The Chat
The Chat
#35 From Rock Star Dreams to Songwriter Success: A Journey with Brad Warren - Part 1
Part 1 of Carlos's conversation with Brad Warren, half of the hit-writing duo The Warren Brothers. Get ready to be captivated by the life and journey of none other than Brad Warren, the multi-number one writing and Grammy-nominated songwriter from Nashville. This chat with Brad is nothing short of a rollercoaster ride. Starting from his initial dream of pursuing a rock star career, forged by the powerful chords of classic rock, to his battles with addiction, and his rise as a successful songwriter, Brad's story is an inspiration.
Experience the power of mentorship through the tales of Brad's mentor, Tom Douglas. Learn about Tom's distinctive writing style, his vast vocabulary, and his heart full of dreams. Brad doesn't shy away from discussing the profound influence of young songwriters and how their seemingly rule-less writing often leads to extraordinary work. This conversation also uncovers how Brad incorporates his personal experiences and truth-telling to connect with his audience.
Finally, don't miss out as we journey into Brad's creative process. He stresses the importance of understanding one's writing style and shares how he overcame the pressures of the songwriting industry. From using advice given by friends in shaping his writing to putting words on paper to unlock creativity.
Check out Brad's podcast, The Good Grief Good God Show: https://goodgriefgoodgodshow.com
Check out Robert's books HERE and Carlos's books HERE.
Listen to Free Audiobooks --> BookTV
Hey guys, this is Carlos. This is part one of a chat I had with my very good friend, brad Warren, who is multi number one writing and Grammy nominated songwriter here in Nashville. Hope you like it and we're here, alright, man? Well, I already did the intro, so I don't need to introduce you, so we'll just. We'll just go right into it, as if you and I are over at Smith Park walking. I told the story. I was talking to mutual friend Greco yesterday and we obviously have long talks and I told him and you and I laughed about this we go on a hike and it's 45 minutes and I we get done and I'm like, dude, what just happened Was that three?
Speaker 2:steps. How do we? I gotta be honest, that is a great way to exercise, because you completely forget that you're exercising.
Speaker 1:Except that one hill, when one of us is talking and the other one's huffing and puffing as we're going up the hill.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's like the only time we're quiet. That one hill is like yeah, quiet. That proves how much we like to hear ourselves talk.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, are you kidding? Usually I'm a really good listener, but with certain people like I actually do like to talk.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, that's a good conversation requires both.
Speaker 1:It really does. So I've been looking forward to this for a long time. We had to reschedule because you went out of town and you're doing, you know, fancy rock star stuff and I'm probably not I'm gonna be more than a little shit for that, just being a rock star. But you know there are about a thousand questions that I could ask you. I come into these things I never have anything prepared because who knows where the conversation is gonna go. I know with you and me that's never an issue. You know. I kind of want to go back to because you've been sharing with me. You've been doing some writing about your past and where you came from. Like you know you are, you're a songwriter now, right, like is that when you meet people, is that when you know, like, say, say, person wanted, wants to know what you do for a living, what are you telling them?
Speaker 2:You're an author, I'm a songwriter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that's it.
Speaker 2:That is yeah, and even the other things that I do are spin-offs of being a songwriter. We play live a lot, but we play song writer shows, yeah, and I do a podcast on grief, but it's based on me being a songwriter and a lot of my first guests, of course, were songwriters many of them. And then so everything I do and the little writing, which we definitely want to get to that, because now I have you, I have you one-on-one, I'm gonna pick the out of your brain.
Speaker 1:Good, because I always learned something when you asked me because I'm like oh yeah, I forgot I forgot that I used to do that and now I don't.
Speaker 1:Why did I stop doing that? But I want to know, like you know, give us kind of the brief history of how you became what you are now as far as a songwriter We'll get to the personal stuff later. But, like, like you know, because I've read your story, I think it's so interesting. I've read enough memoirs and I'm like man, there's some complete gems in there and, like I, your story is fascinating to me. So so, give me like, give me like the commercial.
Speaker 2:Alright, the commercial is I was like 11 years old. We were super Baptist, super strict, fundamental but charismatic. So we spoke in tongues but went to a Baptist church really almost cult-like and I was the little kid and bad clothes that my mom made and bad haircuts that my mom gave us with paper scissors, and I just wanted to be cool and I heard Leonard Skinnerd. I mean, I heard we weren't allowed to listen to non-Christian music, so I'd heard things in stores before. But we went to some church, family's house, and I heard this kid playing electric guitar and he played Sweet Home Alabama and I was like, oh my god, that's what I want to do for the rest of my life. So I started learning how to play guitar at 11 years old and I want to be a rock star, which means in my family that if you are ridiculous, it's not gonna happen that you're gonna be, you're gonna be the loser down there playing the bars and pizza parlors and you can't do that. A lot of negativity is actually kind of helpful sometimes. And so my brother and I formed a band and we played around Tampa where we were from, and you know we got little bits of wins and we've got local radio stuff. But we just at some point decided to move to Nashville. So we moved to Nashville and I don't know if we were.
Speaker 2:We did sign a record, did? We were artists. So we signed a record deal with RCA records. In two years we played hard, we grinded, we were also budding alcoholics, so that was all a part of it and we were full of promise and then it just didn't happen. As an artist and as that was not happening, we were getting to a drug and alcohol problem that was significant enough to where we had to make some choices. And like the very same time that my brother and I both got sober, we had our first hit with someone else. Really we never had any hits by ourselves. We had a lot of songs that would die it. Like we said, we're gonna have like 20, number 28, so everything died at 28 for us and we had our first kind of.
