Tony Kamel, a Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter, clawhammer banjo and guitar player, and father to a four-year-old girl, joins the show to talk about his latest album, We’re All Gonna Live, and to give us a behind-the-scenes look at the stories and real people that inspired many of his songs. Tony shares how his new-ish role as a father and his relationship with his own late father influences his music in an honest, vulnerable and inspiring interview. Listen along as the Dads commiserate with this stalwart of the bluegrass world about shared family calendars, the challenges of being a working parent, and finding hope in the stories of real people in roots and folk music.  

Show Notes

02:05: The Story Behind We’re All Gonna Live: Tony describes the creation of his latest album, how fatherhood affected the creative process, and where the theme of death and loss on the album came from.

07:18: “Fight With a Smile:” Tony tells the story of how his grandmother helped him find strength and hope during difficult times and how her wisdom influenced the album’s theme (and cover art).

10:52: Authenticity and Tradition in Storytelling and Fatherhood: Tony shares that many of the stories in his songs are about real people and real experiences. He comments on the importance of telling authentic stories in roots and folk music and of bringing authenticity to your parenting.

15:28: 90’s Alt-Rock Cover Songs: Tony talks about his viral banjo cover of “Santa Monica” by Everclear and the songwriting quality of many alt-rock songs we remember from our childhoods.

18:49: “We’re All Gonna Live:” Tony tells the true story that inspired the title track of We’re All Gonna Live.

22:24: “A Father and a Daughter:” Tony shares the inspiration behind his song “A Father and a Daughter” and how he considers it to be a gift to his daughter as she grows up.

26:08: The Dad Life Sound Check: Tony shares one of his dad’s favorite songs, George Strait’s “Love Without End, Amen.” Dave talks about how Summer Dean’s “Lonely Girl’s Lament” reminds him to consider the single people in the “village” helping to raise his kids. And Donnie can’t help but choose Tony Kamel’s “The Surfer” (and he swears he’s not just sucking up to the songwriter in the room).

Mentioned in This Episode:

• Tony Kamel
• Wood and Wire
• “We’re All Gonna Live” album cover art
• Country Cutler’s article in Saddle Mountain Post about 90’s country
• Dr. Becky

References:

• Theme Music: “Dark Country Rock” by Moodmode
• “We’re All Gonna Live” by Tony Kamel
• “Makin’ It Work” by Tony Kamel
• “Sue” by Tony Kamel
• “The Surfer” by Tony Kamel
• “Santa Monica” by Tony Kamel
• “Santa Monica” by Everclear
• “No Rain” by Tony Kamel
• “A Father and a Daughter” by Tony Kamel
• “Love Without End, Amen” by George Strait
• “Lonely Girl’s Lament” by Summer Dean

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 Dave, and I’m a country music dad.

And my name’s Donnie, and I’m also a country music dad.

In this episode, we talk with fellow country music dad, Tony Kamel, a Grammy nominated songwriter and claw hammer banjo, guitar player, and all around musician from outside of Austin, Texas.

Tony served as the front man and lead songwriter for Wood and Wire before jumping out on his own, recording his debut solo record Back Down Home in 2021.

He teamed up with legendary songwriter Bruce Robinson and his analog-based company The Next Waltz to create that great album.

This album does include one of my favorite songs of all time, The Surfer, which we will explore.

This album was well received, earning top billing on the Alt Country radio charts and a spot on the Americana charts for several weeks in a row.

Earlier this spring, Tony released his second solo album, We’re All Gonna Live, which explores complex issues of life in modern times, expectations, fatherhood, and does so with a soft touch and daft storytelling.

The official materials note that Tony Kamel captures a no-frills live-to-tape energy perfectly complementing the weighty but optimistic subjects in company to sing his character-based songs on We’re All Gonna Live, which pretty much sums it up perfectly.

So we’re very happy to welcome Tony to the show, and thanks so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me, fellas.

I’m happy to be here.

First of all, congratulations on this new album.

It’s spectacular.

Can you tell us a little bit about the writing process for this one, and just how it all came together?

Thank you for saying that.

I really appreciate it.

