Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here.
Thanks for listening to another episode of Hey Human Podcast.
This is episode 386, and I had a conversation with Nick Butta.
Nick is a producer and drummer in Nashville, Tennessee.
He was born in South Africa, but came to the US as a kid.
He tours with Kenny Chesney and has worked with dozens and dozens of artists,
including Mega Stars, Taylor Swift, Dolly Parton, Lionel Richie,
and Martina McBride, but so many more. Oh my gosh, his,
the list goes on and on and on. We talked about his childhood, his career,
family, his connection to the creator of Marvels, Thanos, and so much more.
Nick and I have been friends for a really long time,
and I'm so happy we finally were able to be in the same place at the same time.
We connected at a gig in Denver and met up at the hotel,
and we recorded this on an iPhone. Shout out iPhone . Uh,
here's Hope in the Swifties will hear this episode and share it far and wide.
In other news, I am playing this Saturday in Santa Monica,
California. If anybody is in the vicinity of that,
I'll be playing the Crow 8:00 PM I have an opening set for the comedy
show that night, so that'll be a lot of fun.
Dusting off the guitar and doing a little live set. Come on down if you want to.
At the Crow, it's in Berger, Vermont Station. All right,
check out hey human podcast.com for links.
And to learn more about my guests in the show, check out Susan ruth.com.
To learn more about me and my other artistic endeavors, follow Susan Ruth.
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My last record is All I Ever Wanted was everything.
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human podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.
And thank you for listening. Be well, be kind, be love.
Here we go.
Nick Buto up. Come to, Hey, human.
Alright. Happy to be a part of, Hey human. This.
Is cool. We've talked about this for a while. Yeah. Yeah. So here you are.
Here I am. Yeah. On the road again.
I like, I like that we're doing it in person. Yeah, that is good. There's been,
there's been a lot of Zoom, uh, type interviews and it's works too,
but it's nice in person. Do you.
Get interviewed a lot?
Uh, I mean, not a lot, but it, it happens. It happens. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Mostly music stuff though. Different types of either drummer or music.
Obviously music related, but mostly drummer focused,
which that's that thing.
I'm psyched to be doing one that's not as focused on drums. More human.
That's right. Yeah.
Although we will cover drums. Yeah. Yeah, sure. We'll get a beat on that. Ah,
I see what I did.
There. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
I'm like a good drum pun . Let's go back to the beginning.
Where are you from?
I was born in Cape Town in South Africa, and, uh, lived there till I was, uh,
uh, 12 and a half or so.
And how was life growing up in South Africa.
In the time without, you know, me knowing anymore,
it was great.
We had a beautiful place on the side of a mountain.
Cape Town's absolutely beautiful, so, you know, but the,
the views over the ocean were obviously taken for granted.
'cause that's all I ever knew. You know,
I was zipping down to the beach and playing with the dogs in the sand,
and not just like the beach, but the, some of the most beautiful beaches.
I mean, just incredible. My grandmother lived on the other side of the mountain,
so, um, my mom was a, uh, in the sort of fashion design world,
she was a buyer for a, um, sort of a, let's say,
a gap style clothing store in South Africa. And, um,
so my grandmother would pick me up from school and I'd go and hang with her for
the afternoons. We'd play cards, we'd have tea time at four o'clock, you know,
it was, you know, all the stuff.
And then my mom would pick me up at five or five 30 and we'd go around to the
other side of the mountain to where we lived.
Do you have siblings? No. Okay. Only child. Yeah.
What was apartheid still a.
Big deal apart around you? Was very much a big deal. Yeah.
I didn't know so much about it as a kid. My mom, uh, is still very political,
but at the time I was very anti-everything that was going on over there. Um,
the, um,
oppression of the black and colored community in a
country where they were, by far the majority was terrible and disgusting. And,
and it was ultimately the reason why we left. But as a kid, I didn't, I didn't,
I wasn't so aware of that. It's not like I'm,
I don't know that I was necessarily around a lot of
black or mixed scenarios, so to say, but it's, but it wasn't something,
I didn't find it unusual either. I think a lot of, anyway, I, yeah,
I don't know about all that,
but I do know that there were days that we would not go to school,
like school would be closed because it was,
and I would just be happy school was closed. But it was,
because it would be like, let's say the anniversary of a,
a black leader that had been guild and they were concerned about marches and
potential violence and things like that.
So they would just not have school that day.
Was school segregated?
Some schools were definitely segregated. Um,
the school I went to wasn't particularly, um, went to a Jewish school. Jewish,
so I went to a Jewish school growing up in Cape Town.
So there just weren't a lot of black people there. . Yeah. But,
but it wasn't, I.
Think I've known like three Jewish black people.
That's right. . That's right.
And in South Africa they probably weren't there. Yeah. Yeah. There was general,
there wasn't like a, a strong divide segregation there,
but there was a most definite, um, economic seg segregation where, you know,
black kids weren't allowed to go to school a lot of times. Um, they would, or,
or they were put in a position where they weren't able to. Yeah.
Apartheid was a, a terrible thing, you know?
And so once the biggest sanctions started coming down in South Africa because of
apartheid from, uh, America and the rest of the world,
the future was bleak for South Africa. There were a lot of, uh,
big international companies that were pulling out and all that sort of stuff.
And, um, took 'em long enough. Took 'em long enough. No, it's exactly right.
It took a pressure,
like the big pressure of everything before any one company actually bailed on
it, and, you know what I mean? And at that time, everybody was leaving, um,
and they were either going to Australia or England, which were a,
a lot of times the easier places to move as far as, um, you know,
being able to take your stuff. And actually,
B like the United States A is very far, and B you know,
everything's one 10 volt here as opposed to two 20. So like,
you really were literally packing a bag and then starting again.
And most people.
Oh, that's weird. I wouldn't think about that. Yeah. Electricity.
Is completely different. You're, you're not moving your house.
You're literally like furniture maybe, but that's about it, you know? So, um,
and that's.
Just not worthwhile. You just get new stuff.
Well, yeah, I mean, we actually ended up doing that. We mul we,
we shipped our stuff over here when we moved, um, couches and tables and stuff,
but even then, not very much. We sold off a lot of it because when we moved,
everybody was trying to move.
Most people were so sort of tied to a certain lifestyle that they had in
South Africa. Of course, you had nannies help around, you know,
that were mostly black because the wages were so inexpensive.
Like, I mean, anybody could afford that. And so, you know,
these families were all of a sudden moving to like, let's say England,
that that help was now a lot more expensive, you know, as it should be.
And a lot of, a lot of families just felt like, well, that's not worth it.
I'll deal with apartheid and kind of turn the other cheek because I like having
my lifestyle laundry done for me and my lifestyle, whatever.
I mean, I think that's true of a lot of, uh, oppressive situations, right?
Is that folks think, oh, okay, well, it's not really happening to me.
It's happening around me,
and I'm benefiting even if I don't believe these things. Yeah.
I'm benefiting from other people's oppression, so Right. I'm gonna stick around.
And I don't know, you know, I mean, I think that there's those views as,
as well as views of like, well,
I don't like the fact that this country that I love is, is,
seems to be going over a cliff, so I'm gonna get out now. But then there's the,
but it's really beautiful here and Yeah. You know,
maybe I can just make it work. And, and literally, like, uh,
most of the people I knew that had tried to leave around then within a year,
six months to a year, they,
they were back again because it was just easier to be back.
And also change comes from within.
Yeah.
As well. Completely.
So if everybody who wants to things to be better and to do better,
leave who's left to do better and be better.
Yeah. Well, there was that. I, I don't know. And now granted,
I was too young at the time to really have a, a,
a bigger concept about what was going on. Sure. But,
but from what I have learned and looking back at it,
it feels like there were those that said, I will not stand for this.
This is not the, the country that I wanna live in, or the,
the environment that I wanna be in. My mom was one of those, you know, I mean,
we, it was a struggle to come to the States, um,
and change our lifestyle a thousand percent, you know?
But my mom was so, uh,
she believed so strongly in what we were doing that there was just that we were
not gonna be going back. There was just whatever happened,
we weren't coming back, you know? Yeah. And, um, and, and I, I,
I wish I could commend, there's not enough to commend her on, on that,
because I know how, and again,
I didn't necessarily understand at the time 'cause she hid a lot of it from me.
I was, you know, that was when I was like 13, 14, those early years, whatever,
teenage years. And I, I was pissed at a lot of the things I didn't get to do.
But I, but not aware of why necessarily I couldn't.
And also not aware of how difficult moving to a new
place so far away from anything, you know, not, and everyone, yeah.
