Opry Deal

[00:00:00] All right. This is the first podcast in I don't know how long without a guest. Wes, I have no idea. It has to have been before COVID-20. Right? Like, which is like BC. It's so like annoying that that's how we like process shit anymore.

[00:00:33] Like, oh, before COVID, after COVID. But yeah, probably two, three years now since we've just been because that's how we always used to do it for the like the OG fans. Yeah, it was just us too. Yeah.

[00:00:48] I mean, we would have guests when they would be coming through Chicago. If we wanted to talk to somebody, we would set it up. But sometimes you don't and we would just shoot the shit about a lot of different things.

[00:00:57] But big news, we announced that Opry Entertainment Group with the Grand Ole Opry, Quieter Minority Steak and Whiskey Riff. Super exciting, but super, super time consuming. But the culmination of so much work, I think maybe some people know or don't know that we put in eight plus years.

[00:01:20] I mean, we're not exaggerating when we say 16, 17 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, eight plus years, no vacations ever, getting married, about to go down the aisle and you're checking work stuff. And people want to, yeah, it's funny.

[00:01:41] But that's kind of what separates the phonies and then the people that actually put in the work and the people that don't quit. They don't do one podcast episode and just say, I'm done. We kind of stick with it. You stick with it, you build an audience.

[00:01:55] To that point, anybody who's ever visited this site or continues to visit the site, the social media followers, if you listen to a podcast, if you buy a t-shirt, you buy a hat, whatever, like huge, huge appreciation for all of you.

[00:02:11] That goes without saying the support over the years, obviously not possible. So it's not possible to have the numbers we have, whether it's social following or traffic or whatever, without the people kind of coming to kind of see what was going to happen today.

[00:02:26] The playlists have been a big thing for us too. So just been a whirlwind and it just fit. And I don't know how Wes you would describe it, but I feel like, or I know we had a ton

[00:02:36] of people kind of come to us over the last couple of years up until Opry. None of them quite made sense for a lot of different reasons. But for us, and I think you can speak kind of to on the editorial side, I feel like the

[00:02:48] Opry and what they can bring to help elevate and what we can help elevate or amplify made a lot of sense for us at this stage, especially. Yeah, no, definitely. Absolutely.

[00:03:00] Like you said, we had a lot of people kind of knock it on the door over the last couple years, which is kind of a testament to itself, but it had to be the right person. And for us, like the Opry was that right away.

[00:03:13] We were like, Oh, okay, here we are. Now we're talking something. And these conversations kind of hash out over the process of months and months and months and a lot of back and forth and negotiation and conversation.

[00:03:25] And it's long and it's intense, but it's just kind of how it works. But I think for us, we kind of saw the Opry as kind of being this just institution, like the epitome of like country music, long standing, iconic history.

[00:03:46] And it was like, okay, this is something we can get behind. And then their commitment to showcasing new artists is something that kind of fell in line with our commitment to showcasing some of these new indie artists up and coming people

[00:03:59] you're not going to hear on country radio, people that aren't going to be signed to a major label ever. It was just such a fit. And we kind of sat down at the table and we're like, what can we do to help shine a spotlight

[00:04:11] on some of these artists and really tell these country music stories? And I think Opry saw that opportunity and we did and we're like, let's do it. And jumped in. Here we are. Super exciting. It doesn't feel real. You know, it's like we're still processing all this shit.

[00:04:28] Yeah. I think for us, to your point about the artists, people forget a lot of ebbs and flows of the internet over the years and optimizing and tweaking. But we've always had this pillar of champion these up and coming artists.

[00:04:45] And we're not against, you go to a major label, like awesome. Good for you. The same like when the time is right, you can do that if you want to. But we also, you're not going to find sites that post more about Muscadine Bloodline or Charles Wesley Gowan.

[00:04:58] We truly love their music, love talking to them, love getting to know these type of people. And to us, it's not a commercial thing. It's not like a Nashville thing, like label based. And we just do what the PR says to do and we post everything.

[00:05:11] You know, it was like what we always did was wanting to do what we thought was cool and what we liked. And if it worked, this is something like this would happen one day that was really big.

[00:05:21] And that was just a testament to a lot of people here put in a lot of hard work for a lot of time. We've had part time people here. I mean, Aaron, one guy who's going to be our assistant editor here soon, or is our assistant editor.