Speaker 2:We had a song that we had written at Faith Hill recorded, and so that was all a new experience. And as we were getting sober and as we were enjoying being home with our families and raising our kids, and just that moment we had a song on the charts with somebody else. And we got a check in the mail and I called my brother. I said dude, we get paid a lot more when someone besides you. Things are so hot. And from that moment on we've been on count of 5 Giggles thumbries, Really yeah. So I didn't. Even when I moved here I'm not sure I knew that it was a job. I knew there were some old guys that sat in rooms with with khaki pants and smoking cigarettes all day, pontificating over coffee. I'm now that guy, Right. But um, and it didn't look attractive to me at first. But life happened and yeah, so some, I'm a songwriter. I always wanted to just say I was a musician, but the truth is I'm a songwriter and I could cut my arms off and still write songs.
Speaker 1:Oh, you know, what's funny is I think I think it's on your podcast that I've heard a couple other of your buddies say the same thing that they didn't even know that songwriting was like a career, that that's something that you were allowed to do, right you? And it's not unlike my world where I tell people I'm a writer, I'm an author. Oh, did you go to school for that? Like no, in fact. Yeah, in fact. I almost failed out of AP English my senior year of high school because I hated it so much. Wow, yeah, moby Dick for an entire year.
Speaker 2:But you were in AP English. Yes, I was.
Speaker 1:I was a smart kid. Here's the thing is I was a smart kid, I never had to try. I never had to try. And then I got to college and I saw, through all the bullshit, I was like I am never going to use this stuff in my entire life. The best class I ever took there was public speaking, because I was a shy kid. And but in the moment and it's funny because now I can look back and I understood that's very much who I am I saw that I could use what I learned that day as soon as I left that classroom, whereas everything else was theory and history, and I love here.
Speaker 1:I love history theory, not as much theories. Fun, you know, to talk and bullshit with your friends, I think. But a lot of it to me just didn't make sense and I didn't know how to apply it in the real world. You know, since I've had a little, you know, more experience, I understand how school can help you, especially the social aspect, but I didn't get that at the time. I totally didn't understand. So, yeah, qualifying to be a songwriter and or an author, like so many people think that you need a degree or a checkmark or somebody pat you on the back and go.
Speaker 2:Okay, you're right, you're right. You know it's ironic, and this is I am not blowing smoke at you, because you know I'm not a smoke blower but I have always been mesmerized by authors and by book writing. I'm like how can you have the discipline to put all that together? It's just just fascinated me. So when I met you, we were at a certain kind of meeting and we can talk about that.
Speaker 1:I'm not doing it. I hate meeting you All right.
Speaker 2:Well, you're a cool guy. We had a similar, a couple of friends in common, and we're talking one day and I wanted to get to know you because I like the stuff that you shared in. But anyway, you said, oh. I said what are you doing? You said I'm an author.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh, my God, I got to get to know this guy and by spending time with you and talking about it, literally, and actually you didn't want it forcing me like I'm writing a forward for your book, you're going to write this book and if it hadn't been for that, I wouldn't be doing this. But I was like, okay, you made it tangible. And then I read like three of your books in a row that you would give me and I'm like, okay, I see, and then you told me it's crazy things. Like I know, you don't know the ending when you start. It's insane to me, but I started realizing, just like everything else, it's a muscle and it's funny, because I know people that have a great idea and they can write a song, but they're not songwriters.
Speaker 2:I think I can write a book, but I'm not an author, but I do. I think understanding that will allow me to do something. The book that I'm writing can be good because I understand I don't have to be able to come up with fictional characters and do things. I need to be able to tell my story in an interesting way where people are interested in it, and that's going to be my thing. I don't, I wouldn't. It's funny. At some point someone will. If I release this book, someone will say author in the line of things, and I will call bullshit on myself.
Speaker 1:I don't know when you, you know, and I pushed you, I did, and it wasn't. It wasn't because I'm trying, you know this, I'm not trying to get anything out of it, I just you started telling me a couple little things and I felt we're lucky in the program that we're in now that we've learned to listen to something else that we don't understand Right For me, that's God and to start listening to that voice. It says you know what. Maybe you should nudge your buddy a little bit, because because one, I'm genuinely curious about where you came from. Two, I think it could, it could touch and help a lot of people, not unlike your podcast. So I wrote that thing on my phone and I sent it to you. You know I wrote in like five minutes, it came straight from the heart. And then and you were like wait I know you were probably thinking like it's funny, because I pressed send and I'm like he's either going to hate me or love me and I'm not sure it was exactly it was.
Speaker 2:And here's another thing about getting older and more sober and where I am in life and some things that have happened to me that I'm sure we'll get to, but I just pushed it in now. Yeah, just just do a call, make the call, make the text. I needed that thing because I what's funny is over the years that I mean like 20 years or more I have written the forward to books and or first chapter and never gotten beyond it. Hey, you know, god knows what he's doing. It wasn't time. When you sent that to me I was like, okay, it's time.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot of things in the last two years that I have just grown the balls to start, even with the idea that I might not be good at this. There's one reason I don't play golf I like to be good at the shit I do. You know what I mean. And I'm like man, I haven't played and all my buddies play. I'm like I'm not starting off being that guy we have to wait for all day. I'm just not playing. But I tend to do that with with things. If it's just out of my purview, talk about doing it but not do it. But when I commit to doing something and I get into chapter. Once I got into chapter two. We got 20 chapters, you know now, and that started with that day when you sent me that. I'm so grateful for it. I see a push send.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, unless it's a, unless it's an angry email I've learned that lesson the hard way to what's funny and I'm not blowing smoke either. You sent me back that first chapter to and I was, and I, you know, you just intuitively know, because obviously I had listened to some of your music, I had read some of your lyrics, you and I had talked plenty. You're very eloquent, right and so I knew, I, just I intuitively knew that you knew how to tell a story. Obviously is a country songwriter you have to be, which I didn't grow up listening to the country, so I didn't know that until I moved here. I mean, I still don't, I don't really listen to country, but when I do, there's a fucking story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was the other thing too I'll tell that story later of when I realized you don't listen to music really anymore.
