Ep.307 – Jay Watson & Kyle Wilshire interview

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This is the Windword sale music speaks podcast with Blake Mosley, James Cox and Amanda Dolan. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Words show Music speaks podcast where I'm your Hercules, James Cox and where we talk about how music helps with depression and anxiety. But today it'll really be awesome today because we are interviewing Jay Watson and Kyle Shire. Kyle Wilshire, sorry about that, man. All right, no problem. So a little bit about Jay Watson is Jay is a passionate about speaking and writing. He has built a disc golf course, which is awesome. Saw Garth Brooks in 93 and takes pictures with fish, which is awesome too. Big fish, I think, right?

Well, the closer you hold them to the camera, the bigger they look.

Yes. His hair started growing gray at 20. Nice. And still loves Will Smith. Don't we all. My dad is a retired colonel and he started going great about the same time you did because military. Okay.

He did.

Kyle, will try. Has seen YouTube in concert eleven times. That's pretty impressive. He tries to paint like Bob Ross. Bob Ross is great. And enjoy his love talking about Star wars. He loves pop culture and prides himself on being able to name the year in any movie from 1980 or 1990s with released. They have been professional communicators for over 20 years. They have extensive background in storytelling, humor and other things entertainment. With their first published work together, they have a lot of excitement around the world and they created and can't wait to talk about it. They came out with a book called Dead Rock Stars and you could [email protected]. And we are very excited to talk about you. How are you doing, guys?

Great.

Thanks for having us. This is really exciting.

Yes, sir.

Getting to talk about things we love like this doesn't feel like work. It feels like, we're getting to play. So this is awesome.

Yeah. I just read a lot about you, so it doesn't feel like you all. Because when people read stuff about me, I'm like, I don't really feel like I accomplished that much. But when you hear it back, you're like, I did all that. So does that feel like you all accomplished a lot so far?

I mean, the disc golf course, that takes a lot. That takes a lot of time and.

Effort holding the fish like this.

There you go. Yes.

I'd go see you 211 more times if I could have the opportunity. It does.

When you put it all together, it.

Kind of feels like we've done some stuff.

Yeah. So, Kyle. Yeah. You've seen YouTube? Eleven times. Okay. So there was a YouTube album, I forget the name of it, that was released on everybody's pods way back in the day. Do you think that was, like, a conspiracy theory or what did you think about it? You seen them YouTube? Eleven times.

A lot of times what that was was a miscalculation, is what that was. You two thought that, hey, we're going to do something nice for the world. We're going to give everybody our album for free. They don't have to pay for it. It's a gift. What they didn't realize was that the people who would be using the technology in 2014, when that came out, they didn't want people messing with their stuff. Don't mess with my stuff, man. Don't put stuff on my phone without telling me. Don't put stuff in my itunes without telling me.

Do you think that was maybe, like, the beginning of the woke culture?

I don't know. I don't know if that's necessarily a woke thing. I think it's more of a.

Okay, yes, privacy. Sorry, privacy. Cancel culture.

Cancel culture. Okay. Yeah, no, people have been canceling folks for years. We just decided to come up with a name.

But, I mean, that was like, what? 20?

14.

14.

Okay.

Really? Was it that?

Yeah. Social media started in 2010, and I think that was the beginning of the downhill of society. Really?

Of society?

Yes. Everybody, it's about me, not you anymore. And I'm like, I'm over, dude, it's 24 24. So we can't seem to go past it's about me and not you ever again. But you don't think there's a conspiracy?

Okay, just for quicks, what is the conspiracy?

I just wanted to know if anything's around it.

What are some of the.

They wanted to boost their sales, and the more the free. It's all about the numbers to artists. Free versions count as a sale.

Yeah. From what I understand, Apple paid them like a hundred million dollars or something, thinking that it would be a big thing for both the band and for iTunes. And it just kind of totally backfired. Know, people didn't even bother to listen to it. They're just, don't. Don't mess with my know.

But do we know, is that true? Is that true for the majority of people that got it? Were the majority of the people like, boo, or was it.

Yeah, the majority of people did not want the album. They like, no, get it off my. I didn't really mind because YouTube is a great band. And how can tell that, too. Jay, you saw Garth Richard 93. How was that? Was that a great show?

Yeah, man. It was revelatory. Country music up to that point was pretty tame as far as performance goes, right? The content has always been wild and sad and crazy storytelling and amazing, but the performance aspect of things, he treated it like he was a pop star or a rock star. He was running off that stage. I remember at one point he jumped off the stage and grabbed this swinging ladder that you didn't even know was there. It's just hanging out in the audience. There were flames like it was AC DC or just. It was a crazy experience because as Garth has done over his career, it was the very beginning of him kind of mashing genres in such a way that you kind of find where country music is today. And I would say he's partially responsible for that. That's why you got your other bands that are mean, even down to what's his name, Nas X and Old Town Road. That would have never existed if it weren't for Darth Brooks.

I think two things about Garth Brooks I want to discuss with you. One is he doesn't have his music on any other platform besides Amazon. And he states that he wants people to listen to him, like beginning to end. But I don't think that's kind of fair because in his concerts, he doesn't play any album from beginning to end. He plays every songs from this one, from that one, from this one. So it's kind of like, do you think that's.

