← Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
Takin' A Walk - Music History with Buzz Knight
"A Journey Through Love and Music with Kolby Cooper"
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- [00:01]
Buzz Knight
Time is precious and so are our pets. So time with our pets is extra precious. That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 24. 7 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow ups for up to five pets. You can message a vet at any time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments and shipping is always free. With Dutch, you'll get more time with your pets and year round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care.
- [00:31]
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- [01:31]
Colby Cooper
It'S definitely tough. I mean, you know, I got three babies, I got two girls, six and four, and then a boy. It's two. They grow up a lot when I'm on the road, like I'll be gone for a week and get back and you know, the younger they are, the worse it is really. Because then I'll be gone and I get back a week later and my boy is like talking really well, you know. And when I left he was still just saying, you know, gibberish, whatever. That's. That's part of it.
- [02:01]
Buzz Knight
Welcome to Taking a Walk, where we explore the paths that have led artists to where they are today. Joining Buzz night is BMG Nashville artist Colby Cooper, a rising star in country music known for his heartfelt storytelling and electrifying performances. Colby's journey is marked by a blend of outlaw country and southern rock influences shaped by his upbringing on a ranch and the the loss of his father at a young age. With hits like Every Single Kiss and his critically acclaimed album Boy From Anderson county to the Moon, Colby has captivated audiences with his unique sound. He has new music out called Love u Good Night Colby Cooper joins Buzz Knight on Taking a Walk right now.
- [02:50]
Colby, thanks for being on Taking a Walk.
- [02:52]
Colby Cooper
Hey, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
- [02:54]
Buzz Knight
So, since the podcast is called Taking a Walk, I have to corner you with this question. If you could take a walk with someone, living or dead, who would you take a walk with?
- [03:06]
Colby Cooper
I would love to. I'd love to take a walk with. With either Waylon Jennings or Kurt Cobain. Be a good walk.
- [03:16]
Buzz Knight
Nice. Diverse group of people there.
- [03:20]
Colby Cooper
Or my dad. Yeah, or my dad would be cool, too.
- [03:23]
Buzz Knight
Any particular place you'd like to take that walk?
- [03:28]
Colby Cooper
It would be nice to be up in the. In the mountains, in. In Colorado or Utah. Somewhere nice. Somewhere. It feels real good.
- [03:38]
Buzz Knight
Nice. Well, congrats on the new music. Love you. Good night. We'll talk about that for sure. But I want you to take our audience to Bradford, Texas, which is where you are right at this moment. And what role did your hometown play and does it continue to play in your musical identity?
- [04:04]
Colby Cooper
Yeah, I think it's a very small town. Bradford is rapidly in Palestine, Athens, and if you blink, you will miss. It is very small. You look at the population, it's like 34, 35, I think. And I've got five in my family here, so we. We make up a significant part of the population here. And I grew up. I grew up here. My grand. My grandpa's farm is. Is where I live, and it's. It's where I grew up. And it's really like. Bradford is really like my grandpa's farm and a couple spots right outside of it. Uh, and all the history is. Is really cool, too. But I think just the, the isolation and the. And the loneliness out here and the. It's such a small town, you know, everybody's story, you know, everything that's going on. So growing up, I heard all the stories about who was cheating, who was, you know, doing this and that and whatnot. And it gave some inspiration for my riding. And it was, you know, I was never a wild, wild man by any means. I married with three kids. I'm 25. Got married to my high school sweetheart. So I get a lot of love songs and all the missing. Missing your people songs about my. My family. But, you know, I don't write the. The breakup songs and the. The fu. Songs are all about just, you know, relationships that I've. I've witnessed or stories people have told me or whatever, things like that. So I think that definitely played a big part in how I learned to write.
- [05:45]
Buzz Knight
You bear a resemblance to A young John Prine. Has anybody told you that?
- [05:52]
Colby Cooper
No. No. I love John Prynne. There you go.
- [05:56]
Buzz Knight
And your musical interest, based on your answer to the Taking a walk question, obviously it goes to many different directions. Do you want to take us down a ride of musical influences? And certainly don't be afraid to take dramatic left turns or right turns.