Speaker 2:You want to, you want to you want to not like something anymore. You want to ruin one of your hobbies. Do it for a living.
Speaker 1:Oh, dude, I said that.
Speaker 2:I don't love it. I love it I just don't like it.
Speaker 1:There's a difference. I could not read fiction for years. Yes, exactly I could not. And that's what got me into audiobooks, because I realized, as a passive listener, I wasn't doing the work. I was just sitting back and listening to the story again and it made me fell in love with fiction again. But for you, you are a natural storyteller and you started telling. You know, I tell the brown, brown, brown story to my closest friends about the way you described your childhood and it was so vivid. But that comes from experience. It comes from you're a natural storyteller, it comes from the fact that you are a songwriter.
Speaker 1:It comes from the fact that you stand up on stage and tell stories. You know, I've seen you a couple of times up on stage and you and your brother are constantly telling stories, so that naturally lends itself to sitting down and putting pen to paper or typing something on your phone or on a screen. But a lot of people they get stuck because they think they're either not qualified or oh my God, the blank screen right, and I know songwriters do the same thing right, they have a pad of paper and they're going I don't know what the first word is or the first lick or whatever it is, but like when you first started writing, what did that feel?
Speaker 2:like it's interesting because now getting past that first page would get into your thing later. But that's just. That was daunting, like, oh my God, I'm not writing a three minute song here, I'm writing like a book. That's daunting to me when we write. Now I co write because my brother and I have written almost everything together. He's been writing songs without me because I leave town more often. I'm just not going to write as many songs currently, but 3000 songs we've written together. 3000 songs we've written together. We've had 300 songs recorded, a little more, I mean give or take, give or take a few hundred. But we've had about 300 songs recorded by national artists. About 20 of them have made all the money, to be honest, and we've written 3000. That shows you the odds. So we write a lot.
Speaker 2:When I first started writing I just did it. I didn't know any better than not to. I didn't have that trepidation of going oh, I can't do this. Because I was like well, I play guitar and I want to be in a band and there were certain songs. I don't know if you remember the song. It would be way old for you, it would have been like three, but it was called Nobody. It was by Sylvia, you're Nobody called today. She hung up when I asked her name. Okay, I wonder if she thinks she's being clever. You say Nobody's after you. That's what you say is true. But I can love you like Nobody can, even better. Yeah, it's an old Sylvia song and I did not like it. It was like pop country and I didn't like that kind of stuff and I like Van Halen. But when I heard that song I'm like, oh, that's brilliant. They used Nobody as the person and the you know the imagery in it. Just I don't know why that song had such an effect on me.
Speaker 2:So I got interested in the writing portion. So I was like 12 years old putting a band together with my, my buddy at school, darren. We needed a singer and a drummer. So we just told my little brother you're doing both, you're the singer and the drummer, because he could do anything. He could play anything, always play any instrument. And we we did that. And so I wrote all the songs for our bands all growing up, the rock bands, whatever. And then it I never thought about it and then my little brother started writing songs and that was like what you can't write songs, it's too young, it's my thing yeah, whatever You're, my little brother, you can't.
Speaker 2:And then I started realizing this kid's really good at this and we started writing songs together as teenagers and decided that we were going to write together instead of apart, so that we wouldn't compete with which songs to record. And for the next 30 years we wrote songs only together. Really, we would turn down sessions with other people with. Both of us couldn't be there. Last couple of years we were doing some writing on our own very little for me, a little bit with him, but we just a synergy came about and we, we wound up.
Speaker 2:There is definitely something about our writing. I don't know if it's good or bad, but I have friends from out of town that live in New York or something that'll call and get hey, is this song? You and I'm like yeah, and I mean not not currently, but like in the past 15 years or so. And then I could tell, I could tell you, I could feel your writing on it, both of you, and that's the biggest compliment I could get, I guess, as a writer. I think that you know, and there's plenty of people way better, plenty of people way more successful, but if you have something that's recognizable enough for for one of your friends or fans to recognize that you and you can make a living doing it you're a writer, yeah, it's like.
Speaker 1:It's like you know our mutual friend, tom Douglas, right, same sort of thing Like I. You know I'm not in the music world but I love music and I love words and there was a time when you know especially I can't remember what year that was he had kind of like hit after hit, after hit and you could feel Tom in those songs Like really I mean very.
Speaker 2:He's my mentor, by the way. When we moved to Nashville. He's the first guy we met and we're like God does everyone hear this good. By the way, everyone is not no exactly.
Speaker 1:He's a freak when it comes to that, but yeah, I can.
Speaker 2:I can hear Tom Douglas all in a song. I can hear just by the adjectives no one else would say the amount of words he can fit into a sentence. And he can fit more words into two bars of music without rapping than Lil Wayne can. It's amazing, but he's such a poet.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, that's what he. I mean.