[00:05:36] He helps Wes. He's part time. Like he writes for us and he'll publish stuff, but he's been doing this since like 2018 part time or 19, I think it was end of 2018. And then we have other full-time writers who have been here for years and part time

[00:05:49] to become full time. A lot of growth. Like we started out very small, obviously Wes and myself, and then it kind of built and built and built and built. And you kind of get these people in here and people that buy in and it makes all the difference

[00:06:01] in the world. And then obviously the fans, people that we, I mean, seeing some comments today from people we probably haven't talked to even if it's just through Twitter and five years. Sending a congrats, getting some texts from people, getting all of a sudden...

[00:06:15] Some of the day one-ers to come into... Yeah. People have paid attention. It's huge, but it's not without obviously the support of the fans, but also for people to understand it's an absolute motherfucker to put in the work to get to a point where

[00:06:32] you're dealing with a big dog like that and they want to be a part of it. So a lot of details worth getting into just yet, but content control and stuff like that is like the first thing people ask on us. Like, no, they don't have it.

[00:06:45] So they know we have opinions. They know we don't cover certain... And that's fine. And that was why it made a lot of sense too for us. It wasn't going to become like a watered down...

[00:06:55] Yeah, they weren't looking to come in here and change kind of what we do. They thought they could help amplify what we do. And that was a huge part of having that conversation right at the beginning.

[00:07:05] It's like, do you want to take over the content or do you want to help amplify the content? And they from day one wanted to help amplify the content. And I think that was a huge sticking point for us where we're like, all right, now we

[00:07:18] can get down to work. And then for you, got to be exciting. If you follow Whiskey Riff as far as like the articles, you'll see a really nice mix. Obviously there's a lot of outdoor stuff these days, lifestyle stuff. We've always posted that. Sports we've always done.

[00:07:32] Sports we've always done. Day one. But the lifestyle element of sports or whatever, but obviously country music, number one. But for you Wes, I think the last couple of years too, we've done a lot more of these historical posts.

[00:07:46] And we're seeing people really interested in, you're just, you're talking to a younger crowd sometimes, but they're like, oh, I don't know that story about Waylon or that's a funny story about Johnny Cash getting kicked out of the Opry. Yeah.

[00:08:01] All these really interesting, the Dirk Spelling Opry story went crazy for us. Like we're going to get tons more for the writers and Wes, like the ability to kind of tell these stories that haven't been told.

[00:08:11] That's got to be kind of pretty exciting as far as the type of stuff we haven't been able to quite uncover. Yeah. They have a whole archive room, which we're going to get to dig into really soon.

[00:08:23] And kind of just even like they have like actual footage and I'm like, dude, I don't got a VHS or a projector that like pop the roll on, but we're going to get to dig through the archives.

[00:08:34] Me and Steve will probably be down there in the next few weeks to kind of run through some of the, down in Nashville, I mean, to kind of run through some of the formalities.

[00:08:44] You know, got to kind of shake some hands, got to say hi, you know, all that fun stuff. Yeah, no, the vast like amount of content they have that they've just generated over

[00:08:55] the years is really exciting for us to kind of dig into and help just kind of tell some of these stories. I mean, we even said this from the beginning, like we want to, country music is so built on storytelling. It's like songs are stories, history stories.

[00:09:11] Institutions are stories, artists careers are stories. And I think now we're going to get to help really kind of tell some of those awesome stories and we're just excited. We're really excited. I think, like I said, it's really kind of just setting in.

[00:09:24] We just kind of scratched the surface. Haven't really started to kind of get into any of that stuff yet. But just excited about what's ready to come. And yeah, I mean, we haven't even started working really with any like departments like the Westside, my archives or whatever.

[00:09:40] But people think like you're not in a good way. I don't think you're going to notice much of a difference in kind of daily, but you're going to see stuff that's probably just even better. You're going to see a little more of the cool stuff.

[00:09:52] You're going to see a lot more of the cool stories. Ideally we're going to focus on getting you more access to, you know, we talked about Charles Wesley Godwin and he actually just had made his opera debut right around the time we were kind of closed.

