Bobby Bones (2:47)

That. A lot of.

Lainey Wilson (2:47)

Cousins. Yeah, a lot of.

Bobby Bones (2:48)

Cousins. When you're. We're from. Everybody's our cousin now.

Lainey Wilson (2:50)

Yeah. Yeah, 100%. But it's been an adjustment, but I feel like they are. They're doing a good.

Bobby Bones (2:57)

Job. I think one of the things that makes you special and one of the things that allowed your explosion was your voice. Not just your singing voice, but where you come from, how you talk about where you come from. A lot of that comes through your writing. Now, to write, you have to be creative. To be creative, you need time. Are you able to set aside time to allow creativity or how do you do.

Lainey Wilson (3:20)

That? It's been a juggling act, but I have had to, like, force that time. We talked about this, too, but how important it is, like, to just get bored and watch paint dry. And, I mean, I was. I've been in Nashville for 15 years, and the last five years of being here, it has been, like, 90 to nothing. I haven't hardly even been in Nashville, but I feel like Those, like, first 10 years I was here, I had all the time in the world to find inspiration and get creative and, like, go check out writers nights and get inspired from other songwriters. And now it's like I'm having to find inspiration in different places. And sometimes that is. That's work. You know, it's like opening a book, watching a show, having conversations, like, digging a little bit deeper than maybe I had to the first 10 years I was.

Bobby Bones (4:17)

Here. When you were living in a trailer outside of somebody else's house, what would you tell her 10 years.

Lainey Wilson (4:25)

Ago? Oh, I would say, honestly, you don't even know what you're getting yourself into. But it's, like, the most rewarding thing you'll ever do. Also the hardest thing you'll ever do, all kind of wrapped in one. I would say be sure to look up, because just like we talked about, you know, there's definitely been moments, you know, it's like you dream about, if I could just get my first car, if I could just get my first boyfriend, if I could just do this. The same thing happens in the music business. It's like, if I could just get a publishing deal, if I could just get a record deal, if I could just get a song on the radio and have a hit song, and then if I could just sell a ticket to make sure that I'm not missing those moments, I want to flip.

Bobby Bones (5:17)

It 10 years ago, talking to you now. What would she tell you.

Lainey Wilson (5:24)

Now? Oh, my gosh, I would think she would. I think she would tell me that she is proud of me. I do feel like, for the most part, I am the same person. You know, I look back at, like, a picture of me in my camper trailer days, and I can't help but, like, shake my head a little bit and be like, that poor girl, like, had no clue. But I feel like at the root of all of it, like, who I am and what I stand for and all those things, I still think that, like, I am. I'm staying true to that. I think she would. I think she would just say, remember why you started doing.

Bobby Bones (6:06)

This? Are you proud of.

Lainey Wilson (6:10)

You? I am proud of me. I will say, as proud as I am of myself, I am also my biggest critic. Them people on Facebook ain't got nothing on me. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, oh, you think you can hurt me? I can hurt myself. But that's. I feel like that's a part of the reason why I am even here is because I have been hard on myself, and I'm like, okay, this song is okay, but it's not, like, what I think it can be, or that performance was. It did the job. But, like, what can I do to take it a step further? And it's very rare when I walk off the stage and I feel like I did everything how I was supposed to do it, I'm always mentally taking notes about, okay, that did not work here. Maybe I need to try something a little different the next.

Bobby Bones (6:59)

Night. Are you a.

Lainey Wilson (7:00)

Perfectionist? I guess you would say I am a.

Bobby Bones (7:03)

Perfectionist. Do you think that the product needs to be perfect in order to have a perfect night? Or do you think you need to perfectly attempt in how you. How you have your night? Like, where does perfection come.

Lainey Wilson (7:20)

From? The thing is, like, when I think about my music and I think about even, like, being in the studio, I'm not trying to make that perfect. You know what I'm saying? I'm not trying to. I don't know. I want people to feel like they can come as they are and they can listen as they are, because I wrote in that from that perspective as who I am, you know, from a place that is not perfect, who's, like, trying to be better and trying to be my best self. But I definitely think that there is something on stage, and I think you'll probably be able to understand this from, like, from your perspective when you do shows it's like it all depends on the energy that is out there. And you feel like if you're not getting it, there's something missing. And it could be a weird night for the crowd, it could be a weird night for you, but it truly is like an energy exchange. And there are some nights where it is just absolutely on fire, and you feel like you can communicate without even hardly saying a word. But there are other nights where you feel like you are fighting for.

Bobby Bones (8:30)

It. Have you learned through that experience that a lot of times you're wrong? Because I have where I felt like I'm doing terrible, the night is not going well, Nobody's laughing my jokes, this. I've got 11 things happening in my brain not going right, and I get off. And the feedback from the people that I trust is exactly the opposite. And that's happened enough times where I just commit and go and understand that I don't always understand. Have you had that happen yet where you realize maybe you don't have.

Lainey Wilson (9:02)

It figured out up there 100%? And it makes me feel better because I was, like, there for a while. I was walking off the stage. I think it was just because I had done so many shows in a row, and I was so tired and beating myself up that I couldn't really see it for everything that it was. And Duck mandolin, my manager, all of them were like, that was the best show that you've ever played. Like, that one right there is, like, one that you better remember. And in my brain and in my heart, I was like, wow. Like, I did not. I did not feel that way when I walked off the stage, just because I want to. I want to leave it all out there. But I will tell you this. Melissa Etheridge told me something which kind of helped me. And every time that I go on stage and I have this thought in my head, I feel like I leave the stage in a much healthier way. She told me about the 80% rule. She said, get out there, and instead of giving it, like, 190% and feeling like you have to get up there on that stage and, like, bleed out and, like, you know, just leave it all up there. If you. If you do the 80% rule, it gives you that, like, 20% window and wiggle room to not let yourself down so.

Bobby Bones (10:16)

Much. Like, having grace for yourself is a really hard thing to learn. I don't think I'm that good at it yet, but I think I understand. I'm good at it. And that's like therapy talking, where I think I'm getting better. Having grace for myself is exactly what you're talking.

Lainey Wilson (10:30)

About. It's.

Bobby Bones (10:31)

Hard. Yeah, it's hard when you hold yourself to a standard, because those people paid money that they went and worked for, waited for months to watch Lainey.

Lainey Wilson (10:42)

Wilson. That's.

Bobby Bones (10:43)

Right. And there is an expectation within.

Lainey Wilson (10:47)

Yourself. That's.

Bobby Bones (10:48)

Right. That they don't go home sad or.

Lainey Wilson (10:51)

Disappointed. I know. Because when I think about, like, me as a fan, which, if there's anything that I miss more than anything, it is being a fan out in the crowd, I miss that so much. But when I think about me as a fan, I think about, like, how hard it was for me to buy that ticket and how hard it was for me to, like, get to that show and make the arrangements and buy the hotel room. And, like, the entire year we were planning for that, that was, like, a bigger deal than Christmas. You know what I'm saying? It was, like, the highlight of. Of my year, the highlight of my life. And I still think about those memories. And I think, too, it's probably coming from knowing how important those moments were for me that I put a little bit more pressure on myself, because I know that these people had come and worked hard to be there, and they came there to feel something, and I got to make sure that they.

Bobby Bones (11:52)

Do. My last question before we talk about the ACM specifically, but do you have anybody in your life that tells you when things aren't good? Because I have found I can only believe people to tell me when I am good, when they've told me that I'm not.

Lainey Wilson (12:07)

Good.

Bobby Bones (12:08)

Yes. Because everybody wants to be your buddy and be like, that's so great. But the people I trust to tell me I did something good are the people that have had to tell me, hey, that wasn't so.

Brooks Dunn (12:15)

Good. Oh.

Bobby Bones (12:16)

Yeah. Do you have those people in your.

Lainey Wilson (12:17)

Circle? I do, and I keep those people close. Like, the truth is, I always say, like, I don't want to take advice from people who aren't where I want to be. I remember even, like, growing up and singing, and my mama cannot carry a tune in a bucket, but she would try to tell me how to sing, and it would make me so mad because I was like, you can't sing. But I will say, when it comes to, like, choosing songs and picking songs and the ones that I write, I can always trust my mama's judgment. And she will tell me, she'll be like, I don't think that one is as good as you think it.

Bobby Bones (12:52)

Is. So that means you can trust her when she says that one is.

Lainey Wilson (12:55)

Awesome. Yes. Her mandolin, my manager, my sister, they don't tell me the stuff that I always want to.

Bobby Bones (13:03)

Hear. You need somebody to tell you suck because that's really the only people that you can believe to tell you you're.

Lainey Wilson (13:08)

Awesome. That's.

Bobby Bones (13:09)

It. And also, I don't really take criticism from people I wouldn't take advice.

Lainey Wilson (13:14)

From. That's.

Bobby Bones (13:15)

It. And that's hard sometimes because the Internet can be brutal. I think we all can be. Like, I don't read the comments, but sometimes we read the.

Lainey Wilson (13:22)

Comments.

Bobby Bones (13:23)

Yes. And it hurts. Sometimes. It.

Brooks Dunn (13:25)

Hurts. It.

Bobby Bones (13:26)

Does. To be honest, it.

Lainey Wilson (13:27)

Hurts. It.

