# Nashville Vibes with Charles Esten

An episode of [And That's What You REALLY Missed](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1645980188), 9 Oct 2025, 54 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/67adaf3b-fc3c-4c67-9613-af12015fa842/37e43749-007f-4268-9048-b3710035377e/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=d5f905ac-eb40-4fc6-9d03-af120160041a

Country singer Deacon Claybourne is on the pod! "Nashville's" leading man, Charles Esten, joins Jenna and Kevin to talk about his time on the hit show, but his journey to get there could be its own TV series! From doing stand-up comedy, being the house manager at The Groundlings, to playing Buddy Holly in London and performing in front of royalty and U.S. Presidents! Plus, his funny audition story for "Nashville" and why it pays to be nice, his first unexpected encounter with Hayden Panettiere, performing at the Grand Ole Opry and The Bluebird Cafe as Deacon and then as himself, and his Guinness World Record! Strap on your boots and get ready for one heck of an adventure! For fun, exclusive content, and behind-the-scenes clips, follow us on Instagram @andthatswhatyoureallymissedpod & TikTok @thatswhatyoureallymissed! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: And that's what you really missed with Jenna.
[0:04] Speaker 2: And Kevin An iHeartRadio podcast.
[0:09] Speaker 3: Welcome to you, and That's what you really miss podcast.
[0:11] Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh. We
[0:14] Speaker 3: have Charles Auston here today from I mean, I want
[0:20] Speaker 3: to say from Nashville, but he's not from Nashville.
[0:22] Speaker 1: He's from everything. He's from the industry, everything you've ever seen,
[0:26] Speaker 1: from stand.
[0:28] Speaker 3: Up comedy to Who's On is in any way improv
[0:32] Speaker 3: to the groundlings, to Nashville to the World Guinness World
[0:36] Speaker 3: Book of Records, to the Grand Old Lobbry, to a
[0:41] Speaker 3: family man and Outer.
[0:43] Speaker 2: Banks, I mean the naming.
[0:44] Speaker 3: He's done it so truly. I am the man doesn't
[0:48] Speaker 3: need an introduction. But we have Charlal Duston here today,
[0:51] Speaker 3: and we hope you guys enjoyed this conversation.
[0:52] Speaker 1: We talked about it all.
[0:55] Speaker 3: Shares some Nashville insight with us. His whole career has
[0:58] Speaker 3: just been completely insane. Oh buddy, Holly, pretty Holly, and
[1:03] Speaker 3: on the West end. I mean, it's just and needs
[1:06] Speaker 3: a lot of full circles.
[1:07] Speaker 2: So wild. He's tapped into something. This story. The amount
[1:11] Speaker 2: of times I got goosebumps hearing his stories. I know,
[1:13] Speaker 2: I know, but hear from the man himself.
[1:17] Speaker 1: Hey good, how are you?
[1:21] Speaker 4: Thanks for having me?
[1:22] Speaker 2: This is an honor. Let me tell you. So we
[1:27] Speaker 2: finished watching Glee and we're watching all these musical TV
[1:30] Speaker 2: shows and movies. And I hadn't seen Nashville until last
[1:35] Speaker 2: week because it was on during Glee. I don't know
[1:37] Speaker 2: if I had some type of complex about it. I
[1:40] Speaker 2: don't know what it was. Oh, you better believe I'm
[1:44] Speaker 2: binge watching it.
[1:46] Speaker 4: Are you?
[1:47] Speaker 2: I I get it. So we'll get into this. Charles,
[1:51] Speaker 2: you have You have the craziest career wild Yeah. I
[1:56] Speaker 2: think the only person to have never been typecast. You
[2:00] Speaker 2: played everything. You've done everything. There's nothing you can't do.
[2:07] Speaker 1: I okay, fair enough.
[2:10] Speaker 2: No you can do it? No, no, no, I don't believe that.
[2:14] Speaker 2: I believe if you were presented with the challenge you
[2:16] Speaker 2: could do it.
[2:17] Speaker 1: You could do it.
[2:18] Speaker 4: Well. Ask the Broadway director that fired me.
[2:22] Speaker 2: I think that's a director's problem. We just watched Nashville. Obviously,
[2:32] Speaker 2: there's so much crossover between Glee and Nashville and the
[2:37] Speaker 2: way how we felt doing a musical show, how it
[2:40] Speaker 2: connects with fans. How did you come to be on Nashville.
[2:44] Speaker 2: What was this experience, well.
[2:46] Speaker 4: Person of Allly before that, I think you're absolutely right.
[2:49] Speaker 4: I think the business always has to be shown something
[2:54] Speaker 4: can work a lot of times before they say, okay,
[2:57] Speaker 4: we'll give it a shot. And Glee showed just how
[3:00] Speaker 4: it could work and how you know, you could sing
[3:05] Speaker 4: and act and it would take the scene to another
[3:07] Speaker 4: place to bear. Smash was on before us as well,
[3:11] Speaker 4: so they also showed it in that way, and I
[3:15] Speaker 4: think both of those things opened up the door for this.
[3:17] Speaker 4: Having said that, I know that the producers. Steve Buchanan
[3:22] Speaker 4: is an incredible guy here in Nashville who there's three
[3:26] Speaker 4: main places in Nashville. You got the Ryman Auditorium where
[3:30] Speaker 4: the Grand Old Opera used to be when it got
[3:33] Speaker 4: You have the New Opry House and the Bluebird Cafe,
[3:37] Speaker 4: and Steve was ran two of them. He ran the Ryman.
[3:40] Speaker 4: He was had a lot to do with the renovation
[3:43] Speaker 4: of the Rhymen and bringing it back to its former glory,
[3:45] Speaker 4: and he had a lot to do with the Grand
[3:47] Speaker 4: Old Opry. He did that for a number of years,
[3:50] Speaker 4: and he had had this germ of an idea of
[3:52] Speaker 4: what would it be like to be backstage at the Opry.
[3:55] Speaker 4: I can tell you now I get to play it
[3:57] Speaker 4: again this coming month and one eighty seventh time. Oh
[4:03] Speaker 4: the reason I say that, besides just the absolutely bred
[4:07] Speaker 4: as he said, is to tell you he was right.
[4:10] Speaker 4: It's really First of all, it's an amazing show, but
[4:13] Speaker 4: backstage it's so interesting and it's so cool. Eventually he
[4:18] Speaker 4: got that idea and Callie Curry oscar Winning Kelly currya.
[4:23] Speaker 4: She wrote Thoma and Luis. She is the one that
[4:25] Speaker 4: came up with all these incredible characters. I just think of.
[4:29] Speaker 4: You know so often you're not there for the most
[4:31] Speaker 4: important days of your life. I wasn't there when Callie
[4:34] Speaker 4: Curry thought up a guy named Deacon Claiborne. Yeah, but
[4:40] Speaker 4: she thought up all these characters, and along with she
[4:42] Speaker 4: and R. J. Cutler, who was one of the original
[4:44] Speaker 4: producers and the original director of the pilot, they started
[4:47] Speaker 4: casting this thing. Now, as you said, I've been in
[4:50] Speaker 4: the business a long time and I've done this, and
[4:52] Speaker 4: I've done that and the other. And I'd have to
[4:54] Speaker 4: say that again and again. I got to be in
[4:57] Speaker 4: some really cool projects. But to be the bang on
[5:00] Speaker 4: lead of something I just kept getting beat out, just
[5:03] Speaker 4: run finish line like I always the other guy that
[5:07] Speaker 4: almost got at And so I remember thinking, well, you
[5:10] Speaker 4: know what, I've been playing music longer than i've been acting,
[5:13] Speaker 4: and I was in a bandoned college before I went
[5:15] Speaker 4: to LA. Maybe I got a shot at this one
[5:19] Speaker 4: because of this other skill I got. But I have
[5:22] Speaker 4: to say it took a long time. I mean, we
[5:25] Speaker 4: could have a whole podcast just about that audition process.
[5:28] Speaker 2: The only auditions did you have to do?
[5:32] Speaker 4: Oh gosh, I'm gonna say more than at least five wow,
[5:38] Speaker 4: And yeah yeah, and I was, by the way, I
[5:41] Speaker 4: was the last piece of the puzzle. Wow. One funny
[5:44] Speaker 4: audition story real quickly is that. And I've always found this,
[5:47] Speaker 4: I don't know if you've ever found this, that the
[5:50] Speaker 4: projects that have that magic about them, like thinks of
[5:53] Speaker 4: the lap a little as my mom calls them, God incidents,
[5:57] Speaker 4: is things like that. Years ago, I was on a
[5:59] Speaker 4: show called who Line Is It Anyway?
[6:01] Speaker 2: Which is crazy because and you're incredible on that show. Yeah, yeah,
[6:08] Speaker 2: wild different, Yeah, yeah.
[6:10] Speaker 4: I was. I was a lot younger. I was chip.
