Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here.
Thanks for listening to another episode
of Hey, Human podcast.
This is episode 429,
and my guest is Tim James.
Tim is a hit songwriter with songs penned
for Toby Keith, Leigh Bryce, Jojo Siwa,
George Strait, Billy Ray Cyrus,
lots more. It goes on and on and
on.
An accomplished
performer as well, Tim has performed all over
the world. He recently published his memoir,
Going Crazy, Left Foot, Right Foot Breathe, a
funny and raw journey through his life. I've
known Tim
a very long time. He's a great guy
with a sharp mind and a razor
sharp wit.
I think you're gonna really enjoy this episode.
He's a fun
guy to talk to.
Hey Human Podcast is now on YouTube under
official Susan Ruth. I'm on Patreon
at susanruthism.
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First, is playing as it moves through the
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Thanks for listening.
Be well. Be kind.
Be love, and here we go.
Tim James, welcome to Hey Human.
Thank you, Susan. I appreciate you having me.
Absolutely. It's always good to see you.
Well, you know, it's good to be seen
at my age.
We have far and few between meetings these
days.
Yeah.
What was the no. It's not too long
ago that I saw you. Where was that?
In Malibu.
At the house. Yeah. In Malibu. Yeah. That
was fun. I love going to LA for
a little while.
Yeah. It's a I I love living here.
I love being able to look over my
shoulder and see the ocean. That's fabulous.
Yeah. I enjoy that too. You know, the
traffic is always the downside, but, hey,
every place you live always comes with its
own set of stuff. Do you know what
I mean? Nashville's got some traffic too. Right.
That's what I'm saying. It doesn't matter where
you go.
It's got its own set of issues. One
of my buddies one time was like, man,
you choose to live in 10 he's born
and raised here in Murfreesboro with me. He's
like, you choose to live in the humidity.
And I was like, dude, you live in
Daytona Beach, Florida. You've seen more hurricanes in
the last
10 years. So that's what I mean. Every
place has got something. So
Yeah. I don't miss the bugs or the
humidity.
Yeah. Because I have a bug snack.
They love me. I hate them. It's a
it's a thing.
Anyway, well, let's let's dig into you. Tell
me where you grew up. Tell me what
childhood was like.
I grew up in Murfreesboro,
Tennessee,
which is about 25 miles southeast of Nashville.
Born and raised here, went to school here,
went to a junior college
and played basketball
for a little bit, and then went to
Middle Tennessee State, which is here in Murfreesboro.
And,
you know, after having gotten kicked out of
junior college.
For? I can't tell you.
After having gotten kicked out of junior college
and then plunking out of MTSU, I always
say, it's not like it was the harbor
of the south.
I just didn't go.
So, yeah, I decided, you know, after
growing up here and kinda getting to a
place where I felt like I was kinda
at a dead end, I had never been
on an airplane, so I got on an
airplane and went to LA
when I was 20,
probably 23.
And, I was gonna say 6 months and
stayed 12 years.
Why did you go to college if you
didn't want to go to college? Was that
a family thing?
No. I wanted to go to college, but
I just wanted to go to try to
play ball.
Like, I the academic portion of it for
me was, like, no. I didn't
me and academics don't really get along so
well. You know, it's not entirely true. I
love some of the classes, like, you know,
any of the English classes are like, biology
is in those days philosophy,
but you put me in front of a
nomenclature
board, and I'm like a chicken staring at
a card trick. I just my mind doesn't
really compute that stuff that well.
What were you were you a writer as
a kid? Did you get into your creative
mind? I did, but I never thought about
it. I just I wrote my mom, who's
still living at 87,
she found some old, like, poems I had
written.
And so I guess I did, Susan. I,
growing up outside of Nashville,
I think you were almost discouraged to
get in the game. You know what I
mean? Like, my parents
knew some guys that play they were, like,
session players or, you know, my dad had
one kinda acquaintance he knew, and it was
always the same thing. My parents were just
like, those guys
are just all, you know, drunk, sitting up
there smoking cigarettes and making a living, a
good living as a songwriter.
It wasn't it wasn't a concept that ever
crossed my mind until I moved to LA.
And then
I started, you know, I put a band
together out there, started writing,
started making trips home. The same things that
sometimes I'll teach these classes, and the people
that are sitting on the other side are
kinda looking at me like, man, you've had
some hit songs. I say, look. I was
the guy sitting in that chair, and I
was. Like, I literally
went to my first NSAI meeting in LA.
Then when I came home NSAI
is National Songwriters Association for people that don't
know. Yeah. So I went to a NSAI
meeting, and then when I came home here,
I would go play songs for the few
people that I knew, but I started ground
up just like everybody else. I went to,
ASCAP and BMI and made the rounds there.
Those were our performance rights organizations.
Yeah. It was it's been a long
interesting ride, but a long interesting ride is
good. Tell me about what it was like
growing up in the south. There's a lot
of, I think, misconceptions
about what it is to be Southern. Tell
me what it was like and your reflections
on that and how that shaped you.