Bobby Bones (13:27)

Does. But I try not to take criticism of people I don't take advice from. And I commend your relationship with your fans online because I see how dedicated you are to it. I think they feel like they know you, and I think you do a good job at allowing them to know you and stay in the same.

Lainey Wilson (13:47)

Person. Well, I hope so. I hope they feel like they do know me because I really feel like I know them. I mean, even when they're coming through my meet and greet lives, and I've never seen these people a day in my life, there is a. There's like a true, genuine connection. I feel like they're just. They're good people. Like, they work hard, they take care of their families. They're not the mean people on the Internet. I will tell you.

Bobby Bones (14:09)

That. That's.

Lainey Wilson (14:10)

True. My fans are not.

Bobby Bones (14:11)

True. Let's reflect a bit when you win Best New Female.

Lainey Wilson (14:16)

Artist.

Bobby Bones (14:17)

Yep. Feels like 20 years ago, but it's not. That's your first real big award. Like, what can you remember about that.

Lainey Wilson (14:25)

Night? Oh, my gosh. Well, I remember Miranda calling me and telling me on a zoom, and that was. It was hard for me to wrap my head around because her and I, we had, like, I think hung out a time or two, but we weren't, like, buddies at that point. But for her to call me and, like, deliver that news, it was. I was like, this is Miranda Lambert calling me. And she told me she felt like she was passing the baton. And that meant a lot to me. It did. It felt like I was really finally starting to, like, enter the.

Bobby Bones (15:02)

Game. And you get to go to the ACMs, an award winner. Like, you're going. You're walking the red carpet as the best female artist. That's super special. That's the first time you got to have your first award. Like, do you remember that night? Like, do you remember the experience of that. Do you remember that? That show. Where was that.

Lainey Wilson (15:20)

Show? Was that one in Vegas? That was at the, like, the big. The big, big arena that year. I think that's where they did.

Bobby Bones (15:30)

It. See, I would have held. I would have had an award with me. Even if it wasn't the real one. I would have had a fake one who walked.

Lainey Wilson (15:35)

Away. Well, you know how that goes. They don't give it to you for, like, three.

Bobby Bones (15:37)

Months. Yeah. It comes in the mail. It's like, here's your.

Lainey Wilson (15:39)

Reward. I would have been packing.

Bobby Bones (15:40)

It. Let's talk about. Let's go up a level. Best Female Artist. You win that acm, it's like you've just had kindergarten graduation. Now you did sixth grade graduation, and you're valedictorian of sixth grade graduation, which is pretty sick. Okay, new level. How does that.

Lainey Wilson (15:58)

Feel? I felt like, okay. I mean, these. These folks thought enough of me and my talent and what I do to. To think that I am. So now I gotta show them that I.

Bobby Bones (16:12)

Am. Were you.

Lainey Wilson (16:12)

Surprised? I was. I always, like, go into these award shows, like, with my fingers crossed and, like, hoping for the best. But yes, at the end of the day, you can sit. You can sit around and, like, dream about that day happening all you want, but, like, when it actually does, you can't help but just be like, okay, like, I told myself I was going to be here, but, like, this really. This is really.

Bobby Bones (16:37)

Happening. I want to go another year. And it's Best Female Artist again. But then it's Entertainer of the Year, which is the graduation. Like, that's the big one. That's the one that the greats have won. That's the one that some of the greats haven't.

Dave Ramsey (16:54)

Won.

Bobby Bones (16:54)

Yeah. Were you.

Lainey Wilson (16:56)

Surprised? I was very surprised. For me, it was kind of one of those moments where I was like, how did we, like, wind up here? Like, I. I knew how we, like, wound up there. But in the grand scheme of things, I know that it looks like from the outside looking in, like, I, like, I just showed up here, you know, and I'm, like, new to school. But the truth is, you know, even when I won, like, New Female Artists of the Year, I think I had been in town at that point in time for 12 years. I've been here for 15 years now. And so Entertainer of the Year, that is the biggest.

Bobby Bones (17:39)

Title. That's it. That's the.

Lainey Wilson (17:41)

Whale. That's. That's it. That's.

Bobby Bones (17:44)

It.

Mark Hoppus (17:45)

So.

Lainey Wilson (17:47)

It'S. It's still something that I can't believe like happened as early on as it did. But again it went back to that same feeling of just like, okay, well these, these people voted for me for this and now I gotta show them why they.

Bobby Bones (18:07)

Did. Where do you keep that.

Lainey Wilson (18:08)

Award? I built me a trophy case upstairs. So I got all my trophies. Used to be participation trophies. I don't feel like that's the case.

Lionel Richie (18:20)

Anymore. Hang.

Bobby Bones (18:22)

Tight. The Bobby cast will be right back. And we're back on the Bobby cast. At number nine on our list is Mark Hoppus from Blink 182. From episode 505, Mark told the stories behind meeting his bandmates in Blink 182, Tom and Travis Barker. And why the night of a movie premiere was one of the coolest moments ever. Here's part of my conversation with Mark Hoppus from Blink182. At number nine. When reading the book, I admired how candid you were. I've written a couple books and there were times where I'd written things that I felt like were so candid. One that I don't really feel sorry for me, but I wanted them to actually feel like empathy or have understanding. And there was a fine line for me. And there were also things that like triggered certain things in me. Like it was like a whole therapeutic four or five months, honestly, to where I questioned some of the stuff that I left in. Was there any of the stuff that you left in that you, you questioned for any reason whatsoever that it was too personal or too triggering or did some of that stuff actually feel so therapeutic that that was positive in the.

Mark Hoppus (19:30)

Process? Both all the stuff that I wrote about anxiety about, you know, self doubt about when I was sick with cancer and the, you know, felt like I was facing death, all that stuff I left in and I was like, do I really want to put this all out there? Because the same as you, like, I don't want anybody to feel sorry for me. I'm very lucky. I'm very blessed. But I feel like when I write from my heart that that's what connects with people. When I'm writing lyrics or I'm writing songs and I write something that really means something to me, I feel like that's what connects. I feel like that's I listen to or react to if I watch a movie or read a book or listen to a song. And so I was like, look, I'm going to put it all out there and people can sift through it and ignore it if they want to, but hopefully instead of ignoring it, they connect to it. And it means something to them because I feel like they're pretty universal themes that we all go.

Bobby Bones (20:19)

Through. Yeah. And I learned that even if it wasn't specific to the person reading, I think you said it best. It's a universal theme more than it has to be them relating on a specific molecular level. And there's a difference. Right. Can I watch a movie? Same thing you just said. I feel in many ways, but I don't like, relate specifically to the exact storyline. But there are. There's absolute relatability that makes me happy, sad, angry, whatever it is about the movie. The same way in the book, have you had the people that have read the book that, you know what, have they come back to you and said, wow, I didn't know even this about.

Mark Hoppus (20:56)

You? Well, one of the things that's happened since the book has come out and since, you know, since my cancer story is that people come up to me and they share their cancer stories. And I feel really honored. Like, even today I was on Good Morning America and one of the producers came and was like, you know, when you're going through your cancer stuff, my mom was going through the exact same cancer stuff. And you talking about it or posting about it or being so honest about it helped her through it. And a lot of people come up to me in the past couple years and been like, hey, my girlfriend or my friend or me personally, whoever has cancer, like, what do I say? What do I do? What would you suggest? And so being able to feel like because I was lucky enough to survive, that I could help other people with their figuring it out, because I really didn't have someone like that when I was going through it. I like being the cancer guy that can help people either themselves or with friends or.

Bobby Bones (21:50)

Family. What role did TRL play with you guys?

Mark Hoppus (21:53)

Fame. Oh, it's huge. It was such a special time in music and in our band's career. I feel like at that point, TRL was really undergoing a change. There were the. There were the bread and butter, the gold standards, artists on TRL, the Britney Spears, Destiny's Child, Christina Aguilera, NSync, Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, all these huge pop acts. But when Blink 182, was that our heyday coming, like, but in the late 90s, early 2000s, rock and roll and punk rock and kind of like that sports metal stuff was starting to break through as well. So it was this interesting time to be popular on a show that was popular for being so poppy. And here's our rock band Coming in with like sideways baseball hats and skateboard clothes and big dickies, performing with people who are wearing like Versace and really nice clothes and really professionally trained. And we were just sloppy and dumb and it was.

Bobby Bones (22:51)

Fun. Was there ever an identity crisis with the band? Because again, you guys shifted music to pop, emulating what you were doing. But in turn you were. Because you were so popular, you were now part of pop. You actually led that, that sound in pop, which that was what you guys weren't. Now all of a sudden, you're not pop, you're punk and now you're pop. But because you've changed it, you've changed what pop is, right? Did you guys ever have the Man? Maybe we should just go so hard and make sure people don't know that so they know we're not pop. Was there ever an identity crisis with.

Mark Hoppus (23:25)

Blink? I think that after Enema of the State and how popular we got and how we were on pop music stations at the time, that came to us. And like you said, I don't feel like we changed our music at all, but music had come to us. And so on the next record, Take Effort, Pants and Jacket, we were like, we are going to plant the flag that we are a rock band, that we are not chasing some kind of fame, that we are not chasing some kind of sound. We want to do a post hardcore, you know, really dark, cool record. And so if you look at all the stuff for Take Effort, Pants and Jacket, we're like wearing all black. We're not smiling at anything. We're looking straight to the camera with our R's crossed, like, we are the serious rock band now. So a little bit of that. But I would like what Take It From Pants and Jacket did to us and really focused us on, Wait, what are we trying to do? Like, I feel like Anima of the State was kind of our party punk rock record. And then Take Care for Pants and Jacket was like a lot more dark and.

