuff called onyx. And that onyx is going to embolize it. It's called embolization. And it's going to glue it shut. And then the blood in your brain is going to go to the parts that it needs it. It knows how to do that. So it'll go around the lesion and go to the spots that it needs to. But the lesion will be actually sealed.

[Interviewer]

Sealed up.

[Drake White]

Cool. When can we do this? It's going to take eight of them. Oh, no. I got a full tour. I'm rocking. This is beginning of 2019. January, we're in this hospital. So January, February, slow months for touring. March comes in April, and you start going and tweaking into it. We're going to go hit Zach Brown in August. We're going to go to Australia in September. Check that 2019 is looking good, right? So I go out, get my first symbolization. He said, oh. The neurologist goes, you can come in on Mondays. We can get these done. It's going to take eight of them to do the lyme size to embolize the whole thing. And you can come in on Monday, we can do it. And then you can rest Tuesday and Wednesday and then be on the bus Thursday and blast off and take it easy. Listen to your body. Here's some blood pressure medicine. Keep your blood pressure low and just. There's a 2% chance that this thing ruptures.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay.

[Drake White]

Very low. I'll take that chance.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay, cool.

[Drake White]

Let's go. Load the bus, kick the tires, lock the fires. Let's get out there. We got out there and play. And I remember my wife came out and like, everybody came out, was like, so careful. First show turns to 10 shows, turns to 20 shows. One embolization, turns to two embolizations, three embolizations, four emblems.

[Interviewer]

Everything's rocking.

[Drake White]

Everything's rocking. And, dude, I'm getting in that shape. Yeah, Yeah, I feel good. I'm normal. I'm like, all right, dodge that bullet. Let's go. I go to Roanoke, Virginia, August 16, 2019. It's 98 degrees, and I take the stage. Cotton candy skies, 2500 people, Ferris wheels and funnel cakes type of situation. We get out there and I tear into two or three songs. And when I'm singing, man, I'm like. Veins are popping. Like, I'm. I'm in it and I'm. I'm fully in it.

[Interviewer]

But you've been in it for these 20 shows up until then. It's not like you've been easing yourself in. You're being full.

[Drake White]

Oh, at least 30 or 40 show.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay.

[Drake White]

And I. And I. I had been easing in it the first 10 shows, but once I realized I could do that, you know, I was back to full on. So we take that show in Roanoke, Virginia, take the stage, and I felt a little dizzy, but I thought it was just like the. I thought it was just the. The heat and three songs in, heard a. Literally felt my hand start to tingle, felt my left foot, felt like a bowling ball is on my left foot. And I just kind of was like, kept pushing. And then I forgot the words. I was like, what am I, what am I doing? What are these words? I knew what I was doing. What are the words of the song? And, And I. So I just watching the, Watching the footage of it back, I mean, there you can tell. You can see me confused. Like, I'm just trying. So I just start talking and I hear this loud, like a gunshot go off in my.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Like, really? Yep.

[Drake White]

It was. It was like a snap, but it sounded like like a 22.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Like.

[Drake White]

And when it did, my, I, I. The weight on my left side, it felt like my whole face, my whole arm, my whole leg just shoved down into the, into the soil, into the ground, and I couldn't. And by this time, people noticed that stuff was wrong. EMTs were there. Well, I mean, two weeks prior, we'd been to Bahrain, playing for the troops, you know, so EMTs are there. They grabbed me. My type A personality. Wife had a boulder.

[Interviewer]

Didn't you say. I remember the first time we talked. Didn't you say everything flipped, Colors flipped?

[Drake White]

Yes. All stuff like the. The sky went purple or was that the sky was. The sky was the grass, and the grass was the sky. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. It was an upside down thing that, that happened. Literally, like, that's what happened. And everybody started talking slow like, like that seen in old school where you get shot in the neck with a dart. You know, everything was just going real slow. And, you know, they rushed me off the stage and I'm. I'm just breathing and this. My head's on fire, like, pounding. I'm breathing. I can hear my heart beating. And I'm like, I'm. I'm having a stroke. I'm. I'm gonna die. They rushed me to a hospital. I was three minutes from a Trauma 1 hospital. My top. A personality wife had given them, had equipped me with all the verbiage and literature. That was what was wrong with me. Give this to the doctors. My tour manager did that. They pumped me full of this coagulant that stopped the brain bleed within 18 minutes of it starting.

[Interviewer]

Holy spot.

[Drake White]

So it saved my right side, saved my ability to sing, my ability to talk, cognitive function and all that. But they wouldn't give me any pain medication. I remember the pain being so excruciating. I was begging for relief, and they didn't want to give me Any pain medication because they wanted to make sure I was still cognitive, that I wasn't. That the brain bleed hadn't spread to where I couldn't function. Brain dead.

[Interviewer]

So they didn't want you comatose from the pain stuff. They wanted to make sure that everything was functioning.

