My career in the entertainment industry has enabled me to work with a diverse range of talent. Through my years of experience, I've recognized two essential aspects. Industry professionals, whether famous stars or behind the scenes staff have fascinating stories to tell. Secondly, audiences are eager to listen to these stories which offer a glimpse into their lives and the evolution of their life stories. This podcast aims to share these narratives, providing information on how they evolved into their chosen career. We will delve into their journey to stardom, discuss their struggles and successes, and hear from people who help them achieve their goals. Get ready for intriguing behind the scenes stories and insights into the fascinating world of entertainment. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Almost Live Nashville. Joining us today is Kyle Caronis. He's the editor, creator, and head writer of SavingCountryMusic.com, a website dedicated to promoting traditional and independent country music, along with related genres like bluegrass, folk, Americana, rockabilly, and blues. Today he will tell us how he started it, how it's grown over the years, but more important, he's here to talk about his new show, The Hook, which creates a platform for songwriters both up and coming and established. He's got a great story to tell, so let's dive into it. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for talking with me. What's my pleasure? Before we get into what we're really here to talk about, let's get a little background and history on how you got to where you are today with your magazine. Yes, so I started Saving Country Music in 2008. I was a freelance writer already when I started it, and I just was frustrated about what was going on in country music. I was actually kind of a confluence of multiple things. I've been reading a lot about country music history, specifically the Outlaw era, and I was also just kind of a frustrated country music fan. Sure. Can you expand on that some? I was discovering a lot of independent and underground country artists that were just not getting any kind of attention from the press or really anywhere. They weren't signed to labels, but they had some really great songs and some really great albums, and there was sort of an underground community. It was kind of like a diaspora. There wasn't enough underground fans in any given place to fill out more than maybe just like a bar show. All around the country, there was actually a pretty strong grassroots following for this music. And so I said, well, somebody should step up and start covering this as a legitimate part of the country music universe. And so that's what I did. And it also kind of grew out of one of these artists was Hank Williams III. He was kind of the big name of that little era, and he was in conflict with his label at that time. And reading about what was happening with him and seeing the parallels between the Outlaw movement, it was like, well, these are the same problems that country music has been going through for decades. It's like a battle of evermore that's constantly going on. And so drawing those parallels and trying to figure out how to get some attention to these deserving artists. Yeah, that sounds so good. So what happened from there? You know, a website just kind of grew out of that. And since then, I mean, I've been blown away by how much now independent country music is so much more part of the country music landscape. I mean, it used to be if you didn't get played on the radio, barely anybody knew about you, you know, but like I started on Myspace. Now, obviously there's Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and all these things. And so this is given independent artists a lot more cultural cachet in the marketplace. And so now you have artists like Zach Bryan and Tyler Childers, they're selling out arenas. You know, it's changed over time, but you know, sort of the independent spirit and making the independent part of the mainstream has always been the goal. Yeah, that's a really good goal as well. Finally, you bring up Hank III. Before he hooked up with his label, he was actually pitched to me for production. Oh, yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, you just never know the lines that's going to intersect in Nashville. Sure. Once you started developing this and you got it really going, you went from Myspace to Facebook to all the different social media outlets. You actually got it really well known for the size of what you were and how you was pushing everything and helping everyone. So how did you get it to develop from the early stages of what it started to grow into what it has become today? Well, that's a good question. The biggest thing that I try to do is find the next big artist. And then when they grow, that always allowed me to grow with them, not to toot my own horn, but I was the first guy to ever talk about Sturgell Simpson, for example. And when I did that, nobody knew who he was. He was just a guy from Kentucky. And then as his career emerged and he started winning Grammy Awards and becoming a bigger artist, that sort of helped me grow my platform. So then I could, in turn, take the attention I was receiving and help grow other artists. And then when Zach Bryan first came around, I was the first guy to interview him, I then had some skins on the wall. The other way that I did it is I've also been very critical at times of people in the mainstream. And so what that's allowed me to do is to find the disenfranchised country music fan who