BOBBYCAST: Matt & Scott on The Untold Story of Parmalee, Being Pushed as a Rock Band + Their Mom Taking Out a 2nd Mortgage to Save Their Career + Living in an RV in a Parking Lot + Getting Confused for a Famous Metal Band

Summary

The Bobby Bones Show: The Untold Story of Parmalee

Episode Overview Released on August 8, 2025, this episode of "The Bobby Bones Show" delves into the remarkable journey of Parmalee, featuring an in-depth conversation with brothers Matt and Scott Thomas. Hosted by Bobby Bones, the discussion uncovers the band's humble beginnings, the challenges they faced, including a harrowing robbery incident, and the unwavering support from their family that ultimately propelled them to success.

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1. Origins of Parmalee

Parmalee's Name and Beginnings Parmalee is named after the small town of Parmalee, North Carolina, where the band was formed. Bobby Bones initiates the conversation by asking Matt and Scott about the band's name, revealing that Parmalee is not just their band name but also the town where they started.

• Matt Thomas explains, "You named the band after the town. Spelled P-A-R-M-E-L-E, so nobody would ever be able to pronounce that." (03:44)

Early Life in Robertsonville The brothers grew up in Robertsonville, a nearby town with a population of around 1,200. Their upbringing in a tight-knit community grounded their music and work ethic.

• Scott Thomas shares, "Our granddad moved to our little town of Robertsonville to work for Warehouser. It was a sawmill town, and when the mill shut down, the population dwindled." (05:08)

2. Struggles and Early Efforts

Formation of the First Band Initially, Parmalee started under the name Slip Joint, playing cover songs to make ends meet. Their cover performances were diverse, ranging from southern rock to funk, mimicking bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers.

• Matt Thomas reminisces, "We got a few Slip Joint performances, playing our covers. It was mostly to make money and keep the band alive." (07:12)

Challenges in Establishing Themselves Despite their efforts, Parmalee struggled to carve out their unique sound and secure a stable income. Managing finances was particularly difficult, leading them to rely heavily on credit cards and sporadic gigs.

• Bobby Bones recounts a pivotal moment when finances were dire: "We were out, credit cards done. Tapped out on our buddy that was investing, and I went to my mom and I said, 'Mom, can we borrow $11,000? We'll pay you back with 20% interest.'" (01:41)

3. A Life-Changing Incident

The Robbery Incident One of the most significant and traumatic events in Parmalee's history was when Matt and Scott were robbed at gunpoint while living in an RV in Rock Hill, South Carolina. This incident not only threatened their lives but also tested their resilience and commitment to their music career.

• Scott Thomas describes the event: "We were playing a show, finished up, and as we were packing in the RV, two men came in with guns demanding cash. Scott engaged them, and bullets were flying. He ended up in the hospital, almost dying." (52:17)

Impact and Aftermath The robbery had profound effects on the band members, particularly Scott, who suffered gunshot wounds. The experience left them with PTSD and significantly influenced their outlook on life and their music career.

• Scott Thomas reflects, "I was in a coma for 10 days. When I woke up, my focus was on recovery and getting back to Nashville to pursue the record deal we were close to." (54:03)

4. Family Support and Resilience

Mother's Second Mortgage Facing financial desperation, Parmalee turned to their mother, who took out a second mortgage on her home to loan them $11,000. This act of unwavering support was crucial in keeping the band together during their toughest times.

• Bobby Bones shares, "My mom took a second mortgage out on her home and loaned us the money without asking to hear one song. It was crazy, but she believed in us." (01:41)

Repaying the Debt Despite the overwhelming odds, Parmalee managed to repay their mother faithfully by paying her back whenever they could earn money from shows and sales.

• Bobby Bones states, "We paid her back every time we got any money, sticking to our payment plan by playing shows." (46:58)

5. Transition to Success

Breakthrough with "Carolina" After years of perseverance, Parmalee finally achieved significant success with their song "Carolina." This track became a turning point, gaining widespread recognition and cementing their place in the music industry.

• Bobby Bones highlights, "When 'Carolina' hit the charts, it was our greatest moment. It connected with people and gave us the momentum we needed." (43:29)

Continued Struggles and Adaptation Despite their breakthrough, Parmalee continued to face challenges, including label issues and the unexpected timing of the COVID-19 pandemic, which temporarily stalled their momentum.

• Bobby Bones reflects, "Just when 'Carolina' started taking off, COVID hit. It was a setback, but the song provided hope during a difficult time." (66:35)

6. Personal Growth and Mental Health

Dealing with PTSD The traumatic robbery incident left lasting psychological scars. Both Matt and Scott have actively sought therapy to cope with their experiences, emphasizing the importance of mental health in their lives.

• Scott Thomas admits, "I still deal with PTSD. I go to therapy and work through it one day at a time." (55:19)

Building New Perspectives Their journey has instilled in them a profound appreciation for the support they've received and the life they've built, reinforcing their dedication to their music and each other.

• Bobby Bones shares, "Not a day goes by that I don't appreciate what we have. We've been through so much, but we're here because of our determination and support from our family." (14:16)

7. Current Endeavors and Future Plans

Ongoing Success and Performances Today, Parmalee continues to thrive, performing across various venues from small bars to large arenas. Their resilience and commitment have made them a beloved name in the music industry.

• Matt Thomas encourages listeners, "If we can make it, you can too. Just keep showing up and chasing your dreams." (72:22)

New Music and Tours With hits like "Carolina" and "Must Have Had a Good Time," Parmalee remains active in the music scene, constantly evolving and connecting with new audiences.

• Bobby Bones concludes, "We're heading to California for headlining shows and festivals. Check out our latest song, 'Cowgirl,' and follow us on Instagram at Parmalee Music." (72:35)

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Notable Quotes

• Matt Thomas: "We thought we had the songs, but looking back, we didn't. That was when we realized the importance of having strong songwriting." (38:11)

• Bobby Bones: "My mom took a second mortgage out on her home and loaned us the money without asking to hear one song. Crazy." (01:41)

• Scott Thomas: "I was in a coma for 10 days. When I woke up, my focus was on recovery and getting back to Nashville to pursue the record deal we were close to." (54:03)

• Matt Thomas: "If we can make it, you can too. Just keep showing up and chasing your dreams." (72:22)

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Conclusion

This episode of "The Bobby Bones Show" offers a candid and heartfelt exploration of Parmalee's rise to fame. Through tales of struggle, family support, and unyielding determination, Matt and Scott Thomas illustrate the true spirit of resilience in the face of adversity. Their story serves as an inspiration to aspiring musicians and anyone striving to overcome significant challenges to achieve their dreams.

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Connect with Parmalee:

• Website: parmaleemusic.com
• Instagram: @ParmaleeMusic

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Note: This summary excludes all advertisement, sponsor messages, and non-content sections as per the provided guidelines.

Transcript

[Bobby Bones]

This is an I Heart podcast.

[Matt Thomas]

Nourishes like a smoothie and sizzles like a smash burger. Easy to pick up and hard to put down. Made from plants and grills like beef. See, it's not. Or it's.

[Scott Thomas]

And.

[Matt Thomas]

And that's what I love about impossible. Just this weekend, a couple impossible burgers. Put them on the grill. Boom. Felt like I was having a cheat meal without the feeling of the guilt of a cheat meal. It's not just burgers. They got hot dogs, chicken. Everything you need for your summer menu. Look for the impossible red packaging at your local grocery store today.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Homes.com]

Homes.com is the only place where you can find specialized neighborhood guides with the in depth insider info home shoppers want. Very in depth info. Want to know if there's homes for sale in the area?

[Matt Thomas]

We've got it.

[Homes.com]

How long has a home been on the market?

[Matt Thomas]

We'll know it.

[Homes.com]

Average lot size?

[Bobby Bones]

Uh huh.

[Homes.com]

Proximity to local parks, of course, insight into your neighbor's divorce. We're working on it. Homes.com we've done your homework.

[Bobby Bones]

We were out, credit cards done. Tapped out on our buddy that was investing and I went to my mom and I said mom, can we borrow $11,000 and we'll pay you back like 20% interest. I promise you we'll pay you back. And she took a second mortgage out on her home and didn't ask to hear one song. Crazy.

[Matt Thomas]

Welcome to episode 529 with Parmalee, Matt and Scott. They're brothers. Matt's the lead singer. They got many, many number one songs. Carolina like Carolina, I love you just the way. Anyway, they have a bunch of songs and I was excited to talk to them just because they have a very interesting story of how they came up and I didn't really expect to get into the shooting really at all because we had talked about it on the Bobby Bones show before so I really wasn't gonna go there. But something organically came up. We talked about it for a bit in a different way than I'd ever heard them talk about it. And so my intention wasn't really to talk about that. It wasn't to avoid it. But, you know, they were in an RV after a show and two people came in with guns demanding cash, and all of a sudden bullets are flying and Scott ends up in the hospital, almost died. We get into all that. So Parmalee, I think you're gonna like this. You can follow them on Instagram at Parmalee Music. Check that out. You can check them out on tour. August, September and October. Are those. Is that an order? March, April, May, June, July, August, September. Yeah, dude, I can do a lot of things, but months, I can't do. I can't do the. In order. I can't do the numbers. Check them out on the Road. Parmaleemusic.com and here we go. It is episode 529 with Parmalee. All right, we're here with Matt and Scott from Parmalee. One of you guys just said something. And sometimes when I've known someone for a long time, I don't ask the questions that I think a lot of people would like to know because I feel like I know the answer. So why would I ask it? What's Parmalee? Because I would have never asked that. And we were talking off camera.

[Bobby Bones]

Yep.

[Matt Thomas]

So what is. What is Parmalee?

[Bobby Bones]

It's a little town in North Carolina where we started the band. Population, I think 264 or something like that. It's about a mile from where we grew up. But yeah, we named it after the band. Named the band after the town. Town spelled P A R M E L E. So nobody would ever be able to pronounce that P A R.

[Matt Thomas]

M E L. So I'd probably. If I saw that sign, I would think par. Parmel.

[Bobby Bones]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Matt Thomas]

I'd be like, parmel, four miles. Don't need to stop there. Ain't nothing there but Dollar General.

