#601 - Megan Moroney Shares Swiftie Dreams, Tour Burnout and Why She Loves Sad Songs

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. I'll do all my rehearsals in a weighted vest, because sometimes my outfits weigh like 10 to 15 pounds. And when I've done the performance, I'm like, oh, like I am not in shape for this. Today's guest is one of the biggest stars in country music. And one of my favorite artists, Megan Moroney, billions of streams. So many number one songs with songs like Tennessee Orange. Am I okay? Jam. She just dropped her brand new album, Cloud nine, which obviously debuted at number one, and she's about to hit the road on her massive cloud nine tour. And somewhere in the middle of all that, she's writing songs. She leads the ACM awards nominations this year with nine nominations, including entertainer of the year. Big fan, awesome artist. Here she is. Megan Moroney. Megan, good to see you. Good to see you. I wanted to start. This is a little bit selfish of me, but I get a lot of emails asking for advice to me. Okay. I give the same answers over and over. It feels like so you want to do some of these with me? Sure. Thank God. What if I was just like, no, then we would move on. We would literally just move on. I'm down. Okay. Okay. Uh, let's go with the first one here. Hey, Bobby, I'm a 23 year old singer, songwriter living in a small town in North Carolina. I've been writing songs since high school and playing local coffee shops and bars on the weekends. I've saved up a little money. Nashville has always been a dream, but making that leap feels terrifying. What advice would you give me? Sign girl with a guitar. I think all good things are terrifying at first. And I would say if I'm in your position, that's kind of like where I was at in Athens, like when I was like playing at bars and like, um, I was scared to move to Nashville, but I just felt like I needed to. It was like a gut thing. And, um, I knew that I also moved to town knowing like this could not work. So, but I don't want to die without trying. So that would be my advice would just be to do it. Um, give it your all. And I would say also like try to build as annoying as it is, try to build a following on socials and post your original songs and stuff and, um, build a fan base that way. So then when you move to Nashville, maybe you'll have a couple of people show up at writer's rounds or whatever you get into. I have a friend that is thinking about changing careers and he hit me up a couple of days ago and he said, Hey, when should I do this? And I said, well, you can either do it now or in six months, you'll be in the same position going, when should I do this? And then you can either do it then or in six months. And then before you know it, two years have gone by and you haven't done crap. And you're going, man, when should I have done this? And like, if you physically can do it, right? Do it now, because what happens is even if you make mistakes when you do it, you actually get to learn on those mistakes rather than just in action, what you get to learn nothing. That was kind of my reasoning to my parents too. And I wanted to move because it was during COVID. So my parents were trying to be like, there's no point for you to spend your money and rent in Nashville when like nothing's happening. And I told my parents, I'm like, well, nothing's going to happen here in Covington, Georgia. So that's for certain, but you don't know it's going to happen. Like I could at least maybe make friends, um, right with people like you don't know. So, um, yeah, I would say good things are scary. Yeah, do it. If you're watching us on Netflix right now, I'm looking at the camera, do it, move. If you can afford it. Yeah. But even if you can't, you can figure it out, right? Like people move here and get jobs. There's weird ways to make money in Nashville. But not, not weird, weird. Just weird. No, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not weird, weird. Just weird. Let's just go one weird. Yeah. You can do it. We believe in you. Uh, next up. Hey, Bobby, I've heard it's uncool to wear an artist's merch to their own concert. Is that actually a thing? Because I feel like I want to wear it. What's your official ruling? Cool or not cool to wear an artist's merch to their own concert. Super cool. I think so too. Super cool. If it's like an old tour or two, you have something not everyone at this place can have. Also, if you want to go on buy a shirt and then put it on, do it. My, my fans do that a hundred percent. Like I look out and it looks like an army of camo and it's just, yeah, it's like they don't even worry about their outfit. They just put on the shirt when they get there. So I love it. And in the end, who gives a crap? What other people think about what you're wearing? Yeah. Dumb. And like that artist, you're at their show. I can tell you from an artist's point of view, they love it. I love seeing like a lucky shirt. I'm like, oh, wow, you've been around for a while. Do you ever see any really cool old merch that you haven't seen in a long time and somebody's wearing it? Yeah. During the, like my EP pistol made of roses era, there's this like sparkly denim jacket with like a picture of me that I took on like an iPhone. And there was only like a few of those made, but there was sold for like a hundred bucks, which like back then was like, I can't believe anybody would spend a hundred dollars on me. And yeah, there's a couple of them floating out there. Do you remember any of those, we'll call them day oneers, who were fans of you before you had really popped? Yeah. I have like a notes app of my fans and my phone. Not like all of them, obviously. Well, now that'd be a tough app to keep. But yeah, but like, but like, yeah, I know. And like, I remember like some of these girls too, at my meet and greets, um, like I've met them like several times, like to the point of where like, I know what's going on in their lives and stuff. So it's like, we would definitely be friends. We are friends. I started a long time ago, like taking questions for people, like helping out. Basically, I come from the streets, obviously look at me. Nobody's more street than me. Um, so I started to like just give advice randomly. I bet though, in your DMs, there's probably a lot of people constantly asking you questions too, right? Uh, I don't go there too often. It's a scary dark place. That's the right answer. Scary dark place. I only go on Tuesdays. Oh, Tuesdays. The comments or DMs, I only go on Tuesdays because it's brutal. Oh yeah. Mm hmm. And you can be as conditioned, you can be as callous as you, but if you're eating a neat right that day, if you're sad about something else and you see a comment that catches you just wrong, right? Even me, who has dealt with all of it in all capacities, like it sucks. So I give myself Tuesdays as like my cheat day. Like when I, you know, I'm really like, I'm working out for something. Tuesdays is a day when I go in and I read the comments. Otherwise, so Wednesday is just horrible. You wake up Wednesday. You're like, that's a good point. Tuesdays, you know, Monday night comes, you're starts when you're like, I didn't think about getting nervous for Tuesdays and then the effect of after Tuesdays. Usually by the time I go to bed and because it's, it's like a cheat day. Like if I was doing a TV show or something, I would really want to get in shape because I did feel like it put weight on me to be on camera. And so I would like hyper focus, but then on my