Brian Whelan is a professional musician with a range of impressive credits to his name. He’s supported Post Malone’s early forays into country music, was a mainstay in Dwight Yoakam’s studio band and supported one of last year’s best albums, Jake Owen’s Dreams to Dream. In addition to his studio work, Whelan is a regular on stages across Southern California and beyond.

Like so many musicians based in Los Angeles, he called Altadena home. The proximity to recording studios, affordable and interesting housing and a slower pace of life were appealing.
Along with his wife, they welcomed their twins home to the city, and not long after that, their lives changed, along with so many others, on a windy night in January. More than 9,400 structures burned down in that fire that raged through the hills and neighborhood east of Los Angeles. 

The Dads speak with Whelan about music, the impact of the Eaton fire on the music scene in LA, especially the roots, Americana and country scenes, and how being a dad, growing up and getting “Pro Vibed” have provided balance in his life and approach. 

Show Notes

2:20 – Brian claims he knew he’d be a performer at 6 years old—and never looked back. As he got older, he became a “liner note junky” and knew he wanted to be one of those guys.

4:22 – Becoming a father drastically shifted his priorities and changed his idea of time. Brian flipped the script on Dave and Donnie and put the question on them — always a good guest power mover. 

7:50 – The Kid Happy Hour: Putting on the greats, right after kid dinner and before bath and bed, the family gets some music, the parents get some drinks, and everyone dances. 

9:59 – Brian has mixed feelings about having his kids go into the arts, but he will support them no matter what. But that is sometimes a bit harder said than done, and the guys explore that kind of support. 

15:35 – Exploring how a session player helps develop and advance the sound of an artist’s album, Brian explains that he sees himself as a connector and supporter of music. Almost as important is how he’s matured as a person, and how his fatherhood and getting “Pro Vibed” have played into that process. 

20:05 – We talk about Dwight Yoakam and how much Brian learned and grew when working in his band. 

24:00 – Discussing Jake Owen’s most recent album and his role in “the five-piece band in the middle of “Hollyweird.” 

31:50 – The impact of a local haunt on the trajectory of Brian’s career — a personal history of the Cinema Bar in Culver City. 

37:05 – Eaton Fire and the long-term impact. Brian lost his first home, most of his guitars and most of the family photos. But his kids gave him and his wife purpose. He had a place to put his energy — and his kids gave him an incredible gift.

45:18 – The Dad Life Sound Check!

Thank you for listening. The best way to support us is to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or whatever podcast platform you use. If you want to see new episodes and more content delivered straight to your email inbox, please subscribe to our newsletter: countrymusicdads.substack.com. You can find everything we do on our website: countrymusicdads.com. And we’d love to hear what you think, so send us comments, suggestions, friendly banter on Instagram @countrymusicdads, or via email countrymusicdads@gmail.com.

Mentioned in this Episode:

• Marissa R. Moss on Jake Owen in the Don’t Rock the Inbox newsletter
• Brian Whelan’s website
• Cinema Bar
• MusiCares (sp?)
• Tom T. Hall’s children’s record Country Songs for Children 
• Vincent Neil Emerson’s health issue post
• Tender Country – Thomas Csorba
• Review of Tender Country
• Country Cutler newsletter for new music discovery
• Nathan Evans Fox interview
• Children’s books episode

References:

• Theme Music: “Dark Country Rock” by Moodmode
• Second Hand Heart – Dwight Yoakam
• I’ll Pay the Price – Dwight Yoakam
• Dreams to Dream –  Jake Owen
• Barefoot Blue Jean Night – Jake Owen
• Wouldn’t Be Gone – Jake Owen
• Can’t Let Go – Lucinda Williams
• I Love – Tom T. Hall
• Fox on the Run – Tom T. Hall
• The Great Highway – Vincent Neil Emerson
• He Would’ve Loved This – Thomas Csorba
• Little Green Apples – Thomas Csorba

Transcript

This week on Country Music Dads, we welcome Brian Whelan, a singer-songwriter, producer, sideman, and all-around utility player, to talk about his role as a musician, a father of twins, and how life is going a year and a half after the Eaton Fire

burned down his house. We are the only parenting podcast with a twang, so whether you’re a dad, a Country Music fan, or a little bit of both, we’re here to help. Where the red dirt road of Country Music meets the long white line of modern fatherhood.

That’s where we live, and we’ll see you there.

Brian Whelan is a professional musician with a range of impressive credits to his name. He supported Post Malone’s early forays into Country Music.

He’s a mainstay of Dwight Yoakam’s studio band and served in that five-piece band at the heart of Hollyweird on one of last year’s best albums, Jake Owen’s Dreams to Dream.

Whelan is also a solo artist and works closely with a good friend of the podcast, Ted Russell Camp. In addition to his studio work, Whelan is a regular on stages across Southern California and well beyond.

Like so many musicians based in LA, he called Altadena home. The proximity to recording studios, affordable and adorable housing, as well as a slower pace of life were all appealing.

Along with his wife, they welcomed their twins into the city of Altadena. Of course, that all changed on a very windy night in January of 2025.

More than 9,400 structures burnt down that night and well beyond as the raging fire burned through hills and neighborhoods east of Los Angeles.

While everyone in his path lost a great deal, the Eaton Fire had a major impact on the music scene in Los Angeles, especially the roots Americana and country scenes, believe it or not.

Today we’ll talk about the tunes, building a family, as a working studio musician, and how dealing with loss of their home while raising two babies impacted him as a dad, a husband, and a musician. So thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for having me. Sounds good. Well written, well done.

Thank you.

Very accurate.

We try to be an accurate and well written podcast here.

Sometimes we stumble.

A for accuracy.

2:16

Early Music Path

Let’s start with some lighter stuff as opposed to, you know, houses burning down.

