← What Are You Made Of?
What Are You Made Of?
From College Band to Grammy Stage: Jim Sonefeld on Creativity, Adversity, and Entrepreneurial Spirit
00:38:01
Loading summary
Transcript119 lines
- [00:01]
A
Back to that one studio. It's your boy, C Rock here on the Woody made of show. I have Jim Sonnenfeld here with us. Otherwise known as Sony to his friends. What's happening, Sony C Rock, I am.
- [00:16]
B
Very pleased to be connected with you today. Making my day today, Getting to have a good conversation. Go deep, go spontaneous, go sideways, whichever way the wind blows us.
- [00:26]
A
That's how we do it here, man. That's how we do it. Where are you located right now?
- [00:29]
B
I'm in Columbia, South Carolina.
- [00:32]
A
Okay.
- [00:32]
B
And I've been here for, my goodness, 40 years.
- [00:36]
A
Okay. All right. Well, I like that because that's close to Florida. For our next event, I'm gonna have to get you in there. So there's distances in as bad as the LA one. But yeah, man, let's get into it today. What are you made of, man?
- [00:49]
B
You know, you talk about ingredients because we were talking about that pre show and I was thinking about ingredients. What am I made of? I'm like, I am a soup, you know, I'm a hearty winter soup. And I've got a lot of ingredients that go into really making who I am today. And so I think one of those ingredients is experience. Obviously what I've seen, what I've been in front of, what I've heard, lessons, failures, weaknesses, all of that. So it's probably one third of experience, probably one third acceptance, you know, the reality of all of that and what it makes me today and what I have in front of me today as an option. So another third would be, I would say, probably hopes and dreams because that's what pulls me forward. I'm always out there looking because I have. I'm a creative spirit. So I imagine songs. I imagine getting in front of groups to speak. There's all these things. I imagine things for my family. So it ends up being sort of this experience. What was the second one? Oh, my gosh. Experience, acceptance and hopes and dreams. I guess that leaves 10% still. I'll put that to leaving it open for possibilities. Say just possibilities. Because you don't know what's going to hit you today. Right. I'm always up for. You never know what's around the corner. And so I'll leave that 10% like it. Possibilities.
- [02:20]
A
Yeah, I like it.
- [02:21]
B
All right, well.
- [02:21]
A
And you were involved with writing some or all of the songs for Hootie and the Blowfish?
- [02:27]
B
Yeah, we started co writing together in 1989 and we were finishing up college at the University of South Carolina. Go Gamecocks. And we didn't have any teachers. We didn't really have any mentors except for the music we'd loved growing up and in college. But we wanted to play original stuff, and we wanted, if we're honest, to have people in front of us that were inspired by that because we were big fans of music. So we were just thinking, man, we love all these old bands. Wouldn't it be great to inspire people in the same way? So we wrote for ourselves and for the possibility of an audience. And in 89, with no real direction other than, hey, we think we know the basics, let's start doing it. So we wrote together. There was times where I brought in entire songs with lyrics and melodies. There's times where Darius did Mark and Dean, But a lot of times we made it up as we went along, supporting each other lyrically and melodically. And Darius, obviously was doing the lead vocals and still does. And so we were, you know, original entrepreneurs. I would say at least four guys with some music instruments. We don't have a penny to our name. We got the biggest dream ever. Maybe we can get fans. How do you do it? And part of what I talk about when I talk to groups is how do you build that entrepreneurial sort of business, even though it's art? So you mix creativity, you mix finding your truths, finding out who you are, what your strengths and weaknesses are, where you are in the business of music for us, which was the very bottom. And you build it up like an entrepreneurial would. And so I think musicians or. Or band members are. Are true in the spirit of entrepreneurialism, you know, it's all about how do you make something of nothing. Yeah.
- [04:23]
A
And 100%. I'm going to dive into that in a second. But, like, what. Did you guys meet in college?
- [04:28]
B
We did. We were. I was playing in a couple different bands. I came to South Carolina to play college soccer, which I did for four years. But it was obvious at the end of that I was not prepared to go any further. I just had a cool mullet and short shorts, and that ain't going to get you very far. I went back to my nature, which was drumming. And I'd always been a drummer as a kid and picked up guitar and piano and, yeah, the other guys were in the same boat. We got degrees, but do we want to go towards real jobs or can we still do this music thing? It was really just hanging in the wind there. Can we do this thing that we don't know anything about?