Speaker 2:he is a songwriter, but I think, beneath it all, he is a true poet, as being able to recognize someone's writing when you hear it on the radio with a different interpretation, production, a different artist singing it. Tom is the most recognizable writer that I know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, period it's, it's it's fun to hang out with him because he is, you know, I kind of think of him whenever, whenever he and I hang out, that he's kind of like maybe a, a more sane hemming way. You know what I mean. Like, like, like somebody who is very grounded but at the same time like lives in the clouds a little bit too right. Like is a dreamer and and has these ethereal moments where everything seems to be swirling around in his head. And and I've been in a room with him and I know you definitely have way more times than I have where it's like, it's almost like he's got so many ideas going on and you can visibly see him which ones he's trying to pick out of the air and put on the table.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and another thing about writing with Tom is that he, he goes for it, he goes for it. He's got a big vocabulary and he will go to the. You're like what? You can't say that in a song? And then you hear it on the radio three months and I'm like, damn he got it in there he had this thing where he wanted to get flock of peacocks in a song.
Speaker 2:And I had three times with it and it was like I'm like Tom, that's the third time you brought up flock of peacocks in the last month and he wanted that in a song so much and he's visible in his head. But he's a guy that when he doesn't hit it he is a home run hitter. Yeah, because he strikes out. When he sometimes I'm like are you insane? This is, this is a terrible idea, and he's it's just nonsense. And then at some point the nonsense always takes a turn to oh, son of a bitch, that nonsense is genius. That's what he's doing.
Speaker 2:On the wrong day. It's like you're like this guy is crazy. He's a very hemming way crazy and he, like he will die with the pen and set. Because Tom is, I start to think how much do I have riding wise? I'm riding less, trying to write more quality try to trophy fish, a trophy hunt was riding, but Tom's and I wonder how much riding I'm going to do, as I'm at 54 years old, I'm better health than I was when I was 34, and far better actually because I was still drinking and using. But wondering how long someone's going to do it and Tom's in his mid 60s. He's no plans to.
Speaker 1:No, not at all, in fact. I mean, in fact, I gotta get on the phone and call him at some point and go go have lunch with him. But you know, the last time I was with him he made it a point to say that he's trying to spend more time with younger songwriters because they give him energy and they bring something else to the room. And I'm sure part of it and you know we could probably talk about the book what was strength? Of strength right, that that you move into that different part of your life where you become this mentor, and he's definitely been part of that. You know, I've I've met people who are brand new to town and somehow his name comes up and their eyes just like light, like he's God, and I can't imagine being a brand new songwriter and getting invited to his house because he does a majority of his stuff there. I think, still right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he does.
Speaker 1:Like in his converted garage.
Speaker 2:He's a dine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and being invited into the sanctum of Tom Douglas and I've been very lucky that obviously I look up to him, I consider him a friend. But maybe it's because of who I am and maybe who I put very few people on pedestals that when I go in there I feel not like an equal but something like that. Right, we're both artists and to be able to come at it from a different angle, but going in there and being a new kid and just like looking at somebody in all who's had all these hits, is in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, all these things, I mean what he won in Oscar and Emmys and you know, I don't know probably he's been in all that shit and whatever he has it on is BS because it should have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, I don't know who votes for those things. But when you came to town, I still think, well, that part of your story that you shared with me and I can't wait until it comes out in book form where I can actually read the words. But for me, the visuals that I remember in my head, of the words that you sent me via note, were you guys coming to town, I think going to Bennegan's, and who was it? Shane McEnally was waiting tables there and then, visually, I see you and Brett literally knocking on door saying, hey, we're here, what can we do? You know what I mean? And that was the visual for me. Like, what was it like for real when you guys first came here?
Speaker 2:I mean, it was that we moved. Ok, so you're Ignorance's Bliss. So we moved here. Ok, we're going to do something. And, to tell the truth, I don't know what our delusion might have been, but we came from a mom who said you can't do anything. She should have been a motivation. I think she was amazing Reverse motivation. Reverse motivation because we were like I'm going to do something. So we moved here with low expectations but high hopes, and we had one friend. He was a host at Bennegan's. We went into Bennegan's.
Speaker 2:The first person we met in Nashville was Shane McEnally, this redheaded kid waiting tables. So that's my friend, shane. He writes songs too, oh great. So we became, you know, I mean casual friends.
Speaker 2:Anyway, for those of you who don't know, shane McEnally is maybe the single most successful combo of writer publisher in the history of Nashville and he actually there's guys with more hits than him, but there are not better writers. He's as good a songwriter as you. So I've been in a room with it. I've been in a room with everybody Taylor Swift, steven Tyler, tom Douglas and as great as Tom Douglas is as a poet, the person crafting a song, knowing how to get the audience and still not being a sellout because there's some guys with tons of hits and I respect them. I respect them I don't even know if I'm a pimple on there but they the gravitas of what they're doing, it's just they're in ankle deep water. Shane man, he's a little. If you listen to the words of his songs there's more there.
Speaker 2:Anyway, first guy we met in Nashville was literally became maybe the best songwriter the town's ever seen. The first guy we met we had a friend of a friend, brett Lictis girl, who has formerly dated one of the guys in the band Warrent, the rock band Warrent. They were managed by a guy named Eddie Winnrich and Eddie Winnrich had a business partner and another venture named Charlie Smithers. Charlie Smithers had a venture in another business with a guy named Buzz Kasen who's an old guy that owned a studio here and he introduced us to Buzz Kasen and Buzz Kasen was co-producing Tom Douglas's solo album that never came out Really, and that is how we met Tom Douglas. Now you tell me there's that divine intervention there.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I don't know if you followed all those names. That's too many, that's too many connections for you to do on your own.