How’d you get started in music? When did you know that would be your career?

Very early. I was on stage at six years old. I was looking for some way to be on stage at six.

Went to my kindergarten teacher and asked to perform at an assembly, K through five or whatever it was and sang La Bamba and Buddy Holly and things like that. My parents were not stage parents and they were just like, what is going on?

But they were very supportive and always helped out. I started taking piano lessons when I was eight and I poked around at which job, which role I wanted to do like you mentioned, I’ve written songs and I’ve produced records and things like that.

But when I look back, I was always a liner note junkie and I really liked LPs and CDs and reading about who played on the records or when they recorded it. You would see these names and back then, there was no YouTube.

So when you would see Wadi Wachtel or Don Effington or Bob Glaube, or all these people who played on a zillion records, I wouldn’t know what they look like. But I wanted to be one of those people and that job takes a long time.

It’s completely a word of mouth type of occupation. So I did tour for a long time. I toured for about 15 years with various bands, but I always did want to be.

A session player and I’ve just slowly built that up. And as much as I love performing, getting to work in recording studios seems to fit this moment because it allows me to not travel. But also I think I can contribute in that context as well.

Not just being out on the road, playing the same set every night, but actually trying to help people create.

4:13

Parenthood Perspective Shift

So you have 18 month old twin boys.

So you’re a fairly new parent and straight in the fire with two, the two for one, which must be intense. What has changed in your career, your musical life since they came along?

Trying to find a way to express this to people. And I don’t want to be negative, but it’s hard to care very much about the music business when I’m being a first time parent. You know what I mean?

I have to actively work at that and focus to be present at my job. And to do my job basically is effectively when I kind of want to be at home. I’m very aware of missing.

I would actually be curious to hear your thoughts because I know, Donnie, you have older kids. And David, you have a range of ages of your kids. But I’m just so aware of every minute I’m not with them.

I’m acutely aware of it. And I just want to be there. We had the luxury of hiring a nanny to help us for about a year from like when they were six months to 18 months.

And I was still there. My wife and I were both basically like still there, like the whole time. I guess I’m just really aware of the time slipping away and like missing anything that I miss.

If I go away for a weekend and I come back, they’re different. I’d be curious to hear, was that your experience as well?

I’ve been a stay-at-home dad for six years, so I was definitely aware of that feeling. And my wife and I, fortunately, we had that luxury to be able to, for me to scale back from my previous career in aerospace.

Because we were both feeling spread thin, and I feel like that’s a very common feeling amongst any new parent. Things change so much right away, like overnight, literally, when the baby comes.

I can’t imagine two babies coming at the same time, because with four kids, now I really feel like my time is split, even though I am here all the time. That’s my full-time job.

Just carving out enough time to focus on each of them individually, and giving them what they deserve, and still getting work done around the house. I don’t think I’ll ever feel settled. There’s always a tension I think that we’re going to have.

I grew up with a stay-at-home dad.

My mom worked, and she went away for six weeks, sometimes for her job, a couple of times a year. And the tension for me is, I think, a little different. And I think part of it is my disposition and then also my kids.

They’re older now, and I think that makes a huge difference. And I really do remember every night getting down on the carpet and playing with them and all of these things. But we were two working parents in office jobs when we had our first kids.

And our first kid came home, and eight weeks later, ten weeks later, he was at daycare. And so it’s just a very, I think everybody has a little different game to play in figuring all that out.

And I don’t think we could have done it any differently, especially because of the disposition of our children. They both wanted to be out and playing and being social with other kids. You got a built-in playmate, so you got that going for you.

And for me personally, I didn’t feel like I was missing something. I just didn’t feel like I was doing it right. No matter what I was doing, I felt like I was doing it wrong.

And that, I think, is a tension that I feel a lot, unfortunately. But the balancing act, I think, is real.

And you mentioned this as we were getting started, and this was actually a huge part for me for both of my kids, is that both of my kids, when they were little, loved listening to music and dancing around and being silly.

I taught both my boys to two-step because I love doing it, and they’re little, and I could pick them up and spin them around. It was fun. You mentioned your kids are into the music.

Do you end up playing for them, or is it more that you’re putting on stuff and exposing them to the greats or things like that?

Yeah. We play music a lot in the house. It’s a daily.

There’s usually a happy hour, like at five. They may finish dinner, and then before they start their bath and bed routine, there’s an hour to kill. My wife is usually finishing up work, and so we’re all there together, and we put on music.

To me, the 60s is just the golden age of popular music, including country music, which I know is what this is about. There’s a lot of that music, George Jones, and Merle Haggard, and Buck Owens, and things like that.

But Motown, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Stax, Otis Redding, and Booker T, and things like that. It’s, yeah, in a way, it’s what my parents did for me. And it’s just, they had their baby boomers, so it’s their, it was their s***.

But it also is kind of the best s***. My parents gave me, they had good taste. There’s a lot that they just didn’t listen to.

They didn’t really listen to Merle Haggard. You know what I mean? They had a couple of country records, but they had these kind of main Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Beatle Stones.

They had some of the kind of main stuff, and just set up a foundation, which I could use as a springboard to go out into the world and figure out all the rest of it, and where I want it to be in it.

So yeah, the kids get music every day, and they love it. They dance, they play little instruments and clap. And then there’s also, there’s a guy who does a music class in the park here, South Pasadena, every week.

We take them to the music class once a week, and they, I know it’s great to you, because it’s interaction with other kids. There’s no way that music is not going to be a part of their life and part of their kind of foundation.

I have mixed feelings about them going into the arts in general, although they’re going to do whatever they are going to do. And I would, I would always support them.

But in my heart of hearts, I feel it would be hard to watch them go, go do what I did. It’s just kind of a hard road. So we’ll see.