[Bobby Bones]

They'd be lucky if they had a $G in Parmalee, man. It's a. It's a one stop light town.

[Matt Thomas]

We got a Dollar General Mountain Pine, like three years ago. We don't have any stoplights. The population now is like 500. It was 722 back in the booming days when I was there.

[Bobby Bones]

Wow.

[Matt Thomas]

Yeah. I want. So my school, we graduated with like 46 kids. My graduating class.

[Bobby Bones]

Sorry, man.

[Matt Thomas]

No, you're good.

[Scott Thomas]

What were we. Not even.

[Bobby Bones]

Maybe we had like 500 students in our high school. So like 125 in each class. And that was made up of all the little. Little, small towns surrounding our Hometown, which was 1200 people, I think, and.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah.

[Bobby Bones]

I mean. Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

What do people do for work there?

[Bobby Bones]

Farm. And, like, my granddad was a logger, so we did that with him. Mostly just agriculture. A lot of timber business, small businesses, you know, and then it was a lot of meals around.

[Matt Thomas]

That's what we. We were a sawmill town.

[Bobby Bones]

Oh, you were sawmill town. Yeah. Okay. Right on.

[Matt Thomas]

And when the sawmill shut down, that's why the population went from 722 to 500. Because when Warehouser went out of business, there was nothing to come to Mountain Pine for. So it was only people who stayed and tried to find a life after the mill. Because while the mill was going, people would move there. Not a lot. 722. So we're not talking about New York City.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

But people would move there, or they would move nearby to work at the mill. Because that thing. A thousand jobs.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah.

[Bobby Bones]

Our granddad moved to our little town of Robertsonville to work for warehouse. So that was. He moved kind of close because of the meal. And then we had, like, a lot of textile mills and things. But once it shut down and our generation was like, we're getting out of here. Yeah. So now it's kind of tough to go back. It's. It really is.

[Matt Thomas]

So if Parmalee was a town, what was the town that you guys actually lived in? Or was it not a town? Just live on a road somewhere?

[Scott Thomas]

Robertsonville. Five minutes from you.

[Matt Thomas]

Like the band named Robertsonville?

[Scott Thomas]

We. We tried it.

[Matt Thomas]

You did try it before you get to Parmesan.

[Bobby Bones]

We were like, what was it? Small. Small town for heroes.

[Scott Thomas]

Heroes.

[Bobby Bones]

Well, we were. Slipjoint was the original name of the. When we were doing covers. Same guys, but four same guys.

[Scott Thomas]

Slip joint.

[Matt Thomas]

So did it not stay Slip joint because of Slipknot?

[Scott Thomas]

Yes.

[Bobby Bones]

Oh, dude.

[Matt Thomas]

Yeah, because that's what. That's where my mind goes.

[Bobby Bones]

We had a run in one night. We were playing in Fort Bragg, you know, big military base, and Slipknot just popped off. And we're up there in our shiny shirts, you know, playing our stuff. And, I mean, they. The soldiers just came in. Everybody was excited. They really thought Slipknot was playing.

[Matt Thomas]

Oh, they thought you were Slipknot. I would have thought it was a Slipknot tribute band, if I've been honest. Like, slip joints here.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

I'd have been like. They played the Slipknot songs, know.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

How long did that last as the band's? Name.

[Bobby Bones]

About two, two, two and a half, three years. Yeah. Wow.

[Matt Thomas]

Yeah, well, that's a significant chunk. I thought it was like two shows.

[Bobby Bones]

No, no, we had a cd. It was six completely different songs. And as you know, it was, it was a, a southern rock song. It was like a Chili Peppers funk style song. It was.

[Scott Thomas]

Yep.

[Bobby Bones]

Like this. I don't, I don't know. Reggae is kind of crazy song. I mean, we didn't know what we were doing. We were just jamming and having fun and, and just kind of copying songs we loved and. But one of the songs actually got the attention because we were playing a local bar and the guy that would be our manager went to the bar and he asked the club owners like, is anybody packing it out? And he's like, yeah. This band, Slip Joint gave him a CD and he came to see us and that kind of got us our first management deal.

[Matt Thomas]

And so he was managing from Carolina.

[Bobby Bones]

Yes, he was in Raleigh, so managing.

[Matt Thomas]

Local accident in Carolina.

[Bobby Bones]

And he had just started working with this act called SR71, which was like the punk band.

[Matt Thomas]

Yeah, punk. Mike would like pop punk. I would say so, yeah. Okay. I feel like they're pop punk. Okay. Yeah, I, I, Mike's a huge punk guy. So if I don't classify the punk groups exactly as in, oh really as is, he gets a little offended. Yeah, they wrote 1985. That bowling pursuit did.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah, Mitch did.

[Matt Thomas]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bobby Bones]

But they had this song called Miss Right now, but that was like popping off. And so the management company had a. And they were happening and they found us and then we started working together and he was telling us, you guys need to go out to Nashville and co write. You need to start working towards this. And it's, you know, the first kind of bit of direction we had as a, as a band. But up to that point we didn't know anybody.

[Matt Thomas]

And you were you covering most songs? Mostly covers, yeah.

[Bobby Bones]

The Slip joint stuff was we do that, we have to do the 90. I mean the three hour, four hour sets. But yeah, mostly covers. Like we were doing like Tonic and what is it Fuel songs like that that were like Chili Peppers.

[Matt Thomas]

And I was watching this, it's not a documentary, but this TikTok series on sugar Ray. And they were a full cover band. Yeah, but they were cover band's a weird thing to say because they were doing songs so they could make money to live to be music. And I think at times you could just say cover band and people would go like, oh, you just played other people's songs, but it's like, no, no. We played music so we can make money.

[Bobby Bones]

That's right.

[Scott Thomas]

Yep.

[Matt Thomas]

So hopefully we can make enough money and make enough music to make our.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah, that's right.

[Matt Thomas]

But that's what Sugar Ray was like. They were doing other people's songs to make money so they could hopefully, you know, catch on somewhere.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah, we were. I mean, I don't know, we just. We just were playing in a band together and we played songs we liked and we started writing songs, and then we made sure we played those songs. And when people started asking about those, we got the bug. And then one night, I remember we were at the Barn in Parmalee where we practiced, and we were all around this fire barrel that we had, like, all right, what are we doing here? Are we going to keep doing this cover stuff, or do we want to try to really do our own stuff? And we all made a pact and I always say, like, we went from making. I think those cover gigs are like, you might get like 400 bucks or to 600 for the good ones. You know, bring your own PA, menu, venue stuff. And it went from that to making either 0 for opening up or 100 bucks was like the standard. You get a hundred dollars to go open up for whatever the band that was coming through town and you beg to get on that slot and you play your 30 minutes or 45 minutes or an hour sometimes.

[Matt Thomas]

Did you say menu venue?

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

I've never heard that before. So I understood when you said it. I understood it because. What. Early on, when I was doing comedy and comedy music, I play barbecue restaurants. And so there was a little PA in a barbecue restaurant. So when you said that, I knew. I've never heard it said like that, but I know exactly what you're talking about. That's the term for it.

[Bobby Bones]

Menu venues. Yeah, Right. Does it make perfect sense? Right?

[Matt Thomas]

No, I. I've been there. I know exactly what you're talking about, but I've never heard it called a menu Ven. That's interesting.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

So I once. I'd love to hear a story from you guys, but. And it's not the same, but I'll give you an example of a story from me and you could probably give me 10 versions that are better. Early on when I was just starting to tell jokes, I would tell jokes anywhere where people were seated, you know. And mostly, though, I wanted to do theaters where people are dedicated frontward and everybody has their own seats. There's not a lot of turning. I needed dedicated attention Because I'm speaking, and I don't need things to ruin my cadence. I need my timing to be right. But I played basically a Cracker Barrel in California, and everybody. Nobody's looking at me. Everybody's looking across the table. And so let's say I'm sitting across from you. But they'd be to my right, like, I'm not in anyone's natural eye line. And they're like, we need you to do 50 minutes. That's a full set. And this is still pretty early on. And I'm like, yeah, sure, I can do. So I did 50 minutes at this cracker. I would call it a Cracker Barrel at this cracker barrel. And the whole time, clank, clank, people eating, ordering, ordering, eating, all of it. I thought to myself, nobody heard a single thing I said.

[Bobby Bones]

It was awful.

[Matt Thomas]

And again, that's my version. And I'm sure you have a hundred of those from early on.

[Bobby Bones]

Oh, man. Yeah. That's empty room.

[Scott Thomas]

It was years of it. We. Yeah, you're right. Move the seats, and we would set up, bring our PA in the corner, and just start jamming. And you had to start off with the easy set to start with, so it wasn't too loud. And then later on in the night, you got, you know, rowdier and rowdier. But.

[Bobby Bones]

But it builds character. It builds entertainment value. It builds.

[Matt Thomas]

It also makes you tougher. And you realize that, oh, it's been way worse than this before. That's what I would do. I'd be somewhere and I'd be like, oh, yeah, I've been through way worse, and I got through just fine. So this is gonna be okay.

[Scott Thomas]

We still do that. That's the way you can do it now.

[Bobby Bones]

Play just about every imaginable stage from the. The smallest bars to back porches to flatbed trailers to anywhere, up to, you know, arenas and stadiums and things like that. So it's just. It's awesome to be able to go on a venue and be like, yeah, we done a place like this before.

[Matt Thomas]

Do you ever. It took me a minute to get here. But feel grateful that you grew up without a whole lot, because it makes it. It made it easier for you to not lose anything at the beginning. Meaning it wasn't like you had a bunch of money and you're like, well, we're gonna lose a bunch of money and start making our own music. If you grow up broke, it ain't that hard to be broke because you've learned how to do it your whole life.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah, we talk about that the other night. I know how to live broke. We were broke most of our. I mean, until we got here to Nashville, until we got. Carolina took off. You know, we're grown men broke, but we learned how to do it. You know, how to navigate it. You know how to go to the menu and pick the cheapest thing up there. You go to the grocery store and, you know, you get the cheap razors or whatever you got to do, you know what.