It it was great. When I grew up
here, it was a town of 25,000
people. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing somebody
you knew, And growing up, that
is something that,
that that rubbed me the wrong way,
to say the least, when I was, like,
in my twenties. I didn't or early twenties
or even late teens. You couldn't go anywhere
without somebody knowing your business. If you did
something,
the next day,
your parents are going, yeah. I heard that
you it happened to me several times.
You know, that was something that I eventually
came to treasure.
You know, the fact that you can see
people you know, and if you need something
because you're in a relatively small town, certainly
in those days, not as much now, you
could call somebody and get it done. But
growing up here,
I was one of 3 boys,
very middle class.
I did not, you know, really participate in
music.
Like I said, I really didn't have any
directions. But I think when I started writing,
when I finally got to a place in
life where I was like, I'm gonna write
music, and I learned to play the guitar,
and I started writing songs.
The lyrics that came out of my mouth
were small town lyrics
because I grew up on a farm. I
spent 4 years on a pig farm.
Not that you can necessarily write a song
about pigs, but you know what I'm saying.
Like, the small town stuff when I sat
down with a guitar and I thought, okay.
If I were to write about my life,
what would that sound like?
And everything I wrote sounded like
a John Mellencamp song or a Garth Brooks
song. So I just realized, well,
I'm from the country, and this is the
kind of music I enjoy. And I grew
up listening more r and b,
but as I got older, I realized, man,
I I write country songs, and I still
live in Murfreesboro when I came back from
LA. I never moved to Nashville.
I wanted to stay here. Family's here. My
dad passed away. But, yeah, it was a
fantastic place to grow up and listen at
one point,
This
county was the fastest growing county in the
entire southeast. People come here for the school
districts people come here for the pace of
life and the way of life, I would
say maybe to your question as well like
one of the things I've discovered in terms
of being Southern
is, I think you and I may have
had this conversation at some point. Ignorance is
not geographically based. I have been other places
and heard some of the most bizarre things
that I've ever heard in my life. Some
of those places being just outside of LA.
Right.
So, you know, there's so much I love
about the South. The things that I don't
like are things and
somebody that you know, Kimberly June, you know
KJ. Yeah. I know KJ. We were just
talking when we were on this trip.
And she was, like, you know, the funny
thing is when you're young and you run
away from
whatever it is you feel that's driving you
away, you realize when you get to the
place that you're going, the same people are
there. And as are you.
Wherever you go, there you are.
Right. But you know what I mean? In
terms of, like, you can run from it,
and at some point, you'll find some of
the same characteristics and the same people in
your new town. That's just life. I've experienced
that where because I've lived in a lot
of places
where, you know, you develop a core group
of friends,
and then you go to a new place
and you you begin to this is a
twenties kind of thing. You start all over
and you start to see that, wait, you
have the same well, that Joe is like
this Joe or that Rima is like that
Rima or that Ellen is like that Ellen.
And it's really interesting, and it reminds me
of that Seinfeld episode where they're all walking
down the street and they run into their
their same thems
coming toward them. I think friends do an
episode like that too. That really it's true.
There aren't that many kinds of people. We
like to think of ourselves as individuals, but
we still fall into the same
patterns and behaviors.
Right. I think some of the things that
would be more
overt here to me are I'll just give
you a super small example, like, when I
was in LA, I'm now in the habit
of I wave at most everybody. If you're
just walking down the street, I just
kinda and, you know, here, people just give
you a hand back, and I was in
Santa Monica on the promenade walking with my
buddy, and I found myself kinda naturally doing
this, and people are looking at me like,
he's something's wrong with his hand. He can't
control that hand.
He's got some sort of Tourette's or something
because he just raised his hand. So, you
know, things like that. But there's great people
everywhere you go, and there's bad people everywhere
you go. That's life. Did you grow up
in a relatively liberal household, or was it
more conservative?
No. Definitely more conservative. Yeah.
Church.
Religious. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Conservative probably across
the board.
Really, to be honest with you, I guess,
in hindsight, I don't know that
my parents were ever very,
politically vocal, certainly from a religious standpoint.
Again,
for the most part, you,
and so I shouldn't say, in some cases,
you repeat what you have learned.
And for me,
my parents were raised in the church, so
they raised me in the church. That's just
come the way
it rolled downhill.
But, yeah, they we went twice a week.
And, again, you know, it's for somebody that
grows up in that and then goes to
LA. That's why I say LA was a
a wonderful place for me, and I talk
about it in my book. It's it's a
place where you can grow up. And when
I was in Venice with my buddy,
right after I saw you, we were walking
down the street and he said, man, I
guess one of the and he's been out
there now 38 years probably, although he says
he's gonna move. It's one of those places
where people go to reinvent themselves.
And when you're 23 from a small town
and you don't know what in the world
you're gonna do,
LA is a place where you can go
and
be free to be anything.
And to be honest with you, nobody gives
a rip.