And everyone, and the way that we moved to at the time, you know,
in order to get a green card, that was like a six, seven year process, you know,
and, and the, um, you know, the, it's even, I think it's even worse now, but,
um, in those days, and, and my mom was not prepared to sit around and wait.
And if I had turned 18 in the, in that era, if I had turned 18 in,
in South Africa, I would've had to join the Army.
And she was not gonna have that. I didn't.
Know that South Africa is a required.
It did, then it, I don't think it does anymore. Mm-Hmm. . Um.
A lot of countries do.
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Mm-Hmm. . So, yeah. So we just took off. Um.
Did your grandmother go as.
Well? No, my grandmother stayed in Cape Town. She had,
obviously my mom's younger brother was still there,
and other family cousins stuff was still there.
And I think she felt too that like,
she also very much disagreed with what was going on,
but she was involved sort of in the , not in the fight,
but like, in, in, in sort of like projects.
She was a part of this group that raised money for schools, for black kids.
And so she was, she was sort of a part of that. And her life was there, and,
and yeah. She wasn't gonna move too much older. Yeah. And my dad actually, uh,
my mom and dad split up when I was a very little kid. And,
and so my dad also stayed, um, his life was there. I mean,
his business was a lot more, um,
internationally more international dealings. And,
and Cape Town was more of his base than anything else. But, but so,
so my dad was still there. My grandmother was still there. But.
You referenced black people and colored people. When you say colored,
you mean people of color or was that a delineation in South Africa?
Is that something South African.
Colored people are the what, when the white people came and,
and got together with like, however, you know, it wasn't always pleasant.
The, the, the rape and pillaging scenario never is. But, uh, but, uh, yeah,
exactly. . But, uh, are you gonna the.
Rape and pillage.
Tonight? Yeah. Yeah. That's right. I mean, and, and obviously,
and it's funny too, when I was a kid in South Africa when we had,
when we learned about history in South Africa,
and we learned about Jan f Rubik was the guy that that founded South Africa.
You know, he, they, he sailed down from the Netherlands. And, and,
and that's how South Africa was born, you know,
and then completely.
Ignoring the indigenous folks.
Oh, completely. Like, that wasn't from, that was,
that was not a part of our history at all as a kid growing up there, you know.
And then when I was in Nashville, once we had moved, and I was in high school,
and my senior year there was an African history option class, you know?
And I thought, oh, well, my senior year, let me take this.
'cause I'm just gonna breeze through it because I,
I already know all this stuff. And I was,
my mind was blown even at like, you know, what,
17 or however all that was at that point, I still hadn't gone back. You know?
I mean, I, we had moved, I now, I'm,
now I'm an American kid and a school here and all this sort of stuff.
And I did not understand that there was history that I had not been taught
that had been, you know, um, omitted from those classes.
And it kind of blew my mind. And so that, uh, yeah, that, so that was,
that was a big lesson, . And I know it happens a lot, but it's like,
yeah, when it happens to you, it's like, oh my God,
I can't believe my whole life. I thought that this was how it went.
And there was a whole area before that. And exactly what happened once Jan Re,
Jan Van Reik was not the hero. , you know, I mean,
and which is obviously how it, I, it had been taught to me, you know?
Sure. So, yeah.
American history is no different. That's no.
Our vibe. Well, and I mean, you want to go down that road today. I mean,
and they're trying to make it even more that, which is despicable. But anyway,
yeah. It's despicable.
I agree. How was, uh, your, your Jewishness growing up there? How was that?
Were people, uh, did you get lumped into a particular part of town as well?
No, not really. I had friends that were Jewish and not Jewish, um,
but it there, but there was a very strong Jewish community in Cape Town.
And so I didn't, again, I'm not,
I'm not a particularly religious person. I do, I love the faith, I love the,
um, the traditions around the Jewish traditional Yeah. It's great, you know,
. And so, and I was raised very much like that. Yeah.
Like we were raised . We would have these big family dinners for, uh,
over the Jewish holidays, but instead of doing, like,
going through like the whole service at home, we'd have, like,
my grandmother would sit at the big table. We would all be there and, you know,
whatever. And we would have like the abridged version of like, you do this,
there's a song here. You do this little quick little thing, you know, and like,
amen. And then you go straight to the snack, straight to the food, you know,
. And there was sort of certain services too, like where there was, uh,
oh God, I'm testing my Jewish knowledge here, but, but there was,
there was service where at the end of the service,
the kids would get Candy chocolate or something,
and my grandmother would take me for like the last 15 minutes of the .
Like we would sneak in the back of the shul and , you know? So, uh,
now that's hilarious. Now that I have a daughter that just turned seven, I am,
I really want to start getting back into that stuff just so that she
Heritage knows those stories. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's really important. Yeah.
I think it's really great. Yeah.
I get that. Well, last night I said, oh, it's Yom Kiku, you went. Oh, really?
Oh, really? . Well, we should toast on that . Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, exactly. Great for me. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Right. Well, the thing about being Jewish, right? There's a,
there's being culturally Jewish That's right.
And then there's being religiously Jewish. Yeah. And,
and sometimes those two paths cross and sometimes they.
Don't. Completely. Yeah. Completely. Yeah. Yeah.
How was the culture shock of coming to the US aside from realizing you didn't
know anything about your own country.
? Oh, well, yeah. No, thankfully that didn't all happen at the same time.
. But yeah, no, it was heavy. You know, I moved, so we moved in,
um, August. My birthday's in March, so I was like,
I was literally like 12 and a half. And I, and I,
you know, when, when we first found out that we were leaving South Africa,
I thought it was the coolest thing in the world.
'cause we were coming to America and back.
And back then America was like the land of dreams. Like, you know, the, the,
the, just all the,
all the things you can imagine essentially like living,
going to live in Disney World, you know? And, and it's funny, a year before me,
a girl had moved to the States with her parents. I think they moved to Atlanta.
And I remember thinking, man, that is just so cool. It would be so amazing.
I wonder where she, Jane Robbie was her name. I'll never forget him. So anyway,
Jane, if you're listening, Jane, if you're listening, gimme a call.
So the year later we were moving, Ethel was so cool. And,
and all my friends thought I was so cool. And I was not. I was a very shy kid.
And I didn't like my best friend when I was at that age was the super
cool kid. And I was definitely in the shadows and like did my own thing,
whatever. So all of a sudden I was like, wow, it's so cool.
Nick's moving to America. How cool is that?
And then like days before we were leaving, I realized, oh wait,
I'm leaving everybody I know here and everything I know here.
And so it was sort of exciting and, and it was the first realizations of, oh,
this isn't gonna be so easy. And then we got to the States. Um,
it was only weeks before I was gonna have to start school.
And we had no idea where I was gonna school. And so, thankfully, um,
we found this great school in Nashville called the University School in
Nashville. 'cause my mom had heard nothing but, uh, nightmare stories about, uh,
public schools in the States. And, and back then, pre-internet,
all that we had to go on was movies. Right. And we saw these movies where like,
in the high schools drug deals are happening and all these other things.
Mom was like, you're not going to one of those schools , you know? So,
so she found about, out about this great liberal arts K through 12.
And somehow I got in and thank goodness it's a phenomenal school.
It's quite famous. Incredible. Well, and my daughter goes still to the same.
My daughter goes there now, you know? And, um, it's,
I will say thank goodness for that and music, because it was such a,
um, it was such a great environment. Um,
the relationship with the teachers is so great for me being still, like,
I was still pretty shy and I had an extremely strong accent.
Some people couldn't understand me. A lot of people just wanted me to talk,
and I was really shy and didn't know where I fit in or anything like that.
It took a year,
it took a year of me not being so happy about things and occasionally really
hating things to finally feel like I may have a footing or may fit
in somewhere, you know? Mm-Hmm. . So that was seventh grade,
which is, I mean, it's tough grade anyway for kids that age.
It's like you question everything. Like every little thing is the biggest thing.
It can be . Yeah. You know? Absolutely. And, uh, I, I had a,
I had a hard time. Yeah, yeah.
But I played music and I met friends doing that.
And it, it, through eighth grade had a little band, had, you know,
all those. And that kind of helped, helped me find the,
my people always.
Drums.
Yeah. I just, I always, I've played drums since,
but I was hitting on things before I was playing drums. I was,
it's just always been in me. Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-Hmm. . What happens after high school?