[00:10:05] So we couldn't quite time it right to go down there and see him. But that's what it's all about for us. Like for me personally, probably like the number one artist I listen to these days

[00:10:13] seem and I think somebody is going to probably eventually a label will get him. But he he's as talented as anybody doing it his way, making noise, doing stuff with Zach and he makes his opera debut.

[00:10:25] And I'm like that at its core, that excitement for that is like what was built on from day one. It was get those moments and spotlight them. So I mean, that's just one artist. 49 Winchester recently made their Zach made his last year.

[00:10:41] Mike and the Moonpies I think recently like, you know, all these like great bands that have kind of what been welcomed into the Opry fold recently. Yeah, it's really exciting. I don't know. And there's going to be more to come.

[00:10:53] You know, we're going to find that next one. Maybe Logan Halston makes his Opry debut this year. You know, maybe J.R. Carroll makes his Opry debut this year. You know, we don't, we don't have this set in stone yet. Obviously, you're just spitballing.

[00:11:06] But if you love these artists, you get excited seeing the video, the clips, whatever. But you're like, man, I almost you want more of that. I want to see kind of, you know, some of these artists talking before they go on or doing

[00:11:18] something or shooting the shit before they're talking about their nerves, talking about after they performed. You want to see more of that personal side of them being there or having that moment on that stage.

[00:11:31] And it's like we can help kind of tell those stories for those artists, which is exciting because even if you're a sports fan, isn't that I pay attention to obviously my team, but I see it a lot of teams.

[00:11:42] You see these like rabid fans come like Monday, Tuesday. They're so excited for the team to release the mic'd up for the game. Oh yeah, yeah. Like people just like they're like, share the video, share the video. They get so excited. Same for music.

[00:11:56] Like in my opinion, you want to see a little bit of that interesting behind the scenes. You know, maybe some artists you don't want to meet in real life. You don't want to meet your heroes. But you find those things out potentially.

[00:12:10] And it's like, that's what's exciting to me. And then just as far as like Nashville goes, it's like, obviously we're not Nashville based. And I think that was really cool that they didn't, you know, that wasn't something that I was like, Oh no, that was nothing.

[00:12:24] But if you read the article in Billboard, we are going to have a couple of full-time people soon here in Nashville. So or they're in Nashville, important players on our team. So yeah, I mean, that's kind of part of what makes Whiskey Riff interesting too is, I mean,

[00:12:40] we got writers in Canada. We have people in California. We have people in the Carolinas. We have Nashville, Colorado, Chicago right now. Kentucky. Texas, Kentucky. You know, it's really kind of part of our DNA is kind of have that net.

[00:12:59] And it's not always going to be Nashville music. It's going to be hopefully getting some people more into Texas music and more into that. And hopefully we can help leverage some of these things and hopefully some cool things

[00:13:11] in the future where we can help, I don't know, help decide an artist that should make their debut or it's just endless. And hopefully you see some of the merch I'm wearing the Riff Outdoors logo here, but what's got a, yeah. Shout out to Hootie. Yeah.

[00:13:24] You know, hopefully we get a little bit of space in the shops where you're seeing our merch which it's a huge part of what we do, of course, but I think people might kind of be confused about how much the shop or so.

[00:13:40] It's like we spend a lot of time on everything and of course we want everything to grow. But we're always focused number one on just the brand and what we stand for and our voice.

[00:13:49] And then the shop is an extension of that obviously and a big important part though, but because hell if we can get, I don't know if we went back and count all the emails over

[00:13:59] the years about people saying, do you guys have a place I can actually buy this in person in Nashville? Yeah. It's got to be in the hundreds and hundreds. So many times people are asking about an actual spot.

[00:14:10] So hopefully we can get some of the stuff that people like. You want to grab a t-shirt, whatever to help out. Awesome. But maybe an old red, they got a little gift shop there, you know, maybe whiskey bar and grill. Yeah, probably won't be named that.

[00:14:26] It probably wouldn't be in Nashville, but hey, who knows? Like make our own wine, make our own beer, make our, I don't know, but fucking everything. But yeah, make a lot of different things. That's all the craze now, right? Everyone's got a tequila. Everyone's got a fucking tequila.

[00:14:42] I don't know. When you see like Thomas Red and Midland have a tequila, I'm kind of like, maybe that's not the space anymore. Right. It's just like, George has got one. George's is good. Well, George's is so high end. Yeah. Like you're going to fly.

