Home » Songbirds’ Son: Shooter Jennings on Waylon The Artist, Waylon The Dad and The Legacy of Both

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Songbirds’ Son: Shooter Jennings on Waylon The Artist, Waylon The Dad and The Legacy of Both

This episode needs no introduction: Shooter Jennings joins Donnie and Dave to discuss his dad’s cache of recordings, the process of bringing together three albums’ worth of new Waylon Jennings music, and his feelings about the first installment, Songbird. Shooter talks at length about the discovery of Waylon’s previously unreleased music, his relationship with his legendary dad and his own role as a father of two. This one was big for the Country Music Dads, as there couldn’t be a more perfect topic for this podcast.

Show Notes

1:24 — Shooter tells us about the discovery of these songs and how the Songbird project came together. 

6:12 — Dave says it was surreal to hear these songs in 2025. Shooter felt the same way. And then he knew he had to share this with others so they could have the same experience.

8:26 — The Myth vs. The Man: Shooter explores what fans might be able to take from these projects.

10:42 — Shooter’s childhood on the road and why he’s tired at shows regardless of how much sleep he gets. 

12:20 — Waylon the Artist vs. Waylon the Dad. Shooter kept true to the art but modernized it a bit — “letting the music on the tape talk.” That said, the experience of going through this chapter of his dad’s life was very special to Shooter. 

20:07 — As a producer, the process of this project was a bit different for Shooter because Waylon is no longer with us; he is his father, and there was so much more material than usual. So he wanted to make it last to “make it like Waylon is here for a minute.” 

23:00 — Donnie asked about how relationships impact Shooter’s production style. He specifically pointed to Turnpike Troubadour’s last two albums and the fan backlash after Cat in the Rain. Shooter’s direct and honest answer provides an interesting view into his producing style.

28:58 — The Dads ask Shooter how the production on the next albums fit together and how they tell a story. We also learn that there are several other projects to come from this collection of recordings, including songs by his mother, Jessi Colter. It’s like a little Marvel Universe of Waylon Jennings, they joke. But wouldn’t that be cool?

30:40 — How this project impacts Shooter’s legacy and his kids’ vision of him. 

36:30 — What’s next for Shooter? He’s working with Charley Crockett and BJ Barham of American Aquarium again.

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Mentioned in the Episode

References

Transcript

This is Country Music Dads, the parenting podcast with a twang. We’re driving a highly subjective, comically contrarian, often a reverent conversation about fatherhood and country music for people who have a passion for both.

My name is Donnie, and I’m a country music dad, and I’m thrilled to welcome back Dave to the show.

Thank you, Donnie. It’s great to be back, especially for this episode. We are incredibly pleased to welcome Shooter Jennings to the show.

He is a Grammy-winning producer, a singer-songwriter, and the guy who put the O back in country in 2005.

He’s also the son of Jessi Colter and Waylon Jennings, and he’s on the show to discuss his most recent project, Songbird, the first of three albums comprised of his dad’s unreleased previously recorded song.

In early October, Shooter and the team released this album into the world. Within a week, it was on five different billboard charts and is proving very sticky, for good reason, because it’s an incredible project.

Yes, indeed. This is a big one for us, and we’re honored to host you, Shooter, so thank you so much for joining us, and congratulations on the release. Let’s get into it.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, I’m glad it’s out. I’m glad it’s out. It’s all started now, you know?

Indeed.

Speaking of how it started, I know you’ve told this story a million times.

I’ve read it in many different places and heard it in different places, but for listeners who may be wondering where this new Waylon Jennings album came from in 2025, could you give us a little bit about the discovery of this cache of songs and how

that all came to be? that all came to be?

1:24

Origins of the Songbird Project

Yeah, sure.

I mean, I always knew that my dad, like, took tapes home from when I was young.

We had, like, a room in our house that was locked all the time called the storage room, and it had all these tapes and had, like, guitars and Rhodes gear or whatever that was here, and he didn’t want anybody messing with.

You know, I always knew about it.