I think you can make tens and tens and tens of dollars streaming music, and he is in rare air attempting to sell more albums than any other artist. And so he's close up there. I don't know if he's top three, but he might be top two. I don't know. I don't know if he's surpassed some of them, but that would be a good thing for us to. We should have googled. We should have prepared for that, Kyle. But he's so close to achieving whatever those records are. I really think that's the proper reason he's doing it. It's not about, necessarily money at this point for him. It's along the lines of he wants to be one of the top sellers of all time, of albums, and streaming doesn't really achieve that goal. I think Metallica did it for more purity reasons. Metallica was more interested in the purity of the album. I don't know that Garth's super interested in the purity of an album. In fact, I don't know that any country artist really cares about an album. They like a good single, right?

Yeah. It's all about singles today. Speaking of, we talked about you two in the conspiracy theory. Let's go over to Garth Brooks in the conspiracy theory. Have you heard it?

What is it?

He's a serial killer. Yeah. Because it's pretty weird that a lot of fans go missing around the time that he comes to their cities. He's got a lot of properties. He has a lot of space in the back in his house. So Thompscore is very adamant about calling him now. For me, I don't believe it, but I just love him.

He's googling it right now. He's googling his phone.

This was brought up years ago, but I think it's, like, ongoing issue with Tom and Garth or something. Yeah, because Garth blocked humps to go on, like, everything. So, I mean, why would you block.

I. Garth is from here. Garth lives nearby, really close to where we are right now.

Okay.

I have not heard any of this. He lives in a town called Woodlucksville. We live in Hendersonville. It's just the next town over, really.

My parents live down the street from him. Really? What it looks like is Tom Segura said in 2018 that he looks like he's killed a bunch of people.

Right? Yeah.

Which is something Tom Segura would say. Well, I guess favorite comedians. And he's not afraid to say crazy things. No, but anything's possible, I suppose. But I'll tell you what, that serial killer, he can perform.

Yeah, right. Who cares?

I didn't say who cares?

Well, I just did. But I'm taking it back because, I mean, he makes great albums with great songs. I think he came up with a new record recently.

He's definitely showing up more in social media. I'm not particularly a country music fan anymore.

Okay.

So I don't think I've listened to Garth Coast 2000.

Is there a reason why you're not a country fan anymore or just got out of it and just tired of the dryer?

So I used to work with students, and one of my students, around 2005, 2006, started making music. And the type of music that he made was alternative music. And he ended up getting on David Letterman and he did La Palooza. And the type of music that he kind of started doing, I started listening to other artists before it was over with, man. Indie rock, indie pop, alternative music is kind of what has spoken to me. I've dabbled a little bit more into folk and Americana, particularly Avet brothers or trampled by turtles or Punch Brothers, some of those bands, and they speak to me. But know what's different about Sturgill from regular country music is he does care about a complete album. He likes to tell a story with his albums. And that's interesting to me. I really enjoy original songwriters and a lot of country music is not that.

Right.

So I've kind of evolved a little bit where I can still appreciate a good 90s country song, but there you go. Stuff doesn't really speak to me too much. Now, some of this, I don't know what you'd call it. Outlaw country, I guess. Jason Isbell, some of those people. I don't mind that at all.

Right, Kyle, what is your favorite genre?

I like classic rock. Really? I'm kind of weird in that. I've seen you 211 times. You two is my favorite band. You two is truly my favorite genre.

Yeah. Separate genre, right?

Yeah, that's right. But to take it beyond that, I like older music. I like classics. I like seventy s, eighty s, ninety s. Kind of. The older the better for me. And Jay is always kind of finding the new stuff. He's trying to introduce me to new artists and. Hey, you need to listen to this. Have you heard this?

Yes. I love that.

I'm the old guy. Get off my porch, man. I like my oldies. That's me.

Nice. So the reason why I brought that up is to see what's your favorite kind of music, because I have some record albums that I want to show you. So I think that you all around my age. I'm 44, so I think you all are like thirty s to forty s. Maybe. I don't know. Yeah.

Very kind of you.

Very kind of you.

45.

45. Yes. 46. 45. Around my age. Right.

We're right there, man.

Yes. Hell, yeah. So I'll go show you some vinyl records and you tell me if you like the band and what are your thoughts when you first heard it or you don't like it, and we'll go to the other one. I got like five or six of America stovetopilots, the purple record.

I was recently on another podcast and is that the album that tripping on a hole in a paper heart?

No, that's the next one. This is the. Yeah, this is their second record.

This is.

I'm not a huge SCP guy, but, like, when their songs would come on, I wouldn't switch a channel on the radio like in high school.

I agree. Scott Wildin kind of draws you in a little bit. Like you're interested in what they're mean. I still don't know. I've listened to the hoodie and the blowfish version. I still don't know what interstate love song, what the exact words are, but I'm like, re. I can do all that. I love it.

You just did the Creed voice. But ever since. That's the Creed voice, because everybody can do Creed. Scott Stafford's Creed.

Let's go there.

Right?

That was more hooties doing, right?

Yeah, hootie did a lot of that, too. Okay. All right, so we have my favorite band of all time, which is going to be. I could. I couldn't find the bleach album because I do have that. But what do you all think about Nirvana and their know? Because I came up with three of them. So what did you all think about them?