No. It's certainly a place that anything
is accepted that you get to really
be who you are or be several people
of who you are. Did you know when
you were heading this way
that
you were going to find yourself? Was that
a decision, or was it one of those
things where you just pack a bag, you
go, and fall as they may?
Yeah. Probably 5050.
Like, I definitely I was not
gifted enough to say, yeah. I'm gonna go
to LA. No. I
kinda felt like
for whatever I lacked in academics,
my ability to look at myself
and go, man, I need a change, has
always been relatively good. So even when I
was in my twenties,
I just
was like, this is a dead literally a
dead end road.
And a lot of the guys and girls
I went to school with, you know, if
your dad was a lawyer, you became a
lawyer.
And if your dad owned the insurance agency,
you got the insurance agency. Well, I didn't
have that.
So another thing that kinda motivated me to
get out of here was probably like, well,
I don't I mean, what am I gonna
do? I I couldn't get through college,
so I went to LA. Where are you
in the birth order?
Middle.
Middle child. Uh-oh.
No surprise there,
What did your dad do?
My dad did a variety of things. He
was really
a entrepreneur, like, a a great at what
he did, whatever he chose to do,
but he when I was young, my dad
had an insurance agent. Well, he started. He
opened the 1st Nissan dealership
in
Middle Tennessee. It was called Datsun.
That's how
I'm totally dating myself, but he opened a
a Nissan dealership,
and he kept it for, like, 5 years.
He sold it, and then he opened an
insurance agency. This is a guy with an
8th grade education,
and he opened an insurance agency,
did well with that, and sold that. But
my dad's goal
was he was a pipe smoker.
So my dad was the number one collector
in the United States of of smoking pipe
called the Dunhill pipe.
And he had started collecting when he was
a kid,
and, he always wanted to open a pipe
and tobacco shop,
and so he did that when he was,
like, probably
I mean, I bet he was probably 60
when he did it, and
he just said that's what I always wanted
to do. So I would work for him
some and so yeah. That he was he
was good at as he would say, he
could sell ice cubes to Eskimos. So
That's
inspiring
that he's went after his dream at 60
and and achieved it.
Yeah. I think he and I well, my
mom says we're very, very similar, but, yeah,
I mean, I had my first number one
song at 40, and my dad, you know,
started his dream job at 60. So,
you know, we're late bloomers, I guess.
Well, I'm sorry your father passed. Did he
die of cancer?
Well, he he did die of cancer, but
he was 86
years old.
So he, he, at 86,
had what they thought initially was that sort
of laboring cough and,
they took him to the hospital and they
were like, it's congestive heart failure, you know,
because you're starting to get the rattle.
And, then they came in the next day
and they were like, hey, it's lung cancer.
And I my older brother also passed away,
but my 2 brothers and I, my mom
sat there and
I said, man, that's for me, that's out
of the question. Like, chemo and radiation for
an 86 year old? No. So he can
live, what, 3 months as a, you know,
in a bed?
So we all kinda agreed that was not
an option, and they said, well, he'll probably
last about 3 months, and he lasted 3
months to the day.
He was but he and I were super
close. I always tell the,
story of when my dad
was laying in a hospice bed in the
house where I grew up with my mom.
And and so my 2 brothers and my
mom are out here and I'm back there
with my dad.
And I'm just kinda sitting there on my
by my dad's bedside, and we're talking. And
I was like,
my dad hadn't said anything in 3 days.
And so finally, I just kinda whispered like,
hey, dad. And my dad looked up and
opened his blue eyes.
And, I just said, I love you, and
thanks for being my dad. And my dad
said, I love you too. Thanks for being
my son. And then my dad died.
Wow.
True story. Yeah. But, you know, if those
are the last words you get,
I don't know how it gets any better
because we're all gonna die.
Absolutely.
Was he
aware enough to talk about mortality
with you or anyone around him? Did he
have
an understanding and acceptance of it, especially since
he was a religious person?
Yeah. Absolutely. I think he was probably in
a space where he was a religious guy
his whole life. He believed in the hereafter.
And, yeah, I fully believe he was, you
know, as ready to go as you're gonna
get.
I think everybody my my take on that
is sort of everybody says that until it
actually happens, and you're, like, kicking and screaming,
like, I don't wanna go.
So I think that's true.
Yeah. That's happened to me too. Like, again,
in
my in my copper selling book, I talk
about there's I've had a
a couple of instances where,
I was like, man, I am gonna
I'm about to check out here and,
yeah, you you fight and scratch and claw
and do your best to I I know
you want people to read the book, but
can you share an anecdotal
or a cliff note even of that?
Several times. When I first moved to LA,
I was there for about 6 months. I
got mugged,
and I got hit in the head with
steel pipe. So they hit me in the
across the head, and then when I went
to the ground, they hit me on each
side of my jaw with this big, probably
3 foot pipe.
So it
busted my head wide open and then I
had to have my jaw wired shut for
20 weeks.
And I you know, I'm £175.