[00:14:58] And the thing is too, everyone's like, oh, I've been flying down to Mexico for the last five years to make it. And I'm like, bullshit. I'm like, flying down to Mexico? He's like, no, you're not. No, you're not. No, you're not.

[00:15:11] But yeah, I mean, we've, I think we've just kind of scratched the surface on what we, we haven't scratched the surface to be honest, like on what kind of this partnership means.

[00:15:19] And I think we're kind of excited to see where it goes and really can't thank the fans enough for kind of being with us. All you day one-ers, people who are on the first podcast.

[00:15:29] Our very first podcast, by the way, was me and Steve sharing a mic that was sitting on a paint can in his apartment, just sitting on a two-way mic. I'm all like, I'm all straight face nodding. Like yeah, you got it right so far.

[00:15:44] Just like the most like, you know, unsophisticated process. We're like, oh, well, how do we edit this now? Does it sound okay? No headphones, no nothing. And we've, we've come a long, long way and it really is. I mean that, that could be another thing.

[00:16:00] Speaking of the podcast, like probably more short form stuff, which is always good, but we envision a lot more access to artists for the fans that can, if it's not even a video or quick interview, like for like an Instagram, like even if it's short form podcast

[00:16:15] maybe or quick fire stuff. But it's like, it's more access to them in that environment to get a side of them you're not used to seeing on a always a big moment. And if you don't know much about the Opry, which obviously everybody knows is Opry is

[00:16:32] you know, country music. You know, you're gonna just read the history and everything, but it's, it's a beautiful balance where you're always going to find something you love there. You may not like the show tonight, but next Friday you might be obsessed with whoever's on that stage.

[00:16:49] So that's a rarity, I think just in general for kind of like an entity to kind of provide that for so many different fans. So definitely exciting. I'm trying to think of some of the questions or no, but yeah.

[00:17:01] As far as content, because we saw a couple of Instagram comments like don't change being you and like, that's not, it would have been really hard to do a deal with somebody who wanted like true creative control. Yeah. Change.

[00:17:14] We're fine with change in terms of amplifying things differently or trying different things. But there's a reason we got big. And the reason we got big, all you gotta do is look at the other sites. It's cookie cutter, press release material. And we do none of that literally.

[00:17:34] And if we do, because it's a new story, that's one thing, but we'll have 25 X posts different than that following it. There's no catering to bending the need to fit some mainstream like kind of narrative. It's like we didn't care. We said this is what we like.

[00:17:50] And that was, that's super, super important for us to have that kind of understanding between the parties of let us kind of do our thing, but let's work together to help each other kind of find that next level. Yeah.

[00:18:04] And another thing too is I think we'll have a, we'll have an imprint at a few festivals this year as well. We started kind of hanging out at a few more last year. We were at Highway 30 and... Highway 30? Is that what it's called? In Idaho.

[00:18:18] And we did a few more last year and then we'll be at a few more this year. So make sure to kind of keep an eye on that. And we'll have like some tents and some merch and some hangouts and some after party.

[00:18:28] Maybe some beer pong or some... Beer pong, you know. Some acoustic performance type stuff maybe with us where artists are playing after. And yeah, that you said scratching the surface, that we really started last year. Just let's see how it goes.

[00:18:43] Kind of got better after the first one. Got a little better after the second one. Now going into 2023, even a little better. You know, people want to have a good time and kind of sometimes it's fun for us to meet people that maybe have read an article.

[00:18:57] Even if it's one article, be like, oh, I read... People don't understand how far that goes and just being a really fun way to kind of meet somebody at one of these festivals. I mean, for me personally too, some of the like we've had people overseas,

[00:19:08] we've had a number of soldiers in Afghanistan, Iraq be like, hey, you know, listening to your podcast got me through, you know, this. Or checking out some of your articles got me through this. Like we've sent merch overseas to Afghanistan and Iraq and bases in the area.

[00:19:26] So like those moments for us will always be some of the biggest moments, most rewarding moments, stuff like that. You know, people are like, oh, you know, this moment happened in my life. It was a really hard thing.

[00:19:38] But then I, you know, listen to your podcast or some of your playlists helped me through that kind of stuff. And it's like we don't take any of that shit for granted, to be honest. None of it at all. None of it.