So, you know,
I played all the way through high school and then decided in my senior year of
high school, I went to go see Sting. And,
and it's funny 'cause even in my senior year, my senior book or whatever the,
the high school book that it says somewhere like a quote from me saying like,
I met ing or whatever, which is funny thing about,
but I did get to meet him at the show that he was at through a friend of a
friend. And in that meeting, I, I met, um, his drummer at the time,
Vinny Kaluta, who, well, I was a huge, huge fan of,
and we talked about Berkeley School of Music, and I already knew about that.
And I knew that I wanted to keep playing drums.
And that was a one avenue to be able to do that. And then Vinny was,
uh, you know, uh, was a huge influence and was, you know,
talking so highly about Berkeley. So I was like, okay,
well that's where I'm going.
So I took a semester off after high school because we were still not legal.
Like we were still living under the radar a hundred percent ing for the whole
time. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Oh, so you, they didn't even know you were really in the country.
Um, they didn't know that. And by they, like,
the authorities would care whoever care. Yeah. They, they would not have known,
um, because.
You were an illegal, an illegal immigrant.
I was an illegal alien. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. And.
Immigrant, I suppose.
Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, you were all the face. But the thing is, we haven't,
we hadn't really even immigrated yet. Like we were,
we were completely just sitting under the radar waiting for that
paperwork to come through so we could get a green card. Interesting. And,
and that meant not being able to do certain, like, I love driving, I love cars,
and I couldn't wait till I turned 16 to drive,
but certain things had to happen before I could get my license. And it was,
it wasn't that long. They, I dunno how they were able to work out, I dunno,
all the details, but it was a couple of months that I was like,
why is this such,
and not even under with a bigger enough scope to be able to understand, hey,
there are bigger things. And at work here, just be happy that everything's,
you know, did.
Your mom have a job during that whole time?
She would work a little side jobs and stuff for people and getting paid under
the table and stuff like.
That. I've interviewed, uh,
people that don't have green cards that are living in this country, uh,
quote unquote illegally, whatever that means. Yeah.
For a human being to be illegal in.
The country. Well, yeah.
Yeah. But, uh, and uh,
they use things like fake social security. They still pay taxes.
They do all the things that are reg,
probably more so because they're trying to desperately not to get caught. Yeah.
I mean,
most of my friends who were born here do everything they can to not pay all
their taxes.
To not pay the taxes. That's right. That's right. Well, it's funny,
I remember us getting social security cards,
but it said not for hire or can't be, you know, whatever. It is interesting.
You know, I don't know if that system still exists or, or how it works.
Who knows? I mean, yeah. Honestly, after nine 11, everything changed. And,
and if nine 11, if we wouldn't have been able to do what we did. Sure.
Had it been after that, it's.
Also incredibly expensive to become a citizen of the.
United States. It's very expensive. Yeah. And thankfully, you know,
so we were able to pay for all that, I mean, in South Africa, um,
as opposed to in the States. I mean,
we were living on very little amounts of money. As a result,
my dad had actually helped find a way for us to be able to get some money
over beyond just money that you could travel on. Because I mean,
you're not expected when you come and vacation somewhere.
You're not expected to be paying rent and groceries and all that sort of stuff.
And that's, we were very limited in what we could do over months and months.
So my mom, we were living, we were living like refugees,
not necessarily actually being refugees, but you know, I mean,
very much on bare minimum. So, you know, were you.
On scholarship then at school?
You know, I, I, and I've, I keep,
this is one of those things I keep forgetting to actually find out about.
There was some sort of a visa scenario that allowed money to come through to be
able to pay for the school. You know, it was that kind of thing. Mm-Hmm.
. Mm-Hmm. . But I give again, credit to my mom,
you know,
university school every year would ask for that paperwork that they would need
to have. And every year my mom would say, oh, the lawyers are working on,
I'm working on it. I, you know, I'll get it to you. And, and as long as I,
I mean, I was a good kid and I didn't,
didn't give them a lot of reason to have to question.
So they just kind of university school,
kind of not throwing anybody under the bus, but kind of looked the other way.
Understand. You know, it's been a, it's been a long time, so Yeah,
for sure. Um, but yeah. And I.
Remember them when the alumni That's.
Right. Trust me. Trust me. I do. Anyway, . Um,
but yeah, so we were, we were very fortunate to have gotten by as we did,
you know, and, and it, and it came out great on the other side. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. And in fact, it took a long time. Like we had green cards for a long time.
And then, uh, finally I applied for citizenship, just yeah.
For whatever reason. And then, got it. So yeah, there you go.
After the gap year, you go to Berkeley.
So yeah, I took a,
actually just took a semester off semester 'cause we had to go back to Cape Town
to now get green cards. So, because now we were,
now it was time to have those meetings and blah, blah, blah.
So I took a semester,
we were down there for like two months or something like that, and,
and did the interview at the embassy, which was a little ridiculous.
'cause now I had an American accent, , like,
it was obvious we had been in the States, but Yeah. You.
Kind of have an American accent. . Yeah. Anyway,
when we were hanging out last night, I could hear it,
you could hear a little bit as the, as the alcohol went up.
The accent came out. Yeah. It can happen. Yeah. So, and yeah,
and then I went back and I went to Berkeley because I would never have gotten
into Berkeley without having a green card or, you know, at least. Sure. Yeah.
I started there in, in January of that next year. And I was there for, uh,
about three years. I've kind of went through the summers.
'cause right at that time that I was, that I went to up to Boston,
my mom and my aunt and her younger sister, who's a singer songwriter,
moved up to Woodstock, New York.
Debbie was going to be going down to the city gigs and working with a couple of
really big writers up there. Big, big famous artists.
And so my mom moved up there with her. And, um, I was in Boston. Hmm.
Yeah.
I hear that the folks that don't graduate from Berkeley are the ones that tend
to be the most successful. 'cause they.
I graduated. Oh, you did? I actually did. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Because I know so.
Many I know what you're saying though. I, it's absolutely right. A lot of,
they get plucked out a a lot of times they either get plucked out or the ones
that just end up staying there and graduating, maybe don't have the,
I don't know, the path, the vision, the, the, it's a lot, you know, to do,
to do this thing. So,
but I happened to be up there and I was touring with bands around New England,
and I was doing a lot of recording stuff at Berkeley, like the,
you know, midnight to six film scoring project or whatever in the,
in the whatever studio at Berkeley come out to find. My car had been towed.
I've got class at nine, you know, 10 or something. You know,
that's a real musician. That was college life right there.
That was Dick Musician College life. Absolutely. So, have.
You ever, if you haven't had your car towed as a musician, oh.
My God, are you really a musician? . Well,
and then a particularly musician in Boston between booting and tow. I know.
It's like a, that's the norm, right? Yeah.
And so it just so happened because I stayed up there through the summers.
I was within a semester or two or something of graduating,
and I was kind of thinking of doing something else. My mom was like, you know,
you're there, you're busy. You're doing all this stuff. Just do it.
Just finish the thing, get the whatever. Even if you never use it, you're,
you're already in line to beginning it. So I did. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. What was your first big break?
Boy, I don't know if I can, it's hard to, one of two things.
When I was in high school here,
I had done a surprise party with my band at the time for this girl
whose, uh, parents wa a guy named Mac Gaden,
who co co-wrote, uh, everlasting Love and, you know, big songs,
everlasting Love, you know, like super that and, and a couple of other,
not as big, but still big hits. Mac really liked how I played. And this,
I was in, uh, you know, eighth grade? No, no, no one.
I'm talking about 10th grade or something like that.
So then around my senior year, as I was graduating high school,
he hired me to go on the road with him. So I went out with him.
I was by far the youngest guy in the band. I was 16, 17, um,
when I first started doing gigs with him.
And everybody else was at least more than twice my age, you know,
and I got to work with some actual,
I found out afterwards Nashville Heavyweights. And at the time,
I had no idea a guy named Tom Rodie, who unfortunately has passed away,
but great percussionist who was on the road. And, and it's a funny story.
So , I was watching TV one night, uh,
this James Taylor concert came on and there's Tom Rodie in the back playing for
like, what? That's the guy that I played with, with Matt Gaden.
I didn't know he did, played with James Taylor, who, whom I'm a huge fan of.
Anyway. So that kind of thing happened all the time.
And so I actually missed my, uh,
graduation party because I was doing a gig with Mac at this place called 3 28
Performance Hall in Nashville Old School joint that's not there anymore. Um,
I remember that place. Yeah. I.
Saw Steve Earl there. Oh.
Yeah. Who played for.
Nine hours, I think. Really?
, because.
He plays a long time when.
He plays. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So I,
that was one break was getting to do stuff with Mac and,
and those kind of musicians when I was so young and so
learning, you know what I mean?