And after he died, like, about six years after he passed away in 2008, Nicky Mitchell, who ran his office, and Richie Albright and Linda Albright and Carter and Barney Robertson from The Wailers got all those tapes and all of Richie’s tapes and went

and had them put in vaults and had them digitized in, like, 2008, right? So when that happened, we had them. They were on these big firewire drives. And I was, I don’t know, that was like the year after my daughter was born.

So it was like my life was in no place to try and even go through all this stuff. But I knew that I had it, I had access to it. And then in 2014, it got transferred from those giant firewire drives to like array to array of drives.

It was small and portable. And so we made a duplicate copy of it. And I took that copy.

So I had it in 2014. And I actually opened it up when I was doing an album of mine that was a tribute to Giorgio Moroder called Countach.

It starts with, don’t you think this outlaw bit is done got out of hand, and kind of evolves into this like, Giorgio Moroder-esque thing.

And that was the first time I actually went into the files, because I opened them, and I saw it was just buttloads of session files, and audio files, and no labeling, you know. So I just kind of targeted one and opened it up, and it was outlawed.

So I was like, oh, wow. And I looked at it, and there was this wah-wah guitar that I know was Tony Joe White that had been muted from the original, and we left it in our dang unit.

So that was the first time I kind of messed with it, and then I kind of shut the door on it again, because like it was just so much.

It was an overwhelming task, and I thought I didn’t really have the home studio to really go through it and do it right. And so it kind of sat on the shelf for about six years.

And then in like 2020, I was in the studio in June of 2020 doing this record with Yelawolfa called Sometimes Why. And I was in studio three, which is the room at Sunset Sound, which is the room that I rent now full time.

But I was, I loved that room, and I was recording that record in there. I asked Nate Haisley, who was the assistant engineer on the session, you know, to maybe help me go through it.

Because I thought, because we’re 2020, you know, everybody’s down, this would be a good time. But then like still, I would have had to like rent a studio. I didn’t really have a good home set up yet.

So it just kind of wasn’t right. And then once I got in the studio in 2024, I moved in in February and I did an AJ Croce record and a Charlie Crocker record. And then I had a couple of other things.

And then I had another big record in June. And then when I got like about a week before I started in June of 2024, this person canceled on me. And I was like, I got a whole month.

Let’s just try. Let’s open it up, you know? And so me and Nate Haisley, the same guy that I would talk to back in 2020 about it, I used like the full time assistant at Snake Mountain in my studio.

So like he just, he and I paired off into two computers and opened up the drives. And in fact, they wouldn’t work at first. And we had, and they were like corrupted.

And I had to go take them to a place for them to like restore it and everything. Nate was like freaking out. But I knew that there was another copy somewhere, but I still wanted it to work.

But we got it to work, and got in there, and made a new copy. And then we just started going through it, and it was like a lot of work.

Because since everything wasn’t labeled, we were having to kind of just sit at the computer and the minute lyrics happened, type them in and see if we can find it. And in most cases, we couldn’t. There were a lot of them.

We could not for a long time figure out what was going on. But eventually, it all kind of came into focus. And some of it’s still a mystery.

I’m still finding. But anyway, to answer your story, that’s how we got there. That’s when I went through it.

And we took us about a month and a half. And then started work immediately on mixing and getting Songbird prepared.

6:12

Hearing Waylon’s Voice Again

As a listener, it’s almost surreal to hear your dad’s voice singing these songs we’ve never heard from him before.

When you were first listening to these recordings, what was going through your head? How did you feel?

I was like, man, this has got to be AI. I was kidding. It was a dog’s name.

No, no, I like the same reaction. Like I was expecting, like when I was young, late 90s, like probably right before I moved to LA, he found a tinny of I’d Like to Love You Baby and it played it for me. And I remembered it.

Maybe it was even longer ago than that, but it was something in the 90s. He had found this tape in his old song and I remember thinking, wow, this is awesome. It sounds just like his hit songs at the time.

Look, why didn’t I ever release this? Just something that went by the wayside and he always liked it. So I thought at the very least, I’m going to look for I’d like to love you baby in there, because I knew that that existed.

