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They want you to have a seat at the table. And we return to our American stories. John Rich is a country music singer and songwriter, among many other things, as we'll soon learn. He's a former member of the band Lone Star, and since 1998 has been changing the country music game with Big Kenny in their band Big and Rich. Here's John with his story. You know, my dad's a preacher. He started preaching at 19 years old when he was still in college. Never preached in the big churches.
Never draw a big paycheck or anything like that. He really focused more on either really small churches or prison ministries or street ministry. Matter of fact, my dad went to 34 Mardi Gras in a row without missing one. Went down there in the biggest party of the year and would sing and preach on the corners in the French Quarter, which I don't have to tell you how crazy that must have looked.
But he did it 34 times in a row. So he was getting results and kept at it. So, you know, because of that and not not a lot of extra income coming in, we live pretty lean.
We had missed meals, but we lived in a double wide trailer, Amarillo, Texas, out in the fan handle. And, you know, that's how I grew up. I was taught young that hard work counts, that big ideas count. If you're willing to go risk it and go out there and fail, you never know where you might wind up.
That's what was always sold to me. Hey, Johnny, you just never know where you might wind up. So don't be afraid of anything.
Go out there and get them. You're an American kid. You know, you've got the right to pursue happiness. All of that was told to me at a young age. So that stuck with me throughout my entire life to this exact interview. You know, any anybody that's willing to go to Mardi Gras decade after decade and preach at the French Quarter with all manner of insanity going on. That's a dedicated individual. It's also a person with thick skin.
It's also a person with a lot of passion. You know, that's a thankless thing on a lot of levels. But he didn't do it to be popular. He did it because that's what he was called to do. And so he just did it watching him dedicate his life to that.
You know, you learn a lot of lessons. That's what he's called to do. And he's got to do it come hell or high water. That's what he's going to do. And he's going to figure the rest of it out. So my dad is a great singer, guitar player.
He used that in his ministry. So growing up, my dad's always playing the guitar. Matter of fact, one of his side jobs, which he had many side jobs, was to give guitar lessons at the local music store in Amarillo, Texas. And when I was about five, my dad was leaving to go give guitar lessons. And he looked at me and he goes, you want to go with me to guitar lessons? I'm like, yeah, let's.
Of course. So I walk out the door, I sit down in a music store and he's got eight or 10 adults kind of sitting in a semicircle and he's sitting in front of them. And he hands me this little kid guitar and says, here, just sit behind me and try to follow along. But that was my first guitar lesson was sitting with adults. And I was so into it mainly at that point because I wanted to be able to play a song with my dad.
I mean, what's cooler than that? So I really liked it and I picked it up quick. And after about, I don't know, a couple of months, my dad says, man, you're really good at that. You're better than a lot of the people I'm teaching because you want to play with me in church one time? Sure.
Sure, dad. So I sat down. I remember sitting behind the pulpit, kind of hiding behind him with my little guitar. Banging along to, you know, Amazing Grace and and, you know, the old gospel song. So that's really where I got the bug was was just because I looked up to my dad and I thought that was so incredible how he could stand up and play something and move all these people, make them react to something.
That's just seemed like a powerful thing to do and a lot of fun. Never thought it would be a serious thing in Amarillo, Texas. You better know how to either herd cows or drive a combine, do something in the agricultural sector. If you're going to have a good living, music is not something people get paid to do in Amarillo. So it never crossed my mind until 16, 17 when we moved back to Tennessee that, wow, people actually make money playing music.
Being willing to put yourself out there and probably fail. I had that attitude from it from a young age. And so we got to Nashville. We moved back to Tennessee where my mother's from Tennessee. So I moved back and I started entering talent contest in hockey talks in Nashville when I was 16 and 17 years old. So obviously not old enough to even be in there. And the people running the talent show would look at me and go, how old are you kid? 16. OK, you can come in and sing, but you're going to sit right here next to me and here's a can of Coca-Cola.
Do not drink anything other than what's in this can. You know, they sat me down. And so the first talent contest ever entered Tracy Lawrence, Trace Adkins, all these guys like that were in the talent contest.