I cannot imagine that's a child. Right. Very much.
I cannot imagine what,
how quickly you were forced to grow up in those parameters. Yeah.
The things you probably saw.
. Well, there's so many, so many funny things happen.
So the bass player was a guy named Byron House, who's just awesome. And, uh,
I really love that guy. And he was a guy that told me we were rehearsing in my,
in my, like, my mom's in our house.
We were rehearsing with Mac and that band for some of these shows.
And we were playing Everlasting Love. And I had no idea that Mack wrote that to,
and at that point, and so Mac's talking to somebody else in the band,
and Byron's right next to me, and I'm like, man,
of all the songs that we would cover, why is he doing this one in Byron's? Like,
'cause he wrote it . It was a,
and that talk about a Nashville thing. That's a Nashville thing. Sure. So at 17,
I was like, okay, understood that one.
And then he also told me a couple of different ways to play,
like accent the ride and stuff while we're playing. I was just,
I was a rock guy and the high school band, you know,
all of a sudden I'm playing with these big dudes. Wow. You know,
so there's some neat little lessons from that.
I would say that was that break. And I think the,
the next break that kind of got me started in my sort of professional whatever
road was getting hired to play with Colonel Bruce Hampton out of Atlanta.
And Bruce was an.
Actual colonel?
No, no. He got the name. Oh man. Like some other,
I can't remember. Like, he, he had his life was like the.
Chicken guy. Colonel.
was wrapped in Mystery. Yeah, exactly. Sort of. And he, uh,
he was a, yeah. And I'd been a huge fan of his,
when I was in high school playing along with,
he had a band called Aquarium Rescue Unit that was amongst
players, was just the shit. I.
Feel like I've heard of.
That band. They were just killing all the players were just amazing.
And they were based out of Atlanta. And then Atlanta.
Had some great bands. Georgia put out some.
Great music. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so I got to,
I moved to Atlanta, like I got done with college in about a, you know,
maybe a year later or something like that, that I moved a couple years later.
I moved to Atlanta and was playing with Colonel Bruce.
And that was a big,
that was big because I got to play with so many of my heroes on
stage. I mean, 'cause everybody loved Bruce. So he was like the,
the godfather of the sort of jam band hippie scene.
So whether it was the guys from the Allman Brothers,
or we played with Little Feet a bunch. And so,
like me and Richie Haywood would do like the double drummer thing.
And I grew up playing with Little Feet Records and all that stuff. So that was,
that was kind of a big, that was a big deal. And, and I learned,
Berkeley was my school school,
and Bruce was my real life road school.
I learned a lot in the two or two and a half years or whatever that I was
playing with him. Did.
You have a lot of American,
and I assume UK band influenced living in South Africa then?
How did you get your music and what was your first album you.
Bought? Hmm. . Well, the first album I bought was, well,
I should say it was definitely the first cd. Oh,
the first tape I remember was Twisted Sister Come out and play Kate Schneider.
Yeah. Okay. Um, uh, but the first CD I remember buying was Living Color,
uh, that the Cult to Personality Vivid, I guess was the name of that word. Yeah.
Yeah. In South Africa, we got a lot of American music. I mean,
there was a lot of local stuff too. And I think a lot of local, uh,
kind of grooves influences kind of found their way to me without me even
knowing. It's not like I was very, um, aware of African music,
like going out to see it necessarily.
But I do know that I was very aware of those grooves and stuff when it came
to like, those kind of influences. Actually, while I was,
I think it was right after I was outta college when I was first back in
Nashville for a minute before I moved to Atlanta, I played with this, um,
black saxophone player named OJ ecmo. And he was, uh,
all African, traditional African,
some Cuban African style grooves. And so all of a sudden I was like,
I think the one white guy in the band. And really, I don't,
I can't even remember how that came together,
but I remember all of a sudden here I was in Nashville playing these true
African stuff with dancers and the backup singers, and That's so cool.
And the whole thing. And uh, and somehow it was completely natural for me. Like,
nothing seemed odd about it, you know? So what an education Yeah. Another, yeah.
Another little like yeah. Weird tidbit of for sure that, that,
it's not like that comes into play very often, but it, it was there, you know,
it's cool. For sure. Yeah. So, so the Bruce thing lasted about two,
two and a half years. And then it was band Dynamics that, that I was,
I was ready to leave and I came back to Nashville because I wasn't,
that was the biggest crossroads, I think LA or Nashville.
And I knew some people in la but I really had better friends in Nashville that
had moved up the ladder while I had been gone.
And I thought this is a better place for me to find the next step.
And within about a month of moving back, I,
uh, a guy that I had met through, uh, a,
a guy that I played with in high school, um, was the band leader for, um,
an artist named Cindy Thompson, who at the time had just had a big number one.
And she was like a young pop country, um,
phenom.
And so I played with Cindy for a year or so and loved
it. I mean,
I came straight from being in the jam band scene with Colonel Bruce moving back
to Nashville.
And all of a sudden I'm on this pop country gig playing with loops,
doing all which I'd never done before. You know,
opening up for Alan Jackson and blah, blah, blah, blah, all these other people.
And Cindy was awesome. And the band was great. And the playing was,
I got to use like a lot of my sort of James Taylor style things that I
really loved in that gig. And, and I also,
thankfully was good friends with some of those folks. So, uh,
a guy named Bruce Wallace who had Bruce Bruce right. Who was,
was Cindy's band leader. Talk about a talent. It's incredible.
I've written with him.
He's, I think he's such a talent.
Yeah, yeah. Such a smooth acoustic player. Smooth acoustic player. I know.
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. And he, uh,
but thankfully he was super cool and loved the fact that I had never listened to
country before and playing on this country gig.
And also loved the fact that I would go for it all the time,
but also was cool enough to be able to say, Hey,
maybe we pull it back a little bit after, you know, 'cause I was,
I was young and ready to go . Yeah. You know,
and I'd just come off the Jam Man scene where anything was Yeah. Viable. Sure.
You know, so the Cindy gig was great, and I was sad that, that when it ended,
and then I kind of did some touring in the country scene,
met Mindy Smith through the local thing around Nashville,
who's just such a phenomenal sort of, uh,
folky Americana, but even more than that kind of art,
like great singer songwriter, toured with her, played on some of her records.
And that kind of started the like, okay, I really want to just play on records.
I, I mean, at that point in Nashville,
there was a much thicker line between guys that were on the road and guides that
recorded. It's a different vibe. It, yeah. Well, it is a different thing.
I mean, there, you know, a lot of times the, the road guys would get pissed.
They weren't playing on the records,
but they'd never really spent time in the studio. And,
and there's a way to play in the studio and a way to play live. And they're,
and totally different thing. Until you can understand the difference.
You can't just be expected to come in and Mm-Hmm. And make a,
a recording sound good, even if you're killing it on stage, you know?
So I spent time trying to get into the recording thing, you know, at the,
at the cost of gigs. I mean, gigs would come up and it would be like, I don't,
I'm gonna stay here and not make any money right now instead of going out and
making whatever on the road. That's a tough call. It was a tough call,
but I knew I wanted to do both.
And I knew that I would never get to be doing the recording side if I kept
touring, you know? But if I got the recording thing going, I could still tour.
You know? And that's sort of how I've, where I've ended up . Yeah.
You know, so. Yeah.
Yeah. How many records do you think you've played on?
I have no honest. Let's.
Call your.
Union rep. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Surely there's a way we can find this out. .
. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot. A lot. I've played on a lot. Yeah. Yeah.
And some of them,
some of 'em have been heard by 15 people and some of 'em are heard about a lot
more. You know, it's just, I've, I.
And sometimes the ones that are heard by 15 people are better.
Than the, they can be some, I, there are some,
I have recorded some great records that I listened to that are on Spotify that I
listened to that I know have not, I don't know how many people have heard 'em,
but they, they were not anything big. They didn't have Yeah.
A single that dropped or whatever. But the record was still great. Yeah.
You know,
but then thankfully I will say the records that are the biggest records I've
played on, I think are also actually cool records. I, I'm not,
there is nothing that's out there and big that I can say that I'm embarrassed
that I've played on, you know, which is, which is I think is fortunate. Yeah.
Yeah.
My name is Big .
. That's right, that's right. Change up some letters. No, no.
That's not me. I know. It's weird. . Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Uh, did you decide, do you have a, you have a child?
I have two. Oh, you.
Have two.
Kids? Yep. I've got a seven year old girl, Addie, and a two year old boy Oliver.
Oh, look at you.
You've.
