Ep.304 – Tattoo Billy Interview

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This is the Windwords Fail Music Speaks.

Podcast with Blake Mosley, James Todd, and Amanda Dolan.

And now the Windwards fail Music speaks interview. Perfect. Awesome.

Thank you very much, sir. Yeah. All right. So I don't know if you're listening to our interview episode, which is great, which is fine, but the way it's going to happen is Amanda is going to introduce you. We have a bio sitting by. I forgot his name.

I edited it a little. Yeah, but it's all got the same stuff. It's just the way I like to talk.

Right.

She's going to interview, and we're going to have a great time talking about music. All right.

Is anything off limits?

You guys ask me anything you want because I've done so many interviews and a lot of it's the same kind of thing. So I like anything that's throwed at me that might be off the wall.

We might surprise you here.

I've got a couple of things I want to talk to you about, so we'll get into it here in a.

Ready?

Yeah.

In three, two, one. Whenever.

Hi. Welcome back to the when words Fail music speaks podcast. I'm Amanda Dolan, and I'm here with my co host, James Cox, along with Tattoo Billy. Tattoo Billy's band was founded in the late 1980s. Don't think you got your name until the 90s, though. By Herstel Begley and his son, Ed Begley. Over the years, the band's lineup has changed. Your dad passed in 2014, as well as guitarist Rodney Begley in 2015 and Gary Little in 2021. So you, Ed, are the final original member of the band. Got some new members, including your wife.

Right.

Which have questions about. You've released a number of albums over the years. The most recent single out is Frisky Whiskey with Jonathan Joss, who is the voice of John Redcorn on King of the Hill, starring in the music video. And you've had songs featured in the movie Kiss of a vampire, which when I looked for, I had a hard time finding because it's under a different name on IMDb. That doesn't matter. And that's starring immortal something.

Oh, yeah, it's under immortal of yours, I think, originally. And it's kiss of the vampire now. I think you can find it on Tubi now.

Oh, I might have to go watch it. And that's starring Daniel Goddard and Martin Hove and Matthias Hughes. And you guys, even all of these years later, right? You're still writing and performing all over the.

Yep. We're like methuselah. We won't go away. Been around forever.

That's not bad at all. I'm so excited that you're here. I listened to some of your music and checked you all out and had a really great sound. It reminds me of growing up in the best. I'm again, I'm so happy to have you here. James, do you want to start? Do you have any questions to start while I pour myself some whiskey for frisky whiskey?

There you go.

And one of us is not. And that's me who's not. But she's going to drink for going.

To have some whiskey.

That's going to make an honor, right?

Hopefully not so much that I make it too fun.

There you go.

Right?

Just enough.

There you go.

Mr. Ed, I just want to thank you so much for promoting us on X, which is for Twitter, Facebook and all the other things. I did not expect you to do that. But from the bottom of my heart, thank you. That helped a lot.

Thank you. And thank you for having me on. It's a real honor to be on with you guys. I appreciate it.

Yes, sir. Anytime. Excited. First question for you. Okay, so tattoo Billy was founded in the late eighty s, right?

Yeah.

So starting your music career in the.

Sometimes when I think of it's like 2000, there's another decade after that now.

But since it's eighty s to now, which generation would you prefer to listen to music the most?

In music that I like to listen to?

Yes. Which generation from seventy s?

Eighty s right now. I like a lot of like, because a lot of me being kind of a southern rock artist, a lot of people think I'm like all time listening to southern rock right now. There's a band I'm listening to. I really like they're called Blame my youth, and it's kind of like an alternative rock band or a real good band. They got a song out called Stupid Human. I like them. I like to like alkaline trio senses failed. So I listen to a lot of different stuff. And then I like some of these newer guys out of Texas where she's from, like Austin Mead and Cole Wetzel, and guys like, you know, kind of a mixed. Know what I like. And I like the old country guys, too. Of course, you got to like shiny cash and Waylon Jennings and all those guys, too. They're just legends.

I am going to ask you about Waylon Jennings. So I was listening to your song born in Dixie, which is on your last cut album, and for me, that sounded like a strong inspiration of whale and Jenny's. Is that true, or am I far apart from.

No, no, you're spot on. My dad, when we were playing around, he looked so much like Waylon Jennings and stuff like that. They called him little Whalen. Okay, what his nickname was on the scene. And I kind of grew up. It's kind of like a different scene, as in, like I was growing up and I was watching my dad play these honky tonks and back know, if you walked in the honky tonk, you were seven or eight years old, as long as you was with your mom or whatever, it wasn't nobody like, hey, get that kid out of here. So I'd be in a honky tonk seeing my dad play. And this is so long ago, my first memory of being there. I remember Urban Cowboy was like the big movie that was out with John Travolta at the. You know, I was like a real young kid and I was going in these places, seeing my dad play at that time, I never thought I would wind up playing with him myself. And the scene was really different, too. Back in the scene was honky tonks, and it was honky tonks when I first started playing, too. I call them honky tonks, aka gun and knife clubs. They were pretty rough joints, you know what I mean? So when I was in high school, when I first joined my dad, the first place I played with him was a place that had chicken wire around the stage.

Yes, I'm getting roadhouse vibes here because.

I guess the audience would be kind of more rambunctious than what the.

I'm curious then how your amateur boxing fighting helped you then in these honky tonks with. They're a little more rough and tumble.

Yeah, I went that deep there was some rough and tumble times. We as a band tried to just basically stick together if anything happened, you know what I mean, on stage. Luckily we were very professional band. Now, my dad did, but this was when I was a kid, my dad and my mom and a bunch of them got into a big scuffle with, and I'm not going to mention the name, but it was an MC club, a motorcycle club, and they had a big old fight. The whole bar was fighting. But this is when I was a kid and my mom wind up getting arrested in it, you know what I mean? She'll probably get mad.

Oh, wow.