[Drake White]

So all that, there's a lot of moving parts going around and this is where this. I've explained this a hundred times, but this is where the veil is so thin and whether you're religious, whether you're Christian, whatever you are, it is so thin. And I was lit in one instant. I was kind of in this dream sequence and that's where I saw these four figures in the corner of the room. And those four figures were very confident. And they looked at me and I knew everything was going to be all right. If I could just keep breathing, just keep breathing in, keep breathing out. Those four figures look like they were very confident. They were very.

[Interviewer]

What do you mean confident?

[Drake White]

They were very Brad Pitt and Troy, like, confident. I could tell.

[Interviewer]

I got a feeling, like, that's what I got.

[Drake White]

A feeling. No, a visual, a look.

[Interviewer]

They were very confident.

[Drake White]

They were very. I got a feeling and a visual of like. So. Yes, a feeling as well.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay.

[Drake White]

Of like D, there's security guards here. Everything's going to be fine.

[Interviewer]

But there were no security buts.

[Drake White]

There were no security guards.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay.

[Drake White]

So this is a bang bang thing. This is 10 minutes, 15 minutes after the stroke had happened on stage. 30 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour. They get it to stop bleeding. I'm saved. My life is basically saved. But my whole left side, I cannot feel anything. And I did not know I couldn't move my. I didn't know that cognitively that I couldn't move my leg. I was just. I was so tired that I probably slept. It took my wife seven hours to get from Asheville to Roanoke. So when I woke up, my wife's hand was in my hand. And I felt so peaceful that she made it that I. Because I was just like, gotta hold on for her because I thought I was dying. You know, I had saw the. What later I would figure out they were angels. Had had kind of had this experience of, of, of the veil being lifted. And I didn't know how much time went by, but Alex just said, I woke up a little bit and her hand was in my hand. And then I went right back to sleep and I realized I couldn't grip her hand. And that was where rock bottom. I figured out rock bottom had a basement. Like, I. I literally all the feelings started flooding like, oh, no, I'm not going to Australia. Not going to work with Zach Brown. I can't probably ever tour again. I had heard rumblings of walking, of putting a port in. He'll never walk again, or I don't know if I made that up or what, but, you know, we got to put a port in or we're not going to put a port in, or sepsis may sit in, or we really hit or miss stuff. I could hear all of that being conversated about. And in that moment, in that period, I couldn't tell if I was dreaming or not. But this bright light. I grew up in a church with red carpet is blue carpet. But my grandfather preached at a church with red carpet. And I'm in this church in this dream, and I'm sitting down in the pew and this bright light says, stand up. You know, And I went through the part of not being able to grip my wife's hand. And in my head I was like, I can't stand up. And I knew I was talking to God. I knew I was. I. I didn't know. I didn't see his face. But in a snap of a finger, I realized that I just denied God of standing up, like, So I was like, I can't. And Alex tells the story. She's setting bedside. I haven't moved. I think she. She said a week it had been since I'd moved. And I. I raise up and kick up and I'm trying to get off the bed and. And like, I'm like, I'll come, I'll stand up, I'll dance, I'll bet, you know, because I thought that I'd missed my opportunity to go to heaven. I thought that I'd missed my opportunity by saying no and denying the Creator that, you know, and that in no doubt in my mind, there's no. You can twist that anyway. People can say, well, it was a dream, or, no, no, it was so real. And it was so. It was not a dream. It was like I was in it. And so the, the angels in the corners of the room were real. The talking to God experience was real. And I basically jumped up and he was like, are you. You know, in. In some way, he was like, I don't believe he's done something, something to that nature, like. And I was like, no. He said, are you ready? I said, ready for what? You know, I'm. No, I'm not. I'm not ready to die. I'm not ready. I've got to do. I've got plenty of things to do, you know. You know, and that was. That's super cloudy, but in that experience, that was the angels in the corner of the room. And the experience I had was, you know, of talking to God in that instance. And we went after that to everything kind of worked out. Oh, two weeks I stayed it in Roanoke, Virginia. Got a transport back from a really good buddy that came and picked me up and a tour bus because I couldn't go in a.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Sure, of course.

[Drake White]

Airplane.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah, yeah.

[Drake White]

My buddy from high school came and was the EMT that. That checked on me the whole way back to Nashville. Got home, got everything situated here at home. And that's when we went on the front porch to look at the supermoon. I wanted to go outside. The supermoon was out there in the. In the eastern sky in the front of our house. And this cloud passes over. I'm in like a wheelchair situation. I'm in a bad situation. And we're just trying to figure out how we're going to do this at home. And my, my hand is not moving. My, my leg is not moving. I mean, my hand's moving, like barely.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Drake White]

And cloud goes over that looks like the orange Archangel Michael, like the painting. The archangel Michael. And at the same time, me and my wife said that was like an angel. And my wife tells me the story a month and a half after the. The angels in the corner of the room. She said, you know, on my way to Roanoke, I prayed that God would send four angels and put them in the corner and they were right there. And she said, I also prayed that they would give you peace. I had no. My headache had stopped. I had no pain.

[Interviewer]

Peace was the confidence.

