Edwin McCain: The Song That Saved His Career & The Story He Can Finally Tell

Summary

Summary of "Edwin McCain: The Song That Saved His Career & The Story He Can Finally Tell"

Episode Release Date: April 16, 2025
Podcast: The Dale Jr. Download
Host: Dale Earnhardt Jr.

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of The Dale Jr. Download, host Dale Earnhardt Jr. sits down with renowned musician Edwin McCain to delve into McCain's remarkable journey in the music industry. The conversation navigates through McCain's early life, his struggles with addiction, the creation of his breakthrough song "I'll Be," and his inspiring comeback with a new album after a 15-year hiatus.

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Early Life and Adoption

Edwin McCain opens up about his early years, revealing that he was born in Greenville, South Carolina, and was adopted at five months old after spending initial months in an orphanage. Despite having access to information about his biological parents stored in a lockbox by his adoptive father, McCain chose not to explore it.

Edwin McCain [08:04]: "That's all I know."

He reflects on the heroic decision of his birth mother, a teenager, to give him up for adoption, emphasizing respect and understanding over curiosity.

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Musical Beginnings

McCain discusses his early passion for music, sparked at age seven after listening to Earth, Wind & Fire. Despite struggling with dyslexia and academic challenges, he found solace and expression in singing and playing instruments by ear.

Edwin McCain [22:17]: "It was easy just to... everybody back then played sports. It was between sports and singing and doing theater stuff."

His involvement in church choir, school bands, and local gigs laid the foundation for his musical career. He recounts the inventive ways he generated a unique image for his band, such as using corneal scratch strips to create glowing eyes under black lights, which fueled rumors that garnered attention.

Edwin McCain [24:57]: "I can learn it by reverse engineering it from singing it."

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Rise to Fame and Struggles with Addiction

McCain's ascent in the music industry is closely tied to the success of his peers, particularly Hootie & the Blowfish and Dave Matthews Band. As his career soared, so did the pressures and temptations that led to his battle with addiction. The demanding tour schedules, combined with a culture of heavy drinking and partying, exacerbated his struggles.

Edwin McCain [76:34]: "I sort of always thought that, you know, and I, I, it was my, my own doing. I never, I couldn't take my foot off the gas and bit in doing the business..."

He candidly shares how his addiction reached a tipping point, leading him to a moment of profound despair where he contemplated suicide. This critical juncture propelled him into rehabilitation, marking the beginning of his path to sobriety and personal transformation.

Edwin McCain [86:25]: "I was like, maybe let's try rehab. And then if that doesn't work, you can do this stupid... and that was the beginning of a big change for me."

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The Song That Saved His Career

Facing the imminent drop from his record label due to underwhelming sales of his first album, McCain penned the heartfelt song "I'll Be." The creation of this pivotal track was a response to both personal turmoil and professional desperation. Drawing from a moment of overheard lyrics, McCain crafted a song that resonated deeply with audiences, eventually becoming one of VH1's greatest love songs of all time.

Edwin McCain [61:07]: "I wrote it on a napkin and I had it in a bag of mine. ... wrote the song that saved it... pulled me out of the nosedive like half court, hook shot at the buzzer."

Despite initial radio resistance, strategic promotion efforts, including placement in the finale of Dawson's Creek, propelled the song to widespread acclaim, ensuring McCain's survival in the competitive music industry.

Edwin McCain [67:04]: "Sales went from, you know, 1800 a week to 18,000. And off we went."

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Comeback and New Album "Lucky"

After a prolonged absence from the mainstream music scene to focus on family and personal well-being, McCain returned with his first album in 15 years, titled "Lucky." This album represents not only a musical comeback but also a testament to his resilience and growth. McCain's approach to songwriting evolved, emphasizing authenticity and emotional depth over commercial formulas.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [98:40]: "It sounds like a little celebration of that and how appreciative you are of the fortune you have today."

The reception to "Lucky" has been overwhelmingly positive, with audiences embracing McCain's return and his new material, affirming his enduring legacy and the impact of his earlier work.

Edwin McCain [102:54]: "It's been great. ... I'm glad the reception has been really cool and kind."

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Personal Reflections and Growth

Throughout the conversation, McCain reflects on his personal journey, highlighting the importance of self-awareness, mindfulness, and the support systems that facilitated his recovery. He discusses the challenges of maintaining sobriety in an industry rife with temptations and the continual effort required to balance personal well-being with professional obligations.

Edwin McCain [86:20]: "I took a lot of anxiety out of my existence to see you do that, because I was like, there's justice in that moment."

McCain also emphasizes the significance of his family, particularly his role as a father, and how his experiences have shaped his approach to life and music.

Edwin McCain [97:20]: "I wanted my kids... to see ... I'm going to go out here and leave it all out on the field."

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Conclusion

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Edwin McCain wrap up their heartfelt discussion by acknowledging McCain's incredible resilience and the inspiring nature of his story. McCain's transparency about his struggles and triumphs serves as a beacon of hope and motivation for listeners facing their own challenges.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. [109:51]: "It's a remarkable and should be celebrated. ... I'm glad you're out having fun. I'm glad you're making another run at it."

The episode concludes with mutual appreciation, underscoring the profound impact of McCain's journey both personally and within the broader community.

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Notable Quotes

• Dale Earnhardt Jr. [00:32]: "If you've been having your McDonald's sausage McMuffin with an iced coffee from somewhere else, now is a great time to reconsider." (Advertisement)

• Edwin McCain [07:07]: "I was, I was sitting on the back of the boat going holy moly. And I knew I was a little confused about..."

• Edwin McCain [61:07]: "I'll be better when I'm older was sort of like, God, I hope, I hope I can be better."

• Edwin McCain [86:25]: "I was like, maybe let's try rehab. And then if that doesn't work, you can do this stupid..."

• Edwin McCain [97:20]: "I wanted my kids, you know, they're at that age where I wanted them to see, you know, I'm going to go out here and leave it all out on the field."

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This episode offers a profound exploration of Edwin McCain's life, showcasing his talent, vulnerability, and unwavering spirit. It's a testament to the power of resilience and the human capacity to overcome adversity, making it a must-listen for fans and anyone seeking inspiration.

Transcript

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Edwin McCain]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. All right, so it's going to be pretty exciting to talk to our next Next guest, Edwin McCain. Edwin is an old friend and has, you know, certainly been a NASCAR fan but also a friend of a lot of people in the industry for, for decades. And he was amazing and incredibly popular as a musician years ago and remained so, continued to tour. He also had some tough moments in his life with alcohol and so forth. And, and we may talk about that. We'll see how far into the conversation he wants to go there. But when we, we ran into each other about six months ago and he said, hey, I would like to come on the show. He likes the show. He likes what we're doing. And I said, hey, I would love to have you on the show, but for me, your story is about a comeback. So he's got a new record out, first record in the last 15 years, new music. He's, he's been touring but now he's out trying to push new material. It's a, he's Motivated, and it's a challenge. And I said I want to. I want to hear all about that, of course. And I want to celebrate your new. Your new record, Lucky. But I also want to. I want to hear about how far down you went and help us really appreciate the hard work it took to become who you are today. I love those stories because it inspires me. And if it's inspiring me, I can imagine it's inspiring you. And we all need to be inspired. We all need to be motivated and reminded, you know, about good and bad and how we need to operate every day. And so I think his story not only is gonna be cool to hear from a guy who's. Who's lived. Lived the life, right? Seen the success, and been in the. Been in the big machine that is the music industry, but he survived it and has came out of it a better man. And. And it was a close call. And so I'm excited to hear about this. Let's bring Edwin McCain into the room.

[Edwin McCain]

There he is.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How's it going?

[Edwin McCain]

What do you think? I think it's awesome, man.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, this room's something.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

People walk in here, and they're like, oh, hell, no.

[Edwin McCain]

The whole thing is cool, right? Like, the whole way in. I'm like, man, this is the epicenter. I've never. I think I. I was over here a long time ago, but this is the section of town where you can get stuff done. I'm just trying to raise teenagers.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Edwin McCain]

It's challenging.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes. How old are they?

[Edwin McCain]

19, 18 and 15.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, the 15's gotta be tough.

[Edwin McCain]

No, she's the best one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh.

[Edwin McCain]

I mean. Yeah, That's a joke, kids. No, she's. No, I mean it. I don't know how it was for you, but I was unsupervised as a child, you know, and we were just. We just figured it out. You know, we lit ourselves on fire and made jumps and ramps, and, you know, we learned about gravity the hard way, and our kids had a completely different experience. So I want.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I can't wait to talk to you about that. You've been a friend of the NASCAR community.

[Edwin McCain]

We were talking about that out in the thing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Right. And. And so how did that. I guess. How did that get started? How did you get introduced?

[Edwin McCain]

Michael Waltrip.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. He came to a show.

[Edwin McCain]

No, I. So. So this got. I. You know, it was kind of all the things were happening, and I. Hey, you got hired to play this private event at somebody's house, and it's a famous NASCAR driver. And they said. And I was like, who? And they said, michael Waltrip. And then I, Like, I'm so add. I immediately forgot it was Michael. And I was telling everybody, darrell.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Darrell. Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And then they literally flew a helicopter to Greenville and picked me up and took me to play this gig. And I was like, what are they? Like, they have helicopters in this sport? Like, they. Look, everybody's like. I mean, I was like, okay. And so I literally just got plopped down in the middle of nascar, and admittedly, I didn't know a thing about it. And everybody was awesome. Everybody. And we all had the greatest time. And then the next thing you know, I was playing gigs for the Frances. And I don't even know if I even told you this, but Brian France used to just call me and go, where are you? I'm like, I'm at home. Go to the airport. Okay. And I'd go to the airport, and the jet would show up and I'd get in it, and they'd go. I'd go, where are we going? Well, to the Turks and Caicos. And you're going to. We're going to put you on a little boat and carry you out to the yachts, and you're going to sit on the back and play for your dad, Mr. Penske, the Francis, and a bunch of other people. And I play for 45 minutes, and they put me back on the little boat and they put me in the plane. Well, no, I think that was kind of part of the reason why I was in a lot of the NASCAR stuff, because I wasn't in everybody's grill.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

You know what I mean?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn Turks and Caicos.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. Well, no, but. But I was, you know, at the time, I was running and gunning, so. But I think part of that is. Is, I mean, you know how it is. Like, there's. You need time with your group of friends. And as much as I feel like I could probably be friends with anybody, I also understand that, you know, you made a plan to be with your friends, and, you know, I hear you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's pretty badass, though.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah, it was amazing. It was amazing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But that was right in the middle of all of the hype and the fame, and your whole life just exploded. Yeah, I want to get to that. So, first off. All right, so you mentioned it. Greenville, South Carolina. You were born there.

[Edwin McCain]

Born. Put up for adoption, was in an orphanage until five months, and then adopted.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What do you know about all that?

[Edwin McCain]

That's all I know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Still today.

[Edwin McCain]

Still today. And what's Funny about that is my dad. All the information is in a lockbox in his closet, and I've had access to it my whole life, and I've never opened it up and looked at it at all.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right. That's heavy.

[Edwin McCain]

I don't think so. The way I always thought about it is whoever my birth mother is made a heroic decision for a teenager to put me up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do you know how old she was?

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. She was a teenager to put me up for adoption. And the only reason I would want to know any of the information is out of curiosity.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure.

[Edwin McCain]

And I don't think curiosity is a good enough reason to go flip. Flip all that upside down.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Have you been asked about that a bunch?

[Edwin McCain]

Not really.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

From your family or. Nobody pings you on that?