cheat day, I wouldn't even cheat that bad. Yeah. But the fact that I just allowed myself that would keep you from going crazy. Right. And so some Tuesdays, I don't even go to the comments. Wow. Cause it is. So frustrating. What, what, what is your rule? Do you go to comments? Um, you know, this is an interesting question cause, um, it's been really relevant lately to me. I'm obviously in tour prep, you know, like doing all the things physically. And I had this like epiphany the other day, um, where it's like, just like I am disciplined about my like physical prep, my mental prep has to be just as important. And so stuff like reading the comments, like I actually have to like not do it. Like you just can't, and when I, if I, if I do see something, like I have to tell my brain that can affect you today. You're, you have to, you can't like, you know, dwell on it and let it like fester. And then you think about it. It's like to be, I'm disciplined physically now have to be disciplined mentally. Even if I saw that, I've also like gone to therapy enough to where I know how to like not carry that and stuff, but it's more so been like a, that can affect me today. So I'm going to move on, you know? So I really just. Yeah. I don't have a Tuesday ruler or anything, but, um, in my head too, it's like 99% of the time for me, it's going to be bad. So I'm like, I don't need to know. Screw y'all. Yeah. The point 111, the 001% screw y'all. I agree. Screw y'all. Uh, yeah, it sucks. But what I, I've talked about it a lot in therapy as well. I came from therapy straight here. Wasn't talking about that. That had been weird. If I was talking about that today, I wasn't. Um, but what I try to do now too is instead of on Tuesday, just focusing on the negative ones, which I really, it's what I'm searching for on Tuesday is like, I try to spend time on the positive ones, like commenting back to the positive ones. Because I neglect the comment section, right? Because it's not good for my mental health. It's a weird thing, right? Cause you would think I would think you would be, uh, you're good. It didn't bother you. Nothing bothers you. Yeah. That's what the normal person would think. And I think like most days I can let it not bother me, but obviously there's some days where you just like feel like shit and you kind of agree with them. And you're like, I know. So I'm saying if I don't eat right or something, absolutely. I'm like, I'm off my, my, uh, my blood sugar is off. Right. Something is wrong. I think it's just, yeah. What I've learned though is just like, you can't, it's, it requires discipline to not look and you just have to not look. I got a couple more. This is fun. I love that you're doing this. It saves me a lot of effort. All right. Next up. Uh, hey Bobby, I have a full-time marketing job. I'm also chasing creative dreams, but I feel like I'm exhausted constantly. I think I'm starting to burn out. How do you handle burnout? How do you handle burnout? How do you handle burnout? Um, I don't ever allow myself to say I'm burnt out. I think it's a, it's a once again, like I think your mind creates a narrative and it can become real in your head. Like your mind is a scary place. So you have to like my burnt out, like let's, like even right now, I'm not really writing songs right now because I'm trying to, um, destimulate my world right now. And I guess you could call that burnout if that's how you looked at it. But for me, it's like, I'm, I just need to like chill out for a second. And you, I think as a creative person, if you tell yourself I'm burnt out, then you think like, am I never going to write a good song again? Am I never going to do anything good again? Like your brain just like can't go there. So I think like burnout is just like, you probably just need to breathe. And why don't you just like chill for a second, do something else, stop putting so much pressure on yourself and it'll come naturally. Cause that's always, I feel like I've never been in a, uh, what do they call it? Like a writer's, uh, block. I've never had writer's block cause I don't, if I'm not feeling creative that day, that's just cause like we don't, I don't even know where songs come from. You know what I mean? Like you'll just write one day and you just get this idea and you're like, how the hell did I come up with that? And it just comes and then you don't know where it came from. And then maybe next day it doesn't come and that's okay. So it's kind of just like not putting pressure on yourself. Cause obviously, I mean, if you're writing out, I'm in a creative block, then you're like, Oh fuck, I'm not going to like, I'm not going to be able to be creative anymore. I'm feeling so stuck. And it's like, no, that's your mind telling you that perhaps you should just go do something, touch grass, breathe. Touch grass for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Take a break. Yeah. But don't put pressure on yourself to get back. For me, the greatest comes when I'm bored. It's so hard to be bored though, whenever you have an active mind, an active professional lifestyle. If I can be bored, if I can find time to be bored, which is a weird thing to do. If I can schedule boredom. Yeah. And then your mind starts just flowing with things that like, exactly. Like you have time to actually be creative, then worry, you're spending that time worrying about why you're not being creative. So yeah, I always tell any of my songwriters and stuff too. Like if we're in the room and I'm just not feeling it today, then like, that's okay. That doesn't mean we suck. That just means like it's not happening today. Perhaps it'll happen tomorrow. Maybe it won't. Maybe it'll happen in a week. So there are two times where I feel like I can even check out during the day. We have a sauna at the house. Oh, love that. If my phone goes in, it overheats. Right. You can't have your phone. And that sucks. And you're forced to drink water. Yeah. Yeah. That's two things. Yep. You're right. So when I go into the sauna, that's one. The shower is always good because I can't have a phone in the shower. So I can't get too hot. It's all phone related. That's what's crazy. It's all phone related. Got to put your phone down. Yep. The sauna, the shower and the baby. If I'm holding the baby, I can't be on the phone. Yep. That's where my mind does get to flow. So I think my advice too is take a break because that will be so beneficial to you in the area as you're worried about doing more in. Because if you just keep pushing, you're not going to create as much as you would if you took a break. I used to fall the way about sleeping. Do you sleep well? I sleep great. You do? One thing that, yeah, I do do well is sleep. I could fall asleep right now sitting like this probably. Has that always been the case? Yeah. So you have clear conscious. Is that what that means? I mean, probably partially, mostly. Yeah. I struggle with sleep and I find that because I would just go, I'm not getting enough sleep. Same thing too. I would say it so much that I think it would also start to manifest. Just like you're talking about if you say you're burnt out. Yeah. I mean, like I'm not sleeping good. And I think it did actually make me sleep worse that I wasn't sleeping good. Right. I like sleep so much to the point where like I'm really bad at watching movies because if it's dark, I'll fall asleep. That's called narcolepsy, Megan. I don't know if it's. But I'm like, if we're like just in a living room, I'm like, hey, can you turn the lights