There wasn’t really a specific process necessarily.

I don’t really have a specific process.

The only sort of consistent things about my writing style is I don’t write very much.

And I kind of only write when I feel like I have something to write about, and when it feels like I should.

I don’t do a lot of co-writing.

Everything I write pretty much is personal.

I’m not one of those guys that can just write a song out of nowhere.

But between finishing up that last record and now, I had a kid and that definitely informed a lot of my process because I have way less time.

As you guys know, so having a kid, I had to really pay attention to my inspiration, I guess.

Instead of really, really just waiting for it to come, anytime I was feeling nostalgic or came across a situation or a person that made me inspired to write something about them, I’d try to just make sure I followed that.

And then I’d get on the shared calendar and put in time to write, you know?

Because before, it was just I could do whatever I want.

And now I had to be way more intentional.

And I learned a lot about being more intentional with it and making time for it instead of waiting for it to come.

That’s kind of how the process changed for me between the last record and this one.

And it took a little time, but I think it settled in pretty nicely.

And so the shared calendar, I trust, is the one you share with the family to make sure that there’s coverage and all of that.

I love that that’s how that happened.

I mean, look, this is a dad’s podcast.

If you’re doing dad’s stuff the right way, and if you’re doing it with another person, you better have a shared calendar.

Absolutely, man.

Yes, I made an incredibly stupid mistake earlier this week and didn’t check the other calendar on the wall before making plans for something, which then I needed to cancel.

The physical wall calendar is new for us, and we’re experiencing the same glitches.

It’s mission critical for us right now, but that’s for another time.

Speaking of intentionality, the track order on this album tells just an incredible story.

How did you choose how to do that, or did that come together organically?

It came together over time.

I did have some ideas as the material started to emerge.

I felt a theme coming together.

I was writing about people in my life that had passed away.

And I think when I became a dad, I started thinking a lot about not just my parents, but the parental figures in my life.

My grandmother, my dad, and my friends of mine that were that way.

The people that had lost in particular were floating to the surface.

So death became this theme.

And all I knew was when I finally wrote the last song on the record, We’re All Gonna Live, the title track.

I knew that I wanted that to be the last track because songs on the record like Sue and Making It Work and others had mentioned death and even had the phrase, We’re All Gonna Die in it.

So as I was thinking about track order, I was considering a lot of things, but all I really knew was I wanted We’re All Gonna Live to be the last one so that it would be tied up into a nice little bow.

And then, you know, thinking about how to maybe rope people in audibly, something maybe exciting that might be, an average listener might be interested in.

Ultimately, the first song, it’s always a big decision, I think.

Maybe bigger, it was bigger in the past when people actually listened to full records.

But Making It Work became that one just because of the way the drums come in, basically.

Just was fun.

That’s the one that’s been stuck in my head all weekend, actually, since the album drop, is the…

Cutting…

.

just going through the regular rigor of life with your family and with kids, and I’ve got three of them.

So, I think I could relate to it, just as somebody that takes care of my kids full-time, I’m sure anyone going through a period of hard work can relate to it.

It’s a mess, it’s a mess, and you have three?

Dude, I don’t, I can’t, I mean, I have one almost four-year-old little girl, and generally speaking, she’s pretty easy.

I can’t imagine doing three, so good on you, Dave.

Good on you, my friend.

A four-year-old is a lot of work to make work, so.

Well, thank you.

Thank you for making me feel better about myself.

You mentioned the theme of death and kind of where that was coming from.

When you talk about it, though, it is very hopeful, like Donnie was saying.

It almost brings me comfort because you talk about death, you acknowledge it, and you move on.

It seems apparent that it’s a part of what you’re thinking about and reflecting on, but it’s not something that you seem to be dwelling on.

No, and it’s unfortunately, I’ve experienced a lot of that in my life.

Unfortunately, I’ve just experienced a lot of people passing away on me.

My dad died young.

He was only 57, 15.

And that was obviously a life-changing event for me and my family.

But one of the people that got us through that was his mom, my grandmother.

He got sick first.

And while he was sick, some other stuff happened.

And that was just, he felt like things were just piling on.