[Edwin McCain]

Not really. I mean, I know I have an adopted son.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

This is absolutely the kind of we talk about on this show.

[Edwin McCain]

I know. And I love yours. So I watch. I'm a fan of your podcast. And I was like, I'm gonna be one of those guys that goes, I'm gonna be on your podcast. Cause I love the conversations that you're having, because I feel like this is the. This is the premium everybody's finally coming around to. Authenticity is most important.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And. And the exchanges are most important. Like, we've done the marketing. We don't need to do that anymore.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

I love these conversations.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you don't. You know where the information is, but you're. You're. And no one can understand how that feels but you. And so I won't try, but I would imagine that at some point in my life, I would want to just know the truth.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. I mean, I know enough of the truth to know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know enough.

[Edwin McCain]

No. Yeah. To also employ the acceptance.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Would that knowledge change something?

[Edwin McCain]

Not for me now, but I will say this. And over the years, it's weird how adopted people kind of know. End up knowing each other. And so I've. I've met so many people over the years that are adopted that have gone down that road and it wasn't. And it almost never works out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Same.

[Edwin McCain]

Because there's too much expectation placed on flawed human beings.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

That's a hard thing. It's kind of like, don't meet your heroes. Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure.

[Edwin McCain]

Right. That's a hard thing to put on people for.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure. Yeah. What about near the end of life? So, like, when my mother was in her final few days or few weeks, we asked her some pointed questions about her marriage to dad, and we just wanted to know anything. And Everything that might be unsaid, you know, now that we were. Now that she was in this moment in her life, maybe there was something that she was like, okay, it's time for y'all to know. Do you think about it like that at all? Like, for you?

[Edwin McCain]

No. What did she say?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Nothing.

[Edwin McCain]

I mean, she have any profound things to say?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

She did. She said when. So we always wondered about their dynamic of their marriage, you know, and it was only. They were married from, I don't know, 72 to 78. And the story had been told mainly from dad's point of view because we were. I was six when I left my mom and went to live with dad. And so they. His point of view was you. Your mom was really materialistic. And so, you know, she wanted. You know, she wanted a nice couch and a nice car. And that was problematic, but mom's point of view was your dad wanted to spend every dime on the car. And we would eat bologna sandwiches.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah, we needed a couch.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We didn't have gas. Yeah, we didn't have gas to. You know, we didn't have gas or whatever. They used to have these. We lived in a double wide trailer or a single wide trailer. And they had this big gas tank on the end that they fill it up with whatever to burn the house, heat the house. And he would, like, spend. You know how me and you would drive around when we're 16 and put like $5 in our car instead of a full tank. Like, that's how he did the tank.

[Edwin McCain]

He'd partially pay for the.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Here's five bucks. Here's five more dollars. Here's five more dollars. And never in one day, she's like. It pissed her off because he would take $50, put $5 into heating the house, and spend the other 45 on the race car or whatever. Right. And run around and raise, inhale and drinking and carrying on. One night, he got a lot of money from a race or something and filled that thing full. And then later that night or the next day, came home drunk and hit the hitch of the trailer with the truck. And the trailer hit the trailer, backed into the tank and knocked that tank over. And all that went all over the ground. So she told us stories like that basically to help us. She wanted to protect our image of dad all our lives.

[Edwin McCain]

Sure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And then at the end, she was like, look, you know, being married to him had its challenges, and he was. He didn't have his together.

[Edwin McCain]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, and so that was. And it was. I mean, you know, he's not here to defend himself. But also he's not here to tell that truth. His truth. But so it was good to know.

[Edwin McCain]

Well, there's mythology built up around your dad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Crazy.

[Edwin McCain]

Like unbelievable. I mean, I know. I mean I, I was, I was sitting on the back of the boat going holy moly. And he was always extremely nice and he always spoke and. But still, I mean, everybody went.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So to hear how in the 70s, when he was not famous, when he was not rich, he was flawed and imperfect and we knew that he was very selfish. And like I'm doing, I'm gonna sacrifice everything to make it right. We knew that and we celebrated that a lot. But it was interesting to hear it from her perspective of how frustrating that was.

[Edwin McCain]

At the same time, she's trying to raise kids.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah. And so. Yeah. But getting back to your story, you're adopted at five months, right? And so I guess. What is your earliest childhood memory?

[Edwin McCain]

I don't, I'm not sure. But my father always had a Super 8 video camera and it was a couple of years ago. My dad is such an enigma. He was a town pediatrician and everybody loves him and he just, he just randomly goes, you know, I found the footage of when they brought you to our house and I put it on a dvd and we were at my in laws house in front of a bunch of people and I was like, wait, we're doing this now, like right here. And he was like, yeah, let's watch it. And I was like, okay. And so you gotta picture this. It's my mom and my sister and my dad. My sister was, was natural birth. And so here comes this guy pulling up in a blue Ford Fairlane. This is 1970. He's got a short sleeve button down shirt with a big wide polyester tie. I'm just sitting in the front seat, the bench seat next to him in a diaper.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Damn.

[Edwin McCain]

With nothing else on, no seat belts, nothing. And he pulls up in the driveway, scrapes me off the seat, walks over to him like, here's your pizza. And turns around, gets back in the car and leaves it. They didn't even say anything. It's the funniest. It is the most 1970s thing I've ever seen in my life. And so I couldn't help but laugh in that moment. But I was like, God, that was, that was amazing. When were you going to show me that photo? Show me this stuff? Right? But he, you know that. So that's a memory. But I don't remember that moment. But I was always. From the beginning, they told me I was adopted. So I.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You knew that at a very early time.

[Edwin McCain]

As long as I could. As soon as I could understand the concept of it. And I had tons of friends in grade school growing up. Half my class was adopted. I mean, everybody there was so many adopted kids. And so we just didn't even. Nobody even thought about it. Right. But that was just part of the drill. But I went through the exact same thing you're talking about with my mom. She passed right before COVID but starting in 1985, she got cancer. And she had five different kinds of cancer. And she outpaced it all the way to 2020. Right. Crazy. Just outlived all the diagnosis. She was just, like, too mean. She just wasn't going down that way. Right. And as a result, she. You know, the. Her cancer doctor, this poor man, she was so tough on him because he would. You know, it would come back, and he'd have to do a surgery. And I remember one time she looked at him in the. We were doing the consult, and she goes, hey, if you get in there and it looks bad, just nick an artery and let's just get it over with. And he looks at me like, what? And I go, just do what the lady says, because we're all terrified of her, but because she was like that, when he would diagnose new people with cancer, he would have them call her, and she would give them the Arlie Ermey speech. Like, you know, you just gotta get mean. We gotta fight this. No time for this other stuff. We're gonna. And so, as a result, she was kind of a hero in the cancer community around Greenville, and everybody loves her. And she was real quirky and funny, and you remember. You ever see steel magnolias, Ms. Weezer? That was my mom. Oh, yeah, that's my mom. Anyway, like, she got pulled over in Greenville, got a ticket that she didn't think was fair, and then she spent the next decade flipping off every cop she saw in Greenville. And my cop friends would be. Saw your mom the other day, I was like, she flip you off? Yeah, yeah. She's pretty pissed at you guys, you know?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And. But so the last time she came back, she's like, I'm not doing chemo anymore, you know? And they all lined up and kind of gave her a farewell. And dad was getting the car, and she goes, hey, I need a favor. I want you to help me with a bucket list thing. I was like, okay, I want to take it. I want to fly A helicopter around the mountain that I've lived on my whole life. I was like, surely I'll be able to drum up a helicopter. I'll figure that out. So I called around, I was looking for a helicopter with a jet engine. I want a big helicopter. Like, let's get a helicopter. Helicopter. And I couldn't find one for the time frame. So we got into a Robinson R44 with my dad, my mom, and took a piston powered helicopter ride. And I was, the whole time I was like, I am rolling the dice here. I'm really tempted fate here with my mama filling a bucket list item. And we did all that and then we had a long ride out where I got to read to her, you know, all the books she read to me and, and have the, you know, the conversations because she had a really hard time coming up because she had to take care of all her siblings. And that generation, like your mom's generation, man, that was a different, they, you know, they, they were expected to shoulder a burden at 10 years old.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

You know, get to work. Let's, this is what we're, you know, we, I think back to my child, I was like, man, we didn't have, you know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And our childhood was a hundred times crazier than my kids have it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, I should have, I had one chore.

[Edwin McCain]

Right?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

I mean, I think back to that. So I think it, it's lucky to be able to have that time with your loved ones on the way out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

Like I'm, you know, for sure.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Describe your, your childhood growing up. You, you feel like that you struggled as a student.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah, I was dyslexic. I couldn't read. I, I, I was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How did you become, how did that work as a musician?

[Edwin McCain]

Well, so, and like a lot of kids, church choir is like Southern daycare, you know what I mean? Like, that's just free child care. So you get stuck in church choir. And I could actually sing and I was having such a hard time in school because, you know, if you can't read and you write backwards and you know, and in the, in the 70s, they didn't know what that was like, they just, you know, that was problem and, and I was good at singing and everybody seemed to like it when I was singing. So, and you know, this, like, whatever you're good at when you're a kid and the adults seem to respond to, that's what we're doing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And, and that just made sense. So it was easy just to, and you know, everybody back Then played sports. And we were always playing. We were on a team of something or other. So it was between sports and singing and being. Doing theater stuff. Theater, yeah, doing little children's theater stuff, you know, full on. That was the direction. But I went on and I started playing in high school or in bands in middle school. And what would happen is normally I could play the fall sports, like I could play football. But then I'd be on academic probation in the spring. By the time spring rolled around, yeah, I was in trouble. And so I would have. I would just be in my band playing gigs. And we would rent the. The National Guard Armory is this big building on the. On the Air force base. And then I would go get staging and PA and lights from this place called Gordon Light and Sound. And all the guys from Jackal worked there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh no.

[Edwin McCain]

And you had to run the g. You had to run the gauntlet to go in there because they were, they were like the hair metal guys. And I was like this 15 year old kid coming in and they would give me a bunch of crap, you know, and I. And we'd set up a big show out there and charge kids, you know, three bucks and we, we'd have kegs and you know, and kids from.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How old were you around this time?

[Edwin McCain]

15, 16. And we have kids from five high schools there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And we would.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sounds like Dazed and Confused.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah, no, we'd make thousands of dollars. I mean we were making money, you know, as a. In high. Playing cover songs and stuff. And that was when I realized. That was when I learned the, the power of the rumor. My dad used to, because he was a pediatrician, used to have this stuff called Flora Tab that they used to see corneal scratches with black light made your eyes glow. And so I would steal these strips from his office and then I dripped it in my eyes and then go on stage with black lights. And it made you look kind of weird because we weren't very good musically. So you had to do something, right? Anything to make it weird. But the funny thing was I was in the bathroom, the public bathroom at the Armory, putting this strips in my eyes. And the rumor went out that I was just putting the acid in my eye, like doing LSD in my eyeballs. And that rumor just like made like I was like instantly the strange. Okay, you gotta go see this band, this crazy guy, you know, whatever.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And yeah, you ran with it.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. Never let, never, never let a. Get in the way of a good rumor. You know, those are handy to have. But my, you Know, my childhood was totally. That was the only struggle was the whole school thing. And I learned pretty quickly that as long as I moved in all the circles, like, I knew I was friends with everybody. Like, I was friends with the computer guys and the, you know, the jocks and the skater kids. And then, you know, and as long as I could move in all the circles, I was cool, man. There was some cover.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And my father was terrified that I was gonna be a musician. He made me promise I wasn't gonna do it when I left. Left home. He woke me up the morning I left, and he was like, I had this terrible dream that you were riding around the country with long hair playing music for a living. Promise me you're never gonna do that. And I was like, oh, because that sound like fun to me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right? How old. How old were you? So first off, I guess you didn't learn how. You didn't learn how to play music. You played by ear because you couldn't. I'm sorry, you couldn't read music.