Bobby Bones (24:22)

Vibey. So I have three extremely cliche questions and only have a few minutes left. But three, these are extreme cliche. So number one is going to be what is your favorite Blink.

Mark Hoppus (24:33)

Hit? Favorite Blink hit, I'll go with Feelin. This Feelness was the first song that we wrote for the untitled record. And if aliens ever came down from outer space and said, What's a Blink 182 song? I would play that and I would play all the small things. But I think that feelness really showcases each one of us in a different way. And it's kind of an artistic take on a traditional Blinquenity 2 song that pushes things in a new direction that we were really excited about when we wrote.

Bobby Bones (25:04)

It. Second, cliche question. What was the best part about fame and what was the hardest part about.

Mark Hoppus (25:09)

Fame? Best part about fame is the. Okay, here's the coolest thing that I ever got to do by being famous. When they launched the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, we got invited to the premiere at Disneyland, and they shut down the whole park. So the red carpet, the press line was all the way down Main street, and then we turned left into Adventureland and the whole thing was closed off. And there were literally people at Disneyland begging us to go on their rides because there was nobody else there. So, like Big Thunder Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean and all these great rides we got to ride. And then they premiered the movie on Tom Sawyer's island on a huge screen. But we were sitting out in front of Pirates of the Caribbean on these cool bleachers. So we watched the movie, and then at the end of the show, at the end of the movie, you walk out and they hand you a video game of the Pirates of the Caribbean video game. And you get in a limo and they drive you down Main street of Disneyland and then take you home. That was rad. The hardest part. This the worst part about being famous. Stalker. We had a stalker for a while. That was a bum.

Bobby Bones (26:15)

Out. You wrote about that. Yeah, that. Yeah. That sucks. We've had that issue, too, because it feels like you're not in control. Like, I didn't realize that until. It just feels like you're. It's the. You stay your whole life trying to control everything, and then all of a sudden, you're not in control. Like, that.

Brooks Dunn (26:28)

Sucks.

Lionel Richie (26:29)

Yeah.

Bobby Bones (26:29)

Yep. Okay, my final cliche question. How important is it to you that people do lowercase b and the dash and blink.

Mark Hoppus (26:39)

182? It's important. I would say it's an 8 out of 10.

Brooks Dunn (26:42)

Importance.

Dave Ramsey (26:42)

Wow.

Mark Hoppus (26:43)

It's. It's not necessary, but it's like. It's like, yeah, that's what it's supposed to be. But you know how people can write it however they want? You know, people overseas say Blink 182 instead of Blink 182. And it's always a point of contention. We go overseas and they're like, well, what are you supposed to say? Blink 182 or 182 and it's 182 to us. But as long as you're talking about Us. That's all we care.

Bobby Bones (27:03)

About. My producer, Mike. You're his favorite band of all time. Mike has got a couple of questions. Mike. Hey, Mark. Huge fan. I've only ever cried once in concert, and it was in 2023 when I saw you guys play, and it was the intro you did for Adam. Song like, that's my favorite Blink song. Has that song kind of changed for you from when you first wrote it to now to kind of having a different meaning to.

Mark Hoppus (27:25)

You? I mean, it meant the world to me when I wrote it. It was a song that I wrote at a very dark point during the, you know, period of time between Dude Ranch and Enema of the State where our band was starting to get successful. But I would come home and I would be totally alone and feel alone, and we go out on tour, and I'd feel fulfilled and whole, and then I'd go home and I'd feel empty again. So I wrote that. So. And it meant a lot to me because I was honest with pain and depression. And then as I've gone through life and gone back to that song, and especially when the band got back together after I was sick and we were playing this song that meant so much to me, I would walk on stage and say very honestly, like, this song saved my life once and this band saved my life a second time. So, like, it. It's almost now, like, it means so much to me that I don't want to play it. And I always find excuses to not play it because. Because I get in my own head when I.

Bobby Bones (28:17)

Do. The other part that stuck out to me about the book, we talked about it earlier about you begging your dad to get you a bass. Like, I did the same thing because I saw Blink 182 and I was like, I gotta play guitar with my brother. He's like, all right, we gotta convince our parents he got a bass. So we learned playing guitar and bass by getting tabs off the Internet. For you, what are your top four Blink 182 bass.

Mark Hoppus (28:37)

Lines? Top four Blink 182 bass lines. I would say the bass line in Mutt I love. I would say the baseline in feeling this that I love. Dysentery Gary is a lot of fun to play. And what's the fourth? Oh, Wishing.

Bobby Bones (28:48)

Well. Oh, no.

Mark Hoppus (28:50)

Carousel. Oh, Carousel's a good one. But that one, the intro is hard to play, and I love that bass line. And it's literally the song that Tom and I wrote. The first time that we got in a room together, I'll Put Carousel note.

Bobby Bones (29:02)

Too.

Mark Hoppus (29:02)

Sure. Let's kick out. Let's kick out Wishing well and we'll put a carousel.

Bobby Bones (29:05)

In. I like the mic. Change Mark's mind. That's the funniest thing. Final two questions. Were you at all concerned that when you reunited, people wouldn't.

Mark Hoppus (29:16)

Come? Yeah, I think always that. But it wasn't about the people coming back. What was important to us was that the three of us were continuing to do what we love, which is playing Blink 182 songs and writing new songs. When we got back together, there wasn't even talk about, like, we're going to tour and play these songs. It was like, we're going to get in a studio and write a new record and keep doing what we love and keep writing new things and keep pushing forward. So it wasn't so much about, like, well, you know, we want a bunch of people to come and watch us play shows. We do, obviously, but we want people to come and listen to new stuff as well as old stuff. So, yeah, I think that we were less concerned about the people being there and more being true to.

Bobby Bones (30:00)

Ourselves. My final question, you wrote about this in your book is about you and Tom going from best friends to being not even on speaking.

Ronnie Dunn (30:08)

Terms.

Bobby Bones (30:10)

So. And you talked about just communicating by email only. Like, what is the communication like now between you two on a personal.

Mark Hoppus (30:17)

Level? We text all the time, Whether it be about, you know, blink blink stuff or just jokes or memes or memories or whatnot. Talking about everything really. Like, I'll just call Tom up and I'll be like, what are you doing? And I called him, like, last week, and I'm like, what are you doing right now? And it's like, nothing. I'm literally sitting in my yard watching my dogs run around. And so then we just talked about dogs for a.

Bobby Bones (30:43)

While. So it's now it's just totally normal.

Mark Hoppus (30:45)

Cool. Yeah, absolutely. It's better than normal cool. Like, you know, like all brothers.

Bobby Bones (30:50)

Again. We have Lionel Richie at number eight. One of the coolest interviews that I've done because it was at the Paramount Theater in Austin in front of a live audience, and he had just put out a book. So we were just talking about his life, talking about some amazing stories from the formation of the Commodores, which he was part of that, and opening for the Jackson five. Lionel, great person. Love the interview. Here is some of Lionel Richie from episode 544. You guys had had gotten so good. The newspapers were also complimenting you guys, and they'd be the Jackson 5, they were good, but holy crap, the Commodores. So much so that I feel like there was maybe resentment from Michael's dad. You read the.

Lionel Richie (31:31)

Book, boy. You doing all right. I like that. All right, so what happens is that everything that went on at that time, you have to understand, it was all about protecting the Jacksons. We were just trying to make sure we killed every night. And every time they schooled them on what you properly should do, we were listening. If you have a song that's going to be the highlight song of the night, play that first. Don't wait to the end because the crowd won't be there. Now we're playing top 40. We have no hit record, so we get to pick any record we want. Well, we hit them with Sly Stone. We hit them with Tim Tape, but we were killing it. And they were little boys and we didn't have any respect for them. That should get TMZ.

Brooks Dunn (32:28)

Going. Right?

Lionel Richie (32:29)

Right. Okay. Until they walked out on stage and those little boys turned into a machine that would scare you to death to this day. Don't let anybody fool you. They came out to slay everything. And at that point, I realized we are the luckiest guys in the world to be in front of this little school of preschoolers. And whatever I had to do to tolerate the abuse for a year, I will take it, because this is my ticket to somewhere. And finally, we ended up in Hollywood. Bull. In Hollywood, California. And those little kids walked us right into Motown.

Bobby Bones (33:20)

Records. One of the interesting things about your story of going solo wasn't you going, I am going to go solo. It was the awkward predicament of them saying to you and your band, you guys are now just going to follow Lionel. And it put you in a very weird.

Lionel Richie (33:41)

Place. Ladies and gentlemen, I was perfectly happy being a member of the Commodores and had no thought in my life to leave this band. In fact, I wrote, I think, somewhere in the book, thank God for the Commodores, because without them, I would never have been Lionel Richie. That is a true story. These guys, it's not a band now. This is a group of brothers I never had before. A group of brothers that didn't grow up on a university campus. These brothers grew up in real life. Mylon Williams, Ms. Clyde, the drummer, and Tommy. That's Florida. I'm not talking about the ritzy side of Florida. I'm talking about Florida, okay? And so when I tell you, William King, Birmingham, Alabama, they taught me more stuff that I had no idea what survival was until I heard their Story. But more importantly, they taught me that I can be me. I heard terrifying words from these guys. Lionel, bend over on the stage and kiss that girl on the front row. And I said to them, in my grandmother, mother and father's training, I don't know the girl on the front row. And they said, fool, will you just bend over and kiss that damn.