[Matt Thomas]

What packets to keep. Ketchup, mustard.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

And then move them up. Yeah. And I always felt. Because I think I resented it for. For a long part of my life where I was like, man, I hate that I didn't have the resources that my friends or contemporaries had. But as I got older, I started to see the real value in it because I was able to just chase as hard as I possibly could because there was nothing to lose. And it was. There was only to gain. And it sucked forever. But now I'm so grateful for it.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah. I think the only thing that I felt bad about, it's like, I wish I could, you know, if we did had some money earlier, had a little success, we could have, like, shared it with our parents and, you know, had some more time to relax and enjoy, you know, going back home and things like that. But, oh, man, I mean, we appreciate it. Trust me. Every day, there's not a day that I don't. You see the guys pulling up to the gas station by my house and. And fairing that, you know, the work truck, you know, I'm like, we. We were those guys for a lot of years.

[Matt Thomas]

You know, also being comfortable, even mildly comfortable, I think at times averts risk because you don't want to lose what has made you comfortable, even if that's a steady paycheck. And it's like, well, got a steady paycheck. But now I'm going to kind of give it all up to go and pursue this dream where one in a million people. Yeah, I think I'm just going to stay comfortable. I can for sure see that. And again, that's just one of those things that I didn't take, that I took for granted. And now I'm very appreciative of it. But I see that, and I hope this comes off as a compliment and you guys as well, that you're able to run and chase hard, because if you didn't catch it, you're still where you were.

[Bobby Bones]

I know this crazy. I was thinking about it today, man, just, you know, just everything you went through But I'm so, so thankful to be here and to have what we have. And. And. But I still. Like I said, not a day goes by. Don't forget about it, man.

[Matt Thomas]

Sometimes I forget about it. Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. I'm reminded. I'm reminded. But when I'm back there playing pickleball with my little speakers coming out of the ground, I'm like, yeah, forget about it for a second.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah. Yeah, I guess.

[Matt Thomas]

So the band is three plus a friend, right? Three family members.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah, three family members plus our best friend.

[Matt Thomas]

What reminded me to do this was the conversation before. Walk me through who's in the band and how you guys are related.

[Bobby Bones]

All right. So me and Scott are brothers, 13 months apart. Our first cousin, Barry, a few years younger than us, he's our bass player, which he was a drummer. We made him play bass because we had a drummer. And then Josh was. He was playing in, like, some of the rival cover bands in town, and we just liked his playing style. And they were busting up, and so we got him in the band.

[Matt Thomas]

Who's older of you two?

[Scott Thomas]

I'm the oldest.

[Matt Thomas]

Not. You're older.

[Scott Thomas]

I usually say he is, but I'm the oldest.

[Matt Thomas]

Okay.

[Scott Thomas]

So Josh was lucky. Sorry, lucky about Josh because he could play guitar and keys. So we got him in the band.

[Matt Thomas]

So if you're older, did you get first round pick of whatever you wanted to do in all things. Like, if I were the older brother, I'd be like, I'm singing and I'm playing lead. It didn't seem like that's the case.

[Scott Thomas]

No, we played good together. I guess that's where. Never been in a fight. Never been in the argument if it was little minor stuff. So we just kind of. Same thing with sports. I was. I don't know, we just kind of played together, didn't we?

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah, but in the band thing, I. I caught the bug early. He. He could play drums as a kid.

[Matt Thomas]

I see you started earlier then.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah, it's hard to learn to play guitar as a little kid. And. And my dad was a guitar player and we. And you know, him and my mom divorced early, but there was a guitar around and he was beating on pots and pans. Yeah, but like, when I was about, I think 12, up to that point, it was just sports, sports, sports, and. And we love music. But when I hit like 12 or 13, I really. Something kicked in. I told my dad, I was like, I want to play. And so I went way deep, you know, two hours before school to get home and jam after baseball practice or whatever, and just play to the night and, you know, he kind of caught up.

[Scott Thomas]

He bought. He bought us both guitars one Christmas. And that was, I mean, a big deal. Even back then. Getting a one guitar was like. And so I got mine. It was this cool red one. It looked cool when Matt got the Fender, but I liked it. I looked at it. I thought it was great, but I was just looking at it and slide it under bed. He would every day before school, every day after school, all night, jam on it. Once he started jamming, I could already play the drums a little. So then we started the thing, you know, jamming together. But that's how it really happened.

[Bobby Bones]

The first band was called Early Times with a Z. Shout out to the Early Times. Liquor had to put that.

[Matt Thomas]

You're probably teenagers, though.

[Bobby Bones]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

With a Z. Yeah, you gotta put the Z.

[Bobby Bones]

Flair.

[Matt Thomas]

So just you two in the. In the early days.

[Bobby Bones]

We had a buddy in high school to play bass, so it was me and him, and. And I couldn't, you know, we didn't have a singer. So I said, I guess I'll just sing. And didn't know what I was doing or just trying to emulate my dad, you know, around him, but I was. It was cool. My dad started his band back. Got his guys kind of back together, and they were like, just. It was a little energy around town, and he had his band. They were. They were really good. And. And so I had a great, like, learning experience. I go watch them practice every Tuesday and Thursday nights. And I would just study the guitar player and. And, you know, and just go home and learn it. Learn it, learn it. And so we had a lot of that around, and it was just. It was. It was pretty cool. You'd be from a small town, and he's playing with his band again, and they're playing the local club called Mine and Yours. And then we're the kids coming up, so we open for them. And it was just. It was cool.

[Matt Thomas]

Did you feel like any of your pursuit of music was to be closer to your dad?

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah, but I just. Probably so. But we just thought it was cool and we loved it, you know, always loved music. So I don't know, maybe it probably has something to do with that.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah. Those first high school parties that we got to play at, that. That gave us the bug. Oh, yeah. It was like.

[Bobby Bones]

Oh, yeah.

[Scott Thomas]

It was like, okay, this is cool. We could only play a half of this song, A half of that song. It didn't matter. People went crazy. So that's where the bug started.

[Bobby Bones]

And when I was like like 15 and I had the hottest 19 year old girl, 18 year old girl in high school like all over me, I was like, I'm in on this.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah, something happened then.

[Bobby Bones]

Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Matt Thomas]

We've got it.

[Homes.com]

How long has a home been on the market? We'll know it. Average lot size?

[Bobby Bones]

Uh huh.

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[Bobby Bones]

Of course.

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[Bobby Bones]

And we're back on the Bobby cast.

[Matt Thomas]

What kind of music did your dad play? Not himself but in the house or like in the car. What were his favorite bands?

[Bobby Bones]

I mean it was Bob Seeger. Almond Brothers.

[Scott Thomas]

Yep.

[Bobby Bones]

Del MC Clinton.

[Scott Thomas]

Yep.

[Bobby Bones]

Like a lot of soul music. Johnny Taylor, stuff like that. You know, just a lot of soul and southern soul and. And jam stuff.

[Matt Thomas]

But my, my assumption then is those are big influences on you, those bands because they influence your dad so much.

[Scott Thomas]

Oh yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

Like that's probably what you listen to and emulated that also with like whatever the chili pepper or whatever it was.

[Bobby Bones]

Oh 100.

[Matt Thomas]

It was like a mixture of those two things.

[Scott Thomas]

Yep.

[Bobby Bones]

Because that's, that's what I was learning to play. I was learning he was doing all those, you know, classic 70 songs and whatever he was liking then. And so we were. I was kind of learning those songs and learning about the songs and. But Scott turned me on to some old classrock. I'll never forget. We had this old record player and he's like, man, check this out. And it was Boston more than a feeling. Check this guitar out. This. All those great songs around as. As well as the pop songs that were coming up that my mom was listening to on the radio that you heard all the time. And you know back home was a big eastern Carolina and North and South Carolina have what they call beach music. But it's just like Blue Eyed soul kind of. But it's really cool. It's very local but it's all. It's a lot of blues soul based stuff back home and. And country was always there. The lifestyle was country and you heard was always like my grandma had the record player and was always playing country stuff.

[Scott Thomas]

And Elvis was it.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah, Elvis too.

[Scott Thomas]

Yep.

[Matt Thomas]

I always said the country music growing up in Arkansas was about where I was from. But like the alternative stuff was about kind of how I felt and what like the culture was for me.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

So it was. And again I was also. And I think we're around the same age. I was also like Napster and that first generation that in college was able to download whatever I wanted.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

And therefore you had friends that were also able to do the same but they would be able to tell you about stuff. And it wasn't that you had to drive to Best Buy. You just had to go and type it in your computer and illegally download it. Y I remember getting so mad when like Metallica was trying to shut down downloads. I was like, you guys don't even know what it's like. We deserve all this music for free. You're robbing us. I was so of bands trying to shut that down. Now obviously I understand why that could have never sustained itself. Yeah, I was, I was so mad when I tried to shut Napster down because I thought we deserved that. Music for free.

[Bobby Bones]

I'm telling you, once we started getting those CDs, we had all those different songs on. Before you could have only afford. Well, I could only afford maybe one CD every few months. If you could get that one and it be your favorite band and it might be two like hit songs up there, but you became fans of the band because you'd listen to it. But yeah, man, that was a. That was a game changer.

[Matt Thomas]

They also had a lot of filler on those albums back then because they could. Because if they had a single or two, they knew you'd buy it and they weren't gonna do 12 awesome songs. It was like two and a half, maybe three if they thought they'd get a third single. But times were different. You'd buy a freaking record and it kind of would be awesome. Awesome suck. Or it wouldn't sound anything like the singles, like the bitch. You'd buy a record and they would sound nothing like this reason you bought the record.

[Bobby Bones]

Speaking of sugar, Rad. You remember when that came out, it was hard. The whole just like metal cord and the rest. And then Fly was up there.

[Matt Thomas]

It was like, throw us about your wings and fly and the rest of it. Yeah, it was great. That's one of the records I'm talking about. Yeah, we know where I was like, this is not. But then they switched it up, obviously, and then they just embraced that new, you know, beach rock, whatever that ended up being with Every morning and all that. But yeah, people don't even know, like they were expensive. And then there were like two good songs on it.

[Bobby Bones]

Yep, yep.