And so I was at my grandmother’s house one day in Houston.

And she was talking about it.

And she said, and this is, I bring this up, because this was the ultimate theme, if you will.

And one phrase, she said, eventually life starts to knock you around.

You’ve got to be ready to fight with a smile.

It was just a moment where I was like, this wisdom generally emitted off of this woman, but that really stuck with me.

And I remembered right when my dad had gotten sick, where I was there at the, he had a stroke.

So he was in bad shape and I was at his hospital bed and just breaking down, but she just was sort of had her hand on my shoulder and just had a little smile on her face.

And I remembered that moment.

And the same thing happened whenever he passed away.

She kind of had that same look.

And not to say that she didn’t break down at times, but when she needed to be strong for us, she just had this thing.

And so that’s, she had passed away.

So I was thinking a lot about her as well, and writing this record too.

And that Fight With a Smile kind of thing, that sort of came back into my mind, made me think about just everything that everybody goes through is unavoidable.

And it’s a cliche concept.

But yeah, you’re gonna get beat up and you just keep going.

Is that where the cover art came from?

It’s you with your face is bruised and bloodied.

That’s exactly what, that’s exactly right.

Yeah, I had toyed with a couple of ideas.

And I wanted to be a little weird with it.

I wanted to do something that was, I wanted to express myself a little more artistically and aesthetically.

And I had this idea of just looking beat up with a shit eating grin on my face.

The guy who took the photos, Josh Ables, his name, great photographer, good designer, an all-around good guy.

He pushed, he’s like, you need to look worse.

He’s like, took the makeup and gave me more blood.

I had a cut on my nose.

Like, we did it together, you know?

And I was like, well, I don’t want to be too, look too bad.

He’s like, no, you got to look terrible.

You got to look like you got your ass kicked if you’re going to be smiling.

And I’m glad we made it worse.

He was right.

And I enjoyed that photo shoot that day because it felt like we were doing something different and interesting to me anyway.

And then there’s the side of me that wanted to make something that people would wonder what was going on.

And I think it kind of worked.

But I also think it can be a triggering image for some people.

But I’m real happy with the cover art and Josh did a great job of helping me make it happen.

It’s also kind of a nice homage to the story of the real people in your lives.

And we exchanged notes a few months ago when Sue came out the song from the album as a single.

And I asked, is she a real person?

Because the story is just too fantastic, right?

And it’s such a fun song with such a great story to it.

And you said that she was, which I just love.

As we had talked about in previous conversations, the surfer in that song is also a real person, someone you spoke with and got his story and created this great song.

These two great songs are about people.

It seems like it’s an important part of your process and the way that you bring about songs and create characters.

But do you think it’s important for the genre generally?

Well, I think authenticity can be expressed in a bunch of different ways.

And that’s certainly one of the better ones, in my opinion, to have real authentic experiences with real authentic people.

You can make up stories about people that are true or that are more interesting.

But I think they should come from an authentic inspiration or authentic experience, in my opinion.

So yeah, I think that’s a part of any sort of folk or roots music, in my opinion.

One of the bedrocks of it is real experiences, real people, real challenges, and real questions that people are trying to answer.

So I think the answer to your question is, yeah, I think it’s important and I think the bedrock of the whole thing is authenticity.

We can debate all day about what exactly that means, and how authentic a certain specific country or roots artists might be.

But I think it kind of is obvious what it is to me anyway.

Brings me to another question.

I mean, you make a fairly traditional type of music, claw hammer banjo, string based.

You bring in some drums and you electrify some things.

But for the most part, you could argue that you make very traditional style of music, but there is evolution and there is change.

How do you see the evolution of tradition, the evolution of authenticity as a part of your creative approach, and going off of making it work and the chaos that is dealing with small people, how does that view of tradition and the importance of that authentic approach, how does that impact your approach to being a dad?

Man, that’s a difficult question.

I think for me, authenticity is just being real.

That’s actually clearly is the definition of it.

In terms of music, the people that get me going the most, get me excited, my biggest heroes are people who were wholly themselves, like guys like John Hartford and John Prine, and like Dan Reader is one of my biggest influences.