Been busy. Yeah, . Yeah. I didn't know about,
I didn't even know how that happens. It happens. Yeah. I'll.
I'll show you a chart later.
Yeah. Okay. I'll explain everything. Different interview maybe ,
I'll explain.
Everything. Yeah. Let's talk about that for a minute. Yeah.
Let's get off of music for a.
Second. Yeah, sure. How is.
Fatherhood?
It's so much more involved than I thought it would be. ,
you know, in a great way though. You know,
when people say it's the hardest and most awesome thing,
you know that whole thing, and you're like, yeah, okay, sure. Whatever.
Somehow when you're in it,
it actually is because it's because you don't always have the answers.
And the answers are important. So like, you're sitting there like, well,
I know that I shouldn't have said this thing,
but I also need to make sure that this point gets across. But I don't, you know,
there's all these, I don't know,
there's all these ways of having to go around communicating with a seven year
old brain, you know,
which is still figuring itself out and still kind of how,
you know, it's all, it's all important.
And yet some of it is taken with a grain of salt, you know? So I,
it's awesome though. Uh, I really love it. And, and, um, you know,
obviously Ali being just two is, he's sweet and cute, but as he comes up,
it'll be interesting to see how he, I, I don't know just how, how it all works.
I love that Addie has been able to come to some gigs here and there. You know,
she hasn't really, she actually has been in the studio a couple times,
but obviously for just brief amounts of time, you know, my,
my partner Ashley is, is amazing at,
at being able to cover all that ground when I'm, because you know,
like session time is, is sort of a non-negotiable. I can't be like,
I know it starts at 10, but I've got a kid think, can I be there at 10 30? Like,
no, you actually gotta be here at nine 30 and make sure we got drum sounds and
whatever. And that, and that just is what it is. Fortunately,
I have a partner that is willing to cover that. If,
if something comes up she can take care of, of, of that, and, you know,
will you be somehow work out away. That's.
Good teamwork.
Yeah. Yeah. It's what it is. Yeah. For sure.
When you realized a daughter, did you panic.
Just because of being a daughter? Uh, no. I really wanted a girl. Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I would've been happy with a boy first as well, but I,
inside I knew I really wanted a girl. Okay.
And so when I found out it was a girl, it was, yeah. It was awesome. And I mean,
she and I definitely have a special connection. Yeah. You know, it's,
it's really sweet. Yeah. I love, you know, I've been this last,
um, year and a half, unfortunate to have this big gig.
We'll talk about it a little bit or whatever. Yeah. But,
but having one of the coolest moments was having her on the side of the stage
seeing it. 'cause it's, 'cause she's so,
she's so into it and she sings along with the songs.
And just her seeing her look at such a big crowd and like,
kind of take it all in was kind of a cool experience.
For me. Some of the biggest crowds ever probably. Yeah. Yeah.
As well. It's pretty neat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It remind me who you're playing with before you got this gig.
Nobody. Oh, I, I mean, I've been, I've played with Juul over the years. Um,
I, I, I started, I played on a record for Juul years ago,
and then not nothing to do with that at all.
I got called to do a gig for her at some point,
maybe 2016 ish or something like that.
And then kept doing gigs for her, you know,
and I've done a few of her Christmas tours and stuff. She's, she's awesome.
She's such a great artist to work for. Super easygoing.
Sometimes artists are not so easygoing.
There's a definite split between like the artist realm or the artist, uh,
perception and sort of everybody else's perception.
And to find artists that you can actually have a conversation with and get along
with and text randomly or whatever. It's, it's, it's few and far between.
And I happen to be, I happen to be around two of them, , you know,
fairly frequently, which is, which is great, you know. And so Jewel is, uh,
I still go play with her. I went, I did a gig with her a couple, two,
three months ago or whatever, you know, a, a weekend with her. So, um,
it's always fun. And I'm, I'm always there for it, so, but no, but before this,
this Chesney gig, which is what I'm doing now, surprise, surprise. Um, I, uh,
I hadn't actually done any real touring other than the Juul thing for a decade.
Mm-Hmm. Yeah. I, because I've been, you know,
the session stuff have been going really well. And, um,
I'll go and do weekends here and there with people or whatever,
but nothing more than that.
How did the Kenny Chesney thing come about?
I knew, I know pretty much, I,
I have known pretty much everybody in his band for kind of a long time. Uh,
just from the Nashville scene, you know, uh,
pretty much everybody had plays on sessions and stuff.
And so when that position became available, I got a call, um,
from, from John, the guitar player. And Is that the band leader?
No. Oh, no. But, but, uh, everybody, uh, Wyatt is the band leader.
And Wyatt had said to everybody, Hey, put down on, uh, two or three guys or,
or girls, whatever, that you feel like would be good fits for this band.
I found out afterwards that I had ended up on everybody's list,
which is very sweet. Which is awesome. And so John had called me and said, Hey,
well, it's funny. He called me and left a message,
and I thought it was about playing on his daughter.
It was something to do with his daughter.
'cause Savannah Conley is his daughter, great artist.
And I played on her first record a long time ago. So,
and it was right around Christmas of, of whenever that was 21. And, um, I,
I was kind of forgetful and slow, and I just never got back to him.
And I think he called me back like a week later or something was like, Hey, man,
and oh, I saw his name come up. I was like, oh, shit.
I forgot to call John back. So, , so that.
Was in the heat of, uh, pandemic times too.
Wasn't it? It was the heat of pandemic. Yeah.
And so everything was kind of slow and whatever, you know, it wasn't, anyway,
I pick up and he's, and he mentions that this, would I be interested in the gig?
And honestly, I didn't know Kenny. I didn't know what his vibe was.
The other thing I knew is that yes,
he was very successful and a guy in a hat singing country songs.
And that's not necessarily my vibe. So,
although I was interested just to see what it was, I,
it wasn't like I was chomping at the bit to get it.
Another close friend of mine, Kenny Greenberg, who's a big session, uh,
player in Nashville, has been doing that gig for a long time, the Chesney gig.
So I called him and we had a long conversation about it,
and he kind of told me the ins and outs,
and now I was starting to get a little more interested in it.
And then I found out there had to be auditions,
which I wasn't overly psyched about, but I was like,
I understand Chesney's only ever really had one drummer for his whole live
career, and.
He started young.
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. I mean, pretty much. And yet.
That he's one of the most successful of the country and maybe all musicians
everywhere.
Kenny. Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, uh, I didn't know these stats about,
about Kenny,
but there's no one that has played more stadium shows in the United States than
Kenny Chesney. And, and when you think about that, packed a studio at a stadium.
Yeah. And, and think about like, when I say nobody, it's like, not in country,
but period. Yeah. Like the Stones. That's a big deal. Any artist. Yeah.
You know, and yeah. So anyway, I go down the road, I do the auditions.
Begrudgingly Ashley was, was very much, uh, the, the one behind me that said,
just do the audition. Don't be all snobbish about it and whatever, ego,
whatever. And I'm happy I did because I was, when I look back on that,
and it hasn't even been two years, I mean, with all that going on,
I couldn't have been more mistaken or naive I should say,
about what this, the Chesney camp was all about.
It's an absolute beautiful group of people. Family, absolute family.
Excellent work, work.
Ethic, incredible work ethic. Yeah. And, and,
and Kenny is another artist that I can, I could text right now, and he'll,
and he'll probably text me back within five minutes. And he's just that dude.
He's, he's become a real friend. Yeah. You know, and,
and that's incredibly rare when it comes to artists that you work with,
particularly on that level. You know.
He probably would not remember this. Mm-Hmm. .
But I accidentally texted Kenny Chesney when I first lived in
Nashville. Oh, yeah. Years and years and years ago,
because I was doing work for Skip Ewing,
who of course wrote a bunch of songs for Kenny and with Kenny. Yeah.
And so I kept track of Skip's phone, you know,
it was basically my phone had all of Skip's contacts. Right.
So that if I had to arrange for him to have a co-write or, or whatever.
And ,
it was the day after my birthday and my friends,
we had gone to Lyme. Do you remember Lyme? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And long gone, but,
and they took me out for quite the birthday. Mm-Hmm. .
And the next day I was sitting inro the monkey,
and I was sending a text to everybody to thank them for coming out and,
you know, whatever. And everyone's like, yeah, yeah. Great, great, great.
And then I get this random happy birthday, who is this?
Oh.
That's awesome. And, and it was, it turned out to be Kenny Chesney.
That's amazing. But that interaction actually, um, is the basis for a,
a film I'm writing.
Oh yeah. It's pretty.
