Aaron Lewis on Being Blacklisted from Radio & Why Record Labels Intentionally Promote Terrible Music

Aaron Lewis on the sleaziness of the music industry, the attempts to cancel him and why he despises Bruce Springsteen. (00:00) The Origins of Lewis’s Love of Country Music (06:49) How Country Music Has Been Infiltrated (12:06) Why Lewis Is Blacklisted From Radio (28:36) How Record Labels Exploit Up-And-Coming Artists (35:52) How Lewis’s Politics Have Impacted His Music Career (49:52) The Joys of Nature, Fishing, and Hunting (1:20:27) The Backlash Lewis Faced After Questioning the Ukraine/Russia War Paid partnerships with: Masa Chips: Get 25% off with code TUCKER at https://masachips.com/tucker PureTalk: Go to https://PureTalk.com/Tucker to make the switchJoi + Blokes: Go to https://joiandblokes.com/tucker to get 20% off all products and therapies with code TUCKER Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:25Speaker 01

  How'd you wind up singing country music? Hmm, well,

• 0:32Speaker 01

  my childhood, the soundtrack to my childhood is all country music. That's all I heard, from the time I woke up in the morning until the time that the lights went out. It's funny, you're from northern New England, which I think people don't associate with country music, but it's... Oh yeah, for sure. Country, like out in the woods, everybody's listening to country music. For sure.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  But yeah, I would, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house. Where? In Wallingford, Vermont.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Spent a lot of time there. It was a safe place for me.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  And my grandmother would wake up in the morning, and the very first thing that happened before an egg hit the frying pan or anything was the country radio got turned on. Wow. And it was on all day long. And the very last thing that got shut off before the light got shut off was the radio. So, I mean, it didn't matter if I was going fishing with my grandfather or whether I was at the house. If we were going fishing, I can still visualize the pile of 8-tracks on the floor of his Gran Torino with the boat tied to the top of the car.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  And, and it was just, it was permanent. There was always country music, always. And if we were in the boat, he was singing it. So... My whole childhood is just steeped in country music. So when I decided, excuse me, when I decided to do something different because I had gotten to the end of my contract with stained and I was now free to do whatever I wanted to do. I had always thought about putting out a solo record, if you will, a lot of lead singers do

• 2:53Speaker 01

  that. I didn't want it to be stained light. I wanted, I wanted to do something different and reinvent what I was doing without reinventing myself.

• 3:09Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  And the only direction to go was country music because it was such a part of my being, part of my, my whole childhood memories and, and the landscape of it. So when I decided that I was actually gonna do something by myself, that was the direction that I went.

• 3:35Tucker Carlson?

  It's funny, I think people think of country music as a regional music, southern Appalachian, you know, Tennessee, southwest Virginia, kind of the birthplace. They don't think of it as the music of the country. So it's like central California, Bakersfield, of course.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:54Tucker Carlson?

  Vermont.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Bakersfield is a piece of Texas.

• 3:57Tucker Carlson?

  Of exactly.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  In the middle of California.

• 3:59Tucker Carlson?

  And you grew up in northern New England, which is, you know, very rural, one of the most rural places.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  And you get out of the cities in New England and it's as country as country gets and it's as red as red gets, even the state of Massachusetts.

• 4:13Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I know.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  If you look at the state of Massachusetts, broken down county by county, the whole state's red, except for Boston, Worcester and Springfield.

• 4:22Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  You get outside those three big cities and in the state of Massachusetts, which is one of the worst.

• 4:28Tucker Carlson?

  It is.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  California, too. You get outside those big cities, it's all red.

• 4:34Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, not a lot of Kamala voters up near Mount Shasta.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  No.

• 4:38Tucker Carlson?

  No.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  No, not at all.

• 4:40Tucker Carlson?

  It's, it's just, music is such a, a window into attitudes and culture and it's just, it's funny that country music is basically popular everywhere outside the cities.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Hundred percent.

• 4:56Tucker Carlson?

  Interesting. So how was it weird for you to go from a one genre to a completely different one?

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Weird? Hmm, I don't know if it was, I don't know if it was weird. It was foolish by everybody else's accounts because I had already built something substantial in the rock industry.

• 5:20Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  And I kinda walked away from that and went to a completely different genre that there might be some overlap of stained fans that also liked country music. But I was certainly in that moment, shooting myself in the foot and having to basically start over because my value in the industry was, was towards the rock industry and, and nobody knew who I was in the country industry unless they would listen to rock music too.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  So it kinda, in perfect me form, I, I took the hard road and decided I was gonna change genres along with putting something out by myself, which would have been hard enough as it is.

• 6:15Tucker Carlson?

  How, how has country music changed itself as a genre?

• 6:18Speaker 01

  I don't really recognize country music anymore.

• 6:22Tucker Carlson?

  Really?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Well, what's playing on the radio, like they, how do you draw a line from what's on the radio now and called country music to what was on the radio when we were kids called country music? Like there's, there's no, there's no line to be drawn.

• 6:39Tucker Carlson?

  I listen to Bluegrass Junction, so this is all, this is all outside my world, but tell me how it's changed.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  It's been infiltrated by California, just like everything else. Oh, really? When, uh, within my career, about halfway through it, everything changed in the industry and a lot of consolidation happened. A lot of people lost their jobs at whatever record label they were at, or they were in the top 40 side of things and everything got condensed and they lost their... Well, they all either went to Nashville or they went to country radio.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  And I truly believe that that has something to do with why country has become so popified, where it's like the land of the misfit toys, where it's not really country. It's not really pop. It kind of rides right down the middle of it and becomes its own thing. And they should call it its own thing, like it should have its own genre and classification. And instead they call it country. And I don't know how you can put George Jones and Merle Haggard in the same sentence as, as Morgan Wallen or, or, or the Rascal Flatts.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  I mean, how, how do you even, how does that correlate? How does that fall into the same category? Because it, it doesn't in any way to me. Which is better? Country. Yeah. We have pop music. I think pop music with a country twang is a little weird. Why'd they do, did that happen organically or do you think it was on purpose? It's the, it's the control mechanism. It's the people in, in power calling the shots and, and being the tastemakers, if you will, and, and...

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Choosing for us what we want to hear and then stuffing it down our throat until we accept it.

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• 12:12Tucker Carlson?

  There's something a little radical, well, maybe more than a little radical, about traditional, you know, Johnny Cash doing, you know, a live show from the Folsom Yard. You know, it's like, it's pretty, it's pretty untamed in a lot of ways. I mean, there's like a true outlaw, not a fake outlaw element, but like a real outlaw element.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  I think that country music is Americana. Like, it's the, it's the genre that we, as the country of America, are certainly responsible for. It came from here.

• 12:48Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  It didn't come from somewhere else. Where, where rock had a lot of English influence, all those English bands from back in the 60s and stuff. And, but,

• 13:01Tucker Carlson?

  They brought up-

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Country music is, country music still isn't worldwide. It's, it's big in Germany. It's, it might have, it's got a listening audience in, in England and in Germany, but it doesn't expand much further than that. Like, country music is an American genre.

• 13:22Tucker Carlson?

  And it's become less American and more international, more, more like Barcelona. It's just everyone's city.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:29Tucker Carlson?

  Like it's like.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  So it's nobody's city. It's like the land of the misfit toys. That's the best way to describe it where it doesn't fit in pop, doesn't fit in country. Just kind of, but you can push it in either direction and it would, and it works, but it has no,

• 13:52Speaker 01

  it doesn't have its own soul, if you will. It's not, it's definitely not pure to the genre.

• 13:59Tucker Carlson?

  Do you think that there's still a demand for it? I mean, could.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Country music?

• 14:04Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, real country music. Could Merle Haggard make a living today?

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Whew, I don't know. I mean, I would certainly hope so. But if you listen to the landscape that's on country radio right now, I don't see where he would fit in at all.

• 14:23Tucker Carlson?

  Hmm.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  I don't see where I fit in at all.

• 14:26Tucker Carlson?

  Are you on the radio?

• 14:27Speaker 01

  No.

• 14:28Tucker Carlson?

  Really?

• 14:29Speaker 01

  No, they won't play me. They don't like my, my, my thoughts on things.

• 14:34Tucker Carlson?

  Really? How important is, well, it's obviously you, how many shows you do last year?

• 14:39Speaker 01

  Oh, probably a hundred and 75, 180 shows last year.

• 14:44Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. So obviously you're.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Pretty much, pretty much all of them sold out.

• 14:48Tucker Carlson?

  You're doing fine.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  I'm doing just fine. It's nice to not have to bow down to the powers that be. It's nice to not have to undermine my value in a market because the radio station wants to get as much out of my show as they can. So they sell my ticket for a low dough $10 ticket. And they've just devalued my value in that market by selling such a cheap ticket when I can sell hard tickets.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't need to sell, sell myself short by, by doing favors for a radio station.

• 15:39Tucker Carlson?

  Is that how it works?

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  First you sell your soul to the record label and then you sell everything else you've got to the machine, which is the radio that drives music.

• 15:53Tucker Carlson?

  Really? Is it satellite or terrestrial radio?

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Like all of it. All of it. Satellite just took over.

• 15:59Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, but it's the same idea.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Same concept.

• 16:01Tucker Carlson?

  So how does, if you don't mind revealing the sleazy underbelly of the business, like that you don't participate in apparently, how does that work?

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Um, we're the, we are the, the indentured servant. I mean, I think that indentured servitude laws are literally still on the books in California so that they can get away with what they do with us.

• 16:29Tucker Carlson?

  The performer, the artist you're talking about?

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, everything, every, every penny that we ever get paid from a record label is all a loan. It's all a loan. They, they, to give you a, just a conceptual breakdown. This is all just kind of a, take a dollar.