[Drake White]

The peace was the confidence. So people asked me the same thing. Well, what do they look like? How did you know? I don't know how to answer that other than like immediately when she prayed. I believe that she was on her way and she drives like a grandma. And I bet she was driving 90. And I think immediately those angels popped up and were like. And they guided the. She said, I asked them to guide the doctor's hands. I asked them to. To not put a port in. To not do anything that would enable you for the rest of your life to. For it to be your will, but for them to be. And I don't. Look, I get people's hang up on religion and all this stuff. I understand. But this happened. This was real. And so I'm back home now. I'm Back home. And I'm setting in.

[Interviewer]

This is what life is going to be like.

[Drake White]

This is, you know.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Drake White]

Alex is helping me use the restroom. She said, let me bathe. They redone my bathroom so I can access it. It's starting to set in that life.

[Interviewer]

Is not going to be good.

[Drake White]

I'm not a happy guy. My brother in law is a good buddy of mine. Great hunter. And this starts the hunting journey. You know why me and you are sitting here as Blood Origins. While we got introduced, I had been a hunter. I believe if you're a hunter, you're born with it. There's this innate primal thing inside of you that is just there. You can learn to do it, you can learn to be it. But people that are ate up with it, you know, they have it, they're born with it, you know, whether it be fishing or hunting or whatever. When I was a kid, I would get lost in it so much. And minutes returned to hours returned to days on the concentration of a bluegill. You know, it was just crazy for me, and I just had so much peace doing it. So I'm back at my house and Alex's brother, my wife's brother, comes over to make sure that I'm okay. And I'm in a wheelchair. I weigh 150 pounds and I'm just a whole of a man. He goes, let's put a game camera up right here, 100 yards down that hill. And I said, man, there's no need to put a game camera up. I can't chase that deer actively. Like, I can't ethically go hunt that deer. I can't pull a bow back. He goes, you gotta throw the bow thing. Like it doesn't matter if it's a crossbow, if it's a stick, if it's a 30 out 6. If you can get back out there, you need to try to get back out there. And I looked at him and he. He's not a deep, super deep guy. And I thought, man, if he. If he's saying that, like, there's got to be something to that. He puts the game camera. Well, all I'm doing is sitting here because. Fast forward from 2019, August, what happened? August, September, October, you know, we go straight into Covid.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yep.

[Drake White]

Oh, the worst. But it turned out being the best because it put everybody at a standstill. So nobody is. My competitive nature is not getting tested because everybody is, you know, Nashville is at a standstill. And so here's the game camera down in the bottom. And I'm checking it 500 times a day because I don't have anything else to do. I'm wanting to shower the whole side because I'm having a good time seeing does. Seeing a couple of young bucks. Two weeks Robbie.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

That.

[Drake White]

That camera was up. I'll show you the picture later. But I'm very aware of what a 175 inch deer looks like. And I thought somebody was playing a trick on me. I like look at the photo a hundred times and I'm like, there's no way it's 175 inch deer right there. It put. It flipped a primal switch in my body. I had to hunt that deer. I go to my wife, I said, I gotta learn how to climb a ladder. I roll over to her. You can learn how to climb a ladder? What? You gotta learn how to walk, bro. Like, you gotta wop your own butt. Like I'm doing that right now. You realize that? I said, I got to, you know.

[Interviewer]

A couple of other things before you.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Get to climbing a ladder.

[Interviewer]

My friend.

[Drake White]

Show her, show her the picture. She goes, holy. She goes, well, you're not going to Iowa. I said, look at the picture. It's in the backyard. She goes, oh, my gosh. Because Alex knows. She grew up hunting or with hunting brothers and stuff. I go to my. My. This gets good. I go to my. My physical therapist, Ms. Guy, 32 years old, great guy. Helped me learn how to walk again. Everything. Show him the. I said, I got to learn how to climb a ladder. Looks at me like, I got three heads. Dude, you can't walk. You gotta. We got it one step at a time. Literally. We haven't been with the one step. I showed him the picture. He goes, oh, my God, Kansas. I said, no, dude, Nashville. Behind my house. So what if God put that deer back there? I never killed it. I saw it twice and I saw it once on the camera and twice in real life right here. What if he put that deer back there? Wasn't even real. Because I would have heard if somebody killed it. Because there's not 175 deer. There's not a bunch of those deer in this country or in the state.

[Interviewer]

Of Tennessee for sure.

[Drake White]

There's not hardly there may. I'm just throwing this number out there. There may be 30. 30 in the state of Tennessee. Maybe more. Probably more. That's another. That's another podcast though. But we. My physical therapist was like, well, get on that versa climber. And it's a, you know. You know what? A versa climber.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Drake White]

I Get on there. And I look like a, you know, a wet dog trying to figure out how to, you know, whatever. And I start the process. And Robbie, two months after I saw that picture, Alex on a. On a walker walks me down to the bottom of the hill before daylight and hooks me up with seven tethers and seven ropes. And I climb 12 foot up a ladder.

[Interviewer]

Holy shit. And let's put this into context up until that point. Are you seeing that deer? You were not progressing.