Nirvana? Well, Kurt Cobain is character in our story. I'm sure we'll talk about a little. I wouldn't call myself a Nirvana fan. I do remember, as you probably do, too, since we're about the same age. I do remember the day he died and there were literally girls in my high school biology class crying. I'm not kidding. It was that big a deal. Not a big fan. But I do respect their music and I appreciate what they did in their short, very short time.

I was kind of in my peak country phase at that point when that stuff came out. And it wasn't until after he passed away that I started to kind of develop appreciation for the band. And there are some songs right now that if they come on, I'm going to stop and listen to. And there's some songs that I found that there was theirs that I didn't remember listening to. And then I found the COVID of it and I'm like, oh, yeah. And I'd go back and listen to that Sturgill Simpson does a cover of in Bloom, and it is so radically different from the album, but I don't know, it's the same kind of magic in both of them. For me, that song is, like, so interesting. And the way Nirvana does it, it hits you in the face. And the way that Sturgill does it, it's like you understand kind of. I don't know, as best you can, whatever Kurt's writing, like you understand. You understand a little bit more what's kind of going on there. And I don't know. There's just several songs like that where I've kind of developed an appreciation for them when somebody else sings them. And then I go back and listen. And, I mean, for us, our generation, if smells like Teen spirit isn't on that list of top ten for our generation, then we don't know what we're talking about.

Yeah, it did not exist, but that list was trash because it didn't have that one song on Harry.

That one song kind of defines the entire grunge era, in my opinion.

It took out hairy metal bands, obliterated.

Them from something to nothing overnight.

I think air supply is still trying to come back because I said, Kurt and Hendova killed our career and they're so mad at them. And so I don't think they're mad at them anymore.

But most of those hair bands, though, they were self inflicted wounds that caused their careers to go away for the most part.

To this day, we still can't get rid of Motley crue.

They keep making another documentary, another movie about them.

Yeah, another keeps touring, man.

They were, like, one of the top ten touring acts last year.

Another doable live album with what we don't need. So two questions about Nirvana. One question about Nirvana and one question, considering Nirvana, do you think that he was murdered or suicide because everybody thinks that Courtney love hired somebody to kill him? There's suicide in there. Mean, because I don't think you can shoot yourself with a shotgun. Because the shotgun is like. It doesn't make sense to know.

I think he faked his death to become a secret agent. That's what I think.

Yes. And we're going to talk about that. Yeah. But I think that Courtney did something. Hired. I don't know.

I have heard that some thought that he wrote all the songs for the whole album that came out not long after his death. I heard that those were all his songs and whole just took really ordered them. Yeah, that's one conspiracy theory around him that I heard. Because why haven't they made more music.

Yeah.

And it was good.

It was fantastic.

It was really good.

Exactly. All right, so we have the 27 club. Kurt was a part of that. I'm sure you know that 27 club is artists that died at 27. So we have Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, Amy Winhouse, and a whole lot more. Hendrix, too, Joplin. So why do you think they all died at 27? Because that's kind of eerie that all of them died at that age.

A lot of those folks attained success very young. 27 is young, but even younger than that. Like, in their early, some late teens, early twenty s. And I think for some people, they're just not equipped to handle that level of success, that level of resources and finances. And once you make it big, people quit telling you no, and you just kind of get surrounded by an echo chamber of you're great, and nobody can talk sense to you. And so I think that a lot of times, some of those folks just got so caught in the trappings of fame and success, and then no one would kind of help pull them out. Nobody could get them out of that death spiral, so to speak. Yeah. I don't know that it's anything magical about the number 27 or the year that many years old. I think it's just when they started having success and how it kind of built and built and built and just kind of came to a head for a lot of them at that point.

Yeah.

I also think that everybody dreams about being a rock star at some point in your life. You're like, that'd be so cool to have all those people listen to me. But going and playing from city to city, the same songs the same way over and over and over, and having to have that same energy over time, that just wears you down and then not actually living the same life as anybody else. Like, not being friend, not being able to have regular relationships because everybody else goes to work, everybody else does other things, and you're in a different place. And I think the isolation that happens combined with the yes, people, combined with just trying to keep yourself up and have energy for all those things, it leads to addictive tendencies that it can destroy your life. And also, I don't know that I've met any true geniuses that are completely normal. I think that there's a good number of people that are. I think if you were to look at it statistically, troubled people and geniuses often kind of go together.

Yeah, they go hand in hand. I agree. Okay, so going back to my vinyls, we got at least four more. I've been a longtime Metallica fan, but lately I've become one of these guys because of consistency. These guys always come out with the album every two or three years. Metallica has not. And the band I'm talking about to audio people is Megadeth. I have the rest in peace album. Are y'all fans or no?

Is that yes?

Yes.

I'm not a fan at all, but Dave Mustaine is a super interesting guy.

Yeah.

I don't know much about him other than that.

Okay. You don't know? Okay.

When I was a child of the early 90s, my mom, I could go to Kmart. I don't know if they had Kmart where you are, but I could go to Kmart and I'd put 25%. $0.25 in the machine, and I'd twist it, and I'd get a rock and roll sticker. And so I was trained at a very young age. Judas Priest, not a good band. You're probably going to go to hell for listening to them. Over and over, these stickers have come out. So just seeing the name Megadeth was something that was like, it's not just regular death, but it's like, mega Mega. That was a no no in Kathy Watson's book. And so I steered away from the heavy metal know the demons were going to get me.