Dave Ramsey (35:24)

Girl on the front.

Lionel Richie (35:24)

Row? And so finally, I found enough guts in my heart to bend over and kiss that girl on the front row. There was such a scream in this huge arena that the problem the Commodores had from that point on was Lionel quit kissing the girls and sing the damn song. I had discovered sexy, you understand? So everybody thinks for a moment that Lionel broke out being the lover he was when he was growing up and decided he's gonna go solo. I did not want to go solo. I had the band. I had everything I needed. All I needed to do was just stay in the band. By this time, I discovered I could write. By this time, I didn't have to play the saxophone too long because I had to be able to sing more than I could play the sax. This is good news. Now came the problem reviews. Everything was fine until Lady. Now they know me as the writer, and they don't know the rest of the guys, but they know Lionel Richards and the Commodores, and he wrote Lady. So now you go back to the band to do interviews on behalf of the band and hear the questions. So, Lionel, tell us when you started the Commodores. Tell us how you did it. Well, I didn't start. I mean, we. We start at the comic book. Lionel, how's it feel being the front man? This is not good. And then finally, the ultimate Madison Square Gardens. And then finally, Lionel Richie sat down to the piano and played his songs. Here's the line that stabbed everybody in the. In the chest. What's a guy like Lionel Richie doing in the funk band like the Commodores? Now try to go back to rehearsal after that. And that is not where you want to be. So from that point on, I felt this. Okay. And no matter what I tried to do, no matter how I tried to do it, no matter if I stay on the road longer. But also was coming at the same time was after Three Times a Lady, after Ceylon, after. Got it. And then lady came out. The checks were coming in. You know what keeps a band together? The word equal. It was not equal. And so it became. And I. Believe me, I'm telling you, I. I knew what was happening. I just was in denial. But it was the hardest thing. And I knew eventually that something had to happen, and it did. I had to leave the.

Bobby Bones (38:53)

Commodores. I want to talk about song specifically, and let's bounce around through some songs. And lady is so interesting to me because I loved Kenny.

Lionel Richie (39:00)

Rogers.

Bobby Bones (39:00)

Yep. That was, like. I got to know him a little bit before he passed away a few years. Loved him. And, you know, he's known for that song that you wrote, but it really wasn't Lady. You had it as like, baby and you. And he was just telling you a story, and you're like, yep, it's.

Lionel Richie (39:16)

Lady. No, everybody, you have to understand something. You want to be embarrassed, and you want to get mad. Every guy in the Commodores would bring in 10 songs for the album, and each one of us thought that their 10 songs was the 10 that should be on the album. So you do. You don't need to finish the song totally, because all you had to do is play. And here's the first song. Nope. All right. Here's my second song. You know, so you don't write. You don't finish crap. You just hit the head of it. Go to the. The verse, go to the hook. They like it. Great. Kenny Rogers said, call me on the phone one day and said, I want one of those ballads. You got one? And I said, yeah, I.

Brooks Dunn (40:16)

Got. I got.

Lionel Richie (40:17)

One. And he said, I want you. How fast can you get me the song? I said, well, I got a problem. I'm on my way on tour. We are just finishing up the album. And now, of course, I had a song called Baby for the Commodore's album. And they said to me when I walked in, we don't want another love song. And I said, okay, that's pretty clear. So I decided to write a gospel song. And I wrote, jesus is love now. All right. I got Jesus love. I am not going to be able to do this with Kenny because we're going on tour. I said, when I get back over to a Kenny, I'll call you. And we got it. No problem. Two weeks later, we're about to go on tour. The drummer, Clyde, why he bought a motorcycle, I'll never notice. Hope drummers and motorcycles I'll never forget. Fell off of his motorcycle and now has to be off the road for a month and a half, maybe two months. Tours canceled and pushed back. I called Kenny on the phone and said, you want that song? He says, I do. I said, I'm available because that's Kenny Rogers. You returned his phone call, you see, and so he said, meet me In Vegas. I get to Vegas, and there he is in the dressing room, bigger than life, and he starts telling me this story. He says, you know, I just got married. I said, congratulations. I heard that. He says, you know, I married a lady. I mean, I'm from Houston, Texas, and I don't know why on earth that. I mean, Marianne is so refined. I have no business being with a lady. This lady is so amazing, Lila. She does things that I would have never. She has taste I've never seen. He went on, this lady, this lady. He said, by the way, what. What's the name of the song you wrote for me? I said, lady, he's stupid. The brother ain't stupid. Baby. Lady, same damn thing. Right now, we. He's excited because it's right on the story he wants to talk about. All right, now, let me hear it. Wow. Now, this is Commodore pitching 101. Lady, I'm your knight in shining armor and I love you. You have made me what I am, and I am your. Should have. Should have charged more money. It's all right. It's all right. It was just that quiet. And Kenny said, what's next? And I said, you like it? He says, I think it's brilliant. What comes next? I said, well, if you like it, I'll finish it. And that's the beginning of.

Bobby Bones (44:04)

Lady. The places that songs come from could be purposeful or could be.

Lionel Richie (44:19)

Random. Can we take up a collection? Something that happened like that? Yeah, it's all.

Bobby Bones (44:23)

Right. The more you sing, the more they'll throw in. Yeah.

Dave Ramsey (44:25)

Yeah. If I got it.

Bobby Bones (44:26)

Yeah. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Nothing felt as random to me.

Lionel Richie (44:33)

As.

Bobby Bones (44:33)

Hello how that song came to.

Lionel Richie (44:37)

Be. There are things what I love most about writing. It's got to be simple. If it ain't simple, you won't remember it, and neither will I. And when you have add, you need it simple. All right, Now, I was playing around with my co producer, James Anthony Carmichael, and he was late. And when he walked in, I said, hello, is it me you're looking for? We need more money, man. We got to get more money. Anyway, he said, the damnedest thing I'd ever heard in life. Finish that song. And I said, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I said, james, that's the corniest line I've ever heard in my life. Hello, is it me you're looking for? Can't be a song. He says, I'm telling you, finish the song, brother. Richie, you got something. And I went back, and reluctantly, I put some Chords to it, wrote the damn song. He said, let's record it. I said, james, I'll be laughed out of the business with hello? Is it me you're looking for? He said, let's record it. All right. We record the song. Lush, lush, lush strings. It was just. Oh, it was just amazing. And then I loved it and he hated it. Why? It's too heavy. It's too heavy. So I went off somewhere and wrote a song to kick ladies ass. Excuse me, hello's ass. And wrote Truly. Now, now, wait. Now it gets. It gets. It gets scared before it gets good. Now I'm sitting there and I have Truly and we threw some more songs off the record. Do I throw off hello and replace it with Truly or do I keep hello and put it out at the same time? We threw another song off because it was just too risque. Call all night Long. I ain't gonna sing that. That takes too long. But the point was to show you the insanity of was I was trying. You know, my whole concept was how do I get people's attention? You have to do something crazy. I ain't taking off my clothes so I gotta shock you with something that you ain't ready for. And so I wrote this calypso song and it's got the feeling and the thought, okay, it was just too long and it was too much stuff and it had too many layers. So we threw this off. I'm walking down this hall one day at the studio. This music is playing in the second thing. Oh my God. It's just kicking and the thing is happening. And I decided just to make sure I have that up tempo song go covered. I wrote Running with the Night to cover in case we don't need All Night Long. Okay, to make a long story short, Truly was the first single. Truly was also my first Grammy. Hello. We threw off the album the very last minute. We put All Night Long on and running with the night. And that was the national anthem of my life story. Hello. All night long Running with the night. Get out of.

Bobby Bones (48:53)

Town. The Bobby cast. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the bobbycast. At number seven of our top ten of the year is Dave Ramsey. Episode 542. We talked a lot of things. Money. It's crazy. He was once $3 million in debt and filing for bankruptcy and now he's super successful and he's a money expert. But a lot of that's because of what he went through. You know, we talked about the worst financial advice out there and a lot more here's Dave Ramsey at number seven. What's like common financial advice that's.

Dave Ramsey (49:29)

Wrong? Most everything on TikTok. Yeah, TikTok is like, you know, in the. What years was that? Let me think. It was in the 80s and even up into the 90s there were these things on midnight on television, on cable TV at midnight, infomercials, and you would watch some guy sitting by the waves and he had done nothing. Down real estate and buy and sell real estate and flip this house and all that kind of thing. And you could buy his tape set for $3,000 and learn how to get rich in real estate and those kinds of doing the stuff I did to go broke, you'd see exactly how you would do.

Bobby Bones (50:06)

It. What about timeshares? Are those.

Dave Ramsey (50:08)

That. Oh, it's the legalized fraud, but it's.

Bobby Bones (50:12)

Horrible. So there's no good to.