- [05:08]
A
And how did you gu come together on this? Like, what, what's the story behind that?
- [05:13]
B
There was the. The story from the beginning, which is before I knew the guys. Mark, Brian, our guitarist, hearing a magical voice coming out of the common hallway dormitory shower and goes in there and goes, who is that singing? And it was Darius Rucker, and he had this tremendous voice. So Mark talked Darius into an acoustic 2, 2 guy band. They recruited Dean Felber, who also had come from Mark's hometown to play bass. And they got another drummer, Brantley Smith, an incredible drummer. And they just goofed off playing around the college campus. A few out of town gigs in the late 80s. I was doing the same thing in another band and I was cursing.
- [05:52]
A
But by the way, you had. You mentioned you had hair back then. Did Darius have hair at that time too?
- [05:57]
B
Yeah, we all push. It was a nice little look. And it was. The growing problem that many male males have is that cul de sac in the back that we can't even see.
- [06:07]
A
Yeah.
- [06:08]
B
Hopefully you get a good friend that'll tell you, hey, you might want to see that.
- [06:12]
A
Yeah.
- [06:12]
B
So, yeah, we had hair, we had youth, we had all that spirit. And when Brantley Smith, the original drummer, decided after graduation that he didn't want to do that, he wanted to go into his. He actually went into mission work and the ministry. They were looking for a new drummer. And I knew our guitarist from school. I said, hey man, when's the audition? I want to write music too. And it was a good fit. Honestly. When we got together, it worked immediately. I brought in an original song. When they said, do you have any originals? It was called Hold My Hand. I'd written it a few months earlier and it became a song that we recorded and recorded. And then eventually David Letterman heard and changed our lives by inviting us on Late Night with David Letterman for 3 minutes and 20 seconds. Wow.
- [07:01]
A
And I can't tell you how I probably sang that song more times than you have. I know how. I know how you had to play how many times. I mean, I'm sure, but I'm telling you like that, that, that's a. That's a song that like, resonated in my head for a long time. You know how you can't get rid of a song? Some days it's like, no, dude, I mean, we.
- [07:21]
B
Sometimes you do get a song that you've played so many times it might wear on you. But when we hit the big time and the fans and the audiences got so much bigger, that song and our. Those old songs took on new meaning. When you see 20,000 people singing the song you scripted in front of you. Suddenly it's a what moment of I can't believe this has happened. And Hold My Hand particular has had legs even further into the 2000s. I mean, that thing was just co opted by a country songwriter called Scotty McCreary with a song called Bottle Rockets, which combined the chorus of Hold My Hand and this other theme, and it went number one at country.
- [08:01]
A
So when he does that, he has to get permission from somebody to do. To use.
- [08:05]
B
Yeah, he already did. He allowed us to sing the background vocals on the. On the track. So he brought us into the fold and we got to do the music video and. And it went number one. I mean, that. I've never seen a song last quite so long. I never thought it would last when I wrote it. I just wanted to write something that was meaningful.
- [08:22]
A
Yeah, that's awesome, man. When you wrote it, did you hear, like, when Darius sang it the first time? Did like. Was that like, wow, that's it. That's what I was hearing, or not really.
- [08:30]
B
Well, I had a good melody and it was a good, you know, it's an anthem. It's a chorus that says, hey, we got problems here. We need to lift each other up. And that's what the spirit of that song was. So I love the spirit, but obviously singing it in my little dumpy apartment sounded like one thing. And then when Darius sang that course, I was like, oh, this really is gonna work. He's got such a thick, luscious voice. And we recorded that on a cassette in 1990. We recorded. Recorded it on an EP in 93. We recorded on our Atlantic Records debut, Cracked rear view in 94, again before it even got on the radio. So we'd given that thing a lot of attempts because we. We all liked the message. It always brought people together. Yeah. And I think that that's why it lasts.
- [09:16]
A
Yeah. And. And so when you guys are first recording it on a. A, you know, a. I don't want to say tool, but like a cassette or EP or what have you. How did you start distributing it first?