• 16:48Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  So 25 cents of that dollar, let's just say, is probably more, goes to the record label, just because, because they invested. The rest of it, business management takes their percentage, lawyer takes their percentage, management takes their percentage, business manager takes their percentage.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Then the government takes their percentage and then the overhead and then what's left? Let's call it 10 cents at the end of the day, that goes back to the record label to pay back the loan that they gave you of the money that they gave you upfront.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  Actually, any money that I've actually made from the record label, I've, I've made them 80 times as much.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Like, that's it of a dollar. Let's just say there's 12 cents left. The 12 cents actually goes to pay back the record label for the money that they gave you. It's insane.

• 18:12Tucker Carlson?

  How does that still exist?

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Because of the laws on the books.

• 18:17Tucker Carlson?

  Hmm.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  It's like, it's insane.

• 18:20Tucker Carlson?

  Are the record label people adding a lot to the process? Are they creative geniuses?

• 18:26Speaker 01

  No.

• 18:28Tucker Carlson?

  I just love how all the people who are getting rich from creativity-

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Are the ones that can't do it.

• 18:34Tucker Carlson?

  Are the least creative people.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're the ones that can't create, but they are making the most money off of the creatives. We're here because who wouldn't want a record label? Who, who wouldn't want to live this dream? Who wouldn't want to make music if they're a musician? Who wouldn't want to make music as their livelihood? So we're in a very, a very fucked up situation where there's a thousand people behind me.

• 19:01Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  That would kill me to have my freaking job.

• 19:04Tucker Carlson?

  Yes, exactly.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  So I'm in, I got no leverage.

• 19:07Tucker Carlson?

  Television's the same.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  I got no leverage with the, with the industry.

• 19:11Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Because I'm, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm easily chewed up and spit out. Because there's a thousand people behind me waiting to get chewed up and spit out.

• 19:24Tucker Carlson?

  How long did you participate in that system?

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Uh, it was 2012 or 13. That last stained record that we put out was, was the, the last record where I really had to do the dance and, and play the game with radio and, and not ruffle any feathers and not offend anybody and- And play the game. And then, once that contract was done, I tried to play the game with country music. And then I released a song called That Ain't Country that was basically talking about the

• 20:10Speaker 01

  whole industry that has created this amalgamation of music that doesn't really fit in a genre.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  And that was the end of it. I put out a song, trying to get country radio to play it about them. And they didn't like that very much.

• 20:29Tucker Carlson?

  Okay, so you attacked the distributors and then were surprised when they didn't distribute it?

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, super smart. Yeah, super smart.

• 20:36Tucker Carlson?

  I admire your purity.

• 20:40Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly, but principled. That's hilarious. So that didn't, that didn't work. So what did you do?

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Did it work?

• 20:49Tucker Carlson?

  Well, I don't know.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  It basically, it didn't work to my advantage to be getting played on the radio. But it certainly freed me from being a servant to radio.

• 21:04Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  So it's

• 21:11Speaker 01

  I, it is so freeing to not be under that thumb.

• 21:18Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  I can write songs that are over three and a half minutes long. I can

• 21:27Speaker 01

  put lyrics in songs that that I want to put there, you know, I'm just, I, I'm no longer

• 21:39Speaker 01

  held to the industry standard because I'm not necessarily trying to participate in the industry game. I go out there, I play successful shows. I have a fan base that seeks out my music and doesn't just listen to what the radio stuffs down their throat. And I'm very, very blessed and very, very lucky to that I don't have to participate in the game anymore.

• 22:12Tucker Carlson?

  How has Spotify changed it?

• 22:17Speaker 01

  I'm a Spotify billionaire. I have over a billion spins on Spotify. If I only had a penny for every spin on Spotify, that would be fantastic. A dollar, a quarter, a penny from every spin with over a billion spins on Spotify. All I have is a plaque.

• 22:46Tucker Carlson?

  You never got paid?

• 22:48Speaker 01

  It's so, by the time Spotify plays it, there's so many people in the middle. I don't even think a penny comes my way, to be honest with you.

• 22:59Tucker Carlson?

  For a billion spins, you made no money?

• 23:01Speaker 01

  I don't think so. I don't, that's not how Spotify works.

• 23:03Tucker Carlson?

  Well, how does it work?

• 23:04Speaker 01

  I'm not sure. I'm just, I just know that, that it cuts a lot of people in on my financial stream. That's all I know.

• 23:16Tucker Carlson?

  A lot of people who are not you.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Right. That once again, aren't the creatives and they're the ones making all the money.

• 23:23Tucker Carlson?

  So you think some-

• 23:24Speaker 01

  They were creative in how they came up with something to get into somebody else's money stream.

• 23:30Tucker Carlson?

  What's called creative accounting, which is a form of creativity. Long unrecognized in the West.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  I would call it being a leech, but-

• 23:39Tucker Carlson?

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• 24:23Tucker Carlson?

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• 24:42Speaker 01

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• 24:56Speaker 00

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• 25:53Speaker 01

  Pure Talk.

• 25:54Tucker Carlson?

  That's amazing to me.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  It's a billion plays more than and you don't get paid. I don't, I mean, I might have. It certainly wasn't enough for me to, to notice, whoa, where the hell did all this money come from in my bank account? Oh, I got spun over a billion times on Spotify. That's why. Mm hmm. No, I mean, do I know for sure that no money came in? No.

• 26:21Tucker Carlson?

  Well, if you don't remember, then obviously.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  It's miniscule comparatively speaking.

• 26:28Tucker Carlson?

  That is so interesting. Have there been?

• 26:31Speaker 01

  That's basically the whole thing. The amount of money that we generate as the artist, what we get back for that is miniscule, comparatively speaking, to what everybody else with their hands in the cookie jar makes.

• 26:47Tucker Carlson?

  So whenever I hear people talk about the.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  I'm not complaining.

• 26:50Tucker Carlson?

  Well, you should complain.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Well, I'm very blessed and I'm very lucky and I, and I'm, and, and, you know, obviously God has a plan for me because this, the way that all of this has just happened and I am just a passenger and, and I'm not driving this ship.

• 27:08Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Um, but.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  And I'm, I'm very lucky and very blessed, but I can still recognize the faults to the system and not necessarily be complaining about how amazing of a ride I've had doing this.

• 27:26Tucker Carlson?

  It's just, it's interesting. I mean, but I should just say Spotify has been such a huge blessing for us on this podcast. I mean, it's just crazy.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  It's an amazing new way for people to consume.

• 27:37Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. And it's run by a guy I know, um, who owns it and I think is a good guy and committed to, to speech. And, and so I'm, I'm very pro Spotify, but I just didn't understand that, um, the creators on the music side were cut out of the benefits.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Again, not cut out.

• 27:58Tucker Carlson?

  No, but I mean, a billion, that's a lot.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  I mean, I should have, I should have seen a pretty significant deposit into my account for that many spins.

• 28:06Tucker Carlson?

  Well, what's interesting is they probably paid somebody, but not you. So you hear the-

• 28:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably. I'm sure my record label got paid.

• 28:12Tucker Carlson?

  Well, you see the accounting of the US economy, like what's our GDP? You know, how much money is the United States economy generating? And like a lot. So the question is not, you know, is the engine functioning? The question is where's the money going? And my complaint about the US is not capitalism, which clearly works. It's about who benefits from it. And it does seem like the least useful, least creative, least, certainly least patriotic, but least decent people make all of them big money. And I think that's, this is another example of it. Like, how did Larry Fink get so rich? Like, what did, what did Larry Fink do for America? Et cetera, et cetera.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  Figured out a way to completely leech off of everything that's already there.

• 29:02Tucker Carlson?

  Well, that's, that's certainly the way it seems to me.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  Certainly does, right?

• 29:06Tucker Carlson?

  So how do you make money? By getting on the road.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  That is how, and that's why I work as hard as I do, because that is where I make my money. I don't make money on record sales. I don't make money off of spins. I make money off of merch. And actually playing shows.

• 29:29Tucker Carlson?

  Wow. Um, but that's a much, it feels like that's a much more direct transaction. Like you're renting the venue, you're performing for two and a half hours or whatever. You're getting a cut of gate. Like there are fewer middlemen in that, right?

• 29:44Speaker 01

  There seems to be less of a, less of a machine that puts itself in between.

• 29:52Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  But there is this thing that has taken place since I got my record deal. 28 years ago, 27 years ago.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Is called a 360 deal. Where now the younger artists, they're sharing the profits for everything. The record label gets a cut of their merch. The record label gets a cut of their live performance pay. The record, record label gets a cut of 360, everything.

• 30:30Tucker Carlson?

  Why?

• 30:30Speaker 01

  No matter what you generate, because they can. Because there's a thousand people behind every single person with a record label, with a, with a record deal. That wants it as badly as you did before you got it. And they can give you the shittiest deal on the planet. Because if you don't take it, the guy behind you will.

• 30:54Tucker Carlson?

  Wow. And they're not only greedy and dishonest, ruthless. They're also very political, right? The record labels.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  And usually in the wrong direction. And I don't understand how a record label that.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  I mean, it certainly isn't capitalism with a conscience. But it is, it's certainly capitalism where the record label is in it to make money. And it's not necessarily about what's the art.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  That is being created by the creative. It's about the money that that creative artist is going to generate for the record label to cover the 15 failures that they brought to the table.

• 31:46Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  And dumped all this money into.

• 31:48Tucker Carlson?

  I get it. Publishing is the same way.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:52Tucker Carlson?

  So, um, you know, you've been in it your whole life. You've toured with everybody.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  Pretty much everything.

• 31:58Tucker Carlson?

  Everybody. You were telling me last night about smoking weed with Willie Nelson on his bus many years ago. So you've toured with everybody. Um, how many creators, artists, performers in your business in private hate and resent the record companies?

• 32:16Speaker 01

  Most.

• 32:17Tucker Carlson?

  Most.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  Most, if not all.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  I don't know that in a private setting, in a private conversation where things aren't going any further, I don't know of anybody that I know in the business that would have good things to say about it.

• 32:38Tucker Carlson?

  Would it be possible for a decent person to start a record company and record label?

• 32:46Speaker 01

  I would think so. I would think so, but the problem is, is that the, the, the, um,

• 32:55Speaker 01

  the operating system,

• 33:01Speaker 01

  it's just, it's not decent.