[Drake White]

I was mad. I was mad at the world. But this gave me a purpose. This gave me something to pursue. They told me I couldn't play anymore. Pandemic had set in. They told me I couldn't walk anymore. They told me I couldn't see. My grandmother lost two grandfathers and a grandmother through the pandemic. My not dog. My dog that I called Songwriter, named Songwriter, called him rider. He was 16 years old. He was about to die, dude. My life was like, what in the actual hell is going on? And I was just so. I had found a purpose in the pursuit of this deer. It did not matter if I was to walk down there. It'd take me 45 minutes to walk a hundred yards and get up in the stand. And I would wake up at 4 o' clock in the morning. But I had to. I had to. There's a rower right here, folks. There's. You're seeing a bike. I would get up here in just these weights and I would just. I walk in my neurologist, after hunting that deer for two months, I walk in my neurologist for a typical check in. And his name is Dr.

[Interviewer]

Miracle.

[Drake White]

His God given name is Dr.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Miracle.

[Drake White]

No shit. And he said, drake, you look great. What in the world? I mean, like, you saw what? What have you been doing? Your eyes are white, your legs are like.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

You're.

[Drake White]

You're walking in here with no walker. You're what? It's.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

What?

[Drake White]

Dude, I. I saw you two months ago. Yeah, I don't know. I felt good about it. I was like, I don't know, I'm just a stud, you know, whatever. I'm a dad, gum, you know, I'm an athlete, blah, blah, blah. I was just. I was happy again. And Alex goes, I'll tell you what he's been doing. He's been hunting every day. A ghost deer. And I'm like, it's not a ghost. I saw it. She's like, you think? And she's like, no, he's been hunting. He said, whatever. You've been doing your Neuroplasticity charts. Your demeanor, your gait, your walk, everything is working. Keep doing it. And I had this idea sitting in bed of. I wrote this song. All I wanted to do was write. Well, they tell me I couldn't write. So I prayed to the good Lord above, give me the opportunity to write songs from this couch right here. Sitting right here. Have you ever heard of Zoom? Sure. I'd never heard of Zoom. Well, everybody was super reluctant to write on Zoom. And my publisher goes, man, people are trying this. Zoom. Would you be willing to write on Zoom? I said, man, I'll write in effing smoke signals. I don't care. And the very first song that popped up, very first people that popped up, I had no idea who they were. But on Zoom, on Zoom, he said that his mom and dad faced a car wreck, and that car put him in intensive care. But what most folks didn't know is that they were in a physical altercation that put them in that car rent. They hated each other. He said, they. They. They were side by side for seven months in intensive care, and it welded their marriage back together. They since then have been married for 35 years now, five kids, and I'm the fifth. So I've been watching what you've been going through. This is on zone. Wasn't even possible to have this with that. I prayed a week prior to please give me this opportunity. I've been watching what you've been going through, he said, and all I got to say is, maybe the pain is worth it. Maybe the struggle is worth it. Maybe the hurt is the healing. And we wrote a song called the Hurts to heal it. That. That was like. This gave me the confidence at the end of my rope. I'm still a songwriter. I can do this. I can survive, I can be a lot. And then I started slowly to see what the purpose was. And then the deer pops up, and I said, what if it was the hunts that heal it? And so I said, I'm going to make a documentary. We documented every bit of this, and that's why I'm sitting here. September 1st, we're coming out with that documentary called Ladder to the Sky, a Hunts the healing documentary. And I think, you know how competitive this, the outdoor industry is. You know, realtree has been amazing talent, and these guys. And it's going to start out on their YouTube channel.

[Interviewer]

And so meets Mitch Petrie is coming in. The Outdoor Channel is coming in.

[Drake White]

We're gonna go air. We're gonna go live. We're gonna do a Premiere event that I'd love for you to be at. September 1st at Raleigh Green's Duck Line. And then we're going to do.

[Interviewer]

Where's that? Where's that?

[Drake White]

Midtown.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Oh, down.

[Drake White]

That's.

[Interviewer]

Okay, That's. I have no idea.

[Drake White]

No, I'm glad.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

I don't.

[Interviewer]

Perfect.

[Drake White]

That's perfect.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, I'd love to drive up with that.

[Drake White]

And we're going to do a premiere. Well, let me. Let me get back. No, no, let me finish. They. We're gonna go to Realtree's YouTube and use, you know, rallies a part of this.

[Interviewer]

Now you're bringing as many people in the outdoor space as possible together to articulate again. That's why we're here. The story that we haven't finished yet because you just paused.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

About the name. Hunting is healing.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Which is. I saw this deer. I was in the doldrums. And I'm paraphrasing here. And it caused me to say, shit, I need to do something.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

I need to get back. Right. Yeah.

[Drake White]

It's the primal flip that happened. And I don't know if it would have happened without because there's two ways you can get to me, and that's a song and a deer. Well, there's a couple. There's kids and dogs, too.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

But yeah.

[Drake White]

Yeah, he knew that. The world knew. The good Lord knew that I needed something to get me and push into that. And so it was the song. I was going down the path of the. The what's happening in September? Because we have literally filmed this whole process. Me of me learning to climb that ladder and me taking one rung at a time and the power that.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

That.