[6:13] Speaker 4: I was making things up off the top of my
[6:16] Speaker 4: head with those incredible castmates of mine, I would leave
[6:19] Speaker 4: that show. I remember one day driving home because we
[6:22] Speaker 4: would do like a long like three three and a
[6:24] Speaker 4: half hours showing a live audience, and from that you
[6:27] Speaker 4: would make another number of episodes. I remember driving home
[6:31] Speaker 4: going why did my face hurt so much? And then
[6:34] Speaker 4: I ranting like an idiot?
[6:38] Speaker 2: Yes a half hours and also you know, thank.
[6:43] Speaker 4: You, and any about What I wanted to say was
[6:45] Speaker 4: I got the audition for to play Deacon, and I
[6:49] Speaker 4: look at the thing to go huh, and I realized
[6:51] Speaker 4: it was on the same lot, it was in the
[6:54] Speaker 4: same building. It was on the same floor that my
[6:58] Speaker 4: dressing room was in when I did whose line is
[7:01] Speaker 4: it anyway? Wow, that feels like a little bit of
[7:05] Speaker 4: And so I remember going in there and I did
[7:09] Speaker 4: I think two songs, one song and two scenes, and
[7:13] Speaker 4: I remember by them being very comfortable. I think if
[7:15] Speaker 4: I had been even a couple of years younger, I
[7:17] Speaker 4: wouldn't have been able to play a guy named Deacon
[7:20] Speaker 4: who'd seen about it. You can't be nervous when you're
[7:23] Speaker 4: auditioning for Deacon, because you can't chip I'm a little
[7:27] Speaker 4: bit of a lean forward on my seat. What do
[7:29] Speaker 4: you want me to be? What do you want me
[7:30] Speaker 4: to do? Guy? But Deacon is Deacon is this guy? Like,
[7:34] Speaker 4: by the way, I wore my Deacon down them just
[7:36] Speaker 4: for the love and anyway, So I'm in that room
[7:41] Speaker 4: and uh. I finished with the songs. And as I finished,
[7:46] Speaker 4: I walk out the door. I opened the door and
[7:48] Speaker 4: I bumped the door bumps into Hayden Panettier, who had
[7:51] Speaker 4: been dropping at the door. And she's like, and she
[7:58] Speaker 4: was so complimentary and so kind, and we never met.
[8:02] Speaker 4: I was a big fan already from Save the Cheerleader,
[8:05] Speaker 4: Saved the World from here, yeah, and from Remember the Titans, which,
[8:09] Speaker 4: of course that was the high school I went to.
[8:13] Speaker 1: Oh wow, I played on.
[8:15] Speaker 4: That football football team.
[8:16] Speaker 5: So yeah, and I remember I said a few words
[8:19] Speaker 5: back and forth with her, and right as we were leaving,
[8:21] Speaker 5: I said, well, i'll see on the set, and I'll
[8:26] Speaker 5: never forget first day on the set.
[8:28] Speaker 4: She walks up, she goes, I'll see on the set.
[8:33] Speaker 1: That must have felt nice.
[8:36] Speaker 2: And you did get the leading man gig.
[8:39] Speaker 4: Yeah, he did play that guy. It was really amazing.
[8:43] Speaker 4: It's also funny to me or interesting. There was never
[8:45] Speaker 4: a chemistry read with Connie. With Connie Brittain, so really
[8:51] Speaker 4: a little bit of a dice roll is there is there? There?
[8:53] Speaker 4: There is there anything?
[8:56] Speaker 3: Five auditions and they didn't think to do a chemistry test.
[9:00] Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess, I don't know. I mean it was
[9:02] Speaker 4: the last pieced doing other things, but wow, it ended
[9:07] Speaker 4: up working out. Yeah. I mean, I was again already
[9:11] Speaker 4: a huge fan of hers. Friday Night Lights was one
[9:13] Speaker 4: of those shows. You know those shows you watch and
[9:16] Speaker 4: you hit pause and say to the person, I just
[9:19] Speaker 4: want to do a show.
[9:20] Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know what I mean, Yeah, totally.
[9:23] Speaker 4: The more people that are with us that have to listen, Yeah,
[9:27] Speaker 4: can I just watched Friday Night.
[9:30] Speaker 2: You don't understand. This doesn't happen very often.
[9:34] Speaker 4: So I did that. So when I met Connie, I
[9:36] Speaker 4: walked right up to and I said, there's a million
[9:39] Speaker 4: reasons why I'm excited to do the show, and you
[9:41] Speaker 4: are a couple hundred of them. We got along like that,
[9:45] Speaker 4: and I remember those early scenes where we were both like,
[9:49] Speaker 4: this might work, there might be something.
[9:51] Speaker 2: I think that that's a testament to, you know, the
[9:54] Speaker 2: production team and casting. I think we had a similar
[9:56] Speaker 2: experience where none of us had done any chemistry reads
[10:00] Speaker 2: about we auditioned. I think four times. I audition four times.
[10:04] Speaker 2: And so if you have a really great intuitive casting
[10:08] Speaker 2: departments and they know how these personalities will fit not
[10:12] Speaker 2: just on screen but behind the scenes, which really build
[10:15] Speaker 2: that foundational And.
[10:16] Speaker 4: We had the great Genie backrack stars and she's she's
[10:21] Speaker 4: winning emmysweft and right now for the.
[10:24] Speaker 2: I mean you can feel it from the pilot immediately.
[10:27] Speaker 2: You can feel the chemistry between all of you. It
[10:28] Speaker 2: feels like those relationships feel like they've been going for
[10:32] Speaker 2: years already.
[10:33] Speaker 4: Know what's a funny thing is on Outer Banks, the
[10:37] Speaker 4: show I did after that, I remember so clearly being
[10:40] Speaker 4: in that giant table read which is just it's just
[10:43] Speaker 4: a production office, the long conference table. There's no reason
[10:47] Speaker 4: this should work. There's no reason could ever be good.
[10:51] Speaker 4: Get none of the you know, she has no wardrobe,
[10:54] Speaker 4: there's just people reading from a script. And that cast,
[10:58] Speaker 4: that group of young actors were Chase and Maddie, Maddy Bailey,
[11:04] Speaker 4: and it was just unbelievable. So afterwards, I go, how
[11:07] Speaker 4: long have they all known each other? And they're like
[11:09] Speaker 4: two days?
[11:11] Speaker 2: Wow, oh this m this might be again a villain.
[11:17] Speaker 2: Literally there's like you have done everything.
[11:21] Speaker 4: Yeah, well, you know, I think First of all, I
[11:24] Speaker 4: had worked with Jonas pate uh years before on something
[11:29] Speaker 4: where I was cast as a nice guy who turned
[11:31] Speaker 4: out to be a bad guy. It was on La
[11:34] Speaker 4: La Dragnet with Ed O'Neill, and so I think he
[11:40] Speaker 4: then somebody and his I think his wife and maybe
[11:43] Speaker 4: his daughter said this, you should look at this guy
[11:45] Speaker 4: who's on Nashville. And I think he said to me, goes.
[11:50] Speaker 4: You know, for the first four episodes, you just can
[11:52] Speaker 4: be sort of like a normal dad, and then it's
[11:54] Speaker 4: really going to go sideways. And they were lying. I
[11:57] Speaker 4: think they thought the sweet I mean, Deacon had his issue,
[12:00] Speaker 4: but he was also a guy at part. Yeah, that
[12:03] Speaker 4: would be a really good mislead. And for me, you know,
[12:06] Speaker 4: when you're coming off a role, I didn't want to
[12:07] Speaker 4: play Deacon Light or Deacon Olsen. The place something different.
[12:14] Speaker 2: So much fun which happens. I mean that I think
[12:16] Speaker 2: the norm is for you to get really famous for
[12:19] Speaker 2: a certain role and then people like you as that,
[12:21] Speaker 2: they know you as that they keep wanting to see
[12:23] Speaker 2: you do that. But you have range. Thank you defied
[12:28] Speaker 2: all yeah.
[12:29] Speaker 1: Broken all barriers.
[12:39] Speaker 3: I'm curious like music artists who then you know, pivot
[12:42] Speaker 3: into acting or you know, somebody who comes from theater
[12:47] Speaker 3: and then you.
[12:48] Speaker 1: Know, pivots into TV.
[12:49] Speaker 3: For you like I feel like this, I don't feel
[12:53] Speaker 3: I know that it reinvigorated your.
[12:54] Speaker 1: Music career too.
[12:56] Speaker 4: Oh yeah, okay, what.
[12:58] Speaker 1: Was like the trajectory of that for you?
[13:01] Speaker 3: And then also kind of becoming a Guinness World Record Holders?
[13:06] Speaker 1: Can you do.
[13:09] Speaker 2: Just take a break? Like do you just.
[13:13] Speaker 4: Make hay while the sun shines? Right? Right?
[13:15] Speaker 2: That's right?