Story. I've never told it before, but yeah, so that's the only time I known of something happening. The other time it came close to something like that happen in one of the clubs was we were playing a place. Well, I probably shouldn't mention the name of the place, but it was a truck stop bar and it was up in Washington, courthouse in Ohio, and the whole place was filled up with lot lizards or you might play the whole night. We get to the end of the night, the whole place has got like a weird vibe to it. Sheriff comes in, walks out. It's like, okay, so at the end of the night, we go up to try to get paid and the guy act like he wasn't going to pay us. And we were like, oh boy, here we go. This guy ain't going to pay us for this show. You know what I mean? But he finally wound up paying us and we were like, okay. And we did wind up coming back and playing two more shows there. But it was definitely one of the weirder places I played at too, which unfortunately, most of my music career, we did have some good gyms of opening up for artists, but most of my music career was unfortunately, in the honky talk.

Good stuff.

Sometimes I think those smaller, more intimate, I'm going to say smaller, more intimate venues can be really fun for both the artist and the fans watching.

Yeah, we had a pretty good following and I mean, I still got a decent enough following now. They still buy my music and stream it. You can see the frisky whiskey video. It's almost 100,000 views, which is great people still fun video. Yeah. So I do got a small contingent of fan base and that's why I tell a lot of people, do what you do, do it for you, and you'll find your crowd, you'll find your audience. So don't listen to anybody. It's like, oh, you can't do this. Or you can't sing or you can't do that, because if I did that, I would have never boxed. I would have never played bass. I would have never did anything in my life. But I listened to me, listened to my heart like he's mentioned in the Bible earlier, listened to God, put a lot of faith in him and actually done things, had songs and movies. I was in a book with number one artist in South Africa, Steve Hoffmeyer, and he has me listed as a celebrity under there. It's probably through the disdain of the other south african celebrities that are sharing pages with people.

You are a celebrity, period. I love that, though. That almost like, lead with your intuition. Know that if you're doing what brings you joy, that the people, the success, all of that will follow you.

Success is what is success to you. And everybody has a different concept of it. Mine's like, if I write one song and one person likes it, I've had success.

Yeah, you've done your job.

I've done my job. One person actually likes something I did. So my outlook has always been, when I was younger, how could you say it? I used to want to be anybody but me. You know what I mean? I wanted to be the big celebrity. And now that I'm older, I wouldn't want to be anybody but me and where I'm at.

Let me ask you a quick question, because you brought it up. You said, we're talking about when you were younger. So many kids change their minds from day to day about what you want to be. Did you always want to be a musician, or did you have other dreams like normal kids would say? Because I remember having a dream of becoming like a race car driver one day.

Right?

Something else the other day was music always like, go to thing?

Well, growing up, there was so much music around me. I think I was kind of like, I don't want to being around it so much. I wasn't really drawn to it until I was about, I think I was 16 and a half, and there was some girl in school that liked musicians.

Yeah.

I was like, I like this girl, and maybe she'll like me if I'll pick up an instrument. And at that time in rock music, I joined a rock band, but the bass player only had to beat one string. You know what I mean? The guitar player did all the work. So I picked up the bass, and six weeks later, I was playing shows, just beating a string open.

I might disagree with you on the bass player. You all are part of the percussion. You're part of the keeping the rhythm going. And so if you all mess up, right, that can shift things. But also what I find interesting is that when I think of a bass player, I think of the guy standing in the corner not doing anything. I mean, not doing anything but just kind of standing there and rocking. But you're a bass player and frontman singer. How does that work? That's not normal.

It works out pretty good because I've been doing it, you know what I mean? I think a lot of it's experience. When I hear like stories about the Beatles when they went to Hamburg and they were in Germany and they were playing 6 hours a night, I did. That was all my shows starting off. We started at 09:00 at night. We didn't get to quit till 230 in the morning. So playing those chops, playing those bars, and like you were mentioning, even with the boxing, you learn to lose butterflies. You get up and it's almost like a job to you, you know what I mean? And you turn it on and you do it. And you may not be the best every night at it. Sometimes you might have a cold, sometimes your voice might crack. But we are firm believers, and we don't use click tracks, and we don't sing with the recordings. We get out and we play it live. We play it raw the old fashioned way.

You mentioned that, and I'm going to maybe put you on the spot. But a few weeks ago was the Super bowl, and Alicia Keys is up there, and I think her voice cracked just a little bit in the live performance. Clearly no auto tune. Clearly it was her singing. And then now the official recording that's out on the NFL YouTube page or whatever has that voice disappointed. Like, I have to say, I'm disappointed that they did not have that to show that imperfection, that we're not always perfect and that you can be amazing at something and still mess up.

And that's about being a live act. It's not going to be perfect. You know what I mean? And when people say, oh, that band sounded horrible, I said, well, you were listening to a real live band. Everything ain't going to be perfect. Just like the record, every time you play it, there might be something. A guitar might get out of tune on you and you got to fix it real quick while you're playing. Or your voice might crack and you're like, oh, no. But you just play through it. You know what I mean? And usually if you don't acknowledge one thing I've learned about playing out and playing out for all these years now is that if you don't acknowledge your mistake, most people don't recognize it either. You know what I mean? Except for maybe like a Super bowl performance or something like that.

But the thing is, I didn't notice that until somebody pointed it on some social media, because for me it was just a live performance.