I was down to about 130. I came
home
after it happened and always said never saw
my dad cry and I got off the
plane
and I look like, you know, it was
a bad, like, see horror film. I had,
like, some really, you know, crappy bandages wrapped
around my head and these braces, literally braces
on my teeth. In those days, the way
they would wire your jaw shut is they
would just put braces
on your teeth and they run these wires
up into your mandible, then they snap them
and pull them down. So my dad I
got off the plane and my dad just
stood there for a minute and then he
just started bawling.
And I was like, okay. This is this
is a bad deal right here.
Did you think you were going to die
in that moment? What goes what goes through
someone's head when that scenario is happening?
That that time, I all I remember, and
again, this is in the book, is saying
to myself, survive.
That's all. I mean, the literally the blood
was rushing out of the side of my
head like a river. And
so I kept thinking to myself if I
can just get to some place where somebody
can see me,
which I did. And then a couple other
instances where I was literally in the Pacific
kayaking on a Saturday with my buddy whose
house you were at. And, you know, the
Pacific can go from, like, beautiful to just
all of a sudden I'm mad as hell
in a heartbeat.
And so we were way too far out
in kayaks.
Eventually, these waves pound and pound and pound
and I got thrown out of the boat.
The back of the boat flipped to me
kind of the at little point right at
the top of the boat. Flipped me in
the back of the head. I was like,
I'm drowning. I literally was at and this
happened twice.
And the same thing, all I can tell
you is all used and this is what
I was kinda joking about earlier. I think
most people go, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm
ready. I'm good. And then when it hits
you in the face, you're like scratching and
clawing, like, no. I ain't trying to go
yet.
Yeah. I definitely feel that. How did your
brother pass?
He passed he had a stroke 2 years
ago,
went in the hospital, and he just, you
know, typical stroke symptoms.
And
I guess
3 days after he's in the hospital, he
had a massive cardiopulmonary
shutdown,
which means everything quit working. And,
and then he basically, for all intents and
purposes, was brain dead, if if that's the
common
jargon. He was
he was brain dead, and his wife, they
had she'd already he'd already signed a DNR.
So,
yeah, it was awful.
2 it was 2 years ago, I wanna
say May the something, but my 87 year
old mom, you know, that's that's the one
you don't want.
That's a lot of loss for a mama.
Oh. Oh.
That's why I try to drive carefully.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, I'm sorry about what are your
dad's and brother's name?
My dad's name was Edsel, e d s
e l, like the car.
Yeah. And but well, believe it or not,
my dad's name was Edsel Ford James.
What? That's great. Yeah. I swear. And everybody
here knew him. But, again, it was a
small town. They'd be like, oh, there's our
Edsel.
My older brother's name was Craig.
Is this smoke shop still around?
No. Uh-uh. Dad kept it for probably
10 years. He sold it to somebody else.
They kept it for years.
And at some point, they turned it into
some other something. So
and it's on the square. It's right off
the square, Murphy's bro. So I go by
there. I just
probably too many memories for me to just
look over there and go, oh, man. What
did you do with my I think it's
like a Republican
headquarters or something. Okay.
What was do you think some of the
best advice your father has gave you over
the years?
Probably if I I without me, like, giving
you the specifics, I would say, you know,
the songs that I wrote with Doug Johnson
called Love Like Crazy
is basically
which was the number one song for Lee
Brice is basically the
advice my dad would give. It's super simple.
The course is be a best friend, tell
the truth, and overuse I love you. Go
to work, do your best, and don't outsmart
your common sense, and never let your grandees
get lazy and love like crazy. So that's
probably
I can't, you know, my dad was not
necessarily a man of a lot of words,
but he told me several times he'd seen
me have a few hit songs, and he
said, I'm proud of you. I mean, you've
done it. And I was like, well,
that's as good as it gets in the
South. You're not you're not gonna get, like,
the arm around, and let's let's walk and
talk about your accomplishments. My my parents never
they're always like, we don't want you to
get above your raisin now. And I was
like, why?
Get above your raisin. That's such a classic
southernism.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's my dad had a
ton of them, but I've heard that my
whole life. My mom, who's again, she's 87,
still living.
She I could give you a couple of
funny stories, but my mom would say, like,
you know, don't get above your raising. And
when I had a I had that number
one song with George Strait and the media
we were at BMI,
and the media came they were like, you
know, so my older brother was living, the
younger brother's here, my mom and dad are
here, and, brother and my dad had already
passed, but my older brother had been at
the Nissan factory for well, when he retire,
he had been there 31 years,
but he had been there about 26 years
at the time.
And so
the press is coming up and they're like,
Tim, that's great. You had George Strait 60
of them, and I was like, yeah, man.
I'm just so floored. It's wonderful. I'm blessed.
Yada yada yada. And they turned to my
mom, and they say, miss James, I mean,
how cool is it that Tim had George
Strait's 60th number one song? And my mom
said, well, I mean, that's good. That's good.
But, you know, Craig has been at Nissan
for 29 years, and he got a little
she didn't want, you know, she didn't want
me to get too much attention
without my siblings getting some attention. And I've
I've tried to explain to my mom a
1,000,000. I'm she still doesn't get I'll give
you another and you'll laugh at this.