up? If I had a natural sleep pattern because mine is so jacked up now because I started doing working in the morning so early in my life. And baby, probably. Well, my wife crushes that like she knows my job's a bit weird. And I'm probably not always going to make all the money that I make now. So she's very like sensitive to the fact of do your job. I'll take care of this stuff. Do your job. That's nice. It's awesome. Yeah. Right. Like I'm so, I'm so fortunate there. Uh, but I wake up, you know, wake up at three or four in the morning. I try to go to bed at nine or so. But my normal body clock is go to bed at four in the morning and wake up at noon or 1pm. Wow. That's my natural cycle. And if I'm off for a few days, like on vacation, especially when I was single, that's, that's, that's what happened. Yeah. I would stay up until almost the sun came up. Wow. I don't think I've ever stayed up like til like six a.m. in my life. Maybe I've been doing it in school. It's not like I'm partying or anything. Like I would just stay up. That's crazy. You know, watching Netflix or something. So yeah, that's, that's crazy. All right. I got two more. Uh, hey, Bobby, I'm 25. I feel like I'm at the stage of life where everyone else seems to have it together and constantly questioning every decision that I make. I am career wise, where I want to live, what I'm doing next. Uh, how do I trust my gut when there are so many opinions coming out of me? Have you ever made a decision you weren't a hundred percent sure about? 25 is super young, by the way. I am 28 and, um, I even sometimes I'm like, what am I doing? But I would say it's one of those things where you just got to take action. Like whatever your gut is saying the loudest, like even for me, like, I, let's think about me, like moving to Nashville. This was like right after college during COVID. I'm like, should I move? Or are my parents right? I usually always listen to my parents. So I'm like, maybe my parents have something with this, like stay at home and then move like after COVID's over whenever that's going to be. Um, but I was like, you know what, I'm just going to move. And if I hate it and nothing happens in like six months, I get myself like six months, then I'll move back and say that at least I did it. And that rules out one option. So I would say in your case, like, you don't know what you're doing. Don't know where to live. Try something like whatever your gut is the loudest about. Go towards that. Give yourself a timeline of how long you want to try it. If you love it, then keep going. If you absolutely hate it. I mean, you might hate it at first, but with potential of loving it. So keep doing it then. But if you just absolutely hate it, you can try something else. Yeah. At least you have information to make a decision on it. Exactly. Inaction is the worst because you have no data. Right. You just are, your thoughts are just swirling in an action. If you even make a wrong decision, there's more of an understanding of what the right decision is because you know what's not right at that point. And also the first line of this, I feel like I'm at the stage of life where everyone seems to have it together. There is no stage of life where everybody has it together. Say it again. There just isn't. All the stages I have felt, man, I just don't have it together. Yeah. Can't wait to like it to that age. Right. There is no age where you have it together. That is never a thing. It's just a presentation put on by people. And sometimes it's not even put on by them. It's you're putting that presentation for them. You just think they have it together. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think you ever get out of your head. Yeah. Take action. One more. Hey, Bobby, I'm chronically over committed because I say yes to everything. Brunch, yes. Extra shift, sure. Help someone move. Yes. Now I'm exhausted and a little resentful. How do you say no without being a bad person? I've never always said yes, to be honest. You do or don't? No, I haven't always said yes, because I'm very in touch with myself and I know what I can take and what I can't take. And it's been really helpful over the past couple of years for my team to get to know me really well, because they'll know what like I can handle well and what I can't. And so I would say that's just about, I mean, you're not a bad person. If you can't do everything ever, no one expects that of you but yourself. So I think it's just, you know, pick a couple and do it, but say no to some stuff because you got to take care of yourself. One of the great maturations in my life has been learning how to draw boundaries. Yeah. Professionally and personally. People also respect you more when you have boundaries. Right. Not that they don't respect the person who messaged me, because they probably do. They probably like you a lot. But when you start to draw boundaries, one, you respect yourself more. Yeah. Then you don't resent people as much. I know show up as a better person when you're not just like completely drained from doing everything all the time. Do you get to a stage where you feel drained from doing everything? If it's like end of tour, if it's like the recording process? I mean, maybe a little bit. I think it's more so though, like my year is planned out where we strategically have like pockets of time for me to be off because over the years we've learned what I need. And so it's like right now I'm in a phase of like I'm, you know, de-stimulating myself from like the tour. Or mean, sorry, the album release and like the nine cities, nine days thing. But now I'm like, can't wait to get back on tour. So it like comes in, it goes from like, I really need this break to like, okay, let's go. So I think, yeah, I think it's also like just prioritizing yourself, I guess. Like you, you know yourself and you're like, I've, I've got to take time off. Time off is important. And just like, or whatever you need, maybe do things that make you happy. And when you did the nine cities, nine days, did you just stay and like take a ton of pictures? Oh, I met every single person that came. That's crazy. That's awesome. That's crazy. It was crazy. I will say that's like the craziest, most ambitious thing I've ever done. When I told my team that they were like. So what would that day look like? Let me think. So because you're, are you busing to the city? Busing. And like, let's say we, okay. So we start in Virginia. People would actually start lining up like a day, 24 hours before, or like 48 hours before. And they, you had to get your ticket in person because I didn't want people to be able to sell them. Like I wanted to be my real fans and they didn't know that I was going to do this. Like when I advertise nine cities in nine days, it was a nine dollar ticket and I was going to play like three songs or two songs or something. Can't remember. Was it three? Okay. Yeah. Okay. So three songs, but then, so they're all excited. They, you know, they're, what am I doing? I probably got ready. It takes me about two hours to get ready. So I think we would start in the middle of the day though. I'm kind of blanking because they're all a little bit different, but like they would line up. Everyone, once everybody was inside the venues, then I would come out, play three songs and then tell them I'm going to meet every single person. So then after I would do the three acoustic songs, I would go to this like booth and then would stay till every single person got something signed. That's super cool of you. One. And also it's great that you played not a full set because I used to do that doing stand-up shows. I'd be like, I'm going to meet everybody in the theater. We kick everybody out because it'd be midnight and then we'd be out on the street and that wasn't safe. Yeah. And so then like you can't do this anymore. Right. Because I bet they were so happy. That's so cool to stay and meet everybody. Like they had to be freaking out, right? Yeah. It was really exciting. And like it's one of those things where on paper it seems really draining, but like I feed off people's energy and like they were just so excited. So my hand was literally bleeding by like day nine, which was just like so funny. And like imagine like telling like College Megan, she was going to have this problem. Like you're going to sign so many items of anything that you're going to, your hands going to be bleeding. But anyways, yeah, it was fun. It was crazy and nine cities, nine days. Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor. And we're back on the Bobby cast. Do you have any place that you go that's like your, your place, your vacation place or like a favorite place? Anywhere that's the beach. Love the beach. Turks, Bahamas, 30a down there a lot. We went to Turks. I'm not cool enough to call it Turks. I've never been there once went to Turks and Kegos. Have you been there a bunch? Yeah. Okay. I'm not cool. I probably need to be at least three times to call it that. So we went, we went, we went to Turks and Kegos and we stayed at this place. Super cool place. Everybody's so nice there too. I mean, everyone is so nice. So we go in and we're having dinner one night at because we're staying in this hotel and there's like three couples there. My wife and myself and two other couples, 930. So it's later in the evening and we see these guys come in and kind of jumpsuits, three or four of them and they're talking to them like the, the, the person running the, the wait station. And they're just kind of going back and forth and I'm like, some funny is kind of happening over there. They all had Michael Jordan logos on like, like jump man logos. And they're like arguing with the person and our waiter comes over and it's like, Hey, somebody's here is asking if everyone would leave the restaurant so they can have dinner by themselves. And they're like, I don't think they're going to allow it, but I'm just giving you guys a heads up. That's the conversation. And we're like, well, first of all, we can't believe you're telling us that before either you're kicking us out or you're not. And they decided to not let them do it. And we, and we didn't know who it was still. And so we see them walking through and it was Drake and he, they tried to get everybody kicked out of the restaurant for, we're like, dude, we don't care. Like we're not even taking a picture of you. We'll be annoyed that you're sitting next to us. Like, but yeah, the one time we went to Turks and I didn't think about it, but he raps about Turks a lot. Yeah. I think that's his place. Yeah. His plane's always there when you land. It's like, he's got a big like thing on it. Yeah. That's my one pretty cool Turks story, but it's really, I'm not a beach guy. Wow. I kind of hate the beach. Mountain, lake, what's the vibes? Wifi. Just give me the wifi. Wifi. Okay. Okay. Screen time. I mean, I know. I know. Okay. Screen. Okay. Tuesdays. Yeah. I, I, you know, I'm from Arkansas. So I grew up in the woods a lot and we, so I'm good on outside. I'm all caught up. Yeah. Being outside. Yeah. I'm good. I think I've, I've never had alcohol and I don't have much sun. I plan to live to be like 110. Yeah. And I, we never went to the beach. So I don't really have a relationship with the beach. Like what do you do? You're laying this hand. I live, yeah. I lay there and I disconnect. I feel like it's, yeah, it's really nice. And I like sun. Yeah. Not a fan. No. No. Well, all the things I like about the beach. Get this man to like an apple store or something. I did. So you're going to have your birthday this year. I do freaking love the apple store. That's one of the greatest places to go. So the Bahamas. St. Barthes is really nice too. Yeah. I mean, I've been to the Bahamas. The Bahamas is cool. So where's St. Barthes? Is that same area like Caribbean? You've ever been to Bali? No, but my best friend wants to go there this year or next year. I'm like, I had to look it up on a map. It's that's a far one. That's far. Yeah. That's like Australia type like travel to get over there. I had a friend that just had a wedding over there. And luckily my wife was pregnant. So we didn't go. Go to excuse. Because that would have been, that's a, have you flown those really far trips like Australia, Japan? Australia. Yeah. Brutal. It was brutal one time we were planning. I was actually coming back from New Zealand. Like I went to Australia and then New Zealand. And I didn't download anything like because I was like, Oh, we'll have Wi-Fi. Didn't even have like messaging. So like no book, no nothing. Just like me and my thoughts for like 18 hours or however long it is. I was just like. People were raw dog flights. You ever see those or like I got nothing. They just stare at the back of the seats. I'm scared of those people. Oh my God. What? So you just read a magazine? I was like trying to like take some Advil PM. I'm like looking at the thing because I can't even look up how many is safe to take. I just guess. I felt like I was in like the 1800s. That's funny. That also sucks. Over those international flights, sometimes they do shut off Wi-Fi. It's not even the point of like. And I'm like, you couldn't even warn a brother like, Hey, there's no Wi-Fi. I could have downloaded something. But yeah, champagne problems. That's what I say. No crying on the yacht. Yeah. Like you got a yacht. No crying on it. You brought the Casey Musgraves album here. If you don't mind holding it up. And so what we do is we have people bring in music that really inspired them and then we donate all the music. But yeah. So tell me why you picked this album right here. This album, I think changed the trajectory of my life. So it's same trailer, different part. Same trailer, different part Casey Musgraves. My dad and I, obviously he taught me how to play guitar. And we really connected through music growing up. And this was the first album that I showed him. And I just remember hearing this album and I'm like, it was what? Probably like a freshman in high school or something. And I remember thinking, if I ever write songs, I want it to be something like this. Because how is she so clever? How is her voice so good? How is she so funny? And it's like seems really effortless. And it was so country. And I just, yeah. What are your favorite songs on it? Oh man. I know it's hard. All of them. I mean, I have to say Marigaround because that's just like all timer. I really, where is, oh, keep it to yourself. There it is. Yeah, I love keep it to yourself. Step off is really funny. Like when you. Step off. Yeah, I keep climbing that mountain of dirty tricks. And when you finally get to the top. Step off. I'm like, are you kidding? Iconic. Yeah, her ability to be like super strong and extremely vulnerable at the same time. Right. And I saw her live after this like 18 times. And I just, this album has been a staple. Like I sometimes if I'm bored with music, I just listen to that. I go back. Do I have it behind me? Yeah, you do. I keep. So these are all my favorite albums of all