I didn’t expect the sheer volume of stuff. But when you look at it in retrospective and you figure out what was going on and why all this stuff would release, it all starts to paint a picture of what was going on.

But at the same time, it’s like, man, I had the same reaction. I was like, I can’t believe I’m hearing this. This is wild.

I can’t believe all this is in here. I mean, the way Songbird was like a fourth or fifth song that I found and I was like, whoa. No idea.

No idea he had done that. I knew he did at one point, Gold Dust Woman and Rhiannon, but I never knew he had done Songbird. That’s one of my favorite songs on that album, on Rumors.

Anyway, it was surreal, you know? And then I immediately thought, I gotta get this out there to like, so you would have that reaction, you know? Like, that’s the thing.

It was so powerful. I was like, dude, this is gonna make a lot of folks happy, you know? And maybe heal some people in some ways, you know?

You’ve talked about how this is for, you did this for fans because you got the experience just like you just said.

8:26

The Myth vs. The Man

What are you hoping they take from it? What are you hoping fans grasp from this experience? Or is it more just you want it out there so that they can experience however they want?

Yeah, that’s how I feel.

I don’t want them to take anything necessarily from it. Just, you know, I think it’s a cool display of like the man and what he did like versus like the myth that kind of perpetuates after people die, you know?

I feel like he just loved music and he loved country music and loved recording. And to me, you know, there just wasn’t any like outlaw bravado involved in anything. It was just all this kind of innocent, creative exploration kind of thing.

And it was really cool because like basically like the bulk of the material, like the material kind of spans from, from when he won this battle with RCA like 1973 and 74. And that’s when they first started recording on their own.

And so I have stuff that goes back that far and it goes, I have stuff that goes into like the 90s, but really the bulk of it goes into like 85, 80-ish, 85-ish, and like if you were to look at the volume of, of stuff, if that was all lined up, it

would look like this because like, in like 77, 78, 79, 80, it’s just like crap loads of material. And it’s like, it’s, they were just, and during that period, he was renting the Cartin brothers studio full time, full for the whole year.

So the minute they get off the road, they just go right back in, record a bunch, go back out of the road, come back in, record a bunch, go back out of the road. Like even in here, there’s some recordings by like bands.

I’ve never heard, there’s like a rock band in there that sounds like, I don’t know if it’s like Jerry Bridges’ son’s band, or if it was like maybe, like when they were on the road, they would subred out the studio to people.

And this is just a band that recorded in there and I ended up with their recording, but it’s like definitely like 1980 rock. Like really interesting, you know?

So there was definitely a prolific period around, I’ve always been crazy in the albums to the left or right. You know?

When you were a kid, how did you experience your mom and dad as musicians?

10:42

Shooter’s Childhood on the Road

Were you on the road with them?

Yeah, I was on the road by, from the time that I can remember, they took me on the road until I started school. And so, which was, you know, not always like, they weren’t like, country tours were different than rock and roll tours, especially then.

So, there was a lot of like, weekend runs. There’d be some crazy stuff going overseas and all that. But like, once I started school, I would go in the summers.

When I was on the road, yeah, I remember the bus, sleeping in the bus. I remember the shows.

Like, you know, I still get like, kind of tired at concerts, I think subconsciously, because I was always like, going to sleep around that time when I was a baby, you know, when the concerts were on.

And I could like, whenever I go see concerts, like, it could be Metallica or whatever, like, I’m just like, yawning throughout the whole thing. I don’t know why.

Honestly, I didn’t, you don’t really know the difference until you get around other kids and realize like, oh, like, everybody’s parents aren’t musicians. But in Nashville, you do have the music business as a thing, so like, people are aware of it.

But I just remember music being just kind of permeating my life from day one, you know.

I can relate to the yawning at concerts thing, but that’s more of like a dad thing, our stage of the show started late.

I mean, I’m older than you guys, I think, right? I’m 46. How old are you guys?

I’m 41.

Yeah, we’re in the same general area.

It’s OK.

Well, let me tell you guys. We’re own sitting.