They’re young still. They’ll have an appreciation. There’s no way that both their parents are huge music lovers and work in the music business and it’s a musical home.

So there’s just no way that it’s not going to be a part of their life. And I’m curious to see how it all shakes out.

That’s like, you know too much about the lifestyle. I can’t recommend this.

Anytime one of them does something that sounds like singing in tune or sounds like they have rhythm, I’m like, oh, no. I’m like, can they do it?

You have a minute or two to worry about that.

My parents didn’t have a minute or two.

That’s true.

Like I said, it was like six years old. Where’s the microphone? And they were shocked by the whole thing.

So you just never know. I know you guys, a lot of baseball, right?

Oh yeah. Big baseball in our household.

I would be thrilled. I will attempt to push them in that direction. If they get really into it, I will be thrilled.

I’m not a baseball player, but I would just, whichever direction they want to go, whatever they’re into, I’m just going to be there the same way my dad was.

Yeah, I coached baseball with this guy who is a music teacher and he played baseball growing up. His son is just not into either of those things.

And he was telling me how just painful a little bit that is to have to take that approach, the process you’re describing. And I think that I would want to take also, let’s be curious and see what our kids are into and support whatever it is.

But when it’s not something that matches with the things you love, it’s, oh, really?

Yeah, like I said, I have a very mixed feeling about that because I love music, but I also am, it’s risky.

It’s hard to live that. It’s easier to say, I will say that too.

Yeah, liking music is one thing, but making it your job is another thing. And there’s a lot that they don’t tell you. And it’s not my parents’ fault.

They didn’t know either. They knew it was risky, but no one can tell you what it means to go try and make a living playing music. You can only just go do it.

And everyone has a different kind of thing. You had Ted Camp on here. It’s like Ted Camp and I have been friends for 20 something years.

We’ve been friends forever. And I’ve played a million shows and traveled a million miles and all this stuff. And it’s like Ted and I have wildly different takes about the whole thing.

Everyone is different, but it’s like you make that choice to go and do it. It’s more than a hobby. Do it for a living.

You learn a lot. It’s never what you think it’s going to be. But that’s also, it’s like whenever these kids end up doing, it’s not going to be what they think in it.

Even if they were like, I’m going to be a lawyer. And you’re like, oh, okay, my troubles are over. They said they want to be a lawyer.

It’s like, there’s obviously more to that than we would know or that they would know.

There is a reason why the grass is always greener. Willie may have told us to be doctors and lawyers and such, but I got to imagine that’s a rough go as well. My sister’s a doctor and I’ve now seen the training side of that.

That is a messed up life that they live for a while there. You never know. You never know.

And supporting your kid, no matter what, is wildly important and real difficult to do. I think that’s probably one of the hardest things to do as a parent. Because when you see them doing that thing, you’re like, don’t do that.

And as they get older, as they get closer, they get to adulthood, I’m sure it gets harder.

It’s easy to support them when they’re 18 months. You know what I mean?

Well, I think what I support is what you called a happy hour, the time after dinner and before bath time. I think I want to rebrand that time in my house because that is not a very happy time at our house.

We call that the witching hour.

Yeah, man. So I like that new perspective. Make it happy hour, play some music, make it fun.

So I’m not trying to steal that.

It very much is the witching hour. My mom calls it that.

And like what you said, I can’t imagine because my kids are a little younger, but having that eight to zero spread over four kids, I think they all kind of get kind of tired and grumpy at that time.

I get tired and grumpy also. Yeah.

I knew it and my wife does. It’s an extension of how my wife and I relate to one another. We’ve been married for five years, but we’ve been together.

It’ll be 14 years this month. And so when you’re with someone that long, which you guys understand, it’s not always rosy, right? And so it’s like you have to find that common language.

And a lot of what it is with my wife and I is listen to music. That was how we bonded in the very beginning, was almost like this John Cusack mixtape thing.

That’s a little bit of an extension of how we get through, and how we deal with the ups and downs of life and of our relationship. And so the kids are like, it’s five, and they’re kind of pissed off just because they’ve been up all day.

Now, you should try to dance to some music and listen to this Booker T. I think you’re going to like it. It’s going to take your mind off your troubles.

15:32

Session Musician Craft

Back to your music career here.

So you have some incredible credits to your name, and I have a list here that you can also fact check for us live. Dwight Yoakam, Benjamin Todd, Whitey Morgan, Jamie Wyatt, Rod Melanson, who goes by Rod Gator now and-

Rod Gator.

Lucas Nelson, Post Malone, Donnie mentioned earlier. So that’s a wide range of folks and styles. So what do you see your role as a player on those recordings from an artistic perspective?

That’s a great question.

One of the things that I learned that’s really important is just how to be in a band, which sounds very broad, but it’s a supportive role. Like you’re there to glue it together. And so I generally serve that purpose.

I play guitar and keyboards and sing harmony with other people who are singing lead. Those are supportive things. Those are not things that are really typically featured or like in the spotlight in a mix of a record.

I also studied music theory in piano lessons in high school and college. And so I can help on that level in terms of knowing what’s going on. 99% of the world are not musicians.

And so when they listen to music, they’re feeling it. They’re having a visceral reaction to music. And I, for better or for worse, am listening to it with like a T square.

You know what I mean? And so, and I feel it too sometimes, but like I speak the language and I’ve listened to a million records and analyzed a million records.

Feel like when I’m in a recording session, I can go, well, you know, what would be really cool for this record would be this other thing from this record. And then the last thing I would say, and this is more of a new thing.

When I was in my 20s, I was really a talented guy, but I was also a giant a**hole. I was an ego maniac, a lot of us are in our 20s.

And I have started to be hired for my sense of humor and my positive attitude less than, I mean, I do gigs sometimes where they have me standing there holding an acoustic guitar, and I’m like not even really part of the music that you’re hearing.