- [09:29]
B
Well, there was no Internet in 1989-90, and so we had bought a van, a little dumpy Ford Econoline, and we were doing out of town gigs on a Friday and Saturday, sometimes a Thursday. Friday, Saturday, we were still booking ourselves. And so we got this five song, you know, cassette that we made at a real studio. So you had to save your money. That was the only way to record back then. You couldn't, like, get your laptop. Yeah. And have these. Yeah, you got to get a producer and buy the studio time. So we did that up in Raleigh, and we sold it out of the back of the van at shows. We also made our own T shirts. So we own the copyrights for our T shirts. And those paid for a lot of, you know, new tires on the van and gasoline and insurance. So we were. That's why I say, as entrepreneurs, we were figuring out ways how you bring in money when you don't have a lot of fans.
- [10:18]
A
Yeah.
- [10:18]
B
There's got to be other sources. So those resources were T shirts, cassettes, eventually CDs. When that. That. That format came along, did you.
- [10:26]
A
Did you guys originally have the name Hootie and the Blowfish?
- [10:29]
B
Yes.
- [10:30]
A
And how did that come about?
- [10:31]
B
Oh, my goodness. You know, I was not in the room when the vote took place. I don't know if I would have voted down or not. But it was two guys that our singer nicknamed. Darius is famous for singing, but infamous for giving you nicknames you don't want. And one guy's nickname was the Blowfish. And the Blowfish had big jowls, big cheeks. And the other guy was Hootie, and He had these big 80s glasses and probably big eyes, bright eyes. And they walked in an apartment party one night, and just like, if you said, hey, there's Rick and Jerry, there's Hooting the Blowfish. And apparently not long after that, there was a conversation about a band name. And Darius said, what about Hooting the Blowfish? Nobody, I don't think, liked it, but it was one of those, let's use it for now. It does sound like it could be catchy.
- [11:21]
A
Gotcha. And then. And then. How did. How did David Letterman hear about it?
- [11:26]
B
Well, it's what I call luck. And I talk about this too when I get in front of groups. Luck isn't always just a random thing that comes out of nowhere. I think it can. But in our case, it was like it was written in my high school gym growing up. It said, luck is where preparation meets opportunity. And so here we'd been working our tails off for about five years. We'd recorded Hold My Hand three different times already. And preparation is that opportunity is. Atlantic Records signed us. They had us on a few stations, and one of them was in New York. And one of the few spins we were getting at that time happened to come on the radio when Letterman was sitting in his car on the way home, and he said, well, that's a catchy number. And he called his booker and said, can we get these guys on the show? I think that was a Tuesday and we were on there Friday night. So our fortune changed quickly. In that sense, maybe we're. We were an overnight sensation, but we'd already been working for five to seven years, paying the dues. So preparation opportunity came together at that moment. We seized it. And immediately there was a trend change. Radio stations wanted to pick it up, record sales improve. The Atlantic Records Group says, wow, this looks like it could catch fire. We're going to put more money in promotion. And next thing you know, we were going from. We were 127 on the charts when we first came out in July. We were 155, going the wrong way right before Letterman. And that thing started going up. 120, 180, 60. And by May, we were number one. We had average selling almost a million records in the calendar year of 1995, which is insane to think about.
- [13:11]
A
Geez, geez. And what music were you guys inspired by? Like, what kind of music did you listen to back in the 80s and 90s?
- [13:19]
B
Well, talk about a soup. You know, it really was a lot of different ingredients. And maybe that's what made our sound a little unique, is that you had Darius, who was raised here in South Carolina. He was. Loved R and B, which is. And he loved gospel, which his mom raised a mom. But he liked Kiss, he liked Merle Haggard, he liked. He loved R.E.M. mark and Dean from Gaithersburg, Maryland.
- [13:42]
A
Aggressive women. Is that where they're from?
- [13:44]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [13:45]
A
I didn't know that. I live in Ocean City, Maryland, so I didn't know. They didn't come from there.
- [13:49]
B
And they loved classic rock like I did growing up and all the. The new rock, the college rock that was coming out in the 80s. REM of course, was at the top of that list for everybody. And I had all these weird influences too. And there are too many to mention, from classic rock to prog rock to some jazz.
- [14:09]
A
What about country?
- [14:09]
B
Country? Prime country was what I was listening to. Like, it was my job when I wrote Hold My Hand. So I think that spirit, if you think of that 80s country, which was real melodic, a little bigger production, that's where Hold My Hand was born.