Dave Ramsey (50:14)

It. There's no good to timeshares. Timeshares are nasty. And the whole. The people in the industry are unbelievably scummy. It is a nasty world. But anyway, so a lot of the flip this house stuff on TikTok is all over the place or a lot of crypto stuff on TikTok. A lot of. Most of it's kind of get rich quick vibe. It's like, you know, I'm looking, you're looking for an easy button. I got an easy button. I'll show you an Easy button. For $3,422, if you follow my system, you can buy and sell stocks, day trade stocks, which 97% of the people that day trade stocks lose money in a six month period of.

Bobby Bones (50:53)

Time.

Dave Ramsey (50:53)

Really? Isn't that.

Bobby Bones (50:54)

Crazy? That's exceptionally high. I thought it would be more than 50 for sure, but I didn't.

Dave Ramsey (50:57)

Know it would be up. It's just like it's a 100% chance of losing money. It's like nuts. I mean, you have a better shot at the roulette wheel mathematically, statistically. So it's crazy. And the difference is in the roulette wheel at least you know you're taking a chance. But on the day trading, they think they got the system. They bought the system off some guy on TikTok and he rented a jet and then filmed it like he owned the jet. And I got a jet and I'm like, yeah, right. What you got is a bunch of crap. But.

Bobby Bones (51:24)

Yeah. How do you feel about.

Dave Ramsey (51:25)

Crypto? I don't buy anything that is a commodity. And so I don't buy barrels of oil off of the commodities market. I don't buy. I don't buy gold, I don't buy soybeans. I don't buy the Deutsche Mart or the euro. Those are currencies. And crypto is a currency and it's a commodity. And so I buy things that generate money and that way I can actually place a value on them. And that would be like a company. An example that would be buying a stock. I don't buy single stocks, buy my mutual funds. But a company that's Home Depot is making money. You can look at the numbers. It's actually producing something. It's not just a thing. A commodity is just a thing. And the only reason that a thing goes up in value is shortages or perceived shortages. Greed and fear drive the markets. And that's why, that's why crypto. Crypto doesn't actually produce anything. It's just a currency. It's not a bad. It's nothing necessarily evil about it. It's a very young currency, doesn't have a long track record. And the track record that it does have is very volatile. So it's really scary. But all the cool kids are doing it and so that's why everybody's in it. But I don't have anything. And I don't put money and stuff like that because, you know, like we said earlier, kind of trauma. I don't like losing money. I don't like gambling. I don't. I don't play.

Bobby Bones (52:46)

Cards. You don't gamble at.

Dave Ramsey (52:48)

All? I don't. I don't do anything. My wife will put some quarters in a slot machine or something like that. But a lot of my buddies play poker and stuff. I get zero joy out of that. It makes my stomach go up into my throat. And it takes. Isn't. It is not entertaining for me. It's not fun. It reminds me of trauma. And I go down that crazy cycle that we're talking about. And so I don't do it. I. I don't get joy at losing money. I understand how people get a thrill out of the possibility of losing money. So like a Michael Jordan is known to do, you know, all that kind of stuff, that he's got the money to do it. That's fine. I'm not mad at Michael. It's just, I don't. It's not fun for me. So I don't, I don't do that. And crypto's right in that bucket. It's the same thing. And so I don't get joy out of being a cool Kid, I don't get joy out of being on the cutting edge and whatever. I just want to buy something that's boring and has always gone up in value. Like vintage baseball cards versus brand new.

Bobby Bones (53:43)

Ones. What do you love that you don't really get to talk about much because everybody wants to talk about.

Dave Ramsey (53:49)

Money. I talk about anything I really want to. I don't really have any limitations. I really enjoy. We coach about 10,000 small businesses with our Entree leadership brand. And I do a podcast called Entree Leadership where I'm answering questions for small business people and leadership questions come up a lot and running a business questions. And I. I have thoroughly enjoyed the business part of growing our business over the years and taking care of our team and loving our team well. And the leadership. Leadership. So I do a lot of leadership conferences as a keynote speaker or as.

Bobby Bones (54:25)

A. It's all.

Dave Ramsey (54:25)

Business. Yeah, I love it. I love.

Bobby Bones (54:28)

Leadership. You're still in then. So it's not to you. You're not just maintaining by doing what everybody expects of you because you do it well. You still love.

Dave Ramsey (54:34)

It. Yeah, I thoroughly love it. Because leadership, the difference in that and when I help somebody with their money, that's a one to one transaction. If I help a guy or gal be a better leader, that helps 50 people because he's leading 100 people that they're leading and they weren't doing as good a job and now they're doing a great job. So that's got a force multiplier to it. That's pretty.

Bobby Bones (54:54)

Cool. Leadership is interesting, especially when you have to lead multiple people with different.

Dave Ramsey (55:00)

Personalities. Oh.

Bobby Bones (55:01)

Yeah. You know, I think one of the things because people in my industry in podcasting or radio will come to me and say, hey, how do you manage different personalities? And I say differently. Yeah, I think you it there's not a one size fit all leadership method. Everybody must do this this way. No do. I was going to ask if you subscribe to that same.

Dave Ramsey (55:19)

Theory. I agree. Agree completely. Now what you do have to have is some principles involved that apply to regardless of your personality. The principles are we have to get our work done.

Bobby Bones (55:29)

Hello. On time, good.

Dave Ramsey (55:31)

Attitude. Principles are we have to. And from the leadership position, bosses push, leaders pull. And so regardless of personality style, my job is to sell them, to teach them. Hey, the train's going this way. The train's going to a shiny place. You want to be on the train? Here's the train. Get on the train instead of standing behind them with a whip. Because if your organization is Being pushed rather than pulled. It's always moving at the speed of the slowest common denominator. And it grinds to a halt pretty quick because we're waiting on the doofus at the end that won't keep up. And we're, you know, that. That. That doesn't.

Bobby Bones (56:05)

Work. I've always felt that hiring energy and attitude, massive for me as far as, like, having successful hires, that maybe they didn't know as much in a certain area as someone else that I was talking to. But it's so much easier to have to slow somebody down than to push them.

Dave Ramsey (56:21)

Faster. Absolutely. That in.

Bobby Bones (56:24)

Character.

Brooks Dunn (56:24)

Yeah.

Dave Ramsey (56:25)

Yeah. I gotta be a dependable human.

Bobby Bones (56:27)

Being. On our show, the morning show. The hours are weird, still very hard. It sucks. And forever. And I wrote about it in my first book, if you were one minute late, you got sent home. And it wasn't because you had to be there at exactly that time. It was because everybody else got there before the deadline time. And by you not getting there, that shows that you feel like your time's a little more important than everybody.

Dave Ramsey (56:52)

Else.

Bobby Bones (56:52)

Yep. And that's an arrogance. That's when it starts to get toxic within the.

Dave Ramsey (56:56)

Group. When I was in my 20s, I was very important, I thought. And I was going. I had nine. I was a plate spinner, had plates spinning everywhere. All these different deals I was always doing. Had deals, deals, deals, deals, deals, deals. And I was perpetually late for everything because I was so important. And so I. But I ended up going. I was sitting down with this guy that was going to do an investment in one of our real estate projects, and very wealthy guy, CEO. And I come in 15 minutes late, and he goes, you're late? I said, yeah, I got all this going on. He goes, you're really important, aren't you? And I'm like, well, that. Yeah. I don't mean no, but I mean, he goes, no, you understand, when you come in here late, you are saying to me, I'm not as important as everything else you have going on. If you named a rock star or you named a world figure that you wanted to meet with and you had a meeting with them, you would be early, regardless of how all the other things you had going on. But you're late to meet with me, and it says to me that I'm not important. That's arrogance. He just chastised me. You know what? I don't think I've ever been late after that one conversation. It hurt my feelings so bad. He was so right. And I just this is arrogance. It is arrogance. This is exactly what it is. And so no, around Ramsey, we just say, trains run on time. Trains run on time. And, you know, we're broadcasters, too, so we're looking at the clock. And, you know, you don't have to hit the clock. I was speaking at a church the other day and they have like four services, and so they got to get the parking lot turned over. They got it. And it's like he goes, you got 34 minutes. You don't have 35. Put the clock up and I'm in at 33. Give him an extra minute to get the parking lot, you know, and he's like, nobody comes in early. And I'm like, yeah, well, you said that, number one. Number two, it's how my brain works from 30 years after that conversation with that guy chastising me. I'm going to be early. I'm going to hit the.

Bobby Bones (58:44)

Clock. I got like three more questions for you, and I want to go to Financial Peace University. Has that modified itself with. Has technology changes? Have you had to change elements of.

Dave Ramsey (58:52)

That? Absolutely, yeah. And the church world has changed. It was largely taught in churches. 50,000 churches have had 10 million people go through it. That's the size it was and is. But the number of churches that meet during the week, like a Tuesday night to do a marriage class or a money class, almost zero now. That has shifted. Pre Covid, it was already going down, but Covid just put a stake in it, ended it. And so the way people do church has changed dramatically in the last decade. And that was, for better or for worse, was our distribution method for that thing. So, yeah, we went to digital. What is happening right now that is very exciting is we have woven the teaching pieces, do this, then do this, don't do this, into the EveryDollar app. And so as people are running their budgets, they're getting prompts of videos and we're teaching them the same material inside the thing digitally. And the success rate of that is crazy good. It's probably better than when we're doing an analog. And it's just in the early stages. But all of our beta testing and stuff, we're doing a release in about three weeks, the next version of every dollar. And it's. But that's the methodology that we've shifted.