So it’s like, well, why am I here? And it’s like, I’m here because I’m lightening the mood. That’s a newer part of my job.

Because when I was a kid, that would never have happened. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Has that been, say, in the last 18 to 24 months?

For sure. No, no, it’s definitely, it’s part and parcel. But it did, it started before.

It’s just growing up. It kind of started at the end of my, somewhere in my 30s. And there’s a lot of things that kind of go into it.

I would say aging is a big one, becoming a father, becoming a husband. But I also, I’ve been yelled at by country greats, let’s say. And it’s, it’s a really good thing to happen.

Like when it’s happening or to be on a recording session with a bunch of people who you guys from Liner Notes that I read when I was a kid, who I idolized and it’s like, I am the butt of a joke or get made fun of or say the wrong thing, put it in my

mouth or whatever. That is the best shit that can happen. It’s like when it’s happening, it sucks. But then you realize that you are like, that’s how you go from being 25 and being an a**hole to being 45 and being someone that someone wants to hire.

That’s a big part of it. It’s a part of learning and understanding your shortcomings and your limitations and saying something that you go, oh my God, I’m never going to say that ever again. It’s all really good stuff.

Definitely something that any profession or person or human being, I think, can relate to the, oh no, I wish I could put that back in my mouth.

That could be a section of our podcast, oh no, I wish I could put that back.

Of course, and I still have that, but my friends and I joke about it and call it a Pro Vibed. You can Pro Vibed somebody, but you can also be Pro Vibed.

And getting Pro Vibed by somebody is, it’s not great when it’s happening, but it’s great in a vacuum. It’s kind of a great thing to happen and you grow. You go from that.

19:49

Yoakam Owen Collaborations

I would assume it’s possible that you may have been alluding to the person I’m gonna ask about next.

I’d love to talk a little bit about Dwight Yoakam. He’s a legend. You’ve been playing with him for many years according to your credits.

Tell us a little bit about him and his vibe. And are the jeans really that tight? That’s I’m dying to know.

Yeah, the jeans are custom made, I think.

They’re made to fit the man in the mirror. No, Dwight, so I think that I’m a fan, and I think that Dwight is great. What I have to say is I got very lucky to be in Dwight’s band.

I was very young. It happened at a time in my life when I really needed something to happen. There had been a lot of kind of bad stuff happening, personal and professional stuff that was all very negative.

And I was about 28 years old or 27, 28, and wasn’t quite sure if I was kind of cut out for it. And I got recommended for Dwight’s band. And there was like no audition.

I went to meet him in his office and he goes, hey, this job is you’re going to play a bunch of different instruments. And he goes, you can sing. I go, yeah, I can play piano.

Yeah, play guitar. Yeah. He goes, okay, you also have to play pedal steel for this game.

And I was like, I got to be honest with you. I don’t know how to do that. I’ve never played pedal steel.

And he goes, are you willing to, are you willing to try? I couldn’t have known this at the time, but that’s him. He doesn’t care if the guy in his band doesn’t know how to play the instrument.

He wants the guy who will say yes and will take the ride with him because he knows. And then for several years, I was always explaining to him that I, what I didn’t know until I figured out that it’s like, well, he knows, he knows what I don’t know.

He’s played with some of the best pedal steel players of all time. And so he knows. Dwight gave me a gift to have me in his road band for about five years.

And even when I left the road, he had become playing his record. I played on the record that came out last year. I do this kind of serious show for you going to go play with Raoul Malone, and Jamie Johnston, and just whoever he has on his show.

And it’s a gift. The things I learned working particularly in the studio with him is a gift. He’s recorded historic Hollywood studios, Capitol and East West, and Ensign and there.

He only likes to record in places that they built in the 60s. And so it’s like, it’s a tremendous, amazing gift. He’s an intense guy.

He’s a perfectionist. I have been yelled at by him a few times. For sure.

And I was all, and I deserved it. You know what I mean? I didn’t ever feel in retrospect that he was yelling at me for no reason.

But he does, whatever, however you would describe the artistic temperament, he has that. I always kind of say in terms of the day to day, it’s like a lot of other kind of jobs you could mention were there or it is just, it’s a job.

And so there are things about it that can be annoying or drive you down and then there are things about it that are rewarding. Most important thing I would say about Dwight is that two or three times I really needed him to show up in my life, he has.

I mean, when we had the fire, he’s the first person I called because he’s the only person I know who had a house burned down. I didn’t know anyone else who had had that. And he called me and talked to me about it for an hour.

Because we’re not close friends, we don’t talk all the time. But it’s like when something like that happens, he shows up. He’s a pretty amazing guy, in my opinion.

That’s pretty wildly incredible.

And you know, it’s not necessarily something that is part of his public persona. I don’t know. I’ve not heard those great stories before.

I’ve never heard anything bad about him ever. It’s just really nice to hear when the guys who are good at what they do are also good human beings.

There are a number of, and I think that it would probably be best to not name these people, but there are a number of artists who play this kind of music.

Some of them live in LA, some of them live in Nashville, they live in different places, but they’re comparable gigs. There are people who are Dwight’s age and they play the same size venues, and they’re all very good. I’m fans of all these people.

When I started working for Dwight, I didn’t know any of this, and then over the years, I came to find out that I was working for the best one, at least for me. You know what I mean? Maybe someone else might have a different take on that.

But for me, I learned a lot. He never missed a paycheck a single time. There was never any drama about hate, stuff like that.

I have nothing but positive things to say about Dwight, and I’m very lucky that I got to go hang out with him and watch him write songs and record songs, and all that stuff as a gift.