[Edwin McCain]

No, I can't. I still don't know anything about that. None.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Nothing about it.

[Edwin McCain]

And I learned. And I've learned the. The Nashville number system.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

To where I. I learned it one. My guitar player taught it to me, and I knew it backwards and forwards for a day. And then the next day I woke up and was like, I don't know. I don't know that anymore. And it's weird, like, that kind of stuff. Like, I can remember lyrics, and I learned everything sequentially. And.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But for somebody who doesn't know how to play the guitar. So you can pick a guitar up and you know exactly what to do to get exactly the sound you're looking for.

[Edwin McCain]

I can learn it by reverse engineering it from singing it. So if I know the song and I sing it, I can figure out what the chords are and how to play it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But when you write a brand new song, how are you applying a guitar riff to the lyrics?

[Edwin McCain]

So I'll have an idea for a lyric or a melody in my head, and then I'll go, okay, well, how. Let me dress this up. And I'll try it in four, four time. I'll try it at this tempo. I'll move the tempo way up. I'll try it in 6, 8, tempo. Sometimes I like 6, 8 just as much as 4, 4. So I'll do the first half of the song in 4, 4, and then I'll switch it to 6, 8. Like there's a song on this record, this latest record. We put out called Empire. And I liked both ways so much that I just made an outro in a different time signature because I wanted to just put it all in there at once. And there's no. And there's nothing stopping you. There are no rules to it. I mean, some people would say, like I though I regularly wrote songs without bridges that did, you know, because everybody. There was a kind of a standard formula, you know, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus done. And if that doesn't really serve the idea that you're putting out, then why do that? So I regularly just wrote linear songs that were, you know, straight through. And it works in your favor when. When you have a lot of people who are fans that are sort of novice guitar players, because if you write simple songs, they can learn and play along, right? If you're writing all this really complicated stuff, it's hard for the guitar center guys to play yourself.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What was your musical influences when you were young?

[Edwin McCain]

So all my friends listened to classic rock and I grew up in Greenville and I'm sure it was similar. There's the classic rock station and all they do is play Allman Brothers, Skynyrd, Doors, you know, and I just, I love the Allman Brothers stuff and you know, bad Company and 38 Special were on there. But for me, when I was seven years old, I put on an album. I still tried. It's great. Ready? Record collection. And it was this album by a band called Earth, Wind and Fire. And I put that album on and the first song on that record is a song called Serpentine Fire. And I had the headphones on and the song started and seven year old brain. And I remember thinking, well, people can get together and make this happen. I have to be a part of this somehow. I gotta figure out how to be a part of this. And my mom used to make. She used to tell this story. She used to make fun of me. She said she came home and I was like 7 or 8 and I was listening to her through the fire. I was kind of sad. And she goes, what's wrong with you? I was like, I just put. I just pieced it together. I was like, I'm never gonna be able to be an Earth, Wind and fire because I'm not black. And I was so sad. I just realized, like, wait a minute, what's missing here? And, but, but that band had such a positive message and they were worldwide.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

There was a worldwide movement and it was a positive, inclusive message and it was foundational for me. But then I went from there. And I was always listening to, you know, Luther Vandross, Marvin Gaye. I used to go, I used to make my parents drop me off to see Gap Band, Zap and Roger. And I had to be the only like 10 year old white kid at some of these gigs. Just like freaking out at this. This music was so great. And, and so that was the first part of the musical journey. And then Van Halen showed up, right? And Van, you know, Van Halen, David Lee Roth, like right around 9 or 10, they were the, I mean that was the mightiest band. And those records were, you know, perfect for that era.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What I remember about that particular part was they were insanely popular, Maybe in like 83 to 85, the most popular rock band. But they hadn't had a number one till Jump, you remember, like Hot for Teacher and all those songs never got the do. And then all of a sudden Jump was the one that got them the number one.

[Edwin McCain]

And honestly, I was a little salty about that freaking keyboard song. Yeah, everybody.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Edwin McCain]

But I think one of the things about Van Halen that everybody gravitated towards because it was the first time then that one of our heroes was considered a virtuoso. Like, you know, your parents always make you watch like whatever, Lawrence Welk and it'd be so and so the greatest clarinet player of the world, you know, it was like, this is real music, kids, you know, or, you know, you check Perlman, you know, the violinist. And it was always that, you know, their generation had the virtuosos. And now all of a sudden we had Eddie Van Halen. And I would make my father. I remember one time I sat him down, I was convince him of the greatness. And there was a, there was a, a track on one of the Van Halen records. I think it was on Diver down. It was called Spanish Fly. And Eddie plays like a classical guitar. And I thought my dad will be able to stomach classical guitar, right, because it's this mild sounding because he's not going to listen to all the, you know. But I, I made him sit down and listen to this, this one song to sort of convince him of Eddie Van Halen's validity of being a virtuoso. And he, you know, I remember, I just remember his face. He just, he, he wanted to try to like Van Halen, but he just couldn't. And I remember that moment when my son was trying to make me listen to Drake and I was like, oh my God, this is the moment. I know I want to like this, but I'm just not gonna.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I finally got to that point, too, where I finally reached this point to where I just don't like popular. I don't like today's music. And we kind of started, I don't know, about five years ago, but I was really good at liking anything relatively new up to a point, and then it just stopped happening. And, like, I don't. I don't get it. Like, the sound that I hear, I think we cross.

[Edwin McCain]

You know, you get to a point, you cross the line, and this world isn't really for us anymore, right? Yeah, yeah, it's for them. I just quit trying to. I'm like, all right, you know what? That's for you. That's for you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Country music still has the standard. You know, country music is still in its lane, and. But what I've always. And this is. We're getting in the weeds. But what I always found. I guess what I found interesting is, like, so alternative music comes around in the 90s, right? And we all. I just was obsessed. I couldn't believe it. It was amazing.

[Edwin McCain]

Dude, Nine Inch Nails.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I mean, I changed everything about my life, right? And the way I dressed, the way I thought, and then it just went away. And alternative became something completely different. And that's kind of what's happened. What happens, I guess, in pop music, too, if you go through the decades, like, the 80s had its sound, the 90s had a sound, and now even today has a completely different sound. And I'm just not into the sound that's happening today. It may come back. It may come back to me.

[Edwin McCain]

But I have a theory about why. Because we've gotten so good at editing that they've edited the soul out of everything.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Like, because sounds way produced.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. It's so. It's. They've tried to make everything so perfect that there's nothing interesting about it. There's no. There's no. There's. There's no cliff. There's no ledge. You know, and this is what I was saying about y'all when I was in. You know, I was always doing the NASCAR stuff, and everybody say, what's the story? You know, I had friends that weren't. You know, they're like, what's. What is. What's the deal with. With nascar? I'm like, dude, you realize that these are the. These are the last gladiators on earth. Like, you realize what's happening at this. At these races, right? Like, this is not. This is. And it's. And it's compelling because of that. Right. Because there is. There's a high percentage chance of danger for everybody, and yet everybody's still focused and willing to do it. And I think there was a period of music, especially in the alternative, and I loved Southern California punk music for that reason too, because it didn't have anything to do with money. They weren't pushing an agenda. They were just telling their truth loudly with no, you know, no, you know, everybody can get, you know, they're gonna say what they're gonna say and whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen. And everybody was like, ah, you know, it was, it was a compelling moment. And music used to be like that. And, and, and here's the thing. I mean, Johnny Cash used to be like that. I mean, they were. There was Townes Van Zant was saying things through music that made people uncomfortable. And that's the point. And now it's, you know, it sounds perfect. Yeah, the time is perfect. You know, everybody looks good. It's, you know, there's no, you know, nobody's pushing the edge a little.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, I think I listened to pop, punk and punk rock. And I'm 50 years old and I listen to music that 28 and 25 year old kids are playing. Right. I call them kids. And I like the sound of it because it reminds me of. It's the only thing out there that's even remotely close to what I remember in the 90s is alternative music.

[Edwin McCain]

Who were your favorite alternative bands in the 90s?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In the 90s? Oh, man. I mean, obviously I remember the very moment where I first heard Nevermind. The very first. Yeah, I remember the first. A buddy of mine, I've told this story a couple times, but I was standing, me and a friend were getting ready to go run around in the streets with our car and just go to the mall or something and be idiots. And we were walking out of his house and in the music video came on, he goes, hey, stop. Have you heard this? I was like, nah, I ain't heard it. He's like, you want to hear it? We're gonna stand. And we stood at the doorway of his house and watched that music video. And then we were gonna leave. And I was like, holy. Yeah, this is amazing. There's nothing like this.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. And then we left and hair metal died that day.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

You know, and I, I was like, I was a huge. I was, you know, obviously that was right. My wheelhouse. Twisted Sister and, and Motley Crue.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

We were massive Bon Jovi fans.

[Edwin McCain]

Bon Jovi.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And like, we were all Into. Yeah. Crew and Bon Jovi and all that stuff. And then alternative came. I was a big Sponge fan. I like Sponge.

[Edwin McCain]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They had a couple. They had some. Really. They had a song called Raining and a couple of the songs that weren't, like, single singles, so they. I liked Space Hog. Space Hog was good. That was a little.

[Edwin McCain]

That was on the. Popular.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Popular. Yeah. I kind of like the. I love the. The. The. I love the. The type of. I love that soft, loud, quiet loud method. Right. That Kirby. Kurt Cobain used in all his songs.

[Edwin McCain]

It was like Smashing Pumpkins.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Smashing Pumpkins. I learned how to play the drums to Smashing Pumpkins.

[Edwin McCain]

They made such good records.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, he used to jam me. I had another buddy of mine that was trying to learn how to play a guitar, and me and him would get in my double wide trailer and just make noise, trying to play Smashing Pumpkins, so.

[Edwin McCain]

And you never tried to convince your dad to listen to Smashing Pumpkins, did you?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

No. My mom went through a midlife crisis, and I made her a few CDs that she liked. She bought a yellow Corvette and she was like. It was right around that time, mid-90s. She was like, burn me a. Make me a mixtape. I want all that stuff. Smashing Pumpkins, stolen Table Pilots and all that stuff. I was like, you got it now.

[Edwin McCain]

Was her Corvette standard. Was it?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I think it was regular. She's regular fireman in Virginia. Norfolk, Virginia. So it's kind of a regular Corvette, but she. She kind of dug it. Dad listened to country, but he also listened to. He listened to Black Velvet. Who was that girl that.

[Edwin McCain]

Hang on. If you give me two seconds, I'll.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Think he loved that song.

[Edwin McCain]

Alana Miles.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes. They actually played that during the video of his. He won the championship banquet. Happens. They play a video before he gets on stage and has a speech, and they played that song. He loved that song. And. And he loved Delbert McClinton.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Him and Delaware were pals.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. I'm a Delbert fan.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I never see. That was something I could never get into. Dad had a little record collection. And I remember being in the basement of the lake house, seven, eight years old, and seeing the COVID of Meatloaf. Yeah. I'm like, holy wow. This is. This is pretty wild.

[Edwin McCain]

The artwork was amazing, you know, for that record. And I'm going to get a bunch of hate for this. The artwork was better than the album.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Are you kidding?

[Edwin McCain]

Like, in my mind, I remember. I remember because, I mean, honestly, I get it now, but when I was that age, it was a little too Broadway theatric. The music was it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I love that.