[13:16] Speaker 4: I mean, honestly, that's one of the things. I feel
[13:18] Speaker 4: very blessed. When I started playing decon was forty six,
[13:21] Speaker 4: and I've been really fortunate, like you said, to being
[13:24] Speaker 4: a whole bunch of really great things like Big Love,
[13:27] Speaker 4: enlightened on you know, the Office, so a lot of
[13:31] Speaker 4: quality things. But i'd never sort of popped above that
[13:34] Speaker 4: even on that on whose line is that anyway? I
[13:37] Speaker 4: was one of the fourth chair guys, I was. I
[13:39] Speaker 4: wasn't on every week, so it wasn't until that that
[13:43] Speaker 4: I sort of popped. So I think, I don't know,
[13:45] Speaker 4: maybe you appreciate it a little more, a little more deeply,
[13:48] Speaker 4: and you also want to go for it. That's just
[13:50] Speaker 4: my nature too. But so yeah, I was in a
[13:53] Speaker 4: band in college, and when I graduated, the rest of
[13:58] Speaker 4: the band was most of the band was year younger
[14:00] Speaker 4: and me and one of me and the drummers stayed
[14:02] Speaker 4: back one year, even though we both and played in
[14:05] Speaker 4: that band for another year. And then when that was done,
[14:09] Speaker 4: I thought maybe we'd stay together. But they all went
[14:12] Speaker 4: on to be, as the song says, doctors and lawyers
[14:14] Speaker 4: and such and so hood he lost all his blowfish,
[14:22] Speaker 4: And so I said, what am I going to do now?
[14:25] Speaker 4: And in the end, I said, you know what, maybe
[14:29] Speaker 4: if I go to Hollywood, I can be an actor.
[14:32] Speaker 4: Because I'd grown up on television, like crazy TV, buff
[14:35] Speaker 4: watched everything movies too. Rocky just set me on fire,
[14:39] Speaker 4: like as a kid. Because I left that theater just vigurated.
[14:43] Speaker 4: And I realized it was only because of lights flashing
[14:45] Speaker 4: on a screen that I wanted to be, you know,
[14:49] Speaker 4: beat up the world and drink raw eggs and and
[14:51] Speaker 4: so that. I was hooked then, but I back the
[14:54] Speaker 4: music stepped forward. I couldn't really. I could act a
[14:56] Speaker 4: little in college, but I mostly just could get up
[14:59] Speaker 4: on stage and and sing and play guitar. So I
[15:02] Speaker 4: thought I would go out to la and I figured
[15:04] Speaker 4: While I was doing that, I would meet a drummer
[15:06] Speaker 4: and a bass player and a guitar. That never happened,
[15:09] Speaker 4: but along the way I went out. The first job
[15:11] Speaker 4: I got was to go to England and play Buddy
[15:13] Speaker 4: Holly in the musical about the Great Buddy Holly.
[15:16] Speaker 2: Crazy. That was the first thing.
[15:18] Speaker 4: Oh so crazy. You have no idea. I was leading
[15:20] Speaker 4: a musical and I'm playing guitar on stage. It was
[15:24] Speaker 4: just it was just perfect, and you.
[15:26] Speaker 2: Got to do like with that, you got crazy experiences.
[15:30] Speaker 2: You got to do like first gig you graduate college,
[15:34] Speaker 2: You're like, I'm just going to go form a band
[15:35] Speaker 2: in la and then next thing, you know.
[15:38] Speaker 4: You know what's funny about that one is that one
[15:40] Speaker 4: of the first I did stand up for like that
[15:42] Speaker 4: quick because I didn't really enjoy it because it was
[15:45] Speaker 4: too solitary for me. I really had an admiration, not
[15:49] Speaker 4: for just how brave it is to get up and
[15:50] Speaker 4: do standings. Oh really, and the road is so solitary
[15:55] Speaker 4: and I'm more of a social animal, so I thought.
[15:59] Speaker 4: Then somebody showed me the groundlings, which was right. I
[16:01] Speaker 4: got my improv base and my sketch comedy based and
[16:05] Speaker 4: those that don't know the groundlings, go look them up,
[16:07] Speaker 4: everybody you so many SNL.
[16:09] Speaker 2: Masters will barrel of care, you know.
[16:14] Speaker 4: Krista wigg on and on and on, and so I
[16:17] Speaker 4: was doing that for all and I love that so
[16:20] Speaker 4: much that I became the house manager of the theater.
[16:23] Speaker 4: I was about la by myself, so I thought, I'm
[16:26] Speaker 4: going to submerge myself in this world. So I'm literally
[16:30] Speaker 4: tearing tickets, vacuuming, holding the small And so while I'm
[16:36] Speaker 4: doing that, I get a call from my managers, h
[16:40] Speaker 4: do you want to audition to play Buddy Holly in London?
[16:44] Speaker 4: And I was like yes, And so I went all out.
[16:52] Speaker 4: I got the little bow tie, I bought glasses, I
[16:54] Speaker 4: made my hair dark curly, I went I bought a
[16:57] Speaker 4: stratocaster on no. I was one hundred percent ready and
[17:01] Speaker 4: I didn't put it down and I played and I played,
[17:03] Speaker 4: and I'm ready for this. And I get a call
[17:05] Speaker 4: from the groundings. I had just retired from being house manager,
[17:07] Speaker 4: and they said, hey, I'm do you have a minute.
[17:11] Speaker 4: Our new house manager is not available in this group
[17:14] Speaker 4: that is going to do some events here. Need some help.
[17:18] Speaker 4: And so I said yes, And so I had this
[17:23] Speaker 4: person give me a call and they're asking how many
[17:24] Speaker 4: bathrooms we had? And we have copy? Is it? What
[17:27] Speaker 4: does this work? How does that work? I'm trying to
[17:30] Speaker 4: be pliet, but I'm getting to where I'm late now,
[17:32] Speaker 4: and I just cool and I keep my cool, and
[17:35] Speaker 4: then I rush over the hill and I barely make
[17:37] Speaker 4: it on time, and I do two scenes and I
[17:40] Speaker 4: sing two songs to Buddy, Holly songs, and she says, well,
[17:44] Speaker 4: we're definitely going to give you a call back. Do
[17:46] Speaker 4: you know where the Groundlings Theater is? And I went.
[17:51] Speaker 4: I had been on the phone with her and set
[17:54] Speaker 4: up my own call back at the Groundings Theater. So
[17:58] Speaker 4: when I tell you these things happened to me, Oh
[18:04] Speaker 4: so that was literally like in my living room because
[18:07] Speaker 4: I lived there more than I did my crappy little apartment.
[18:10] Speaker 1: That's so crazy.
[18:13] Speaker 4: And while all the other guys were auditioning for Buddy,
[18:16] Speaker 4: I was up in the booth. We're just going that
[18:21] Speaker 4: a little of that.
[18:23] Speaker 2: I know, that's good.
[18:25] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, wowow wow, that's.
[18:27] Speaker 4: How I ended up getting the audition. Yeah no, my god,
[18:33] Speaker 4: like you said, as a first job, it was off
[18:35] Speaker 4: the charts.
[18:35] Speaker 6: I played for her Royal Hot Highness and Queen Elizabeth.
[18:39] Speaker 6: I played the Princess Diana and the Young Princess I
[18:42] Speaker 6: played at the White House. I played with the actual Crickets,
[18:45] Speaker 6: buddy having in the Crickets. So I was just twenty six,
[18:48] Speaker 6: I think at the.
[18:49] Speaker 4: Time, and what an unbelievable thing to be because what
[18:52] Speaker 4: I knew was the singing and the guitar acting classes
[18:56] Speaker 4: in Hollywood with Howard Fine, who was fantastic, and I
[19:01] Speaker 4: should have taken more with him. But being on stage
[19:05] Speaker 4: for two years and getting to do those same scenes
[19:08] Speaker 4: and I was on the stage ninety nine percent of
[19:11] Speaker 4: the night, getting to them again and again and feel
[19:14] Speaker 4: how to feel the nights I was thinking I was
[19:16] Speaker 4: saying it and feeling it and bel the knights. It
[19:18] Speaker 4: wasn't clicking. And that was a huge That was a
[19:22] Speaker 4: huge education, not to mention just what it means to
[19:24] Speaker 4: need a cast now interviewed like we are right now.
[19:29] Speaker 4: That was all that was my master's I think, and enacting.
[19:33] Speaker 1: I just lovecelerated.
[19:35] Speaker 2: Yeah, I love how I mean you're saying, you know,
[19:39] Speaker 2: you're still like this and it's incredible and aspirational of
[19:42] Speaker 2: like you moved to La which can be daunting and scary,
[19:45] Speaker 2: and you you like meet meet it with open arms
[19:48] Speaker 2: and like an open mind, and like it seems like
[19:51] Speaker 2: you're a sponge to learning whatever it may be, whether
[19:54] Speaker 2: it's stand up or sketch comedy.