[Matt Thomas]

Especially in the pop world. Especially. I remember that first Britney Spears director was garbage except for like three songs. And all three of those were massive hits. You have that one? Yeah. All of you. I don't. I'm not embarrassed at all.

[Scott Thomas]

I know.

[Matt Thomas]

But then once we were able to get Napster and download whatever we wanted, we were able to get our friends tastes and sensibilities and hey, you liked it. And so therefore mine grew. Right? And then mtv. Now you're talking about TRL time for me. But when it was really popping, it was country music where I was from. But like alternative stuff was like how I felt. I was all sad, upset at the world. And then classic rock was. Was the radio.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah, that's right.

[Matt Thomas]

Like freaking cool 95. I listened to that. Cool 90. Cool. Good times, Great oldies. But back in the day, for Good Times, Great oldies, they'd play like Led Zeppelin and stuff.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Scott Thomas]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

You know, it was like A classic rock oldies type thing.

[Bobby Bones]

Get the lid out. That was like, get the lid Tuesday.

[Matt Thomas]

Get the lead out.

[Bobby Bones]

Dude. I was talking about. I love Led Zeppelin. Have you seen the documentary?

[Matt Thomas]

No, no, I've seen it, and I can't get my wife to watch it. I've been working on the Tom Petty one first.

[Bobby Bones]

Oh, I heard about that. Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

So we're on. I have a queue of things, and I would like for her to watch. She has a queue of things that she would like me to watch. But mostly we stay in what we both like. So I'm trying to get her to watch the Tom Petty one and then I'll move on to the Led Zeppelin one. But I think what will interest her is that supposedly, and this was a common thing for a lot of bands, that they sold their soul to the devil. That was kind of the rumor everybody made up. Like Metallica soldiers out of the devil. Led Zeppelin soldiers, all the devil. But I think if I could, like, get her with that, like, they sold herself. She'd be like, I'm interested. I'm interested to know their story. Yeah, Yeah.

[Bobby Bones]

I mean, she'll. I don't know if she'll know the songs, but I heard her song so much. I was. I said, I'm. I'm zapped out, man. I'm like. It's hard because I just. All during high school, you heard the classic rock station. My buddy loved him, and it was just on all the time. But crazy thing, though, you know, their first gig, according to this documentary, they took a private jet to go do it. It was. It was.

[Matt Thomas]

How'd they do that?

[Bobby Bones]

Because this was Jimmy Page's, you know, super group because he was in the Yardbirds. And when they busted up, then. Then it was like, he's putting together this band and it's going to be, you know. And so it was hyped up to be this. This big, super group.

[Scott Thomas]

And that's what I.

[Bobby Bones]

But they came up with the songs and the sound and they had Bonzo on the drums and they just. It was unbelievable that he could put that together and that quick. They come up with those songs and the sounds, and he produced all of it. He was like this classical producer or worked in a studio, so he had all this experience and he added it to the rock and roll. It's just really cool. Gotta watch it.

[Matt Thomas]

I always felt that Robert Plant hated that he recorded some of those songs, because then he had to sing them his whole life, like, in theory and on the record. But then there's A reason he doesn't sing him. Now he's older. It's hard to hit that. And you don't want to do it halfway because those are legendary. Those are iconic songs. Right. So he records those. You know, he's, ah.

[Scott Thomas]

He's up here.

[Bobby Bones]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

Like, your lifespan as a vocalist in that range is very limited.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

And then he still hit it.

[Bobby Bones]

I mean.

[Matt Thomas]

I mean, I. I've seen them. Okay. I saw the. They do it in D.C. the. I did it with Reba Kennedy Center. The Kennedy center. And. And everybody was playing their songs back to them. Like, Heart did an amazing.

[Bobby Bones]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

And then they ended up singing and he did Stairway to Heaven. And he got there a little bit, but he didn't really try. And that's a song, though. You can, like, keep it.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

Keep the tempo down. But I think that's. That's some of my friends, too. I'm like, man, why'd you record it like that? Because now you got to sing it like that the rest of your life.

[Bobby Bones]

How many times do you think Stairway to Heaven has been played in the guitar center since it's been.

[Matt Thomas]

You know, there are those things where it's like, no playing Stairway to Heaven, like, banned from practicing Stairway to Heaven in the guitar. What was the first song you guys learned on guitar?

[Bobby Bones]

Oh, man. Keep your hands to yourself. Georgia Satellites.

[Matt Thomas]

Was that a Pretty easy chords.

[Bobby Bones]

It's just that A to E to D. I mean. And that was first. We played that song with my dad at our very first live performance at the Martin County Humane Society benefit show.

[Scott Thomas]

Yep.

[Bobby Bones]

And the high school auditorium. That was our very first time playing live. And that was how he taught me how to play guitar.

[Matt Thomas]

So I think the first thing I ever learned was Smoke on the Water. Because that same thing. Smoke on the Water, probably. And then you could learn. If you learned any, like, the standard blue stuff, you could kind of go into the George Thoroughgood stuff, because his stuff, although he definitely was super distinct, like Bad to the bone. Like my drink alone. Yeah. I wouldn't know about it. Yeah. Like, that stuff you gotta figure out pretty easy, too. And I wasn't a good guitar player, and I'm still not. But that stuff I could fake enough.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing about kind of the bluesy stuff is you can kind of get by with it. It's crazy to. Now that I go play, like, I go try to learn riffs and stuff. It's just like, you heard these riffs your whole lives and you understand But. But coming from, like, Jimmy Page, who did it originally and came up with it, and the way he plays it, I was like, how many people have been in bands and tried to play those Jimmy Page licks note for note? And like, he's just ripping them like it's coming off his brain. It's. I'm pretty. Like, I'm way more appreciative now. Back then I was like, yeah, I can play it. You know, it sounds close enough. But to put it on, you know, tape or record it and have it be the one is. Is it's unique.

[Matt Thomas]

What's interesting about music and especially style or. And you can hear certain players because their sounds are so distinct. You can talk about Paige, you can talk about even tone with Guns N Roses or Slash, even, like a Paisley, and how he picks. Like there are distinct things, patterns, or sonically. But that was so apparent late 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, into the 90s. But it kind of stopped. And for the same reason that jump shot started to all be the same, and the same reason that batting stances all started to be the same. The Internet existed and you would watch those old black and white videos of Havlicek and the Celtics. Those guys all shot weird because they didn't have YouTube to watch to see how to shoot a basketball, so. So they all had to develop their own styles. Same thing with batting stances, like in the 80s and 90s. Andres Galarraga, wide open stance. Same thing with guitar playing, where it wasn't universally learned because there was nothing universal that everybody could read. Unless you went out and bought a guitar, but then you're just reading it or you're buying a VHS off tv. So now players don't have as distinct of styles because everybody grows up knowing what everyone's style is. And you kind of mimic what you can learn. And you used to not be able to do that unless you were like listening to one song over and over on a record.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

So it's been for these. Again, I compare batting stances to jump shots to guitar style. Nobody has their own because you have the ability to get everybody's and see everybody's now.

[Bobby Bones]

There's so much to learn out there now. You know, when we were coming up, you had to seek it out or you had to learn to tab in the back of a guitar player magazine or rent the DVD, you know, instructional DVD. But once YouTube. YouTube's amazing, man. I mean, I'm constant.

[Matt Thomas]

It's great. I love. You can get it. But what it does hurt is I Think creatively or just to survive. People have to create new styles because they don't have other ways to learn it.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

And so I think a lot of those iconic styles that we know in any of those areas are because it wasn't universally able to be learned. So you had to learn or figure it out your way yourself and your way would be so different, distinct. So that's my rant on the Internet.

[Bobby Bones]

We all borrow from somebody, you know in a lot of ways.

[Matt Thomas]

Who do you think you borrow from? The most I can answer, I'll answer mine.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah. Who do you borrow from?

[Matt Thomas]

I think even if I'm not doing it on purpose because I've spent so much time watching him, it's David Letterman.

[Bobby Bones]

Okay.

[Matt Thomas]

I probably have stole so many mannerisms, so many that I don't even realize how much I've stolen because I've just have consumed what I think is everything that he's ever done. Humor's irreverent, he looks odd and that's okay. Like, I think probably I've stolen so much of David Letterman that I don't even know how much I've stolen. But accidentally.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

So what about you guys?

[Bobby Bones]

My dad probably, he won't sue you, so that's good. Yeah. So I mean, just the way he's saying and, and, But I caught myself, like, I can't do it like him. Like I, I. But I've heard recordings where I'm, I know what I'm doing. I'm trying to, you know, sing like him or do do those things. And probably the most, I mean, like I said, he was a, he was a big Greg Almond fan.

[Matt Thomas]

So now you talk about harmonies. When the Alma brothers sang together, that's like blood harmony but also being awesome at the same time.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Scott Thomas]

Yep.

[Bobby Bones]

It's some cool stuff, man. Just, just awesome. But I was going to ask you about it. So how you went from. So you were doing like stand up gig, but you parlayed that into the.

[Matt Thomas]

No, I never really did anything good.

[Bobby Bones]

So we just work hard at whatever.

[Matt Thomas]

No, I mean literally. And I don't say that to be like, oh, give me some attention here. Like, I don't have a single skill that I would say is like in the upper 5%. However, I, I started doing radio at 17 or 18 and I tried so hard to be the guy with the big voice, the traditional. Hey everybody, countdown number five. I tried that as hard as I possibly could and it was awful. And so because I was so bad at it and this is one of Those style things, because I was so bad at it, and I couldn't do it. I was like, ah, screw it. I'm just going to talk like I talk. I got a Southern accent. I talk too fast. 30% of the time, people are wondering, what did he just say?

[Bobby Bones]

Because he still going through that, man.

[Scott Thomas]

Speak slow now.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah, slow it down.

[Matt Thomas]

And so I did all of that, but only because I had to to survive, not because I thought it was this great strategic advantage I have. And so I was also very young. And what helped me was I came from a small town, small market, didn't know anybody. Therefore, I had to develop my own style. But also, I was okay to go move anywhere because it wasn't like I was leaving anything behind. Like we were talking about earlier. Like, I had nothing. I was not comfortable, but I was comfortable and with nothing.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

And so I did radio. And then I always used radio. Like, I would go and open up for artists at comedy clubs for a little bit, and I didn't. I had, like, parody music that I would do, but I was like, man, I have to use other people's music. So I bought a guitar at a pawn shop, 50 bucks, and a poster from Walmart that showed me the chords.