- [14:25]
A
Yeah, I went to College in early 9, mid-90s, and we were listening to country like Brooks and Dunn, Tim McGraw and all those guys. And then we would listen to Rusted Rude and Fish and Pink Floyd. It would depend on the group I was hanging out with at the night that time, you know, and Then. And then hip hop music, like, back then, Biggie was like, really, really kicking it off, and Jay Z. And we would get into that too. So we had a really wide range of music we were into too. And. But. But I had a question on. I wanted to touch on something with that, the music. Oh, I want to touch on this. What, what are your thoughts on how Morgan Wallen's doing what he's doing? Right. This is a shift in country music because he's mixing in hip hop beats with it. It's just a different thing. And you need evolution in music, I think.
- [15:10]
B
Right.
- [15:11]
A
But he's kind of. He's kind of like, he's not respected by the. The awards, the industry, it seems like, but he's selling out stadiums all over the place. Like, I. I don't understand that. Like, what are your thoughts on that? And then also the evolution of the country from what he's done.
- [15:28]
B
Yeah, I mean, the arts are funny. I had a lot of opinions when I was younger and I've tried to teach my kids as they've grown up to not have so many strong opinions about somebody's art. Morgan, for example, or hooting the Blowfish or Dave Matthews or any band in any genre. We get so critical about. This isn't, that stinks or that artist sucks. I hate him. I've tried to raise my kids with more of a spirit of, you know, it's somebody making art, it's somebody out there trying their best. Maybe they're writing towards country, maybe they're writing towards hip hop, but they're all just singing something typically from their heart. So you don't have to like it. I don't like it all for sure, but I don't have to have this big dumb opinion that I shoot out to the universe to say, that guy sucks. That guy's got a mom and a brother and a sister. And when they see that word, that guy sucks in the media or on social media, I don't think that's a good thing to throw out to the world in general. So I've tried to raise my kids that way, and I have certainly have that spirit too. Who do? The Blowfish weren't loved when we got very big. We in fact caused. There was some backlash, which is what happens when you're Morgan and you get big. There's a group of people that want to say, oh, he didn't earn it, or he's not authentic. All these people just shut up, please.
- [16:48]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [16:49]
B
If you don't like it, don't put it on. Don't turn the radio station.
- [16:53]
A
But how can you argue with selling out stadiums? He's actually, this year going on to the I'm still the Problem tour, and he's going to go and go to Alabama's football stadium. Okay. 100,000 people. It's just crazy to me.
- [17:05]
B
The more you sell, the more haters come out. Look at Taylor Swift. She's got more haters than anyone has their own fans. It's because she's done well. And there's something about seeing people at the top and wanting to take them down.
- [17:17]
A
But even. But no, but even the industry with the awards, like, that's the part that I'm talking about. Not necessarily some haters, but the awards.
- [17:26]
B
I have another hot take on awards.
- [17:28]
A
Yeah.
- [17:29]
B
Screw the awards.
- [17:30]
A
Yeah.
- [17:30]
B
They don't make it who you are. They're not going to break you. If you're on an award show, you've already done something amazing and authentic.
- [17:37]
A
Yeah.
- [17:37]
B
In someone's eyes, more than likely millions of people's eyes.
- [17:41]
A
Yes. Yeah.
- [17:41]
B
No award is going to keep you there or going to lift you up. It's just an award.
- [17:46]
A
Yeah.
- [17:46]
B
So the fact that Hooting the Blowfish got two awards always made me feel kind of warm inside, but it was also like, why would we get it? Yeah. Any of those artists were worthy of it that. That were nominated? I think award shows, in hindsight, from someone that's got a few, I don't think they should be meaningful to the artist and people arguing over it. We need something to argue about. Right. Social media.
- [18:10]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [18:11]
B
Sure. It causes some great forums, but in terms of artists, I don't think the artists care as much as the fans do about those.
- [18:17]
A
Yes. Well, and then the reason I brought up Morgan Wallen, too, because Aaron Lewis was on a podcast. I can't remember. Tucker Carlson, I think, and he was talking about how he hated Morgan Wallen's music because he's not. He's taking it away from what country used to be and this and that. And then speaking of Aaron Lewis, he also. You know who Aaron Lewis is from Stained, Right.