Let’s talk about the Songbird production a little bit. How did Waylon as your dad and your relationship with him influence the project versus Waylon as the artist and your relationship to his music?

12:20

Waylon the Artist vs. Waylon the Dad

I think I looked at it all from Waylon, the artist and his music, honestly.

When it came to what I was trying to do with the album, and there’s things in there, like the personal touches were to me, like I wanted to leave in all of the cracking up or the breaking, like when the drum kind of fall apart, and all those little

moments where he talks and stuff, like I wanted to leave all that in there because I thought that was cool, like that’s so much cooler. You know, like I made some choices in the mixing than I thought were, they were different from the records from

that time that he released. Like I used less reverb on his vocal than they did, and I like beefed up the EQ of the kick drum to kind of bring it to where it was like more like modern records, you know.

Those are the only two choices I made because I felt like his voice like being drier and you being able to really hear him made it better, and we weren’t covering it up. And then I wasn’t cosplaying the album as like a 70s album.

I was trying to like make it modern. So I just kind of kept it wide open. I didn’t fade anything and I didn’t, you know, didn’t oversaturate it with classic effects and stuff.

And really kind of let the music that was on a tape talk, because it was recorded so well and the arrangements were all there.

Like the stuff that I added to, besides Elizabeth Cook and Ashley Monroe on the title track, which was kind of an anomaly for the album, but the rest of it was for the living members of his band, The Wailers, just brought him in now to like, if there

was, it felt like it needed another guitar or another, the piano wasn’t there or something, we would just have them do it again now all these years later. So that would sound like the rest of it, you know?

Like I felt like what I could do was maybe, like, what I could do in the studio that I didn’t do any, like, there was no plugins and I was not using any digital manipulation or processing of any kind during the record, but I used Pro Tools as the

storage medium and as the editing medium. So in some of these situations, I think I was able to get the songs, like, where they were supposed to be. Like I said, most of them were all completely done.

But in the case of, like, After the Ball, which was one where it felt like they had gotten it done. He had done multiple local takes. So I’m like going through and able to cop his voice like I would do anybody else and all of this.

But there was no keys on it and or there was no acoustic, from the second acoustic or something on it. And then there was a second take where they nailed it. This ending thing that was going on.

And so I was like, I’m going to put that there because like this other take was so good and they matched up.

And I was able to do it right there and it really kind of without doing anything just settled that song in its place where you know where maybe they didn’t feel like they had done it.

But after the ball is over, after the ball, if you cannot stand, I’ve got a place for you to fall.

Otherwise, you know, and that’s the only one on this one that I did that to. I did that to another one on one of the other ones.

But but otherwise, like, I was making the decision of like, how to just finish it out and then mix it and make it feel as great as all his other great music, you know, and and and really kind of serve the songs and the recordings in that way and be

coming from it from a perspective of as a fan of his music, you know. My personal thing with it was was definitely there and getting to go through this whole other chapter with my dad was amazing.

I getting to see his really him and Richie and I’m Waylon Albright Jennings and I carry both their names and this was really their bodywork together. Like Richie was the engineer. He knew how to produce.

He was producing stuff. My dad and him would co-produce Hank Junior and projects because Richie would run the board. Like he knew how to do all that.

So really all this stuff is there. Their bodywork together because I don’t think my dad had Richie. This stuff would have been there.

So to be able to kind of do that for both of them and feel like I went into this work that you know the door got shut on it because the times changed. Like all that material, they didn’t know it.

But like as they were doing records, like my dad would like pull from this material. Like they were going in, off the road, into the studio all week, back on the road, back off the road, into the studio. And he was cutting everything.

Like it might be Songbird, it might be an obscure artist like Isaac Caton Sweat that wrote, I Hate to Go Searching in Bars Again. Like nobody knew, but we found that song, he loved it.

Or like a situation with Johnny Rodriguez, the Cowboy, which I think could have been a co-write, but even though it says on Johnny’s album, it was just in, it just felt like it was, but I felt like it was definitely written for my dad or something

because he cut it before Rodriguez and maybe just didn’t make it. Either way, he would like pull from this stuff over the years, like even later, if he needed a song for like an 84 album, he’d pull something like 76.