I’d like to take a quick turn on to another person who has a pretty substantial, fairly positive public persona as well, is Jake Owen. You worked on his last album, that he did out here in LA, Dreams to Dream.

Which really was one of my absolute favorite albums I heard last year. It shocked me to listen to it, because I will admit full-throated love for his pro country, his proto-bro country. I love his music.

I think it’s super fun. It’s always a proto-bro country. He brought in that wave.

He was the original guy. Barefoot Blue Jeans Night is a get off the freeway so you can put the windows down and turn it up type of music. It is never a bad song when the weather is nice.

I love that song. But this album really puts that on its head and I think shows Jake in a very different light. This album feels wildly timeless but also very specific.

How was it being in the room for that one? It really did feel like of the moment but could have been recorded almost any time in country music history.

I agree. And thanks for the kind words. A lot of this is a conversation about Sheeter Jennings.

I think that Jake Owen, I’ll put it this way, to give him his due. That’s my favorite thing that I’ve done for Sheeter. And I’ve done a number of his projects.

And it was, as far as being in the room, Jake’s for real. He’s a for real singer. And he brought like a hard drive and it had all these songs.

And basically what he did, because he’s, he has like you had mentioned, he’s been working on Music Row, that’s called Radio Country, right? For like a decade or however long it is. And so he knows all these people who work on Music Row.

And he said to all of them, give me all your songs that are to Country for Country Radio. And so he now has a hard drive, 100 and some, however many songs he had on this thing. And he and Shooter and the other producer is Kendall Marvell.

He’s another, who’s like a Music Row writer and an artist too. And they would sit there and go, what do you want to do? They would go and do this one and then they would play it.

And then he would kind of try to play it. And then they would do it again. Maybe this one, play a song, he would play it.

And then they would like pick which one they were gonna do. And also every demo that you’re hearing is some guy in Nashville who’s like singing his ass. Like all these great songs and whoever’s singing it is great.

And Jake was great, Kendall was great. It was a very fun thing to be included in. Kind of goes back to your previous question.

I mean, I was like, there was Chris Masterson was playing the guitar there. So I was like the other guitar or keys or singing or playing acoustic guitar. So I was just, I was like total auxiliary guy in the context of that record.

But like I said, it made it go. It’s very much a conversation about Shooter Jennings in that there are a lot of people coming from Nashville to work at his studio with him because they can’t make the record they want to make in Nashville.

And that’s someone like Jake Owen, who I would argue is pretty well established to some artists who are brand new, trying to break in. Someone like Benjamin Todd is somewhere in the middle.

But none of them feel, at least in my, this is probably subjective, but I don’t think any of them feel that they can make the thing they want to make there.

It’s like Nashville, in my opinion, has a couple of paths that you’re allowed to take and that’s it. You can obviously do the radio, music row type of music, or you can do something more akin to like a Jason Isbell type of music.

Then if it starts to color outside of those lines, it’s harder to get it done. I think that probably is true here too, to a certain extent. But in Shooter’s mind, he wants to do the record that you want to do.

He doesn’t care how weird it is. He’s able to do it. It’s kind of who he is.

He doesn’t care. He also has the right name to be able to do that. He has a platform to be able to say, I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks about.

This is the record you want to make. If you want to make it, then I want to make it. Let’s go make it.

It’s crazy how few people, producers have that approach. That’s how the Jake Owen record got made. He’s like, I want to make a record that sounds like, hey, Junior in the 70s or Whelan in the 70s.

She was like, great, perfect. Let’s do it. Let’s do it right now.

The coverage of that album was pretty wild.

I remember Marissa Moss, who’s now with Rolling Stone, I think she wrote it up and saying that Jake Owen had been talking about making that record for 15 years.

It was like he wanted to do something like this from the very beginning, but it’s not what the label wanted to do. It’s not what he could do at the time.

He didn’t have the capital, both financially by himself, as well as an artist in the industry to go grab all these songs, be able to pay for them all, grab a band of killers in Los Angeles and a Grammy-winning producer, and put it together.

It’s really something else. But it’s a testament to LA. I think that’s something to be said, but I think it’s also a testament to the power and skill of all the guys in Nashville.

Because those songs came from folks from Nashville, and he’s a Nashville product. Right.

That’s why I always include that part of the story where it’s, yeah, all the writers, all those songs came out of Nashville, and those writers are feeling the same squeeze as Jake.

Where it’s like they have these songs that are on their computer that they just know that they can’t even pitch. But they’re good songs. It’s a much more complicated discussion than we probably have time for.

It just begs the question of like, what is going on down there that you have this kind of happening over and over again by the people who are doing it, the people who are writing the shit, the people who are singing the shit.

They don’t have as much control as the, call them gatekeepers, you know what I mean?

Wouldn’t Be Gone, I think, was like that one. Absolutely blew my mind.

Oh, it’s amazing.

That song is, it’s such a vivid illusion. I could talk about this album all day.

I’m really glad you like it. Like I said, I’ve maybe done, I don’t know, maybe like 10 records a shooter or something like that. It’s not that many, but that’s definitely my favorite that I got to be involved with.

31:56

Cinema Bar History

Speaking of LA, I noticed on your bio on your website you mentioned the Cinema Bar, which is in my neighborhood out here on the west side, and I really like that place.

Where does that place fit into your history and the LA scene?

That place is huge in my history. I went there on my 21st birthday as part of my 21 run. I was in a band and one of the guys from the band was a little older, a little older than me, and he was like, you’re going to love this place.

He’s like every other Saturday, there’s a guy there named Randy Weeks who’s playing. And Randy Weeks, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Randy Weeks, but he wrote Can’t Let Go, which is on Lucinda’s Car Wheels on the Ground.

That’s not like his claim to fame.