• 33:04Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  So a decent person could start a record label, but unless they change the entire formula and in the entire way that the whole business is ran, the business itself is lecherous. So a good person could start it. But unless they change the whole thing, it's going to be the same. Right. It's like getting elected to Congress. Yeah.

• 33:30Tucker Carlson?

  It's pretty obvious now that this country is getting weaker than ever, meaning the population is unhealthier. That's what Maha is about, trying to counteract this long-term trend that's culminated in a disaster. Americans are so unhealthy, we can't staff the military. And it's really, really sad. Why is this happening? Maybe because sick people are easier to control. Whatever the reason, there are answers to it. And one of them is Joy and Blokes. They are revolutionizing supplements with smart supplements that are personalized for you. They're based entirely on your genetics, your biomarker data. They're not guessing. So they use labs, advanced labs, that measure up to 110 key biomarkers. Then their clinicians

• 34:11Tucker Carlson?

  design a precision supplement plan that's updated as your body changes. So it's not just off-the-shelf vitamins. It's much more precise and therefore much more effective. So there are about 3 billion possible combinations. And the effect is you get exactly what you need and you get nothing that you don't need. You also get 60 to 30-minute consultation, depending on how much time you need. You get access to expert-guided hormone care, including testosterone optimization for both men and women, longevity medicine, cutting-edge peptide therapy, and you get it all from home. Right now, new customers get 50% off all diagnostic labs, plus 20% off all products and therapies. You also get a free 15-minute Health Coach

• 34:55Tucker Carlson?

  consult. And the effect is the desired effect, stronger, sharper, more energy. You get it right away. Go to Joy and Blokes, J O Y and Blokes.com/Tucker. Root cause medicine is the way healthcare ought to be.

• 35:11Speaker 00

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• 36:05Tucker Carlson?

  So when, um, when, when did you start having conflict with your corporate masters over politics?

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Obama getting elected.

• 36:19Tucker Carlson?

  That was a moment, wasn't it? And you weren't fully on board?

• 36:22Speaker 01

  Huh. Hell no.

• 36:24Tucker Carlson?

  You didn't worship black Jesus?

• 36:25Speaker 01

  I, I immediately recognized it as a, as a horrible blow to our country. Immediately, not even knowing why yet.

• 36:36Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Like I just knew.

• 36:37Tucker Carlson?

  Instinct tells you.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Instinctively, in my gut, I knew that we had made a massive, massive mistake as a country.

• 36:45Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, that's for sure.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  And so many balls got rolling during that timeframe that we're still, that we're still trying to slow down.

• 36:52Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I know.

• 36:53Speaker 01

  It, it, but yeah.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  When TMZ would get me when I landed in Los Angeles and I was walking through the airport and they'd, they'd, they'd get me and ask me questions and, and that was, that was when I started expressing my, my feelings and my opinions on politics.

• 37:16Tucker Carlson?

  You know how they get you? Do you know the answer to this question? I found out. I've been gotten a few times at LAX by TMZ and other airports. And, um, I once asked like, how did you know I was on that plane? Like, you know, cause they, they know because they bribed the airline. The guy told me this. They bribed the airline to give them the manifest.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Makes sense. Now that that makes sense.

• 37:39Tucker Carlson?

  It's so corrupt.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Out of nowhere, they're like, hey.

• 37:44Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Like, what? Where? How? What? How'd you even know I was here?

• 37:48Tucker Carlson?

  Thanks, United. Bless you, American. Um, you know, it's, it's pretty. Anyway, so they would, you'd roll off the flight at LAX, someone come up to you and ask you a question. What did you say?

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Oh, I was, I have, I have, I had no issues then, nor do I have any issue now telling anybody exactly how I feel. And, you know, I, I was already talking about the unconstitutionalness of Obama's actions and what he was doing and

• 38:27Speaker 01

  I mean, mentioning that what he was doing was borderline treasonous and

• 38:33Speaker 01

  and that was how I started the ball rolling.

• 38:36Tucker Carlson?

  And what kind of responses you get? Cause you weren't allowed to criticize Obama there for a while, or else you were, I can't remember the word racist.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. I've been, I've been labeled that.

• 38:45Tucker Carlson?

  Racist!

• 38:46Speaker 01

  And then there was, there was one time I was, I was playing a show down by the, down by the border and

• 38:55Speaker 01

  I mean, I've played a lot of shows and I've played a lot of shows back before I had a record deal.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  And this was the rudest crowd I had played to in, I don't know, 15 years. I'm playing completely acoustic, all by myself. Not even any extra musicians on stage or anything, just me and my guitar. I could not get them to shut up all night, just talking over me like I was the jukebox.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  And I made the mistake

• 39:29Speaker 01

  of

• 39:31Speaker 01

  back then, at the end of the show, I would do a song completely unplugged, where I would pull a chord out of my guitar and I'd walk away from the microphone and I'd go stand right on the edge of the stage. And I would acoustically play the last song

• 39:50Speaker 01

  with no microphone, with no nothing, just belting to the crowd.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  And for some strange reason, after such a rude evening, I decided I was gonna do that and try to prove everybody wrong. I have, they're gonna listen to me whether they want to or not. So I attempt to try to start the song. I explained to them what I was gonna do through the microphone before I stepped away from the microphone. And I attempted to start the song. As I got to where I started to sing, the volume had gone up and not down. Now, mind you, there's no sound system anymore. It's just me singing to the room. So I stop. I walk back around, I go to the microphone.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  I explained to everybody what I'm gonna do again. I start again. Volume goes up. So I go back to the microphone and I was, and I'm gonna, I was like, you know, listen, I don't have to do this. I was trying to do something. And a lady that was standing right there in the front row, like four people from the center. She's like, tell them to shut the fuck up in Spanish. And I said, close to the microphone. I wasn't necessarily talking into them. I was talking to her, but it was close. And I said, I'm sorry, ma'am. I don't speak Spanish. I'm American.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  The world ended for like a week, all over the, like, broke the internet. Aaron Lewis a racist. Aaron Lewis this.

• 41:34Tucker Carlson?

  A racist?

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Right. Because I said, I'm, I'm sorry, ma'am. I don't speak Spanish. I am American. That was what I said. Beats me. But that's what went around. Perez Hilton did a hit piece on me about how much of a racist I am. Put the video connected to it. And if you watch the video, you see that the whole interview is, I mean, the whole piece is a complete bullshit and a complete fabrication of all of it. And they would write these hit pieces and actually attach the video that completely contradicted the hit piece.

• 42:11Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, it doesn't matter.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  But it doesn't matter because people wouldn't actually, they just read.

• 42:15Tucker Carlson?

  Perez Hilton? Boy, I haven't heard that name in a while. Is he still alive?

• 42:18Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know, maybe the vax got him. I don't know.

• 42:22Tucker Carlson?

  Possible. That's wild. You are a racist for saying.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  That I don't speak Spanish, I'm American. When America, it says clearly in the books, in the naturalization process, that you have to have a full working knowledge of the English language before you can become a citizen in this country.

• 42:42Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. Well, you know, English is not a race. The United States is not a race. There's nothing about race in that sentence or sentiment.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  I know.

• 42:52Tucker Carlson?

  Right. Um, yeah. Oh, boy. Well, you just brought me back to an earlier time. I don't think that would happen now.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 42:59Tucker Carlson?

  People are so over that.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  People are over it, but I think that that side of things probably still would have tried.

• 43:07Tucker Carlson?

  Well, now they call you an anti Semite, probably.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  I'm a, I'm a, I'm any of the ifs.

• 43:13Tucker Carlson?

  You're right. Oh, wow. That's wild. So how did, how did your manager and a, a sort of handler's record label feel about this?

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, it was just one of those things where you just had to kind of let it go by.

• 43:30Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Just let it die out. Let it, let it play its course and go away.

• 43:35Tucker Carlson?

  Was the crowd mad when you said that?

• 43:38Speaker 01

  No.

• 43:39Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. Right.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  No. And then I tried one more time to sing the song and they wouldn't listen. And I put my guitar down on the stage and walked off stage.

• 43:52Tucker Carlson?

  Ooh. What'd you do?

• 43:54Speaker 01

  I was already two plus hours into a show. It's not like they, they, they, they were like, it's not like any of the show got taken away from them.

• 44:02Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  At all. I was done. I was just trying to do something special and, and they didn't want it. So.

• 44:11Tucker Carlson?

  So did you ever have con, like direct conflict with an employer over politics?

• 44:16Speaker 01

  With an employer?

• 44:17Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, with the label.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  My record label president, we've had some pretty heated discussions about politics and, and he, I mean, when you do the whole breakdown and you start talking really bare bones basics, there's a lot of things that he agrees with me on, but when you bring all the rest of it in, we don't see eye to eye on much of anything.

• 44:53Tucker Carlson?

  Right. I get that a lot. Reasonable people, similar values actually, but they're just, they see themselves so differently and they're just committed to some weird partisan addiction.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  It's almost like a feel-good addiction, like a, like a, like it's a virtue signaling addiction that people seem to have that for some reason feel so guilty about their own life that they need to create these, these things to, to virtue signal and, and make themselves feel like a better person because at the end of the day, how they present themselves

• 45:42Speaker 01

  and, and behave in life is, is, is unfulfilling for them. So they somehow have to virtue signal to make them feel better about their unfulfilled lives. It's, it's a very strange, strange thing. I, I have found as a 53-year-old man, looking at the people that are younger than me that are going to take over this country when I'm gone.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  They just want to be a victim. Like it's the craziest thing happening with with our culture where all of our younger generation, there's more pride taken in being a victim than there is in getting over and getting through and moving past whatever it is that you are a victim of. It's not pull your bootstraps up and and and stand up and and keep moving forward anymore. It's it's lavish in the victimhood as long as possible. And that just doesn't compute with me.

• 47:00Tucker Carlson?

  No.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  Like I don't, that's not what I was taught at all.