[Drake White]

That showed me of becoming a provider. And my goal is like, man hunting is so much more. It's just the pursuit of the providership, you know, of being like. It was in me, and it was in me the whole time. And when I clicked into in, no doubt in my mind, it recreated. Recreation is recreation. It recreated neuroplasticity around that lesion because of the purpose of an animal. I mean, if it had been a spike down there, you think it would have done the same? No. There's the chances. You're a hunter, you know, the chances of that deer being down there 100 yards from my house. What are those chances?

[Interviewer]

Very slim.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Drake White]

There's the 1%. The percent it was of the ABM rip straight.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Exactly.

[Drake White]

And so it just gave me that idea to document this because it does not matter, you know, how competitive this world can be.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

True.

[Drake White]

There's guys. And I love the campaigns of the world. I love the Goggins of the world. They've inspired me to do so many things. Andrew Huberman's, Joe Rogan's. That's what you know. I love it. There's guys carrying rocks up mountains. There's guys with an upright bow. There's guys with sticks. There's guys with 30 alt sixes with silencers. Ars. There's a lot of. There's a lot of different things I love. Michael Waddell says your trophy is your trophy.

[Interviewer]

100%.

[Drake White]

Get out there. Get after it. I just think this story really. It really hit me like the. The one. You have to be a fan of it. It's. It's not because it's my story. It's because hunting. The. The actual concept of not hunting is way newer than the actual concept of not hunting.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Hold on.

[Drake White]

The actual concept.

[Interviewer]

Concept of not hunting is way newer than hunting.

[Drake White]

Hunting. You know, now people are like, oh, you're a hunter? Well, you're a killer. Oh, man. With the venison healed me. But more than that, watching my family eat it, watching the fact that I went down there and, you know, and did this. And like I said, I never killed that deer. But the story kind of continues. And like I said, we've documented it and that's what we're looking forward to. Getting that out.

[Interviewer]

Sure. Sure.

[Drake White]

But I got invited to Honeybreak in Louisiana.

[Interviewer]

This is where Drew Keith comes.

[Drake White]

Andrew Keith.

[Interviewer]

Had he been watching you? Had been following you?

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Mm.

[Drake White]

Me and him had been introduced years before by Chad Belding. And you know that that's part of the story. Honeybreak was my. Was my. Was my guys. That was my place. I'd been invited there years before in my mind. Well, Tyler Jordan, I didn't even know deer hunting that you deer hunted.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah, yeah, sure.

[Interviewer]

Big duck hunting place.

[Drake White]

But Tyler and Riley Green asked me to go. Austin Riley was going to be there. We're all going to go down there and. And we're going to duck hunt. I'm not going. Nope. Not going. I can get invited to Honey Break on my own. I don't need Riley Grand. I don't need Tyler Jordan. Like, I can go down there.

[Interviewer]

Why did you say nothing? Did you feel like it was pity party?

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Drake White]

I had a brain.

[Interviewer]

Okay.

[Drake White]

I had a brain injury.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay.

[Drake White]

I wasn't. I'm not saying I was thinking clearly. Completely. Like it was like. It's that ego thing.

[Interviewer]

Is there some. Is this. Obviously duck season comes right on the heels of deer season. All right. Talking weeks after this whole deer incident that's happening down here. Or is it the following season?

[Drake White]

It's the following. It's. No, no, no. It's the same season.

[Interviewer]

Same season on the hill. So.

[Drake White]

Yes, a couple of weeks.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Drake White]

So the reason I'm saying that is because there's so much competitive nature. Because you are a masculine hunter, you are a provider, you are a driver, you are competitive. All that was in my mind with Riley. All that was in my mind with Tyler. All that was in. Because how many guys you know, that's like, no, I'm not going with that dude. He's a. He's a. He's a dick or whatever. Like, not. Not that those guys. I didn't think that. I'm not saying I was in the right frame of mind, but my wife goes, no, you need to go, man. You need to go with these guys. And you know how much.

[Interviewer]

Don't worry about the mic. The mic's good.

[Drake White]

You know how much you love hunting.

[Interviewer]

You need to get mic back. You just turned it away.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Sorry. There we go.

[Drake White]

You need to go. So I drive 1312, 13 hours with Riley and Greg camp, and we go all the way to Honeybreak. And the reason I didn't want to go is because I couldn't get my waders on. So I get up at 3am in the morning, and I go down to the boot room and I start trying to get these waiters on. 3 34, 4, 34, 45. Here comes everybody. And they see this struggling guy that can't get his way, can't get ready for the hunt. The whole reason I didn't want to go was because I didn't want to be a hindrance to the hunt. I didn't want to be. I didn't want to show my cards of weakness to people that didn't know me before. They didn't know me before. They didn't know the guy that went out there and, you know, killed a deer at 12 years old with a. With a, you know, recurve and stuff like that. They didn't know that guy. All they see is a guy that can't get his waiters on. Waiters on. 445 turns to five tail. Here comes Riley down freshly, you know, showered and everything. Hey, man, you having problems? Yeah, man, I'm having a little trouble with this left foot getting this. Oh, let me help you. No, no, no, I'm good. I'm good, dude, let me help you. Walks over, probably pops A joke or does something like that. Grabs. Grabs the leg, pops it on my leg, pops it on my leg. My foot goes. Slams into the bottom of that thing. It's like, you got it. He's like, cool, let's go kill some ducks. We get in, we go smash ducks. And then that night, that evening, I killed the one.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

The.

