Thu, Nov 6 at 10:17 PM
You smoke weed, or you, uh, sober, or what’s your deal? Yeah, I smoke, um. Now that I got my son, I’m kind of like. I’m kind of like in this state where I’m like, maybe I should. Start cutting back on the grass now because I got this beautiful, clear-eyed baby looking at me.
And you know, it’s like, right, if I come in and I’m high, it just doesn’t feel right, you know. So, I kind of. I’m kind of having those talks with myself right now about. Maybe I should cut back on the grass, you know, just because, and it’s just coming from myself.
It’s not coming from anybody else, you know, it’s not my wife or anybody. Or like that, it’s like, it’s, it’s just me going. I want to be high around my son. Right. Did you get to smoke with Willie, though? I mean, I imagine, that’s the highlight of your life.
Um, I think Willie might be taking it easy, too. And then he takes a lot of Edibles and stuff, you know. And does his coffee, drinks, and stuff like that? By that time, I don’t know if he was, he was smoking. Uh, but we did play some cards. He took a thousand bucks from me.
Real quick. Real, cuz I don’t really know how to play, but I sat down anyways, and that was the thing, too. We played. Wait, yeah. 500 and then he took another 500 and his wife was going. Annie, she’s like, this is disgusting. The boy doesn’t even know how to play and Willie’s.
Like, well, he sat down, didn’t he? You know, and he took the money because I mean, I know, a thousand bucks is Meaningful to anybody. You work hard for it. You’re on the road, and it’s exciting to be there with Willie. But Willie’s, like, almost a professional poker player he shouldn’t be sitting down with you and taking.
Hey, yeah, but you know, he said, he sat down, didn’t me. I mean, he was, like, I was, I’d spend another thousand to sit in that chair and bullshit with those guys, you know, really. And then, his buddy, Steve, who was I said man how long you guys been sitting here playing cards?
Steve says 50 years. All right. That’s fine. I just want to be with you guys. You get to hang. Yeah, I didn’t know how to play poker. I had my manager right here, sitting behind me, saying, oh, you’re looking at my cars, trying to help me and shit, you know, I mean, but I was like, fuck, I’m not gonna miss out on playing cards with Willie, you know.
Did you say to Willie, hey, you know, I know, your guitar is his guitar’s name is trigger. Everybody knows trigger. It’s like a whole big Legend. Did you say to Willie? Let me see that trigger guitar. Let me play that a little bit I wanted. I want to touch that, yeah.
Did you play it? Yeah, after we recorded our tune, uh? Trigger was just sitting there, and we were kind of hanging and. Or no, I think it was before we recorded. Because I mean, right after we recorded, he was ready to go play cards. But, so before we got going, trigger was sitting there, and I was sitting there talking to.
Willie and I asked him, could I pluck a note. I said, yeah, go ahead, and it was plugged into his old amp and stuff, too. And, uh. The engineer in the studio hit record, so whatever I was playing on trigger. I think I played.
You know, a little black mountain rag, and uh, it’s amazing. Yeah, so the engineer recorded it. So, somewhere, I have a recording of me playing Black Mountain rag on trigger. Did you? Did you go like? Dude, I, you know, trigger’s? Not all that great. I mean, he’s got a big hole in him and all, like, does that sound great.
When I play, I put my pinky right here, you know, to kind of anchor a lot of the time, so you know, unless I’m just strumming. But if I’m picking.
My pinky kinda. I use it as an anchor for kind of relative location, you know, and I went to do that on trigger, and it just slipped right down that hole. There’s nowhere to Anchor. Yeah, it’s just sweet, but does it sound better on trigger, or were you kind of like I would never play trigger professionally.
I mean, it’s it, or is it a special guitar? It’s a very special guitar. It has so so much soul and and Beauty, but it’s Willie’s hands that make that guitar scene, and it’s his guitar and his head. When you were a little boy. If I had told you one day, you’ll grow up and be sitting with Willie Nelson.
You’ll play trigger in front of him. You would you? Would have said, go fuck yourself, you’re lying to me, right? You’re living the dream. You’re living the dream. Yeah. I know sometimes I have to tell myself that, too, and just realize it because I stay pretty busy, and I stay kind of like, hard on myself, about practice and stuff like that, too.
And I don’t think I’m as good as I am, and I’m trying to do better and do this, and that, and it’s never good enough for me or something like that. But like, I’m also. You know, sometimes, like the other night on stage in the CFG arena in Baltimore.
Pack to the brim, and I just. I was on stage and I looked way up in the back corner and I saw these people dancing and I just had this moment of realization like. Holy shit, like? This has happened like this is real life, and I’m actually standing here doing this.
Because you know, I don’t pay much. I just. I got my blinders on, you know? I’m just ripping gigs and and, and like to just take a second and look and go. Wait a minute. Just step back and look at it and go holy fuck. This place is full of people that are here to hear us play.
Yeah, it’s like sometimes you gotta sit back and like, sort of, take in what’s happening. I don’t think any successful person does enough of that, they they’re almost afraid to. Like, if I look at that too long, I’ll be stuck, or I’ll get full of myself, and I don’t know, there’s a hesitation to even say.
Let me just soak this in right now, you know? I mean, I, I don’t. I don’t always feel that, but yeah, I felt something like that the other night, just kind of like a just. Wow, this is. You know, and I’m so grateful for it. Every single person that comes out like, we’re just playing, you know, acoustic instruments and a lot of the stuff we play traditional Bluegrass and stuff, but?
Just doing our little spin on it and? Yeah, and it’s people seem to appreciate it. And it’s like, we love it. Maybe that’s? Why they feel it, you know? Hey, by the way, the song you wrote with Willie was called California. And lately, I can’t find another way. I can’t stay out the party like I did back in the day, so I’m California.