Speaker 2:So we come to town, we meet Buzz Kasen, who he wrote Everlasting Love, the song that's been cut and it's been a top 40 hit in five straight decades, god, really Cut by everyone from you two to the Gloria Estefan to the Rolling Stones. I mean it's a total classic Anyway. So we're kind of in all of Buzz. He had this studio and then we meet Tom, but Tom is currently a real estate salesman in Texas and he's got one hit and it's on the radio or it just had gone number one, and it was the song Little Rock for Colin Ray. And I mean, if you listen, to that song.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of stuff on the radio that's good, man. Lyrically they don't get much better than that. The song didn't have an ounce of fat on it. It told a great story. It had pictures that it's selling DCRs in Arkansas and to Walmart man, you were there, you were in the parking lot, like he put you there. It's brilliant, colin Ray Little Rock. If you haven't listened to country music in a while, it's brilliant.
Speaker 2:And so we knew he was good. But we meet to him and we're like rock and roll kids, we're smoking cigarettes or tattoos, and we meet this guy with a button-up shirt and a really beautiful, sweet wife in a nice big house, because he used to sell real estate and he had small children, and we're like you're inviting us to your home, are you sure you know? And this unlikely friendship was born. It's crazy about songwriting. As you could, tom could see something in us that I don't think anyone else could have. Yeah, and we will.
Speaker 2:I'll never be as poetic as Tom Douglas, but we gave him something musically that was an edge that he didn't have, and he gave us something lyrically that we would never, ever have gotten where we are without. And it was always don't settle for the line that works. Dig for the line that means something. Push a button, and even to writing the dumbest song on Earth Red Solo Cup. We learned from Tom Douglas how to push a button. If you're not pushing a button in someone, what are you writing for? You know anybody else will say la la, la.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I ever told you the story. So my brother-in-law and Tom live in the same neighborhood.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, he's like, yeah, yeah, so that's how I met Tom initially and I remember because I think Tom was walking and his daughter was like riding a horse through the neighborhood or something weird. Anyway, so I meet him and it's at my brother-in-law's house and I just kind of spark up a conversation. He's the one I don't even know if I've I think I've told him this. So he told me the story about at the time I was in commercial real estate and so he had been in commercial real estate down in Texas and then he told me the story about. I asked him how did he get to Nashville? And he told me the story that he had written and then he had left and gotten in commercial real estate and then come back. It was like a contest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was so contested.
Speaker 1:And what he was in his early 40s. So basically, he did not find his way until he was in his 40s and I will never forget that that gave me permission to become a writer later on, because I remember that, first of all, I didn't have to ask for permission and, second, I was like who else that I know has done this like later on in their lives? And Tom Douglas just like kept coming up, kept coming up in my head and so for me he's been just kind of one of those pinnacles in my life of like somebody who made that change later on and now come to find out a lot of people do that in their 40s and 50s and they really don't find their way until now. How old were you when you wrote your first book? I was what. So that was. What year was that? 2011, 2010, 11. So that was what? 12 years ago? So I was 34, 34 at the time, so close to his 40, right and I was having a I guess at the time would be kind of like a midlife crisis.
Speaker 1:I owned a property management company at the time, hated what I was doing. It had nothing to do with the like renters, it actually had to do with some of the clients we're just to this day I won't have my phone on ring. I always have it on silent because of that. Time Almost drove me to PTSD the rare. Oh yeah, absolutely. I almost had a nervous breakdown, ended up selling the company and really just for enough money to pay off the debt that we had, and then I left. I went and worked for a buddy for like a month, knew that wasn't gonna work out, so I quit and I went to my wife and I said, hey, I wrote this book. I'd written my first book on my lunch breaks Learn how to do stuff on my own Cause. I'd written a commercial real estate book, like to kind of give to people as I was cold calling, and that was the first book. That was the very first book was a commercial real estate book. The first fiction novel I wrote was called Back to War and it was written.
Speaker 1:I've told this story a bunch of times. We were at Disney World I think it was 2010. We had two kids at the time. We had just had a big day at Disney World and we came back, my wife and my kids laid down for a nap, and I had this idea in my head that I just wouldn't go away About this character.
Speaker 1:Second Avenue, downtown. He gets attacked with his fiance. His fiance gets killed. He's a marine. What happens next? And that started my writing career.
Speaker 1:So I learned how to publish it on my own as a self-published author. Now we call ourselves Indies to sound a little more important. And one month I'd sell two copies and then the next month I'd sell 25. So I'm watching this for six months as I'm going through the last bits of my property management career Sell the company, get out and I asked my wife. I said can I have six months to try this? I'll stay home, I'll be a stay-at-home dad. I'll watch the kids when they're asleep, I'll work on what I need to work on. And so during that six months I think I wrote three more books.
Speaker 1:I stayed home with the kids. I'd stay up till like three in the morning reading everything I could about publishing, learning everything. And at the time there was a guy named Joe Conrath who was like he blogged almost every day about. You know, he'd been traditionally published and then he'd gotten in this new world. He was just making a killing at the time and he was documenting everything. So I was really lucky because two years before that I wouldn't have had anybody to read. I would spend hours and hours and days just reading all his posts.