• 47:04Tucker Carlson?

  At all.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  At all.

• 47:06Tucker Carlson?

  You weren't encouraged to whine as a child?

• 47:09Speaker 01

  No.

• 47:10Tucker Carlson?

  I wasn't either.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  Honestly, if I was whining, I don't think that my my voice was even acknowledged.

• 47:20Tucker Carlson?

  Of course not, as it shouldn't be.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:24Tucker Carlson?

  Do you feel guilty about growing up as rich as you did, going to Hotchkiss and Yale and all the advantages that you had?

• 47:32Speaker 01

  I I grew up very much like most in this country. We were lower middle class at best. The first memories that I have are living in a single wide trailer in a trailer park in Castleton, Vermont.

• 47:57Tucker Carlson?

  Charming place.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Super charming.

• 47:58Tucker Carlson?

  It's not, it's not the Vermont of weekend getaways, is it?

• 48:02Speaker 01

  Not so much. It's not stow, really.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  And my dad, back in the sixties, he bought a hunting camp up on the side of a mountain in Shrewsbury. And he moved us from the trailer park to that hunting camp. It's, it's in the, it's in the song Country Born. My, my dad picked the place up for 1,500 bucks back in 1964. He bought this hunting camp on the side of a mountain for $1,500. And he moved us into that hunting camp. And by the time we moved, he sold that same place for 85 grand, I think.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  And that was what put us in a regular, middle-class neighborhood at that point. That was the up, that he, that he turned that $1,500 investment into 80 something.

• 49:06Tucker Carlson?

  I've always wanted to live at my hunting camp. I think that's the dream for a lot of people. I would just like to live in a hunting camp. What was that like? As good as?

• 49:14Speaker 01

  As, as a kid?

• 49:15Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Lonely.

• 49:17Tucker Carlson?

  I bet.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  Lonely. I had to keep myself occupied, for sure. I was out in the middle of the woods as a five-year-old kid.

• 49:26Tucker Carlson?

  What's your mom say? What does a woman say when her husband moves her to a hunting camp?

• 49:30Speaker 01

  I don't think my mom minded. I don't think my mom minded. There was like, she had the garden out front and, and they were always, I mean, my parents were kinda hippie-ish.

• 49:41Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, that sounds.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  I mean, my dad got arrested at the Yankee Nuclear Power Plant for protesting back in the day, before it was up and running.

• 49:49Tucker Carlson?

  Yes. Was it, I mean, what was deer season like if you already live in the hunting camp?

• 49:56Speaker 01

  It wasn't there. We would go to, to Wallingford and to Danby and up where, up where the family was. And the Lewis farm was in Danby and was, you know, half of the, Danby is almost like a, almost like a volcano, like an inactive volcano where at the top of, of the mountain, there's a valley. So it's like an old, like an ancient, ancient volcano that at some point blew off, but you would never know. But there's a valley on the top of the mountain. And that was the valley that Lewis, the Lewis farm was in. And it was like,

• 50:39Speaker 01

  Top 10 dairy farms in Vermont.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  And so the farm is where we would go and everybody would gather up and we would do the classic drives and pushes and, and all that stuff. And it was always rifle. I didn't get into bow hunting until, until later in life.

• 51:05Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. Well, it didn't, there wasn't much of it.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Not really, not then.

• 51:08Tucker Carlson?

  No.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  No, I mean, bows have really come a long way.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Since like the mid eighties to now.

• 51:17Tucker Carlson?

  I remember the first time I heard it, I thought it was like one of the, not, not bad. I wasn't against it, but I was like, wow, you kill a deer with a bow?

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 51:25Tucker Carlson?

  Like Hiawatha? Like that was wild. Huh. Do you still hunting fish?

• 51:31Speaker 01

  I do all the time. I'm so completely ate up with upland bird hunting and, and I'm from New England, so I had never hunt quail before. And I earlier this year went on my first quail hunt and oh my God, that was it for me.

• 51:51Tucker Carlson?

  Really?

• 51:51Speaker 01

  That was it for me. Like I have gone, I, I went probably 15 times since I found, found quail hunting and, and I hunted all the way up until the last day of the season in Florida is April 15th. 15th or 20th, maybe, or somewhere around there and literally hunted all the way through to the last day. And uh,

• 52:15Tucker Carlson?

  What do you like about it?

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Everything. The tradition, the tradition is the biggest thing for me. Like I'm, I'm all about it. I'm, I'm hunting with, with a gun that, you know, should be in a museum or in a, in somebody's private collection and, and I, those are my hunting guns.

• 52:39Tucker Carlson?

  What do you hunt with?

• 52:41Speaker 01

  I'm a big four 10 guy. I love the four 10.

• 52:45Tucker Carlson?

  It's the smallest of the shotgun gauges?

• 52:47Speaker 01

  It is the smallest of the shotgun gauges. It is the most gentlemanly, if you will.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  And but I'll be out there and full Filson regalia and and and looking like I just came out of a out of a safari or something and and I'm all about it. I'm I I I respect the tradition of it. The camaraderie, the dogs. Oh, my God, I love watching the dogs work.

• 53:23Tucker Carlson?

  They're unbelievable.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Watching a dog slam into a point like that, like like somebody just shot him with electricity. Just it's amazing.

• 53:34Tucker Carlson?

  It is amazing.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  It is amazing. It is amazing that that's that's almost as enjoyable as the actual flush and the shot is actually watching the dogs.

• 53:49Tucker Carlson?

  I totally agree with that.

• 53:50Speaker 01

  That's that's half, three quarters of the enjoyment is experiencing that whole thing with with the dogs and how amazingly trained they are. I mean, just how does a dog know to do that?

• 54:05Tucker Carlson?

  I don't know.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  It's amazing.

• 54:06Tucker Carlson?

  It's latent. I mean, I think it's in the dog and your job is to bring it out.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  It's instinctual and then you got to bring it out. That's it. It's amazing.

• 54:14Tucker Carlson?

  Can you hit a quail with a 410?

• 54:17Speaker 01

  Almost every time.

• 54:18Tucker Carlson?

  Really?

• 54:19Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 54:20Tucker Carlson?

  You're doing 180 shows a year. How'd you get to be such a good shot?

• 54:27Speaker 01

  I had

• 54:31Speaker 01

  I I was hunting with my dad, bird hunting for ruft grouse and and woodcock, just like you love so much.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  At seven, eight.

• 54:47Tucker Carlson?

  Yep.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  I think I got my first double for woodcocks at 10 or 11. Got my first double on grouse at like. 12 or 13.

• 54:59Tucker Carlson?

  Wow. I've never done that.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  The grouse one was like, it couldn't have been more perfect. Three grouse all went up at the same time and they all flew straight away from me. I probably could have got a triple if I was using a semi-auto and not.

• 55:13Tucker Carlson?

  If you had another barrel.

• 55:16Tucker Carlson?

  So for people who don't, I mean, I'm sure we're going to lose an audience point here, but for people who don't know what New England grouse hunting is, can you describe it?

• 55:27Speaker 01

  Grouse is a big woodland bird, about the size of a chicken. About the size of a chicken and they, they, they strut like a turkey does.

• 55:37Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  And they've,

• 55:43Speaker 01

  they're one of the most beautiful birds. And they're one of the hardest.

• 55:50Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  They're as fast as an F-15 and you literally have, if you get two seconds as a window of opportunity for that shot.

• 56:04Tucker Carlson?

  It's a lot.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  That's a lot.

• 56:06Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  That's a lot. They, they go off and it's like,

• 56:11Speaker 01

  and they're gone. You, you literally have that much, and they're gone. And the noise I'm making is what it sounds like when they take off from their bird, from their wings hitting their body. And it'll, it will stop your heart like.

• 56:26Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. And they're no pen-raised rough grouse. I mean, they're just all wild birds.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. And they're as wild as wild gets. And for you to go out and have a successful day of roughed grouse hunting, or partridge, as they're also called.

• 56:44Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  You've, you've accomplished something.

• 56:48Tucker Carlson?

  That's for sure.

• 56:49Speaker 01

  You, you, you get a limit and you're actually done for the day and can't keep hunting for the day with roughed grouse. You are, you have accomplished something.

• 56:57Tucker Carlson?

  If you're doing it on foot, I, I've never done that, but, never limited out on grouse, but like, how many, how far per bird do you think you walk in grouse?

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Miles.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  Miles, unless you, unless you have found a, a, a thick population, you will cover some ground and you will put in a lot of work.

• 57:18Tucker Carlson?

  It's probably why I like quail hunting.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  Right. You get older. Cause I'm, I'm, I'm 53. I, I don't necessarily want to walk into a piece of woods that is up and down and the thickest, they, of course, they live in the thickest crap.

• 57:38Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, yeah.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  So you're really, really, really, really putting in a lot of effort to possibly put up one bird. Where with quail hunting, if you go to a plantation where that's their deal is quail hunting, with a nice leisurely stroll, nice leisurely gentlemanly stroll through the woods, you can put up a hundred birds instead of possibly one.

• 58:09Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 58:11Speaker 01

  In that sense, the, the, the hot and heavy action is what kind of keeps, makes the, the quail hunting thing kind of at the top. If, if you will.

• 58:26Tucker Carlson?

  Quail hunting is a rich man's sport. Rough grouse hunting in New England is a, is a poor man's sport.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  Quail hunting is a rich man's sport because of the fact that the majority of the quail hunting that you can do at this point in, in our, in our society and in our growth as a country, everything else. It's really hard to actually find wild quail to begin with.

• 58:57Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  So what you're hunting is a put and take situation.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  So there's an overhead to it.

• 59:08Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  And you're paying anywhere from a thousand to astronomical prices to go and hunt this place.

• 59:20Tucker Carlson?

  Yep.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  Some places are insane and so exclusive and so private that even if you had the ridiculous amount of money to pay, you can't.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  But yes, yes, it's a, it is a rich man's sport in the sense that it's hard to go do it on your, your own time with no dime.

• 59:46Tucker Carlson?