is looking for alternatives to the mainstream. And so by not ignoring the mainstream, but talking about the mainstream and including like talking about the good stuff that's in the mainstream, I've been able to like draw in and create those sort of cross cultural, you know, getting people to cross those cultural barriers. You know, it's kind of a rub. You know, if you're talking about these independent artists that nobody knows about, but also talking about mainstream artists and also talking about people being frustrated about the direction of country music, that creates a lot of cross pollination. And so, you know, there were a couple of like specific high profile moments, you know, like Eric Church wrote the song Country Music Jesus about an article that I wrote. And there's been some kind of famous, you know, like Blake Shelton, at one point he referred to classic country music fans as old farts and jackasses. And I sort of wrote a, you know, a dissertation about that and it went viral. And so all these sort of moments have created a lot of interest in what I'm doing. That's great. So what I think it's burning on everybody's minds is how did you get your nickname? Oh, that's kind of a long story. It actually started when I was younger, I was really into playing paintball, but we wouldn't like go out into a field and play army. It was a bunch of friends of mine and we would go, this is when I was around 16 or so and we all had paintball guns and we'd drive around neighborhoods and shooting at each other, you know, like in our cars. And we also had CB radios at this time. I'm kind of dating myself here, but you know, that's how we communicated with each other. We had CB radio, so we all had to have CB handles. So my handle ended up becoming the trigger man. So that's sort of the name that I went with for a while, but it got shortened to trigger. And then I kind of purposely shortened it to trigger after like there was so many mass shootings, I just didn't want to be associated with that or whatever. And now people just call me trig. But you know, it's also that's the name of Willie Nelson's guitar. And so there's like a lot of cultural tie ins to country music with that nickname, but I didn't choose it. It got chosen by me like all real nicknames are. Yeah, that's a good story. Now, with everything that you've accomplished, you've been on news, you've been on sports. I mean, you've been on a lot of different things. What stands out? Can you name a couple of things that just stand out to you out of all the things that you've been able to accomplish? Well, certainly there's the things like, you know, if you have someone write a song about you, not to get all Carly Simon on it, but you know, that was definitely validating, you know, even if it's in a negative, if there's negative connotations to it, I still see as like, oh, people are actually paying attention because you probably know this a little bit. Sometimes when you're in media, you can feel like you're screaming and to avoid at times. And sometimes you are, but sometimes you're not. You're actually having a whole lot of cultural impact. You're not getting those signals coming back to you. Honestly, like the stuff that I've taken the most value in is building careers for deserving artists. You know, Sergio Simpson is the most obvious case, but you know, I can make dozens of other cases for artists, even artists that only still be at the club level, but when they go and they play the clubs or they play the bars, there's people there to see them and they can have sustainable careers because I've been able to activate this grassroots network that I built. And so really that, that honestly is the most fulfilling part of it. But recently the Grammy Awards added a best traditional country album category to go with the, you know, best contemporary album category. This is something that I've been advocating for for years. And this is going to give a lot of traditional country artists yet another platform, yet another opportunity for attention and recognition. So that was something I've been working at for years. And I finally got that just this year. And man, that was, was so validating and so fulfilling. Yeah, I think that's fantastic. You've kind of created a grateful dead underground for those that remember they just exploded underground and took their music to all kinds of levels. You're kind of doing very similar things with what you're doing, putting it out there, then hopefully people hear it, then it becomes more mainstream because of it. That man, that's such a great way to put it because, you know, that's what you think of the grateful dead never had any hits, right? At their peak, you know, when Jerry died, they were selling out stadiums and people couldn't get tickets. And yeah, so that's what I've tried to build. And when you build it up from the grassroots and you do it with active fans, it's so much more sustainable. No offense to passive radio mainstream fans or anything, but you know, grassroots fans, they come out to the shows. They don't just stream the album on Spotify. They buy a vinyl copy. They buy a t-shirt. They buy a Cousy. They buy a hoodie. They do all these things to support these artists. In turn, this also like helps support the venues and helps support the festivals that can then give opportunities to newer up and coming artists that don't have any fans yet, but they get in front of fans. And so this is the type of environment that I've tried to create. In fact, I had some people go, well, man, why didn't you ever kind of grow