There you go. Country is a little bit better, in my opinion.

Okay, I agree. Devastating, right?

Okay, so these three more vinyls are the same band. And one of the singers here talked about in the book, we have the Beatles let it be, my favorite album of all time from theirs. What are your thoughts?

Let it be is my favorite Beatles song of all time.

Yes.

I know. That's not like you're supposed to pick, like, a norwegian wood or, like some weird one.

You know what I mean?

The 7th song from the fourth album, whatever. You're supposed to pick a weird track, but let it mean it just speaks to me. I love that song so much. I really love how that album was captured in the film, the Peter Jackson movie that came out a couple years ago. And just seeing them record and watching Paul on the spot write, was it let it be that he wrote on the spot? Like, he's just messing around on the piano and he just.

Yeah, I think so right there. I think he had a dream about his mom, and his mom said, like, led to me, like, ten minutes. I'm like, jesus.

Just to see that level of genius do their thing and to watch it as it happens, just unreal. So cool.

Yeah, that's a really cool album because it teeters between the pure fun and the philosophical and fantastical and just kind of next level. My second favorite song on that album, get back, is my first, but my second favorite one is I got a feeling it is just so blues rock ridiculous. And I just love, like, there's so many different things about that song that love, you know, Paul McCartney singing, then John Lennon bringing all these know. First song that I ever listened to and didn't quite realize for a long time. He talks about everybody having a wet dream in that song. And you don't even catch it, you don't even notice it. But at the same time, it's like everybody pulls their socks up and you're like, who puts this stuff together in the same song? But I just think that's a fantastic song.

Yeah. So next we got rubber soul.

I'm just going to have to confess, I can't tell you what's on rubber soul, but I'm sure I would know.

Matter of fact, I couldn't either. So I don't look at. Okay, so it's Michelle drive my car, norwegian wood in my life, which is a great song.

Yeah.

I'm a big fan of the Beatle, but this album, it's not like a throwaway album. It's more like, I'll listen to it, but not really.

In my life. That's a good one.

Yeah. That's probably one of the best ones out there. Whole album.

Yeah. That's a deep cut album right there.

That is. Yeah. All right, so the last album we're going to discuss is Abbey Road.

Abbey Road. Is there a more iconic album cover than that one in the history of albums?

Well, some would say it's Sergeant Peppers, but I highly disagree with them because this one mean you can't go out anywhere and. Oh, that's know. Yeah, that's such an iconic record and album.

Looking at the track listing here with Jay, he pulled him up on the think. I think the one that kind of gets me the most. Scroll back down for a second. It was the golden slumbers. And to carry that weight. Part of the reason I like it so much is because it's featured on the cartoon sing. Did you ever see that movie?

Yes. Yes, I did.

Yeah, I love how it's used in that movie and that kind of exposed my kids to the Beatles a little bit. So I kind of got excited by that. But, yeah, I love how so many of Beatles songs, they just flow one right into the next. So you really don't know when one song ends and the next one begins. Sometimes it's pretty cool, right?

I think, obviously, for me, Octopus's garden is one of the catchiest melodies. Like, that little thing that they sing. It's just like, if they already put actual words to it, it would have been something. But, like, even Octopus's garden, it's just such a crazy song. You can't get it out of your head when you hear it come together. Is, like, iconic in every way, shape, or form. There's no anything about that. But one of my favorite ones on this album is I want you. She's so heavy. Again, that's where they lean into that blues rock where I'm kind of tipping my hat about the things that I like. But she's so heavy is not a phrase. If you were to put I want you, she's so heavy in a song. Like, I don't know if you'd get canceled or somebody's backyard, I guess she's so heavy.

That kind of a beat out of encapsulation for you, but, yeah. Have you all heard of the Sal garden cover of coming together?

I've not heard about those.

I'm about to pull that up. Right.

Great, great.

Obviously, I've heard Aerosmith's cover. In fact, I think I heard Aerosmith's version before I heard the Beatles version.

Oh, really? Okay.

When you hear one before you hear the. Like, sometimes you like the imitation better than the original because Aerosmith sped it up and the Beatles a little bit slower. And so I've had to adjust to the Beatles version because it's. And whereas Aerosmith is faster, so it's kind of interesting.

Yeah, well, the Soundgarden is a lot heavier, so get prepared. And, I mean, if you don't like it, it's fine, but you can't go wrong with Chris Cornell. So we're going to talk about Elvis and John Lennon now. Elvis. So those are my two go to people when I always go to them, besides Kurt Cobain. But my mom influenced me to listen to a lot of Elvis because he was a huge Elvis fan. Saw him one time concert way back when. And my aunt molly, she was a big Beatles fan, and I got some of the best wealth between them. So your book, the Dead Rock stars, introduces both of them. And you tell a story how they fake their death and become secret engines. How did the idea come about?

Yeah, well, I mean, you go back to 27 club, and then these two famous people that died young, that may be not as young as 27 club, but they died young. There's always been conspiracies around them. There's always been kind of curiosity things. And one day Kyle saw a news clip of something and it kind of sparked an idea. And then we started to kind of create this universe. And who better to be huge parts of the story than the two most famous rock stars around at that time?