They had unique approaches to maybe some traditional sound, but it was their own approach.

As far as traditions go in fatherhood, I look at it the same way.

It’s no one really knows what they’re doing, so you just be yourself in it and do the best you can.

And that’s what I’m doing in music, that’s basically what I’m doing in everything.

And I think the older I get, the easier it is to just be myself in whatever I’m doing, not listen too much to outside forces, and just doing the best that I possibly can.

I think in fatherhood, I think I’m gonna end up raising a little weirdo, but it’s the best way that I can do it.

Yeah, man.

And in traditions in my family, they’re really important in my family.

I come from a big family of both sets of my grandparents were immigrants, so we get together as much as we can.

We’re all in touch.

We’re all close.

And we have our traditions.

We just did Easter this past weekend and had a great time.

All the cousins were running around.

My daughter is four, and she’s one of five grandkids on our side, but she’s the only girl.

And then even some of my first cousins for Easter, and they all have boys.

So there’s eight boys running around and then my daughter.

And so she’s learning to play pretty rough and getting in there with them now.

It’s a lot of fun to watch.

Speaking of being weird, you released an EP called Songs That Made Me Weird.

And these were all covers of some 90s alt rock songs that we remember because we’re around the same generation here.

Can you tell us a bit about how all that came together?

I went viral on TikTok.

I can say that as an old dude.

That actually happened to me.

And yeah, congrats.

The dream.

Yeah.

It’s funny because like I posted a video of me playing Santa Monica by Everclear on the banjo.

Honestly, that day I was like, I got to post something.

I don’t know what to post.

And I spent 20 minutes figuring out on the banjo.

I posted it and it did pretty well.

I hadn’t released anything in a while.

So I hadn’t been following what people are saying, how you should release something every six weeks or whatever, two months.

So I said, you know what?

I’ll release this song and I’ll come up with a few more that I think are fun.

I’ll do that for a couple of months leading up to when I start releasing singles for this record.

So I came up with this plan to juice the wheels of the algorithm before I started.

But also like, man, I love those songs.

And I really sort of rediscovered how much I really like those songs.

There’s some really good 90s songs that are lyrically really strong and melodically really strong.

The recordings from back then are great.

They’re awesome.

But they’re loud, you know, and they’re like rocking and I love that.

But I think a lot of a lot of the comments I got from those songs are, I never knew those were the lyrics.

So the stripped down, you know, just me and a guitar, me and a banjo.

I never knew that was a lyric.

That’s really good and poignant and strong.

I’m like, yeah, those 90s alternative bands wrote some great songs.

And it’s fun to reinterpret them.

I had a lot of fun doing that.

I purposely named it songs that made me weird volume one, so that I have to make a volume two.

So we’ll see when that happens.

Pretty soon, I think.

No Rain really was such a surprise in how simple you made that and how it stands up to the test of time.

No Rain surprised me in how much I liked and connected to the lyrics.

As a significantly older person, I think there’s something to be said about the longevity of a good song.

I agree completely.

Yeah, that song in particular, my friend was like, I did not know that those were some of the lyrics.

Like that one line where I’d like to keep my cheeks dry today.

I don’t think I ever knew what he was saying there until I came up with my version of it.

I was like, man, that’s crushing.

It’s a crushingly beautiful line.

I love what you wrote about that substack you did when you were talking about 90s country and tying it all together and stuff.

I appreciate that.

We’ll link that in the show notes if anyone is interested in reading it.

Speaking of really beautiful lyrics, I do want to talk about the title track, We’re All Gonna Live.

I think that there’s something incredibly hopeful in your honesty in that song.

You admit that you were upset that the hobo that you found took your $10 and went to go into the liquor store.

You immediately thought the worst of the situation, and then he comes out and he has change and he gives it out to all the other people that he knows in that space so that they can go take the bus and go where they need to go.

The hope in that song is infectious in a period of time where perhaps we are all expecting the worst from each other.

There’s a parenting philosophy by Dr.

Becky that is, you should always assume the best possible intention in somebody.

And I think we always forget that, especially as a dad, you always just go, okay, just be quiet, let’s get done.