[19:57] Speaker 4: You know, stand up gave me a real lesson, the
[19:59] Speaker 4: biggest less and I got from stand up. And I
[20:01] Speaker 4: didn't do it that long, as I said. But you know,
[20:02] Speaker 4: when you go to La, you Hollywood, you can't just
[20:05] Speaker 4: go be in a movie. I mean nowadays can make
[20:07] Speaker 4: your own on your mouth, which is crazy.
[20:09] Speaker 2: Back then, Nope, the opportunities were very, very limited.
[20:14] Speaker 4: All you but you could do on a Wednesday. You
[20:16] Speaker 4: could go to the comedy store and wait in line
[20:17] Speaker 4: and get up at open mic at the same place
[20:19] Speaker 4: where Robin Williams had been and ste market at that
[20:23] Speaker 4: and at the improv. And so I did that, and
[20:27] Speaker 4: I remember I finally got up and I went up
[20:31] Speaker 4: to the microphone and I adjusted it and fixed it,
[20:33] Speaker 4: and I looked up and it was that quiet, and
[20:38] Speaker 4: I'll never forget my mouth started getting phoney. I felt
[20:41] Speaker 4: my knee a little bit. And I had never thought
[20:44] Speaker 4: that I was a class clown, I was a show.
[20:47] Speaker 4: I was never I didn't. It was foreign to me.
[20:49] Speaker 4: It was in my mind. I was like, oh, I
[20:51] Speaker 4: heard of this, You're terrified. So that's what I felt like.
[20:58] Speaker 4: And so somehow it through my five minutes and before
[21:03] Speaker 4: my feet even hit the ground to get off stage.
[21:06] Speaker 4: It's interesting to me still that my overriding emotion was fury.
[21:09] Speaker 4: I was furious with myself as I walked back to
[21:13] Speaker 4: the bathroom. There By the time I looked in the mirror,
[21:16] Speaker 4: I was thinking to myself, You've left an amazing girlfriend
[21:21] Speaker 4: back home. All your friends have real jobs, are making
[21:23] Speaker 4: real money, and came out here with nothing. And what
[21:26] Speaker 4: do you want to do for a living? You want
[21:27] Speaker 4: to get in front of people, and you just let
[21:31] Speaker 4: two hundred drunks that you will never mate again terrify you.
[21:36] Speaker 4: And so it's crazy is that That was so real
[21:40] Speaker 4: to me that a week later I went back same
[21:42] Speaker 4: when it's the same bad material, and I stood up
[21:45] Speaker 4: and I didn't feel a thing because I was more
[21:48] Speaker 4: afraid of me than them. It was a fortunate thing
[21:51] Speaker 4: to get to see the difference in that. Yeah, and
[21:54] Speaker 4: that sort of I carried that with me a lot.
[21:57] Speaker 4: There's to be able to do buddy, or do any
[21:59] Speaker 4: of those things. But I thought my mom has always
[22:01] Speaker 4: been if they're gonna let you, let you do it,
[22:03] Speaker 4: do it. I mean so much apologizing for I'm sorry
[22:10] Speaker 4: you let me do this. You probably shouldn't have let
[22:12] Speaker 4: me do this. I'll do my best, but I don't
[22:14] Speaker 4: know if no.
[22:15] Speaker 2: Damn, it's like hearing myself. That's right. I was just
[22:19] Speaker 2: thinking that. But you're right.
[22:22] Speaker 1: I mean, and look at your body of work.
[22:23] Speaker 3: And look at the things that you've gotten to do
[22:25] Speaker 3: and the opportunities you've taken. Some people would say, oh,
[22:28] Speaker 3: I don't do that. I don't do improv, I don't
[22:30] Speaker 3: do stand up, I don't do music.
[22:32] Speaker 2: I don't do that.
[22:33] Speaker 3: But like you know, just taking little bites horns and
[22:35] Speaker 3: saying like, let me try it.
[22:36] Speaker 4: There's are times in my vife where I would uh
[22:40] Speaker 4: self demean and say uh with the phrases jack of
[22:42] Speaker 4: all trade, master of none, that's how you that's how
[22:46] Speaker 4: you talk that down, and I sort of meant it.
[22:50] Speaker 4: There was a time like Springsteen was a rock hero
[22:54] Speaker 4: early on, and if you read or know his story
[22:56] Speaker 4: at all, well, it reminds me of a rocket has
[22:59] Speaker 4: all this fuel inside of it and it gets ignited,
[23:02] Speaker 4: so it has all this propulsive pressure. It doesn't just
[23:05] Speaker 4: go everywhere, that's just an explosion. It is it is
[23:09] Speaker 4: directed out the batanolezl silver rocket goes, MHL.
[23:15] Speaker 2: Goes yeah, right, like, how do we funnel this energy
[23:19] Speaker 2: into a direction.
[23:21] Speaker 4: Yeah. And in the beginning it's I sort of envied
[23:24] Speaker 4: somebody that had that was Monomaniaco, had that one thing
[23:28] Speaker 4: that they aggressively shaped. I wasn't even that about acting.
[23:32] Speaker 4: I remember saying to my agents about it about six
[23:36] Speaker 4: months before Nashville. The problem with me is a client
[23:39] Speaker 4: is I'm basically pretty happy. I'm pretty satisfied. I like
[23:42] Speaker 4: you because I got a good luck, I said. I said,
[23:45] Speaker 4: the rest would be gravy, anything else, baby, And then
[23:48] Speaker 4: I said, now, don't get me wrong, I freaking love gravy.
[23:50] Speaker 4: Gravy's delicious, So you'll give me some gravy. And yeah,
[23:54] Speaker 4: I got biscuits and gravy here in Nashville.
[23:56] Speaker 2: So yeah.
[23:58] Speaker 4: So I would just say that later on, and I
[24:01] Speaker 4: think people are realizing it now. It's I think the
[24:04] Speaker 4: phrase talent stacking comes to mind, that you want to
[24:07] Speaker 4: have a handful of cards. Yes, I mean, certainly on
[24:11] Speaker 4: Broadway you don't want to just.
[24:12] Speaker 2: Oh yeah you need oh yeah, you have to be
[24:16] Speaker 2: able to do eighteen billion things at a very high level,
[24:19] Speaker 2: eighteens a week.
[24:21] Speaker 4: That's uh yeah. I was. As I said, I've come close,
[24:24] Speaker 4: and being around those that do that, it's just stunning.
[24:27] Speaker 4: It's like, oh my gosh, you are a master of
[24:30] Speaker 4: all trades.
[24:30] Speaker 2: So you've done it though, you know, ye tell me this.
[24:34] Speaker 4: I remember this so clearly being I don't know if
[24:37] Speaker 4: it was the musical of it all, or that it
[24:40] Speaker 4: was a jukebox musical. Is one of the earliest jukebox musicals,
[24:45] Speaker 4: which we're really looked down on at the time, right yeah,
[24:50] Speaker 4: by now so much as a jukebox yeah, right, But
[24:55] Speaker 4: before Buddy, there weren't that many. There might have been one,
[24:57] Speaker 4: Hank Williams one, but I can't I think of one.
[25:00] Speaker 4: So was that the fact that it was in London.
[25:03] Speaker 4: It was so far from Hollywood, but I knew what
[25:06] Speaker 4: I had done there and how amazing it was. So
[25:09] Speaker 4: I remember my first general meeting with a casting director
[25:12] Speaker 4: once I was back, and she says, so, tell me
[25:15] Speaker 4: what you've been up to, and I go, well, for
[25:18] Speaker 4: the last year and eight months I starred as Buddy
[25:21] Speaker 4: Holly in the hit West End musical Buddy and I
[25:24] Speaker 4: toured with it in the United States and I had
[25:26] Speaker 4: that cast and played in front of the Queen and
[25:28] Speaker 4: the President and I said about former things, and I
[25:30] Speaker 4: just went, yeah. And before that, I did an industrial
[25:37] Speaker 4: film promotor. It made no impact. It might I might
[25:45] Speaker 4: have just said I worked at track Auto. Yes, I
[25:48] Speaker 4: mean it really didn't. Well that was a lot too
[25:54] Speaker 4: my world while she's sitting in front of me. That
[25:57] Speaker 4: was really that was really good improval my part right there.
[26:00] Speaker 4: I kept going, But I'm pretty good in those moments.
[26:04] Speaker 2: But it did make you probably a better actor though,
[26:07] Speaker 2: right like it? Oh yeah, so that's the thing. That's
[26:09] Speaker 2: what you got, maybe not some more jobs out of it.
[26:12] Speaker 4: I got to tell you one thing about getting one job.