Right. And that's what I like about, like, when you see the stones. Stones are still playing live. You know what I mean? Yeah. Get out there and do it for real. And if you fall, you're just going to get better. You're just going to get better as you go. And more shows you play, the longer you play. When we did openers to get up and play like ten or eleven songs, it was like a warm up to us whenever we got to open up for bigger acts. So it was like we had to energize up. Like, hey, come on, we got to get it together. We got to put a show on here. And you had to energize yourself up because you're only getting to play ten or eleven songs, which to us was like nothing. That's just one set out of, what, four or five sets we used to do a night, you know what I mean? So we'd have to try to energize up. All right, let's get out there. Let's move around. Let's get it going. I love the live performance, and I love it so much. If I didn't have to haul my equipment and hook it up, if it was like, hey, we love your music. And it's close enough, they're like, will you come here and play a couple sets and we'll have the PA hooked up and we'll have everything ready to go for you. I'd probably do it for free because I like playing music, but with the work involved in it, you got to make something. You got to get paid. It's a lot of work. And I got a set rate that I play by. And I got history and legacy behind me as an independent artist and that I'm not going to give it away. No. So some people don't book me because they think I'm too high and other people think I'm just not your people. No. Yeah, those aren't my people. But it is fun. I do enjoy it now. I don't do it as a full time living anymore just because I was talking to somebody today about this. They were talking about my first record deal I ever got. It was with an independent label out of California. I'm not going to mention her name, you know what mean? But. So we signed to them, and we signed to them because we had another subsidy from a major label that was interested in us. But they want a full time commitment, which at this time, we all had houses, we all had families, so we wasn't looking for gambling at all and going on the road. We really wasn't, because we had families to take care of and stuff like that. And they wasn't really coming off of any guarantees. So we signed with this record label. And I was telling this lady today, I said it was probably longer than this, but it seems like six weeks later, this label went out, but it was probably more like six months. You know what I mean? But it was just one of those things. We wound up getting a one royalty check for, like, $6. And it was so, yeah, we just framed it, put it on the wall. It's our first record check.

McDonald's. But that's not framing it better. Right.

But I think that that brings up a really interesting point about that work life, family balance and the success that you talked about earlier, that being with your family and enjoying the music you're playing. Right. Like, not feeling maybe beat down at the end of the week because you haven't spent time with your family, and you said you have grandkids now, you don't maybe want to be away from for months at a time. But I know your wife is in the band with you now.

Yes.

So I'm curious, even though you're the original member, is she the boss now in the band or.

She's got a lot of say because I'm kind of like. And I got a good producer, too, named Matt Gracie. He's the one that produced the frisky whiskey recording and stuff. Like, uh. So they kind of put a handle on me, because sometimes I want to do some crazy. Don't. Don't do that, don't do that, don't do. You know, I was know. If you think it know. So I do listen. You know what I mean? As more than what I did when I was younger. So I will listen to, like, if they say that's not a good idea, and I'll be like, okay, well, if you guys don't think it's a good idea, and then I won't do it. And my wife, she's got a great voice. I'm trying to come up with something. I'm wanting to write something with her so we can get her out there now. She sang a version of Frisky Whiskey too.

I didn't hear that.

Okay, so look her video up, too. She's on the same kind of video, kind of like mine, but it's her singing it. And her version is out on Apple tunes, too. And a lot of people like hers better than mine, so it might be better.

I'm a fan of the female led I am, too band. But what I did find when I was looking, poking around, was a video of her doing a cover of Joan Osborne's one of us, which is one of my all time favorite songs we did. But what I noticed is that. Yes. So I have this question for you, and we've talked to other people who've played covers. They're unique because I listened to a couple of them, and they are clearly your cover. But, like yours, you're not trying to be the band that you're singing their song. So then how do you pick those covers, and how do you feel confident that your way is the best way for you?

Well, our concept is if we take a song on, if people wanted to hear the original, they're not. Why listen to us? You know what I mean? Go listen to who did it the best. But if you want to hear a different version of an like or a cover. I'm sorry. So, to me, if you're going to do a cover, make it your own. Make it almost like an original song. You're doing it totally different. You might make the speed up or, like, with the Joan Osborne, you know what I mean? Outside of the drummer coming in a little too quick on that live performance, it's like a punk rock version of it. But I always liked the song. I love the original, but I was.

Like, I do, too.

Yeah, let's punk rock it up and make it totally different. So, yeah, we try to take every cover we've ever done and just switch it around enough to make it, like, our own unique way. That way, you never know. If you ever want to release a cover song, you're doing something, like, in your own original fashion, and that people might like it just because it's different than the original. It's like when you listen to the songs in the would keep, like, rereleasing and rereleasing the same songs, chuck Berry songs or old r and B artist songs, but they sound just like the original. So to me, it was like, yeah, there's really no flair to it because you're just basically doing the same song, same speed, almost the same vocal pattern as the original. So go buy the original, in my.

Opinion, and you have artists and songwriters. Artists like Dolly Parton. Right. With Jolene or not Jolene. Sorry, I have Dolly Parton. Jolene. But I will always love you. Right?

Yeah.

But then Whitney Houston did similar speed, but such a different song because of their voices, like, just how their voices sound. And so, you know, they're the same, but they're not right.

Now, I agree with you. Like, that song, it's kind of close, but it's different enough. She made it her own. Right. You know what I mean? Which was cool. And that's why I think people should be. Be original. Don't try to be like anybody else. That was kind of my point when I said what I said earlier, you know what I mean? People spend so much time when they're a younger artist that you're finding your way through, and you almost do. I got to mimic these guys, and I wouldn't. I mean, I really wouldn't. Even when I was playing rock and roll music, I wasn't putting lipstick on, because at that time, all these guys had lipstick on, wearing makeup, running around, looking like girls. I wouldn't do it. I mean, I look like the grunge guy before grunge came, know? But it's kind of like the neighborhood I grew up in. I mean, I came out of a neighborhood. It was one of the poorest neighborhoods in Ohio at the time. You know what? You know, half the neighborhood I lived in didn't have sewage system, so people were using outhouses. And this is like, a township not far from the city. You know what mean? And there's one guy we call Chicken George. He's living in a chicken coop, and he'd walk around the neighborhood with a pet rooster. You know what I mean? So I grew up in, like, I called it a hillbilly ghetto.

So is that where the name Billy Tattoo Billy came from, the hillbilly?

I was going to ask you this. How many tatoo tattoos you got? If you got. I mean, your tattoo?

So I saw at least one on your finger, but I don't know if.

I got tattoos all over me.

I don't have any now. You can't see them anymore.

I can show you one. You want to see?

Like, I love my.