- [06:18]
Colby Cooper
Absolutely. I think, you know, growing up, my. My dad drove a contract and. And he was a real cowboy and he worked on ranches and stuff. So I was listening to a bunch of old country. It was mainly like Whelan, Waylon James and Chris Ledoux were two of my big, big inspirations and, and still into my, you know, two of my favorites. I think they're both of my top five listened to this past year. And then I found rock after that with like, Oz guys born in Guns N Roses and all the, the hair metal and Texas country. You know, Randy Rogers and, and Wade Bowen and Charlie Robinson. There's so many greats. And I remember as a. In fourth grade, my dad brought home the CD. It would have been 2008, 2009. Ish. There was this man called Whiskey Myers, and I was like, oh, who's this? And he said, this is a CD I got from Cavenders or something. It's called Road to Life. And I was like, oh, who are these guys? And he said, these are some dudes that are from right down the road, the lead singer group 15 minutes from here. The rest of them are group whatever, all within, you know, an hour. I'm like, what? And that was like the first time that I realized you could. You could be from Bradford, you know, Mon Alba, Palestine, and you can make music. So I was like a light bulb. A light bulb went off my head and, and music's great and it's like this southern Iraq, you know, country. But that was a big inspiration. But then also when I got in middle school, I'm like rap and. And all old school rap and just. I. I just love everything. I'm a big music fan in general, and I try to just, you know, not trying. I don't try to take too much from anything, but I try to take from everything. You know what I mean?
- [08:03]
Buzz Knight
And you got a Divino Records early on in life, right?
- [08:08]
Colby Cooper
Oh, yeah. I got, I got most of my battles sitting right over here to my left. I, I did, I do, I do love vinyls. I, I just. I don't know, something about just putting the record on and just enjoying it is nice, you know, how is being.
- [08:24]
Buzz Knight
Into vinyl how has it sort of, you know, shaped your approach to creating and releasing music?
- [08:32]
Colby Cooper
Yeah, I think with, like, with how the. Just. The whole. The whole thing works nowadays, it's kind of hard as far as just the releasing. Like, we released a few singles for this record, but when it comes out, what I really focused on, we were making this record was, like, when it's all together and it's all in its final form, I want it to be a complete record that you can sit there and listen top to bottom and be like, oh, yeah, this is a pleasant. You know, like, I want to. I want to be able to put it on the vinyl and just sit back and then flip it and sit back, not have to get up and I'm gonna skip this, or I'm. You know what I mean?
- [09:13]
Buzz Knight
So there are folks that don't appreciate that necessarily because they weren't into vinyl. So I think appreciating vinyl and the way albums were created back in the day and then still bringing that forward in 2025 as a. As an artist, that's. That's pretty cool that you, you know, put that painstaking detail to your work.
- [09:40]
Colby Cooper
Absolutely. And that was, like. That was part of why this. This album took so long to make. We started putting Music on in 2018, and this is. This is the longest we went without putting, like, a project out. Like, whether it be an EP or an album, it's been about two years. And we put a. We put a few singles out, but we end up putting a full project out. But that's, you know, that's. That's part of what. Part of it is, because I wanted. I just wanted to have a pile of songs that we wrote to pick from. And we got to that point final back in, like, August, and. And it was like, God, it was like cutting teeth the entire time. I was like, man, I want to put this out. Like, we have the songs. They're right here. They're good enough. Like, these are. These are the songs. These are songs. And then we finished, like, we wrote, like, three for the album back in August. I was like, oh, man, if please wouldn't have been on that album, I would have been so sad, you know? So it was. It was tough to, I guess, kind of sit back and just get as creative as I could and try to do it. But in the end, I'm so happy with how it turned out.
- [10:46]
Buzz Knight
So can you tell us, how do you decide whether to draw inspiration from personal experiences when writing or take other inspirations from friends or other observances how do you sort of decide that?
- [11:06]
Colby Cooper
I think it kind of depends how I'm feeling. If I'm feel it in my head and I'm feeling down, then I can easily pull from like just that place of, you know, depression and sadness and, and write that like, woe is me song, I guess, kind of thing. But if, if I'm writing something that's like, I don't know if I have like just a title that I really like that feels like, like a breakup song or like a, like a fu song or something, then it's, it's more like I just think about, you know, my friends and their relationships and, and what, what they've gone through, what they've told me about and that kind of thing. Just because I've been married to my wife since we were 18, like, you know, and I love her, she's my best friend. We got three kids. My family, my family life is great. I'm so happy that, you know, we got softball practice and softball games and ballet and all the good stuff. So whenever I think about, you know, breaking up and how that feels, it's more like how, you know, I mean, I've been broken up with when I was in middle school and, and high school, but you know, it's a little different in the real world. And I hear my friends talk about it and just fans too. I have fans come up and be like, man, me and this girl, we bonded over your music and then she cheated on me and left me and this whole thing and it just, I don't know, it gives me, it gives me the inspiration I need to write that kind of song.
- [12:35]
Buzz Knight
But folks don't really understand what the life work balance is and the challenge of it for a musician such as yourself.