Hilarious. .
Awesome. That's.
How it started.
, who's gonna play Kenny? I gotta know . Well.
It'll be, it'll, it's, it's a different character. Oh, I got, but it,
it's a text that says.
About that kind of thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. But, uh, which is pretty funny,
I'm sure. And he was very gracious about the, about this random stranger.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I didn't abuse the power either.
That's, yeah. Obvious , which is important. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. It's pretty funny.
. That's awesome. Yeah.
Yeah. How often do you go out on tour?
So, I started with 'em at the beginning of last year, 22.
And we did like a mid-April to end of August across
the country stadium tour. And then, um, this year. And so,
yeah, then we were done at the end, at the end of August.
And then this year we went out and did a little spring tour that was,
I don't know, 25 dates or something from be, you know,
middle of March till end of May. And then that was,
and then we did some weekends and stuff,
like some Saturday night festival kind of things or whatever. But that was it.
I mean, so we've been off for a little while and then next year we'll be
the rumor has it, I should say . . We'll, we'll be another,
uh, big, uh, sort of run across the stadium tour thing again. But even that,
I mean, it's gotta.
Fill all Jimmy Buffett's shows now. .
I know. Well, they.
Don't have a leader.
They're leaderless. I know, I know.
They're gonna have to convert to me coming the cut tuck. It sucked. Yeah.
It's like It sucks that, that, that, that, that, that icon.
I was so sad. It's.
Oh, so sad. I played.
His music all.
Day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, gosh. Terrible. Because it's.
It's so rooted in memories that I had as a kid. That's right.
And my big brother and his friends all playing guitar and playing those songs.
Yeah. And just, it's such a, yeah. It was.
Sad. It's sad. Yeah. So, yeah. So that's, and, but even then, I mean, I'm,
I think I'm pretty fortunate because on a busy year, we'll do 45 dates. And,
and I gotta say, like, I would not have thought about myself, you know,
when the session thing first took off. I love the idea of doing live and,
and recording and doing all, I like playing drums. I like,
I like making music with people, whether it's in, in,
in the recording world, in the way that that's done.
I love the relationship that happens on stage too. Yeah. It's beautiful.
And this, this band right now, the K band is just, I mean,
stellar musicians and so much, are these.
The biggest audiences that you've.
Ever Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've,
I've maybe done a festival in the past where we were playing for a hundred
thousand people or some, something like that.
But never on a constant where like, every,
every stadium we get to is if, if it's not sold out, it's really close.
And it's a whole lot of people. And.
Everyone knows every word.
Everyone knows their word. Everybody's singing along. Yeah. It's incredible.
Yeah. And the fact that that guy commands that and has done for Yeah.
However many years, you know, it's incredible. Yeah.
I, in my mind, I think of Taylor Swift as being a marketing genius.
She's always had such an excellent head for business from really the get-go.
And I have friends who have played on her early, early,
early stuff like the demos. Oh, you did.
Too. I mean, I played on all those first records. Oh.
You did? Okay. And,
and the word on the street was that she always knew exactly who she was,
what her sound was, what she wanted. Right. And could command that in a room.
She.
I'll say. So I was the beginnings of recording. To jump back for a second,
I met a guy named Nathan Chapman, who was Oh, yeah.
Who ended up being her producer. Um,
but at the time he was doing basement demos and had met me. 'cause I, again,
at the beginning, I just wanted to get into recording.
So I bought a very starter recording rig, super amateur, set up mics in a room,
and that was it. Um, but he liked the vibe.
And so we started working together and then he started doing more and more
demos. And one of those demos ended up being well with Liz Rose. Yes.
Who Co-wrote, um, some of those early Taylor Hits.
And so she brought Taylor in to demo one of these songs.
And Taylor really loved the vibe that we had.
And that's how the beginnings of her first record started.
She had already started a record with another much more,
well-known Nashville producer, and,
but really liked the way Nathan worked and really liked the,
we just recorded everything small band me. And to Marx was playing bass.
Chad Carlson was engineering and Nathan. And that was it.
And then Nathan would play everything else afterwards, like build up the track.
And so that's how her first record came together.
And because that record did so well, and because she loved it so much,
the exact same thing happened for the second record as well.
And we went in and did Fearless that way too. And then, and, and the,
the story I was getting to was that she,
I remember even on that first record, go working on a song,
going through the song, and we'd get done with a take. And in my mind,
I would think like, well, I wonder how she's gonna think about this.
I know that. I, I think we could do one better one. But if she likes it,
she likes it. And we didn't, these were almost demos. I mean,
we knew that we were supposedly gonna be making a record.
Nobody thought anything was gonna happen beyond what we were doing right there
as 15 year old artist, I mean, brand new label, they took a chance. They.
They brought Taylor around and people wouldn't write with her 'cause she was
young. And they're like, oh, who's this kid? That's right. . They're,
they're kicking.
Themselves down. It's, it's really incredible. Yeah. I mean,
I think she got turned down by, just, by every label in town. You know,
it's really phenomenal classic story. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. . And, um,
and I remember after a take like that, Taylor would be the one be like,
I liked it, but I think we got a better one. And she was 15 Mm-Hmm.
. And I gave her commanding.
Adult mostly men, sorry. Yeah, fine. Yeah. In the, in the, in the room.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So at that age even I knew that like, wow,
she's something different. She's really got something. Yeah. Yeah.
And then I was, Hey, you know what? I was just thankful to be a part of,
I ended up doing the first four records with her and,
and now my daughter is so all over. I mean, uh,
we cannot be in the car without her wanting to listen to.
I think we've moved past the first, the same four songs. , but, but,
but there's, but pretty much any, she was like, okay, well I'm,
you can pick whichever one as long as it's on a Taylor record . So it's,
you know, that's cute. So we always do a lot of Taylor Swifts now.
But it is sweet because when I was recording those records a long time ago,
I could not have imagined my daughter singing along to 'em, you know?
So that's kind of neat.
That is cool. Yeah. That is really cool. Well,
what I was gonna say is that from an early age,
she had a very good understanding of marketing and who she was and what she
wanted company. And I think that Kenny Chesney also had that in him.
Oh my gosh.
Genius as far as marketing and what he wanted and what his vision was,
and stayed, stayed the course. Regardless.
I think they both have, they both have, they both have, um,
been able to move with their careers and continually go to the next
stage before the career even gets there. Mm-Hmm. Kenny is so,
like, I don't know.
I know the only things I know about Taylor's world of through friends I know
that are still working with her,
but I see Kenny showing up to make sure that the lighting is exactly what it
needs to be. It's like, well,
I like this shade of orange when we go to this part of the song,
or this video needs to be this, when we go to this thing, you know,
he is a part of every piece of the show that we do. You know,
even when he's in the song and he's killing it out there,
running around and singing,
he's still paying attention to all the stuff that's happening around him.
You know, it's, I don't know how he does it. It's in, it's incredible. Yeah.
Yeah. They're just next level.
Yeah. Really, really.
Are they're next level. Yeah. And, uh, I,
I think back again to Taylor in that when she wanted to shift out of being
country and go into a more pop sound, and everyone's like,
you're gonna kill your career. Everything. That's right. Yeah.
But to her credit, she stayed her course. Right. She could have been like,
oh my God. Yeah, you're right.
I'm gonna listen to these other people who supposedly know more than I do.
But she blazed her own.
Trail. But you know what? She always has. Yeah. I mean,
the thing that happened when, at the very beginning of her career, so she got,
you know, didn't get signed by any other label in town,
scar Shadow got, you know, with.
Her dad. Yeah. Didn't.
Didn't deal. Got nothing. Didn't deal. They got that thing and,
and then they started recording this record, and then Taylor met Nathan and,
and like that. And Scott was like, well, yeah,
but we're already recording this thing. And she said, no,
I don't want to do that anymore. And I mean, what artist gets to,
not even gets to, but has the, the whatever inner the metal.
I call that metal with M-E-T-T-L-E.
Yeah. Yeah. To just say, Nope, this is not working for me. This is better. Yeah.
And I want to do this. Yeah. And she was absolutely right.
And she worked on her craft. Oh. And I think when she started, she was a kid.
Right. Her voice wasn't really mature yet. Oh yeah.
She was figuring it out.
Yeah. She was figuring it out.
And that not only I'm glad that the world gave the
patience for it, but that she gave herself the patience. Yeah.
Because a lot of us don't have that. Right. Yeah. We don't, we kind of like, oh,
I can't get from Suck to really great in enough, in a quick enough time. Yeah.
I'm abandoning ship.