Sleeve. My sleeve. It's my family crest coat of arms and stuff. They came out of, like, Cheshire, England. That's the family arms. But, yeah, that's awesome. The name came out of. We were trying to find a name because it's like I said, in your early stages of a band, and a lot of bands do it. Even the bigger band. You'll hear them talk about it. Sorry about that. Was that you run a gauntlet in your early part of your band where you're horrible, so you run through names. You keep changing your name. And we did this several times. It's like, we play a place. They hated us. They kick us out. You're awful. You know what I mean? We'd come back two months later under a different name. They'd go, hey, wait. Did we have you guys in here before? We'd be back, but we'd be better. So we'd be back. We'd be better. And each time we changed the name, we kept coming back. We were better till we were top notch. And at that time, we were like, we need to find a name of a band that we can stick with now because we're pretty decent now. So I was coming up with a name, and I was like, won't we call it? You know? Once again, I come up with all these crazy ideas, like I was telling you earlier, and my dad's like, I don't know about that. He goes, what about Tattoo Billy? I said, okay, I like that. It's got a good ring to it. So we went under tattoo Billy. Well, unfortunately, I was the only guy in the band with tattoos at the time. You know what?

Billy?

Yeah. Everybody thought I was Billy, so that's how the name became a stage name to me, because everybody thought I was Billy, and I kind of became the mascot of the band. That's Billy right there, because I was the guy with the know, and now it's my stage name. Just know. Pretty much. I'm the know original member to the.

Band that's kind of like hootie and wolfish. Everybody thinks that Darius Rucker is hootie, but he's like, I'm not hootie. I don't know what.

Right.

You're not Billy. You're Ed, you know? But, yeah, it's great.

It was like that because we'd be at shows and people like, hey, Billy, Billy, Billy. And I didn't realize they were talking to me. You know what I mean? I was like, what? Oh, me? Are you talking to me? Oh, my name ain't Billy. I thought he was Billy because you had the tattoos. And my dad's like, hey. He goes, roll with that. You're going to be tattoo know. Iron Maiden had Eddie and Tattoo Billy had, I guess, the other Eddie.

Speaking of Iron Maiden, which band do you like better? Since you mentioned Iron Maiden, do you like Iron Maiden or do you have Megadeth? Because you have Eddie on one side with Iron Maiden and you have sacred Rattlehead with Megadeth. So which one?

Both really good mascots. They both got really good mascots. But as in bass playing. I love the bass player from Iron Maiden.

Yes.

You can't beat a better bass player. You know what I mean? That guy can jam. Paul McCartney was a good bass player, too. I always liked his mean.

The Beatles is like mine, number one or number two band at all.

Yeah, and mine too. And I usually don't bring it up just because that's something everybody brings up. So I always try to find something different that it's influenced me. Like today. You know what I mean? Like today I jammed out all day long on alkaline trio. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So it's like different days. I find something. I'm just like. I'm niche to this. Some days it might be a Johnny paycheck or another day it's back to census failed or this and that. Or I like Austin mead. I might listen to some Austin Mead or, you know, and all these newer artists. Another one can't. I just lost his name. We opened up for him and he had an album called Mud Dynasty. And he was one of the first country rappers. And he's got some really good stuff, too. And I just had lost his name as I was talking to you. Sorry about that.

But I'll find it. I'm good at that. Lenny Cooper.

Lenny Cooper. You're welcome.

That's my superpower. It's not the FBI. It's not the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It's the female bureau of Investigation. Because we are excellent at finding all of the things.

Yes, all of. So you have her mean, you give.

Me a name in a place that somebody lived for a year and I can find out who their mama was and what hospital she was born at. Just give me a few minutes.

That's pretty cool. But yeah, that was a good show. We opened up for him and then he was a real nice guy. I met him for a second. Most time, those guys, when you open them up for, they don't even stick around to look at you or anything like that. He stuck around for our sound check and got to talk to him for a minute. He's a really nice guy. Back then we were pretty slammed. Like, we did two shows that day. So we opened up for him. Then we loaded our equipment and went to another show. It was like 3 hours away and it was just busy, busy and riding in a van, that's a long day.

And I think I'm going to maybe age all of us here, but that kind of stuff is hard on your body. It is physically, right? I mean, heck, at this point, just riding in a van like that for 3 hours would be rough on me, much less slinging equipment around and standing and performing. We talk a lot about mental health around here, I think mental health, physical health, all of that goes hand in hand. So what do you do when you're on the road or you've got lots of shows like that to take care of yourself, your vocal health, your mental health, physical, all of that?

Yeah. Back then it was really tough because at that time, I was married to another lady before my wife today, and she had heart disease. She passed away from heart disease. That show in particular I was talking about, I was all night at the hospital with her, and she understood the business of it all. And I was like, well, I can cancel these shows or I'll let somebody else play bass for me for those two shows tomorrow. She goes, no, go play the shows. So I went and I played both shows, then went back to the hospital at the end of it and stayed there with her overnight. But yes, that's what a lot of people don't realize is what musicians go through to entertain you. They might show up to that show and they put a show on for you, and you don't know what kind of struggles or things that are going on in their own personal life, but they made that show to be there and not disappoint you. So try not to be a butthead in a crowd and heckle the band because they might have sacrificed a lot to be there for you.

Go have fun. In my mind, I'm like, just go have fun. There's no reason to be a jerk to anyone, right? Really, when somebody's a jerk back to you, sometimes it's so much more satisfying to be so kind to them that they're like, but I want you to be mad at me, or they just then get frustrated that they're not getting the reaction. Don't be an asshole.

Right? That's tough thing. When you play a lot of the bars and stuff like that, you always get, somebody's got a little too much alcohol in them and they want to heckle and whatever. You know what? It was like I said, we had good shows, too. Like I said, like opening up for Lenny Kippur's cool, know, he probably wouldn't remember us because it was a one nighter and opened up for Foghead. I was a one nighter. If you mentioned tattoo Billy, they're not going to know who we are. Cool. Yeah, they were cool paydays and stuff like that. So those were the shows, those kinds of little openers, and they would be like, way down on the bottom. So I'm not, like, overhyping myself here. We would be, like the first band up into the build up of probably another opening act into all the rest of them. So we were like, the first ones up, and sometimes there wouldn't even hardly be anybody there.