[26:14] Speaker 4: I'll never forget this. The first TV show I was
[26:16] Speaker 4: on was called on the Television. It was like a
[26:19] Speaker 4: sketch comedy show on Nick at Night. I got hired
[26:23] Speaker 4: because one of the guys one of the groundings there,
[26:25] Speaker 4: George McGrath. It was his show. And so first I
[26:27] Speaker 4: did research for it because there was no Google. He
[26:30] Speaker 4: just had a guy like me go find out how
[26:32] Speaker 4: many continents there were then, and then I wrote a
[26:36] Speaker 4: sketch or two. I wrote maybe three sketches over the
[26:38] Speaker 4: course of it, and then it fell apart. And then
[26:41] Speaker 4: a friend said, hey, I know a guy who's over
[26:43] Speaker 4: at FNN. FNN eventually became c NBC, and so mostly
[26:47] Speaker 4: they had tippy crawl, and somebody figured, why don't we
[26:51] Speaker 4: do some shows for very very rich people. So they
[26:53] Speaker 4: had one show about appreciating art with Vincent Price, about
[26:57] Speaker 4: art that would go up and down on the mark
[26:59] Speaker 4: collecting art. One was Auto Trend, So that's about connecting
[27:01] Speaker 4: fine cars. I'm rushing through to get to this. So
[27:07] Speaker 4: I go. I don't I'm not really a writer. I
[27:10] Speaker 4: guess you'll be fine. Just go. And so I remember
[27:12] Speaker 4: going there on top of the building is way down
[27:14] Speaker 4: near La X, near the getty that not getting Howard Hughes,
[27:21] Speaker 4: and you can see everywhere, and there's a guy behind
[27:23] Speaker 4: an amazing desk. You on the phone. We'll tell him
[27:27] Speaker 4: this and gob on my box and he hangs up.
[27:29] Speaker 4: I don't have a boulder. I don't have a single
[27:31] Speaker 4: writing thing to show him. I got nothing. I'm just
[27:33] Speaker 4: sitting there across room like I'm sitting from you, and
[27:36] Speaker 4: he goes, so, uh, you're a writer, and yes I am.
[27:46] Speaker 4: And he says, well, what have you mostly written about?
[27:50] Speaker 4: And I said, well, mostly cars and art. He came
[27:58] Speaker 4: halfway across that desk like seriously, curiously, I said, no,
[28:05] Speaker 4: I'm just Affinnoyd to you, I said, I use the
[28:07] Speaker 4: Worsson and he goes, oh, it was so embarrassed, and
[28:15] Speaker 4: that made him laugh so hard. He goes. He finally recovers.
[28:18] Speaker 4: He goes, you know what, you get the job, you
[28:21] Speaker 4: get the job. And so I was a segment producer
[28:24] Speaker 4: and I wrote two shows about art and cars. And
[28:26] Speaker 4: I can't.
[28:31] Speaker 1: A lesson to all. Yes, just charm the pants off.
[28:37] Speaker 4: That little fearlessness and what are you gonna do?
[28:39] Speaker 2: You know, you walk into the room unemployed, It's like,
[28:42] Speaker 2: what's the worst is going to happen? You live the
[28:44] Speaker 2: room still unemployed?
[28:46] Speaker 4: I can do unemployed.
[28:47] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, I know, unemployed, we're comfying unemployed.
[28:51] Speaker 4: Bad. We haven't talked about Nashville at all. Let me.
[28:55] Speaker 1: So, now you guys do Nashville reunion tours as well?
[28:58] Speaker 2: Is that right?
[28:59] Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, this February we're going to be going back
[29:02] Speaker 4: for our for another tour back in the UK and
[29:06] Speaker 4: in Europe. That's what Claire Bowen plays Scarlett of course,
[29:10] Speaker 4: Sampo and Jackson was Avery and uh, we're really kind
[29:17] Speaker 4: of lucky to do it, but also shows the power
[29:20] Speaker 4: of the of the songs themselves. Still listen to them.
[29:25] Speaker 4: And we'll be playing One of my favorites is we'll
[29:27] Speaker 4: be at the Ryman Auditorium, which not there yet, but
[29:33] Speaker 4: spoiler alert, the whole series ends on stage at the
[29:37] Speaker 4: Rymond WO. So it's always been real important and special
[29:42] Speaker 4: to me. Yeah, a dog named Rymond, but.
[29:45] Speaker 3: Go on, no, I mean, like a lot of these
[29:49] Speaker 3: institutions for country music for you guys, are you know
[29:54] Speaker 3: key locations in the show, Like what was that like
[29:57] Speaker 3: for you? Like Blueburugh Cafe and like the Aubrey, Like
[30:00] Speaker 3: what was that like for you to be able to
[30:02] Speaker 3: like step on the you know, I'm over home on
[30:05] Speaker 3: the stage one hundred and fifty seven times.
[30:06] Speaker 4: But yeah, well, the coolest thing about it was it
[30:09] Speaker 4: was always that Deacon got to play these places before
[30:14] Speaker 4: I did. It was always cool. So literally, you know
[30:18] Speaker 4: how it is if you're going to shoot a scene
[30:20] Speaker 4: on stage at the Grand Ole lotpry you might be
[30:22] Speaker 4: there two whole days. Yeah, you know, thirteen hour days.
[30:25] Speaker 4: And that was it me standing with the guitar on
[30:27] Speaker 4: stage at the Grand Old Lopry. So by the time
[30:30] Speaker 4: it was my time to get up there, I felt
[30:32] Speaker 4: some of those little old fashioned butterflies, but I was fine.
[30:35] Speaker 4: But also I've often thought that you could, I really
[30:38] Speaker 4: want to go to locations and get a map, and
[30:41] Speaker 4: if we highlighted every single place where there's one right
[30:44] Speaker 4: behind me. Look at that right there, busy. Yes, you
[30:47] Speaker 4: know the pilot episode.
[30:49] Speaker 1: Yeah, well you guys do you and Connie have your
[30:50] Speaker 1: like big scene in the pilot.
[30:52] Speaker 4: And then there's more later and later later episodes. So
[30:55] Speaker 4: my wife bought me that because, you know, bridgemant to
[30:58] Speaker 4: me and us the guitar I stole from Nashville amazing.
[31:03] Speaker 2: Yes, oh yeah, no way, oh yeah, that's beautiful.
[31:14] Speaker 4: Yeah, so's special. They forgot to ask for it back. Yeah.
[31:19] Speaker 4: So yeah, it was I think, honestly, you know, Connie
[31:24] Speaker 4: and Hayden first, but the real star of Nashville was Nashville,
[31:28] Speaker 4: and I think it really showed it off and too.
[31:32] Speaker 4: I mean, this town was already starting to boom, but
[31:35] Speaker 4: the combination of the actual boom that was and showing
[31:37] Speaker 4: it to the world. We get blamed for the traffic
[31:40] Speaker 4: all the time, and all for all the new buildings.
[31:42] Speaker 4: I'll tell you one other thing that you know, when
[31:43] Speaker 4: you're shooting on location, you have base camps where you
[31:47] Speaker 4: have your closed trailer, all the trailers, all the equipment.
[31:50] Speaker 4: This is where the actors trailers made, may here, makeup props,
[31:53] Speaker 4: all of that. We would do those in vacant lots
[31:57] Speaker 4: in the city. The time we were done, there were
[32:01] Speaker 4: no more vacant lots.
[32:04] Speaker 2: That's crazy.
[32:05] Speaker 4: They were all buildings. They had all been developed. Such
[32:08] Speaker 4: a bad Yeah. Yeah, the city has been amazing to us.
[32:12] Speaker 4: That's why I stayed. Yeah.
[32:22] Speaker 2: For me growing up, you know, trying to become an
[32:26] Speaker 2: actor and do TV and I also did music pre acting.
[32:30] Speaker 2: I always got asked, you know, well you have to
[32:33] Speaker 2: do one or the other, like you can't do both,
[32:35] Speaker 2: And here you are. You know, that's sort of I
[32:39] Speaker 2: only had two choices. You know, you grew up with
[32:42] Speaker 2: a host of skills, acquiring a host of skills, and
[32:45] Speaker 2: then something like Nashville comes along, where you know it's
[32:51] Speaker 2: all this all this acting work leading you to being
[32:53] Speaker 2: a leading man. You started out in a band, and
[32:56] Speaker 2: here's the show based around music. And how did that
[33:02] Speaker 2: feel like the opportunity to do a musical TV show?
[33:05] Speaker 2: Because obviously, yes, Glee was on smashes on but there.
[33:08] Speaker 2: That doesn't mean there were a lot of musical shows
[33:11] Speaker 2: being made. No, No, there weren't, and that opportunity never
[33:13] Speaker 2: came around.
[33:14] Speaker 4: I'll tell you two things. One way I felt, and
[33:18] Speaker 4: this is a good way to feel when you reach
[33:19] Speaker 4: that certain age and you I felt like I reached
[33:23] Speaker 4: into my pocket and there was a whole bunch of
[33:25] Speaker 4: cardboard pieces in my pocket with flashes of color all
[33:28] Speaker 4: over them, and I just reached in my pocket. I
[33:31] Speaker 4: emptied my pockets out and I put them on a
[33:32] Speaker 4: table and I went and I put them all together.