Anyway, our story is set in 1999. It's not set in the present day. And that's important partially because the folks that we wanted to feature in the book, even in 99, they're starting to get a little bit older. But if we were to try to do it now, I think I saw on the Academy Awards the other night that Yoka Ono is 91 years old. And so I don't know the age difference between she and John, but I don't know how old John would be today. And I think Elvis, I think I googled the other day, Elvis would be 87 if he were still alive today. So if we tried to set it in the current day, they would be too old to be butt kickers still. So we set it 99. So they're a little bit younger, a little bit more, still able to do the things physically that we would want them to do as secret agents. So, yeah, those are just two guys that play a huge role in our story. Really important. And they were a lot of fun to write and to imagine as secret agents 20 years or so beyond their death. It was kind of fun.

Yeah, because John died. Okay, so when you go to Vegas, you'll see Elvis all over the place, right? So I mean, Elvis might still be alive. Who knows, because he's ever born in Vegas, right?

That's right.

Yeah. Because you go down one street, Elvis live, playing live, and you go down another street, Elvis is like, come on, dude. So you could tell that Elvis was really influential with a lot of people they always loved know. And the same thing with.

Yeah, absolutely. We wrote that into our story, actually, in the first chapter. Elvis Presley and Budy Holly walk right down the strip in Las Vegas and nobody pays them any. I mean, imposters are everywhere, right? It's a lot of fun to sort of let these guys hide in plain sight, because if you're dead, you're dead. That's how the world sees. So to fake to death, to be a secret agent, to walk out into the world without anybody batting an eye, because everybody knows you're know, it's just kind of fun to play with, kind of, kind of cool.

So as influential as Elvis was to Vegas. And he's still there, right? Ever present. Kyle's been an influential part of his life in Memphis. I grew up in Nashville. We went to college in Jackson, Tennessee. Elvis is inescapable in all these. You. You drive down certain road in woodland street in east Nashville, and there's the studios where he recorded a lot of his stuff. You go to Memphis? I don't think I've been to a restaurant in Memphis where there isn't some memorabilia of Elvis. Like, we did a book party recently in Memphis, and at one point, somebody asked the question, how many of you have a stand up cardboard Elvis at your house? And there were like, I don't know. I'm going to say 25% of the people in the room actually owned a stand up Elvis, like a cardboard cutout. Right. And he's inescapable in Memphis, and he's still ever present in Nashville. In a lot of ways, that's true.

Okay, so I have some questions from my co host. She says she asks, both John Lennon and Elvis were huge stars and had no privacy. How does one become a spy? How does becoming a spy play into the need for privacy? We all need a break from this world. How does that happen?

Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know that we really thought much about that. You thought about a little bit?

Yeah.

I think that fame and losing your anonymity in any way, anywhere you go, is very destructive. You're not allowed to just be a person.

Right.

It's one of the reasons why you see these megastars build these crazy mansions, because it's like the only place they can go without having to feel like they're on. And I think that part of the beauty of faking your death in our story is that you get to have a certain level of anonymity. Everybody, one of the things Cal said a lot in some of these podcasts is everybody believes you to be dead. So you're dead. And even if they see you out in public, couldn't be you because you're dead. And so you get a chance to be back in the world and enjoy the world, but not have to be that person. And I think that mentality wise, when you start to think about what it would be like to be famous.

You.

Inadvertently create two different versions of yourself. There's the person who you actually are, and then there's this person, this caricature that the world knows. And where you can begin to lose your mind is when those two people become so separate that you don't know what's what anymore. And being a whole person.

I think.

That'S one of the most important things in our lives, to understand a whole picture of who we are and to be that person. And so, yeah, I thought about it a lot just simply because to put yourself in those shoes, it's easy to think about how great it would be, but nobody really thinks about the pain and the sorrow and the loneliness that comes with it.

Right? Yeah. Because that's one form of this podcast, is we talk about how music helps with depression. And you're right, because you could go out and have the best time in the world, but come home, and it's tolerable. And I think that needs to be talked about a lot more than we do. What challenges did you face when crafting a narrative that blends conspiracy theory with espionage fiction?

I mean, I guess when you think about it from a conspiracy angle, we didn't really lean too much into conspiracy. It was more the spy angle that we kind of leaned into.

If we're leaning into any conspiracy, it's more the inspiration. Since you're our age, where do you live? What part of the country?

Lexington, South Carolina.

Okay, so you go to the Piggly Wiggly or whatever the grocery store chain there was, and you're checking out with your mom, getting the groceries, right. And you look over, and what do you see? You see a people magazine. You see, I don't know, maybe an entertainment weekly. I don't know. That's probably early for that. But then there's always those newspapers, the national Enquirer or the sun or whatever they were. Know, I can still remember pictures of an alien and Jesus and Elvis, like, holding hands in front of the National Enquirer or whatever. Or the alien was pregnant with Elvis's baby, or, like, it was all these things. And so that was a little bit of an inspiration for us, just in the sense of Elvis was always spotted somewhere doing something crazy for us. It was like, well, what if it really was him? But it was just that he wasn't doing those crazy things. He was being a secret agent. And so this conspiracy kind of leaned into the absurd, and then the espionage, what all that looks like. It's like you can get away with a lot of places. If you sort of look like somebody, it kind of opens the door for you. And so it kind of works to their advantage. And also think the older the people were, they change a little bit. In our story, Elvis would be about 60, 61, 62, somewhere in there. And so he doesn't look quite like Elvis, but he still looks like Elvis.