They didn't have record deals at that point either. So I got to really see what great singers could do. And of course, I never won any of those talent contests and was totally outclassed and outgunned by these guys. But I got to understand where the bar was set.
You know, how good you got to be if you're going to really break in. So that's how I started. And I attended on going to college. I had a full ride vocal scholarship to three different universities and fully intended on going. But then I auditioned for this big theme park we used to have in Nashville called Opryland USA, which I wish we still had. But I went and auditioned for that, thinking I would do a summer job there and then start college. Well, I auditioned. I got the job. I'm making three hundred ten bucks a week, which I could not believe somebody's going to pay me that much money to sing.
I was pretty excited about that. But while I was at Opryland, I met some guys that said, hey, we're starting a band. And we think you ought to be in the band. We're all from Texas.
You're from Texas. Let's start a band and just play around Nashville a little bit. That sounds fun. I said, absolutely.
Let's do it. And what happened was very rapidly, the band was great. We got noticed by a booking agent. Next thing you know, this booking agent says, hey, I could book you guys 200 days a year all over the U.S. if you want to do it. I told the guys in the band, I said, well, I'm supposed to go to college.
They go, what do you want to do? I said, I don't know. How much money am I going to make playing those kind of dates? And said, man, you'll probably make four or five hundred dollars a week.
I could not believe I was make that kind of money. So I said, you know what? I'm going to I'm going to give it a year. And to see if anything happens with this band, which my dad wasn't happy about, my mother wasn't happy about.
They're like, what are you doing? And 18, 19 years old, I said, well, I'm going to get in a van and drive around all over the U.S. and Canada with these guys and play music and see if anything happens. Well, after about two years of that, something did happen. It was a band called Lone Star. We got a record deal in 1994. Our first single came out, went to the top of the charts and I was in the ballgame.
I never looked back. Lone Star was made up of a bunch of guys, obviously from Texas, but they had been playing the Texas circuits down there. So at that time in country music, you could make a real living and never leave the state in Texas.
Matter of fact, still can. That's what red dirt country music is. A lot of guys down there never even come to Nashville because the scene in Texas is so big. I mean, they got hockey tongs down there that hold three or four thousand people.
Billy Bob's holds fifty five hundred people, massive places. And so these guys have been playing those circuits for probably 10 to 12 years. They were all quite a bit older than me. And so I'm stepping on stage watching them, how professional they are, watching Richie McDonald, the lead singer, how he talks to an audience, how you build a set with us, how you deal with a promoter, how you how you get paid, the logistics of the road.
I mean, all those things. It was a crash course in touring and on stage presence, all those things. So they wound up being pretty much like big brothers to me. And I learned a lot of my chops being in that band. It got to a point where I was writing a lot of hit songs for the band, and I wanted to start writing stuff that would down the road, it would have been more in the vein of they have a horse ride a cowboy and stuff like that. I heard it in my head a different way that they heard. And at one point they said, you know what, you're going in a different direction than we're ever going to go.
Why don't you go out, just do it on your own? And so that was a tough one. I had to I had to leave a band at the very next song that they put out after I left the band was a song called Amaze, which was the biggest song that come out in the past 10 years in country music. So another level of, you know, really treachery. These guys are out selling four or five million records and I don't even have a record deal.
What did I do? And you're listening to John Rich share his story. And my goodness, what a story. What an influence his father had. He wasn't teaching his son how to earn a living. He was teaching him how to live a life. And by goodness, if we all had more fathers like that.
And of course, John applies what he learned from his dad. Hard work. Take the shot, boy. Take the shot. But live it. Commit yourself to it.
Go all in. And my goodness, John Rich was all in. When we come back, more of John Rich's story. It's not a straight path up.
It's like so many of our lives and its ups and its downs. More of John Rich's real life story here on Our American Stories. No purchase necessary. We're prohibited by law. 18 plus terms and conditions apply. See website for details. 37,025. One.
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NetSuite dot com slash stereo. And we return to our American stories and the country music star John Rich sharing his life story. Let's pick up where we last left off. As a songwriter, I don't think you can be a good songwriter if your whole life has been nothing but upside. I mean, what do you got to write about? How great everything is. I mean, OK, good for you if you've got that life.