[Edwin McCain]

It's a great record. I like it now. But when I Two out of three ain't bad. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And I was paradise by the Dashboard. Like when he tells her at the end of that song that the frickin world can't end fast enough so I don't have to spend another minute with you. That is like the coldest.

[Edwin McCain]

For a kid to hear.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

They were just making out almost a.

[Edwin McCain]

Whole plate and you don't want to know that. That's the turn it can take.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Edwin McCain]

Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

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[Edwin McCain]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Help me understand how you went from playing in your garage bands and your. Your. You know, how did you. Where did you think you first got noticed? Your talent?

[Edwin McCain]

So this is all the. The real truth to it all. I have you there. Malcolm Gladwell wrote this book called Outliers that sort of puts a spotlight on the importance of timing. And so we had really good timing. But I was in Charleston. I got kicked out of the University of South Carolina after one semester for. I refused to go to this class called University 101 because it was like this stupid class that they. They used to give football players an A. And it was like, here's where the infirmary is. And it was stupid. I was like, I'm not going to that class.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And that was. That cost you your college career.

[Edwin McCain]

And it turns out that was a mandatory class, and I was just too stupid to know that. And I got kicked out. And so anyway, so I ended up in coastal Carolina and I had to get a good grade point average. So I enrolled in a guitar class. I was like, all right, well, I'll pad up this semester with a guitar class. That'll be easy. And turns out the guitar teacher, the guitar professor was this guy named Tom Yoder. And he was a hair. He was a hair metal guy. I thought. I thought we were gonna have some crusty, like, classical music professor, but he was a hair metal, like, shredder guy and really knowledgeable about music. And part of the class was you had to play songs in front of the class. You had to learn and play songs. And so I learned a couple of Jimi Hendrix songs and played. And obviously I didn't play them like that. I was playing acoustic guitar and I was, you know, just doing it your way. My way. And he pulled me aside and said, listen, I know what I'm talking about. I've been doing this a long time. I've been in 100 bands all up and down the east coast. You have to go out and play. You have to go out and get gigs and play. And I was like, what are you talking about, man? I can't. I don't know enough songs to be able to go out and play. It doesn't matter. Start learning songs and go out and play. And he was the one that started pushing me to do it. And I. Back then, you know, no Internet. There's none of that. None of that. So you had to Go to a music store and buy songbooks of songs to play. And back then, you know, it wasn't like there was. They could. There was a songbook to teach you how to play. Jane's Addiction. You just had to learn that, right? So I went and got some songbooks and very quickly realized, like, I'm never going to be able to play the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald because there's 30 chord changes in this and I don't know the chords.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

So I'm going to go and learn the songs I like. And I was listening to, you know, a bunch of Hendrix, you know, Jane's Addiction, just, you know, all that stuff. I started learning songs and then some, you know, the older R B stuff. I could. I could kind of piece it together. So I started doing that. Got to Charleston, was not doing well. I just. I hated college. And so. And I was out partying, and I crashed a car. A friend of mine's car.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Jesus.

[Edwin McCain]

I owed, like, $4,000 on the repairs. So I started cooking pizzas and busking. Throw a guitar case out on the street, open it up, stand out there in the market and just play. I'm just trying to pay this money back, right? The restaurant I was in front of goes. The manager comes out there one day and goes, hey, man, if I paid you 75 bucks and fed you, could you play here three nights a week.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

On the sidewalk or indoors?

[Edwin McCain]

At the restaurant? At the. On the deck, at the restaurant. I dropped out of college the next day. I was like, I'm rich.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And so I didn't. You know, I didn't have a lot of songs. I had, like, 20 songs. But 20 songs was exactly the amount of time people would be sitting on the deck, and then the turnover would happen. And I just play my songs again. And you know what I mean? I just repeat the thing. And it was a perfect place for me to start putting in my 10,000 hours.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What is that supposed to mean?

[Edwin McCain]

So in Malcolm Gladwell's book, his assertion is that to be an expert in any field requires you to put in 10,000 hours of just grinding to learn the craft. It doesn't matter what it is. And at 10,000 hours is when you get the bump up to the next plateau, Right? And you can apply that to any. And so, you know, I was just getting my 10,000 hours in on the job, and I moved to Hilton Head Island. There was a guy named Shannon Tanner that I looked up to, and he helped me get some gigs on Hilton Head. And soon as I Landed in Hilton Head and figured out I could play. I figured out if I did it right, I could play 10 shows a week. I would do three on Saturdays, because Saturdays the Tiki Hut would let me play 12 to 4. Sneakers would let me play 6:30 to 10:30. And then Daddy Zach's would let me play 11 to 2am and every gig was paying me 200 bucks in cash. And I was 18. And I was like, this is the greatest. I mean, I'm a genius. Like, this is amazing. And so I was sitting there just putting in the time, and the crowds at my shows got bigger and bigger and bigger. And Hootie and the Blowfish started coming down to play the rock club in town. And I got to be friends with them. How. So I knew them a little bit. For the one semester I was at Carolina, I knew Mark and Darius because they used to do an open mic night at this place called Muldoons. And I used to go bug them and let me play my one Bad Company song. So I kind of knew them. And they would come see me play at the Tiki Hut and I would go hang out with them. And it, you know, the idea I was like, well, these guys are in a band. They have a band. And I had a couple of guys that played with me, but we weren't a band. We weren't able to be like, in the clubs. And so the sax player was with me. Same sax player that's with me now, 35 years later. And I was like, do you know, because he went to music school, he has, you know, he has a degree. And I was like, do you know any drummers or any bass players? Like, we need to put this band together thing. So we. He. He knew a guy and we went from, you know, making money every gig to basically starving to death in our band. In our band and going. But at the time it was Hootie and Dave Matthews were just kind of starting to pop. And the way everybody did it was you would play fraternity houses and. And you play. You play the fraternities until you got big enough to go to the local club. And. And then. And then the fraternity people would follow you to the club and you just start building followings like that. But we would literally camp out in the Triangle, Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill and just play fraternities until we had enough money to go to Texas. And we'd run out of money. We come back to the Triangle and do it all over again. And that's what everybody did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did you know when you Were that doing it? That. That was the method. Did you know what you were doing?

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. No, we knew. Well, we knew we had to. So. So everybody kind of went the same thing. There was a. There was a company called. I think it was East Coast Entertainment or something. And their specialty was booking college shows. And everybody worked with them. And we all knew that if you could get into the college circuit, then you could cross it over. And everybody kind of followed that method. And Dave Matthews was on the tip of the spear, and Hoodie was right behind him. And we were playing with the Aquarium Rescue Unit and, you know, Colonel Bruce Hampton. And there was a band called Egypt that was big. Another band called Allgood Music Company and the Grapes. And. And we just. It. It was this. We were all like Johnny Quest, Dylan Fence. I'm gonna forget some of them. But we were all really good friends with each other, and everybody helped each other out. We weren't competitive, like, driving and crying, all the bands. So if somebody got into a wreck and their van was wrecked, somebody else would loan a van or loan equipment. So it was really. Everybody was trying to help each other because as far as the music industry, no one paid any attention to Southern bands. They just didn't. It just wasn't a thing. All the bands came from LA or, you know, New York. And as this started to grow and Dave Matthews and Hootie started to grow in popularity, I think Dave sold 10,000 records of his independent release. And RCA Records showed up. And then Atlantic showed up to sign Hootie. And mind you, there was a period of. There was a weekend at WL University where it was Dave Matthews at sae, Hootie at ka. We were at PI Phi, and the Grapes were at another fraternity house, all on one weekend. And a month later, everybody had record deals and it was going to the moon. It was crazy. I mean, it was the height of the music industry, and we were still playing club gigs. I remember we were coming back from Nantucket on the ferry, listening to the radio, and the DJ said, this is Hootie and the Blowfish. And their song and Hold My Hand came on. And I was like, it's happened. We're here. And the Hootie guys, when they signed their deal with Atlantic, every record label wanted them so bad, and they were so nice to me. They literally told Atlantic, we'll sign your deal, but you need to give our friend a deal, too. And they were like, yeah, sure, fine. Bring the big head kid.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That was it.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. And, I mean, who does that?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, how Much original material did you have?

[Edwin McCain]

Well, by then I had. Well, by then I had made a CD on my own, and I had enough music for a record anyway. And. And it was one of those things where if you really wanted to get them to believe in you, you had to have an independent release and be selling it at your shows, because that was their way. Because it's not hard for a multinational corporation to go, well, if Dave Matthews can sell 10,000 CDs out of his van, we could probably sell 10 million.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

So. And they all showed up, and that was. That was the timing part of it. It was right at the tail end of grunge. Everybody was sort of tired of feeling bad about themselves, you know what I mean? And all of a sudden, here's Hootie and the Blowfish. And now I was like, look, they're fun and they play golf and everybody loves them. And, you know, everybody was. I mean, that. And. And that summer tour, the 95 summer tour was insane. It was a phenomenon. That record sold, like, 25 million copies of it. I mean, it was crazy.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And we went out last summer, and I had forgotten that 20,000 people are gonna show up and sing every single word to every single song on that record. And they did. And here we are this many years later, and they all showed back up and sang all those songs. And. And, yeah, it was. A cultural shift occurred when Dave and Hootie showed up, because Hootie was everybody's feel good friend. And Dave Matthews created a new genre. Like, he combined genres and made. Which is hard to say. Like, you know, to actually do something as innovative as Dave did at the time that he did it, because he combined poetry and jazz and then, you know, some of the baddest musicians on the planet to play complicated arrangements because his. His song, his music is not that accessible. Like, the Guitar center guys aren't playing Dave Matthews. And. And it. You know, it was just like this crazy moment where you had those two. They were. They were like the icebreaker. They were. They cleared the way for everybody.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And we were just riding in the wake.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you're on a. You get a record deal, you have enough original material on your own. Is there, like an immediate moment of holy. You know, now I got to get to work and start building whatever this is my opportunity here is here, right?

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. And I. And everybody had been so successful. Like, we're literally just watching our friends blow up. And I was just like, well, I guess, you know, it's my turn next. Right. And I Laugh about this because 55 year old me would not really be friends with 25 year old me because 25 year old me was kind of a dumb. You know what I mean? Like, I didn't. I don't. I didn't know. I didn't know to put the work in. I should have put more work in in the beginning because I was like, well, we have producers now, and it's their job to make the record great and to make all the cool decisions that are gonna make this record sound great. And I'm gonna go out in LA and go to the strip club and party and, you know, I'll show up and do my parts. But that's their job. They're getting paid a lot of money to do this. Why do I have to sit there and labor over a tambourine part?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

You know, like. Or sit there and have an opinion about Shakers. I mean, I have a bunch of really good, talented guys in the band. They can just play their instruments and I'll be back when the record's done, you know, I mean, that was kind of the way I thought about it and it was stupid because I. I didn't understand. And you know, this. There has to be a lead dog that is. That has the vision and directs things to where they're going to go, because otherwise you just end up with C minus all the time. So if you're the lead dog and you are absolutely driving the direction and you're. You have to make those calls. It's A or F, you know, and when it's A, you share it with everybody. And when it's F, you own it. But. But that's the way it needs to be in those types of businesses where there's a lot at stake. Yeah. You can't just go, everybody, just do whatever you're going to do. I'm going to be over here. I'll be across the street, that strip to just call me when I need to come back. Yeah, that was a stupid way of doing things. And as a result, our first record only sold like 250,000 copies. And at that time, that was a terrible failure. Like, Everybody was selling 5 million and we sold 250. And my head was on the chopping block right away. And I was on a little subsidiary of the Atlantic called Lava that was run by Jason Flom. And Jason was. And we're friends to this day. We work together on the Innocence Project stuff. He's a fantastic human being. He always told me the truth. He absolutely. He never Sugarcoated it. And he called me, he was like, jethro. You used to call me Jethro. I just left a big department head meeting and they're all talking about dropping you off the label. So whatever you turn in next needs to be great. And that was. I'll be.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

How did you find that song?