  For sure.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  You, you, you gotta go to a place that, for the most part, you gotta go to a place that it charges you because there's a massive overhead for the cost of the birds and the cost of everything.

• 59:59Tucker Carlson?

  So if, you know, musician, if you had to pair a musician with these two kinds of up on bird hunting, you'd say Bruce Springsteen, who's the representative of America's working man.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, totally.

• 1:00:15Tucker Carlson?

  Would be a grouse hunter.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  Like I, I would put him as my representation any day.

• 1:00:21Tucker Carlson?

  Do you know Bruce Springsteen?

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  No, thankfully.

• 1:00:23Tucker Carlson?

  What do you think of him?

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  I, I think that, that he is a, a disgusting display

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  of not appreciating what was handed to him for as in this country as being an American, the success that he has had.

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  The fact that he duped us all with one of the most anti-American songs ever and called it Born in the USA as some sort of celebration of how great it is to be born in the USA.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  I'm angry at myself for not seeing it for so long and actually giving him, in my mind, the credit of being a representation of blue collar America.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  I think that he has forgotten where he came from.

• 1:01:35Tucker Carlson?

  Yep.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  I think that if you're not careful doing this, this career that that me and him have both been so blessed to have had, if you're not careful,

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  it will consume you. And and it's obvious that it creates a situation where you've lost sight

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  of the reality of the country that you live in. Because you've you've lived such a cush.

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  You've had so much, you have so much, that it's really easy to take a stance that is so anti everything. That that you that you were lucky enough to have, lucky enough to create, lucky enough to to be to change your your situation in life.

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  And he's just lost touch with the struggles. He's lost touch with the struggle.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  And it seems like

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  most people who have lost touch with the true struggle of life, those are the people that vote for these fucking idiots. Those are the people that feel like they have to virtue signal. Those are the people that.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  Somewhere along the way, they feel guilty for the success that they have had. So they somehow have to make it up with this nonsensical bullshit that

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  like you grew up at the same time, Tram, I did. It was the most unracially driven, the, the, the, the verbal beating that we took over and over and over our whole childhood of you don't judge a man by the color of his skin, you judge a man by the content of his character and, and like,

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  it was the best that our country has ever been.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  And I think that that didn't work well for the Democrats and the communists.

• 1:04:29Tucker Carlson?

  Why?

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  Because they thrive in the chaos. They, they want us at each other's throats. They want us bickering internally so that we have no sense of, of shared country pride, that we have no sense of, of shared morality because they've created so many things artificially for us to fight about. I mean, there is no doubt in my mind at this point. It's not coincidental. It's purposeful.

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  Like, there is definitely a, a, a power center in this world that definitely does not want to see us as the, the shining light on the hill.

• 1:05:27Tucker Carlson?

  No, no.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  At all.

• 1:05:29Tucker Carlson?

  They're against peace and prosperity and

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  Well, because there's no money in it.

• 1:05:32Tucker Carlson?

  Self-sufficiency and God. Um, yeah, no, I, I couldn't

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  There's no money in it. If we're all, you know, how can they exploit us if we're all united and getting along? When we're all looking out for each other as human beings, how can they exploit us? They can't. So they have to, they have to keep us in a constant state of conflict.

• 1:05:54Tucker Carlson?

  When did you start to realize this?

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  As I got old enough to be carrying the weight of that responsibility on my shoulders. Yes. Like knowing full well that, okay, it's my turn now. I have assumed the responsibility, which we are all supposed to do, that the country is in my hands. It was in my father's hands before that. It was in my grandfather's hands before that. And as, as our, as our generations grow and get older, each generation, it's now their turn to become and take over as the stewards of this amazing, beautiful country.

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  And we forgot about that for a little bit. And we haven't been doing that over the, probably the past 30 years.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  And that's not okay with me. Like, it is my responsibility now, as a father and a proud patriot, it's my responsibility now to make sure that what I hand over to the next generation behind me is better than I found it, because that's, that's what we're supposed to do. That's, that's what we were taught our whole lives. You walk into the woods, you leave it cleaner than you found it. You find one piece of trash. It doesn't even matter. One piece of trash and you pick it up and you put it in your pocket. You have left that better than you found it.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  And our generation, that's what was instilled in us, beaten into us. That's for sure.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's, that's the moral imperative. I come from the generation of, of, still, it's probably the last generation of, as a kid, now, did it fuck me up? And, and make me feel like my, my voice doesn't get heard? And, and I like, I, and like a, an incessant thing for me is to be heard? Because I didn't feel like my voice was heard as a kid at all? Because I was like the last generation of kids that are, kids are to speak when they're spoken to. And that's it. Like, I got that from my grandparents. Like, children are only to speak when they're spoken to. That's fair. And children are to be seen and not heard.

• 1:08:26Tucker Carlson?

  Also fair.

• 1:08:29Tucker Carlson?

  Unless they have something interesting to say.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:08:31Tucker Carlson?

  But if you don't, I think in general, if you don't have something interesting to say.

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  I think that all that all supports the whole thing of because I said so.

• 1:08:43Speaker 01

  It doesn't, I don't have to give you a reason as my child as to why.

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  Like, because I said so. There's a huge lesson with that in life. Your boss isn't going to explain to you why you have to do something. He's going to tell you to do something and you need to just do it. There's going to be situations in life where if somebody tells you to do something and you hesitate and don't do it, your life could be in danger.

• 1:09:17Speaker 01

  It's just a

• 1:09:20Speaker 01

  it's a lost art form. It's a lost art form. Parenting is a lost art form. I said that all the way back in 2001 on the cover of Rolling Stone. Parents have forgotten how to be parents. Like, I realized that all the way back then. And it's only gotten worse.

• 1:09:40Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  The, the average kid these days, the biggest parental figure in their life is their computer or their phone. It's not their parent.

• 1:09:53Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, it's the internet.

• 1:09:54Speaker 01

  It's insane. We are knowingly and willingly flushing everything down the toilet out of convenience. It's so convenient to have this fully operating computer in my hand at all times. It's so convenient.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  Every important piece of thread that makes up the fabric of this country is being picked out one at a time.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  And it's going to leave us with this empty shell that nobody knows what to do with it now. Because we've already discarded and thrown away everything that kept us on a, on a path, on a good path in life.

• 1:10:48Tucker Carlson?

  It feels like new people will rebuild a new and different society in place of the Americans who were here when you and I were born.

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  And that's scary.

• 1:10:58Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I know.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  That's scary. If, if, if we hand this country off as the stewards of today, if we hand this country off to the younger generation without fixing it first, and they're able to do what they've been taught to do, this country will cease to exist. Certainly will not be the shining light on the hill anymore. I don't know that it is already. I mean, the, the, the love and want and desire for this country to go back to where it was for a lot of people is still strong.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  But I don't know if we have the wherewithal as a society, as an entire country, to pull our heads out of our asses long enough to fix it. It's scary. I'm scared. I'm scared for my kids. I, I lose sleep over what this country is going to be for. Good Lord, my grandkids. It's bad enough for my kids.

• 1:12:12Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  But another generation, my grandkids? If this doesn't, if this ship doesn't get righted, what are they even going to have? Is their life going to even have the, even the slightest semblance of what our lives were? Do our kids now, is their life even the slightest semblance of what me and you had as kids? No fucking way.

• 1:12:40Tucker Carlson?

  How's it different? You've got three kids.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  We were latchkey kids. You didn't even have to lock your door. It like, you came home and, and, and so many parents weren't even there.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  And there was no worry, like.

• 1:12:57Tucker Carlson?

  I never had a key to my house. I don't have a key to my house now, actually.

• 1:13:02Speaker 01

  Because of where you live.

• 1:13:03Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, well, right. No, that's right.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  And I love it out here. This is like.

• 1:13:07Tucker Carlson?

  No, I agree. No, but you're, you're right. I mean, the feeling of safety.

• 1:13:14Tucker Carlson?

  What was kind of unquestioned.

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  The feeling of trust, just overall trust of your fellow man. There's, there's, that's.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  That's instinct. It's.

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  It's, it's extinct. It doesn't, it doesn't really exist anymore.

• 1:13:39Tucker Carlson?

  So you travel by vehicle, by bus through America?

• 1:13:42Speaker 01

  I don't like to fly. I literally have not flown on a commercial plane since everything shut down for COVID.

• 1:13:51Tucker Carlson?

  Wow. Good for you.

• 1:13:54Speaker 01

  I'm, I will, I drive everywhere.

• 1:13:59Speaker 01

  Unless I absolutely have to fly. And then I am guilty. I won't fly commercial. But once, maybe twice a year, when I absolutely have to fly. I will, I will be bougie and.

• 1:14:18Tucker Carlson?

  Get a plane.

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  Get a plane.

• 1:14:21Tucker Carlson?

  But because you're traveling overland the majority of the year.

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  I see what this country is.

• 1:14:29Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly. So that's, what do you see? And you've been doing this for what, 30 years? You've been on the road across America?

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  I have watched the flyover states just crumble. You go into a small town, half the businesses are boarded up.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  You know, those small, classic, what you would think of as Americana, those Norman Rockwell towns. They're all boarded up. There's nobody downtown. There's no commerce. There's, there's, there's a Dollar General down the street.

• 1:15:12Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  There's a Walmart 10 minutes away, but every mom and pop shop is all gone. Family businesses that have, that have provided for that family and provided for the town with the business that they provide, it's all gone.

• 1:15:31Tucker Carlson?

  Everywhere?

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  Pretty much. Pretty much.

• 1:15:37Tucker Carlson?

  What are the, you, you play in every region of the country?

• 1:15:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:42Tucker Carlson?

  What are the toughest parts of the country right now?

• 1:15:46Speaker 01

  Rural.

• 1:15:47Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:48Speaker 01

  Rural.

• 1:15:50Tucker Carlson?

  Second, you leave the cities.

• 1:15:53Tucker Carlson?

  And that was.

• 1:15:54Speaker 01

  And it's in, and it's undeniable visually right there in front of your face. You have to close your eyes to not see it.