And he had all these guys in his band, he had Mike Stinson, who’s a great singer-songwriter. Mike Stinson was playing drums in Randy’s band. And the guitar player was a guy named Tony Gilkison.

It was a huge influence on me as a guitar player. He was an X. And then the bass player was a guy named Josh Grange, who’s the guy who ultimately got me into Dwight’s band.

So this is the band that I am starting to now go see every other Saturday. You know what I mean? Because I lived in Culver City for a while, too.

But it was really, you know, LA has had a number of country music waves. And country music is probably not quite broad enough. I would call it like American roots music.

There’s obviously the big one in the 60s, which kind of all, and then Buck and Merle and everyone that was like recording in LA. And then you have the Burrito Brothers, the Grand Parsons bringing country music to the hippies.

And then like in the 80s, there’s X and Los Lobos and Dwight and all. You know, Jim Lauderdale and Dale Lotson and Lucinda, they all lived in LA at the same time. They all lived in LA at the end of the 80s.

And so this was like the jippy tail end. A bunch of those people had left. And then there was this like the very end of that wave was in 2001, 2003, something like that.

Which is when I, so I caught the kind of end of that. And within a few years, a lot of those people, Mike and Randy, they had left LA.

And those other people I’d mentioned, Buddy Miller, Dale Lotson and Jim Lauderdale, they had left, Rosie Flores, they had already left. Everyone left LA.

And so I’m kind of going far afield from the question, but the short version is the Cinema Bar was a big, if I hadn’t had gone there, oh, and by the way, on my 21st birthday when I was there, we were there the wrong Saturday. It wasn’t ready.

It was Eugene Edwards. That’s who was playing there that night. And so I joined his band after that as like a 21 year old kid.

That’s how long I’ve known Eugene.

That’s a minute.

So yeah. And so like that world, Randy, Mike, Eugene, all these people, the Cinema Bar was something of a hub at the time. It was just part of the kind of rotation for all of these artists.

And I spent many, it’s not even the only birthday I spent there. I’ve been there on three or four birthdays. I just for playing gigs.

I’ve spent a million nights there. And my life would have been very different if I hadn’t discovered it, if I hadn’t been hip to it. And it still is cool.

I remember it different from how it is now. It’s just how it is with everything. It still is cool, but still just has a vibe.

It’s the only bar in town that’s like that.

It’s cool to hear the history, because if you walk in, it does not scream like Country Music or Americana. It’s kind of like your Movie Buffs dive bar here in Culver City.

Well, it was the inspiration for Grand Old Echo. The women who started Grand Old Echo, or Cinema Bar of Dentistry, Ken Grant, and Pam Moore, and Liz Garrow were all part of that world. And they started it.

And the irony is I worked at Desert Five Spot for a year. And it’s like they don’t even know that they’re f***ing inspired by the Cinema Bar. You know what I mean?

But they are. And really what it all is, it all comes from the Palomino. The Palomino is the inspiration for all of it, whether they know it or not.

And I’m sure that the Cinema Bar, they were concurrent for a brief time. But it’s like, it’s all kind of parting that tradition of country music and rock and roll fusing in Hollywood and always an opportunity for like a talent night.

It’s like local bands, national acts, talent night. And that’s the idea, is to have all of that together.

The Cinema Bar was one of the first places I ended up going when I started going out in LA, because someone was like, hey, you got to go to the Cinema Bar, this person’s playing there.

And I walked in and I had very little concept of how big people were and how important small places are in such a big city. And that joins tiny. And you walk in there and they’re beyond the number of people who could safely be in there.

And the vacuum suck of the cigarette smoke coming through from the back patio when the door opens and the bathrooms that are also like a storage facility and the pedal steel players sitting on the booth. It is a vibe in that spot.

It’s funky.

And if you don’t smoke, you do now if you go there. It’s like, breathe deep, you’re going to get a nice little nicotine high.

37:34

Fire Recovery Resilience

So as we said in the beginning in the opening, we talked a little bit about the Eaton Fire. You had made your home with your wife and then your twins in Altadena.

And unfortunately, along with tens of thousands of other people, you were displaced from your home during the Eaton Fire. You lost your home then. How do you approach that?

Beyond calling Dwight, what was that like? I think it’s really hard for people to fathom. And I think it might even be harder for parents and dads to really wrap their heads around that.

Yeah, I was a new dad.

My boys were seven weeks old or something like that. And it was our first home. We hadn’t even been in it for two years.

A nice way to say it would be to say it was just a head trip, because we had been working for a couple of years to build a home to start a family and we had a plan, right? And you know what they say, buy your best laid plans, right?

So we had a little bad luck. And like you said, we were not the only ones. It was a lot of people.

It was a catastrophe. A couple of things that I would say, and this first one is kind of a cliche, but it could have been a lot, a lot worse. People died in that fire.

I wasn’t even home. I was a f***ing shooter. I was doing a recording session that day.

And my wife is like, yeah, the power is out. She was calling me. And it’s really bad reception in the studio.

And she’s calling me and she’s going, yeah, she’s like, the power is out. We’re kind of think we should maybe leave. And I was like, I don’t know.

I was like, just do whatever you want. I was like, I was in this, you know, I’ll never forgive myself. But I just, I didn’t grasp the scope.

I didn’t grasp the scope of it until like after the house was gone. They evacuated. And I went back to the house after the session to get like a weekender, to get a bag.

And I left guitars and jewelry, family photo. I left it all. I was like, I’ll just be back.

I didn’t know what was going on. It was a really tough day. The thing about, you mentioned being a parent and other dads.

And to be clear, I would not wish this on anybody. And I hope that no one goes through it. But having said that, it would have been much worse without the kids, is what I would say.

The kids gave us an outlet to put our energy. And it was something that was very having newborn children. That’s positive, that’s a source of positivity.