It's almost like she had no doubt that even if she,
she could take the criticism and have no doubt that she would get there. That.
Takes a special person.
It does. Yeah. And she did all the things along the way. I remember,
I think when we were doing the Fearless Record,
or maybe it was the one after that,
I can't remember when CMA Fest was happening right in the midst of while we were
recording.
And one of the days she went to the stadium,
they had somehow gotten the use of the stadium and they parked her bus in the
middle of the stadium, and she stayed there for like five hours or something,
um, signing autographs. She didn't like play or anything,
but people could come in and it was packed. And they would,
and she just sat there and talked to everybody and signed all the autographs and
all this sort of stuff.
Yeah. Because regardless, she also knows that without those fans,
who by the way would take a bullet for her. Yeah.
. Yeah. They're incredible. Yeah. I.
Know as I, I don't know if Gus fans are as intense, but.
I mean, some of 'em are pretty intense, but I don't know,
I think the Taylor thing has definitely gone to another level.
That's this level. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dedic level. Yeah. Yeah.
I want to ask you, we had tacos in LA a a while,
a year ago. Your mom's husband? Yeah. Yeah. Creator of.
Jim Stalin. A creator of Thanos. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who, yeah. So it, it's,
it kind of an interesting thing because as,
as we are both artists doing the thing, you know,
he had he had spent life being perfectly popular and,
and well known in that artist community. Uh,
having worked for DC and Marvel over the years created Anos many,
many years ago. What.
A character.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it had been in that realm, and then all of a sudden,
these, um,
Avengers movies just took off the Marvel movies in general. Right.
Just completely took off being the biggest grossing movies out there before
Barbie, of course. But, um, yay, Barbie . Love that. And, um,
and so all of a sudden Jim became a superstar because Thanos was such a huge
thing.
It was just interesting to see how his world changed from,
and like I said, being perfectly fine and doing well, doing his thing to being,
you know, the guy, you know, for such, for the last, uh, you know,
quite a few years now. This has been a big thing. Well, anos pretty interesting.
This is a big deal. It was a really big deal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Which is really awesome. Was he.
Pleased, you know, if, uh, how, how they did the movies?
Oh, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. He really, uh, and in fact,
I think he even played a, uh, he was a,
a little role in one of, in one of the movies. 'cause they liked,
they liked doing that kind of thing. Brain. Yeah. Stanley.
Is.
Always the Yeah. Stanley's always doing that thing too. That's right. Yeah.
Rest his soul. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That.
Almost became not only a bad guy, but in a way, an anti-hero.
As well. Yeah. Completely. Completely. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think he was, I mean,
obviously he was, he was happy with how it was portrayed. And then of course,
that led to all kinds of other opportunities too,
which I'm not exactly sure what's going on at the moment,
but I do know that like, his life changed big time as a result of that.
You know? And it's cool to, it is cool to see that
you could say like, oh my gosh, I'm, you know, I've been doing this a long time,
and I'm here, I am turning this age, whatever it is. And like, what's the,
is anything even gonna happen with blah, blah, blah? And, and in this, in this,
particularly in the arts,
in the arts careers as they are anything,
as long as you're putting yourself out there, working at it, trying to make,
trying to do the thing that you love, whatever that is, to the,
to the purest of your whatever, you know, I mean, I think you,
you stray too far from the course,
and you may not be doing yourself the best service in,
in what it is that you're actually after. I think, I think that Jim was,
was good at keeping on what he wanted to do. And,
and this may not have ever happened. The,
the whole Marvel crazy movie success that if that hadn't been,
if that hadn't exploded like it did, then it would've,
Thanos may have been in a movie and it might've been a, a, a,
a midline grossing movie. And that might've just been whatever.
It just so happens that that, that, that style of movie became the biggest,
the biggest movies out there. His character was in there.
And that meant that as, as an artist,
his status raised, we went through the roof, you know, so we don't know, which.
Is awesome. We don't know. We don't know which doors are gonna open.
We have no idea.
Absolutely. We have no idea the way and the way these things come around.
There's just no, you just can't plan for it. It's not the thing you can say,
well, if, if I do this and I do this, then I'm guiding myself down this road,
and then I could possibly meet this person.
It doesn't really work like that in this world. And like,
there've been plenty of times that I've done gigs in scenarios where I knew that
either some other big person was gonna be there,
or it would potentially lead to blah, blah, blah. And I almost never did.
If I thought about it, it almost never did.
The things that did lead to those next things came out of nowhere,
and just.
Showing up to your life.
That's right. That's right. Oh, yeah. No, I was still doing what I do. Yeah.
Because I love doing it. There was never a question about that.
I remember I worked with a producer a few years ago,
a big legendary producer in Nashville, has been there forever.
And I remember him telling a story in the studio about an artist that he brought
to Nashville to record. And they, I somehow got on this talking about like, um,
what was, what was your, um, like, what, what's your backup plan, you know,
if music doesn't happen? And he was like, I, I never had a backup plan.
I never thought about anything else.
And that's the first time even that I'd even thought about backup plan.
I never had a backup plan either. Somehow music was gonna work.
I didn't necessarily know how I, you know,
I made decisions based on where I felt like I wanted to go based
upon careers of other drummers that I heavily
admired maybe, or just what I felt like I liked. You know,
I know that I'm not the kind of drummer that could just tour with an artist and
just be out doing that thing, unless it was really the thing,
or I was an instrumental part of what the hole was. You know,
I didn't, I just didn't take those things. I've been,
somehow I've been fortunate enough to say, Nope, I don't wanna do that,
and I'm just not gonna do it. You know.
Obviously,
you know how to adjust your drumming to fit whatever music you're playing,
but do drummers have always wonder this, do drummers have a, like a fingerprint,
like a, a style that's really uniquely their.
Own? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I, um, uh, I think the ones
I, you know, I think the ones that think about having a voice, you know, um,
I don't think every musician necessarily thinks about that. I,
maybe you don't have to think about it to have it, but,
but I do think that it's a, I think it's an important thing.
I think too many people get thrown into the, you play drums,
I need drums on this. You'll be the drummer on this.
And that's what that thing is. And that's fine. It's making a career.
You're earning money, but it's not,
you're not getting called for you necessarily.
You're getting called because you can provide this service.
And although that's part of it, for me,
it meant it means so much more when I'm the person they want because of the
thing that I do. And that's it. And, and therefore, if I can't do the session,
the listen, they, sometimes you have to do what you have to do,
and they'll go with somebody else, and that's fine.
But the best compliments I can get is when I get a, well, when can you do it?
You know? 'cause that, because we want to have you on it. That to me is like,
well, you've just shot to the top of the list. You know,
I've been very fortunate since meeting Mr. Chesney.
Now I'm playing on his records as well. And the,
and some of the biggest, the com. I mean,
it's just so complimentary to me that he feels like I need to be there for him
to do this thing. Because how,
how much value is that in your art that you're bringing when somebody else can
say, no, I want you for this thing. You know, that, that to me is the,
that's the goal. Yeah. It's not always gonna be like that, but boy,
it's great when it is.
It makes up for all the drumming jokes you've heard over your.
Lifetime. Oh God. Yeah. Yeah. . Yeah. Boy, and there's, there's a lot.
. There are so many. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, no, it's true. It's, um,
, I, I feel like, um, I feel like there's a line between,
we do this as a career, but we do this out of love, you know,
and there's, and somehow you can, you gotta find the way that all that meets.
I mean, I've often said that it takes a little bit of
insanity too, completely, because this is not an easy road.
There are way more pitfalls than there are shiny golden apples
hanging from trees. So, Mm-Hmm, , you have to really, again,
that metal define it in yourself to keep going. It's freaking hard.
It's hard. There's a lot of gut punches and, you know,
social media has made it any easier. , you know,
maybe one of the things that it hopefully forces you to do is believe in the
thing that you do, so that even when you're not getting called for the thing,
or, and I mean, the thing that social media does is,
and I know everybody feels this way,
is you see the thing that happened that you weren't called for. And you're like,
what the, but I did that for this person before, and they,
they loved everything about it. Now they didn't call me for this next thing,
and now I'm seeing it. You know, if I just had not known about it,
it wouldn't have mattered. But now I know. So, you know, and it hurts. It hurts.
So, and that, I don't think that that never goes away.
But what I think can help digest that pain is
knowing that you have a thing that people do love and do call you for,
and you can't account for everybody's actions or why their choices,
their decisions, why they decided to go with whoever they did on whatever. What,
I mean, it's not, at no point do I really feel it was like, huh,
I should call Nick for, no, I'm not gonna call Nick. 'cause you know,
I don't feel like that was, that's normally a part of the scenario.