[00:19:48] And just to be able to give back more, we have some charity stuff on the shop. Yeah. A dog place in Illinois, which I'm a huge dog guy. And we've done a lot of like fundraisers for when National had some horrible weather situations

[00:20:02] or the... I think we did one for the bombing too. Yeah, we did one for the bombing. If I'm not mistaken. But I mean, we raised, I forget the exact number, over $20,000 for the families after Route 91 with a gold star t-shirt that we kind of changed our logo.

[00:20:16] And that was like a long time ago. So I get excited about that too. There's probably, there's gonna be so many ways to really amplify who will wait for charities or giving back in ways we haven't kind of had the extra kind of horsepower behind it.

[00:20:32] And even without that extra horsepower years ago, we still were able to donate a lot more than a lot of people I saw because of the fans reacted to it. Florida Georgia Line. I mean, yeah. I mean, we saw...

[00:20:44] If you guys remember, there was like a fund and it was just like people were putting their actual artists' names and what people were donating. And we donated what we donated. We were actually, holy shit, we're doing well more than double some of these.

[00:20:54] And it was like, that's not like a boasting thing. That's just like a, wow, our content and our fans organically just made that happen. We didn't do some big thing. Like it was just boom. Like literally our... It was just like a crazy day even for our shop.

[00:21:08] We got shut down. PayPal was like... You were like, what's going on? The banks are like... Like option pay at checkout. They're like, what's going on here? It was just such an influx so quickly in a few hours.

[00:21:18] But all that type of stuff is the goal to kind of amplify it all, but without kind of taking away from that DNA and that fiber that was kind of always there. And I mean, I get excited looking at the Instagram.

[00:21:30] Twitter's fun too, but we all know how Twitter is. On Instagram, just seeing the comments and seeing like BJ American Aquarium and the likes and Muscadine tweeting us. And it's awesome because they know the story and we've all kind of grown together in this thing.

[00:21:49] And we relate really closely with artists over that. We've done that a lot lately where it's like, man, we kind of were starting similar spots eight years ago or so. And boom, look at us now. You're crushing it here. We're doing this.

[00:22:05] And that to me is really, really fun to have those conversations with those people. So... Yeah. We always said let's grow together with up and coming artists. And we're starting to see it come to fruition. Really exciting. Guys like Muscadine, absolutely crushing it. Really independent. Really independent. Yeah.

[00:22:20] Don't need anybody. And they... Good for them. They pocket all of that and... Yep. Get that bag. Yeah. But that was probably the shortest podcast we've done, which is we felt necessary, but... Yeah. A little State of the Union type deal.

[00:22:36] A little State of the Union, a little breaking news. But we knew there would be a lot of questions about content and stuff. So, we wanted to kind of get on here and just be like, no, that's not anything to worry about.

[00:22:44] And follow, share the news, keep in touch, socials or whatever. But I think you'll start to see things really start picking up in the coming months as far as cool ways that the content is getting out there even in different ways.

[00:22:57] Video, stories, historical, current, artists, yada, yada, yada. I think there's gonna be a lot of really fun stuff for everybody. But thanks again to everybody, honestly. Yes. I don't care how many times you visited the site. It all makes a difference. So... Yes. Thank you all so much.

[00:23:13] Putting a little Cole Wetzel and drinking wine on the podcast here. If anybody saw Cole, I think on the last one, drinking red wine. Yeah. Right on. I got some of these Jack Daniels samplers. Little perk about this business is Jack Daniels sends you a lot of shit.

[00:23:28] That's not available to the market quite yet. It's actually street legal, they say. Not the street legal hooch. But... I almost wish that would have went down the wrong way right there and you got that. I just puked and that was the way we ended this.

[00:23:40] Do you remember the... There's nothing worse than taking the shot wrong, wrong pipe, so to speak, right? Yeah. But then it looks like you can't handle a shot if you just kind of... You're not in the mode and you don't do it right.

[00:23:54] It burns like you're dying, dying your esophagus. And all you want is a nice garage beer, Michelob Ultra. Not paying us, I'm just talking about it. I got the Mickey's too. We should have a Michelob. Let's have your people call my people. Yeah.