Bobby Bones (60:10)

To. To go to digital with, like, Ramsey plus, because again, that is so technological. And I find myself, and I'm in my 40s, starting to go like, whoa. I don't quite get that. Do you have a whole younger, like 20s and 30s that come in and go, hey, this is what we're going to do and this is how it's.

Dave Ramsey (60:27)

Consumed. Yeah, well, yeah, exactly, because who is it? My target audience is not me, I'm 65, I'm not the focus group, not even close. And so the Target audience is 34 year old with two kids and got student loan debt, they got credit card debt, they got car payment and they feel stuck. And the one thing they fight about most in their marriage is money. And so we've got the antidote for their life. We can fix it. We've just got to figure out a way to inject it. And to your point, the Gen Z's and millennials are a, are two wonderful generations to have on your team. I've got about 600 of them in those two generations working for us out of 1100 and maybe, maybe 700 actually out of 1100. But they are abundance mentality because they grew up with this magic wand in their hand and they can just push a button and stuff shows up on their front porch and so why couldn't I just push a button and fix this? And so they believe almost anything's possible in the creation of a product, the delivery of product or the effect of a product, a digital product. And so to have those people in a room with that mentality and that spirit while you're building out something like this, you can't do it if you don't have them because it's native to their brain. It's not native to my brain. My brain's native to eight track tapes for God's sakes. You know, But I can catch up if I force my intellect to. But it's not my natural state, it's their natural state. The only downside they've got in the generation is because they've got this magic wand. They have no patience. They want it right now. They want everything microwaved. They don't want to crock pot, anything. And so if something doesn't work in about 20 minutes, they want to change it immediately. No, let's just, let's just stick with it a minute. Let's cook it a little bit. It could tender up. I think it's going to be okay. Let's not give up on everything so fast. But iterate, iterate, iterate, iterate. Yeah, well we're going to iterate, but you know, so the old dog can drag them through that stuff and you end up with this wonderful working situation when you're creating products like that.

Bobby Bones (62:32)

When couples are fighting about money does like Amazon purchases, is that a big part of it? They're just like, one of them's ordering a lot of stuff to the.

Dave Ramsey (62:38)

House. You know, generally it's, they don't, they're not working together and there's not a lot of transparency. One of them's doing stuff the other one they know about. They're not necessarily hiding it. Sometimes they are, but. But it's like the wife is handling the money and she just gives her husband an allowance or vice versa. And then all of a sudden they look up and they go, well, I want a new car. Well, honey, we don't have any money for a new car. We got all this credit card debt. Why we got credit card debt? Well, because you keep spending. Well, nobody said anything. And there was just this. It's disorganized, it's chaotic, and it's not a top down strategy for laying it all out together. We both agree to it, we both implement it. And there's tons of communication about our values while we do that. And that causes a couple to be knit together and unified. And the opposite of that is when you have all this chaos, disorganization, and there's money flying everywhere. It's inefficient for the money piece, but it's disastrous from the relationship.

Bobby Bones (63:32)

Standpoint. What about shared checking.

Dave Ramsey (63:36)

Accounts? 100% have to. Yeah. And again, it's data based. Okay. This idea that you can have a roommate and be married to them and you have two separate lives and that causes success. There's no data to support that. Again, go back to the millionaire study we did with 10,167 of them, 89% said, I worked very closely with high communication with my spouse to get here when you interview the public. But 40% say that and they're broke. And so there's causation and correlation right there. There's statistical. And that data is solid. And so the couples that work together have higher quality marriage, higher happiness factor when they're doing marriage surveys, higher likelihood of staying together, and a much more efficient use of the money. So you build wealth faster. It's very simple. Instead of, I've got mine, you got yours, and you can't, you can't. You know, you pay your car payment. It's like, what are you. This is, it's not your college roommate, this is your.

Mark Hoppus (64:42)

Wife. Let's take a quick pause for.

Bobby Bones (64:46)

A message from our sponsor. And we're back on the Bobby cast. One final question. And when I was Asking earlier if like things change because things are changing. Your book, the Total Money Makeover, which I'm assuming has sold so many because it's evergreen. It feels.

Brooks Dunn (65:10)

Evergreen. It.

Dave Ramsey (65:10)

Is. It's still on the bestseller.

Bobby Bones (65:12)

List. But also it. Are you having to expand it because new elements are.

Dave Ramsey (65:17)

Introduced? No, it was principle based. It wasn't product based. And so the. They, you know, live on less than you make. You don't need to expand that. That doesn't change when the digital world takes over. You still gotta live on list you make. So being on a written plan, a budget of some kind, yeah, maybe you're doing it on an app versus a yellow pad, but you still have to have a freaking plan and stick to it. You don't get to Florida unless you have a map. Hello. And so you don't just take off driving and hope you get there. So everything in that book is so principled, based on principles and they're evergreen. And that's why the book has been evergreen. We've updated it. We went back and changed a few of the stories, updated the stats. I think we did a 20 year edition the other day or something. Anniversary edition. Yeah. Cause.

Bobby Bones (66:03)

It'S. I saw that, that's why I.

Dave Ramsey (66:04)

Asked. Yeah, it's over. It's like 15 million copies or.

Bobby Bones (66:07)

Something. That's.

Dave Ramsey (66:08)

Crazy. That's.

Bobby Bones (66:09)

Nuts. That book to me reminds me, and I'll end on this, of Dale Carnegie's book, which I've read many times, because fundamentally, even though that book was written 100 plus years ago, that's all the same. Like you want to win friends, get people to like you, be successful. Like the same fundamentals. Some things have changed with technology, with different people, different abilities, different utilities, but it's the same. And I feel like that book is.

Dave Ramsey (66:31)

That. Exactly, exactly. It's principles of relationships, how to win friends and influence people. And I sat next to a lady at the, I was over at the ballpark watching my, one of my grandkids play ball the other night. And this 22 year old sitting there reading that book. You saw.

Bobby Bones (66:48)

It? You just saw it.

Dave Ramsey (66:49)

Randomly? Yeah, she's just sitting there in the stands reading that book. She was watching her, her little brother or whatever it was out there and she's reading that book. I said, how old are you? And she said, I'm 22. And I said, it's very cool that you're reading that. That book will change your life. And she's like, what? Thank.

Bobby Bones (67:01)

You. Did she know that was you saying that to.

Lionel Richie (67:03)

Her? I don't.

Dave Ramsey (67:04)

Know. I have no.

Bobby Bones (67:04)

Idea. You never said. Because I wrote that.

Dave Ramsey (67:06)

Book. No, no, not mine. Dale.

Bobby Bones (67:07)

Carnegie's. Oh, I thought you were.

Dave Ramsey (67:09)

Talking. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Bobby Bones (67:10)

No. Did you think he was talking about his. No, I knew what he was. Oh, I thought he was talking about his. I was like, you at least should have said I.

Dave Ramsey (67:16)

Wrote. That would be on the front of that one. Yeah, that would be hard to get away.

Mark Hoppus (67:20)

From. Let's take a quick pause for.

Bobby Bones (67:22)

A message from our sponsor. This is the Bobby cast. Brooks and Dunn is on the list at number six. I've been lucky enough to sit down with Brooks and Dunn a couple of times, but this one felt extremely real and raw because they opened up on whether they still like each other and how they've continued to get along even decades after. They also talked about the impact Reba had on them getting back together as a duo. Here's Brooks and Dunn from episode 521. What's the most accidental, random part of all of this success? When you go, holy crap, I can't believe that happened. Because this.

Ronnie Dunn (67:59)

Happened. I think probably the fact that actually in 2000, there was a real good chance we were sick of each other to the point that we were, we were really talking about, we've had enough. You know, we, we were using different producers, whatever, sending files back and forth. We'd kind.

Brooks Dunn (68:22)

Of. I don't think it was sick. You might, you, you might. But to me, and I'm. Pardon me for.

Ronnie Dunn (68:27)

Interrupting. I'm glad to hear you say.

Brooks Dunn (68:28)

That. No, I thought you were sick of me. No, it was all about the music. We were trying to find. We were trying to find. It hit a wall. And we were trying to find something that was a little different, had a little, little more, you know, different twist or, you know, that could punch through. At the time, it wasn't the same old, same old. And I think we just, you know, we were hard headed buttheads. But nothing. I didn't feel any real tension. No, I mean, other than, you.

Ronnie Dunn (68:53)

Know, we've never raised our voices to each other in 35.

Brooks Dunn (68:56)

Years. It was just a search of the right.

Ronnie Dunn (68:59)

Music. We'll turn our back on each other and come back when we're done pouting. But yeah. And Joe Galani came in at that point and said, guys, I just got back to town. Will you make one album for me? And we said, okay. And made what we thought was a pretty good record. He had a song or I guess Ronnie said he might, might have come to him first. I don't know. But whatever the song called, Nothing about yout showed up. And I finished Only in America the night before we were gonna record. And we cut those two songs. Nothing about yout is number one for six weeks after having an album that was basically. Didn't do anything, and Only in America was number one. And in the time, it was a real dark time because of the towers coming down and both.

Brooks Dunn (69:44)

Things. Nothing about you stayed. But I don't remember six, eight weeks, something like.

Ronnie Dunn (69:47)

That. So it just kind of. Everything changed. We're back on it, back in the saddle. Here we go again, you know.