It's more just like, I saw this guy, I'm gonna call this guy .
And that's what happens, you know? Sure. It's almost like that dog,
like squirrel, squirrel, , you know.
Think about Nashville, and maybe it's everywhere,
is if you're not in someone's immediate vision Yeah. They've,
it's not that they're forgetting,
but it's like you don't exist because they're worried about their own stuff
completely. So if you're not in front of them.
,
everybody's got their own things they're trying to fight through and make happen
to get out there and whatever the thing is. Yeah. You know,
and it's not to say that you then happen to run into him at the
wherever, restaurant market, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
And then you happen to get a call like a week later or time it's happened,
you know, that kind of thing. You fine. I keep getting your foot. You happen to,
you know, that's all it takes is, and that's the whole thing. Like, it,
it takes being out there, it takes doing the things,
not because you feel like the thing is going to lead to the next thing because
you love doing the thing. That's why you do it.
You continue to do it because you love it. And then as a result of that,
that at some points it leads to the next thing, you know? Mm-Hmm. .
But you can't account for it. You just have to keep doing it.
And if you don't love it, then just don't keep doing it.
Do some way better to do something else. And not, and nothing wrong with,
I know plenty of people that have left, I mean, geez, over covid, when,
when it was just like, well, you know, struggling, struggling along.
Or even just gotten to a point where it's like,
I don't know that I love this as much anymore. Covid was the great equalizer.
I'm just gonna wipe everything off the table now. If you still love it,
keep going.
But this is a great time to think about doing something else if that's what you
want to do. Mm-Hmm. . And I don't, I,
I couldn't blame anybody for saying,
I don't want to do this anymore because it's.
I've had so many friends quit and I Oh, tell me your secret. Yeah.
Because it is, it's, I wouldn't say it's quit, addiction isn't the right word,
but there's just something that's in me Mm-Hmm. that I can't not.
Do it. That's right. I feel the same way. Yeah. Yeah.
And I can't even put it,
I can't articulate what that is or you can't explain it to what I,
the civilians, they don't understand. Yeah.
Like why No, you're absolutely right. Why? That's right.
I do think it is a little bit of an addiction, but not,
but it's not a negative addiction. I, I think that there is, listen,
I think it would be negative if I
hadn't really done anything playing drums.
I just knew I loved playing drums and I was, you know, in debt and in whatever,
and it just wasn't doing anything. And there was a point,
there was a life responsibility point of, okay,
maybe this is not what I do as my thing, even if I love playing, you know,
and then you move into doing something else. I have been super fortunate.
And, and I do think, I mean, yes, it is hard work, but I love doing it.
So it doesn't seem as hard work. But I have constantly worked on my craft,
but I've also been very fortunate to have been in those positions.
Maybe because I've put myself there. I, you know,
maybe 'cause I had no problem making that call when it needed to be made,
or making that decision to do something different when that needed to be done.
Even at times where I felt like, okay, well the Taylor thing was huge.
This is gonna be a tough shadow to work out of, you know, well out from,
I should say, because it's so huge. Like, I mean, obviously she's so huge now,
but, but even on the Fearless record, by the time that, like,
the first record was big, the second record was really, really big.
And then it just went from there.
And I didn't want to have my career defined by playing on
those Taylor records. Like I'm, I'm a drummer that,
or I should say debatable musician , that I'm a drummer that,
that, that loves playing on all different kinds of music. And,
and the last thing I wanted was like, oh,
that's the guy that played on the Taylor Records. Like, yeah.
But I'm also the guy that can do all this other stuff.
Like when I'm playing with Kenny now live,
it's not at all the kind of stuff that's on the Taylor record. I mean, but.
I think even Taylor would say she's not the tailor that she was and,
and absolutely. Give her the opportunity to be all the tailors she wants to be.
Give Nick, thank goodness she Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Give Nick all the opportunities to be all the Knicks that you have in you.
That's right. And same with Kenny and anyone.
Who's like, I think it's a lot harder as musicians though.
'cause we don't often get the opportunity to have all the stuff that we are
always out there at the top of the, the listening public.
You know what I mean? Mm-Hmm. Taylor, if she wants to do the, the,
the folklore record or then she wants to do another pop record, whatever it is,
is being heard by all the millions of her fans all the time.
So the fact that she gets to be all those things is awesome for her,
but also much easier Sure. For everybody else to see. Sure.
There's certain things that I love to do, uh,
musically that aren't just,
aren't going to be the thing that most people see. So therefore, if there's a,
if, if there's anybody that's saying, oh yeah, Nick,
that guy that played on those records, you know? Mm-Hmm.
the one cool thing about the Kenny thing now is that it's like,
okay, yeah.
But now you see there's this other big guy that I'm doing a completely
different thing for, you know? Sure. Like that's the, the,
the concerts are as big rock as, as any show I've played,
I'm hitting harder than any other time live that I've played with anybody.
And I've played with some pretty heavy rock bands. Kenny's stuff is like,
my hands are in shredded and my, I'm exhausted. And he rocks. He rocks stuff.
It's, yeah. It's really, really fun. Yeah. Uh, that's part,
part of what I love about it is the, it's.
Like Girth Brooks. Girth Brooks is a pretty rocket show.
He is. I mean, he is, but I seriously,
I don't know that it is Rock de Kenny on that, on that level. We are, I mean,
three electrics up front. Yeah. Good. Big rock. And I mean, I, I, uh,
part of the, the, um, challenge for me is the physical challenge. You know,
getting older. I'm just like, I have to kind of keep, keep it together and,
and work up to that stamina for those shows. Oh, yeah. Because it's the.
Endurance needed to be a.
Drummer. It's a thing. Yeah. You know, and it,
and playing gigs around town or even sessions doesn't require Yeah.
Nearly the same sort of thing. But, but it's,
that's what's part of the super fun part of it. You know.
It just a cue to a picture of you dressed like Rocky and instead of hitting the
sides of beef, you're just drumming on them.
the sides. That would be awesome.
See me training in like a meat locker with . Yeah. I should do that one.
That'd be a great little video. Shoot that hilarious.
Like with a headband on the whole out there. Exactly. Yeah.
Tell people how they may find you.
Instagram is the easiest way. Just my name Nick Buto,
and there's a silly little picture of me. I think, honestly,
that's honestly the easiest.
I don't really look at Facebook that much except for marketplace.
So if you have something to sell, sure.
And then obviously if I'm playing somewhere, come say hi.
Of course. And you do, do you So Nick Budda, that's.
B-U-D-A-B-U-D-A. Yeah. And, and, and my email's easy too.
It's just nick@nickbutta.com. Oh, there go. If anybody.
Wants to email me, go. So you have a website too?
I do have a website. I will say it is old and I am, I, you know what,
this fall it is getting updated. Okay. I'm the worst at that stuff.
'cause I just, it's like I want somebody to,
I want it to be up to date and I want it to have all this stuff, but I, I,
I don't care as much as I should about keeping all that information up updated.
That's why Instagram is so easy for me. 'cause it's like, I can have a picture,
I can post it and it's fine, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I just, I'm not as,
I'm not as, not even that, I'm not as savvy about it.
My care is not at the place of making sure that everything's all aligned.
as it should be.
And maybe it's my age or maybe it's just me just not being that kind of person.
I'm not the most self haray character,
but, but that's okay. But I like meeting people. You're a drummer.
If anybody came up to a show and said, I heard the interview on the, Hey,
human thing with Susan, blah, blah, blah. I think that'd be, that's aw.
Whenever somebody comes up, got with a reference I love, I like, oh,
that's so cool that you heard this thing. 'cause Yeah. Yeah.
That would be awesome.
That is, that would be cool. Y'all have to let me know.
I, you know, I would. Yeah.
Absolutely. I'm, I'm so, uh, I think it's great. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
I'm so glad that you have all these really wonderful,
I've known you a long time now.
Yeah. We've known each other a long time. Yeah. I,
I can't even think about how many years. Yeah.
Long time. So it is just, it's great. It's great. Awesome.
Yeah. Well, I'm so, honestly, when you asked me to do this, I,
I love this podcast. I love that. It's,
I love that it's not based on a specific, like a, like a, a,
a music focus or drum focus. It's, it's a person focus. And, and that's,
that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Really cool. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Thanks for listening everybody. Yeah. Bye. Bye. That was.
Great. Awesome.
You're the best.
.
Rate review and subscribe to Hey,
human podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. Thanks. Bye.