with the music? Why haven't you hired more people? Why haven't you started your own label or started your own festival and stuff like that? I have an independent label and people have no idea how rough it is to have an independent label. But I'm curious, why didn't you do that? One of the reasons for that is I've really valued remaining a stepping stone and taking, you know, doing that on purpose. It's like not making it about me, making it about the music and trying to, you know, like knowing where my place is in this musical universe, right? Hey, man, big mainstream labels and the big mainstream artists, congratulations to them. They got theirs, right? I really enjoy, you know, I've never been motivated by money or fame or anything like that. So it's like truly what I get fulfillment out of is being that guy that can help be the first that talks about an artist, but then they get so big, it doesn't matter if I'm talking about him anymore. Or if I do, if it moves the needle or not, it's like get artists big enough to where they don't need saving country music. They can then in turn book artists as their openers or whatever. When they shout out an artist that's kind of small time coming up, it means something for them. Yeah, that's a great philosophy and a great way to look at things. And hopefully those that do make it up that ladder, remember where they came from. Because I think that is the number one thing, no matter what anyone is doing to remember where you came from and how you got started. Absolutely. And you know, I have to say, even a lot of the biggest artists right now, they do that. So for example, Luke Combs, if you see the people that Luke Combs is booking as his opening acts, you know, there are a lot of acts that, you know, it's like Brent Cobb and it's the Wilder Blue. So there's a band, if you're not familiar with them, called the Wilder Blue, they're from Texas where I'm from. You know, I've been championing this artist for a few years now. I had no idea that Luke Combs would read savingcountrymusic.com, but apparently he read about them on saving country music and really liked their music. And he said so in a podcast later on. And because of that, like the Wilder Blue were able to get on tour opening for him. They did a version of Seven Bridges Road with Luke Combs, like singing harmonies with them. And that was what allowed them to get, you know, management and booking and all this stuff. So it's like those moments are really what I live for. Yeah, that's great. Now everyone has had a chance to get to know you. You're creating this new show called The Hook. Let's dive into that a little. Yeah. So I mean, there's a lot of inspirations for this, but one thing that's happening now is like, and it's hard for me to admit this. Honestly, it's hard for a lot of journalists and print and online journalists to admit. But print and online journalism just is not having the type of cultural impact it once did. And this is because a lot of things are going online. They're coming to podcasting. They're going to social media, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. And no matter what social media program it is, it's all going to like video form and short form videos, especially. And so I've been trying to figure out, OK, so what's next? I think saving country music has been way more successful than I ever thought it would be. And not just like building a career for myself and helping keeping food on the table, but also like building careers. And I still have, it still has a lot of power. I don't want to like diminish that, but it does feel like 20 years ago or 18 and a half years ago when I started it, you know, blogs were the next big thing. Now I'm sort of like, I'm a Web 1.0 property in a Web 3.0 world, you know? And it's kind of crazy that I've survived as long as I have, but it's not going to survive forever. So my next question is what's next and how can we leverage and answer the questions that, well, everything's moving to social media. Everything's moving to video. AI is going to take over everything, you know, in so many years. How can we build something that is going to answer all these questions? What can we build for the future as a forum to launch artists? That's where the hook came from. So it's not a seeing competition. It's not a competition at all. It's simply a song showcase. That sounds like a really interesting concept. Can you expand on how it works? It's basically a two-hour program, you know, podcast video form program. We're going to highlight some established songwriters for sure, you know, people that whoever might read Saving Country Music or listen to your podcast, people that they might or might not know, but people that already have a career in music. And then after that, we are going to throw the barn doors completely wide and let anyone who wants to get up there in front of a microphone perform a song. No, does it matter if they're a singer or just a songwriter? You know, if they're a great singer, that's awesome. If they're a great guitar player or keyboard player, whatever they play, that's great as well. But really, this is mostly about the song. We're looking for those great songs because even like in this cultural moment where it feels like there's all these great independent artists that are doing so well, and they're getting to the arena level or the theater level, songwriters still seem, you know, if you're someone who's just really about the songs, there's so many of them out there that still feel like they're not getting the attention they