Brooks Dunn (69:54)

Which takes us back to. It's all about the song. And you're right about timing. You know that you're a guru. You've been around this. You've been around a.

Bobby Bones (70:02)

Bit. Still waiting on my time. That's what I'm.

Brooks Dunn (70:03)

Doing. Waiting.

Bobby Bones (70:04)

On. Trying to catch a break.

Brooks Dunn (70:05)

Here. Probably one of the most miraculous things to come out of all this chaos along the way is that here we sit right.

Bobby Bones (70:11)

Now. Why do you say.

Ronnie Dunn (70:12)

That? Because we get to do Bobby Bones. Are you kidding? All this time, it's just, hey, here we.

Bobby Bones (70:19)

Are. Your dream as young children was to work with me. I get.

Ronnie Dunn (70:22)

It. We call it a.

Bobby Bones (70:23)

Pinnacle. It's like my grandma, before she died, my grandma said, be careful on TikTok. And I was like, that hasn't been invented yet.

Brooks Dunn (70:30)

Grandma. My grandmother's just going to. There will. They will come from the. From the woods of Arkansas. A young.

Bobby Bones (70:37)

Man. You will know him by his.

Ronnie Dunn (70:39)

Glasses. No, it's not.

Bobby Bones (70:42)

Buddy.

Brooks Dunn (70:43)

Ollie.

Ronnie Dunn (70:44)

No. Remember.

Bobby Bones (70:44)

Bobby?

Ronnie Dunn (70:45)

This. It's not Buddy. It's.

Bobby Bones (70:47)

Bobby. This room, this space has changed. The walls are a bit different, but there's a recording studio. What happened here with you.

Ronnie Dunn (70:55)

Guys? Brand New Man. Brand New Man's first song and a ton of stuff. So much freaking music history from Good God Almighty from Roger Miller to you could. Merle Haggard, everybody you can think of that's famous in country music. Harlan Howard and all. Just the greatest guitar players, the greatest songwriters, certainly, you know, Curly Putman, Green Green Grass at home, all.

Brooks Dunn (71:20)

Those. This was the most single, most impactful, largest, I mean, publishing company in the.

Ronnie Dunn (71:26)

World. And the studios where everybody demoed that.

Brooks Dunn (71:28)

Stuff.

Bobby Bones (71:29)

Yeah. Was there a respect, a creative respect within yourselves when you're working in a place that has all that.

Brooks Dunn (71:34)

History? Yeah. Yeah. June Carter, like, before I even really came to town, was telling me, she said, you don't need a writing deal first. Here's how we build it. And she said, I'd already been to every publishing company in town. Donna Hilly at the time with Buddy Killen, which owned Sony's time. But Donna was running it, called, and she was the last publisher that we had gone to, called me in Oklahoma and said, would you take, what was it, $600 a week or something, which is a lot of money, as a retainer to write. And he kicks him in here and it's like it just kind of solidified. Oh, man. You come into the biggest professional songwriter.

Lainey Wilson (72:24)

Publishing.

Bobby Bones (72:25)

Yeah. I think the three of us come from similar backgrounds. Rural area, small towns. I'm gonna ask questions. Kind of weird to ask, but do you remember when you became a.

Brooks Dunn (72:35)

Millionaire? I remember asking Kicks on the bus. We got royalty checks, like the same.

Ronnie Dunn (72:41)

Day. Literally came in the mail with two commas on it and a number.

Bobby Bones (72:44)

In front of it, like a page. You had a paper check? Yes.

Ronnie Dunn (72:46)

Absolutely. Nothing more fun than in the mail with a broke on your ass your whole life and, and walking. Paper check, check with two commas on it. You know, excuse me, I need to go talk to a manager. Yeah, might want to go do that, I.

Brooks Dunn (73:01)

Guess. I don't know what I was.

Ronnie Dunn (73:03)

Thinking. Put that in my checking account, though. I got some.

Brooks Dunn (73:05)

Ideas. So we, we get, we get these checks. I opened mine first, I don't know, for whatever, didn't know what it was, and turn up. I said, oh, hey, kicks, I just became a millionaire. And he's like, okay, asshole. And he tears his open. He goes, yeah, me.

Bobby Bones (73:20)

Too. So I'm scared. If I'm holding that paper, you gotta sign the back of it, then get it to a.

Brooks Dunn (73:27)

Bank. I did it. I did it in Brentwood. I said, it's the first time and probably the last time I walked in a bank to do that. And I said, I just gotta see what they do, you know, If I hand the teller a million dollar check. And I handed it to her and she's looking down, doing something. She looked over me, she goes, okay. She said, you need to sign this. Sign it back, sweetie. So I signed it, and away it went. And then she hands me a receipt. And I went home and told Janine lived right down the road. I told her, I said, I went in there and put a million dollars in the bank. She said, she didn't act like I was even there. What do you gotta.

Bobby Bones (74:04)

Do? Everybody does it, I.

Brooks Dunn (74:06)

Guess. Billy Ray Sars had just been in there with breaking heart for 12 million or.

Lionel Richie (74:09)

Something. I don't.

Mark Hoppus (74:09)

Know.

Bobby Bones (74:10)

Know. That's.

Ronnie Dunn (74:11)

Fun. I.

Bobby Bones (74:12)

Have. This is the this is the original acm. So is this the one you guys got first? This is a style. Bring back any memories at.

Brooks Dunn (74:27)

All? Yeah, oh, yeah, A lot of. A lot of.

Ronnie Dunn (74:30)

Memories. The fun thing was you got to take them with.

Bobby Bones (74:32)

You. No.

Ronnie Dunn (74:33)

Way. Oh.

Brooks Dunn (74:34)

Yeah. No.

Bobby Bones (74:34)

Way.

Brooks Dunn (74:34)

We. We had to worry about packing them in your bag, you know, to fly out with them from.

Bobby Bones (74:39)

La. It takes like eight weeks to get them in the mail.

Ronnie Dunn (74:41)

Now. I remember waking up with a slight hangover after that night. You're talking about when we won two of them and going, oh, man, are those things. Did I make it home with those things? Sure enough. They were sitting on a bedside table. I know. Thank God, because I didn't really remember a lot of what.

Brooks Dunn (75:00)

Happened. A few of them got back. Little slight.

Ronnie Dunn (75:02)

Beans. Yeah. Some of them are kind of banged up pretty.

Brooks Dunn (75:05)

Much.

Bobby Bones (75:05)

Good. Went to the Country Music hall of Fame and saw all them together. I mean, it's like you're walking into a frigging jewelry store. Where were they before you allowed them to hold them? Like, where did you keep them.

Brooks Dunn (75:19)

All? Just. I just sent them home with Janine and half the time we get on the bus or plane and you probably send yours with.

Ronnie Dunn (75:27)

Barbara. Where are they stored is what.

Bobby Bones (75:29)

You'Re. I don't know. There's so many. Do you store them? Do you put some on the toilet? Do you put like. I had them.

Ronnie Dunn (75:34)

Everywhere. I got a home theater, you know, at home, and it's got. It's kind of set up when I built it. Just kind of had, you know, shelves with lighting and.

Bobby Bones (75:41)

Stuff. But all them are, all them are just.

Ronnie Dunn (75:44)

There. They're just kind of collecting.

Brooks Dunn (75:46)

Dust. Studio. They kind of. They were all over the place, but they're just scattered all over, over, you know, that's. That's the.

Bobby Bones (75:53)

Change. That's the.

Brooks Dunn (75:54)

Change.

Bobby Bones (75:55)

Yeah. You know what I mean? Right. But I have a bunch myself. You know, I just whatever. For different reasons. For being good looking. Yes, thank you. It took me a minute to catch the cowboy hat. Just a minute.

Brooks Dunn (76:07)

Though. That's.

Bobby Bones (76:10)

Art. Did you know that was a cowboy.

Brooks Dunn (76:11)

Hat?

Bobby Bones (76:11)

Yeah. Okay, never mind. Back then I thought I like discovered something a few years ago and apparently everybody already knew that was.

Lionel Richie (76:18)

That. Did you see that cowboy.

Dave Ramsey (76:21)

Hat? I know.

Ronnie Dunn (76:22)

Yeah. I thought it was a.

Brooks Dunn (76:23)

Seagull.

Bobby Bones (76:24)

Smart. Couple ACM questions as we're getting into it. When you get up and you win your award, do you have prepared who you're going to think and who's going to say who you're going to think? Is that.

Brooks Dunn (76:35)

Even. No, it's one of my biggest regrets. I think it's like I'll get up there and stumble around. You always come in with like a good, good line and I should just do what I'm gonna do. Get out of your.

Ronnie Dunn (76:45)

Way. Not.

Brooks Dunn (76:46)

True. And yeah, I never think about. I just think it's superstitious, bad luck. Don't expect it. You know, you're setting yourself.

Bobby Bones (76:57)

Up. Did you feel that way with music.

Brooks Dunn (76:59)

Though? Superstitious in what.

Bobby Bones (77:01)

Way? I don't know. Songs are number three. Do you talk about it being number.

Brooks Dunn (77:04)

One? Oh, yeah, yeah, selectively. You radio guys were, of course, caused a lot of.

Bobby Bones (77:10)

Anxiety. Don't combine me with words. Don't combine me with any of that. Like, I have nothing to do with.