Speaker 1:I mean, I went back to the very beginning and just started reading and that's how I learned and I started experimenting. And then I met some people and I started making more money, right, and I remember at the time my goal was I could just make $3,000 a month. If I could just make $3,000, that was my number $3,000. I will have made it, because most people, most authors, don't make money, like a lot of people don't know that Most authors don't make any. I was not in it for vanity. I was in it to make money and not to be famous, to support my family. That was my dream and it's funny because now I have a big thing, a big flag on my wall in my office that says remember why you started and I started to take care of my family period that was it.
Speaker 1:I didn't want to be famous, none of that. There have been points in my career where I wanted to be that guy. I wanted to be the next John Grisham In fact I do as a joke, I own the domain Juan Grisham, because one time I was in an Uber and this guy kept asking me what do you do?
Speaker 1:And I made the mistake of saying I was an author. And he's like oh, what are you right under? And I said Juan Grisham. So, yes, it's a joke between me and some of my friends. So, anyway, you know, I start writing and learning and then I start meeting some people, who it was actually my cohost of this podcast.
Speaker 1:He wrote a blog post in January of the year after that I read that changed everything for me. So he outlined everything that he had done in his career and different tactics that he was using that were really bold and not a lot of people were doing. And I did it. I started doing it and it changed everything. I found a new readership and I was doing a lot of things like I was. I've always been an action guy. You know that about me. So I was. I was figuring out how does I get? I screwed up a lot of things, but I did a lot of things right and the things that were doing it going right were going really well. So I just kept growing and growing and then and how did you?
Speaker 1:find your audience. So in the beginning, this was this was right after Kindle started. So 2011, 2012, freebies like Kindle freebies were a big deal. So free, free ebooks. So not a lot of people know this.
Speaker 1:Back then there were like a few websites that you could post your your ebooks and so that people that wanted to find free books could get them and download them right and that could really drive you up in the rankings and just help find new readers and all that. Well, I would go on a couple of those, but it was hard because they were being more and more selective. So I started my own website. It was called I Love ebooks and I started posting, like I was just going on Amazon and like, grabbing stuff that was free and making it look good. And I had a Facebook page and I we had, you know, there was a daily newsletter that went out. Nobody knew that.
Speaker 1:I ran it, but then I would also throw in my books every once in a while, like, and that's how I found my first readership and I think that's part of why I have a very high female readership as well, because those were mostly women looking for free books, because they read voraciously. I mean, I've met people that read three books a day, like that kind of stuff. So that's how I built. I mean, it was very grassroots. It was very like you know, hey, what's working today, what's working tomorrow, and then you know Amazon started introducing more tools, but really it was. That was the beginning of it, and then, probably not unlike you, figuring out what stories resonate with people and which ones I enjoyed writing to and writing more of that. Right, like like being strategic but not overthinking it. Yeah, because I was. There was a period in my career I overthought way too much and it became not fun anymore.
Speaker 2:Is there a point when you, when you read your early books, is there something there that you miss now? Because I'll tell you this, my very first song as a kid you were, you were writing in English. That was your English class when I was. But our first hits, yeah, mean more to. There's something, man. We we learned how to write a hit. It's just there's something missing. When I look back at 20, there's some 20 years ago stuff and I go that guy didn't, he didn't know any better. Yeah that was awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't care. I didn't care and I didn't. I didn't know enough of the rules to understand that I was breaking them Right Now, like I tell my kids know the rules, so you know how to break them, so you understand what the limits are and then go break them. I know the rules now and part of it is that takes some of the wonder out of it, because in the beginning it was just, it was exciting and like I'm putting words and then I go back and read them like, wow, this what? And in I mean looking back.
Speaker 1:We've gone back and edited a couple times, especially my first book, but it was, it was dirty and it was rough, but I can still go to the core of it and see it was a story about a guy in pain and utilizing his skills, but that he was also and you'll appreciate this he was surrounded by people, guys, manly warriors who cared for him and would do anything for him, and so I didn't realize that for years I was writing about what I wanted in my life before I had it Right. And of course, I had to realize I was an alcoholic and go to AA before I found my people.
Speaker 1:You know that's how I met you and so now I have my people. Lo and behold, I was writing about it for six years before I found it, especially my spin off series. So I have a spin off of one of my favorite reader, favorite characters and mine and I was reading it. I was writing about myself, so my characters tend to be either part of who I am or who I was or who I want to be, and this character was who I was and who I wanted to be all rolled into one and my readers love this guy, absolutely love him, which is funny, because now I'm throwing him all kinds of shit and he's going, he's, he's, he's emotionally relapsing. Right now. People are like, wait, what he was, an alcoholic, what I'm like, did you not read the other books?
Speaker 2:So yeah, but yeah, that's why they love it. I'm just guessing, but it's an educated guess, because the more authentic we write, the more there it's. In songs and in this book that I'm trying to write, there have been moments where I kind of curved my language. I went wait a minute, wait a minute. There's going to be profanity in this book. My mom's, like in life, like all of this, write this shit how you feel it right now and tell the truth.
Speaker 1:About tell the truth.
Speaker 2:Everything. By the way, it doesn't mean dragging anyone's dirty laundry in. I think I did a pretty good job of dragging my own dirty laundry in and not including anyone else in the trip, because it's not my job to tell what everyone else did. But there's something about those early things where you didn't know the rules that it's just grimey or it's like there's a kid, there's a kid in that and he's a new songwriter. His name's Preston James and he's really talented. He's 22 years old and the first time we met him he's like oh, there's the Warren Brothers and we're in Warren Chapel. He's really talented new young guy and he writes for the same publisher we do and he just goes New Mexico, new Diet Coke, new taxes on the same pack of smokes, new president, new precedents, new music ain't got the same soul and I'm like, oh my god, that was lyrics and a song from our indie record that was, and I'm like, and so he has a little text chain with us on it when we write it he calls it New Diet Coke, cause we and I'm like, oh my god, this kid was and we were that's just not country songwriting and we were like being an indie rock band.