- [12:47]
Colby Cooper
Oh yes sir, it's a big challenge. And we're full time touring musicians and that's how we started. We started independent grassroots here in Texas playing you know, 150 shows a year the past six years or so. And it's the past two years we've been able to take a few more days off, which has been nice to be able to, you know, be home and don't, you know, I have, I don't, I don't miss birthdays, I don't miss, you know, any extracurricular thing I can, I can make it for. So it's been nice to be a little less busy. Last two years we're still, I mean, you know, full time tour and we have. This is my longest stretch I've been Home all year and it's a week and three days, I think, and then I'm back to where I'm home, like three days a week, two days a week, one day, you know, so it's. It's definitely tough. I mean, you know, I got three babies. I got two girls, six and four, and then a boy that's two. And, you know, you see, they grow up a lot when I'm on the road. Like, I'll be gone for a week and get back and it's. You know, the younger they are, the fat, the worse it is really, because they just grow so fast in these little, little intervals. And I'll be gone and I get back a week later and my boy is like talking really well, you know. And when I left, he was still just the same, you know, gibberish, whatever. That's. That's part of it, you know. And I. But I feel blessed because I. As. As a kid and all grown up, all that I wanted was to play music and to have a family is always. Was like my two dreams was to family and put in music for a living. And I get to do that. I support my family playing music. I have a beautiful family, you know.
- [14:38]
Buzz Knight
Your debut album, Boy from Anderson county to the Moon, it was a big. A breakout moment. Can you talk about what that project means to you and how you sort of reflect on it for your musical journey so far?
- [14:54]
Colby Cooper
Absolutely. Yeah. And I was right. It was the first. Totally got to put out with. With the label. It was. It was a cool process just. And I wanted to. At that time, I was like, I want to put as many songs as we can. And I was so focused on trying to get it out fast and we. We kind of had it like half done, but that's all. The album, though. It's like. It's. It's a novel to your boyfriends and county to the Moon. It's a. But it was two eps, so it was Boyfriends and County EP and the to the Mooney P is why it's. But it's also like. It was kind of just like. What describes me like I'm, you know, boy from Anderson County. That's Bradford's Anderson, Canada. Anderson county lines half a mile that way, you know. And to the Moon is kind of how me and all our dudes in the crew, we're like a family. We spend so much time on the road together. It's, you know, you gotta be like a family or it'll be. I would be crazy. But that's Kind of how we approach everything is, is like just give it everything you got and you know, be a good person. You know, show love.
- [15:58]
Buzz Knight
Take us inside to the creation of the new album. Love you, Good night. How long did that take and who were your co collaborators?
- [16:07]
Colby Cooper
Yeah, so love you, Good night. It took.
- [16:10]
Buzz Knight
It's.
- [16:10]
Colby Cooper
It's been about a two year process. Notice there's, there's a few writers on it. Sorry if you heard that my wife, two dogs, they just jumped off the couch and he running around. But the, my producer, Andrew Bayless is a writer on most of them and produced the whole thing. Michael Whitworth, Riley Thomas, Dan Pellerin. Oh, man, I'm gonna miss a couple. But there's so many. And they're all like some of my favorite riders. I feel so lucky to get to be in the room with them. But in the creation process, like, they all, they all understood what we wanted. Josh, door to one of my favorites. They all understood what we're trying to do. And it was, it was easy. It was a bunch of my boys, just a bunch of the dudes. I've been riding with a bunch the past couple of years. And they kind of knew what we had for the album and knew what we needed. So it was a, it was a fun process to, to get in there and to just. Like I was saying, we were thinking so much about how the total or how the outcome would be and how the songs would fit together and how, you know, what kind of story would tell. So that it was fun. It was a really fun process. It was a long process. Like I said, two years. It's been, it's the longest we've ever went without putting out a project. So it was, it was a, it was a stressful two years. But now that we're nearing it, the fans are excited about it and everybody's just really pumped with how it came out and I'm just so happy, you know.
- [17:39]
Buzz Knight
What are some of your favorites off of the album?