[33:36] Speaker 4: It was Nashville. So every little thing that I had done,
[33:40] Speaker 4: every little piece of that, and all those years that
[33:43] Speaker 4: that rejection you got, and you know, what's that for?
[33:45] Speaker 4: I don't know that job that was a weird little job.
[33:49] Speaker 4: What's that? And all those things eventually became that. It's
[33:55] Speaker 4: just I felt so fortunate. It felt like a real
[33:57] Speaker 4: coming together. That example I gave of the magic behind it.
[34:01] Speaker 4: That's just one I'll tell you another I was, I've
[34:04] Speaker 4: never stopped writing music, like when I go to college.
[34:07] Speaker 4: Probably started off as more rock, more ram you twoish
[34:10] Speaker 4: when but as I started, I got married, started having kids.
[34:15] Speaker 4: You keep the station on something that the toddlers can
[34:18] Speaker 4: hear and right, and I started really loving that two
[34:22] Speaker 4: thousands country in nineties, early two thousands country. So just
[34:27] Speaker 4: another day in Paradise and all these things I was feeling.
[34:31] Speaker 4: And I also, to be honest, I write in a
[34:32] Speaker 4: more literal way, less metaphorical rock metaphor. I write stories,
[34:36] Speaker 4: and maybe it comes wrong with a punchline, or maybe
[34:39] Speaker 4: it's just ea, stop loving country. Yeah country. So we
[34:42] Speaker 4: got more and more country, and eventually, through a long
[34:46] Speaker 4: story I won't tell you, I met a Nashville songwriter,
[34:50] Speaker 4: wonderful woman named Jane Bach, and she would go back
[34:52] Speaker 4: and forth Nashville Toba. And I started writing with her
[34:57] Speaker 4: and she and I wrote six or seven songs over
[34:58] Speaker 4: these good months and they were pretty good. And so
[35:05] Speaker 4: she was telling me I knew what a writer's round was,
[35:06] Speaker 4: and so we actually had a writer's round out. I
[35:09] Speaker 4: think it was on cold or Kolanga. It was a
[35:11] Speaker 4: Korean barbecue place and at night we played a writer's round.
[35:14] Speaker 4: We played these songs and a bunch of people showed up. Yeah,
[35:17] Speaker 4: And at some point she said, Okay, now I want
[35:18] Speaker 4: you to come to Nashville. I want you to play
[35:20] Speaker 4: at the Bluebird Cafe. And I knew what the Bluebird Cafe,
[35:26] Speaker 4: and I was like done, and I bought a plane
[35:28] Speaker 4: ticket and so I'm already to go. It's on the calendar.
[35:30] Speaker 4: And then right before then I has always happened. I
[35:33] Speaker 4: got work, I got acting, and I had to do it.
[35:36] Speaker 4: So I canceled the ticket. And then a couple months
[35:39] Speaker 4: later I did it again, and I got work again,
[35:43] Speaker 4: and I literally say to my wife, when am I
[35:45] Speaker 4: ever going to get to go to Nashville. It's just
[35:46] Speaker 4: not going to happen, and be damn. I get the
[35:50] Speaker 4: script says Nashville. I auditioned over five times and I
[35:53] Speaker 4: get it. And my very first deacon scene was with
[35:57] Speaker 4: that guitar in the Bluebird Cafe.
[36:00] Speaker 2: Oh my God, with the great.
[36:04] Speaker 4: Pam Tillis singing harmonies with me and chairs at the
[36:08] Speaker 4: back of the room. Yeah, pulled low and a tear
[36:12] Speaker 4: going down her face at the sheer beauty of my song.
[36:15] Speaker 4: And I thought, what are you doing God? This is amazing.
[36:20] Speaker 4: This is amazing, And I've never stopped feeling that.
[36:22] Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my gosh, that's beautiful.
[36:25] Speaker 2: I feel like music has that you know, speaks to you.
[36:27] Speaker 2: Guys are still able to go on tour after the
[36:30] Speaker 2: show has been off for a number of years because
[36:32] Speaker 2: I feel like, and tell me if you feel this,
[36:35] Speaker 2: The music aspect of it, I think keeps the show
[36:39] Speaker 2: alive for so many people, especially in Nashville. How Nashville
[36:42] Speaker 2: uses music is beautiful. It's always organic. You're not breaking
[36:46] Speaker 2: into song walking down a street necessarily. It's always in
[36:50] Speaker 2: a real place where music would be heard, and it
[36:52] Speaker 2: yet and it still furthers the story in a way
[36:57] Speaker 2: that's not hitting you over the head with what's going on.
[36:59] Speaker 4: And I so agree, I actually would I've The first
[37:03] Speaker 4: thing I found out, I want to say is the
[37:05] Speaker 4: caliber of the music that we got to do that the.
[37:07] Speaker 2: Great t Bone absolutely excellent.
[37:10] Speaker 4: Peon Burnette. I don't know how many Grammys he has,
[37:12] Speaker 4: but his goal for our music, what he was aspiring
[37:16] Speaker 4: to was not to imitate country radio. He said he
[37:19] Speaker 4: was He's t Bone Burnette. He says he wanted to
[37:23] Speaker 4: be more than country radio. And we have a ton
[37:25] Speaker 4: of songs that would not be on country radio. Country
[37:28] Speaker 4: radio wouldn't always work in that moment. These songs are
[37:30] Speaker 4: incredibly residant. We didn't have a songwriting staff. Our songwriting
[37:33] Speaker 4: staff was Nashville and all the great writers, and they
[37:38] Speaker 4: all submitted these songs, and half of them were songs
[37:40] Speaker 4: that were just maybe a little too pure, a little
[37:45] Speaker 4: too amazing to be that next thing that you know
[37:48] Speaker 4: that the world listening to. But what I always found
[37:51] Speaker 4: that was really incredible was, first of all, as Deacon,
[37:54] Speaker 4: I played a guy that I'm not going to tell
[37:58] Speaker 4: you much. I'm not going to say that much. You
[38:00] Speaker 4: asked me some question I don't know, I don't know,
[38:02] Speaker 4: like this podcast would not be going well. But you
[38:06] Speaker 4: put them begun guitar and he'll tell you every single thing. Yeah. Yeah,
[38:11] Speaker 4: And so that was on that personal level, but it's
[38:13] Speaker 4: also on the scenic level. You've already seen, you guys
[38:17] Speaker 4: know how you can reach a certain point in a
[38:19] Speaker 4: scene where narratively or where verbally you've kind of said
[38:25] Speaker 4: all you can say. But I remember there's a scene
[38:29] Speaker 4: at the Bluebird Cafe, the first one where Deacon and
[38:31] Speaker 4: Reina who used to be together, and then she had to,
[38:35] Speaker 4: she had to separate for her own personal well being
[38:37] Speaker 4: and her child and all. And Deacon finally got clean,
[38:41] Speaker 4: but by then it was too late. She was with
[38:44] Speaker 4: Mayor Teddy. So they have kept this perfect little distance
[38:49] Speaker 4: where he's her guitar player, she's the least singer, and
[38:51] Speaker 4: they kept it right. And that's how that was. And
[38:54] Speaker 4: I think it's so beautiful that when what was the
[38:57] Speaker 4: catalyst that made that all fall apart? It was Deacon
[39:00] Speaker 4: playing the Bluebird and he invited Rain along and said,
[39:04] Speaker 4: will you sing one with me? Sure? And they sit
[39:07] Speaker 4: side by side and they sing no One will ever
[39:09] Speaker 4: Love You. And it's just they just got too close
[39:13] Speaker 4: to the fire. Because what music can do performance and
[39:18] Speaker 4: I think songwriting itself is very much like it's very intimate.
[39:23] Speaker 4: It's almost like these two people come together, go in
[39:27] Speaker 4: the room together, warm up, you get to know each other.