But I don't think that's that's real life. And I think in country music, especially the give and go, the push and the pull, the up and down. That's the DNA of country songs. A blank sheet of paper and a pencil is the most daunting thing a person can look at because it's looking right at you going, OK, write something on me that's going to change your life or change the world. Write something that counts. I remind people all the time that the pages of the Constitution started off with blank paper and a quill pen. The pages of the Bible started off as blank pages and whatever they were writing with back then. You know, blank paper and a pencil are the two most powerful things in the world that anybody can afford a pencil and a piece of paper. The only thing I really had control over at that point was a pencil and paper. That's it. The phone was not ringing. Nobody's booking me for a concert.
You know, very lean. A little apartment you're renting, driving a used car, you know, the whole the whole story. But I could control that pencil and paper. And at that point, I didn't know if I'd ever get another Scott. So I just went for broke.
I started writing exactly what I thought and exactly how I see things. And out of that, I did get a solo record deal and I put out a couple of singles. They both flopped.
Total disaster. I lose that deal. So now I'm out of a band. I failed as a solo artist and I'm only like 27. And so I'm hanging out in Nashville. And at that point, I'm thinking, you know what, I'm just going to write songs. I'll just be a songwriter.
That's totally fine. And I'm hanging out around a bunch of songwriters. And I hear about this guy, Big Kenny, that's moved to Nashville. Everybody's telling me, you got to go see this Big Kenny guy. And I'm like, I'm like, big out. Big and tall, big and loud, big and fat. What is he calling this guy Big Kenny?
That's the goofiest thing I've ever heard. He said, oh, trust me, you'll understand it when you see him. Just come see him.
OK. So I go down to this little place called Douglas Corner in Nashville and there's this guy, Big Kenny. And he's not country and he's not rock. I don't know what he is. He's kind of it's almost like watching Meat Loaf for somebody like, what am I watching?
Couldn't really put my finger on it, but it was no doubt it was highly creative and highly impressive and totally different. So when he got to singing, they had been telling Big Kenny, you got to meet this guy, John Rich. Used to be in the band Line Star.
He's like, oh, no kidding. So we met after his show and decided we would try to write a song together. So a couple of days later, we wrote one song together. The next day we wrote another one and the next day another one. And that that moved its way into us writing over a thousand songs together.
And that led to this whole different unique sound in this duo, Big and Rich, that that really took Nashville by surprise and put the entire equation upside down as to what was possible with country music. Eighth of November is a big and rich song about a Vietnam veteran in Deadwood, South Dakota, that Big Kenny and I met on a road trip one time. He's bartending in this little room that we were playing an acoustic set in and we get to know this guy. And he's got this just incredible story about November 8th, 1965, where the first major ambush of the Vietnam War happened and he was there. And only him and two others survived it out of twenty nine men. And he gets back home. He spends two years at Walter Reed Medical Center. He was shot up that bad.
He gets out of the hospital after two years, signs up and just three more tours of Vietnam for the U.S. Army. You know, short of me and Kenny running into that guy, nobody knows that story. And what we found on the road is that when you play a song like that, even though it's about this specific guy, guess what?
Every veteran and every active duty in the audience, regardless of their age, identifies with the song. We've never had the industry really behind us 100 percent. We've never won any big awards at the award show.
We don't have racks and racks of number one plaques. But what we do have is legitimate, real, serious music, whether it's seriously thought or seriously serious. And because of that, we're still out touring. I mean, we played a show in Nevada in the middle of nowhere, Nevada, not Vegas or Reno is some little bitty town I never heard of. We showed up out there.
There was 16000 people at the big and rich show. And the only reason they're there is because they identify with our music, our lyrics, our energy and everything that goes along with the big and rich show. So that's something I'm pretty proud of. I've written songs for a lot of other people. Gretchen Wilson was my bartender back in ninety nine, two thousand. Me and Kenny are hanging out. I hear the bartender get up and sing and I went, good lord, listen to that girl. I introduce myself.
I start working with her. Jason Aldean had just come to town. He's hearing some of the songs I'm right now that me and big Kenny are right. And he likes our song. So out of nowhere, I've got hit songs happening on big and rich Gretchen Wilson, Jason Aldean.