But what happened is like around 85, 86, I don’t know the year exactly, Richie, Richie had to take a break. So and my dad started working with producers again. So it was like the 80s were happening, the digital sound thing happens.

Everybody’s using digital tape at one point in the late 80s. And my dad starts doing like what he did like The Eagle. And like 87, 88, 89, these records he starts working with producers and sound like the sound of the 80s has now taken over.

So all of these guys, Cash, everybody like are doing all these records with even Chip’s Momin, you know, but even like his synthesizers and stuff they were using, it’s like starting to take over. And all of those guys tried to adapt to that.

So this material like became outdated in sound. It wasn’t with Richie, it had Richie on it.

It had this kind of, the book was opened and closed within like a 10 year period on this material and what didn’t get used didn’t get used was kind of what happened, you know?

So once I kind of went through all that and figured that all out it felt like a really cool journey to go along with my dad and with Richie but also to answer your question, it really was always the mindset is about the music and the fans and

Yeah, the timing is really interesting too because he said 73 at 85, so this is the period of his life right before you come into his life or when you’re a young child, probably before your memories of him start, so that snapshot in time is pretty

Yeah, there’s like a song that’s not on this, it’s on the next one, and it’s awesome, and it was recorded like Christmas Eve, like 79, which is the year I was born or something, like we were able to kind of pinpoint down to the date on that one.

So it’s cool, like see the pre and post, I was born in May of 79, so like it’s just interesting, like around that period, I was able to kind of figure out like what periods, by the layout of the sessions, because like when he was in the Cartier

Figuring out the puzzle of the story with like kind of that, that background technical information is kind of wild.

It’s like an old Billy Da Vinci code.

It was really fun, you know?

Old Billy Da Vinci code. So you have three albums of content.

20:07

Shooter’s Production Process

You were on the Rolling Stone National Now podcast, and you were talking about how they came together, why you put what song where, and you said it’s all about the vibe.

Is this something you do with all of the other artists to find the right vibe on an album? And was that process a little different in that Waylon is no longer with us and your father? Was there a different process that took place?

Yeah, because, I mean, there was so, you know, you know, there’s two answers that I guess, because on one hand, like, I don’t always, like, pick album set lists, like, for people, but sometimes I’m good at it.

And, like, when we did Charley’s last album, A Dollar a Day…

I’ll never be rich, I found out too soon Never could seem to get past the sun We knew we were making a trilogy of albums, and we’d finished album one, and here we were.

We were sitting with, like, 20 songs, 25 songs or something. And he was looking at, like, I don’t know what to do.

And so in that moment, I go, OK, let’s pull out, say, I grab a pen and paper, and I was like, here’s Dollar a Day, and here’s the other stuff that we can use for the editing. But I felt like it just worked, and he was into it.

So in this case, like, it was very much, I had a lot more material than I would normally have. And I normally am not suggesting the order of somebody’s album. Like I said, it’s worked a couple of times.

But in the case of this, I have a lot of material. So I didn’t want to release it all at once, because I’m like, let’s make this like last. Let’s like, if there’s enough stuff to release our multiple albums, then I’m going to stretch that out.

And then, you know, kind of make it like, like he’s here for a minute. So in that way, it kind of was starting to come, like this one came into focus pretty immediately.

I kind of knew what Songbird was going to be in and before I knew what the other two were going to be, but like I had to kind of get a bird’s eye view of it. But I guess I’m always kind of thinking that way when I’m working on albums with people.

Like I’m always thinking about the overview of the album and just what it is, what we’re doing and how many solos are like this and the other. So I guess in a way, I like doing that. I like conceptualizing things on a big scale.

So maybe, but in the case of this, I had so much material and I had no other opinion in ball. So I felt like let’s do it right.

Yeah. It’s interesting that you say it like that because there are a lot of great albums that I hear and I’m like, wow, this is an awesome, incredible album.

Then I look and you’re the producer of it, which I think goes to the style of you enhancing the folks that you work with, not necessarily putting your thumbprint on it, which is, I think, an incredible skill set that comes with production.