- [18:33]
B
Yeah. Participates in our. In our fundraising event. Yeah.
- [18:38]
A
So I love. He came to Ocean City one time and did his solo show, and we were like, right in there. It wasn't a whole lot of people even, but just. He's just amazing. But he also has a song, and it was. I think it was one of his solo songs that talked about how the music industry tried to push him in a direction and staying. But he didn't want to do that. And that's why he ended up going on solo and doing his thing. And he has this little voice in that one song. I forget what it is. And it's like this old man, like, I'm gonna help you make a lot of cash, but you need to cut your hair, do all this. How did that happen, if at all to you all? Where did somebody try to mold and shape you into something and take you away from being authentic?
- [19:14]
B
Luckily, they didn't. And I think eventually our record label and our publicists would have loved to have seen us develop into something that was more. I guess salable would be the word. More, you know, wear cooler straps or have cooler hair. We were naturally a little mainstream. The soup that we made, you know, the four of us and all of our influences that made the songs Only Want To Be with youh and Let Her Cry and Hold My Hand, those were not influenced by anybody. We didn't have mentors. We didn't have people telling us what to write. That's who we were. So the fact that those became big pop rockets was our nature. Now the problem is, for any band, they're usually quite authentic. And then you sell a million records and it's hard to be authentic anymore because you've been diluted by money and you've got a record label saying, hey, you know that song that sold a million? Do that again.
- [20:12]
A
Right.
- [20:12]
B
Well, that's not the way we wrote lettercry. That's not the way we wrote Only Wanna Be with youh. We wrote those because we're young people who are desperate to have their voices heard. We didn't have anybody telling us what to write. That was our true, authentic voices. So from anyone's first hit on, It's a Shambles. Cause you're always thinking, do I need to do that old thing again? Do I need to repeat that? What is authentic, what's fresh and new? And to reinvent oneself is the most difficult thing that any artist or creator has. Especially after success. And that's what we struggle with. People wanted to change us. Hey, your second record or your third record, you need to do this new drum machine that's popular. Or do this new music video that's popular to promote your music. We're like. We're just hooting the blowfish. We're authentic. But what we're. And maybe we suffered from not reinventing ourselves down the years, but we were always true to ourselves. And for that, I will never regret anything we ever made.
- [21:13]
A
I was just Thinking about that, I think it was yesterday, and it's been six years since I started building my brand and building it some kind of thing. Right. With the podcast space and all the things. And I've always wanted to lean into being authentic and unapologetically me. And then you start getting put up here, and then you have, you know, people start kind of putting you on a pedestal at some point. And then some days, I just don't feel like. I don't feel like being that living demonstration that I is authentically me. But, like, sometimes I'm just like, man, I feel like I'm gonna let people down if I'm not on all the time, you know?
- [21:46]
B
Yeah. It makes you wonder, am I playing me or am I being me? And it's hard to play yourself. And especially if you've been out podcasting and speaking or singing for us, when that. That repetition starts happening, you can lose yourself, you can lose your identity, a little bit of what got you there.
- [22:05]
A
Yeah.
- [22:05]
B
And that's the whole, you know, thing with being an artist or a creator is that how do you sort of stick with who you are, but while you need to make it new and a newer version of it, and I think for us, it's about always looking at who you are, knowing you can grow, and knowing that you're teachable. I mean, in my art, my music, that's transformed from the Hootie years to my solo stuff, I had some contemporary Christian stuff. I've got some other stuff as well that's just pop and rock. You know, you have to kind of reinvent the wheel a few times or dig deep to see what do I want to say today. And hopefully what you want to say today isn't the same as what you wanted to say when you were 22.
- [22:46]
A
Right.
- [22:46]
B
It should be something different and developed.
- [22:48]
A
Right. And so when you had that success and money started to come and. And, like, what was it like being a rock star? Because that's kind of what it was like. What is it? Was it what you thought it was going to be?
- [22:59]
B
I didn't hate it.