- [17:42]
Colby Cooper
I don't know. I would say it's so tough. It changes all the time. But right at the moment, my favorite is probably Empty Handed. One of my favorites is Empty Handed. And it's a, it's. It was a solo. Right? I wrote that one by myself. We just moved home from Tyler. We lived in Tyler, Texas the past four years. It's about 45 minutes away from here. It's like the big city growing up. Like it was where you go Christmas shopping and clothes shopping. But I wrote that one at the, the house we had there up in my office. It was the first time that I was like making a track myself and trying to do the whole like recording thing. And I sat there for two weeks doing it. Had the melodies all like sing in there and I was just slowly writing to the melody and, and the way it came out, it's just so cool. Like it's, it's another one too that's like. It's not about me and my wife. It's. It's a, It's a leaving the person that's bad for you song. It's the, you know, the hook is, I'm so happy I landed empty handed. You know, like that kind of thing where, you know, I felt like it was going to be bad, but I ended up happy. But I've just, you know, I've seen relationships like that not work out where it's like, oh, wow, I. I thought that was going to be the end of me. Turned out I'm much happier without them. And I love that one. Production wise and melody wise, it's. It's one of my favorites. Apartment 208 is another one of my favorites. It's a, it's the. The course is one of my favorite courses. Who ever written. And the verses, I had to reroute the verses and when I rewrote the verses. I was flying in Nashville on Father's Day and I was. It was a couple years ago. I was pretty sad because I wanted to come home on Father's Day, but I had to go for like some meetings and all that stuff that week. And, And I, I'm like a big drinker. I'll drink every once in a while. But on the plane I was sitting there and this, this old man was sitting next to me and he. It was like 8am Coming back from Denver. So we had to go from Denver to DFW to DNA in Nashville. And on the fly from Denver, he like. I was sitting there just kind of thinking of going to sleep and he was like, hey, can I get a, can I get a drink? I'll take a Coke and Jack and Coke. I was like, dang. Necessarily. I was like, hey, I gotta do it too. I said, give it to me. And we drank like five or six of them on that flight. And we got, we got to feel pretty good. And I, and I, I got to where she was just giving me the bottle and let me shoot the bottle and then have the, the Dr. Pepper as a chaser and. And I, I got pretty toasted on that first flight and stumbled my way around to my next flight. Lo and behold, there's another. Another old man that was having a good time wanted to drink, too. And it's like, all right. So I got to Nashville, and I was. I was pretty wasted, and I got to the. Got to the Airbnb, called my wife, called my babies, and, hey, how are y'all? Look at you. And I was still holding it together. I got off the phone, and I was like, man, my stomach hurts. I got up, I got to the bathroom, started stripping my clothes off. I puked for about an hour. But whenever I. Whenever I get so drunk that I throw up, I always take my phone and I have this old country playlist. I turn on the old country playlist, and I throw up to it. Gives me. Gives me like a p. Like a piece, you know? And. And. And I laid there and I woke up and realized that I had ordered some McDonald's, like, a couple hours ago, had been sitting outside my door. So I woke up and ate some McDonald's, and. And once I kind of came to a little bit, I. I had that song, and I wrote those two verses kind of just about getting too drunk in the apartment Airbnb and throwing up and having a bad time. So that was. That was a fun story for it. But that. That one is another one of my favorites. And love you get not the title track is one that I wrote about my missing my wife, my babies, and. And being gone. And I've been gone for a couple weeks, and I go, My dog scared. And I came back again. I'd been gone for a couple weeks playing shows, and I had to fly up to Des Moines, and all I wanted to do is go home and hug on my babies and. And sit with them and just hang out and play and, you know, hang out with my wife. But I had to, after 30, 45 minutes of being home, had to unpack and repack my bag and go to the airport and fly to Des Moines. And we got to the hotel in Des Moines, and me and my guitar player, though, and he was like, hey, man, you want some coffee? And I was like, nah, I'm good. I'm just gonna stay up here and hang out. He walks out of the room and left his guitar on the. On the bed. And I picked it up and I put my phone down and I hit record. And it was just like. I freestyled off the top of my head just for two minutes, just how I was feeling, and wrote the first verse, chorus, and second verse of the song. And then I just hit pause and I was like, all right, we kind of forgot about it. And then a month and a half later, two months later, my producer's out on the road with us and Ben Burgess was opening the shows, and he'd been right with me all week. But that third show he was late to and we already set up, and he was like, well, is there anything you want to finish? And I was like, hey, I actually did have this song.
- [22:46]
Buzz Knight
It's.
- [22:46]
Colby Cooper
I think it's called, it's called I miss you or I miss you or something like that. And he's like, okay, cool. And we sit there and kind of got it all worked up and wrote the. The bridge. And then we ended up calling it love you, good night because of the. The end of it. And it's just. It's cool because the, the end of the record is. Is love you, good night. It's the title. But the, the very last words on the record is, linda, good night. And I thought it was so cool just to end the record in the record. Like, that's part of, like, what I was saying, like, what the. You know, then you'll know that the vinyl is about to start skipping because it says love you, good night. So, you know, give you a little warning.
- [23:27]
Buzz Knight
Colby Cooper, congratulations on the new music and on the current state of affairs, which is only going to continue to get brighter for your musical career. It's an honor having you on. I hope we can do it again sometime.
- [23:41]
Colby Cooper
I appreciate you having me, man. It means a lot.
- [23:46]
Buzz Knight
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts. Time is precious and so are our pets. So time with our pets is extra precious. That's why we started Dutch. Dutch provides 247 access to licensed vets with unlimited virtual visits and follow ups for up to five pets. You can message a vet at any time and schedule a video visit the same day. Our vets can even prescribe medication for many ailments and shipping is always free. With Dutch, you'll get more time with your pets and year round peace of mind when it comes to their vet care.