Last night, I went to see Stapleton
at Bridgestone and, you know, stay I've got
a couple I got a cut on Stapleton's
new album, and I got one on his
album, like, 3 albums ago. I've never seen
him live, but I reached out and they
gave me a couple of tickets and a
couple passes. And
when I talked to my mom yesterday, and
I said, you know, I'm gonna go.
And my mom's now mind you, this is
not meant to be in any way demeaning.
People don't know what they don't know. And
my mom, even though I've been in this
business for 30 something years, just doesn't quite
get it. So when I said,
well, mama probably because I call my mom
every night, you know, kind of a maybe
that's a sudden thing too, but I call
her at night. And I said, mom, I'm
not gonna be calling you tonight. I'm gonna
be going to see Chris Stapleton. And she
said, well, that's great. I mean, you think
he had let you get up there and
sing with him? This is sounds like my
parents.
I was like, yeah, mama. She said, well,
I mean, y'all can sing the songs y'all
wrote together. I was like, I don't think
he's gonna just all of a sudden call
out halfway through the first set. Like, ladies
and gentlemen, let's bring up Tim James. Yeah.
That's not good.
Meg, when we were in Cabo,
my mom I sent my mom a video
of 2 orcas that breached the surface.
And everybody, like,
several of the girls on the boat just
bawled, which I get it because I love
nature. I love
the animals. And and so these 2, baby
and mom, just boom boom orcas out of
the water. People are freaking out. I videoed
it and then I sent it to my
mom later that day, and my mom didn't
say like,
oh my gosh, orcas or oh, look at
this. Look at the look at those. Mom,
all the only comment my mom had was
you better not be getting in that water.
Yes. I feel like we have very similar
parents.
Can't see the forest for the trees. I'm
like, just see the beauty in it, mom,
but I just said to heck with it.
That's hilarious.
So your mom and dad, were they
that kind
of, you know, you think about couples from
way back and they just sort of they
go along to get along and all that
stuff, but were your parents in love?
I would say again, 5050. I think they
were they were just they were married for
52 years when my dad passed away. So,
yeah, I think they loved each other.
I think it's highly possible in life to
not really know what you have until you
are with not with that any longer. I
think my mom who's now been
12 years without my dad.
Yeah, I think she's definitely like, man, you
know, I miss him. And even with people's
faults or idiosyncrasies
that you go, man, that's irritating as hell.
I still think that, you know, if you
love somebody, and I think we all learn
this continue to learn this, like, if you
love love is a choice.
There there will be times that you look
at your mate and go, I would literally
like to push you out the window,
but you you have to, you know, you
make a choice to stay with somebody.
So that's kinda I think my parents are
probably 5050 in that regard. You love someone,
but you're not maybe don't like them in
the moment.
I asked my parents once
what the secret was to being together for
so long. And my dad said inertia.
And my mom said,
the trick is that you can't wanna have
a divorce at the same time.
I love that
because everybody thinks about it. Somebody's gotta be
fighting for it if you know?
So Right. It's really interesting. Tell me about
when you really
felt
like songwriting was the thing where you thought,
oh, yeah, this is me. This is who
I am and what I'm doing. And did
you ever think about doing anything else?
Well, I would,
I would answer those
backwards. Did I think about anything else? When
I got to LA,
I was very fortunate to fall in with
a crowd of people
that were creatives,
and that was all through basketball. So again,
I'm very grateful for basketball.
I went and played at Parks at Beamon
Park and Studio City.
My home away from home for about 8
years was the Hollywood YMCA.
And it was a great place with these
great characters. And
when I was even in sales, I would
just go there and play basketball.
But
the guy saw in Las Vegas, Las Vegas
2 weekends ago, my friend John Campanera is
a a comedian.
He had a show on NBC at the
time, Clooney.
I was with him when he came in
and said, hey, man. I got a TV
show. I think I'm finally going it's gonna
make it. And I was like, oh, dude.
What's that called?
And he said, ER, and then I was
and I went to his house. I think
it was 10 years ago.
I don't know. I was out there with
some other buddies and they said, hey, man.
We're gonna go to Georgia's and play basketball.
That became like a CIA operative, which I
was,
that's foreign to me now, the whole, like,
you know, paparazzi and all that crap. But,
no, I I I didn't think about doing
anything. I was so it was so ingrained
in me just to have a JOB
that I kept my job.
And my buddy, Dale Shores,
who is a playwright,
at the time, he was
not a playwright. He he was just like
everybody else, kinda struggling. And I met Dale
through another friend of mine here, Greg Webb,
who's from Murfreesboro that had gone out there,
And Greg had gotten a series in no
time. He was in a movie with Johnny
Cash. It was just amazing.
And so we 3 eventually became roommates
after I've been there about probably 3 years,
and Dell came in one night. Again, this
is all in the
best selling not book, but,
Dell came in and said, man, I want
you to come read for my play. I
got my play put up, that theater theater
on Kawhienga. And he said, I want you
to come read for it. And I was
like, dude, I'm not I've never been on
stage in my life.