- [23:01]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [23:01]
B
I mean, you know, it's not bad. Your ego gets fed, you have a lot of attention. And I always loved the approval of others to a fault. Even when I was doing bad things or unlawful things or illegal things, I still desperately wanted your approval. That was my human contradiction. I'm this guy in private, and in public, I need your approval. And that came to bite my butt with addiction later on because I didn't have any way to solve it. And so rock and roll is great though. You get, you get paid, there's a lot of fans there, you're getting a lot of attention and for the most part there's nothing wrong with that. You get to travel and if you're a traveling guy, that's a wonderful thing. But the probably hardest thing to deal with is when it tops off and it always does, what are you going to do when you're coming down the other side of that mountain? Because it will happen, if not momentarily, seasonally, if not seasonally, maybe permanently. We looked back on Crack, Rear view, our now 22 million albums sold. We looked back two years after that, came out and realized, oh my gosh, the best part of our career is absolutely behind us in terms of sales. It would be impossible to repeat it. Most bands, if you looked at any records, they never like did that twice or went up and up and up. So we had to face what are we going to do with this feeling that it's going to be hard to repeat that thing, that magic. And that's what everybody struggles with in any entertainment industry. That's fleeting. So we got there and by 2000, I was so disillusioned and fearful and prideful. All these contradictions and the only way to solve it for me was the old fashioned way, which was using alcohol and drugs. It always eased the pain, if not momentarily, but unfortunately I don't have a normal body. I would drink, but I couldn't control the amount. I would seek out other things to solve for that pain and that sort of dissatisfaction. And it almost killed me. I spent five years in the, you know, starting a family and having a huge downfall in my alcoholism. We, the band, were trying to find themselves at that period, so that didn't help. But it was fear and pride and self centeredness and an inability to be honest with yourself. For me, I didn't want to be an alcoholic. I didn't want to have to quit drinking or stop doing all those crazy things because I thought that was fun, that was freedom.
- [25:36]
A
But it's fun for a little bit. It can be partying. It's fun at first. That's why it's, it pulls.
- [25:42]
B
I mean, yeah, it's fun being in the circus. The circus is fun.
- [25:46]
A
Yeah. I mean, some of the greatest times of my life. And I feel bad saying it in a way because I know what it does to you after you stay in it too long. It's dark, quick and yeah, you know, I, I can relate to everything you're Saying, man, I mean, not. Not the 22 million record sold, but. But I can relate to the other stuff.
- [26:03]
B
Yeah.
- [26:04]
A
And. And I'm. You know what? I'm so glad that I didn't get a lot of money until I was in. Like, I surrendered to God, let's put it that way.
- [26:14]
B
Yeah.
- [26:15]
A
Because I would have been a mess. Like, I had a friend, Ross Mandel, who was on Wall Street. He ended up in prison for nine years. But he had million tens and hundreds of mil. I don't know how much exactly, but tens of millions, let's put it that way. And. And he got into cocaine, all this stuff. His story's out there. And I said to him one day, I'm like, man, I'm just so glad that I didn't make money like that when I was in my early 20s. It would have been bad.
- [26:39]
B
I mean, we need. We need a guide, and young people don't think they do. You know, when you're in your 20s, we're more likely to think, no, I got this. I don't need a God. Look, I'm living, I'm strong, I'm healthy, I have energy. I'm on the road, I'm on the path. But that youthfulness can buy you when you suddenly are served the world. You have money and attention and fame. That can get real dicey. And I didn't have a guide at that time. I'd put my idea of God or needing mentorship away. I thought my successful career was proof that the universe was telling me, you're good, you have succeeded, and you don't need anything else. And when it all started coming apart, I didn't have anything to grasp for. I didn't have some knowledge, some wisdom or a mentor or a God to say, hey, what do I do? I also had this denial thing. So it meant I don't want to ask for your help. A lot of our human failings, especially in youth, is that we don't want to ask for help when we need it.
- [27:39]
A
And so true.
- [27:40]
B
That's a problem.
- [27:41]
A
So true.
- [27:42]
B
Especially an addict.
- [27:44]
A
I talk about the topic of help a lot. There's. There's a whole scientific theory on why people don't ask for help or give help. And I've gone. I'm not gonna go deep into that today. But, yeah. 100. So one thing about the drinking thing. I've stopped drinking. I. I was only. I. I didn't have a problem later in life. Here I. I was like one to three drinks a week, but I just wasn't feeling good afterwards, even one to three drinks a week, I'd have anxiety the next day. Not hangover, which is anxiety. I'm like, what the heck's going on? And I wasn't being able to have a clear communication line with God. And so right there, that thing right there made everything easier for me to not, not partake. Because when I started seeing what God was doing in my life and the communication that I had with him, I don't want that line, that communication line to have static on it. Yeah, I need that thing to flow, man. And, and so that's what made it easy for me. And when you start getting that, I, I pray for everyone out there to find a relationship with God because it is the most amazing thing that you could even, you couldn't even imagine. And so that's what's helped me. Just not even, not even have a glass of wine here or there or whatever.