[Edwin McCain]

I didn't. It was an amalgam of some things that I had said. I used to have this girlfriend that I just knew was kind of out of my league. And I used to always say, you know, I'm always gonna be your biggest fan.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And then I overheard this dude, this drunk guy, fumbled the words he meant to say, I'll be your shoulder to cry on. And he fumbled it and said, crying shoulder. And I wrote it on a napkin and I had it in a bag of mine. And when Flom said, you know, we're gonna drop you, I started immediately pulling out all these fragments and putting em on the table and under pressure, wrote the song that saved it, you know, pulled me out of the nose dive like half court, hook shot at the buzzer. And it's an anomaly. That song just keeps going. And we're almost 30 years in and it just keeps going. I know, it's. It's astonishing.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And I. I'd love to tell you that I knew that, but I. Nobody knows.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

When you wrote it, you didn't know.

[Edwin McCain]

I got emotional. So the songs that are, in my experience, the songs that have the most juice in my world are. I'm emotional when I write them, I get a little snotty nosed. And usually they have some. They're rooted in some kind of truth or something that I've learned. And at the time I was living in this little apartment in Atlanta with a futon. I had a futon in Atlanta. Yeah, it was this apartment that was behind Benihana's off of Peach Tree. And I had a futon, a green futon and a Sony TV on a stand. And that was it. And I was, I was not in a good place. And I was, because I, you know, I could feel it slipping away. Right. And I wasn't. I was not sober, I wasn't mentally healthy. I was really not in a good place. So that line, I'll be better when I'm older was sort of like, God, I hope, I hope I can be better. You know, because I. It didn't look like. It didn't look. It wasn't look. It wasn't looking really good.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, when you listen to that song, you you put it in the total context of. Of. Of love and a conversation to another female about what, you know, how badly you want this to work. And you don't ever think about what your personal struggle would have been or even plug. You won't even plug that into the meaning of the song at all.

[Edwin McCain]

And for me, it was just a Hail Mary prayer, you know, that I can get out of this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Do you remember the first person that you might have showed that project to? And they were like, dude, what the hell? Where has this been? Do you remember that moment?

[Edwin McCain]

I remember. Yeah. And I know, exactly. So I did a demo of it, and I played it for Ed Roland from Collective Soul because he was. He's such a good producer, too. Like, Ed's a great musician, but he's a really good producer. And I was like, if I can get Ed Roland from Collective Soul to produce this song, it'll really make it great. And so I played it for him, and he was like. He was mad because he was like, I can't. I wish I had written this song. And I was like, okay, we got something here. And then I played it live in front of a crowd and the audience. And usually audiences hate new songs, right? Like, if I. If I want to tease my audience, I'll walk out and go, tonight, I'm just gonna play all new songs. And they go, no.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

But we played it, and the response was crazy. And I was like, all right, there's. There's a chance here. But that was not how it was received at radio. Oh, and this is the dirty secret. And I think by now that surely the statute of limitations has run out. Atlantic did not really want anything to do with me, But Flom got him to put the song on three stations. Birmingham, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and maybe Huntsville, Alabama. And we knew. So if a record company's really gonna roll a song out, they roll it out nationwide. They throw three quarters of a million dollars at promotion. You know, it's a real thing. This is what they would call a test, but this just kind of a. Yeah. So I called my manager, who was a college friend of mine at the time, and he and I had been shucking and jiving this whole thing together. And I called him. I was like, how much money you have in your checking account? Because we got. This is it. This is the. These three stations. This is it. So we rounded up some bunch of friends of ours, you know, and got them to go to these three towns where everywhere it was getting airplay, they would go to the record Stores in town and go buy albums and then change their clothes and go to buy albums, and then they would mail them to us and then we would sell them again at our shows, and the UPC would count as two. And so what would ha. What that meant was everywhere we were getting airplay, we were showing sales. And they call that a spin to sale ratio. So if spins go up, sales go up. And if they can show that Atlantic sees that little ratio, they'll start to believe. And we had a three ring circus going on doing this. And Jason Flom called me up right in the middle of this, Jethro. I was like, hey, man, you better not have your cousins buying albums down in Alabama. And I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. And I was, you know, and. And so they. They took that information, they went to the publicity department. They got the publicity department to put the song into Dawson's Creek.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

In the final episode of Dawson's Creek. And the sales went from, you know, 1800 a week to 18,000. And off we went. Right. So we had done a little bit of shucking jive to get it off the ground, but then it really. That's when it actually started to go. But that was almost a year later. Yeah, because the song came out in 97, but it really didn't start blowing up until that Dawson's Creek thing in 98. And then things kind of went from there. But Jason and I were playing golf about five years ago and riding down the fairway and I look over and I go, hey, man, I feel like I need to come clean about something. He goes, what? And I go, remember when you accused me of buying records from my cousins? He goes, I knew you did that. I was like, ah, sorry about that. He's always felt guilty about not telling you the truth about it, you know, and we laughed about it. Oh, God.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Best song will be voted one of the greatest love songs of all time by VH1. It's got an incredible legacy. You mentioned how tough life was around that time. How did things change after that?

[Edwin McCain]

Well, everything went haywire because when. When you get a chance to really get in the conversation and have the full weight of Time Warner and the machine working for you, it's crazy. And there's no time to spare. And so, you know, I was up at 6am Every day you go to more radio to two different radio stations in an in store. And then you do a meet and greet and you do sound check, you do the show, you party your ass off till about 2:00, 3:00 in the morning, get on the bus, start all over again the next day. So you're operating on about four hours of sleep. And we did that for 10 years. I mean, you remember what it was like when things really heated up. Right. And I didn't know any better. And because of my background and growing up, like, I couldn't say no to anybody for any reason ever, because I would just. I would die a thousand deaths to say no to anything. Because we had starved to death for so long. You couldn't say no to gigs. I mean, these gigs are paying, like, real money. Like, no way you're saying no to that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And you're not saying no to the record company because if you say no to them, maybe they won't keep the. The juice turned on. Right. So it was just like, what do we. What do we have to do? And you and I, you know, it didn't take long for everything to get way out of balance.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

You know, and that's a.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Around. What year was this?

[Edwin McCain]

Well, from 98 to about 2005. 2006.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

In 2001, I'd seen you and met you and knew who you were and barely. But I knew Michael and you were great friends. 2001, I was at Daytona in July and won the race after my dad passed away at the first of the year. And I tell this story a lot, but Dale, the race is over. I'm standing in the bus lot. It feels like it must have been 12 o'clock in the morning. Everybody's gone, and most all the drivers have left hours ago. And I look to my left and Dale Jarrett standing there drinking a beer. And I was like, holy, Dale Jarrett. What are you doing here? And he's like, I wouldn't miss this for the world. This is awesome, man. It's just like 10 of us standing around drinking beer. You were on my right. You remember that?

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And no. So I've never told you this.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I remember you. I want to hold. I remember that afternoon you were. Michael's bus was parked across from mine, and you had been there for the race. And I remember in the middle of the day, you came over and went, hey, man, you got. There's a cooler outside my bus. And you're like, mind if I grab a beer out of that cooler? I was like, yeah, help yourself, man. And you sat down in the chair and you're like, all right. And I was like, yeah, who is this?

[Edwin McCain]

No, I knew who you Were.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But I was like, we hadn't really been formally introduced. And I was like, damn, that's awesome. And then later that night, there you were standing there with the rest of us.

[Edwin McCain]

I was like, again, part of the thing was with. I was really good friends with Dale and Michael, but I also learned. And Skinner. But also learned. It was kind of like you had it especially on site. Like, I always gave, I tried to give people space without like, being too, like, in the, in people's faces because. Because again, you've got a really important thing you're about to do and you don't really need a lot of distractions. But, you know, I was. We were laughing. Michael and I saw Michael last night and, and we were laughing about. When I first started hanging out around nascar, I didn't know the etiquette of like, what not to say or ask and stuff. And so I'd be hanging out and he'd wreck or something would happen and he'd come off the track and I'd go, what happened? Like, And I'd start asking him questions like, what'd you do wrong?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know what I mean?

[Edwin McCain]

Like, and Hondros had to come over and go, hey, man, don't ask him.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Don't do that.

[Edwin McCain]

And I was like, okay, all right, I'll stop. Yeah, but I don't. I never told you this, but I was at Daytona. I was in Brian Francis jet leaving when your dad crashed. And I saw it from the plane because they were. They always wanted to get everybody out early and that. And, and I didn't know what had happened until I landed and I talked to Michael and, And you know, we never really taught him. We never talked about it. We never really reconciled, the whole thing. And I think that was one of those. And then when I was there six months later. Yeah, that was an, that was a. That was one of those moments where I knew the universe looked after making things happen. Right.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

You know what I mean? I don't know how else to say. Like, I, I took, I took a lot of. It took a lot of anxiety out of my existence to see you do that, because I was like, there's, there's justice in that moment. You know, I mean, maybe it's not a. Maybe it's not a reconciliation, but it's, but it was some closure. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, I was. That moment standing there at 2 or 1 o'clock in the morning between you and Dale Jarrett and four or five of my buddies and whoever else was. Just happened to not leave was just really important. Like the night couldn't end without the right ending. Right. The win was awesome. The celebration was awesome. But then you got to go back to silence.

[Edwin McCain]

Right. So I don't know how you do that. Yeah, right. Like, like your highs are so high.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So to stand there and like decompress over a cold beer around the people that were there really was the way to let the pressure off with your friends. Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

You know, and that, that was the other thing too. I think you really are brothers in arms in that community. And I don't know if it's still like that now. Does. Is that. Com. Does that camaraderie A little bit.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

A little bit. Good. Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

I'm glad to hear that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep. Hey, tj, you know that I got my own Chevy dealership down in Tallahassee, Florida. We're part of the Hendrick Automotive Group.

[Edwin McCain]

Yes, I have heard of Darren Hart Jr. Chevrolet.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I bet you'd be surprised on what type of Chevrolet vehicles we specialize in.

[Edwin McCain]

If I had to guess, I'm going to say it would probably be Chevy trucks.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, we definitely sell plenty of those, but actually we're really big in commercial vehicles. We actually sell a lot of crane trucks for the number one seller actually in crane trucks.

[Edwin McCain]

Okay. I definitely did not see that coming.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Pretty neat, huh? So for any of our listeners shopping for commercial vehicles, here's some things you need to know about us at Dillon Hart Jr. Chevrolet. We have hundreds of trucks in stock, so you can find what you need fast. And we have people there that can help you with custom orders. So if you want to build the exact vehicle you need, we can do it. We offer complimentary delivery anywhere in the continental U.S. plus, Hendrick Automotive Group is the nation's top rated dealer group for online reputation. Visit dalejrchevy.com and click Commercial to explore the wide range of available commercial vehicles. Our team at Dillon Hart Jr. Chevrolet will give you a world class experience. Chevrolet together. Let's drive.

[Edwin McCain]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You talked about the success of the music, but you also talk about your bad habits.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah, how I took it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Took it to the.

[Edwin McCain]

I took it to the bad place. You know.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Was that, Was that a product of the business. Because like when you were a teenager, you know, goofing around with your buddies, was it abnormal or.