You know what I mean? And it takes a lot of energy, takes a lot of work. And the thing about that, when it happens, is like the fire is one thing.

And it happens and it’s a crazy thing and it dominates the news cycle for however long. And then you’re just left with a million phone calls and letters, administrative bulls**t to do, to deal with it for years and years.

And so it’s like having something really positive to work on, which is how I look at the kids a little bit. It’s like, I’m working on them.

I’m trying to make them, you know, first they got to learn to do a spoon and then eventually they got to learn to swing a baseball bat. Then they’re going to learn algebra and you’re working on them.

And so having something, somewhere to put the energy, as opposed to just my wife and I in a room pacing around wondering what’s going to happen. It was a blessing. The kids, and they don’t even know.

They don’t even know what a gift they gave me. When I think about it, I work to just focus on the kind of positive sides of it, which again, I know it’s a cliché, but kind of wallowing in the kind of bad luck or the negativity.

I mean, it is a poor use of our time. It already took the house and everything. I would hate it if it took me away from my kids when they’re this young.

That would be much worse even than what we already love. You know what I mean?

That’s an incredibly positive outlook on a wildly negative situation.

Yeah.

I applaud you on that.

Yeah. You said it. If it was just me and my house burned down, it was the only one on my block, just be a little bit of a different conversation.

It’s just like one of those things where it happened, and then my job is just to dig my family out of it. Then one day it’ll all just be over.

I mentioned this earlier, and there’s a reason why you all live there. But there were a lot of folks who are in the Roots Country, and Roots Country Americana, and music scene and art scene in LA that were lived out there.

Have you seen the music scene shift at all in LA since those fires?

Well, yeah. It dipped right after the fire, it dipped for sure. Some of the changes are not totally perceptible to me.

I know there are some people who left. They went somewhere else to start again. I know some other people who are rebuilding.

One thing about it is that no two people had the same situation, right? The difference between what they call a class action and a mass action. It affects everybody just a little bit differently.

So for instance, we have some neighbors, their kids are six and they are affected by this. Because it’s like, where’s all my stuff? Where are my friends?

Where’s my school? And they have to explain that to them, right? So that’s very different from my situation.

I had two young kids and everyone goes, oh, wow, that’s crazy that it happened when they’re seven weeks old. It’s like, they don’t know about any of this. They were very happy through the whole thing.

You know what I mean? Because they had us, we were there with them.

What else do they need?

That’s all they care about. One thing I would say regarding musicians and some of the industry infrastructure here is, I think that there was a lot of help.

I’ve had various kinds of assistance, certainly some financial assistance, but also music cares found a way to get me a guitar.

There was a lot of really strong community outreach that was happening around it, which again, it’s because it was so big and so awful. If there was one person whose house had burned down, it probably wouldn’t be that way.

But since it was affecting so many people, you really saw the Grammys vis-a-vis Music Cares, and then some smaller organizations really helping out.

Because a lot of musicians are renters, a lot of musicians don’t have renters insurance, home insurance, health insurance. It’s like you just are a sitting duck.

I was more fortunate, but a lot of musicians and artists are just sitting ducks for a natural disaster. You know what I mean? When something happens like that, it’s like, too bad, like you were not insured.

So that’s really sad. Yeah. Frankly, this could be a conversation about my dance that I do with my mortgage company, and my insurance company, and the lawyers, the power company.

It’s a very American thing. You know what I mean? In a lot of places in the world, if all your shit burns down, it’s just gone and that’s it.

You go somewhere else and start again. So going through this whole thing gives you a kind of unique kind of perspective on where you’re living and how you deal with trauma and disaster and hardship in this country.

But the music infrastructure here in LA, at least in my view, went over and above the call of duty to help out musicians who were affected by this.

Your perspective on it, I think, is not only wonderful but welcome. I just, I didn’t even think of it that way.

I appreciate it. I thought about it a lot.

45:18

Dad Life Soundtrack

We’ll jump into one of our recurring segments here now on the show that we call the Dad Life Sound Check in which we talk about a song that is touching us right now, either as a dad or a fan.

We love doing the segment with guests. Brian, could you lead us off with what’s been speaking to you recently?

I’m totally on the spot, but I will tell you that, man. Oh, I know what I’m going to do. I know exactly what I’m going to do.

One of the perfect things to bridge music that an adult can listen to and music that a kid can listen to and something you can listen to together is an artist named Tom T.

Hall.

I’m sure you know this artist, right? Yes. He actually has a pretty famous, I’m sure I’m telling you guys know, I’m sorry, but he has his children’s record.

It has Sneaky Snake and I think it has I Love on it. And he did his children’s record. It’s such a perfect, it’s just such a perfect thing.

It’s kind of like some of those, sometimes they make the Pixar movies where it’s like they’re for kids. They have all these kind of Easter eggs in them because they know that the parents have to go watch it.

And that’s kind of how I feel about the Tom T. Hall records. And then he has just some of his normal songs.

The one I want to go with is this song, Fox on the Run. You know this song?

He took all the love that a poor boy could give her And left me to die like Fox on the Run.

It is a can.

Yeah.

Yeah, you don’t have to talk about it.

My youngest loves foxes, so you know.

Yeah. You know, it’s like, it’s always kind of the animals. And it’s a very kind of playful.

He’s just playful in his writing and in his voice. And so it works really well for kids. So I would go with that right now.

Nice.

That’s a good tip. I’ll have to bring Tom T. Hall into the minivan with me because my oldest just told me recently that he does not like country music, probably because that’s all I play when we’re driving around.

So I think I could use something colorful like that. Bring him back.

Are you playing all different kinds of country music or is it funk Christian in one area?

I’m playing all different kinds. It’s like some old stuff, it’s some new stuff, it’s some bro country.

He’s probably just trying to get your goat though, right?