Hide in play sight, right? I mean, better than hide in play sight. Yeah. Because we have already these people who acting just like them. You won't know whether you're talking to the real one or not. That's awesome. You all wrote this book together. So has there been any not, like, battle fights, but arguments about how you wanted, because one has a good storyline and the other is like, yeah, but this can go this way. Did you have small arguments like that cream in this book?

This is a big question people like to ask.

Yeah, we did. We're two different people. I mean, we've been friends for almost 30 years, and we have similar tastes in some things, but when it comes.

To, like, we'll still fight about Star Wars Episode nine, like, all day. Episode eight, all day.

But when it comes to our story, we both trusted one another that we just want to tell the best story. We want it to make sense.

We want it to be cool.

We don't want to have huge, gaping backdoor plot holes, things like that. And so that was our desire. And so if he had something that he felt really strongly about and I wasn't as crazy about it, I could be convinced because of his passion or if he explained it in a way that, okay, that makes sense to the story, the same thing for me. If I was like, I really think this is important. I really think we need to do this. And he could talk me down to go, I don't know that we do need to do that. I wanted to add two or three new chapters. As we were getting to the end, I was like, I really think we need to add a chapter on this. He was like, I don't think we do. And so we would just have really civil, but we'd have conversations and we'd make our cases. And ultimately, we felt like, what guides us is the story. And the cool thing about it, though, is that we had an end in mind. We didn't just start writing and go, where's this going to go? We don't really know where this is going. As the writers, the last Star wars films did, they didn't know where it was going. All that to say, we wrote with an end in mind.

We were like, this is the target.

That we're aiming at. This is where we're going to get to. We don't know all the plot points along the way, but we know we got to write to this point. And so that guided us the whole way that helped us know how we wanted to finish the story and how we wanted to, the story we wanted to tell.

I also think the goal in mind helped us get to where we're going. But the other thing was, once we set a tone that really cleared up a lot of things for us, because you can get dramatic, you can get serious, you can get intense. And then there's also a piece of this where most of these people experienced a lot of darkness, and how much you deal with that, their demise, the sadness around it, addictions, things like that. It really changes the tone of the book. And so once we kind of landed on a tone, I think it really cleared up.

Once you have your goal, where you're.

Going and the tone, I think it really answered some questions for us. And it's like, once we set up the fence, we know how to play within those boundaries. And our purpose was to have fun. Like, we wanted to have fun. We wanted to tell a good story, one that we could be proud of. And we wanted to kind of celebrate these people that mean so much to the world. And I think we were able to kind of navigate that fine line to where we kept our tone proper. We dealt with some difficult things, but we dealt with it in a pretty light way. And we managed to tell a story that even if you're not familiar with some of these artists, you're still going to love it. And if you're really familiar with the artist, you're really going to love it. While you might not appreciate some of the choices we made, you can at least understand where it came from, because we spent a lot of time studying, we spent a lot of time hearing their speeches so we could match it when it comes to their language. And we did our best to kind of, in most cases, capture the essence of the person.

Can you share any discoveries or renovations you encountered during. Did you take what Elvis did in real life and incorporate in this, or was his whole character in your book totally fiction?

It's a mixture. I mean, we wanted to, like Jay just said, we wanted to sort of capture the essence of who they were, but at the same, they. They need to serve the purposes of the story we're trying to tell. And so we wanted to get in the ballpark of who they were. But one of the things that Jay talks a lot about is Elvis was just dying to be a secret agent or, like, collected badges everywhere he went. He wanted to get a badge, a DEA badge or a sheriff's badge or something like that, because he had this kind of bent towards law and order. So to speak. And so we kind of leaned into that a little bit. That that's kind of his secret desire always was to be some type of special agent or secret agent or something. So much so that right at the same time we started writing this book, they started making that Netflix series know Elvis was a secret agent, but it know he faked his death. It was just while he was doing his rock and roll thing. He also was a secret agent on the side. So similar idea, but different. Wanted it. We wanted to kind of pick and choose from real life, what were things that were real about these people, but also we wanted to sort of create, what would they be like 20 years after they died? What would they be like if they were in a different kind of community? If they were in a place where they weren't just surrounded by yes men like we talked about? What if they were in a place where they had to have accountability and they had to go to meetings and they had to have guidelines and guide rails in their life? And what if they were driven by a greater purpose than just making the next hit record? What if they're driven to save the world? Their lives would be totally different. So, yeah, we wanted to take bits and pieces of who they really were, but also we wanted to shape it in the way we wanted to do.

Heard Kyle. Kyle and I were talking before Jay, we were talking before you came on, and you and Kyle do not play any instruments. But he says, I think he's told me your daughter does.

To be clear, from fifth to 10th grade, I was quite a gifted alto saxophone player and on occasion, a tenor. Yeah. I mean, Kyle's family plays music. Kyle's wife and I went to high school together, and we were both. We sang in different groups. And so music has always been a.

Huge part of our life.