• 1:16:04Tucker Carlson?

  So why does no one ever mention that? I never, I, every US Senator I know, I know all the Republicans, I mean, they're very upset about Iran or Ukraine, but I don't ever hear them mention their own states outside the cities.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  I know, it's disgusting. And these are supposed to be the people that are the representatives of that area.

• 1:16:26Tucker Carlson?

  You wonder, has Tom Cotton ever been to the Delta in Arkansas? Like, when was the last, seriously, when was the last time he was in El Dorado, Arkansas?

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  Right. And I've been through all of Arkansas.

• 1:16:40Speaker 01

  And it's, it's poverty stricken and falling apart.

• 1:16:46Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  And, and that's anywhere, Tennessee.

• 1:16:50Tucker Carlson?

  I know.

• 1:16:51Speaker 01

  Like, anywhere.

• 1:16:52Tucker Carlson?

  I know. 30 years ago, 40 years ago, Pine Bluff, Arkansas was a real town.

• 1:16:58Tucker Carlson?

  And now, you know, it's one of the most dangerous places in the country.

• 1:17:02Tucker Carlson?

  I just wonder, like, what do they think?

• 1:17:05Speaker 01

  I don't know. And I don't understand why

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  their policies never work.

• 1:17:13Speaker 01

  Like, they never, ever work. I don't know of a single

• 1:17:19Speaker 01

  communist policy

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  that has actually done good for whoever it was that the policy was designed for.

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  None of them.

• 1:17:35Tucker Carlson?

  Right. It's only about destruction.

• 1:17:37Speaker 01

  It is. It's only about destruction.

• 1:17:39Tucker Carlson?

  Well, here's a story you probably haven't heard a lot about. The Chinese mafia is exploiting rural America to create a drug empire. This is not available on cable news. The network's not telling you about this, but it's totally real. Communist affiliated drug gangs destroying parts of the United States, the parts that Washington ignores, to sell drugs, laundering money and building a black market network inside this country's most beautiful but least served areas. We've got a brand new documentary on this. It's called High Crimes: The Chinese Mafia Takeover of Rural America. It's available now on TuckerCarlson.com. It's excellent. The purchase of churches and schools to aid the operation, the jerry rigging of power boxes to steal electricity,

• 1:18:24Tucker Carlson?

  foreign pesticides, collusion with the Mexican cartels. It's unbelievable. By the way, one of the drug houses is like walking distance from my house. I didn't know that. It's a layered and fascinating story. Head to TuckerCarlson.com to watch now. We think you'll love it.

• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  So here's a

• 1:18:46Speaker 01

  here's one of my favorite quotes, my favorite Aaron Lewis quotes.

• 1:18:50Tucker Carlson?

  My book of Aaron Lewis quotes. Um, you know, everyone want, you know, everyone in music is like an outlaw, a rebel. And they all say the same thing and they all mouth the same pieties, read the same stupid bumper stickers, kiss ass to the same powerful people. Um, so this, this actually is kind of an outlaw thing to say, and here's what you said in 2022. And I'm quoting you. You know, as fucked up as it sounds, maybe we should listen to what Vladimir Putin is saying.

• 1:19:16Speaker 01

  I got, I got so, I got in so much trouble for that.

• 1:19:19Tucker Carlson?

  And I can, let me, I will continue to quote you back to you. Maybe when Klaus Schwab and George Soros and every other earth destroying MF'er all jump on the same bandwagon, maybe just maybe we should take a good look at that. Why are they trying to protect Ukraine so much? What do they all have to lose? So I would think like in a, in a country with creative people, a free country, that you'd be one of many people asking the single most obvious questions. Why can't we listen to what the other side is saying? And why are all these people who were pretty obviously bad, also vested in this one far away country? Like, what do they have to lose? I mean, first of all, bless you for saying that. Um, second, did anyone ever answer your question?

• 1:20:04Speaker 01

  Um, nope.

• 1:20:06Tucker Carlson?

  Nope.

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  Um, I lost employees.

• 1:20:09Tucker Carlson?

  Employees?

• 1:20:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. People, people that, not direct employees in my like, in my knit circle.

• 1:20:18Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:18Speaker 01

  But external employees, people that worked for me in, in different areas that wouldn't, that, that wanted nothing to do with it anymore. It's, it's a, it's a funny story and you're part of it. The reason I said that is because I had literally just watched your show.

• 1:20:36Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, gosh.

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  And you were the one to say, hmm, maybe we should have, maybe we should listen to Putin and see what he has to say. And I was like, well, if Tucker has said it on Fox.

• 1:20:50Tucker Carlson?

  How'd that work out for me?

• 1:20:52Speaker 01

  It worked out for both of us the same way.

• 1:20:54Tucker Carlson?

  Amen, I agree.

• 1:20:55Speaker 01

  It worked out for both of us the same way. It, it, it took weeks for that one to go away.

• 1:21:01Tucker Carlson?

  Really?

• 1:21:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:21:02Tucker Carlson?

  But I just, I, I'm not an artist. I'm, I'm a guy who gives his opinions on YouTube, but I appreciate artists, which is to say, people whose whole job is to pursue the truth, you know, whether they get there or not. But I mean, that's their job. And every society carves out room for them to do that. And a healthy society isn't run by artists. Don't want them, they're not in charge of the power grid. Okay. But a healthy society does kind of listen sometimes to what they say because they're saying unconventional things, challenge you to think a little more deeply about things you assume are true. Are they actually true? You pay artists to say things like that.

• 1:21:41Tucker Carlson?

  So it's just wild to live in a society where artists are leading the charge for conformity. They're like, no, no, obey. That does seem.

• 1:21:51Speaker 01

  When did that happen?

• 1:21:52Tucker Carlson?

  I don't know, but it's very weird.

• 1:21:55Speaker 01

  It, it, it seems like what once was like on that edge is now so blunted and everybody is just a spokesperson, person for the machine.

• 1:22:11Tucker Carlson?

  It does feel that way.

• 1:22:12Speaker 01

  Because they're all afraid of losing their position in the machine.

• 1:22:16Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  When all of the higher ups think the opposite that you do, most of the time in this industry, those people don't have the wiggle room that I do.

• 1:22:32Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:33Speaker 01

  So they have to conform or they lose their spot.

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  I was lucky enough to have built and created my spot before I chose to not conform.

• 1:22:47Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 1:22:48Speaker 01

  So I didn't, I didn't necessarily lose my spot just because I didn't conform because I had already built it and they couldn't take that away from me at that point. Like, they've already tried to cancel me. They've already done everything that they can do to talk shit about me. So now they just ignore my existence. Now they don't even say bad things. They just don't say anything at all.

• 1:23:16Tucker Carlson?

  It doesn't seem to have affected your sales.

• 1:23:21Speaker 01

  Doesn't seem to.

• 1:23:22Tucker Carlson?

  You had one of the biggest songs in the country a couple of years ago. Everybody hated it. Everybody in charge hated it.

• 1:23:29Speaker 01

  Am I the only one?

• 1:23:30Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was a outward call within the industry for me to be canceled and to lose my record deal. And my record label president, who we don't see eye to eye on politics at all, stood up for my right to free speech and my right and my right to creativity and as an artist, my right to express myself however I want.

• 1:23:54Tucker Carlson?

  What didn't they like about the song?

• 1:23:58Speaker 01

  That it was a patriotic, country-loving,

• 1:24:07Speaker 01

  point out the what the fuck is going on right now?

• 1:24:11Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:13Speaker 01

  Point of view. And they didn't like that. They, they, they didn't like that I was pointing out the obvious in a time where

• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  every single one of us was sitting there scratching our heads going, what in the fuck is going on in this country? I'm, I'm 49 or 50 at the time or whatever it was. And I've never seen anything even remotely close to what's going on right now in this country. Like, where did our sense of free people go where all of a sudden we're just conforming to these rules that just don't make any sense? It seems like they're just taking handfuls of shit and throwing it against the wall and seeing what sticks.

• 1:25:06Speaker 01

  And I was like, what the fuck? Am I the only one who's seeing this? Who's, who's recognizing how completely?

• 1:25:22Speaker 01

  How completely absurd the whole concept was of shutting everything down? How?

• 1:25:33Speaker 01

  How do we survive that as a, as an economy, as a, as a, as a,

• 1:25:41Speaker 01

  the wheels that need to keep moving at all times just screeched to a freaking halt?

• 1:25:50Speaker 01

  And, you know, me and Jeff Steele and Ira Dean got together and

• 1:25:59Speaker 01

  everybody was wearing masks at the time. Everybody was, was, was distancing themselves from everybody. That moment in time was one of the most destructive moments in time that we've ever experienced.

• 1:26:15Speaker 01

  It, it destroyed our, our close knitness. It destroyed.

• 1:26:24Speaker 01

  Human beings are, are, are, are social people. They, they want to be in groups. They want to be together. We, we, we want to, we're, we're, you know, we, we, we want to come together instinctively.

• 1:26:41Speaker 01

  And to do that, like, there's a, there's a whole lot of people that, that are responsible for that, that, that should be held accountable for what they did.

• 1:26:54Tucker Carlson?

  I couldn't agree more.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm still blown away by it. I still,

• 1:27:03Speaker 01

  I still feel like the words to that song are, are just as relevant to this moment that we are sitting in right now as it was five years ago when we were locked up and told that we had to wear masks and that we couldn't.

• 1:27:24Speaker 01

  I had a mask in my car

• 1:27:29Speaker 01

  just to put on

• 1:27:32Speaker 01

  if I went into Dunkin Donuts or if I, and that didn't even last for very long. A month into it, I was like, this is fucking bullshit. I'm not, I got thrown out of Dunkin Donuts one day for walking in without my mask on.

• 1:27:48Tucker Carlson?

  You're thrown out of Dunkin Donuts?

• 1:27:50Speaker 01

  And like, like rudely.

• 1:27:54Tucker Carlson?

  Really?