Let’s do the thing we need to do.

Has the parenting aspect of things shifted your perspective on looking out at the world and seeing things, or was that just one of those things that was real that happened to you?

It’s a true story up to the point of him giving the money out.

Yeah, just this dude asked me for two bucks because he had to take a bus to South Texas, so he said he’s like, I got work down there, I just got to get down there.

I gave him 10 bucks, he went to the liquor store, and I was just disappointed.

I was like, oh, because I thought he lied to me.

Truth is, he should be able to do whatever he wants with the money that I did.

But I was just like, well, I was bummed.

But yeah, he came out and he just handed out like $1 bills to the people he was kept out with, and then he left.

I don’t know where he went.

I don’t know if he actually had a job or not.

But the rest of the story just sort of wrote a story about that I thought would be interesting.

And so to answer your question, yes, that’s a true thing that actually happened.

But the line, the idea of we’re all gonna live, if those other songs say we’re all gonna die, they had been written.

It’s like, why should you write a song that says we’re all gonna live?

So I had written down a few notes about that interaction in my phone.

And when I was trying to write some stuff, when I came up with the idea, hey, I guess you write a song that says we’re all gonna live.

I saw that note and then wrote that story.

To the other part of your question, I don’t know.

There’s part of me that wants to see the best intentions and assume the best intentions.

And maybe she’s right, but as a parent, there’s also this side of me that’s like really protective and has to assume the worst intentions if I’m trying to be protective of my daughter, keeping her safe.

And maybe that’s not the right approach, but I’ve always got my head on a swivel when we’re out in public and stuff.

Yeah, I think that comes with the territory.

I think we all have our heads on a swivel.

Yeah.

Assume the best plan for the worst, I guess.

It’s a good lesson, too, because our kids are always watching us to be examples for how to act.

So they’ll notice if we’re skeptical of everyone, as opposed to assuming the best.

Yeah, that’s a really good point.

One of the great songs on this, obviously, A Father and a Daughter.

Even death don’t bother what a father and a daughter got, you’re gonna be just fine.

Deep personal.

There’s some darkness in it, but also a ton of hope and beauty.

Was that one easier to write, or did you find it to be a little more difficult?

There’s some history behind that song.

I’d actually written a song about my dad years ago, and it was genuine.

It just wasn’t very good, so I didn’t use it.

I always keep everything I write because it had good stuff in it.

It just globally wasn’t great.

Some of that 20 or 30 percent of those lyrics were repurposed from a different song.

The first verse was just obviously y’all live in Southern California.

I live in Central Texas.

It doesn’t snow here very much.

When it does, it’s a big deal.

We had this big ice storm.

She was pretty small at the time, but you just wanted to go outside and play in the ice.

It wasn’t like nice fluffy snow.

It was like ice on the ground and all these big oak trees in our yard were covered in ice and it was getting really heavy.

The limbs were getting heavy and it was crashing to the ground.

It was scary.

Sounded like thunder or something.

And so I had to drag her kicking and screaming back inside the house because she wanted to stay outside.

But I was worried.

I was truly worried a limb was going to fall on it.

So it’s kind of where the first verse was just about that moment really.

I was thinking a lot about my own dad because he died when I was young by any means, but you know, I was only 30.

I think of songs as I’ve said this a million times lately, but I’m thinking of songs this last couple of years as gifts.

And I wanted a gift for her to have.

It’s like a note.

I wanted something she could listen to for after I was gone as some sort of, I don’t know, you know, I was thinking of what it might be like for her if I were to die young.

And she goes through a heartbreak and I’m not necessarily there to see her through it, or even if I am.

So I think it wasn’t necessarily hard to write.

Like I wasn’t real emotional writing it, but my approach to it was like, this is a gift for you.

Driving down trails of trials untold, through the wind and the rain and the ice and the snow.

And hopefully she loves it right now.

We’ll see how she feels about it as a teenager.

I think she’ll get through that and like it again later.

Right now she’s like, this song is about me.

She thinks it’s about her and my best friend back home.

He has a daughter at the same age.