time. Oh, wow. That I keep around me like my top album. Nice. Behind you, behind me. It's one of my top 10 albums of all time. I think it is possibly one of my favorite debut albums of all. Yeah. Period. I agree. And like follow your arrow. Just all these songs are so, they were way ahead of their time. For sure. And like I miss you too. The chord progression and that, I just, I love it. And there had to be times that it wasn't super comfortable for her because it wasn't met with, I'll wrap the industry wrapping its arms around her. Right. I think if that same album comes out today, it would be like, Oh, this is amazing. You're right. It was, it was so far ahead of its time. When you got your first guitar, how old were you? 16. Did you do the thing where you go and you play to your fingers bleed or? Yes, I did. So my dad had been like trying to teach me, but it wasn't until I got the Taylor that I got as a breakup consolation prize. And the Taylor was it smaller? No, it was a real one. And I was not good enough to be having a Taylor because I had, I knew G C and D. And, but after I got that guitar, I just like loved how it sounded because it's a lot more fun to learn how to play guitar and a good guitar than like a super shitty one. So, yeah, I was sold after that. Did you ever have an electric? My dad would try to get, I have an electric now, but. Electrics don't hurt your fingers as bad. Yeah. I'm glad like when I was starting to learn how to play for like comedy reasons, I'm glad I never had an electric then because I think I would have just played electric and never had to like develop finger strength. Yes, exactly. The calluses. Yeah. Do you, are you pretty calloused up now? Yeah. Are you playing a lot now? Honestly, no, my rehearsal start tomorrow. So in 24 hours, yes, but right now, no, I've really been disconnected. I'm, I've been trying to like totally do nothing. Does that mean not even listening to music? I don't listen to music right now. No. Just podcasts? Nothing. You're just a raw dog on earth? Yeah. That's not true. I listened to Joshua Sloan. If I need music, I listen to Joshua Sloan. I don't know who Joshua Sloan is. Debut album, one of the best. Okay. I tell me more. I just love him. I talk about him a lot in interviews. I've never met him. So he's probably like this freaking weirdo. Compare him to something. I'm asking for the comparison. So compare him to somebody for me. So I know it's, it's unlike anything I've heard. Actually, no, no, no, Rustin Kelly. Got it. Rustin Kelly. Yeah. Does he live in town? Oh, you don't know? No, nothing about this dude. But I've worn that album out. I literally had it on yesterday and my mom was like, this guy's really sad, Megan. You always listen to him. I'm like, exactly. But other than Joshua Sloan, nothing. Yeah. I just drive in just thinking. How do you find Joshua Sloan? Plotting. I don't even remember. I think he came up on like my Spotify playlist and then his whole album, like I just put it on. And it's one of those things where you can just like listen all day. And this, it's been out since like end of last year. I'm still wearing it out. What is it now? April, May. April. April. October. Where are we? Who am I? The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is The Bobby Cast. Are you drawn to sad music? Yeah. I, that's all, that's all I listen to as far as like love. Why? Why are you? It's just calming to me. I don't know. Sad music has always been easier for me to write. And yeah, his shit's pretty sad. It is. Yeah. Even my guys are going, yeah, over there. Like, like I'll have it on while I'm like getting glam done and everyone's like in a bad mood. Everyone's moping around. I'm like, sorry guys. But to me, I'm like, this is awesome. Favorite sad song ever? Oh. Most played sad song ever. jealous who sings that which one Jonas brothers no no that's all right yeah jealous don't worry yes ooh yeah that's the only thing I know that yes did you watch any Justin Bieber Coachella yeah we watch both nights that's my I love him so much I thought it was super cool what he was doing and I think people didn't understand what he was doing with the videos behind him I think it was wildly misunderstood I think it was perfect not you too and if you're a just if you're not a Justin Bieber fan you're gonna look at that and be like oh he's he was being lazy if you know Justin Bieber and even have been keeping up with him over the past few years that is exactly what he wanted to do and like you could tell how fun how much fun he was having so for me I was just my Bieber fever through the roof this weekend last weekend saying for my wife and she's 12 years younger than I am so she's Bieber forever but I woke up I didn't watch it live I didn't stream it live but I woke up and I saw mostly adult men my age being like that sucked and I was like did it or they just not understand so I got on and I watched and and we spent a lot of time listening to his new stuff too before it came out so I knew all the new stuff and I was like okay he's playing all the new stuff and then he sat down and started playing videos I thought that it was so incredible because he kind of took you through his life because it was all that his whole life was there from when he was singing along with the covers that he did yeah like as a kid he would he's imagine how cool that is for him to and all the stuff he's gone through it's like to be on a stage and do be doing exactly what you want to be doing and yeah and also have so many hits there is no way he could have sang his full songs anyway yeah and for him to do a verse in a chorus of baby that's good enough yeah everybody got their every got the fix yeah everybody got their fill and they heard baby and he did one like my favorite one-time favorite girl one less lonely girl I gotta say is my favorite with Billie Eilish to my mind I've never wanted to be Billy Eilish so bad same one less lonely guy you know what I'll take girl too just making me the crazy thing about the Billy Eilish stuff is when she was a kid you ever see the pictures of a room yeah but all the Justin Bieber posters are behind I wish I had a picture of my room because that was my room I had to stand up of him when like the red pants or whatever there was a video of her when she was younger going I like I can't wait to have a boyfriend but I don't know she's like 12 I don't know if I'll ever love him as much as I'll love Justin Bieber like it's fair it's awesome yeah and then yeah I just I felt like that was super cool Casey played night to coach Ellen came back and played her new stuff I did see some of that the second weekend excuse me I wrote out on horse iconic she's iconic she yeah her and I got into a little tiff when I first moved to town all my fault I was pretty reckless but she's taught five artists for me all time like massive Casey Mosgretz fan I'm imagining she's up there in yours too yeah like favorite who else do you have up in that list well Taylor's up there Taylor Casey Miranda I'd say those are like my three they got me into like country music have you met all three no I haven't met Taylor I've met Miranda and Casey yeah not Taylor everyone will know when I meet Taylor I'll make it very known she all my friends and family I might send postcards or something she has the ability and I've heard this said about certain politicians and a couple celebrities to make you feel like you're the absolutely only person in the whole room what she's talking to you and she knows and Garth does