[00:24:10] Well, is John Party getting paid by them? It seems like it. Maybe. John Party was on the podcast. He was talking about Michelob Ultra a lot and I was like... Yeah, I get it. You get into your 30s. John's about to have it...

[00:24:21] Or John just had a child. Yeah. Congrats to John. He's had a little girl. We each have young ones. But man, you start getting into that mode where you're a dad or... Maybe there's some moms out here that are heading into the garage to drink the garage beers.

[00:24:36] But it seems like... Shout out to the garage moms. The garage beer dads that complain about the little belly they're getting. Totally understandable. So switching Michelob Ultra to kind of offset some of that need to drink six more to get to where I would get on a...

[00:24:53] I don't know, a Heineken or like a little bit of a normal or normal-ish style European Pilsner or whatever. You're kind of right at the same fucking place. But it's good. I'll take it. Michelob. Have your people call my people. We'll talk about it.

[00:25:09] You're talking about Jack Daniels. I'm talking about Michelob. Now we're talking about... This podcast is not sponsored by anybody except Whiskey Roof Shop. Get your River Rider. Right there. And the Opry. And hopefully, yeah, hopefully we see people in that. We'll be in Nashville, I think...

[00:25:22] End of March. Very, very last few days of March. So if you see us walking around, we'll make sure to have a... Bunch of shots. I don't even know. Yeah, a billboard on our chest or something. So you guys just kind of... No pun intended. Yeah.

[00:25:34] Billboard article today. But no, we haven't been in Nashville in a while too. So gonna hop around a little bit, meet the folks at Opry, some of the folks we have, I mean, I should say. And then the days of Broadway are kind of probably gone.

[00:25:47] Honestly, it's just not... Yeah. Not our bag. We haven't done that in a long, long, long time. But I want to go get a nice dinner. I want to go do this stuff. Maybe Legends, Rippies, because it's like right at the start of the street.

[00:25:58] Just dip our toe in and get the fuck out and go back to Midtown. Yeah, you just don't want to spend too much time. I see the wines for some of these bars and I'm just... This reminds me... I'm just going off a quick little thing.

[00:26:10] Wes is in Chicago now where we obviously were for a very long time. And if you're in Chicago ever, like River North area, like the downtownish area, there's a lot of bars and stuff. Like a Saturday night, 10, 11 o'clock, the clubs, like the real...

[00:26:24] When I say clubs or like a big city, I'm talking about like... Club. You know, there's sparklers and fucking... Like New York, LA, Miami, Chicago club. Yeah. It's like douche heaven place. There's lines for those places. Oh yeah. You can't get in. But I wouldn't even... Walk in.

[00:26:46] We never wanted to, never cared. But truthfully, dive bar. Dive bar. You know, Irish pub, something like that. Much more our style. But I see some of these photos of like Aldeans and Luke and... Dirk's even. Dirk, like all... I mean, Blake's down there too.

[00:27:01] Like everybody, it's so insane. Even if you're into that, like... Yeah. How much time do you fucking waste waiting in that line where you can just go... I'm going to take a right turn here. I'm going to go down this street.

[00:27:12] I'm going to find a nice little like... They got the same but light. They got the same shit. And it's... I think that's a... We don't... We're not old, but man, that's a tough sell for me these days. Is Luke Bryan still serving?

[00:27:26] Yeah. The line is Luke's Bryan still... Bar still have like sushi? Sushi on the roof? I think so. I haven't been in a long time, but... Come on, guys. I don't want sushi at Luke Bryan's restaurant. I'm sorry. It's not where I'm getting it.

[00:27:38] I don't want sushi from Guy Fieri, let alone. You know what I mean? And Guy Fieri is putting brisket in it. Like just... Anyway, well... We're getting off the rails here. Well, hopefully we'll hang out with Guy Fieri soon. And then we'll see you guys in Nashville, hopefully.

[00:27:56] Yeah. And we'll be down there a little more than we have in the past probably so. Yeah. We got board names, business. Yeah. Business stuff. Just do business. What do you guys do? Business. We're just doing business. We're doing business. Doing business. It's business. That's it. Business things.

[00:28:13] Business things. Nice. Cheers, y'all. Thank you. Cheers, y'all. Love you guys. Every single one of you. Thank you so much. To the moon.