[39:30] Speaker 4: I'm not going to get graphic here, Yeah, but then
[39:33] Speaker 4: there's sort of this you conceive of something. Now when
[39:38] Speaker 4: you leave the room, there's this third thing that wasn't
[39:41] Speaker 4: that had not been there. And that third thing, this
[39:44] Speaker 4: this child, this song is that you birth can get
[39:49] Speaker 4: lost in the wind or it can go on to
[39:50] Speaker 4: rule the world and be you know, be like I
[39:54] Speaker 4: Will Always Love You by Dolly Partners. Yeah, just the
[39:58] Speaker 4: power of a song. And I've never forgotten that. There's
[40:01] Speaker 4: a few songs in Nashville. There's one called A Life
[40:03] Speaker 4: That's Good and that was written by Ashley Monroe and
[40:07] Speaker 4: Sarah Siskin and it's just so real and it's almost
[40:10] Speaker 4: like I finished pretty much every show with it, and
[40:12] Speaker 4: so does the Nashville cast because it's a little bit
[40:16] Speaker 4: like a prayer. It's just saying the whole show is
[40:19] Speaker 4: about everybody's trying to get this fame, get that money,
[40:21] Speaker 4: and get that you know, we know that, we're all
[40:23] Speaker 4: trying to get that next job, get that next get
[40:25] Speaker 4: that get those more followers. And A Life that's Good
[40:30] Speaker 4: just talks about you only need a handful of things
[40:32] Speaker 4: to have a life that's good. And the chorus and
[40:34] Speaker 4: I sang this on a TV show two arms around me,
[40:38] Speaker 4: heaven to ground me, and a family that always calls
[40:41] Speaker 4: me home, four wheels to get there, enough love to share,
[40:46] Speaker 4: and a sweet, sweet song. At the end of the day, Lord,
[40:49] Speaker 4: I pray I have a life that's good, that's that
[40:53] Speaker 4: just resonates with me. Wow.
[40:56] Speaker 2: I think that's also why country music was the perfect
[41:00] Speaker 2: genre of music to have a musical TV show because
[41:04] Speaker 2: watching it, watching that pilot, I was like, of course,
[41:08] Speaker 2: of course.
[41:10] Speaker 4: Just literally saying the thing to her without saying the
[41:12] Speaker 4: thing to her.
[41:13] Speaker 2: But yes, because how you were talking about, like your
[41:15] Speaker 2: songwriting country I feel like at its best, and it
[41:18] Speaker 2: can be done in a number of like subgenres. But
[41:20] Speaker 2: you also get, just in that pilot alone, your testament
[41:23] Speaker 2: to the different styles of writing. Yes, the level of
[41:26] Speaker 2: writing and the show, but country music can affect you
[41:32] Speaker 2: so quickly and easily because it's a way of distilling
[41:38] Speaker 2: complex emotions in a simple way that that just cuts
[41:42] Speaker 2: through I think easier and quicker than most other musical genres.
[41:45] Speaker 4: They old praise three chords in the truth.
[41:47] Speaker 2: There you go.
[41:48] Speaker 7: That's what I was trying to say perfectly from that
[41:53] Speaker 7: that side of it, And no, I absolutely feel that way,
[41:57] Speaker 7: and it was it was something to see just getting
[42:01] Speaker 7: these songs.
[42:01] Speaker 4: Getting an email of this song going you're going to
[42:03] Speaker 4: be singing this and about week yeah, and also getting
[42:08] Speaker 4: to see the other people like can you imagine when
[42:10] Speaker 4: I first heard Lennon and Mazie singing on the set
[42:16] Speaker 4: or you know what. There's a scene at the very
[42:18] Speaker 4: end of the pilot where Waddie White played by the
[42:23] Speaker 4: great J. D. Salther, is that the Bluebird and he's
[42:26] Speaker 4: Claire and Sam yes, and he says, listen to this
[42:31] Speaker 4: and he holds up and she's somewhere else. But you
[42:34] Speaker 4: know how it is when you shoot a show, everybody
[42:36] Speaker 4: thinks we see everything. We don't hang out on the set.
[42:39] Speaker 4: I stopped, felt really good with Connie. It felt great
[42:42] Speaker 4: at The Bluebird. But then I watched like you guys
[42:45] Speaker 4: did on the on that night, and when that came on,
[42:47] Speaker 4: I go, wow, what Yeah, you know, I've never understood
[42:52] Speaker 4: competitive shows like your story. This person competes I always.
[42:57] Speaker 4: I just wanted them to freaking shine, because yes, and
[43:00] Speaker 4: they did.
[43:01] Speaker 2: And they did absolutely.
[43:03] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[43:03] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[43:03] Speaker 7: Yeah.
[43:04] Speaker 4: Two of the things real quick, I want to say.
[43:05] Speaker 4: Number one, another show is interesting. I was my buddies
[43:08] Speaker 4: at Out of Banks. Jonas Pate, especially creator of a
[43:12] Speaker 4: show that's on Amazon now called The run Arounds, and
[43:15] Speaker 4: that's about a young high school band that is making
[43:18] Speaker 4: their way and it's crazy because these guys are so
[43:22] Speaker 4: incredibly talented. They the band is writing all yeah, and
[43:28] Speaker 4: they're performing them live right there. So yeah.
[43:32] Speaker 2: I discovered them a couple of weeks ago because as
[43:34] Speaker 2: a band I thought they were I was like, wait,
[43:37] Speaker 2: it's a TV show. They're from a TV show, but
[43:40] Speaker 2: they're also just like operating as a normal band outside
[43:42] Speaker 2: of the show totally.
[43:43] Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, it's really really impressive, and so they're
[43:46] Speaker 4: doing it again. They actually had me come in and
[43:48] Speaker 4: do a little consulting in the writer's room as the
[43:50] Speaker 4: guy that was on the show with the music and on.
[43:51] Speaker 4: That was the real lot of fun and I got
[43:54] Speaker 4: to be really impressed by them. But you want to
[43:56] Speaker 4: go back to some people, what the heck was that about?
[43:58] Speaker 4: Was the Guinness World I just want to tell you
[44:02] Speaker 4: that real quick.
[44:03] Speaker 2: Please.
[44:04] Speaker 4: I'm somebody that doesn't you know. There's a line in
[44:08] Speaker 4: a life that's good. It says, sometimes I'm hard on
[44:11] Speaker 4: me when dreams don't come easy. I want to look
[44:15] Speaker 4: back and say I did all that I could at
[44:18] Speaker 4: the end of the day. Lord, I pray I don't
[44:20] Speaker 4: know about you guys. I have that if I look
[44:23] Speaker 4: back and say I did all that I could, I
[44:25] Speaker 4: can be hurt by how it all came out. But
[44:28] Speaker 4: I won't. It won't eat me up.
[44:29] Speaker 2: Now, you tried, right, If you.
[44:32] Speaker 4: Didn't work hard enough for that audition, if you didn't,
[44:35] Speaker 4: if you're on that show and you know you just
[44:36] Speaker 4: didn't bring it that, that's a long time to live
[44:40] Speaker 4: with that. So I started around twenty twelve on Nashville.
[44:44] Speaker 4: Around twenty sixteen, I realized that I had released like
[44:48] Speaker 4: two songs. I've been writing all this music, and I said,
[44:54] Speaker 4: I have no idea if this thing's going to last.
[44:56] Speaker 4: I might be back in alve next year, and I'm
[44:59] Speaker 4: going to I can go. You lived in music city
[45:01] Speaker 4: for four years, had access to every great songwriter, yeah,
[45:05] Speaker 4: great producers, great players, and that's all you did. So
[45:08] Speaker 4: I said, ah, And so I created a little bit
[45:13] Speaker 4: of a deadline machine. I went out. I remember I
[45:15] Speaker 4: stood in a little stream near my house and I said,
[45:18] Speaker 4: he everybody, I just want to let you know that
[45:20] Speaker 4: I am going putting out a brand new single every
[45:25] Speaker 4: Friday until that's stupid and crazy. So I and I
[45:33] Speaker 4: called it every single Friday. At it well, and I
[45:37] Speaker 4: completely blew through that deadline. When it was stupid, I
[45:41] Speaker 4: went right through. I thought maybe I'd get twenty songs
[45:44] Speaker 4: but by the time I finished, it was fifty four
[45:51] Speaker 4: one for fifty four weeks on spot You can go
[45:54] Speaker 4: on Spotify or Apple and see it's every single Charles
[45:57] Speaker 4: Sen every single Friday project.
[46:00] Speaker 1: And what a cool project.
[46:02] Speaker 4: Oh man. That remember what I said about being on
[46:04] Speaker 4: stage with Buddy. That was my masters in songwriting and
[46:08] Speaker 4: my masterduction and I learned so much. That was my
[46:12] Speaker 4: ten thousand hours.
[46:13] Speaker 1: That's literally what I was going to say.
[46:15] Speaker 4: That's right, yeah, And so I only bring it up
[46:19] Speaker 4: because you meant because you did mention it, and to
[46:21] Speaker 4: say that there was one more of those things where
[46:23] Speaker 4: then I felt like, Okay, now I can never say
[46:26] Speaker 4: I didn't do all that's damn sure. But it's funny
[46:31] Speaker 4: because I was definitely one of I'm an old guy.
[46:33] Speaker 4: So I was one of those kids who, growing up
[46:35] Speaker 4: in like the eighties, had the Guinness Book of World
[46:38] Speaker 4: Records a paperback. I would walk around with it.
[46:41] Speaker 2: Yeah right.
[46:42] Speaker 4: It was like I was always trying to figure out
[46:43] Speaker 4: how many times I'd have to hop on a pogo
[46:45] Speaker 4: stick or how many gone I'd have to fit in
[46:48] Speaker 4: my mouth, And in the end, I just did this
[46:51] Speaker 4: thing that I desperately loved and went for it whole hog.