Because sometimes you know where it came from. So in a slight variation on that last question, when you’re working with other artists you don’t have a familial relationship with, how does that impact your process?

23:00

Shooter’s Relationship With Turnpike Troubadours

One specific example, I think, was the difference between Cat in the Rain and Price of Admission.

But for Turnpike, you guys didn’t know each other that well on the first one, and it sounds clean and different and pulled back a little bit from their earlier albums.

And then you toured with them for a while and played piano at some really large gigs.

And I think you may have posted something about it or I read it somewhere that you got to know them and their relationship to each other and to their fans during that period. Did that impact how you produced Price of Admission?

I’ll tell you, my perspective on it is that I had a lot of Turnpike Troubadours. I knew them in passing. I knew Kyle, the fiddle player, because he was always really nice and we had become friends early on.

And he was always like to his side projects that he had going on. So we always stayed in touch. And I liked Devin a lot.

But we had done some shows with them. I didn’t know them as a group. But when I got down there to to Fane Studios, they were coming off that hiatus.

So they were going through something on their own and kind of rebuilding their network with each other. So I felt like it was my job to really just provide a really safe place for that to happen.

And so we were there for like three weeks working on that. And then we had to come back to LA to finish it. That record had a long journey.

And I think it was one of those things where I loved the album. What I learned from the fans very quickly was that that, well like, on Cat in the Rain, right? Which is one of my favorite songs of theirs.

Like, and then that song still makes me like emotional. I remember it was the first song he sent me and just blew my brain. It was so heavy and well written.

But we had, there was a moment on that where we had like Dill and accordion and like steel going on at the same time, like the Dillen records do kind of. That is of course completely subjective and I have no problem with this.

But I know that I got a lot of backlash from mixes, from outlet, the fiddle wasn’t loud enough on the old record.

And there was some stuff about like, hey, couldn’t be playing both those instruments at the same time, which I get like that’s a literal thing, which is different. But I get it. It’s actually like it’s their thing.

And I really don’t, I wasn’t trying to take any liberties with them. I think in the sense of what was going on, everybody was on board was what was happening, because they were wanting to expand their sound a bit.

And I felt like with Mean Old Sen, we really did that. Like that song really felt like a jam. But at the same time, I listen to those fans, because I don’t want anybody upset with the records I do with them.

So the second time around, we were really hypersensitive over things. We made sure of a lot, just to make sure it had the turnpike sound.

Because this time around, they deliberately wanted, Evan deliberately had written probably their most country album to date. And he wanted it to be a country album.

And so we really went down the road of making it a country album for country album fans and for Turnpike fans. And it was just like anything that was a complaint, we try to take it into account.

Because obviously, I don’t want to create any controversy around these beautiful songs. I don’t say that Turnpike fans think I ruined their career, but it’s like, it was hard backlash, like hard backlash.

And with my name all over it, anywhere you looked on the internet. So it was like, for me, it was hard not to see that and go like, man, I hate that they have to see that. What is it about me that like makes people like go right?

He’s the reason that I don’t like this one thing, but I’m starting to like it. I didn’t like it, I’m starting to like it, but it’s still his fault. You know what I mean?

Like, so I’m not trying to sound like it, like butthurt or bitter, like I get it. Like when I love an artist and they do something different, I am the first person to be like, ah, they shouldn’t have done that.

They should have stuck with what they had gone, you know, or whatever. But there’s so much more complexity to just that, that statement that people don’t realize, you know?

And so for me, like, man, you know, I’m lucky every time Turnpike wants to work with me. I’m lucky every time Charley wants to work with me and American Aquarium and these guys that have come back. And I feel very fortunate about it.

So I always want to do right by them and their fans. And I never, ever want to do something that’s like, kind of put them out of their coverage zone. A lot of producers do that.

Like, I hear lots of stories about people go in and they just, they just make them do what they want them to do, make their version of that band, you know? And that to me is not what it’s all about.