I will tell you that most times that I found out that the openers are the best bands ever.

Yeah, a lot of people liked it, and we always brought, like, t shirts and whatever, and we just threw them in the audience because the paydays were so decent. Like, when we opened up for Foghead, I mean, we played a half hour. It was a show I would have did for free, and we made a lot of money, you know what I mean, for that show. So we always brought something when we were going to have good paydays, be like, let's throw out 30 t shirts into the crowd or whatever, you know what I mean? Get back to people that actually came out and seen us or was fans to us. And we always try to take time for those people, too. I got a guy right now I got to send something to. I kind of slipped my mind. I was supposed to do it over the weekend. He wanted an autograph picture of me, and I got to get that in the mail. As I was speaking at this ding ding ding ding rang a bell in my head. I got to get. That took care of. But, yeah, we always try to take care of anybody. It's always supported us and a lot of repeat offenders. I mean, we'd have people follow us into, like, we played a show over in Kentucky. They would follow us all the way from Ohio and just to see us play in Kentucky or wherever, you know what I mean? So it's real nice to have nice people like that, that support you and are still supporting in some way or another.

I was going to ask you about your going back to your dad now, when you and him, and I think it was your brother, or was that another member of your family?

Oh, it was my cousin Rodney.

Okay. When you were making music with them, who was the main writer out of that three? What was you, or was it your dad or was it your cousin?

It was me and my dad. We pretty much wrote of. It was kind of like a Paul McCartney, John Lennon type of thing. We bounced off each other. We pretty much co wrote everything. He wrote some songs, like, I didn't have any involvement in, but it's very few. He's got one that's on TikTok and it's an old recording. It's like 88 eightyn. They've made like 200 videos on TikTok with it. It's called papa's Girl and it's under Hurstle Begley, so if you want to check that out. But it's an old recording and a lot of people's used it with their granddaughters. You know what I mean? Yeah, I'm a papa's girl.

I caught my grandpa was Papa.

Oh, yeah, we did listen to that. Papa is a great name, right?

But yeah, like I said, I still like to write. I still like to get out. And I play shows, you know what I mean, too. It's something I enjoy doing. I don't intend on quitting until I basically can't do it anymore now that my wife's involved with me, too. It's a greater enjoyment because for a lot of time, I kind of quit. There was probably about a year space after my dad died. I finished up what shows I had booked. I was singing them, and then a drummer at the time was singing the songs, too. It just didn't feel the same after he passed away on stage. And then my cousin dying, too, you know what I mean? So I'm up on stage, but we finished the shows. It was a tough year. It was 2014. He passed away, but my wife passed away that year. And then he passed away six months later. I was actually training for my last fight, boxing match. And that's where I actually met my wife at I have today. So we met in a boxing gym. And I finished up my fight, too. They was going to cancel it. So I fought through all the adversity and finished up all my obligations, despite what was going on in my personal life, and got to meet her. And she was a complete blessing. And then come find out she sang. She didn't even know I played music either. Then she's like, I didn't know you played music. And I didn't know she sang. And now we're singing, playing.

I love that. And I think it's grief is a funny thing, right? Your grief, my grief, James's grief. It's not going to look the same from person to person or day to day. So embrace whatever your grief looks like and don't judge someone else's because you have no idea what their story is, right?

But yeah, it was a tough year. And luckily, I tell you, if it wasn't for boxing, we mentioned boxing earlier, is that I don't think my body would have held up. I was in such good conditioning then, not now, but back then, that my body was able to hold up to all this stress that was going on in my life just because I think I was in such good shape. I was in fighting condition and stuff. And like I said, my boxing went back in 1999. My trainer was a former world junior weight champion, Aaron Pryor. So, you know, I got to touch those coattails of a great fighter, in my opinion, one of the greatest junior welterweight champions of all time. And Aaron Pryor. And I learned a lot from him about adversity because of adversity in his life and how he changed his life around, too. He found the Lord and kind of preaching at the end of his life. He passed away in 2016, but, yeah, just a great guy, you know what I mean? So I think that's important, too, as you go through life, is to try to learn from other people, see other people, listen to other people. Real wisdom is not always you got to go through something. You can see what somebody else went through and be like, hey, I don't want to have to go through a bad situation like that. And he went through a phase after he retired out of box and he got hooked on drugs and stuff like that. But then he got out of it and overcame, found the Lord. Yeah, he's a great guy, too. But yeah, just music. I had music. I had boxing, so I had a lot going on. My problem was I had so much going on, I couldn't focus sometimes. Which one do you want to be successful at? Then I finally quit boxing. I was like, you know what? I can't see myself after nine years, continue doing the fight game. You know what I mean? So I totally turned back and it's just like I'm just going to focus on music and writing, and I'll last a lot longer that way.

Right? With music, you're more creative in your mind. Music with creativity and physically, it's all great.

I don't know. I'm thinking that punching some things might feel really good things, not people things.

Yeah.

And it's like that, too. Like with the creative thing, too. It's like meeting Jonathan Josh, he heard the demo of frisky whiskey, liked it, and he's a great actor. He's a magnificent seven. He's in Tulsa King right now, his bad face with Sylvester Stallone, and he came up with a lot of the idea for the video he screened, did the kind of drum. Storyboard. Yeah, storyboard. Thank you. Yeah. And he was like, man, it's a good song. I like to make a video for it. And I was like, man, I'd say, I'd love for you to make a video for it. He goes, well, don't worry about the money or nothing like that. You know what I mean? And sure enough, I mean, he just liked the song and had great ideas, and it was cool just to work with him, too. Very nice gentleman, nice guy. And he does work. So, I mean, it isn't like you can look him up. His name is Jonathan Joss, and you can find him on Facebook and everywhere else. And he does a good, um. But it's cool. He liked the song and him being in there, I think maybe that helped know with people being interested and looking at the video just because he was in it. So, yeah, it was pretty cool.