And you're right, it does change your mood. It changes your perspective. Truly having someone inspire you changes your whole outlook on things. And about, I don't know, two or three years ago, my daughter hope started writing songs and started playing. And from, I'd say, the last year and a half, for sure, there is no quiet place in our house. Writes songs. She's working on songs, and she will work on a song for days until she finishes it. And you hear the same song over and over with where me and then her sister. She has a twin sister. We will want to strangle her, because if we hear that chorus one more time, we're going to murder somebody. But the reality is they get so catchy. And the thing that's upsetting to us is it's in our head, and we.

Can'T get it out of. And it's catchy, too, but she plays.

The acoustic, she plays electric.

She plays ukulele.

I think she's about to start working on the mandolin, so she enjoys that kind of thing. And she plays piano, but her thing is not really that. It's the storytelling. She loves to tell a story. She loves to write a song. She loves to do things creatively, and that does come from her dad and her uncle.

Well, she sounds very well rounded in the music category.

She's really okay at a lot of.

Oh, yes. That's a perfect way to put it. Yes, sir. So have you heard Kyle playing drums? Because he told me that he wasn't never a good drummer.

Oh, yeah. I've heard him play. I've heard Sunday Bloody Sunday in just about every drum set that we've walked in the same room together.

Dude, I love black Savage. I love you for that.

That's fair, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

Every drum set ever. That's where college up. And I'm hearing sunny buddy Sunday. Can't believe the news today.

Did you have a drum set in your house where your mom and dad was like a j. You couldn't stand it?

No, man, I didn't.

Okay. Good for that, right? Yeah.

I was a marching band, marching snare in middle school, and I learned to play the symbols, like the marching symbols, and I learned to play the bass drum. But it wasn't until I was in my early mid 20s that I really, for the first time, jumped on a set. And so I just taught myself how to play the set a little bit. But I never learned that. It was all kind of the marching band element when I was younger. And it's fun. I'm terrible, but it's fun. I love to play it.

Awesome. Yeah. Because I'll tell you a funny story real fast. My friend wasn't trying to get him drum kit, and his mom took him to the store and shared the drums playing. But this is loud because of the big room he got at home, got them in the garage, and she wanted to throw them out at the house because they were so loud, like, well, electronic. Next time, man, forget those softer sticks. Yeah. There we go. So two more questions, and this is mainly for Kyle, but I want to hear your thoughts, too. This is love Star wars because I know Kyle loves Star wars because you all have some argument about Star wars eight. Is that what. Okay.

Yeah.

What's the argument?

I think it's terrible. And he's okay with it. I feel it was a violation of the story. So my thought is, okay, if you're trying to tell a story, a three part story, you got a beginning, middle, and end. Okay? So what happens in the beginning needs to impact what happens in the middle. And I feel like Ryan Johnson, the writer director of that movie, just decided, I don't really care what happened in the first part of the story. I'm going to do whatever the heck I want, and y'all can just deal with it, because y'all are a bunch of crybabies who love Star wars too much. And he went in and just did whatever the heck he wanted, and it just ruined any possibility of the third part, the most important part in my book conclusion, being any good, because he set it up for failure. So that's kind of my really harsh take.

No, he's totally wrong, dude.

I don't think he's ever been wrong. I've never heard anything.

But. But that wasn't my question. Okay, so my question was going back to conspiracy theories this time. Star wars. My friend told me that there's a theory going on that Jar Jar Binks is the. I mean, like, is that true, or is that what your thoughts?

Let me just entertain it for a.

Please, please do. Do. Yeah.

And then Cal can say what's accurate. You go back and you look at all the things that he does. I mean, he stumbles through an entire battle scene in episode one and doesn't get touched. It's almost like it's beyond a cartoon character. It's almost someone that has the ability to control the force around him, if you will. All these bad things happen, like where he happens to be the fall guy in the other ones. And what if he wasn't the fall guy?

Yeah. The leader of the whole thing, right. Yeah.

It's a really fun theory. I don't think it's true, but it's really fun. I think what Kyle's about to tell you is, know George Lucas was wanting to dig deep into the pockets of children. Right.

That is exactly what I was thinking.

George, before we get to Kyle's answer, I just want to toss out there that if you appear, know, you might be the strongest guy in the world, but you want to appear weak so that they think you don't have the.

Best thing in the world for anybody is to be underestimated, in my opinion.

And I think that's right with know, because he's the most likely, he's the most stupidest character, I think, but, yeah, but, yeah. Okay, Kyle, let's hear your truth.

I think it's fun. I think here's what it is, is you have a generation that came along that, and, like, my children's age, my son's age, my son's 15, and can.

We call it the era of the troll?

What I was going to say was my son came along, and he loves the prequels. He loves episodes one, two, and three. He thinks they're better than episodes four, five, and six, and he can't stomach episodes seven, eight, and nine. He can't stand them. He loves the prequels. And there's a lot of people that come along and love the. So, you know, you see with all this love for Hayden Christensen that he's coming back and he's playing Darth Vader two or know times in these Disney shows, and Ewan McGregor's played Obi Wan Kenobi again, and everybody loves it. Universal praise for Ewan McGregor's performances and going back, reevaluating episodes one, two, and three. So I think people who were raised on episodes one, two, and three are like, this is actually better, and here's why. And so they're looking for any reason. They're, like, pulling at threads to go see, here's why it's cooler, because actually, Jar Jar was this evil Sith Lord who was actually pulling all the strings and not just this clumsy, know, like Jay said, children's character who was brought in to make comedy and to make jokes and to have people laughing and think, that's. I think that's what happened with this Darth Jar Jar thing. That's been.