It’s definitely not what it’s all about, because everybody likes the stuff that the bands came up with when they didn’t have anybody working with them. That was their favorite stuff.

So, like, the idea is to, like, just enhance that and not f*** with the formula, you know?

Yeah, and I think that that’s kind of my experience. I think a wild, rabid Turnpike fan has always been my favorite country band. And I found it to be refreshing and appropriate.

It felt like they were making a conscious choice. Didn’t, to me, feel like a change or a mistake or an error or a derivation. It felt like a conscious change.

And when we’re talking about kind of this other side of this project that you’re doing with your dad’s work, you didn’t do a lot to change much either.

28:58

Future Plans for the Jennings Family Archive

And then that’s been a big part of this.

As we go into the next albums, and I know you won’t talk about What’s On It or any of those things, were there other changes that you felt you needed to do for these other ones that you said are going to be a little bit more fun and a little bit

Yeah, number two in Songbird, it’s all a story.

Number three is kind of different, and I can’t really explain that any further. It will be different than the other two. But the next one that’s coming, and this one are kind of a pair, and they kind of tell a story in a way.

And then the third one is very much the same batch of material. It’s igniting, thought you’re going to do anything weird to anything. It’s just kind of hard to explain it.

It’s got its own thing. It will be like its own thing when it happens, you know? Yeah, it’s hard for me not to want to talk about it, but…

Well, we have to ask, right?

Yeah, I mean, the thing is, in between these three projects, there’s other things.

And there’s stuff that I’m getting and want to get out there. I mean, there’s stuff on my mom that’s not been heard. There’s stuff live stuff.

There’s stuff from The Wailers. There’s all this different stuff. So, it’s kind of like a little Marvel Waylon Universe, with all these tentacles going in different directions.

And I’m just trying to find different ways for all this stuff to be seen. Like, everybody loves Spider-Man, but like Ant-Man’s okay, too, you know?

And I feel like I got to get the Ant-Man’s out, too, as well as the Spider-Man’s, the Iron Man, you know what I mean? In a world where Waylon Jennings music is everywhere.

Yeah.

30:40

Shooter’s Legacy With His Own Kids

In the family universe.

Exactly.

Has any of this process changed how you think about your own legacy? You’ve got quite a catalog of your own solo work as an artist, and how your kids might either view it now or in the future.

Well, you know what’s so funny is like my kids are very sweet and they’re like, my daughter was more excited that I got to do this with my dad than about anything else.

But my kids are very, I don’t know, at this point they’re older, so I get to be a regular human being and they understand what it’s all about. You know what I mean?

Bama and Vodjak, they’re proud of me for doing all this, but I feel like this, it did change.

I actually kind of made me feel like this was, like if you get to, I got to a place here where I was, I know that the world brought me to this spot, like however I got into this studio and I’m in there in this moment when I decided to go through all

this stuff, but I definitely felt like, wow, like this is a purpose for my life is to do this because I’m pretty much the only person who knew them and knows the inside out of it like I do, that could go through this and translate it correctly. So in

that way it kind of gave me this kind of feeling of, okay well this is the next five, ten years of my life and I’m going to just dedicate my life to that even though I’ve got other projects like working in the studio. I mean, it’s hand in hand with

it. You know what I mean? It’s like I can move it from one record to this and continue this process. So I just see a lot of work and I see a goal line very clearly.

And so I just wanted to get this first one out there, have it not leak, have it get out there, have people know about it, and then let them know there’s more. And then it would be up to the race. And so that’s how I kind of feel.

And I feel relieved, but I also feel determined to get everything else completed. So that my kids don’t have to go through it all again and try and make sense of it.

They’re going to have to go through my shitty drive organization that I have working in the SLEO one day. But that would be a long time from now.

So you’ve been actively promoting this project on multiple platforms. You’ve been on many podcasts. You’re doing your stuff.

It’s kind of, it’s all over the place and you’re doing great work with that. Are there any questions that you were really surprised by or any questions that you thought you’d get that you never did?

I mean, not really, because everybody kind of has the same reaction to it. Like, it’s like, wow, this is great. Like, why wasn’t this released?