And I think that's relationships, I think, are really important in all kinds of different places. And you talked about you've got fans that follow you to shows, your wife, you play music with the family growing up, music and relationships. How do those things go together for you? How do you connect with people through music?

Like you said, I almost feel like there has to be a family member with you and tattoo Billy for it to be tattoo Billy. Pretty much like what you just said. And on the hindsight, anybody that plays with me, I try to treat them like family, too. So I let them have a say. So I let them have as much. I try to run it totally. Each person's got a say. I don't tell anybody what to do, but I don't want nobody telling me what to do either. Come to an agreement on stuff, you know what I mean? As long as you ain't over there getting so drunk that you can't play, that's a different story. But if you have a few drinks and want to play, I'm cool with that. As long as you can play and you're playing. Good.

Balance. It's all about balance. In my experience, when I've been part of a group and I felt like I have a say, I'm more invested than that. I want to show up. I want to be my best.

Yeah, nobody wants to be a hired hand. No, I don't want to live your dream as a hired hand. I want to be able to be in this and be creative and throw an idea, and we've always been open to ideas, too, as tattoo Billy. Even when me and dad was writing, a lot of the guys never came up with, really, never brought anything to the table, so we were open to them, too. None of them ever really did. But we were always open to other people bringing songs besides me and dad. But me and dad wrote so much together, it was unrealistic. We could sit back and write 20 or 30 songs in a week.

Wow.

And our problem was, like, we got to quit writing because we can't get these songs recorded. You know what I mean? So that was the problem. It wasn't the writing. It was as much as trying to get in a studio and record them, because back then it was very expensive to get in a studio. And now I'm lucky I got a guy really believed. That's got me is what got me back into it, was having people believe in me and what I could write and what I could do again. And that was my wife, Matt, Gracie, my producer. And they kind of helped me believe in myself. But then again, I listened to them, too, because sometimes I might come up with an idea that they're like, don't do that. Like I was telling you earlier. Yeah, I'm smart enough to listen to them.

There you go.

But I think that is kind of mentioned that relationships and believing in people and trusting the people around you that they want the best for you in all of the things you do, which can be hard to find sometimes. To find that not just people that trust you, but people that you feel confident in trusting as well. Sounds like you've been able to surround yourself with great people, and that's what.

You got to do. And you, as an individual, if you're going to be a successful artist, you can't go, I'm going to curl up in this ball. This is mine. No, this is the way it's got to be. I'm not going to listen to you. It's got to be my way or no way. I don't even want to work with people like that. If I bring a guitar player in or anybody like that, I put up with it a few times just because I was booked out so far, and then they turned into Frankenstein's in the middle of it, and I'm like, well, I got to finish these shows anyways. But after that, there were people I was like, I would never use them again. I don't like ego. I don't have an ego. So if you're playing with me, I don't want your ego either. You come in here, have fun. Let's create some music. Let's get out and play some shows and have fun about it. I'm like that even with a crowd. Me and my dad, when we played, we were almost like politicians. We got off stage. We didn't head to the bathroom or go to the bar and then huddle in our corner and wait for people to come up to us. We got off stage and started shaking hands. And thank you, baby. Hey, we appreciate it. And I remember these faces, and they'd be back.

That's amazing. Yeah.

And I said, hey, guys, that's how you have a successful band. You want people to like you. Don't go jump in a corner hiding out from people. They're going to think you're standoffish. Get out there and have fun. Shake hands with people, tell them, thanks for coming. Offer to buy them a drink if you got a few bucks in your pocket. Hey, let me buy you guys a beer. I think it's how we really did develop most of our fan base, that we were just nice guys. Me and dad would sometimes go at each other, but that's a father and son.

That's family stuff. Yeah, right. So I do have going back to what you said, you were in a studio recording. So how do you do it now? Because most musicians now have, like, a makeshift home studio. When you get idea in your head, do you automatically go to that kind of source, or do you hold it in until you go to actual studio with your producer?

Well, I'll come up with the idea of my guitar, and I might do a rough recording off my phone. Then I go to this studio with my producer, so my producer helps. So when you go in there, it's like, really a way I never recorded. How could you say everything before? Frisky Whiskey was like, live. Click it off. Live recording. And it was played live.

Okay.

This is the first time I went in and I've actually started recording professionally. Where you got a track, it's click. You're out of time. You know what I mean?

It's a log in during process.

Yeah, it's a lot harder process, you know what I mean? So I've learned I'm better at it now after the frisky whiskey experience, you know what I mean? And we got a new one we're working on right now called back in country. And it's a really phenomenal song of it already.

I know. I was like, I like that already. You said Frankenstein earlier and my digging. There's lots of Halloween horror kind of stuff that you've got going on. I know you wrote or you performed a song your song was in, but the movie vampire. So where did your love of that horror, Halloween and spooky kind of stuff come?

It's a. I always like the old wolf man and the old ones and stuff like that. So Boris Karloff, I liked all those Vincent Price. I liked all those old horror actors. And actually, one of my prized possessions is a Vincent Price autograph cookbook. You know what I mean? And it was funny. So we wrote the song, and we did a VHS video back in because videos were, like, hard to make when we filmed it. And it was called Blackhearted lady. So it wound up on Halloween radio, and it was, like, the number one Halloween radio station at that time that started playing, and we didn't even know it got on there, you know what I mean? Until we started getting, like, some royalty checks, and they sometimes mention the station or whatnot from BMI. It was weird. And then we had the song get into kiss of the vampire, and people started that was kind of like dark country. And I was like, yeah, we're gothic country. So people started for a minute. They were calling us, like, goth country, teasing because we had so much of these horror themed and dark songs because we had, like, black hearted ladies about a witch, you know what I mean? So, yeah, we had all these songs that weren't, like, lyrically wouldn't be like, your typical top 40 I love you type songs, you know what I mean? There was some dark content to the lyrics, like, even frisky whiskey. It's not a love song. It's about a guy that gets a DUI. He got a divorce, he gets a DUI, and his whole life's falling apart around him. You know what mean? And so that's the storyline of the song. And the only people. Did you write that about yourself? Not that part. Now there is a part in there. It's about myself, and it's in a break where it goes. Well, I'm looking back on. Looking back. Listen to them records that my daddy bought. And that was, like a memory of me going through my dad's records when I was a kid, you know what I mean? And there's an outlaw out there. I know he still cares, and I'm out there, and I'm running free, and it's like, about my dad kind of still looking over me, still happy that the thing he created, that it's still going. But, yeah, like you were saying, a lot of dark imagery. The Halloween stuff because I'm a huge Halloween fan. I love Halloween. It drives my wife crazy sometimes, but she tolerates me.