Speaker 2:It was after our record deal, before we got sober. It was in that time shit was not good and this kid was like he goes, man, I listened. So he was like eight or nine when that case and I listened to that CD so much my mom said, if you listen to that Warren Brothers CD again, I'm going to throw it away. It was that irritating how much he goes. I was raised on this album and I'm like, oh my god, you just, and I'm telling you our early records didn't sell anything. This really didn't sell. I mean you're talking, you know, 20, 30,000 copies and it's not like books. That would be a lot of books, but something like that.
Speaker 2:Not a lot of CDs, but there was enough of them out there and you just never have any idea what the ripple is, and I always loved somebody's early stuff because they didn't get to think about it or pretty it up too much, not polished, I mean.
Speaker 1:So you just quoted your own lyrics. This is a question I've been wanting to ask you for a long time.
Speaker 2:That was terrible. By the way, I didn't just quote them all At least you remember most of it.
Speaker 1:How do you do that? I've heard you quote people. I've heard you quote quotes. I've heard you pull full passages from books that you've read months before. Is that just? Is that you? Is that being a songwriter? Is that being an entertainer? Like how the I can't memorize anything.
Speaker 2:For me, that's being a songwriter, because we're nugget oriented. The thing is that's you're the long play which amazes me. I'm like, how do you do that? How do you do that? We're the short play.
Speaker 2:I do not let a nugget pass my brain without a lot to get in there. And you know, what's funny is some things I had to. I'm like researching where did I get that? Where did I get them? Like, oh, I said that. Or thinking I said something and realized seeing it on a you know. No, mike Tyson said everybody's got a game plan till they get hit in the mouth. You didn't say that Because of the songwriter brain, everything that comes across that hits you.
Speaker 2:I mean we probably talked about it. But I have a note list of quotes in my phone and I mean there's hundreds. I love quotes so I don't ever let one pass. And then if it's stories that are that you could get in a little nugget, the way that you think in long form, which you can't possibly memorize that much, my job is to do that in short form and it's much easier to remember those little, those little nuggets I mean in my mind. I couldn't believe that this kid knew this growing up. But if you went back to the songs you grew up on, do you remember the?
Speaker 1:words to Very true. Very true, you know, and I probably do weird stuff in my own right. So I probably told you and I know I've mentioned this on here that I read like 20 books at a time. Yes, and I have a placeholder in my head so I can put it away for a year and come back to it and I don't need to go back. And it's not. I do not have a photographic memory. It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do, I think, with story right, because I live in story and you live in song, so we immerse ourselves in those worlds and that shit just sticks, and it probably will forever and ever. I can't write.
Speaker 2:I can't read two books at a time when I am in this mode. I have to stay in that mode till that's done, because you tell me like you write on the treadmill, I'm like what? And it's funny because I was going to try to write while like talking. But I can't do that. I have to type it and then look at it and go, okay, yeah, that makes I could. It took a while.
Speaker 2:I mean, there are just tricks of the trade and things that we do after. It's funny because after you know 25 years of doing this for a living, I don't even think about it anymore. But when something I hear something interesting whether it's an AAMini or a movie or I'm at the mall and I overhear something, it goes in my phone, goes in my phone, goes in my phone and I just and I don't have them all memorized, but if you said the first three words of all of them, I would, because that nugget is that's my place marker.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny. The last episode when I was with Robert, my co-host, we were talking about that. So I came into his house one day and there's just papers stacked everywhere. I'm like, what are you doing? And he was going back through his old files and just getting rid of a bunch of stuff and it just it reminded me we had this whole conversation about when I was.
Speaker 1:Everybody has their own process, right, you have your notes on your phone. I used to take copious notes and if an idea I would put it, I would take it and put it in a file folder and all that. What I found for me is I can't do that because all of a sudden that's felt like pressure, like another job, that oh my God, I'm going to miss something. So I was stressing out about missing shit and then I read something again. It's to each his own, everybody has their own process that if it's a great idea, it's going to stick in your head and that works for me, whereas for you going in and you know, because I've seen you, I've seen you go through that list and whether it's you know song names or whatever it is and going and finding something, and you know, you've kind of talked about your songwriting and how you do that as well.
Speaker 1:But, like for me, I've just found and I think part of it is the person that I am now I give in myself enough grace that I know the things that I'm not good at, and one of the things I'm not good at is just having this whole compilation of stuff sitting in the corner waiting for me to dig into it again. I can't do that. Like I have to be struck by inspiration, but like we talk about, inspiration strikes every time I go sit down and write right and I have to do that. I have to. But it's funny where that shit pulls from. You know, sometimes it's a conversation you and I had, sometimes it's a news article that I read. I don't save these things anywhere anymore but intuitively my brain knows to latch onto something and then bring it in when it needs to come out.
Speaker 2:When I started writing. I've another friend of mine, another songwriter, that had written a book it's really good and he gave me this book, that from a writer, the guy that wrote Fight Club, I can't remember his name, and it was this instruction book. So I'm, I'm talking to you and I'm giving you some of this stuff and you said, take it with a grain of salt, every writer's got their own. Cause, honestly, it was kind of messing my head up because it was giving me rules that I was able to say, and you and you, I'm like thank God you told me, cause there's, there's a book called Toon Smith by oh, what's the guy's name he wrote. He wrote what's the title?