[Interviewer]

Drew is with you. You've met Drew for the first time.

[Drake White]

No, no, this is. I. Oh, you've known this Drew for a while. Drew for a while.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay, thank you.

[Drake White]

And that evening, I didn't even know you deer hunted at Holly Bright, so.

[Interviewer]

There was no plan to deer hunt.

[Drake White]

We killed a limit of ducks, and we're all having a good time with, you know, with everybody. And then I go kill 145 inch, you know, eight pointer down there. And so I'm like. And it broke the egotistical masculinity thing that I had the competition, and it welded this friendship with me and Tyler and me. And. And we wouldn't be sitting here if it wasn't for Tyler and this whole story. And that is what this is about. Hunting is healing. Camps are compassionate. People are people. We're all battling and struggling to go through stuff like our heritage and going and teaching my kids how to hunt and provide for themselves. Can only pray that it is. It is here, and it is. It is the job of this documentary, my documentary, this podcast, to uphold that. That right, because it literally, scientifically, spiritually, physically, and mentally healed me to go pursue the other animal, to go do the other things, but it made me a better person because it broke down the wall of. Of this masculinity. Oh, I got to be wearing this camouflage and wearing this hat. Wearing. Shooting this way. I got to take this animal. None of that matters. None of that matters. I have to worry about the frost on the rung and putting that boot on that frosty wrong and concentrating even now.

[Interviewer]

But the hand goes.

[Drake White]

The hand goes where the hand goes. And can I bring my son? Can I untangle his fishing line? Can I teach him how to hunt? All these battles, like I tell people, I understood suicide for the first time through all this, because what. What good in my head, the devil will lie to you and he'll say, what good are you if you can't untangle your son's fishing line? What good are you if you can't go out and choke? Because this is my identity. It's who I was. I was, you know, Daniel Boone in my head.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Drake White]

Now I bet.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Are you.

[Interviewer]

If you can't wipe your own loss, right?

[Drake White]

I have to take a step back and go, oh, there's a. There's a. The guy that made the mountains is his plans better? And that's what I'm stepping into now. Like, the music has changed.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

The.

[Drake White]

The purpose has changed, the ego has changed. I still got an ego. You got to have an ego to get on stage. But it's in check. I've got great, better friendships. I've got. I'm for people. And I was for Riley. I was for people then. I just didn't want to go hunting with somebody that. That youthful.

[Interviewer]

Taking pity on you that I didn't.

[Drake White]

Know that thought, oh, we'll take the cripple guy, honey. Screw that. I want to kill the deer. I want to kill the ducks. Because I'm. I. I am the great white hunter, the Drake white hunters, you know, I am. I am that hunter. In my mind. I still am. I just can't walk during these times, like. But as you see now, it's progressed. Everything builds on everything else. And that's what hunting did for me. And we documented every bit of it. And I've always been a fan of the Revenant, the bear attack.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Drake White]

So I wanted to shoot this thing in a way. I grew up watching tanning outdoors. I grew up watching Michael Waddell, and I love all those monster bugs. But I wanted to shoot this in a way that. Where it wasn't. It's not. It's very. It's like 10%, honey. It's really.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

What.

[Drake White]

It's really the spiritual journey of what it is. You know, I see all these things that. That Yeti comes out with and Sitka comes out with, and I see all these things, these great films. You know, the game is. The game is definitely heightened.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Drake White]

And I just think bringing it to my team, which is, you know, a music team, kind of a cinematography type team, that we brought something special into this.

[Interviewer]

And did you write a specific song for the documentary?

[Drake White]

Well, Ladder to the sky is a song that is in it, you know, and it already hunts the heirs. The healing and Ladder to the sky.

[Interviewer]

That'S ties to the.

[Drake White]

They're all tied to it. And we wove the storyline in and out there because a rising tide floats all ships. And country music, music in general is in the woods. To me, it is in the wildlife. You know, the rhythms are in the waters and the wildlife isn't. You know, the wildlife makes these noises in these patterns of these things that are just very musical to Me. And so this documentary ties in all of that, and it ties in the black abyss of like, I'm not climbing a ladder. I need to do it. My wife's, you know, she encouraged me later, she's like, you're not climbing a ladder. We're not going through this again. I just.

[Interviewer]

I'm not letting you fall out of the top of a tree.

[Drake White]

Not doing that. Yeah, we're in. Yeah, you don't have a choice. I mean, that's hard to do. As a southern guy that's supposed to. All this I don't believe in. I'm not even going to go the happy wife, happy life route. Like, I believe everybody's got to be happy. Everybody's pursuit and honesty of what you need to do to make this life as rich as it can be, then do it. And that's my message, that hunting. Hunting was part of that for this, this whole thing. So I hope it just.