Like, I'm not an actor. God forbid my
mom hears this, but the Del said, listen,
dude. The guy's from the south, and he
drinks beer and chases girls. Just be yourself.
And I said, yeah, that that's not that's
not a compliment. So anyway, yeah, I went
in, you know, and I read for it.
And, and then I just left. You know?
I was like because I talk like I
talk, and I real wasn't ever gonna change
that. So I I went home, and then
Dale got home, and he comes, you know,
barreling in the front door. And he's a
great guy, super talented. And he just said,
man, they loved you.
And I was like, who's they? And he
said, the producers. And I was like, yeah,
I don't know, man. Whatever, dude. And so
he said, well, you got the part of
the understudy for the lead role. And I
said,
what's the understudy?
Like, I had no idea. I was like,
I don't I don't know what that means,
dude. He said, well, if we fire or
something happens to the lead actor,
you go on. So I was like, okay,
cool. And thinking to myself, this will never
happen. And I was in, sales. I had
a conference in Seattle, actually. I was at
a conference in your hometown, and
he called me on a phone, you know,
probably called the room because I don't know
that's I'm showing my age, but cell phones
were not
so prevalent. But he, called me and said,
hey, man. We fired the lead guy after
2 weeks.
You go on Friday. And I was like,
no.
And he was like, yeah. I mean, you
got the part of the understudy. So
I I rehearsed it, you know, or I,
you know, learned the role or the and
I had done, like, one read through, and
then I went on
on a Friday night at theater theater in
front of, you know, a 100 whatever. It's
a small theater. So I guess to answer
your question
that
I never really said to myself, I want
to be an actor.
That was never on my radar. I guess
as a result of being surrounded by so
many creatives,
whether it be and I probably told you
this before my buddy Danny Carey is the
drummer in that band, Toole.
My other friends are comedians and actors. It's
like those guys, they were nobody.
They didn't have anything going,
but they were super instrumental in the fact
that they would say to me,
what do you want to do? And I
was like, man, I think I wanna play
music. And they were like, well, why aren't
you doing it?
And I was like, you know, it's funny
because nobody ever said that to me. So
I finally decided to, you know, put a
band together and start playing, and that's that's
how I got started. That reminds me of
a joke that my dad used to tell
me that
either you can't complain to to God about
not winning the lottery if you refuse to
buy a ticket.
Right. Right. Well, trust me. I'm the guy
that always bought the ticket.
Now I've got 2 kids and one of
them is buying the tickets, and I'm like,
oh gosh. I'm just getting paybacks.
He's going after
or she or they're going after music?
No. She's just well, she's at sounds like
a at this point when I discuss it
with her, a very similar place in terms
of what do I want to do.
I don't know. And I didn't know either
at 19. And I I don't mind the
you know, when she said, I'm not sure
I'm gonna go to college even though she
was a good student. She was on a
championship volleyball team, great athlete.
She just said, I may not go. And
I said, listen. That's fine. You don't have
to go to college, not for everybody, but
you gotta get a JOB.
How did having kids change you?
Certainly wrecked my sleep. I feel like that
old Sinbad Sinbad had a
a bit where he was like, his son
came in, you know, he's like 12. His
son came in, said, I hate you, dad.
You messed up my you know, he did
let him do something. I hate your guts.
He said, you know, the the
proper response would have been,
look, you're just mad, and I love you.
You're my son.
Sinbad said, no. I looked at him and
said, I hate you too, you little bastard.
I mean, you, you know, I used to
have a jump shot. I used to have
hair. Look what you I ain't got nothing
now because of you. You've wrecked me. It
it is it's changed me, I mean, for
the better
without question. Being a dad is I was
telling Dean Alexander
this past weekend, like, dude,
the best compliment to me somebody can give
you is not, oh, you're a good songwriter
or you're a good is you're a good
dad. Somebody says you're a good dad and
your kids show that.
That's to me my greatest accomplishment at this
point.
Yeah. And you have a son as well
or 2 daughters? Two daughters. God has a
way of getting even with people. I was
gonna say.
That's hilarious. What made you decide to write
your book? Yeah. The book is called Going
Crazy,
and the subtitle is Left Foot Right Foot
Breathe.
I started it, to be honest with you,
like, 7 year 8 years ago,
just as sort of the labor of love.
I was like, man because I played a
show with the Bluebird,
and I kinda told the story I just
told you,
and this lady was like, that's
possibly the craziest story I've ever heard because
you're from here, yet you go to LA,
and then you and you work in pharmaceutical
sales, you end up back here,
and now you're like an award winning songwriter
after the stuff you've been through and yada
yada yada. When she said that, I just
thought, I'm gonna start, and I'm a believer,
and I I I'm sure you are too.
You know, work begets work.