this have you met Garth at all no okay so you think Garth is somehow he's like logged in and read your journal or something you know so much about you like he's got people that have who knows yeah but he comes in and when he's talking to you there's nobody else around and he said he knows things he notices things but Taylor's the same same way there are a couple I probably four I would say since I've moved to town that you meet and you go okay they obviously have the talent but they have that thing that makes them amazing Taylor won met her when I first moved here Garth Dolly I haven't met Dolly yet oh my god it I understand the complete adulation towards her from afar I've probably Dolly did my comedy special with me like she was like I'm happy to do I've probably spent eight or nine instances with Dolly she wants you so sharp but she is sharp and cutting and loving at the same time and Reba Reba is the other one you're just like I get it yeah I get why it makes sense it makes total sense as they have the talent but they have that kind of element that separates them and makes them super special but they're all funny like you're funny I was telling someone the other day about how funny you are they were asking I think it was I was doing this with someone and they were like what's Megan Maroney like and I was like the one she's freaking funny I told him a story you probably don't remember and I won't even say it for here but we were backstage in Dallas we were doing a charity show I think I was telling jokes and you were playing it was uh Brooks and Dine oh I know what you're talking about yeah I would never share that story but I had to do with the automobile and I was just I was like dude she's so funny like I get paid to write jokes and do jokes she was funnier than I was um so that's I think you have that element though I think you're you're wildly funny is your family funny uh I got a lot of my humor from my brother he's hilarious and I grew up wanting to be just like him in fact I played baseball instead of softball because I wanted to be like my brother really really as a girl you played baseball only girl on the team they'd especially get me a trophy with a ponytail well that's cool them to do that yeah that was nice when did you stop playing baseball I don't even know I was pretty young but when you know it was time to sign up for baseball or softball I'm like what's Connor doing my mom was like baseball obviously and I was like I'll do it what's he doing now he is in school to be a nurse anesthetist hard to say and so RNA is the is the easier way so here was your kind of your family role model um one of them yeah I look up to both my brothers um my other brother is an attorney so um and he's the musical one so I think like both of them yeah I wanted to be like both of them does he look over your stuff or do you have no I don't never uh he's like helped me out a little bit with smaller things um but yeah he does like criminal stuff so oh so you don't want him looking at your stuff that'd be better if he never looked at your stuff actually no well yeah uh what about christian bush now I know he's not you're not related to christian but you guys met way back in the day right yeah this is an intern which is crazy because christian's from sugarland yeah I um how'd you get a job with him it was with him and brain and bush his brother and I was in the music business program at georgia and um I remember david barbie who's the music he like runs the music business over there he was like if this program will do anything for you you need to go and be this like sign up for this internship um and I'll do what I can to make sure that you get it if you want it but it was not ideal because a lot of the other internships were in town in Athens and I was gonna have to drive to Atlanta um which obviously with a college schedule how am I gonna party every day if I gotta if I gotta drive to Atlanta um but anyways long story short yeah I got that internship learned how to do publishing a little bit and then um I didn't even tell them I think I think they might have known that I was like moving to Nashville but at this time you know like I wasn't going around telling people like I'm moving to Nashville to be a country music star like I was like I'm gonna move and see how it goes and if I if I don't survive I'm gonna move home um but yeah he didn't even know about it till like a year of me living in Nashville probably and then hooked me up with some writers and yeah now he's produced my first three albums that's pretty crazy yeah started from an internship now we're here he's so delightful yeah he's so smart and just like has lived a lot and it's cool that he knows so much about like the production side of things but also he's been an artist so you're in the studio a lot of hours so anytime I'm just like talking about stuff he's gone through it too so it's nice to have someone I'll just be vint you know and he's been through it yeah let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor and we're back on the bobby cast when you're tour prepping or your tour what did you say you were doing your tour tour prep yeah what is that like what does that mean so no alcohol um and it's really I'm like a week in a month out so May 1st is when I really super duper lock in with like the diet stuff right now it's just kind of been like I'm not eating out and like it's mostly like steak fish vegetables like the boring stuff um but it might get even crazier May 1st we'll see but anyways it's it's like the diet aspect no drinking um my rehearsals start tomorrow I'm do I'll do all my rehearsals in a weighted vest I've underestimated how sometimes my outfits because sometimes my outfits weigh like 10 to 15 pounds and when I've done the performance I'm like oh shit like I I am not in shape for this so I'm rehearsing in a weighted vest um that's crazy also the singing with a weighted vest on a treadmill doing that um red light therapy I was gonna I literally was gonna ask you about that um he actually gave me he was like I was asking him about it because he had a red light mount and he was like oh do you want this one I have an extra one just gave it to me like absolutely yes but it's the higher dose mat so um doing that every day sauna and cold tub every day um physically this feels like it's such a positive grind though I don't think a lot of people would understand that it takes all of that like for you to do all that just to get ready for this yeah and I mean I think it's I obviously oh leaguerie too have you ever been a leaguerie it's like a crazy plot if there's a no no yeah it's like a plotting machine times eight yeah yeah and then go super slow and die the whole time like my legs fall asleep while I'm doing it I'm like I'm not sure this is good for me but um yeah a lot of strength training too but I I think that I've never taken touring as serious like as far as like the prep for it as I'm doing right now but um I want it to be the best show and it's the biggest one yet it's going to be the biggest most involved show so just really locking in I had a doctor in here pretty recently we were talking about red light therapy and red light there we have a red light bed at the house one of the yeah uh beds and you know red light's great and then the deep red light which is what that bed is and how I'm cynical towards everything at this point I've been burned by everyone and cynical towards everything until it's proven until I'm proven otherwise uh yeah I know I'm super