Okay.

But now the actor who played Jar Jar did show up in the new season of the Mandalorian as a Jedi. And he went in and he saved all the younglings. He saved all the little Jedi, and he was super cool. So he kind of got a redemption arc as well. He's kind of been reviled for that.

Performance, been beat up.

So it was cool to see him.

I think his name is.

I'm about to say something that's probably, like, heretical in people our ages world. But episode four is pretty boring when you compare it to all the others. Like, all the others, watching the robots walk in sand for, like, ten minutes is like, okay, we get it. They're walking somewhere. And, I mean, some of that has to do with, like, a 1977 movie versus a modern movie. You watch the 70s movies, and they're picturesque, and they're cinematic, and they're in no hurry to do the things. But if you watch, in my opinion, Empire strikes back is probably the best one. Return of the Jedi is probably my favorite one. And there's stuff going on, and they're hitting on all cylinders. But that whole startup with the first one, it was almost like they did something that was special, and then they realized, hey, we can make this so much more. We can make a whole universe out of it. We can do all these things. But for a younger generation to grow up on one, two, and three, but then their parents go, okay, you've seen this, but you have to watch four, and then you have to watch these other. They're so much better when that happens for somebody that's seen. What are the race in episode one? What's pod race? Pod racing in episode one to go into four, where it's like, yeah, that's kind of weird. Shot a guy in a cantina.

Didn'T have any advanced vehicles like they did in one that they had in four.

Which I always thought it was OD, worse chronologically speaking.

Yeah. So our last question for you all today is this podcast is called when words trail music speaks. That can be anything further from truth. But what I want to know here right now is, what is an artist, a band, or album that you can listen to and you can't tell me or Kyle or Jay how it makes you feel deep inside your soul? Yeah. It can be an artist, an album, or a band.

An artist, album, band that speaks to.

My soul, and you can't explain how it makes you feel to me or Kyle.

All right, you want to go first?

I'm thinking on this. I'm going to base my answer on your answer. You go.

I feel like we all know what you're going to say, though.

Well, I want to go outside the obvious. I mean, you too. Okay, you two. That's my answer.

Yeah.

Other than you two, great.

Okay.

For me lately, I'm going to say 21 pilots.

Okay, good band. Good band. Any particular song or just the whole.

Kelly trees is the one that speaks to my soul.

All right, guess what? You just answered that perfectly. Because you can't explain how it makes you feel, so you just answered that perfectly.

I want to explain it. I want to talk about it, but.

If you can tell us how that makes you feel, please share. Yeah.

I think for me personally, there's a certain longing to hear from something more. And that song is about a guy going out in the woods asking for a higher power to speak to him so he can hear. And it kind of culminates in this beautiful climax of dance music, I guess, is the best way to say it, that it just feels like a song of worship in a sense that doesn't use words. And sometimes with music in particular, you can't often explain why. It just feels like it comes from somewhere else. And for me, that song encapsulates what music does to your soul. You can't explain some things. You just know they're there. And that song is a song they end every concert with, and it's special to them and important to them. And I think it really speaks to kind of who they are as a people and what they're trying to accomplish with their message. And for me, man, every time I hear it, I get emotional. And it's not a super complex song, but just what they do with it and what they say, I want that for my life right now.

Okay, let's go to Kyle.

I just can't get away from you two, so I'll just have to.

Go.

With something completely out of left field. But I was like, no, let's be true to myself.

That's okay. Yeah.

And for me, it's you, too. And the song, it's a deep cut, but the song is ultraviolet light my way from octune, baby. Yeah. And there's just something about, it's kind of along with what Jay said, something about the desire to know the right way to go, to have the direction for my path to be lit, and to walk that path faithfully. That's kind of something. That song speaks to me and how many times it's pulled me out of a funk.

Nice bill. For everybody listening to the show, remember to go to ww dot deadrockstarsbook.com. I'm looking at their merchandise page, and you can buy shirts and books. You can order books. You can order a signed book. You can get a poster, or you can have them bundled. Correct.

That's right.

Yeah, we got all the merch.

All the merch. And you could also find them on Facebook at the Dead Rocksters book, and on Instagram at the DRS book. I guess the dead Rocksters book was taken on Instagram.

I'm going to say this pretty. Okay writers, pretty bad marketers.

Okay. Yeah. Because I really don't know how to market this at all, but I'm trying.

If a smart person would have been like, we need to name everything, right? But then what we did was we went to Facebook. Like, okay, we got this. Good. Let's go to Instagram. Oh, we don't have this. What are we going to do? And so we're like, how about the DRS book?

You're explaining me because I have different handles. Dude, we greatly appreciate you coming on the show, and I'm so glad you got together instead of one being because Kyle says this is the first time we're doing this together. Yeah, good times. Yeah.

Thank you for having us.

And if you ever want to come back, please do. Just give me a shout out and you can come back whenever you want to. All right, awesome, man.

Good luck with your podcast, man. This is awesome. We had a great time.

Thank you so much. And everybody listening, always remember, when words fail, music speaks. Bye, guys. I.