[Edwin McCain]

I think it would, I think it'd be easy for me to say that, that the business had something to do with what led me to catastrophic addiction, but I don't think that would be true. I, I did love all the Motley Crue videos and I, when I was 14 and 15, I thought that would be really cool to ride around my friends on Harley's and be rich and get wasted and, you know. Yeah, but that's not, But a lot of people do that and they don't go to the place I went to. And, and what I would say is, and after going to rehab and doing a whole autopsy of the entire situation, it was an inevitability based on my brain chemistry, based on some trauma and based, and based on my inability to create my own balance. And I sort of always thought that, you know, and I, I, it was my, my own doing. I never, I couldn't take my foot off the gas in bit in, in doing the business, like going and playing gigs and doing all that stuff because you get a, you get to be in the cash machine for, you get to be in the thing for a minute and grab everything you grab. Yeah, no, it was like we would have family vacations planned and you could count on two or three private events would show up right in the middle of the vacation. And my wife and I had this deal like, you know, if they come in with the number doing it, you have to, we have to, you have to do that. You know, and so I, anyway, all that said, and part of my story was I'm so ADD and I was unmedicated and cocaine really works well if you don't have the proper medication. So that was kind of part of my story. I started using cocaine to get up in the morning to get, you know, up and sharp and doing that. And then we were drinking like crazy people for a two hour stretch after the show. I never drank before shows. I was always pretty disciplined when it came to that. But then, you know, we were sprinters, right? So we like, you know what I mean? So the big, the big disaster would, would always be if there was like some kind of situation where I'd start day drinking. Like if you, if I started drinking at noon, by 2:45, I'm a, I'm wrecked. And because I was a sprinter, I was like, yeah, you know, and, and so I remember actually once again at a NASCAR race, we had, you know, gone Way off the deep end. And I ended up. I think it was in Atlanta. We had just showed up as spectators, you know, and Dale Jarrett had gotten me tickets and stuff, and we all showed up in the infield, and that was a disaster. And I remember catching a look on Dale's face where he was disappointed in the shape I was in. And I instantly was like, man, I got a problem with this. I got to do something about this. And I. I tried. You know, I did the thing. This is how bad an alcoholic I was. I did the thing where. Because everybody around me was starting to say, hey, man, you need to start. You need to think about, like, you need to tone this down. And. But. But they're not really. Because I'm. I'm. I'm generating a lot of money, so there's not. They're not going to. Nobody's gonna make me stop.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Because I'm gonna tell you what to do.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah, I'm still turning up. I'm turning up. I. And. And so to get everybody off my back, I was like, all right, I tell you what, I'll quit drinking for a year just so you guys will know that I don't have a problem. Well, that's what real alcoholics do. So I white knuckled it for a year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Really?

[Edwin McCain]

I got to the end of a year.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You did a year?

[Edwin McCain]

100%. And I got at the end of a year, and I said, I tell you what, I'll throw an extra six months on it so I don't ever have to hear y'all talk about the way I drink that. Now think if put like that is some, like, next level matrix alcoholism to elbow yourself out space to really get to it the way you want to. And so when that six. That next six months got to the end, I literally went totally ballistic. And it did not take six months for me to be suicidal. Like, so bad off that I had to make the choice between living or dying. And. And. And that is such a common storyline. Like, I thought I was so unique, you know, I did. I mean, I really did. And I got to rehab, and I had this terrible secret that I had, you know, planned on committing suicide. And I mustered the courage to tell this group I was in the next morning. I was like, I need to come clean about this whole plan I had. And I told them my dramatic plan about killing myself. And this guy sitting next to me goes, yeah, welcome to the club. And everybody in the room was like, yeah, that's where it goes. That's how this Ends. And I was like, wait, everybody? And they're like, welcome. Welcome to rehab. You know? And I was like, oh. And that began the journey of getting rid of the ego and learning about acceptance and balance and being able to say no and owning your. And making the amends that you have to make and all of the things that I needed to be a good human and a good father and the friend my friends deserve and not just the ringleader of some crazy circus that I thought was hilarious, you know?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. He thought everybody was having a blast.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. And. But you know what was really funny? When I. When I. Right after I got out of rehab and I was. I was out on doing shows very quickly because I used to think everybody was as drunk as me. And then I started. I would go to parties. I'd be like, yeah, nobody was. Nobody's. Nobody's as drunk as I was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Edwin McCain]

I just thought everybody was.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Was it one. One attempt at rehab? Did it take many?

[Edwin McCain]

Just one.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

One. Due to the severity of the issue. Was it a surprise to you that it took one? Because we. You know, it seems like that it's just not that simple. No, but for a lot of people.

[Edwin McCain]

No, no, but it was. It was dire. So a lot of people don't go all the way to the end where there's no choice, where suicide starts making sense. And here's the logic behind it. I don't want to make it sound dramatic. What happens is you try. You try to stop it. You do the year thing. You know, you get. You know, everybody goes through this, and then you invoke the Hemingway clothes clause where you say, well, there were a lot of really creative alcoholics, and you just kind of try to wear it like, okay, well, that's just what I am. And then that doesn't work. But then you start realizing that your existence in that mode is dangerous for other people, like driving a car. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's innocent people that could be permanently harmed by just you being you, and that's not fair. And you can't seem to stop it. But there's one thing that'll stop it. And that logic kind of starts to creep in. And I think most alcoholics have. It's. It's a. It's a weird pattern, but everybody starts. That starts making sense right when you just can't stop it there. Well, there's one thing that'll permanently stop this, and you start to think of yourself as a hero, because if you keep going, bad things will happen. But if you stop it. You did something heroic.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And you start to tell yourself that that's going to be a better thing. And because you have life insurance policies, everybody will be better off without you. You know what I mean? You can kind of convince yourself that that was a great thing to do. And I remember I just had that classic moment of clarity, sitting in the basement of my house with a 40 cal in my lap, saying, there's got to be a better story to tell for my sons. They were one. There's got to be a better story for them to grow up here. And then your dad was a hopeless alcoholic. And then I. And I said, well, you know, we haven't tried rehab. Why don't we give that a shot?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You know, you've had that in.

[Edwin McCain]

I had that moment where.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

By yourself.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. I was like, maybe. Maybe let's try rehab. And then if that doesn't work, you can do this stupid. You're planning on. And so that was the.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Where did you go?

[Edwin McCain]

I went to a place called Talbot in Atlanta. And it's. It was long term. I was there for like 120 days. Like, I was supposed to be there for 90, but then I stayed extra to work with the young adults to do some like. Because I really enjoy. I really. That entire process fundamentally changed me. And I'll tell you, the reason it stuck is I paid for all of it in cash. I have skin in that game, and I'm so cheap. I am not about to lose that money. I made this investment, but. Yeah, but it fundamentally changed me as a person. And I just didn't. I had never considered this idea of mindfulness and paying attention to the way you're thinking. I just thought that whatever thoughts were in my brain were me and it was me and my little buddy, and we're going to go do the things we want to do without any question of why or intentionality or any of those things. And so that was the beginning of a big change for me.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Let me ask a question or two. So when you got. Is 120 days is a long time. Understand. But you got to go back into the mouth of the beast.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So you go back to work.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah, I did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So where was your confidence level? Were you scared? Were you worried? Were you totally like, I'm convinced. I'm confident. No problem.

[Edwin McCain]

No, I was very. The first two years out of rehab is like tap dancing in a minefield. Like, they're just so. Your brain is trying to play tricks on you. I'll give you a perfect example I was playing this gig at Eddie's Attic, and there was a woman named Jennifer Angier that had worked at Talbot while I was there. And she came to the gig, and I was right about to go on. She came running up. She goes, hey. She gave me her new card. She goes, I'm not at Talbot anymore. I just switched over. I'm working at this place called the Meadows. Give me a call sometime. I got her card, started to play the show in my mind. I went, I wonder why she left Talbot. I bet she found out they were misdiagnosing people just so they could take their money. And she came here to tell me that they misdiagnosed me. And I'm not really an alcoholic. Like, She's Coming to Spill the Brain started. She's Coming to Spill the Beans. And I. I played with that thought, oh, my God. During the whole gig, and now I laugh about it, but it's that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That's a crazy.

[Edwin McCain]

So. So this is the thing. And every alcoholic that sees this podcast will be laughing because we're all that crazy. We've got this voice in our head that is trying to come up with every way possible to kill us, to sneak us back into this thing. And when you're a couple of years out of rehab, those little sneaky ideas, you can start to run with it. And I was even starting to run with it, and then halfway through the gig, I was like, what are you doing? What are you doing right now? And then I started laughing about it, which sort of takes the power away, but for somebody that's fresh out and dealing with it. And I'll give you another one I had when the boys were 10 and 11. I remember I was just sitting there, minding my own business, and out of the blue, out of my crusty brain, it'd probably be a really good idea to have a bad relapse right in front of them at this age so they could see how nasty it is and never pick up a drink. Like, I'd be doing them a favor if I had a. Really?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And you're sober for years?

[Edwin McCain]

No, by then I'm sober 10 years. And this 10 years, this thought comes flying in that I'd really be helping them if I had a big relapse and showed them how bad it is, so they'll never drink.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

So even 10, you know, let's just say. Let's just say it was eight years. But even all those years later, the lure, you still. You still have the. You still have an understanding of the lure in the back of your mind.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. So. So, yeah. And it's. And it's what?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It.

[Edwin McCain]

And the way that it works is my midbrain has been corrupted, and the central part of my brain has been corrupted to forever want drugs and alcohol. And the thing about the midbrain, that's where the fight or flight lives. And it only sends one way, messages. And so it sends messages out to your little creative frontal cortex and it'll send it out there and then your cortex goes, well, we gotta try to make sense of this. And so here comes that weird ass idea. Yeah, right. And it gets over time, and especially if you're creative, over time, it gets more creative slash ridiculous, because you learn how stupid that is. Right. And of course, you'd never do it. And I called Jennifer. She's now the CEO of the Meadows. And we talk to each other about that crazy voice and all the alcoholics I know have it and you'll go, and she called me one time, she was celebrating her 20th sober anniversary. And she goes, you know what mine says? Every time, every year, anniversary. I said, what does it say? She said, mine says, you can't hold out forever. You know what I mean? And it's like, you know, and we laugh about it and I know it sounds crazy, it sounds terrifying, right? It sounds terrifying. But to us, it's funny now because you learn to laugh at that because. And. And you also learned in a really weird way to appreciate it. Because if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have the life I have now.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Sure.

[Edwin McCain]

And I wouldn't be the person I am now. I mean, I've been a dependable friend. And, you know, I've had, you know, I've saved a couple of lives with the Heimlich maneuver. You know, there have been some. There have been some pretty sketchy moments that have occurred that I was present and ready to handle. You know, my son was attacked by a dog. And it was a long story, all these things that happen in life, but had I not made those changes, I wouldn't have been there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right. How do you. In the industry you're in. Right. I saw you six months ago down in Sullivan's island or Isle of Palms, playing. And I thought about you in that environment, making the choice to be who you wanted to be. But all around you, everybody's drinking, everybody's.

[Edwin McCain]

Party and carrying on.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Everybody's partying, carrying on. And that's your existence. Like you.