Speaker 2:I'm, anyway, great songwriter and I read his book many 20 years ago, but it was like there was, you know, you can't have not imperfect rhymes, right? I'm like, well, man, I'm glad I didn't fall in that role. You can have imperfect rhymes, you can have no rhymes. There are no rules and getting outside of those rules is freeing, as it can be, and every job has certain constants. So, um, the way you collect information, the way I collect information, we have accidentally learned that to survive and what we do, you know Garrett headlin is. He's an actor, yeah, and he was in. Well, he's in Friday night lights.
Speaker 2:I met him years ago because he was the Tim McGraw son in the movie Friday night lights and oh he's been a bunch of stuff and I, we see each other occasionally and he and my brother he's he's pretty good friends of my brother and Me and Breton and him were at we're at lunch and we were talking about the. I'm like, how do you, do you memorize that, all that stuff? And he's like man, I memorized the whole script. Oh my gosh, everybody's part like, oh my, he's like I know, because I just, I just he goes, but I first thing I do. It's funny.
Speaker 2:I always told my kids this, right, growing up in school use I write it, yeah, the whole thing. And then I get done and I write it again, oh, immediately. And then I read what I've written and I hear it's this whole process. I would now I would get inaccurate if I went in, but he wrote the whole script down, he memorizes the whole script, so he knows it's like second nature, what's there? There are no accidents in. Like. You know, it would be easy to be an actor if you just had the ability not true, not true to be an author, not true, being a songwriter. There's hours, ten thousand hours, is a joke. Oh, yeah, you know what I mean. Absolutely the amount of time we think about these things and the reason that it's fun for me to try to get Literary and for you. At some point you're probably gonna wind up writing a song, or maybe a bunch of them, because they're shorter.
Speaker 2:The creative thing is part of who I am but you just get burnt out on the, the process. We, yeah, it's the process, music grow that. I've been going down there for 25 years. You know, some days I'm like I'm mental ditch digging.
Speaker 1:Today it's. It's funny you say that because I'm writing a book right now and that's how it feels, dude. And I keep telling myself just show up, just show up, you know what. If it sucks, who cares? Just say the words will put them on paper. And it's funny because, you know, every day before I start I just I have to clean up what I did the day before, just formatting wise, so I got a read through it anyway. I'm like, okay, this is not as bad as you think, it is right, like, and definitely, once it gets through editing, I know how to tell a story, just like you know how to write a song, and so we know these things intuitively. So most times when we just show up, it's gonna be okay. But, man, I, we were, we were hanging out what a week or two ago and you were mentioning.
Speaker 1:You know, some days it just seems like a grind when you go to work and for some reason last week and a half at work, for me writing has been a grind and mark part of this. Maybe the kids just went back to school, so there's a lot going on, there's activities, I'm doing other stuff in my business, I don't know, maybe there's just more distractions or I'm just maybe I'm heading. The thing that I always think about, you know, on the side is maybe I'm heading into a new phase of my career. I don't know, I may be, I may be I may be taking a different role. That being said, you know you mentioned, I've told you before one of my pipe dreams is I would love to write songs.
Speaker 1:You know I'm not a yeah, I played saxophone, you know, when I was in middle school. So I understand music, but I love, I just love music. I just do, and I don't know what that looks like and we've talked about it before. And you're like, maybe you can go in and do this and I'm like Do you know how bad that scares me to go in the room with somebody who's been doing it for 25 years and not know the rules? That's my thing. I does this? Bother you at all to like? You kind of said a minute ago that I need to know the rules before I step into something?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that's the by the way. That's bad, I don't need to scare the shit out of me. I don't need to know the rules, but that's why I never started writing a book, you know okay? So after we're gonna write a song, after this, we will write a song, just and honestly. Since we're close enough, it'll just be the two of us, and then we can venture into other things later, just to, and if it sucks, we don't have to play for anyone.
Speaker 1:I would go through the process.
Speaker 2:Let's do it. That's absolutely would love to do that. Yeah, yeah, we'll just, we'll just. We'll just write a song. I mean for sure, because there is. It is a little adventure. You like cool and it's funny.
Speaker 2:With my brother We've been writing together the whole the whole time. We argue almost every day, but, but with respect, usually. But man, there's a friend, Lance. He's a great, he writes with us and he's such a great cheerleader of it. He goes, man, just when you guys hit it, when it gets on, he said you're like Doberman Pinterest with chicken gizzards, but you're just tearing it, like it just. But that's actually probably a really violent Way to look at it. But he said man, it just flows and it just comes out and it's amazing when the two of you hit it, you don't even realize it.
Speaker 2:So a lot of times when we write with someone early Me, brett and I, and a third person and be like, oh, my god, you guys can finish each other's thoughts, can't you? There's a groove that you hit, that's good and and that stuff is special and those are cool. But when you were saying earlier that you, you know, it's not as bad as you thought it was, I don't think it's ever as good or bad as I perceive it to be in that day. Totally Unfortunately, it's all closer to the middle that I'd like for it to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are no rules and and the I honestly I would love to just there'll be fun to just venture into a song with you To let you see how a how, oh, how basic it is and then be how Unbelievable it is that you have to. First of all, this has to go to melody and music and we have to have an idea that means something or where I get there. It's kind of brilliant and it's kind of really simple. And then it's kind of a miracle that any of these little Recordings ever take the trek that it has to take to become a hit. Because, yeah,