deserve. And so the idea is let's open up the form to everyone and see if we can't find the next greatest songwriter. And by doing that, we're going to have some very, very bad songs that show up. But hopefully, you know, whether it's once or twice or three times during the two hour period, some random person that nobody's ever heard of, it's never played to anybody or anything but the four walls of their bedroom gets up there and just blows our mind. Because we've all been there, right? Like you've been at a songwriter's showcase or at the Bluebird Cafe or wherever it happens to be, you know, maybe it's at a festival, maybe it's around a campfire somewhere. And someone performs an original song that's just like, oh my gosh, and it just, it changes the synapses of your brain. You're like a different person after you heard this song. It makes you think about something, a way that you've never thought about it, or you makes you feel an emotion that you haven't felt in 20 years, or maybe that you've never felt that emotion. And that's the power of song. You know, I really believe that songs can change a life. They can change someone's perspective, and they can change the world. And so by creating a forum for these songs, hopefully we can do all of those things. Yeah, for sure. Now, it's going to be a two hour program. People get up, they sing their song. What happens after that? Let's say what you just said happens. Someone gets up there, they sing the song. It just knocks everyone for a loop. It's just so good. Now, my big question is what happens after that? What's next? Well, that's a really good question. So the hope is we build the hook into something that a lot of people are obviously paying attention to. If we can do that, then like the hook itself will hopefully stimulate people to go and like find more about this particular artist. What are the ways that they will find out about the artist? There's a few ways we're going to do that. Obviously, we'll be releasing the episodes and podcast form. When we start, you know, obviously we're starting from the ground floor here. So who knows how many people will pay attention? It may only be a few thousand and that's okay to start off. The other thing that we're going to do through it is we'll clip out each of these performances or it might be like clip out a moment, a chorus of a song or the moment that like touches the audience and we'll share these things on social media. That way we can find people and people can find us. And also this will give some value to those performers because, you know, these days it's not just enough to have a good song. It's not even really enough to have a good recording or even have a label behind you. If you're not able to create the visual media, it's really hard for these independent artists to do that. You know, some artists, they sign to a big label and you see these guys like maybe they've only released a couple singles, but they'll have like a team of three videographers like following them down the street as they walk down lower Broadway or like at backstage before they go up for their show, you know. But if you're an independent artist, you don't have that capability, right? You don't have those resources. So we're going to create those resources for them. That sounds really good. What are the plans in putting that all together for them? Have you got that planned out already? This is going to be a full video production. We've got the people that used to do Music City roots behind us. So there's, you know, some really great video people that are going to create this into, you know, like it's going to be like a TV show. And then, you know, so the other thing is we've already invited a lot of the people from the labels, booking agents, publicists, and our people and fellow songwriters are all going to hopefully show up to this thing. And if they do that, then this is like in the room itself, there's also going to be that sort of exposure component. And if somebody does really well, so like I said, we're going to feature undiscovered songwriters, anybody can sign up, but we're also have like more established songwriters. The other thing that we'll do is like if somebody comes up and they do really good, we're going to invite them back and we're going to try to like cultivate them and like give them, hopefully give them that ground level career opportunity where we're featuring them on a regular basis where, OK, someone missed this episode or didn't see this clip on social media, but maybe they see it the next week or the week after that they return. That sounds really great. It also sounds like you've really put a lot of thought into it and you have it all planned out. Now, who knows, maybe we're all high on our own supply, but there are some things like so, for example, there's a podcast that does a similar thing called Kill Tony and the comedy world. Yes, that's a well-known podcast. Now, we're not going to be exactly like Kill Tony. Kill Tony is pretty rough and tumble. Obviously, it's comedy, so it's a different thing. They only do a minute. We're going to give people, you know, three, however many minutes they need to do their song. But Kill Tony has become the biggest podcast in the world, you know, or one of the biggest podcasts. And it's given that format has allowed, you know, it's launched comedy careers and it's launched a bunch of comedy careers. So that was one of the inspirations. And I mean, you know, I've also seen people mention the gong show because, you know, the thing about the hook is, so with comedy, you