[Bobby Bones]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

And so I. Yeah. Slap, slap, slap. So I used that to make chords, and I started to do, you know, seven, eight minutes. But I couldn't tour because of my job. So I've just slowly used radio or podcast to jump off and do all the other things. And even, like, moving to Nashville. Like, I had started syndicating my own show in Texas and spending my own money and kind of developing my. Because nobody wanted to spend money on me. So I was like, I'll just do it myself.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

Built my own. And I wish they would have. It wasn't like I was like, I'm gonna show them and invest my own money. It was like, please, somebody give me money. And nobody would. So I just use my own money. And that. That's been why I get about pickleball court now, because I own so much of it. But it wasn't at first. Nobody was throwing any money over here, dude.

[Bobby Bones]

We did the same. We put everything on credit cards. Yeah, we, like, at one point, paying 36 interest, just playing enough shows. We could pay that bill and that we were good with it. We worked our day jobs doing construction and logging and, you know, all that stuff that we had to do so we could go just play and. But we were dying for somebody to give us some money. We'd have signed any kind of deal back then if somebody would have same anything, you know, we'd have given it all away.

[Matt Thomas]

Yep. And we're lucky it didn't work that way. We're lucky that people thought we sucked, but they just didn't understand. I think was what I think was they didn't understand what I was trying to do, therefore they didn't really appreciate it. I tell myself that, but yeah, no, I would have begged for anything, any money, anything.

[Bobby Bones]

Oh, yeah, we, we were, man, we. I mean, we've done some sketchy things and signed management deals for like a year out in LA with some guy we didn't even know. I mean, we just. We were just looking for that one ray of hope that would get us to where. To where we are now. He would get us a record deal so we could, you know, pay the debts and all that. And so we would chase anything that we thought was going to be to our advantage. And if we didn't have money to pay for working with this producer or recording these songs, we just put it on credit and. But eventually it all worked it out. It all this led to this, which led to that. And it all is crazy.

[Matt Thomas]

And also you didn't stop. I think that is 96% of success is not. Not stopping because you probably had so many roadblocks where you were like, how the heck do we get past this? Yet it didn't stop you. And I firmly believe that most of success is just continuing on. And when you can't continue finding a way to continue, even if it means I gotta go work another job and as long as you can keep it going, I would imagine that having a bunch with you guys. 100.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah, yeah, we. I mean, we did everything. That's all we do. Just kept it going. And we'd always find something that would like, light a little spark and get us pumped up and excited and. And you know, ultimately what we needed, we had to drive. You know, we had the determination. We just didn't have the song. You know, at first we had songs and we were, you know, we had excitement around us because we were just, we were just a good time guys. We always have fun.

[Matt Thomas]

We, you know, did you think you had this song, but you really didn't. But did you think you had them?

[Bobby Bones]

Oh, my God. Yeah. See, that's the thing. We thought we had them enough, but now looking back, I was like, no, we didn't have the songs. But that was where. If you had got a label deal, then they could have helped you out. I could have brought in a producer and he could have reached out to some of his songwriter buddies and because you realize like you're just, you're just doing this us four and if you had start a band and you're lucky enough to have a really good singer or guitar player or in a, you know, or somebody in the band that can really write songs and understands it like, you know, that's a, that's a pretty good deal. And we, we really didn't, we just had to just, we worked it out.

[Scott Thomas]

Together and just kept, we didn't know anything.

[Bobby Bones]

We did.

[Scott Thomas]

Not that we still, we still don't know anything.

[Bobby Bones]

I mean you still learning. But yeah, you know, if you'd had access to just some of these writers here that were, you know, around to help you out, I mean it's been awesome. And we did co writes. We, you know, we had people that wrote songs with us but mostly it was just up to us for and just trying to figure it out, you know, the Bobby cast. We'll be right back.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Now through August 26th, it's back to deals time where you can enjoy storewide deals and earn four times points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Hershey's, Cheez It, Kellogg's, Gatorade, Smart Water, Skinny Pop, Oberto, Zoa and Activia. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pickup or delivery subject to availability restrictions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.

[Nyx]

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[Bobby Bones]

This is the Bobby Cast.

[Matt Thomas]

Was that first song you're talking about Carolina?

[Bobby Bones]

That was the. That was the one that did it. That really like change. We had one song called Broken Records that really like was. That was a wow moment. Oh, this is kind of cool. This is like modern sounding and people really dug it and it was. It was like that one really lit a spark. That was the first like melody wise song. But we were struggling trying to figure out what was next. We had gone to like California to work with. We actually worked with Nikki Sixx in California, did some songs with him because people were. And they were telling us like, you guys need to be in Nashville. You need to be. You know, you're. And we had like one point in time. Jacoby Shaddix from Paparoch and his. His tour manager were managing us and. And we had. Mike Mushak from Stain was managing us at one hour. They were just trying to get us. They. They saw something in us but. But they. They were trying to get us a deal.

[Scott Thomas]

We opened up for those guys.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Scott Thomas]

And then they saw some. But they couldn't pinpoint what it was. But we did do the harmony thing that you. You were talking about. It was throwing the rock guys off. Three part harmony with Matt, Josh and Barry. It was just a sound that they were. It wasn't rock. They were trying like they said, you need to go to Nashville. Go to Nashville.

[Bobby Bones]

It was like. It wasn't. They were trying to fit us in that active rock.

[Scott Thomas]

Yep.

[Bobby Bones]

Stuff, you know, what's going on. Which you know, back in the day those bands were popular and it just. Nothing fit. Nothing fit. And we just didn't have the song. But we wrote Carolina.

[Scott Thomas]

Yep.

[Bobby Bones]

And I remember when I got back and I listened to it and I was like, I got it guys. I said, y' all come listen to this. This is crazy. This is it. This is. This is what we've been looking for. And you know, really did. It's really set things off. And you know, we'd already been in the region had had some excitement and then lost a little bit. Everybody but playing the same clubs and maybe a new club would open up and you go here and you, you find new fans here. But it was never like that. It was always kind of like up and down. And then that song hit and it was up for a while and, and nobody, even those guys couldn't. None of the labels would sign us. And we did actually get one record label offer. And at that time it was like right when 360deals came out. And anyway, our managers at the time messed it up and now that was gone. And who wrote that song? Carolina? Yeah, us four. Me, Scott, Barry and Josh and Rick Beato.

[Matt Thomas]

Did he bring something to it that you guys didn't have with you for or what element?

[Bobby Bones]

He did. He really did. He brought that. He brought the bridge in and. Which is really. It's a strange, you know, change up, but it works so well.

[Matt Thomas]

Do the bridge.

[Bobby Bones]

What's like. No matter how far I go, you know, I can't stop thinking about her. And there's nothing like the way I'm feeling. Oh, oh. There's changes in. That was really something. And he's. And we didn't know at that time he was a, you know, the musical genius. He is. And YouTubers out there. We just rolled in there it this crazy story because we, we did a showcase and in Charlotte and we. This, this A R guy, Cam Stevens, rest his soul, was coming to see us and he came to see us and I knew he wasn't going to sign us, you know, you knew that look, and I, I didn't, we didn't get mad. I just went up to him after the show, said, hey man, if you sign us tomorrow, what's the first thing you do? He said, that's easy. I'd send y' all down to Atlanta to work with Rick Beato. I was like, cool, thanks. And next day call Rick up. Hey man, we're just ham. We're coming to see you. And so we had actually had three songs that we had already recorded that we wanted to. That we already written. We wanted to re record with him. And I said, we have this one song we haven't finished. And we played in this demo and it was a demo. Carolina. He said, sure, come on back. And so we, we came back, we recorded those songs and, and man, it was awesome. I always tell the story, but tell him the so. So we get back about three days later, get a call from Rick and he's like. Because we wrote Him a check for $11,000. That's what it was. And a buddy of ours was investing in the band for a few years, and. And it was. We could tell it was kind of getting to the end of it, but this is gonna be the last thing. And so we gave him the check and. And got back home. And he calls me up, he's like, hey, man, that check bounce.

[Scott Thomas]

Seriously.

[Bobby Bones]

He's like. He was pissed. It's like, you guys, y' all gotta come up with this $11,000. You're not getting any of this music. And it's crazy, man. I mean, I don't. We were out. Credit cards done tapped out on our buddy that was investing. And I. I went to my mom and I said, mom, can. Can we borrow $11,000? And we'll pay you back, like, 20% interest. I promise you we'll pay you back. And she took a second mortgage out on her home and loan us that money and didn't ask to hear one song. Crazy. But. And we paid her. Well, we paid her back, you know, because that was. That was way before. This was 2007.

[Scott Thomas]

Seven.

[Bobby Bones]

This is 2007. So she loaned us the money. We put an EP out in 2008. You know, she got her. We paid her every time we got any money. I made sure I paid her back on her payment plan playing, and we did, and it was great. And then, you know, then. Then nothing in crickets, you know, then we don't have. We still don't have a record deal. We still don't have nothing. We're broke as a joke, day jobs, but we have the song. And then that's when we. One of the guys that was working with. With us as a booking agent, kind of managing with me, they had. They had started this label in town called Golden Music or something, and. And they had signed this artist from North Carolina named Benton Blunt. And they said, hey, hey, guys, we're in Nashville. We want to. We want to put that song out on Benton.

[Matt Thomas]

And he said, yeah, for Benton to record it.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Scott Thomas]

We were like, okay, yes, somebody in Nashville's gonna record.

[Matt Thomas]

Oh, you're like. And also, maybe we get some money. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bobby Bones]

He tried to try to get all our publishing. Wow. But anyway, did he record it? Yeah. So. So check this out. So, you know, we were stumbling around, couldn't get a deal. And then all of a sudden, Benton's gonna put it out and he records it. I actually did the CD artwork for him for A Hustle. I needed money, you know, and so he puts it out and all. We were told by our manager, he's like, you guys should go out to Nashville. You're writers on that. You should go out there and just go try to write songs. And we're like, okay. Well, okay. And we had some friends out here because we'd been out here a little bit over the years. But we called who we knew shout out to Greg Gallo, and they hooked us up with some co rides. We pulled our RV in the parking lot across from the tin roof, you know, when it was all that ratty parking lot. And we lived there for, like a month. And we.