So when I started writing the first chapter,
I just thought,
and then the more I wrote over an
8 year period, the more I thought this
is pretty good. Now
from a personal stamp, it it also talks
about
the music business, the ins and outs of
it, the way I see to get in
or the way I see
the business developing, but
more than that,
it's really a story of perseverance,
because whether it be, you know, me,
getting kicked out of junior college and then
flunking out of MTSU,
then going to LA, getting hit in the
head of the pipe, coming home, going back,
persevering
just through, you know,
life in general, and then I was married
once out there
in LA, my first Mulligan, that's what I
like to call it for those golfers out
there. We got divorced and that was a
tough time, and then I came home
and I started a career basically at
30 5, 36 years old.
You get, you know, you get a lot
more noes than you get yeses. As you
know, that's kind of when you're pitching anything
in the creative world, you get a tremendous
amount of rejection.
Then I met a girl who sang the
blues and I asked her for some happy
no. I met a girl and we
fell and then we got married and it
was
far as I knew, it was great. But
we were married for 20 years together for
22,
and then she decided she wanted divorce,
and we have 2 children and that
again, you if you take the things we've
discussed, I would say, you know,
just sort of wandering through life and then
getting hit in the head with a pipe
and then,
divorce, and then just
losing my dad, losing my brother. And,
ultimately,
what I became
much more empathetic
towards
during the last 8 years is people that
have mental health issues.
Because
when people to me, and I say this
in the book, when people say
somebody else can't make and you may disagree,
that's fine. Somebody else can't make you feel
a certain way.
I disagree. Like, I would say that
if
in my in my personal experience, if life
is rolling along in a very comfortable normal
pace and all of a sudden the apple
cart is completely upended,
you can certainly look at yourself in the
mirror and go,
is this is it me? Or or what
what exactly
am I bringing to the table that's causing
this
to happen?
I became much more empathetic towards
again, the examples I use, one is Anthony
Bourdain,
like, who was I found to be a
fascinating dude. And, you know, in his last
show, he's like, I'm drinking the finest wine
in Greece and
but I have to ask myself, would I
rather be here
experiencing
the fine things? When I say fine, you
know what I mean,
or would I be would I rather be
home with my daughter and my wife
eating like top ramen and microwave popcorn? And
he said, without question, it's the latter.
And so when you that's taken from you
as a dad, when somebody says,
okay, not only are we done, but and
this is just that I'm not trying to
run her down.
The nature of divorce is that assets and
custody is,
in a lot of cases, 5050, which ours
is and was,
it causes you to and couple that just
with
the world today as you and I also
have discussed where I've scratched my head about
certain things.
Then I I became much more empathetic to
people that go, yes, screw it, man.
I can't handle this anymore. I'm out. I'm
checking out. Now that never actually crossed my
mind.
You're talking about suicide?
Yeah. Uh-huh.
Because that's what happened with him. He was
just like, you know what? I can't handle
it. It's too much. Kate Spade.
People that just go, you know, you know
what? Screw it, man. I'm out. And again,
if I'm being transparent, which I have a
tendency to be,
that never crossed my mind. But I understood
as I laid in the bed with 2
dogs
talking to them like they're humans full on,
and I'm thinking I have absolutely lost my
marbles.
But what I've learned to do
during my going crazy period was to get
up the next morning,
left foot, right foot, breathe.
Do you think it was really,
quote going crazy unquote or do you think
you were just
in grief?
I think grief can cause you to feel
like you're going crazy.
And and, you know, I don't know that
any of us are great at processing grief.
The way I
process grief is to let it overwhelm me
and then say, I've got to try to
wash this clean.
A matter of fact, I told somebody
some of our friends last weekend, like,
years ago when I went to the Gulf
Coast
post divorce
by myself, I was like,
I you always have to walk through a
little muddy water to get to the clear
water. That's because the sand turns it up
at the shore.
And so
I thought that's kind of my that's life
for me. As I always say, I gotta
get through the muddy water to get to
the clear, and that's that's what I did.
Yeah.
Having been divorced twice,
do you sit back then and
as you said, figure out how what you
brought or did not bring,
or
do you think
you're still learning that lesson?
How does one
go through life after 2 divorces, and now
when you date or you meet people, does
that, in the back of your head, think,
oh, this will only go downhill? Because I
think a lot of us think that
who have been through some traumatic relationships.
How do you wrap your head around that?
Well, I don't think I did anything because
I'm perfect.
No. No. No. No. No. I I definitely
There's your trouble.
Right. No. I definitely had to, you know,
say, yeah, what am I not bringing or
bringing to the table that's contributing to this
in some way? Does it trip you up
as you move forward in relationship?
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, do you find
I would think you find the same thing.
Like, the way I say it is,
if you put your hand on a hot
plate the first time you didn't know it's
hot, you go, damn. And the second time,
if you do it, if you do it
a 3rd time, you need you might need
to get that noggin checked. And
for me, like, I'm I date. I've dated,
and I'm dating now. It's awful.
I mean, I shouldn't say that. Right?
Well, we'll delete that.
Right. She's great, but dating is awful. It's
just yeah. Like, I absolutely
am at a place where I go, man,
I don't know that I'll ever do that
again. And in terms of just even opening
up to somebody
where you feel comfortable and you're not gonna
get your feelings stomped on, that takes
trust.