Brooks Dunn (77:16)

That. No, that's the one thing. Finally I just had to turn that off. You know, buddies jump up on the bus, they were co writers or something and go, hey, man, that song is the top five right now. It's like, I don't know what it's.

Ronnie Dunn (77:25)

Like. There's so many charts. If you look at the right one, it's number one somewhere. If it makes it to two or three, it's number one.

Bobby Bones (77:32)

Somewhere. I want to ask you about Entertainer of the Year because you got it three times now. You don't see any non singular artist win Entertainer of the Year. You guys want it back to back years and then again like a few years later. And I met. Mostly want to talk about the first time and the last time, but let's do the first time they call your name as Entertainer of the Year. What did that feel.

Brooks Dunn (77:56)

Like? Big, big boom. Big.

Bobby Bones (77:59)

Shock. Was it a.

Brooks Dunn (78:01)

Shock? Yeah, big.

Ronnie Dunn (78:02)

Shock. I mean, you're, you know, I don't remember who else, but I know.

Brooks Dunn (78:06)

Garth was in there front and center, sitting right there. You know, I just gone out and romped on the world and.

Ronnie Dunn (78:13)

We. And Alan was generally in there.

Brooks Dunn (78:16)

And. But I can remember looking directly when I got up there a second I did. And Garth talked about it too. He said we made eye contact and I was like, I went up there and went like an oaf, whatever that means. And I went, sorry, man, I'm sorry. We're going to take.

Bobby Bones (78:37)

It. Anyway, let's talk about the third time that you won because there was a few gap years in between. You go bang, bang, back to back years. Me, my brain. I would go, well, I didn't win the last few. I'm kind of over. That's what I would be thinking when it came to that. I Wonder with you guys, you won. Did you think your minute at that, that part was.

Brooks Dunn (78:58)

Over?

Ronnie Dunn (78:58)

Yeah. And I think it. That it's sort of like the one we won.

Brooks Dunn (79:06)

Recently.

Ronnie Dunn (79:09)

It. It's. You feel like you kind of deserved it, maybe. You know, we never have. I mean, we've always been scared and we've always. I feel like we're. We're really both pretty damn humble at heart, though. You've got to have some. Gotta have some confidence about what you're doing. But entertainer, you know, it's like when you win it, it's like, okay, was that. Was that a pat on the back or what? Or what? You know. But then the third time, after a couple of years, it's.

Lionel Richie (79:37)

Like.

Ronnie Dunn (79:39)

Maybe. Maybe that's the one. They're going, okay, you're for real dada. Get out of.

Bobby Bones (79:44)

Here. Yeah, that's just one.

Ronnie Dunn (79:47)

Song.

Bobby Bones (79:48)

Yeah. Play them out.

Lainey Wilson (79:49)

Boys. That's.

Brooks Dunn (79:50)

It. That's it. You'll entertain now we've taken care of.

Bobby Bones (79:54)

You. Let's talk about Reba. How did that relationship become so.

Brooks Dunn (79:59)

Strong? There were. When we first started, went out early 90s, 91, 92, whatever. There were only, I think, five major tours out there, so it would be straight Garth Vince open for her. Was it be Allen and Reba? Yeah, but we're all up in Alabama. Alabama, yeah. And we got. We got picked up by to open. It'll be the. The first act of three by. By Rebus Camp. And you get what I think.

Bobby Bones (80:35)

Maybe 20 minutes and a small part of the.

Brooks Dunn (80:37)

Stage. That's it. She even talked about it. She came back and said, you know, when I first started, I was opening for Charlie Daniels. And he said, I. I wore high heels and there was just greats right there. I had to walk through on my toes the whole time. But so, yeah, I mean, she just kind of. They. She and Narval, that bunch of kind of, you know, dragged us, drug us along for a.

Ronnie Dunn (80:59)

While. I'll tell you what was cool though, when we started hitting a lick, you know, our first couple of songs took off and whatever, and we were out there and we were. Had a fairly extended deal with them. And Narbo came in the dressing room one night and said, guys, y' all are going to be around for a while and we don't want you to hate us. And anyway, they doubled what they were paying us at the time. I won't say what that was.

Bobby Bones (81:23)

But it was like, what, a.

Ronnie Dunn (81:25)

Million? That record company gave us that one. But anyway, it was pretty cool that they said you know, we just, you know, you guys are legit. And we definitely got a good deal on it, too. Good of a deal. So, you know, here's a little.

Brooks Dunn (81:45)

Kiss. That's a class move.

Bobby Bones (81:47)

Yeah. What's the human Reba.

Brooks Dunn (81:48)

Like? She's a lot like what you.

Bobby Bones (81:52)

See. She.

Brooks Dunn (81:53)

Is. There's not a lot of people that's pretty much Reba. I mean, she's a cowgirl. She never sits still. Her mother calls her that. She's bouncing her. She just doesn't stop. She's relentless at what she.

Ronnie Dunn (82:08)

Does. You know, she's funny, too, and loves to play board games. I mean, literally, we're in Vegas, you know, on top of the stage, waving at the crowd, goodbye on their feet, whatever. As soon as that curtain comes together, she goes, y' all want to play Ruby Cube tonight? Okay, so. Because she knows she plays it every night. So you can half ass play Ruby Cube unless you're. Something's wrong with.

Brooks Dunn (82:31)

It. It's like Trivial Pursuit when you play it 50,000 times and you owe all the answers. It's like, long day for the other side of the.

Bobby Bones (82:37)

Table. I want to ask you about two legacies, and I'm going to wrap this up. The Brooks and Dunn legacy. What's it going to be? What did you want it to.

Brooks Dunn (82:45)

Be? A series of good songs, lasting songs that are classics that you can listen to. You know, we all used to say that. Use the word longevity, you know, but just that kind of the music. Let the music define you. You know, there's. There's. I mean, we work on image and stuff like that just as crazy as anybody. You know, we took everything west of Mississippi, went to the desert, you know, chased all that, that look. But at the. At the end of the day, it's just the songs flat out is.

Ronnie Dunn (83:19)

You know, the thing that's craziest to me at this point with sort of this. Here we go again. You know, And I've said it, for lack of a better description, when people go, what do you think's happening with you guys right now? You know, you're selling everything out. It really feels like. Because I didn't find Willie Nelson till I was in college, when he'd already had a really cool career in Nashville and written a lot of classic songs that are still there. I didn't know. I hadn't heard, really heard of Willie Nelson. I like Merle Haggard and George Jones, But I was real close to the Willie picnics when him and Waylon came, went and kicked the door down. I'M like, that was. We're taking road trips down to Austin and getting in the middle of it with another 40,000 drunks going, this is the funnest stuff in the world. And that guy is so freaking cool. Not to compare us or our music to Willie and Waylon in any way other than. I think a young group of music listeners found him and thought that was cool and started sharing that, you know, And I think it's just. It's really. It feels great that I look out in the audience and every night go, how many of y' all are at your first Brooks and Dunn show? And watching those hands go up.

Brooks Dunn (84:38)

Night before lunch, Was it night before last? Yeah, we're at the Houston Rodeo. 71,000, 136 people. Because we're all always competing to who has the biggest crowd on the rodeo. And so you ask them in the middle of the show, he goes, how many of you. Is this your first Brooks and Dunn show? And this is Houston Rodeo? We've been there, like, in the hall of Fame there. And I swear, the whole place erupted. It was like, what? I mean.

Bobby Bones (85:08)

What? And that's the legacy that you wanted. The legacy. And you get to live it now, which is so.

Brooks Dunn (85:14)

Rare. Yeah, that's.

Ronnie Dunn (85:16)

It. I think the legacy is what Ronnie was saying, because every year we did the craziest stuff we could think of on stage, you know, inspired by ZZ Top and a lot of rock bands that we're doing. Garth picked up on that, too. But, man, a lot of things that we stole from rock bands that had done this, from the Stones to ZZ Top, stuff I'd seen coming up going, oh, we ought to do something like. And I won't even get into all that, but just. We tore up stuff and just spent all this money just to see how freaking crazy we could be on stage in terms of sets and things we could do. Ronnie was always somewhat reserved, thank God, or, you know, we'd have lost. Completely lost our minds. But I really enjoyed that part of it. And at the same time, with all the stupid clothes I was wearing and coming up with and all that, the fact that now I don't hear anybody talking about it. It's like we had these giant inflatable women that took four crew guys behind, shaking them on stage, because I'd seen the Stones do that, it's the coolest thing I ever saw. Us, probably not so much, but we did.

Brooks Dunn (86:23)

It. Well, that was a result. All this crazy stuff was a result of, like you said earlier, country. Country, like it got to that rock status level. You know, we would play Friday night, Aerosmith would play, you know, Chicago. We'd play right behind him next night. So you're coming in, you know, you got to go. We need a few more trucks with.

Bobby Bones (86:44)

Stuff. Okay. That was part one of the top ten Bobby cast of 2025. We're coming back soon with the top five, so thank you guys for subscribing. And if for some reason you stumbled upon this and you're not a subscriber, go hit subscribe. As you can see, I feel pretty good. We do a lot of big interviews, so subscribe. If you like this episode, share it on your Instagram story. That would help us as well. Hope you guys have a great week. Thanks for listening to a Bobbycast production. This is an Iheart podcast. Guaranteed.