She thinks it’s, and they’re friends too.

She thinks it’s about both of them.

For some reason she associates it with her too.

It’s hilarious.

And she says, this song is about me and Vivian.

I just say yes, it is.

It’s fun.

Yeah, she gets to interpret it how she wants to.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Everybody does.

Honestly, that’s one of the things that gave me a lot of freedom.

Gave myself more freedom.

And songwriting, it’s not that big of a deal.

You’re not going to get to control how people interpret it.

So just don’t worry about it.

Tell the story in as few words as you can possibly tell it.

Good songwriting.

I think so.

I think young songwriters, I did, when I was a young songwriter, crammed as many words as I could.

Songs were way too long.

Less is more, I think.

Great segue into our recurring segment that we call the Dad Life Soundcheck.

So in this segment, we each share a song that is speaking to us and our lives as dads.

Sometimes it’s serious, other times not so much.

As our guest, we invite you to share a song that has been speaking to you lately.

Yeah.

So I don’t want to give away anything to the listeners, but you told me this was coming.

Of course, yeah.

We want you to be well prepared.

I don’t want to spring it on you.

When I was growing up, my dad used to listen to this.

He’d always play us this George Strait song called Love Without End, Amen.

It’s a pretty on the nose song about fatherhood.

A little cheesy, but everything was back then in a good way, I think.

It’s a beautiful song, really.

The chorus is, let me tell you a secret about a father’s love, a secret that my daddy said was just between us.

Daddies don’t just love their children every now and then, it’s a love without end, Amen.

It’s, I haven’t listened to that song in years, but when you told me that this was part of the podcast, it just popped right in my head and I’m going to have to listen to it now and see if I can even get through it.

Yeah.

I mean, that song to me is always about unconditional love, which is something that I hope is something that my boys realize that I’m offering to them and it can be a hard thing to actualize with dad, so I don’t mind.

Good Lord, Dave.

You have three boys?

My God.

Bless you, my friend.

But yes, you’re absolutely right.

I’m going to show it to, we should all show our kids that song, I think.

It’s easy to interpret and understand.

It’s right there.

It tells it straight up.

I was coming back from baseball practice, which is pretty much all I do during spring.

Either go to or come home from baseball practice.

My older one, I made a bet with him.

He had to go into the 50 mile an hour cage and hit every ball, and then I’d pay for 80% of a new glove.

And he went and did it, and I was a little pissed off about it, I gotta say, because I was like, there’s no way he’s gonna hit 30 pitches off of a 50 mile an hour cage practice.

I was like, I’m pretty safe.

And I was like, damn it, now I gotta buy a new glove.

But I was really impressed with it, because I was pretty sure it was gonna be in the clear.

But as we were going home and we were talking about how he was hitting the ball and he was crushing them.

And I was like, pretty impressed.

And I said to him, I was like, look, man, I’m proud of you for that.

That song in particular is why I said that so directly.

I was like, you know what, there’s a point to hitting something on the nose with your kids, because they’re kids and they don’t always get the nuance.

And like the, you’re showing your love in a different way.

You know what, sometimes you need to be a little bit on the nose with a little bit of cheese to make sure that they, to make sure they get it.

It’s important, I think.

I agree.

Dave, bring us down a couple notches.

Yeah, well, I’ll change gears.

The song I’m going to share is pretty on the nose also.

It’s called Lonely Girl’s Lament by Summer Dean.

And Donnie, you introduced me to this song with one of the playlists you made for me.

I was listening to that song while I was doing something else, and sometimes when I’m passively listening like that, just a line will stick out to me.

For that song, the first line that stuck out to me, she says, Oh my god, I can’t believe you’re 41.

And I was like, that’s how old I am.

Maybe this is speaking straight to me.

But then it goes on, it’s a very vulnerable song about her own just thoughts about romance as she gets older as a woman.

And I just never heard a song like that.

But that was a song, just a line and a song that could stop me while I was doing something else.

And for me, after I became a dad, it seemed like it was, and I still think it is important to find a community of fellow dads because we can relate on so many different levels and we’re going into a new phase of life that we don’t really understand.