Faith Hill starts calling, going, hey, can you write one for me? I wrote Mississippi Girl like we never loved at all, which was a Grammy Award winning song. And I was the ASCAP songwriter of the year for three years in a row. So a three P. And what that means is that the songs I wrote that year had more airplay than any other songs. And all country music that year. But what's crazy is those songs were not written. But I was in the middle of big and rich taking off those songs are written in the dead zone in between Lone Star and Big and Rich. When the phone wasn't ringing, nobody cared what I was doing or where I was.
That's when I was stockpiling all those songs. So it's a good lesson learned. If you feel like you're in a you're in a down spot, nothing's happening, nothing's going the way you want them to go. That doesn't mean you sit around. That's actually when you get to work. You can you can dig yourself out of that ditch and get back up.
And you want to use that downtime as a time to sharpen yourself and be ready for the next thing that comes along. You know, I got married in 08 and I have two sons now, Cash and Colt, one named after Johnny Cash, one named after Sam Colt. And that was important. I can tell you that because the lifestyle of a single songwriter and then into big and rich.
I would say, of course, right. A cowboy. You know, that's a raucous lifestyle. Your music is your life. You're pretty much living out your lyrics.
Waylon Jennings style, Johnny Castile. And while it's fun for a while, that's not sustainable. We all know the stories.
I mean, it can get you. And so I think when my kids were born and I started realizing, OK, I got other eyeballs looking at me. I got other other ears listening to me. It's time to cut some things out. So I radically changed the way I live, who I was hanging around, staying on my music.
And I think the focus got even even deeper and sharper. And so I'm thankful for the for the beatdowns that I've taken over the years, because I have been able to really drill that into some of my lyrics, drill it into songs. And what do you know? Millions of other people have also been up and down.
Everybody has. And when they hear the lyrics that a certain way, they respond to that lyric. They identify with it.
It rings a bell. It says it in a way that they feel it, but they've never been able to put it into words. You ever write a song like that? That's how you know you wrote something special.
So short of the the failures, I think I'd be a pretty average, if not below average songwriter. And you're listening to John Rich share his story and what a story he's telling. My goodness, when he said the words, a blank paper and a pencil are the two most powerful things in the world. I've heard so many writers say that so much of what we love starts with almost nothing. And the power of that individual to push through and turn that pen and that paper into magic, into magic.
That is work. Not only did we find out he found his true partner, and this was Big Kenny, but he also found out that he was one heck of a writer. And so much of the writing that he would end up doing for other people, he did during his wilderness time. We've all been there in that wilderness time and we have two choices, wallow or work. And he worked his way through it.
And what was manifested from that work was the pain he was going through, coming out through the songs and in the end connecting with all kinds of people who were listening to those songs. When we come back, more with John Rich's remarkable story here on Our American Stories. All the free TV you can stream, including over 300 free live channels on the Roku channel. Find the perfect Roku player for you today at roku.com.
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See dkng.com slash football for eligibility and deposit restrictions, terms and responsible gaming resources. And we return to our American stories and to country music artist and one half of Big and Rich. I'm talking about John Rich.
Here he is with the rest of his story. I've always believed that you shouldn't be pigeonholed to what it is that you're known for. I think that goes for anybody. If you're a mechanic, they go, yeah, that's Bill. He's the best mechanic in town. OK, well, that's a great thing for Bill. But Bill, what else can you do?
You know, if that's no longer a challenge because you're really good at it, what else can you do? And I've always applied that to myself, like, huh, if I've got a fire burning for something, I'm going to go chase after it. Whether I get it or not is to be determined. The redneck Riviera, you know, that's a phrase that's been around since the early 1960s. It was kind of the tongue in cheek jokester way of saying, well, we can't afford to go to the French Riviera. So where are we going to go this summer? Let's go to the redneck Riviera. Let's go to the blue collar Riviera, which originally would have been talking about the Gulf Coast, Panama City Beach, Gulf Shores, Alabama, down through there. Well, I'd always called it the redneck Riviera, too. But one day, Kenny and I had a show down there in Gulf Shores and I started wondering, I wonder who owns the trademark to the phrase redneck Riviera. So I called my attorney and I said, hey, can you see who owns the trademark to redneck Riviera?