[Matt Thomas]

Who's we?

[Bobby Bones]

Me and Scott of the band.

[Matt Thomas]

All four of you lived in the rv?

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah. In that parking lot? Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

Dang.

[Scott Thomas]

At that time, I was still logging in the logging business. So I would go back home for two weeks, and any money I could send them or keep them out here is like, stay out there. Keep writing. Keep writing. We gotta. We might have a hit song by.

[Bobby Bones]

This big country artist, and this is all crazy. So we're out in rv. It's the year that the town floods.

[Scott Thomas]

Yep.

[Bobby Bones]

We have, like, a couple coites set up, which actually was. One of them was with our manager, David now. So we met. We were out here. No, we didn't know anybody. We were just. The town was empty because it was. It was the Songwriters Fest. So everybody's at Key West. The town floods. We're out here living in an rv, and there's a handful of rights we have. And one of them just happened to be with David Fanning. And he, at that time, had been working with Rich and Tully and Kirk, who were doing this production deal. They were in Jason Aldean's bands. Jason's band. They had this production deal set up with the label, Broken Bow, to bring in an artist. And at this time, like, Thompson Square had just popped off, and they were working with him. So we met David. We hit it off immediately, kind of cut from the same cloth. He comes through the RV one afternoon, I think, on a Sunday, and we write. Must have had a good time in that rv. So it's. So we were just trying to get a production deal. And about the same time, Benton's record label kind of folded up. So he was about. Ben was actually talking to our label about getting signed off of that song. But Tina, who works with us, too. I'm sorry, I'm getting too involved here.

[Matt Thomas]

You're not. You're good.

[Scott Thomas]

She.

[Bobby Bones]

She was like, no, you. She was telling Loeb and Benny he's like, no, you need to hear the band that really wrote the song, that really did it. Like, you need to hear them. So she was raising the flag and. And we were in town, and so it was kind of like we got the song back.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah.

[Bobby Bones]

And then we met David and we wrote Must have had a Good Time. And so we went in and played for those guys, David's production group, and they loved it. And they were like, we want to give y' all a two song production deal. So we're gonna. We want you guys to come back in July and we're gonna record Carolina. We're gonna re record it, and we're gonna record. Must have had a good time on. On spec. So, I mean, dude, this was like hope all of a sudden, out of.

[Matt Thomas]

Nowhere, someone else investing in you.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

Just yourself. Yeah. A totally different feeling.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah. We never had a deal like that where somebody was gonna take care of it all. So we came back in July and we recorded two songs. And the idea is like, okay, guys, we have first rights at Broken Bow to get you signed.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah, that's right.

[Bobby Bones]

We want you guys to kind of. We're gonna bring you guys back in, like, October, and we're gonna do, like, showcases. We're gonna play music for everybody and kind of like, get the buzz going. This was July and we were coming back in October. So we're like, fellas, we gotta get ready for this. For this, you know, Nashville. We're coming to Nashville. We're gonna return. We're turning a new leaf. And so we're out doing shows and we do do a Monday night gig in September. And boom. So the shooting happened.

[Matt Thomas]

Oh, in your rv, huh?

[Bobby Bones]

Wow.

[Matt Thomas]

The timing, it's like, take a step forward. Okay. Now three steps back.

[Bobby Bones]

Oh, it's been like that.

[Scott Thomas]

It's over.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Scott Thomas]

Kind of like it's over. Yeah, it might be over.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

I never knew the timing of that.

[Bobby Bones]

Oh, it was all like. It just. Yeah. All that timing was crazy.

[Matt Thomas]

Whenever. And so. And you've told it before, but for people that haven't heard, give me a 45 second version of the story because I'm gonna ask questions about following it. And so I'd like to.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah. Yeah. So we're playing a show on a Monday night at a small club. Finish the show. Me and Scott on the rv getting things ready to pack up. Josh and Bear rolling cables. We get a knock at the door thinking that it's Barry and Josh, but it's a gun at my head. Give me your effing cash. And then. And pushed us up in our RV and then fired the gun, demanding money inside the rv. And Scott was in the back. Just happened to be in the back. Had to be a concealed carrier. King of the castle law in South Carolina. And came out and, you know, like, took care of business.

[Matt Thomas]

And where were you?

[Scott Thomas]

Rock Hill, South Carolina.

[Matt Thomas]

That's the name of the town.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

Got it.

[Bobby Bones]

No shade on Rock Hill. It's just.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah.

[Bobby Bones]

I mean, bad. Wrong place at the wrong time.

[Scott Thomas]

Yep. Wrong place around.

[Bobby Bones]

He engaged both the guys, took. Took out both of them, but he got shot three times in. In the. In the crossfire or whatever. I don't know how to get shot, dude.

[Matt Thomas]

What's crazy is that again, you've had all these, like. We're talking about hurdles. Obstacles. Barriers.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

Like you're finally. You're finally. Someone wants to invest in you now.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

And now you get freaking shot. Oh, yeah, that's.

[Scott Thomas]

That was the. I mean, it's just unreal.

[Matt Thomas]

Like, what do you. What is your mind? Okay, let's. The personal stuff aside, it's your brother, it's your family.

[Bobby Bones]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

Like all that. Obviously, that's terrible, first and foremost, but whenever you're looking at the business now, do you. Do you guys just totally set it to the side for a while? What happens there?

[Scott Thomas]

I think y' all said y' all kind of hid it from David and the. The crowd.

[Bobby Bones]

We didn't let Nashville know how bad off he was. He only had a 5% chance of living. That's what the doctor told us. What do you.

[Matt Thomas]

What do you remember? Not about the shooting, but what do you. Anything in the hospital at all?

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah, basically, when I, you know, woke up, I remember certain people and they took a trach out, and the first thing I said is, we're not playing any more shitty clubs. So they knew I was okay just by being funny, but they knew I was okay. Now we had to do the recuperation process, so my mind was okay. And then it was just, let's get him out of the hospital and let's work on whatever we can work on. But it was pretty rough, the PTSD for everybody.

[Matt Thomas]

And I'll make a comparison so I can give you time to think of the answer you'd like to tell is, and I'm gonna ask you about the PTSD of it a bit. So I had. I got held at gunpoint at an event, and Pistol Whip didn't get shot, but it effed me up for years because I had my house Broken into at the same time. But I couldn't close my eyes. If I close my eyes or if it was nighttime and someone came behind me. Nope. Like, I was not built for nighttime anymore. I was not built for even closing my eyes. I would see people attacking me or a gun coming to my head. I didn't get shot, so I can't imagine no one pulled the trigger. You're even in there where they're shooting. So how long and do you still deal with that at all?

[Scott Thomas]

Still dealing with it, Yeah. I mean, I go to therapy now. I got. I try anything I work with, actually. Thing called Porter's call is for us musicians and touring, anybody. And it's. It's free. So. Yeah, I still working on that every day. It's just like you did, you know, you just a little bit at a time. Work on it. Work on it. What you're scared of. I always wanted to carry a gun for a while, and then I kind. Kind of loosened up. Like, now I don't have. Feel like I have to have a firearm with me all the time. I don't. I still. Just for getting older and probably you two. I don't want to be in sketchy places anymore. I mean, I don't want to be in dark alleys. I don't want to be in the clubs anymore late at night, you know, leaving early.

[Matt Thomas]

I really.

[Scott Thomas]

Like you said, nothing happens good after 12.

[Bobby Bones]

It really does say it's not wrong.

[Matt Thomas]

Like, I would be at the grocery store and someone would just make a noise behind me.

[Bobby Bones]

Me.

[Matt Thomas]

And again, I'm not even comparing the two because I didn't get shot, and nobody pulled the trigger around me. I got pistol whip. That ain't the same, but it's scary.

[Scott Thomas]

It's close. I mean, that's.

[Matt Thomas]

It's scary, but I str. I. I struggled and I didn't sleep, and I still don't sleep. I still have a door lock issue like, that. I deal with that.

[Bobby Bones]

Lock the doors, man.

[Matt Thomas]

That. It's just like I got to go through. And if I don't remember every door being locked, when I go to sleep, I have to go and do it again. Like, I have to visually remember to where my therapist is. Like, you know what you should do? Take pictures every night of every door that you locked so you don't wake up or an hour later go. I don't know if I locked every door and have to get up and do it. And so I think you just got.

[Scott Thomas]

To do what you got to do. Whatever makes you feel better?

[Matt Thomas]

Did it. Did. I got on sleeping pills for a while and it was really bad. Did any sort of alcohol or drug issues with you trying to, like. Because I did.

[Scott Thomas]

It was. It was kind of crazy because I can. I'm trying to figure the story we. That happened. And it was. I was in coma for 10 days. I woke up, I kind of knew where I was at. And then it was in my mind, just get well. So the focus was working out, recuperate, and try to get back to Nashville to get this record deal. So all of us were kind of focused on that. So I probably blocked most of it. Then we got here in February. That was September. I hobbled on stage in February. We did six songs. We got the record deal. We were blown away. I mean, like, just the greatest time of, you know, greatest thing that ever happened to us. So from that point forward, it was focused on music. All this focus. I mean, just drowning yourself in work. It took five years. Five years. Because that hit must have had a good time. Hit Carolina hit. Close your eyes was next. 2, 3, 4. Four years of just this excitement rolling about the fifth year, we slowed down and something hit me, hit me hard. I was just sad. I had a little bit of money. My bills were paid for everything. It just came on me that. Do you realize what happened? Have you dealt with what happened? In my mind, and it just hit me, and I'm a dude. I was crying in the middle for no reason, sad, scared. And then I was like, okay, you. You've gone five years. Hadn't dealt with anything. Now, as far as I didn't. I mean, I drank normal. I didn't go into some abyss of. Thank goodness I didn't go. I didn't go. But, yeah, I took sleep medicine. I still have problems sleeping. I'm working with therapy on that. Just nightmares or whatever. It's gotten better, though. The more I do therapy, the better it's getting. And it's just. It's just your mind, you know, you just got to work on it. And I think, you know, telling people, telling you or talking about it helps. It'll help me tonight. I'll sleep good tonight just by talking to you about it.