[Interviewer]

No, it's a crazy story, man. You know, when Drew first told me about it and a good friend of ours, Anna von Nostrand, told me about it, like, you need to connect with. You need to connect with Drake. You need to talk to him. And then, you know, when Drew finally was like, hey, you need to get him on the phone. We got on the phone, you gave me, you know, five minute clip speech of what it was. And, you know, it's. It's a funniest thing that your story obviously is, you know, generally, hunting healed me. Okay, generically. But that same story happens in many walks of life in many different scenarios, in many different communities with many different people. Just happens differently. But the common denominator is that somebody decided, I'm going to go hunting. And something. And the pure act of hunting did something within me. Whether it changed the person spiritually, whether it physically healed them, whether it healed them mentally, whether it gave them peace, whatever. There's something about it in which you are and it's not. Again, there's a difference between hunting and hiking, right? Or just going walking in the woods, that wouldn't have healed you. Because there's something about when you hunt that you are a part of nature. You're not a part of nature. You are in it. You are.

[Drake White]

You are nature.

[Interviewer]

You are. You're not just observing, you are. You are at heart of it, right?

[Interviewer/Commentator]

You.

[Interviewer]

You know, it's funny, I was. This is not a healing part. But in South Africa, the biggest national park in South Africa is a place called Kruger National Park. I remember as a kid and still Today, if you go to Kruger national park, you're going to see probably 20,000 impala, very common antelope species in.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Sure.

[Interviewer]

And as a kid, every time I would go to Kruger national park, you'd just see impala and just blow past him constantly. Impala unpolla umpala. But I drove through Kruger in November for the very first time as a hunter, I'd become a hunter here in America. And for the first time, I went through Kruger. And the first time I saw an impala.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

This is a bachelor herd.

[Interviewer]

And I slowed my vehicle down going.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Whoa, that's a big one.

[Interviewer]

Oh, that's a youngster. Oh, that's a mature one. Next time I got to a big herd. Oh, where's the herd ball? We found the herd ball.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Oh, wow.

[Drake White]

He's impressive.

[Interviewer]

It almost like it completely gave me a different revenance and outlook and respect and engagement of nature.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Sure.

[Interviewer]

Just because I was thinking like a hunter.

[Drake White]

When was this? Like, how old were you?

[Interviewer]

Oh, you know, as a kid and growing up in South Africa, you know, any holiday, you're probably going to Kruger. From five years old all the way through, like 16.

[Drake White]

Right. You know, you became a hunter later in life?

[Interviewer]

Oh, yeah, in Mississippi.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay.

[Interviewer]

When I was 26 years old.

[Drake White]

Cool.

[Interviewer]

I was, you know, did my hunter education and a good friend of mine who's best mate now, 6 foot 5, 260 pound, red dank out of Mississippi. He's like, all right, you got everything you need?

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yep.

[Interviewer]

Here's your gun, here's your stool. You're sitting under the cedar tree and something comes by, shoot it.

[Drake White]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

That was my introduction to hunting.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

And funnily enough, I'm actually taking him to South Africa to hunt in literally six weeks. That's awesome. So he's gonna. I'm gonna show him what life is supposed to be like. And this is wash hunting, actually.

[Drake White]

Oh, sweet.

[Interviewer]

But, you know, I took a veteran turkey hunting in Colorado in April. I love turkey hunting. I love the chase, I love the calling, I love the whole interaction. And he killed a beautiful bird and was the absolute epitome of what a turkey hunt should be. Two and a half hours of cat and mouse, cat and mouse, cat and mouse. Come in, not commit, Come in, not commit, come in, change positions three times. Finally, committed, killed. And the guy sat on a rock and told me, he says, robbie, veterans get a high, an addiction from killing people in war. That's why we go, that's why we do it. And when we come home, that's why Veterans are looking for that. They're looking for that next high. They're looking for. That's why they turn to alcohol, that's why they turn to drugs, that's why they turn to adulterous relationships, that they're looking for those highs. He goes, robbie, you gave me a high this morning that I didn't know was possible sober.

[Drake White]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

And there's an element of healing there for him. He's got a traumatic brain injury with ptsd. He's just like, whoa. I never understood it until what you just showed me this morning.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah, yeah.

[Drake White]

It's powerful, man. And I've watched it. Thanks for telling me that story.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, there's lots and lots and lots of those stories.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Right.

[Interviewer]

Constantly, constantly, you know, that, you know, tired of hunting two legged animals, so I'm going to hunt four legged animals because there's still an element of that high that they're looking for, but it's different.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Drake White]

And this whole thing with me, like, I realized, like, if you can, doesn't matter what you're hunting, like, you can, you know, deer, turkeys, fishing, being outside, being outside in the dirt, being a little bit closer, being, being grounded.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

That's good.

[Drake White]

Being grounded in the soul and being out there. I mean, you could. I'm gonna. This might work and might not, but in my thought, like, you could be hunting. You could be hunting morels, you could be hunting sheds, you could be hunting. A better way to, you know, play simple, man, you could be hunting. It's not going to put you in nature, but you, you find a hunt. Find something to hunt down. Find an idea. Yes, I am going off the rails here. But like, find a purpose. That's what this gave me in.