You wrote that with him? Well, what happened there is? I, uh, we were on the outlaw tour. With with Willie. And a bunch of them. Did a few of those Outlaw tours. So I came home. And I was like sitting out by my. I just got off that wheelie tour and I was sitting out by my burn pile and I had heard somebody say that a couple times a couple different people.
I heard that term, I’m all California sober, you know, like? You know, and I just, I guess. Yeah, you smoke, and you don’t drink or do hard drugs or something. You’re right, or maybe even you just drink wine or something, like, but I’m just, you know, California’s sober, it’s?
Yeah, it’s like, not totally sober, but I’m just trying to chill a bit, you know? Uh, a real, a real person whosoever would say that’s a lot of bullshit, right? You can’t beat California sober, but it’s so funny, it’s a funny concept. Yeah, I can just get a little bit high.
Yeah, right. Yeah, kind of, you know, my vibe, like? I think weed. I can function on that. Anything else would ruin my career or life? You know if I drank if I did cocaine anything like that. It’d fuck all this up, you know? Like, I couldn’t handle it because I’m a binger, you know?
Did you ever go to meetings or anything to get off that shit, uh, only when the court made me, but I actually, lately, I have been, um? Uh, thinking about, you know, maybe going to some, not not necessarily AA, but? Um, what’s the one that’s more for like fucked up families and shit Allen on that?
I went to one meeting. I went to one meeting of that, and it was like. Really awesome, and really. I resonated with it and what the folks were saying in there. The the folks that spoke, I was, like, whoa, there’s other people that have been through a lot of messed up stuff and, and, you know, had people that they loved that they couldn’t change and stuff, you know?
Yeah, yeah, it? So, yeah, it’s a hard decision to get off everything, right? I mean, that’s, like, hmm, I don’t know. Yeah, yeah, like I said, man, I’ve just ever since I was a little kid. I’ve just been. Experimenting, you know, talk? I mean, when I was a little kid, I was like, even too little, you know, huffing, rubber cement and shit just trying to do anything I can do to get high, you know?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was a shitty situation you grew up in, right? Well, we were bored, you know, as yeah, just kind of bored a small town. There’s nothing to do so. We’d go steal rubber spitting. Sniff that until we heard mystery music in our heads. Do you ever get into that headspace where you go?
Yeah, I got to get high on something because that’s what inspires my music. Do you ever get into that kind of thought process like I needed to write music or no, no, at the at the most, I think you know? If I smoke a little bit of weed, I’m like, oh, where’s my guitar, you know?
And it does make me want to play a little bit. But, but I don’t. I’ve been asked that before. Do you think you could play without the drugs? Right? Uh, yeah, I think I could. Yeah, if the music is. Is the drug really? You know what I mean? And I think really like if it’s hard for me to stop smoking weed.
It’s because it’s so wrapped up in the culture that I’m in, you know? I grew up listening to the to The Beatles and shit, and I, you know, Led Zeppelin and and and Jimi Hendrix and all that, you know, just like I was raised by hippies, you know, and I know.
And so. We and also like was exposed to a lot of really hard drugs, so we, to me, just seems very not a big deal. But it kinda is, you know, at least? I like, I can’t sit here and say that it doesn’t. Slow me down or get me high or something, or that I’m totally normal.
Or, you know, I can function on it, but come on! I’m still getting high, you know? Like, I said, it’s really evident when I see my son, if? If I’m high, and then I see him. I’m, like, oh man, I, and you know, I just don’t smoke. Try not to smoke, you know around it?
What about these dudes in the band? Maybe we get them to stop smoking too, so they don’t tempt you, these guys. I’m the one that smokes really. I mean, these guys talk a little bit here and there, but not too much. Not like me where, it’s like an addiction where it’s like, I smoke all day, every day.
And I have, since I was 12. You know what, I mean, yeah, you know, it’s like? Yeah, you smoke weed before this interview. I’m smoking weed right now. Oh, you are, oh, I didn’t realize. See, that’s what I mean. It’s like, yeah, you’re so used to it. Yeah, how the fuck are you gonna quit weed?
You’re too into it. I mean, if if you’re smoking, dude, no, what are you gonna do. I might have to go to rehab, I know, and then everyone, say, hey, it’s Billy strings, you know, you don’t want all that. Well, where’s your place? Crossroads, Antigua. Oh, that sounds like fun.
I guess that’s Eric Clapton’s place, he started. Yeah, man, I don’t know, I. And, uh, like I said, I’m right now, I’m just to the point where I’m kind of just like I’ll hit my pen a little bit throughout the day, and I really have cut back a lot.
But still, it’s like to really quit, like, I feel like. What’s the longest you ever went without smoking weed? Have you ever gone a full day? I gone a full year because I got a DUI when I was 19. And you know I was on probation? Right, um? But other than that, only a couple months, because again, I got in trouble down there.
Oh, Looper pulled me over down there in Tennessee and. Um. You know, right? I thought I was gonna have to. Pissing a cup or something, so I stopped smoking for a little bit. But nice, you know how you can do it? Yeah, I just maybe I should just turn myself in in Tennessee and say, look, I’m against the law.
I smoke weed, I’m sorry. I was wrong. I know I did it anyways, but put me on probation, so I have to stop smoking weed. Please judge, you need, like the David Crosby treatment they need to lock you up for a while, so you could just get off everything.
Yeah, yeah, I need to clean out. Yeah, you do. It’s too much man, but not right now. He’s speaking of Clapton, though, like going to Clapton.