fun to be around and so we were talking about so why I started to believe that red light works because I had to see data to go because otherwise you're just laying in and look feels like a tanning bed and you're not you're not tan that sucks you just laid a tan every 20 minutes you came out no tanner right but there were these studies that NASA did on plants like broken plants and they did a whole study with them under red light and a whole study with them not just under sunlight and they healed back at such a faster rate under the red light than they did with sunlight so I can't see it right but I believe it yeah they said it's like um like laying out in the sun too but better so but but better what'd you say it's like vitamin d basically like got it if you can't like get out I don't do that I don't go to the sun yeah I'm I'm I'm hoping that like the winter months in Nashville because this is like I just got it recently so I'm hoping like in the winter months when it's like the seasonal depression comes out I'll be like no me and my red light therapy for have Tuesday depression have I told you about that yeah I have Tuesday depression that's why I go into the comments yeah that always uh when you're doing this tour are you keeping like how do you keep things a surprise nowadays by not telling anyone at all though like do you do you take everybody do you take everybody's phones what do you mean I don't know if you're even tour prepping you're rehearsing you say we're rehearsing oh rehearsing what the heck oh everybody knows better but how do you like not have random security people in there or we just don't we keep that locked down I think too like um obviously my touring crew is expanding I think they said I have 16 trucks this year holy crap that's a lot of trucks that's a lot of truck you know what I hear that's a lot of trucks to pay for yeah yeah but good for you for needing them also like it's both so obviously with that many trucks there's a lot more people on tour but um a lot of my touring crew is the same they've been for a long time so it's kind of just an understanding yeah we have a have a good group so you're doing 49 49 shows on this tour is that true that's what I see here 49 it says maybe 49 in summerfest I don't know I thought it was 50 but maybe it's 49 50 sounds better so we'll go with that and so if you're doing okay if let's let's say 50 shows is that different do you do different wardrobes every night or do you have that would be a secret okay I mean I'm very good all right you got me there how do you feel like the response has been to the album good I'm especially obviously like the response online is always like fun to look at but I think that each one of my albums has really come to life during the live shows so I'm really excited to see like what it's like an experience singing these songs you know so I'm excited to see like how the meanings of these songs and stuff change for me on tour because that's happened in my past albums do you have any really great songs that you've written that you haven't recorded that are so great you just don't know when you're going to be able to put them out or if they're great do you just record it immediately uh if I if they're great I usually record them um I've got a few songs that are not out that I think are great but um yeah I usually I usually just put them out nothing you'd pass on you ever pass on a song to somebody else mm-hmm you want to keep it all for now yeah I just think like I I like to think of myself in the building phase of my career so there I phrase things a certain way you know if you died could they release 34 records of songs you've stuff you've recorded that isn't probably but even like for example the reason too that I don't pitch songs a lot is because like wedding dress I wrote during the lucky era and that just made this album because it like wasn't time for that so that would have been a great song you were holding on to then that yeah do you have any of those now yeah I'm not even asking anything specific because I don't want you to tip off somebody a great concept and they still are from you yeah but I just wonder how long you have stuff sitting in your phone yeah do you have just concept ideas that are great that you haven't written yet yeah tons of those my notes up is really scary do you sing into your app sometimes the melodies I do but I forget to like name them so then in my it just is like new recording 800 and I'm like I have to go through and like listen to so it's really time consuming so usually no but there are some things we're all just be driving and I'm like hmm I need to sing into the phone do you ever get ideas when you sleep yes yes there's been times where like I've woken up in the middle of the night and I learned my lesson because there's one time that I was like oh I'm gonna remember this in the morning so I'm not gonna write it down didn't remember it lost that idea forever still haven't found it but I know that it exists somewhere which I always find really interesting because I'm like I wonder when it's gonna come back to me because I'm sure it will but um yeah if I wake up in the middle of the night like gotta write it down that's why I wrote hair song from a dream that's my favorite song ever ever of yours not of all time there are other ones I like more than life I'm surprised of my song yeah yeah hair song is I think because that's the song that I was sent like hey my wife actually sent it to me she was hey this girl's good and then nice and then I know their other writer as well Mackenzie yeah Micah Bin yeah I love them yeah that's a really cool song because I think it like reminds me of well my home my small town yeah just how people are yeah it was literally a dream that I have I'm in my hometown hair salon I haven't like sat down yet I'm in like the waiting chairs and it's like an open thing and three chairs down in my dream they're like oh my god so and so got engaged look how cute they are and everyone in the hair salon runs over to this person's chair like three chairs down and like oh my god they look so cute like a hair ring they're so cute and I'm like sitting there looking out the window like with the tear coming down my face and I woke up and I was like hair salon like it was crazy um but and that was a dream song yeah that's cool I have three things left uh you got a puppy yeah puppy puppies are very hard they are they're awesome they're all she's awesome they're so hard yeah she's been doing this thing I don't know if it's like I'm not into the woo woo moon stuff that much but like it was a new moon recently right and she's been crazy at like 10 45 p.m. every night and I go to bed by then like I'm lame in my like you know training era and it's just like yeah she's crazy nuts she she had my um hat running around the other day last night she's like my wood floor has like real wood so there's like some holes in the floor that are from the wood does that make any sort of sense okay she's digging at it trying to open the floors I'm like please don't do that not sure how would replace that what's her name boots and you named her after so her back feet are white like my boots that I were on stage um it was between boots and Lorraine because my song waiting on the rain is going to ruin the song for everybody by the way so sorry if you listen to that song it sounds like I'm saying waiting on the rain waiting on the food waiting on Lorraine you know but it's the rain right so um why would that run I think that's funny