You know, and it was like, that was the first question I had to answer myself in a lot of it, you know? So everybody kind of has a different take on it. You know, it’s been cool.

Like, I talked to this dude at WSM and he was a real, like, songwriting guy. He just knew every songwriter in the old country stuff.

So he was actually telling me in this interview that I didn’t know about, like, Isaac Payton’s Sweat and about the guy who wrote about, you know, Helen Reynolds wrote Dream of My Dreams, wrote Wrong Road Again.

And so I was like, oh, it was like during that session. But anyway, like, you know, I’ve learned things.

You know, what was very cool, though, was that like everybody in every direction, the minute this project came across their desks, like, even like Billy Bob, like everybody pulled together to help, which was really cool.

Like Billy Bob’s in Texas paid, Waylon Jennings is still the king on the inside of their whole wall.

And that was just like from literally from Charley Crockett’s mouth to like that wall, because he was the one who was like, hey, you should just have this painted everywhere. And then, but everyone just did it.

You know, it’s like, yeah, because of who he was, like the cosmic goodwill that he had is like, just kind of caused it to go really well. Do you know what I mean?

It seems like it was so universally well-received and everybody was happy about it. And that doesn’t happen a lot, as I’m sure you know, right?

Yeah, that’s been great. I’m just very happy about it. You know, like, I knew it was special, but I’m just happy it’s been so well-received and everything went well, you know?

I was like, how do I release this? How is it going to happen? And I like, I just was like, you know what?

I’m going to tell people I found it first. And I said, that will pin me. Then I will just have control of this from that point forward.

If I let everybody know that I found this sh- before I even say there’s going to be anything. And that really was the thing that allowed me the time to do it.

And because the minute I made that post, which was Father’s Day in 2024, I had found the stuff. They were saying it on the radio and stuff. It was like going everywhere in country and stuff.

And I was like, okay, good. But now this got me ahead of the material because I didn’t know. Like luckily we found a great way to do it with Sonny that I didn’t know.

Some of the stuff was during the years when he was an RCA. I didn’t know what kind of legal things we were going to run into.

So I knew that I just needed to establish that I had all this material first and tell everybody about it and then say standby. And then I could start feeding information and then we’ll drop the song and announce it and it worked perfectly, man.

And I was worried that it would just go under the radar, you know, but it worked, it worked perfectly.

So I’m very happy with all of it and everybody who came on board at the 30 Tigers team and like 10k advertising that really like blew it up all of the billboards everywhere.

Like they did just, everybody did such a good job, all the artists that made all this stuff. It was almost like it was all too easy in a way because then everything went together so perfectly.

Based on what you said, it seems like this was a very easy process, you know, thousands of hours of tape you had to go through, legal battles.

36:30

What’s Next for Shooter?

Yeah, real easy. Yeah, it seems like it was real easy.

Well, that stuff was, it was not easy. And like I said, it felt like I was in a river and I just needed to float down and I would end up where I was supposed to go. So I just kept my nose like, hey, this is what we’re doing.

We’re going to release this. We’re going to do this. And we got it out.

One more question.

Beyond the next two Waylon albums, what are you most excited about working on these days that you can talk about?

Well, man, I mean, I’m excited right now. I’m back in with Charley Crockett, and then I’m going to go right out of that into American Aquarium again. And I love BJ and I love that band.

I love Charley. Like, Charley’s one of my best friends. And so right now, this is the highlight for me of my year because I’m getting to work with these bands that I love and have worked with.

And it’s just such a joy to get to do albums with. I’m excited. I’m in the middle of an awesome project.

And the week and a half, I’m going to be at the beginning of another awesome project. So that’s what I’m excited about.

Yeah, man.

I think we’ll close it out because I know you got to get back to work, man. And all the stuff going on.

We’ll have, man.

Now it’s all good.

I’m glad this worked out.

Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you so much for making the time for us. Thanks for listening.

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That’s right.

So stay tuned for our next episode and until next time, whether you’re at the dance hall, the playground, or just folding some laundry. Thanks for tuning in. We’ll talk to you soon.

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