So it’s important to surround yourself with people that can help you.

But I think sometimes single people, my single friends or single family members can get overlooked when I’m out there trying to find this new community.

And they play an important role in my kids’ lives also.

So I thought it was just a very grounding song to hear and to think about some of those people in my life that aren’t dads.

But I still want to be part of my life.

That’s a really good point, man.

One of my best friends, he and his wife, they don’t plan on having kids.

A lot of my buddies that I grew up with, we’re all still really close.

And we talked a lot like we need to make sure.

We assumed they wouldn’t want to come to certain stuff if the kids were there.

We assumed wrong.

You make a really good point.

Yeah.

You mentioned before that your time is so compressed that you have to be very selective about how you spend your time.

And yeah, it can be easy to assume things.

Did Donnie bring us home?

My song, and not to be a total kiss-ass, but I’m going to go with The Surfer.

Oh boy.

It is one of my favorite songs.

The imagery is incredible.

The storyline is great.

The thing that I think just jumps at me and always shakes me out of it, if I’m not listening to the album straight through, if it’s coming up on a playlist or something like that, is that there’s no question this is a country song about a person who’s aging and feeling the life that they lived and the pain that they had.

But it’s not about a country music theme, right?

Surfing isn’t so much in the lexicon of country music, but there’s no way you can describe this song any other way.

It is folk, it is roots, it is traditional, it is country music, and it tells an incredible story.

And my kids stopped me and said, What’s this song?

My youngest has a really good ear for music, and he was getting into it and seeing that it wasn’t the same beat that he’s used to.

He’s used to kind of hearing the four-four melodies, and this is different.

And he’s, oh, you dance to this differently, right, Dad?

I was like, Whoa, you’re four.

You’re sorry.

Whoa, you’re almost six.

And that’s crazy to me that he hears that and like when you force people to think differently about stuff within a song, sometimes it really, it hits a little harder.

And I love that song.

I’ve always said I love that song.

And the line that always sticks with me is how that dirty old water sure makes a man clean.

I love that.

I love the idea that something that can hurt you, that can make you feel awful, that is literally dirty, can make you feel so good and make you feel like you’re whole again.

And that I think is something that we should all take with us to wherever it’s going.

I just, the song’s great.

I highly recommend it, obviously.

And I’m trying not to kiss too much backside, but hey, here’s a songwriter right here.

So I’m gonna do it anyway.

I love the song.

What can I say?

Donnie, that means a lot to me, man.

Thank you.

And yeah, that’s one of, I get tired of my songs.

I think that’s a normal thing, but I really do.

That one I do enjoy a lot.

And I hope that guy’s still, every time I’m down there, I’m like looking around to see if I might see him.

But I haven’t seen him.

The whole story is I used to see him growing up out there surfing in Galveston and in Freeport, which yeah, the water out there is, much of the year is brown from runoff from different rivers dumping into the Gulf of Mexico.

And it’s, but it’s like, man, that’s the water that I grew up swimming in.

And I’m pretty sure that’s why I never get sick now.

Because, but yeah, I’d see him out there.

And he always looked, he was obviously maybe a good 30 years older than me, but big burly shoulders, balding with a big mustache.

Then when I saw him in 2020, he just looked much older.

And it was the first time I ever talked to him.

Got a little glimpse into his world.

And then I read that song.

I love that area.

I love the weird people down there.

Cause I’m one of them.

And he’s definitely one of them too.

So before we wrap things up, can you tell our listeners where to find you?

Yeah, I’m Tony Kamel is my name.

It’s spelled with a K, K-A-M-E-L.

I have to explain that every time for the rest of my life.

tonykamelmusic.com and Tony Kamel Music on every social platform you can find.

If you listen to this, just listen to the music.

And if you see me coming to your town, I don’t get to tour that much these days.

But if you see me come on out, it’ll probably be at a small, easygoing venue.

And I’ll try to make it as memorable and evening as I can possibly do.

My favorite thing to do is perform more than any other part of it is performance.

Hopefully, I’ll come to LA soon.

Awesome.

Yeah, man, that’d be great.

Thank you for listening.

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