I know but because now you can't unhear it it's not waiting on it's waiting on the rain I know I know what the no I know what the song is oh yeah it's just like who's Lorraine who the hell is Lorraine got it like that kind of thing so anyways I thought of it she would be cute like a puppy named Lorraine would be cute but then when I saw her back feet were white like my boots that I wear yeah and then I was thinking what could her middle name be with a fur so it sounds distinct yeah sounds distinguished boots with the fur obviously flow right right yeah did you see the picture of Reba though with the boot the fur okay so Reba was standing at a window and she's what do you think about the boots with the fur what do you think that means before I tell you this shawty had them apple bottom jeans boots with the fur with the fur but explain describe the boot the boot is probably a stiletto boot with fur around it okay that's what I always thought it was like a boot with the fur on it yeah but Reba was wearing fur and then had boots on it she was like boots with the fur and that's the first time I ever thought maybe it's just somebody wearing boots with a jacket with the fur the fur's not on the boot maybe it should be wearing freaking fur boots with the fur okay that is perspective man you tell her I spent a lot of time thinking about that boots with the fur yeah you know I was also thought about naming her boots e period wutsy wutsy wutsy whenever my daughter was born I wanted to name her Sue and our my real last name is Estelle did you know that no yeah it's my wife she goes by her normal name she was like I'd never be called bones kill me and so uh so I'm big Arkansas guy I wanted her name to be Suee like yeah and my wife was like I know what you're trying to do we're doing that uh flow flow ride it do you know do you know what that name is Florida yeah how about the I knew that one yeah took a minute though for me to yeah flow ride of Florida is he from there probably yeah I'd be or maybe you just I never even looked it up I just thought Florida okay two things left uh do you believe in aliens probably have any thoughts at all my thoughts about aliens are that like when you sometimes I just look up at the stars and like realize how vast the universe is and how minuscule we are and I'm like there's no way in hell we are just like magically the only people here have those thoughts mostly when it's like a Southwest flight just right over like Antioch flying out of Nashville and I look down and I'm like there's no way yeah like I saw this thing that was like I bet aliens like lock their doors when they fly by Mars or wait no fly by Earth yeah no we got it we got it I uh I I think they're in the ocean though you think they're in the ocean we the the ocean is so much less explored like we have we have no idea what's in the ocean yeah I bet the dinosaurs are down there we don't know what's in the middle of the earth we guess but we don't know what's in the middle of the earth I think something's ignorance is bliss sometimes yeah I think I felt a little more complete before I thought about boots with the fur that my ignorant like furry boots I felt better but now there was boots with the fur I feel like all those years I wasted thinking they were furry boots last question how many singles do you think you put out on this album how many do you think I will uh till till they stop playing them I guess as how many songs on the album 13 or actually there's like way more than that 16 I don't know I've been like I've been on off mode so it's not even like you're writing stuff for the next at all um yes I am of course I'm always plotting but um yeah I'm letting this one ride out I think the tour is gonna be really fun and um I'm excited to play these songs live it's like it's been the hardest thing trying to decide what to cut from the set list three albums in is like my first time I've been like wow they're gonna be some people upset will you switch it out uh there will be parts to get switched but yeah like for example this is kind of a spoiler hair salon didn't make the set list I'd be the one pissed yeah but I'm like uh you gotta pick you know hair salon or or bless your heart and if if I if I've seen my fans live I think both of those are bad options to lose to them wow you lost me yeah so sorry Bobby won't be joining us you lost me that's my song uh tell me about medicine like what when you write that what like what I don't know what happens in a room what do you remember about it I was with Connie Harrington Jesse Alexander and Jesse Joe we were in the east Tennessee mountains and I had the how you like the taste of your own medicine in my notes app and it's like so easy writing with them and especially too when it's just like you know it's the day that like great things are going to happen it was one of those days and um I was just talking about how like let's write a song about how when you treat a man like one percent of how they treat you like sometimes they just freak out and they're like this is horrible this is the worst thing to ever happen and I'm like oh you don't like it do you like oh imagine that and so um yeah it was just like a really fun song to like just talk about we were all like giggling the whole time and just thinking like heard from you in three long days you won't hear from me for five oh you gave your number to an LA Blondle I gave a quarterback mind it's just like just playing your game the same way you I learned it how to play it from you so um you playing that in concert for sure yeah I I still pick hair salon I like it but hair salon over medicine hair salon overall other than I told you it's my favorite song oh no I love hair salon I love that your hair salon truth or because I mean it's existed so long it's like when you pick a favorite song in life you don't pick a new song well maybe I'll play it sometimes I I need it's just so difficult you just need to know which show I'm mad is what you're saying so I'll let you know ahead of time and that one you can play you guys can get tickets we talked about before he came in the cloud nine tour just Megan Maroney.com most of the dates are sold out there are still some tickets left um I really appreciate you coming hanging out I'm a massive fan I appreciate you yeah I'm a massive fan obviously uh tell everybody I said hi your brothers your dog Christian Casey yeah tell Casey I can't get Casey in here I apologize to her once I saw her I apologize to her many times because I was a jerk I was a bull in china shop when I got to this town everybody hated me I was pissing everybody off I was just so different than anything in this town and I misconstrued something she said and I was wrong about it and I saw her in a parking lot I went up I said hey it's Bobby you know bones where'd you find her in a parking lot she was in we were outside of a hotel oh yeah in a parking lot we're both going into the hotel and I was like hey I know I spent a long time and I've messaged you this bottom really she was like no we're all good we're all good but I can't get her in here yet so I'm working on it yeah so if you see her be like that dude the coolest dude new album coming out so maybe I know I'll be on it regardless maybe I shouldn't say that though no it won't be on it unless she comes in I'll be on it yeah I'll be on it too Casey um Megan thank you very much thank you there she is the great Megan Maroney thanks for listening to a bobby cast production this is an i heart podcast guaranteed human