Calls back 10 minutes later and goes, you're not going to believe it. It's never been trademarked. And I said, in any capacity, what about barbecue sauce? He goes, he said, I'm telling you, it's never been trademarked at all ever. Why? What do you want to do? I said, well, I'm going to try to trademark it.
How do you do that? He said, well, it's different than songs. You have to apply for the trademark and if they give it to you, then you have to decide what you want to sell with that praise on it. What do you want to sell? I said, ball caps and T-shirts. This is 2008.
He goes, OK, well, that's Category 17. You need to build a logo, put it on ball caps and T-shirts. You got to sell it across state lines, turn in the receipts and then we'll see what the U.S. government says at the trademark office. So that's what I did. I built out this red, white and blue star logo with these waves going through it. And the original phrase was blue water, white sand, rednecks, redneck Riviera.
I thought that was pretty good. So I sold ball caps and T-shirts for a few months. I turned in my receipts. The attorney calls me back and he says, well, now I know what's never been trademarked. I said, why is that? He said, well, they just denied your trademark because they say you cannot trademark a geographical location.
I said, what is that supposed to mean? He goes, can't trademark Texas, can't trademark Nashville, can't. I said, well, it's not a geographical location. It's the same place Margaritaville is.
It's just a different group of people. I mean, redneck Riviera is a state of mind. He goes, I'm just telling you what they said. I said, is this an attorney in Washington, D.C. telling you where the redneck Riviera is? He laughed. He goes, yeah. I said, all right.
Ask him this question. Three words. Where is it? Where is it? Because you can't mail a letter there.
Nobody's address is the redneck Riviera and nobody pays taxes to the redneck Riviera. So where is it? So he gets this attorney back. John wants to know where it is. And this attorney, I kid you not. This guy copies and pastes the Wikipedia answer to where is the redneck Riviera?
I have it framed on my wall here in Nashville at the house. The Wikipedia answer was redneck Riviera is a colloquial term used to describe the beachfront between Dustin, Florida and Gulf Shores, Alabama, otherwise known as the Emerald Coast. Well, the second he gave that answer, I thought, well, I've got you now because you forgot about South Padre Island, Texas. You forgot about Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and on and on and on. And I start going on social media, searching the praise redneck Riviera. And I'm finding people coast to coast, Midwest, you know, the Great Lakes, all kinds of people calling it redneck Riviera.
And I think the one that finally broke them was a lady that took a picture of herself on Facebook. She got her feet propped up. The sun's going down in the ocean. She says another beautiful sunset here in the redneck Riviera. And you look at her location and she was in Delaware, because that's where all the rednecks hang out to Delaware. And so I took a screenshot of that and all the other ones, and I sent it back to D.C. and I said, it is not geographical. It is a state of mind. It is a lifestyle. It's the same place Margaritaville is, just a different group of people.
And what do you know? I got the stamp. I got that first trademark back in early 2009. And since then, redneck Riviera has built into a nationwide brand. We now have redneck Riviera whiskey in 11000 stores all over the United States.
I have a redneck Riviera hockey top, state of the art hockey top right downtown on Broadway in Nashville and expanding and expanding and expanding. So it goes back to the attitude I learned as a kid. And that is just because you don't know how this is going to turn out or you're afraid of the results or afraid of failing and everybody is afraid of failing.
It's not fun. It doesn't mean that you don't go out there and swing for it, because guess what, kid? You're an American. You have a right to pursue happiness. How lucky are you that you even woke up in this country today?
So go out there and exhaust your potential. So Redneck Riviera is a brand. One of the big important things that I attached to it right out of the gate was that 10 percent of our profits go to the Folds of Honor, which is a group that puts kids through college who lost a parent in combat or they have a parent who's 100 percent disabled from serving our country. And to date, between the bar, the whiskey and merchandise and things like that, we've now spent one point six million dollars back to the Folds of Honor. We're in their top one percent donors for that great organization. So like I say, high school diploma and a trailer.
That's OK. You do not have to have some some fancy pedigree to go out here and win in the United States. Well, about four or five years ago, I was watching my sons watch me and I'm watching the news. I'm talking to the TV like a lot of us do. Like, can you believe this? Look at what this guy's doing.