- [28:52]
B
It's just.
- [28:53]
A
That's going to fuzzy up the communication line, man.
- [28:55]
B
If you can get honest enough to see that there is something blocking you from your God that you understand, then you are truly blessed. And the alcoholic does not have that. There's a blockade. But they don't want the answer. That is the answer. They don't want to see it's drinking and you need help, or it's drugs and you need help, or it's codependency or lust or extreme self centeredness or pride run riot. There's all these things that we against logic say, no, I don't want the answer right now. Because the thing that's beating your butt is the thing you reach for each day to solve the dis. Ease. And it's that cycle that the alcoholic has a hard time getting out of. You have a mental obsession to say, I'm going to use a drink to make me feel better. And if you're normal, you can do that. A drink after work, you've worked your butt off. Or after a hard week. Hey, if you can do it in control. It does give you some relief that we've been using it as humans for thousands of years. But the alcoholic is obsessed with this idea of feeling better. And they have a body physically that doesn't know how to deal with alcohol. Yeah, we do the opposite. We like race, like it's unlimited. And we want.
- [30:13]
A
And you don't want the night, you don't want the night to end. I've been there before. Like, yeah, this, you know, Jesse Itzler said this thing one time to me to help Me think about, like, when I stopped drinking so much and I went down to one to three a week for, like, give or take. And he said, what about tomorrow? I always used to think about before I would go out, I'd think, what about tomorrow? I didn't think that I wanted tonight. I would worry about tomorrow. Would I worry about tomorrow? I want the night to not end, especially if there's, like, girls around and fellas that are having. We're having a good time and. Yeah, you just don't want it to end. And I remember. And then you're looking. Alcohol gets you sleepy. Then you're looking for the thing to keep you awake, to keep you going through the night. And. Ah, man. Yeah, but. But if you say, what about tomorrow, man? It makes a difference right before you start drinking, if you're out there still drinking, folks.
- [30:58]
B
Yeah, I. I never cared about tomorrow because I knew when I get to tomorrow, I'll figure it out. And usually the answer, unfortunately for the alcoholic or the addict, the answer tomorrow is going to be, I need another drink to feel better about what might have happened last night. So that's the cycle. And, you know, I wrote an album, an EP, that came out in 2022, and I titled it based on that same thing you just said. It's called Remember Tomorrow. Like, don't forget. When it's two in the morning and you're thinking you need another one, Remember Tomorrow.
- [31:32]
A
Yeah.
- [31:33]
B
And then you might go, oh, yeah, wait a minute.
- [31:35]
A
But the key is you can't do that because you're already in it. Like, you got to do it before you go out that night. That's the magic part. Like, that's the magic part. Like, same thing with eating, like, Thanksgiving dinner. I said to myself, I'm going to have a little tiny piece of a little bit of everything. And that's it. And that's what I did. Because if I didn't. If I decided while I was doing it, I'm like, this stuff tastes too good, man. I'm not stopping right now.
- [31:57]
B
Yeah.
- [31:58]
A
So. But. All right. With the time we have left, I just want to touch on another thing. So when you're in a band, how's the dynamic of somebody getting more attention to other people or also wanting to go solo like Darius end up doing, you know, as well? How did that all play out?
- [32:15]
B
It's. It's hard. A lot of bands honestly will break up over that. There's three things that we were told will break up a band. We were told this at the beginning it's women, drugs or money or all three. And we've survived a lot of all of those three things, and including maybe the difficult periods is when Darius put out a country record in 2008. His first single came out and it got wildly popular. It can throw off a balance of an otherwise, you know, just four guys in a band voting on stuff. When someone's life changes so profoundly like his did, it has its challenges. We also suffered a few years earlier when I had to quit drinking. And because we were always the four musketeers, we always went out together, we always watched sports and drank together. And when I had to pull out of that, it threw the ship off of balance in a certain way. And so that happened. Darius getting wildly popular and continuing on that path happened. It worked out for us, for me personally, at least, because I had been divorced and got remarried and my family grew by twice. I went from two kids to five kids in one ring ceremony. So I wanted to stay. I was sober. I wanted to stay home and be that staying home dad. So all of Darius's notoriety for me was like, oh, amen, brother. Like, keep getting it, because I know you're not going to want to tour with Hootie next week. I'm still kids in fifth grade and seventh grade and high school, so it all always worked for me. And. And so in that sense, I was okay with it. And we had.