[46:55] Speaker 4: And I was on the Today Show, I think, and
[46:57] Speaker 4: the Guinness people came by and said, yeah, he's ever
[47:00] Speaker 4: done that?
[47:01] Speaker 2: Wow, that's incredible.
[47:04] Speaker 3: Well, we ask everybody who comes on the show in
[47:08] Speaker 3: our Glear era, what is the feeling that Lee leaves
[47:10] Speaker 3: you with? So if you remiss to ask, what is
[47:12] Speaker 3: the feeling that Nashville leaves you with?
[47:17] Speaker 4: Man, you know what's great about that guitar is it's
[47:24] Speaker 4: it's got a really rich, warm, deep tone. And those
[47:30] Speaker 4: are the words that come to my mind. Nashville itself.
[47:34] Speaker 4: It's so rich, it was so warm. The people we
[47:38] Speaker 4: all got along is so great, and it was so deep.
[47:41] Speaker 4: It touches people still, people because I played this guy, Deacon.
[47:47] Speaker 4: Deacon went through a lot. Deacon was a walking country song.
[47:50] Speaker 4: You know, he lost his woman, yet he drank too much.
[47:53] Speaker 4: You know, he was sick himself. And what I found
[47:59] Speaker 4: is there those were touch points for people. So over
[48:02] Speaker 4: the years since people come up to me and go,
[48:04] Speaker 4: I love that show, and go and you know, my
[48:06] Speaker 4: dad he was an alcoholic too, and and so I
[48:10] Speaker 4: recognized what Deacon went through and it made me feel
[48:12] Speaker 4: for my dad a little bit. There's little things that
[48:15] Speaker 4: based on that you don't know, you know atching to it,
[48:19] Speaker 4: so I was, that's it rich and warm.
[48:23] Speaker 2: Indeed, I feel like we could talk to you for hours,
[48:28] Speaker 2: and you are such a good storyteller, and it's also
[48:33] Speaker 2: so nice to talk to somebody else. I can't believe
[48:34] Speaker 2: there hasn't been any more Glee like Nashville Crossover because
[48:37] Speaker 2: it's such a specific experience and a musical TV show
[48:42] Speaker 2: and I know we speak that same language.
[48:44] Speaker 4: Having there must have been something for you guys too,
[48:47] Speaker 4: I mean, because there was nothing remotely like it, so
[48:52] Speaker 4: like you had, nobody had quite gone before. I mean,
[48:54] Speaker 4: cop Rock had been.
[48:55] Speaker 2: Like exactly a long time.
[48:58] Speaker 4: It really wasn't this. Yeah, And that's and once again
[49:01] Speaker 4: the other thing, like you say, casting, that's just don't
[49:04] Speaker 4: much have it when you go people, it's it's not
[49:07] Speaker 4: that easy to go, hey, here's the show, here's what
[49:09] Speaker 4: we're going to do, not cast it.
[49:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. But hearing your stories makes me feel
[49:15] Speaker 2: warm because it reminds me and I'm sure Jenna feels
[49:17] Speaker 2: the same way. That just reminds me of our Glee family.
[49:22] Speaker 2: And I love that you know, that experience was that
[49:26] Speaker 2: for all of you and because it's such a special
[49:29] Speaker 2: thing to be a part of a show that probably
[49:32] Speaker 2: shouldn't work. Musicals on TV just hadn't really worked. And
[49:36] Speaker 2: when you get to do it in a way that
[49:38] Speaker 2: is touching so many lives, it's more than you could
[49:40] Speaker 2: ever wish for getting a job right like on a
[49:43] Speaker 2: TV show, it's touching people, like you said, And so
[49:46] Speaker 2: I'm just.
[49:48] Speaker 4: Not that there's not struggles either, not bec there's sometimes
[49:52] Speaker 4: this between people feeling things and wanting to bring it
[49:56] Speaker 4: across and no.
[49:57] Speaker 2: But your family and you get into it.
[49:59] Speaker 4: And even with the network like network probably always wanted
[50:05] Speaker 4: a little bit more of a uh something uh scandal
[50:10] Speaker 4: or something away with murder, or about the ambition of
[50:13] Speaker 4: it all and about the crazy storylines that you need
[50:17] Speaker 4: to bring to bring that next pow pow. But I
[50:20] Speaker 4: think it's funny thing is we did six seasons that
[50:23] Speaker 4: and crazy things happen as they do in town, but
[50:26] Speaker 4: nobody remembers them. Everybody remembers the little moments between Gunner
[50:32] Speaker 4: and in Scarlett, or between a Starlett and Deacon, or
[50:36] Speaker 4: between Deacon and Maddie his daughters. It's the pressure, little
[50:40] Speaker 4: truthful moments that you got it it's almost like you
[50:43] Speaker 4: have to pay for them with this vision. I mean,
[50:48] Speaker 4: what's the classic thing with the famous actors. They say
[50:51] Speaker 4: one for them, one for me. Right, It's almost like
[50:55] Speaker 4: there are scenes you feel sometimes like, Okay, this is
[50:57] Speaker 4: this is from.
[50:58] Speaker 2: That's exactly right, Yeah, exactly right.
[51:01] Speaker 1: You get it, you get it.
[51:04] Speaker 4: Well.
[51:04] Speaker 1: We are so grateful.
[51:05] Speaker 3: Thank you so much for taking the time to come
[51:08] Speaker 3: and chat with us. It's really wonderful and we are
[51:10] Speaker 3: just so in all of your body of work, but
[51:13] Speaker 3: also just like the approach you take to life, and
[51:15] Speaker 3: that really speaks to your career and what you've accomplished
[51:19] Speaker 3: and what you'll continue to accomplish.
[51:21] Speaker 4: So thank you so much, incredibly kind, and you guys
[51:23] Speaker 4: are great at this. I can see why you're doing this,
[51:25] Speaker 4: and we're all very much that you turned your gaze
[51:28] Speaker 4: over to Nashville and you know it.
[51:31] Speaker 2: Oh, I'm so happy. We have to stop ourselves from
[51:34] Speaker 2: just being in Nashville show because look, I will tell you,
[51:37] Speaker 2: I grew up in Texas. I didn't love country music.
[51:40] Speaker 2: I was sort of probably because I was around all
[51:42] Speaker 2: the time. I was like anti country music, and I
[51:47] Speaker 2: don't know. By the end of that pilot I was like,
[51:51] Speaker 2: of course, of course, obviously. Yeah, but by the end
[51:56] Speaker 2: of that pilot, I was like, I am in.
[52:00] Speaker 4: I didn't like country music before, and I mean, that's
[52:02] Speaker 4: about the kindest thing you could ever get.
[52:03] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the biggest comment. Exactly right, exactly, Yeah, contact
[52:08] Speaker 2: after forty minutes.
[52:10] Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
[52:11] Speaker 2: Thank you for to see you on tour.
[52:14] Speaker 4: No, that'd be fantastic. Yeah, well we come to the
[52:17] Speaker 4: rhyme and that's in January, and otherwise coming over to
[52:19] Speaker 4: the UK.
[52:20] Speaker 2: Amazing. Oh great, we'll make to see you in person soon.
[52:24] Speaker 2: Thank you for your reach out.
[52:26] Speaker 4: If you guys come to Nashville.
[52:27] Speaker 2: Seriously, definitely, definitely.
[52:31] Speaker 4: Please.
[52:31] Speaker 2: I've never been. I want to come there.
[52:33] Speaker 4: Bro. Yeah yea, well you've seen the places we shot
[52:35] Speaker 4: in him, so it'll be good. All right.
[52:38] Speaker 2: Thanks, thank you so much, worse, thank you. What a man,
[52:44] Speaker 2: what a man, gosh, I mean, just insane.
[52:49] Speaker 3: We have him back, so kind, so talented, so just
[52:56] Speaker 3: a good all around human I mean. And also we
[52:59] Speaker 3: love Nashville. Kevin loves Nashville. Now let it let it
[53:03] Speaker 3: be known.
[53:04] Speaker 2: The record show. And also this is why you get hired.
[53:07] Speaker 2: He's so kind, so thoughtful.
[53:09] Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation. Thank
[53:13] Speaker 3: you so much to Charles for joining us and chatting
[53:15] Speaker 3: all about his amazing life experience and his career in Nashville.
[53:19] Speaker 3: I hope you guys enjoyed that.
[53:21] Speaker 2: And go watch Nashville on Netflix. Go see them on
[53:24] Speaker 2: tour starting in January. Yeah, yeah, and that's what you
[53:27] Speaker 2: really miss Thanks for listening, and follow us on Instagram
[53:31] Speaker 2: at and that's what you really miss pod. Make sure
[53:33] Speaker 2: to write us a review and leave us five stars.
[53:36] Speaker 2: See you next time.

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