So what's your favorite Halloween movie of all time?

Favorite Halloween movie? That is a good question. That is a very good question. And I tell you, there's so many good ones. When I look back on it, I mean, even at the original salem's lot, I don't know if you guys ever seen.

Yeah.

And I remember that movie so well because I remember being eight years old and that was on as a miniseries. And right after the little boys on the window scratching the glass. Let me in, let me in. My mom goes, okay, it's time to go to bed. You got school tomorrow. And I'm like, you're supposed to be upstairs to my bed after that scene.

Right?

So that one's always been really vivid just because of that's what happened right there. You know what I mean? Time to go to bed.

Yeah, by school tomorrow. I've always been afraid so bad of Freddy Krueger, man, I couldn't get. Oh my God, those were some scary.

Woods when they came out.

Yeah, they don't make movies like that anymore, you know, where it terrifies me. It's like basic stuff now.

And it's like the movie I was in, the kiss of the vampire. Now that guy was a director. He was an actor. He. Now he directed another horror movie. It had Linda Blair in it too, and I forgot the name of it. His name is Joe torrentory, but he was in the movie the sting with Robert refurt and stuff. And he's the black hand gunman in the sting that saves Robert refurd's life near the end of the movie. So if you ever see that, that's the guy was the director of the movie.

Amanda was going to say something.

I was. I was just thinking that. I don't think they make horror. It's different now. It's all about how gruesome and gory.

Yeah.

And I know that this might be a controversial opinion, whatever, but I love the scream franchise.

Yes, the scream franchise is good because.

It'S horror, but it's also. There's some smartness to it and fun. It's not like some of those. It's just all about the blood and guts and the jump scares and not. There's no actual plot. There's no any of that.

Jason, that was going to be my favorite horror villain of all time. I don't know why. He just resonates more to me.

Right? Yeah, he was scary too. I always liked Michael Myers too. The original Halloween. That was a real masterpiece, you know what I mean? And stuff. Go ahead.

I love hocus pocus. That's my.

Hocus pocus is a good movie. I like that too. That's one of my favorite.

Right.

The first one was great.

I haven't watched the second one because sometimes I think the original. You just don't mess with it.

Exactly. I agree.

Yeah.

I wasn't much on the remake.

No.

Yeah. I don't know. I'm an original and I know that you said, and you said. We've talked about like with any cover songs or anything, it's make it unique and special and different. And I think sometimes even movie remakes just the same. Cookie Cutter. And it's not fun that way. Having that unique piece in there and.

Hocus pocus one had a very.

I.

Don'T know, kind of a magic quality to it. The way it was filmed, the acting. You had really good actors in it and it just was a really cute, fun movie to watch. Have you ever been to Salem? Yes.

In fact my daughter and I went. It was her 8th grade graduation trip. That is where she wanted to go. So we did a whole hocus pocus tour and looked at all the places in the movie. But Salem is a really amazing little.

It's an amazing town. It is so unique and fun. I stayed there one time, I think it was in 2010 or eleven, and I stayed at the Stephen Daniels house and it's from like 1665. It's a bed and breakfast. I don't know if it's still in business but it was pretty cool. It's right down the street from the house of seven Gables.

Okay, that's a beautiful place. But yeah, we stayed at thinking of Hampton Inn because I was trying to make my life easy.

Yeah.

And I maybe totally missed or didn't see this. Right? Are you into Tarot as well? Did I see a video of you with tarot cards?

I don't think.

Probably my imagination. Okay, never mind. Ignore that.

Yeah, we had some great aunts. My mom's great aunts were fortune tellers and stuff like that. But no, I'm not into that.

She's our resident terror lady.

Hang on, I got some more decks. Yeah, hold on.

Jeez, that's what, through four already? Five.

That's a 52 stack here.

You're right. Six decks.

Right, but my favorite. Okay, 1248. Only eight. This is my favorite one. It's a Taylor Swift lyric. Tarot deck.

Oh wow. She's making money.

Yeah, because you can't have too much Taylor. I do love Taylor.

Our other co host loves Taylor Swift.

Just like know Blake and I talk about like, you're not cooler just because you hate on somebody that loves something that's popular. Let people love what they love, period. If you like it, you like it.

I agree.

Going off that going to what you said, ed, about you not bringing up the Beatles as much. I think you should bring up the Beatles because you like. I like what you like. If people don't like you because they like the Beatles, they can screw.

Yeah, yeah. And I agree with you. I think it's more me just because everybody says, and I don't want to sound like I'm copying off people. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

They are the Beatles. I'm just saying they are the Beatles, right? I don't want to say they created, but they influenced so much of that rock. And even to this day, some of the lyrics that both Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote, they still hit. Even, I was going to say, 40 years later, but I think it's closer to 60 years later at this point.

I'm older, right? But I feel like older than I should.

And none of us are all that old here. But, man, I think about how different music is. And I don't just mean like the music, but how accessible it is and.

How.

With TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and all of that.

And I like, mean, it's hurt me, as in when that know, we used to sell cds, we don't know know, but I like it because it opens up everybody's freedom of what they want to listen to. And you ain't being fed anything anymore. Like before you had the radio station, you're listening to this and that's it. And if you wanted to find something different, you had to get out, go to the clubs, find demo tapes of bands that were underground. And you know what I mean? It was a real work to do that kind of stuff. Now you can just flip on the computer and somebody finds. You find whatever you want to listen to and you listen to it. Whether it's Taylor Swift or blame my youth or census fail or whatever you want to listen to, you got that choice, which it should be. You should have your choice to listen what you want to.