[Edwin McCain]

But pharmacists go to work every day.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Handling their drug of choice that is unaffected. You see some, you see people out in your crowd raising hell. You're just like, hell yeah, go. Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And, and, but see, they have a different relationship with alcohol. Yeah. I know plenty of people that can go out and have a big time and they're careful and they take Ubers home and then they don't drink again for another three months. You know, that was their big night out. And they do it correctly, you know, and, and so it. But I. There was a period of time in the first, like five years where people I used to really party with would come up and slip something in my pocket in a jacket when if I was wearing a jacket and I didn't realize they had done it. And then all of a sudden I'd later.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

Like throwing stuff away, like, God dang, dude, what the hell?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And, and. But then on the flip side of that, I'm. I'm 16 years sober and I met a fantasy football draft. And this friend of mine who I've known forever, he knows my whole story. He walks up with a liquor glass tumbler full of ice. But he goes, hey, will you go put some more crown in this for me? And he hands it to me, and I'm holding the liquor glass and I was like, you want me to go put some crown in this for you? And he goes, he goes, yeah. He goes, what? And I go, you want me to go fill this up with crown for you? And he goes, yes. What the. And I was like, okay. And I started to turn. He was like, oh, my God. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, but, but what happens is over time, everybody forgets about that. Yeah, part of it. And, and, and the other, the, the other thing that everybody has to learn when you go to rehab is that I. The world doesn't need me at all. You know, Like, I was like, I can't spend 90 days of rehab. Everything will fall apart without me. You know what I mean? That people didn't even notice I was gone. You know, and that was a great lesson to learn too. Like, you know what? And it helped me implement my favorite thing, which is the four day rule. Now something in our organization happens, and everybody expects me to weigh in on it immediately. And it's some kind of situation where, you know, you think, I'll fix this and I'll run in there and yell at somebody or do something, you know, and now what happens is something will happen and I'll talk to everybody and go, listen, this is an important. This is important. And you're important to me. You're important to me enough to where I need to spend some time and really consider this and come back with a well thought through idea or answer for you. So give me four days and I'll get back to you into the second day. It fixes itself and I didn't have to say and I didn't go in there and say something. Now I gotta apologize for. You know what I mean guilty about. Yeah, the four day rule. It's magic. And I regularly tell people when they push back and they want an answer too sooner, I'll remind them, you know, Teddy Roosevelt and Howard Taft built the Panama Canal, writing letters to each other that had to arrive by ship and yet they still managed to pull off the biggest engineering feat of mankind. So whatever it is we're doing can wait a few days. Let's give it a couple days.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Hey everybody, you want the latest Dale Jr. Download apparel? Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com we're always adding new stuff all the time, especially like when we say something silly on this show. We'll put it on a T shirt again. Check it out at shop.dirtymomedia.com NetCredit is.

[Edwin McCain]

Here to say yes because you're more than a credit score. Apply in minutes and get a decision as soon as is the same day. Loans offered by Netcredit or lending partner banks and serviced by Netcredit Applications subject to review and approval. Learn [e-mail] partners NetCredit credit to the people.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You have a new album titled lucky. It's your first album of all new songs in 15 years. I've had a chance to listen to this and I love it. You the song Lucky all the Time is a great song. I think it says it sounds like it's your motto to climbing out of that sort of mess and becoming the person that you, you are today. It sounds like a little celebration of that and how appreciative you are of the fortune you have today. I guess of the many questions, why 15 years.

[Edwin McCain]

I just decided to dial it down and be father, be home with my kids. And I knew and also during that period of time they were still trying to figure out what streaming was gonna be. What is it gonna be? What is this music industry? And I was like, well I'm not just gonna dive out here and we don't even know what we're doing. And I wasn't on a label. I was back to being independent and I'm driving the bus doing all the gigs and we had plenty of Gigs. And then the other argument I had was I'm huge fan of acdc, but I don't really listen to the new albums. Sure, I love old Stalin and I know my audience and I know the songs they want to hear. And I don't think they really want new stuff from me. And I just, I was sort of like, you know, you're kind of a hypocrite. I know. And people. And that was always something. It was a nice thing for people to say, when are you putting out a new record? And I go, I'm not, you know, because it's just a nice thing people say, like, hardly ever.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's not true.

[Edwin McCain]

I know. Well, part of it, part of it too was I had this thing in my mind where it's time to move out of the way. There's all these new artists and everybody's trying to come up and I'm taking up bandwidth and I had your run. I had my ride, man. And I have 10 albums and I have. And I, I go and I play songs off of those records to all these people making a living and they like it and give the people what they want. But then Lee Brice was like, starting in 2012 is just. He's all over me again. And I didn't realize how big. He's a huge. He was a big fan to begin with and. Which is weird, right? Cause like you get this like super famous dude is like a fan and he's kind of a jackass too. And we're friends, like we're mean to each other. And he's just calling me and he's like, hey, Bubba, I'm in an excavator. Cause I was running, I had, I was kind of side hustle running this land clearing business. And so I'd be sitting in an excavator listening to a book on tape and he called me and go, hey, Bubba. All right. You know, you know you do, you do have a career in music. And as fun, as fun as it is for you to sit there in a machine moving dirt, like, you know, there are people like me that would like to hear a record from you. And I've. I'll make it. And I'm, ah, you know. Yeah, give me a minute. And he's literally. He was just getting kind of, he was just getting kind of frustrated with me. And finally the, the 90s nostalgia started to kick in. You know, you could feel it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yep.

[Edwin McCain]

And I was like, okay, I think now is it. And so I, I was like, all right, let's make this record. He's like, you're not lying to me right now, are you? I was like, no, I'm really gonna do it. And so we started making it at Lee's. And I wish I, I, I'm so mad I didn't film the, the, the sessions where I was doing vocals. Because he's a singer. He's a great singer. He's really great producer too. So he knows how to get the best out of you as a singer. You know, it'd be, it's like having, It'd be like having a driver be your crew chief. Like, they understand, right? And so in between takes, Lee would go, hey, Bubba, do you mind doing this next take? Like, English is your first language, please? Because that last one, I don't even know. And I, you know, it did the banner back and forth. You know, it was in. My wife was like, y'all are so mean to each other.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

My wife says same thing about me and my friends. I'm like, we just talked to each other.

[Edwin McCain]

Absolutely.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

You know, if you're, if your friends aren't just totally on you, are they really your friends? Like, if they aren't pouncing on your biggest insecurity.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It's a guy thing. That's when you know that person truly cares about you 100%.

[Edwin McCain]

And that friendship is what that's record is about.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

You're back out. I mean, you've never stopped touring, but now you're out playing new songs. What's been the reception?

[Edwin McCain]

It's been great. I mean, honestly. So that whole time, I was back to being indie and I'm driving the bus, my 1999 bus. But I have the same, mostly the same band for 35 years, and we're just playing our little gigs and everybody's making a living. And so to me, I never left, but what you got, you know, and you know this, like, if you want to be. You want the general public to be aware that you exist, it requires publicists and a lot of push. And to the general public, I disappeared in 2007, and nobody's seen me. And the feeling is everybody's like, hey, you're back. Cool. But everybody's being really nice about it. And really, the reception has been really cool and I, and, and, and touching because I didn't realize that I, I was gone, but I guess I really was. I was gone in the, in that sense. And to be like, with a big, A big management company and to be on a label again and sort of have, like, I'm sort of back in the. In the drill. Like, I. I didn't. I've been out of the mix from the industry at large.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And the reception has been incredibly cool and kind and. And I'm. I'm grateful. I mean, again, a little sentimental about it, just because I. It's really nice. Like, I got invited to play the Opry, and I was like. Like, really?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Right.

[Edwin McCain]

Right. Here we are at the tail end of this thing. We got 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter. That's coming. It's amazing. That's. But it's. It's a little bit of a. It feels a little bit like redemption. A little bit. But I'm not trying to prove anything.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. Yeah. You ain't got to. It is redemption. So it's a hero arc, you know, and so the great thing about you is that you don't. I don't know that you. You really realize how famous you had become in the initial onset of your. Of your success as a musician, and at least in my world, how easy you are to be around, how well liked and appreciated you were, how great of a person and a guy you were, even though you went through these terrible things. I think everyone's so eager to embrace you back right now that you're out of the woods and have been for quite some time. You must have the most amazing wife.

[Edwin McCain]

Oh.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

To have went through that process with you. Incredible.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. There was a period of time she could have shot me in the face with a shotgun, and there wasn't a jury in the state would have convicted her. Not a bit. No.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And so I. You know, and I was telling the guys, I was like, you know, I'm not sure how deep we were going to get into the story, but I was wanting to. I was wanting to kind of recognize that most people don't survive it. Most people aren't able to come out of it entirely clean and. And have. Have a. You know, have a. Have a life with their. With their kids and have.

[Edwin McCain]

No.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Have that time that you had. And so it's really remarkable and should be celebrated. I think there's a bunch of people that are going to. That have already heard your story, and we'll hear it again through this show. That'll be helped and inspired by it. I wanted to share, too you. One of my most embarrassing moments. I've been embarrassed by this, and it came and went really quick, but you came. I asked you to come here and play for our company at the end of the year. We have a Little party. And I asked you to come and do that and I knew you might because you were such great friends with everybody. You show up and we're upstairs and you said, hey, anything you want me to play tonight? Do you remember what I asked you to play?

[Edwin McCain]

100%. Here's the thing. It's not your fault. It is. No, it's not. Because Napster mislabeled the song. You were like, hey, you do this really great cover of in youn Eyes by Peter Gabriel. And I was like, oh, that's Jeffrey Gaines that does that. But I, but I learned it and we played it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Is it.

[Edwin McCain]

No. And because of you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Is it insulting at all that.

[Edwin McCain]

Not in any. No, because it was mislabeled on Napster for a million years. And so, so, so here's the other thing. So many things got mislabeled that I. Well, first of all, I still play that song as a cover. I played it at the end of the Jammer show because I knew you were there.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I know.

[Edwin McCain]

I was like, I asked you to.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Play it and you're sitting there on the couch and you're like, yeah, that's not me, but I'll try.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. And I learned it in the dressing room. We went and played it and played.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

It and I had no idea you didn't know how to read music.

[Edwin McCain]

And we'd never, we've never stopped playing it ever since that night.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

So, yeah, no, thank you for making me get off my butt and learn it. But you know, that Napster mislabel thing got so out of hand. Sean Mullins and I were mislabeled so bad.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh, I bet.

[Edwin McCain]

So, yeah, I had like these 20 year old girls just angry that I'm not playing Rockabye at the show. And I, and you, and I'm like, you know, I'm sorry you bought the wrong concert ticket. But then I was like, this is disappointing. These girls, I mean, these people, they're like, they're genuinely. They showed up to hear one song and then find out that they're not gonna get to hear that song. And I'm like, you know, I'm not going to let that go down that way. And I called Sean and I was like, hey, I'm going to start playing Rockaby. He's like, good, I'm going to start playing. I'll be. Because he was having the exact same problem. And then, and then I said, I said, oh, and by the way, I'm signing your name to stuff too, just to make it easier because Like, I'm just like. Like, seriously? And he was like, okay, good. So we literally went through a phase where we were just playing each other.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I had his cd. That was a great record, man. I. I've really enjoyed sitting down and talking. You're a hell of a storyteller. I want to thank you for being so transparent in telling your story. I don't know how often you get asked to relive some of the more tougher moments. I'm glad you're out having fun. I'm glad you're making another run at it. I think it's fun for us as fans of yours, to see you put a new project together and go out there and try to score that touchdown in the fourth quarter.

[Edwin McCain]

Well, and I wanted my kids, you know, they're at that age where I wanted them to see, you know, I'm going to go out here and leave it all out on the field. It doesn't matter what happens, because what matters is that you try as hard as you can. Right. And. And because for years, they just see they've seen me work and do my thing, and I don't think it really occurred to them until they came to the Opry. They were like, wait a minute. This is like a. This was a real. This is a real thing. Because they, you know, they're just like areas in the excavator again. And. But I. After watching when you started this, you know, your willingness to dive in to all the real things and heal some. Some wounds and, you know, reach out and talk, I was like, man, what an ambassador you've become for this sport, you know, and just for people in general. Right. Like. And I was like, you know, and I know. And I've always been. And I've always tried to be super respectful of what you did and what y'all did and not blow your phone up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, I wish you hadn't, because we could have become even better friends.