• 1:27:55Speaker 01

  Like you are putting everybody in this, in this place's life in danger and, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

• 1:28:03Tucker Carlson?

  Wait, Dunkin Donuts is the place where homeless junkies shoot up in the back?

• 1:28:05Speaker 01

  Right, yeah, yeah, same place, yeah.

• 1:28:07Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, okay. Um, but what you were doing was unclean.

• 1:28:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:12Tucker Carlson?

  So, I, yeah, I never knew that people were that easy to, to train. I never knew they were that obedient. I never knew there were that many people with no self-respect at all.

• 1:28:23Speaker 01

  At the time, I was living in a, a very, very

• 1:28:29Speaker 01

  left town.

• 1:28:31Tucker Carlson?

  Which town?

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  Massachusetts, North Hampton, Massachusetts.

• 1:28:34Tucker Carlson?

  Lesbian capital of the world.

• 1:28:36Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. It's where Smith College is.

• 1:28:38Tucker Carlson?

  Yep.

• 1:28:39Speaker 01

  It's a, it is a festering cesspool of, of anti-American everything.

• 1:28:45Tucker Carlson?

  What's the happiness level, would you say, in North Hampton, man?

• 1:28:48Speaker 01

  Misery. I don't see, I don't see anybody smiling, ever, ever. They are all, all these people that feel the need to virtue signal every time they turn around are some of the most miserable people you've ever met in your life.

• 1:29:05Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I've noticed.

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:29:07Tucker Carlson?

  What are they mad about?

• 1:29:11Speaker 01

  Their own failures? I, I don't, I don't know. I don't know why it's such an incessant need these days to, to do it. Like, just live a good life. All this virtue signaling, all this, all this fake outrage.

• 1:29:32Speaker 01

  Just live a good life.

• 1:29:33Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:35Speaker 01

  Treat people good. You'll get treated good in return.

• 1:29:38Tucker Carlson?

  How'd they, how'd they treat you in Northampton?

• 1:29:42Speaker 01

  If they knew who I was, probably not very good.

• 1:29:45Tucker Carlson?

  Country music's not that big in Northampton?

• 1:29:47Speaker 01

  I'm not, I'm a, I'm not the artist, celebrity. I hate, I don't even like using that word. It makes me feel weird. I'm not, I'm not the artist that wants to get noticed. I, I try my best to, to stay under the radar. A successful day for me of going out and about is not getting noticed.

• 1:30:16Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  I, it, uh.

• 1:30:22Speaker 01

  It doesn't.

• 1:30:25Speaker 01

  I don't even remember where I was. Sometimes I get on a roll and I, I lose track.

• 1:30:31Tucker Carlson?

  Well, you just picked the right town for anonymity. I mean, if you were, say, the Indigo Girls.

• 1:30:37Tucker Carlson?

  Or the Dixie Chicks.

• 1:30:37Speaker 01

  Wouldn't be able to walk down the street.

• 1:30:39Tucker Carlson?

  No. But, um, you really, did you choose Northampton because you know, not a single person there has ever heard of your music?

• 1:30:47Speaker 01

  At the time, it was out of convenience.

• 1:30:54Speaker 01

  But.

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  I certainly would not choose. Nor do I, now that I don't live in downtown Northampton. I, I don't, I don't choose to go there. I will go into Northampton for pretty much one reason and one reason only. And his name is Sam and he is the sushi chef at Moshi Moshi.

• 1:31:21Tucker Carlson?

  Oh.

• 1:31:22Speaker 01

  And I will go and I will sit down at the sushi bar with Sam, drink sake with him and eat sushi.

• 1:31:30Tucker Carlson?

  So you'll make the sushi pilgrimage, but you would, but no more residential time there?

• 1:31:34Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:31:36Tucker Carlson?

  What's your, let me ask you a couple of questions about what you like.

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  I want to try that flavor.

• 1:31:43Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, it's the best. This is sweet nectar. We just came out with it and I got like a case of it. So I've been, I've been on it and I really like it.

• 1:31:50Speaker 01

  What are the other two new flavor, the other couple of flavors? I know that I heard you.

• 1:31:53Tucker Carlson?

  We have a bunch. We've got fruit and mint and wintergreen and all that, but this is, um, and we've got a bunch of other flavors we're working on, but that, uh, the government makes it hard to introduce new flavors. It's crazy.

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  Well, cause you're, you're, you're, you're trying to get the kids. That's what it is.

• 1:32:11Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, I can't, I'm not even allowed to talk about that topic. Nicotine for the children is totally verboten. Um, I started really young. I'll just say that. And I'm glad I did. But anyway, uh, I know everyone disagrees with me, but that's how I actually feel. So I'm just going to say it.

• 1:32:26Speaker 01

  I had my first cigarette at eight.

• 1:32:33Tucker Carlson?

  That's pretty young.

• 1:32:34Speaker 01

  And I've actually been smoking, like have a pack of cigarettes. I've been smoking since I was like 13.

• 1:32:43Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, me too.

• 1:32:45Tucker Carlson?

  But I quit at 45. And what brand do you smoke?

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  American Spirits.

• 1:32:49Tucker Carlson?

  It's a good cigarette.

• 1:32:50Speaker 01

  It is, as far as a cigarette goes.

• 1:32:53Tucker Carlson?

  It's still, it's delicious.

• 1:32:54Speaker 01

  It's delicious. It doesn't have all the extra 1600 chemicals that they put in there to make it more addictive, to make it burn faster, to make it burn slower.

• 1:33:04Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 1:33:04Speaker 01

  They even put chemicals in there that are contradictory to themselves.

• 1:33:07Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, for fire, fireproofing their cigarettes. I mean, it's all, yeah.

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  And then an American spirit will go out on its own.

• 1:33:17Tucker Carlson?

  No, I know. If you, I smoked American Spirit Blues, um, the light blue and I always took the filters off. And I thought, wow, that's like, that's the strongest cigarette in America. If you do that. It's incredible cigarette. I don't smoke anymore. Anyway, sorry. So I'm not promoting smoking, though it is delicious, very delicious.

• 1:33:38Tucker Carlson?

  More delicious than anything I've ever done before or since. I'm just, that's why people do it. By the way, the piety around smoking, obviously smoking is not good for you. I don't want my children to smoke.

• 1:33:47Speaker 01

  Not good for you. It smells, it looks gross, all of those things.

• 1:33:52Tucker Carlson?

  I disagree.

• 1:33:53Speaker 01

  And it's. Such a satisfying five minutes removed off your life.

• 1:34:03Tucker Carlson?

  When you think about people who kind of openly, brazenly, publicly send young men off to die in pointless wars on behalf of some other country, like that's just, that's just par in the US Congress. They all can't wait to do that and they face no moral sanction whatsoever. But if you were to light a cigarette and someone saw you, you'd be like a monster. Look, I'm not arguing for smoking. I'm just saying it's good to have a sensible moral hierarchy in mind when you assess other people's behavior. Like, some things are bad, but some things are worse than that.

• 1:34:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:34:40Tucker Carlson?

  Right?

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  And make your choices accordingly.

• 1:34:43Tucker Carlson?

  Well, kind of, and make your judgments accordingly. I mean, I do think violence is bad.

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:34:50Tucker Carlson?

  And sending off other people's kids to die is one of the worst things I can imagine. And yet, that's celebrated.

• 1:34:59Speaker 01

  You would think that that would be like, a really hard decision.

• 1:35:03Tucker Carlson?

  It's not. It's not.

• 1:35:05Speaker 01

  No, it's like the easiest decision for them to make.

• 1:35:07Tucker Carlson?

  Lindsey Graham literally can't wait. And I do think all of them should be forced to go to the front lines in Ukraine and worry about getting droned.

• 1:35:15Speaker 01

  How about this?

• 1:35:16Tucker Carlson?

  Not because I wish them harm, but because there should be some skin in the game.

• 1:35:20Speaker 01

  I just want some fucking truth.

• 1:35:23Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 1:35:24Speaker 01

  I want to know why Lindsey Graham is such a, a, a Ukraine, like, what, what were you doing over there, Lindsey, in 2014?

• 1:35:40Tucker Carlson?

  I think that's fair to ask.

• 1:35:42Speaker 01

  What were you doing? Why are you so vested in, in Ukraine? Why, why, why would you put Ukraine?

• 1:35:51Speaker 01

  Over everything else. Like, what is going on? I mean, as, as you know, as so many people are fully aware, the Ukraine is one of the dirtiest and most corrupt places in the world, aside from the United States.

• 1:36:08Tucker Carlson?

  Run by a Stalinist, by the way, who canceled elections, closed the biggest Christian denomination in the country, put the priests and nuns in prison, like murdering his political enemies. I can't go to Ukraine. I'd get killed if I went to Ukraine, a country that my tax dollars support.

• 1:36:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:36:25Tucker Carlson?

  And Lindsey Graham was like, no, that's great. I don't know. I mean, let's just wake up a second. This is bonkers. It's degrading us. It's beyond immoral. It's like self-harm at scale. It's crushing the United States.

• 1:36:38Speaker 01

  It just makes me wonder how many of these politicians that make these decisions that were like, what the fuck are you even thinking? Did you get caught in a honeypot? Did, did, did you do something and they caught you doing it? And now they have you under their thumb?

• 1:36:55Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I know.

• 1:36:56Speaker 01

  Like Madison Cawthorn got ran out because he started mentioning stuff like that. Started talking about the parties that happened and start, they got rid of him as fast as they could. He's a good dude.

• 1:37:11Tucker Carlson?

  Well, Matt Gaetz, same thing.

• 1:37:12Speaker 01

  Matt Gaetz, same thing.

• 1:37:13Tucker Carlson?

  They're like, oh, you had sex with-

• 1:37:15Speaker 01

  I don't know how Marjorie Taylor Greene has, has somehow made it this far, aside from

• 1:37:23Speaker 01

  being a woman and-

• 1:37:24Tucker Carlson?

  I don't think they have anything on her. I think she's like a decent person.

• 1:37:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think she's incredible.