I think it opens up the world to some of those indie artists where they can be heard by people and have a whole new audience that they might not have ever had before because they were so localized, right. There are bands that I went to shows when I was in high school that were amazing but probably could have made it much bigger if they had had that ability to be in more places than just in a know club in. So I know that James always likes to wrap up with the hardest question of the night.

All right, let's hear it.

All right, Billy. Okay, so if you could name one artist, album or song that you could think of right now, but you can't tell me, Amanda, your wife, anybody else, how it makes you feel deep inside your soul. I told you, you can't put it.

Into words like how it.

Yeah, right. But don't mention the artist.

No, tell us. Yeah, tell us what that artist is that you either do in a way that you can't explain why or how it hits you so hard.

I tell you who I think still hits me. If I could ever meet, well, I'd have to say the Rolling Stones, especially all their stuff from the 1960s. I just think the Rolling Stones were an amazing band. Still an amazing band and still outperforming, you know what I mean? Well, they just finished up their. Finishing up their last tour, but, yeah, it has to be the role.

I'm always like, is it your last tour? Is it your last tour? Yeah, there's always, oh, this is our last tour.

Right.

See, that's another.

But I don't think they're really done because Gene Simmons hired, like, two of his other band members and still performing kiss shows.

I'm going to ask you this because I don't know very much music trivia. I'm just here for color commentary. I don't know much about music, but the Rolling Stones, we just recently did an episode of where bands got their names. So do you know how the Rolling Stones got their name?

Yeah, they got it off. Wasn't it a muddy Waters record?

Yes. I didn't know. These are all things I've learned because of James and Blake, the other host here. I appreciate them because they've introduced me to things that I didn't. Music and knowledge that I didn't know existed. There's some great music that they've introduced me to. I would have never heard of you if I wasn't here, if jangs hadn't asked me to be part of this. So I'm grateful for that.

Well, I appreciate you guys for having me on.

Other. I know you said you've got something coming up that you guys are working on.

It should be out probably April or May. It's going to be a single called back in country, so it's going to be a good one, right?

I can't wait to hear because the name is amazing. I love the name of the song.

Country. Yeah, I love that.

And it's a very different song. It's almost like Queen meets country music. It's very different. It's way different than what frisky whiskey is. So a lot of dynamics and stuff. It's going to be a good.

I can't wait to hear that. I'm going to have to mark it on my calendar. My brain won't remember. So I'm going to probably May 1. I'm going to go right in there to remember to look it up when it gets done.

I'll hit James up and I'll send you guys over.

Perfect.

Before it's released. I'll let you guys hear it.

I can't wait.

Awesome.

So thank you so much for being here with us. I really appreciate it.

And everybody, keep country rocking.

Yes. Let's get it out on. All right, everybody, for listening. Thank you so much for listening to our show. We thank tattoo Billy for coming on. You're welcome back anytime you want to. Come on, come back on. And we'll be glad to talk to you throughout music history or something. Whatever you want to talk about. And always remember, when words fail, music speaks. Bye, guys.

Thanks.

See you.

All right, sounds good.

Thanks so much, Ed. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you for having me on, guys. Sure.

Anytime.

Yeah.

Appreciate it. I really have enjoyed. I get to listen to new music all the time because of this. This is still new to me. I just like music, but I never know. I just sing. I drive my kids crazy because I sing. The joke is I sing loudly, proudly and poorly.

I think everybody could sing. Everybody can sing.

We can all sing. It's just whether or not someone wants to hear us sing.

There's always what I said earlier, there's always a crowd.

My current partner is. He is kind of a metalhead, classic rock. I'm 44, he's 52. So we're just a little different in our generations, but also not that far apart. What's so fun is just driving. We live in the middle of nowhere, Texas, pretty much so. He lives in gun Barrel City. What a great name for. Right? Gun Barrel City, Texas. But it's fun just driving on some of those back roads, know, singing everything from journey to Metallica to Olivia Newton John together. Right. Like, it's fun.

Yeah, it is.

Music is very relaxing and like, it's. Yeah, there's something for.

And. And again, you like what you like and don't take you in. My son would hate that I ever talk about this, but call me maybe by Carly. Ray Jepsen.

That's a good song.

He was like two or three, four, something like that when it came out. And it was his favorite song when he was little. And he's 15 now. This is him. He might have the best mullet ever in the history of mullets. But if I put that song on, on our way to school or somewhere, he will sing right along with me. And it makes my soul happy. Just so we have that connection.

Connection, right.

I think music connects us.

They do. It does. Especially being, like I said, being in it my whole life and being with family. And it does show you the connections you get with people. You know what I mean? And it is an amazing thing. But it was a pleasure being on. Whenever you guys get there, anytime together, shoot me the link and I'll share it on all my sites.

Yeah. James is pretty quick at getting things together. He's our technical guru. I'm the technical guru again. I just show up. Apparently I drank. I can feel I'm flushed because I had. All right, one in a little bit whiskey. And I can feel it in my cheeks.

Yeah, more shots. You'll feel better.

There you go.

I'm too old for that. Then I'll be hungover tomorrow, and I have a conference I have to present at tomorrow about entrepreneurship.

Oh, there you go. Cool.

So, like, no, I'm not. No, I can't drink that much. I will be worthless tomorrow. I might smoke something. Oh, wait, we're still recording. Never mind. I won't do anything other than know.

We'Re doing all right.

Billy, thank you so much. Ed, right? Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate your time. You answer. No, just show. Call you late for dinner. That's.

Yeah, that's all right.

All right.

Thanks so much. I appreciate it. Have a great night.

Good night. Thank you.

Let me see if I can get them. There we go. Boom. Got it.

Bank.

All right, cool. That was fun. I really enjoyed talking to him.

Yeah. And I think it was amazing. See how not having.