- [33:55]
A
Well, how did the conversation go for when he decided to do that or try that? Did he have to.
- [33:58]
B
It was not.
- [33:59]
A
He didn't come to you guys and say, hey, I'm thinking about doing this?
- [34:02]
B
Nah, it's okay. We were. We were trying to find out who we were. We didn't even have a record label. Darius had put out an album in 2020, 2002, which was more of a R and B flavored album. And it didn't take off. And then we did another album together. People wanting to do their own project was never like a sticking point. And it's never a sticking point typically until it blows up and then the ship gets a little bit unbalanced. And he wanted to dedicate all the time that he deserved for that country project because he had a back to. Back to back number one singles. I would have wanted to chase that thing too. So when he chased it, I was like, man, go get it. It's there. You deserve it. I think country benefited greatly from having a soulful voice in that industry. And he led the way for Shaboozi and everybody else. Yeah, more African American Artists and people of color to get in there and sing great country music. So it worked out for us. It allowed us to be off the road for 10 straight years. And that did an important thing for Hooting the Blowfish. It starved our audience enough to where when 2019 came around and we wanted to do a big reunion tour, people were mad for us. They were crazy to see Hooting the Blowfish again. Darius's notoriety pulled that ship along because he played Hold My Hand in his country shows. He'd play Only wanna be with you. It just told people, hey, here's where I came from. So when we came Back in 2019, we were selling tickets, 25,000 seats a night, to amphitheaters. We hadn't sold that way since 96.
- [35:37]
A
Yeah.
- [35:38]
B
So it was a good synergy sometimes. Again, allowing for possibilities. That's 10% of my makeup based on the what am I made of Question. Allow for things to flow, you never know. I never knew that Darius's putting out a country album would lead to us getting to do the biggest tour of our careers in 2019. And singing Hold My Hand to 20,000 people a night, that's a beautiful thing. But you have to sometimes just let go a little bit to let life happen. You can't control it all. That's my biggest problem. You know, if you can't accept that there's a lot of things out there you can't control and then be willing to accept that sometimes you need to change something in your own heart or mind. It's going to be a tough life. And so I've learned some, some good lessons along the way.
- [36:22]
A
Yeah, that's amazing. And you had a great attitude about it, which ended up helping you. Are you guys still touring now?
- [36:27]
B
We toured. We did that same thing after 2019. We did it again in 2024amp with 50 shows, amphitheaters and arenas across America, huge crowds. It was just amazing. I got to sell my book to our Hootie audience every night, which was a nice lift for me. Darius put out a book as well. And, you know, we got to have our families together on the road. You know, you talk about a synergy, getting to be with the guys that you made your careers with after 30, 35 years. It's pretty amazing. Not a lot of bands even last that long. So we're grateful probably above everything that we get to make music and that we have a fan bases that's still viable.
- [37:10]
A
Amazing, man. Well, I appreciate you, the new friendship we have and, and for taking the time to show up here today on the Woody Made Up Show. Sony, it's been a pleasure, man.
- [37:21]
B
Thank you for your time and thank you for your audience, too. If you want to find me, I'm on Facebook. I should be on LinkedIn.
- [37:27]
A
Yeah, we talked about that. Yeah, yeah, he's on Facebook, but we're going to get him on LinkedIn. But you can check them out. You know where to find him. And if you need anybody that like, you know, wants to connect with him for speaking events and speaking engagements, just reach out to me. I'll get you connected with him. I'd love to be the catalyst for that and see what happens from it. So, Sony, thanks again, man. Hang tight while I wrap this up, folks. Thank you so much for being here. We appreciate you. Whether you're watching or listening, however you're consuming this content, make sure you hit the subscribe follow button at the top of your favorite podcast platform and keep coming back. And until next time, be that one.