And trust again, when you have been burned,
you you lose that trust.
It takes bravery as well. I think that's
maybe the hardest thing is
I say this a lot to not put
other to not put people in prison for
crimes that other people committed.
Right. That's really hard
and to not do it to yourself as
well.
Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. So yeah. I mean, I've
worked through it.
I'm trying to say,
you know, I don't necessarily just believe in,
unequivocally
trusting the universe.
I think that
there are things you can do or in
other words, for me,
I don't think any everything is work or,
driven by your desire to succeed, but
in my case,
I say I gotta do the work.
And the best joke I ever heard
was, you know, even in terms of spirituality
was the guy, you know, in the kayak
off the coast,
the kayak goes over and he, like, he
started to take on water,
and he can't get the boat back. And
so a guy in a kayak comes by
and says, dude, are you okay?
And the guy says, yeah, man. He's a
religious guy. I said, yeah, I'm okay. God's
got so the dude's Picoli paddles off, you
know, and then,
he's starting to, like, submerge and a kinda
speedboat comes by and, like, hey, man. You
okay? Because, yeah, man. God's got me. And
then finally, he's starting to freaking drown and
a a barge comes by and says, man,
are you okay? And the guy's like,
God's got me, and the guy drowns.
Just like seconds later, gets to heaven and
says to God, hey, I mean, I thought
you're gonna save me. And I said, hey,
I sent a kayak and a speedboat in
a barge. So you gotta participate in this
little project called life or
it ain't gonna happen. That's a classic one
for sure. And I agree with that wholeheartedly.
Also, I think
humans
are
in future cast mode a lot of the
time. What's gonna be the outcome? What's gonna
be the outcome? Am I gonna have this
happen? Is this gonna happen? And, honestly, it's
such a waste of energy. I think it's
good to have an idea of what it
feels like, not what it looks like, but
what it feels like when you get to
the thing you wanna get to, and then
work in the now to make that happen.
Yeah. I think you're exactly right. I think
that's difficult, and I think Jim Carey
recently said something to the effect of I
wish everybody
could make all the money that they want
and achieve their wildest dreams so they would
see that as not where happiness lies.
But again, on paper, as I used to
say years ago, there was a songwriter here
when I first came back and had my
first number one, and he would say, Tim,
never do it for the money.
In the meantime, he had 20 something number
1 songs, and he's worth $20,000,000.
It's easy for you to say don't do
it for the money
because you're loaded.
Yeah.
Although most of the really rich people I
know aren't super happy, and the people that
are
in some ways just getting by even though
it's a stressful life,
creatives.
You know? It's a stressful life, but, also,
I think there is a a
beauty in it because you are
you are living against that day to day.
You you're forced into this the place where
you are, and so you see things
more clearly.
Maybe that's not everyone, but that's certainly how
I feel a lot of times. I like
that. Yeah. So tell everybody how they might
find you and where they can get the
book and and where they can listen to
your songs.
All all my stuff is on my website,
which is the timjames.com.
It sounds super cheesy, but they didn't have
anything else left. So it's the timjames.com.
You can buy the book on Amazon. You
can buy it at barnesandnoble.com.
It's a good read. I mean, every to
be honest with you, most of the people
that I know that have read it said
I read it in one sitting.
Like, it's something that grabs your attention. I
tried I tried to put it in sort
of common speak, like, because I don't want
to read a book that I every other
word, I need a thesaurus.
So
I wrote it like I speak.
So people say and the stories are they're
raw, I gotta tell you. I mean, they
are very raw where I say, again, I've
there's times I thought I could play handball
with the curve, where I could've kissed a
snake's ass. I mean, that's how low you
can get,
So I've been there and done that.
How'd you find your way back from
your
self described madness? Just participating
again every day
thinking to myself,
this moment may not be better,
but
it may be better this afternoon. And again,
I just walked through the muddy water. I
did it. I'm also a big fan of
exercise.
So my sort of,
salvation
was
when most people go to the bar, I
go to,
the gym,
and I'm able to sort of get out
my
frustrations
at the gym and
Although you do have good tequila
anytime I've been around you. I gotta I
gotta sweat out some tequila from Cabo. Trust
me.
But, yeah, it's a it's a it's a
available
Amazon is the easiest way, but my website
is the timjames.com.
And, yeah, go buy it. I appreciate you
having me. Absolutely. And I'll put links on
heyhumanpodcast.com
as always. And, Tim, I love you. I
think you're great. I'm always delighted talking with
you. Quite philosophical,
observant person, and I think
those types of people can be rare, so
it's always a pleasure for me. Well, likewise.
I always enjoy talking to you. I find
you to be interesting and pretty and all
the good things that the world needs. So
Shucks.
Alright. Thank you. Thanks, Tim, and thanks for
listening, everybody.
Bye.
Great. Review and subscribe to Hey Human Podcast
on Itunes or wherever you get your podcasts.
Thanks. Bye.