• 1:37:29Tucker Carlson?

  But it was so funny with Gates. They're like, he starts making, you know, unauthorized noises about this or that. And all of a sudden they're like, well, you had sex with children. Okay. Where's the evidence? And by the way, where's the indictment? They never indicted him for it.

• 1:37:43Speaker 01

  Oh, I know.

• 1:37:43Tucker Carlson?

  So how can you accuse somebody of a crime and then not, the government is accusing him of a crime and then not indicting him for it? Why is that not a crime in itself? If Matt Gaetz had sex with children- Indict him, arrest him, put him on trial and prove it.

• 1:37:58Speaker 01

  Or you're in trouble yourself for, for, um, for destroying his character.

• 1:38:06Tucker Carlson?

  Using my tax dollars to commit slander against your political opponents? Yeah, that's a crime.

• 1:38:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:38:10Tucker Carlson?

  But no one's ever prosecuted for it. And, and, but that's, what that does is it puts the fear of God into all the other freaks in Congress, all of whom have some, not all, but many of whom have something to hide, including people we've just mentioned. And they're like, whoa, you know, I better stay way away from the boundaries because I could get hurt.

• 1:38:27Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:38:27Tucker Carlson?

  It just casts a pall over everybody of fear.

• 1:38:30Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:38:32Tucker Carlson?

  Um, you obviously don't feel that.

• 1:38:35Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:38:39Tucker Carlson?

  How, how long can you do 180 shows a year?

• 1:38:44Speaker 01

  If I'm doing the country thing?

• 1:38:46Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:47Speaker 01

  Forever.

• 1:38:49Tucker Carlson?

  Really? Well, Willie Nelson does it. He's 90.

• 1:38:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I could, I can, if I live that long, I could, I could still be, the country thing, I could still be doing that. The Stained thing, that's a, that's a little bit more taxing.

• 1:39:05Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, I believe that.

• 1:39:06Speaker 01

  To my voice. It's a lot of yelling. It's a lot of screaming. It's, it's, it's, it's a lot more taxing to where if I'm being completely honest, there's probably more of a shelf life to my country thing than there is to the Stained thing.

• 1:39:25Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:26Speaker 01

  There's probably gonna come a point where I'm gonna have to be like, you know what?

• 1:39:32Speaker 01

  It's, it's too taxing on me and it takes too long for me to recover from being on tour with Stained for a month.

• 1:39:41Speaker 01

  And there's probably gonna come a point where I'm gonna be like,

• 1:39:46Speaker 01

  for longevity's purposes, I, I, I need to either do less shows or not so many in a row, or the country thing, man, I could do three shows a day, every single day and never blow myself out.

• 1:40:05Tucker Carlson?

  And enjoy it.

• 1:40:12Speaker 01

  You have to be pretty damn blessed in life.

• 1:40:19Speaker 01

  To be able to continue.

• 1:40:23Speaker 01

  Enjoying a job.

• 1:40:26Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:26Speaker 01

  It is a job at the end of the day. At the I'm blessed that I was able to. Create my job around something that I love and that I'm driven to do.

• 1:40:42Speaker 01

  But as a job. There's parts of that that kind of ruin the the experience of it all. There's it's the music business. The music part I love.

• 1:40:57Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:58Speaker 01

  The business part.

• 1:41:02Speaker 01

  It. It can ruin the part that I love so much.

• 1:41:06Tucker Carlson?

  Of course. That's why no one enjoys porn. Sorry, I shouldn't have said that. No, but it's true. I mean, like any, any time you. You know, take a good thing and and make it a business. It it diminishes it, of course.

• 1:41:16Speaker 01

  Oh, God. Our poor kids these days, they're they're sex addicts and porn addicts before they even had sex.

• 1:41:23Tucker Carlson?

  I know. It's depressing.

• 1:41:24Speaker 01

  They're learning about sex through porn.

• 1:41:28Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:29Speaker 01

  And yeah, that's a that's a healthy sex life.

• 1:41:34Tucker Carlson?

  It's, yeah. Yeah. Speaking of like creating a moral hierarchy, the people who make and profit from porn. I mean, I don't know why they're not in prison, but um.

• 1:41:46Speaker 01

  I talk about exploitation.

• 1:41:48Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, yeah. Right. But it's it's the cigarette smokers and the people who doubt Zelensky who really should lose their jobs. Okay, let me end on a on a happy note. So you've said a lot of um. Tough things about the music business and the people who profit from it. You described them as leeches. I don't know that to be true because I've never been in your business, but we all know, we all know that they're all.

• 1:42:10Speaker 01

  It it calling them a leech. It's a that's a pretty negative connotation, but.

• 1:42:15Tucker Carlson?

  Just a blood sucking parasite.

• 1:42:16Speaker 01

  In general, what a leech does is it parasites off of a living organism. And. That. That leech.

• 1:42:29Speaker 01

  Isn't the one that's responsible for the life that it's leeching off of.

• 1:42:33Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly.

• 1:42:35Speaker 01

  And so it's an analogy. I don't want to be that

• 1:42:41Speaker 01

  negative or like hateful about it. I'm, I'm very grateful to,

• 1:42:50Speaker 01

  to my president, the record label president for standing up for me and for, but you know, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a business in a, in a situation that you stop paying attention for a half a second and you're ate up and spit out already and you're gone.

• 1:43:09Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, I believe that.

• 1:43:11Speaker 01

  It, uh,

• 1:43:12Tucker Carlson?

  So who are, so here's the, the question I want to end on, cause it is, it is a positive question.

• 1:43:18Tucker Carlson?

  Having been in it for 30 years, who are the good guys? Who are the artists who you know personally, who are actually in the green room, good guys?

• 1:43:31Tucker Carlson?

  Ooh, long sigh there.

• 1:43:34Speaker 01

  Um,

• 1:43:36Speaker 01

  I, I keep my circle pretty small.

• 1:43:45Speaker 01

  You know,

• 1:43:48Speaker 01

  Bob's, Bob's my friend.

• 1:43:51Tucker Carlson?

  That'd be Kid Rock.

• 1:43:51Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:43:55Speaker 01

  You know, I,

• 1:43:59Speaker 01

  I don't interact very much with the rest of the industry, really. I mean, I don't, I don't find myself in Nashville very often. I don't go to the gatherings and the parties and the, and the, I'm, I live out in the corn and soybeans and the tobacco and, and, and, you know, there's miles in every direction around my house of just agriculture.

• 1:44:29Speaker 01

  I so I don't really interact with the business very much. I'm I'm very particular about my inner circle and and who I consider a friend and I don't. I don't have a lot of those. So I don't I don't have a lot.

• 1:44:52Tucker Carlson?

  Picture here, Aaron Lewis. I gave you a so I was like, all right, who are the good guys? And you're like, uh.

• 1:45:00Speaker 01

  Well, you know, this this business is is tough.

• 1:45:06Tucker Carlson?

  Would you want your kids to go into it?

• 1:45:07Speaker 01

  No. And and they've had my my my oldest daughter Zoe is on one of my records singing. Uh, singing Traveling Soldier by the Dixie Chicks, actually. And I don't know. So many people approached me like, I'll give her a record deal. Let's let's she doesn't want nothing to do with it. My kids have. My kids have been on the receiving end of all the shit that comes with this industry.

• 1:45:46Speaker 01

  And all the sacrifice and all the all the the the disappointment and the, you know, I'm a I'm a slave to the grind, you know, the grind has taken precedent over important things in my life that I can never get back. You know, monumental things, my kid's first steps, my kid's first words, my kid's first days of school, my kid's last days of school, my kid's graduations. I haven't been able to be there for a lot of them.

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  The sacrifice is real.

• 1:46:28Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:30Speaker 01

  But it's created a situation where I just don't let very many people in. So to, in a big roundabout circle to answer your question. I have a lot of acquaintances in the industry. Like, there's people that I have huge love and respect for. I, I'm like pen pals, like me and you text all the time. Me and Marilyn Manson text all the time.

• 1:47:02Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah. I haven't seen.

• 1:47:05Speaker 01

  He'd actually surprise you.

• 1:47:07Tucker Carlson?

  I interviewed him in the 90s, Brian, and I thought he was smart. In maybe 1999 at the Chateau Marmont in LA.

• 1:47:16Speaker 01

  Brian is one of the most intelligent, profound conversations I have ever had with somebody. I like, he's a, and I use the word evil lightly, but he's like an evil genius. He is fully aware of every single button he is purposely pushing. Like, all, it's all been, he's genius. Like, it's all been calculated. It's all, like, he knows exactly what he's doing. He knows exactly what buttons he's pushing, and he's pushing them on purpose.

• 1:47:57Tucker Carlson?

  Interesting.

• 1:48:00Speaker 01

  He's amazing. Jonathan Davis from Korn, one of my favorite people.

• 1:48:11Tucker Carlson?

  I can't believe you text with Marilyn Manson.

• 1:48:13Speaker 01

  He's like my modern day pen pal. We never actually talk on the phone, we just text.

• 1:48:20Tucker Carlson?

  Give him my best.

• 1:48:21Speaker 01

  I will.

• 1:48:22Tucker Carlson?

  Aaron Lewis, thank you.

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:48:24Tucker Carlson?

  I'm gonna go bird shooting with you.

• 1:48:26Speaker 01

  I look forward to it.

• 1:48:27Tucker Carlson?

  I can't wait.

• 1:48:28Speaker 01

  I can't wait to watch you, uh, watch you use your, your new hammer gun.

• 1:48:34Tucker Carlson?

  I don't know if I'll be able to use it correctly, but we'll find out. Thank you.

• 1:48:37Speaker 01

  My pleasure.

• 1:48:42Tucker Carlson?

  We want to thank you for watching us on Spotify, a company that we use every day. We know the people who run it, good people. While you're here, do us a favor, hit follow and tap the bell so you never miss an episode. We have real conversations, news, things that actually matter, telling the truth always. You will not miss it if you follow us on Spotify and hit the bell. We appreciate it. Thanks for watching.