[Interviewer]

Well, your purpose was the big buck.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Drake White]

And I, like I said, I never, I never killed that deer. I never fictitious deer.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Drake White]

Might have been. Not have been an angel deer, you know, but it did. I think one of the best parts of that story is walking in Dr. Miracle's office and a scientific doctor neurologist goes, Something's just not, not only visually, but like scans your numbers, then the numbers have changed. Like, and it ain't been that long. What's. What's going on? And I'm not saying people say, well, it could be placebo or it could. I don't care. I don't care what it is. If you say you're healing, you're healing. That's. That's 90% of it. Convincing yourself that you're healing, convincing yourself that there are Deer out there. When you're hunting, there is a fate to a hunting. Convincing yourself that there's a God, that. That has your best interest at. At heart and that your plan is not always going to work out like you think it might be his plan, but it's the best plan. Convincing yourself that. My grandfather used to say, never bait a hook without the intention, without believing.

[Interviewer]

That you're going to catch a fish.

[Drake White]

That that fish is going to bite that hook. Why would you go fishing? And people, I see them all the time. Let's a parable here. I see them fishing, whether it be music or fishing for a mate, or fishing for a wife or whatever, they don't think a fish is going to bite the hook. Why would you do that? Like, always approach the woods with optimistic eyes. There is deer in these woods. There's game, there's food, there's memories, there's lessons, there is spiritual leadership. There is power in the purpose of the pursuit of these woods. And I think that's what it, like every time I go into the wood. It doesn't matter. Alex has got some bees now. I'm totally into that. That's so cool to me. You know, whether it be fishing or anything. I'm teaching my little boy who. And we went through seven years of infertility too. So believing that that little boy was going to be. And then seeing his blue eyes and seeing him see a lightning bug for the first time and I saw it like reflect in his eyes, so cool. He's like, what is that? That's a lightning bug. And he's. And he repeats, lightning bug. That's real. And I believe if you believe, sometimes you need a little help. You need a fictitious deer or you need some guy to call you, your friend, to call you and go, hey, quit being a pansy and get out of the bed. Or you might need somebody go, quit being a hot ass and get in the bed.

[Interviewer]

Or somebody to help you put your waiters on and go, let's go kill somebody.

[Drake White]

Might need your biggest competitor in your head to just break the mold and go. You might need your wife to go, no, you're going to. How, how weird is that? The wife is going, you're going, honey, you're not staying here. I wanted to stay here where I was safe and hunt my deer that probably went down there, you know, and it's just a. It's a beautiful life. I'm. I'm incredibly humbled by, you know, getting to live it and getting to go through all this stuff. It is really hard, and I have bad days, but people are good for the most part. Nature is so unforgiving and so beautiful. And there is angels in the corner of the room if you ask them to be there. There's. There's deer in the woods. You just got to go look. There's fish in the. The water. You just got to go look. And. And there's also wolves out there, too, that will eat you. It's part of being alive. And I'm glad to be alive. And I don't know if anything that is more important to me right now than people understanding that this story is. I'm a normal dude, and this story is real. And this story happened to me, and you should never feel alone, because I do. I do it with my crowds all the time. Like, raise your hand if you got cancer. Raise your hand if you got Parkinson's. Raise your hand if you've been cheated on by your ex husband's boyfriend's sister's dog. Whatever it is. Everybody's got problems, man. And the truth is that I would probably trade if I knew your problems, I'd probably trade your problems for my problems and vice versa. It's okay. We all got problems. Just because you have problems don't mean you're a bad person and God's carrying you through this horrible time. It just means that something you're being prepared to pursue something else.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Sure.

[Drake White]

So.

[Interviewer]

Well, dude, thank you for telling the story. As you said, podcast is the beautiful forum to be able to lay everything out long for in a long form manner. Appreciate you. I appreciate Drew connecting us, and I look forward to maybe sharing a duck blind or a deer blind in the future.

[Drake White]

Let's do it, man.

[Interviewer]

We'll do it, dude. Thank you.

[Blood Origins Host]

Appreciate it here.

[Drake White]

I appreciate you.

[Interviewer]

Well, that's it for today. I appreciate you listening.

[Blood Origins Host]

As always, leave a review, share it with your friends, and most importantly, do what's right to convey the truth around hunting.

[Matt, Afuerda Coffee Founder]

Hi, I'm Matt, founder of Afuerda Coffee. Coffee for the outdoors. A fuera means outside in Spanish, and we believe your coffee should be as exceptional as your outdoor experiences. We source specialty coffee grown, sustainably, sourced with care, and roasted on demand. No hype, no gourmet or premium labels. Just the best coffee you've ever had delivered to your door. We roast, bag and ship right here in the US and everything we do has Mother Nature at the forefront of our decision making. From compostable bags to recycled mailers and labels. Plus, we donate 5% of all sales, not just profits to charities that protect and preserve the outdoors we love. Ready to upgrade your coffee and make a difference? Check us [e-mail] that's a f u e r a coffee.com you'll find our full lineup of roasts, stories behind the beans, and more about the causes we support. Enjoy your next outdoor adventure with purpose and an incredible coffee in hand.

[Trophy Ridge Representative]

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