[Matt Thomas]

I really will. The therapy is a big deal, and I think we grew up the same. That wasn't real. That wasn't a thing. Nah. And it's hard for me to talk to, like, people where I'm from, where it's not a thing to go. Like, you don't understand, because I didn't understand Nor would I have understood. Right. And so it's such a big deal. It was for me, through a few things, but especially that because we. I tried every. I don't sleep still. Like, I have bad issues. And I think a lot of it is rooted in security, I'm sure. So. Yeah. But I couldn't sleep for so long that I tried everything naturally. And I've never had a drink of alcohol. Like, I've never used a drug. And that's from a different set of issues. But my doctor was like, you're gonna get sick if you don't sleep. And I was getting sick.

[Scott Thomas]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

And so we tried a sleeping pill. And it was like I took to it too. Well.

[Scott Thomas]

Well, we all know the sleep is where you recuperate and. And if. Even if we're working too hard or whatever you're doing. That's what I found out. It all boils down to that good sleep to help your body and your mind.

[Matt Thomas]

Sleep and water. Who knew?

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

And the things we take for granted the most. It's sleep and water.

[Bobby Bones]

We don't get any of those.

[Matt Thomas]

Everything breaks down.

[Scott Thomas]

And I know we still don't get enough good sleep.

[Matt Thomas]

I don't get enough water either. And I have unlimited access. I got a frigging tap. I just turn it. And I still don't drink.

[Scott Thomas]

The worst thing is I got this ring. You know, I have an aura ring too, man. It really shouldn't. Makes you feel good or bad. Yeah, Good night. You're good. And then on a bad night, you're.

[Matt Thomas]

Like, my wife made me get it. I look at my sleep. I am just fascinated. I look, I have my OR app. Every morning I wake up. What are my sleep score? Do you think that you had a goal and that you were moving toward that goal before you went in, helped you get out of physically the hospital and because you were striving towards something again.

[Scott Thomas]

Percent Really, I mean, I really do. I mean, and for all of us, you know, it's a big deal. Well, the first goal was getting well. And luckily for me, I've always enjoyed sports and working out. So I took it as a work. As a. As a, you know. Oh, my job now is to work out so I can play drums again. So it was kind of like work out first. Get well. Figure if I figure out if I could play drums again and then once I could play, then it was, hopefully, we'll get a record deal. But we're gonna at least try to get a record deal now. Once you sign a Record deal now, you know, that don't mean nothing. You got to have hit songs. You got to keep it rolling. We thought that was just going to, you know, save our life, but now we know.

[Matt Thomas]

With Carolina, that took a while, right? Was it one of those?

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah, I mean, all of them have. But yeah, it took a year. It was released in February and it took till December when it finally.

[Matt Thomas]

Did it feel slow or because it was your first time? That was just normal.

[Scott Thomas]

Normal for us. We didn't know.

[Bobby Bones]

We didn't know.

[Scott Thomas]

I mean, we didn't know. We don't. I mean, now you know, but I don't know now.

[Bobby Bones]

We didn't know anything about it. We must have had a good time. Came out first and that was like a. That was like the first song that kind of connected with people that did well and it got us moving. And then they stopped at like 36 or something, you know, and then Carolina came out. I do remember one. One, like week I was talking with the producers and I was just freaked out. I was like, man, what if nobody, like, likes this, likes my voice and nobody likes the song? And, you know, it was one say to number 40 for four weeks.

[Matt Thomas]

Well, I didn't. They got out of 40. Usually the murky is like 25, 32.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

Wow.

[Bobby Bones]

Lost his bullet. They were able to get it back, but I didn't know anything about that. But once it started moving, man, it really started catching.

[Matt Thomas]

Lost his bullet at 40 and your label stuck back.

[Bobby Bones]

They got it back.

[Scott Thomas]

It stayed at 40. It was bad.

[Bobby Bones]

And, you know, we're just out there. Highest point of our career because we just. We had a song that worked and we got this coming out and we don't know anything about the radio. But yeah, when it finally went that was like, okay.

[Matt Thomas]

Now it's like, oh, God, can we do it again?

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Scott Thomas]

Yes.

[Matt Thomas]

And you probably still get that every time. Oh, it never goes away.

[Bobby Bones]

It's an ongoing saga, man. And, you know, just think we're thankful we have, you know, enough to make a really fun show and that kind of stuff. But you're always. You're always chasing out. Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor.

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[Bobby Bones]

And we're back on the Bobby cast.

[Matt Thomas]

Which one felt the easiest of your number ones?

[Bobby Bones]

Which one felt the easiest? I I, I will say probably take my name if like it because it started working itself and once it took off it was just everywhere and and it went on and it was just doing things we never expected. I don't think anybody could have called it. It was just, it was just reacting and connecting but just away was almost like a was like the Carolina.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah.

[Bobby Bones]

Because at that point in time our career was kind of just going down. We could, we were just, just trying to figure out that next move to get us, you know, back on track. You know we had Caroline and Colin. Close your eyes was like number three called him I was a 10 top 10. So we did good and put the second album out and was just trying to figure out where we were and nothing really popped off. We roots was great. It was slated to be like they were telling us it was your career song and all the stuff and nothing. You 40 spent a whole year on it and it never got past, you know, 30.

[Scott Thomas]

We got lost in the label shuffle too. Yeah, the label, somebody else. So we're just in a two year.

[Matt Thomas]

Yeah, well, timing's such a big part of it too.

[Scott Thomas]

It is, yeah. And then always.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah. Speaking of timing, you know, just the way we dropped out at the end of 2019 and between December 2019 and March when the pandemic hit, that song started taking on its own life and started. It went viral and like, you know, TikTok top 50 global viral. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, we've got some something to look forward to, something to be excited about, something to dig in and go 100% on. And then Covid hits and, you know, right when we're about to take off again, you know, this thing happens. But it was. It worked out great for us because that song was, was, was given hope and a positive message over a bad time. I feel like it had a lot to do with it and we had time to focus and work on it, you know?

[Matt Thomas]

Do you guys eat fish?

[Bobby Bones]

Oh, yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

You like fish?

[Bobby Bones]

I like it.

[Matt Thomas]

You love fish?

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

What's your official stance on fish eating fish?

[Bobby Bones]

I like it.

[Matt Thomas]

You like it.

[Bobby Bones]

I mean, I mean, what kind of fish are you talking about? Where's this going?

[Matt Thomas]

Am I going anywhere? What's your official take on. On fish?

[Scott Thomas]

Okay, I. I'll eat a little bit of sushi, but I'll eat my salmon like I like to eat. I'm just one of those guys that like red meat. Chicken, fish, pork, whatever it is. I like spicy that. I don't think I do either.

[Bobby Bones]

But I like fishing.

[Matt Thomas]

I should eat more of it. I should eat more fish.

[Scott Thomas]

I think I should too, but that's. That's me. Yeah, I don't eat as much.

[Matt Thomas]

I had some cod before I came down here is my ass. Oh, I just remembered that I left it out. Like that literally went in my head. I left it out and then. And yeah. So my wife's probably in the kitchen right now going, he left his fish out, man. Yeah, no, that literally popped in my head when I asked that question. It was like some sort of coconut flavored cod.

[Bobby Bones]

Okay.

[Matt Thomas]

Because I can't eat cod by itself, so my wife has to.

[Bobby Bones]

I mean, honestly, let's be real good old, like fried calabash style seafood has got to Be the top of the tier for me. I mean, fried shrimp, fried flounders.

[Matt Thomas]

You guys are from like the water, but you're also from the South.

[Scott Thomas]

Oh, yes, from that coast.

[Matt Thomas]

That's the mint. That's the mix. It's the south for sure. But it's also the water, which isn't like Arkansas, Mississippi, South. Yeah.

[Bobby Bones]

No, dude, it's ocean.

[Matt Thomas]

You guys like the beach? Do you like to be.

[Bobby Bones]

I love it, man. Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

See, I've never been a beach guy because I did grow up around a beach. Yeah, My wife loves the beach.

[Bobby Bones]

She.

[Matt Thomas]

But she grew up in Oklahoma, but they went on vacations up to Florida. Yeah, we never went on vacation. So until I got to be of age to like do it myself. And then I was like, what? I don't have any good memories at the beach. I don't give a crap. You can't even really swim in some of it because it's cold.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

And it's salty. There's like.

[Bobby Bones]

I love the beach. I'm not really fond of sand being everywhere, but it's just the vibe when you go there and just the whole lifestyle and seeing the palm trees, whether it's the sound side or the ocean.

[Matt Thomas]

Side, it's just I never like take my shirt off around people either, so. I didn't like that either until I was like 30. I had chest of like a 12 year old, you know, I've just now got out of that. So I never been a big. Never been a big beach guy. We went to Turks and Caicos.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

And I've only heard about that in like rap songs. And so we went down there and it's fine. My wife's like, this is amazing. I'm like, C plus.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah.

[Bobby Bones]

That's about it.

[Matt Thomas]

It's about as good as it gets.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah. So we were there last year, Turks and Caicos. Yeah.

[Scott Thomas]

That's our first trip. It was awesome.

[Matt Thomas]

You want a fun story about that? I was at a restaurant in Turks and Caicos and all these guys come in and Jumpman tracksuits, so big Michael Jordan logos on them and big dudes, like four of them, they all walk in and it's night, it's like 8 o' clock, and my wife and I are there. I don't even know why she picked to go there. But the good thing is now I have a little money, so we wherever she wants to go. Because I don't give a crap where we go. I don't even like vacation. I like, I like going with her and like But I don't even like vacation. I don't know what to do with my hands. Kind of like one of those things, like, what do I do with my hands? I don't know what to do with just time off. I'm not comfortable in it. And so we go and these again, these dudes come in and Jumpman suits. And there's. There's like six couples in the restaurant, maybe five total. And the jump man people, they're not angry, but they're a little irritated. The situation. And then all of a sudden, I see Drake walking through the restaurant and he walks right by my wife and I's table. And I was like, oh, it's Drake, Him, Drake and some girl. And so they walk right past us and they put him out on the beach, like right by us, like a private table. And I was like, oh, that's cool. It's Drake. Private table, whatever. Turns out they'd come in and try to get him to close the whole restaurant, kick all of us out. Oh, that's why they were in and irritated, because they wanted them to clear the restaurant out for Drake messed up. And the restaurant was like, no. Like, nobody here gives a crap.