Yeah, I mean, that’s where he’s at in his life right now in our relationship. But still it stuck with me.

I can tell you, it just gets better.

Yeah, I can’t. I mean, I just imagine your son, eight years old, is this the eight-year-old? Your dad don’t like country music?

Man, what a kick in the head.

After all that indoctrination, it didn’t work.

It’s how he’s pushing back. I’m going to jump with Great Highway, which is off of Vincent Neil Emerson’s latest album. This one, it’s just like a good driving tour and musician song.

I really enjoy this song a lot. It was written for his tour manager, Garrett, who’s a very tall Canadian guy. So there’s references to the cross on the Canadian highway.

And I like that. Garrett is a good dude, always a friend. Whenever he’s in town, it’s good to see him.

The other reason I wanted to jump on that, I’m wearing my Vincent Neil Emerson t-shirt tonight, too. Vincent got sick, it goes back to a little bit of what you said before, a sitting duck is a musician.

If you don’t have the support that you need, he had a pretty scary health issue that came up recently that he just put up a message about it. So I don’t feel like I’m exposing anything.

I didn’t know about it before that anyway, so I’m not like some insider on that. He had an embolism in his leg and had to go get that fixed so that he wouldn’t drop dead. And it’s a crazy thing to think about that these are normal life events.

He’s a dad, too, and you’re thinking about all those crazy things that could happen.

So I’ve been listening to the new album, I got it on vinyl, I got the t-shirt, I bought another t-shirt that I forgot has a big curse word on the back of it, so I can’t really wear it to kids’ events, but I do anyway because I’m that guy.

It’s not like a $10 curse word, it’s like a $3 curse word. Still, I can’t really wear it to school, especially after they start reading.

This song is just a fabulous modern version of a classic trucker song, classic on the road song, and I really like it.

So it was a shout out to Vincent, hope he’s feeling better, shout out to Garrett, hope he’s doing great things, and enjoy the song, it’s a good one.

But for me, the almighty Spotify algorithm fed this one to me. While I was driving the kids around, trying to get my son to like country music in vain. This artist named Thomas Sorba, and I hope I’m pronouncing his name right, it’s C-S-O-R-B-A.

It’s pronounced Chorba. Come on, Dave, do your research, man. He just put out a new record called Tender Country, and this record is like our stage of dad life country record.

It’s all about the simple life and taking things slow, and these images like very true images that like I see every day, like a kid on a bike, a kid in the car seat, down to that level.

So I’m really digging the record, and the song that grabbed me while I was driving the minivan around was, He Would Have Loved This.

He’s talking about these simple moments in family life, but he’s talking about someone who’s not around to experience them anymore for whatever reason. But I know the song is about mortality, like Donnie was talking about with this Neil Emerson.

When you think about not being around, that hits harder now that I’m approaching, or maybe I’m in middle age, depending on how you measure it. That one really grabbed me, but that whole record is just, I’m really digging it a lot.

Oh, that’s cool. I wasn’t into both of those.

That’s awesome.

I think you guys are probably, you can probably get your ear to the ground a little better than me. You know what I mean? I still feel like I live in the stone age sometimes, in terms of what I choose to listen to.

You got to listen to it a lot. It’s good to hear. It’s good.

Honestly, you put me on your mailer, and I listen to a lot of new music that I, you know what I mean? There’s just a lot that I’m hearing about there, just because I’m not really out mixing it up the way I once was. You know what I mean?

None of us are.

I would like to thank the Internet for this help on my discovery.

Yeah, sure. Sure.

But this album, no joke, is Tender Country, right? That’s what it’s called? Yeah.

Tender Country is just lovely. Dave sent me, he’s like, you should check this out. He sent me a review from, like, I think the Dallas Morning News or one of the alt-weeklies down there, and I read it.

I was like, oh, that’s cool. And then I put it on. I was like, oh, wow, this, it hits.

It’s really quite lovely. I highly recommend it as well.

I’m shocked that I actually recommended something to Donnie. It usually goes the other way around. Like you, I’m on the Country Cutler mailing list.

So I’m usually just going in that direction.

Oh, I saw this. Okay, I’ll listen to this. I saw this guy.

Cool. That’s a great recommendation. Oh, wow, Little Green Apples.

That’s Roger Miller, right? That’s a great song.

Another Roger Miller reference.

Roger Miller is great for kids too.

That’s a theme that came up in the last interview we did actually, Roger Miller.

With Nathan Evans, Fox.

Yeah. My favorite episode that I’ve heard of you guys is the one, I’m going to get this wrong, but it was children’s books. Like children’s books if they were Country Songs, right?

That was fun.

Am I getting that right?

That was a fun episode.

So we have a book called The Story of Country, right?

And it’s like page one, it’s a children’s book. It’s like page one is Hank Williams and then George and Tammy and Dolly and Willie and all this. And my son Cal, it’s like, he’s obsessed with this book.

And he doesn’t, it’s not cause he’s obsessed with country. It’s just, he’s fixated on this one book. And he just carries it around and brings it up to you.

His mom and I just go, oh, oh, the story of country. Let’s read this one again. I wonder if there’s anything in here that we can learn today about country music.

My version of that was The Little Yellow Copter.

I hate that book.

It’s a perfectly fine book, but it’s just one of those ones that they, do the little yellow copter.

I was like, anything else.

Oh yeah, performative, elementics, parenting.

Oh gosh. That was the episode we did the most research, reading the most books, over and over and over again.

It was funny, excellent.

We very much appreciate your time tonight, Brian. Thanks for joining us and making this happen. There’s a million things happening, especially with young kids in your lives.

And thank you to everybody who joined us on the pod. The best way to support us is to subscribe to the show on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your own podcasts.

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It’s a tough word.

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