Look at what they're doing in DC. Look at all this stuff. But then the music industry that I spent my whole life working in is one of the perpetrators of a lot of this stuff. I mean, they're part of it.
And I had been told multiple times by my record label, Warner Brothers in Nashville, huge record label. John, stop talking about this subject. Stop making these comments. Don't do interviews with these people, those people or that network or this network.
You're going to upset people. Stop it. And they were getting more and more aggressive with telling me what I could and could not say.
I played that ballgame with them for a few years. And one day I just decided, OK, my two boys are watching me. Am I going to be the guy that yells at the TV, but then puts my boots and hat on and I go walk the red carpet and play patty cake? But the same people that I was just yelling about, because that's called being a hypocrite. And am I going to have my boys look at me and say, well, yeah, Dad, Dad felt strongly about it.
But when it came down to making a dollar bill, Dad rolled over. I don't think so. I decided, you know what? I'm going to say what I want to say.
I'm going to make the stands I want to make. I'm going to probably lose the entire music industry and all of country radio, which is what I spent my whole life pursuing. But at the end of the day, do I have integrity? Do I as an American, did I let somebody take away my freedom of speech?
Did I allow them to scare me into silence? I thought, no, I'm not going to be that guy. So where I sit today is I'm completely independent. I have no publishing deal. I have no record deal.
I answer to no one other than God, my wife. And so I write my songs. I put the songs out and, of course, on the road live. And I tell people, hey, here's my new song.
What do you think about it? And guess what? The last four songs that I had put out, all four of them went to number one on the all genre download chart on iTunes, which is the Holy Grail of downloads, not number one in country, number one across the board. The last one I had called Progress sat at number one for two weeks. Number two was Lizzo. Number three was Beyonce.
Number four was Billie Eilish. And here I am, John Rich at the top for two weeks, because that many people are going and downloading the song. So I like where I'm at. I like that I don't have to answer to people.
I like that I don't have to edit myself. I can be an American. I can be a Christian. I can be a dad. I can I can say when I don't like it and I can say when I do like it. And it's OK if everybody doesn't like that.
That's a pretty free place to be. And so for me, you learn, you know, the right to pursue happiness. We're the only country in the history of written history of the world that recognizes what they call inalienable rights, meaning rights that are not granted to you by mankind or a government. They're granted to you at birth by the creator with a capital C. And those rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And one thing that I've always pointed out to people, it doesn't say you have the right to be happy. Says you have the right to pursue it. Get out of my way. Let me go try. Let me go pursue happiness.
So what made my dad happy was was preaching at Mardi Gras, preaching at prisons, having impact on people. And for me, it was, man, I wonder how far I could go with this guitar. I wonder what I could do as a songwriter. I wonder, you know, can I even compete? And what do you know, it's throughout throughout the years, a lot of disappointments, a lot of contracts came and went.
The phone would ring and the phone would stop ringing. And that's when you find out what you're made of. Are you are you doing this as a hobby or are you doing it just because it's fun and easy? Are you going to do it when it's hard to? And I've done it on both sides.
I've done it when it's fun and I've done it when it's hard. And that's because that's what I love to do. And that is my pursuit.
And a terrific job on the production and editing by our own Madison Derricotte and a special thanks to John Rich for sharing his story and download his new record, The Country Truth, wherever you download your music. And those words, the pursuit of happiness. It's not the pursuit of pleasure that's in the Declaration of Independence. It's not the pursuit of property, though it was there for a minute.
What an empty thing to have a whole lot of property and no happiness. And it wasn't the pursuit of wealth. And his dad taught his son what the pursuit of happiness meant by doing what God called him to do. And John had to figure out for himself what God called him to do. And I love that he said that they don't have to like it.
That's fine. That's so American to a quintessentially American story. John Rich's story here on Our American Stories from kickoff to touchdown. TCL Roku TVs are the best way to stream your favorite live sports with all the biggest sports channels, a sports zone with all the available games in one place. And apps like I heart radio with sports podcasts such as the herd with Colin Cowherd that launch in a snap.
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Whisper: medium.en / 2024-02-08 04:09:13 / 2024-02-08 04:25:07 / 16