[Bobby Bones]

Dude, we'll set you up a table at the beach.

[Matt Thomas]

They were also like, you can just sit. There's nobody in the restaurant. Like, just you can sit in there. Nobody's going to bother you. Cuz it was like a nice. It was a nice place. And so, yeah, they walked through and ate on the beach. But the Jumpman people were not happy with that restaurant. I imagine Drake kicks people out of restaurants all the time. Like, you don't ask for that if it doesn't happen. Sometimes, like, you get nine nos in a row. You don't ask the 10th time.

[Scott Thomas]

I know.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

Or you.

[Bobby Bones]

You're right. You're right.

[Matt Thomas]

So who is Parmalee kicked out of restaurants? You guys know that before Parmalee's here, get out of Dave and Busters. That's what I do.

[Bobby Bones]

We're definitely not.

[Scott Thomas]

We have to get into a restaurant.

[Matt Thomas]

You guys.

[Scott Thomas]

We love going out to eat, though. That's like me and him. Talk about pleasure or having a little money. It's nice to just go out to eat and not worry about it.

[Matt Thomas]

That's like one of the two things. Like the best things about not having anything and then having stuff. Number one, free clothes. I get free clothes sometimes. It's awesome. And number two is I can order whatever. It's like going to the gas station. I can have anything in there. I want y. That's crazy. Anything in this whole gas station I can have.

[Scott Thomas]

And the same about groceries. You went to the grocery store and you had to pick and choose and whatever. Now you're like, just get what you want, kids.

[Matt Thomas]

It can happen. If it can happen for us three, we promise you it can happen for you.

[Bobby Bones]

That's right.

[Matt Thomas]

No doubt about it. Yes. You guys stay on the road. You on the road a lot?

[Bobby Bones]

Oh yeah, we're leaving today to go get on a plane to go to California. The buses out there. Yeah. Especially this time of year.

[Matt Thomas]

Like festival time. Fair festival time.

[Bobby Bones]

Fair festival. Doing a lot of headline and stuff. Yeah, it's. It's go time.

[Matt Thomas]

All the dates up. Parma music dot com. So cowgirl. Cuz I'm going to play this on our show and possibly the countdown. So give me like a. A sound bite. Just talking about cowgirl, like, what is this song about? Why'd you put it out? That kind of thing.

[Bobby Bones]

I mean, it's just about falling in love with somebody that's a little different and you're. You're going all in on it. Just trying new things and you know, cowgirl doing some country stuff and you just all in on it. And I mean, it's just fun. It's. We knew after Gonna Love youe was, you know, deep song is something that was going to be tempo and fun and the song just kind of checks all the marks with the. You. You play it in a honky tonk. You can play it on the boat. You can play it in the Riding the kids to soccer practice. You can play it, you know, anywhere. Pretty much.

[Matt Thomas]

I feel like if you couldn't play it anywhere, that would be bad.

[Bobby Bones]

That's right.

[Matt Thomas]

Don't make songs you can't play everywhere.

[Bobby Bones]

Guess I know we stopped cursing a long time ago for the most part. So.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

Did you stop on stage? Okay, got it. I stopped probably five years ago, maybe more than that now, because I didn't want to think it and write it and use it. Like I was writing books at the time and I was like writing jokes. I was like, I don't want to fall and just curse. I don't want to use that as.

[Bobby Bones]

Well as a crutch. There's a dam in there, which is.

[Matt Thomas]

That's okay.

[Bobby Bones]

That's what I'm saying.

[Matt Thomas]

But it's still.

[Bobby Bones]

It's still on it. Like we.

[Matt Thomas]

That's it.

[Bobby Bones]

Talk about it, you know, it's not.

[Matt Thomas]

Like there's a bunch of F words and country music.

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah. I Know.

[Matt Thomas]

Yeah.

[Bobby Bones]

And from like we learned one time.

[Matt Thomas]

We did that you can be on.

[Bobby Bones]

Stage and stay as. You don't gain anything by doing. Yeah, you don't get thing.

[Matt Thomas]

Yeah, you're right. You don't.

[Bobby Bones]

You're going to lose.

[Matt Thomas]

You only could lose cuz they're pricing parents that brought their kids. They're pricing some 10 year olds in the audience.

[Bobby Bones]

Dude, we got a lot of kids.

[Scott Thomas]

We get a lot of kids these days.

[Matt Thomas]

Parmale Kids album next. You heard it here?

[Bobby Bones]

Honestly? Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

What do we call that? Farm Le and then you. It's all farm songs.

[Bobby Bones]

Let's go, let's write.

[Matt Thomas]

That's fine. Let's go.

[Scott Thomas]

You can help. You can help us.

[Matt Thomas]

I know. I'm good.

[Scott Thomas]

I'm good.

[Matt Thomas]

The album fell in love with the cowgirl. It's been out since April. We're gonna play cowgirl on the show and do all that. But you guys go watch them live. Listen, you guys are what I point at to people whenever they have reasons not to continue. And I mean that in a good way because you guys had like 72 reasons to go. You know, I think we're. This didn't work. I mean seriously. And. Cause people get tired of me telling my story. So it's like I got a couple other versions for you. And you guys are one of those stories. So like I think a big part of success, the biggest part of success is continuing to show up. Yeah, it's like sleeping water. It's so fundamental. You think it's got to be way more complicated than that. But if you don't do that stuff right, you can't do the other stuff.

[Scott Thomas]

Right. That's right.

[Matt Thomas]

So I do mean that in the most complimentary way possible. And I've said that outside of this, you know, I, I and I really was gonna talk about the shooting because we've talked about that before and I'm sure everybody asks you guys about that all the time. So I'm glad we got there because I think we got to unfold it a little bit too.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah, it's. It's helping me to. The more we talk about it and open up about things, I mean it just helps even you telling me your story. I'm like, oh, wow. Just start relating. More people hear this stuff, man.

[Matt Thomas]

It was like slow motion for me. Like I remember that I didn't want to get back. It's just. I remember that gun. I didn't feel it. Those what's crazy? I got whipped and didn't physically feel it. I remember Going, huh?

[Bobby Bones]

Wow.

[Matt Thomas]

I just got slapped with a gun. Because the guy kept going, what's your number? Put your code in. I was like, I don't remember my number.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

And I was like, dude, I was broke too. I was like, dude, I will give you every bit of money in here because I have none if you just don't shoot me.

[Scott Thomas]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

He's like, whack. I didn't feel it. It was crazy. What? The mind, how the mind and body work together. Because if you hit me in the head right now, I'm gonna cry and I'm gonna have a big knot. I'm gonna whine about it for three months on the podcast. I'm getting so much content out of it. However, I didn't feel it.

[Scott Thomas]

You had adrenaline, man.

[Bobby Bones]

Yes.

[Scott Thomas]

You had adrenaline going. I did too. And, I mean, I didn't feel anything until my stomach started burning. Two or three hit me before I felt anything.

[Matt Thomas]

It burnt. Burn.

[Scott Thomas]

Like they said, hot metal going through your body, like somebody putting hot, hot iron on you.

[Matt Thomas]

Was it slow to you in your memory? Is it slow or was it just.

[Scott Thomas]

It was fast. Everything happened less than five seconds, really, from the time I said, oh, no, grab my gun. Walk about as close as we are right here. It all happened in this little tight area.

[Matt Thomas]

Was your gun in a case or.

[Scott Thomas]

Was it in a. I just had it under my. Like in my little bunk under.

[Matt Thomas]

Dude, that's crazy. You know what? I'd probably just ran out, cried and get out.

[Scott Thomas]

I mean, couldn't get out. Blocking the door. That was the other thing.

[Matt Thomas]

You ever watch zombie shows?

[Scott Thomas]

No, dude, I. I'm the opposite of that. I need light hearted. I mean, I watch. I still watch like westerns and shoot them ups and all that stuff. But no zombie stuff.

[Matt Thomas]

We're watching a show now. It's called Kingdom and it's zombies and it's like South Korean, but we do English subtitles and make them speak English, which is opposite of their mouth. It's like one of those old. So they're always a loft. But what I can do is I can take my glasses off and have bad vision so it looks like their mouth. Mouth matches. It's my workaround of the workaround. Right. And so these zombies, like, if people are moving, they eat them. I would just lay there. I always think, like, I would just lay there and play dead. But then I wonder, could I maintain the playing dead until they went by without me? Without making like, like, like a noise or something? Or peeing a little bit?

[Bobby Bones]

Yeah.

[Matt Thomas]

Anyway, Parmalee. You guys go to parmalee music.com Instagram Parmalee Music thank you guys for the time. This has been awesome.

[Scott Thomas]

Thank you man.

[Matt Thomas]

Really appreciate it. And you guys check out Cowgirl.

[Bobby Bones]

Thanks for listening to a Bobbycast production. For years everyone thought Verizon had the best network because they did.

[Scott Thomas]

But now the best mobile network in.

[Bobby Bones]

The US is T Mobile. T Mobile's network has the most advanced 5G with more towers and their signal.

[Scott Thomas]

Reaches further than ever. So you can text an insta talk.

[Bobby Bones]

And say, you won't believe where I am.

[Matt Thomas]

T Mobile has the best mobile Network.

[Bobby Bones]

In the US based on analysis by.

[Matt Thomas]

Ookla of speed test intelligence data 1H 2025C T mobile.com network hey, it's Ryan.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Nyx]

This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Did you know Apple Card is designed to help you pay off your balance faster with smart payment suggestions. And because fees don't help you, Apple Card doesn't have any. So if your credit card is an Apple card, maybe it should be subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch Variable APRs range from 18.24% to 28.49% based on creditworthiness rates as of July 1, 2025 Terms and [e-mail] this is an iHeart podcast.