[Edwin McCain]

Well, now, well, we'll have to spend more time together. But I always kind of always gave everybody space because it's like Darius. So Darius and I are lifelong friends, but the way I show my appreciation to him is I just don't blow his phone up because he's just draped in people all the time. Right. And so he know, you know, if we. If. If I do get in touch, it's something important or something fun or, you know, one of those things.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah. And where can people see you now?

[Edwin McCain]

We'll be on tour with Train this summer and doing headline shows, but the Good news is you can check edwin.com because that's the way that's basically what I do that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

That has all the information of everywhere you're going to be playing, everywhere you're coming back through. And you're coming back through South Carolina this summer, I believe, for back to the Windjammer.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Great place.

[Edwin McCain]

Gotta play the jammer.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Oh yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

You're gonna be there?

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I probably will.

[Edwin McCain]

Sweet.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

But I'm thankful for you, man. I'm thankful that you're. You're out grinding out. All the, all the guys that I have on the show that are, you know, no longer full time. The ones that still piddle or still race here or race there, I love it. Because I don't want to see them stop. I don't want to stop.

[Edwin McCain]

You know, I swore I wasn't going to mention this because it's embarrassing for all my real racer friends, but, you know, I was racing spec Miata, like hardcore SCCA racing when right before I adopted my son, I was all about it. Right. Just stupid stuff in those cars because there's a million of those races all the time. And then I got all into NASCAR 4 and was racing the sim races and I was blowing Michael's phone up and Skinner's phone up, trying to get setups like to the tracks. I'm like, dude, I need the Watkins Glenn set up. Well, it doesn't translate to the game. Just give me the setup.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

The Italian guys are killing me and they're going to be online at like 1am I got to get this set up.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yes.

[Edwin McCain]

Did you get sucked into that? Yeah, of course you did.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Of course I would have had setups that you needed.

[Edwin McCain]

Yes. Did, did, did. Do people know that they're racing? Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

On there you have to use. Well, back then I think we had different names.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. The type. Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

The one thing that we didn't get to, that I wanted to talk to you about maybe for the next visit.

[Edwin McCain]

Okay.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Was you did a pilot show about you fixing a flipping ships.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. Yeah, I.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Did you finish?

[Edwin McCain]

Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What kind of boat?

[Edwin McCain]

No. So that boat, I. I actually finally had a tap out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

What kind of boat are we talking about?

[Edwin McCain]

It was an old Hatteras, a 60s era.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

All right. So super old. Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah. But the hull is like 3 inches thick. You could drive this thing onto a beach and push it off with a bulldozer and it would not be hurt at all. And, and, and the problem is the whole reason why I even started that was because I got the boat for almost Nothing. And I believe I can do anything right. So why wouldn't I start with like a bass boat? Let's restore a bass boat. Let's not start with a 50 foot, 40,000 pound, you know, and this thing needed everything. I mean, I pulled the Detroit's out of there, we rebuilt them, we did all this. I mean, we did so much stuff. And I still had three years worth worth of stuff to do. And I finally, about a year ago, somebody made me an offer on it and I tapped out.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

I finally was like, I got to stop this because this is mad. Yes.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Plus, but you shot a pilot for it.

[Edwin McCain]

I shot a pilot, but that turned into an Animal Planet show where we were restoring. And I wanted it to be about this one boat because I was like, I can get Animal Planet to pay for this boat. That it's going to kill me. And they were, they turned it into, well, can we do different boats? And I was like, you know, the only answer is yes. Like, sure, we can do whatever you want. And so it turned into this thing and. But more than that, what it turned into was there was a character on the show named Wayne. And I've known Wayne for. He's a wrench thrower. You know, those, you know, you know, you know what I'm talking about. The, the guy that gets mad at you and actually throws wrenches.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

Right. So, and Wayne, it was, he was born in Pumpkin Town with spina bifida. And you'd never know it. He had this outsized personality and he's kind of, you know, it was. He seemed like the crazy hillbilly, you know, and he's so funny. He just. You never know what he's gonna say. And Duck Dynasty was on at the time and I was like, Wayne, Wayne's 10 times funnier. I mean, they waited until they get a load of Wayne, right? Like, Wayne's the kind of guy like his. Somebody in his neighborhood complained about his flower beds, so he started mowing his grass naked. And then they just never complained again. But he's like, you know, he helps people. He's loud and crazy, but he's, he's such a good hearted dude. And I wanted to tell his story right, because I think it's important for people to see past, you know, that, you know, the initial facade. And, and I had, I didn't get enough time to really tell the story of Wayne, but he was, you know, he, he's one of a kind. And you know, I mean, you know, you have character. I know you have Characters and especially in the, in this world. But that was kind of the, the, the reasoning behind. And after doing television, it was one of those things. I always wanted to know what doing television would be like. And I'll never do that.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Me and Amy flipped a house in Key west and did a show. And that was a lot of work. It was immense.

[Edwin McCain]

And so now. And it screws up television for you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

I never sweated that much in my life. And I've drove race cars that are 150 degrees inside. I sweated in my pants.

[Edwin McCain]

And then you'd get something done and they go, and you have to do it five more times.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah, oh, yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

And.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

And you would tile a floor, work your ass off. And they'd go, hey, could you, could you pretend to put that piece down there? And I'm like, where the hell were you for the last three hours I've been down here putting all these little pieces down here because I needed to.

[Edwin McCain]

Get a different angle, a close up of a thing. So now when you went and it ruined TV for me because every time we're watching TV and you see a camera angle change, I'll turn to my wife and go, that took four hours.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Yeah.

[Edwin McCain]

From that shot to this shot. That was four hours. There was four hours. And people yelled at each other. There were some tears. Like, honestly, it was, it was, it was a absolute revelation for. And I have so much more respect for actors because you have no idea what they go through to just get a shot, to get a scene. Oh, yeah, I don't have that. I'm not made like that. I'm like, let's do it once and get it done.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

For sure.

[Edwin McCain]

Yeah.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Well, man, it's been fun.

[Edwin McCain]

Thank you.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Thank you so much.

[Edwin McCain]

I appreciate it.

[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

Edwin McCain on the Dale Jr. Download.

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[Edwin McCain]

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[Dale Earnhardt Jr.]

NetCredit Credit to the People Edwin McCain has left the building. That was a lot of fun. I know that a lot of people recognize Edwin and a lot of people that listen to this podcast. Our demographic for sure, has heard his music and you probably knew a little bit about the fact that he was connected to the NASCAR industry through some great friendships that he mentioned and told that story. But I knew that he had gotten kind of gotten himself a little upside down. I wasn't sure how bad it was or whatever. And I knew that he had sobered up. And I knew, and I saw him over the last 20 years that he had changed some things around in his life, that he'd made some new decisions. But yeah, to his point, like, then he disappeared, you know, he went home, hung out, was a family man, a dad. And then I saw him about six months ago at a concert, and he happened to be hanging out at a, at a, at a friend's house on the in. In the neighborhood. And he texts me and he goes, hey, man, I'm playing tonight. Yeah, well, ma'am, think about going over and seeing it. He goes, hey, I'm over such and such house right now, if you want to come say hey. So me and Amy walked over there and sit down and hung out about a couple hours before he went to the. Went to the Windjammer and played. And so I'd always wanted to be better, closer friends with him. And we had hung out a time or two just because we happened to be at the same place at the same time because of Michael Waltrip or Jimmie Johnson or some other reason. But we never became like buddies that were texting each other back and forth. And I kind of regret that that never happened. And I was. He's kind of like me, I think. Like, he didn't want to get in the way. I didn't want to get in his way. I was always. I was never the kind of person to, you know, get somebody's phone number that was a famous musician or something and then start just talking to them like they were my buddy. You know, if it didn't come naturally or just didn't happen organically, I just didn't let it happen. And a lot of times when it came to people of fame, I was almost. I didn't feel worthy of, of, you know, engaging and communicating with them a Lot of times. So that was a different time back then. I mean, I was full of myself, but at the same time, not very, very insecure, you know. Anyways, enough about me. That was a great conversation. Edwin, thank you for, you know, just coming in strong and being open to telling your story. It was. I'm so thankful that he's in the shape he's in today, that he's the person he is today. I knew when I met him he was a good soul, and that never was lost. Right. You know, the, you know, he got into some bad habits, but that good, good dude and good person was always in there. And that's, you know, that's probably why him and Michael got along so well. Michael probably saw that same thing, but it's awesome to awesome to see him thriving today. And I'll definitely catch. Catch another show or two for the. For the end of the year. I hope y'all enjoyed it. He's a great storyteller, and there's a lot more to it that we didn't even get to. I hardly looked at the notes, honestly, and he had a ton of stuff to talk about. Sang the national anthem at Gillette stadium for the AFC championship game between the Patriots and the Steelers in 2017. And he's involved with organizations like the Meyer center for Special Children and project host. Very charitable guy. And so it's, you know, there's a lot of things we didn't get to that I regret that we didn't have the chance to talk about. But he's such a good storyteller, and I didn't want to get in his way. And some of the things and some of the directions he took us, but fun show. I think everybody who is still listening at this moment can say that it's definitely a good one for this year. And, yeah, we'll get to the white flag. All right, it's time for the white flag. Monday. Action is detrimental with Denny Hamlin came out. Denny, I'm telling you, man, it's best show. Best show of the year. He really does a great job of telling us why he believes that the next gen car struggles on the short tracks. It does. We're not going to argue that it does. And he will. He eloquently, in a very, you know, great way, tells us what he thinks about that. And he takes no shots at anybody or NASCAR General and just says, hey, here's what's going on. Here's what I think we could do. And we'll see. Not a. It's a complex situation. He understands the challenges ahead. Great show. Anyways, if you haven't listened to it, we talk about it a lot. Yesterday in our Dirty Air segment, which, you know, we also had Kyle Larson and Ash Jr. It was a great, fun show. We did a little bit of Dirty Modeau as well. And today, Herman Schrader and Speed street come out with Kenny Wallace and Kenny Schrader. Kenny Schrader called me the other day, tell me how much fun he's having making the show with Kenny Wallace. And I've talked to me and Kenny Schrader have always been in touch, but I'm actually talking to him more now because of this and I love that. So I love that this show and this little arrangement has brought us closer together and more communication between the two of us. Connor Daly does a great job of telling us everything. IndyCar because we love IndyCar. We love that series and all the complex personalities involved. And Kyle Larson's getting ready to go do the double. So that'll be another great reason to tune in to Speed street over the next several weeks. So also tomorrow we have, Bless your heart, Amy and I will do another episode of that show. We're having a blast. And yeah, that'll be the weekend. Don't forget to shop at this website. Shop.dirdemow media.com shop.dirtymomedia.com that's where you're gonna find T shirts, hoodies, hats from DirtyMome Media Stuff, just Dirty Mo Media branded stuff. And then you're gonna find also specific podcast, branded apparel, door bumper, clear, Dale Jr. Download, speed streak, actions detrimental, and even, bless your heart, Amy herself, I'm very proud of this. She, she herself has been working on the hats and the shirts and stuff for Bless your heart. And she's got some funny stuff coming out. That is for the ladies. I'm very, very proud of that. Very proud of her. It's been a great week so far. We'll see you tomorrow with Bless yous Heart. Thank you. Check out DirtyMomedia on Instagram, Facebook X and TikTok.