know, you only get a minute for a song. One of the problems is there's plenty of song showcases out there already. There's a ton of them. And one of the things about songs is songs can kind of be inherently boring. And I say that as a fan of songs, you know, if you get just one person after another getting up there and singing a four-minute love song, you know, it can kind of put you to sleep a little bit. So we are going to use comedy to, you know, to kind of spice things up. We want people to also, along with sentimental songs, we hope that people get up there and sing, you know, funny songs, but also like there is going to be a cutoff element. Can you explain what you mean by a cutoff? If somebody's really bad, a bell is going to ring and be like, hey, you got to wrap this up or if somebody is really bad, they're going to get the hook. And so, you know, a physical hook is going to cut, you know, like the old vaudeville thing, they can get the hook. And my guess is, you know, probably we're going to get some hucksters that show up to like purposely get hooked. And that's fine too. Yeah, that could be interesting for sure. It's all part of the entertainment value. You know, the other problem with some of these songwriting showcases is they're all very kind of fluffy and we're going to be critical. Like if a song is really bad, you know, we're going to be respectful about it, but we're also going to give our honest opinions. One of the reasons that saving country music has been so successful over the years is because they get that honesty. There's a lot of music outlets out there, but when people come to save in country music, they know they're going to read an honest, constructive criticism if it's necessary. So I'm going to bring that same energy and that same idea that constructive criticism is necessary in the artistic marketplace to the hook. So the way that you're talking about this, I'm assuming that there will be some sort of judges to help critique and give their input so to help these songwriters along their way. Exactly. So there's going to be a panel of, you know, experts. It's going to start as me and I have this great songwriter named Caitlin Cannon. She's amazing. She's an award-winning songwriter and she's also worked in like a lot of songwriting clinics. She's worked with veterans who have PTSD to sort of work through things by writing songs and she's also worked in prisons, believe it or not. She's gone into full maximum security prisons with convicted felons and taught them how to write songs. Earlier this year, I actually went to a show that these prisoners put on in a prison of songs that they had written through her songwriting program. And it was absolutely amazing. You would be blown away what these convicted felons were like sharing about their lives. I mean, like talking about how they witnessed their moms getting beaten by their boyfriends or their uncle molested them and all this stuff that was like coming out through these songs. And they were really good songs. I'm a critic and I have written songs. I have published songs, but I'm mostly a journalist and a critic. Caitlin Cannon really brings like the songwriting credentials. She can really tear a song apart and then put it back together and like, hey, this is what's working. This is what doesn't work. That sounds great. Is there anything else that you're planning on adding to the show? We're also going to invite other songwriters. We hope to have, you know, some big name songwriters that people really respect. Join us on the panel and we'll also have other journalists, influencers and people like that. And maybe people from the industry too, like, you know, label heads and DJs and people like that. That sounds really good. Now, what's the plans on recording and getting it going? Do you have any dates yet? Sure. So we've already done some dress rehearsals and test runs, but our final test run is going to happen September 1st at Eastside Bowl just north of town in the room, the 58 room, which is, if you've been to Eastside Bowl, that's kind of the front room that looks like it's from 1958. So that's where we're going to start it. It's completely free to the public so anyone can show up. It can be from 730 to 930 if you want to sign up to potentially perform. Get there by, you know, like seven o'clock or so between 7 and 730 is when we're going to do the sign ups and then 730 is when it all starts. Sounds like you've got it all planned out. That's a great thing. Like I said, we did a test run. We would love to do just like, hey, get there early and sign up and first come, first serve, but there's probably just going to be too much demand for that. So instead, people sign up, we put their name in a hopper and then we pick out the names randomly. You know, obviously, if you're a fan of songs, please show up. I think you're going to see some really great songs and it's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah, sounds like it's going to be really good. Now, don't you have another date that's set up for the official taping? On September 29th, that's when we're going to official pilot taping of the first episode. So that's on September 29th, same time, same place. Oh, that sounds good. This has been really good. Good conversation, great information about what you're doing. I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today. Oh, thank you, Tony. It's really a pleasure and an honor to be on. Oh, it's been my pleasure. Thanks again. If you like the show, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening.
